Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ Neon Genesis Evangelion: Power of the Spirit ❯ Chapter 0:6 Confessions Among Friends ( Chapter 6 )

Chapter 0:6

Confessions Among Friends

Gendo walked with a slight bounce in his step as he approached his car, when a strong hand gripped his shoulder, spinning him around. Before he could focus on who it was, a hard fist came across his face sending tumbling across the hood of his car.

"Something's upset you, Son?" Gendo asked a smirk forming on his now bloodied lips.

"You. Son. Of. A. Bitch!" Shinji barked picking him up by the collar and slamming him into his father's windshield.

"Is … this making you feel better?" Gendo asked in his usual cold tone, though it lost some of its effectiveness with his back stuck in a shattered windshield.

"No," Shinji hissed, rearing back and punching across the man's face again, shattering his glasses. "But I'm getting there."

Shinji tugged him out of his broken vehicle, and threw him hard on the ground, "How could you? Why Misato, why couldn't you get any cheap whore to sleep with you, why force Misato?"

"How do you know I forced her?" Gendo asked, and received a kick to the stomach for his trouble. He coughed up some blood and smiled up at his son, "I couldn't get a cheap whore. Lt. Major Sohryu was busy."

Shinji let out a roar that would make even Unit 01 tremble before picking his father up and slamming down on the pavement as hard as he could, "W-What's wrong, son?" Gendo wheezed, "Can't handle … the truth, your precious little German friend has changed since you abandoned her."

"SHUT. UP!" Shinji yelled, punching him hard in the chest, smiling slightly at the feeling of the ribs giving under his pressure.

"Go ahead, beat me up, kill me, I want you to," Gendo gave a blood smile. "But remember this, son," he said just as Shinji was preparing another punch, "Do you honestly believe I operate alone? And you can't forget how delicate LCL controls are. It would be horrible if something happened to Unit 02's LCL pressure control. As close as you were getting to Pilot Sohyru, it would be horrible for you to have to watch her boil alive while support tried to manually eject a defective Entry Plug, she'd be long since dead before they could get it opened … what a horrid way to go …"

Shinji stopped his punch in mid throw and stared at him, trying to see if it was a bluff. "I assure you, I mean every word. You've seen how easily I've taken advantage of Katsuragi, what's going to stop me from taking Ayanami again? Your friends from school? Lt. Major Sohyru? Are they worth the risk of seeing me on the ground a bloody pulp?"

Shinji lowered his trembling fist to his side, but still held on to his father's collar, "I hate you …"

"I know you do, Son," Gendo replied coldly, "But you will obey my commands unless you wish to lose what you've gained one loved one at a time. Do as you are told and no harm will come to them at my consent. Disobey, and you'll wish you never showed your face again."

Shinji let go of the Commander and once he stabled himself he limped to the driver's side of his car, and glared back at his son, "I'm glad we had this little chat, Shinji," Gendo smiled, showing a missing tooth from his smile, "I will be expecting you tomorrow afternoon to run tests on your new Eva Unit. Enjoy your night off." And with that Gendo entered his car and drove off leaving his trembling son seething on the sidewalk.

Shinji took some deep breaths, calming himself. He finally glanced toward NERV Headquarters with slightly glazed over eyes, "He is probably coming your way, girl." Shinji spoke softly. "Keep a close watch on him. No, I want you to stay quiet. See you tomorrow."

With that, Shinji turned and walked back into the apartment complex.

---

"Misato?" Asuka asked softly, knocking on her guardian's door, "Misato, open up. It's me."

"Go away," came Misato's muffled reply.

"Did you ever listen to me when I said that to you?" Asuka said with a faint smile.

"That was a totally different situation!" Misato replied with a trembling voice. "I don't want … want you or Shinji to see me like this, so go away!"

Asuka was trying to be nice, but her natural temper was begging to take control yet again, "You listen here, I've seen you crying like a Baka after both Kaji and Shinji d-died, and I've seen you drunk off your ass forgetting how a wooden chair functions, I think I've seen you at your worse already, so OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!"

Asuka heard ruffling behind the door and then watched as the door slowly slid open. At least she thought she'd seen Misato at her worse. Misato's left eye was swollen shut and her lip was bruised and still bleeding slightly. The anger immediately left the young German.

Asuka stared at Misato for a moment, then turned down the hallway, "That's it, I'm calling the cops!" Asuka growled, "That bastard's gonna rot for this."

"NO!" Misato yelped, grabbing Asuka's arm, "You can't, if we try he'll … he knows things that don't need to get out. So just let it go …"

"Let it go? LET IT GO!!" Asuka snapped, "Are you out of your mind?!?"

"What the …" came Shinji's voice behind them. Asuka turned and saw her friend and roommate staring at Misato with a blank stare. She watched as his tightened his hands into fists, and his shoulders rose in deep breaths, "Come … come into the kitchen and I'll see what I can do about your eye and lip, Misato." Shinji said emotionlessly, causing Asuka to do a double take.

"Did you at least kick his ass, Shinji?" Asuka asked, her voice dripping with anger.

"No." Shinji said simply.

"No? What do ya mean, 'No'?" Asuka blanched.

"Didn't know no had more then one meaning, Asuka," Shinji said, pulling out some ointment and a washcloth from under the sink.

"Don't give me that, Baka," Asuka snapped, "What the hell happened?"

"We came to an understanding," Shinji said, in a voice that was eerily a lot like Gendo.

"And …" Asuka pressed for more.

"And nothing."

"You … You …" Asuka searched for the right words as her blood quickly boiled.

"I did what I could, but some people you just can't face head on, Asuka," Shinji stated with a sigh, "I figured you would have learned that by now."

"I understand," Asuka nodded, turning her back, "I understand you're still the spineless little bastard too scared of daddy to stand up to him. I understand perfectly, Shinji. I'm going to Hikari's tonight. I'm sorry about what happened, Misato." Asuka said icily before running to her room apparently to pack.

"Well, that went better then I expected." Shinji sighed to himself.

"BAKA!!!" came a scream followed by something shattering.

---

"You're beautiful, you know that, Hikari?" Touji asked as he held his girlfriend close in her bedroom, before leaning forward to a deep kiss.

"You know …" Hikari said shyly, glancing up at Touji, "My parents won't be back until late tomorrow, we could … if you wanted to?"

Touji was visibly taken back but inside he was cheering and doing the happy dance. "Wouldn't that be as you nicely put it to Shin and Devil 'living in sin'?"

Hikari made a low almost seductive chuckle. "If you ever got the nerve to propose to me, do you honestly believe I'd say no to you?" she then gave a lazy smile, "Think of this as a sneak preview to what you'll be getting in exchange for a NICE ring."

"I think I can go for that," Touji said leaning forward for another kiss, but just as their lips brushed one another a loud pounding came from the front door, "Oh for the love of …"

"Hold that thought, sweetie, let me see if anything's wrong," Hikari said as she walked out of the bedroom, "Don't look at me like that, you've waited what two years at least for this, you can wait a few more minutes."

Touji watched the door for a few more moments before quickly jerking off his shirt and pants and laid down suggestively on Hikari's bed in only his Unit 01 themed boxer shorts.

A moment later the door swung open and in marched the quote unquote Red Devil in all her pissed off glory, and in another situation Touji would have enjoyed seeing her completely stunned as she was now.

The moment was short lived as the stun was replaced with fury. "YOU WERE GOING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF MY FRIEND, WEREN'T YOU, STOOGE???"

Touji let out an ungodly scream that dropped 8 octaves from his normal tone of voice, as he tried desperately to get out of bed, and pull on at least his pants but his prosthetic wasn't helping him. "You! You're all alike, worthless pieces of trash! You put up a front of something worth looking at and then when we lower our guard you pull some kind of shit that makes us want to rip your useless balls off and cleanse the damn gene pool!!!"

"Oh God, don't hurt me!" Touji coward in the corner, "I wasn't planning on doing anything inappropriate! I swear, it was all Hikari-chan's idea, I swear, please don't hurt me!"

Hikari ran in and assumed her role of damage control of Hurricane Asuka, and quickly handed Touji his shirt and shoved him toward the door, staying safely between the former Eva Pilot and the incredibly angry German. "I'll make it up to you later, I promise, let me try to fix what's wrong here, ok, bye, love you," she said quickly before giving him a quick kiss, and shutting the door in his face.

Touji stood there and let his mind run through the information available.

Exhibit A: Asuka arrives at Hikari's incredibly angry and with tears in her eyes, only one able to do this to her was one Ikari Shinji.

Exhibit B: she said 'we are all the same' meaning men, meaning Shinji has done something incredibly stupid.

Exhibit C: I'm not getting laid when I should be.

Touji went through these pieces of evidence multiple times from several angles and could come up with one conclusion: "DAMN YOU, SHINJI!!!!!!!!!!!"

---

"Ok, Asuka, what's wrong?" Hikari asked sitting beside the trembling redhead.

"Nothing's wrong," Asuka stated, "Why would anything be wrong? Everything's great!"

Hikari sighed and shook her head, "What did Shinji do to upset you so I can whack him good tomorrow?"

"Why would something that that ignorant, spineless, perverted, ugly, baka did upset me?" Asuka hissed, her grip on her skirt getting tighter with every word concerning Shinji.

"If you say so … anyway I'm going to grab some shuteye then," Hikari said, laying down on her bed with her back to the girl, patiently awaiting her to break.

"I was an idiot to think he would have grown up …" Asuka stated lowly, and Hikari couldn't help at smiling at her old anti sulk offensive still worked on her best friend.

"Shinji definitely grew up, Asuka," Hikari said suggestively rolling back over to look at her friend, "and in all the right ways I think."

"Don't go there, Hikari …" Asuka said warningly, "You've got Stooge Number 2, don't monopolize the idiots."

"Ok, so you ready to tell me what Shinji-kun has done to make you ready to tear into every male, human or otherwise, that crosses your path?"

"Something happened, something bad, and Shinji instead of standing up for what happened, he just … let it go like she … it meant nothing at all to him," Asuka stated, "I mean, at first he seemed to have gotten over his little jellyfish-like spine and then it reared its ugly head again."

"Ah, I see, you think your hero has rode off in to the sunset on his white horse and left you with the apologetic cutie we used to know, is that it?" Hikari asked placing her index finger on her lip.

"Number one, no that isn't it, and number two, never refer to Shinji as cutie again," Asuka stated through gritted teeth.

"How do you know he just let it go?" Hikari asked, nodding knowingly.

"Huh?"

"Well, you've told me how secretive and stealthy his father is, Asuka-chan," Hikari stated with a forming smile, "Shinji just could be planning a more secretive counter offensive to what happened, after all he is his father's son, and the apple can't fall far from the tree."

"SHINJI'S NOTHING LIKE THAT BASTARD!" Asuka shouted, causing Hikari to fall off the bed. Asuka shook it off and look apologetically to her friend, "Shinji isn't like him at all. Spine or no spine, Shinji's five times the man his father is." Asuka then blinked at the broad grin Hikari was giving her.

"Sounds like someone's in L-O-V-E!" Hikari chimed, clasping her hands together dreamily.

Asuka opened her mouth to deny it, but ended up just taking interest in the floor. "I don't like it …" Asuka mumbled.

"You … you mean you really are? Asuka-chan I was just teasing … I mean …" Hikari stumbled for words. "When? How? And why haven't you told me anything about this!?!"

Asuka gave her a dirty look but let it drop with a long sigh. "I don't know … I tried to think about it the other night and the best I can come up with is one date, remember that little mission I told you about where I almost died in the volcano and Shinji saved me?"

"Yeah?" Hikari blinked.

"Yeah." Asuka sighed, earning a squeal from her best friend, "Would you stop that!"

"So, when you gonna tell him?" Hikari asked cheerfully.

"Simple answer to a simple question," Asuka shrugged, "I'm not."

"What do you mean you're not?" Hikari blanched.

"I mean I'm not going to tell him anything," Asuka laid back, "I don't need the Baka, never have and I don't see that changing. Besides after all I've put him through from day one, it's more then likely he'll turn me down anyway, so why worry about it."

"Asuka …" Hikari shook her head. "And you never have told me why you were so upset anyway, what was it that happened tonight?"

"Night, Hikari, I have to be at school early in the morning, and synch tests tomorrow afternoon," Asuka said quickly, laying down on the bed with her back to Hikari, then pulling the covers over her shoulders.

"Um … night …" Hikari gave in, on her back still in awe at the revelations she's taken this evening.

---

Misato stood on the command floor in her usual uniform but now sporting large dark glasses. "Unit S-01 ready, forty five seconds till launch," Kensuke stated from his station, "All lights are green. Unit 00, 02, and 05 are all ready and in positions."

"Good," Misato nodded, "Shinji, you ok?"

"We're I mean I'm good," Shinji stated, "No problems."

"Good, where's the Archangel now?" Misato asked.

"Still in low orbit, but slowly dropping," Maya stated, watching her monitor.

"Shinji's ratio?"

"He's dropped a few points, but he's still holding above 810%," Ritsuko said watching her screen, "Still amazes me …"

"Ok, here's the mission, Shinji and Kaworu will take their flight types up and bring the Archangel down into range of Asuka and Rei's canons. Once you both have it in range, get out of the way and let Rei and Asuka do their job. Understood?"

"Understood." Came four responses.

"Launch Unit S-01 and begin Operation!"

After a few moments no sounds were heard except the occasional chatting between the pilots when suddenly Kensuke spoke up frantically, "Major, The Archangel is faster then we expected! It's approaching the ground units!"

"Where are Kaworu and Shinji??" Misato barked, glancing at the monitors.

"Unit 05 is out of range, but Unit S-01 is … REI, MOVE IT!!" Kensuke yelled in panic "Oh God no…" he paled, sitting back in his chair limply.

Misato also saw what had just happened and her eyes widened, "Shinji …"

To Be Continued …

C. Cowboy: thanks everyone for the reviews, I'd also like to thank Neverwhere: Chaos Mode for beta reading for me. Warning: next chapter has character death. Who dies WILL surprise you ^^ later.