Creation began on 05-26-24

Creation ended on 06-18-24

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Infinity Redemption: Protecting People

As Shado fell to sleep, Shinji smiles as she reminds him why he wanted to use the Infinity Stones to create a new world for them to live on, away from the rest of the Ikaris and anyone that thought they knew better than he did when it came to wanting to raise his child.

"How is she?" He hears Rumiko say to him, and he looks over to her, seeing her son asleep in her arms.

"Sleeping," he answers her. "Toya?"

"The same. I'm embarrassed to say that I had forgotten how good it feels to hold Toya in my arms when he's asleep. I don't care what anyone thinks about me being a mother. I wouldn't give up my son for a regular life without him, even if it was what everyone else believed I needed. I cherish the life I have with Toya, with you and Shado. We don't get to have a regular life that other people think we should have without our kids. Our lives are…anything but regular."

"I haven't had a regular life since I understood what it even meant to have one, Rumiko. Regular, ordinary, normal, those kinds of lives…weren't really there for me to have. But what I have with you, Shado and Toya…is what I'm willing to do all that I can to protect."

Shinji then stands up and steps out of the small room he shared with Shado.

"If I go now, I should be back in a few minutes," he tells Rumiko.

"Wait, Shinji," she stops him. "I know you think you can do this next part on your own, but…you don't have to."

"It's just a quick in and out of NERV HQ."

"Even so…I don't want you going it alone. You and I together will be more effective than just you on your own."

She goes over to the room she shared with her son and comes back without him in her arms.

"Like what we did with the previous Angel, I put a pause on the world…and you take the threat away from it," she says to him as she comes over to take hold of his left hand. "That way, nobody is the wiser to what we do and why…except the people that tried to profit off of people's suffering in an unforgiving manner."

She, of course, meant people like his parents and the people they worked for, and Shinji sighs and nods in agreement with her.

"The sooner we do this, the sooner we can feel safer," he expresses, opening a rift through space. "Let's go do this."

-x-

No matter how many times he looked at the clip, Gendo couldn't say for certain how the Fourth Angel disappeared without it sounding ridiculous. While he did suspect that it was because of his son, it didn't explain how the Angel disappeared in less than five seconds…unless, of course, Shinji was likely looking for the other Infinity Stones and making use of them. But Gendo didn't believe the Third Child was the type to look for power unless he wanted something he couldn't have by other means, not unless he was pushed to the brink of desperation and began acting out. Still, it seemed unlikely that Shinji would try to be a hero to anyone; anyone that did something as extreme as disposing of a threat to the world would expect to be compensated for their efforts, to receive small favors in return or something of immense benefit for themselves.

"Based solely on old records," went Ritsuko at one point when researching Shinji's past prior to coming to Tokyo-3, "this Rumiko Gaidoku girl was the only friend the Third Child had. They both grew up in the same neighborhood and had been subjected to similar mistreatment that led to their sexual abuse. In the girl's case, it was incest at the hands of her father and elder brother, resulting in the birth of her illegitimate son."

"If he went to see her, that could indicate that he still views her as a friend," went Fuyutsuki upon learning about the Gaidoku girl, "even after they were forced to part ways after their children were taken from them. Maybe there was something there that nobody else saw, which would explain why there were reports of a teenage girl with him when the orphan children were taken that night along with his daughter. He probably thought that she'd be interested in getting back her son, no matter which one of the two men in her family is her son's father."

It wouldn't be the first time any one person sought the aid of others, Gendo suspected that Shinji had searched for allies in looking for the stones. One of these stones alone would make a person almost untouchable, but if one wields all six…and whatever you want is yours for the taking. What could he want with the stones?

Suddenly, the alarms went off, breaking him from his train of thought in his office. He pressed a button on his desk and demanded a status report.

"What's happened?" He asks. "What is going on?"

"There's been some sort of break-in inside Terminal Dogma!" A man's voice yells.

Gendo gets up and vacates his office. Nearly five minutes later, he reaches Terminal Dogma and finds Ritsuko and Fuyutsuki standing in front of the primary door leading to a heavily restricted chamber, assessing the damage.

"How bad is it?" He asks them, and Fuyutsuki turns to face him.

"The locks weren't tampered with," he explains. "There's no log of recent access, either."

"Where was the break-in located?"

Ritsuko turns to face him and points to the door.

"Open it," he orders, and Ritsuko swipes her access card on the control panel, unlocking the door to the chamber.

They enter…and couldn't believe what they saw. Or rather, what they were not seeing.

"What in the name of…" Ritsuko utters, confused by what she was seeing inside the chamber.

Even Fuyutsuki was at a loss over how something like this was possible; because this section of Terminal Dogma was the most heavily restricted, access was next to impossible for the majority of NERV personnel, but someone got in here.

Lilith, the Seed of Life responsible for all life on the planet, from the most minute of microbes to the race of mankind itself, originally nailed to a red metal cross and serving as a source of LCL for their experiments and the Evangelions…was gone. Not even the cross remained, leaving only the large pool of LCL. Somehow, Lilith had been removed from the chamber…without anyone giving any indication of getting in or out.

"I want to know who got in here," Gendo demands, angry over this.

-x-

There was no way Shinji was going to risk anyone from Earth finding Lilith and exploiting her to get whatever it was they were after, so he and Rumiko dumped her on some planet far from the Milky Way, outside of what people understood as the known universe, someplace far and devoid of any stretch of civilization. A planet with a desert terrain or tundra, where Lilith could be out in the open…but inaccessible…for however long an eternity could be had. In less than three seconds, this was the fate Lilith was dealt by Shinji and Rumiko.

Sitting in a park in Tokyo-3 where there were no cameras, the two teens were just taking in the scenery and processing the fact that they had done something that would warrant a lot of trouble for them if they were ever caught. While Rumiko didn't really care what the people that were likely members of the one percent group, Shinji, also not caring what they believed in, just worried about their children and allies if they were caught.

"That was…quite the experience, Shinji," Rumiko tells her friend. "How angry do you suppose your old man will be when he finds out that she's gone?"

"I think he'll be extremely upset that he won't be able to think straight," he replies. "Him, the people he works for, the people those people work for… I don't really know much about the people that control the world from behind the scenes."

"Some say those people are members of the one-percent group."

"Who are they?"

"They're the ones that nobody ever truly sees or knows about. They're the people that decide everyone's fates like it's a game, that are supposed to have access to things that nobody else among the common folk are oblivious to. The super-rich, super-influential, super-etc. But I'd say they're no different from other people because they're flawed like everyone else is. Their flaws are just…wanting everything when they already have everything."

"Well, they can have whatever they want, just as long as they don't decide they want what we're after. You can't put a price tag on the pursuit of happiness."

Rumiko suddenly hears a person walking from the left of the path in front of the bench they were on and became concerned; nobody was supposed to know they were here or what they were doing, and it needed to stay that way. She reaches for Shinji's head and pulls him into an embrace, just as a man came by and saw them.

"Ah, to be young and in love," he says as he walks his dog past the pair.

When he leaves, the teens look around and sigh in relief.

"Maybe we should go now," Shinji suggests.

"Yeah," Rumiko agrees.

Within three seconds, they were gone, and nobody was the wiser.

-x-

There was no way to determine who got inside Lilith's chamber due to the place being among the few sensitive areas to have no security cameras anywhere except outside in the halls. And because all the recorded footage showed nobody wandering around the halls before or during the time of the break-in, along with no trace of clues connecting to anyone using any other means of access, NERV was at a loss to how anyone could get in, take Lilith, cross and all, and get out completely undetected.

"It's not possible," Ritsuko expresses, but this was more so because it defied logic as well as physics. "You can't infiltrate the base, get inside Terminal Dogma and remove Lilith without causing a stir…and somehow, someone did. They knew where to look and how to get in."

"Does the MAGI say anything on how?" Fuyutsuki questions as they were in Gendo's office after the break-in was silenced.

"They have come with over twenty-two-thousand different possibilities, and that's including sabotage. But each one is just as unlikely as the next one and the one before it."

But Gendo already had a suspicion on who and how, just not the why yet. No, he probably knew the why, just not the why…on why they would do something like this.

-x-

The Space Stone simply translated Shinji's thought of a beach to walk by and transported the teen parents to a beach that was near a street, but was unlikely to have anyone to notice them, allowing them to walk down the sandy stretch in the dead of night.

"I…I really had fun tonight," Rumiko tells Shinji. "In a strange and unexpected way. Really."

"Yeah," he agrees with her. "I had fun, too. In a strange and unexpected way."

They stopped and looked out at the ocean.

"Say, do you think they'd be proud of us?" Rumiko asks him.

"Who?" He responds.

"Shado and Toya," she clarifies. "That we got rid of something that could have harmed a lot of people…just by putting it someplace else where nobody could get it."

"Yeah. Yes, yes, definitely proud of us."

"We're still terrible."

"Yeah, no doubt about that. But not that terrible."

"How are we not that terrible?"

"Because even after a year or so of not seeing each other, I still thought of you. Actually, you, Shado and Toya…were the only three I could ever think about. When I'm not wondering about the crap I don't really care for, I have to wonder if Shado is happy where she is, is she with someone that is at least trying to make a positive impression on her, if someone likes Toya, maybe took both of them into their home and they treat each other like siblings, how you're living each and every day away from your mother and everyone. Actually, before I realized I had the Space Stone and wanting to go anywhere was within possibility, all I really did do was think about where I wanted to…but I was never really going anywhere. What does that say about me?"

"Timidity? Loneliness? People pleaser? What about me? Naïve, easily taken advantage of, angry, easily frustrated, runaway, did things I'm not proud of to survive on my own. Practically went from simple girl to mediocre whore after my mother had those people take away my son away."

"Even so, that doesn't stop me from thinking about you. I still would've come to see you that day. And I still need a friend. I still need…someone I consider to be the only friend I know I have in a world where nothing makes sense because of the people that run it, that keep things quiet in it…and want to rework it the way they want."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Yeah, they might've been terrible when it came to how they really felt about each other, but they did care about each other to the point where it didn't matter what others thought. But it hurt because neither one of them said what needed to be said. Not even Rumiko, even with the power to manipulate time, could see into the future where these two would say those words they wanted to hear. They were childhood friends, best friends, two people that experienced similar trauma at the hands of adults or people older than they were. But they wanted to be more than just those.

Rumiko wouldn't mind hearing Shinji say it first; she just wishes he would find the courage to just do so…so she could say it back to him.

Just say it, Shinji, she thinks as she smiles.

Why is it so hard to say three simple words? Shinji wonders.

You two have experienced hurt from people that use the dark side of your need for genuine love and affection to the cruelest of extremes, the Space Singularity explains to him.

He wants to say it to you, the temporal consciousness of the Time Stone informs Rumiko, but it is difficult for him to do so due to nobody really telling him that they felt such affection towards him…and actually meaning it.

You mean…just hearing someone say so…but not actually meaning so…hinders him?

You humans are not the first race to learn of these unseeable forces and concepts that you refer to as love, friendship, compassion, commitment, acceptance or something else of the sort. For you, these forces that drive you are referred to as emotions, what you claim to come from your heart or soul. Others from across time refer to them as merely words with a connection between them and the people they wish to connect with. And you two are desperate to seek a connection to one another. How far are you willing to go to achieve such a connection?

I… Not far enough to hurt him…or be hurt by others because of him. But I…I really do care about him. I…I want to be with him, to let him know that he matters to me.

It shouldn't make it so difficult to say, Shinji replies to his stone. Why does it, though?

Because the one person that told you such for the last time…only said so…but meant it very little. The loss of your relationship with your parents has left you stunted and hungering for bonds that actually encourage you to move forward. However, this one you have with this girl…and the ones you have with your two children…do motivate you to move forward.

Rumiko, Shado and Toya…are the only good people in my life. They are…the closest thing that I have to a family.

But they are not what some would consider a surrogate structure of sorts; you don't view them as a replacement to what you used to have.

Back then, family just meant my parents…before I knew what monsters they were. My aunt and uncle and their kid, I never saw them as family, just people that I had to live with because that man saw me as a waste of his time after that woman left to be a ghost in the machine. Rumiko has been my best friend since I met her. Shado has been the light in my soul ever since I found out she is my daughter. And Toya…looks more like Rumiko than her father and brother, always friendly and caring. When I see the four of us together somewhere, I see us happy and smiling. Would it be wrong for me to think that that's my interpretation of a happy ending for those of us that have suffered at the hands and intentions of others that hurt us?

Honestly, Shinji…

But if you're willing to seek a connection with him, you may have to endure some degree of pain, the Time Stone tells Rumiko, and he doesn't wish to hurt you like your father, your brother and your mother have hurt you in the past…or ever harm you. He wants to say what he thinks is impossible for him to say to someone like you. Deep down, he has always wanted to. His desire to move past the boundaries that keep you apart is something he is not willing to cast aside and be subjected to the cruelty and criticism of those that will never understand him the way you want to understand him…and in many ways…already do.

Then…are we both too scarred, emotionally damaged and afraid to be open towards each other because of what other people did to us as children? Rumiko asks. I don't want for both of us to be that way. I want us to get past this agony and be better off.

Then…either he makes the first move and shows you that he's serious…or you do and show him that you are serious about your relationship status. But which one will make the first move?

Your longing for love and happiness is every interpretation of any fantasy where those like you four are together that is anything but wrong, the Space Stone says to Shinji.

"Shinji, I…" Rumiko utters to Shinji.

"Rumiko, I…" Shinji speaks up to Rumiko, surprising both teens. "You go first."

"No, you go first."

"Rumiko, I… I honestly don't know if I'll ever be good enough for someone like you… But I know that what I feel towards you is unwavering and more than the words 'I like you' that I have said to you before years ago. So…Rumiko Gaidoku…I love you. There, I said it. I said it. I love you, Rumiko Gaidoku."

He had finally spoken the words that were difficult for him to speak because those that said it once before didn't mean it as much, and those that used love and affection as a form of torture to scar them, and unlike those people, he meant every word of it to this girl in front of him. He meant how he felt…because it was how he felt about her ever since she went away to get away from her deteriorating family home…and met her again after his wretched reunion with his father in Tokyo-3. Even if it meant being hurt again, he needed Rumiko to know that he was in this for the long haul.

Rumiko, probably because of hearing her friend say what he said to her, reaches up to his head and kisses him on his lips.

"Hmmm!" She goes as she lets go of his head and holds him by his shoulders.

Shinji, having this being the first time he has ever been kissed before, and by someone that he was serious about, reacted the way a person was supposed to react, raising his hands up…and placing them on her shoulders…and kissing her back. Despite his own belief that he was a terrible kisser, he did enjoy the fact that it was Rumiko who kissed first. When Rumiko broke off the kiss, Shinji had to have believed that he died and moved on, because he had never seen his friend as happy as she had been since the night they went to take back their kids.

"Wow," Rumiko expresses as she wipes away her tears.

"Yeah," he agrees with her.

They then hug one another and just let their feelings be shared about how they were right in the moment, knowing that they were in this for the long haul of their relationship.

"I love you, too, Shinji," Rumiko tells him. "I think I've loved you since the day I met you all those years ago. I just didn't realize how much I did."

-x-

Once SEELE learned that Lilith was gone, NERV would be met with more loss of control over anything and everything the paramilitary agency had been tasked with doing to defend the human race. And this would screw Gendo over in more ways than one can imagine. They would demand an explanation that was credible and within believability, and if NERV failed to come up with one, everyone would face the fallout. The possibilities would include being fired and executed due to upsetting various people that were not pleased with losing key resources to achieve a grand design.

But Gendo had to suspect that it was Shinji that was responsible for the disposal of Lilith, except he couldn't prove that it was his son without sounding like a lunatic. As far as he was willing to wager, nobody of the majority knew a thing about the Infinity Stones or their powers. This meant that SEELE, because of the drive to achieve Human Instrumentality, knew nothing about the stones and what they could do if brought together with a single goal…and even if he did tell them, they were unlikely to believe it without evidence of their existence and the guarantee that they were within their reach.

"The MAGI have no definitive conclusion to the break-in and disappearance of Lilith," Ritsuko informs Gendo in his office, eight hours after the discovery of Lilith's disappearance. "It had to be someone with the means to access the security systems; there's nobody else that could've gotten in without leaving a trail, no matter how minute. Unless it wasn't a person."

"Are you suggesting that it was an Angel that got in, Dr. Akagi?" Fuyutsuki, who was also present in the office, questions. "No blue pattern was detected, making it unlikely."

"We know who it was," went Gendo. "It was the Third Child."

"What makes you think it was him?" Fuyutsuki asks. "Why would he do something like this? He doesn't even know what's going on."

"He wants to be in control, to have the last say in anything."

"Except that he's in hiding and we have no clue as to his whereabouts," Ritsuko reminds him, "unless, of course, you know something we don't, sir."

"One of the people that ran the orphanage his child was sent to a year ago revealed the existence of six objects that could allow any one person to manipulate a part of the universe…and that the Third Child had in his possession one of them."

"And you believe this man that is in the hospital?" Fuyutsuki questions.

"He had in his possession another one of the six objects…and lost it to the boy. Infinity Stones."

"Stones?"

Gendo, for the next three minutes, revealed to these two what he had learned about the stones from the man that once held the Power Stone, of how it was possible that Shinji held the Space Stone, enabling him to go anywhere he wanted. Even though it made him sound crazy, these two were among the few people that dealt with the fact that the world was crazy.

"If the man that ran the orphanage had a stone that allowed him to…potentially take over the planet if he wanted to, why didn't he just use it to do so?" Ritsuko questions.

"He probably didn't have a drive to control the world," Fuyutsuki suggests. "A stone that is most destructive and harmful to organic beings makes for an effective personal weapon. If you want someone to disappear forever, simply touch them with the stone…and they're disposed of. But even if you possessed a stone that could take you anywhere, where would you go?"

"He won't go far," Gendo states about his son. "What are the odds that any other planet can even sustain human life?"

"Human beings can only live on this Earth," Yui's words echoed in Fuyutsuki's mind.

"The odds are statistically uncertain," Ritsuko claims; the chances of other worlds that could sustain human life would be worlds of immense value to people of wealth and influence that wanted these worlds for themselves, leaving the poor and unworthy to suffer on a world that was dying. "There is a vastness of space that we don't have mapped out, meaning there are countless worlds out there that could sustain human life. A stone with the power to relocate people to wherever you wanted to go within the universe would be…invaluable. And the person that holds that power would be invaluable. But why think your son wouldn't go far?"

"If he's looking for all six of them, he would need a place to lay low, to plan or exploit its resources for his own purposes," Gendo theorizes. "Where else in the universe could he do so without being caught?"

"This is still conjecture," Fuyutsuki states; until they had definite proof to any of this, it was just an argumentative speculation, nothing more. "And who's to say that Shinji is even interested in finding all of these…Infinity Stones? What could he possibly want with them? What could he possibly do with them?"

"With unlimited power over the universe?" Ritsuko claims. "Anything he wanted to do."

But Fuyutsuki didn't believe Shinji to be that kind of person, even if such were possible. Him going to take back his daughter from some abusive people? Yes, he believed Shinji to be capable of such. But wanting to obtain six stones that granted power over one of six different aspects of the universe? He didn't find Shinji interested in such because of one simple reason: Shinji didn't seem like the type to want power or control over anything or anyone except his own life, which he didn't have much control over at all.

To Fuyutsuki, some people desired money or power, a means to an end. But with Shinji, the boy seemed to have only simplistic desires that any sane person could have. It made absolutely no sense to want power if it didn't make him happy. But to someone like Gendo, on the other hand, it made perfect sense why he would want these stones, and it terrified him.

It terrified Ritsuko, as well when she thought of it. Any man like Gendo would do anything to possess such power and if he ever had it, it would be doomsday for the rest of the world.

-x-

It wasn't a home movie, but with the Time and Space Stones, it was something Rumiko and Shinji were able to enjoy as they sat on the sand in front of the waves. They were watching their childhood memories play out in front of them, mostly when they were together, just at the park or atop the roof of their old school or just letting Shado and Toya play together. It was simple reminiscing without the criticism of others that knew nothing about them.

"I used to enjoy doing handstands," Rumiko says as they watched her do one in a past memory.

"Before or after they decided to put hands on you the wrong way?" Shinji asks as the scene shifted to one of the happier dinner times of the Gaidoku household, seeing Rumiko sitting beside her brother and her father passing a bowl over to her.

"Before."

Unlike with Rumiko's family home, the house of Shinji's aunt and uncle was anything but homey, as it seemed the former guardians and their son were anything but caring or understanding to someone that lost his parents, both metaphorically and literally, not just emotionally. And worse was how the aunt up and said that she wouldn't have cared if Shinji got sick and died. To Rumiko, that was the worst thing anyone could say about a child or even to a child. If her son got sick and died, she'd be devastated. The same would be true for Shinji if Shado got sick and died, crushing him.

"I really hate your aunt and uncle, Shinji," she tells him.

"Yeah," he agrees with her. "I hate them, too, and 'hate' is a strong word I know too well. I never want to see them again."

"And we'll never have to see them again. Any of them. Never, ever."

In front of them on the display that floated in the air, their stones showed the memory of their reunion after Shinji decided to leave Tokyo-3 and see Rumiko.

"Say, why were you living in that neighborhood, anyway?" Shinji asks.

"It was cheap," she answers. "Call girls and hookers don't get paid well."

"One requirement for a dream goal is a good place to call home."

"Yes. I don't need a mansion or wealth, just a safe place to live with the people I love."

"Mm-hmm."

-x-

As much as Fuyutsuki thought about it, the idea of Shinji being the reason Lilith had been removed from Terminal Dogma, while questionable, was just ridiculous because there was no definite proof of his involvement. Without concrete evidence pointing to the boy, it was just a case of impossible actions by unknown individuals that may or may not have been involved in something as big and extreme as this incident. And even if it were so, the question would still be why Shinji would have anything to do with this. Why would Shinji get rid of Lilith?

It's not like we can just ask him to tell us what motivated him to do so, he thought as he walks towards his office. He has no way to get in touch with anyone that might want to talk to him. No phone, no computer, no address that he's comfortable with meeting people at. If he's trying to survive off the grid, he's probably going to extremes in order to stay hidden.

It was one thing for Shinji to disappear after the Third Angel attack and not return to his aunt and uncle's home (even if he had been told not go back there), but another for Shinji to have committed such acts that would make him a wanted man if the authorities ever found him, such as kidnapping his illegitimate daughter with a bunch of other children that were being mistreated, possibly with his childhood friend who was the mother of the other children living there, causing major damage to the facility that housed the children and personnel that worked there, nearly killing a man that admitted to abusing his authority, and not justifying his conduct to anyone.

Gendo, likely hoping to pin the blame on his son when it was really the responsibility of the head of NERV that was responsible for everything, no matter who actually committed something, and Shinji was not informed about anything beyond facing the Third Angel, which he did before leaving the city. There was no way SEELE would just believe him on a whim and not waste their time with a teenage boy that wanted nothing to do with the paramilitary group, even if they were to learn of these Infinity Stones.

"Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki!" He hears his name being called by Captain Katsuragi, and he turns around to see her coming towards him. "Why are the personnel being ordered not to leave the base?"

"There was an incident earlier, and it's got Commander Ikari on edge," he tells her.

"What incident?"

"He…he believes that someone stole his lunch, and he wants the one responsible."

"That's ridiculous. Who would want his lunch? As far as I know, he doesn't even eat around here. And the cafeteria food here is not even that good."

Fuyutsuki wasn't going to deny her this truth; the food from the NERV cafeteria was just bland, devoid of any actual taste and flavor. But his lie was anything but convincing. Only Gendo, himself and Ritsuko knew why the base was on lockdown. This was simply Gendo's attempt to try and stay in control over a situation that he may have never had any control over to begin with in the first place. At least, not after Shinji up and left.

Clang-clang-clang! The alarms went off, indicating that a new Angel was approaching the city.

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me!" Misato groans.

-x-

Shinji and Rumiko's stones gave off that blinking light again, informing them of danger.

"What is it?" Shinji wonders; he thought that once Lilith was disposed of by them, that the remaining Angels would cease their raids on the nation of Japan in an attempt to find her and cause the end of the human race.

Rumiko searches throughout when…and sighs at what she sees.

"Any idea why a giant, bluish octahedron would be going to Tokyo-3?" She asks Shinji.

"I'm guessing this Angel was already en route before we removed Lilith," he suspects.

"Well, we can't let our allies in Tokyo-3 get hurt because we didn't anticipate a monster that didn't get the message that someone else they were looking for was recently relocated elsewhere, can we?"

"No, we can't."

The two got up and Shinji opened a rift in space to Tokyo-3.

"The same method as before?" Shinji suggests.

"Yeah," Rumiko says with a smile. "It's a simple plan of action. Simple works better."

"Yeah. Yeah, it does."

But before they go through the rift, Shinji looks at Rumiko and gives her a small smile.

"What?" She asks him.

"I love you," he answers her.

Touched by his choice of words of endearment, she replies, "I love you, too."

-x-

The sight of the Angel didn't give NERV any hope of finding a solution to beating it because they didn't have the Third Child to pilot the Eva a second time and the First Child was still in poor shape to help them.

"Alright, what do we have available to face the Fifth Angel?" Misato asks Maya.

"Nothing, captain," she responds.

Gendo, upset that this Angel was here and they were completely unprepared for it, was about to order that Rei be prepped to pilot Unit-01…when the Angel suddenly vanished on the screens.

"What?!" Some of the personnel gasp, not expecting this to happen a second time.

"Where's the Angel?" Misato demands.

"It just disappeared," Shigeru says.

"No trace of its blue pattern or AT-Field," Maya adds. "It's just like the Fourth Angel. They show up…and then they disappear before they can do anything."

Gendo was furious! It felt like someone out there was making NERV look like a joke! He knew it had to be Shinji. Somehow, someway, it had to be Shinji, and he was making them look bad!

-x-

Sitting atop a hill that overlooks the city, Shinji and Rumiko sigh in relief at the removal of the Fifth Angel before it could harm anyone.

"So, where did you send it to?" Rumiko asks Shinji.

"The path of a comet the size of the planet," he tells her.

"Dang. That's messed up."

"What, the Angel's fate or the fact that a comet exists that's the size of Earth?"

"The comet you found to send it to. It's not coming anywhere here, is it?"

"No. It's on the far side of the unknown universe, where most planets are just hydrogenated spheres and suns are comprised of bioluminescent goop. The comet's going to send the Angel right into such a sun. It's not going anywhere for a long time."

Just to be sure, Rumiko looked into the future of such a location where the comet exists, seeing the Angel getting struck by the comet and heading towards a sun that was a greenish-blue coloration, likely due to its bioluminescence, and saw the comet strike it, hearing only a sludgy sound. She watched as ten years passed…followed by ten more years…and twenty more. When a full century passed before her eyes, the goop sun continued to exist…and the Angel was unable to escape it, no matter what it did. Returning to the present beside her boyfriend, Rumiko smiles at him.

"You're right," she praises him. "It's not going anywhere. You did good."

"No, we did good. There's no 'I' in 'team'…or 'couple'."

"No, there isn't."

"Wow," they both hear a voice express behind them, and see Kensuke, Hikari and Toji standing several feet away. "You two are quite close."

"Kensuke," Shinji utters. "How long have you three been standing there?"

"We're not really here," Toji reveals, using his left hand to hold Hikari's right shoulder, only to see it pass through her limb. "Kensuke here is using his Mind Stone to astral project us into your eyes and ears to talk to you about that giant diamond that was seen just moments ago. You two got rid of it, didn't you?"

"Yes, we did," Rumiko replies. "Hopefully, you shouldn't have any more of these creatures coming here now."

"And," Hikari says, pointing to the couple, "Shinji said 'couple'. Are you two seeing each other now? I mean, like…seriously?"

Shinji and Rumiko look to one another before looking back to the trio.

"We're in love with each other," Rumiko says to the pigtailed girl. "You've seen my past with him before we parted ways a year ago. Shinji's been my best friend since we met years ago. There's nothing wrong with that…is there?"

"I got nothing against it," says Toji. "Your relationship status has nothing to do with us. Who are any of us to question or criticize it?"

"Class Rep here is something of a religious follower," Kensuke states.

"That's not true," Hikari defends.

"You believe that those who sin are doomed to suffer for their actions or something of the sort."

"I believe that those who live in sin are doomed to suffer for their misdeeds."

"Well, we don't live together yet," Rumiko says, which was technically true; she and Shinji were on the run, hiding with their children and several other children in a church operated by the Sisterhood of the Soul and the dying children they looked after. "Who has it all together to live together with someone they love?"

"Apparently, nobody yet," Toji answers her, "except those older, smarter and possessing more freedom than we do and allowed the grace of having made more than a fair number of mistakes."

"Lately, some adults across the country are getting married before they turn thirty," Kensuke informs them.

"Huh?!" Shinji reacts.

"It's mainly because some of them feel like the world is coming to an end, and in a way, they're right about it. The whole world does feel like it's coming to an end because of Second Impact."

"We've heard the same story about the aftermath, but we know the true story," Rumiko reminds them, "and it doesn't have to be that way, anymore. We still want a world separate from this one, but we can heal this world, too."

"We can?" Toji asks.

"Yes. We have the stones. Anything is possible if we work together. Infinity means nothing is impossible to those that work in tandem to achieve something greater than themselves. We can do anything that those in power can't do, even if they tried to. We can turn back the hands of time on the environmental devastation, return the animal and plant life that was taken, heal the sick and dying. Shinji and I just disposed of a being that was going to be used later in the future to make the world worse than it is now, and the people that possessed it are now royally screwed over. We made their goal of becoming incarnate gods that can never die impossible to achieve. If we do things right, we can prevent the world from coming to an end. For good."

-x-

Shado and Toya awoke to the new day inside the church and stepped out into the hall.

"Good morning," Shado tells Toya, who was scratching his stomach.

"Good morning," he replies, still half-asleep.

"Morning, you sleepyheads," they hear Shinji's voice as they turn to the left (Toya's left) in the hall, seeing their parents walking over to them. "Sleep well?"

"Nope," went Toya as Rumiko picked him up.

"Oh, why not?" She asks her son.

"I had a bad dream about the man with the ring that ran the place Shado and I used to live. He was awful and going to hurt us again."

"It's okay, baby," Rumiko tells him, hugging him. "He can't hurt anyone, anymore."

"Uh, I saw a purple monster," Shado informs her father.

"Last night?" He asks her, and she nods.

"It was with those other people we used to live with before they took me away from you. It was saying mean things about you."

"Did it…look like an oni, with a horn and everything?"

"Mm-hmm!"

Shinji didn't say it, but he suspected that Shado had a dream about a creature resembling Unit-01, his mother's synthetic tomb that she condemned herself to.

"What sort of mean things was it saying about me?" He asks Shado.

"Very mean things, like how I'm not supposed to be with you, that you were happier without me in your life."

"Oh, now, that's not true at all. I'm happier with you in my life than most people think. Anyone that says I'm not happy with you doesn't know me at all. I felt miserable each day when those people decided to take you away from me. And when Rumiko and I found you and Toya that night, my one thought was that I hope you still remember me."

"You're not someone I want to forget, Daddy."

Then, Shado kissed her father on his right cheek, earning a smile from him.

To be continued…

A/N: This chapter felt overdue because of everything else interfering with my life. I finally got Shinji and Rumiko to confess their feelings toward one another, another Angel is removed from the situation, along with the removal of Lilith, ensuring that Human Instrumentality can never be achieved, and Gendo is among those that won't get what they want in the end. Even if Gendo tells SEELE what he knows about the Infinity Stones, they can't do anything about acquiring them for their own purposes; they have no information to follow that will lead them to any of them, and they can't find Shinji or anyone else in possession of the stones if they have no clue where to look for them. How much longer do you suspect this will go on before it concludes?