At school—
Shinji Ikari had been assigned to attend the local school here.
But on the very first day of classes, this boy—the one who had saved the world, the one who had saved New Tokyo—was beaten.
To the nonhuman races watching across the multiverse, it was almost unimaginable that humans would lay hands on a boy of their own species who had stood up and fought a monster for their sake.
This was no longer merely a lapse of conscience.
This was a betrayal of one's own kind—an act worthy of the harshest punishment.
"Sorry about this, transfer student, but I've gotta hit you. I can't calm down otherwise."
"Sorry. His little sister got hurt in the last incident."
"It's not like… I volunteered to pilot it…"
Shinji wiped the blood dripping from his nose. The punch had been hard.
Suzuhara Toji turned back again, grabbed Shinji by the front, raised his fist, and once more struck the hero who had saved the city.
In the end, he could only vent his anger on someone weaker than himself.
Shinji fell to the ground and stared up at the blue sky.
"How is this something people are supposed to praise me for?
"All I did was say I was the Eva pilot…
"So why am I the one getting hit?"
He withdrew further into himself.
Forced to pilot something he never wanted to pilot. Forced to do things he never wanted to do.
He had thought that maybe—just maybe—this would earn him some recognition.
But it hadn't.
That had only been his own wishful thinking.
No one was going to acknowledge him. All they would do was blame him.
He shut himself away inside, silently obeying Ritsuko Akagi's instructions as he underwent Eva piloting training.
Misato Katsuragi watched the scene with a pained expression. Shinji's eyes were empty, his face blank and dazed as he repeated the training motions over and over.
He kept murmuring the same line like a machine:
"Line up the center with the target. Pull the trigger."
At school, Shinji Ikari did not have a single friend.
The others didn't dare speak to an Eva pilot. Their eyes held distrust, suspicion, contempt.
The students—and even the teachers—looked at Shinji only through the lens of prejudice.
Shinji himself made no move to talk to anyone either.
Go to school. Sit through class. Go home.
The same routine, day after day.
And none of his classmates showed the slightest intention of reaching out to him first.
…
…
…
In the world of Carnival Phantasm—
"What…? You teachers obviously know Shinji Ikari is being bullied, don't you?
"And you're not going to do anything about it!? You can't even make the child who was in the wrong apologize to Shinji? You can't even discipline the aggressor?"
Taiga Fujimura stared in disbelief at Shinji's school.
The teachers in that place looked like complete fools to her—drawing salaries while refusing to do their jobs.
It was the first time she had ever seen teachers so devoid of ethics. They were practically beasts.
"This is ridiculous…
"They know Shinji Ikari is the pilot. They know he protected the city. And these people can't even manage a single word of thanks?
"One pilot is in Germany, another is injured, and the only person who can fight Angels right now is Shinji Ikari.
"You can't actually think what you're doing is right, can you?"
Mitsuzuri Ayako spoke in disgust, clearly furious.
"The one who hurt your little sister was the Angel. If you've got the guts, go settle the score with the Angel.
"You useless coward throwing a tantrum—you can't do anything to an Angel, so all you can do is bully Shinji Ikari instead.
"If you're so tough, so violent, why don't you go pilot the Eva? Why don't you go fight the Angel?
"If Shinji Ikari hadn't climbed into that impossible-to-control robot, every last one of you would already be dead!"
Looking at Shinji—about the same age as her younger brother—being bullied in what should have been a cheerful school environment, she was so angry she felt like she had lost her appetite.
"Hmph… Shinji Ikari could always take revenge.
"If piloting the Eva makes him miserable, if he never wanted to do it in the first place—
"then he should just give up. Running away isn't shameful.
"There's no need for him to keep twisting himself up and suffering just to meet these people's expectations."
Illya did not care in the slightest how many lives in that city would be lost, nor how many humans in that world might die.
If every last one of them were wiped out, then in her eyes, they would only be getting what they deserved.
This was how they treated the boy who fought for them.
If humanity went extinct because of it, then so be it.
"A hunting dog brings back prey for its master, and the hunter rewards it with the richest, most nourishing parts of the catch. At the very least, the dog gets praised.
"And yet the treatment Shinji Ikari receives—the boy who protected a city, who protected the world—isn't even as good as the treatment a dog would get."
If a rich man's pet dog were hurt, the owner would even strike back on its behalf.
But when a savior was bullied, not a single person stepped forward for him.
Illya was furious.
And before long, she found herself empathizing deeply with Shinji Ikari.
In the world of Code Geass R2—
"What a weak-willed piece of trash," Kallen said in disgust.
"He knew the pilot was Shinji Ikari, and still chose to hit him—to use violence against the very person protecting him.
"Heh. If Shinji had said, 'What do you think would've happened if I hadn't piloted the Eva?'—
"That idiot would probably have answered with something like, 'I never asked you to protect me,' wouldn't he?"
Kallen's expression darkened further.
"This is exactly why I hate Britannians. They don't think. They don't empathize. They never put themselves in someone else's place. All they know is that if their fists are bigger than yours, they can do whatever they want.
"You're exactly the same kind of person as a Britannian."
"Idiots without brains are just like that," Tamaki said, hands laced behind his head, grinning carelessly.
"But seriously—have these morons even thought about what happens if their great savior decides he doesn't want to pilot the Eva next time?"
"If he won't pilot it, then just have someone else do it," Ohgi said. "What, are you telling me that giant robot can only be piloted by Shinji Ikari?"
"That's obviously exactly how it works," Kallen replied at once.
"Otherwise that long-faced bastard Gendo Ikari wouldn't have gone to the trouble of dragging his own son all the way here.
"The anti-Angel weaponry in that world is special. That power isn't the sort of thing an ordinary robot should be able to produce.
"It fired energy of that scale after its power supply had already been cut off.
"That thing has to be some kind of living bio-weapon.
"And if only Shinji Ikari can pilot it, then Shinji himself must be someone very special."
Then she clicked her tongue in regret.
"What a shame. If the Black Knights had a few Evas of our own, we could squash a whole lot of Britannian lapdogs."
In the Pokémon world—
"What a pitiful kid. Forced to do something he never wanted to do, and then made to suffer this kind of humiliation and violence on top of it.
"The way humans bully their own kind really leaves us Pokémon speechless.
"Humans are good at mistreating their own companions—and even better at inventing excuses for their own cruelty.
"If Shinji Ikari weren't someone you could overpower—if he were a six-foot bruiser instead—would you still be throwing punches at him now?
"Of course you wouldn't."
Meowth shook his head, wrench in hand, muttering with open disdain.
"As for us Pokémon, when someone protects our group, we respect them.
"We'd never do something this low.
"A battle on this level was always going to involve sacrifice. Do these people not even understand that much?"
In the world of Warhammer—
The Tau could only stare blankly at this example of human infighting.
They could not understand it.
If Shinji Ikari was a warrior of his species, then the people hiding behind him ought to revere him.
Bullying a warrior who bled on the front lines for them—
The Tau could not comprehend such behavior. Neither could many other races.
In fact, some of them almost wanted to laugh.
Humans truly were a strange species.
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