This was very strange world. And most importantly, I recognized this place. I was sitting in an empty train car. Seating arrangement was more like a subway car, but the train was traveling on the surface. The sunset painted the whole world in orange colors. In front of me, covering his eyes, sat a guy of about fourteen. He was listening to music on a music player and looked completely detached from the world.
Is that what you are, Ikari Shinji-kun? I looked at myself and found that I looked like a real devil, who had come to sign a contract for the sale of a soul. That is, dressed in a classic black three-piece suit, white shirt, red tie and black glossy shoes. I looked at my reflection in the glass and saw an unremarkable face. Like James Bond on the road.
I tried to touch the guy's shoulder to wake him up, but to my surprise, my hand went through his body. I guess I'm a ghost after all. Even in this dream. Well, then we'll pretend to be a schizophrenia.
I sat back down in my seat opposite the main character in the story and spoke up.
“Shinji. Shinji! Rise and Shine!”
“What? What's that?” - he asked, coming out of his trance.
“Hi. I'm your schizophrenia. Let's get acquainted.”
"What? What schizophrenia?”- My client was surprised.
“Ordinary.” - I shrugged my shoulders. – “Dissociative identity disorder. Have you heard of this?”
“I don't have any disorder. But I have a certificate from doctor which shows I am normal!” - Shinji began to squirt.
"Maybe you don’t have disorder before, but now you have. Here I am in front of you.”
Shinji didn't have any arguments for that statement, so he dejectedly subsided.
“What do you want?" - He accepted my existence.
“Well, as always. I want help to you to overcome problems about you don't even know that you have.”
"What's the problem?"
"Um... let me think.” - I drawled, being unprepared for such a rapid transition to the stage of acceptance. - "For example, your father invited you to Tokyo-3 to force you to fight giant supernatural beings called ‘Angels’.”
"It is nonsense." - Shinji grunted, laughing into his fist.
"It's not nonsense.” - I was offended. - "You'll find out that soon enough. Your father wants to throw you into a battle where just to survive, you have to tear opponents apart with your bare hands and eat them alive.”
"Why would he do that?" - Shinji asked skeptically.
“Well, as always, he wants to take the heated coal with someone else's hands and become a God.”
"God? Wow! Now I see for sure that you're crazy.” - The larva of the god of insignificance sneered. - "By the way, what size are these Angels?"
"About fifty meters high. On average.” - I figured out, based on my memories of the anime.
"Will I tear them apart with my bare hands? Do you think I'll have any chance?”
“Yes and no.” - I answered to both questions. - "That's why I came. To survive and not die in a painful death, you will have to follow my advice. Only I know how to kill huge powerful monsters that can destroy all of humanity. At the same time do not strain at all, and lead a happy interesting life.”
"I don't believe it." - Shinji looked sad, staring at his player.
Suddenly, he disappeared from the car, after which the whole world was plunged into darkness. I had to spend a few seconds trying to figure out how to get out of this darkness into the real world, fortunately I still had contact with Shinji's mind.
Moving my astral body closer to the material world, I was able to look around. Shinji sat almost in the same train that was in his dream, but this vehicle was 'desecrated' by human influence. Various advertising posters and leaflets with text were glued everywhere. The train was full of dust and debris. A homeless man was sleeping shamelessly on a bench in the far corner. And across the street, a little to the side, sat a granny carrying a couple of bags of earth, with skinny trees sticking out of them. Well, it wasn't evening, it was the morning.
“Strange dream.” - Shinji muttered, opening his eyes.
"It wasn't exactly a dream.” - I answered.
Shinji shifted his gaze to my figure and jumped to his feet. Thanks to our connection, he could see and hear me even in reality.
“You?” - He asked, looking around. - "Am I still asleep?" - He asked, rather to himself.
"You might hit your forehead to the errand." - I said, grinning wickedly and moving closer. - "If you're sleeping, you won't feel any pain."
“It's not funny.” - Shinji replied, trying to push me aside. As expected, his hand passed through me unhindered. – “A-a-a-a!" - He exclaimed, backing away. Grandma looked disapprovingly at him, pressing the tree to her.
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"I'm your schizophrenia.” - I introduced myself again. - "And you can't escape me."
With these words, I also got up and brazenly walked through Shinji, which caused him to fall to the floor with his fifth point. After blinking, he jumped up and slammed his head against the iron railing. There was a cry, and a violent psycho grabbed his forehead, trying to soothe the pain. Fortunately, the strength of this weakling was enough to sting his skin a little.
"No, I'm not mad!” - The madman wailed, denying my existence even though I was standing right in front of him.
"That sounds especially plausible, considering you're lying on the floor, talking to yourself and banging your head against the walls." - I agreed.
After these words, Shinji almost calmed down, sat back on the bench and stopped paying attention to me, mumbling something like: 'He's not here. He's gone. It's gone!'
"Okay, I think you should calm down and realize that I'm right.” - I said to him in a comforting voice. - "I think you'll realize pretty quickly that my appearance is the best thing that could have happened to you today."
"Begone!" – Shinji howled, covering his face with his hands.
“Well. I'm not saying goodbye. I'll visit you again soon, and for now, take rest. You're going to have a rough day.”
With these words, I stopped transmitting my image to Shinji's mind, which to him looked like I had disappeared into thin air. I moved a little to the side and began to analyze what had happened to me and to my abilities.
I still had magic, chakra, and psionics. But the material world itself was separated from me by a kind of veil. Isn't this the same thing I saw in the Stargate world? Then, am I something like an Ascended one? Funny. So, that's what the world looks like ‘from the other side’.
My magical abilities seemed unable to reach this world by bumping into an obstacle. I was sure that if necessary, I would be able to break through it, but then the question arose about the permissibility of such actions. Being said that I should only help with advice, which means that any direct magical interference to the fate of Shinji is likely to be considered as a violation of the game rules.
After understanding myself, I turned my attention to Shinji. Fortunately, the shroud was not an obstacle to diagnostic spells, so I was able to study this sample of Homo Sapiens in detail. Nothing outstanding. It is even more correct to say: mediocrity itself. Mind, intelligence, physical data, development of the astral body- in all these parameters Shinji was at the level of 'slightly better than insignificance'. Taking into account all those cockroaches that lived in his head, the output was a real insignificance, which was Being talking about.
It seems that at the first sign of problems, Shinji stuck his head in the sand and just waited for the problem to resolve itself, or when someone else solves it. Moreover, before the 'implantation' of the game figure, Shinji was not so bad. At least he was an excellent student at school, diligently completing all the tasks. But after the implanting, the habit of thinking left him, replaced by a simple 'robotic' execution of orders.
The only thing that could motivate Shinji to take independent actions - is fear. He always felt fear. Those mental problems that previously led to a misunderstanding of others and a desire to withdraw into themselves, now caused fear and a desire to isolate himself from the world at any cost. In general, the resulting snot was an ideal object for manipulation, but by itself could not solve any problems in principle.
After studying the situation, I finally understood what kind of shit the Being had put in my hands. Shinji had no will to live and even the threat of death or pain would not be able to make him tense up and do anything. Fear in his case activated not the desire to fight or even run, but the desire to curl up like a snail in the hope of waiting out the threat. Any activity that would require more than a couple of minutes of effort in his performance was initially doomed to failure. Therefore, it became obvious that Shinji himself would not do anything. Which means I need someone to deal with the problems. Myself, for obvious reasons, could not change anything. This means that there must be a third person, quite powerful and at the same time interested in achieving the result. The only way I could solve this problem was to summon demons.
Even when I lived in the body of a spider, I had studied enough works on demonology and ritual magic to know that my problem had a solution. I'm not going to make a contract with demons, Junior Ikari will sign contract instead of me. Of course, such actions always have a price. And not only in the form of demands from the demons, but also in the form of 'kickback' from the world itself.
Only now the world was on the brink of destruction, and Shinji himself was supposed to become the new god of this world. So, this side of the problem can be avoided by including in the terms of the contract the summoner’s acceptance of responsibility for the actions of the demon after the end of the contract. Moreover, it was possible to prescribe in the contract, the 'permissions' of new god, which would give to Shinji the 'right' to sacrifice any inhabitant of the Earth. At the very least, this right could ensure that the contract with the demon works and that the universe itself will take care of the contract's terms.
Of course, if Shinji fails to become a god in the end, the setback will be monstrous. In general, I was not interested consequences of Shinji’s failure, because only he will put 'signature' under the agreement. I'll just be a lawyer who wrote text of the contract.
The next problem with summoning demons was their stupidity. Yes, they are very stupid. The average demon in terms of intelligence was no smarter than a pig. Even the higher demons, who had lived for thousands of years, were not much better than animals in this respect. All their cunning and treachery was actually a banal inability to predict the course of events. Instead of planning their actions and taking a steady harvest, they preferred to cheat or take values by force, even if in just a few years they could get ten times more.
With this approach, trying to rely on an ordinary demon could only lead to the collapse of any idea. I need to find a demon with enough 'human' consciousness to appreciate the advantages of following a complex plan, and most importantly, the potential 'employee' had to be happy for the future result, independently trying to fix the shoals committed by Shinji.
After evaluating all these nuances, I came to the conclusion that I need to get into the local 'world of demons' and find a suitable performer there. Each 'material world' had an associated 'world of demons', from which such beings were usually summoned. Of course, there were exceptions, but the essence of such a neighborhood was that the summoning of demons from such world was the easy procedure and required minimal energy.
I knew the ritual of opening a portal to the world of demons. I will open it, go to another world and then conduct another ritual, the purpose of which will be to find the most suitable bidder for the contract. Such rituals were essentially the basis of ritual demonology, and therefore I could expect an acceptable result from them. In the end, if I offer quite interesting conditions, then the demon will try his best to comply to the contract.
Creating of a ritual circle with magic was a matter of seconds. But the ritual required an energy to work, which could be extracted by a sacrifice. I looked around and went to the homeless man, who was still snoring. Basically, the Being required me not to help Shinji. This same ritual I perform only for myself, and there will be no benefit from it for people. Therefore, such use of magic is not a violation of the rules. So, I focused and tore out the homeless man's soul from his body, immediately placing it at the focal point of the ritual.