Creation began on 03-19-17

Creation ended on 03-25-17

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Rei doesn't accept this, Asuka doesn't believe this

She didn't hear much of it, but Rei Ayanami heard enough of the conversation between Shinji Ikari and Fusei Hitode to know that she was bothered by the older woman's would-be attachment to the Third Child. That's why she intervened before anything more could be shared between them by informing the boy that Dr. Akagi wanted to see him. She didn't know anything about mitochondrial DNA or the Third Child's background, but Rei knew that a bond between the pilot and the Eva was necessary to get it to move, which now jeopardized the reliability of the Third Child if the bond between him and the Eva wasn't a true bond. Whoever this woman really was, Rei needed to make sure that she didn't endanger the primary objective that was NERV's purpose to defeat the Angels.

"…Ayanami?" She heard Shinji's voice and was reminded that they were in the hallway sometime after the boy had returned from his sojourn meeting with Dr. Akagi.

"Yes?" She asked him.

"Have you seen… Have you seen Ms. Hitode?" He asked her.

"I have not seen her since you left to see Dr. Akagi," she responded, although it was nothing more than a lie to the boy…and her first one ever; she really didn't want him talking to Ms. Hitode as much as possible. "Why are you looking for her?"

"I, uh… I just need to talk to her again, that's all," he responded; he wasn't sure what he could say to Ayanami about what he had recently found out about.

How could he just go and say that he found out about Ms. Hitode being his real mother and having absolutely no relation to who he had been led to believe was his father? Or that she had spent his whole life trying to find him since she last saw him, three days after his birth? How could he explain any of this to her? Or even Asuka, who would probably be indifferent about it towards him just because of the disapproval of her response regarding the Eva.

"I'll probably find her in Central Dogma," he suggested, and then walked away.

If he had bothered to look back at the albino, he'd seen her hands balled into fists.

Commander Ikari is not going to like this, she thought.

-x-

Fusei had a difficult time concentrating on the sketch of Shinji she had yet to finish that she started on the day she met him.

"How goes your sketch of the Third Child, Ms. Fusei?" Maya asked the woman, taking her eyes off her romance novel.

"Same as the day before…and the day before the day before," she answered her.

"You seem to like the boy a lot."

"It's not like the type of romance you would read about in comic books or see on the Internet."

"Oh, you mean those genres shown in adult anime."

"It's not like that at all."

"Care to enlighten me on what it is?"

"I'd rather not. Some misinterpretations are better left un-interpreted."

"Please, if you're not a predator, then you're clearly something else. Maybe he was right about you, saying you should be the type of woman who should have kids."

Except I do, she thought. "What of you, Ms. Ibuki? Do you ever think of having any of your own one day?"

"Not really, no. Plus, it is as you said before. At a time like this, with the Angels, it's a potential death sentence because you don't know what could happen if you tried."

"Um, Ms. Hitode?" They both heard Shinji say, turning to face him. "Um…are you free to talk?"

Fusei closed up her sketch pad and typed in a few more codes on her console before turning her chair around.

"Yeah, Shinji," she responded to him. "What do want to talk about?"

"It's, uh…kinda personal."

"Okay…"

-x-

"…Where is that idiot?" Asuka wondered as she looked around NERV for Shinji. "It don't take that long to have a chitchat with some woman."

She was about to turn a corner when she heard a male voice speak up.

"…They told me that they knew," she recognized the voice as Shinji's. "Doctor Akagi ran both our blood and found comparisons between us. So…what you told me earlier was all true. But… I always thought they were my parents…only to know that they're not. So…how do we start?"

"A reintroduction would be good," said a female voice, Dr. Hitode's. "But with more honesty on my part."

"Okay. Hello, my name is Shinji. Nice to meet you."

"Hello, Shinji. My name is Fusei Hitode…and…you might've heard that we're related."

"Yes, I have. In what way?"

"You're my son, Shinji, which makes me your mother. I'm probably not what you expected."

"Actually, I shouldn't be so concerned about appearances…so long as I have a picture to recall people by. The people I lived with before I came here, they didn't have any pictures of anyone laying around."

"Now, that's awful. What kind of people don't have pictures of relatives?"

"Apparently, those I lived with."

"Well, I don't have any of you except from when you were a day old. I keep a few copies of it to remind me that finding you was what kept me from giving up and wondering whether or not my baby was alright. Every other picture is of you as you are from your school profile. Here it is."

Asuka stayed silent, unsure if this was some kind of game these two were playing. Yet, it seemed convincing in the way words were thrown around. She found it unlikely that the new employee of NERV was the Third Child's mother, not when she read in his file that his mother was dead; if she read any pilot's profile, she'd likely find others with deceased mothers.

"That's me?" Shinji's voice asked, presumably being shown an old picture of himself (or somebody) as a baby.

"Yeah, that's you, Shinji."

Taking a chance, Asuka poked her head around the corner and saw Shinji and Dr. Hitode. The boy was looking at a picture in his hands and then looked up at the adult woman.

"I look so tiny," he said to her.

"You were about the size of a basketball," she explained to him, chuckling. "Your father, my boyfriend, was also no bigger than a basketball when he was a newborn."

Asuka found it hard to believe that Shinji was a bastard child because of his affiliation with the Ikari family, but then again, she really didn't know anything about this boy. Yet, if this woman wasn't playing with him, then it was a likelihood that he was such a child, same as her.

"What was he like?" Shinji asked her. "What was he like before he died?"

"He was two years older than I am, quiet but friendly, perceptive and devoted, someone you could count on to be the good guy. He wasn't tough or brutish, cared for politics or wanted to be valedictorian or anything, but he was no pushover or somebody looking to take charge over anyone. And he enjoyed talking about how one's day was, no matter how good or awful it was. It didn't matter if you were at the top of your game…or in bed with the flu. He wanted to be a doctor, to help people in need."

"Like you are right now? I mean, with the addition of being being into computers, that is."

"Yeah. He was going to be the doctor in the relationship while I specialized in computers. But then, he passed away, so I tried to fulfill his goal for him."

"I believe you did a good job of fulfilling his dream alongside your dream."

"Thank you, Shinji."

Asuka frowned and pulled her head back behind the corner. If this was a game they were playing with each other, it seemed that the Third Child was playing it very convincingly. It was as though he truly believed this woman, as if he believed everything she said to him. And what bothered her most was how he seemed more…expressive, like he could say what he always wanted to say without a put-down.

I am gonna chew him a new one later, she thought, walking away.

-x-

"…How are you doing, Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki?" Misato asked the aged man in his cell, seeing him laying on his cot.

"Better after my visit from the new doctor," he responded, sounding better now that the drugs had worn out in his body. "How may I be of service to you, Captain Katsuragi?"

"It turns out you were right about the Ikaris not being the boy's relatives," she told him.

"You do realize that anything said in here is likely to be monitored and recorded," he warned.

"At this point, it's not going to matter what's said and monitored. Shinji knows the truth about his parents. He's talking with his mother, learning a bit more about his roots or whatever she's telling him. The only thing we've yet to understand is how he ended up with the Ikaris."

"My best guess is that he was kidnapped," he told her. "What I don't understand is why they did it to begin with."

"Well, it couldn't have been about money; the Hitodes are a middle-class family. Though, they were upper-middle before Second Impact put them in the lower-middle status due to the devastation caused to the economy and population. When you exclude Shinji, the family consists of just Fusei, an older sister and their mother. Second Impact took the lives of the girls' father and grandmother."

"If it was not about money, then it was more than likely about something personal, something a little better than money."

"Ikari knows why…or at the very least had a hand in the act."

"He won't talk if questioned."

"He'll talk to the Committee. He won't have a choice."

-x-

Dinner was very quiet at Misato's apartment. Until Asuka decided to speak up towards Shinji about earlier.

"You've been rather cheerful since talking to the new lady, Shinji," she told him.

"And that's a problem for you?" Shinji asked her; there was still a lot to talk about with his mother, but for now, it was better if not everyone knew the truth of their relation just yet.

"Well, of course, it's a problem. You're too friendly with someone you just met."

"I was friendly to you when we were formally introduced."

"That's different. We're both teens, not an older person."

"What about Misato? She's an older person."

"Whom we've known for far longer than the one you talk with."

Misato then realized that Asuka didn't know about Fusei being Shinji's mother.

"Asuka, he has every right to talk to Ms. Hitode," she told her. "There's a lot that was found out that you don't know. It's somewhat personal and difficult to explain."

"Then explain it to me why he has every right to talk to a woman that hasn't even been here a month and already seems to have an impact?"

"Asuka, she's… Fusei Hitode's actually Shinji's mother. She's his biological mother. We thought that Mrs. Ikari was Shinji's mother, but that was only a falsehood that we were led to believe."

Asuka was unwavering in her unwillingness to accept this as truth, though.

"How can you be so sure of this?" She asked her. "What proof do you have?"

"DNA, Asuka," Misato explained. "Fusei more than likely ran Shinji's like Ritsuko did and discovered that he has no blood relation to the Ikaris. We ran the DNA against Fusei's…and it was found that there was a mitochondrial match to Shinji. Or rather, Shinji's mitochondrial DNA matched Fusei's."

"Mitochondrial DNA? That's…that's only passed on by the mother. That's…that's impossible."

"No, it's impossible that nobody picked up on it before."

"So…what, he's an adopted wuss, then?"

"Nobody ever told me I was adopted," said Shinji to her, resenting being called an adopted wuss when there was no proof of this. "And how can I be adopted…if my mother and father never gave me up to begin with?"

"Are you sure about this? Anyone can lie."

"Fusei's not the lying type," Misato expressed. "Maybe she's told a few half-truths, but she's not lying to anyone. She has been quiet, though. I can probably guess what made her the silent type."

"And what made her the silent type, Misato?" Shinji asked her.

"The fear of not being able to find you, worrying every waking moment for the last fourteen years, wondering if you were okay…or even alive. Anyone can go mad a little bit if they didn't know, but she's as sane as anyone else I've seen is."

"I keep thinking I would go crazy in the Eva."

"That's you," Asuka told him, stating her opinion regarding the Eva. "You can't possibly believe any of this about Ms. Hitode."

"Except she explains a lot of things that we once thought was true that never was true," said Misato to her. "Her very relation to Shinji would even explain why Commander Ikari is so cold towards him."

But Asuka was still unwavering. She didn't want to believe this at all. It just couldn't be possible for the Third Child's mother was some…some stranger that just shows up like some act of Gott for him. It just felt so…so unfair.

-x-

Without a doubt, Rei Ayanami was in a similar state of disbelief that Asuka Langley Soryu was in. Though, she had more impulse control than the redhead currently did, merely standing in front of her window and looking out at the night sky. It was simply not possible for any pilot's mother to be alive to be eligible to pilot the Eva; deceased mothers were a necessity for piloting the Eva. And yet, the Third Child's mother was…very much alive and the boy was piloting an Eva…which shouldn't have been possible.

She saw one cloud that was, as eerie as it could have been, shaped like an Evangelion looking down at the world below.

Ikari-Kun will not keep away from her, she thought, suspecting that this unexpected relationship between the boy and the woman would hinder his reliability to NERV. Commander Ikari will not tolerate this at all.

-x-

"…So, he's there?" A woman's voice uttered over the phone to Fusei in her apartment.

"Yes, and I've told him the truth once it was confirmed that he was mine," she responded to the woman. "It was…really good to finally tell him and reach out to him."

"Does he know about us? I mean, our mother and father and I? His father?"

"Not fully, but I'm telling him everything about our family."

"You two be careful in that city…and you be careful. It's not just Shinji you should be concerned about. If what I heard about that Gendo guy is true, then he is not one to be anywhere near unless you're packing."

Fusei then looked over to a small case on her dresser with a lock on it. She shuddered at the thought of using her father's gun over the Tasers she had. It wasn't because of the Hippocratic Oath she took as a doctor to first do no harm, but because after losing her father, grandfather and boyfriend and recovering from a broken leg the depression of her son being kidnapped, she, a woman that started motherhood the second she had her baby, couldn't bring herself to even think about killing another person. Unless it was unintentionally and in self-defense, she couldn't and wouldn't cross that line. She owed to her boyfriend and Shinji not to.

"You know I can't cross that line yet, Shinko-Kinomi," she told her sister. "It would be easier to just go after him through legal channels. Now that we know who had taken Shinji, we can charge them with kidnapping, just like what Mother suggested. There's no statute of limitations on kidnapping, which can include whatever happened to Shinji during the time he was taken. But we shouldn't go down that route unless as an absolute last resort."

"Softie. Still, the path of least resistance is the path that causes the least amount of suffering. If you see that monster, make sure you give him a piece of a Hitode's mind."

"Don't have to tell me twice."

When she hung up, she picked up the case containing her father's gun and stored it in the closet…and came out with a different case that contained a different gun. It wasn't like a Glock or Desert Eagle firearm, even though it had a combination of metallic alloys mixed with plastics, but it was mainly for defensive purposes. It was a next-generation Taser gun that actually fired bullet-like darts at people (A/N: Think the Taser gun they use in APB), not just regular bullets. A few friends of hers from before Second Impact that survived the devastation had gotten it for her as a birthday gift two years ago after she had been an attempted victim of a mugging and tasered the fool hard in the neck and crotch before taking his gun and reporting him to the police.

"Gotta make sure all the rounds in here are just for tasering," she told herself, setting it down at her kitchen table and getting to work.

-x-

"…Asuka, can we talk?" Shinji asked the redhead, standing outside her room's sliding door, waiting for a response.

The door slid open and the redhead looked like she was very disinterested in anything about him.

"What do you want, Third?" She asked him.

"You don't think Ms. Hitode's my mother at all, do you?" He questioned her.

"Of course I don't think she's your mother. I think she's playing you, and you don't see that."

"Why do you think this? Why is hard for you to believe it when you're told that she's my mother? I had a small time believing it myself, but then Misato and Dr. Akagi revealed the same truth Ms. Hitode told me, and how could I not believe them? The only thing awful about it was what happened fourteen years ago."

"And you honestly believe this? From the bottom of your conscious? You believe this woman's your mother?"

"Yes, Asuka, I do. Why do you think I shouldn't?"

"Because it's wrong."

"How is it wrong?"

"It's wrong because it's so convenient that your mom's very much alive while mine's very much dead! That's why it's wrong!" She then slid the door closed in front of his face; she didn't want to talk about it any further tonight. Verdammt, Shinji. It's so convenient for you. You find out your mother is alive and some woman you thought was your mother was not your mother. How you get such luck? Verdammt! You stupid idiot!

She hated him right now. She hated him…and it wasn't even his fault. There was no way he could have known that his birth mother was alive, there was no way he could have known that she had spent fourteen years looking for him, or that she would even have any guarantee of finding him alive or that he would believe her to be his mother. And she knew she couldn't blame him for any of this, no matter how much she hated him…or envied him.

-x-

The next morning, school was pretty silent. It was like things were on some sort of autopilot because everyone was just trying to fall back into their daily routines, which didn't seem hard for the elderly teacher that went on and on about the cover story on Second Impact. One train of thought was that because yesterday's potential outcome could've resulted in a city and large patch of land being eradicated, most people that didn't know how close they came to losing things they took for granted just took inventory on what mattered to them.

"…Are you alright, Asuka?" Hikari asked the redhead, seeing her during lunchtime on the school rooftop. "You've been rather quiet, which is unlike you."

Overlooking the city away from the school, Asuka turned to face the pig-tailed girl and sighed.

"Tell me something, Hikari," she uttered to her, "Do you believe in people not knowing who their parents are?"

"What? What do you mean by that?" Hikari asked her.

"I mean…is it possible for people… I read this old article about a man that had no idea he was adopted for twenty-three years, that his mother was made to give him up when she was thirteen by her father…and then tried to find him…for years. Is it possible for people…to not know who their parents really are…for years?" She tried to make a convincing lie to her; how could she tell her that Shinji found out that his real mother had spent his whole life trying to find him?

"Well, yeah," Hikari answered her. "People can go years, decades, not knowing who their parents really are. Some that get adopted often don't know or even care for the reason or reasons to the why."

"But…what if they weren't adopted to begin with…and they still didn't know that the people they grew up around weren't their relatives? What if…they were just taken from their blood relatives before they were even old enough to remember anything?"

"Then that's kidnapping. You kidnap someone's child, especially when they're young, and nobody does anything to stop them and they spend their lives never knowing, you have more guilt, more shame on your conscience that you will never be freed from. And the child you took will be scarred if they ever find out the truth. People they had a connection to destroyed, relationships never explored or developed if the parents they needed to know about were dead or gone. Even in the darkest days of suffering, anyone is able to find some peace in their sleep. But for anyone that chooses to inflict some form of suffering onto others, be it murder or some other form of humiliation, with absolutely no regard for their feelings, the guilt that swells up within them will not permit them any peace when they seek to rest in the afterlife. Not ever. You intentionally do harm to someone else, you will never know peace when you die or sleep. Your guilty conscience will never permit it, and there will no place for you to lay down your head."

If this had been some sort of religious saying, Asuka would have put her foot down on it and disbelieve it to the core of her being. But her friend had struck heavy nerves with the explanation for her fabrication and illuminated some thoughts. Even though she hated Shinji strictly for being an Eva pilot, he just found out that his mother who died years ago was not his blood mother (and may as well as not been a surrogate or adopted mother if there was no proof) and a man he hated for leaving him years ago was not his father, and it was infuriating and awful because he was a big victim of acts beyond him that were committed against him and his relatives. And she couldn't hate him for finding out about the truth, one piece or layer at a time, even if she viewed one piece of it as being unfair in her eyes.

"Thanks for clarifying that, Hikari," she told her, feeling some sense of clarity for herself.

When school got let out later that day, Asuka caught up with Shinji as he walked towards NERV HQ, and noticed that the First Child was already further up ahead.

"Hey, Shinji," she called out to him by his name.

He turned to face her.

"Yes?" He responded.

"Are you…going to talk to Dr. Hitode again?" She asked him.

"Yeah, why?"

"Might I speak with her myself?"

"If that's what you want to do, I'm not going to stop you."

"It's personal, you know."

"That's your business."

"At least tell me one thing. Do you…think you'll recover from the revelation of your past?"

"Revelation?"

"You just found out about your real mother and she's telling you about your roots that contradict what you thought was true. I mean, if that man you thought was your father finds out, he might have a problem with you spending time with her, what, if anything, are you going to say to him? What will you do?"

"If I have to, I will confront him with this discovery…and demand an explanation for why."

"Oh… Okay."

Shinji then resumed walking towards NERV HQ.

"About last night," he stopped again at the sound of her voice. "I am sorry."

It was the first time she had ever apologized to him for anything she said or did.

"You're forgiven," he told her.

-x-

The salvaging of the Spear of Longinus was a success. And with the destruction of the Eighth Angel, that left only five Angels to deal with before the Human Instrumentality Project could be implemented.

I think mankind can afford a little season of relief, thought Gendo as he saw the last helicopter release the tow cables that held the Spear in place before being placed aboard the carrier needed to transport it.

The Antarctic was a virtual wasteland. No trace of life at all, not even a tiny microbe. But Gendo didn't let this bother him; places like this meant nothing to him.

-x-

"…Your guardian actually has a penguin?" Fusei asked Shinji later that day as they walked down the hall to the testing chambers.

"Yeah," he answered her. "It's weird, I admit it, but I've seen weird things ever since I got here."

"The first weird thing I saw was that creature you kids stopped from destroying the city the other day. Which reminds me, Shinji, bravo on what you did for everyone."

"Thank you. So…what are you doing right now? Here at NERV, I mean?"

"Helping in an autopilot system called the Dummy System, but I have my doubts that it will be of any use. From a basic understanding, it's supposed to work as a replacement to the use of actual pilots for the Eva. Basically, a false pilot system in case something were to happen to any of you that either incapacitates or compromises your ability to use the Eva."

"But…if something like that were to work out for NERV, then they wouldn't need us, anymore, right? I mean, if they wanted something better than a person to pilot the Eva, they wouldn't have to concern themselves with us."

"Maybe, Shinji, but an autopilot's nothing but a machine following basic or advanced programming. Even if the Dummy System does work out, there's no guarantee that it will do right by the people."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is…machines can't appreciate things they're made to do like people can. They can't place or appreciate value on what can or should take precedent in anything relevant to a situation. You build a robot to aid in building cars, that's all it's gonna do. It can't feel concern that a car is faulty or is gonna cause a traffic accident."

"Like what you asked Asuka the other day? What do we feel? You're concerned…because an autopilot system doesn't feel anything."

"Yeah. If it can't discern right from wrong, only following some form of instruction, then something can happen that causes problems. It's like a movie that was made over two years ago, which was a remake of a film years before Second Impact called Robocop, which included themes like control between human and machine, the line between deviation and following orders. You replace police with robots, robots can only assess the level of a given threat and act accordingly, with no trace of emotion like police do, which hinder their performance. But if something goes wrong, you can't blame the robot that was only following its programming and can't be held accountable for its actions."

"I think I saw that movie with Kensuke and Toji a week ago," Shinji realized. "Yeah, it had that guy that was injured and turned into a cyborg that was slowly becoming a robot before he retook control of himself. Will you be doing something to make it so that the autopilot system takes into consideration the possibility of error?"

Fusei lowered and leaned in on Shinji and said, "That's what I'm going to try because I have my doubts that it will work out right."

Shinji chuckled and smiled at her. He really felt elated around her, telling her about himself and hearing about her life. It wasn't just the sense of elation he felt, he wanted to feel that, when this matter with the Angels and the Evas was all said and done, he could just…walk away from it all and build up his relationship with his mother.

"Do you think this war with the Angels will ever end?" He asked her.

"It's gotta end sooner or later," she said, not really answering him. "I want to believe that it will end soon. I couldn't give up on finding you, Shinji, and I wasn't going to let a city that might do well if it wasn't attacked so much stop me from looking for you here. And though your father's not around, I want for you to meet everyone still around. Your aunt, my elder sister, your grandmother, your father's brother, all of us."

"I…I want that, too."

As they continued to walk towards the testing chambers, they were silently followed by Rei, who looked irritable by the sight of this woman interacting with Shinji. It was…unpleasant and could not be tolerated. This…relationship…had to stop and come undone.

To be continued…

A/N: Again, if this seems like Asuka bashing, I apologize. The truth of the matter is, Asuka never thinks to question most things that Shinji will. And I had to make Fusei address her personality the way she did that explains her behavior. But the question I had her ask Hikari helped her understand what the situation is with Shinji and put her on the path to dealing with it better. We can't all be exorcised of our demons. Also, I'm putting up a new poll to confront the next chapter's influence, so be on the lookout for it later.