Well, here's the next chapter of Shinji's Stronghold, finally…
I hope you guys are still enjoying this fanfic, it seems that as all my fanfics progress farther and farther, less people read them…ehhehee…
Well, anyway, the end of Shinji's Stronghold is sort of in sight…I estimate thirty chapters…ahahaha…or maybe more, but I wouldn't be surprised, my other big fanfic, Neon Genesis Evangelion: Madness is twenty eight chapters and planned out to be fifty chapters long.
Anyway, you may also have noticed that I cut off my gigantic mass update thing where I update all my fanfics at once, flooding with my name…eheh.
Well I've stopped doing that, since I get less views when I'm aggressive like that, and plus, it's liberated me, writing-wise, I actually update faster now, since I'm free to do whatever I want.
I just go, "Hmm, I think I'll update Shinji's Stronghold today…" It doesn't depend on my other fanfics being updated.
And here we go then, lets start the show!
Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion or its characters. Gainax does, and they rock. Who else could create both Evangelion and FLCL! I also don't own anything that happens to be referenced in this story.
Tokyo 3, Japan
Shinji's Apartment
Shinji Ikari groaned as their bodies moved together, her legs and arms wrapped around him, passionate kisses sending his mind aflame and dulling it with pleasure.
He'd literally fallen straight into Rei's arms, and the pale girl had been loyally waiting for him.
She'd certainly changed a great deal. Although she was still sometimes quiet and awkward in most large social situations, or around complete strangers, she was almost no worse than him now, and when it came to their relationship, it was sublimely meaningful.
He'd felt horrendously hollow and lifeless after Touji's death. In truth he blamed himself for even talking to Touji and giving him hope, just to drag him out to his death. He felt guilty. He felt bad. It should've been him.
But at the moment, these thoughts were ancient memories as he and Rei Ayanami made wild, unadulterated love on the kitchen floor.
A wastebasket flipped over.
Shinji's hand splashed into a dog bowl full of murky water.
Nothing impeded their passion, it was ferocious; not exactly something he'd ever expected Rei to be like, maybe Asuka or an extremely lecherous Misato.
But Rei was full of an unbelievable hidden devotion and passion to the few people in the world she was connected to, and when it surfaced, it could be sublimely beautiful.
Shinji laughs, hollers, and swoons. Hands grab hold of table legs. Chairs topple. Feet bang wildly against the stove. It is all mayhem and ecstasy. And then it ends.
Shinji's face is ecstatic. He can barely talk and simply basks in Rei's glow. She looks especially lovely and beautiful, an odd glow to her pale skin making it look even softer and nicer, if that were possible. They lie exhausted and exhilarated on the linoleum floor.
Rei stared at him, lying down alongside him and smiling.
"Tell me, am I still an angel, Shinji?"
Shinji stared at her curiously, almost taken aback from his passion by the answer.
He wasn't sure exactly what to say. It was ironic.
She was an angel in the traditional sense of the word when used as an adjective; that was for sure, she was devoted, kind and beautiful.
But she was also literally, as he had realized years ago, of the kind of creature, or at least partly of the kind of creature known as the Angels, the enemies of humanity.
That made no difference to him, but he wondered for a second if she wanted to hear a negative to her answer. Was she asking if she was more human now? Did she want to hear she was an angel or not?
Shinji sighed as all this rushed through his tired skull and then smiled, reaching out and caressing Rei's fair ivory cheek.
"You're like an angel Rei, like an angel…"
She seemed satisfied and he smiled broadly, continuing with something he'd have been nervous to even think of decades ago.
"You're an angel Rei, with wings. You transport me, you know that? You carry me away."
Rei kissed him softly on the lips and then smiled in that slight way of hers, gently touching Shinji's cheek, simply cupping it ever so gently.
"We're all angels, you know..."
She leaned in, biting Shinji's earlobe mischievously, making him wince in surprise and then laugh at the uncharacteristic move as she continued softly.
"...and devils. It's just what you choose to see."
"I…I love you…Rei."
He'd spoken words of empathy before countless times, and had them spoken to him as well.
"Ah Shinji…I am glad you were the one. Thank you Shinji Ikari, I feel great empathy for you."
"Empathy?"
"In other words, I love you."
Shinji Ikari stalked towards the young girl, although his position was far from predatory, in fact it was as close to begging as he could standing.
He moved closer to her turned back and then finally spoke, his voice a desperate but collected whisper.
"Asuka…I want to help you, and I want to be with you forever. "
Asuka turned, staring at him with a grimace and then a growl, shaking her head slowly.
"You want to help me? Then don't do anything. Don't come to my side anymore. You will only hurt me!"
Shinji's body shook, but he continued to stride forward, determined.
"Asuka, help me! Only you can do it!"
"That's a lie. For you, anybody will do. You are afraid of Misato and Rei, too. You are afraid of your father and mother, too. You are only escaping from me. You can't feel this as being truly happy!"
Shinji could not stop, simply striding even closer, reaching his hand out abstractly for her in a gesture of hope and desperation.
"Please help me! I love you Asuka!"
She scoffed, her face twisted in rage and denial.
"You love me! You never think about anyone other than yourself! Get away from me, I hate you!"
He struggled with words, tears running down his face, but she interrupted any rebuttal with venom words.
"You only think of your own existence! You only think of yourself! You're really completely pathetic!"
Shinji doesn't answer, turning over onto his stomach and staring into his pillow, his body shivering with what could be sobs, although the shivering is only slight and tears do not run from his eyes.
"Do you still love me, Shinji? I still feel empathy for you…"
Shinji Ikari does not respond, shutting his eyes tight at the darkness of the pillow
He sighed as she nodded, smiling slightly, as the memories of love lost and agony flooded into his mind, the trinity.
"You are worthy of my empathy…in other words, I love you, Shinji."
"So you think you love me, you idiot! Well…I…I…"
"I feel a warmness when I'm around you, Ikari, although I cannot understand why."
He nodded.
"Underneath everything, just love…"
"Remember that…"
Shinji smiled, staring at her adoringly.
"You know Rei, I feel almost exorcized now, because of you, like the demons are almost gone."
"Is that correct? The army of demons?"
Rei smiled.
Shinji's face seemed oddly focused and serious.
"In a way. At least now I have some idea of what was happening. If we can only get them to admit ... to explain what they did ... I don't know. Maybe it'd clear things up in my head. I'll tell you something, Rei, honestly... I thought they were real."
Suddenly Rei's face twisted in a sneer and she let out a snarl and then an almost demonic roar, causing Shinji to yelp in utter fear and misery, almost screaming.
Then she smiled, laughing in that beautiful monotone way she still laughed after all these years and he sighed, smiling slightly at the fact that she'd played a trick on him.
"Heh…Rei…you scared me half to death."
He crept forward towards her and they embraced again as darkness descended onto the city.
Tokyo 3, Japan
Shinji's Apartment
Shinji Ikari sighed, lying in the peaceful apartment alone, Rei at work.
He was still on leave from his teaching position, and it was awkward. He felt fresh, and he swore to go back to school and return to his work as quickly as possible, since staying in the musty apartment alone for long periods of time couldn't be good.
He sat there, bored, not really doing much but staring up at the ceiling, when he remembered something.
He quickly stood and strolled towards the bed, crouching down and fishing his hand about blindly underneath it until he suddenly stiffened and nodded to himself, pulling out an old shoebox.
He sighed, slowly becoming overwhelmed with nostalgia as he opened it.
Inside where old pictures and papers, old high school grades, his diploma, an old photograph of him and Asuka standing together in front of their school and smiling proudly.
All the pictures he had seen around a few weeks ago had gone missing, and he figured Rei had hidden them, thinking that nostalgia was bad for his stability. And indeed it was, but the pain of the past was also a sort of opiate, he didn't have to think when he remembered the past, and he didn't think she knew about the shoebox.
Then he noticed something else in the box, his eyes resting upon it and then widening perceptively.
It is an old frayed piece of paper and Shinji slowly picks it up, staring at it as if it were some monstrous demon, and then unfolding it with great care, gently staring at it.
It read, in crude, obviously child's handwriting:
"DEAR DADDY, I LOVE YOU. PLEASE COME HOME. WE MISS YOU, ALTHOUGH MOMMY IS PRETENDING TO BE REALLY ANGRY. SHE'S SORYY FOR WHAT HAPPENED. PLEASE COME HOME."
Kaworu rushed down the sidewalk, the small black bicyicle bearing him swiftly down the street while Shinji is running alongside him steadying the bike by gripping onto the seat next to Kaworu's bottom, smiling as he breathes quickly from the exertion.
Shiny plastic streamers hang from the handlebars, shimmering and flipping about in the breezy, sun glare sky.
After a couple of false starts and wobbly runs, Kaworu looks determined and ready, his child-like face looking cute from the uncharacteristic seriousness splayed across it.
For an instant, Kaworu looked back at his father as he began to peddle awkwardly but successfully, his father returning the broad loving grin spread across the boy's face.
The booming snarl of a gunshot, echoing in the once peaceful silence…
Then only darkness.
Shinji sprang up with a heart wrenching scream, ripped from the pages of his memories abruptly and painfully.
He swallowed hard, as he stood there, holding the letter.
Suddenly his eyes drifted away from the treacherously painful page of writing to glance at the full-length mirror mounted on the bedroom door a few feet away from him, and to his shock, he sees something in the mirror.
It's a blur, vague and odd, like the image of a small child moving.
His eyes darted over at it in a curiously numb shock, but there is nothing in the mirror.
Curiousity overwhelming his apprehension, Shinji slowly stalked forward, absentmindedly dropping the letter on a small brown table and strolling forward until he was directly in front of the full-length mirror, staring into it.
As his image appeared in the mirror, he stopped, his eyes widening, gasping in confusion, his heart skipping a beat, not figuratively, literally from the shock.
In the mirror is not the image of himself, but his own back, reflected in the mirror although he's facing it.
The impossibility of the moment scares him to the core, and he stares at the surreal image, slowly lifting his hand, the mirror image of his back reflecting it, only in the mirror it was seemed horrendously odd from that angle.
Frightened but oddly feeling a cool sense of defiance against something he knew he had to be hallucinating, Shinji moved forward, reaching a shaky arm towards the odd mirror.
The reflection in the mirror spun around, facing Shinji, making him stumble backwards with a yelp at the unholy madness.
It is what his reflection would normally have looked like, but for some reason, there was another head sprouting out of Shinji's shoulders where his own head should've been.
A man whose head seems to be vibrating at such enormous speed that it has lost all definition.
Shinji recognized it as the same face he'd seen at the party and his eyes widen in utter agony at the reprisal of his horrors interrupting a time of fresh piece.
An unearthly scream comes from both their mouths.
"NO!"
He swung his fist against the mirror, continuing the scream until he felt the glasses slice into his knuckled, and fell down onto his bottom, the glass shattering around him as he fell into a heap as if struck back by the man in the mirror, his hand bleeding from the glass as he shivered and shook, sobbing and writhing silently on the floor.
Cool? Short? A bit lame?
Well, I enjoyed writing it, nice, painless and fun to write, and besides, at least it's most definitely longer than the last chapter…
The next few chapters should be significantly longer though…
Well, hope you enjoyed it too then…
See you next chapter.