Creation began on 01-07-19
Creation ended on 01-18-19
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hope from the Sky: Confrontation
Nothing, not even the Lance of Longinus, remained after Kaji returned to Terminal Dogma and found the crucified Angel there had been removed…and then he showed Misato when he went looking for her. All that was left was the very bottom of the metal cross it had been impaled on.
"What do you think happened?" She asked him.
"Sabotage," he suspected. "Someone came down here and eliminated the Angel. I wish I knew how and why, though."
Yeah, I'd like to know how and why myself, Misato thought; if this had been sabotage, the entire base would've been on high alert and on lockdown until the person or persons involved were identified and apprehended…unless, however, it was something else entirely. Could this have been an inside job?
-x-
"…Whoa…" Eren gasped as he and the other Survey Corps members present out on the field watched Kaede perform another feat of Titan power that seemed impossible to achieve for any regular Titan Shifter.
Except that she was no regular Titan Shifter at all. Not with what she was capable of.
Instead of taking on a Titan form, Hange had suggested that Kaede try using the powers of the Founding and War Hammer Titans to create and control a small number of people-sized constructs of Titan flesh, something that was both complex and intricate. It would've taken a strong will to achieve such a feat because it was comparable to multitasking.
Within her crystal dome, standing in the center, Kaede stood with her hands raised as though she were about to play on an invisible piano keyboard. Her eyes were closed, but Mikasa and Armin could see that she was very conscious of everyone by the way her ears wiggled. Beneath her feet were web-like strands of Titan flesh that spread out to the edges of the dome…and further out to a total of nine different sculptures of average-sized people resembling the men and women she knew during the months of freedom from the Walls.
"It's like looking in a mirror or something," said Connie, staring at the replica of himself made out of Titan flesh, down to his very nose.
Suddenly, his replica raised its right arm up and placed it on his left shoulder.
"Uh, Ms. Sogen, can you…can you see me through this construct?" He asked the girl, a little frightened of this.
Beside his replica on the left, a replica of Mikasa, down to the small scar under her eye, looked his way…and nodded.
"This just feels too weird," went Sasha as her replica started imitating the way she would eat a potato that formed in her arms. "Hey, I'm pretty sure I don't eat like that, Kaede!"
"I wanna say I'm a little insulted," Levi uttered about the way his replica looked with an expression on its face that mirrored the one on his own, "but your ability to multitask with these replicas is impressive."
"But why are your replicas of Historia and Ymir holding hands?" Jean asked the girl, which made said replicas raise their free arms up and trap him in a hug! "Oh, come on! I was only asking! I don't need a hug…and I don't care if these replicas are soft!"
Hange laughed at his embarrassment and how he was being embraced by a pair of flesh dummies. Even though this was just another harmless experiment, it was getting unexpected results by the others. Although one of the replicas had started to move further away from them than the others had.
A Titan flesh dummy of Shinji, still connected to Kaede's dome by several strands of flesh, had managed to move away by eight feet while the other replicas were taking minor steps forward…until the one that looked like Eren fell down.
Kaede had opened her eyes and looked as though she were getting a headache.
"Are you alright, Kaede," Hange asked her through the dome.
The girl walked to the edge of the dome she was at and placed her left hand against it.
"My head hurts a little," she explained, holding her head up with her right hand. "I'm still connected to the dummies, but my vision is like a fly's; I see you, but I see everyone else, and you're all in front of me instead of being around me."
"Sorry about this. I forget how this could put a strain on you…mentally, not just physically."
Kaede then lowered to her bottom and expressed, "I can still keep this up…just give me a minute to rest my head."
The next thing Hange knew, the dummy of Shinji had walked over to the dome beside her and placed its left hand on the crystal.
"Heh-heh, I appreciate Shinji's concern, even when he's not really here," Kaede chuckled as her boyfriend's dummy gave her a smile.
-x-
Looking up at the sky as the F-22 took off with two Survey Corps members to do an aerial survey of the ocean several miles out, Shinji, inside the Eva, looked out at the calm sea and wondered if Marley had chosen to give up of if they were going to try for Paradis all over again because their hatred of the Eldians refused to diminish. Even as it seemed like there would be some sign that this feud would be coming to an end, he got the ominous feeling in the back of his head that something else was at work to undo the Eldians in an extreme fashion, but he couldn't explain it.
Probably because I've been in conflict a lot, he considered; people sent to war and back again would often find themselves having difficulty just trying to return to regular life that was a reward for those that came back. A life without conflict would be my greatest reward.
"So far, everything seems quiet, Shinji," said Erwin on the intercom to him.
"Yeah…so far," he responded, unsure if this calmness would last. "What do you suppose are the chances of ever sitting down with Marley in the future and talking over a game of cards?"
"Now, that…would be mediocre," he heard Dot Pixis' voice over the intercom. "You throw in a few pitchers of beer, and then it becomes a good time."
"You're thinking poker while I'm thinking go fish," Shinji responded, "but they're both the same in the fact that we'd be trying to gamble with something more or less than mere pocket change."
"At least you're honest, kid."
-x-
"…Hange…Hange…" Hange heard her name being called as she came to, finding herself on the ground, looked down upon by the others.
"What…what happened?" She asked them, noticing Kaede nearby, looking somewhat flustered.
"Your fascination with her Titan powers hit a brick wall," said Connie. "You passed out when you had her perform another complex form."
It then came back to her; Hange had instructed Kaede to have her dummy constructs of the people act in a unified way, and was outright impressed by the girl's mental dexterity with her humanoid toys. So much so that she felt something else happen to her as she passed out.
"Yeah, she had her dummies dance a complex form," she recalled, though they were all looking bothered by something. "What is it?"
"Uh, Hange," went Armin to her, "you, uh…sort of…soiled yourself as you passed out."
"Huh?!"
Kaede looked over and uttered, "You didn't go to the bathroom, per se, but you had a moment of euphoria that left a mark."
What she said to her didn't make sense until Hange broke it down to its revelation. A moment of euphoria…led to something that she had no control over…and she passed out in a very happy place before waking up again.
"I know you said you were fascinated by the Titans," Eren stated, "but I didn't know you were that fascinated by them."
Kaede then turned and walked away, embarrassed herself by what she unintentionally caused with her power. Even though Hange wasn't actually harmed, it was bothersome to see how the woman let herself go with the most extreme or subtle use of Titan power that made more things possible than just making a conflict within the realm of ending sooner than later.
"Uh, maybe we should call it a day for Titan experimenting," Hange suggested for them.
"Yes," Kaede agreed. "I mean…maybe that's a good idea to do."
Then she turned to leave, walking away as fast as her feet could take her, her mind a forest of concern and confusion.
-x-
In the air, high above Marley-dominated terrain, the two Survey Corps members within the F-22 Raptor flew without any fear of being attacked or noticed by the people, sending visual of the geographical area back to Paradis, despite having been ordered to survey the ocean, not the continents Marley had control over.
"What the Hell is that?" The man in the back seat uttered to the man in the front, and the jet turned upside-down to give them a clear view of what was happening down below.
"Oh, my God," the primary pilot gasped.
Below them, one could see several, large blimps being loaded with soldiers and large crates. There must've been at least a dozen or so blimps, but there appeared to be fewer people spread out between them.
"We better report this," the co-pilot expressed.
"Yeah," the pilot agreed, and the jet turned over and began to head back to Paradis.
-x-
"…Are you sure you're okay, Kaede?" Christine asked her daughter during the evening after Shinji helped her set the table for dinner. "You've been quiet since you two came back."
"The last Titan experiment I did with Ms. Zoe this afternoon had an unexpected outcome," Kaede explained to her parents, but beat around the bush because it was so embarrassing.
"You mean Hange Zoe? The young woman that wore those goggles and seems to be in love with the way Titans function?" Sig asked her, which caused her to cringe. "Did she do something uncalled for?"
"Not exactly, it was just…embarrassing."
"Do you know anything about this, Shinji?" Christine questioned, hoping that he knew something about this.
"I don't know what happened today," he responded; he had been on guard duty so he wasn't with Kaede since this morning. "Nobody has mentioned anything to me."
Kaede sighed and had to explain what was so embarrassing to even think about.
"I was practicing using my power to create dummies that would be controlled from a distance by me," she informed them. "I made them do a little dance form, just something that came to mind…and Ms. Zoe freaked."
"You mean, she had a panic attack?" Sig asked.
"Hange doesn't strike me as the kind of person to have a panic attack just because Kaede uses her power in a way that was never thought of," Shinji explained his opinion. "Kaede, in what way did she freak?"
"She…she… I…unintentionally caused her to have an orgasm and pass out."
Her mother, stepfather and boyfriend looked at her with blank expression; they didn't expect to hear something like this over dinner.
"Okay," Sig expressed, "that's something you don't see happen a lot."
"I just got a creepy image of how it happened in my head," Christine admitted. "I guess Ms. Zoe likes the power of the Titans…a little too much."
"But at least nobody was hurt, right?" Shinji asked, trying to change the subject because it was embarrassing to talk about.
"Not hurt, but embarrassed," Kaede answered. "It was really unexpected."
"Maybe you should put a hold on these crazy experiments of Ms. Zoe's," her mother suggested. "I don't care if she means well, I don't want her making you do something that might kill you."
"I'd put an end to it before that could ever happen, ma'am," Shinji told her; if Hange ever did go too far with her experiments on Kaede (if you could even call them experiments because nobody really poked and prodded at her), he would stress how much they invaded her rights to decide how she would do things. "And then remind her that we don't need a repeat of her last experience seeing Titan power at work."
"What can you do now that's impressive, Kaede?" Sig asked. "I mean, what can you do as the Dark Titan that you didn't think was possible?"
"I learned how to multitask a little with the Titan power while not exactly turning into one," she explained. "Remember how I explained that those with the power of the War Hammer Titan could protect themselves by encasing their bodies within a protective crystal while being able to control their Titan body from a distance? I can do a variation of that where I'm inside a crystal dome with a spider web of Titan flesh under me that can connect me to at least one Titan outside it…or a handful of small constructs made from Titan flesh that are all connected to the dome by multiple cables of said flesh. Maybe I'll eventually be able to control my constructs through willpower alone someday."
"That's…actually impressive already."
"Thank you."
-x-
"You wanted to see, Ms. Katsuragi?" Fuyutsuki asked Misato as she stood in his office.
"Yes, sir," she answered. "What I needed to ask is…probably only known to a handful of people. There was something in Terminal Dogma a while ago…and now it's not there, anymore."
Fuyutsuki raised his head up slightly.
"Yes?" He questioned.
"Were you aware of an Angel impaled to a cross in Terminal Dogma?" She responded.
Sighing, Fuyutsuki got up from behind his desk and walked around to face Misato.
"Yes," he answered her, "I was aware of it. I was aware of it before the Third Angel attacked. After Ikari was stripped of his command, I made the unofficial decision to have it disposed of. I had Rei use an N² bomb to eradicate it, leaving no trace."
"Could it have caused Third Impact if an Angel made contact with it?"
"It might've, but now that it's gone, that's no longer an option. Third Impact has become nothing more than a mere impossibility, unable to be achieved by any means."
Hearing this made Misato question why it took now to eliminate a threat to mankind.
"Why did you choose now to dispose of it?" She asked him.
"So long as Ikari was in charge, I couldn't risk trying anything," he answered, "not that I thought about doing anything, that is. I was threatened if I ever stepped out of line. But now things have changed, wouldn't you say?"
"What next? Do you suppose the Angels will cease their activities?"
"That's what I'm hoping. All we can really do now is…wait and see."
"And…if they don't persist?"
"Only time will tell."
-x-
Removing the case from a cold storage unit with a biohazard symbol, Ritsuko, in an abandoned lab within Terminal Dogma, looked down at the Adam embryo that had almost been surgically grafted to Gendo if he were still in NERV. Then, taking a bottle of hydrofluoric acid, she made a choice that would most likely mark her for death if she were ever found out. She picked it up…and poured the corrosive liquid over the defenseless being that had once been at the epicenter of Second Impact as well as the cause…and watched as it was slowly eaten away at by a tool developed by science.
"So, this is how the threat to the world ends," she sighs. "It's almost a pity. Not with a bang like how the Big Bang was said to have occurred…but with a mere…corrosive…fluid. First the Third Child gets transported to another universe and decides to stay there and help a small nation against a larger nation that has bad history with them, then NERV loses Unit-02 because the previous commander got careless and wanted to assert his authority over people that wouldn't listen to him, followed by two Angels that were stupid enough to venture to this alternate universe and get defeated by a Titan-empowered Evangelion and a Titan Shifter who's smitten with the boy, and now nothing's the same, anymore."
"You're like a recent answer to an old prayer made by the people when they started wanting to leave the Walls when you fell from the sky, Shinji," one of the people told Shinji in an older memory of his recorded in the Eva's databanks. "People have always had little faith in the Survey Corps because they weren't able to get results that confirmed they were able to reclaim any land taken by the Titans. But with you, they got the best results. The children talk about you, the ladies wonder how you ended up here, even the men question what deities chose to respond when you arrived. They're grateful for your presence, your aid. You've probably heard this a lot today, but everyone's feeling happier that you're here. They're calling you our Hope from the Sky. I guess it's their unofficial designation for you."
"Thank you," Shinji responded, once more grateful over this sort of recognition that he wouldn't have gotten from his father, no matter what he did.
I should be upset with him, Ritsuko thought, but instead, he might've made things easier for the people here. If the Angels have ceased because he chose to remain over in an alternate dimension, then causality can be manipulated. Logic cast aside halfway for reason, and part of his reason for choosing these Eldians over his own world and the responsibilities he had here…was falling in love with a girl that gave him her heart…along with a giant that has power people of science can only dream of harnessing.
The acid was affecting Adam with success, eating away at the flesh and soft bone tissue that remained of it…until there was nothing but liquefied pulp that couldn't be called the cause of Second Impact, anymore. If this put an end to the threat of the Angels for good, then it was a choice that had to be made.
-x-
The night air was cool and the lights of the city skyscrapers made Paradius City look like a jewel of light that illuminated a portion of Paradis as Shinji sat atop the Entry Plug of his Eva. Despite the security and surveillance capabilities that Paradis now possessed, Shinji felt a little at ease being nearby and at the ready in case the Eva was needed.
Clank! He heard something latch onto the Eva's armor and a whizzing sound.
Someone soared up to the left shoulder and stood in the light.
"One of the jets came back earlier with some information you weren't informed about," went Hange to him as he looked at her.
"Miss Zoe," he greeted her. "What information was I absent for?"
"Marley might try an airborne approach with blimps," she explained.
"Marley has blimps? Unless they can travel for more than a day, I can't see how blimps could ever travel across the ocean to get here. If their technology is still primitive, they can't last more than a day in the air before running out of helium."
"And by boat, it takes a few days to cross the ocean from here to Marley. It took us over two weeks to get to another island that had been abandoned and we haven't been back to it ever since that situation with Ms. Soryu, that creature you referred to as an Angel, and the Eldians exploited by Marley. We really need to colonize that island we found if it's been abandoned for years."
"Yeah, or turn it into an island prison for people so dangerous that we don't want them anywhere near the public."
"I'd rather see the other island become a settlement for a number of us to branch off onto. It could probably support at least a population of thirty-five-hundred."
"Four-thousand," Shinji disagreed. "When people settle down in a new place and finish building a community, they want to start families of their own."
"True."
"Whatever Marley tries, we'll take it as it comes."
"They refuse to give up. You know, we could be at this for years."
"Do you really believe that?"
"Don't you think so?"
"I prefer not to; nobody can or should fight in a war forever. And…this is war born of hatred by one side that refuses to relent. Personally, I don't have any actual hatred towards Marley, but I will help you fight them because I have people here I want to protect."
"And once more, I must give thanks for your aid."
"What of you, Ms. Zoe? Do you have anyone to protect, not just a bunch of people? Anyone that is close to you?"
Hange sighed and expressed, "No, unfortunately, I don't have anyone close to me. There was this one person…but she died eight years ago."
"Who was she?"
"My little sister, Henrietta."
"I'm sorry. What happened to her? I mean…how did she die?"
"She got sick during the winter season… I was bringing her medicine…and arrived a day late. Our grandfather told me that she passed away in her sleep."
"What was she like?"
"Crazy, like I can be, just more serious."
"Sounds a lot like you, actually."
"Thank you."
Hange was about leave when Shinji stopped her.
"How close do you think Kaede is…to creating her own Titans from Titan flesh…and making them move independently of these fleshy cables of threads that connect her to them?" He asked her, wanting her opinion.
"Personally…I think she's getting to the point where she can summon Titans with mere thought alone, but we're just taking it one test at a time. I kinda overwhelmed her earlier today."
"I heard that you were also overwhelmed a little bit."
"Heh-heh…you, uh…know about that?"
"I'm not gonna poke fun at you or tell you how to do things. Whatever you think is the best move so long as it doesn't hurt anyone."
"Appreciate it."
"Don't mention it."
-x-
"Are we ready to take off?" Calvi questioned one of his soldiers as he stood on the bridge of a blimp.
"Yes, sir," he answered.
"Then let's end this for good. These Eldian fiends have made a fool of us for the last time."
At his command, dozens of blimps began to take off into the air. With the aid of the Jaeger Serum and these modified blimps, there was no way that these Eldians stood a chance against the vengeance of Marley. This war between their nations would end and they and their purple behemoth of an ally would suffer the same fate as they would.
"Damn these Eldians and any that show them sympathy to Hell," he told himself, imagining this island of omens that he saw only once burning at night, reduced to nothing but scorched land that wouldn't support the growth of even the tiniest of weeds.
-x-
Standing… She was standing on the beach, facing the ocean…and she didn't know why. It was dawn and at around the time where most of the world would be waking to the new day, and yet she felt as though she had been up without any sense of time. There was no feeling of fatigue or a need to eat or drink. But something felt off.
"Strength is found in many forms," she heard a voice behind her and turned around to face the city, only to see the Dark Titan standing before her. "Strength is dependent upon one's sense of determination, conviction, aspirations, goals or desires. Your determination and desires are as clear as water in a glass cup."
"Dark Titan," Kaede spoke, confused by her presences, "what's going on here?"
"For the first time in my short existence with you, Kaede…I…am at a loss," her Titan responded. "But there is one thing for certain: The Marleyan storm has not yet passed."
"Will it ever end with them? They can't expect to keep this up after two failed invasion attempts, the second of which ended worse for them because only one person survived while everyone else in that fleet lost their lives because of their shared hatred. If they persist, they're going to lose more of their own people. How many Marleyan men and women are they willing to sacrifice for a war that they can't win, anymore?"
"When people are desperate, they will go to extremes, and in these extremes, they're willing to sacrifice whatever they feel they have to in order to achieve a goal, including their own lives."
"But that's insane. I've…I've helped to take so many lives, so my soul is stained. That's an inevitable truth I can't escape. The people of Marley, if it's not only their military forces at work, will end up destroying themselves in their attempt to eliminate the alleged source of their hatred. How many more of them will remain if they continue to keep at us?"
"That is a question yet to be answered, but you're helping to protect those that shouldn't have to fight or lose their future. Isn't this why you help your friends and Shinji fight Marley? To end the fighting so there can be a future worth living for?"
"Yeah…and it's about more than that."
"I know. I know what you mean by that."
"How do you know?"
"I'm you. I'm in your head all the time. We're the same person, two sides of the same coin, both light and dark, but you're in control."
"I'm in control of my actions, but not in control of everyone else…and it'd be wrong to force my will upon anyone when I don't want to be in charge of everyone."
"One of your greatest qualities is your morality, your sense of right and wrong. You have the power to control your people, but you swore an oath to Historia that you wouldn't use this power for your own benefit that makes problems for everyone else…and because you know how it ended once before with Karl Fritz; you will not make any attempt to echo someone else's choice, for better or for worse."
Kaede then made an attempt to approach her Titan, but felt frozen in place in the sand. Looking down, she saw that her legs were covered up to her ankles in hardened Titan flesh, spread out across the ground and even spreading into the ocean water.
The Dark Titan noticed this and uttered, "Yep, strength is found in many forms, including you."
She then extended her left hand to her human self, and Kaede took hold of it, causing the hardened flesh to atomize, freeing her.
"The Nine Titans," she spoke, "they were each impressively powerful in their own way, weren't they? I mean, before they made after Ymir's passing, and became greater over the generations before being merged back together, right?"
"Yes, they were," the Titan agreed with her. "Any Titan of Ymir's that you favor more than the other eight?"
"If I had to choose one her Titans to favor, I'd prefer the Female Titan because she represents the feminine power that balances men and women. But…out of all the Titans that have ever existed…or will ever exist…the best Titan I know in my heart…would be you, Dark Titan."
The Dark Titan was actually surprised to hear this; she knew this girl in a way that probably seemed greater than the girl knew herself, and the girl's favorite Titan…was the one she'd been blessed and damned with. Whilst dozens of people over the generations that obtained one of the Nine Titans would often accept the burden of possessing in order to prevent them from being passed onto children that would've likely been sacrificed to Titans to ensure that they didn't misuse the power or so that it wouldn't happen again, this girl that didn't have any say over what happened that brought them together chose to favor her over them. It actually made her…grateful to hear this.
"I'm with you till the end of time, Kaede," she told the girl before atomizing into dust. "Strength is found within many forms. You're more powerful than you realize, capable of anything within the limits of the power of the Titans. The only way you'll ever know how powerful…is to keep testing your limits…and then surpassing them."
Left alone on the beach in what had to be a dream, Kaede sighed as she turned back to face the sunrise of the new day.
"Going past my previous limits, huh?" She sighed, raising her left up to the side of her face, feeling the searing marks that indicated her use of her Titan power. "Strength can be obtained in any forms found by people. Paradis, and by extension, Eldia, is a good example of such strength obtained in various forms: The reclamation of the Eldian people's freedom and connection to the ancient past, access to advanced technology that would make our lives more manageable, a ruler that the people can look to for assurance that they never have to live behind the Walls again, the power of the Titans, and Shinji and his Eva."
Raising her right hand up, she felt a surge of power through her veins as something started to rise out of the ocean.
Something…made of hardened Titan flesh.
-x-
"…Any estimation on how many blimps they could have?" Eren asked Armin as he and a handful of others were working around computers and surveillance equipment to observe the world beyond the island.
"We can't say for sure, but there's not that many in the air," Armin responded, looking at a display of the geographical location they were monitoring. "I'm guessing that they relied more on their naval and ground forces more than aerial vehicles, so they don't have that many blimps, let alone planes. There are also some naval ships, but…nothing like the first two times."
"They're desperate," Erwin suspected. "They probably scraped together whatever they could because they want to fight us so bad."
"Well, some people believe that the third time is the charm," went Levi; despite how the people around him were able to use all this technology with ease after mere days and aid from the power of the Founding Titan returning lost knowledge, it seemed to irritate him a little at how he couldn't understand it the way they did yet. "But for them, the third time won't be any better than the last two times."
"Probably best to give them fair warning first," Erwin suggested. "How long before they arrive?"
"They should be here around the next twelve hours," Armin revealed, concerned over how bad this could end for the Marleyans, "depending on the weather conditions staying clear."
-x-
This book was quite a piece of history and culture that spoke volumes in the silence. Even though Mikasa was among the handful of people on the island that didn't receive any new knowledge from the Founding Titan due to not being a Subject of Ymir, the discovery of this book, Hagakure, made an impact impression on her, reminding her of her mother's side of the family that mirrored Shinji's very racial culture. As she was Asian, the book represented a passageway to the past and lessons from people lost to time but were immortalized through what they left behind.
"You must love that book," she heard Shinji say to her, reminding her that he was present on the rooftop of a different building some of the Survey Corps were using for the time being, and the young woman had decorated it with a small, makeshift shrine that Mikasa made, adorned with an Asian writing that translated into, "The return of righteousness".
"Among other things I've discovered," she responded.
"What is it about Hagakure that you like best?"
"It…it… I don't know how to answer your question, Shinji Ikari."
"Sorry about that," he apologized to her.
"It's not you. I… I barely knew anything about my parents' background, except for who they were. Before we escaped the Walls, there were a few groups of people that lived alongside the Eldians within the confined spaces…and some of these minorities had problems when the First King took control of the way they lived."
"I know, I read the same information we found in the basement of the Yeager house. I translated everything that had been written down long ago. Some of the minorities included people of Asian ethnicity…and this clan of people by the name of Ackerman, whom possess some aspect of Titan power to a lesser degree that seems to limited to only self-defense."
"How much about the Asian and Ackerman groups do you know?"
"I only know enough from what had been written by Grisha Yeager. They were among the minorities persecuted by the people that sided with the king. Because the power of the Founder couldn't take away their memories of the past, they were considered a threat to the so-called peace and lie the people were made to believe. Karl offered these minorities not subject to his power positions of nobility within the confines of Wall Sina so long as they kept quiet about the truth, but the Asian and Ackerman groups refused to live a lie. Because they refused to be swayed, he ordered them exterminated. It's only because of Kaede having access to the past memories of everyone that ever had the Nine Titans that we were able to discover that the last male inheritor of the Founder, Uri Reiss, because of his friendship with Kenny Ackerman, had ended the persecution of the Ackerman family. This was…"
"Sometime after my parents were killed," Mikasa stated when Shinji didn't say what he meant to say because he didn't want to reopen old wounds that never mended.
"Yeah… Based on what we know now and the discovery of the small village of mix-breed people that resided outside the Walls that the Titans seemed to ignore, you're the only person on the island, maybe the whole world, who's affiliated with the Asian groups on your mother's side; the villagers descended from the people that escaped from Marley's persecution are so mixed, you can't tell who is or isn't whatever."
"Though, when anyone sees who you are based on your appearance alone, they're either going to think they're an 'Ackerman', an 'Eldian', a 'Marleyan'…or even an 'Asian'. If the rest of Marley ever knew about you, they'd likely think that they thought all the Asians were wiped out, that there shouldn't be any left alive. I doubt they're going to care that you're from another world where Eldians and Marleyans don't exist, and the fact that you're just solely Asian, untainted by any other ethnic groups, you're pure in their eyes."
"Racial purity is a joke when one wants to look past the ethnicities that once were or should've been. Even if we had kids in the future and someone wanted to label them based on their ethnicity, they'd have no choice to see them as being mixed."
"And being a Subject of Ymir would also be irrelevant?"
"Well, yes. I don't see how anyone should be considered a Subject of Ymir, anymore; with the exception of the Jaeger Serum that Marley may have in their possession, we found and confiscated all the old vials of Titan Serum and locked them away. Even the vials of Titan Serum that were in the possession of Rod Reiss are accounted for; we gave them to Historia and she let all but one vial of it evaporate into thin air."
"What about the ones we didn't give her?"
"Historia made a rule regarding the remaining vials: They're to be used solely as an absolute last resort when it concerns saving people that medical science can't save and are Subjects of Ymir."
"But…that would leave the person as a mindless Titan."
"Only temporarily; every now and then, Kaede transforms into her Titan to let the Garrison groups extract her spinal fluid so that they have a steady supply."
Mikasa then set the book down and sighed.
"I see myself as Eren's retainer," she explained, referring to what she thought about Hagakure. "My primary concern should be him, first and foremost."
"Like the samurai, vassals to a lord. But…you shouldn't let that define you."
"Why?"
"Even members of the samurai had personal lives and ambitions. I guess an example would be the ronin, samurai without a master. They still enjoyed peaceful lives, even though they had no one to serve."
"I…can't see life without Eren or Armin in it."
"Best friends since childhood?"
"Best friends since forever."
Shinji nodded his head in sympathy over her friendship with the two men she knew.
"I'm not telling you how you should or shouldn't do anything, but…only as a suggestion…when this is all over with Marley, and I want it to be over, for the fighting to stop, for the suffering to end, just live like the next day that comes after the war ends…is the first day of your whole life ahead of you, see where it takes you."
Where it takes me? Mikasa thought; for much of her life, she hadn't exactly seen anything beyond Eren, and he was a primary piece of her life. "Where does your life take you?"
"Me? Hopefully, it's with Kaede. A quiet life someplace, happy, at peace… Maybe married with a kid or two. That'd be a good life."
"Yes, it would be," she agreed; after a short moment of fantasizing a similar future for herself, Mikasa was willing to believe that any life of that sort was one worth having. "You and Kaede Sogen… How do you two…get each other? When I saw her shortly after we reclaimed this city, I just thought of her as a fan of yours when people started hearing about you and the Eva, just some star-struck girl wanting to meet her next hero. Yet, you ended up being something better than any of that. How do you…end up being more than someone to admire for a girl that…had a secret she feared she'd be found out about?"
"I… We just talked on the carrier deck and…before that, we had a brief encounter in Shiganshina…where she gave me a thank you note. I'm grateful for her note; she was the first civilian to thank me when it was declared Wall Maria was reclaimed. I still keep it with me. I guess I'm a sentimentalist to a degree; some things I don't want to cast aside."
Either a sentimentalist…or a person that hates conflict not only because he hates causing pain onto others…but because he has the power to come out on top, Mikasa believed Shinji to be a guy with a dark side to him that only made itself known when he was in the purple behemoth…but the light of the dark side was to protect, never to harm…even when he had to.
"Forever hateful of confrontation between yourself and others, aren't you?" She asked him.
"Always," he answered, "but no matter how much I hate it, the confrontation between myself and others…I will do whatever I have to, to the best of my ability, in order to protect the people here, there, wherever. Fight to end the fighting, to make sure that everyone goes home."
"Historia was right to ask you to be her advisor. Your loyalty and friendship, even though it cost you some personal issues with the people from your world, are worth more than your weight in whatever the rich and powerful put value in."
"As much as I know what could happen to me if I ever went back, my…lack of any positive relationship with my father, my defection from NERV, using the Eva like it's my personal property and not an expensive piece of equipment designed to face Angels, this is a fate I dealt myself with, something I must live with…and I am okay with that. If I had to do this all over again, I wouldn't hesitate to do so. If you could do your life all over again, but knowing everything you do now, would your life be any different than now?"
"Including you falling from the sky?"
"Yeah, that, too," he admitted.
"If I could relive my life, I'd…probably try to prevent the worst things that happened, which…would just be my parents' murder. Everything else, I'd leave alone. Anything you'd change if you could?"
"If I could change one thing… I'd fall from the sky the day Bertolt and Reiner attacked Wall Maria…and stop them before they could hurt you because Marley ordered them to."
"If you did that, you'd be saving Eren from becoming a Titan Shifter, Armin would have his family with him, and maybe even meet Kaede earlier."
"Except she'd be five years younger than me…and we probably wouldn't know each other."
"Then…it's a better thing you fell when you did…and did your first move as a ronin to stop the Colossal Titan before slowly returning to being a samurai in a way."
"In a way?"
"You serve Historia, like how the samurai serve their masters. You do what you do…and worry about whatever could've been later."
Shinji nodded and then realized something else that was in the works: He and Kaede needed to give their okay to Erwin on the use of this plane the Garrison and Survey Corps were restoring for future use…and he needed to meet with her before meeting him.
"Tell me, what did you guys think about the plane that was found with the jets?" He wanted to know from Mikasa.
"That…Boeing-like plane you once saw in a picture shown to you by this Kensuke Aida?"
"If it looks exactly like a Boeing C-17, right down to the interior, then it has to be one, just made with hardened Titan flesh included into its design. It seems a lot of the things in this city, from the small devices to the buildings themselves, were all designed to have hardened Titan flesh included in their interiors and exteriors, probably because they were just as strong as any metal made back then…and could be made faster and refined."
"I think it's…an impressive piece of technology."
-x-
SEELE wouldn't be happy about this, but Fuyutsuki didn't care about how they felt right now. He didn't even care about what they might do to him since they were the ones that put him in charge and replaced Gendo. Even if they tried to do something to remedy their intended goals, Lilith…and now Adam, according to Ritsuko Akagi, were no longer of any use to anyone, either cloned or salvaged from the incinerated or melted traces that were all that remained on them.
"So…what will happen now, Commander Fuyutsuki?" Ritsuko asked him.
"Now…we wait and see," he answered her. "I hope, for the sake of everyone, the Angels left don't show up. How are things with Shinji's activity in the other world?"
"We're still looking at his last-recorded activity until he gets back in the Eva for something, anything, that's more recent…or present. Some of the personnel still find it most unusual that much of the technology they have discovered is nearly identical to the technology of our world, only…augmented with this unique resource of hardened flesh that appears stronger than most metals fabricated over the ages."
"And yet they're all made with such a resource incorporated into them, from the buildings to even the aircraft carriers they salvaged. Their world is in the far future, yet the Eldians have advanced into a facsimile of the modern times of this world while this larger nation that despises them are more akin to early Twentieth Century technology. If this were a technological race, the Marleyans would lose before it could even start."
"Out of curiosity, do you believe it's possible for both worlds to coexist?"
"On a professional level, it would be an impressive miracle if our worlds could coexist. Personally, there is the possibility of that not happening due to Ikari's actions against his son, which, in turn, may have placed a stigma upon NERV and, by extension, this world that the Eldians aren't too quick to forget and forgive."
"But…if the Third Child were suddenly informed of his father's removal from the agency, or even of his mother's return, if he were made aware of NERV's new authority and the possibility that the Angels have likely ceased their activities, do you suppose this would alleviate such a stigma and intrigue the Eldian to engage in conversation with others from this world?"
"It's possible…but so long as SEELE is still alive, I'd rather not risk anything that would make things more difficult than subtle."
Ritsuko understood this; if Shinji even so much as showed his face in this world and SEELE found out, they would've gone to any lengths to have him removed from the situation they felt he had become a problem in, whether or not he defected from NERV and chose to live and die in this other world.
"You would pardon him of any criminal acts he may have committed by defecting, wouldn't you?" She asked him.
"I would," he answered her. "You think I'm wrong?"
"Personally, I think you'd let him off easy if the situation regarding the Angels was over in an instant, and nobody would be able to force him to stay."
-x-
"Kaede, did you use your Titan power earlier today?" Shinji asked as he walked down the street with her to this large runway for takeoff and landing operations, noticing the small burns on the sides of her eyes.
"Earlier, but in a minor way," she answered him. "I woke up this morning…and discovered a new method of using my ability that really surprised my parents."
"You transformed while inside your apartment?"
"No, but I introduced my Titan to them."
"How did you do something like that? Each transformation is dangerous and can cause harm to anyone too close to you."
Kaede stopped walking and stood next to a nearby tree. Her small burns on her face changed to a dark purple coloring…and Shinji saw something emerge from her back under her blouse and bodice, resembling a wad or stream of ooze or jello. It formed an unfinished head of sorts and resembled a smaller version of the Dark Titan in front of Shinji.
"I know you two have met earlier before, but there wasn't a real introduction," Kaede stated, "so let's start over right now. Shinji, this is the Dark Titan. Dark Titan, this is my boyfriend, Shinji."
"It is nice to make your acquaintance, Shinji Ikari," the Dark Titan uttered, sounding exactly as she had after acquiring the power of the Jaw Titan.
"My God," he reacted, both impressed and slightly frightened by this act of impossibility. "Am I dreaming this? Is it still our date night?"
The Dark Titan's ooze-like head slithered in the air between Kaede and Shinji and uttered, "You wish you were dreaming. I am real…and I am talking."
Shinji looked at Kaede, who nodded that this was happening.
"Are…are you going to cause me problems if something terrible happens to Kaede and it's my fault?" He asked the Titan head.
"Most likely," she told him.
"Okay, just making sure."
"But you're too nice a person to want to intentionally harm anyone. I can see why Kaede admires you so much. You're lucky to have her…and she is lucky to have you."
"Thank you," Shinji expressed, bowing his head to the Titan head. "This is… It's both amazing…and a little terrifying to be in the presence of my girlfriend and her Titan at the same time. This is more amazing than terrifying, though."
"Imagine the reaction from Hange if she were to see this," Kaede told him.
"Yes, Ms. Zoe would most likely have a repeat of what happened last time Kaede did something impressive with her Titan power," Dark Titan added.
Shinji shuddered at the possibility of Hange experiencing another orgasm and passing out due to her obsession and fascination with Titan power. It felt worrisome and problematic for the Survey Corps if it were to happen all the time.
"I don't want to imagine that until later on," he told them. "That's a bridge we've yet to cross."
They resumed their trek to the base where the plane they needed to approve for use by the Garrison and Survey Corps against Marley, now with the Dark Titan accompanying the couple.
"Suddenly, it feels like you're full of more surprises than even I could imagine," Shinji told the ladies (since the Dark Titan was, more or less, female, just like Kaede was).
"Not that many surprises," Kaede told him, and then stopped at the sight of the large plane they needed to approve for use only a short distance away. "Whoa…"
Shinji saw it and it definitely looked like a Boeing C-17 transport, only much of its metallic structure was made with hardened Titan flesh. But even he couldn't tell the difference. And many of the vehicles and other objects they'd been finding scattered on the island grounds they were still looking around and remapping. No, to Shinji, this massive plane that he learned from the military otaku from his original world was no different from the one he was shown in a picture by Kensuke.
"Tell me something, Kaede," Shinji went, "do you believe this war with Marley will end soon and we'll be able to seek peace between them and Paradis?"
"I'm hoping that this war does end, Shinji," she shared her belief. "There's no point, whatsoever, in a war that has no end in sight…or hatred that spans across generations of a people that want us all dead because of the actions of our ancestors…instead of our own actions. We want to look to the future…but they can't let go of the past, and that locks us halfway in problem that has a solution that is within reach, only it meets half the desired hands."
"Well, the sooner we approve the use of this plane, the better off we'll be if we can end this on a positive note."
-x-
He couldn't stop thinking about his son, may he burn in Hell for his defection. Despite having his wife returned to him, Gendo still desired for Shinji to suffer the most agonizing form of pain imaginable for refusing to follow orders when NERV had discovered how he obtained a form of power that could've served them greatly. But instead of falling in line, the little embarrassment went and developed a spine and refused to listen to authority. Even if the Angels were to cease their attacks on Tokyo-3, he still believed the human race to be a doomed species, and that it was now inescapable among the remaining species that would be extinct in a matter of years…if not decades.
I hope you die over there, boy, he thought as he sat in front of a laptop in the kitchen of his and Yui's apartment, wired on three cups of black coffee, trying to keep tabs on NERV through the MAGI, but all of his access codes had been revoked; luckily, he knew one of Ritsuko's, and found that they've been trying to monitor the Third Child's activities in the other world, but until he was using the Eva for some reason or another, they were reduced to seeing his memories of what he did while there. I hope you lose everything and everyone you have over there. I hope you get killed by these Marleyans that hate the Eldians you chose over your own people! I hope they slit the neck of your girlfriend right in front of you as they kill her! I hope whoever kills you spits on you as you choke on your own blood!
Observing footage of a recent memory of his son's that included this double date between himself, Kaede, Historia and Ymir, Gendo became more disgusted with Shinji as he was just wasting his time trying to develop his worthless love life with a worthless girl and two other girls that were a disgrace for having a mutual attraction towards one another. Not a single thing his son did over there pleased him to any degree. Not fighting a giant that had no skin to protect innocent people defenseless to defend themselves, not helping them to reclaim an entire wall, becoming a co-ruling advisor to a young queen, falling in love with a girl that asked him if she had a chance with him, nothing. If any had to say that Gendo was a man that hated anyone that had success in their lives that could be seen as incredible or relevant, they'd be right to say such.
"If I ever hear that you've suffered, that would be gratifying," he told himself out loud.
To be continued…
A/N: A lot of confrontation to expect later on. I bet none of you expected that to happen to Hange! Oh! And as for the new skill Kaede showed Shinji, it came from the new Venom film. Let me know what you think will happen next and I'll tell you how close you came. Peace!