Creation began on 09-22-22

Creation ended on 10-10-22

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You: Precious

Shado was a fearful child because of certain people that her father had to put up with, but the only two that she was afraid of most were Gendo and Asuka, the Monster and Angry Harpy Lady, respectively. She was even afraid to sleep under the fear that either one of them would come and hurt her or Shinji. It was understandable to Shinji, as she had confided in him some things that, while confusing due to how she explained them, were upsetting if they were something that could actually happen in this universe if they happened in the one she was from. So, he stayed in her room while she slept.

It was something Shinji found different for him, watching over this little girl that looked up to him. It…it actually made him feel happy.

"Looks like she's really attached to you," he heard Misato say as she was outside the room, and he looked up to her.

"She's very needy," he told her, "and she… I'm all she has right now. She couldn't say anything about her mother because she's this woman that, according to what I told her when she asked me about her, wasn't a good person that the police took away. Apparently, whoever she was wasn't very moral. So…what brings you here at this time of night?"

"Besides the nightshift, just wanting to see how the new father is doing. Really hard to believe she's yours, though. I mean, I thought of teasing you with either Asuka or Rei, but never not like this. Am I really the Boozer Bird Lady?"

"Apparently, it's a nickname that I made because Shado couldn't pronounce names yet…and because she saw Pen-Pen when she needed to go to the bathroom; she called him a…space bird."

"Because she had never seen a penguin before?"

"Yeah."

"Your father and Asuka scare her?"

"My father more than Asuka. I'm not leaving her alone with either one of them. I just found out why she calls him the Monster."

"Why?"

"If her own universe is similar to this one, and the people were also similar… He did something to Ayanami, made her, as Shado told me, go bye-bye…permanently."

"What do you mean, he made her go bye-bye?"

Shinji performed the same hand gesture Shado demonstrated to indicate what his father had done in front of Misato…and she got the picture a little.

"That's terrible," she expressed. "Why would he do that?"

"Who knows for sure why he does any of the things he does? All I know is that I can't trust that man, not knowing what he might do to Shado…to be anywhere near her. And Asuka, the…Angry Harpy Lady…doesn't need a reason to raise her voice in disgust and annoyance with anyone she decides she has a problem with. As far as I'm concerned, she's already got a problem with Shado just because she's my daughter. It doesn't get any more complicated than that with Asuka."

"And…what of your father?"

"Would you really leave your child alone with someone like him?"

Misato looked at Shado…and couldn't really imagine her being in the same room with someone like Gendo, regardless of whether they were related or not. The mere fact that the girl was afraid of him because she saw him commit what was likely a crime in her previous reality didn't help to paint the man in a positive light. And then, there was Asuka, who seemed to view the girl the same way she viewed Shinji, someone in her way that she wanted out of her way. She was starting to wonder just how Shinji, due to his obligation to NERV, was supposed to look after a kid of his own while being on call in case of an Angel attack…and how this girl's father in another universe had been able to do so.

Then, she looked at the photo case that contained their pictures, Shado's proof that Shinji was, in at least one other lifetime, her father. She still couldn't believe that this child was his.

"Say, Shinji," she went, "what else did she say about me?"

-x-

Ghost Girl. That was what the child called her. But it had somewhat of a double meaning to Rei Ayanami. One reason for this designation was because of her albinism…and the other reason…stemming from something that Shinji would have to tell her about later.

"The Monster is here," the child had expressed her fear of Commander Ikari. "Keep the Monster away from us."

In her mind, Rei suspected, Commander Ikari is a monster. Why does she perceive him to be a monster? Why is she afraid of him?

Unfortunately, her questions would have to wait until later on when she saw Shinji at NERV HQ.

But even as she turned off the light in her apartment, Rei still found herself puzzled by the fact that this girl, this…Shado…was somehow related to Shinji…and seemed unusually attached to him in a way that…didn't make sense to her. How could she be attached to him…but be fearful of Commander Ikari?

-x-

A light shone over Misato as she was being interrogated by the Committee over the aftermath of the Twelfth Angel attack.

"It has been brought to our attention that, despite the Third Child's escape from the Angel, you have refused to let this Committee question him," one of the men spoke.

"He was only recovered less than a day ago," she explained, to the point of why she refused to let them speak with Shinji. "He has yet to recover from his ordeal. Being questioned immediately after such is believed to have detrimental repercussions on his recovery."

"Then, as his proxy," went another member of the Committee, "maybe you can explain certain details that came to light after the incident."

"We are to understand that, shortly after Evangelion Unit-01 was recovered, it was discovered that a stowaway was found within the Entry Plug with the Third Child?" A third Committee member questioned her.

"Yes, sir," she answered.

"And NERV has no explanation as to how or why this person was inside the plug when, confirmed prior to the attack, only the Third Child was present inside?"

"The only explanation we have so far is that this person is from a different dimension. Somehow, because of the Twelfth Angel being comprised out of a Sea of Dirac, it is believed that it connected to an alternate universe where this person comes from…and somehow found a way inside the Entry Plug prior to the Eva's escape from the Angel."

"And the Third Child has no knowledge of how they got in there? No recollection of anything after being sucked into the Angel?"

"No, sir."

"Is it possible that the Angel attempted to communicate with the pilot during the time of the attack?" A fourth member of the Committee asked her.

"We have no confirmation on whether or not the Angel attempted communication between itself, the pilot or the child."

"There is one more question that needs to be answered: This mysterious child…is she related to the Third Child?"

Misato couldn't lie to them, no matter how she chose to respond. All she could do…was tell the truth to them, no matter how much it was probably the wrong thing to do at a time like this.

"According to a genetic test, she is related to the Third Child," she answered.

-x-

Shado might've been a four-year-old child, but fear still had a way of reminding the adults of how different she was from the teens that operated the Evas because she was an unexpected wrinkle in their laundry and gear in their clockwork. Due to a nightmare she had, Shado had an unintentional accident prior to waking up. Not that Shinji could really blame her, though; it was the fault of the medical personnel if they didn't think to provide a bedpan for patients with little to no conscious bowel control or have absorption pads for laying over.

"Daddy…did you…stay with me all night?" She asked Shinji as he walked her to the locker room to give her a wash.

"Yes," he responded. "I…had to protect you from the Monster, right?"

"Is the Monster…still here?"

"Yes…but…he's rarely around. And if he's as much a monster as you say he is…then he should know that he needs to stay away."

"But…he never does, Daddy. He hurt you once in front of me."

"He…hurt me?"

Shado stopped in the hallway and pulled Shinji's right hand down.

"He came over and bad-touched you here (she points to his neck) and put you on the wall (she presses herself against the wall behind herself) and then he bad-touched you in the tummy. He said that you were a… I don't know what it was he said… 'Showard' (coward)?"

"You mean…coward, Shado," he explained. "He…he called me a…a coward."

"He is scarier than the monsters he tells you to face. He is scarier than the big armor you have to wear, and that is scary."

"Big armor? You mean, the Eva?"

"The armor with the scary face and horn. It eats you every time and spits you out. The people here, they made it and make you wear it to face other monsters."

She sees the Evas as armor? And she knows about the Angels? He wondered.

"There were three times that you almost didn't come back because of the armor, the Monster, and the monsters you face," she told him.

"What were they?"

"The first was when the diamond monster nearly cooked you and nobody would do anything to get you away from it. The second was…ugh… But the third was when a really, really bad monster almost made you into one…and you were…gone for two whole days."

"Shado…you skipped the second monster. You mentioned a monster that looked like a diamond and another that was really, really bad, but that's one and three. What happened with the second monster? What was bad about the second?"

Shado looked around the hall they were in before looking back at her father.

-x-

"…I don't think I've ever felt more tension in that interrogation than I have in my entire life," Misato told Kaji as they were in the cafeteria.

"What do you mean?" He asked her.

"The Committee, once they found out about Shado, wanted to know what else there was to know about the girl. It's hard to answer their questions if you don't know how to answer them."

"What's so intriguing to them about a little girl that just ended up here two days ago?"

"I think it has more to do with Commander Ikari than it does with Shinji."

"Well, as he's the one in charge of operating NERV, they'd want to know anything about whatever is going on, and he'd likely have the answers."

Misato picked up a canned coffee and drank the entire thing in one breath.

"The only other thing I could tell them was that she's terrified of him," she informed her ex.

"Terrified of who?" He asked, confused.

"Her grandfather. If that's even a word worth addressing him as."

"That's not unusual; he does have that presence of intimidation."

"Except that isn't exactly what makes her afraid of him. She told Shinji, who told me, that she once saw him do something to Rei that was bad. In her own words, he made her go bye-bye…permanently."

"You're making it sound like the girl saw him…kill someone, Katsuragi."

But Misato couldn't make a joke like this if she was only conveying what she learned from Shinji, who learned it from his daughter, who may have witnessed this in her universe. And Shinji was probably wondering what could happen to Shado if she had to spend another day here in the base…knowing that man was nearby…and could try something.

"Right now, my best bet is to keep her with her father," she told Kaji. "Since DNA doesn't lie and she's already attached to him, Shinji already, more or less, has parental rights over Shado…and I don't see anyone else volunteering to look after her."

"Not many people in this city have little children to tie them down…and not many of them that do work at NERV much of the time," he added in.

-x-

This was actually a soothing period for the two. It allowed Shinji to spend more time with Shado, even if it was only due to her wetting the sheets. As he scrubbed her back while she sat on the small stool, he tried to get his mind off of what she told him about the second monster she claimed he faced that was bad. It confused him because nobody at NERV had seen it occur…or maybe it just hadn't happened yet…but it didn't deny him the likelihood of it happening eventually if Shado could tell him what she could remember about it.

A monster…looking like a black suit of armor…like the Evas, he thought as he reached down for Shado's left arm, and he made her get into it. She screamed and cried to be let out…and was ignored, even as something went wrong. They nearly crossed the line. A black Evangelion? And an Angel that has…paper towels for hands? Did Shado come from an alternate universe with an alternate timeline? Or maybe she saw or heard of Angels that we haven't seen yet? She even asked why they were called Angels when they don't look anything like what an angel is supposed to look like.

Then, he reached for her right arm to scrub it while she turned to look up at him. A smile from her caused him to smile back.

"Daddy," she uttered, "do you still think I'm pretty?"

"Yes, I do," he expressed, and then thought of something. "Tell me something. Do you like to draw…pictures?"

"Yes, Daddy," she answered.

"What do you like to draw?"

"Trees…people…water…the sky…buildings…Ursa Guardian…nice things."

"That's…really sweet."

He then handed her the shower puff so she could wash her front.

"Are we the only ones in here?" Shado asked him.

"This is the men's locker room; most of the time, I'm the only one in here. Why do you ask?" He explained to her.

"The Angry Harpy Lady would always say things about you that weren't true, that you're a bad boy and stuff."

"Asuka is… Whatever she says about anything is only the truth to herself, Shado. She only knows how to say what she wants to say. Pay her no attention."

Shado nodded her head to him and began scrubbing her chest.

"I told her once that you are the greatest because you're in my life."

"Huh?"

"You always want to do good. You never let others get you down because you look after me. You tell them that if they don't like me being around, they should walk away. You're the greatest."

"Wow. Thank you, Shado."

"It's true. You are the greatest. There were some that said you couldn't take care of me, that I was some…'wurben' (burden) you didn't need…but you told them that wasn't true. And…you said you didn't want to be like the Monster…because of me."

"You mean… I didn't want to let you go…like how he let go of me? Is that what you mean?"

"You don't want to be like the Monster…so you're better than the Monster. He left you. He…didn't want you, anymore. You wouldn't leave me. You…wanted me."

Shinji was learning something new about how his relationship with this girl had shaped everything that happened since he became her parent. He learned that the reason he wouldn't give her up was because he didn't want to echo what Gendo had done to him, that he refused to be anything like that man. How people believed he shouldn't have bothered with her just because she was his child, and he still chose to have her be involved in his life.

"You're a little smarter than I expected you to be, Shado," he told her, smiling.

"You say to listen when people talk. When people talk, you learn what they say, what they mean, who they are. You called it 'perheptive' (perceptive)."

I don't know how you were able to get a little girl this special, whoever I was in another universe, Shinji thought, but you must've did something right to have her in your life.

Shado put the shower puff down and Shinji picked up the small bucket of warm water.

"Okay, close your eyes," he instructed her, raising the bucket over her head.

-x-

"You can't possibly be serious about this!" Asuka yelled at Misato, catching the attention of some of the NERV personnel in the hallway. "Do you not have the slightest concern of what that idiot might do?!"

"I'm not changing my mind about this, Asuka," she responded to her outburst over the issue. "Shado will be living with us, with her father. I've already gotten approval from the sub-commander. Plus, you're one of the two people that scare her the most, so she'll want to keep away from you when you raise your voice."

"Why can't someone else look after her? Or he just gives her up to some couple that can't have kids of their own?"

"Asuka, you know that Shinji won't do that. And why are you against his daughter so much? You act as though he finally has someone that wants to be around him and you can't stand him most of the time, anyway. Are you jealous of him because of Shado?"

"What?! Why would I be jealous of him because of that brat?!"

"I was actually referring to you being jealous of Shado, because she has Shinji's attention."

"I am not jealous of some little girl that probably can't grow a spine due to who she's related to."

"Are you sure about that? You are the one she calls the Angry Harpy Lady, and it is starting to make sense after a while. From what she tells Shinji, she's never once seen you smile without it looking scary to her. Not once…has she ever seen you exhibit any other emotion that wasn't negative. She knows that people see you as being beautiful…but all she sees when she looks at you…is a girl who is older than herself…and angry all the time, like she's upset with the world and everyone in it. But you don't scare her as much as Commander Ikari does; to her, you represent rage while he represents dread. You're just likely to hit someone for the most minor of offenses…while he's likely to go further. The only difference between the two of you to this little girl is that you only seek to hurt others when you feel disrespected or something…and he's likely to do worse…because he means to."

Misato then walked away from her, letting this sink into the redhead's mind.

"She's never once seen you smile without it looking scary to her. Not once has she ever seen you exhibit any other emotion that wasn't negative." Asuka replayed Misato's words that were based on what Shado had told Shinji about her.

-x-

An oversized shirt and small shorts that she could hardly fit in, but they were better than nothing until her clothes were washed of the LCL. As Shinji dried off Shado's hair, he had to admire her appearance as a little girl. Even if she wasn't androgynous at her current age, she looked like he had when he was her age.

"Yeah," he expresses. "You really are pretty, Shado."

"Thank you, Daddy," she praised him, and then hugged him.

Stepping out of the locker room, the two found Rei walking down the hall towards them.

Shado hid behind her father while he was wondering what brought the albino girl to them.

"Ayanami?" Shinji greeted. "What are you doing here?"

"Major Katsuragi has instructed me to inform you that, starting today until further notice, Shado Ikari will be residing with you and Pilot Soryu at her residence," Rei relayed the message.

"Thank you."

Then she walked past the pair and further down the hall.

"What did she mean?" Shado asked Shinji.

"I live with Misato at her place," he explained, "and now you do, too."

Shado hugged her father's right leg.

-x-

"…I can't believe Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki agreed with Major Katsuragi that the girl should be with the Third Child," Hyuga chatted with Maya and Shigeru during their break.

"Well, it wasn't like Commander Ikari had any interest in keeping her anywhere except perhaps here or somewhere in the middle of nowhere," Shigeru expressed. "It's like he views her the same way he views his own son. Not that that really matters when the girl appears to be terrified of him."

"She is terrified of him," Maya stated. "Most children would be afraid of monsters hiding in closets or under beds, but this girl… In her mind, the monster that terrifies her the most is this man that looks at her like she is not even a person that matters."

"Still, the thought of her having to live with the major. How does something like that work? Two teens and a toddler. Seems like a social dysfunction waiting to happen." Hyuga declared.

"With the Second Child, it is a dysfunction," Maya admitted her belief. "But I'm more worried about how the Third Child's daughter is going to handle living with a young girl her father's age…and is considered a monster to her in a lesser extent than her grandfather is."

"Considering who her father is," Shigeru decided to share his opinion, "there may actually be such a thing as paternal instincts."

"Oh, really?" Hyuga and Maya challenged.

-x-

In front of Unit-01 again, Gendo had to express his contempt towards Fuyutsuki for going against his order to have the girl confined.

"This only invites further trouble," he told the older man. "It was easier to keep her here than to let her wander around."

"Ikari," Fuyutsuki countered, "doing so would've been detrimental to both her and her father. No matter how much you disapprove of the DNA results, no matter how much you wish it wasn't true, you can't bury something like this and not expect for there to be those that disagree with you. Do you really want to separate a little girl from her father…just because she somehow ended up in our universe and has nobody to turn to except the one she calls her father…out of some sort of…spite? Of malice, even? She's a victim, too. She's in a universe that may be similar to the one she used to reside in, but this is one in which she never existed in…and we have to accept that and accommodate her, for better or worse."

"If she needed to be accommodated, it'd be easier to relocate her elsewhere, away from the boy."

"You still wouldn't be able to erase their connection…or your own connection to her."

"I don't have a connection to the girl."

"Not a social one, but a biological one. Except you treat her…the same way you treat him; there's no affection, no meaningful conversations, no relationship of which to expand upon. Still, she deserves to be with her father, regardless of the opinions of others, and who deserves to do right by her. So…yes, I agreed with Katsuragi. And I'd do so again if it meant keeping a child from being taken away from their only parent in a world where they have no one else to rely on."

Fuyutsuki then turned and walked away from Gendo and Unit-01; he had expressed his belief over the issue and felt better about his choice. He chose to enable Shado to stay with Shinji. The girl didn't want to be taken away from him, despite the situation they were in with the Angels.

The girl isn't even trying to get in anyone's way, he thought as he went down the hallway. To separate her from her father is unfair to both of them as it had been to him when he was her age.

-x-

The drive between the Geo-Front and Misato's building was quiet. Not that Shado minded the silence, as it enabled her to look at the buildings around them.

"See anything familiar?" Asuka decided to ask her, not that she expected her to respond.

As she was looking out the window behind Shinji, the girl turned to face her and simply nodded her head in the negative. Because the city had often been attacked by the Angels, Shado didn't see Tokyo-3 the same way because of the damages done.

"Some of the buildings are not buildings," she uttered.

"What do you mean, Shado?" Shinji asked her.

"Some of the buildings don't have people living in them. You keep buildings like that to keep things for when you wear armor to face the monsters."

"Just how much about the city do you know about?" Misato wanted to know.

"You once called it a city Daddy saved, but there are people that still want to leave because of the monsters that come. The Ghost Girl lives in a dirty neighborhood that is noisy during the day and is not safe. And sometimes, you spend the night with the Shadow-Faced Ponytail when he calls."

"Who?" Asuka questions.

"She means Mr. Kaji," Shinji stated; this was the first time he heard that designation, but he knew who she meant because of it.

"You know about him?" Misato asked the little girl.

"You keep saying that you don't like him," Shado told her, "but every now and then, you go to see him, leaving Daddy and me alone with Angry Harpy Lady."

"My name is Asuka," Asuka stated to her.

"Os…kar?" She tried to pronounce.

"A-su-ka."

"A…kar?"

"Never mind."

It didn't matter what Asuka told her; because of her age, pronouncing names properly was not possible for Shado.

"A lot of kids her age can't say people's names right," Misato expressed, unaffected by Shado's inability to pronounce names correctly. "Can you say Kaji's name, Shado?"

"Kaki?" Shado tried to say.

"Eh-heh!" Shinji chuckled. "Close enough."

Shado smiled, and then noticed something.

"The hill is still around?" She asked.

"The hill?" Misato replied, confused.

"The Lonely Hill, where you see the city as being lonely."

"Oh, that hill," Shinji realized; she was referring to the hill that Misato took him to see Tokyo-3.

Just how much of the world this girl was from had been different from this once? What remained, what was lost, and who either remained or was lost?

Misato decided to take a detour to the hillside and let the girl see the city so she could see for herself what was similar to the one she had likely seen. The sunset was eerily similar to before when she brought Shinji to see the city. Despite its endurance and reconstruction efforts, Tokyo-3 had seen better days when it wasn't attacked.

Shado walked over to the railing that kept people from going over and gazed out at the tall buildings. She barely recognized anything; the last time she had seen this place, it felt like a long time ago, with most of the buildings standing being the ones that were gone from her past. But there were still things she did recognize that were constant, such as the lack of greenery; there were few trees and less places to go play. In terms of color, this city was more grey and white than green and blue.

"There are…more buildings than I remember seeing," she sighs. "The strongest monster had taken a lot of buildings from over there (she points to her left), and this hill…was also taken by light. A lot of people had wanted to leave after it was gone."

"What kind of monster?" Misato asked her.

"It had paper towels for hands and could cut with them like scissors. It once cut her armor up (she points at Asuka) and she ran towards it and fell."

Sounds like something Asuka would do, but we haven't seen an Angel with…paper towels for hands. An Angel we haven't seen yet?

"…And then the Ghost Girl in her armor came out," Shado continued, "and she had her face cut in half. And then Daddy comes out to face it…and then his armor ate him up for two days."

She ran back over to Shinji and hugged his legs tightly.

The Eva…ate Shinji? Misato wondered; she knew the Evas were artificial copies of the First Angel, but she knew next to nothing about what they were capable of under the worst of circumstances, and she suspected that Shado had seen something happen to her father that was one of those circumstances.

"I don't like it when you have to wear that thing, Daddy," Shado told Shinji. "It ate you once. I don't want it to eat you again. And that man, the Monster, he did nothing about it."

"That sounds like him," Shinji sighs. Whatever Shado knows about the Eva is only from her point of view, but her point of view offers more insight than what I already know about it, which is less than what others tell me from time to time. So far, there are four things that scare her: The Eva, the Angels, my father and Asuka…and losing me.

Asuka found this to be a waste of her time. And worse, she found this little girl to be a waste of their time. When it came to facing the Angels and protecting the human race, it was fight or die, and it didn't get any simpler than that. The sooner this brat learned to accept that harsh truth, the better they were all off. Her age, how she was even brought up by the Third Child, were all irrelevant when nothing was more important than their very survival in an unforgiving future.

Shinji looked up at Asuka and gave her a disapproving nod; it was as if he knew what she was thinking and was against it.

-x-

In certain respects, this was an unexpected benefit for NERV, as Ritsuko sat in her office. The fact that a little girl biologically related to the Third Child was here, and was from another universe, meant that, despite the impossibility of it all, was proof that there were alternate planes of existence, parallel dimensions where things were different from what they thought they knew, either minor or major. If there was a universe where the Third Child had a child of his own at a young age, then maybe there were ones where the Second Child had children of her own at the same age, or one where Angels never existed and attacked the planet, Second Impact never occurred, NERV was never founded, or where her mother was still alive. Not only this, but Shado Ikari was the only child not exactly affiliated with the paramilitary agency that, based on small rumors that were starting to spread around the base, was starting to gather a small fan club of sorts based off her age and appearance.

"She kinda looks like the Third Child if he were a little kid," she heard one of the technicians say about the girl.

"How did the Third Child come to have such a pretty daughter?"

"I don't care who her grandfather is, that girl is beautiful to look at when she smiles."

It is illogical to think that way about a child that has been stranded in a world not her own, Ritsuko thought as she looked at her limited profile on the girl on her computer. Still, when you compare her current appearance to that of the Third Child from when he was little, there is a resemblance between parent and child.

Typing a few keys, she brought up an old file that was a photo of the Third Child taken from when he was a little boy and brought it up beside Shado Ikari. With the exception of having a smaller body frame and more hair on her head that was messy because it wasn't tidy, it was almost like looking at the boy all over again, or looking at a…shadow of the boy that didn't age like he did. She suspected that it was probably where Shinji got his daughter's name.

-x-

Holding onto her teddy, Shado refrained from crossing the threshold into Misato's apartment, despite the fact that said woman, Asuka and Shinji had.

"I…don't wish to intrude…Boozer Bird Lady," she told Misato.

"Shado," she responded, taking no offense to her designation, "you and your father live here. This is your home now."

The girl then took a step over the line and smiled.

"I'm home," she greeted Shinji.

"Welcome home," he greeted back.

To be continued…

A/N: There's going to be something of a minor concern stemming from the fact that Shado is probably the youngest person to be associated with NERV, even from a distance, and that's how most people find her appealing to them because of her innocence. Normally, most people wouldn't really care about any child, but in this case, Shado possesses a measure of attraction that draws her attention from those that rarely see innocence in Tokyo-3, something that will likely infuriate Asuka, make Ritsuko curious, repulse Gendo while Shinji will just be trying to do right by Shado. And this is a new dynamic for the group: How does life in the Katsuragi apartment adjust to having Shado around? Read and review and enjoy the rest of this year as best as you can.