Author's Notes: Harem, huh? And that's the second time someone's asked, so I guess I have to answer ;-) Hm... yes..? no! wait.... (counts on fingers) What counts as a harem again? hm... what if... well see, it's like this. Rei at the moment is pretty much the only one that really likes him (probably), still, (Misato? hm...) not Asuka... well, actually Asuka is acting pretty possessive and jealous, so maybe so. "Yes." (looks around and finds he is talking to an empty room) oh well
The classroom had gone mostly silent at this newcomer.
"Wait, wait, wait," Shinji held his head, which had begun to pound. "Asuka, when did you get here? Aren't you supposed to still be in Germany?"
"Why're you interrogating me when this freak is stealing my lines??" Asuka shrieked, startling a few birds from their perch a quarter mile away. "I took an over-night and got in this morning," she said, moderating her voice from 'ear-splittingly corrosive' to 'sickeningly sweet.' "It's obvious you and the First can't be trusted together." And I'm here to kill you the minute you turn your back.
Shinji caught that last part from the way the side of her mouth had a nervous little tic to it. This is no good. I need some time to make a plan... He was just about to send himself to the Post-Third-Impact world when Mana/Fate waved her arms frantically.
"Shinji-kun, wait!"
Asuka's head whipped around. "What is this, the Ikari fan club??" she snarled. Why is everyone throwing themselves at him today? she wondered.
Shinji looked up. "...y-yes? What is it, Mana?" he asked somewhat hesitantly. The boy found himself wracking his brain, but this was not Girlfriend of Steel, and so he could find no reason for the familiarity he felt with her.
"...um, could you, bring me into the resets?" she asked, giving him an adorable little smile.
Before Shinji could utter a single word in question, a talking rat popped into existence on his shoulder. "...ooh, yes, yes, big brother should let her into the resets!" the little white animal nodded its head as it smoked a cigarette.
"How?" Shinji was too confused to argue.
"A kiss, a kiss!" the rat crooned, puckering up its lips and miming one, before jumping down, materializing a piece of chalk, and drawing a circular set of arcane symbols into the floor of the classroom.
"Now wait just a minute!" Asuka screeched, standing up.
Hikari stomped over to join the fray. "Yeah, we're not going to have any of this weird witchcraft stuff in this cla-AACK!"
Mana put her hand on the girl's head and shoved. "One side, Miss Perfect, I've got business with Shinji-kun here!" She stepped over, dragged the confused boy into the magic circle and put her lips over his. Shinji had just begun to lean into the kiss when she flung him aside, grabbing the Tarot card that popped into existence. "Now what, rat?!" she demanded.
"My name is Kamo," the ermine huffed. "And now you are in the resets. And you have a magical artifact."
"Oh, really?" Mana looked only mildly interested. "Oh, wait, this thingy?" with a 'poof' the card became a white-haired boy with a grim expression on his face.
"Put me down," the boy intoned. She had been holding the card, and now she was holding him by the collar.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Fate," the boy replied in a very bored way.
"What? Don't make me laugh, boy, I was Fate while you were in diapers." Mana looked at him with a critical eye.
"Actually you don't know that, since Akamatsu has not yet expounded on my past," Fate replied.
"This is stupid!" Mana huffed, tearing up the card.
"No, wait!" the boy exclaimed, before disappearing in a puff of particulate matter.
Mana snatched Shinji back into the circle and kissed him again. This time she kept one hand on his collar as she looked critically at her card.
"No, no, that's not the way it works!" Kamo screamed, his fur standing on end. "And stop tearing up cards, those are worth fifty grand apiece!"
Her card 'poofed' into a guitar pick. "What the hell??" she said in disgust. "I don't use picks. Still..." she mulled over the small triangle of plastic, wondering what it would do when used with her already magical guitar. She was quite proud of the perfectly-formed guitar-picking callouses she had built up over the timeless aeons.
"It's my turn," Rei's soft voice cut through the silence, as she backhanded Mana over a few desks and moved towards Shinji with hunger in her eyes. The suddenly terrified boy backed away a few paces as Mana clattered through a row of desks before coming to a halt.
"Why'd you do that, you blue-haired hussy?!" she yelled.
"Walking plot-device," Rei answered sweetly, drawing closer to Shinji.
"Red-eyed freak!" Mana retorted.
"Guitar-playing hippy," the albino chirruped back.
"Psychotic clone!"
Rei's face paled at the hated word, and she turned to face Mana. "I shall now administer a beat-down you won't soon forget," she said softly, then fell onto the floor in a twitching heap. Asuka snickered and pulled up a chair, knowing what would follow.
"Eat guitar!" Mana shrieked, pulling her instrument from its case and preparing for battle. Before she could follow up her words, a horrible squeal from the outside parking lot drew the attention of half the class. Misato was scrawling her name into the pavement with her drifter-tires, and Shinji's confusion was complete.
"But it's not parent-teacher-meeting..." the boy mumbled helplessly as he was carried to the window by the general stampede of the entire male population of the classroom. They got to the window in time to see Misato's foot send the car door half-way across the parking lot where it clattered to a halt. She had spelt out 'Misato Rocks!' into the pavement, with the car being the exclamation point at the end. Leaping out of the small sports coupe with a psychotic fire in her eyes, she faced her fan club with a shriek of glee.
"HELLOOO, BOYS! I'M BAAACK!!!"
The wave of drool coming down the side of the building was truly gargantuan. As if to accentuate the strangeness of the current happenings, a funeral dirge began to play. Shinji looked slightly startled, and then flipped open his phone.
"...h-hello?" he answered hesitantly. He waited a couple of beats listening to the message. "No. No, that makes perfect sense," he said with a very resigned expression. "I'll be right over." As he flipped his phone closed, a cheerful German waltz began to play.
Asuka pulled out her phone and slid it open next to her ear with a cheery "Ja?" There was a bit of yammering in the background. "Rightyo!" she said in a happy voice, snapping the phone shut.
It was at that point that a particularly memorable strain of the 'Hallelujah Chorus' began to play. Rei did not even make a move to answer her phone, and Asuka's cheery features snapped over to 'Death Becomes Her' in about two tenths of a second.
"You chose that ring-tone on purpose didn't you First?!" she screeched, and Rei gave her a 'who, me?' look. "I'll seriously kill you!! I swear I will!!" She lunged, and Shinji only just barely caught hold of her in time. "Lemme go, Third! She's asking for it!" Asuka raged, and indeed, Rei was asking for it.
"Yes, let her go, Shinji," Rei hiccuped. She had switched her 'stance' so she was 'facing' Asuka... and... oh what the hell. She spasmed on the floor like she was dying of a siezure, but she ended up kind of looking at Asuka, and one of her hands might have flipped off the redhead, though it was hard to tell. In case you're wondering, she was executing the Aggressive Stance of the Second Form of Drunken Monkey, which was her style's actual name.
The only reason Shinji was holding Asuka back was because he wanted to kill the girl himself, not watch someone else do it. Plus, she was kind of soft, and... at this point Asuka realized the direction Shinji's mind had taken, and she elbowed him in the sternum, while at the same time blushing a scarlet red.
"Alright, you two are officially starting to piss me off!" she yelled, her arms crossed in front of her, one finger pointing at Shinji, and the other finger pointing at Rei.
At that moment, from the parking lot outside there came a noise that defies description. The closest thing would probably be a piercing atonal mixture of caterwauling and yodeling. The sound was abruptly cut off, and several seconds later Misato's voice cut through the blessed silence that had followed the previous racket.
"Shiiiiin-chaaaaan! We-gotta-go-to-NERV-so-get-your-butt-down-here!" There was a pause of about an eighth of a second, which was probably her maximum attention span. "Don't make me drive up there! You-know-I'll-do-it!!"
Meanwhile, Rei's phone was still issuing the 'Hallelujah Chorus' which was pissing Asuka off to no end. Finally, something inside the red-head's psyche frayed and snapped, and her next eight words caused the twitching Rei to pause momentarily.
"Rabid Squirrel: Secret Technique -- Rip Your Face Off!" With an ear-curdling screech she launched herself at the quivering albino.
I was unaware she knew such a fighting style, Rei thought, and then it was on. The two fighters were nothing but a blur of red and a streak of blue, and Shinji was stunned into motionlessness. Too late, he remembered Misato, and that was only because of the window-rattling clatter of the woman reving her motor deep into the red.
Oh shit..! Shinji thought as blue and red hair began to drift lazily through the air. The whole building shuddered on its foundation, and Shinji ran to the window with his emergency-rappel kit. Misato's car was gone, however, and he wondered if it would be better to rappel down anyway. There was another shudder, this time much closer and beneath them, and the two fighters paused, Rei's hand on Asuka's throat, Asuka holding on to Rei's hair with one hand, and pulling on the girl's cheek with the other. There was an ominous 'ding' which Shinji knew had to be the elevator, and he immediately went fetal, bracing himself.
There was a sudden roar of an engine, and Misato's blue coupe burst through the wall scattering chairs and desks around. The passenger side door was simply missing, and the raven-haired woman spun the vehicle with deadly accuracy, first scooping up the two fighters, and then reversing the spin in time to pick up Shinji before smashing through the opposite wall out into open space. The drag-chute deployed, stabilizing the car in the air so it was facing forward, and the engine was just hitting max-RPMs as the wheels kissed the pavement. Shinji, Rei, and Asuka were equal shades of white as they sat huddled in the passenger seat, and they were clutching each other desperately. The three of them almost immediately passed out, Shinji and Rei from their previous injuries, and Asuka because she didn't want to be alone with Misato.
When the ancient teacher walked into the disaster zone that was his classroom, he found a military-grade throwing-knife embedded into the door-frame, with a note affixed. The only possible explanation was that Misato had thrown it on her way through the classroom. The note said simply, 'NERV will reimburse you, Sensei.' The wizened old man smiled a little, as if at a memory from long ago. I see my former pupil is as vivacious as ever. He looked around, and found Hikari tending to the wounded and dragging the twisted remains of several desks out of the way.
"Excellent job, Horaki. We'll begin class in ten minutes."
Hikari gave the old man a grateful smile. He's being generous today, she thought as she began to set up an emergency triage station in the corner of the room away from the fires.
Author's Notes: Misato Rocks.
Also, dear me, I can already feel it and it tickles my bones, but the Ancient Teacher, that dull boring old man in the anime, is going to become an actual honest-to-goodness minor character in this fic, complete with cool background