He hadn't been ready.
The plan to calm down Crimson had gone well. A little too well. He thought that after letting loose and venting her frustrations, Crimson might be a little more interactive and less hostile towards them all.
But it was not to be.
Beep Beep Beep Beep
His alarm was ringing. He wanted to turn it off. Most other days, all he had to do was reach over and tap the snooze button. But today, he was having some difficulty doing anything like that.
"Okay Shinji, lets actually use that brain for once and figure this out on our own." Shinji gritted his teeth as he tried to loosen his arms, which were currently tied to something at the top of his bed. He dared not look at what was tying his hands up, as it felt soft and cottony, with a slight sense of elasticity. He knew damn well what that was without even looking at it. He knew exactly who they belonged to as well.
The culprit to this dastardly scheme was currently snoozing on top of him. A familiar view of orange hair was obscuring most of his vision and he could feel the chest of the girl respirating on top of him.
Said girl sleepily reached over, picked up the alarm clock with a smile and threw it violently against the wall. This wasn't the first time the clock had met such a demise. It seemed to be every other day it was seemingly destroyed, only to be put back together again by the bracelets. Normally by Asuka as a way of apologizing for breaking it in the first place.
The offending girl today wasn't Asuka though. Even though she felt like Asuka, looked like Asuka and smelled like Asuka. The girl currently lying on top of him, returning to a comfortable position after ending the life of an innocent timekeeping device, was none other than the same girl that was biting his arm the day before, after beating the literal crap out of him.
Why in God's name was Crimson in his bed!?
Why was she lying on top of him!?
Where in God's name was her shirt!?
These and similar questions were currently racing through his mind, one of which was wondering why he was also topless, but a thought suddenly occurred.
If he was the type of unfortunate soul to encounter misfortune no matter what, he was expecting Asuka to slam open his door any second now and-
"CRIMSON!"
Yup, here we go.
"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SLEEPING IN MY ROOM!"
"You don't taste as good as Shinji though."
"Oh my god, WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN!?"
He couldn't tell if Crimson was insinuating what he thought she was just to drive Asuka crazy or that she had actually gone and bitten Asuka in her sleep.
Honestly, he sure as hell didn't really care for the answer. He just wanted to wake up to a peaceful morning for once. Was that too much to ask?
"I thought you hated him!?"
"I hate the ghost." Crimson was referring to Shinji's doppelganger who had been haunting their residence for the past few days. God only knew where he was right now though. Asuka was fuming as she took in the sight of the two teenagers lying on top of each other, topless. Crimson was smirking, directing her taunt to her lookalike that was all but ready to detonate.
"You… You need to get off him!"
"I'll be sure to get him off alright."
"THAT'S NOT WHAT I SAID, SKANK! GET. OFF. HIM!"
"Why don't you make me?"
"Because you scare the crap out of me, you shameless psychopath!" Asuka gritted her teeth as she tried to think of a way to vocalise that without getting her face shoved into a toilet.
"If I may have an opinion…"
"No Shinji. You need to shut up and let the girls talk."
"Sure, why not, let's all be late for school, that'll be even more fun." Shinji closed his eyes again, resigning himself to his fate as Crimson turned back to Asuka.
"You can either accept that this is going to be a thing from now on or we are going to have a lot of problems."
"You're supposed to be me right?" Asuka said through gritted teeth.
"Apparently. A slightly more educated version maybe."
"Then you already know my answer." Asuka put her bracelet arm out, showing the two residing in the bed her palm, a small ball of crackling energy charging in front of it, her face contorted with rage.
In the blink of an eye, Shinji had jumped out of the bed, placed his palm on the raging girl's own, cancelling out the magical science.
"Shinji, what the hell!?"
"Can we please not blow up my room again?"
"Ha, you tell her Shin-" Before she could finish, Shinji placed a finger on his free hand on Crimson's lips.
"...and that's enough out of you. I get that you two don't have to be nice to each other, but can we at least avoid having a fight all the time?" His eyes held a steely glow as his gaze jumped between the two of them.
"I care for you both and I don't want anybody to get hurt."
A strange, awkward silence fell over the room before Shinji turned bright red, quickly removing his hands.
"Please don't kill me."
Both girls looked at each other nervously, both tinged with a blush.
"I… uh…" Asuka gulped before turning to the door. "...need to finish my toast." She quickly departed.
"I should probably find my shirt…" Crimson was next to beat a hasty retreat. Suddenly Shinji was alone in his room, confused.
"...am I not dead?"
Before he could formulate an answer to his rhetorical question, Misato's head poked around the door, looking just as confused as he felt.
"Why did both Asuka's come out of your room? And why was one of them topless?" All he could do was look at her, looking completely lost.
"I… don't know?"
Somehow, everyone managed to leave the house on time. The awkward silence from earlier hadn't yet dissipated, meaning Shinji was cramped between the two girls on a busy train with nobody making eye contact. It was almost a relief when they made it to school and he could rest his head on his school desk.
"The days just started, why do you look like hell?" Kensuke had apparated by his desk, looking concerned.
"How do you unawkward something Ken?" Shinji mumbled into the wood he was resting on.
"What did you do?"
"I wish I knew…"
"Very helpful Shinji."
The classroom door opened, with the regular and nuclear Asuka's walking in together, along with a Misato that looked as exhausted as Shinji felt. The two students wandered over to their respective desks as their homeroom teacher made a feeble attempt to address the class.
"Okay ladies, gentleman… and Toji."
"Hey!"
"I have yet another transfer student to introduce to you all today."
"How have we not run out of seats yet?" Shinji mumbled, still face-planting his desk.
"Is it another hot girl?"
"No Toji, is it not."
"Thank god…"
The whole class turned to face the gangly, tracksuited teenager, shock rippling through everyone's face. Even Shinji had raised his head to stare at him, wiggling his very raised eyebrows.
"What?"
"It's not a hot girl and you're… happy?" Kensuke looked utterly dumbfounded. "Hikari, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but he might be into dudes now."
The class president buried her head into her arms.
"Where did I go wrong?!" She wailed. Shinji wasn't a hundred percent sure if she was putting it on or not.
"Guys! Relax! All I'm sayin' is that I don't think I can survive anymore of Shinji's girlfriends."
"There's certainly some wisdom in that." A nod from Kensuke and the majority of the class.
"WE'RE NOT HIS GIRLFRIENDS!"
"Asuka… really? Really?"
"I'm technically his fiancé…" Rei piped up, raising a hand.
"I wouldn't mind being his master…" Crimson snuck a sly grin to her neighbour. Mana on Shinji's other side grabbed his arm, pulling it tight and in between her ample bosom.
"Forget her Shinji. You can be my master."
A loud bang suddenly made everyone jump. Misato had hit the chalkboard behind her hard to get everyone's attention. Shinji couldn't have thanked her enough.
"Guys. Transfer Student. Shush."
She motioned towards the open door, beckoning whoever was standing in the hall to come inside.
"I want you to treat him nice. And I promise he won't blow up the school... You won't blow up the school, right?"
"I can honestly say the idea never came to mind." The silver-haired male finished writing his name on the board before turning around to face the class. Oooh's and aah's came from some of the girls who found their new classmate attractive.
Shinji noticed something a little different about him.
Specifically the fact that he had crimson eyes.
Just like Rei did. Or at least one of them.
Smiling politely, he began his introduction.
"My name is Kaworu Nagisa. I look forward to our time together."
---
"KAWORU WHAT!?"
"Gendo, calm down."
"NO!"
"Should I go get some ketamine?"
"Kyoko, what the hell?"
"HE'S SEELE'S POSTER BOY! HE WON'T JUST BLOW UP THE SCHOOL, HE'LL NUKE IT!"
The Artificial Research Laboratory, Crisis Command Center.
Gendo Ikari had called an emergency meeting, directing everyone to their posts before explaining to his impatient wife who this new transfer student really was. Half the story at least.
"Gendo, you still haven't told me, putting the nukes aside for a moment, what kind of a threat he actually is."
A grim silence descended upon the man until he finally found the words he could use to effectively describe what they were dealing with.
"As you know with the Mana Kirishima incident, Seele found a way to get their hands on some of our technology. I don't know if its a spy in our midst, or once again Satsuki forgot to disconnect from Twitter-ing on the external networks, but thankfully what data they have is old and somewhat obsolete."
"However, thanks to our own spy, we know that they took that data as a foundation and were able to come up with a bracelet all on their own. That's where Miss Kirishima's bracelet came from when we analysed it. Not only that but they managed to take a step in their own direction, without any regard to ethics and human experimentation…" He pushed the bridge of his glasses back up his nose, sighing.
"This new boy. As far as I'm aware, instead of having to wear a bracelet, actually has a form of the technology embedded inside of him."
"You must be joking…"
"I'm quite serious Yui. The kids are only 'deities' with the bracelets on, but this Kaworu. He is a literal walking god and from what I've been told, has no limiters on his abilities, unlike our kids who can be locked-out should someone go spontaneously insane."
"...I wouldn't put that past Asuka." Yui mumbled, much to Kyoko's chagrin.
"Instead of worrying about my daughter's sanity, should we not be coming up with a counterplan in case the new student does decide to go and kill everyone he sees?"
"That's the whole reason we're here. So tell me ladies, any ideas?"
---
"So that's the gym. Not my favourite place on the campus, but compulsory education, whatcha gonna do, right?"
"I heard there is a pool too. Is that in a different area?"
"That's right, it's on the roof of the main school building."
Thanks to the powers that be and Misato insisting that she had one of her imaginary staff meetings to attend to, Shinji had the colossal responsibility of guiding the new student around the school. She could have picked any number of the girls in his class fawning over his silver hair and chiselled jawline, but no. Shinji was a slave, both in the home and at school too.
Not that he minded. Kaworu seemed polite enough and was soaking in everything Shinji said like a sponge. His eyes were hijacking Shinji's curiosity but he didn't know how to bring it up without making things weird. He'd had enough of an awkward day going on as it was.
"Is there something on my face? You appear to have found something of interest, Shinji Ikari."
"Oh! Uh… No no no... and you can just call me Shinji by the way. Full names make things way too formal for me."
"I understand. Though is there something that's caught your eye?"
He was smiling in a way that suddenly made Shinji feel very bashful. One wrong word and the yaoi fangirls were going to go ape.
"Okay, so… You've met Rei right? Rei Ayanami?"
"Which one?"
"Oh yeah, that's right, there's two of them now… Um, the one with the- ahem… Red eyes?"
"Ahhh, I see now." Kaworu laughed, easing Shinji's tension slightly. Now that he thought about it, he never once questioned Rei about why her eyes were red either. Maybe it was because he had know her for so much longer that he'd become used to it?
"Well, I'm not sure about our classmate. But I was born with some sort of eye infection that dyed the irises with blood. Thankfully the infection was prevented and I managed to retain my sight, but reverting my eyes to their natural color would undoubtedly be an extremely difficult process. One that carries too much risk and may end up robbing me of my sight."
"That makes sense. I'm sorry if it said anything awkward. And your eyes are fine as they are. It just made me realize that there's a lot about the world I don't understand yet..."
"You're welcome to ask anything at all Shinji. If I can help in any way, I'll be glad to do it."
That answered his burning question, but also made Shinji curious about Rei once more. Maybe she had a similar problem with her eyes as a child? She had spent a lot of time in the hospital when she was younger, so it wasn't totally outside the realms of possibility.
A few metres away from the duo, camouflaged in a way that could respectfully be called terrible, Asuka, Crimson, Mana and the two Rei's were spying on their conversation. Along with most of the other girls in the class dotted around the area.
"I don't like this."
"They could just be having a friendly conversation Asuka."
"They're practically holding hands Mana."
"I don't like this either." Crimson growled. "I'm going over there-"
"No you are not!"
"You don't get to tell me what to do, you second-rate imposter. Nobody steals my things away from me."
"Yesterday you hated him. Then you bit him and then apparently woke up this morning crushing him in your boobs. Like, what's going on with that exactly?" Mana was glaring at Crimson with a look somewhere between envy and a pout.
"He's entertaining. He doesn't come with the emotional baggage of the apocalyptic world. He's a great cook and the Shinji from my world is both broken-"
"Dead." Rei II helpfully pointed out.
"That and helped destroy the world. And sure, I died too, but I realized something from my trip through Instrumentality."
"That you're a future yandere?" Asuka cast a sidelong glance at her twin.
"Very funny. More that I died focusing on the wrong things. I've got a chance at a normal life now and the first thing I want out of it is to redo that kiss!" And with that, Crimson bolted towards the two boys, with Mana in hot pursuit.
"Did she say kiss?" It was Rei's turn to look jealous. Rei II looked at her own twin looking confused.
"What's a kiss?"
"Umm… well… it's…" Asuka decided to leave a furiously blushing Rei with her doppelganger to explain her way out of the hole she'd dug herself into and tore off to chase after the chaos that was about to unfold.
"Shinji! Watch your six!" She bellowed, causing the teenage boy to jump out of his skin, turn around, freak out for a second time after seeing the barrage of girls sprinting towards him, offer a hasty goodbye to Kaworu and then proceeded to run for his life.
"You idiot! Why did you open your stupid mouth!" Crimson yelled over her shoulder. All Asuka could offer in response was to stick out her tongue.
"Eh, whatever. It's always fun to chase your prey anyway." Crimson muttered with a smile.
Shinji, on the other hand, was panicking. He had no idea where to run, so he was pelting it towards the main building of the school, determined to find a door. Any door.
Eventually, he found a door, somewhere on the second floor of the building, belonging to what looked like an abandoned classroom.
"Great. Now where can I hide myself." He looked around the room until his eyes came across a relatively big cardboard box.
He grinned, his face resembling a mischievous fox.
---
"Where did he go!?"
"He's getting real good at not being caught…"
Crimson and Asuka respectively had burst into the room of Shinji's last known location. The other girls had split up to look in other places, leaving the two most likely to kill one another alone together.
"I don't see anyone in here…" Asuka was tired of searching. They had up-ended the school looking for the bastard in their measly lunch-break time but it wasn't long until it was time to go back to class.
"He owes me a bento. I don't care if I skip class, I'm finding him and throttling him until he coughs up my katsu bento!"
"I wouldn't be too partial to anything he coughs up but whatever. And what about that kiss?"
"Oh, that's happening. I just haven't decided if its before or after I eat. I'm pretty freaking hangry."
"Ugh, whatever…"
Shinji could hear the two girls creeping closer to his hiding place and was genuinely starting to get worried about getting caught. Rather, what they were going to do to him if he did get caught.
Granted, he'd thought using Metal Gear tactics to escape sounded good in his head, but when did reality ever go as well as it did in video games?
"He's gotta be in here somewhere. We've checked everywhere else…"
"I still can't believe you went into every men's toilet we passed… Everyone's going to think we're perverts…" Shinji came this close to gasping in surprise at the revelation that Crimson had probably given half the male population of the school a heart attack.
He almost went into cardiac arrest himself when Asuka crouched down, her striped-red panties in view for a split-second, right in front of his cardboard box and peeked through the hole on the side, locking eyes with him.
It was hard to tell who was the more surprised. Both teenagers had an expression akin to looking electrocuted. Asuka looked like she was about to open her mouth and say something when Crimson suddenly shouted from the other end of the room.
"Where the hell is he!? Anything over your side?"
Asuka squinted through the hole, giving Shinji a meaningful glare, before responding.
"Nothing over here. Look, lunch breaks over. We can kill him when he gets back to class."
"Ugh… fine."
Crimson opened the door to the abandoned classroom violently before stomping away. Asuka waited a moment before whispering to the box.
"You owe me for this, stupid Shinji."
He definitely owed her. He also really didn't want to go back to class right now.
---
"WHERE WERE YOU!?"
"I went outside the school for a quick second, I had to get something!"
"LIES! I WANTED MY BENTO!"
"It's inside your desk, moron!"
"IT IS NOT-oh shit, it is…"
"Oh my god…"
"But still! You owe me a kiss for making me waste my lunch break searching for you!"
"A kiss!? WHAT!? WHY!?"
Crimson and Shinji continued to bicker whilst the rest of the class looked on. Some were giggling at the romantic comedy scene playing out in front of them. Those with the bigger testes were wolf-whistling, though were quickly silenced when Crimson decided to chase them with a stapler. With her twin momentarily distracted, Asuka poked Shinji's back with a pencil.
"So Crimson gets a kiss. You thought of what my reward is going to be yet?"
"I haven't agreed to anything yet!"
"You owe me a favor, remember…"
"That I do…"
It was then their afternoon periods began, with the arrival of Honekawa-sensei postponing further discussion. Shinji couldn't ever remember a time he'd been looking forward to almost an hour of their wizened teacher's droning but with any luck, Crimson would fall asleep and leave him be for a while.
"Hey Shinji."
Of course, Crimson and Asuka weren't the only girls he had to deal with. Mana was tugging on his shirt from the seat to his left.
"Can I ask you for a favour?"
"Is it going to hurt?"
"What? No." She rolled her eyes. "I need you to come with me somewhere after school. Alone."
"That's easily the most suspicious thing you could have said... Sure, why not. Might give me a break from the Soryu twins."
"That's what I was thinking." She giggled sweetly. After their afternoon period classes were over, Mana dragged him out of the class before Asuka or Crimson could get a word in. Sprinting at breakneck speed, Shinji was beginning to wonder where exactly she was kidnapping him to this time.
---
"Here we go!"
"A bookstore? Is it real? Or is it one of those camouflaged BDSM shops?"
"What do you take me for?! Sometimes I want people to think I have a normal hobby from time to time!" Taking him by the hand, Mana dragged him inside. Shinji's eyes were darting everywhere, making sure he wasn't about to walk into a trap.
Surprisingly, everything about the shop looked normal. Mana had wandered over to the light novels, picked up the latest Monogatari story and was lost to the world. Before Shinji decided to join her, he'd spotted a small in-store café. Deciding to buy two lattes, he brought the steaming takeout cups over to hallucinating bookworm and offered her one.
"Thank you Shinji!"
"No problem. Did you just want company then?"
"Sort of. I love these books, but coming into a shop to buy them by myself was a little nerve-wracking…"
"Eh? Blowing up a school is all good, but walking into a harmless bookstore is where you draw the line?"
"It's more… I have to pretend to be normal. That's the hardest part about all of this." Her eyes never left the book she was reading. She seemed to be engrossed in the story, whilst somehow being able to have a conversation at the same time.
"From where I'm standing, you look perfectly normal to me."
"Even though you know I was a spy, now a godhand-wielding high school girl with a traumatic past and stalkerish tendencies?"
"Normal is pretty overrated anyway. You're far more interesting like this. And besides, some of that applies to me too."
"Wait, are you stalking me Shinji?!" Mana giggled, reminding him of how cute she could be when she wasn't blowing things up. "I guess I wouldn't mind, if it was you."
"I'll… keep that in mind?"
Shinji decided to read some stories too, standing next to Mana as it started to rain outside the shop. The soft pitter-patter of the rain on the windows and skylights made for a beautiful orchestra of noise as they both fantasized about the worlds they were lost in. The outside looked cold, but he could feel the faint body heat coming from Mana, mere centimeters away from his right arm. It was a very cozy feeling.
"Hey Shinji…"
"What's up Mana?"
"This is nice. Isn't it?"