Creation began on 11-14-22
Creation ended on 11-26-22
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: Penance
SEELE was beyond disappointed with Gendo. Far beyond disappointed. In the aftermath of the defeat of two of the Angels and losing the Lance of Longinus, which then went missing after disappearing on the far side of the moon, and learning that Gendo, who lost Adam because of his recklessness, was returned to the Geo-Front by his own son after failing to acquire something that was not a part of their scenario, the men that formed the shadow council that controlled the world's darkest dealings were gathered around the man that had, in one way or another, ruined them.
Fuyutsuki, despite his lack of reason to contribute to this meeting, was only present to see how it would progress after proceeding.
"You do understand that, with the actions your son took upon his brief return," went SEELE 01 to Gendo, "all that we had planned, all that we had spent the last fifteen years investing ourselves in…has all resulted in being for naught."
"I do," Gendo responded.
"And from what Commander Fuyutsuki had informed us, you lost Adam to your son while you were in that other universe," went SEELE 07. "Adam, Lilith, the Lance of Longinus, all irreplaceable resources that were necessary to facilitate the Human Instrumentality Project! All gone! Do you have anything to say in your defense, Ikari?"
"I hold the Third Child accountable for these offenses."
"You hold your son responsible for the majority of your actions?" SEELE 04 questioned.
"Yes, you would blame your son for your actions," said SEELE 01, "both directly and indirectly. However, he is hardly to blame for your actions. The only one here that is responsible for our goal's permanent demise, Ikari…is you."
"He had in his possession a relic of power that could've proven useful, but he refused to hand it over, and his disobedience…"
"We are aware of this hagoromo belonging to this…celestial matriarch of the Ikari family from this other dimension," went SEELE 09. "However, it was brought to our attention that you were informed of, and even gained possession of temporarily, an artificially-derived artifact that was similar to the one you were after from your son, but you still pursued him for the artifact that he didn't possess until after you murdered him. You were told, multiple times, in fact, that the one belonging to the Ikari family would never go to you because of the circumstances that made it impossible for you to obtain. You were not recognized as an Ikari over there, by either marriage or blood. You didn't belong to the generation your son was a part of over there, which made him capable of inheriting his…ancestress' prized possession that you were not. And as we were also aware that in this alternate universe, there was a alternate of your wife present, but she demonstrated no interest in you, whatsoever, along with alternate versions of the First and Second Children, whom were also not interested in following your orders because in that universe, neither NERV or SEELE appeared to exist."
Gendo looked to Fuyutsuki, who didn't say anything to him.
"How did it feel to kill the Third Child with your own hands, Ikari?" SEELE 01 questioned. "Did it feel good for you? Did you feel justified in murdering him?"
"He refused to cooperate," Gendo stated. "I did what I had to."
Fuyutsuki frowned at his choice of words to try and excuse his decision to kill Shinji. No matter what he said, nothing excused him from murdering his son, even if it was because of something he would never possess. He was starting to get a basic idea of why his own doppelgänger from the other world made a conscious choice to kill his doppelgänger when he attacked Yui while in an inebriated state.
"Why do you think he didn't try to get even?" SEELE 11 asked Gendo. "Why do you think, despite the fact that he was capable of doing so, more than capable of doing so, in fact, that he didn't kill you? Instead, he just sends you back here, without the artificial artifact, without the Adam embryo, nothing but your very existence. Why didn't he try to kill you?"
"He's a coward," Gendo answered. "He can't do what is necessary, even when told it is necessary. And he wouldn't dare try to kill me, his own father."
Fuyutsuki, on the other hand, disagreed with Gendo's belief. There was no way that in this life or the next that Shinji would, under any circumstances, refrain from having his father murdered. Not unless he had a specific reason for not doing so…and Fuyutsuki suspected that he did have a reason not to kill him.
"Maybe it's best that he didn't," SEELE 02 states. "In most cultures, certain deities, even demigods, choose not to sully their hands with the blood of those that wrong them. Your son, the Third Child, who ascended to godhood in his own right, left you alive, despite the fact that you killed several people in your attempt to find him and take from him what is now his to exploit however he chooses, and has now left this world, leaving behind all that he held precious to himself. Where does this put you?"
"Yes, where does this put you, Gendo Ikari?" SEELE 12 questioned.
"We still have the Evangelions," he told the council. "There are likely more Angels to come that we are not aware of. The Dead Sea Scrolls don't tell everything."
"The Dead Sea Scrolls are no longer relevant because of the loss of Adam and Lilith. No matter what transpires afterward now, humanity is condemned to this rut you played a role in ensuring."
"Even if we were to continue our plans with the Eva Series, they would be meaningless," said SEELE 02. "The Evas are no longer valid to our cause. Our cause is no longer valid, which means NERV is no longer valid. And this, of course, means that you are no longer valid, Gendo Ikari. You are of no further use to us."
Gendo didn't like where this was going.
"While we may have another use for NERV later," SEELE 01 claimed, "what we no longer require is its former leader. Gendo Ikari, you are dismissed."
Fuyutsuki suspected that those words meant more than what this council was saying in the verbal sense. Even just the mere thought of thinking what could happen was discomforting, but SEELE was a cabal of people that could make anyone do what they wanted to whoever they wanted out of their way. He knew from his personal experience that these were men that could get away with their actions because there was nobody that could stop them…except perhaps Shinji, and he was no longer around. But this wasn't Shinji's concern, even if he was aware of SEELE; he shouldn't be bothered to deal with these issues when he just put the world back on its proper axis and restored the Antarctic to its former glory, along with removing the radiation of places people used to live in and turning most deserts into forests.
"Fuyutsuki," went SEELE 01 to him, "we leave his removal from the premises to you."
"Understood," he replied.
The holographic monoliths then disappeared, leaving the room vacant of all except for the two men that were present.
"I honestly don't know what is worse than the other," Fuyutsuki told Gendo, "the fact that you were just relieved of your command of NERV…or the fact that whatever goal everything and everyone you sacrificed for…is no longer within your reach."
-x-
Even though it seemed pretty moot to do so, Kaji continued to gather information on the exact cause of Second Impact; since it was something that still happened, the people responsible for causing it still had to pay for their crimes. He could've walked away and found employment where people were getting ready to reclaim coastal areas, even request a different position at the ministry, but he felt that this was something that still needed to be done. The sooner the people responsible were brought to justice, the sooner he could put this all behind him and move on.
"Don't throw your life away, Mr. Kaji," he recalled Shinji saying to him in his mind, as though they were standing on the Over the Rainbow the day they met. "I've seen people that had nothing to do with anything related to NERV suffer irrecoverable pain because of people that chose to do something horrible to others. I've seen Misato inescapable heartache, time and again, to the point where even I lost count. And if not her, it was Asuka, whose perverse crush over you in some lifetimes wasn't so perverse or childish. Walk away and live. Let the people responsible for these atrocities take their lives and put them on the line, letting the chips representing their fates fall wherever they may."
He seemed to have a lot on his mind when he spoke to me, he thought as he sat in a room with large, computer terminals and scattered piles of wires. He left his father alive without a second thought to wanting to cause him pain. Even before he left, he made no attempt to reconcile with him. It was like…there was nothing left to say between father and son. Well, maybe Gendo had more than what was not even his right to say to Shinji, but Shinji, he had nothing left to say to his father after everything that happened between them. Does getting killed by a power-hungry relative really…sever the ties of blood? Or were those ties already severed long before Gendo even tried to get what eventually became Shinji's? Oh, look at what we have here. There were twelve new Evas being built…for something that wasn't an Angel attack. They're nowhere near finished, but…if there's no more Angel attacks to be expected, then they're unnecessary. There's no good reason to even finish them.
Gathering this new information, Kaji hoped that this, along with everything else he had found, would be enough to apprehend and bury the people responsible for causing Second Impact and the ones that were behind the influence of organizations like NERV.
-x-
Most people didn't bother with coming into NERV today. It had nothing to do with the Angels or the Evas, but mostly to do with the feeling that the paramilitary agency had done what it needed to do and, due to the planet restored to its proper axis rotation and the coastal lands restored for reclamation, there was no further point in having to deal with the would-be threat to the world. And then, there was the fact that NERV's previous leader had been dismissed from the agency after being relieved of his command (which had nothing to do with the discovery that he made a horrible choice to murder his own son because of something that would never be his to possess) and would more than likely be condemned for his way of handling things. The man had, in one way or another, destroyed whatever family he had left in favor of pursuing what was believed to be power.
Not even the pilots came in for their usual routine of synchronization testing.
"I'm surprised that hardly anyone came in today," went Misato to Ritsuko as they walked down the hallway.
"The revelations of yesterday were an unexpected gift that keeps on giving," the faux-blond stated. "I wouldn't be surprised if people started turning in their resignation forms."
"And what of you, Rits?"
"I can't afford to resign just yet."
"Because of the lack of personnel, the MAGI…or because of the former commander?"
"The MAGI."
"Honestly, those supercomputers have ruined life in this city."
"They help keep order."
"But they deprive the people of any actual freedom of choice when it comes to decision making. They're helpful and all, but they lack more of the human element than I realized we were starting to lack here."
"I think you spent too much time looking into that mirror."
"It was only when I was seeing Shinji over there in that other dimension did I realize how much of the humanity in what was being done was absent. Even Shinji must've realized it and it became part of the reason why he did what he did over there and here."
"So, what will you do?"
"He said what we do next is up to us. He was no god, and he wouldn't dictate our lives. I spent a long time hating my father…and I come to find out that there was an alternate version of myself where Shinji ended up who lacked this hatred because her parents died early on in her life. I envy her in that sense; she lost her parents because of factors beyond herself…and she couldn't hate her father for something he might've done. So…with the way things are going now…I should put that part of my past to bed and move on with my life."
"He actually had the gall to tell me that I could do better before he left."
"Honestly, he was right about you doing better because you really can do better than whatever the reason he told you that for."
"He didn't say why he told me that to you?"
"He only said what he has to say to the people he spoke to. We only heard him broadcast his conversation between himself and his father. Any other conversation he had with anyone else is between himself and whoever he was speaking to. Why did he say what he said to you?"
"He brought up my cat," Ritsuko lied; she didn't need anyone else knowing about her previous relationship with Gendo.
-x-
There was no point in trying to talk things out between them. It was completely pointless to try and explain the reasons for why things had to happen the way they happened. As much as she wanted to make him see, it was the way he looked at her that told her that the lines they had all crossed were beyond the capacity of basic forgiveness. The way his eyes were masking a pain that he had carried for most of his life because of them…and a pain he was set on leaving when he was done with what he set out to do.
"It's still a sense of childhood abandonment when it was all nothing more than a choice made without ever taking into consideration of the repercussions that would follow," Shinji had told Yui in the mental landscape of Unit-01. "It still hurts when I have to accept that, because of the mirror being cracked and shattered, because of the choices that were made before I was even old enough to understand any of them, because those around me made choices to hide their reasons, you're among the handful of people that have done these awful things, Mother. You have done them, time and again, in this lifetime or the next one. There may be ones where you didn't do anything or you were going to but allowed your conscience to change your fate in the end, they aren't outweighed by your ambitions."
"Shinji," Yui tried to explain, "I was just trying to ensure a brighter future, for you."
"Mother, I've seen the outcome, many, many times, and I never saw any bright future. All I ever saw…was pain and loss that most people can never recover from. All I ever experienced…was unforgivable sorrow…that left me irrecoverably scarred…in most cases. Oh, there were other lifetimes, small ones, where I recovered, where I was able to move on, even some where we're not even related to each other, which was a great boon in those lifetimes, but to be at the center of all of that suffering, to be the one forced to make the cruelest decision, only to be faced with the relentless aftermath… It's comparable to anything just as awful as being hit by a car on the road, Mother. Just…something in your way to wherever it is that you want to go, and where you were willing to go at all costs…makes you that terrible driver behind the wheel of the relentless car that hit me on the road."
Even when his tone wasn't full of malice, the mere fact that he was aware of these things made Yui realize that the young man in front of her was not the little boy she sacrificed for…and he was unwilling to accept her decisions for what she wanted them to be.
"But it's okay," he went on. "The world has been fixed of its major issues, so all that's left is for people to take the next step. They can do whatever they want. I just won't be there to see what they choose to do. But you can if you want to."
"Shinji…you can't do this."
It was the first time in years that she had expressed her disinterest in the fact that her son was making a conscious decision to leave the world they knew behind to live in another world where there were no Evas, no Angels, no situations involving the end of the world. She felt that there was no excuse to turn away when he could still have a life here so long as he had the will to live.
"Mother…you can't tell me what I can and can't do with my life after your absence from it," he told her. "The Eva can live forever, outlasting all else in existence, doing nothing, but people, those that have been around for less than a few million years, can't live anywhere that they aren't suited for, that they can't survive in. I would rather live where hardships aren't the result of the mistakes the previous generation made and left behind, where every day is just another day where the people from the previous day can make up for the wrongs they committed. But this is a world that I can't live in, anymore, where I can't be happy. You can return to your life as a person outside the Eva if you choose to, or continue serving as the soul of this artificial monster you call a deity when it's just a fake that will never be recognized as a true one. Do whatever you want, Mother, but know that it will never serve as an eternal testament of the people of this world. It's nothing more than…an expensive toy that only a handful of people choose to pay with."
"Shinji…please…don't do this."
"This is the way it has to end here. This…is just a future. Whether it's bright or not…is dependent upon the people and their motivations. All I will do…is hope for the best."
Yui could've begged Shinji to reconsider his decision until she was metaphorically blue in the face, but his mind was already made up. There was nothing she could do to make him stay in this world, even when she knew that doing so would invite dangers he would have had to either accept or avoid. His existence as a demigod of sorts would attract many that would want him for reasons that would be detrimental for most, including him, and no matter what those that could and would stand up for him said or did, he would likely never be free. And then, there was the fact that her son was two people in one, two souls that were in sync within the same body, which made for a confusing situation if anyone tried to separate the pair; even if they did choose to live this way, there was likely a gambit in place to tear apart the two in order to gain the hagoromo of this Frenzia Ikari…and neither Shinji could take that chance.
"Go back and live or don't," Shinji told her as he turned to walk away. "If you believe in new beginnings, then you should see if you can obtain one. There's no such thing for me here. Eva or not, hagoromo or not. My only recourse is to relocate to where my future is truly mine to decide…and has nothing to do with the Evangelion, including its primary objective, which is just inhumane and unjustifiable. Goodbye, Mother."
And then he was gone before Yui could say another word to him, leaving her to decide her own fate. Whether she chose to return to the world outside of the Eva or continue to live within it was up to her. But even if she did go back to her life as a human outside of the Eva, she had no guarantee of having a life of influence on the younger generation…and her family wouldn't be whole, anymore. Even if she went back to Gendo, they would both have to face up to their mistakes and answer for them.
-x-
He knew there was no way the old men would just dismiss him and relieve him of his command of NERV. His actions had resulted in SEELE putting a target on his back that would not go away, even with his dismissal from the paramilitary agency that had once been the only thing between mankind's future and extinction.
"Time, money and manpower," he recalled one of the council members saying in the aftermath of the Third Angel's defeat, "just how much more of these will be wasted by your family, Ikari?"
And now, the tides were turned and what had been used by him was coming back to bite him in more than one place. As he sat in his apartment, Gendo pondered his next move; it was only a matter of when before the old men took him out.
"You're fighting for the impossible, Father," he recalls Shinji telling him after he acquired Frenzia's hagoromo and fought back against him to defend those alternate women he valued above the women here. "You're fighting for the impossible."
He should've killed me when the opportunity presented itself to him, he thought, looking at his hand the Adam embryo was once grafted onto. He left me alive…just so someone else could take me out, that little brat.
But he had no proof that Shinji chose to let anyone else come after him to keep from sullying his hands with the act. For all anyone knew, Shinji just preferred to let other people do as they intended to, for better or for worse. Grabbing his coat, Gendo left out his apartment and went down the hall; his intention was to get out of Tokyo-3 to avoid being pursued by SEELE's lackeys. And with the world a little larger than it used to be because of Shinji, there were a few places he could hide…if he could get to them first.
-x-
It was depressing, having to pack up Shinji's things, like they had to pretend that he didn't exist, anymore. Then again, it was depressing just to know that he was gone with no intention of coming back to live, but it was his choice, no matter how they felt about it. Two boxes, practically the total sum of how big his physical presence had been when he arrived to Tokyo-3; he didn't have much in the way of material possessions to begin with and when looked at from a different point of view, Shinji's life in Tokyo-3 was more akin to that of a fleeting vagrant, a guest or a stray, just around for a specific reason, but unable to stay, even when there was no further reason to.
"So, what now?" Asuka asked Misato as they looked at the empty room, all save for the two boxes in front of them.
"Well, we can't give these to his father; he'd just throw them away," Misato responded, "not that we should even try to."
"Doesn't he have…other relatives here? Isn't there…an aunt or uncle? Someone that is…slightly aware that he was around?"
"I read his profile again, and the only other relative I was able to find was a maternal grandfather, but it appears that he never once saw Shinji. Not once."
Asuka found herself disappointed in hearing this. It was one thing to know that Shinji's father was a loser and his mother died when he was little, but to know that he had a grandparent that never saw or spoke with him at all, it made her realize just how much of an empty life Shinji had in this world.
"What kind of people are these Ikaris?" She questioned. "They're either dead, despicable or just removed from the present with no trace of involvement in the past."
"As far as I care to admit?" Misato responds. "They're people that probably thought they were meant for greatness, but did nothing that was really great, and the one member of the family that actually does do something great, more than great, had to leave because the greatness wasn't meant for himself…but for everyone else…and the relatives he had here…were part of the problem that he couldn't be troubled with any further."
"And nobody except for a handful of people that saw him last even knows who gave them back the world as we know it."
"No, Asuka. They know who it was and why. They just can't accept that it came at a price none of them could ever hope to pay."
Misato decided to put the two boxes into storage someplace so that they wouldn't be lost; just because Shinji was no longer with them, it didn't mean that they wanted to forget about him.
Asuka, as realization continued to impact her, found herself regretting the times she treated Shinji like he was a waste of space, thinking that, in at least one other lifetime, in an alternate universe where everything they knew about the situation with the Angels just got worse over time, eventually leading to the agony of a version of Shinji that became driven by hatred, whatever fate he gave her that resulted in a silent, ghostly incarnation of herself, was likely her own doing…because she pushed him away, said something to him that drove him past his breaking point. And in the end, before he even left, they never spoke about their relationship…or rather, their lack of a positive relationship due to her being aggressive towards him and trying to be superior to him when he was never competing with her for anything when all he used to want out of piloting the Eva, out of facing the Angels, saving the world…was his father's praise…only to end up receiving his spite, his hatred, and his desire to harm him over something he couldn't have over himself because of a family-related stipulation that he didn't have any prerequisite for at all. When the time came for their parting of the ways, Shinji, the one she resented like a rival, a boy she couldn't stand because he wasn't like Kaji in any sense…chose to go to the other dimension where her alternate self with the red eyes resided…because he wanted to be there…with the people he met there that he connected with during his displacement. If she could turn back the hands of time, she would have said kinder words to him when they first met, treating him better, and not being so prideful about the Eva when it was clear that it brought him no joy in any sense.
He chose the alternate reality there over this reality…and the people that loved him, she thought as she stepped out of the apartment. A life without the Eva, without the Angels, without his father, where the fear of the end was nonexistent. Are there other worlds like that? Are there other alternate realities where the Evas and Angels don't exist, where Second Impact never happened, where we're just regular people living regular lives? Did he ever try to find such a world?
She was referring to the Shinji that killed her in that world that was ended, where everyone was gone and where there wasn't a trace of any life, with red oceans and lifeless lands and crucified Evas. If she had lived in that universe, she would have likely chosen death as an alternative to living in that world, and maybe…just because she thought of it…maybe he would've chosen death as an alternative, too.
Looking at what remained of the city, at the sky as the weather shifted to readjust after the restoration of the planet's axis, she pondered what the future would be like without Shinji.
-x-
Rei took one last look at the apartment before closing the door; with nothing else to consider, she was able to walk away from the life of an Evangelion pilot now that the world was shifted from its previous state of being into this new one that was akin to a dream made real. There was no Lilith, no Adam, no other Angels, not even a misbegotten, self-righteous drive from a man whose ambitions were as poisonous as his words had been. For the first time in her life, Rei Ayanami was…devoid of any questionable purpose…and she was free to pursue her own future, create her own ambitions. She had Shinji to thank for this turn of events, even if she couldn't say anything to him now.
"Thank you…Shinji," she uttered as she walked down the hallway. "Thank you", words of kindness and praise… Words that I have never used before. Not even with his father.
-x-
It was a nightmare. No matter where he went, Gendo felt like SEELE was following him. He had already reached the airport in the next city, but he became paranoid; it felt like all eyes were on him.
"Where you go?" The lady in front of him asked.
"Sapporo," he told her; it was among the only parts of Japan that had been affected the least by Second Impact, and it was practically next to a ghost town due to its declining population and technological stopgaps.
"You're in luck. Hardly anyone goes there. The next flight will leave in forty-five minutes."
After paying for his ticket, Gendo left to find the boarding gate; with all that he had hoped to gain no longer within his reach, all he could do was get away and start anew elsewhere. Once he reached Hokkaido, he would get his identity altered and setup shop where he could just blend in and disappear. Hopefully by then, SEELE will have been unable to locate him.
"It can be cruel, poetic or blind," Shinji's voice had echoed in his mind, "but when it's denied, it's your violence you may find."
Stupid brat, he thought as he stepped into an elevator. Even if you think you did the right thing by restoring the planet and removing Lilith, the human race is still doomed to die in the end. But you don't care what we do in the end; you abandoned us in favor of a life in that other universe, taking the coward's way out. You should've stayed and faced the consequences of your actions.
Except that it was moot to argue with someone that was no longer there to be conversed with; his wife was still in the Eva (as far as he knew, being dismissed from NERV, so he couldn't say for sure), Rei had turned against him for killing Shinji (even though that was temporary) and Shinji himself had abandoned them all. If he had one chance to say more to his son, it would've been to say how much he hated him for never listening to his father. Then again, Gendo was among the most undeserving of any attention from his own child if he didn't so much as try to understand the needs of him over his own desires.
"Can you believe this?" A woman in the elevator with him spoke as she was holding a cup of coffee. "The weather's been reported to have a high chance of snow within the next few days."
"I wouldn't know; I don't watch the weather reports," he told her.
"Well, let me tell you, this country was better when it had seasons, not just summer. I really owe your son for fixing the state of this country."
Gendo turned to face the woman, likely in her twenties, dark-haired, purple eyes, looking at him with a small smile that felt sadistic. Before he could say anything to her, he felt something small and sharp pierce his chest, going through his jacket, sending him against the wall beside himself. Looking down, he saw that she had a pistol with a silencer attached, and she fired a second round at him, followed by a third. He slid down to the floor as the woman put her weapon away inside her tan coat.
"This isn't personal, Gendo Ikari," she told him, "but I was promised a generous sum if I took you out. Because of NERV, I've had to work four different jobs just to put my twins through school, and the system is broken because of Second Impact. I hope that by the time Tokyo is rebuilt, the education system will be like it should be and I can pray my son and daughter will be able to have a better life than right now because of the lack of opportunities available to them. Once I report your death, I can stop working so much and neglecting my children. Again, this isn't personal. I need to look after my family better. Maybe you'll have better luck in your next life. You certainly squandered this one."
Ding. The elevator stopped and she got out, leaving him to bleed out on the floor.
He couldn't call for help. He couldn't move his arms or legs. As his vision and hearing started to fade, Gendo couldn't believe that this was how his life was going to end, snuffed out by some stranger that was as irrelevant as every other person he had considered to be when they could offer no value to his scenario.
The elevator door closed…and less than four minutes later, all that dwelled inside it was a corpse of a man who no longer mattered to society.
-x-
It was only a matter of time before someone stumbled upon NERV's darker secrets that no longer served a purpose, which included the Dummy System. While Ritsuko stood in front of the production facility where the components were produced, she sighed at how, just two days ago, the First Child had disappeared from her residence, and nobody knew where she went…and how just four hours ago, she learned that Gendo was reported dead in an airport elevator, the victim of an assassination attempt; because nobody saw or heard anything, it was anyone's guess as to who killed him and why. She doubt that anyone responsible would be apprehended for Gendo's murder, just as she doubted that Rei would be found if she left of her own accord after the planet was restored to its previous state. Even if Rei did return, there was nothing else for the albino girl to do; NERV was being re-tasked and the use of the Evas was to be shutdown.
Some secrets…aren't meant to be known, Ritsuko thought as she pressed a button on a remote she had, and all around her, the components of the Dummy System began to break apart and waste away in the chemical solutions they were immersed in to keep them stable. Some truths…were never meant to become public.
Professionally, this was the right thing to do, and personally, Ritsuko was relieved to be disposing of the Dummy System; for the longest time, Gendo had longed to see the fruits of this project that was meant to replace the pilots and remove all of the human elements that were believed to be a hindrance in the performance of the Evas against the Angels, but with the way things had ended, this was no longer required. The only success of the Dummy System was against the only Angel that managed to breach the Geo-Front, and that was a bad day everyone wanted to forget. And with one of their pilots no longer around, the former leader dead and most of the other secrets of NERV either disposed of or soon to be discovered, Ritsuko didn't need the aggravation of having her involvement in this project become public knowledge, and destroyed the system to cover herself; whatever secrets Gendo had left to be discovered were his problem, not hers, and this included whatever was left to know about the First Child.
"He never cared about this when he learned of their existence the first time around," Ritsuko turned around and saw Shinji standing a few feet away, see-through and looking quite calm. "Although, knowing about this shattered his perception of Rei Ayanami along with his mother, Yui Ikari. How was he supposed to view them after this? How was he supposed to move on after this? Personally, I don't blame him for losing his faith in them. That was partly your doing in that life of his that went to Hell."
"Are you Shinji Ikari?" She asked him.
"Yes and no. At least not the one you're familiar with. I'm just another version of him from another lifetime."
"And what is your reason for being here?"
"No reason. Well, just to see the results of what the Shinji that once resided in this world did before he left. This multiverse thing is quite the issue that exists when it involves people that just make decisions to relocate for reasons that either prove beneficial for some and detrimental for others. This is the case here, too."
"And what sort of universe are you from?"
"Oh, that would be telling. But since you asked, you could say that it's a version of existence where people like you are more of a bane than a boon because you do things that are beyond the scope of what was asked of you. You get asked to provide solutions to radiation negation, you go further and develop new ways of sterilizing people and end up sanitizing half the global population so that only people with genius genes are left to lead the world. Oh, how I hated you for being among the people that did what you did."
"I take it your parents were geniuses in your world?"
"Yes…and I hated them, too. They wanted me to follow in their footsteps, but I was against it from the time I could talk. I don't hate science and technology, but in the world I used to live in, there were too many scientists and not enough of other types of people. I wanted to be an artist, someone that could embrace self-expression with their hands…but my parents would have none of that happening. They gave me two choices: Science or retribution. Let me tell you something, when you choose to renounce the fate your predecessors want for you to have, you may end up receiving the gentler fate."
"They killed you for not wanting to be a scientist?" Ritsuko questioned.
"They tried to," this Shinji explained, "but I didn't give them the satisfaction. I ran before my mother could shoot me and left the country to one of those places where there was no extradition based on personal choices. But in the end, I died at the age of fifteen. My body died, at least."
"So, then…you're a ghost?"
"A digital ghost, if you will; my parents took my body back and had my mind uploaded into one of their computers. Saving me, they told me. But this isn't salvation. This is penance, and I'm still being punished for my choices, praying for the day where someone decides to just hit 'delete' and erase my consciousness from the network. Most days, I just spend my time looking into the multiverse revelation, discovering more about myself from other parts of this fractured state of existence. It's practically self-tortuous when the only information you can access is everything relating to yourself from other walks of life; you learn that in one universe, you live in a world where it's kill or die, in another, you become a psychopath because of what your family did and didn't do to you, another where you end up becoming a ruler of a country being punished for what its people did generations ago by a dragon, or even learn of a universe where you have different parents, but you somehow end up in the custody of the same people that want to do the same thing that ends the world you know, time and again. The worst part is the expanding of what I know as Primordial Shinji, or Shinji Ikari Prime, and he's a man that wastes away in suffering because of what was done to him by everyone, including you."
"Is he the one from an alternate universe where Third Impact happened?"
"Yeah…and it broke him. I mean, it really broke him. You could look at him and say that everything is going to be alright until you're red in the face…and he no longer believes any of it because in his mind, what's left of it, everyone that left the world lied to him, cast him aside and moved on to a plane of existence where he was forbidden to be a part of. And you know the worst part of his life? To this very day, he continues to suffer because of others. He's the unwanted gift that keeps on being shoved aside. The derelict son that even the gods don't want, and it drives him further down the road to agony and madness that he can't escape from. He's literally in a Hell made by others, wandering aimlessly across time and space, unable to find what he's after, forced to settle on the only thing that he has left that makes sense to his maimed existence: Revenge. Oh, and it looks like I've run out of time. Since it looks like things are going to be fine over here, I'll be on my way. Tootles."
And then, he was gone, leaving Ritsuko to wonder just how messed up their own universe had nearly become if things had transpired the way they had in this other universe where Third Impact occurred and left nothing but a young man ruined by loneliness. The one thing this digital ghost of an incarnation of Shinji didn't state or wasn't asked by her about was if the reason for this outcome was due to the Evangelions. But if there was such a thing as Third Impact, all she could do was assume that Evas existed in that universe as they did in this one.
This is insane, she thought as she left out of the chamber. I gotta get out of here.
-x-
Asuka wasn't surprised to hear that Rei went missing; in the five days that passed since the restoration of the planet, a lot happened that either made or broke certain people. But what surprised her was that more people were leaving Tokyo-3 en masse to relocate elsewhere. Apparently, there was a multitude of new job opportunities in the business of rebuilding former towns and cities and recreating lost animal and plant species. It didn't even surprise her to not receive a call from her father and stepmother at all since this whole thing occurred, not that she would've wanted anything to do with them any further; NERV was facing some other forms of scrutiny due to having absolutely nothing to do with this act of the gods that was really just the act of one kid that left them after doing what he did.
"So…you're all leaving?" Asuka had asked Hikari.
"Our families don't feel like we should be in Tokyo-3 any further," Hikari explained. "My father turned in his resignation form to NERV and accepted a job opening in Osaka-2 to rebuild the original Osaka. Suzuhara and Aida are heading there, too."
"My sister got out of the hospital yesterday, and my grandfather told my father that NERV isn't responsible for any of what has happened," Toji added. "And personally, my sister doesn't want to be here, anymore if there are any other monsters showing up, even though it seems unlikely, since Shinji took care of that, and she doesn't want to risk NERV doing something as ridiculous as approaching me with piloting the Eva."
"Something I would've preferred once upon a time," went Kensuke.
"What do you mean by that?" Asuka asked him.
"Last night, I had the craziest nightmare. I saw Shinji inside Unit-01, levitating on these strange wings of light, but then he saw these nine, white Evas with wings flying around, each one with pieces of your Unit-02 in their possession…and he screamed. I mean, he screamed like it was the end of the world…and maybe it was for him."
"Yeah, I had a dream like that, too," added Hikari. "The look on his face, the loss of hope in his eyes… If something like that were to have happened in real life, I wouldn't want to be Shinji or anyone else, for that matter, inside that thing."
Asuka couldn't fault them for this; she, too, had seen that strange dream that felt more like a memory than an illusion. She couldn't have faulted Shinji for this, either if he feared something like this happening in this universe like it did in another…and maybe another…and another. But it was anyone's guess as to what happens now with Shinji gone. If the world had some sort of history that was predestined due to specific people doing specific things, it was likely that nothing could transpire the way it had been intended to without those people; if a woman was supposed to go left on a road, but instead went right, the predestination paradox or whatever it was was nullified.
"Maybe we should make a pact to meet up once things have settled?" Hikari had suggested. "No matter how long it takes, we all come back together to see each other again."
"I'm all for it," Toji had responded.
"Easy for you to say," Asuka told them. "You're all heading to the same place. I'll likely be sent back to Germany."
"Don't you have anyone waiting for you over there?" Kensuke asked her.
"Not in that many words," she revealed.
"Your parents?" Hikari suggested.
"They haven't called, and I don't expect them to."
"Still, it's worth coming back to see each other again."
Asuka sat on the hill that overlooked Tokyo-3, the same hill from after she, Rei and Shinji had defeated the Ninth Angel during that blackout. She looked at her cell phone, looking at number she had for back in Germany…but she didn't feel like it mattered when she didn't expect them to call her unless it was important or NERV-related. Even after agreeing to the senseless pact to meet up with Hikari and the others once things were settled, she pondered what was left for her to do with her life now that the crisis with the Angels was over. What was she supposed to do?
"Walk away from the Eva and live," she heard a voice that sounded like her own, only mellow, say. "Do something else that is better than what we were led to believe in."
She turned around and saw…herself, but she was see-through, dressed in her plugsuit, and with a bandaged right arm and left eye, her face worn and withered.
"Aah!" She gasped. "Who…who are you?"
"Isn't it obvious?" The girl responded. "I'm just another version of yourself."
"What…what happened to you?"
"You mean these (she raises her right arm and lifts her bangs to show her left eye with her left arm)? Fate was unkind to me, and I was unkind to someone else that ended up being the last person I saw alive."
"You were killed by Shinji, and he went crazy as a consequence."
"No, he went crazy after I said something that wasn't even directed towards him. He thought I was saying something to him, which, in turn, condemned me. 'How disgusting', my first words spoken after the aftermath of the end of the world as we both knew it…carries a penance all of its own for me. He was broken, ripped to pieces, then barely stitched back together with only a few words of encouragement from his absentee mother to return to living…and such words became purgatory for him."
"All you said were two words…not even meant for him…and he killed you? Sounds like someone that was pathetic and couldn't handle living at all."
"You should count yourself lucky that in this life you now have, along with the life of that other version of yourself from that other universe, he didn't kill you. But in the end, the people that caused the world to end, they are the ones that paved the way for everything else to crumble in ruin. It was our parents. Our own mothers…that condemned us to our fates within the Evas. It was his mother…that caused for us to be condemned by the Evas. No matter how much we detested Shinji, no matter how much we wanted him to grow a spine and fight back, none of that matters when everything else is taken and you have no will to live…and hardly any strength left to bite the dust. If you were left in the ruins of a world that had nothing, what would you have done? What would you have chosen to do?"
"I know what I wouldn't have done. I wouldn't have killed someone over something so trivial."
"Are you sure about that?"
Asuka was going to say that she was before being reminded of what led her other version of herself to her current predicament. And then she was reminded of her red-eyed version that chose to feel romantic feelings toward the Shinji that left and somehow became merged spiritually with his dead counterpart, becoming a different Shinji that was two of them. Even if she said something that was merely the result of how she felt towards another version of herself that was not like herself.
"I don't know what I'd do if left in such a world," she stated instead, "and I hope I never do."
Her maimed, dead and condemned self accepted that answer.
"Just tell me one thing: Did he ever do anything to you that was…unforgivable?" Asuka wanted to know from her alternate.
"In what way?" She asked.
"That a boy would do to a woman," she clarified.
"You need to be specific. We both hated any boy that wasn't Ryoji Kaji, whom we felt was the ideal man to be with. What do you think the Shinji I knew and loathed did to me? Other than kill me, which I, more or less, brought upon myself."
"Did he ever try to touch you? Did he ever violate you? Did he ever try to kiss you without your permission?! Stuff like that?!"
"The guy that was so timid and too afraid to open his heart to anyone out of fear of being left alone…and in the end was left alone? The only time he was ever kissed by anyone was by us, and believe it or not, he didn't like that kiss at all…and neither did we. He's an internal person while we're external. His parents tortured his life with negligence and deceit, and in the end…the only person he even thought of wanting to be with…made him feel like he wasn't worth being with at all. So, even if he did do anything vile, it's not like we can really condemn him for it. In your case, he's just gone, probably never to be seen again for as long as he's sought after by those that desire his power instead of his presence in their lives for the right reasons. In my case, he's just the person that killed me, and my penance is to be a witness to his suffering as he searches for vengeance, losing more of himself to the nothingness he longs for."
"Nothingness?"
"For some, death is just the next step to another life, but for him, it's just the last step to a sad and miserable life he wants only to end because nothing that happens, nothing that even involves himself…brings him any joy. He can't feel happiness because of what happened to him. He can't feel sensation, can't comprehend the touch of another. Even love is impossible for him to have if he's trapped in a state of purgatory where all we desire or take for granted is inaccessible to him. So…put quite simply…of all the people that have ever suffered, he got the rawest deal ever, and it's everyone's fault for making him feel like he wasn't worth being with. I made him feel that way. Misato made him feel that way. His parents made him feel that way, and they were the ones that hurt him the most. But it was I that pushed him over the edge and made him feel like he had nothing to gain at all. Maybe if I had said something different to him, maybe if I just told him that he mattered, he wouldn't have made his choice to kill me, and we'd both be in a different state of existence. I can't take it back. I can't take any of it back. Could you take any of it back if you could? To spare him? To spare the both of you?"
"I don't think any of us could take any of it back…if we don't mean any of it."
"It hurts more than most think…when we mean every bit of it. It hurts more than we can imagine…when we mean to hurt those around us. But I…I didn't mean for Shinji to believe that I was rejecting him. I didn't mean for him to feel like I didn't want him in my life, that he didn't matter to anyone, anymore after his mother left him just to be an eternal testament of the human race. Who chooses that over their own child? Who chooses to leave their kid alone…just to be something that will outlast everything else? Who chooses that?"
"I don't know who would choose such a fate. If that was something desired, why would anyone have kids if that was desired more?"
"Why does anyone…want anything? Why does anyone…want what shouldn't be desired?"
Then…the other Asuka was gone, leaving Asuka to ponder more of her future. In at least one other life where the world ended, Shinji had killed her…over a lack of communication…and a choice of words that had condemned her…and led to his own suffering that he couldn't escape from. If something of the sort had happened in this world, if they had suffered the same fate as their counterparts, would Shinji had killed her because she said something that he misunderstood? Would he had made the choice to condemn her…simply because she said something that didn't match her actions in the end? She couldn't ask Shinji…and she couldn't pretend that the answer was within her reach.
"Verdammt," she cursed, looking back at the city that wasn't so much a place to live in, anymore. "Shinji…we should've talked more before you left."
To be continued…
A/N: I decided to end the chapter here because I wasn't sure how to continue it. In one way or another, there was a penance to be served by certain characters while other characters had to move on in order to be free. The next chapter may have something of an epilogue feel to it, but only in one sense while the rest will be directed towards Shinji and his future in the Ceres universe instead of the Eva universe. As always, I want to hear what you all think about this chapter and what you think will transpire next. Stay active, healthy and creative.