The good, the bad and the ugly.
By Zman123
Theme tune
The good, the bad and the ugly main theme (By Ennio Morricone)
Synopsis
After escaping with the soulless Rei-Q in the hope of once more being united with the one loveable person that has been with him through thick and thin without seeing him as , Shinji makes the tough and rebellious decision not to go back to WILLE with Asuka and Mari knowing that nothing but more wanton cruelty await him and the new Rei there. Instead, the two of them make the spur-of-the-moment choice to run and hide like dirty cowards and chance it out alone in the cold, bleak world now more bereft of common human decency than ever before with how selfish mankind has become under the iron fists of Gendo, Lorenz and Misato as they continue their petty fight that has already jeaprodized the innocent civillians under their corrupt regime.
Meanwhile, true and honest guilt begins to utterly consume the brutally misused and broken Dr Ritsuko Akagi as she regrets her role in indirectly perpetuating the chain of terrible mistakes that caused third impact, especially her cruel neglect towards Shinji and Rei. The scientist's change of heart soon attracts the empathetic attention of an unlikely old friend of Yui's who is relieved to see another kindred spirit that has not yet forgotten Yui's heroic sacrifices.
Shinji x Rei. Mari x Ritsuko
...
Authors notes
Good day to you all ladies and gentlemen and thank you all so much for joining me in what may well be the first Steven Universe and Evangelion crossover fanfiction ever to exist in the history of fanfiction. A quick note from me is that Steven Universe contains a large amount of awesome Anime references that I could not help but miss, and that both shows deal with the aftermath of a terrible war that has rocked the Earth and changed life upon it forever.
However, while the narcissistic jerks of Evangelion go about dealing with it in a destructive manner that only worsens a situation actually not too bad to begin with, the kind-hearted evangelists (pun intended) of Steven Universe are willing to accept responsibility and work together for the most part to bring about a long-lasting and sustainable world-peace. Also, both Shinji and Steven have a mother that sacrificed themselves for the pure sake of protecting the world and their children after losing the will to live any longer, unfortunately unintentionally leaving their young and innocent offspring to put out the raging fires they started. Both Yui and Rose were hasty and at times careless, but neither were cold blooded mothers. And now, on with the show and once again, my sincerest gratitude for choosing to read this story.
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Chapter 1: The good, the bad and the ugly
"Thus a business executive will spend roughly one hour of his day reading, two hours talking and eight hours listening. Yet in school, we spend a large amount of time teaching our children how to read, a very small amount of time teaching them how to speak and usually no time at all teaching them how to listen." - MD Scott Peck. Author of "The road less travelled", bestseller psychological textbook.
"Congratulations." - Garnet to Steven
"Congratulations Steven" - Pearl "Bird mum" to Steven.
"Yah Yuh. Congrats little guy" - Amethyst to Steven
"Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Earth" - Mathew 5 from the holy Bible
...
In the hopelessly inept and grossly corrupt justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups. The saintly crusaders who think they are evil criminals and the evil criminals who think they are saintly crusaders. These are their stories.
DUN DUN.
...
Shinji was huffing and puffing as he ducked into the relative safety of the fallen but thankfully not caved-in remains of what appeared to be some sort of shopping district. Above its large doorway, a faintly crackling green neon sign spelled out the words WOSHIMOSHI. Whatever that meant was not relevant now, Shinji knew that he had mere moments before Asuka and Mari's Evangelions caught up with him and the short blue haired girl he was now tightly holding the hand of. "Rei" as his loveless excuse of a father would have liked him to recognize her as. But with none of the feelings and memories of all that they had shared together prior to third-impact, Shinji struggled to see the empty shell whose pale skin felt cold as ice against his own as anything other than another farce.
His father had lied to him once again and by believing his father's wicked deciets, Shinji had severed himself from the final group of people who he felt he could ever feel any connection toward. His cool and hip Major Misato. The beautiful and gentle chief Scientist of NERV now chief scientist of WILLE Ritsuko Akagi. Even the eccentric yet loving British Brunette who he'd met just twice, once as she parachuted down onto the roof of his school and radioed a mysterious group about her succesful arrival into Japan.
From the murmurings he'd tried but failed not to eavsdrop on while held captive in WILLE by his former loved ones who he entrusted with his heart which now lay shattered in a thousand jagged shards too small to ever consider fixing, he'd learned the mysterious woman's name to be Mari Makinami Illustrious and their second short yet sweet meeting had seen him witnessing her masterful piloting skills that he was certain could not have sat well with his other fellow Evangelion pilot who both thankfully and unfortunately still lived having only suffered the loss of her right eye despite being in the epicentre of the ginormous explosion that was "third impact".
He considered himself lucky that his murderous father's ploy with the dummy plug hadn't crushed the former girl of his dreams into more red jelly for his Evangelion "EVA-unit 1" to devour so as to further empower its already breathtaking power. He was no murderer thankfully, and no manslayer either at least pertaining to the life of his one-sided crush who he now held nothing but utter contempt towards. In a court of law if the prosecution were to rule that since he was in the Evangelion that crushed Asuka's Evangelion when it was taken out of his control suddenley without his knowledge by his father, it would be impossible to brand him guilty of taking any life away since the victim was very much still alive and kicking and punching.
Punching the glass separating them with such impune force that he could still feel the impact of that forceful blow that would surely have cracked his skull had the glass of his prison not acted as his grand saviour.
Something deep within him had told him that he needed to try to reach out, however hard he tried to deny that this new "Rei" he was now escorting to safety even at gigantic risk to himself had any affiliation to the previous Rei that he had grown to truly love with all his heart and who had truly loved him in return. A statement that could not be made for any other living soul on the planet, save perhaps his late mother that he never even got the chance to meet or even attend her funeral. His father had forbidden him for suspect reasons that were unknown even to Shinji this day. Surely it would have been approrpiate for father and son to share in unity a lost mother's final blessings?
He didn't know why father never let him even talk about mother. And he didn't want to waste his time asking such pointless questions.
"Rei." He choked out, her name being so painful that it felt as to merely whisper it sent spasms of sheer agony coursing through his shivering body. He clenched his fist and steeled himself as best he could. This had to be done. No matter his personal emotional attachment to the real Rei that was no longer with him and would most likely never be with him ever again, this was the moral and forthright thing to do. He might well die in the following seconds as his plan to evade WILLE and Asuka especially fell through like all his other brilliant plans that blew up in his face quite literally, but at least in doing this he wouldn't let his spirit be carried away in inconsolable guilt as it voyaged whatever afterlife awaited beyond its brief sojourn on this mortal coil that seemed in every way to be designed to beat down even the most resilient human spirit in existence.
He had to try and make her remember. Screw WILLE's lies when they tried to warn him that this wasn't even the real Rei. Screw the superficial fact that this new Rei responded to his first statements about the old Rei with little more than apologetic confusion, there was a warmth in her eyes, a sympathy in her tone during the few words she did manage to speak through her usually impregnable walls of silence. But most importantly of all was a meekness in her every cautious motion as she leapt to obey his every order to her as if his speech was gospel to her as the words of the bible were to a devout Christian.
She had never once gotten the slightest bit angry even as he bombarded her with veiled insults that she was nothing like the loveable Rei he once knew. She'd certainly never hit him the way Asuka would do to him at the drop of a hat, seemingly for no other reason that how she knew that he was the only human in her nearby vicinity that she could maim without fear of any sort of retribution on account of his solemn vows of pacifism which he swore over his mother's grave the one time he had snuck out in the dead of night to see it in all its grandiose glory. It's tombstone made of exquisite marble decorated head to toe in real and pure gold. A large bed of beautiful roses well watered and fertilized standing in an immaculate assembly before the fancy tombstone in question. He knew that were his father to find him that night or if someone else were to see him there and to report his secret pilgrimage to his late mother's holy resting place, the consequences would be so severe he'd be praying for an Angel to eat him alive and to digest him with its deadly acids in its stomach. Suffice to say, his father did not take kindly to any queries Shinji had about what his late mother was like and did not like anyone else doing likewise.
The tall wire fence surrounding the tomb with a locked door that answered only to a valid fingerprint scan could attest to his father's lingering jealousy that anyone might have any love for Yui aside from himself as her beloved husband. Shinji was able to enter only through sheer luck and athletic skill and able to exit before the sun came up to reveal his charade with the help of a shady cypress tree that had been planted to the side of the grave to shelter it from rain and shine. He remembered his heart in his mouth and the ocean of sweat engulfing his entire weary form the next morning when Misato questioned him about the scratch marks left on his crimson hands by the barbed wire and how he had never felt so ashamed in his whole life as he lied and told her he had been in a life-threatening scuffle with a bandit on a late night stroll he'd taken to ease his mind from the stresses of being an important centerpiece of mankind's last line of defence against the Angelion threat.
He also vividly recalled that the next day where fearsome battles more deadly than any he'd faced prior to then took place, he held a noticeably reduced fear of death and dying which went unnoticed by all save the faux blonde chief Scientist of NERV, the amazing Ritsuko Akagi who lightly caressed his shoulder and told him well done with a sweet smile as he swept almost proudly out of his Evangelion drenched in the blood of mankind's alien enemies. At least he knew that if he died then and there, his mandatory pilgrimage to his mother's resting place was complete and he'd done the simple duty every son ought to have the right to undertake in peace undisturbed and without persecution.
But now was not the time for wistful, petty nostalgia that helped no one. Not even himself. If any trace of the real Rei. The one that cared for him enough to sacrifice her life for him and risk everything she was worth to organize a dinner in the hopes that it'd bring him, her and his estranged excuse for a father closer together then he needed to act quickly.
No more waiting, said Shinji to himself sullenly as he and "Rei" seated himself tensely on the worn but still comfortable leather chairs in what appeared to have once been a waiting area of some kind. A couple of tattered, illegible magazines still lined a desk in front of their chairs.
"Rei. If you have any regard whatsoever for the boy who betrayed every last one of the loved ones just to come with you at your command. If I have found favour in your eyes in any way however small in the little time we've had together. If you feel any gratitude in your cold and empty heart whatsoever for the fact that I've just saved your life from the merciless grip of WILLE by bringing you here with me instead of leaving you to die, then please tell me this. Do you remember anything? Anything at all."
Shinji pleaded quietly but firmly, clenching his right fist as he kept the middle and index finger of his left hand crossed behind his back where "Rei" couldn't see them at all. He didn't mean to sound so crass and rude but his ruthless desparation for Rei's salvation left little room in his heart for restraint. Now was not the time for holdo
"Re, remember what?" came her lifeless, dull, monotonous reply that made him clutch his chest in great agony. It was the reply he all but expected and yet the one he feared above all others. Even if she had told him "I remember that you bad-mouthed and insulted my master and that I slapped you like the little spoiled piece of rubbish you are" he would have felt instead like his spirit was on cloud nine in the heavens with God almighty.
Shinji clutched his head. He was ninety nine point nine percent sure this was pointless, but if it was then so was every decision he'd made up to this point. It was all or nothing. Everything to gain, nothing to lose. This was his life purpose now and they were not going anywhere until his most difficult battle yet ended in a resounding victory or a crushing defeat. It was not a battle of brute strength but of the mind, the heart and the soul. He needed to go on the offensive.
"Remember when you tried to get me and my father together by organizing that dinner that we never got to have before the Angels attacked us and separated us?" Shinji pleadingly begged, shakingly holding both his hands held out as pure anguish masked his face.
"Remember when you slapped me because my father treated me so badly and cut my wages once again despite me having done nothing wrong?"
He swore he could see a singular tear forming in "Rei's" left eye but it meant nothing. She still said nothing and still showed not the slightest sign of apprehension. But at least that one tear gave him hope. A grand luxury he'd not had in a long time. A long time.
"Remember when you told Asuka in the elevator that you were not a doll, and how you courageously defended yourself when she tried to slap you? You were so brave Rei to stand up to such a evil tyrant such as Asuka in a way that I would never dare. How could you forget all this?" Shinji barked, throwing his hands up in the air.
For just one measly second, maybe less, his and her soul had linked with one another the day of that fateful incident that led to third impact. It was brief, beyond brief. But it was enough. Shinji had seen everything he needed to see and learned everything he needed to learn to realize beyond a shadow of a doubt that Rei really loved him for who he was. Perhaps it was a far stretch to say that he'd gladly have caused another impact to get to experience such closeness just once more, but he could think of no other metaphor to describe how exhilerating and enlightening the experience had been for him.
Rei moved her lips up and down as her narrowed eyes widened ever so slightly. Unbeknownst to Shinji, the tiniest tunnel of light had penetrated the darkness of her hallowed out soul that had been emptied of all traces of her memories of Shinji as part of an insidious ploy that neither she nor Shinji knew of. If there was one thing third impact had not changed at all, it was the murky depths Gendo Ikari's insanity which had long slid down the slippery slope past the point of no return. A maid could carry cakes and biscuits on a silver platter to his office with a smile and he'd slap her hard in the face if she happened to catch him in anything less than an ideal mood simply because she wasn't his dead wife Yui.
She wanted to be able to repay Shinji's unparalleled kindness in choosing to take her with him. She could tell despite the hollow holes that the brainwashing process left in her fragmented mind that WILLE were merciless sycophants who would skin baby skills alive to bathe in their blood. But how could she show Shinji a sign of her gratitude if she couldn't even understand a word he was shrieking rather than speaking at her.
"Remember when we first met and I ran away from you because I thought you were an Angel and you reminded me so much of my mum?" Shinji tried once more as unable to keep still any longer, he jumped to his feet and started to restlessly pace the cracked and dirty floors of the abandoned mini-mall. "Come on Rei. This is your first memory of me. Surely you at least remember a trace of that fateful day when fate joined our destinies together."
The singular tear that Rei had been trying to mask from Shinji became a thin streak of saltwater that sneakily trickled down her left cheek out her left eye socket. The less mutilated of her two eyes and the less crimson red of her two now very hot and painful cheeks.
"I'm. I'm so..." Rei stammered out, a mask of pure regret and horror quickly forming on her face. From the way Shinji mentioned this final memory, it seemed like he was really not going to give her anymore chances. Even the most forgiving and patient saint in the world had his or her breaking point. The fact that Shinji had stood up had told her better than any words he could have used that this was not a request like his previous pleas for her to recall the previous memories of her past life. This was an ultimatum. This was where their relationship all began.
She so wished she could lie. "Yes Shinji. I remember. I remember it all." But she shot that selfish and dishonest idea down even as it began to rear its ugly head in the deepest recesses of her mind. "Thou shall not lie." A commandment even her overbearing and heartless dictator saw fit to teach her when he first had her excavated from the wreck of her Evangelion and more or less revived in his ideal image of complete obedience to him and him alone. So instead she told the truth. The whole truth and nothing else. The awful, heartbreaking truth in all its ugly entirety.
"No. I'm so sorry Shinji"
She didn't know what other reaction she expected to illicit with her grim reply as without warning and without hesitation, poor Shinji raised his right fist which he'd been tightly clenching into a ball behind his back even as the first syllables of "no" rolled painfully from her parched lips. He shot her with a glare of a wounded animal of prey helplessly staring down its natural predator about to devour it with no chance of escape nor survival, and brought the fist flying at lightning speed so that it slammed his fragile nose hard enough to draw a drop of his crimson blood.
"I've failed" He cried, reluctantly accepting her attempt to comfort him by putting her arm around his shoulder, trembling like a reed in the wind as she steeled herself to make such an intimate contact for the first time in her new life that her creator had cursed her into living. She'd rather have died a thousand times over than have been forced to witness such a nice, loving boy commit such unpleasantry on his own person because of her. "The Rei I knew is dead. Mortis. Shine. Tote. Muerto. And now I may as well go back to Asuka so that she can kill me and dance at my funeral. Then maybe she'll finally be happy because she'll be the best EVA pilot like she always dreamed with me out of the picture. I want her to laugh and giggle as she puts a thousand bullets into my organs and lets me bleed out bit by bit with no anaesthesia whatsoever."
"No. No I'm right here Shinji. I'm not dead. I'm alive. My memory is a little rusty but please Shinji, it's still very much me your Rei" The usually unflappable Rei weakly tried to retort as she ran her hand across his shoulder as delicately as she could. "Please just give me one more chance, my dearest love Shinji. Please. All I beg of you is that you give me one final chance."
At this, Shinji took one firm stride from Rei and turned back to look her sternly in the eye. He'd not made the slightest effort to wipe the thin trail of blood that had now reached his lips. His eyes were surprisingly as dry as desert sand. His anger, self-loathing and burning hatred for the unfairness of the tragedy of his life superseded his grief.
"There is just one more memory that only the really, really real Rei would remember" he sighed in tranquil fury. "Something no other living soul on the planet other than myself and her could possibly have any knowledge about. It's the leading reason why we were able to get so close to each other in the first place. It's why neither Asuka nor any other girl can ever replace Rei for me. It's why I viewed everyone other than Rei Ayanami as an ungiving and uncaring snob without the slightest shred of affection for me and my sacrifices."
He cleared his throat with a light but painful cough.
"We shared a fandom" He explained, disdainfully sizing up the now very afraid Rei. "A fandom inhabited by only the two of us as the last two survivors of mankind to understand the meaning of love. As in, really understand. I wasn't a smart boy and Rei wasn't a smart girl but we at least knew what love was."
Now Rei was puzzled. What did he want from her this time? He hadn't even asked if she remembered anything, he was just telling a story while asking her nothing. She was certain this test would be leagues harder than the previous ones he'd given her only for her to completely screw them all up, ripping his heart to shreds unintentionally through her failures. She could tell this was truly the final chance. That the bountiful mercy of Shinji had reached its limits here and now.
"Oh Lord. Please give me the strength to pass this trial. Forgive me my sins just as I forgive those who've sinned against me. Lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil" prayed Rei quietly under her breath as she clasped her hands in terrifying anticipation.
"We...are the crystal gems"
Shinji sang rather than spoke, his melodious voice relieving all pains and aches from Rei but only for a second. He stopped immediately after this one line of beauty. It was obvious that he wanted Rei to continue.
"We'll always save the day. And if you think we can't, we'll always find a way" Rei suddenly found herself replying to him also in song. She knew exactly how it went, she just didn't know how she knew or how she knew that she knew. She didn't care. God almighty had blessed her with the divine knowledge to rescue Shinji and herself from the flames of perdition. All was truly right in the world.
"And if you think we can't. We'll...always find a way. That's why the people of this world. Believe in...Garnet, Amethyst. And Pearl (who is very nice)..." Rei continued singing.
Shinji's frown slowly morphed into a lovely smile as she continued, not once pausing nor stuttering a single line. What was this trickery? This couldn't be happening. Not after she failed to recall all the previous life-defining memories he'd bombarded her with. This had to be some sort of fever dream. He'd surely died and gone to heaven or hell. But aha. Here it was. The final two words that she'd surely completely screw up to expose herself for the pretentious faker she was. To prove herself to be nothing more than a lying demon sent to torment him for his countless sins that had earned him the punishment of eternity of burning in hellfire.
No one got this line right. It had taken even himself until the last episode to be able to remember that this line even existed. For it was not even sung by a proper gem, depending on your definition of what counted as a gem and what didn't. Only a truly fair and non-racist evangelist would...
"And STEVEN!" Rei spoke rather than sang, spreading her arms out wide to welcome Shinji as he fell into them, letting tears of pure joy trickle into her face and onto her hair. Even her creator's brainwashing couldn't blank out the purest memories of genuine love.
...
"When I find you Shinji, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to make sure your betrayal of WILLE doesn't go unpunished and that this so called "new Rei" get's what's coming to her. Rest assured that your suffering will not end quickly. Misato doesn't need you in her plans to beat NERV and save the world and neither do I need you in my life after all the time you spent stealing my thunder and upstaging my every chance to shine." Groaned a certain long red haired German with a black eyepatch as she directed her Evangelion through a shallow spot in the crimson seas back in the direction of a heavily built up island.
"But I will not let that happen. I will hold you here. I will keep you here. No matter how many times...they burn us. Shinji may not have been perfect but he certainly doesn't deserve the sinister ploy that you and WILLE have in store for him and neither does the new Rei. I'd have acted exactly the same way as Shinji in his shoes." A British Brunette with red glasses murmured to herself, unheard by the German since their Evangelions were several kilometres apart, having chosen slightly different routes back to WILLE's base after splitting up to search different parts of Tokyo-3 in vain for Shinji and Rei.
...
"Everything changes, but nothing is lost" - Neil Gaiman.