Creation began on 05-08-10
Creation ended on 06-01-13
Neon Genesis Evangelion
My Special Keeper, Part Two-D4
-x-
With the Third Angel now brought back and humanized, Gendo was beginning to feel that he was losing total control over everything. The Angel could no longer cause trouble, but knowing that it was on the same grounds of existence that regular people were on, it was only a matter of time before SEELE found out.
Fuyutsuki, however, wasn't very interested in the situation with the two humanized Angels at the moment like half of NERV was; ever since he saw Akira Rokubungi, his attention had been split between the past and present. It was like he'd stepped far back into the past.
She couldn't be, he thought, though such a face was nigh-impossible to forget, especially one that remained the same each day for years.
It was completely separate interests that were being thought of in Gendo's office, with the gray-haired gentlemen wrapped up in a past from before he met Yui, and the cold-hearted tyrant trying to reassert control over the scenario he was losing control over due to distant…family matters.
-x-
Like how it was pleasant to see his grandmother perform her martial arts, Shinji got the same, positive reaction from watching Rumi perform her hook sword stances while in the same room with the lit candles. While both mother and daughter used different signature weapons that they were used to, their stances weren't entirely different. Shinji had noticed many things that were similar about every stance that his aunts and uncles used when they trained for the matches or tournaments each year; it seemed that each style, each martial art, was designed not just to counter each other, but to be used with other corresponding styles, as though they were all descended from the same art. As Rumi swung the hook sword in her left hand around, her nephew sat a safe distance from ring of candles surrounding her on a large, wooden bench on one of the opposite ends of the room.
Rumi probably never said it out loud, but she drew praise from Shinji watching her train. It made her want to do better in the style that she was best at. The next thing she knew, a warm breeze came in front of her and she sliced it in half with her right hook sword, unintentionally blowing out some candles…while less than two feet away from them. She stopped and dropped her swords, never expecting the candles to blow out…or a breeze to manifest in a room that had been built purposely without windows so that sunlight wouldn't distract any in-trainees.
"Rumi," Shinji had gasped, never believing he'd see this before. "I think you just channeled air for the first time."
"You really think so?" She asked him, looking at her hands.
"It was unexpected, but incredible," he confirmed.
"Arigato," she thanked him.
-x-
Like how coffee was difficult to adjust to as a beer substitute, even regular tea was something that had Misato wishing she could just down a few boozes and feel cheery. But the image of herself in some hospital with machines keeping her alive because of organ failure caused by extreme alcoholism made her resist the desire to do so. At least jasmine tea had a nice taste to it, so she wasn't the least bit disappointed in drinking that beverage. As they were sitting in her kitchen, she hoped there was something about Gendo's past that would clarify why the man was so cold-hearted.
"For some time, I hoped that not talking about it would remove the negatives of one's past," Akira had told her as she poured her own cup of tea, "but I guess it's true when people say that some wounds never always mend. Have you ever heard of a young woman named Joya Mu?"
"No."
"Not many people do, anymore. Those that did are either in the heavens or waiting for the end of their lives on the mortal plane. She was Gendo's mother, though she never had the chance to get to know him. I never got a chance to know her, either, but when I saw her last photograph, I both respected her…and pitied her. She was always a good girl, with great friends, good grades, a girl with a future in the culinary arts. Her only curse…was her father, a man named Noroi Mu. He changed everything for her…against her wishes."
"What, was he some sort of drunkard or criminal?"
"No. He became a reclusive, bitter forty-eight-year-old man that worked for a nice and respectful business firm that specialized in helping the homeless get back on their feet. He went down a bitter path of self-destruction after he lost his wife in a car accident. Kamau Mu, a very kind and compassionate woman that loved her family more than she did herself, died when her daughter was only eleven years old. People that knew her closely always said that she and Joya looked alike in every detail, except that Joya was younger. I didn't… I didn't know what had happened with their happy life until I was contacted by the hospital in Akira Town when Joya was administered and later reported to have run away from her father. This was discovered three days after she had died."
"How old was she by then? Twenty-three? Twenty-five?"
"Thirteen going on fourteen."
"What?!"
"After her mother died, her father started looking toward her as a replacement…and acted with hostility whenever she tried to refuse him. There had been numerous reports about her later and much larger absences from school, and many attempts to visit her parents' house, but Noroi was very adamant against letting anyone, even a friend, see his daughter. Later, it had been discovered why: He was abusing his daughter, sexually, ever since she was thirteen. He had gotten her pregnant and refused to let her leave the house. And then, when she couldn't take what he had done, anymore, she managed to get away from him, went missing for over a month, but was, somehow, able to find her way toward Akira Town three days before her due date. Somebody that worked at the hospital found her on the streets and brought her in. When she was due, she died in childbirth; her health was pretty bad. Her last words were reported to have been, "I can put down my troubles now, knowing I'll never come back." It was as though she were relieved. The only other word she was reported to have said by the doctors was 'Gendo', which they all assumed was what she had named her son. 'Gendo', meaning 'limit' or 'restriction'…or another way of saying it would be 'behavior'. Out of the two ways, the one for 'limit' seemed to be the primary one. So…before I took him in, he was simply Gendo Mu, a newborn that had nothing and no one, and, thus, was limited. His father and grandfather…were the same guy: His mother's father, looking to relive his time with his wife before her death through his own daughter. His penalty, once he was found out, was life in prison; his daughter's friends viewed execution as being too merciful. That's why Gendo's parents were to be both pitied and disgraced… Because his mother was disgraced by her own father…and people pitied her for her premature death. Gendo was another unique case for me when I adopted him. Normally, I get informed of orphaned children the instant the sages I know of get informed, but there have been times where I am told by others not affiliated with the sages or I just wind up in the right or wrong places at the right or wrong times. The only other child of mine that I took in that currently resides in my home, without being informed of by the sages, is Kanami, and her case was more unique than my other children, for her mother is still alive, only insane and incarcerated in a mental institution."
Misato couldn't believe this. She had always thought there wasn't another layer to the bad things about Gendo, but this story proved her wrong. Gendo was cruel, cold-hearted, and the result of an unwanted, incestuous fling between his mother and father/grandfather. She even started considering that Gendo was another type of person that wasn't heard of much of the time: A bad seed, which might have explained his behavior at the festival…and how he treated Shinji and almost mistreated Rumi when she refused him in piloting the Eva again.
"Wow," she sighed. "I can't believe this."
"Nobody ever says that the truth is supposed to be easy… They only say that it's supposed to be a means to help people learn from history so that they don't repeat the mistakes of the ones that came before them. The truth is never easy on most people."
"Do…they know about him?" Misato asked her; she wanted to know if Akira's other children, or even Shinji himself, knew of Gendo's roots.
"Excluding Rumi, they know, but their own kids are oblivious to his heritage. I won't even tell Shinji about this side of Gendo; he's not a result of cruel or disgusting forces gone wrong and doesn't have any siblings or blood relatives to develop an unusual attraction toward, so there's never really been a need for him to know…unless, of course, he asked and pressed me about the issue."
"But, um…does Gendo know?"
"He knows nothing of his father's crimes…or his grandfather's…but I told him about his mother without revealing her age. Not everything's a lie, just half-truths. If he ever did learn of the truth, I'd hate to imagine what he'd do to others as a means to vent out his potential rage. I kept the truth from him to keep him from turning into something dangerous, something Hell-bent on whatever was wanted. Yet, it would appear that my previous attempts to rear him were less than promising: He's not skilled in the martial arts, he lives on wants that he disguises as needs, he gets into trouble, sees select people around him as either pawns, tools or obstacles, and, in all honesty, doesn't have a relationship, whatsoever, with Shinji. He's not as I feared he'd possibly turn out as. If anything, he may have turned out into something worse than his old man."
Taking a sip from her cup of tea, Misato sighed and then asked, "You really worry about him, don't you, Akira?"
"You have no idea," Akira responded. "I worry…about each of them."
-x-
Going through old photographs from the time he was a small child, Kozo had found the one he was looking for: It was of a twelve-year-old him during a winter evening, accompanied by a young woman that bore an uncanny resemblance to the woman he saw earlier today.
"But…it can't be her," he told himself. "Who is this woman? What is she?"
-x-
"I guess the train's the best way to escort Mr. Sachiel to his sister," Akira told Misato the next day as they were eating breakfast. "Though, it's not something I'd wanna travel in today."
Like with dinner the night before, Akira prepared breakfast, while Misato, not up to another canned coffee, prepared green tea. The purple head was completely sober by now, unable to stand the sight of a beer can.
"Never underestimate the ability to adapt to different flavors and tastes," Akira told her, preparing the scrambled eggs now.
DING-DONG! The doorbell ringed, which startled Misato; she hadn't been expecting anyone…and she was half-dressed. Neither did Akira invite anybody.
"It's that elder that was looking at me so much yesterday," Akira told Misato.
"Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki?"
"Yes."
"But what would bring him here at this time of the day?"
"Have you ever invited him over?"
"No. I only moved here a few months ago, the only person I ever invited was Ritsuko."
"The faux-blond?"
"Yeah."
"Well, the only way to know why is to answer the door."
"You do it. I gotta go change."
Akira sighed and went to answer the door, looking the aged man in the eyes.
"May I help you, sir?" She asked and greeted him.
"I…I just needed to confirm something about you, ma'am," he responded.
"If it's about my decision to take the former Angel back to my hometown, I'm not reconsidering my choice on the gentleman or his brethren, should they appear in the future."
"No, it's not about the Angels. It's about you."
"Me?"
"Yes," he then took out the photograph and showed her the front of it. "I just want to know…if the woman in this picture from over forty-eight years ago…is you."
The town leader looked at the photograph and focused on the boy; he had a small grin on his face while the woman herself gave a slight chuckle. They were surrounded by a light shower of snow when the boy took the picture, and it was like Akira had taken a step back through time.
"Why would you want to know if this woman is me?" She asked him.
"Because her resemblance to you is uncanny," he answered her, "and I've not seen her since I was twelve during the time that I met her…when she saved my life one time."
Akira's eyes widened a little at this revelation.
"You… You mean to say…that you're…Kozo-Kun?" She asked him. "Kozo-Kun, a formerly weak boy that was constantly harassed by a few of his classmates and fantasized about getting revenge on them…is the elder that's second to a disgrace I had to force to give up the would-be enemy that's harmless in every major sense of the word now?"
"Kozo Fuyutsuki," he presented himself to her, now knowing for sure that this was the woman he'd met less than half a century ago in his childhood. "At your service."
"Akira Rokubungi," she presented herself. "A pleasure it is to meet you again after so many years."
"You've become quite infamous around NERV."
"Oh, really? And here I thought that the reason I came to Tokyo-3 in the beginning was to acquire information that would better help me to protect my home against enemies that aren't even interested in me. I didn't expect other things to happen while I was here, like reviving a defeated gentleman from the abyss of darkness and then getting jurisdiction over him and taking him back to where his sister is being restrained. Just how, exactly, did I get infamous around NERV?"
"You refused Ikari. Not many people can say 'no' to him about anything."
"My youngest daughter refused him, along with my grandson…and my only daughter-in-law before she got married to one of my boys. It would seem that at least four different people have had him surrender to their wishes of not wanting to get involved with him in any sort of way."
When Misato returned, dressed in her NERV uniform and her hair brushed and combed, she didn't expect to see the two individuals engaging in further conversation…or a photograph dated over forty years ago that had Akira with a little boy that looked like a younger Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki.
"…It's still hard to believe that he's an adopted child," Fuyutsuki said to Akira.
"It's hard to believe that you work for him."
"Would it be hard to believe if I told you that I don't even like him as a person?"
"No. That is easy to believe. Why work with somebody you don't have respect or affection for? Unless, of course, there was some form of benefit involved?"
"I had very little choice in the matter."
"You mean, you were forced?"
"Yes."
"How does an elder like you, who had no proper direction in his childhood due to lack of financial advantages, and lived much of his education with nothing but these theories on his mind, get forced into working for a man who may as well be one of the worst ones left alive after Second Impact?"
"Bad choices."
"If I wanted to, I'd pressure you for more straight answers than what you have just said…but because I still have respect for you, along with not having seen you for over forty years, I'll leave the truth behind your association with Gendo be for now. How has your life, pre- and post-Second Impact, been?"
"Over the years, I met people that were either brilliant or crazy."
"You would've rarely seen many of those in Akira Town. Hold on, either brilliant or crazy? You just reminded me on someone my youngest son tried to find out about years ago. Have you ever heard of someone named Yui Ikari?"
Kozo froze at the sound of that name. He could lie to her, say that he didn't know anything about Yui, but she'd know he was lying. Yui was a jewel that wasn't well-shared with others.
"Yes, I knew her," he answered instead. "I met her at Kyoto University when she was a student there back in Nineteen-Ninety-Nine."
Suddenly, the Angelbreaker acted up and showed Akira images that weren't easy to organize: There was a younger Fuyutsuki at the Kyoto University, just as the elder version had explained, along with a young woman that matched the one in her grandson's drawing; another image showed Fuyutsuki with a younger (and more tarnished) Gendo with a bandaged wrist, who said that he was used to getting bad reactions and getting into fights, some of which he started, intentionally. There was even an image of the same woman and Kozo hiking up a path and the woman, who'd been dating Gendo for some time now, saying that she found Gendo endearing and claiming that he hated being alone (which, to Akira, felt like nothing more than a contrast, since Gendo discarded Shinji after his mother's death instead of rearing him), along with others not being able to understand him; then, the latest image showed something horrible: The Antarctic grounds that were devastated by the Second Impact, reduced to a red sea that had several pillars of ice sticking out of the surface, with Gendo and Kozo speaking very few words, and Gendo revealing that he'd changed his name upon marrying the woman from the drawing that Akira became convinced was Yui herself, leaving Kozo somewhat bitter on the emotional level. When the images stopped there, Akira was wondering just what was going on in this soulless city of technology and what Gendo had done in the last few years of his own life.
"Akira?" Kozo asked.
"Sorry," she apologized. "Lately, I tend to zone out. Probably a sign of my age finally catching up with me for the first time."
Kozo wished he could've believed that, but he knew her to be lying a little; she had zoned out, but not because of her advanced age. He had recalled bits of his past prior to Second Impact and after it, and he knew that, somehow, she'd seen some of what he'd experienced. He knew she saw some of his open memories of Yui, his first meeting with Gendo, the sight of Antarctica transformed into a lifeless ocean, and that she heard everything ever uttered in those memories. How he was able to know of this was beyond his capacities for rational thought.
"I've yet to experience zoning out," he told her, deciding not to reveal her response to his initial woe. I have a strange feeling that if she ever met Yui, she might not have much appreciation of her beliefs.
-x-
"You stick him with any more needles, already aware that you'll find nothing in him to dissimulate him from yourself, I won't hesitate to teach you that science cannot explain all your questions," Akira's words echoed in Ritsuko's mind, having been informed by the town leader some time after Sachiel had been revived and humanized, and unable to bear the thought of what the woman that was old enough to be one of her ancestors, was easily dissuaded from trying to perform endless tests on the former Third Angel, knowing that the results would be no different from Shamshel's: Human on all levels.
Sachiel, who was placed within a room after he was examined by the scientists to see how human he truly was, awaited the woman that brought him back and degraded him to come get him and take him to his sister. Since he no longer had the power he had, initially, to fulfill his purpose, he was worthless to his brethren's cause, just like Shamshel. All he could do was wait for the others to do what they could no longer achieve to redress the balance between their goal to find Adam, remove Lilith and her brood, and restore their tarnished pride as Angels.
She brings me back, only to defeat me, but then says that I fall under her jurisdiction and that she'll take me to her village and my sister. Well, better to be defeated than to be killed a second time…and to be away from those that would gladly kill me a second time. One of those members of the Lilin looked at me with those covered eyes and I could see only bitterness within him.
The door to his room opened and the female member of the Lilin that brought him back and humanized him stepped in.
"Are you ready, Sachiel?" Akira asked kindly.
"Yes," he answered back, though he felt forced.
"Well, let's go, then. The sooner we're away from this city without warmth, the better we'll be."
She led him out of the room, met up with Misato and followed her down the hall toward the elevator that would take them back to the surface. As they walked down the hall, Akira received a series of stares from many of the working people that had signed on this paramilitary organization with the sole purpose of getting rid of the Angels; they felt like, because the one they started their would-be campaign off with getting rid of being brought back, their very purpose was all for naught, and only because the Angels yet to come had sworn a vendetta against her youngest daughter…and because the Third Angel claimed that Akira herself had brought him back as a man. Though only Misato knew she was wearing the Angelbreaker; NERV as a whole didn't know of it, and until the town leader was willing to share the knowledge with them, they were to remain ignorant of the one artifact that could defeat the would-be enemy without actually killing them. She paid them no mind, of course; they had probably seen destroying the Angels as the only solution to saving the world, unable to, or unwilling to, explore other, potential, alternatives.
Sometimes, the best way to win a battle or war is not to fight, Akira thought, and halted herself and Sachiel due to the sight of a person that stood in the way of their advancement to the elevator…and one that had been described to her when her daughter and grandson came home. So, that's her, huh?
Rei Ayanami, pilot of Evangelion Unit-00, the First Child, with a full recovery and in her school uniform, stood in front of her commanding officer and the woman that was taking the humanized Third Angel with her. She looked toward Akira, emotionless and without just cause. Something was not right about her; there was an aura about her that could very well be proper and beneficial…but hostile and dangerous to others, especially her.
Akira looked at her, but felt like she'd seen her face somewhere else. She looked just like Yui Ikari, except younger and with a different color scheme. They looked so much alike that they could've been relatives in a way, but Akira felt very little of an aura emanating from her; it was like she'd been born without a soul, making her a living shell of incomplete existence.
"Oh, hey, Rei," Misato greeted the girl. "They let you out of the hospital today?"
Rei looked at Misato and nodded in the positive.
"Is this woman taking the humanized Angel with her now?" She asked back.
"My name is Sachiel, miss," Sachiel uttered, offended that he was labeled different terms due to his status as a former Angel.
"Yes, she is taking him," Misato answered her, which gave some cheerfulness back to Sachiel, as she had said 'him', not 'it'. "He, like his sister, Shamshel, has fallen under Mrs. Rokubungi's authority."
Rei returned her stare toward Akira, now looking as though she'd been offended.
Sachiel hid behind Akira; he was willing to take any degree of protection from this female Lilin than to stay as a test subject in this place.
Akira felt the Angelbreaker acting up again, but tried to keep it from doing anything unexpected. Whatever it was reacting to, she didn't want it doing so in front of everyone. She stepped over toward Rei and presented herself.
"Hello, ma'am," she started, extending her left hand out. "I am Akira Rokubungi. How do you do?"
Rei looked, but didn't shake it. While this act showed some disrespect to Akira, the older woman accepted this as either fear or lack of socialization skills on the girl's part.
"I guess we'll be off," she said instead, resuming the advance toward the elevator. "Shall we be going?"
Misato and Sachiel followed her in and out of the hall, leaving Rei there, who didn't take her eyes off Akira at all. As the doors closed, the centenarian exhaled a breath once the Angelbreaker stopped acting up on her wrist.
"Was it just me," she asked Misato, "or was she unhappy about my taking away Sachiel from y'all?"
"Rei? Why, she's always like that. She rarely ever talks, though…unless she has a question or is spoken to. She's mostly seen in the company of Commander… I mean Gendo. No one ever sees her smile or laugh much of the time. Ever, really." Misato answered her.
"Shinji and Rumi told me once that when they saw her once, she was hurt. What happened to her?"
"There was an incident over a month ago with Unit-00, before Sachiel ever showed up."
"Hey, it wasn't like I had better things to do," Sachiel defended his former reasons for attacking people on his way to Tokyo-3. "Anyhow, I was resting, gathering up my power before I made my debut."
"We were attempting to activate Unit-00, but the test failed and Rei was injured."
"I thought you once said that it took her seven months to operate that thing."
"It did. She had to go through dozens of simulations before she got to work with the actual Eva."
"And?"
"When she got hurt, Commander… Gendo rushed over to her superheated Entry Plug and pried it open with his bare hands, burning them severely, to save her."
Although she probably should've felt proud of Gendo for committing such an act, Akira couldn't bring herself to say such a positive thing because it didn't seem right.
"He helps a child that isn't his, but ignores a child that used to be his, and then later tries to use the girl to shame him into helping him when he says no to him? That's just wrong."
"Huh? Used to be Gendo's?"
"He lost any and all rights to be Shinji's father a long time ago. How many parents do you know of have ignored the needs of their kids in favor of their own wants or needs?"
Misato couldn't answer that question; this was due to her own issues with her father, who ignored her and her mother in favor of his work.
"Before the priority of my brethren's goal, which is to find our father, could be achieved," went Sachiel, "we had to go through obstacles setup by the Lilin. Your kind hurt Adam, and then you took him. That goal still lives on with those you haven't seen, but now it lives as a secondary objective."
"And the new primary one is to put down my youngest child to restore your pride as Angels. You can't restore anything if it means you have to murder somebody to do so," said Akira to him. "And you're blaming everybody as a whole instead of the ones responsible. Sachiel…we're not all that different right now, in terms of goals or desires. We could probably help each other if we can negotiate some kind of truce. We can achieve the means to coexist. You want to find your father, I want to protect my people, and we both don't want to cause massive trouble like the trouble we're already in. I have half of the one thing in existence that I know very little of, so far, that can bring victory without the need to murder any of your brothers or sisters. Can there be peace, association and acceptance between us both, Sachiel? This…I'm asking you as a person, not a thing."
Sachiel looked at her, then at Misato…before responding, "Maybe with the few of us you've humanized, but with the ones you haven't, you're going to have a hard time trying to get them to accept you since they, like Shamshel after my defeat, want your daughter dead to restore their pride before they can get back on track with finding Father. They're pissed, Hell-bent and demand their own brand of justice against your family."
"And they hate the Evas, don't they?" Misato asked him.
"You made something in the image of our father," Sachiel was offended by the very monstrosities that the Lilin made. "Of course, we'd be offended! You hurt Father, captured him, stole from him, perverted him, and have tarnished him in ways that will only enrage the rest of us to the point where after the girl has been dealt with, if she ever gets dealt with, everyone else will follow her to the afterlife."
"Hold on, made something in the image of your father?!" Akira questioned, looking at Misato. "Is this true, Misato? Are those…things modeled after the father of the Angels?"
Misato sighed and answered, "Yes. They are copies of the First Angel. Before there was even a conversation about the Angelbreaker, NERV relied on the Evas because they, initially, were the only defensive weapons available against what we thought was a hostile threat to the world."
Once they reached the floor they were getting off on, Akira felt disgusted as she stepped out of the elevator with Sachiel.
"Okay, we got to talk more about this," she told Misato. "I was picked, along with my youngest daughter, to do what was needed to be done. Now, I feel that, in order to do what I'll have to do later, I'll need information about what truly happened fifteen years ago on the Second Impact. The information my kids gave me was limited to what I just found out from Sachiel and yourself. Complete honesty. What happened on that day in the year Two-Thousand?"
"My father's expedition was conducting research on what they designated the First Angel. I'm not entirely sure about what they did, but on the day Second Impact happened, Adam self-destructed."
"Father may have done so to try and protect himself from what your people were doing to him," Sachiel uttered. "Whatever it was, I doubt it was subtle."
"All I know is that because of that day, a living tsunami tried to destroy my town and it told me that people started something all for the sake of getting what they didn't deserve to acquire: Power. Whatever kind of power that is, I'm not sure of, but it all probably adds up to transubstantiation: Changing from a mortal…into a deity. I'm not much of a religious person, but I know enough to know that only people chosen to become something of that sort, even a demi-god, are allowed to accept or reject such a status or honor. People, young or old, smart or dumb, homo or hetero, regardless of one's ethnicity, even, must know and accept their place in existence. Trying to be a god, or to try and create your own god, is disgraceful! What would you possibly do if you were a god?"
"I'd remove those that hurt Father," Sachiel said to them, expressing what he'd do.
"If what happened at home and at Antarctica are true, and there are people trying to become gods, and if they ever succeeded, then they're responsible for the deaths of the lives taken by Second Impact. It wasn't an accident, it wasn't a mishap. It was intentionally caused. They caused the deaths of half the world…on purpose. They instigated a war with people that they don't understand…on purpose. This is like…a big mess made by naughty children, and now I have to clean it up before it gets out of hand!"
Misato remained quiet after hearing this. Although this could've all just been assumptions, it seemed to be genuine. If Second Impact was caused by people, then things like the Evas were planned on right from the start. And slowly, things were getting ugly.
-x-
The cold, night air on the mountaintop of Akira Town's sole mountain that stretched high into the sky was warm; this was due to Tsukiko practicing her Pyro Channeling. If it weren't for wanting to be like her mother in the ways of such an art that extended thousands of years into the past, she'd be doing something else. But this wasn't the case with her.
Fire is the element of power, she thought, making the flames of several torches around her on the training grounds bigger. But it's also the most dangerous element in terms of offensive strength. Several years ago, there was a large decrease in its activity due to lacking defensive stances. Akira knew the arts, but wouldn't use them unless they had more than simple defenses like walls of fire or shields. When she found out I'd been blessed with such a channeling ability, she wasn't going to teach me the offensive stances until I had mastered the defensive ones. Huh! That Gendo… He never mastered any of the stances, not only being a rogue and rebel, but an amateur Pyro Channeler that may become dangerous if he ever got the power to create his own flames.
Rayden's Comet was her reason for practicing tonight; she wanted to create her own fire by herself and not be blessed with the ability by a comet that passed the planet once every seventy years. Once she started learning the offensive stances, she was impressed and mesmerized by Akira's ability to create her own fire; the town leader and eldest citizen was the only one in the channelers' population that could, and it made Tsukiko strive to be a master of the art. It was one of four aspects that made a Pyro Channeler a master of the art: Proper breath control, economic in terms of energy so that you could fight for extended time periods, the manipulation of the fire element and self-manifestation of one's own fire. So far in the immediate history of the Pyro Channelers today, they had only achieved three of the four, but Tsukiko was determined to achieve all of them before the comet arrived. She refused to be made a cheater due to some space rock that caught on fire eons ago.
"Tsukiko?" The youngest woman heard her oldest niece come outside and catch her attention, so much so that the torches were burning regularly now. "Why are you channeling so late at night?"
Mayo, who should've been asleep, couldn't do so because of the sounds of searing flames, something her mother could sleep through for hours if she had to. Tsukiko apologized and sat down on the large rocks in the sand garden that served as a training ground for both Geo and Pyro Channelers.
"I just want to get stronger," she explained to her, wanting to hide her desperation in wanting to create her own fire. "I didn't mean to keep you awake."
"As much as I respect your need to defend yourself in the future yet to manifest, couldn't training wait until tomorrow morning?" Mayo asked her, yawning. "Akira will be back soon, and I wish to be rested up so that I'll be good to go when she returns."
Suddenly, a breeze caught their hair as something landed on one of the roofs of the house.
"I don't think you'll have to worry about being rested to see me, Mayo," went Akira, sitting on the edge of the roof she landed on. "How much did I miss?"
"Not much," Mayo answered her. "Shinobu's at Kagura's house and Nemo's at the lake."
Akira then leapt off the roof and landed on the ground.
"So, just how was your time in Tokyo-3?" Tsukiko asked her.
"You want complete honesty?" Akira asked back.
"No matter what happened, for better or for worse."
"You remember the tsunami incident on the day of Second Impact?"
"Yeah. It's not hard to forget when a wall of water speaks to you."
"That day…when too many people died… It was massive genocide, purposely caused by some people that wanted something that shouldn't be sought after, and they had some expedition of people that triggered the devastation, but weren't the driving force behind it. I had shown up at Ms. Katsuragi's and informed her of some very important information and how that soulless city would be ignored by the Angels until what they wanted to deal with here is done."
"Getting rid of Rumi," Tsukiko uttered.
"Yeah. Shamshel's brother, Sachiel, is now a cell next door to hers and the two are getting reacquainted. The more I had discovered while there, the more I became disgusted with the NERV agency…and disappointed with Gendo."
"It's that bad with NERV?"
"Very. Giant robots modeled after a creature that I discovered was the explosive powders behind Second Impact, Adam, the First Angel and progenitor to the two that Tokyo-3 encountered and now we have in rehab, meant to be weapons against them. I saw three of them and didn't like them at all, especially the purple one Rumi operated that they called Unit-01; there was something about it that made me feel that whatever bad happens to it later will be deserved and justified. I told Gendo that the Angels would be coming here, because, in all honesty, they will be coming here, and he wanted to bring his pet monsters here to deal with them."
Tsukiko and Mayo held onto each other after hearing that Gendo wanted to bring the things here to their peaceful town.
"Don't worry, I told him that they weren't allowed to come here," Akira assured them. "If the other Angels do come here, they fall under my jurisdiction because I won't let anything bad happen to any of you. There are other things I will share with you because you deserve to know, but not tonight."
"No secrets kept, no secrets sought after, right?" Mayo asked her, recalling that philosophy Nemo used.
"That's right," Akira answered. "For better or for worse."
-x-
"…What do you think of the woman, Rei?" Gendo asked the First Child, having purposely sent her to see Akira before she left with the revived and humanized Third Angel.
"She seemed very devoted to making sure the humanized Angel was taken from NERV," Rei answered him. "She dislikes the Evas, seems concerned about the safety of her home being insured not by NERV, but by herself, wants to deal with the Angels herself, without the Evas, and is disgusted by Tokyo-3, seeing it as an insufficient fortress city."
"Don't concern yourself with her," he told her, now pondering his next move. "She's an old town girl. She could never understand why NERV exists, which is to defeat the Angels."
"Except the Fourth Angel attacked her home and was humanized," Fuyutsuki expressed, having doubts about Akira, still the same in body as she was when he was a youth, and curious as to why she seemed convinced that the Angels wouldn't be a problem for her. "Maybe her home has a weapon that the people took from the Angel right after it invaded their home. Maybe the town was built on special grounds that caused the threat to be eliminated without destroying the Angel. That could be why she seemed convinced that the Evas would be unnecessary."
Gendo remained silent after hearing his old teacher's opinion of why the Evas would be unnecessary for the Angels if they went to Akira Town.
"That's not why she was convinced," Rei uttered. "She had something on her right arm, something that didn't belong there."
Fuyutsuki then recalled that Akira was indeed wearing a bracelet when he had to confirm if she was who he believed she was earlier yesterday. Could that have been what Rei was referring to?
"What was she wearing that didn't belong?" Gendo asked, interested and curious, though he hid such emotions behind his glasses and gloved hands.
"It…looked like a bracelet. A very ornate bracelet, but it also looked like something else…like an armored hand that looked alive."
An armored hand? A gauntlet, perhaps? Fuyutsuki wondered, trying to decide if Rei was honest or just downright crazy now.
-x-
To think that Shinji would be involved in a meeting with the family later the day Akira returned home after showing up late in the darkness of the night. And to think that the meeting revolved around the NERV agency; as much as he wanted to know how his grandmother's trip was when she was in Tokyo-3, he didn't really want anything further to do with NERV…or Gendo…or anything else associated to that organization, for that matter.
I wonder what she's gonna tell us, thought Rumi, as she sat next to Shinji on his right, in between him and Kanami, waiting for Nemo to show up because this was a family meeting, involving immediate family members. Of course, we all live with her, so we're all immediate members.
Nemo then showed up, having gotten the message earlier in the morning and rushed home on a twister of water from the lake he went to and shifted the liquid into its gaseous form and rushed into the house.
"I'm home," he made his presence known.
"Welcome home," went Bumi, sitting next to Miaka and Shinobu, who had returned earlier in the morning after having breakfast with Kagura. "Shall we begin?"
Akira, who remained quiet much of the waiting period, sighed and then nodded her head in the positive as Nemo sat down next to Tsukiko and Taeko.
"Okay," she started, knowing where she intended to start off with. "Do you remember the day the museum was trashed by Shamshel?"
"It's hard to forget when an ancient landmark that contains pieces of our culture is partially consumed by fire," Kanami answered up. "Go on."
Rumi felt that she knew where this was going.
"Prior to the explosion, Rumi and I got a hold of the Angelbreaker, which kept us from getting scorched. Sometime after the explosion occurred, it divided itself between the two of us and changed into the bracelets we're wearing."
Rumi then raised her right arm up to display her half of the ancient gauntlet.
"You…actually believe that the gauntlet you donated to the museum is those two bracelets?" Tsukiko asked, not doubting her words, but wishing to see proof.
Akira then raised her right arm up to reveal, much to their surprise, a gauntlet that looked like the Angelbreaker they had seen some time before, but it looked newer, redesigned and glistening. It covered her limb from hand to elbow, but what had startled them the most about it, especially Taeko, was that the metallic features of the armored hand looked…almost organic.
Taeko had no time to gasp, for she looked over at her youngest aunt and saw that her hand, too, had become enveloped in a gauntlet, a gold one with the same features as Akira's silver gauntlet.
Shinji, out of natural curiosity, which was rather lacking, raised his fingers up to touch Rumi's gauntlet, but received quite a surprise: The metallic features didn't feel like metal, exactly; they felt like flesh!
"Nemo, you're the sci-fi sage," he told his uncle, "you didn't notice these before?"
Nemo touched and examined Akira's, but became intrigued by the details. It was like armor…but it was also like flesh. Some sort of bio-armor, maybe even biomechanical.
"But…this can't be right," he uttered. "I examined the bracelets, and they didn't do anything at all."
"Maybe they're supernatural," Mayo suggested. "Maybe magic, even. What are they for?"
"Well," Rumi uttered, but then kept to herself. "I'm not even sure. I haven't done anything with it."
"You think it can protect the town from creatures like the one Shamshel used to be?" Shinobu asked them, having been convinced earlier before Akira left to Tokyo-3.
"It can. They can," Akira answered. "They eliminated Shamshel's threat by making her as human as we are. And, as far as I know, the shift from Angel to human is permanent. She's no longer a threat. The same goes for her brother, Sachiel, whom I brought back from the city, and now he's in rehab."
By the time it was three in the afternoon, Akira had expressed everything she knew about the Angelbreaker, what Shamshel had told her about it, and what she learned from her time in Tokyo-3. Rumi had also added her knowledge of the Angelbreaker having many powers at the disposal of the people chosen to wield it. The conversation lasted for at least fifteen minutes, with each member asking and answering questions as to what would happen in the future to come. Akira told them that she wouldn't hold it against them if they didn't feel safe any more than they should've after Shamshel was taken care of and wanted to leave (and, in truth, she really wouldn't hold it against them because she wanted to keep them safe).
"To flee from the sight of the next monster." Shinji went, after hearing Akira say that she wouldn't hold it against them if they left. "Where would I possibly go if Akira Town's wasted? This is the only home I've ever had in this life that I live."
"Yeah, and most of the people that live here have nowhere else to go," Rumi added in. "People depend on you to preserve their way of life here. If you protected them once from a living tidal wave, like how I protected Shinji from that jerk and Shamshel's brother, who says we can't protect the town from the remaining Angels?"
"It is you they're coming after, baby sis," said Miaka. "I doubt they'll care about anything else getting in their way, and you're not even in the way."
"I picture retribution to the tormentors," added Taeko, worried about Rumi now. "Shouldn't we just try and hide her where they'll not find her?"
"That would be no different from running away, cousin," Mayo expressed.
"It's not running away if you're trying to protect who you cherish. I'd hide y'all away if I could."
"Likewise."
Nemo couldn't take his eyes off the gauntlets that seemed so life-like, making his thoughts more philosophical for himself to comprehend.
Akira took notice of this and wondered what her youngest son was thinking.
When the meeting ended and everyone returned to their regular activities, Shinji went to Akira's room to speak with her in private.
"Do you believe you can actually do it?" He asked her, referring to the Angels if and when they came for Rumi to get revenge to their pride. "Can you humanize them and remove the threat they represent?"
Akira nodded and said, "Yes, Shinji. You think such a task will kill me, don't you?"
"No. Maim you? Yes. Leave you disfigured beyond healing? Totally. Wrack you with agonizing pain? Without any doubt. But the thought of any of the Angels killing you? I'm actually worried for Rumi because of that bracelet. At first, I thought it was just a dumb bracelet, really just a dumb bracelet. But after seeing you go and turn it into that gauntlet… Akira, I'll be wracked by great pain myself if anything happens to her. I view life as you once told me it is: Sacred, irreplaceable and precious, but I don't care what happens to mine. I just don't want her to end up…getting ripped to pieces, burned to ashes, reduced to pulp or snatched away by any of them. I don't even want Gendo sending people to come and take her like he tried to that first time."
Akira looked at her bracelet and then back to him as she sat on her bed. This was no different from the time her grandson had recovered from another relapse and needed blood from Rumi a second time; Rumi, laying in a hospital bed to recover from having much of her blood drawn from her wrists, told her mother to be with Shinji, but Shinji, who was recovering from the blood transfusion in the room across the hall from the one she was in, told his grandmother that she needed to be with Rumi. Akira hated this part of her life, the mere possibility of playing favorites. She didn't have a favorite child, grandchild or friend; she tries her hardest to care about everybody equally ever since her own mother died of old age. It felt wrong that parents with more than one child would have a favorite and a least favorite to a most hated child…and disgusting and cruel that those with just one child could and would favor someone else's while despising their own because of unjustified reasons, like why they don't have straight or beautiful hair or pretty eyes or a high IQ. She didn't favor Shinji because he was slowly dying from a disease that causes him to go bald from chemotherapy or to suffer from potential organ failures, which he hadn't yet, deteriorate the strength of his muscles little by little, temporarily forced him back into diapers for almost two years and cough up blood every now and then…just like how she didn't favor Rumi because she was the only one that could keep him alive longer because she was able to provide for him, medically. She'd do anything in her power to keep all of them safe without playing favorites or sacrificing anyone.
"I promise you, Shinji," she told him, "I'll keep her safe, no matter what."
Outside her bedroom door, Rumi had eavesdropped on the conversation between her two concerned relatives and became concerned herself…but not for the same reasons as Shinji. While she was happy that he, like the others, was worried for her safety since she was the target, not them, she didn't want to be protected by them. She could recall the night her mother came into her room when she was four and was asked if she ever had any desires to be a normal girl, to stop being a donor for Shinji, and Rumi had told her a little of how she felt about the very possibility of just letting her nephew die. "There's no such thing as a normal life, Mama. The family wouldn't be whole, anymore. I don't want him or anyone to just slip away from home and never come back. I'm happiest when everyone's here…and saddest when they're gone…for a long time. I had a terrible nightmare about Shinji: He was alone, in the night, on some street, running away from a monster the size of a building. It grabbed him and started squeezing him tightly until… I promised myself I wouldn't let him go." Those words were as meaningful to her back then as they are right now, and normalcy and a broken family were something she didn't want in her life, which wasn't normal. It was never normal. It was…special. Her life was special to her because it had all that she needed.
I'll keep you safe, she thought, retiring to her room. I promise.
-x-
NERV's scientists found themselves in another bind. The remains of the Third Angel's original body, with all the materials they hadn't collected from it, had gone and transmuted into a different material resembling regular lead from a common pencil.
"How could this have happen?" Commander Ikari, when he was informed, asked Ritsuko.
"It must've happened when the Angel was revived and humanized," she had theorized, "or it must be the very nature of this particular Angel. After dying, what remains of it only has a lifespan of several days before the deterioration to its body completed its course without its soul sustaining its continued existence. The only remains that didn't degenerate were the samples that were collected prior to this discovery, but the S² Engine has also deteriorated; we were informed by the NERV branch in Germany no more than forty minutes ago."
Fuyutsuki then asked, "What of the data they were able to acquire from it prior to deterioration?"
"It's all useless," Ritsuko answered him. "They were barely able to understand it themselves."
The remains of Sachiel's original body, true to Ritsuko's words, now looked no different from the regular lead found in a common pencil, with only the materials collected from before this happening remaining intact for later research and development. Its legs and sides were cracking from the weight its mass, crumbling to dust very slowly. The people that discovered this were shocked that it did so, but were thankful to have collected enough tissues from it that would allow them to perform their research for a while until they ran out.
"Two humanized Angels and a town leader of a town barely on any maps that has taken authority over them," Fuyutsuki sighed, though it seemed befitting that the Angels be dealt with by being made human; it meant nobody would have to suffer further because of the Evas.
But Gendo was now furious even more. All because Akira was becoming an obstacle in his way just like her daughter and the dying boy were. In fact, all of Akira Town had become a problem, now housing two Angels and probably treating them as though they were equals or something.
"Are you sure the Third Angel was rendered harmless after it came back as a human?" He asked Ritsuko, hoping to find some information that he could use as an excuse to try and exert his authority against Akira's, even take the humanized Angels from her possession.
"The Third Angel was checked time and again, poked and prodded and we couldn't find anything in him that we wouldn't find in a regular person," she explained. "Sachiel's as human as we are, down to the last strands of hair and layers of skin. Regular health, dentition, perfect vision, auditory functions and all ten digits on all four limbs."
In short, Sachiel was one-hundred percent human, complete with organs and red blood cells, a full-fledged member of a species that suffered because of the Second Impact…and incapable of causing a Third Impact at all.
To be continued…
