Creation began on 12-10-13
Creation ended on 12-23-13
Neon Genesis Evangelion
A New Cause: The Path to Redemption
It was nearing the Tenth of August now, and four cities had been reduced to belonging to the Angels that showed up…and they were watched over, periodically, by the Four Horsemen of the Restorative. Not a soul outside the cities, not even the powerful satellites of foreign countries, could sneak up on the horsemen that rode around the streets; the only exception to being eavesdropped were the Angels themselves. There were several hundreds of casualties in each aftermath of the other three cities, New York, St. Louis and Hong Kong, respectively; a limited number of people that didn't get out of each city and weren't accounted for, leaving authorities to presume they were dead as a result of the other horsemen.
-x-
"…I didn't expect the Committee to send another Evangelion and another pilot to help deal with the Angel invasion," went Ritsuko to Misato, at the sight of arrival for the new Eva and its pilot, several miles from Tokyo-3. "Maybe with two Evas, we can take back the city."
But Misato wasn't convinced, and she had a good reason to be. Ever since she saw Shinji Ikari (or Death, as he stressed out his new identity), she had warned all of the Geo-Front that the cities cleared out because of the Angels were no-go zones for people, with the horsemen keeping watch over them to ensure they were protected. Yet, the Committee seemed desperate to eliminate the Angels before they tried to attack the rest of mankind, which seemed unlikely from her perspective. If what Death had told her was true, then the Angels wouldn't do anything other standing around in each city, like they've been doing for the last few days since they arrived in their locations. And so long as the people didn't try to bother them, they wouldn't try to cause any degree of harm toward the human race, excluding the harm they've already done by rendering the people homeless and forced out of their residences.
"We're only asking for trouble from the Angels and the horsemen," she told her friend.
"I'd call them a bluff," Ritsuko countered. "That brat's just pretending to be in charge, but he's nothing more than a child."
"The last time I checked, dead children didn't come back to kill more people or threaten their lives," Misato counter-retorted toward her.
Soon enough, the plane they were waiting for had arrived, with an Evangelion they hadn't expected to see on the giant, crucifix-like holding construct it was on. It looked like Unit-02, but darker and lacking the head scheme of the red giant; instead, it looked like it possessed the shape of Unit-01's head, excluding the horn. Unlike the previous Evas, this one seemed like a real monster, one to be feared and loathed by many.
-x-
"Gaaaurgh! Gaaaurgh!" Gaghiel growled, sounding like an enormous beast that lived deep in a forest or beneath the sea.
Hong Kong had never seen such desolation in years, and all that really happened was the people being driven away by the Angel of Fish that did nothing more than perch itself atop some buildings. While it did so, the streets were wandered through by the Poison Master, Conquest, who was making sure that there weren't any people trying to stay in the city.
Neigh. His horse stopped and turned over to the right, right to where another of Conquest's fellow horsemen was coming down the street.
"I didn't expect to see you coming here…Death," he told the other horseman.
Death, stopping several feet from where Conquest stood on his horse, got off his and put his right arm to his chest, where his heart was, and bowed his head to the eldest horseman.
"Japan was dull when you wander around just one city," he told Conquest. "Why stay when you can see other places?"
"There's always visiting places not on the nonexistent list of cities to be taken for the cause," Conquest suggested. "I hear that cities not affected by Second Impact are still in good condition."
"Maybe, but here was first. So, this is Hong Kong? I can see why Tokyo-3 pales in comparison to the original city and this salvaged one; it's a metropolis of steel and concrete. Tokyo-3's just a cheap dwelling that invites the feeble-minded."
"You ever heard of Atlantis? I once believed they had in their possession a civilization and culture unlike any that exists today. I would've loved to see it for myself."
"I know nothing of any Atlantis; I've never been outside of Japan until the day I died. It's my first time in China today. I'm just going to wander around and see whatever there is to see."
"What is there to see in a city without people?"
As Death climbed back onto his horse, he expressed, "For what seemed like an eternity, I was locked behind walls and kept in darkness, unable to see the light until I was the age you see me as, and by that time, the light hurt for the first few moments…until I felt its welcoming warmth. After that, and after I escaped from the cold walls of any prisons, I swore until the end of my life that I would never be confined again. I guess, even in death, I don't like feeling confined to any one place."
"That's one of the complications of transitioning from your previous life to the state of purgatory one resides in," Conquest told him; he knew the signs of such transitions because he himself had been going through the changes. "Not many things you long to let go of go away after dying. Sometimes, none of what you want to put behind you go away. Awful memories, phantom pain, sins committed, they linger, like a disease you can't properly treat."
Death then asked him, "Are there any awful memories or sins you committed in your past life that haven't left you in purgatory?"
"I only have one sin from my life…and it follows me today," he responded. "I have an unresolved issue that I'm using my position as a Horseman of the Restorative to undo."
"Resurrection?"
"No. Reincarnation, the same as you. But the cause comes first, with the reward being last."
-x-
"…She's the Fourth Child?" Asuka questioned Kaji, pointing to a girl that was in the cafeteria with them and some of the other personnel of NERV.
The girl, the Fourth Child, looked about twelve years old, with blond hair that reached down to the small of her back, pink glasses, and she wore a school girl dress that didn't seem associated with any Asuka had seen before; it didn't look British, Japanese, Chinese, German or American. Instead, the skirt was red with black diamonds, the shirt was blue with yellow triangles and the coat was gray with a stenciled "M" and "A" interlocked on the right pocket on the front.
"Yeah, that's right," he answered her. "Mana Asagi, pilot of Unit-03, the Fourth Child in accordance with the Marduk Institute. She was born in what was left of Nagoya and was shipped away to the States with her father and grandfather after she was three, when her mother died in a house robbery gone wrong. She's been abroad since then, studying in the States, wanting to be a doctor."
"What kind of goal is that?" Asuka questioned; she liked to question the lives of any she saw as competition as an Evangelion pilot.
"It's all she has left of her mother, who's nothing more than a bunch of photographs and a necklace."
Asuka then got up and went over to the girl, something Kaji simply sighed and decided to stay out of.
Mana was reading an old, medical book while eating her meal when the redhead showed up by her.
"Hello, you must be the Fourth Child," she greeted Mana, or rather, she interrogated her. "I'm Asuka Langley Soryu. Let's be friends."
Mana looked up at her and felt interrogated by her and responded, "No thank you."
Ever since she could remember moving to the States, Mana didn't make many friends growing up, and anyone that did offer her friendship seemed only interested in self-satisfying themselves instead of genuine companionship. The only real friends she had before she left to return to Japan were her companions from her neighborhood club, Pursuers of Dreams. She was thankful that she still had their contact numbers.
"Little kid," Asuka called her and walked away; Mana was grateful that she did.
-x-
"…Hey, man, I'm glad we snuck back in this city," a woman said to a man, as they broke into a car and took to the streets.
"No cops in the Big Apple," the man responded. "I'd say this giant creature is doing us a favor."
NEIGH! They heard a horse nearby.
"You think we can outrun a horseman?" The woman asked him.
"Horses can only run for so long," the man responded, and drove faster.
NEIGH! The red, armored courser of the horseman known as War emerged from out of an alley and gave chase after the black Spyder, with the sword ablaze in War's right hand.
"Aw, shit!" The woman cried out. "It's that guy again."
As they drove even faster, War's courser ran to catch up with the car. The horseman refused to let them go, as it would look bad for him if word got out that he let people that were supposed to be out of the city get the best of him. Once he caught these perps, he would send them to Hell; there was no reasoning with those that were hard at understanding that when a city has been cleared out of people and supposed to stay that way, nobody was an exception. Nobody that was alive, that is.
FLASH! He used his sword and unleashed an unstable stream of fire at the car, but all that did was burn the back bumper.
"Aaaaahh!" The woman screamed.
The Spyder turned right, but War made a harder right, staying on the same road as his targets were, and he unleashed another unstable stream of fire at them.
The guy made the car as fast as possible, but War's courser was considered the fastest of the horses belonging to the Four Horsemen of the Restorative, and it was the greatest force he had at his disposal to aid in the cause he was now devoted to seeing achieved. When pitted against other forces that challenged his speed status, he had to establish his status as the top of the food chain of speed.
"You won't escape me!" He yelled at them, and unleashed another stream of fire, this one more stable than the first two.
BOOM! An explosion came from the rear tires and the Spyder skidded toward a streetlight.
"Aaaaaahh!" They screamed, and crashed into the streetlight. "Oh…"
War stopped in front the now-damaged car and got off his horse, approaching his objective. His sword now flaring bluish-white instead of reddish-orange; he was going to make sure that the people outside the city he was tasked with keeping empty got the message that New York City was a no-man's land for the time being.
"One of the flaws with being mortal," he told the injured pair, who saw his sword ablaze and pointed at the ground in front of them, and tried in vain to get out of their seat belts, "is that flesh is not fireproof to intense flames and heat. In my previous life, warlords and rulers would like their meat cooked to perfection in the heart of a roaring fire in their fortresses' pantries."
"Please," the woman, sporting a bloody gash on her forehead that extended to her left eye, pleaded as she tried to get out of her seat belt, "you don't have to do this. My boyfriend and I, we'll get out of the city. We won't come back again."
"That's right," War told her, raising the end of his sword up over his head. "You won't come back."
As he lowered his sword to incinerate the two, car and all, his right arm was gripped by somebody.
"Huh?!" He gasped, and turned his head to face…Death, whose expression was cold and unreadable, and his presence once more unnoticed by the other horseman, making him wonder if this new Death could even be sensed by the other three. "Death, what the Hell are you…"
"Let them go, War," he told him, his own voice sounding devoid of emotion; there wasn't even a degree of concern. "It seems your attempted murder has made them aware of this place being horsemen territory, if not territory belonging to the Restorative."
"How do you know they won't try to come back or tell others to come back if I let them live?" War questioned him. "How do you know they won't persist in trying to return?"
"I don't," Death answered him, "but if the woman values the life of her unborn child, she will stay away from here."
War then looked at the woman more thoroughly, and saw her stomach seemed slightly larger, like she was putting on weight; he didn't notice it at all until Death mentioned it.
"Oh…" The man groaned, shaking some glass shards out of his head, looking up at the two horsemen. "Oh, shit."
"New York is still my turf, Death, and I say they both die for trespassing," War told his fellow horseman. "I let them go, they'll be an undesired message that we're just playing games with everyone."
"It won't be that way. Unless they want to enter Hell, they will back off. Unless the woman wants to lose her baby, she will be silent. But just to be sure that they do understand not to enter any city that an Angel has come to reside in…" Death uttered, and then took out his sickle, with which he used to stab the man behind the wheel in his left shoulder.
"Aaaaurgh!" He screamed, as the horseman jammed the blade in further. "Aaaaurgh!"
"This poor fool will lose his arm," Death told War, "and the woman will lose hers."
After removing his sickle from the guy's shoulder (causing more pain to him), he went to the other side and raised the blade toward the lady's right arm. He waited for her to look up at his face, expecting her to recognize his face from somewhere.
"What the Hell are you?" She asked him.
"My name is Death, for I am the end of all, living things," he answered her, and then stabbed her in the shoulder with the sickle.
"Aaaaaurgh!" She screamed, and Death dug the blade in deeper. "Aaaaaurgh, aaahh!"
"Now, will you leave this city and stay out?" He asked them.
"Urgh…yes…yes…" The woman cried out in pain, and then Death pulled the blade out. "Urgh!"
"And your man?" War questioned.
"Urgh, yes," the man answered.
Then, once they pretty much gave their word (like they even had a choice), Death ripped the doors off their hinges and cut the straps of their seat belts, freeing them from the car.
"Now that we understand each other," he told them, "find another car that runs and get the Hell out of here while you still have breath in your lungs to breathe."
The injured pair then staggered toward a nearby car and got inside, hot-wired the engine and rode off.
"You should've let me kill them," said War to Death. "At least, I would've felt better about them being here when they weren't supposed to be."
"While I still stay true to my belief that nobody is innocent and everyone is guilty, there was no need to condemn two hopeless fools to the same fate," Death responded, and then added, "and what would it accomplish…if not further agony?"
War decided it was moot and sheathed his sword. He was still at odds on how Death could show up undetected when he should've been sensed seconds before he even saw him coming.
"Okay, but do one thing for me," War asked him. "Warn me before you show up. You showing up undetected is messed up. It's like having an unwelcome guest at your side and you don't hear them until they make themselves heard."
Death bowed his head and turned away. This left War to get back atop his horse and wander other parts of the city for more trespassers. As he awaited the second city he would be assigned to empty out of people, he had to wonder what went through Death's head…other than the thoughts that he had. Sometimes, he had to wonder if this new incarnation of the Horseman of Death for the Restorative was even within the boundaries of trust and cooperation.
-x-
"…She's quite calm," went Misato to Ritsuko within Central Dogma's testing chambers as they observed Mana and Asuka's synchronization ratios. "And this is her first time?"
"She was contacted by the Marduk Institute almost ten days ago," Ritsuko explained to her, checking the scores being recorded. "I have to say, her choice wasn't very simple."
"She said no, initially?"
"Yeah, but then they made her an offer she accepted."
"What could a twelve-year-old girl like this one want?"
"Her mother was doctor. She wants to be one, too."
"What kind of girl wants to be a person that makes their living cutting open others?"
"One that respects her mother's career choice and wants to be like her."
Within the plug, Mana, deaf to the outside world she found herself in, thought of her friends back in the USA. There wasn't a day that went by where she didn't think about the life she had to leave behind to fight an enemy that simply showed up in a city and did nothing beyond that. She even saw the monsters in the news that took up residence in Tokyo-3, New York, St. Louis and Hong Kong; they were on the news every other hour so there was no chance of them being ignored. She was thankful that while living in the States, she grew up in small towns that had low crime rates.
"She's to replace the inadequate Third Child," she heard from the NERV commander when she met him, "and aid in trying to deal with the Angels being in the cities."
His name was Shinji Ikari, she thought to herself, having read what she could on the boy everyone hated more than the worst criminals that still lived on the planet. He spent most of his life in a prison-like environment after playing the role of judge, jury and executioner on his aunt, uncle and cousin, along with several other lives, but what choice did he really have when he sinned? Grandfather believed him to be a victim of abuse, both physical and emotional, and Father believed the boy's family to be immoral in their role for treating him the way they did. The mother that disappeared for over ten years, the father that took no interest in raising his son, the other relatives that took him in only because the father paid them to…only to give him Hell each day until he couldn't take it any longer…and responded with abuse that was greater than what was inflicted on him.
When she had turned ten, she had looked at every article that mentioned the supposedly-dead boy that was still walking the Earth, and how any investigation on why he did what he did to eight lives that got him incarcerated in the first place…was not thorough in any sense until everything went straight to Hell and back again. The police didn't even try to get anything out of the boy, just treating him like they would any other criminal.
Probably part of the reason why there had been a speedy trial, Mana believed; after reading of the silence Shinji displayed during his trial, the judge had decided that he wasn't going to waste everyone's time with a child pretending to be a deaf-mute. Still, it seemed totally unfair to sentence him the way they did. His father wasn't even there, and was rumored to be an immoral person without limits to his cruelty that was asking for trouble to befall him. In a way, he was asking for his son to go homicidal and lay waste to many innocent lives, with his own being the last to be taken on his quest for revenge.
"Her synch-ratio's stable, well within the acceptable range of piloting," Hyuga expressed. "Sixty-three point eight percent."
"That's ten percent higher than the First Child's," added Ritsuko.
"What of Asuka's?" Misato questioned.
"Asuka's synch-ratio is at seventy-seven percent," she answered.
-x-
"…The creation of artificial souls is next to impossible," went Yui, writing down her thoughts on paper. "The only alternative is to imbue Evas with the souls of women that had children after Second Impact. It devastates children, but it's for a brighter future for all of humanity. Their sacrifice will be rewarded."
Of course, hearing herself say that only reminded her of Shinji…and his hatred of her and Gendo for abandoning him…along with the revelation that he had come back from the dead. SEELE hasn't yet ordered her on how to deal with that part of the situation that included the Angels invading the cities and being protected by these horsemen, though she was for sure they would want a scientific solution. Either that or a way to exploit the horsemen.
Captain Katsuragi's the only one to have had an encounter with Shinji and live after he came back, she thought, switching her notes and writing about what she was able to get off the rumors of the encounter. That included information that was limited. Shinji called himself Death, and that the Angels were protected from the people, along with the cities invaded by the Angels being no-man's land. What, are they trying to force people to overpopulate other cities? To scatter us? They haven't made a single attempt to even try and make contact with Lilith. Isn't removing the human race their plan?
"The people that live in the Geo-Front will be ignored so long as they stay out of Tokyo-3."
"Ikari's dead son doesn't want anyone talking about him."
"We don't go anywhere near those Angel-infested cities, and the Angels don't come after us with those horsemen that watch over them."
Yui couldn't understand the situation fully because all the rumors from the initially-required information was manipulated, including much of what was really heard by Captain Katsuragi and Death. Whatever transpired between the two, it had to have been heavy and major for Death to tell her. But Yui concluded that there had to be only four horsemen that watch over the Angels, meaning that it was likely that each horseman would be tasked by a higher force to protect at least two Angels. She had to suspect that Death was the protector of the Angel of Tokyo-3, since he's been seen around it.
I saw a pale horse whose rider was named Death, and Hell was right behind him, she thought, thinking back to the nightmare where she saw the Four Horsemen. The rider's name was Death…Death…Death… Why would anyone choose to be that? Why would Shinji choose to be Death? Did I do this? Did Gendo and I cause this to happen to him after he died?
She then switched from her work on the Evas and what she heard about the Angels…to a folder containing restricted information on the remains of Shinji, confiscated by SEELE for scientific research. She could've petitioned to have his remains cremated (which was probably part of the reason he came back from the dead), but SEELE couldn't let go of the fact that her younger son's brain was abnormal in size and wanted to study the cause of why this was so. So far, all the scientists assigned to study his corpse could deduce that the years of withheld medical treatment and lack of education were factors that aided in the regression or de-evolution of his brain, a rarity that occurred in any other people molded in negative ways.
"I'm surprised they still let you live after all that you did," she heard a voice say to her from behind her desk. "Or should I say…all that you didn't do? Or maybe both?"
She looked over and saw the little boy that was one of Shinji's dual personas seen on television before he died, the child-like persona, and then shook her head in an attempt to delude herself into believing that he wasn't there.
"You're not here," she told him. "I don't believe in ghosts."
"That's okay, crazy lady, I don't believe in ghosts, either," he told her, levitating off the floor and onto the desk. "But even if I'm not here, that doesn't mean you're not talking to me. Even I don't know what's truly going on here. I'm just here, speaking to you, reminding you that you still have blood on your hands, and it's more than what Shinji had on his before he let the Grim Reaper claim his soul after a lengthy battle for more time to get revenge. Maybe he should've killed you, just for good measure."
Yui turned her chair around, trying to ignore him (as well as to stop seeing his face that looked sad and angry with a hidden agenda).
"You can't ignore what you brought upon yourself, woman," she looked in front of her and saw…to her woe (mainly because she now felt she was losing her mind)…the other persona Shinji had before he died, mirroring her son's age up to his death, but dressed in filthy, medical patient attire and with filthy, unkempt hair that knew no grooming or hygiene; the whole of this persona hadn't had any measure of hygienic care a day in its life.
"Why must the both of you torment me?" She asked, burying her face in her hands.
"Maybe it's 'cause you deserve this form of penance," went Slayer to her. "Shinji didn't know what it meant to be happy after you and your bastard of a husband abandoned him and left him to be abused by the scum that was your sister's family."
"But I didn't…"
"You didn't abandon him?" Driving Force questioned her, cutting her off. "Don't lie to us or to yourself. Where, exactly, were you while he spent a little over a year with your sister? And then where were you during the years he spent incarcerated in that mental nuthouse where he suffered further abuse? You hid in the Eva you made from the flesh of Lilith, the mother of mankind, like a coward unwilling to admit they did something they knew was wrong."
"I'm not a coward," Yui told the little boy. "I was just trying to ensure a brighter future for everyone."
"Well, that's a pity, considering the only future Shinji ever got from you was one of a sense of jealousy and betrayal, a well of hate and desire…and an ending that was full of pain and death," the boy told her. "The jealousy stemming from the sight of other kids whose parents never abandoned them, and the betrayal being his own parents left him and put themselves above raising him. His hatred that was born out of the bitter feelings he started having after all his desires for people to be kind to him were shot down. He then lived the rest of his life in great pain until his death freed him from most of it. Most of the pain that comes from being alive, that is. It was all a maddening cause for him to want revenge against the family that started it all for him, as there are no ties stronger than the ones made with blood, and that has ended."
"And the brightness he ever got was a speck of light for eternity in Hell for the murders he committed," Slayer added. "He didn't expect you to live as a sort of scapegoat for his crimes; he just wanted to punish you like how he punished your husband. One parent receives death…"
"…And the other gets life without their spouse," Driving Force finished for his fellow persona. "It's a fitting penalty, don't you think? You left your husband for over ten years…"
"…And he was taken from you the day you decide to come back, thinking you can reach out to the only son you had left alive that wasn't murdered by accident, unaware that the damage was already done, irreversible and permanent." Slayer finished for Driving Force.
Yui gritted her teeth beneath her hands and looked at the two personas.
"I didn't mean for him to turn so dark," she told them.
"But he did," Driving Force responded. "He had to throw his heart away when the world he saw became cruel to him. Of course, that world was just a part of Japan; he'd never seen the world outside of this trashed archipelago. He gave up trying to reach out to a world that turned him away. He ended being dead inside, a child without a heart because people were heartless to him."
"Maybe his return as a horseman is his own penance for his sins," said Slayer. "Maybe even his only chance at being absolved by the gods. I mean, his brother clearly forgives his sins, not that he ever held any degree of contempt for Shinji to start with."
"Mako? But…Shinji doesn't know a thing about him," Yui expressed; Shinji had been too young, not even a month old when Mako was killed by accident, and the knowledge of his elder twin kept hidden from the world, leaving him to believe he was an only child. "How could he know anything about Mako in death when he didn't until his remaining minutes of life?"
"Separated in life, but united in death," Slayer told her. "Twins have a bond that transcends the boundaries of the flesh. It's far stronger than any other bond people have with each other. One half wouldn't go anywhere or stay anywhere without the other half."
"Yui?" Doctor Togusa called out to the woman, as she entered the lab Yui was working in. "They're running another… Huh? Were…were you speaking to someone just now?"
Yui, who was by herself now, looked at her and responded, "No. That was just me, rambling."
-x-
The night life was dead in this city that Nagoya. But then again, any life that was dead in any setting that was an artificial one was dead to Death. So riding around his horse on the streets were what he was currently what he did. Nobody was really around to see him, and those that were out to see him galloping on the streets were likely to be disbelieved or just as likely to ignore him. The air was cold, but Death didn't really react to the drop in temperature; he lacked a pulse, so he also lacked heartbeat and body heat, probably able to match the temperature of his surrounding.
GASP! Death stopped his horse and looked around, seeing the worst replica of that building that used to reside in Tokyo that he recalled seeing in Tokyo-3 when he was still breathing.
He lacked the curiosity to question why anyone would call a department store building 109, but reckoned that it was where he felt something that felt like the pain he experienced during his time in the institute, but not like how he was beaten with batons and clubs. He even remembered the very second he found a way to redirect his physical pain and turn it into a source of strength to use later on.
"Brother," he heard Mako as he manifested beside him, noticing how empty the city appeared with no people out and about, "what's wrong?"
"What do you mean?" He asked him.
"You might not demonstrate facial expressions much of the time, if ever, but I can tell that something's bothering you," he explained. "Something got to you, otherwise, I wouldn't be asking you right now."
Death got off Rumi and walked to the sidewalk, placed his right hand on the ground, and sighed.
"Rumi, come here, girl," he called out to his mare, and she came over. "Smell."
She lowered her head and sniffed the ground, then backed away and whined a little, shaking her head in the negative.
Mako then floated down to the ground and pressed his exposed hand to the ground…and backed away.
"People with foul intent were here…and they did something they should get punished for," he told his brother, and looked down the street. "Their dark scent extends down that way."
"Mother Gaia said that those that served in the position of the Horseman of Death can track the darkness within the souls of those with foul intent like how predators can track their prey. Another of Death's great strengths to be used for the Restorative."
"A man from ancient times once commented that matters of great concern should be treated lightly, while matters of small concern should be treated seriously. It looks like our business protecting the Angels are a matter of great concern that needs to be treated lightly, and this matter that we're stepping into…is one that should be treated seriously."
"And Mother Gaia also commented," Death uttered, climbing back atop Rumi, "that the lessons from the past…will aid in reshaping the darkness of the unwritten future. But sometimes, just sometimes, it's always easier to forget about the past…and the future…and focus only on the here and now. Ha!"
Rumi galloped down the road, ignoring the traffic lights and everything. Now the Horseman of Death was on a mission that was his own, followed by a additional lost soul that was his observer. The journey to the source of this impure energy that Death felt had led the rider of the pale horse to the outside of a large building. It looked plain enough to be one of those average, business-themed buildings, but there was something off that made the Horseman of Death ball up his right hand. It was an odd feeling, like someone had taken their hand and penetrated him with it in his back, reached for his spine…and yanked it out of him. A slight breeze whipped around Death's legs as he got off Rumi, making the bottom of his coat flutter a little bit as he approached the building.
Now I feel like someone's yelling at me again for something I didn't do, he thought, walking up the stairs of a pristine and elegant hallway, leading to a series of locked rooms.
Sniff! He got a whiff of a foul scent coming from one of the rooms and stopped in front of one…and found that it smelled the foulest out of the hallway.
What is this? He wondered, placing his right hand on the door.
FLASH! He saw the interior of the room behind the door, occupied by almost ten men in business suits, two other men that dressed in regular clothes like how he dressed right now, and three women. No, two women and a young girl. Death seemed convinced that she was barely sixteen. All three ladies were dressed in the attire of those that were deprived of dignity and modesty, with the majority of their flesh revealed, including areas that were best left unseen, but the worst part was that they each seemed absent-minded, like the lights were on in their minds…but no one was there to do anything about it.
"…We've been waiting," he saw one of the men in the suits say to the two regular-dressed men, and how one of them, wearing a dark coat, simply gestured like it was nothing serious. "Gentlemen, the main dish has been served. Please, enjoy until you're satisfied."
And then, Death saw things that made him feel uneasy. The other men in the suits approaching the three ladies, all with weird looks on their faces. The ladies seemed terrified, but were unable to rebel or anything, not even scream. His eyes widened at the sight of the suits being thrown aside, revealing varying ranges of aged skin, and the men doing things to the ladies that he had never seen, even in death or from his time in the institute.
What is this? He wondered again, seeing one old man put his thing into the young girl's mouth, while another had done the same to one of the women with hair a similar shade of purple as the woman Shinji left alive to warn the world. What is this?!
FLASH! He was soon seeing the front of the door once more, but not before seeing three men spill out strange liquid that was neither blood nor saliva, all from their things between their legs that they used on the ladies, covering them with it.
He couldn't take seeing what he had seen these people do, and broke the door down, reducing it to pieces as he stepped inside. The men that were in the suits all looked at him, surprised, sitting in comfy chairs around a table with cigarettes in their possession, and were naked as the day they drew their first breath of life. But the sight of the ladies was the worst he'd seen so far; even when he made himself known, they hadn't reacted to his presence, not even the slightest of screams escaped their mouths.
"Who the Hell are you and what are doing here?" The only man left wearing a business suit asked him. "This is a private meeting."
He looked at him and the two regular-dressed men, then took another look at the nude men…and decided on what had to be done. He unsheathed his sickle…and dashed toward the man in the green jacket, slashing his head and glasses in half!
"What the fuck?!" One of the nude men gasped.
"You're all going to die," Death declared, and then decapitated the man in the suit and the man in the coat. "You're all going to die!"
With three dead men now laying on the floor, Death proceeded to go after the naked bunch, who tried to scatter. He grabbed one of them with grayish hair, took his sickle and skinned his back.
"Aaaaaaurgh! Aaaaaurgh!" The dying man shrieked, blood now pouring from his mouth.
PIERCE! Death then stabbed him in his skinned back with his sickle, killing him outright.
"It doesn't matter if you run from me out on the streets or if you hide from me under your beds," he told the men left alive as they tried to gather their clothes and run, "Death has come for you."
"Drop dead, kid!" One man shouted at him, pulled out a gun, and fired three rounds at his chest.
Death staggered backwards, but didn't fall from the pathetic move made on him.
"Grrrrurgh!" Death charged the shooter and sliced his gun-toting arm off, spraying the walls with his blood. "You can't kill me."
"Aaaaaaurgh!" The man groaned, falling to the floor.
Death then grabbed his neck and forced him back onto his feet.
"It sucks to be you right now," he told the man, and then slit his neck, letting his choke to death as it became impossible to breathe his final breaths. "Who's next?"
He counted a total of four other men left to send to Hell and went after the next one close by. He flung his sickle at him and struck him in the back of his head.
"Hurgh! Urgh! Hurgh! Urgh!" He heard him babble; the possibility of brain damage was likely, due to the end of the blade sticking out the front of his forehead.
RIP! He removed the lodged weapon, covered in blood now, and the latest member of the slaughtered businessmen fell and succumbed to his mortal injuries.
BANG, BANG, BANG! More gunfire was heard by Death and he felt several bullets hit him in his right arm, just above his gauntlet.
They don't know when to call it quits, he sighed, turning around toward the door he broke down into pieces and saw two of the remaining three men there, holding pistols and aimed at him. "Don't you get it now? I am Death! I can't be killed! Your bullets won't save your asses! They belong to me."
He raised his sickle and charged toward them; the third guy would be dealt with another time. Two for the price of one swing of his blade.
SWISH! He twisted in a three-sixty maneuver and sliced into flesh like a sword through thin pieces of paper, hearing the spraying sounds that blood made when released into the air.
The two men, never able to make a run for their lives, fell to pieces: Their arms fell, followed by their legs and then the rest of them. Death had come so quick, there was no time to scream. Their final thoughts had been wanting to know who and what this kid was and why he came for them.
"One left," said Death, and he returned to the room, entering into what had to have been a sort of storage or kitchen that housed extra drinks and food for the men, and found the last man, climbing onto an open window. "Go ahead and run. It's not going to make a difference. Your fate is sealed."
"Oh," the man, whimpered, turned away from him, and looked onto the streets below. "Please! Just give me a chance to explain! Just give me a chance to explain!"
"What about those ladies you and your friends messed around with and left covered in your, um… Whatever it was that you left on them?" He asked him. "You probably put it in the girl's mouth, as well! Huh?! Was it good for you?! Was it?!"
The guy then looked more closely at the boy…and recalled where he'd seen his face before. It was allover the news about the child that was brought to Tokyo-3 and left it a ghost town after murdering over three-hundred people, including police officers, ordinary civilians, mercenaries, and a man that was his own father, whom he had threatened to kill. And then, there was the rumor that he had come back from the dead, unsatisfied and wanting to take more lives.
"You? No…no, it's not possible!" He whimpered. "You're dead! You died! You were killed! There's no coming back after that. You died, there's no coming back! There's no coming back!"
Before Death could even take a step toward him, the man jumped out of the window and descended toward the ground. All Death saw was a man whose mind had become fragmented by the mere memory of his end…and having come back with a new cause to fulfill.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!" He heard the man cry out, and then…
THUD! He merely looked at the now-dead man that was roadkill for whatever came out at night to pick at whatever was edible.
"A pity," he sighed. "He did the honor of killing himself for me."
"Ohmp!" He heard a sound coming from within the other room and returned. "Oh…"
The young girl, laying against one of the chairs, had vomited onto the floor, her eyes glazed over. Beside her was the woman with hair a similar purple to that other woman in Tokyo-3, looking like she was ready to call it a life. And to Death's left was the second woman with green hair, wasted and looking like she was also ready to call it a life. He was so caught up with the men that he had completely forgotten about them, but that he came back to find them still around, he had the opportunity to deal with them.
He approached the girl, turned her onto her around so that her back was against the chair, and raised the blade of his sickle up over her head. In an instant, he saw her eyes slowly meet his, and how her eyelids slowly came up in what had to be a failed attempt to display fear.
"…Please…" The voice of the purple-haired woman came. "Please…don't kill her… Please…don't kill my daughter."
"Be quiet," he told her, and brought the blade down in one, quick swish.
-x-
"Hmm?" Conquest mumbled, looking up at the night sky of Hong Kong while he was standing in the sand on the beach.
-x-
"Hmm?" War mumbled, looking up at the afternoon sky of New York as he stood atop the rebuilt Empire State Building.
-x-
"Hmm?" Famine mumbled, dropping his seventh cheeseburger and looking up the afternoon sky of St. Louis.
-x-
"Hmm?" Mother Gaia mumbled, looking up from her garden and at the daylight sky. "Death…what have you done?"
-x-
The young girl didn't even react to Death dropping his sickle down upon her, and Death wasn't the least bit surprised that she didn't try to evade his move. What surprised the mother, however, was that the sickle had struck the floor after Death brought it down, and there wasn't a mark on her daughter that she could see. It was like Death had intended to kill her, but miscalculated or made a goof.
Snip! The girl's red bondage outfit that wrapped around her arms and torso, as if by Death himself, came loose and fell to the floor, leaving her naked.
SWISH! SLASH! Death swung his sickle at the mother and the lady with the green hair, and their bondage outfits came off; he had cut off their inappropriate outfits, leaving their flesh untouched.
"Wha?" The woman with the green hair uttered, just as Death walked away from them and went to the men he killed, starting to remove their clothes that they were either killed wearing or were fortunate enough to put back on before he killed them.
He tossed to them whatever had little to no blood and said, "Put those on. Can't have you leaving as you are now."
The green-haired woman slowly moved to grab the clothes this boy had thrown to her and placed on a loose shirt.
"Thank you," she told him, just as the purple-haired woman grabbed a pair of the pants and struggled to put them on.
Death found a phone and picked it up, dialing a number and responding to the woman, "Your gratitude is unnecessary. These men had it coming to them. I just happened to be around when I was."
As the women helped the girl into whatever they could, a voice picked up on the phone and went, "Police, state your emergency."
"There's been a series of murders tonight, along with other crimes," Death said to the person.
"Okay, where did this happen?"
"In the building I'm using this phone to call with. I hope you can trace this phone, because I won't be here when I hang up. You also need to send a doctor. Three ladies were being abused by the murdered men in harsh ways."
"Okay, and who is this I'm speaking to?"
"Death of the Restorative, and I've passed judgment on these jerks I've killed to free the ladies of their unwelcome hands," he told the receiver and left the phone on the floor. "I hope you three recover from this nightmare."
He started to leave toward the door, but then stopped again, turning back to them, feeling like something was left undone. All he saw were three victims…and one last problem that needed to be dealt with before he left.
"Don't move," he told them, taking out his sickle again.
"What?" The green-haired woman asked, just as he approached them.
"Don't move," he repeated.
"Please," begged the purple-haired woman. "We didn't do anything wrong."
"It's not about what you did," he told her, raising the sickle up over their heads, "it's about what I'm going to make sure you don't do. Don't move."
SLASH! He brought the blade down upon them again, but all they did in response to being untouched by his weapon…was vomit out blood and other fluids for a minute.
"Sayanora," he told them, and then ran out the room.
In eight minutes, the sounds of police sirens could be heard, and the approaching footsteps of uniformed civil servants and licensed physicians. No one ever saw a dead boy that had been plastered on the news or a horse with a horn on its head getting away.
-x-
RING-RING-RING! Yui awoke to the sound of her phone ringing, and picked it up.
"…Ikari, speaking," she uttered, knowing that only her superiors of the SEELE organization would call her to hear of the progress she was making on the Evangelions. "What? You think he murdered some people in the city?"
-x-
News in Nagoya was now the fear that a dead boy that had come back to life had shown up in the city and killed several businessmen after finding them engaging in sexual activity with two women and a young girl. As much as Death didn't want the people speaking of him when he was alive, the news had to speak of him as an undead.
"…Most of the bodies belonged to some shady men from the police and film industries," a man on the streets told a woman. "Supposedly, they were involved in a string of kidnappings involving women to use in their adult films. God only knows why this kid came to kill them."
"…Two of the men that were killed worked in that adult film shop called Peach Paradise," another man told his friends as they walked down the street. "They might've been the ones behind the kidnapped nurse from the hospital a few weeks ago."
"…Her husband was furious about what happened to his wife and daughter. He wanted to sue for the crimes committed against his family, but the men were killed."
"…It's going to be a hard battle for the girl when she gets out of the hospital…"
"…This kid called himself Death. Maybe he was…"
"…Go after the boy for murder? What, do these murders make him more dangerous than when he was alive? He could've killed those women that were raped when he killed the men, but he didn't. Surely, wherever he has run off to, they'd probably just wanna say that they're grateful to him…"
"…But why would he bother killing people he didn't even know?"
People were constantly asking each other as the gossip got heavy. No one really knew why a kid that should've been dead would choose to come back and save the lives of a trio of women that were being sexually assaulted by men of shady business. It drove them mad with curiosity on why.
-x-
Conquest rode his horse to the place on the island where he met up with the other three horsemen, wondering what had transpired. All he knew was that something had happened, and it rattled him with curiosity on what it was. At the edge of the cliff on the path, he saw the courser belonging to the Horseman of War and the skinny field hunter belonging to the Horseman of Famine, both of whom seemed disturbed by the same thing he was disturbed by.
"You two, as well?" He asked them, getting off his stallion.
"Uh-huh," responded Famine, looking like he could kill for something to eat right now.
"What's with him?" Conquest asked War.
"He just finished eating his eighth burrito," he answered back, "and he's still hungry."
"Does he ever stop eating?"
"Only when I'm on the job," Famine expressed. "We have reason to believe that Death did something."
"What reason should we have to believe that he's responsible for this meeting?" Conquest asked.
"Has it ever occurred to you that, while we can detect each other out of the three of us, we can't detect Death, and we never know he's near until after he makes himself known?" War questioned him. "The last time I saw him, he kept me from taking the lives of two fools that wandered back into the city I was assigned to keep empty, and he made it heard that killing them would come if they or anyone else should come back while the city's off-limits."
"I know we're supposed to work together, even though we haven't had a reason to yet," went Famine, "but Death seems to be very…self-driven? Has other interests, perhaps? He doesn't seem that big on conversations between himself or anyone else."
"Except his twin," War stated.
"We'll ask him what has happened," Conquest reasoned. "Until then, we should continue with our duties until the next Angel arrives to lay claim to a city that will be used for the cause."
"I killed a bunch of flesh fiends last night," came Death's voice, right from behind Conquest, surprising the three horsemen.
"Oh!" Conquest gasped, turning around and seeing the Restorative Horseman of Death, once again noticing that he was wearing regular clothes instead of what he had on prior to going back out into the world as a member of the Restorative.
"Uh, Death," went Famine, taking a step back from his fellow horseman. "When did you get here?"
"Just now," he answered, which made the three worry; he never gave the slightest indication that he was coming, not even the slightest indication that his presence was felt by them. "I killed fiends that corrupt flesh and tarnish innocence that lingers in this guilty world. I made them suffer, dragged their souls to Hell, and set free three lives that needn't be soiled any further with the foul fruit of their sick and twisted tormentors."
"Wouldn't that make you a baby killer now?" War asked him, which earned a glare from Conquest.
"These women, if they were raped by the men that were killed, were likely done a great service by Death," he told him. "Not everybody wants anything to do with somebody that has left their dark mark on them. If you found a woman that didn't want her rapist's child growing inside her, what would you have done in Death's place?"
"I wouldn't know," he responded; he never liked to think of the troubles of others, no matter how much they suffered.
"No one wants to live with the reminder that they were hurt," went Famine. "It doesn't matter what form that reminder takes, be it a scar, a lost limb…or even a person."
Death then turned away, taking his horse with him to see Mother Gaia.
-x-
"…Your act against dark souls out there rattled the other horsemen, as well as myself," Mother Gaia told the Horseman of Death, as she rose up from off the grass, seeing him approach her, dressed in clothes she didn't expect to see him dressed in. "Wow, Death…I didn't expect to see you with a change of clothes. I gotta admit, you look better in regular clothes."
"It's only the boots and pants that have remained," he told her. "I was just out in the night…when I just…felt the presence of people with foul intent."
"You felt the presence of trouble-making businessmen, police and filmmakers taking advantage of people that were just minding their own business," she corrected his speech. "You took the lives of a bunch of sexual deviants, banished them to Hell, as well as undid the grand results of their raping of those women, undoing the unplanned and undesired pregnancies they were going through."
"So, I killed children? Just like before."
"No, you didn't, Death. They were in the earliest stages of development, so early that they had no time to have any souls affixed to them. Scientists would call humans in such stages of development zygotes or fetuses…and in the view of the mortal concepts of law and order, if a fetus can't survive outside the womb, then it's not a person."
Death then thought of his twin, something he felt he needed to question.
"His soul was affixed to his flesh the instant he drew his first breath, as did yours," he heard Gaia say to him. "You were thinking of your brother just now, were you not?"
He nodded that he was.
"If a child survives outside the womb, having taken a breath, then it's considered a person. Even a fragile life is considered a person, even if they only lived for a day, even an hour."
"Have you met any souls that lived as mortals for less than a year?" He asked her.
"Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands."
Suddenly, Mako appeared beside Death and expressed, "So many lives that lived for less than a year. It's unfair."
Gaia looked at him and responded, "Famine would agree with you."
"Oh? How so?"
"That's something you'd have to ask Famine about. Most of those souls have been reborn periodically ever since their initial deaths."
"And I'm guessing he's one of the souls that didn't get reborn; he got lost between death and rebirth," went Death.
"Again, you'll have to ask Famine about it. But you're close to the nerve that strikes pain cold." She told him.
Death then sat down while Mako floated down to the grass, barely touching the smallest blades.
"Was my brother…wrong for doing what he did to those cold souls and those women?" Mako asked.
"If this were any other Horseman of the Restorative, I'd give the same answer: You weren't in the wrong, you used something performed negatively…and brought out something positive. Things get worse before they start to get better, but not every life needs to be taken. Although, and I must admit, your actions might've started something with the rest of Japan as a Horseman of the Restorative. People may start to fear you as some sort of vengeful ghost, going after them."
"Then they should save their breath. I'm no ghost, and I'm not vengeful, anymore."
-x-
Once her additional synchronization tests were done, Mana returned to her room that NERV assigned to her. When she wasn't reading up on medical research, she looked at the newspaper on what had been printed about the supposedly-dead boy that was Shinji Ikari. What interested her the most so far about him was that he killed some men, but spared the lives of the women that were assaulted. That almost made him some sort of an antihero, someone that wasn't bad…but not entirely good, either, but somewhere in between.
Shinji Ikari… Death… A boy that killed at a very young age… A force that is, literally, the enemy of life, all living things. What could bring someone back and make him something more…and less…than a human being? She thought, laying in her bed. And why would he come back so soon after he died? Does he have some sort of unfinished business that he needs to resolve? Did the kami charge him with a mission that's in league with the Angels, whom NERV says are the enemy out to destroy all of mankind? Father always said to be mindful of others and always take into consideration that nothing is what it seems. Everything is connected, nothing is what it seems, and every question has many answers, just as every answer raises many more questions.
She wished the newspaper had printed photos of the crime scene in Nagoya, but they were probably deemed too graphic to be shown to the world. It made her think back to what her grandfather had once said to her what her mother had once said, that there was light and darkness within us all, and that there were a few of us, just a few, that often encounter our opposite sides, however they appear.
"If people that let the good in them show more than the bad, then it's likely that they shall encounter their darker selves, and the reverse would be true, too, that those that show the worse of themselves to other will encounter their positive selves." She heard her mother had once said.
I do want to believe that, she thought to herself. Just like I want to believe that maybe this dead boy brought back to life is not who he appears to be, that there is some good in him. And maybe these creatures, these Angels aren't what NERV makes them out as.
While she rested up until who-knew-when the next series of synchronization tests would occur, or when the Evas would go into conflict with the Angels, the Second Child, Asuka, was wandering around the base, looking at the spots where several dozens of NERV workers were slain by the Third Child. She had no idea, initially, that this one boy was capable of causing so much death; with the bodies having been collected and the blood and gore cleaned up, only the damages to the walls and floor remained, with no effort being made to repair them.
"What brings you down here, Asuka?" She turned and saw Kaji, who had been wandering around himself, minding his own business.
"Just looking at the Third Child's handiwork," she explained, touching the part of the wall in front of her that a bullet still lodged in. "How big was the body count again?"
"He had killed over three-hundred people before he died," he answered her.
"Crazy."
"Hard to believe."
"If he had been caught sooner, more deaths could've been prevented. What was the previous commander really thinking, bringing that kid here? He had to have been crazy about wanting him to pilot the Eva."
"Whatever his reason, it wasn't enough to persuade a child that had decided early on that his old man had to suffer for his neglect. He was already a troubled youth to begin with, and nothing that was done to him helped him to get over it. The damage was done…and there was no way to mend it."
"Yeah, I read his file, the good it did me. The disturbing will it takes…to murder that many people…all because the people you hate the most…either left you alone or didn't do anything for you."
"For Shinji Ikari…or Death, as he's now being called, he's a remarkable example of people with breaking points and how to reach them. You can only push someone so far…until they break…and he broke because of what his family, his parents, the relatives he was entrusted to, did to him. It must've been too much for his heart and he did the only thing that he could do to people that didn't show him any real love or acceptance: He made pieces of the problem go away."
"But why?" Asuka questioned. "Why, after killing the previous commander, and the First Child, along with the majority of the police and anyone else that got in his way, has he come back and might be affiliated with the Angels to the point where he says to Captain Katsuragi that they're off-limits?"
"Who knows?" Kaji answered her. "Whatever the reason, however the cause of his return, however we choose to perceive the situation we're in, Death has come back, he may very well be in league with the Angels, who might be the messengers of God himself, and that makes the boy an enemy. And because he's the enemy, he needs to be stopped, one way or another."
"Except how does one kill Death?"
"Asuka…no one can kill Death."
-x-
He never thought to see what existed underneath the surface of Mother Gaia's island, and never thought to see what had to be the physical form of the Restorative. There were thousands, if not millions, of people that seemed to belong to various races, dressed in a variety of casual clothes (he didn't see anyone dressed in a manner similar to what he saw the women he saved were dressed in), doing many things. Some were working on computers, others were serving meals, there were even children running around and throwing softballs around a large patch of space that seemed the size of the city he had reduced to a ghost town.
"Oh!" He stopped at the minor impact that a small ball made on his right leg, and a little girl that slowed down her approach of him. "Oh… Sorry, sir."
Death then picked up the ball…and handed it back to her.
"Go," he told her. "Play."
She accepted the ball and ran off to rejoin a bunch of other girls.
Once he found a space where he could sit and observe, Death sat down and looked down at the people. They looked like they belonged to most parts of the major powers of the world, but they were all here, working together on various tasks, under the light of the sun that found its way into the large caverns that looked like they had been made by other means, since he saw large machines.
"People that wish to see the purpose of the Restorative fulfilled, Death," he turned and saw War behind him, looking down at the people, as well. "Some of them that lost their way when half the world went away, others from parts of the world less than habitable, and others that don't see eye-to-eye with what others want for the world. Look at them, you got children being educated, parents being parents to their children, even those that aren't theirs, men and women of various cultures learning to accept others. It's quite a feat here."
"It's…strange to see them down here," he told War. "Don't they have places to go back to? People that are looking for them?"
"Most of the people here don't have a home to go back to," he turned and saw Famine nearby. "For them, Mother Gaia's island is their home. It's their sanctuary, their haven… The only place that exists in a world that has been maimed and left with people that would sooner use and exploit you than accept and work with you to do something noble and for a good cause."
Death turned away from Famine and looked back at the people below them, seeing the children playing around or being educated by people that were willing and able.
"You don't understand it completely, do you?" War asked him.
"I've never people like this before," he told him; the only people he ever saw were ones that either hated him before they even knew who he was…or flaunted their own happiness in front of him like they were trying to provoke him.
"Nobody's out to get anyone around here," went Famine. "They accept each other. Acceptance…is one of the necessary steps to salvation and redemption."
"If you can't accept someone, anyone, regardless of who or what they are, then you can't be saved just yet," added War. "It's a sad piece in the history of history's mistakes and the attempts made to fix them. A famous mortal once said something that led to phrases that people don't take seriously elsewhere: 'Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their past are doomed to repeat them', also stated as, 'those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat themselves'."
"Leading to a vicious circle without end," Death sighed, though the only circle that ever made sense to him was the one of life and death; people live…and people die. "But what hope is there for those that don't accept?"
"There's either a little," said Famine, "or there's none at all."
Death then got up and said he was going back to Tokyo-3 to ensure Sachiel was protected from harm.
"Oh, Death?" War stopped him for a while longer. "What you did in that other city, where you killed those men and got help for those women?"
"Hmm?" Death responded.
"That's a sign that you're on the right path. The path that leads to cleansing."
Death then nodded his head in the positive and left to get his horse.
"He's still not very talkative with the rest of us," Famine expressed.
"Give him time," War responded. "We'll need to sort out our personal problems before we can all ride together in due time."
"Say, who gets the next city to be selected by an Angel?"
"It's most likely me," War told him. "It's not exactly a rotation. That's just the way it is."
-x-
Sometimes, she had to wonder if Lilith's primordial blood, the very source of all life on the planet, was the proper material to use in preserving the remains of her sons. Yui had entered a secluded chamber in the research installation, accessible to only those with the proper clearance, and looked at the floating remains of her children as they were suspended in the LCL in separate tanks. She had to consider that she was bound to be haunted by the sight of her boys being poked and prodded like cattle in the sense that they were being used for research, and that she let the scientists do so.
I don't know how much more of this I can take, she thought, standing in front of the tank that housed Shinji's corpse. You're here, preserved and being examined…and you're out there in the world, still killing people. What if you're doing this because there's no hope left for anyone, that there's only murder to be performed? Is the only salvation left for everyone is to die? But you saved those women. You saved those women and killed those men because they had raped them so many times. Shinji…Death… What are you really doing? Why are you doing this? Are you punishing me?
She looked at the preserved remains of her younger son's aged head; even when he was lifeless, he still had a look that seemed wracked with anger. It was as though she expected him to answer her questions, but his soul was so far away that his body, however lifeless, was unlikely to respond to her pleas. If she was ever to receive any answers to why her son was doing all that he was doing as a horseman, she'd have to wait and see what would happen in the future.
A/N: Here's the latest chapter. Tell me how you like it. I hope the next chapter will feature another city being emptied out by the Angels and the Four Horsemen of the Restorative. I just need to decide how and in what way. Until next time, everyone. Peace!