Evangelion Fan Fiction

Evangelion Misfile

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter Three

Shinji had to wonder if anyone in the world had it worse off then she did.

"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!"

She recoiled quite suddenly from Misato's face, which was uncomfortably close to hers while she was lying in bed.

"M-M-Misato!" she yelped, for the moment blissfully unaware that she was still in a girl's body.

"About time you woke up," Misato said, putting her hands on her hips. Without Asuka around to fill the role, Misato had dutifully taken the position Shinji's nagging, bossy roommate, which she filled particularly well now that she was Asuka's age.

Shinji shook her head, the same short hair still somehow looking more feminine over her girlish face. "God damn it, Misato, do you have to do that!" she demanded, throwing the sheets off her bed as she jumped out of bed – she had too much adrenaline in her system now to snooze at all.

"Well, someone has to get you up," Misato grumbled. "You sleep right through your own alarm clock. Besides, I need backup before I talk to Ritsuko again. It's weird talking to her now that she's my guardian, and I still have to explain yesterday morning to her."

Shinji rubbed her eyes as she wandered into the kitchen. By the time she had gotten home last night, Misato had barricaded herself in her room – finding out her father was still alive had clearly been a shock for her, and Shinji had a hard time fielding Ritsuko's questions that night at dinner. She had tried passing off the illness story, but she wasn't sure how successful she was. Fortunately, Ritsuko was too busy with work to really pay much attention to it, and Shinji's relatively calm attitude about it seemed to put her at ease.

Shinji was in the midst of preparing breakfast and lunch (apparently, being young did nothing to improve Misato's cooking ability) when Ritsuko walked in from her room, looking prim and proper as usual.

"Good morning Shina," she said politely, the same way she had back before the misfile, though it was hard getting used to the new name. It made Shinji wonder if Ritsuko ever opened up to people, or if she was actually as closed off as he was – oh well, food for thought. "Good morning Misato. Feeling better?"

Misato just sat at the breakfast table eating her toast, looking unamused. "I guess so…"

Ritsuko pursed her lips as she poured herself a pot of coffee. "Well, be sure to see a doctor if you don't feel well…"

Misato nodded, turning her attention to the warm water penguin squawking by her feet.

Ritsuko sighed, her cat weaving between her legs distracting her momentarily. She reached down to stroke its flank.

Shinji eyed the two women petting their respective pets. It was an interesting sight - two creatures, completely incompatible, but coexisting (if completely ignoring one another) and finding refuge in their respective companions. The question was, which was the animal and which was the human in that analogy?

"I'll see you both at sync testing today," Ritsuko said as she hurried out the door. "Misato, if you're still not up for testing today, I want you to see the doctor, ok?"

"Alright," Misato muttered, her mouth full of toast. With Ritsuko gone, the cat began rubbing up against Shinji's leg.

Shinji, who was still in the midst of preparing her and Misato's lunch over a hot stove, tried to gently usher the cat away. "Hey, quit it! Shoo!"

Misato let out a deep sigh of relief as Ritsuko closed the door. "Phew…this is gonna take some getting used to. Ritsuko as my guardian, and my father as the head of Project E? What else could go wrong?"

Shinji turned to offer her a withered look. "Umm…you could have been turned into a boy…"

Misato found herself wishing, not for the first time since the misfile, that she had access to beer. She had no qualms with drinking in her younger body, but Ritsuko didn't keep anything stocked (or at least, if she did, she kept it well hidden).

Trying to amend the situation, Misato attempted a smile. "Are you ready for school, Shinji?" she asked with grim anticipation of the horrors that awaited them there.

Shinji shrugged. "My bookbag's by the door."

Misato shook her head. "I mean…are you ready for school?"

The color drained from Shinji's face as a cold shiver went through her body. "Honestly? I feel like throwing up. But I can't run away from this forever. Kaworu's gonna fix things up for us. For now, we've got to keep pressing on like normal until that happens."

Misato nodded, biting her lip as they finished up breakfast and headed out the door.

"Where is Kaworu anyway?" Misato pondered aloud as they paced down the street. "We haven't seen him since he snuck into your room."

"Oh, I'm sure he's busy," Shinji said, hopefully. "Out doing good deeds and proving himself and-"

"Look out!"

Out of nowhere, Kaworu came hurdling through the air, arms flailing as he tumbled onto Shinji, sending her stumbling to the ground.

Misato recoiled in surprise. "Wh-what the…where did you come from!"

Kaworu looked a little dazed as he looked up from where he sat with a sheepish grin. "Oh, hey girls. Just, uh…out being a Good Samaritan and all that…"

"That's good to hear. Umm…" Misato pointed to Shinji. "Could you…maybe…get off her please?"

Kaworu looked down and saw Shinji laying flat on her back, eyes clenched in pain as she rubbed the back of her head. What she didn't realize at first was that Kaworu's hand had landed right on top of her left breast.

God's in his heaven, all's right with the world, but in one little corner of the universe, there is nothing more irritating than a misfile…

What was more, Kaworu's body was situated right between her legs, her school uniform hiked up and nearly showing Shinji's panties.

Kaworu held his hands up very suddenly. "Whoops! Very sorry about that!"

Shinji's face turned an unhealthy tinge of red. "Eeeeeeeeek!"

Misato covered her ears at Shinji's shrill squeal. She watched with dispassionate curiosity as Shinji shoved Kaworu bodily off of her, before yanking the bottom of her dress down to cover the exposed parts.

"What do you think you're doing!" Shinji wailed, face red, eyes teary.

Kaworu held up his hands, defensively. "It was an accident! I swear!"

"Aren't you supposed to be out doing good deeds!" Shinji demanded. "What are you doing flying through the air like that!"

Kaworu smiled uneasily, scratching his cheek. "Ummm…it turns out being a Good Samaritan isn't as easy as I thought it would be…"

Shinji's face fell and Misato slapped her forehead with her palm. "You mean to tell me that you tried to 'help' someone and…?"

Kaworu's smile began to crack. "Honestly, why are people today so distrusting of strangers? Every woman I've approached has misinterpreted my intentions as being some kind of barbarian."

Misato sighed. "Well, you can't go around making offers to random strangers – people will think you're trying to sell them something illegal."

"Wait a minute," Shinji's eyes narrowed. "Why were you only approaching woman?"

Kaworu blinked in confusion. "Why would I offer my help to men? Men don't need help – they should be able to handle their problems on their own."

Misato's eyebrow twitched. "Are you some kind of misogynist or something?"

Shinji got to her feet. "Clearly you don't know a lot of guys around here."

Kaworu held his hands up. "Now, now, let's not go making assumptions about people and how many friends they have…"

Misato and Shinji both stared dumbfounded.

"Let me guess…" Misato crossed her arms. "You don't have any friends, do you?"

Kaworu hung his head. "What do you think? I've been kicked out of heaven, and the only two people I've been able to talk to for more than a minute think I'm a worthless incompetent."

Shinji crossed her arms. "You haven't exactly given us reason to suspect otherwise."

Misato glanced at her watch. "Damn it, we're going to be late at this rate! Shinji, we gotta get to school."

Shinji started. "Oh man, I totally forgot!"

Kaworu blinked. "School?"

Misato rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you know, education, gaining knowledge, learning you're a, b, c's…"

Shinji glanced at her watch and nearly panicked. "We don't have time for explanations, Misato!"

Kaworu got up and followed them. "Wait…don't leave me here! Let me come with you!"

Shinji gawked at him. "What! No way!"

Misato grabbed Kaworu by the arm. "Actually…this could work to our advantage…" She threw a look at Shinji. "That way he could help out at school, and we could keep an eye on him so he doesn't mess up like the last god knows how many times."

Shinji pursed her lips. She had not enjoyed being felt up one bit.

"Ok, fine…but if he cops a feel on me again, I'm gonna sick Asuka on him."

Misato cocked her head. "You sure you'll be able to do that? This Asuka doesn't seem to like either of us that much. Heck, she'd probably order popcorn if she saw something like that."

Shinji clenched her eyes as they all ran to school.

"Oh, man! I want things to go back to the way they were before! And that's pretty sad, considering the way things were before!"

They made it to school with a surprising amount of time to spare. They changed their shoes and headed to the classroom, where Rei was already seated, but Asuka was nowhere in sight.

Misato leaned over to whisper to Shinji. "That Horaki girl is the class rep, right?"

Shinji nodded, confused.

Misato smiled. "Well, Kaworu needs some kind of excuse to be here…"

She walked over to the class representative, who looked to be in the midst of a conversation with a fellow classmate.

"Representative Horaki?" Misato asked politely, getting her attention. "I'm sorry for missing school yesterday, I was ill."

Hikari nodded, smiling politely in return. "That's fine, Katsuragi. Your assignments are on your desk."

Misato nodded and bowed. "Thank you. Also, NERV has sent in a new pilot to Tokyo-3. I don't know if you got the paperwork yet, but he's been enrolled in our class…"

She waved over to Kaworu, who was standing outside the door, who smiled and waved at her gesture.

"A new student, huh?" Hikari smiled. "That'll brighten everyone's spirits, I hope. So many students are leaving, it'll be a nice change of pace for a new one to arrive."

Once everyone was seated, Kaworu scribbled his name on the chalkboard and smiled to the class as he introduced himself.

"Nagisa Kaworu, nice to meet you."

Half the girls were swooning over him as Hikari pointed him towards the set next to Shinji, who sat right in front of Misato (which she had skillfully deduced was her seat by discretely inspecting the names on the assignments placed within).

The teacher of course didn't even acknowledge that anything was new, and by the time lunch break came around, there was a crowd of girls surrounding Kaworu's seat with polite (and impolite) inquiries.

"Grrrr…" Misato glared at the so-called Angel as he soaked up the attention of the female student body. "Who does he think he is anyway?"

Shinji quietly picked at her food. She was just grateful that Kaworu's arrival drew attention away from herself and Misato. "Do you think perhaps Kaworu is a Casanova?"

Misato gritted her teeth together. "I'm trying very hard not to accept that as a possibility. If I do, it means that our only hope for getting our lives back is in the hands of that incompetent playboy!"

"You talking about that new guy?" Asuka said nonchalantly as she walked by, taking a bite from her sandwich. "He's pretty cute, huh?"

Misato crossed her arms very suddenly. "I fail to see the attraction."

Shinji just blushed.

"Hmmm…" Asuka shrugged. "He's no Kaji, but he's definitely a step up from the usual crowd…" she cast a disparaging glance over towards Toji and Kensuke.

Misato stiffened at the mention of Kaji's name. She hadn't even spared him a though since this whole fiasco had started.

"Besides…" Asuka glowered, leaning into Shinji, the poor girl's blush all too apparent. "He seems to have caught the eye of our little Shin-chan at least!"

Shinji stiffened very suddenly. "What! No! No, no, no! I am not thinking about him like that!"

Misato gave Shinji a weird look. Asuka just sort of smiled.

"My…someone seems rather defensive…" she snickered. "Bet you've been fantasizing about him all morning…I saw how you couldn't keep your eyes off him…"

"That's not it!" Shinji shrieked, her feminine face bright red.

"What's all the noise?" Kaworu said, wandering over, half the class still hot on his heels. "Shina, right? What's the matter?"

Shinji's face blanched. "K-Kaworu!"

She absolutely froze up. She wanted nothing more than to punch the guy where he stood. She wanted to scream at Kaworu for putting her in this situation. But at the moment, all she could think of was how Kaworu was suddenly an icon for every female in his class, and that she was in a girl's body, and that he was talking to her while she was like this, and…

"Go on," Asuka snickered behind her back. "Tell him about how you want him to make you into a real woman."

Kaworu blinked in surprise. "Oh? Is that what she really wants?"

Shinji crumpled. Her mind practically shut down. She couldn't take it.

"That's enough!" Misato got up and put her hand on Shinji's shoulder. She threw Asuka a dirty look. "Mind your own business, Soryu…"

Asuka just harrumphed, like she knew she had nothing to apologize for. "What are you yelling at me for? She's just so obvious about it."

"And you…" Misato glared at Kaworu. "Don't forget what you're supposed to be doing!"

Kaworu gave her his best innocent smile as Misato put her arm around Shinji's shoulders and took her out of the classroom.

Kaworu put his hands on his hips. "Heh…do you think those two are on the down low?"

Asuka rolled her eyes. "You know, sometimes I wonder…"

Misato took Shinji to the nurse's office, letting herself in to find no one there.

"Probably out getting coffee or something," Misato mused, somewhat relieved to have a moment of privacy.

"I'm sorry…" Shinji said, head still buried in her hands, quaking in anxiety.

"Don't be," Misato said, her hand on her back. "It's tough being a teenage girl. You've only bit off a little bit of it, but girls have to put with this sort of thing all the time. Even I had my fair share of this in college, and that was when we were supposedly 'more mature.'"

Shinji shivered. "I thought Asuka would be nicer to me now that I was a girl…but now, it's almost worse…"

Misato tried to make light of the situation. "Well, at least she's not gender biased…"

Shinji laughed, but it came out more as a sniffle.

"I'm sorry…" Shinji muttered again while Misato went to get a tissue for Shinji to wipe her nose. "You had to get involved in order to protect me. Misato, you and Ritsuko and Asuka and Rei…you all go through this every day…and you act so casual about it. But I…it happens to me just once, and…"

"Shhhh…" Misato offered her a tissue. "I told you before, didn't I? We've both got to look out for each other now."

Shinji nodded, accepting the offered tissue and wiping her face.

Misato put her arms around Shinji's shoulders. She doubted she'd have ever done this for Shinji when she was a guy, but then she had also been fifteen years her senior then. Then again, inside, they were still the same, weren't they? Shinji was still a guy on the inside, and Misato was still an adult. True, they both had the bodies of teenage girls, but that didn't change the fact that she still knew calculus, spoke three different languages, and retained most of her combat training - although she doubted her effectiveness in the physical aspect, as she was not entirely used to her body the way it was, she still knew how to disassemble and clean a 9-millimeter. No teenager in that classroom could boast that.

Though, Asuka was a special case.

And Shinji was still the same timid guy on the inside - of course, now that everyone thought she was a girl, no one thought her timidness was in any way out of the ordinary. She still thought like a guy though, and retained her male tendencies of trying, if weakly, to be chivalrous, and still found it embarrassing to be this close to a pretty girl…

Misato released her grasp on Shinji as she realized just what she was doing to her.

"Ummm…" Misato smiled, uneasily. "Sorry!"

Shinji, whose face had previously been buried between Misato's not inconsiderable assets, was practically bleeding at the nose. "Ooahhhh…"

"Ack!" Misato said, grabbing for another tissue. "Don't pass out on me, Shinji!"

As Misato tried to clean up the blood running down Shinji's nostrils, to which she reacted by flailing around haplessly, there came a knock at the door.

Both girls froze.

"Pilot Ikari, Pilot Katsuragi," there came a voice from behind the door. It was Rei! "There's been an emergency call. We're needed at the Geo-Front."

There was another pause as Misato and Shinji exchanged puzzled glances.

"I'm going on ahead," Rei announced through the door, before the sound of footsteps tapering away.

Another pause.

Then Shinji and Misato both sprung to their feet, looks of panic on their faces.

"AN ANGEL ATTACK!"

Both pilots dashed out of the nurse's office and made a break for NERV as fast as they could go. On the way there, Kaworu sidled up beside them.

"Kaworu!" Shinji blurted. "What are you doing here?"

"You should go to the shelter with the others!" Misato commanded.

"But there's an Angel attack," Kaworu said calmly.

"That's why you should go to the shelter!" Misato retorted.

"But they'll need my help at NERV a lot more than in the shelter," Kaworu reasoned idly.

Shinji and Misato were running flat out, and nearly out of breath by the time they got to the elevators. Kaworu hadn't even broken a sweat.

"Anyway, you can't follow us," Shinji panted as she fished into the unfamiliar pockets of his girl's school uniform for her ID. "You can't get past the doors without an ID."

"You mean one of these?" Kaworu held out a NERV ID badge with his picture and name on it.

"Where did you get one of those!" Misato blurted.

"Huh?" Kaworu asked as he swiped his card, the door buzzing open. "I'm the Fifth Child after all."

Misato and Shinji both stood in abject stupor as the gray haired boy disappeared behind the doors.

A few moments passed as the gravity of his revelation sunk in.

"Misato…" Shinji chimed in idly. "You told the Class Rep that he was a new pilot, didn't you?"

Misato nodded, blankly. "Yeah, but I was just making that up. I didn't think she'd check, and I didn't think he actually WAS an Eva Pilot…"

"Misato…" Shinji added. "Are we in trouble?"

"I think…" Misato bit her lip. "We might be…"

By the time they both got to the locker room, Asuka and Rei were already in their plug suits.

"Jeez, you guys sure took your time!" Asuka observed on her way out. "Hope this Angel hasn't interrupted your little lesbian make-out session."

Shinji tripped and fell. Misato gave Asuka a disgusted look. "Our WHAT?"

Asuka grinned, her nose in the air. "See you two lovebirds on the battlefield!"

Misato wrinkled her nose as Asuka departed. "You know Shinji, I never really appreciated just how much of a bitch she was to her fellow pilots before…"

She looked down to Shinji lying awkwardly on the floor.

"Oh, Shinji, are you alright?" Misato offered her hand to the boy in the girl's body.

Shinji's blush only increased. "No, no! I'm fine…" she got to her feet and stumbled away from her, quickly finding her locker.

Misato stared at her oddly. "Shinji?"

"Do not be affected by Pilot Soryu's words," Rei said as she passed them by, in full plug suit. "Idle banter is commonplace among soldiers about to go into battle."

Misato and Shinji both watched, somewhat stunned by Rei's words.

"Regardless," she continued, deadpan. "I am happy for the two of you."

Shinji and Misato's faces went beet red.

"Farewell," Rei capped her soliloquy as she left the locker room.

Shinji and Misato both threw their plug suits on at lightning speed, both too focused on Rei's misconception to notice each other's nudity.

"Wait, Ayanami!" Shinji shouted pleadingly as she hurried out of the locker room, although Rei was nowhere in sight. Misato was close behind as the two of them ran to Terminal Dogma, to find the other pilots waiting by the cages.

Misato's knees nearly gave out. "No way…"

"Good, now that we're all here, I have a quick announcement to make."

Misato hadn't really come to terms with her father being alive. But she had at least been prepared to face him again.

"As you are all no doubt aware by now, we have a new pilot."

She could have at least faced her father today – he was a scientist though, and wouldn't be interacting with her when she faced the horrors of piloting Evangelion.

"This is Kaworu Nagisa, the Fifth Child. He'll be our second backup pilot after Ayanami. Please try to work together."

Standing there, besides Kaworu, was Asuka's current guardian and NERV's Operations Director, Captain Ryoji Kaji.

Misato felt like she was about to pass out.

"You've got to be kidding me…"