Creation began on 09-17-16

Creation ended on 02-16-17

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Evaflowne: Old Links, New Links

It was incredible to be standing here after so many years of having bad memories of this place. The sight of the mountains all covered in snow and the night sky displaying the celestial lights. This was something that Misato Katsuragi, dressed in snow gear like before fifteen years ago, wouldn't have believed unless she was actually there.

The NERV base setup at the large expanse of land a week ago and a mile away from the naval carrier that was stationed in the water was tasked with one purpose and one purpose only: Locate the Third Child and Evaflowne and return them to Japan.

He does this, and suddenly, we're treating him like he's some sort of war criminal, Misato thought, looking out through a pair of binoculars at the expanse of snow-covered land between the base and wherever Shinji and Evaflowne could be hiding. Shinji, where are you at a time like this?

-x-

It would be another two days before Evaflowne was fully rested and was able to make the crossing from Earth back to Gaea, and Shinji could return to his family there, just as he promised he would when he was done here. As the enhanced Evangelion rested in its dragon-like form, its operator dangled the jeweled octahedron in front of his eyes, seeing it change from jade to sapphire.

"Has it really been three months since I left already?" He questioned himself; the sapphire coloration indicated that his wife was now out of her first trimester and starting into her second. "I'm coming home soon, Ummi."

"Grr…" He turned to face Evaflowne's head, seeing it move a little. "Grr…"

Either he's dreaming or just halfway into a dream, he thought, hoping it was just the latter, as the cave they were hiding in could collapse on them if Evaflowne suddenly developed a nightmare reaction.

-x-

"…So, you're leaving, too?" Asuka asked Hikari, who informed her of how her father was considering relocating his family to a less-populated city away from Tokyo-3.

"I don't know yet, but my father says to be open-minded about it," Hikari told her. "With what happened in the past and what Ikari-Kun did with… What did he call it? Evaflowne?"

"That's how he addresses it."

"It's just likely that it'll be safer to get away from this place in due time. Even Suzuhara's family is considering relocating after the revelation that the Earth has, more or less, returned to a stable condition. I mean, how do you explain the reclaiming of the coastal areas and the restoration of the South Pole?"

"He called it the miracle of Evaflowne."

"And it is, you know. Maybe the only miracle we'll ever know."

Asuka couldn't believe her choice of words. Not because it seemed unlikely, but because she wasn't convinced that, as quickly as Shinji had returned, stopped the Thirteenth Angel and saved the Fourth Child, destroyed both Adam and Lilith, two other Angels and put the planet back on its axis and undid the global flooding of coastal locations, that he would soon leave because he had a family waiting for him back wherever he ended up as a result of the Twelfth Angel, and for a long time.

"I'm sure he's just gonna reconsider his choice and stay longer," she suggested, wanting that to be true. "He still has to answer questions to which he has the answers to."

"But would he really do it, though? Would he just ignore his family just because some people demand an explanation from him?" Hikari asked her.

Asuka, despite her dislike of Shinji and everything he either said or did, found herself unable to answer that question.

-x-

"…The fact that he was able to restore a frozen wasteland that constantly changes, the Third Child has ample places to hide in the South Pole," Ritsuko informed Gendo of their lack of success in finding Evaflowne's operator. "But considering that he won't stray from the unit, he'll be in a large enough space to hide it."

"It is imperative that he's found and brought back for questioning," Gendo told her, and hung up after.

In his office, he looked at Yui and Fuyutsuki, both of whom had their differences and disagreements regarding Shinji and Evaflowne. While Yui found it unlikely that anything they tried would keep Shinji from leaving and returning to Gaea, Fuyutsuki didn't believe that SEELE would permit Shinji to simply walk away after he ruined the foundations for the Human Instrumentality Project by destroying Adam and Lilith. But Gendo just wanted the boy…well, man found and brought before SEELE to pay for his crimes against them and himself.

"Aah," he groaned, looking down at his bandaged arm; he was fortunate that his severed hand was saved and reattached to his wrist, but he was looking at months of rehab (if he lived, that is) before he would have any acceptable function in his hand again.

"He might not say anything to anyone if he is found before he leaves," said Fuyutsuki to him.

"When he is found," he corrected; he expected results, not excuses.

"Some of the people of the world feel that he has done better with Evaflowne. Half of the NERV personnel have already started resigning and the other half is considering leaving the city now that they're convinced the Angels will cease attacking them."

"If they're convinced the Angels will continue coming, they'll reconsider."

"But we can't control the people," said Yui. "If you manipulate people to do your bidding, you're no better than a tyrant. Shinji never did anything to control people. He takes all opinions, every consideration. He even attended the funerals of people that died from natural causes, asking who they were and what they did in their lives."

"How many people died during his reign as king?" Fuyutsuki asked her; if Shinji was such a good king, then the number of deaths had to be small.

"Thirty-seven men, forty-three women and eleven children," she answered. "If it's not old age, it's just sickness. Medical science is one of the few things that gets the attention where he lives. Treating illnesses and wiping out diseases instead of starting or participating in a war with other countries or kingdoms. He basically runs a kingdom that embraces simple living and pacifism. The only real protection they rely on against invasions is Evaflowne, their warrior deity."

"Don't they know that it's just a carbon copy of something else?"

"It used to be…but it isn't like the Evas, anymore. It's far removed from what an Evangelion is. A copy is often bound by the limitations of what was copied. Evaflowne has no limitations because it's not a copy of anything but a completely unique organism that has the best aspects of people's interests."

-x-

"The doctors say we're having twins, Shinji," Shinji recalled Ummi saying to him as he slept inside the Entry Plug, dreaming about a memory of the earliest years of their marriage. "Ooh! I think one of them kicked again. Feel right here."

Then, straying into the unseen future, he saw Ummi by a small lake with the twins, her belly well into her third trimester as she read an old novel while the twins were playing on some docks nearby. He wanted to wake up before the feeling of him not being there took over his conscience, but then saw himself walking down from a hillside to join Ummi, his prosthetic arm looking more streamlined and less mechanical in its features; it appeared that the time spent away from Aratana Hajimari had allowed for further streamlining of various technologies that improved one's quality of life, and the new limb seemed better than his current limb.

"Even though you've been back for weeks, it still feels like you just got back," his dream wife expressed to him. "We've missed you very much."

"I feel like I just got home, too," his dream self responded, sitting beside her on her left. "It's great to be with you three again."

Ummi took his right hand and placed it on her swollen abdomen.

"Four or five of us, you mean," she told him.

Before his dream self could respond, he felt a shift in his body and the world of his dream darkened.

"Aah!" He gasped, waking up and seeing the world outside Evaflowne, who stirred from his slumber. "Evaflowne…have you recovered from the miracle?"

"Grr," the draconic Eva growled as he crawled out of the underground cave they hid in to recoup, spreading his wings as he began levitating off the snow-covered land.

"Let's return to Aratana Hajimari, Evaflowne," Shinji sighed, reaching for the controls in the seat. "Let's return to home."

Flapping his mighty wings, Evaflowne took to the sky above the South Pole.

Shinji could barely contain his joy at seeing his family and the people of his simple kingdom, his simple domain, a place he helped to pull from the brink of total destruction and back into existence.

-x-

"Found him!" A NERV worker shouted, pointing up at the sky and seeing Evaflowne's flying dragon form soaring up from behind a mountain.

"It looks like it's taking off," went Ritsuko, looking at the fleeing form. "Fire a flare. If that doesn't get his attention, fire a missile."

Misato was about to say that they wouldn't attempt a missile assault on Shinji unless communication with Evaflowne didn't work when the naval carrier fired a flare into the sky, igniting the dark grey clouds with brightness, making the purple behemoth stand out. She saw it twist and turn to where the flare came from and she suspected that Shinji could see their base.

"Do we have a communication channel open for him?" She asked Hyuga.

"Yeah, and he's opening his for us," he answered.

"What's the big idea?" Shinji asked.

"Shinji, you need to return to NERV HQ," Misato explained to him.

"I'm afraid I'm not going to do that, Misato. I only came back here to do one thing: Prevent the end of the world. Evaflowne and I did, and now we're returning home."

"There are questions you need to answer."

"If you want the truth to what was never shared with the public, let me drop the box. Literally, let me drop the box."

On the monitors, something small, blue and cubical detached from Evaflowne, falling from it and onto the ground.

"I hope you find all your answers to whatever questions you have," Shinji told Misato. "Give my regards to those that knew me. It's unlikely that we'll ever see each other again."

"Shinji…you can't possibly be serious."

"Would you really stop me from going home, Misato?"

The purple-haired woman found herself unable to answer him. She was just following orders (no matter how crazy they were), but the fact remained that this Shinji wasn't the same boy that NERV met earlier this year, the same boy that was exploited by his parents, fought several Angels and went missing in action against the Twelfth Angel. This was an older Shinji that spent most of his years in another world where he was a king than he spent his first fourteen years here in this one, and had done the impossible that no one else had been able to do, and that was end the conflict between the Angels and the human race in just a few days.

"Just tell my parents I threatened to cut you up," Shinji uttered to her, and Evaflowne turned around to resume flying away.

"Fire a missile at him," Ritsuko ordered, and a technician executed the command.

"No, don't!" Misato yelled out, but it was already too late.

The naval carrier fired a missile targeted at Evaflowne.

"Someone doesn't know when to let up," Shinji sighed.

Fortunately, the missile was just two minutes away from Evaflowne, giving the Dragon of Angels time to fly away.

"Why doesn't he just deploy his AT-Field?" Ritsuko questioned.

"Maybe that's an ability Evaflowne no longer possesses," went Maya to her. "Didn't he say that it gained some new abilities but lost some of the previously-known ones?"

-x-

Shinji flew Evaflown over the ocean; he didn't want to endanger the restored frozen wasteland and cause the water level to rise up again like it had over a decade ago. Once they were a good distance away from the South Pole, he had Evaflowne fire a ball of green flames at the missile, obliterating it.

"I'll say this to those that try to stop me," Shinji spoke over the intercom system. "Don't try to stop me from leaving this world. The only Hell left is the one you choose to make for those that won't follow you to the end."

"Grr!" Evaflowne growled as he flapped his wings harder and flew up towards the clouds.

"Don't you dare leave, Shinji Ikari!" He heard Ritsuko Akagi's voice. "There will be consequences!"

"Your consequences can drown in the abyss," he told her. "Sayanora."

A bright, reddish glow within the clouds appeared for a few seconds…and then vanished, along with the energy signature of Evaflowne, indicating that it and Shinji had left this plane of existence.

-x-

"…He…he's gone," Misato went, surprised by the fact that Shinji actually up and disappeared. "He's really gone."

-x-

"…So, he finally left?" Asuka asked Misato as soon as she got back to the apartment.

"Yeah," she answered, "but he left a box full of information before he left to go back…to his home."

"A box of information?"

"A box the size of a van. The only problem is getting into it."

"I had a feeling he wasn't going to let us off easy."

"It's password-protected, Asuka. Not even the MAGI can crack it. Every time we fail to put in the password, it changes to something random and leaves only one hint that nobody seems to know anything about. Even Ritsuko was stomped by not knowing one of the passwords chosen by Shinji, and she's the polymath. One of the passwords' hint was, 'What is the strongest force known to people?' She thought it was gravity, but the box wouldn't accept that as the answer and changed into a different password requirement."

"But gravity is the strongest force known to people…unless Shinji wasn't referring to gravity or anything scientific. He must've meant something entirely different. What is the current password hint?"

"The hint is asking what is everything to one person…and viewed as trivial to everyone else?"

"And nobody is trying to answer that question yet?"

"They don't want to risk it being the wrong answer."

Asuka thought about it, and suspected that Shinji, in all his simple-mindedness, wasn't referring to the mind, which is everything to the person that has it…and nothing to everyone else. No, she felt he was referring to something else that he felt was or should be more important to people. There were moments where she saw him asleep…and heard him call out to three people that he had probably been dreaming of.

"He's not being intellectual," she expressed. "He's being emotional. The password is something of emotional significance. You can't look at the question from the perspective of a know-it-all. You have to look at it from the perspective of one that doesn't want to know everything that doesn't answer anything they're looking for answers to."

"Emotional?"

"Where's the box now?"

"At NERV HQ."

-x-

Gendo, Yui, not even Fuyutsuki dared to try and answer the password Shinji chose at random to protect the information he had to give to the people. Not that any of them tried to think of the correct password, that is. They felt that this older Shinji that shattered any other hopes for Instrumentality was clever and smarter than they had realized him to be.

"With age comes wisdom," said Fuyutsuki in Gendo's office, being an example of the seasoned wiseman. "The older you get, the smarter you become."

"Except Shinji might not be challenging us intellectually," Yui responded, though she wouldn't risk trying to open the box without causing the password to become something else that nobody would be able to figure out without having a complete understanding of how Shinji thought of these things.

"How are we supposed to crack open a box full of secrets when we can't even understand what the password is?"

Not even Gendo dared to answer the question. He was still angry about having his hand severed from him by Shinji.

Suddenly, Ritsuko came in and stood in front of them.

"Yes?" Gendo asked her.

"Major Katsuragi and the Second Child came in…and the Second Child opened the box," she explained to them.

This was quite a surprise for them.

"What was the password?" Yui asked out of curiosity.

"Family."

Even that was a shocker. It was such a simple word…and not of the scientists could figure it out.

"Family is everything to the one that has it and is only trivial in the eyes of everyone else," Yui realized. "Very clever…and very simple."

"Not so simple is the information being distributed everywhere," Ritsuko responded. "Once the box was opened, everything from phones to tablets to television stations started picking information that will undoubtedly raise Hell for NERV and the United Nations."

"Elaborate," Gendo demanded.

"Shinji's box is spreading the truth about Second Impact, the Evangelions, the Instrumentality Project, the Angels… He's even naming people, past and present, who were involved in everything that occurred, from misuse of authority, bribery, intimidation and disappearances of people. Somehow, he knows everything about NERV, GEHIRN, even SEELE."

Ring! Gendo's phone rang, and he picked up.

"Yes?" He asked.

-x-

"…Resulting in the death of millions more in the following months," Misato and Asuka heard this holographic display of Shinji revealing the exact cause of Second Impact, right down to what Misato's father had done, but enforcing that Mr. Katsuragi was just a man too wrapped up in the discovery of Adam to know what was really going on or that experimenting on him was going to harm the world. "…And Gendo Ikari, Gendo Rokubungi back then, left the expedition the day before it happened and took the research files with him, despite the fact that the project hadn't reached any completion. I wouldn't call him a survivor of the day half the world went away, not like Ms. Misato Katsuragi is, who survived because her father was fortunate enough to find a makeshift time capsule large enough to save one person…"

Asuka couldn't believe that Shinji knew all of this, even revealing that NERV dug into and even violated the privacy rights of everyone with a birthdate after Second Impact in order to have available candidates for the Evangelions should the ones they had be compromised by factors beyond their control, including the unpredictabilities of the Evangelions because they weren't so much in check when unleashed upon the Angels. He even revealed how there were select women that worked with or for NERV or its predecessor agency that either died or was removed from the picture of their children's lives because it was a requirement for children to pilot the Evangelions, which meant that the only reason Asuka was chosen for Unit-02 was because of her mother's death, not because she was the best or any other factors.

"…The majority of the personnel of NERV had no knowledge of the foul play their superiors committed over the years," Shinji went on, revealing the truth about Rei Ayanami and why she had no records or why no background checks on her existed, but clarified that she was also victim in the madness because of how people like his father constantly tried to play at being God.

"Can we turn this box off?" Everyone in the large room that housed the box heard Gendo's voice as he, his wife and the sub-commander stepped into the room, causing several odd looks and stares of accusation directed at them.

"Yeah, closing the panels that make up the top and sides of the box," said Shigeru to him. "However, it's pretty moot at this point. Everyone with a computer, phone, tablet or radio knows what happened. There's no denying what Shinji revealed."

"Anything he says could be false," went Fuyutsuki to them.

"What about your involvement being due to the fact that you were threatened for trying to reveal what happened to cause Second Impact?" Hyuga asked him. "Is that a lie?"

"This box of Shinji's is revealing details about select people even he didn't know about without the aid of Evaflowne. It even revealed how Evaflowne ended up the way it did by consuming a dragon and no longer needing to synchronize with Shinji…or anyone that it chooses as its pilot." Maya revealed.

Rei Ayanami, anticipating cold looks and being treated like a monster because Shinji revealed what she was, but noticed how Asuka and Misato looked at her like she was to be pitied, not condemned. The problem with her background was that she barely knew what was up with her existence, not knowing why she was made or why Commander Ikari placed such a measure of value on her.

"Half of you were playing God with that thing in Terminal Dogma!" One of the female technicians shouted at Gendo and Yui. "What the Hell were you thinking?!"

"It's no wonder your son kept his distance when he brought his mother back," one of the male technicians suspected. "He has to live with the stigma of what you did."

"Also a wonder why he wouldn't stay too long."

-x-

The cool air and bright sun felt good on his skin. The soft and lush grass and tall trees gave him ample shading. And Evaflowne's dragon form prowling through the greenery as it and Shinji made the trek back to Aratana Hajimari, the Kingdom of New Beginnings. While he was certain that the information he gave to NERV would be distributed across the planet, Shinji couldn't predict the outcome of the people knowing who was responsible for the death of half the world…and who was being used by those responsible for their own gain. All he could do was hope that if he ever made the choice to go back to the Mystic Moon (he started addressing Earth by its Gaea designation more than its true designation)…and he wasn't truly sure if he would go back, he wanted to have hope that there was a place to go back to if he did, that…maybe…he could show his wife and children where he came from that didn't give him any real happiness that he found here.

"Evaflowne… We did do the right thing by revealing the secrets kept hidden by the people that sought to replace the deities of the Mystic Moon…didn't we?" He asked him.

Evaflowne stopped walking and turned its dragon head to face Shinji…and nodded in the positive that what they did was the right thing.

"It felt strange to go back after being gone for so long. I keep looking at the jewel and hoping I haven't been gone too long. So far, it only seems to have been three months since we left, but I wonder how the others have coped with my absence."

If Evaflowne had the power of verbal speech, it would've told Shinji that it was sure they missed him deeply and would be relieved from his return. Instead, it just raised its right claw up and pointed towards their destination, just another hour away from where they were.

"Thank you again, Evaflowne."

-x-

At least it was just house arrest and not the real thing. At least not yet until they could decide what to do with them. The revelation of the truth being known to the world at large revealed a lot of corruption within various factions of the governments. The Japanese Ministry of the Interior, the United Nations, the police, the JSSDF, etc. And Yui and Gendo were among the many that were unable to talk their way out of the consequences that were waiting for them.

It had been at least two weeks since the agencies such as the CIA and NSA came to the Geo-Front and began to question everyone, not just those that the box Shinji left for them deemed the ones responsible for many of the unjustifiable acts committed. And it would take as long as necessary until the people tasked with finding all the people behind the madness, even if it meant that everyone had to be interviewed and interrogated ten times a day, seven days a week. Some of the workers felt that Shinji got it easy by not being there when this all went down, but couldn't really blame him for his role in revealing the madness that he had to have found out about because of Evaflowne (not many of the men and women could see it as Evangelion Unit-01, anymore) and before he returned his mother to here for personal reasons; in any way of saying such, the adult they saw or knew only as a fourteen-year-old boy just wanted to cease being used by his parents and anyone else that saw him only as tool, a means to an end.

"…Even though we have copies of the video and information that box of his distributed across the world," a male official spoke to Misato for the third time that day, "we just need to make absolutely sure that you had no role in any of this."

"I swear on whatever future I have left," she told him, "I didn't know about any of this. I thought NERV was tasked with just fighting the Angels. I didn't know about the Human Instrumentality Project or Commander Ikari or SEELE's agendas."

"And the boy? Or the man? This Shinji Ikari? Do you know where he is now?"

"He went home."

"Home?"

"Wherever this world he ended up in when he went MIA," went Asuka to her interrogator, who asked her the same thing.

"How can you be certain that he didn't have any role in this?"

"Someone like Shinji? He's not someone that would want to end the world and remake it. He's not even one to want to harm another person…except for his father, who had the First Angel grafted onto his hand. He cut the arm off and disposed of the Angel to prevent a repeat of the devastation that happened fifteen years ago."

To be continued…

A/N: I want to hear from you, the reader, what you feel about this idea: Should Shinji return to Earth/Mystic Moon later with his family to see the changes caused by the revelation of the truth?