Shinji Ikari One Shot
An Appreciation For Tradition
"Shinji, that was the mailman, go see what there is, would you?"
"Hai Sensei." Shinji said. It was maybe the third words they had exchanged that day. It was not that they had a bad relationship; they just didn't have a relationship at all. Shinji was left to do his school work and rarely needed to ask for help.
It had been this way since father left him here years ago. At fourteen, Shinji had been his teacher's roommate and sometimes pupil, but that was it.
As Shinji walked out to the mailbox, he thought how today felt special. He didn't know why, it was just another September day. The weather was okay, but nothing to talk about. Shinji just had a feeling that something was going to happen. Maybe it would be in the mail.
As he sorted through the junk though, there was nothing. Some bills, some ads, a couple magazines, that was it.
Shinji shrugged and took the mail inside to his teacher, tucking one of the magazines under his arm. No need for Sensei to see that.
In a few minutes, Shinji had forgotten the odd feeling as was thinking about his school work and his next big paper. Sensei had been bugging him to start on college applications. He knew he was ahead, but applying for university already? No thank you Shinji thought, he had time.
A week later, there was knock on the door.
"Shinji, could you get that?"
"In the bathroom Sensei!" The boy yelled across the house.
"Oh very well." The scrawny schoolmaster said and slipped on his house slippers. He was not an impressive sight when he answered the door in his loose trousers and raggedity pullover. He was not an old man, he had gone to school with Gendo Ikari and had been roped into watching his son after not speaking to the man for years, but hunched over in his loose, moth eaten clothes, he looked old.
"Ah, um, hello, can I help you?" He said as he opened the door.
"Good day to you Sir, would this be the residence of Ikari Shinji?"
"Uh, yes, Shinji lives with me, may I ask what this is about? Is he in some kind of trouble?"
"Not at all Sir. You see I was a good friend and… associate, of his late mother. She requested that, should nothing occur on a given day, that I should call upon her son after her death, in order to see to it that he receive a proper education. Is Mr. Ikari home?" The man asked.
He looked old, thought the teacher, with deep lines carving his granite face and short grey hair far back on is skull. He was tall and stood proud with his back straight and his chest out. His dark blue suit fit well and he wore a diamond pin in his tie.
"Does, um, NERV know you are here? I was told to…"
"Sir, is Ikari Shinji home? I need to speak with him."
"I am sorry, I am a teacher, and thus unaccustomed to being interrupted. As I was saying, I was told to not allow any visitors who had not been approved by NERV, so I am afraid you need to provide proof of permission to be here, or leave. What did you say your name was?"
WHAM
Shinji was zipping up, having tucked his magazine under his arm, when he heard the loud slam from the front of the house. As he peeked out of the bathroom door, he saw the old man in the suit at the end of the hall.
"Uh, hello?"
"You must be young master Shinji."
"Um, I'm Shinji, yeah. Who are you, what was that sound?"
"My name is… you can call me Ryu. I am sorta your uncle. Before she died, your mother left instructions for me to see to your education should nothing happen after a certain date."
"Um, okay. Where is sensei?"
"Did you know your mother well Shinji?"
"N-no, not really. I mean I remember she was nice, and pretty, and y'know a good mom before… well, before what happened."
"She was a beautiful women, as you say, and always very kind to me and my family. I would like if you would come with me, so I can tell you more about your mother."
"What about Sensei, where is he?"
"He was tired, decided to take a nap. He was exhausted to the point he forgot to show respect to community leaders." Ryu said, patting Shinji on the back and leading him out the door by the shoulder.
"Your mother wanted you to become a pillar of the community, you know. She was a very wise woman."
Gendo Ikari stood amongst the monoliths of SEELE, pinching the bridge of his nose as the old men bickered.
"No sign of the first messenger, none at all!"
"Perhaps we just do not know how to detect them?"
"If they were so hidden, then it would have completed its task and we wouldn't be here!"
"Ahem." Gendo Ikari cleared his throat loudly and the monoliths went silent. "Have we considered that our calculations may have been incorrect? Were there not other possible dates for the arrival of the third?"
There were murmurs among the committee.
"Dr. Ikari, when she still lived, suggested there may be other possibilities."
Gendo was expressionless, inwardly telling himself over and over to not call these fools what they were. Several minutes later, once the old men were finished and the holograms faded away, his vice-commander and old teacher, Fuyutsuki was there.
"Gendo, we have a little bit of a problem."
"Professor, when Yui first proposed Project E, you called it a little side project. What's going on?"
"Your son has been kidnapped."
"Oh for chrissakes, what do we know?"
"That's the other thing. An old business associate of Yui was seen in the area."
Gendo took off his glasses and put them down on his desk as he stepped around the black stone edifice. As he sat down and reached for the bottom drawer, Kozo spoke again.
"You have also received a letter." The old man said and placed a yellowed old envelope, the size of postcard, on Gendo's desk.
Gendo took out the bottle and a tumbler and poured himself a glass before addressing the envelope. It looked old, but the stamp and the post mark was new. It was addressed to him personally, and had been forwarded from his old address. He had sold the house once the boy left. He recognized the sharp strokes of the kanji.
Gendo sighed as he slit the end of the envelope. "Recognize the handwriting professor?"
"I only graded five dozen of her papers Gendo." Kozo said. Granted most students typed, but the good lord help anyone who assigned her a prompt she felt did not challenge her intellect or asked a lazy question. She would submit assignments in calligraphy to express her displeasure
Gendo slid the letter from the envelope and unfolded the paper. The stationary was branded across the top:
The Ikari Beneficent Foundation
Ikari Yui
President, CEO
And was helpfully dated.
"Assuming it is not a fake…" Gendo said. "She wrote this the day before the accident."
He began to read the letter, more of note really in its brevity. After just a few seconds, he slammed it down on the desk then emptied the glass in one gulp. Kozo picked up the note as Gendo refilled his glass.
Dear Rokubungi Gendo
If you are reading this, the prediction regarding the coming of our friends has proven false. Or rather, the committee's predication has proven false and mine correct. Given your total inadequacy as a father, and I would like to take this opportunity to point this out, as a man, I can only assume you have sent my son off to some grass eating private tutor.
I am confident that by this time, any child of mine has surely finished his secondary education. In order to better prepare him for what is to come, or just to succeed in life if the messengers never come, I have made preparations for his continuing education. By the time you read this, Uncle Ryu, whom I am sure you remember, has collected him.
Should my son's services still be required, as per the instructions I have left, he should be adequately prepared for anything that will come if my predication proves correct. If what is to come never does, he will be more than prepared to take up the family business.
Please show the world you have some semblance of manhood left by leaving my son to his inheritance.
Not at all, in any way, yours,
Ikari Yui
P.S. say hello to Professor Fuyutsuki for me if he yet lives. I hope his children found a nice retirement home for him, as he was already slipping at the time of this writing.
P.P.S. Only joking, I know you are reading this Kozo, hope you are well.
"Well…" Fuyutsuki said, folding up the letter. "It appears he is in good hands at least."
The look he got in reply from Gendo gave a silent, but abundantly clear message.
"Right, ahem, orders, commander Ikari?"
"Find him. Put Katsuragi on it, not like she has anything better to do for the next three years anyway."
Three years later, on a nice autumn day…
Shinji sat in his room with the screen open to the outside, looking out into the woods. He had a small desk across his lap with a sketchbook and a pencil in his hand. He had been trying to come up with something good all morning, but nothing was coming to him. Screw it, go take a walk, get the brain going. That will help.
"I'm heading into town, uncle! Need anything?"
"Get some good pork. We are making katsu tonight, remember?"
"Yeah, uncle, I'll get it."
Shinji closed his sketchbook and pushed the desk away. As he stood up, he shrugged off the navy blue yukata that sat on his shoulders and grabbed a shirt. Just because Uncle Ryu liked to walk around town like a tourist didn't mean he did.
They had come here, each summer, for a few weeks. A lot of the local organizations' top guys did. It was far enough away from the city that nobody was gonna bother ya, and close enough to get back if anything serious happened.
Shinji liked it, but not as much as uncle Ryu did. It wasn't so much a town as a really big inn with a bunch of private cabins. As such, some people took this as permission to walk around in yukatas and sandals all day. Shinji thought how he at least had the decency to put on slacks and a button up.
He ran his fingers through his short dark hair to get it slicked back where it belonged and was ready to head out the door when he saw the man in black standing in the woods.
Black uniform, black armor, black mask, black gun…
Black gun
Gun
Fuck
He dove to the floor and half crawled half ran to get behind something thicker than a paper screen.
"Uncle! It's the cops, the army, I dunno, fuck!" He screamed. He saw the man who he called uncle for just a moment, wearing that stupid yukata, his bare fleet sliding along the hardwood floor.
He had taught Shinji how to be a man, how to earn and keep respect, and how to make sure they show it to you. He had taught him how the law only meant what you let it mean, and how ultimately, it was them who had to look after the people. They were there in '95, when the bureaucrats were still wringin' their hands. They were the heirs of the samurai, they served the people.
Shinji saw the man who had taught him that even though they did bad stuff, they did in a way that was controlled. If they weren't there, it would still be done, but there would be chaos, and all sorts of people would get hurt. Ryu had taught him that there was always chaos, but if you guided it, harnessed it, everyone could come out better in the long run.
Shinji saw the pistol in his teacher's hand. For the briefest of moments he saw the look on the old man's face, and in the tiniest flash of thought realized that is the look a father gives his son.
Shinji saw the bullets tear into his flesh and rip the robe from his body. He saw the beautiful, intricate, colorful tattoos that covered his aged skin, be covered by the flat red of blood.
Shinji saw the man who taught him what it was to be an Ikari, heir to the most feared name in the Yakuza, die.
He saw the life leave his eyes as he ran across the hall to him. He saw the moment when his four fingers let go of the gun, as the men in black grabbed Shinji and pulled him away.
He screamed for Ryu as they dragged him out of the house, screamed until his throat stung and the tears overtook him.
They weren't going to kill him, he realized. They wanted him alive for something.
Didn't fucking matter. They were going to die. Every one of them. He was going to cut their dicks off with a fucking chisel before he put a bullet in their head after they begged for death. Each and every one of these pieces of shit was going to apologize in exchange for the sweet embrace of death once Shinji was done with them.
And when he found the one responsible for this shit, the big boss who ordered it, when he was done with him, the afterlife would live in fear of the one who could make a man suffer so.
"Captain, report."
"Yes Vice-Commander." Misato Katsuragi said, holding the headset microphone close to her mouth. She was inside the van they had set up as a command center, and was face to face with her boss via the screen in front of her.
"The rescue was a success, however the kidnapper had a weapon and we had to neutralize him. Dead on the scene sir."
"That's fine Captain, how is Shinji?"
"The commander's son is unharmed sir, but for a couple bumps and bruises during extraction. He is fine, well physically at least."
"What do you mean by that Captain?"
"Well Sir, are you familiar with Stockholm Syndrome?"
Shinji sat in the stiff metal chair at the metal table, in the little cinderblock room with one door, a camera in the corner, and a two-way mirror across from him. His hands were cuffed to a ring on the table in front of him.
His knuckles were bloody and his hair had fallen down. Looking in the mirror, he thought it kind of looked like the bowl cut he used to keep it in before… before he met Ryu.
"Oi!" He yelled at the mirror. "I want my fucking lawyer!"
Silence.
"Could I at least get some coffee, tea? Even a fuckin' smoke? Come on dontcha' have to give me water or something…"
Shinji was drumming his fingers on the metal table when the door finally opened. He had expected the lawyer, or maybe a cop or something. He did not expect a leggy brunette in a short black dress and red leather jacket. She was carrying a paper cup of coffee in each hand and a folder tucked under her arm. She set the cups and the folder down on the table then pulled a cuff key out from her jacket pocket.
"My name is Captain Misato Katsuragi, I am with UN NERV. Do you know what that is?"
"Yeah, kinda."
"If I take those off, can we be civil?"
"Am I under arrest?"
"Well no." Misato said and set the cups down on the table. "You are not under arrest, you never were. You were only restrained because you broke a man's arm, shattered another's knee cap, and we don't know if a third will ever be able to eat solid food again. They were afraid that was all."
Misato reached over the table and uncuffed the boy, then slid a cup of coffee over to him. She settled down and opened the folder.
"Alright, so I can go?"
"What?"
"I ain't under arrest, so I can go, right?" Shinji said, rising from the chair with his hands still on the table.
"I think you might be interested in what I have to say, not everything is as you may have been told." Misato said, waving for him to sit back down.
Shinji sunk back into his chair. "I'm listening."
"Sir, he believes his kidnappers were business partners of his late mother. It sounds like they convinced him she was a major figure in organized crime and they were teaching him to take up her position. I told him what really happened, how he was taken, but he is refusing to believe it. Now I have seen this sort of thing before, it's a coping mechanism, but…"
"Have you developed a rapport with him?"
"Yes sir."
"Captain, is this frequency secure?"
"Scrambled and blocked out."
"Captain, what I am about to tell you is highly classified, but given that you have dialogue with him, I believe it is best that you continue to be his point of contact. What do you know of Dr. Yui Ikari, the commander's late wife?"
"Wow, um, before my time, but head of the eva project, pretty much pioneered most of the science herself, definitely not some yakuza princess."
"About that…"
"He's right, isn't he?"
"It would appear so, yes."
"Oooookay, so what do we do now?"
"When the angels come, captain, we will need him. We have been meticulous to keep organized crime out of Tokyo-3, so we can hope that if allowed to live a normal life here, he will readjust."
-Several weeks later-
"Stand, Bow, Sit!"
"Thank you Ms. Horaki. Welcome back everyone, I hope your summer vacations were pleasant. We have a new student joining our class since last year, please introduce yourself Mr. Ikari."
There was whispering and murmurs as the boy stood up and… well he didn't really walk, so much as strut. He wasn't big, or particularly tall. His dark hair was brushed straight back and his uniform jacket sat across his shoulders, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
"So yeah, my name is Ikari Shinji, I actually finished high school a few years ago with a private teacher, but I guess that didn't count or some shit. Don't start none if you don't want none, and we will be alright. Oh and uh, whose in the kendo club?"
end
I am trying to find a good way to start a story and this was one of my better tries so far. The requirement was that Shinji have a deep, almost illogical, love of Japanese culture and "the old ways", and a nationalist worldview. Additionally, the ambiguity of Yui Ikari's character is always fun to play with, so I figured why not make her a major figure in the Yakuza.
If any of you have better ideas, PM me.