Misato Katsuragi nodded in wholehearted agreement with Ritsuko Akagi's assessment of Shinji Ikari.
Shinji Ikari had a face that would look good with any hairstyle or outfit, but his delicate features made him seem timid.
He was an "unwanted" child, sent off by his father to grow up in a relative's home with little supervision.
They had expected Shinji Ikari to be an introverted, sensitive, and weak-willed boy.
But after accompanying him all the way here, Misato Katsuragi had discovered that this boy was nothing like what she had imagined.
His expressions and his tone of voice were filled with compassion. Misato Katsuragi thought that perhaps the god he spoke of was just like this.
Yet beneath that universal love lay an inexplicable sense of distance, as though they did not inhabit the same world. It even made Ritsuko Akagi instinctively reluctant to keep meeting his eyes.
Ritsuko Akagi
"Hello, I'm Shinji Ikari." Shinji Ikari politely held out his hand.
Ritsuko Akagi shook it. "I'm Ritsuko Akagi, chief of Technical Section One in NERV headquarters' Technical Development Department, and head of the EVA Development Project. It's a pleasure to meet you."
They had only just finished introducing themselves when the alarm at the NERV base sounded again. It was the same electronic female voice, and the elevator's indicator light began flashing red.
"All personnel, level-one alert. Repeat, all personnel, level-one alert!"
The alarm brought Ritsuko Akagi back to her senses. She released his hand and said, "Shinji, there's something I want to show you. Would you like to come?"
"If it is something I am destined to see, then it is fate."
Ritsuko Akagi paid no mind to Shinji Ikari's mystical ramblings. For a suitable candidate, being psychologically abnormal was normal. She pressed two buttons in the elevator.
The elevator lights went out. In the pitch darkness, Shinji Ikari thought the base had been invaded and lost power. After all, the alarm had just sounded.
But before he could ask, the elevator began moving despite the darkness.
They stopped in some unknown area, and the lights abruptly came on...
Amid a sea of blood-red liquid stood a figure of unimaginable size!
Words seemed utterly inadequate. No adjective could possibly describe the colossus before them!
The moment that massive figure appeared before Shinji Ikari, a thrill that transcended the boundaries of this world surged through his entire body.
The traveler from another world actually felt alive.
EVA-Unit-01!
Unit-01
"The ultimate all-purpose humanoid decisive weapon created by humanity: Evangelion, meaning 'gospel.' EVA for short."
Ritsuko Akagi stood beside Shinji Ikari, and together they looked up at the towering purple humanoid weapon.
"This is Unit-01, humanity's last trump card. You seem quite taken with it."
Shinji Ikari did not answer her. He merely murmured, "So this is fate."
Even one more word would have been unnecessary.
It truly was a fated encounter. They were destined to be connected; Shinji Ikari believed that.
From his very first glimpse of Unit-01, Shinji Ikari was certain that they should become one.
Even without the memories of his previous life, an eighty-meter-tall humanoid decisive weapon was a dream most boys could hardly resist.
"Is this what Gendo Ikari has been researching?" Shinji Ikari showed no hesitation in addressing the father of his current life by his full name.
Misato Katsuragi silently glanced at him without saying anything. Shinji Ikari himself did not care about manners and simply looked up at the glass window above.
"That's right. This is fate." The middle-aged man standing there spoke coldly. "Shinji Ikari, it's been a long time."
Shinji Ikari narrowed his eyes. Above him stood a middle-aged man who looked vaguely familiar, yet even more like a stranger.
Tall and thin, with round sunglasses and a full beard stretching to his sideburns, he looked like the Beast Titan with his hair dyed black.
He wore a black work uniform. Though his words were a greeting, his tone was exceptionally cold.
Most unsettling of all were his eyes-through the sunglasses, one could faintly sense a bone-chilling indifference.
Under that gaze, the person being observed ceased to be human and became a tool whose usefulness was being assessed.
"What a repulsive look." Shinji Ikari's dislike of Gendo Ikari immediately deepened.
Supposedly, Gendo Ikari had been a pretty boy like him in his youth. Now he was nothing but a gloomy middle-aged man.
"Long time no see. You're not dead yet?" Shinji Ikari greeted him amiably.
The instant those words fell, everything around them became unnaturally quiet, and a suffocating atmosphere filled the air.
For the first time, the middle-aged man's expression changed, though it was only a barely perceptible twitch. His face remained cold.
He stared down at the boy from above, his imposing presence frightening the staff into silence. Even their breathing became unusually cautious.
Misato Katsuragi was the first to react. She leaned toward Shinji Ikari and whispered into his ear:
"Can't you greet him normally? How does that saying go again... God loves all people! God loves all people, my divine son!"
"Is that a person? Isn't that a beast?" Shinji Ikari paused, then frowned.
Before arriving at NERV, his impression of Gendo Ikari had remained rooted in his earliest childhood.
In the comments beneath videos he remembered from his previous life, no one had had a single kind word to say about this man.
And in the decade or so he had lived in this life, he had only known the feeling of home and happiness while his mother was alive.
Though he did not know exactly what kind of person Gendo Ikari was, for now, he thought those assessments were fairly accurate.
Misato Katsuragi was stunned. Apparently, their future god could not tell people from beasts!
But no one had time to keep chatting. The entire NERV headquarters suddenly shook violently, and the electronic female voice sounded again.
"Eighth armor plate on the first layer damaged. Fires have broken out throughout Sector D. All passages within the sector are under emergency lockdown. All personnel, evacuate immediately. Repeat, all personnel, evacuate immediately."
"Has that bastard found us?" A flicker of irritation crossed Gendo Ikari's face as the timing of his plan was disrupted.
This was beyond his expectations.
Father and son had not seen each other in years. Everything Gendo Ikari knew about this child had come from reports submitted by investigators.
But according to those reports, Shinji Ikari should have been a timid boy who never left home except for necessary social interaction, obsessed over myths, and even sought comfort from priests at church.
He had assumed that a withdrawn child so desperately lacking affection and needing someone to depend on would obediently fall into line after a few stern words and dutifully serve as his pawn.
Yet now every word was caught in his throat, and he could not force out so much as a syllable. Any harsh reprimand would probably only earn him an even more merciless humiliation.
Throwing a childish tantrum at a time like this!
Gendo Ikari stared at Shinji Ikari and said coldly, "Deploy!"
"Deploy!? Wasn't Unit-00 put on ice? Are you going to send out Unit-01?" Misato Katsuragi asked. "But the pilot..."
"Shinji Ikari..." The reprimand on the tip of Gendo Ikari's tongue suddenly stopped, and he changed tack. "Rei isn't dead. Wake her up."
At Gendo Ikari's command, several medical personnel soon wheeled a hospital bed in through a side door.
A blue-haired girl lay on the bed. Thick gauze was wrapped around her head, and a syringe was still inserted into her arm.
As the girl struggled painfully to sit up, everyone saw Shinji Ikari suddenly stride to the bedside and support her.
Before the girl could recover from her surprise, Shinji Ikari had already pressed her back onto the bed.
"She's more human than you are, Commander Ikari." Shinji Ikari looked back with a smile. There was no way he would let anyone else have the chance to pilot Unit-01. "Leave saving the world to the savior."
Before you continue