Creation began on 02-08-20

Creation ended on 02-10-20

Neon Genesis Evangelion

The Living Alchemist: Penance of the Father

A/N: Gendo's about to face the consequences of both his actions in life and his inability to redeem himself through Shinji.

Standing in front of the strange gate that resembled the Tree of Life pattern he had in his office in NERV HQ, Gendo Ikari was left to question why he failed to convince Shinji to use this alchemy to restore him to life when he was confident that he could do so.

"You tell me," he uttered in the vast expanse of white, "why did he refuse to restore me to life? Why? How could he betray me, his own father?"

"You were incapable of truly believing in both him or your worth to him, which is less than what it used to be," Gendo heard a voice that sounded similar to his own, and turned around to see a shadowy outline of a figure that looked like a man, but void of any features.

"What do you mean?" He demanded.

"You and your wife, you see," the figure explained, "through the years, your individual actions and inactions, you exploited your child to achieve your own ambitions. You both took the blessing that was parenthood and turned it upside-down and warped it inside-out. You rejected your responsibilities in favor of altering fate, no matter what the cost…and chose to covet something much greater than yourselves that could never make up for the years of heartache that coursed through Shinji. But you, Gendo, despite your years as an adult, you haven't grown one bit since you became a father, entrusting your son's upbringing to others, and choosing to reject every chance you were given to mend your tarnished relationship in favor of salvaging the only relationship you felt mattered. Did you truly think that you could make your son transmute you back to life simply because you were his father? Don't make me laugh!"

"But that was all he had to do!" Gendo responded. "If he could bring me back to life with what he learned to achieve, we could've returned to the original scenario! I could've achieved Human Instrumentality and be reunited with Yui! Why should I be punished for my efforts in trying to save the human race?! What's the problem with what I did to ensure we had a future?!"

"You and I both know that you really didn't care for the human race," the figure continued. "All you really cared for…was her, and when she went beyond you in the living world, you pined for her to the point that you stole the faith and admiration of others to get closer to your goal. You rejected the future that could've been in favor of the future you wanted. That future…was of you and her together, isolated from the rest of the human race, your own son included. Not even he could accept such a future, even if he never saw it, as he had to focus on what is and can be so long as he continued to walk the path he was now on, meaning he had to leave the bonds he once possessed behind."

Gendo frowned.

"He has power that could restore life to the dead," he told the figure. "He restored the man that thing used to be a thing to life, along with all his victims! He restored that little girl to normal after her father fused her with a dog! He has power to reshape the world at his fingertips and he'd rather be regular Good Samaritan than a god among insects! Why can't he desire perfection?! Why can't he listen to what I tell him to do?!"

The featureless figure merely showed signs of having a pouty mouth; clearly, nothing Gendo was saying was having the desired results in this conversation.

"Well, aren't you going to say something?!" Gendo asked. "Do you even have a name or an identity?! Just who the Hell do you think you are, anyway?!"

"Who am I?" The figure responded. "Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari, one name you would have for me is the World, or even the Universe, or perhaps God, or perhaps even the Truth. I am All and I am One. So, of course, this also means that I am You (points to Gendo with its featureless right hand's index finger)."

"Don't speak in irrelevant riddles!"

"I am the truth behind your despair, the inescapable price of your arrogance you demonstrated in life. You believed that unless you had people you could manipulate to defeat the Angels, the human race had no future, but in truth, so long as the Angels existed, you couldn't achieve your own future, and it was that belief, it was that arrogance, that led you to your downfall. God takes back all that he gives in order to teach people not to boast, and yet you tried to do the same if not the opposite, always taking…but never giving back. You know what you took away, never wanting to give back."

And Gendo found himself recalling the day he left Shinji alone, destroying every last photo of Yui, driving a huge wedge in between father and son until it was impossible to mend the ties of family between. Not even the small moment of praise and recognition he gave Shinji could undo the years of suffering he had experienced from the loss of family. And all of this…just do that he could focus on his agenda, to reach his ambitious desire without feeling tied down to anyone.

"I couldn't look after him after she died," he tried to explain his reasons for doing what he did to Shinji. "My scenario required…"

"Yet it didn't pan out for you in the end," the figure cut him off. "You chose yourself over your son, to look out for your interests instead of his. You only desired him as a pawn, not as a person, not as your family. And even in death, you still sought him out only because he had the means to potentially restore you to flesh, but only if he made a tribute to do so. You would've left him again the second you drew your new breath of life, and he couldn't risk going through that again. You have failed him enough times to demonstrate that you are nothing but a man that views others as a means to an end, that they only have value to you when you need something from them, which makes you no less than a heartless thief."

Gendo bared his teeth to the figure as he was starting to feel enraged.

"And just as God takes back what he gives, I shall bestow upon you the despair you deserve for your arrogance."

The doors behind Gendo opened to reveal a giant eye with silver rings, staring at him, surrounded by a multitude of dark, child-like entities.

"You can't do this to me," told them, seeing the child-like entities extend their arms out to get him. "I can still convince him to revive me. I know I can! Stop! Don't!"

Gendo tried to run away, but the featureless entity stood in his way.

"This despair is reserved for those who are arrogant, Gendo," it told him.

Within seconds, the Gate Children had grabbed Gendo around his neck, arms and legs, pulling him into the Gate.

"No!" He yelled at the faceless being. "You can't do this to me!"

"This is your despair, Gendo, the man whose heart became swollen with arrogance," it told him.

"Just tell me what I was supposed to tell the boy to make him do as I tell him!"

"You brought this outcome upon yourself if you sought a different solution to the one that was in front of you."

As the Gate began to close around Gendo, he began to feel the sense of inescapable dread looming in on him. It was as though once the doors closed, he would never get out. He would never be able to contact Shinji a second time, to make him restore him to life with his newfound power, to return to the world and carry out his ambition, and to be with Yui once again.

"I can't keep hoping for something that will not happen to happen," he recalled Shinji say to him during the transmutation of Gluttony. "I have to move on with my life and put the past behind me, which includes you, Father."

His own son had severed the ties between them, had gone from being an Evangelion pilot to some alchemist that served this military organization that resided in some foreign country in another world…and…despite having some knowledge of such, Gendo didn't inform Shinji that someone had their eyes set upon him, seeing the boy as either a pawn or a threat to their own goals. The fact that Gendo didn't tell him…was just another sign that he had no interest in his son, not even to warn him of who would be after him.

Slam! The doors had sealed shut in front of him, trapping him in the darkness within the Gate.

"You saw the answer with your own eyes," the featureless entity uttered, "but you chose not to change your ways, and that is why you failed to reach out to him."

-x-

In the dead of night in the small town of Resembool, in a spare bedroom in the Elric house, young Shinji Ikari, asleep after writing down another diagram of the human leg's compositional elements (surprising the Elric brothers with what they initially thought to be the ingredients of the human body), had unknowingly shed a single tear from his right eye. He wasn't even sure why, only that in his heart, someone he knew, albeit scarcely, was now gone from his life…and he would never see them again, no matter what he did.

To be continued…

A/N: I was going to add a dream sequence to the last part, but then I realized that it was not necessary to the story. Well, there you have it. Gendo's soul has been reduced to just a memory that has no place in the future of the story. Peace.