Evangelion Rewrite: Chapter 14 Duality

The high view was always something to behold. But this time was going to mark a special occasion, Rei and Asuka were going out to fight the seventh angel without Shinji. This of course, would be Rei's first angel. But by now she would be fully healed, instead of that sorry state she was in when the commander tried to make her fight the fifth angel with only Shinji's sniper support (Shinji instead ended up fighting the monster by himself.) However now she also had full support from Asuka, meaning that there was very little that could go wrong. Of course, things could still go wrong. Shinji nearly died from falling when he had climbed halfway up the twenty storey building he had picked out just to watch the two Eva pilots fight the seventh angel. There was always that small chance that something would go wrong, but it's the unlikely sort of chance. Things going wrong without a good reason don't happen alarmingly often, so Shinji sat atop of the twenty storey building and waited for the ensuing battle.

From high above flew two large transport jets carrying an Eva each. After a short amount of time, the twin jets reached their destination and dropped the Evas. The pair of them blurred into their retrospective signature colours as they sped towards the ground. 'And now, I take the time to relax. At least until I have to explain to Misato why the idea of sticking around for my gutless father to tell me off doesn't particularly thrill me.'

Asuka prepped her Eva with her trademark brash arrogance until she started to complain to Misato. Who responded with sound logic, which quickly shut Asuka up. Rei on the other hand sat quietly, she had been injured the first time that she had attempted to pilot her Eva in a test and her first opportunity to fight an Angel was squandered by Shinji. Shinji was somebody who Rei felt hatred towards, he spoke ill of Commander Ikari and he had ruined her opportunity to impress him and above all of that, he openly avoided her, knowing how to make his escape so she couldn't even confront him about his actions. But Shinji wasn't here now, so Rei had to defeat the seventh angel and prove herself to Commander Ikari.

A black presence lifted itself out of the water, it looked like a leaner version of the third angel. Except for the anchor shaped body above the waistline. Asuka's Eva darted towards the Angel with a pole-arm drawn. "Cover me." She barked at Rei, through the comlink, who, in response, opened gunfire on the angel. The angel stood there and absorbed the firepower until Asuka leaped up and brought her pole-arm down on top of it. Cutting it into two clean halves. "There, that's how you take care of an angel Rei. Clean and energy efficient." Asuka made a mocking jab at Rei and was forced to eat her own words as the angel's two halves stood up and regenerated, forming two lesser angels. "You wasted your energy." Rei responded dryly and Asuka gritted her teeth as it to snap them. Far away, atop of his viewpoint, Shinji spotted another jet come in. "That damned commander and his idiot generals can't even wait to see how things develop before they all start chucking bombs everywhere." Then, with a sigh, Shinji stood up and made his way inside the building from an air vent; hoping to find some sort of cover from the oncoming shockwave. Asuka on the other hand, had no idea that a large explosive was to be dropped from the sky and tried to shout insults and orders at Rei. Until the explosive hit and she was cut off.

Shinji now considered himself lucky, he had escaped death twice. The first time was when he nearly fell during his climb up the building to watch the Evas fight and the second time was when he happened to be way to close for comfort to a N-2 bomb. Hence forth known as 'god's way of telling Shinji that he didn't like him very much.' Shinji paused for a moment and decided to add a third near death experience of the day to the list. Since the N-2 bomb had thrown both of the Evas through the air, one of them could have easily come smashing down on top of the building that Shinji was hiding in. It seemed like, for today at least, some kind of otherworldly being wanted to keep Shinji alive or lady luck was being his personal benefactor for the day. Either way, Commander Ikari would have been dumped in complaints and reports for the earlier display of weakness that Nerv had shown. Meaning that this was the perfect time to avoid the commander for the next few days, starting with his second date with Maya. Whose house he found himself at now. He found himself a little bit brighter around Maya, she had been the only useful person in Nerv to ever help him out without wanting something in return. Hell, she might be the only person who's done that for him. Misato has the best intentions underneath her dismissive exterior, something that Shinji had learned when she had tried to sacrifice herself to stop the rouge nuclear AI, but in the end she still needed to use him for Nerv's purposes. Maya, on the other hand, had never demanded for Shinji to put his life on the line and instead tried to keep him safe. Shinji paused before he knocked on her door, going over what he had just mulled over, he realized that just the thought of Maya took away some of the pain and this made Shinji almost beam with delight as he knocked on her door. But he got no answer, he knocked again and got no answer. He made the third knock the last for the sake of politeness, but he still got no answer. So he decided to wait for her return, assuming the Eva mess had kept her busy. It began to grow dark so Shinji turned away from Maya's bungalow and waited the end of her street. A few hours later, she still hadn't returned so, Shinji left for a place to sleep.

A couple of rough nights later, Shinji awoke, smelling quite badly from lack of shower. Exploring Tokyo-3 was always a treat and Shinji never grew tired of it. However, the crowd that Shinji was situated in, soon grew tired of him and a noticeable gap emerged between Shinji and everybody else. Over the last three days; Shinji had, had time to relax and lose a little of himself in the city. Exploring the dank alleyways in the evening, walking the small parks at night and cutting through the market stalls in the midday. He felt as rejuvenated as he could be, given the circumstances. But due to all of the city walking he had done recently, on top of the date scouting that he had done twice for Maya, Shinji had ended up picking up unwanted attention. He was ignorant of the two men with street clothes and red bands, that had been following him for the last two days. In his mind, Shinji felt that he had spent long enough away from Misato without notice. So he decided to return, unknowingly bringing the two men tailing Shinji with him.

Toji, Kensuke and Hikari walked towards Misato's apartment, it had been three days since any of them had seen Shinji. It wasn't as if he hadn't skipped school before, but this lengthy disappearance wasn't going to do him any good, so they had all decided to visit him and scold him for his acts of disappearance. When they stood out by the door of Misato's apartment, they reached for the door bell until they heard a voice behind them. "Hi there." It said and turning around the three of them saw Shinji. But he had changed a few bit. It was still undeniably him, but his clothes were torn, his hair was scruffy and he smelled appallingly bad. "Shinji?" Toji asked in surprise, hoping to get answers. But Hikari was ahead of him. "You've been hanging around on the streets, haven't you? Didn't it ever occur to that thick head of yours just how dangerous it is to live like some sort of homeless person? You idiot." Shinji unapologetically scratched himself and walked forward before stopping at the door itself. "It's not that bad, I ran away from what was meant to be my home when I was eight. So living rough comes to me like a second nature." Shinji's friends looked both worried and shocked by this sudden announcement, but Shinji opened the door and invited the three inside before they could say anything.

Making their way inside the apartment, the four teens saw a sight that startled them even more than Shinji's smell. Rei and Asuka were using dance mats whilst Misato looked on. In sync, Rei and Asuka turned to face the group, which resulted in Shinji laughing until he had to lean against the wall for support. "You think this if funny, do you? You idiot!" Asuka yelled, which caused Shinji to become hysterical with laughter. "Okay, okay, pipe down Shinji you're disrupting Rei and Asuka's training."

"Training?" Toji asked, as Shinji straightened himself up, smelling so badly that his three guest kept their distance. "Yes, the vice commander wants them in sync and ready for perfect teamwork to defeat the seventh angel as soon as it leaves it's comatose state."

"Question." Shinji said, looking to Misato for approval. Who nodded at him as her note of such.

"Will Nerv be supplying giant scale dance mats for the Evas?" Shinji asked and this time Kensuke and even Toji couldn't help but laugh behind their hands. Misato scowled and opened her mouth to shout at Shinji, but Hikari got their first with a clot to the back of Shinji's head. "At least they're doing something to try and stop the angels, unlike you who ran off to live like an animal. What have you ever done to stop the angels!?" After Hikari had shouted this, Misato's brow deepened. "That reminds me Shinji." She said. "Where have you been?" Shinji ignored her and instead responded to Hikari. "You forget that I have taken out every angel since the third, even after receiving deadweight with the sixth. But if you think they actually need to play around with dance choreography, then that's fine. I say let them make fools of themselves, it should be a lot more fun than the last time they went up against the seventh." Shinji then walked past both Asuka and Rei on his way to the shower, but he stopped just before disappearing down the hallway and asked "does the name: melancholy dance of the twin robots sound good to you?"

"Go on, get out of here. Sometimes you're nothing but unwanted trouble." Misato said and with that, Shinji left.

Feeling refreshed after his warm bath, Shinji dried himself off and wrapped a towel around his waist. Leaving the bathroom, he opened the door to find Rei blocking his path. Shinji smiled at the deadpan Rei and said "If you're doing this to get payback for when I saw you coming out of the shower, then I think I can top that." He then dropped his tower and stood completely naked in front of Rei. "Do you always look down on others despite how low you put yourself?" Rei asked, her eyes fixed at Shinji's. "Good question." Shinji said as he broke eye contact with Rei. "I'll tell you when I have an answer. "

"Aren't you just trying to dodge the question?" Rei asked, seemingly fixated. Shinji stood quietly for a while until he finally had an answer. "My room's just down the hall, the others won't notice us go in. So let's have this conversation there. " Shinji then picked up his tower, folded it, put it on a hanger and then left with Rei following closely behind.

Shinji opened his bedroom door for Rei and then closed it behind him. He then made his way to his wardrobe to get dressed whilst Rei stood in the middle of the room. Her eyes pinned on him. After getting dressed, he turned to her and asked what Rei's most important question was. "I want to know why you always feel the need to put everything beneath you. Stopping me from fighting the fifth angel with you. Laughing at Asuka and myself even though you smelt disgusting and constantly speaking ill of your father." Rei stayed a blank slate through all of this, but if there was one thing that was clear about her. It was the fact that she wanted the truth from Shinji. So he nodded and gave his undiluted answer. "The truth is, Rei Ayanami, I look down upon only my father and everything within his reach. Unfortunately for you, your so close to him that some of the backlash between our dispute ends up striking you."

"Why do you contradict yourself then and make a fool out of yourself, Shinji Ikari?" Rei asked this question and Shinji's answer was immediate. "Everything that was taken from me was taken because of him. There's nothing left to hurt, all I have now is the undying need to take his life."

Rei stood quietly for a moment, letting it all sink in, whilst Shinji stood in front of her, his anger beginning to overwhelm him. "Why do you want to murder Commander Ikari so badly?" Rei finally asked him. But Shinji just smiled a wretched, empty smile. "That question has no relation to the question you deemed to be most important. So I don't need to answer it. But I will say this. That night, when you were meant to fight the fifth angel with me. I knocked you out, in order to protect you. I'd rather not watch another person die because Gendo Ikari still couldn't see what was going past his nose."

After the conversation had ended, Rei revealed nothing on her face, she went to leave the room but Shinji spoke up for a final time. "Everything." He said quietly. "I swore that I would take everything from him, I would destroy that empty hope of his that damages everything he touches and I won't stop if you get in my way. So please, leave and don't come back. I don't want you to suffer because of his mistakes and my hatred." Rei looked at Shinji for an agonizingly long time before she spoke. "I won't fail my duties as the first child." Rei then left the room quietly. Shinji laid on his bed and looked up at the ceiling. "You idiot." He whispered to himself. Silence overtook the room. Shinji breathed in and out, until his mind grew hazy. Shinji's body began to grow weak until he found that he couldn't even move his fingers. Eventually the room seemed to darken like a shadow had been casted over it. Then he felt a feeling of falling and all that was around was silence and darkness. Shinji began to panic and tried to move, but he just felt suspended in mid-air. Eventually, reaching out of the blackness, was a pair of old hands that seemed to be trying to grasp at Shinji. Getting desperate, Shinji bit down on the tip of his tongue and the sharp sensation brought the hallucination to an end.