Grimoire of Evangelion

by Traitor of All Traitors

Five years before the rise of the first Wizard King, there existed a royal family of the most unlikely sort. A family of nobles that believed all were capable of greatness, no matter who they were. They were hunted down and driven away from the kingdom, forced to await the day when they could return. That day...is now. The noble House of Ikari...rises once more.

4. Land, House, Relics

Creation began on 05-12-18

Creation ended on 05-31-18

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Grimoire of Evangelion: Land, House, Relics

A/N: I'm only saying this quote because it currently matches my writing pace with my stories: "Everything happens as it must." But I'll be honest, I hate the quote because Yui said. Not one of my faves in the franchise, excluding select fanfiction.

Over fifteen centuries and the first problem that the matriarch of House Ikari had to contend with for her family was the most troubling one: Establishing their residency in the Clover Kingdom. The night they had to escape from the slaughtering of their family and friends, they lost everything but the clothes on their backs and two grimoires between the three survivors, leaving them virtually homeless for the time being.

"Some people suggest that we should establish our residency in the Noble Region, Mother," stated Tenshi to Rika as they were looking around the unspoiled land of Hage in the Forsaken Region. "The current Clover King has even expressed his interest in letting us shack up at his palace until we find our own place to dwell."

"No, Tenshi," Rika told him, "we couldn't do that. We couldn't then…and I don't want us to now. We might be of nobility…but we don't really need to live as the nobles do."

"I know. Even when there are those that feel we should live at the top of the mountain, it's sometimes better to live at the base or middle of it instead. I looked at Raque over in the Noble Region, and while it is a beautiful place, I've had my share of a hot climate-ruled setting to last me an extended while. So…the Common Region or here? As the matriarch, you have the most and final say in where we live."

"Here," she told him, crouching down to scoop up a handful of dirt. "The Forsaken Region isn't a forsaken place to dwell in. What's more…is that we're not far from where we once resided here."

"You mean…where the Eva ended up when we returned?"

"Yeah. It must not be a coincidence that it ended up here. And Hage hasn't been around for a long time, meaning it's undeniable. Hage was established…right where our original home was destroyed."

"This region is forsaken…by those that choose to believe it is beyond taking back and making it into something more."

"And let's not forget what else we still have. It turns out the Clover Kings of the past kept several of our salvaged possessions after we fled over the generations, many of which can still be put to good use, and the items that were saved include our family's grimoires."

"The grimoires? You mean, they were saved from destruction? I thought they'd dissolve after their owners died?"

"Not all the time, and these ones didn't. Your father, your sisters, our cousins, their grimoires and some of their other possessions were salvaged. I'm actually looking forward to living here. Aren't you?"

"I just want to avoid one thing: A continuation of what occurred over fifteen-hundred years ago. If we can do that, then this is the best place to be."

-x-

It turned out that the previous Clover Kings of the past had insisted upon the preservation of whatever could be salvaged from the failed eradication of House Ikari since that night the survivors had disappeared from the kingdom. An entire portion of the palace had been dedicated to the items saved from that night, even the most mediocre of things; whoever would return would want their possessions, regardless of how long ago it was when they left.

"I still can't believe it," went Yui, looking at the display cases that showed the grimoires of Ikari family relatives she never knew about, seeing their names under each one. "These two were Kana and Mana's long ago?"

Suki came over from across the room where she and Shinji were examining old figurines that depicted old warriors engaged in battle.

"So, these are the grimoires that belonged to our sisters, hmm?" She spoke, and realized something. "Hey, they were twins!"

Shinji looked at his mother and aunt before turning back to look at a figurine depicting a warrior that, in a weird way, seemed like a cross between a samurai and a demon (or was a samurai evoking the appearance of a demon). He then walked over to a display case that showed a series of key-shaped objects and bracelets made of large, dark beads.

These look like they belonged to a woman of the family with a regal sense, he thought, but then reminded himself that the entire family was regal, even if he and his mother weren't from around the kingdom. It's amazing. They're over fifteen-hundred years old, but they look as though they were just acquired recently.

Break the ties of dark fates, he heard a male voice, and turned his head to the right, looking down a hall separated from the rest of the room they were exploring by a red velvet rope. Escape the bonds of unwanted destiny!

"They categorized some of the objects by magical level," Suki uttered upon realization that some of the magical items saved from the destruction of the family's previous home required a certain degree of magic just to hold up. "Father's grimoire is categorized as requiring a high level of magical experience to wield. He must've been a very disciplined mage."

"Or he was just a gifted one," Yui suggested.

Suki looked up at her with an annoyed expression; the truth was that neither woman knew who the elder's father was back in his day. And while both knew the little sister's father had been less than devoted to their mother, Suki had to admit (at least to herself) that the guy was the only one either knew, while their mother and elder brother knew the original patriarch better.

"Can I be honest with you about being here in the Clover Kingdom, sis?" She asked Yui.

"Yeah," she answered back.

"I don't know about you, but I actually feel like I belong," her rejuvenated sister explained to her. "I don't feel like an outsider or an outcast. It's like I'm a puzzle with all its pieces fitting right into place. You ever felt that way before?"

"No, I don't," the scientist responded. "It's hard to believe that anyone can just find where they fit in after arriving to a place they had only spent less than a day in when they were a baby."

"Newborn, and I was taken from here to save my life from attempted assassination, need I remind you, since we're all revealing things."

"Yeah, you fit in just fine."

"You sound as though you hate magic."

"I'm not a believer in magic. How can you believe in magic when it can't be explained?"

"Magic is magic. So long as you have an affinity for it, you don't need to understand it. It's a feeling, an instinct, around you, inside you. And this is the Clover Kingdom. One of four kingdoms where magic is a part of culture and society. Here, magic is everything. Unless, of course, you're you."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"You stress over science."

"Because I believe in science. Science explains things."

"Well, magic, then, is just a form of science that you don't understand yet. Didn't you read any of that British guy's works? He actually knew what he was saying when he published those books."

"Arthur Charles Clarke? He wrote science fiction, make-believe!"

"But he was a precursor to what you know as science fact. Everyone that enjoys a little make-believe tends to believe in the impossible. Give in, little sister, embrace the impossible here…and you can do the impossible, be part of the impossible."

Flash! A burst of light appeared behind them and they turned to face it, seeing Rika and Tenshi step out of a rip in space.

"Were you two able to find us all someplace to build our home?" Suki asked them.

"Hage in the Forsaken Region," Rika answered her.

"You mean, right where the Eva is because nobody's magic seems to affect it?"

"Maybe magic is useless against it," suggested Yui.

"No offense, Yui, but you sound like you hate the kingdom in general," Tenshi told her. "None of us are sure why magic isn't affecting the Eva, but I wouldn't say that it's impossible to deal with as time goes by. In a small way, your work of scientific expertise has gathered some interest as an attraction. You, more or less, made Hage a bit popular because of the Eva, and it was already well-known because of the remains of the demon that was defeated by the first Wizard King."

Before Yui could suggest that maybe putting her back inside the Eva could get it moving again, Suki looked around the room and noticed something wrong.

"Where's Shinji?" She asked, changing the subject from the Eva and its false sense of destiny to the whereabouts of one of their own.

Yui looked at where her son was last seen by her and her sister…and couldn't believe that he would just up and go missing.

"Could he have just went to look at the other things salvaged?" She suggested.

"That might be it," Rika accepted, and took out her grimoire and opened it to a page. "Light Creation Magic: Path to the Way."

The book glowed and created a detailed layout of the entire building in various shades of blue light.

"Whoa… Holographic projection?" Yui asked her.

"Yeah," she answered, if only to give her daughter the scientific benefit of the doubt. "Show us where one of our own has gone."

The light projection of the building changed to showed a projection of the room they were in and expanded to show the entire floor, revealing themselves and a small light that was yellow, representing the desired individual. It appeared that Shinji was walking down the hall away from them towards another chamber. Then, the projection ceased as Rika closed her book.

"He went down that way," she told them, pointing to a hall that had been separated from the rest of the place by red velvet rope. "Uh-oh."

"What?" Suki questioned. "Isn't that where other items belonging to our family were salvaged?"

"Yeah, but the red velvet rope means that what was salvaged from long ago was also not meant to be wielded by anyone beginning to realize their potential in the art of magic," said Tenshi. "It's basically where the Clover and Wizard Kings kept our family's more dangerous items that only experienced mages can use."

"Like what, exactly?" Yui asked them. "Wands? Manacles? Stones?"

"Not funny, Yui," Rika expressed; she herself wasn't even thirty-nine years old when she picked up one of the items that was stronger than an old wand she used when she was ten to focus her accuracy when using combat-oriented magic. "You have no idea how dangerous any item our family has could be if misused or possessed by someone with magic and no experience."

-x-

"…Well, this is the only good thing to happen to NERV in a while," Misato stated to Kaji as they walked to Commander Ikari's office. "We lose an Eva and its pilot, we gain two Evas after a freak accident in the US."

Of course, Misato was still upset about happened last week when the Twelfth Angel incident ended with the Angel disappearing and taking Shinji with it, along with his maternal relatives disappearing without a trace. She, Asuka and Rei dealt with this to varying degrees.

Asuka was trying to forget about the whole thing by pretending that Shinji was just off somewhere and would return the second another Angel would appear and save them.

Rei, on the other hand, was trying to contemplate whether or not Commander Ikari cared that his son was MIA or KIA (she tended to focus more on the MIA because there was no body to find, and therefore no grave to bury and memorialize the dead).

"I doubt that Commander Ikari is going to care about Units-03 and 04," Kaji stated his opinion. "Ever since the loss of Unit-01, he's been locked up in his office looking at that photo album we found in the hotel room that belonged to his in-laws. Whether or not it's because he's intent on destroying any photo in it is anyone's guess."

"If it were me, I'd put it in a safety deposit box somewhere and wait for confirmation that Shinji is alive or dead, then decide whether or not to take it out."

"If he were confirmed alive?"

"I'd give it to him. If he lost the only people in his family that really cared about him, he'd have every right to have that album."

Outside Gendo's office was Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki, who seemed cut off.

"Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki, sir," Misato greeted him.

"Major Katsuragi," he responded. "Inspector Kaji."

"We were on our way to inform Commander Ikari of the transfer order for Eva Units-03 and 04."

"You're not the only one. Unfortunately, he has severed all connections with the rest of NERV and remains in his office with that album from the Ikaris."

"What's so special about it to him, anyway?" Kaji questioned. "Last I ever heard, there was a rumor that he destroyed every photo of his wife."

"Shinji's grandmother gave him a picture of his mother from her college years so he'd know what she looked like when she was alive," Misato stated. "If he destroys that album, there won't be a single trace of the family's history because of his actions."

Fuyutsuki sighed. He might've been at odds with Gendo over many things, but something that had more to do with the Ikari family than himself was going a little too far, even for him. If anyone deserved to have possession of the album, it was Shinji, who cared about his relatives more than he detested piloting the Eva.

"Get back," he instructed the two as he typed in his access code on the panel to Gendo's office.

-x-

It felt like an oversized closet. Not like a walk-in closet, but very spacious, and occupied by several things that seemed to invoke a darker nature to both magic and history. Shinji felt like he was being hypnotized as he walked through the room, looking at the relics salvaged from the earlier centuries of House Ikari's history and overextended exile. From an economic point of view, some of these objects had to be worth a fortune to private collectors, but from a familiar point of view, he suspected that many of these from the time his grandmother, uncle and aunt were much younger than they were now, chronologically, had substantial, sentimental value that made them irreplaceable.

Statues, spears, swords, bracelets, old pages that looked torn out of older books, even old paintings that definitely seem to date back to medieval times, depicting several men and women of the Ikari family with their grimoires, none of which seemed to depict clovers, the kingdom's common theme.

There is no such destiny desired by those forced onto a false path, he heard the voice again, stronger in its tone as he stood in front of a display case of a book that caught his eye. Destiny is an illusion, a desperate attempt to delude without power, identity or recognition. The freedom to decide one's own fate is the greatest of powers one has and deserves above all. To break from tradition…or to change it, to embrace life…or cast it aside, to follow a falsehood path…or create a path that is truly yours to take for yourself.

The grimoire in front of him was unlike any that he had either seen or was informed of before. It was predominantly blue, with bits of brown, purple and green, about the size of a hardback journal that contained many pages detailing many things, probably as big as his hands. On the front cover was not a clover, a heart, a diamond or a spade to represent any of the four kingdoms, but instead the engraved depiction of some sort of humanoid with a horn and wings reaching down to a small circle. In a strange way, the depiction reminded Shinji of Unit-01, as if the Eva itself was forever interwoven with House Ikari (or at least a creature the Eva was based off of).

"O-Nine as in 'Oni', a Japanese Devil," he recalled Ritsuko saying to Misato the day he arrived to Tokyo-3 to meet his father. "A Japanese Devil."

Why did I choose now to recall that? Shinji wondered as he shook his head, feeling disoriented.

In the absence of the light that promises hope, look to the darkness that offers the promise of freedom, the voice uttered again. I see you, Shinji Ikari…and your future is one of heartache and suffering if you continue to live by the fate the two that breathed life into you. Escape from your fate, make your own path, choose to embrace life rather than to un-embrace and undo it.

Flash! A light shone in his face and he saw something that bothered him immensely.

A countryside, bathed in sunset light, a battlefield for two Evas pitted against one another. No, that wasn't it. It was a massacre, and one of the Evas was Unit-01, the other one Shinji hadn't seen before. Unit-01 was ripping it to pieces with a fury that was beyond anything he could ever think of doing to anyone. And then, without any hesitation, he saw Unit-01 crush the Entry Plug in its hands…and a human limb fall out.

No, he thought.

Flash! He then saw Unit-01 gripping a young man in its hand…and then crushing him to pulp as his head splashed into a large pool of LCL.

Flash! People in NERV uniforms getting shot, torched, blown to pieces or reduced to something similar to LCL…and himself at the center of this carnage inside Unit-01, screaming his lungs out.

No! He screamed, seeing the very planet reduced to a red sphere devoid of life in any form.

But you can prevent all of this, the voice told him. This is the future of the false path you were on. Turn away from it, reject the beliefs of those that exploit you in favor of your own, and you will change the course of fate. You still have time…and I have the patience of eternity to wait for you. But for now, forget this happened. Forget…until it is your time to rise.

"…Shinji…Shinji…" Voices called out to him, and he came to on the floor.

His mother, Rika, Tenshi and Suki were gathered around him as he got up.

"Are you alright?" Suki asked him, helping back onto his feet.

"Uh, yeah," he responded. "What happened?"

"You left out the other room we were in and came to this one," Yui explained to him.

"I did?"

"You don't remember?" Tenshi asked him.

"No."

Rika looked over at where he had fallen…and saw the grimoire in the case. All she really knew about that particular tome was that it had been in the family for over forty generations, and that it had a peculiar name to its existence that had been faded out over the years. Its actual name had been much to difficult for anyone to understand, let alone pronounce, but it possessed a simplified common name to go by. She and those before her knew of this grimoire as Deus Falsa Fatum Ruptor, the False God Destiny Breaker.

They actually categorized this one as requiring a high level of magic, she thought, knowing that it took more than just a lot of magical energies to lay claim to this particular item. You also need to meet its requirements or you can't wield it, whatever those requirements may be.

Shinji shook his to clear his mind of his confusion, but he couldn't, for the heart of him, remember what had happened between now and a few minutes ago. It was like there was something he was supposed to remember, but there was a fog over the few minutes he lost.

Why can't I remember anything? He wondered as they led him out of the room.

-x-

The photo depicting the family walking away from a book with a depiction of what looked liked a winged Evangelion on it had Gendo wondering something else about his in-laws. He looked to the front of the photo album and saw an outline of a similar being that resembled Unit-01. It was only now that he realized its similarity.

Inconceivable, he thought.

Beep. The sound of his office door opened up, and he saw Fuyutsuki, Major Katsuragi and Inspector Kaji walk inside.

"What is the meaning of this intrusion?" He demanded as they stopped in front of his desk.

"We're here to make sure you didn't try to destroy what was left of your son's relatives by destroying that album," Fuyutsuki explained.

"I couldn't, even if I wanted to," he told them, taking out a lighter and holding the book up in front of them. "This is what happens each time."

He placed the book above the flame…and the flame split across it, never touching the edges or even the pages. It was as though the book were protecting itself from harm against Gendo.

"I even tried ripping it up," he continued, "only to find it feeling like tempered steel."

Misato looked at the book and noticed how the symbol on it looked like an Eva…and quickly took it from Gendo to look at the photos herself.

"Hey, some of these pictures look like they're depicting something else entirely," she told them, pointing to a photo that showed Shinji, his mother and three others in front of Unit-01. "How is this possible? I mean, how is this… Is Shinji alive or is he dead?"

"As far as I can determine," went Gendo, "they are all alive, but out of our reach."

"Half of the pictures that show something different look like they relate to these stories that he grew up with hearing from his relatives."

The picture she pointed to then depicted something forming in front of them, resembling a house.

-x-

"Compound Magic: Salvage the Sanctuary," Rika and Tenshi uttered, using their grimoires and combined magic to build the House of Ikari's new house in the village of Hage, three feet away from where Unit-01 was; Rika used a combination of Glass and Wood Magic while Tenshi used Steel and Painting Magic.

Yui couldn't believe this! At first, she wanted to claim that this was an illusion or some form of advanced nanotechnology being used, but she was seeing her mother and maternal half-brother create the materials necessary to build the three-story mansion of a rather-basic, Japanese-style design from nothing but whatever was inside their grimoires. The more she saw, the more she wanted to disbelieve that this was real, even though it was impossible because she was here in the physical plane.

Shinji was again impressed by the benefits that magic could provide for people. And the way his grandmother and uncle were working in tandem to build the house reminded him of what they told him when he asked about the mages' ability to work together.

"There's no spell for cooperation, Shinji," Tenshi had explained to him. "When people are able to get along or even set aside their differences in the face of a larger problem, they're able to do more than what they could've done on their own."

"This is incredible," said Suki, just as impressed as Shinji was.

When they were done, Rika and Tenshi pressed their hands against the front door of the house, confirming its solidarity.

"Well, Mother," Tenshi uttered, "what do you think?"

"I'm thinking that unless we're attacked again by the descendants of the houses that attacked us over fifteen-hundred years ago, this house is here to stay," Rika announced. "And I gotta say…it feels good to be home."

Shinji walked over to Unit-01 and wondered if he would have to pilot it again when he went back to Tokyo-3. He wondered if there were still Angels laying in wait for a chance to attack and exterminate the human race.

"Shinji?" He heard Suki behind him, and he turned to face her. "Are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah, just wondering what's going on back in the city."

"Your classmates and guardian?"

"Yeah."

"I promise you we'll go back to see them. Spatial Magic takes time to master."

"I'm in no rush. I'm actually looking forward to being here. Seeing the people, relaxing."

"When you say it, Shinji, I really do want to believe you, but due to the presence of the Eva, you actually make it hard, and that's understandable. My suggestion to you right now…is to distance yourself away from that parasitic part of your life."

"Parasitic?"

"The Eva's like a parasite, feeding off you every time you're either in it or thinking about it or what it relates to, such as NERV and the Angels. Take a step back through time, back to before you saw the Eva, put it behind you and walk away."

If only that were easy, Shinji thought, really wanting to kick back and relax, but felt it was going to be hard to do.

-x-

"…This is something out of Harry Potter," said Kaji, looking at the pictures in the album and saw the next one depicting Shinji with the young girl that seemed to be by his side constantly. "Who is this girl that's been with him in some of these pictures?"

"She looks about his age," Misato suggested. "Probably a girlfriend."

"She's not a girlfriend," Gendo stated. "She's his aunt."

"Suki Ikari?" Fuyutsuki questioned. "But she's at least fifty-five years old."

Gendo turned the pages back to show a picture of a teenage Suki Ikari standing in front of a Ferris Wheel. The woman looked exactly as the girl did in her youth.

"How is this possible?" Misato wanted to know, turning the pages back to the current page where a photo depicted Shinji in a bedroom (presumably his own).

-x-

It was pretty basic and sparse, but Shinji had lived a life where he never had much desire for material possessions beyond what was needed just to survive. Then again, his room was very bare.

"I'd say your room lacks the taste of a lived-in feeling," said Suki to him as she stood by his door, "but that's true for your mother's room, too…and we just moved in."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Did we really have to build it right next to the Eva, though?"

"Helps to reassure the neighbors that someone owns it, even though it's an eyesore…and to keep people from trying to play on it."

"Yet it's unaffected by all forms of magic. How do you dispose of something like that? It's huge, heavy and out in the open where everyone can see it."

"We'll find a way. For now, we just have to put up with it."

"Just so long as my mother doesn't have to go back inside it, I'll put up with its presence."

"Oh, trust me, my mother would chain her to the bed if she had to keep her out of the Eva. Even if she could put her back inside the Eva, she wouldn't do it. It wouldn't be fair to you if she did it all over again. So…your mother has to put up with being your mother and everything that comes with the position until further notice."

"Yeah, thanks."

Suki hugged him and then retired to her room, leaving the boy alone.

Shinji walked over to his window and looked at the view of the countryside and a view of the outer portion of the Noble Region where many of the other families of nobility lived alongside the Clover King and the popular Wizard King. It wasn't a city like the ones in Japan or a large town like he knew from his own past, but he enjoyed the tranquility of the little village. And what was more was that it was a quiet place that was devoid of the modern things that made noise. No cars, no trains, no violence.

"It's home," he expressed, and then looked up at the night sky.

-x-

"…Are they repeating themselves deliberately?" Nozel asked his siblings as they sat in his room in the Silver Eagles' headquarters, speaking of House Ikari. "They could've lived anywhere they wanted in the Noble Region, but instead they chose the Forsaken Region, in some rundown village that those two orphans resided before they joined the Black Bulls and Golden Dawn!"

"Based on the history of that house, they lived in the Forsaken Region over fifteen-hundred years ago," Nebra stated. "Whether it's deliberate or not, it spares us having to see their faces."

"But people are going to be talking about them for months," added Solid, reminding them that they shouldn't let go of their disgust towards the family. "Or worse, years. Which ones are the least likely to go unnoticed?"

Nozel and Nebra looked at him like he had crossed a line.

"As much as I am disgusted by each and every one of those Ikaris, we can't make a move on them just yet," Nozel told them. "And we don't know yet if we're the only ones that hate them."

"The young girl that looks about the boy's age is the elder sister, and she was a newborn when the survivors had to get away," Nebra expressed on Suki Ikari, "but I'd enjoy a shot at her before she got a chance to take me down."

"What makes you think any of them would try to get rid of us?" Solid asked her.

"Because our ancestors tried to get rid of them. They might not show it on the outside, but I doubt the two eldest members, Rika and Tenshi, have forgotten anything about that night. Now, that other mother, Yui Ikari, may not demonstrate any magical potential, and her son may not, either, the fact that they're still Ikaris by blood make them dangerous to our family's very status of nobility. We might not be able to get rid of them now, but when the opportunity to do so presents itself, I will get rid of the girl and then her sister."

"Then I'll eliminate Rika and Tenshi when the opportunity presents itself," Nozel expressed.

"Leaving me with the youngest member, that Shinji Ikari," said Solid.

As strange as it was for the three Silva siblings, while they might've despised their youngest sister, Noelle, for the death of their mother, they hated the Ikaris a bit more than she, simply because they returned and fulfilled a prophecy. And as loathsome as it seemed, this hatred towards their house might've put a pause on their hatred towards her.

To be continued…

A/N: How many expect to have people across the Clover Kingdom talking about the Ikari family for quite some time and who expects to see Shinji explore his new life in said kingdom?