Creation began on 09-04-20

Creation ended on 11-30-22

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Shinji, Master of the Cards: Leaving the Labyrinth

Nobody was saying anything, but the five friends were deeply affected by what had occurred within the labyrinth half an hour ago. In the process of Shinji obtaining another rogue spirit that served as one of his cards in his apprenticeship to Clow Reed, the spirit had demonstrated a power comparable to The Illusion Card belonging to the master magician, showing Shinji an authentic, realistic illusion of what he feared the most, trying to break him. Within this illusion, Shinji saw everyone he knew and cherished…either dying as a result of these Angels that attacked Tokyo-3, the Evas that his parents had created to face them, or by people they didn't trust, using deadly force and coercion of the worst sort, and in the end, the day became night while the sun was still out, places that were familiar to all no longer in existence…and Shinji's eyes losing all sense of sanity as he screamed his most agonizing scream over all that he lost because of his parents' cruelty. It was only after the illusionistic spirit revealed itself did Shinji unleash his own fury like he had on The Increase and The Decrease Cards, capturing it and ending the illusion they were trapped in.

"The illusion only becomes reality…when the hearts that beat with malice and deception desire it so," the spirit told Shinji as it was being sealed away by him. "Illusions are only a small sample, a small taste, of what could happen if so desired by those that have ulterior motives in their futures. But can you break the illusion…and show only the future you choose to pursue?"

In the end, not even Shinji answered the question as he put the latest card in his possession, The Deception Card, away in his book.

It must be so hard for him to put it behind him, thought Akane as she couldn't shake the illusion of herself being crushed to death by this Unit-01 that Shinji had operated once to face one of these…Angels. It's terrifying for him, to want to prevent such things from ever happening…and having to deal with people that may be willing to do anything to make sure they get what they want, regardless of the consequences.

As they continued down the path they were on until they came to a crossroads, one path going left, the other going right. The five teens looked both ways before looking at each other.

"Which way should we go?" They all asked each other.

"I think we should go left," suggested Taka and Haruka.

"I think we should go right," Miyuki and Akane told their suggestion.

"I don't like this," went Shinji.

"None of us do," said Akane. "What does your heart tell you, Shinji?"

Shinji sighs and points to the left path.

"That we should go left, but something feels off," he explained as best he could.

"What do you mean by 'off'?" Miyuki asked him.

"Something's down there…that shouldn't be."

"Like a threat?" Taka questioned.

"Don't know for sure; it just doesn't register as hostile."

"Some things never do," went Haruka, "but if it's the left we should go down, then we should face whatever challenge is down there."

The teens went down the left path…and found something in their way that was unlike what they had previously encountered since entering the labyrinth. In front of them was a…slide or sorts that led down a dark space.

"Aw, jeez," they sighed.

"We'll go the other way," Shinji told them as he turned to go back. "Oh!"

Something dark and massive appeared…and shoved all five of them down the slide.

"Aaaaahh!" They screamed as they slid down into the darkness.

-x-

Gendo was losing his patience with the acquisition of the Third Child. As he sat in his office, waiting for confirmation that the boy had been apprehended, he thought of this Clow Reed man that took guardianship over his son and turned him against what had been intended. It was as though, despite the immense importance of his scenario to have the boy in Tokyo-3 to pilot the Eva against the Angels, there were these…distractions that came up to impede his progress. And even his own son constantly felt like a distraction of his own making because of how he refused to cooperate for the sake of the human race.

"For your sake, it's my intention that we never meet again after today," he recalls Shinji telling him after their second meeting for the second time in the years they had been estranged.

If Gendo had to, he would take away these distractions that gave Shinji stability and make sure he had nowhere else to call his home, even if it meant taking away the people he had come to trust more than anything else in his young life.

"You do that, and you risk something else far greater than what you seek," he heard a man's voice say to him, as he looked in front of him and saw a man that resembled the one that had been looking after the Third Child, dressed in strange, dark robes, like some sort of fortune teller or magician. "There are other forces at work than what you understand at a most rudimentary level, Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari."

"And who might you be?" Gendo demanded from him.

"I…am the man that looks after your son, Shinji Ikari, who has grown to be considerably exceptional in the years since you left him."

If this man was Clow Reed, then an opportunity may have presented itself in front of Gendo, however unusual this was right now.

"How did you get in here?" He wanted to know, only because he needed time to reach into his desk and pull something out.

"You wouldn't believe me, even if I did tell you," Clow Reed responded, "and I wouldn't try to reach for that firearm in your desk."

Gendo paused as he looked at the man that had interfered with his attempts to control the boy.

"Your interest in your son is very displeasing, sir, and it only taints his future further when he needs to be able to rise above the hurt you have caused him in his past," Clow told him. "He feels that you are…constantly out to get him when he has expressed no interest in what you do here…and it's putting undue pressure on him. Why are you so intent on him coming back here when he has made his choice to refuse you?"

"He should know by now that refusing to cooperate with NERV has repercussions."

"For who, exactly? For Shinji…or for yourself? Shinji, if it's him that has these repercussions, already knows you enough to not know you at all due to your lack of concerns toward him and your disinterest in his professional and personal lives. He does have a future away from you, but you seem intent on making sure he doesn't get to pursue it."

"I don't need to justify my business to anyone that dares to interfere with NERV's affairs. All you need to understand is that it is a mandatory requirement for the boy to be here, in Tokyo-3. Any failure to realize this will result in actions that will not be subtle."

"And what is this…mandatory requirement of yours that requires you to have Shinji here? Why Shinji when you must have others that can do what he doesn't want to?"

"It's not for you to know anything."

Clow's face never faltered in his expression towards Gendo; he wasn't intimidated in the slightest by this man's desire to have Shinji returned to NERV.

"And should something happen that results in Shinji being unable to do anything?" He wanted to know. "Something like an…accident, a coincidence of fate that leaves him incapacitated in a sense that hinders your business at NERV?"

"That's a small price to pay to ensure mankind's future," Gendo responded, and reached into his desk for his gun.

"I'd rather fade away from this life than to do what you want of me," he heard Shinji say to him as he appeared in front of him beside Clow Reed.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded.

"I simply need to say it to you in person that what you want me to do isn't worth the trouble you're trying to cause me."

"We don't have time for your foolishness, boy."

"And I'm through with your arrogance, Father. Do you honestly think I will just submit to you just because you tell me lies instead of the truth? Even if you told me the truth, I still wouldn't get back into that thing. It hurts in that monstrosity you and Mother made. It's miserable in that monstrosity you and Mother made. It has over one-hundred ways to make you feel like there's no escaping the horrors you both helped to unleash, and every single one of them is terrible! You want someone to pilot it? You do it if you want it working so much! I will not get back into that abomination, and there's nothing you can say or do to convince me otherwise."

That's when Gendo raised his gun at Clow Reed and pulled the trigger.

Bang! He shot Clow in his left shoulder…but neither he or the boy showed any signs of faltering from the fact that he opened fire upon the guardian.

"Really?" Shinji questioned. "I tell you I won't do as you say, and you think shooting my guardian will change my mind?"

Gendo then aimed at Shinji.

"No means no, Father," he told Gendo.

"I'm not giving you a choice, boy," Gendo replied.

"Then shoot me," Shinji uttered in spite, stepping towards him. "Shoot me!"

He saw Shinji raise his hands up to grab the gun from him, and he pulled the trigger, shooting Shinji in his neck. Blood splattered his face as his son fell to the floor.

"You killed him," said Clow in disappointment. "You really killed him. You truly are a terrible person, undeserving of him."

Gendo then saw Clow raise up a sword at him.

Slash! Clow swung the sword at him and sent him falling backwards onto the floor.

Gasp! Gendo looked around, seeing that he was alone in his office.

"What?" He went; there were no signs of the Third Child or his guardian.

Was he dreaming the whole thing?

"No means no, Father," Shinji's voice echoed. "I'd rather fade away from this life than to do what you want."

He pulled open the drawer to his desk and checked his gun. Strangely enough, it still had a full magazine rather than missing a bullet.

"Your interest in your son is very displeasing, sir, and it only taints his future further when he needs to be able to rise above the hurt you have caused him in his past," Clow's voice echoed.

He refused to let anyone, some dream, even his own subconscious…make him go against his goals. Unless the Angels were dealt with…and unless the Third Child was involved in their defeat, there was no future for any of them.

-x-

Clow had to admit that he had encountered people over the ages that were inevitable threats waiting to happen, but he didn't expect Gendo Ikari to be so unyielding that even a dream where he shot and killed his own son to prove ineffective in swaying his judgment. His use of The Dream Card had failed in shifting his focus and confirmed that Gendo, despite his actions, was devoid of any actual guilt from anything he did to harm others. As he sat his desk, the powerful magician felt shame in being unable to help Shinji be free of his father's maddening obsession with making his son pilot the Eva. The only other alternative that was harsher than a violent dream was a violent attack…but Clow couldn't do that without it affecting Shinji…and he wasn't going to do that unless Shinji could accept such an idea.

"So, he refused to stand aside?" Yue asked him.

"Yes," he answered back. "He is unyielding. But that isn't the worst part of who he is. He has no remorse for his actions. No remorse, no capacity for guilt or shame, no empathy. He is committed to making Shinji serve him, no matter what he has to do, even if it means crossing the line and destroying his life here."

"And if this father were to destroy his life here?"

"If that were to happen," they both heard the voice of Cerberus as he laid on the couch, "not only would Shinji's balance be off due to the instability his father caused…but Shinji wouldn't be the same if he lost the people in his life that gave him stability. He could become bitter, questioning what beliefs he held…or have the desire for revenge against his father…all because he refused to accept that his son wanted nothing to do with his agenda."

Clow didn't deny these possibilities; because Shinji was at the age where his emotions were both his blessing and bane, even the thought of losing just one of his friends because of his father, or even his own mother, since she was also a cruel factor in this wicked game, he would lose a part of himself that he couldn't regain because of the hurt he would be feeling. Even if he knew everything that would happen before it ever happened, even if he exposed his parents for the villains they hid themselves from the world as, Clow feared that Shinji would still suffer from their deceit, their drive, their desperation to fulfill the cruelest of dark destinies.

"Master," went Yue. "With your permission, what if this Gendo Ikari was met with an accident of his own that nobody could explain?"

"Except that we'd know, Yue," Cerberus told him; no matter how much they disliked Shinji's father, even if Shinji himself openly admitted to hating him for his choices, they couldn't just go and dispose of someone that had yet to openly attack them…simply because they were either a hindrance or disliked them for some reason or another. "Even if we could justify our actions, we wouldn't be able to look at Shinji the same way again. He wouldn't be able to look at us the same way again."

Even Clow knew this to be true. And no matter how much Yue was willing to, he couldn't condone murder as a first resort, only as an absolute last resort when nothing else worked.

"No, Yue," he told his lunar incarnation. "Gendo Ikari's a monster among people, but he gets to keep breathing…for now."

Yue bowed his head and put the matter aside.

-x-

Fluttering his eyes, Shinji came to back in the maze, seeing his friends regaining consciousness alongside him, seeing said maze in a new light.

"I can't believe this," he utters as Akane shook her head.

"What?" She asked, and saw what he saw. "Son of a… This is madness."

All around them, the maze was no longer just long passageways. Now, there were a multitude of stairways leading everywhere and nowhere, open and closed doorways and arch bridges.

"This isn't madness," Miyuki claimed. "This is a nightmare."

"This is Hellraiser-level insanity," Taka added.

"This was already Hellraiser before we even set foot in this place," Haruka stated. "It's a new configuration to test our tolerance."

"Yeah? Well, I got zero tolerance right now," Akane declared. "Yo, maze! I got zero tolerance for what you're doing here! You hear me?! I got zero!"

Swoosh! A dark feeling came over each of them.

"Ugh!" Shinji groaned, looking down the arch bridge they were standing on…and saw something far from them. "Hey."

The other teens looked where he had, seeing a fleeing form.

"There's someone else here in the maze with us?" Haruka questioned.

"Or something," went Miyuki; just because they saw the fleeing shape, it didn't necessarily mean that they saw a person in the traditional sense. "Not everything is what it seems to be."

"Maybe if we find it, it'll show us how to locate the exit of this place," Taka hoped.

"Yeah, I'm getting hungry, and I'm not cool when I'm hungry," Miyuki reminded them.

"None of us are cool when we're hungry," Shinji agreed with her.

They walked down the archway bridge towards a flight of steps to where they saw whatever it was that they saw fleeing from their sight. Each time they looked up at what passed for a sky, they were reminded of how far they were from Tomoeda and desired only to get back to their hometown where the familiarity of their surroundings brought them comfort.

"Hey, Shinji," went Akane, "we should probably talk about what we saw earlier."

"Why?" Shinji asked her.

"Put the water under the bridge, Shinji," Haruka stated. "Even though it was only an illusion, we saw how it affected you. We saw that illusion of you inside that thing. That's not going away any time soon by just ignoring it."

"That's something I try not to think about at all," Shinji expressed. "I don't want to think about that or my parents."

"Yeah, we can understand that you got the worst deal out of anyone born into this stupid century because of what people from the previous century chose to do, but you're doing something that they don't like to consider at all, which is not truly wrong of you to do," said Taka. "You're refusing to listen to what they want you to do. I mean, you only took out one monster, and you said you were done after that, and you meant it. The fact that your old man can't accept that means that he's setting everything he knows by something he believes has to happen, which gives you the edge over your parents."

"It's a small boon that barely works for me, Taka."

"Still, you're the one that's taking charge," Akane added. "If this is some prophecy that they're following because they choose to, then it means you can reject it until it passes. If they're on a schedule, ruin it for them; if things need to happen on a particular day, don't give in to them. I'll help you mess them up."

"Adolescent rebellion at its finest finest for us teen mages," said Miyuki.

Shinji looked around where they saw the fleeing form and saw nothing of any significance. Until he felt something that was…familiar and disturbing.

"Akane," he uttered to his friend, and she knelt beside him on the ground where he had his left hand pressed onto, "does this feel unusual to you?"

She pressed her right hand to the ground and did feel an unusual sensation. She couldn't say for sure, but it felt like a sombre sensation, like an overflowing degree of sadness.

"Shinji, this…this feels like you when you're depressed about something," she told Shinji.

He looked at her and replied, "Not like this. It's like…someone lost in the darkness, alone."

"That's a bad feeling," Haruka stated. "To be lost in the darkness, alone and without any sense of direction leading towards a place of relief is the worst feeling one can have."

"Something or something lost in this maze, a variation of the darkness…with no proper direction leading towards some sign of absolution?" Taka suggested. "But…how could anyone or anything feel lost here? There's a multitude of directions one can take here. It's like a puzzle, and it offers choices of which way to take."

"Except that whoever or whatever is wandering around this place," Shinji came to in his realization, "feels like they have no choice. They can wander around for a long time…but they can't find what they're looking for. Even if they know the solution is present, they wouldn't be able to find it. A puzzle without its solution…and the person that tries to solve it but can't."

"That's…just awful," Akane expressed.

"Awful…" They all heard a male voice nearby, behind an archway. "Wanting to find the way out…but being unable to. Try as you might to escape your undesired fate, you can't ever pass through a gateless gate."

A figure emerged from behind one of the archways, revealing themselves to be a cloaked person, with strands of long hair poking out of the hood. They looked somewhat like a woman, even down to the obscured face, but something was off about them.

"Are you…the one that pushed us down that slide?" Shinji asked.

"I am…sorry," they said, in that male voice they heard.

"You're…a man?" Haruka questioned.

"Both…and neither. Lost…and found. Imperfect…yet not perfect."

"I think this is…or was…a trans person," suggested Miyuki. "How long have you been like this? Wandering in this maze, I mean?"

"For years, maybe even decades. I have lost all sense of time. I lost my life when the darkness of fire washed over me in the shores of my home. The skies were red and people were screaming as tidal waves swept away all that I know. What happened?"

"Do you…have a name?" Shinji asked them.

"I don't remember my name. I can't remember anything before the day everything was taken."

"The day everything was taken?"

"September Thirteenth, Two-Thousand."

All five teens looked at one another in disturbing realization; this spiritual entity was a victim of Second Impact. It was likely that they were a legion of victims from that day, condensed into something confused and left to wander without end.

"Second Impact," Haruka sighs. "It's been fifteen years since that awful day."

"Nearly fifty-four-hundred-seventy-five days have passed to that horrid tragedy," Miyuki added.

"It was horrid," said Shinji, "but it wasn't a tragedy. A tragedy is unexpected. That day was intended by people that don't deserve to get away with their crimes."

"Someone…caused that horror…on purpose?" The spiritual being asked. "Why? Why?!"

"Some people are…just evil when they want something they know they shouldn't have," Taka explained. "Some people are just…plain evil."

"Try as you might to escape your fate, you can't pass through a gateless gate. There is no gate to pass for someone that is no longer alive."

Shinji didn't want to believe that this applied to him, as well; as much as he tried to defy his own fate, forced upon him by his parents, he couldn't escape their cold and upsetting manipulations of him, no matter what he did, no matter where he went…or hid, even. But he was here, nowhere near Tokyo-3, near his parents, and he refused to be manipulated by them to decide the fate of the world he lived in when it was unfair to the people he valued above himself. If he let his parents win, he'd be robbing himself of his friends and robbing themselves of their lives, and he couldn't take any of that from them.

"Please," the spirit begged. "I don't want to be here, anymore."

"We don't want to be here, anymore, either," Akane responded. "If there is an exit to this labyrinth, we have to find it and leave. The sooner we find that exit, the sooner we can all leave and go home."

The spiritual being raised their left arm and pointed down towards an archway bridge below the one they were on.

"We should…try that way," they told the teens.

"Okay," went Shinji, and the five followed the spirit.

-x-

Going over the Third Child's personal file again, Ritsuko found the boy to be an extremely unusual person that led an unusually simplistic life in this Tomoeda. Despite his lack of parental bonds with his parents, he had a life that was anchored in his presence in this strange town that his guardian resided in, with these people he grew up with. If he had nobody to treat him as a person with a semblance of actual concern or respect, Ritsuko suspected that Shinji would've likely turned out the way NERV would've preferred without much difficulty, but Shinji seemed to have other issues that were not like those of regular people; based solely on this other picture NERV had acquired of Shinji, he looked like he had something else on his mind.

The only other person that can pilot Unit-01…and instead of cooperating with NERV against the Angels, he would rather be in this town with these people doing the things we take for granted, she thought as she wondered what it was that made it so that this young man would seem so…different from what they had expected of him to be when he showed up that day the Third Angel attacked. What is your deal, Shinji Ikari? What are you hiding?

She might've been among the smartest minds within NERV, but the answer to who Shinji Ikari really was eluded her. Try as she might, there were still pieces to this mosaic that was the son of Gendo and Yui Ikari, and those were probably the pieces that needed to be understood in order to fully comprehend the puzzle, to decipher the equation once all of the variables were in place. She couldn't solve this puzzle without the remaining pieces of information that was not in her possession to exploit.

-x-

Crash! Shinji pulled Akane back before she fell into a hole in front of them.

"Son of a…" She gasped, looking down at the shifting walls under the flooring. "What the Hell is this maze's problem?!"

"Well, you are the one that has zero tolerance towards this place," Miyuki stated. "I don't blame you for saying such; I'm starting to lose my tolerance towards it, too."

"We're all getting frustrated with this place," went Shinji, looking at his right hand. "We don't like it in here…and we don't want to be here, anymore."

"I need to go," Taka told them.

"Huh?" Haruka went, confused.

"There's no bathroom in this maze!"

"And we don't have any soap and water," Miyuki told him.

Suddenly, the walls started to shift around them.

"I am not going through this again!" Shinji stated, summoning his staff from his key. "Release!"

Smash! He jammed the base of his staff against one of the walls and caused everything else to grind to a halt.

"You…really shouldn't have done that," the spiritual being told Shinji as he started looking through the cards he had on him.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," he responded, "and I am becoming desperate to get us all out of here. If this place is like The Maze Clow Card, then it hates anyone who tries to break the rules regarding the finding and reaching of the exit. But what if we don't break the rules it enforces at all? We don't try to fly out or break any of its walls."

"It's not like we can just go to the exit without being forced to play some game for a faceless gamekeeper, Shinji," Haruka told him, and saw him levitate two of his cards. "What are you doing, Shinji?"

Shinji gripped his staff and looked at his friends.

"When you start to feel like you have the flames of Hell on your back, you should grab a hand and be prepared to move," he told them. "Are y'all ready?"

They looked at him and his two chosen cards.

"I said…are y'all ready?" He repeated.

Akane walked over to him and placed her right hand on his shoulder.

"Whenever you're ready, Shinji," she told him. "Lead the way."

"Do it, Shinji," Taka added.

"If we're going to break out," went Miyuki, "let's do it now."

"Bust a move, Shinji," Haruka expressed, and Shinji nodded.

"Conceal!" Shinji called out, pulling his staff out of the floor and tapping one of his cards, activating it and releasing a mist that spread across the place, obscuring their vision a little. "Everyone hold onto someone!"

Akane held Shinji's left hand and grabbed Taka's right hand, Taka grabbed Miyuki's left hand, Miyuki held onto the spiritual being, who grabbed onto Haruka's right hand.

"Ready?" Shinji asked them.

"Ready!" They all responded.

"Quickening!" He called out, activating the second card. "Here goes!"

Shinji moved, and he took everyone with him. He used The Conceal Shinji Card to cloak their presence from the senses of the labyrinth, and then The Quickening Shinji Card to make them move as fast as possible to locate the exit. While he didn't have much practice with The Quickening, he refused to let his past usage of the card weigh down on him. To escape the maze, he needed to do what he could to contribute to their departure methods. Tapping his staff against the walls at random moments, removing the mist from his front to get momentary glimpses of his location, Shinji let himself be vulnerable for a moment just to see where the corners and passageways were, either to turn around or press on.

Tap…tap…tap…tap… The periodic taps either got louder or quieter, depending on where he tapped his staff, with the mist revealing either a space to move further along or a dead end. But Shinji didn't let the dead ends detour him. Running as fast as he could, it felt like the world around himself had been shrinking with every second.

"I want to show him the bright future ahead for humanity," his mother's voice echoed in his mind. "I want to show him the bright future."

Except that it's not a future I want to be a part of, he thought as he stopped, brought up his staff and aimed it to whatever was in front of them all. I don't care about the future of the human race. I can't concern myself with the sake of the world. I have to concern myself with what's in front of me, beside me, behind me. Maybe you want a brighter future, Mother, but that could be anything that suits you…and I don't see where I fit in that future you want. But I'll say this much.

He then hurled his staff like a javelin and waited for a sign.

"I refuse to let my fate be decided by people I don't trust with my life!" He shouted, and the mist faded away, revealing them to be in a circular space with four paths to take.

His staff had landed on the ground in front of a pathway that was different from the other three; there was a tree that they could see, and the sky was dark with shades of gray.

"Is that…" Akane spoke.

"Yes," went Haruka. "Yes, it is!"

"The exit!" Miyuki gasped. "You did it, Shinji!"

"Let's get out of this place!" Taka expressed, and they all ran for it.

To be continued…

A/N: Sorry it took long to get back to this story. Even after I finished watching someone, I still have to watch them for several hours in a day, and it's annoying because they behave like an invalid, always asking the same questions, needing to be told the same thing, over and over again. Anyway, what do you think about Shinji and his friends? What do you think about the spirit they found in the labyrinth? Any questions, I'd like to hear from you.