Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion, the characters, the Evas, or the whole thing in general. Gainax does, and so technically this story belongs to them. They have the rights to do whatever they want with this story if they so desire.
A/N: Getting my mind off of my first fic, I plan on doing this AU fic as a filler while I organize the madness I've scribbled out to organize more madness that makes sense following it.
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Rokubungi Gendo was a hard working man. Stubborn, yes. Cold, yes. But he was simply a farmer, and did not need to please others. He lived his life in peace, though on occasions was known to start bar fights in the local village where he sold his vegetables. He was muscular, talented, and especially well educated for a farmer, though he did not let his talents and education show.
But that changed, however, when a young lady from an prestigious family searched for a groom worthy of her importance. Who she spotted was not a young handsome noble with money, not the daishogun who liberated a city ruled by a tyrant with a band of only 11 loyal followers. But rather, she set her eyes on a filthy, untidy man who spent his days working honestly, taking the abuse of nobles and serving it back to them tenfold. It caught her attention that such somebody not even a commoner would have the power and courage to send nobles back with their tails between their legs.
"What business does a noblewoman have with a peasant like me?" The farmer spat, bitterly and with venom in his tone, at the woman in a beautiful cherry blossom kimono on top a mighty steed.
"I... Admire you. The farmers all respect you despite your roughness, and nobles dare not confront you." The beautiful, almost nymph-like woman smiled.
"Praise from the higher beings? I am honored." The sarcasm was clear in his tone, as he turned back to tilting his field. To this, the woman could only smile.
"My name is Yui, Ikari Yui." The woman said, stepping off the horse she had ridden. "Will you not introduce yourself now that a noblewoman has told you her name?"
"Pah, nobles, commoners, peasants. They are the same. Are we not all the same creatures that walk this land? What difference does a bit of blood lineage make?" Gendo replied, bitterly, as he dropped his hoe.
The nymph-like beauty smiled. "Will you not treat me as a peasant like yourself then, Gendo-kun?" She took the man's hand, and caressed it. Clean and smooth hands of a lady, a contrast to the dirty and scale-like roughness of the farmer's. As the hands touched, the large man could only blush like a boy being teased.
Several other farmers who had respected and feared this man wooed and cheered, but they were ignored by both Gendo and Yui.
Yui offered to live with Gendo for a year, helping him in his field. Never once did the honest man show lust, even when they slept closely together due to the humbleness of the man's hut. Throughout the year the man payed no attention that Yui was of noble lineage, and never once did the man pay mind to her disrupting of his work. He treated her as an equal, and Yui grew to love the man within the hard exterior. But all joy came to a halt, as the beautiful noblewoman's year of freedom was done.
"You're leaving, Yui-chan?" The man asked, hurt that the woman he grew so fond of was going to be gone. He might never see her again.
"I have to. Wars are erupting, and my time is up." The nymph-like beauty, now made even more beautiful from her divine grace being replaced by a mundane knowledge. "I'm sorry, Rokubungi Gendo. I will remember you, always."
With a tear, the first tear that the man had shed in 20 years, the man watched as Yui left him, wearing the cherry blossom kimono she had worn when she first came, riding the steed she rode when she first visited.
"Yui-chan, I guess I was simply living in a dream."
--
The farmer grew colder than ever, his mind on his lost love. None dared approach him, unless to buy the beautiful fruits his trees had bore. Even then, they did their business by paying extra, and left before receiving their change. None besides a noblewoman from a lineage he had always been disgusted by had tried see the man he was inside, and it pained him so that the woman was now no more.
Every night, he would dream about the year that had been his happiest, the year that he had learned to love rather than to hate. To care rather than to shun. To be happy instead of moping. To embrace instead of pushing.
It had been hard, very hard, on Rokubungi Gendo, the stone-faced demon.
--
Yui shunned the request of the many young and beautiful man who had visited her house. They all sought after her prestige, her wealth, and her father's inheritance. As the last remaining Ikari of the household, she could not find a man more worthy than a farmer to inherit the goods.
"Yui-sama, you must hurry. War is brewing, and our house needs a capable leader." Kozo Fuyutsuki, a famed tutor who only returned from seclusion for the Ikari house's lovely daughter, spoke.
"Am I not capable enough, sensei?" Yui asked, a hint of hurt in her voice.
"I'm sorry, I did not wish to imply that, Yui-sama. I meant to say, the men will not allow their pride to be led by a woman." Fuyutsuki apologized, his head lowered and his body down on one knee.
"Fuyutsuki-sensei. I am not willing to marry any of these suitors. They do not know who I am, and yet they desire me? They take me as a joke!" The woman's beauty was completely taken by the anger in her voice.
"Then who will you marry, my lord?" The aged teacher asked, looking up with a curious look.
"I have a man in my mind, though he is not of noble lineage." Anger now but a faint memory, the woman smiled a dazzling smile, and it had affected her teacher's lips as well.
--
Gendo looked down at the man at his feet with an icy cold gaze, and walked out the bar after being called a 'love-struck fantasizing fool'. He had taken abuse before, and this was nothing. However, the man wanted to continue, and insulted the woman in the cherry blossom kimono he had loved so much. There was only so much a man could take, even if they grew slightly void of emotions, before they snap and defend what they held dear.
"Got drunk and nearly beat a man to death? I am thoroughly unimpressed." Fuyutsuki looked down upon the golem of a farmer, dressed in rags.
"Who are you?" The man replied, angry that yet another noble has come to laugh. His eyes, however, held its icy cold gaze as he looked into the mounted sage's eyes. He did not care that the man had been on top an expensive horse, did not care that the man wore silver-coated armor, and most certainly did not care for the masterpiece katana that hung on the old man's belt.
"You do not strike me as the man Yui described." Said sage returned the gaze with amusement, as the crystal clear wall of ice in the farmer's heart shattered into oblivion.
"Yui? Yui-chan?" The man was anxious, he needed to know.
"Yes, Yui. But no, Yui-sama, Rokubungi Gendo-kun." The old man corrected, angry that a mere peasant would be so casual with his pupil.
"Pah, nobles, commoners, peasants. They are the same. Are we not all the same creatures that walk this land? What difference does a bit of blood lineage make?" Gendo repeated the words he said a year back, when he had first met his beloved Yui-chan.
"Arrogant fool!" The old man swung his sheathed sword down on the man, but found the sheath caught in Gendo's hand effortlessly.
"Leave this farmer be, you can't be a retainer of her." Fuyutsuki was speechless, as the man left for his humble cottage. Sighing, Fuyutsuki returned to face his lady with the humiliation of failure.
--
"Fuyutsuki-sensei. He is not a bad man." Yui smiled as she informed her teacher, kneeling on her cushion. "Did he bother you?"
"How can such an arrogant, insolent fool be able to lead the Ikari house, my lady?" Fuyutsuki's voice threatened to drip with acid, as he spoke of those bitter words. His fists were clenched tightly in rage. "I can't imagine the catastrophe that would surely befall us!"
"Why is that, sensei?" The calm woman asked, unfazed by her teacher's venomous tone.
"What do you SEE in him, my lady?" The old tutor was confused by how Yui was love-struck by this man he had met.
"He is alone, and he hates being alone. But everybody just spat at him, made fun of him. He is very caring, and very endearing to me." Yui said, with a hint of sadness and regret. "The year I spent with him, he is also an honorable man."
"But..." The old man tried to say, but no words followed.
"I love him, and I know he loves me." She smiled, as she made her way to the stables.
"My lady! Where are you going?" Fuyutsuki cried out.
"I will drag him here if I have to." With a dazzling, content grin that rivaled the sun, Yui disappeared into the stables.
"But everybody who knows him says he wanted you for power and wealth..." Fuyutsuki thought to himself, as he sighed heavily.
--
"Yui-chan!" Gendo fought back his tears at seeing the cherry blossom kimono floating through the wind again, as he dropped the bag of seeds in his hand.
"We meet again, Rokubungi Gendo-kun." Yui smiled, and the sun's rays could only enhance her beauty. "I am sorry if my sensei was quite... Rude. He is a proud man, and he is fiercely loyal to the Ikari house." She held a hand out to Gendo as she moved back, as if inviting him to ride in front of her.
"Tell me the reason for your visit." Gendo suppressed his raging emotions, as he asked calmly, but pleasantly.
"Will you be my husband, and become Ikari Gendo?"
Gendo's senses all but stopped. Had he been asked to join the house of one of the most powerful houses in the newly discovered land, named as Edo-3? By the woman of his dreams, to boot?
"For you, Yui-chan, I would do anything." He smiled a rare smile, and climbed up her steed. His tears of joy flew with the wind as Yui clung onto his back tightly despite his sweaty odor, directing him to the town of Edo-3.
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A/N: That turned out extremely WAFFy, especially for Gendo. But hey, it's my fic, MINE!
This will serve as a prelude to a fantasy fic I am planning to write, but this story itself will be a WAFFy one-shot about Gendo and Yui. My little interpretation of Gendo's relationship with her, and how it would be ages in the past.