Creation began on 06-05-20
Creation ended on 06-12-20
Neon Genesis Evangelion
The Living Alchemist: Retirement
King Bradley, formerly known as the homunculus Pride, a creation and servant of Dante's, spared from being returned to the Gate by Shinji Ikari, the Living Alchemist, returned to his residence and was greeted by his family, his wife and adoptive son, the only pieces of his orchestrated life that Dante never had any control over. And for once, for once in his existence, Bradley was glad to be able to return home to them.
"How was your day, sweetheart?" His wife asked him.
"It was…different," he answered; it was different due to the fact that what he had been in existence for originally had come undone with Dante's death, and having to agree with the terms the Living Alchemist set upon him in order to walk away unscathed. "Major Ikari caused a minor ruckus today."
"You mean the young man that stopped the man from stealing my purse? Doesn't he want to use alchemy for medical purposes? I wouldn't believe him to be able to cause a ruckus."
"Yeah, the Living Alchemist," went Selim, "he's quite an impressive alchemist. I think I heard one of my friends say that he used one of his stone shards to treat a lady suffering from a sickness caused by an injury she had a few years ago. An alchemist that wants to help people by treating their injuries, even re-growing arms and legs for people. What was it that he called what he was trying to perfect again? Uh…Living Transmutation?"
"Yes, that's what he called it," Bradley informed his son. Living Transmutation, different from Human Transmutation because it doesn't seek to bring back deceased people, only to regenerate lost limbs and organs. No wonder he lives up to his title. The Living Alchemist.
-x-
A week came and went, allowing it to sink in that Basque Grand was dead, and that left several members of the military looking to move up through the ranks. One such member was Roy Mustang, who would likely be a colonel by the time all was said and done. But what surprised several people was what they learned about the current status of the Führer: King Bradley was planning to retire in a few days, returning the political power to the previous assembly after he set his affairs in orders.
"…I can't believe the Führer's retiring," went Alphonse as he, Edward and Shinji were taking the day off to reflect on the recent events. "Why do you think he's doing so?"
"Probably because he's getting older," suggested Ed.
"He's only fifty-seven," said Shinji to them. "He probably looked worse when he was in a war. People age prematurely due to what they experience during hard times, especially when involved in a war…or multiple wars, which earned him his rise to power in the military."
"It's hard to imagine him in any battle," Ed told Shinji.
"It's hard to imagine anyone in a battle because you don't think about how they would react in conflict situations."
"But Shinji, you surprise us with the way you react when in conflict," Al reminded Shinji. "You fight defensively, preferring not to hurt anyone…until you have no other choice, that is."
As they were at another outdoor café, Shinji looked at the younger Elric brother with an expression of mild scorn before he lightened up and responded, "As much I don't like it when the obvious is stated, I will continue to deny that I'm skilled in conflict. The more you choose to fight someone that refuses to seek alternatives to conflict, the more you risk becoming like those that refuse to seek alternatives to conflict, and those that refuse to learn from history are the ones condemned to repeat it."
"Just how bad was your past?" Ed questioned.
"You're better off not knowing."
With Shinji simply wanting to avoid any attempts to expose his past and secret to being from the other side of the Gate, the brothers had to admit to themselves that he was better off if people didn't know exactly who he was or where he was from in so many words.
"How goes your progress into medical alchemy, Shinji?" Al asked.
"Steady as she goes, Alphonse Elric," he answered. "To move from regenerating limbs to regenerating damaged organs will be a breakthrough."
"Careful, though," Ed warned him. "You put automail out of business, you're going to make an enemy out of Winry."
"You honestly think I would go that far, Fullmetal? Everyone can decide how far one can go. If I was asked to simply treat an illness, I wouldn't go any further than treating an illness. I can live without being hit on the head with a wrench."
-x-
With his retirement looming in, King Bradley sighed as he continued to set his affairs in order, as per his terms with Shinji after Dante was killed. He ended the remaining feud with the survivors of the Ishbal Civil War and declared that it was time to go into rebuilding their maimed country and establishing peace with other nations Amestris had gone to war with.
"You requested to see me, sir?" He heard Shinji's voice as he sat in his office.
"Yes," Bradley responded. "I just needed to get your opinion of this restoration operation I have for after my retirement."
Shinji came over to his desk and looked at a document that read, "Ishbal Rejuvenation Operation", an oblivious attempt to have the State Alchemist use their skills to rebuild and expand instead of destroy.
"It looks good," he told Bradley. "It looks very good."
"Thank you. Just one more thing."
"Hmm?"
"What year were you from?"
"Twenty-Fifteen."
"What kind of era was that?"
Shinji thought about it…and responded, "Too much technology…but not enough soul If you progress too far into technology…and you start to lose touch with both nature and humanity. I have nothing against technology if it can be used just like alchemy to benefit society, but if it doesn't do that, what good is it?"
"Was there any form of technology that, in your eyes, didn't benefit society quite well?"
"Three forms of technology: Nuclear technology, advanced explosive technology, and creating advanced robotics that consumed the human soul, piece by piece."
"How would you avoid losing touch with humanity and nature, Living Alchemist?"
"I would focus on what can be beneficial to society, such as alternate energy and recycling. Geothermal energy, solar energy, wind energy, using less resources and what have you."
"What is geothermal energy? That doesn't sound like it has anything to do with alchemy."
"That's heat energy gathered from the ground."
"A power that comes from the Earth?"
"In a way, yes."
Shinji's past knowledge from before he ended up with his alchemical knowledge, which he couldn't really own up to caring about because he had no reason to back when he was made to pilot the Eva. Still, he had knowledge that his brief time in the Gate expanded upon that could be put to practical use if implemented properly. He just wanted to refrain from using knowledge that led to making weapons…like the Eva.
"Just one other thing, Major Ikari." Bradley spoke. "How were you able to do what you did down there? Most transmutations tend to take a lot of energy out of the alchemist if they're beyond the range of their skill set, but you didn't lose much energy at all when you did your own…and you barely used the Red Stones."
"How much potential is truly used by any one person? Growing up, we're told that people have the potential to do anything if they set their minds to it, but can we really? As you must know, there are seven sins within us that make us imperfect, opposed by seven virtues that keep our souls pure so long as we refrain from committing acts of degradation to ourselves or others. The one people shouldn't try to commit is sloth, which diminishes our potential to do many things. And as for the belief of good vs. evil, the only way you let evil win whenever or wherever…is when good people that can do anything to ensure that evil can fester do nothing."
"Somehow, you're able to utilize the total sum of potential energy."
"Yeah."
Bradley then nodded his head and dismissed Shinji.
-x-
It was a bothersome way to go, but with the abolishment of the position of the Führer, Amestris was left with a group of people that were tasked with seeing to the interests of the nation and its political relations with other nations. But in this way, it would ensure that nobody would know that Bradley was a homunculus or learn about how the country almost became entrapped in a dark agenda to forge a Philosopher's Stone for a dangerous woman that desired eternal life, despite her not accepting that her days were numbered. The first order of business was to end the persecution of the Ishbalans and enable their return to their country and rebuild.
"…I can't believe we're going to help rebuild a country," went Al to Ed and Shinji as they walked with several other State Alchemists to where the southeastern region of land belonging to the people that lived as refugees in Amestris. "I'm actually looking forward to it."
"Yeah, you get to show why you're the Building Alchemist, Major Elric," Shinji told him.
"What will you be doing, Major Ikari?" Ed asked.
"Besides helping in the reconstruction efforts? I will basically be on the field providing medical aid to those in need, Major Elric."
"Then I guess congratulations are in order, Dr. Ikari."
-x-
"…He called it…Equivalent Exchange," said Rei to Misato and Fuyutsuki after she had pressed her ears against the gate, hearing Shinji's voice again for the umpteenth time in the past week. "Equivalent Exchange."
"So, then, this gate must function as a means to let things or even people pass through it if they follow the law," Fuyutsuki suggested a possibility regarding the gate.
"Except it doesn't seem that the gate actually obeys the law," went Asuka, who had also been pressing her ears against the gate for the past week. "If you can find a way to bypass its restrictions, even to a small degree, you could get more from the gate instead of less."
"What would you suggest, Asuka?" Misato asked her. "If you you were to cheat your way into opening the gate?"
"Me? I'd…I…" But Asuka wasn't sure how she'd cheat the gate, just that it was likely possible to cheat the gate.
"Perhaps using the Eva," suggested Rei, simply trying to contribute.
"Why use the Eva?" Fuyutsuki questioned.
"It could keep the gate from closing like last time."
-x-
It was worse than they could've imagined. When they arrived in Ishbal, the three young State Alchemists had initially expected several buildings to be ruined and the ground to be uneven, but the entire country was like…a massive graveyard.
"So, this is…or was Ishbal," said Shinji as he, Ed and Al looked around the streets they were on. "I can't believe that people actually caused this level of devastation."
"This is where Winry's parents were killed," went Ed, kicking over a small piece of debris. "We never found out who killed them exactly."
Shinji thought of Winry, of when she had explained to him that her parents, a couple of doctors, had been sent to Ishbal to assist in the medical treatment of both Amestrian soldiers and Ishbalan civilians, and then being informed that they were murdered…but not informed by who. He sympathized with the girl over having to lose her parents; his own recollection of his mother was scarred to the point where he had no memory of what she looked like, but he may as well have lost his father the same day he lost his mother, only his up and left him, not all that different from the way Ed and Al's father left them while their mother was still alive. While he could've just pretended that his father was dead like his mother (and for all intents and purposes, was recently deceased), it didn't make life any easier for the young girl due to the violence and cruelty of war.
"And State Alchemists actually did all of this?" Al questioned.
"Yeah," Shinji responded, taking his pouch of Red Stones and pulling one out into his left hand. "Well, let's get started on the rebuilding efforts."
"Yeah, okay," Ed agreed with him.
As he walked away, Shinji turned his head back and noticed that the recently-promoted Brigadier General Roy Mustang was looking his way, and rather suspiciously, too. It was almost as though he were trying to ascertain what Shinji was up to, if he was even up to anything beyond what his real intentions were.
I better steer clear of him, he thought as he walked around the corner of a partially-demolished building. I still have a debt to pay up.
-x-
Just the sight of the ruins brought up some memories that Lust had a difficult time comprehending due to the memories being faded and her soul still beyond her reach until the Living Alchemist completed her transmutation.
"It feels like it's been a long time," she stated to Scar, who brought her here after the murder of Dante and the defeat of Envy and Pride.
"It has been a long time," he informed her; while she might've been his brother's failed attempt at bringing a woman they both loved back to life, he couldn't view her as that same woman because she was a homuculus, an artificial human being. "Almost ten years."
As they hid in a small building, Scar had to wonder why he never tried to kill the Living Alchemist after they fought in Central City. While he might've been younger and more agile than the Ishbalan, Scar felt he was capable of dealing with an alchemist that did minor feats of repair work for the common people and used Red Stones that were augmented through the use of plants to detoxify some water with alchemical properties that made it preferable to the legendary Philosopher's Stone. In fact, he was surprised that the Living Alchemist had no desire or intention of creating such a dangerous alchemical amplifier after learning that it was made from sacrificing human lives, demonstrating a degree of morality that he didn't see in most people that practice alchemy.
"He didn't want the Philosopher's Stone," he told Lust. "Why?"
"He refused to sacrifice people," she explained. "If there was a way to achieve certain goals without crossing the line, he would pursue those routes over being ruthless and willing to do anything to get what he wanted."
"Why is he called the Living Alchemist?"
"He values life. To take life instead of preserving it would make him feel uneasy. It's probably why he let you kill Dante, because she had no respect towards life."
"And…because he proved that it's possible to bring the dead back to life?"
"Not entirely. He transmuted a homuculus that ate people because that's what Dante wanted him to do…and when the Living Alchemist transmuted him back into a human being, he unintentionally brought back everyone he had eaten over the years. It was a transmutation beyond what I was expecting of him to achieve. But I doubt he could do that again unless the homunculus in question was like Gluttony; everyone he eats in trapped in his stomach."
"And yet he doesn't try to play God."
"He can't play God. He's not a god. He's only a human that practices an art that enables him to do more than he thought was possible."
Scar then looked out a broken window and saw someone from Amestris walking down the street. Were they looking for him? Did the boy fail to keep the military from coming after him? He had no time to ponder as he got up off the floor; if the soldier was looking for him, he had to be taken out before they tried to take him out.
-x-
Ed and Al used two Red Stones and transmuted an entire block of ruined buildings back to their previous state of being before the war, surprising their adult superiors with such a feat.
"Not bad, Fullmetal, Building," went Alex Armstrong, the Strong Arm Alchemist, impressed by their accomplishment. "Not many skilled alchemists can repair a whole building, let alone an entire block. Where did you get this degree of power?"
"From Shinji," Al explained. "These are his stones."
"Major Ikari?" Armstrong questioned, looking over at Shinji, who was helping a female Ishbalan refugee off the truck to the ground. "Is he a fighter?"
"Not in that many respects," Ed stated. "He's more of a pacifist than a fighter…but he has a temper that's not to be underestimated. I rather not see him provoked."
"You make it sound as though you're afraid of him," Armstrong pointed out.
"We're not afraid of him," Al clarified. "We're just saying…Shinji's not to be taken lightly. It's more like…Shinji has a darker side to him that he doesn't like to see unleashed. You ever have one of those moments where you see a line in front of you that you're tempted to cross…but know that the moment you cross it, you're heading towards a place you rather not be?"
Armstrong thought about it…and recalled his time in the last war where he had crossed the line.
"Too long ago," he answered the Building Alchemist.
"War is Hell, Strong Arm Alchemist," they heard Shinji say to him, using a Red Stone to treat an old man that was blind, restoring his sight. "War is Hell."
"My eyes," the Ishbalan gasped, never really expecting to regain his sight, even just for a day. "Thank you, young man."
Shinji gave a nod and helped him back onto his feet and then looked at another Ishbalan man that appeared to be heavily disfigured and also blind, marked by a strange symbol on his face.
"Who is that?" He wondered.
"He's an Ishbalan exile," an Ishabalan woman explained. "He was banished for practicing alchemy, which is prohibited."
"But that's terrible."
"Ishabalans aren't allowed to practice alchemy because it violates our beliefs. Violating the belief prohibits the practice of religion forever and shuns those that commit the taboo."
He's forbidden from being around his own people? That's just awful…but what possessed him to practice alchemy? Was he trying to create a Philosopher's Stone?
-x-
"…So, the military has lost the Führer due to retirement?" Greed heard one his chimera allies ask him.
"Yeah, that's right," he answered her, "and it would seem the military has gone from waging war to waging restoration operations."
"Does this have anything to do with that Living Alchemist?" A man-bull questioned.
"More or less."
"Can he do what people say he's been doing?" A lizard man wanted to know; they've been hearing gossip from people ever since they found their current hideout about this Major Shinji Ikari. "I heard he treated some people in Lior with some stones."
"I heard he grew a man's whole leg back," a dark-haired man with a sword said.
"Perhaps we'll find out…after he comes back from Ishbal," Greed told them.
"If he can do what people say he can," a man with sharp jaws expressed, "maybe he can even undo what the military did to us now that the Führer's been put to pasture."
"Assuming that he's not some power-hungry control freak," the woman uttered.
Greed didn't fear that. He practically owed the boy for helping to free him from Dante; so long as she was alive, he would never be free of her. And because of consuming one of his Red Stones, he felt much stronger than he originally did with the incomplete Philosopher Stones previously ingested long ago when he was first made. If anything, it was possible that the Living Alchemist…possessed a different form of avarice that matched the homunculus'.
-x-
Edward Elric's preference towards using combat-oriented alchemy paled in comparison to his reconstruction alchemy when working in tandem with Alphonse. In many respects, they were doing better than their adult superiors due to being more open to using alchemy to repair work than using alchemy to fight like they did; most of the soldiers rarely used alchemy to fix even the slightest or most minor of damaged objects, anymore.
They were adjusted to a life of war, he had to accept. Alchemy used for violence rarely ever has applications for meager reconstruction. But how long does anyone think this path to peace will last now that the Führer is retired?
In all honestly, Ed simply didn't believe that Amestris could live without the need of war, which was why he aimed towards combat alchemy. But just because there wasn't a war didn't mean there would be peace for a while. One day, maybe not today or tomorrow or even a week from now, someone would spark another feud with someone else, probably over land, or property, someone's spouse or partner or just a petty belief…and they'd be at this all over again. They'd be fighting over beliefs, of choices.
"How can you be optimistic about peace at a time like this, Shinji?" He had asked a while back.
"A war," Shinji had responded, "is like any other situation you end up in, either intentionally or accidentally. There's an absence of choice when something goes wrong. But when there's no situation to be involved in, you can think about other things. With no war or senseless violence, I can choose to reflect upon other things. Also, I need to get away from the violence. I'm not me when I'm forced into conflict because nobody has the common sense to resolve an issue that could be resolved nonviolently."
"You're a pacifist."
"Who isn't?"
Yeah, who isn't? Ed thought as he and Al saw other State Alchemists repairing the streets or the smaller buildings. Where are you now, Shinji?
As he and Al continued to work on rebuilding the structures belonging to the Ishbalans, Shinji was taking some personal time off to question the exile on why he was exiled.
"…The Philosopher's Stone isn't something that should be sought after," he told the exiled man in a building yet to be repaired, "even out of desperation. The stone can't bring peace or relief if it's the result of so much suffering. Why pursue something so awful?"
"Why does anyone do anything?" The exile questioned back. "People are drawn to the unthinkable all the time. Either out of desperation or simple curiosity. In my case, I got curious…and I couldn't stop until I knew more about alchemy…and the Grand Arcanum is the pinnacle of Ishbal's variant of alchemy."
"To create a Philosopher's Stone from sacrificing human lives. I know how to create the stone…but I prefer the Red Stone over the Philosopher's Stone."
"The Red Stone? Isn't it just a variant of the Philosopher's Stone?"
"No. It's completely comprised of Red Water that's been detoxified. I've been using it to amplify my transmutations, to varying degrees of success, and while I know they erode with each transmutation, they are the lesser of two downsides that doesn't weigh on my conscience. Anyone that knows the secret should just keep it to themselves, let the secret die so that nobody else has to suffer because of it."
"You can't bury the secret forever."
"No, no…but I can choose to protect people from abusing the darker secrets of alchemy for personal or selfish reasons."
"And if someone were to come after you for the secrets?"
"I can deny the truth on how to make the stone…or fabricate the ingredients. Some secrets…just aren't meant to leave traces for people to pick up on. Sometimes…a fantasy just needs to be a fantasy. If it becomes corrupted due to the beliefs of others that have other agendas beyond what was intended, then it becomes a nightmare…and people with nightmares…shouldn't be forced to live in them…suffering."
The exile looked at his eyes, clearly seeing someone that despised violence for the sake of violence, content with leaving good things alone, but seeing something else, too. There was something…inhuman that haunted this child.
"What did you escape from?" He asked Shinji.
"A demon…within a demon," he stated cryptically.
Cryptic though his response was, Shinji might as well have said that as opposed to simply calling the demon the Eva…and the demon within it his father's ghost, as both haunted him with memories he was trying to put behind him and embrace his life here.
"You can only run for so long…before you find yourself lost in the darkness."
"It's hard to run…when there's nowhere left to run."
-x-
Even as he watched from the shadows, Scar saw the State Alchemists transmuting the ruins of his home back to a semblance of how it used to be.
"Do these buildings bring back memories?" He asked Lust.
She looked at the buildings being rebuilt…and nodded that they did. Not many memories, but just enough to remind her how she felt about Ishbal when she was alive.
-x-
"Hey, you two," went Pinako to Winry and Nina, "you got mail."
Winry, reading a diary about the measurements of automail while Nina was on the floor coloring, got up and went to the table.
"What's up with those three?" Winry asked Pinako as she opened the envelope up to reveal the three letters from the boys.
"Whose should we read first?" She questioned them.
"Might as well read Edward's first," Winry suggested.
"Shinji's," Nina countered.
"We'll flip for it," Pinako told them, taking out a coin and flipping it in her left hand. "Call it, Winry. Heads or tails?"
"Tails."
Pinako revealed the coin toss results.
"Heads," she informed them, and then held up Shinji's letter, as Nina won. "Hmm…it would seem that Shinji almost had a violent encounter with another serial killer that was attacking State Alchemists. But then the fight shifted towards a monster on the loose that went after him, and he ended up defeating it before it could hurt anyone else. Oh…it looks like this was something he couldn't tell his superiors about due to how it affected him."
"So, Shinji tells us but not his superiors?" Nina asked.
"He's clearly versed in looking for loopholes," Pinako expressed, looking at what else Shinji wrote. "The creature, presumed to be a chimera, belonged to a woman that was living underground and was looking for powerful alchemists to serve her. Shinji refused, so she tried to harm him, but she ended up collapsing from a weakened heart."
"That's awful," Nina admitted, "but Shinji, Ed and Al weren't hurt."
"Yeah," Winry agreed with her. "What else does it say in Shinji's letter?"
"Apparently, he was put in charge of medical treatment during the Ishbal Rejuvenation Operation," Pinako revealed, which Winry gave an expression of concern. "He's still keeping an eye out for Ed and Al."
"Is there something wrong?" Nina questioned, which meant one of them needed to answer.
"A few years ago," Winry explained, "my parents went to Ishbal to help the people fighting there. They didn't come back."
Nina didn't say it, but she understood what Winry wasn't saying to her; the time spent during the hours she was alchemically spliced with Alexander had left her recalling things that were short and dim to a degree. And when she had dreams, she actually recalled moments where her father and a man that seemed to be a meanie were frightened away by a guy that looked like Shinji, only he had this presence around him that was devoid of malice and whose only concern was getting her out of that building she was in and away from them. She wasn't really sure if the man was Shinji or just someone that looked like him, but he did leave her and Alexander where Shinji and the Elrics were before she lost consciousness and woke up the next day.
"Shinji will make sure they come back here," she stated.
Pinako then moved onto Ed's letter.
"It looks like Ed has some suspicion of Shinji being a lot more capable than he seems to be," she told them.
"Well, Shinji has only excelled in alchemy because he somehow picked it up from he and Alphonse," Winry stated, which was confusing; how does a teenager who appeared out of nowhere, presumably from a future where half the world is gone and where there's no such art as alchemy, pick up alchemic knowledge from two boys that had attempted to bring their mother back to life? "Although, Shinji's brand of alchemy is more refined than Ed and Al's alchemy."
"What do you mean?" Nina asked her.
"I mean, Shinji focuses more trying to help people recover physically through alchemy. He can repair broken objects or build constructs, but his primary focus is always medical alchemy. Also, he doesn't like to fight; if he can talk his way out of conflict, he'll try that."
-x-
"…You were talking to that man that was exiled?" Al asked Shinji as the sun started to go down. "Did you learn anything new?"
"Nothing that I already know because of you and Ed," Shinji claimed, but in truth, he knew that alchemy had its darkest results that he would try to keep people from achieving for as long as he could. "How did you and Ed fare with the reconstruction efforts?"
"We pretty much transmuted half a city today and enabled the refugees to return home," Ed explained to him. "We started looking into agricultural alchemy to help generate crops for the Ishbalans. I used up a Red Stone just growing an entire acre of corn and celery."
"Heh-heh! That's not bad."
Shinji lied down in the tent and looked up at the lantern above the three.
"You should know that Mustang approached us a while back this afternoon," Ed informed Shinji. "He asked us about you."
Shinji looked over at him and responded, "What'd he want to know about me that he couldn't muster the courage to ask me directly?"
"What your hobbies were outside of your Living Transmutation research you were looking to perfect. All I told him was that you liked to listen to music on rare occasions."
"And your skill in cooking, which he expressed was a housewife's job," Al added.
"Is it that unusual for a guy to cook?" Shinji questioned.
"Only if you're young and not married," Ed told him, of which he was both young and not married. "The only other question he asked Al and I about you was if you were seeing anyone outside the military. Of course, we couldn't answer him because we don't know."
"The guy's suspicious of me."
"There's nothing about you to be suspicious of…unless he's suspicious of anyone that doesn't look like an Amestrian."
"That's racial discrimination. It builds distrust against anyone who's a minority."
"But we trust you," Al told him. "Sure, you showed up during a dark time for Ed and I, but you stuck around. You could've left after that day and never look back…but you stayed."
"I don't have anyplace else to go. I just live each day, trying to maintain order to my stability."
"And how's that going for you?" Ed asked.
"Success can only be achieved when one does something to pursue it instead of nothing at all."
"Hey, are you seeing anyone, Shinji?"
"No. Not then…and not now."
"What do you mean, not then?" Al asked.
But Shinji didn't answer the younger Elric. The light of the lantern had swept the Living Alchemist into the memories of his past. Both pasts as an Eva pilot…and a budding alchemist that had discovered what Dante had done in her past…and sent him into the Gate to die. But he didn't die…or his body never got the chance to experience death; somehow, being inside the Gate either froze him in time, kept him in as close to one piece as most would desire…or it ripped his mind and spirit from his body and flung the two immaterial aspects of his existence across time and space to a new body to reincarnate in. He wasn't sure how it was so, but it was probably part of the reason he'd been able to show up this world instead of simply dying.
-x-
It was an insane idea, but one they were willing to try. All the Geo-Front requested was that one Eva from the disbanded NERV organization be rebuilt and transferred back to Japan from Germany. Since the most efficient model they could get at the time was Unit-02, that was the Eva they would receive, meaning Asuka would have to be retested.
"Are you sure you're okay with this, Asuka?" Misato asked her as she was in the women's locker room redressing in her plugsuit.
"No," Asuka answered, "but what other choice do we have?"
"Just because you and Rei think that Shinji is alive because you listened for voices inside that gate, it doesn't mean that…"
"Even if it were an alternate universe version of Shinji," Asuka cut her off, "just seeing him again would be enough."
"But it wasn't your fault, Asuka."
"I may not have killed Shinji, but I might as well have paved the road for him to die on."
To be continued…
A/N: There you have it. We don't have to worry about Pride, anymore. Or should I say King Bradley? And with the loss of power being held in the possession of one individual, some dreams are crushed while others can be reached closer. Shinji has met with the Ishbalan exile that taught Scar's brother alchemy, Mustang still wonders who Shinji really is, and Asuka exhibits some guilt over what happened to Shinji during the Twelfth Angel incident.