Brave boy, go forth and create a miracle

"Beautiful angels~are calling you from afar, brave boy~go forth and create a miracle!"

Walking down the street with his eyes on his phone, the boy felt death close at hand for the first time.

The Chinese rendition of an anime song in the short video was so maddeningly catchy it nearly killed him.

"But this has to be a parody, right? Judging by the comments, the anime looks pretty good."

"Apparently the protagonist created a new world at the end. Does that mean he became a god?"

"I'll watch it when I get home tonight."

The boy thought he heard someone screaming. He took off his headphones and discovered that the pedestrians around him were fleeing in panic.

An overwhelming sense of pressure bore down on him from behind. He turned to see a truck hurtling toward him, its driver frantically turning the steering wheel.

Perhaps it bore out that saying about courage being humanity's anthem, though the boy figured he probably just hadn't reacted in time.

The massive truck, like a steel dragon, lunged at the brave soul who hadn't fled even at the very end. An impact exceeding a hundred tons sent him flying.

For an ordinary person, such force was enough to utterly destroy and pulverize any known carbon-based biological structure, so the boy peacefully closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, all he saw was white.

"An unfamiliar ceiling."

He turned his head and saw a young woman, her short brown hair resting against her cheeks. Her eyes held a tenderness that could draw him in and drown him.

"Who are you? Do I know you? You're getting awfully cuddly right off the bat."

Having spent more than a decade as an orphan, the boy had never been looked at that way. He wanted to push the woman away, but froze when he raised his hands.

"So tiny."

The woman smiled at the way he raised his arms as if asking for a hug. Then a babble of voices reached his ears.

"Have you decided what to name the baby?"

"Something like that... you decide." The man looked constipated as he spoke.

"We agreed on Shinji for a boy and Rei for a girl, so Shinji it is... what do you think? I've decided. His name will be Shinji, Shinji Ikari!"

"Shinji? Or a child of god?" the man murmured in Japanese the baby couldn't understand. (Note)

Spring was one of the best seasons in Tokyo-3, though all seasons were much the same in this land of eternal summer.

From a street lined with dilapidated buildings, he walked up a weed-choked slope. Layers of greenery spread across it, and leaves rustled in the wind, as though soothing the otherworldly traveler's fourteen years of loneliness.

"So this is Tokyo-3. Though this town must just be on the outskirts. Didn't they say someone would pick me up?"

Shinji Ikari emerged from the station and took out a photograph. The purple-haired woman flashing a peace sign seemed to be looking at him.

Coming to this city had stirred something inexplicable in his chest, and he often found himself remembering the time before he came to this world.

Besides the unstoppable "steel dragon" that had sent him here.

There was also the giant mecha he had seen at the end of the video, and the halo-crowned god of creation.

Even now, Shinji Ikari still wondered whether he had really crossed over into an anime world.

This world was too peaceful.

Aside from the sea turning red, and news reports of government statements that an unknown threat was attacking cities.

That had been on television a few days ago. Then yesterday, someone claiming to be a subordinate of Shinji Ikari's father had called and told him to come to this city.

Holding the woman's photograph, Shinji Ikari approached an old phone booth. On the back was her name-Misato Katsuragi-and a phone number.

Misato Katsuragi

A few white clouds floated across the blue sky. Lush woods and weeds blanketed the little town, and the deserted streets were peaceful and quiet. There was none of the tension of an approaching apocalypse, with destruction and creation as its central themes.

There were even cute blue-haired girls everywhere. Shinji Ikari instinctively looked toward one of the cute girls.

All right, he'd seen wrong. It wasn't a girl. It was a giant.

Still, the black giant approaching in the distance had a certain endearingly goofy air about it.

"Wait, a giant?"

Shinji Ikari snapped his head up. The boy, who had looked somewhat listless a moment ago, now had a gleam in his eyes.

Watching the enormous black humanoid life-form rampaging in the distance, his eyes lit up with the excitement of an orca on the hunt.

In the seaside town, a blue Renault A310 sports car sped down the road.

At the wheel was a beautiful purple-haired woman in a leather jacket.

Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, she pushed up the sunglasses on her nose and looked toward the black giant nearby.

"Of all the times to show up! What a nightmare!"

The ground trembled. On the empty streets, only the blue Renault raced along alone, its tires screeching against the pavement.

Misato Katsuragi picked up her phone to ask headquarters about the situation, only to find that she couldn't get through at all.

A sudden sense of foreboding struck her.

She looked up and caught a dark shape streaking across her field of vision. A heavy fighter jet swept overhead and exploded.

A halo appeared above the head of the humanoid creature, which seemed to be wearing a white mask. Its enormous body, seventy or eighty meters tall, rose into the air and swept across the sky.

She understood at once. The biggest source of interference was too close to her, and all the ordinary electronic devices she carried had stopped working.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the battlefield, the United Nations Forces' UN heavy fighter jets roared into the sky.

A shrill metallic grinding rang out from both sides of the fighters, followed by countless cannon rounds and missiles.

Moments later, the tank units deployed on the winding mountain road and along the riverbanks a short distance behind them opened fire simultaneously.

Misato Katsuragi slammed down on the accelerator. Explosions and the impacts of falling rocks rang out behind her.

She glanced back to see black smoke rising from the seaside town's buildings as structures everywhere began to tilt.

Against that giant, conventional weapons had become completely useless.

The fighters couldn't lock onto their target, the missiles lost guidance, and the tanks' fire-control systems failed.

As a result, the firepower meant for the giant was redirected into the entire town.

Ruined walls crashed down, blocking the road ahead and splitting the old, poorly maintained pavement.

Before she could even reflect on her good luck, a long black leg landed beside the car.

One casual movement of its lower leg made a building sway, its walls collapsing around it.

Misato Katsuragi floored the accelerator. The blue Renault shot away and swerved onto another road.

Shock waves and dust pursued her relentlessly. Once destroyed, the enormous structures built by modern engineering became a torrent of stone.

The town kept collapsing under the giant and the bombardment. Faced with another dead end, Misato Katsuragi had no choice but to stop, bringing the little car to a halt with an elegant drift.

Whether it was the roar of artillery or the surging torrent of rubble, the cacophony pursued her from behind. Misato Katsuragi watched everything around her shatter.

For a moment, she felt as though she were in a dream.

She seemed to see her father, long dead and impossible to meet again, standing before her once more and keeping death away from her frail body.

As she came to her senses after that suffocating brush with death, the dust before her slowly dispersed, and her view gradually cleared.

Her eyes widened at the sight of a familiar face.

Although she had never met this boy, Misato Katsuragi knew who he was.

"You're Miss Misato Katsuragi, right? I'm Shinji Ikari."

The boy turned around and held up the photograph, peering through the car window and meeting Misato Katsuragi's eyes.

It was as though a transparent wall stood behind him, making this place an inviolable sanctuary of a god.

Note 1: In Japanese, 真嗣 is pronounced "Shinji." 神, meaning "god," has the on-reading "shin," while 児, meaning "child" or "young child," has the on-reading "ji." Together, they form 神児, or "child of god," though this is not a standard reading.