Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ Dreams of a Pilot ❯ Dreams of a Pilot ( One-Shot )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Alrighty then, a fair warning to the readers of this new "One-shot". Yes there is a character in this story with the name of Isaac Asimov Seldon. And yes, he does seem to be an SI. But there is a very, VERY good reason why he's in this story. So just grin and bear it, and trust me.

Because, as with any story I write, nothing is as it seems to be.

A time line note for this story: In the general jist of things, this story is happening at the same time as one of the other OAP stories, "Friends of a Pilot: Kensuke". Parts of the plot are intertwined with that story, but each can be viewed as separate pieces on their own.

Now then, to the story!














The club was thick with the sour stench of sweat, and the stale odor of old cigarettes.

Three hundred people bounced up and down, leapt from side-to-side, tumbled down below feet and up above hands as the music soared, revved, and pounced from one extreme to another. Thick baselines trembled through the walls in contrast to soaring notes of a solitary piano set within a strangely beautiful electronic trance.

Behind an old, stained bar that smelled like rancid beer and sticky-sweet wine four men and two women struggled to keep up with the never-ceasing flow of orders and special requests that poured like the liquor they served from waitresses and patrons alike.

On the small, off-set stage three people writhed and jived to the beating rhythm of the song. Two were dancers, dressed in their up-fashion shirts and skimpy jean skirts that showed a good deal of leg (and maybe something else betimes) and feet set in shoes that were expensively trendy to say the least. And the last was a man of his early twenties, dressed in a thin blue shirt that was loosely concealed by a white, button-up collar. His hair was nearly down to his shoulders and neatly pulled back into a thick ponytail. A thick sheen of sweat beaded across his forehead and ran down in stinging streams to blind his ocean-blue eyes as they peered intently through the thin glasses perched precariously on his slippery nose. A set of well-worn headphones is set slightly off-kilter on his head, with one covering his ear and the other part set off behind his other.

From those headphones came the same pulsating beat that rocketed across the large club room, a sprightful remix of his favorite classic. Pachabel's Canon in D. The club was booming, thriving, writhing, shaking, moving, grooving. A mass of people jumping and singing and dancing all together; synchronized in heart, mind, body, and spirit.

And seeing all this, all those people happily moving to the song in unison, Shinji felt a thick chill descend on him.



Shinji Ikari. Aged twenty-one years, and not a day of it was any happier than his last. He had lost his mother at age four, lost his father at age five, gone to war at age fourteen, lost his best friend the same year (and his unknown sister as well), destroyed the world at age fifteen only to bring it back in all its miserable glory, and then lost his first love at age seventeen.

Now he was twenty-one and in his final year of college. And ever since that day when he walked away from Asuka, it had all been one pile of shit after another. He had few friends, mainly Touji and Kensuke, but even they weren't really his friends anymore.

His relationship with Touji was--strained; mostly his fault, but the feeling was mutual on both sides. Just one unfortunate side effect that his little war with God. One that had ruined his friendship with his fellow classmate.

Kensuke--Kensuke was off fighting in Russia for the Japanese Army. Doing what he loved best, no doubt about that. Shinji was offered a high ranking job with great pay in the Army staff if he joined them, but he had turned them down.

One war was enough for his life.

So here it was, nearly Christmas in Japan. No snow of course, the weather still being that same humid heat that scorched the sidewalks and withered the green leaves on the sakura trees. Where ever Kensuke was, it was snowing all the time there. Shinji had received a few letters from Kensuke, who treated him like a brother from the casual, affectionate way he wrote. Shinji was fine with that, as he knew that Kensuke's family was departed from the world now, gone in the ring of LCL that still hovered across the night sky like a crimson slash of blood.

It was this slash that Shinji first noted as he stepped out of the still pulsing club, a cigarette coming out of its foil pack and up to his mouth as he started down the alley. He watched it for a moment, his mind silently giving the souls of the remaining a silent prayer asking for forgiveness.

They didn't answer him, as usual.

His callused hands scrounged through his pockets, groping for his lighter. A thin breeze was wafting across the harbor that night, cooling the depressing heat of Kyoto slightly. It wasn't the original Kyoto of course; that city had been swept underneath the rising waves of a wrathful ocean. This city, like most of Japan's cities now, was only twenty or so years old. Developed in as near a site as the original Kyoto and as near the same street-layout that could possibly be made. Shinji didn't remember why the builders did that, just that the Kyoto of old, the one he never would see unless he went diving amongst its ruins, looked very similar to the Kyoto of today.

The flickering flame seemed garishly obtrusive against the dark curtains of the night sky. Though that sky wasn't a very good curtain if one viewed it as such. What with the many thousand holes that penetrated its thick, velvet draperies; not to mention the rather large hole that constituted the moon herself.

And then there was that ghastly streak.

The flame whisped out in the wind, leaving only the bright embers of his cigarette to ruin the nigh-perfection of beauty that was the vast sky above. The clouds of silver-platinum stars shimmered in the winking atmosphere, sending shivers of an unknown appreciative emotion through his body.

Behind him the door opened again.

"Oi, Shinji." It was the club manager. He was a nice fellow, one who didn't ask too many questions and who didn't care where you came from. If you were a good ear with the music and a deft hand at the trade you were trying to ply, he would take you in and give you a job. Not that Shinji needed a job, his pension from the Japanese Government was more than enough to have a house and live on comfortably. His college was paid for too, a nice add-in that they threw to him. "You alright man? I noticed you didn't stay around long after you're shift was done."

Shinji pulled a long drag on his smokestick and then puffed out the blue- grey smoke in heaves and spurts. "I just felt a little weird tonight, that's all."

The manager, a pudgy little man with hanging jowls who dressed always in a thin, stained white shirt with now sleeves nodded. He patted Shinji in an attempt to be comforting and then passed over a thick envelope. "Your months wages. I know you said wait until next week, but I couldn't fit anymore in."

Shinji took the yellow-brown envelope wordlessly and stuffed it into one of his pockets. The manager thought about saying something more, but moved back to the door. Shinji took the envelope out and peered into the dim innards. There was at least a good hundred thousand yen there, not a hefty sum by the current standards of living and the currency value index--but more than some people were making.

'What am I going to do with this now?'



Shinji lived in a shithole.

But he didn't much care at all where he was living at anymore. A lot of things about him had changed since the War between Heaven and Earth came to its horrific close. Mainly, he had lost his exceedingly perfectionist taste for cleanliness. His cooking skills were faltering as well, as the only practice he exercised them with was to make himself the occasional grilled cheese sandwich.

His apartment, a second-floor rathole who's stained walls and thread-bare carpet testified to it being a genuine pre-Second Impact house, was a cluttered mess of books, clothes, old takeout boxes, and other miscellaneous items that were almost the standard of college-boy living.

He had been this way since he broke up with Asuka.

Shinji's face screwed up in distaste as he flipped the heavy packet of money onto his low table by the ratty couch that served as his bed. His real bed, a second-hand futon with burn marks all over the bottom side of it, was rarely used by the occasional visitor that for some unprecedented reason had decided to visit Shinji's abode. The couch squeaked and rocked as the weary man flopped down into its scratchy embrace. His hand shot out and captured a thin remote of matte black. Music started from the only item of real expense in the entire apartment.

The song was an older one, after the Impact of course. A hard-lining beat and queasy rifts from guitars that chimed along behind the lead singer's very mellow voice. Shinji found his feet tapping along to the beat, a fast and very intense baseline that was deliciously enthralling to the keyed ears of the some-time DJ.

As the song came to an end the station jockey sang out the songs name and the band who had released it. "Go With the Flow by Queens of the Stone Age, another oldy from the time of troubles back in the day my peoples! And now we've got a new beat for all youse there in the Kyoto residency. From our own local clubhouses: Pachabel's Cannon in D by DJ U-1!"

Shinji couldn't help but smile as the station started playing the very same mix that he had playing at the club tonight. He had become sort of a local celebrity here, taking songs he loved and played on his trusty cello of old and turning them into favorite mixes at all the local college clubs.

They never knew who he was at the club though, only the manager knew that. They just all assumed that he was playing to the local trends at the time, never realizing that when he played a popular mix that they heard it from him first.

They never knew who he was.

And he liked it like that.

Shinji drifted off into a restless dream about Asuka that night.



When he woke up next, the sun was streaming through one of the several dingy windows that lined the peeling walls of his home. His back was killing him too, right around the kidneys. He had been feeling that kind of pain lately whenever he had slept in too much. The stereo was silent, so that meant that he had turned it off sometime during the night. Or maybe this morning?

Didn't matter.

His hair was, as usual for one of his nights, a mess. The band that held the long hair back in place had slipped off during the night, letting his hair free. The result of that freedom was that it now looked like a complete mess, and felt like a sopping rag of oil and dirt.

His hands felt like thick, useless appendages as he raised them to rub the gritty sand from his eyes as they blearily looked about the sun lit room. Groaning in pain from his back, Shinji rolled off the warm, sweat-smelly couch and crawled about the floor until he felt clear-headed enough to stand on his own.

The water that streamed from his shower was freezing. Shinji shivered and suffered through it quickly, soaping up his hair and then rinsing it out after a good thirty seconds had passed by. He stepped out feeling the pain still; but he felt refreshed and focused.

Then he remembered his dream.

The air was cold to his lightly-browned skin as the water evaporated into the air. But the shivers he trembled under weren't all from that cool air. The memory of his first love was--heartbreaking. To remember the warmth of her curving body as they lay together on Misato's couch, to remember the sweet cherry kisses of her shapely lips and the silk-soft feel of her auburn hair as it slid through his spread fingers.

Asuka and he had gone together for more than a year. And the whole time of it had been pure bliss and honeyed Heaven for, well, him at least. But in the end, he just couldn't take it anymore. The guilt that had been riding at him, that had chafed him with anxious worry had finally broken through. And so with tears in his eyes and a soft cello melody, he broke to Asuka the news of his desire to let her go.

She had taken it as best as he expected. Which is to say: badly.

At first she had feared that she had done something wrong, and like most first guesses with this sort of deal, she was wrong about it. When Shinji couldn't explain why he wanted to break up, she had flown apart and started crying.

That scared him.

They wound up in each others arms at the last of it, with Asuka wracked by sobs and Shinji crying silently as well; the day ended with them still like that in his room, and then--then she--

Shinji broke from that line of thought and hastily stormed into his kitchen to twist open his refrigerator door. His face was flushed red from the barest hint of memory that had surfaced into his mind at what had occurred after he asked Asuka to leave him. He didn't quite understand why he still felt like that about the situation. After all, that had been four years ago. A lifetime. Why should he still feel embarrassed about a simple human act?

Why?

Shinji pulled out the only item of the refrigerator and drank deeply. The sweet taste of the white wine burned through his throat and wormed its way deep through his empty stomach. The booze hit his nerves like a bomb and sent him reeling on his feet, but it stopped his hands from shaking.

Shinji didn't drink much. Well, at least not as much as Misato did. But he did have his occasional bender that ended with him waking up in some kind soul's bed with a headache to kill an Angel. Could you really blame him though? With those never-forgotten images from seven years past still floating in and out of his thoughts every waking moment of the day?

Could you really say that you wouldn't drink too to keep the sight of your best friend, lying broken and near death because you didn't have the stomach to take control of the situation yourself and stop it? Because Shinji couldn't, he couldn't stop drinking to keep the sights and memories away. Just as he couldn't forget those same sights and memories themselves.

How depreciating.

Shinji rummaged through the massive piles of dirty clothing and quickly selected out a set of pants that smelled only slightly like stale smoke and threw them on along with a gray shirt followed by a white button up. His books were waiting in his bag by the door and his keys were on the table.

A few moments more and he was gone to class.



When Shinji returned to his home the sun was sinking in the distant horizon, his classes had ended about two hours ago, but he spent that time wandering around by the bay; looking out over the sea. His face felt prickly and soiled, an unfortunate affect that his forgetting to shave in the morning and the deplorable air conditioning of the University had on him. He contemplated growing a beard once again; and just as he had before, Shinji rejected the idea.

He still shivered whenever thoughts of his dead father came to his mind. Just as he was shivering now. Those thoughts vanished soon enough though, as a familiar clack-clack-clack of hardened wood against wood clashed together. Rounding the bend of streets and sidewalks Shinji came to see one of the grand sights of his apartment complex play out in all its intrinsic form.

Now, Shinji had lived there for nearly 2 years, so he was on distantly- friendly terms with the other tenants. And it was one of these tenants who was now surrounded by a dozen bare-chested (or wearing a sports bra in the case of the females), gym-short wearing persons. Each was armed with a wooden bokken and patiently waited in a large circle, except for the two students that were attacking a doubly-armed man in the center. The tenant Shinji was thinking of.

The story of this tenant, and how he came to be living in Kyoto only to now be surrounded by a dozen and more people who looked like they could quite easily pick him up and break him was an intriguing one to say the least.

The man called himself Isaac Asimov Seldon. He told anyone who asked him about that name that his father had been a huge fan of Isaac Asimov (the science fiction writer for those out of the know). What Shinji knew about his name: was that all that was pure shit. The man's name was really William Robert Kitchens, and although his father was a big fan of Asimov, it was he who changed it from Kitchens to Seldon. That's another strange thing about this tenant; no one ever called him Isaac. You were introduced to him by his first name, but you either called him Seldon or Sel.

And somehow, it felt more natural that way.

Seldon was born roughly around the same time Misato and Kaji was, and grew up with a peaceful childhood over in the privileged States in a rural- suburbanite neighborhood in a coastal state. He was called an excellent student by his teachers, but he always did deplorable with his literature and mathematical studies. He made it into High School with a nervous penchant for being the rather quiet, menacing one who sat in the far back of the room and never spoke to anyone other than a small comradery of friends. He went into the local Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps with an enthusiasm and drive that bordered with sheer maniacal fanaticism; soon enough, he had distinguished himself from the other slackers and was earmarked for the highest-ranking position of the entire JROTC Battalion.

But all this, didn't matter.

Mainly it didn't matter because right as he was starting into his second year at school, and as a Master Sergeant in his JROTC unit; the World abruptly decided to try and end itself.

Second Impact.

In the world chaos that followed, young William was left alone in the world. An orphan with no parents, no brothers, no sisters. Yet, this did not even seem to phase him. Or hinder what he was about to do next. With that same drive and focus that labeled him the 'strange one' in his school, he organized a local militia out of the remnants of his JROTC battalion and then raided the local armory storehouse of Fort Gordon. This was comparatively easy as the place had already fallen to the growing chaos of the world, and had been abandoned by the small staff that had been left allocated to govern its few functions. Now armed, and armored with several small abandoned military vehicles, William set about restoring order with a murderous frenzy.

As the waters rushed upwards and decimated the shore cities of the Eastern United States, William and his rouge militia roamed through the streets of the second-largest city in his state. Looters were everywhere as with any major, world-threatening crisis; stocking on food, water, batteries, and whatever else people imagined that they would need.

One of the militia would later comment that the looters should have found some armor to protect them from the Sergeant. The militia opened fire on them. Yes, heartless of them to do; and some still question why they did it at all back in his home country. But, nevertheless, they opened fire and killed several dozen looters. For several months William, the Sergeant, and his militia carried on with the operation of restoring civility in their small corner of the world. Even when the ocean started looming barely twenty miles to the south of their home, they still went about the duties of keeping order.

Four months had passed since the Second Impact destroyed half of the world's population before the first real military forces moved their relief camps into Augusta. What they found was quite the extreme opposite in what they had encountered with other cities along the coasts. Instead of rampant barbarinism, the advancing forces found a well-ordered city that was operation as closely to normal as it had been before the Impact.

In some places they were even tearing down ruined structures and building houses in their place! And there to greet them, standing firm next to the mayor of the city and all his retinue of recently-appointed officials of law, fire, and city enforcement; was one fifteen-year-old kid with glasses sitting haughtily over his pimply face, and a freshly-pressed green uniform with only the nametag KITCHENS and a pair of stripes to decorate it.

That was twenty years ago, when the extremity of the law was determined by how fast the weapon you carried could shoot. And now: he was Seldon, a foreigner in this land of war, death, and blood. He was a tall man, taller than most Japanese people, with a thick mop of wavy brown hair that looked perpetually unwashed and oily. He had a thin, scraggly beard that he shaved irregularly, and a thin mouth that hid crooked teeth. A small pair of glasses shielded his eyes from anyone who tried to see them, which reminded Shinji too much of his own father whenever he talked to the man.

His talking: the man had a deplorable accent that he talked with. Always drawling out the words meant to fly off the tongue, and then clipping short the words that were supposed to be throaty and long. He spoke the language fairly well, having lived in the country for close to fifteen years, but Shinji always found it was much easier to speak to the man in English than his native tongue.

One of the attacking men let loose a sharp cry of surprise as the sword Seldon had turned to face him suddenly blurred forward and struck him squarely in his groin. Three seconds later the man winced in what Shinji could only say was extreme agony before shakily tumbling over to the ground. His place was not empty for long though, as a woman rushed forward striking at Seldon's legs with a savage chop. The forty-odd man leapt backwards with surprising adroitness and then the dance resumed again with its new player. That was another thing about this gaijin. He loved swords.

So much that he actually started to train himself at the age of thirteen in the arts of the quarterstaff. But wait? How does learning the staff teach the sword? To hear Seldon explain it, he started off with the staff because he didn't even have anything resembling a sword to start with. So until he got his first training sword, he practiced with the staff. Twirling, spinning, shifting between his fingers and his hands.

It was this training that made his fights such an intriguing spectacle. Often he would step back twice and twirl his bokken through the air into his hands, so that a sword starting on the right would end up on the left and vice-versa. Then there were the several spinning whirls that he forced the bokken through with nothing but his fingers and his wrist. Most of the people he fought weren't taken aback by this unusual move, and if they were: it only lasted for the first instance.

Shinji asked him why he did that if he knew it only worked on those he'd never fought before.

Seldon smiled and just started flipping a piece of wood the length of his forearm through his fingers.

A quick crakk sounded in the open yard of his apartment complex, Shinji came out of his remembering dreams just in time to duck the flying splinter of bokken before it collided with his eye. He faintly heard a muffled, "Sorry!" after he landed, but the ringing clack-clack-clack continued on without a moments slack. Standing up once again, Shinji saw that now Seldon was down to only one weapon (the other being a splintery-looking stump lying close to where they were currently fighting) and was hard pressed to keep the blows from hitting him.

Shinji winced when a sudden kick caught the woman Seldon was fighting full in the breast, sending her coughing on the dusty ground, and then grunted with a ghost pain that every man feels as he witnessed Seldon get kicked, punched, and poked rather harshly in his own sensitive area.

The second man, no wait: the fighter was another woman, relented when her opponent curled up into the fetal and just trembled there. The others applauded the woman who took a quick look around and then bowed to their steady applause. Seldon in the meantime stood with help from several bruised-looking men and women and then shambled over to the woman who had so painfully smarted him.

"Well done, well done..." he trailed off with a cough. "Shall we go again in a month or so?"

The woman looked genuinely offended, "You said in a week!"

The pained, astonished look Seldon gave her set the gathered fighters to laughing fits. That was another trait of the gaijin, he could always make people laugh when he wanted them too. Which was probably a good thing, because he was a homicidal nut-case whenever he wasn't fighting or making people laugh.

"Alright, one week we'll reconvene the process of determination. But this time: I'm wearing a cup!"

"But you were wearing a cup this time gaijin!" called out one of the fighters, a youngish looking kid that couldn't be more than seventeen.

"Oh?" Seldon put on a mask of confusion. "So that's what cracked. I thought it was my nuts."

The fighters laughed, well: some laughed, others groaned. But even the groaners started laughing when Seldon reached into his shorts and pulled free a large chunk of grey plastic. The cup had been shattered. Shinji strolled up after the last of Seldon's fighting retinue had wandered off, chuckling in mild amusement as the tall man started picking out pieces of triangular plastic and dumping them in a pile.

"Damn woman, that's really going to be a painful bruise..."

"Sel, you never learn do you?" Shinji started in his mild English. "The women will always beat you like that now if you don't do something."

The forty-odd gaijin gave Shinji a scathing look. "What do you mean 'will?' More like: 'always have' than 'will!'" The man laughed in his amenable way and clasped his neighbor hard across the shoulders. "Come on, let's have a drink, eh?"

Shinji hrrmphed to himself and shrugged his bag higher up before stepping to follow, but something held him back. Some presence that tugged at the corner of his eye right near the periphery. He turned back, feeling a stiff breeze from the bay kick up and gush across the courtyard as he did so. Combined with the unusual sight he saw near an old oak tree across the street, the effect was chilling.

The small boy was dressed in a gray suit tailored to his small stature, with a black tie and kerchief darkly present on the lighter backing of stormy clouds. His eyes could be seen clearly, very clearly for the distance Shinji was at. They were the color of his suit, storm grey and-- swirling? underneath a very neat and organized cut of mahogany hair. Yet all this was only mildly startling when you compared it to the companion that sat haughtily on the boy's shoulder; a raven of the purest black, with three eyes.

"The life of a dream is only as long as the dreamer's desire." The voice was all voices, and none. Of many pitches, tones, octaves, and emulations with many subtle inflections all at once. What's more, it was the raven who was speaking. "Have you dreamed lately? Shinji Ikari?"

Shinji screamed as he fell the small height of his livingroom couch to land on the cool, old wooden floor below it. For the longest time, Shinji just sat there staring at the floor and his hands above it. His body trembled at unknown terrors as he slowly lifted one hand up and turned it over and over and over in the white moonlight that streamed through his dingy windows.

Shinji laughed a bit, his ears noticing that it sounded too high and strained to be anything but awkward. "It...it was a dream. A dream...yeah..."

A soft snore cut through his shrilly assurance pep-talk like a buzzsaw through rotted paper. Shinji looked over past a vast menagerie of half- empty liquor bottles and turned over wine corks to stare at the snoozing Seldon buzz softly away in his leaned-back recliner.

By his head stood the raven of three eyes.

When Shinji woke next he was curled up on the floor, a thin grey blanket tossed haphazardly over him. He groaned as a jolting pain surged through his body from the groin and back. 'More damn sleep-pains,' he thought before tossing the blanket back over the couch above and behind him.

His head felt no better than the rest of him. In truth, it was probably the part about him that hurt the most of all. Shinji ran a quick guestimation of the amount of liquor and wine that had been consumed the night before, then divided that hazy number by two.

He was surprised that he even woke up at all this early in the morning. The slam of a car door perked his ears and then squinched his eyes with pain. As the red blur left him he could faintly hear a heated argument between three people (or was it just one person talking to two others?) Straggling to the window he watched in weary interest as the thin figure of Seldon poked at a man dressed in what was undoubtably a JSSDF uniform. The grime smeared across the window prevented Shinji from seeing either of the two figures, one male and one female both in uniforms, clearly; but he heard their argument loud enough.

"Tha-at's great!" Seldon said, drawing out the A. "That's just fucking great! Why don't you go up there and give him the big fucking news, huh?" he shouted at the two, making them flinch. "I'm sure HE'D love to know that lovely tid-bit that you fuckers have brought for him to read."

"Sir, please calm down--" the woman started, as the man was too dumbstruck to do much more than stare.

"Calm? I am fucking calm woman! But he sure as hell won't be when you give him that letter."

"Sir, then what do you suggest!" the woman shouted back, finally losing her cool and settling for a defensive posture that crossed her arms under her breasts.

Seldon stared between the two of them for a long while and then held out his hand. He said something in a lower voice than he had been previously using to the JSSDF officers and they handed over a small brown envelope without hesitation.

They left Seldon there, letter in hand, and drove off immediately. Their issue-car of black-and-silver trim kicked up a line of dust and dirt as it sped down the street and disappeared around a bend. Seldon stood there for a time before turning around and storming up the stairs. Shinji went out to his door to meet him before he went further along to his own apartment.

"Hey Sel, wha-"

The gaijin brusquely brushed past him and then rushed up to his own floor and apartment. Leaving Shinji there by his doorjamb wondering just what in the hell was going on. As he heard Seldon's door slam Shinji sighed and went into his own.

Answers would have to wait.



A day passed, Christmas day in fact.

Shinji didn't even realize that Christmas had even passed by until he turned on the television that afternoon and heard the news reporters trading their stale jokes about the Christmas parades. To Shinji this didn't mean much. He didn't have anyone to buy him a present after all, and he had no one to buy a present for but Kensuke. Poor Kensuke.

Shinji remembered that he had a letter hanging around somewhere from his old friend. An apology telling Shinji that he wouldn't be able to make it back over to Tokyo-3 to see him for Christmas because he was pulling line duty that day. Always like him, doing the dirty jobs so others could go to their families and have a relief from the hell of the Russian front.

Always putting himself on the line for others.

Shinji felt a sour darkness come over him as he chugged down the last of his drink, the bitter brown tea churning with his stomach acids as he sloshed from one room to another in search of his shoes. He was dressed with his normal conservatism; khaki pants, blue undershirt with a white button-up over it, his hair pulled back into the Kaji-esq ponytail. He had taken the time to shave and wash his teeth, but did little else but spray on some scented deodorant and rummage for clean (as clean as it got for him these days) clothing. It was underneath the table, still littered with its decorative collection of liquor bottles, that he found his shoes. Soon after he was out the door and down the street with a set of headphones to his four-year-outmoded SDAT clashing away in his head, with a pack of his CD mixes strapped across his back. It was off to work again and much the same was usual for Shinji.

But change was moving.



Shinji stepped out of the club and pulled out the last of his cigarettes.

'I really am becoming more and more like you Kaji, old boy. And sometimes I don't even know it.' The flame was guttering as usual, fighting for life against the thin breeze that drifted in from across the harbor. Shinji puffed on the end to draw the flame near and then exhaled liberally as the tip began to glow orange. The thin stream of death abated quickly in the air as the wind jetted about. Shinji watched it, trailed it from the origin to where it died and dissipated. Several moments passed this way, with him watching and waiting patiently for nothing to happen at all.

He dropped the cigarette then, when a raven called out from behind him.

Wide-eyed, he turned and pressed his backside up against the metal railing in astonished horror. The small boy was there, raven on his shoulders, peering at Shinji with an intensity rivaled only by Grandmaster Chess players at the world tournament.

"H-holy--"

"Have you dreamed lately? Shinji Ikari?" the raven cooed. For the first time in his life, Shinji desired ever so badly to have a gun. He reasoned that if the bullets did nothing to this devilish creature he could turn it on himself and end this dreadful insanity by retreating to the darkness of death.

But a gun he had not, "W-who...what are you?"

"Have you dreamed lately? Shinji Ikari?"

Shinji shook his head back and forth in muddled misunderstanding. "I-I don't...uh...what?"

"It's a simple question," Shinji jumped at the quick response of the boy. The small kid spoke with a heavy accented English that Shinji could only identify as being similar to the English language from Britain. "Have you dreamt lately...Shinji Ikari?"

"Who are you!" Shinji shouted back, cowing both apparitions into silence for a moment. "What do you want from me?"

It was the raven who answered next, the boy reaching up to stroke the line of silky-ebon feathers that ran from its beak to its breast. "It is not what we want from you, Shinji Ikari. It is what you want from us. And what they want from all." Shinji felt lost and groping for a light amidst an ocean of darkness. "So tell us: Have you dreamed lately, Shinji Ikari?"

The world reeled, turning liquid and hazy as though Shinji was looking through a layer of clear quicksilver. The colors of the world were receding, fading, running like watery snot down from the facades they had adhered to since the dawn of time. Leaving behind only the dull shades of grey that marked the world of neutrality between all extremes.

Even the moon was fading, changing. The magical light of the darkened night fading with the world as the waves of destabilizing reality sloshed across the globe. Shinji fell to his knees and heaved, his stomach purging itself of the hasty dinner Shinji had forced upon it two hours past.

The thin splattering of the goop, a light grey in color, was more than enough for Shinji. He fell sideways and into darkness.

He awoke into that same darkness. A black void that stretched for eternity in all directions and angles. A deep nothingness of color and texture that gave him the queasy sense of floating in a space not unlike the own airless void that hung loomingly outside that tranquil atmosphere of Earth.

However, there were no stars, no planets, no moons, no suns here to lend that impression. No. Hell would never be that kind; if indeed this was Hell at all.

"Shinji."

His back went rigid at the soft-spoken voice; a thin corkscrew tendril of icy fear running along that stiff portion of backbone as memories and emotions buried deep into his mind and soul were resurrected and tossed violently into the light of the present. Without moving Shinji spun in space. Or maybe Space spun around him, where he was the center of everything and the black void around was fixed on his location? But unimportant things were quickly forgotten as, he, drifted into view.

"Hello, Shinji Ikari," the boy with pale hair and blood for eyes remarked with his gentle voice. "It's been a while."

Shinji trembled with that absolute distillation of horror know as fear as the phantasm drifted closer. He knew its form intimately, knew its every shape and angle even without the sickly-pale essence that glowed about its body. He knew those blood eyes, that grey hair, that pale skin that was so perfectly unmarred but for one place.

That one place--the ragged line that zagged about its neck like some sick mockery of a hangman's scar. Shinji knew it all. And he was frightened.

"Stay away!" he screamed, flailing in the void, trying to swim away in the weightless space about him.

Kaoru Nagisa looked hurt as he started to step forward on an unseen floor, "But Shinji, you meant so much to me. Why...why are you running away from me Shinji?" Shinji felt a building rush of air scorch through his throat, a wheezing attempt for him to scream as Kaoru inched closer and closer. "Shinji?" blood started to bubble through the gash along his neck, pouring out and running down to his white shirt. Staining it as crimson as his eyes. "Shinji! SHINJI!!"



Shinji rolled through his vomit and to his knees with a piercing screech that echoed through the streets like a banshee's howl of madness and despair.

Shinji was wearily stumbling out of the alleyway soon after he screamed out his anguish and horror. He felt tired, bone tired and more than a bit hazy about the realities of the world he was in. Everything seemed washed out and blurry now, but that was better than what it had been before.

The foul, rancor odor of his vomit made his nose curl and burn with disgust; and his throat heaved and twitched as he forcefully choked down large gulps of precious-sweet air. He detested the slick feel of his shirts now. Felt none but utter revulsion for the sick way they clung to his skin, the way they took two seconds longer to shift and move along his body as he moved about. He hated it.

Shinji stepped out into an empty street. It was well after three in the morning and most of Kyoto, except for the occasional party thrown by unambitious college students, was sleeping soundly through the night. Hardly a soul would be wandering through the streets now, and as far as he could see: Shinji was the only one on this street.

Probably a good thing. He didn't really know how well he could deal with another human being after what he had just been through. Or how they would deal with him. Certainly he looked like a person from hell, with his vomit- sopping shirts that reeked of sour alcohol and rotting food; with his long, unkempt hair and the thick scattering of stubble that lined his face. He looked like a homeless thief, that's what he looked like tonight. Shinji scrambled home before anyone could see him.

He threw off his clothes and rushed into the freezing jet of shower water to clean the stench of his stomach off. He sat and shivered under its blast of frigid water until his lips were blue and he could barely see for his eyelids flutter. Then he stepped out into the warm air and let the wind dry him off.

Shinji didn't put any clothing on before flopping onto his couch and falling asleep.

Once again drifting into a dream about Asuka.



When Shinji woke next, it was to the sound of a knock.

"Who is it?" he blearily called out, rummaging about for a pair of pants and a shirt. When no one answered he went to his kitchen cabinets and pulled out the present Misato had graced him with before he moved out to college. The Luger felt weighty and reassuring in his grip, just like Misato's presence. She had always been reassuring for him whenever she was about. God how he missed her.

"Who is it?" Shinji called again, pulling back on the levered action that chambered the weapon and armed the firing pin. No one answered. Shinji crept towards the door, making as little noise as possible on the old, creaky hardwood floor. He pulled back the locking bolt with only the slightest of clicks and took in a deep breath.

Shinji threw open the door.

He almost dropped the Luger next to his foot when he saw the smiling face of pristine beauty framed by those very familiar waves of auburn-gold. But by Fortune's grace, his fingers held the weapon by a loose grasp. For now, the only thing he was capable of was an open-mouthed gape at that beauteous creature.

"Hello Shinji," Asuka said with her honeyed voice. "May I come in?"

"O-of course!" Shinji said, much too loudly. But Asuka didn't seem to mind. She just brushed by him as he pushed the door open, smiling as she went.

"Shinji," Asuka's tone was horrified, "You live like a pig!"

Shinji winced as he shut the door and locked it back. He pulled the magazine out of the luger and then ejected the unspent bullet from its chamber. All this he set carefully aside on a table before going back to where a waiting Asuka was impatiently pushing clothing and empty food containers aside.

"I swear," she was saying. "You men all live exactly the same way. Whatever happened to the clean person I once knew hun? To have you turn out like this after you left...tsk!"

Shinji watched her move about with a false air of calm. Internally, his heart was racing and his pulse was nearly enough to beat his arteries out through his skin. 'She's here...she's actually here and talking to me! She's here...' And indeed she was. The four years apart from her had done nothing to reduce the beauty that she had possessed when he had last seen her at Misato's apartment just before he left for Kyoto. If anything, those four years had made her more exquisite in every way.

"What are you grinning at?" Asuka asked him, her face turning into a sly, questioning look.

Shinji, startled that she had asked him anything at all, dumbly groped for an answer. "Me? Ah...well, I...uh..."

Asuka smirked and walked over to him, the scent of spicy perfume heavy on her nicely toned skin. "Oh, I see. Three minutes together and you've already been reduced to babbling at the mouth. Now, now Shinji...we've already been through that stage in our relationship."

"Yeah, I...I suppose we have..." Shinji felt flushed and warm. Like an uncomfortable heat that you just had to bear and grin through before you could reach the next day that would be like a refreshing autumn stream. But it was a good warmth at the same time, one that brought back old memories and feelings to his heart.

Asuka purred and ran a delicate finger along the line of his jaw; scraping at the thickening bush of stubble that was his father's gift to him. "Hmmm, you really should shave you know. One might think you were trying to look like Kaji...or worse, your dad."

Shinji reached up and took her hand with his own, relishing the soft, creamy feel it had to it. A feeling that he had not remembered until now. "Maybe I am."

Asuka laughed, a light trickle of water chiming across thin, crystal bells. "Well, I'd say you already succeeded in looking like Kaji," she tugged at the thick ponytail that hung limply behind his back, "but that's something to reach for. Looking like your father now..."

Shinji smirked, but felt distantly removed from that joke. It just felt like someone making fun of your funeral. Not at all funny to the one who was being buried under six feet of cold, soggy soil. That was how he felt about that joke with his father. Not funny at all.

"Well, I shall have to remedy that, shan't I?" he told her. Asuka laughed and twirled away from him, long hair flying in a crescent wave. Shinji just smiled at the very feminine way she was moving about the room, clearly meant for him to look upon and admire, and then ducked out to the water closet to take care of his facial problem.

"When did you get into Kyoto?" Shinji asked as he quickly put his beard to the razor.

"Oh, about eight this morning. I had to search around a bit before I found your place. I hope you don't mind me dropping by."

Shinji stopped and looked out through the door to where Asuka was still shuffling through the mess of his livingroom. He glanced back to the dripping razor in his hands and then up to his sleep-deprived face. "No," he said softly, "I don't mind at all."

He was smiling broadly as he came back to the room, now cleaned and straightened to a surprising degree. Asuka beamed at her handiness and turned to grin at the freshly-shaven Shinji. "Well, not bad right?"

"Not bad?" Shinji looked about at the empty floorboards. "I'd say amazing, considering the fact that I was the one who had to clean your room not more than four years ago."

"Yeah, well..." Asuka dropped her head and walked towards Shinji a bit. "That was four years ago Shinji, this is now."

God she looked beautiful. Like the angelic definition of perfection in a woman. At least to Shinji. He raised his arms to her shoulders and then ran them along her back, pulling her forward to his bare chest in a fierce hug.

"I missed you Asuka."

She shuddered, then ran her arms along his waist and hugged back. "I missed you too, Shinji..." She didn't say more, she just started crying. Shinji cried along with her.



The sun was down again, and the cool breezes of night were flowing through the open windows of his home when Shinji opened his eyes again. He was sleeping in his stuffy, dust-rag of a futon of all places. Covered up by a thin, dusty sheet that had seen better days and more sun than it had under his care.

His sudden waking made the woman next to him shift and squirm, her peaceful rest disturbed by him as he rose through the layers of unconscious darkness to the light of the present. Shinji shifted his head to stare at the gorgeous nymph that lay beside him, legs intertwined with his own and one arm flung over his bare mid-torso. The crisp moonlight shone mysticly over her nude form, running lightly with bare feet over her hair, face, breasts. Stirring very familiar passions within his heart as he watched.

Instead of acting with those passions, Shinji pulled up the covers and gently slipped out from his lover's grasp; standing into the cool night air with a whimsical feel about him. He felt at peace for the first time in many months. And for once when he woke: his kidneys and back did not bother him.

It was a moment of perfection.

That was ruined when Shinji strode into his livingroom.

"Have you dreamed lately, Shinji Ikari?"

He screamed at the boy and his raven, a soulless scream that cried damnation and helplessness to the tormentors that elicited its wakening. The boy grinned at him. A sick, twisted grin that shone with madness and hints of something dire and dreadful. The raven cackled with delight at Shinji's terror-stricken face before he slumped to his knees.

Then, Shinji blinked. And they were gone.

The door smashed open.

"SHINJI!" Seldon charged into the room with his hands held low, grasping some object that he couldn't see in the dim moonlight. Seldon soon spotted him and rushed for the slumping boy. "Where is she?"

"W-what? Who?"

"Sohryu! WHERE IS SHE?!" Seldon shouted into his confused face. When Shinji didn't answer Seldon took him by the shoulders and shook him, his head lolling listlessly back and forth on his neck in a dollish, detached fashion. "WHERE IS SHE SHINJI!"

"Shinji? What's going on?"

Both men turned to see Asuka step through the doorway, clad in the sheet like a Roman toga, rubbing at her eyes to free them from the grasp of sandy grit. Seldon shoved Shinji backwards and stood straight, one hand coming up to point the object he had been holding at the auburn goddess.

It was a Luger.

"NO!" Seldon shot Asuka twice through the chest and once through her middle, tossing her back like a rag doll and throwing her to the floor in a heap of blood-soaked cloth and nude skin. Shinji was only finishing his plea when Seldon took aim again and pumped her dead frame with two more nine millimeter rounds, both through her beautiful face.

Her head was splattered across the room.

In the silence that followed, the only thing Shinji could hear was the soft tink-tink of the last ammunition casing as it hit the floor and bounced to a stop.

"Y-you killed her..." he said, his voice flat with shock.

Seldon lowered the gun to his side and turned towards Shinji. "She was sent by SEELE. You know who SEELE is don't you?" Shinji didn't nod. "Of course you do. Asuka was sent to kill you Shinji. SEELE sent her to kill you."

"Why? Why would she do that?"

Seldon shook his head and shrugged, "I don't know. Power, fame, money...revenge. It doesn't matter; I've got to get you out of here before her backup arrives to finish the job." Seldon leaned down to pick the slack- boned Shinji off the floor and was surprised.

Shinji barreled off the ground and smashed into the unsuspecting Seldon before he even had a chance to blink and say, 'Mother of God defend me now.' The pair toppled backwards across the nearby couch, Seldon putting in just enough force to have Shinji come up on bottom when they sprang off and ended up going through the coffee table. Glass shattered and crunched as Shinji and Seldon smashed through the table with their combined mass and then tinkled together as they continued to roll about the floor.

Finally, Shinji came up top and delivered a rapid flurry of punches to Seldon's face. Bone crunched and gave way under the surprising force of his fists, and the older man's head made sickeningly hollow sounds as it repeatedly bashed against the wooden floorboards below it.

A kick to his back sent Shinji screaming to his hands and knees, and a knee to his ribs forced him off of Seldon totally. But as he rolled away his hands collected up the very thing that had been used to kill his love. The Luger.

The weapon gleamed coldly in the pristine light of the moon as Shinji leveled it at Seldon, who was feebly wiping at the pudding mess of his face. Seldon stopped his futile wiping as he noticed Shinji, or more precise: the gun Shinji pointed at him.

Both men cautiously stood together, Shinji never wavering with the luger for an instant as he rose to his feet.

"Shinji," Seldon said, his hands raised above his shoulders. "I had to do it. She was going to kill you. You have to believe me."

"Oh really! When was she going to kill me? Before or after WE MADE LOVE TOGETHER!?"

Seldon flinched at the shout and then gestured to the window. "Listen to me, you just have to trust me Shinji. If we don't get out of here soon, her backup will arrive and kill the both of us! You have to come with me...Shinji!"

"You lie! You're fucking lying!"

Seldon became pleading, lowering his hands and pointing back and forth between them. "Shinji, you know who I am. Look at where I live. Why would I live here if I was who I was? Hun? I was put here. I was put here to protect you from SEELE."

Tears were stinging at Shinji's eyes, rolling down in waves to sting at the corners of his mouth and along the many, small gashes along his face and neck from where the glass had cut him. "No....Nooooooo!"

"Shinji, put the gun down. We need to get out of here. Please put the gun down," Seldon begged him, making gentle lowering motions with his hands. Outside, Shinji heard several cars pull up into the apartment's drive. Then several doors slammed shut. The front door was kicked in and footsteps rushed up the stairs. "That's them Shinji! We have to leave!"

A stiff breeze wafted through the apartment, whipping the bloody sheet that covered Asuka's cooling body. Shinji saw this and sobbed long and hard, Seldon tried to make soothing noises and took two steps forward as if he was going to comfort the crying man.

Shinji pulled the Luger up straight and pointed it directly at Seldon's head.

Seldon stopped, his face the picture of fright. "Shinji....don't--"

The gun flashed and boomed harsh echoes into the night, the bullet entered through Seldon's open mouth and blasted through the back of his skull. Bone, blood, and gore splashed across the wall behind him. His eyes rolled up into his head and for a moment more, he remained standing. Then the body went limp and he twisted around, showing the massive hole that once was the back of his head. A dull thump was the only sound to announce his passing from one world to the next.

"You killed Asuka..." Shinji knew he was going into shock. And he knew that Asuka was dead. But there was one thing that even the numbing shock couldn't faze even one iota. Without Asuka, Shinji knew he didn't want to live.

The door shuddered underneath a lively kick. Someone beyond it shouted out something to Shinji as he turned the Luger over in his palms to study it. He ignored it though, and sat down for what would likely be the last time he would ever be there to use it.

Quickly, he raised the gun to his mouth and firmly put the muzzle up to the roof of his mouth. He had one shot left, and it would be for him. His finger tightened on the trigger, easing it back to the firing point that would end his shitty life and take him to Heaven to be with his love once again.

The last thing he saw before closing his eyes was a book. An old book that he had been reading a few weeks before this all started. It read: FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE.

Shinji closed his eyes and pulled back the trigger further. Just before the end of it all, the door shattered and flew inwards. The three police officers behind that door shouted out for him to drop the weapon, but all they heard in response was the heart-stopping click of the trigger pulled to.

All Shinji heard though, was this:

"Have you dreamed lately, Shinji Ikari?"

CLICK.



A door opened, then slid shut with a metal grind.

Footsteps. A chair pulled back.

A thick folder landing on a hard table. A man's cough.

"Hello, do you know where you are?"

Shinji nodded.

"Where are you?"

"In a hospital."

"Do you know what kind of hospital?"

Shinji nodded.

"Do you know why I am here?"

Shinji nodded.

"My name is Shiwazaki. I'll ask a few questions and then you'll be free to go."

Shinji nodded.

"Do you know why you are here?"

"I read the files."

"Do you know, why you are here?"

"Yes. I am here because I'm fucking insane."

Scribbling, pen scratching over paper.

"Do you realize why people call you insane?"

"Because for four years I was living as a man named Isaac Asimov Seldon."

"Do you know where that name came from?"

"From the books that I have been reading."

More notes.

"And what about the other name of this man? This identity you named Seldon?"

Shinji sighed. "You read the files?"

"I know that they found a history book with the passages about William Robert Kitchens hi-lighted in you apartment. Along with your well-worn collection of Asimov's Foundation series. But I want you to answer that for me. So please humor me from now on."

Shinji sighed again, "Sure."

"Do you know what happened to William Kitchens?"

"Yes."

"Elaborate please."

Shinji felt a surge of anger at having to answer these useless questions. "William Kitchens restored order in his hometown by use of force. Exactly one year after the military relief arrived, he died by use of another force."

"Yes...a man shot him in the back as he was walking out of his favorite bookstore. At his trial he said that, 'The monster killed my mother and everyone applauded him for it. Now you'll kill me and everyone will applaud you for that too. Don't we live in a sick fucking world?'"

"They hanged him for that."

"Yes they did Mr. Ikari. Now, is Asuka Langley Sohryu dead?"

"Is she?"

"For your information, she is not. But the important thing is that you know that. Is she dead?"

"No."

"Did anyone die that night in your home, two years ago Mr. Ikari?"

A silence.

"Did anyone die, Mr. Ikari?"

"No."

"Who fired the six shots from the weapon, a Luger that you own?"

"I did."

"Did you fire them at anyone, Mr. Ikari?"

"No."

More notes.

"In your statement three months ago, you mentioned to us about a boy with a three-eyed raven. Were these figures present in the room when you fired off your Luger?"

"They were at the beginning...then they disappeared."

"Have you seen them anymore?"

Silence.

"Mr. Ikari?"

"Yes."

More notes.

"What do they want from you?"

"I don't know."

Shifting cloth, the man was looking at his watch.

"One more question before you go Mr. Ikari."

Silence.

"Have you dreamed lately? Shinji Ikari?"

Shinji stared at the elderly psychologist in his white lab frock and his small, square spectacles with a blank, frightened look. The man pulled back in astonishment and then wrote down a large paragraph of notations before looking back up at the twenty-three year old man.

"You will be advised to take your prescriptions every day, without fail. If you cease to take the medication then you will most certainly have a recurrence of the delusions. That may prove fatal to you considering the last time we found you."

He was referring to a time a year ago when they found him trying to hang himself.

"And we have a letter for you, it was found amongst your possessions at the time of your...admittance. But after reading the information it disclosed, we deemed it best not to burden you with it until you were of a more--"

"Secure mind?" Shinji butted in.

The doctor had grace enough to look sheepish, he slid over the thin brown letter to Shinji and then stood. "You may go after you read the letter, the door will be open for you and a fresh set of clothing will be provided. Your keys are waiting with the clothing, and a taxi has been hired to take you home." The doctor watched Shinji for a while before turning away. "It's been nice to work with you, Mr. Ikari."

The door ground shut after the doctor, leaving Shinji alone with the letter.

Shinji picked it up and studied the typing.

'JSSDF...the same letter those two officers gave to Seldo--...Me, back after Christmas...' Shinji tore open the letter and scanned past the thick line of formalities to the actual meaning behind the letter.



Shinji couldn't read through the tears.



Shinji asked the taxi to take him to his old club.

It wasn't too late in the afternoon, so his old boss would be setting up the shop for the night's partying. The cab deposited him there and sped off so fast that Shinji barely had time to close the door. He looked about the empty sidewalk and then at the building.

He blinked in sad recognition.

The club was closed down.

Looking about, Shinji failed to spy any available cabs that could take him home. Not feeling up to the challenge of his ten mile walk back home, he decided to wait a while and eat something in the local restaurants. His wallet was still full of the hundred thousand yen from that payment two years back from the boss, and he hadn't been able to spend it at the hospital.

Food would be good.

Shinji walked into the nearest place, a bar that doubled with a restaurant to do a fairly good trade in business at all hours of the day and night. Just as he was entering the bar was setting up to do its trade. A quick look through the restaurant proved it to be full; unlucky as he was, he had chosen to enter one of the most popular Kyoto restaurants. Seeing his furtive glances around, the waiter gestured towards the bar and handed over a menu.

"I'll send a waitress over to take the order."

"Thanks," Shinji quickly slid onto a stool and flipped through the menu. 'Choices, choices,' he though as he analyzed the myriad of dishes, side- items, and appetizers that were presented to him with full text descriptions and small, window pictures.

"Can I help you?" A light, sing-song voice asked him from behind the shielding menu.

Shinji dropped the menu and was struck breathless.

"Hi there, my name's Mana," the short-haired redhead positively beamed with happiness as she smiled at him. "Can I help you?"

Shinji found himself smiling as well, setting the menu down and gazing dreamily on the most beautiful woman he had seen in six years. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe."



AN: Alright, now I can sense your confusion and the inevitable question, namely being: "...What tha hell went on there?!"

Here's the answer: Shinji Ikari went insane. And think about it, wouldn't you go insane too? After going through everything he has? I listed out everything he suffered near the top of the story. Think about it. Going insane probably is the least he would have done.

As to Seldon: He was created by Shinji. To be more precise, Seldon IS Shinji, and Shinji is Seldon.

Whenever Seldon is dealing with others, that is really Shinji. But Shinji believes (and everyone else as well) that he is Isaac Asimov Seldon, formerly of Augusta, Georgia. Obviously he is of Asian descent, but he explains this away by telling those that he deals with about his immigrant grandparents.

Asuka was another figment of Shinji's insanity. Just fulfilling out the desires in his dreams.

The Boy and his Raven...Well...that's something for you to wonder about. Isn't it?