EVA: Shinji Ikari Returns from the Dragon Clan

Chapter 2 1. Death and Rebirth
After wearing black contact lenses to cover his unusual golden eyes, Shinji Ikari wandered in the empty modern streets.

Everything before my eyes seemed like a dream.

Tokyo.

Is this really Tokyo?

The previous moment he was a miserable intern on a cold Arctic icebreaker, led by Chu Zihang, an outstanding executor from Kassel, and their enemies were swarms of Deadpools in the Nibelungen, and everyone was ready to die in battle; the next moment he returned to his fourteen-year-old self, a young man who lost his mother at a young age, had been separated from his father for a long time, and had only come to Tokyo for the first time today after receiving his father's order.

Maybe it's some kind of spirit that creates illusions?
But everything in front of him was too real, the breathing, the buildings, the reactions of the passers-by... Shinji Ikari found it hard to think of it as an illusion.

He looked toward the shop window on the roadside, and in the reflection of the glass, Shinji Ikari saw his teenage self - gray, hesitant, with a rather immature face, short hair that didn't reach his ears, and he was wearing a pure white top and shirt and dark black uniform trousers instead of the down jacket that he used to keep warm in the Arctic and looked fat and ridiculous.

As for the father...

That was already a rather unfamiliar word.

The fourteen-year-old boy had almost forgotten what his father looked like. In the years before he came to Tokyo, he had basically only communicated with his so-called father over the phone or through letters.

The most recent meeting also ended in a bad mood, as adolescents are sensitive and vulnerable at this time.

and so.

Is everything about hybrids an illusion?

No.

This is the only thing Shinji Ikari is absolutely sure of.

The golden eyes and the spirit words are the best evidence. If everything about Cassel is an illusion, there is no need for him to buy colored contact lenses to cover up those blazing golden eyes.

But what is going on here?

Could it be that on the day he was fourteen years old, he traveled to the modern society of another world, spent several years there, joined Kassel College on the day he became an adult, and ended up encountering a fatal crisis during an internship mission in the executive department?

So he returned to his fourteen-year-old body in the original world?

It sounds so sci-fi.

Perhaps I am currently immersed in the Nibelung.

Shinji Ikari knocked his head hard, but it didn't wake him up from the hallucination, but the pain was extremely strong. Passersby looked at him with strange eyes, and some people whispered. That's right, what normal person on the street would knock his head for no reason?
He could only respond with an awkward smirk.

I must have been treated as a weirdo!

He couldn't figure out what the situation was for the time being. Anyway, he would act according to the regulations for encountering accidents in the executive department. It would never go wrong to refer to the experience of his predecessors.

Whether it is an illusion or reality, we must explore the present world and understand the specific information before we can deal with it.

but.

We say we need to explore, but what should we do first?

Ikari Shinji was a little confused.

For him, this point in time was many years ago, and some things have long been buried deep in his memory.

I recalled it carefully for a long time.

Shinji Ikari just remembered what to do next.

When he first came to Tokyo, he seemed to have the phone number of a contact person arranged by his father. All he had to do next was to make a call with his mobile phone. The date was clearly 2015, so normally it was the age of smartphones, right? But the mobile phone he had was as big as a brick and could only be used to make calls. Shinji Ikari always had a bad feeling about this.

After contacting, wait for the other party to pick you up.
Then just go to your father's workplace with the contact person.

After I get to my father's place, I'll find a place with internet access to see if I can contact Kassel College.

…It would be best if I could communicate with the academy’s artificial intelligence Norma.

To be honest, Shinji Ikari has not yet returned to his own sense of reality when he was fourteen years old, nor has he accepted the reality of traveling through different worlds. He still has a high degree of dependence on the nearly omnipotent Norma.

As for finding an Internet cafe now?

Sorry, he came to Tokyo with almost nothing, and he spent the last bit of money on cosmetic contact lenses, leaving him with little money to go online.

So, after wasting a lot of time on the road, Shinji Ikari finally arrived at the agreed location and made a phone call.

The communication was quickly established.

"Hello, I'm Shinji Ikari."

"Ah... Shinji-kun, have you arrived yet?" There was a young female voice on the other end of the phone, and her words always seemed to be filled with laughter. Just by hearing the voice, one could tell that the other party must be a cheerful and generous woman.

Shinji Ikari had her photo in his hand.

It was sent along with her father's letter, and it seemed that she was fully responsible for this aspect.

The photo shows a woman at the beach, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts. She has a lively smile and is very beautiful, but judging from her appearance, she must be almost 30 years old. Looking at the background that doesn't match the person, it should have been taken with a photo booth. "I'll pick you up" and "Wait for me, Shinji-kun" are written on the photo with a black marker, and an arrow "→ look here" is specially drawn on the chest where the cleavage is exposed.

There's even a red lipstick mark on the lower left corner.

A somewhat frivolous woman.

It reminds me of those foreign senior students in college, who all wore luxurious dresses at the dance and looked like gorgeous peacocks under the spotlight.

This was Shinji Ikari's first impression of the contact.

"Yes, I have arrived at the agreed place. What's the next step?"

"Just wait there for a moment. I'm about to get off work and will be there soon." The background noise on the other party's phone was the roaring sound of machines. He might be riding on some large vehicle, or he might be in a machinery factory. It took a lot of effort to hear the voice clearly.

It's not easy to communicate in such a noisy situation.

"Okay." Ikari Shinji asked casually, "By the way, I haven't asked for your name yet?"

"Miri, Katsuragi Misato," she said, "Just call me Misato."

This woman is indeed very familiar.

Even though we haven't met yet, she not only calls her by her first name, but also asks others to call her by her first name. However, it is mainly because the first impression made by the photo with lipstick marks is too deep.

Could it be that this is the person that bastard father had an affair with? No, it should be the person that he was planning to remarry.

He had already imagined the following story in his mind:
The father and son had not seen each other for three years. Ten years after his wife passed away, the father could no longer bear the loneliness and called his son to Tokyo to meet his stepmother. He also showed him a brand new household registration book. At this time, the father had a mean look on his face...

Wow, what kind of family ethics drama is this? Rather than getting stuck in such a quagmire, Shinji Ikari would rather fight those Deadpools.

of course.

His inner complaints did not affect his outward manners.

Besides, this is just groundless conjecture.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, he hung up the phone and prepared to wait for his contact, Misato Katsuragi, to arrive.

In case you missed it.

Shinji Ikari found a conspicuous spot and began waiting for someone to claim it.

He was bored and accidentally pulled out an old black Walkman from his pocket. It looked like a big iron box. The model number on it was Sony's SDAT, a very old model. This should have been originally on him. Shinji Ikari thought it was lost when he was in Kassel. Now he realized that it just didn't travel with him.

He put on his headphones and started listening to music.

The songs in my Walkman are all very old and vintage.

This originally belonged to his father, but after that man was busy with work and forgot about it, he asked his young self for it from his musical instrument teacher. At that time, he probably wanted something to keep him company because his parents were not around when he was young... Suddenly he found it and he felt a little nostalgic.

after an hour.

Shinji Ikari never waited for someone to come.

I immediately realized how unreliable it is for women to say "wait a moment".

Could it be that……

Could it be that this guy stood me up?

Shinji Ikari immediately made another call, but the quality of this big, outdated phone was really poor. He made several calls in a row but none of them went through, and suddenly the screen kept showing "no signal"... even though there was a signal not long ago.

This is troublesome.

He sighed.

There is no other way. In this situation, I can only trust my contact, Ms. Misato Katsuragi.

Moreover, he had waited for so long and paid an hour's sunk cost, so Shinji Ikari could not easily choose to give up. Of course, if he continued to wait like this and there was no result, he might have to consider when to leave.

And just at this moment, something strange happened.

Just as he was waiting bored.

The sirens on the street telephone poles rang, and then a prank announcement came out:
"At 12:30 today, an emergency warning has been issued for the entire central Kanto region, centered around the East China Sea. All residents, please evacuate to the designated shelters immediately. I repeat once more..."

Was there an earthquake?

This is indeed a common occurrence in Japan.

But what about reporting to go to a shelter? Generally speaking, we should just find a safe place nearby.

Unlike him who was standing still, the pedestrians on the street suddenly stopped like puppets whose springs were suddenly wound up, and then suddenly ran. At the same time, the ground began to tremble slightly.

Just when Shinji Ikari hesitated.

He vaguely heard a round of piercing "whoosh" sounds, noisy and continuous. A sense of inexplicable familiarity came over him. There was no mistake, this sound was the noise he heard even when he was sleeping as an intern in the executive department.

Look up.

Countless helicopters were roaring in from afar, raising strings of black smoke in the sky. The deformed tail flames dragged into the comet tails of meteors. The chaotic lines looked as if someone was drawing with a black pen. The mixed-race's good eyesight and the military education he received in the academy allowed him to tell that there were missiles hanging under the planes.

It is fully loaded.

Okay, this isn't some kind of joke or mistake.

Tokyo is a city that has suffered many disasters. Senior Chu Zihang said that he had carried out a highly confidential mission before. At that time, Shinji Ikari was still busy with his studies at the academy and was completely unaware of it. If the senior had not completed the mission, the entire Tokyo might have sunk directly, and even the country of Japan would no longer exist.

Later, he learned a little about the losses in the college forum - seven of the eight snake families in the Japanese branch died in that mission. Thinking about it this way, Tokyo is really not a suitable city to live in. Even Japan is not a good place to stay. It is better to stay in the United States after graduation.

Oh no.

This is a bit of a headache.

On one hand, it might be an earthquake alarm, and on the other hand, he has to wait for Misato Katsuragi to pick him up. What should he do?

After stopping his wandering thoughts, Shinji Ikari hesitated.

Go to take shelter, or stay where you are and wait...

If I miss this opportunity, it will be a long time before I can see my father again after three years.

--No.

No matter what, we should evacuate immediately.

You can still see your father again if he has an affair, and the cost of an hour of addiction is nothing in the context of your entire life.

But there is only one life.

Of course, before that, he had to talk to his contact, Ms. Katsuragi, and re-arrange the meeting place after evacuation.

after all.

"If I don't have a place to stay, I'll definitely have to sleep on the street tonight."

Ikari Shinji thought speechlessly.

Unfortunately.

There was no sign that the signal was returning to normal. He guessed that the earthquake might have damaged the nearby signal tower and the wireless signal might not be restored for a while.

I found a nearby telephone booth, but still couldn't get in touch with the other party.

It seems that I can only wait until the alarm is lifted and the signal tower is repaired, and then call Miss Katsuragi.

Shinji Ikari took one last look at the contact location.

Then head towards the nearest shelter.

(End of this chapter)