Chapter 38

"Oi, are you going to stay there forever?" My face, my old face stared at me. I really didn't know what to feel. "Well?"

"Ah right…. Wait, didn't I get my legs blown off?"

"We're in Mindspace, you idiot, you don't have any injuries here."

Right… I just stood up and yes, my body was whole. At looked at myself.

The old patches of white and red caused by my sickness were all there. I had been taller since reincarnating, and it was odd looking down on myself. It was so strange looking into a mirror of the past. "Where are we?"

"In our Mindspace, I told you."

"But then where are Zea and Ark? I was connected to them just now…"

"Not here. Get up. We got to move."

"Why?"

"Because that crazy bitch is currently shifting through our memories and if she finds out about our origins…"

"We're fucked, right." I began following him. "Wait, how come she hasn't taken everything from us yet? For an eldritch being, a 27-year-old human should be easily subdued…"

"Oh. That? Remember who we were back when in our teens?"

"…Shit, in here, everything is ours?"

"Yep, turns out, one of us if having the time of his life now…"

I winced. My teenage self was not the best with people…

…

…

"What is this insolent creature!" The woman representing the Will of the Honkai used her arms to block the large knife aiming for her head.

The assailant was young, short and had an uncombed mane of hair. A normal human kid, like many others.

Well, no. Not like the others.

If you looked at him, you wouldn't think twice about him. In a crowd he would be invisible. Just another body among the masses.

But once you felt it you wouldn't ever forget it.

That look in his eyes.

And a broken smile.

Currently, he was using his position as the owner of the Mindspace to take for himself something. A wish that not even years later or a whole new life after, was able to be forgotten.

Yinsen was able to find himself in a world filled with them. But in his previous life he had to bottle all up because his wish wasn't granted.

"Learn your place!" The Will's form was hit from various angles, if anyone was watching, they would have been able to tell the assailant was aiming at important blood vessels on the body. Not instant kills, but fatal strikes, nonetheless.

His smile widened at the Will's words. "Oh? Are you going to teach me?" A broken laugh. "Come closer and try"

…

We walked together in silence. It was weird, where are we even going?

"To our memories you dolt."

How did he…?

"I'm you, I know what you would think in this kind of situations. It was that or thinking about going home for another round of gaming."

"Now that you talk about it, how long has it been since I…?"

"That, I don't know. We're here"

In front of me… What the hell?

How is a spaceship in here?

"Don't you remember? We created that."

"Eh?"

"The ship that harbored all our dreams, all we learned. Everything we loved would take place on that ship. Everything we wanted would be on that ship."

"I… yes… Odyssey…" I looked at the black and grey ship, arrow shaped with so many guns they looked like barbs. It was enormous, as I had imagined… well, no it felt bigger. 40kms in length tends to make anything around you tiny. Why did I forget?

"I hid everything in order to forget, like they said to. I wanted so much to change that I let these dreams be buried below our new responsibilities." I muttered, assaulted by memories. "I forgot these dreams…"

"Even in this new world, we've forgotten them. Tell me, why haven't you been around Himeko and Watchpoint? Mei, Kevin, even just hanging around with the 'gears?" My old self looked at me and I felt the reproach even if it wasn't meant as one. It was an honest question.

"I… there so much to do and so little time… I have to…" I knew it was an excuse, I wanted to be there with them…

"To what? You barely know them as it is, with you new body, you could coast away and survive on your own."

At that I looked up at him. "But why do that?" it honestly baffled me, why would I do that?

"You tell me." It felt like a whole other person was talking to me…. Did I really change that much in the months I had been in this world?

"Why be somewhere and not try to change things?" I had to ask. I asked myself in a sense, not expecting an answer.

"Oh?" he simply rose his hand in a 'go on' gesture, so I continued.

"Why live through the end of the world alone with no one to look forward to meet again?"

"Why indeed?" My previous self looked at me knowingly. "Do you remember this?"

We were in a room, a familiar living room. I was hunched on a chair crying. "Come on, it can't end like this, can it?" My 13-year-old self looked at a screen. "Maybe if things went differently…" That guy grabbed a notebook and a pen and began writing.

"Here." My 27-year-old self gave me something. A green notebook, battered to all hell, but in it… "This is where we began to change."

"If things had gone differently…" I remembered those words. The amount of research I did made me the most knowing boy in junior high, and I would end up paying for it dearly, but… "That was the whole reason I began to write, to think…" And I looked, the little timelines I had drawn from the various stories I read across my years. All those little diagrams of the 'tech' I would have liked to build in real life…

"Yup, so you better not lose it again. Oh, look he's here." My old self pointed at somewhere and…

"Sup guys?" I froze at that voice.

"How was she?" My previous self waved at the arriving person and I was left speechless.

"Never had to fight for something in her life but was stubborn as hell. Managed to trap her in some illusions of mine and slip back here. How did it go?" My 15-year-old self looked… free. It was jarring, seeing this version of me in contrast to the one in my memories. The smile looked genuine. "What? Is it that bad to see me?"

"Smiling like that? Yeah, pretty much." I let out my feelings without thinking.

"Oh, don't be like that, we always could smile! We just never had a reason to."

"And that's what's scary."

"Heh, the old man next to you said the same thing. We really are the same."

"Yup."

"So how did the future go?" My youngest self asked, genuinely curious.

"We died." My old self and I responded together.

Youngest rolled his eyes. "Obviously, but what other things went down?"

"Well, Lucy settled down with that guy from the soda fountain…" Our first crush had trapped her latest boyfriend with a baby.

"Yuriko tried that shit about snogging her newest boyfriend in front of our house twice again…" Our first girlfriend had drifted away from us after we finished high school.

"Magaly disappeared in a ditch somewhere, they found her head floating in the river…" Our high school girlfriend was… yeah, not in a good place. And that's how she ended. Pays to follow the 'bad' boys, no?

"Alex died in a crash right before dad did…" Our best friend, with who we discovered our wish to help people… died during his first day of college…

"We never heard about Teresa or Victoria ever again…" Our best friend's ex-girlfriend and their daughter had gone and disappeared from the face of the earth…

"Bought a house in the coast…" And regretted it when the heat and lack of water picked up…

"Went back into writing again…" Thankfully, after nearly seven years of writer's block.

"Finished College, for a change…" After failing three different careers...

"And then I died in an earthquake made the neighboring apartment building fall on top of me." My old self made a 'what can you do?' gesture.

"And I'm currently trying to make the world survive along me from the homicidal enforcement of the great barrier so…" I shrugged.

"So, all it took to get off my ass was my loved ones dying?" Youngest looked… well, sort of amazed.

"Pretty much, yeah."

"We're lame as fuck, aren't we?" Youngest stated that as a fact.

"Well, I have at least someone interested on me, and I'm pretty sure I caused a girl to have a crush in me…" I tried to salvage my newborn pride a bit.

"Don't try holding them at knife's edge." Old me pointed at me with a serious face.

"Dude, I'm not an idiot." I defended myself. It failed.

"I beg to differ." Youngest injected.

I groaned. "…Fuck."

We laughed, it was… nice, coming to terms with my past.

So many regrets, so many memories I wanted to forget, so much hatred I never could completely let go of….

"So, what are we doing here?" I looked at the two. Old me made one of our favorite poses we used for presentations during school or work.

"The Will tried to make us fully subject to her with her usual methods, Young here made her regret digging through our memories." Our Youngest self cheerfully waved. It was still creepy.

"Eh, since she's not quite human but still has some sort of emotions, I was able to basically shunt some of our deepest repressed shit into her. No memories, but the emotions linked to them." I blinked at his statement.

"Oh. Shit." My mind had not been in the best state during my teens, so even if Youngest linked her to the terrors of our hallucinations…

"Yup." He smiled in a way more familiar to me. We enjoyed inflicting other pain… quite a lot…

I'd like to think I've grown out of that. Old self pulled out my newest key. "We have the Eva Zetsumerisekey, but it needs a few components to fully unlock its power. Three guesses and the first two don't count."

I thought about it, what was needed to pilot the Evangelion in its original series? "A soul. Like the Evas, this thing needs a soul to operate." I thought about it. But something didn't seem to fit…

"You're halfway there, this is an upgrade, more akin to EVA-13 in terms of power." Old's clarification eased my mind. Because if the Eva worked like any one other that Unit-13, I wouldn't survive. Because there was no one that hated me more than my old self. And in an Eva, emotions were everything.

"So then, can we end the world?" Unit-13 was infamous for nearly doing that.

"Nah, we're still missing the spears, but we can beat the shit out of the goddess wannabe without them." Youngest looked at us before pulling out a bloody knife that once belonged to my father, and began playing with it. Odd, I don't remember being able to do that…

"So, what are we doing then?" Despite all the explanation, I still didn't know our plan's details.

Old me answered. "A copy of the Cores of Logic and Conquest, for me and Youngest respectively. We establish our own egos upon them and then activate both the Key and the Eva."

I remembered one little detail about activating the Evangelion for the first time. "But… you'll be trapped, forever… or until I reach 400% Synch ratio…"

"Its fine. You know why we would be fine with this." Old me looked at me… he looked at peace. I sort of envied that…

"Hey, I get to be a giant robot and inflict my wrath upon my enemies, what's not to like about that?" And now Youngest made me envious at him too… oh wait, maybe this was revenge of some sorts? My next words told me why.

"I'd say the loneliness… but then again, we have always been alone."

"Not anymore, you lucky bastard." Old me punched me in the shoulder. It was a weak punch. Now if he had smacked my back instead… ugh.

"Hey, remember what those guys used to say. Even if you know time will end, its what you do with what you have that makes a difference in the end." Youngest said in a serene voice. Old me and I looked at him.

"Now I know why the psychologists always looked at us oddly…"

"We would have become one hell of a psychologist if our empathy weren't as fucked up as it is…"

"Heh, never thought we would end up as teachers, then superheroes…" Youngest smiled with some emotion I didn't understand. Old me snapped me from going to deep on wondering what it was.

"Nah, we just wanted to do what we always wished to do."

"Yeah…" I agreed quietly. "So, is this it then?"

"Afraid so. They need us out there." Old me smiled. It was one of my better smiles.

Youngest laughed a bit before viciously saying. "We're about to show this bitch why you never mess with the quiet loner from the corner of the room…"

"Heh, now we are so much more." I chuckled at this banter.

"We grew up, we learned so much. And now we have weapons and the chance we would have gladly died for in the first place." Old self was getting more and more agitated, and Youngest and I began getting in the mood too.

"Yeah… well then, gentlemen, lets show this bitch what an insignificant creature can do when properly motivated." Youngest took out a copy of the Eva key and began spinning it in his hands.
At that, the sound of chains breaking was heard, and I felt emotions long buried coming to the front of my mind. A memory of one of those talks echoed in my thoughts.

"It's like holding a chain covered in acid in my hands, and I'm holding it because the moment I let go, that acid will not burn me, but those I don't want to burn…
And then whatever was held by the chain will be free to do what it wants…"

We glowed as in our hands, the Eva keys appeared, and the world around us once more became pure light.

…

I was still being held by the Will by my neck, but now I had a knife (which I don't remember making) buried deep in her chest. If I moved my hand correctly, I was sure I would be able to pull out the Herrscher Core easily.

Unfortunately, it was not to be that easy. She woke up immediately and dropped me as I was a white-hot iron. "What are you, what are you? How can you reject my blessing?" her voice was almost hysteric… Ah, yes, she's currently using the Herrscher's corpse to interact with us… a being that exists in nearby planes of existence needs to do that to influence ours…

How to sever that connection?[Play BGM: Aruto's Determination - Kamen Rider 01 OST]

"Heh, it'll take more than you riffling through my memories to make me submit to you… my ex was better at that…" My life was still flashing through my eyes, so I tried to concentrate on my old notes dealing with so much science fiction…

"You… you are a plague… A blight grater than humanity..." She shook her head, flashing me her still burning bits.

"In a sense… No, but against you, I will become one. I'll spread my teachings all over the world: There is a future where humanity is not subjected to you." I remembered that there were official works that dealt with it. And everyone was happy. But here…

She jumped back a good bit, and I avoided the air and water blades she sent my way… ah, she manifested the Herrscher of the Ocean's core in order to stabilize her existence inside the girl's corpse… That explained the massive surge of Honkai energy… I pulled in from my musings. Thanks to the Core of Reason and Conquest, I had a way to bring to reality that which in my past remained only as dreams.

But I couldn't reveal that. Not yet. That was my ultimate trump card. If she learned about that ability, she would be able to counter with whatever eldritch truth she holds.

So, for now, I took out what I had in me. My energy began flaring in an aura orange shimmering accompanied by pink squares coupled with purple lighting.

In my mind, my old selves were right here with me, the Dreaming Kid, the Abused Youth, the Bitter Adult, the Cynical Worker... old hatreds and loves came forth from them and I remembered my deepest wish. With that I pulled out my Cycloneriser. In my hands, the Driver shone, and then little by little, it changed to an iconic shape. "Zero-One Driver!"

I looked at the monster in front of me.

"Honkai… I swear to creation: For that future in my dreams, I will defeat you!"

I pulled out my key. The energy surrounding me congealed into a little blue and silver device, I slammed it in the unused port on the Eva-01 Zetsumerisekey and then pressed the button in the Honkai Assault Grip. "EVATECH!"

I brought the key to the driver's scanner.

"Over Rise!"

"Warning! Warning! Warning!"

I let the standby tune echo across the battlefield, and as is lifted the key atop my head, five beams of light hit it, making it glow like a psychodelic rainbow. Unit One appeared from one of those beams of light, the same Eva unit that a moment ago was on the Carrier. It let out a very familiar roar while I opened the key before joining in with my own call. "HENSHIN!"

The Key slid into its place in the Driver, and my body jerked as power flowed into me. I smiled

"Progrise!"

The Evangelion shrank before exploding into armor plates, as a new undersuit was created, and then combined to complete the new form. It resembled the Super Evangelion Final Stage that i could picture the power.

"Rise to Become Legend! SYNCHRONIZE! AWAKEN! EVATECH RIDER!"

I felt it. Everyone and everything. My senses had grown so much I could hear Tesla and Eins talking with Mei in the background. I ignored all an focused on the enemy.

"By My Hand, Fate Changes."

As I stood in my new armor, I looked at the 'divinely' possessed Herrscher corpse.

"Kamen Rider Evatech Ichigata…" I clenched my fists. "From now on and forever…" I pointed at Her "I'll stand against you!"

[Ending Theme: REALxEYEZ by JxTakanori Nishikawa]