Salvation for the Deserving

by Traitor of All Traitors

After trying to complete several stories started long ago, another is brought to light, but must be finished. Hope comes to those that desire it, and justice to those in need of it. Let the power to hope be your wings…and let your courage be your sword and shield.

Creation began on 06-11-09

Creation ended on 11-09-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Salvation for the Deserving

A/N: Manga's volumes six and seven are always the breaking/turning point in the Evangelion franchise. Why are they so? Because of that stupid Gendo deciding to kill a guy that just wanted to get his sister better medical care! That's why! Check this out right here!

Holding Unit-03's plug in its grip, the Dummy Plug-possessed Unit-01 was about to end the life of Shinji's best friend, and there was nothing he could do about it.

SLASH! Something fast and deadly suddenly came, slicing off the arm and forcing Unit-01 to fall down. It then grabbed the plug and floated off to a nearby building. It was some sort of humanoid, with six arms, a pair of bat-like wings, dressed in a hanbok, and was as white as a traditional ghost on Halloween nights.

"Enough!" It, no, he shouted, his voice sounding like a gigantic megaphone was being used to communicate. "Who…dares…to spill innocent blood?!"

The crippled Unit-01 looked at the creature that was, clearly, not an Angel, and charged over to finish its job of destroying the enemy.

"I refuse to make this a mystery!" The creature went on, ripping in half the plug, spilling out the LCL, and pulling out the unconscious Fourth Child. "You don't wanna do time…on your chances one-three!"

Using its other hand, Unit-01 tried to smash the two, but was prevented by the arrival of a large, dome-like shield that carried to two away.

"Watch it, abomination!" He told the Evangelion. "You don't wanna displease me! Or I shall dish out divine misery. Now…who is the unmerciful fool that dares to play God, in all of his arrogance, toward those that don't deserve death?"

Gazing cruelly at Unit-01, this creature saw that somebody was inside the abomination, but was not in control of it. Someone else had taken the control from whoever was in it and placed it in the hands of a soulless doll, another abomination. And that someone that was responsible was going to be caught as soon as he made another slip.

-x-

"What is that thing?" Gendo demanded from the bridge.

"Unknown," said Aoba. "No blood pattern. It's not an Angel."

This was a change in the scenario. Nowhere is it written in the Dead Sea Scrolls that a creature would just show up out of nowhere and intervene.

"I demand words with the jerk that nearly kills an innocent with an abomination created to end all of existence!" The creature's voice was heard over their sound systems. "Who dares to bring the race of Man to its end?!"

Seeing the purple Eva try to attack again, the bridge watched in awe as the creature fired a beam of light at the Eva and blew the back of it out, forcing the plug that had Shinji in it out and falling to the ground below. Unit-01, now without a plug to operate it, became inoperative and fell to its front.

"Unit-01 has gone silent," said Maya Ibuki.

"Incredible," Hyuga gasped.

-x-

Ripping open the other plug, the creature freed Shinji from it and asked, "Are you unharmed?"

Shinji nodded, but then looked at the unconscious Toji and asked if he was alright.

"Other than the intense hangover he'll probably feel when he comes to, he's as well as can be. Sad that I can't say the same for the abomination he almost got killed in. Normally, I'd punish the one responsible for a death with death, but you're not a murderer. There's no blood on your hands, no matter how clean you keep them. Can you direct me to the one responsible so that he'll pay the price like how so many others shall pay with their lives?"

"It was my father, Gendo Ikari," Shinji confessed to him. "He tried to make me kill my friend!"

"Then it'll be him that will experience death," he told the boy, and set Toji down on the ground. "He does something like this again; I'll make him lose everything, including his flesh."

As he turned to leave, Shinji stopped him with, "Wait! Who are you? What are you?"

Turning back to face him, he answered, "I am the answer that falls upon the ears of those that are deaf, I am the hope for the eyes of those that are blind, and the voice for the mute. I am called…Salvation, the Angel of Redemption."

"You're an Angel?"

"I'm not the enemy you've been, falsely, led to believe are the cruel ones of death. Why you dub them Angels is beyond me. But yes. I am an angel. Again, my name is Salvation. My embrace is survival. The slightest contact a miracle. Aloha, until we meet again."

Then, he vanished from sight.

-x-

Misato came to as the sirens came around her ears and she found herself on a stretcher with a bandaged head and her arm in a sling. All she could remember was Unit-03 turning into an Angel and destroying the testing grounds she and Ritsuko were at.

"What happened?" She wondered.

"Unit-03 got turned into an Angel and had to be destroyed," revealed Kaji, who was there by her side.

"And the pilot?"

"He survived, with just a hangover. It wasn't even Shinji that saved him. Some sort of creature showed up and intervened, stopped Unit-01 before the Dummy Plug crushed the other plug."

-x-

"Aah," groaned Toji, as he woke up from his hangover, finding himself in the medical ward. "Wha…where am I?"

"The trauma center at NERV, where else?" The strict voice of Hikari went, sitting away from here.

"Class Rep? What are you doing here?" He asked her.

"As the class representative, I must see every student involved in a crisis," she explained, covering her true meaning.

"Oh, right. Okay. I almost expected Shinji to be here."

"Actually, he was here…for about five minutes, until he was summoned by his father. Something about treason or whatever it was that he was called for."

"That's foul. He didn't commit any acts of treason, whatsoever, at all. If anything, the only thing he's really guilty of is trying to save me when the Eva got possessed." There was a silence between them for a few seconds. "Class Rep?"

"Yes?"

"Could you tell my sister there's nothing wrong with me?"

"Sure."

-x-

"So, all we really know is that when Unit-01's Dummy Plug was about to crush the plug, this thing came outta nowhere and sliced off the arm, rescued the pilot of Unit-03, and damaged Unit-01 further when it tried to destroy it," explained Ritsuko to Misato, as they watched the remains of Unit-03 being collected.

"Let me guess: A total loss here, right?" Misato asked, thinking the Eva was beyond salvaging.

"Not really," she revealed. "It can be regenerated, given a month or two, as its damages were barely under the recovery limit. Though, it'll have to examined for any properties that give any hint that the Angel is gone or, at the very least, inactive."

"And the creature that saved the pilot wasn't an Angel?"

"No, it wasn't. It didn't even have an AT-Field. The only person that even had a conversation, however brief, with it was Shinji, who's to be interrogated by the Commander."

"I don't think he's gonna get much outta him. We've really gone too far this time."

-x-

"…I've told you all that I know," retorted Shinji to Gendo, standing in his office, handcuffed and holding a reasonable grudge against him. "What more could I possibly say to you? What more could I even WANT to say to you? That his name is Salvation and he's not an Angel, that he saved one of my best friends from getting crushed by that dumb thing you made me pilot, and will come after you the moment you do something like that again?"

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Gendo asked him, uncaring as usual.

"Yes, I do. I hope Salvation does come after you, and when he does, I'm gonna be there to watch him make you pay. I also don't want to pilot the Eva no more."

Walking away from the desk and his father, he ignored Gendo's words of contempt and left the office. Gendo then picked up the phone and called Ritsuko.

-x-

Miaka Suzahara, thought an old man that heard of the little girl that got injured during the Third Angel attack, such a sweet little girl…that doesn't deserve such crippling injuries.

Marked by a burn on his face's right side, he carted the food cart into the girl's room to bring her daily dinner, and noticed a proper young lady with freckles and pigtails.

"Good day to you, ma'am," he greeted her kindly with a bow.

"Same to you, sir," Hikari greeted.

Miaka, looking like a little six-year-old girl with short, dark hair, which was necessary for a head surgery she recently had, greeted the man with a small bow.

"Could you make sure she eats this, please?" He asked Hikari, as he set a tray down on the small table.

"Yes, sir," she answered.

"Thank you." He then slowly carted the cart out of the room. She deserves a life without those scars. What is the despair that tortures those that have something to do with those that wish to bring about the end of existence? And my granddaughter actually helped them with their plans? It's more like a plan to turn our lives into Hell on Earth, and my life was no longer my own when Second Impact happened. I can still remember it happening. Fifteen years ago, and yet I can recall it as though it were only yesterday. My wife's only request to me, moments before she died in my hands as my flesh started to rot and melt away, was that I promise her to help protect the world as best as I can.

Signing out for the rest of the day, the scarred man walked around the soulless streets of Tokyo-3 and noticed a boy that was simply walking around with no apparent destination.

-x-

Feeling relieved of such a troublesome responsibility, Shinji just wandered around Tokyo-3 with no destination, trying to forget his father and his cruelty. Not even realizing that he was being followed by a man with a scarred face, he kept on walking around.

"You know, walking without a destination doesn't ease a problem you have more than enough of a reason to walk away from," the man made himself known to him.

Shinji turned to face and went, "Huh?"

"Hey, aren't you that kid with the father that has issues and is loathed by many?" He asked him.

"I don't know who you're talking about."

"Gendo Ikari. Ain't he your father?"

"I don't consider him a relative of mine."

"That's okay. I don't consider him a person myself."

"Who are you?"

"I'm just a guy that wouldn't want anything more than to see Gendo Ikari's son, Shinji Ikari, take away from him everything that he has that he didn't earn. Judai Yuko, at your service."

"You…you look like I've seen you somewhere, but I can't quite place the face."

"You believe in reincarnation?"

"Nope."

"Me, neither… But hey, if I remind you of somebody, then that must mean we've met somewhere before, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

Suddenly, the city's sirens went off.

"What the… Oh, not again. Do they ever stop?"

"I don't think they'll ever stop."

"Don't you…have to go and do something about it?"

"No. I've decided not to pilot the Eva again. I can't. I won't."

"That's a good choice. Those…abominations are more trouble than they're worth. They're part of the reason you kids can't have a better education, since most teachers just go on and on about the day half the world went away. Can I ask you something?"

"Feel free."

"You have any aspirations for any careers in your future?"

"No. Actually, ever since my father had forced me to pilot the Eva, I've had no time to even consider a career. What's the point of even thinking about one? We're all going to die soon, anyway."

"Maybe… But there's no reason to not think on what your strengths in life are. What are your strengths? Any at all?"

"Well, there's my cello, I'm good at playing the cello."

"Wow. A musical prodigy, I presume?"

"No, nothing like that, I just picked up the habit of playing the cello when I was five. It took me a year to get good at playing, and I had no training involved."

Then, the guy dug into his pockets and pulled out an old iPod Nano, and tossed it to him.

"Take it," he told him. "It might help you find what you're looking for later on. Get to a shelter."

And then he ran off. Shinji looked at the iPod and found a song was being played on: The Day the World Went Away by Nine Inch Nails. Running to a nearby shelter, he was immediately grabbed by somebody behind him.

"Huh?! Hey!" He gasped, seeing that it was Kaji. "Just what do you think you're doing?!"

-x-

"It just penetrated the first eighteen layers of armor in one blast!" Hyuga told Misato.

"Send Unit-02 directly to the floor of the Geo-Front," she ordered. "What's the status of Unit-00?"

"Its left arm hasn't regenerated yet. It's been placed at the AT-Field neutralization point." Ritsuko said.

"Send Rei out in Unit-01," Gendo ordered. "Prepare a Dummy Plug as backup."

Unfortunately, the rapidly-repaired Unit-01 had rejected Rei the moment she got inside it.

Keep away! A voice of anger and contempt yelled at her mind. Get away from me!

"It's no good," Rei coughed up. "It won't work this time."

-x-

"I don't care what happens, Mr. Kaji. I will not pilot the Eva again, and there's not a thing you can say or do to make me," Shinji told him, having been dragged to an underground shelter with enough rations to last for a few months. "I've had enough of the Eva the very moment my… The very moment that man tried to kill Toji with my hands. I owe it to that Angel of Redemption, Salvation, that he still lives to this day."

Before Kaji could say something else to him, the door to the room was pried open and the very creature that stopped Unit-01 had returned.

"You know, there are great deals of charges for kidnapping and projecting oneself onto another person against their wishes, Ryoji Kaji. No wonder you're signing your death warrant so early." Salvation uttered, and then looked at Shinji. "I had the feeling we'd meet again. Though, I didn't expect it to be so soon and here, of all places, when there's an Angel of Might about to wreck stuff. Please, do yourself a big favor and get outta here while there's still time to run."

Salvation then grabbed Kaji and phased through the wall behind him. Shinji, listening to the guy, ran out of there and wind up back on the surface of the Geo-Front, where he saw Salvation holding up Kaji by his neck with one of his arms, on the left side, and in between Unit-02 and the newest Angel.

"Stand aside, girl inside the abomination," he told Asuka, who was holding a pair of cannons. "Do you dare not to listen to the words that are coming outta my mouth right now, young lady? How many people have to die for you, the ones that intentionally spill the blood of the innocent, and for your soulless goals of peace on Earth when your organization has no such desire for peace?"

Instead of listening, Asuka fired at the Angel of Might, but only created a smokescreen.

"That won't do," Salvation said, and then shot a ball of light at Unit-02, knocking it to the ground, just in time to avoid getting sliced and stripped of its arms. "And you? Take a spin for a while."

He threw Kaji like a boomerang and then made the smokescreen dissipate, revealing the Angel had arms like paper and they were deadly weapons. Quickly erecting a barrier, he flew like a bullet and shot through the Angel's AT-Field and armor-like exterior, right toward the core.

CRACK! He destroyed it in a matter of six seconds and made the Angel drop onto its front, just before he caught Kaji, who came back at him, just like a boomerang.

"I'm guessing you didn't have any fun while you were at it?" He asked him.

"Fun? Fun?! Does this look like a playground to you?" Kaji asked him.

"You know, you and Ms. Katsuragi would probably make a great couple if you simply stopped your goal for the truth. I'll tell you the truth because this is the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me, Christ: Your superiors, as well as those that run this crack operation to destroy the Angels, have the sick goal of causing Third Impact themselves, just to, artificially, evolve the human race and remove individuality. You dig any deeper, and you…will…die. Oh, and you got information I need." He told him, and then used one pair of his six arms to grab him by his head and enveloped him in an orb of red light for ten seconds. "Wow. Now, that is sick and disturbing. You know, there is more to love than simply sex. And get a real job! The spy theme died over twenty years ago!"

He flew down the ground and dropped him onto the concrete.

"Wow, he's good," said Shinji, having seen the Angel get defeated just like that by Salvation, and then saw him shot into the ground.

-x-

"Where is the target heading?" Gendo demanded, not liking this creature that destroyed the Angel so quickly.

"It's heading for…Terminal Dogma, sir." Aoba revealed.

"Rei," he then said, "you know what to do."

"Yes, sir," Rei responded, taking Unit-00 down to intercept the target.

-x-

"Oh, I'd listen to the words he'd say…but in his voice, I heard decay. The plastic face forced to portray…all the insides left cold and gray. There is a place that still remains…it eats the fear, it eats the pain. The sweetest price he'll have to pay…the day the whole world went away," Salvation sung, as he descended down a big shaft that lead to his destination. "The day the whole world goes away…will be the price everyone will have to pay. To avoid such a place that is filled with decay, I shall remove the fear, but leave the pain. The cruelest price the ones that sought this Hell will have to pay…will be the day that they go away."

Reaching the floor, he stopped in front of a sealed door and simply blew a hole into it, leaving no further obstacles to keep him from his goal. As he entered the large chamber, he found, to his disgust, the Angel known as Lilith, crucified to a large cross, with a large, red spear-like weapon embedded into its body, and stripped of its legs.

"Tell me I'm never alone and that I'm going home," he said as he floated over to her. "I'm learning to breathe again, so maybe we'll meet again. Lilith, I have no idea how long you've been waiting here for the day the whole world goes away, but that day must never come."

SMASH! He turned around and saw the blue behemoth that was Unit-00, carrying a rifle that was aimed at him.

Unit-00 fired a few rounds, but they did it no good. The rounds evaporated before they could even touch Salvation.

"Lady, stand aside," he requested of the girl inside it. "I have no quarrel with you and that abomination you drive. I cannot permit your masters to maintain their hold on this creature they wish to exploit for their own, sick goal. Would you really allow the human race to end?"

Unit-00 then stepped toward him and continued to fire the rounds, each one evaporating before they could touch him. Salvation assumed that she was just following orders like a doll…or didn't really care. But since this was a person, however grotesque with her origins and disgusted he was, that hadn't spilt the blood of innocence, willingly or under orders, he couldn't punish her with death like he had done to others that had anything to do with the Evangelions or Instrumentality Project, and had to be stopped for him to save the species. He created two malleable blades of energy and sliced off the remaining arm and legs of the blue abomination, crippling the behemoth and rendering it defenseless.

"I'm so sorry, but it must be this way…for everyone who's innocent to survive." He apologized to the girl, and then made himself larger than Lilith was and grabbed her body, the spear and all, in a big, left hand, and, like a ghost, phased right through the ceiling, going back up to the surface.

-x-

"Unit-00's gone silent!" Maya gasped, observing the damage done to the already-crippled Eva. "The target is going up. It's got something else with it."

Before any questions could be made on what, Salvation phased through the floor of Central Dogma with Lilith and gazed down at everyone in there.

"I must take this from the inside of this prison-like construct and away from those that wish to bring about the end of the world and throw your petty war away from children that don't deserve to die the way one of you tried to make happen with the purple abomination. I shall be back to take the other life-bringer that you mean to use as an end-bringer, and when I do return, your little…way-more-important-than-the-rest-of-the-world Instrumentality Project…will be undone by me. I come as a divine hand, an agent of the world, and it's my duty to keep the cold and evil of hearts from leading the innocent to ruination." He told them, looking at Gendo with a dark intensity that meant only bringing an end to him. "And you won't be able to avoid your judgment day, Gendo."

Then, Salvation disappeared with Lilith, disturbing Ritsuko and Misato among the many that witnessed this scene, but it enraged Gendo.

-x-

"Looks like no more Angels will attack now that what they sought is no longer around," said Shinji, looking down at Kaji. "Bless the Angel of Redemption."

-x-

"Urgh! The damages to the Geo-Front and Unit-00 are crazy, but to know that the Angel wasn't destroyed by the Evas, but an unusual creature that isn't an Angel, and that it took Lilith, is beyond compare!" Kiel grunted as he and the other members of the Committee were in a meeting to discuss what had happened.

"The only Evas undamaged were Units-01 and 02," said the fourth member. "Apparently, this creature had sufficient power to knock the Unit-02 down to avoid injury from the Angel, and then threw our bell on Ikari around like a boomerang just before destroying the core of the Angel. The reason Unit-01 was undamaged was because it refused to activate. It wouldn't respond to either the Unit-00 pilot or the Dummy Plug and shut down."

"This was a mistake from the beginning to give NERV to Ikari," the third member said. "And all because the bell did not ring."

"If it did not ring, then what is the point of the bell?" The second member asked.

"Rather than ring, we shall have it silenced…permanently," Kiel told them, "along with Ikari."

-x-

Three days later, the scarred man, Judai Yuko, had returned to Ms. Suzahara's room with her breakfast, only to find that it was empty, although there was a female nurse cleaning things up.

"Where is the little girl?" He asked her.

"She checked out yesterday," she explained. "She had fully recovered the day after that latest Angel attack had been dealt with. She's probably at home with her brother now."

"Oh? Hold on, the girl recovered…from a lotta injuries?"

"Yeah… It must've been something she ate the other day…or maybe she's got a guardian angel looking out for her."

He bowed his head and left out the room.

A guardian angel…or maybe it's something else. Maybe it's…something that means more miracles will happen. He thought, wondering about it himself.

-x-

"…Still, who does that thing think it is?!" Asuka shouted over the current dinner subject being Salvation. "It was supposed to be me that killed the Angel. Instead, I get knocked down by a tiny fly."

Shinji had ignored her as he tried to eat his meal, with Misato having a harder time with just one hand being mobile.

"What was it, anyway?" She had asked.

"That was Salvation," answered Shinji to them. "He's the Angel of Redemption, and based on what was seen and heard, he doesn't really like the Evas as much as he doesn't like NERV. He didn't even like Mr. Kaji, whom was then dropped to the ground before he went underneath it and came out with that giant thing."

"It just took Adam," went Misato, "saying that it…"

"'He', Misato. Not 'it'," Shinji corrected her.

"He just took Adam, and left saying that he'd be back."

"I'm beginning to doubt that was even Adam that he took."

"What?"

"Y'all say that Adam is a giant of light. But that Angel we kept locked at NERV didn't look anything like a giant of light. It looked more like a giant, marshmallow-like person like the one that was in the old Ghostbusters franchise…only it had ugly legs protruding from where it should've had legs. Oh, what do I know? It's not my problem, anymore."

"So says somebody that just quit," retorted Asuka.

"Let me tell you something: What would you have done?"

"I would've simply killed the Angel."

"Even when the pilot was still inside it and couldn't get out?"

"Yep."

Shinji then got up and went to his room, calling it a day. He really hated Asuka now. Not only had she confessed that she was willing to have killed the Angel, but she had confessed that even if the pilot was stuck inside it, she would've killed it, still. He had somehow doubted that she would've done what she claimed she would've done if it were Hikari that were in Unit-03 and not Toji. But that was up to speculation on whether she would do such an act or not.

What a bitch, he thought, taking out the iPod he was given three days ago and listened to the music in it. Her ego is all cold and heartless.

While some of the songs were simple rock, R&B, heavy metal and such, most of them were songs that actually tuned into what was wrong with the world today, and one of them was probably related to this Salvation that had saved his friend and stopped the recent Angel: Angel Without Wings by Zao. While he wasn't, technically, without wings, he was somewhat of an Angel, still, albeit a very unusual one, with power and a mission, whatever it truly was.

He's not the enemy, he knew well enough. He's not looking to bring the world to its end.

-x-

Hovering over the city of Tokyo-3 in the dead of night, Salvation, having dealt with Lilith by placing her in the far reaches of space, had one other agenda before he could do much of anything else to fulfill his other duties to the world. He flew down toward the apartment building of Misato's and knocked on her door, gently as he waited for a response. Stepping back some, he decided that an up close and personal conversation with one of NERV's people would help in what he sought for everyone's future that was free of the Angels and those that wished to decide the fate of many lives.

The door opened up and revealed Asuka, not Misato, staring at him in all his unnatural appearance.

"Aaaaahh!" She gasped and closed the door.

SLAM! The door closed and Salvation sighed, "That didn't go so well."

On the other side of the door, Asuka went back to her room and hid, while Misato, who had heard her screaming that the angel was here, grabbed her sidearm and went to the door. Opening it, she raised it up at Salvation, who did nothing to defend himself.

"Okay, I get that this is a tiring night and everything with my coming here of all places, unannounced, unarmed, and having a request to a person of NERV that I hope I can trust can help me with a problem I wish to deal with peacefully." He uttered.

Misato, still aiming her gun at his head, went, "What do you want?"

"It's your organization's abominations," he explained. "I would like them undone."

Putting her weapon down, she asked, "What do you mean, undone?"

"Your organization made weapons of massive destruction from the remains of the First Angel that you had no right to mess with, causing the Second Impact that destroyed the lives of many and threw the planet off balance. That greatly offended the world, which was a massive mistake."

Shinji showed up by the door and went, "You mean, it was a mistake to build the Evangelions?"

Looking at Shinji, Salvation nodded, as he went on, "No human being should try and cross the line between mortals and gods, no matter what the circumstances or goals are or were, and you shouldn't take into your possession what you, clearly, don't understand. I have dealt with Lilith, but now I must find Adam and, properly and humanely, dispose of him."

"But…wasn't that Adam you took from the Geo-Front?" Misato asked him.

"No. That was Lilith, the mother of humanity. You see, every human, that has ever lived or will ever live, is part of a different kinda Angel known as the Lilim. She was to be exploited by those that sought the end of existence. Adam, the father of the ones you call the Angels, while still among the living, is a prisoner of your crooked people, still, and must be set free."

"But the Evas are the only thing keeping this city safe from the Angels that are attacking us," Misato told him. "If we don't have them, we won't be able to defend ourselves if they continue to come."

Looking back to her face, Salvation professed, "If the Evas are undone…and the Angels do continue to come, my sister comrade, Eden, the Angel of Divine Justice and myself shall deal with them."

"You? And your sister? Why, you little…" Asuka, who had come back, but kept her distance from the guy to avoid any possible harm from him and went, "You knocked my Unit-02 down. Why should we believe you at all?"

"You were going to get killed, had I not," he shot back. "You know, you'd live a better life as a person if you learned to open up around people and admit your flaws and faults and accept those around you instead of driving them away or intruding on their personal space, like you do with his."

Asuka looked at Shinji and frowned.

"Don't give me that look," he told her in defense. "You do invade my space. You have problems…and I'm all for the Evas getting dismantled."

"I'm not," she shot back. "I think you're in league with the Angels."

"Please, don't compare me to Zeruel and Bardiel. They had almost sliced you to pieces and beat you easily, respectively."

"Zuruel? Bardiel?" Shinji questioned.

"I thought that, since you refer to them as Angels, you would, at least, know their names. Bardiel was the Angel that took control of the black abomination that had your friend inside it. Zuruel is the one I had prevented from sending her to her grave early. I'm not demanding that they be undone. I'm simply requesting that you do so. I don't like seeing children that are meant to have futures be driven into wars that don't concern them by people that could care less for children if they don't have any of their own or have any regards to how they may feel about doing something that they shouldn't even be doing at all. Nobody, not even children, should be forced to pay the ultimate price of having the rest of the whole world go away." Then, he vanished from sight. "I meant what I said before. If the Angels continue to come, my sister and I shall take care of them. But Adam must be dealt with, as well."

-x-

"So…Salvation requested that the Evas be unmade?" Ritsuko asked Misato the next day that they returned to NERV.

"Yes, that's exactly what he requested. He requested. Not demanded. Though, he refers to them as abominations. He also said that if the Angels keep coming, he and his sister would deal with them."

"I find that to be completely ridiculous, Misato." She told her, holding a small, stone tablet in her left hand that had some tiny inscriptions on one side. "What's this say, anyway? I can't read it on account of being so small."

"It's written in German," she explained to her, "and says that the life of a man must be lived as an individual and of contentment. This guy seems to stresses that each time he's thought of and seen, and we've seen what he's capable of doing: He defeated the Angel by himself, knocked Unit-02 to the ground, spared Asuka from probably losing her head from those fold-up limbs, dismembered Unit-00, and took off with the Angel that had been kept in the basement for who knows how long. And the best part is that he's not with the UN, NERV, and he's not even on a payroll."

"And he'd rather have us defenseless when the next Angel shows up?"

"Are you even listening to me? I just said that he said that he'd deal with them if they still come."

"Maybe, but I don't trust him. He could be lying, for all we know."

"You sound just like Asuka. She doesn't trust him, either. Shinji's the only person that agrees with him that the Evas should be undone, though, I think that's due to the desire of some personal revenge he wants against his father."

Ritsuko sighs and looks at the small tablet again, saying she'll talk to Gendo and see what will happen, but couldn't promise that he would listen, and meet up with her later. The only other problem she had on the agenda was a new pilot for Unit-03, since Toji had turned away from job now that his sister had 'miraculously' recovered from her injuries during the Third Angel assault and left with her, along with several others, out of the city for their own safety. Misato had also heard about him, that since his only reason for even agreeing to pilot the Eva was to get his sister better medical care, but now that she was better, he didn't have any further reason to continue that short career. But due to the Dummy Plug having flaws and many of the child population of Tokyo-3 leaving, there weren't many options of who could or would even commit themselves to the Evas. Asuka was one of the only two people by far that were devoted to them, though this was to feed her ego. Rei was… All she had was the Eva, and since she kept to herself at all times and every record of her past a complete mystery, no one was sure of what to make of her future.

-x-

"So…you guys are leaving?" Shinji asked Toji and Kensuke, as they walked down the rainy streets of the city.

"Just transferring to a part of Japan that hasn't been attacked by Angels," Toji told him. "And my sister's all better, so there's no longer any reason to pilot the Eva."

"I'm glad you quit, but Kensuke, why aren't you still asking to be a pilot?" Shinji asked.

"Toji told me what had happened to Unit-03, that Unit-01 ripped it to shreds after it became infected by an Angel," he told him, which made Shinji frown. "But we're not blaming you for what happened. I snuck onto my father's computer and found out what caused it to do that. That there was something called the Dummy Plug, and that it overrides control and forces the Eva to attack the target, and anything else that gets in the way, without mercy. After that, I just couldn't think of ever wanting to get into an Eva after that one time with the Fourth Angel. And then, there's the possibility of my father committing suicide."

"Now, you finally get the picture of how dangerous those things are," he told the otaku. "I hope we meet again after this all ends."

"Same here," said Toji.

"Me, too," added Kensuke last.

"Y'all better be careful out there," Shinji advised them.

"You, too," they responded, and then they walked their separate ways away from each other, off to somewhere else.

With some time to spare before he left the city with his sister, Toji went over to Hikari's to speak with her before she left with her sisters away from the city. Being what his sister had referred to as 'smitten' over Hikari, whatever that really meant, Toji had to admit that he had never thought of the Class Rep before in a romantic way, and now that he did, he couldn't help but have hope that, when this war with the Angels was over, he would like to try and have a real relationship with her.

Kensuke, wanting to see some military ship come to the port before he left, had ran off with his camcorder in hand, still driven by his otaku nature, while Shinji, hoping to ease more of his mind away from the Evas, walked around the rest of the city without a destination, going through alleys and dead-ends, trying to get as, mentally, far away from the cyborgs as possible.

If they get dismantled, it'll be a miracle that they won't be needed, anymore, he thought as he looked up at the sky. Now that I even think about it, just what were they going to do with the Evas AFTER the Angels were gone? This much doesn't add up. And if some of the Angels were just going to be exploited to bring about the end of existence, then that must mean that the Evas are meant for something much more than just dealing with an unknown threat from creatures that we don't know.

-x-

"Ikari, we've been thinking about this decision, long and hard," said Kiel to Gendo in another of their meetings to discuss the scenario, "and have decided that you cannot be trusted with the scenario any further. And the Evas couldn't even destroy the last Angel encountered, requiring the aid of a creature that, literally, reduced it to dust after it defeated it, and this was done after it knocked Unit-02 down. Effective immediately, you're to be replaced."

Gendo, having just ended a conversation with Ritsuko on the Evas, frowned at this new wrinkle in his own scenario. Having denied such a belief that this Salvation character would defend the city from the Angels if the Evas were dismantled, he chose to keep the program running, believing that he could still achieve his goal. But now, after hearing that the SEELE council has replaced him as the leader of NERV, he couldn't stand and watch as all of his plans come crumbling down.

"Your replacement shall arrive within forty-eight hours," one of the other members of the council told him. "Ikari…this is your fault we had to come to this parting of the ways."

"With the Spear of Longinus and Lilith gone, we will have to resort to using Lilith's only true offspring: Eva Unit-01." The sixth member of the council revealed.

"The fate of destruction is also the joy of rebirth," the twelfth member uttered. "You've tried our patience for the final time, Ikari."

"This meeting has ended," Kiel said, afterward, and the members of SEELE disappeared around Gendo, whom wasn't very pleased.

Gendo was furious. First, Salvation shows up, saves the former pilot of the damaged Unit-03, defeats the recent Angel, Zeruel, makes off with Lilith and the Spear of Longinus and then, later, requests that the Evas be decommissioned, and now he was relieved of his command over NERV. Well, he wasn't going to allow such a minute action against him ruin his plans to be reunited with his wife. He dug into his pocket and removed a small case. Opening it, he revealed the First Angel, Adam, still in his embryonic stage, and did the unforgivable: He ingested the Angel.

-x-

Two days past, and the new NERV commander arrived, replacing Gendo, who was then required to stay as an assistant sub-commander alongside Fuyutsuki. Unlike Gendo, the new guy was a lot younger and almost without a single serious bone in his body. They didn't call him Mugen Voorhees for nothing. He did his job without question, but only after he found out what he could about the enemy. He, unlike certain individuals, didn't view people as expendable and rather have the people give their opinion about the current situation. But Gendo wasn't going to allow him to undo everything he has done. Even if he'd been replaced, it was still his organization, and he would achieve his goal.

"I've heard that the last Angel was defeated by this creature that's been referred to as Salvation," he had said to Misato, "is such a thing true?"

"Yes," she answered, almost wanting to tell this guy directly what Salvation had requested the NERV organization do with the Evas.

"And that this guy had requested that the Evas be decommissioned under the promise that he and his sister would undo the other Angels, right?" Misato nodded to that, as well. "I think I should see this guy if he's ever seen again. He might be onto something. It's easier to believe something from someone when they've spoken to you directly."

The gears in Misato's head were spinning. If this guy was way different from Gendo, then the war with the Angels might end if Salvation's request was met. Nobody would have to suffer from the Evas any longer and better things would happen in due time.

-x-

"What in the name of…" Maya gasped, the image of the newest Angel had shown up on the monitor, looking like some sort of shining, almost-angelic creature with really large wings, as though it were made of crystal.

"That one's bigger than the other Angel that was seen in space," said Hyuga.

"What do we have so far on this Angel?" Mugen asked the bridge.

"For about a minute, it entered the planet's atmosphere…but then it left, afterward," Aoba explained. "It hasn't done anything else since, then except staying where it is."

Just what is it thinking of doing? Misato thought. It is waiting for an opportunity to descend…or is it going to attack from above?

RING-RING, RING-RING! Her phone rung, and she answered it.

"Katsuragi, speaking," she greeted.

"Well, ma'am," the caller on the other side responded, being Salvation, "have the higher-ups taken my request to heart?"

"You'd have to take it up with the new commander of NERV now that the old one has been replaced." She told him.

"Hold on a minute," he said, and her phone was disconnected.

"Huh?" She went, unsure of how to respond to this, but then the alarms went off again.

"It's that Salvation-guy," Maya gasped. "He's here again!"

They all looked up and saw a sphere of energy descending from the ceiling, carrying the angel that had stopped the recent Angel and made the request of the Evas being unmade.

"I believe an in-person meeting is more direct than a messenger speaking on my behalf if things don't work out right for oneself," Salvation uttered, dissolving the shield and floating down to the bridge. "So, I hear that this fool (pointing to Gendo) has been replaced by a newer person. Who's the new puppet master in charge?"

"I'm no puppet master," said Mugen to him. "So, you're the one that requested the Evas be decommissioned, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am," he answered.

"And that you would fight the Angels if they continued to show up?"

"Mmm."

"You actually think you can stop that (pointing to the screen that showed the newest Angel)?"

"The Angel of Birds, Arael? She's no trouble for me."

Mugen then said, "If you can really stop the Angels, the Evas wouldn't be required. Alright, you win, Mr. Salvation. The Evas shall be, as you put it, undone."

"Thank you very much, sir." Salvation responded, and then disappeared, only to reappear shortly after to say, "Oh, and while I was looking at the memories of a one Ryoji Kaji, the last person that had Adam, the Angel that I'm looking for to properly dispose of…is the guy that tried to kill an innocent using his own son, who's still gonna pay the price for attempted murder and everything (points to Gendo Ikari). Search him for the Angel he has hidden and make him give it up for the next time I come back for it."

And he disappeared again, leaving to deal with the Angel known as Arael. Everyone else on the bridge looked at Gendo, who was now backing away from them as they approached him.

"Cough up the Angel, man," Mugen told him.

-x-

"I seek no violence from you, Arael!" Salvation told the large Angel of Birds. "I seek a conversation with you about the future! The future of Earth, Adam, the Lilim, you and the other Angels of Adam's brood!"

The Angel shined a light on him and a telepathic, feminine voice went, Speak.

"Lilith's not on Earth, anymore! I took care of that! I hope to find Adam and properly remove him from harm's hands! I must know what you and your brethren aim to do when and if you find Adam! The spirit of this world doesn't long for devastation!"

The Lilim have taken Adam and violated his slumber, which has, in turn, violated ours, Arael told him. We long to return to Adam, to return to our eternal slumber until it is truly our time to wake, which shall be the day that all of the Lilim are gone, which isn't going to be for thousands of years. We were awakened by the evil ones much too early to allow them to bring about an end to this world of theirs. We don't desire that. We don't desire to fight with those that want the world to end. Return Adam to us and your world shall be spared.

"If I can get you Adam, do you promise to spare the Lilim?" He asked her.

You have my world, she promised, and took the light off him.

Arael then took to the darkness of space, hiding in its thickness.

Salvation, now that he had a better clarity of why the Angels were doing what they were doing, had to hurry if he was going to stop the world from falling into a greater disharmony than it had already fallen into. Quickly, he returned to Earth to obtain Adam.

-x-

"It didn't even look like he fought the Angel," said Asuka, wishing she had gone to beat the Angel instead of Salvation doing so.

"Whatever he did was probably better than what we've done so far," countered Shinji to her, having accompanied her and Misato, even though he wasn't an Eva pilot, anymore.

Waiting for Misato and the others to get down with interrogating Gendo, all they could really do was talk to each other. Shinji, probably the only person that could really see that Salvation was doing much better than NERV was doing against the Angels now that he'd shown up, wanted to know from Asuka and Rei what they really thought of him.

"I have no opinion of him," revealed Rei to them, and leaving it at that.

"He's a complete jerk," Asuka sighed. "I'm the best at fighting Angels."

"Oh, really? You could've almost gotten killed when you were about to get physical with Zeruel, like how Toji almost got crushed to death by Unit-01," Shinji, still irritated by her need to feed her ego. "You need to give up and throw in the towel and find a better calling. You can't spend the rest of your life piloting those…killers."

"He's right, you know," went somebody else on the bridge, but they couldn't see them. "You have your whole life ahead of you and if you spend it all on some bogus crud like this organization, you'll find nothing but misery and unhappiness in your days yet to come. And all my brother did was talk to the Angel in the hopes of trying to understand why they were doing what they were doing, which is more than I can say for you people, who never seem to try and simply talk to your enemy long enough to understand them…if they're capable of speech in one form or another. But I don't blame you. The older Angels weren't much for conversation."

Looking over the bridge and down at the MAGI, they saw a woman that reminded them a little of Salvation, but looking nothing like him. To Shinji, she reminded him of that female Transformer from the Beast Machines series that could turn into a large spider, except she had angelic wings on her back and was fair-skinned in tone, dressed in a bluish-purple kimono with a large, red ribbon behind it.

"Who are you?" Asuka demanded, not liking her at all.

"I am Salvation's sister, Eden, the Angel of Divine Justice. You must be Ms. Soryu, the girl that would've, if you had went up against Arael, gotten much more than just a bad headache (she then looks over to Shinji). And you must be Shinji, the only one to throw in the towel and turn away from the path you need not take. I commend you for doing the smart thing, which is more than I can say for the rest of your family, whom I can't imagine what drove them to their present state of damnation."

"Present state of damnation?" Shinji asked. "My mother's dead. She's been dead for years."

"Oh, that's not so true. I've done my homework on that woman that left you by yourself only to be abandoned by the stupid jackass that was, if left in charge, willing to sacrifice everyone's life for his own, sick goals. How can the so-called, great Yui Ikari be dead…if her body wasn't recovered? Didn't Salvation tell y'all of what would happen if the abominations were undone?" She asked them.

"He didn't say what would happen; only that he would fight the other Angels with you if they continued to show up." Asuka revealed.

"I guess I must fill in the gaps that he left. While it is true that we're willing to fight the remaining Angels, should they choose to continue to fight, those that, quite foolishly, gave their lives to their abominations shall be returned, regardless of the years that have passed or the limitations that are now. Though, that ugly blue one with the single eye guarantees no such promise, as it has no soul to grant it life. But the other two that do exist, the ones stuck inside them will be returned. Your mama's one of them, and the one in the four-eyed, red abomination… Well, I can only guess that Ms. Soryu knows which person is stuck in there. I have a large dislike of parents that just put their work before their children. Like of the question of how many people you have to kill to save the world, my question to people that have children is how many of your own successors will you discard in favor of your job or yourself? I know a job brings home the bacon and all, but if you're not gonna do anything with your children…excluding exploiting them and crushing their innocence and leaving them emotionally dead after months of severe trauma, in a vegetative, doll-like state as a result of mental contamination, or as a perfect pawn to help achieve your goals, what's the whole point of having children other than to make sure you're remembered in one way or another?

"I can't believe that man!" The four of them turned to see Misato returning, infuriated. "This is… Whaaahh! Who are you?!"

"That would be Eden, Salvation's sister," Shinji told her. "What's wrong with you?"

"Your father," she revealed. "He definitely has Adam, but refuses to hand him over, to such a point where, after he was told that he'd be replaced by Commander Mugen, he, quite literally, ate Adam."

"What?!" Eden gasped. "That soulless bastard ate Adam?! This is bad. This is very bad."

"Uh, did my ears deceive me…or was the sentence of that jerk eating Adam true?" They all looked up and saw Salvation, floating down to them.

"No, you heard right," Misato told him. "Gendo ate Adam, less than two days ago, when he was told he'd be replaced."

Salvation's Earth-green eyes turned golden-yellow as he said, "That man has sealed his own doom for trying to doom the rest of the world against its will. An artificial creature that is half-man and half-Angel is disgraceful of science enough, but to purposely devour a creature you're not, entirely, familiar with is dangerous. You don't know what could happen. Where is he?"

"The medical ward, strapped to a bed, with several doctors trying to recover the Angel," Misato informed. "The Evas are being abolished right now."

"Then, I think it's time we met Gendo, and put an end to him."

-x-

Gendo had told them it was hopeless, that Adam and he had fused together, and that there was no way that they could undo what he'd intentionally done. He'd get what he wanted in the end.

"You're a fool," he heard someone call him. "You don't know what that Angel could do to you. And the world doesn't have to end. Why are you doing this?"

It was Salvation, demanding answers from the former puppet master. But Gendo didn't answer him.

"Don't make me take the information from you by force, because if I have to, I will, but I won't be very merciful." He threatened him, but Gendo still didn't bend for him. "Okay (he sighs), have it your way."

The angel approached him and grabbed his head, breaking his orange-tinted glasses (which had disgusted him and made him assume that this guy didn't get much sun, anymore) and broke into his mind like a book, looking at everything he had ever thought of in his entire life. Like he did with Kaji, nothing Gendo had was hidden from him, and he found the ultimate pieces of information he had: This man only had love for his wife, Yui, despised the world, and was willing to help this SEELE organization destroy it and discard everybody, even his own son and those he either forced or persuaded into helping him, to achieve the sick goal of creating one such world where there was only herself and him.

This man…is a bad seed, he thought, seeing the thoughts of how he viewed his son every day of his little life. People show their worth in their own ways, not the ways you want them to show it. You don't discard people when you think they're useless to you…and you don't walk out on your family and ignore the potential repercussions of your twisted choices. A person with only love for one person is similar to a person without love at all: A miserable, pitiless creature that only does what you're doing to those around you.

Removing his hand from his head and left out the room to talk with the others, and knew they weren't going to be pleased with what he discovered. He was starting to regret ever having read his mind in the first place and knowing all of those dark secrets that most of this organization had no clue on except the ones that were, originally, and might still be, helping him. The process of elimination was in force now.

-x-

"…So he, along with Dr. Akagi and Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki, were in cahoots with this SEELE group, that want to end the world," Misato went, "and the only thing he wanted was to be with his wife again, and was willing to sacrifice everyone to achieve that goal? That's messed-up."

Commander Mugen, having wanted in on the conversation, along with Misato and the pilots, sighed as he said, "I had no idea my superiors were behind this all."

Eden, not liking this any more than they all did, uttered, "I think that stupid spy that used to bang you also knew some of this. We should probably see him and demand his Intel."

"Eden, I had read his mind already before I stopped Zeruel. He, intentionally, handed Adam to Gendo, is an agent working for the Japanese Ministry of the Interior, was going to try and get Shinji here to pilot one of the abominations again after telling his sob story of how he betrayed his brother and friends to some soldiers to save his own life after Second Impact had occurred, and knew, perfectly well, that his actions against NERV and SEELE would cost him his life. One of them, or even both of them, was going to kill him in the end." Salvation told her.

"Well, they haven't killed him yet. You can't bury secrets by killing people you only want to use and not expect the secrets to stay buried. Before Arael even showed up, I caught the damn fool trying to break into Ms. Katsuragi's blue Renault and beat him senseless as I told him the more he resisted, the more he was going to die from his work as a spy. I knocked him out and hid him in a safe place."

"Where'd you hide him?" Misato asked her.

"In the trunk of your car," she answered. "I had to tie him up three times to ensure that he couldn't get free and left a small guardian in charge of making sure nothing bad happens to him."

"Leaving a guard in charge would mean that you don't really like the guy personally," said Salvation.

"Of course, I don't. What gives him the right to try and persuade me to let him go by trying to act like a ladies' man and hit on me? That's one of the most inhuman moves a person can make. I could've simply read his heart to find out if he was incapable of true love, but that I save to those that are truly undeserving of their lives."

"Then, we'd best go get him and make sure he also stays in one piece."

"And why, exactly, is the redhead girl that invades everybody's personal space and intentionally harms people that may try to reach out to her, peacefully, just to feed her ego, attracted to such a disgrace that, while not in the same boat as the man that embraces his own brand of genocide, behaves like an ass?"

All eyes were then on Asuka, who had nothing to say about what had been said.

-x-

Kaji didn't like this. Sure, he tried to convince the mysterious girl to let him go by offering to date her, but was rebuffed, rather harshly, by her, and tied down three times to ensure he couldn't go anywhere until God-knows-what happened to him. This was beginning to be a very bad time in Tokyo-3's division of the NERV organization. And even being locked in Misato's trunk wasn't helping him.

"…It's a good thing he's still there," he heard somebody outside, sounding like the woman that beat him down faster than anyone could say, "Who did it and ran?" "That means this jerk's still here."

BANG! Somebody slammed on the exterior of the trunk before opening, revealing him to a group of people that knew him or knew of him.

Oh, boy, he thought, not expecting to see Misato or Shinji or Asuka, along with Salvation and the girl that locked him in the trunk to begin with.

"You tied him up like a mummy, sis," said Salvation to Eden, examining the way Kaji was tied up. "Fool couldn't get away, even if he tried moving like a worm."

Removing the duct tape from his mouth, Salvation heard the guy yell from the pain it caused.

"Aw, come on!" Eden uttered. "Getting dropped to the ground during a war is painful. A little tape removal and you're groaning like a whore. Your work as a spy will get you killed if you keep this up. Face the music with what you've done and you just might live to see your final day as an old man that gained a future worth living in instead of a fool that did some stupid things all for the sake of finding the truth. You really are a jerk."

"Whoa, down, Eden." Salvation uttered. "Mr. Kaji, you might wanna consider reevaluating your social status as a person and seek redemption. Those that are sacrificed to save oneself by oneself, you cannot obtain forgiveness from until after you're dead, and even then, they would hold a grudge against those that betrayed their trust in them. And if you continue to try and manipulate those still alive with your obsession for the truth, you'll either wind up with people unwilling to accept you as you are, want you dead, or just want you outta their lives for good or until you shape up. Give up and seek a better life than the one you're living, and leave the job of the truth to those that already know the truth and willingly give it to those that have every last right to know."

"I can't," Kaji told them. "I must seek out the truth and…"

"Enough with your obsession with the truth," he cut him off, growing more irritated with him than he did with Gendo. "I've already told you the truth the day I stopped Zeruel, that your superiors, along with the ones that run this NERV organization with Gendo, want to bring about the end of life as we know it once the Angels were dealt with, and were more than willing to sacrifice everyone they saw fit to do away with, and if you try to dig any deeper, you will die."

"And I'm supposed to believe you?"

"I can go and snitch the rest of your personal life with Ms. Katsuragi during your college years, if you want to get vindictive with me. But I'd rather be that to those that want to delve in powers that they have no right to delve in."

"What could you possibly know about my college years?"

"You used to spend an entire week in bed with her, doing nothing but just being lazy."

"Oh, God, this is getting us nowhere," Eden groaned. "This guy's a major dick, the asshole that ingested Adam is an even-bigger asshole, and we have no way of separating the Angel that, unwillingly, caused Second Impact from the fool that simply wants to be alone with his wife. Can I make a suggestion on both men?"

"Feel free to, sister."

"Mr. Kaji does hard time in an institution while we just hand Gendo over to the Angels as a means to humanely dispose of him." She suggested.

"No, that wouldn't do…but I'm going to try something different with Gendo," he told her back. "He claims that Adam has fused with him…I shall, simply-but-brutally, defuse the two."

Salvation then flew off back to NERV HQ, leaving them by themselves to ponder what he meant by 'simply-but-brutally'.

"He really wants this war to be over with without sacrificing the rest of the world," Mugen uttered. "Does he ever relax, Ms. Eden?"

"He rarely ever does. He's got a dream he wants to achieve after this has all been resolved, though, but I keep telling him that what he wants to do for the world after this is simply insane. It ain't a double-cross or attempt to destroy something, mind you, but just near-impossible."

"What does he want to do after this is over?" Shinji asked her.

"Oh, I can't tell you, but if you show patience, you'll definitely enjoy the outcome."

RING-RING! Mugen's phone went off and he answered him.

"Yes? Really? Okay, thank you." He went, and told the other, "That was from the Eva cages. While the Evas were being dismantled, the cores of Units 01 and 02 started reacting strangely, and then, the next thing the workers knew, a pair of women were, literally, expelled from the seemingly-dead cores now."

Shinji and Asuka looked at each other before running back to NERV HQ themselves.

-x-

Feeling whole for the first time in a long time, Kyoko Soryu had never expected to be free from her would-be imprisonment in Unit-02…and with her body restored to her, as well. While, in a lesser degree, Yui Ikari hadn't expected that somebody, despite most of her own beliefs that everything happens as it must, would defy all of destiny and alter the course of the world.

How can something like this happen? She thought, unsure what to make of it, and unsure of what to make of Salvation interfering with things that didn't concern him.

Asuka…if I see you right now, I promise not to leave you again, to never put my work ahead of your well-being for as long as I may live now. Kyoko thought.

At simultaneous times, the women were visited by their children, never believing that they would ever see them again in this life.

Kyoko, pretty much true to her word, didn't want to hurt Asuka again. She invited her daughter over to where she was laying and wished to strike up a conversation with her.

"Asuka," she started, unsure how to finish her sentence. "How have you been?"

A lame first sentence, coming from a woman that had been declared dead for at least ten years, but could you blame her? She'd been gone for such a long time and really wanted to know her daughter as who she really was to her: Her child, not a pilot.

Asuka, unsure of how to respond, simply answered, "Awful, I guess."

"About what happened when you were four, Asuka," Kyoko then resumed, recalling everything she, or rather, her living remains, had done to her daughter, "I am so sorry for what I did to you. I put my work ahead of your well-being, and I nearly strangled you, afterwards. I never meant for any of it all to happen to you. For you to feel second to something that wasn't worth anything or that you had to prove you were better than somebody else's child."

Asuka, as much as her heart wanted to believe her mother, her mind was telling not to. Not yet. Not until she proved how sorry she really was and was willing atone for her years of absence. Forgiveness had to be earned, not simply given.

Can I truly forgive her, as well? She thought, listening to her mother, still, silently wishing that Salvation could've just told her if her mother was capable of being forgiven. Can I ever, truly, forgive her for leaving?

"…But now that the Eva's gone, I hope I can be a better mother to you, Asuka," Kyoko said to her. "I want know you more as a person… As my daughter."

Something inside Asuka told her to believe her mother and give her a second chance, that she deserved a second chance.

"Do you mean it?" She asked her. "You swear not to put your work before me again?"

"I swear on my life, on my death in the future yet to happen…and my very soul, Asuka. I swear upon it all. I promise." She answered her.

Meanwhile, Shinji's conversation with Yui was…less than extreme…and even lesser than warming to the heart: Due to his damaged, childhood memories, he had no former recollection of her appearance until now, and barely knew her due to the Eva. She looked like an altered version of Rei, whom he hadn't seen since the Angel incident after the one that involved Lilith being taken away to ensure that people would be spared an unforgivable demise, older and prettier than she was.

"I, uh…" Shinji, even when meeting her for the first time in too long of a time, couldn't find any words to speak to her. "Uh…"

"Are you in good health, Shinji?" Yui asked him.

Truth be told, it was her lamest first question to him outside the Eva.

"Yes," he answered her.

"What about in here?" She pointed to her head, and then her heart. "Or in here?"

"In here," pointing to his heart, "it's always the same: Empty. And as for my head, the last few days have been different…and in a better way, as well."

"Describe them for me, please," she told him.

"Well, I, uh…I haven't lost my friends. The sister of one of them got better from the Third Angel attack, there's no more Evas, and…now you're here…and you're alive."

"Well, that's good to know," Yui told him, unsure of how to ingest all of that.

"Why'd you do it?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Why'd you make the Evas? What possessed you to make those…abominations that do nothing but hurt the people they were supposed to protect?"

Yui looked away from him. How could she explain the reasons to him?

"I refuse to accept excuses, Mother," he told her. "I want the truth."

Deciding to just come out with it, she turned to face him and answered, "I just wanted to ensure a bright future for you, Shinji."

"A bright future?" He questioned, curious, but then remembers something from his past that resembled her answer to him. The smell of oil and blood, the sound of alarms and screaming, a giant robot-looking thing with a wicked grin, and her voice saying to me how bright the future would be.

As they continued to converse, Rei stood outside the room they were in, hidden away so that they couldn't see her, wondering how Shinji was feeling about his mother being brought back after years inside the Eva. She hoped that he would be happy later on, after he had much time to talk things through with his mother (as well as to, hopefully, make up with her and forgive her for her absence in his life). Then…with some time for later, she herself had hoped to talk with the young woman whose image she had been copied from by the former commander of NERV.

-x-

CRASH! Salvation, being true to his words, was trying to defuse Adam from Gendo in the best way available: Beating the ordinary man to a pulp! He threw the man around the room, broke his right arm, which contained Adam, looking as though the Angel grafted onto him, gave him a bloody nose and broke one of his ribs. When he was done, he raised him up to his feet by his neck and grabbed his right arm.

"You aim to be God? Well, you can forget it." He told Gendo, crushing the nerves of his limb until he felt no sensation in his fingers whatsoever.

"Aurgh!" He groaned, glaring at Salvation.

"Maybe you'll get it right in your next life, where such delusions of godhood are not in your goals."

"You can't do this to me!"

"I already have. I'm not going to let you ruin the lives of those around you just because you want to be in a world with just your wife and you. Two people in a world by themselves is a pitiful and miserable existence, Gendo. Yui would grow bored of it, wish to be around others, no matter how long they'd be around. To return to a state of nothingness or beginning isn't the way that people were meant to live, and while science is your power, it's also your hindrance, your flaw. You abuse it, like creating the Evangelions, meant for ending the world of Man. I won't put up with you for that, and since you have no feeling in your arm now, Adam will be cut loose from the shackles you put him in."

Salvation then used his strength to rip Gendo's arm off right up to the shoulder blade, and then seared the remaining flesh to cauterize the stump.

"Aaaaaaurgh!" Gendo yelled in pain, not feeling his arm being ripped away, but feeling everything else that happened to him.

Salvation dropped him to his knees and looked at the limb, seeing Adam acting up: The remains of the arm disintegrated and fell to the ground, leaving only Adam, exactly as he was before Gendo ate him. This pleased the agent of the world as he gathered up the Angel and left Gendo to look at the mess of existence his lost arm had become.

"Come back here!" He demanded toward Salvation, who ignored him.

"I can't stay. Adam wants to go home, back to his slumber." Salvation responded.

-x-

Ritsuko and Kozo didn't mind the dark, or the stale smells of their detention cells, but being accused of the wrong-doings that Gendo was responsible for, they minded that. After Salvation revealed that they knew what was going to happen and did nothing to stop Gendo or their organization founders, SEELE, Mugen and Misato had them confined to the detention cells until further notice. Kozo went peacefully, but Ritsuko was anything but cooperative, still disbelieving the angel's ability to stop the Angels they were formerly fighting before his arrival with the Eighth Angel. She felt that she didn't deserve this sort of punishment, regardless of her role in helping Gendo to achieve Third Impact once the Angels were all defeated.

"If you're lucky, you may only get a few short years in prison," they remembered Mugen's words before being placed in their cells. "We'll be back when we find out what do with you after the current situation's been dealt with."

Kozo knew that his involvement with NERV wouldn't stay quiet forever, that somebody would find out that it was either join NERV or be killed and forgotten about. He just didn't expect that his secret would be outed by a supernatural creature that meant to do right. Now, he wondered, if he did get lucky, how many years he would serve in jail for aiding Gendo. Five years? Fifteen years? Maybe ten years?

Ritsuko was thinking differently: How would she be able to convince the authorities to let her get off without a penalty? She didn't want to serve any number of years in jail or face the death sentence, even if it was discovered that she was also willing to sacrifice the Evangelion pilots if the situation against the Angels were to warrant it.

Suddenly, the alarms went off again, indicating that another Angel was around, but the worst part was that the Evas weren't around to protect the city or the Geo-Front.

-x-

"Oh, it's Armisael," said Eden to the others, seeing the glowing double helix over the outskirts of the city. "It must be here to pick Adam up."

"It couldn't have come at no better time than today," added Salvation, holding the case that contained Adam's body. "Shall we go end this pointless feud, sis?"

"Gladly."

They floated off the bridge and vanished from the Geo-Front, appearing on the screen, outside, right in front of the Angel of the Womb.

-x-

"Were you informed by Arael that we would find Adam and bring him to you?" Salvation asked the Angel.

A telepathic response was sent back, stating, Yes.

He opened the case and levitated Adam's embryonic body out in front of them.

"But I must confess a problem," Salvation told Armisael, "while his body has been recovered, the member of the Lilim that had him confined had failed to mention that his soul was not present within."

Armisael's form changed from its double helix and assumed a shape similar to the previous Angel, Arael, and used one of its tiny appendages to examine the Angel it was spawned from.

You're right, it told them. Adam's soul is not within his body. This is inadequate. Father's soul must be retrieved, as well, and it's your task to find his soul and set it free.

"We shall find the soul of Adam," said Eden to the Angel. "Wherever the guilty Lilim have hidden his soul, they cannot hide it forever."

I shall take Father's body from this pit of damnation…and I shall return for his soul when you have found it.

"This is sufficient enough," Salvation responded. "See you, then."

The Angel then resumed its double helix form, with Adam's body in its center, and left the scene, with no blood being shed at all.

-x-

"Wow, that was…pretty efficient," went Asuka, unable to believe her eyes as she had seen it all on the screen.

"This guy and his sister really are capable of fighting an Angel without the need for violence," added Kyoko. "Now, all we gotta do now is find Adam's soul and everything's forgiven."

"That's if we find it," said Mugen to her. "We have no idea on how to find it or what it looks like."

"Souls are always bound to something in life," said Yui to them, "like a body. He could've been reincarnated into a new body and kept separated from his original one."

That's when Misato recalled something that she heard from Ritsuko: About how the Angels are, somewhat, related to humans.

"Someone knows what we want to know," she told them, and then left. "I'm going to see her right now. I'll be back when I got the answers."

-x-

"It would appear that everything we have striven for has been reduced to nothingness," said the seventh member of the SEELE council.

"The removal of the Lance of Longinus, Lilith, the original Evas, and now Adam," said the second member. "Who are these two that dare to undo all that we worked so hard to achieve?"

"They call themselves Salvation and Eden, claiming to be agents of the world," the ninth member of the council revealed. "It was through them, the original pilots of Eva Units-01 and 02 were retrieved."

"We must find out what it is that they plan to achieve with the removal of the Evas and Angels," demanded Kiel to them. "We must know who they are and what they want. What they really want."

"Luckily, for us, they don't know about our Eva Series, which is now complete. All that we need are the Dummy Plugs to be mass-produced for all twelve of them." The twelfth member told them. "We can launch them when the plugs are finished."

"Not before the last Angel is dealt with," Kiel reminded him. "Which may be impossible now, as the last two Angels were simply driven away, not killed."

"Commander Mugen has also cut his ties with us, siding with those that have sided with these angels." The eighth member told them. "They must all be dealt with."

-x-

"…Tell me what I want to know, Ritsuko," demanded Misato to the faux-blond.

"This conversation's being monitored, you know," she told her back.

"I don't care. You know something about the First Angel before and after the Second Impact, which was, intentionally, started by people. Spill it out! Now!"

The faux-blond stayed quiet for a few seconds before speaking up.

"I heard things about what the Katsuragi Expedition was doing at Antartica before Second Impact," she started. "There was some sort of secret experiment involving the First Angel and human DNA, trying to create a hybrid of some sort through Adam."

Misato, being the type of person to never let a particular memory die, recalled not the experiment that caused the Second Impact, but the Second Impact itself. The Angel, the scarring, the nightmares and the scent of smoldering blood that was above the melted ice and the escape capsule she was in. Also, she knew nothing of such an experiment, only that her father brought her along on the expedition for the sake of convenience. It was that same Second Impact that took the life of her mother, leaving her an orphan with no other relatives, of whom all died before or during the catastrophe. If her father knew what he was doing that day of that horrid expedition, he was one of the real monsters of people and not the Angels that, originally, wanted them dead…or so she had thought before the arrival and overall interference of Salvation and his sister, Eden.

"…If that time, an Angel was born, taking a human constitution…and if the Committee got their hands on it…then, according to the MAGI, everything else seems consistent."

After obtaining what she could from her, Misato left out to tell the others what she knew.

-x-

"…Figures that people would try to manipulate what they weren't meant to understand," said Eden, infuriated by what they had all discovered. "Trying to combine Angel and human DNA together to produce a hybrid? It's like trying to…to splice a cat and dog together to create a shisa."

"A what?" Yui and Shinji had asked her.

"Huh? Oh, right. This is a Japanese society, not a Chinese one. Sorry." She had explained.

Salvation, not really concerned about his sister's opinion at the moment, looked around the bridge and saw that someone was missing.

"Salvation?" Mugen asked him.

"Where is Ms. Ayanami?" He asked them, and they all noticed as well that Rei Ayanami was not there with them.

-x-

Deciding not to get involved in any of their future conversations, Rei had left the inside of the base and went straight to the NERV gardens. Everything had changed for her within just a few days. Her Eva was no more, Gendo Ikari had been relieved of his command over NERV and was incarcerated for his crimes, along with Kozo Fuyutsuki and Ritsuko Akagi for aiding him, and Shinji and Asuka had their mothers returned to them, which left her feeling alone.

I feel so empty now, she thought, sitting in front of one of the garden pools.

"Figures, I'd find you here by yourself," she heard somebody behind her, and she turned to face them. "It's not the end of the world yet. It won't happen, anymore. Whatever plans that were made for you that had no regards toward the rest of your life are over and done with, leaving your future up to you and those that you allow in your life to decide over. You can do or be anything you want."

Eden, using words of common sense to the former First Child, wished she had done something more with her plain expression. It reminded her of those old sayings that keeping a face with a constant expression is supposed to be irreversible once it stays on. Seeing the girl never changing her expression was disturbing in and of itself, and boring.

"Those biomechanicals weren't gonna bring anyone any true happiness," she continued. "They would only bring further death and destruction to many innocent lives. A life based on Evangelion is an empty life with no alternate routes. Don't you have any dreams or ambitions that are your own?"

Rei answered, "No."

Eden then sat down next to her and tried to make nicer to her.

"Do you have any hobbies?" She tried asking. "I hear that some girls like to ride horses or play music."

"I've never ridden a horse…or play music."

Eden didn't like how her part of the conversation was going, and felt the need to understand this girl by means of exploring her past.

"If I may, I'd like to shake your hand," she told Rei.

"Why?" She asked the angel.

"I would like to be a friend of yours, and, usually, a handshake is the best way to start. Becoming friends isn't a order or demand, it's a choice and a request. You make the decision on your own and live with it. And…people can't always get by without a friend or two. You can't be afraid of the invisible, intangible bonds that people form with others. A life of loneliness is similar to a life of universal unity: Even if you're around others, if you don't know them and they don't know you, you're alone. I see you, but that's not all that I want to do around you. I would like to talk to you more than what I'm doing right now, and I'm sure that's, exactly, what Shinji has been trying to do ever since you two met. I see him, and he wants to be more than just a face in your life. He wishes to be your friend and doesn't expect much but the same thing. Do you…feel anything for him?"

As if on cue, Shinji and Yui had shown up at the gardens and Yui hid with Shinji behind a pillar as Eden got Rei to speak up.

"When we first met and he touched me," she started, "I felt nothing. The second time we touched, it felt a little queasy. When we touched the third time, I felt warm inside. It was the heat from his hand, even through the suit. But the fourth time…I felt happy. He was concerned about me."

Shinji recalled those times that she was talking about, but shuddered at the second time they had physical contact, simply because she was naked at the time. And the first time was at a bad time. But gave a little smile for her saying that she felt happy that he was concerned about her the fourth time.

"If you were to ask him if you could hold his hand again for the fifth time, would you tell him how you feel, then?" Eden asked her.

Something inside Rei flickered on, and she said that she would.

"Would it be right to tell him?" Rei asked her.

"Whether positive or negative, how a person feels toward another person should be expressed."

Rei then held out her hand to her, and Eden made contact, which allowed her to explore the girl's past and see what was there to be known by her. The angel was displeased at what she was seeing: Rei was less of an abomination and more of a victim being exploited as a type of homunculus, except that the soul inside her came from or was that of Lilith's, the mother of the Lilim. Her creator and overall master was Gendo, using whatever was salvaged from Yui Ikari when she attempted to activate Unit-01 in its first contact experiment, whatever those remains were, and he made sure that she was kept to himself at all times until he decided what else to do with her. She was even able to see that she had died once and that she wasn't even fourteen years old, but really around ten or eleven, with her body aged rapidly by science. But what really disgusted her was that she, initially, didn't have any relationships with anyone other than the guy that didn't care at all for his son until after he had arrived, breaking some of the ice around her heart.

You poor soul, she thought, unable to see how any person that hated the world could create something so miserable and without any joy. "You…you have a good grip. I like that."

Yui then had Shinji go see them as she continued to hide.

"Um, Ayanami?" He called out to her. "Everyone is looking for you… Wow…what a nice place this is. It's beautiful."

"I…never knew this place was here," Rei told him.

"You mean…you worked here for so long…and never knew?" He asked her.

"I was never told to come here," she confessed.

"A positive sample of a true haven," went Eden, chuckling at the beauty of this garden. "I could spend a decade here. I might do so after this war is dealt with. I shall now take my leave and prepare for the search for Adam's soul."

She took off and left them alone, allowing for Rei to say whatever she needed to say to Shinji. To her, Eden was right: Shinji deserved to know things about her if they were ever to be friends…or more than just that. She wasn't going to throw such an opportunity away because of what was going to happen in the past. Also, she didn't want to be feeling empty, anymore.

"Ikari-Kun," she went, but he cut her off.

"Please, Ayanami," he said, "call me Shinji."

"Shinji," she then resumed, finding it better to call him by his given name, "may I hold your hand again, please?"

Shinji just realized that this was the first time he heard her say 'please', and responded, "Okay."

He gave her his left hand and felt happy that she was happy when she held it. When Rei held it, she felt her heart beating like somebody had filled it with something to make it go faster. The feeling was unknown to her. It was similar to the last two times they touched…only they were simultaneous this time. His hand was warm and she felt happy.

"Thank you," she told him.

"You're welcome," he responded, and they walked away, still holding hands.

-x-

A week had passed since that day, with very little happening outside of NERV HQ, though Salvation was okay with that, as a lot happened with the people. Shinji and Rei were interacting like a regular pair of preteens (once everyone was past the topic of Rei's origins and how she was just a pawn in a sick game of Gendo's and started treating her like a person before this war was over), while Askua and Kyoko were making up for lost time by doing many mother-daughter things together. Ryoji Kaji, since Misato required some of his assistance in preparing for any troubles in the future, was allowed to wander free around NERV…but was restricted to certain areas he had no clearance to enter. Yui, after coming to the heart-breaking realization that her husband wasn't who he used to be, anymore, filed a divorce from him. Fuyutsuki was let out of holding after Salvation examined the contents of his mind further and found that, while knowing what Gendo and SEELE were planning to do, was unable to go public with what he found out about them because he'd been threatened with his life by them…and only because he agreed with Yui's former intentions of the Instrumentality Project instead of theirs, revealing that Yui's intentions were just to end all of suffering for the good of the world, but after spending over a decade in the Eva, she had concluded that such a goal was completely unobtainable if it came at the cost of so much pain and death. Ritsuko had also been let out, but on a type of probation: She couldn't leave the Geo-Front until after the last Angel had been found and the war over with.

Eden sat atop the pyramid of NERV HQ, looking up at the city's underbelly above her, pondering a powerful feeling in her heart. She felt something was going to happen soon, but couldn't place a finger on the subject of how soon it would happen. It might've been the last Angel that they were looking for, but it also felt like something else, all the same. But whatever it was, she knew her brother and she could handle the situation.

An Angel with a human appearance, she thought, trying to picture what the last so-called enemy could look like with a human form. Of course, if at all like the other Angels, the reincarnated Adam could be a little disturbing: A perfect human being, maybe…or a severe case of physical deformities that limit the ways he could perform with his body. Whatever his new shape, all I know is that he must be sent away with the other Angels remaining for there to be absolute harmony on this planet.

Just then, Salvation appeared out of thin air behind her and said, "Sister, we may have found something relating to the last Angel."

She turned to face him and smiled.

"Really?" She asked out of curiosity.

"Yes," he responded. "Let's go."

-x-

"…This was what we could find about anything that may relate to the Angel," Yui explained to them as they all gathered around her screen. "I checked for births that occurred after Second Impact and discovered something that shouldn't be right. There was only one birth that occurred…and it was on the day of the Second Impact. Here it is…and here's the most likely person to be Adam's reincarnated soul."

They looked at the picture and almost swore that they had déjà vu: The young man had pale skin, greyish-white hair and red eyes, almost as though he were a male version of Rei, especially with his blank expression, as though there were no emotions within him at all.

"I wish I could doubt that this guy may be our Angel, but I don't," went Salvation.

"So now, the question is how do we find him and deal with him?" Misato questioned.

"We could try waiting," suggested Shinji to them.

"That might be the wrong thing to do," Eden told him. "The sooner we find him, the better."

"If this boy is the living container of Adam's soul, and he was acquired by people with dark intentions, then they would have him. They would probably keep him close, beyond the reach of others." Salvation realized.

"Then how are we supposed to find him?" Yui asked.

To be continued…

A/N: I have to break this into two chapters in order to complete it better, but I hope the second chapter will be made in due time. Please, make do with this chapter until then. Review, as well, please.