Creation began on 08-16-15

Creation ended on 08-21-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Future: The Ikari Clan

The drive across the country wasn't as boring for Shinji, as he took the time to view the scenic locale that hadn't been devastated by Godzilla or the people during the war. He was also learned that Japan was enjoying the effects of the post-war economic miracle that was happening before Godzilla appeared. One thing he had to wonder about, though, was what these people that he might have been related to were like, since this would be his first meeting with them.

"Nervous about meeting them?" A military official asked him.

"Huh? Um, yes, I am nervous," he answered him. "What am I supposed to say when I see them?"

"You should just be yourself."

"That's hard for me to do. I don't know who I've really been in years."

"Oh, yeah, because of your absentee parents, right?"

"That's right."

"Well, I'm sure these people will be pleased to see you. You saved the country from a threat of massive proportions when you fell from the sky."

"I'm not a hero. The real heroes are the ones that do right every day. The police, the doctors, teachers and the Good Samaritans. I just saw a mother and her children…and heard her say to them that they were going to be with their father soon. The fact that she had just given up on trying to get away from Godzilla was what motivated me to try and stop it from hurting more people. I didn't want any more people to suffer from something that wasn't their fault."

"In a world plagued with insanity," the driver expressed, "that is a choice for one of sanity."

"Thank you," Shinji praised him.

It was another hour before the car stopped in front of an estate that had been built by a cliff (A/N: Think of the Yashida home from The Wolverine, only larger). It was beautiful to Shinji, like a temple or shrine that survived the ravages of war.

The front gate opened up to allow the car entry, and Shinji saw a nice garden on the right side of the car as they drove past it, stopping in front of a building with an expansive front porch.

Standing on it was a man in his early-thirties, dressed in a blue and gray hakama, holding a sheathed katana in front of him, and he seemed worn by past experiences with his grayish-black hair and green eyes that looked as though they saw much.

"Hello, sir," Shinji greeted the man, standing in front of him.

"Hello," he responded, never looking at him, but out at the world in front of them.

The front doors behind him opened up and out came two women, one in her early-twenties, dressed in a casual dress, with long, ebony hair and blue eyes, and the other around Shinji's age, dressed in a blue kimono with a black diamond pattern, with reddish-black hair and brown eyes.

"Hello, young man," the elder woman greeted Shinji. "Are you Shinji Ikari?"

"Yes, ma'am," he answered her.

"Welcome to the Ikari estate. I'm Juna Ikari. I see you've met Botou, my brother, and this is my cousin, Mariko, who found out about you."

"Hello, Ms. Mariko," Shinji greeted the young girl, extending his right hand in front of her.

Mariko looked at him and then his hand…and then shook it.

"Call me Mariko, please," she told him. "I'm only fourteen."

"Um…yes, Mariko."

-x-

"…So, he just appeared out of the sky and fell to the ground in Tokyo," said Juna to the military official in a room full of books, "and fought the monster that was attacking?"

"Yes, ma'am," he explained to her. "The city owes him a debt of gratitude for his service to the people. We were lucky he appeared when he did."

"When people begin to lose faith in seeing the light of day," Juna expressed, "sometimes, the gods will perform mysterious miracles that are often overlooked for something else."

As the two conversed, Mariko showed Shinji around the estate.

"We strive to be traditional," she told him, leading him out into the backyard near a koi fish pond. "One eye looks into the past, and the other into the future."

"Wisdom from the past helps to shape the minds of the future?" Shinji asked her.

"Something like that. What was the future like when you were there?"

Shinji stopped by the pond and stared at her.

"You don't think I'm a liar or suffer from delusions or anything?" He asked her.

"You look at someone and don't know a thing about them until after you've spent time with them," she explained to him. "I've only just met you…so I need to know who you are in order to understand you and the world you came from in the land beyond tomorrow. So…whenever you wish to share your past…which is in the future."

Shinji felt like talking about the future could drive him crazy just thinking about it, as there were things that hadn't happened yet, people that weren't born yet, and the possibility of knowing what can happen beforehand changing the future.

"In the future," he stated in front of her, "the country is trapped in perpetual summertime, with so many cicadas being heard everyday. Much of the land is underwater, and I didn't live with either of my parents or have much of a life."

"What were your parents like?"

"I never knew a thing about my mother. I don't even have a picture of her, as my father threw away anything that belonged to her. My father was unkind, even to me. Never a kind word, no matter what time of the day it was. He just left me with a teacher after my mother died and I never had much contact with him for over ten years. Then, out of the blue, he sends for me to come see him…only to exploit me into facing a monster that arrived on the same day."

"No friends?"

"None."

"Not even one?"

"Nobody."

Mariko gave him a small smile.

"You poor, poor soul," she called him. "I can't see how it is you were able to survive without a friend in your time."

"I simply did as I was told most of the time. I hated doing so, but it was the only way I knew to live."

"But you fought Godzilla without being told to. That was your decision, no one else's. That makes you a ronin."

"What is that?"

"A samurai without a master. A rurouni, on the other hand, is a wandering samurai with no destination of which to get to. But I think it would be crude to designate you as a rurouni, just a ronin."

"Thank you, Mariko."

Several feet away from them, standing by one of the sliding doors, Botou watched the pair as the boy seemed no different from a puppy being led by its owner.

-x-

It was a trying task, but the military was able to move Unit-01 out of the city and transport it to a secure location. At the same time, they were able to do the same with the decomposing body of Godzilla, which was believed to still be of scientific value due to the creature's ability to survive the repeated nuclear bombings.

"This animal may contain many answers to questions we have and don't have yet," said a man beside Yamane. "Maybe somewhere in its DNA lies the reason for its survival."

-x-

"I think you'll be fine with this room, Shinji," Juna told the young man as she showed him his room in the house.

"Thank you," he praised her, sitting in a chair next to a desk. "I didn't think to ask at first, but why are you called the Ikari Clan, if you mind my asking."

Juna inhaled and uttered, "It's because the majority of us come from different families all across the archipelago. Before the wars even occurred, the clan was just five families living together. Then an outsider was brought into the clan from another family that had been assassinated, all save for a little girl. She felt intimidated by the five families and like she didn't belong."

"That's saddening," Shinji told her.

"It is, but after three months, the people that assassinated her family came back to end her life. Unfortunately, they didn't succeed because our clan's ancestors lived and breathed self-defense and devotion to family and friends, willing to do whatever it took to keep everyone safe. They were executed and the girl was taken by their kindness that she called herself one of them…and towards the end of her life, she was one of them. One of us. So over the years, some people without families find their way to the clan and find a new life. Sometimes, they stay for years before moving on, other times, they stay for longer, even discarding their former names in favor of the name Ikari."

"Wow. How many of you are there now?"

"Currently, there are eight of us. Nine when we include yourself. Two of own brothers were in the war and didn't come back…and one of our sisters left shortly after it ended."

Shinji sighed over the cruelty of war and its fatality to people. It made him tell her that there wouldn't be another World War for decades, just smaller wars.

"Thank you for telling me that, Shinji," she told him, and then handed him a wrapped object. "Mariko wanted me to give you this. Goodnight, and see you tomorrow."

When he was left alone, he unwrapped the item and discovered it was a choker with a Taoist emblem representing balance. A smile broke out on his face as he placed it on his neck.

"Thank you, Mariko," he said, tracing his left hand's fingers on the emblem.

To be continued…

A/N: And with this, we see three members of the Ikari Clan: Juna, Botou and Mariko, and we learn that the clan of the past was once five families living together until they took in a girl.