The sunlight flickered. Once. Twice. A third time.
The train car was slowing down again.
The sunlight doubled itself for a split second. I was seeing two seething hot masses fill my vision this time. In the burn of their gaze, almost nothing could be discerned.
Then it was gone. Like it had never existed. The figures alongside me had no reaction to it. Did they have any reaction to anything?
Stupid question, of course they did. But it was always tied to each-other somehow. Never me. Never the light. Never this neverending train ride. It was equal parts mesmerizing and infuriating.
The train came to a stop at last. The doors opened, and I was greeted with quite the unusual sight. There were two this time. There'd never been two before.
A boy. A girl. Siblings, twins, maybe? They looked the same age, around their late teens. They also shared most features. Short chestnut hair, deep brown eyes, unisex uniforms. The only discernible difference between them that wasn't their gender was their height. The boy was taller.
They greeted most of the assembled on the train with words that slipped by my thoughts like sand through a sieve. The response was similarly muted, though seemed generally warm.
Doors closed, tracks clacked, steam hissed. They took their seat, boy first, seating his sister on top of his lap. Strange. There was enough space for them both here. Why were they-
The sunlight was broken. I hadn't realized, too busy staring at the newest additions to the cavalcade of strange characters crossing this strange space with me. The train had started again, and we'd entered a tunnel. The first I'd seen.
Lights blared on from the train itself and the inside of the tunnel. But they were dim. Pathetically so. They barely lit up the faces of my fellow travelers.
We traveled through that darkness for a while. As we did, my spine sent prickles through me more and more. Something was wrong. My anxiety was kicked into high gear, survival instincts getting roused. Something was wrong.
Then the darkness was illuminated. Abruptly.
I saw a horizontal column of orange-yellow blinding me, it's colossal bulk probably dwarfing the train car we were in. Even from far away, it was painful to gaze at it, accustomed to darkness as I had become.
Then I heard a soft rumbling that slowly grew louder and louder. The train hadn't stopped moving, but the column was getting closer. Then I realized, as the light spilled downwards, what the column was.
"Morning, you two."
I tried making that enthusiastic. Emphasis on tried.
"Gott, what happened to you? You look like you were hit by a truck," the ever-tactful redhead of our trio offered. Honestly though, she was right. But she could've at the very least acted nicer about it.
"Bad dreams. Woke up at 5 AM. Feel like shit," I answered, truthfully. Though I did notice my tone was crankier than usual.
I chose to believe I had no real choice in that. I did. But when you were barely keeping your eyes open and waiting for school, it was hard to look at things like an adult.
"You better not start dragging your feet because of your bad sleeping habits, Fourth."
I felt my eye twitch.
Asuka, Asuka, Asuka. What was there to say about her that hadn't been said a thousand times over by a thousand other people?
Well, even from the position of a neutral, completely unfamiliarized party, it was plain to see what her deal was. She was self-centered, wholly and annoyingly overconfident, easy to anger, and mostly approached social interaction with a goal in mind. That being said, something could be seen lurking just beneath that facade. It was obvious to anyone paying attention that the girl was trying to hide things within her from others.
I knew what those things were, of course. Which made it all the harder adopting an appropriate tact for talking with her. On the one hand, I didn't want to be too blunt, else I stifled my attempts to get close to her. On the other, I didn't want to seem like I was putting up a front to sugarcoat her into liking me.
But also, sometimes she just really, really annoyed me for real.
"How's your ass from last mission? Still sore?" I shot back, referring to her embarrassing entanglement with the Third Child's Eva.
She turned red. Whether it was due to anger or shame the world may never know. Probably both, all things considered.
"The Hell'd you say?!"
"Um, isn't it a little early in the morning fo-" Shinji started.
"You be quiet," the redhead interrupted. Shinji did not speak up after that.
A staredown followed. I was tired, and my eyes probably looked like shit, but I wasn't intending to back down.
Then I cracked a smile.
Pissing her off is too easy. But, better reel it back in before it gets out of hand.
"You know, princess, you could do with learning to take a joke."
"And what's that nickname supposed to be, dead-last?"
A reference to a universe and character I hope we never get to see.
"It just fits you, don't you agree? Also, dead-last? Really?"
"You did come out with the lowest synch ratio out of all of us in the last deployment," she said, while looking awfully smug about it.
I shrugged.
"I've been told it'll climb up with time."
"Not fast enough to catch up with mich," she said, flicking her hair with a smirk.
"Whatever."
"School's in thirty minutes," Shinji chimed in, looking desperate to end the conversation.
"Then hurry up and finish cooking breakfast will you, dummkopf!"
The walk to school was a bit different than usual, but even that was settling into normalcy now. Asuka on the left, Shinji on the right, me in the middle.
Was that supposed to be a metaphor or something for our relationship? I didn't know, and at any rate it was pointless to pay it much attention.
That however left room for other thoughts. Like how the dynamic between Shinji and Asuka would be impacted by me being here. So far, we'd been split up most of the time since we'd met each-other. But now, we were living under the same roof. Synch training being over and alll.
I had seen how much Rei impacted the relationship between these two by her lonesome, and she was not much of an active person. She lived far away from them. They only interacted with her so much. But me? That was a different story. It wasn't like I could help it either. I needed to be an active player in this story, not just subject to everyone's whims. The reasons were twofold: firstly, while I did want to return home, I very much didn't want to try and do so by dying. So there was that. Secondly, I needed to keep these people safe, both from the horrors we faced and from each-other.
But I didn't have a script to respond to this time. These were, as I had to keep reminding myself, real people now. The best I could do even with such intimate knowledge of them was guesswork. Which was liable to getting thrown out the window as time progressed and divergences increased exponentially, courtesy of Kano Akashi simply existing.
All in all, it was a shitty situation with likely shitty outcomes if I did something, and likely even shittier ones if I didn't. I sighed. Just going through all this stuff was making my brain melt.
"Yo, Shinji, Kano," Toji's voice jerked me out of deep thought. The jock stared daggers at the third member of our trio, who flicked her head away pompously. It didn't take long before she started walking away.
"Yo, Toji," I said, patting him on the back. Something didn't feel right about doing just that though. I turned back to Asuka, moving away from us.
"Hey Asuka, see you at class."
She stopped for exactly one second, without turning her head. Then she kept walking. Shinji and Toji gave me weird looks. I ignored them.
"Hoi Asooka, sea you at ~classss."
Toji's impression of me sounded like it had a big nose, and braces.
"Real funny," I responded, not feeling up to the taunt as we went out for lunch break.
"Come on man, you were asking for it. It's almost like ya want that devil to get close to us."
"I live with her Toji. I'm trying to be cordial."
"A bit too cor-dial if ya ask me. You got the hots for her or something?" he said, leaning in.
"Why does it always devolve to this with you guys? I'm capable of having a relationship with a girl without wanting to fuck her."
"Yeah sure you can. That's what all the people falling head-over-heels say first."
"It's called being normal," I rolled my eyes. Aside from being annoyed, I also got reminded of something, or rather someone, missing. "By the way, where's Kensuke?"
"He called in sick today, but it's probably just an excuse to prep his stuff for the trip," Toji rescinded, putting his hands behind his head as we found a place to sit.
Right. The trip to Okinawa. That was coming up.
Which meant Sandalphon was coming up as well. Fantastic.
The rest of lunch passed in relative silence, with only Toji making the occasional stirring comment. Me and Shinji? I was beginning to think we were a lot more alike in schedule and demeanor than what I originally thought. Which was probably not a good thing, considering what was supposed to come. But hey, I had enough stuff to worry about.
Out of the corner of my eyes I saw a sliver of blue. Rei, eating by herself.
"Yo guys Imma dip for like five minutes," I said, getting up, not waiting for a comment. I sorta got that anyway in the form of Toji complaining to Shinji about "betrayal" and "women". Or something like that, I wasn't listening intently to it.
"Good morning," I greeted, and took a seat next to her. Maybe I should have minded her privacy a bit more. At the same time however, I'd literally lived together a week with the girl. I'm pretty sure it wasn't weird. Maybe. Probably.
"Pilot Akashi," she acknowledged.
"How have you been?"
"I have been well."
"That's good to hear."
There was a pause.
"We have not spoken in some time," she continued.
Was that...puzzlement?
"We haven't. Sorry about that," I answered, and decided to go for the truthful option. "I just have a bit of a problem with approaching people. You know, not just to talk but also to like, go out and stuff. Do things. Ask about them. That sort of thing. And you're not a great conversation starter yourself you know."
She stared blankly for a little while. Then she nodded.
"I understand."
"I can pop around more often to talk. If you don't mind, of course."
She seemed to think that over, before nodding more slowly.
"That would be acceptable."
"Then please, just call me Kano, okay? No need for a last name basis."
"I will do so, then."
"See you at...shit we have a test, today right? Well see you then."
As I stood before the gargantuan form of Unit 05 I thought of many things, most of them contemplations on the titanic machine. But a considerable amount of thought was put into myself as well.
Unit 05 had so far behaved itself just fine. After two combat drops, and numerous other tests in the aftermath, it had proven reliable enough. Though those accomplishments did come with a fair bit of fine print.
In its first combat encounter it had been piloted by not one, but three people, messing up any harmonics data that could be gathered from it. It was a miracle we'd managed to operate it at all. On its second combat encounter, it had barely done anything. There was no stress push, no borderline emergency reached. These were considered, on paper, good things. Though, everyone was aware that the true situation wasn't so black and white.
They had data on all pilots in true life-or-death situations, in their own Evangelions. That was not the case for me.
As for the numerous successful tests, those were plagued by minor problems too. Namely, something about a psychoactive buffer preventing the level of synchronization from breaching the correct layer of the ego boundary, or so and so. I really tuned out by the point Ritsuko delved into pseudo-science.
Or rather, real science that I had no idea how to comprehend. Because I didn't come from a universe where you could quantifiably measure someone's soul, splice it and place it inside a giant cyborg made out of God's remains. It was all a little bit beyond me. Regular physics and biology were complicated enough without getting occult magic involved.
Still, that brought myself back into focus. I didn't connect with Unit 05. At all.
That sounded a bit disingenuous, but there was no other way I could word it. Unit 00 was strange, but it felt familiar somehow. I had to guess Rei I had something to do with that. Unit 01, for as little time as I'd spent with it, felt a bit cold and uninviting. But I still did feel it. I connected.
With Unit 05? Nothing. I could synch with it, yes. But it felt more like sinking into a lifeless ocean than a vaster being. There was none of the ebb and flow of what I knew was the soul of the machine. Unit 05 felt dead.
Part of me hoped that was just the buffer problem. But another, deeper part suggested something else.
This was the Eva made specifically for me. If you believed in the functionality of the soul inside like the majority of the show portrayed, only I could use it to its full potential. Only the Eva was not made for me at all.
Unit 05 was made for Kano Akashi, whoever he was. A man who I knew not. A person which in all-likelihood had his own goals, motivations, likes, dislikes, memories, problems and more. This person had become a ghost, only for me to fill his shoes. Now he had no past, his present was only mine, and his future was for me to decide. His soul, everything that Kano was, was gone. Erased.
So was it so strange then, for the Eva to reject me? Inside the Entry Plug, the Eva had no eyes, no ears, no sensory organs of any sort. But it could feel. Synchronization was a two-way street. I was it, and it was me.
And in that comparatively small window of time, the Eva could feel me just as well as I could feel it. I had no doubt it could make the distinction between me and what it was looking for. Hell, to take it a bit further, it could probably recognize that something was horribly wrong. The body of its pilot, potentially even its own son, was being hijacked by an entirely alien presence.
I sighed. It was hard enough trying to save people while accounting for the unpredictability of future events. I didn't need a weapon of mass destruction angry at me added onto that pile.
"Jeez, are you going to stay there all day?"
I turned my head to see several different shades of red and orange in the form of a person walking towards me.
"You've been staring at that thing like it owes you money for the past five minutes," Asuka said, stopping about an arm's length away. She was already in her plugsuit and seemed rather bored. Which was fair. She'd probably been here longer than me, waiting for her Evangelion to get set up.
"And you've been staring at me doing the staring how long?" I said regardless. Anything for the sake of banter, right? "Who wasted their time more?"
"Funny, Fourth."
There was a moment of silence.
"I have a question."
"Then just ask," she responded, callously. But I could tell she was curious.
"What is the plug like for you?"
She gave me a look of confusion.
"I mean, I know you like piloting Eva. That much is obvious. But what do you actually feel doing it?"
She looked to formulate a response, but stopped herself. It seemed the question had intrigued her enough. She stopped for a few seconds, deep in thought.
"Hmm. You know how it feels when you spend a long time in a warm bath?"
"Yeah."
"It's like that. But the water never goes cold. It just warms you up on the inside, constantly. It's pretty nice. Of course, a warm bath can't kill an Angel," she said, with a smirk. Then the look of puzzlement came back. "Why do you ask?"
"No real reason. I've just been inside a few Evas now. They all feel different. The one that feels the worst oddly enough is my own," I released a short laugh, but it was mirthless. "Hope that's fixed sooner or later."
"You're not getting your hands on my Eva, got that Fourth?" she said, poking the chest panel of my suit as a vague threat.
"Aw come on. And here I was starting to think you liked me."
"As if!" she scoffed.
"Then who do you like? Shinji?"
I had to admit my smile was a bit too wide for such a dumb joke then, and it got even wider when I saw her visibly blush.
"I wouldn't like that animated turnip if he was the last man on Earth," she said, swinging her head and flipping her hair dramatically.
About that.
"And I repeat, don't you get any funny ideas..."
"Alright, alright," I put my hands up. "I was just kidding. You know it's not up to me and I know I'd have to claim Unit 02 from your cold dead hands if I wanted to have a go."
"Such a smart boy," she said sarcastically.
"Good luck on your test, Asuka," I could only say in response. She blinked, then turned and walked away.
Should I have made that a sarcastic comeback? It sounded genuine enough...
The Entry Plug drifted into place. Numerous checks by technicians were completed. Red liquid filled the interior. A dazzling array of colors flashed. Anticipation. And finally, synch.
It was all rather standard and expected. Well, aside from the LCL. I don't think you ever really got used to that. I'd never seen Asuka or Rei react much to it, but they were strange cases in an already strange profession, to say the least.
There was a difference though. A certain buzz around the controls. Not just the controls, now that I was thinking about it. My arms, and my legs. It felt strange, but not unpleasant.
"Kano," a window popped up on my left, showing the faux blonde head of Project E.
"Doctor Akagi."
"How are you feeling?"
I thought it over, and decided to answer plainly.
"Sort of weird. I'm getting more response than usual, but it's a bit off."
"It's a good thing you've noticed the change," she looked over something to her right which the camera couldn't fit in frame and turned back to me. "We believe we have resolved the problem with the psychoactive buffer. The Evangelion should be far more receptive to your efforts now. In the long term, this will also mean an increase in synch ratio. That being said, adjustment could take a while for you. Take it slow."
I nodded, and the link shut off. That left me with nothing but my thoughts, but I had to put those away for now. I concentrated on what was in front of me, below me, above me. Everywhere.
And it was there. There was a definite shift in the Eva's presence. Namely there being one at all. A familiar feeling to Units 00 and 01 could be discerned. And there was also...a fragrance? I didn't taste of blood every time I was reminded my mouth existed, and I don't think it had to with my taste buds becoming overwhelmed either.
But there was still a reluctance. An unknown quantity. Something that should've been, but wasn't.
I had a thought to look for it. But searching around for a metaphysical energy source? Not exactly my area of expertise. Still, I was compelled to try.
I couldn't empty my head. I thought that was honestly impossible for any human being. And if it wasn't, then it certainly was for me in particular. Too much chaos going on in my brain.
I could, however, try to focus on one thing specifically, and hopefully in that find the answer I was looking for. I concentrated on the Eva, how it felt, how it smelled, how the touch of my suit meshed with the touch of the control yokes. I felt the vast ocean around me grow steeper and steeper. I couldn't see anything, for my eyes were closed.
But in that moment I felt the image of standing on top of a hill overlooking the abyssal depths. Something was warning me to not stray too far.
Was it a voice? It felt like I'd heard my name...no, Kano's name for a moment there.
Kano, I said take it slow! Damn it, the plug depth is increasing rapidly. If this goes on it...
It cut off again. I shrugged my metaphorical shoulders. Something really should have been setting off my threat response right now. But I was just so invested in this darkness. There lay something beyond it. It was something I could feel in the back of my brain, something I knew, perhaps more certainly than I had known anything in my life.
The gentle kiss of a great, protecting figure. The taste of something sweet, yet salty in my mouth. The embrace of a giant, and the coldness of infinity. Imprints, barely recognized by my conscious mind. Curiosity overtook me. I had to know what was calling. I had to.
So I plunged into the dark.
It felt crushing. Nauseating. It was like having bricks tied to your lungs and eyes. But deeper I went. I had to know. Something, someone was down here. They were calling. I needed to see it. I had to know.
My feet touched ground, and I felt like I had some measure of control again. I shambled, living the life of a drowned, blind corpse. But I could shamble. I had no idea where to go. I felt my heart beat deeper and harder as I moved. That was as close to a guide as I would get.
Then I caught a glint.
It was only just that, and a glint in an ocean of nothing escapes quickly. But I had an idea now. I shambled more, and slowly, I felt my legs getting some traction back in them. After a while I was walking. Then after that, running.
The glint appeared and disappeared. It felt like chasing a ghost. But you can catch even a ghost if you can follow it. And I was following it. Of that I was sure. I don't know why I was sure, but it was what it was.
Something kept nagging me, over and over about turning back. I didn't listen. I kept going.
The glint grew. It grew to about the size of a walnut. Then gradually bigger, and bigger. I could see it growing before my eyes. I could smell the fragrance in the air. I could remember things. Things that I shouldn't have remembered.
A day on the beach, sand between my toes as a woman picked me up. Why was she so tall?
Red, emergency lighting. A shock. Something blowing up. That woman. Here as well, dressed in a lab coat. Reassuring me, as she coddled me closer.
Screaming. People going all over the place. A feeling of infinite loss. The woman was not there anymore. A titan's gaze, wrath incarnate.
The glint had become a silhouette, curled into itself. It looked vaguely like a human, but it was sloughing onto itself. I extended one hand.
who
I reached. It was farther away than I had thought.
who
I got closer, and closer. The silhouette shifted.
kano?
I bent down. I was so close.
kano? kano? kano?
The hand touched the silhouette. It shifted again.
KANO? KANO? KANO? KANO? KANO?
I leaned in to get a better look. The silhouette's approximation of a head shot up.
It was staring at me.
A single, green eye.
WHAT DID YOU WHAT DID YOU WHAT DID YOU WHAT DID YOU WHAT DID YOU WHAT DID YOU WHAT DID YOU
DO
It's arms extended. It grasped me by the throat. It was strangling me. The darkness became crushing again. I felt my body, my bones, my brain, my heart, my lungs. They were all being ripped apart, torn to pieces. My individualistic mind, already vulnerable, was being snuffed.
Why...why are you...
WHOAREYOUTOACCUSEME
The Eva's jaw snapped open, and released a roar like a human scream mixed with nails on a chalkboard. Glass in the immediate vicinity started breaking. People nearby keeled over as their eardrums ruptured. The scale was dampened on the recording, but a reading to the side of it registered 250+ decibels.
The Eva's restraining bolts barely did anything. It had torn through those in under a minute. It plowed through armored wall after armored wall. Nothing was spared it's rampage. Maintenance crew, security officers, data analysts. LCL vats, spare generators, transport systems. Anything, living or inanimate, reduced to stress relief for a berserk demigod.
It didn't discriminate. It was an animal lashing out. It used punches, kicks, even its mouth. Bakelite sprayed in an attempt to stop it, but it moved too quickly. Armor plating slowed it down about as much as wet tissue paper. The other Evangelion Units couldn't be released in time.
It smashed through a wall that led to the holding cage of Unit 00. It saw only one thing in the other Eva: another target. That seemed to be its definition of the world. Just one giant pile of things it wanted to kill. It shot forward in rage.
Rei had just about managed to free her arm, and blocked the first strike. But the rest of her was still imprisoned. Her Eva started getting pounded.
Armor plating dented. Bones cracked. Blood gushed. Her AT Field was already neutralized, so she couldn't use it to defend herself.
Evangelion Unit 05 bit into Unit 00's neck and likely would have ripped it off had it not run out of power.
Its vizor went dark suddenly. Its limbs went limp. But its jaw was clamped shut, and wouldn't budge on its own.
Unit 00 used it's free hand to push it. The Eva fell, taking a chunk of its counterpart's neck musculature with it. It began sinking in the LCL. And finally its Entry Plug was ejected explosively.
As the recording faded out, and Misato removed the tape, I could only watch in complete dumbstruck awe.
Five minutes. Five minutes of unhinged madness, and the Eva had caused over ten billion yen in damages. Five minutes of the rage of a spiteful spirit, and over a hundred people were dead.
I felt the tears flowing. They would not be stopping any time soon, no more than the feeling of blood in my mouth could go away. I stared blankly for who knows how long.
I had nothing to say. Nothing to do. For the first time, my mind was empty.