Creation began on 11-13-14
Creation ended on 12-08-14
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Different from You: Fear and Hatred
A/N: Here's the fourth chapter.
Fluttering his eyes, Shinji awoke to the sight of another unfamiliar ceiling, but one that he recognized as those associated to NERV; it was hard to forget a ceiling he saw after his battle with the Third Angel, and the smells of staleness and sterility were sickening smells to his consciousness. As he struggled to get up, he heard a clicking sound around his arms. That was when he realized that he had been chained to the bed he was on.
"This…is so wrong right now," he told himself.
-x-
"…Why didn't we fix these vents before they were brought back?" Ritsuko questioned, feeling like she had gone back through time to that day she tried to draw blood from Shado, who ran into the air vent in the side of the wall, terrified of the woman…and more terrified of the man that had harmed her back in New York. "If you resist, this is going to waste both our time, young lady."
Crawling away through the vent, Shado could only think of getting as far away as possible from these people, find her father and go home.
-x-
"The Third Child has come to, Major Katsuragi," Makoto Hyuga informed Misato, who was the most concerned with what lines NERV had crossed in order to get Shinji and his daughter back in Japan. "Major Katsuragi?"
"Huh?" Misato gasped. "Oh, right. Sorry. Has anyone been to see him?"
"No. Commander Ikari gave instructions that he be denied visitors."
"And what of the girl?"
"She was sent to Dr. Akagi for an evaluation. Commander Ikari is also there."
"You left her alone with him?!" Misato recalled Shinji's fearful response to being told Shado was in the company of his father.
"I'd better make sure that nothing's wrong," she told Hyuga, and the bridge to check up on the little girl that had demonstrated great fear of Ritsuko and Commander Ikari…and defending her father's right to say 'no' to something he was either being asked or demanded to do.
-x-
Even though he tried to pull his hands through the cuffs, Shinji couldn't break free from the bed frames. Either the handcuffs were stronger than he had gotten over the past year in New York, or the medication he'd been paid to try out for that pharmaceutical company had turned his major muscle groups into sludge. Or maybe he was still under the effects of whatever drugs those men in black had used on him to capture him. Either way, he had to find a way to get free and find Shado; he didn't trust any of these NERV people as far as he could throw them, if he could throw any of them.
Suddenly, the door to the room opened, and he saw an elderly man in a brownish-gray uniform, probably approaching his sixties, and he stepped inside.
"Hello, Mr. Shinji," he greeted the boy.
"If you're here to try and convince me to work for that has-been that put his hands on my little girl, then you're sadly mistaken that I'm the type of person that will bend over for you." Shinji told him, making no effort to hide his anger.
"That's not why I'm here," the elder revealed. "I'm actually not supposed to be here at all, as your father instructed the NERV personnel that you receive no visitors. Here."
He tossed Shinji something onto the bed, a key to the cuffs, and immediately left the room.
Shinji reached for the key and unlocked his left arm's cuff, freeing himself. He then freed his right arm and decided to take the cuffs with him, figuring that they would be useful later.
"I am not getting my freedom taken from me a third time," he told himself, stepping out of the room and into the hall. "Now, where did they take my daughter?"
-x-
"…Flood the vents with sleeping gas," ordered Gendo to the security staff.
"Uh, sir," one of the men responded, unsure of how to understand what they had been ordered to do, "she's just a little girl."
"Now," Gendo demanded, uncaring that Shado was young, just that she was apprehended.
They opened one of the vents in the hallway and placed a pipe into it, beginning to flood them with with gas.
Further away from the vent being filled with gas, Shado, frightened, crawled further away from the gas and found an emergency ladder. She climbed it up a long shaft.
"Attention! Attention! The Third Child has escaped from the medical ward! Apprehend on sight! Repeat! Apprehend on sight!" A woman's voice shouted over the P.A. system.
Shado stopped climbing and tried to recall where she heard that designation before, why 'Third Child' seemed familiar. And then it hit her: Her father was called by that designation the last time they were here, and she remembered the fear she had of losing him.
"Daddy," she sighed, realizing that he might be looking for her now.
-x-
SLAM! The guy that tried to apprehend Shinji was sent sliding against the wall, his face bruised by the repeated blows he received from the boy using the handcuffs as weapons.
"Shinji Ikari, cease and desist!" A woman ordered him, but Shinji held the chain of one of the cuffs in front of him defensively.
"I was once told never to hit a woman," he told her, "but then one of you robbed me of some piece of mind. Any woman that looks upon a younger man is dangerous. If you value your safety, you will stay away from me."
The woman then approached him…and he retaliated.
He swung the cuffs and hit her in the face.
"Aaurgh!" She yelled, but then felt her left arm grabbed on by someone.
Shinji threw her against the wall and slammed her face hard onto the other wall, knocking her to the floor, out cold. If anything, Shinji demonstrated a different disgust toward women than he did toward the men that came after him.
"Shinji Ikari!" He turned and saw more men coming towards him. "Surrender immediately!"
He looked down at the fallen woman…and saw the handle of a small pistol on the left side of her waist…and quickly picked it up.
"Don't tempt me to blow your brains out!" He threatened them.
"He's armed!" One of the men gasped.
BANG! Shinji fired into the air, breaking one of the lights above his head, sending shattered glass to the floor.
"Where's my daughter?!" He demanded.
-x-
"How'd he get out of his room?" Gendo demanded the security staff that was supposed to be keeping an eye on Shinji, who were nursing bruises on their heads.
"We don't know," one of them responded. "He just got out of his room and beat up the detail tasked with watching him. I've never seen a kid his age able to beat down people over twice his age."
"He's going to be looking for his daughter," another of the injured men expressed. "Hell hath no fury like a father who's pissed off."
Gendo looked at him with some measure of scorn; he himself was a father…and he was pissed, yet the man addressed the Third Child as a father that was just as pissed. Yet Shinji had more reason to be scornful than his own father. This only confirmed his belief that the girl had to be dealt with.
-x-
FLASH! A light shone on Shado's face as she had reached the top of the tunnel she went into.
Gasp! She panicked, seeing a man in black with a mask that covered his face with a helmet and goggles, who tried to approach her.
"Come here!" He shouted at her, and she climbed back down as quickly as she could. "No! Stop!"
But he was unable to grab her.
And then, unexpectedly, she lost her footing on the ladder and fell.
"Aaaaahh!" She yelled.
-x-
GASP! Shinji felt a jolt of hurt in his heart. His fear for his daughter's safety had increased, just as he threw another woman away from him after shooting a man in his left leg.
He ran. He ran past the people that fell before him, wanting only to find Shado and leave this godforsaken place.
-x-
She considered herself lucky right now. The sight of the bottom of the ground in front of her, mere inches from her face, was all that was left between her and the unknown. Somehow, her left leg got caught in the ladder and stopped her fall, leaving her hanging upside-down.
"Daddy…" She whined quietly to herself.
She grabbed the bars of the ladder and got up.
"The girl has gotten up!" A voice called out, and Shado looked up the ladder and saw the man in black climbing down. "Stay where you are! There's nowhere to run!"
But Shado saw that there was somewhere to run. Another tunnel that she could move through was behind the ladder, and she crawled into it.
"No!"
-x-
"…Why are we going through all this trouble over a boy that clearly wants nothing to do with NERV?" Asuka questioned Kaji, as they were heading to the Eva cages.
"You mean, no one has informed you?" Kaji asked back.
"Informed me of what?"
"Oh, dear… The little girl that was brought here with Shinji Ikari is actually his daughter."
Asuka found this discovery to be quite a shocker. It wasn't a complete mystery to her that most countries had a multitude of teenage parents, but if the Third Child was fifteen years old, and this little girl was around four or five years old…then something was off here.
"He probably found her off the streets or something," she suggested.
"No, the little girl's his daughter, down to the last strand of her DNA," Kaji revealed.
"What, like a clone or something?"
"No, Asuka. More like a result of being kidnapped and held a prisoner for three days in an attempt to gain a ransom…and just before he was found by the police, the only woman that was part of the trio of kidnappers thinking they could get some easy money went and raped the little boy. She got pregnant, had his daughter in prison then died, and then the police gave the baby to the boy. After that, nothing was ever the same for him. Then again, nothing is ever the same for anyone that experiences rape."
Asuka wanted to disbelieve this as nothing more than an outright and cleverly-made lie. She believed that some boys would drool just to be in the presence of a woman, maybe even howl at the moon for being courted by woman, but being the victim of rape by a woman? That was unlikely to happen, as women were not equipped to cause harm to men. And then, there was the fact that this boy only piloted the Eva once and left after the Third Angel's defeat, refusing to stay and deal with the rest of the Angels that would come.
Clang! A part of the wall in front of them came off, being kicked off by a little leg, and they saw a little girl crawl out of a ventilation shaft.
"In fact, Asuka," Kaji went, "that's his daughter, right there."
"Her?!" She gasped.
Shado, with her hair a mess, grabbed the panel she kicked off and placed it back onto the wall…and then noticed the adult man and the girl around her father's age and height, looking at her. She was tired from trying to get away from the man in black, but was prepared to run if they tried anything on her.
"Hello," Kaji greeted the child. "You must be Fuyona."
"That's not my name," Shado expressed, now feeling like she needed to get away. "I need to find my father now."
"Hold on, we can take you to him," Asuka suggested, but from the way she sounded, it was more than likely just a way to lure the little girl into a false sense of security.
"No thanks," Shado responded, sounding terrified of the redhead and the adult now. "I can find him on my own."
When Asuka took a step to approach Shado, the little girl panicked and ran away.
-x-
Somehow, Shinji was able to work through having a bullet in his left shoulder as he staggered down the hall. His adrenaline hampering the pain he should've felt from getting shot at. He lost count on how many people he had either harmed or killed after picking up the gun, but was sure that it was below thirty or so.
"Shado… Shado… I'm coming for you…Shado," he panted, dripping blood from his open wound.
-x-
"…It looks like the girl is now out of the ventilation system and is heading towards the Unit-01 cage," said Shigeru to Gendo on the bridge. "And the Third Child is on his way there, as well."
Gendo decided to go to the cage to meet the separated pair that were trying to get back together.
"Ikari," Fuyutsuki expressed, getting his attention. "We really shouldn't be doing this to them. This isn't worth anything that has already happened. We're treading over grounds we shouldn't even be on."
But Gendo had already decided to tread on the grounds that NERV was on, unwilling to deviate from his goal to force his son to join NERV and pilot the Eva. And if he continued to refuse, then the girl could prove to be sufficient enough to replace him.
-x-
"Stop running, kid!" Asuka demanded, but Shado persisted in getting away, wanting desperately to get back to her father. "I hope there's someone to spank you!"
Daddy would never spank me, though Shado, reaching an open door and running into the large chamber in front of her.
She stopped running as soon as the door closed, allowing herself a moment to catch her breath, and she fell to her palms and knees. Then, noticing a large wall of purple beside her on the left, she turned to face it…and went wide-eyed at the behemoth she had seen last year here: Evangelion Unit-01; it stood immobile, but its presence was still enough to frighten the girl. She slowly got back up and started to move away.
"There you are!" She heard that voice, that one voice that came from the man that tried to take her from her father, simply because he claimed he could, that he had authority, whatever that word meant.
Looking around her, there was barely anyplace left to run to. And with the entire bottom of the large room filled with a strange fluid, Shado suspected that she couldn't get away using that method, as she hadn't taken swimming lessons yet; her father wasn't entirely big on large bodies of water himself.
"You're the bad man," she called him, and then saw three men coming into the chamber from the opposite side. "What do you want?"
"Either you or your… The boy you're with will pilot the Eva," he expressed his desire of her and her father, though he wouldn't address his son as such.
"No," she responded, about to run back the way she came in, hoping she could get a head start in the hall before the girl with red hair and the adult she was with could stop her, but that was no longer an option, as the door opened and revealed said pair entering the chamber.
"I still believe they're just nothing more than trouble," the redhead said.
Shado was cornered! She had nowhere to run…and she couldn't swim away.
BANG! Something loud was made.
"Aaurgh!" One of the men groaned in agony, holding his left leg as it started bleeding.
"Everyone whose name isn't Shado had better get down on the floor," Shado leaned her head around the three men…and saw her father, hurting and wielding a smoking gun, demonstrating a lot of anger, similar to what he showed to the men in black back in New York. "I'm not in the mood for questioning authority or negotiating."
"Whoa!" Asuka gasped, seeing not a scrawny boy…but an enraged man that was extremely concerned for his daughter's safety.
Behind him was a series of bloody droplets, indicating that he had been shot at, but he was working through the pain.
"Daddy," the Second Child then heard the little girl say, expressing her concern for the man.
"Shinji Ikari," went Kaji, raising his arms up, "maybe we can work this out…"
"Now!" He shouted, raising the gun up to the ceiling and firing another bullet.
The other two men that were helping the injured third with his leg, heeding his threat, got on the floor.
Kaji, fearing that he was dead serious (and the fact that he was able to kill at least three of the five agents sent to bring him here, with the fourth barely surviving), got on his knees and pulled Asuka down with him to ensure she would live through this.
"He is not so dangerous," she told him, speaking her mind about Shinji.
"Shado," Shinji then spoke up, in a softer tone that was meant for his daughter, "please, come over here now. They're not going to do anything."
"Stay where you are," went Gendo. "Both of you."
But Shado, unafraid of her father, listened to him, and slowly moved past the three men and then ran over to be with said parent.
He picked her up with his uninjured arm and slowly backed out of the chamber and into the hall.
"Keep away," he threatened them. "If you value your safety…you'll keep away."
And then, he ran off with her.
"Verdammt," Asuka cursed in German. "Who does that…that boy think he is?"
"A father protecting his child," answered Kaji. "He wasn't hesitating when he aimed that gun at us. He was willing to harm us if it meant keeping his kid safe."
-x-
"Daddy," went Shado to Shinji, seeing the blood drop from behind him as he ran through the halls with her, "you're bleeding."
With sweat on his forehead, Shinji responded, "It's nothing, sweetie. I'm more concerned for your safety than my own. Are you hurt anywhere?"
"I'm fine."
During the trek away from where he found her, Shinji had dropped the gun. Deprived of any other means to protect himself and his daughter, he would have to rely on his adrenaline and bare hands to deal with anyone that came between them and freedom. And if he were to see Gendo again, may the gods have pity on him for what he might do to him.
To be continued…