Creation began on 10-09-16
Creation ended on 10-18-16
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Different from You: Distant Agony
"…Captain Katsuragi is on her way here with a man that has requested upon seeing you, Ikari," went Fuyutsuki to Gendo in his office. "It's the one that owns the tea shop."
Gendo just frowned. They might as well have settled this right now.
The door to his office opened up and Misato stepped inside, followed by the tea shop owner.
"Gentlemen," she greeted them and then stood aside to introduce the third man, "this is Tendo Rokubungi. He's the one you requested upon knowing about."
Tendo looked at Fuyutsuki, and then bowed his head. Then, he looked at Gendo…and soon wished he hadn't at all.
"You," he uttered.
"You," Gendo responded, removing his glasses from his face.
Tendo walked over until he was three feet from Gendo.
"Your people have been harassing one of my employees, and for what? If you want to satisfy your displaced curiosity, you come to me, not harass them!" Tendo told him.
"Still the same, are you?" Gendo expressed, unfazed by Tendo's raised voice.
"I thought you dead for years," Tendo told him.
"Same here," he responded. "Did you mourn?"
"Did you?"
"Never."
"Well, there's your answer. I mourned the loss of family and friends, but not you. You were undeserving of any mourning."
Misato and Fuyutsuki were puzzled at what was going on. Did these two men…know each other?
"Still hard to comprehend," went Tendo to Gendo, "that this is just how far my little brother has fallen over the years."
"Excuse me?!" Misato gasped.
"Same here," added Fuyutsuki, taken aback by this discovery. "You two are brothers?"
Tendo turned back to face them.
"Sadly, we are," he answered. "I'm guessing you can't see the resemblance, however minor. I am ten years his superior."
"You haven't been my brother for a long time, Tendo," Gendo retorted.
"You might've been cast out, but blood still runs thicker than water, no matter how much we both wish it didn't. Don't forget, it was your fault you were disowned."
"Something neither of you never could forgive me for."
Misato and Fuyutsuki looked at one another; there was clearly some bad history between these two brothers that was never resolved.
"We couldn't forgive you, Gendo," Tendo expressed. "You were beyond forgiveness. You lacked the capacity for forgiveness. You still lack it."
"And he left you everything because of it? They always favored you." Gendo responded.
"That…is where you were always wrong, brother. There was no favoritism at all. It was always what you believed. Our parents loved us equally, you just couldn't see that."
Sibling rivalry? Misato wondered.
"You wanted to be the favorite when there was no favorite, so you joined a small street gang," went Tendo some more, "and one night, it got out of hand…and you brought your mess back home with you…or have you forgotten that day?"
"That was an accident!" Gendo yelled.
"It was still your fault!" Tendo retorted. "You brought your mess home with you, and our mother died because of you!"
-x-
"…You know, if it weren't for the fact that we're underground, I would say that this garden here is quite peaceful," said Rumiko to Shinji, who seemed out cold right now as they were laying under the gazebo shade. "Shinji?"
With Shado laying beside him, the young father seemed to be almost asleep.
"Shado, is he asleep?" Rumiko asked her.
The little girl looked at her father and placed her left hand on his chest.
"I can't feel anything because of the bandages," she told her.
Rumiko then placed her right hand against his neck; all she could feel was a faint pulse.
"Good grief," she sighed.
"Hmm…" They all heard Shinji mumble.
He opened his eyes and got up to a sitting position.
"How long was I out?" He asked them.
"Just a few minutes, perhaps," went Toya.
Shinji then raised his right hand to his chest.
"Daddy?" Shado asked. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm okay, Shado," he told her.
Yet it seemed like he was lying to her. He couldn't tell for sure, but he felt like every time he got into the Eva, he lost a little more of himself to a monster he hated just as much as he hated his relatives and the woman that had Shado and died in prison. Like…he lost more time to spend with those that actually mattered to him because it was being siphoned by something that he had no faith in.
-x-
As Tendo walked out of Gendo's office after divulging to Ms. Katsuragi and Mr. Fuyutsuki the crime that got his brother cast out of the family, Gendo was fuming over his reignited hatred towards his elder brother, demanding to be left alone until later.
Misato, who wished she could've pitied Gendo because of what Tendo revealed, instead pitied Shinji and Shado. To know that they were related to a man that had once been in a gang and was the indirect cause of a woman getting killed and then getting cast aside for his crime. And to know that Gendo was such a…an inconsiderable person, unwilling to admit that it was his fault his mother was killed.
"Mister Rokubungi," she called out to Tendo as he walked towards the elevators. "Weren't you a little…intense with him?"
"Nowhere near as intense as I'd like to be with him," he responded. "You know what the worst part is of knowing that he's alive?"
She nodded in the negative, but had a feeling that the worst part was very bad.
"I find out he's alive, I find out he has a family…or maybe had a family is the appropriate term to use in his case, and he's as rotten to them as he can be towards anyone else when and if he doesn't get his way. My heart goes out to Shinji and Shado, the same as Rumiko and Toya, having to be related to adults that hurt them in excess and where there can be no middle ground to repair strained relationships. I can only hope those four don't get killed because of them."
"Why would you think their relatives would do something to get them killed?" Misato asked him.
Tendo looked at her and explained, "I've been around people long enough to understand they have a cold, dark side when it comes to family. And I've listened to Rumiko's point of view about her past, about how she was taken advantage of because she didn't know any better when she was little. And based on what she confided in me about Shinji, who I can no longer doubt is my nephew, and how his other relatives treat him and his daughter, it's only a matter of time…and tolerance…or the complete lack thereof, before something worse than what happened to them happens to them, whether it's being sent back to their relatives against their will…or they decide to not bother with them through moral channels and just have them disposed of."
Ding. The elevator opened and Tendo stepped into it.
"It's only my advice, but don't trust Gendo as far as you can tolerate him," he told Misato. "Unless he gets his way, no good can come from associating with him."
The door closed and Misato left to return to Central Dogma.
Something tells me that something worse is going to happen, she thought.
-x-
"…So…you think he's related to someone that works here?" Shinji asked Rumiko as they took their children and left the garden. "Who, exactly?"
"It's only a suspicion," she claimed, not wanting to get anyone's hopes up for nothing, "but it's just some guy that from one of his old photographs. It might not be true, even."
Shinji sighed and expressed, "Well, should your boss ever meet the guy, I hope there's ground to build their relationship."
When they reached the elevators, one of them opened up and out came Tendo, who seemed to be recovering from slight irritation or anger.
"Sir," Shinji greeted, bowing his head to him.
"I was…just on my way to see you all," Tendo expressed, bowing his head back. "It feels like a maze around here. How does one keep from going crazy walking into identical halls?"
"Retracing one's steps," Shinji suggested.
"So…where to?" Shado, on her father's back, asked.
-x-
Although neither Misato or Fuyutsuki said anything, the discovery spread like wildfire around NERV HQ the very next day. The personnel couldn't believe that Commander Ikari had an elder brother…or that he had done something to get their mother killed and himself cast out of their family in the aftermath. It was so extreme that even Ritsuko Akagi had a hard time looking at Gendo without wanting to know his history before Second Impact.
"…It's insane…"
"…You couldn't tell if they were brothers…"
"…Commander Ikari got their mother killed…"
"…It's the same as what I heard about his wife…"
"…The elder brother owns a tea shop…"
"…The teen mother the Third Child converses with is one of his employees…"
The rumors and scattered information went around for hours, and Gendo was most displeased by the talk his brother was getting. The only downside to the rumors were that, despite their presence, neither Shinji or Shado heard anything about Gendo's relation to an older man.
"Well, it seems obvious where your brother stands," went Fuyutsuki to him later that day.
"I was better off believing him dead," the cold man expressed.
"Somehow, I think the both of you were better off believing the other was dead. But, perhaps, this is fate's way of helping your son and his daughter, not you."
"If this is fate, it is irrelevant to the scenario."
Ring-ring-ring! Gendo's desk phone rang, and he picked it up.
"What is it?" He demanded.
-x-
Once it was thoroughly confirmed that he would require heart surgery after the mishap with the woman that claimed to be his commanding officer (like that actually meant anything to him), Shinji, once he had put his daughter down for her afternoon nap, looked at his chest again and grimaced at the scar that now looked like it was one, big scab.
"God," he groaned, redressing the area he undid before it bled again or something worse.
Knock, knock, knock! A knocking came at the door to the room, and Shinji came out of the bathroom to make sure Shado hadn't been awoken by the noise.
She was on his hospital cot and started stirring a little.
He rushed over to the door and opened it to see the faux-blond woman that bothered him just as any other adult woman did just by being near him.
"What do you want?" He asked, trying not to strain his heart or raise his voice like before, but clutching his chest with his right hand as his breathing became slightly ragged.
"There's another Angel," she explained to him.
"Wasn't I suspended from duty because of the last time I faced one?"
Unknown to either of them, Shado mumbled and awoke from her mild slumber, and she heard the faux-blond say to her father, "I'm afraid that this new Angel is so massive, it's going to require all three pilots and Evangelions to deal with it. That means you have to get back into Unit-01."
"How long?" She heard her father ask her.
"An hour, maybe less."
"Give me ten minutes."
Just from the sound of his voice, Shado felt like her father was in more pain than he displayed.
-x-
The entire city was ordered to evacuate because of some sort of situation, but not many of the people could leave on account of the so-called situation being so sudden. Even Tendo couldn't leave his shop or home with the streets crowded with many cars going in one direction.
"I'm surprised that anyone bothered to come in today," he sighed, cleaning the tabletops.
"Some of us don't have anywhere else to go," said a nineteen-year-old man to the elder that employed him as he refilled the sugar bowls with packets.
"While I'd like to be away from the danger of whatever this situation is," a woman of twenty-three years confessed, "I wouldn't mind having a cup of jasmine tea if I died today."
Sweeping up the dust on the floor, Rumiko heard her say this and had to think about how she would've spent her final hours. As bad as it seemed, she would've wanted to go out being held by someone that loved her for her, and not because of any lustful or depraved reasons. And as odd as it seemed delusional, she wouldn't have minded if that someone had been Shinji.
"Despite the late update of the danger, I thank everyone for coming in today," Tendo told everyone.
-x-
"…So far, it looks like the safety dampeners in Unit-01 are doing their job," went Maya to Ritsuko as they monitored Shinji's vitals and synchronization. "He's holding steadily at ninety percent."
"Where are we on the Angel?" Misato asked, looking at the holographics that displayed the large terrain of possible spots where the Angel could have fallen to ensure that it took out a large portion of the Japanese archipelago, even if it missed its target.
"Still in orbit," responded Shigeru to her.
Also on the screens were Units-00, 01 and 02, positioned as far apart from each other as possible to cover the locations the Angel could have chosen.
"This is ridiculous, though," Shigeru stated his opinion. "They haven't even had much simulation training to learn cooperation tactics. How can we expect any of them to actually work together?"
"It looks like we can't, really?" Hyuga expressed. "The boy doesn't seem to get along at all with Rei or Asuka. In fact, he seems to rather be with that other girl than either of them."
"If it means protecting his daughter," went Misato, shuddering at the memory of Shinji throwing her aside, "he'll put up with Asuka and Rei until the Angel is dealt with."
-x-
It was a short time till the conflict between the Evas and the Angel, but a long time to wait and see what would happen.
Shinji hated it. He'd rather be with Rumiko and their kids than be here in the plug. Plus, he was not feeling so good…and hadn't been since the last time he was in the Eva. Looking up at the sky where the Angel hid in the cover of the blue, he and the other girls waited for the sign to strike.
"Say, Third, I heard somewhere that you needed heart surgery," he heard the redhead say to him over the intercom. "Is that true?"
He didn't want to talk to her or the Ayanami girl that his father seemed to favor, and switched off the intercom system.
-x-
"Unit-01's intercom system has been switched off internally," Maya informed Misato and Ritsuko, unable to turn the system back on.
"Did Asuka really have to ask him that?" Misato uttered; with Shinji's communications turned off, the boy would have to rely on sight to know when the Angel decided to come down with the total sum of its explosive mass.
"I thought he already had surgery," went Hyuga to Misato.
"No, he just got his chest redressed with new bandages," she told him.
BLARE! The alarms went off as the Angel now began its descent from space.
"Oh, no," Shigeru gasped, calculating the Angel's trajectory. "The Angel's estimated interception point appears to be where Unit-01 is currently stationed!"
"The Angel's heading for Unit-01?!" Ritsuko questioned, wondering how intelligent this Angel truly was to be targeting an Evangelion.
"Asuka, Rei," Misato ordered, "intercept and backup Unit-01!"
-x-
The sky turned red, as if it had been set ablaze after being laced with combustible chemicals, and Rumiko held onto her son as they hid under one of the tables.
"Are we going to die, Mommy?" Toya asked her.
"I'm not sure, sweetie," she responded.
-x-
Shinji looked up and saw the Angel, which looked like a giant blob with eyeballs, and saw it headings towards him. He spread Unit-01's AT-Field and felt like someone was trying to flatten him with a large piece of wood.
"Aaaaurgh!" He groaned.
SLAM! The Angel slammed against the AT-Field and forced Unit-01 at least one feet into the ground with its immense force.
The Angel then applied more force, causing their AT-Fields to spark and send out electrical discharges and streams of fire that shot out at random spots.
"Aaaaaurgh! Aaaurgh!" Shinji yelled out, feeling like his insides were boiling, and all he saw when he looked up at the Angel as he raised Unit-01's arms up to try and keep the damn thing from putting him down for good were his father and rapist, all over again.
Stop, he thought, feeling like he was going to choke. Stop haunting me… Stop hurting us both… YOU TWO ARE THE WORST OF THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE HURT ME, AND YOU WILL NOT GET MY SHADO! DO YOU HEAR ME?!
A pair of cuts appeared on his facial cheeks as the LCL around him heated up.
-x-
"This can't be right," went Maya to Ritsuko, looking at Shinji's synchronization ratio. "Shinji's synchronization with Unit-01 is rising to three-hundred percent."
"What did you say?" Misato gasped, just as Units-00 and 02 arrived to assist Unit-01. "What about the installed dampers or inhibitors to keep him under control!"
"They should be working," Ritsuko explained. "What about the inhibitors, Maya?"
"I'm checking, checking," the tomboyish girl responded, looking at the recently-installed safety inhibitors to keep Shinji's synchronization at a stable level. "They're active, but they're not doing anything to reduce the synchronization, anymore!"
"What is this kid?" Hyuga questioned, just as Unit-00 used its Progressive Knife in tandem with its AT-Field to cut an opening in the Angel's AT-Field. "It's like every time he goes up against an Angel, his synchronization goes passed eleven!"
"This is getting bad! His vitals are in the red! He can't endure this!" Shigeru informed them.
Ritsuko checked the vitals and found most of the red centered around his nervous system, respiratory system and cardiovascular system, like they were on the verge of overheating. And with his synchronization over three-hundred percent now (it was now rising to three-hundred-fifteen), there was no telling what could happen to him if this continued.
"Shut it down," she told Maya.
"Doctor Akagi?" She questioned, confused.
"Disconnect his nerve connections now," she clarified. "Shut Unit-01 down."
"Delay that order," went Gendo, which disturbed everyone that heard him say that.
"Ikari," said Fuyutsuki to him, "your son is in danger."
But Gendo didn't care about the danger Shinji was in; so long as the Angel was defeated, it was a risk he was willing to take and a price he was willing to pay to get closer to his goal.
On the screens and holographic displays, Unit-02 used its Progressive Knife and stabbed the Angel in its eye, right where its core was located.
Flash! The Angel seemed to self-destruct, causing an explosion.
Misato shielded her eyes from the flash, and when it lessened, she saw the result of the Angel's attempted kamikaze assault: All three Evas looked unscathed, but at least three feet of the ground around them was scorched.
"What's the status of the pilots?" She asked Hyuga.
"We're getting good vitals from Rei and Asuka…but…" He started, but didn't finish.
"What about Shinji?" She questioned, concerned.
"We're not getting any telemetry from inside the plug," he stated, "probably from internal damage caused by the explosion."
"What about video?" Fuyutsuki suggested.
"Internal cameras are also damaged," answered Shigeru, unable to access the internal cameras inside the Unit-01 Entry Plug. "We're completely cut off from the pilot."
"Rei, Asuka," Misato went, unsure of what was going on with Shinji inside the plug, "we've lost contact with Shinji. Bring Unit-01 back to base, immediately."
-x-
Shado awoke from her extended nap and found herself alone in the room her father left her in.
Daddy, where are you? She wondered, slowly climbing out of the medical cot. You didn't seem alright before you got back in that monster the last time.
She opened the door and stepped out of the room, entering the hallway. It was empty, quiet, like she was the only one around. She didn't like this, it made her uncomfortable, just as much as she felt uncomfortable around people she didn't know or her father didn't trust around her, like the purple-haired woman or the two girls he had to put up with.
"Hello?" She called out, hoping someone was around, particularly an adult that didn't want to ask her personal questions or wasn't someone her father disliked. "Hello? I'm looking for my Daddy."
-x-
The immobile Unit-01 seemed like a statue, only made of metal and plastic over the flesh and bone. It was like a demon that watched the city with a hidden hatred.
"Stupid idiot," said Asuka, about to move the incapacitated Eva.
Unknown to either Unit-00 or Unit-02, Unit-01's right hand closed into a fist.
SLAM! Unit-01 then turned and struck Unit-00 in its head, knocking it aside in front of Unit-02.
"Hey! What's the big idea, Third?!" Asuka demanded as the purple Eva turned around.
"Asuka, get back!" Misato gasped.
Unit-01's eyes, which should've been a whitish-yellow, were instead a dark shade of red.
"Grr," it growled, and a red substance salivated from its mouth.
"What's going on here?" Asuka demanded.
"Unit-01's gone berserk," Misato explained.
"How long until it runs out of power?"
"We don't know if it will run out of power. You have to remove the plug from the Eva."
Asuka made Unit-02 charge at Unit-01 (after checking her power regulator and seeing only three minutes left in the reserves), and slammed it against the side of the hill where it had been when the Angel attacked.
"Unit-00 coming to assist," she heard one of the technicians say over the intercom, and saw the orange prototype approaching.
Rei reached out for the purple Eva's back armor while Asuka held it down, but then Unit-01 found a way to throw Unit-02 off of it and at Unit-00, sending both to the ground.
SLAM! It stomped on Unit-00's left leg, sending painful nerve signals to the blue-haired pilot.
SLAM! It then stomped on Unit-02's right arm, sending painful nerve signals to its redhead pilot.
"Aaaahh!" Both girl reacted in agony, and the Central Dogma bridge crew were doing their best to reduce the feedback.
"Grrr! Grrrraah!" Unit-01 growled, and then walked away from the fallen Evas, leaving the city limits.
-x-
"I don't believe this," went Misato as Unit-01 left the two Evas after crippling them. "Where is it going?"
"We don't know," responded Shigeru.
"What about the pilot?"
"We're still not picking up anything from inside the plug, not even a heartbeat," said Hyuga.
"Any estimation into how long until it stops?"
"The Eva's power reserves say two minutes, but it's frozen," explained Maya. "God help us all."
God help us all, indeed, thought Misato; with two of their Evas damaged and the third running amok, it was anyone's guess as to what Unit-01 was going to do, if it ever did anything beyond walking away from the city.
-x-
Drivers honked their car horns, passengers raised their voices, and dogs and cats barked and hissed at the sight of the purple giant as it made its presence known. Some thought it was a robot being tested. A few thought it was an experiment gone awry. Most thought of it as some sort of monster.
Unit-01 just walked on down the path it took, away from the roads and buildings.
-x-
"…That was from the JSSDF," said Fuyutsuki to Gendo after the military got wind of the situation. "They suspect that Unit-01 is heading towards Mt. Fuji."
"Mount Fuji?" Ritsuko questioned. "But why would it go there?"
"That's anyone's guess," Fuyutsuki told her.
"Has anyone tried questioning the Third Child's daughter?" Gendo questioned, which made the two people in front of him concerned about the actual reason behind the question.
"Nobody wants to go near the little girl, sir," Ritsuko revealed, "not after Captain Katsuragi's attempt to question her about your brother and the Third Child's minor assault and threat on her if she tried to do so again."
"Ikari," Fuyutsuki uttered, "we may have to consider the possibility that this is because the pilot was in danger from the high synchronization…and we did nothing to undo it when the situation presented itself to us."
"The Angel needed to be dealt with first," Gendo countered.
"But at the expense of the pilot? At the expense of a little girl's father?"
Gendo didn't answer him.
-x-
Because nobody would tell her where her father was and because she was feeling lonely, Shado called the number that Toya's mother gave her father, hoping that they were still around the city. That had been around almost half an hour ago, and she was still waiting in the room her father had been in before he left to deal with another monster that these people made him face.
"Shado?" She heard someone say her name outside the room, and she turned to face them.
It was Rumiko and Toya.
"Thank you," she praised them for coming.
"So, nobody's saying anything about Shinji?" Rumiko asked her, setting Toya down on the medical cot beside her on the left.
"No, nothing," she responded. "It's not like Daddy to be gone this long, and he was really hurt when they made him go off and face another monster."
"Your father was in bad condition?" Toya asked her. "How bad?"
"He wouldn't show it, but I could tell that his chest hurt."
"Like the bruise there was more painful than before?" Rumiko asked.
"Yes. What if…they're not saying anything about him…because…"
"Hey, hey," Rumiko stopped her there and picked her up, setting her on her lap. "We don't know for sure. We don't know if they even know anything. Maybe there's still a monster out there, or they're just playing doctor on him to treat his chest pains."
She then turned around to look at the door and saw the purple-haired woman that Shinji informed her of that frightened Shado, and she walked away.
"Toya, watch Shado," she instructed her son. "I have to powder someone's nose."
"Yes, Mommy," her son obliged, and she stepped right out of the room.
Misato walked faster until she felt a hand grab her by her right wrist.
"You know something, don't you?" She heard the teen girl's voice. "About whatever it is that happened to Shinji, don't you?"
She turned to face her and said, "Even if I did, I couldn't tell you. It's classified and need-to-know only, and you're not affiliated with NERV."
"Oh, really? Need-to-know only? Well, I need to know!" Rumiko raised her voice. "Why I need to know? Because Shado's the only girl here that's concerned about a young man's life. You might still be on the ass-end of being throttled and tossed aside by Shinji, but I don't really give a damn about that. I would've done the exact same thing to you if you tried to speak to my son without my say-so. Now, what has happened to Shinji?"
"Look, I can't tell you anything…" Misato tried to get her to stand aside.
"You tell me!" She demanded. "Or St. Jude help me, Shinji won't be the only one who threatened to break your fingers."
Misato could've raised her other hand to throttle her, but the moment she turned around to face her completely, she saw the two children behind Rumiko.
"I'd tell her if I were you," the boy told her, holding Shado's left hand. "I've seen her punch through glass a few times to know she doesn't joke."
-x-
"…You told a civilian classified information?" Ritsuko questioned Misato, watching Rumiko in the gazebo with Shado and Toya.
"She was most persuasive," Misato defended her excuse. "A single mother with an attitude is not to be trifled with."
"Not even a pilot candidate, and you told her what she wanted to know about the Third Child."
"It wasn't just for herself. She wanted to know for Shado because nobody would tell her what happened to her father."
In the gazebo, Rumiko held onto her son and Shado on her lap while hoping to lift her spirits after discovering that Shinji was still inside the Eva due to a "technical malfunction". In total honesty, she didn't believe any of that crud the purple-haired woman tried to sell her on; she had seen The Avengers and believed that people capable of lying so much to keep their secrets by hiding them with false secrets or, in the words of Tony Stark, "Secrets have secrets." In the end, there was nothing worse than being lied to about someone you cared about and not knowing what was really wrong with them.
"Do you think Daddy's alright?" Shado asked her.
"I'm sure he's doing fine," she answered, but she felt like she had lied to her.
"Probably being seen by a doctor right now," added Toya.
Shado appreciated their concerns for her father. If only she knew what was going on with him.
-x-
Unit-01 had climbed the top of Mt. Fuji as the sun started to set. And then fell to its palms and knees, bowing its head, powering down. The armor on the back of its body detached and the Entry Plug protruded from within the Eva, spraying out LCL.
-x-
"…That was from Mt. Fuji," Fuyutsuki informed Gendo. "They retrieved Unit-01 and the pilot and are bringing them back."
"Good," Gendo responded.
"Not entirely," the Sub-Commander explained. "Upon extracting the pilot, the retrieval team found several new injuries on his body, none of which they're certain were self-inflicted. This includes two cuts on his face that start under his eyes and end at his cheeks just above his mouth."
"The high synchronization is causing serious injury to him, regardless of the safeties installed," went Ritsuko, unable to come up with a new solution. "We can't keep it at a minimum."
-x-
"…Judging from the extent of his newest injuries and the fact that he was unconscious when he was removed," said a female doctor to Misato as they stood outside of an operating room where Shinji was being worked on, "there's no way he could've made the Eva travel to Mt. Fuji after facing an Angel of that magnitude."
"Can you say for certain?" Misato questioned her.
"Absolutely. He had to have lost consciousness after the Angel was defeated. Everything that occurred afterwards had to have been the Eva's own doing."
Seeing as they were removing his plugsuit, Misato's eyes widened at the sight of Shinji's chest.
"Dear God," she shuddered, covering her mouth.
From what she could see so far, the boy's previous scar had completely blistered, looked like processed bologna and bled while it had expanded to covering his shoulders and to his back.
"Great Caesar's ghost," one of the assistant male doctors gasped, backing away from the boy after removing the top part of the plugsuit. "It's a damn, dark miracle he's still alive."
"This isn't right," the female doctor told Misato. "His chest injury didn't look anything like that before he was in the Eva."
-x-
Although it was suggested that she take her son and leave, Rumiko was adamant in staying with Shado so that she wasn't lonely until her father came back. Even her boss supported her decision to stay until Shinji made a recovery.
"How are we supposed to tell them about his new injuries?" Maya asked Ritsuko, watching the three individuals on the surveillance cameras as they sat in the lobby of the medical ward.
"We're not saying anything until we know for sure what's going on with the Third Child," Ritsuko informed her, going over Shinji's latest medical records. "We might not even tell them anything at all."
On another surveillance camera, a heavily-sedated Shinji was still on the operating table in the O.R. His entire torso bandaged and his face cleaned on the blood that had bled from the cuts.
What in God's name is this boy? Ritsuko wondered, going over the chart again and being unsure if NERV should even continue exploiting this child.
-x-
GASP! Shinji gasped, awakening from what felt like an eternity of slumber in the darkness, finding himself in a room with surgical equipment.
He felt weak, exhausted and ready for the burial service against his will. Turning to his right side, despite the pain he was in, he managed to get up into a sitting position. The door leading out was right there in front of him, and he wanted to get up. His feet, once on the cold floor, couldn't support his weight and he fell, knocking over a tray of gauze in the process.
"Shado… Rumiko… Toya…" He grunted, now trying to crawl, dragging the right side of his face on the floor.
The door opened and several female nurses came in.
"The Third Child is conscious," said one of them.
"He needs to be sedated again," he heard another one say.
With his left eye, he saw one of them preparing a syringe. Then he saw another reach for his neck.
"There, there, this will help you sleep," he heard a fourth nurse say.
"There, there, this will help you sleep," he suddenly recalled his rapist say to him once, and she started slapping him on his face.
"NO!" He screamed, and the next thing he knew, he saw one of the nurses falling against a wall.
It was sudden, it was instant, and before he knew it, Shinji was panting as he walked down the hall.
-x-
Shado and Toya were asleep, so Rumiko stepped out of the lobby and tried to find a vending machine somewhere so she could get a canned beverage that could help her stay awake.
Thud! A door in front of her in the hallway opened up and somebody staggered out.
"Shinji?" She gasped, seeing who it was, and he turned to face her. "Oh, dear. Your face."
"Rumi…Rumiko…" Shinji uttered, walking towards her.
He fell to his knees and Rumiko rushed over to him and held him.
"Aaah! Aah!" Shinji hissed. "What…what time is it? What day?"
"It's after midnight," she explained. "It's…it's only been a few hours since you were gone, Shinji."
"They won't stop," she heard him say. "They won't stop."
"What do you mean? Who are you talking about?"
"That man… That woman… My life is a cluster right now because of my awful family and my rapist! All six of them!"
Rumiko just held him and heard him say some things that didn't make any sense because they seemed crazy to comprehend. But she didn't doubt his words because they were both damaged. They were both hurt by people they could no longer trust with their lives. And they couldn't go back to the days before their personal and traumatic experiences warped their perceptions of the world.
It would be a while before security arrived…and it would be a while before Rumiko discovered what Shinji had done before they found each other in the silence of night…and who got hurt by him.
To be continued…