Inosuke
It was the opposite of when he'd first awoken in this strange city. Rather than the shock of sensory deprivation, Inosuke felt overwhelmed by stimuli. In the multi-tiered room, dozens of screens shone bright symbols and letters which seemed impossible to understand. Things were beeping everywhere. People were shouting in flat voices, reporting whatever their screen was showing.
Inosuke crouched on the top level, near Shinji's asshole father. He was leaning over the rail, trying to take in every detail of the room. It was nothing like Muzan's palace, and for that he was grateful. Yet, most of the room was a great black empty space in front of a gigantic monitor, taller than the purple thing Shinji was piloting.
Inosuke had never seen a screen before. He simply needed to accept that some strange magic (or 'science', as they kept telling him) was showing the giant purple thing on the city ground above, facing off against the beast everyone kept calling an Angel.
Misato stood confidently in the centre of the crowd, calling orders back and forth, demanding information. People kept saying big words that seemed unrelated to anything. Meanwhile, the boar-masked man stared at the video, trying to keep his facial features calm so nobody would see how clueless he was.
It didn't occur to him that nobody could see his face because of the mask.
"You're a child, aren't you?"
Gendo spoke. The man's presence was more discomforting than the Angel's. The Angel was on a hunt, Inosuke could understand that. The guy with orange glasses, however, had yet to make sense. The man didn't move at all, he stayed with his eyes fixated on the big screen, hands folded in front of his mouth.
Inosuke responded. "I don't trust you."
"Are you under twenty?"
Inosuke looked around the room. He caught phrases about "connections", "spirals", and "activation". None of it made sense to him.
His mind boiled it down to a simple formula: machines are complicated. Big machines are more complicated. The purple thing is a super massive machine, therefore, it is mega complicated. The people who could look at their screens and know what it said must've been really smart, he guessed.
Suddenly, Inosuke felt the eyes of the man beside Gendo. This other man asked, "How old are you?"
Inosuke considered how to reply.
Even amidst all the stress and chaos of the situation, he felt the many stolen glances that were cast at him. He was untrusted. This room held conflicting causes, goals, and beliefs. Something was deeply wrong in this place. The only one confident in this wrongness was Gendo. Misato was focused on defeating Angels. She had one purpose. Gendo was being sneaky. Whatever was happening beyond all this, the only person in the room who fully embraced it was Gendo.
At least, that was Inosuke's guess.
"Answer me, boy." The grey-haired man said. "You're lucky we allow you to be here."
A harsh laugh eked out of Inosuke, a surprisingly malicious sound. "You've been staring at me since I got here. What was up with all those camera things on me? You were looking for something. You think I'm a monster or something?"
The man stiffened, then stepped back to the other side of Gendo.
They stared at the screen. Shinji had taken a single successful step in the thing everyone called the Eva. Based on the sounds of wonder, Inosuke guessed this wasn't normal.
If they're applauding one step, he wondered, how the hell is he supposed to fight?
"Hey, gloves-over-mouth," Inosuke said to Gendo. "You smell like a demon."
After he said this, the Eva fell on its face.
The room was filled with words. "Synchronization is failing!" someone yelled.
A dozen other terms, some of which Inosuke was inclined to think were made up, were shouted into the room. The many images and alarms gave off an easy-to-understand impression: Shinji wasn't in sync with the purple thing.
"You threw your son into a battlefield, coward," Inosuke stood. "No wonder that purple thing hates you."
"What?"
Gendo turned. The grey-haired man's eyes widened in surprise. All others in the room were too focused on Shinji to notice their boss. Gendo had fully turned to face Inosuke, an expression of cold disbelief on his face. "How could you know that?"
"Shinji!" Misato yelled the name over all other noise.
As they watched, the monster stabbed a glowing spear into Unit-01's eye, sending him flying back against a large building.
Several of the screens showed no activity. All links seemed to pull apart. Amidst all the noise and big words, Inosuke understood that Shinji was totally cut off from Unit-01.
Then, he felt it.
Inosuke stiffened. "What did you do to that thing?"
Gendo had returned to his previous pose, unnoticed by any of his underlings. The Evangelion opened jaws Inosuke hadn't realized it had. With a roar, it charged the Angel. Inosuke took another step toward Gendo, noticing that there was, in fact, another pair of eyes on him. He guessed that the owner of those eyes had a weapon.
He only had a question, so he stayed in place. "What is that thing?"
Gendo said, "You claim I don't care for my son, then ignore him as he saves us all."
Inosuke looked back to the screen as the Eva used one of the Angel's ribs as a knife. "Whoa…" the warrior leaned over the railing. "Kick its ass, purple thing!" He screamed, making half the employees jolt and the other half grimace. "And keep that kid safe!"
Gendo Ikari smirked behind his gloves.
The beast retaliated. There was a self-destruction. The Eva walked away from the flames, silhouetted by the light of its foe's destruction.
"Incredible!" Inosuke said. He looked over the railing, at the awestruck Nerv employees. "You see that shit! That's awesome!"
A few employees muttered, "Who even is that guy?"
Misato
The reconstruction effort was going well. Nerv's seemingly endless resources ensured protective gear for everyone who wished to assist. Despite the victory, Shinji's first battle had turned several city blocks into ruins. Before the Second Impact, such a quick response from so many people would have been an incredible feat. Now, it was the expectation. People needed to help rebuild, and they needed to move immediately, or everything would become a ruin again.
Despite this, many workers forgot the importance of their service. They dawdled, distracted, if they hadn't stopped entirely to gape at the stranger.
"I wonder what the brass are thinking," Ritsuko said, drinking some water in one of the break tents.
"Don't pretend," Misato replied, watching as the stranger ran back and forth at impossible speeds, carrying impossibly heavy loads, and jumping impossible distances. He still refused to wear anything other than his baggy slacks and sandals. He wouldn't even leave the swords behind.
Misato looked around, easily spotting a few of the 'volunteers' who were only there to keep guns aimed at the strange man. "You'd have him in one of the Eva containers if you thought it could hold him."
"Oh?" Ritsuko kept her eyes on a clipboard. "Whatever could you mean?"
Misato chuckled darkly. "There are so many unknowns I don't know where to begin asking. This," she gestured at the open area, "is surveillance. We're simultaneously monitoring his willingness to follow orders and the limits of his strength. Every single person here is probably going to have to file a report on everything the guy says and does today."
"He ignored orders, yelled at people for being 'weak' and 'too useless', and was more useful than anyone else in reconstruction. I pity whoever would have to read so many copies of the same report."
Misato shook her head. "I'm trying to figure out why he was so eager to help with the clean-up."
"Really? That's seems the most obvious answer to me."
"Oh? Enlighten me."
Ritsuko watched as Inosuke jumped across rubble. "He claims to be some kind of monster fighter. Now, he's walking all over the place where monsters battled."
Inosuke
He hadn't even broken a sweat. The former demon hunter had been piling the rubble aside, making a show of being as helpful as possible. Part of him really did want to help this city. The people who lived here had nothing to do with the Angel, so it was only fair that the Nerv people help in fixing up the city.
They were all so slow. He wanted to show them how it was done. It had taken a few minutes before he realized that this was actually the fastest they could work. It was confusing. A few demon hunters would have had the area clear in a day. These were hard-working people, he could tell. There was determination to clean the city. Yet, they seemed so slow and weak to him.
Eventually, he managed to get to where he'd wanted to be in the first place: atop the building where Unit-01's hand had crashed down. To his mind, it was a high place. A hunter went to a high place to see the lay of the land.
What he'd failed to consider was that most of the buildings were of the same height. The only view he got was of the efforts below. That was interesting, at least. Countless eyes looked up to him. As was quickly becoming standard, he felt an atmosphere filled with a mix of desire, fear, and something colder.
He couldn't understand some of the things in the air. Maybe the air in this universe was different, he wondered.
"Where are you?" He looked around what parts of the city he could see. The scars on his back stung. The idea crossed his mind that, after all the scars and memories he'd accumulated, he might never again see his friends.
Suddenly, he fell to a seated position. "Why am I here?"
Shinji
The florescent hospital lights washed out all color. Everything was sterile, bordering on lifeless. He felt wrong for being there, as if he were a germ that needed to be scrubbed away. There had been a girl with blue hair and red eyes, earlier. He had seen her being wheeled down through the halls. As she had passed, she'd said, "So, you're the Third."
Shinji sighed. There were no answers. Every step he took brought only questions and pain. It had become so much worse since he'd stepped into the Eva. Throughout his life, he'd been able to exist by simply reacting to things. In Unit-01, however, that hadn't been an option. All senses and emotions had been pushed to their limit, with pain as the unifying thread.
His arm still ached. In the battle, the Eva's arm had been twisted until it snapped. In that moment, he'd been convinced his own arm were being torn off.
He'd read once that some people who lost their limbs could still feel them. Now, as he stood in the hospital, he felt the arm being twisted, just as it had been during the fight. He stared at it to be sure it wasn't being twisted by some unknown force. It seemed wrong that it should be perfectly functional.
Most of the battle itself was a blur, and he wondered if that was okay. What bits he could remember came as feelings instead of images. A spear stabbing his eye. His back hitting a wall. Bursts of blinding light. Something clamping his skull so tight he'd thought his brains would burst out.
They'd lied to him. They'd promised he'd be okay. But now… his chest was hollow.
He'd been able to 'tune out' for a long time now, about as long as he could remember. Ever since he was little, he'd been able to just tune out of situations where he didn't want or need to be. Now, though, it felt like that toggle was no longer present. Something like a black hole had appeared in his chest, and it seemed to be consuming him from within.
He could do nothing but watch and experience life with this new hollowness. In some moments, he felt like he was breaking through, the same way a person breaks through the surface of water. In those awful moments, all the emotions that he hadn't experienced flooded him in a confusing and terrifying mix.
In the moments he could bring himself to feel, he was angry. They'd lied to him. That boar guy probably knew that he was heading to death…
No, that didn't make sense. Why bother to save him in the first place, then?
Shinji sighed and, for lack of knowing what else to do, awaited orders.
Eventually, orders came. His living accommodations needed to be decided.
Ritsuko
"Behold!" Inosuke was bent backwards, holding his ankles while his face rested between his feet.
Ritsuko almost walked out of the room on the spot. She'd requested him to give a demonstration of his ability. His first thought was a sickening display of contortion. She took another sip of coffee and made a note about "extreme flexibility".
"Can you show me anything else?"
"What do you want?" He snapped back to a standing posture like a rubber band, and promptly sat in a cross-legged sulk. "I agreed to talk because I'm just as confused as you. Ask better questions! I either taught myself or I learned it in training."
Training. Finally, some word she could understand.
"What kind of training?"
"Hmm…" He raised a palm and counted off fingers as he listed his history. "Hunting in the forests. Standing under an ice-cold waterfall. Moving a big rock. Lots of sword-fighting. Obstacle courses. Blowing into a gourd until it burst."
Ritsuko rubbed her temples. "You blew into a gourd?"
"Yeah." He cocked his head. "You don't have those? Big, tough, weird-shaped jar thingies."
"I know what a gourd is, thank you."
She sat down. "Alright, an easy question, then. How old are you?"
"Sixteen."
Ritsuko's eye twitched.
"Oi, Rezuko."
"It's Ritsuko. Let's try a new tactic. Are you hungry?"
"Always."
She lifted an eyebrow, then jotted that bit of information down. "The sooner I'm satisfied with your answers, the sooner you'll eat. We'll treat you to whatever you want."
"Oh… I want sushi."
"Alright," Ritsuko made a mental note to look up the cheapest conveyor belt sushi restaurant in Tokyo-3. "Now, let's—"
"No, it's time for my question. What is that purple metal thing? And why does it give off a mother sort of energy?"
The doctor simply looked at Inosuke. The man had been scanned time and time again. He wasn't an Angel. His pulse was normal. His anatomy was utterly unremarkable. Yet, he was an anomaly.
Her original theory that he'd been sent by the military was dashed. Her follow-up theory, that he was connected to the Angels, was partially denied. His memories and abilities suggested that he'd existed prior to the Angels, meaning he wasn't created by them.
In the broadest terms, this meant that their soft-faced friend had either specifically been pulled into their world, or an opening had appeared in his world that he happened to stumble through.
"When you got here," Ritsuko said, "did you walk through anything?"
"Don't ignore me! Why did the Aiv— Eavan—"
"Just call it an Eva."
"What is the Eva?"
Ritsuko sighed. "If I explained it to you, do you think you'd understand even half of the words I'd use to describe it?"
"Oh," Inosuke leaned back. "Hadn't thought of that. I've got a different question, then."
"Fire away." Ritsuko almost sighed in relief, amazed and content that he'd accepted such a sloppy answer.
"Are there more of those Angel things?"
Finally, something she could reveal without worry. "Yes. There will be more."
"Hmm…" Inosuke crossed his arms and tapped his fingers against her biceps. That was another thing that didn't make sense. How could someone so young develop such a physique?
Actually, related to that, it meant that his body didn't operate like a normal human's. The fact that he'd lifted a car was inhuman.
So, they knew nothing after all.
"When they attack next," Inosuke leaned forward. "I want to fight." He threw an accusing finger at her. "All of you are hiding something. I can get along with Misato and the kid, but you and the orange-glasses man are hiding something. I don't like how you're trying to act so confident when I can sense fear in you."
"Then, why help us?"
Suddenly, he stood, took on a ridiculous pose, and thrust his thumb at his sternum. "I am a member of the Demon Slayer Corps. I fight monsters!"
"We appreciate your spirit."
He'd already proven himself useful for reconstruction efforts. Perhaps there was some way they could use him. Still, they didn't fully understand what he could do. At the least, he knew too much, and he didn't seem able to hold a secret. Their sole blessing was that he didn't realize the significance of his knowledge.
"One more time, Inosuke. Impress me. Show me something I wouldn't guess or expect."
The teenaged warrior crossed his arms and hummed loudly. Of all his traits, the most annoying was his grandiosity. Each gesture and syllable that came from the kid was loud and bombastic.
Soon, the kids pulled out his katana. Ritsuko started as he said, "Don't worry." Then, he stretched his arms to their full length, keeping the swords facing downward. "Breath of the Beast. 8th form."
He knelt, touching the sword tips to the floor. His breathing became slow and strange. His body was motionless. Ritsuko was surprised, but unimpressed. She still hadn't disregarded the possibility that he was intentionally playing them for fools.
After several seconds, Inosuke lifted his head. "Shinji's dad is in a large room. He's the only person there, but several people are talking."
Ritsuko froze, her expression hardening into a mask of polite indifference.
Inosuke continued, "In the big room where we watched the Angel fight, there are a lot of people. Most of them are just chatting. One of them is moving his hands like he's practicing… shamisen?" He bowed his head again, his breath returning to the odd pattern. "Misato and Shinji are in an office two floors up. She's angry about something."
"Impossible." Ritsuko leaned forward, resting her forearms on her knees. At that moment, Shinji's accommodations were being decided. Misato was there, as well. There was… how could…
"Tell me exactly what you just did. Thoroughly explain."
Inosuke returned the swords to his hips and sat. "Short version: I felt the air. Where people move and look and speak. I can read it if I focus."
Ritsuko nodded. "Okay," she was writing furiously. "I want to hear the long version. Also, did you say that was the 8th form of something?"
"Yeah, so you do listen."
Ritsuko nodded grimly. "What are the other 7?"
Shinji
A strange day culminated in a strange night. Shinji was lying in a bed in Misato's apartment. Somehow, he'd been welcomed into this messy home. Already, Shinji Ikari was leeching off someone else. He wanted to be there, to be in this home. Yet, there was no doubt that this place refused him.
Shinji had wanted to take the small room at Nerv HQ. He'd tried to be out of the way. Misato, for whatever reason, didn't allow him that.
Now, all he could do was lie sleepless, images from his fight playing through his mind. The fight didn't belong to him, neither did the victory. The Eva had done it. That strange, living thing had done it.
He sighed.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the window. Shinji didn't respond. The knocking turned into a heavy slam that threatened to break the glass.
"What now?" he wondered. He slid the window open. Inosuke fell inside. "You're too slow!" he said in a gruff whisper. "I've been hanging outside forever!"
Shinji stared blankly at him, then looked out the window. There wasn't even anything that Inosuke could have climbed. "Did you jump up here?"
"That's your question?" He tapped the back of his hand on Shinji's forehead. "After everything!"
"Ow!" Shinji rubbed his forehead. "Why are you being so mean? What are you doing here?"
Inosuke shook his head, sighed, then froze. His eyes were transfixed on the floor. "Is that tatami?"
"Yeah."
Inosuke shook his head. "That comes later. First, I promised I'd talk to you after you got in the Eva. Turned out the thing hurt you, so I owe you extra, as I see it. So, I'm here to pay you back."
"What?" Shinji tilted his head.
Inosuke spoke as if he didn't hear the question. "I promised I'd tell you what I felt from the purple thing. I can feel the way the air moves. When people move or speak, and where they look. I can read that. Where I'm from, a lot of people can just feel energy coming off people. Energy and intent. All that stuff. It seems like people here can't feel or read any of that."
Shinji stared at his companion. Slowly, he sat up. Whoever he was, this guy had come around to fulfill his promise. Shinji appreciated the thought, even if he wasn't so sure about the intent behind it.
Inosuke leaned forward. "What happened in there? It looked like the Eva thing lost control of itself. You were in recovery for a while."
Shinji winced. "I hated it."
Inosuke waited for more, but Shinji merely pulled himself further and further into a ball.
"Please," Shinji said. "Take off your mask."
"Um? Okay?" Inosuke pulled the mask off. Shinji was again surprised at the softness of his face, and the harshness of his expression. "Why do you want the mask off?"
Shinji looked at him, thinking hard for several minutes. The strange intensity of the face was something Shinji envied. It conveyed clear, unambiguous feeling. Shinji could read that face as easily as Inosuke claimed to read whoever was in the room.
"I guess… you're the only person around here I believe. I don't know what anyone is thinking. It's stupid. I don't even know who you are."
"Again, I'm Inosuke!" As if the gesture were attached to the phrase, he threw his thumb at his sternum as he said it. This time, Shinji could see the unwavering determination in the boar man's eyes. Shinji had met intense people before, but this guy was at an entirely different level.
"Right," Shinji said. "Before I got in the Eva… you said you felt something like a mother's love. What did you mean?"
The strange man shrugged. "That's what it felt like. That thing felt for you. That feeling reminded me of the memory I have of my mother."
Suddenly, Inosuke stretched, then collapsed onto the tatami, staring at the ceiling. "I don't get any of you."
"What?"
Inosuke groaned, clearly annoyed. "You can't do easy things. You're weak and you're slow and you ask so many questions. But you don't feel anything!" He flew up into a cross-legged seat. "You all have the same logos on your shirts! You fight the same monsters. But all of you just…" He gripped his hair and growled like an animal. "You don't show how you feel! I wonder how you any of you can get along. You don't show anything and - for some dumb reason - you can't feel how people feel like people in my universe can."
Instantly, he fell back. "I want to go home."
Shinji stared at the figure. He was frustrated, angry, and unafraid to show it. Was it courage or a simple lack of a filter?
There was something uniting the two of them. Both were alone. Both had moved to a strange and unknown place. This strange visitor from another Japan had entered the world just as an Angel attacked. His introduction to the people of this world was the threat of murder from Shinji's own father.
As Shinji opened his mouth to ask a question, a pyjama-clad Misato flung the door open. "You're loud. I could recognize your voice from my room, Inosuke."
Sleepily, she looked down at him. Inosuke didn't respond. Misato grunted. "Don't you have your own room you should sleep in?"
The man on the floor grunted, then scoffed. "I don't want a thousand walls between me and the sky. I'd sooner sleep on stone without a blanket."
Scratching his chin awkwardly, Shinji said, "Um, I don't want to be mean, but I think Misato will get in trouble if you stay here overnight."
Inosuke stood, then looked her in the eye. "That's right? She'll get in trouble with the people she doesn't trust. Well, I don't trust them either, so whatever."
"It's more complicated than that."
Inosuke grunted. "Whatever. I'll leave."
He looked at Shinji. "Oi, kid. Sorry I asked you to go in the Eva. I didn't think it'd hurt you." He offered a calloused hand.
Shinji looked at the hand for a while before taking it. Inosuke gripped it firmly and shook it almost to the point of pain. With a nod and a grunt, Inosuke added, "When the next Angel comes, I want to help in some way."
Something dropped in Shinji's chest. "Wha— what do you mean?"
Putting his mask back on, Inosuke stared out the window. "More of those things are coming, no doubt. That Eva thing is the best bet of fighting, isn't it?" He looked to Misato, who nodded curtly.
"Right. So, Shinji," he sighed. "Unless there are more of those big things lying around, you're the warrior wearing that armour. That Eva likes you, or at least doesn't want you dead. Next time an Angel comes in…" he rubbed his head, then grunted. "I'll… distract it, maybe. Or you break through the shield while I climb up it. I'll… do something."
"Wait a second," Misato entered the room, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "You want to fight an Angel by yourself? On foot? With swords?" Her tone suggested she believed him to be stupid rather than brave.
Inosuke, for his part, shrugged. "I fight monsters and save people. That's a monster. I'll fight it. Now, I guess I'll—"
As he went to leave through the window, there was a flash of light in the distance. A quick, yellow burst of electricity shot up far beyond the city. A small crackle of unreal, neon yellow light on a cloudless night.
"Lightning?" Misato stepped forward.
"Zenitsu!" The boar-masked man leapt through the window with a shout that was heard throughout the neihbourhood.