Creation began on 10-05-21
Creation ended on 10-08-21
Neon Genesis Evangelion
My Hero, Shinji Ikari: Razor-thin Rage
A/N: As Optimus Prime said in Dark of the Moon, there are always calms between storms. This is simply another storm between calms.
"…So…how is Shado doing?" Todoroki asked Shinji as they sat in front of the pool with the other boys in 1-A.
"She's doing fine," he answered. "Recovery Girl looked at her, and she checked out well. It was just a case of fatigue and hunger that was remedied after she woke up later that day."
"Still hard to believe, though," went Ida, and Mineta, Sero, Shoji and Koda agreed with him. "I mean, your daughter did what no one was able to do. All Might has been the talk of the school for a week and people are still wrapping their heads around his return to his glory days."
"Don't take it the wrong way, Ikari," went Mineta, "but your daughter's a badass of a different sort, and I don't mean hot or irresistible. I mean, she's pretty and amazing. This has gotta be one for the history books. The return of the world's greatest hero, all because of your daughter and her Quirk."
"Maybe…maybe."
On the other side of the pool, the girls of the class were watching as three of their classmates swam across the water.
"So, Shado's still doing fine?" Uraraka asked Rumiko.
"Yeah," she answered back.
"She's a hero that brought back a hero," said Yaoyorozu. "If her Quirk has a healing application, she could be the next Recovery Girl or something."
"You really think so?" Rumiko responded.
"If she could make me visible and change All Might from his skinny form back to his super form, she's got a future where she can help the people," expressed Hagakure, whose head was see-through, all save her cheeks that were blushing; in the short time that she had been visible, she had learned to use her Quirk like any other muscle in her body, exercising it until she had achieved a better degree of control over it.
"A girl with stuffed teddies," Jiro uttered, playing with with her left earphone jack. "You can either see her as a joke or take her seriously."
"It's better to see her as friendly or in need of friends and stability," Rumiko told her.
-x-
The sweat dripped from his face and back as he worked himself raw to strengthen his upper body and lower body. Even as he felt the fatigue set in his muscles, Gendo felt stronger than he had ever been in his youth. Collapsing from doing two-hundred-fifty push-ups and sit-ups, he looked up at the ceiling of his prison cell, a frown on his face. All he needed to do now was recoup his strength…and then he'd be ready to make his move.
Soon, he thought, raising his left hand up over his head, looking at it, thinking of how much it and the other prosthetic limb had reduced him to an embarrassment during his incarceration and isolation from the world beyond him. Soon…there will be recompense for the time I've spent here…and for those in the way…only two choices.
He closed and opened the hand, dropping it to his side. He knew there were people watching him at all times, and he knew better than to express any of his desires, whether to express himself or merely think it. For now, nobody would need to know anything…because he wouldn't demonstrate any desire.
-x-
"Hmm?" Rumiko looked down at the floor in front of her as she and the others returned to the dorms after school let out for the day, seeing a letter addressed to her. "Who'd send me a letter? I don't have anyone to talk to from afar."
Shinji picked up the letter and checked the return address.
"Uh…it's from your mother, Rumiko," he revealed to her, and she looked tense after hearing that. "Rumiko?"
She accepted the letter from him and walked away from him and their kids.
"Is she alright?" Shado asked Toya.
"My mother has a complicated relationship with her mother," he stated simply; even he barely understood the relationship that was as nonexistent between his mother and grandmother as the relationship between Shado and Gendo was just as nonexistent. "There's nothing but a space between them that keeps them apart."
"Does her mother…dislike her for some reason?"
"Rumiko's mother has had a…resentment towards her for something that wasn't entirely her fault," Shinji tried to clarify without overstepping his boundaries. "They currently don't see eye-to-eye with each other."
"On the positive side," Toya said, "she doesn't have it out for my mother or the rest of us or feels any reason to indicate that we exist to her."
"But that's…that's terrible," Shado expressed.
Up in her room, Rumiko, having set her book bag down and sat on the floor beside her futon, looked at the letter her mother sent her…and soon regretted having done so. It was only a handful of sentences, but the feelings within each word were as depressing as a knife cutting through flesh. Even after all the years lived apart from each other after her father and brother took advantage of her naïveté, there was no trace of any measure of understanding or sympathy from her mother.
"To Rumiko," it read, "in the years you were missing, presumed dead, your father and I have faced scrutiny from the neighbors, and this was long before you went and got yourself knocked up so young! Even after you were discovered to be alive when you just miraculously showed up at a police station, I was hoping you would bite the dust because your father, may he burn for his deceit against me, I can't stand the sight of him or your brother because of your seductress ways! More your father than your brother, and I think you know why when you look at him! Now, I hear that the four of you are at U.A. What do you think your chances are of becoming a hero when your Quirk is defective and you've been locked away from the world and from people that didn't even know who you were? What are your chances? Do you even know?"
Rumiko sighed and put the letter down. Just feeling the negative emotions her mother put into each word was enough to make her understand that, despite the considerable amount of time and space between them, whatever love and affection there was between them was snuffed out a long time ago. At least…on her mother's end, that is. She hated her father, brother and Gendo more than she wanted to hate her mother just for choosing to believe that she was a…when she wasn't like that at all. Her relationship with Shinji has been…the healthiest one she's ever had with a non-family member.
Knock-knock. She looked up and saw Shinji at her open door.
"Wanna talk about it?" He offered.
"No, my mother… I will always appreciate your mother for taking Toya and I in, but mine is… No amount of time or space between us can mend what was broken. Words are the most inexhaustible superpower we all have in this life and the next, able to cause harm to people…and mend the harm caused to people."
Shinji looked down at the letter addressed to her from her mother…and saw how her words were just so…cruel and heartless.
"What was she like?" He asked her. "Before…everything changed?"
"We were civil and could talk about stuff," she explained the former history between herself and her mother. "But then my brother and our father just up and started looking at me differently… I didn't even know that what they were doing to me was wrong. I didn't know that they were abusing me, and she blamed me for making her relationship with my father and brother become strained. Sometimes, I think she resented being married to my father based solely on the implication of their relationship being nothing more than a Quirk Marriage."
"A Quirk Marriage? What is that?"
"That's when people with two different Quirks are paired together for the specific purpose of having children that possess greater versions or variations of their Quirks or a combination of two or more Quirks. Marriages of this sort are considered taboo because it messes kids up, knowing that the only reason they exist is because one or both their parents desired children with stronger versions of their own powers."
"That is terrible. How could people…let something like that happen?"
"Nobody's perfect, Shinji, only human. There's no such thing as a perfect human. When Quirks started showing up in the world, people didn't know how to make sense of them; some thought they were a new form of disease, others thought they were simply the next stage in our evolution, and some believed that people with Quirks needed to be policed."
"Policing people because they have Quirks? That's discrimination, Rumiko."
"The first Quirk to ever appear was reported to have been in China, in a hospital where a newborn baby girl was glowing like the sun. Most thought she was a monster, but her parents thought she was an angel."
"They're parents; they just had a baby, so they'd be protective of her as we are of our kids. We want to see the good in them more than others expect to see the bad."
"True. Still, it hurts when it changes the perception of those that are not used to something that just happens spontaneously and doesn't go away after a while."
"But we have morals that we live by, and there are laws and regulations that keep us in check. That separates us from the criminals in society."
"It doesn't change the fact that when it comes to Quirks, some view the use of them the same as breathing, eating, driving or whatever; they want to use them without restriction, and being restricted by the rules and regulations is what drives most to criminal behavior."
"So, the system isn't perfect…but it works to a degree…doesn't it?"
"Yes, it does…and we're not as susceptible to the darker reasons that motivate people to use their Quirks. We want to be heroes or only feel the need to use them to help others when and if we see a way to make use of our abilities in a given situation."
Shinji sighed and expressed wanting to be able to do just one thing with his Quirk that was akin to a harmless thrill, and that was to jump across the rooftops in the night and see the world from a different perspective than what he was already seeing.
"That…doesn't sound like a bad desire, Shinji," she told him.
"Thanks," he replied.
-x-
Gendo sighed as he finished another series of sit-ups and collapsed on the floor. With the lack of weights available to him, he couldn't expect to develop any muscle buildup, but because he kept up his little regiment, there was a slight development in his physicality if you looked close enough. His abdominal area was leaner than it had ever been, his knees hurt, but they had a degree of muscle improvement, and his maneuverability had never been better; he hadn't been able to reach down to his feet or bend as well as he used to in his childhood. All he needed was a bit of rest and something to eat, and he'd prepared to finally to action. No more of these plain and ugly walls and being under constant surveillance.
I refuse to let this be how it ends for me, he thought as he looked up at the ceiling again. I refuse to have my final days spent locked up in some box with these other losers.
-x-
For some reason, sleep eluded Shinji that night. He was tired after dinner, but the drowsiness didn't overwhelm his body or mind. Even as he lay in his futon, absent of whatever distractions he had to pass the time, sleep didn't come. It was as though…he had an adrenaline rush that made sleep a desire, but a luxury he couldn't afford at the moment.
"Daddy?" He heard Shado's voice near him, and he looked to his right, seeing her with one of her teddies. "Can you sleep?"
"No," he answered her as he got up. "What's the matter?"
"I thought I saw him again. He was outside my window."
Shinji knew that would've been an impossible feat, even for Gendo; the school and the dorms were practically meant to be among the most secure places in Japan, to the point that anyone desperate enough to break in would be faced with some of the most capable of heroes if the students were placed in danger.
"If he showed up here, he'd regret it in a heartbeat," Shinji told her.
"Except that he doesn't regret anything he does."
"In prison, he'll learn to regret his choices with every passing day."
-x-
A bowl of rice was the worst meal anyone could receive in prison. It was plain, dull and offered only the bare minimum of energy. But it was food, and food was energy. So Gendo couldn't afford not to eat it if he aimed to make his move.
These prosthetic hands are beginning to itch under my skin, he thought as he finished his bowl of rice. "Rrraurgh!"
Smash! He threw his bowl against the wall and watched it shatter into pieces.
"You realize that anger isn't going to help you in your current situation here, Gendo," he heard a prison guard's voice over the intercom.
"Oh, blow me, you pathetic sycophant!"
"Keep talking like that, I may just treat you as a hostile and push a button to have the security measures take you down."
"Is that right?"
"Yes, it is."
"Is this hostile enough for you?"
Gendo raised his arms up and gestured his middle fingers to the hidden cameras.
-x-
"…Shinji, you look terrible," Midoriya stated as Shinji and Rumiko stepped out of their dorm and met with the rest of 1-A.
"Shado and I didn't get much sleep last night, despite being exhausted," he explained.
"Maybe you should've called in sick today," Asui suggested.
"No, this is nothing a little coffee can't remedy."
"Too much of it can make one irritable by even the smallest things," Ida expressed.
"Just hearing something unexpected would be enough to irritate me."
"Attention, please!" They heard a female voice over the loudspeakers. "Will Shinji Ikari report to the principal's office immediately? I repeat, will Shinji Ikari report to the principal's office immediately? That is all."
"Like that," Shinji sighed, and looked to Rumiko, who nodded her head in acceptance.
"What'd you do this time?" Shoji spoke up.
"I haven't done anything wrong. I don't know why I need to go there again. Maybe I forgot something in an assignment."
That wouldn't have made any sense; even if Shinji had been behind on his school work, it wasn't anything he could make up over the rest of the week. Something seemed…different about this new reason.
"You don't think it's about All Might, do you?" Uraraka suspected.
"No way," Midoriya defended. "Recovery Girl checked him out and he was fine. If there were something wrong with him, we'd know."
-x-
"Um…you needed to see me, Mr. Nezu?" Shinji asked the principal as he came inside the office, noticing several other teachers present, including All Might. "Oh…"
Every one of them, even Nezu, which was a first for Shinji, who had to get used to the fact that the school principal was not human, just as smart as one, had an expression of concern on their faces, like something had happened and related in some way to him.
"Ikari," Nezu spoke, "maybe you should sit down."
He gestured to an empty chair and Shinji sat in it.
"Is there something wrong?" Shinji asked them.
"This may come as a shock to you," said Midnight to him as she looked at the others present, "but you have a right to know about this."
"Okay…even though I don't…understand what is going on here."
"Five hours ago," went Eraser Head, "your father escaped from Tartarus."
Shinji's right eye twitched after hearing this.
"He…he's out?" He questioned. "How? I mean, did he…did he have help?"
"No," revealed Present Mic. "Apparently, he broke himself out using his Quirk, which we all thought he was no longer able to wield. Tore through every barrier and killed a lot of people in the process of escaping, whether they were guards, medical personnel…or other inmates."
"He used his Quirk? Wrath? But…I thought I destroyed his hands, making it impossible for him to use his Quirk."
"We're still looking at the surveillance videos," All Might told him, "but it looks like he wasn't using his hands. It looks like he was using his feet. Somehow…he was able to use his feet to free himself from his cell."
Shinji tried to comprehend this discovery to the best of his ability. His father had escaped from Tartarus, had killed a lot of people in the process, both good and bad, still had access to his Quirk by means of his feet, and was now loose in the world. And if they were informing him of this update, then it was likely due to there being a possibility that Gendo would come after him and Shado. Or just Shado, having found from his alternate self that the guy hated her enough to torture the girl enough to leave her close to death…but not too close because he wanted to find a way to use her Quirk for his own gain.
"And you think he'll come after us?" He needed to know. "After Shado and I?"
"It's possible," Nezu admitted. "But not likely to happen. The police have been informed and everyone will be looking for him. His only option right now to stay in hiding. He did leave one victim alive, but only to leave a message to whoever found him. "Family may be forever, but not everyone is family." Does that mean anything to you, Shinji?"
"More than likely, that's his way of reaffirming to himself that he has every intention on coming after Shado. He can't forgive her for accidentally killing my mother…and can't allow the accident to be nothing but an accident. In his mind, she's nothing but a murderer…and never a little girl or a person that has no control over a power she has that could be a blessing once she does understand what she's fully capable of."
"Ikari," All Might uttered, "there's a possibility…only a possibility, really…that your mother isn't dead."
Shinji looked at the restored hero and was confused.
"What do you mean?"
"First, we checked with Hagakure after she was rendered visible, and she confirmed that she saw a woman matching your mother's description in a different place we have yet to locate. The same thing happened again with All Might, and in his case, he saw and heard her speak to him," Recovery Girl revealed to him. "She said one word: 'Help'."
"Just 'help'? And…you think it's possible…that she's alive?"
-x-
Five hours ago
He had taken what his wife had told him about the guy she had mentioned to him about elevating his mind to recover from his own injuries, and while it was bitter work to do so, he was impressed by the results. Not willing to risk the effects being hindered in the least, Gendo stood barefoot on the floor of his prison cell, flexing his toes as he took a new breath. Then, just after taking a step towards one of the walls, a surge of energy flowed through his muscles…and destroyed the wall!
BLAST! The wall came apart like someone blew it open, causing the alarms to ring like crazy.
"Yes," he expressed, impressed by the fact that everything within the wall was just as trashed. "Yes, yes, yes!"
He ran through the hole in the wall and entered a hall, where he turned to his left and used Wrath again, causing the walls to crack and atomize with each step he took.
"Stop!" He heard a guard yell at him as seven of them approached from where he was heading, armed with pistols. "Cease and desist!"
"Hands up!" Another guard ordered him.
Gendo brought his feet together, willing the destroyed pieces of the walls to come together…and flatten the guards before he walked over their remains.
I was down, he thought, smiling as a new idea came to mind, but I was not done yet. There is more to me than what I will take back.
He raised a wall from the debris around him as he sat down, using his left foot…and atomizing his right prosthetic arm, down to the stump that remained of his original arm.
"Aaaurgh!" He groaned, and then used his leg to regenerate his lost hand. "Aaaurgh!"
It hurt like a wave of stones being thrown at his back and head, but the greater the pain, the greater the reward. Looking at his ruined limb, he watched as the bone started to regenerate from the debris around him, being used as material to rebuild his damaged and lost body parts. Then his nerves, followed by his muscles…and finally his flesh. It was a reward to be able to move his restored hand like before. And with the return of his hand…came the return of his previous weapon of choice.
"Aaaaurgh!" He groaned as he put his new hand on his remaining prosthetic limb, and blew that apart as he regenerated his limb. "I'm alive and whole once more."
He put his hands on the ground and sent a surge of energy through the hall, tearing it apart as he began to build his armor of debris to further his escape.
-x-
One-hundred-seventeen guards. Two-hundred-twenty-three inmates. Fifty-six doctors and nurses. And twelve bystanders. That was how many people Gendo killed in his escape from Tartarus…and it was going to hit the fan faster than any viral media outbreak had ever done so in years past.
Among those dead on both sides included men and women with relatives in the hero business, the political and medical profession, those with families or were starting families of their own. As Shinji walked to his classroom, he was assured by Nezu that Gendo wouldn't be able to come anywhere near the school, but as concerned as he wanted to be for the other students here, he wasn't too concerned because they were training their Quirks, had considerable experience with villains and criminals, or just had abilities that were likely able to make dealing with his father simple. No, what really worried him about his father being loose on the streets, in the alleyways, in the dark corners…was who his father could go after if he felt like it. His father wasn't just some mad scientist or a murderer…but a mass murderer, or even a multiple murderer if he had no intention of stopping.
"So, what was that trip to the principal's office about?" Rumiko asked him as he sat down at his desk, his expression depressing. "Shinji?"
"You're all going to hear about it," he responded to her.
As Aizawa entered the classroom, there was an air of mystery going on.
"I'm sure as many of you were curious as to why Ikari was called to the principal's office," he addressed them, "this is a matter that can't be kept quiet. As of five hours ago, his father, Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari, escaped from prison and is currently in the wind."
Class 1-A murmured over this revelation, varying between worried for themselves and what he could do until he was caught.
"How'd he escape from prison?" Bakugo asked.
"Who helped him break out?" Uraraka added.
"Will he try to come here?" Mineta wanted to know.
"He still had access to his Quirk. Nobody helped him; he was kept isolated from virtually everyone. It is possible that he may try to come here, but it's unlikely to happen just yet."
"But they will catch him before he tries to, right?" Jiro questioned. "I mean, everyone will be looking for him."
"Except that nobody's ever escaped from Tartarus before," said Ida to her.
"How'd he still have access to his Quirk?" Midoriya asked. "Weren't his hands ruined?"
"He somehow used his Quirk by using his feet to escape," Aizawa explained. "During his incarceration, he spent his time exercising his feet before he made his escape."
"Mister Aizawa, sir," went Rumiko, "was he the only one to escape from the prison? Did anyone else escape with him?"
"Fortunately, no, Gaidoku. But unfortunately, during the time he spent escaping, he went on a spree within the prison, killing whoever was in his way."
This was bad. So bad that people were going to either panic or cause a panic. If people weren't afraid of Gendo before, they had to be now. Unless he was caught or even executed, he was at the top of Japan's most wanted list for his crimes.
-x-
The price of freedom was always high. People got hurt or died, but freedom was a way to get what Gendo really wanted. Anyone that got hurt…was just a casualty of his new objective: Make the world as miserable as he has felt for a long time, and to do that, he needed to break the ones that broke him, metaphorically, emotionally, and literally. As he hid in an abandoned building, keeping out of the windows and waiting for the sun to go down, Gendo thought back to that strange guy that was restrained in a different cell, his lack of a face and Quirk identity just giving a bad vibe.
The infamous All For One, the man that had the power to take away Quirks and use them as his own, or give them to other people that didn't have any. Gendo had heard about this man, even saw the news where he fought All Might in Kamino, impressed to a high degree that the guy, older than most people due to being over a century or so old, but wasn't going to waste his time with a guy that was past his prime and still a threat if let loose back in the world. And even if he could break the man apart with Wrath, Gendo doubt it was a good idea to do so; even if this prison didn't house everyone that believed in All For One, he wasn't going to risk putting a bigger target on his head than there already was; right now, he couldn't risk getting hunted by villains that idolized All For One.
I've missed my hands for a long time, he thought as he looked at his restored limbs. Thank you for inspiring me to elevate my mind to rejuvenate my body, Yui. Your words have always been a comfort to me over all others.
He closed his eyes in the shadowed corner he was squatting in and let his mind drift away. For now, he just had to rest and be ready for the next move he would make.
-x-
It was hard for Shinji to focus on school when his father was loose in the world, likely making his way to U.A. for an unwanted family reunion. Even Rumiko could see this and tried her best to keep his mind off the current situation.
"You know that we're practically in a gated community right now," she told him during the lunch period as they were heading to Recovery Girl's office to have lunch with their children. "And you're stronger than you were the first time you fought with him."
"It's not him coming here that has me worried," he explained to her. "It's what he'll do out there. His Quirk is his lethal weapon of choice, and he can eliminate anyone that tries to get near him. He has no scruples about hurting anyone, and he just proved that even when he's locked up, nobody is safe from him if he's mobile. If his Quirk factor is limited to his limbs, I should've reduced him to just a head with a torso. If I had known he could use his feet as a backup to his hands, I would've told the doctors at the hospital not to mend his legs and give him prosthetic ones like they did with his arms."
"None of what he did in Tartarus is your fault. He hasn't been a good person in a long time. When I think about it now, it seemed like your mother had to keep him in line whenever he came close to crossing it."
They stopped outside of Recovery Girl's office when Shinji looked at her and had to question this detail.
"Are you sure?" He asked her. "My mother kept him in line?"
"If I had to say that she was the sugar and everything nice, then that made your father the spice, Shinji. After that day Shado's Quirk just made itself known, I've never seen him so much as express any kind words or show sympathy or compassion or anything of the sort. He's like a burnt torch or a man that walks on broken glass just to prove that he can be hard on others if he wanted to. There's no remorse, no empathy, just…rage and hatred."
"After hearing this, it's hard to imagine him ever being with anyone in a positive manner."
"People can change, Shinji. That's an unchallenged truth. People can change…but not everyone wants to…or just can't stand the people they've become or were."
"How do you know when someone can't stand who they've become…or can't stand who they were before?"
"You can never tell what anyone does until after they do something, until the critical moment that shows you what they're capable of."
"I'm always learning something new around here."
"You…are the most open book-type person I have ever met."
They entered Recovery Girl's office and met with their children, who were just as uncomfortable with the knowledge that Gendo was loose in the world.
"You two look better when you have smiles on your faces," Shinji sighs.
"That's not easy to do right now when you find out that someone who's supposed to be in prison is not in prison and nobody knows where to find him," Toya responded.
"What's to keep him from coming here?" Shado asked.
"Over a dozen heroes," Rumiko went, "the police with orders to neutralize him on sight, and your father, who's a lot tougher than he was the night your grandfather was defeated?"
"And again, I must state that I am not worried about him coming here if he does do that," Shinji reiterated. "I worry about what he's going to do out there while he makes his way here."
"He doesn't seem like the type to think about anything except his would-be vendetta if all he cares about is coming here to have an undesired reunion with his family," Recovery Girl said.
"Was he ever a nice guy when he was here?"
"Not even one friend. He just…never fit in…with anyone."
"I honestly don't know what is worse about my father; the fact that he's crazy enough to hold a grudge against my daughter, that he's capable of escaping from a prison designed to house people with Quirks that are used to commit acts against other people, or that he's just…full of nothing but…malice."
"Can he be…all above, Daddy?" Shado asked her father.
"Yeah," he answered. "If I can't choose one of them, it's best to choose all of them."
To be continued…
A/N: And now we have ourselves a rising hero in the making and an archenemy out to get revenge. I bet y'all wanted to see Gendo kill All For One, and I actually thought about doing so, but I couldn't bring myself to go through with the move; Gendo doesn't really care much for other villains, so the guy is just going to stay where he is until something else happens. And as for Shinji and Shado, this discovery affects them more than the others because it's someone they're related to that has caused grief for many. Do read and review, please. Until the next time.