Creation began on 04-03-21

Creation ended on 04-04-21

Neon Genesis Evangelion

A New Cause: Pull Thy Soul Back

A/N: This chapter is going to be among a few in the future that are inspired by a terrible choice that someone I know almost made, and it took people they weren't as close to as they once were to save him.

The ledge. It was a representation of people's lives that had hit a crossroad. Especially when they were desperate for some kind of release from their personal agony. Not even Death was exempt from this feeling of dread that slithered in and out of lives every now and then. As he stood on the rooftop of a tall building in the quiet of the night, he was looking at a young man that, despite his faults and demons, was not like the other men and women he had sent to Hell.

"You don't want to do what you're thinking about doing," he told him, slowly walking over to him. "Your soul is not dark, full of malice or contempt. You don't want to die. Why are here on top of this building?"

"I… I couldn't… I couldn't keep the house," the man told him.

"What do you mean?" Death wanted to know.

"My daughter and I, we were going to end up on the streets. The people I owed money to wouldn't give me an extension. I just needed two days to finally pay them back. I can't bear to lose future if we lose the house."

"It can't be that bad…"

"It is! The people that want the house, they make everything difficult just to make themselves look like they're in the right! I trusted someone I knew for years to help me do right for my daughter! And in the end, they let me down. I can't go on like this."

But despite standing on the ledge, looking over the edge, Death saw within this man's soul a sense of hesitation, a sense of fear. As much as he wanted to end it all…he held back.

"But what about your daughter?" He asked the man. "Won't she be hurt by your absence?"

The man looked at him.

"I don't know you, but your soul screams out for an absolution. You haven't hurt anyone yet…and you don't have to."

"I've heard about you. You're that kid that murdered his father for abandoning him. You came back from the depths of Hell to reap vengeance upon the scum of the living. You're the Grim Reaper, the avenging angel, the hunter of hunters that prey on the innocent."

"And his soul, I will carry within me till the end of existence, but I am not defined by his past actions…nor ruled by the undeniable truth that he had considered the same choice that you're considering…but couldn't go through with it."

The man looked back at him.

"He contemplated suicide?" He asked Death.

"And despite feeling an overwhelming drive to end it all, he couldn't go through with it. He knew he had something that only he could do. His drive to punish the people responsible for his madness was what kept him from taking his own life in that institution he spent an eternity locked away from the world that had shunned him. When his father was dealt the end, he could cross the threshold himself, knowing that his life was no longer worth living. But your life is still worth living. You still have people involved in your life, people you shouldn't condemn with your absence."

"But…I can't even keep a roof over her head," he confessed to the Horseman of Death.

"Are you familiar with the saying, 'Do as you please'?" Death asked.

"Yeah…but that's hard to do, even in a country like this. Japan, once a great nation, reduced to a shadow of its former better days. No one can just…do as they please."

"That is true…when you're alone. But that's how the drive to take one's own life becomes so overwhelming; people that feel that they can't turn to others that have their backs when they're pressed against the wall. Do you have anyone other than this person that let you down?"

-x-

"…What the Hell is this?" A man in a business suit asked the infamous Horseman of Death, who tossed a folded wad of old bills held together by a rubber band.

"This," Death uttered, his voice sounding intimidating, "is the last ounce of money you're ever going to see from anyone that put their faith in you to do right by them."

Then, seeing his kama glisten in the darkness, the suit started to fear the horseman.

"Hey, now, wait a minute," he begged, backing away from the Grim Reaper. "Maybe we can talk about this."

"The guy that was going to lose his house and his child because of your treachery, he's under my protection now, and I have connections to some people that have nobler intentions than your inability to stay righteous."

The suit started to reach for a pistol nearby, but Death was faster, grabbing his right arm and twisting it.

"Aaaurgh!" He screamed.

"And you know the hardest part of thinking about committing suicide and then attempting it?" Death questioned, bringing his kama up to the man's neck. "Even if you don't have the balls or the spine to commit to it, it becomes a stigma. A stigma isn't something you can wash away like dirt and blood can be from time to time. It sticks to your soul and follows you like a shadow. In the darkness and the light, it will always follow you, no matter where you go, no matter how hard you try to do better to make up for it all. But those that have people to look out for them, they can help keep the stigma at bay, give them reason to keep going on until it's truly their time to pass. People with such a stigma, sometimes, they have to go through Purgatory…just to get into Heaven…and when they earn, when they truly earn the absolution they seek…Heaven becomes the one thing that purges the stigma away from their souls, making them worthy of a reincarnation in the future, should they ever choose to want to come back to the land of the living. I used to be a boy that once considered ending his life…but he knew that his end would have to be after he got rid of his father. That doesn't change the fact that he considered suicide…but knowing that he had something else to live for…enabled him to pull his tarnished soul back from the brink of despair he felt locked up in that depraved hole he was cast into. People that feel desperate for the end, when they feel there is no more hope…can always pull their souls back from the brink."

The suit's eyes widened with fear as Death's eyes became dark as the night and his kama's blade heated up.

"That isn't the case with you, however," Death told him, and cast his judgment upon his soul.

-x-

"…So, you killed a man that betrayed a single father…and got him help from those within the Restorative to keep from losing his house and daughter," said Mother Gaia to Death as he sat on the shoreline of her island, looking out at the ocean. "What made you want to keep this man from killing himself, Death?"

"He wasn't truly a sinner," he answered the Earth Goddess. "He wasn't malicious, deviant or any measure of what I understand as human-related evil. He was just a desperate man trying to maintain his stability and comfort zone. A man that doesn't want to kill or harm anyone, for any reason…is not a sinner…and doesn't deserve to go to Hell."

Mother Gaia smiled and placed her left hand on his shoulder.

"You're much stronger than I had thought you'd be, Death, the Endgame," she praised him. "You're able to look into people's souls and ascertain their intentions and desires, what motivates them and how far they're willing to go. You may be the strongest incarnation of the Horseman of Death yet."

Death looked at her, wondering if she was just joking with him.

"There must've been other horsemen of the mantle that have been better than myself," he suggested to her.

"Every Horseman of Death is unique, just as every Horseman of War, Famine and Conquest are. Each member has a strength that makes them a force to be reckoned with when they choose to make use of it. But there is something about you, your damned soul, that makes you stand out among the other horsemen. Maybe there's a small part of you, something that has been overlooked and underestimated, that enables you to feel a connection to life that others didn't feel before."

Death smiled and returned his gaze to the ocean far away. Maybe she was right, but he was a damned soul brought back to serve a greater purpose that was to save the planet and the innocent people that lived on it. His soul was forfeit, caught in a purgatorial state of transition, so he didn't have the luxury of forgiveness like those still alive did. But he did have the luxury of hope for the time when he could embrace the absolution of his soul and be given a clean slate.

"Mother Gaia," he uttered then, "what is hope to one that has lost theirs?"

"Hope to the hopeless…is the power to hope once again," she answered him. "Hope is renewal, to believe in what you lost faith in, and to know the future has light."

"Do you think…if he had received hope when he was younger…he wouldn't have gone down the path he did when he escaped from his imprisonment?"

"I think if I had known about him sooner, I would've rescued him from that madness he was falling into. But on this path his soul is on, residing in you, he can obtain hope through you."

Death, the very horseman that takes life from the guilty…being the same horseman that gives hope to the hopeless.

Shinji Ikari did contemplate suicide, he thought, recalling the young man's memories that dwelled within him. But in the end, he chose not to end it there in the institute. He chose to wait until fate gave him an opening to exact the last of his vengeance against the Ikari family. He pulled his soul back from the brink. Even though his soul was tarnished, he continued to live until it was his time to die. He might've died at fourteen, but by choosing not to take his own life, he didn't pay so high a price as those that did would've.

In the end, so long as you continue to live each day, you will find reason to keep going on

A/N: Don't let the troubles of your lives make you consider suicide. Even when we think there's no hope, there is always hope so long as we have people we trust to pull us back from the brink.