Creation began on 01-25-19

Creation ended on 02-03-19

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Past: Mystery

There weren't enough details to ascertain what the mysterious thing that attacked and defeated the Sixth Angel at sea. Not even the footage that had been confiscated from Kensuke Aida could tell NERV anything, and because the footage was useless, they had to give it back to the boy. As important as it was to find out what this thing was, nobody seemed too concerned about it to consider the possibility of it returning.

"Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki, sir," a woman called out to the elder as he walked down the hall in NERV HQ, "there's a call for you from a Hiroko Shinjo!"

"Hiroko?" Fuyutsuki responded, curious as to why she would be calling him.

The NERV employee handed him a cordless phone and walked away, allowing him privacy to take the call.

"Hello, this is Kozo Fuyutsuki," he uttered, but then his eyes widened. "What?"

"Help, please," the woman on the other end cried, giving him the location of where she was before the call ended abruptly.

Fuyutsuki didn't have many friends that still had their careers to this very day that were still alive, but Hiroko was like a sister to him; she once saved his career prior to Second Impact and he owed her a favor. But what confused him about her call was what she said.

It was something about a…a bird, bat or dragon.

-x-

"…What's that you got there, Shinji?" Toji asked as Shinji was looking at the magatama he found during gym time at school.

"Nothing," he answered as he put it back in his pocket, "just a trinket."

"What do you suppose that thing was?" Kensuke asked them as they sat on the benches after running for five minutes. "I kept looking at the footage, but all I see is water and debris."

"I don't know what that thing was," Shinji expressed, "but if it was able to defeat an Angel, then it must've been powerful."

"Stronger than even an Eva, Shinji?" Toji suggested.

"Maybe… I mean, it just took out an Angel in less than five minutes. An Evangelion would've taken longer."

Both boys realized that Shinji was right; an Evangelion, due to being dependent upon external power and a cable or batteries to supply it, would've been hindered by such a hindrance. Whatever that thing was, it didn't exhibit any such limitations.

"Better to talk about this thing…than to talk about her," Toji expressed his opinion, pointing up to the school pool where the girls were, referring to Asuka, who was transferred to the school.

-x-

"…Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki left?" Misato asked Ritsuko.

"Yes, and in quite a hurry," the faux-blond answered her. "It was probably nothing, but he said he'd be back in two days. The island he was going to is far out."

-x-

Kiganjima Island, initially an uninhabited patch of land in the Pacific Ocean that managed to survive Second Impact, with a small village to symbolize how people could reclaim land that was almost taken.

At least…that was what used to be the case before Fuyutsuki arrived to where his friend had been found.

Hiroko Shinjo, her brown hair showing signs of gray, wrapped in a large blanket, looked as though she had seen horrors no other woman had ever laid eyes on before. When the naval police found her after responding to a distress signal from the village, they found her hiding in a nearby cave, probably having taken shelter in it during the storm that recently occurred, hysterical. But she was calm now, so she could be approached about what happened to the village.

"Hiroko?" Fuyutsuki uttered to her, getting her attention. "What happened here?"

"I…I…I was here for research," she responded, stuttering from the effects of whatever affected her. "The storm hit…and everyone got taken. I…I ran to the cave… They tried to get in… They took the little girl I tried to protect. They're still out there…and they'll be back."

"Hiroko…what do you mean, they'll be back? Who's 'they'?"

"Birds…no, bats…or maybe they're dragons. They ravaged the village."

Whatever she saw terrified her beyond rationality, he realized, turning to look at the remains of the island village.

The small houses and shops, even the small well that had served as the villagers' reservoir…had all been destroyed by…something.

"Tell me, officer, just how many people lived on this island?" Fuyutsuki asked the police.

"Uh, twenty-seven families," one of the officers answered him, holding out a pair of handcuffs. "Uh, less than seventy people."

"Wait a minute… You don't actually think that she had something to do with this, do you?"

"Sir, she's hysterical. We don't know if she did anything or not."

"She's three years younger than I am with an advanced degree in ornithology. There's no way she would do something as crazy and ridiculous as attack a bunch of people she doesn't even know. Even if she did do this, where are the bodies? What would be her reason?"

"Sir, we heard her call to you, and she wasn't making any sense. There's no way that a…bird or bat could do something like this, and dragons are just a fairytale."

But Fuyutsuki wasn't convinced yet. He had to look around the village, find something that was overlooked or ignored by the police.

Within half an hour, despite assessing the devastation with the police, Fuyutsuki couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. The storm could've caused some of the damage, but not all of it, and not a single villager had yet to be found. But he couldn't believe that his friend had anything to do with this horrid abomination just yet.

"I'm sorry, sir," one of the police told him, about to arrest Hiroko, "but the only thing capable of causing destruction of this sort is another person."

"Hiroko wouldn't do something like this," he still declared. "Not in this lifetime…not ever."

"What the Hell is that?" Another officer went, pointing towards something in the wreckage of a small house.

Fuyutsuki looked over…and believed that Hiroko had been exonerated of any foul play now.

It was…some sort of large, whitish-gray muck with insects crawling on it.

"It looks like…a bird pellet," he told the police, putting on a pair of elbow-length gloves to examine the object.

"A what?" One of them questioned.

"Undigested matter that's been either regurgitated, thrown up, or expelled rectally, out the back door," Fuyutsuki explained to them, feeling something inside it, "but this one's way too big."

Removing the object felt on, his eyes widened at the sight of what was in his right hand. It was…a teddy bear.

"Ahh…" He heard Hiroko's gasp, seeing her standing away with two other policemen, shuddering at the sight of the bear.

"That's the girl's bear," she told them, shedding tears. "They ate her."

Fuyutsuki looked down at the pellet again…and saw a necklace oozing out with someone's pocket watch.

"What the Hell is going on here?" He wondered.

To be continued…

A/N: Well, since I couldn't have Fuyutsuki become a victim, I circumvented my poll by having someone he knew become a victim. I'm sure many of you know what happened and what will happen later, right?