A New Cause

by Traitor of All Traitors

Where the madness ended, a new darkness will begin, one that leads to light…if those that are tasked with leading the way can endure the wrath of those that stand against them…as well as each other. The Angels descend, the dead talk, myths and legends come to life, and judgment comes to more than just Japan. All of the world isn't safe…but is it in any greater danger than before?

7. Training Day

Creation began on 01-10-14

Creation ended on 02-25-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

A New Cause: Training Day

"…I'm too tense, too irritated, too bored to be looking after New York and Toronto," went the complaining War to his fellow horsemen, as he slashed at wooden and stone dummies with his sword.

Conquest, honing his archery skills, used his bow to shoot seven arrows at seven targets, all of them precised and on the mark. The Poison Master ignored the whining of the Violent One, just trying to enjoy this period of unnecessary violence against the people, something that made him smile a bit; the less time he spent cursing innocent souls with his plagues every time he rode around on his stallion, the less he had on his conscious when it came to harming them every time they demonstrated their stubbornness and stupidity.

"Whoa!" They ignored the yells and cries of Famine, as Death threw him around on the training mats. "I'm okay."

Then, the two heard him groan from an impact that they didn't know was Death bringing his foot down on the Great Hunger's abdomen.

"Less okay…" He groaned.

Death, in the two weeks that followed since his encounter with Mana Asagi, was spending the majority of his time away from the rest of the Restorative, like he usually always did, accompanied only by his twin brother. He rarely spoke more than three words, usually to the Restorative Horseman of Famine, who became his sparring partner in training in this period of unnecessary violence that he didn't take serious. With him, the unnecessary violence was always necessary; because people died everyday, and violence was often inescapable.

One way or another, the end of your life always found you, either by blade, stone, greed or some other way that was predictable…and unpredictable.

Death then picked Famine up and sat him on a nearby rock so that he could catch his thirty-seventh breath, sitting down beside him and looking at the blade of his sickle.

"Do you always need to look at that when you do nothing else?" Famine asked him. "I mean, it's not going anywhere unless you take it with you."

Death looked at him and said nothing in response, instead raising the glistening blade up to shine at his face. This was another one of those times where this horseman was quiet to the point of mute. Then…he just nodded in the positive.

"And to think I used to be terrified of War before I became terrified of you," he told Death, "and I respect you a bit for it."

"Famine," went Conquest, having heard that when he reloaded his bow. "Fear and respect aren't entirely well-associated with one another as they are in some beliefs. For some, it is to fear a person or persons more than to respect them…and with others, it is to respect them enough to fear them or vice versa. To fear Death is hardly to respect him…but to respect Death is to show that you admit to trusting him. All of him."

"That's what I was saying…even if I don't understand many, speakable words. I didn't live long in my previous life." Famine expressed to the rider of the white horse.

"So we're told," said War, and slashed in half another stone dummy. "No doubt your current body was given to you by Mother Gaia so that you could perform your duties as the Horseman of Famine."

"To which I am grateful to her."

"We each owe gratitude to the Planet Maiden for our current state of purgatory, in which we are out of the darkness and can explore the mortal realm we had departed from through unsavory means," went Conquest, enforcing their shared association with the divine woman that freed them from their dark, solitary realms in the afterlife.

"War," they finally heard Death speak up.

"What? Whoa!" War gasped, then raised his sword, blocking the blade of Death's sickle. "What the Hell, Death?!"

Death ran up to the knight and performed a jump kick at his chest, knocking him backwards.

"Ofph!" War fell on the ground and had a busted lip beneath his helmet.

"Expect the unexpected, War," went Death, picking up his sickle. "He who thinks himself invincible…is one who doesn't believe he's already in danger."

War then got up and launched a right hook toward Death.

Grip! Death blocked his assault and flipped him back onto the ground.

"Ohh…" The knight groaned.

"Maybe you should think about updating your armor," the undead Japanese boy suggested.

"Un-huh," he groaned in agreement.

Conquest and Famine silently applauded Death's minor victory over War, but were surprised that he was able to throw War over his head. Conquest, even though he was, physically, the oldest man in this immediate quartet, he had never sparred much with the knight that was, physically, in his late-teens or early-twenties, making him the second oldest.

"I guess I'll be your next opponent, Death," went Conquest, and he set his practice bow down and removed his hood, exposing his face to the other three.

Death put away his sickle and gave Conquest an unwelcoming hand gesture to make the first move.

-x-

Mana checked the news everyday after her nightly meeting with Death, always making sure that he had, in one way or another, made himself known by killing people that probably had it coming. She, along with the rest of the Geo-Front's personnel, had made a full recovery from the cold caused by Conquest (though some of the personnel thought he was also called Pestilence, due to the original name sounding no different from the Horseman of War), and people went back to work on repairing the damaged Unit-02, not that anyone, including herself, suspected that any Evas would see much action against the Angels after the last attempt. So far, she had discovered that there have been at least ten sightings of Death around the less crime-infested places in Japan, with at least four sightings of him in Nagoya. She found it odd that a dead boy would start spending a semblance of time going after certain people and killing them, allowing himself to be seen by other people, who would then spread the rumors, gossip and talk unexplainable reasons that a boy that died a psycho would continue to perform feats of psychopathy from beyond the grave.

In the cafeteria, shortly after another period of synchronization testing, Mana, quietly eating her lunch, examined the newspaper for any word of Death in Japan.

"Hey, there, Ms. Asagi," she looked up at the greeting Ryoji Kaji, who, like Ms. Soryu, made her uncomfortable. "What are reading there?"

"Just…the usual hysteria that exists out there in the world," she explained; if it became necessary, she would just claim that her looking up the sightings and murders caused by Death was nothing more than a hobby she started.

Kaji sat across the table from her and began eating his meal.

"Looks like NERV is on constant standby until we go against the Angel again…or the horsemen," he informed her.

When she found another recent sighting of Death, this time in Tokyo-2, she marked it for cutting out later and responded, "They probably want to avoid a repeat of the minor plague that we were all exposed to weeks ago?"

"Well, it's not like we can overcome a cold like that a second time in just a few days," he expressed. "And after seeing what those men were capable of, Katsuragi is convinced that trying to go after the Angels is the equivalent of trying to court the end of the world."

"You sound like my grandfather now," she told him, and took another bite out of her bagel. "He called me just yesterday and asked me for the umpteenth time if I was on the lookout for Death. I keep telling him that I've not seen him, that I would avoid him the first chance I get."

"Why not address the boy by his previous identity?"

"I would not risk my life just to address someone by a name or some form of identification that they didn't want to hear, anymore. And, from what I was told, his previous name is no different from a taboo. People hated him so much, they wanted nothing to do with him, and it was hardly his fault he was the child of absentee parents and heartless relatives that deserved what they were dealt with in the end by him."

"Are you…defending the horseman?"

"What? No, no, no. Anyone that kills, for any reason, whether out of vengeance or glory or some other reason or motive, is a bad person, and we're all better off without dealing with them. But he has done some good that the local police forces have neglected to do. He's…been killing killers, kidnappers, thieves and so on whenever he visits a different part of the archipelago. Maybe…he's making sure that he's the only one with the right to decide who lives and who dies. He is the Grim Reaper, after all."

"Or he's just playing at being the Grim Reaper."

Mana then finished her bagel and uttered, "People pretend to be the Grim Reaper all the time, thinking themselves invincible…but I doubt that they could cheat dying and come back. Miss Katsuragi did shoot him in his head…and he spat the bullet out. You can't take a bullet to the head and spit the bullet out…unless you're supernatural."

"…So…what type of doctor are you aiming to be?" Kaji asked her.

"The kind my mother was. She always preferred kids over adults because they were worth saving more than those over the age of twenty." She told him, and then got up and left, passing a seemingly-frustrated Ritsuko Akagi. Yikes! She's not in a friendly mood at all.

"Hey, Ritsuko!" Kaji greeted. "How are you doing?"

"Lousy," she responded to him. "The people are talking about him, but now they're addressing him by his new identity: Death. Death, Death, Death! It never seems to stop."

"Well, he is viewed as an entirely different person from who he used to be, so he's better off being addressed as…Death."

"He's still a weak, little boy playing killer."

"You seem to take his return a bit personal, don't you think?"

"What do you think?" She retorted and wheeled past him.

Lately, ever since he arrived to Japan, Kaji had never seen Ritsuko as angry as the day she discovered that, due to the previously-living Death shooting her, she would never walk again. It was like she lost a part of her soul that day Gendo was killed, though she seemed to care very little for the death of Rei Ayanami, viewing her demise as a simple casualty of one deranged boy's vendetta against his old man. Not that he could blame her for feeling pissed off; there were a few others that were left crippled by Death that wanted him dealt with, even though he was already dead. But he had to put aside his personal feelings about that, since he had a job to do.

-x-

"…I hate losing," went War to Conquest, who had been beaten by Death in the underground caves, flexing his left hand. "Even in a practice battle, losing stinks."

"Yeah, I reckon it does for you," responded Conquest, not really caring about getting his hide handed to him by the chronologically-youngest member of the immediate Four Horsemen. "But this is an important lesson to take into consideration: This defeat is the gateway to many victories in the future."

As the two sat on rocks on the sidelines, Death had gone back to training with Famine, who blocked his punches with his wrists, then resorted to try sucking Death dry of his body's fluids.

"Feel the fury of Famine!" He shouted at Death, putting the physically-older horseman onto his knees as his face drained of his fluids.

"Death will not be silenced," Death told him, and then head-butted him in his nose, knocking him backwards onto his back. "Death will not be dealt with, cheated or denied! Death is eternal! Death is unbreakable! Death…is the ultimate victor."

Famine raised his right hand up and expressed, "Alright, you win! You win, you win! My nose hurts!"

Within seconds, the Horseman of Death's fluids replenished his body and he helped the Horseman of Famine up onto his feet.

"That was a good move, Famine," he praised him. "You had drained my heart and almost drained my stomach, not that it would've mattered."

"Thank you," Famine responded, checking to make sure he didn't have a nosebleed, even though he would've reabsorbed the blood through his hands.

"Maybe we should eat now," suggested Conquest to the three, and Death gave him a cold stare. "Of course, you're welcome to join, Death."

-x-

Many would say that Mother Gaia had the table manners of well-groomed princess or goddess, while the horsemen Conquest, War and Famine had the manners of a gentlemen, soldier and glutton, respectively. But, as most were around the underground caverns enjoying a multicultural meal, Death merely sat with the other three horsemen around the mortals that resided on Mother Gaia's island, looking bored.

"Um…Death?" A woman that looked like she was from the States, holding a cup of water, got his attention. "Drink?"

Death nodded in the negative, turning the offer aside.

"Oh, don't mind Death," went Conquest. "He doesn't eat."

"Hmm? What was that?" The woman asked him.

"Death doesn't eat," he repeated.

"He…doesn't?" She questioned, finding it unusual that the rider of the pale horse didn't eat. "You mean, he can't eat? But you three are eating."

"Well, technically," went War to her, "Conquest and I don't need to, either. With Famine, it's a necessity because he doesn't have a lot of strength in him to do much, but Conquest and I prefer to continue doing the most basic of mortal requirements, such as eating and sleeping. I, for one, like to remind myself that I was alive in my previous life…and my needs followed me into my purgatory state."

"The more detached one is from their basic needs, the harder it is for them to get by in a semblance of mortality," Conquest expressed, eating a meat-filled dumpling. "The sad part of eating when you don't really need to is that all that I eat stays in my abdomen."

Death decided that he needed to get away from the island before the smell of the food made him do something to someone he wouldn't have minded doing to someone with foul intentions in their hearts and souls. He got up and told his fellow horsemen and Mother Gaia that he would be riding in Japan again, partially to make sure that Tokyo-3 remained empty and to later be out in the darkness of the night hunting criminals should he find any. Walking past dozens of people, he noticed that a few children below the age of ten were sitting beside what were recently confirmed to be their parents, their mothers and fathers; he could see the smiles on their faces as they ate together. Oh, how he envied their joy and longed for such when his duty to the Restorative was fulfilled.

Walking out of one of the entrances to the surface of the island, Death saw his horse waiting for him. He petted her softly on the left side of her neck; Rumi always seemed to know when he wanted to get away and be someplace else. It was completely unlike how it was when he had a pulse, when he spent his years in the asylum, drawing places he would've never seen, despising the life he was dealt with, still wanting revenge against his family, but also wanting to be elsewhere. And this horse, this mare which he had received as part of his status as a Horseman of the Restorative, made it possible for him to go places he never thought he could go to in this damnation he was currently in. And, as Mother Gaia stated, Rumi was his, as every horseman's horse was unique to its owner, so she was like a companion for him. Only him to ride.

"Good girl," he called her, and climbed atop the saddle. "Come on, Rumi. Let's head out."

Neigh! Rumi reared up and galloped toward the woods as mist build up and obscured their departure.

-x-

Yui sometimes had to wonder if what she was doing to her sons' remains was within the gods' ability to forgive her of. The LCL, the primordial fluids of Lilith, had done the remarkable feat of eliminating all of Shinji's physical injuries, such as the bullet wounds and years-old bruises and scars, and the scientists in charge of creating the new Evas based with the new research she had developed were using medical technology to induce electroshock signals into their brains to induce some basic muscle movements, but the idea of reviving the two was no different from a daydream. What's more, she didn't feel this was a good idea that SEELE had decided upon after a failed attempt to deal with the Third Angel, but with the loss of the First Child and the prototype Dummy System, they wanted a contingency plan against the Angels and a requirement for the Evas.

She placed a hand on the tank that contained her youngest son, still feeling the phantom pain of his attempt on her life when he impaled her with Fuyutsuki's machete. She never saw one of her children seem as horrifying as Shinji did, even when in a vegetative state.

Tap! She saw his body raise its hands against the glass, looking at her with an emotionless expression.

His mouth moved, but she couldn't hear a single word that might've escaped his lips. Then he reverted back to his previous state of being, seemingly dead like the corpse he was found as.

Yui wondered what that was all about. Was Shinji trying to tell her something? Or was he trying to make an attempt on her life as revenge for her trying to give him back his own?

She turned to face her eldest son, Mako, who looked like he had slowly moved about in his container…and then reverted to his own state of vegetation. As far as the scientist in her was convinced, both boys were lacking in the capacity to return to life. A mockery of a chemical-induced coma for both Ikari boys, virtual brain death for the time being.

"…You're playing with lives that abandoned their flesh, lady," she turned around and saw Shinji's Driving Force persona, floating in front of her. "You continue to play God, and all you're asking for is retribution of the highest sort."

Suddenly, the Slayer persona showed up, standing on the floor.

"Even if you could bring them back to life, would they really want to?" He asked her. "Heh-heh-heh. You're one of the people that don't deserve what it is they're trying to gain. You're one of the people that found what they referred to as their god, and, in their arrogance, their joyless passion, their stupidity, tried to possess the deity. For such reasons, everyone, including those that didn't even exist at the time, was punished with death and grief."

"You aided in that punishment…fifteen years ago," added Driving Force, "and the god that you spent a lifetime searching for…was no more. Still, unable to accept that as truth, you tried to pick up what was left of the god…and piece it back into a form that was close to the level of a person…and that was Adam, and from him…"

"…You tried to make another person, one that was in the image of the god you tried to possess, to resurrect…and that attempt…led to your precious Eva, something that's better off in the realm of nonexistence," Slayer finished.

"It…it wasn't my fault," Yui told them.

"You can't play the blame game with us," Driving Force told her in response to hearing her try to relieve herself of whatever guilt she had. "But your guilt in bringing despair to people…is second only to the despair you brought your own children. One son stripped of his life and the other son forced to live an unbearable life that wasn't a life, just a wretched heap of years that had no happiness in them. No light, no future, no love from anybody. So why try to give them back their lives when their souls have lost any way to return to their flesh?"

"I'm trying to help people," she confessed.

"That's your excuse, woman," Slayer retorted. "You should've stopped when you found out that your younger child's heart stopped beating instead of trying to bring him back to life. You better pray that his successor, this young man the people now know as Death, doesn't want to find you and kill you. As pointless as it would seem, he would be absolutely malicious toward the possibilities of your end. Who knows, being Death, he might just send you to Hell directly if he feels that the penalty he gave you while alive wasn't enough to make you suffer."

Yui feared that possibility. Mainly because of how similar it was to what had befell her twins and Gendo and herself. One son taken by accident, the other never knowing how to live because of the fate he was dealt with, while the husband was killed and she was left for dead. It was like their fates mirrored each of the four, based on their age: Mako and Gendo got their lives taken, and she and Shinji made to live a pitiful existence…until the youngest son finally died, no longer wanting to live.

"Why do you torment me?" She asked them.

"It's only you that torments yourself," Slayer responded.

"It's only you…and those like you…that tries to move Heaven and Earth," added Driving Force. "Until you see that it is not only impossible…but immoral because not everyone will be permitted to enter the grand paradise. We all know that Shinji didn't get in."

-x-

He never thought that Rumi could ride up the ancient volcano he had gone up and achieved his manhood status upon, but she did. She took him up there faster than his feet ever could. They reached the top of Mt. Fuji, overlooking the land around them, and just wasting some of their eternity gazing at the pathetic city that was Tokyo-3.

"This is a good view," went Mako, manifesting beside Death on his left. "Quite a beauty…for a place trapped in perpetual summertime."

"You've seen it once, you've seen it too many times to treat it like it's precious," Death responded.

"If we do this right… When we do this big goal, you'll see the other seasons that are treasures to share. The sight of the leaves turning brown and falling to the ground, the snow falling from the skies as the air stings the exposed flesh due to the coldness, and the flowers appearing in great details that are impossible to ignore, with great smells and small animals running around."

"Those…will be days to look forward to."

Mako then noticed something in the air above the lousy fortress city; it looked like a fly, only larger and not moving like said insect.

"What is that?" He questioned.

Death, whose eyes were better on account of being physically older, looked up at the air over the city and noticed what his brother couldn't make out as a helicopter. What was a helicopter doing flying over a no-go zone chosen by one of the minions of the deities?

"One of mankind's artificial servants," he told Mako. "We better make sure it's not up to something that would warrant its destruction."

Neigh! Rumi neighed and galloped off the mountain.

-x-

"…Why is that helicopter flying over the city?" Fuyutsuki questioned; ever since Tokyo-3 had been emptied and abandoned (and with the arrival of the Third Angel and the declaration of Death that stated that the city was his to maintain), no one ever made a point to come back, not even to try and steal from the buildings that were intact.

"It must be a news media-owned helicopter," Hyuga suggested, trying to establish contact with it.

"Why, when the world already knows that the Angels exists," went Misato, wondering why the Angel hadn't made any attempt to attack it. "Though this Angel doesn't seem to mind it."

"Does anyone think Death might mind it?" Some eyes were turned on Mana, who was present, asking just a simple question that might as well have been tabooed because it possessed a touchy topic.

"You call him that so formally," went Asuka, who was also present. "What's wrong with calling him by his actual designation: The Third Child?"

The twelve-year-old looked at the thirteen-year-old and answered, "Because he's not the same person he was when he still had a pulse. He's not the same boy that caused problems that had no easy solution to them. And why must you address him by something that's not a name?"

"Well, the opposite of life isn't a name."

"It is, actually."

"If he's actually Death, then I'm Medusa."

"And she lost her hideous head in the end."

"Maybe he won't mind it so long as it stays away," went Fuyutsuki, answering Mana's question. "The Angel hasn't even acknowledged its presence, so it must not consider it a threat. Death showed up in a previous attempt on the Angel and hasn't been seen since that day."

-x-

Ring! War swung his sword over the tall grass of a large meadow, hearing the sound the blade made when it cut into the air. He had switched out his previous weapon in favor of a large katana because the blade offered less resistance toward the wind.

He and Conquest were at it again with their sparring, only this time it was out in the open instead of underground in the caverns.

"Anytime, Conquest!" He told the rider of the white horse.

Conquest, preparing to fire another arrow at the knight, took careful aim at his chest. He wished a little bit that it was Death he was facing, believing that the rider of the pale horse would prove a less-combative adversary…and not complaining as much, and fired the arrow at him.

Swat! War blocked the arrow and sent it to the ground.

"War scores another point for blocking," went Famine, who was keeping score for both horsemen. "That's eight points for Conquest and four points for War."

"You know, Famine, you could fight War and see how well your powers fare against his," Conquest suggested to the rider of the black horse.

"I think we all know who would come out on top," Famine kindly turned his offer down. "Hmm?"

The three turned to a gathering mist and saw Famine's horse arrive, whining and snorting at its rider.

War then uttered, "I take it you must go back to St. Luis and deal with the trouble brewing there?"

Famine looked at the knight like he had issues and then got on his horse.

"You can laugh all you want, War," he told him, "but you won't find anyone laughing with you."

The black horse then reared up and rode off into the mist.

"Just so you know," went Conquest, "when he and Death return, it'll be an all-out free-for-all."

"You know how many get their lives taken from them during those?" War questioned, sounding uncaring like always.

"What is life to one that doesn't have one, anymore? What is the end to one that is an immortal servant to a higher order?"

"You know, I hate it when you speak like that. I can't understand half of what you say."

"That's what happens when you're a lost soul from a time before the Middle Ages."

War raised his katana at the robed archer, the blade already heating up into flames, and his sparring partner prepared another arrow for him.

-x-

Death rode Rumi up the side of a skyscraper and got a better view at the helicopter, seeing that it was just a regular vehicle that carried four people. So far, it hadn't made an attempt on Sachiel, so he had no reason to make any attempt on it. Then, just moments after reaching the roof, the helicopter flew off; whether it was doing reconnaissance or just seeing if a Horseman of the Restorative would respond to potential danger brought to an Angel was questionable to Death.

I'm not liking that they show up and do nothing but turn away, he thought; while he was fine with people actually turning away from the city that was his to roam around, he was uncomfortable with them showing up and then leaving like it was a sort of game, like a cat chasing a mouse or something. It's like trying to walk away from something unavoidable.

Mako then appeared beside him and examined the scene.

"People are complicated when they do something odd," he told his younger twin. "When something doesn't go their way, they'll try something different."

"Like what I've done in the flesh?" Death questioned.

"Yeah…exactly."

"When nothing goes right, try something else as an alternative."

"Improvise."

"I remember almost killing the aunt's child with my bare hands…and then finishing the misdeed with my bare hands. I thought of that moment when I escaped from NERV the first time I arrived in this ludicrous city…when I killed those people that got in my way of getting away. I wasn't going to stand being moved from one cage to another…and it had been so long since I caused someone some great misfortune, ending their existence. People get slow, sloppy and lose their edge. I needed to know I haven't lost my skill set, which showed room for improvement… And I'd proven to myself that I was still capable of going after that bastard that ditched me after his bitch did."

"One day, you'll eventually say that you lived instead of existed."

"The day I do that…will be the day I live again…only to die again."

-x-

"…And then, just last week, I read what was in the papers about him again," went Hei-Bai to his therapist, getting some personal weight off his shoulders, "and found out that he murdered four grifters…and then called the police to tell them where they could find their remains…and to bring help for a bunch of kids they had harmed. And it just has me questioning…why he chooses to do this? Why help those that did nothing to help him? Why pity those that still have a future full of hope when he got nothing but despair?"

"And…this boy…your nephew you never got to know," the female therapist responded, "you've never been able to comprehend his mindset? Why he would come back…and do these things that he does?"

"No. If I had spoken with him, I'd probably understand him a little better. If I had known about him, if I hadn't been so estranged from my sister or sent away by our father for my protection from her… I probably would've looked after him when he was alive, I wouldn't have did to him what everyone else did. Every time I looked at the papers after he died, I got disgusted with how his obituary was written: "Shinji Ikari, the boy nobody's going to miss. The boy that no one cares about. The boy that became a killer…and died a lost cause". His obituary had been written the day his parents left him alone. His carefree life ceased the day he was left with people that hated him just because of who his parents were! If he'd been the son of some saint or a fireman, a high school teacher or a mayor, he would've probably been spared such resentment! If…if he had somebody, anybody, that gave a damn about him, he wouldn't have ended up the way he did. He'd be smiling, laughing, living."

"So why read the papers on what he's done? Why read up on what he has become?"

"I guess, honestly…if his hatred against his family was over the instant he killed his father and punished his mother for her role in his hollowed life… I'd want to meet him…regardless of what he's done…what he's become…just to talk to him. As far as I know, he didn't know his mother had a brother that was in the States. I know I never knew about him until after he got loose and started killing again."

"And…if you could speak with him, if he had anything to say to you…what would you say to him?"

"Why he came back from the dead? Why he decided to go killing people that probably deserve death? And why help a bunch of monsters that people think want to destroy the world? Is it because he has no choice? Or because he's taken a liking to murder?"

"You know, Hei-Bai, not everyone finds it easy to enjoy murder," his therapist expressed. "They say it's simple, easy and fun, but there are some that don't enjoy it, that don't find it easy at all. Some people do it…because it's simply what they know, like a survival instinct, one that they can't stop doing."

"You mean…some people can do it…without a reason?"

"Yes."

-x-

Sitting atop the rooftop of the building his horse galloped up to, Death watched the lifeless environment that was Tokyo-3 pass him by. His mare sitting beside him on the left brought some comfort to his mind's chaotic levels, but the fact that he waited for something to happen was getting difficult to take, even when he seemed to have an endless degree of patience. So he laid his head back and looked up at the sky, managing to see a bird that was actually real, soaring without a care in the world. His eyes losing focus…and the silence around him, all save for the breathing of Rumi…faded out of his conscious.

Suddenly, he found himself standing, or rather, floating, above a series of mountains. Snow-topped mountains, carpeted with numerous trees and tiny bodies of water that formed lakes or creeks. Under his exposed feet, he felt what appeared to be a see-through layer of glass or plastic, and he was standing on it. And then, he saw something that could've took his breath away if he had any left: A large, winged creature that he had never seen before, in life or death, resembling a sort of reptilian beast.

He was startled at first, but not frightened by the fact that it was coming his way from below in the mountains. It looked beautiful in an unusual way, with a pale and silvery, bone-white coloration, two eyes that were as red as fire contained in flesh, a long and slender tail, and a head almost like that of a cat without the fur and whiskers. It stopped soaring and hovered just above him, hissing and snarling at him, as if to intimidate him, but he stood where he was in the air, looking it in the eyes without so much as a hint of fear. There was something about it that caught his attention unlike much of everything else that could get his attention.

HISS! It continued to hiss and snarl at him, fanning its massive wings to maintain its airborne position over the horseman, and then raised a pair of large claws in between them. HISS!

"…And the divine woman, born of the Earth itself, in a kind and caring voice, told all that sought out the end of all things, 'Come and see the return of salvation'. And she showed them, in all its greatness, a pale dragon from a nest of thousands…forced to fold in its mighty wings…until the one it waited for embraced themselves in all their being. The one destined to ride it, wielding a scythe…would unleash the darkness from deep within…and the light inside would shine allover." He heard something that had to have been written and read somewhere, but wasn't sure where or how he had heard it, voiced by somebody that was unseen by him.

Death raised his own arms up and the large beast, no doubt a dragon of some sort now, made contact with his hands.

Hiss! Its hissing and snarling became less pronounced and more calmly expressed. Hiss!

It then lowered beneath him…and revealed on its back a saddle, similar to the kind you put on a horse, but adapted to fit on a larger beast. This made Death suspect that the dragon wanted him to get on and ride it somewhere.

He slowly climbed on and reached out for the reins beside the saddle. When he was secured, the beast took off, flying over the mountains and into some clouds.

"Death?" A voice called out to him, but it was so quiet, he couldn't hear it completely. "Death… Death… DEATH!"

"Huh?!" He came to, and saw his twin floating in front of him, and he was back on the rooftop. "What? What is it?"

"You were zoned out again," Mako explained to him. "You didn't respond to me for thirty minutes."

"I was… I was thinking," he told his twin.

"You were unconscious, brother. Not so different from… Please, don't scare me like that again."

The horseman then got up and stretched his limbs, suspecting that his brother masked what he really wanted to say about what happened last time by asking his twin not to scare him by losing consciousness again. He could only guess that when he got stepped on by that red behemoth, he worried Mako by being out cold for over an hour, but losing consciousness without needing to be stepped on or injured at all causes him to do so for much shorter periods. Though he wasn't sure he was willing to try experimenting with how long.

Neigh. He turned to face his mare, which seemed to be staring at the two.

"What's with Rumi?" Death asked Mako.

"I don't know," the infant mumbled. "She…just looked at you while you were out cold."

Death approached Rumi and stroked the right side of her neck, which earned him a nuzzle from the pale horse, taking great care to avoid harming him with her horn.

-x-

"…I'm surprised the skyscraper cameras are still operational after the city was abandoned," went NERV's new commander to Ritsuko Akagi, having observed the presence of the Horseman of Death and his infant twin.

Ritsuko, on the other hand, looked at the dead boy with a frown that seemed to get more pronounced with each and every passing day. There wasn't a minute that went by that the faux-blond thought about cutting this kid open and bursting his cold heart, or gouging out his eyes, ripping his fingers off their joints or some other form of surgical punishment for the lost of her legs.

"…When he's not doing anything, he seems bored with the passage of time," went Fuyutsuki to them, watching the horseman pet his horse, "probably unused to having free time."

"He had plenty of free time when he was alive to do nothing," Ritsuko retorted, typing in a few command codes to have the cameras they were using to monitor the dead child to zoom in on his face. "Are you sure we can't just drop an N² weapon on him and be rid of him?"

"Not without destroying the entire city," the commander expressed, preferring to ensure that Tokyo-3 could be habitable once this situation with the Angels and the horsemen was resolved.

"Even if you destroyed the city," went Misato, "he and the roaches would still be around. Anyone that's met this horseman and tried to end him, being ended themselves, have probably tried a dozen ways to kill him, only to see that nothing does."

"Except most people use guns, Katsuragi," went Kaji to her, stating a half-truth. "Not many people use knives or poison, anymore. Bullets have been the usually-preferred method of execution."

"You're saying that to a woman that watched him spit out a bullet that went into his head?" She challenged him.

"All I'm saying is…people can shoot him all they want…and it wouldn't make any difference," he stated an obvious truth.

"How'd he get a horse, anyway?" Asuka questioned, finding it odd that he would just have one in his possession. "Aren't they an endangered species?"

"Probably from that animal preserve near the city," the suggestion of Mana came, having done her homework on what has happened around the city, not just around the nation. "They've been breeding their horses to replenish the population. There was an article that they had an unusual horse that had been taken weeks ago. Death's horse could be that one."

"I guess Death has to supply himself with certain possessions," the commander suspected. "Nothing was ever really handed to him. He had to take it."

"Nothing ever really gets handed to anybody," went Mana. "Not without the expectation of something in return."

"What, like equivalence?" Asuka asked her.

"Yeah. Exactly like equivalence."

"You have got to be kidding me," they all heard Fuyutsuki gasp, and the monitors and screens all showed Death…looking as though he was facing them with his emotionless facade.

"He…he…he doesn't know there's a camera there, does he?" Misato asked.

"I wouldn't suppose so," Ritsuko responded to her question.

But then, Death raised his left arm up…and waved right at them.

"Oh, God," Kaji reacted to this sight. "He knows he's being watched."

"He can't know we're watching him, he's on a building five blocks from where the camera is," Ritsuko revealed; NERV's security cameras seeded out through the city were so powerful that they could pick out the eyebrows of an infant from ten blocks away, or the fingerprints of a woman left on her coffee mug from six blocks away. "Maybe he's waving to somebody in the city, like one of those other horsemen from the previous encounter."

"No way," Fuyutsuki expressed. "The city's empty of people."

"Hey, he's gone," went Mana, seeing no sign of Death on the camera.

"He was just there," Asuka pointed out. "What, is he some sort of ghost?"

"If he were a ghost, he would've done some ghostly things, which he hasn't," the commander stated what he believed ghosts were likely to do."

Suddenly, the camera they had used was turned to the left…and facing the face of Death, whose emotionless facade now showed the emotion of rage.

"Whoa!" Mana and Fuyutsuki gasped.

"Death says…to those watching me… RISE!" Death shouted, and everyone watching (with the exception of the crippled Ritsuko) stood up. "Good! I know you're watching me, and it's getting irritable. That's to be expected in a place where public privacy is ignored. Excluding the little girl and the elder, the rest of you know my name! I am Death, the Endgame! A Horseman of the Restorative! Drop dead!"

Then, they saw a blade in his right hand, and he brought it to the camera's lens.

CLASH-SCREECH! All the monitors and headsets in Central Dogma went dead with static and white noise, forcing the personnel to remove their headsets.

"What the heck was he talking about?" Misato questioned. "There's no way he could know we were watching him."

"He knew he was being watched," Mana expressed, "and took out the cameras."

"He addressed everyone of his identity…but excluded two people," uttered the commander.

"Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki," went Kaji.

"And the Fourth Child," added Asuka, which upset Mana that the older girl continued to address her as a designation, not by her name.

"Why would he exclude me?" She countered her accusation with a question.

"You're a little girl, Fourth," the redhead stated.

"Except he could've meant any girl who's small. He could've viewed every lady down here as a girl and wouldn't address any as a woman."

"She's right," Fuyutsuki backed up her theory. "He could've meant any of the female personnel present. There were many the last time he was down here. Most of them left after the massacre was over."

-x-

Dropping the damaged camera to the ground, Death put away his sickle and got back on his horse and rode off. Somehow, he saw the camera from afar and saw the faces of those watching him. He could even see the expressions on the faces of the purple-haired woman and the elder man that helped him get inside NERV to finish his father off. The only explanation for this enhancement in sight was that it, along with much of everything else, came with being a Horseman of the Restorative: Enhanced strength, reflexes, endurance, no sense of fatigue and accelerated regeneration.

If he included immortality (which would've been unnecessary, since he was dead already, and the dead couldn't die again), it would've been seen as a curse, as was much of the darker qualities of a cold existence. To be immortal was to be eternal, but he accepted the truth that that were different forms of immortality, and people fearful of the unknown would seek those forms out. Until they learned that there were fates far worse than simply dying, whether from natural causes or unnatural causes.

-x-

Thud! Famine dropped a criminal man that had admitted to being a pedophile, sucking the life out of his body for trying to sneak back into the city with at least three girls below the age of ten. He then looked down at the girls and saw how fearful they were of his abilities.

"…Did he bring you here against your will," he asked them kindly, "or did you come with him willingly? Were you kidnapped?"

One girl approached him slowly and expressed, "He kidnapped us from a playground and brought us back here. He said he was going to treat us. I was to be his first in a whole year. Can we go home now, please, mister?"

Famine sighed before nodding in the positive that they could go home.

"Is your home close by?" He asked them.

Due to his relationship with Mother Gaia, he had a clearer understanding on the innocence that resided within children, that they couldn't show much cruelty to those around them without opening themselves to the harsh reality of turning into monsters. And those that left or wanted to leave a place that was re-purposed by the Angels and the Restorative, but were unable to by lack of mobility or just didn't know their way out were among those that didn't need to be harmed by the horsemen.

He helped them onto his horse and walked it down the street. It was going to be a long while before he could find where these girls were relocated and return them to their families. But he was going to eat out a grocery store when he came back later.

-x-

Ever since that eavesdropping with the camera on Death over an hour ago, along with Ms. Soryu's accusation, Mana had to look around herself just to see if there were people looking at her with some suspicion. As much as she knew that it had to be her that Death excluded from the personnel, along with Mr. Fuyutsuki, she didn't need other people to accuse her of something that was far from a lie, but not a known truth. She met Death in person only once, and that was to understand what was truly going on with the situation between people and the monsters they called Angels. It was likely that the redhead just wanted to cause trouble for her…simply because of her personal goals.

"…Is anyone sitting here, Ms. Asagi?" She looked up from her medical book and meal and saw Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki standing across the table from where she sat.

"No, sir," she answered, allowing him to sit.

"I take it…that people are treating you a little differently than before," he sighed as he asked her.

"All I've seen are some people turning their heads away the instant I turn mine around to see if they're looking at me," she expressed, "and hearing small whispers. Ms. Soryu must not take kindly to anyone other than Mr. Kaji."

"I've noticed. Ms. Soryu can be…very expressive and invasive of people's personal business."

"And she refers to me by my designation, not by my name. It's like I'm not even a person to her, which is just cruel and… Just what is it that she has against me? I've done nothing to her that would warrant a vendetta or grudge."

"That's just how she was brought up. Her mother past away when she was young…and they never got along well."

Mana then took another bite out of her dumplings and sipped on her orange juice.

"My mother died when I was three," she told him; she could still remember the night of the break-in. "My father, who's an American that moved to Japan five years before Second Impact, met her at a festival…and it was love at first sight. Excluding my blond hair, I look like my mother did when she was young. I get my blondness from my father's side of the family."

"Oh, so you're a mixed girl?" Fuyutsuki questioned.

"Yeah. Is that a problem?"

"No, of course not. Hardly any new person currently living in Japan today that was from somewhere else is purely Asian. Ms. Soryu's got a bit of Japanese on her mother's side."

"Yet, she speaks German a lot…and expects others to understand her when some of us haven't taken German as a secondary language to read. Back in the States, people were required to translate Spanish and a few other languages. Why can't she…be understanding and tolerating of those around her?"

"Honestly, she reminds me of someone I loathed a lot."

"And who was that person?"

"Ikari, Gendo."

"The former commander that Death murdered?"

"Yeah."

"Was he that awful?"

"Extremely. He was, like, one of the worst men that ever lived…or will ever live."

"Just a question about one thing he might've done that was enough to warrant his death: Did he really abandon Death when he was a little boy?"

Fuyutsuki sighed and answered, "Yeah, he abandoned him…and Death didn't take it very well. It probably influenced Death's decision to kill him, too."

"Do you think that Death is trying to… Well, what do you think Death is trying to do, Mr. Fuyutsuki?"

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"Whatever his reasons for coming back, for doing what he's doing, even murdering several people who are less than moral, less than humane, I think he's a servant of a greater force that has other plans for everyone. Maybe even better plans."

"So…why challenge someone like that greater force? Why face somebody that doesn't have a pulse, anymore, thinking he can be punished, thinking he can be dealt with?"

"Why does anyone do anything, anymore?"

"Grandfather says it's because of willpower. Willpower being stronger than any other force that exists. The will to act…the will to run, to fight, to want, need, feel, hate or even love."

"The will to do anything… And that's not an emotion, is it?"

"No, will isn't an emotion. It's a mental function. A thought-oriented action."

Fuyutsuki then noticed a scrapbook beside the girl's meal, depicting clippings of Death-based sightings and reports.

"Why the interest in the horseman's actions?" He asked her, and she noticed her scrapbook.

"When it made it to the papers about what he did to those men in that building in Nagoya… It became something of interest to look into," she gave bits of her half-truth to him. "A young man everyone saw as a danger to others, brought back to life in a weird way, and he puts his self-developed skills of homicidal madness to work by murdering criminals and crooked cops. And his first lives saved by him… A medical report printed in the papers stated that the women and the young girl seemed to be recovering from the mild effects of pregnancy, so maybe Death performed a mercy blow to them. Not every woman would want to have children in a bad way."

"You admire him a little bit, don't you?"

Mana lowered her head and sighed, expressing, "I admire his sparing innocent lives while punishing the guilty. He could've killed those women and the girl that were being victimized…just because they were there when he arrived to murder those men or because he has never been loved the way most parents are supposed to love their children, which would show that he can be affected by jealousy…that he can envy what was denied to him… But he didn't kill them…and it would seem disgraceful to label him as a baby killer."

"So…you don't believe in abortion being the same as murder?"

"No, I don't believe in abortion being the same as murder. Life doesn't really begin at conception from my point of view. It begins the instant you draw your first breath."

"I used to… I used to wonder why he doing this over the weeks he came back from the dead. I used to believe he had some loose ends that he wanted to deal with; it wouldn't be the first time anyone wanted to delay their end by continuously killing anybody that they feel deserves to lose their life."

"Death paid you a visit when he was still alive on his last day, and he didn't kill you. I doubt you even count as a loose end. You didn't do anything to make him despise you."

"I still can't forget the way he looked when I saw him in my home: He was ready for a massacre to happen should getting to his father prove difficult…and he showed no fear of the outcome. It was like he knew he was going to die that day…and wanted to make sure his father was dealt with before his final breath."

"And…if you had relive that day a second time, where he showed up in your home, ready for the massacre he was prepared to cause to get to his father?"

Fuyutsuki thought about it for a moment, and knew he couldn't deny the truth he had in his heart.

"I still would've taken him to his father," he revealed to the girl, "because I regretted only the life he was dealt with by him."

"He was that bad?"

"He was a monster."

-x-

"…Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!" The girls that Famine saved called their parents as they ran over to them, just as said horseman rode off.

He had to expect that being kidnapped by a criminal and taken over fifty miles away from where you were relocated back to a city that was deemed off-limits was something some people with dark intentions were going to fail at understanding, right to the point where they would suffer for it.

As he rode back into St. Luis to ensure that Ramiel was not on anyone's hit list (and to ensure that there wasn't another poor soul wandering the streets), his field hunter horse started to get agitated, neighing and rearing up, like it got a whiff of something dangerous.

"Whoa, there," he tried to calm it down.

"I guess I have a tendency to spook without effort thrown into trying," he heard someone say to him, as from around a street corner, the Horseman of Death appeared.

"And once more, I didn't feel you coming my way," Famine told him; he had to assume that no matter what the other three horsemen said or did, Death was a member of their group that was always going to be undetectable to them, like a ghost could be to living people. "Well, what brings you here to St. Luis of this large continent that mortals call the United States?"

"Rumi brought me here to find you when I wanted to venture into Osaka to find criminals there to slaughter," he answered the boy in rags.

"Our horses have a tendency to take us places we don't decide on going to. The price of both free will…and being paired with them."

Death got off his horse…and presented Famine with a large bag of fruit.

"I kinda figured you'd wanna eat," he told him, and Famine accepted the bag and ate whole an entire watermelon in front of the dead teen.

Death didn't express it, either facially or vocally, but was surprised to see a lost soul that was the only horseman to know hunger open his mouth past its natural limits and shove an entire fruit into it.

-x-

The EKG monitor displayed the activity from the hearts of her sons, which the electroshock requirements reignited made Yui, somewhat, edgy to slowly see her children's bodies return to life. From the minute records NERV made on her younger son's medical history, SEELE's scientists had confirmed that Shinji's remains possessed an unusually-faint heartbeat, like that of someone who was slowly dying, which helped to confirm that the Third Child was dying from lack of nutrition, medical aid and fresh air and sunlight. But Yui found it an act of some deity that he was able to survive to the age of fourteen and engage in physical activities that included running in his final days. Indeed, it was some sort of act of a deity that he had been able to survive for that long.

She wrote down the notes of Mako's latest heart activity when one of her fellow scientists stepped into the room. A newspaper fell in front of her and she saw a picture depicting several bodies covered in bloody sheets with the words "DEATH CLAIMS OSAKA'S PEDOPHILE RING?!" written above the fatalistic picture.

"This horseman's been keeping busy with the criminals that roam Japan," the male scientist expressed. "He even freed a bunch of children that were being harmed in the ring. It won't be long before the honest police want to go after him for multiple murders."

"Why tell me this?" She questioned.

"Most of us figure you'd want to know what your former youngest son has been doing with his time," he explained. "Most parents would want to know what their kids are doing, for better or for worse."

"Honestly," she spoke in her own defense of this revelation, "I don't feel entitled to knowing this side of him."

"And his remains being slowly brought back to a semi-active state?"

"Just what I was assigned to be a part of. Being dumped into the LCL after his heart stopped appeared beneficial to SEELE. He was preserved enough to study and an attempt to revive him was put into action. I honestly didn't have a say in it."

"It wouldn't be the first time our employers have tried to profit off something so miserable that it was better left buried. You might find something of remarkable interest, though. When the police examined the crime scene of the slaughtered pedophiles, they found a shirt that didn't belong to any of the deceased. SEELE's informants have reason to believe that the shirt belonged to Death, cast away after getting too many bullet holes."

"And it's supposed to me something of interest to me, why?"

"Because Death has been shot at many times and, while he seems invulnerable, his clothing isn't, so he discards them the moment they're of no further use to him… Whoa!"

Yui looked at the tank containing Shinji and saw him acting up again, trying to move around.

"It's just a reflex," she assured the man.

"And if it wasn't?" He asked her.

"The tank is secured; there's no way he can break out."

"Well, the shirt's being brought over for examination. SEELE wants to know how much of an undead this Death truly is."

For some reason, this made the fearless scientist that was all that was left of Yui Ikari…quite fearful. It was as though the world itself was challenging her ideals and beliefs, her previous goal of a brighter future for all mankind…and might've even been using a mockery of her youngest child to prove her goals were no different from snake venom: Poisonous.

-x-

From atop a tree branch of a large tree, Mother Gaia watched her Four Horsemen practice on the moment Death returned from his time away from the island and around the archipelago that was Japan. She noticed how the only horseman that lacked a pulse seemed to go through shirts faster than the children that survived Second Impact by being brought here went through puberty, as he had returned with just his pants, boots and coat, his exposed torso flesh bare. His newest shirt was identical to his previous shirt, but without the bullet holes or blood: A blue,green and red-striped short-sleeved garment that he wore over a white, long-sleeved tee-shirt. All the goddess could deduce from his consuming and disposing of shirts that became useless after being shot up or cut up was that he, unlike the other three (with Famine being, perhaps, a minor exception) needed to individuate himself from others and maintain a minor reminder that, while in a position of power higher than those of mortals, but below those of deities, he was still a young man and he needed to express himself in any way he could that left him with some satisfaction. In a way, she found Death to be like a child trying to be seen and heard without desiring too much attention.

Maybe he still can't get over the harsh reality of being denied the majority of his mortal needs when he was capable of living, she thought, writing inside a small diary that her adopted daughter, her Kyuukai had gotten her as a gift one day. The Four Horsemen continue to train and hone their abilities for the day they are able to ride altogether, a day in which everything the Restorative lives to achieve shall be fulfilled…and the guilty souls that cling to existence will be punished to the full extent of the divine authority that they have challenged over the years. Each horseman finding room to improve upon their skill sets, working around their limitations, facing potential dreads that would stand in their way of their personal goals as well as the fate of many.

"…Is this your best, Conquest?!" She heard War ask the white-robed archer, who managed to shoot an arrow through the knight's left arm and bind him to a tree. "Aaurgh!"

The knight ripped his armored limb free from off the tree and through the arrow, barely losing any of his blood.

Let's see how well they do in an all-out mock battle assessment, thoughtthe motherly deity, seeing the knight draw his sword up over his own head as the archer prepared to fire another arrow. The poisonous archer, the burning knight, the starving pauper and the vengeful ghost. Against any of these four lost souls brought together for a common purpose, it's anyone's guess at who might be stronger, and when pitted against one another, it's anything goes.

Death, once he discovered he could manipulate his sickle in size and features, made the first move in this battle: He hurled the blade of his weapon toward War, managing to score a hit to his right leg as he dodged the majority of the attack!

Famine lunged toward Conquest and received an arrow through his stomach.

"Ha!" Conquest fired another arrow, this time at Death, who jumped into the air, and got him in his waist, sending him flying backwards onto the ground. "Urgh!"

THRUST! War had managed to impale Conquest in his back with his sword.

GRIP! Famine grabbed Conquest by his neck and began draining him of his fluids and energy.

"Ha-ha!" He laughed at the robed man.

SWAT! Death knocked Famine away from Conquest with a heavy ball and chain from his sickle and swung the blade at War again, knocking him away.

Once Conquest regained considerable strength, he fired seven arrows and War and five at Famine.

"Ah, come on!" War grunted, getting off the ground and removing the arrows from his armored hide.

"If I could, I'd eat these!" Famine added, having to rip the arrows lodged in his legs out before he could get back up. "Who else wants his fluids sucked out?"

The Four Horsemen of the Restorative were showing to each other in their all-out mock battle that each one was a force to be reckoned with, as Mother Gaia saw them trade crippling blows after crippling blows that would've compromised the well-being of regular mortals. She could see them moving several meters above the grass and dirt, leaping off large rocks and trees, either trying to stab, cut, strike or drain their opponents to get a one up upon the other three. But in all honesty, there was no telling who could actually win out of the quartet if they were fighting for keeps; like how a coin had two sides, the horsemen were like ingredients to a recipe or pieces to a puzzle, none of them were truly powerful without the rest of them.

SLAM! BASH! SWAT! STAB! THRUST! GRIP! SLASH! The horsemen dished out as much as they could take and seemed to be getting nowhere. It wasn't until after they collided into one another and were all sent falling backwards in all four directions did they stop.

Conquest aiming his last arrow at whoever was dumb enough to try to come at him again, War brandishing his sword at any that dared to try and claim his power, Famine with his flexing fingers as if he were hungry for more energy, and Death raising up his sickle in defense of any soul that came his way to the very end. All four had seemed predatory, leery of the other three. And then…all four fell onto their backs.

"That," went Famine, "was…the…most…extreme…mock…battle…I…ever…had…with you three."

"There were several times that you had me on my knees, Famine," Conquest revealed. "You and Death are faster than I take to fire arrows."

"Uh, I think lost consciousness again," War informed the other two, and they saw Death looking unresponsive, with his eyes half-opened and looking forward at the sky.

"Again?" Famine asked, as he never saw Death lose consciousness before.

"Back in the city Sachiel claimed before Death became one of us, when he was still mortal," went Conquest, "he was assaulted by one of the enemy's impure behemoths. A red one. It stepped on him, and he was out cold for a few hours."

Suddenly, the spirit of Death's elder twin appeared in front of them and looked down at his brother.

"This may be happening because that red giant stepped on him," he explained his suspicion to them. "He's done this every once in a while ever since that day."

A moment later, Death's eyes opened up all the way and he saw the four looking down at him.

"For a brief moment," he spoke up, "I saw the Earth in the darkness."

-x-

"…The streets of Japan are seeing a serious decline in criminal activity," went SEELE 07 to the council in their latest meeting that concerned the happenings of NERV's primary location. "This murdering ghost that's the late son of Ikari has people on edge."

"He murdered eighteen policemen," added SEELE 11, "most of whom were under our employment for looking the other way at the crime we profit off of. What is he doing this all for?"

"It's unknown why he's murdering criminals, but it's not likely to be absolved of any past wrongdoings he committed," went SEELE 03. "But so long as he stays in Japan, it's likely he'll overlook the crime that has infested other parts of the planet."

"Suppose he doesn't overlook it?" SEELE 14 asked him. "Suppose he decides to find crime happening elsewhere? The crime rate in Japan has dropped by thirty-three percent. Kidnapping, pedophilia, pandering, drug trafficking, the film industry, human trafficking…he's affecting all of it. This didn't start until that night in Nagoya where he murdered the majority heads of some of our more shadier business ventures, and it was mostly to free three women from the despair they were placed in."

"Yet, when he was in Nagoya that time, he didn't make any attempt to track Yui Ikari, who is currently residing there in an underground research facility," revealed SEELE 09. "He's been to Nagoya more times than any other place in Japan, but her presence there seems to be beyond his sense of awareness. Why is this so?"

"It must be because he's not looking for Ikari's wife," expressed SEELE 01 to the council. "If he wanted to find her, he would've done so the moment he came back. Instead, he merely gave her a message in the form of a drawing and small words that made no sense. The message was clear: He has returned. The words brought with the message are not so clear: Why has he come back? So, instead of wasting time looking for her, he wastes his time going after the criminals that reside in the cities of Japan, killing them and leaving messages."

"If he continues, he'll throw off the entire hold we have over the criminal element we have there," SEELE 11 said with concern. "He needs to be dealt with, just like before."

-x-

"…I don't think Ms. Soryu will ever address me as a person, Dad," went Mana, speaking to her father through the use of Skype on her computer. "And she won't let up with the designation she keeps calling me. But beyond that, I do miss you and Grandfather. I miss my friends back in the States."

"We all miss you, too, sweetheart," her father responded, a solemn expression on his face. "I hope NERV is treating you well, excluding your encounter with…that boy."

"Death, Daddy," she corrected him. "His name is Death. He's not the same boy that emptied an entire city and murdered his father. He's an entirely different person."

"Right, Mana. I guess it's not easy to accept what appears to be the same, but is vastly different."

"I've only had one encounter with him…and I got sick after that encounter," she told him the half-truth of her encounter with the Horseman of Death. "I'm being cautious right now since Grandfather states that nobody has any privacy over the Internet these days, but I don't believe Death is…malevolent or a ghost out for revenge, even though he's taken so many lives. I mean, he's like a vigilante, taking the law into his own hands by doing what the police either can't or won't do…and he can't be bribed or reasoned with by anybody to look the other way. He's…out there with a taste for the criminal underworld…and his appetite is limited."

"Oh. So, as long as he has criminals to hunt down, he's…almost like an antihero…literally, only dead."

"Yeah. How are things over there in Tokyo-2?"

"They're dumb, Mana. I feel like I have a dead-end job, your grandfather isn't happy to be a janitor at this university, and the people that work at that institute are not the type you'd want to socialize with. I had to yell at a woman twice just to keep from going crazy."

"Daddy, you're a widower. She was probably interested in you because Mommy's not around."

"I promised your mother my heart belonged to her, even in death. I wouldn't even look at another woman the way I looked at her."

Mana smiled at her father's commitment to her mother; while there were most that would remarry to cope with the absence or loss of loved ones, her old man was one of the few that valued his wife's memory to the point of sacrificing any potential happiness with a new love interest. Maybe it was part of the reason her mother fell in love with him to begin with.

"I miss her," she told him.

"Me, too, Mana," he expressed.

-x-

As the night spread across Japan again, several cities and towns seemed no different from ghost towns now. Parents were tucking in their children in one city, spouses getting in as quick as they could and locking their house doors and shutting the windows in another town. Only cats and dogs were left out and about, either because they were more active at night, were strays or because their owners had forgotten to bring them inside. Streetlights were active, but all they shone light on were the streets, a few cars and vendors, and anything else that was within the reach of the light.

People that had yet to go to sleep were wondering, either with fear or curiosity, if they were going to hear the sound they dreaded hearing, even though some could've viewed as some type of sign of good fortune: The whining of a horse as it galloped down the street. They couldn't help but anticipate the audio sign that would prove…that he was close by, out on the prowl. A hunter…without any fear dying…because he was already dead, looking for those that he could condemn to death. Any that he did manage to find…he would send them to Hell.

Neigh! The sound came, and those awake hid under their sheets in fear and woe. Neigh!

Out on the empty streets, the unicorn-like beast of burden that belonged to the Restorative Horseman of Death galloped down the road, her rider on the lookout for unforgivable acts, cruel souls that had no place in the realm of mortality, and anyone foolish enough to commit an act that transitioned them from innocent to guilty.

He stopped her at a junction in the city he was currently wandering around, looked to his right, then to his left, and then looked behind himself to make sure he didn't miss anything before continuing down the road up ahead.

"Aah!" He heard a scream, and stopped in front of a woman that was on the sidewalk, back against a wall, whimpering at the sight of him on his horse.

He examined her, seeing a woman from the lower-middle class of society, dressed like an office assistant for a small, business firm, and had to assume that she was on her way home from work. She looked at him with great fear, and had good reason to: She knew of him as both the boy that cleared out an entire city before his final breath…and the horseman whose name signified that all living things would die. And then, he raised his right hand and pointed at her, knowing only what he needed to know of her soul that would've gave him a reason to seek her out.

"You," he spoke up, seeing her worried expression grow stronger, "you're innocent. Go home, be safe from evil. Ya!"

Rumi galloped down the street, taking Death to wherever he wanted or needed to go, and the woman quickly ran home, relieved at being spared by the horseman.

It doesn't seem like there's any crime or criminals left to seek out in this place, he thought, deciding to leave for the next city to be dealt with of its criminals. If it's cleaned out here, they're not less likely to move to another domain and hide from me there. You can't hide from Death. You can send an entire against me…and you won't achieve a thing.

He was a fog now. Literally, which appeared out of nowhere whenever he made the transition with Rumi to get from place to place quicker than regular means available to him or anyone else. Within the fog, he could hear his memories around himself. People screaming, the sensation of flesh being grabbed, torn, pierced and burned, but he also, for some strange reason, recalled a faded sensation that, to his limited recollection, couldn't have occurred when he was still conscious. A feeling…of sinking…in a sea of blood.

"…Hey, that kid needs a doctor," he recalled one of the wackos telling the guard that used a baton on him so hard that he nearly broke his left leg when he was younger…and alive.

"Sorry, but I'm not his caregiver," the guard had responded, grabbing him by his injured limb and dragging him back to his lonely room. "The job description was merely to watch him, not give him any aid. The same goes to most of you nutters."

He remembered it taking a period of four days to cope with his latest injury…and twice as long before he could manage to walk with the pain pushed away…and without showing that it could've left him with a limp. Not that anybody back then would've given the right attention to a boy that murdered and flaunted his right to remain silent after slaying eight lives. Oh, how he hated the institution for its harshness toward him, and the people that put him there, leaving him to suffer, denying him aid for even the most basic of needs that don't go away fully if left unattended to.

Neigh. His mare grunted and the fog dissipated, revealing his latest destination.

"Here?" He questioned, standing a good distance from the Japanese Institute of Insanity, the very place he spent most of his life in, deprived of fresh air and sunlight, stripped of a childhood that was long since taken from him. "Here."

His only escape from the cruelty had been his drawings and his mind. On the outside, he was feared for his unforgivable acts, despised, unloved and unwanted, but in there, in that loony bin, he was no different from the other men and women that were incarcerated within the walls that silenced their cries and put abusive hands on them, even when they did nothing, and only the mind granted those that suffered any real power to endure. His fists tightened around the reins as his face contorted with a cross between anger and bitterness; he might've settled his vendetta with the Ikari family, but he still had some unresolved issues that he should've dealt with. Dying may have granted him release from flesh that tied him to the family that betrayed him, but he still had an unwanted link to the past, and he needed to sever it.

He got off Rumi and approached the closed gate. Tonight was going to be filled with much screaming from the guilty after all.

A/N: It would be quite amazing if the undead could come back to life and hunt down every criminal that exists in the world. Also, what do you think of the Fourth Child, Mana Asagi? She seems very simple-minded, not at all abusive or aggressive like Asuka is, or isolated like Rei was. Also, in case people were wondering about one possibility, you can stop thinking about it. Rei Ayanami isn't coming back. And also, should Death make it a point to see Kozo Fuyutsuki like he did when he was Shinji Ikari, just for the sake of meeting him? Read and review, please. Peace.