Creation began on 08-01-23

Creation ended on 08-15-23

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Repercussions of the Omni-Omni Fruit: Hunting for a Crew

A/N: Shinji, with the aid of the EVA, searches for people to establish his own pirate crew to aid him in searching for the One Piece treasure.

"…So…I can do anything because of this fruit I ate?" Shinji had asked, just to make sure that he understood his new predicament in this new world he was in.

"That's right," Maya Ibuki replied; the research team aboard the EVA had to make sure that he was educated on what he was now capable of while helping to make sure that he had access to information on the people he hoped to meet and convince to form his pirate crew. "Whatever you can think of is what you can make real. You're literally an incarnation of a deity. With the sole exception of the ten-year lifespan, you can do anything short of willing the artifact you need to save yourself appearing in your hands."

And with that knowledge, Shinji imagined himself floating in the air above the ship, feeling a sense of weightlessness in his body as he started rising off the ground. This was just practice for now, but he would eventually get the hang of what he was capable of achieving. Extrasensory perception, elemental manipulation and projection, energy manipulation and projection, power bestowment, healing and revival, even creating things out of nothingness. Because he ate the one fruit in existence that carried a death sentence unlike any other fruit that granted unusual abilities at the cost of being unable to deal with ocean water, Shinji had basically transubstantiated from mortal to demigod; because he was still human, he was less than divine, but greater than he could've been as a regular person.

His next thought was of the ship he saw himself in his vision of the future. The one shaped like Evangelion Unit-01; if he was going to become a pirate in search of the treasure that contained the artifact that he needed to save his life, then a captain needed a ship of his own…and he wasn't going to take someone else's when he had the means to create his own. Seconds after, whilst floating above the water, the water below rose up in the form of tendrils, causing the research crew aboard the EVA to gasp at what he was doing. The tendrils then smashed into each other to form something else, changing color and texture in every direction. In less than a minute, beside the ship was another ship, predominantly purple in color, with a front end that was shaped like an armored demon's head or face with a long horn and a flag with a strange symbol waving on one of the masts.

"My God," went the Fuyutsuki look-alike.

"No," uttered the Maya Ibuki look-alike, having seen the memory of Shinji's vision of this ship. "God had nothing to do with this ship's creation. Some type of monster created by the people this young man served for a time inspired this, but this ship serves a different purpose than the monster he once served as a puppet for."

Shinji opened his eyes and saw the ship he made, surprised that it was there beneath himself.

"Whoa," he expresses as he lands his feet on the deck, feeling the texture through his plugsuit. "It's real."

It looked like an actual ship, even though he barely knew anything about ships, from the way their design aesthetics were to their way of functioning. And while it resembled the Evangelion that he loathed with every fiber of his enhanced being, he didn't feel the same disgust towards this ship he created from the water. It looked as though it had everything a ship needed. Well, everything that he believed a ship needed to be a ship based on what little knowledge he had about them.

"Uh, can anyone tell me if this ship is accurate?" He asks.

-x-

No body, no funeral. Not even a memorial service for him. What was the point of any of this if nobody was ever going to know what happened to him? After the Twelfth Angel incident, NERV had declared Shinji Ikari missing in action; because there was no body, there was no proof that he was dead, just not present, like a soldier who went AWOL. But how can anyone go AWOL when in a situation they have no knowledge of or any way of escaping?

NERV, despite having defeated the Twelfth Angel, was hindered by the repercussions of the would-be success because of the loss of the Third Child. They couldn't guarantee that the Evas were a sound choice of a weapon against the Angels if one of its primary resources, the pilot, no matter how expendable they seemed, couldn't be safeguarded against hazards such as explosions. Despite their attempts to prove that the Evas were safe, not many were prepared to take a chance with any of them.

"…If he's not even considered dead, then where is he if not in the hospital?" Misato heard someone say to someone else in a room down the hall from where she was walking. "If he were listed as missing in action, that would be understandable, because there's a chance that he might be alive somewhere, just hurt or in some kind of distress. If he were declared killed in action, there'd be a funeral service or some sort of memorial. Instead, you list him as though he's absent without an official leave, like he ran off to join the circus or something. If he's dead, then just say he's dead, not missing or…or… You people were responsible for making sure he goes home at the end of the day…and you failed him. You failed him."

She saw someone step out the room, and it was Toji Suzuhara, whose expression was one of distress. He saw her, but he just kept walking away. She then stepped into the room and saw Ritsuko sitting in a chair, looking like she needed a cigarette.

"I'm guessing that he's right," she tells her.

"The worst part is that we can't admit it," the faux-blond responds. "Admitting so means that we can't protect the city or the people."

"Why was he here?"

"NERV was to try and recruit him as the Fourth Child. He declined."

"You mean, he rejected the idea of piloting the Eva."

"More or less."

"Being unable to own up to the truth is being unable to admit that something is wrong. So, what now? Any other individuals that NERV wants to try and recruit?"

"Not at this point, no."

There had been eight attempts to recruit a Fourth Child, and each time they tried to get one teen to join them, they refused because of the last battle. Despite NERV trying to conceal the issue, the truth had gotten out and they were unable to convince even one candidate to pilot against the Angels because none of them wanted to die. While Misato didn't blame them for choosing not to throw their lives away, it was going to be detrimental for NERV in the next attack. With Unit-01 being rebuilt, they couldn't rely on just Units-00 and 02.

"So, what are we going to do?" Misato asks her. "Use the autopilot system you were making?"

"At this point, we may not have a choice," Ritsuko responds. "Commander Ikari expects results."

"Simply demanding results will not guarantee them."

"Someone should try telling him that."

"Not me; I can barely stand to be in the same room as him."

-x-

Although initially lacking a steering wheel or control room and having individual living quarters, the ship Shinji created from the water based off the Evangelion he once operated…was as perfect as any pirate ship made within months or years. Oddly enough, despite being a ship with sails, Shinji had installed an engine room with two steam turbines, as though he wasn't sure what the ship needed. However, since he was just starting out, he had complete creative freedom to make and remake the ship however he desired, adding or removing whatever he wanted to make it more suitable to his liking. The only other unusual aspect to the ship was how the rooms didn't obey the laws of physics; each room, whether it was the engine room or a living quarters, was much larger on the inside than it appeared on the outside, and the entire ship was modeled after specific ships, resembling a galleon, tanker or brig sloop on the outside, it might've felt more like a cruise ship or ark on the inside, meaning the entire ship didn't obey the laws of physics, rather obeying the will of its maker, accommodating his wants or needs.

"…Worlds within a world," Shinji heard one of the science personnel say as she came out of one of the living quarters. "Even the bathrooms are the size of most dorm rooms."

"Uh, did you just use the bathroom?" He asks her.

"Yeah, I had to see if the water runs. It's remarkable, really. Your ship is practically running like a city does. If I had to say, your ship is like an aircraft carrier, just…smaller."

"Thank you."

"All you need now is a crew," said a male member of the science personnel, holding some small folders in his hands. "You sure you don't want to try and recruit people that are more…easier to recruit than these people? They were listed as members of the disenfranchised due to their accidental ingestion of Devil Fruit."

"They were shunned by people because they ate some fruit that they didn't know would affect them because it was deemed bad?" Shinji asks them.

"Well, 'shun' is not the word we'd use. More like 'discriminated', excommunicated from their towns or villages because of the Devil Fruit they unknowingly ate. None of them are criminals, but people who are biased against any with powers that are the result of eating these pieces of fruit view them as though they are criminals."

"I accidentally ate a piece of fruit that I didn't know would give me power at a price until after I ate it. Does that make me a criminal, because I can now do things that I never thought I could do? Does that mean that the moment societies become aware of my existence, they'll see me as some sort of criminal? I don't even know these people…but I hope they can be convinced to join me in searching for this legendary One Piece treasure. If it means using people's inherent desires for wealth and fame to entice them, then I can live with that outcome because there's only one thing I'm after that may be included in the treasure. You think I'm selfish for trying to recruit these specific people over others?"

"No. I just think you're trying too hard to maintain some semblance of your past in a world that you don't recognize because of the bizarreness of your surroundings and how people were in your world."

Shinji sighs and nods his head in understanding.

"I still have to try, though. I don't want to do this on my own."

The three could understand where he was coming from; a stranger in a strange world, trying to make it make sense to him to some degree by finding people he could recognize. The question was, however: Could Shinji recruit these people that, in this world, knew absolutely nothing about him? Another question was also: Why did Shinji feel that it had to be these individuals that he wanted to recruit?

Shinji opened one of the folders they gave him, but then levitated them in front of him so that he could see with more ease.

"Tell me, though," he spoke, pointing to one of the pictures in the files, "are they all on the mainland or on individual islands?"

"They used to live on individual islands," the female science member revealed, "but upon eating the Devil Fruit, they were forced to relocate to the mainland. Although one of them was believed to have hidden away somewhere on her island."

Shinji then turned several of the photos around to show them.

"Which one?" He asks.

"Her," she answers, pointing to one. "Katsuragi, Misato."

Shinji turned the photo around, revealing the young woman who resembled the woman that was once his guardian in his world.

"Where's the island she's from?"

"Yebisu Island. It's actually a week away from where we are right now."

Yebisu Island? He wonders. There's actually an island here named after her usual brand of beer?

-x-

Each time she returned to the apartment, Asuka kept expecting Shinji to just be there, doing whatever he did because nobody else was doing it. But every time she returned to the apartment, she was met with only the penguin…and disappointment. She had been disappointed by the last few weeks of his absence from their lives. In fact, just the mere thought that Shinji was likely dead…was close enough to make Asuka wonder why, out of all of the people she ever met, that she ever knew or loathed…she ever cared about him when he was never worth the effort to begin with.

No passion, no interest in any meaningful career, not even a relationship with his heartless father, something that he really seemed to desire above the receiving of any praise or love. And yet, in the end, all he ever got…was a series of unfortunate downfalls in a life that was as empty as a glass cup that had been shattered into pieces.

Just own up to it, she thought as she walked into his room, seeing his futon collect a layer of dust. He's gone and he's not going to come back and pretend he never disappeared.

-x-

A week was one thing, but due to the fact that Shinji possessed divine-like powers made going to Yebisu Island a breeze. Less than an hour of travel and now the two ships were anchored in the water several meters away from the island.

Shinji looked at the island…and his expression was of concern. Unlike what he had expected of the island, the actual appearance was unexpected.

"Is this really the island of Yebisu?" He asks Maya.

"Yes, this is it," she answers him. "Not what you were expecting at all, is it?"

"No, it isn't."

And due to her new power to view his memories, she knew why: Yebisu Island was a dead ringer for this Tokyo-3 place he used to reside in. This probably made Shinji feel unease because of how it felt like he had come back to the place where he was last seen. Except he was likely telling himself that this island wasn't his home, and, as best as she could determine from her Devil Fruit power, he was a young man who had no home ever since the day he lost his parents. And while it was likely possible that he could just go back to his original dimension, he wouldn't be able to change his fate as a result of eating the Omni-Omni Fruit. He would still be dead within ten years unless he found the Demi-Demi Medallion.

"You're going to need a smaller boat to get to that island," she tells him.

"Yeah," he responds, and then the water beside his ship shapes into a smaller vessel that resembled a landing craft. "Is that small enough?"

"It's enough."

To be continued…

A/N: I've already decided on what the names of some of the Devil Fruit in this story will be called, but I'd like to hear from some of you your names for potential Devil Fruit. And what do you think of Shinji trying to recruit the Misato Katsuragi of the One Piece universe?