Creation began on 08-25-21
Creation ended on 02-24-22
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: A Father's Reckoning
A/N: Why must a child pay for the sins committed by their parents?
As the sun went down, bathing the sky in dark shades of pink and black, Gendo looked at the door to his cell…and made a break for it. Literally, he ran towards it after moving to the opposite end of his cell and slammed into it. He wasn't in any real shape for conflict, but he refused to let himself be trapped here on this ship any further.
Bash! His impact wasn't all that strong, but he refused to relent.
A few more hits should do it! He suspected; once he was free, he would find wherever the steering wheel was located and turn this boat towards land, even if it meant a few lives were sacrificed in the process.
-x-
It was almost odd to know that, while the Ikaris were of old money, they possessed a pleasure cruise ship that Anzu had bought two years ago (A/N: Think of the ship that was found adrift at the beginning of Shin Godzilla). Sleek, fancy, and probably the only boat in Magatama Town that hadn't been used more than twice in its history after it was acquired.
"I experienced a mid-life crisis and bought it on impulse!" She had claimed when they got aboard the ship and left the dockyards where it was waiting.
"Not a fan of the open waters?" Rei asks Shinji as they sat inside the boat.
"No," he answers. "The only ship I've ever been on at sea was a naval carrier. I am not a fan of either the military or warfare. Now, I'm getting a little nauseous."
Yui, sitting across the table from him, handed him a garbage bag in case he needed to toss his crackers badly.
"It gets easier after a while," she claimed, and then he quickly opened the bag and tossed his crackers. "The first time is always the worst time."
"Gaaagh!" Shinji groaned as he finished puking. "When this is over…bring on the tequila."
"Heh-heh-heh!" Asuka laughed. "Totally worth it."
-x-
"…He never got seasick when I met him on the carrier," Asuka voiced when she saw Shinji puking in the garbage bag his mother gave him.
"It was a different time for him," Misato stated; she was willing to give Shinji the benefit of the doubt if he had only been on a ship at sea only once and didn't have much of a taste for it. "He probably didn't get much time traveling at sea when he was little, so getting seasick is easy enough to happen if it makes you uneasy."
Rei held the mirror and it rippled again to show the outside of the ship, curiously named The Modern Day Legend (A/N: I just realized that I never gave the boat a name) as it continued to head out to sea towards the ship Gendo was being kept on. Then, it rippled again to show Gendo himself, wandering around the halls, which startled her.
"What is going on?" She questioned as she showed Misato and Asuka.
"Something," Misato uttered, suspicious of what Gendo was up to. "He doesn't know when to call it quits."
"He's persistent," Asuka claimed.
Then, the mirror rippled again, showing Gendo outside a room where something floating in the middle over a base within a display case resided. The women recognized it in a sense, as it was identical to the ones they had seen Frenzia show Shinji when he and the others were looking for the one belonging to Ceres that was later returned to Ceres when she was freed from her earthbound state. From what Frenzia had informed Shinji, any regular person with this object, especially if it was artificially created, would be augmented to a heightened degree, but if they were compromised in a negative sense, they wouldn't be someone you'd want to be around.
"Not the one I'm after," they heard him say, "but you'll suffice until I obtain the one that brat keeps from me because he doesn't believe I deserve it."
He held up a chair and swung it at the display case with all of his might.
-x-
"…Looking at the horizon really is helping," Shinji told the others as he looked at the setting sun in the distance. "Thank you."
Not too far away now, the ship that they suspected was the one Kagami was housed in, along with the artificial hagoromo and Gendo, came into view.
"It should be about another twenty minutes before we get close enough to board it," Yuuhi stated.
"Short time to get there," went Toya, "but a long time to wait."
"Anyone else getting cold feet?" Shinji asked them.
He wouldn't hold it against them if they all wanted to back out because of the intensity of the situation that only seemed to get more and more extreme with each passing minute. In fact, he really wanted them to back out, to say that they were afraid of whatever it was that could happen, to want to live for as long as they had now that everything else had changed.
"It's all of us against just your father, Kagami and whoever else he has with him," went Aki, trying to mitigate their fears. "Your old man's only interested in one thing that he will never have, Kagami is only interested in a future that shouldn't come to pass, no matter how he tries to obtain it, and we're all trying to stop the both of them from achieving their separate ambitions by getting the artificial hagoromo away from them. How hard can that be?"
"It's not so much about numbers as it is about conviction," said Yui to them, and all eyes were on her. "Even if there were a million of us against someone that had only their conviction to backup their intentions, if they have more resourcefulness than we do, our numbers won't make a difference if we're thinking smart about how to outthink or outmaneuver them."
"So…divide and conquer?" Rei suggested.
"Yeah, that'll do," Yui responded. "They're not even working together, so it should be easy to take them down if they're not cooperating."
"Who's first, then?" Aya asks. "The one we focus on the most out of the two, I mean? Do we focus on Kagami…or Gendo?"
"I don't trust my father to back down or away, even when threatened to," Shinji told them. "If you see Kagami, just restrain him. If you see my father, lure him somewhere he can be jumped and bound. He's not such a threat if he doesn't expect others to put up a fight."
Yui was reminded of how much of a thug Gendo was when she was seeing him, but despite his brutishness, he was no match for people he didn't expect to gang up on him or get the better of him because they were the last people he ever expected to be a hindrance to him.
Soon enough, the small boat got close enough to drop anchor and there was a rope ladder nearby to climb up, almost as though they were being expected. Despite there being such a thing as chivalry, Shinji opted to go first in case there was a threat up there. Slowly, carefully, he climbed up the ladder, unsure of what to expect on the other side.
Be ready for anything, he thought to himself.
Ever vigilant, he heard his doppelgänger say as he manifested beside him going up the ladder, supporting him.
Reaching over the railing, Shinji pulled himself up and over, looking around and seeing not a soul nearby. Not even a camera on the deck to look at him. He looked over onto the ladder where everyone else was.
"Let's go do this thing," he told them, gesturing with his left hand for them to come up and then reaching down with it to pull up the person behind him.
Behind him was Yui, followed by Toya, then Aya, Yuuhi, Aki, Rei, Asuka, Chidori and Misato; Anzu and Q-Chan chose to remain on the boat in case something happened and they needed an ace in the hole.
"As long as they don't suspect all of us here, you'll have the upper hand," Anzu told Shinji before he climbed up the ladder. "Be careful up there."
While he was uncertain of what they could do if things went south, Shinji decided not to underestimate Anzu or Q-Chan. If his own grandmother could aid in lessening the fury of the Rage-filled Anchor when they were dealing with Ceres' spouse without repercussions, there was no telling what else she could that was unexpected…and Q-Chan…was someone he had to suspect was capable of a surprise that would come in due time.
"Something doesn't feel right about this," went Misato. "It's quiet."
"Maybe that's because nobody is out here," suggested Rei to her. "On the surface, it looks like a large ship that could be used as a cruise liner or research vessel, but it's actually housing a hidden gem of sorts that could be overlooked."
"Shinji…did you see a ship like this in the former future you saw?" Aya asks him.
Shinji thought about it for a moment…and realized that he did see a ship like this one in the former future he saw when he had informed the older girl of what had occurred. But that was then, and that future was no longer possible because the factors were different; Ceres and her spouse were gone, Chidori and her family were still alive, Toya was as human as they were now, Aya wasn't pregnant…and he was here to make sure that they were all had a future where they could live their lives however they chose. He looked to Aya and gave a slight nod that this was the ship he had seen in the former future.
"Let's put an end to this," she told him.
"I'm all for it," he responded with a smile and they divided into two groups; Aya, Aki, Toya and Yuuhi and Chidori would go deal with Kagami and his group while he, Yui, Asuka, Rei and Misato would deal with Gendo. "Stay alive."
-x-
Kagami was furious at how Gendo could jeopardize his whole vision of the future of the human race by escaping from his cell and taking the hagoromo from its containment unit, merging with it and turning into a…grotesque monster of a man. Even Gladys was bothered by the way Gendo looked with the hagoromo fused to his body. It wasn't a spectacular transformation, but Gendo stood up like any other man, was dressed in all black, his glasses were replaced with a newer pair, and his face was adorned with red and blue markings, covering his forehead, under his eyes and his cheeks.
"Out of my sight," he uttered to them, and the walls and floor around him started cracking and indenting, as if taken over by immense gravity.
Kagami and Gladys felt the pressure and had to get away. The woman took out her gun and shot at Gendo, managing to get him in his left shoulder, and they fled from the room.
Gendo frowned as he looked at his shoulder as it began to regenerate the bullet hole. He felt smarter, stronger, more than he had ever expected himself to be.
Third Child, he thought as he levitated off the floor and moved out of the room, causing the walls and floor to fracture under his gravitational pressure. You will hand over the Ikari hagoromo. It will belong to me and only me. You don't deserve it and never will deserve it.
"Stop!" He heard a guard yell at him. "Down on the floor!"
There were three of them, raising their guns at him.
"Die," he uttered, causing strands of red, electrical energy to manifest from his body and attack them before they could open fire on him. "Die!"
The electrical surges caused the three men to swell up and burst like balloons, covering the walls with their insides.
-x-
"Shiest!" Asuka cursed as she saw Gendo murder those men. "He's a monster!"
"And that's just from taking the fake relic," Misato added, horrified by Gendo's actions. If he ever got the real one that belongs to Shinji's family, there's no telling what he'd do, but he wouldn't be anything like what Shinji could become.
Even Ritsuko, Kaji and Fuyutsuki were horrified by Gendo's willingness to murder people if it meant getting what he wanted.
"Where's Shinji right now?" Kaji questioned.
Asuka took the mirror from Rei as it rippled and showed Shinji and their doppelgängers running down a hallway, the sound of an alarm going off.
"Verdant, Shinji, if you haven't seen your old man yet, just turn back and run for it," she expressed, and then Shinji stopped in the hall.
"Shinji, why'd you stop?" They heard the red-eyed Asuka ask him.
"I thought I heard a voice talking to me just a while ago," he explained. "It sounded like yours, just…not like yours."
"You mean, the other me? What'd she say?"
"Something about not wanting to meet my old man."
Misato took the mirror from Asuka and held it up to her face.
"Shinji, I hope you can hear me when I say that you need to stay away from your father right now," she expressed, hoping her voice reached him. "He has the fake hagoromo and is going on a rampage. He's coming for you because he still wants Frenzia's hagoromo."
Shinji turned his head to the teenage Misato, who looked perplexed.
"Did you hear my adult self's voice speaking to you just now?" She asked him.
"Yeah…but it was fading in and out, just like Asuka's. My father's…rampaging…and is coming for me."
"Could he have the fake hagoromo?" They heard the blue-eyed Rei suggest.
"If he does, he's more dangerous if he's dead set on still wanting Frenzia's, even though he can't have it, no matter what he does. Even threatening us won't afford him the hagoromo."
"That's not going to stop him from trying, though," Yui told them; no doubt she had known her world's version of Gendo enough to know that, like this one from Shinji's world, he didn't back down when he wanted something that wasn't his.
BOOM! An explosion occurred in the mirror, and they could see smoke and burning debris in front of Shinji and the others.
"I can see you through the smoke, boy," they heard Gendo say. "Have you finally come to your senses and decided to give me what is rightfully mine?"
"I've come to stop you before you can hurt anyone else, you sick, twisted hack," they heard Shinji say back to him.
-x-
Misato had thought this Gendo Rokubungi couldn't do any more wrong, but after feeling this unknown energy coursing through his veins that carried a trace of her own celestial energy, she was fearful of this man that clearly had gone to extremes.
"Shinji," she spoke to the young man that had returned her free will and freedom to her, "your old man…"
"I know," he kindly cut her off; he could feel the barest echo of her celestial energy emanating from the artificial hagoromo within Gendo. "It's like hearing a scream for help, only it's muffled by someone else's sick laughter."
It was small, barely a whisper, but each time Shinji looked at his father the way he was now, he could hear it. The screaming behind his father's madness and obsession for what would never be his to have for himself.
"…Aaah…aaaaahh… No, no! No! Aaah! Please!" A series of voices from a past long gone could be heard by him and Misato.
Frenzia? He called to his ancestress, and she manifested beside himself. What are my chances of facing him as he currently is and keeping the others safe from him long enough to incapacitate him and take the hagoromo from him?
Right now…they're nonexistent, given the fact that he merged with an artificial power source and has corrupted it with his own human nature, she revealed, but he's still obsessed with wanting our family's hagoromo. So long as he's convinced that he can still possess it, he'll likely try to pressure you into giving it to him.
But I can't do that. I can't offer up, surrender, not even temporarily…something I don't have. Why can't he accept that knowledge?
Because your father is among the type that can't let go of something he wants for the sake of wanting, thinking it will help him get what he wants later on. You know what I mean, Shinji.
Yeah. He's greedy.
Gendo looked at these people that were with him and was surprised to see Rei with him…and with blue eyes instead of her red ones.
"Rei," he spoke, "what are you doing with him?"
"Sir, you have me confused with some other girl you think you know," she told him. "I don't know you…except from what I was told about you from these four. And honestly…you give me the creeps…and this is the first time I've met you in person. Ugh!"
Gendo took offense to that; it was the first time Rei had openly declared that he disgusted her. It infuriated him to hear her say that. Even if she was a natural person in this dimension, he didn't like the fact that she was with Shinji and not with him; whatever relationship she had with his son was a hindrance to his scenario, no matter where they were. And then…he was reminded of a dream he recently had where he saw Rei with the Second and Third Children by some tree…holding hands. It made him angry that it seemed like his son was the one getting his interests serviced and his own were being ignored.
"You're so full of hate," the teenage Misato expressed. "I don't know what's worse right now, the fact that you don't like any of us, not to mention the fact that you don't even know a thing about any of us in the slightest…or that you want what won't be yours?"
"All of the above," went Asuka. "He's all of the above."
-x-
Slam! Kagami had anticipated getting hit by Gendo, but he didn't anticipate the return of Aya and Aki…or getting slammed by Aya's lover against a wall.
"It ends, Kagami!" Aya told him. "The project, the C-Genomes, Ceres, all of it! It ends now!"
"Where's Gendo?" Yuuhi asks him as he restrained Gladys.
"That crazy lunatic is on a rampage with the hagoromo," Gladys reveals, which made them react with disgust. "Yeah, you can imagine how messed up this is."
"A regular person, even one with celestial ancestry, with an artificial hagoromo, becomes compromised because of their personality quirks," Toya informed them. "If Gendo has it, he's a monster now. More than he probably was earlier."
"But he was returning to his original state before that thing in his hand was grafted on," Kagami informed them of what Alec had informed him.
"You don't know about this man as anything but a man," Aki expressed, "which is just his physiology or genetics. From what we know about him, he's Shinji's father…but beyond that, he's just a terrible person; he treats everyone around with contempt, including Shinji. And he thinks he's entitled to the Ikari family's celestial hagoromo, which he isn't because he's not a blood relative like Shinji is. The guy exploited his own son to do things he had no right to force him to do, and once he found out about how he ended up here, he chased after him just to try and exploit him again."
"What do you mean, how he got here? What are you talking about?" Kagami asks, confused as Aya tied his hands up in duct tape.
"There's something about Shinji you don't know, but it's complicated if you can't accept it as the truth," she told him. "There's actually two of him, or rather, there used to be two of him."
"A clone?" Gladys questioned. "That's impossible."
"No," Chidori explained. "Are either or you familiar with the belief that there are other worlds beyond time and space? That for every choice you make has opposing choices and reactions?"
"You mean, the multiverse theory?" Kagami questioned. "That's bull. Nothing of that sort exists. Multiple universes, alternate timelines, they're just fiction made in comics and films."
"You're wrong," Yuuhi told him, tying Gladys' arms in tape. "It's only because of Shinji right now that everything we know has changed. Some of us wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for Shinji's involvement. He's actually from a different universe."
"I don't believe you," Kagami and Gladys responded; there was no way that there were multiple universes or even just one other universe where people actually existed.
"Do you have proof?" They heard a voice, and turned to the hall where Alec stood just now, his hands held up. "You said that Shinji Ikari is from another universe. Can you prove such a claim? If you can, it would confirm something else of interest regarding Gendo Rokubungi."
"Such as?" Chidori asked him.
"Legally, Gendo Rokubungi is listed as being deceased, murdered almost fifteen years ago by a one Kozo Fuyutsuki-Ikari because of his assaulting his daughter, Yui Ikari, in an inebriated state. The guy was around thirty-three when he died. If he was alive, he'd be around forty-seven, forty-eight years old. This guy is forty-eight. He claims that Shinji is his son, but his attitude towards him is, as you have stated and as I've seen from salvaged recordings of the recent events at Mikage International, nothing but hostile. And there was a claim that Shinji Ikari was dead a year ago, according to the mother and grandmother and a redhead with them, except there was no record of him dying."
This, of course, was true; the Shinji Ikari that used to belong in this universe had died, but there was no body due to being burnt to ashes and leaving no trace, and nobody except Yui, Anzu and Asuka had been aware of this, so the rest of the world was left with the lie that he was just out of town, not dead…until the Shinji they had met shown up and changed everything for them.
"Where's Gendo?" Aya asks him, noticing that he had a tablet hanging from his neck. "If we found Kagami, then Shinji's bound to have found his father."
Blast! They heard an explosion somewhere on the ship.
Alec took the tablet and tapped onto a section of the screen that showed available cameras within the ship. He suspected that wherever the cameras were off were where the explosions Gendo caused occurred, indicating his current location. With some luck, the motion sensors would still be online.
"He's in the northern sector of the ship where we keep the samples we took from the C-Genomes," he reveals, a camera that was still functioning showing Gendo levitating across a hall. "Oh, man… He's ruining whatever hopes we had for a better future."
The twins looked at the screen, seeing Gendo destroy the halls, but he was looking exactly as they expected him to look. He was as monstrous as any other man appeared when full of hatred. But he also looked like he was having a difficult time with who he was facing.
"Just give me the damn hagoromo, you petulant brat!" They heard him yell, and then watched as he was punched in his face…by Shinji, who looked like he was slightly on fire in random areas of his own body.
"I can't give you what I don't have, Father!" They heard him retort. "Are you that hard of hearing? Or do you think that everything is just going to go your way just because you have something that is as abnormal as a monster grafted into your hand?"
"Oh, jeez," Alec gasped; he was looking at Shinji for the first time engaged in serious conflict with someone that was a threat to him, and it looked like the boy was getting serious burns on his body. "Where'd he get burns like those on his body?"
Aya noticed the burns on Shinji and suspected that they were the manifesting echoes of his deceased counterpart's suicide when he killed himself to keep from killing Asuka, but not in any way that was impeding his own actions against his father. And…contrary to her initial assumption of him when he came into their lives, Shinji was demonstrating that, despite his physical limitations and unappealing appearance in the eyes of certain people that valued strength or power, he wasn't as weak as he looked. Maybe it was the Rage-filled Anchor, or even his own rage towards his father for hurting others, trying to gain something that simply wouldn't be his at all, but it looked like Shinji was taking no lip from his old man without dishing it back at him as best as he could.
"Forget his burns," went Chidori, "where'd he learn to hit like that? I've never seen him raise his fists like that before. Ooh! Right in the neck! I didn't think Shinji would hit anyone there!"
Aki went over to Kagami and asked, "Did you try to test Shinji to see if he was capable of physical violence?"
"No," he answers. "He probably came close to doing so, but that was unintentional in an emotional test. It's hard to imagine what he's capable of in the physical sense when he made a threat to kill us if we crossed the line with anyone."
"So…you just examined him? You took blood samples and allowed him to wander around your facility with Ms. Katsuragi?" Toya questioned.
"He made it clear that he didn't plan on running away. He put the safety and freedom of the C-Genomes over his own."
"He doesn't want to be selfish…unless it's to protect others," Aya stated. "It's really hard to call Shinji a selfish person when he's not someone that wants things or people in ways that go against their own interests or something else altogether different. I think part of that is due to his subtle ability to see the future of certain individuals and then doing whatever he can to help them change their fates if they're going down a hurtful road."
"He can…see the future?" Gladys asked, not wanting to believe it. "What, you mean, he can know what's going to happen before it ever happens and then change it?"
"Not exactly," Toya explained, and the place shook, indicating that danger was near where they were. "Earlier, after we met him for the first time, he could see the future of people he touched, but only specific people with unresolved issues. He found out about Aya and Chidori and told them what he or people that were associated with them could tell them…and they ended up changing their fates."
"The ability to defy fate. To be capable of such a feat, even just once…is thought to be impossible for mere mortals. Fate is something we can't fight back against; whatever will happen is whatever will happen, regardless of what you try to defy it."
"But to know before anything can happen to lead to it…and then avoid it completely…would be a miracle…even if it only happened once," Chidori stated. "From what Shinji informed us a while ago, he even saw your fate at one point, Kagami. He saw his father about to kill you at Mikage International…and intervened to save your life."
Kagami's eyes widened at the revelation of this detail. He couldn't believe that Shinji, a young man that had threatened to kill him and anyone that worked with him for his project to create a new human race to inherit the world and lead it into a better future, would just see his fate…and then change it so that he would live. But then again, he didn't know Shinji as a person, not like these people probably did; there was no understanding of his habits, his hobbies, his relationships, just his genetics, his physiology, his diet and whatever else his body needed just to live. To know that he made a choice, a conscious decision, without any goading, coercion or even an incentive, to save his life…was crazy. Why would this person he sought to exploit to create a better future for the world…risk his own life to save his?
"Why would he do that?" He asks them.
"Because he's not a horrible person," Aya stated. "He's not someone with larger-than-life dreams or ambitions. If he can help someone to the best of his abilities, he will, but he doesn't want to hurt anyone. Well, except maybe maybe his father, who actually deserves the fury. The point is, Shinji isn't someone that seeks to remake the world like you and whoever you work for. He just accepts the world as it is and tries to live in it with whatever little dreams he does have, which aren't all that different from everyone else's."
"Like what, exactly?" Gladys asks. "Getting a good job? Meeting a nice girl that likes him? Getting married and having a family of his own? Things like those?"
"Well, yeah," Aki answers. "He doesn't have ambitions beyond those. Who doesn't have ambitions bigger than those?"
Boom! The place shook again.
"We better get going," Toya told them.
-x-
Frenzia had only told Shinji that his chances of dealing with Gendo were nonexistent due to one factor that was impeding him, but the solution was as simple as one could understand. Given that Shinji wasn't one for putting his loved ones in danger, even to face a foe, all anyone had to do was take those that didn't need to be present out of the equation. And so, the ladies removed themselves from the scene, getting as far back from where Shinji and Gendo were, enabling the young man to go all-out like he was certain his father would. This solution became quite impressive as Frenzia saw Shinji, with aid from his deceased counterpart, not backing down against his father's aggressiveness. It was actually impressive because Shinji had more to fight for than his father; Asuka, Rei, Yui, Anzu, the Mikage twins, Misato, Chidori, Yuuhi and everyone else he met during his time here.
But Gendo… Just from his behavior and tone towards Shinji, Frenzia could see that Gendo's reasons were not only one-sided…but clearly motivated by truly selfish desires; the man desired control, to be in control, of everything and everyone, to have absolute dominion over all things in existence, cursing whatever deities he cursed with every fiber of his own existence. She could see that he was a man that was full of a sickening spite that knew no boundaries, and a man with that much hate in him…could never hope to win. And a man with so much of that hatred directed towards his only son, over something she only promised a chance that he could obtain, never a guarantee, no matter how much she wished she could, was one that would not know forgiveness if he took the ultimate gamble and ended that one life he cared very little for…but she would willingly preserve if it meant he could live to see old age and a future that was his decide how to best live.
A man that seeks to control all not under his control, she thought as she saw Gendo manifest a very human tool of the modern era, a gun, and aimed it at Shinji. A man that believes in being free from the constraints of mortality, fate and consequences imposed by beings of higher status, reasoning and infallibility. He doesn't understand or accept that your existence is a blessing, not a curse. He fails to see that control is an illusion, that humans and others bound by mortality…can never be in control of anything as much as they desire to be. Not everyone seeks to be in control of everything…just as not everyone desires to be free from what they think controls them.
Shinji couldn't believe that artificial hagoromo enabled his father to produce a gun from his body. It was probably due to how Gendo was so familiar with how such a weapon made him feel so powerful. Either that or how much it worked as a form of intimidation against people that feared being harmed by such a weapon that could be used to either protect life for the right reasons…or take life for the wrong reasons.
"Stop trying my patience with you, boy," Gendo told Shinji. "Just hand over the Ikari family relic…and I'll let you live."
Shinji frowned and responded, "You can demand all you want of me, Father, but that gun won't make me bend for you. I can't give what I don't have. That's like trying to get a man to give up three kidneys when he may only have one or two, and he needs one to live…or demanding information from someone that's deaf and mute…just because they were near where something bad happened and you think they might've saw or heard something. And that gun isn't going to change anything to benefit you."
"I don't understand why anyone would entrust anything to you of all people. You don't belong here…and these people that echo the people from our world will never be yours."
"And that artificial hagoromo you have is just as dirty as you are right now. If you had the one associated to the Ikari family, you would just defile its sacredness."
"Says who?!"
"Says me. Even if I could give it up, I wouldn't give it to you. I'd give it to Mother or Grandmother if I could. Frenzia wouldn't even give it to you. What makes you think you deserve it when you already have that one that I tried to entice you with days ago?"
"I'm older than you, I'm smarter than you, and I know what's best for everyone! That's all you need to understand!"
"And all that is a load of bull, Father. Just because you think you know best doesn't mean you deserve it. Just because you married into a family in one world, it doesn't entitle you to whatever they possess in another world, in another lifetime…and you're not entitled to anything this family has, including me."
Gendo felt crossed, and the hagoromo just amplified his anger towards. But he made his decision against all sense of better judgment; if his worthless son wouldn't give him what was rightfully his to possess, he would at least make sure that he couldn't have it, either. This artificial hagoromo might've been insufficient in his mind, but he would have to make do with it. But the Third Child…had outlived whatever use he had left in his scenario.
"I might as well sentence you to an unofficial liquidation," he expressed to Shinji as pronounced veins appeared on his forehead, facial cheeks and hands.
"Why not just say what you mean?" Shinji told him. "If you can't express how you really feel, then you're no better than someone that expresses themselves on a phone or tablet, replacing their feelings with words that have zeroes and ones behind them like some…"
Bang! Gendo pulled the trigger and left a hole in Shinji's waist.
"You're useless as a pilot…and worthless as a person," Gendo told him as he shot him again, this time in his chest, "so just die like the disappointment you always will be. Just die."
Shinji, unlike his counterpart, who had the experience to live with something like this, having never been shot at by another person before, felt the urge to scream from being shot by his father…but he couldn't find the strength to do so because he was still processing the fact that it was his father that shot him.
Stay awake, Shinji! He heard his counterpart yell to him. Don't fall down!
He's going into shock from the pain his adrenaline is dulling, he heard Frenzia. Shinji, you have to move! Raise your arms, lift your legs, yell out loud!
He looked at Gendo as he turned to leave him where he had fell back against a wall…and frowned from being hurt this way by him.
Don't take your eyes off me, he thought as he staggered, moving his left foot forward. Don't you walk away from me!
Gendo turned around to shoot Shinji again, but the boy grabbed his arm and squeezed as hard as he could, wanting to feel the muscles and bones break under his pressure.
"I'll condemn you," he warned his father, sounding like he was feeling the pain a little bit. "You're a terrible person, and you don't deserve anything. Not a thing or person. Just because you feel a sick sense of entitlement."
Gendo grabbed him by his neck with his other hand, trying to choke him.
"I've…felt…worse."
Then, he slammed Shinji against the walls, losing count after the eighth slam, which caused the walls to start fracturing from the impacts.
"Just die already, boy!" He yelled at him, and smashed them through one of the walls, this time using enough force to begin ramming Shinji through one wall after another on the level.
-x-
"Gott im Himmel," Asuka gasped as she, Rei and Misato saw Gendo shoot Shinji and then slam him through the walls.
The mirror showed Shinji's face as he was now sporting a gash with blood covering the left side just over his eye.
"I…will not…give in," they heard Shinji say to his father, and then Gendo managed to toss him up, slamming him against a ceiling with enough force to fracture that, too. "Is…is that…all you got? Because if it is…I'm gonna have to hurt you."
"How can he be so calm about the beating he's getting?" Kaji questions.
"He beat his father once before," Misato reminds him. "Probably pride…or feeling like he can bluff his way through intimidation."
"Or he's just taken a severe beating from an augmented human that just openly admitted to despising him because he refused to give him what he asked for," suggested Ritsuko.
"Ikari has never been good with being refused," Fuyutsuki spoke up. "Whatever he decides he should have for himself, he won't stop until he gets it. And if he can't have it…"
"He'll make sure that nobody else will ever have it," went Asuka, "even if it means killing someone else that doesn't have it, either."
Right now, everyone in the room were thinking the same thing: Shinji, even if he was the one most unlikely or even just unfortunate to be a recipient for something of great value, deserved to possess this hagoromo that Frenzia had left her family after she died. Even if it was to wane in his possession, Shinji, if he was capable of things with it that Frenzia believed he could, would probably need it just to survive his father's fury.
The mirror showed Shinji getting thrown by Gendo out onto a large chamber on the ship that looked spacious and belonging to a building where important dinner parties took place…and he fell atop a table that collapsed under him, his left leg bent with a piece of bone sticking out the knee, right arm missing three fingers and his torso ripped and bleeding.
"Oh, dear God," Misato went; not even Shinji deserved this from his father.
Rei looked as Gendo approached Shinji and aimed his gun at his face.
No, she thought, hoping that he wouldn't do what it looked like he was going to do. Please, don't. Don't do it.
Shinji, despite his injuries overwhelming his adrenaline rush, managed to look up at his father and give him another stare that showed his disgust towards him.
"If I can't have the Ikari hagoromo," Gendo expressed, "you can't have it, either. I hope you die with the knowledge that after this, I'm going after everyone you thought could replace the people you left in the other dimension for a life here. First, the Second Child, then the First Child, followed by Katsuragi…and that woman that looks like your mother. They're all going to die because you can't do something as simple and easy as handing over what should be mine. Let that shame haunt you where you're going."
It looked like he was about to pull the trigger on Shinji's face, but then Shinji's head turned to the left as blood spilled out his mouth.
"Come on, Shinji," Asuka pleaded to the mirror. "Don't stop now."
Then, the mirror rippled and showed the women's counterparts as they had regrouped with the twins and their friends.
-x-
"…Asuka, Yui," Aya went as she saw the others. "Gendo, he… Shinji is…"
"We know," Misato replied. "His father's coming after us now."
Kagami, even with his mouth taped shut, couldn't believe that Shinji, the man that actually saved his life once, had been killed by his own father. It was worse than the abuse he had suffered from his own mother, just because he had been born a bastard, a child out of wedlock or the result of an affair she had with another man. He had done everything to prove his worth to her and the Mikage family, giving up former dreams to pursue ones that were suited to their interests, no matter how immoral or hurtful they were to other people. But the worst thing any parent could've done to their child, far worse than forcing their own ambitions onto them…was murder without thinking of the repercussions, both personally to them and to whoever knew them, professionally, personally, intimately, even scarcely. It was unforgivable.
Asuka, Rei and Yui felt a hole in their hearts where Shinji once occupied with his short presence. They had lost him once last year due to not wanting to be the cause of one of them dying…and now…he was gone all over again because someone despised him enough to kill out of greed or envy. It was like the universe had blessed them with a second chance to be with Shinji, only to have it cut short by a violent person that wasn't affected by anything relating to the Ikaris' celestial past of men inheriting this rage every five or six generations. Except they knew it wasn't an act of the gods that Shinji received a bad hand; it would always be people, people with ill-hearted intentions, that make choices that cause harm to others that don't deserve it, even when they believe they do.
"He's coming to kill us all, isn't he?" Chidori asks them.
"Not if we stop him first," Yuuhi expressed, holding up his chopsticks. "Even if he has the artificial hagoromo, based on how he uses it, he's just a madman with a gun. Take the gun away, he's just a man with an attitude."
"Relieve him of his manhood and he's not even a man, anymore," Rei uttered.
Rumble! The place shook again.
Asuka didn't want to believe that Shinji was dead again. Not after everything they went through upon discovering that he was from another universe, after getting used to his presence, learning of his past through the Rage-filled Anchor, not even after she confessed to being in love with him for him, despite his differences from his counterpart and accepting his flaws. She didn't have it in her to survive this heartache a second time, not when she barely survived it the first time.
Rei had only met this boy, and before only knew him from her bizarre dreams of his universe, and it was only because of her feelings for the Shinji she knew that enabled her to develop feelings for this Shinji, as well. She didn't have in her to feel hate towards Asuka for being the one Shinji loved first and foremost, but she had it in her to hate this man that dared to call himself his father. Her father only died because of a sickness he couldn't fight back against, and he never harmed anyone a day in his life that didn't deserve anything like this. This was just…a sick and twisted vendetta murder; Gendo kills out of hatred, no matter who it is, and expects to get away with his crimes. Personally, she wanted to put him down herself, to get closure for what was done to Shinji, who she didn't want to believe was dead all over again.
Yui, feeling the sorrow that came with being a mother all over again to her son from a different life, couldn't fight back her tears. She wanted this to be a nightmare they would all wake up from, that this wasn't happening, that Shinji would come and let them know that he was here to stay with them, that he couldn't be killed by anyone.
This is just horrible, she thought, now having nothing but regrets about her relationship with this Gendo's counterpart when she was younger. He's a monster.
To be continued…
A/N: Yeah, not my best cliffhanger ending to a chapter, but there's more to come. I hope you can use your imagination and guess what will happen in the next chapter. Read and review and I wish you all continued good health and stability.