DISCLAIMER, YO
I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion; Gainax and Hideaki Anno do. I'm just a 16-year-old fanboy from Alaska.
Please read and review. Thanks. – C.o.W.
NOTE: I changed the ending; thanks to dennisud for the help! –C.o.W.
Chapter 8 – A Day to Remember
Mana Kirishima stood outside Apartment 501 in the gathering twilight. There was a strange feeling deep within her mind, a feeling she could not yet identify. She simply watched Asuka Langley Soryu, the fierce girl next door, embrace the handsome young man that had lived with her and just returned from parts unknown. It had been four months, and Mana had passed off Shinji Ikari's nearly historic act as a confused young boy's wrong decision. She was afraid that he had forgotten her, the girl with the bright red hair. He does not even know my name, she mused, depressed. What a horrible way to begin a friendship.
After an eternity of warmth, Shinji was beginning to feel nervous against Asuka's warm body.
"A-Asuka, I want to go inside," he said softly. Quickly, the redhead backed off.
"Yes, go right on in," she said simply.
Shinji approached the interior of his home. His face fell. It was as if Hell itself had frozen over and then leaked into a small apartment in Toyko-2. Asuka looked after him nervously.
Shinji Ikari was about to step into the apartment when a slender hand gripped his left arm. He turned to see the strange girl who he had encountered nearly five months ago. It was Mana.
"You," he said softly. Asuka walked up to him and looked back and forth between him and Mana.
"Well, introduce yourselves already!" she snapped.
Sheepishly, Shinji Ikari told the burgundy-haired girl his name. She smiled and said, "I am Mana Kirishima."
Shinji smiled, which caused a similar reaction in Mana.
"Good!" Asuka blurted out, "That's over with. Now, let's all three take care of this mess."
Shinji and Mana, even though they had done nothing to create the disaster that was Apartment 501. As she cleaned, Mana stole longing glances at Shinji. To her dismay, he was stealing longing glances at Soryu. Mana's inner voice growled. She was afraid that she was feeling… jealous at the pair. With strength, however, she tried to suppress the ill will she felt against the German girl.
Operation 501, as Asuka had dubbed it, took about three hours. By the time Mana, Shinji, and Asuka had finished, it was dark out. The three young adults sat on the couch, watching television or chatting. Mana and Shinji talked lightly about America. It turned out that she had lived there as well, but not in the Northwest. Instead, she had spent the latter half of her childhood in New York City. As they talked, Mana became happier and happier with his company. She supposed that she loved him. Asuka saw the two out the corner of her eye, but she was pretty sure that she had already bagged Ikari. The clock above the television read 9:00 PM. Asuka looked at it with amusement.
"Unless I'm mistaken, Professor Hyuuga should be here any s—"
As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Asuka, bored with the television got up to get the door. She opened it quickly. Instead of it being her sensei, it was a different man. If Asuka Langley Soryu had been a cartoon character, her eyes would surely have turned into comically throbbing hearts. She shrieked the man's last name, along with an honorific.
"KAJI-SAMA!"
Shinji jumped up with an incredulous shout of "No way!" He ran to the doorway, where Asuka had latched onto none other than Ryouji Kaji. He looked nearly unchanged after four years, except for the fact that he was wearing large sideburns on his face. They were the same sideburns of a man Shinji had sat next to on his incoming flight. No wonder he looked familiar, Shinji thought.
"Good to see you again, Shinji," Kaji said, confirming Shinji's suspicions. The older man offered Shinji a hand, reaching over the clinging seventeen-year-old Asuka, and they shook.
"I… We missed you, Kaji-san," Shinji said.
"I missed you, too."
Maya Ibuki, next door in Apartment 500, jumped out of sleep when she heard Asuka shriek. She brushed off the salty remains of the seaweed crackers she'd been gorging on, and grabbed her jean jacket. Soon enough, she discovered that it was a bit too cold for just a jacket. For the first time in nearly twenty years, it was snowing in Tokyo-2. She gasped at the beauty of the small falling flakes. She turned toward the doorway of Asuka's apartment. She walked up to the man in the entrance. Asuka was hugging and groping him violently. When Kaji heard the former NERV technician walk up next to him, he turned. Maya gasped again.
"Kaji-san," she whispered.
"Ms. Ibuki," he said politely. Looking into the apartment, Maya saw another wonder, Shinji Ikari, alive and safe. Overwhelmed, Ibuki fainted into the arms of Ryouji Kaji, much to Asuka's annoyance.
Ryouji brought the woman to the couch. Shinji and Mana hopped off of it to give the man some room to lay the young woman. She moaned as her eyes opened.
"Shinji is here?" she said, rather out of breath.
"Yes, and so am I," Kaji replied.
"B-but how? You disappeared when Vice-Commander Fuyutsuki returned to NERV. We all thought you were…"
"I know. I was shot by a spy hired by Gendou. Luckily, I was wearing a bullet-proof vest, since I was pretty sure the crazy commander would send his goons after me. I lay on the ground until the would-be assassin left. Then, I went into hiding. I've had about a dozen different names since then."
"Wow," Shinji, Asuka, Mana, and Maya all said. Kaji laughed lightly.
"Does anybody have Misato's number?" he asked innocently. Asuka gasped, and her eyes watered. She ran to the bedroom. Moments later, heavy metal voices blasted from behind the closed door, hiding the Second Child's sobs.
Shinji hung his head as he remembered Misato Katsuragi's final moments on Earth. He doesn't know. Shinji glanced at Mana, who, as usual, was a fifth wheel. With tears in his eyes, he walked up to Kaji, kneeling beside Maya Ibuki, who was now sitting upright. She, too, was crying.
"What happened?" Kaji demanded. Mana, behind Kaji, wanted to know the same thing. Who is Misato? she wondered.
Shinji slowly, without the slightest hint of emotion in his voice, related the story of Major Katsuragi's death during the storming of NERV. Raising his head, Shinji looked at Kaji. The older man had stood up. His face was grim and stony, but his eyes showed a world of pain. Behind him, Mana sat on the arm of the couch above Maya Ibuki's head, bewildered.
"I had always thought that it might be the other way around," he said, his husky voice barely a whisper. Turning to Shinji, he asked, "Who else lives here? It looks like Maya does, but that's all I know."
Accidentally ignoring the question, Shinji wondered, "How did you find us?"
"Haven't you ever heard of a phone book?" Kaji asked simply. It hadn't been that easy; he had connections, but that wasn't anything Shinji needed to know about. "Now answer my question, please."
"Everybody from NERV except Kouzou-sama and R-Rei. She died, too."
"I see. I wanted to… talk to Ritsuko-kun. Which apartment is she in?"
"495," Shinji said, "but she's at work."
"How can I get there?"
Shinji walked over to his suitcase, still unpacked. Opening it, he dug out a map of Tokyo-2. In the back of his mind, Shinji registered that the suitcase still smelled like his old hovel. He brought the map to Kaji and showed him the route to the hospital. "Her office is on the fifth floor," Shinji recalled.
"Thanks, Shinji," Kaji said as he prepared to leave. It was almost 9:30. Shinji wondered when, if ever, Makoto would show up. Kaji approached the exit, but he had a sudden thought. He walked back into the main area of the apartment and strode over the door to Asuka's bedroom. The radio had died down.
"Asuka-chan," he called. "I'm going out now. I'll see you later."
There was no response, but Ryouji was pretty sure that he didn't need one. He returned to the doorway, waved to Shinji, Maya, and Mana, and disappeared into the snowy night.
Shortly afterward, Maya left as well. She apologized for her behavior, which Shinji and Mana both excused. Soon, the two teens were left on the couch. The television program in front of them rolled on, but neither of them paid it the slightest bit of attention. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, Shinji felt a heavy warmth rest on his shoulder. It could only be one thing. Shinji looked. Yup, he thought. It was Mana Kirishima's head. She had positioned her entire body against his. Shinji began to sweat. There was something calming in her demeanor, and he was unsure of how to cope with it.
"Shinji," she whispered.
"Y-y-yes, Mana?" Shinji's mind was frozen in fear. Was it possible that the crimson-haired young woman was… bored? If there was thing Shinji feared, it was extreme boredom.
"Tell me about Misato."
Shinji let out a drastic breath. Mana wasn't bored after all. It was clear that Misato had been something special to Shinji, Mr. Kaji, and even Asuka. Mana was simply curious about the amazing woman who had, for a number of years ago, been the closest thing to family that Ikari had had. Just reflecting on his purple-haired former guardian gave Shinji a strange feeling in the bottom of his stomach. It was loneliness. Finding his voice, the young man described the day of the Sachiel's attack. He didn't care if anything he knew was classified; there was no NERV to stop him. After over an hour, Shinji realized that Mana was sleeping against him. Soon, his eyes became heavy as well. It had been a very strange day. Suddenly, a scream erupted from outside. Shinji bolted upright. It was the voice of Maya Ibuki. In his start, he awoke Mana.
"Whassa?" she mumbled.
"Something happened outside. I'll be right back," Shinji explained. He grabbed his jacket and opened the front door.
At first, he was stunned by the amount of white all over the ground. There were at least ten centimeters on the ground! He had only seen snow once, in America. It had been the second day of November, and the temperature plummeted. He had been amazed at the pristine white flakes drift down from the heavens. Shinji looked around, seeking Maya. He found her knelt over something on the cement walkway in front of the apartments. She was crying profusely.
"Maya?" Shinji asked tentatively.
Maya looked up with tears in her eyes.
"He's dead!" she wailed.
"Who?" Shinji asked. Before she answered, she shifted her body just enough to show him the face of the man who lay on his back on the cold, snowy cement. A knife protruded from his clothing, melting the snow over him into a gooey red mess.
It was Professor Makoto Hyuuga.
A tiny groan escaped from Shinji's lips. Maya continued her desperate sobbing.
"He was… so nice… We were… going on a date… tomorrow…" Whatever she said after that was unintelligible.
"I'm calling an ambulance." He ran off.
Maya heard the young man, but she did not care. She had, over the years, become good friends with Makoto. He was funny, gentle, and smart. He had always acted like a gentleman, especially around her. Maya was pretty sure he had liked her. They had worked in the same place for years, before the fall of NERV. Now, she had lost him.
Makoto was not dead… yet. He was simply unconscious. Maya had poked her head out only a few minutes earlier, to take a look at the snow. She had heard a scuffle and turned to see two large men accosting Makoto. When he tried to run away, the smaller had grabbed his arm and stabbed him square in the stomach. He had fallen to the cement. She ran to him, and upon seeing the blood and his glazed expression, she had screamed. If it hadn't been for Shinji… she thought.
Shinji reached the apartment phone, his hair wet with melting snow. He dialed 1-1-9 and explained the situation. The man on the other end assured a timely response. Shinji thanked him and calmly hung up.
He was on his way to call to Maya that the call was successful when the sliding door to Asuka's bedroom opened slowly. Shinji turned to see the room pitch-black, a thin female hand grasping the door tightly.