Tokyo-3 Arcana
Chapter 4
Look Outside, Look Inside / Settling In
"So, how did the honeymoon planning go, Shinji?" Misato smiled like a content cat to her ward as soon as the door opened.
"Ah, well... You know, Asuka likes the beach, I like the mountains. She can't sky, I can't swim..." He answered, moving his hands, palm up, like the scales of a balance; and without the slightest hint of a blush. "I think we will have to arrange two honeymoons." Smiling widely, he snapped his fingers. "Hey, I have an idea! Let's Asuka choose where we spend our honeymoon, and you and Kaji go to the other place. Everybody wins!"
Her jaw dropped, and her empty beer can fell on her lap. "B-b-but... You... Her..." She stammered.
Shinji smiled crookedly at her, "Gotcha." There was a little click and a flash. Shinji looked at the small screen, and smiled like a piranha. "Hoopy! Documentary proof!" He pocketed his cellphone in a smooth movement. "Misato Katsuragi can actually blush like a school girl!"
Misato gasped, "Why, you..." She stood up to get the incriminating proof, but she had to stop and rub her eyes, to try to get rid of the spots in her vision.
"Oh, your face!" Shinji snickered, and suddenly, he began to laugh, it was a full belly laugh; his shoulders shook as he grabbed the back of a chair to steady himself. A moment later, Misato joined him, thinking: ´Ah, I can live with that pic floating around in NERV, as long as Shinji is safe and sound.´
'Gods, I missed him!' She smiled at him, passed an arm over his shoulders, and pulled him down as they laughed their heads off. She messed with his hair, glad to gave him back. "Gimme that cell phone, you scoundrel!"
"No way in this world! This is prime quality blackmail matter!" He answered, barely understandable with his laughter. If there was something Shinji had learned to love during his long stay in Oerth, it was laughter. He wiped a tear from his left eye, looked at Misato and started again.
The Major laughed so hard she began hiccuping. She felt the last of the stress she had accumulated since Shinji had disappeared into the Twelfth Angel drain off her body.
Shinji looked at her, still laughing. ´Heavens above, I missed her!´
In the deepest part of the forest around Tokyo-3, a bank of mist evaporated; leaving behind a short, squat, powerfully muscled figure.
"By the Forge of my Ancestors! Where am I?" The voice was deep and husky. The dwarf stood up, appraising the environment. Powerful fingers, tanned by the heat of the forge, closed on the handle of a beautifully crafted axe. Its whole surface was covered with intrincate filigree, in what in this world would be called celtic knots.
The dwarf looked around, finding the sun was almost touching the horizon, she had to hurry up. "Hrumpf... I guess I have to lit the coal to melt the ore. Good thing I still have some sunlight." Expert eyes looked around, finding a dead, dry tree. A few hits of the axe later, there was a pile of wood, ready for a campfire. A short search later, the perfect place to camp had been found. Interestingly, there were a few small boxes, no bigger than her open hand; made of strange, colorful paper lying on the floor. The paper was about as thick as parchment, but very smooth, impossibly smooth, in fact.
"Hmm... This is strange, the images are much better than I have ever seen... This must have costed a fortune to print! Why are they just lying around... like garbage?" She turned the box around, it was strangely folded and one side had been glued to itself. The other side had been ripped apart. Inside the box, there was a... was that a bag? What could it be made of? The bag was made from some metal sheet! Beaten so finely she could barely feel the thickness between her fingers, the metallic bag was quite clean, except for some smears of a dark stuff. One side of the bag had been ripped open, and the rip was strangely clean, like it had been cut with a knife. But it was irregular, like it had been made by a drunk. What a strange thing...
"Pocky? Who, or what, in the name of the gods is a Pocky?" she turned the box around, although there were smaller characters printed on the box, they were quite small, and she thought it would be better to examine them later. "Could be this human girl´s name, I guess." She took a sniff of the dark stuff in the bag. It was a new smell, strangely sweet, but very alluring. It made her salivate a little. "Ah, I see... These must be wrapped offerings to the god or goddess, Pocky!"
She shrugged, humans were weird anyway, and collected the strange boxes to study them later.
Taking a piece of flint from a pocket, the dwarf sat on a stone, and started the fire by hitting the axe with the piece of flint, so the sparks would fall in the kindling she had perpared.
She was lucky to still have a few iron rations available. This was not a good time to go looking for food in an unknown place.
Once she had a good fire, she settled on a flat stone, and began the long wait for the light of the next day. She was careful to keep in a not too comfortable position.
She wasn´t very far from a city, if the sea of lights she could see in the distance was any indication. Still, walking around in the dark, in an unknown forest? No thanks. Will-o-wisps might be around, and she had no intention of getting even more lost than she already was.
Come morning, she would get close to the city. Maybe she could find an inn to stay for a few days.
Unknown to her, a human boy had set up camp downhill, and was getting ready to eat. The boy pushed his glasses up his nose, and stretched his arms. It had been a long, fun day, playing his war games in the wilderness. Well, not exactly wilderness, the forest around Tokyo-3 was quite tame, after all. He gathered his maps, and put them back in the weather-proofed mapbag.
An hour later, Kensuke Aida laid down in his sleeping bag, and looked up at the starts.
When he fell asleep, he dreamt of piloting an Evangelion Unit in battle against an Angel.
Up in the roof of the apartment building, Asuka Langley Soryu sat on a bench, watching the sunset. It was, in fact, the very same bench she and Shinji had occupied back when they had been doing their synch training to face that gott-damned two-for-the-price-of-one Angel.
She had already collected the containers they had taken with them to eat before they had began with her first lesson with Shinji as her... mentor? Teacher? He had surprised her with the easy way he had evaded her tries to rip his ribbons. She hadn´t even been able to rip a single one of his!
The redheaded pilot wasn't really prone to introspection. During her most honest moments, she herself knew it was one of her worse character flaws. But, as she considered herself a creature of instinct, she wasn't really worried about that. Actually, she preferred not to think too deeply about... relationships.
She drew her legs up on the bench, hugging her calves and resting her chin on her knees. She needed to think.
Shinji's words had shaken her to the very core of her being. 'He actually likes me! Despite how awfully I have treated him, he likes me.'
'Why?'
Her emotions were running all around her. His confession about the kiss... She smiled to herself. ´Brain meltdown! I knew he couldn't have disliked my kiss! And he has nice, soft lips...' Softly, her fingers touched her lips for a moment, remembering the feeling of Shinji´s lips over her own. For a moment, she allowed herself to get lost in the memory.
She winced when she remembered how that night had ended. His immobility had disturbed her on a level she didn´t understand.
Until now.
Her eyes snapped open. 'Nineteen years! Five years away from here! He is nineteen years old in a fourteen years old body!"
Impossible to believe.
But...
The little guy had changed. She couldn't deny that. Just a few days before she could have kicked his scrawny ass all around the block and he wouldn't have done anything to stop her.
Now? He was running circles around her without any effort! She realized then that baka Shinji was no longer that little scarecrow of a boy she could push around to her heart's content.
He could, and would, push back! That thought was strangely exhilarating. Finally, the Third Chosen Child was really a rival she could... what? She didn´t really know what to think of Shinji now. He had changed in a fundamental level, he had grown up, had matured in ways she didn´t know. Even his body language had changed. Gone was that shyness, that... meekness that was so irritating. ´Now that I think about it... He hasn´t apologized to me! Not the way he used to do. This time, I think it was a sincere apology, not just an automatic excuse to avoid a confrontation.´
She looked at the simple ring on her middle finger. A true magic ring! She had chosen to put the ring on her right hand, very deliberatedly not on her left hand. Her left ring finger was off-limits.
Very off-limits. She would only accept a very special ring for that finger. And only from one person. Her true love.
Down at the sewers, a bank of fog receded, leaving behind a strange creature. It could be described as a bloated sack of protoplasm. As soon as the fog disappeared, the thing began to move around the filthy water, absorbing the decaying matter around it. An unlucky rat paid with its life for the moment of curiosity that kept it immobile in the reach of the thing. The rat was engulfed by the creature. The animal died in just a few, painful moments, and the dead body began to broke down into a digestible slush while the thing crawled.
"Father, Kodama, Nozomi; I´d like to introduce you to a friend of mine, this is Limiry Siggari." Hikari bowed to her family, and stepped aside, allowing a short, strange girl to enter her home.
The girl bowed deeply, as Hikari had taught her. "May Desna´s blessing bring sweet dreams to the people in this home, for all the Horaki Family and their friends."
Mr. Horaki raised an eyebrow at the strange greeting, still, the girl seemed quite nice. Although just why she had decided to dye her hair neon pink at so young an age was beyond him.
Hikari and Limiry put the bags of groceries on the kitchen table, while Mr. Horaki watched the strange girl. "Um... Miss... Siggari? Please sit down a moment."
Limiry looked at Hikari, who nodded minutely. Limiry bowed again, and sat next to Nozomi. The youngest Horaki sister smiled at her. They were about the same height, and Nozomi put that in the plus column, she needed more friends her age. "Nozomi, please go help Hikari in the kitchen, while I speak to Miss Siggari."
Nozomi pouted for a moment, but obeyed.
Mr. Horaki folded his newspaper and looked at Limiry. "Hello, I´m Hikari´s father, welcome to our humble home."
"Thanks you, Sir. It´s a very beautiful home." Limiry looked around, marveling at the place, smiling widely. "Hikari told me you are looking for a tenant. Is that still true?"
"Well, yes... Things have been somewhat strained all over town, with the Angels and all that."
"She already paid for a week, dad." Hikari´s voice came from the kitchen. "Monday I´ll go to the bank to deposit the money. I used a part to pay for the groceries."Once her father had nodded his approval, Hikari thought, ´I need to find out how much the gold coin she gave me is worth, I think she might be staying more than just a week...´
"Ok, honey. Remember to give her her receipt" Hikari handled most of the family finances anyway. The man turned to his new guest "But what about your parents?"
"Oh, no need to worry, sir. You see, I am actually a g-" From the kitchen, Hikari cleared her throat. "g-grown person. I´m just small. A medical condition, you know. I´m kinda sensitive about that." She shrugged; for a moment, Limiry had forgotten about Hikari´s advice. "Ahem. I´m a... what do you call it..? A suitcaser?"
"A backpacker. She´s travelling the world, dad. She still need to polish her Japanese a little, dad." Hikari added from the kitchen, while she had started to prepare dinner.
"Ah, yes, backpacker. Sadly, my backpack was misplaced and I´ll need to replace my things. Lucky me, I had kept the money on my person. So it was not not as big a loss as it could have been. Still, I would like to stay in Tokyo-3 for a while. This place is wonderful!" Behind her eyes, gears were turning, ´There´s a lot of new stuff here! I bet I can keep the Bleaching at bay for a long time here!´
Mr. Hokari nodded. "Welcome then to our home, Miss Siggari. After dinner, we can go through the house rules for your stay."
"Thanks you, Mr. Horaki. I look forward to it. Hikari has been very helpful." Limiry bowed respectfully at him, and went to the kitchen to help Hikari.
Inside an abandoned warehouse, in the same neighbourhood Rei Ayanami lives, another bank of fog manifested itself, this time leaving behind a black, shiny spider the size of a dog. Immediately, the creature began to work on a web, ready for any prey that wandered into its parlour.
Author Notes:
The previous Shadow invasions brought inteligent beings, this time, they brought simple animals too. They have no magic, beyond what they need to actually exist. For the time being, they will keep to their current environment, but soon they will come into conflict with the inhabitants of Tokyo-3.
In a bad way.
BTW, the line "bloated sack of protoplasm" comes from The Ren & Stimpy Show, a very funny cartoon. Its gross-out humor is not for everybody, and it is very uneven in quality; but some episodes, like "Space Madness" are amazingly fun to watch.
