Why am I here?

Hours spent in quiet contemplation couldn't answer that question.

The light never shifted in here. Time passed. Or at least, I thought it did. But the same bleaching white color continued to light my world.

My concept of time was screwy. I was beginning to think I was going screwy as well.

The ceiling...I'd seen it so many times. Yet it was so...alien. Had I really seen it at all then?

What happened...that could've all been a dream. Maybe I was in the hospital because of an exercise gone wrong. My body certainly felt very sore. That made sense.

Or a stroke. Or a cardiac arrest. Or a deadly virus. Or the plague. Or literally anything that wasn't what I had witnessed.

But no matter how many times I tried to shrug it off, how many times I tried to close my eyes and sleep it away, the Third Angel's hollow, emotionless eyes would pop up in my vision. Taunting me of the reality that was to come.

That pain...it hadn't been a dream. The Angel then...couldn't have been a dream either.

I don't know how long I spent swallowing that pill. Time seemed to stand still in this fucking place.

I didn't know how to feel about it either. I felt a hollowness...but, was I supposed to be angry? Sad? Terrified? Excited?

I could do nothing but stay there, my body too sore to care about moving much. Even if I did, I'd just rip out the many instruments I could feel on various part of myself. Even if I did that, where would I go?

I could feel something else now: something wet rolling down my cheeks.

I sighed for what had to be the umpteenth time. Staring at the ceiling, I didn't exactly have anything better to do than think. And thinking meant confronting a lot of unpleasant truths.

Like how I was in one of the most fucked up universes in anime. Or how I was at a very real risk of being eaten, absorbed, blasted apart, mind raped and more even before factoring in the giant naked goddess that would turn everyone into orange juice.

And I was almost certain I was going to be a pilot. My body actively felt smaller, weaker, though thankfully it seemed to be different enough from me as well. I don't know how I would feel being 14 again, and fat.

I pinched the bridge of my nose to focus. But of course...being in a potentially foreign body was going to be the least of my worries. Surviving the Angel War obviously wasn't something I'd ever prepared for.

Sure I'd read about it, and thought about it, but how were you supposed to use fictional analysis and trivia in a real life-or-death scenario involving an eldritch, barely alien being with an energy barrier made out of its soul?

And that's not even getting started on the human threats...

While the kids themselves couldn't exactly be called "dangerous", their emotional instability, as well the inability of anyone else to help them lead in large part to a lot of bad shit happening. That was in turn a large part of what ultimately allowed Third Impact to happen. Gendo, SELEE and their cronies meanwhile were the far more obvious and far less possible to handle problem.

How was I supposed to juggle fighting giant monsters and trying to stop a nefarious, possibly millennia old Illuminati plot to kickstart human evolution, at the same time?

You can't. Duh.

Which brought me to my next concern: was this the Rebuild or original continuity?

The first presented far more of a challenge because I was not going to go through 15 years of waiting for Shinji to turn up and then ending up at a point where I didn't know how the story went. Handling Evangelion and all the wonderful things therein was going to be hard enough without two near-Impact events and a decade and a half of God knows what happening between them.

The water that I'd seen had been blue, so at the very least that was a plus point towards the original series. But then again-

I could hear the door opening, the only sound disturbing my breathing and the chirp of the cicadas outside in a long time. I didn't know how to react appropriately when the nurse, a woman looking in her thirties or forties, came to rest her eyes upon me.

There had to have been less than a few seconds of silence between us, but it felt like minutes, all filled with doubts: would I even be able to understand what she was speaking? If so, was she going to be the Doctor Akagi and tell me what was happening? I doubted that, but what if they were a secretly important character? What if I wasn't even in the Geofront? What if I had to get a shot?

"Mr. Akashi. I see you are awake."

I licked my lips and swallowed, not realizing how dry my throat was until then. Well that took care of one concern. One of thousands.

"Uh, yeah."

"I see. Doctor Akagi will be here shortly. Is there anything in the meanwhile that I can get?"

A can of soda and a gun to shoot myself.

Kano Akashi.

I stared with unfamiliar eyes at an unfamiliar face that nonetheless looked familiar, greeting me from the glass of the cable car. It was me, yet not me. My face when I was younger, yet different in subtle ways, that no one aside from a person displaced out of their own body could tell.

The greeting from Akagi had been about what I expected. I was off put by how cold and mechanical the woman was towards me at first, but it was convenient she used my full name at least. Plus, I did remember she wasn't exactly a paragon of kindness to Shinji when he first arrived at Nerv.

She paid little heed to the fact that I apparently had short term memory loss, at least by her perspective. I counted small blessings like that and being able to seemingly understand Japanese perfectly, because how was I supposed to explain how I literally didn't remember a single shred of my life from a mild concussion? Or how I'd forgotten an entire language I apparently knew?

The car crash, as I knew now, had been very much real. As I suspected, Section 2 had tried to grab a hold of me in some sort of transfer process. Why...whoever dropped me off decided to do so in the middle of nowhere was anyone's guess. By the fact I...Kano...had dozed off to nap, Section 2 had taken it's sweet time as well. Which seemed about right, if the fandom's opinion of them was anything to go by.

At the very least I'd manage to suffer only mild injuries from the crash, whereas all of the agents with me were either hurt badly or outright killed.

"Is there something bothering you Mr. Akashi?"

I was snapped back to reality by Ritsuko's incredibly dry tone, even though she appeared to have already gone back to business reading notes about me and whatever else was important.

"Uh..."

"You've been staring at your reflection for the past several minutes," she said, eyes not even darting over.

Okay then.

"Well...I'm just thinking. This is a lot to take in."

"Just try to not let it impact your test tomorrow."

I could only nod. In truth, I wasn't really lying. Knowing what was to come didn't exactly make it any easier to swallow it.

"As of today, you've been selected by the Marduk Institute as the Fourth Child, pilot of Evangelion Unit 05."

I furrowed my brows in thought again, trying to push away a terrifying doubt with something else. If there had been any Eva I thought I would've been piloting, it would've been Unit 03 or 04, if that one didn't end up consumed in a Dirac Sea. Assuming this even was the original timeline, wasn't Unit 05 supposed to be a Mass Production Eva?

Assuming it was the Rebuild one, which I wouldn't be able to tell for some time at least, was I going to be riding a giant centaur? And if so, how did Mari play into all of this?

And that was how the rest of the ride was passed, in utter silence: Ritsuko too busy with whatever the head of Project E needed to catch up on, and me thinking about all the numerous ways I was going to be fucked royally by this universe.

So.

Thinking about a lot of stuff often meant I forgot some other things I should've probably remembered. Like where exactly I was going to stay.

Which was why I was surprised to find Nerv's very own purpleheaded Operations Director greeting us.

"He~eeello!"

Dealing with teenage hormones was definitely something a lot of people overhyped in these kinds of stories. I personally felt as if I at least had a more decent grasp on it than most at that age. Or at the very least, I was better at not showing it. Though I had to admit, even I was struck for a few moments by just how pretty she was. This was also the time to note the celebrity effect I had only somewhat gotten with Ritsuko was in full force.

I was always a tall kid, even by 14 years old, so I was expecting that to carry over somewhat in a body that at least simulated my own. But what I was not expecting, even though I really should have, was how small everyone else I was used to seeing looked.

Thankfully, both Misato and Ritsuko looked to be their taller Rebuild height rather than their original anime one, which was a relief, because I don't know how I could handle an original series cast of kids, being nearly a foot shorter than me.

What was also a relief was how Ritsuko stepped in before Misato could even tease me for my dumbstruck appearance.

"This is Captain Misato Katsuragi, Operations Director here at Nerv. You will be staying at her apartment for the duration of your mission here, due to the fact that another pilot is already rooming in with her," she finished without missing a beat.

"Yup! That means we're going to be staying together Kano," she said, about as enthusiastic as I remembered her. "You have to know, it's a great honor when a woman invites you to live with her."

Alright. Never mind. Teasing is in full force.

I could only stare at Ritsuko, who looked absolutely exasperated by her friend.

"Misato, honestly. We're not even out of the hospital..."

"Hehe, sorry Rits. You know me," she said, scratching her head sheepishly. "You don't mind though, do you Kano?"

"Uh..." I really needed to get better at phrasing. So in light of no other options that I could think, I opted for polite. "No, ma'am."

"Oh please, just Misato is fine," she waved off.

I nodded, while Ritsuko let out a quick sigh before continuing.

"Your belongings have already been moved to the apartment. The captain will escort you outside and afterwards drive you safely to your new quarters. As we discussed, your sync test will be tomorrow at 2 P.M. sharp," she finished as she eyed Misato with what I could only assume was the "don't kill the new pilot" stare.

Misato for the most part took it smiling sheepishly, whereas I was worried about how badly I could be hurt that she'd have to be warned twice.

The climb to the parking lot and subsequent ride passed quickly enough. It had to have been a late hour at night as well, as traffic was practically dead.

Then again, you don't exactly see much traffic around in the show. Not that there'd be much reason for it to exist anyway, what with city being mostly shown in a state of lockdown.

I became engrossed in thought for most of the time. I still had many major issues I still had to resolve in my mind and I couldn't stop it from going to town on, mostly, the absolute worst case scenarios of where this situation could lead.

It would almost be getting a bit redundant at this point, but this was Eva, so I felt as if I was at least partially excused.

The one part of the ride that stuck out to me was the exchange I had initiated when I remembered I needed to at least act normal and get to know one of the most important people in my upcoming life.

"So, I'm the Fourth Child."

"Yup," Misato for the most part was her casual cheerful self. But, the fact that she'd remained silent this whole time told me something, especially since she'd tried making small talk to Shinji the first time they met, and she probably knew him even less than me.

Whether it was stress, exhaustion, something else or all three was equally probable, and currently impossible for me to inquire about.

"So which one am I...I mean, are we staying with?"

"The Third Child, Shinji Ikari," she said, and her features immediately softened.

Well, that's something.

According to Ritsuko, it had only been five days since Sachiel had attacked. So was Misato simply showing pity for a poor 14 year old forced to fight her war for her, or was it the beginning of her caring for him?

Again, questions I couldn't have answers to. At least, not yet.

"So what's he like?"

"Quiet. A bit shy. But he's a good kid," her face became a bit more melancholic at that. "He's going to school now, here, just like you will. But I don't think he has any friends. I think...he really needs someone to just be there for him."

Misato seemed carefree, though I noticed how her eyes were fixed to me. She was expecting something.

"Uh, sure. I can help him out."

She smiled, nodding. "Thanks."

I really couldn't resist that tone of voice. In that moment I saw this world for what it truly would be, in a way an animation model just couldn't convey: these weren't just characters. In this world, they WERE real people, with real issues and feelings.

And Misato really looked and sounded sad at Shinji's predicament. Besides, it would basically be necessary for me to build a good relationship with him, if I were to, at least if not prevent the nightmares to come, soften them somewhat.

The rest of the ride was spent in comfortable silence.

I looked at the doorway that should've really been like any other, but somehow dreaded it more than ever for what it represented.

Yet Misato's calm, reassuring smile never left a single moment of doubt.

"This is your home now, Kano."

It really isn't. It won't ever be.

But for the tortured souls that I'd met? Maybe, just maybe, I could pretend, and make it convincing.

So I stepped through the doorway.

"I'm home."

"Welcome home."