Creation began on 10-18-16
Creation ended on 11-23-16
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Different from You: Life or Death
The nurses sent to deal with Shinji were thrown around the operating room he had been left in, incapacitated due to the boy's unexpected adrenaline rush and panic attack. They and at least three guards were either punched, kicked or shoved out of his way as he made his way through the trauma ward to see three people he could stand to be around.
"Was anything said to Shinji?" Rumiko had questioned Ritsuko upon discovering this. "Did your nurses say anything that might've unintentionally set him off?"
Even though he's injured, the adrenaline rush numbed him to his pain, thought Ritsuko as she examined Shinji while he was sedated after he was assured that nobody was going to do anything to him or his daughter while out cold, and that Rumiko and Toya would be around to keep an eye on Shado until he awoke. All one of the nurses said before he went off on them was that the sedative would help him sleep.
On her chart was the nurse's statement that said she explained the sedative would help him sleep when they tried to administer it.
-x-
"…Judging from the extent of his injuries, I take it his heart surgery is on hold?" Misato questioned Maya, who had a copy of Shinji's medical records.
"The doctors can't risk operating on him until he's more stable. Physically and mentally." Maya explained to her.
"This is insane. More than that, this is a disaster waiting to get worse."
"It might already be worse than you think, Captain Katsuragi. These are Shinji's synchronization results during the last attack. It nearly hit four-hundred percent."
"Four…four-hundred percent?"
"I did some digging…and something almost like this happened ten years ago. The pilot back then had a four-hundred percent synchronization…and they died."
"Who was it?"
"It was Commander Ikari's wife."
Misato was left unable to comprehend what left NERV to even recruit this damaged young man that was clearly screwed up…and how the insanity he found himself surrounded by seemed to stem partly from his family before his daughter, not just his kidnappers and his rapist.
-x-
Truth be told, many of the personnel felt that the latest injuries the young girl's father got from piloting the Eva was entirely Commander Ikari's fault. Any number of reasons why he didn't have the Eva shut down when it was revealed to be hazardous for his son existed in the form of rumors, ranging from unjustifiable hatred at him to just wanting to get rid of the little girl that was his granddaughter because he didn't want to be bothered with either of them.
But to be honest, Gendo didn't have time to deal with their petty assumptions. Not even when one of the doctors in front of him in his office with Dr. Akagi was going on and on about the Third Child's injuries sustained from the last sortie.
"Given the inability to reduce his synchronization to safer levels, I must recommend that any further use of the Third Child with any of the Evas be suspended indefinitely," a male doctor expressed to Gendo, backed up by two other male doctors.
"In layman's terms?" Fuyutsuki, who was also in the office, asked them.
"We need to cut the boy lose," went Ritsuko, clarifying their claims. "Period."
Hearing that, however, made Gendo say that there was no time to find a suitable replacement for the Third Child and that he would stay on the combat roster until further notice.
"Sir, given the severity of his synchronization-related injuries, he shouldn't be anywhere near the Eva," a second male doctor urged Gendo to reconsider.
"What he means is that the boy's now living on borrowed time because of the last sortie," the third doctor revealed. "The next time he gets into the Eva may very well be his last time because it's going to kill him!"
What?! Fuyutsuki gasped mentally, never anticipating that the Eva would be another person's grave.
-x-
"Urgh," groaned Rumiko as she rubbed her temples as she sat beside Shinji's medical cot.
"Mommy?" She heard Toya's voice as he and Shado were laying on a smaller cot away from Shinji's.
"Uh, yeah, Toya?" She asked him.
"Are you alright?"
"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."
"How is he?"
She looked at Shinji again and responded that he was still asleep.
Shinji seemed far from at peace while asleep, though. If anything, he looked like he was ready for the medical examiner. His face, his chest and now parts of his shoulders and back and neck, they were scarred and caused him pain. He didn't tell her much of anything, but Rumiko had to deduce that, after what he told her last night when he showed up after several hours of being gone, operating some giant robot was far more hazardous to Shinji than what might've been suspected or thought possible.
He said his life was a cluster because of his family and his rapist, she thought, reaching out to his left hand. He didn't elaborate on what he meant by all six of them, but he excluded Shado from the cluster…and I believe him, everything he says.
Clasp. She felt his hand softly grab onto hers as the open window behind her let in a new breeze.
He opened his eyes again and looked up at her.
"Ow…" He groaned softly.
"Hey," she greeted kindly.
-x-
"…So, because Commander Ikari doesn't want to cut him loose because he claims there's no time to find a replacement pilot," went Misato to Ritsuko an hour later after hearing of another rumor about the repercussions of the last sortie, "he wants to keep Shinji on the combat roster, even after everything he's gone through?!"
"Yes, that's right," the faux-blond explained, using the MAGI to search for a replacement pilot for Shinji right now. "It's not a smart move at all."
"It's a bad move! An ill move! And he was told that the Eva could kill him the next time he gets into it? What the Hell is he thinking?"
"Not really much 'could'. It will kill him if he gets back inside it."
"Is he trying to kill his own son? Maybe make it an accident?"
"That's what some of the personnel believe. But Commander Ikari never really confirms or denies anything, so nobody can say for certain."
"If there is any truth to that possibility, what happens to the boy's daughter if something happens to him? It's obvious that his father has no interest in his granddaughter and it's obvious that the reverse is also true; the girl doesn't see her grandfather in a positive way."
"Maybe try to recruit the girl to pilot the Eva."
"You say something like that again, and I'll bust your mouth, Rits."
As they continued to work in Central Dogma, down in the medical ward, Rumiko was helping Shinji walk out of the room and towards an elevator.
The young father, after brief consideration, just wanted to leave the place with his daughter and get medical attention from a regular hospital or clinic. His friend was quick to oblige him, and their kids were on the lookout for anyone that might've hindered them.
"You want to talk about what happened?" Rumiko asked him as they stepped into an elevator.
"Not here," he told her, pressing a button and waiting for the doors to close. "But to make a long story short, there's always a time when one has to say that enough is enough. That's what this is. Enough is enough, and it can't go on."
"I'm glad we're leaving this place," Toya expressed to them. "It seems like nobody wants to explain much of anything about anything."
"Not many people want to tell younger people anything," Shado clarified for him.
When the elevator stopped, the doors opened and revealed the same guy with the unshaven face and ponytail that Shinji and Shado had seen before when the redhead showed up.
"Oh, hey, there, you kids," Kaji greeted them, but none of them spoke back.
They just stepped out of the elevator and walked past him.
-x-
"How will you explain this to the Committee, Ikari?" Fuyutsuki asked the cold man, referring to the fact that if the Third Child got inside the Eva again, it would kill him.
"There's nothing to explain," Gendo responded. "There's no definite proof that the Third Child's life is in any danger."
"Ikari, you know that isn't true. The majority of the personnel are concerned that you may be trying to have your son killed."
"To ensure the Angels are defeated, sacrifices must be made."
"They're going to demand some type of explanation as to why one of the pilots is physically deteriorating every time they pilot the Eva with a high synchronization ratio."
Before Gendo could express that this wasn't something SEELE needed to know about at all, the desk phone rang and he answered it.
"Yes?" He questioned. "When was this?"
-x-
Maybe he was crazy for doing this, but Shinji felt it was better. He couldn't trust his father to try something to cause him and Shado further misfortune.
It was fortunate that Rumiko knew about a free clinic in the city that could do heart surgery with absolute discretion; she says that it was because of Tendo's prior knowledge of the city's lesser-known sources of aid that she was able to get painkillers for her back injury.
"I'm surprised that such a place exists," said Shado, waiting with Rumiko and Toya while Shinji was being operated on.
The door suddenly opened and a male surgeon stepped out to see them; they were the only ones around the clinic, so it wasn't a long wait.
"How is he?" Rumiko asked the surgeon.
He gave a peace sign and answered, "Your boyfriend pulled through the operation with little worry. Patched up his heart and expanded the valves. He should be able to make a complete recovery in about two days or so. Can't say the same for his chest, though, unless he has a lot of skin cream."
"Which I can't get yet without a prescription," they heard Shinji say as he stepped out of the operating room, covering his freshly-bandaged torso with the hospital garments he still had from NERV. "Thank you very much for your help."
"You still have some of the anesthesia in you, so you'll need to rest up," the surgeon reminded him, and handed him a prescription for pain-relief skin cream.
-x-
Ring-ring-ring! Tendo's cell phone rang, and he answered.
"Rokubungi residence," he spoke, despite the fact that his phone read as an unknown caller.
"Where's the boy and his brat, Tendo?" He recognized Gendo's voice, not even trying to hide his contempt at speaking to him.
"What are you talking about?" Tendo asked him, pouring himself a cup of green tea.
"The boy and his brat just left the facility with your employee and her brat."
"I still don't know what you're talking about. It's not any of my business where they are, so long as they call me. And why call me, anyway? Up until just the day before, I didn't even know I had a nephew or a grandniece. I still don't know who they are, apart from what my employee tells me. I don't know where they are right now. And even if I did know, it's not like I could really tell you anything."
Before Gendo could even respond, Tendo hung up, not wanting to be bothered by the antics of his little brother that hadn't matured at all since the day their mother was killed. As he sat down at the kitchen table and drank his tea, he thought of Shinji and Shado, of how it seemed like their very lives just didn't seem to mingle well with most people, like his brother. And from what Rumiko divulged to him about his nephew's maternal aunt, uncle and cousin, all Shinji really had when it came to family was just his illegitimate daughter that depended upon him.
Those two are victims of people that just don't seem to understand or care about what really happened to them, he thought, looking down at his cell phone. But I trust Rumiko and her sense of judgment. They were both hurt and trust is something that needs to be built upon, which isn't easy. I should know. Rumiko almost ended up turning tricks before I met her and Toya. Now, I just do what I can to keep her from having to go back to that dark path her father and brother took her down.
He felt like it was only the day before when he met the two in his tea shop during the closing hours at night, how he didn't know either of them or their living situation at first. All he really knew back then was how young Rumiko was and how, just after engaging in a simple, friendly conversation with her, everything else that happened just seemed to fall into place.
"We can't go back to that house," she said cryptically to him. "Every waking moment with her there could be our last moment with her there. My father and brother are gone, but she's still there, and... I couldn't leave Toya alone with her, so I left everything and everyone."
There's no way I could ever imagine anyone like her resorting to selling her body just to provide for her son. If I hadn't met them, though, that's exactly what she could've done or worse.
Even after she gave him the contact number for her mother's phone and the address of where she used to live, Tendo, instead of trying to convince the girl to return home and hash it out with her mother, decided to be the path of positive resistance for her.
-x-
"…So, this is your room?" Rumiko asked Shinji, helping him into his and Shado's unit after helping the young father get across the city because he was still under the influence of the anesthesia.
"Yeah," he answered her, falling onto his futon and turning over so that he was on his back, not his chest. "I should be able to get up in about an hour to make Shado something to eat."
"Toya and I can stay around so that you can recover from the surgery," she offered; she didn't want to leave either him or his daughter alone after they left NERV.
"I try to refrain from the instant meals. There should be some celery and bamboo in the refrigerator along with some curry."
"I can also make miso soup for you two."
"Thank you."
Meanwhile, in Shado's room, Toya looked out the window at the city that seemed to be moving on after the last attack from a monster that nobody seemed to know about in general.
"I never said this before, but the city always seems like the least likely place that is child friendly," he uttered to Shado, who stepped out from within her closet, dressed in an oversized, blue shirt.
"With the exception of the playgrounds and the tea shop, is there such a city that is child friendly?" She asked him, sitting on her futon.
"Honestly, I always felt the safest of places were either the tea shop or my mother's room."
"Daddy has always been my safe place. His aunt and uncle back at their place before this city were just bad. Real bad."
Ding-dong! The doorbell rang, and both children turned to the hallway leading towards the front door.
Rumiko stepped out of Shinji's room and looked at the front door, quietly gesturing the kids to hide somewhere until the coast was clear for them. Tiptoeing on the floor towards the door, she gazed into the peephole and saw the purple-haired woman that she and Shinji threatened for withholding information and just approaching Shado.
"You might as well give up," Misato uttered. "We know that four of you are in there. You need to have Shinji come back to NERV, immediately."
"What for?" Rumiko asked her.
"Because Commander Ikari says he has to."
"I've heard better excuses. Shinji's asleep right now."
"Then wake him."
"No."
"I'm his commanding officer, and if I have to, I will have you arrested for interfering with a NERV-related matter."
Rumiko raised her right hand up, but didn't unlock the door.
Someone behind her had beaten her to doing that, though she was just going to yell at the woman.
"Rumiko just told you that I'm trying to sleep," went Shinji, who looked as white as a sheet now and intimidating because of his scars under his eyes and on his cheeks. "I'll explain my absence after I've recouped here."
Misato was about to speak up, but Shinji closed the door in her face again.
"Shinji, I…" Rumiko spoke up, but Shinji silenced her with just a raised hand.
"It's all gonna fall on me," he told her. "I asked you to help me get out of that place. You only did as I asked of you, and I thank you."
"How will you explain this all to them, if you don't mind my asking?"
"That enough is enough. I have to live with the promise I made to Shado. If things got bad, if she got hurt or if I got hurt real bad, I'd stop helping everyone at NERV, no matter what they say."
"How do you think that man's going to take this?"
"If he can't accept my decision, then that's his problem. I didn't want to do this to begin with. I only did it to keep Shado safe. Then, I met you and Toya allover again…and I tried to endure the agony of piloting the Eva awhile longer because… I really needed more than one person I care about to want to protect from danger. But every time I faced an Angel, every time I was just inside the Eva…everything just hurt…and I don't want to leave those close to me alone just because some adults I don't care about made something they can't use without using young people."
"Do you think that…they'd try to use me?" Rumiko asked him, curious about how NERV recruited people their age to do what he did.
"Not while your mother's around, that's for certain," he answered her, "and even if she weren't, my last sortie in the Eva gave me an unwavering epiphany that shed light on a web of lies that agency was built on for many years."
If only they had known that three people had heard them speaking.
-x-
"…The fact that he was able to leave the base unnoticed shows that we're slacking in our security, Ikari," said Fuyutsuki to Gendo in the latter's office. "And the fact that he appeared to seek help from another teen parent indicates we know less than we thought we did."
"It's still irrelevant, Fuyutsuki," Gendo countered; no matter what the former teacher of metaphysical biology believed, everything about whatever the Third Child did that didn't help the scenario was to be disregarded entirely.
-x-
"…Daddy, I thought you were supposed to be resting," went Shado to Shinji, who was in the bathroom at the sink, looking like he still needed rest.
"I just needed to clean my face, Shado," he explained to her, turning the faucet off. "Are you alright? Did you eat while I was asleep?"
"Yes. Toya's mother made dinner for us. She just finished cleaning the dishes."
"That's good."
Shado noticed how her father staggered against the wall after stepping away from the sink.
"Daddy, maybe you should…crawl back to your room instead of walking," she suggested.
"No, it's nothing serious, sweetie," he told her, but then saw the look of woe on her face, and sighed in defeat. "Okay, sweetie, you win. I'll crawl back to my room."
He slowly got down onto his arms and knees and she led him back to his room to rest some more.
"I don't think I even want to know how she got you to get back to bed like that," Shinji heard Rumiko say to him some time later.
"Never underestimate the power of the puppy dog pout," he sighed, his left hand over his eyes as he lay on his futon, "or overestimate the resilience of your hardened heart. When your child is more concerned for your health than you are, they end up being victorious over you."
"Yeah, I know that feeling," Rumiko expressed; it had been six months since she last got sick with the flu that she caught from her son when he was sick. "My son got sick and I caught his bug six months ago. Tendo wouldn't even let me leave the house until my fever broke."
"Concerned people."
She then sat on the floor beside his futon.
"So…parents that aren't parents," she uttered, reminding him that his discovery of what was going on and how messed-up his family was. "How did it ever come to this?"
"Depravity and self-righteousness," he revealed; nothing hurt worse than loveless agendas and falsehood beliefs that weren't worth the unforgivable gallons of blood that had been spilt over the years. "I will never forgive them for what they did…for what they want to do…and I can't forgive myself for helping them unknowingly."
Rumiko then lifted his upper body and placed his head on her lap as she sat beneath him.
"I'll forgive you," she told him. "I'll always forgive you."
It was the thirteenth dark thought she had, but Rumiko felt entitled to the feeling of safety she had from the Eva by just being born the day before the day half the world went away. Even Shinji knew she was fortunate enough to be able to avoid the dark and unforgiving hand of cards that those born after Second Impact were dealt by those that decided to deal the cards. But even she didn't wish this cruelty upon Shinji or anyone else, not even that redhead bimbo with an attitude problem or that blue-haired girl that Shinji mentioned about being his father's replacement or something of the sort because he seemed to keep her close.
"So…what happens now?" She asked him.
"Whatever will happen," he answered her. "Fate is cruel to say that something you're either manipulated into doing or you have no idea what it even is as some sort of responsibility or destiny."
"Destiny is just a word. If you want to believe in destiny, listen to music."
-x-
"…What do you mean, he's done with NERV?" Ritsuko asked Misato as the purple-haired woman returned to NERV.
"I'm saying he's done," she explained to the faux-blond. "He won't pilot the Eva again. He actually made a promise to his daughter that when things got bad for either of them, he'd stop, and things have been gotten bad for the boy. Even if he still could, he shouldn't."
"That may be, but Commander Ikari won't let him go."
"It may not be up to him, anymore. Shinji said he couldn't continue being a pawn in his parents' game, and he would tell anyone that would listen to him for less than two minutes if it meant exposing his parents for the monsters they are. I don't know if he's crazy from piloting the Eva with such a high and unstable synchronization ration or if he really had an epiphany after the last attack, but he's dead serious about no longer piloting the Eva."
"Maybe he needs to be reminded of what will happen if he doesn't."
-x-
Not bothering to take a chance with his bandages, Shinji, after a good night's rest with Rumiko, returned to NERV after asking Rumiko to watch Shado until he came back for her.
"Hey, there, Shinji," greeted the unshaven man from the other day to him, but Shinji just ignored him in the hall as he walked past him and the redhead and entered an elevator.
To his disgust, Rei Ayanami was present, but he ignored her, too, pressing the button of his desired floor to get to. The doors closed and the elevator moved up. If there had been music playing, it would've made the time in the confined space a bit more pleasant.
Rei never made a move towards him, and he didn't speak a word to her.
"So, you're resigning," she spoke up; it wasn't even a question.
"It's a death sentence," he responded.
"Do you not have faith in your father's work?"
"Happy to disappoint you, but it's not even his work. He just picked up where someone else left off. Someone just as depraved as he is."
The elevator reached the boy's destination and the doors opened.
"You shouldn't run away from your responsibility," Rei spoke as he stepped out.
"I have a responsibility," he retorted. "It's just not this one…and I don't want to be, nor do I have to be, shackled to the sins of those that came before me, which includes you."
The doors closed before Rei could even respond to that last remark about her being a sin, and Shinji walked towards his father's office.
"Shinji," he looked ahead and saw Misato. "You're back."
"Not for too long, but just as I said I would be," he told her.
Even with all the blood cleaned from his face, Misato felt that his scarring made him look like he was worn out and prematurely withered. Before, he just seemed like a young boy forced into a corner and had to try and grow up for a little girl that nobody else wanted to be bothered with caring for; she had dug a little deeper and found that, despite the little girl being innocent of any wrongdoings that her father's rapist had committed, Shado was constantly stigmatized on both sides, the maternal and paternal, similar to how her father was stigmatized for being a kidnap and rape victim, a teen parent and the son of Gendo Ikari. And then, there was just the way he looked at you; it wasn't with indifference or malice like some sort of criminal or serial killer, just a young man that didn't know who to trust and could only assume that everyone older than him was some sort of stranger out to get him. There was no way to compare the boy to his father at all, even if you tried to.
"You're just going to stop piloting the Eva?" She questioned him.
"Is that a trick question?" He asked back.
"Won't you reconsider?"
"I've considered it all I need to."
"So…you're just going to walk away from all this…knowing that there's still danger…because of a promise you made to your daughter?"
Standing outside Gendo's office, Shinji turned to face her and said, "Everyone will find themselves, sooner or later, having to make choices that others don't agree with, Ms. Katsuragi. If this is the lesser of many evils that exist in the world, then it's a choice I can live with if it keeps my daughter from being an orphan or having to be surrounded by strangers I wouldn't entrust with her safety."
They both stepped into the room and stopped in front of Gendo and Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki.
"Let's cut the bullshit and get right to the reason I'm here," Shinji spoke, which surprised Fuyutsuki. "I'm done with the Eva, NERV and you (he points to Gendo)."
"Unacceptable," Gendo told him.
"That's your problem. You have no authority over me…and I don't want to continue piloting something that's going to kill me the next time I get in it."
"You don't know that."
"I'm not going to risk my life, either way. I have someone more important than some heartless abomination to live for."
"All of mankind is at stake, and you'd run away just to play house for some little girl?"
"If that's how you want to view it, then, yes, I would walk away. You want your precious Eva to continue bending over for you, get someone else to do it for you. I'm already burned out…and what's left of my life will be spent with my daughter. You don't like it, you can kiss your wife's Eva-sized ass because both of you just lost your primary pawn."
That was cold and low, even from Shinji. To just disrespect his mother's memory like that.
"What did you say?" Gendo asked him, his tone that of someone who just felt disrespected.
"You…and Mother…are no better than the creatures you call Angels," Shinji uttered, deciding to reveal the extent of his epiphany. "I remember what happened that day she supposedly died…and I hate her for it. You dare to accuse me of running away when you both did it first and foremost, and you entrusted me to your wife's sister and her family…who viewed me as nothing more than a problem, your problem, and weren't the least concerned when I was kidnapped going to the store for them because the sister told me to go get milk."
The records only say that he was kidnapped, but not the reason that led up to it, thought Misato.
What's going on here? Fuyutsuki wondered.
Shinji inhaled as he placed his left hand on her chest, nowhere near recovered from the heart surgery from yesterday, and said, "I would say more on what I found out, but it would be as you believe anything that doesn't make your life easier…and I'm still on the mend. If everything happens as it must, then this should also happen: Turn away from the path of violence and intimidation and just live and be content. I've already stayed longer than intended."
He turned to leave, unknowingly leaving a bloody palm print on Gendo's desk.
"Don't you dare walk away from your responsibility, Third Child!" Gendo shouted at his son, but Shinji just walked out of the office, feeling relieved of a heavy burden that was never his.
What happens now, Shinji? He wondered to himself as he stepped into the elevator. What will you do with the time you have left that hasn't been taken from you by your parents? Well, your daughter gets your undivided attention. We'll probably have to relocate elsewhere. One thing at a time, Shinji. One thing at a time.
-x-
"…Even if you disagree with what the medical staff said, Ikari," went Fuyutsuki to Gendo, "your son just said he was done, and he has that little girl to take care."
"What he wants is irrelevant," said Gendo to him, ignoring the bloody hand print on his desk. "We have neither the time nor the personnel to replace him."
"You mean, you don't want him replaced, no matter how much he hates you."
-x-
"…What gives him the right to just walk away from this?!" Asuka asked Kaji.
"He's tired, Asuka," Kaji tried to simplify the young father's reasons for resigning from NERV. "The Eva's consuming so much of his time that he has none for his daughter. She's the only reason he's been here for as long as possible, but his duration was based on a promise he made to his daughter, something he intends on keeping."
"What promise was that?"
They were in the cafeteria eating lunch when they discovered that Shinji was walking out of the agency and the Eva.
"His daughter made him promise that if things got bad for either of them, he would stop piloting. He's burned out, Asuka. He can't continue piloting if it's going to kill him with such instability…and to be honest, he shouldn't continue." Kaji told her.
"He could at least have the decency to reconsider," Asuka retorted. "If anything, he can go down in front of everyone like a star against the Angels."
"Then what happens to his little girl if he dies because of the Eva? We can't ask her to replace her father or lie that his death was an accident. She'd know what really happened, see all of the agency, even the ones that didn't do anything, as what killed him…and she'd be right. She'd rather have her teenage old man than anything else in her life right now."
"Sounds like the Third spoils her."
"She's only four years old, Asuka. Her mother, or rather the woman that had her is dead, her father's relations, excluding her own father, are either disinterested in her well-being or just want nothing to do with her. How do you live with that truth?"
"What about her maternal relations?"
"Either dead or in prison with no chance of getting out."
"Then she needs to grow some sense at how unfair the world is."
"I'd like to see you say that to her in front of her father."
With that, Asuka thought back to the video footage of Shinji facing the Fourth and Seventh Angel and how effective-but-reckless he was in beating them…and then, there was the fact that he yanked Misato for trying to speak to his daughter without his permission. She couldn't imagine trying to say anything to that little girl without exciting her father's fury; if he could throw Misato with little effort, then she would've been no different from a rag… She stopped herself from finishing that line of thought.
"Actually, maybe you should be the one to do it," she told him, trying not to imagine the outcome.
-x-
Shinji didn't feel so hot right now as he walked out of the NERV base. He had just finished handing in his resignation (despite the insistence that Commander Ikari stated that his son would continue to pilot the Eva) and cleaned out his locker (not that he had much to clean out to begin with). Some people that saw him leave seemed to speak with some praise, like he was doing them a favor or something by turning away. He didn't really understand them and just wanted to…
He must've lost consciousness and fell to the ground.
"…Someone help me pick him up…"
"…Piloting the Eva…"
"…This is why he needs to stop…"
"…Matter if it kills…"
The voices were few and he was uncertain of their concern. His own train of thoughts were scattered between memories past and present, what he had initially thought was true, but later discovered wasn't entirely true. How he discovered that his mother wasn't the good mother he had once thought her to be because of the lack of pictures and memories, the extent of his father's insanity and how awful they both were to him, before and after he was abandoned, kidnapped and raped.
"…Never again," he was able to utter as he slowly came to in a room, seeing Rei Ayanami looking down at him. "Never again."
-x-
"…The heart surgery he got from wherever he went to get it wasn't botched or anything," a male doctor explained to Gendo, Ritsuko, Fuyutsuki and Misato Shinji's current condition. "The problem is the stress he's under."
"Stress?" Misato questioned. "Stress from what?"
"In a word, NERV."
"You mean, us?" Fuyutsuki asked.
"That's right."
"You're saying that Shinji collapsed outside of the base and bled through his bandages…because we put him under a lot of stress?" Misato made sure she understood correctly.
"The stress from piloting the Eva, from having to put up with people he doesn't even know, with people he doesn't really give a damn for, anymore (the doctor meant this part for Gendo)… If it gets any worse, it only reduces his chances of living out what's left of his life. It's already been confirmed that if he pilots the Eva once more, it's going to kill him."
"That's a risk we must take," went Gendo, which disturbed each person in the room at how cold the commander was over his own son's very life.
"Sir," the doctor had to enforce, "given the physical deterioration caused by piloting the Eva, I must strongly recommend that the young man be cut loose from the agency."
"We don't have time to cut him loose."
"You want him to pilot until he drops dead?!"
-x-
"You really shouldn't be getting up, Pilot Ikari," Rei told Shinji as he got out of the bed.
"I'm getting up," he told her, now looking for his shoes. "What do you want?"
"I was ordered to inform you of Eva testing once you got up."
Shinji looked at her like she was crazy and responded, "Whose orders are these? That man's?"
"If you mean Commander Ikari, yes," she answered him.
"What part of 'never again' is impossible for him to comprehend? I'm never getting back into that deathtrap. You can do it because you have no free will to do anything for yourself, and that redhead, I honestly don't know or care why she does it at all, but I won't do it again. I have other things, better things to do than throw my life away for something I have absolutely no faith in."
Once he found his shoes and began putting them up, Rei uttered, "Commander Ikari has ordered that you continue to pilot the Eva until a replacement can be found."
"And did he say how long that could take?"
"He did not."
"He's either lying or has no intention of looking for a replacement…until AFTER I'm dead! Crazy bastard has no sense."
"Commander Ikari knows what he is doing."
He turned to look at her and uttered, "You can say whatever you want to say about him, but he has no sense or a heart. As far as I'm concerned, he can take his sense, his wife…and you…to the grave with him when he dies. Now, I'm walking out this room and away from all of you, so don't try to stop me."
"I've been ordered to stop you if you try to leave," Rei stated to him.
Shinji then looked at a chair beside him…and decided that actions were going to speak louder than words weren't to girl…and grabbed it and threw it at her before running out of the room.
Rei didn't have time to react and felt the impact of the chair hitting her and sending her falling to the floor, her face bloody from her nose getting broken.
-x-
"…This original version is so different from the one Daddy and I saw," Shado told Toya and Rumiko as they were looking at a black and white film from the Nineteen-Fifties about a giant creature that was disturbed from its ancient slumber and empowered by mankind's arrogance over nuclear power at Tendo's place. "How can that lady just tell her kids that they're going to their father instead of just trying to get away from the monster while there's still a chance to get away?"
"The movie was made recently after World War Two," Rumiko explained. "People back then were still scarred by the results of what that war did. Because they discovered a power that could harm millions of lives and poison the environment, the idea was what could happen if such a large creature could have existed during that time and was not only scarred by such a power…but had to punish people for their role in the discord and disturbing its slumber. That's what triggered the origin of the greatest creature the world has ever known."
Shado watched on the television as the creature breathed its poisonous fire breath at the buildings again, transforming the city into an ocean of fire. So far, she was convinced that later films based off this one were better because they gave the monster adversaries with which to face. But she really wished her daddy was here with them to watch the film. While being explained that he was just going back to NERV to inform that bad man that he was quitting, she became concerned that such a task was taking too long when it should've been very simple to just go in and tell the people that her father was done with them.
"Um, Ms. Rumiko," she spoke, "did Daddy say when he'd be back?"
"No, dear, he didn't," Rumiko answered, but was just as concerned. "He should've been back, though."
Tendo, who was also with them to watch the film, thought of a different reason to why the young father hadn't returned for his daughter; he suspected that his brother, being the arrogant, irresponsible and irredeemable piece of filth that he was, simply wasn't going to take even the smallest bit of refusal to do anything any further from anyone, including his own son. Although he didn't even build up a relationship with Shinji or his daughter, Tendo sighed at how the little girl worried for her father's safety and felt the misery of her not knowing where he was or when he would get back.
I don't even know him…but that shouldn't stop me from wanting to, he thought and grabbed his cane to help himself get up from out of his chair. "Rumiko, be a kind lady to this elder and lock the door behind me as I walk out. I just remembered that I need to go handle a tax return notice."
"Huh? Uh, okay," Rumiko responded and got up to lock the door behind him. That's odd. He shouldn't have any tax-related business left to deal with. He taught me how to do taxes.
Heading to his truck, Tendo felt he was going crazy for even considering doing what he was thinking about doing, but knew it would only come to that when and if it did.
"Just how messed up is this nation after fifteen years?" He wondered, starting the ignition and driving out the alleyway.
-x-
"…Uh, someone should go see if the First Child is in need of surgery for her broken nose," a female nurse said, seeing Shinji getting into an elevator. "Have a good day, young man."
"I hope to have a good future if I leave this place," he responded, keeping his guard up in case anyone tried to stop him from leaving as the elevator doors closed.
What Shinji didn't know was that most of the personnel at NERV all had the same thought that it was better that he leave after discovering that the next time he piloted the Eva could've been his last time while still breathing.
"I'm coming back to you, Shado," he told himself.
The elevator stopped as it reached the floor he wanted and opened up to reveal the unshaven man from before, standing in the way.
"Don't mind me," he told Shinji. "I'm just heading to Central Dogma."
Shinji stepped out of the elevator and walked past the man.
"There was never a replacement pilot," he heard him say. "I checked. You were meant to be Unit-01's pilot all the time."
This just made Shinji walk faster to the front door.
"Hey, is that him?!" A man shouted. "Stop him!"
"What for? He's done." A woman expressed. "I'm not going after him."
He made it out the front door and just prayed that nobody would come after him again.
-x-
"…The Third Child has left the base again," Ritsuko informed Gendo.
"Where was security?" He demanded, discovering that Rei was assaulted by Shinji and had her nose broken by his hitting her head with a chair. "Why didn't the trauma personnel intervene?"
"They're claiming they did, but there's no indication that they tried to do anything to stop him from leaving. If anything, they each encouraged him to leave."
"Ikari," went Fuyutsuki. "This is life or death for the young father. He's chosen life, however much of it he has left, and he won't, nor should he be made to, throw it away for the Eva. You just won't accept that he's done."
"He's done…when I say he's done." Gendo told his former teacher.
The Sub-Commander then sighed and walked away. All he could do was hope that a little girl would be seeing her father tonight.
-x-
He got further away than the previous time, but he was still a ways from the tea shop in the city. But he felt calmer than he hadn't been at NERV, relieved of his unwanted responsibilities that his parents tried to force upon him. His heart wasn't even causing him pain.
Some would say that time is without meaning to any that live lives without endings, he thought, turning a corner on the side of the block, but what is an ending to those that can experience it, know they have to face it…and fear it, all at once?
He suddenly stopped walking and leaned against a streetlight to catch his breath. It wasn't anything to do with his heart or chest-related injuries; he just needed to catch his breath from walking around a lot after he got away from NERV. But he felt the lack of energy and adrenaline in his body getting to him, and how the fatigue was causing a need for rest. At least…he was hoping it was just a need for rest and nothing more serious.
"I don't want to die like this," he said to himself. "I don't want to continue being a pawn in my disgraceful parents' twisted game of life and death."
Once he felt a little rejuvenated from the minute of rest, he resumed his trek to the tea shop…but then stopped and turned around. He saw a black Sedan and immediately assumed that it was the men in black suits again, sent by his father to take him back to NERV against his will or just to tail him to where his daughter was. Without much hesitation, he continued to walk further away from the car, hoping that they would either drive past him or mistake him as some other teen. He also hoped that he wasn't tagged or microchipped while he was incapacitated at NERV by his father, just to keep an unwanted eye on him.
-x-
"…They removed the tracking chip from under his neck?" Gendo questioned Fuyutsuki, discovering that the locator for his son was disabled.
"The doctors said they had to remove it when they had to staunch the bleeding from around his neck," the Sub-Commander explained, though he felt the decision to remove the bug was the right thing to do because the young father was done. "They didn't want to risk causing an infection or new loss of blood by putting the chip back in."
Though Gendo suspected that the doctors removed the tracking were more sympathetic to the plight of the Third Child and lied about the reasons for not putting the chip back in the boy. He then decided that if he was regain control over the situation, he had to do it himself. Luckily, he had obtained the address of his brother's tea shop and decided to pay him an undue visit to obtain the whereabouts of the boy.
"Fuyutsuki, handle things here," he told the Sub-Commander as he got up from his desk.
Fuyutsuki kept silent as the most ruthless man he had ever met left the office.
He's going to make his granddaughter an orphan if he continues to persist, he thought, already imagining two different outcomes that could happen: One was the little girl standing by herself in front of a lonely grave on a cold day…and the other was of both Shinji and daughter on a flooring someplace, dead from gunshot wounds, surrounded by a pool of blood.
"Ugh," Fuyutsuki shuddered, knowing that both outcomes were terrible…and that there was no point in forcing the girl's father to continue piloting the Eva if it was going to kill him and take him away from his only daughter. Dammit, Yui… We should've stopped you that day. We should've stopped you!
He took out his cell phone and contacted Captain Katsuragi.
"Katsuragi, we have a situation," he told her.
-x-
Tendo drove around the street until he came to a stoplight like every other car around him.
Come on, Shinji, he thought, where are you now?
He looked to his right, at the sidewalk, and felt a prayer had been answered when he saw someone that looked like his nephew walking down the street.
Honk! Honk, honk! He hit his car horn, hoping to get his attention.
The person turned their head to face them…and revealed themselves to b none other than Shinji. He recognized Tendo's truck and looked back towards the rest of the car traffic before he crossed the street to get to the truck.
"Are you alright?" Tendo asked him as he opened the passenger side door and sat down.
"What's the best way to say that I feel like that I've been cut open and ripped up in many ways and stitched closed and left to rot a little?" Shinji asked him as he buckled in the seatbelt.
"There's no best way to say that…only mutilation."
Tendo looked at his face and almost thought he had seen his little brother's older face echoed in it, but because of the tattoo-like scars that represented a young man that suffered more than unnecessarily accepted, and because he had a worn appearance in his youthful physique, he could almost be mistaken for a tomboy a little if he got most of his looks from his mother's side of the family.
"What is it?" Shinji asked him, noticing that he had been staring at him.
Tendo blinked and came to his senses.
"Nothing," he responded. "It's just… You look tired."
Shinji sighed and leaned back in the seat, his head pressed against the window.
"I am tired," he confessed. "I'm tired of my parents and their puppetry, their carelessness, their agenda that exploits me as their primary pawn in their heartless chess game. They don't understand that they've taken from me more than I was willing to give at the time. They're like parasites, always taking for themselves and never giving back."
Even if he drove him back to the tea shop, Tendo didn't feel comfortable with letting his nephew and grandniece leave while the young father was unwell.
-x-
"…So, even if they used the device to stop him in the end, this Yamane guy believes that another creature like him will return in the future?" Shado asked Rumiko.
"That's right," the teen mother answered her. "And he was right when they made the film that takes place a few years after this one. The only change was that they added another monster for him to fight."
"Was it in black and white or color?"
"Black and white," went Toya to her.
"As nice as these old films are, I actually like color more than black and white."
"Yeah, the newer films are where the interests are these days," Rumiko agreed with her.
"Ugh," Shado shuddered suddenly.
"What's wrong, Shado?" Toya asked.
"I just got a bad feeling," she explained.
"What kind of bad feeling?" Rumiko asked her.
"Like something is about to happen and someone gets hurt."
Rumiko was about to explain to the little girl that they were in a quiet neighborhood and Tendo had a panic room when she suddenly had a bad feeling in her heart. If it was anything like what Shado felt, then she had to believe that it was her maternal instincts warning her of danger.
"Okay, we better move now," she told the children and quickly scooped them into her arms and vacated the living room.
BANG! A gunshot was heard and Rumiko looked back at the front door that now had a missing doorknob as someone kicked it open.
"Aah!" Shado an Toya gasped as Rumiko carried them down the stairs to the back of the building.
-x-
"Gah!" Shinji gasped, feeling like someone had done something wrong.
"What?!" Tendo asked him as he drove into the alleyway behind the tea shop.
"Something's wrong," he told him. "Shado… Rumiko… Toya… They're in trouble."
They stopped and Shinji struggled to get out of the truck as Tendo reached for his cane and walked around it and helped Shinji up.
"Oh, St. Jude," Tendo expressed, seeing that the door to the stairway was on the ground, riddled with six bullet holes. "Rumiko! Toya!"
"Shado!" Shinji called out for his daughter, but there was no response from any of them.
The staircase walls had a hand print of blood smeared on them, and one of the banisters had been broken. On the staircase was also a sandal for a right foot…and a little shoe for a small child that Shinji recognized as his daughter's.
Tendo balled his left fist, remembering a similar incident just like this from years ago.
"Dammit, Gendo," he grunted.
"Yeah, it was him," went Shinji, bending down to pick up something underneath his daughter's shoe. "He wants a trade."
"…Mommy," they both heard a little boy's voice, and Tendo and Shinji went upstairs to the kitchen, finding Toya on the floor, holding onto his waist.
"Toya," Shinji gasped. "What happened? Are you alright?"
Toya looked up at them and coughed before saying, "Your father came… He had a gun… Started shooting at us… Mommy tried to get us to the panic room, but then he… He shot Mommy in her leg and made us fall down the stairs… He took Mommy and Shado."
Shinji helped Toya onto his feet and into a nearby chair before looking at the note again. It read, "I have the two women in your life. If you want them back, you know what you must do. Gendo Ikari."
He then gave Tendo the note, who expressed that Gendo had crossed a line that he couldn't be allowed to walk away unscathed from.
"I'm calling the cops," he told them, taking out his cell phone.
"The cops?" Shinji questioned, irritated by the would-be idea. "The guy runs a paramilitary agency! They practically own the cops!"
"Well, what, then?" Tendo asked his nephew.
Shinji pressed his left hand to his chest and breathed in a new breath.
"Let the sins of the parents be visited upon them by their children that won't carry them," he said to him, knowing what he was going to do the very instant the opportunity presented itself.
To be continued…
A/N: I think y'all knew Gendo was going to cross the line before it even happened. He's known for crossing lines and doing the unforgivable. But what do you think Shinji's going to do?