Infinity Redemption

by Traitor of All Traitors

Imagine a world where you are in possession of a power unlike anything you could ever dream possible, and that there are five others you could gain. The power to make the impossible possible and turn despair into hope. Enter Shinji Ikari, who receives the Space Stone from his mother, and must choose for himself whether or not to go after the other stones to obtain hope for all.

12. Moving Ahead

Creation began on 06-19-24

Creation ended on 07-02-24

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Infinity Redemption: Moving Ahead

SEELE demanded an explanation to what was going on with NERV! Not one, but two Angels appear on the way to Tokyo-3, Japan…and both just disappear before they could do anything with no explanation to their disappearance. Not only that, but when they discovered that Lilith was missing from Terminal Dogma, their trust in Gendo was beginning to deteriorate further after he went on to explain that he believed his own son to be responsible for her disappearance due to being in possession of one of the Infinity Stones.

"Infinity Stones?" SEELE 01 questions. "We're dealing with serious issues, and your excuse for Lilith's disappearance, as well as the disappearance of the two Angels…is your estranged son being in possession of some rock with powers?"

"He has one of six stones with power over the universe," Gendo informs the council during the meeting. "He's likely looking for all of them to do whatever it is that he aims to do. It had to be him that caused the Angels to disappear and he that disposed of Lilith."

"Even if it were so," SEELE 08 says, "why would the Third Child do any of these things? How would he have any knowledge of these things? According to his NERV profile, he has been ignorant of NERV since the day you left him, shortly after your wife passed. This would indicate that he knows virtually nothing about the agency…at least until the day you had him arrive to face the Third Angel, the only Angel that he ever faced before he decided to leave the following day. The chances of him being capable of such extremes are astronomically small."

"Except he would be capable if he had his own agenda."

"So saith you, Ikari," says SEELE 11, "but you can't confirm for sure if it was your son that did this, even if you could confirm that he was responsible for the destruction of an overlooked orphanage that once housed his illegitimate child that he went to in order to reclaim."

"He was in possession of one of the stones during that time."

"Which you had no knowledge of prior to his arrival to Tokyo-3. Do you deny this?"

"No."

"And there's no record of him having ever used it once in his past, is there?"

"No."

"And there are five other stones like the one you claim he possesses?"

"Yes."

"According to a man that had been beaten by your son," SEELE 04 states, sounding unconvinced by any of this. "Six stones that control individual aspects of the universe. Space, time, mind, soul, reality and power. Each one capable of great feats, limited only by the aims of the people that possess them. What if they come with a cost? What if the power they bring carries a price greater than the price Second Impact required?"

"Is that fear?" Gendo questions the council of men that hid in the shadows of the world.

"You show us actual proof that your son was responsible for the disposal of Lilith and two of the Angels, we can take this seriously," SEELE 01 declares to Gendo, "but all you have is your claim that he did this. How do you expect us to believe this when you have no proof of his involvement…and no clue as to his whereabouts?"

Gendo was infuriated by the council's refusal to believe him, but he had no evidence of Shinji's involvement in the disposal of Lilith, only his claim. Trying to get proof was next to impossible if he didn't know where to even start looking for the boy. All he knew was that without Lilith, there was no achieving what he sacrificed everything for.

"Your son hasn't been back here since we sent him to you, Gendo," he remembers his in-laws informing him when he called them on the whereabouts of the Third Child. "Not that he'd be welcomed back. We don't know where he is and we don't care, either. He could be living on the streets for all we know."

"Do you think it's possible that he'd go looking for that illegitimate daughter of his?" He had asked them.

"We don't know what he'd do, only that he's not here and we wouldn't welcome him back if he did. Wherever he is or whoever he's with, that's on you now. It's not our fault if he decided to run away from you."

Gendo took that as a sign that they didn't know about the Space Stone the boy had at all; if they had known about it, they would have likely tried to take it from him long ago.

Where are you hiding? He wonders, wanting to know where Shinji was. Coward! Where are you hiding?! Where are you?!

-x-

Shinji couldn't deny it. He felt in his element when he was in the kitchen, and a church kitchen was no exception. It was different this time, though, as he was cooking for more than a handful of people. Every now and then, whenever he turned to his sides to get something he needed for the dishes he was cooking, he would notice Shado with other kids watching him, whether they were from the orphanage or the church. He would chuckle at their mild interest.

"I always thought cooking was something only a girl likes to do," a boy expresses.

"That's not true," Shinji states as he puts down a container of ginger. "Anyone that has an interest in cooking can do it. Everyone in the world has different or similar interests, whatever they are. It can be sports, computers, architecture, anything. Is there anything you like to do?"

"I wanted to be a doctor once."

"What about you, Shado?"

"I don't have anything I want to be right now," Shado reveals to her father.

"That's okay. You're still young. You have your whole life to figure out what it is you want to do when you get older."

Shado smiles, accepting of Shinji's belief that she had more time to decide what she was going to do with her life when she got older. Then, she noticed his blue pendant glowing brightly, and he looks down at it.

"What does that mean?" The boy asks them. "Your pendant is glowing."

Knock-knock. They all turn to the kitchen door and see Rumiko, her pendant glowing bright green and her expression one of concern.

"Did you see something bad, Rumiko?" Shinji asks her.

"No, but Kensuke was keeping tabs on everyone at NERV," she responds, "your father, in particular, and he's worried now."

"About what?"

"Anyone housing more people than allowed are going to be looked at more closely later on, and your father is trying to find you above all else because he thinks you have the Infinity Stones and are plotting to do something to stop him."

"Locally or worldwide?"

"Worldwide, meaning that it's only a matter of time before someone starts snooping around here looking for more kids than permitted. So far, since we do have time before someone does come snooping around here, we have two weeks."

"People are looking for us?" The boy questions, worried; he was among the few children that had some fear of adults due to the ones that mistreated them after they were left in their care due to their parents or previous caretakers being either dead or unable to care for them, and being around the teenage parents and the Sisterhood of the Soul were the first people that actually treated them better, even if the former pair were technically on the run. "I don't want to go back to that place."

"They're probably looking more for me," Shinji suggests. "My father is not happy with my choices. He's technically not happy with me at all."

"Your father…hates you?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

That was a good question to ask: Why did Gendo hate Shinji?

"I don't live up to his expectations of me," Shinji explains to the best of his ability, "and he doesn't really expect anything from me except doing as he says, even when I know what he may ask me to do is wrong. I can't make him like me for me, so I won't bother trying to. And I don't need him in my life, and I don't want him to hurt Shado or anyone else that I care about."

"Have you ever met this man before?" The boy asks Shado.

"No," she answers. "He might be Daddy's daddy, but I have never met him before, and I'm afraid of what he might do if we ever saw him. The people Daddy lived with didn't like me and took me away from Daddy. If they didn't like me, he might not like me, either."

Shado got up from the bench and goes over to Shinji, hugging his legs.

-x-

"…This could be getting out of hand soon," says Toji to Kensuke and Hikari as they sat on the rooftop of their school during lunchtime, going over what they knew about the situation with Shinji, Rumiko and Sister Rosetta. "Kensuke, are you sure about this?"

"Positive," Kensuke tells them, knowing that they had to keep this between the six of them. Shinji's father is trying to find him and gain possession of his Space Stone and any other stones that he thinks he has for himself. He doesn't know about any of us, so he doesn't know we have three of the stones or are working with Shinji.

"I want to do right," went Hikari, taking a bite out of her chicken dumpling. We can't let people like this Gendo Ikari or this SEELE group to ever have possession of the stones. If they were to do anything that was to get what they were after, they could kill us in an instant.

With no remorse for how we may feel, Toji goes.

"That's why we need to keep quiet about everything," Kensuke says, taking another bite out of his burger. "For the sake of what we know to be true, we don't divulge anything to anyone we don't know or trust."

"And trust is in short supply these days," Hikari states. Because there are people who don't know they're being manipulated or don't care about the repercussions of what's being done, the aim of some of what we do is to prevent the end of things as they currently are. Kensuke, are you sure that Rei Ayanami is affiliated with NERV?

We saw Shinji's past memories of the day he arrived. We saw him see her when he tried to refuse his father the first time. There's no other albino girl like her living in the city, but Shinji doesn't have the Mind Stone, so he couldn't see into her mind and know what I know. No matter how guarded or empty it is, Rei Ayanami is a girl with less than any form of independence. She was made in the warped image of his mother, whom he didn't even remember because his father got rid of every picture of her. I can understand why he would feel some discomfort looking at Rei. But she's all that remains now of the being known as Lilith, making her next to useless in his father's grand scheme that went out the window.

And this SEELE? Toji asks while eating his burger.

Shinji's father told them what he thinks he knows about him and the stones, but they don't know about us. So long as they're not convinced that Shinji's the one responsible for their plans being ruined, they won't come looking for us. And so long as his father can't find him, Rumiko, the kids or any of the stones, they're just wasting their time and resources to find someone that won't be found unless they know where he is.

However, Hikari then reminds them, Rumiko informed us that two weeks from now, people are going to go to the church they're hiding in to confirm the number of people living there is the number of people living there. Anyplace housing more than the last known number of people, there's going to be suspicion.

Say, Kensuke, Toji suggests, couldn't you use the Mind Stone to control them so that they can't do anything wrong?

I could, but I would be taking away their free will in favor of my own being projected. And I can't make it so that they do something as though it were their ideas without there being a risk of head trauma, which would undo the suggestive idea and its influence on their minds. Plus, if they're set on being controlling over the world, maybe it's a good idea to use the stones to create a new one where people can live without their choices being criticized by those that don't get it.

We can do that now, Hikari agrees, though with some degree of uncertainty. But when can we do it? Do we have a date on when to do it?

It's Shinji's idea, so we do it when he says we do it.

-x-

Back and forth, Rumiko evaluated the timeline they were inhabiting to make sure Shinji's father wouldn't be capable of causing too much trouble for them, and saw that, despite his insistence of trying to make Shinji responsible for everything wrong in his life and his profession, the man wasn't getting much done, and his superiors were not happy with some notion that his son was causing them trouble. While the authorities would still be looking around for them and the children, the search would take days to get started before anyone came to the church and asked questions. As she helped Toya and some of the other children draw pictures, she looked over and saw Shinji helping Shado color a new picture.

Shinji looks up at her and smiles.

"It's probably cheating to ask you, Rumiko," he says, "but do you see your parents in your future? You told me my father is in the future, but what about your parents? Or your brother?"

"No," she answers him. "Unless they're actually trying to find me, there are no family reunions set in my future, Shinji. Besides, my family is right here with me (she looks down at Toya)."

"Is it okay to ask one thing, Mommy?" Toya asks his mother.

"Sure," she replies.

"It's probably not a good to know everything about the future, but…is it okay to ask if…tomorrow will be a sunny day?"

"That's not a question about the future, sweetie. That's a question about the weather, and the answer is 'yes', it's okay to ask about that. Tomorrow will be a sunny day."

Toya then raises up a drawing they were working on and shows it's of six people with rainbow colors over them.

"Who's that, Toya?" Shinji asks.

"All of you," he answers. "You, Mommy, Sister Rosetta, Mr. Aida, Mr. Suzuhara and Ms. Horaki. You're using your magic stones to make the whole world a little better to live in."

"Thank you."

The drawing, while childish and more of a doodle, Shinji could see the resemblance to himself and everyone else by the colors used to represent the Infinity Stones. He and Rumiko were in the middle of the drawing, him on the right and she on the left, evident by the blue and green colors on their stick figures, respectively. On his left were Toji and Kensuke, differentiated by the purple and yellow colors to represent the Power and Mind Stones. And on Rumiko's right were Sister Rosetta and Hikari, respectively, represented by the orange Soul Stone and the Red Reality Stone. Any other adult would've seen the drawing as being plain and insignificant, but Shinji and Rumiko saw it as among the most important of small treasures within a moment with their children in the time they spent with them.

"In time," Rumiko says as she picks up a pink crayon. "In time, things will get better for those that want things to be better."

-x-

Without proof of the Third Child's involvement in the disappearance of Lilith, SEELE wouldn't have anything to do with Gendo's assumption that his estranged son had some sort of stone that could enable him to go wherever he wanted, and without any genuine evidence that pointed to the Third Child's presence within NERV, said paramilitary agency was at a loss over their future if the Angels were no longer expected to appear without Lilith as a lure. As far as SEELE was concerned, if the next Angel did appear only to disappear like the Fourth and Fifth Angels, NERV would be disbanded soon after. This would be the end for Gendo, too, as his involvement with SEELE would have consequences because he was the one in charge of NERV when Lilith disappeared. No Human Instrumentality Project meant some very, very angry people that felt cheated…and he would have to answer for it all.

"But if your son is responsible for all this," SEELE 01 informed Gendo after he failed to find any evidence of Shinji's involvement, "it's as it was spoken after the Third Angel was defeated. It was clear that your decision to exploit your son was a grave error on your part, Ikari. He had no knowledge of what was going on, no understanding of what was at stake, and you failed to keep him in check when he made his decision to leave. This is all on you."

Gendo was beyond enraged with his son, whom he blamed for all of this. He knew that he was responsible, but without proof or a location to find him and deal with him, he was at a loss on how to do anything about him.

I should've killed him! He thinks as he sits in his office. I should've killed him!

-x-

One of the most depressing aspects about even having one Infinity Stone was that nobody with them, possessing the power to do anything with its immeasurable potential, had been able to…or was simply unwilling to…use them to do something as simple as save lives that were already on an unseen schedule to be removed. As Sister Rosetta sat beside a young girl who was losing her battle against cancer, the Soul Stone glowed with the aim to see the girl's soul off to the next world.

"Do you…think my parents are waiting for me up there, Sister Rosetta?" The little girl asks.

"Yes, Stella," Sister Rosetta tells her. "Your parents are waiting for you with their arms ready to embrace you."

The girl smiles as she closes her eyes for the last time in her life. When the Soul Stone ceases its glow, that was a sign that the girl's soul had moved on to the next plane of existence, and Sister Rosetta sighs in regret as another child had been taken away before their actual time due to fighting a losing battle with something as simple to face as a disease. It was hoped by Sister Rosetta that, in the future, it wouldn't matter who anyone was, everyone would have access to the same measure of healthcare, regardless of financial resources or where they're from. She would pray, day and night, for such a future to happen…and she could hope that, now that all of the Infinity Stones were gathered for a benevolent purpose, it was possible because each of the stones' holders were able to come to a conclusion that benefited the people of the planet and not only themselves.

According to the stones, the man that had possession of all six with the aim to wipe out half of all existence saw no other purpose for them…and that they were a temptation if left behind for someone else to take advantage of. However, even if one were to try and destroy the stones, they were as eternal as the universe itself, and would regenerate over time, making his attempt to destroy them impossible to achieve, and in doing so develop and expand their consciousness across the whole of existence. They understood benevolence and malevolence…and they would never allow for any soul to exploit their power for malevolence again. For those that made drives to achieve feats of that particular sort, they would be no different from rocks with rare patterns.

"Sister Rosetta?" She hears Shinji's voice and turns to see him by the doorway. "I'm sorry."

"One of the limitations of the Soul Stone is that it can't be used to remove the illness of whoever is afflicted by disease," she explains her stone to him. "Another is that it can't restore life to the dead, only enable those to commune with their souls. When the soul of a person crosses the threshold between life and death, they are free from the suffering of their life, able to return to life in the future or return to the paradise beyond us all."

"I wish we could use the stones to remove the illness of the children so they can live to have happier futures."

"With the Reality and Power, along with Time and Mind Stones, a world where sickness, infection and decay can all become nothing more than in the past of mankind. But to achieve such a feat, each Stonekeeper must be in synchronicity over such a drive."

Shinji smiles; he wouldn't have known about such a method of dealing with something as cruel as sickness unless someone told him. But his smile was stained by sadness because one of the children of the church just died. It made him worry about Shado and Toya and what he and Rumiko would do if they were ever afflicted with a treatable illness, and nobody would help because they demanded financial compensation. In the end, as long as there were people that controlled the way the world operates in the cold shelter of the darkness, nothing would change for those who were less fortunate and had very little to nothing. Even if money and influence were what made the world's decisions over all else, Shinji, Rumiko, Sister Rosetta, Toji, Kensuke and Hikari…were the six that possessed the means to change the world…and would change the world beyond the primary goal of creating a world of their own.

Even if the rest of the world were to view this as an act of the kami, he thinks as hopes for a sign of greater things to come when the time came to implement the goal, we'll know what we did…and that will be enough.

-x-

"…So, if another Angel disappears as soon as it shows up," Misato questions Fuyutsuki upon hearing the orders of the Committee and the UN, "NERV will be disbanded?"

"That's the aim if another Angel does appear," he tells her. "It's not a hidden fact that Ikari believes that his son is responsible for the Angels disappearing each time they appear."

"Shinji Ikari? Because he and another teenager broke into a facility housing orphans and took back their kids and some other orphans? What could he possibly gain from doing this?"

"Revenge against his father? Some sort of excitement? Taking risks that endanger NERV? None of us know for sure what Shinji's motives are, or if he's even involved in any of this. Personally, it doesn't matter to Ikari; so long as he's convinced that it is Shinji, he won't be swayed to consider any other possibility."

"Sounds like he blames his son for everything that has happened lately."

"In a sense, he does blame him."

-x-

Two weeks later

Sister Rosetta let the inspector and police officers into the church to assess the orphans in the sisterhood's care, having learned that four of their children had passed. When asked why they were here to inspect the children, the police simply stated that they had received orders to inspect any location dedicated to caring for orphans that might've been housing more than the last recorded number.

"…I understand that you are limited to a radio," the inspector says to Sister Rosetta, "but you must've heard about the incident in Japan over two weeks ago, right? Some children at an orphanage went missing and the building demolished. It's believed that they were kidnapped by two teenagers that were there one night to take back their children."

"Except this occurred in Japan, sir," a different nun states, "and this is the Americas. How can two young people with over two dozen children get anywhere without resources to help them?"

"The father of the young man that kidnapped his own daughter suspects that some people were helping him and the girl he was seen with. I understand that this is a church, and that you offer sanctuary to those seeking refuge from anyone looking for them, but, if it were possible for them to find their way here, you wouldn't try to shelter criminals from the authorities, would you?"

Sister Rosetta sighs and responds, "I wouldn't do anything of the sort unless it was a sign from the Almighty himself that it was the righteous thing to do. Nobody within the Sisterhood of the Soul would commit acts that were a violation of the sanctity of human spirit."

When the police and inspector were satisfied with their findings that the church only had the children that were present, they left the Sisterhood of the Soul.

"Fifteen minutes," expressed Sister Agatha, the youngest member of the sisterhood, "and we aided in protecting the souls of the innocent from the contempt of the wicked."

"Amen, Sister Agatha," Sister Rosetta replies, and walks out into the small courtyard of the church, sheltered from the world. "Okay, children. The coast is clear."

In an instant, the space in front of the nuns rippled and revealed Shinji, Rumiko and the children with them, their Space and Time Stones aglow. Rather than simply relocate to another place to hide, Shinji and Rumiko used their stones to hide themselves and the kids in the courtyard and outside of time until the police and inspector left. It was a challenge because the children were afraid of being caught and forced to go back to some equally cruel dwelling where their lives would be treated as though they didn't matter to anyone. But Shinji and Rumiko kept them in check with their presence until the adults they didn't trust had left.

"Well, that takes care of that," says Rumiko to Shinji.

"Yeah," he agrees with her; after they hid, she had checked to make sure that they wouldn't come back in the future and was pleased to know that they wouldn't, because they would be gone for good in the foreseeable future. "Let's eat lunch and then…we get to work."

To be continued…

A/N: Alright, we're getting somewhere big now. I'm getting excited for them. At least in fanfiction, we have change that works for us in the end when reality becomes a strain on the mind. What do you expect to see? What twists and turns in the plot are you hoping for?