Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Chapter One
Hikari stood silently before the mirror for at least five solid minutes, totally frozen in shock.
"No," she muttered to her reflection, slowly advancing nearer to the mirror as if the wings would vanish upon closer inspection. "No…"
She realized dimly that the wings weren't the only change. Her previously brown eyes had become a pure red, similar to those of Rei Ayanami, and her hair had become a strangely luminescent silver. There wasn't a single brown strand left. It didn't look like the hair of an old woman, but then it didn't look like the hair of any normal human being at all.
"No," she whispered again, placing her palm against the cool glass of the mirror.
She swallowed, suddenly remembering something her father had said about NERV once. He usually didn't say anything about work, not even giving much of a response when one of his daughters asked how his day went. He claimed it was all secret, but that night he'd had a few too many cups of sake.
He said that NERV existed to destroy the Angels. And now here she was with a pair of angelic wings.
"No!" Hikari cried. "This…this isn't me! I don't look like this!"
Suddenly, Hikari began to change back. Her hair and eyes gradually became brown again and the wings shrank and seemed to retract into her back. Blinking in surprise, Hikari reached around and felt her back, finding that the skin was smooth and unbroken. Aside from the tears the wings had made in her pajama top when they'd emerged, there was no evidence of what had just happened at all.
Hikari frowned. Had she gone back to normal because she'd wanted to? Because she'd willed herself to?
"I…I have wings," she said softly.
Instantly, the wings emerged again and her hair and eyes returned to their unnatural colors from a few moments ago.
"No, I don't!" she squeaked.
Hikari let out a relieved sigh as she again returned to her normal state. She had no idea what exactly had happened to her or why, but it looked like she could keep it a secret.
"What the hell?!" Hyuga Makoto exclaimed, suddenly flinging his manga to the floor as he gave his terminal his full and undivided attention.
No, it's impossible, he thought as he began to type madly, demanding that the MAGI elaborate on the alert they had just sent him. If it were correct, they were in very big trouble. He could feel cold sweat beading on his brow as he worked.
"Something wrong, Hyuga?" Aoba asked, noticing his co-worker's sudden frenzy.
"A good question," said Vice Commander Fuyutski, who had apparently entered the command center while Makoto was too fixated on his work to notice. "Is something amiss, Lieutenant?"
"The MAGI detected what might have been a blue pattern, sir," Makoto answered, not bothering to turn around and face his superior just yet.
"What?!" Fuyutski demanded.
The MAGI finally relinquished further data to the technician and Makoto gave a small sigh of relief. "Looks like it was just a false alarm, sir," he said. "Whatever they picked up flickered for a few seconds and then just vanished. There was no AT field detected, and only Caspar is willing to affirm that there was indeed an unusual waveform pattern. The other two MAGI are withholding judgment."
"The detection system is still very new," Fuyutski said. "False positives were to be expected, I suppose. Still…it's generally not wise to discount a woman's intuition."
Makoto frowned. "Sir?"
"Where was this detected?" Fuyutski asked.
Makoto tapped a few more keys. "The northeastern quadrant of the city, sir. That's as far as the MAGI were able to narrow it down."
Fuyutski nodded. "I see. Well, keep an eye out for any further incidents, and notify me immediately if any do occur. We can't be too careful when it comes to the Angels."
"Yes, sir," Makoto said.
Fuyutski began to walk off, but stopped before he'd taken three steps. "Lieutenant?"
"Sir?" Makoto said, turning.
"Gundam Wing? Really?" Fuyutski asked, looking down at Makoto's discarded manga. "You honestly don't get enough of that sort of thing in real life?"
Makoto flushed. The technician opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to say something—anything—in his defense but found himself suddenly unable to form words.
The Vice Commander didn't stand around waiting for an answer. He simply walked off, not allowing a smirk to appear on his face until he was safely away from the control room and out of sight of the people there.
Five days before the First Battle of Tokyo-3…
Hikari scowled as she regarded her reflection in the mirror. She still looked entirely human. Indeed, she had not willed the wings to come out again since the day they had first emerged. However, other, less fantastic changes had occurred, ones she had no doubt were the result of whatever had given her the wings.
She had grown several inches taller in the past few days, to the point where she was nearly eye-to-eye with Toji Suzuhara. She had also grown in certain…other ways.
There was little she could do about her increased height besides buy new clothing that fit her. She had gone clothing shopping a few days ago, scowling slightly the whole time she went through the mall and partaking in what was usually one of her favorite activities. She had not purchased new bras, however, using the now too small ones she had to hide the increases to her endowments, despite how uncomfortable it was.
It was ironic, really. How many times had Hikari felt envious of her more 'gifted' female classmates? Yet now that she was the equal of any of them in that regard, she tried to hide it out of fear that it might lead to someone discovering her wings.
She'd gotten more than enough comments about how much taller she'd gotten recently, both at home and at school, to make her nervous. She didn't need people also noticing her new figure and wondering what had caused such dramatic changes. Even though most would conclude that nothing more supernatural than puberty was responsible, Hikari still didn't want to take the chance.
Well, there was no use brooding over it, she decided. Hikari finished dressing and went to rouse her sister.
"Wake up, Nozomi-chan," she said, entering the girl's room and shaking her. "We have to get going."
The younger girl groaned. "I'm up, I'm up," she said, sitting up with extreme reluctance, as usual.
"Good, now go shower and change," Hikari ordered.
Nozomi nodded and slowly got up and began to make her way to the bathroom, obviously still half asleep. Hikari shook her head and sighed softly. Right after she'd recovered, Nozomi had been all too glad when the usual routine had returned, greeting her in the mornings with a smile and a chipper hello. But that had worn off several days ago.
While Nozomi was in the shower, Hikari went downstairs and began to make their lunches. It was a task she was so used to by now that she didn't even need to think about it to do it anymore. Which was a lucky thing, since her mind was elsewhere that morning, specifically on her plans for what she was going to do after school.
Nozomi came down just as Hikari was finishing up. "Ohoyo, nee-chan," the now fully conscious girl greeted her.
"Ohoyo, Nozomi-chan," Hikari replied, handing the girl her bento. "Now let's get going or we'll be late."
"You mean you won't be early," Nozomi corrected, yawning as the two left the house and began the walk to school.
"Well, I am the class representative," Hikari said. "So I really should try and arrive early to set an example for everyone else."
"Uh-huh," was Nozomi's unimpressed reply.
Hikari resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Despite her best efforts, Nozomi simply didn't see the point of being a model student and probably never would. It made Hikari sometimes wonder if Nozomi had the same parents Kodama and she herself did.
"By the way, I'm going out this afternoon after school," Hikari said. "One of Kodama's classes was cancelled today, though, so she'll be at home with you."
Nozomi made a face.
"Oh, come on now, it's not that bad," Hikari chided.
"But Kodama always tries to make me help her with her lab work," Nozomi complained. "At least you only make me do my own homework. Speaking of homework, I thought you had a ton of the stuff. How do you have the time to go out?"
"All my homework's finished," Hikari answered. "I just applied myself and did it. That sort of thing can have benefits, you know. You might want to try it sometime."
Nozomi rolled her eyes. Hikari let it go. Normally she would've said something, but she had sort of cheated with getting her homework done. Ever since her transformation, Hikari had discovered that she only needed about four hours of sleep to be awake and alert for the other twenty hours of the day. Indeed, even if she wanted to sleep for eight hours, she simply couldn't anymore. So she had several hours all to herself in the middle of the night when she couldn't do much besides study without disturbing her family's sleep.
"So, where are you going?" Nozomi asked. "On a hot date with a boy maybe?"
Her sister's teasing accusation immediately caused her mind to flash to Toji, which in turn caused her to blush slightly. Deciding she needed to nip this topic in the bud as soon as possible, Hikari made use of her best class rep tone of voice.
"No, Nozomi, and it's not nice to tease people. To answer your question, I'm just going to the mall for a little bit," Hikari lied.
"Okay, okay, no need to bite my head off, nii-chan," Nozomi grumbled.
The two girls had arrived at the school by this point, bringing an end to their conversation as they went their respective ways.
Class 2-A had been even harder to control than usual lately, probably due to her brief leave of absence. Her fellow classmates had somehow managed to become used to the lack of authority in the classroom during the mere few days she'd been ill, and Hikari still hadn't completely gotten things entirely back to the way she liked them.
If only Sensei had a more hands-on approach, this probably wouldn't have happened, she mused.
Hikari shook her head slightly. It was wrong to think ill of their teacher. It wasn't the aged man's fault that he didn't have the energy to control the class by himself anymore. Still, sometimes she felt that both her home and her school would completely collapse if something were to happen to her, and the results of her recent bout of sickness hadn't dissuaded her of that notion.
It was nice to feel needed, but sometimes the pressure of having to always be so dependable and strict got to her.
Sensei walked into the classroom, and Hikari sprang into action. "Stand! Bow! Sit!"
School ended that afternoon, as it always did. Hikari walked Nozomi home, where Kodama was indeed waiting to force the youngest Horaki girl into playing lab assistant for the afternoon. The eldest Horaki was clad in a white lab coat, and the moment she saw Nozomi, she produced another one and draped it over her youngest sister's shoulders. The second coat was much smaller than Kodama's but still comically large on Nozomi.
Nozomi turned and gave Hikari a pleading look that clearly said, "Please don't go. She thinks I like this!"
Hikari decided she'd better finish her business quickly, lest they blow up the kitchen.
Kodama was a chemistry major, and she was very good at her chosen field. However, she tended to overestimate Nozomi's diligence when she pressed the young girl into service, often not bothering to check if the little girl had really handed her what she'd asked for. The results hadn't yet been explosive, but Hikari didn't want to push their luck.
"Have a good time at the mall, Hikari-chan," Kodama called absently as Hikari made her way out the door, still in her uniform and carrying her school bag.
Hikari gave a quick good-bye and then made good her escape. Whispering a quick prayer that the house would still be intact when she returned, she made her way to a nearby train station.
However, she didn't board the train that would take her to the commercial district on the other side of Tokyo-3. Instead, she got on the one that would take her to the very edge of the city.
Tokyo-3 existed in a valley that was ringed by mountains and hills, with the exception of the southern part of the city, which bordered Lake Ashi. Near the stop where Hikari got off the train was a particularly large hill, tall but not very steep, that was popular enough with hikers to have a decent path made by people's feet. But since it was a workday, Hikari would probably be the only person on it, which suited her fine.
After an hour of brisk walking, she was a decent ways up the mountain, which put her high enough to see most of Tokyo-3 below. It was a breathtaking view, but Hikari hadn't come to look.
She performed a quick search for any other people in the area, just to be safe. When she was satisfied that she was quite alone, Hikari set down her school bag and opened it, pulling out another set of clothes.
Part of which was the pajama top she'd ruined when her wings had ripped their way out of it.
Her first impulse after it had happened had been to destroy the garment, but she'd realized that it could be useful if she wanted to let her wings out again without ruining another shirt or, even worse, going topless for a while. Besides, she did almost all the laundry at home, anyway, so there was little chance of someone else finding it and asking awkward questions.
Hikari slipped it on, along with a pair of jeans, after removing and carefully folding her school uniform. She packed the uniform into her bag for the moment, then took a deep breath.
"I have wings," she whispered.
And immediately she did, the two wings emerging painlessly from her back, her hair and eyes changing to silver and red. Hikari couldn't help but smile at the sensation. It felt very strange, having wings. In fact, on one level it felt downright alien.
Yet somehow just having the wings out made her feel incredibly alive.
Still smiling, Hikari looked about briefly, soon spotting what she was looking for. The teenage girl bent down and scooped up a rock about the size of a potato. She held it in her right hand and gently squeezed it.
The rock was instantly reduced to a handful of dust and gravel.
Hikari wasn't surprised. She'd gotten a lot stronger since her first transformation, to the point that she had accidentally broken a number of things before she learned how to control her new strength. Fortunately, her father and Kodama simply attributed all her little accidents to clumsiness caused by her recent growth spurt.
But while she was much stronger in her normal form than she had been, she wasn't anywhere near strong enough to shatter a solid rock like that. She had just somehow known intuitively that she would be much, much stronger still in her angelic form.
She knew a lot of things about her new abilities intuitively, or she thought she did anyway. One such thing was that she felt quite sure of was that her wings weren't just for show. Something inside her told her that she could actually fly.
Her head, of course, told her that was madness. She was far too heavy to fly, unless her bones had hollowed out without her having been aware of it, which she doubted. She probably couldn't fly even if that were the case, the human body being a thing that simply wasn't made for it.
But the strange feeling of certainty that the laws of physics she knew didn't apply so strongly to her when she was in her angelic form had grown strong enough to get her out here.
No more hesitating, she thought. I didn't come all this way just to chicken out and go home.
Unwilling to try taking off by taking a leap off something, Hikari began to flap her wings as hard as she could, the resulting gusts soon sending fallen leaves flying everywhere.
By the third beat of her large wings, her feet had risen off the ground. Hikari was so shocked that she nearly stopped flapping her wings. "I can fly," she whispered.
A huge, delighted grin slowly formed on her face. "I can fly!" she shouted, abruptly ascending as quickly as if she'd been fired from a cannon.
Hikari flew over the mountain as quickly as she could, relishing the feeling of the wind blowing through her hair almost as much as the sensation of pure, unbridled freedom. She laughed as she performed various aerial acrobatics, some more successfully than others.
Maybe whatever happened to me isn't so bad after all, she mused. I've never felt so…so liberated, so powerful.
She was mildly surprised that "powerful" was one of the words that first came to mind, but Hikari had to admit that it seemed appropriate. Her whole body felt almost like it was on fire, like she was just so full of boundless energy and strength…
Hikari barely noticed the sphere of white light that was forming by her palm in time. With a small yelp, she held her hand out and away from her. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She heard a strange whistling sound, following by what she believed was an explosion.
Hoping she was wrong, Hikari opened her eyes.
She gasped, feeling a ball of ice forming in her stomach. A good portion of the hillside had been blown clean off. A number of trees had been leveled, and a fire blazed in the shape of a cross.
The unadulterated joy she'd been swimming in a moment ago now as completely shattered as Antarctica, Hikari wasted no time in retreating from the scene. She grabbed her bag, flew down to the foot of the mountain, and changed back to her normal form, vowing to never release the wings again.
She had no idea how soon she would break that vow.
Four days before the First Battle of Tokyo-3…
"You are certain all records of the incident have been completely erased from the MAGI?" Gendo asked.
"Yes. This is the only remaining copy of the data we collected on the incident," Ritsuko answered, placing a tan folder on Gendo's desk. "If this is destroyed, it will be like it never even happened."
"Save for the crater blasted into the side of the mountain, and the fact that everyone saw the fire," Fuyutski grumbled, crossing his arms.
"There are many ways to explain away such things, Sensei, but there could be only one explanation for an AT field," Gendo said, then turned back to Ritsuko. "Anything else to report, Doctor?"
"No, sir. All the information we have is there," she said, gesturing to the folder.
"Then you are dismissed," Gendo said.
Akagi nodded respectfully and made her way out of Gendo's cavernous office, her footfalls echoing eerily in the mostly empty room as she went.
"First the illegal dumping that's given the public relations department a coronary and now this spectacular failure of the Angel detection system. It may be wise to make some changes in Technical Division One," Fuyutski commented.
"No," Gendo said, already looking through the folder.
"No?" Fuyutski responded, trying to keep from sounding too incredulous. "Ikari, something took a chunk out of a small mountain with a cross-shaped blast and the MAGI can't even all agree that there was an AT field detected. How can we accept that level of incompetence?"
"Melchior has always been the most difficult to convince of anything," Gendo commented. "It is the nature of that computer, being so scientifically inclined. It is a skeptic."
"But still—"
"Have I ever struck you as the type of person that would tolerate incompetence because of sentimentality, Sensei?" Gendo interrupted.
The air in the huge room suddenly grew charged. Fuyutski knew that Gendo was sleeping with Ritsuko, and Gendo knew that Fuyutski knew and didn't approve. It was one of the many things the two men had an unspoken agreement to never bring up. Now Gendo clearly felt that Fuyutski was accusing him of keeping Ritsuko around because of his relationship with her.
But Fuyutski knew Gendo too well to believe that the Commander would ever let sentimentality cloud his judgment, at least when it came to Ritsuko Akagi. "No, of course not," Fuyutski said.
Gendo nodded, the atmosphere in the room relaxing again. "Then the fact that I find this excusable should be a clear indicator of the fact that it is," he said. "Circumstances prevent the system from being tested extensively outside of actual Angel confrontation situations. Additionally, the Dead Sea Scrolls have led us to believe that most of the Angels will be enormous creatures that would be fairly slow and thus easily scanned. This was neither."
"Do you have any idea what this was, Ikari?" Fuyutski asked.
"No. The only thing I am certain of was that it was not the Third Angel. There was nothing about this in the scrolls."
Gendo hid it excellently, but Fuyutski knew him well enough to see just how much that disturbed the man. The Supreme Commander of NERV prided himself on being adaptable. However, unforeseen Angels could overwhelm even his ability to keep things under control.
Fuyutski looked down at the papers Gendo was going through. He had already seen all the information inside, but there was one piece of it that he felt compelled to check and recheck to make sure he hadn't misread it.
The waveform pattern of the AT field that two of the MAGI believed they'd detected had shifted wildly back and forth from blue to red during the few minutes they'd tracked the small, swift thing. Blue was the pattern of the Angels. Red was the pattern of Man. The two simply shouldn't be able to exist in tandem like that.
"Why delete all the records, then?" Fuyutski asked.
"The old men grow increasingly skittish as the time draws near," Gendo said. "Such an unexpected turn might cause one or more of them to do something rash. Also, every bit of knowledge we possesses and they do not is a potential weapon to be used against them."
"And how will you use this knowledge?" Fuyutski asked.
"I do not know yet, Sensei," Gendo admitted. "But I will find out what generated this AT field. If it can be used to further the scenario in some way, I will use it. If it is nothing more than a hindrance, I will have it destroyed."
Author's Notes: Well, here's the first chapter of Spirit. I hope you enjoyed it. We'll get into the series proper next chapter, I promise.
To those who reviewed this, thank you very much. This is my first outing here on FFN, and any words of encouragement are welcomed, along with constructive criticism.
KuMardagg, in all honestly, I never really thought about giving Hikari four wings. I guess I forgot Adam had two pairs. Besides, I wanted her to have two because that's what people tend to think of angels as having, and I wanted Hikari to freak out as a result of that and knowing NERV's mission. She's going to be having fun with these powers, but they'll be giving her a few EVA-sized headaches as well.
Also, thank you for your suggestion, however, I really want Hikari to remain Hikari mentally, and that means she act like a teenage girl at least part of the time. Otherwise I feel like I'd be writing a story about a different character that just happens to have the same name. As to why the EVA's DNA wouldn't affect Hikari's brain, well, it's my pet theory that the brain as we have it is essentially the "Fruit of Knowledge" the same way the S2 organ is the "Fruit of Life." So a Fruit of Life's beings DNA wouldn't have any effect on the Fruit of Knowledge. Does it make sense? Probably not, but we're already well into pseudoscience territory anyway.
Kenzie, I'm glad you like my version of the Horaki family. I have to admit I had a lot of fun with the freedom afford by the fact that these characters were never even seen in the show.