Creation began on 10-06-20

Creation ended on 11-03-20

Neon Genesis Evangelion

My Hero, Shinji Ikari: Failure and Success

Rumble. The ground beneath them shook.

"What was that?" A police officer questioned.

Rumble. It shook again, indicating that it wasn't an earthquake.

"Something's going down underground," another officer stated. "We don't have time for warrants. We're going in now!"

It switched from a reconnaissance mission to the rescue mission prematurely, but as the situation appeared dire, what with what they had discovered from Rumiko, they had to act fast.

Smash! They broke right through the front doors and ran through the halls.

"Police!" They announced.

Ding. The sound of an elevator rang, and out came four women, all of whom were looking worse for wear.

"Don't shoot," they gasped, raising their hands up.

"We're looking for Gendo Ikari," one of the officers revealed to them.

"He's downstairs," went the Ritsuko look-alike to them. "He's fighting against his son, whom I'm certain was murdered by him over two months ago."

"Murdered? Two months ago?"

"I saw his father rip him to pieces and left him that way for longer than five minutes, the minimum time for the damage caused by his Quirk to be reversed if you're a living being."

"Get outside!"

The women ran as fast as their legs could take them, and the police ran down the stairs.

-x-

Gendo didn't understand it! His Quirk should've enabled him to tear the boy to pieces like before, scattering him across the whole floor! But every time he made contact with his wrists or head…nothing happened. It was like Wrath was no longer affective against him. But with everything else around them, the floors, the walls, he could tear them apart and remake them however he chose.

"You can't escape from here!" Gendo yelled at them as Shinji had Shado on his back, his face covered in minor scrapes and his hair obscuring his eyes. "You both belong to me! Nobody else will take you from me!"

It had only been five minutes, but Shinji had rather spent that time trying to get Shado away from this lunatic before he went too far again. But in this time, Shinji felt himself becoming a bit stronger than he must've realized; while he just leapt back or moved to the side each time Gendo came within physical contact of either himself or Shado, he was able to brush the man's arms away, feeling only a slight discomfort in his skin that was probably because his father was using his Quirk to tear things up.

"This is all your fault, girl!" He heard Gendo say to Shado. "Everyone suffers because of you!"

Shado cringed behind Shinji's shoulders as the young man braced his feet on the unstable floor.

"Don't listen to him, Shado," he told her. "He can't admit the truth, even when he knows it."

"He's always angry with me," she told him. "Please, don't let him hurt me again."

Shinji had only met this girl just a few minutes ago, but he already felt a close connection with her. Maybe it was just a side-effect of having met the ghost of her father before he ended up here taking his place. Or maybe he was just starting to feel his own attachment towards her after realizing that she was just as much a victim of his father as her father had been due to his abuse.

"Be her hero," he heard his doppelgänger say before being forced to move on, urging him to protect Shado in his place.

She needs someone to be her hero, he accepted, and then noticed his body starting to glow an intense, bluish-purple aura with his veins taking on a darker highlight.

Shado felt her father giving off a warm glow that she felt safe around, like he had become a walking nightlight with these arms that gave off a warning to all the monsters in the darkness not to come near her.

"Some of the best heroes are the ones that give off this sense of protection that you know is meant for the people," Toya had once told her. "It's like a beacon or something that lets you know that you no longer need to fear the end, because that hero is here to save you."

Gendo was stunned! This was something he didn't want to believe, but if it was happening right in front of him, then it was undeniable. His own son, somehow come back to life, possessed a Quirk of his own, and the Quirk was active! He was against having him tested for a Quirk factor, but Yui had explained that just because they didn't test him or Shado for Quirk factors didn't deny the possibility that they would manifest one at a later time, and maybe they would be a combination or mutation of the Quirks they inherited.

Yui possessed a Quirk that enabled her to store energy over a long period of time, he thought, trying to come up with a workable theory as to how his son's Quirk probably functioned, and I have Wrath, which can break things apart at the cellular and molecular level and rebuild them however I choose. She called hers Vault because all she could do was store energy over the course of her life, nothing that was really useful, though it was likely he inherited some fraction of it, and it was passed onto his bastard child. Both their Quirks are aberrations! They don't compare to my Wrath! Nothing compares to my Wrath!

He decided not to question what the boy's Quirk was likely to be, and knew he just needed to put him in his place and retake the girl. Maybe if he had applied more force with his hands, he would trigger his son's breakdown back to the molecules that made up his body.

Shinji watched as Gendo charged towards him on a moving mass of the ground beneath him, and he leapt out of the way with Shado, moving with such grace that he had never felt before, landing on a different patch of uneven terrain that had been ruined by his Wrath Quirk. But what kept puzzling his mind, however, was this feeling of power surging through his body; it was like someone had turned off his sense of dread and turned on his sense of courage. His muscles on fire, but his body didn't feel any fatigue.

"Daddy, you look like a hero that's a beacon of hope," Shado told him.

"Really?"

"Mm-hmm."

He accepted her assumption that he was a beacon of hope, and this only made his glow intensify.

"We're getting out of here, Shado," he told her. "If you believe in me, we'll get past this obstacle before you know it."

"I believe you," she assured him, holding on as tightly as her arms could allow her to. "I believe you with all my heart."

Suddenly, Gendo was facing a human-sized ball of bluish-purple flame with dark lines that represented the nerves of his son's body, complete with glowing, yellow eyes. This Quirk or whatever it was that was intensifying within the boy was, undoubtedly, making him stronger. But he refused to back down.

"Nobody will be a hero so long as I'm around!" He yelled, raising his arms up and sending a large stream of atomized debris towards them. "There are no heroes here!"

Shinji moved forward and made contact with the stream of debris, not letting it deter him. The very sight of his enraged father was not even a threat right now. He focused solely on the safety of his daughter, needing to get her away from this awful place. Whatever he had to do, even if it meant beating his old man senseless, he had to set her free from this nightmare.

"You say that there are no heroes, Father?!" He questioned his belief. "Well, you're wrong! There are heroes everywhere! Anyone can be a hero if they try! A hero doesn't even need to wear a cape or hide their identity behind some mask! A hero can be a regular person, like a cop or history teacher! Even your best friend or child can be your hero! And you're never going to be a hero…because you don't have the conviction for it!"

Gendo reached for some nearby debris and used his Quirk to reshape it into a spear and charged towards the pair. He was going to show them that he was the one with all the power because decided everything here.

"Rraaaaurgh!" He yelled at them.

Shado closed her eyes as Shinji jumped into the air and raised his right arm, his skin dark by the nerves and covered in the flames.

"Try and break this!" He yelled as their moves collided.

SMASH! Gendo's spear fractured into pieces as his son's fist made contact with his chest, sending him flying backwards away from him and his granddaughter.

No! He thought, feeling as though his ribs had been shattered. He has strength comparable to that fallen hero, All Might!

Gendo fell to the ground, but was still alive.

Shinji ran past him with Shado on his back and up a staircase.

I…I did it, he realized as he just kept running. I rescued Shado and I'm getting her to safety.

He carried her up the stairs, towards a bright light. It had to be the surface if they'd been trapped underground for so long. There was a world out there, waiting for them, and once he made sure Shado was safe out there, he would come back for Rumiko and Toya.

"Rrrraaaaaahh!" He heard a cruel roar from behind them. "I will not let you get away from me!"

Shado, despite her fear, turned her head back to see if that man was coming after them…and soon wished she hadn't. Somehow, Gendo had recovered from her father's attack on him and had made a large suit of armor comprised of debris, and was now chasing the pair.

"Daddy!" She cried behind Shinji, and he moved faster.

"He's never going to hurt you again," he told her. "I promise you."

Seconds later, Shinji leapt up into the air…and was high above the urban area they had been forced to dwell under for a long time. Because of his counterpart's memories of this place, he knew they were in Sapporo, but the way this version of Sapporo looked, it like he was in a modern-day marvel that lacked all of that advanced tech that belonged in some science fiction comic or film series. It was nighttime, but it was beautiful…even in the face of adversity and one man's relentless hatred towards them.

"Shado," he spoke, "we're up in the sky."

Shado looked around them…and couldn't believe they were so far up. It was like her father was floating in the air, and the world around them was like a painting made real. She hadn't been outside in so long that she had forgotten what it looked like. The beauty, the wind, the buildings, the trees, the sky, the moon, the sun…and the people. For the first time in a long time, she felt free…and there was hardly any other feeling that compared to this one.

"It's beautiful, Daddy," she told him. "Beautiful."

-x-

Rumiko looked up at the sky, seeing that strange, fiery sphere…and felt Shinji's changed presence emanating from it…along with Shado's.

"Officer," she told the policeman beside her with his gun raised up at it, "Shinji and Shado are in that ball of fire."

He looked at her and asked, "Are they alive?"

"They're alive," she answered. "I've never seen Shinji do something like this before, though. It's…it's incredible."

"If this kid's got a Quirk, it's nothing like his father's, that's for damn sure."

Suddenly, a large pile of debris shaped like a humanoid burst from the ground and beside the building, looking like some sort of giant suit of deformed armor.

"Oh, Kami," Rumiko gasped, and the policeman grabbed her and took her away.

-x-

Gendo hated it when he felt like the whole world saw him this way. It didn't matter if they knew him or not, just the mere thought of seeing him use his Quirk in an unsanitary fashion was enough to infuriate him. And yet, here he was, outside in the city, wearing much of the underground installation of the NERV building as a suit of armor to be used against his son for control over the girl's fate. He had staked everything he had on his research into the child's Quirk and weaponizing it to sell to those seeking to remove the hero establishment, and now he had to stake even more against his misbehaving kid.

"You two are pathetic," he told them. "Your daughter causes nothing but misfortune for everyone else, and you throw your life away to ensure that she continues to hurt others! No good can ever come from her! Everyone suffers with every breath she takes! She's only good as one thing, and that's as a research specimen! Stop fighting and hand her over!"

"If I gave her over to you, I'd cease being her hero," Shinji responded to him, "and I promised her she'd never go back to that pain and suffering because of you. I will not give her to you…or anyone else that thinks the way you do. You're insane, and you all you do is cause harm. You blamed Shado for what was nothing more than a simple accident. Because that's all it was, it was just an accident!"

"She was the accident! Your accident! Your mistake! And I need to fix that!"

Shinji sighed; there was no reasoning with his father, who was too set in his flawed perception of Shado being nothing more than a problem that needed to be corrected or something, and her Quirk as a means to an end, no matter what he had to do, no matter who he had to hurt.

"You're a villain, she's the damsel in distress…and I'm the hero that comes around…to stop you, spoil your twisted plans…and save her life."

"I…like what you just said," Shado told Shinji.

"Oh, you wanna be her hero? You wanna be the hero?!" Gendo grunted, letting his emotions boil. "Well, in this case, the hero will die! I killed you once! And I'll kill you again!"

To be continued…

A/N: I felt like I was letting some people down with the lack of progress. I hope this chapter makes you think of Shinji becoming a hero to someone that truly needs saving. What did you think of the way his Quirk was behaving? There are some similarities between it and One For All, but there are several differences that you'll see later on, and they'll be what will make Shinji a force to be reckoned with someday. Until next time.