DISCLAIMER: I don't own Evangelion, which is currently the joint ownership of GAINAX/khara/Hideaki Anno. I also don't own the city of Nagoya. I guess the city or government of Japan controls the copyright/etc. for that.

Return of Evangelion - Next Century Telling

Chapter 1- The Return of Shinji Ikari

"Why anyone would want to live out here, I couldn't imagine." Misato Katsuragi said to herself as she scaled the boulder that stood in front of her. She furrowed her eyebrows as she pulled herself on top of the cliff. She looked around at the barren landscape surrounding her. Even though it had been two years since Third Impact, much of the area surrounding ground zero was barren, devoid of even the hardiest plants. As far as the eye could see, there were gravel creek beds and large boulders, some larger than houses. Here and there, there were a few stunted growths. Every once in a while, in the distance, a rabbits and mice scurried across the open spaces.

"Well, I guess no one would find you unless they were looking for you, Shinji. I suppose that's what you want." She pulled out her binoculars and started scanning for any man-made structures. A Section Two report had found an unidentified ruin, with evidence that someone had been there not less than a day earlier. Finally, after scouting the area for people, Section Two had spotted a person that looked like Shinji Ikari.

However, their orders had been only to find the boy. It was left to Misato to bring the boy back in, since it was decided that he would probably trust her more than anybody else. Misato dropped her binoculars back down, and made a quick check of her surroundings. She turned slightly, and started scanning again. Finally, she caught a glimpse of the talked about ruin. She readied her gun, in case it wasn't Shinji she ran into. She took a deep breath and slid down back off the boulder.

Shinji heard the crunching of gravel as someone approached his camp. He knew he should have abandoned this place when he noticed someone had found it the day before. He pulled his bowie knife out from under his makeshift futon. "Who's there? I don't have any money." Still the footsteps continued to draw nearer. "I've got a knife! Go away!" Finally there was the sliding of gravel as someone slid down towards his camp. Suddenly there was a stumble as whoever was approaching his camp lost their balance and slid the rest of the way down into camp. Shinji, sensing an opportunity, jumped on top of the person as they came across the opening into his camp. The person had been unfortunate enough to land face down. Shinji instantly guessed the intruder was female, by the build of her body. Shinji straddled his legs across her upper back, then put a hand between her shoulders, bringing both to a stop. He lowered his knife beside her neck. "What's the reason for being here, stranger?"

Misato looked back up at Shinji. He didn't instantly recognize her, since she had mild road rash on one side of her face. Misato looked at how Shinji had changed since Third Impact. He had started to grow a mustache, and there were hints of stubble on his chin. His hair was beginning to get longer, from not having cut it recently. He had grown much taller since she had last seen him, he was slightly taller than her. His clothes were torn and dirty, but they couldn't have been more than four or five months old. To top off the appearance of not having been around others for a long time, a slightly mad look gleamed in his eye. Misato managed a slight grin, but decided not to kid around at the moment. "So, Shinji, long time no see."

He dropped the knife and rolled off Misato. "I'm s-s-sorry, Miss M-m-misato." Tears were coming to his eyes, but he looked away before Misato could make eye contact. He looked back at her. "Come on in, I think I've got some bandages for you." He stood up and walked back into his shelter. Misato stood up and brushed the dirt off. She silently thanked herself for putting on the military uniform that morning.

Shinji looked back out. "I'm sorry, where are my manners?" He walked back out, and helped Misato into the camp house. Misato was instantly reminded of somebody else, but she held her tongue. She didn't know how he would react to the comparison. He sat her on the bed, while he went further back, where he rolled a small stone back from the back wall. There was a small nook back there, where a small stash of medical equipment was hidden. "So, where do you want it, I don't have enough to cover all of that."

Misato felt her face, but it stung too much to touch. "Where does it look worse?" Shinji got the hint and smiled.

"So Misato, what brings you out here?" Shinji asked.

Misato looked down. "Well, to be honest…." She couldn't bring herself to say it. "I just wanted to visit you!" She looked up with as much of a smile as her injuries would let her.

"That's a lie." Shinji said simply. He wasn't angry, and he continued to get his medical supplies ready.

Misato looked down. "What makes you say that? I did want to see you again."

"I saw the Section Two agents out here yesterday. Visiting me isn't the reason you're out here." Shinji said quietly. "You're probably going to need to get stitches when you get back, some of those cuts look nasty. This is gonna sting a bit." He ran some water over her face to wash out the dirt, then put some peroxide in it, then washed it again. He put the bandages over the worst of the cuts, then sat down beside Misato.

"Father wants me back at wherever the hell you are now, right?" Shinji asked seriously.

"No. The Japanese government wants you back in Nagoya." Misato replied.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in. "And if I refuse?"

Misato pulled her gun out, and laid it beside her. "I've got orders to bring you in whether you like it or not. Shinji, I don't want to do this as much as you don't want to do this. But for your own good, please come with me."

He looked down. "I see. Let me get some good clothes on. I'll be ready in about 10 minutes."

Misato stood up with Shinji and gave him a hug. "I'm glad to have you back." She turned and walked out of the tent. Shinji heard Misato fall down outside.

"Dammit, Shinji, how many traps do you have rigged out here?" Shinji smiled.

"None, actually, I'd just have to say you're clumsy."

Shinji had the few earthly belongings he had in his possession and loaded them into the back of Misato's car. She still had her Renault Alpine, which looked to be in excellent condition, especially considering it had survived the apocalypse. "Well I see the car's still in good shape. Wonder how much repair work it took to get it fixed after Third Impact."

"More than you could earn in two years wandering the barren wilderness." Misato answered seriously.

Shinji laughed. "Oh come on, its not like I wasn't doing nothing out there! I feel a lot better than I did just after Third Impact. Something about the wilderness, and having to relearn the most basic instincts for survival, it felt good."

Misato laughed too. "Oh, so now we're the little liberated naturalist now. I'm surprised you didn't become a nudist while you were out there."

Shinji pulled his right leg up onto his left thigh and started taking off the shoe. "So you want me to become one?"

Misato blushed beet red and swerved. "SHINJI! IT WAS JUST A JOKE!"

Shinji put his leg back down. "You always did hate it when you got teased." He gave Misato a smirk, then took a breath in. "So, how is everyone?"

Misato knew this moment was coming, she tightened her grip on the steering wheel, as the worried grin that Shinji's joke gave her slid off. Her eyebrows furrowed. "Not so good."

Shinji reclined in his chair. "I should have guessed. In hindsight, giving me god powers for a day wasn't such a bright idea on SEELE's part, was it." Misato looked over at Shinji. There was no smile on his face, only the hardened face that only the fierce conditions of a barren wasteland could give a person. He stared up at the ceiling. "God damnit, I should have just kept the world the way it was meant to be. I hurt everybody worse than I did them good."

Misato slowed the car and pulled off the side of the road. "Shinji, none of this is your fault. Don't go back to that scared 14-year old boy I picked up by the roadside that afternoon. Instrumentality changed a lot of people for the better. What you did was the right thing."

Shinji continued looking up at the ceiling. "Well, I guess we could start off with the worst news, or the best news. How's father?" There was no look of pity for that man, even after all Shinji had seen from him during Instrumentality.

"He…hasn't come back." Misato said, flinching a bit. She wasn't sure how Shinji would react to that bit of news. She pulled off the shoulder of the road and started on their way again.

"I suppose it can only get worse from there." Shinji said quietly. He didn't break eye contact with the ceiling, which he seemed to be in a staring contest to the death with.

"Its not all bad, Shinji…I made Sub-Commander of the Japanese Armed Forces!" She tried to smile. She was stalling.

Shinji finally broke contact with the roof and looked down at Misato. "Well congratulations! You should have told me sooner!"

Misato smiled slightly. "Well, I don't want to be egotistical…"

"Well, I would've learned anyway. But why would they send such a beautiful leader out to search for a dirty old rogue like me?" Shinji said, tounge-in-cheek. "Especially when you could take a nasty fall like you did? You could be disfigured for life…"

"Ah, that's the price to pay to see you again. Say, Shinji, was that a trap you set coming down into your camp?" Misato said.

"No, why?" Shinji answered blankly.

"Because it seems like you've done that style of ambush before. You were just so…cold about the way you first saw me." Misato said.

"Well…don't tell this to anyone, but I have." He said, looking away. "Some punk tried to rob me at night. I heard him just before he got in my camp house. I ambushed him and told him to get lost, and that I didn't have anything worth stealing…he tried to draw a gun on me…so I stabbed him…I killed a man!" Misato started to see tears run down his cheeks.

So living out there wasn't as perfect as he led me on to believe. "Shinji…you did the only thing you could have. He would have killed you otherwise. It was him or you." That was all she could tell him.

"Why couldn't it have been me instead? I'm the reason the world is like it is now! I've probably messed up so many lives…and then I took another from this world…" He completely broke down at the thought.

"Shinji, none of this is any of your fault. You tried to bring the world as closely to normal as you could. There's not much more you could have done." Misato said sympathetically. He still carried the world like a weight around his shoulders.

He looked sadly out the window, out over the fields of never-ending devastation. They were heading northwest towards Nagoya, but as they approached the new capital of Japan, this area seemed to teem with much more life than where his camp had been. He saw workers laboring in a field, attempting to get some form of agriculture up and running again. He saw shanties clumsily built up to house all the workers out here.

"No, there was more I could have done. None of this had to be like this at all." Shinji said.

"Shinji, I don't know what you saw or had the opportunity to do during Instrumentality, but anything other than this reality was running away."

"HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? HOW THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU COULD UNDERSTAND WHAT I WENT THROUGH!" Shinji yelled, causing Misato to swerve in surprise. He regained his composure quickly though. "I-I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled."

Misato just kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead of her. "No, no, that's okay. I was stepping out of line there. I shouldn't have gone there."

"No, its me that should be sorry. During Instrumentality, I saw an infinite number of realities that we could have gone towards. Even now, I can see that infinite number of realities, just underlying everything you see and take for granted. I know its hard to comprehend, but I don't think those god powers that I got entirely went away. No, I can't split seas or summon lightning bolts from the blue…but something isn't entirely right with the world. I'm not even sure this was the true reality, of what was really supposed to happen after Third Impact."

Misato gave Shinji a smile. "Shinji, the choice was yours, and yours alone to make. It took more suffering than anybody else in the world could stand to bear just to get to that state. I'll trust any choice you made was the right one." Shinji began to feel a little better. Misato smiled a little bit. She figured it was time to ease into that conversation. "Shinji, something like this happened when Asuka first came to Japan. She was unsure of herself, about her past, about her future here. I don't know what you saw of her childhood in Instrumentality, but…"

Shinji was looking back up at the ceiling. "I saw it, I saw what she went through."

Misato leaned back. "Then I think you can understand why she was unsure. That night at the hot springs. She asked me about her past. I told her to forget it. There's nothing she could have done to go back and change things. Shinji, you need to understand the same thing. What's done is done. There's absolutely nothing you can do to change it. You just to have to take the consequences of your actions as they come. Shinji, I trust your decision. Even if you weren't in the perfect state of mind to make the choice, it was still…" She trailed off.

Shinji heaved another sigh. "I can see you're trying to avoid the subject, but here goes…how's Asuka?"

Misato took a deep breath in, thinking of the best way to phrase it. "She's alive…"

Shinji breathed a slight sigh of relief. "As long as she's okay, I'm happy."

Tears started coming to Misato's eyes. The details of that day were still painful. "She's not okay."

"What do you mean?" Shinji asked.

Misato tried to shore herself up to tell the story. "Shinji, please don't get angry with me if I can't tell you what happened. I'm not entirely sure myself." There was a long silence. "I'll have to let you visit her firsthand. I think you'll have to see for yourself."

Shinji closed his eyes and began to cry. Misato spoke up again. "She seemed fine after she was discovered on the beach. She was heavily bandaged, but we don't know by who. Fortunately, the wounds were minor, but her right eye…it looks okay, but it doesn't move. But that's not the worst of what happened. She seemed okay for a few weeks, but she always talked about how you were alive and would eventually come back…well, you did."

Shinji saw all the possibilities run through his head. "Let me guess, she lost it?" Shinji said quietly.

Misato took the simplest reply she could. "Yes." She thought for a moment then continued. "I found her when I got out of work that day. She was in the corner of my room, and there was an old dirty rag doll. I guess she had found it on the side of the road. Anyway, she had taken to calling it Shinji. She didn't acknowledge me when I got in. It seemed like she had left to some vacant part of the universe. Its not like she's intentionally trying to be cold…I just don't think she's all there anymore."

Shinji sighed. "So where is she now?"

Misato shrugged. "Today she's in the psychiatric ward. She usually stays at home with me, but when I have to go out of town, I have to take her by the ward. Precautionary measures, you know."

Shinji nodded. "So, what am I going to do?"

"I can't tell you until we reach the central office." Misato said. "Its not safe."

"Not even in your own car, huh?" Shinji gave a small sigh. "That serious."

"Shinji, I'm sorry for all the secretiveness. Its…just that important." Misato said.

"I understand. There's no need to apologize." Shinji replied.

The road went up around the side of a small mountain. As the car turned the bend, a grand city opened up before them. The city itself sat in a low basin, with several rivers running through the middle of it. To the south, just beyond the city, a large bay and port area could be seen. Several of the buildings that made up pre-Second Impact Nagoya could be seen out into the bay, but most of these were along the two low ridges about 15 kilometers apart that ran parallel into the sea.

Construction equipment surrounded the older inland buildings, taking them apart piece by piece, so some of the concrete blocks could be reused in other buildings. Other lots had several large piles of rubble, presumably where other buildings had been demolished. Gleaming new buildings rose like swords from the decay of the old. Several buildings must have been taller than a thousand feet, while many smaller skyscrapers surrounded them. On the far end of the city, where the basin faded back into the mountains again, several smaller ten story apartment buildings stood, beginning to disappear into the shade of the mountains as the mid-afternoon sun sunk lower. Shinji looked closer. Some of them seemed to have blast marks and chunks missing out of them.

"Misato, what happened to those apartment buildings out there?" Shinji asked.

"They're all pre-Third Impact buildings. Some of them are from here in Nagoya, but the others are all from Tokyo-3." Misato said.

"There was still something left of Tokyo-3?" Shinji asked.

"A little. Most of it came from the outskirts of the city. There wasn't a lot that survived the N-2 mining of the central city to breach into the GeoFront." Misato paused to think. "I think one of those is our old apartment building, actually. However, we've got a new apartment complex in the inner suburbs of the city. It's even got an emergency route going straight from our apartment to the headquarters."

Shinji took all of the information in. "So, am I still living in your apartment, or will I get my own?"

"Well, since housing is in shortage, there's a city ordinance of having a minimum of occupants in a single apartment. I've got no one else living there, but I get away with it since I'm a sub-commander. However…you might run into problems with it." Misato said.

"Nah, that's okay, I'm sure you could use the help in keeping your apartment clean…" Shinji replied. He waited for Misato to take the bait.

"I can clean my own apartment just fine, thank you very much!" Misato yelled.

"Riiight, we see how that worked out last time." Shinji replied.

Misato broke out laughing, then gave a sigh. "You know, this all reminds me of old times."

Shinji smiled nostalgically. "Yeah… so what's the plan?"

"Plan?" Misato asked.

"What are we going to do today?" Shinji asked.

"Well, first I think we need to get you registered for schooling again." Misato said. "Some of your friends will probably be there."

Shinji sighed. "Yeah, but they'd be a year ahead of me at least. I wouldn't even see them."

Misato smiled. "No, you'd all be in the same grade. The education system has had a hard time getting itself back on its feet. Fortunately…the government's gotten a small school running for select students. You've got a place reserved for you there. I think they're planning to open a more…public school early next year."

"Okay…so what else?" Shinji asked.

"We'll probably need to go by the headquarters and get you a physical, and brief you on what it is you'll be doing. Maybe if we get time…we can go visit Asuka." Misato finished. "But first, we probably need to get you some new clothes." The Renault sped on down the road and soon faded into the traffic of the afternoon rush hour.

A/N: Well, my attempt at a post-Third Impact fanfic. No expectations to live up to with a rebuilding world, so I don't really feel constrained by the events in the original series. Next chapter will probably see more of the rebuilding (new) capital of Nagoya, as well as Shinji getting his feet wet in a new military life. Not sure if I'll visit Asuka next time, but trust me, she'll be in the story. A lot. And yes, there will be more Evangelions, but probably not what you expect.

Anyway, I thank you all for reading and reviewing, and I hope to see you again in the next chapter, or in my other story-in-progress Experimentality. I've heard its a good story...if you like that sort of thing. Anyway, I'm off to go start writing again. Cheerio

LastStandofAchilles