Creation began on 11-16-20

Creation ended on 12-06-20

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Calling in a Favor: Consequences

A/N: The fate of one that intends to outlast all else.

Evangelion Unit-01, the artificial tomb of Yui Ikari, the husband of Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari and the mother of Shinji Ikari, had drifted in the vastness of space for quite some time now. There was no telling how long, though, but time was irrelevant to a divine clone. It was also irrelevant to the Destroyer that governed the order of this universe as he appeared in front of it.

Sidra, mostly because he had to be more active and attentive to his duties as a Destroyer, was tasked with destroying the Eva…and only the Eva…as it was a disgrace and embarrassment to the universe and because the soul of the woman inside it had to pay a penance that was not his to deal in over her.

"Humans," he expressed at the fossilized behemoth. "As wretched and self-destructive as they are, they all deserve to share the same fate, which means that you must also share their fate, whatever it may be. Nobody gets to take the easy way out of a genocidal act, even if it means outlasting all others in an artificial body that will never be worshipped by any other races throughout this universe."

The Eva's eyes shined on the Destroyer as he raised his left hand in front of it.

"Hakai," Sidra uttered, and the Eva was removed from existence, leaving only a woman's spiritual form adrift in the space the behemoth previously occupied. "And this is where I take my leave. He shall deal with you when he comes for you, lady."

What did he do? Yui wondered as this strange being turned away from her. Where is the Eva?

Sidra vanished and left Yui alone among the stars.

-x-

The Earth of Universe Nine continued to deteriorate…and the two only people left not even trying to wander around to try and find anyone.

Brother Correction stood behind them, invisible to their senses. He had foreseen their predicament and understood why they were just staying put on this decimated beach. They were waiting for people they knew, people they had hope for to resume their positions in their lives, to return. It wasn't desperation that kept them here, just an empty hope; they didn't know that the people whose lives were ended against their will were as broken as the planet was, unable to collect themselves and emerge from the sea of blood.

You're wrong, he heard Yui's voice as he turned to face her on his left. Anyone can return so long as they have the will.

"And yet, they don't," he responded, his own voice undetected by Shinji and Asuka; they just kept looking at the sea in the hopes of someone returning. "They don't have the will. They can't tell up from left, right from backwards or anything remotely close to the equivalent of a will, and it's the fault of the people that wanted this to happen, meaning you're among those directly responsible for this unforgivable calamity…and you will not be allowed to move on from it."

What do you mean?

"At first, I thought after I had permission to correct this mistake you helped to make, I'd just remove each of you from the planet and put you somewhere else. But I've done something like that many times over, and none of you ever seem to feel any remorse until after a dozen or so lifetimes have passed and everyone else is dead. So I won't bother to do so with you. Instead, I will make you suffer a fate that is not only cruel and unusual punishment to all that desired Human Instrumentality and forcing a young soul crippled by loss and betrayal to decide the end…and you'll be among those that get front row seat to witness it all. One thing worse than living forever…is living forever isolated from everyone around you as you spend eternity to regret your mistakes."

You…you don't know what you're saying, Yui tried to reason with him. People will return, the world will go on…

"You're right, people will return and the world will go…but only after a hard reset that erases the pain and suffering you helped to inflict with your negligence and unethical beliefs. You will be among those that won't even have a connection to those you left behind."

Wait…

But Brother Correction didn't want to hear another word from this woman. He had wasted enough time to give the basics of her penance that would be shared with everyone else that chose this path when they should've left things alone.

"Absolution," he uttered, and the world was bathed in light.

Yui watched as the LCL ocean disappeared, and then the fossilized remains of the Mass Production Evas…and then Shinji and Asuka.

-x-

"…So, this Brother Correction only gets custody of the Earth in our universe," said Sidra to the Supreme Kai Roh during their minor get together, clarifying what their limitations were regarding that particular planet. "We so much as do anything to change his changes, Grand Zeno will punish us."

Roh sighed and felt that this was a disgrace to both of them as this Brother Correction was someone they barely knew about and couldn't have been that powerful if he used to be human. Still, it was only because Grand Zeno had given him authority of the planet, they both had to obey the new change in their own authority. They had already been erased from existence once and didn't want to risk a repeat of it.

"How old do you suppose he is, this Brother Correction?" Roh asked Sidra.

"He's not that old, but he's not as young as he appears, either," Sidra explained. "He simply is."

-x-

It was…Tokyo. The original Tokyo, exactly as it was before the end of the Twentieth Century, with people walking around in it.

Yui, standing in the middle of a Shibuya Scramble in the rain, wondered what was going on and what year it was. A moment ago, she was standing with a dark-skinned stranger on a desolate beach and the next, she was here.

"Excuse me," she reached out to a man in a blue suit and holding an umbrella, "can you help me? I don't know what…"

She reached out with her left arm, but it passed right through his back.

"What?" She reacted as the man continued to walk away, as if nothing had happened.

"You can't touch them," she heard a young, female voice away from her, and saw Rei Ayanami standing on the sidewalk, with people walking through her like she wasn't even there. "This is penance that all involved must live with."

"What? What do you mean?"

"Your penance is to live cut off from the world you left. You can see and hear the people around you, but you're not a part of their world. They can't see or hear you. You can't even touch them. You're cut off from everyone you knew…that no longer remember you. They've all been given a clean slate. Even if you encounter someone dealt the same penance as you, the reunion will only be short-lived, as one of you will be relocated to a random part of the planet to keep you separated from one another. Eternity…together…and alone."

"But…what year is it?" Yui wanted to know.

"The year is…all around you. They don't even exist, anymore. He said they'd be alive again, but granted new beginnings. I won't even see them, as the reason for their new existence is not bound to the Eva that no longer exists. They may not even possess the same identities."

Yui got the impression that Rei was referring to people like Shinji and Asuka. If they hadn't been born yet, they would likely be different from what they had used to be. But…then Shinji would have no memory of her from before, not that he had many memories of her to begin with. She ran around the streets, searching for a calendar to ascertain the year, finding a donut shop with a calendar that revealed to her it was the last year of the Nineteen-Nineties! It was a whole year before Second Impact would even happen. Or would happen.

-x-

He was alive again, but Gendo had no idea why the people of this backwards town didn't notice him. His heart beating was a clear indication that he was among the living, but his inability to be seen and heard by anyone indicated something else was amiss around him. He didn't even know where he, except that it was a rural town by the ocean. There were hardly any cars and the people there seemed to be content with their lives.

"What's going on here?!" He demanded, but there was nobody to answer him.

Nobody seemed to know he was even there.

-x-

Brother Correction watched from all over, keeping tabs on every town, every city, even nation the people he had condemned to eternal solitude on the restored and rebooted Earth that had been stripped bare of anything remotely related to its dark past. There were no Angels, no Seeds of Life, no Geo-Fronts, no JSSDF, not even NERV or SEELE. The souls of the victims had been restored to life and brought back to a point in history where they could resume without the threat of a global apocalypse. And the souls of those that had yet to return to life…would be brought back with a clean slate, able to begin anew without being stained by a shame-filled previous life that served no other purpose than to torment them. But he would stick around to make sure of this; no matter how long it took him, he had to ensure a fresh start for those who were exploited and a grim existence for those that committed the exploitation.

To be continued…

A/N: Each opinion matters when questioning the "why" to the "what" and "who". What do you expect to see in the next chapter with things being changed now?