A New Cause

by Traitor of All Traitors

Where the madness ended, a new darkness will begin, one that leads to light…if those that are tasked with leading the way can endure the wrath of those that stand against them…as well as each other. The Angels descend, the dead talk, myths and legends come to life, and judgment comes to more than just Japan. All of the world isn't safe…but is it in any greater danger than before?

14. A link to the past and future

Creation began on 10-11-14

Creation ended on 11-04-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

A New Cause: A link to the past and future

It had been at least four hours since Mana lost consciousness after discovering that she had been relocated to some sort of cave by the Horseman of Death…and four hours since Death himself continued to keep watch over her as she recovered from the Unit-02 assault that occurred after he had rescued his twin.

"Heh," the dead boy looked up at the entrance to his cave and at a young woman of French descent, with white hair and green eyes, dressed in a blue dress and yellow hat with a red ribbon. "So, what Conquest and War said is true."

Death remained silent, wondering what brought her here beyond her curiosity.

"The Poison Master and Violent One have been…absolutely running their mouths about your little angel of music."

He then turned away from her and returned his gaze back upon the sleeping girl he brought here.

"Oh, my, you're going to try and initiate her into the Restorative, aren't you?" She asked him.

Mako then manifested and expressed, "He has no idea of what you're talking about. Besides, there's no way he would do such a thing to anyone. He wouldn't even know how."

"Then why bring her here?"

"She was hurt and in need or medical aid…and she's innocent."

The exposed flesh on Death's left hand looked like it had started to go through necrosis and develop a degenerative stage of gangrene around the fingers. His elder twin took notice of this and realized that Lilith's blood, which still remained in trace amounts within his body, was starting to resume its work of weakening his younger sibling's body. By ignoring the degeneration, the horseman put himself in danger of being immobile.

"Death," the woman uttered, also noticing this. "Death?"

"It's nothing," he responded.

"You need to immerse yourself in water to purge her blood out of you," she told him.

"Not until she wakes up again," he expressed his choice, and she left. "Not until she wakes up again."

-x-

He still blames me for her murder, thought Yui, as she returned to the lab where her sons' remains were being regenerated, trying to forget that Mordecai, a man that was not of Asian descent or possessed any degree of scientific know-how, not even an amateur understanding of anything that dictated the way of the world, still carried a great dislike of her. He doesn't understand that everything happens as it must.

"That's your philosophy," she looked to the shadows behind the tank housing Shinji's corpse, seeing his Driving Force person sitting against it on the floor. "Your belief…and it's something not everyone can accept as truth. And what you know to be truth…but won't accept as fact…that it was your fault. You made a choice, and you stole a life that meant more than anything else in the world to some people that wanted nothing to do with your goals."

"Stop it," she uttered to him. "Go away."

"How can we?" Slayer, her son's murderous persona, stepping out of the shadows from behind the tank housing Mako's remains. "We're already gone. Everyone that has no purpose to serve in life is removed through death, and that leaves a pit, a graveyard full of restless souls…and pieces of restless souls."

"That's enough," Yui told them. "It was a necessity. The only way to make a real difference."

"There are always other ways to make a difference," Driving Force responded, his voice raised in unhidden anger towards her. "People that want to make a difference in life choose to be what they believe will make them better to those around them. Police, school teachers, priests or priestesses, dance instructors or graphic novelists, even doctors that treat the sick and elderly! Not what you have done with your life!"

FLASH! Yui remembered the day that was before she went to college for the first time and met Himeko Asagi, who had shown up to college the day before her.

"Hello, I'm Himeko," she had greeted and introduced herself to her.

"Hey, I'm Yui," she had responded back.

"Nice to meet you."

It wasn't the first time Yui had seen a girl with so much trust or friendship in her, but this one had this firestorm, this supernova that was so hot that it seemed like she could explode at any given moment.

"So, um…what is your major?" She asked Himeko.

"Chemistry. Part of my goal to being a doctor. Yours?"

"Biology. A similar path to a similar goal."

"I wish you best of luck."

The woman looked so much like what her daughter would probably look like in a few more years, with the sole exception of her blond hair, the opposite of her mother's dark hair.

FLASH! Her recollection of the initial encounter between them ended, leaving her in the presence of two hallucinations that wouldn't leave her alone.

"Back then, there was no hostility in her budding friendship with you," Driving Force told her. "She had genuine hope for you to do your best and achieve your goal. It seemed only natural that you two would be seen as rivals in a minor way."

"Both excelled in class, both got top grades, both qualified for valedictorian," went Slayer, adding what he revealed of her past association with the woman that aimed to be a doctor. "The both of you were considered geniuses, but where you deviated was in your respective desires. Her studies directed her toward the path of being a person that made a difference saving young lives from sickness and death. Your studies directed you toward the manipulation of biology, reworking genes and cells, making them do what you want. She wanted to save lives…and you wanted to create and manipulate life itself…and that is how two deviate from one another. It's like two sides of a coin: One side sees light…and the other sees less than light."

"What do you want me to say, huh?" She asked them, sitting down in a chair. "What, you want me to confess that I caused Himeko to die? That I asked her and several others to join me at GEHIRN when it started up, but they declined at the offer? That I pleaded with them to reconsider, only to be declined yet again? That when I saw Himeko a year after Second Impact, she had married that American man was having his child…and threatened to put a restraining order on me if I didn't stop harassing her?"

"Well, you were harassing her," said Driving Force, "and those that wanted nothing to do with your goals. They who became your friends during your college years all had one tie to one another, and that was the respecting of one another's desired dream. It then became something you chose to disagree with because you got control issues. It's why your friends left you, why Himeko suddenly became afraid of you. You didn't want them to think for themselves and follow their dreams, only yours. You can't stand being refused, that somebody might have a dream that puts yours out to pasture."

Yui grabbed an empty glass cup and threw it at the hallucination of the little boy that was Driving Force…but only saw it shatter at nothing but an empty space where she saw him reside. Panting, she placed her hands on the desk in front of her and shuddered at the insanity of her conversation with her younger son's split psyche that didn't seem to follow him to the grave.

"…You can't stand being refused… It's why your friends left you…why Himeko became afraid of you." She couldn't get his voice out of her head.

-x-

Mana opened her eyes again and saw Death sitting across from the stone cot she was on. She felt better than she didn't earlier, but saw that Death looked anything but fine. The sight of his left hand looking like it was rotting away to the bone and beyond, and then seeing the left side of his face begin to follow the process of necrosis, it was enough to make anyone with some sense react in fright and disgust at what they were witnessing.

"Um, Death?" She went, getting his attention.

Death rose from his position and stood in front of her, making crackling sounds like bones and joints being put back into place in the body's limbs.

"You're finally awake," he uttered, and then walked over to the pool nearby, immersing himself in the water until he was under the surface of it.

Mana got up and approached the pool, unable to see Death because the water was too dark to pierce through with her eyes. She could only assume that the horseman left to go somewhere.

He said I was safe, but where is here, exactly? She thought, stepping out of the cave…and into a hall-like cavern lined with small torches. "Hello?"

Wandering down the cavern, she felt like the place spanned for miles with the torches, though the place could've just been the size of a building. Maybe not the Geo-Front, but quite large. And it was quiet, too, like a library or museum that stressed out that silence was a requirement. She felt like she was the only person alive here.

"Hello!" She called out to anyone that might've heard her, raising her voice.

"Hello!" She heard herself, echoing throughout the cavern.

"Hello, miss," someone uttered behind her, and she turned to see the boy that was younger than Death appeared, dressed in rags made to look like a shirt and pants, with the gauntlet that read Famine.

She backed away a little, but the boy took two steps forward.

"Wait," he uttered again. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Death," she spoke up. "He left a while ago. I don't know where I am."

"Did he step into a pit full of water?"

"Yes."

"He didn't leave. He just needed to recover by submerging himself in water for a while to purge himself of the blood of Lilith. Didn't want to do so until after you woke up, so you must be special to him, and not just because you're an innocent soul."

"Who are you?"

"I am Famine, the Great Hunger, also known as the Restorative Horseman of Famine."

"Mana. Mana Asagi. What is this place?"

"My home," came a new voice, and both the girl and horseman turned to face its owner.

It was Mother Gaia, coming from another hall in this underground cavern, carrying a small bag with a single strap that was full of something.

Famine bowed his head to the woman, while Mana was confused further.

"Hmm… Heh-heh. I think I can see why your recovery was worth the agony Death put himself through waiting for you to wake up," she told the girl.

Mana recalled the physical deterioration that was occurring when Death got up and entered the pool. If the blood of Lilith was that dangerous to him, she regretted discovering this method that could be used to inflict harm upon him. If it could cause him pain, then it could cause further harm if he didn't get it out of him in time.

"So Death waited for me to wake up?" She asked her.

"That's right," Gaia answered her, and then set the bag down, revealing its contents to be food. "You must be hungry after sleeping for a few hours."

She offered Mana a sandwich that was like the kind you would get from a deli or a small restaurant, and she accepted, sitting down on the ground so that she could enjoy it better. She then offered another sandwich to Famine, who gladly accepted it, but, unlike Mana, devoured it in less than a second.

"Whoa," Mana expressed, unable to believe that this boy that was a horseman that could open his mouth that wide.

"I'm sure that once Death recovers from the blood of Lilith," Gaia regained Mana's attention, "he will take you home."

"Really?" She asked, hoping that she didn't sound desperate to get away.

"It's never in the best interests of any Horseman of the Restorative to just pick up people and not take them home. If Death brought you here to recover, then he must see to it that you're returned to where you need to be returned to. Otherwise, he'd regret his choice, and he would feel bad regretting certain choices he had made."

"Thank you."

-x-

"…I doubt that this dead boy would even be interested in her, Mordecai," went his father-in-law, Miroku, to him, sitting across the living room from him, pouring a cup of tea.

"Why take her, then?" He questioned.

"I don't know. Maybe he just wanted to make sure she was okay, but didn't want to leave her there, and wanted to get a second opinion elsewhere."

"He might be a horseman with ties to that book you gave Mana, but I can't forget that, before his transition, he was once that woman's son…with a body count of over three-hundred victims. He might be beyond the grave, but he's still a killer."

"A killer of killers, crooked cops, and other scrums of the Earth," Miroku made sure that his son-in-law was clear on what this dead boy was doing with his choice of prey. "I don't think I should've gave her her grandmother's book. It might've been my greatest mistake."

"What convinced you to send it to her?"

"I just felt like it would help her. I never took an interest in my wife's book, but had assumed in my initial skimming of the pages that the Ikari boy had become a servant of the underworld. I seem to have…misplaced my sense of judgment."

"Maybe we both have misplaced our sense of judgment. I just hope Mana's okay."

"A girl as good as she is, she must be okay."

-x-

"This place looks like it belongs in a fairy tale somewhere," Mana told Gaia, being shown the surface of the island terrain. "It looks like a secret garden or something."

"You could say that," the mortal goddess expressed, receiving several waves and greetings from several of the people that she passed by with the little girl. "It holds life in the most rudimentary of forms, even ancient life from times lost to the world."

And then, as if being a metaphorical truth to the goddess' words, from out of a nearby gathering of bushes, a tiger-sized stegosaurus passed the two, surprising Mana.

"Oh!" She gasped, backing away from it, but it just ignored her in favor of some nearby grass being consumed by a baby deer and its parents. "Is…is that a…"

Mother Gaia nodded in the positive.

"Are there others?"

"Mm-hmm."

She led her through the woods and up a tall mountain, taking two breaks before reaching a spot where they could see much of the land below.

"My God," the girl expressed, seeing a large valley that was separate from the land they had passed through, seeing that it was quite expansive, probably spanning several miles in the direction she was looking in, and that it was populated by plant-eating dinosaurs. "I'm in the land before time."

"The movie?"

"Literally."

"Littlefoot or Cera?"

"Ducky and Spike, actually."

"The parasaurolophus and stegosaurus, respectively."

"You?"

"Petrie, the pteranodon. But pteranodons aren't dinosaurs."

"Yet, they're included in dinosaur books and films."

"Like Jurassic Park?"

"Or the Godzilla films."

They then saw a flock of pteranodons take flight from one mountain on the western side of the valley toward the mountains on the eastern side. They had consumed most of some berries and were already trying to consume more.

"I thought they were carnivorous," Mana uttered.

"They evolved over the generations," Gaia revealed. "Some dinosaurs have changed slightly over time, but others have remained the same. I once saw a T-Rex go up against its evolved cousin."

"Evolved cousin? You mean…what did they call it in the King Kong film? Uh, V-Rex?"

"Vastatosaurus Rex? It's no longer make-believe."

-x-

It was hard to hear anything underwater. The world's noises sounding muffled out or someone taking a remote and lowering the volume down so that you couldn't hear much of anything. And as Death floated between the bottom of the pool and the surface of the water, his flesh regenerated from the invasive blood of Lilith as it was being purged from him. He felt much of his undead strength returning with every passing minute, surging through his veins and muscles, coursing with death-dealing power.

Death, a voice spoke out to him, in his mind. Death… Death, rise from the water and embrace your freedom once more.

He opened his eyes and moved to the steps at the bottom of the pit, rising from the water and dripping as the air hit his body. He stepped out of his cave and out of the cavern, out onto the afternoon sun, the cool breeze and warm heat drying his damp attire.

"You took your time regenerating from the foreign blood, Death, the Endgame," he heard Conquest say to him, sitting on a rock nearby, cleaning the nails on his left hand with an arrow, his hood down and giving his fellow horseman a grim look.

Death was about to approach the Poison Master, but then Mako manifested in front of him and raised his right hand in front of him.

"It's not worth it, brother," he told him. "He's just venting because Mana was brought here."

"If she has recovered, I shall take her home now," Death announced, and then turned away from the Poison Master. If I see War, and he runs his mouth about the girl, I will rip his jaw off.

As he entered the wood, walking around the people to avoid being questioned about bringing Mana here to recoup, he didn't see either of the other two horsemen. Wherever they were, he was grateful for their absence because there was hardly a likelihood that he could put up with them right now.

"…My father is probably trying to keep the hope that I'm still alive," he heard a girl say to someone.

"I'm sure he'll be relieved of worry when you're returned," the voice of Mother Gaia uttered in response to the girl, and he saw them walking around a wall of stone.

The two stopped in front of the unarmed Horseman of Death (Mana saw him armed to the teeth before he entered the pool, but now he was just wearing the spiked knuckles), waiting for whichever one of them to make the next verbal move.

"Death," went Gaia, speaking to the dead boy, "have you recovered?"

"I have," he answered her, and looked at Mana. "Are you well?"

"I'm fine," she answered him.

"Well enough to be escorted home?"

"Yes," she told him, nodding her head.

"Then I shall find Rumi and you'll be on your way."

As he left, Mana wondered why Death seemed so…detached from the conversation…and everything else, for that matter.

"Um, was it just me, or did he seem upset about something?" She asked Gaia.

"He's been getting that from those that fear that your presence will endanger them," she explained, "but your presence here hasn't brought any danger to anyone."

Mana sighed, realizing that, by bringing her to this beautiful place that looked like a literal paradise that couldn't be found anywhere else on Earth, Death was being harassed by those that worried for their personal safety.

"He could've left me where he found me," she expressed.

"But he chose not to," Gaia responded. "He might be getting negative reactions from the other horsemen and some of the people that don't want to see any further, innocent deaths, but he ignores them to the best of his tolerance than to regret not doing something he felt was the right thing to do."

"I piloted the Eva. I attacked an Angel, believing that it was an enemy to mankind."

"You were doing only what you thought was the right thing to do. It was an honest mistake, an accident that can be overlooked and forgiven. I believe meeting a horseman while in an incapacitated state of weakness…with only the intention of establishing nonviolent contact…or to understand someone rather than engage them or lure them into a false sense of security…more than absolves you of any guilt from your initial assault on Sachiel."

"Sachiel?"

"The Angel of Water. The messenger you had harmed, but was being merciful by giving you the opportunity to walk away."

"Do…do all these…messengers have names?"

"Just as you, I, people we know, people we don't know…have names, have identities of their own. Sachiel, Shamshel, Ramiel, Gaghiel, Israfel, and Sahaquiel. Respectively, they are the Angels of Water, the Day, Thunder, the Fish, Music and the Sky."

"Six out of eight."

"Yes."

Neigh! They heard a horse whine, and saw the pale unicorn of the current Restorative Horseman of Death, galloping toward them with her rider.

Death climbed off the saddle and stood in front of the two.

"Whenever you are ready," he told Mana.

She looked up at Rumi and thought that the unicorn was similar to the horseman that brought her here, being that they were both almost massive titans due to her size.

"Uh, how am I supposed to…" She tried to ask, meaning how she was supposed to climb atop the saddle without a ladder or stool. Even if she were to lower herself, I probably still couldn't get on.

Death seemed to understand her predicament and lowered to one knee to meet her.

"With your permission," he stated, "I will place you on the saddle."

Mana nodded and raised her arms to give the horseman unhindered access to her sides.

Carefully, if 'carefully' was as possible for someone whose hands dealt in death more than any other form of retribution, Death lifted her and placed her on the saddle. And then he climbed on again, getting behind her and grabbing the reins; this way, Mana couldn't fall off.

"Whoa," she gasped quietly, feeling like she towered over people just from sitting on the saddle of a large beast. "You can almost see forever."

Death didn't understand her reason for saying this; he got on Rumi for the first time he met her and could only think about getting away from where he found her so that he wouldn't be distracted from his duty to the new cause he had. Applying his feet to the stirrups of the saddle, he pulled the reins and Rumi reared up before galloping off.

"Whoa!" Mana gasped, grabbing onto the pommel of the saddle to keep from falling off.

As Rumi galloped through the wood on the clear path, fog gathered in front of her and her passengers.

Mana suddenly felt the speed of the unicorn decrease as the sound of its hooves hitting soft ground was replaced with the sound of hooves hitting a surface that seemed harder than dirt. But there shouldn't have been any hard surfaces anywhere on the island for miles and miles, and when she opened her eyes (having closed them when Rumi rode off at the speed she went), she noticed some lights over their heads as the fog dissipated and lifted from perception. When it lifted up completely, she saw that they were now running atop a freeway in the night. It was empty, without a single car or motorcycle in sight.

"Do you recognize any buildings that would aid in showing the way to your home?" Death asked her.

"No," she answered him, not recognizing any of the buildings away from the freeway.

"Describe where your home is," he requested. "What does it look like? Are there any streets or buildings you would recognize from a distance?"

"It's a… It's one of those single-family houses that's a hybrid of being traditional and modern," she tried to describe the place; she had only seen it once before NERV contacted her and offered her the position as the pilot of Unit-03. "It looks traditional on the outside, but is supposed to be modern on the inside. Are you familiar with traditional homes?"

"Don't know a thing about traditional," he answered, and that was true; having spent too many years incarcerated as a mortal, his way of learning had to be on the go rather than what others his age learned. "I know buildings full of sinners and such."

"Right… It's also supposed to be near a park," she expressed; she accepted that Death was very different from other men and wasn't bright-minded, but demonstrated that he was far from dumb or retarded to have been chosen to be one of the Four Horsemen.

-x-

Yui continued to look at the brain scans of Shinji, seeing a slight increase of neural activity, but still not enough to remove him from the tank. On her desk was a folder with another set of papers that requested her, from the Committee, to attempt an acceleration of the Dummy Plug System. With the loss of the Fourth Child and the failed attempt to acquire the ghost infant that was Yui's eldest out of her twin sons, SEELE was becoming desperate and ever-more determined to eliminate the Angels and the Four Horsemen tasked with protecting them.

Two more days, she had decided, watching the slight increase in Shinji's reanimated brain carefully. In two days, if nothing changes… I'll try to set the foundation for the new Dummy System.

-x-

"…You know," went Mana, as she and Death were still unable to find her residence, "you could just let me off right now, and I'll try to find my way back home."

"No," he told her. "I said I would take you home, and I'm sticking to that."

Rumi had carried them through a quiet neighborhood that seemed just as empty as the other ones Death had gone through when looking for criminals. Though the setting was quite attractive, with trees and flat streets that were deprived of any indentures or cracks. The small buildings themselves were nice to look at and there was no trash or graffiti in sight. Then, the unicorn stopped at a crosswalk, allowing her rider to check the streets for any cars or people.

"Your unicorn seems smarter than most houses," Mana told Death.

"She is," he responded, seeing no cars, and then made Rumi resume the trek to finding the girl's home.

Mana looked up at a building and took in its features: It looked like one of those tall buildings seen in the original Tokyo, only smaller and directed toward attracting and maintaining tenants with the necessities of simple living. It looked like it was three towers smashed together like dominoes with different heights, with the tallest tower on her left and the smallest on her right.

"That building," she uttered, which caught Death's attention.

"What building?" He asked her.

"That building right there," she pointed to the three towers. "I think it was designed to mirror an old building that used to exist in Tokyo."

As Rumi turned to the left, going in the direction of the building Mana pointed out, said girl nearly fell off the saddle.

"Whoa!" She gasped.

Death grabbed her with his right arm, but then saw something that wasn't part of his perception. It was almost similar to what he perceived during that night in Nagoya, the very same night he became attracted to the dark energies generated by sinners and their cruelty inflicted upon the innocent. But what made it different in every sense of the word was that he saw Mana being shown a picture by that man that had to be her father because their hair color was the same. In the picture was a house that was, supposedly, what Mana had explained to him was the one she now resided in, and in the far background was the same building that she had pointed out.

"Um, Death?" Mana called out to him, and his attention returned to the present.

"I think I can find your house now," he told her.

"Hmm?"

Rumi was then guided toward the road leading away from the building…into another fog buildup that was unexpected.

The next thing Mana noticed…was that they were now in front of the walled compounds that were the single-family homes she had seen. And on her left was a wall that had a sign that read "Asagi".

"That's it," she said.

Death then climbed off the saddle and helped her off of it onto the ground.

Mana rushed over to the door, just in time as a shower of rain started, covering everything in water as she was sheltered by the tiled roofing that extended over the porch. There was a note tacked onto the door that was addressed to whoever came by to the house to inform the readers that the residents weren't home…and wouldn't be for several hours. She could only assume that her father and grandfather were out trying to find a clue to her whereabouts. But she suspected that her grandfather left a key for her underneath the doormat like he always did whenever she returned home by herself back in the States.

Neigh. She turned around, after finding the key, and seeing Rumi and Death in front of her.

"They're out looking for any clue to my whereabouts," she told Death.

"They'll be relieved when they come back and find you here," he responded.

She saw rainwater slide down the sides of his face as said water fell from the roofing tiles onto him.

"Why don't you come in from out the rain?" She offered.

"Because I need to resume my hunting for criminals and other sinners that haven't paid for their unforgivable crimes against the innocent," he expressed.

"But…won't you catch a cold?"

"I don't get sick as a member of the dead. I can't catch cold, I can't get a fever, I don't get the stomach flu or contract whatever form of sickness that exists or will ever exist for as long as the Earth spins."

Mana sighed and nodded her head in understanding; clearly, the Horseman of Death was probably self-sufficient to the point that he didn't require anything to actually survive like how a living person did. Sure, he had the requirement for clothing and his weapons with the exclusion of his sickle, but as for everything else, food and water were unnecessary for his existence. So she unlocked the door and let herself inside, but decided to try and offer the horseman some measure of gratitude again.

"At least come inside until the rain lessens and you dry off your clothes, Death," she offered him.

His left arm almost clenched a fist, but then Mako manifested and expressed, "The guilty men and women of this world aren't going to be anywhere that you won't find them later on, brother. Accept the hospitality offered to you."

Death relented, though he didn't express it, and pointed Rumi off. His beast left to return to Mother Gaia's island until she was needed by him again. And then, he stepped into the small space that protected him from the rain that was pouring.

Mana saw this, and wondered what it took to get through to this lost soul brought back into the mortal realm of existence.

"Might we trespass upon your sanctuary?" Death soon asked her.

"You can come in," she obliged, and stood aside for the horseman and his ghost of an elder brother to enter the sanctity of her home.

This was the second time Death had entered someone's dwelling with their given permission, verbal or physical. He remembered the Serizawa apartment, the purple-haired Hiroko and her teenaged daughter, Miki, thanking him for saving their lives and freeing them their potential future bearing the children of their rapists.

The inside of this residence had a similar lived-in feeling, probably from the previous residents or the girl's father and grandfather, as the horseman examined the setting and the positions of the furniture and mats used for sitting. There was a feeling of being in a familiar setting, but it also reminded the dead boy that was the younger twin of some of the homes he trespassed upon in order to kill sinners.

"Is your father a practitioner of feng shui, Ms. Asagi?" Mako asked the girl, as she had turned on the lights nearby to illuminate the environment.

"No," she answered the ghost infant, taking off her shoes and slipping into some slippers. "It's a combination of eastern and western living styles that my father likes to perform when decorating or redecorating a house. My mother and grandfather represented the east…and my father represented the west, so there had to be a way of living that supported both sides. Though, it seems similar to the practice of feng shui."

"It's understanding and acceptance," the infant expressed, and then the girl left down the hall and disappeared into a room.

Mako then floated into a different section of the hall and saw his brother, who was standing in front of a collection of photographs, similar to those he stood in front of at the Serizawa apartment.

Death looked at the pictures that had the girl with an American man and an elderly, Japanese man. He could see how the girl had her attachment to the blond-haired mortal and the Japanese man clearly represented the maternal side of her family. Tracing the pictures by the years underneath their frames, he explored the past of this family…until he stopped upon a photo that was different from the previous ones he viewed. It lacked the Japanese elder, but included a young woman that bore an uncanny resemblance to Mana, with the exception of her dark hair, and she was holding a baby in her arms while sitting in a chair beside the blond-haired man.

"Are there any pictures you like?" He turned to face Mana, who had changed out of her clothes and into a blue nightgown.

She saw his expression seemed like it was trying to transition from its often-blank state into one of sadness, but couldn't.

"This one," he answered her, his left index finger pointing to the one he had stopped looking at. "Who is this woman?"

Mana came closer and looked at the photograph, feeling a tinge of sadness in her heart.

"That's my mom," she answered him, holding onto her locket tightly.

"What happened to her?"

"She died."

Death decided not to press forward on such a touchy subject and accepted her answer to the lack of a woman in the immediate family.

"You have a nice home," he told her.

"Thank you," she accepted his compliment, but then noticed how his jacket dripped water onto the floor. "You should get out of that jacket and dry off."

She led him to the living room and had him remove his coat, revealing his damp shirt underneath.

"Mmm…maybe you should remove that, as well," she suggested, holding his coat and having him sit on the floor.

"You might not like the sight of my flesh," he told her, undoing his shirt.

"I've seen your right arm," she informed him. "I'm sure I can handle your chest."

"Your funeral."

Removing the shirt, the horseman revealed his scarred and bruised torso, something the little girl didn't expect to see, but didn't turn away from the sight. He then handed her the shirt, with his right hand, revealing to Mana that the gauntlet that covered the skeletal limb was attached to where the shoulder connected to the collarbone, exposing the muscle and blood around the unprotected bone.

"Whoa," she gasped quietly, wondering how the blood was kept was spilling from his body if the flesh showed no signs of regeneration. "I'd…better go turn on the heater."

She left him and his brother to go turn on a heater and dry off his shirt and coat. What surprised her was that the sight of his body didn't frighten her, but made her feel more sympathy toward who he used to be when he was alive. He had endured years of abuse and demonstrated something that most victims couldn't, a will, a strength that went beyond their body's limit.

"…She's not afraid of you," she heard the ghost infant say. "At first, she was, but now that she's been around you a little longer, she seems to find you interesting."

"I don't like that word, 'interesting'," she heard Death respond to him.

"Not like a scientist, mind you. I mean as a person of interest, like how you find someone that is capable of things you wouldn't expect and find them able to install awe in you more than usual. The girl wants to be a doctor. A people doctor. A baby doctor. She doesn't have it in her to want to harm anyone, brother. You don't have to keep her at a distance."

"It's hard not to when trying to deal with those around you is hard."

Mana found one of the footstools she needed to reach things higher than herself and turned on the heater switch on the wall, slowly igniting the heat inside the house. Then, she went to the kitchen and turned on the stove, setting a pot of water on for tea. It was about ten minutes later that she returned with the kettle and two cups, along with some cookies she found in one of the cabinets, finding Death with his left arm on his left leg, his right leg stretched outward as his right arm was to his side for supporting him while Mako floated around the room without a sense of direction.

"Hey, you two," she greeted them, and they turned their heads to face her.

-x-

"Are you two still upset about Death bringing the girl here to recoup?" Mother Gaia asked the Horsemen of Conquest and War, seeing them in the cave belonging to Conquest, sharpening arrows and swords to pass the time.

"Death demonstrates unpredictability," went War to her. "Unpredictability, instability, insanity…and independence on levels that bring danger."

Mother Gaia then had a slight frown on her face that indicated that enough was enough when the questionable judgment of one of her horsemen was brought into question.

"Be that as it may, Death also demonstrates a very willful measure of defiance, which the rest of you can exhibit if you choose to," she told them. "Defiance, a part of the gift of free will, the very right to make your own choices in matters that may or may not concern you. Death made a choice, and he is the only one that has to deal with it. Those uncomfortable with his choice bring into question their own uneasiness with him."

"Death scares me," War told her. "There, I said it. Death scares me."

"He scares you?" Gaia questioned.

"We can't sense him like we can with each other, he rarely, if ever, engages in conversation, so we can never tell what he's thinking, if he ever thinks at all, and he acts like he has an agenda that's different from the cause we all have our roles in," the knight explained.

The goddess sat down nearest Conquest and expressed, "And I'm to suspect that this has been in question since after you four were brought together for the first time in too long a time? I accept that this new Death is vastly different from the previous one, but he's not entirely different. True, he can't be sensed by you three, but no matter what befalls any of you, he is your ally, first and foremost, and he won't turn on you. He won't abandon you for some reason that can't be explained by him or anyone else when there is a situation that needs to be resolved to the best of your abilities and judgment."

"When his brother was separated from him against their will," Conquest uttered, "Death turned on us. True, he was unstable at the time, but he wouldn't distinguish between enemy or ally. He looked past me and saw only faces from the past life he had, one of them being the man that was once his father, whom he condemned to the fiery depths of Hell. How can you be sure, when the time comes again, that he won't abandon us, that he will do his part in the cause?"

Mother Gaia sighed and answered the only way she could, which was the only way she kept her hope of a better future.

"I don't," she expressed. "I don't know if he will, just as I don't know if either of you or Famine will do your part in the cause. But I trust you four, regardless. I have faith in you…because I am constantly taking leaps of faith that every choice I make, both with the Restorative and my own life on the line, will be the right one in the end. I made the choice to have the lost soul that was once Shinji Ikari become the new Death, and it is I who must live with the consequences of that choice, just as I live with the consequences of having each of you as horsemen. Only I, no one else, will ever bear the weight of your actions and reactions."

"Like a mother who takes responsibility for her children's messes?" War asked her.

"That's right."

The knight then sighed and told her, "It has been centuries since that awful day I was betrayed by the woman that was once my mother, but I can still remember it clearly…as though it were only the day before. I felt my life energy diminishing from me as I fell to the ground. I had been willing to put down my life in the service of the kingdom I was a part of, all to protect the free lands of the kingdom and its people. And then, in that horrid moment, that woman, who was willing to betray her only son, sold him out to the enemy, risking the kingdom's very future by disposing of one of the strongest warriors that had only one ambition. Only one desire, which was to become a great warrior to protect the people. Who I was back then, betrayed by the only woman I ever trusted more than my warrior brethren, was never more disgraced than I could've been."

"The Fiery Vengeance," she uttered in response, remembering that day, as well.

It had been a day that was part of a century's generation of order and balance, though the world would never know. Any battles or wars that took place were no different from a minor sickness that needed days to get over. And then…she saw him, the young man that served in a small kingdom to protect the innocent, skewered by countless arrows, his blood seeping into the ground beneath him, his life force departing him. It must've been a short while before she found him that day, perhaps another day or two since his betrayal.

She approached him, saw him still alive, unable to move because of his fatal injuries. As she removed his helmet and saw his face, she saw the spark of hopelessness in his eyes. He still had his faith in his kingdom, and was willing to die in service of it, but his faith in his mother had burned away due to her role in his life fading away. And then…she had received a sign that would change everything for him.

"You won't live long with your injuries," she had told him, "but if you still desire to protect your kingdom, will you make a choice that will have only one repercussion in the end?"

"Urgh," the knight had grunted, raising his head to face her. "If the Devil were to offer me a great sword with which to conquer a great enemy, I will pay any price to protect the innocent. My own life, if need be."

"Then take my hand," she offered him her right hand.

As the light in his eyes faded away, he moved his left hand, pinned with eight arrows, and took her hand before taking his final breath. And then…the mortal knight had perished…and the current Restorative Horseman of War was brought into existence, filled with the strength of vengeance.

"I'm not sure what it was about that day that made me what I am today," War said. "The fact that after I return in a state of purgatory with power over fire to exact justice and free the people from the enemy kingdom…or that after it was all said and done, I returned to pay that woman a visit and sent her to Hell for her role in the deception."

"As the Horseman of War, you were given the command of an army of fire," Conquest expressed, familiar with the benefits of being the Restorative Horseman of War because he spent some time reading ancient texts. "The Legion of the Heavenly Inferno, ravenous, armored beasts. The stuff of nightmares that end nightmares made real."

War remembered taking this army and leading it to the enemy kingdom, where he offered the people the only solution to their warring sides: Leave or die. When they wouldn't leave, he razed the lands and the warriors to the ground as he searched for their king…and took his head off with his blazing sword. Only the innocent lives were spared, those that didn't or couldn't fight. And before his duty was fulfilled in its entirety, he returned to the kingdom of his mortal birth and sought out the woman that betrayed him, demanding her life only.

"But you were killed," she had expressed in fear of what he had become. "How can you still be alive?"

"I'm not," he revealed to her. "I have you to thank for that. You betrayed me, and now you must pay the price for your betrayal."

He then stabbed her with his sword, right through the heart, ending her life as quickly as his had ended, and then he left the kingdom, as it was no longer his home. He could never return to that place he gave his life to protect.

"…It's still your link to the past, War," he heard Gaia say to him. "It's when you're reborn on the mortal planes does your past begin anew, with a new future."

"It still hurts, knowing that she sold me out," he told her.

"And I tried to spare you the heaviest weight of that pain by putting you to sleep that would last a few centuries, calming your anger."

"And you did such a good job at doing so. You spared me from a terrible shame."

"And if I had to, I would do it again."

-x-

"…Are you sure you don't want a cup of tea, Death?" Mana asked.

"I'm sure," he answered; no matter how many times he was offered food or drink, he knew that he didn't need it.

The girl then helped herself to a cup, slowly sipping on the beverage, almost looking saddened by the offer being turned down.

Death's eyes shifted toward Mako, who simply pointed at him and then at the empty cup in front of him, as if indicating that his younger twin needed to remedy the slight infraction that he had caused.

I don't need it, he thought, but the sight of Mako's continued pointing wasn't letting up. "But…since you have offered, one drink isn't too bad."

Mana looked at him, confused.

"Really?" She questioned.

"Yes."

"Okay."

Pouring him a cup, she offered it to him, and he accepted with his left hand.

Looking down at the cup, Death sighed and opened his mouth, pressing the cup against his lips as the tea traveled down his throat.

"Is it good?" Mana asked him, just as he set the cup down in front of him.

It was the first drink he had ever taken since he became a Horseman of the Restorative, but it was the first drink he had in a long time that wasn't cold. And the taste, like something long forgotten, was most wondrous and made his inside feel warmed up.

"It is," he answered her, and passed her the empty cup. "Might I have another cup of it, please?"

She nodded and poured him some more tea.

"Thank you," he praised her, his lips looking like they were about to shift into an expression that he hadn't used in a long time, but didn't get the chance to as he opened his mouth and consumed the beverage again.

Mana smiled at him, suspecting that this was the first time he had ever consumed something that was heated, and suspected that, when he was Shinji, he was unused to having a variety of warm meals or beverages, always having consumed food that was edible as it was.

After having a fourth cup of tea, Death looked out a nearby window, seeing the night sky that had the rain clouds pouring, wondering if the streets would be empty.

"How is the time?" He asked.

"Sorry?" Mana responded.

"The time," he repeated, looking back at her. "Is it late already?"

Mana then looked at a nearby clock and saw that it was approaching midnight.

"I guess it is getting pretty late," she accepted, and picked up the empty kettle. "I hope they're alright."

As she got up, Death followed her, both into the kitchen where she put the kettle on the stove, and up the stairs, where the girl stopped in front of a door that had a sign that had her name engraved upon it. He watched as she opened the door and stepped into a dark room; he saw, with his enhanced sight, that there wasn't a single presence within the large space.

Flick. Mana had turned on the light, illuminating the darkness, revealing her bedroom to the horseman.

With a dead sense of curiosity in him, Death found that the girl's room was a blend between the eastern and western aspects of her mixed heritage: She had a futon that was based off the western variation, covered with sheets adorned with young ladies in colorful dresses on his right. Across from it was an oak desk occupied by several books, a portable computer and a lamp with a flexible neck. A small nightstand was next to the futon with a regular lamp with a covering that had pictures of a cat wearing a dress. Adorning the walls were posters of animals, the ladies dressed in colorful dresses, a little girl in a red dress with a strange, bluish creature that looked like a demented dog, and a few doctors helping little kids.

He couldn't detect any level of sinfulness anywhere in this room. This was what he expected from a girl that lacked the capacity for violence.

"Eh-heh," Mana gave a slight chuckle, feeling embarrassed, not that her father had set her room up, but having Death looking around it. "This is my room."

"If you expect me to gossip about it, you can relax your nerves," he told her. "Gossip is for those that want to talk about something that has their attention at the time."

Mana then yawned and sat down on her futon.

Death then bowed his head and stepped out of the room.

"I shall…show myself out," he told her.

"Okay," she accepted.

But then, he stopped walking, just mere inches outside her room, and turned back.

"Will you…be alright by yourself?" He asked her.

"Yes," she answered him. "I'm sure my family will be back soon."

But Death wasn't entirely convinced with leaving her alone. Then decided that his self-made choice to hunt down the guilty could wait longer.

"I'll stay until you sleep," he informed her as she got under her sheets.

"You don't really have to," she expressed.

"It's better that I do. It's not right to leave a child by themselves in a house without parental supervision. You don't know what could happen."

"Thank you."

-x-

Outside the house that had the stench of Death emanating from it in the light rain, Famine, deciding that he would keep an eye on Death by tracking his diminished scent of blood, and rode off before he would be found by Death.

-x-

Death sat on the floor beside Mana's futon, keeping watch over the girl as sleep hovered around her corner.

"You look like you need to sleep," she told him.

"Sleep is a luxury I can't afford," he responded, "though it would seem like a good thing to experience. Not many people can understand the benefits of their mortality."

Mana slowly nodded…and then her head fell on her pillow. Her breathing slowed down and Death couldn't sense any trains of thought running around in her mind, so she had to be drifting away to sleep right now. But the horseman decided to wait a few more minutes, just to be sure.

Yeah, he thought, sleep would be a thing to experience. But I don't really need it, anymore.

Ten minutes came and went, and Death got up and stepped out of the room, walking down the stairs, putting back on his dried shirt and coat and turning the lights off.

"How is she?" Mako asked him.

He raised his right hand's finger up and gave him the shushing gesture before pointing to the door.

Once they were outside, the horseman and younger twin expressed to the elder twin that the little girl was sound asleep.

"Were you trying to torment me back there, Mako?" Death asked him.

"No," the ghost infant answered him. "I was simply imploring you to partake in one's hospitality."

"Hospitality that can be viewed as a waste when it comes to food. I don't need sustenance to survive."

"But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy some of the simplest of pleasures that living people partake on."

"Is there a word for such a way of being?"

"Yes. Hedonism, the act of seeking pleasure."

Death turned away from Mako and stepped onto the road, where he felt the trace energies of familiarity beneath his feet.

"Of course, pleasure is different from happiness, just as happiness is different from sadness and so on."

As he placed his skeletal hand on the ground, Death uttered, "The previous existence was one of bitterness, fueled by loneliness and the loss of a future. Hedonism, my brother, is not a way to live, nor should it be a way pass time as a horseman."

Mako sighed and said, "You're right. You're right. I am sorry for trying to make you loosen up."

Rising back up, the horseman's skeletal limb was recovered in its armor plating of its gauntlet.

"You're forgiven," he told him. "The tea, however wasted by me, was still enjoyable. Thank you."

"A warm drink is better than a cold one," the infant expressed.

-x-

"…I don't know how you talked me into this," went Miroku to Mordecai, sitting at a bar counter inside a quiet bar where there were several men and women throwing their hard-earned pay away to indulge on alcohol or tea. "I gave up drinking when Himeko was four. I wanted to set an example to her that clear thinking requires a clear mind."

"I just didn't want to go back to an empty home yet," Mordecai explained this excuse, rubbing the left side of his forehead while drinking a small cup of tea.

"Sometimes, an empty home is better than no home at all," the elder expressed.

"Hey, is there anybody here whose last name is Asagi?" One of the bartenders asked the patrons, holding a phone in his hands.

"Us," Mordecai answered him.

"Someone's calling to speak with whichever one of you fathered a Mana Asagi. Has a voice that seems like he won't take a declination for a response from anyone."

"This person have a name?"

"Hold on. You got a name? Oh. Oh, God. He says his name…is Death."

Suddenly, the music in the room died and the other patrons became silent.

"Death? As in…the dead boy that's been killing killers and pedophiles and so on?" Miroku asked.

"Yes, yes, and yes," the bartender answered, handing the phone over to Mordecai.

"Um…hello?" He uttered.

"I had to track down a drug dealer in China to find a phone that works in order to speak with you," he heard the Horseman of Death say to him, "so I can only request that you listen to what I have to say to you. Do you understand me?"

"Yes."

"Good. Your daughter is a good person, one of the many that deserve a future free of loss. She even offered me a cup of tea, though I didn't need it, but accepted out of her hospitality."

"But I don't believe you did what you did just to call me and tell me this, did you?"

"No. Your daughter is fine. She's safe at home, asleep, and waiting for her family to return."

Then the line disconnected, and Mordecai handed over the phone.

"We gotta get home now," he told his father-in-law.

-x-

After he hung up on the girl's father, the horseman dropped the cell phone mutilated remains of the Asian drug dealer he had tracked down and sent to the depths of Hell for his crimes. The city he had found him in was almost empty due to his previous visit for criminals, but he was fortunate to discover a handful of psychos running around with relations to the Triads.

"Maybe I should start calling my victims before I pay them their final visits," he considered.

"Why talk to someone that's going to die, anyway?" Mako asked him, hovering over the ledge of the roof they were on, looking at the buildings below them that were as dark as the night sky was. "When they run, they don't waste time talking…unless it's to scream for help."

"Did you know that, just before we left her home, one of the other horsemen had been outside?"

"I did not. Which one was it?"

"Famine."

"Famine?"

"He's the only one that reeks of starvation among the four of us."

"Your abilities as a horseman surprise me, Death."

"Sometimes, I surprise myself. But you know what doesn't surprise me?"

"Enlighten me."

"For every sinner I condemn to Hell…it seems that several more pop up to make their acts known. You'd think that they would stop by now."

"To stop crime in all of its forms that cannot be forgiven would be a gracious answer to the prayers for crime to stop. To see a few cities, if not the world itself, free of crime, would make families that want their loved ones to grow up in safety and security. But I want to believe that you will end it by cutting off the roots. But if the bar to continue committing crimes goes higher, then your agenda, your goal, to eliminate crime…must be set higher."

"I must be more than what I am now. I must be…more than who I appear to be now."

"And I'll be by your side, supporting your every decision."

"Then you won't mind my decision to search for a sinner that needs to atone for his corrupted role in my former existence."

"And who would that be?"

"I have punished all of the judge that sentenced my former self. I've searched Japan, but couldn't find him. He's the last of the list of former ties to the incarceration that stripped the majority of life energy out of that mortal shell I had."

"But wouldn't that mean that he's likely dead?"

"If he were dead, I wouldn't have this feeling of unfulfilled justice within me. No, he's still alive…and I will find him and make him pay with his very soul."

-x-

Feeling a hand softly shaking her, Mana awoke to the sight of her father, on his knees beside her futon. She gave a slight smile and rose up to meet him.

"Hey, Daddy," she greeted him.

Mordecai then hugged her, crying.

"Daddy?"

"I thought I lost you," she heard him say to her. "The horseman just picked you up and left with you."

She understood his reason for being concerned and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"He didn't hurt me," she told him. "He was kind the whole time he was with me."

"You mean," he said as let go of her, "he never laid a hand on you or anything that was inappropriate?"

"No. I was recovering…and he kept watch over me the entire time. He never left my side, not until I awoke after being asleep for a few hours, and that was to recover from his own injuries. He wouldn't even let the other horsemen try anything on me, like he was a guardian for the good people. It didn't seem like he was ever interested in what men like the ones he goes after are often interested in."

Mordecai was relieved that Death didn't try anything with his daughter, possibly uninterested at all in her in for her looks or… It was like this dead guy was just out for the bad guys, leaving the good people alone because they were innocent.

"He called me last night and said you were here," he told her. "You even offered him tea."

"I did. He looked like he needed a warm drink."

-x-

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP! Yui, who had drifted off to sleep, awoke to the sound of her computer alerting her to a change in Shinji's brain activity.

I don't believe it, she thought, seeing that the LCL was having the desired effect on the subject's brain and nervous system. That's well within the acceptable parameters for the Dummy System.

"Lady, you're trespassing on grounds you have no right to trespass on," she heard the Slayer persona say to her, appearing beside Mako's chamber. "You continue down the path you chose…and there will only be more Hell to pay. Literally, more Hell than you can already afford."

But Yui wasn't going to be intimidated by a ghost that was only half of what Shinji had been in the flesh, and went ahead with the program to record the brain activity that was present.

"This needs to be done," she uttered.

"That's your opinion," went the other persona as he appeared where the shattered glass was still residing. "And your opinion is worth the same amount as Second Impact and the lives sacrificed by the people you serve, which is something you can't pay in life."

After completing the codes necessary for the recording program to run its course, Yui picked up the phone and called one of her superiors. They would be pleased to know that preparations for the Dummy System were now in order.

-x-

High in the air, beyond the eyes of mortals, Death flew across the Atlantic Ocean on Rumi, seeking out the living soul of the judge that had tried his mortal self as an adult and was bribed by that bastard Gendo into condemning him for years. But as he traveled across the water, a strange feeling of disorder was felt from afar. It was like somebody, somewhere, was trying to play God with something they weren't supposed to be playing with. However, for some reason, he couldn't detect where this was being done…or who was the one doing such an act against nature.

As he turned his head to the left to gaze at the large body of water below, Mako manifested beside him and uttered, "You felt disorder in the spiritual energies, as well, brother?"

"For every sinner I condemn, several more makes themselves known and felt. Must I take harsher measures to ensure that the innocent are protected…or must I spread a message that uses the murdered sinners as the bringers of the message?" Death asked him.

"As there are rules between life and death, there's a difference to be made for all," Mako expressed. "Killing to protect one innocent sets the rules that are not as likely followed by the sinners of this world. Killing to protect more than one innocent life will lead to bending the rules that are still not followed as likely by the sinners. But if you insist upon protecting every innocent life there is, then you must do one thing that sinners do."

"Which is?"

"Follow no rules. You are no longer among the living, so there are no rules for you to follow, only the ones set upon mortals still alive. Live people can bend certain rules, but you, the end of life incarnate, can break the rules. There are no limits to what you can do, Death, the Endgame."

Death then turned away from his brother, thinking about what he was just told…and would take it all into consideration.

Then, just as the sun began to rise where they flew, Rumi soared to the left, bathing her underbelly scales in the light.

-x-

"Ikari has begun preparations on the new Dummy System," SEELE 01 expressed to the rest of the council in a new meeting.

"It has taken this long to regenerate the Third Child's remains?" SEELE 06 questioned. "This replacement Dummy System had better be worth the time she had invested in the regeneration of her attempted murderer."

"Agreed," added SEELE 05; ever since SEELE had acquired the remains of the Third Child and his deceased elder twin, they had tried to regenerate them in order to compensate for the total loss of the First Child and the Dummy System that was to come with her.

"The Horseman of Death has added another Asian criminal to his body count," went SEELE 12 to the council. "Our sources have been unable to find him or predict when he'll strike again."

"We've increased the security measures to our secret installations, but it's only a matter of time before the horseman decides to come after us for what we've done." SEELE 02 expressed, and it was true; each member had taken increased precautions to ensure that they remained safe against the horseman that was Death, hiding away in underground facilities unknown to the public and NERV themselves, but even they were unsure if Death could find them, no matter how low they sought refuge.

"For now, we must wait and see what will happen," SEELE 01 uttered to them. "So long as the horseman remains unaware of our existence, we remain in control of the situation. Let him hunt down criminals he can find. They are of no consequence."

-x-

"…Your father's still on the waiting list to work at that supermarket," Mana's grandfather told her as they sat to eat breakfast.

As she picked up a piece of celery, Mana responded, "How hard can it be to find employment in this day and age now? I mean, a certain someone has been making strives toward people and it should've allowed responsible men and women to apply for new openings at various vendors."

"Maybe the employers just want to make sure any new hirelings have backgrounds that won't give them a reason to suspect any bad press from anyone should they, unintentionally, attract bad karma," Mordecai suggested, serving himself some scrambled eggs.

"If you two want to ask me more about the horseman, then just ask me," Mana told them, wanting to get the water under the bridge and behind the dam.

Her grandfather sighed and asked, "He actually kept watch over you as you recouped?"

"Yes," she answered him.

"Was he much for talking?" Her father asked.

"He wasn't much of a talker, but he was in no way disrespectful. Probably more substance over talk, the opposite of being all talk and no substance. But whenever he did talk, he has a handful of words. Talking may not be as natural to him as…what he is known for being good at."

"What about that ghost infant that was with him?"

"He's his twin brother."

"The horseman has a twin? But he's… How is this possible?" Her grandfather asked, confused.

"He's his elder twin brother. He didn't live very long, so that's why he still resembles a baby; he was preserved sometime after he past. Death, on the other hand, didn't meet his mortal end until he was fourteen, so while he has the appearance of a young man, he's still younger than his brother, who's like a guardian of sorts for him. Keeps him in check…spiritually."

"Define that, please," her father said.

"Calm? Collected? Stable?" She tried, but her father didn't understand her quite well. "His brother acts as an anchor of sorts to keep Death in line, so that the horseman doesn't go after people he's not supposed to go after or turn against his fellow horsemen with lethal intention. It's like being engulfed in a fog of poisonous air that you can't quite escape, and it renders you confused, causing you to address and perceive anyone around you as a foe that you must keep away from or fight to survive. It would be hard being unable to tell friend from foe."

"Oh," Mordecai responded. "But one thing I don't understand, though. Why, before you got hurt, before he protected you and whisked you away from NERV, did he say that you owed him a song?"

Mana knew that there was no avoiding this matter, and had to come clean.

"Somehow, after he had been separated from his twin," she started, "he came back to NERV HQ and found me on my way to the bathroom. I had just participated in a small, talent show and it's possible he heard me singing because he left a message on the wall that read, "Sing"."

"He was attracted to your singing?"

"Yeah, maybe. If it meant living, I would've sang for him, but I had to go, so he let me go. But by the time I got back, he was gone, and NERV realized he had been there, but were unable to find him."

"Maybe he likes your singing," suggested her grandfather. "You could be one of those pop idols that some girls want to be like when they grow up."

"And just discard being a doctor to children?" Mordecai questioned. "That would be awkward."

"Very awkward," Mana agreed with him.

-x-

Greenland, one of Denmark's pieces of territory that remained unchanged by the climatic change of Second Impact and the planet being thrown off its axis. But a cold place like this was home to a handful of sinners that attracted Death, the Endgame, who soared through the clouds above the country atop Rumi.

"Grrr," his beast of burden growled, hovering several hundred over a building that housed who Death had been tracking down for a while.

"To think that he would relocate to such a cold climate," Death uttered.

"But why here?" Mako wondered.

"Why will not matter…once he pays his dues," Death expressed, and slid off the saddle and into the air.

His descent toward the building was slow, as though he were parachuting without the parachute. He then performed an aerial somersault and landed on the roof of the building. Unlike his previous aerial entrance into Tokyo-3, this one was more controlled and had no intention to cause destruction to any of the buildings around him.

"Judges of justice, judges of injustice," he uttered, stepping to a door that led inside the building. "When blood is shed, retribution is justice truer than justice that is false."

Walking through the halls, passing the doors of various apartments, the sins of various souls full of darkness expressed themselves to the horseman's conscious.

"They know I don't want his baby," he heard a young girl's sorrow, and grew disgusted over the cruelty inflicted upon her by her parents' refusal to let her end the unwanted life growing inside her, planted there by her attacker.

"Tonight, that bitch is going to die," a man's desire to murder his former girlfriend was felt by Death.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," another man's soul expressed, regretting the choice he had made to engage in a relationship with another woman while married to another with a son on the way.

He soon stopped in front of one of the doors on the third floor of this eight-story building, and detected the very soul of the one he was looking for.

"He'll find me," the judge's soul expressed fear. "He'll find me, he'll kill me like he killed everyone else he went after. He killed the jurors, the people at the institute… This ghost is gonna kill my ass next!"

And he couldn't be any more right, he thought, taking hold of the shaft of his sickle and broke the door open, seeing the judge that Gendo had bribed to condemn him, older and vulnerable.

"Oh, God," the man gasped, seeing the Grim Reaper incarnate come to claim him.

"Remember me?" Death asked him, entering the man's home. "You're the last link to a past full of deception and cruelty. You took money from a man that didn't give a rat's tail for his child, and you had him incarcerated in a nuthouse, where the child spent what felt like an eternity in a Hell of mortality. And now…now, you will pay for your sins…and take your place among the damned."

"No. Please. I'm sorry."

"Death has come to claim the sinners of Greenland, starting with you."

The judge ran into a room and closed the door. It was hopeless, he knew, but he was desperate to keep away from the boy that he believed made a deal with some higher force to come back and bring the end of mankind into play.

Death raised his sickle up and slashed the door open, seeing the judge cowering by a window.

"Any last words?" He asked him.

"Please, you can't," the judge begged, wetting his pants right now.

"Why not?"

"Daddy?" A little girl's voice caught the horseman's attention, and he turned around to see her. "Daddy? Who is this?"

She had to have been at least eight years old, but her appearance surprised him (though, he didn't look it); Death would've expected to see a little girl of Japanese heritage, but he didn't expect to see a girl of African-American heritage…and there was no Asian blood in her. This meant she had to be adopted, an artificial attempt at having a family. Her soul was pure, though her past was full of hurt, losing her parents to a gang-related turf war that unintentionally involved them in the crossfire. She had put that pain behind her after the judge adopted her.

"Please," the judge begged, "don't hurt her. She didn't do anything."

Death returned his gaze to the judge, his face now contorted into a frown that mirrored his former self's rage prior to dying.

"How long have you had her in your life?" He asked him.

"Three years," he answered him. "Please, I'm sorry for what I did to you when you were little. Please, don't hurt her."

Death approached him, his skeletal arm exposing itself to his eyes as his sickle vanished.

"Death spares little time for lies…when a sojourn search for the truth…is its own jewel in the crown of truths," he told the judge, and placed his arm on his forehead.

"Aaaaurgh!" The judge gasped.

FLASH! The horseman saw the life of this adult, before and after his former life's trial. He had been an honest man before Second Impact, always wanting to be fair, honest and give justice to the people. But after the day half the world went away, he was forced to dabble in the underworld of law and order, putting away people that were innocent while letting the guilty (many of which he murdered after that night in Nagoya when he freed the ladies he encountered being abused) go free. And then Gendo had came along and bribed him with a substantial sum of money to ensure that his estranged son was incarcerated in that institution that made his life Hell. He didn't want anything to do with the boy Death had been, but was soon threatened by Gendo if he didn't do as he said.

"If you had taken more interest in him, he probably wouldn't have murdered those people!" He had told Gendo, but the megalomaniac didn't care about him one bit.

"If you don't incarcerate him, you will regret meeting me," Gendo had threatened him.

And so, the judge relented…and tried Death's mortal past guilty and had him incarcerated, took the money…and left Japan because he couldn't take the guilt and shame that his sense of justice, that law and order had been manipulated and twisted. He gave up law and tried to make an honest living as a librarian, but felt empty because he had no one in his life; his wife had died in the Second Impact and their unborn son with her, so adopted his daughter after finding her in the States. When he had discovered that Shinji Ikari had gotten loose and reduced Tokyo-3 to a ghost town before dying, he felt some sense of minor relief, like he wasn't being haunted as much by his guilt, but when he came back as the incarnation of Death itself, he worried that he would come for him and murder his daughter in front of him before he killed him.

"Urgh!" Death grunted, releasing the judge from his grasp. "How pathetic and depraved."

"Please," he begged, sobbing. "Please."

He wasn't begging for himself, but for his daughter. The blood ties were nonexistent, but his love for her was genuine; the horseman would've known if his soul was lying.

Death walked away and sat on the bed nearby, looking back and forth between the judge and his daughter that was afraid of him now because of his right arm's lack of skin. He came with the intention to murder the last link to his mortal self that made life Hell, but now that he knew of the man's disgust, shame and longing for a second chance to have a future of happiness and love, he came to a conclusion that was not part of his priority. He couldn't kill him, strip a daughter of her father of another heritage, not even to rid his damaged soul of the undesired chains of the unforgiving past.

"You're lucky you feel shame and guilt," he then told the judge. "You're hardly innocent because of your sins…but you're far from guilty because of actions made against you unless you did as you were told. The young man whose face I wear once spared an abused boy's father because the boy begged him, but he still crippled the abusive father before letting him live. This…will be your penance, judge."

Rising back to his feet, the horseman approached the judge.

"Your life belongs to me…metaphorically speaking. You will live as you have been before this night. Should you do anything that causes your daughter misfortune, such as breaking a promise to attend a school play or take her a park somewhere, even just lying to her, you will burn upon your final breath. You will burn…and you know every layer of pain there has ever been in existence…or will ever be in existence. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he answered the horseman, nodding in the positive.

Death then turned away, passing the girl and stepping out of the apartment.

Damn, he thought, now standing in the hallway. He was right there, and I couldn't do it. He was guilty! But he was innocent, too! And he has a family to look after. I couldn't kill him in front of his child, even if she wasn't his. Dammit!

So, here he was, with a link to the horrid past that was once Shinji Ikari. He let the man live, but under a penalty that would follow him throughout the rest of his life. The horseman still had other sinners to go after, other lives to end, lives to set free. But this was one life, scarred and pathetic, that he had to spare for different reasons of morality. A life that was a link to both the past…and future.

A/N: It'll probably be a while before I get back to work, but it'll happen soon. Tell me what you think?