Disclaimer on chapter 1. I do not own SRT, that belongs to Banpresto, and Macross belongs to Macross people. Macross and SRT both owns, by the way. Shitozan series belongs to me, though the concept which it is based on is owned by Gainax and the Getta Robo people, so technically it belongs to them.
A/N: Back to the present! Hope that little break in a post-impact flashback was welcome. Chapters will come as frequently as my brain processes at a normal pace, while I am not reading fanfictions by other awesome authors, or playing SRT for the 192810th time since I'm a poor bastard without the money for a modded PS2 or import SRT3, because I have nothing better to do until school starts.
--
The past few days had been taxing Shinji and Asuka greatly. The committee had informed them of a potential SEELE-backed religious assault, and it was not in Asuka and Misato's best interests to cool Shinji's re-awakened insanity. He kept on mumbling about blood and mutilation deep into the night when he wasn't awake and aware of himself, and it freaked the females out to the point where they couldn't sleep even when he had stopped sleep talking. The girls both had bags under their eyes, ruining their stunning beauty, and got questioning looks from their co-workers all the time. Of course, save for the few NERV employees who knew Shinji personally, none had believed Asuka's claims that Shinji was mentally unstable.
Though not one, not even Misato believed the severity of Asuka's description.
They got the psychiatrist to look into the matter, but the commander was able to conceal his madness. It was almost as if he had split personalities now. One as Shinji Ikari, the meek little boy whom everybody knows. The second was Shinji Rokubungi, a cold, calculating man who ruled over NERV. The third was the berserker that lay dormant in his mind. The part of him that synched with his mother when he was in danger, a primal survival instinct that had been twisted and torn due to his traumatizing memories.
It was the first assault that Shinji showed any signs of his crazed demeanor, and proved to whatever was left of Section 2 and the bridge crew he had a mental disorder.
--
It was just the last evening, half an hour before any of them were relieved from duty, until the alarm sounded.
"FOR THE GLORY OF ALMIGHTY!" A man shouted as a battle cry, as the 400 troops armed with JSSDF-issue weaponry stormed the NERV HQ in 4 directions, undetected due to a mysterious organization's extremely helpful information. However, the overly zeal fanatics had to blow it all with war cries from all 4 places, hoping to intimidate the Section 2 agents.
It didn't work.
But the battle was ferocious nonetheless. There were less than 250 Section 2 agents in NERV HQ, because most of the staff are technicians or scientists. The Section 2 agents were fighting a losing battle, until Sachiel's first debut into the front lines.
"What... What is that thing!" The Warriors of Holy Retribution, as they called themselves, screamed. Dozens upon dozens of men fell before the powerful being's extremely powerful energy rods. The cross-shaped explosion it produced were dramatically lessened in power, due to its smaller form, and with JSSDF issue armor the soldiers felt only extreme heat outside of their suits when the massive flame erupted.
SEELE had anticipated this, and had issued the attacking forces with a form of the electromagnet field generators used during the battle against the Seventh and Eighth Angel. The 4 great lances pierced through the armored shell of the Geofront, into the HQ, and ripped off the arms of Sachiel while effectively trapping it in a cage.
That's when it happened, Shinji snapped. He had watched the visual feedback behind his commander's chair, and was enraged by the actions of the holy army. Those who were near him could've swore the room got dimmer as his eyes glowed, signaling his activation of his combat uniform.
"Ungrateful... Selfish... Worthless... You do not deserve to live. You do not deserve Kaworu's gift." He chanted in his mind, as he grabbed the counter sword and ran to the area of combat in inhuman speed. "Kaworu's gift will not be wasted by you ungrateful bastards!" He screamed in his mind, not paying attention to whatever the bridge techs were shouting to him, and ripping away from whomever tried to stop him. Arriving at the scene, he could see Sachiel writhing in pain inside his cell, as his AT Field was contained and his regenerating limb stuck in its bubbling stage from lack of space. Corpses from both sides littered on the floor, and the remaining few zealots alive were trying to capture Sachiel.
"You won't hurt him... You will die..." Shinji said calmly to the raiders.
"Hey, it's that kid who killed the angels! Kill him!" The assumed leader screamed, as what was left of the squad all fired upon the armored Third Child. All they could see before their bullets missed, was a purple blur as a sharp object was stabbed into the man who announced the order, followed by 10 rounds pumped into and behind him in rapid succession, killing 6 more of the holy warriors.
Letting out a muffled roar of triumph, the hysterical boy didn't mind the guns aimed at his protected body. He leaped forward, and cleanly sliced a man in half, much like Asuka's fight against the Seventh. The fanatics shot frantically, but the thick reinforced steel made the bullets ricochet off of him, or lodged harmlessly into the plates. He turned the blade sideways, and horizontally slashed open the man beside him. More bullets hit his armor, and they began to punch through. He quickly charged back and jumped behind the electromagnet field that trapped Sachiel, and used it as a cover. He singlehandedly shot down 15 more men with the rest of the ammo in his gun, in classic gun fight fashion. By now, he was filled with smoldering holes from the vicious retribution of God. But he didn't mind, even though his blood was flowing freely from some of them, and a bullet had made a trail of burned skin on his cheek. All that mattered, was the blood he drew.
"My tribute to you, Kaworu. You allowed us to live. I'll kill them, I'll kill them all if they go against your wishes." He mused to himself, grinning sadistically. "You're the last one..." His muffled voice projected, looking at the end of the hallway.
He ran up to the last man alive in this little task force, who was horrified. He shot frantically into the berserker that was the man who killed the Angels, screaming for his mother and god. He suffered the most gruesome death of all, as the bloodied form of the purple demon stabbed with blurring speed rapidly into him, seemingly unaffected by the amount of lead the man pumped into him. Smiling to himself, satisfied with his work, he pulled back his blade, wiping the blood off on whatever part of himself still uncovered by the nauseating liquid, and removed his grip.
"Yes... That's how it should be. You never should have returned. I'm simply sending you back..." He whispered to himself, as he fell to his knees, and crumbled face-first into the sticky, thick blood that flooded the floor. His stained armor would have blended in with the floor, if the cracks and holes were not present.
Watching all of this on the command deck, the bridge technicians could only try to hold down their lunches as their kind and loving(at least compared to Gendo) commander dispatched 25 men by himself in a hysterical fit of rage. The disgusting sight of blood and entrails could only match up to when Shinji's Eva ripped the Thirteenth apart and devoured it.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING! CALL MEDICAL SUPPORT NOW!" Screamed the purple haired tactical director, bringing them all back out of their daze.
--
"Shinji... His mental stability might be a hindrance."
"It doesn't matter, as long as he doesn't get himself killed."
"That's what I'm worried about. However, we will see how this turn of events unfold."
"But..."
"It's alright, our scenario is at a halt until all the Angels we created mature."
--
"Doctor, what's his condition?" Misato asked, worried about her young charge.
"Well, a muscle in his left leg was literally ripped into pieces from over-exerting himself, his right leg muscles are slightly torn, and his arm was slightly pulled. Though with current technology, he won't be losing his legs." The doctor informed the major. "However, he will have to be on a wheelchair when he wants to move around for the next three months, and then he has to deal with the atrophied muscles before he makes a full recovery." A small hint of regret in his voice could be detected.
"I see... Is that all?" Misato asked again, more worried this time.
"32 bullets were caught in his body. Luckily, 27 of them were not deep enough in and blocked off the bleeding. 2 punctured his lungs slightly, but not all the way through. One barely missed the heart as it pierced right through him harmlessly, though there were excessive bleeding. The other two were in his legs, which could delay his recovery by a substantial amount if their removal fails to go smoothly."
Patiently listening to every detail, Misato nodded and left the hospital, unable to bring herself to see who she thought of as her son as a pile of miserable, deformed meat pumped full of metal.
"I should have listened to Asuka..." Misato thought to herself, as she stepped into her car.
--
Asuka sat in the unused room of her roommate, listening to his SDAT. It was a miracle that the contents were left intact. The boy claimed it was another gift from Kaworu, and she couldn't be bothered to tell him to shut up about his unknown boyfriend. She hummed the song she listened to, quietly. The song Shinji had held so dearly in his mind. Her knees were brought up to her face, as she was reminded just how twisted Shinji could be.
"Shinji... Baka-Shinji, you promised..." She thought to herself, as she remembered a conversation they had.
"Asuka..." The deep blue eyes staring into hers, she found herself afraid once again. "I'm sorry." He bowed, letting the red head relax.
"Shinji, you won't do anything rash, will you?" Asuka said, as soothingly as possible.
"I'm sorry. The predicted date of attack is tomorrow. I guess I'm just stressed out. Only 250 agents, and 200 possible reinforcement agents arriving the day after. JSSDF seems to be siding with the enemy."
"Well, Third Child, I hope you don't go on rambling madness again, or do I have to drag you to school again?" The girl sounded relieved, but not completely convinced.
"I promise, Asuka." Shinji smiled, a bit forced, but he smiled.
"Baka-Shinji... Don't die on me now..." She sobbed to herself. "I still have to drag you to school... And you still owe me favors." She said, hoping she could force herself to smile.
She couldn't.
The sound of keys rattling as the door opened, and a woman informing her presence told Asuka that Misato was home.
"I can't let her see me like this..." She wiped her tears with her pillow, and blew her nose with Shinji's pillow. "Well, he'll just have to clean up this goddess's snot!" She said in a fake cheery voice. It wasn't hard for her to pretend to be happy in front of other people. She had done it for 11 years now, and it came naturally to her, though when she's alone she could only live her horrid memories in sadness.
"Hey Asuka." Misato said in a gloomy voice. "I have news."
"She sounds horrible... No, don't think like that!" Her mind was filled with unpleasant ways this could end, but she waved those thoughts aside. "Coming, Misato!" Asuka stepped out Shinji's room, still holding his SDAT.
Unable to even tease, Misato simply repeated what the doctor had told her. Seeing the relief on Asuka's face, her sense of humor returned like a boomerang.
"Sooo, what were you doing in his room?" Misato gave the girl a sly grin.
"W-what are you saying? I just love Kaworu's song, that's all!" She blushed, and turned away holding her head high in an act to be too good for boys.
"Oh, so you're into THAT kind of guys, are you?" Misato's grin grew wider.
"NO! He must be the biggest idiot in the world to love baka-Shinji, so even if I WERE into those kinds ofguyshewouldn'tbeonmylist." She said, suspiciously speeding up near the end.
"Oh, falling for TWO guys? Asuka, you're slipping!" Misato's grin grew wide enough to split her face in half, if that was possible.
"W-what! No! Only Sh-I don't care about stupid boys!" Asuka screamed in Misato's face, and managed to hide what she almost said. Though not totally successful.
"Only what? Only I don't care about stupid boys? I didn't know you swung that-"
"SHUT UP!" Asuka ran into her room, slammed the door, her head threatening to explode into a shower of blood if more rushed up there.
"Oh, she can only blame herself." Misato sighed happily, then sighed again in despair as she remembered Shinji's condition. She walked into the kitchen to grab a beer. "Nothing like Yebisu to chase my problems away..." She thought to herself, as she popped open the can.
--
Shinji woke from his pain-induced coma. He found himself tightly bandaged, looking almost like a mummy. Looking to his side, he could see a note that was carefully placed in such a way that he could read it without doing anything but glancing sideways.
"Get well soon, Shinji. Here's a water melon. Get Asuka off my back!
-Kaji"
He smiled to himself as he read the note and saw the large melon behind it. He knew his father-figure's light hearted behavior, and that was the reason he liked him. "If Asuka or Misato ever want to visit me, I guess I'll have something here for them." He thought to himself, and came to a conclusion. "This ceiling... It's too familiar now."
He smiled as he dropped his head on his pillow. Even though it was during the bright daylight, the loss of blood and the over-exerting of his muscles left him exhausted. He yawned, and drifted to sweet sleep, dreaming of an universe where he would be fighting alongside super robots in his favorite TV series, killing alien invaders bent on taking over Earth.
Just outside the door frame, Rei had been watching him. She stepped into the room, and read the note he had smiled at.
"Kaji... Is alive?" Registered in her mind, and her mind moved in the most logical direction. "Shinji-sama knew, why did he not inform others of it?" Her thoughts bewildered her as she left the hospital.
"I will abide your wishes, though, Shinji-sama." She swore in her mind, as she returned to her home.
--
"LETS GO, SHITOZAN!" Shinji shouted, as he flew his purple and green fighter into the background along the horizon, as he returns to join the two fighters in front of him.
"Baka-Shinji, SHITOZAN BAKA!" Asuka, pilot of the fighter painted in 2 shades of red shouted to the leader.
"SHITOZAN CHANGE, SHITOZAN BAKA!" Shinji confirmed, as his fighter unfolds downwards, revealing a head and creating a hollow body which is attached to the red fighter that changed shape to fill the hollow body and created the arms. Finally, a blue and white fighter joined in, as it folded inwards in the middle, attaching onto the body as the groin and legs. A flash ensued, and once the flash was clear, the recognizable shape of Eva-01 could be seen, except in weird colors and flexible cylinders instead of the normal layers upon layers of small plates.
"Wait, that's not how it goes in the anime!" Shinji shouted.
"Ikari, we would be sued." Rei said in her monotone voice.
"True. Well, take this, Angelic Dinosaur! SHITOZAN BEAM!" The brown haired pilot shouted, as he took out a positron rifle and fired at a small, flying, bat-like dinosaur with a halo and angel wings. The beam smashed through the Angelic Dinosaur, and it blew up in a blaze of glory. "Ha! In air, none can match to the power of Shitozan Baka!"
"Oh no, something is on the ground!" Asuka shouted to her teammate, and team captain.
"We must use the Great Shitozan!" Shinji cried, as he separated the Shitozan again.
"SHITOZAN CHANGE! GREAT SHITOZAN!" The red haired pilot shouted, and on cue the purple fighter split halfway and formed the legs and groin, flying up into the blue and white fighter that had folded into the stomach, while the red fighter extended and formed to torso, head and arms. Dropping from the sky down to the ground at tremendous speed. The ionized air gave way to reveal a replica of Eva-02, and like Shitozan Baka, had flexible cylinders instead of layers upon layers of small plates.
"Alright, come and get it, overgrown lizard!" Asuka spoke to the creature in front of her. It looked like a rhino, except with scales instead of skin, and had a halo and angel wings, like all Angelic Dinosaurs.
"Asuka! Watch out!" Shinji was worried about the wellbeing of his teammate, but more importantly, about himself, since the creature was only tall enough to bash the legs.
"I know, baka-Shinji!" The skilled pilot moved gracefully to the side, as the Angelic Dinosaur rammed into a tree behind her. "Do I really have to say it?" She wondered.
"YES, YES YOU DO!" Shinji shouted, engulfed by the flames of his passion. "We're SUPER ROBOT PILOTS! Our burning passion makes us super! Shout the name of your attack with the passion of your soul to bring out its full potential!" Shinji explained, out of his normal character.
"I'll kill you when we're back at the HQ for talking like that, Shinji." Shinji gulped. "Well, here goes... SHITOZAN LANCE!" Asuka screamed at the top of her lungs, effortlessly slashing the pathetic beast in half. "Ha! That's what you get for opposing the Great Sohryu Asuka Langley!"
"Next comes the Angelsaurus, most likely the head of this operation, who has hidden in the water." Shinji said to Asuka. "Call the change to Shitozan Doll!"
Asuka hesitated. She wasn't about to let wondergirl take the spotlight.
"NO! I'll take care of it myself!" She replied, as she jumped into the ocean.
"Asuka! You can't move properly in water! You're using the B-type equipment!" Shinji warned, but was too late. Asuka struggled to move her feet through the water.
"Fine! Shitozan Change!" She said in defeat.
"Shitozan change, Shitozan doll." Rei's monotone voice was an indication she wasn't too enthusiastic about this.
Shitozan split into 3 fighters, and this time, the red fighter's treads emerged, as it glides along the ocean floor, and the fighter itself served as a platform for the purple fighter, now folded into a small half-empty rectangle with a hole on either side.
"OOF! Drop a bit HARDER, will you!" Came the protest.
"Sorry..." Shinji said on reflex.
The blue and white fighter folded into the head, and landed into the rectangle that was the purple fighter, its retractable cable-like arms poking out of the holes. The one-eyed head was a replica of Unit-00's head.
"Shitozan blizzard." Rei said, monotone of course. The complete lack of hot blooded passion in her voice caused bits of the water to freeze into icy little blocks, as she extended her arms and grabbed the Angelsaurus. She raised the humanoid dinosaur with a halo and angel wings up above her head, and twisted her body at a high velocity, causing the shards of ice to mix with the poor Angelsaurus in a whirlpool.
"Reiiiiiiii! That's not how this is doneeee!" Shinji said, spinning out of control in his cockpit.
"We would get sued." Her monotone reply came, and the boy could only faint from dizziness.
--
Shinji snapped open his eyes, finding the world not spinning. "What a weird dream... I think the anime therapy they gave me to cure my depression is a bit too excessive." He said to himself, and looked at the watermelon. "Damn, shouting like that in my dreams got me thirsty. Shitozan..." He smiled to himself, amused at his imagination.
"Wonder if there are any anime that can help my mental instability..." He sighed to himself, and slept, hoping the dream would continue.
--
Asuka pressed the rewind button, and played track 27 again. Kaworu's song took up what little space was left on Shinji's SDAT tape, and it was the only song that had lyrics, and the only song that didn't have music accompaniment.
All of the songs on the tape was recorded, since the tape started blank. Nobody knows where he got the tape, and where he got the SDAT, but everybody knows one thing: It was his most prized possession. Not in terms of material value, but in terms of sentimental value. The 26 songs on the tape when he came to Tokyo-3 were filled with mostly classical pieces, and all of them were instrumental. For every year he was alive, he added 2 more songs to the tape. One happy, one sad. Until he came to Tokyo-3, which was the year when he learned not to run away. Thus he added only one song, and the song was recorded from the human mouth of an angel. A song that signaled his eternal joy when he heard those words. Thus marks the end of his SDAT's extending, seemingly limitless-until-stopped-being-extended length.
"Baka-Shinji, doesn't have any good songs on this." She whined to nobody in particular, as she listened to the same song for the fifteen hundredth time, or so it seemed. After the display of Mini-Evas down in the secret lab, she had felt... Uneasy about this Kaworu person. She remembered how Gendo always smiled warmly at wondergirl, and the incident in the lab revealed her to be his late wife's partial clone. She couldn't help but start thinking about Shinji and Kaworu having an affair, and her love for Kaworu's song was not helping the matter.
To her, it felt like Kaworu was stealing her Shinji away. But a part of her was curious at what the boy could be like, to knock down Shinji's barrier and become his friend in the span of a single day.
"He had red eyes, like Rei. He smiled, he always smiled." Shinji murmured to the sky, as he sat beside Asuka, waiting for the water to boil over the camp fire. "He comforted me, he understood me."
"Baka-Shinji, get a grip! You haven't stopped mumbling about Kaworu since I stopped your murderous rage!" Asuka screamed to the first and last person she could hope to relate to for the time being.
"His gray hair... It only made him look smarter... Wiser..." The broken boy continued, ignoring the frustrated girl beside him.
"Baka-Shinji, listen to me!" Said girl, determined, continued to shout.
"He was Tabris, according to the scrolls. He was the 17th angel. He told me Lilims deserved a future, a future he gave his life and his purpose for." Shinji smiled bitterly at this memory. A desperate slap met his face, but he was unfazed. "He gave me two gifts... One was an ancient tablet, though Ritsuko couldn't decipher it. Another was the song itself. It was just a single gift, really."
The girl cried tears of frustration, as her last hopes of survival was now a mumbling fool.
"You know, I cried when I met him. I cried for you and Rei. I cried like you are now, frustrated I couldn't help either of you. He cheered me up, he was somebody I could talk to. Now, where was I... Yes, he died-"
Tuning the boy out, she couldn't feel anything but frustration, anger, and pity all at this young man who was old beyond his years, mumbling like an old man about his memories. His pathetic memories that the great Sohryu Asuka Langley was too good to listen to.
"Damn it, how could I have shown my weakness at a time like that!" She screamed to herself, though quietly so Misato couldn't hear. "Baka-Shinji, exposing himself like that to take advantage of me." She cursed the boy, simply to direct her blame elsewhere, and threw a pillow with as much force as she could into the wall.
"Asuka, is anything wrong?" Misato's worried tone came through the crack of the door.
"No." The red haired girl lied, as she began to rewind and replay track 27 once again.
--
Misato sat at the dinner table, swinging her can to check if its contents are drained. Hearing and feeling nothing, she threw the can at the trash can. Her accuracy when sober had been an absolute 0, but as she got more and more drunk her aim became better and better, for some strange reason.
This time, the beer missed its mark.
"I'm not drunk enough yet..." She sighed to herself, as she popped open her fifth can.
"Asuka needs to stop lying... Shinji needs to get help... PenPen, what do I need?" The alcoholic woman said to her beloved bird sitting on her lap, and one of her hands were around him.
"WARRRRK!" "A damn life!" The bird shouted.
"Oh PenPen, I love you! Yes, I need to quit drinking..." PenPen cried in frustration as the clueless alcoholic tightened him in her embrace, causing his air supply to diminish.
"WARK WARK WAARRrAraRK!" "IKARI! COME BACK SOOOOOooOOOooOOOnnnn..." The penguin screamed, as he fainted from lack of oxygen.
To be continued... Maybe?
A/N: Damn it, I'm not sure how to proceed with Kaji and Rei now, so they're just showing up for... The sake of showing up. I feel really guilty for this, and I just want to smash my head into something hoping that'll teach me how to develop their characters.
You can bet that the little flashback mixed full of SRT goodness will be returning for Chapter 10-Third Impact: 2.
I had written the description of the murdering of the last man in the invasion (GASP) much more bloody than the one presented. It's M rated material, and I wanted to keep the rating at least at T.
Of course, I would post it just to show off how twisted my mind is, but that isn't a good thing to show, so I added an omake instead!
--
"Oh, so you're into THAT kind of guys, are you?" Misato's grin grew wider.
"Oh come on, Misato. Don't tell me you don't know yet. It's all the rage for cute, adorable and yet well-developed and not to mention totally hot girl like me, who loves hentai anime, to love shounen-ai! I mean, that's all the rage, all the girls squealing over the guys kissing each other!" Asuka explained to her guardian, in a snobbish pose as if she was an almighty being.
"Uh... Yea, Asuka..." Misato stared at her charge as if she was crazy or something.
"KAWORU-SAMA!" Rei stepped through the door holding a man as big as her palm, causing the red haired girl to squeal loudly.
"Ikari had done a mass miniaturization to reduce costs. He is inadequate at... Pleasuring us, Sohryu." Rei said, in her monotone calmness.
"I LOVE YOU KAWORU-SAMAAAAA!" She squealed, as she grabbed the gray haired boy in her hands, leaving only his head exposed. "Oh you're so CUTE and CUDDLY like this..."
"Am I the only one with a sense of deja vu?" The clone replied, as Asuka's excited schoolgirl giggling about 'entering her being literal' corrupted his mind, and had Asuka apply unnecessary force into her balled hands.
Needless to say, they hid the incident from Shinji as the next clone came to take over his place, shouting about 'loving only Shinji, not you crazy murderers'.
The self-blaming boy could never figure out why Kaworu's storage seemed to be lacking many many bodies, not until the day his coffin was lowered into his designated grave.