Welcome! If you're reading this, you've not only chosen to read my fanfiction, but have actually bothered to read past the prologue to see where things go, which means I've got you in my clutches, mwahaha. So, before we continue, I, your annoying author, would just like to explain a couple things.
Crossovers are something I really enjoy reading, they're honestly my favourite type of fanfic and obviously are what I'm writing. However, the thing with crossing over things with specifically Evangelion, is that it has a very solid, but also very direct plot. Obviously, that sounds weird to say, but when you compare it to Gensokyo, you'll notice that Evangelion has very little fat, and therefore very little ambiguity in its early episodes that you can 'hook up' other fandoms in. Essentially cramming the significantly more sprawling Touhou into it is something that you need to do gradually, and you might not be able to see much of it before the story opens up a little more. So, if the first chapter or two feel like a little too-retready, sorry about that.
But hey, isn't it more fun to watch things spiral out of control if they don't happen immediately?
Either way, I hope you enjoy. I've been playing around with this crossover for a while, and I'm really excited to share it!
東保天戦鬼 - Fly Me to the Lunatic Kingdom
CHAPTER 1 - Angel Attack!
In the year Gensokyo 130
"Due to the state of special emergency, all lines are currently unavailable."
Shinji hung up the phone with an annoyed grunt. It figured. The first message from his father in nearly a decade, and it resulted in a wild goose chase that ended in the wide, abandoned streets of his father's fake, new Tokyo.
He looked around. The city, Tokyo 3, was like no city he'd ever seen; he'd passed a variety of temples and buildings that looked almost stereotypically 'Japanese', but they were dwarfed by the pristine, pure-white skyscrapers that stood like mountains of refined metal. Something about them, something about the whole city, unnerved Shinji to his core.
"I knew I shouldn't have come." He put the phone back on the receiver- even it was eerily pristine- and went to leave.
Almost stalling, he looked down at the photo he'd been given with the 'summons', which he couldn't honestly say didn't catch his attention more than the message from his father. The photograph was…
How do you even describe it?
It was a woman, apparently the one who was going to pick him up, standing what he had to assume was seductively, leaning forward with her… ahem, assets, out. Even more prominent than those, however, was that those assets were contained in a pure white kosode, with a scarlet hakama behind them. The woman was dressed like a shrine maiden! What kind of place was this?
Well, he'd never find out. If this place was in a state of emergency… "I guess it can't be helped. I'll head to the shelter."
Once again, Shinji paused, almost pleading for someone to interrupt his resolution to harden his heart and leave as soon as he could., but the streets remained empty, almost untainted by life. As he started walking towards a shelter, he wasn't even accosted by any wildlife, the city being bereft of even any birds. It was truly-
THUMP.
Was that an earthquake?
Whatever it was, it was quickly met with the roaring of VTOLs. Shinji, despite his better judgement, turned towards the noise's source, and subsequently froze at what he saw.
There were, in fact, VTOLs. And, giving chase to them, was what can't even be put to words. It was a demon, or a monster, or an ancient oni, or something bigger than any biological creature could possibly grow to, pure white and with no imperfections at all. Unlike the city around it, the monster almost seemed aggressive in its purity. Out of it bubbled a fluid that destroyed the forest the monster emerged from, but more than just knocking it down, and more than just rotting it. It was as if the trees, the world itself in a bubble around the monster, were being simply undone. They withered and rotted, but became white like ghosts, as white as the monster.
It, that was the source of the earthquakes, was coming his way. Shinji just stood there. What do you even do when you see that kind of thing?
It took the rush of missiles, barely too high to take his head off, to shake Shinji with a scream. The missiles shot straight to the titanic monster, impacting it, but the thing barely moved, easily shrugging the blasts off. And in response, the beast shot a horrifying red piston from its hand, the only spot of colour from the pale monster. Effortlessly, it shot straight through one of the VTOLs even as it was attempting to retreat, nearly knocking it straight onto Shinji. Then, cutting it even closer, the beast lept with an unnatural weightlessness, as if it was on the moon, before crushing the VTOL right in front of the boy, nearly killing him in a blinding explosion. In that instant, Shinji could only think he was gonna die, and not even the screech of a car pulling up in front of him could make him force his eyes open-
huh?
"Sorry! Didn't mean to keep you waiting!"
A car door opened, revealing the woman from the picture. She was wearing the exact same set of shrine maiden robes as in the picture, although worn a lot less loosely. The traditional robes clashed rather comically with her sunglasses, which was all that Shinji, still in shock, could register even as the battle continued. He had to be grabbed by the hand and physically pulled in by the woman- Miss Katsuragi, Shinji thought he'd heard that name at some point, at some time, into the car, with them peeling out before the foot of the beast stomped the space they'd just occupied a second before.
o0o
"The invader is still intact. Currently advancing towards Tokyo-3!"
"The Air defence force doesn't have the power to stop it!"
The situation was worsening perfectly. Gendo didn't have to do anything but sit back and watch, as the three fools from the UN panicked at the battle they were watching over the giant screen in front of them all, demanding that their forces just-
"Hit it with everything we've got!" Yes, that. "Commit all units from Atsugi and Iruma first!"
"Don't hold anything back! Destroy the target at any cost!"
Unsurprisingly, 'more missiles' wasn't the solution. The stark white Sachiel didn't even destroy the massive missile singlehandedly, it merely raised its arm in its direction, and the machine dissolved. Whatever weak charges that survived long enough to explode did so far in front of the titan, which walked through the subsequent blast like it wasn't even there.
"Damn it! That was less than five metres away! It should have done something!"
"The tank battalion's been annihilated. Not only are we barely damaging it when we can even reach it, but we can rarely do even that before it literally melts us! Guided missiles and artillery have no effect, either!"
"It's useless, it's all useless! We can't even touch it!" It was hard to even care about what the UN's finest were whinging about. Once again, Gendo found himself struggling to keep a smile off his face, as he spoke just subtly enough that only one person would truly hear.
"The A.T. field combined with its purification abilities. I'm not surprised at this result, but I can't lie, I'm surprised about how untouchable it truly is to conventional weaponry. The previous times we made far more physical contact."
Junko, in a black lab coat with a red, patterned turtleneck underneath, let a breath out of her nose in a way that, similarly, only Gendo could hear.
"The people of the moon have committed a foolish mistake. They have taken the first shot, and have therefore tilted their hand. It is already truly delicious, that they've come down to our impure land simply to stop what we're doing. In that sense, we've already won, and everything from here is only a delaying action against our slow, crushing victory. This is just their deochi, their opening punchline, to catch us off guard."
"Indeed."
At the edge of both of their notices, as both barely even deigned to pay attention to the UN officers at this point, one of the many hotlines rang. "Understood, sir. We'll deploy it as planned."
o0o
A decent distance away from the battle, miss Katsuragi had stalled the car just long enough to take a glance at the battle through a pair of binoculars when the VTOLs, to her confusion, scattered. "Wait a second- No! They're gonna use an N2 mine!"
Shinji couldn't even process the sentence before miss Katsuragi tackled him with a "GET DOWN!", shielding him from the immense blast. It was a direct hit, not that either of them could have seen it through the mushroom cloud quickly blooming from where the beast once stood. The shockwave tore through the world mere milliseconds after the light, rolling the car, likely totalling it, and only not killing the two of them through some act of god. Only when the car came to a stop, pinned on a brand-new crater, could they even get out. Misato first. "Are you all right?"
"I think so, but my mouth is full of dirt."
"Earth is good for your stomach, you'll be fine. Now then, let's go. We need to push this thing over!"
Shinji scrambled to Misato's side as she started trying to push the car over herself. Fortunately, its centre of gravity was low, and it flipped with only a few pushes. Misato dusted her robes off, ineffectually so considering that they had been white and therefore didn't do well against dirt. "Thanks a bunch. You're a big help."
"The pleasure was all mine… Miss Katsuragi."
"Misato's fine. Pleased to meet you, Shinji Ikari."
"Yeah."
o0o
"That's how you beat a monster! Sorry, Ikari. It looks like your shaman nonsense wasn't needed after all. Hope you had fun with the taxpayer's dollar while it lasted."
Gendo said nothing, with only his eyes fixed on the massive screen in front of him, expectantly. Junko, far less measured, moved to bite a response out, only for the sensors, knocked out by the N2 mine, to return to life with a horrifying snap. Horrifying, not for them being restored, but for what they said.
"ENERGY READING AT THE EPICENTRE OF THE BLAST!"
The cameras came back online as the officers returned to their natural state of panic. On the massive screen in front of them, horrifyingly trudging out of a nigh-nuclear wasteland as the officers slumped back in their own seats,
was the monster. No longer pure white, now scorched with spots and smudges seemingly puncturing through the white veil and revealing an inky, dark-green form beneath them, but alive. Alive, and still standing.
It took far too many seconds for the shock to wear off, and for one of the officers, who knew which one, to bark again. "G-GET A VTOL ABOVE IT! WE NEED VISUAL, READINGS, NOW!"
"So soon after an N2 mine? Is that wise?" Junko certainly enjoyed watching the UN officers squirm.
"We don't have a choice! We need info!"
"We have visual!" Aoba, a good employee, was the one who said it. It took mere seconds more for the VTOL to get into position and its findings to be displayed. The beast looked like partially-melted, torn open mochi. Junko wished she could be more surprised with what she saw, but she had dealt with creatures this 'pure' many times before.
"As suspected, the creature is purifying itself. A being as pure as it won't even have to worry about death. Unless we were to render it impure..."
Gendo didn't sound surprised, either. "Not that it could be killed even with the A.T. field. We've been sent quite the puzzle to solve."
Then, the VTOL's feed was cut. The blast from the monster might've had something to do with it. Once again, even as the war room descended further into panic, neither Gendo nor Junko seemed even slightly moved.
"Impressive, their puzzle can add new parts to itself, too." And then, as an aside, she snarked "The Lunarians are truly advanced compared to you humans, even now."
"They've made an angel that can grow its own intelligence, and sent it to us first. You're right, this is quite the opening punchline they've sent us."
"Verily. At any rate, it seems it has already cleansed itself anew. It'll be renewing its campaign soon, and then their only option shall be us."
"The second the UN get their heads out of their asses, I'll be activating the Oni."
Junko's expression faltered just for a second. "I worry about the pilot's health. Will she be okay?"
"It's not worth worrying about. Another will be arriving."
o0o
"Yes! Don't worry, his safety is my priority… could you get a car train for us? Express lane, of course! Thaaaaanks."
Shinji's eyes were firmly locked to the windows, in the admittedly silly belief that this conversation was in some way something he was snooping on. As Misato finished her call with whoever she was calling, he only stared out at the terrain, not wanting to make Misato in some way uncomfortable. He also couldn't help but think of the monster, either. It had just shrugged everything off, it had even shrugged off the N2 mine. Could anything stop its rampage? Why was he even here? He knew his father had done… something important in the government, alongside that creepy woman he was always with, but he doubted that it had anything to do with this. If nothing else, this was the kind of thing the military handled, right? Was his father in the military? He knew so little about him, Shinji was actually beginning to doubt he would know if his father was in the military. That still didn't explain why he was here; it had to be a coincidence, some horrible luck that was nothing new in the grand scheme of his life- Misato wasn't watching the road. She was looking down at her miko robes and grimacing. She hadn't even noticed when she'd hit the railing and nearly flew off the hill.
"Um, Miss Misato?"
The car was swerving left and right, now. Thank god the streets were empty, because- nevermind, Misato just sideswiped the cliff.
"Miss Misato?"
That snapped her out of it. "What's up?"
She really hadn't noticed? Well, as long as she was paying attention again. To keep her paying attention, he asked about the only other thing in his mind. "Those batteries… was it alright to just take those?"
Misato sucked in air. "Well, I'm a 'government official', and we're in an emergency! We needed a car, and I can just pay for it later. Plus, they would've helped if they were there, they'd think I was a miko! We were just cutting out the middleman, we had to take decisive action, heheh…"
"Miko? Wait, why'd you say 'government official' like you weren't one?"
"Semantics! A cute kid like you shouldn't be worrying, you'll get wrinkles! What is it with your generation and always asking questions?"
"My generation?"
"Yeah, there's this other kid, because that's what you are, just a kid, who's always-"
Shinji blinked at 'just a kid', and didn't even let Misato finish whatever nonsense she was about to spout. "Are you any more mature?"
"Hmph. How about another sideswipe?" At that, Misato started veering her car left and right, this time at least intentionally. Shinji, already traumatised, started screaming, which only caused Misato to laugh her ass off as the tunnel enveloped them, a fit of laughter that lasted through the dark tunnel, all the way until its end, when an island of light opened up only to reveal a blast door with two Kanji, '東保' painted in a blood red logo. Shinji squinted, trying to gleam the specific meaning of them, but came up with only "Eastern… Protection?"
"Uh-huh! It's a secret organization dedicated to the preservation of Japanese culture, and saving the world on the side."
Shinji felt it wise not to answer that. "That's where my father is, right?"
"Well, yeah! You do know what he does, don'tcha?"
"My teacher… he only told me that he had lost it, and that he'd gone off to be a religious kook with her."
"Eh?"
Despite Misato's prodding, Shinji didn't elaborate with an actual explanation, and the conversation died for quite a while, with only the rumble of the car train to keep them company. Shinji reopened it, admittedly a little stubbornly, and a little pleadingly, by asking the same question.
"Miss Misato, are we going to see my father after this?"
"Of-of course we are!"
Shinji didn't share how that made him feel. He felt it was best for the flashbacks to die like embers, like he let them every time they resurfaced.
"Wait, right! Didn't you get an ID from your father?"
"Yeah. Um, here."
"Thanks! I-"
The document was an old-fashioned, vertically folded paper, same as all 'Eastern Protection' documents. Almost the entire letter had been painted over with black ink, wiping out god-knows-what the old message was and replacing it with a scrawled "Come. -Gendo Ikari." written as a command. The message had obviously been ripped up and taped together. Twice.
"Eh, well, I suppose that counts. Don't worry about it."
"About what?"
"Your father. My relationship with mine's no better."
Shinji wanted to make the woman elaborate, but was taken out of the conversation, once again, by what was on the other side of the window, as the car train finally opened into-
"It's a geofront! It's a real geofront!"
"That's right! It's our secret base, and the key to rebuilding Japan, a fortress for all humankind against all who might want us destroyed! Not that they even have a chance, of course."
Shinji smiled, actually smiled, at that, or maybe at the view, but progress, regardless. He didn't have to like his father to be at least a little hyped after seeing a view as beautiful as this. Maybe being an 'eastern protector', if that's what '東保' was for, wasn't such a bad name. Even if the name was a little silly.
I mean, '東保'- 'Touhou', what a funny name.
o0o
"Please contact Misato Katsuragi."
"Again?"
The phone rang beside the chief alchemist of the Oni project just as she was pulling herself out of the abomination's cage, still annoyingly soaked in the pinkish-red fluid the giant machines were submerged within. Clearly, though, her work didn't matter that much, considering how often Misato called her with random questions! As she walked through the halls of TOUHOU, halls she and everyone else safe for the operations director had already memorized, she could only hope that the coat and white shirt she'd thrown on could do a serviceable job at hiding the fact she was still in her swimsuit, and that she could keep her expression as authoritative as it needed to be. She'd arrived at the elevator Misato would be emerging from, assuming she'd described her location right… what if she didn't describe her location right?
And then, the elevator opened. Misato, with the boy she'd been sent to pick up, stood there with a neutral expression that immediately gave way.
"Uh, hiya, Reisen. Nice… sunglasses."
Reisen used the annoyance Misato's face inspired as fuel to keep her face flat, as she stepped in next to Misato. She didn't say a word for an uncomfortable amount of time, but did finally acknowledge Shinji's presence.
"At least you did your job, Misato. Is this the second pilot?"
"Yep! Although the Da Sheng Zhuang institute insists that we refer to him as the third child."
"Odd. Regardless, well-met, uh…"
Shinji missed the obvious attempt for the woman to learn his name. He was shy, sure, but he was more in shock. "Y-you have rabbit ears!"
"Huh? Oh. Don't worry, I'm an earth rabbit."
Shinji remained in shock for the entire elevator ride, the second elevator ride, and now some horizontal platform ride, wondering if he had truly gone insane. Actually, he was assuming that was the case at this point, and just trying to pin down when exactly it had happened. Maybe this was all a dream, and he'd never actually received a letter from his father at all. It would make sense, it wasn't like his father had ever cared about him. Especially not after he met-
"Repeating. All personnel, assume battle stations. Level 1."
The announcement made Misato and Reisen both look up, even if it failed to snap Shinji out of his thoughts.
"Hear that?"
Reisen nodded at Misato's question. "This is serious. All this war talk has me on edge, it reminds me of the last war."
"Oh, you fought in the Impact wars?"
"Ah… No, it was earlier than that."
Misato coughed into her hand. "Anyways… how's Oni-01 coming?"
"Not well… It's still frozen."
"Will it really move?"
Reisen sighed, and leaned over the railing, looking over the hand of the other massive 'Oni' that Shinji somehow hadn't noticed. "Getting Oni-00 to move was hard enough, and you can see where that got it. The possibility of Oni-01 activating is… 0.000000002%. It's like it doesn't even want to work, like it's holding itself back."
"Ehheh… O-ni percent. It seems fitting at least."
"Don't be insulting… I'm the one who has to make it work."
A speedboat ride was also taken in silence, with Shinji still lost in thought. Something was obviously bothering him, but neither Reisen nor Misato seemed to notice as they parked the boat and pulled Shinji up the dock, only for them to wind up in… a completely black room. For the first time in ages, the boy piped up with an "I can't see a thing." Which was quickly answered by the bang of industrial lights flicking on. "Gah! What the heck is that?"
Misato, a little too amused, quipped back with "What, never seen an oni before?"
The 'Oni' was an absolutely massive, horned… robot? It was hard to correctly put into words, but for completely different reasons than the titan rampaging outside. It was nonetheless truly gargantuan, completely dwarfing everyone in the room and staring out at them like ants. It was contained in a set of purple armour that made it look like a samurai, up to a massive, protruding horn shooting straight up out of its head. Even largely submerged in the strange, pink fluid that it was, the thing still looked like it might lean forward and bite their heads off at any moment. It was… horrifying.
"An- what?"
Reisen's posture had changed completely, with her now standing stiffly like a soldier at attention. She shouted out, as if asked by a superior officer "This is the ultimate all-purpose humanoid refinement weapon developed by TOUHOU. The representation of earth's will to defend itself, carried out in complete secrecy. It is our… earth's final line of defense against any and all invaders! Designation: Oni-01!"
"Correct, Reisen. Very good."
Standing in the distance, in an observation room far above the monster in front of them, was two imposing figures in black. On the left was the woman who had spoke, in a black lab coat and with a massive, cascading head of foxlike, ginger-golden hair. And on the right… Well, Shinji knew too well, looking away as if in shame.
"Father."
"It's been a while, Shinji." Shinji didn't respond. Junko sighed, but said nothing. With that proper acknowledgement out of the way, Gendo moved on. "Sortie."
Misato, down next to the boy, balked. "Sortie? But Oni-00 is still unusable! We just saw it-" Gendo and Junko both stood, expressions completely unchanging. Realization dawning, Misato glanced over at the monster next to her, almost afraid of getting her second guess confirmed. "You're gonna use Oni-01?"
Junko nodded, wordlessly. Reisen, still at attention, put the orders she had been given into words. "There's no other way. The use of Oni-01 has been both authorized and ordered."
"But- It doesn't have a pilot! After what happened to Oni-00… we can't bring her out!"
"Incorrect. A pilot has just been delivered."
Misato's horror compounded, as she followed Reisen's gaze (or, where her gaze must've been behind those opaque shades). Followed her gaze, down to the boy in front of her. "You can't be serious."
Reisen nodded. "Shinji Ikari."
"Huh?"
"You have been ordered to get into it."
"Eh?" Shinji couldn't believe a word of what he was hearing. Nor could Misato, who was far more willing to speak out.
"But… It took the previous pilot seven months to synchronise with Oni-00! It's impossible for him to do it!"
"We don't have a choice, Captain Katsuragi. All we can do is have him sit inside and hope for the best, or else we have no chance to survive against that monster above ground. Even if someone has the slightest chance as being able to activate the Oni, we have no choice but to explore it. You understand how important this war is to win."
Misato was nigh-speechless. She couldn't find herself disagreeing with Reisen, but she didn't want to voice the fact. Everything just seemed… impossible. "You… may be right…"
Shinji hadn't even heard a word of that, though. Outside of the attention of both women, he had been bubbling in rage; He didn't even want to think about his father and… that woman, but they were both here. Both here, and demanding he grin and bear doing another ridiculous task, because that's the only reason they ever even deigned to see Shinji. To use him.
"Father… did you want to send for me, or did Junko?"
Misato and Reisen froze at that. Even Junko's neutral expression wavered a bit. Gendo remained unfazed. "It does not matter. We sent for you because we have a use for you."
"That's bullshit! And I know it's bullshit because this is what you both always do! It was bad enough that you didn't want me, it was bad enough that you abandoned me to run off with her, but then she just can't take the hint! She's obsessed with me forgiving you, me forgiving the unforgivable, and this is just another ploy of it! What other reason would you have for calling for me, what reason would I even have to be able to control a robot like that!"
Gendo stepped forward in the observation room, almost being up against the glass. "I called for you because you are useful. If you were not of use I would not have sent for you. This was not Junko's decision, and if she had another option she also would have sought it out. Nonetheless, no one else can. So you must."
"But- it's impossible! It doesn't even make any sense! I don't know anything about this, I've never seen any of this in my life! Everything here is insane! She's insane!"
"It does not matter. You will be instructed."
Gendo loomed over his son, as Shinji shrunk into himself far below him. Shinji didn't get a choice here. He never had. It was only a matter of time and force. The boy, desperately, raised his voice to almost yelling his throat raw. "I CAN'T! YOU'RE INSANE, YOU'RE BOTH INSANE! I CAN'T PILOT SOMETHING LIKE THIS!"
"If you're going to get inside, do it now. If not, leave." Everyone in the massive cage was staring, now, and Shinji could feel their eyes burning through him. As if accentuating his words, as if his father had commanded it to himself, the earth began to shake. Not from an earthquake, as Gendo looked up. "Sachiel has figured out that we're here."
Reisen took a step forward. "You've been given your orders, Shinji." Pleadingly, he looked towards Misato, but her expression had become steely.
"Board it."
Shinji took a step back. "This- this is insane…why did I even come here?"
Misato crouched down to his level in front of him. Shinji still couldn't get used to the miko robes she was wearing. All of this, none of it made sense. "Shinji, why did you come?". When he looked away, refusing to even meet the woman's eyes or look at her strange getup, Misato continued. "You can't run away. Not from your father, not from yourself."
"I… can't. I just can't."
Gendo just looked at him. Looked at him behind those shades, that revealed nothing of his eyes. He didn't even twitch as he stared down Shinji, but finally…
"Get me a line to the second child."
The voice call picked up immediately. It was the voice of a girl, but it was also tired and resigned. "Yes, sir?"
"You are needed. You are the only one who can stop the angel, the alternative proved unusable."
The voice in the call sighed. "Yes, sir." The call hung up.
It was like someone had let the air out of a balloon. Everyone deflated, even Reisen seemed… disappointed? Resigned? Nonetheless, she spoke. "Reconfigure Oni-01's system to the second child!" A voice over the intercom responded in the affirmative, and the cage became a flurry of activity, that Shinji was once again left out of.
"I wasn't needed after all."
The only thing that brought him out of his thoughts was the sliding open of an elevator on one of the cage's far walls. Stood there, in a red skirt, vest and bow that was far detached from the outfit of a shrine maiden but still nonetheless immediately reminded Shinji of one, was a girl. She was heavily bandaged, the white of casts and gauze drowning out the red clothing, covering much of her forehead and even an eye. On her arms were a detached sleeve on one and a full cast on the other. Everywhere on the girl was bandages of some sort, and yet she was still standing there. Barely.
"Reimu… Hakurei… is here. Let's… solve this incident."
Shinji, in shock, didn't move when the girl started limping over. She was using a staff… no, a gohei, just an extremely long one, like a crutch, and it seemed like every single step she took was one that sent a spike of pain to her core.
Reimu's progress was… pitiful. She was desperately trying to walk forward, but it was slow going at best, and she was locked in concentration just to stay up, only looking up to give a dirty look to Shinji. And then, the building shook again.
An explosion, by the sounds of it directly above them, roared, before something shook the building hard enough to reach the cage. As Shinji fell, the industrial lights above them were outright shaken off of their supports, falling straight down towards the two children. The girl noticed and despite her injuries was able to dart out of the way, barely dodging them with an anguished groan, but Shinji wasn't nearly as nimble, and would no doubt be crushed. Misato could only yell a look out! before he was crushed-
except, he wasn't. The Oni raised its massive arm like it was nothing and blocked the debris. At that, another uproar gripped the cage, but Shinji ignored it completely. He was already running over to the girl- to Reimu, to help her get up. She was trying to do so on her own, giving Shinji a look of tired acquiescence and she reached for the gohei again. Absentmindedly, Shinji offered her a hand, before eventually having to pull her up by the waist while she grabbed her pseudo-walking stick. And then, he noticed his hand.
His hand, soaked with her blood.
"I'll... I'll do it." He said it almost under his breath, so he had to speak again, loud enough to be heard over the commotion, loud enough for even Gendo far above to hear. "I'll pilot it."
And with that, Shinji had joined a war.