Creation began on 07-28-18
Creation ended on 07-30-18
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hope from the Sky: Fathers and Sons
A/N: Shinji and Eren have their verbal brawl.
They didn't really know each other, but Shinji couldn't help but think that Eren Yeager was the typical youth that got angry easily and was one to hold a grudge for as long as necessarily possible. If this was so, then it was possible that he would hold a grudge against Kaede for stealing the Attack and Founding Titans from him. He wasn't even sure why he made the conscious decision to head to the Titan Forest in between Maria and Trost after hearing that he and other Survey Corps members were training there today, but he wanted to talk to the guy and clear the bad air.
With the Wall Titans spread out thinly over here, it's easy to get to where I need to go in the Eva, he thought, seeing the tall trees that made the forest that was big enough to evade Titans.
Stopping Unit-01 in front of the trees, he shut down the Eva and vacated the plug.
"Boots and a shawl," he sighed, only having those to cover his feet and upper body so his plugsuit wasn't openly exposed.
-x-
Flying past the trees, Eren vented his frustrations out on the wooden targets with his blades, slicing them to pieces. Just this morning, he heard several other corps members talking about how they dreamt of having different careers…and woke up knowing about different careers, like bakery, butchery, or video game makers. Some of them believed it was because of Kaede having the Founding Titan in her that these understandings of knowledge were possible, but every time someone said something about it, it just made him upset to know…because there was no way he himself could have done anything of the sort that she was doing, consciously or not. But the trouble he had with her was not what most were likely to think of him. If people thought he resented the girl for taking his Titans from him in a desperate attempt to help Shinji deal with the ultimatum that his father threatened him with, they were only half-right about this; while he hated what she did, he had gotten over it…for the most part.
I couldn't do any of what they did, he thought, cutting the next target (along with a branch) in half. They did more than I could.
"Hey, what's Shinji doing down there?" One of the female corps members asked, pointing to the ground where a boy was looking up at them.
"Probably on patrol duty," one of the male members suggested as they descended towards the ground. "Let's go see him."
Eren followed suit, deciding to see him, as well.
-x-
Something wasn't right with the scenario, anymore, and Gendo knew what it was. The Twelfth Angel wasn't killed by an awakened Unit-01 in Tokyo-3 when it was supposed to, Unit-03 wasn't possessed by the Thirteenth Angel and destroyed by Unit-01, and Unit-01 didn't defeat the Fourteenth Angel to acquire its S² Organ and become an incarnate god necessary for his goal to become realized. No, none of these have happened…and because of this…and because of his son's growing independence due to some strangers he was never supposed to be around…and a girl that he was never supposed to feel anything towards, he had zero chance of achieving Human Instrumentality and getting his reunion with Yui. If he couldn't achieve his goal, then it meant that SEELE couldn't achieve their goal, either, making both sides screwed.
If these Angels left can hurt him, I'd appreciate it immensely, he thought as he sat in his office after the discovery of the Sixteenth Angel was heading towards the Dirac Sea portal in Nevada, probably to reach Shinji in order to kill him. If he's dead, nobody there will be able to use the Eva, making it fair game for anyone with the means and will to take it away from them.
If his son was disposed of, then the Eva, regardless of whatever damage it may have sustained, would be salvaged and back in NERV's possession. Then he'd have Rei pilot it.
-x-
"What do you think they're talking about over there?" One of the men asked Mikasa as Eren and Shinji were several feet away from where they all were, engaged in a conversation that seemed pretty heated, though no punches were thrown by either of them just yet.
Mikasa was curious herself as to what they were talking about. Whatever it was, it was likely that Shinji Ikari was simply looking to quell Eren's would-be anger over the loss of his Titan abilities. Although, unbeknownst to Eren or anyone else, for that matter, she was actually relieved that he no longer had this power that would've left him in a state of severe fatigue for the rest of his life when and if he ever reached the end of his thirteen-fifteen-year limit. It made worrying about him less complicated.
"Who knows?" A woman uttered. "Say, has Eren received any new knowledge since Kaede got the Founder in her possession?"
"He hasn't said anything," another man revealed. "I woke up two days ago knowing things about a food called ice cream and some form of power called geothermal energy. Would you believe that such energy can be harnessed from the ground due to the heat generated by the core to the crust? It must be amazing."
"Hydroelectricity," another woman expressed her newfound knowledge as a result of Ms. Sogen. "Water itself serving as a source for harnessing electrical energy. And paleontology, the study of life that existed on Earth tens of millions of years ago before mankind ever came into existence."
It was partially a let-down due to the fact that Mikasa, due to not being a Subject of Ymir, didn't get the same benefit as they all did. It was unlikely that she or anyone like her would ever get that benefit.
Suddenly, she saw Eren throwing his hands up in the air and pointing an accusing finger at Shinji, who merely raised his hands in defense of Eren's behavior towards whatever was going on with their conversation.
-x-
Anger
"…She took my power from me…and did what I couldn't do," Eren told Shinji when they were far from the other members of the Survey Corps squad that came out here to train. "I didn't even think of what she did."
"Hey, I didn't think of it, either," Shinji told him. "Kaede…actually outdid both of us with her plan of action. I was actually willing to die to protect all of you if it came down to that."
"And you weren't the least bit afraid for your life?"
"Of course, I was afraid…but I couldn't run…without showing cowardice."
"Showing cowardice?"
"If I ran…I'd be condemning all of you to death."
"And she found a way to save us. I'm happy she helped to find a solution when she did…but… I hate that she deceived me."
"She deceived all of us to find a way."
"I hate her for that!"
"She was only doing what she thought was our best option."
"I still hate her for that! Just for that! It doesn't matter if she thought it was our last option, she still deceived me and took my Titan power from me and she made herself stronger with it! I couldn't do anything to stop her! My father had entrusted me with this power at the cost of his life…and she just took it without putting any real effort to do so! And you…you didn't know! You didn't even try to stop her!"
"If I had known, if she had told me, I would've spoken with you and Erwin!" Shinji defended when Eren pointed at him. "I would've had us evaluate the situation and consider all our options. I wouldn't have let Kaede get sick right now from her actions."
Eren lowered his arms and uttered, "She's sick right now?"
"Her Dark Titan is still a unique phenomenon that we don't know much about, only that her step-grandfather forced it on her. With each member of the Nine Titans she gains, she does become stronger and more versatile, maybe getting all the positive strengths of the Titans without being hindered by their negative weaknesses, but according to Hange, if she doesn't take the time to adjust to the power increase, she deteriorates and makes herself sick for a while. She needs to refrain from turning into her Titan form for a few days until she recovers."
"But…this has never happened before with the other Titans."
"She first got the Colossal, and then took the Armored and Female Titans. A few days after them, we took the Beast Titan from your half-brother. These were all several days apart, plenty of time to adjust to something new. But after she took the Attack and Founding Titans, she overdid it that day."
Eren didn't think that the very person that saved his mother from getting eaten, the very same person that had the power to turn Titans back into people and could help them fight back against Marley…could become sick from something as trivial as…as overuse of her power. But then again, he had exhibited a worse form of fatigue from using his former Titan abilities too much after only short periods of rest…and he had been the first Titan Shifter to fight for the people rather than against them."
"You're still going to be remembered in Eldian history for your actions against the Titans that attacked Trost when Mr. Hoover and his allies made that hole in Wall Rose, though," Shinji told him; no matter what happened to them, Historia, as the queen, wanted the individuals involved in the actions for and against Paradis immortalized through current history so that they'd be remembered for years to come. "You helped to retake the whole district. You carried a giant boulder to plug up the hole, and you helped shed light to the fact that there were people that could become Titans. A lot of people are going to know to your name, eventually."
"And what of you and Kaede, though? Aren't you two going to go down in history? You took out the Colossal Titan, helped retake Wall Maria, transported scores of people to the coastal city and took out dozens of fifty-meter Titans in defense of the people. And Kaede, she saved my mother's life from a Titan, fought several Titans before we even realized she was a Titan Shifter, and has become a greater representation of hope than I thought I could be once."
Shinji wasn't sure about himself being in the history books, but he knew Kaede deserved to be immortalized for people to know about for years to come. He saw each of them, the Survey Corps, the Garrison, Historia, even the simple, common folk of small villages and the orphaned children of victims of Titans as harbingers of hope. In his heart, they had no idea how important they were…and how important they would become later on.
"You were their first sliver of hope for a life beyond the Walls, and that won't change," he told Eren. "I got second place in being hope just from falling from the sky. Kaede's third in the line for her abilities. Even if we go down in history, the first to be recognized is the one that gets most of the credit. First come, first served. First come…first served…"
He just realized something that was farfetched, but it might've explained something very unfathomable about Kaede.
"What is it?" Eren asked him.
"What if the reason Kaede's Dark Titan is the way that it is…is because she's the very first?" He suggested. "What if she's the only one out of anyone turned by her step-grandfather that's truly one-of-a-kind?"
"Because she was the first person he turned?"
"He used Kaede as a test subject to see if his attempt at creating a Titan Serum would give him back his lost leg. Instead of doing it to himself, he turned her into his Guinea pig to see what might happen. Fear of failure led him to exploit her. Even if nothing happened the way he expected it to, she'd still be his first attempt at turning people into Titan Shifters. Some people usually tend to believe that when you're first in something, for something, you show the world what's possible, impossible or unlikely. Others believe that being first is the worst. So…what if her being the first Dark Titan, the only Dark Titan, is what makes her so special out of everyone turned by her step-grandfather?"
"If this were possible, then nothing else he'd do would matter because she's superior to any other Titan Shifter."
"He could revise and refine his Titan Serum formula until the next century, and he'd still be no better than she could be. He injected himself after he saw what he wanted out of her. Second place in the line means he's only second best. A loser, a chump nobody's really going to give a damn about if he can't do what she can."
"And all other Dark Titans would be beneath her; they can't turn other Titans back into humans, gain possession of the Nine Titans, nothing but change back and forth at will and retain their intelligence, like regular Titan Shifters."
"When we get to Marley, one of the things I want to try and get them to do is hand the guy over. He gave them his services and Titan Serum in exchange for asylum and Marleyan citizenship. Without him, they have nothing but their regular Titan Serum to turn Subjects of Ymir into mindless Titans."
"I thought your plan was to be noncombatant against them."
"It is. I still want peace between Marley and Eldia, but Eldia still needs to get all nine of Ymir's Titans back…and I promised my girlfriend I'd help her get justice against the man that hurt her."
-x-
Wow… I never thought that lying in bed, doing nothing but resting to recover from something like the stomach flu and overexertion…could be so boring, thought Kaede as she lay in her bed in her cell, letting time slip by her as she tried to refrain from throwing up after drinking her fifth cup of water.
On the other hand, she started looking a little better. Her dark circles were smaller and her skin regained some of its healthy hue. Of course, spending four days bedridden wasn't how she intended to spend her time, but what got her through these days was the fact that the Wall Titans had stayed in check and how a lot of people were able to do more to help in the coastal city with their newfound knowledge. These and the brief visits from Shinji and her parents helped her a lot than she admitted.
Suddenly, she knew she was asleep again because she wasn't in bed like she was ordered to. She was in the city, but in a part of the city she hadn't ventured into, surrounded by various, old drawings on the ground and sides of buildings.
"Grr," she heard something behind her. "Kaede."
Slowly, she turned to her right and saw her Dark Titan, standing before her, only as big as a person instead of being massive in size.
"Dark Titan?" She questioned, confused. "What are you doing here?"
The Dark Titan held out its left hand to her and pointed with its right hand down the street; it seemed to want to show her something.
Kaede followed it down the street, passing some broken statues, including one of a woman holding a small child, lying on the ground.
I'm so sorry, she thought as she felt sympathy for the motherly figure.
"History," the Dark Titan uttered as they walked past several murals depicting Titans. "Benevolence, malevolence… And predetermination."
The Titans depicted in the murals were all members of the Nine Titans of Ymir Fritz. Each one in some sort of struggle that seemed to be quelled by whoever in the Fritz family had possession of the Founding Titan at the time, keeping the struggle contained.
"Out of the Nine Titans of Ymir Fritz, the Founder was the nexus between each of them and the rest of Eldia," it told her. "As day and night naturally oppose one another but are needed to maintain a balance between all things, so, too, does the Founder and the rest of the Nine. The greatest strength of the Founder is through the unseen paths that relate us all to one another, going back through time to the beginning of Eldia's imperial rise and forward into the future of its second rise. Through these paths, invisible to all but the Founder and the one that controls it…can the power Ymir Fritz discovered be channeled and put to use. The paths to wisdom, prosperity and peace for all that seek it."
"Wisdom, prosperity and peace," Kaede repeated, stopping before a mural depicting a Titan she hadn't seen before, wielding a large weapon that looked like a mallet with a long handle, wearing a mask that looked as though it grew right into the head of the being, resembling an executioner's mask. "But…why tell me this? Is there something I need to do?"
The Dark Titan led her to a mural depicting the Nine Titans in a historical fashion, with five of them resembling men on a smaller scale than the other four, kneeling out to the world around them, the other three, two men and a young woman, kneeling before a woman wielding a war horn in her right hand while reaching up to the heavens with her left hand. Above the mural were two words that looked as though they had been carved in recently, reading, "The Past". Then, the Dark Titan showed Kaede another mural made next to it, depicting something that seemed more recent and still a work in-progress. It depicted the Dark Titan with its arms held out in front of it, as if it were to receive something from someone or to give away, with strands of its long, dark hair obscuring the faces of the former members of the Nine Titans, with room on both ends of the mural showing space for the two members that were absent. Above it were the words, "The Future".
In Kaede's mind, her Dark Titan had replaced the Founder and was aiming towards a different goal than what had been done in the past.
"I don't understand," she confessed to her Titan.
"As the Dark Titan," it spoke to her, kneeling down to her, "as I, you are the new nexus, Kaede Sogen. You, who have the Founder, Attack, Female, Jaw, Beast, Armored and Colossal Titans, are the one that can see the unseen paths that connect us all. You can show them the paths to wisdom and prosperity. But to show them the path to peace…you will need those that remain."
She looked at the empty spaces on the mural where two more Titans would've been obscured, and realized what her Titan meant by that.
"The Cart…and the War Hammer," she uttered.
"Yes," the Dark Titan answered, "but as you go down the path to receive them…you must beware the wrath and fury of the Devil."
GASP! She gasped, awakening to the silence of the night.
"Oh!" She covered her mouth and jumped out of bed to the trash bin she used to puke in.
-x-
"Wow," Ritsuko heard Shinji say in one of his past memories recorded through the Eva as he looked at Kaede Sogen on the carrier at night, "your eyes are like sapphire in the moonlight. Sorry about that. That probably sounded rather corny to hear."
"No, of course not," the girl responded, "any girl would like hearing that."
"He's crushing on her and doesn't even know it," said Hyuga as he, Shigeru and Maya were also observing the memory.
"And she's part of the reason he defected from NERV," Shigeru added. "It's hard to understand how anyone turns away from a war in favor of love."
"When people fall in love, there's nothing they won't do for the person they feel it for," Maya expressed a reason. "It's the same when love turns to hate."
"Speaking from experience?" Ritsuko asked her.
"No," she answered. "You see the way Commander Ikari looks when he thinks about his son, you can tell that there's no love between them, only hatred."
"A guy that hates his only son and they've never had a conversation that didn't relate to what we do here," Hyuga stated. "Makes you wonder, though, given that they don't even see each other, live together or even do any activities together, where the hatred comes from."
"You're a sweet person, Shinji," Kaede told Shinji before the recorded memory ceased.
-x-
Each segment of memory recorded from the time he spent in the Eva made Gendo, who would watch the footage to find a way to hurt his son in the far future, all the more resentful towards him. Even as he watched how the boy bowed in front of the young girl that was of royal blood, he grew detested by his son's arrogance and unwillingness to do what was necessary and exploit those around him.
He's too nice for his own sake, which makes him virtually useless as a pilot, he thought as Historia Reiss, the young girl that just became queen of the people, looked to Shinji and made sure he knew what he was getting into with her.
"Do you, Shinji Ikari, swear to protect the people of Paradis and preserve peace and order?" She had asked him.
"I swear," he had answered back among other questions to ensure his loyalty. "I swear."
I pray that the next Angel turns your world upside-down, his father hoped.
-x-
The NERV branch in Nevada was in a panic when the Angel arrived. As they had no Evas and no weapons to use against it, the people had no choice but to run as the ring of light floated towards to portal connecting their world to the one the Third Child was in. Suddenly, it seemed like where the estranged son of Gendo Ikari was had become the place to be now.
"If another Angel comes here just to go through the portal, it'll be official," the man in charge of the Nevada branch expressed.
"A world where giants eat people and the son of Gendo Ikari, the most hated man on the planet, uses the Eva to protect them?" A woman asked him. "Yeah, I'll believe that."
The Angel then broke into a noodle of light and sank into the Dirac Sea portal, disappearing from sight as it ventured into the other dimension.
-x-
"That was the Nevada branch," Ritsuko informed Misato. "The Angel has gotten through to the portal and is on its way to the other Earth."
"Shinji, if you're wherever you need to be, be careful against this Angel," she sighed.
To be continued…
A/N: I guess the reason for the title is that it relates to Shinji and Eren, both sons of fathers that had agendas that involved exploiting them for different reasons, and while one no longer follows the design his father laid out, the other can no longer do as his father had given his life for, putting them both on different paths that only go as far as they, the sons, are willing to go.