Creation began on 05-08-10

Creation ended on 06-01-13

Neon Genesis Evangelion

My Special Keeper, Part Nine-B2

-x-

"…Shinji, what's this drawing right here?" Rumi asked, taking notice of a folded piece of paper that was under his locket.

When he realized which drawing she had reached for, he panicked a bit.

"No, Rumi, don't look at that one…" He tried to dissuade her, but she had taken the page, opened it up, and saw the details. Uh-oh.

Rumi lowered the drawing to her lap and looked at her nephew with an almost sad expression; the picture was like what she had seen in her daydream, now almost inescapable due to its surrealistic imagery and the question that nearly plagued her mind after recalling it several times: The strange sense of fullness within her when with him like that.

"About that drawing," he tried to explain it to her, "I…"

"Naughty boy," she smiled at him, cutting him off. "Very naughty."

His cheeks flushed again.

"Yes. Sorry for being naughty." He bowed his head and apologized.

She handed the drawing back to him, and added, "Naughty girl, too."

Naughty girl? He thought, confused by her words. "What are you talking about?"

"I saw that first, Shinji," she explained. "What you drew those two doing, I saw it, and I saw it first."

"Where…where did you see that?"

"Dreamt it. On the way back home, after being gone for most of the day when you almost thought I wasn't coming to see you."

"Were…were they exactly like I drew them?"

Rumi nodded in the positive, which then left her nephew a little bothered by her affection for him.

Knowing he was going to be very out of line for even asking her such a question, but he had to ask her.

"You don't really picture us doing something like that…do you?" He asked her.

Rumi thought about it for a moment, lowered her head down, and responded, "I think we should change the subject."

"Change what subject?" They both gasped and looked toward the door where Akira was standing.

"Um…um…" They were both at a loss for words, not even able to lie to the woman.

"Don't tell me," she sighed, "it's personal. So personal that you can't tell me about it just yet. Right?"

They both nodded in the positive, but then Rumi went wide-eyed…and jumped out of her seat and ran into the restroom and slammed the door.

Shinji and Akira looked at each other and were wondering the exact same thing: What was that about?

"Oh…" They heard her behind the door.

Akira knocked on the door and asked, "Are you okay in there, Rumi?"

"Yes, Mama," she heard her daughter's response, followed by a retching sound.

"She had regular miso soup again, didn't she, Shinji?"

Her grandson nodded, and she sighed; she must've told her daughter at least eleven times not to eat miso soup until she had added soy milk and tuna to the regular mixture, otherwise she'd get indigestion.

"She's just like me from twenty years ago," she sighed.

"You get tummy aches whenever you eat miso soup without the soy milk and tuna?" Shinji asked her.

"Big time," she answered, and then noticed a folded paper in his hand. "What's that in your hands?"

He hesitated for a moment, but it was long enough for his grandmother to become less than strict and hold out her right hand.

"Let's see it, please," she told him.

"Okay," he quickly said, and handed it over to her, turning his head away in woe.

"Well," he heard her say once she looked at the drawing, "I have only three things to say about this: One: I think Nemo and I have to exchange a few words because this reminds me of one of his preferences in comic books. Two: I have a better clarity of some of what lives inside the imagination of Rumi when she explained something of this to me a few days ago. And three… Three is… Well, I can't say much for three right now, but the first two are enough to be spoken of right now."

"Sorry," he apologized.

"Don't be," she folded the paper and gave it back to him. "I'm not. Life happens. Just one thing to say, though, Shinji: She's a little too young for you right now."

"Heh…heh-heh," Shinji laughed a little, and Akira left the same instant Rumi walked out the bathroom, looking better.

The little girl got the feeling that her mother saw Shinji's drawing and got worried about something.

"She knows, doesn't she?" She asked him.

"She said the drawing reminded her of one of Nemo's preferences in comic books," he told her. "Other than that, she tells me the girl's a little too young for me right now."

"Heh-heh-heh… Right."

-x-

It took nearly two days to find the address by herself, but Asuka finally managed to locate the residence of Drake Von Meyer, determined to return to him what was his. The house seemed like a nice, three-story mansion, surrounded by a luscious garden with beautiful flowers and small trees.

I had best get this over with, she thought, walking up the steps to the front door.

Buzz! She rung the bell and waited for a response. The sound of the door unlocking brought her attention to the sight of the guy that brought in Drake for pilot testing, Geoff or Geoffrey; Asuka had almost forgotten.

"May I help you?" He asked her.

"Is Drake Von Meyer home?" She asked kindly.

"He's resting in his room," Geoff answered her. "What do you want with him?"

While a part of her conscious that demanded respect from the adult society wanted to speak up and say that she wanted to return the boy's locket to him, the other part of her conscious, which was demonstrating kindness and respect that she had put aside for a long time since her mother died, spoke up and said, "Prior to him leaving the NERV base here, I took something of value from him, and I wish to return it to him."

She held out the locket, which Geoff instantly recognized because he saw Drake's mother give it to him some time before she died, and he widened the gap in the door and allowed her to step inside.

"How is the status of an Eva pilot?" He asked her, leading the way to Drake's room.

"I've given it up," she explained. "I thought it was going to be good to pilot an Eva, to protect the world…but some people in NERV don't really see it that way. How is Drake, by the way?"

Geoff looked back at her and sighed, unable to answer the question properly.

"Is it…that bad?" She asked again.

"In the months that followed since his diagnosis, the doctors have been trying to keep him alive through chemotherapy," he revealed, "but it's barely enough to save him. And…because he thought he lost his only momento of his mother that he had left, as his father, prior to his death, had destroyed every other photo of her, he's been unable to find a reason to want to continue living, even when we heard of a new type of operation that may save him."

Asuka couldn't believe this! Part of her felt responsible for Drake's current state, that his missing locket caused him to lose hope in everything. They stopped in front of an open door and Geoff pointed her in. Slowly walking into the room, she saw the boy she had beaten to pilot Unit-02, and found him in a state that made her think that Shinji was the lucky one on account of who he had in his life supporting him.

Drake Von Meyer was bedridden, looking as thin as a skeleton was, with an IV tube feeding him nutrients because it was possible that he wasn't getting enough from basic consumption; basically, to Asuka's point of view, he looked like Death had claimed ownership over his body…and was trying to claim the rest of him very slowly.

Gott im Himmel, she thought, hoping that Rumi's nephew wasn't in any condition like this because it seemed like constant agony.

Drake, who looked like he wasn't looking at anything or anyone, turned his head toward her and raised his right hand up, pointing his index finger at her face.

"You…" He sounded withered. "What…want?"

She approached him, but kept a clear distance to avoid wanting to cause any violence if he started something with her.

"I'm here to return something that belongs to you," she stated, holding out his locket. "I stole it from you months ago, and I'm giving it back. I'm sorry for taking it and lying about not having it, Drake."

His eyes, which were half-open, looked up at the locket that he thought he had lost for good, and he turned his hand over to accept it.

Asuka placed it in his palm and watched his fingers close, albeit slowly, tightly around it, as if to make sure it was real and secured in his grip.

"Thank…you…" He praised her.

She bowed her head and turned to leave, but he stopped her.

"Eva…win?" He asked her.

She nodded and said, "It only ever won one battle. It hasn't won any others since."

"Eva…bad?"

"Yeah. Very bad."

As she left out his room, his guardian lead her back to the front door.

"Thank you for returning his locket, Ms. Soryu," he told her.

"You're welcome," she responded. "Is he…going to pull through?"

"If this procedure I heard of is as good as its fellow advancements in medical technologies is, then I believe he has a good chance of living to see old age," he told her.

"Didn't think NERV was advancing its medical practices."

"Not NERV. We had received a letter from Kyoto, Japan, by a man who's been offering medical treatments to dozens of people for a few years after Second Impact. Runs a medical company, Medical Angel Industries."

"Why does that name sound familiar?"

"It's the only business of its kind that offers medical treatments to those in need of it…for free. It's been advancing many fields of medical practices, from redesigning prosthetics to creating artificial skin that lives…to the very possibility of using nanotechnology to treat certain forms of cancer or rewriting diseases that could be used against other diseases. This man, Masamune Ikari, seems to be one of the few people left after the apocalypse that has people's best interests in mind."

"Masamune Ikari? As in…Gendo Ikari?" Asuka questioned, unsure if this Masamune was related to NERV's tyrant.

"Maybe," Geoff suggested, "but nobody really knows…except perhaps those that know the two personally. I've heard of NERV's Gendo Ikari, and I consider him to be a real loser."

"Yeah…a real loser," Asuka had to agree.

-x-

Ring-ring! Akira heard her phone going off and she picked up, seeing it was from Nemo.

"Nemo, just the person I needed to speak with," she greeted him, getting set to question him about the possibility of Rumi looking through his comics and getting ideas from them.

Unfortunately, her desire to question it was put on hold when Nemo explained the possibility of her duty as a wielder of the Angelbreaker needing to be carried out today.

"But, Nemo, that's space, and there's no air up there," she told him.

As she continued to speak with him, back in Shinji's room, said boy noticed how Rumi's half of the Angelbreaker started acting up, sprouting small tendrils and tentacles.

"I guess I'd better go," said Rumi to him, getting up out of the chair and leaving.

"Wait, Rumi," he tried to keep her with, but she had left out.

Returning most of the constructs back into the bracelet's mass, Rumi wondered what was going on, as she hadn't even done anything.

Flap. She heard something, like a wing flapping. And then her surroundings blurred up, becoming a place of darkness, night the curtain of night. There were stars out, but when she looked down, she hadn't expected to find that there was no floor to stand upon.

"Aaaahh!" Her six-year-old mind made her gasp, looking around to see that she was in space; the sight of the sun, the moon and the Earth were a dead giveaway to her perception.

"When light is cast upon all that you love, your judgment is made…and the verdict is that you are guilty of your crimes, little girl," a female voice uttered from behind her. "You have sinned against my family, disgraced us with your existence, disrespected all of our history because of your sick affections for that boy of yours."

Rumi turned around to face who she thought would be a woman, but looked up and saw something far worse than anything she'd seen so far: A shining, avian-like, crystal dragon, so bright that she couldn't make out many of its features, all save a gigantic pair of wings that flapped around a few times.

"Oh…" She breathed.

"And you know what else?" She heard the voice coming from its head on its elongated neck. "You're a disgustingly-wicked little bitch."

FLASH! A large light flashed from the creature and blinded Rumi, which obscured her environment…and returned her back to the hallway.

Gasp! She gasped, panting and examining her right arm, seeing the gauntlet that was her half of the Angelbreaker manifested.

Okay, she thought, walking toward the elevator. I gotta find Mother and deal with this.

-x-

"…I haven't seen you in a long time…and I'm not even sure what to call you if not by your actual name," went Rei, standing in front of the intact-yet-maimed body of Lilith, unchanged since her last visit, which was to impale her with the Spear of Longinus. "It's strange, really… I feel as though I knew you in another life, but it's not perfect to recall in its entirety. You…you were looking down at some people…long ago…and they placed you here, severing your legs and burying you down here for over several millennias to keep you at bay. I can see it clearly as though…as though I had actually been there to witness it."

The immobile being that was the mother of all of Earth's common forms of life remained silent to what was being shared.

"Reveal…your secrets…to me," Rei uttered out, raised her left arm up, and shot out tendrils toward Lilith's head, gripping onto the mask that acted as her face.

Prying the object roughly from Lilith's face, Rei found, much to her curiosity, that the mask might as well have been her face…because beneath the exterior…was nothing. No eyes, no mouth, not even a skull-like structure. It was as though this creature were an ancient prototype of the marshmallow humanoid from the Ghostbusters franchise. The mask fell hard behind Rei as sighed at some disappointment as she was being disappointed.

"A person without a face," she uttered, "has nothing to offer in sounds or words. You are…as you've always been to me: A woman that doesn't bleed."

Then, taking a closer look at the stubby waist where Lilith's legs used to be before they were used in the formation of Unit-01's organic material, Rei saw some leg-like bits wiggling around as the reddish-orange fluid of LCL continued to seep out through the wound-like tatters. They reminded her so much of her own legs, and she lifted up the bottoms of her yukata to examine them. And then, she shifted her colorations from her regular albinism to the colorations of her physical template, Yui, and frowned at the reminders of how she was made in the image of the wife of the man that thought he could move Heaven and Earth just to be reunited with her.

"Everything happens as it must", indeed, she thought, using Yui's words that she somehow knew, despite having never heard them before. But not everything.

Even the words of what the Third Child said about putting the power you had to good use made it into her conscious mind, but, in an unfortunate way, there were many ways to put the power you had to good use…and not all of them had to be considered 'good'.

I think I need to get more out of Gendo than he's willing to even share with me, she thought, leaving the chamber the faceless Lilith was restrained in.

-x-

"…So another Angel is up in the sky?" Rumi repeated what was revealed to her by her mother, who was informed by Nemo.

"Not in the sky, but in space," Akira clarified.

As they walked up the mountain path toward their house, they became curious as to why this new Angel hadn't shown up to try and deal with them. While Akira was unsure of what this Angel was capable of before they humanized it, Rumi was simply wondering if this Angel looked anything at all like the creature she saw in her hallucination.

Why do I get the feeling that something far worse than dealing with this Angel is going to happen? She thought, looking up at the sky, unable to see the beast that had beef with her within the blue curtain of the day, but knowing it was there, floating amongst the stars in the vastness of space.

-x-

Nobody ever said that traveling on foot, while one of the best luxuries that a person can have in their life, was such a murderous action on the body when doing so for several hours to a few days. But it was better to walk to where you felt you had to get to than to do nothing but lay around on the ground and expect that somebody would find you and take you to your destination. At least…that's what the person doing the traveling believed as they wandered through the unindustrialized terrain that were the hills, trees and small streams that made up a large and beautiful meadow that possessed old train tracks that were the only present piece of human industry that aided in traveling.

They are near, thought the person, wading through a small creek now, getting to the other side of a river. They are scattered, in need of unity, stability and tolerance. We…we must come together for everything to be better.

The warm air and soft grass felt like a reward for wading through water now, but the journey to the destination was still far ahead to being over. The traveler wasn't sure how long it would be until they reached their end of the journey, but as long as they had the will, or what passed for a will, to go on, they wouldn't stop.

-x-

Other NERV branches were picking up the detection of the new Angel and sending the information to lesser computer systems available to NERV HQ in Japan, wondering if they were going to do anything about it…or let it become dealt with without destroying it by a woman and her toddler child out of diapers.

"What in the name of…" Maya shuddered, as the image of the new Angel filled computer screens not connected to the still-damaged MAGI.

"That can't be the Angel," went Aoba, mesmerized by the image of a shining creature that looked like a jagged diamond.

"But it is," went Makoto, "it's pattern's blue, just like the others."

"It's too far up in space for the Evas to face it in direct combat," Maya told the bridge.

From atop the bridge of Central Dogma where Gendo would formally sit and take command or to simply observe the scene, Rei, having restricted her former puppet master to his chair back in his office, was there instead, wondering how things were going to unfold in this new chapter of the humanization of the Angels, which mattered less to her, provided that Rumi survived…and suffered a little at the same time.

Kaworu was inside Unit-04, awaiting whatever orders there were, but since the staff had to consider the common possibility that this Angel, like most of the others, was not interested in NERV or the Evas at all, and were left simply watching.

"…Captain Katsuragi picked a bad time to go get something to eat," she heard Ms. Ibuki utter out, which made Rei, somewhat, curious about the purple-haired strategist that despised the Angels because of the Second Impact.

It matters not, she decided to put the woman's absence on hold. I'll deal with her later.

-x-

"…Hmm?" Rumi stopped in front of a closed door that seemed like it hadn't been in use for a long time. "I know there are plenty of rooms here, but I don't think I've ever noticed this one before."

The door of the room in question was right next to Nemo's, and had a flipped over sign that was beyond Rumi's ability to reach to find out what was written on the other side. And although her mother and she had a responsibility to handle the Angel yet to be humanized, the little girl was entitled to her mild curiosity at what was in this room.

"Rumi," she heard her mother speak up a few feet away. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry," she apologized, "I just noticed that this room seems to be…odd because the door's a little dirty. And there are several other rooms around here that aren't in use, but this one's… Well… Whose room was this one?"

Akira stood in front of the closed door and recalled the last memories associated to its inhabitant before they closed the door.

Sighing, she revealed, "It was Gendo's…before he left."

With her curiosity intensifying, the young lady slowly reached for the doorknob to open it.

"Wait, Rumi," Akira gasped. "There's nothing to see in there that's good."

"You mean, you cleaned out his room?"

"No. It's still a traditional habit of mine; I don't clean out anybody's room until after they pass away…until after receiving actual confirmation on a family member's passing. I didn't even think Gendo would even come back for the rest of his possessions when he showed up at the festival the way he did."

Leaning against the wall, thinking back to the night of her close encounter with her former brother's violent reaction to her refusal to pilot the Eva again for him to kill the Angels they had humanized, Little Rumi remembered the intense fear of almost being subjected to his blue flames…and how Shinji might've been burnt when he was prepared to tackle her to the ground had Tsukiko not intervene and taken control of the flames.

"You don't intend to clean out his former temple of privacy, even after you kicked him out, permanently, because of what he did to us, do you?"

Akira leaned against the wall with her and answered her, "Thanks to Nemo's modern teachings, I can stop saying some old words and simply say that some of my habits, my lessons, diehard, Rumi. I remain attached to my traditions."

That didn't cease her curiosity from simply wanting to look in Gendo's room, and she asked her, "Is it that wrong to answer my curious mind to what lurks in a damp dungeon, Mother?"

Akira gave in and grabbed the knob, pushing the door opened and unleashing several years' worth of dust that made them cover their noses.

Fanning away at the smoke with her hand, Rumi looked inside the dark room, which lit up due to her mother creating a ball of fire in her hand, and felt like something was let loose a long time ago in here.

There were layers of dust on everything, a dresser was laying against a bed on its side, piles of old clothes were scattered about, some books and toys were atop a nightstand and the curtains of the window were tattered. It could've all been part of an older, decrepit home, but it made this house of love and stability the owner of a stain that couldn't be cleaned up just yet.

"Mommy," Rumi was confused, "I thought you guys left his room untouched after he left."

Akira turned away from the interior of the room and explained, "We did, Rumi. This…is how he left it before he walked out on us, never wanting to come back. We've never touched it since that day."

Rumi was told of how Shinji had trashed parts of his own room before she was born when he tried to commit suicide by taking Shinobu's sleeping pills after going through some of Bumi's beer, but Gendo's room seemed to be in worse condition than his had ever been.

"Gendo makes a mess and he doesn't clean it up," she sighed.

"He was very angry before he left, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He was never good with having his affections turned down or feelings rejected, and never settling for anything short of being the best."

"He thought he was better than everyone else?"

"In a way, yeah, Rumi."

"But…you never favored him."

"Never. Everyone's equal. Nobody's better or worse than anyone else."

Rumi then grabbed the doorknob and closed the door.

"Can I be honest about what I think about Gendo?" She asked her mother.

"Sure," Akira answered.

"He doesn't deserve Shinji at all."

"What makes you say that?"

"When we met him back in Tokyo-3, I was disgusted that the only reason he wanted to see Shinji was only to use him as a tool or…a pawn, to be more accurate. If the reason were to try and reconcile with him, I'd have probably been less disgusted with his behavior that day… Sadly, that wasn't the case. Whenever I imagined Shinji leaving, it was always because of that failure. He…was my perception of what dying was because of the way he looked in every photo, filled with a darkness that mirrored materials burnt by fire that's been played with."

I can't deny what Rumi says as a fact, thought Akira, as Gendo's always been this way. He's…a bad seed…but I don't hate him for his origins. I hate him for his choices, his willingness to hurt or threaten others for the sake of achieving his own, twisted goals that can never be realized.

"…This comic book, Akira?" They heard Nemo's voice, as he came out of his room and presented his mother with a comic book in his left hand.

The centenarian woman took the book from him and examined the pages, stopping on two that presented a detailed description of two of its characters.

"Wow, Nemo," she sighed, deciding to take precaution because of her grandson's drawing of her youngest daughter's daydream of them being with each other. "No disrespect, Nemo, but put this book someplace where young eyes won't see it until they're older. It's so unlike many of your Marvel comic books from the older years where scenes like this weren't so graphic."

"Yes, Akira," Nemo responded, being handed his book back. Broken Trinity was one of my favorite Top Cow books when I started reading Witchblade.

"Well, that Angel's certainly taking its time up there in space…or she, to correct myself," they heard Akira utter out.

"Reminds me of Kanami when she was a teen," Nemo expressed.

"Yeah, except Kanami explained why she didn't come home that one night."

"Maybe I should wait outside," said Rumi, who then left the two to discuss their adult times in private.

Akira and Nemo were left stunned by her choice of words.

"Rumi's the reason you got in my stream about Broken Trinity, isn't she?" Nemo asked Akira.

"She described a daydream she had that a drawing of Shinji's mirrored the pages of the book that have me concerned," she expressed. "As mature as she can be…when she's required to, from time to time, Rumi doesn't need to know about…that sort of battling…any time sooner than Taeko doesn't need to know, as well."

"Should I do the same with my Runaways comics?"

"Are they adult-graphic, too?"

"No, but some of the scenes are teen-graphic and there's language that isn't hidden."

"Yeah, hide those, too. I don't want her getting ideas."

"What kind of ideas?"

"You know what I mean, Nemo."

As Akira walked away to catch up with Rumi, Nemo returned to his room and gathered his graphic comics that Akira didn't want Rumi looking at to get bad ideas, along with his graphic manga of Battle Royale and his Terminator comics and put them in his floor closet where he kept his anime collection that was adult-oriented that he accumulated over ten years ago.

"I'm the otaku of the family and she gives me one of the rooms with extra space, suspecting it would come in handy one day," he muttered to himself as he set the stack of books next to a stack of DVDs. "Hmm? Oh, my Aki Sora collection! I haven't read these in a while. But not today."

-x-

She was taking a dangerous risk. Her arm hadn't mended completely, so driving her car with one hand was very hazardous. But, in a small way, Misato felt it may have been better to risk a car accident that could leave her near Death's door along with Pen-Pen…than to be at the mercy of a former Evangelion pilot that turned into a psychotic powerhouse that, as far as she even suspected, was possibly due to something far worse than potential contamination by Unit-00.

It's funny, though, she thought, no longer lost in finding her way to the town of elements. It's barely on any modern maps and GPS systems rarely see it, but I know where Akira Town is.

As the drive down the road continued, Pen-Pen looked up out the window and saw something.

"Wark-wark!" He went, and Misato saw it too: A shining object that appeared to be a comet.

"Uh-oh," Misato stopped her car to wait for the impact to happen.

The shining comet had fallen toward her destination, but she didn't feel the ground shake…or vibrations that would've occurred in an impact.

-x-

It wasn't the brightness of what he thought to be a comet that left him worried, or the fear that the only home he had, the only home he knew and loved, disappearing in a matter of seconds due to a powerful act of forces beyond human comprehensions. No, it was neither of these two. Not even the idea that the kami themselves were taking it upon themselves to punish the good people for acts the bad ones had committed. But…the sight of a large, hostile…and very beautiful-looking crystal dragon… That made Shinji worry over his family, as the creature was hovering over the mountain where the estate was.

-x-

If it had to be humanized, it would invoke the grand fear of the light before the Angelbreaker had the chance to maim.

"Whoa," Akira reacted to the grand sight of who she discovered was Arael, the next-to-last of Adam's daughters, and the Angel of Birds. "I guess you decided to change your looks."

Oh, you have no idea how much I've had to change just to deal with your child, Arael spoke within Akira's mind.

The Angelbreaker had materialized a different style of armor over its wielders' bodies than the last time: The armor was less dense, less scaly, revealed more of their clothing that regularly disappeared when it showed up, and small wings sprouted from their armored backs.

Rumi, seeing that this Angel was exactly as she had foreseen in her hallucination, was reminded of something much more surreal than everything else that occurred in their encounters with each of the other Angels: Something about space…and a sword.

I don't like this, she thought, producing hook swords from her armored wrists. I really don't like this.

"Rrrrrraaurgh!" Arael snarled, sounding nothing like its designation and sounding more like a reptilian.

"Crud!" Nemo, who showed up and saw Arael, gasped before running back inside, grabbing his sister, Tsukiko, and going down the hall. "Get to the panic room!"

Oh, let's take this somewhere more subtle, the wielders heard Arael suggest, that is…if you can even keep up with me.

Flapping her wings, the Angel took to the skies above.

Akira and Rumi looked to each other, as if waiting for the other one's decision on what to do.

"Well," went Rumi first, "it's not the first time we went flying."

"Yeah, except we never flew so high," responded Akira, and the wings on their backs expanded and took them upward after Arael. "I hope the Angelbreaker's done this before!"

As they soared much higher than usual, Akira worried for her daughter's safety; even those that could manipulate the air currents to enable flight never flew to heights where air was, put quite simply, nonexistent and couldn't be brought with you. But every time she looked toward her daughter, she seemed fine, if only worried about the moment where they would have to resume the battle with the Angel of Birds.

I guess the Angelbreaker provides oxygen for its wielders when they're in environments where breathing is difficult or impossible, the mother believed, seeing the stars that hung in the black curtain of space behind the blue curtain of the day.

The Angel, floating in between the blue planet and its natural satellite, had, apparently, grown larger and sported more large wings in addition to the pair it already had when it showed up. By the wielders' estimates alone, it was no larger than Sahaquiel had been when he was large. The core, which shined as much as its possessor did, was located on its underbelly, held in place by what looked like clawed wings that were crossed, right over left, in order to hold it, almost similar to how the dead are dressed whenever funerals took place.

"Mom?" Rumi uttered out.

"Yes, dear?" Akira responded.

"I think she should be renamed the Angel of Dragons instead of the Angel of Birds."

"I agree with you. She seems more reptilian now."

Oh, I'm still a large bird, you two, they heard the Angel speak to them again. I was around long enough to see some of your predecessors change from being scaly to having feathers for flight. So, as a means of insulting your form's lack of natural flight, I assumed a form based off of the Lilin's desires of flying. And I see the Angelbreaker allows for you to fly with graceful elegance, befitting of a female, unlike the barbaric recklessness of males.

"You remind me of some people that were sexists in their day," Akira told her, hovering above her head. "Everyone's equal, even if they don't realize it."

Not everyone, wielder. My father is always the superior one in the family. Your creator, Lilith, will always be the flawed one because of her wretchedness, which, in turn, makes all of you Lilin…foolish, weak and disturbingly vile. Look at how you tarnished the planet, how you abuse it. In the end, all you will do is kill its spirit. It will no longer support any form of life except for those that aren't descended from that faceless bitch or were turned by your talisman.

What?! Rumi thought, hoping that Arael was just lying about people ending the life of the blue planet in the future, now imagining it turning into a brownish-red planet, not so different from Mars, but similar in its inability to support human or animal life. "That…will not happen."

That's what you say, Arael told them, all the while growling and snarling, but in the end, you're a species of flawed, separate constructs of flesh that can only destroy. There is another type of creature that lives the way you do, wielders, and you know what it's called? A virus! Which is all that you embody in your abilities. You're a tide of rampage that washes away all traces of natural order, a storm that leaves traces of ruination. You're an outbreak of death and misery. You're a plague…and I'm the new cure.

Then, rearing her head toward Akira, Arael fired a stream of white fire!

"Whoa!" Akira gasped, raising her arms up and trying to manipulate the flames, deflecting them upward over her head where they dissipated. "How can you breathe fire?! There's no air around us!"

I'm not bound by mortal laws like you are!

Rumi then used her swords and hurled them at Arael's head, but they bounced off and crumbled to dust; not only did she not believe in being able to inflict harm on the Angel's body, but the weapons created by the Angelbreaker were never meant to leave traces of their existence after a period of use.

When light is cast upon all that you love, your judgment is made…and the verdict is that you are guilty of your crimes, little girl, Rumi heard Arael say to her, which she recalled earlier in the afternoon as she had left the hospital, and quickly created a double-bladed axe to swing at the Angel.

Arael's mouth flared with light and she unleashed it upon Rumi, obscuring her vision.

"Aaaaahh!" She screamed, unable to see anything, but even worse was what her mind was perceiving deep inside.

FLASH! Rumi, feeling the previous sensations that were negative disappearing a little, and not recalling what she was previously doing, found herself back in the hospital, inside an operating room with somebody covered by a sheet.

"I'm sorry, but…she didn't make it," she heard a man's voice, but there was nobody else in the room with her.

"It should've been me," the voice of her nephew uttered, bringing Rumi to suspect that the voices were of a conversation being spoken of recently. "It was supposed to be me, not her."

As she got closer to the covered body, she noticed that the person was tiny, with the sheet stained with blood. Whoever it was, she hoped that they had at least left the mortal coil peacefully instead of painfully, the way every person should've.

"She was weak," the voice of Gendo was heard as Rumi climbed a stepping stool to be of sufficient height and examine the body. "The world has no time for weak people. It needs those that are willing and able to do anything… Anything for greatness."

Reaching toward the head with her right hand, she found that the Angelbreaker's bracelet form wasn't present on her wrist, but this didn't deter her action to uncover the head of the deceased person beneath the stained sheet. Ripping it away, she gasped at the sight of…herself! She was naked, covered in lacerations, and had the words, "Dead Oni Child" carved onto her belly.

"Aaaah!" She backed away, terrified. "This can't be right. That…that can't be me."

"It is you, Rumi," she heard the dead girl utter out, turning her head her way, smiling evilly. "What's the matter, little girl? Are you scared?"

The dead Rumi got up and off the gurney and walked up to the live version, subtly impressing the girl by demonstrating that a dead person with no skin on their left leg could still use it to walk.

"And you know the worst part about being dead is?" She asked her. "I can't even go to the bathroom with my remaining kidney because of lover boy's parents and their psychotic daughter!"

"Aaaahh!" Rumi screamed, running out of the room when her dead doppelganger attempted to grab her by the neck. This is just a bad dream. This is just a very bad dream.

The hospital floor she was on seemed to be empty, as there wasn't anybody around for her to run to for aid. But that didn't stop her from finding a stairway and shutting the door before her dead, nude doppelganger caught her.

"What's going on here?" She questioned, catching her breath as she fell against the door.

SMASH! A little hand that was covered in blood made a hole in the door in front of her face!

"Aaaaahh!" She backed away and ran down the stairs, but stopped at the sight of another familiar face. "Aaahh!"

It was Rei Ayanami, exactly as she saw her last, but her face had metallic tendrils or strands decorating her face in a tattoo-like décor and her left arm wielded a large, crescent scythe.

"I'm sorry, little lady, but this way's a dead-end," she told Rumi, and hurled her scythe at her.

"Aaaaahh!" Rumi dodged and ran the other way up the stairs.

She felt like the steps had no end to them, and she was trying to get to the next floor, but felt like they were leading her to the top floor, which was the roof.

"Rumi… Rumi… We're going to get you," was what she heard during the trek up those steps, and every time she stopped to look back, she could see her deceased copy, Ms. Ayanami, and two new faces she couldn't help but despise for different reasons: Gendo Ikari for his unforgivable actions…and his wife, Yui Ikari, simply due to her assumption, her belief, that she wasn't a very good person. "We're going to get you, Rumi."

Just when she was about to give up and try to run back the other way in the hopes of getting past them, Rumi saw light at the end of the stairway and was led to the roof, but instead of the sight of sunny day, she was introduced to a mockery of the Geo-Front! Its artificial existence making her feel uneasy, along with the sight of Unit-01, hovering by means of orange, vein-like wings of light.

"Grrrrr!" She heard it growling down at her.

"There's nowhere left to run to," she heard Gendo as she turned around to see the four chasers having caught up with her.

"There's nowhere to hide," her dead copy added.

Rumi continued to back away from them, but the only thing left for her to back up toward wasn't even a landmass. She just didn't realize it yet.

"Can you swim, little girl?" Yui asked her, which Rumi thought was some sort of trick question.

Two seconds later, she felt the back of her feet losing their footing and she turned her head right and saw the water of the artificial lake.

"Oh! Aah! Aaaaahh!" She gasped, falling in.

SPLASH! She sunk instead of floated up to the surface. Water got into her lungs. The feeling of tentacles wrapping around her limbs. And the slowing pace of her heart.

"You're weak, little girl," she heard her dead copy as her head fell into the water to see her. "How could anybody raise such a weak, little girl…with a worthless crush on her only nephew? What a stupid desire! Like he could ever love you as more than what you are to him right now?! You should sleep, Rumi. Sleep…just like every one you failed to protect."

Rumi felt her strength leaving her, along with her will to go on living. The sounds of her surroundings toned down to match the quieting of her heart. Her vision began to dull as the lack of oxygen to her lungs was strengthening.

"…No, Rumi," she heard Shinji's voice, "it's not over for you. Don't give up. Don't ever give up!"

She felt a large hand on her wrist, causing her to turn her head weakly to see who it was, and saw that it was her nephew, looking as he always did in most of her happy dreams: Not so fragile by his illness, his sense of strength now reflecting on the outside what it showed deep down, and a head full of the same hair that his wigs represented…along with eyes that were full of life…and hope.

"You can't stop now, Rumi," he told her some more. "Look at how far you've come in saving people with Akira. You're close to saving the whole world by defeating these Angels. I've never seen you give up hope in anything, not even on me. Are you really going to let an illusion get the best of you with a bunch of mockeries of people that don't even come as close to my heart as you do?"

I…I'm closet to your heart, Shinji-Kun? She thought, using her left hand to cover his.

"Yes, Rumi," she heard him say. "You're at the top of my pyramid. Maybe the reason I was able to survive this long with my illness was because of how you feel about me. Don't stop fighting now. I'm waiting for you to come back home. Please, come home, Rumi. Come home."

Her grip tightened over his hand as she felt her strength returning to her.

Arigato, Shinji, she told him, now able to breathe in the water she knew now wasn't really there. I can still turn this around…and I know I can still save you. Please, wait for me to save you once all the Angels are humanized, Shinji. Will you wait for me?

"I will wait for you, Rumi-Chan," he told her.

Rumi leaned in closer to his face and kissed him on the lips.

I love you, her final thoughts to him were.

FLASH! The light that had returned shattered around Rumi's armored guise, as she was returned to the present battle with Arael.

What?! Arael gasped, backing away a little. There's no way she could've overcome my attack! She should've been driven to her mental limits!

Rumi shook off the lingering effects of what she assumed was Arael's mental abilities used offensively against her.

"You messed with the wrong wielder of the Angelbreaker," she told her, producing a large katana from her hands. "Ha!"

"Grrrruargh!" Arael growled, realizing that her mental attacks were now useless against this child.

"Mother, stay outta this, please," Rumi told Akira, who was now behind her.

"Go teach her who's stronger," Akira told her, respecting her daughter's decision, and standing aside.

"Like in the old fairy tales," Rumi announced, raising the blade up and using the wings on her back to propel herself toward the Angel, "the knight always slays the bad dragon!"

No! Arael panicked, breathing fire at her, but it was no use.

This little girl was too angry with her attempt to render her brain useless to keep her alive to feel the basic fear of fire that would've been inherent within the mentality of children once realized it could be used to kill them.

"Haaaaaurgh!" Rumi yelled out, flying through the stream of cosmic-like fire, bringing the sword down on Arael's head once she was close enough to her snout.

SLASH! The blade became larger and left Arael's head split in half down toward her neck, revealing her skull's internal structure, but keeping everything from spilling out in a gross display.

Aaaaaaahhh! They heard Arael scream from the pain and agony.

Then, seeing that her head wasn't going to snap back together, Rumi flew underneath the Angel of Birds and targeted her core, severing its winged appendages and leaving it afloat in space.

No! My life! That's my life! Arael croaked, sounding like, in the wielders' mental perception and awareness, she was having trouble breathing, which should've fit with her head being severed.

The core, still glowing brightly, fell to the Earth, and Akira, needing to make sure it didn't cause any collateral damage or loss of life, flew after it. The remains of Arael's glowing body fell toward the planet soon after.

-x-

"…Nemo," went Tsukiko, as she and the rest of family, minus Shinji, were in the panic room, "have I ever mentioned that I hate the panic room?"

"Yes, Tsukiko," he responded. "This makes seventeen."

Taeko noticed how her youngest adult aunt was crouched by one of the external ventilation ducts and how she had just slammed her right hand on it to keep it from vibrating.

"Are you alright, Tsukiko?" She asked her.

"Yeah," she answered her youngest niece.

Examining the visual size of the panic room, as it was the size of the kitchen itself, the little girl assumed that Tsukiko had a problem with small, enclosed spaces.

"Closet space?" Mayo had asked Tsukiko, seeing some frustration in her.

"I'm okay," she assured them.

Bumi, taking his responsibilities as the eldest sibling serious, uttered, "Tsukiko, don't you dare freak out and have a panic attack."

"I know."

"I'm serious."

"I won't."

There was silence in the room again…until Shinobu went and spoke up, "Most people gifted in fire didn't think dragons actually existed. Quite a shock to one's belief that they did exist."

This sparked up Tsukiko's interest and curiosity, since she herself was a Pyro Channeler and the art of controlling fire was, according to Akira, as far as even she knew, granted to people by dragons that had, supposedly, existed alongside the dinosaurs and survived up to the days of the elemental cities before their existence came to a sad end.

"Really, big sister?" She asked.

"Yeah. My father told me."

"And…when did people of fire cease to believe that the dragons did exist?"

"Over eight-thousand years ago. I say that because my grandmother had believed the cities under the elements had been around before that time."

"Wouldn't that mean that those four cities disappeared before what would've, probably, been referred to as… Eight-Thousand BC?" Taeko asked; this question stemming from what she had to read once during a history lesson before the summer started.

"Yeah, Taeko," her mother answered. "But who really knows for sure? The Earth had to have been, geographically, tectonically and all the other science babble that you get in documentaries and films, formed appropriately to suit the requirements and structure of the four cities. Maybe they existed before even the Second Century."

"They existed long before modern history, which includes histories like those of the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians and Sumerians, was ever recorded in stone," said Kanami. "Everything we know about what we know relating to the elemental arts…all dates back to a time where history, without the means to record it properly and leave detailed records behind for future generations to learn from, didn't exist in a way that most modern people would understand."

"That's exactly right," Nemo agreed.

THUD! A loud sound caught their attention.

Mayo picked up her sword and got up.

"Half an hour, and I say that sounds means something else that ain't serious," she told them, climbing up the ladder that was the primary way in and out of the panic room.

-x-

While not her first choice, Rumi had managed to set the core of Arael onto the path grounds of the family estate. The glow it possessed ceased and revealed itself to be red like those of her siblings.

"Way to go, Rumi," her mother praised her, setting the deteriorated remains of Arael's Angel body on the grounds outside the estate; the body had been reduced to the size of a small house and was covered in burn marks due to the reentry of Akira.

The core continued to pulsate with energy, showing that Arael was still alive.

"Shall we?" Rumi asked her mother.

"Let's," Akira agreed, and they pointed their right arms toward the core, unleashing their own streams of light at it.

To be continued…