Creation began on 11-15-15
Creation ended on 11-21-15
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hope from the Future: Words of Content, Words of Contempt
Being led underground was not doing well for Shiruba, as Mariko noticed. The little girl suffered from mild claustrophobia because one time, she was intentionally locked in a broom closet by her mother for an hour. So Mariko gave the child her bracelet on her right arm as a coping mechanism for the duration of their time in the Geo-Front; Shiruba, like most children, had an attraction to shining objects.
"Ooh, nice and shiny," Shiruba expressed, feeling content with the bracelet now.
As they vacated the express elevator and walked towards the metal pyramid that was NERV HQ, Mariko thought of Shinji's recollection of this place, and felt a measure of repulse for the agency that had initially forced her husband into a life of conflict with no real measure of a life beyond it. The twisted need to control people, the half-truths about the Angels, about why they were called Angels, and the man behind it all that was no patriarch or a father to her husband.
"Welcome to NERV HQ," greeted an elderly man in a brownish uniform to Mariko and Shiruba. "I am…"
"Kozo Fuyutsuki," Mariko cut him off. "I know who you are. My husband mentioned you a few decades ago."
"Your…husband?"
"You knew him as Shinji."
Somehow, Fuyutsuki felt that this elderly woman's so-called invite to here by Gendo was anything but an invite.
"Right. Well, this way, please."
He led the woman and little girl through the hall and to Central Dogma.
It was there that Mariko saw several faces that were associated to her late husband.
"Who are they?" A woman with purple hair questioned, pointing to the elder woman.
"You must be Misato Katsuragi," Mariko expressed, looking at her, and then at the young, red-haired girl. "And she must be Asuka Langley Soryu."
Asuka, quite surprised that this woman that they just met knew who they were, was now wondering who she was. There was something about her that seemed…similar to someone else.
"Who are you?" She asked her.
"Mariko," the elder introduced herself. "Mariko Ikari."
Misato, Asuka and Rei (whose face definitely expressed it) were shocked to be standing in front of the late Third Child's widowed wife.
"My God," Asuka uttered. "You're Shinji's wife."
Mariko nodded her head in the positive, and then noticed an empty chair nearby, and went over to sit in it.
Shiruba went with her and sat on her lap.
"My doctor tells me I shouldn't be on my feet for long periods of time," Mariko expressed, feeling relief for her knees. "Even with a cane, my age has hindered me in certain ways that it would any other person."
"Then why are you here?" Rei had asked her.
"You mean, Gendo didn't tell any of you? He sent his men in black to fetch me, just as they had my husband when he was here."
Asuka then realized that Shinji's father would also be Mariko's father-in-law, though the elder woman sounded like she really didn't like Gendo for any reason.
"And by fetch, I mean bring me here against my will by threatening Shiruba," Mariko explained further, holding onto the little girl on her lap.
"What?!" Misato gasped.
-x-
"You had your son's wife brought here against her will?!" Fuyutsuki questioned Gendo in his office. "Ikari, this is wrong!"
"She's associated with the Third Child," Gendo tried to rationalize his reason for having Mariko here. "He may have confided in her about the Eva."
"It won't change anything, no matter what she says to you. He took the secret to the grave with him when he died so that his family would be kept free from the Eva. You're just looking for an excuse to harass your son's wife and descendants, thinking one of them will tell you what you want to hear."
But Gendo had already made up his mind about Mariko. He'd been made up his mind about all of Shinji's family. They were all capable of keeping secrets regarding Unit-01's missing core that made it a useless cyborg, and this made them not just a hindrance to NERV, but a thorn in his side…and a thorn that needed to dealt with.
"I can't believe I once had a curious mind about you," they both heard the voice of Mariko, as said woman slowly entered the office. "You're no different from much of the men I've met over the years, thinking they're almighty and can walk over others."
Although she was much older than they were, Fuyutsuki felt the widow of Shinji was intimidating enough with her cane adorned with koi fish engravings. And there was something else about her that seemed unusual.
"Didn't you have a little girl with you?" Gendo asked her.
"I've asked Ms. Katsuragi to watch over her until I come back for her," she revealed. "There's only so much I can do to protect my ward when troubled by troublesome people."
"Watch your tone around here."
Mariko sighed and expressed that all Gendo was doing was threatening people whenever he felt the desire to cause them harm.
"Whatever you seek from others, they don't have what you want, Gendo," she told him.
"Now, what makes you so sure of that?" He asked her back.
"Men like you always have a one-track mind about whatever it is you have it set on."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes, really. In fact, that's one of the most useful bits of wisdom I learned from my relationship with Shinji. People with one-track minds tend to ignore or overlook everything else."
Before Gendo could say anything else, Fuyutsuki spoke up.
"That is an inescapable truth," he uttered to her. "My apologies for your unexpected visit."
"Oh, I'm sure the only one at fault for my and Shiruba's capture is my awful excuse for an in-law, who, due to the confusing passage of time, is younger than I am. I look at you, Mr. Fuyutsuki, and I don't see a man of cruelty, even for the sake of cruelty. Your reason for being here, I won't bother to trouble you by asking. Everyone's reason for being involved with an agency like this is their own. I just hope that there's a sense of morality to the reason."
That, of course, had Fuyutsuki reflect upon his reason for being affiliated with NERV.
"Your husband was affiliated with an agency called Monarch, I presume?" He asked her.
"He was with them…and I supported his decision to capture the planet's most unusual of animals whenever possible…and remove the most dangerous ones whenever necessary."
"Enough meaningless chatter," went Gendo to them, but more to Mariko. "You're only here for one reason, and that's to explain a NERV-related matter."
Mariko frowned at him; so far, Gendo wasn't giving her any reason to see him through different eyes. She couldn't see him as anything less than an immoral man.
"Your…husband had something of immense value disposed of," he told her. "It is imperative that it's found and returned here. You lived with him up until his final days. He must've confided in you about it."
Mariko sighed and sat down in one of the chairs in front of his desks; she knew where he was going with this conversation, and it was just as one-tracked as she knew his mind was.
"The core of Evangelion Unit-01," he continued. "Where was it disposed of?"
"I can't tell you what I never asked Shinji about," she revealed to him.
"You never questioned Shinji about the Eva?" Fuyutsuki asked her.
"It was a subject we would rarely, if ever, talk about. Eva was for defending the nation against the monsters that were a threat to the people. The less I knew about it, the better it was for the both of us. I viewed it as unnecessary to bring up during the periods of peace."
"That doesn't change the fact that you've seen the Eva before," Gendo retorted.
"I've seen it a few times. Mostly whenever a town or city was under attack by creatures other than Godzilla before he was captured and confined. But after he made the choice to discard the Eva, I told him not to tell me what it was he had done to it to ensure it would never work again for anyone. If you have it, don't share it. But if you share it, then you haven't got it."
"Cease speaking in riddles!"
But Mariko didn't falter in her verbal feud with her father-in-law. She wouldn't let this man, this disgrace, bully her.
"I can't tell you what you want to hear…because I don't know what Shinji did with the Eva's core. I can't tell you what I don't know. I never wanted to know. I never needed to know. Hence, whatever it is you seek from others, they don't have what you want. Even if I did know where the core was disposed of, I wouldn't reveal the secret to you or anyone else."
"And why is that?" Gendo demanded to know.
"Because I owe it to Shinji to keep quiet about such matters. The Eva he operated a decade after his arrival in Nineteen-Fifty-Four was a double-edged sword in its own right. As beneficial as it was for defending the people, I couldn't stand that it was depriving my Shinji of his life and family. Especially after my father passed away three months after we got married."
"So, basically, even if all of mankind was placed in jeopardy," went Fuyutsuki, trying to make sure he understood her correctly, "and you knew where the missing core was, you wouldn't reveal it to anyone…because you respected your husband's wish that your children and their children would not be involved in NERV's affairs with the Angels?"
"That's right," she answered him.
Fuyutsuki, even though it went against Gendo's scenario, wanted to applaud this woman for her association to Yui's son, despite the awfulness that had been done to her family, especially Gendo himself.
But Gendo wasn't very accepting of this revelation. There was no way this woman was that devoted to the Third Child to the point that she didn't want him to share any sensitive information about the Eva with her.
-x-
"…Your guardian," went Asuka to Shiruba, taking the girl's attention off the bracelet. "Is she really the widow of a one Shinji Ikari?"
Shiruba looked at the older girl and nodded in the positive.
"I saw her cry over an elder named Shinji," she explained to her. "I thought he was asleep until a woman that was his granddaughter explained that he was asleep, but he wouldn't wake up ever again because everything in him had fallen asleep. Mariko said that she was sorry she left him to seek enlightenment on where she stood in his life. It was the first time I ever saw her cry."
Asuka lowered her head…and immediately left Central Dogma.
"Was she a friend of his?" Shiruba asked Misato.
"Yes…and no," she answered her. "It's complicated."
"Mariko acting as my guardian for another nine years is complicated. My parents' departure from this life is complicated. Relationships aren't complicated. You're either a friend or relative to a person…or you're not. It can't be yes and no, only one or the other. Mariko tells me about her family…but I don't know them personally. So I can't say I'm related to them in any meaningful perspective."
"I don't believe that anyone here was close enough with Shinji to be called a friend," went Rei, including herself in the matter of the Third Child and his relationships.
As she walked in the hall, Asuka found herself wanting to question the widow on what wasn't in Shinji's memoirs…and the type of man he was outside of his written and video diaries. Just a few days ago, she viewed Shinji as a waste of time and effort for the Evangelion program, but after the Twelfth Angel incident and the discovery of him being thrown over fifty years into the past with no way back to the present through a shortcut, she just ended up regretting that day. Maybe if she hadn't said all those things she said, maybe if she hadn't let her ego, her pride get in the way, then maybe he'd be here…and not in an urn in Hokkaido after dying of old age and other factors that robbed him of his life spent trying to undo the darkest parts of history.
"…Don't you dare walk away from me, you old hag!" She heard the commander yell out from within his office, presumably to Mariko.
"There is nothing more to talk about," she heard the woman respond to him as she got closer to the man's office. "You could ask me until I turn eighty and go blind, and I wouldn't have an answer for you that you'd want to hear."
As she saw the elderly woman appear out in the hall from within the office, Asuka stopped in front of her.
Mariko was about to speak up when Gendo came from behind her, shoving away a concerned Fuyutsuki, and making an attempt to grab her.
"Behind you!" She warned Mariko, and the elderly woman sidestepped to her right, causing Gendo to fall past her.
Gendo turned around and tried to grab her a second time, but Mariko used her cane…and bashed him hard on his head, forcing him onto his bottom.
"You brought me here against my will, not the other way around, Gendo," she told him. "I told you I can't tell you where the Eva's core because I don't know where, as I've never wanted or needed to know from Shinji where. You refuse to accept this as the absolute truth, and this is how you react? You're as hopeless as you are disgraceful. I almost didn't want to believe him when he told me that he had suspected you of favoring the Eva a little more than you wouldn't acknowledge him as your son, but now I see the truth. You invested more in a weapon than you did your family, and that's a bigger disgrace for one such as you. I won't waste any more of my time on you; you're not worth a heart attack. If you wish to persist, that's your decision, but all you've done is push people away. People that do that…are no better than the sum of their fears of being around others. So they stand alone, at a loss for any relationship that makes them less than loners…and less pitiable."
She set her cane down and walked away from the man that was holding his head, and slowly past Asuka, who looked at Gendo with a look of pity.
"You could've been an honest man," they heard her say, "if not for the shame that you don't seem to understand anything or anyone."
Asuka then followed Mariko, just wanting to ask her about Shinji. But the elderly woman slowed down and leaned against the wall, catching her breath.
"Do you need anything, Mrs. Ikari?" She offered.
"Just a breather," the woman responded. "Not as agile as I used to be."
"Is it alright if I ask you a question about Shinji?"
"Feel free."
"I…well, I mean… Did he ever…mention me in the past?"
Mariko recalled the times when her husband would explain to her the time he had to work with a young redhead that was as violent, both verbally and physically to those around her as she had been or would be beautiful to look at.
"He did," she answered the girl. "I asked him once if he loved you…"
"One of his diaries revealed that his only affections were for you," Asuka cut her off, letting her know that there was nothing between Shinji and any other girl he wasn't romantically involved with. "He loved you only."
"I still had to wonder," Mariko expressed. "He couldn't understand why a girl like you could be beautiful to look at and violent to be around at the same time. I had to introduce him to the world of mythology in order to explain certain aspects of how women could or would act around others. It was hard to believe that he was a man from the future that never heard of Greek, Norse or even his own country's mythological history. The only creatures he seemed to know of before we ever met were these Angels he fought, the angels he understood as messengers from the heavens themselves, the first Godzilla that he saved Tokyo from in Nineteen-Fifty-Four…and the oni, which Unit-01 seemed to be based on in its armored appearance."
"And…what did he think of me after he was introduced to mythology?"
"He wouldn't change his opinion of you, but he did develop the minor fear that you could've been a femme fatale if you were without a degree of restraint."
"A femme fatale? I don't know what that even means."
"It's what the French call a woman who is deadly. It's no different from being called a harpy or a siren from the Greek mythology, as they were also femme fatales."
"Is that all that a woman is when referred as such? Just…deadly?"
"Deadly…but beautiful. They will use their beauty as a weapon when it suits them. They're only such when they're set upon actually harming someone without limit."
"Then, I guess I fit that category," Asuka accepted.
"Teasing and taunting are not the same as seducing, harming or killing," Mariko told her.
"It's my fault he's not here. It's my fault he ended up stuck in the past."
"You wanted him to, what was he once mentioned to me, show you that he had a backbone. I'm sure if you read whichever diary he had written it in, you would know what his thoughts were about ending up in Tokyo the night it was attacked by Godzilla. While not out to prove anything to anyone, he certainly had more than a backbone when he saw the people suffering. Not a hero, but a great man."
"It could've been me, though. It should've been me."
Mariko then uttered, "It's a good thing that it wasn't you. I couldn't imagine what my life might've been like if I hadn't met him. He once told me that if he had to relive that day a second time, even if it meant ending up in the past and knowing what would happen, he still would've done it. If he had…if he had known how he was going to pass away, he would've tried to change it. Rather than think about the way he died, it's easier to remember the way he lived."
-x-
As Ritsuko decided to look into Shiruba Kirigoe's background, the base started to rumble.
"Tremors," she sighed; for the last two years (for some unexplained reason), the Geo-Front and Tokyo-3 had been experiencing random tremors every now and then.
Then, the base shook again.
"Doctor Akagi!" Maya shouted at the faux-blond. "We have a problem!"
As she was led back to the bridge in Central Dogma, Gendo (who was hoping that nobody would know of the head injury he received from trying to harm his older daughter-in-law) and Fuyutsuki had gone back to the bridge, as well.
"These tremors have been acting up more often than they had last month," Hyuga revealed, showing the holographics on the monitor in front of him. "This new graph represents the minutes between each tremor that happens."
"Wait a minute, shouldn't these tremors occur days and weeks of each other?" Misato asked him.
"Those were the old graphs. This is now."
"But we shouldn't have any earthquakes at all in this region," went Shigeru.
"No, earthquakes are random, no matter what where you reside. These tremors have been consistent and increasing in their lengths. We still can't find the epicenter."
When Asuka returned with Mariko, the base shook again, knocking most of the personnel to the floor. The redhead was finding these periodic tremors to be quite bothersome (and the strangest thing of it all was that she was certain that these hadn't ever happened before).
It must be because Shinji ended in the past and tried to change the present, she suspected. For every action he tried to take, there was a reaction to his choices.
Suddenly, the alarms went off like crazy. Something serious was wrong.
"There's been a breach in Terminal Dogma!" Someone yelled out.
At first, Misato wanted to suspect that the breach was Kaji, but then she noticed that he was on the bridge with her.
Boom. It was silent, but that only meant that it happened far away from where they were; an explosion from within the base.
"Movement within Terminal Dogma," another person revealed. "There's something big in there."
"An Angel?" Gendo demanded to know.
"There's no blue pattern detected."
Boom. Another explosion deep within the base came, and some of the men and women suspected that they were coming from Terminal Dogma.
"The movement in Terminal Dogma…is heading towards Central Dogma," a woman informed the others. "It's moving through past the elevator systems."
The base began to shake again, but not because of a tremor. It was from whatever large thing was inside the base.
"Aaaaahh!" They started hearing people scream as they began to vacate. "Run! Get outta here!"
-x-
A large, scythe-like arm burst from the ground within the Geo-Front, followed by another large limb. And then a head, similar to the flying creature that had attacked earlier and was forced to flee by Godzilla's return, emerged from the ground, carrying something that looked like a person, but of similar size to the creature. In less than three minutes, the creature had vacated the crater it emerged from, allowing the fleeing personnel of NERV to get a better look at it. It was similar in every way to the flying creature that Godzilla chased after, but much larger and lacking wings, instead having an additional pair of limbs for locomotion.
When Gendo saw the creature hanging within its mouth, he, along with Fuyutsuki and Ritsuko, immediately recognized it as Lilith, being devoured.
"Grrrrrrrrrraaaurgh!" The creature shrieked, and consumed the last of Lilith.
"My God," went Asuka, never believing that such a creature could appear from within the base and not be an Angel. "That has to be another M.U.T.O."
Because its emergence from within NERV HQ was straight a vertical line from within Terminal Dogma and through Central Dogma, all that they had was a large hole that was worse than the Fifth Angel's failed attack on them, but just as similar, so not all of the base was damaged. Before either Units-00 or 02 could even be suggested of launching to intercept this creature from escaping, it began to demonstrate some form of levitation and began tearing chunks of the artificial ceiling away to climb through to the surface.
"Aaaaurgh!" It shrieked again, and something fell from it.
It was big, purple, and had seven eyes in front of a inverted triangle. The mask of Lilith.
"Uh, Mrs. Ikari," went Fuyutsuki to Mariko, who was holding onto Shiruba's left hand as they watched the creature get away. "Did Shinji ever face a creature like this before?"
"He never told me of facing a creature like this before," she answered him. "I saw him face a giant spider and mantis, but nothing like this. Absolutely nothing like this."
Even with Adam in his possession, Gendo now knew he couldn't implement his version of the Human Instrumentality Project. He had lost Unit-01's core, his wife, and now Lilith. He wanted to blame Shinji and his family for taking away everything, for living, for supporting that brat that defied him at every turn when he ended up in the Nineteen-Fifties. Mankind had been locked in a dead-end, unable to move forward, even by moving backwards.
"He was right," went Asuka, thinking about what Shinji had written in his diary.
"Who was right?" Mariko asked her.
"Shinji," she explained, "about what he learned in the past. Mankind's arrogance."
"The eternal arrogance of mankind…is thinking we have the forces of Mother Nature in our control…when it's the other way around."
"What can we do to stop this thing?"
"A man once told Shinji something that he once told me. It was that nature, despite all of its darkest secrets, has an order to everything that exists. A power to restore the balance of life."
"Well, then we need that power now."
To be continued…
A/N: What do you think going to happen now? A M.U.T.O. with the essence of Lilith inside it, an Ebirah with the power of Zeruel, and another M.U.T.O. with Shamshel's core. Things are escalating beyond anyone's control.
