The Legend of the Seven Densetsu no Shoujo
Chapter 3: The Land of the Shifting Buildings

Written by: StarDrop (mandang@aol.com)

Disclaimer: None of these anime characters are mine! However,
the seven Densetsu no Shoujo are mine, so don't take 'em!

"Okay, so now where are we headed?" Florence asked as they ran down a hill only to be confronted with another hill.

"The book only said 'The Land of the Shifting Buildings'. I wonder what it means by that." Kat said, scanning the pages of the book looking for any clues she might have missed. "Let's just hope wherever that place is, we can get some provisions. We're pretty much out of food, and we're basically living off the land. Ugh."

"Uhmm, Is it just me are those building moving?" Angelina asked pointing over the horizon where the skyline of a city had appeared from nowhere over the crest of the next hill.

Amanda blinked. "Is that- can it be?" she squinted into the sunlight. "I- think they are." The skyline was lowering as they watched.

"Shifting buildings? Descending buildings. . . " Kim muttered to herself. Suddenly, somewhere in the back of her mind, a light bulb went off. "Tokyo-3! That's Tokyo-3! We're in the world of Neon Genesis Evangelion!"

"Evangelion? Then that would explain why there's this huge angel that looks like it's gonna crush us!" Amanda screamed, pointing up at the huge monster looming over them.

"SCATTER!" Angelina shouted as everyone flew to the side as the angel's foot crashed down where they had just been.

"We'regonnadie, we'regonnadie, we'regonnadie!" Jess was chanting under her breath as she leapt over a log.

"HEY! There's an Evangelion up there! WATCH IT!" Angelina shouted, pointing up as EVA-02, a huge slightly humanoid-looking machine, launched into the air from out of nowhere and fired off a few shots at the angel.

The seven girls ran for dear life and slid down a steep hill, only to find themselves in Tokyo-3. "Something tells me we shouldn't be here during an angel attack!" Sophia shouted as they continued running through the streets as the buildings around them continued to descend to smaller proportions all around them in preparation for the Evangelion vs. Angel battle.

"I think you're right!" Jess shouted back.

"You guys in here! This elevator goes underground! We'll be safe down there!" Angelina said as she led the other six girls towards the door.

"Safe?" Florence asked, a sardonic note in her voice.

"Hey, you got any better ideas?!" Angelina asked as all seven girls packed themselves into the elevator.

"Maximum carrying capacity, nine hundred pounds. Uh, you guys, we're under nine hundred, right?" Kat asked as the doors closed and they began their descent.

"Yeah, easily," Sophia said.

"But what about Jess' zanbatou?!"

All seven girls spun towards Jess who stared back innocently, her zanbatou beside her. "It can't weigh that much. . ." Jess said, shaking her head. "I can hold it fine!"

Amanda thought back to when Jess had 'tossed' the zanbatou at her and it had landed, creating a _very_ large crater in the ground. She turned to everyone, and with a calm voice which bespoke total hysteria on the inside, she said, "We're gonna die."

"What kind of freak elevator can only hold nine hundred pounds, yet still be tall enough for a zanbatou to be in it?!" Kim shrieked just as the elevator car shuddered and began screeching ominously.

"It's called _really_ bad luck!"

"Angelina! Hurry, open that trap door up there!" Sophia said pointing to the trap door above them. Angelina quickly shoved the top off and Sophia climbed up to the top of the elevator. "Jess, get up here! Bring the zanbatou!"

Jess nodded and used the zanbatou to help herself up before dragging it up behind her.

"What're they doing?!" Kat asked, her voice very strained at the possibility of their plunging to their deaths.

"I dunno, but they better hurry, they've got maybe two seconds before that cord snaps!" Florence said, looking up and pointing towards an elevator cord that looked like it was about to break.

And then, it did.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!" came the unison screams from the five voices in the elevator as it began plunging down.

There was a terrible screeching noise as the sides of the elevator scraped against the sides of the shaft before there was a huge jolt that sent the five girls crashing to the elevator to the floor. They had stopped.

Kat tossed her hair away from her face and looked up. "We- we aren't dead are we?" she asked.

Angelina was rubbing her head. "Nope. Hurts too much to be dead. Are you guys still up there? What'd you guys do?" she asked shouting up at Sophia and Jess.

"That hurt more than I expected," Sophia's voice echoed eerily through the shaft as she and Jess dropped through the trapdoor. Sophia was wearing the gloves Clef had given her for the handling of her weapon. "Look up there," she said.

Angelina stood up and looked through the trap door. She saw Sophia's wire connected to the elevator. She followed the length of wire with her eyes and saw Jess' zanbatou stuck firmly about two floors up in the wall of the elevator shaft, with Sophia's wire looped around it.

Angelina choked and grabbed Sophia by the front of her shirt and hauled her up to her face. "That tiny wire is all that's holding us from plunging another ten stories to our death. How the hell did you pull that off?!" she asked, her eyes wide, face very white.

"A lucky guess?" Sophia offered.

Angelina dropped Sophia. "That isn't funny."

"Wait, what's that noise?" Kat asked. Everyone stopped moving. There was a scraping noise, then the doors to the elevator slowly slid open. The girls looked up a bit and found that the elevator had stopped between floors. There was a four-foot gap above them in which they saw a woman with black hair wearing a red jacket and a few men who appeared to be the ones who had pried the elevator open.

"Who are you people and why are you in this elevator?" the woman asked, hostility obvious in her voice.

"Uhmm, Well, y'see, we're from another worl-" Jess began as Florence hurriedly clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Shut up about that!" Florence hissed.

"Well, we were up at street level running for our lives because of the angel attack when we saw this elevator and decided that it would be safer going underground than staying up there," Angelina said. As if to punctuate her statement, there was a tremendous crash as a huge explosion from street level caused by either the Evangelion or angel rocked the elevator shaft.

"And we'd really like to get out of here!" Sophia said, bracing herself against the movement of the elevator as the elevator creaked in protest to the excessive abuse.

"Oh, uh, yes by all means," the woman said motioning for all the men to step back as she did so herself. One by one, all seven girls climbed up through the gap and into a long hall.

"Where are we?" Sophia asked.

"Inside a Geo-front. More specifically, you've reached NERV headquarters. How you were able to activate that elevator without an identification card is beyond me." the woman responded. "Oh, by the way, my name is Misato. Major Katsuragi Misato."

"Katsuragi Misato? Oh, yes. Misato, meet us seven poor unfortunate visitors from outside of Tokyo-3. My name is Angelina, the girl over there with the glasses and black hair is Amanda, The short one over there is Jess, the green-haired one is Kim, the blue-haired one is Sophia, Kat is the one with the incredibly long black hair and Florence is the one with the slightly long brown hair. We just happened to have the bad luck to be passing by during an angel attack," Angelina said.

Misato nodded, yet mistrust still lingered in her eyes. "You just happened to be in Tokyo-3? Didn't you know of the angel attacks and that it wouldn't be a good idea to be around here at all? And you weren't even in a shelter!"

"We sort of figured that it wasn't safe with angel attacks going on when it almost stepped on us," Sophia muttered wryly.

Misato shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I'm trained to be suspicious, and we've had to up the security around here ever since. . . well, we should be getting you to a shelter, you can't stay here. But for now, we're going to find some empty rooms for you to stay in while we find out if there are any shelters that have any room left."

They all nodded. "That would be great, but we're not going to be staying in Tokyo-3 for very long. We plan to get moving as soon as we can," Florence said.

"Yes, but we would appreciate it if we could just take a couple rooms rest in. We've been traveling for a while," Angelina said.

Misato nodded. "All right. Akira, Jira; show them to some temporary rooms." The two men Misato had indicated stepped forward and nodded.

As the two men directed the seven girls through halls and after much walking, they reached a set of rooms adjoined by a door on the inside. The girls thanked Akira and Jiro, and the two men left.

Kim sighed as she collapsed on a bed. "It's nice to be on an actual bed and not on dirt. Ugh."

Soon, all seven girls had taken a bed and fallen asleep. After a few hours of blissful sleep, there was a knock at the door. No one stirred. Whoever was on the other side of the door knocked louder and more persistently. Still no one moved. The person on the other side of the door began pounding the door and kicking it. Several _loud_ snores issued from inside the room.

"HEY! WAKE UP!" came a male voice from the other side of the door. At this sound, Kim woke up, and picked up her glaive from beside her bed and stalked towards the door.

"Some guy is trying to wake me up when I don't wanna wake up. . ." she murmured to herself half in a daze. "Y'never would've thought guys would have such a death wish."

Angelina woke up, sensing the fact that there was a disturbance. Namely Kim getting ready to run her glaive straight through the door and skewer whoever was on the other side.

"I'll take this," she said, plucking the glaive from Kim's grasp and opening the door.

Five guys stood in the hallway. Four of the guys were struggling to hold Jess' zanbatou up and the last guy was at the door; apparently he was the one who had been knocking. He was holding Sophia's wire.

"We were able to extract your, uh, sword-" the guy at the door said, glancing at the mammoth weapon the other four were holding. "-and wire from the elevator shaft." "Hey, Jess, Sophia! They got your stuff out!" Angelina called. Kim yawned, and seeing as how she wouldn't be able to maim whoever it was that woke her up, she went back to her bed to resume her nap.

Sophia and Jess appeared in the doorway, still half asleep. Upon seeing her zanbatou, Jess' eyes lit up and she sprang forward to get it back from the four guys holding it. "Ah! My zanbatou! You didn't scratch it, did you?" she asked, glaring at the guys.

The guy near the handle of the zanbatou shook his head. "No, I don't think we did. Be careful, it's really hea-" he began as Jess took the zanbatou by the handle from all four of the guys. "-vy. . ." he stopped, blinking as Jess casually slung it over her shoulder and nodded to the guys.

"Thank you. I can handle it," she said as she turned and walked back into the room. As she began walking through the doorway, she misjudged the height of the zanbatou in accordance to the doorway and the tip of the zanbatou slammed into the top of the doorway, creating a large gash in the doorframe. Jess turned around and muttered a sheepish, "Sorry." before continuing on back through the room.

"Ah, yes, thank you for my wire!" Sophia said as she took the wire from the guy. She wound it quickly and placed it inside her watch, then turned and returned to her nap.

The five guys nodded once before leaving; the four who had been holding the zanbatou were very quiet, having their pride severely bruised at the sight of 'that little girl' taking the zanbatou from all four of them with absolutely no effort.

Florence yawned and sat up. "I've had enough sleep. I'm going to go check out the NERV headquarters. Who knows when we'll ever have a second chance?"

A few snores and sleepy grunts were her only response from the rest of the girls as she left the room.

Florence stepped out of the room and turned left, walking through corridors, looking at everything and marveling at the sheer size of the Geo-front. It must have taken quite a while to create the huge underground base. She stood on a moving walkway, watching as she passed things and people. But she wasn't just doing idle sightseeing. She had had a second reason besides just wanting to see NERV headquarters. Clef said they were supposed to find things, and they didn't just end up in Tokyo-3 for no reason, did they? So what was missing from NERV headquarters?

She got off at the end of the walkway and began wandering aimlessly, until she came to a door. The door slid open as she approached it and she entered it. A few lights flashed on, and she gasped. Before her stood the Evangelions. Or. . . one of them. EVA-02 stood, receiving repairs; it had obviously been the Evangelion launched in the battle with the angel that had almost stomped on them when they had first reached Tokyo-3. There were huge restraint systems and bridges all around the huge machine as it stood without movement. There were two other sets of restraints right next to where EVA-02 stood, but those two were empty. Empty?

<Where's EVA-00 and EVA-01? Shouldn't they be in here too?> Florence thought. She turned around to see if she had missed them some how. <Yeah, right. How do you miss something as huge as an Evangelion?>

"HEY! What're you doing in here?" shouted a girl wearing a red, strange-looking outfit that looked like a beefed-up wetsuit as she ran towards Florence.

"I, uh-" Florence stammered.

"You're not supposed to be in here," the girl said.

"I'm not? Sorry. My name is Florence. What's your name and where did you get that suit?" Florence asked, amiably sticking her hand out. <Might as well try the friendly approach. Maybe I'll find some information.>

The girl in the red outfit looked at her strangely before shaking Florence's offered hand. "Asuka. Sohryu Asuka Langely. It's a plug suit. All Evangelion pilots wear them. And you're still not supposed to be here."

"Sorry. Where are the other Evangelions?" Florence asked.

Asuka froze for a moment before repeating, "You're not supposed to be in here."

Florence raised an eyebrow at Asuka's reaction to her question. "They're missing, aren't they? That's why everyone's so uptight! EVA-00 and EVA-01 are missing, and nobody knows how two Evangelions could suddenly just disappear leaving their pilots here. Now you're the only one who still has an Evangelion to pilot."

Asuka's eyes widened, then narrowed. "You really need to leave here."

Florence shook her head ruefully, "Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude. I'll leave." She turned and with a backwards wave to Asuka, she went on her way back to the room.

* * *

Amanda woke up at the sound of her stomach declaring loudly that it was time to eat. She looked around the room and found everyone else asleep and Florence missing. <Huh. Ah well, she'll show up again. I'm hungry. . .>

She yawned hugely and decided to go find some food. As she was putting her mallet to the harness at her back, she accidentally smacked Jess in the face with the end of the mallet. Jess' eyes flew open and she yanked out a halisen and smacked Amanda loudly upside the head. "What's the big idea? I was asleep!" she demanded.

"Yeah, well, I wasn't. I'm going to go find something to eat. Go back to sleep," Amanda said, waving at Jess as she began walking out of the room.

"Hey! Wait for me. If you're gonna go eat, I'm goin' with you," Jess said.

"Fine. Hurry up."

Jess glanced down at the zanbatou beside her bed and decided it would be better for the egos of the men in NERV headquarters if she didn't bring it with her. She sighed and ran after Amanda, now very hungry.

"Y'know, Jess, I always did wonder what government-rationed food was like," Amanda said looking down at all the food before them. They had found the huge kitchen that stored all the food for the people working in the Geo-front with no problem. Jess had opened the first refrigerator they had come to, and they were not disappointed.

"I never wondered until now. Let's get workin'!" Jess said as she and Amanda began to clear out the refrigerator.

* * *

Kat woke up and also became restless. Seeing Florence, Jess and Amanda gone, she decided she would go search for those three. They might've gotten lost or something; you never knew in these huge secret underground government headquarters. Quite easy to get lost in, wouldn't you think? Kat reached down next to her and picked up her sakabatou and slipped it into its sheath before leaving the room.

She looked to either side of the door and thought to herself, <Which way would Florence go? Right.> So Kat took a right turn and began wandering through the corridors.

"Hey! Kat! Wait!" called a voice.

Kat stopped and turned around. "What're you doing up?" she asked as Sophia caught up to her.

"I think I've had enough sleeping. Where're you going?"

"Looking for Florence, basically."

"Okay. I'll follow."

The two walked around in relative peace. No one bothered them; just a quick glance and the person would go on his or her way. Until. . .

"Ooh, she's got a sword or something. How old fashioned can you get? I mean, this is 2015, who uses swords any more?" one guy said. "Hey, Chou! There's someone else here who's as old fashioned as you!"

Kat turned around warily and faced a group of guys who were probably on their break. A guy, presumably Chou, stood up and raised an eyebrow. He was grinning with an aggravatingly arrogant smirk, his blonde hair sticking straight up.

"He looks like a troll," Sophia whispered to Kat who choked back a laugh.

"Maybe a broom," Kat mused.

"Broom? Eh? What're you two talkin' 'bout? Huh, a little girl carrying a sword. A gun can usually get a person before they've even drawn a sword. Why're you carrying one around?" Chou asked, his left eye almost shut as he scrutinized Kat.

"I like it," was Kat's curt reply. She already didn't like this guy. "If you're looking for a fight, you're looking in the wrong place. I don't battle."

"Why not? I'm always looking for people to challenge. That's a nice sword. How about if I win, I get your sword. I do, after all, need to keep up the pretense that I _am_ the 'Katanagari'. But then again, why should I stoop so low as to fight a girl? I was part of the great Juppon Gatana. Should I bother to even face her?" Chou asked. "C'mon, I'll take you on. Unless you 're afraid."

Kat bit her lip. She had just received her sakabatou and had had no formal training. In all rights, it would be very very stupid of her to take him up on his challenge- he was just goading her. <'Katanagari.'> Kat thought. <'Sword Collector'? He has a lot of swords. . .> Kat glanced at the swords lying on the table, and the two on his back. <He'd have to know how to use those. . .> But he _had_ challenged her, and her pride was at stake. . .

"Bring it on," she said, narrowing her eyes.

"Kaaaaat. . ." Sophia murmured warningly. "You're not usually this impulsive, why did you have to go and choose NOW of all times to decide to take the plunge?!"

"I know what I'm doing."

Sophia leveled her with a look that said 'Then-what-the-hell-is-it?!'

"I know what I'm doing," Kat responded again and turned away as Sophia sighed.

"You ready yet?" Chou asked.

"Come and get it," Kat said, drawing her sakabatou from the sheath at her side.

"It's a reverse-blade!" Chou exclaimed. He lowered his sword in disgust, peering at the sword through his right eye. "What can you do with a reverse-blade? Of course a girl would find the most pathetic sword ever made." Chou muttered, turning around.

Now Kat really wanted to smack that stupid smirk off his face. And what was with the whole 'only one eye open' thing? <It just makes him look stupider than he already does.> "Just get on with it," she ground out.

Chou turned around, both eyes open. "You still want to fight?"

"If only to shut you up."

Chou's left eye was closed again. "All right then." Chou lunged forward, intent on finishing her off without much effort, but Kat sidestepped it just in time through some miracle or another.

<Okay, what the heck am I doing here? What the heck is wrong with me? Since when did I go around accepting challenges?!> Kat thought to herself as she clumsily deflected a strike from Chou.

She was getting pushed backwards as she deflected the blows from Chou, unable to launch any offensive moves because she had to keep defending herself.

"KAT! WATCH IT!" Sophia called.

<Nani?> Kat thought to herself. She blocked a strike from the side and stepped backwards, and found herself with her back against a wall. <Uh oh.>

Chou held off his attacks for just a second and grinned with that same aggravating smirk. "Such a pity. The little girl is going to loose. But what did you expect from someone who can't even figure out which side the sharp edge is supposed to be on."

That was it. Kat's temper flared, she was _pissed_. She narrowed her eyes and glared at Chou, feeling a slight breeze pass over her.

<What the- she's glowing!> Sophia thought, watching as Kat began glowing with a red light around her. <No way! It can't be! _Kat_ has a BATTLE AURA?!> Sophia gaped as the red glow grew brighter. Kat glared with yellow eyes and Sophia felt a chill run through her as a breeze began blowing, stirring around Kat as her glowing red hair moved, floating slightly in the breeze . . . <_Yellow_ eyes and _red_ hair?! What's going on?! Last time I checked she had brown eyes and black hair! Wait, red hair, yellow eyes and a battle aura of that strength . . . Oh my God. She's Kenshin! No, not Kenshin-> "BATTOUSAAAII?!" Sophia screeched. "AW CRAP!"

She could only watch as Kat, sprang heavenward to an impossibly high elevation for a human being while screaming, "HITEN MITSURUGI RYU! RYU TSUI SEN!" as she began the attack known as 'Ryu Tsui Sen'. Kat leaned downwards, putting her weight behind the sword as she sailed down at Chou.

Chou hesitated as he saw Kat flying down at him and he raised his sword and halted Kat's attack. . . for a second. Both of Chou's eyes widened and the smirk from his face was wiped clean away as his sword cracked and shattered under the power of the attack. Kat's downward motion continued and the sakabatou's blade connected with Chou's shoulder right next to the neck.

Chou fell, unconscious due to the shock to his shoulder. Had the sharp edge on the sakabatou been on the correct side, Kat probably would have sheared Chou's arm clean off from his side.

Kat breathed heavily, the golden haze still in her eyes as she inhaled once. Twice. Then she raised her sword to finish Chou off.

Instantly, a wire flew and wrapped itself around the blade of the sakabatou and the sakabatou was wrenched ruthlessly from Kat's grasp. In the flash of an instant, the yellow haze was gone and Kat was staring down at an unconscious Chou. She blinked twice and looked in the direction that the wire had come from and saw Sophia, holding onto the sakabatou, eyeing Kat nervously. Kat blinked again. "Nani?" she asked.

Sophia stared. <Well, the hair's back to normal; the hair and eye color change disappeared when the battle aura left, right when I got the sakabatou from her. . .> "Kat! Do you know what happened to you?!" she asked anxiously.

Kat shook her head. "All of a sudden, there was a sort of yellow haze, and then the next thing I know, you've got the sakabatou and the Troll-head-the-sword-collector is down there. What happened?" Kat said, indicating the prone form of Chou who had a few of people around him, waiting for a stretcher to wheel him away.

"You did that."

"I _what_? Ah, heh, sorry!" Kat said, hand behind her head, and a sheepish smile on her face as she edged away from the guys around Chou and made her way to Sophia.

"You really don't know what happened?" Sophia asked. Kat shook her head. "You have a battle aura dear, and a STRONG one at that. I have reason to believe you turned into the Hitokiri Battousai back there," Sophia said solemnly.

Kat raised an eyebrow at her, and began laughing _hard_. "AHAHAHAHAHA! Sophia! HA! That's so funny! AAAAHAHAHAHAA!" Kat laughed, doubled over. "_Me_? The Hitokiri Battousai?! _The_ "Sword Wielding Assassin"? You're saying _I'm_ the number one assassin of the Ishinshishi during Pre-Meiji Era Japan? That's a great one. Me, the Battousai."

"How else would you have been able to beat Chou?"

"I'm a natural at this," Kat said primly. Sophia snorted and raised an eyebrow at Kat. Kat bit her lip. "You're serious? No way, you expect me to believe that load of-"

"Either I was hallucinating when I saw you with that aura, the hair color _and_ eye color change, or you _did_ become the battousai."

"How could I be the battousai? What could have happened to make me the battousai?!" Kat was hysterical. The thought of her having the capability and the personality of an assassin of that caliber in her was very unsettling.

"I don't know. I really don't know."

* * *

Florence quickly found her way back to the rooms the seven girls were borrowing and threw open the door to the first room. "I've got it!!" she declared, only to find everyone up and running about in a frenzied hurry. "Uhm, doesn't anybody care that I've figured something out?" Florence called out tentatively into the room.

"Right now you could have come in saying you knew the meaning of life and we'd still be like this. You can tell us on the way out," Angelina said, as she picked up her Hikari no Ken from where she had put it on the bed. "I believe we've overstayed our welcome. This is a government operation trying to bring around some important change and therefore they're a little strict on security. And unfortunately, Jess and Manda got out." Angelina paused and glared at the two girls who glared right back. "Anyways, they both got hungry and decided to find something to eat," Angelina continued.

Florence sighed. She knew what was coming up. "And they cleaned out their entire store of food," she finished for Angelina. "The pigs," she muttered, scowling at Amanda and Jess.

"We resent that!" came the unison chorus.

Angelina nodded sadly. "Coupled with the destruction of their elevator, the smashing in of this doorframe right here-" Angelina glanced towards the hole at the top of the doorway where Jess' zanbatou had smashed into it. "-and the severe injuring of a NERV employee by Kat dearie over there, I don't believe we're exactly welcome."

"_Kat_ injured someone?" Florence asked dubiously.

"Yeah, you shoulda seen it; Kat got backed up in a corner and then she went all Hitokiri," Sophia said. "It was scary, she did the full Battousai transformation; her hair and eye color changed! And what's more, she had a _battle aura_!"

"Ugh, I'm SO sore all over. Those Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu techniques really stress your body if you aren't used to using them!" Kat moaned, rubbing her right wrist ruefully.

"You'll have to tell me more about that later. You can add another thing to the list; I went sight-seeing and ended up where I wasn't supposed to be. I saw the Evangelion," Florence said.

"You did? Florence! Don't you think that _maybe_ you're not exactly wanted where the government has their most covert operations running?" Angelina exclaimed, appalled. "I mean-" she paused as she registered something that had bothered her about what Florence had said. "Wait, just one Evangelion? They have more!"

"Not any more. That's what I've found out. They're missing two Evangelions."

"We have to find _Evangelions_?!" Angelina gaped.

Florence shrugged. "Apparently so. But it can't be that hard. How many places can you hide a huge fifteen-story mecha like that?"

"Well, considering how many Anime have mecha that big, I'll wager quite a few."

Florence sat down, deflated. "Ah well. I did my part. Now that you know what we're looking for, we can start looking.

"We're ready!" Sophia called out as she stepped into the room followed by Kim and Kat. Amanda and Jess stood up and nodded: They had eaten and were ready to get a move on.

The group of seven hurriedly made their way to what they hoped was the exit to NERV headquarters. Amanda was leading the way, claiming she knew the way due to her extraordinary sense of direction.

In other words, they were lost.

"Okay, let's turn left," Amanda said after contemplating a certain intersection.

"Are you sure?" Florence asked tiredly. She and the others were getting profoundly tired of running into dead-ends and doors marked "No Entrance".

"Yes! Now get moving!"

They continued walking and then Amanda turned another corner and smacked into someone.

"OW!"

The girl Amanda had run into blinked then got up, dusting herself off. The girl had pale blue hair, brown eyes, and a quiet, abnormal air about her. There was a guy with her and they were not looking very happy. Not angry, just not happy; sort of dull and depressed. The guy had brown hair and both people seemed to be on the quiet, introverted side.

"I'm really sorry, we were looking for a way out of here," Amanda said.

The girl nodded shortly and responded in a quiet precise voice, "It's okay."

The guy said, "If you're looking for a way out, follow that hall, take a left, then a right, then an elevator up five floors and you'll find yourself in Tokyo-3."

"Ah, thank you. My name's Amanda and these are my friends. What's your name?"

"Ikari Shinji," the boy, Shinji, responded.

"Shinji? Okay, thanks Shinji. Who's your friend?"

"This is Ayanami Rei."

"Okay, nice to meet you Rei. Sorry for running into you. Please thank the Misato for her hospitality. We'll be leaving now. See ya!" Amanda said as the two groups went on their own ways.

"Weird kids," Kim muttered.

"Sunlight!" Jess exclaimed as the elevator opened. After making only one wrong turn, they had found that the elevator was able to actually support all their combined weight and the weight of a zanbatou and they all hesitantly piled in. The ride had been uneventful as elevators _normally_ go and they had made it up safe.

"Okay, we're all here, right? Right. Where are we going next, Kat?" Angelina asked.

Kat flipped open the book and began reading: "The Densetsu no Shoujo made it to the Land of the Shifting Building and learned of the first of the missing items: Two mecha. Finishing their business there, the Densetsu no Shoujo left the underground base and returned to the surface and headed north yet again." She looked up. "North it is," Kat said as she closed the book and lowered it to her side.

"Okay then. Let's get moving," Angelina said, nodding.

-End Chapter 3-

Mini-Dictionary:

One note: I'm not going to translate the names of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu techniques. No point to it. ^_^

Characters used in Chapter 3:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Well, the Densetsu no Shoujo finally figured out one of the many things gone missing. What else is missing? Find out in Chapter 4!

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