Creation began on 12-13-21
Creation ended on 01-06-22
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Grimoire of Evangelion: Rejecting Beliefs
A/N: When you have a conscience and freedom to make your own choices, you'll often find that your views clash with those of others, including those that came before you, and there are reactions that follow those clashes.
In many respects, Shinji was a creature of habit sometimes. Part of his new habits included training to master new spells or weapons from his grimoire…and trying to put behind him former pastimes that weren't so great to him. But this…this old game he was playing with Suki…wasn't a favorite of his. He didn't really enjoy playing chess because it didn't feel good to his mental and emotional growth and development.
Suki could see this, but was trying to get her nephew to see the old game in a new light. She had tried to play the game with Yui, but it didn't go well because Yui didn't like it every time she lost to her big sister. With Tenshi or Rika, there was a calming effect and they could talk about other things, not just strategize their moves. And with Shinji, she was trying to attempt the same thing.
"Maybe I should develop a spell that focuses on making the pieces move on their own accord like they did in Harry Potter," she suggested as she moved one of her pawns and took one of his.
"The book or the film?" Shinji asked her, moving one of his knights and taking her remaining rook off the board.
"You know which one I mean, Shinji."
"Humor me a little."
"The film. We both loved the first film."
"There was an innocence at that time. The characters were discovering what they were capable of for the first time. And they were facing an adversary that operated in the shadows instead of being a direct threat. And then, there was Fluffy."
"Eh-heh-heh! Yeah, you'd think that Fluffy was going to be a nice-looking animal."
"Who the heck is Fluffy?" They heard Asta ask them, reminding them that they were in the common room of the Black Bull hideout…and being observed by Asta, Noelle, Vanessa, Charmy and Gordon.
"A giant, three-headed dog from a story involving wizards and witches," Shinji explained.
"A three-headed dog?" Vanessa questioned, setting down her most recent bottle of liquor. "I read somewhere that those are associated with Fire Magic."
"Cerberi. They were the guardians of the underworld."
"You mean Cerberus, don't you?"
"Cerberus for the individual beast," Suki stated. "Cerberi as a whole, encompassing each member of the species."
"Are they yummy?" Charmy asked.
"We've never seen a real one to know for certain, Charmy, but I reckon they don't taste good."
Suki then saw another opening and claimed victory in the game.
"You beat me again, Suki," Shinji expressed. "You're not so pacifistic when you see you're going to claim a winning move."
"There's a difference between being a pacifist and being prone to seeing the prize within reach," she told him. "You never engage another person in a form of conflict…unless you're certain you can prevail against them."
"And never climb a tree that's full of thorns."
"Who'd want to climb a tree that's full of thorns?" Noelle asked them.
"Always be prepared to deal with an obstacle you're not expecting to face."
It had been two more days since the revelation that it was likely that Yui Ikari was the culprit behind the Spade Kingdom massacre, and there were three things they needed to do as a whole: Find Yui, deal with Harbinger, and rescue Mimosa if she was now being held hostage by Yui.
"Something still puzzles me about the very possibility of Mimosa being taken by your mother, though," Noelle expressed to Shinji. "If she took her, why not just demand a ransom for her safe return? She's royalty like me."
"You don't know my sister," Suki stated. "Even I barely know her, and I only know enough about her to know that she does everything that she does for specific reasons. If she did take your cousin and hasn't so much as left a note or contacted her family, or even our own…then that's an obvious sign that she's not interested in money…or making a deal of any sort."
"Sounds like your sister is a…" Gordon was about to say, but refrained from finishing that thought because of Shinji's presence.
"Whatever you were going to say about her, Gordon, just say it," Shinji told him. "Speak freely. It's only an opinion you have."
Gordon sighed and accepted Shinji's acknowledgment of his opinion.
"It sounds like this Yui Ikari is a horrible person that will do anything to get ahead of others, even if it means doing wrong," he told Suki, and noticed Shinji looking away from them.
"Yeah," Suki agreed with him. "But what sucks about her right now is that we don't know why she chose to do something like this."
"Not knowing what makes a person do what they do is not knowing what they're capable of," said Shinji. "More than half the time, you never know what anyone's going to do until after they do something that surprises you. It can be as subtle as hiding a surprise birthday gift from you…or as messed-up as holding a person hostage in your home and not being honest about their awareness of the person's disappearance. But when they eventually slip up, and they always do, the repercussions are unavoidable. The only thing about this that hurts…is that it's my mother…and she doesn't have the decency of explaining herself to anyone if she makes a choice not to."
"Uh, Guardian?" Vanessa asked the Anti Magic creature that sat in front of the fireplace, staring at the flames emanating from the charring wood. "Do you…see anything about why Shinji's mother is doing what she does?"
"Unfortunately, no," he answered the witch. "Possibility is a labyrinth. The very reason, a series of mirrors that one can get lost in. I can't even see any possibility to fully comprehending why she would side with Harbinger…or why Harbinger would seek her out."
"What if," went Shinji, getting an idea on why his mother would do what she did, "my mother's really trying to pick up where she left off before we came to the Clover Kingdom? What if she's trying to carry out that madness I haven't forgiven for leaving me for?"
"That human thing where she, your father and some other very bad guys wanted to genocide the entire world we lived in because they felt it was the best way in order to save it?" Suki spoke, wanting to disbelieve it after a while. "Un-uh! No way! She can go and… Shinji, your mother is… Do I even need to say it?"
"Say what, exactly? That my mother's crazy? That she's a psycho? A nutcase?"
"All of the above. All of the above."
Guardian turned to face them all and expressed, "Insanity is the mind of anyone that sees and believes only what it wants to see and believe. Sanity is the clarity of many minds that see and believe with singular and multiple acceptance. Both are driven by conflicting beliefs. Some want to believe that chaos and order are not one and the same, others want to reject the very notion that light and darkness cannot exist without each other."
"What do you call someone that wants to believe in one type of future whereas another person wants to believe in another type of future?" Shinji asked him.
"People with different views on the future," he answered. "One can take the future one day at a time, not in any hurry to see or change anything. The other…may try to explore too much of what lies beyond tomorrow, unaware of what may or may not happen because not everything is truly set in whatever you choose to carve the future in. Looking too far into the unknown can have detrimental effects on your perception to all else."
"So…uh…looking into the future is a bad thing if taken too far?" Asta asked him.
"More or less."
-x-
Tenshi looked around his sister's room in the Golden Dawn HQ, hoping to find something to lead to wherever Yui was hiding. Or at least wherever Mimosa was being held.
"I wouldn't be asking you to come here if I didn't believe in you, Mr. Ikari," Mimosa's father had told him, two hours ago after being informed by William Vangeance that the young girl's parents had requested his presence at their home. "I'll be honest, but I never expected much of anything from your family, then and now. But now, after learning that my daughter has likely been taken by your sister… You're probably aware of the fact that, unlike the House of Silva, which permits most of its members into the Silver Eagles, our family has had a history of involvement with the Crimson Lion squad, but not every member of our family has joined that squad over the years."
"Yes, sir. I've met your two children, who have joined different squads," Tenshi responded.
"What I'm getting at is this. Now, I only expect one thing from you, the patriarch of House Ikari. Please…please, find my daughter and return her home…by any means necessary."
He looked at the base of her bed and noticed something under it and lowered to pull it out. It wasn't even a clue, just her Golden Dawn robes.
Dammit, Yui, he thought as he balled his left hand into a fist with his sister's robes. You dishonor our family, the Clover Kingdom and the Golden Dawn with your deception and hidden agenda. What the Hell are you doing? What are you up to?
"Ikari?" He heard someone by the door to the room and turned to face Alecdora, who looked at him like he had something to hide. "Have you found anything yet?"
"What's less than Yui's Golden Dawn robes?" He asked him, showing the discarded robes.
"I heard how you were requested by Vermillion's father to find her. I wonder why this was so?"
"Besides the fact that I was asked by him personally? Besides the fact that Captain Vangeance informed me so? Beyond the fact that it was my youngest sister that may have done something to cause this? You tell me, Alecdora Sandler. You tell me."
Tenshi wasn't going to hide his emotions over this from anyone right now, letting his mana reflect his personal feelings about everything so that Alecdora got the message that he wasn't trying to hide anything from anyone, regardless of who they were.
The Golden Dawn nobleman could feel the intensity of this patriarch from a formerly-banished family that held access to powers far greater than any other family known to the Clover Kingdom…and knew right then and there, that even if he had deliberately provoked the rejuvenated man into a conflict…he would lose. No matter how old or even dejected he was, Alecdora had to accept that he and Tenshi Ikari…were in different classes of power by an astronomical degree.
"Do you believe that your sister may…hurt the girl?" He asked him, looking away from him.
"I don't know what Yui may or may not do to her," Tenshi responds. "She's the only one in my family that I know next to nothing about because she's not like other people. She doesn't talk much to anyone here. Has she ever spoken with either you or Yuno?"
That was an unspoken truth. Despite the time that Yui was with the Golden Dawn, the woman spent the majority of her time as far from them as possible. Even Langris stayed away from her after she said something that was out of line and taboo. Mostly because of who these people were, Alecdora wanted nothing to do with them, regardless of how much respect they commanded or what their multitude of abilities were.
"In my most humble of beliefs and opinions, however," Tenshi admitted, "Yui is no different from any of us when she makes it a point to do something she has no right to do. She's capable of anything. She has no respect for the personal boundaries or spaces of others."
"Why is that?" Alecdora asked him.
"She has too much of her father reflected in her behavior."
"Your father?"
"Her father. Hers. Not mine or Suki's. Yui's our half-sister on our mother's side, but she's the only blood relative I have ever known to have ever caused a high measure of issues relating to one thing or another."
"What sort of man was her father like, then?"
"He was… Kami, forgive me, her father was among the most shameful of men to have ever lived. He dishonored our mother, he dishonored our family, and he disgraced himself enough to make another woman kill him. I had to learn that most men have different goals from what they demonstrate in one sense and in another, and half the time, the darker ambitions make them undeserving of what they have or had. If he was alive again, I'd wring his neck in front of everyone just to show them what a weak man he was. So, yeah, Yui's father was a pathetic disgrace. No other words can describe him…except for his shortcomings."
-x-
"…Sounds like Yui's father had caused the family some unforgivable misfortune," Fuyutsuki suspected as he looked at the album and saw Tenshi speaking with a nobleman.
"Just who was Yui Ikari?" Misato questioned; she couldn't get much about the father without knowing who her ward's mother was like. "I tried a background search, but there's no record of her. It's like she doesn't exist, and yet she's being the problem."
"All I know about Yui is that she was a… She is a gifted scientist," he explained.
"A gifted scientist?" Asuka asked, not really seeing what made the woman so great. "Maybe, but she doesn't seem like she's a…friendly person if she does something like this to people and then takes a girl hostage."
"Yui has always been very…driven about what she does."
"Except what she has done has caused people pain," Rei expressed, "and continues to rile people that are upset with her. Even Ikari-Kun is displeased with her actions."
"Out of everyone, Shinji is the one most affected by what his mother has done," Misato added, pointing to a picture of Shinji looking several levels of angry, but was keeping himself in check. "But there's only so much he can take before he reaches a breaking point with her."
On the page, the photo beside Shinji's depicted Yui working on something they could now see with clarity; the woman was building a human-sized Evangelion modeled after Unit-01, but with more green in its aesthetics.
"She can't possibly be serious right now," Asuka uttered. "They're in another world where, as far as we're aware, Angels don't ever appear…unless they're creatures of magic."
"She's fallen back to what she specializes in," Fuyutsuki realized.
"A woman that knows only how to make Evas?" Misato questions. "Except she's using magic to make them. What, is she planning to make an army of Evas to take on the people there?"
"She's painting a target on her front and back," Asuka claimed.
-x-
Harbinger had officially lost count with Yui's…hobby. Her passion…or addiction or whatever this was that drove her to make these humanoids that were later made to work without any source of magic driving them. At first, he had counted less than thirty-seven, but now there were more than three-hundred-seventy-three…and that's where he lost count, three days ago.
"I got nothing against this quality of yours," he told her, "but does your grimoire contain other spells that aren't necessarily hiding anything?"
"Unfortunately, Goshinki's Fatality is the only spell that has some effective use," Yui told him, completing another humanoid. "I'm a scientist. No more, no less."
"Yeah, you keep saying that, but I've encountered men and women that had more bite than they did bark, and I'm merely reminding you that, despite your assertiveness over being one that relies on their intellect, you need to be like those that will be against the both of us. I can protect you, but you also need to protect yourself. Those that think they need no protection from anyone else are the ones that don't know to protect themselves from those that do know how to fight back against whoever threatens to impede them. Whatever your principles are for doing what you do, I'm merely telling you to add on to them if you hope to succeed."
Yui sighs as she stood up and faced Harbinger. This was different from how her mother expressed disappointment in her for her lack of interest in archery and the overall fact that she caused most of the archery class she had attended to shun her out of fear that she was going to do something to disgrace the traditional art they were versed in. It wasn't her fault that she couldn't fit in with any class that focused on some piece of the past when her eyes were focused on the future that she saw for everyone.
"Unless there's a foundation, you can't achieve anything," Harbinger reminded her. "I've decimated countless civilizations, and they all had to be built on something before they could be expanded upon. Those three devils I devoured had to serve as a foundation to express their powers over space, curse and gravity. If there's no foundation, there's nothing to be grasped. No destination without a point of origin, no future without a past."
-x-
Shinji didn't feel right coming back to Hage for dinner with the family, as his mother was out there doing who-knows-what to someone somewhere. Even just standing out front of the house made him uneasy.
"Y'all, too?" He and Suki, who was with him, turned and saw Tenshi.
"Are we the bad guys here?" Shinji asked him.
"No, we're hardly the bad guys."
"Then why does my mother have to be such a… That kind of person who always pushes everyone else's buttons?"
"There are many reasons for why she's the way she is."
"I want to think it's because of my father or because of Harbinger, but then I'd be making it so that people will look at me like I'm no better."
"Shinji," Suki sighs, "your mother was no saint long before we ever even heard of your father, who's not a saint, either. Even as a kid, she had her issues that made understanding her difficult. She didn't make friends unless they were like her, always looking ahead. She couldn't stick it out in archery class without disgusting the students or the teachers with statistics."
"If I had to guess about why your mother behaves the way she does," Tenshi adds in, "it's mostly because she's more like her father than our mother, and he was not good. Out of the two loves in your grandmother's life, her second husband was the only man who was unworthy of her."
"He was that bad?" Shinji asks.
"He cheated on her, with two other women, one of whom killed him after finding out about his unfaithfulness towards her, and he tried to hide his affairs from her. You can't hide something like that from a woman like Rika. You hide something like this from her, she'll find out…and you'll end up regretting it."
"Some people actually gave our mother this nickname," Suki told Shinji. "The Huntress of Relationships gone South. When her relationship went south with our stepfather, she put her personal feelings about him aside and just wanted to make sure he got exactly what he deserved. She never wanted him dead, though. Divorced? Most likely. In jail? Definitely. But dead? No matter how tempting that would've been for her, she wouldn't have enjoyed it. Not even a little bit. That's just not who she is."
"Because she's not a killer. None of you three are killers."
"It depends on you choose to view us, Shinji, but…yeah. None of us are killers. None of us have ever had to cross that line before, whether it was for justice, vengeance or something else." Tenshi stated, confirming his nephew's belief in the three.
"But my mother…especially because she made such a choice that she knew would have consequences… She's a killer. A murderess."
"We just need to understand her motive," Suki reminded them; once they understood why Yui did what she did, they could proceed to how to deal with her. "We find out what she's up to, we can…stop her before she escalates any further."
"Oh, she'll undoubtedly escalate further," Tenshi believed, just as the front door opened to reveal Rika, who stepped out with a grim expression on her face.
"Only you three?" She asked them.
"She made no attempt to contact you, either?" Shinji asked her.
"No, and I've been engaged in conversation with the Wizard King and the captains of the Crimson Lion, Blue Rose and Coral Peacock to discuss the questioning and verification of the Spade Kingdom refugees. I kept expecting her to call, but she never did. Kami, help her if she makes a reckless choice to go after the refugees."
"Pray she never does," Shinji and Suki expressed.
"She doesn't know where they are, does she?" Tenshi questioned. "I mean, the refugees were hidden for their own protection, so only the squad captains were informed."
"Not every squad captain was informed," Rika revealed. "Four were chosen to be confided in, the rest have no clue; the Wizard King chose to compartmentalize the information to prevent leaks. The squads can't see the refugees because not every captain knows where they were taken to. Even I don't know where they are."
"What exactly have you been doing with your time as of late?" Suki asked her, curious.
"Studying curses and afflictions and coming up with the proper remedies for them," her mother responded. "How is Mr. Legolant doing, by the way?"
"Eh-heh-heh," Shinji chuckled. "I think one day, he'll cause the entire Black Bull hideout to float due to his own progress in controlling his magic. He looks better because of your help. Still keeps his hair long, but he's more active now."
Grumble. All eyes were on Tenshi, who chuckled slightly; it was dinner time, and none of them had eaten yet.
"Can't really ponder away on an empty stomach," Rika stated.
-x-
"…So, what is he doing now?" Ritsuko asked Misato as she and Asuka looked at the pictures in the album while they were in the testing plug chamber as Rei was undergoing synchronization testing.
"He's eating dinner with his family, minus his mother," Asuka stated, and then she turned the page, finding a photo of Shinji and Tenshi during Halloween, dressed as samurai, and above it was a photo of what appeared to be the next day, after the Ikaris had their dinner date, and were accompanying Rika to meet with a Spade Kingdom refugee. "What are the chances that he'll face his mother and have to cross a line if she makes it no point that she's unwilling to stop hurting the people there?"
"If Shinji feels he has to choose between his mother and the people?" Misato responded to the question, seeing a third photo where it appeared the older Suki was dressed as a shrine maiden. "He'll choose the lesser of two evils, meaning he won't let his mother get away with her crimes."
-x-
A makeshift village for the refugees after they came from the Spade Kingdom seeking sanctuary from whatever it was that attacked them and destroyed their homes and decimated their numbers, but it was the least likely location to hide them from Harbinger in case he decided to come after the survivors. It would've been mistaken for another commoner village and overlooked, but the fact that there were ten Magic Knights assigned to keep watch over the village made it appear that it was anything but a simple village.
"This is just horrible," said Suki as she saw the refugees and their expressions of fear on their faces. If Yui is responsible for what befell them, then she's just as terrible as she is cruel to people she doesn't even know or hasn't tried to get to know.
Shinji stopped to look at a man that was short one arm and trying to feed a baby that had a bandage covering the top half of its head.
This is so… He thought, but couldn't finish it due to how traumatic the sight was.
"Excuse me, sir," he heard a little girl speak to him, and he turned to face her, seeing that she was about Marie's age, her right arm wrapped in bandages, wearing a brown dress. "Are you really a Magic Knight?"
"Yes," he answered her. "Are you from Spade?"
"I used to be. And then, that big fire came and forced us to leave."
"My apologies for your…uprooting."
"I was uprooted three times before the fire, and each time, it was because of the Dark Triad's underlings. I've lost two brothers and my uncle each time we had to move to a new village that wasn't being attacked. But that fire… None of us know who did it or why. We thought someone was coming to save us from the Dark Triad…and then…everyone had to leave. It was hot everywhere…and I looked up at the night sky…and saw the observer."
"I'm sorry, the observer?"
"There was someone in the sky; all they did was watch as Spade burned. They just watched as this once-peaceful county that hasn't been peaceful for a long time…was attacked by a…"
"A monster?"
"A monster."
"Can you…tell me what this…observer…looked like?"
As Shinji conversed with this refugee, Rika greeted several other refugees, seeing them in varying stages of recovery and grieving, finding it harder to get past the possibility of denying that it was her youngest daughter that had hurt these people. The pure dread of the full comprehension of her potential complicity in the massacre looming over her head like a guillotine and she was being chained down.
"Whoever took out the Dark Triad went too far and took out a lot of people that had nothing to do with them," a woman who lost her nose told her.
"We thought that whoever had come to stop them would protect us all from them," a man that lost his legs expressed.
"We're three types of people here, Mrs. Ikari," another woman who was blind admitted to her. "We're either grieving parents, orphaned children…or broken spouses. That monster unleashed upon our former home was not the savior we were praying for. I've heard of your family and its connection to the Clover Kingdom. What do you intend to do about this?"
I still need to verify the memory of the one that saw the possible culprit, she thought as the sight of a little boy without a right arm and left leg made her feel sympathetic towards the children more than she did for the adults. If this was your doing, Yui…you will not be forgiven for these unforgivable acts of cruelty.
"This is a nightmare brought to life, Mother," she heard Suki say to her as she came over with a bowl of soup. "This is…like what happened fifteen years ago…or the aftermath of some other devastation…only worse."
"In what way?" They heard Tenshi ask.
"It's worse because…we might've been indirectly involved in what happened to all of these people," she explained.
"Indirectly…because we didn't know who was going to do this," Rika stated. "Whoever was behind this is the one directly responsible…and there's no way to walk away from the repercussions that follow this act of violence against the people."
"So…where is the refugee that might've saw our culprit?" Tenshi requested to know.
"Oh, Shinji has already spoken with them."
"Huh?!" Tenshi and Suki gasped, turning to see Shinji engaged in conversation with a little girl.
-x-
When Mimosa came to for the third time after Yui decided to keep her sedated, she awoke to find her arms pinned to the gurney by strange pins embedded into her wrists.
"Mmm…" She groaned, her mouth gagged; she found Yui to be completely twisted by her preference of methods that were beyond unreasonable.
Suddenly, she felt weaker.
"You're…draining my mana," she accused Yui, seeing her sitting away from her at a desk, working on some object that looked like a bracelet.
"I'll only need about three days' worth of mana," she stated to the girl as she turned to face her. "I hope you'll understand soon that I'm doing the right thing for everyone here. This childish lifestyle has to be ended and people need to move on."
"You are…going to…pay."
-x-
The refugee possessed a magic called Eyeball Magic, enabling her to create these additional eyeballs to see from different angles and places. When she summoned one of her eyeballs, Rika had Mnemosyne verify the memory the girl possessed in front of everyone present. This way, no matter what anyone thought or believed, the truth would be confirmed. The truth would affect all of them in different ways, for better or for worse.
Mnemosyne displayed the child's memory of that night Spade was attacked by Harbinger…and was able to lock on the piece of memory where the girl looked up at the night sky.
"It's only because the eyeball wasn't closer to avoid being seen," she told the Ikaris and the Wizard King, "but there's no doubting the solidity of this memory. She saw a woman high above the kingdom…and this is the woman she saw that night Spade was decimated."
Shinji wished it wasn't true.
Suki wished she could comfort her nephew.
Tenshi wanted punch someone that deserved it in their face.
Rika fumed quietly; the woman the little refugee saw that night, the suspected culprit believed to be in league with Harbinger…was now a verified truth. The culprit…had been identified.
"Are you…sure the memory is legit?" A male Magic Knight from the Green Praying Mantis asked them.
"Mnemosyne never lies," Rika confirms. "She always tells it as it is. This memory is as clear as glass and diamond."
"This is," a woman from the Blue Rose squad uttered, "just wrong."
"She usually is," said Shinji as he turned to walk away, bitter and outraged by the truth. I can't believe her. Damn her. Damn her!
He wanted to believe that she could do no more wrong to others, that she was just some antisocial woman that tried to find her place in a new place that was unlike any other place they knew. Except that now…he knew better…and knew that she wasn't an antisocial woman…or even someone trying to find her place in a completely different place beyond themselves. His mother, Yui Ikari…was just someone that was capable of anything…but incapable of changing her personal goals…and she was now pursuing something that was just as dark and unforgivable. And he had to help deal with her cruelty and put an end to her actions.
"Is this woman…his mother?" The girl asked them.
"Yeah," Tenshi answered her. "This has become personal for him."
"It's personal for all of us," Suki corrected. "She hasn't changed. She hasn't changed at all."
"Nothing she says or does is going to save her from what's coming."
-x-
"…I guess he knows now," Misato stated before Asuka left to be tested in the plug after Rei was finished, seeing the picture of Shinji looking upset and disgusted by a picture of his mother in front of everyone.
"Yeah," Asuka had to agree with her. "It looks like he can't deny it, anymore. He's bound to be pissed off knowing that she killed a lot of people."
"If you found out that your parents killed a bunch of people and it made you look bad, wouldn't you be pissed, too?"
When Rei returned to the room, she saw the picture and felt sadness on the fact that Shinji was hurt by the knowledge of his mother having harmed all of those people. If she could ask him something about his personal feelings over this discovery, it would've been what he was going to do about his mother.
Asuka left to go to the test plug, pondering Shinji's possible reactions and what he would do. She didn't know the boy well enough at all to know what he'd do next if he found out what kind of person his mother was. If it had been her, she'd probably question the woman before needing to deal with her directly…and dealing with her directly without letting her personal feelings get the better of her.
Misato turned the page and saw a picture of Shinji…hacking away at a tree with his sword and naginata, full of rage and hurt.
"Oh, no," she sighs as she recognizes a method of venting out one's rage when she sees it, and Shinji was venting.
-x-
Rage, one of the greater emotions that Shinji understood, was consuming his heart as he turned his fury on an old tree to vent.
"Aaaurgh! Aaaurgh!" He yelled, swinging his naginata and taking off another branch. "I can't believe you would do this! I'll get you for this!"
Guardian, standing a considerable distance away from Shinji, was sympathetic towards him because this was hard for him to accept. This was the worst act of cruelty that could be performed on others; by entering into a pact with his nemesis, Yui Ikari deliberately became her son's archenemy. She deliberately, purposely, put the both of them in a ring of fire where only one of them would be able to walk away. But he'd been down this road once before already; no matter what she and Harbinger did, they were only on one path and one path only…while he and Shinji could walk more than one path, able to attack this problem from other angles.
Shinji dropped to his knees and panted.
"You're a…you're just another bad person, Mother," he uttered. "You're just another…terrible person that doesn't deserve to be here."
Guardian looked away from Shinji and at the shadows nearby, sensing the devil-enhanced mana of Nacht and the mana of Rades present.
"You two might as well show yourselves," he raised his voice so that they heard him. "I can see your mana from over here."
The shadows lessened and the two mages were exposed to the light.
"What are you two doing out here?" Shinji asked them.
"Suki told us what happened when you got back from that refugee village," Rades explained. "This is messed up. I…I'll be honest, I didn't want to believe that anyone from your family was capable of this madness."
Shinji got up and expressed, "Nobody's perfect. Not me, not my mother, nobody. But my mother… I hate her right now for doing this…but she's my mother. If anyone's going to take her out for her unforgivable atrocities against others…it's going to be me that does it."
"Any idea on why your mother would do what she did?" Nacht asks. "What does she get out of helping Harbinger?"
"Probably what I didn't want to believe that she was working on for as long as I've been alive. That stupid agenda where people like her tear the whole world apart at every seam and smash everyone in it together to fill in whatever gaps they have."
"If she's interested in that, it makes no sense to have Harbinger kill all those people in Spade."
"That's the thing about agendas and master plans, they…they don't include everyone, even when the people in charge of them say they do."
"How do the people from your world live knowing people like that exist?" Rades questioned.
"More than half the time? People like that never achieve their master plan. Less than half the time, people like that get caught or killed. Other times, nobody really knows that people like that exist in the world. Half the world is maimed and the people that survived are still picking up the pieces leftover from the devastation."
"I'll help you find her."
-x-
This Grand Magic Zone wasn't as soothing as it used to be for Tenshi. Even as he soaked in the spring to absorb more mana, he didn't feel calm like before. He just felt anger towards Yui for her arrogance and stupidity in killing countless people she never even met. To him, she was a danger to everyone no matter what she practiced with, science or magic or something else that she would exploit to get some sort of feat accomplished.
"I didn't think I'd find you back here, Tenshi," he heard his mother say to him as he opened his eyes to see her standing by the edge of the spring. "I thought you'd be at the Golden Dawn HQ."
Although it was viewed as a spring, a place that could be used for bathing if you knew where and when to find it, Tenshi still preferred to treat the place like he would a pool, wearing trunks or some other type of swimwear. As he was floating in the water, he shifted and went over to the edge to converse with her.
"Not all of them were as accepting of the discovery that Yui is the one responsible for what happened in Spade as everyone from the other squads will undoubtedly be once they take the time to process the information," he explained his reason for not being there. "Then again, I didn't join the Golden Dawn because they were the best or most popular squad in Clover. I joined to keep an eye on Yui, and I failed. I own that. I kept my distance to avoid being suspicious to her, and I didn't see what she was doing."
Rika sat on the edge and dipped her legs into the spring after removing her sandals.
"You're not the only one that failed to see Yui for who she is deep down in her soul and ambitions," she admitted. "She wouldn't have been able to do what she's done had I never showed her what she needed to do to perform magic. That was my mistake. I failed to see that Yui is incapable of accepting what is, always wanting something that others don't even think about because it doesn't affect them, as either a whole or individually, and what she believes needs to happen puts everyone at risk. She's dangerous to people, no matter what she does, with whatever methods she can use to her advantage. So…yeah, I failed her, the people of Clover and Spade, you, Suki and Shinji. I own that."
Tenshi climbed out of the spring and sat beside Rika.
"So, basically," he uttered, "we both failed to keep a close watch on Yui and make sure she couldn't do anything wrong to the people that live here. Yeah, we did a bad job. What do you think Yui is as a person? I mean, what type of person is she…if not a people person?"
"She's no witch…and she's definitely not a saint. If she had just dealt with the Dark Triad that the refugees told us about, she would've been hailed as a hero to the Spade Kingdom, regardless of using Harbinger, maybe even promoted all the way to Grand Magic Knight…so what I really want to say she is…is something I will refrain from saying."
"Well, I know what I want to call her…and never wanted to say in Shinji's presence. Yui's a stuck-up, immoral, overdriven megalomaniacal bitch that's going to get whatever she's got coming to her. There, I said it."
"At least one of us has the balls to say something like that about her."
"If she shows her face back at the Golden Dawn HQ, even for just a minute, I left a reminder for her to take in that everyone's going to be after her because of her actions."
"Dare I even ask?"
"No. It's better to soak in the natural mana to strengthen our reserves for later on. I want to be prepared for when she comes back to do something careless…and she will do something careless. She tends to always do."
-x-
It was only to grab something she had left behind in her room at the Golden Dawn HQ, but Yui didn't expect to see a message of this sort to indicate that people were aware of her agenda and not happy about it. A bunch of large words floating around the room, on the walls, the doors, the ceiling, everywhere she could see. When she added them together, they spelled a message that spoke volumes in this silence.
"WE KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE DONE, YUI. THE MAGIC KNIGHTS ARE AWARE OF YOUR CONNECTION TO HARBINGER. WE WILL COME FOR YOU, AND YOU WILL ANSWER FOR YOUR CRIMES. YOU ARE TROUBLE TO EVERYONE AND WE WILL BE BETTER OFF WITHOUT SOMEONE LIKE YOU THINKING YOU KNOW BETTER THAN WE DO. IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO MIMOSA VERMILION, THERE WILL BE NO FORGIVENESS. NO FORGIVENESS, NO TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK, AND NO MERCY." The message read, and Yui frowned upon discovering this.
Moving towards her bed, she reached under the mattress and pulled something out. It was white, made of cloth, and fit her like a coat.
I am a scientist, she thought as she examined herself in front of the mirror, not a witch.
-x-
Despite seeing her modern appearance in a photo in the album, Fuyutsuki had a difficult time seeing Yui as a pleasant woman to be around due to the aura of dominance she gave off. She looked like a stereotypical scientist, basically the whole lab coat image and everything, but she gave off a completely different impression of her choice of profession.
"I doubt Shinji would recognize her now," said Ritsuko as she examined the photo. "She gives off that impression of being committed, but not to people, only her practice."
It was similar to something Kaji had spoken of just before he had to leave again to perform an errand; his opinion about Yui was how, despite being back in her son's life, their relationship hadn't really developed much…and wasn't going to if one of them was disinterested in getting to know more about the other one. Of course, when he had stated his opinion, he clearly meant Yui, not Shinji, who was trying to put the past behind him and accept his life where he was.
"Ugh," Misato shuddered, clearly bothered by the fact that Yui was being antagonistic towards other people, who weren't even aware of her intentions or cared much for them.
Even if they were informed about her agenda, Fuyutsuki thought, there's no way that any of them would support her actions or allow her to walk away after learning how her agenda murdered a nation using a dangerous creature. It's not our world…and the absolute worst thing Yui could do is to try and take their world…and turn it into her own.
-x-
Shinji couldn't feel relaxed in his sleep. He had his concerns about the people that his mother could choose to go after; people that were up to something they knew was wrong could do worse than ever after learning that they were wanted criminals. There was no way he could worry about her when she was out there, either hiding or out and about, allied with a creature that was probably the most dangerous creature in existence if it was strong enough to kill devils, and up to no good. With her now being listed as a threat to the people, Shinji was, like all other Magic Knights, authorized to use any and all means necessary to find and apprehend his mother, which, against his better judgment and morality, included the possibility of murder if all other methods proved useless against dealing with her.
Killing her is only if all other methods prove useless in making her stop, he thought as he turned in his bed. I just have to find other methods that won't involve killing her. But I'll leave her fate to be decided by the Magic Parliament. Whatever they decide to do with her is whatever they decide to do with her.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Black Bull hideout, in Noelle's room, the royal noblewoman had gotten word from her father that their family had a minor measure of scrutiny due to this Guardian of the Void revealing sensitive information that connected their family to a creature that was now, more or less, affiliated with House Ikari because one of their own decided to go against their beliefs.
"It up and claimed that one of our ancestors unleashed that thing into our world and the reason behind it was due to a dispute between the two houses," her father stated. "It's ancient and from a long time ago! It could be making this all up for all we know!"
Except Guardian doesn't strike me as the type to lie, Noelle had thought as she slept. Guardian doesn't seem to have it in him to lie to any of us. His relationship with Harbinger is that of an ancient rivalry between foes that can only be resolved when one of them is defeated. He's a protector. Harbinger is the one that destroys everything in his way.
Noelle couldn't agree with her father or elder siblings simply because they actively disliked House Ikari for something that happened a long time ago, before any of them came around. There was no point in looking at another family with disgust because of something that was so long ago that it didn't really pertain to their current predicament if the other family didn't even have any ill will towards them for whatever happened over a thousand years ago. If this Alexander Silva had been the one to summon Harbinger in the beginning due to a dispute, then it was his fault that the creature was brought here, and then later overlooked for his alleged involvement with the actions of this creature when it was banished to the Void. And she had learned to control her magic better because of Shinji, even developing three additional Healing Magic spells in her grimoire and a Creation Magic spell that could only be considered an aspect of a knight, and that was the wearing of armor.
"Knights will wear armor to protect themselves against their adversaries," Suki had mentioned to her. "The armor will defend against most attacks, but it will also help to intimidate the foe if the wearer is trying to instill fear from the aesthetic of their appearance."
"What do you mean by that?" She asked her.
"Some armor is based off of other creatures. You base your armor around a bull or even a dragon, you can probably win a psychological battle against your foe. However, if armor is modeled after a creature that isn't intended to install fear but rather awe, like a fairy or a…a unicorn, you can still be viewed as an incredible adversary, just not as intimidating. Which will you be when you choose to put on the armor, Ms. Silva? Will you be intimidating…or will you be mesmerizing to your opponents?"
Noelle wasn't sure if she was going to be either against who would be her foes. But if she went up against Harbinger in the future, she would hope to be at least intimidating towards him, regardless of her magic attribute.
"While Anti Magic is the most effective form of magic against Harbinger," Guardian stated as he was informing the Black Bull of what would and wouldn't hurt his ancient adversary, "other forms of magic, ranging from the elements to light and darkness themselves…may not hurt him, but depending upon your level, they'll impede him to a degree."
"It's not like we can use Anti Magic weapons like the four of you can," Magna had expressed, which was a fact; because Anti Magic was confirmed to be the negative of all positive magic, only those capable of Anti Magic could wield such items.
"You continue to raise your level, Mr. Swing, you may not need to worry much about what you can and can't achieve," Guardian told him. "I say this to all of you. Do not doubt your abilities. Each of you are stronger than you realize when you see past your limitations and find a way to overcome the impediment that stands between you and your goal."
When Guardian addressed this belief to them, he included Yami, Nacht and Rades, too; he could see their magic and knew that they could elevate to a higher level, arcane magic, devil-enhanced magic, strange magic or just being from foreign countries or viewed as commoners with little to contribute to society. He didn't let their backgrounds obscure his own perception of what they could achieve, what they could become.
-x-
Despite the immense power he had harvested from the three devils from Spade and the power he had taken from the Dark Triad members, Harbinger found, to his fury, that an old injury he had received from an earlier feud with Guardian, despite his evolution into a stronger form, was retained and didn't heal. While the previous injuries inflicted upon had managed to regenerate, this one that was received on the left side of his neck, courtesy of a claw attack from Guardian, saturated with Anti Magic, didn't regenerate at all. It wasn't just the irritable feeling he got from his sense of touch regarding the injury, but the mere fact of seeing it reflected in a mirror in from of him made his eyes flare as he snarled. Apparently, not even Blood, Bone or Body Magic was effective in treating one, painstakingly-annoying…little cut.
"I'll take everything you have left, Guardian," he told himself, and then smashed the mirror in front of him. "You'll have nothing…before you become nothing."
To be continued…
A/N: In the end, when it comes down to it, some beliefs will just not be accepted over other beliefs. They will clash until the ones that have the most impact on those that believe will be left to be embraced. And now Yui is the most wanted criminal in the Clover Kingdom, Shinji is resentful of her indiscretions and immoral behavior towards people that have done her no wrong, and their relationship can only deteriorate from here on out because they are of two different beliefs; the mother that still seeks out the future she wants to share with all of mankind, and the son that only wants to put the pain of his own past behind him and move on into a different future that has been open to him. Let me know what you think.