Some might have found it quite the appealing sight. Two Misato Katsuragi's, standing in a gym hall wearing their red jacket and a snug pair of lycra shorts. A whistle dangled from a chain around their neck, nestled next to the cross they always wore.
"Another year another class," one Misato said to the other. Looking at them, one could hardly see any difference. "I think this is your first year, right?"
"Yes, and I'm looking forward to it," the other (apparently younger) Misato replied. "This is something I've wanted to do for a long time, and I..."
She trailed off, staring into the distance. Something felt wrong here. How long had she actually been wanting to do this? Be a gym teacher? That didn't feel right somehow. Didn't she have grander aspirations than this?
Then there was the other her. As in, her exact duplicate, but a little older and more experienced. How was that pos-
Static shot across her vision. Her cousin. Her cousin who looked just like her and had the same name. Static shot across her vision once again. No, that was wrong.
"Why did you get into this?" the younger Misato asked, feeling her way around why she felt weird.
“I-” The older looking blinked, a dazed look appearing in her eyes before it cleared again. “My father works as a senior teacher in the faculty. He recommended me.. I think?” There was an odd tone to her voice, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was saying.
The younger Misato gave the other her a look over. Those shorts seemed snug. As in, a little too snug. They left practically nothing to the imagination. As for her jacket, she was wearing nothing at all underneath it. You could plainly see her cleavage, clear as day.
"Isn't that a little inappropriate for a gym class?" Misato asked. Then looked down at herself. She was wearing the same thing. She took a step forward - then felt her shorts ride all the way up her ass. She damned near jumped out of her skin!
"I... Yes, you're right," the older Misato said. She took a tentative step and - that was a whole lot of ass showing all of a sudden! "Our students would be far too distracted watching us. We should talk with the Principal -"
"Don't you mean the commander?" the younger Misato said. "Something isn't right here."
For some reason it was hard to think, but Misato couldn't shake the idea that something was wrong here. Reality felt off.
"An Angel attack?" the older Misato wondered aloud. Angel. That's right. The Angels were - static - A rival high school and most definitely not eldritch abominations hell bent on ruining humanity and bringing its works to nothing.
That was a suspiciously specific denial from inside her own head. Extremely worryingly specific, in fact.
Suddenly, the older Misato grabbed her younger self's hand and hauled her towards the exit. "You're right. Something is definitely wrong here," she said. "Something is messing with our head. We have to find Shinji and Asuka right away."
"Shinji and Asuka are perfectly safe," a voice said, right by the entrance to the gym. Standing there, wearing something you could almost call a parody of Gendo Ikari's clothes, was Rei Ayanami. "Both versions of them are."
Misato looked her over. The look fit her frighteningly well. A dark uniform jacket with a red undershirt, a large pair of square glasses that glinted dangerously as the girl in front of them learned just a tad down. It was a very distinct authoritative look that gave her the urge to immediately snap into a salute.
Meanwhile the actual Gendo was in the background in a sanitation suit mopping the floor.
"Rei, what are you doing?" the older Misato asked. She smartly walked up to Rei, and then... seemed to crash into something invisible. "You made this? You created this reality?"
"With co-operation from my past self, and from Lillith. Yes. We have created this construct."
That was kind of terrifying. Actually, make that <s>kind of</s> terrifying. A young girl was able to create a school out of nowhere, and teleported them right into it from the Geofront? Then changed their clothes and tweaked their minds in an attempt to make them think it was real?
Actually, hold on.
"What's with these clothes?!" Misato demanded.
"My calculations state that Shinji will enjoy looking at them," Rei casually answered. Then she adjusted her answers. "Asuka will as well, but she will not admit to it. Repressed bisexual tsundere. My aim is to make them happy."
Happy? Make them happy...? That was ludicrous!
"By trapping them in an artificial reality?" past Misato yelled. She pushed past her older self and stared down at the insanely powerful girl holding them here. "You can't make people happy by forcing them into a dream world!"
“This is technically an alternate timeline and not strictly speaking any less real than the former one.” Rei clarified.
"It's still not their real life, and you're still holding us prisoner in a silk cage!" Misato replied, feeling the anger bubbling up within. "Do you know why God gave man free will?"
"Because he was bored, and it would ensure he would not know what happened next," Rei answered.
“That is a depressing way to think of the maker of creation.” The younger Misato said, feeling somewhat put off by Rei’s sheer gloominess..
"It is a depressing universe that we live in," Rei said. "Ask your older self. She understands. She understood after Kaji died."
Kaji died? It felt like she was the one that had run into an invisible wall. Looking over at her future self, she was holding tightly onto herself. No way. No way! He'd really...?
“What I am doing is not unlike curing a disease. If a doctor knows how to heal cancer, shouldn’t they do it? The timeline before ended with a multitude of pointless suffering, deaths, mental pain and-” Rei stopped, a distant look on her face as she remembered how.. How Shinji reacted after he was released from Instrumentality. He was strong.. but also fragile.
“A broken world should be healed, or at least given a safe space to begin healing.” Rei continued after a moment. All while pointedly ignoring all the.. rather erotic additions to the timeline that were done purely to please Shinji’s desires as a teenage boy. "Also he needs sex. Intimacy, the chance to learn how to open up to others, hormonal relief. It will do him a world of good."
Okay, so that was the rationale for these ridiculous shorts that shrunk in material if you so much as took a step... And seemed to grow out again if you stood still for long enough. Oof, that was good to know.
"They do need help," her future self conceded. "Those two have been through a lot... but this won't help them. If you hide away from your actual life, you're not dealing with your problems."
“I saw how that goes.” Rei answered, a frown on her lips. “These two are trying to challenge the world after.. Everything. It does not go well, it only leads to broken hearts and minds. Something even I cannot heal with a simple wave of my hand..” Then she paused, licking her lips in thought.
“Given enough time, perhaps I could agree with you. But right now.. they are still fragile. Not to mention, I won’t force them to leave if they don’t want to. So-” She turned towards the two soldiers turned Gym Teachers. “-if you wish, you may return to the old timeline. But I will not permit any harm done to Shinji or his friends.”
This situation was impossible! Play along with this stupid pervy scenario, or leave Shinji and Asuka to her mercy? Those were their choices? What the hell were they supposed to -
"We accept," her future self said. "We'll help Shinji and Asuka get over their deep rooted psychological issues, but then you're sending us back. Got it?"
"Deal," Rei said, then the doors slammed shut leaving them in the gym by themselves.
The gall of her future self was... shocking, to say the least. Agreeing to those demands so easily? What in the world was she thinking?!
"Alright, that buys us a little time," future Misato said, biting the end of her thumb. "Listen, I know you're upset, but this is the only way we'll be able to do anything against her. If we're going to pick apart this reality we have to do it from the inside."
"Oh sure! When Ritsuko and her laboratory equipment is right out there!"
"Shinji was trapped inside an Angel's alternative dimension for 16 hours," the future Misato said. "I would have given anything to be there with him, telling him it would be okay. Do you know what that was like? Do you know how much hell that was, waiting to see if he was going to escape or die? Trust me, this is better for us as well as him!"
A fine speech, but it would have had a lot more weight to it if she hadn't been pacing around while giving it, making those shorts shrink again.
“Compared to what I know of that time, this is a cakewalk. So we need to play gym teacher for horny students? And get Shinji and the rest to be less of a mess while trying to find a way to escape?” She paused, tilting her head in thought. “Hell, we haven’t even been physically or psychologically tortured! That is basically easy mode compared to normal Angel attacks.”
Even so... She'd signed up for this in the first place to get her revenge on Angels and protect humanity. What kind of hell must she have been through to turn out like this in such a short amount of time?
Actually, best not to answer that. Somehow she didn't feel like she'd want to know the answer.
- "The Angels" attack, except they are a rival high school with the students being obviously based on the actual Angels.
- Past and Future Shinji/Asuka meet up and swap notes.
- Turns out Rei isn't just the principal here, she's also a student.
- Meanwhile, out in the real world...
- Something else
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