Relapse:∣▍
Chapter 6:"... Take time with a wounded hand, 'Cause it likes to heal..."
No sound but the whisper of a light breeze passed through the ruins that the two combatants stood in. No beating of helicopter blades, or whine of jet engines disturbed the two lone giants that stood in the now ruined and burnt out streets of Tokyo-3.
With the setting sun, long shadows cast themselves on the ground from the jagged pillars of concrete and steel, seemingly twisted like paper by their fight. Of the buildings that hadn't been retracted to the GeoFront nearly all had been leveled in the AT Field fueled battle that had raged between the Angel of Might and Unit-01.
Shinji just watched the red bubble of blood as he coughed it up, a stark contrast with the orange LCL. He felt as if this fight was beginning to be the longest he had even had to endure.
Right now, he was eyeing Zeruel, its' 'face' seemed to only mock him for his pitiful attempts at fighting it.
Asuka had been medevacked down to the GeoFront, she would survive, but with the lose of an arm to the Angel's AT field she would be more of a liability, even if she hadn't been subjected to an immense amount of pain.
Despite their incredible teamwork, being able to fight in sync without any music for the better half of an hour this Zeruel was stronger than those before it. He didn't know why it had to be this way, but he steeled his nerves. The Third Children was exhausted, the fight had been this long only because he had been careful to protect his umbilical cable from being cut via AT Fields.
"Shinji, we're discussing an aerial bombardment with N2 Mines, do you have any more ideas?" Misato called to him through the comm link.
Taking another gulp of LCL the Third Children leapt aside as the 'arms' of Zeruel came flying towards him, ready to split him in two.
Shinji threw out his AT field, slicing off part of the two 'arms' of the Angel, but he wasn't fast enough to dodge all of the field sent at him.
Screaming at the feeling of the lacerations crossing his body, he rolled away, ducking Unit 01 behind a fallen skyscraper.
"Shinji can you hear me. Shinji!?"
He ignored her, instead focusing on his LCL flowing freely into the street, it was now or never.
"Hey Misato?" he said quietly.
"Shinji, are you alright?" panic had crept into her voice despite her effort to hide it, but the boy just closed his eyes.
"Tell Kaji how you feel alright?"
Before he could get a response the boy reached down deep within the EVA he knew exactly where to look for the other presence in there with him.
Let's do this Yui.
With that last thought, he stood up and charged the Angel.
Deep in the EVA, he felt the other presence stir, shock was perhaps the most prevalent emotion he felt from her, but then happiness, joy, love, worry, and confusion.
She could see him, she could feel him, and she knew that he was not exactly her Shinji.
And that didn't matter to her.
To the Angel's credit, Shinji would've been surprised at the charge as well, it wasn't as if they had been fighting very close this entire time after all.
Equipping his Progressive knife, Shinji dove down below the last bits of arm launched his way, before tearing into the Angel's AT field. He imagined down in the GeoFront, the command center was staring in shock at his sync ratio, which to them should be skyrocketing.
Climbing up, he ripped the arms off at their base, throwing the tendrils to the floor.
Warmth seemed to envelope him, reaching out to his mind, calling him.
Thank you, Mom.
But he had to resist, for now at least, he couldn't afford to merge with the core.
Leaning in, the eye of the Angel's face seemed to spark with life, and just like the first time, his left arm was sliced away, a bit higher than before but he knew that pain, it wasn't anything he couldn't deal with.
Instead, he just brought his good arm up and smashing his fist down onto the Angels chest.
Over and over and over again.
*Bang*
*Bang*
*Bang*
Breaking apart 'bone' and 'flesh' from his opponent it didn't take long before he was to the core, and with one last punch…
A flash of white enveloped him...
He opened his eyes, only to see Misato's wide-eyed face.
ʡʘʢ
*BANG*
Misato groaned, annoyed to be stirred from her slumber.
*BANG*
What was that? The sound rang in her head, but she didn't want to get up, sprawled out on her bed with only a tanktop and shorts on she was too comfortable and too tired.
*BANG*
Her eyes fluttered open, only to narrow in annoyance at the lack of sunlight entering her room.
*BANG*
Growling, she willed herself up, the sun hadn't even risen yet, only the faintest hint of its arrival pressed against the horizon.
What was that sound?
*BANG*
She grumbled, moaning as joints popped and groaned from sleeping in unusual positions, rubbing her eyes she forced her way to her feet and groggily hobbled towards the door.
Sliding it open she squinted into the poorly lit apartment, looking for the source of noise that had so rudely stirred her from her sleep.
*BANG*
She walked slowly, steadying herself with one hand on the wall, the nose was coming from the kitchen and she could at least tell it sounded like something on metal.
Perhaps Pen Pen needed food? Had they fed him before they collapsed into bed?
*BANG*
Turning the corner, she found her answer.
Shinji stood there, at the side of the refrigerator, his back was to her, but he didn't move, he was like a statue.
Then… for no reason, he drew back his arm and slammed his fist into the side of the fridge.
*BANG*
Misato's drowsy brain was doing its best to comprehend what she was watching, but there was nothing it could do, no logical explanation it could reach, no memory it could recall that might explain why Shinji had just punched the fridge.
*BANG*
Or why he did it again.
"Shinji?" she called to him softly, whether it was from trying to keep from startling him or her own tiredness she didn't know, but Shinji hadn't made one indication he had heard her.
*BANG*
Slowly, the commander moved closer, taking each step with slow precise moves.
As she closed in, she could see that his knuckles had been bloodied, the skin split open from the contact with the metal. His fist was starting to turn red as his blood seeped into the bandages that had been wrapped around the burns on his palms.
He pulled his arm back again and this time Misato instinctively reached out to stop him from hurting himself.
Grabbing his wrist, she wasn't ready for the swift spin, nor was she ready for the way he lunged at her.
Startled was a bit of an understatement, scared was more appropriate as the small frame of the boy knocked her off balance, forcing her to the ground.
Doing her best to protect herself from the fall she couldn't do much as he climbed on top of her and brought his fist back again.
"SHINJI!" She yelled at him, adrenaline how coursing through her, she could see his face dimly lit by the light coming from the city outside, but it wasn't the boy she knew. His face was contorted in rage, snarling at her.
That was the first time she had actually felt afraid of the Third Child.
But… that moment was fleeting, his face returned to the one she knew, the soft, timid teen that she had brought to NERV looked down at her, confused.
"Misato?" he asked, looking around he seemed to be casing the area, unaware of where he was.
"Shinji…" she breathed, just staring at the boy, the rage that had been shown was gone in an instant, his bloodied bandages on his hand the only remaining evidence that he'd even done what she witnessed.
The boy pushed himself off her, and fell back onto the ground, the woman pulled herself up looking at him, concern wracking her face.
He couldn't bring his eyes to her's, instead he just looked down at the floor, his hands in his lap and head dipped down.
"Shinji…" he said softly, reaching out to him.
His flinch at her touch shouldn't have hurt her as much as it did, but she only moved closer, finally pulling up his hand to the small amount of light int the room.
The bandage on the hand had been bloodied, his knuckles had been cracked open, but judging by his apparent lack of pain, she didn't think they could be broken.
"Hey," she cooed, reaching out for his body and for the second time today she pulled him in close and held him, he still wouldn't look at her, instead she did the talking.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
She heard a sharp breath and for the longest moment she didn't think an answer would come, but eventually it did.
"I guess I've never done that here before huh…" he asked, it was barely above a whisper, but it was clear to her in the quietness of her apartment, so was the pain in his voice.
He wouldn't grab onto her, she couldn't tell why, but it once again the dull pain in her chest hurt her more than it should.
"What were you dreaming about?" she probed, not really believing he would share. If her own experiences with nightmares were anything to go on, she hadn't told anyone about them since her college days.
For a long moment he said nothing, he just let her rock him gently back and forth in her harms, his blooded and bandaged hands not even returning her embrace.
"Just…." his voice was a hair above a whisper and it cracked before he could continue.
"It was a long time ago." he mumbled.
She figured perhaps at least for this night, she wouldn't ask more questions, no, there would be a time for that later, right now she needed to comfort the child even if he was against the idea.
"I used to do that more often…" Shinji half-heartedly explained "I haven't done that here before, have I?"
She shook her head, aware that he would be able to discern her response. He said nothing, instead they just both sat there on the floor, basking in each other's warmth.
To her the time went by too fast, the sun's light banished the shadows and darkness from the room as she rocked her ward lightly back and forth.
Eying the clock that could now be read, she knew she would need to get back to the GeoFront soon.
"Shinji?" she whispered, but there was no response.
Pulling back from him slightly, she looked down at his peaceful face, eyes closed and breathing softly.
A smile made its way onto her lips. Picking up the boy she took him back to his room and set him down, he had earned the day off from school or medical tests, there would be time for those tomorrow.
Right now, he needed sleep.
A/N: So if you haven't guessed it yet, this Is going to be a kind of 'bridging' between NGE and the Rebuild movies. I've actually been working on this story for about 2 months after randomly choosing to watch NGE out of boredom on Netflix. So, just as a heads up, we're going to mainly use the Netflix English Dub for NGE and EOE material, it's just easier than finding the originals somewhere. The situation with Rebuild is a bit more… interesting since I have access to the Dub versions for 1.0,2.0,3.0, but after watching a Sub version for 2.0 I realized some scenes can have a bit different context due to translation.
I've decided to manly stick with the English Dub for the majority of the story unless I think the Sub version adds more details/context. That being said, that dialogue will probably have to be reworked just to make it a bit smoother if I take it from the Subs. So just expect a mix of the two going forward.
Now for the elephant in the room. 3.0+1.0 is going to be released in 2 days, what does that mean? Well, I'm still trying to figure that out. I have an ending to this story already worked out, though I doubt we'll get past the events of 2.0 before I have 3.0+1.0 spoiled or read the plot myself. Either way the jury's out on what rewrites will occur or if it will even matter.
Shoutouts!
KySocceRref- Thanks for the two reviews, hope you're enjoying the story so far!
One last thing. Pacing and time. Evangelion isn't exactly the most forthcoming in its' timeframe, even more in Rebuild 2.0 with its' breakneck pacing. I'm going with the timeline of 1.0 starting in November, and 2.0 starting in February, so roughly 3-4 months from the start of 1.0 to 2.0 (give or take a week). Its confusing and its probably not even a big deal, but for my sake I've been trying to figure it out with people's analysis of background details. Pacing will hopefully also slow down as well after the next chapter, or at least that's the plan. 2.0 really just hits the gas without a care, not that it's necessarily a bad thing, its just a lot of the NGE timeframe was condensed into 2.0.
Apologies for the long Author's Note, but some of these issues I felt needed to be addressed before we kicked off 2.0 and can't really be pointed out in the story without it being a bit jarring. At least in my opinion, besides, I haven't done one for 5 chapters.
Until Next Time.