Neon Genesis Evangelion:

Non Timebo Mala

OOC: Evangelion is the property of Hideaki Anno and his Studio Khara...Great guy, I hear he bowls at 280.

The following was a fan fiction that came about whilst watching re-runs of supernatural late at night when it occurred to me that Supernatural and Evangelion merged pretty well. It's not a cross-over but it's more of an 'inspired by' type of fic, basically think of it as Evangelion's characters in a universe that is very similar to the super-verse but it's not a perfect replication of either universe.

Shinji was there. His hand was where he had always wanted it to be. He said all the right things, went to the right restaurant, ordered the right wine, had the tiny guy in the suit play the right song on his tiny violin...Hikari had her hand on the outside of her hip. The third date was going great. The kiss was, so far, going great. So far, so good.

Suddenly she broke it, she leaned back and starred at him for a minute. He wanted her, she wanted him. He was going for it.

"Hikari I think we should move this to the..." Ding dong. Before he could finish his sentence the small apartment's alarm bell rang. Shinji smiled uncomfortably, waiting for it to go away but it wouldn't. The door bell just kept ringing to itself. "...front door"

He tried to smile nonchalantly at her but he suspected that he looked a lot more like The Joker than a cherub. He quickly dropped the smile, abandoning all attempts to be nonchalant. He could feel his face turning red. The slightly drunk Hikari giggled to herself as he stood up from the old, slightly dusty couch. His apartment wasn't large but it allowed him a measure of privacy that he didn't get living in at halls.

"Hello." He said weakly as he approached the dark mahogany door.

"Shinji..." His heart stopped as his mind registered that voice. "I cannot enter unless you open the door."

"Rei?" Before she could answer he was jiggling the door locks open, almost prying the door of it's hinges. Hikari meanwhile, still sat on the couch, buttoned up her partially open blouse before the unknown woman on the other side of the door entered Shinji's apartment and spoiled her date.

"Shinji, what the hell is happening?" She asked

"I wouldn't worry about it Hikari, it's just my sister!" Shinji said in a rush as he flung the door open.

"You never told me about a sister..."

Rei couldn't have looked more different that her elder brother if she tried. Her blood red iris' and arctic blue hair made her look like some sort of abstract demon. Each step that she took was agile and graceful. It quickly became aparrant to Hikari that Shinji felt uneasy with his sister in the room, almost frightened at the very sight of her. The normally tall student slouched down until he was a good few inches shorter than his blue haired sister. If she were to be honest, Rei scared Hikari too.

Rei inspected the small apartment coldly, like some sort of sensor looking for a speck of dust out of place.

"We haven't spoken in three years." Shinji tried to explain to Hikari whilst Rei continued to scan the small apartment. He turned his attention from Hikari to Rei. "So, what's the matter Rei. Do you want somewhere to crash?"

"No." Rei said unemotionally. "Father is dead."

Many years ago a man, Gendo Rubokangi, met a woman, Yui Ikari, at university. The specific class that they met in depends on who tells the story; he said that it was during a Criminal Psychology course, she said that it was during a creative writing class. In truth they actually met at the university store trying to find the ingredients for a Bloody Mary, both in the middle of hangover's that drastically needed the attention of the dog and his magical hair. Regardless, eventually these two individuals married and eventually Shinji Ikari, named for his father's father was born. For a time it was a happy, normal life.

But then Gendo Ikari told his wife the truth. He and his forebears, for thousands of years had hunted things. There work made them Burakumin but they told themselves it was a necessary shame. The Robukangi's had told themselves that it was their duty to work in the dark to serve the light for the protection of all mankind. She didn't believe him, called him mad. She left, leaving him to raise Shinji alone. For two years Ikari and his son travelled throughout the width and breadth of the home islands, even venturing all the way to Hawaii and China once or twice. They were close then.

Suddenly though one day, seven hundred and thirty days to the one in which she left Yui Ikari returned to her husband and her son, but she was not alone. Shinji could faintly remember meeting his 'half sister' for the first time; being left in a room with her whilst their parents argued. He couldn't be sure but he thought it was a quick argument. No one ever asked who Rei's father was. Yui Ikari was never the same once she came back into Gendo and Shinji's lives, sadder, quieter.

The two Ikari men hadn't been close since the day that Yui Ikari died on the first day of spring. Gendo continued to hunt monsters across the country, occasionally taking Rei with him whilst Shinji instead gravitated towards academic work. Eventually the Ikari family split in two; Shinji on one side of the family feud and Rei and Gendo on the other. From then on neither side spoke to one another.

"I'm sorry to inform you in this manner Shinji." Rei said as she put her hand on Shinji's arm.

A shocked Hikari quickly stood up, gathered her jacket and made her way towards the door. "Shinji, I can see that you're very busy at the moment. I'm sorry to hear about this. Call me" She gave Shinji a kiss on the cheek as she left. Shinji didn't react.

"Goodbye Hikari" He said quietly to himself as the door shut, leaving him alone with his estranged sister. The still stunned student made his way for his old worn out couch and collapsed upon it.

"How...how did it happen?"

"I believe that it was something that he was hunting." The room went dead, Shinji sat unmoving on the couch.

Rei slowly made her way across the room.

Rei sat down on her brother's couch. She didn't say anything and barely made a noise as she breathed. Shinji didn't seem to be upset, simply shocked. She didn't make eye contact with her brother as she joined him. They sat there in silence for what felt like an age.

"Thank you for telling me Rei." Shinji said coldly. He turned to face her and tried to shape his face into a smile. It was small and misshapen. He wished he'd never tried. "Where are you staying in the city? I've got lectures all day tomorrow but I'm sure my tutor will let me have the day off for the funeral. When is it?"

"There was no body. No body was ever found."

"How do you know that he is dead then?" Shinji asked with a tiny glimmer of hope in his voice.

"No." Rei replied simply "His car was found as well as his wallet and his jacket. He disappeared two weeks ago. He is dead."

No one said anything for what felt like an eternity as the truth sunk in.

"Do you know what he was hunting?" Shinji finally said.

"I do not, when I left him to go hunt a Nukekubi in Kobe he said that he was meeting a Catholic Priest in Hakone called Fuyutsuki, something to do with a being called Sachiel." Rei stood up from the old, slightly ripped couch and made for the door.

"Wait..." Rei stopped dead in her tracks.

"Yes?"

Shinji stood up and walked over to Rei. He ignored the quickly flickering out candles and the old jazz ballad still playing away to itself, a remnant of a good date cut tragically short.

"Listen, thank you for telling me but you don't have to go investigate his death."

"I am not investigating his death. I am going to collect the head of whatever killed him." She said it so coldly, so absolutely...at that point she wasn't his sister anymore; she was an avenging Angel. The door gave a healthy thick 'CLUNK' as Rei closed it behind her. Shinji stood there, solid as a statue.

Shinji was alone with his thoughts. Faced with a lack of other options he asked himself what to do. Apprehensively, he picked up his phone off of the coffee table and dialled in his dissertation tutor's number.

"This is Shinji Ikari student number 5687675445. I won't be in tomorrow, possibly till the end of the week. I'll have Kensuke Aida collect my assignments. I'll be dealing with my late father's affairs."

By daybreak Shinji was already in the centre of Hakone. There wasn't much to say about the small tourist destination-hot springs, black eggs and a large number of Onsens. It was a far cry from his native Tokyo with much of the landscape dedicated to green shrubbery, only occasionally broken by the odd building in the distance. It looked to be a nice day though, the sky was clear and even at this early hour the sun was brighter now than it had been all of last week.

He spent most of the morning searching for Father Fuyutsuki's place of residence. For about three hours he searched the relatively small town for a lead only to be told by an elderly woman in the fish market that there was no church in Hakone. Much to his own annoyance he cursed out loud whilst the old woman simply chuckled to herself. She said that whilst there was no church in Hakone there was a Father Fuyutsuki that haunted the place.

The old priest's house was small and on the edge of town. In all honesty it bore more than a fleeting resemblance to the Adams Family house albeit smaller. It didn't look like any of the other houses that he had seen in town, far too western. Apprehensively he knocked on the houses front door. He heard rustling from the inside of the house. Eventually the old man answered the door.

"Hello, is there something that I can help you with?" Father Fuyutsuki was a tall man with stone coloured hair. Truth be told he bore a passing resemblance to a possible Japanese Ian Mckellan.

"Hi...erm, yeah my name is Shinji Ikari and I think you met..."

"Your Gendo Ikari's son? Come in we have much to discuss." The elder priest led Shinji into his small home. "You'll have to forgive the clutter. I don't get many visitors."

He was right, the house was cluttered. Mountains of old books were spread about the small house like some sort of alien landscape only broken by the solitary couch and the occasional religious artefact-rosary beads, crosses, crescent moons, lighters, knives; a thousand different artefacts from a thousand religions. Shinji took extra care not to step on any of the knives.

"Take a seat. I imagine you want to talk about your father's death." Fuyutsuki said as Shinji took a seat on the couch. No matter how he tried to position himself the young man simply couldn't get comfortable on the old thing, far older than even his couch. "Do you want something to drink?"

"No, thank you. I was actually wondering if you could tell me about why my father was in this town in the first place. Was there a werewolf attack or something?"

"No." The old man replied sternly and ultimately. "There was no werewolf, nothing of the sort."

The old man was clearly uncomfortable with the way in which this line of questioning was going to follow. Shinji imagined that the old man was going through a list of things that he wished Shinji had rather been-government assassins, angry bishop, old man seeking last rights-anything but this!

"I think we should start much earlier than that, perhaps at the very start of this whole bloody affair." Fuyutsuki said quietly as he joined Shinji on the couch, his voice gravelly and subdued. "My association with the Ikari's goes back a long time; before you were born in fact."

"Father never spoke of you..."

"He never did say much about anything...well, when he was a student he was a very fond of The Grateful Dead..."

"Erm, excuse me?"

"Oh nothing. Can I give you some advise Shinji? Try not to stay alive to my age...you start to reminisce to yourself much more often. It's terrible for keeping conversations on tangent." The old priest smiled and then sighed to himself. "Your father was here in Hakone that night at my request."

"At your request?"

"I needed him to hunt an Angel. "

"You mean a demon, Angels don't exist." Shinji stated bluntly. The old man looked at Shinji in an inquisitive manner before chuckling under his breath.

"Ikari said that his son was a lot like him."

"Excuse me?"

"You know what your biggest problem is Ikari? I know what it is, it was your father's biggest problem too. You have no faith." Fuyutsuki stood up and slowly made his way to a pile of books next to the old television that sat miserably in the corner. The old priest seemingly picked them up and threw them behind him. Shinji couldn't tell if the old man had any sort of real filing system or if he was simply relying on his god to find him whatever he needed. Suddenly the old man stopped, smiled and rejoined Shinji at the couch and handed the visitor a book before sitting back down.

The book was old. It's once red leather surface had rotted to a dismal brown whilst it's pages, whilst still recognisable as paper had turned a coffee colour. The book was unmarked except for the Greek symbols Alpha and Omega on its spine. He opened the book at it's first page and aloud in his head 'in principio creavit Deus caelum et terram...'

"A bible? Erm, I'm sorry to disappoint you sir but I was raised none denominational..."

"It's not to convert you Shinji. It's to teach you." Fuyutsuki sighed to himself. "Shinji, have you ever heard of The Fall and the War in Heaven, when The Creator breathed life into Humankind, when the arch-betrayer Samael refused to bow down to mankind as his father had asked?"

"I heard that it was Lucifer that refused to bow down..."

"Lucifer, Samael, Iblis, Azazael, Morningstar, Wormwood, Ahiriman, Apothis, Angra Mainyu...a thousand names for the fallen messenger."

"Yes then, I am aware of the story." Shinji said apprehensively.

"Story?" It was hard to judge Fuyutsuki's reaction-a mix of humour and alarm, possibly with some curiosity thrown in as well. He smiled at Shinji, in the way that grandparents smile at their grandchildren. "Well if you're familiar with The Fall then I'm sure that your familiar with it's less indie, big budget sequel The Fall of Man?"

"Excuse me?"

"The Fall of Man, it's there in that very book" Fuyutsuki pointed to the leatherbound bible that lay on Shinji's lap. "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth and then some other stuff and then Adam and Eve get kicked out of Eden..."

"After Eve is tempted to eat from the fruit of knowledge by the Serpent?"

"Something like that, yes." Fuyutsuki confirmed. "Now, when your father was alive did you ever hear him mention something about The Final Fall?"

"No."

"The Final Fall, also known as the Descent of Angels and the God Fall is the 'official' name of the Apocalypse, of course it's a significantly different Apocalypse from the one in your bible."

"How so?"

"The first thing that you should know is that after Eden's quick evacuation Samael was placed in a cage by his brothers and his creator. The Final Fall is the release of Samael from its cage by its agents already here on Earth...or at least close to it."

"Agents already here on Earth?"

"Fallen Angels like itself. Certainly of no harm to their creator but Godlike compared to men such as you or I."

"What do you mean 'close to it', like the moon?"

"No Shinji, not the moon." Fuyutsuki said with a look of disappointment on his face. "A dimension, a world called Guf; between heaven, hell and the human world it acts as a staging area for souls...and in this case, the Angelic. I showed your father how to reach this place in the hope that he could defeat the Angel there before it managed to reach this world."

"So it was you who sent my father on a suicide mission?"

"Yes." Shinji rose out of his seat in a fit of rage.

"Listen, I'm really not sure that I believe you. I've seen some weird things in my life but I'm not buying Angels. More importantly, you sent him on a suicide mission, my father YOUR FRIEND!" Shinji said in a mess of rage and confusion.

"What was I supposed to do? Someone had to try to stop it before it...before it rose." The old man argued his case sternly and calmly. "Like it or not Shinji but your family has been hunting the supernatural for thousands of years. He was our last best hope and now he is dead." Shinji backed down. Sat down, calmed down.

"No, there is another." Shinji said unemotionally "Rei has come to Hakone to try to kill it." Fuyutsuki suddenly looked startled at the mention of Shinji's half sister.

"Your mother's child must not come into contact with an Angelic being. For her to do so would be disastrous for all...man, monster, demon and angel...all would feel the wrath that such a union would bring about." For the final time Shinji abandoned his seat and instead of being angry he was instead gripped by an intricate intense mix of dread and curiosity. "If an Ikari is to kill this Angel it must be you."

"Why?" Shinji asked flatly, his hands had a vice like grip on Fuyutsuki's shoulders.

"She is an abomination."

Shinji found a small bar on the edge of town where he was able to study the 'Bible' that Fuyutsuki had given him. It read much in the same way as any other bible that he had ever encountered but according to this book, this strange apocryphal text the Fallen Angels were coming-five of them to be precise. He burned their names into his memory; Sachiel, Ramiel, Lruel, Azrael and Lilith. The text was a little ambiguous as to where the other Angels would fall however it was very clear as to where Sachiel; the one that had killed Gendo Ikari would fall...

'And two thousand years after the disappearance of the of the Lancea Longini a son of god who has forsaken his father shall fall from the heavens to the hamlet of volcanic water on the eve of the meeting between the Vulture and the Eagle.'

-Terminus 1:14

To Shinji that translated rather perfectly as a sign that Sachiel would fall here in Hakone, tonight on the eve of Tanabata. He didn't understand much of what of the old man had said but if the old man was right then, and he hated to say it then the angel had to be killed. If it could be killed. Shinji collected his book and left the bar to look around the town, hopefully catch Rei before she encountered the Angel. Hakone was a small place but it was designed well enough that it looked bigger than it actually was.

He was almost to the point of giving up when suddenly, across town on the edge of he noticed his father's old car, Rei's car parked. He couldn't tell how long the old Renault Alpine had been there but it was still light; which means that it was unlikely that Rei would start looking for the Angel due to the difficulty of concealing weaponry under the light of sunset. If Shinji knew his sister half as well as he thought he did, even if she was an 'abomination', she would be close by; waiting.

The car hadn't changed much since the last time that he had laid eyes upon it, a few dings here and there but ultimately it was the very same car that he remembered from his youth-the same car that he and his dad had driven all the way from Cape Koritsky to Okinotorishima that warm summer day, just for the hell of it. He smiled at the memory.

"Shinji?" He turned around quickly to see Rei standing not far behind him. She hadn't changed her clothes and she looked tired. The siblings stood there in the middle of the road speechless. Neither of them seemed to dare to move or to say anything.

"Rei, I've come to help you hunt this...thing" Rei studied her brother inquisitively, turning her head as a bird might.

"Alright" She said quietly before continuing on her way towards the old blue French car. She stopped though when she was in line with Shinji. She joined her brother in gazing at his father's old car. They had never been close, not even friends really...they had simply just existed together in the same space at the same time.

"How did you find out that he had died?"

"The elderly priest, Fuyutsuki, contacted me with the information. He did not seem fond of me." Abomination. Either Fuyutsuki was a very accomplished liar or Rei was understating the old priest's reaction. Neither was particularly good.

"Do you know what killed father?"

"No." She replied coldly "I suspect that it was some sort of Demon or Djinn. Does it have anything to do with that book that you are holding?" Shinji alarmingly turned his attention to The Bible.

"Yes...erm, yes." Shinji hurriedly said. "The creatures name is Sachiel, it will be here tonight."

"Does it have any information on how to kill it?"

"No, but I'm sure that that there must be a way to kill it. Anything that lives can be killed."

"Yes."

They sat in wait until midnight, eating bad ramen noodles from 'Adolf's Noodle Parlour' in the middle of town and generally avoided talking about the past. Rei had never been the most talkative of people and tonight Shinji just didn't want to talk about anything. The company wasn't good, but they were family, at least they were together. Just as it was getting dark enough for visibility to be an issue Rei stirred from her seat.

"It is time." She said as she made her way to the back of the car. Before Shinji joined her she had already managed to open the trunk. The Ikari armoury definitely wasn't anything compared to the armoury of some hunters around the world but it most of the time it suited them just fine-a couple of shotguns, pistols, a crossbow, six or seven knives and a sword for when things got 'inventive'. Rei immediately went for the crossbow whilst Shinji stumbled in his choice.

"Do you need help?" Rei asked her stalling brother, his hand circling above the weapons cache.

"No thank you, I think I know what I'm doing." He said with a smile. Rei didn't respond –only gave her brother yet another blank stare.

"Father said you preferred the shotgun."

"Yeah...but that was a long time ago." He picked the shotgun, an experimental piece that never saw mass production, up out of it's place of honour in the back of the car. He checked it's sight, it's weight, it's balance. It was all a bit off from how he remembered them but he figured it was close enough. "I haven't even fired a gun since before Uni...Rei are you all right?"

Shinji's attention was drawn from his shotgun to his sister. In the moments between the last time that she had last spoken her eyes had rolled back into her head and she began to sweat heavily. She collapsed but Shinji managed to catch her before she fell to the floor.

"Rei, Rei what's wrong? Say something!" One of Rei's eyes rolled back into position. It fixed itself onto Shinji.

"It is coming...I can hear its singing."

"What is it saying?" He asked as he rocked her gently, pleading with her with his body language to return to normal.

"Join your voice to mine and together, we will sing victory everlasting." Her voice was barely above a snake's whisper but it was threateningly intense. "SHINJI! IT IS HERE!" She screamed.

The air exploded as a beam of pure, intense light shot up from the ground in the distance. It stretched up for miles, past the clouds and possibly left the Earth's atmosphere. The ground trembled and the heavens roared. It was beautiful and terrible to behold. Rei was already unconscious, thank god. Shinji picked her up and placed her in the passenger seat of the Renault, throwing the crossbow into the back bench. He went for the front seat and took the cars wheel. It didn't feel right to drive this car, father's car, but Shinji knew that if he didn't try to confront Sachiel then the world would be in great peril, possibly even in danger of ending

He drove like a mad man with a purpose, desperately trying to avoid the awestruck people who stood enchanted in the middle of the road-all of them just seemed t be frozen in place by the pillar of light, but trying to keep up a good speed as well. Shinji wasn't sure what terrified him more; that they seemed to be effected in this way or the fact that he wasn't.

He stopped outside an inn near to the centre of town. The column of light's base started inside the hotel, more specifically the courtyard behind it.

"Be safe." He said to his unconscious sister. He brushed her hair out of her face and smiled at her before getting out of the car, shotgun in hands with knives in pockets.

"Sed et si ambulavero in valle mortis non timebo mala for I have a twenty two year old shotgun and a first class degree in Psychology with a minor in music" He said to himself uneasily as he walked into the seemingly empty hotel. "And I know how to use them."

The hotel was deserted. Shinji didn't see any 'zombies' anywhere in the lobby, the hallways or any of the rooms; what he did see however were piles of ash, ash mixed with a hint of sulphur. It didn't occur to him until he smelled the dust piles scattered throughout the hotel in seemingly random occurrences that these piles of dust and ash and sulphur were the hotel guests. They had been incinerated.

He made his way through the hotel cautiously, walking at a steady pace he eventually made his way to a large bar at the rear of the complex. Outside lay a courtyard, a large pond and an array of seating. The pillar of light began in the centre of the pond; at this distance the light was so intense that it was almost blinding, Shinji had to put his arm over his eyes just to continue forward.

"I mustn't run away..." He told himself as he continued on. The glass that separated the bar from the courtyard gave away with one firm kick, either the owner was too cheap to afford stronger glass or perhaps Sachiel's column had weakened the glass somehow. Shinji didn't know which one, it didn't really matter. Glass broke under his feet as he made his way into the courtyard.

The nearer to the pillar the air got warmer and humid and the nearer Shinji got to the pillar the more the stream of light dissolved in front of him as if some dam from heaven was slowly being turned off. The light died and revealed a man standing on the surface of the water-a tall, blonde European man with a slight Mediterranean complexion. It didn't seem to pay any heed to Shinji as he approached it.

"...the hell?" Shinji asked himself silently. The man...the Angel, whatever it was turned its attention to Shinji slowly. To Shinji's horror it appeared as if the Angel's eyes had been burned out

"YOU ARE HERE EARLY host." It didn't speak like a human...it didn't sound like anything else that Shinji had ever heard. Werewolves spoke with growls, Vampires sound like wine but this thing it was polyphonic, a symphony of destruction. A thousand voices spoke with a hideous chorus that was both beautiful and terrifying. Shinji didn't waste any time in taking the shotgun's safety off.

"I think I'm slightly late truth be told." Shinji said and started firing.

The sound of the automatic shotgun firing was almost deafening; again and again the small courtyard exploded under the sound of the Jackhammer's ferocious power. Shinji thought that he had forgotten this life but as he held his hand shut for dear life he realised that he had been lying to himself, he had forgotten this life as much as he had forgotten himself. The two were intertwined; if Shinji forgot Hunting, Shinji forgot himself. The shotgun stopped firing and the shells stopped falling to the floor.

To Shinji's horror the shotgun hadn't done any damage to Sachiel. The bullets were simply gone.

He dropped the shotgun to the floor but before he could take a knife from his belt and lunge at the creature space warped as Sachiel lunged at him instead. It moved so fast and it was so strong that the impact sent him flying backwards. Before Shinji flew in any direction Sachiel caught him by the throat, nearly snapping it.

"WHAT IS YOUR INTENTION?" It asked as it brought Shinji up far above its head. Shinji tried to pry the creature's grip away from his jugular. He tried pulling it's fingers away; scratching it's hand; punching it's face: everything but no matter what he tried it had no effect.

Sachiel had a vice's grip and it's skin was tougher than iron. Shinji felt his arms fall to his sides in defeat. With nothing left to lose he pulled one of the knives that he taken out from his belt. With all the remaining force that he could muster he thrust it into the side of the head of the Angel's head.

Sachiel screamed in pain and threw Shinji across the room once again. This time Shinji came to a stop in the middle of the pond. Water mixed with blood. The Angel pulled the knife out of its skull and dropped it to the floor.

"HOST, WHY DO YOU DO THIS?" Sachiel walked slowly, leaving puddles of water as it went. "SURELY YOU MUST SEE THAT THIS IS FUTILE? WHAT DO YOU WISH TO ACCOMPLISH? I HAVE NO WISH TO HARM YOU, YOUR CONTINUED EXISTANCE IS CRUCIAL TO THINGS YET TO PASS BUT BE WARNED. IF YOU MUST DIE THEN HE WHO WAS WILL DRAG YOU BACK, KICKING AND SCREAMING!" Slowly The Angel began to make his way across the courtyard

Shinji got an idea. He tried to pull himself out of the water, to stand on his own two feet but only managed to make it to his knees.

With all of the power that he could muster he brought a knife, the last knife that he had, up to his throat. He spat blood into the pool.

"The way I see it is that your boss, can raise me from the dead however I don't think he can manifest here without a host; who I think is me ergo if I die here now then Samael can't say hello meaning that he can't raise me from the dead. Meaning I stay dead meaning Sammy stays wherever the hell he is. Now I maybe wrong but I really don't think I can defeat you in a fist fight. So, what I think you really want to ask yourself is: am I right, or am I wrong?"

The Angel stopped, dead in its tracks. Shinji didn't dare to move. The air was tense.

Suddenly The Angel erupted in a flash of light, Shinji let go of the knife and turned his eyes away from the violent explosion of photons. For a moment the whole world turned a blind shade of white.

"What the..?" Slowly the white fog melted away as texture and colour returned to Shinji's sight, he didn't dare move. For almost five minutes he stood there, afraid of an absent Angel's wrath: waiting for his perception to fully return.

Shinji's sight did return and to his thank Sachiel was gone. Shinji was still bleeding, his ribs were still cracked, and there were still holes in the wall but The Angel was gone. He breathed a deep sigh of relief before collapsing back into the now shallow pond.

Shinji awoke on Fuyutsuki's tattered old couch. Someone had placed a cold bottle over his forehead. He turned away from the unfamiliar ceiling to face Fuyutsuki's old TV; in the greying screen he could barely make out Rei's outline in the reflection. In the background he could hear the two talking in hushed voices; about him, about The Angel, about Father: about a lot of things. After a little while of lying there he tried to pull himself up from the couch. It burned and he groaned.

"Don't try to move, you were injured by 'Sachiel'." Rei said as she quickly made her way from the back of the room,

"What happened?"

"You managed to chase Sachiel away but not kill it. Considering that it killed your father, a much more experienced warrior I'd say that this was a positive eventuality. Before anyone else noticed that there had been a total loss of communication from inside the inn Rei managed to pull you out of the pool. Your injuries were extensive but none of them life threatening or overly serious" Fuyutsuki said as he joined them in the living room. He settled across from Rei, on the other side of the couch.

"Was anybody hurt?" Shinji asked. Fuyutsuki and Rei looked at each other uncomfortably. "Was..?"

"Hakone was largely left intact from the battle, the people were largely left unaffected by Sachiel's arrival...but." Fuyutsuki sighed to himself. "The inn where Rei found you after the battle had thirty four guests. All thirty four guests are missing."

"But...but the ash?"

"Yes, I am aware of the ash...but what I think that the authorities will find is that the ash is not enough ash to account for all thirty four people. More specifically, I think you'll find that there is enough ash to account for thirty three people."

"The host?"

"Yes." Robukangi said solemnly. He turned to Rei and said "Rei, get him a drink, would you?"

They talked for a little while. With the best of his ability Shinji described the pillar of light, the Angel, the effect that it had on the people of Hakone (and later, with Rei absent from the conversation) and Rei in particular. Shinji told the two of the difficulty he had with damaging the creature.

"Did you really expect to kill it?" Fuyutsuki asked sardonically as he took a sip from his hot tea. "You expected to kill an Angel; An immortal messenger of the Lord?"

"But you...Rei was"
"I did nothing of the sort Shinji, to go was stupid and you could have got yourself killed trying to save her. Which all things considering wouldn't have been a negative result."

"What do you mean? You keep calling her an abominat..."

"Silence!" Fuyutsuki ordered angrily as he set the tea cup down onto the table without changing his facial expression. "It was a stupid thing to do."

They sat in silence for a little while. Rei was out, gathering intelligence about what people actually remembered about the Angel attack. So far no one could recall much, not even Rei: thankfully least of all Rei. By this point, a few days after the battle Shinji was walking again and they had began to plan the next move. Shinji knew that he couldn't continue study, at least not whilst Samael was coming but on the other hand there was no way that he could possibly do any damage to an Angelic being, and threatening suicide wasn't going to work every time. They spent a great deal of time discussing

"There is a potential weapon, that we could use to kill the Angels." Rei announced one day when all three of them were sitting in the living room, Shinji's ears seemed to perk. In the corner the old priest listened intently.

"Hmmmnn?" Fuyusuki made a note of interest. Shinji turned his head away from his soup to Rei.

"Really?"

"Yes, Gendo spoke of it once. He called it the Lancea Longini; the Godkiller."

"That does not exist!" Fuyusuki replied.

"It does, I have seen it with my own eyes!" Rei retorted in a tone more emotional than Shinji had ever heard her use. "It belongs to Doctor Ritsuko Akagi of Tokyo University.

"Doctor Ritsuko Akagi?" Shinji asked.

"Yes, did you know her?"

"Yeah...she was my dissertation tutor." Shinji drifted off into an ocean of memories of countless hours spent working on a now wasted dissertation. "But she never said that she knew father, or Rei."

"If you were her, would you admit to having known Gendo Ikari?" Shinji didn't reply, Rei simply starred at him annoyed. "Though I am loathe to admit it, I agree that if this 'Lacea Longini' does exist, and if it is in Doctor Akagi's possession then it is the best chance that you have in defeating the Angels. I say it's worth trying." Fuyutsuki said.

"I've gotta get my stuff anyway. What do you say Rei?"

"It was my idea Shinji."

"Oh yea...sorry."

They left Hakone a week after Rei had appeared outside Shinji's apartment, Fuyutsuki didn't speak to Rei as the siblings packed up the medical supplies and the one gun that the old priest could spare but he did pull Shinji aside and reminded him to heed his previous warnings about his 'sister'.

His father had never let him drive the old Renault and neither did Rei. She drove fast but with precision. It was like watching a fight in an old Wuxia movie. And much to Shinji's distaste she drove to the sounds of AC/DC.

"Could you turn that down!"

"No!" She replied whilst switching gears. "This song is favourable!"

"But I want to talk to you about something." Rei twitched and turned the stereo off. She had a self satisfied smirk on her face.

"So you want to talk?" She said "Tell me about that woman who was in your apartment...Hikari, I think you called her."

"Rei, put the stereo back on."

Author's notes (read on if you want to but the actual story has ended): Well I think that went well if I were to be honest with you. It's my first foray into the world of Evangelion, or rather one of the world's of Evangelion in some time and I like to think that I got the characterisation down reasonably well...with a little change in characteristics due to the fact that the characters are slightly older and there was no second impact so to speak. I made sure to include some points of dialogue in the story that have been uttered by the characters in the show as a means to bridge any potential gaps that might have occured in the shifting of the characters from the source material to this, rather small, part of the fandom. I tried to give the characters a lot of the same problems that they had in the original NGE show but eschew them a little to make them fit in this universe; Shinji is still distrusting of other people (although I don't think that idea came out to well)) and he's estranged from his father but he's working on it-he's dating. Rei is still, very much not completely human and very much social isolated, and I like to think that she feels the loss of Gendo's loss a lot stronger than Shinji. To Shinji Gendo was simply a father but she was Rei's Dad, biological or not.

In many ways this emphasises one of the main themes of this story; sibling relationships. In the original story all of the main characters seemed to have social problems because of parental death/abandonment/unknown (in Rei's case) but in this case their problems, well...their social problems come from the failure of the characters to 'mesh' and instead but heads. I'm not making sense, I'm sorry. this part is all very psychological but I think the best possible way of saying it in English is a debate between the social effects of minor* privation due to not having any siblings to relate to versus seperation because of all your parent's attention is taken away from you because their is this new sibling in your life and your parents are fighting alot...and it's all very soft science. I'm sorry for blabbing on.

The shotgun that Shinji used in this chapter was a Pancor Jackhammer, an experimental piece of weaponry that was designed and built in the late 80's that, whilst looked very science-fictiony and very cool was never put into mass production and actually bankcrupt the company that made them. It's highly unlikely that Gendo would be able to get a hand on one in real life but I thought I'd include something for the gun-porn lovers out there in fan fiction land.

The reason that I shipped Shinji and Hikari together in this fic was a conscious decision...partly because of my dislike of using OC's for minor roles that could possiby filled by existing characters. It was partially inspired by the great lemony piece that is Changing Seasons by JErosion which is just brilliant and it really managed sell how a Shinjixhikari pairing could work to me. I thoroughly recommend it to you, well if you're over 18 that is. This pairing may continue or it Shinji may be tempted by a certain red headed maiden from Germany once she makes her entrance...I haven't decided yet.

A note before we round this up; I myself am an Agnostic and indeed hold no particular view on religion but in this story I'm taking a Wold Newton Tree view on certain things; God is Allah, he's YHWH, Ahra Mazda, Shangdi, Sophia (and by extension The Demiurge too), Mithras, Brahman, Krishna and a hundred more unmentioned. In this story it's all an aspect of the same figure. I can't claim to be an expert on all religions but I'll try to do as much research as possible before submitting something to the website, but if I get something egregiously wrong then I ask you, please PM me about it or mention it in a review so that it can be corrected or if need be removed completely. I realise that whilst religious themes are good frame works to work from Religion is very important to some people and I don't wish to insult or annoy anyone. My stories are meant to be enjoyed, not revilled; so if you've got any problems tell me and we'll discuss it :)

Also, before anyone mentions it I know that Lilith isn't an Angel in any canon...but it would be odd if she wasn't involved in this in some way wouldn't it?

So yes, thank you for reading my little story. Review if you'd like to give me advice or to tell me that you liked it, but if you don't want to for whatever that's fine to.

Thank you, goodbye.