Creation began on 07-25-23

Creation ended on 02-08-24

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Vengeance of the Seven: Condemned by Ambition, Freed by Sin

Five years later

The year was Twenty-Twenty, Two-Thousand-Twenty. It was five years after the last time anyone from Tokyo-3 saw an Angel attacking the city…and practically the last time anyone had seen or heard of a man by the name of Shinji Ikari. The paramilitary agency known as NERV, after the loss of Adam and Evangelion Unit-01, along with the second resignation of the Third Child, was disbanded due to the lack of activity from the Angels remaining…and the fact that Gendo Ikari was killed by someone that seemed associated with the Third Child, but because they went missing after the murder and the pilot resigned and was in the wind, the lack of an investigation resulted in the agency losing much credibility. But in the five years since that day, there was change happening.

"Hey, Katsuragi," went an older Makoto Hyuga to an older Misato Katsuragi as he ran up a street to catch up to her, holding a thumb drive in his right hand. "Finally found a solid lead."

"How solid?" She asks him as she turns to face him, trying not to be hopeful.

"Solid. My contact in Osaka confirmed it. He's living on the coast of Shikoku Island, in Kōchi."

"Why would he live there?"

"After Second Impact, its total population started declining further. Even after twenty years, it's still small. He probably thought it was the best place to relocate after everything he had been through. Who would want to go to a small island with a small tourist attraction of sights and people that make up a primate city?"

Unless they were the type of person that was just trying to hide from the rest of the world, Misato believed as she took the drive from him. "Thank you for taking the time to locate him."

"Just a word of caution, though."

"What is it?"

"Say you find him there, and you see how his life is there, what's to stop him from assuming that you're not there to try something else on him that he might take personally?"

Misato thought for a moment…and sighs.

"It's been five years," she states. "If nobody has been trying to find him, to try and recruit him or otherwise, it's gotta be likely that he thinks he's been forgotten about."

"Isn't that the whole point of living in a place of that? Being someplace where nobody knows who he is? It's almost similar to living off the grid, except he uses little technology to generate a paper trail. All that could be found was the address of where he works over there, where he attends vocational training and an email address. Best of luck to you over there."

-x-

"…Are you sure you want to go over there and find him?" An eighteen-year-old Asuka asks Misato over the phone as she walks around her apartment in Germany. "I doubt he'd be happy to see any of us."

"It's been long enough for him to have likely dropped off the face of the world if nobody has mentioned him," Misato tells her. "Are you not the least bit curious about how he's been?"

"No. He punched me."

"Well, I can't imagine you would want to see him if you're still holding onto old grudges."

"What do you suppose that he's done with his life after five years?"

"Based solely on the information I have on him, Shinji hasn't stood out in the slightest; there's no reported incidents he was in, not public achievements, not even a warrant. Probably why he chose that city to relocate to. It's a place where time has likely stood still; there's been no technological uptick or has no influence by any major companies or institutions. A place where time stands still is probably the only place where he'd feel he could fit in without standing out."

"If he is there, let him know I'm still holding him responsible for NERV getting disbanded."

Asuka hung up and sighs over the discovery that Shinji relocated to a different part of Japan that was probably the most underdeveloped after Second Impact, which was probably why he chose such a place. That and someplace where nobody knows or cares about who he is or what he does or did from five years ago. Did he even know that he was the last Ikari alive, that his aunt and uncle and cousin died three years ago due to a burglary gone wrong? Or did he even care about that, either?

"Stupid idiot," she says.

-x-

Kōchi Ryōma Airport, among the smaller airports on the island and so out of place that it didn't even make the top ten for popular destinations. Fortunately, Misato didn't have a taste for large planes, as only small planes were the standard aircraft to and from this place. When her plane landed, she noticed how Shikoku Island, despite being somewhat reduced due to Second Impact, had managed to rebuild in the twenty years that followed, but still had such a small population that seemed to be fluctuating most of the time, with people from other parts of the country coming and going.

"Welcome to Kōchi," her cab driver expresses to her as she gets into the car. "Is this your first time visiting?"

"Yeah," she answers him.

"Where to, ma'am?"

"I'm looking for a place called The Fushigi Tenshi Tora, a restaurant in Kōchi."

"That little eatery? My wife and I go there every weekend. It's practically the only place one can find a decent meal in the city. About four years ago, it wasn't doing very well until that kid showed up."

"What kid?"

"Some boy with a cat. The quiet type, really."

If this was Shinji, then Misato likely got into the right taxicab. The drive into the city was the quietest Misato had ever experienced; there were few people on the streets and fewer places open that would attract a crowd. If there was a curfew of sorts in effect, it was bizarre.

"Not much activity out today, is there?" Misato asks the driver.

"Oh, the city doesn't really come to life until after the sun goes down," he explains. "Most of the population is just young people still in school, wanting to be something other than what they thought was their only choices. Some want to work for businesses like Apple or Google or Microsoft, just to make a good living. It's mainly like that in America, people wanting to live the dream, whatever it means."

"You don't sound like a believer of that."

"Sometimes, it's better to have small dreams than large dreams, and some dreams are just simple enough to be achieved every other day of one's life. Here we are."

Misato looked to her right, seeing the eatery where Shinji was confirmed to have worked at from time to time. At first, she expected a little building, but The Fushigi Tenshi Tora was no little building. It was the size of a city block! And it could probably seat close to three-hundred guests!

"You've gotta be kidding me," she utters.

"It expanded a little two years after they hired the guy that cooks better meals," the driver explains. "It used to just a small eatery, complementing less than twenty-two people."

"Would this cook be working there today?"

"Every weekday from five to ten. It's only four minutes after four right now. He's probably still in school…or feeding his cat."

Misato had to admit that she was impressed by Shinji's development in his absence.

"Why are you looking for him?" The driver asks her.

"I haven't seen him in five years," she explains. "Not since…the day he left."

"Ambitione damnatus, peccato liberatus."

"What?"

"It's Latin for 'condemned by ambition, freed by sin'. Basically, the guy with the cat was, in one form or another, condemned, or even trapped, by the ambitions of other people…and he used his own ambitions, his dark desires that people often get admonished for having…to free himself from. It's just another mantra for people to live by when they seek to move away from the people they could've been like."

She then asked to be taken to the hotel building she was to stay in for the duration of her trip. It would be a while before she would likely find him at the restaurant later in the evening hours, when the city supposedly came to life.

-x-

In many respects, the only people that might've been wondering about the status of Shinji were the people that thought they knew him best when he was present in their lives. But even in their limited interactions with him, there was only so much they could ascertain about him; they knew he was a tidy person, a good cook, but when it came to relationships, he barely had any friends, people that he could confide in about whatever problems he had.

Toji Suzuhara, a young man that made better use of his second chance at life, walking the path of a basketball star in the making, often found himself wondering if he would ever see the guy again after learning that he left NERV after his father had been murdered. Not that he suspected Shinji of having anything to do with his old man's death; a lot of people probably hated the guy enough to wish him dead, but Shinji being the one to do it was not something he could imagine him being capable of, even if he hated the guy.

Kensuke Aida, only able to follow the breadcrumbs of information, didn't think Shinji would ever leave Tokyo-3 after the fiasco that destroyed NERV, but only wanted to know where Shinji went and why he stayed out of sight and out of the spotlight. Someone like him, it was only a matter of time before he ended up on somebody's radar and would be sought after.

Ritsuko Akagi, less than a year after Gendo was killed, developed lung cancer from all the chain smoking she did, and passed away about two months ago. Her only unanswered question was what became of Shinji and why he didn't turn up, despite having used the MAGI to try and find him, something Fuyutsuki actually chastised her for doing; he had felt it wasn't their business to look for someone that had, in the figurative and literal sense, washed their hands of the paramilitary agency after the death of his father, which wasn't much of repercussion as it was just a move waiting to happen because the man had crossed too many lines to be forgiven and forgotten about.

Kozo Fuyutsuki, after a lengthy interrogation from the Committee all over again regarding the death of Gendo and the destruction of Unit-01, was simply let go of because SEELE had lost many of their pieces necessary to achieve Human Instrumentality, something they couldn't attempt without the Spear of Longinus, which was used to dispose of the second Angel after Units-00 and 02 defeated the other that appeared on the same day Gendo died. Even if they wanted to, it made no sense to Fuyutsuki to go after someone that made the decision to remove themselves from the rest of the world, as Shinji was unheard of for years. The elder died from natural causes almost two weeks ago, wondering only one thing about Shinji: Was he truly happy wherever he was?

Rei Ayanami, to the surprise of everyone left before NERV was shut down, up and disappeared a few days after Shinji left. It made no sense for her to do that, as the agency hadn't been shut down yet, and all they had was one former pilot resign after his father died. Two former pilots if you included Suzuhara, who declined to return because Shinji didn't want him to throw his life away a second time for something that wasn't worth it. And despite the fact that an albino girl like her would stick out in a crowd, nobody was able to find her ever since she left. All that was found in her apartment after she failed to show up the next day was a note that read, "I'm going home", with no details on what she meant by that.

Hikari Horaki, mainly because Shinji didn't seem like the type to walk away from school, only had to question if he was really capable of something as awful as murdering his father, who probably deserved it if he made some people angry with whatever he did before he died. And, on a personal level, after learning that Toji wouldn't have been alive again had it not been for something Shinji did prior to his father's death and leaving Tokyo-3, she simply wanted to thank him for making it so that he came back alive.

The only person that didn't demonstrate any sense of feeling like Shinji's absence made any difference was Pen-Pen.

Asuka, simply because Shinji had knocked her off her feet before he left, was resentful of anyone trying to find him; if he left NERV after killing his father, that was on him, and nobody should've felt obligated to go looking for him if he didn't want to be found by anyone, wherever he decided to relocate. She felt like it defeated the purpose of trying to hide oneself away from the rest of the world, something he chose to do rather than admit that he murdered his father due to something as stupid as being related to the man that probably deserved what he was dealt. That and because the guy knocked her off her feet with one punch. One lucky punch that she was still mad at him about.

-x-

Her room at the hotel was small, but not one of those capsule suites that she rarely saw use for. Looking out a window, Misato sighs as the sun was starting to set. If Shinji followed a routine, he would be at the eatery from five to ten in the evening. That would be the best time to see him and find out how he managed to survive over the last five years without anyone finding him. She just hoped that he would have words with her after all this time.

"This place is supposed to come to life at night," she tells herself. "What kind of nightlife is there around Kōchi? Most of the nightlife is usually the darkest kind that someone like Shinji probably wouldn't want to be exposed to. But then again, five years is long enough for anyone to change their habits and what have you."

She decided that she would go to the eatery around six-thirty, giving Shinji plenty of time to do what he did at the place and letting business flow like normal.

"I better get going now," she tells herself, grabbing her coat and beret before leaving out her room. "Let's see how busy this place is when he's there cooking."

-x-

Unfortunately, whereas she was expecting the restaurant to be half-empty with simple-minded customers, The Fushigi Tenshi Tora quite lively, with many customers, ranging from school students to businessmen that weren't in the mood for cooking their own meals when they got home. This surprised Misato when she arrived at the place.

"I need two more orders of teriyaki chicken!" She hears a woman yell.

"The fried salmon and tofu rolls are almost ready!" A man yells.

"We got thirty-three cooks, and we're still outmatched by the stomachs of this crowd!" Another woman yells.

Misato goes over to a man at the register and rings a bell.

"Yes, may I help you?" He asks her.

"I'm looking for someone I believe works here," she explains, holding up a photo. "Does Shinji Ikari work here?"

"Nobody by the name Ikari, but Shinji Tsumi works here," he answers her, but then his face becomes serious. "He's in the kitchen. He doesn't get many visitors. Actually, he doesn't get any visitors. That would defeat the purpose of him trying to live his life free of his past. Who's asking for him?"

"Just an old friend of his."

The man sighs and points over to a corner on her left.

"Wait over there, please," he tells her before walking away. "Yo! Someone go and tell that Tsumi he's got a visitor here to see him!"

Misato waits over by the corner and sees the others patron enjoying their meals without any worries to sour their moods. It was about two minutes before her attention was turned away to someone beside her.

"He's up on the roof with his cat," a woman tells her. "Just head up the stairs. You can't miss 'em. Down that hall."

"Thank you," she praises her and goes to where she points, finding a flight of stairs to go up.

The rooftop was quiet with few neon lights illuminating the ground. As Misato walked around, she noticed a large plate on the top of a structure that covered the flight of stairs she came up from, and it was much larger than a regular plate.

"I see you haven't changed much since I last saw you," a male voice utters from nearby, and she sees an obscured figure standing beside one of the red lights. "How'd you find me?"

"I had help from Hyuga," she tells him. "It's been five years, and you… It's easy to feel worried about you."

The figure steps away from the lights and in front of Misato so she can get a good look at him.

Misato gasps as she sees Shinji's face for the first time in five years. He was only slightly older and less like the young man she once knew, but there was no resemblance to his father or even his mother. In fact, his facial features seemed almost more feminine, but his eyes gave him away because they were dark. It was as though his entire eyeballs had turned dark, but at least his hairstyle remained the same.

"You…look good for a nineteen-year-old," she tells him.

"Yeah, people look at my face and always ask about my eyes. It's just a repercussion I take no comfort in knowing will follow me for the rest of my days. Still, it's a small price to pay for the life I have now."

"Why the name change?"

"Isn't it obvious? I want nothing more to do with that family that brought me no joy. I chose Tsumi because it was how I achieved the peace I didn't have because of the Ikaris. Nanatsu no Tsumi. Seven sins, Misato. I had to unleash my seven desires that made my soul impure…and my seven desires became the undoing of my parents. How many children despise their own parents for all they did and didn't do…and decided that they were better off without them because, no matter how things went, there was going to be no 'happily ever after' for them so long as they did what they wanted like obedient children? How many can truly say that, despite the downside to no longer having much of a past, they can at least have a future they can take comfort in living, knowing that every choice they make is now theirs to make and not having to follow some scenario or pre-written script, like everything was foretold to occur? I, for one, can say that I am at ease to be away from that part of Japan, away from the hurt, the lies, the manipulation, the exploitation…and everything else in between. I am at ease."

"I…just wanted to make sure that you were doing fine."

"I have my good days and my bad days. Most bad days are just school-related; I want to be a legitimate chef. A home cook or social media cook, those will not work for me. I don't seek wealth and glory, just a future I can be proud of because it was what I wanted…and only two people had to suffer for it."

"You mean, your parents."

"It's easier for everyone else…when I'm not around them and having to put up with subtle reminders of what once was."

"Well…have you heard anything about what's going on in the world?"

"Every time I watch the news or listen to the radio. Half the time, I don't believe anything because most of the time, it's just fake news to lie to people. Why don't you tell me what's going on in the world?"

"NERV was disbanded, among other things."

"That's good to hear. Sorry you were put out of a job, though, but that agency wasn't meant to last forever."

"Rei disappeared sometime after you left. Nobody's seen her around for years. You?"

"No. Why would I even want to?"

Misato was shocked to hear Shinji say that; it was odd to hear him question why he would want to see someone that hasn't been seen like himself after he left.

"Toji's done good with his life. He's looking to be a sports star. He and Hikari are dating."

"That's nice. They seem good for each other."

"Asuka's back in Germany."

"Good for her."

"Fuyutsuki and Ritsuko are dead."

"Death is inevitable. Sooner or later, we're all going to meet our makers, whoever they are. All we can do is own up to whatever we did to end up wherever it is that we're going in the end."

"I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not."

"I don't make fun of other people's misfortunes. I'm simply a believer of the fatalistic and a follower of finitism. Nothing lasts forever and should be allowed to last forever. Sooner or later, we all meet our end. How'd they go out?"

"Natural causes. Ritsuko got lung cancer, though."

"Well, smoking is a vice that kills. She clearly knew that."

"Just like drinking is my vice?"

"You're still alive, so it hasn't killed you. At least not yet."

Suddenly, a large shadow came up from behind Shinji…and Misato backs away in fear.

"Oh, my!" She gasps as she sees a large cat.

It looked like a tabby, except it was much too large to be one, even for a domestic breed of house cat. It was as big as a big cat, like a tiger, lion or panther, with green eyes.

"Yeah, Sutego had a bit of a growth spurt three years ago," Shinji reveals to her, petting the cat on its head, earning a purring from it.

"Su…Sutego? That's the kitten you had with you before you left?" She questions. "How is this possible? It's…it's…"

"He. Not 'it'. And in answer to your question. Sutego's growth is a lot like that old story about that dog that grew up to be larger than normal. One of the benefits of living in Kōchi is that people here know he's mine. A dog may be the best friend of man, but Sutego is worth more than a squad of dogs. Not to mention the other cooks like it when I bring Sutego with me here; he keeps the rats out."

"I can imagine that."

If Shinji didn't stand out because of his eyes, then he had to stand out because of his humongous tabby cat companion. Then, Sutego went over to Misato, and rose up to put his paws on her shoulders, surprising her.

"Aah!" She gasps as he looks at her.

"Well, he likes you," Shinji tells her, and then the cat lets go and moves back to behind Shinji.

"I honestly don't know how you're able to handle such a big cat."

"Is it really any different from how you live with Pen-Pen?"

Misato tries to think of a comeback against Shinji, but she couldn't counter his question of how him living with a big cat was anything like her living with a penguin. However, she did believe that Pen-Pen would've been beyond terrified if he met Sutego.

"Well, how has your life been these last five years?" She asks him. "Hobbies? Girlfriend? Something I can try to tease you about?"

"Last year, I joined a cult," he utters.

"You what?!"

Shinji then cracks a smile and chuckles.

"Not funny, Shinji. That is not funny."

"My apologies. My classmates tell me that my jokes need to be lighthearted. It's not easy, but I try sometimes. It's difficult to find humor in the light after spending what seems like an eternity in the darkness. But it was in the darkness that I found the light needed to get out and away from the demons of my past."

Misato could sympathize; it was hard to get out of the darkness you found yourself dragged into after everything that happened, everything you've ever done or anyone you've ever harmed, either intentionally or unintentionally. It was…difficult to find or return a better point in life where things didn't feel so forced or like a dream.

"A year after I left Tokyo-3, I started seeing them," Shinji tells her.

"Seeing who?" She asks.

"My seven desires that led to my father's death."

"You…saw them?"

"Yes…and I still do sometimes. Even right now, every day I'm out and about, whether it's at school or here or at home, I see them. They're never really around like ghosts looking to haunt people, but they're around me. Their presence is actually quite comforting."

"Do they ever…talk to you?"

"No. They never say anything…but they don't need to. I have their memories, I know what each of them did during the time I was in my coma. It's really because of them that I'm able to move past my parents. Maybe they'll be around until my final day of life. Maybe they'll leave me in another year or so. Either way, I'm grateful to each of them. I went from being a man who unleashed his seven sins upon the world to get revenge against his parents for their faults and arrogance in trying to manipulate him into doing what they wanted…to being a man freed by his seven sins. In the absence of light, the darkness can prevail. In the absence of any actual justice, the drive for personal vengeance is the only road to liberation."

"But…doesn't revenge poison you and turn you into something…"

"Ugly?"

"Yes."

"Only if it persists. Mine was limited to just two people. I made my peace with vengeance five years ago. Still, it can affect people that don't know when to stop. Is there someone you want revenge against?"

"Not unless you know how to traverse the afterlife. Beyond that, there's nobody around that actually…causes me any grief."

There was a silence that lasted for a full minute before Misato speaks up again.

"I am glad you're doing alright," she tells him.

"Thanks," he responds. "Thanks for coming to see me."

She smiles and suspects that he's going to be fine where he currently is; if this was his form of self-imposed exile or where he could be free from his past, it made no sense to disturb him. And if he was happy, really happy, it would be wrong of her or anyone else to try and take him away from this for any reason, whatever it was. Even if his eyes were completely dark like something out of a horror movie because he dabbled in something beyond himself, but only to claim vengeance and freedom from two people he came to despise for what they did and didn't do, Misato had to accept that Shinji was making his own moves in pursuing his own future, free of anyone else's views. In his solitude where he had nobody to guide him, he had to choose his own path and hope it led him somewhere he could go. And in a world ruined by arrogance and insanity, it was the sanest of choices one could make.

"Come on, I'll fix you something to eat," Shinji tells her as he walks over to the door, leaving Sutego on the roof; he didn't have to worry about the super-sized feline due to his own independence, along with the fact that he fed him earlier, so he was okay for the next few hours. "When was the last time you had a decent meal?"

"Too long," she says. "Too long."

To be continued…

A/N: I recently came into possession of some storage system of a different sort that has been around for some time for physical possessions, and I must say that I'm impressed that I was able to fit much of it into two of them in a way that does better than the previous storage system I used. And now, I need more of them to house other physical possessions that clutter my space. It may be another of my unspoken resolutions for this year, trying to tidy up my space, but who among us hasn't had one of those goals that weren't even thought of until after the year started? Anyway, what do you think of this chapter? Were you surprised that I had the kitten Shinji's lust claimed as her own grow up into such a big boy?