Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ Evangelion: Renaissance ❯ Episode 19'a – Déjà rêvé ( Chapter 6 )

Like an angel that has forsaken empathy, 
young boy, become a legend!

Even though the clear blue winds 
beat on the doors to your heart, 
you just look straight at me, smiling

So eager for something to touch, 
your innocent eyes know nothing of fate 
but someday you’ll notice 
that there are wings on your back 
that will carry you into the future

The cruel angel’s thesis 
will take flight from the window 
with surging, burning pathos 
if you betray your memories 
Embracing the sky and shining, 
young boy, become a legend!

___________________

Dark, pointed shadows stretched long across the floor of Gendo's expansive, spartan office as red light bled in through the long window, imbuing the room with an apocalyptic atmosphere.
Fuyutsuki's own shadow was a grotesque black distortion of a human shape, a gangly phantom reaching for the opposite wall with disproportionate limbs. He stood about a meter away from Gendo's desk, holding his hands behind his back.

Gendo's eyes were hidden behind the lenses of his glasses, and the lower half of his face was buried in his hands. His expression was unreadable.
“The council is becoming increasingly concerned with the idea of potential communication between humans and Angels." he explained. "They believe it could somehow present a new pathway to achieving their goals for Instrumentality."

Fuyutsuki shifted his weight onto his other knee. He squinted into the blood-red glare framing the other man.
“It's true that the Angels are beginning to display signs of intelligence, but an exchange of ideas would be nearly impossible—even assuming our thought patterns were mutually intelligible between species. The last experiment to that effect yielded no quantifiable results." Fuyutsuki commented.

"Indeed, men were not meant to comprehend Angels. Perhaps the reverse is also true," Gendo speculated as he sat up straight, keeping his fingers interlocked. "This is why the last true theophany experienced by mankind resulted in our near-extinction." he concluded. Streaming shadows outlined his body as he spoke. From this angle, the lenses of his glasses seemed to glow solid red, granting his appearance an infernal quality.

Striding past Gendo's desk, Fuyutsuki turned his back to the other man and mused, "It's said that God created human beings in His own image... but so great was humanity's arrogance, to expect we might be able to look into the face of God and see our own countenance reflected."

"Now, in our hubris, we sculpt Gods in our image and act shocked when they function as mirrors." Gendo contributed. There was a clacking as he straightened a stack of papers against the wood surface of his desk.

"I believe that, rather than returning to nothing themselves, SEELE intends to cross the abyss using the Evas as an ark." Fuyutsuki conjectured as he circled back toward Gendo's desk.

Gendo lifted the papers he had been stacking and thrusted them in Fuyutsuki's direction.
”Luckily we were able to convince the US government to allow us to finalise the construction of Unit-04. The last hardware component has been shipped from Nevada; it should be at the secondary facility today."

"They're still complaining that the project is falling behind schedule," Fuyutsuki reported, "They may try to accelerate the timeline somehow." He plucked the papers from Gendo's grip and tucked them under his left arm.

Gendo's hands accordingly found their way back home in front of his face. He steepled his fingers and uttered a dismissive grunt. "We hold all the cards; unless they have an ace in the hole, the advantage is still ours—at least for the time being."

___________________

———————

第 19' 話

Déjà rêvé

———————

___________________

When the phone rang, Yori was in the common room of his foster care facility, sitting in the back corner by himself at a scratched plastic table. A few hours earlier he'd spoken to his caseworker regarding his dream, and received a rather unsatisfying response. He was scribbling nonsense phrases in a moleskin notebook and thinking about entropy /subsumed by the monotony of living /the heat death of the universe /there's a hole in the center of everything /ennui slowly nibbling away at the fabric of existence

Then, the phone rang.

"Yugiri, call for you." the surly voice of a counselor announced. The other children broke into a hushed chorus of "oooooooh," knowing that it wasn't a social call and undoubtedly thinking he was in trouble for something.

Yori clapped his notebook shut and stood up, causing the legs of his chair to squeak painfully against the linoleum floor. With no idea what to expect, he marched somberly to the office where the counselor was holding the telephone and tentatively brought it to his ear. "Yes?"
A bubbly female voice energetically addressed him from the other end, that of his cousin. She proceeded to explain that she and her husband had recently moved to Tokyo-3, and that—if he was interested—she had a spare room in her apartment.

Being given the opportunity to move to Tokyo-3 ignited something in Yori's head. A screaming impulse urged him on, drowning out all rational objections.

Two buses and a train later, he exited the station into what looked like the blast zone of a carpet-bombing: ravaged buildings crumbled to pieces, swaths of road were reduced to ragged chunks of asphalt, mangled vehicles lie overturned amid piles of shattered glass. The air was thick with dust and the sounds of construction equipment.
Was this the fabled fortress city of Tokyo-3?
Yori traversed the destroyed streets, occasionally hopping from one smashed bit of concrete to the next, until he found a bus stop on flat, paved ground. He sat on the bench, set his bag in his lap, and wondered what it would feel like to finally be part of a family.

___________________

POP! – Shinji's toast ejected from the toaster. He slid a plate out from the cabinet, set the toast on it, and carried it to the kitchen table.

As Shinji sat down with his plate, Pen Pen's fridge popped open with a faint hydraulic hiss.The penguin waddled out and tucked into the fish lying in his food bowl. For a few moments, Shinji and the penguin quietly took bites of their respective breakfasts in unison.

"Oh Mein Gott!" Asuka's voice shrilled from the hallway, slicing through the morning's tranquility.

Shinji leapt from his chair, catapulting the half-eaten toast from his plate. Pen Pen cocked his head back to visually track the toast's flight path. The bread came plunging down and impaled itself on the tip of the penguin's beak, prompting him to violently shake his head from side-to-side. After a few good shakes he successfully dislodged his beak, inadvertently flinging the toast across the apartment. It slid to a stop beneath Shinji's foot, and Shinji felt breadcrumbs crunching between his bare toes as he rounded the corner into the hall.

Asuka had her forehead pressed to the bathroom door and her arms thrown above her head. She clawed at the wood like a begging cat. A persistent whine emanated from somewhere within her chest.

"She's been in there for ho-o-o-urs." Asuka sobbed, falling to her knees. She balled her hands into fists and pounded them against the door one after the other in steady rhythm.

"Who, Ayanami?" Shinji asked.

"Who else?" rejoined Asuka. "Misato's not up yet."

Asuka resumed banging on the door, leaning into it with her full weight. Just then, the door shot open and she went tumbling forward into the bathroom, comically somersaulting past Rei, who emerged wearing only a towel.
Shinji's jaw dropped and his face burned beet red. His arm rocketed up to his face to cover his eyes while Rei obliviously proceeded toward the bedroom she now shared with Asuka.

As Rei disappeared into the bedroom, Asuka scrambled to the bathroom's doorframe and shouted "Hey! You don't live alone anymore, First! Put on some clothes!" before her attention turned to Shinji.
"I bet you enjoyed that, huh? You get a good eyeful, pervert!?" Asuka accused, repeatedly smacking his raised arm.

"I wasn't even looking!" Shinji maintained, keeping his arm raised to shield himself from her onslaught.

"A likely story!" Asuka exclaimed as she stepped backwards and slammed the door.

Shinji was hardly able to take two steps before a bloodcurdling shriek rang out from behind him. He whipped around and zipped back toward the bathroom door.
“Asuka!" Shinji called, knocking frantically, "Are you alright!?"

The door flew open and Asuka trudged out, frowning. She was fully clothed, but her entire upper body was dripping wet and bedraggled. It looked like someone had just sprayed her with a hose.
She eked forward and caught sight of Shinji's dumbfounded expression. "Miss Perfect used all the hot water," she monotoned through gritted teeth, "As well as every single towel, somehow."

Unable to shower, Asuka led the two of them back to the kitchen. The moment they sat down at the table, Misato came bouncing out of her room in blue shorts and a yellow tank top. She made a beeline for the fridge to retrieve a can of beer, then plopped down in a chair opposite the two children. In one prolonged, heroic swig, she chugged the entire can and slammed it triumphantly down on the tabletop.

"So..." Misato started, inspecting their glum faces as she twirled the empty can under her finger, "How are things going with our new roommate?"

___________________

Outside, vast stretches of Tokyo-3 lay in ruins. Mountains of rubble and fields of broken glass covered the streets. Small fires still burned in isolated areas of the city, pillars of smoke endlessly arcing toward the featureless blue sky.
Nevertheless, citizens were labouring tirelessly to reclaim their lives. Driven to survive, the tenacity of the human spirit could be quite impressive. Sagiri couldn't help but grin at the thought, a breath of optimism in the smog of dire circumstance.

He'd awoken this morning to Hinoki leading a boy through the door who she introduced as her cousin. She said his name was Yori and he was new to town, so with no other family to speak of he would be needing a place to stay for a while, and could he use their spare bedroom pretty please?
Despite never having heard of this cousin of hers and the fact that he'd planned on converting the extra room into a home office, he reluctantly agreed they could shelter the kid temporarily. She squealed and gave him a big kiss while showering him in thanks, before running off to make a phone call.

Altogether an unusual way to wake up, but Sagiri was accustomed to her impulsivity, so he shrugged it off as he pulled on his jacket and began to make his way to NERV Headquarters.

___________________

Students flocked noisily into the classroom as the final notes of the morning bell sounded. The last few stragglers barely managed to scurry to their desks by the time Hikari issued the commands to rise, bow, and sit. Class-2A dutifully followed her instructions, then bristled with chatter while the old teacher slowly shuffled to the front of the room.

From his usual seat, Shinji eyed Rei as she balanced her head in her hand and gazed out the window. He wondered what she honestly thought about their new living situation. Having to share a room with Asuka... surely it was a big adjustment for her. Something jabbed him in the side and he swung his head around to see Asuka shooting him a disgruntled, 'what-the-hell-are-you-looking-at' expression.
He grinned awkwardly and waved his hands over one another to signal an apology.

The scattered conversations abruptly petered out and Shinji turned forward in his desk, along with the rest of the class. All eyes faced front to see the old teacher standing at the podium next to a gawky-looking kid no one had ever seen before. The kid stood a few feet off to the side with his left hand wrapped around his right arm, head tilted downward, trying not to look at anyone or anything in particular. Tousled, dark red hair fell over his face, concealing his eyes.

The old teacher nodded in the kid's direction. "Attention class: this is Yori Yugiri," he announced, "He's a new transfer student from Yokohama."

A wave of whispers instantly washed over the classroom.

"Okay, alright, settle down," the teacher drawled, suppressing the conversation with a downward hand motion before he pivoted toward Yori, "You can sit down, Yugiri."

As Yori filed past the podium, the teacher gave him a light pat on the shoulder, causing him to visibly flinch. Bevies of muffled laughter rippled across the room, and the teacher repeated his 'quiet down' gesture. Once the giggling ceased, the lecture commenced.

Straightening his glasses, Yori scouted and claimed an empty desk in the row behind Shinji. A couple seconds later a crashing sound beckoned Shinji's attention. He glanced over his shoulder to notice Kensuke gracelessly climbing into the spot adjacent to Yori's desk.

Kensuke gave the new kid a salute.
“Hi, I'm Kensuke Aida," he greeted, "I'm from Yokohama, too."

Yori avoided eye contact. Several seconds passed before he replied, "Okay." Without saying anything further, he set to rifling through his bag, pulled out a small notebook, and started writing.

The salute Kensuke was offering deflated and his hand went limp before he lowered it. Noticing Shinji looking back at them, he pointed sideways and mouthed the word "wow."

Shinji shrugged in response. It was inarguably rude, but Shinji didn't think the new guy ignored Kensuke intentionally to be disrespectful. Something about the kid just seemed... sad, in a way Shinji couldn't quite describe, but it reminded him of his father, somehow. He wondered what kind of person this new student really was... maybe they would actually get along. Perhaps they might even become friends eventually.

___________________

The Evangelion was in pieces. Individual parts had been delivered in separate shipments from the research center in Matsushiro. The final components had arrived a week ago; now all that remained was assembly. Sagiri estimated it would take at least a week to complete basic construction. After that, there would be dozens of calibrations and other tests before further work on it could take place. With his tendency to get bored easily, this was the part of everything that Sagiri enjoyed least: the waiting.

He reclined against a safety rail high above the assembly area and observed as the cranes and forklifts navigated around the main floor. The NERV technicians worked economically, at a steady but efficient clip. Sagiri wished they could assemble the Unit more speedily; however, their current pace was probably best—it would be more detrimental to the rate of construction if they damaged something, or worse, someone was injured.
He let out a puff of air and settled his chin on the railing. NERV HQ wasn't quite the technological utopia or shining bastion of human ingenuity he had envisioned... it was more just a military installation, if anything. Additionally, he still hadn't gotten the opportunity to meet with Dr. Akagi. In fact, all he had done thus far was perch along the scaffolding and attend the painstakingly slow operation happening below.

"That thing's pretty impressive, huh?" came a man's voice from the right.

Startled, Sagiri hopped up and spun toward the source of the voice. An unshaven man with a rumpled blue shirt and loosely-hanging red tie stood beside him. Surveying the man, Sagiri frowned at the sight of his scruffy beard and unkempt ponytail. They lent the man a lax, unprofessional demeanor that agitated Sagiri somehow. The man stood with both hands tucked in his pockets and he regarded the Eva with an impish grin, as if he knew something Sagiri didn't.

"Sorry, and you are?" Sagiri asked, trying to mask his irritation.

"Ah! Forgive me—the name's Ryoji Kaji, nice to meet you." the man said as he extended his right hand.

Sagiri returned his attention to the Eva's assembly process and leaned back on the railing again.

Kaji glanced down at his hand quizzically, then wiped it across the side of his trousers, perhaps wondering if there had been some dirt on it. He reseated his hand in its pocket and remarked, "So, I hear you're the new hotshot young researcher."

"Where did you hear that?" Sagiri questioned.

Kaji took his hands from his pockets and wrapped them around the rail. "Word travels fast around here." he intimated.

There was a protracted uneasy silence before Sagiri spoke again, "It's… not really like that; I'm just here to assist Dr. Akagi, mostly."

"But still, only 16 years old and already a college graduate? I've gotta say, I'm impressed," Kaji responded as he stretched his arms, "You'll be sure to rise through the ranks around here in no time. Plus, with your help against the Angel the other day, you're already a big star. Pretty soon you won't be able to keep the girls away," he finished, looking at Sagiri with a crooked, roguish grin.

"I'm not interested in any of that," Sagiri replied impassively, "And as for the girls—you can have them; I'm already married."

"Married, huh?" Kaji repeated, letting out a low whistle, "You didn't give yourself much of a chance to play the field, did you?"

Aggravation bubbled like a dyspeptic feeling in Sagiri's stomach. Who did this Kaji guy think he was, to speak to a stranger in such a familiar manner? It was just so cocky, and presumptuous.

Kaji, taking advantage of Sagiri's lack of verbal response, proceeded: "Of course, I guess when you've found the right one, you know it, huh?"
He released his grip on the railing and faced Sagiri fully, bending in closer to him. He casually slung his right elbow over the top of the rail, and in a furtive, half-whispered tone, asked "So... what's she like?"

"Huh?" Sagiri puzzled.

"Your wife, what's she like?" Kaji clarified, adding: "I bet she's pretty."

"Yeah." Sagiri confirmed tersely.

"And older, right? I know how young guys want older women who can teach 'em a thing or two. I can't say it isn't a bit of a fantasy of my own." Kaji confessed.

"Yeah." Despite himself, Sagiri chortled a little. "You're a strange man."

"So, how'd you two meet? Was she a substitute at your school or something?"

Sagiri suddenly remembered how bold and invasive this line of questioning actually was. "No," he grumbled, letting the frustration in his voice froth over.

"Aw, come on," Kaji whined with feigned disappointment, "Aren't you gonna give me anyth–"

"Kaji, would you please stop bothering my new research assistant?" a woman's voice interjected from behind the two.

Simultaneously, Sagiri and Kaji turned around to locate the speaker. Further down the platform stood an attractive woman with cropped blonde hair, wearing a white lab-coat, who Sagiri recognised from her photo as Dr. Akagi.
She approached the two men, one hand buried in the pocket of her lab-coat and the other cradling a clipboard. Once more in unison, Sagiri and Kaji straightened their backs and stood firmly upright. Kaji smiled and gave her a ritzy little half-wave. Sagiri, however, pulled on a mask of resolute, no-nonsense civility. He didn't know what type of person Dr. Akagi was, so he decided that, for the time being, it would be best to simply act as professionally as possible.

"Dr. Akagi," Sagiri greeted her formally, extending a modest bow, "It's a great honour to finally meet you."

Witnessing this spectacle, Kaji gawked, "Hey, hey, no need to bow—it's only little Ritsuko."

Humbled by the formality, Ritsuko herself halted. She brought her pocketed hand alongside the other beneath her clipboard and returned the bow, though she noticeably didn't go nearly as low as Sagiri had.
"It is nice to meet you as well, Sagiri." she concurred, before turning to Kaji. "You know, it wouldn't hurt you to be a little more formal once in a while." she teased, prodding him in the chest with a pen, "Or at least a little more proper. I hope you didn't say anything... inappropriate."

Kaji softly pushed her pen down and away with his palm.
“C'mon, give me a break." he complained, "The two of us were actually getting along pretty well... he was just telling me how he met his wife at school."

"I never said that." Sagiri corrected.

"Well! I have to get going," Kaji proclaimed, making a grand dramatic performance of checking his watch. He gave Ritsuko a friendly nod, and slapped Sagiri on the back, maybe a little harder than he intended—with enough force to actually make Sagiri lumber forward a step.
"It was nice meeting you, Ichiro. Take care, you two."

Sagiri stared as Kaji sauntered off down the platform. Partly he wondered if maybe Kaji had something against him, but he was chiefly just surprised at the overall cheekiness of the man.
As Kaji egressed, Ritsuko stepped forward to occupy the spot where he previously stood. She wrapped the fingers of her free hand around the railing and inspected the happenings in the lower areas. Sagiri followed, and peered down to regard the workers' progress. It appeared that not much headway had been made for the duration of his conversation with Kaji.

Sagiri lifted his head and rotated it toward Ritsuko. "So…" he began cautiously, "Is Mr. Kaji always like that?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so, Sagiri," Ritsuko laughed. She let go of the rail and started back in the direction she came. "Come on, I'll show you the lab."

___________________

The excitement of an addition to their ranks shortly dwindled, and afterwards class dredged on in its usual fashion until lunch rolled around. These past few mornings since Rei moved in had been too chaotic for Shinji to prepare a proper breakfast, so Asuka was eagerly awaiting the lunch bell to see what she could pilfer from Hikari. The red-haired girl bounded across the room and joined her friend, who graciously allowed Asuka to share some of her abundant food.
While Hikari apportioned their halves, Asuka scoped out the activities of the other students. Rei was sitting alone in the corner as usual, reading a book in self-imposed isolation. The Three Stooges had encircled the new student—Toji was attempting to introduce himself, while the new kid was in turn preoccupied with some kind of book of his own.
What a bunch of losers.

———

Hitting a snag in his writing, Yori cocked his head in the direction of the window and gazed out at a pair of towering magnolia trees rustling against the cloudless sky. Sitting beneath the window reading was a fair-skinned girl with a mop of short, arctic-blue hair. She was ethereally beautiful, in an intangible, illusory way that made Yori think of a white marble statue with no hands, in tribute to some primordial goddess, enshrouded by mist over a faraway moonlit lake... there was something inexplicably familiar about her that he couldn't quite identify.
As if she sensed him staring, the girl suddenly looked back at him. Their eyes met for a brief instant before he swiftly averted his gaze.

"That's Rei Ayanami," Kensuke indicated. "She's always sitting over there by herself."

Yori wrote down the characters for "zero" and "ghost."
He stole another glance in her direction and felt a hollowness in his chest. The feeling dilated until it compressed his lungs, leaving him gulping for air like a fish out of water. When he breathed out it came in the form of an involuntary sigh.

"You could try talking to her." Kensuke suggested knowingly.

Normally when it came to approaching other people, there was nothing that frightened Yori more, but he hadn't come to arrive in this city—in this moment—by making safe, comfortable decisions.

———

"Here you go, Asuka." Hikari offered, but Asuka was distracted by an unexpected sight: the new student had left his desk and was now standing next to Rei.

"Why is the new kid talking to Wonder Girl?" scoffed Asuka.

A hush fell over the class.

"The new guy's talking to Ayanami? Ha, this should be good." Toji declared.

___________________

After a solid twenty or so minutes of following Ritsuko through a series of indistinguishable, labyrinthine halls (which seemed to constitute the majority of HQ), they arrived in a room abounding with varied computer systems. Oversized CPUs beeped and buzzed as they processed untold amounts of data.

Ritsuko stopped by the doorframe and ushered Sagiri into the lab. "By the way, did you ever get a chance to go over the contents of that disk I had Misato give you?" she asked.

"No, actually," Sagiri admitted with a short nervous laugh, "It's a long story, but my laptop got busted during the Angel attack and I've been too busy unpacking and helping my wife's cousin to–"

"That's just as well," Ritsuko said before he could finish, "This will give me a chance to see your analysis skills in person."

She led him into the room, weaving between tall racks of equipment, to where a girl sat in a rolling chair, in front of a large monitor. The girl looked to be about Hinoki's age and had her hair in a brown pixie cut.

"This is my assistant, Maya Ibuki." Ritsuko introduced the girl.
Without getting up or even slowing her typing, Maya craned her head around and flashed Sagiri a polite smile. He nodded and waved in reply. When she turned away he couldn't help but notice she was sitting atop a pink pillow.

"Maya, could you bring up the processed audio from the Angel attack, please?" Ritsuko requested.

"Yes ma'am." Maya confirmed, and with a few keystrokes the screen in front of her filled with visual representations of sound waves.

Already intrigued, Sagiri felt himself unconsciously move closer to investigate the image onscreen as Maya played each sound file in sequence.

"The latter three were extracted from the former," Ritsuko explained, "They're practically identical in frequency and amplitude."

Something occurred to Sagiri and he leaned over, reaching for the keyboard. "Excuse me," he apologised as his arms started to cross in front of Maya. "May I?" he implored.

Maya consented wordlessly and he set about entering commands. When he drew back from the terminal, the three extracted signals had been overlaid, creating a single sound file.

"What did you do?" Maya questioned.

"This is the actual carrier wave," Sagiri informed her, "The information signal is encoded within the differences in phase."

Ritsuko stepped forward to stand on the other side of Maya and placed a hand on the back of the younger woman's chair. "Run that through a phase demodulation circuit." she instructed.

A progress bar appeared and rapidly filled as Maya complied with Ritsuko's command. When it reached one-hundred percent completion, a new waveform popped up on the screen. Maya played the resulting file.

There was a ghostly choral sound, almost like a choir of women singing a sustained, atonal note, and Sagiri found himself in a boundless field of featureless white nothing.

in utero and limitless we are blood and flame we are the consciousness before the universe the absence of light of matter
whispers worlds into being now we are born and separate forced to assume shape divided screaming

Maya yelped and kicked her chair away from the console as it crackled and ruptured, spitting sparks in every direction. A quilt of grey smoke enmeshed the workstation.

"Shit!" Ritsuko cried, rushing to retrieve a fire extinguisher. The desk was charred black by the time she returned and doused the terminal in mounds of white foam.

Once the jolt of adrenaline subsided, the three exchanged an alternation of wild-eyed glances, as if to nonverbally confirm they had each shared a common experience.

"What was that?" Maya asked, her voice shaking.

Ritsuko set the extinguisher down at her feet. "It's no wonder they abandoned it..." she muttered.

"Do you know what that was?" Sagiri demanded.

Without removing her eyes from the smoldering remains of the computer, she spoke solemnly, "I think... that was how Angels talk."

___________________

As soon as the blue-haired girl acknowledged his presence, Yori's mouth went bone dry.

"H-Hey." he stammered, "Are you reading a book?"

Rei blinked at him, evidently confounded. "Yes." she replied plainly.

"S-sorry; I know you're reading a book. I meant to ask what you're reading." he corrected himself, mentally cursing the verbal misstep. He probably seemed like an idiot.

"Why do you want to know?" Rei asked earnestly.

"I don't know; I'm, uh, just curious, I guess... I like reading, too." stumbled Yori in reply. He paused, shuffling in place anxiously. "I'm Yori Yugiri. I'm new here."

"Yes, I know."

"Oh. Uh, yeah... I guess you heard that when the teacher said it." he uttered. It felt like there was something caught in his throat.
He swallowed, pointed to her current page in the book, and jabbered on, “Is that some kind of genetics textbook? I recognise some of the illustrations. Is that something you're interested in—genetics, I mean? I think it can be pretty fascinating, sometimes."

"Is there... something you need from me?" Rei inquired.

Yori froze. "N-no." he murmured.

"Then excuse me, but could you leave me alone?" Rei asked, glaring at him with her big, red eyes.

Red eyes... 

Somewhere inside Yori's abdomen, a stone fell and sank directly to the pit of his stomach, weighing down his entire body. Gravity pulled at his limbs. Defeated, he slumped and withdrew to his own desk.

"Oh, crash and burn!" ribbed Toji. He smacked the top of his desk (for emphasis on the word 'burn') and reclined in his chair with his hands linked behind his head. Then, noting Yori's crestfallen look, Toji nodded to the new student and assured him: "Don't worry, newbie; there are plenty of other, more normal chicks at this school."

"It's just that, out of all the girls in our class, you went straight for Ayanami." Kensuke offered as he placed a little plastic soldier atop his lunchbox. He flicked the figurine at the back of Shinji's head and said, "Shinji here probably knows her better than any of us, given that they're both Eva pilots, but even he's never really had a full conversation with her."
The army man harmlessly bounced off Shinji's skull, drawing his attention.

"Eva?" Yori asked.

"Evangelions." Kensuke and Toji chorused.

"Oh, you mean those giant robots... She pilots one of those?" Yori wondered. It was difficult for him to imagine another kid being burdened with that responsibility—it must be terrifying.

"Yeah, so does Shinj—isn't that awesome?" Kensuke gushed, "I'm super jealous."

"Plus he gets to live with a total hottie." Toji added.

"Yeah, some kids have all the luck." Kensuke agreed wistfully.

"It's really not all it's cracked up to be." Shinji chimed in.

The three of them proceeded bickering among themselves, which dissolved into muddy background noise as Yori buried his head in his arms and tried to pretend he didn't exist.

___________________

Aoba slumped back in his chair in the Command Center, legs kicked up onto his computer terminal, playing a noiseless noodling air guitar solo. He was bored practically to tears. Spinning in his seat, he swung his legs over the terminal and curled forward to snatch a music magazine from atop his keyboard. Sliding back in his chair, he casually leafed through a few pages and skimmed an article about famous guitarists' pedalboards.
Earlier he had been shopping for a new guitar, but his search proved fruitless... certainly, he saw a number of guitars that interested him, but it felt like all the ones he wanted were out of his price range at the moment. Maybe he could figure out some way to get a promotion, or at least the raise that went with one.

The bridge was eerily quiet, and he was the only one there at the moment. There needed to be at least one officer present at all times to monitor the equipment, and today it was his turn to weather those tedious hours babysitting computers and waiting for something to happen. He groaned and slowly turned to the next page by dragging his index finger across the current one.
Just as the page flipped over, the rustling of the paper was swallowed up by a wailing warning sound blasting from his computer.

"Now what?" he wondered aloud as he dropped his feet to the floor and scooted his chair forward.
He folded the magazine, dropped it in his lap and examined the computer monitor as telemetry was automatically fed into the system from every corner of Tokyo-3. Data painted itself across the screen as the display filled with a satellite image of the city's western district, and a netting of green lines instantly traced its topography. Seemingly from nowhere, a huge spike of energy appeared on the map.

"Is it an Angel?"
Aoba heard over the slapping sound of footsteps growing louder as Misato briskly entered.

Colours streamed across the spectrometer in the pattern analysis window. Aoba's entire body tensed up as the words "Blood Type" blinked onscreen.
“Pattern… blue!" he decried.

He slapped the alert button and the halls of NERV Headquarters burst into a symphony of sirens.

___________________

EVANGELION
エヴァンゲリオン