Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ Cold Rain on a Cold Mountain ❯ Episode One: Saisho no Yume ( Chapter 1 )

DISCLAIMER:

The first thing you might ask upon seeing this fiction is: `Why is it rated NC-17?' There are many reasons as to why I rated my story thus, but I shall not bore you by revealing all of them. Rather, I will simply say this: the story you are about to read does not contain mindless (or otherwise) sex like the others you find here. In fact, it may not contain any sex at all, for a very long time, for this was not my aim in writing it. Instead, my aim was to retell the saga which we know as Evangelion, to the best of my ability, from beginning to end. My version of events starts off the same, but quickly dives into a much darker, and much grittier world.

I rated this fiction NC-17 due to the violence, language, adult themes, and complex issues which lay within, waiting to be discovered. I do not mean to disappoint anyone who is hoping for a lemon fic, and I wanted to provide this warning before hand. I know just how annoying it can be to be reading a story hoping for a good sex scene, only to discover there was nothing to be found. I, like many of the people who read this, am a self-confessed lemon addict. However, if you can check your desire at the door, I think that perhaps you shall find something worthwhile in my story.

One other final note: If you have not yet watched the complete series, do not read this story. Anno Hideaki-sama's version of events is simply too good to ruin with my own inadequate (by comparison) retelling. Go watch the series, and then come back and look at my version. You will end up liking it much more that way. Knowledge of the films, however, is probably not needed until much later chapters.

Shin Seiki Evangelion was created by Anno Hideaki, and is owned by GAINAX. It was distributed in Japan by King Records, Movic, Star Child, and TV Tokyo, and in America by AD Vision Films and Manga Entertainment (a Palm Pictures company). The manga, from which this story also draws inspiration, was created by Sadamoto Yoshiyuki and is published in America by Vis Entertainment. The rights to the show are thus owned by the original creators, and the above companies. The use of the characters, settings, and concepts is without permission, but under the grounds of being a part of an active fandom, I request the above parties to not take legal action against me. Besides, Pen^Pen is my lawyer. Just you try and beat a penguin with a law degree. Just you try.

COLD RAIN ON A COLD MOUNTAIN

"Cold Rain on

A Cold Mountain

What secrets do you hide?

With your silent

Rocks and trees

In whom do you confide?

Angels walk in time forgot

Our lances fly and fall

For the good of man we toss our lot

Upon your rocky wall."

EPISODE ONE

SAISHO NO YUME

"Ayanami! Ayanami!" He cried it out through a throat raw from use, but it did not matter. His own concerns no longer mattered, now that he knew what was about to happen. In an unfamiliar, compact compartment, he looked out at the vista of two giants, locked in combat. Great beings, wracked with pain, consuming and consumed. Before he realized it, he was gazing down at the tiny screen in the corner of the compartment. Crimson eyes stared back with a look of longing, of loss so deeply etched that it might never come away.

"Good-bye, Shinji-kun." Her lips moved slightly. Such a small movement. Such a futile action. Sad eyes, small smile. That was all. An instant later, all was fire and noise, and the world rocked to its core far below.

In the cold confines of the empty cockpit, now devoid even of the image on the comm screen, the cries of a grief unknowable to those who have never loved and lost filled the silence left in the calm serenity of destruction.

Ikari Shinji woke with a sudden start, a cold sweat on his face. It was the dream again; it never failed to miss a single night. Shinji had actually come to dread lying down in his bed, for he knew that the vision of the clash and the girl of blue hair and crimson eye would come back. Familiar, yet unknown. He could not understand the dream. All that stuck with him outside of the terror was the name. Ayanami. Ayanami. He spoke it softly to himself, the sound of his own low voice startling him further. With a slight twinge of silent embarrassment, he realized that he was clutching the bed coverings in two closed fists. He breathed in deeply, and then let go of the sheets. His eyes moved up to the digital clock sitting on his bed side. 4:28. In the morning.

Shinji groaned, then sat up in his bed. He knew from past experience that any immediate attempts at sleep after the dream would be impossible. Past experience had also taught the young Ikari to keep reading materials on hand. He absentmindedly flipped the switch of the reading light on his bedside table. Although his mind had been sufficiently scarred awake by the dream, the muscles in his arm had not, and so when he reached down towards the stack of familiar books on the floor his stiff hand knocked them out of their order. The hand scrounged around on the floor, like the snout of a pig rooting for turnips in the barnyard garden. Shinji's hand finally settled on a book which felt different. He lifted it up to the top of the bed. The volume had come with the mysterious picture, from the purple haired woman in Tokyo-3. It had a brown dust cover over it, which had no inscriptions or letters upon it. Curious to what it was, he flipped open the book to the title page. A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. He read it out slowly, unsure of himself. Why had the woman sent him a book written in English? His eyes were drawn to the opposite page, where more familiar characters had been written in Japanese. To Shinji, from Ikari Gendo. With a sudden violence that surprised even himself, he hurled the book to the ground.

Ikari Gendo. He even signed his name like it was a title, a rank given him by some militia. Not `father,' not `dad.' Just Gendo. Shinji didn't know exactly why he hated his father, what it was that repulsed him so from his own parent. Perhaps it wasn't something that the man was. Perhaps it was something he had done, or had neglected to do. He hadn't even seen him for three years. Now, on his orders, he was to come to Tokyo-3, in the care of a Captain Katsuragi, for reasons unstated. Could it be... could it be that he wanted to be with his son again? Could it be that his father wanted what was left of his family back? Shinji reprimanded himself for thinking such a thing, and quickly cast the thought out of his mind. No, there had to be some other reason.

He reached over to his bedside table, and picked up the picture of the woman he was supposed to meet. She looked happy, almost expecting that her smile would inspire whoever saw it to join in. If the woman had thought that, she was right; Shinji found himself smiling despite the events that had taken place in his dream only a short time before. For the longest time, he held the picture in his hand, thinking over his upcoming move to Tokyo-3. It was to be tomorrow, was it not? What could his father want with him? And why was this Misato coming to pick him up? Did she not have better things to do than shuttle a fourteen year old from one city to another? These questions, and more, filled Shinji's mind. He glanced up at the clock. 5:28. Had he really been thinking for an hour?

He put the picture down. Whether he liked it or no, Shinji knew he had to try to sleep. As he was about to turn off his light his eyes looked down upon the book he had tossed to the ground. Now, wait. This was odd. For a book printed in English, why were there kanji spread across the page? His eyes were drawn to the characters. They looked as though painted just a moment before, and the dark ink almost seemed to swirl and run as his tired eyes focused on them. As he read them aloud into the still dark air of his room, Shinji felt a chill run through him, as though he had been touched with an icy hand, and his voice trembled as he shivered.

"Cold Rain on

A Cold Mountain

What secrets do you hide?

With your silent

Rocks and trees

In whom do you confide?

Angels walk in time forgot

Our lances fly and fall

For the good of man we toss our lot

Upon your rocky wall."

The alarm wailed away, almost as though it hailed the end of the world, rather than the change of the hour. As Shinji opened his eyes, the world seemed to swirl around him. Finally, everything came into focus... upside down. The boy felt himself slipping, gave a yelp of surprise, and crashed to the floor in a tangled heap. After having recovered from the fall induced daze, Shinji silently wondered at his own intelligence. Had he fallen asleep hanging off of the edge of the bed? As he tried to stand, his back answered the query by snapping like the crackle of a blazing fire. He fell to the ground once again, so sore and stiff he could barely move. With a concentrated effort, Shinji once again attempted to lift himself. He steadied himself with one hand on the bed, and the other on the floor. Ignoring the pain, he boosted himself up, until he was once again sitting on the bed. What an odd night. He had fallen asleep so quickly after reading the mysterious poem. Sighing at the misfit memory, he looked down at the book by his bedside. But the kanji was gone, and all that remained on the crinkled paper page were the expected English words. Shinji reached down to pick up the book, immediately regretting his decision to do so as the pain in his back made him moan. Nevertheless, he got a grip around the book and picked it up. Without much success, he tried to read the text on the page, but quickly got lost. English had never been one of his good subjects. As he could not understand the words, he looked instead to the page number. With a certain passing interest, he noted that it was page 38 he was open to. Shinji had to wonder why he even bothered to look. The vision on the page, the poem in the cold night, could not have been more than a dream. What else, after all, could explain it? But... it had seemed so real. Even now as he recalled it, he trembled at the remembrance of that chilled air.

As he mused over the mystery, the notion slowly dawned on Shinji that the alarm of his digital clock was still blaring loudly. As he reached over to shut it off, the photograph of the purple haired Captain caught his eye. Shinji stared at the time on his clock, and the picture of Misato smiling back at him, and in that moment, reality suddenly dawned on him.

"Damn it! I have to go!" With a flying jump he leapt off of the bed, remembering only too late his aching muscles. He fell heavily towards the floor, saving himself just in time from coming face-to-cover with tome of translated Kafka. Cursing himself for not packing the previous night, Shinji gathered his books and few other possessions and quickly tossed them into his backpack. Why had his aunt not woken him as she always did? He slung the backpack over his stiff shoulders, grabbed the photograph, and took off out of his bedroom, slamming the door behind. Like a gust of wind he was off running, down the hall and through the kitchen, then the living room, and finally out the door. In his hurry, however, he had not noticed that his aunt and uncle, who usually saw him off in the morning, were strangely absent and that the normally clean house was stale with the smell of mold and dust.

*************************************************************** *********

Of all the days for the Third Child to be finally transferred to NERV, why in God's name did it have to be today? The woman swore silently to herself as she raced down the empty highway in her blue Renault. There was not another car nor person for as far as the eye could see, and while she was glad that there was no traffic to obstruct her progress, the lack of any visible signs of living, breathing humanity made her nervous. This was, after all, a combat zone now, and who could say if anyone alive or dead remained.

Over the roar of the engine, a panicked voice cried out in terror that the unknown enemy was moving closer. The sound of the voice without any physical form contributed further to the feeling of impending doom. The very nature of radio, or that of words lacking visible action, lent itself to an ethereal feeling. Cannon fire sounded over the airwaves, followed by booming blasts and terror-filled screams. The radio that the NERV Captain had been listening to suddenly dissolved into a shrill squeal, then static, and finally nothing at all.

"Shit," Katsuragi Misato spat out as she reached down to flip the radio off. Whether destroyed by the enemy or blocked by the UN, if the station was down already, it meant that the Third Child was already in danger. With a determined look in her eye, she pressed down as hard as she could on the accelerator. No enemy, not even an Angel, was going to kill her charge, especially before she had even picked him up. As she drove, she pictured the boy in her mind. Despite herself, she was actually looking forward to meeting him.

Knowing one of the children who piloted the mighty Evangelions was no longer a thrill to Misato. She had met Sohryu Asuka Langley, the pilot of Unit 02 while she was still stationed in Germany. That was the first time she had even seen the EVA, and the memory was so vibrant that it seemed almost like it was yesterday. Since she had arrived in Japan, she had seen and spoken to Ayanami Rei enough times to know her well, or at least as well as anyone else did. She had always been a part of NERV. It wasn't like she was ever even chosen. Had she even been? It was too hard to remember. But this boy was from the outside world. He knew nothing of Tokyo-3, of NERV, of the ways things worked inside the Geo-Front. And he was to be her charge, at least until she delivered him to his father. It was almost as though he was about to be reborn, into a new life. Misato sighed. The more she thought about it, the more this Ikari Shinji reminded Misato of herself. When she was his age, she could barely have imagined that this would be her future. Change was in everyone's future, it appeared. With the discovery of the Third Child, the return of the Angels, and the whispered rumors of something more, Misato imagined that things would soon become far more interesting around Tokyo-3.

*************************************************************** *********

"As of 12:30 today, a special state of emergency has been declared for the Kanto and Chubu regions surrounding the Tokai district. All residents must evacuate to their designated shelters immediately."

Of all the days to be sent off to Tokyo-3, why in God's name did it have to be today? Shinji paced back and forth on the sidewalk, the telephone he had already tried a half dozen times before at his back. Whether out of newfound habit, or out of some misplaced hope, he tried the phone again.

"Due to the special emergency, all lines are currently unavailable." Shinji hung up the phone, as he had done so many times already.

"It's no use. I shouldn't have come here after all." His words to the still air of morning only seemed to confirm to the world what he had been thinking for some time now. For the hundredth time, he looked at the picture of Misato.

"Well, I guess we won't be meeting here." He looked at his watch. What had been the point of rushing here anyway? He should have known better than to come. It was obviously just a joke that did not have a punch line understandable to him.

"I'll have to get to a shelter," he said quietly, turning towards the road that ran in the direction he had come. His gaze moved down the street, guided by the yellow dividing lines in the center. As he was just starting to leave, something strange entered his field of vision. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw the form of a girl, dressed in school clothes, standing perfectly still in the center of the road. Her blue hair seemed to melt into the pale skin of her face in the glare of noonday light. Into his mind leapt a sudden thought, a thought that quickly evolved to a question. That girl. From where do I know her? As he stared, Shinji could have sworn he saw her lips move as she mouthed a single word, and though he heard it not with ears, his mind rang with it nonetheless. Run. That was the word her lips formed. Then, the stillness of the air suddenly dissolved into the noise of flapping wings. Shinji looked upwards at the power lines, where a flock of birds had just taken flight. He looked back to the girl, to call out to her. For a single split second, he could have sworn he saw her, still standing in the road, surrounded by an almost divine glare of sunlight. But when his eyes adjusted to the brightness, he saw there was nothing but empty air in the place she had been, and that the vision had been little more than a fleeting retinal ghost. Questions raced through his brain. Where did she go? Who could she have been? I know that I've seen her before. Wait, isn't that the girl in my...

A resounding, deafening boom shook the uncompleted thought from Shinji's mind. The power lines above that only moments before had been covered in birds vibrated like strings on a guitar, singing out as they twisted beyond their design specifications. As he turned towards the source of the explosion, Shinji witnessed his first nightmarish vision of war. Like a horde of giant locusts, a small armada of strange military craft drifted back like dogs cowering at the feet of their master. Out from behind the shade of the green mountain where the hovering craft had just emerged came the tormentor: a great, hulking beast standing higher than the tallest building. Shinji gasped in astonishment and fear at the incredible sight. As one, the craft before the monstrous form opened fire. A dozen great explosions enveloped the beast in flame and smoke. The exploding munitions cast burning fragments of metal in every direction, raining down destruction on the city below. But still, the being stood, uninjured despite the massive bombardment. With a cold and inhuman precision, the thing raised one of its great arms towards the sky, and a sudden beam of purple light shot forth, tearing into the side of one of the hovering craft. The machine billowed smoke as it raced across the sky and towards the ground, reminding Shinji of a fire phoenix he had once seen in a picture book of youth. With a tortured cry of disintegrating metal, the great dying bird broke apart in mid air, tossing parts and unspent munitions like unwanted gifts down on the city below. In horror, Shinji saw one of the crew falling from the wreck, his clothes and flesh awash in flames. The man tried to flap his arms as if they were angelic wings, but as a mere mortal of a race God did not gift with flight, it did not avail him. The man fell, disappearing between two buildings already brightly burning with aircraft fuel.

Fiery fragments rained down on Shinji, pelting him with sky-borne flames and blackened limbs of men. A massive section of the side of the ship fell with a crash near him, crushing an empty green car beneath it. On the side of the craft, the stunned boy could see the blue seal of the United Nations. He could also see through the shattered window the form of another of the crew wearing the uniform of a pilot hanging upside-down by his restraint harness. The man looked out at him, his face contorted in such an expression of abject horror that Shinji could not but fear for his own life. With a forced effort, the pilot succeeded in undoing the harness, but as he did so, he lost his grip and fell from the twisted cockpit to the street below. Even over the sound of the burning flames, Shinji heard the crack as helmet gave way and skull met sidewalk. Then, as if by some miracle, the man rose from the street, and started walking haggardly toward him. Shinji saw where the man's skull had been split, saw where the flesh had been burned away by flames. With desperation in his eyes, the pilot reached out his hand toward Shinji. Stricken with abhorrence, the young boy cried out.

"Stay away! Don't come near me!" In his cowering terror, Shinji did not even notice the great shape of the unearthly being until it swooped completely over him, landing atop the wrecked UN ship. The metal armor gave way instantly, and the remains of the aircraft was shredded in two, before exploding brilliantly into a rolling wall of hellfire. The pilot tried to run, but his broken legs gave out after only a few steps. Shinji saw a dozen shards of metal rip through the man before the flames mercifully consumed him. The windows of the building behind Shinji shattered as the glass broke from the shock wave emanating from the destroyed craft. Shards of glass rained down on his back, bouncing off of the backpack filled with his books. A large piece of metal arched over Shinji's head, tearing the telephone he had tried unsuccessfully to use earlier in two. The UN insignia that had moments before been so noticeable upon the twisted hull-plate now burned away into nothingness as the boy watched with wide eyes.

Above him, the beast towering over Shinji began to move, and the strains of aircraft engines sounded. Terrified, he knew what was to happen next. The UN fighters above him were about to target their adversary, and all the area surrounding. Desperate to an end of the nightmare, he closed his eyes to the terrible scene of destruction. He had thus prepared himself for death when suddenly the sounds of squealing tires and a rapidly decelerating engine snapped him out of his battle-shock. He opened his eyes, and looked over his shoulder. A blue car, of a European make he had never seen before, came to a halt in the torn street. The passenger side door swung open, revealing the driver within. To Shinji's astonishment, it was the purple haired woman of the picture he still held in his hand. Despite the horrific scene, she smiled at him.

"I'm sorry! Were you waiting long?"

EPISODE ONE

GARASU NO KOGATANA

The warm water slowly lapped around his bare chest. Had the boy been paying attention, or had he even really cared, he would have noticed that the water was a few degrees too cool for his liking. But Shinji's thoughts were elsewhere, lost in the tumultuous events of the last twenty-four hours. Though it had only been a day, it seemed to have been a lifetime for the fourteen year old. Even trying to remember it, in the still room, was challenge enough, especially after the scare that Misato's damned warm water penguin had given him. By all reasoning, or at least reasonable reasoning, he should not have even been here. He should have been dead back on that street of the morning terror, crushed by the Angel he had only hours later fought and killed. He should have been lost to the incinerating death of the N2-mine. He should have been impaled by the falling debris in the Evangelion bay, ripped limb from limb by the Angel, shattered by its energy attack, annihilated by the great monster's self-destruct. How had these things come to pass? Why was he still alive after all of this fire and death?

His thoughts drifted from question to question, all of those things that had happened in such an unfamiliar day, a day begun under an unfamiliar ceiling. He thought back to the battle. What had happened? Had he even been controlling the Evangelion? Come to think of it, it had moved on its own, hadn't it? He hadn't even done anything, other than cower in the cockpit. That's all he ever did, no matter what. Just hide, and let everything happen. He was no pilot, just a helpless coward. That's all he really was, wasn't it? Wasn't it?

He shook his head, both as an answer to his own silent question, and to clear his thoughts. This bath was doing him no good, he decided. With a careful glance, to be sure that neither Misato or the penguin were around watching him, he slowly, cautiously stepped out of the bath. As the water drained out of the tub behind him, Shinji dried himself with one of Misato's towels. For a moment, he considered walking to his room in this fashion, with just the towel for covering. The image of a drunken Misato whipping the towel off quickly rid him of this notion. Despite everything, despite having come through Hell and somehow triumphed, he still had his dignity, or at least what little was left of it after the earlier incident. He paused, looking at the empty room thoroughly, before pulling his clothes back on and walking out of the bathroom.

The hallway to the bedrooms was just off of the main room, where he had eaten dinner. As he passed through, he shuddered at the mess surrounding him, but Misato had seemed to have fallen asleep on the couch, and did not notice. He passed by her, and walked down the hallway to his room. There was no sign of the penguin. The door had a little sign stuck onto it with a pushpin.

"Shinji's lovely suite?" he read out, a bit shakily, the hints of a question in his voice which was still horse from his cries of fear and of battle.

"You like, ne?" Misato crooned from the living room. Even though they had just met, Shinji was already wary of his guardian, and shuddered to think that he had thought her to be sleeping. He swung the door open uncertainly, almost as if he expected the room to be filled with burning bodies. Instead, it was completely empty, other than a mattress on the floor, and a few boxes here and there. Sitting next to the wall across from the mattress was his backpack, slumped over like a tired rag doll.

"It's fine, thanks," Shinji replied back to Misato. Judging from the noises of rustling beer cans, it sounded as though she had just gotten up.

"I'm going to take a bath, Shinji-kun. Try not to peek too much, O.K.?" It sounded almost like an invitation. Suddenly filled with indignation and reeling from perceived insult, Shinji slammed to door to his room with a heavy thud. From the living room, he heard Misato sigh, then move away. He found himself sighing a tired and broken sigh along with her.

The backpack sat before him, still covered in the plaster and concrete dust of the building which had very nearly fallen on Shinji earlier. He reached for the zipper on the back, touching it just barely with the tip of his right middle and index fingers. He pulled back quickly, the hints of shock stirring on his otherwise emotionless face. As the boy looked at his fingers, the cold, deep red of his own blood seemed to stare back at him. Like the Angel's soulless stare. He shivered as the thought passed through his mind, and despite himself, he couldn't help but feel his eyes moisten a touch as the pain in his fingertips grew. An entire day of pain, and two small cuts could still make him cry. It was almost too much. Carefully, he tried to ease the shards of glass out of his fingers, but the more he pulled and dug at them, the deeper they went. Pain could only grow for him, never diminish.

In desperation, Shinji took the thin sheet lying over the mattress near him, and wrapped it around his fingers. He then grasped his now covered fingers with his other hand, making a closed fist. With a sudden, jerking motion, he pulled violently, his fingers and the bit of crumpled fabric shooting out of his other closed hand. A cry escaped his lips, and tears welled in his eyes. Looking down, he saw the sheet covered in the shining splinters of fragmented glass, and in his own dark blood. The tips of his fingers pulsed with pain, the liquid of his life continued to dribble forth. As he looked at his bloodstained hand, the vision of the fiery falling man and the horribly disfigured pilot was forcibly shoved back into his mind. He shut his eyes, trying to banish the memory, but he could not. The pilot kept reaching out, the falling man kept trying to fly. All was dark and terrible, and all was soaking in red blood. Then, amidst all this, a sudden flash of blue, a feeling of calm. Rain started to fall, and as it did, it quenched the fires and washed away the blood. And, though he could not say why, the destruction of the day no longer seemed quite so awful.

Before he realized it, his eyes were open once more. Before him sat a glass of water, which he could have sworn was not there when he had closed his eyes. But now, that did not matter. In a moment, his fingers were immersed within the glass. In the clearness of the water, his blood stained like a deep colored dye, until the wounds closed in the coolness of the liquid. Pulling his fingers out, he surveyed their condition. A single spark still glittered in his index finger, like a diamond peeking out of rough bedrock. He thought of repeating the process with the sheet, but was unable to summon enough courage. Instead, he set his mind towards his original task. Wrapping his hands in the sheet, he slowly brushed away the fine dust and the glass slivers that still covered his pack. Cautiously this time, he drew the zipper open, and pulled the flap over, revealing the contents within. First came his SDAT player, out and over and to the side. Next was a change of clothes. Then, at the bottom of the pack, his stack of books, some paperback, some hard cover. They all greeted his eyes, familiar objects in an unfamiliar world. He pulled them out, one by one. Pinocchio. The Velveteen Rabbit. The Metamorphosis. The Dead. The covers passed him by, images in a sequence, words in a sentence. Then, his hand felt another book, and he grasped it by the edge.

The book came up, out of the bag, before the boy's examining eyes. His gaze was greeted by the same brown cover, the same drab face. The face he had known, before all the ills of today had befallen him, back when yesterday still held innocence. On a whim, the boy flipped the book open. He looked past the title, pasted his father's writing, to the first page of the first chapter. His eyes glanced over the English words, scanning to see which of them he knew. Though he did not know them all, he tried to read nonetheless. He pushing on, into things unknown, but what gain could there be in that?

"Book the First... Recalled to Life."

What gain was there by reading this?

"Chapter 1. The Period."

What was there for him in these paper pages?

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,"

What secrets did they hide?

"It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,"

What speech was there in silence?

"It was the epoch of belief, it was the incredulity,"

Was the silence a sound itself?

"It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,"

Did someone listen on?

"We had everything before us, we had nothing before us,"

Or was all worthless and thrown hence away?

"We were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way,"

Did the emptiness of the heart constitute a whole?

"In short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

What rain fell on the mountain?

A sudden shiver passed through him. He blinked, shook his head, stared at the book. What was it? It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. And finally, he understood the day. In the cruel world he had been so forcefully thrust into, there still had to be hope. He knew that there had to be. If only he knew where it was.

The book was closed, dusted, and set aside. His clothes were slipped off, falling to the mattress. Folded, straightened, and set aside. Their replacements slipped easily onto his slender frame, where they clung to it like leaves on a tree's branch in the last day before winter. SDAT in hand, ear-buds reunited to ears. The song sang out its notes in his ears, where only he could hear. He lay down upon the flat of the mattress, looked up to the flat surface above. Another unfamiliar ceiling. Where was the hope in it? Then, footsteps rang out from behind his closed door. A pause, then a voice in the empty void.

"Shinji-kun, can I come in?"

The door swung open. She stood in the entrance, leaning in. He lay on his side, facing away. From the tip of her towel, a drop of moisture fell.

"I forgot to tell you something. You did a very good thing today."

Eyes widened, mouth parted.

"You should be proud of yourself."

Slight swallow, lips dry.

"Goodnight, Shinji-kun. Hang in there."

The door closed behind. A hand stopped the SDAT, another set the ear pieces by the player's side. He looked up at the ceiling once again, contemplating her kind words. A sigh escaped him, as he prepared for sleep. Eyes closed. Mind emptied. Heart longing. Silence.

"Ayanami! Ayanami!" He cried it out through a throat raw from use, but it did not matter. His own concerns no longer mattered, now that he knew what was about to happen. In an unfamiliar, compact compartment, he looked out at the vista of two great beings, locked in combat. But now, it was different. It was familiar. It was the cockpit of his Evangelion. The monsters outside that crashed against each other, like waves in a storm-tossed sea, were Angel and EVA. In the cockpit comm screen, crimson eyes stared out at him as always.

"I know you!" He spoke, voice alive.

"You know only one." She spoke back, voice dead.

"But you're... you're a pilot! You can't be..."

"What cannot I be, Shinji-kun?" Her lips moved slightly. Such a small movement. Such a futile action. Sad eyes, small smile. That was all. An instant later, all was fire and noise, and the world rocked to its core far below.

In the cold confines of the empty cockpit, now devoid even of the image on the comm screen, the cries of a grief unknowable to those who have never loved and lost filled the silence left in the calm serenity of destruction. Shinji cried, but he knew not why. He could not yet understand.

His eyes fluttered open. Ayanami. The other. The one from NERV. She was the one who drifted in his dreams. The light of morning streamed in through the window. Outside, birds chirped. Trees swayed. The wind blew lightly from the east, and the clouds drifted by, never again to spread across the sky so as they did in this moment of morning. All this was unnoticed by the boy, his body in his room, his thoughts to his soul. In his mind, he saw only one. Ayanami. Ayanami of Silence. Ayanami of Evangelion. Ayanami of Father. He looked to his index finger, then brought it to up, and touched it to his heart.

The splinter goes ever deeper.

EPISODE ONE END

LEAVE IT TO LAIN-CHAN!

Kon-ni-chi-wa!

Are you all finished reading the fic now? Good! Did you like it? Well, if you did, please drop me a comment so that I'll know about it! Also, if you didn't like it, please let me know so I can do a better job in the future.

Cold Rain on a Cold Mountain is an idea I came up with a little more than a year ago. I had been working on the first three episodes for some time, trying to get them polished up, and finally I have gotten them decent enough to publish on the web. Some of you who may have frequented the old Evafics.org website may have seen an earlier version of the first two episodes (then called chapters) which I had posted. Be assured that this `Director's Cut Edition' is the definative cut of the story. At the time of the original posting, I lacked the budget to create the exact story I wanted (damn Sega, always pulling out when the violence gets too high!), and thus the overall product suffered and was much more confusing. This is the version of the story which I really wanted to tell (although in another year, I'll probably just end up making a film version that overrides everything I already did).

O.K., now down to the actual episode. One of the first things you might notice is that the character names are written properly as required by Japanese gramatical rules. This is obviously a bit different than how most other fanfictions are written, but I wanted to present mine in a way which is more truthful to the original series (as watched in Japanese). Also, it's hard to have characters say (as an example) `Shinji-kun Ikari' or `Shinj Ikari-kun' for when you want to say their full names, so going with the original `Ikari Shinji-kun' worked out much better. In addition, I have split each episode into two pieces (as done in the original show) and given each a Japanese title. This is the rough Enlish translation of the titles:

Saisho no Yume: First Dream

Garasu no Kogatana: Dagger of Glass

About the violence... yes, it is a lot more than in the show. However, I think this is probably how Anno-kun would have made it if he had not had to worry about censorship (like that stopped him later on anyway... heh). The fact of the matter is that in the first episodes there really is a lot of violence, but most of it is just glossed over. For my story, I thought that presenting it as it would realistically would have been (if you can consider an Angel attack realistic) would leave more of a mark on Shinji, and put the scene with the splinter of glass into better perspective. Also, approaching this chapter as it is presented in the show, and just expanding on what happens in each scene was my clever way (it's ego stroking time, folks!) of trying to draw you all into the story, and super-impose my own telling over Anno-kun's version. That way, you could be almost certain by the end of the episode that what I described is exactly what happened originally. Sneaky, eh? I thought so too.

It didn't work though, did it? You were clearly aware that is was all just my not-so-clever attempt to decieve you, weren't you? Oh well. I suppose telling you my tricks would destroy it even if I had. Heh heh heh...

As far as what I did change, obviously, Misato and Shinji (Shinji is particular) are a bit different from how they are in the show. I tried to write them as much as I could to be in character, but in order to make everything work I had to change a little. Hopefully, this will end up being for the best in your eyes. On some small but still interesting notes, all of the books Shinji has in his backpack are things I read when I was young. The mysterious poem, however, is my own creation. And what does the strange dream mean? You'll just have to wait and see.

To wrap up, I just would like to say thanks to all of the writers of Evangelion fanfiction who have inspired me to write this. Of particular note are Random1377 and BloodyAngel, both of whom made me realize that fanfiction really could be something great. To both of you, thank you very much.

Well, that ends this edition of `Leave it to Lain-chan!' I hope you enjoyed my little commentary on the episode, and that you will look forward to future segments. Ja mata!

NEXT EPISODE PREVIEW:

Shinji undergoes new training in the Evangelion, only to have his EVA go berserk during a test. The head of the NERV science department, Dr. Akagi Ritsuko, discovers why but keeps it to herself. Meanwhile, Shinji learns of the consequences of his first battle, and gets closer to the mysterious Ayanami Rei. It's all in the next episode, Funare no Shitsumon! And of course, there will be no fanservice whatsoever! Well, maybe just a little.