Chapter One
"Oi, Shinji!"
Shinji Ikari looked up from his desk into the face of his friend Kensuke Aida. School had just gotten out and Shinji had been packing away his books so he could return to Misato's apartment, but from the look on Kensuke's face, Shinji had the feeling that he wouldn't be leaving for a while.
"What is it?" Shinji asked his military fanatical friend.
Kensuke smiled and adjust his glasses, causing a momentary flash of light to hit Shinji. "I've just come into the possession of a new game, and I want you to play it with me."
Shinji nodded. At least this wouldn't involve revealing classified NERV secrets to his friend. "Alright," he said. "What system is it for?" Shinji himself didn't have his own gaming system, but after playing several games with Kensuke, he had gotten quite used to them, though he did favor the Playstation 3 over the other platforms.
Kensuke grinned. "None, it's not that kind of game."
Shinji's brow furrowed. What was it then? A board game? A card game? "What kind of game is it, then?" he asked.
Kensuke reached beneath his desk into a bag and pulled out a book. He lifted it up for Shinji to see.
"'Dungeons and Dragons'" Shinji read off slowly, deciphering the katakana printed on the book's cover. He looked up at Kensuke. "What is it?"
"It's a tabletop RPG," he said. "It's from America. It's really fun."
Shinji stared at the book. He didn't quite understand how that book could be a game, but Kensuke seemed really ecstatic about it. Not wanting to disappoint his friend, and seeing, as he had nothing else to do anyway, Shinji nodded his head. "Alright, I'll play."
"Good!" Kensuke said, slamming the book down on the table. "Now?" he said, looking around the room, "we need two more players."
"Two more?" Shinji asked, and Kensuke looked at him again.
"Yes, the campaign I've designed needs at least three adventurers," he said as he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
"Campaign?"
"A campaign is the series of adventures that make up the actual game. Whoever is the DM, the Dungeon Master," he added at Shinji's confused expression, "gets to have complete control over what happens in the game. With a tabletop RPG, you aren't limited to the storyline of the game. Anything can happen, and the characters that you create can do anything you want them to, so long as the DM allows it." He smiled. "While it's not digital, it's still loads better than platform RPGs. It's like actually being in an entirely different world!"
Shinji just nodded. Some of the terms were confusing him, but it sounded a little fun, and his curiosity was peaked now. He wanted to find out just what playing this sort of game would be like. "Alright," he said.
Kensuke nodded. "Yes," he said, before leaning in close to Shinji, "Now, help me find two more players."
Shinji nodded.
The two boys lifted their heads and looked around the room. There were only four students left in the room. Touji Suzuhara was sitting with his feet on his desk and hands behind his head, still sleeping as no one had awoken him after class ended. Asuka Langley Soryu and the class president Hikari Horaki were sitting at their desks idly chatting with each other. Lastly, Rei Ayanami was standing at her desks as she put away her books.
Shinji and Kensuke huddle back down. "Okay, here's the plan," Kensuke said. "We try and get all four of them to join the game, because the game only gets better with more people." Shinji nodded, he could gather that much from Kensuke's explanation. "Our biggest obstacle lies in getting the red-haired demon to join in the game, but I have a plan for that."
"Won't Ayanami be the hardest to convince?" Shinji said, stealing a glance at the blue haired girl.
Kensuke adjusted his glasses yet again. "True, she will be a hard one to convince," he said. Kensuke put a hand on Shinji shoulder. "However, I'm confident you will succeed in the mission."
"Me!" Shinji almost yelled. "Why do I have to do it?"
"That's simple," Kensuke said, grinning at Shinji. "It's because you are the only one Ayanami has ever even remotely opened up to. Most of the time, she ignores the rest of us, but she acknowledges you."
"But—" Shinji began, but he was cut off.
"Shinji," Kensuke's voice turned serious, and his grip on Shinji's shoulder tightened. "You are the only one who can do this. The sake of the game is at stake here. Remember that." Kensuke removed his hand from Shinji's shoulder and looked over to Touji. Grabbing a pencil from his desk, Kensuke hurled it at the sleeping boy.
"Wha-? Yes! The seasons were frozen in place by Second Impact, Sir!" Touji said before realizing what was happening.
Kensuke was laughing hard, but he stopped abruptly when he saw Touji's glare.
"Why I oughta—" Touji began to say.
"There is no time for this," Kensuke said, causing Touji to stop in mid sentence. "Touji," he said. "We need you to join us." Kensuke held up the book.
"What the hell is that?" Touji asked, looking quizzically at the book.
"It's a tabletop RPG," Kensuke said. He was getting tired of explaining this. "It's a game."
"I dunno," Touji said. "I've never been much for stupid games."
"THIS IS NOT A DUMB GAME!" Kensuke said as he stood up in his desk, looming over Touji.
Shinji and Touji looked up at their friend in surprise. They could feel an aura radiating from the Otaku, and they thought that there seemed to be flames raging behind Kensuke.
Kensuke glared down at his friend who at any other moment could have pummeled him to a pulp; however, at this very instance, Touji was more afraid of his otaku friend than Kensuke had ever been afraid of Touji. The wrath of an Otaku knows no bounds.
"A-ah… well…" Touji said, averting his eyes and scratching the back of his head. "I-I suppose I could give it a try."
Just as abruptly as they had appeared, the flames that Shinji and Touji had sensed behind Kensuke vanished and he sat down with a smile. "Good," he said. "Good." Kensuke leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, looking at his friends. "Alright, this is what we're going to do," he said, looking strikingly like the Supreme Commander of NERV. "Touji, you take the class president; Shinji, you've got Ayanami; and me, I'll take on the demon."
"I will never call you cowardly again," Touji said as he looked at Asuka. He couldn't imagine what Kensuke was thinking, taking on a demon like her. "What are we doing anyway?" he asked.
"Convincing them to play the game with us," Kensuke said, still unknowingly mimicking the Commander. "That is all that matters. Anything else is irrelevant, just make sure they join the game, no matter what measures you must take." He stood up. "Move out." He said, and he began to walk towards Asuka.
Shinji and Touji looked at each other for a minute, wondering what it was that had possessed their friend, before Kensuke suddenly barked, "Move!" and Touji jumped to follow him.
Shinji turned away from Touji stiffly following Kensuke over to Hikari and Asuka, and looked to Rei. She was just standing up from her desk and about to leave.
"Ah, Ayanami!" Shinji called out uncertainly to her as she turned to leave. He really didn't think that he would be able to get Rei to play the game with them. Come to think of it, he had never seen Rei play a game, ever. It didn't surprise him, though. Rei just didn't seem like the type that would play games. She almost never showed her emotions, and seemed to think that her life revolved around Eva. With that kind of mentality, there would never be time for games.
Rei stopped in mid-turn and looked at Shinji. "Yes, Ikari?" she asked.
Shinji walked a bit closer to her. "Um, well," he said scratching his head. He wasn't very good at this. "Are you going home now?" he asked.
"I am," Rei answered him.
"Um, Kensuke, Touji, and I are playing a game, and well, I was wondering if you wanted to play with us," he said quickly. "Ah, but it's okay if you don't want to," he said, raising his hands up in front of himself. "I was just wondering, that's all. If you'd rather go home, you can." Yup, there was no way that she was going to play the game.
However, instead of refusing immediately, as Shinji had expected, Rei said something different. "What game is it that you wish me to play?" she asked.
Shinji was a little put off by the unexpected question, and he fumbled around as he tried to explain it to her. "Well, it's a game that Kensuke has called Dungeons and Dragons. It's a tabletop RPG, where you can create your own character and go on adventures. He says it's like being in an entirely different world."
Rei stayed silent. This was the first time in a long while that anyone had ever asked her to play a game. The last time was back in fourth grade when she first entered school here, but people had soon stopped asking her when she didn't acknowledge them. She would have done the same now, except that Shinji was asking her. Shinji was the only one who had continued to talk to her even though she rarely answered. Everyone else had given up because of her cold appearance, but Shinji kept coming back to talk to her. She didn't know why, but she felt slightly compelled to accept his offer. She didn't really have anything else to do today, and she wanted to know why she felt like she wanted to play the game with Shinji.
"I accept," she said, causing Shinji's eyes to open wide. He really hadn't expected that she would.
"Thank you!" he said, bowing slightly to her.
Rei nodded in acknowledgement, surprised to realize that she acknowledge Shinji's presence whenever he spoke to her, ever since the fifth angel. She wondered if that had something to do with it.
"They are over here," Shinji said, turning to follow Kensuke and Touji.
Rei nodded and followed him.
When they reached the four other students, Shinji was not surprised to find Kensuke and Asuka in an argument.
"I absolutely will not play such a game!" Asuka was raging at Kensuke.
"And why not?" Kensuke shouted back at her.
Touji came over to Shinji. "They've been at it like this ever since Kensuke asked her," he said. "Apparently she'd heard of this game when she lived in America, and she wasn't too pleased when Kensuke asked her to play." Then he saw Rei standing just behind Shinji, and his eyebrows rose. "So you did get Ayanami to join. I guess Kensuke was right." Touji grinned at Shinji, before leaning in close and quietly saying, "I remember that you were always looking at Ayanami during gym class," he said, and Shinji froze, intensely hoping that Rei couldn't hear Touji. "You never even gave the other girls a glance."
"Shut up, Touji," Shinji hissed. "So, uh, is the class president playing?" he asked a bit louder, trying to distract Touji.
It worked. "Yeah," he said. "It was actually a lot easier than I thought," he said, frowning. "She agreed before I even finished asking her. It was weird."
At that moment, both Shinji's and Touji's attentions were drawn to Asuka as she yelled yet again. "I am not playing a game made for losers who can't accept reality, and that's final!" she shouted, and she turned and began to walk away.
Kensuke watched her go. "I understand," he said. "You don't think you can win."
Asuka stopped in her tracks, and she turned around to look at him. "What did you say?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Kensuke said, musing. "You obviously doubt your skills as a Dungeons and Dragons player, and therefore you refuse to play, thereby safely hiding just how much of a failure you are at the game."
"That's not it!" Asuka yelled at him. "I just don't want to play!"
"Convenient excuse," Kensuke said. "Look." He jerked his towards Rei, who was still standing behind Shinji. "Even Ayanami is playing. "
"I am not a failure! No one's better than me, especially not her!" Asuka screamed back at Kensuke. "I'm the best at everything! Do you hear me! Everything! Even that stupid game!"
"Oh yeah?" Kensuke said, smiling to himself. "Prove it."
"Fine!" Asuka said, throwing up her hands. "I will!" She marched back over to Kensuke and stared straight at him. "I'll show you I'm the best," she said to him. "Just you wait."
"Alright," Kensuke said, smiling at her. He turned to the spectators and held up the book. "Let's play."
"Alright, now the first thing to do is to design your characters," Kensuke said after they had gotten everything set up. They were currently sitting around a large table in one of the unused clubrooms in the school. Kensuke was at the head of the table, and Asuka, Shinji, and Rei were sitting to his left, with Touji and Hikari to his right. Reaching into the bag he had brought with him, he pulled out several pieces of paper.
"These are your character sheets," he said, handing each person one of the sheets he had photocopied earlier that morning. "I want each of you to write your name where it says 'player.' Let's keep it simple for this first game and have all of you use your real names for the characters, unless you really want to personalize your character that much?" When no one objected, he continued. "We'll also limit the races you can choose down to Human, Elf, or Half-elf. Now, in order to save time, you are only going to roll dice for your attributes and choose your class. I have a list of pre-selected feats and skills for each class that you will use, alright?" Everyone nodded. "Good." He said.
Kensuke held up four six-sided dice for the players to see. "You will be using these to roll your attribute values," he said. "You know, like strength, dexterity, intelligence, etcetera." They all nodded. "You are going to roll these four dice," he said, "and you'll drop the lowest value. The sum of three remaining dice will be one of the values you can use for your attributes. You will do this six times, for each of your six attributes. Understand?" He looked at them to make sure they understood, and most of them seemed to, though Touji was starting to look slightly confused. "Alright," Kensuke said. "Asuka, you roll first."
Asuka took the dice and rolled her values. Then she passed them on to Shinji, who rolled his values and in turn passed the dice on to Rei, and so on and so forth, until Touji was rolling the die.
"You can't flip the dice after they fall, Touji," Kensuke said when Touji had thought no one was looking. "Alright," Kensuke said after he had the dice once again. "Now, before you assign which attributes have which values, you are going to want to choose your class, because certain classes do well with different attributes." He handed each one of them another piece of paper. "This is a list of the classes you can choose and their descriptions. It also has descriptions of three different races," he said. After giving them all a minute to look it over, he turned to Touji. "Which ones do you want?"
"Barbarian!" he said, making a fist. "I'll be the strongest."
Kensuke wrote something down, muttering to himself something like, "Why am I not surprised." He looked up. "And what race?"
"Let's see," Touji said, squinting at the paper again. "Which one is strongest?" he asked.
Kensuke shook his head as if he had been expecting that question from Touji. Then he looked up at him. "Of the three you can choose," he said, "humans are."
"Alright!" Touji said, looking up from the paper. "I'll be a human, then."
Looking up from his paper, he turned to Hikari. "And what do you chose, Miss President?" he asked.
"Um…" Hikari said, still looking at her paper. She really wasn't sure which to choose. She was only here because Touji had asked her, and she didn't really know what to do at all. "I think I'll be a Sorceress," she said at last.
"Alright," Kensuke said, writing something down again. "Because you are a Sorceress, you will want to have your higher values on your Charisma attributes," he told her. "You will not be as efficient in hand to hand combat."
"That's alright," Touji butted it. "I'll protect her if it comes to that!"
"Th-thank you," Hikari said, looking at her lap to hide her flushed face. She was so happy that he said that, even if it was only a game."
"And your race?" Kensuke asked, causing Hikari to jerk her head up.
"Oh!" she said, looking at the paper again. "I think I'll be an elf," she said. They did seem the most feminine to her, and the sheet said that they were better with magic.
"Alright," Kensuke said. "Asuka?" he said as he turned to the read head.
"Fighter, of course," she said haughtily with her arms crossed and eyes closed. "I'm not just going to sit back and fight from the rear." She opened her eyes. "And before you ask, I'm a human."
Kensuke nodded and turned to Shinji. "Shinji?"
"Um…" Shinji said. He really wasn't sure which he should choose. Asuka and Touji had picked characters that were strong, and Hikari could use magic. He stared at each description. Truth be told, he really wanted to be able to fight, so he could help protect the others, and yet he also wanted to be able to use magic to stay out of danger.
When Shinji didn't answer, Kensuke said, "May I suggest that you be a Paladin? I think it's the class that fits you best. Just remember that when you are role-playing, Paladin's aren't supposed to lie or use underhanded tricks to win."
Shinji quickly looked at the description for Paladin, and found that he would be able to both use magic and fight, as well as being able to heal his comrades. Shinji nodded. "I'll be a paladin," he said, and after looking at the descriptions of the races, said, "and I'll be a Half-Elf."
Kensuke nodded. "Good choice," he said, seeing as being a half-elf would give him a good medium between strength and magic. "However you wont be able to actually use magic until you have leveled up a bit." Shinji opened his mouth, but Kensuke held up his hand. "Don't worry," he said. "You'll level up fast enough. You'll be there in no time." Finally, he turned to Rei. "Which do you pick, Ayanami?"
Rei answered immediately. "Rogue," she said bluntly. "Elf." She after reading the descriptions and hearing the choices of the others, Rei had decided that a Rogue would be the most efficient class for her to be, and that being an Elf would increase that efficiency, seeing as elves were lithe and stealthier than the other races.
Kensuke nodded, as if he had expected such an answer from her. Finishing writing down a few more notes, Kensuke put his pencil down and looked at the players. "Alright," he said. "Now it is time to assign the values to your attributes. Keep in mind which attributes your class needs more of when deciding which get the higher values. The class descriptions will tell you which attributes."
They all nodded, and assigned their values to each attribute.
"Hah!" Asuka said with a smug smile after she had assigned her values. "Eighteen strength and intelligence!"
"I've got eighteenth strength too," Touji said.
Asuka looked across the table at Touji's sheet before suddenly laughing. "You've got 10 intelligence as well," she said, trying to stop laughing. "And you're a barbarian. You've got the perfect character!"
Shinji looked away from his two bickering friends and down at his character sheet. His rolls had been pretty high: three eighteens, one seventeen, one sixteen, and one twelve. Checking the paladin description, he assigned the three eighteens to strength, wisdom, and charisma. He gave his constitution the seventeen, the dexterity the sixteen, and the intelligence the twelve. Finishing the assignment of his ability scores, he put the pencil down and looked around.
Asuka, Touji, and Rei had already finished assigning their values, and Hikari was the only one left. While Hikari finished deciding which scores to assign to which attributes, Shinji looked over at Rei's sheet. His mouth dropped open in surprise.
He hadn't seen what values Rei had gotten when she rolled the dice. Apparently, she hadn't gotten any high rolls. All her scores were in the ten to fourteen ranges. Her character wasn't very strong, in any aspect. Shinji looked back at his sheet, and then at Rei's, and he made up his mind. In this game, just as he tried to do when they fought the angels, he would protect her.
"Is something the matter, Ikari?" Rei asked him, after watching him look back and forth between their two papers.
Shinji looked up. "Oh, I just noticed that you didn't get very high rolls," he said.
"That is true," she said, looking at her own paper. "I am at a disadvantage."
"I'll help you," he said. "I did get higher scores, so I'll protect you."
Rei looked at Shinji, and nodded. "That would be agreeable," she said.
"Alright," Kensuke said just then, and Shinji and Rei turned to look at him. "Give me your sheets and I'll fill out the rest of the information, so we can get started." They all handed him their sheets, and he rolled for their HP, calculated their AC, and chose their skills and feats, among other things. When he was done, he handed them all back their sheets.
Shinji looked and saw that he had an HP of thirteen. He had played enough RPGs at with Kensuke to know that his HP was his health, but he didn't know what some of the other things where. Oh well, he was sure he'd pick it up fast enough.
Taking a glance at Rei's sheet, he frowned. She only had an HP of five. He reminded himself of his mental promise to protect her throughout the game. Asuka would be fine, not that she'd accept his help anyway, and Touji had said he would protect Hikari. He would protect Rei.
"We are almost ready to play," Kensuke said, regaining everyone's attention once again. "Just one more second." Kensuke held up a rare five-sided die he had purchased off the Internet. It was transparent, green, and shaped like a triangular prism. At first glance, it didn't seem as if each side had equal probability, but the die's accuracy had been statistically proven. He let the die fall, and when it stopped movie, looked at the value that now faced him. His eyes widened slightly when he saw the number. So that's who it's going to be, he thought. Interesting.
"Hey! When are we going to get started?" Asuka said, waving her hand in front of Kensuke.
"What?" Kensuke said, looking at Asuka. "Oh, yes. Just a second." He wrote the dice value down, so he wouldn't forget it. This would be interesting.
Kensuke looked up at the players, who were all looking at him. Well, all except for Hikari, who was taking slight glances at Touji every few seconds. Kensuke smiled to himself. He had known Hikari would play if he got Touji to ask her. "Alright," he said, smiling. "Let the games begin."
Adjusting his glasses yet again, Kensuke began to speak. "You have all led very different lives, and your journeys all began at different times. You have all gone your own way, living you life as you chose. Through all your travels, your paths have never crossed one another; however, in the village of Kojurin, your lives will intersect for the first time…"