Creation began on 12-14-18
Creation ended on 12-20-18
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hope from the Sky: Dead-End Rut
A/N: What SEELE discovers spells doom for them.
"…Are you certain that there is no error in this?" SEELE 01 asked SEELE 12 during their unsanctioned meeting to discuss their scenario. "We still have Adam and Lilith and there are three more Angels left to defeat."
"I am certain," SEELE 12 responded, "and because of these…unexpected outcomes regarding the aftermath of the Twelfth Angel, nothing is guaranteed to go our way or anyone else's."
"In layman's terms, this means what, exactly?" SEELE 05 demanded.
"The human race has reached a dead-end rut, a hole that we can't dig ourselves out of."
"How is this possible?" SEELE 03 wanted to know. "We have the Spear of Longinus, Adam and Lilith! How can there be a dead-end for us as a result of the Twelfth Angel incident?!"
"The Dead Sea Scrolls follow one order of certainty that we believed to be absolute. However, as a direct result of the Twelfth Angel displacing the Third Child and Unit-01 in another universe we later gained access to via a Dirac Sea-based portal opened in Nevada as a result of the Unit-04 incident, the order in which everything was planned was ruined."
"How irrevocable is the damage to our scenario as a result of the aftermath?" SEELE 01 spoke.
"Because Unit-01 was never recovered, the Fourteenth and Sixteenth Angels appeared earlier than predicted and ventured into the other universe through the portal, the Human Instrumentality Project has become for naught," SEELE 12 explained. "If the original order had still been within reach, if the Eva had been successfully salvaged, we wouldn't be having this meeting. But now, because the order has been destroyed, we cannot move forward the way we had intended to. In essence, we are trapped in this state of existence, now and forever."
"And all because Ikari couldn't follow the rules," said SEELE 08.
"No, not just Ikari," went SEELE 02. "It was his son's fault, as well. From what we could gather from the recorded transmissions, NERV was able to contact the Third Child in the beginning and discovered his status as a savior of sorts to these people that approached him for his aid through the Eva. A rescue attempt was to be instigated, but the boy declined the chance to be rescued. If he had been rescued against his will before the Fourteenth Angel appeared before the Thirteenth Angel could, our scenario would still be within our grasp."
"And Ikari is the one that gave Unit-01 to his son to begin with," stated SEELE 11. "The Ikaris… Exactly how much longer must we put up with them and their shenanigans?"
"We wouldn't have the Evas working the way they do without the wife's expertise," SEELE 01 declared, "but the husband is now practically useless as a pawn in our goals, and he is the one that suggested that we go ahead with the project to start with after the alleged death of his wife."
"How long has it been since it was confirmed that Ikari's wife was discovered in Terminal Dogma, apparently banished from Unit-01 by this…Dark Titan that belongs to this girl that is involved with the Third Child?" SEELE 03 asked.
"Seventy-two hours, at least," SEELE 05 answered.
"As we have no diplomatic relations with this other universe's people that the Third Child has relocated to and protects, with no apparent intention to return or even to surrender the Eva, we shouldn't concern ourselves with him; if he refuses to return, he serves no importance to anyone and isn't a moderate threat. Ikari, on the other hand, we should dispose of him and sever all ties. Let him atone for failing us with his own demise and be forgotten about."
"All who are in favor of excommunicating Gendo Ikari?" SEELE 01 questioned.
"Aye," the rest of the council responded.
"Any that oppose?"
When no responses came to oppose the idea, all were in agreement to dispose of Gendo for his inability to rectify the destruction of their scenario's order. He would be the only one to pay the price his failure.
-x-
"…So," went Asuka as she stepped onto the bridge in Central Dogma the next day, "what is he doing now?"
Misato, who was observing some new footage with Maya, turned to face her and uttered, "At the moment, we don't know what he's doing, but this is what the Eva recorded the last time he used it, which we estimate was a day ago."
On the monitor, they could see Shinji with Kaede at a swing set; neither of them was really engaged in much of a conversation, but it looked like the girl was getting over something bad.
"Any guess on why the girl seems miserable?" Asuka asked.
"You remember the step-grandfather that made it so she could turn into the Dark Titan at will?" Misato reminded her.
"Yeah, that psychotic man that thinks he's the literal Devil."
"They buried him alive at sea in some abyss that's supposed to be the deepest point on the planet. She could've been the one to do it, but Shinji did it for her to keep her from going down a path of corruption."
"Why would he do that?"
"The girl wanted revenge for what he did to her," Maya explained. "She thought she would have to live a secluded life, away from people because she feared she'd become a monster like the Titans…until Shinji looked into some old notes that proved otherwise. Then she found out her mother was pregnant and wanted to put an end to the man so that he couldn't harm her family."
"But they buried him alive at sea. Why not just kill him?"
"They tried to, and he just kept getting back up," Misato revealed. "So they just took off his limbs and put him in a makeshift prison made of crystal and made sure it was weighed down with rocks and bricks before dumping him into the abyss. Even if he doesn't die, he'll have only an eternity in the darkness to look forward to. In a way, it's a fate worse than death because he'll never be free."
Then Asuka saw the Sogen girl jump Shinji to the grassy ground…and it looked like they started making out.
"That girl needs to slow down," she expressed.
"For her, this is slow," Misato informed, and as a girl that once thought she'd live the rest of her life alone because of a madman, she deserves every minute she can get with Shinji.
-x-
It had been almost a week since the exile of Grausam Zanki and his imprisonment in Titania's Abyss…and the Garrison has been on the lookout for any further signs of Marleyan ships. During this time, there were more tests being conducted by Hange on Kaede's Titan powers, just wanting to test her maneuverability against small targets.
In her Attack Titan-influenced Dark Titan form, Kaede ran through the Titan Forest while the Survey Corps chased after with the goal to sever her arms off. If they could sever her arms three consecutive times, the test would end with Kaede failing…and if she could outlast them for three hours, she would win. All she had to do was be evasive.
"You should've gone with the Female!" Kaede heard Eren yell as she saw him and Mikasa soaring through the trees towards her.
Kaede ran through a thicket of trees that she believed would hinder their maneuverability. There was no way she was going to lose to these people she aided with her power.
I wonder how Shinji is doing with my mother in their cooking lesson, she wondered, balding her fists and keeping them close to her chest.
-x-
Gendo was marked. Not only was he marked, but the old men no longer saw any point in putting up with him after they had to consider his previous mistakes that solidified his son's defection from NERV. He now had a warning to vacate the Geo-Front within twenty-four hours (they didn't care where he went, as long as he left the underground base); otherwise, he would be hunted down like a rabid dog and killed on the spot.
Of course, he refused to obey that order from SEELE; he refused to be intimidated by his former superiors just because their scenario (as well as his own, for that matter) became for naught. He had to take into consideration that the remaining Angels would come and NERV needed him to maintain the order.
"If they only gave you until tomorrow to vacate the Geo-Front, then it's a clear sign that they mean business, Ikari," said Fuyutsuki to him in his office. "They need to hold someone accountable, and, right now, you're the only one they blame."
"They're not even concerned about the Third Child because he's in some other universe that's full of resources that could benefit our world if they had the will to go there and take them from those people."
"We know better than to invade another world and take their resources because we let a man-made phenomenon reduce our own. But you're not talking about resources like oil or iron, are you? You're talking about your son's girlfriend because she's capable of turning into a powerful Titan at will."
"As a bio-weapon, she'd be invaluable."
"Except she's a person, first and foremost, not some commodity for anyone that has authority over her, and based on some recent footage taken from the most recent time Shinji was in the Eva, Ms. Sogen, once thrown up into the air, was able to cause a tsunami upon hitting the ocean as her Titan and destroying an entire naval fleet, and this was before she had acquired what he learned was the War Hammer Titan, the last of these Nine Titans that she now possesses."
This bothered Gendo immensely, the discovery that there were nine of these Titans that people could turn into…and he stressed that discovery heavily on past tense. Because the girl had gained possession of all of them, that meant that there wouldn't be any other people capable of turning into these giants that retained their intelligence, their memories, thus making the Titans NERV already had useless beyond their regenerative properties. Even if it meant very little, just possessing the girl that possessed all of these powers alone made her an invaluable pawn against anyone that tried to stand in the way of their grand design. And having her out of Shinji's reach would've been sublime because he'd be miserable.
"The Dark Titan protects Kaede from any threat to her and her family, and she protects Shinji from any who would dare to take him from her and the Eldians of Paradis he protects from harm alongside herself, and he protects her from any that would try to harm her, including her step-grandfather, who he dumped into an abyss after he was deposited into a makeshift prison cell made of hardened Titan flesh," Yui had told him once she found out about the situation that revolved around the girl's unrelated grandfather who paid the price for his actions. "Shinji wouldn't hesitate to treat NERV as a threat to the people of Paradis, especially after what you almost did to influence his choice to stay with them over returning here."
And due to his refusal to return, the scenario is ruined, he thought, unsure of how to rework his own scenario since it became unnecessary to go after with the return of his wife, even if he wanted to continue pursuing just to ensure she wouldn't be taken from him again. Surely, the idea of having the Sogen girl as a research specimen would sound intriguing to the old men.
Suddenly, the door to his office opened and Ritsuko stepped inside.
"What is it?" Gendo asked her.
"The two Titans in Terminal Dogma," she responded. "They've…evaporated."
"What?" Fuyutsuki questioned. "They evaporated?"
"They just fell over and started evaporating. There's nothing left of them."
That was a new waste to their agency. With the loss of the two Titans they had, all that NERV had left were the vials of Titan Serum that couldn't turn their human subjects into Titans. They had basically been screwed over and their time had been wasted…unless they did something to rectify this loss.
-x-
It was only two Titans that rose out of the water, one fifty meters and the other fifteen meters, and nobody was sure what they were doing there as they walked past the city, ignoring the people.
Shinji, having finished teaching Christine how to make one the Japanese dishes he knew about, ran down the street towards the carrier to get to the Eva in case these two Titans tried to attack anyone. He wasn't sure if they were behaving aberrantly or if they were Marleyans survivors of the second fleet, but he had to be ready for the worst.
"Any guess on where these two are heading, Mr. Pixis?" Shinji asked Dot Pixis as the Eva activated and stood up.
"It looks like they're heading towards the Titan Forest between the former Walls Maria and Rose," the elder answered him. "But why would they choose to go there?"
-x-
"…Hey," Asuka gasped, "those look exactly like the two Titans I brought back from that island Shinji's on!"
"I don't think they just look like them, Asuka," said Misato to her. "I think those are the Titans you brought back from that island. They just managed to find a way back to it."
"All that effort wasted for nothing!"
"We don't know what the Titans are entirely capable of," stated Maya, "even the mindless ones."
But Misato got the feeling that these two Titans NERV took from Paradis didn't just evaporate inside Terminal Dogma because of anything they did. She suspected that this might've had something to do with Kaede Sogen having the power of the Nine Titans, specifically the one the Eldians and Shinji knew of as the Founding Titan, the master that could create and control them, make them do whatever they desired. If such was possible, then the girl was very powerful.
-x-
They were down to the last hour of the test, and none of them had managed to cut the Dark Titan's arms off even once. The Survey Corps were the best of their profession…and they were getting outdone by an empowered girl that was evading them like the plague.
That is until…
BANG! Kaede, hiding behind a tree towards the entrance of the forest, saw a signal flare in the air, leaving a trail of purple smoke behind.
An emergency? She wondered, and followed the flare to where it was fired. I guess this training exercise is over.
She ran to the open field just three miles away from the forest and saw Levi and the others looking at two Titans approaching them, one small, the other large.
"Titans?" She spoke to them. "But… I swear, this isn't my doing, Captain Levi."
"So far, they came from the same direction as the coastal city," Levi informed her, believing that she wasn't summoning any Titans to her or trying to cause trouble for them, "and we marked the Wall Titans with tags around their arms and necks. This one doesn't have any tags. And there aren't any other fifteen-meter Titans around. So that means that these two are new."
Before Kaede could attempt to try and stop them with her power, the two Titans ceased in their advancement and raised their arms up, evoking the gesture one would make to indicate surrender, which confused the corps members more.
"Are they abnormal?" Armin suspected.
"I don't think so," said Sasha, wishing she had her arrows on her to shoot these Titans with Kaede's spinal fluid. "Say, Kaede, do you think you can tell them to return to human form…just through telling them? No spinal fluid or anything?"
"I've never done that before," the Dark Titan responded to such an idea. "Should I really try?"
"Yeah," Hange told her. "If that don't work, then at least they can bite your arms."
Slowly, Kaede approached the two Titans, unsure if they were truly Eldians or Marleyans playing a new trick on them. When she was two feet away from them, she felt an unusual sensation that these two had been elsewhere for a while and realized that, in their own way, they had to get back here. In her mind, she saw a dark place, some people dressed in white coats, a woman with strange, blond hair and a mole on her face, a man as cold as Grausam was, and a giant impaled to a giant, red, metallic cross by a red spear of some sort. Even though they were mindless in this state, the Eldians these two Titans were had seemed capable of obtaining some new memories and Kaede was able to perceive them.
"Return to who you once were!" She yelled at them. "Go back to being who you used to be!"
The Titans started evaporating, dropping to their knees as they howled in agony.
Thud! They fell face-down onto the ground and continued to waste away from existence.
Two forms began emerging from their backs as broke free from the Titans' flesh, revealing a young man in the fifteen-meter one and a little girl in the fifty-meter one, both bare as the day they were born.
"Ugh," Kaede groaned as her Titan turned her head left to look away from them. "Can someone spare some clothes, please? This is uncomfortable."
Sasha and Connie approached the two bare Eldians and covered them with their cloaks when they saw the Eva coming over.
"Whoa," Shinji's voice was heard, surprised by the sight he caught of the Titans evaporating. "What happened?"
"Miss Sogen here was able to turn these two back to normal without being bitten," answered Hange to him.
"That's amazing."
"Very."
"Uh…how long…" They heard the man from the fifteen-meter Titan say as he was aided to stand on his feet. "How long has it been…since the First King turned me into a Titan?"
"Too long, sir," Eren told him, giving a canteen of water to rehydrate.
"The First King, Mr. Fritz," the little girl spoke as Mikasa gave her a canteen of water. "I don't understand why he did what he did to my parents and I that day he made us come to Paradis. Why'd he turn us into Titans without asking us?"
They were all getting the impression that from the people that were turned into the Wall Titans were turned by Karl Fritz without even asking them.
The Dark Titan lied down on the ground and Kaede emerged from its nape.
"I am sorry for what Karl Fritz did to you both so long ago," she apologized to them, bothered by the fact that a small child was turned into a Wall Titan…and she had no knowledge of this (most likely due to Karl Fritz not knowing himself). If this little girl was turned into a Wall Titan by Karl Fritz, then it's possible that her parents were also turned into Wall Titans, too. I pray that they weren't any of the Wall Titans that were killed because of Asuka's actions.
-x-
"…So, I take it that Commander Ikari has been relieved of his duties as the leader of NERV by the Committee?" Kaji asked Misato later on in the NERV cafeteria as the personnel were trying to eat their lunch.
"Some of us are wondering why he was relieved of his duties to begin with," she stated as she was eating her bowl of ramen, "and others think it's because we lost one Eva to being displaced by the Twelfth Angel and another because we hassled a race of people struggling to return to modernity with aid from one of the pilots. Despite our actions and efforts, the one put in charge of NERV is the one responsible for everything that happens, even if they're rarely present."
Kaji sat down across the table from her and asked if she felt that Gendo would try to convince the Committee that trying to go back to the other universe for the Sogen girl in place of Shinji and the Eva would be the best solution at a time like this.
Misato simply responded that going after someone's girlfriend, someone's daughter, someone's stepdaughter and someone's co-ruling adviser would be the worst thing they'd ever consider doing because the people wouldn't take kindly to them invading their homes like before. That…and because, even if they were capable of such, she feared there would be consequences.
"Name one such consequence," Kaji wanted to hear from her.
"Well, getting on Shinji's bad side, for one," she stated, "painting a very bad meeting for the first time in Kaede's point of view, for another, and the only reason anyone here would be after her is 'cause she's a powerful person in her own right and believe that she'd make the perfect bio-weapon or something. If anything of that sort were to happen, we'd be no better than the people that have exploited other people in the past, just like how we're no better now because we use children to pilot war machines against giant monsters."
One thing she left out was her personal reason being that Shinji was actually happier over there with Kaede than he could've ever been here or anywhere else; the kid's life was in high spirits and the people of Paradis looked up to him. Even if people here never saw him again, at least she'd be content knowing that he got to walk away from the violent life of facing the Angels and preventing the end of the human race by being stranded in another world where there was no threat of the Apocalypse or genocide because the only thing that could potentially cause either was now in the possession of a young girl.
Ring! Her phone rang, and she picked up.
"Katsuragi here," she uttered. "Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki, sir… Yes, sir. Understood, sir…"
Hanging up, she sighed at what she had discovered.
"Trouble, Katsuragi?" Kaji asked her.
"Maybe," she responded. "It would appear that I've just been promoted again. With Commander Ikari relieved of his duties, Fuyutsuki has been put in charge of NERV, and he needs a sub-commander of his own."
"The guy that just got fired today still needs to leave the base before anything is permanent."
-x-
It was a surprise for Historia to see the little girl that used to be the Wall Titan. While happy to see the child restored to human form, she was bothered by the fact that her parternal ancestor, Karl, had likely transformed dozens of children along with their parents or guardians into Wall Titans when he created the Walls. At first, she was merely suspecting that the people turned into Wall Titans were volunteers or were Eldians that had nobody left in their lives. To realize that the Titans were children, mothers, fathers, families, people that never asked to be turned into Titans tasked with protecting the island's interior for as long as they could until Marley put an end to the Eldians for their past crimes.
"Hello, miss," she greeted the girl. "My name is Historia. What is your name?"
"Peppermint," the child answered the young queen. "My name is Peppermint Doku."
"It is nice to meet you, Peppermint. I was… I was told that your family was turned into Titans by the First King. Is this right?"
"Yes, ma'am… Do you know if…my parents are alright?"
Historia looked to Shinji and Kaede, who were unsure of how to respond to such a question.
"I hope they are," she told the girl instead. "In fact, I should speak with two of my friends about them right now."
Ymir took Peppermint and introduced her to some of the other orphans that lived in the village with them while Historia engaged her advisors in an important conversation.
"What do you suppose are the chances that her parents were among the Wall Titans that were killed months ago?" She asked.
"Hopefully, they're slim," answered Shinji, not wanting to consider the possibility that when he had to defend the people from the Wall Titans over four months ago, he had to use his AT-Field to reduce some of them to pulp because of Asuka's actions in freeing a bunch of them. "It's possible that they were even scattered during the process of separating the Titans to create the Walls long ago."
"Kaede, do you believe this?"
"I honestly can't say, Your Highness," Kaede responded to her. "This goes beyond what the First King did out of guilt and self-hatred."
Historia looked away from the two and out at the vast distance towards the coastal edges where the Wall Titans stood. Despite their helpful nature in protecting the people over the centuries, she couldn't bear to look at them in the same light, anymore.
"Historia," Kaede uttered, "permission to request performance of an action."
"What kind of action?" She questioned.
"I wish to transform all of the Wall Titans back into people."
"But Kaede…you did so with two Titans," Shinji asked her only out of concern. "Do you really think it's possible for you to do so with all of them?"
"I'm willing to try."
Historia remembered that time when Kaede summoned the Wall Titans from the Walls and aided Shinji in dealing with the people his father…and how it carried a repercussion of making her sick due to overuse of her usurped power of the Founder. It has only been a few days since she acquired the War Hammer and used it to help condemn her step-grandfather, but the queen didn't want her to get sick all over again from overuse, even if there was a chance it was impossible. Queen of the Titans or not, Queen of Eldia or not, Historia didn't want to work Kaede to the bone or send her to an early grave.
-x-
It was almost saddening to see Gendo walk away from the NERV base, stripped of his authority and labeled for his failure to resolve the former situation with the Third Child, but not all of the personnel thought it was saddening to see him leave. For some, it was actually relieving to see him vacate the base; some felt they couldn't breathe with him around while others felt that the guy was out to make his son and everyone else around him as miserable as possible and was frustrated that the boy had unintentionally escaped him and took the Eva with him. But SEELE, even when suggested by Gendo that they should go and eradicate the Eldians and take the Eva back through force while incarcerating the Third Child for life, simply ignored this suggestion due to the fact that they didn't have to concern themselves with a boy stranded in another universe that had nothing more to do with their ruined scenario, whether or not they had resources worth taking or not. If Human Instrumentality couldn't be implemented, there was no point, and even if the remaining Angels came, there would still be no point because they as a whole were trapped in this evolutionary rut!
Now, Kozo Fuyutsuki was put in charge of NERV, and his first act as commander…was just to try and locate the remaining three Angels and eliminate them.
-x-
"…It's not like she said 'no' to you, you know," Shinji reminded Kaede as he escorted her home that evening after going over the different possibilities of what could've happened if Historia permitted the girl to transform all of the Wall Titans back into Eldian humans at once. "I don't think it's a bad idea."
"I won't fight over this, but I'd rather be sure that the girl isn't left an orphan because we didn't check to make sure," Kaede expressed.
While both young ladies were in the right, Historia refused to let Kaede change them all back at once…but limited her attempt by allowing her to try and return one-hundred of them back into humans every few days. This way, Kaede wouldn't be overworked or get sick…and they would be able to return the people turned into the Wall Titans slowly back into society.
"Also, because we don't know the people that were turned, some of the Wall Titans might've been criminals."
"Yeah, that's true," Shinji had to consider. "Not an entirely bad way to have them sentenced. They'd be serving the people, just not under their own volition."
"You must think I'm terrible right now."
"No, you're just cautious. And you want to put a smile on Peppermint's face by trying to return her to her family. Wanting to make the people happy…doesn't make you or anyone else a bad person. You're full of kindness and have a capacity for compassion some would take for granted. Heh… I'd follow your lead anywhere."
Stopping at her apartment door, Kaede hugged Shinji as the day was ending for them.
"Do you really have to do the nightly patrol tonight?" She asked him as she let him go.
"Yeah," he answered. "I do it so that you get more rest."
"If you have to do it again tomorrow, I will help you. You're not the only one that keeps watch over this island…and I'm starting to think that Ms. Ackerman and Ms. Blouse have it out for me because I haven't done much in the last few days."
"What? No, I doubt they have it out for you. Sasha, she's just happy to enjoy different meat dishes every now and then because of the poultry and beef increase, and who wouldn't be happy to eat something as good as spaghetti or meatloaf? Once, I saw her try to eat a whole meatloaf. And Mikasa, well… Honestly, it wouldn't hurt to see her smile a lot. I'm probably just imagining things, but she's rarely ever away from Eren, and ever since she found that Hagakure book and took to reading it, she might not see much of anything in the future for herself."
"I don't understand what the book has anything to do with her behavior."
"It deals with trying to retain a warrior class during a period in which there is no warring between anyone, the warrior class known as the samurai in the book, and the different teachings relating to the samurai."
"You read the book before in you world?"
"My teacher made me read it twice when I had nothing else to do. It gets to you when you read certain pieces of it."
"And what got to you about it?"
"Matters of small concern and great concern, and how they should be treated when met."
"Matters of great concern seem the most important to want to resolve, Shinji."
"Yeah, but in the book, it's written that matters of great concern should be treated lightly…and matters of small concern are to be treated seriously. So…maybe our relationships with other people and how they progress…are the small matters we need to treat seriously."
"But not to invade their privacy, just to make sure that they're not setting themselves up for a fall. They might've known a life of conflict for a long time, but this thing with Marley has to end soon so they can move on."
"If not, then we're at a dead-end."
"An unbreakable rut if Marley can't let go of their hate."
Then Shinji kissed Kaede and waited for her to close the door to her place.
"Good night, Shinji," she told him.
"Good night, Kaede," he responded, and she closed the door.
Sighing as she tilted her head back, Kaede wondered if she should've told Shinji about what Mikasa had once told her during the time she was incarcerated after the failed ultimatum. While the girl would've denied the conversation if she told Eren, there seemed to be a loophole that existed if she only told her boyfriend about it.
"If you two had a small argument, it must've been subtle," she heard Sig say to her as she looked over at the living room, seeing him lying on the floor.
"I don't think we're at that point in our relationship where we actually argue," she told him.
"You want to talk about it?"
"Yeah, just let me get a drink first."
-x-
"What is he doing now?" Misato asked Maya during the nightshift again as they monitored the synchronization between Shinji and Unit-01 in the Titan world.
"It looks like he's pulling another all-nighter to keep watch over the coastal edges of the island," Maya answered, observing from Shinji's perception that he was watching the calm ocean waves two alongside people on the Eva's shoulders. "As much as he does what he does to help ensure the Eldians are protected from any surprise attacks from Marley, he really wants to spend more quality time with Kaede and her family."
"I know, it seems like they're not able to with everything else in the way. Still, among those that serve and protect the civilians against outside attacks, they're the best and strongest, and like Ms. Sogen once stated, she's not a god. She can't make a war between two nations cease just by thinking it or snapping her fingers or anything."
"That would be too easy, even for her."
"It'd be too easy for Shinji if he could do something of the sort, too."
"Hey, just a simple question, but how long do you suppose Shinji would have to work to get the Eldians free of the island life and able to live beyond Paradis and go anywhere without being prosecuted by anyone?"
Misato thought about it for a moment, unsure if such a goal would take weeks, months or years to accomplish, and answered, "For as long as he's willing and able…and for as long as he has Kaede in his life."
"Do you suppose that with Commander Fuyutsuki in charge, NERV will attempt to rectify the earlier mistakes made when Shinji's father was in charge?"
That would be subtle, Misato thought; if NERV could go back to the Titan world without the agenda to take Titans or exploit the people, it'd likely be possible to just see Shinji in person after so long. Even though time seems to run faster there, Shinji's still fourteen. It's been less than a year over there for him. It'd be great to see him again.
To be continued…
A/N: In many ways, both worlds are in their own dead-end ruts when you think about it. The people involved with the Human Instrumentality Project are upset that it can't be implemented due to the ruined order, and Marley is unwilling to let go of their hatred of Eldia's past sins that can't be held against the Eldians of the present generations because they didn't know and still can't be held responsible because they're not out to get Marley. One race of people can't evolve backward or forward literally and one race of people won't evolve socially, which could lead to some troubling repercussions for both sides if they can't find acceptable solutions.
Omake (Thor-influenced)
As Kaede walked over to the beach where the destroyed bridge that once led to this other dimension where Shinji was forced to go back to protect the Eldians of Paradis from the wrath of his own people, the possessor of the Dark Titan saw Historia, the Queen of Eldia and her wife, Ymir, standing in front of the sunset.
"So, without the bridge, the other dimension is lost to us forever, isn't it?" Kaede asked Historia, looking out at the horizon.
"No," she answered her. "You're the Dark Titan, Kaede. With you on our side, there is always hope for us to reestablish the physical link between here and there."
"Ymir…can you see Shinji over there?"
Ymir chuckled as she nodded her head in the positive.
"I can," she uttered.
Across the ocean, across time and space, across other layers of existence, unbound by the limitations of the mind and soul, Ymir could see the archipelago of Japan where Shinji lived not too long ago. It seemed as though he was falling back into an old rhythm of his life there, but it was a rhythm he was completely out of touch with because there was no longer a need for him to pilot the Eva and his relationship with his parents was estranged due to personal reasons (both Gendo AND Yui had sought to try and exploit their son's relationship with Kaede to obtain new resources for their world after causing the devastation to limit what was left of their own, but the boy couldn't betray the trust that the Eldians had placed in him when he became one of their protectors, leaving them to find their own way to redemption). Even when he had his former guardian and a few classmates to lean on, the boy still felt something was missing that couldn't be filled with their presence.
"How is he?" Kaede asked her.
Ymir could see Shinji reach into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small, folded picture. It was of a sunny afternoon in a meadow, and in front of a small tree were Kaede, himself, and Historia and herself, two couples from different times and worlds.
"So, you're really going to Nevada while that Dirac Sea portal is still open, Shinji?" She saw a boy with glasses ask him as they walked down the street together. "Whoa… Which one's Kaede? Is she the blond one?"
"No, that's Historia, the queen. The tall woman is her wife and best friend, Ymir. Kaede is the gray-haired one with her left hand on my shoulder." Shinji clarified. "While the portal is still open, there's a chance to see them again…to be with her."
"But why risk your life for her?"
"When you're in love…you're willing to do almost anything to see them again, even risk your life in crazy traffic just to see their face or hear their voice."
Ymir turned to face Kaede and smiled.
"He searches for a way back to us, to you," she told her.
Kaede smiled as she hoped her boyfriend would find his way back to them, to her.