Creation began on 08-28-16

Creation ended on 09-18-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You: Two Wrongs, One Right

Shinji was very disappointed when his NERV-issued phone rang. If it wasn't the testing that they needed him for, it was to face an Angel. It just reminded him to ask a serious question after this matter was dealt with, and that was to question how many Angels were to be expected. Plus, he had the day planned out for he and his daughter.

"Unfortunately, because the previous Angel is still being disposed of in the city, we need to deal with this Angel outside the city limits," Misato informed the three pilots present. "Because Unit-00 is still undergoing repairs, Units-01 and 02 will be sent to intercept the target."

Shinji sighed in acceptance of the operation.

"Do I really need to team up with Third here?" Asuka asked her. "I'm more than capable of dealing with the Angel."

"If this were true, I don't see why you chose to drag me into this," Shinji expressed his opinion.

"We don't know what this Angel is capable of, so we need two Evas," Misato explained.

"Sounds more like you just want insurance that this Angel is dealt with."

Misato couldn't fault him for believing that; ever since the previous attack, the only reason they were able to survive at all was because they followed the advice of his daughter. But they had no time to do so with this Angel, so they needed to fly blind.

-x-

The new Angel resembled the Third Angel mildly, but wasn't as big as it had been when Shinji had fought it. However, when Shinji noticed its torso area, he noticed that it had two cores instead of one, which, unfortunately, the Soryu girl either didn't notice…or didn't bother to care.

"Just stand back and watch me work, Third," Asuka told Shinji, and charged towards the Angel with a small spear in her possession.

Shinji didn't say anything to her. Whatever was going to happen, he was going to wait and see. If the Angel did something that caused the redhead agony, then it would be her fault for engaging it without first anticipating its capabilities.

Slice! Unit-02 had cleaved the Angel in half, but missed its cores.

If only I could believe it were that easy, thought Shinji, taking out Unit-01's Progressive Knife, just in case the Angel wasn't dead.

-x-

Shado didn't like this. She worried for her father. The fact that these people didn't take the same precautions as with the previous monster meant that they were willing to take extreme risks just to get rid of these creatures. Worse was just sending her father out against them without any guarantee that he could survive.

"You see that, Third?" She and everyone else present in Central Dogma heard the redhead say to her father. "A fight should be quick, clean and elegant."

There was no response from her father, but Shado suspected that he had nothing to say to her.

Suddenly, up on the monitors, the sliced Angel's two halves began to shift and jiggle. They shed out of a sort of skin-like husk and became smaller versions of the larger Angel, one brownish-red and the other bluish-white, each with its own core.

"Oh, that's a load of bull!" Misato gasped; it was a good thing that Commander Ikari wasn't here at the moment. "Quick! Attack!"

-x-

Seeing two of them didn't ease Shinji's mind, not in the least. In place of them, he didn't see two monsters, just two people that gave him much anger.

"Aah!" Asuka yelled as the two Angels ganged up on her and Unit-02.

They threw the red behemoth around until they were done with her…and turned their attention to Unit-01 and its pilot, who was brimming with anger as he raised the knife up.

Shinji saw the red one as his rapist and the blue one as his father, both wanting to torture him all over again like they did years ago and now.

"Shinji, you need to calm down," he heard Ritsuko say to him over the intercom. "Your synchronization's rising too high and your blood pressure is becoming elevated."

But Shinji wasn't hearing her. All he could hear…were the voices of his tormentors.

"You should feel honored to be in my presence, boy," the woman told him as she had gotten on top of him that day and raped him.

"Certain actions must be employed," his father said to him, angering him further during the time Shado was sick with the stomach flu.

It never ends, he thought, willing the Eva to charge towards them.

"Shinji, stop!" Misato ordered. "Stop!"

But he didn't stop, and slammed into the blue Angel he saw as his father, stabbing it in its bony faceplate and torso.

-x-

"…What is he, crazy?" Shigeru questioned, seeing Shinji's face contorted with rage, making him look psychotic.

Shado, seeing this side of her father, covered her face with her hands; she had seen him angry before, but this was new. This was new…and cruel because of the strain it had to be putting on his heart.

"The Eva has switched to its internal battery," Maya informed them all. "He has three minutes until Unit-01 shuts down."

"His synchronization's at one-hundred-forty and rising," said Ritsuko, now concerned that the teenage father was going to jeopardize everything.

On the screens, Unit-01 stabbed and ripped out the blue Angel's core, throwing it aside as the red Angel came by and grabbed it. But Unit-01 grabbed its bony faceplate and ripped it clean from its body, spaying a bluish substance into the air.

Misato was at a loss for words here. This was an extended performance of what Shinji did with the Fourth Angel, only it wasn't happening in the city, it was happening in the ruins of a former coastal city. The carnage he was demonstrating against the Angel's two halves was extreme. Too extreme.

The red Angel was then slammed into the ground, its arms and legs broken.

Unit-01 then took its knife and carved into its torso, cutting out the core.

"Good Lord," went Hyuga, just as the Eva now had the two cores…and smashed them together repeatedly until they shattered to pieces, causing the Angel bodies to perform a death rattle and then lay on the ground.

The Eva then fell to its palms and knees as it ran out of power.

"Unit-01 has gone silent," Maya informed them.

Shado removed her hands from her eyes and saw the results of her father's rage, wondering if he was alright inside the Eva now that the threat appeared to be resolved.

"What in God's name are we doing to this kid?" Shigeru questioned.

-x-

A punch to his locker, a fist-sized dent that was left in its door…and the bruised knuckles on his right hand, the result of venting rage. Nobody present in the locker room wanted to be near Shinji as he took deep breaths to calm his heart.

It was worse than before, he thought about the battle. They wanted to hurt us both this time. Shado and I. They just wanted to hurt us both.

Outside the locker room, Shado sat across from it as she waited for her father to come out. She was certain that after what happened, he would just want to go back to their apartment and have a cup of tea. She didn't think he would want to go through any conversations with these people about what he went through facing the monster.

"…But if his sync ratio keeps rising and it's because of his unresolved issues with his father and a woman that hurt him," she heard the small woman from earlier say to the purple-haired woman from down the hall, "he could have a reaction that we never anticipated from the Eva. He could become psychotic. Maybe suffer cardiac arrest. His blood pressure almost spiked."

Shado tried to ignore them, but the danger her father was in was likely going to get worse because of what happened.

Misato noticed and told Maya to stop talking about the current situation, just as Shinji stepped out of the locker room.

"Hey, Shado," they heard him say, his voice a little raspy.

"Are you okay, Daddy?" Shado asked him.

"Just…a little heartburn," he told her, but Misato suspected that he was still recovering from the feedback from the Eva. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yes, Daddy."

He picked her up and turned to walk away, walking calmly past Misato and Maya.

"Wait, Shinji," Misato stopped him, which earned her an unhappy look from the teenage father. "Uh… Good work out there."

His expression lessened and he responded, "Thank you.", and returned to walking away with his daughter in his arms.

"Yikes," went Maya. "As much as I fear the Angels, I'm more afraid of what we're doing to him."

"Likewise," Misato agreed with her.

-x-

"…As unexpectedly beneficial as his unpredictable bouts of rage against the Angels in place of you and his rapist have been so far," went Ritsuko to Commander Ikari in his office, two days after the Seventh Angel incident, "the increased synchronization's having adverse effects on the Third Child."

"He nearly had a heart attack due to his heightened blood pressure, Ikari," added Fuyutsuki. "It might've still been one Angel, but it had two bodies, and your son was fighting under a time limit."

"What do you recommend, Dr. Akagi?" Gendo asked Ritsuko.

"Under normal circumstances, I would recommend that the Third Child be monitored more intensely to prevent the possibility of harm to himself or others," Ritsuko expressed, "but in this case, since I doubt that 'normal' is even a word that should be used, concerning his instability, I would have to recommend that he be removed from active duty until upgrades can be made to Unit-01 to ensure the safety of both the pilot and the personnel."

"Do you agree with Dr. Akagi, Fuyutauki?"

"I do…but only because he has a little girl to look after," Fuyutsuki explained; if the option were to separate the girl from her father, he would have to put his foot down against that.

-x-

Asuka was pissed as she went over the footage of the last battle, over and over again in her room. The Angel's two halves just came to life and took out her Unit-02, not only leaving her defeated, but embarrassed by what happened afterwards. They went after Unit-01 and the Third Child…who single-handedly defeated them within six minutes (the first half while still drawing external power from the nearby NERV energy source).

"Sounds more like you just want insurance that this Angel is dealt with," she remembered him saying to Misato.

"Who the Hell does he think he is?" She asked herself, ignoring the fact that the boy's file explained that he was damaged and never recovered from what he went through over five years ago. "I'll show him that I'm better than him."

-x-

"…Daddy?" Shado asked Shinji, seeing him sitting on the floor in the hallway.

Beside him on the right were a pair of Baording balls in a case that were used to relieve stress. They looked untouched; as stressed as her father could be from others, Shado rarely ever saw him use the balls to deal with his stress. He looked a little calmer than earlier, and turned to face her.

"Hey, sweetie," he greeted her with a small smile.

"Are you okay?" She asked him.

"Yeah," he answered her. "Yeah, I'm just a little tired, that's all."

Shado raised her left hand up to his face and placed it upon his left cheek.

"Are you still up for seeing Ms. Rumiko and Toya tomorrow?" She asked him.

"Of course," he answered her. "I'm hoping that tomorrow will be a stress-free day."

Shado knew he needed a stress-free day.

-x-

"…Here's the reason the girl the Third Child sees isn't affiliated with the Marduk Institute," Ritsuko explained to Gendo, finding new information on Rumiko Gaidoku. "Her birthday is registered as being on the Twelfth of September of Two-Thousand."

"The girl was born the day before Second Impact," Gendo realized, as it was also the same day he escaped the devastation of Second Impact by returning to Japan before the research on the First Angel was finished, taking the information he had with him at the time.

"Yes, sir, and as such, even if it were possible, she couldn't pilot an Evangelion, no matter how hard she tried."

Unless potential candidates were born sometime during or after Second Impact, they were incapable of piloting an Evangelion. This was actually theorized by Gendo's wife during the development of the original Evangelion, back when they were attempting to use adults to sync with the underdeveloped nervous system.

"There's something else, too," Ritsuko added. "She lists her employer as a Tendo Rokubungi of Tendo's Family Tea House. Does that name mean anything to you?"

"Tendo Rokubungi… Of all the… Where's the address?"

-x-

The next day at the park, as their single parents sat on the bench and watched them, Shado and Toya were sculpting tiny sandcastles in the sandbox.

"Is your daddy okay, Shado?" Toya asked the girl as he drew in the sand. "He seems… I don't want to say 'sickly', but does seem a little paler than usual."

Shado stuck a twig into the sand and said, "Some people Daddy works for have him working with a giant robot. It's not as easy as it seems."

"Like Power Rangers?"

"What's Power Rangers?"

"Never mind."

While they were still playing, their parents were still conversing on the young father.

"You don't look so hot, Shinji," said Rumiko to the boy.

"Yeah, I've noticed for a while," he agreed with her. "How bad do I look?"

"Honestly? You look like whatever it is these people have you doing is hurting you. I didn't say it yesterday, but when I saw you, you looked a little paler than usual, like you're turning into porcelain or something used in arts and crafts."

Shinji turned away from her and looked at his right hand.

"I must look a little dead, don't I?" He asked.

"Close to it," she confessed, turning him back to face her. "What the Hell are they doing to you?"

"I'm just one of a handful of young people charged with defending the best and worst members of the human race from inhuman invaders by using giant robots that connect directly to your nervous system. But it's hardly doing that that causes me unwanted agony. It's that man and that woman that hurt me and Shado, separately and together, in their personal ways, that causes me discord."

"I thought you said that woman was no longer involved with the present state of things."

"She is no longer involved…but that doesn't keep her ghost from sneaking up on me."

"How many people are there that you despise that cause you trouble?"

"Those two, that man's in-laws, those of NERV that get on my case when I don't listen to them when they should understand that my concern is my daughter, not them, some blue-haired albino girl that man cares for and some redhead girl Shado and I saw a few days ago."

"That's more than who I have to despise. It's just my parents and brother."

"You're a lucky lady."

"Just as your daughter is lucky to have you in her life."

-x-

"…What do you mean, the Third Child's suspended from active duty?" Asuka questioned Misato, discovering that the teen father wouldn't be involved in anything beyond synchronization tests for the time being.

"It was decided after the last sortie," Misato explained to her. "Before you got here, the last two attacks showed Shinji to be a little…beyond what we were expecting."

"Is it the kid that is said to be his or the claim that he was kidnapped and tortured by a woman?"

"It's not a claim, Asuka. What happened to him back then really did happen. Every time he faces an Angel, he doesn't see the Angel. Instead, he sees his father and the woman that hurt him, and everything becomes heightened to unstable levels. His blood pressure rises, his synchronization starts to go off the charts, and he's just on the borderline between someone who could live a long life…and someone that should be putting his affairs in order while he's still alive. If he even has any affairs to put in order, that is."

Unfortunately, Asuka only heard every other word Misato had told her and filled the gaps with other words that were never used. In her mind, it was, "A woman hurt him, his father causes him stress, his synchronization rises every time he faces an Angel, and he has a medical issue." She didn't see that Shinji was under more stress than anyone could be under during intense situations.

"Also, his sense of priorities aren't like ours," Misato continued. "While his service has been beneficial, we at NERV are a secondary concern that he thinks very little about. His first priority is always his daughter, who seems to be the only good thing he has in his life."

"Still, most boys would try to run when they find out they have kids."

"Well, Shinji isn't most boys. Honestly, half the time, I don't know what Shinji is. He is his father's son, but they don't behave in any way that is similar or identical to the other. He's not antisocial by choice…and he'd rather be elsewhere with his child than here."

"If that's true, then why keep him here?"

"Because we needed him to pilot the Eva. It was only sheer luck that he was convinced to stay awhile."

"So, he's a double-edged sword of sorts, then."

"What?"

"He's a threat to everyone, including himself."

"Actually, his daughter is the only exception to that claim; he never raises his hand to her, never yells at her. It's like he's trying hard to be a good parent to his little girl because nobody was ever good to him in his youth."

-x-

There was no denying it from either the father and daughter's silence. Even in the claustrophobic confines of the Entry Plug, Shinji really hated what he did at NERV. Honestly, totally, absolutely hated it with every fiber of his conscious. Even as he had confided in Rumiko, needing to confide in someone he could talk to that suffered as he had, it did nothing to relieve the tension he felt from the NERV personnel.

"…His synchronization ratio is holding steadily at ninety-seven percent," went Maya to Misato and Ritsuko in the testing room. "Blood pressure is elevated over one-forty."

"He's tense," said Misato in revelation, and then turned around to look over at Shado, who quickly returned her gaze from the holographic screens to her picture book. He really needs to get a babysitter for her.

"On the other hand, his current score is higher than the First and Second Child's," Ritsuko expressed, which was true, despite the reasons why this was so.

"What was that?!" They heard Asuka shout; her communication channel was still on. "Crazy Third's synchronization ratio is higher than mine?!"

Shado could only hope that her father would just ignore the girl.

-x-

He just wanted some tea after having to put up with Ms. Soryu at NERV. Tea and some conversation time with Rumiko if she was available for just a chat. This was what Shinji had on his mind as he and Shado walked down the street to the tea shop.

"Ginger tea or ginseng tea, Daddy?" Shado asked her father as he carried her on his back.

"Ginseng tea, Shado," he answered as they reached the tea shop. "Hmm?"

"Huh?"

They noticed a pair of black Sedans with the NERV insignia on their front doors, and four men in black suits walking out of the tea shop, leaving in said cars.

"Daddy?" Shado spoke, concerned.

Shinji set her down and calmly led the way to the tea shop.

"Hello?" He made himself heard, seeing Toya sitting by himself at the countertop by the bar, coloring in a picture book.

His mother was by some tables, cleaning the tops and clearing them of empty cups and plates, looking irritable judging from the look of her face.

Shado quietly walked over to the bar and sat a chair away from Toya on the right.

"I take it you saw the men in black suits as they left?" Rumiko asked Shinji as she carried the tray of cups and plates behind the bar to go to the kitchen area.

"Yes," he answered her. "What were they doing here?"

"They wanted to speak with my employer, but I told them he wasn't here, that he would be gone for the entire week to restock on tea ingredients. We are running low on reserves here. We restock on tea and pastry ingredients every three months due to the declining economy in this city."

"I don't notice many people leaving the city."

"Don't care much for them myself, but I have to work for my livelihood. It's not like I do anything else with my time besides taking care of Toya."

Shinji then dug into his jeans' left pocket and pulled out his wallet.

"Do you still have ginseng tea?" He asked her.

"Sure," she answered. "And what for the little miss?"

"Shado, what kind of tea do you want?"

"Jasmine, please," the little girl expressed. "Or ginger."

"Coming right up," Rumiko declared as Shinji sat down at the bar beside their children.

-x-

"…So he wasn't there?" Gendo questioned Ritsuko in his office when he learned that Section Two returned from the location of the tea shop in the city.

"According to the girl that works there, he wouldn't be back until the end of the week," Ritsuko explained. "Because of the declining economy in the city, they have to restock every three months."

"Very well, then," he sighed. "Maintain surveillance on the Third Child and his daughter. I want to be the first to know when the tea shop owner returns."

"If I may, sir, what is so important about a tea shop owner?"

"If he is who I think he is, then he's someone I had believed to be dead for years."

"Someone you knew?"

"Someone I hate."

Ritsuko got the feeling that it was more than that if this Tendo Rokubungi was whoever Gendo believed him to be. For all she did suspect of him, Tendo was probably someone Gendo held a grudge against for some selfish reason.

-x-

Helping Rumiko close up the tea shop, Shinji explained his current status at NERV.

"They limited your duties there because of your past issues?" She repeated.

"Every so often, whenever I face a monster in that robot," he explained, "I don't see the monster. I see them. That man…and her."

Your father and your rapist, she thought. Would I see the people I feel tormented by if it were I in your position, Shinji? Would I see my parents and brother in place of the monsters in a giant robot?

"Ahh…" They heard their children yawn.

"Looks like someone's getting tired of the smell of tea," Rumiko suspected.

"It is getting late out," said Shinji to her, and put the broom he was using to sweep away and went over to the bar and picked Shado up. "Well, Rumiko…as always, it was great speaking with you again."

"Likewise, Shinji. Until next time."

Shinji carried his daughter out of the shop and Rumiko closed the door behind him and locked it. It was very different, talking to Rumiko than it was with others that were older than her or himself. They could just understand one another.

"Daddy?" Shado asked, already falling asleep in her father's arms. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yes, of course," he answered her.

"Miss Rumiko… Do you like her?"

"Yes, I do."

"I mean…do you like her?"

He didn't expect that line of questioning from her. And, of course, it wasn't something he could answer without some measure of hesitation. It wasn't that he didn't want to answer the question, but it was something he never took the time to consider at all. Ever since he took raising his daughter serious, and even after his rape, he never thought of wanting to make friends with others, even if he was able to.

But then, just on a Wednesday afternoon, making sure his daughter got good air at the park, he met Rumiko, who was doing the same with her son, whom he mistook for her little brother (which could have been possible). They just…met on a walkway and sat on the same bench that was present beside them. And then Rumiko made the first move in conversing with him.

"How are you doing today?" She had asked him as he sat his daughter on his lap.

"I'm okay," he responded. "Do you…come here often?"

"Only to make sure he gets fresh air. You?"

"The same. Brother?"

"No. Um…sister?"

"Um…no."

When she turned away to look at a nearby fountain, Shinji noticed the small bruise on her neck. It reminded him of the bruise his aunt gave him when he confronted her about the neglect she showed Shado when she was crying from hunger the day he tried to go back to school. She had refused to explain why there were three bottles for her until he got back from school…and why they were not in the sink or something. The worst part about it was the feeling he had during the time he was at school, that something was just wrong, and he left out to be with his daughter, who needed him more.

When I asked about her bruise, she said her mother was a believer of tough love, he thought, reaching the apartment and stepping inside. Of course, tough love is not love at all. It's just…pain.

Because Shado was already asleep, Shinji undressed her and put on her oversized, blue shirt and put her in her futon.

"Good night, Shado," he told her and kissed her forehead.

-x-

As Rumiko tucked her son in his futon, the teen mother turned away from the boy to look at a small mantle of pictures taken during their time in Tokyo-3. She picked up one of the larger ones and sighed at what she hadn't noticed for a long time. The picture was taken over by the mountains in the countryside, featuring her son, herself and her employer in front of an old temple; this was during one of her rare days off of work. Her employer, Tendo, was in his late-sixties to early-seventies (but the man didn't look a year over forty-five or that martial artist film star from China she had seen in those American films), with grayish-black hair, small wrinkles on his facial cheeks, and dressed in a gray and faded-green hakama, using a cane to support himself. What Rumiko hadn't noticed before, or rather, what she didn't try to notice, was that Shinji, in a subtle way, had an unusual resemblance to her boss.

At first, she wanted to disregard any suspicion about this, as it could've just been a coincidence; many Japanese men and women bore mild resemblances to other Japanese men and women. But there was something else about Tendo that made her think about Shinji, and that was an old picture that he had that featured a young man that looked like he had a terrible disposition or had been born under a bad star or something involving misfortune.

"Who is this man here?" She had recalled asking him one time when she saw the picture.

"That…was a man that would never know true peace or happiness for as long as he would live and so long as he refused to admit his faults as a person," Tendo expressed; it wasn't the answer she had been wanting from him, but one she accepted out of respect for the elder.

But as she sat against the wall under a window that overlooked an alleyway, she couldn't help but feel that there was no coincidence in what she felt was a fact. She had to consider the possibility that Shinji, against many odds…was somehow related to Tendo, which meant that his father, as harsh as it seemed, was also related to Tendo.

Two wrongs, but only one right, she thought; the two wrongs being that her friend and fellow victim of sexual abuse and family-related discord and her boss were related to a bad man…and the one right was that she still cared about the two men as much as she cared about her son, despite his only sin being that he was fathered by either her father or brother (and she never wanted to know which was the one). Dammit, Shinji.

To be continued…

A/N: What do you think so far? What do you think is bound to happen when Shinji meets with Tendo and they discover the truth?