Hey guys, I'm back. Quick update this time.
{
For the reviewer 'Mac' . First, thank you for reviewing. I appreciate it.
Now, to your questions.
For Mari's condition. My friend, I ask that you suspend your disbelief. You have already suspended it for massive alien beings with an unlimited power source(S2 engine) which makes no sense, and a world where SEELE and Nerv exist with only young teenagers being able to pilot clones of said alien beings. Please, I'm not asking much.
As to your question, 'what exactly is the point of these incredibly long flashbacks to OG Shinji's life after 3I?'
- To show the backstory of the Original Shinji, his character development, and the plot that led to the new timeline, The Unraveling. My friend, The Broken Man is NOT a plot device. He is a full fledged character with his own arc, his own feelings and development. And to also show the Post Impact World, there is more that happens.
If you have any further questions, feel free to message me. :D
}
This is the plot chapter. A lot happens. May seem slow, but stick with it.
Here is chapter 27 'The Broken Man'
"I am older now than anyone I've ever known. Older than both my parents, older than Misato or Kaji.
Funny, I never really had any kind of 'real' parent, Misato tried but she was only human. I understand that now. I do. For I've lived enough to know what those words mean.
A longer life isn't always a better one. In the end you just get tired. Tired of the struggle, of the ups and downs, the highs and the lows. That's what my life always was in the end. The world giving and taking, more taking than giving. Any happiness brief and blissfully, before that too died.
Always alone in the end. That was always my fate, eh? Last of the Eva pilots, and for a time the last human on the planet. Like I was doomed to be the last. To be alone. Damned since the day I was born.
I did not want to live this way."
- the broken man.
Part 1: Sign
The Other Timeline
Memories of the Original Shinji
27 years after Third Impact
There were good times, and bad times, as the years passed in Haven. Shinji's new 'family' living as best they could in the village. They had a few run ins with another set of looters here and there, but Kay and the militia always kept them at bay.
Shinji going out with the village men to defend their homes, Mari staying behind with his daughter, watching over her until he returned.
It was a point of conflict for her, Mari always wanting to make up for her past, Shinji trying do right by the both of them. Caring for his lover, and for his child. Never forgetting the haunting image of his father, taunting him from beyond the grave, years ago.
Akane got older, reaching her teenage years, becoming more involved, going hunting with her father, taking on more responsibilities. Shinji and Mari getting older, 41 and 44 years old.
Life had always been mixed for Shinji. A series of high points and low points, giving and taking from him. Taking more than giving, in his view. One tragedy to the next, pulling himself back and trying to forge onward with his life. Trying to find another glimmer in the dark, a place where he might be happy in his life.
But like the rest of his life… happiness was fleeting and hard times lay ahead.
…
The father and daughter walked carefully through the woods, that small forest like area that blended with the steep mountainous terrain surrounding Haven. Rifle in hand, whilst Akane carried her bow and arrow, notched and eyes on the look out.
"The deer keep moving further and further away. I don't get it" Akane was saying, chatting as she stayed close to her father. Pale white skin, her mother's eyes and her father's hair, 15 years old and already trying to act like a grown up.
Shinji trekking along, noticing it too.
It was getting harder and harder for them to hunt these days. All this time they'd managed to do alright, never hunting enough to drive off the game completely, but maybe the deer were finally learning. Somehow, Shinji doubted it.
Just a bad feeling... like the animals knew things that humans did not.
"We might have to call it a day, girl. Kay doesn't like us staying out so late anymore. Can never be too careful" Shinji called after her. His voice a bit deeper and rougher with age, and the beginnings of grey in his hair, rougher skin, deeper scars on his hands.
Akane tilted her head at him. Red eyes beaming at up at him, braided hair up behind her so it wouldn't get in the way while hunting, and fighting the urge to roll her eyes at him. She'd recently started to get annoyed with that term, like she wanted to prove she wasn't a kid anymore.
It's a term of affection, girl. You're 15, not 30 he thought.
She looked more and more like her mother with each passing day, yet full of life. Not bound by the conditioning of Rei's early years.
"You worry too much, dad." Akane said shaking her head and turning to scout ahead.
Shinji gripped his rifle tight at the sound of a bird moving through the trees.
Got away he thought disappointedly, as the bird flew off further into the wilderness.
THUD
An arrow flew through the air, striking the bird just as it had disappeared. Shinji turned to see his daughter smirking, bow held tight, arrow having flown true with a shot that would made her auntie proud. That was worthy of her mother.
The bird landed with an audible thud, and she turned to him trying to hide her expression. Her anxious want of his approval, to acknowledge that she could help him now. That she could hunt with the best of them, that she was almost an adult.
Shinji managed a weak smile, saying "good shot... girl."
Akane chuckled softly under her breath. Her old man was never going to let that go, and maybe that was okay after all. She had proved her point.
He followed after her in search of the bird she'd shot down. What they found surprised them, the bird lying where it had fallen, arrow through its chest... and a sliver of frost beside it. Ice.
"Sorry little guy." Akane was saying, nodding to the bird she'd shot. Shinji stopping at the sight, and looking up just as his daughter noticed it too.
The frozen water along the tree branch. Just a smudge of white along the faded green. A chill wind breezing by them, sending Akane shivering before she shook it off.
"Only ice. Winter's coming, but we already knew that" Akane said turning back to the bird she'd shot.
Shinji watched the minuscule ice along the tree branch, and couldn't shake the feeling in his bones. Seeing it here in Haven so soon made him anxious, and he didn't know why.
… he remembered those times when winter came. The first time had been harsh, but they'd managed in Misato's old apartment, and then later... after the Fall... on the road to Haven the cold had chased them for months at a time. Harsh and unforgiving, always at their backs...
"Akane" Shinji called, pulling her attention back to him. She looked up, her prey in hand, bow sheathed over her shoulder.
"We should head back… daylight is running out, and its getting colder" he said, his voice distant and off somehow.
Akane knew her father did that from time to time. Of the world, but not 'in' it. With the only exception being her.
"But we need meat. You go, I'll catch up later and I-" Akane began.
"No… we should get back inside" Shinji said, and something about his eyes made Akane pause.
She'd seen that look in her father before. When he remembered things from his youth, bad things, harsh times before he had found Haven.
"Alright." Akane said slowly, carefully. Uneasy at her father's tension. Before playing it off by shrugging and adding "but you have to tell Mari why 'this' ", she held her up bird.
"was all the meat we could get" Akane said gesturing at the small frame that was her catch. A feeble offering, a single meal at most.
Rice for dinner again.
"Leave that to me. We can handle a few days without meat" Shinji said, relived that she had listened to him without a fight. He turned gesturing for Akane to follow, and together they trekked out of the woods heading home.
Yet he felt it. An ache in his bones that wouldn't leave. It made his bad hand hurt.
…
Shinji dreamed that night.
Only his dreams had stopped being dreams a long time ago. They were like scars, and had been for years. Visions and nigh terrors that ate at him when they came. Coming and going as they pleased, he hadn't had a good night's rest since his wife died.
Shinji was… he didn't know where he was. Somewhere dark.
As if submerged in the water. Deep into the ocean. Pitch black.
Then Shinji was gone.
He was standing on an abandoned shore. There but not there. As if watching from a distance, yet seeing it with perfect clarity.
A figure was visible… a lingering shadow of a man. Incompletely somehow. The same being that Shinji had glimpsed before. Never quite understanding what it was.
The being was wounded. Crouching low before raising up, flailing, as if reaching higher for something, raising through the dark abyss to the shore... One arm missing.
The figure in the dark roaring silently.
It had no mouth, and yet it screamed.
An incomplete shadow landed upon the shore, jerking in agony as it forced itself forward. Contaminated water from the red sea, dripping down its abnormal form. Standing for the first time in what seemed like years... it rose to its mangled and deformed legs.
Half its face missing, hardened bone peeking out along the cracks of its flesh, exposed muscle somehow visible in the dark.
The being flailed. Reaching out its hands, raised as if in prayer, and... and a blinding light emerged. Hurting Shinji's eyes as he tried to look away. He could feel his skin tingling at the sensation, as if the light was burning him and the lands around him.
The dream just wouldn't end. Was it a dream at all?
The figure was gone. The shadows blown to smithereens, ripped apart, the form tearing away to reveal what was underneath. Growing in size, seeming to regenerate into something 'more' than it had been moments go.
A Giant of Light emerging. Standing tall over the shore, the size of an Evangelion. Unfolding itself into 'being', materializing at the scorched earth where the shadow had risen.
Half its face missing. No eyes at all, but deep empty sockets and the crude lining of its mouth. Left arm almost whole, exposed muscle visible amid the glowing white of its skin. A pale stump where it's right should have been.
It can't be... an Angel... no... they died... Shinji thought. Unable to move, unable to wake, trapped in this dream. In this night terror.
The Giant of Light breathed harshly, the air itself seeming to cool around him, the 'being' taking slow deliberate steps through the shoreline.
THUD
THUD
THUD
The earth shook as the Angel moved.
Adam turning its glowing white deformed face, turning its head to look down at him. It was like witnessing a force of nature itself. Raw power displayed in a grizzled frame. Like watching the beating heart of a dying star.
The Angel seeing Shinji with its non-existent eyes, watching him through the deep eyeless sockets planted on its cleaved and unhealed face.
And Shinji could feel it... the absolute hatred of the being looming over him.
The wind blew and a harsh chill crept along Shinji's back. As if all the warmth in the world was being drained away, stolen.
Shinji stumbled back in the dream. Finding himself on the shore as well. Landing in the barren mud, he could feel the damp surface on his hands. Could hear the air itself hissing as the Angel breathed, seething.
Adam raised a hand, a balled fist, the weather changing with a hiss of air that bit at Shinji. The grounds beginning to ice over, frost emerging and cracking stone...
Shinji's head hurt. Like tiny blades were cutting through his brain tissue. It made him want to scream, he tried to stand but fell to his knees in agony.
Someone or something was standing behind him. Watching him as the Angel loomed over him.
"Shinji!"
Stop... stop... ack! Make it stop! He thought, his head felt like it was going to explode.
…
Shinji woke to find Mari leaning over him. Worried and concerned face pressed just above his, eyes wide, her hands on his face.
"... What happened?" he panted in the dark.
Warm liquid was running down his face. Blood. His blood. Another nosebleed, and a violent one at that.
"You were screaming" a voice called, emerging from the darkened doorway. Akane Ikari moving to her father's side, Mari looking him up and down just as shocked as Shinji was.
There was sweat on his forehead, and Shinji sat up breathing softly. Mari and Akane watching him carefully.
"You're bleeding..." Akane said, hands over her mouth at the sight of his face.
He raised a hand shaking off their help, and instead got out of bed and washed his face. The blood wiping away even as he breathed slow deliberate breathes.
"Shinji… it looked like you were having a seizure? Shinji, I know what it's like-" Mari began, concerned edge to her voice. The two girls following him into the bathroom even as he calmed himself.
"I'll be fine" he cut in. Leaning against the wall for support, heart still beating harshly in his chest. The memory of the Angel looming over him, fresh in his mind.
"Dad you need to see Makio what if its-" Akane said, the teenager shaking her head at him and moving to his side.
"Just need some air" he said, cutting her off. Avoiding their gaze. Akane tilting her head at him, seeing that same look in her father's eyes. The look that told her that he was remembering something from his past. Something that scared him.
Mari tried to follow, but Akane stopped the older woman. Letting Shinji step outside and breathe quietly by himself. He loved his daughter for that, and so much more.
Just a dream… nothing more… can't be real… not an Angel…. It can't be. They're all gone now. Evas and Angels, SEELE and Nerv, it's been almost thirty years. Shinji thought. His bad hand shaking, a small tremor that started when he'd woken.
He sat there on the porch, knowing Akane and Mari were worried for him. Yet that wasn't what bothered him.
It was the snow.
He looked up when the first pebble landed on his head. Looked up to see the small bits of white powder falling from the night sky. Snow emerging from the evening.
A cold chill seeping into the village that sent Shinji on edge.
Akane stepped out to join him, staring open mouthed at it. None of their winters had been that bad in a long time. No snow for years. Not since she was just a little girl. The abnormal climate of the Post Impact world.
Part 2 : Winter
That had been the first sign. The ice forming along the trees, and the snow falling from the night sky.
It only get colder and colder. Snow falling, coating the mountainous terrain and woods in a sheet of white, beginning to flood into the village of Haven itself. Covering their crops, an act that the community spent hours every day dealing with, shoveling the snow clear.
Mari kept saying that it would clear up just like all the other times. The other families in Haven said the same, everyone going about their days in the snow. But Shinji wasn't so certain.
And he didn't sleep well since that night. Since the night terror.
Mari was afraid he was like her. That he was getting 'sick', and after her pleading he finally went to see doctor Makio. The good man hadn't been able to find anything, given their limited resources, but he believed Shinji was relatively healthy.
That still didn't stop Mari worrying about him. Akane, having known her father longer, knew that he would shake it off. Her father always did.
Her concerns were his, the weather.
Akane noticed the changed in Shinji even before Mari did. The anxious look in his eyes… It wasn't long before that look appeared in the others' faces as well.
The winter just didn't stop. Two weeks past and the snow just kept coming. Akane huddling up with her father and Mari, just to stay warm at night. The three sleeping with their clothes on.
...
The tremor in Shinji's hand re-emerging at night, a cold reminder, yet he tried to forget what he saw. The figure of a Giant of Light. Just a nightmare.
For if he was wrong… no… he couldn't consider that. And all Haven ever saw was the harsh winters of their world. Nothing that couldn't be dealt with. It just couldn't be what Shinji had seen in his nightmares. It couldn't.
That's what Shinji liked to tell himself.
His thoughts made no difference in the eyes of winter.
…
The river stream started to freeze. The main source of water and fish for Haven.
The entire village seeming to disappear under the sheet of white, snow and ice emerging from the harsh winds that swept through the lands. Even with the mountainous terrain shielding the village, the cold came at them.
What animals remained in the woods started to vanish, the creatures leaving in search of someplace warm but finding none.
The crops started to fail. You can't farm with frost coating itself over the soil.
It wasn't long before the mayor and the sheriff began calling for everyone to prepare to hunker down in the caves. To retreat from the village until the winter had passed, bringing as much food and supplies as they could.
In her entire life, Akane had only ever experienced 'this' once. Haven's population hiding out in the caves for safety. Mari had never done it all. Both of them listening to Shinji as he told them what to pack up, leaving their shack, their home, to take shelter with the others.
The entire village emptying out of its people. The homes abandoned.
One month into winter
Living in the caves was not a pleasant experience. There was room enough for them, but it could be cramped at times. Haven may not have had electricity, but the caves were like stepping even further back in time. The stone age.
No washing clothes, no bathing, and the fires never quite kept the cold at bay.
Shinji and the sheriff Kay would leave the caves every few days or so, and see how the surface was doing. It was not a pleasant sight.
The winds that met them were so harsh that it nearly blew them back. When it died down, the two men would climb out again to find the land covered in frost, icy snow that seemed to wipe away the feeble attempts man had made for 'civilization' after the end of the world.
"How is it out there?" Mari would ask him when he returned.
Shinji huddled for warmth beside his daughter, his lover, and what passed for a camp fire. Shivering from his scouting of the outside, he looked up at her.
"It'll get better" Shinji lied. His voice shaking from the cold.
Akane and Mari didn't say it, but he thought they could tell what he was lying.
"Here dad, have some stew. Take some of mine" Akane said offering what food she could
"Thanks girl, but you keep that. Don't worry about me" Shinji told her instead.
She made a face at him but didn't argue. Knowing her father well enough to know it wasn't a fight she could win. He wouldn't take her food from her, and that was that.
The hardest winter Haven had ever known.
And five months into it, the worst possible thing that could happen… did.
Shinji should have been more careful. Seven years since she had moved in with them, and it finally happened. Taking root just before the winter had started again. All this time... He'd been so careful, or so he had thought.
Mari was pregnant.
She came to him, nervous and anxious, shuddering in the cold, and pulling him aside to talk. Akane sleeping back at their corner of the caves. And when Mari told him, Shinji had frozen.
Standing on unsteady feet. Grounding himself as he took a deep breath, Mari clung to him and he let her. Worried and afraid for the future. Of the winter that had raged on for over a month, with no sign of stopping.
…
"I'm going to be a big sister…" was all Akane had said when she'd found out. 15 years old, and she was already planning out how to help with the newest member of the family. A bright spot for Akane, in the bitter cold that ate at them everyday.
Makio, the town doctor, and his wife did what they could to help. Pleading with the other village folk in the caves for extra food. Mari needing to eat for two.
Shinji and Akane doing what they could to keep Mari warm. Bundling up their blankets and cuddling with her to share body heat at night.
…
Five months into winter
Things were bad. Leaving the caves was like entering a whole other world.
Haven almost washed away by the climate, frost littering the fields were once crops had thrived. So much work undone in a matter of months… 'home' being stripped away from them.
Sickness was the hardest part.
It had started during the first onslaught of this particular horror of winter. Humans were never meant to live in the cold for extended periods of time. Only technology allowed mankind to survive such terrains, and Post Impact... that tech was a relic of the past.
By the fifth month people were severely sick. The caves providing what shelter it could, but it just wasn't enough after so long.
Intense fever, hypothermia, and the signs of frost bite that even Makio had fallen victim to. With Haven's doctor bedridden and resting near one the camp fires, it fell to his wife Kioko to tend to them.
Shinji tried to make the best of the things. Always looking after Akane and Mari, the three of them huddling together in their little corner of the caves.
Mari suffering the worst. Carrying a child within her, eating what food was given to her, and dealing with her condition. Her small seizures that plagued her even now. The poor woman unable to move for several minutes until it passed, her head throbbing in agony.
There was nothing Shinji could do. So he held her until it passed. One hand in hers, and the other in his daughter's grasp.
Part 3 : A Father's Burden
Akane got sick too.
It started small, an uncontrolled shiver here and there, the stiffness in her limbs, her pale skin showing signs of exposed blue. The early symptoms of severe Hypothermia.
"Dad… I don't… I don't feel well" she told him one day. Before collapsing and falling into a deep fever, just like so many others. Shinji catching her with wide eyes, holding her close and bringing her to the camp fires.
"Akane!" Shinji had cried out.
Mari gasping as she went to his side. Putting a hand to Akane's forehead, Mari's pregnancy slowing her down.
…
Shinji was the one who decided that he had to do something.
There was another settlement, much smaller than Haven, that they had traded with many times. A small collection of houses that made medicine from the ingredients they could get from nature, whatever remained in the households, or what was traded. It wasn't much, but it was something.
Mari tried to stop him.
Standing up to him even whilst showing the signs of her pregnancy. Her belly swollen and visible underneath the layers of clothes she wore.
"Shinji, you can't go… you'll die out there" Mari was saying, shuddering and holding herself close. Pleading with him, eyes wide, and tugging on his arms.
"I have to try. I can make it. Just get there and come back. I can do it" Shinji said, breathing heavily, the heat from his breath visible in cool air.
He'd been arguing with her for some time now. Mari didn't like it, but Akane was sick just like all the others and she needed help.
Shinji knelt beside the bedridden form of his daughter, resting uneasily underneath the blankets, forehead burning up a storm, and shaking. Mari stood watching over him, rubbing her womb, near tears as she watched the girl she'd come to see as family. Watching the father comfort his child.
"I'm gonna get you help, eh girl. Medicine. You're gonna be okay. I promise." Shinji told Akane, running his hand through her hair gently.
Akane stirred in her sleep. Calling out to him weakly, opening her feeble red eyes and looking at him.
"Dad-" she began weakly.
"Don't talk. Save your strength" Shinji told her, whispering close to her. His voice shaky. Heart heavy with a pain that was not physical, a father's burden.
He lay there, at his daughter's side, until she fell asleep again. Mari resting on the girl's other side, wrapping her own blankets over the poor girl.
Shinji didn't say goodbye. He was coming back, so there no point in it. He just got up, face grim but determined, and left.
Mari watching him go the entire time. Tears welling up in her eyes. Caring for the unborn child in her womb, and the sick teenager at her side.
…
Kay wasn't happy about him leaving. The older man, former JSSDF, trying to stop him as he made for the cave's exit.
"I'm going to get medicine. For my daughter. For everyone. As much as I can carry" Shinji told him.
Others were watching the exchange. Watching from their huddled spots in the cave, cowering together for warmth, eyes on the two men near the exit.
"And trade what? What could you give them for those meds? Hmm?" Kay told him harshly. Arms crossed, standing vigil by the exit.
"I'll figure it out" Shinji said, clutching the meager supplies he had grabbed for himself. Heavy jacket weighting him down, unwashed hair growing unkempt.
You'll die out there. Kay's eyes seemed to say.
I have to try Shinji's unsaid response.
The two men at an impasse. The two most capable out of all Haven. The Soldier, and the Eva pilot, neither backing down.
"Let him try." a voice called suddenly.
The gathered Haven folk turned, the crowd parting to reveal the mayor. The beady old lady whom had lived through both Second and Third Impact. The mayor sitting by the fire, glancing up at Shinji and Kay, age old wisdom, earned from pain, visible in her eye.
"We need all the help we can get. That young man has survived more than anyone I've ever known. Let him go." the mayor said, her ancient voice carrying across the shelter.
If anyone can do it, Shinji can her words seemed to say. Then she turned away again, huddling by the fire, old bones freezing.
Kay watched her in disbelief. How bad must have it been for her to agree to this?
"Thank you" Shinji said, breathing harshly as he nodded respectfully to the mayor.
Then, before anyone else could protest, he left. Leaving the shelter of the caves, Mari watching him with teary eyes, as he disappeared into the great white beyond the cave entrance.
The Outside
Leaving the shelter was hard.
Shinji emerging onto the surface of what once had been the forested land that edged along the mountainous terrain, the higher ground overlooking Haven.
The wind had died down for now. But the air was harsh, so cold that it stung his face. Even with his heavy jacket, stitched and sown together by him and his daughter, two shirts wrapped around himself underneath, he shivered.
Trekking through the snow. 41 years old and he felt like he was 60.
Asuka wouldn't have let this slow her down. And Rei would have just soldiered on. I can do this... just the cold Shinji thought.
Forcing himself further and further. Stumbling upon the village of Haven itself, only to find it disappearing underneath sheets of snow and ice at least 3 feet high. It would take work to rebuild and clean up once winter was gone.
He passed his shack, his home for years, on his way out. The place empty and cold, yet he didn't linger. There was no time for such things.
The image of a Giant of Light, half its face missing, looming over a shore, haunting him as he walked on.
Nonsense... just a stupid nightmare. Have enough to deal with. Akane needs me he thought. Pushing the image of the Angel away.
Winter was real. The dreams were not.
The cold was real, it hurt.
…
Outside Haven was even worse.
It was unlike any battle Shinji had ever known.
There was no 'monster' for him to fight. No creature that he could kill with his Evangelion. No villain for him to focus on beating. This was a force of nature and its wrath. He was little more than an aimless man, alone and vulnerable, struggling to keep moving.
Shinji found the old settlement, the brewers whom had made their own form of medicine, as well stocking those from the old world.
The place was barren. Beaten down by the weather. The roads along the group of houses icy and frozen over, no one visible in any direction. Abandoned?
No, Shinji found the brewers whom had lived here. The men and women, maybe 20 or so, huddled up in a lone room with as much protection as they could muster. Yet there were all dead.
Every single one of them was dead. Pale exposed blue skin, death from a mixture of frostbite and hypothermia. These people hadn't had a cave to run to for cover. They hadn't had the supplies to hunker down and in the end... it had cost them their lives.
"I'm sorry" Shinji told them. He had wanted to bury them but he didn't have the time, and the weather was so bad that it might have killed him in the process.
Shinji found what medicine that brewers had been storing up, their only valuables worth trading, and took as much as he could. Stuffing the bottles into his pack. Crude base medicines, but they were all they had. There were no drug manufacturing plants anymore, no pharmacies, nothing 'new' being researched and made. This... this was all anyone had.
He started showing signs of frostbite on his way back to Haven.
Wandering the icy roads, trekking through the snow, his skin stinging him as the wind whipped across his face. A lone figure walking along the ghost white climate.
…
When Shinji returned to the cave, he must have looked like a corpse. Eyes wide, face red from the exposure to the elements, and shivering uncontrollably.
Kay had been dumbfounded to find him alive at all. The man calling for the others to help, as Shinji hauled himself back into the relative warmth of the cave. Medicine in his bag.
The trip had taken days, but Shinji had done it.
"God, Shinji... you need to lay down. You have frostbite. Worst than anyone here" Kioko, the town nurse and wife of Makio, said. Eyes wide and looking at what skin was visible, harsh and raw, yet Shinji didn't seem to care.
"Later... my daughter. Where... where is she?" Shinji said. Voice shaking as he spoke. A crowd of Haven farmers forming around him in awe. Grateful beyond relief for the medicine he'd managed to bring them.
Kioko was trying to help, to bring him over to the others to be treated, her eyes concerned at just the sight of him. At this... this walking corpse that was Shinji Ikari.
But he shook Kioko off.
"Shinji" a voice from further within the cave called.
The crowd of freezing farmers parted slightly, and Mari emerged onto the scene. Looking disheveled, her pregnancy more prominent than ever, and looking at him with tears in her eyes, small smile planted on her lips. So happy that he had returned.
"Akane?" he asked, voice still shaking.
Mari nodded and Shinji breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He grabbed the medicine for his daughter, and handed the rest to Kioko, letting the town nurse treat what patients she could whilst he tended to his own.
She led him to the bedridden Akane, the teenager huddle underneath all the blankets they could spare. Just like so many others in this harsh winter.
Mari tried to help him, to look at his wounds just as Kioko had, but Shinji shrugged it off. Mari frowning as he knelt down beside his daughter and gently shook her.
Akane stirred, red eyes opening slowly, fever running high and looking at him weakly.
"Dad" She moaned, her voice barely above a whisper. Long and unkempt brown hair falling over her face as she rolled over to face him.
"Hey girl, I'm here" Shinji said, feeble tears in his eyes, voice hoarse and raw.
"Are you okay? You're hurt dad" Akane whispered to him, her voice strained and shivering as she spoke.
"Don't worry about me. You're sick, but I got you some medicine" Shinji told her, holding up the bottles he had taken from the dead settlement.
Akane nodded slowly, and Shinji cracked open the crude bottle. Mari at his side and kneeling down to join the father and daughter.
"You've been so strong Akane, just take the medicine and rest now" Mari was saying. Running her hands down the poor girl's forehead.
"Here. Just swallow it, that's all it takes" Shinji said guiding the bottle to his daughter's lips. Watching with tearful eyes as Akane held up her hands and swallowed the medicine.
"Taste awful" Akane whispered, trying to laugh things off but lacking the strength.
Shinji laughed for her, a forced chuckle and on the verge of tears, he shook his head saying "I know, always hated medicine as kid too."
Akane reached for his hand and he took her his, three fingers intertwined with five.
"Listen to Auntie Mari, Just rest, I'll be here when you wake up. I promise" Shinji said lying down next to her and getting under the blankets. Holding her close and adding what warmth he could.
Mari did the same. Smiling weakly at him.
Akane murmured something under breath, but Shinji shushed her. Letting her rest and pulling her close.
"You have my whole heart. You always did." Shinji whispered to her. Holding her close and praying that everything would be alright.
The three of them huddling together in the cave.
…
Nothing he did mattered in the end. That seemed to be the theme of Shinji's life, pointless and directionless, nothing he ever did made a difference at all.
The world was cruel and unkind, just as it always had been.
Akane had died...
Shinji woke and found her still and lifeless. She wasn't breathing, and Shinji had tried to wake her. Shaking her and pleading for her to wake up.
"Akane... Akane!... girl... no... no" he had pleaded. Tears falling from his eyes, hands shaking as he shook her. Trembling at the silence that met him.
Praying that this was a nightmare. A false reality that could be undone. That the pale skinned girl with her mother's complexion would open her eyes, and everything would be alright. That he would wake up and find Akane humming to herself just as her mother had. That she'd tilt her head at him and they'd laugh at the fuss he was making, that she'd roll her eyes at him. A young girl on the verge of womanhood, so curious and bright. She couldn't be gone. She couldn't be.
He would wake up and this would be over. Akane had her whole life ahead of her. A life he would get to see for a while longer. He still had so much love to show her, lessons to teach her. This just couldn't be reality.
But it never came.
There was no waking, because he wasn't dreaming. His dreams were like scars and this was far worse.
It's not supposed to be like this. I- no... I made it back! I got the medicine! I did! It's a nightmare... it has to be. My child... my heart... The stumbling thoughts of a broken man.
Akane was gone. Just like that. Had died in her sleep.
Shinji wept for her, holding her body close, running his hand through her lifeless hair. Mari waking, and unable to do anything but cry with him. Holding Shinji as he wailed.
The weight of his wedding ring... beyond crushing.
Part 4 : Broken
The days and final months of winter passed in the blink of an eye to Shinji.
He wasn't aware of it, time passing by, he ended up getting sick himself from his journey outside, but he did not care. It didn't matter.
Nothing mattered anymore.
No parent should bury their child.
He sat there numb to the world. Mari trying to be there for him, she did try, she really did. Yet he found it hard to care. She tried to make him eat, but he always give her his food. She was pregnant and needed to care for their child.
Mari knew he wasn't well, she wasn't either. She had grown to love Akane as a mother would, despite any tension the two might have had. She could see the emptiness in Shinji's eyes, the sorrow that ate away at him more and more.
If it wasn't for the child growing in her womb… she thought he might have stopped eating all together
…
How cruel that winter finally started to fade after so much death. The Sun showing its face again, shinning above and clearing the grey clouds that had hidden it for months.
This winter had been hard and brutal to them. The coldest they had ever known since the Impact. More than half of Haven's population had died even whilst using the caves for shelter.
From 200 to 74.
The mayor had died, tough old lady that survived two different Impacts, only to be beaten in the end by the climate. Makio, the town doctor, had died. Leaving the duties to his wife Kioko and her son.
So many families cut down by those long long months.
Kay had survived, old soldier leading them through at the end. Taking up the leadership role and keeping them alive in the final days of the winter.
When they started to leave the caves, the snow had started melting, the ice and frost vanishing with each day it seemed.
Shinji following Mari, her leading him by hand, out with the others. Returning to the village, and starting to rebuild. To clear away the snow and ice, to reclaim their homes.
"Leave that to me. Just take it easy, Mari" Shinji said. Speaking for the first time in days, his voice low and hollow. Like something was gone, taken from him and it would never come back.
Mari stood there watching him anxiously as he went to work clearing out their old home. Shoveling the snow off and repairing what needed to be fixed. It took days, but he wouldn't let her help him.
Said he was worried for their baby, but Mari thought it was more than that. That Shinji needed something to keep him busy. That he was haunted now more than ever, sometimes drowning in sorrow, his eyes lost where she couldn't follow.
…
It took time but the village started to recover, the fields being re-worked. Crops planted once again, the river stream flowing once more, homes reclaimed, and families moving on.
Shinji spent most of his time alone. Wandering off on his own to work, always needing to keep busy, never allowing himself to think. Always helping out here and there, until Mari came to take him home late into the evening.
So it was that he found himself climbing the steep grounds leading up to the small plot of land set aside so many years ago… Haven's graveyard.
The engraved words had been submerged in frost, but Shinji numbly wiped them away. The small pellets of ice shattering as his fingers moved across the stone.
Rei Ikari. Beloved wife. Pilot. Farmer. Mother.
The grave had survived the winter well enough. Old and cracked along the edges, the sight of it nearly brought him to tears.
"Hey… Rei" Shinji said, his voice straining. He hiccuped and felt his breath grow hard. It had been years since he spoke her name allowed.
He used to visit every now and then, with Asuka and Akan… but somewhere along the line he had stopped coming back. Too busy.
"I know I haven't come by in a while. I wanted too… I think I've just been avoiding you. Humph, still haven't changed. Still running away from my problems." Shinji said, fighting the tears even now.
His face fell, and he tried to smile weakly but it just wouldn't come.
"I miss you… I miss you so much, Rei" Shinji said through watery eyes.
The grave was silent as ever. Perhaps they never really existed for the dead, but for the living, for those left behind to mourn, and to remember. Yet sometimes that was not enough. Where no amount of memorial could ever be enough.
He hiccuped struggling with the words.
"I… tried to do the right thing. I did, I really did. I raised her the best I could… I raised our little girl. Akane was..." Shinji began, only to stop midway. Unable to stop the tears as they dripped down his face.
He stumbled to his knees, planting his bad hand on the grave. Breathing hard, and unable to stop.
"She was beautiful. And so smart, so curious, just like…. just like you. I wanted her to have the life we never did… I wanted so much for her… but… I failed..." Shinji sobbed.
Again, the grave was silent. Nothing but a heap of stone with cravings engraved onto its surface.
"Rei… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry" Shinji wailed. The words come out in sharp breathes that shook him to his core.
He clung to the grave, weeping in the morning light.
Even now he could see them. Could remember that smile his wife had reserved only for him. Could remember the day Akane was born. The same day that Rei had died. He saw them both, in a world that didn't exist, a world where they had both lived, and had known each other. Where he stood watching mother and daughter walking hand in hand.
But it was only a fantasy.
Rei had never lived long enough to see her daughter grow, had never been there for her first steps, for her first words. It had been Shinji, and Shinji alone. The closest thing Akane had had was Asuka.
Now they were all gone. Rei, Akane, Asuka, and with their passing he felt gone himself. Like his soul had been ripped out.
"I'm sorry" he whimpered over and over. As if that would somehow make it better.
Weeping, he removed the aged and torn wedding ring from his finger... and placed it atop his wife's grave.
He didn't deserve it. Not anymore.
...
Everything seemed to blur after that for Shinji. Helping Mari along with her pregnancy. Making sure she ate enough and got plenty of rest, watching for any seizures she had. But his heart just wasn't in it.
He only ate because he knew that his son would need a father to watch over him. It wasn't that he didn't care about Mari, he did, a part of him always had, but he had never truly loved her. Not in the way she had loved him, and no matter how much tried to deny it… that was the truth.
When the birth came, Shinji was there holding Mari's hand the entire time. He tried to feel something, anything, but it was just numb again. Mari crying out as Kioko, the town nurse, performed the delivery and saw the babe through.
There was nothing to be done in the end, just like everything else in his life. The world was cruel and uncaring.
Shinji's son died before his first breath.
The first sign was when he didn't cry. The babe emerged into the world without such much as a wail, quiet and small, hairless and without a pulse. Dead before he was even born.
…
Mari cried for weeks afterward.
Shinji wished he could have cried with her, but something in him was just broken. He sat with Mari, holding her, trying to comfort her as she had tried for him so many times. Their relationship turned empty after that. Shinji working during the day, replanting and re-soiling the crops, and coming home at night wordlessly to a still recovering Mari.
Entire days passed where he didn't speak. Like all the light had been drained from his eyes.
…
"I'm sorry"
Those were first words Shinji told Mari the day he left.
Both of them were sitting at the breakfast table. Their little shack, their home in Haven, fully repaired but empty. The two of them often sharing meals in silence. The place lifeless and bland.
Ghost haunted its hall for Shinji. Memories of those he had loved, all of them gone... every piece of the home feeling like a stranger.
Mari looked up at him. She had recovered from the still birth, and was doing fine physically, but mentally she was hurt. Haunted by the death of their son.
"For what?" Mari asked. Sorrowful eyes looking up at his. She wasn't like him, wasn't broken, underneath all the pain she was still alive deep down. He could see it... that quiet strength in her... and he couldn't follow.
Shinji looked away, and spoke.
"I'm leaving"
He spoke the words and let them hang. Flat and empty, just like the rest of him.
Mari didn't understand, she looked at him in disbelief. Worn edges of her eyes peering into him, searching for an answer.
"I can't do this anymore, Mari. I'm leaving Haven... for good. Alone." Shinji said, letting the words carry across the table.
"That's not funny" Mari said, an edge to her voice. Hurt like never before.
"Not a joke. I can't live here anymore... it hurts too much. Everywhere I am haunted by them... so I'm leaving. You can have the house. You'll be alright. Village is still standing" Shinji said looking up at her with hollowed out empty eyes.
Mari stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. Her eyes growing cold.
"So that it?! You're just giving up?!" Mari screamed.
He didn't even flinch, he let her rage.
"We have a life here?! You're just going to throw it away?! You think you're the only one in pain?! I lost my son too! You idiot! You'll die out there!" Mari shouted. Raising to her feet, tears in her eyes, face red.
He barely even looked up.
"I already feel dead, Mari." Shinji cut in. His voice low and somber, a whisper that set his companion on edge as she looked him over. Seething as she watched him.
Shinji slumped into his chair, forty two years old and feeling like he was a hundred.
What had happened to his life... was there even a point where he had been happy? Where there hadn't been some tragedy? Where he hadn't had dreams and visions that rocked to him his core? Where maybe he had been whole?
"Part of me died with my wife, Rei. A second part with Asuka. I- and my daughter held me together. Kept me going..." Shinji began, tilting his head and looking down at his bad hand. Aged and tattered thing that it was. Three fingers where there should have been five.
He could feel Mari's gaze on him. Uncertain and hurting.
"And when Akane died... whatever was left of me died with her, and my unborn son" Shinji said, his voice choking on the emotions.
Soft years welled up in his eyes, but they did not fall. Shinji sat there a broken shell of a man lingering in a home filled with ghosts.
Mari was looking at him with wide uncertain eyes.
"Our son, Shinji. Our baby boy" Mari cried. Tears streaming down the woman's face.
The woman he had slept with for years, had helped raise his daughter with, but had never married. That selfish part of him, that longing to have someone, anyone, to hold him, bringing him to her. Allowing her to love him whilst he had only ever cared for her. She had never been Rei... and it had never been her fault. It had been his.
I know... I tried Mari... I did. But I can't stay here anymore. I never meant to hurt you... I never did love you the way you loved me... I'm worse than my father ever was he thought.
In whatever reminded of his mind, the ghost of his father emerged again.
Tall and silent, Gendo Ikari loomed over his son. Cold eyes, gloved hands, stern expression, looking down at Shinji. Scoffing silently at him, worse than laughing at him.
Who were you to ever judge me, eh boy? The image of Gendo called to Shinji. Taunting from beyond the grave, just as before. Just like all those years ago.
The image of Ritsuko hovering in Shinji's mind. Dr. Ritsuko Akagi confronting Gendo, and the older man shooting her. Leaving her behind. Old patterns, different but all the same. Broken.
Go away old man... I already know what I am he thought darkly. A feeble reply to the manifestation of his guilt. No strength left in him.
"I'm nothing now. I'm sorry, Mari" Shinji said flatly. The images fading, the ghosts of his past leaving as he pushed them away. Cursed thoughts that plagued him, his own self-judgment.
He rose to his feet, Mari crying as he headed for the door and walked out.
"No" Mari cried out running after him outside, her footsteps slamming against the porch.
The two of them stepping outside to the recovering village.
"Ack!" Mari cried and Shinji stilled, glancing back at her.
Her condition had started up again. Mari's seizures, she stood still and frozen where she had ran. Cursing under her breath, head throbbing in pain, unable to move until it passed.
Shinji watched her as she struggled with her seizure. She was a survivor, he saw her fighting it, steadying herself even as the seizure died down. Mari would survive, with or without him.
"Stay here, Mari. Where it's safe. You deserve better than me" Shinji told her, watching her with sad eyes before turning his back and walking off without her...
Stupid boy, hating me all these years Gendo's voice called to him again. Cold and mocking.
Shinji walked off.
In his mind's eye, he saw it again. Gendo shooting Ritsuko, killing her and breaking whatever heart she had left in a single act.
Shinji didn't look back, he just walked on. Remembering Ritsuko and her tragedy. But this was different, Mari could live without him. She'd find a way. It was better like this, his entire life had only ever been one tragedy after another.
I should never have slept with her. I was selfish. I used her... should have made her move out once she was better. All I ever do is make things worse He thought.
Mari recovered, stumbling to her knees panting. Shouting at him, her heart being shattered like glass.
"Screw you, Shinji! I loved you! I gave you everything! You just threw it all away! You think you're the only one whose known pain! I lost our boy too! Shinji!" Mari called out after him.
Sobbing as he left her, the neighbors in Haven coming out to see what was going on.
Haven, less than half of the people remained but they would pull through. Kay was with them, at least that's what Shinji liked to think.
You're better off without me. In the end, all I ever did was cause you pain Shinji thought, steel faced, leaving everything behind as Mari cursed his name.
He never looked back.
Running away just like he always had. No supplies, no preparation, he simply left.
Part 5 : Alone
Shinji couldn't say for how long he wandered out there in the wastelands. Abandoning Haven, hoping that he could leave his demons behind with it.
He traveled the barren and near lifeless lands outside the village. Living off what he could. Aimless, directionless, and drifting. The world still reeling from the worst winter it had seen in decades, the worst since the Impact nearly thirty years ago.
What grass remained nothing but a faded yellow blur on the grounds, still recovering from the cold.
As for Shinji himself, his hair greyed even more, living out among the waste, somehow surviving. Homeless. Living off of very little, it aged him even more.
He avoided people. Not speaking once, not a single word.
Staying away from what roads remained, and what remnants of humanity lingered. He saw packs of people, other survivors of winter, struggling to get by. Looters, travelers, gangs, merchants, passing him by but never stopping. In turn, he never stopped for them.
The dichotomy between Haven and the wastelands outside. The world Mari had lived in before he had found her wounded and dying so long ago.
Shinji didn't know why he did these things, choosing to forage for supplies. Eking out an existence out here with nothing and no one but himself. Thinning even more, his clothes fitting him looser and looser.
Maybe a part of him didn't want to live anymore. Or maybe it just was nature, that ingrained programming that tells you to eat and seek warmth and shelter. Shinji didn't care. He just... survived. He breathed and ate, slept and made camp fires. Trying not to think.
At least until one night... when things changed.
He was older now, dressed in hobbled together rags, barely recognizable at all.
A gang of looters stumbling onto a sleeping Shinji as he lay underneath an abandoned bridge. Old rusted brick almost collapsed upon itself, holding together somehow.
He woke to find them gathering around him.
The gang, a mixed group of four older middle aged men, dressed in rags just like everyone else in the wastes, and two women, one a teenager and the other her mother, approaching him with steeled eyes. Cold as iron.
Having spotted him sometime ago.
"Hey! Old man! What do you have on you!" one of the men called.
Again. People can be so cruel to one another. Taking what they need at the expense of others. 'Just doing what they have to' they claim. So this is the world I made Shinji thought numbly.
Old Man Shinji sat up, crawling up from his pile of rags to meet the gang. Hollow empty eyes looking at them as if barely acknowledging their presence.
"... rags" Old Man Shinji said. His voice hoarse and raw. Empty.
The gang before him were all thin. Winter had been brutal on them. Worse than what he had had in Haven and its caves. He could see the early signs of starvation in the men, and the women barely clinging to what they had.
"Food, you have food old man?!" another man said sharply.
Shinji tilted his head slowly at the other man. They seemed... uneasy at how little he cared about them looming over him.
"Leave him alone. He's just an old man." one of the women, a younger girl around 15 or so, said. The poor child dressed in rags too big for her.
"Be quiet" one of the other man whispered back at her. Doing what they had to do, that just how people worked these days.
"Go away. I don't have anything you want" Shinji whispered at last. Lowering his eyes again. Leaning against the cold pavement of the abandoned bridge.
Suddenly, one of the men lurched forward, grabbing Shinji by the shoulders and hauling him up. Shaking Shinji as the man dragged him out.
I must be twenty years older than you, boy. I don't want to fight. Don't even care anymore Old Man Shinji thought.
There were shouts, but Shinji didn't hear them. All he heard was the man whom had grabbed him, shouting at him for what he had. Reaching a hand into Shinji's ragged and torn jacket, looking for something to steal.
Shinji punched him. Numbly reached his fist up and across his attacker's face. It was just reflex, something his body told him to do when attacked.
More shouts, and Shinji stumbled back as some of the others joined in. Shoving him aside and punching him too.
Shinji spat out blood from his busted lip, barely caring at all, and was about to fight back as reflex demanded… when he was stabbed.
He didn't see the knife until it reached him. One of the men plunging the blade into his neck… digging it down into his throat.
Shinji gagged weakly, his hand reaching up for the blade… until he was kicked aside. Falling to his back, he landed hard as two of the men stood over him. Reaching down, they rummaged through his jacket for what he had. One of them pulling the rusted knife free, yanking it out of Shinji's throat.
The two women were screaming in horror. They hadn't wanted it to go like this.
Shinji lay bleeding out, his arms stiff and heavy at the open wound in his throat.
One of them was rummaging through his things by the bridge. Taking what little he had, and leaving him there.
"I'm sorry" one of the women whispered to him. The girl around Akane's age, crying at the sight of him.
"Sorry" she said again, before turning with the others in the gang and leaving. Running off in search of somewhere to live. Leaving him behind to die.
All that… for a pile of rags and some crumbs in his pockets.
Shinji groaned, pulling himself up, holding the wound on his neck. The place he'd been stabbed… and tried to stand. To find something, anything, to stop the bleeding.
But he only fell over again.
Funny, he had wandered for so long now. Barely living, perhaps a part of him wanting to die, and yet when it was actually here… he fought. He tried to cling to life even as it left him.
"Ack" Shinji croaked as he stumbled to the ground for a third time. Blood pouring down his shirt. So Mari had been right in the end, he would die out here.
"Ahhhh" he tried to scream. To breathe, lying on his back and looking up into the night sky.
So this is it…. Just another lost soul in the middle of nowhere. He thought.
He had lived through so much it seemed, and yet not at all. Eva piloting, the Angels and SEELE, his father and Nerv, Third Impact, the fall of Tokyo-03, the road to Haven, the harsh winters… and now this.
Shinji looked up into the sky, to the expanse of stars visible in the early night sky, and wondered if his mother was watching from far away. From wherever Yui Ikari was with the Eva. Wondered what she would have made of all this.
Shinji looked for her, but all he saw where pale white dots. Just another star amid all the others. Somewhere out there… Eva Unit 01 drifting without a care in the world.
He started to bleed out into the barren pavement.
'So long as you are alive. You will always have the chance to be happy' That's what you told me, mom. I used to think that was true. Back when I was young.
What bullshit...
Ah mom… are you up there watching? Is this what you wanted for me? To die out here with nothing and no one. Old and alone… You just left.
Maybe I deserved this, eh mom. My entire life was failure. Everything I ever touched died. Turned to ash. Maybe I never deserved to be happy at all.
Rei… Asuka… Akane…. I'm sorry…I couldn't save any of you. In the end, I couldn't even save myself.
I did not want to die this way. Alone… I always hated being alone. - the rambling thoughts of a dying man.
Shinji wheezed bleakly, his vision growing dark.
"No… I… I did not want to live this way" Shinji whispered as he lay dying.
He gasped, struggling for air, eyes falling. The world turning to black.
And Shinji died there.
Alone, in the cold, by an abandoned bridge. With no one and nothing. Just another lost soul forgotten in the world that a 14 year old traumatized boy had made with a choice, almost thirty years ago
The Current Timeline
Somewhere in Tokyo-03
Meeting room
The offices were bare, plain, and modest. Government agencies were never known for any kind of flair.
Kaji stepped into the room alongside his partner. Agent Kunizuka, her name revealed at last. It was unusual for them, meeting together like this and coming in.
For so long, the two spies working independently of each other. Pooling their resources and working from their respective ends. Now, things were different. No more codes, but a debriefing.
Kaji shifted uncomfortably in his 'real' work clothes, Kunizuka shifting beside him just as the other agents stepped in. The gathering of the task force investigating Nerv, and the connection to SEELE, for the first time in months.
Their director stepped in, a cold stern man that brought a series of files with him.
Why now? Why bring us together now of all times? Kaji thought.
"No doubt, you are all wondering why the debriefing is being held. I assure you all, it is better this way. For the last several months, each and every one of you has performed impeccably. Gathering intel, investigating leads, operating in small teams. But now… things have changed. Uncovered information that raises more questions than ever" the director began.
All eyes were on the man. Kaji shifting uncertainly. For all his work in the Japanese Ministry of the Interior, infiltrating both SEELE and Nerv, this wasn't on him. He hadn't caused this. Not entirely. It must have been on his partner Kunizuka's end.
"We have uncovered evidence of a conspiracy of disinformation and cover ups, regarding the Eva pilots. Thanks to the actions of two of our agents in particular" the director began, glancing pointedly to Kaji and Kunizuka.
"We now have proof that SEELE and Nerv have been hiding things from both the public, and our own government. Possible even the United Nations. In all this mess, plots within plots, one thread keeps popping up. Tying them all together.
The Third Child. This 'Shinji Ikari' with the highest recorded sync ratio. This unusual 14 year old boy that was absorbed into his Eva. Whose Eva Unit in question, displayed behavior that had never been seen before."
Kaji felt his partner glance his way, but Kaji only bit his lip. He knew there was something strange about the boy, Misato was too soft on him, didn't realize the anomalies surrounding her charge.
Murmurs of confusion filled the task force meeting room. Agents from various fields considering things.
"This 'Shinji Ikari' was officially diagnosed with schizophrenia and hints of dissociative identity disorder. All this while only a child, the doctors writing that the trauma of his mother's death in an experiment that turned fatal, trigged something in him. His father having sent him to a private mental ward for five years, before being released a year ago. Then made to pilot an Eva.
We now know this diagnosis to be a lie.
The Third Child is not mentally ill. We suspect he never was. That his father, Gendo Ikari himself, worked with SEELE to falsify records and place him in a facility they could control. That they monitored him for reasons that will become apparent."
The director paused, glancing down at the display screen at his table. Entering in a few commands, he turned on the projector, the lights in the room dimming automatically, as a single image was presented before the room of agents.
A single image projected onto the wall behind the director, an MRI. A brain scan.
"This is the 'true' MRI of a ten year old Shinji Ikari. It took weeks, but members of our task force were able to hack, infiltrate, or else steal this information." the director said, an edge to his voice.
Kaji rose to his feet. Open mouthed at the sight of the real MRI, no more fakes, no more falsified records that had been fed to the hospitals. The MRI ordered by Dr Page herself.
The brain scan showed a series foreign constructs woven in along the boy's brain tissue. A second set of something living alongside him… lying underneath the boy's skull.
Kunizuka, Kaji's partner in the agency, pulled him back down. Grim expression planted on her face at the sight of the MRI. The… the… abomination laid bare for them to see. This infection within the Third Child. This second set of DNA.
"Our analysis department does not know what that is. Our doctors claim such a thing should be impossible. That this 'construct' has woven itself along the boy's brain to such a degree that it is inoperable. It is literally a part of him now, down to the genetic level. Hiding itself, Page and her medical team's reports calling him 'chimera'. Two separate sets of DNA residing in one body, one foreign and almost undetectable.
For years, it has been with him.
And his father knew. Dr Page and SEELE knew. They all did, and they covered it up. After years of MRI's, tracking the boy and the construct's growth, they were able to analyze the data… and discovered a blue pattern" the director called at last.
Blue pattern… all this time… and Shinji has been right in front of all of us. Piloting an Eva. Living with Misato and Asuka. All this time… and Gendo knew. If Ritsuko had known…. If she had known she would have asked for samples. If I had known… I'd have shot him. Kaji thought darkly.
"There is Angel DNA inside Shinji Ikari. That construct has been with him since he was a child, growing as he did. Like a benign parasite. It does not seem outwardly hostile, yet we should be wary of the boy.
One of our agents succeeded in taking samples of the boy's medicine, his pills sent to him by the ward, and discovered that it is toxic. Dr Page's medicine was designed specifically to target the brain. The chemicals within damage brain tissue and with it, the 'thing' inside Shinji's head.
Yet Shinji's brain is healthy. The boy is healthy.
The Angel DNA, this construct living alongside him, has consistently repaired the damage. Every single day for over five years. To a degree that should not be medically possible. No long lasting effects on the boy what so ever. The Third Child simply continued living without ever realizing what his pills were. Poison.
And the boy has almost never been sick since he was a child. From the mental ward's reports, they suspect this… thing… has been protecting him.
For reason unknown, they never tried to cut it out of him. Perhaps his father cared more for him than we imagined, but we believe there was another reason. SEELE and Page wanted this boy for something, they gave him medicine which slows the Angel construct down… but never killed it." the director continued.
I took those samples, stole Shinji's pills so we could analyze them. Does he even know what he has inside him? All this time… he was sitting there with an Angel inside his head. Kaji thought darkly. Remembering all the times he had crossed paths with the 14 year old boy, all the times he'd left him alone with Asuka and Misato…
"As of this moment, we are refocusing out efforts. Focusing on the Eva pilots, and the conspiracies that both SEELE and Nerv have spun around them. The fact that the Spear of Longinus was recently rediscovered, and unreported to the UN. We will issue your various new priorities" the director said. Finishing the debriefing for now, and moving on.
Kaji listening, but his mind tracing back everything that had happened in the last months with the Eva pilots. The Spear's reappearance, Shinji and the Angel in his head, the boy and his Eva's anomalies, and the number of Angels being wrong.
The Other Timeline
The Wastelands of Japan.
Out among the roads, far far away from Haven.
It had rained.
The feeble bits of dirty water having come and gone in the hours since the incident. The cold unforgiving world moving on long after the old man's death.
Not a soul for miles. No witnesses to the scene.
The corpse of Shinji Ikari lying on the ground. Empty lands, desolate roads, an abandoned bridge and lifeless scenery was his grave. The wasteland, the scars from Third Impact, surrounding the corpse. Fitting, that he died alone. Died alone and in the dark. Forgotten among the broken world he had created thirty years ago. Last of the Eva pilots... so very alone even in death.
Grim, dark, and oh so very cold, the air stilled.
In the early dawn she emerged. Slim and tall, unweathered by the world. Above such things.
Her feet touched the ground with a soft thud. The midnight blue sky, the night fading into morning, seeming to darken at her very presence, the stars seeming to hide from her. Seemingly unaffected by the cold. Naked and calm, she moved.
Approaching for the first time. Eerily, inhumanly, beautiful. Wearing a face that was not hers, undamaged by the world and its many trials. Ageless and untouched.
The Woman in the Dark strode forward. Humming softly to herself, red eyes and pale white skin standing in stark contrast to the night sky.
She stopped just before reaching the dead man. Tilting her head down at him, curious at the pale dead eyes that met her gaze.
"Oh sweet Shinji." The Woman in the Dark whispered, her voice soft as silk yet like a low roar. Beautiful and powerful, like thunder in the sky.
The Woman in the Dark reached down running a pale white hand down the side of his face. Feeling the cold and lifeless skin.
His eyes had never closed, only narrowed. Such sorrow in his last moments. Such pain, and haunted by old regrets and failures, a man whom had been broken. Beaten by the world around him and the life he had lived.
She traced the stab wound that had killed him, letting the old blood smear her fingers. Watching the faded red liquid drip down. The Woman ran her other hand down his chest, under his ragged shirt, checking for more wounds on the dead man.
Lilith, Second of all Angels, smiled softly. Red eyes shinning in the dark, as she reached down bringing her lips to the corpse of Shinji Ikari… a kiss of life.
Did you guess whom the Woman in the Dark was?
There were a few good theories out there. It was hinted out several times, and I hope it puts certain older scenes in more perspective. Not just when 'she' appeared, but instances with the Broken Man. It is different from the lore, I know. I've changed things for the sake of the story.
What did you think of the scene at Rei's grave? Of Shinji saying he was sorry? I honestly had to take a break after writing that scene.
Did you expect Original Shinji to die? His death was almost meaningless on purpose, just another end in that world. Just an aspect of a harsh time. His struggle to make difference but finding that nothing he ever did really mattered in the end. That horrible feeling that he was and had nothing, broken long before his last breath.
I had a hard time writing this chapter. It is probably the darkest I've ever gone. So much to cover, but it needed to 'fit it' properly. The truth of Young Shinji's pills at long last, Kaji's discovery, Akane, Other Mari, the Angels, and the Broken Man... so many plot points. Hope it wasn't too much.
Anyway, thanks for Reading and please Review.
Cheers.