Creation began on 08-16-18

Creation ended on 08-24-18

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Begin Anew

A/N: Thinking of the right title was a challenge, but here goes the penultimate chapter.

Only family and friends were allowed up to see her. There were only the three of them that were close family and friends.

Tetsuo Katagiri, Shinko-Kinomi Hitode and Katsura Hitode, a childhood friend, elder sister and the mother of Fusei Hitode, respectively, as they came down the hall.

"Uh, Misato Katsuragi?" Tetsuo spoke to the purple-haired woman in front of them.

Misato turned around and faced the three in front of her.

"Are you three associated to Fusei Hitode?" She asked them.

"We are," answered Katsura to her. "Is my daughter alright?"

Misato bowed her head to her and then pointed to the room beside them.

"She's asleep in there, but…it's complicated," she explained.

"What do you mean, it's complicated?" Tetsuo asked. "Is Fusei alright or not?"

"It's best if you see for yourself."

They went into the room, but Shinko-Kinomi gasped at the young girl in front of them in the medical bed.

"Fusei?" She uttered.

-x-

"…Hey, we found another body here!" A JSSDF soldier called out as they were looking around the rotting body of Lilith. "It's the First Child!"

Rei Ayanami, or rather, the girl that was identified as Rei Ayanami, laid pinned under the neck of the Seed of Life that was Lilith.

"Are you alive?" Another soldier asked her. "Are you Rei Ayanami?"

"I am," she answered him. "Did you find…Commander Ikari and his wife?"

"The police have them."

"What of…Fusei Hitode?"

"At the hospital."

"And…her son?"

"We didn't find any kid."

"Not here…where he was ended. They took him from her…but I gave him back…so that he couldn't be taken again."

The soldiers pulled her free and escorted her out of Terminal Dogma.

"What the Hell happened down here?" One of them asked her.

"Ikari's wife wanted to change the world, but she needed a child of her own to do so. She feared she couldn't have one of her due to a car accident she was in a few years, so she resorted to surrogating her plans with a substitute child…and stole another woman's, a teenage girl's child, to exploit as her own."

"I think I read about something like that," went another soldier. "It was a few months after Second Impact. A baby-snatching was committed at a hospital in Tokyo. The people responsible were never caught and the case was considered cold."

But the case was no longer cold. The culprits were apprehended. They just got caught too late.

-x-

Opening her eyes for the first time since the attack, Fusei found herself in a hospital setting, smelling a lit incense's aroma source nearby.

I wish it was all a dream, she thought, feeling a bit weak, but I can't erase the feeling of dread I had when I couldn't feel his heart beating. Shinji…I failed you.

"Hey, she's awake," she heard someone say. "Fusei?"

She rose up and looked at the people around her, recognizing her mother and sister and her friend, Tetsuo. Raising her left hand to wipe her face of what had to be dried tears, she stopped and realized something was off; her hand was…smaller than it had been before she was almost crushed by the Eva and her son was killed, about the size of a teen's hand.

"Fusei?" Katsura spoke up. "Do you recognize us?"

"Mother," she responded, her voice sounding younger than before. "Where…am I?"

"Shizuoka Memorial Hospital," Shinko-Kinomi explained. "This was one of the hospitals everyone that worked for NERV was sent to for medical aid."

"How…how long was I…I…" Fusei couldn't ask the question of how long she was unconscious, fearing that it might've been a while longer than what she suspected.

"The doctors and Ms. Katsuragi say at least two days, Fusei," Tetsuo answered. "Do you…remember anything? From before you woke up?"

She nodded that she recalled everything…and couldn't stop the tears from escaping her eyes.

"I should've left with him as soon as I made sure everyone else that couldn't leave had left," she uttered. "I was with Shinji…and I knew we should've left right then and there…but I failed him. And now he's gone because of me."

"No," Katsura told her daughter, "that's not true, Fusei. You didn't fail him. You never failed. You found him. You found him and made sure he knew who you were."

Outside the room, Misato and Asuka found this harder to accept than the redhead thought it would be.

"So, what happens now?" She asked Misato.

"At best, now that the police have Gendo and Yui Ikari, they'll be charged for their crimes and sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping Shinji all those years ago," Misato answered her. "At worse, it might be tough to prove to the world that this young woman is Fusei Hitode since she's thirteen again and no longer thirty."

"And you still think Rei did this to her?"

"Yeah, but I just don't understand why she did it."

Slam! They looked back into the room and saw the medical bed empty and the door leading to the bathroom closed; apparently, Fusei had gone into the bathroom quick.

"Fusei?" Shinko-Kinomi knocked on the door, concerned for her sister. "Are you okay in there?"

"Haaaurgh! Uuurgh!" They all heard puking noises in there before a toilet was flushed and water running. "Un-uh."

The door opened and the young girl stepped out, looking under the weather whilst holding her waist with her left hand as she wiped her mouth clean with her right hand.

"Why am I young again?" She asked them; she had clearly seen her reflection in the mirror while she was in the bathroom. "Well, younger."

-x-

It was all she really asked of them. All she truly requested when they brought her up to Central Dogma where Ritsuko Akagi was still present.

Rei Ayanami simply needed to see Fusei Hitode…and explain to her what happened before she herself was taken somewhere for her own involvement with Yui and Gendo's plans. She wouldn't contest any of the charges that might've been held against her, but she just wanted to make sure the woman was informed of her role in her current situation.

"What did you do, Rei?" Ritsuko asked her.

"Only what Commander Ikari and his wife wouldn't do," she answered, albeit cryptically.

"You went and physically regressed Fusei Hitode back into her teen years…and I have reason to suspect you caused the disappearance of Shinji's remains."

"Yes, his body disappeared…but it is not missing."

"Disappeared, but not missing?"

"Seen, but never seen. Protected, but has yet to be known to its protector."

Ritsuko then got the craziest assumption that this girl that used to be a part of Lilith went and did something that was unimaginable…and impossible.

-x-

"…Are we even sure that's a good idea?" Misato asked Ritsuko over the phone, standing outside of Fusei's room as the girl was being examined by a doctor. "The last time we saw Rei, she tried to kill us along with Yui."

"I saw it all go down," Ritsuko responded, "but it's all she really asked for. She knows where she's going to end up later, and she isn't going to fight it. She just wants to talk to her."

"I'll tell her, but there's no guarantee that she'll even want to speak to Rei (Misato looks at Fusei as she was getting her heart checked). Her physical regression hasn't altered her mental faculties; she still remembers everything that happened."

"But she doesn't know what Rei did afterward."

"What did she do?"

As Misato was getting the update, the doctor looking at Fusei got up and left.

"You seem okay, Ms. Hitode," he told the girl. "Uh, are you sure you're twenty-nine years old? You seem more like you're thirteen."

"I feel like I'm thirteen," she expressed, sounding depressed.

"You want to talk about it?"

"Recently, I lost someone dear to me. He was…very dear to me."

"Who was it?"

"My son, Shinji."

Misato then sighed and stepped into the room.

"Fusei, there's something I need to tell you," she informed the girl.

-x-

"Video monitoring is as close as you're going to get with Ms. Hitode, Rei," Ritsuko informed the girl as she setup the computer to do FaceTime with the tablet at the hospital in Shizuoka, "so, whatever it is you need to tell her, you tell her in front of me and the soldiers."

Rei accepted the terms and sat in front of the computer; she was just hoping that Fusei would hear her out.

Misato's face appeared on the screen, having established the FaceTime link.

"Rei? You're actually back to normal," she expressed.

"There was never such a thing as 'normal' for me," the albino responded, "but, yes, I am back."

"I spoke with Fusei…and she's willing to talk with you, but if you say something that upsets her, she's going to smash the tablet. So watch the way you speak to her. It's a real, trying time for her right now."

"I understand, Major Katsuragi."

Misato sighed and handed the tablet in her hands to the de-aged woman that looked a bit unwell.

"Miss Hitode," Rei greeted.

"Miss Ayanami," Fusei responded, her tone somewhat bitter; the girl was trying to hide it, but it was hard to keep her feelings in check because she was talking to the girl that shot and harmed her son.

"I am sorry for my actions against you and Shinji. I understand that no amount of talking will erase what I did…so I hope you will at least accept what I did upon realization that I was just causing you pain."

"You, Yui and Gendo were causing people pain with what was attempted. I don't understand what regressing me back to my early-teens does for anyone."

"I saw the memories of your past, Commander Ikari's wife's reasons for committing her unforgivable act against your family…and just did what needed to be done to rectify the act committed fifteen years ago."

"I still don't…"

"They took him from you," Rei cut her off gently. "I made sure…you would have him back in your life."

"We saw him die, Ayanami. Death is permanent."

"Not with Lilith or Adam. And for a time, I was Lilith when Shinji breathed his last breath. I saw his soul still lingering, trying to stay tethered to this world. Thirteen before… Fourteen after… Let only one part of history repeat itself without an echo of cruelty being committed."

"What… What are you saying, Ayanami?"

"Nobody can find his body…because you have it, along with his soul."

Fusei looked away from the tablet for a while, as if confused further, trying to put two and two together before returning to face the tablet.

"I…I gotta go now," she said, sounding conflicted. "Thank you for your call."

With the FaceTime connection severed, Rei had pretty much said all she needed to say to Fusei. Even if she didn't understand, the albino was confident that she would in due time.

"Rei," went Ritsuko to her as she turned away from the computer. "You didn't just cause a physical regression in Fusei, didn't you? You did a physical regression with Shinji's remains…and transferred them into her, didn't you?"

"If by that, you're asking if she's pregnant again with her son, then, yes, I did."

Ritsuko was stunned! Impressed, but stunned! Something of this sort was impossible, but it would've made sense, adding to Fusei's regression and why the JSSDF couldn't find Shinji's remains in Terminal Dogma.

"Why would you do that?" She asked her.

"Because, in the end, he was her son, and was within her rights to take him from the Ikaris once she found him. But other factors prevented her from leaving with him in the traditional sense, including myself. And…after Shinji died, I knew then that what the Ikaris wanted was not for everyone…and they were just out for themselves. So I did what I could to return him to his real mother so that she could be what they never were to him in his past."

"Some would interpret that as playing God, Rei."

"If that's what I did, then I'm glad I only did so once…and will never do again because Lilith is dead and nothing else will come from her."

-x-

"…What did that girl say to my sister?" Shinko-Kinomi asked Misato, as Fusei had locked herself in the bathroom after that FaceTime conversation ended.

"I don't know what Rei told her," she confessed. "She wouldn't tell anyone until after she spoke with her."

"Whatever she said to her has her really upset," Katsura told the woman. "Did you know that she's been in there for thirty minutes crying?"

"People can cry," stated Asuka to the ladies.

"Not like my sister, they don't," Shinko-Kinomi informed the redhead. "She only ever does this on Shinji's birthday…and the anniversary days that he was kidnapped and his father died, that our father and grandfather died. She's very emotional with these dates."

Suddenly, the doctor that had been examining Fusei returned from wherever he had been and got their attention.

"Um, I just…came back with your daughter's test results," he explained his reason for coming back. "Other than her past injury to her left leg being updated and her physical regression back into her teens, she's pretty healthy like before. Though, her hormone levels are a bit elevated. When was her last menstruation cycle?"

"We haven't seen her since she went to Tokyo-3 to find her son, so we don't know," Katsura spoke. "Why are you asking?"

"Because your daughter's pregnant, ma'am," he explained to them.

All of them, Misato, Asuka, Shinko-Kinomi, Katsura and Tetsuo each looked at the bathroom door and wondered if Fusei knew.

"Are you sure?" Tetsuo asked him. "I mean… She hasn't exactly…"

He didn't want to say it because he really loved Fusei like a sister and didn't want to believe that she went and fooled with some other man, even if it was only once.

"One of the female nurses drew blood for a pregnancy test, and it came back positive. But we found no trace of any recent sexual activity, and there's no record of her ever getting a recent AI procedure performed."

Meanwhile, in the bathroom, Fusei, having stopped her crying a few minutes ago, sat on the floor and had her hands on her waist.

"What do you think he'll want to be when he grows up?" She remembered Genshi-teki asking her when she was seven months along, his hand pressed against her belly. "A basketball player? A racecar driver? Working for Geek Squad?"

"Ah-ha-ha! Don't. Stop that." She had told him. "Whatever it is he chooses to be, so long as it makes him happy."

Though, I wouldn't have minded if he became an honest man, she thought, chuckling as she patted her belly.

"Nobody can find his body…because you have it, along with his soul," Rei had told her. "Nobody can find his body…because you have it, along with his soul."

Oh, my Kami, Fusei thought as the possible revelation struck her like lightning, and then moved towards the toilet as she felt like she had to vomit again. "Aaaurgh! Ugh! Urgh!"

Knock-knock-knock! Someone knocked at the door.

"Fusei, it's me, Tetsuo," her best friend spoke to on the other side. "We really need to talk with you about something."

Finishing her puking, the young girl washed her mouth of the residual bile and flushed the toilet.

"Just a moment, please," she responded, looking at her reflection in the mirror. Uhh, if this is what I think it is, this is going to be a whole new experience for me.

She inhaled and unlocked the door to leave the room, seeing her mother and the others.

"Fusei," Katsura uttered, "the doctor said that you're pregnant."

"That was something I just realized myself," she told her.

"Do you…know how this…happened?" Shinko-Kinomi asked. "You didn't…do anything?"

"It was Rei Ayanami," the girl revealed. "She aged me back to my thirteenth year, the age I was when I first got pregnant with Shinji…and put Shinji back in my womb."

"Rei did what?" Misato asked her.

"Yeah, it's crazy to believe, but that's what she did, her way of making amends."

-x-

Locked in a solitary cell until she was fully processed wasn't doing well for Yui Ikari as she paced back and forth within said cell. Not only was she forcibly separated from the Eva by Lilith (or Rei, as she decided to call herself now), NERV had video evidence of her using the Eva to murder her father to keep him from getting to Shinji and Fusei. This meant that the police not only knew she was alive, but had committed murder against one of her family, which would've marked her for the death sentence.

"Fortunately, your father had updated his will a few days before he was killed," one of the policemen informed her. "You and your husband have a whole list of charges that will put you away for the rest of your lives."

We were so close, Yui thought, stopping in the center of her cell. We were so close! The bright future for all of mankind! But that woman had to come to Tokyo-3! She just had to come looking for him! She could've had other children! What made Shinji so important to her?!

Meanwhile, in a separate cell, Gendo was left to ponder his fate as it was laid before him. No matter what he did, no matter what he said, even if SEELE didn't get to him, he was going to rot in prison for the rest of his life. And not only were Adam and Lilith disposed of, Unit-01 was being dismantled and he was informed that Shinji was dead…and his death was being held against himself and Yui!

"If there's no body, how do you know that brat is dead?" He had asked the police as he was being processed.

"Your wife was declared dead, even though there was no body," a policewoman told him before she threw him into his cell. "It's the same here. Plus, we'll get the statements of the women that were there when he was murdered."

Major Katsuragi, Ritsuko Akagi…and Fusei Hitode, he realized as they were the women present when the Third Child was killed, but he blamed the Hitode woman the most for her involvement in the way things went down. I should've killed that bitch when I had the chance!

-x-

"So…what happens now?" Fusei asked Misato as she, her mother and sister, Tetsuo and Asuka sat around her room in the hospital, three days later.

"We're pretty much in unknown waters right now," Misato explained. "Gendo and Yui Ikari will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, NERV will be disbanded, the Evas dismantled and any research on them erased. Undoubtedly, all personnel will be sworn to secrecy over the Angels, and go their separate ways."

"Well, that's nice to hear, but what about Fusei?" Shinko-Kinomi questioned. "Even if we told our friends about her current state, what's to stop a bunch of crazed lunatics from coming after her like she discovered the Fountain of Youth somewhere and treat her like a lab rat?"

"And what's to keep anyone with a mindset like this Yui Ikari from taking Shinji from her all over again?" Katsura added.

"You could just fake her death a bit," Asuka suggested.

"What?" Fusei asked her.

"Well, officially, NERV had a woman by the name of Fusei Hitode working for them as a doctor and computer technician. They don't know about a thirteen-year-old girl with the same name. I'm just suggesting you could fake your death in the sense that you died at NERV or was proclaimed MIA. Then it's likely that nobody would come after you or Shinji again."

"That won't be necessary, Ms. Soryu," they all turned to the door and saw Kozo Fuyutsuki.

"Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki," Misato greeted. "What do you mean by it won't be necessary for Fusei to fake her death?"

"Everyone that was secretly in charge of the UN, including the funding of NERV and other agencies, are being hunted down like dogs and are facing a multitude of crimes against the world," he explained, meaning that SEELE, who had been the ones pulling the strings behind the United Nations for years, was being prosecuted. "Only a handful of people were ever in control of the world, and now the world knows who they are and what they did. Their only choices will be to either run or face the consequences. No doubt some of them will be running for years."

"It's hard to run in a world that's smaller because of less land to move on," Tetsuo stated. "Unless it's to places nobody else will go to, the ravaged ones where living is always hard."

"So, what should we all do until then?" Fusei asked.

-x-

Japan, Twenty-Sixteen

"…It's good to see you back, Asuka," greeted Misato as she met with the redhead at the airport a few months later. "I still can't believe you got called back to Germany."

"I still can't believe I actually went back to Germany," Asuka responded. "I know I said I hated Japan back when I was piloting the Eva, but here was the only place I actually had friends."

"I take it that this time, you'll be staying around?"

"More or less."

"Nice to know your stepparents agreed."

"After a lot of negative press about the darker side of things with NERV and the UN, they didn't have much choice but to agree. They didn't want it getting out that they accepted bribes for taking me in when they wanted to dispose of me."

"You actually threatened them when they informed you about it?"

"Yeah… But, please, enough about me. What about you? What about Dr. Akagi or Rei? Kaji? Fusei? Shinji?"

"Well, Ritsuko vouched for Rei to stay on with NERV's genetic research division in the hopes of seeing how human she has become and may stay. So far, she's lost her blue hair color and her eyes turned brown. Kaji and I are trying to get back in the dating game, but I have my doubts that anything will change. Fuyutsuki's gone back into teaching over in Sapporo. The Ikaris… Well, you must've seen the news about them, right?"

"Yeah, I did."

Yui and Gendo Ikari were prosecuted for their crimes and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole and sent to separate prisons away from each other (which seemed more to punish Gendo than Yui, since he spent his entire career at NERV trying to get back together with his wife). Although the wife was primarily charged with the kidnapping of a tender-age child and murder of her own father, her husband was charged as an accomplice for the kidnapping and might as well have been involved in the murder of his father-in-law himself, as there were no statute of limitations on either crime committed, past and present. Their only defense was that they thought the teen mother was dead, not asleep, but they were only vitiated by the fact that they didn't bother to confirm whether or not Fusei was actually dead before they took her baby, not excused from the act or the following death of the child's father.

"What about Fusei?" Asuka asked Misato, wanting to know how the young woman was doing after everything that happened. "How has she been?"

"Well, you can ask her how she's doing yourself," she responded, implying that they were going to see the Hitodes now. "I saw her and Katsura last week, and they're still arguing over wall colors."

"How can they be arguing over wall colors? It shouldn't be such a difficult thing for them. I mean, it's either going to be white, blue, green or even red."

"Well, white has been the common color used by people…and red isn't a color Fusei is into like you are, Asuka. She's probably looking to forget about as much of NERV as possible."

"When you're a woman restored to your early-teens whilst retaining your adult mind, that's quite a challenge to achieve victory over."

Misato showed her to her Renault and drove across the open country after leaving the airport. The sight of the trees having brownish leaves indicated that they were going through the fall season after a lengthy summer (despite it being spring). It was due to the recent shift in the climate after fifteen years of being altered by the aftermath of Second Impact, and the planet was starting to return to its original axis. It would still be while before any winter seasons were sufficient enough to leave any snow on the ground anywhere in Japan, but the world was recovering after the Angels were defeated and Third Impact was prevented.

"You heard from anyone else while I was away?" Asuka asked, wondering if anyone kept in contact besides them.

"The first to keep in contact was Aida," Misato stated, "and he told Suzuhara, who told Horaki. They couldn't believe what had happened until it was explained to them, and Fusei and I had to swear them to secrecy about the shadier bits of the truth, about how the whole world shouldn't know about everything."

Despite the relief and reconstruction bills to repair Tokyo-3, more revenue was being generated around the lesser cities and towns and small attempts to rebuild the damaged cities along the coastal lines got more attention than the former fortress city. Some people preferred places such as the original Tokyo (now referred to as Little Tokyo after it was reclaimed for the time being), Osaka, Tokai and Nagasaki, as they had a more lived-in feeling.

"That otaku can't keep his mouth shut for anything," Asuka claimed.

"And he can't stop staring at Fusei, either," Misato confessed as they reached the rural town where about a handful of residents from Tokyo-3 relocated to when NERV was disbanded. "I hope Pen-Pen's doing okay with Fusei."

"Please, don't tell me you actually did what Hikari told me you did on the phone a week ago."

"Pen-Pen actually seems okay with his current predicament."

"So, where does Fusei live in this town?"

"Just up that hillside. She wanted a nice view of the ocean, made her feel calm and like she was at home in Tokyo."

"Whoa."

The Hitodes' rural residence was a rather large house that must've been able to support ten people, at least. It was a nice, two-story-tall, castle-like setting with a large yard separated from the land around it by its enclosed walls. And just across from it was a small cliff with a bench beside a large tree. It almost looked like something out of a dream.

"Hard to believe that the Hitodes live here now," Asuka confessed.

"Yeah," Misato agreed with her as she parked the car and they got out, just as the gate to the house opened, revealing Toji Suzuhara, dressed in a blue yukata, with a little girl with the same hair color as his, wearing a pink yukata.

"Hey, there, Misato," he greeted. "You're back!"

He saw Asuka and bowed his head to her.

"Hey, stooge," she greeted him. "How is everyone?"

"Playing with Pen-Pen after Shinko-Kinomi dressed him up again."

"Dressed him up?"

"Hikari thought it was funny…and Pen-Pen actually chose to keep it up."

"But it's hard on Ms. Fusei because she's not allowed to laugh so much," said the little girl, Sakura Suzuhara, to the redhead.

They went inside and saw everyone they knew around the warm-water penguin, dressed in a blue shirt, looking almost like a human to a degree, with a measure of embarrassment.

"Asuka?" The girl heard the voice of Fusei nearby, and saw the regressed woman sitting on a blanket on the grass, wearing a purple dress with her hair grown almost past the small of her back. "Asuka Langley Soryu? Glad to see you here. It's been a while since I last saw you."

"And you, Fusei," she responded, chuckling at her. "How's your belly?"

"My belly?! Don't you mean, 'baby'?!" Fusei reacted, not under the influence of her elevated hormones, despite her delicate state.

"She gets frustrated when people poke fun at her like this," Tetsuo, dressed in an orange yukata, expressed, sitting beside the young woman. "She yelled at me when I did. My ears still hurt."

"Are you sure that's Shinji in there?" Asuka asked, looking at her swollen girth. "Your stomach's a melon."

"Don't poke, please," Fusei warned her as she placed her left hand on her belly. "You'll scare him into a hyper-frenzy."

Only seven months pregnant with Shinji, Fusei looked as though she were ready to pop. Strangely enough, though, was how Fusei had suspected that, with the way her pregnancy was progressing, it was likely that Shinji would be born on his birthday, just as he had been over fourteen years ago, in the summertime.

"Do you really think she'll be alright this time?" Misato asked Katsura as they sat away from everyone else in the yard, wanting the mother's opinion about her youngest daughter.

"Yeah," she answered, looking at Fusei's happy smile. "She still has all of us, her family and friends, in her life. She might have lost Genshi-teki, but she found their son after so many years. And she knows that even if life becomes stressful, it's up to her to find a way to resolve the stress…in any way she can."

"Are you sure you're okay with her not doing anything except taking care of Shinji? I mean, it's only me saying this, but she doesn't seem like a stay-at-home-mom."

"She actually wanted to help down at the small clinic in the town, but I told her not to. Even after Shinji's born again, her priority should just be taking care of him. It's only because of this Shojiki Ikari that I want her to do right by her son. I never met him, but from what she told me, he was an honorable man that cared about people doing the right thing rather than what they thought was what needed to be done."

Prior to his murder, Shojiki Ikari had rewritten his will…and had left a large portion of his family's wealth to the Hitodes. His only words written in the will about why were, "I saw these two young women separated by two different tragedies that befell them. One that feared she couldn't become a mother to a small child because of what had harmed her in the past…and the other that couldn't be a mother to a small child because of who harmed her in the present. Even as I can't confront the former, I found comfort in speaking with the latter, learning of who was responsible for her heartache when this blight was committed against her. It is my hope that when she's able to walk away from this madness with her son, she'll be able to build her life with him as intended until the cruelties of fate intervened". His surviving daughter didn't try to contest the alteration made to her father's will, as when she realized that the boy she had always thought was Yui's really wasn't, she backed away from the matter, as it was just something else she pinned on her sister for always needing to do something to prove she was the victim or was right about something.

If anyone was to suspect so, she probably had to reflect upon the fact that, for years ever since Yui had faked her death, she had done nothing but despise a kid that was just as much a victim of her sister's arrogance as their father had been.

"If I had known from the start that he was someone else's child and not my sister's, I wouldn't have treated him like he was out of the disgust I had for her," she had expressed one time.

"Oh!" They heard Hikari gasp as they saw her pull her hand away from Fusei's belly. "Someone's a little restless!"

"He heard that," Fusei told her. "He can hear all of you."

"And you still think he'll remember us all when he's older?" Kensuke asked her.

"If I didn't believe in that, I wouldn't be telling Shinji to kick every time I ask him if he remembers everyone's names and if he recalls inviting me over to Misato's for dinner. Ooh (she holds her belly)! See what I mean?"

"I was only out of Japan for six months and he still remembers me?" Asuka questioned.

"Care to feel for yourself?"

Sakura placed a hand on Fusei's belly and greeted, "Hello, Shinji."

She felt a small flutter.

"Heh-heh-heh! It feels all funny."

Asuka gave in and held up her left hand and placed it onto Fusei's belly.

"Hey, Shinji," she greeted the unborn child.

There was a small flutter beneath her palm. It reminded her of the first time they met a little bit…only she wasn't so dead set on piloting the Eva now…and he wasn't some timid kid that was once believed to be affiliated to some cold man that just cast him aside.

"It's funny, how I used to dislike him," she told Fusei. "Now…"

"You don't feel any dislike towards him," she responded.

"Yeah."

"That's a good thing."

"You are…unbearably positive."

"My great-grandfather was also like that, and do you know what his name was?"

Asuka, Hikari, Toji, Kensuke and Sakura leaned closer to the pregnant girl in anticipation of the mystery name.

"His name was also Shinji," she revealed to them.

"So, your son was named after your great-grandfather," Hikari realized. "Say, what would you have named him if he was a girl?"

"Kannazuki, after my boyfriend, Genshi-teki's grandmother."

"How is Fusei able to remain so certain that things will work out this time?" Misato asks Katsura as she sees the girl slowly get up and walk away from the others.

"Friends, family, memories of her first and only love," she answered. "Helps that she lives up to her nickname, Shinsetsu, meaning 'kindness', because ever since she was four, she's been the kindest child you'd ever know."

-x-

Just needing some time to herself right now, Fusei excused herself from the group at her house and crossed the path to sit on the bench beside the tree overlooking the ocean of the town below. Breathing in the ocean air while protected from the sun's rays by the branches over her head, she just thought back to the time spent at NERV, every second she had spent in the presence of her son.

"You ever think about my brother when you're out here?" She turned to her left and saw Tetsuo, walking over to her.

"Yeah," she answered, and patted the space beside her for him to sit on. "Thank you again for everything, Tetsuo."

"That's what friends do for one another, Fusei."

"No," she went, reaching for his right hand. "Not just friends."

He watched as she placed it on her belly.

"Family, too," she expressed, feeling Shinji kick again. "That is what we are."

Being reminded that he was going to be an uncle all over again put a smile on his face.

"You remember what you once told me the day your brother proposed to me?" She asked him.

"Yeah…I said that if you two got married, you'd be like my sister. We never had a sister, and you were the kid sister I never had."

"Even if Genshi-teki and I never got to that day, the rest of us might as well still be considered family, don't you think?"

"Yeah. How is it that you can be so positive all the time? I don't think I've ever seen you this cheerful…or hopeful."

"Honestly, right now…I'm actually just terrified."

"Terrified? What could you be terrified about?"

"That I won't be a good mother to Shinji; when I first held him in my arms, I merely thought about being a good mother to him, watching him take his first steps, hear his first words, deal with his first complaints, his worst fears and all the other trivial things people take for granted."

Fusei then fell into her friend's arms as he held her, tears falling from her eyes.

"There's so much I want to do for and with Shinji that I never got to fifteen years ago," she confessed to him.

Tetsuo just held her as she cried in his arms.

"You'll do alright," he assured her. "Even Shinji knows you'll do alright."

"Thank you again."

-x-

Summer had returned to Japan and it wasn't as hot as it used to. But it wasn't a pleasant day for one person.

"When did they bring her in?" Toji asked Hikari when he came to the hospital.

"Eight hours ago," Hikari answered. "Her water broke late last night."

"Crazy how he was born fifteen years ago today," went Asuka, who was also present along with Misato and Kensuke, "and he's getting born today."

"No matter how we choose to view it," stated Misato, "either chronologically or biologically, Shinji is Shinji, regardless of his age… Though, technically, today, his age is pretty much reset."

"I'm surprised you haven't had a single can of beer since I got back."

"I've given it up completely. Even if I don't live a long time, I intend to live long enough to at least see Shinji smile."

Suddenly, Kaji showed up, having left to the cafeteria to get a drink for Misato.

"They didn't have any apple juice, but I got you orange juice," he told her, presenting the alternate beverage.

"That's better," she responded, accepting the drink from him.

"Still nothing?"

"Nope," Kensuke revealed, "no update from the Hitodes yet, either."

"Doesn't Shinji have any respect for time?"

"Babies make their own schedules, Mr. Kaji," said Hikari to him. "They don't do as you ask whenever you ask them."

"You plan on having any children yourself one day?"

"Yes, eventually. Do you plan to have any yourself, Mr. Kaji?"

"That…is unknown at this time."

"He's only saying that because Misato's keeping him cut off for two years," Toji explained.

"Ouch," Kensuke uttered; if he had a girlfriend and she cut him off, he'd probably go crazy not being able to hold her.

"I'm guessing that you two are making your relationship work," Asuka stated.

Three minutes later, two more faces from NERV's past came by.

"Ritsuko," Misato greeted. "Fuyutsuki. Welcome."

"Did any of you see him yet?" Ritsuko asked them.

"I don't think he's been born yet," Asuka told her.

"How long has it been?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"Over eight hours," Misato answered him.

"Based on that, Fusei's probably only at six or seven centimeters."

"She's probably trying to keep her cool," Hikari suggested.

The door to the maternity ward opened up and Katsura Hitode walked out to meet them.

"I probably have some memory loss, because I don't remember it taking this long for Shinji to get born," she told them, bowing her head to Ritsuko and Fuyutsuki. "It's good each of you came today when we got here, though."

"How far along is she?" Asuka asked.

"Fusei still has three centimeters to go. She nearly broke a nurse's hand when the doctor suggested a C-section if she wasn't dilated enough."

"Shinko-Kinomi probably said nobody was going to cut her open unless it was absolutely necessary to do so," Fuyutsuki suggested.

"Yeah, she and Tetsuo said that. The doctor said you could see Fusei one at a time if you wanted. We're probably looking at another hour or two."

"How is Fusei taking her labor?" Misato asked.

"She's taking it calmly, though I think it has something to do with the fact that she had an epidural two hours ago. I worry the nurse that gave it to her gave her too much."

"Somehow, I doubt that if she's so calm about being in bed the whole time," Ritsuko shared her opinion about the girl's current state.

"Oh, she's not in bed right now," Katsura informed them, which caught their attention. "Shinko-Kinomi's helping her walk her contractions off."

"Isn't that…hazardous?" Toji questioned; he didn't know anything about what most pregnant women did during labor pains, but he got the feeling that walking was one of the things they weren't supposed to do.

"No, it's okay for her to walk or sit so long as she has somebody to help her. And it keeps her from getting bored."

"Forgive me for saying this, but your daughter must be the strangest person I know of, ma'am," Ritsuko confessed. "There's no way anyone can be this calm during labor and not complain about anything without screaming."

"Maybe you should see her first, Ms. Akagi."

Everyone else agreed on that, and the faux-blond woman was led to the room where the expectant teen mother was currently.

Ritsuko stepped inside and saw the pregnant girl being aided by her big sister to walk around the room.

"Are you sure you should be walking?" She asked Fusei as she was holding onto a support bar.

"It's okay," she answered her, sounding fine. "Shinji kicks me once to tell me I should stop and sit or lay down."

"When did they have purple gowns?"

Fusei, dressed in a purple version of the traditional hospital gown, sighed and explained that it was the only color they had at the time that wasn't dirty.

"That's Fusei for you," went Tetsuo, who was sitting in a chair across the room from the Hitode sisters. "She tries to see the positive in many things."

"Oh!" Fusei gasped, feeling a kick from Shinji, indicating that he wanted her to sit or lay down now, and she reached for a nearby chair. "See what I mean?"

"Some of us think Shinji's taking his time," Ritsuko explained.

"Oh, it's not Shinji. It's me. I'm…slow at dilating this time around."

"You sure you won't consider the C-section? It's optional."

"Eh-heh… I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, even if it was out of concern."

Ritsuko raised her hands in defense and gave up; she wasn't going to press this further, even if she wasn't truly concerned. This was a woman that had a smile capable of burning through an Evangelion's armor if she wanted to.

After her, Asuka came in and noticed how Fusei seemed…just a little too cheerful. She just chalked it up to her being influenced by the epidural she got and the fact that Shinji needed a mother that knew how to stay positive.

I still don't understand how a girl like this could be Shinji's mother, she admitted to herself; despite the way the boy was brought up by the Ikaris, the timid and spineless boy she had seen before the revelation was someone she simply couldn't imagine ever being related to someone else that wasn't anything like Gendo or his wife were. Not a scientist, not a leader, never one for politics, and she's the one best qualified to do right by Shinji.

After she stepped out, Fusei was greeted by Hikari, who seemed concerned about how the girl was sitting in a chair instead of laying in the bed.

"Seven centimeters, Ms. Horaki," she told the pigtailed girl, and then grimaced a little. "Maybe I'm eight centimeters now. I'm going to lie down."

Shinko-Kinomi helped her out of the chair and back into the bed.

"Ah… I know I'll be screaming some later," she told them.

"Is your epidural wearing off, sis?" Tetsuo asked her.

"No. I screamed the last time this happened."

"You mean, the first time," Hikari corrected her; it was still weird that this young mother was going to give birth to the same boy for the second time in her life. "Is that weird, the way I said it? It sounds weird."

"Weird, confusing, an act of God," said Tetsuo. "It's all the same."

Hikari noticed a cup of crushed ice on the stand nearby and gestured it to Fusei, who nodded in the positive.

"Nervous?" She asked her as she gave the cup to her.

"Worried, actually," Fusei answered as she accepted it. "I was asleep last night, and my worst nightmare was where someone tried to take Shinji from me a second time. I don't want that to happen again."

"It won't happen again. Everyone you know and trust is here and there's security all over to keep out anyone suspicious. Nobody gets in or out without being monitored and everything…and the chances of anyone doing something like that to you for the second time are very slim."

"Except you don't know what people are going to do until after they do so," Shinko-Kinomi expressed, "which is why Tetsuo and I are nearest to her in the unlikely possibility that someone does attempt to take Shinji. Call it paranoia, but that craziness that lurks within people, it's unpredictable…and does nothing but hurt."

"Is it alright if I ask you something?"

"You may."

"How come you don't have any kids like Fusei here is about to?"

"I have yet to meet the right guy. All my friends are married, but I'm waiting for the love of my life. Like my baby sister here, I'm not looking for those one-time relationships. Not everyone wants a booty call or to try online dating."

"So, for now, there's…nobody?"

"The perfect somebody exists for you out there…and the only thing about them that is perfect…is that they're into you."

"Good luck to you waiting for them, Shinko-Kinomi."

"She's actually seeing this one guy that works part-time at the library," Fusei revealed. "It's nothing that big yet, but I think he's a keeper."

Hikari wasn't entirely perceptive of Fusei's behavior, but theorized that much of Fusei's positivity was due to her fear of the unknown; the fact that she never knew what was going to happen, she put on a smile to reduce her fear. She was certain it was also why she constantly wore that phoenix charm her boyfriend gave her when they were dating, anything that gave her courage to deal with the fear of the unknown.

"Oopfh!" Fusei grimaced, holding the handrails of her bed, feeling like her stomach muscles had tightened. "Uh, can someone get the doctor just in case, please?"

-x-

"You have some nerve letting this happen, Rei?" Gendo, showing contempt towards the girl in front of him as she held the phone to her left ear; for the last seven months, the former First Child of NERV had been visiting both he and his wife at their prisons, and each time she did, she looked less like an albino and more like a younger version of Yui herself.

"Do you know what day it is today?" She asked him, not the least bit intimidated by him. "Heh, he's due today."

Of all the things she could've brought up, Rei had to bring up Fusei's son, whom she had informed to both Gendo and Yui that she had returned him to the woman's womb before his soul left this world.

"Why should I care about that brat?" He asked her.

"Because you two are the worst examples of fake parents," she answered, "and this is to remind you that it's all our faults, mine, yours and Yui's, that he and his family suffered. When I went to see Yui, she seemed to slip into her delusion that Shinji was still hers, no matter who he's with. Seeing Shinji and Fusei's memories, I had my eyes opened for the first time in a long time to the hurt they were dealt and made me realize that, regardless of what was desired by the both of you, none of what you wanted was right for everyone, whether their hearts desired it or not. People were meant to be separate, in life and in death. You both believed the world to be full of pain and suffering, but for different reasons. Yui because she believed that she had to be right about everything she either said or believed in…and you because you believed nobody ever loved you. You wanted the world to end so that only you and Yui could be together, never to be separate again, and she wanted to put everyone's fate in the hands of a young man you both manipulated into believing the world was a bad place because everything and everyone dies in the end. But Fusei's return into his life changed his perception of the world. He chose to believe that so long as she was involved in his present and future, the world out there wasn't so cruel, anymore. She became his pillar of hope in the world because she is his mother, someone the both of you wanted to remove so your control over Shinji wouldn't be hindered, but it was hindered the second she found him, spoke to him, wanting to know about everything about him."

"And you pitied the both of them because they were separated for so long?"

"No. I pitied you because neither of you could ever have what Fusei has with Shinji, and I'd be insulting them if I was to compare you to this man that is Shinji's father, this…Genshi-teki Katagiri, who, from the girl's memories, was a man content with his life and with the mother of his child. He was going to marry her once they had recovered from their physical injuries, wanting to be with her and their son. You weren't the only one that loved someone that loved you…or what you thought was love."

"You're crazy."

"No, I was exploited; being exploited by you two made me crazy. I'm not that way, anymore. You should know that…and something else I think is relevant. I'm dying."

"You're dying, and you think that's relevant?"

"Yes, for it has given me a lot to reflect upon. I've had a lot to reflect upon."

"And I've had nothing but time to reflect on everything in here."

"Shinji had nothing but painful memories ever since you two left him alone. Fusei had only her fear of never finding him because it was so hard to find him over the years. And she kept going, kept smiling, because she wanted to find him and take him home, no matter what state he was in, alive or dead."

"And you made it so that she could just walk away with him, knowing full well that we had need of him first."

"What you call a need for him was not a need at all. To you, he was nothing more than a sacrificial pawn in your wicked chess game, same as I was. To quote a song lyric I heard recently, 'I had strings, but now I'm free'. We're both free of you."

"Only until someone goes after that little bitch and takes her brat a second time!"

"Nobody even knows where they are. Not me, not SEELE, or whatever's left of them, not even Yui knows where they are. And nobody wants to go to prison for kidnapping or murder, so they dare not commit them. I have reason to believe that things are going to be better this way so long as Adam and Lilith are gone and nobody dabbles with the science used to create the Evas."

Gendo frowned at her, really wanting to grab her by her neck and snap the bones in it.

"Anyway, Dr. Akagi estimates that I may have at least four years left to live. I don't really intend to do much with that length of time, just see the world outside of Japan. When my end comes, I'll just accept it. What do you intend to do when your time comes?"

"There's nothing to do. Every day I'm in here, I have to spend twenty hours in a cell with no window, thirty minutes in a cafeteria for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the remaining time of the day in the library looking at used books and listening to the news of what's happening out there. Do you really think you've changed anything? Do you really think there's any hope left in this world just because you decided not to do what you're supposed to do? There's no hope left. There is no hope left!"

"You and people like Fusei Hitode have very different interpretations of what hope is."

"Why don't you just say what you really want to say?"

"Because there's nothing left for me to ask that relates to what you wanted to happen. It's as NERV's logo stated before it was disbanded: 'God's in his Heaven. All is right with the world'. The gods have all returned to their dominions in Heaven and all is returning to right with the world. I'll be going now. I try to think about them, you know. Fusei and Shinji, and what they're going through. I know I'll never see them again…and I'm okay with that. I hurt them. Even though I returned them to one another so they can start over with a clean slate, I can never forget how I crossed the line because of you two. It's too late for the three of us, but it'll never be too late for those two."

Rei hung up the phone and got up to leave.

Gendo fumed and yelled something, but because the glass was soundproof, the former First Child of NERV couldn't hear a thing…and she didn't want or need to.

-x-

"Oh," Fusei went, feeling like she was about to have an accident soon. "I think he's about ready to leave his room."

"Right now?" Katsura asked her daughter as the doctor checked her dilation.

"Uh-huh."

"She's a few minutes there," he announced.

Outside the room, everyone else waited to hear an update. There was a silence where they were just wondering what was taking so long, why Shinji was taking so long and what Fusei was going through in there. They could hear what sounded like a muffled screaming, indicating that Fusei was straining in her labor…and then nothing.

A few more minutes went by until Shinko-Kinomi came out and gave a peace sign with her left hand to them.

"Happy Birthday to Shinji," she expressed.

-x-

As Fusei slept the sleep of exhaustion, Tetsuo, Katsura and Shinko-Kinomi kept watch over Shinji as he also slept sometime after his mother did.

"He looks a little bigger than when we last saw him," the paternal uncle expressed.

"Yeah, he does," the grandmother agreed, feeling his tiny left hand. "It's still nice to have him with us again."

Shinko-Kinomi nodded and looked away from the bassinette and towards her sister.

You did well, Fusei, she thought, placing her right hand on the young mother's chest. You did real well.

"Gur," she heard a small, gurgling sound from the bassinette.

Shinji, feeling something big in his tiny hand, had awakened to see faces he had only seen in what felt like a lifetime ago. He felt a sense of welcoming from these people that was very warming to his heart.

Fusei, who felt like she hadn't slept for too long after the birth, slowly opened her eyes and looked over at her family as they were all admiring Shinji.

"Who woke up first," she asked, getting her mother's attention, "me or Shinji?"

"Shinji did," she answered, pointing to the baby, "though that was my fault."

She gave her a weak smile, still clearly wiped out, and rose up in the bed.

"Did everyone else see him?"

Tetsuko raised his left hand and stated, "Miss Horaki was taken by Shinji so much that I think she might want to have kids herself sooner than later."

"I hope you're just joking."

"Yeah, just about the last part. She and Asuka wouldn't stop holding his hands, though."

Fusei gave a weak laugh; mentally, as best as she determined, giving birth a second time as a teenager seemed more trying as it had been the first time she did it. Even if she had a few more hours to rest up, she'd still be out of it.

"How do you feel?" Katsura asked her.

"Lousy," she answered. "Happy, though."

"That's how every new mother feels."

"Uh-oh," Shinko-Kinomi went, looking at her sister with a guilty expression. "Someone has their hungry face on."

Fusei nodded as she opened her gown up to expose her left breast while her sister carefully picked Shinji.

"What time is it?" She asked.

"A little after midnight," Tetsuo answered. "June Seventh, Twenty-Sixteen, in case you were wondering about the date."

Now holding him, the young mother smiled as slipped the teat into her son's mouth.

"Brings back memories of the first time?" He asked her.

"This is the first time," she told him, "all over again. And, yes, this does bring back happy memories of the first time."

"Hmm," they heard Shinji as he ignored the world around as he focused solely on nursing.

"Well, a nursing baby is a happy baby," Katsura expressed.

And a nursing mother is a mother at peace with herself and the world around her, Fusei thought as she held Shinji closer to herself. Any mother happy to hold her child is a good mother.

To be continued…

A/N: Be on the lookout for the last chapter.