Creation began on 08-29-22
Creation ended on 07-15-23
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Repercussions of the Omni-Omni Fruit
A/N: My first crossover between Evangelion and One Piece, so be gentle.
Unlike the varieties of Devil Fruit that existed in this world, this piece of fruit was far more special than what had been discovered before it. In a display case aboard a research ship traveling the oceans of the New World, a purple, red and blue fruit the size of a mango stood, with orange, vein-like features appearing and disappearing every two seconds, similar to a heartbeat. On a tag in front of the case, its identification could be seen: "The Omni-Omni Fruit." The men and women on the ship were a dedicated bunch that were tasked with trying to understand what made this fruit…and any that ate it…a blessing and a curse; the blessing being that whoever consumed this fruit would be bestowed power unlike any a person could dream of possessing…and the curse being that their lives now had a ticking time bomb stuck to them.
"I need to procure a new sample from the Omni-Omni Fruit," a female scientist informed a soldier that stood beside the display case, armed with a sword and pistol.
"I need the color of the day," he responded coldly to her.
"Amber like the fossilized sap," she stated, and the soldier reached under his neck and pulled out a card to tap against the case.
"Access granted," an electronic voice uttered, and the display case split into four sections before retracting into the bottom.
The woman took out a syringe and stuck the Omni-Omni Fruit, extracting a bizarre, reddish fluid from its form.
"Has it really been twenty years since this fruit was last consumed?" The soldier asked.
"Twenty-seven years," she corrected him. "And yet, this isn't a Devil Fruit."
"Twenty-seven years since…"
"Yeah. Since he passed as a consequence of consuming this fruit and failing to find the artifact that could save him. He was only fifty-three. He should've lived to be eighty."
"But…he saved your mother's life before he died, right?"
"Yeah. He saved a lot of lives…but nobody, not even himself…could save his own. The Omni-Omni Fruit…is the only fruit in existence that carries a death sentence that starts the instant it's consumed by someone."
Taking the syringe of the substance away to be examined by the rest of the research team, the Omni-Omni Fruit was left to be watched by the guards until such a time when something happened to cause the forbidden fruit to be consumed by some poor soul that knew nothing of its dangers. Nothing any of them did would change the nature of this particular fruit because of one of its significant factors: Unlike the Devil Fruit, this fruit's benefits didn't affect one's ability to move about in ocean water. While this was seen as a boon, its downside was much worse than what the other Devil Fruits did to their consumers.
-x-
He was losing consciousness inside the Entry Plug again; the life support was failing and soon, he would be unable to escape from this cybernetic behemoth that had been a bane to him ever since he laid eyes upon it the day he saw his father after three years.
"So cold…and tired…and hungry," he utters as he curls into a ball to conserve whatever heat he had left, closing his eyes as sleep claimed him again.
A few seconds later…he seemed more than asleep. There were few thoughts running through his mind as the darkness creeped back into his location. There were no thoughts of people, of monsters, nothing. Just the silence and the darkness.
A hand reached out from behind his right shoulder and pulled him into a deeper darkness that was unlike the one he was already trapped inside.
Better to be away from this than to suffer further, a voice thought as the plug was now empty, devoid of any kind of occupant. You need a new setting…and a new venture. Maybe a place where you can have time and space to recover, both physically, mentally and emotionally.
A moment later, there was a blinding light…and nothing more.
-x-
The alarms on the ship went off, signaling that something happened to compromise the chamber that contained the Omni-Omni Fruit.
"What happened?!" The ship's captain demanded.
"We're not sure!" A man responded as he picked up a rifle and joined the others as they ran toward the chamber. "Some kind of explosion!"
"Is anyone in the chamber?!"
-x-
Opening his eyes, Shinji Ikari, the Third Child and pilot of Evangelion Unit-01…found himself in a strange room that looked like a lab that had been ransacked and damaged. The first thing he realized was that he was not inside the Entry Plug, was in a room that had adequate lighting…and laying in front of him was a strange object that looked like a piece of fruit, only red, blue and purple with orange, vein-like markings all over it…and he hadn't eaten in over sixteen hours after the Twelfth Angel appeared. He felt his stomach growl as if to remind himself that he needed to eat if he wanted to live, and he reached out with what little strength he had left, picking the object up. Bringing it to his mouth, he opened up and sank his teeth into it, just as a door opened to reveal a woman in a white coat.
"No!" She yelled, trying to approach him. "Don't eat it!"
But he had already bitten into the fruit, tasting its sweetness and more. A moment later, Shinji felt something strange within him; he felt as though his mind had been touched by something indescribable and beyond himself.
"Oh, no," the woman went, followed by several men armed with guns.
"What happened?!" One of them asks her.
"He ate the Omni-Omni Fruit," she pointed out.
"Who is he?"
"Unknown. He just appeared in the room."
They pointed their guns at him, and Shinji reacted by raising his arms up.
"Please, don't shoot me!" He begged.
"Identify yourself!" The men demanded from him.
"Shinji Ikari!"
"What are you doing here?!"
"I don't know where 'here' is!"
The woman looked at him like it was unusual for him to not know where he was…and maybe he didn't know. Just maybe, his presence aboard this vessel was nothing more than a coincidence, an accident of chance. Then, she noticed the rest of the fruit that he had bitten into had disappeared. If anything, this unusual phenomenon may have been what they needed.
"Stand down," she ordered the armed men.
"Doctor, we don't know what he…" One of them tried to say.
"Stand down," she repeated, slowly approaching the boy.
Shinji looked at her…and suddenly felt like he was getting a sense of déjà vu because she looked like someone he had seen before.
"Miss Ibuki?" He questions, and the woman gives a startled look.
"How do you know my last name?" She asks him.
"Maya Ibuki? You work for NERV."
"Are you sure you don't know where you are?"
"This…this is NERV HQ…isn't it?"
His awareness of her identity, his lack of awareness of where he was… It had to be an act of the Omni-Omni Fruit, unable to do anything unless someone ate it…and it saw an opportunity to ensnare a new bearer to its properties. And the most recent tidbit of knowledge they were able to procure from studying its inactive state…was this unusual ability it seemed to possess to look into other oceans beyond the ones they were familiar with. To peer into these dimensional waters and snatch up a fish that didn't belong, all for itself.
"Young man. Shinji Ikari, you say? You're aboard the EVA, 'Everlasting Variables of Absolution', a research and development ship dedicated to studying the Omni-Omni Fruit, which you unknowingly consumed just now. We're currently traveling up and down the Calm Belt of the Grand Line."
"The Grand Line? The Calm Belt?"
There was something in the way he questioned what he was being told made the woman believe that his presence here on the EVA was truly just a coincidence, a random shot in the darkness, and an act of the Omni-Omni Fruit looking for some poor, clueless soul to consume it…just so that it would be out in the world once more.
-x-
Unit-01 was completely destroyed in the attempt to salvage it from the Twelfth Angel. Every last trace of it was singed, melted, warped or something else altogether that made it inoperable, from its arms to its legs and its head and torso. And as for the Entry Plug, there was no trace of it from the wreckage, which meant the pilot, the Third Child, was also gone. While the Angel was defeated, the cost had been too high. Much higher than anticipated and not what most of the personnel had expected.
"…It doesn't matter how strong the Eva was built over the years, nothing can withstand the intense heat of all those N² bombs going off at the same time," went Kaji to Misato as he showed up during the aftermath, displeased over the fact that Shinji was KIA.
"This was overkill," Misato tells him, looking at the ruins of the Eva's torso. "I can't get his screams out of my head."
In their Evas, Asuka and Rei were dealing with this new situation in differing ways. Neither had expected one of their own to be killed like this; they kept hearing that the Evas were the safest place to be in intense situations, but after today, those beliefs were no different from lies people tell to make others believe to be the truth. While Rei pondered what this would do to NERV, Asuka kept half-expecting Shinji to pop up like nothing happened…except that something did happen…and he wasn't going to pop up like everything was a game when it wasn't. Someone dying, either because of the Angels or the Evas themselves…was as real and as serious as I was ever going to get.
Just pop up somewhere, stupid, Asuka thought, just wanting the boy she despised for his simple-mindedness and lack of understanding to show up and pretend to be alright. Just walk out from around a corner, come up from a sewer, drop out of the sky, sneak up behind me! Just show up like nothing happened!
But try as she might to convince herself that this wasn't the reality they were faced with, that loathsome boy she abused wasn't going to show up like everything was fine.
-x-
"How is he?" Another woman asks the one that just stepped out of the room Shinji was left in to process what he'd been told.
"Medically, physically or mentally?" She responds.
"All of the above."
"Medically, he had fatigue from dehydration and hunger, something eating the Omni-Omni Fruit undid to a degree. Physically, he's the average example of what someone scrawny is like. Mentally, he's confused by where he is and what's going on around him. I'm convinced that he's from a different dimension, an alternate plane of existence, vastly different from our own."
Looking at the boy through an observation window, the other woman wondered just how the Omni-Omni Fruit had been able to do what it did and bring this person here just to eat it.
"I heard that he knew your name," she told the woman that looked like the one Shinji had seen. "How do you explain that?"
"As I said, he comes from an alternate world, so it's likely that in our own, there are people similar to those he knew from his own. It'll be about ten hours before the effects of the fruit manifest, but I explained to him what we know about it so far."
"Does that include…the drawback?"
"Yes. This has him worried a little."
"I wouldn't blame him if he was; nobody asks to have this happen to them. What was the universe he's from like?"
"The way he describes it, much of the world is underwater, all save a few landmasses that were elevated enough to live on. We're still working on an artificial version of the Memo-Memo Fruit we have in another one of our vaults, but I think he's not holding back anything other than what he was doing before he wound up here."
"What makes you say that?"
"His outfit. He was hesitant on removing it and taking a shower. Not so much embarrassed as he was bothered by wearing it."
"And?"
"Shortly after he stepped into the shower stall, I had it analyzed. There were trace amounts of a substance that carried similar properties to a primary part of the body that requires water and iron for functionality of the organs."
"You mean blood."
"Yes. Also, while he was showering, I had a small scanner copy his body's nervous system. There were elevated stress levels in his nerves and his brain showed signs of heightened atrophy signs that were identical to the elevated stress in his heart."
"He was terrified of something?"
"Or someone."
"Maybe it's time to put the artificial Memo-Memo Fruit to use."
As they turned to walk away, Shinji got up from the gurney he was sitting on and walked around the room he was in. The woman he thought was Maya Ibuki was not the one he had seen, but an alternate version from a universe where the world the people lived in was predominantly populated with pirates of an era where traveling across the ocean was the norm in search of adventure and wealth. The people he just met aboard this seafaring vessel were mostly scientists experimenting with these strange pieces of fruit that granted their consumers a myriad of abilities that came at the price of being unable to move about in ocean water, but according to the Ibuki woman of this universe, the fruit he had eaten was, while similar to these Devil Fruit pieces, not a fruit that could be found anywhere else except where they had originally found it long ago. And while similar to Devil Fruit, the Omni-Omni Fruit wouldn't hinder with an inability to handle ocean water, but the price it came with was much higher and steeper than such a drawback; based on what they knew, the power it gave was the very power that became a curse.
Ten years, he thought as he looked at a picture of a man the Ibuki woman was with, the last person that ate the fruit before he did; the man looked like a male version of Ritsuko Akagi, only not as…whatever it was that the woman he met was like at NERV. Starting from the moment you eat it, your life gets shortened to just ten years. Only a decade…to do whatever you want.
This was the price of the Omni-Omni Fruit. The consumer would possess powers that bordered on the very belief of omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, basically an incarnation of God himself…but only for ten years, after which they would die a painful, agonizing death. And now…Shinji was the unlucky user of this fruit that had taken hold of his life, being granted power unlike anything he could ever imagine…but would be condemned to die by the time he was twenty-four. He didn't want this; nobody would choose power at the cost of dying, and he came close to dying more than once, every time he was in the Eva!
"So, you're the one who ate the Omni-Omni Fruit after I did, huh?" He heard a voice behind him, turned around, and saw the guy from the picture, standing in front of him, dressed in a male version of the outfit Ritsuko Akagi tended to wear, along with the white lab coat. "Maybe you'll get lucky. I mean that."
"You're…you're Riko Akagi," Shinji responds, looking around the room. "But…how?"
"Probably because we both ate the same fruit. Another benefit it comes with."
"I… No, this isn't real. I'm just imagining things right now. I'm under a lot of stress. You need to disappear and leave me alone."
"Shinji Ikari…how can I disappear when I'm already gone?"
"You ate the fruit before me. How did you just…deal with what was going to happen to you…and not do something about it?"
"If I knew now what we didn't know then, I would've done something to change my fate. Nobody that consumes this fruit should have to die before their time is truly up. But I have to believe that you'll have time to do something about it."
"How? And why me? Anyone could've eaten the fruit before I did today. Why did it have to be me? Why couldn't it have been one of these Devil Fruit things I've been hearing about, like something that turns you into an animal or gives you the power to reshape things into other things? What's the point of possessing power like this if I'm gonna die in ten years?"
"I've been asking myself that question ever since I made the conscious choice to eat the fruit. My choice was intentional, however; I did this to myself on purpose. Your choice was based on trying to survive; you didn't know the fruit was cursed, otherwise you wouldn't have eaten it. That's where we differ…and it's where I have to believe that you will survive this unforgiving fate the fruit forced on you."
Shinji covered his face with his left hand and sighs. This was his first conversation with someone who might as well be a ghost or a remnant of the fruit he ate…and it was helping him calm down a little. A little, but not completely.
"I'm a stranger in a strange world where I'm told is run by pirates in search of treasure and adventure," he tells Riko, "and strange, random fruit, once ingested, gives people bizarre abilities…but makes them unable to handle saltwater because the ocean hates anyone that ever ate such fruit. And now, here I am, on a boat in the middle of the ocean, standing in the middle of a room…talking to myself…because I was wishing to talk to someone that knows what I'm going through. That really knows what I'm going through."
"Yeah," Riko agrees with him. "It sucks. It sucks just as much as the Evangelion."
Shinji looks at him with suspicion; he was thinking about the Evangelion…but he didn't say anything about it.
"How do you know about that?" He asks him.
"You were thinking it. I also know that you met Maya Ibuki. She's someone you can trust to want to help you get out of this mess the fruit caused you. Keep her close."
"You knew her?"
"She was a little younger than you currently are…and I was older than I look right now. Relationships aren't perfect. They just are. Everyone aboard the EVA might be the people you need to depend on to make sure you live to see your twenty-fifth birthday."
"How?"
"Look for the one thing everyone else failed to find and possess. To do so, you must become more than a man. It takes one to obtain such access."
Before Shinji could question what he meant by that, he saw something flash before his eyes. A ship, looking as though it were modeled after Unit-01 itself, but projecting a sense of fierce protection, with a flag atop a pole with a picture that looked like something he would've drawn. A strange wing outstretched on the right side and an open left hand on the left side with a heart in the middle. And sitting on the head on the front of the ship was Shinji, looking out at the vast ocean with a smile. When it was over, Shinji was back in the room with Riko.
"What was that?" He asks.
"A glimpse into your future," Riko answers. "It's a power that occurs at random. Piece of advice: Don't dwell on your fate while changing the fates of other people. It's only when you reach your final year that you should dwell on what you're going to do."
Then the man turned to walk away, disappearing through the doors.
-x-
Even if it was Ritsuko Akagi that carried out the force salvaging attempt that destroyed Evangelion Unit-01 along with the Twelfth Angel, it was Gendo Ikari that authorized the operation on the grounds that the Eva be recaptured, even if it meant destroying it in the process. This is what had SEELE infuriated over the loss of Unit-01; even if NERV had succeeded in defeating another Angel, the loss of an Evangelion had been detrimental in their operation, and it would cost hundreds of billions in order to repair. And worse, there was no guarantee that it would function properly like it rarely did before the force salvage operation. And it wasn't just the matter of the damages to Unit-01, but the loss of the Third Child; the mere fact that a pilot was killed in action sent a message to the paramilitary agency's personnel that their Evangelions were not as safe as they were claimed to be.
"…And are there no personal concerns over the fact that your son died, Ikari?" SEELE 03 asks Gendo during the meeting to discuss the cost it would take to repair Unit-01.
"The Third Child, like any of the pilots, was expendable," Gendo states, showing no measure of any remorse or grief that his son was now nothing more than a memory. "Even he knew that."
"Did he really, Ikari?" SEELE 01 questions. "And you're not the least bit affected by his death, knowing that you put his life at risk by allowing Dr. Akagi to force-salvage the Eva?"
"NERV's mission isn't to ensure the safety of the pilots, but to defeat the Angels. So long as the pilots survive, that is what they'll do."
"And one of them didn't survive, so their troubles, whatever they were, are beneath us," SEELE 10 expresses.
Gendo couldn't say anything else regarding the matter of his dead son. There was nothing left to say about him. In a war for their survival, everyone was either a soldier or a casualty…and the Third Child was just another another casualty. He couldn't find a way to get free from the Angel and lost his life as a consequence.
"Make sure that Unit-01 is operational again," SEELE 06 orders Gendo, and the holographic monoliths representing the council disappeared from the room, leaving the commander alone.
-x-
"…So, there's a relic that can save my life?" Shinji asks the three primary leaders of the research vessel as they were in a different room where the Maya Ibuki-looking woman was holding a fruit that was bizarre in its appearance.
"Yes," a man that looked like an older version of the sub-commander from NERV HQ, Kozo Fuyutsuki, explains to him. "It's called the Demi-Demi Medallion. The last time we tried to look for it was when Riko Akagi, the man who ate the Omni-Omni Fruit before you, was alive. Unfortunately, we were never able to find it. Supposedly, it serves as a preservative to whoever has the Omni-Omni Fruit. Get the medallion, your ten-year life expectancy comes undone."
"Do you have any insight on where this medallion is?"
"The last clue we had on finding it was the confirmed fact that it was among the artifacts that Gold Roger had acquired during his life before he was killed," the second man that looked similar to Ryoji Kaji, albeit without the unshaven beard and ponytail, reveals. "This, of course, means that it, like everything else he had obtained during his pirate days, became part of his fabled treasure, the One Piece, which he hid before he was caught and executed for his infamy. That's when he issued his challenge to the world."
"Which was?"
"If anyone wanted the One Piece treasure, they had to find where he left it. If they could do that, they would become the next King of the Pirates."
"Except…nobody has found it, have they?"
The three looked at Shinji with down expressions. That alone told the young man that nobody has managed to find the treasure, despite whatever tips they found or whatever resources they possessed. This meant the chances of him finding the treasure just to find the medallion…were just as slim as those of other people wanting to find the treasure for whatever reasons they had, whether they were for greed or for glory. But Shinji's reasons were for neither; he had a deadline that he wanted to get passed, and he needed that medallion.
"How solid is any information relating to the location of where the treasure was claimed to be left by this Pirate King?" He asks them.
"The most definite claim to the location is Laugh Tale," the Ibuki woman reveals to Shinji, "but pirates have looked everywhere for it in the Grand Line with no luck. Even we don't know where it is."
"If it's in the Grand Line, that narrows it down some. I get that it probably seems like the chips are stacked against me, but I don't want to spend the next decade of my life waiting for the end to come when I have time to do something about it and prevent it. If this One Piece treasure has the Demi-Demi Medallion, and it can remove my ten-year death sentence, then I have to find it. If that means becoming the next Pirate King, then I'll do whatever is necessary to keep anyone else from finding the treasure before I do. I find it, I get the medallion, my life is preserved. You can have the rest of the treasure if you want it. I don't need it."
The woman then raised the strange-looking fruit to her mouth and took a bite out of it.
"If you're going after the treasure just to save your life from a fate that is ten years away," she tells him, "then you're going to need a ship and a crew."
"I'm willing to go solo if need be."
"Nobody should be alone if they have others around to pursue a similar interest," the Fuyutsuki lookalike says.
-x-
"Hmm?" A young man with a straw hat went as he was about to eat with his crew.
"Is something wrong?" A little animal with human intelligence asks the young man.
"Just a feeling that something amazing is going to happen," he answers, and then takes a bite out of his meat shank.
"How amazing?" A woman with a breast-band questions.
"Probably as amazing as Franky is much of the time," a man with a long nose states, pointing to a behemoth of a man with large arms and blue hair.
"Yeah!" The behemoth cheers.
To be continued…
A/N: Okay, this is the pilot chapter for a new crossover. Shinji ended up eating a fruit that is similar to Devil Fruit, but instead of being cursed with an inability to swim in ocean water, he was given a death sentence of only ten years to live unless he finds an object that will save him. I want his future crew to consist of people similar to those from his own universe, but with original members with Devil Fruit abilities that find his own abilities to be worth the risk of hanging with him. I'm hoping that once I get back to It's a whole new world you live, I'll post a new poll to decide what the name of the crew will be. Until then, I want to hear from y'all what you think of Shinji's new predicament.