Creation began on 12-30-21
Creation ended on 01-24-22
Neon Genesis Evangelion
My Hero, Shinji Ikari: Selfless Duty against Irrationality
"…Over here!" A voice called out in the darkness. "We found another survivor! Give me a hand!"
An eye opened to see dim light shining over its head.
"You're finally awake," another voice uttered, causing the eye to shift its gaze to the right, seeing a young woman with her left arm in a sling.
"Ibuki," Ritsuko muttered.
"Don't try to move," she told her. "I got off easy. Everyone else wasn't so lucky."
Ritsuko realized that they were in the aftermath of the Matsuhiro base. Her memory was coming back to her; the activation test for Unit-03 had gotten compromised by the discovery that an Angel had taken over the Eva. All attempts to eject the plug had ended in failure.
"What happened to Unit-03?" She asked Maya.
"Unit-02 had to take it out," she answered back. "There's some conflict of information about what happened…but I'm sure that the Dummy System was implemented in dealing with the Angel. However, the pilot survived."
The use of the Dummy System was not a good choice because it was still unpredictable if unleashed before it could be perfected. If Commander Ikari made the decision to implement its use against the Angel, it was either because the pilots were incapacitated…or showed hesitation in facing the Angel because one of their own was in danger. And since Unit-00 wasn't compatible with the Dummy System, that meant it was Unit-02 that had defeated Unit-03 while it was possessed by the Angel.
Ritsuko would have to refine the software for the Dummy System once she got back on her feet.
-x-
The people bathed in pink light all climbed out of the crater after all the debris around them collapsed onto the ground in front of the news media people and the heroes, surprising them all as the pink glow faded from them, revealing that they were all in various stages of injury, either middle-aged, elderly or just young children. And then, the debris that were stacked up collapsed all over again, but were fortunate enough to not fall back into the crater.
"Medic!" A hero yelled out as he ran over to the people.
"How many of you are there?" A female nurse asked a man in a ripped suit.
"I don't know," he responded. "Some guy reached for my hand and told me to reach for whoever was near me and have them reach for whoever they could. I think it was some kid that was in the hospital when this happened."
"My wife," an elderly man uttered, being tended to by another nurse. "She never did anything to hurt anyone…and that disgruntled bastard took her from this world. Why didn't the justice system kill him?"
Nobody said anything, but knew that he was suffering from the emotional loss, the same as the rest of them that had survived this madness, and wanted to know the same thing. As of now, it had been a grave error of the justice system to have Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari incarcerated at Tartarus than to execute him. If he had been disposed of after knowing what he was capable of, none of this would have befallen any of them.
We thought he could no longer do anything to harm anyone else, thought a male hero that had followed the report of Gendo locked away. He lost his arms which served as his Quirk factor when he fought with his son, and was given prosthetic ones. Without his real arms, he was no better than a regular person…but now he goes and does this…just to cause pain and suffering because of a little girl that he despises so much.
-x-
It was only a formality, nothing more or less than the teaching staff at U.A. telling the two parents what they found out earlier. But the scores of students that gave them cold looks, ranging from the resentful to the disgusted, was not a mood changer as they walked to the principal's office where they instructed to head to.
"Your old man is a crazy psycho!"
"What is his endgame, doing something like this?!"
"If he killed my grandparents that lived in that city, I hope you hang for this!"
Over a dozen or so students were angry and using Shinji to vent they contempt over Gendo had done. There wasn't a thing he could say to them to express that he wasn't happy about what happened, either.
"I hope they tell us something good," Rumiko told Shinji as he got the door for her. "This is not a good day to be in school."
"News is news right now," he replied. "Lately, any relating to my father is always bad."
They stopped in front of the door to Nezu's office and saw the principal at his desk.
"I wish the circumstances of why you were called were different," Nezu expressed in regret.
"The life of those that want to become heroes, I suppose," Shinji responded as he and Rumiko sat down in his office. "Has there…been any confirmation of how many…victims there were?"
"There's no exact number, but we'll be informed when they assess the devastation in its entirety," said Ectoplasm to the teens.
"We recently received a call from your father, Ikari," Nezu informed the young man. "He's not going to stop with leveling just one city unless he's confronted or appeased."
"Appeased?" Rumiko spoke, confused. "What, does he want the heroes to stop looking for him? To see us kicked out of the school?"
"He wants Shado," said All Might to them. "That's his price for his surrender."
Shinji frowned and shook his head.
"No," he uttered, resigned to his reaction. "If he gets her, it's all over for her."
"Did he say why?" Rumiko wanted to know.
"He was…very specific on why," Present Mic stated. "That's his bargain. Her life…or he targets another city…and repeats himself."
"That's not a bargain at all," Shinji expressed. "That's his way of trying get his demand met. He's going to do it, anyway, no matter what happens in the end."
"We have no intention of negotiating such terms with a madman," Nezu calmly iterated, "but for the time being, you four should stay in the dorms. Things are going to get uglier as this escalates further with people hearing his pirate broadcasts."
While Rumiko viewed this as a lesser version of what house arrest was like for people that couldn't leave their homes, Shinji had to accept that this was the teachers trying to mitigate the seriousness of this situation and keep the four of them safe from Gendo, even though it was Shado that his father was after. The teens then got up and walked out of the room.
"This is making me uneasy," Rumiko informed Shinji. "Like, extremely uneasy."
"I'm trying to keep from going off on someone that doesn't deserve it," he told her, implying that he was just as uneasy as she was right now as they returned to Recovery Girl's office to pick up their kids. "I feel a tense feeling in my right hand that is aggravating."
"Yeah, it's been that way ever since you were kidnapped over five years ago. You get that way whenever you feel like someone is going to try and set you off sometimes."
"Has anyone managed to set me off before?"
"Other than your father? I sometimes worry that I'm on that list."
"Why?"
"I once tried to hold you back from trying to fight your father. That was…before you…"
It was from before the Shinji she knew was killed by Gendo. He had a piece of that memory in his own head, and it was awful to know that it was only because of her persistence in holding him back that kept Gendo from ripping him to pieces…and leaving him that way.
"You two are back so soon," Recovery Girl greeted them.
"Yeah," Rumiko replied, seeing Shado and Toya sitting at the table. "We just found out how bad it's getting today."
"Bad?" Toya asked his mother.
"Bad, bad, bad," Shinji expressed.
"That man is…affecting everyone?" Shado asked.
"Anyone that listens to him. Mostly anyone that is… Actually, anyone that bothers to listen to him talk for more than ten seconds."
Shinji didn't want to say anything that would dim his daughter's spirit and cheerfulness any further than his father has done so already after escaping from prison to continue his madness.
"He's full of anger," went Recovery Girl. "He can't stop."
-x-
It was a miracle that the plug wasn't crushed, keeping the harm to the pilot minimal. However, the status of the pilot could only be described as a half-and-half sense, since he was currently in a coma.
"…They think it was due to the high synchronization that got affected by the Angel taking over that triggered his coma," Misato informed Asuka as they looked at the otaku from outside the room he was assigned to. "They don't know how long he'll be like this, though."
"Why'd they pick someone like him, though?" Asuka questioned. "He's useless."
"He was the only one willing to pilot after what happened."
"And what, NERV just let him get into an Eva and the Eva decides to become an Angel and go on a rampage? He's lucky he didn't get killed out there."
Meanwhile, Rei was in the locker room, wondering if what she saw while inside the Eva was as real as what happened outside it was. She saw the little girl, and the little girl saw her. There was the resemblance to Shinji that the albino noticed, but there was also the sense of fear that she didn't recognize within the girl. And, for just a second, she could've sworn she saw a man behind the girl that resembled Gendo in every detail, but with a crueler expression on his face, raising his hands up to assault the child.
"Ugh," she shuddered, feeling as though it was her that he was about to harm.
-x-
Class 1-A didn't enjoy the fact that out of their entire class, only Shinji and Rumiko were the ones looked at with such scrutiny by the rest of the school's student population due to Gendo's atrocity in one city. Even Aizawa couldn't ignore this sense of blame that was being directed towards the quartet, although the blame was mostly towards Shado.
Screech! The PA system screeched as static acted up.
"Hello, U.A.," they heard Gendo's voice, and worried that he was present within the school. "I'm not here. Even I'm not nowhere near powerful enough to get past the security of U.A.. Count your blessings for that. Anyhow, the reason I'm breaking into your little clubhouse of heroes' school system… What's it gonna take for y'all to realize that there's no such thing as heroes? Everyone that believes that is just another fool that will fall on hard times. And now I suggest this: Whoever within U.A. that wises up and brings me the little bitch that has caused me nothing but grief…then the next city I choose to level will not be the one right next to the school. And I suggest you make your choice pretty soon. I have developed trigger-happy feet."
The pirate broadcast ended and Class 1-A's Midoriya got worried for his mother; if she wasn't still at home, then it was possible that she wouldn't become a casualty, but if she was, then it would be devastating.
"Is he for real?!" Bakugo demanded. "He's willing to attack the city right down the road from the school if it means getting his granddaughter?"
"He's trying to incite people to bend to his will," said Todoroki. "He believes that as long as others have something or someone to lose, they will succumb to desperation to keep them safe."
"Yeah, well, he neglected to say where he wanted Shado handed over to him," Jiro expressed. "Like that will ever happen."
There was a sudden rumbling noise outside the classroom, and Jiro used her Quirk to track it.
"Oh, no," she shuddered, recognizing the sound of footsteps. "It looks like some of the students are actually desperate."
-x-
Of course, Gendo was nowhere near Musutafu. He just wanted to incite panic and desperation to the point where the people would become willing to do whatever it takes to hasten the demise of Shado and put an end to the suffering. As he emerged from the ground and looked around his surroundings, he found himself under an overpass and near a forest. He double-checked his map and ascertained that he was near Tokyo, and this was the old forest where people often came to meet their fate.
The Sea of Trees, he thought as he viewed the trees the same way he viewed other objects, as nothing more than matter he could rearrange. I guess I could bring an end to an unnatural piece of history.
He inhaled a huge breath of air and brought his hand onto the ground, letting his Wrath Quirk do his bidding.
-x-
"…Rei?" Misato went, seeing the albino girl down the hall in NERV HQ. "What are you still doing here?"
"I…needed to ask something," she explained. "The girl from Ikari-Kun's picture… I think I spoke with her."
"You spoke with her? Oh, you mean, you had a dream about her."
"A…dream?"
"She's quite a haunting because we don't know why he drew her or dreamt of her himself."
"Except…she didn't seem like a figment of the imagination."
"In what way?"
"She had never seen an Angel…and referred to a non-Angel as a person with bird wings and ring of light over their heads, similar to how Ikari-Kun referred to God's messengers when he questioned once about the nature of the Angels."
Misato could understand the confusion between the concept of angels from religion and the enemy known as the Angels that people didn't understand. There were those that perceived angels as protectors or messengers…and those that viewed them as harbingers of an inescapable fate, which were, in the case of NERV and the minority of the world that knew of this, the latter when thought about.
"She seemed very fearful of someone," Rei added.
"Did you see who it was that she was fearful of?" Misato asked her.
"It looked like Commander Ikari."
"Why him?"
"Because when I asked her of her relation to Ikari-Kun, she told me…that she was his daughter."
That was a shocking revelation, despite the belief from Toji and Kensuke that the girl, based solely on their opinions about the drawing of the little girl, looked like she had a relation to Shinji. And even crazier due to the fact that she found it odd to get worked up over a girl that didn't even exist, except on a piece of paper.
"In what way did she seem fearful of Commander Ikari?" She asked her.
"Like their relationship was combative," Rei explained, "except that it was one-sided; the girl was the victim…and he the victimizer."
In a similar sense, that was comparable to Shinji's relationship with his father; he was the victim of neglect and his father was the one to neglect him.
-x-
They were upset. They were angry. And they were desperate to end it all. The students that listened to the pirate broadcast Gendo made to U.A. that were the most susceptible had to be warned that giving in to a villain's demands was unbecoming of a hero, and that they had to follow the path of least harm to overcome the villain. Still, the warning was as follows: They were not to bother the Ikaris or Gaidokus in any way that was deconstructive due to the feeling that Gendo would repeat himself in another town or city, or they would face suspension or expulsion from the school.
Fortunately for them, none of them ever got to the front gate of the building to head back to the dorms where the quartet currently resided.
"No matter how we try to mitigate, these kids are being victimized all over again by Gendo," Present Mic told Aizawa and Midnight. "He's way too extreme and far too unstable."
"Would it be too much to ask for the League of Villains to do away with him?" Midnight suggested. "If they dealt with him, while it wouldn't change their social standing to the public, it would spare everyone any further atrocity from Gendo."
"I doubt any of them have ever encountered a man like Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari," Aizawa stated. "He makes Kai Chisaki, Overhaul, seem like a bully compared to him being a complete thug. While their Quirks appear similar, Gendo's is taken a step higher due to his mutation. And how would any of them be able to deal with him? The second he becomes aware of others that he views as either a threat or hindrance to himself, he disposes of them. He doesn't give anyone a chance to retaliate."
"And he deconstructed all those villains that were locked up with him that tried to escape when they saw an opportunity to," Present Mic added. "He's not a team player and he can't be trusted."
"He could've killed All For One while he was at it…but chose not to."
As the school tried to continue with the day, in their dorm house, Shinji and Rumiko found the quietness of their environment was agonizing in its own way to them. It had brought up the painful memories of their unjust incarceration by Gendo and watching the television was all they could to break the silence, with their children asleep in their rooms after deciding that they should get some more rest.
Rumiko got up on the couch and went to the kitchen area, silently fuming. When she came back, Shinji noticed that she had a drink with her.
"As much as I feel like drinking an alcoholic beverage, I refuse to break under this agonizing pressure right now," she told him.
"Yeah," he replied, and flipped the channels again to see what was new.
One channel caught his eye as it was a news segment.
"What in the world?" He went.
"It's unbelievable, people!" A woman expressed as the cameraman showed her in front of a large construct somewhere. "Once known as a forest where people came to end their own lives, Aokigahara has now become a decimated landmark! All the trees replaced with cold steel and glass! The cause of this degradation? The escaped convict and serial killer Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari, who had arrived some time ago and began decimating the forest!"
"Oh, no!" Rumiko gasped as she and Shinji watched as other camera scenes showed the construct from different angles, resembling a deranged fusion between a modern building and an ancient castle that was exceeding the limits of the forest's structural range. "What is he doing over there?"
One camera caught a glimpse of Gendo atop a platform as he moved his hands around, shifting a measure of deconstructed matter around and forming another portion of the structure, resulting in a series of light bursts that flashed around.
"A series of light flashes are…spiraling around the structure," the woman spoke on the television. "It's…it's almost as if Gendo has…turned the forest into…his personal fortress."
And then, whatever rumbling that was happening over there ceased, and the dust had settled, revealing the aftermath of the forest and its new replacement. All around where the forest had once been was a quickly-made fortress with large walls of metal and openings to look out of, an inner courtyard of paved walkways, and large statues made in the image of a woman. And in the middle of the courtyard was Gendo, admiring his handiwork with a wicked smile.
Suddenly, on the front wall of the compound, several large letters carved themselves across the metallic structure, forming a series of words.
"And now, Gendo has apparently given his new location a name," the reporter woman informed the public as the camera pulled back to get the entire designation.
"Yōsai no Yui" was written across the wall.
-x-
Gendo dusted his hands off as he admired his new residence. It was actually the first time he had ever used his Quirk to create a place for himself. It felt good for him to be able to achieve such a feat; if people were able to build their own spaces, then it was an accomplishment worth indulging in.
"It's mine," he uttered to himself. "It's all…all mine."
He took a step forward, and his Quirk built another structure in front of him, opening a section of the ground to reveal a tunnel underneath, and he went inside it as it closed up behind him.
I'll rest up first, he thought, and then I'll make good on my word. I'll make good on my word.
-x-
Shado awoke from an odd dream; she had seen that woman from before when she was touched by Hagakure without her knowledge or permission, and she was very unhappy. She got up from her futon and went to her bathroom.
What was she saying to me? She wondered as she climbed up her step stool to reach the sink. I never heard a word she was saying…but she was trying to say something to me.
She turned on the cold water and splashed some on her face. When she reached for her face towel to dry it off, she looked at herself in the mirror and thought she saw something out of place. Like, extremely out of place. It was only for a moment, but she thought she saw a monster behind her that was covered in purple armor. Turning around, away from the mirror, she looked in front and saw nothing and nobody.
-x-
"…They just completed their rescue of the people from Miyuki," Nezu was informed by Recovery Girl later that day. "Less than two-thousand people were pulled from the crater alive, over three-thousand were either dead or were dying when they were found, and about a dozen of them were affiliated with the League of Villains that just happened to be there."
"So, he murdered a lot of people that were in the town when he decided to tear it down, regardless of their status," Nezu responded, "good, bad or indifferent, just to show how far he's willing to go to get revenge on a little girl that he despises."
"And with his location now a publicly-known fact, it's likely that he will be expecting anyone to try and intrude on his domain or pay him a visit."
"Or worse, they'll try and bring Shado over to him so he can kill her himself."
Nezu looked over the list of the villains reported being seen in Miyuki when Gendo tore it down and found it hard to comprehend how so many people with so much potential to do good, to help others during periods of trouble…were all sent away beyond this plane of existence by a man full of rage and no restraint. Listed among the dead were several low-ranking members from the League of Villains that couldn't measure up to the mid-level heroes because their Quirks were so underdeveloped and their lack of proper training and limited equipment made them ineffective. It was unlikely this would cripple the league in any major sense, but with these members and the ones killed in Gendo's escape from Tartarus, there would be a reduction in their activities until they could regroup and plan ahead.
"Tell me, how was Shado Ikari when you saw her today?" He asked Recovery Girl.
"Honestly, with the exception of her father and the Gaidoku pair as her pillars of stability during this time, she's almost in the same level of stability as Eri," she explained, "except her grandfather is a serious bane in her life and refuses to leave her alone. Her father's willing to do whatever he has to in order to keep her safe, but if it comes between the public making a unilateral move to cross the line and him taking her into hiding wherever he can go, I must believe that he'll run as far away from here as he can it means keeping her safe from Gendo."
"He'll put her first."
"However, her Quirk, Regression, is another issue. While it hasn't acted up since her accidental contact with All Might, it is a possibility that it has…progressed in ways that are beyond what we thought was likely to occur."
Nezu looked at Recovery Girl and wondered what she meant by that.
"What do you mean by that?" He questioned.
"I mean…her Quirk is unlike what we initially discovered. A Mutant-Type Quirk that behaves similar to an Emitter-Type, but was triggered before she was ever aware of it and her periodic deconstruction and reconstruction by her grandfather, even though her body has been mended…that doesn't change the fact that she was abused severely by Gendo…and nobody ever truly recovers from something as severe as the abuse a child can experience."
In other words, it was as though Shado's Quirk, despite not acting up ever since All Might was restored to his former glory, left Recovery Girl worrying over the possibility that the girl would become physically compromised further due to her abuse by Gendo. It actually reminded Nezu about an article he had read once about a man with a Quirk that became useless after he had sustained permanent damage to his body due to car accident that left him confined to a wheelchair. As time past, the man met with a violent end due to his inability to use his Quirk. If Shado's case was similar, he hoped that, as time, research and development into Quirks progressed, a new remedy could be found and used to help her if it got bad for her.
Not even six years old yet, he thought, pitying the girl. It's like everyone Gendo touches, he condemns in the most brutal of ways. Innocent lives…just minding their own business… Even after losing everything, nobody is safe from him. And yet…even when he makes his demands known and his agenda public, he is met with resistance.
"But before she left today, I asked her father if I could draw blood from him," Recovery Girl stated, which surprised Nezu; usually, there was no reason to draw blood from somebody unless there was something wrong.
"Why?" He asked.
"Since he's been here, Ikari has developed his Quirk in a manner that is progressive, and against unlikely odds, he has managed to avoid being harmed in the most severe fashion after being harmed by various Quirks with combative qualities. Depending on how his Quirk continues to adapt and mature over time, he may be the only one that can help his daughter if she faces difficulty with her Quirk one day."
"His Guardian Quirk is still a puzzle?"
"Yes, but the way he uses it isn't so much a puzzle, anymore. He really does fulfill the role he's taken on. The guardian steps up, does not back down, and when forced down, he gets back up because he can't let the little girl down."
"He could become the next great hero."
"Only if he wanted to. But he seems more like the kind of hero that chooses not to go all the way to top. He's more like the type that will settle for what he can get to maintain what he already has in his life."
"Hard to believe that not too long ago, he was just a kid without any problems or concerns…until the universe throws him a curveball and his father decides to become a deviant criminal when another curveball is thrown his way and the two are now on opposing sides with different beliefs revolving around one other child. Where does this path end for the three?"
"With Ikari and his daughter? I hope it's someplace without the grandfather."
-x-
"…Hey, he's coming to," he heard a voice utter as he stirred from what felt like the worst night of sleep he ever had.
"Ahh…ohh…wha… What…what happened?" He questioned, opening his eyes to see a woman with a mess of tentacles in place of hair. "Oh!"
"Lie still," she told him, shining a light in his face. "Watch the light. Follow it."
He did as instructed by her, following the light over his face, left then right, left and right again, until she removed it from his face.
"How many fingers do you see?" She asked him, holding up two fingers.
"Two," he answered her, concerned that she was a monster.
"Now, can you tell me your name?"
"It's…Kensuke Aida."
"Do you know where you are?"
"No. What happened? Were we attacked by an Angel? Who or what are you?"
Looking around, the boy noticed that he was inside a tent and saw people moving around, helping other people. But as he became aware, he noticed none of them had any markings that affiliated them with the paramilitary agency NERV. And some of them were not the same people he had seen earlier.
"Do you… What do you remember, Mr. Aida?" The tentacle-haired woman asked him.
"I was…performing a test for NERV at their testing facility in Matsuhiro inside their Evangelion Unit-03 after I was done with Unit-04…and then…I blacked out. I can't remember anything after that and waking up here."
The woman looked at him like he had said something crazy. Maybe he had suffered brain damage or had an overactive imagination, but something was off.
"Wait right here for a moment," she told him as she got and walked away.
-x-
Even after discovering where his father was currently residing, even after the majority of the student body of U.A. were upset with his father while taking their frustrations over his twisted behavior out on the quartet, Shinji and Rumiko were pondering what would become of them should Gendo persist further and decide to go to Tokyo…or some other town or city.
"So," went Rumiko as she and Shinji sat on opposite ends of the kitchen table, two cups of water in between them, "this is what it comes to? This is what it really comes to?"
"Yeah," Shinji replies to her. "In one sense and another, he's holding the entire country hostage, and the ransom demand is the would-be sacrifice of one person, and should he be denied, he's going to endanger more people. Except he's going to endanger more people, regardless of whether we give in or refuse him. To think that he'd go to such extremes over the one person he hates more than anything else in his life…and I'm wishing right now that it was me instead of Shado that he wants out of the picture…because I can't and won't put Shado on a one-way street she won't come back from."
Rumiko could see that it was tearing him up inside. Anyone would feel split between wanting to stop someone from hurting someone else…and wanting to protect the ones that were the most important people in their lives that gave them purpose, fulfillment or just a sense of stability in their drive towards some sort of salvation in a world of insanity and unpredictability. He was being what he needed to be for Shado…but it was also hindering how he needed to be what he needed to be for Shado…and himself.
"Just so that you know," Rumiko told him, "and I say this not because this is a difficult time or because it's affecting you more than it affects me…but there are other losses you need to consider if you break under this madness and give in to that nutter…and you shouldn't give in."
"What other losses are there to consider if I did give in?" He asked her. "We've all, more or less, lost a lot over time…and most of it wasn't really lost, just taken from us by those that did the taking because they felt like they could get away with it…and did get away with it a little."
"There's you…losing your daughter," she explained, "a young father losing his only daughter, or a little girl having to lose her father for the second time after losing him once already to the sadistic grandfather that blames her for the supposed loss of her grandmother. And then, there's Toya's loss because they grew up together through those awful times we had to endure until we couldn't any longer, and not to mention my own…because I don't want to lose who I have left in my fractured life. The four of us are really…all we actually have right now. Maybe…we're all we'll ever have right now. Will you really let your old man tear us apart because of his hatred?"
Whenever she speaks her mind, Shinji thought, she doesn't hide her personal feelings in the slightest sense. She just goes right to the reasons on why anyone shouldn't cross that line. And she's right about our other losses…and what we may have left in our lives now.
Bang, bang! The front door to their dorm house went, and the teen parents looked towards it with concern. Bang, bang!
"Ikari!" They heard Bakugo call out to them. "Gaidoku!"
"Of all the…" Rumiko sighs as they get up and go over to the door. "If this is about what that man has done to the forest where people went to end their own lives or his demand that Shado be surrendered to him, you can go do what I won't speak out of line to yourself!"
"I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear that last part!" Bakugo yelled back. "Did you two hear what's going on now?!"
"No, enlighten us, please," Shinji told him. "What's happening now?"
"The League of Villains!" They heard Uraraka right then. "They're at your father's new hideout! It doesn't look good at all!"
Rumiko went over to the TV and turned on the news, trying to confirm what they were just told.
"Son of a villainess," she gasped, seeing that a news helicopter above the fortress Gendo had made from the suicide forest was currently occupied by several men and women emerging from a dark portal, being led by a young man…or woman…with these…hands covering their upper body…and facing Gendo, who seemed annoyed by their presence.
-x-
He was just doing some light modifications to his new dwellings when this large portal appeared in front of him and out came these…strangers with various appearances. There was a man made of darkness, a man with burn scars over most of his face, a creepy girl in a school uniform with a syringe pack on her person, and even a lizard man. They all seemed to be led by this guy with hands covering his body.
"Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari," the man with the hands uttered. "How nice it is to finally meet you in person. You're a hard man to get a hold of."
"And who are you and what are you doing here?" Gendo demanded.
"We…are the last people you're ever going to see," the man with the burns and heavy duty staples on his face expressed, and Gendo's right eye twitched.
"But it doesn't have to end this way," the man with the hands stated, "if you can help us do one thing that will change everything."
"And what is that?" He asked back.
"You're the only one that ever escaped from Tartarus, where they house the criminal supervillains. You killed some of them as you made your escape…but you left one in his prison cell. You didn't even try to kill him. You might be familiar with him a little. All For One. We want you to help break him out."
"All For One. The guy my own parents were believers of and died in a pointless car accident, leaving me a victim to the fists and abominations of other people that made my childhood a living Hell, and deserves to rot away in prison…because the world deserves a much more tolerable class of supervillain…which is the same for these so-called heroes: Nonexistent. Give me one good reason to help him get out?"
"You murdered several of our members in your escape," the man of darkness informed him. "We demand compensation for our fallen."
"Oh, you demand compensation, do you? If I still had control of NERV, I would've given you five-million yen just to go take your business elsewhere…because everyone needs money to fuel their needs. However, as I am now stripped of a vast majority of resources…and no means of regaining them, I must offer you…a different solution. You walk away now…and I let you live."
The man with the hands glared at him. It didn't matter how strong this man was now, nobody could withstand being decomposed by him.
"Are you threatening us?" He asked Gendo.
"When it becomes a threat, you will know," he responded, looking at everyone in front of himself. "Do you think you brought enough people?"
-x-
"…We can't tell for certain what's going on from up here, but it appears that the League of Villains are trying to gang up on Gendo," a reporter announced to the world on the television.
"So, that's the League of Villains?" Shinji asked Midoriya as he and other members of 1-A were in the dorm house, watching the news feed.
"Yeah," he answered. "They're all followers and supporters of the villain All For One."
"What do you suppose are the chances that they can stop your father?" Aoyama questioned.
"As much as I want to believe in there being strength in numbers, I don't think they have enough members on their side to impede him for more than a few minutes, depending on their Quirks."
"The guy with the hands on his body has a Quirk that causes decay to occur wherever he touches you with his hands," Midoriya informed Shinji, recalling his close call with the villain. "He needs to touch you with all five fingers for his Quirk to affect you, though."
"So, his hands…or at least his fingers…are his Quirk factor. If he loses just one of his fingers, he won't be able to use his Quirk. But my father is… He wouldn't leave himself vulnerable to anyone like before."
Then, as if to prove Shinji right, Gendo started a beatdown on the television.
"No way!" Uraraka gasped; she thought that Gendo, due to his age and previous defeat by Shinji, was nowhere near a capable fighter, but he was jumping around, using his Wrath Quirk to tear the ground up and either hurl hardened balls or spears at the League of Villain members in front of him, even managing to connect his left food with the face of that guy that used blue flames.
"This is unbelievable, people," the reporter expressed. "Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari has just shown that he's not going down with without a fight to the death. He's tearing the League of Villains apart with his whole body."
-x-
Gendo had pulled matter from the ground on his left side and molded it into a sword, which he then used to swing at the hand-wearing guy, forcing him to back away after the girl with the syringes was stabbed by him.
"Aaaurgh!" She whined, dropping one of her syringes as blood escaped her mouth.
"Rrrraaurgh!" He groaned as he threw her away, sending her crashing in front of a mask-wearing man in black tights.
"Toga!" He yelled, but the girl wasn't moving, and he glared at Gendo. "Damn you!"
He charged towards him, but Gendo grabbed him by his right arm and twisted it around.
"You people are all weak!" Gendo said, and the man was reduced to bits and pieces flying everywhere. "Every last one of you are pathetic!"
He dug his right foot into the ground and caused spikes to protrude from them, either forcing other villains away or trapping them in place.
The darkness man was impaled and sent seven feet above then, gagging.
"I'll kill you!" A lizard man yelled, and Gendo made contact with his chest with his left hand, enabling his Quirk to take effect.
"Die!" He grunted, atomizing him to bits and pieces like the other guy.
The hand-wearing man was surprised with how hostile Gendo was and how powerful he demonstrated his Quirk to be. But still, all he had to do was get close enough to touch Gendo, and he'd decay into pulp.
"It doesn't matter how strong you've become over the years or during your incarceration," he told him, running across the terrain, "you're still just one man!"
Gendo slammed his arms onto the ground and caused it to shake up, resembling the ripple effect you would get when you toss a stone into the water. And then, it fractured like an earthquake, sending some sections upward while others went down into the ground. In this act, several villains were injured in ways that were unlike what they were used to anticipating.
"Katakiuchi," he uttered.
"What?!" A guy with tentacle arms responded.
"If I have to be labeled a villain, and all because of that little bitch, then I might as well live up to what I'm doing right now. My Quirk is called Wrath, and my drive for revenge is without limits. I am vengeance! I am suffering onto others! Katakiuchi, to kill one's enemies, which is what I'm doing right now! I am Katakiuchi, killing my enemies!"
He raised his left up and sent a hail of debris at the guy and at least seventeen other villains, either impaling them or injuring them. The ones that fell were fortunate; they wouldn't be getting back up again.
So, he's given himself a villainous name to go with what he does, the hand-wearing man thought. He's committed to what he's doing. A pity, if he had sided with us, we might've become a major powerhouse against the hero community. I could've used him as my enforcer.
Gendo generated more spears and small knives from the debris around himself and throwing them around at the various remaining villains, either injuring them or forcing them to back away. However, his intention was now clear to them: If they didn't back off and leave, they wouldn't be leaving at all of their own volition. He had every intention to kill all of them if they impeded him, and they were impeding him.
It's all a game to these people, he thought, slamming his left fist against a man with a gold face, atomizing his body to dust. They conform to these ideals of good and evil, heroes and villains. There is no such thing as heroes…and anyone can be a villain because they have goals that might not be favorable for many. They label me a villain because I tortured a dangerous child. I'm not a villainous man…but I am a vengeful man…and revenge can drive people to be unpredictable and beyond reasoning.
His train of thought was broken by the hand-wearing man getting the better of him in his distraction of tearing apart the other villains, placing his right hand on his right arm, sending an uneasy sensation through his body.
"Now, you'll decay!" The man told him with a sadistic smile. "Waste away and die!"
Gendo started to feel his body acting up in an unfamiliar way, like his organs, flesh, bones and muscles wanted to snap into pieces and make him collapse into pulp.
His Quirk must cause rapid degeneration of the body upon contact, he deduced, moving away from the guy. I wonder…
He placed his hands upon himself…and was reduced to atoms! And then, seconds later, he was reassembled, back to his previous state, looking irritable.
"You tried to decay me?" He questioned. "You can't decay what can be broken down and rebuilt. I really must thank you, though. I just learned something new doing this to save myself. Being atomized completely is like experiencing a complete displacement from all that I know. It's relieving to have the senses to tell you what is and isn't. I will put all of you in the darkness for getting in my way."
-x-
Having excused himself from the living room to check on Shado, Shinji found his daughter laying on her futon in her room, facing away from her door at her Ursa Guardian teddy.
"Shado," he uttered, getting her attention, "are you awake?"
"Yes, Daddy," she responded, turning to face him.
"Are you alright, sweetie?" He asked, noticing that her eyes seemed reddish. "You look like you've been crying a little."
"I was asleep for a little while…and I had another bad dream. I was in a crowd of people, all about as old as you…and they were trying to grab me. I started glowing…and they started disappearing. I wake up after that."
"Sounds a little scary."
"It was scary. They were looking at me at me like the same way that man looked at me. I never saw him in the dream, but I feared they were going to bring me to him."
"That's never going to happen," he assured her.
The sound of footsteps came and since the door was open, the two saw Rumiko, her face expressing heavy with shock.
"Shinji," she uttered, "those bad guys that went after your father…really shouldn't have gone after him at all."
Rumiko was refraining from saying what she really needed to say to Shinji so as to not upset Shado, but Shinji got the impression that not even the League of Villains had been no match for Gendo, either in numbers or Quirks.
"He made them disappear, didn't he?" Shado asked Rumiko. "He did, didn't he?"
"Not…in those words…but not before one of them tried to make him disappear. Almost did make him disappear. Almost."
"I'm guessing the large group of bad guys had someone with a power similar to his?" Shinji asked, recalling Midoriya telling him about the guy with the hands that could cause whatever he touched to decay.
"The bad guy was younger than your father, but was at a disadvantage because of one thing your father had more of."
"Which is?"
"Relentlessness."
"Re…re…let…lift?" Shado tried to repeat, having never heard the word. "What does that mean? What does it make you do?"
"That's…just a way of saying…anyone, good or bad…can sometimes be unwilling to back off," Shinji tried to explain his father's relentlessness to her. "A hero doesn't give up, no matter how difficult the villain is…and the villain doesn't give up, no matter how much the hero puts up a fight to stop them. They both do something to impede, make things difficult for the other…because they believe they have to be the one to win the battle."
"And…Grandfather…refused to let other bad guys stop him from trying to get to me…even though they were going to try and stop him."
"There is, however, a bright side to this," Rumiko informed them. "There has been a reduction in the number of bad guys in Japan. The news said that the majority of the League of Villains, the bad guys that went after your grandfather, they were the bad guys that Class 1-A fought against before we got here and they were not so good in the beginning. Even just a few months after their first encounter, the group was unorganized and reckless. They seem to rely on their numbers than they do anything else."
"Yeah, a group that relies mostly on its members' numbers is not so good," Shinji added. "They weren't a team in the sense that they actually trusted each other. No trust, no teamwork."
"Is that important, Daddy?" Shado asked.
"Very. While people can do some things on their own, it's better to sometimes work with others. There's no 'I' in 'team'. And with Quirks these days, teamwork gets better if people used their Quirks in tandem with each other."
"Random?"
"Tandem," Rumiko repeated, but Shado wasn't going to understand the pronunciation so soon. "It's just a way of saying people need to work together. Your father and I are a good example; we get along nicely. We can work together well because we know each other closely. Our likes or dislikes and so on."
"But your Quirks have never been used together."
It was no lie that the teen parents have yet to use their Quirks in a way that was productive of their teamwork. Mostly because Rumiko's Maternal Devotion was still in need of improvement. A tracker didn't seem useful with a power that made someone stronger, faster and more durable than most.
"We'll get there, eventually," Shinji told Shado.
Meanwhile, downstairs, back in the living room, the majority of Class 1-A was left in awe and woe at the sudden shift in predicament the county was facing. The entire League of Villains had been decimated by Gendo, either impaled or skewered to death…or atomized by his Quirk. The only two left alive were the guy with the hands, now dismembered, and the girl with the syringes, who was barely conscious as Gendo went over and grabbed her by her neck with his left arm on the television.
"This is… I can't really describe what has happened," the reporter claimed as the cameraman continued to film the scene. "The entire League of Villains…men and women that used their Quirks for wrongful purposes…and none of them were able to deal with Gendo."
In front of the camera looking down at them, the world saw the battered girl look at Gendo…and jab him in the gut with one of her syringes.
"Oh!" Mineta gasped, and then watched in absolute terror as Gendo reduced her to atoms like most of the other villains before removing the needle from his abdomen.
"He is one seriously sick bastard," Bakugo expressed, and then Gendo approached the dismembered guy with the hand on his face.
"It looks like you already died," Gendo uttered to him, slamming his right foot on the ground, and the villain was shredded by materialized spikes. "I hope you find Hell to your liking."
Then, he looked up at the helicopter and the cameraman.
"Get us outta here, now!" The reported demanded the helicopter pilot, and the helicopter fled from the scene the League of Villains' defeat and demise.
"I almost feel sorry for the League of Villains," said Yaoyorozu, surprising the other students.
"They tried to get him to join them, and he refused," Ida stated. "They then decided to murder him…and he murdered all of them. What was it that he decided to call himself as a villainous name? Kata-something…"
"Katakiuchi," Todoroki repeated what Gendo had said. "He decided on that as a codename, as he was killing his enemies. It fits with the way he uses his Quirk. Wrath, meaning 'anger' or 'vengeance', emotions born of his hatred towards other people, something he doesn't deny feeling in the slightest."
"The more I watched as he tore those villains down," went Jiro, "the more I can't see him being related to Shinji or Shado, blood or not."
"Me, too," Ojiro admitted.
"Same here," added Tokoyami.
-x-
"…Not even the League of Villains stood a chance against him?" Aizawa questioned as the teachers replayed the footage again, watching as Gendo tore down each member with his bare hands and feet. "This is just beyond insane."
"If there was a time one could say that the crap hit the fan," Present Mic uttered, "it would be now. The crap has hit the fan."
"Even though, they were the villains, they went up against Gendo," Recovery Girl expressed, pitying the fallen villains. "If they had managed to defeat him, they could've been considered heroes just for stopping him. Even if it was only for a moment."
"Yeah," Midnight agreed with her.
Replaying the footage again, the principal sighed at how it seemed like Gendo was becoming more and more beyond their ability to comprehend, like he was devolving into a complete psychopath that thought of only one thing: Revenge.
Ring-ring! His phone rang again, and he picked up.
-x-
The sound of the ticking clock was torment to Shinji as he sat in the living room alone that evening; after the news went off and their classmates left, Rumiko had decided they should eat early and turn in early. He didn't disagree with her, but sleep didn't come so easily for him tonight. So here he was, trying to wrap his mind around how to face the world. While there was no way he could give up on protecting Shado, he had his doubts that there would be others sympathetic to how she was tortured by his father and couldn't let her be dealt with by him just to protect others from an unfair penance by him.
"Daddy?" He heard Shado as he turned his head to the hall, seeing her standing there with her Ursa Guardian in her arms.
"Shado, what are you doing still up at this hour?" He asked her, and she walked over to him.
"People are upset with Grandfather, which means they're upset with us, too, aren't they?"
"I can live with people being upset with me. I just can't live without you in my life."
"What will happen if…if they decide to give up? If they tell us…I have to go with him?"
He could see her fear. The girl should've been able to live with this all behind her, but the guy that hated her the most refused to let him forget about him and what he could do to her if he felt like it. She feared her grandfather more than anything else in her young life…and just wanted this nightmare to stop. But he could also see how she didn't want to die, by either his hands or anyone else's.
He picked her up and sat her on his lap.
"No matter what it takes me," he promised her, "I'll keep you safe from him."
She placed her arms on his chest and laid her head against it, comforted by his refusal to let her be hurt by others.
-x-
In a corner of his fortress, sitting against the wall of reshaped metal, Gendo, staring at a stone reproduction of his son and granddaughter in front of him on the other side of the room, took in their features, down to the last curves of the girl's left leg and the boy's right shoulder. After killing that group of bad guys that approached him, he had more time to think about what occurred that night that…that specter returned. He hadn't been much of a believer in the concept of alternate universes or that how for any and every choice one made or didn't make, there were other scenarios for which those choices branched off into countless directions…but after everything that transpired, before and after his defeat, incarceration, humiliation, physical and mental reevaluation, escape and relocation from prison, Gendo had to reconsider that such a possibility as him having a son from a different universe, a world that was alien to this one, wasn't so farfetched as he initially accepted. If such were a possibility, then it meant that there were other alternate universes in which people existed due to every factor beyond the chosen ones made by them; a woman can go left on a road in one universe while going right in another, or heroes never rising up in a world where Quirks didn't exist over this one, and the possibility that there had been a universe in which the girl didn't kill his wife and make his life a living Hell as he tried to study her Quirk and make use of it for himself in the future. Oh, how he wanted such an alternate universe for himself, where Yui was alive and well…and where that little bitch didn't exist to torment him.
But we live in the real world, he thought, clenching his left hand, causing bits of the floor to atomize into a spiked ball in front of him. Dreams in which the nightmares of our past never were…means nothing. The unfairness, the degradation, the humiliation, they all can't be washed away by wishing they were. I had just one dream. One wish…and that bitch cheated me with her whining. And then her father returns in another state to impede me. Even if he's from another lifetime, he can't protect her from what she's got coming to her. I killed him once…and I'll kill him again if it means getting revenge. Revenge is different from being evil; vengeance has a limit to its reach, whereas evil has no limit. I haven't reached mine yet. I kill the girl, I can move on, and if others die in the process, then that is what it is.
He willed the spiked ball to shoot towards the replica of his granddaughter…and smirked at how it took her head off and smashed it to bits.
-x-
Kensuke wasn't sure what was going on here, but all he could understand was that he was somewhere else in Japan, had been among a dozen or so survivors from a city that had been sunken and destroyed by one man out to get someone else, and that the majority of the human race had a series of abilities that were like something out of a comic book, causing them to look entirely different from the way regular people did, having horns, wings, tails, claws or some other type of trait that was beyond rational physiology. As he was among the survivors being taken to nearby hospitals, he had to wonder how he ended up here, if he was dead or in a dream, and, if it was the latter and not the former, how long would he be here if there was a duration.
"…He said NERV had approached him, but we can't be sure if he's being truthful," the nurse that had examined him during triage from the ruins of the sunken city had informed someone over the phone call. "We need someone that can ascertain the truth, someone that has had some affiliation with NERV and can vouch for him."
What is going on here? He wondered. What is this place?
To be continued…
A/N: The last scene depicted somewhat between Shinji and Shado was inspired by the English version of the shorter version of I'll Be Here For You from the anime Key the Metal Idol, an old favorite of my past; Shado is the sadden and terrified child and Shinji is the comforting parent that tries his best to keep her at ease because he can't stand to see her have a breakdown due to his father's anger and vendetta towards her that he infects others with by torturing others to manipulate them. As for Kensuke's presence in theworld of My Hero Academia, it's similar to his presence in the Pokémon world in the beginning; he's unconscious in the Evangelion world, so his subconscious mind has slipped between dimensions, but I'll probably have a poll that will decide his status between the two worlds. And the demise of the League of Villains was just something that felt like it needed to happen and change the rest of the future of MHA in the story; Gendo has become the new villain and is incapable of playing nice with other villains, focusing solely on his own agenda and reaffirms to himself that he has a limit to his drive for revenge, so he's not overly concerned or even interested in the power vacuum he made with killing the league or affecting the culture of his country by destroying places that have significance towards people, such as the suicide forest (which is something people should reevaluate and reconsider before ever feeling like they have nothing else to keep them tethered to living). Please, read and review and let me know what you think. Peace.