Creation began on 11-19-20
Creation ended on 12-04-20
Neon Genesis Evangelion
My Hero, Shinji Ikari: A time to heal
He must've lost consciousness after hugging Shado, because the next thing that he knew, Shinji awoke in a room that was white, had a sterile aroma, and a window open to let in a breeze. Looking around, he didn't see anyone else present…and had to consider the possibility that he had been isolated from his daughter by people he didn't know. This may have been his world now, but he was still a stranger in a strange place.
"Ah, you're awake now," went a female nurse to him as she opened the door to the room and stepped inside.
"Where…where am I?" He asked her.
"Sapporo Memorial Hospital," she answered. "You've been asleep for about three days."
"Three days? I… Shado, Rumiko and Toya, do you know where they are?"
"Miss Gaidoku is in recovery with her son on the fifth floor while your daughter is undergoing regenerative therapy on the seventh floor."
"What?" Shinji reacted; he knew that his doppelgänger's daughter was the victim of abuse by his father, but he didn't know how bad the abuse was. "Is she alright?"
-x-
The medical staff were very cautious about the girl after she awoke to see strangers and no familiar faces. It took a female nurse with a sleep-inducing Quirk to calm her down and allow three physicians to examine her body and find that she had a series of fractures and lacerations in her bones and muscles, respectively.
"…Did what those women give in their statements to the police confirm what the doctors found in the girl?" A male doctor asked a female nurse as they observed the therapy session occurring to the child.
"Yes," she answered him. "The girl's grandfather had deliberately left minor injuries to her body after every experiment he put her through. If left untreated, these would've been permanent damage if she got older."
"And the girl's father? What were we able to find out about what he was able to do?"
"As he was never tested for a Quirk factor, what the witnesses from that night saw him do was probably the first time he ever did anything. He was stated to be very protective of her, but there's something not right with what the statements said."
"Which is?"
"The grandfather, Gendo, claims that he killed his son with his Quirk, and there were people that backed up his claim, but his son, the girl's father, is here in recovery and very much alive. He was checked for substance abuse and his tests all came back negative, along with mental illness. So, the question is: How can he have committed a murder…if the person he claimed to have murdered is here in the hospital and left his hands ruined?"
"That is the question."
Meanwhile, below in the operating room, the doctors with Quirks more suited to treating injuries and other ailments had just finished removing the fractures in Shado's skeletal system and began treating the lacerations in her muscular system. Despite being sedated and loaded with painkillers to reduce whatever pain she was feeling, this didn't stop tears from escaping her eyes.
-x-
Shinji was definitely feeling these paternal feelings toward Shado as he waited for someone to inform him of his daughter's condition. Of course, this didn't stop the gossipers at the hospital for other reasons from speaking about him, but he didn't really care about what they said or thought of he or his daughter. They could say what they want because nothing else mattered until he knew the current status of Shado.
"Shinji?" He heard a female voice he knew of only from a memory that wasn't his, and looked up to see Rumiko, wearing a pink version of his blue hospital garments, supporting herself up by a crutch. "You're okay."
"Rumiko," he greeted, though it was not as emotional due to this being the first time he was meeting her. "Hello."
"Have they said anything new about Shado?"
"No, nothing."
"She'll be okay. I heard that you rescued her when I was trying to come back with help. I saw you that night. You were glowing like fire, but you were untouchable. And you defeated your father. You were heroic."
"Thank you."
Rumiko wasn't sure if what the doctors and police informed her about Shinji was true, but she couldn't see that much of a difference between who he was when they were little…and who he was after he was kidnapped, forced into early parenthood like she had been, and the here and now where they were freed from wrongful imprisonment by a madman that despised heroes…simply because he couldn't be one. He seemed the same as he had been the last time she ever saw him, except his torso scar was gone, according to the medical staff that had examined him after they brought him and Shado in for medical treatment. And then, there was his unusual Quirk; it was nothing like what his father could do, and more like an amalgamation of different abilities compared to Wrath's ability to tear things apart and put them back together however he chose. If anything, he was probably just feeling relieved to be out in the world after being trapped under it for such a long time.
The doors to the operating room opened and a male doctor came out to meet the two teens.
"She was fortunate that the injuries she had were all minor," he told them. "She's gonna be alright when she wakes up…physically speaking."
"Physically speaking?" Shinji repeated, uncertain about what he meant by that.
"When she woke up earlier, she became…very agitated, almost terrified of the people that just wanted to help her. We had to put her back to sleep before we could administer painkillers for the operation." He explained to them.
"I don't blame her for feeling that way," said Rumiko as she could sympathize with the little girl's emotional responses. "That man, that…monster…was brutal towards her for something that wasn't even her fault. I mean, she never meant to cause any harm to anyone."
"We understand what happened. We have records of another little girl with a similar Quirk and history. If anything, your daughter is just fortunate to have at least one of her parents still involved in her life. But I must consider that she get some counseling. All four of you, in fact. You've been through something so traumatic and unforgivable that if it hasn't affected you yet, it will affect you later on. This isn't something you just recover from after a few days."
Shinji was surprised that a medical professional was suggesting that they see a therapist; back in his universe, with NERV, there was no such thing as a therapist. That was probably because the higher-ups believed it was unnecessary. But here he was in a different world and was being suggested that type of aid.
"How would you describe her reactions to people she doesn't know?" He asked the doctor.
"Fearful," he answered back. "Your father had been identified as a hovering level of fear and hostility towards her for a long time, putting her under an overwhelming degree of stress, and it hinders her ability to cope to new forms of stress in a healthy way. She must've felt constantly threatened by him whenever he decided to abuse her so that she reacts to even the most minor of threats as if…her life were in danger."
"As if…her life were in danger," Shinji repeated the doctor's words in his mind. The fear that remains…because of a lack of love or acceptance from a man that was so full of hatred and a need to get payback from those that he blamed for his lack of achievements or for something that was nothing more than an accident that he refused to let be recognized as an accident. Anyone would be fearful of others after being subjected to such a horrible situation.
Then…there was something else that he needed to know.
"My father," he spoke to the doctor, "he can't use his hands again, can he?"
"No," he revealed. "While it's against hospital rules to deny medical treatment to an injured person, Gendo Ikari is exempt from this due to his Quirk factor and immorality. He demanded that we fix his hands, but he was in no position to make such demands."
"Ugh," Rumiko shuddered; if they had fixed Gendo's hands, his abuse would've resumed against them until they were left begging for death to come quickly.
"Yeah," Shinji agreed with her; neither wanted his father to be whole again if he was going to resume his abuse against them.
-x-
Gendo was in a serious trouble; he couldn't use his arms, his legs were broken, and everyone that saw him or discovered what he had done to his own son and granddaughter and the Gaidoku teen mother and her son had cuffed him to the bed so that he couldn't escape. Worse was that the personnel at NERV, including his former employees, had exposed his abuse of the little girl and revealed that he had murdered his own son, something he didn't deny because he had every intention on removing him from the equation that was his agenda to weaponize Shado's Quirk for his own purposes, which left him facing serious charges.
"We saw him kill his son when he tried to escape with his daughter more than two months ago," Dr. Naoko Akagi had told the police and medical personnel when they took her statement. "His Quirk, Wrath, tears people or anything with a conscious apart and if they're not put back together within five minutes of being torn to bits, the damage is permanent. He refused to let the girl go, no matter what anyone said."
"He wouldn't give the girl a break," Naoko's daughter backed up her mother's statement when she gave her own to the police. "He really hated her, and he made no attempt to hide his hatred of her. But he wouldn't let her die, even when that seemed like the most rational solution for someone like him if he despised her that much. He wouldn't kill her, but he didn't want her dead yet…not until he had broken down how her Quirk worked and how to exploit it completely for his own purposes of eliminating the Quirks belonging to heroes. Nobody was safe from him, not even his own family after the accidental death of his wife."
"…Well, Mr. Rokubungi-Ikari," went a judge that stood in front of him with several police officers in his medical room; since they couldn't move him yet and what evidence that had been gathered had been condemning enough that they didn't need to risk going to trial just yet unless they absolutely had to. "Do you have anything to say in your defense?"
"I know I killed that boy," he told them; he didn't care if they ran DNA tests until the next century, there was no way that brat was his son. "You can't actually believe that…that thing to be my son. I killed him, ripped him to atoms and left him that way because he was in my way."
Unfortunately, the judge had to respond to this in a way that wouldn't reward Gendo with any compassion from anyone.
"Your son is certainly no clone," he told him. "The Ibuki twins were asked to use their Quirks on him while he was unconscious…and discovered something that, while it corroborates some of your claim, doesn't excuse your inhumane actions against your own family. According to the twins, and mainly because their Quirks can't hide the truth, you did murder your son…but he lingered for a time…and as it turned out, the old multiverse theory actually does exist."
"What are you talking about?"
"The boy in question that defeated you and broke your hands…is from another universe, a different reality…and he somehow ended up in this one…and was asked by your son's ghost to look after the three people you stole him from."
"And I'm supposed to believe that bull?!"
"I really don't care if you believe it or not. Blood or not, from this universe or not, he saved your granddaughter from you, whom have proven to be ill-suited and unsafe to be around any child that you blame for the accidental death of your wife…because that's all that it was. It was just an accident, one of many that have been known to occur when a Quirk activates for the first time and it does something unprecedented that causes harm. There was even an incident where a newborn had a Quirk that just activated and caused a nurse's left hand to catch fire."
"You honestly think I care about any of them? That little bitch killed my wife! Call it an accident all you want, she's a good-for-nothing murderess."
As he had absolutely no remorse or sympathy for any of his victims, there was no point in trying to make Gendo see reason. He was dead set in his beliefs and wouldn't be persuaded to change his behavior towards his strained relationships.
"Since he is still viewed as the girl's father, there will be no attempts to separate the two," the judge informed Gendo, "and because you have committed murder in order to gain possession of someone against their will, you shall be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Even without the murder charge, the additional charges of reckless endangerment, unlawful imprisonment, aggravated child abuse, illegal human experimentation, and the kidnapping of underaged and tender-aged children, you will do hard time."
If Gendo's hands weren't bandaged and broken, he would've killed all of these police and the judge before moving on. Fortunately, he left nothing for either his son or his granddaughter, having no intention of leaving them anything to live off of if something happened to him. He had every intention of outliving the both of them.
"Do what you will," he told them. "I regret none of what I did. Your faith in these so-called heroes…is nothing more than a heaping pile of disappointments."
"Not as disappointing as how you turned out to be, both as a man and as a parent," the judge responded. "You had potential…but you squandered it simply because you lacked the moral fortitude required for being a hero. Your arrogance and hatred have marked you as nothing more than another villain."
-x-
Shado awoke from being put to sleep and looked up at her father's face, seeing that he was looking down at her.
"Hey, there," he greeted her, softly stroking her head. "How are you feeling?"
She slowly got up and responded, "Better."
Looking around him, she noticed a pair of guards by the doors and became worried again.
"I saw him again," she told Shinji. "He was chasing me, always chasing me. We were on the street…and then you came and made him go away."
Shinji smiled, but it was stained by concern; Shado had most likely developed an intense fear of her grandfather…and any other adult that she feared might try to harm her.
"She must've felt constantly threatened by him whenever he decided to abuse her so that she reacts to even the most minor of threats as if…her life were in danger." He recalled the doctor's words from earlier, indicating that it would be a while before either of them would recover from Gendo's abuse.
"Be her hero," his dead counterpart's words repeated in his mind, and then he hugged her again.
"We'll be alright now, Shado," he told her. "He's never going to harm anyone ever again. The police got him, and he's going to prison for a long time."
But then, Shado had to ask something a bit more serious.
"If he's going to prison, what's going to happen to us?" She asked, and he was reminded that, despite his father being a villain and a child abuser (and a vindictive killer), the man had been responsible for them in the most meager of sense.
"We'll worry about that when we leave the hospital," he told her; even he was unsure of what was going to happen to them.
-x-
It felt like a waste of time for Aizawa to show up when he was informed that the situation had already been resolved and the primary culprit had been captured and was sentenced to life in prison. But due to being at the hospital where the victims were getting treatment, he was needed in case the little girl unintentionally used her Quirk, which seemed to be without a sense of control. He had to wonder, though, how the culprit was defeated by someone that had just started using their Quirk under an hour of escaping from captivity…and had been confirmed by people with Quirks that could ascertain information on a person's past to be deceased over two months ago. To the best of his knowledge and the information distributed to the public, there was no known Quirk that could bring back the dead or open schisms into other dimensions and pull people out of them, meaning this was a phenomenon either unrelated to Quirks or one completely random to the present situation.
"Eraser Head," he was greeted by one of the Sapporo Police Officers assigned to the NERV case.
"Officer Isayama," Aizawa responded, and noticed that down the hall the officer came from were the two teens and two smaller children related to them. "I take it that's them?"
"Yes. You have been informed that the situation revolving around the little girl and her father is somewhat extreme…and delicate at the same time?"
"The boy is the one that rescued the girl?"
"Yes…several hours after Ms. Gaidoku and her son escaped from NERV. Although…it's unusual for someone to do as they do with a Quirk so quickly after it presents itself…and he's never been tested for a Quirk factor…up until a few hours ago when he was brought in for medical attention."
"What is his Quirk factor?"
"According to the medical personnel, it's…an amalgamation of different Quirks inherited from past relatives that have mutated into a unique Quirk that appears to display certain qualities that are similar to ones that offer enhanced abilities related to the body. They're still trying to trace back every relative, but they think it's unlikely that your Quirk can work against his if he went rogue. His daughter, on the other hand, her Quirk appears similar to the Quirk possessed by the girl you helped rescue a few months ago, except we don't know much about it, either."
Another little girl with a Quirk similar to Rewind? Aizawa thought as he noticed the girl trying to stand up out of the wheelchair she was in; it was his understanding that she had just been released from surgery to repair her damaged bones and muscles caused by her grandfather's abuse against her, but her first few steps were still wobbly at best, the teen boy, her father, helped her back into the chair. "How similar?"
"Some form of regression that begins instantaneously, removing a person from physical existence. They're not sure how she's able to do something like that, but it was apparently how she accidentally caused at least one death when she was a baby."
Kami, Aizawa thought, looking at the girl and unable to believe that she killed someone by accident with her Quirk as an infant.
"They're going over the grandfather's research notes, but he wasn't as meticulous as they had hoped he'd be," Isayama informed. "So far, they can only suspect that part of her Quirk works after stockpiling some kind of energy, presumably a trait inherited from her paternal grandmother, whose Quirk only enabled her to stockpile energy over long periods. Her birth mother, on the other hand, possessed a Quirk that only enabled her to glow in the dark for three hours. That was one of the only nonlethal traits she inherited from a criminal."
"What about her grandfather? She didn't inherit any of his Quirk?"
"Her Quirk is suspected to be an alternate version of his Wrath Quirk. She just doesn't tear things apart."
"And…I take it they don't have any other relatives?"
"When you exclude the grandfather and the Gaidoku girl's parents and elder brother, these four are all they have in the way of family and friends. Every other relative is either dead or behind bars somewhere."
Somehow, Aizawa could see where this conversation was going. Even with the culprit taken care of, his victims still needed to have their major problems handled before they could be released back into society. Informing the public that they were alive was one thing…but rehabilitating them to function around others without having violent reactions was another story, especially if the girl possessed a Quirk she wasn't trained to control or knew how to control and was abused constantly by an adult that may have left her with a fear of adults…or anyone that may have wanted to harm her.
-x-
There was nothing inside what remained of the Entry Plug when it was cut open. Residual LCL, but the only part of the Third Child that was salvaged was the left leg, presumably when he tried to either move around or avoid getting crushed within the plug. This…and no results of finding anyone resembling the boy in Tokyo-3…were proof that he was no longer among the living. While the Eva could be rebuilt, NERV was a pilot short…and nobody could see anyone volunteering for the time being.
Still, the life of the pilot is secondary compared to the Eva, thought Ritsuko as she concluded the end result of the salvaging operation. It's not like they're irreplaceable when they are at a time like this.
Except that most of the time, they were not replaceable. Not when the human race was faced with a crisis that threatened them as a whole…and where there were few children left alive to lead them into a future worth fighting for. And until the Dummy System was up and running, NERV required the children until they were no longer necessary. This unexpected loss was nothing more than a setback.
"How do you plan to explain this to the Committee, Ikari?" Fuyutsuki asked Gendo in the latter's office later that day; the elderly sub-commander was upset that his former student's son was now dead and that it was NERV's fault he was dead.
"There's nothing to tell them," Gendo responded. "The Angel needed to be defeated and the Eva salvaged. The Eva was salvaged and the Angel defeated. Nothing more, nothing less."
"And you don't think they'll want to know about the fate of the pilot?"
"Irrelevant. So long as the Angels are defeated, they will not question the loss of any pilot."
But Fuyutsuki found that to be just another excuse in a long line of excuses. Just one excuse after another…without any explanation to why the situation had to go down the way it did. He, on the other hand, felt there had to be an explanation for why one of the pilots was killed, even if it meant it had to come from him to the Committee.
-x-
If they had to be in the hospital for a week due to borderline malnutrition caused by their unlawful imprisonment, Shinji couldn't see any place safer and surrounded by people that actually had their best interests at heart. And…this gave him time to adjust to being around these people he had to keep safe from danger.
"Think you took enough?" He asked the nurse as she finished drawing blood from his left arm.
"We don't know how your Quirk works," she explained. "Are you sure you haven't tried to use it after that night?"
"I'm positive, ma'am," he responded; after he defeated his father, he didn't show any strange behavior or side-effects from using his Quirk.
"Any shaking? Chills? Indigestion?"
"No."
It wasn't like he could explain anything if he didn't understand how the Quirk worked. He just focused on protecting Shado, and that was what he did. Afterward, whatever power he felt coursing through his body just stopped, and he was fine, excluding the hunger and need for rest.
"Well, can you describe your feelings during the time you were facing your father?" The nurse asked him.
"They weren't as complicated as you would probably suspect. My concern at the time was to protect my daughter. She was my primary concern when I had to face my father."
"But your father… Didn't his Quirk frighten you with what it could enable him to do? He's been known to tear apart many things with his hands and put them back together again in insane ways. Weren't you terrified?"
"Of course, I was terrified…but not as much as I feared what he would do to Shado if there was nobody to stop him from hurting her further."
"So…throughout the entire situation you were in, you just feared for your daughter's life? Not your own?"
"What he could've done to me…wouldn't have compared to the hurt he put her through…simply because he can't forgive an accident that was devoid of any actual intent."
The nurse had to come to the conclusion that Shinji's Quirk was, at least initially, influenced by his parental status. His first instinct as a father was to protect his child, something that was rarely acted upon by other people with Quirks that had children. In minor cases, there were those that had those Quirk-based agendas that didn't help with child rearing, but this wasn't the case with this former kidnap and rape victim that had an illegitimate child. He just wanted to protect his little girl, regardless of the danger he could've faced.
"It's quite possible that your Quirk's activation was triggered by your…paternal instincts."
"You mean, I was able to do as I did, including breaking my father's arms so he couldn't hurt Shado again…was because she was in danger and I had to keep her safe?"
"That's a working theory. Part of this evaluation involves trying to understand how your Quirk operates as best as possible before registering it into the global Quirk database. The more information we have on how a Quirk functions, the more we'll be able to understand how to assist in helping you manage it in the future. Can you describe your exact emotions when facing your father in protecting your daughter?"
"Uh, fear…anger…frustration…elation…relief."
"Do you suppose there's…a way you could try to duplicate that feeling for future reference?"
"Maybe. I'm not sure."
"Some would call you a hero for standing up to your father."
"Really?"
"Well, yeah. He was behaving very cruelly towards anyone that disagreed with his decisions and made attempts that were unethical. Nobody would put their child through any of what he did to your daughter unless they had the consent of the parents or guardians or the child's Quirk is acting up and can't be properly controlled without some kind of device."
"Has there been anyone with a Quirk like that?"
"Various people. One of them is currently at U.A. over in Musufatu. He has a birth defect affecting his Quirk that requires him to wear a belt at all times because his navel can project an energy beam continuously."
"That's…that seems very unpleasant."
"Only because it was triggered at an early age. Hospitals across the planet have to be updated all the time with a man or woman's Quirk information, meaning that every Quirk has to be understood, but in a humane way."
-x-
Rumiko was not really surprised to hear that her parents were still alive, but she couldn't risk going back to them. Not before or after the second cruelest form of Hell she had been through. Neither she nor Toya could risk being around her parents or her brother. As far as she was concerned, they were no better than Gendo had been, excluding her personal reasons for disliking her parents.
"So, I take it you don't want anyone to call them?" The doctor asked her after her evaluation was completed for the tenth time. "They'd probably relieved to know that you and your son are alive and well."
"Maybe, but no," she answered him. "What happened back then was only because I was naïve, but going back to them is risking reopening an old wound that deserves to be left alone. My father and brother were sick monsters and my mother was just as worse. Not as worse as Shinji's father, though…but still very bad. My relationship with them is permanently strained…and nothing can change that."
"So, then…what will you do once you're able to leave the hospital with your son?" He asked.
"The four of us need to stick together. Shinji, Shado, Toya and I. We're all we really have. There's no one else that can totally comprehend what we went through. Not unless they themselves went through something similar or worse."
-x-
How does one move on after knowing someone they sent to face an Angel was killed after dropping close to one-thousand N² bombs into its shadow-like body to salvage the Eva, even when it came at the cost of the pilot's life? How can anyone move on after realizing that someone they either knew, lived with, worked with, or even left alone…was no longer around? Some would say that it was the consequences, the very price of the survival of the human race. Others would claim that it wasn't a fair trade, killing a child or young man to save an entire species, even if it was against just one of these monsters the general public were kept in the dark about. But when most hear the name Shinji Ikari, they would just look the other way because they either pitied who he was on account of his father…or had an opinion on his father that reflected badly on the son.
Misato looked at the sketch that had been removed from Shinji's locker in the Geo-Front, noticing that it was quite detailed. She had asked Asuka about it to make sure she hadn't left anything out…only to find that she knew less due to her disinterest in why he hadn't been sleeping much of the time. The little girl in the sketch, she had to be less than ten years old, Misato had to admit, if only to herself, was almost like a younger, more feminine-looking version of Shinji. If the boy had some hidden fantasies of having a kid of his own in the future, she'd have to tease him a little on who his love interest would before settling down.
"Who is that?" She heard Rei question, which surprised her.
"Ah!" She gasped, jumping away from her in the locker room. "Oh, Rei… This is… I don't know who this is. She's just a sketch that Shinji drew a while back."
Rei looked at the sketch…and stated that the girl seemed sad.
"What makes you think the girl is sad?" Misato asked her.
"I…I do not know," Rei responded. "She looks sad, based on the way she was sketched."
Misato looked at the sketch again…and had to admit that the girl did seem upset about something. She just couldn't say what. Who else but Shinji could've probably explained why the girl he drew seemed unhappy?
Meanwhile, Asuka, learning that Shinji was definitely dead, as all that was left of him was one of his feet, was regretting that she tried to one-up him.
"Stupid idiot," she sighed as she was in the elevator on her way back to Misato's apartment. Why can't you just show up at the last moment like you usually do?
She was having a difficult time processing that he was gone and wasn't coming back. He was not laying around in some hospital bed or hiding in some bathroom stall. He was…just dead…just like everyone else that died long before he did and everyone that would die afterward. She had expected the Eva to keep him unscathed, but after that explosion from all those N² bombs, she had to accept that no place offered such a shelter from such a brutal method of elimination, not even an Evangelion.
-x-
"…I understand perfectly," went Nezu as he spoke on the phone with someone from Sapporo, looking down at his desk at a copy of the photo he received from Aizawa two hours ago. "I look forward to meeting them personally."
Hanging up, the U.A. principal had to ponder how these four would adjust to their unfamiliar settings here, especially after being informed that one of them was actually displaced from a different universe. It wasn't everyday that U.A. received requests from other parts of Japan to help in the rehabilitation and education of people that came from broken homes or troubled families, and this was one of those rare days. But as the two teens had nobody except their illegitimate children…and each other, the school would do their best to help this quartet of maimed youths that had never gone to any hero-training centers, either due to never being allowed to or because they were imprisoned by a former student.
"Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari," he sighed as he thought back to the days when that young man was enrolled here. "His lack of morality prevented him from seeing that he had potential to be a hero…and in the end, he chose the path of villainy over heroism. The only good he ever did was leaving a potential legacy that can succeed where he failed."
It would be challenging at best, but in due time, the school would serve as the education spot for Shinji Ikari and Rumiko Gaidoku, and at the same time a haven for the two teen parents and their children as they slowly try to recover their mental fortitude and reintegrate into society. While some could've suggested that the two children would probably do better at a nearby primary school around other children their age, Nezu had to take into consideration that neither parent wanted to be too far from their child and that the children themselves were not as equipped to handle being around others with Quirks that were…unpredictable and could cause them, the little girl in particular, to react negatively.
"So, these four will be coming here?" Nemuri Kayama, also known as Midnight, asked Nezu, as she, All Might and Recovery Girl were also present.
"That's right," he answered her. "This is very unexpected."
"I'm surprised that the Sapporo PD and hospital personnel made this request," said Recovery Girl, looking at the photo of the four kids. "They almost look like an actual family of sorts."
"Yes, you could easily mistake them for such. It wouldn't surprise me if the two parents were a couple. Although, I have my doubts that the young man can measure up to who he used to be completely. He's still adjusting, as he's only been around people with Quirks for less than a week and has to rely on what other people tell him and the lingering memories of his deceased self that resided here in this universe."
"If he's from another universe, one where there are no heroes or villains," went All Might, curious as to why this young man was being permitted to come here if he didn't really belong, "why is he coming here instead of trying to find a way back to his universe?"
"He made a promise to himself," Nezu answered him. "Put quite simply, the Shinji Ikari that was murdered by his father, made the Shinji Ikari from the other universe promise to look after his daughter and Ms. Gaidoku and her son before his spirit moved on. It's not everyday that you have to metaphorically and literally promise yourself that you'll do something another version of yourself can no longer do due to factors that are beyond your control."
"And…the daughter is okay with this?" Recovery Girl questioned; any child that was severely abused by someone that had so much cruelty in their heart towards them would likely be unable to form a stable bond with their parent…or who they perceive to be their parent.
"Recently-obtained memories from the little girl revealed her asking her father's doppelgänger if he was her father after realizing that the star-shaped scar hers had on his chest wasn't on his chest…and he responded that he was her father now, showing that he accepted his new role willingly. He was later questioned upon waking up in the hospital and his DNA taken. Even if he never had any children in his former universe, he's still biologically the girl's paternal father in this one…and he's protective of her after seeing the way his father behaved towards her."
"And his Quirk? He was tested for a Quirk factor?" Midnight questioned. "What is he capable of? Can he tear things apart and put them back together again?"
"That…remains to be seen. His Quirk, similar to that of his daughter's, is a mutation of the amalgamated Quirk factors of his other relatives. Some of the abilities he has demonstrated so far are increased strength and speed, some heightened durability, glowing like fire or light, and some form of levitation. If I had to do a comparison to a degree, young Ikari's Quirk may be similar to young Midoriya's."
In which case, this meant that his Quirk had some similarities to the closely-guarded One For All. How similar it was to that particular Quirk remained to be seen.
"Sounds like a powerful Quirk," Midnight stated.
"That remains to be seen," Nezu responded.
-x-
"…Well, that's pretty much everything I need for the baseline information on your Quirk, Shinji," went the doctor to him as she updated the newest information about the boy's Quirk. "All that's missing is the most important aspect of your Quirk."
"Which is?" He asked her.
"The name. Have you decided on what to call your Quirk?"
"You mean…I get to decide the name of the Quirk?"
"That's right. Most parents that have a clearer understanding of their Quirks usually name it for their children, but other times, children themselves decide to name their Quirks, based on what they think is a good name and why. Any ideas that come to mind?"
Shinji looked over at Shado, Rumiko and Toya, who were present in the room with him and the doctor, and they pointed at him to decide the name of his Quirk.
"Just one word, really," he responded to the doctor, and she got ready to put in the identity of the Quirk. "I want to call it…Guardian."
"Guardian…and the reason behind it?"
"There are three important people in my life that motivate me to do my best to keep them safe from danger. The one most responsible for the well-being of others is known as the guardian, and the guardian…is a form of hero."
Rumiko thought about it…and was impressed by Shinji's wording of how similar a guardian was to a hero. Not only that, it felt symbolic to how Shinji was protective of them. If he was going to be a hero in the future, he was bound to be one of the most moral ones.
"Not bad," the doctor agreed with him, typing in the information of the Quirk to permanently address it as its designation. "Nobody has ever chosen to designate their Quirk as Guardian. Some choose names like Telepathy, Thunder, Force, Turbo, Siren or Heater. Guardian, though, that's…that's powerful designation for a Quirk that may one day be wielded by a very powerful hero in the future."
Shinji nodded in agreement with her.
"Daddy's Quirk sounds better than what was suggested for mine," Shado claimed; because there was hardly any perfect understanding of how her Quirk function, her Quirk was merely known as Regression, which bothered the girl due to the lack of understanding because of how her grandfather refused to educate or even train her on how to control it.
"There was a lady twenty years ago that didn't like the name that her parents chose for her Quirk because she feared nobody would take her serious if they didn't take what she could do serious," the doctor revealed to them. "After she realized the limits of her Quirk, she had it changed to better reflect her serious beliefs."
"What was it originally called?" Rumiko asked her.
"Her parents called it Flight…and she later called it Joyride."
"Joyride…sounds slightly better than Flight."
And with that, the information that was now registered regarding their individual Quirks were transferred over to the U.A. school where they would be staying until Shinji and Rumiko could graduate and follow the path of the heroes. With some measure of hope, these four would be able to recover and adjust to being free and have regular problems like other people. And bury the past that Gendo had tarnished for them.
-x-
Even in a prison, medical attention was limited for people like Gendo, who was stuck with prosthetic hands in place of his flesh and blood ones that he was denied because he was deemed too dangerous to be around others. And if that wasn't enough of a disgrace to him, he was confined to a solitary cell…to protect the other inmates in case he tried something that would land him further on death row if the other inmates discovered his crimes. Regular criminals often got targeted for killing snitches or children, but criminals with Quirks were heavily-frowned upon and had to be protected in case other supervillains decided to try and band together and resume their old habits. In his case, his isolation would deprive him of any bit of information related to his son and granddaughter or news relating to the outside world, cutting him off from the news, social media and the stuff of heroes.
"Damn them!" He grunted as he couldn't bash his artificial hands against the reinforced steel walls of his prison cell lest he break them and be rendered crippled again. "This isn't over! Do you hear me?! This isn't over!"
-x-
"…Nervous?" Rumiko asked Shinji as they were in the air after takeoff once they left the hospital inbound towards Musufatu.
"No," he answered her. "Oh, you mean about heading to U.A., no. I'm not nervous about that. Are you nervous?"
As their children were asleep, barely able to endure much travel by air and because it'd be a while before they reached their destination, this left the teenage parents with time to converse between each other some more. There was some conversation time they needed to get around due to the revelations surrounding what their relationship was; Rumiko had been informed about the death of the Shinji she knew and that this Shinji was very different due to never being a kidnap and rape victim, so they needed to understand a little more about each other if they were going to ever be okay around each other.
"You know that I can't…ever be like him," he had told her.
"No, you can't," she responded, "and you shouldn't be like him. You should be who you can be. You might end up being just as good as he was."
"Was he…was he special to you?" He asked her.
"We were childhood friends. It never went beyond that…not that it could…but I cared about him. He was…my pillar in a storm of discord."
"If you'll let me…I'd like to be friends with you, as well."
"Be who you are…and you may just be able to get into the friend zone, Shinji Ikari."
Shinji nodded in understanding; he wasn't going to cross the line with her or any other person just because he wasn't the same as his late doppelgänger. But he had hope that his relationship with Rumiko would, sooner or later, develop somewhere where they would both be comfortable enough to engage in simple conversation with one another. He wasn't an Evangelion pilot any longer, neither was he in Tokyo-3. In fact, there was no such place in this world where the majority of the human population had some kind of superpower, and he was among them. He could be a hero if he wanted to, some kind of civil servant dedicated to making the world a better place for everyone around him.
"Tell me, though," he uttered to Rumiko, "do you have any favorite heroes that are known to the public around the world?"
She looked at him from the opposite side of the section of the plane they occupied and responded, "Excluding you three, I have four favorites. My primary favorite hero being the one they call All Might. After him is Water Hose, a pair of water-using heroes that left behind a son after defeating a bad guy at the cost of their lives to save others in danger. That's just another reminder that heroes with families are the ones that suffer the most should anything happen to them. And then, there's Fat Gum, who ranks in the fifties among the best heroes in Japan that worked with the police before becoming a hero."
"Whoa… Uh, wait, there's a ranking system for heroes here?"
"Yeah. It's based on many factors that help to ensure the people can feel safe when they leave their homes every day. Working in tandem with the police, the number of cases investigated and solved, popularity among the people, their social contributions, their commitment to enforcing the law, etc. The lower your rank your rank is in Japan, the greater you're considered among the heroes. It wasn't that long ago that All Might ranked number one in the charts as the greatest hero in history before he was forced to retire."
Shinji had looked into that recent media back in the hospital while physically recovering. There was a serious battle between several heroes and a few villains, with one of the villains being the strongest, requiring All Might to give it all he had to stop him, resulting in a lot of public property damage to a section of the city they were in. It surprised Shinji that there were heroes that were so powerful for a time that they were almost thought to be gods, but when All Might defeated All For One, the villain that people discovered possessed the power to steal other people's Quirks and give them to other people, he was reminded that there was no such thing as an invincible hero, that everyone had their weaknesses, physical, mental or emotional, and that sooner or later, people either had to retire…or bite the dust…and most did the latter over the former due to wanting to save people, no matter what the cost. It was a scary world that heroes resided in when facing the villains, people that could do whatever they wanted…whenever they chose…and the police weren't as equipped to deal with them as they had been before people started developing superpowers.
"That's life, Shinji," she told him. "It's a different world from the one you used to reside in. There's danger everywhere, and you need to be ready to face it when it appears."
He nodded in understanding and looked out the window at the world below them. Unlike his former universe, there was no world mostly underwater, no giant monsters or giant robots built to fight them by a secret organization. It was just a world with heroes, villains and civilians, trying to make sense and find stability. And yet…he was a stranger to everything here as he tried to fit in; his father was now in prison and would never get out, his mother was dead, killed accidentally by his own daughter when she was barely a baby, and the only friend he had so far was this girl with a kid of her own that was friends with his doppelgänger…and had her own issues with her family that prevented her from going back to them.
What a world, he thought.
To be continued…