Creation began on 02-05-24

Creation ended on 05-02-24

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Potential Paradise: Hell on Earth, Heaven in Space

The distribution of sensitive information by Shinji across the planet to those still on Earth had turned what remained of society into a chaotic smelting pot of disorder with every action meant to contain the unrest only making things worse because everyone that knew the truth and everyone involved in the causing of and profiting off of Second Impact on opposite ends of the global battlefield. Even those that were on the same side had turned on one another, either wanting justice to be served or for injustice to reign. In every country across the planet, there was unrest, and in every city, there was a shortage of law and order, but very few civilians were at risk due to the majority of the population having relocated to the space station that could be seen from the sky, day and night, due to its colossal size. But the chaos in most of these cities was short-lived due to the information distributed containing the addresses of the people directly responsible for the Second Impact and subsequent aftermath events, including trying to trigger a Third Impact meant to eradicate what remained of the human race, so those that chose to look for the responsible parties were constantly on the move, as the ones being hunted were trying to hide from the would-be hounds of justice.

"Two weeks of this madness," went Misato as she and Pen-Pen were on the road heading towards a safer location after Tokyo-3 had been abandoned by the majority of NERV.

She had attempted to send Asuka back to Germany for her own safety, but then had to reconsider due to learning that a lot of people of that country were among the listed men and women that had been trying to profit off the small wars that began shortly after Second Impact, fighting for land and resources. With Asuka's father and stepmother, being listed among the lesser individuals, rumors of an affair that led to her mother's suicide, whispers of child endangerment and so made sending the redhead home unlikely until things settled down. While she didn't really blame Shinji for this, as he only found the intel and released it to the world, she wished she could scream at him for doing something so reckless and dangerous, just to keep his father and other people from doing something else that was reckless and dangerous. And now the United States Military was working in tandem with the Japanese Strategic Self-Defense Forces to occupy the Geo-Front and keep it clear of unnecessary personnel or spies after learning of Lilith and the danger she posed to anyone that possessed Adam and tried to merge them together to create their own version of Third Impact, the unrest in the world seemed to be lessening to some degree, but the people directly responsible for Second Impact still needed to be apprehended and made to pay for their mistakes.

-x-

Kozo Fuyutsuki didn't get far from the federal agents that came looking for him. Not that he tried to run to begin with; if he was to be taken out, then that was to be his fate for being involved with NERV and GEHIRN. But, as it turned out, the only reason he was put in federal custody was due to what was known about him; the information Shinji had released confirmed that the former sub-commander was threatened with being erased by SEELE if he tried to go public with the information he had found regarding Second Impact, and his involvement with NERV and GEHIRN was involuntary due to self-preservation, as he had nothing to gain from the Human Instrumentality Project being carried out. This, along with his cooperation in bringing Gendo Ikari to justice, was a good thing. It was as Shinji himself understood it, the price of knowledge is the pain of realization.

"That kid that inherited that massive space station," went a male agent to Fuyutsuki in an interview room, "really knew how to stoke a fire under everyone's ass when he released all that data. Nearly everyone's family that was in witness protection relocated to the space station for their better life up there. I could've gone up there, too, but I couldn't leave the backlog of perps still on Earth to go unattended. The world is a crappy place as it is because of the crime, and we're still trying to clean up the streets. At lease now, maybe the planet has a chance to recover with fewer people to worry about getting hurt."

"We didn't know anything about him inheriting a space station from a dead relative that left it to him," Fuyutsuki tells the guy. "Not until the people that brought it here explained that it was left to him."

"Like a sci-fi film or series, except it's all real. How does it really affect someone like him, to learn that he was left something as big as the planet? That it was his own world away from the life he once lived?"

"If it were him? He'd be relieved; if he has lived the last of his childhood with nobody giving him the time of day, seeing him either as a waste of space or as some resource, and then he receives something that changes his life whenever he desires so, he can just up and leave, and he left when his father wanted him to hand over his space station. Ikari just wanted to take from his son what someone else gave him. This is honestly the first time I ever heard of anyone leaving Shinji anything of any significance."

"You're saying nobody before this Senkensha Ikari person was heard of left him anything. Not even his mother, who was the head of the program that made these Evangelions, left him anything when she died? No last will, nothing?"

Fuyutsuki thought about it, tried to think of any conversation about the repercussions, but stated that he wasn't that close to Yui to know what she likely did before that uneventful day. Whoever this Senkensha Ikari was in life, up to her death, she was the only one on the record to leave anything to Shinji, and this was long before Shinji's grandparents were even around. The woman practically gave her descendant the keys to her salvaged kingdom, and he was free to do whatever he wanted with it.

Knock-knock! A knock on the door came, and another federal agent stepped inside.

"Gendo Ikari," he utters to them, "we just picked him up trying to cross the border into Canada when a woman recognized his face from the alert posts everywhere."

"Looks like your hunch about where Ikari was going was right, Mr. Fuyutsuki," the first agent says to the former NERV affiliate.

-x-

Shinji didn't deny that he was weak in his upper body muscles, but he had plenty of time to work on that. For now, he was really enjoying the morning jogs he and Rei were doing; since distributing all that sensitive information to the people on Earth, he did whatever he could to take his mind off whatever it was going on on the planet. Well, whatever that was normal for someone his age, that people his age did when they had time to do many things. Learning to swim again, jogging, watching archived documentaries, continuing his education (even the teachers that relocated up to the space station still had their careers and there were still kids to teach), and just exploring his space station that still had plenty of space to wander around due to it being bigger than any other planet in the system. It practically made living on the space station seem like a working vacation; he could train his body and brain while relaxing and taking his mind off of things that were troubling.

Running through a park with her, Shinji passed by the group of elders doing their tai chi routine and smiled. He saw parents playing with their children, dogs running around or being walked by androids, young couples sitting on benches looking up (or down) at the planet. It felt like people were genuinely happy around him, which made him happy.

"How are you feeling, Shinji?" Rei asks him when they stop to catch their breath.

"Like I can breathe again," he answers her.

-x-

Gendo hated this! Seriously, he hated this! Locked in a room and chained to a table! It couldn't get any worse for him after it was learned that he was out to do something immoral and completely unethical in every sense of the word. Excluding an execution, it couldn't get any worse for him!

The door opened and a man came inside the room and sat across the table from Gendo. He opened a folder and then dropped it on the table.

"Attempted genocide," he says, "misuse of government funds and resources, illegal weapons production, unethical conductivity, exploitation and endangerment of minors, illegal genetic engineering…and a boatload of other crimes that add up to a big sentence for a large number of bad guys…or a lethal injection for everyone involved in this criminal enterprise, including yourself, Gendo Ikari. All that intel your son distributed put a lot of dangerous and scary people on the most wanted list. But this Human Instrumentality Project that you were working on for this SEELE group… I wonder how much of any of these crimes correlate to why your son made what was likely the best decision of his life to get out of Dodge and get a lot of people off the planet that were the most likely to stay out of trouble and not invite danger. He clearly found out some things that can make one question everything that they thought they knew about…or was manipulated into believing was the truth. Honestly, I think this piece of information about his mother is probably what drove him to sell you out to the authorities."

"What does he even know?"

"Certainly, he knew more than enough that he doesn't need to worry himself over these people he exposed trying to come after him. Hell, we don't even need him to testify against you. You have two choices right now: Life without parole…or lethal injection. What is your choice?"

Gendo frowned at hearing this. If only he knew that Fuyutsuki was observing him from behind a one-way mirror, surprised to have found out that, because of the information Shinji released to the world, Gendo and the members of SEELE were going to receive life sentences or the death penalty for their crimes; he'd be lucky just to get ten years of probation for his own involvement with NERV.

"He seems like he really hates his kid for revealing all of his secrets to the world," a female federal agent says to Fuyutsuki beside him. "I mean, really, really hates him. I've seen people that exploit their kids for many reasons, most of which are just cruel and unusual, but this guy just…hates his own kid for some reason other than for ditching him to his fate."

"For a long time, I kept wondering why he wouldn't just tell Shinji the truth about why he wanted him in Tokyo-3. It wasn't like the truth was going to change anything that happened between them, but maybe knowing why would convince Shinji to at least try to make sense of what was going on before he left."

Ping. The agent took out her phone and found a text that was addressed to Fuyutsuki…from Shinji, surprising the elder.

"Anyone that knew the truth long before I did could've told me before I ever learned from that man why he wanted me there to begin with," the text read. "But the mere fact that those that did know…and chose not to tell me…just means that those who knew are just as capable of withholding secrets and not doing anything about them, even when they know the people involved are capable of harming others the same way they want to harm the so-called monsters that they claimed wanted to destroy the human race, only because they had hidden agendas like any other person that wants to profit off of something dangerous."

"Damn," the agent says, "that's heavy to hear."

Fuyutsuki sighs and nods in agreement; he knew the truth…and was reminded of the error that he could've told Shinji himself if Gendo didn't tell him…and he didn't.

Ping. Another text on her phone appeared.

"But I still hope you get a lesser sentence, Mr. Fuyutsuki," it read.

Thank you, Shinji, he thought.

-x-

"…In other reports, Gendo Ikari was apprehended outside the Canadian border and remanded to the custody of the US government," an anchorman informs the public on the news. "He, along with select members of the SEELE organization, will await sentencing within the next three days, facing either life without parole or the death sentence."

In a seedy motel room, Kaji watched the news and couldn't believe that Gendo had been apprehended. However, the disorder that Shinji caused by the release of all that information didn't make things easier for the people that still had to deal with the chaos that it unleashed. At least, not right now. Things had to get worse before they started to get better, and there were still some culprits on the global list of criminals that were revealed to the public responsible for Second Impact and its years of aftermath devastation that, in the minds of several millions of people, could've been avoided altogether if nobody chose to mess with things they had no right to mess with. But for Kaji, he wonders just how much more had to happen before things started to go back to normal.

Ring-ring! His phone rang and he picked up.

"Kaji," he utters.

"It's Katsuragi," the caller replies. "Have you heard on the news?"

"Yeah, Gendo's been apprehended, along with several members of the Committee. At least half of them are pointing the finger at each other and the rest are pointing the finger at Gendo. Asuka's father and stepmother were tried this afternoon for their crimes and they're looking at six years for their crimes. How's Asuka taking this all?"

"Asuka is… I guess there's no way to really sugarcoat how she's taking this all. Not exactly how she wanted the world to know who she is. It's not like Shinji aimed to do something to humiliate her; he just wanted to take his father down, along with the people he worked for or with, making himself a target in the process, but he's untouchable."

"Even if he wasn't, the authorities wouldn't be able to charge him with anything; all he did was expose some really dangerous people that did some really dangerous things to a lot of people around the world."

"But he's going down in history as the boy that took down the men that controlled the world from behind the scenes."

"Some people will probably praise him while others will want to condemn him."

"It's Hell on Earth right now, so it's not really a good time to even try and chat with him to come back down and talk."

However, Misato doubt that Shinji would come down to Earth for any degree of conversation after what he did to upset things for his father and the people he worked with and for. The safest place for him right now was his space station that made the planet look like a marble in comparison to a large wrecking ball. Or rather, a dozen or so wrecking balls. Yeah, she doubts that he'd come back with a target on his back, meaning he'll stay put in the one place that he couldn't be harmed, out of anyone's reach.

Hell on Earth, but Heaven in space, she thinks as she hangs up on her ex.

Kaji ponders how to go about anything now that he was out of a job as a spy; Shinji had exposed everything that he could only dream of exposing SEELE and NERV for. Although justice was being served, he'd been robbed of the glory of doing so himself. Not that he would've done so the way Shinji did, which was impossible, even for him. But he did feel bad for Ritsuko, who was listed among the individuals within NERV for some things that were not within the moral ethics the paramilitary agency had violated, time and again.

I can't believe the police caught her trying to erase her history of employment at NERV, he thought as he had seen the news about how Ritsuko had been exposed for her involvement, not to mention her affair with Gendo, which made him suspect that Shinji had to wonder exactly what sort of people his parents were to simply violate their commitments to both himself and each other. These sort of things just mess people up when they find out what their parents do behind their backs.

-x-

It wasn't easy for people to not look up (or down) at the Earth due to the fact that it was right there for them to look at whenever they chose to, but every time they did, they were reminded of how beautiful it was from the angle they saw it from. From a different viewpoint, it felt like they were looking at the Earth from another version of Earth that was more…tranquil and at ease to live on. It was like something out of a dream, except that nobody was looking to wake up from it.

"Shinji?" Shinji hears Rei say to him, and he turns to face her.

"Yes?" He replies.

"Are you sure you're feeling fine?"

He looks back at the Earth and then back at the albino girl, smiling.

"I'm not completely over the fact that I pushed over a lot of dominoes that upset a lot of people…but I'm getting there," he tells her. "Let the chips fall where they may, right?"

They were in the park, watching several people do Tai Chi, aiming to join in.

"Many dominoes fell…and a lot of chips fell…and they're still falling wherever they will. However, even so…it's still beautiful to look at."

Rei was referring to the Earth.

"I do wish it could get better…but not right now," Shinji says. "One day…when things calm down in the future."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Just keeping optimistic for the planet later on."

-x-

Ritsuko considered herself to be a woman of logic, but when it came to Shinji doing what he did to cause NERV to be viewed as a monster instead of the last hope for mankind after defeating the last Angel to appear, she couldn't question the actions of a newly-independent teenage boy that had his own world to live on away from his father and other relatives that he left behind on Earth. No, she couldn't find logic in what this boy did, except to spite his father and a bunch of other people that were displeased with his behavior after inheriting a planetary space station and relocating himself and a lot of people in need to it. Especially when she was among those that he outed to the public for her involvement with Gendo…in every sense. It was one thing to feel a sense of betrayal, but another thing for someone else to feel a sense of deception…only to feel anger and hurt towards the people that lied to them about how deep their involvement with someone they either tried to understand or thought they knew.

He didn't even know about adultery until after he left, she thought as she sat in her holding cell as she awaited her sentencing. After he found out, it's only natural for him to feel disgust towards those that commit it.

"You might only get off with a few years because my mother is in no position to even question my father about his indiscretions," a text he had sent her read prior to the police apprehending her. "And while I'm sure there will always be those that commit these sorts of acts behind the backs of others, I am disgusted that you and your mother enabled that madman to commit such acts. It's deplorable, agonizing…and not to mention sickening. What did you see in someone like him, anyway? What did someone like you see in someone like him?"

There had been no denying that Shinji, even from a distance, was upset upon finding out that his father had two affairs with two women from the same family that wasn't his wife, but Ritsuko wasn't sure as to which one of them Shinji was upset with more. Was he upset with his father for disgracing his commitment to his mother, his mother for letting her work literally consume her, her mother and herself for having an affair with his father…or all of the above? She guessed that she would have to live with that question being unanswered. If anything, she had to assume that he was disgusted with all of them for their behavior…and was justifiably so, too.

Clang! The door to her cell opened up and a guard came inside.

"It's time for your sentencing, Ms. Akagi," he informs her.

To be continued…

A/N: Yeah, a lot of characters left on the planet were upset with the turn of events, but it was only a matter of time before they were exposed by someone with the means and the drive to put an end to their agendas, and not many people were on the payroll of those that rule from behind the scenes. And as for what Shinji said, let's just say that he inherited other things from the one that left him more than his parents ever thought to, and he has yet to exploit them for his own reasons that are benevolent. But that's for another chapter in the future. Until next time, readers.