The Horrid Aftermath

by Traitor of All Traitors

What if the first battle with Sachiel, the Third Angel/Angel of Water ended more negatively? What if, due to factors unanticipated, the boy everyone forced to be a reluctant hero was reduced to a casualty? And if medical technology was available to save his life, drastic measures had to be taken to ensure his survival because a madman could care less? Wait for sequel story.

3. Familiar Faces

Creation began on 07-05-14

Creation ended on 10-01-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

The Horrid Aftermath: Familiar Faces

Masamune sighed as he slumped in his chair at his desk, staring at the monitor of his computer. He had just researched the Ikari family tree and found that the majority of Shinji's relations were either deceased…or just uncaring bastards that disregarded the welfare of a boy that nearly died over some circumstances that most didn't know about or even understand. It was like the universe was saying for people like the boy, "Sorry, but you drew the short stick in the bin of fortunes, and we won't change it so that you can smile without pain." There wasn't even much information on the mother herself, not even a picture of what she looked like before she died.

Is there nobody of this family that could look after him in place of the ones that looked down upon him? He wondered, and then realized something he had overlooked himself. I wonder…

He typed a different search engine on the medical and court records, hoping for a sign of good fortune…and might've found something beneficial.

"Okugata Neko Rokubungi," he read on the screen; he had only searched the maternal side of Shinji's family tree, but had overlooked the paternal side, as his father had married into the Ikari family, whose immediate, biological line of women consisted of only three daughters, one of which was deceased.

As he delved further, he found at least four members of this family that were still alive, as Okugata Rokubungi had passed away almost a year ago, but was survived by her three daughters, two sons and an in-law. He found that Gendo was the woman's grandson, making Shinji her great-grandson, so she had to be over seventy, at least, when she passed away.

And it looks like they live close by, he discovered, and picked up his phone to dial the number of where they lived. Hopefully, they'll at least consider hearing of him.

The phone ringed for almost a minute before someone picked up.

"Rokugungi residence," a lady's voice greeted. "This is Kiki speaking."

"Kiki Rokubungi?" He asked.

"Yes."

"As in the eldest daughter of Okugata Rokubungi?"

"Yes."

"My name is Masamune Kusangi of Medical Angel, and I was wondering if you had a relative by the name of Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari."

"Yes, but we haven't had any contact with him in years. Why are you asking?"

-x-

Building one's strength was also good in the rehabilitation process for those recovering from surgery with bionic appendages, as Shinji soon found himself doing sit-ups. He had never aspired to any career or profession, which included any ideas of being an athlete or gymnast. Even with the temporary adrenaline rush that enabled him to lift up the previous doctor and throw his aside as he ran out the room, he never thought of anything short of just trying to escape potential imprisonment and experimentation after finding a loss of sensation in three of his limbs.

"Cowards are always useless when mankind's future is at stake," he remembered his father saying at him, which just hurt more than any sticks or stones.

As far as the memories he had of his father went, there wasn't a single day, hour or moment where Gendo had ever said a kind word or given him any sort of praise. It was like the man viewed his son as a complete stranger and made no attempt to talk to him or spend time with him. Was he that much of a bother to him? It was probably why he never even thought about getting the medical aid he needed just to stand on his own legs again.

While he would be forever grateful to Kozo Fuyutsuki for getting him help, he did wish that he had somebody (maybe not his father, who was a complete lost cause) that took an interest in getting to know him that wasn't as much of a stranger as his old man had been for years.

He was then reminded of that dream he had prior to waking up to his bionic state, where he was in a town built around a mountain…and he was in the company of this little girl that liked him a lot more than a little girl could like an older boy. The only thing he regretted from meeting her…was never getting her name, even if she was just a dream that was surreal. Her face, her eyes, even her voice brought some strange form of relief to his mind.

People would probably think me crazy for thinking about a dream where I met someone that liked me, he thought, laying on his back and staring up at the ceiling of his quarters. But they've probably never had anybody that wanted to know them or be with them before.

-x-

"…We were lucky," went Ritsuko to Gendo, showing him a holographic display of a human nervous system. "NERV was able get a copy of the Third Child's brain scans from Medical Angel. Mild damage done to his brain in the Angel's explosion, along with the extensive repairs through nanotechnology to the missing areas of cerebral matter, may hinder the possibility of synchronization between himself and the Eva. Additional scans show that he does suffer from some memory loss due to the damage done to his brain, but not enough to hinder his recollection of his identity and cognitive functions. All of this, along with much of his body being replaced and converted, may make him unsuitable as a pilot without further evaluation and testing."

"But due to Medical Angel's staunch decisions on how people that they remodel with their practices should recover, we can't touch him until he's been rehabilitated," Gendo sighed. "Has there been any attempt on NERV's part to acquire him from that medical branch?"

"No, there hasn't. There was, however, a phone call made between the branch and a town region located in the Chubu Prefecture. Does the name Kiki Rokubungi mean anything to you?"

For the first time since his son showed up and piloted the Eva, Gendo separated his hands from their crossed position in front of his face…and slammed them on his desk.

-x-

"…Shinji," he heard a voice call out to him, as he found himself in a lonely setting. "Shinji…where are you?"

In a city, one he'd only seen a glimpse of, devoid of people, the young child of a changed Earth, one on the brink of death, walked down a street in search of someone. Someone, never something. And as he searched down the road, realization hit him in two ways: He was dreaming again…and he was looking for a girl.

"Hello?" He called out to her.

"I'm right here," the girl responded, and he turned to the right around the corner and saw the girl from his previous dream sitting atop a rusty car. "I missed you."

It was the first time in his life, even if it was only a dream, where he heard someone say that they missed him.

"I missed you, too," he told her.

"Rumi," she said.

"Huh?"

"That's my name. It's Rumi. At least…in another lifetime where we're together."

"Rumi… That's a pretty name."

"Thank you."

The girl got off the car and walked with him down the street. Her presence made Shinji forget about what he had gone through in the Eva, his revelation of being converted into a cyborg or amputee (the latter of which didn't seem appropriate, due to more than half of his body being replaced with cybernetics), and his nonexistent relationship with his mother's relatives that he was positive he wouldn't see, ever again.

"You once told me that I would have to be a reluctant hero," he said to her. "Is that true?"

"Yeah," she sighed, disliking the fact that his reaction to hearing this truth was unnerving to him. "But I'm not lying when I say that you will find people in your life that will care about your welfare."

"How can I find people that will care about me? I spent the last ten years of my life in the care of my aunt and uncle, and they hated me."

"Which side of the family tree were they from?"

"Huh? Why?"

"Shinji, people have more than one type of relative from whichever side of the family they're associated with. There's the maternal side, which is the side of the mother…and the paternal side, which is…"

"My father's side," he cut her off. "I lived with my mother's sister and her family. I don't know anything about my father's side."

"Then, for all you know, they might not know you exist."

"What if he has none alive?"

"There's always someone related to you, even across the vast distance of time and space. There are even those that might be interested in seeing you, even though they never met you before."

"I wish it were true."

Rumi led him out of the city and onto an open field carpeted with wildflowers.

"What am I like in your lifetime, Rumi?" He asked her.

"You're not as different in my lifetime as you are in this one," she explained. "You both possess a delicate soul that longs for the warmth of others that show concern for you. Genuine concern. You're not a violent individual, never seeking conflict and never wanting to hurt anyone, no matter how much they hurt you, making you a bit of a pacifist."

"Well, I hate violence. I couldn't live with myself if I had harmed somebody that didn't deserve it…or did deserve it, but was by my hands."

"Oh, you had some measure of hatred that compensated for the lack of violence in your soul. You once tried to kill yourself, but you were saved and convinced to keep living, even when it was away from from the people you were related to by blood."

"By blood?"

"Well, um, you were adopted…in a way. Your father was adopted by my mother, which made you her adopted grandson…and my nephew…whom I share a very close relationship with."

"Right and wrong are thicker than blood."

"With the family that took you in, my presence in your later years, right and wrong were a constant in the world. A family made of people that have no blood ties, but still love each other and want to be together, that's right. Relatives that do whatever it takes to have their way, no matter who gets harmed by them in the process, it's wrong. Real love? Right. Questioning one's relationship with someone that's viewed as a relative?"

"There are always factors involved in questionable relationships with relatives."

Rumi sighed and expressed, "Romantic relationships with adopted relatives isn't incest, Shinji, despite the artificial ties that bind better than the natural ones. The you involved in my life, while looking at a greater life now that he's buried his ghosts of the past in the past, is older than I am, it could never be viewed as incestuous. It would just be seen as acceptable cradle robbing."

"I don't understand that concept."

"An older person having affections that go beyond being friendly for a younger person and vice versa. An example being a twelve-year-old girl being involved, romantically, with a man that was twenty-two years old. Everyone does it every now and then, it's not a constant crime or anything. It's…just something that happens."

"Do people…accept us like that?" He asked her.

"They do. Sometimes, I get asked about how it was for a girl like me to end up with a young man like you, and as tiresome as I find it to get asked the same questions every chance a person gets, I wouldn't want what I have with you to end. I am sure, however, that you will find someone for yourself in your life that will want to be with you, that doesn't want to hurt you or see you get hurt." She told him.

"If I ever meet a girl like that, I wouldn't mind it if she were a lot like you."

"In most lifetimes, the person you end up with isn't the same as the person you're with in other lifetimes. But there have been times where similar people from one lifetime will end up together in another lifetime."

Rumi then did a cartwheel on the ground in front of Shinji.

-x-

It had been an interesting conversation over the phone with Kiki Rokubungi for Masamune. The elder sister was made the legal guardian of the youngest daughter and her brothers and sister-in-law came home shortly after Okugata had passed away. She had been informed of the existence of Shinji and, unlike Gendo and the boy's maternal relatives, requested to see him, as she nor the others had heard of him. It was no doubt because Gendo himself hadn't desired for his son to know he had other relatives beyond the ones he was left with at an early age.

"We'll be by as soon as we can," she told Masamune, and that was that.

This might help Shinji adjust to his recent change better, he thought, now evaluating the data that was collected from the last examination the boy had gone through.

-x-

"…Why are you asking?" Kiki Rokubungi's voice went over the recording between herself as Masamune in front of Gendo and Ritsuko in the office.

"Are you aware of the fact that he has a son by the name of Shinji?" Masamune had asked her.

"Sorry, but no, I didn't know that."

"Well, he was recently in an accident and required medical attention that needed the consent of a parent or guardian, but neither his father or the people from his mother's family would give consent, so his father's signature was forged by someone that worked for him. The reason I'm calling is that Shinji seems to need some sort of extended family support structure in his rehabilitation, but doesn't have anyone in his either his immediate family or nearest relatives that seem to show any interest in getting to know him at all."

"Just how bad was he hurt?"

"You probably wouldn't have been able to recognize him if he'd been left alone. He had lost an arm and both legs before he received special surgery to restore his mobility and mend what was left of him."

"So…basically, he doesn't even know we exist?"

"That's right. Would you be interested in seeing him?"

"More than interested, Mr. Kusanagi."

Gendo stopped the recording and frowned at what he discovered. It had been over twenty years since he left home and vowed never to return. He didn't want anything further to do with the family his mother had grown up in. Before he even left, his grandmother had given him a sword that was both his gift and his penance for his disgraceful behavior towards her. And now, he found that his aunt had taken an interest in seeing his son, whom he didn't want to develop a support system from anyone, as it would hinder his manipulation of him in the future.

But he had very little say in the matter, as NERV and Medical Angel were outside of one another's jurisdiction, so he couldn't very well order that company to stay out of his family business if he himself had no direct involvement, whatsoever, in his son's rehab. However, he had enough authority to monitor his son's whereabouts.

-x-

"…What are you thinking?" Kiki asked an elderly man sitting across from her on the train to Tokyo-2, seeing that he was tense about something.

"Fourteen years old," he told her, "and we didn't know about him until yesterday."

"Well, it's not exactly Father Knows Best. Gendo did say he swore never to have kids of his own, but he ends up having one after a disaster, and he doesn't have a conscious to do right by him."

"What of her?" He pointed to a little girl being watched over by a large wolf that seemed fierce, yet quite docile to be around children.

The girl, with long, ebony hair tied in a braid, looking out the window at the countryside, turned to face them…and then back to the world outside the train.

"I hope that she at least says two words to him," Kiki told him. "Her daycare's attendant called me again about her."

"If you keep talking about how people give suggestions or even bad opinions about her, you might end up needing to see a therapist beyond the one you see twice a month," the elder man told her.

"Where do you think we might be forced to send her…if she doesn't start talking again?" She countered him with that important question.

The elder found that he couldn't come up with a response.

-x-

The battle-damaged Unit-01 was a horrific sight indeed. Even when the cleanup crew brought it back to the Geo-Front, the behemoth seemed so fragile that moving it caused further damage, as it was when its legs fell off from whatever was left holding them to the rest of the Eva. But the repairs were continuing at an even pace, as it had been submersed into a large room filled with a regenerative solution to sanitize and accelerate the recovery of the Eva's organic portions.

Truth be told, Gendo valued this Eva more than anything and anyone else in the world, past, present and future. He would've sacrificed all that was in existence for its preservation to achieve his own goals, and he wouldn't let anyone get in his way.

This is only a minor setback, he thought, watching from a viewing window as Unit-01's unarmored right arm began to recover more than eight percent of her lost and damaged tissues. But by the time the next Angel arrives, you'll be ready.

-x-

"…Mister Kusanagi?" Masamune heard a male voice over the intercom of his phone in his office. "There's a Ms. Kiki Rokubungi here."

Setting his pen down onto several papers, he pressed a button on the phone and responded, "I shall be down shortly."

He got up and left to the lobby of the building to meet the family he hoped would aid in Shinji's recovery and adjustment. When he got there, he was greeted by the sight of the woman, accompanied by an elder man and a little girl with a wolf.

The woman was probably in her early-fifties, but still quite attractive, with her red hair tied in ox horn buns and dressed in a green and blue hanbok.

The man looked older, probably in his late-fifties to early-sixties, requiring a cane to stay mobile on his feet, with graying hair, wrinkled skin, and dressed in a business suit.

But what caught Masamune's attention the most was the little girl. She had to be below the age of ten, but quite eligible for a beauty pageantry with her looks, like she was some sort of goddess incarnate, dressed in a blue shirt and wearing a black skort.

The woman in the hanbok, Kiki, greeted him and shook his hand.

"It's an honor to meet you," she told him.

"Thank you for coming such a long way," he responded.

"When you had mentioned the fact that we had an unknown relative from an estranged one, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet them."

Masamune then looked down at the little girl and noticed how detached she seemed, like she had lost some part of herself sometime ago.

"I'm sorry, but is there something wrong with her?" He questioned.

"It's complicated," Kiki answered.

"Well, then, I'll take you to him."

-x-

Cough! Shinji coughed out the last of the chlorinated water from the pool in front of his instructor's feet.

"Sorry about that," she apologized to him, now accepting that he couldn't swim worth a gold or silver coin, even if you had a bunch of them.

When he was done puking, he got back up and looked at her like he was about to throw her into the pool when he just walked past her and sat in a nearby chair.

"Are swimming lessons really necessary for my rehab?" He asked her. "I haven't swam in years."

"Yes, they are," she answered him. "Your new limbs might be, somewhat, like the ones you lost, but they still need to be broken in and adjusted by you. Running and climbing will only get you so far, and swimming has actually helped many of us with artificial limbs to adjust to the changes we've gone through. Some of the amputees nearly drowned in water because they didn't take swimming lessons to help correct the lightweight metals used in their new appendages. Some of us lucky enough to actually float to the surface of water."

Shinji looked at his legs, sometimes unable to believe that they were now artificial instead of natural, and couldn't believe that if he didn't take every precaution when in a different environment, he could pay a much higher price than what he had already paid because he wanted his father to accept him.

"I'll tell you what," his instructor suggested. "Take an hour to recoup and then we'll try again. Okay?"

"Thank you," he responded and got up and walked away.

Walking across the rehabilitation grounds back to his room, he stopped in front of Masamune.

"How are you doing?" The elder asked him.

"I've had better days when I wasn't relearning how to swim," he responded.

"Maybe seeing some new faces will do you some good."

"New faces?"

"Well, yes. It came to my attention that you don't have a family support system, whatsoever."

"It's not that easy to lack a support system of any kind when you're around those that want nothing to do with you."

"You probably wouldn't believe that if you met relatives you didn't know you had. After looking into the maternal side of your family tree, I got the idea to look into your father's side, and found that he's not liked very well by most of his relatives. Him, for they haven't heard about you until after I had spoken with one of them. They're actually looking forward to seeing you."

"But what am I supposed to say to them?"

"Just be yourself. Talk about whatever you want."

They stopped in front of the door to his room and Masamune stepped inside first.

"Here he is," he said to whoever was inside, and then Shinji stepped inside.

Shinji was quite surprised. In front of him were two people he had recognized from his dreams, the woman on his right…and the little girl on his left accompanied by a wolf. This left him at a loss for the right words to greet them with.

The girl, having just met this boy for the first time, got up out of her seat and slowly approached him, never taking her eyes off his. Then…she hugged his legs.

"It's good to see you…Shinji," she uttered.

"The feeling's mutual," he responded.

-x-

"…I've been a friend of the family since their mother was alive," the aged man told Shinji, in response to a question said boy had asked him about his relation to the ladies. "My occupation as a doctor has made my association invaluable."

Kiki, still keeping her eyes on Shinji and her little sister, found said sister never letting go of said boy's hand that she found out was a prosthetic replacement. It had been unbelievable; her sister had been unsociable for months since their mother's passing, and after seeing Shinji, she spoke up again.

"So, um, what do you do, Kiki?" Shinji asked her.

"I work part-time at a dry goods store," she explained her profession, "and part-time at a museum."

"A dry goods store and a museum? You have two jobs?" He asked, confused.

"I have tenure…and a lack of direction. Science and politicians were never my interests."

Shinji chuckled and uttered, "They're not my interests, either. Although science saved my life, a part of it left me, for a while (looking at his natural arm)…unable to do anything. And as for politics, that's for control freaks."

"Control freaks are bad news," said the girl, softly stroking the artificial skin that covered his cybernetic limb, finding it no different from her own skin.

"So, Shinji, what are you going to do after you finish your rehab?" Kiki asked.

"I'm not sure what I'll do," he told her.

Knock-knock! Someone knocked at the door. And then they opened it, revealing themselves to be Masamune again.

"I apologize for my intrusion, but Shinji has an unannounced visitor from NERV," he explained his intrusion to them, and Shinji, wanting to get this unannounced visit over with so that he could get back to his conversation with his familial visitors, got up and stepped out of the room.

-x-

Ritsuko Akagi, under orders from Gendo, went to Medical Angel to see if Shinji would consider joining NERV and piloting the Eva again. While she was uncertain if the boy could still pilot with some of his brain missing, she would know for sure once he was back inside the plug.

The door to the room she was set in opened up and Masamune brought in Shinji, who seemed mildly irritated by having his time with his father's relatives hindered.

"Hello, Shinji," she greeted him. "I'm…"

Shinji raised his right hand up to silence her.

"I know who you are, Dr. Akagi," he cut her off. "It's not easy to forget someone that has faux-blond hair. Why are you here?"

At least his recollection of me hasn't been undone, she thought, and got to the point of her presence here. "Your father asked me to come here to ask you an important question."

"What could be so important that he couldn't come here himself to ask me?" He asked her, though his tone made her see that his father was a very touchy subject.

"I'm sure you can see that he is a very busy man," she expressed. "Anyway, the reason I'm here is to ask you, for your father, is will you come back to work for NERV as an Evangelion pilot?"

"…Will you come back to work for NERV as an Evangelion pilot?" Her words echoed in his mind, just as his eyes widened at the question he was asked.

"Have you no shame, Shinji?"

"Cowards are always useless when mankind's future's at stake."

"This is the last card our species has to play."

Shinji then felt disoriented, backing up against the wall behind him and falling against a nearby wall-mounted counter.

"Listen carefully to what I'm going to tell you, Shinji. You're going to ride in her. You're going to fight the Angel."

Knocking over the pile of books on the counter, Shinji fell to the floor and his mouth started foaming.

"Oh, God!" Masamune panicked, and then hit an alarm button on the wall.

-x-

"Well, sis," went Kiki to the little girl, "what do you think of Shinji?"

"I think he's a lot like me," she answered her. "He has been hurt before…and is not a fan of pain, whether it's physical or emotional."

Suddenly, they heard an alarm go off, and they wondered what had happened.

"Will the closest medical team rush to the lobby?" A female voice went over the intercom. "Patient Shinji Ikari has collapsed."

"What?!" The little girl gasped.

-x-

He wasn't sure how he got there or why he was there, but Shinji was out on the street, running in the dead of the night from something behind him.

…Gotta get away from here, he thought, his sweat getting in his eyes. I gotta get away from here!

Behind him, a large, humanoid creature was getting closer to him, with its arms outstretched and reaching out to grab him.

"…Shinji…Shinji…wake up!" A voice called out to him. "Wake up!"

The ground in front of him crumbled and he fell into a dark hole.

"Aaaaaauurgh!" He yelled.

GASP! He awoke, looking up at a white ceiling, with a heart monitor hooked up to him.

Calming down, he tried to get up out of the bed he was in, seeing the little girl he had seen in his dreams asleep in the chair beside him.

-x-

"…He suffered from a heart attack and had a seizure after you asked him if he would work for NERV," said Masamune to Ritsuko, in front of Kiki and Dr. Gyatso, the elder gentleman that had accompanied her.

"Could this have had anything to do with him being converted?" Ritsuko tried to defend her actions.

"No. He was doing fine in his rehabilitation. If his brain and heart had been reduced to hamburger and mashed potatoes, respectively, this would've been a similar case. But his heart was among the organs he had that were left intact, and he only lost a small portion of his brain that was just matter that's being regenerated by the nanites."

"Here's the medical theory that supports you being the cause of his attack," went a female doctor, evaluating Shinji's brain and heart tests. "Shortly after he was asked the question by you, his blood pressure became elevated, far higher than his heart could take, and his brain functions became stressed. He might've experienced something that contributed to the stress before his injuries, like a bad memory or a previous mishap."

"Asking him to work for his father stressed him out?" Ritsuko questioned.

"I wouldn't be surprised," Kiki expressed. "Gendo has always been a control freak."

"How long will he be like this?" Gyatso asked.

Knock-knock! Someone knocked at the door.

"Come in," Masamune uttered, and the door opened, revealing the little girl that liked Shinji.

"Shinji is awake," she told them, and gave the faux-blond woman a frown. "He wants to talk to Kiki and I."

-x-

"You're going to fight the Angel," Gendo's cold voice echoed in Shinji's mind.

"I'm glad you're awake, Shinji," the girl had told him, having awoken minutes after he had, expressing her joy in seeing him.

"Shinji?" He heard Kiki say his name, shaking him from his train of thought, making him see both her and the girl.

"I was told I had a seizure and a heart attack," he responded. "How long was I out?"

"Most of the day," she answered him. "Can you tell us what happened? I don't trust this Dr. Akagi to be an honest woman."

"She asked me if I would work for my father. It just brought up bad memories…and I felt like my head was about to explode."

"What would your answer have likely been?" The girl asked.

"I wanted to decline. There was nothing good between that man and I. He…he…"

"He hurt you?" She asked again.

"Yeah, he did."

"You're not the only one he's harmed before," Kiki said, reminded of a few of Gendo's mishaps…and the one thing he did wrong that resulted in his getting kicked out of the family.

"Shinji, where will you be going after you recover enough to leave?" The girl asked him.

Shinji sighed, unable to say for certain where he would go. There was no way he could go back to his maternal aunt and uncle's, as they made his life miserable. And there was no way he could live with his father, not after what happened.

"Well, you could come live with us at our house," she offered.

"Huh?" He responded.

"You should come live with us in the Guze-mura."

Salvation Village? Shinji wondered, translating the name of the place they were from.

"Kiki, couldn't he come live with us?"

"If he wants to, he can," the woman responded. "He's more than welcome."

"But…you two don't even know me," Shinji told them.

"I want to get to know you," the girl expressed.

"Same here, and, surely, you'll find the other members of our family will want to know you, as well," Kiki added.

-x-

"…I was only asking him because Commander Ikari asked me to," Ritsuko defended her against Masamune.

"Then you should let him know that he indirectly caused Shinji to suffer a heart attack and a seizure when he had you ask him. He could've had a stroke or worse if his brain couldn't take the strain," Masamune informed her, and then handed her a disc that held the updated brain scans. "I won't deny my grave concerns for his health, and I won't deny that he should be looked at closer to ensure that he doesn't suffer a repeat of what happened today. I would advise you to also inform Mr. Ikari…that should he put any further stress or endanger Shinji's health… I will have him sued for child endangerment and neglect."

"You wouldn't get very far."

"Oh, yeah? Try me."

Ritsuko wasn't the type of woman to feel intimidated or threatened by a man like this that helped run a medical company and not a paramilitary agency charged with protecting mankind. But unlike NERV, Medical Angel was more accepted by the public than the paramilitary agency for their advanced medical techniques that made even veterans happy to be mobile. If it was between NERV and Medical Angel, the people were more inclined to side with a company that actually was a people company instead of a bunch of people that had a few giant cyborgs that required children to pilot them.

She sighed and picked up the disc from off his desk.

To be continued…

A/N: Here's the third chapter to this story. You'll have to make do with this until further notice. Peace.