Creation began on 01-31-16

Creation ended on 02-06-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Shinji, Master of the Cards: His Reason

A/N: Why Shinji is Clow Reed's apprentice.

It was during his first day back in Tomoeda, when he encountered The Escape Card, his version of Clow's Dream Card, that Shinji thought once more about why he became Clow's apprentice in the art of magic. Through his minute quest in the realm of the subconscious to capture and harness the power of dreams, he reevaluated his choices and reason behind said choices. It was because of what Clow had shown him of the future that he could perceive due to his unique heritage and the magic behind that heritage. At first, he didn't believe any of what he had been shown, but when he saw his father in the future (in addition to his coldness and indifference towards him, even to the point where he was perfectly willing to sacrifice him to these creatures he had never seen or heard of), there was no denying that his guardian may have done what others would've thought against doing for him.

Clow had changed his life since the day they met at the train station. This also had to mean that their encounter wasn't predestined or an act of the heavens in some goal, but an act of predetermination, a subtle deviation from what Clow had seen of the future; if he saw every detailed event of the unwritten pages of tomorrow, then it also meant that he could take actions to change those events.

And he's not the only sorcerer out there, thought Shinji in his dreams. There are dozens of people versed in magic around the world that survived Second Impact, and they are displeased with the present. They want to restore the planet to the way it was before Second Impact, but there's not enough of them to achieve such a feat. It's part of the reason Clow decided to teach me how to be a sorcerer like so many others; if there are more people capable of using magic, then the Earth has a greater chance of being restored. Even he, with all of his power, can't do the impossible on his own.

It was also because Clow had told Shinji that, while the future could be seen in all its glory to him, it was because of them, those that practice sorcery with benevolent intentions, that the future, that it's darkest events, could be changed. Maybe even prevented from ever occurring.

No form of magic can restore life to the dead, he thought as now stood before the Golden Retriever-like gremlin that would represent The Escape, but it can be used to preserve those still among the living. All we need dois put in the will to act. Will is the driving force behind any act taken. Will is what allows for one to have courage, to feel for those around them, even to try and defy fate. The will to actis everything necessary to do what is right.

And then, with his hands and chest glowing bright green and blue, he grabbed at The Escape's head, causing it to shriek and explode into pulp before returning in the form of a card. On its cover, The Escape appeared in the form of the dog-like gremlin in a curled-up state, its eyes, which had been the reddest he'd ever seen in any dog around Tomoeda, were closed, indicating that it was sleeping. The spiritual creature was escaping from the real world through sleep, to enter another world unbound by reality. The Escape Card now belonged to a new master.

-x-

Sitting under a cherry blossom tree in the afternoon, Shinji, with his key tucked under his shirt as he rested against the trunk, opened his eyes. He looked around the park he was in, seeing several children running around happily and a few couples on benches or by the lake. Beside him on his left was a book he took to looking at called The Tiger's Apprentice, which became a fave of his, apart from the Fushigi Yugi and Ceres, Celestial Legend books due to the similar themes and goals associated with love and friendship.

"Shinji!" He heard a female voice calling out to him, and he looked around from where he sat and saw Akane, looking out of breath.

"Hey, Akane! Over here!" He called out to her.

She saw him and ran over.

"Thank the Kami I found you!" She panted, which confused him.

"Found me?" He questioned.

"I was coming over to your house when I saw Mr. Reed talking to a woman from that child custody office and another woman that looked like a supermodel. They were talking about you, and it sounded like the women wanted to take you away from Mr. Reed."

That made Shinji grab at his key under his shirt for comfort.

"What did the woman that looked like a supermodel look like?" He asked her; he was pretty sure that he had seen the other woman that was from the office that dealt with Clow's custody and guardianship of him for years since they met.

"About my mother's height, in her late-twenties or early-thirties, dressed in a tight, black dress, a red coat and long, purple hair," Akane described the other woman, which made Shinji tighten his right hand around his key. "You know who she is?"

"I fear that I do," he answered her. "It may be Misato Katsuragi from Tokyo-3."

He then took out his cell phone and went to his list of contacts, pulling up Clow's number and pressing the dial button to get in touch with him at the house. Ever since he introduced Clow to the modern wonders and advantages of Apple technology, Shinji found it a necessary aspect of his apprenticeship to be adaptable and have access to beneficial tech in case he couldn't fall back on sorcery.

"Hello, Reed residence," he heard Clow's voice.

"Hello, it's Shinji," he greeted his guardian.

"Oh, hi, Shinji. How are you doing?"

"I'm doing fine. I'm at the park right now, but I'm going to come home now. I heard that you…have guests over there."

"Yes, I do. You should meet them."

"Is there anything I should be concerned about?"

"Oh, no, nothing's wrong. Just come right home, Shinji. Do be careful."

"Yes, sir." He then hung up and sighed.

"Shinji?" Akane asked.

"I can't go back there right now," he told her.

"What?"

"The call was being monitored. We were speaking in code. He was warning me away."

"So, now what?"

"I don't know."

"You know, you can crash at my place."

"Much appreciated, but I need my book that I left at home…and I can't get to it."

"Is this book that important?"

"Would any book bearing your name on it be unimportant?"

Akane sighed and helped Shinji up to his feet.

-x-

Clow gave no indication to Ms. Katsuragi or Ms. Okuni from the child custody office that he had warned Shinji not to return to the house. He had foreseen this unscheduled visit from the women and knew that Shinji's father would try anything to ensure that the boy had nobody.

"…So, he's been living with you for over ten years now?" Misato asked him, noticing that the man's living room area seemed unusually massive in such a home.

"That's right, ma'am," he answered her, setting down his cup of tea on the table.

"I've visited this place once every four months, and there has never been any sort of trouble between Shinji and Mr. Reed," Ms. Okuni expressed. "Despite his advanced age, he's always been a fit guardian for the boy."

"Yet, his father made a complaint that there was already someone assigned to be the boy's guardian years ago," Misato informed them.

"My office checked with the initial guardian, and declared he wasn't up to par with taking care of the boy. Who entrusts a little boy to a recovering alcoholic with no experience in looking after children? Plus, the man also had a degree of psychological instability."

"That's a subtle way of saying that the gentleman had a temper," added Clow to the conversation. "I've actually met with the gentleman once after I met Shinji, and he wasn't what I had expected to see in him."

"What do you want?" He recalled the initial guardian greeting him that day.

"My office doesn't really understand why the boy's father is so adamant that his son be removed from Mr. Reed's custody," Ms. Okuni uttered. "He expresses no interest in reclaiming custody, yet insists that the boy be removed."

"I don't understand his reason for this, either," Misato stated, "but he has decreed that his agency would assume responsibility of him."

Clow then picked up a framed photograph of himself with Shinji at lake house when he was seven years old. It was the first time Shinji had ever attempted to catch a fish and the first time he met his elder neighbor Akane when she was eight.

"Shouldn't this all come down to Shinji himself making the choice instead of someone he hasn't had a conversation with in years making the choice for him if he disagrees with it?" He asked Ms. Katsuragi. "I'm sure his father means well, but Shinji has never truly recovered from what was done to him that day we met."

Of course, Clow knew that part of Gendo meaning well for Shinji was nothing more than a falsehood belief. He knew that Gendo cared nothing about his own son and only wanted to use him to achieve his own goals, with absolutely no regard to the well-being of the boy. And then, there was Ms. Katsuragi herself; in the previous vision of the future, he saw how the woman, despite her meaning well for Shinji half the time, behaved more inappropriately around him than she did appropriately around NERV, even demonstrating some irresponsibleness when it came to her relationships with others, especially a man that she had a relationship with, and her own bouts of alcoholism. He knew she had meant well, but the future he saw had contradicted much of everything about her.

"I once explained to Shinji that when you take the cause out of a man, there is no cause for a man," he told her, setting the photo back down on the table. "He actually had a speck of hope that his father wanted to reconcile with him after so many years. But it seemed his father had a different reason for wanting to see him. He didn't tell me much, but whatever happened over it Tokyo-3, it was, apparently, enough to convince him that any hopes of reconciliation was wasted upon his father."

Misato suspected that Shinji hadn't told his guardian about the Eva or the Angel incident, not that he was under any obligation to keep quiet about any of it. Of course, he had just barely come out of the battle alive, and it was all a lot to process. It was enough to drive a person crazy with what he went through.

"Grr," she then heard a growling sound, and looked over by a desk cluttered with books, seeing a strange, cat-like creature near it by the window.

It was about the size of a house cat, with golden or tawny fur and golden eyes.

"Of course, if I knew anything wrong was going to happen, I would've sent Yue with him, just in case," Clow had expressed.

-x-

Since Shinji couldn't go back to Clow's house to get his book, Akane had elected to go get it herself. Her fabricated alibi was a simple one: She had asked to borrow one of Shinji's manga books, which would serve as a cover to get the book bearing his name, and casually walk away before any of these strangers were the wiser. She stood in front of the Reed house, noticing the blue Renault that looked like it had been through an explosion and was duct-taped together.

Who drives a car like this and doesn't get it taken to an auto shop? She wondered, pressing the doorbell. I hope Mr. Reed buys my lie.

The door opened and revealed Yue to her.

"Miss Ryu," he uttered, and the girl bowed her head to him. "What brings you here at this time of the day?"

"I meant to come by earlier to borrow a book from Shinji," she explained. "It's one of his Ceres manga books. Uh, the twelfth volume."

Yue stepped aside and pointed to a staircase.

"Master Clow is indisposed at the moment, but he shall be informed of your visit. However brief it will be."

"Two minutes is all I need."

Akane quickly dashed up the stairs and into Shinji's room, finding the book with his name on it on the desk and grabbing it. Then, to keep it hidden, she went to his bookshelf and picked out the twelfth volume of his Ceres manga. When she ran back downstairs, she saw Clow and the purple-haired woman from earlier.

"Miss Ryu," went Clow to her. "Have you heard from Shinji today?"

"Only when I saw him at the park earlier, Reed-Sama," she told him. "I just wanted to borrow one of his manga because he's the only person I know that still reads Ceres."

"Should you see him again, please, let him know that he needs to come home soon. It's getting close to his curfew."

"Yes, sir."

Akane then stepped out and casually walked away from the house. She didn't expect for Clow to speak in code to her when he told her to tell Shinji that it was approaching his curfew; she and Shinji hardly had a curfew, so being asked to inform Shinji of his meant something entirely different from what it actually meant. This clearly indicated that something was seriously wrong.

And before he ever left to meet that man, the worst thing about him was that he didn't know about Battle Royale, she thought, now running towards her house. Whatever happened in that city had better not have followed him here.

-x-

Unlike his other friends in Tomoeda who either lived in houses or apartment buildings, Akane and her parents lived on a shrine, and Shinji would sometimes visit her there…and rarely ever spent the night over.

Looking out a window at the night sky, Shinji sighed, hoping that Akane was alright; he wouldn't forgive himself if she got hurt over something that involved him, even after he had walked away from the initial involvement.

Her parents would likely kill me if their daughter was harmed, he thought, shuddering at the fantasy of Akane's mother beating him into an early grave with a broomstick.

The door behind him opened up and quickly closed, and he turned to see Akane, looking out of breath and clutching two of his books to her chest.

"Akane?" He asked.

"You may need to stay away from Reed-Sama's house for a while," she told him, and crashed onto her futon in front of him. "He said it was approaching your curfew before I left."

Shinji sat down in front of her at her desk and sighed.

"That's code for I shouldn't go back until those looking for me leave," he explained to her.

"It's that serious?"

"Yeah."

"Spill."

Shinji explained what he went to Tokyo-3 for…and what had been nearly forced on him, many of which were events that Clow himself had foreseen and informed him. The Geo-Front, the Evangelion, NERV, his father, the Angels, he told her everything Clow had told him.

"Crazy," she said when he finished explaining. "Of all the things that man could've done when you saw him, should've done when he saw you, he chooses to try and force you to throw your life away over something you don't even believe is worth fighting for."

"I'm grateful that Clow told me, but that didn't change the pain I felt while inside the Eva," he told her. "The whole thing could've gone a little better if the people there were a bit more open with the whole reason they needed me there."

"It'd be easier with every family if there was more honesty between the relatives. I guess nobody taught that man how to be honest or he chose not to be honest with others. I get that it's necessary to have some secrets, but these are things that you simply do not keep secret from people."

"At least we grew up with honest people, so that helps."

Akane nodded in agreement, and then then looked beside her on the left of the futon at his book bearing his name.

"It surprises me that you're following in his footsteps," she told him, picking up the book and handing it over to him.

Shinji accepted and expressed, "Not entirely in his footsteps, Akane. I draw my magical potential from an entirely different source. Also, I can't be exactly like him. Nobody can be like someone else. You gotta be yourself, not someone you apprentice under. And…could you imagine how Yue would feel if I ever did become like Clow?"

Akane thought about it, and soon wished she hadn't. Ever since she found out about Yue years ago, the lunar and eastern representation of the town's strongest sorcerer gave her the creeps every now and then. And the only person that balanced the guy out was his animal counterpart, the solar and western representation of Clow known as Cerberus (or Kero, as he was often called by those that saw him in his smaller form).

"He would most likely walk away from you," she told him.

Shinji opened the cover of his book and the cards that carried his magical potential levitated out into the air.

"Hello again," he greeted the cards.

"What are they called?" Akane asked him.

"Well, since I'm apprenticing under Clow, I guess it's only natural for my cards to be named after me, the one responsible for creating them. Though, it was Clow that created their base forms."

"Hmm…somehow, I don't think Shinji Ikari Cards suit your cards any justice."

"If I called them that, they'd just sound like ATM cards. So…Ikari Cards?"

"Heavens, no! Shinji Cards. They sound better like that. I see that you have eleven of them so far. How many do you need to create?"

"That's something I need to work on. So far, my magical energies can sustain these eleven. Maybe another four in the future. Clow wouldn't tell me, but he did say that I would be surprised by the number of cards I would be able to obtain as I get stronger."

"You'll be a great sorcerer one of these days, Shinji."

"What about you, Akane? You can be a great sorceress one of these days."

"Sorceress? A girl who trains to be a shrine maiden, who relies on kyudo and the use of a tanto as her form of offense while using sacred sutras as a magical defense? Somehow, I don't see myself as being a great sorceress, Shinji."

"That's doubt speaking. Don't give power to your doubt."

"You know about my family, Shinji. Many of the women were priestesses. None of us demonstrated an ounce of power that the other families possess. The Ryu family is the only family in Tomoeda with the weakest level of magic that we derive from nature."

"Which make all of you the children of nature. Guardians of the trees…and of the flowers. You can smell of roses…or be as beautiful as violets. Soft as the leaves on a vine…or tough as thorns on a stem."

"Your point being?"

"You underestimate how powerful you can become. You draw strength from nature, Clow draws his from the light and the darkness, some families draw theirs from one element or another, even from the stars and the cosmos…"

"And yours?"

"Mine is derived from balance. So I guess, based on what Clows tells me, my magic relies on my being balanced, whether it's spiritually or emotionally, or being in sync with the world. I don't understand a lot about balance, as it's a concept I never fully understood."

"That's why you're still an apprentice. You still have much to learn. We both still have much to learn…and we will."

"To learn, to get better at magic, and to help heal the planet."

"It's what needs to be done."

"I want to believe in a better tomorrow for everyone, but before that can be made a reality, I want to believe in actually saving the Earth. In the absence of science, maybe sorcery can prevail…even for those that don't believe in magic."

"Some forms of magic, particularly the darkest forms of magic, needs no one to believe. Some gain strength from those that disbelieve."

"I will believe in the magic that can be used to save lives, but never to take them."

"Likewise."

-x-

"It's getting close to midnight now," went Misato to Clow Reed, who continued to sip his cup of tea. "Is he always out late?"

"No, never," Clow told her.

"Does he have anyone he hangs with?"

"I'm sorry. Hangs?"

"I mean, does Shinji spend time with anyone besides you?"

"There are some friends, but I don't pry into that part of his social life. What kind of guardian would I be if I didn't allow him the sanctity of his secrets, his privacy and his independence?"

"A responsible one."

"There's a fine line between being responsible…and being controlling, Ms. Katsuragi. It's a line I simply won't cross because I trust Shinji enough to know that he can always come home…when he chooses to."

"It sounds like you give him too much freedom."

"He needs to be a free spirit, Ms. Katsuragi. He needs to be able to have a life, unbound by the chains of those that would hurt him just for wanting to be more than what others had intended of him to. If you take from someone their free will, their independence, to decide for themselves by themselves, what are they left with?"

Misato sighed, and then Ms. Okuni expressed that there was a motel close by that the purple-haired woman could go to.

"If he comes back tomorrow, Reed-Sama," Ms. Okuni expressed to the man, "please have him know that his father requests his presence."

Clow nodded his head that he would inform Shinji when he returned.

Yue showed the ladies out and then closed the door.

"I assure you, Clow has never had any problems with Shinji since he applied for custody of him," Ms. Okuni informed Misato, "so why the sudden interest in a boy that, more or less, can't relate to his father?"

"I'm sure you're aware of the paramilitary agency known as NERV, right?" Misato asked.

"I make it a point to shy away from any agencies associated with a military theme. I'm not fond of any organization that feels the desire to fight someone, regardless of the reason. Violence only begets more violence. Fighting only causes further discord. War took my son from me."

"My condolences."

-x-

Shinji kept his book close to him as he slept through the rest of the night. Until a strange glow woke him up.

"Huh, what?" He groaned, opening his eyes and seeing a small, glowing sphere looming over his head in Akane's room. "Akane? Are you awake?"

Akane, who had fallen asleep reading Shinji's Ceres book, woke up and saw the small glow.

"What's going on?" She questioned, and the glow floated out through the window.

Suddenly, Shinji felt something about the glow…that attracted him to it, and he got up and opened the window.

"Shinji?" Akane went.

"You don't feel drawn to it, Akane?" He asked her, climbing out into the yard.

"No. What are you doing?"

"I need to know what it is."

Akane sighed and got of bed; whatever was going on, she wanted to know what it was.

"Wait up," she told him, grabbing her slippers.

-x-

"…Judging from earlier, I don't think this Clow Reed wants to give up custody of him," Misato told Ritsuko over the phone in her motel room.

"Commander Ikari won't like this," Ritsuko expressed, concerned with how NERV was going to deal with the Angels without adequate pilots.

"He might've been speaking with Shinji in some form of code when I showed up, warning him of NERV being in the city. Whatever the actual reason, Shinji seems to trust Clow more than he hates his father. I wouldn't be surprised by the boy's decision to renounce anything to do with his father if I meet him again."

"He actually called you a road raider?"

Misato didn't forget that. To have been called a variation of a speed freak by someone she had just met and see that he was less than cooperative because of his hatred towards someone he was related to by blood, it was unexpected. Not to mention that he was unwilling to stay in Tokyo-3 and had no interest in asking about Rei Ayanami, despite seeing that she was injured, simply because he wanted to go back to where he felt was the only place he could call home.

"I don't understand what's so special about this place to someone like Shinji. I mean, it's more trees and parks than buildings."

-x-

The glow was spotted by one of the larger trees on the shrine, and Shinji and Akane stood in front of it as its glow dimmed.

"It's a…a fairy," Akane uttered, seeing the creature that glowed like a firefly fly around the tree.

The fairy was bathed in a golden glow, but its appearance was more silver, with a princess outfit and waist-length hair, wielding a small wand that seemed to be sparkling.

"It's so pretty," said Shinji as he walked closer to the base of the tree.

As the fairy continued to fly around the tree, it showered the ground beneath it with countless, tiny specks of light. Then, it flew down and levitated in front of Shinji, where it then changed its shape, surprising him.

"Whoa," he gasped, as the fairy was replaced by the one thing he didn't expect to see tonight. "Another card."

The card, titled The Fairy, floated in front of him, depicted the fairy sitting on the left side of the card as it held up a long shaft with a lantern at the end of it. Her face bearing a serene look with her eyes closed.

"That was another Shinji Card, Shinji?" Akane asked him, and he showed it to her. "Incredible."

"If I wind up finding these spirits at night, it's gonna throw off my sleeping requirements." He told her.

"Don't you mean OUR sleeping requirements?" She asked him again. "After seeing this card, I want to help you find these cards that need to be found."

Shinji got the feeling that Akane wasn't going to ask him when she would demand him to get involved in something that just happened without much of a warning.

"If you're going to get involved in something that spontaneously occurred, you're going to have to improve your skill set and stop doubting your abilities," he told her.

To be continued…

A/N: The Fairy is a Shinji Card version of the Clow Card The Glow. Also, what do you think of the cards being named after Shinji?