Creation began on 05-30-24
Creation ended on 06-04-24
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Demon Slayer Evangelion: Who Is He?
Tanjiro awoke to the next day and found himself back at the Butterfly Mansion where Demon Slayers were taken to recover and rehabilitate.
"How long was I…" He utters.
"Two days," he hears a voice that sounds like Shinji's, only less than alive, and looks in front of him to see the other guy that resembles Shinji, albeit dressed differently and accompanied by a ghost baby wrapped in a red blanket.
"You're…not Shinji…are you?" Tanjiro asks him.
"Yes…and no," he replies. "I believe you're better off hearing the story from Shinji when he gets back from his Total Concentration Breathing exercise."
"He's here, too?"
"He is. They wanted to check his back for any injuries, but he was fine, excluding his muscle fatigue from earlier. Unfortunately, despite his surviving the first mission, the teaching methods Mako and I employed on Shinji was very unorthodox, and his breathing techniques, while adequate in some cases, were inadequate in other cases."
"We taught Shinji what we could about being a Demon Slayer to ensure that he could survive when on his own," Tanjiro hears the ghost baby say, sounding similar to Shinji, demonstrating that, despite his appearance, he was intellectual. "But it would seem that despite his prodigious ability to learn, he still has room to improve. He's basically a jack of all trades right now."
Right now was getting too strange for Tanjiro to even comprehend, as he was in the presence of a young man that looked like Shinji and a ghost baby that could speak at the level of an educated youth. There was just too much information and less time to process it all.
"Perhaps an introduction is in order," the lookalike says, and Tanjiro nods in agreement. "My name is Death, the Endgame. I am a member of the Horsemen of the Restorative, a heavenly faction tasked with ensuring the restoration of the world in the wake of its devastation. One such designation you would have for me is the Grim Reaper or Angel of Death. I am the one people meet upon their final moments of life…in one sense or another. This is my twin brother, Mako, also known as Mako of the Unity, also a member of the Horsemen of the Restorative."
"You two are twins?"
"One of the issues about our past is that Death got to get older, but make no mistake, I am the older twin," Mako states, and Tanjiro nods his head again.
"Tanjiro Kamado."
-x-
Despite his unorthodox training by the twins, Shinji needed to master Total Concentration, Constant, a technique that needed to become second nature to him. Mediation was one of the methods employed to gain some degree of mastery, but he also needed to deal with the gourds he was instructed to use. Thankfully, he had the aid of these three girls that worked at the Butterfly Mansion. But even as he inhaled through his nose and everything, he didn't feel like his lungs were expanding as they should've. Instead, he felt as though his mind was expanding.
"Shinji…Shinji…Shinji…" He could hear his name being called out, but he wasn't in the garden of the Butterfly Mansion.
Opening his eyes, Shinji found himself floating cross-legged in a vast cosmos. Looking confused by this, he wondered where he was.
A meteor passed by him, and he could see someone from a distance, sitting on something that looked like it was made of metal.
"Is any of this real?" He hears a male voice say. "I don't know, anymore. What is real? Is anyone real? How should I feel?"
He floated over to the structure, seeing that it was made of metal shaped into twisted bones in the form of a throne of sorts…and the person sitting in it looked like him, albeit with graying hair and premature wrinkles forming under his eyes, which were red with irritation.
"Oh," Shinji reacts to the sight of the person that looked just like him, but, like Death, was clearly a completely different individual.
"Are you even real?" He asks Shinji. "Tell me."
Shinji points to himself as if to ask if he was talking to him.
"There's nobody else here," he says. "Are you real?"
"I am," Shinji replies.
"How do you feel?"
"Confused by being here, wherever 'here' is."
"This is nowhere. This is my purgatory because of the people that failed me and condemned me. You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
"I'm sorry, no."
"The Evangelion? The Angels? Our parents? The people we dared to call friends that were no better than the people that rejected us at every opportunity presented?"
Shinji realized that this version of himself was a victim of the worst sort. According to Death and Mako, there were some alternate versions of him that suffered at the hands of their parents that were beyond traumatic and led them to self-destructive fates. If this person had experienced the absolute worst of the worse of fates that made death seem like the lesser of all evils, he could sympathize with him; he just ended in a situation where he was no longer an Evangelion pilot or anywhere near his parents to be manipulated by them…and despite his uneasiness with his present, he did feel that he was now free from the cold fate they had dealt him. If he could, he would save him from his unforgivable fate.
"I hate them for what they have done," he tells his alternate. "For everything that they do. It's hard to see them as anything other than the villains they are."
"Anyone that gets away from them before they can implement their dark desires…are the ones most fortunate to pursue other interests and escape their designs."
"If you could get away from them, what would you do?"
"If I could get away? I'd end the story for good. I would purge the endless forest of the branches that spread from the ugly tree that is their fruit of their arrogance. And after it all…I would close my eyes, knowing that I would never open them again. No matter what they say, no matter how they try to disguise their attempts…all they have to give…all they have given us…is jealousy and betrayal, hate and desire, pain and death. Even if a second chance were offered by them, it wouldn't be worth the suffering they caused. I would rather be nothing. I want to be nothing."
"If you ever meet a version of yourself that is broken beyond any reasonable sense of salvation," he remembers Death telling him, "just know that he's not a villain, even if you think he is. He's a victim. He's broken…and he can't be saved the way some would think he can be saved. He's among those who seek the salvation of a different sort. There are fates far worse than me, and the fate he seeks is the one that promises the eternity of oblivion."
"Why?"
"His mother and father failed to do right by him in the worst of ways and the worst of times," Mako had revealed to him. "Every chance they had to undo the pain and suffering they caused him and everyone else around him, they chose to make it worse until there was no going back. And when the world ended, his mother forced him to keep going, resulting in the multiverse we inhabit becoming tarnished by her continued use of the Evangelion, the Devil created by Man to end the world."
"Shinji…Shinji…" He hears the voice calling him again, and he felt himself being pulled away from this alternate of himself.
"May your fate be less than my own," he hears the other Shinji say to him as he fell into the darkness around them.
"Shinji," a female voice utters as he opens his eyes, seeing one of the assistants of the Butterfly Mansion, Kiyo Terauchi, shaking his shoulders.
"Huh?!" He reacts. "I dozed off, didn't I?"
"No, you were just unresponsive," she tells him. "You were still doing the breathing exercise, but you didn't respond to your name being called by Mr. Death."
Due to his loose affiliation with the Demon Slayer Corps, the people of the Butterfly Mansion knew of Death, the Endgame and Mako of the Unity. Often, Death would help them by searching for medicinal roots and herbs needed to produce treatments the Demon Slayers required to recover from their injuries.
"I thought I was…dreaming," Shinji explains his unresponsiveness as best as he could, and then stands up. "Do you know how long I was performing the exercise, Ms. Terauchi?"
"Eight hours straight," she reveals. "You didn't break from the breathing rhythm at all."
"Thank you."
Shinji walks over to the mansion and sees Death sitting on the steps, accompanied by Tanjiro.
"Eight hours straight," Death says. "Not bad, Shinji."
"Thank you," he replies to Death as he bows to him. "Has there been an update on Mr. Rengoku's condition?"
"Still unconscious, but they don't think he's in any danger from his injuries. There were concerns that his liver was too damaged to regenerate, but that should be healed completely within a week. The real concern is his will to keep going."
"Because of Upper Rank Three? Akaza?"
"Yes."
Shinji wonders if he didn't intervene in time to save Rengoku, something Death noticed.
"Don't blame yourself, Shinji," he tells him. "Before you or I came around, Hashira have been killed by the Twelve Kizuki for generations. And you only just started as a member of the Demon Slayers. You're still a newbie, so it's fine if you haven't gotten that far in both skill and versatility. However, after the Mugen Train mission, you have a bit of experience dealing with demons, especially those of the Twelve Kizuki."
"Why is that?" Shinji asks.
"Because now, you can apply as an apprentice to eventually become a Hashira yourself if you should desire that."
"Yes, that's right," went Tanjiro in realization. "You killed a member of the Twelve Kizuki, so you're entitled the right to apply for apprenticeship."
"Have you killed a member of the Twelve Kizuki, Mr. Tanjiro?" Shinji asks him.
"A former member."
"Former?"
"It turns out that admission into the upper and lower ranks is dependent upon a demon's ability to grow stronger. If you can't get stronger, the demon in charge of the Twelve Kizuki, Muzan, decides your fate as a member of the Twelve Kizuki. He either casts you out…or kills you."
"Ouch."
"Yeah," Death states simply. "Not a pretty picture."
"I almost managed to kill a member of the Lower Rank…but 'almost' isn't enough."
"But…you gave it your all, right? That counts for something, doesn't it?"
Tanjiro smiles at Shinji's humbleness, although this probably had to do with the fact that he was still a newbie to the Demon Slayers.
-x-
Muzan was not impressed to hear that a Hashira was almost killed were it not for the intervention of a low-ranking Demon Slayer. Within the Infinity Castle, he stood before the other members of the Twelve Kizuki that were present, hearing of some very disturbing details regarding the Mugen Train incident.
"…And who was this lowly Demon Slayer?" He asks Akaza, who was recovering from several injuries caused by him.
"He said his name was Shinji Ikari," Akaza answers. "He identified himself as a Mizunoto-ranked Demon Slayer. He resembles the pale-skinned individual we understand goes by the name of Death, only…more lively and less detached from those around him."
"A Demon Slayer," went the Upper Rank Two demon, "with a resemblance to Death, the Endgame? Is this possible?"
"Death has a twin that is also said to resemble him from time to time," expresses the Upper Rank Four demon, "but not in the sense that he is living in the truest sense, just more alive than his brother could ever be."
"A mediocre Demon Slayer is of no concern," Muzan tells them, but he was concerned if this one was able to defeat the strongest of the Twelve Kizuki's Lower Rank members.
He remembers only encountering Death once…and realized then that while he was strong, he exhibited room to improve as he was barely able to get away from him due to being limited to the night, whereas this man could move wherever and whenever he chose.
"You and your Twelve Kizuki can run all you want, Muzan," Death had told him as he ran from him during an opportunity when the dead man's head was damaged enough to hinder his senses of sight, hearing, and smell. "Sooner or later, you luck will run out. Maybe it won't be me, maybe it won't even be within the next decade or two, but soon enough. Soon enough."
And the worst part was that he initially thought he could use Death's blood to help himself, only to discover that Death was far from human and beyond that of demons, meaning any of his tissues were next to useless unless used on a regular human. Still, a Demon Slayer that resembled Death and his brother? Such was an unusual phenomenon to have occurred.
"How much livelier was this Shinji Ikari?" Muzan asks Akaza.
"If he's alive, then he can be killed," Akaza states.
"And you failed to kill him?"
Akaza could blame his failure on the sunrise; if he failed to killed the Demon Slayers, then he failed to kill the Demon Slayers.
"I will kill him the next time I see him," he assures Muzan. "I swear! I swear!"
-x-
Shinji didn't want to claim credit for slaying a demon when he was with several other Demon Slayers that night, but according to how the organization operated for those seeking to become a member of the Hashira in the future, slaying a member of the Twelve Kizuki or accumulating a count of fifty slain demons while operating as a Kinoe-ranked Demon Slayer, while both methods were considered difficult, the method Shinji unknowingly performed was the beneficial method for him because it didn't require him to be Kinoe-ranked, just that he be capable of slaying a member of the Twelve Kizuki, whether they were Upper Rank or Lower Rank. Still, it was something for Shinji to feel some measure of pride in because it meant he could have more than one ambition that would take him away from the former path of his cruel fate as an Evangelion pilot, as Death wanted to believe as he walked down the halls of the Butterfly Mansion in the silence of the night.
"You know, it's really strange that you're helping the Demon Slayer Corps," he stops walking at the sound of Shinobu Kocho's voice, and turns to face her, seeing her looking at him with curiosity and mild concern.
"Why is that so?" He asks her, just wanting to know what she thought of him.
"You look like a person, exhibit all the mannerisms of a person…but you always…feel like everyone else. But the new Demon Slayer, this person you revealed to once be like when you were alive, this Shinji Ikari… What do you see in him?"
"He is merely a different side of me. He is the living reflection of myself in a mirror that has been long since fractured. Anyone that looks into a fractured mirror will see themselves fractured into many reflections, representing different possibilities, different beginnings that can lead down different paths. What's more is that, unlike me, he's been alive longer than I have…and his soul hasn't been tainted by desires of vengeance and an inability to forgive the ones that wronged him for whatever they did to wrong him. If he can escape from the dark fate others have been dealt over existence, then he'll be among those that have escaped from the undesired chains of their past and moved onto a new future that they chose to pursue instead of living with the fates other people have dealt them with."
Then…Shinobu unsheathed her sword and ran towards him. She thrust the sword right at his face…and stopped just inches from his nose.
Death didn't flinch one bit from the sword.
"Do you fear anything?" She asks him.
"Very little," he answers her, raising his left hand up to move the tip of the blade aside. "I am no demon, but I hope many demons will come to fear me as mortals that do wrong will come to fear me when I add them to my list. When it comes to the Demon Slayer Corps, what I admire most about each and every one of you is your ability to overcome dread and fight back against the darkness these demons, these former humans that stopped being human of their own doing in exchange for power and influence, represent. And the Ubuyashiki family, despite their curse, is to be commended immensely for their dedication to the cause. So, for as long as I am able, until the end of time, if that's how long it takes, I will help capture, contain and dispose of demons and provide my aid to the Demon Slayer Corps, no matter who the person is or how often they try to get a rise out of me."
Shinobu re-sheathes her sword and steps back.
"You walk in the darkness," she says to him, "but you worship the light."
"That's right."
"Thank you."
"Don't mention it. I'm dead. I have been dead for a long time now…but I have never felt more alive than I do in this state of existence. It's not for everyone, but I enjoy what I do. To rise back up is to admit that you have fallen and need to rise back up."
"And rise back up," they both turned to look down a hall and seeing a man standing by a doorway, "most often do."
It was Rengoku, looking like he had woken up from a brief sleep.
"How do you feel?" Death asks him, but he already knew the answer from looking at him already…and from the sound of the air in his lungs.
"Like I can breathe again," he answers.
-x-
"…What's the point of your damn science and technology?" Misato asks, holding onto Asuka's discarded plugsuit, the result of the salvaging operation failing to return Asuka back to her physical form. "If you can't even save the lives that matter?"
First, she lost her mother, then Shinji…and now Asuka. She didn't know how much more she could take. Maybe she couldn't take any more than this. There was a limit to how much suffering one could endure before reaching a breaking point.
-x-
Shinji had to admit that, while contrary to its standard use among the Demon Slayer Corps, he actually enjoyed the the scent of the wisteria incense burning in the Butterfly Mansion. There was something about the way it smelled that he found soul-soothing. He remembers how on the fifth day of Final Selection, he had collapsed onto the ground and imagined seeing the wisteria flowers above him in the air. While this was simply in his head, it motivated him to keep going until he passed the selection and made it off the mountain, along with his hopes of seeing Uta again.
Crack! The gourd he was now using, fractured and fell to pieces in front of him, signaling that he had successfully mastered Total Concentration Breathing, Constant.
"You did it!" The girls that helped around the mansion praised him as he looks at his hands.
"Thank you very much," he tells them.
Death, watching from atop the roof while grinding wisteria, chuckles a little as he could tell that Shinji was now stronger than he was prior to entering the Final Selection. Then, he looks up at the sky and sees…a girl with red hair, looking down at Shinji. He recognized her, having seen her many times before, and she saw that he was looking her way.
"He's not dead like I am," he tells her, "and this isn't the afterlife for you. It's a trial by fire for him, and whether he is able to find his way back to the world you're both from is up to him on this path he's on. For you, it's rather simple: Return and live…or sleep eternally, ignorant of whatever befalls your world."
She frowns at him.
"He's not a coward. Just know that he, like everyone else that looks through a mirror that has been cracked and shows different versions of themselves, must fight to get whatever he's after, and for him, it is not easy. You, on the other hand, your soul is simply lingering between life and imprisonment. Whatever caused your current predicament, you can choose whether or not it will be your undoing. But for now, the young man you despise for simply being who he is, not what you want him to be, and more so because neither of you say what's really on your mind, is not bound to the Evangelion as much as he used to be…and you don't have to be yourself. You can walk away…and save your soul. Walk away and embrace life instead of treating it like it won't last when the life you currently lead isn't even a life one should have. You decide. The choice is yours in the end. Nobody's going to make it for you."
And then, she was gone.
"I'm surprised you would actually spend time talking to another soul like hers, brother," he hears Mako say behind him, floating in the air.
Returning to his grinding of the wisteria, Death responds, "She's from the same dimension as Shinji, but her spiritual displacement was due to something of a different extreme than the one that brought him here. But whether or not she returns to their world or not is up to her. Oh? Hmm. Maybe there is hope."
Mako floated over to face Death.
"You saw something across the planes of reality, didn't you?" He questions, his infant face exhibiting the expressions associated with curiosity.
"I did…and still do," Death answers him.
"What do you see?"
Within the reflections of his eyes, Death could see, across time, across space, across possibility and impossibility, a woman with purple hair, on her knees, bawling her eyes out over a naked girl with red hair. The redhead's eyes opened briefly and saw the woman holding her before losing consciousness again.
"With hope," he says, "possibly the beginnings of a tide being turned towards a different path."
To be continued…
A/N: Only a few more hours before my birthday and I wanted to complete this chapter. I think that despite there being changes, the character development between Shinji and his Death counterpart was good in this; we see that Shinji is still learning about what it takes to make it in the Demon Slayer Corps, and we learn that Death, despite his alienated association with the organization (along with other people most of the time) is still committed to them. And the bonus here, Rengoku is still alive, and we can expect to see him in action in the future. I hope y'all enjoy this chapter until the next one.
