"Shinji, your father has decided that you'll be living with me from now onwards, so don't worry about living alone okay?" Misato smiled as Touma and her were now walking about the corridor of a building to her apartment.
Touma sighed, "I'm quite sure I'll be fine living alone."
Sometimes he wondered if that Ikari Gendo was "his" real father. Maybe Shinji was his illegitimate son and he had no choice but to call him back to pilot that robot.
After he had pointed out that his hairstyle is different from the real Shinji Ikari, Misato still insisted that he is Shinji. Same hair and the same face. Touma thought. Honestly, how in the world can someone else have the EXACT same hairstyle and face as me. No one in their right mind would go for a purple, spiky look.
Of course its possible. Why would it not be possible.
As long as its Kamijou Touma, even the water that he drinks might just suddenly turn into chilli liquid instead. Which actually happened when a certain Level 4 Teleporter known as Shirai Kuroko decided to play a prank on him for chasing her beloved onee-sama.
Such misfortune.
With a swipe of a card by Misato on a scanner beside a metallic door in front of the both of them now, it effortlessly slid away.
"All right, we're here."
Carrying only a small bag of grocery, she stepped into her house, leaving an unfortunate Touma who had been hugging a large plastic bag with various packets of ready-made food and drinks.
"Hurry up and enter already."
"I'm sorry to dis-"
Greeting Touma was a rubbish field that had a sofa, TV, kitchen and a dining table. Although the living room itself is twice as large as Komoe's apartment, but the magnitude of rubbish as compared to her can be said to be undefined.
He wondered if the rubbish itself was the misfortune or the owner of the house.
Misato said while she changed into some causal clothing in her equally messy bedroom with cans of beer and car magazines strewn about, "Ah, this place might just be little messy, so just bear with it. Anyway, could you put the food in the fridge?"
Opening the first compartment of the fridge, Touma saw a lone pack of ice with its content turned into water.
Opening the second compartment of the fridge, Touma saw some snacks lying about.
Opening the last compartment of the fridge, Touma saw cans and cans of beer properly lined up like soldiers preparing for a war.
Just what sort of life could that Misato be leading. Probably not as bad as Komoe since she didn't seem like a chain smoker to me. Touma thought while he put the food into the first and second compartment.
Komoe... its been awhile since they both met each other. After World War III ended, there had been so many things happening that he almost stopped attending school all together.
I wonder how's life back in Academy City... That BiriBiri and Index could be struggling to search for him, but how can you search for somebody who is already in another universe.
It's okay. No matter how unfortunate I am, I will find a way to return to my universe.
Somehow, Touma had managed to clear away all the junk from the dining table while Misato heated up the food for dinner.
Spread out on the table was a feast of ready-made ranging from crabstick omelettes to curry noodles and french fries. Not forgetting a couple cans of beers as Misato eagerly grabbed one and started drinking.
"That's what I call enjoying life!"
"Sure..." Touma used his chopsticks and munched down on his bowl of noodles. It has been almost a day since he had eaten and the warm, satisfying feeling made his stomach churn about with contentment.
"Thank goodness the blackout last night only affected my pack of ice," Misato said after she gulped down her can of beer.
"Blackout...?"
Misato leaned closer towards Touma from across the table, "I'm not supposed to tell anyone but the overwhelming electricity that powered your Eva caused a massive city-wide blackout.
"You defeated the Angel, that's all I can say."
Although Touma sensed that Misato was hiding something, but he decided not to pursue it. Ignorance can be blessing at times. Especially when that memory after he got knocked out only consisted of maniacal laughter and more maniacal laugher.
In an attempt to divert the topic, she said while pointing to the door, "Ah, why don't you take a bath. Bathing refreshes and cleanses the soul."
Slurping the last of his noodles, "Fine, fine," he got up and went to the bathroom.
As Touma took off his clothes, he started to sing a little to cheer himself up, "The sky is so dark but my life remains as bright as eve-."
Suddenly, he detected a strong presence in the bathroom. However, there seemed to be no one else but him.
Strange. Touma thought. I'm quite sure there was something...
"AHH!"
Instinctively, he rushed out of the bathroom.
"THERE'S A FREAKING ALIEN INSIDE! WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS."
Misato, who sat in her chair at the dining table looked curiously at him. Soon after, a penguin appeared from the bathroom and waddled towards a strange contraption that Touma initally thought was another fridge. To his surprise, the penguin actually lifted his arm and slightly extended its claw to activate the unlocking mechanism, revealing a miniature living room inside.
"His name is Pen-Pen. He's your other roommate.
"Oh, and why don't you cover up first."
Touma looked down. At this point of time, he believed that this was more of karma rather than a product of his own misfortune. Nevertheless, he still only had one thing to say.
"Such misfortune."
Touma shyly slid back into the bathroom while making sure that his important parts were being covered properly by his hands.
Misato sighed. "It's not that I wanted to hide things from you, but if I tell you what really happened during that night, would you believe it?"
And her thoughts drifted back to that very night...
"Unit-01 is down!"
"Contact with the pilot is lost. The controls are breaking up."
Everyone in the command center was in a rush trying to salvage the situation after Eva Unit-01 suffered a critical damage to its cranium, knocking the pliot unconscious.
"We've got no choice," Misato yelled, "Abort the mission! Eject the pliot now!"
"WE CAN'T! IT'S COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL!"
"What did you say?!"
Misato stared at the Eva who remained lying on the side of the building from a large video screen that covered the entire wall. Could this be the end of Shinji...? No, he'll live somehow! Misato prayed for his safety from the bottom of her heart.
And then, the right eye of the Eva suddenly lit up.
"The Eva has reactivated."
"Berserker." Ritsuko swore under her breath.
Slowly, it stood up and lifted his head with a sharp glint in its remaining eye.
Bursting forward, it attempted to punch through the core of the Angel with its remaining fist.
"It's an A.T Field!" A tomboyish girl who sat at the interface of one of the command decks said.
"He can't get through the Angel so long as the field's up!" Misato said.
True to their words, the Eva slammed its fist repeatedly at the octagonal barrier to no avail. When that didn't work, it raised a leg at an oblique angle around 45 degrees and whammed it hard against it. Yet, the barrier that separated the Eva 6 meters away from the Angel remained still. It was like kicking a large concrete wall and only the foot, in its vailiant attempt to break the wall, would throb in pain.
An eerie flash of light flickered in the hollow depths of the empty eyes of the small bird-like mask that was the Angel's face and a giant light enveloped the Eva, melting the amour into an indistinguishable mass of purple.
"Damage of the amour at 75%."
"It seems as though it didn't go quite as planned," Fuyutsuki said as he stood beside Gendo at the top most platform of the command center, where the both of them had a bird's eye view of the happenings in the center.
Gendo remained slient with a light smile on his face. Soon, you'll see, he thought.
"Electricity output of the Eva... is increasing!" The tomboyish girl urgently reported to Ritsuko.
"Maya, requesting status of the Eva right now."
"10 million volts... no, 30 million volts... 100 million volts!
Ritsuko quickly took an empty seat beside Maya and pulled out a real-time graph on the electricity output of the Eva. While the amount of volts was important, but like what all physicists would say, it's the ampere that matters. And the amount of ampere was... 1000 A. She threw herself back at the chair with horror. 100 million kilowatts per second.
"If this goes on... No wait, how can this be!"
A quick scan on the status report on the Eva revealed that it was only using a small amount of its internal power source. However, the cable connected to it seemed to be conducting large amount of electricity down into the power supply.
Meanwhile, the Eva itself had transformed into a glowing purple monster with sparks of electricity dancing about. It tore a piece of the amour that now looked like a grotesque mass of melted purple from its right arm off and flicked it up into the air like an arcade coin.
"300 million volts... 400 million volts... 750 million volts... 1 billion volt!"
"If this goes on, the entire Tokyo-3 will be destroyed when the power buildings gets overloaded from the massive continuous surge of electricity."
Ritsuko swerved her chair towards Maya, "Disconnect the Eva from the main power source!"
"I can't, the signal's not working."
"Contact with pilot successfully reestablished," said a man who also was at the interface of the command deck a few seats away from Maya.
The voice had a maniacal edge to it; also ragged but distinctively Touma's voice, "Do you know what a Railgun is?"
"It is something that you fire at three times the speed of sound.
"AT 1 BILLION VOLT!"
"It can't be..." Ritsuko realized that the power source was the Eva itself, the projectile was that piece of purple amour and he plans to accelerate the projectile at three times the speed of sound to penetrate the A.T field.
After the piece of amour rotated in the air for a few seconds, it landed back onto the Eva's thumb. With another flick, it was launched towards the core like a purple meteorite sliently soaring through space, piercing the A.T field like a flimsy piece of paper through the core.
Misato swore that the Eva was smiling confidently at the exact moment when it launched the projectile.
The Angel dropped to the ground and exploded violently, leaving a large, red cross that stood vertically burning in the air like an afterimage.
Fortunately, the electrical output of the Eva dropped to zero soon after. Whatever left of the Eva looked like a beautiful ice sculpture left in a hot summer day after a few minutes. The rays of the breaking dawn bathed the monstrous mass that was the Eva Unit-01 in a warm orange light.
"A railgun. That was one of her biggest childhood fantasy." Fuyutsuki said.
Gendo remained unmoved on the surface, yet he was smiling inside, "If she hadn't chose the frog, I suppose we wouldn't have met her at all."
Meanwhile, from the window of a cage from its command room, both Gendo and Ritsuko looked at the giant, red four eyed robot that stood there emotionless. While a cage might bring about an image of an enclosure made of mesh, bars and wire, but it was merely a hollow space painted with a tint of orange that contained the robot.
"How are the repairs for Unit 00 and 01 going?" Gendo asked.
"Unit 00 will be finished in about a few days time. Unit 01... The circuit is completely fried. Although this is to be expected when the efficiency of its internal power source increased by 5000%."
"I see."
"What exactly is Eva Unit-01?" Ritsuko's voice grew sharper, "The reason why the amour suffered a staggering 75% damage from one single shot from the Angel was because it didn't deploy an A.T field at all. In fact, the only reason why it fired a Railgun was because it cannot deploy one to corrode the Angel's field.
"Now tell me, what exactly is Eva Unit-01."
Gendo arched an eyebrow as if to question her sanity, "You, of all people should know that whether be it Unit-01," glancing briefly at the giant red robot, "or Unit-02, they are the same."
"Then tell me why is it that Unit-01 cannot deploy an A.T field."
"It didn't," he corrected, "Why don't you ask her yourself."
Ritsuko smiled knowingly, "If she was able to devise some method of communication, I would."
Gendo remained silent and turned back to observe Unit-02. Something felt wrong on a lot of levels. Can Unit-01 truly be considered to have went berserk if the pliot remained conscious. And the fact that the Eva had to rely on a railgun to penetrate an A.T field probably meant that it could not deploy its own field to neutralize it for some reasons.
However, he knew that the Eva did went berserk but simply in a more intelligent way. After all, firing a railgun takes a lot more than increasing raw power at impossible levels. Controlling parallel electrical currents going in opposite directions with such perfection such that they are traveling along the same length and are able to stay on their initial positions isn't as easy as people think it would be.
But the pliot was conscious. Or seemed to be. Possessed perhaps. That would be the logicial explanation.
He looked into the four narrow, yellow eyes of the robot that almost looked like slits. More observations will be needed. He thought. Especially on the right hand of Unit-01.
"Oh, Kaji. Thanks for the flowers!" A girl with red hair tied into two ponytails blushed almost as red as her hair while she shyly accepted the flower from the dashing young man who seemed gentlemanly enough to give her flowers as soon as she got off from her plane and into the large, spacious air conditioned hallway of the airport of Tokyo-3.
He smiled, "Always a pleasure, my lovely Asuka."
While Kaji had been her guardian back in Germany, but since he had some urgent matters, he decided to leave for Tokyo-3 a few days earlier.
How sweet of him. Asuka thought. Always so charming and thoughtful.
Kaji held his hand out, "Why don't I help you with your luggage?"
And Asuka promptly left her luggage with him as the both of them were now headed to his car. Nothing to be embarrassed about, she reasoned. It's a lady privilege.
"Such hot weather." Asuka commented as the both of them started to enter an outdoor carpark just outside the airport. Back in Germany, the weather was always cold, be it summer or winter.
Leading her to a sleek black Porsche, he opened a car door for the passenger seat and bowed slightly, "Ladies first."
Asuka proudly trotted into the car. Of course, I'm the princess here and you're my prince charming. Such gesture should be expected out of you. Despite that, she felt a little tingle in her heart. Bliss.
"Kaji, where are we going?" Asuka asked as she sat at the passenger seat beside him. Everything faded into a blur as it passed through a highway at 100km/h.
"Somewhere where the both of us will be together forever and ever."
"Together forever and ever?"
Asuka noticed that the speed meter was starting to dangerously approach 250km/h.
"KAJI!"
"My dear Asuka," Kaji's voice slowly turned into something deep and demonic, "We wil be together forever and ever and ever."
Turning to face her was no longer the prince charming that bought her flowers, nor the one who offered to hold her luggage or opened the car doors for her.
It was a smiling demon with two horns and red glowing eyes, revealing a set of yellow, sharp teeth.
"NOOOO!"
"What's wrong?" Kaji asked when he heard a loud scream from a slumbering Asuka who probably had a bad dream.
"Eh? No, I'm fine."
The first thing that she wanted to check was the speed meter. Good, a healthy 80km/h. Next, to confirm that Kaji who was seated beside her and curently driving is not a transforming demon that wanted to be with her forever and ever in hell.
"Where are we going?"
"It's a surprise," Kaji winked.
"Aww okay." Asuka knew that whenever you see a Kaji winking after mentioning some sort of surprise, asking what the surprise was is pointless. As stubborn as her period, as she would "succinctly" define it.
Meanwhile, a ringtone suddenly blared into life. She realized it wasn't her phone when Kaji picked his phone that rested comfortably in an open compartment beside him and Asuka that looked more like a nest for his phone.
"Who is this?"
"NERV HQ. Urgent. Asuka."
And then he dropped the phone back into the compartment and made a sharp U-Turn. He knew exactly what did the caller mean.
"Kaji?"
"Emergency. You're needed."
Asuka smiled. She missed her Unit-02 a lot and soon, they would be reunited once more.
"I'm always needed."
Meanwhile, Touma sat in the classroom bored as he observed an old man droning on and on about Second Impact.
What the hell was Second Impact all about anyway. Smells exactly like a fish market in Hokkaido to me. He thought. If that strong feeling in his mind could speak, it would say that the teacher is spewing lies even more efficiently than a lie spewing machine.
Or perhaps he is actually just a better model of a lie spewing machine, Touma replied to his strong feeling.
If it was one thing that made Tokyo-3 seem a tiny bit more technologically advanced than Academy City, it would be the red laptop that every student had on their desk. And why did his school not consider implementing a built-in computer on every desk since they had access to technology 30 years ahead of its time, he had no idea.
Rei was staring out of the window the whole time, Touma noted. She had an arm sling on her arm and several bandages over her head. In most animes, this usually meant that she would probably hold the key due to her mysterious nature for his escape of this virtual giant prison that was the universe itself .
All mysterious girl are delicate species. Handle with care. An advice given by his friend Aogami Pierce who had a fetish on almost everything. Touma often wondered why did the Touma of the old made such a friend like Aogmi. Was it because the old him is actually a secret fetish king? Every night he prayed hard that this wasn't part of the Imagine Breaker's game of misfortune.
Strangely, his hand slipped onto the keyboard and accidentally pressed a few buttons that happened to be a combination you press when you want the whole class to suddenly gasp with awe and wonderment. At least, that was what it seemed like to Touma.
He briefly glanced at his computer screen and then he realised why.
Are you the pliot of the Eva? Y/N
Y
Loud noises of chairs being dragged about broke the silence of the classroom with the teacher filling the background sound with his monotonous lecturing as the students got up from their seat and started flocking towards Touma's table like bee attracted to honey.
"SIT DOWN, YOU GUYS!" The class rep yelled. She had brown hair in two ponytails and freckles. "CLASS ISN'T OVER!"
It was futile. Touma had re-activated (though unwillingly as always) his magnet for misfortune and no amount of yelling is going to change that.
"What's that robot thing?"
"How were you chosen?"
"Is it easy to control?"
Touma threw a quick glance at Rei who seemed unperturbed about this even though she was staring in his direction now.
"Save me," he mouthed together with a hand gesture indicating that he was drowning in a sea of students but this only elicited a confused look from her before she continued her window gazing.
Meanwhile, the brown haired boy with glasses just 2 seats beside Touma was gleefully jotting down bits of juicy information that the pilot revealed, even though it was mostly censored with simple details. At the back of the classroom, a jockey with black hair characterized by his blue sweatshirt and pants glared furiously at the new transfer student who revealed himself to be the pilot of that robot.
"That idiotic pilot. I'll make him pay for this," he hissed furiously under his breath.
Meanwhile, the compliments started to pour in.
"You looked so cool!"
"That robot's amazing!"
"You're a hero!"
The bell rung, cutting the teacher off of his droning and obliviousness to his surroundings. He turned around from the window. "Oh! That's all for the day then."
The jockey continued to stare at Touma with digust. Hero, my foot.
During lunch break, a certain misfortunate purple, spiky haired boy got knocked down to the ground by a trembling fist from the jockey at the back of the school building.
"Sorry newcomer, but I had to clobber you to get it off my chest."
"Why did you hit me?!" Touma remained on the ground, shocked at the sudden hostility of this blue jockey.
"BECAUSE YOU'RE DUMB AND IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY! HOW COULD YOU WRECK OUR OWN CITY LIKE THAT? WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?"
The brown haired boy with glasses who was beside the jockey leaned close to Touma and whispered, "He's mean, huh? His sister was injured last time you and your robot fought a battle." The boy stepped back. "Well, that is his excuse."
"I'm Kensuke," pointing to the jockey beside him, " and that jerk over there is Toji."
Touma got up and attempted to diffuse the current hosility, "Well, I'm sorry about your sister. I'll... be more careful next time." However, as we all know, it never once worked in his favour.
Toji grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up high, "Is sorry all you can say? Really? You think an apology would suffice?!"
In a chokeslam-seque style, he hammered Touma to the ground. After glaring at him for the last time, Toji stormed off and Kensuke quickly followed behind.
Most mecha pliots gets praised and even thanked for saving the lives of many, not being beaten up just because he failed to save one. Or maybe that's one of the behind the scenes part of a pliot that people conveniently omitted in animes. Touma thought.
Lying on the concrete ground flat on his back, he stared into the deep blue sky admiring the movements of the clouds for a moment. Different clouds were drifting apart and different clouds were merging into one. People drift apart and meet new people, forming new relationships and abandoning old ones.
Touma wondered if decades had actually passed back in his own universe. A 30 year old Biribiri and Index, long forgotten about a charming young man named Kamijou Touma and probably married with kids of their own. Such misfortune.
Suddenly, the face of Misato suddenly filled his entire vision.
"I've been looking for you all day. We have an emergency."
Then, the alarms all around sounded.
"A SPECIAL STATE OF EMERGENCY HAS BEEN DECLARED FOR THE KANTO AND JOHTO REGIONS SURROUNDING THE TOUKAI DISTRICT! ALL RESIDENTS MUST EVACUATE TO THEIR DESIGNATED SHELTERS IMMEDIATELY!"
"Hurry up, Shinji," Misato urged and she ran off expecting Touma to quickly follow behind.
"Can my day get any more worse," Touma groaned.
From the large video screen in the command center, a mysterious stingray with two shining whips hanging loosely at the sides was approaching Tokyo-3 rapidly through the ocean.
"The last time the Angels gave us 15 years. Now, we only had 3 weeks to prepare for the next assault." A man sitting at one of the command decks commented.
Sharp clobbing footsteps could be heard from a distance. It was Ritsuko rushing behind Maya, urgently asking a very important question.
"Where's Misato?"
"Off to find Shinji."
Moments later, the stingray Angel reached land and stood up, revealing a pair of legs and a red core with several rows of bones serving as a birdcage protecting the core on its chest that was hidden underneath its stingray exterior while it was swimming. The two shining whips served as the Angel's arm.
Swinging the whip about, it started to rip apart buildings like cutting through butter that was obstructing its way.
From the ground, the JDSSF had deployed several tanks and stationed soldiers to fire at the menacing Angel that looked like a giantantic human wearing a stingray costume for a promotional event.
"Fire!"
Fuyutsuki smirked at how futile their actions were as he watched the JDSSF's attempt to fight the Angel from the topmost platform for an A.T field manifested almost immediately to shield the Angel from the gunfire.
"What a waste of taxpayer's money."
"The government is requesting that we dispatch an Evangelion again," said Ritsuko after she received a phone call. "Of all times when the commander isn't here, she just had to go off to find that pliot."
"Dispatch Eva Unit-00 for now," Fuyutsuki said.
Ritsuko turned her head upwards to face him, "Rei is still injured. Are you that confident she'll be able to defend against the Angel until one of the pliots arrive?"
"I've never doubted Rei's skills in plioting."
"All right, launch Unit-00." Ritsuko commanded.
A giant, blue cycloptic robot rested on one of the lanuch pad from a separate large area beside the command center.
"Security bolts from 1-21 released. Evangelion Unit-00 ready for launch."
"Lanuch!"
And it surfaced onto Tokyo-3 through a hatchdoor opening. Meanwhile, several buildings were starting to sink down as if it was setting up an empty stage for the battle to begin.
"Rei, are you okay?" Ritsuko asked from the communciation channel to Unit-00.
"Yes."
"Distract the Angel until backup arrives, is that understood?"
"Yes."
The side of the robot's right leg split open to reveal a huge custom M-16 machine gun stored inside. Taking the gun out with only her right hand, Rei began to fire at the Angel to grab its attention. Her left hand was still injured and this is shown by the limping left arm of the Unit-00.
Turning to face Unit-00 which its gunfire barely scratched the Angel, it extended a whip and attempted to lash down on Unit-00's torso but Rei grabbed hold of the whip instead by using its left hand.
She winced in pain. "The whip seems to be made up of molten lava." All of the strength that she could muster in her arm started ebbing away.
Undeterred, the Angel extended its remaining whip and attempted to lash down on the torso again, forcing Rei to drop her machine gun to grab hold of the whip.
"Let go now!"
Using her grip on both of the whips, Rei gave one violent tug that sent the 50 ton stingray flying in her direction before volleying it towards a nearby hillside. She felt several tendons in her left arm snapping in a rapid fire fashion.
The layers of amour covering both hands of the Eva completely melted off, exposing a brown hand that strangely resembled a real human hand observed from faint traces of what seemed to be fingernails.
"Ritsuko!" Misato shouted as she quickened her pace towards her.
"About time! Is the pliot in Unit-02 already?"
"Yes. He's probably starting up the Eva as we speak."
"He?" Ritsuko asked, "Really?"
"Shinji Ikari. The designated pliot for Unit-02 have not arrived. We don't really have much of a choice given the current situation right now."
Turning to the screen, a struggling Unit-00 was frantically trying to dodge blows after blows from the Angel's whip as it attempted to slice the Eva apart. It was also clear that Rei had no more weapons to defend herself and could hold out no longer.
"Is there something wrong with this arrangement?" Misato looked at her quizzically.
She quickly opened up the communication channel of Unit-02. "It's just that... never mind."
"Evangelion Unit-02, activate!"
"Fehler, Fehler!"
Touma slumped back into his seat as he watched the various 'Fehler' starting to pop out like mushroom, filling the screen completely. An alarm also sounded and he shook his head in despair. Such misfortune.
"Can you hear me?"
"Ritsuko?"
"Now, listen closely. Say, Ändern des japanischen."
"Än-de-ren? Could you at least tell me what kind of secret code is this?!"
"Its German." Ritsuko's voice grew more urgent, "Hurry up and say it already."
"Ännderen desss japanisuchen."
Instantly, a soft green light from the screen banished all of the 'Fehler' on the screen and a faint humming noise could be heard while LCL started to fill the plug.
"Change to Japanese successful."
"Security bolts from 22-24 released. Evangelion Unit-02 ready for launch."
From another hatchdoor opening, that Eva surfaced onto Tokyo-3 armed with a F-16 rifle.
"Rei, backup has arrived. Retreat now."
"Understood."
Unit-02 quickly opened fire on the Angel, hoping to divert its attention from Unit-00. It succeeded and turning to face Touma now, it decided on retaliation by stiffening its whips, turning it into a lightsaber and charged towards him. Taking advantage of this, Rei quickly escaped into a metal cage that erupted suddenly from a hatchdoor opening and it quickly disappeared into the ground.
Instinctively, Touma threw the gun away and dodged behind buildings after buildings which got slashed into pieces as the Angel relentlessly attempts to slash him instead.
"Progressive Blade engaged."
A blade popped out in a horizontal manner from a right shoulder compartment attached on the Eva and Touma grabbed the blade.
Unfortunately, the length of the blade made it look more like a dagger than a proper sword. He wondered how the world was he going to fight two long lightsaber with a dagger. Meanwhile, he continued to dance around the concrete jungle while the Angel would cut the trees that was protecting him.
A red haired girl was literally screaming at an unfortunate bespectacled man at a command deck who decided to answer her question while the dashing young man beside her could only smile apologetically.
"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN BY SHINJI IKARI IS CURRENTLY PILOTING MY UNIT-02!
"Unit-00 is a prototype. Unit-01 is a test model. Unit-02 is the final model. The first true Evangelion made to defeat the Angels. AND YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT WORTHLESS SHINJI IS PILOTING MY UNIT-02 ON IT'S FIRST BATTLE."
"I'll have you know that 'worthless pliot' you mentioned reached a sync rate of 41.3% on his first experience with an Eva." The man had enough of this obnoxious red haired girl.
"SHUT UP. THAT'S NOT THE POINT."
"Relax a little." Kaji rested a hand briefly on Asuka's shoulder.
"It's you. Why am I not surprised." Misato said.
Kaji waved a hand at her, "It's been a long time."
Ignoring him, she observed Unit-02 from the screen intently.
Asuka requested a status check of Unit-02, revealing that no A.T field was detected from the Eva.
"What in the world is he doing!"
She decided to scream into the communication channel of her Unit-02, "GOTT DAMM IT. FUCKING DEPLOY AN A.T FIELD AND STAB THE CORE."
Meanwhile, Touma had heard the screaming girl as he successfully managed to dodge behind another building while the Angel continued to slash its way through. Although it had a pair of legs but slow in his movements and quick with its attacks. It seemed as though the menacing Angel with a stingray for a head was a 87 year old granny trying to finish its prey off.
He grabbed hold of a control lever beside him to pull it all the way down to deploy an A.T field at maximum, but he realised that it already was pulled all the way down.
"Already at maximum." Touma replied.
"Make sure the lever is completely down."
"It is already down."
"ARE YOU BEING INTENTIONALLY FUNNY ON PURPOSE? There. Is. No. Field. Detected."
A strange feeling crept up from Touma's spine to his brain.
If there's no field detected, that it would only mean... Imagine Breaker?
That sudden realization made him pause for a moment and seizing the opportunity, the Angel sliced the building into pieces with one lightsaber and stabbed the Eva's abdomen with another lightsaber before following up with one more stab from the free lightsaber.
"Shinji!" Misato yelled as she watched the two sabers piercing through the Eva.
"Dummkopf." Asuka muttered. Kaji mentioned that he had something on, thus he left the command center before he could witness this scene. Such a pity, she thought. This was proof of how incapable that Shinji Ikari was. So what if he had a 41.3% sync rate on his first experience with an Eva, it doesn't mean that he's a capable pilot. Unlike me.
Touma gripped his knife tightly. The distance between the Eva and the Angel was at 4 meters and he could cover it that distance in 4 steps. Although he could feel the same burning pain on his abdomen, but that pain faded away soon after.
Blasting forth towards the Angel, he aimed for that red core which was protected by a bony birdcage. Pain started accumulating once more as the insides of the Eva's abdomen rubbed intensely against the searing surface of the lightsaber.
"It's an A.T field! He's not going to make it through."
"Shinji!" Misato stared at the hexagonal barrier that the Angel had already manifested. No doubt he's going to get stopped on his tracks and thrown off.
However, Touma curled his right hand into a fist and negated the A.T field like switching off a holographic projection just by coming into contact with the projection itself. After that, he gripped the handle of the knife with both of his hand and stabbed through the cage right into its red core, pinning the Angel down to the ground.
The red core flickered for a moment before it turned dull. He had defeated the Angel much to Asuka's contempt.
"Shinji... he did it."
"Glücklich bastard." Asuka rolled her eyes. That was nothing.
So Gendo was right, there is something special about that right hand after all. Ritsuko mused. That right hand strangely seem to be able to negate A.T fields. A living Lance of Longinus, she would tentatively define it as such for now.
After Touma had changed out of his plug suit in the changing room, he was about to walk out from the room when he saw a red haired girl furiously storming in his direction.
"Shinji Ikari. Am I right?"
"Yeah...?" He doubted that the girl would believe that he's really Kamijou Touma anyway.
Sensing immediate danger, Touma sidestepped to his left, dodging a slap that Asuka had intended to give him but she sent a roundhouse kick to his face, knocking him off balance momentarily.
"What was that for?!"
Just a few hours ago it was that Toji, now its that absurd red haired girl. Is I, Kamijou Touma an unfortunate punching bag for people that go crazy every now and then?
"That's for piloting my Unit-02 without permission. The name's Asuka Langley Soryu so don't start crying that that's unfair of me."
Asuka reached out a hand as a gesture for a handshake, "I guess we'll be fellow pilots from now on so please do look out for me."
Multiple alarm bells signalling imminent doom start going off in Touma's head, however it was always in silent mode much to his misfortune, thus he decided to reach a hand out for a handshake.
"SUCH MISFORTUNE!"
Ritsuko was busy with stacks and stacks of paperwork of paperwork in her office as usual when she heard a small beep from her antique desktop computer. A video call from Gendo.
"Ritsuko, how is that Third Child coming along?"
She noted that he was in a luxurious ship cabin resting on a sofa. From the circular window beside him, she could also tell that it was almost dusk as the reddish light slightly illuminated the cabin.
"He successfully synced with Eva Unit-02. A theoretical impossibility but theories are theories after all."
"I see. Is there anything else you'd like to report?"
"From current observations, it seems as though the pliot is able to negate any A.T field so long as his right hand comes into contact with it. Proven to hold true in both Unit-01 and Unit-02."
Gendo took a glass of wine from the coffee table and took a sip, "Unit-00 would prove to be an interesting experience then. I assume that you've already started working on the Dummy Plug system."
"Yes. After I've observed that it is indeed feasible from that pilot's experience with Unit-02."
"That's good. That's all for now."
The video screen turned pitch black. Always leaving without a proper goodbye. Just like before. Ritusko decided to continue with her paperwork. No time to waste on this stupid man.
Gendo took a crumpled piece of grey silk out from his pocket and spread it out carefully on the table. Various strange symbols and scrawlings could be seen from it.
"Nonsense, they say. Impossible, they say. But how wrong they were."
He smirked. This time, he had the upper hand over those old fools known as SEELE.
Touma sat in his classroom bored once again. Rei was not in school due to her injury, apparently she had a surgery on her arm and needed to rest in the hospital for a few days. The constant chirping of the cicadas reminded him of his supplementary classes during summer break. A reminder of his encounter with various misfortunes simply from attending those classes.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
He had an ominous feeling about the sounds. A prelude to a tragic orchestra composed by misfortune itself.
The classroom door shifted slowly to the left, revealing frame by frame, the human form that misfortune had chosen to take on.
It was a form of a red-haired girl in a school uniform. She strutted up confidently to the whiteboard and wrote her name in Katakana.
"My name is Asuka Langley Soryu. I'll be your new classmate from now on. Do take care of me."
She winked knowingly at Touma.
Calm down, Kamijou Touma. You've been through worse. You've been through Index and BiriBiri! Not to mention countless magicians that could crush this girl with a single spell. And Accelerator too. No one could stand up against him and live (except me of course).
Still, he could not relax. The alarm bells in his head had finally switched to normal mode but it was too late much to his misfortune.
"GAHH! SUCH MISFORTUNE!"
Author's Note: Sorry for the late update, was busy with school and the upcoming tests so yeah. I suppose you've figured out by now that if I end a chapter with somebody still in an Evangelion or a To Aru universe, the next chapter will be in the same universe. This is to prevent confusion given that the nature of my story is pretty much parallel to each other (for now).
[EDIT: 03/04/2013
I take back what I said about this. Damm, I shouldn't have used "will" but "most probably." But I don't think the transition is confusing actually if you read from the start.]
By the way, sorry if the German here is lousy. I translated from Japanese to German for better results than English to German so I hope it still isn't as bad.
I'll just reply the guest reviews here. If you want a faster reply, do login with your main account so that I may PM you (which is way faster LOL) instead.
Shinji-kun: Well, thanks for reviewing every chapter! Do continue to review yeah :D Anyway, I liked that particular line back in Rebuild 2.0 since it was so... mysterious in many ways. As though the Rebuild was a mere deviation in the timeline which he was fully aware about so it really opens up a lot of possibility for plot ideas.
I wouldn't say that Touma must finish his quest in Evangelion only, maybe the two worlds might collide somehow? But that's probably another plot line for later parts of the story.
Guest: Maybe I might do another version of the Angel Fall actually... hmm spoliers, haha.
Lastly, thank you guys for all your reviews as always. Do keep them coming! As always, whether be it a simple praise or some concrit, they are all greatly appreciated.
And that's all from me I guess. I may be quite slow on the next update since I have an exam coming up so I apologise in advance for that. Don't worry, I'll update as soon as I can!