Creation began on 08-01-20

Creation ended on 08-03-20

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Talismans: A New Path

"…So, let me see if I understand this clearly," the man expressed to his three cohorts as they stood before him and Shendu. "You lost the locator to some people at some…antique shop? And there were creatures like the Shadowkhan there?"

"That's right, sir," one of the men answered him. "A woman was wearing a creepy mask and these two guys with her were tough as Hell. The woman seemed to be in control of these things that were like the Shadowkhan with us, but they had knives for hands and pointed legs. We couldn't get past the front of the store and lost the locator. But the guy we were chasing after, the locator indicated that he had a talisman, and you won't believe this. It was Hideaki Katsuragi, the guy everyone said died at the South Pole during Second Impact, alive and kicking."

"Hideaki Katsuragi?"

"Could one of the talismans he had have allowed him to survive whatever occurred that day?" The woman suggested. "We don't know what these talismans can do, apart from there being twelve of them and Shendu needing to return to power."

"The Dog Talisman possesses the power of immortality," Shendu explained. "Anyone possessing this talisman is rendered incapable of dying, granted unlimited energy to do what they couldn't do at an advanced age."

"That explains why he was quite springy for someone over fifty-five years old. How many powers are there in these talismans?"

"The Dog Talisman is immortality. The Rat Talisman is capable of animation. The Dragon Talisman provides one with the power of combustion. The Horse Talisman is the healer. The Tiger Talisman is the glue that balances the power of all twelve talismans within me. The Sheep Talisman enables astral projection. The Rooster Talisman allows for levitation. The Rabbit Talisman provides enhanced speed. Enhanced strength is afforded by the Ox Talisman, invisibility by the Snake Talisman, and the Pig Talisman bestows one the power to unleash heat beams from their eyes."

"All twelves are animals from the Chinese Zodiac," the second man realized. "What do you suppose are the chances that all twelve talismans are in Ōta, in that shop?"

"Not high…but not slim, either," his boss implied; even without the locator, the fact that they had been led to Ōta on a different assignment involving the talismans, they had to assume that there were other talismans than the one they had been after hiding in one place.

-x-

"What do you mean, he won't return?" Gendo demanded from Misato, two days after she had returned from Ōta, wanting to know why she had been unable to retrieve the boy.

"There's nothing more to say about it, sir," she explained. "He refused to return, and his boss, his…Auntie…along with everyone else that works at that shop of hers backed up his decision to refuse to come back to NERV. He was very adamant in his decision."

Gendo was unhappy with this revelation. Even more so with the way things were shaping up with the world, as people were reclaiming the lost lands that Second Impact had taken and people that lived here were beginning to leave Tokyo-3 in droves. This in turn was crippling NERV's workforce by a substantial amount.

"There's something else he wanted me to inform you about," Misato told him. "He's casting aside the Ikari name because he's done with being reminded of who he's related to, which are, in his choice of words, a woman he can't remember because every photo of her was destroyed and a man that's a stranger to him."

"What do you mean, he's casting aside the Ikari name?" Fuyutsuki questioned her.

"He's severing his familial ties or something of the sort, renouncing his ties with Commander Ikari. It would be likely the next time he was seen, he wouldn't have the name Ikari, anymore."

Gendo was furious. Just because his son claims he's getting rid of his family name, it didn't mean that the brat could alter his very identity and distance himself from who his parents were, no matter how hard he tried. If he met the boy again, he would give him a piece of his mind. There was no way his son could just sever his ties with everyone in the Ikari family.

That brat, he thought.

-x-

Shinji felt at ease about walking out of a building in Ōta after getting his paperwork straightened out for severing his ties with the Ikari family; it actually helped when someone in the people business was someone that owed Auntie a favor or two. He was finally free of that name his father…a man he had no relationship with, whatsoever, had tarnished in many respects, and looked up at the clear sky.

"How do you feel?" He heard a young woman ask him, and he looked at a girl that was older than he was, probably eighteen, with pink highlights over her ebony hair and wearing a sailor uniform with a wristband with pictures of watermelons sewn into it.

"Relieved of my past, Sheegwa," he addressed her by her nickname; among the only few at Auntie's shop that used Chinese translations when taking nicknames to use in place of their actual names.

"So…who are you now?" She asked him again.

"I'm still Shinji," he expressed.

"Shinji who? Heh-heh."

Shinji reached into his shirt and pulled out the Sheep Talisman, the very artifact that led him to Auntie's shop in the dead of night, that had helped him to get away from people he had to get away from, and, despite having possession of a power that many found useless, had been his key to freedom.

"Omamori," he revealed his new last name.

"Shinji Omamori…yeah, that name works," Sheegwa agreed with him. "Nice to make your acquaintance for the second time, Shinji Omamori."

Tucking the talisman back under his shirt, Shinji followed her back to Auntie's shop; he was looking forward to getting back to work.

-x-

Fifteen years since this global devastation had maimed the Earth…and just a few days ago, the maiming was somewhat undone by a strange phenomenon. But he recognized augmented demon magic when he sensed it, and Drago, hiding in the one place that he was convinced his demon family wouldn't find him in just yet, was doing the one thing he, as a demon, hadn't done ever since he was little: Sitting by a small fire, surrounded by wildflowers, just letting the world's affairs resolve themselves. As the years came and went and he slowly recovered his strength and regained the ability to utilize the combined powers of his aunts and uncles' dark chi, Drago, when he could've enslaved the human race in this alternate realm where there was no such group as Section 13 or people that could hinder him such as the Chan Clan, he realized something very crucial to his situation; being in another universe where he had no foes, aside from his own relatives, who were going to do as they pleased once they got their bearings, he had nothing else to gain from facing them…and no matter what he did to anyone, he would never be able obtain his father's acceptance or be seen as an equal among his demon peers, even after he had obtained their power. But rather than infuriate over it, he instead went into hiding, staying out of sight from any humans that might've came snooping around, and by so doing, found that these fifteen years had actually afforded him something he never truly had anywhere else, in the past he had escaped to or the future he hailed from: Peace.

Peace, a word that many demons heard of…but never believed in. Peace, the one thing Drago never understood until he realized he had it around him. And it was everywhere if people knew where to look for it, whether it was in a desert wasteland…or a forest where humans go to take their own lives.

Whatever they're going to do, don't let them involve me, he thought as sipped his cup of tea. They can have the world if they want it. I just want to be left alone.

A small rabbit hopped by him…and he ignored it completely. If he had returned to his old habits, he would've grabbed it and skinned it before eating it.

-x-

Rather than accept the fact that his son had cast aside his familial ties and moved on with his life, Gendo decided to pay this antique shop a visit and see why the boy refused to return to what was his fate. Ōta seemed to be no different from anywhere else in Japan that had survived Second Impact, with the exception of being rather mediocre and not as advanced as Tokyo-3 was. In fact, he couldn't understand why his son (or anyone, for that matter) would choose such a place to establish their new roots in.

"This is where he established his residency after leaving my in-laws?" He asked one of the Section Two agents that had originally been here to retrieve the boy as they stood outside the building Shinji had moved into years ago.

"Yes, sir," he answered him. "A guy that said he left prevented us from getting to his apartment and forced us to leave."

"If he's not here, we should try this shop where he works at," Gendo decided, and they left the address to travel to where this antique shop was located.

-x-

Standing in front of the office building in Tokyo-2, a man in a dark suit smirked as he held up a octagonal piece of stone with two-sided tiger engraved on it with a piece of brownish-green matter stuck to it, tugging towards the inside.

"Heh-heh-heh," he chuckled. "To the victor goes the spoils of war. Shendu, you're about to show whether or not you can offer any assistance to those of us that have become stronger than you."

To be continued…

A/N: I could've included a scene with Misato's father, but that's for another chapter. Also, as I barely know much about Drago and have to rely on the Wiki site for his information until I get to watching the series, I bet none of you were expecting Drago to just change his ways after recovering from his feud with his father and just walking away from violence, but I can't remember who brought it up to my attention, but there was a similarity between he and Shinji regarding their strained relationships with their respective fathers, and they both found a solution to answer it with. And for those that got curious about the new name, Omamori means "talisman", so it meant a lot to Shinji to take on that name.