Creation began on 05-08-10
Creation ended on 06-01-13
Neon Genesis Evangelion
My Special Keeper, Part Four-C3
-x-
Knock-knock! Rumi knocked on her mother's door, catching her attention as she had zoned out.
"Huh?" Akira gasped, looking at her daughter. "Oh, Rumi. Sorry. I…I didn't hear you step in."
Rumi had a sad expression on her face, one that wasn't missed by her mother.
"Baby, what is it?" She asked her.
"You know something about Shinji that we don't know, don't you?" Rumi asked her, crossing her arms over her chest. "When you went to see Dr. Gyatso this morning."
"What could possibly make you assume I know something I'm not telling y'all about?" Akira countered, not really wanting any of them to jump to conclusions.
"When you were talking during dinner, you seemed desperate to stir up a conversation, anything to get over whatever it was that was bothering you today. I wish to know whatever it was you found out from the good doctor." Rumi told her.
"It's nothing that's even serious, Rumi."
"Better to be forewarned before going into a battle you may not survive…Old Grasshopper."
Sometimes, Akira had to wonder if teaching her daughter the martial arts with these quotes that Nemo decided to modify for her to get in touch with the modern times was a good thing because she wanted her to be able to defend herself as she grew up. But she knew that Rumi wasn't going to give up until she found out what she knew.
"And there's something I need to confess about," Rumi added in. "My daydream in the tunnel we were in on the way home that day we met Gaghiel and the Israfel Twins. There was more to it that I can't keep hidden from you. Please, Mother, tell me whatever it was that Gyatso told you…and I'll tell you what I couldn't about my daydream from that day."
Akira sighed and got on the floor by her bed.
"Well, it's only a theory that he came up with, so he's not sure if it's true or not," she gave in. "The theory so far right now is that Shinji's cancer…is not something that just happened. Somebody probably made it happen before any of us ever found out. Somebody, or a group of people, had, either by accident or on purpose…made him sick and kept quiet about it. But this is just a theory, and every theory has many different solutions to it."
Rumi came closer and sat in front of her.
"My daydream, while it involved me and Shinji being together…it…wasn't at all proper," Rumi shared her piece. "It was a strange dream: It was dark, there weren't any stars or moonlight out, but I could see perfectly, I was a little older than I am now, along with Shinji, who seemed fine, like he had his whole life ahead of him, but… There were these tentacles and lumps or blobs of skin and metal all around us, even covering parts of our bodies, like how the Angelbreaker does so and… I was on top of him, I mean, I was just on top of him, but I had my hands on his sides and chest and… I don't think I was…properly covered…and then… It's really odd to describe how I was feeling during the time I was with him in the dream."
Akira, being the quiet listener, pondered on the details of her daughter's daydream and then asked, "Well, how did you feel when you were…with him?"
"I was…happy…being with him… I was very happy to be with him…but I didn't know why. What do you think it meant?"
"Uh…perhaps it was your wild imagination playing with your sense of fear and desire?" Akira suggested; if what her daughter had described in her daydream was thorough, she wondered just how devoted she was to Shinji…and how far she would go to keep him safe and protected from those that would hurt or exploit him.
"Fear and desire…like I fear his death and desire his life? That kind of fear and desire?" Rumi asked.
"Yeah. When you say it that way… Yeah, exactly like that."
"But…it seemed wrong…and yet…it seemed right…but it's confusing. Does this mean that I have a dirty conscious that thinks things like that?"
"No, Rumi. Psychopaths will think of things like that. You, on the other hand, are simply maturing too fast. You turned six years old and you're still getting used to it, and yet you got caught up in a situation that only you, like me, myself and I, can resolve."
"Wielders of the Angelbreaker. Heh. I wonder what will happen once all the Angels are humanized."
"Hopefully, people will learn to never try and grasp power that they don't deserve or develop god complexes and desires of taking control of people."
Rumi then got up and yawned.
"Well, thank you for telling me what you found out today. Goodnight."
"Yeah. Goodnight, Rumi," Akira responded as her daughter closed her door so she had the privacy to change out of her clothes and into her own pajamas.
In the hallway, Rumi, thinking not of the potential theory that somebody made Shinji sick, but of the mere possibility that her daydream was just a brief glimpse of what was inside of her heart. She tried to sort out her feelings for him…and properly understand what they were; she cared too much about him to let him die, but, somehow, her feelings for him were different from how she felt for her brothers and sisters and nieces. There was a sense of favoritism between her nephew and the others, but why her emotions tightened around her heart when she thought about him dying were tormenting.
Why? She thought, stopping in front of his bedroom door. Why do I feel this way for him?
-x-
For all of his good intentions, Shinji didn't get much sleep later that evening. It seemed like each time he fell to sleep, he woke up every other hour, hearing a voice call out to him from afar. He wanted to deduce it as hearing things on account of his renal failure, which he had the good measure of knowing that he wouldn't die from it for quite a while, but knowing that if he didn't… He just wasn't going to let it come down to that. He accepted his fate.
Why do I feel that my only greatest regret is hurting Rumi deeply? He wondered, looking at the small clock nearby and seeing it close to seven in the morning of the Sixth of August. I should probably hang with her outside when she comes back to see me.
Reaching under his pillow, he took out his usual wig and placed it on his head, giving the illusion that he wasn't bald.
-x-
Sometimes, Asuka really despised certain people more than the Angels that never came to Tokyo-3 after the Fourth Angel attack. In the school she's assigned to, New-Tokyo-3 First Municipal Junior High School, which was becoming underpopulated a bit, she always had to endure the presence of two particular boys (you already know who they are) that acted like…well, like boys, along with several other of her male classmates that ogled her because of her beauty. And worse was the pilot of Evangelion Unit-00 was completely unsociable! Of course, instead of trying to pursue an interest that was akin to what kids her age were most likely to do, she blamed her lack of excitement on the Angels, the school, the classmates, minus her only friend, Hikari Horaki, and the mother/daughter team, Akira and Rumi Rokubungi.
Looking over at some empty desks while the old teacher droned on and on about the cover-up story of the Second Impact, Asuka often hated to wonder why such people decided to leave the city, especially when nothing terrible had happened since the last attack. Beep! She looked to her laptop and saw an instant message had been sent to her.
"Did you hear about it?" It said.
She typed in response, "About what?"
Another message popped up: "Some of the students nearly killing themselves in front of their parents if they didn't leave the city and go to where they felt were safer places."
"No, I did not," she typed back.
"What about the rumor that's been going on? About a woman and her daughter going up against one of those…things and beating it?"
Asuka looked around the class that the teacher never bothered to look at for any reason and deduced that her contact was the boy with the camcorder, Kensuke Aida; he was the only one in the whole school that seemed to have a habit of knowing things that most other people didn't or weren't supposed to know about at all.
"What does it matter? It's just a rumor, nothing compared to the Evas." She typed and sent.
"I heard the military or NERV have become interested in them. It's even stated the little girl was the pilot of Unit-01 during the first attack." The response came.
"Yeah, a little girl did pilot Unit-01."
Suddenly, the whole class, minus Rei Ayanami, erupted into a frenzy surrounding Asuka's desk along with Kensuke's.
"What was the girl's name?" One of the girl's asked Asuka.
"How old was she?" A boy asked.
"Why did the military need a little girl to pilot the robot?" Another girl asked Kensuke.
"Did her mother agree to it? Is she a member of the military?" Another boy asked him.
The teacher, detached from the scene that was happening, continued on with the history lesson that everyone except the class representative was ignoring.
-x-
"…It's so peaceful out here in the hospital garden," said Rumi, looking at the flowers. "I can't remember the last time we were out here."
"You were four," went Shinji, keeping track of the times they had visited the garden. "I once had a dream about you and the flowers."
"Oh, really?" Rumi asked, turning to see him and Akira sitting on the grass. "What happened in the dream, huh?"
"You were tending to some sunflowers, wearing a pink kimono patterned with roses, talking to me. I couldn't hear what you were saying, but it was peaceful, all the same."
Akira, as a small prank, decided to play with a small gust of wind and aimed it at Rumi's blue dress, blowing her skirt up and exposing her cotton panties to Shinji's eyes.
"Aaahh!" Rumi gasped, pushing her skirt down.
"Aaurgh!" Shinji gasped, covering his eyes as his cheeks turned pink.
"Ah-heh-heh!" Akira chuckled, revealing herself as the prankster.
"Mom/Akira!" Rumi and Shinji said, respectively.
"Sorry, my left hand slipped," she told them.
"That wasn't very funny, Akira," said Shinji, removing his hands from his face, but his cheeks remained flushed with the pinkish tint.
"But judging from your cheeks, you got a good peek," she countered, and his cheeks blushed to a darker hue of pink.
"Oh, don't make him seem like a pervert, Mom!" Rumi gasped, dropping to her bottom with her hands on her dress. "It's not right to tease him in that regard."
But deep down, Rumi couldn't suppress the possibility that her nephew did see her panties…and her wearing them. He'd seen them in the laundry or when she placed on her pajamas, but hardly ever looked at her wearing them in the public. It was…embarrassing and almost humiliating.
"Everybody who's watched those two Lilo & Stitch films have noticed that in the beginning of the first film, the animators showed Lilo's underwear as she crawled out of the dryer. And in the second film, they showed them again as she tried to skydive in her bedroom." Akira reminded them.
"Your point being?" Rumi asked.
"He was bound to see you wearing them sooner or later," she answered her.
"I've already seen a lot of you two during your battle with Ramiel," expressed Shinji, reminded of the photo of his grandmother and aunt wearing that racy armor that left very little to the imagination. "I'm glad the town media has decided to put that to bed."
Both girls then shuddered in embarrassment, reminded of that brief time they were wearing armor that was protective…but somewhat skimpy.
"I bet you got a kick out of seeing me exposed like that," Rumi expressed.
Shinji told her that he didn't, despite his cheeks saying differently. This was so embarrassing.
"Okay, okay, I think that's enough comedy," Akira uttered out.
Rumi then looked up and almost thought she saw something moving high in the sky.
"I think I saw a falling star," she told them.
"A falling star?" Shinji asked, once his cheeks returned to the usual paleness. "In broad daylight?"
Akira looked up and saw nothing, not even the cloud vapor that was produced by planes passing by in the air.
-x-
THRUST! Evangelion Unit-00 slammed the recovered Spear of Longinus into the creature known as Lilith, as per her orders from Commander Ikari. Very lately, Commander Ikari had his attention focused less on her and more on the little girl relation of the former Third Child and that woman that was said little girl's mother that took the humanized Third Angel away. Ever since the battles between the pair and the last three Angels, she has noticed that much of her…duty to NERV had been reduced…and her purpose to the Eva had been left in small pieces. Her synchronization with Unit-00 was still adequate while her synchronization with Unit-01 was slightly lower but still within the level where she could still pilot, but the last battles with the Angels had left the practical use of the Evas very small.
"Rei?" She heard the commander over the intercom system. "Did you handle it?"
"Yes," she answered him. "The task has been dealt with."
"That's good. Have Unit-00 brought back to the cage and then report to Dr. Akagi." Gendo had instructed her.
"Understood."
Somewhere along the way, her left hand had fidgeted a little, like something was wrong…or close to being wrong.
-x-
"…The nerve of those jerks!" Asuka grunted, walking down one of the many halls of NERV HQ in order to participate in another synchronization test. "They could at least talk about the Evas…or my beauty, but no. They want to know about Akira and Rumi, simply 'cause of what they've been doing since the Fourth Angel attacked their home!"
Personally, she hated the fact that what she felt was her chance to be in the spotlight had been taken from her by those two. Just what was it about a mother/daughter team like them that made the Angels view them as more important to waste their time on than to come to Tokyo-3 and try and put about the end of the human race? How were they more important than her? Was this an act of God, making the Angels cease their invasion of the city, or any other place, and trouble themselves over a little girl and an old woman that was, physically, forever young?
"Hey, Asuka," went Misato's voice to her as she broke out of her train of thought.
"Hey, Misato," Asuka responded, not as cheerful as she was when she arrived the first day.
"How was school? Learn any new kanji?"
"No. The students busied themselves with questions about they who don't slay God's messengers."
"They? Oh, you mean Akira and Rumi."
"Yeah, them."
"Would you believe me if I said that they probably didn't have a choice in dealing with the Angels?"
"What? There's always a choice! It's kill or be killed!"
"Except they haven't been killing anybody. So, it's more like fight or flight: You battle…or you flee."
"Running away is never an option."
"Sometimes, it is. Asuka, I'm probably the only person that will ever tell you this, and it's something Akira once told me herself: 'Take the cause out of the man, there is no cause for a man'."
"What? Take the… Just what does that mean?"
"It means that if you make it so that a person, regardless of their abilities, is unable to perform their duties for their cause, they cannot achieve completion of the cause. And if you allow them to live, unable to perform their duties in the name of that cause, they no longer have a cause to live for. It is both a failure and a mercy. Those Angels that have been humanized, they can't bring about the end of the world as they are now, and they can't ever go back to being what they were before. Being rendered human is a fate worse than death for them, in a way, and when they die, that will be that. End of the Angels and end of the former threat to the world."
Asuka sighed and leaned against a wall, taking all of this in…but couldn't accept much of it. All her life, she had been trained, specifically, for the sole purpose that was to kill the Angels, not let them live, even in states that were close to death. But because of the circumstances of their present situation, all that seemed to be happening was the Angels being dealt a severe blow that left them no different from her or anyone else…and they were being collected by Akira and Rumi. Her consciousness told her that it wasn't right to treat the enemy like they were equals or something close to that.
"Do you know why they're doing this, Misato?" She asked her.
"You remember that day the Fifth Angel attacked their town?"
"Of course."
"Those bracelets that we saw them wearing in the video footage, the ones that the armor was being sucked into… Those were what enabled them to defeat the Angels without killing them."
"They looked more like cheap jewelry than revealing armor. Or revealing in Akira's case. Did you see how her breasts were showing? They looked larger than yours."
Somehow, Misato felt that they had gotten off the track of what they were supposed to be talking about. Despite the fact that it did look like Akira's armor had an enhanced effect on her bust size, she doubt it was her actual size. She'd seen Akira enough times in the shortness of her visit to Tokyo-3 and that time at the festival to confirm that the attractive centenarian woman was a small-but-large enough B-cup, which was possibly the result of her inability to age any further than twenty-eight and only having three children of her own, Rumi being the third child born over five years ago after spending over one-hundred years of hearing other women go through the joys, pains and wonders of childbirth.
"I think you're missing the point of what I'm trying to explain here," she told Asuka. "What I'm trying to say is this: While they could kill the Angels now that they're human like we are, and quite personally a little, they probably should…but they can't and won't…simply because they choose to view different possibilities that are available…but are most often ignored."
"But they caused the Second Impact," Asuka countered, not wanting to accept that it was better to let the enemy live than to kill them for their crimes. "They caused the deaths of over half the life on the planet. They should be dead and reduced to pulp. You hate them, too, don't you?"
Even Misato couldn't forget the horrors of Second Impact…or her constant reminder of how severe the carnage was. Even after fifteen years of intensive recovery, she could still feel the phantom pain of her scar, the only proof that she didn't survive unscathed.
"Lately, that hatred over the Angels has become less than what it was when I saw Shinji," she expressed. "And after seeing four Angels rendered weak and helpless like us half the time, I can't find it in me to show contempt to those that weren't around when the Second Impact occurred. And they were only looking for their father, who's all they have."
"Everybody that knows the truth about the cover-up story knows that the First Angel was destroyed."
"Lately, I'm not so sure…and that's because of the revived Third Angel. He seemed convinced that his father was still alive, otherwise he and his brethren wouldn't have been, in the beginning, so Hell-bent on coming here… Wait a minute!"
"In the beginning…coming here…like there was something…something for them here?" Asuka questioned, now recalling the day that the Fourth Angel arrived, and then left when the foreign energy signature was detected and drew it away from the city…straight to the town. "But what could have possibly been here for an Angel to want?"
"That's the question, and until they achieve their new goal of getting rid of Rumi, we might not know."
"But they can't get rid of Rumi, as we all know. Her mother won't allow the Angels to waste her…and the ones that are humanized can't do squat to her, so why…"
BOOM! An explosion shook the hall up and knocked the ladies to the floor.
"What the Hell?" Misato reacted, getting up, seeing a smoking hole in the wall with bits of debris everywhere. "Asuka, are you alright?"
"I'll live," Asuka answered her, getting back up. "What happened?"
Suddenly, somebody stepped out of the hole, entering the hallway and facing them. What they saw was beyond real and more surrealistic: Rei Ayanami, covered, somewhat revealingly, from head to toe, in what appeared to be tendrils made of bone and metal, and carrying a large, curved scythe or crescent-shaped blade in her left hand.
"Rei?" Misato asked, but saw the girl's eyes and shuddered in fear.
"Where's the little bitch?" Rei asked, sounding different from her usual, detached self; her tone made her seem tough, rough and dangerously seductive. "Where is she?"
"Rei!" Rei then turned to look back into the room she stepped out of and down at Gendo, who was sporting a gash on his head. "Stop this!"
Rei ignored him and walked toward Misato and Asuka, either intent on walking past them or leaving them injured.
"Stand aside," she ordered them. "Don't get in my way."
Asuka wasn't about to be intimidated by the First Child just because she was wearing some ugly, revealing, would-be set of armor that looked like a rip-off of the armor that Akira and Rumi were wearing when they defeated the three recent Angels.
"You can't order me around, you freak!" She told Rei.
"So be it," responded Rei, and she raised the blade up.
BASH! Rei slammed it against Asuka's head and knocked her away, clearing the path, since Asuka had slammed into Misato and knocked her away, as well.
"Rei!" Gendo called out to her, but she ignored him, driven by the desire to do what she had never done before, which was to go find the little girl that changed everything…and relieve her of her everything she held most dear.
-x-
The evening walk back home from the hospital was pleasant for Rumi. It always made her happy to walk on her own after seeing Shinji.
"You're very cheerful, Rumi," Akira told her.
"Does there have to be a reason to why?" Rumi asked her.
"Well, before we left, Shinji did ask me to make copies of his scrapbook. Every time I look in it, I see moments that are eternal."
Except the next moment when Akira expected Rumi to speak up, she heard a small thud and turned around to see her daughter had fallen to the ground.
"Rumi!" She gasped, returning to pick her up. "Rumi?"
"Sorry…" Rumi had responded. "Just feeling a little weak in my knees. I guess I'm paying for all that orange juice I drank earlier today."
"Come on," Akira lifted her onto her back and carried her the rest of the way up the mountain pathway.
When they got back home, after Akira helped her into bed, the centenarian, while she still had adrenaline in her system to keep her awake, decided to pay the rehabilitation center's humanized Angels a nightly visit.
-x-
"…How can you understand these…stories that the Lilin write down?" Gaghiel asked Shamshel, looking at a book. "These inscriptions look like scratches to me."
"That's why you need to take a basic reading course, brother," said Shamshel to him, still reading her romance novel. "By understanding what the languages are and what the words mean, you understand what the story is about."
"Okay, you siblings, you have a night visitor," they all heard one of the guards say to them.
"Which one?" Sachiel asked.
"I know who," went Ramiel, and then they all saw Akira. "You're the only one that comes to see us most of the time. Specifically, for the purpose of acquiring information that helps you protect your people and the world."
"Ramiel, please, give it a rest," Akira told them, standing the middle of their cells. "And yes, I do need information…again. Hardly about the Angelbreaker…and mostly about all of you."
"What do you want to know about us?" Otsu Israfel asked her.
"How many of you…are there left to face…and when you'll arrive to try and erase Rumi?" She asked.
"Before Lilith ever arrived and stole the planet from us, our father only had eleven of us, including himself," revealed Sachiel to her.
"Eleven of you, including your father? Remove your father from the total, take away the five of you that have been humanized, including the twins, and you get five left." Akira realized. "And how have y'all been?"
"Forced to adapt, cope, and endure," said Ramiel, still angry that he was defeated so easily by her and her daughter.
"He's just saying that because, during PE, he was defeated by Kou and Otsu yesterday," said Gaghiel to her. "He hates being outnumbered."
"Well, two against one has always been seen as an unfair struggle in the past," Akira explained. "But that's something that most of us deal with all the time. Strength in numbers can either be beneficial to a cause…or troubling. But you turn a whole group's individual weaknesses into strengths that can often be used against your opponents. It's part of the value of teamwork. There's no 'I' in 'team'."
That's when Shamshel uttered to Akira, "That's how we were defeated by you and Rumi, wasn't it? Because we came after you one at a time instead of as a whole?"
"Yes."
"You seem absent-minded right now."
"That can happen when you have what you consider to be more important than the fate of the world on your conscious."
"Huh? And what could be more important than the world you live in?" Sachiel asked her.
"My grandson, who's in the hospital…again…and won't be leaving it again…until he draws his last breath," Akira expressed, slightly agitated by Sachiel's tone of voice.
"That boy that Rumi was protecting?" Shamshel asked, having seen Shinji the day of the museum incident which allowed for the Angelbreaker to acquire its chosen wielders to bring balance to the world once more. "Is…is it that bad?"
"Yeah. When you have pieces of you that don't work like they're supposed to and a moral conscious that keeps you from taking substitute pieces from other people that don't need them, anymore, it's difficult to get over it. I'm not the only one having a hard time trying not to show the fear of him leaving, though, which is why I needed to ask one thing about the Angelbreaker."
"Go on," went Gaghiel.
"Can it… When it's attached to one of its chosen bearers, can it reveal things that probably shouldn't be allowed to come to pass, like prophesied events or internal desires that don't seem proper?" She asked.
"What do you mean?" Kou Israfel asked her, confused by her question.
"My daughter had explained to me that she had a daydream during the time we were traveling back here, and it was explained to me in fuller detail, which makes me assume that she, quite possibly, has an… An attraction to her own nephew."
"An attraction?" Ramiel asked. "You mean, like… What, like your little girl's obsessed with him or something like that?"
"Yeah, exactly like that?"
"The Angelbreaker can wrap itself around the thoughts of its bearers," Otsu Israfel expressed. "Whatever it is that you're thinking or feeling, it can express such things in the form of dreams and visions. To even glimpse into the future for a time. It even allows one currently possessing it in the present to relive the memories and emotions of past wielders in the form of those dreams and visions. If anything, it is possible that what your daughter experienced in her daydream was either desires of those before her that possessed the Angelbreaker, her own desires…or her fears of losing him that were purposely warped by the Angelbreaker itself in a small attempt to relieve her of such fears."
"Such possibilities wouldn't be unheard of," added Sachiel. "The Angelbreaker may even see it within its boundaries to test its wielders' hearts, seeing what it is that they want the most. If your grandson's dying, then it's most definite that she wants his life…maybe even all for herself."
"You…do have to do something that you feel is right for those around you, don't you, Akira?" Shamshel asked her. "If you feel that what she thinks is wrong, you will do what you can to keep such desires or events from transpiring."
Akira looked to the Angel that had been rehabilitating the longest and said, "She's young. Yet, such things she's done are often things that are best left undone by children. I fear that this may be because of what I asked her to do when she was two. To save somebody we both care about, I asked her to do things that she shouldn't have done…things to keep him with us longer…and now I fear that there will be a price to pay for such acts."
"Akira…you can't undo what's been done…and there's doubt that you can keep from happening what may transpire in the future," Shamshel told her. "I've been here longer than my siblings here have been, and I've recently learned why people have this lesson of taking chances and making mistakes."
"Why? In order to understand how to correct those mistakes or not to repeat them?"
"No, to understand why we take those risks and why we make those mistakes, for better or for worse. If Rumi does have, as you put it, an attraction toward your dying grandson, then it is her place to discover her faults and why she did what she did…and why she's doing what she's doing…and what she will do later on, for better or for worse."
Akira sighed and then inhaled a new breath. While coming here for more information and potential guidance, she found out things that might be wrong: Her youngest child having an unrequited crush on Shinji, the Angelbreaker being able to delve into the minds of its bearers and make subconscious actions, and that she might be unable to change what may happen in the future.
"I have one final question of this evening regarding the Angelbreaker's abilities," she expressed.
"Okay," the siblings responded.
"The day when Ramiel was defeated, why did the Angelbreaker…create that armor Rumi and I were wearing? I mean, it was protective and everything, but it was…it was…"
"It was a first-time-only effect," Ramiel told her.
"Huh?"
"You were still breaking in the Angelbreaker," added Shamshel. "It adapts to whoever's wearing it. It will create whatever form of protection or weapon that's needed: A sword, bracelet, necklace, shield, wings, gauntlets, even a full set of armor. The armor that it covered you in was proof that the Angelbreaker had chosen the right people of this time to act as its hosts and help it preserve balance. You're not the first of the women to have worn armor that was revealing in the chest and bottom areas, and you may not be the last ones, either. The next time you wear a set of armor, it'll cover you completely. Not many bearers of such an ancient and powerful weapon of protection like to be seen half-naked in a battle."
Akira's cheeks blushed with embarrassment; these siblings, like everyone else in town, had obviously seen the picture in the papers. It was a piece of fact that was going to follow her to her grave.
"I better go now," she told them.
"Whatever you do the next time you face one of our brothers, do be careful," she heard Gaghiel tell her. "We have three brothers and two sisters left, but it's our brothers you should be concerned with dealing with. Sahaquiel will be most likely next to come forth and try to eliminate your little girl, and be forewarned: He's bigger than any of us were when we were large monsters…and harder to touch because he stays where people aren't dumb enough to go without protection."
"Dumb enough?" Ramiel said. "They can't go to where he stays because it's a place the Lilin were always unfit to survive in."
"Which is?" Akira asked.
"You see it everyday when you look up," answered Shamshel.
-x-
"Just what was that?" Asuka asked Ritsuko, who sported a bandage on her head.
It had been at least two hours since Rei Ayanami, pilot of Evangelion Unit-00, had left in the form of an armored, half-naked seductress on steroids with a large blade. Nobody but Ritsuko Akagi and Gendo Ikari knew what had transpired in the lab they were in. And while Ritsuko was willing to lie and say that a technical glitch from within Unit-00 had left its effects on Rei, body and mind, it wasn't the truth. The truth was that Gendo had decided to give the prototype of the biomechanical copy of the Angelbreaker to Rei, since there were no other potential candidates to choose from, and the results were beyond their original expectations.
Initially, Rei had done as she was told to by Gendo and placed the gauntlet on her left arm, since it felt uncomfortable on her right arm, and once it was properly fastened on, it all went south. The gauntlet came to life and possessed her flesh, covering it in tendrils of bone-like tentacles and metal wiring. Her personality had even shifted from her socially-stunted behavior to that of a wicked woman whose heart ached with want instead of need. And Rei…wanted many things she didn't normally want at all, even before she began to pilot the Eva.
"It would seem that Rei had become infected by Unit-00," Ritsuko lied to Asuka.
"How do you get infected by the Eva and end up looking like a mockery of that armored getup that a woman and her little girl were wearing?" Asuka questioned, unsure of whether to believe her or to disbelieve. "Unit-02 has never done anything like that before, either. Could I be infected?"
"Not very likely," Ritsuko continued to hide the truth. "Unit-02 is a Production Model type, perfected and free of flaws. Unit-00 is a Prototype, so it's still full of glitches."
But Misato, due to her close-up of the Angelbreaker and seeing the partial similarities that Rei was displaying, wasn't buying any of this for an instant. She assumed that Ritsuko was trying to create a copy of said gauntlet as a means to deal with the Angels and not have to rely on Akira and Rumi to take care of them for NERV, but in the process of finishing the copy, something went wrong. Dead wrong.
"Until further notice, Unit-00 is to be in suspended animation until its flaws are corrected," went Gendo, wiping the blood off his forehead.
"And the First Child?" Misato asked him. "What's to be done about her?"
"Found, captured and quarantined," he answered simply, but in truth, he also wanted to retrieve the prototype gauntlet and have it reworked; if it made Rei powerful and uninhibited, any potential new plans of his weren't going to work out well.
-x-
"…Shinji…do I make you…happy?" Rumi had asked her nephew, looking down at his face.
"Yeah, Rumi," he answered her. "You make me very happy."
The flames from the small fire gave Rumi a nice, warm glow on the left side of her face, leaving the right side cloaked in darkness.
"Shinji…if I could find a way to keep you with us, with me, without having to continue with being cut open, poked and prodded at with syringes, or having to sacrifice someone's life…would you consider it?" Rumi asked him, lowering her head closer toward his.
"You would do anything to save me from my fate, wouldn't you?" He asked her.
"I'd save you from the yokai until the netherworld freezes and remains that way until the end of the world for the people that sin for the wrong reasons." She told him, and placed her head on his chest, which she was pleased to know was free of his catheter tubes that were a prominent feature before she was even born. "I would even protect you from the hands of the Devil himself."
Shinji looked up at the night sky, up toward the moonlight…and responded, "Yeah, Rumi. I would consider it. Thank you for asking."
Then, the world blurred into total darkness.
GASP! Shinji awoke to the Eighth of August, looking around his environment and seeing he was still in his room in the hospital. He checked his chest and found his catheter tubes were still attached to him, which he sighed a breath of relief and laid his head back onto his pillow.
"…Rumi…" He sighed, realizing that what happened was just another dream, revolving around his relationship with his youngest aunt, which seemed to be changing, day after day.
-x-
GASP! Rumi awoke from another dream involving Shinji, confused at why she seemed so attached to him in a way that wasn't familiar to her at all. As her vision came into focus for the new day, she discovered that, despite her realization that her nephew wasn't home, it didn't affect her occasional sleepwalking habit. She was in Shinji's room and in his bed…again.
This is getting out of hand, she thought, getting out of her nephew's bed and leaving his room. He's not even home, so why do I still sleepwalk to his room like he's still here?
"Rumi, that's a habit that's going to, most likely, follow you to the ends of time," she stopped at the sound of her eldest sister, Shinobu's voice, and turned around to see her; she was sitting right by the side of the wall where Shinji's door was left open, and Rumi hadn't noticed her.
"Don't tell me," she told Shinobu. "I'm going crazy, aren't I?"
"No, I don't believe so," Shinobu responded getting up, "even though I saw you sleepwalking into his room as though he were still here. You had me curious as to why you would still do such a habit you, obviously, have no control over, when you know, consciously, that he's not here. I had believed that you would sleepwalk to the hospital where he currently resides, but instead you still go to his bedroom, and that made me deduce a different possibility."
"Which is?"
"You sleepwalk to his room because that's the only place you know, subconsciously, that you're familiar with him being in…and because it has his ki in it. Most people with a measure of power will often find themselves attracted to the power and presence of others."
"But…you guys discovered that Shinji had no channeling abilities at all. He went through the same test that we all did at age six, right? Put him in front of a selection of many toys and have him choose four…and he didn't choose any associated with the four elements."
"Power and spiritual energy are not limited to just the elements. They extend beyond them. My grandfather had told me something that my mother had once said before she had to leave me with him, and it was that, "The purest of minds can navigate the mazes built upon lies and deception without getting lost…and the purest of hearts can endure the poisons of hatred and cruelty…without being harmed". There was something else that went along with what she had said, but nobody here remembers what it was."
"Pure minds and hearts? Mazes and poisons? What do they all mean?" Rumi asked her.
"My opinion? People that stay true to their purest beliefs and desires are the strongest ones in the world. You might be one of them, too?"
"I don't think so. Lately, I've been thinking about Shinji in a way that I probably shouldn't. Last night, I dreamt that I was with him again in the night. I asked him if I had found a way to save him that didn't require some sort of a tribute from somebody, would he consider that option. Am I becoming…I don't know, obsessed with wanting him to stay with us?"
Shinobu got up off her bottom and stretched her limbs.
"Maybe, but you haven't done anything that others would view as wrong or immoral, like cutting other people open and taking their body parts. So it's safe to say that you're not too obsessed. We don't want him to die, either, and we're all trying to delude ourselves half the time and believe that nothing serious will happen."
Then, Rumi realized that Shinobu had said that she had been taken from her late mother and placed in the care of her late grandfather and asked, "What happened to your mother? Why were you taken from her and left with your grandfather?"
"My mother…" Shinobu knew the truth, and sometimes had some difficulty with accepting what people of the past had done toward her when she was little. "My mother…was a Goze."
"A Goze? You mean…she couldn't…see you?" Rumi asked, realizing that her sister's mother before Akira was a blind, traveling musician.
"Yeah," Shinobu expressed, and led Rumi to her room, which was decorated, predominantly, with posters of musical notes on the walls and ceiling and some old items that dated back over fifty years or so. "And even back then, not many people took kindly to those that couldn't see the way they could. But my mother wasn't just any regular Goze. She was also a capable martial artist. So capable that most pickpocket people were unable to get near her. In fact, they wound up getting incapacitated so much that they needed bandages just to hide their scars. But when she met my father and had me, she realized that, while she could look after herself, she couldn't trust herself with my upbringing because she couldn't see what I looked like, which was a exact mirror of herself when she was young. So, unwilling to leave me an orphan, she entrusted me to my grandfather. When I got a little older, I was able to engage in conversations with her about her travels around the country whenever she was home; speaking to her was easy when my parents lived with her father."
Rumi then turned to her sister's mantle place where she kept her blood family's old photographs, along with photos of her immediate family, and noticed one of a little girl in the lap of a young, Japanese woman dressed in a purple and pink kimono, sitting next to a shamisen.
"Is that her?" She asked, pointing to the picture, and noticing how the woman bore an uncanny resemblance to Shinobu, due to their distinct background of having minute Chinese blood in their veins to mark them as mix-breed women.
"Yep," she answered, picking the photograph up and setting on her bed. "That's my mother before Akira. Sometimes, I can still hear her songs…in the back of my head."
Rumi then took notice of the shamisen they were sitting beside…and noticed how similar it was to the shamisen that Shinobu kept in her closet, as if she were keeping it safe.
"What happened to her?" She asked her sister, now curious as to how she passed away.
Shinobu recalled that day her mother had left to go traveling again, not knowing anything except that she was told by her mother that it would be the last time she'd be traveling anywhere. That put much hope in Shinobu, believing that when her mother returned, it would be for good, and then they would be able to bond even closer. But a month later, as she was reading a book, a man came by and spoke with her father, whom always stayed with her grandfather to look after her, and she saw the look of hurt on his face. It was then that she discovered that her mother, her Goze, would not be coming home.
Rumi saw the hurt in her sister's eyes and uttered, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."
"No, it wasn't your fault," Shinobu assured her. "It's just an old memory. She got hurt in a train accident. Heh-heh… I often wonder how many people are able to get involved in a train accident…and you're never on the train in order to get hurt by one. Police were on the scene, found her lying on the ground and rushed her to the hospital, where I was brought to see…for one last time. I…I could've sworn that, just for an instant as I held her hand…she could see me. It hurt knowing that the people you hold close to your heart could be taken away like any other person. I once cursed the kami for being cruel, that I hated them. I couldn't understand back then why it seemed that good people were the most likely ones to get hurt all the time."
"Fate's just like that sometimes," Rumi sighed. "Fate can be cruel…just as death can be unjustified."
"Yin and Yang, Rumi. Yin and Yang."
"Evil and good?"
"Death and life, endings and beginnings. Two parts of the same whole. There can never such an existence where everything's perfect: No suffering, no tragedy, and no losses. It's just an empty dream, an unobtainable goal. While I'd find it something that could be achieved with the proper motivation and careful guidance, there must always be balance in the world. Wherever there is light, you must also have darkness."
"But lately, because of the Second Impact, there seems to be too much darkness because of the massive death toll," Rumi told her. "The balance of the planet has been disrupted."
"It may be worse than that, Rumi. It may also be the one thing Geo Channelers fear the most."
"What is it?"
"The Earth is dying."
"Dying?"
"Too much imbalance, too much death, too much negative energy. The violence, the hatred, the destruction, it's poisoning the soil, the oceans, both of which help to support the life it maintains."
Rumi then thought back to Shinji, who was dying himself, each and every passing day.
"If that's the case, then balance must be restored to the planet," she uttered.
-x-
SEELE's insider in Akira Town continued to watch the hospital from across the street on the bench he sat on. Only sparingly did he ever get up to go get something to eat or to wander around the neighborhood as to not draw much attention to himself. So far, his orders were keep an eye on two of the few people that went to see the dying Third Child: Akira and Rumi. If he ever received his further orders on what to do to them, if such orders ever came, then it would be possible that such an order to eliminate all other close family members associated with the dying boy would also come about. Frankly, he didn't really care whether they lived or not; he was getting paid a gracious amount for what was intended to be a reconnaissance, Intel and potential item collecting job, and he needed to make a living in any way he was good at doing.
"Excuse me, sir," somebody uttered behind him, "but do you know where I can find a clothing shop around here?"
He turned to face the person and saw a young woman that looked familiar, but he couldn't place the face anywhere.
"Sorry," he responded. "I don't know where a clothing shop is around here."
"Very well. Sorry for disturbing you," she told him and walked away.
A full minute went by and the man recalled where he'd seen the features the girl displayed: Chalk-white skin, pale, blue hair and blood-red eyes. That was Rei Ayanami, the First Child! What was she doing in Akira Town? He turned to see how far she had walked away, only to find her long gone.
"What the Hell?" He gasped, and took out his cell phone and contacted his superiors. SEELE might have an idea on what to do with her.
"…I still don't understand why Rumi wanted to stay home today," he heard somebody from across the street say to someone else. "Usually, she enjoys seeing him."
It was one of the Third Child's elder aunts and her daughter.
"Maybe she's afraid of something terrible happening if she did come to see him," responded her twelve-year-old daughter. "She did seem hesitant when asked if she was going to see him today. Shinji's going to be disappointed when he finds out that she's not coming to see him today."
"It's almost like a heart-breaker right there," the mother added in, and they entered the hospital.
-x-
Dressed in only her common school uniform, Rei Ayanami wandered through this town named after its founder for a clothing shop where she could find suitable attire that would enable her to blend in with the crowd as best as she could. In Tokyo-3, most of what her former wardrobe consisted of was just her school uniform, but after she had obtained, or rather, received, the gauntlet that was built from the same technology that created the Evas, but originating from a different Angel source, she realized that she needed to break free from her old chains and taste the layers of freedom and desire. Thus, she needed a new wardrobe. The gauntlet, capable of similar shape-shifting as that Angelbreaker gauntlet was capable of, had reverted into an ornate bracelet with a strand of bone-like metal that extended from the base of the wristband portion and ended at a smaller band around her middle finger, which was encrusted with a small, black, circular diamond that shined like the circular ruby encrusted on the wristband, allowing her to wear the weapon as a form of fancy jewelry without drawing too much attention to herself.
Blending in is better than hiding out, she thought, reveling in the power to actually think for herself and make her own decisions for the first time in her life rather than being told what to do.
She stopped in front of a shop that seemed to advertise some articles of traditional Japanese clothing, like the hakama and yukata, in their displaying windows, and stepped in. There were many different types of traditional clothing, but she had yet to find one that suited her developing tastes. Until she took notice of a blue yukata with some white tigers sewn onto the back and sleeves. This one caught her interests a lot.
"Hello?" She called out to whoever was in the store.
"Yes?" An elderly woman, graying hair, wrinkled skin, dressed in a yellow hanbok, responded as she came out of the back of the building. "How may I help you?"
"This yukata," she expressed, holding up the left sleeve of said clothes. "How much is it?"
"Oh, this?" The elder verified, examining the outfit. "It's about sanjū doru (thirty dollars). If you had been here during the Fú Festival last month on the fourth, it would've been for free."
Rei then reached into her school satchel and pulled out a small wad of denomination bills; the three guys she encountered before leaving Tokyo-3, unseen in her armored guise, weren't going to be missing the money where she sent them. Gathering the required amount, she gave it to the elder.
"Whoa, uh… Well, it's your yukata now," she sighed, unsure how a girl like her was able to possess a small-but-large amount of currency laying in her satchel and act like it wasn't worth much with her face being so…expressionless. "Is there anything else you require help with?"
In less than fifteen minutes, Rei had stepped out of the shop dressed in her new outfit, sporting zouri-based sandals and a small, flower-themed, coin purse-like pouch bag tied around her right wrist. If you ignored the unusual hair, eye and skin pigmentation, Rei could've passed for a regular girl belonging to a noble family…with only her lack of expression marking her as anything but. Looking around herself, she inhaled a new breath and walked away from the shop, heading around the town with no destination in question at the moment. She wasn't looking to instigate any further battles…yet, but she would, eventually, and when she did, she'd show just how much she desired all that she never had.
-x-
Heading back to the rehabilitation center again after last night was probably going to upset the security guards a little, but Akira had neglected to ask Shamshel something that only she could answer: In the aftermath of the museum incident, Nemo had informed her that the security cameras that weren't destroyed caught the shadows of two other people in the museum with her, Rumi and Shamshel, something of which neither Rumi or herself could remember seeing.
"Gee, Akira, you come to see these kids so much, you should probably be a regular visitor," said one of the female guards to her as she led her to the recreation area outside the rehabilitation center.
"Sometimes, if it weren't for my unintended association with the woman I'm seeing, I'd probably be elsewhere right now," she responded, reminded of the promise she made to Tomoyo to go to her house and spend time with her. "Is Shamshel behaving properly?"
"Believe it or not, she's currently engaged in a conversation with one of the guards regarding a romance novel she was looking at recently. She's not as moody as she used to be, her temper has cooled down a large degree, and she seems to like being here." The guard told her.
"She likes being in rehab?"
"Yeah."
They stepped outside and found Gaghiel swimming circles around Kou and Otsu Israfel, who were wearing water wings to stay afloat in the large pool. Sachiel and Ramiel were engaging in more fitness with the security guards that sparred against them, and Shamshel, the woman Akira was here to see, was indeed talking with a guard over a book.
"…And the Americans buy into this belief?" Akira heard Shamshel ask the guard.
"Yes. It's also part of the reason why they made that comedy film. People actually enjoy plots, scenes or situations involving a pregnant woman or two." The guard responded.
"Why must people be fascinated over the changes that occur to the female body whenever they start the goal of having a family of their own?"
"There are many reasons why: To save failing marriages, keep a family name alive, or even to help the people you love more than life itself have a life of their own because you yourself can't help them as much as you want to."
Shamshel sighed and nodded her head in agreement with the reasons, and then turned her head to face Akira, who seemed oblivious to the conversation.
"Hello again, Akira," she greeted her.
"Hello, Shamshel," responded Akira, sitting on a stone seat. "I had neglected to ask you something last night when I left, nothing to do with your brothers or sisters or the Angelbreaker. Is it alright if I ask you about the incident at the museum?"
"But…I thought you wanted to put behind our violent introductions and start anew," Shamshel told her.
"That, I still do…but I just needed to know something about what happened in there that you would've probably taken notice of."
"Very well. Shoot."
"Huh?"
"That's that urban language way of saying for you to go ahead and ask me something."
"Oh! Sorry. I'm still traditional. One of my sons has yet to teach me how young people these days are speaking. My question concerning the museum incident is if you, by any chance, before the explosion, had seen anybody other than myself and Rumi in there?"
Shamshel explored her past in Akira Town, right up to that first day, her short time in the museum…and her most frustrating encounter with the Angelbreaker.
"No," she answered her. "I was so worked up with getting rid of your daughter that I didn't notice anybody else in there…other than yourself. Why do you ask?"
"That night, I was told that the security cameras salvaged from the explosion had taped at least two other people in there, but only caught their shadows tape."
"Ghosts, perhaps?" The guard sitting across the table from Shamshel suggested.
"No. Death may be a revolving door to some, but the dead, when reduced to an intangible state, don't cast shadows on anything. And when light is cast upon them, they most often disappear, like an illusion or hologram, which also can't cast shadows." Akira explained to him.
"It's beyond me," Shamshel told her. "Other than the bits and pieces I know of about the Angelbreaker, I don't know anything about two other people in the museum prior to the explosion that day."
"Well, thank you for telling me. Sorry to have wasted your time today."
"Don't sweat on it. I have a lifetime to waste on many things."
Akira then left, deciding to put this behind her completely and go to Tomoyo's house.
To be continued…