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?

13. Picking up the Pieces

Creation began on 08-10-14

Creation ended on 10-11-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

A New Cause: Picking up the Pieces

"…Oh, my God," Misato gasped, looking at what could be seen through the cameras dotted throughout the damaged city.

"This was Death's doing?" Ritsuko questioned, unsure of how to comprehend the capabilities of a dead boy that came back to life compared to the powers of the Angels. "How is this possible?"

"I found where he left the remaining criminals that were in the city when he returned," went Aoba, finding through his monitor the charred remains of Death's latest victims.

"Ugh!" Maya, who had seen the bodies on the monitor, covered her mouth to keep from puking.

Yui, who was also present to see this predicament, was at a loss for words at the sight of the devastated Tokyo-3 environment. She'd seen the original Tokyo damaged beyond repair and what other cities were like after Second Impact, but this was an eye-opener for her, and it was all caused by the horseman that used to be one of her sons.

"As you can all see," went Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki, who, along with the commander, was also present to observe the scenes on the screens, "the Horseman of Death has even left a new message."

"He's evolved?" Asuka questioned. "How can he evolve?"

Mana, who was curious of the same message that Death left to state that he had evolved, wondered if Death was being literal or metaphorical in his claim to have evolved. For all she knew about him, he could've been speaking metaphorically, that he had adapted to his separation from his twin.

"Hey, Fourth?" Asuka caught her attention. "Anything in that book of yours that speaks of anything like what has been left by the dead boy?"

"Nothing," she answered, which was a half-truth; she hadn't gotten any further in the book since informing the commander of her latest discovery that might make the female redhead a potential threat in the future (if she wasn't one in the present right now). "It looks like the Angel was unaffected by what he did, though."

The Third Angel, true to Mana's words, stood where it had been ever since the last attack on its life, now residing within a ruined city that was now stripped clean of life once more.

-x-

On the hill outside of the city, Death admired his handiwork, though showed no expression to prove such admiration. It was just an idea that was sparked in his mind when he saw, in the air, a seagull diving into the ocean below him in order to catch a fish. After seeing that, he decided to give it a try himself, but on a larger scale, and caught more prey with just a Glock 17 pistol. There was a moment where he thought he wouldn't have been able to pull it off, but he succeeded, and cleaned out the city of its unwelcome inhabitants.

And now comes the work that needs to yield promising results, he thought, turning away from the city.

-x-

"…I am to understand that the Committee has granted you authority in the transfer of the ghost infant in NERV custody to your research facility in Nagoya?" The commander questioned Yui, making sure he heard right when she said that the Committee or SEELE had granted one of their most valued scientists the authority to make certain decisions that could go above his own, and they were the ones that put him in charge of cleaning up Gendo's mess.

"That's right," Yui clarified for him. "Although he's not what they had in mind, a thorough study of the displaced energies that make up his incorporeal form may yield some answers on how to best disable the Horseman of Death."

"Of course, there is the potential danger of transporting him across the country," he brought up. "You will require a protective detail in case Death shows up and tries to break free his twin."

"It's been confirmed that he is vulnerable to LCL and, when exposed to ultraviolet rays, becomes weaker and would be susceptible to apprehension."

"There's also the possibility of interference from the other horsemen. There's no guarantee that the methods used to repel Death the first time will work on the other three. So far, Ms. Asagi has found no evidence in her book that the Horsemen of Conquest/Pestilence, War and Famine are vulnerable to LCL as Death is. They may be insusceptible to it. We have reason to believe that our conventional methods, such as firearms and explosives are ineffective, as well."

"What of the Evas?" She asked him. "You were able to incapacitate Death by stepping on him once, were you not?"

"We did, but he was then protected by the horsemen we were able to identify as Conquest and War," he explained, "during which, Ms. Asagi was infected with a cold that spread throughout the entire base, crippling our personnel for several weeks. However, it has been confirmed that in any of the cities occupied by the Angels, whoever tries to invade or even retake the cities will be taken out by the horsemen watching over them, using deadly force, should it become necessary. The areas outside the cities within a certain radius of the Angels are habitable, but everything within their vicinity is off-limits to everyone, right or wrong."

"Though, it has also been discovered by your personnel that should anyone be found within an Angel-occupied city by a horseman that isn't bound to protect the Angel in question, they can't kill."

"We were left sickened by a minor plague, Mrs. Ikari. Some of us had considered suicide if we didn't recover from it. However, my concern in any situation that requires the use of an Evangelion is the safety of the pilots above all else, with my concern for the Evas being at the bottom of my priorities. Now, we know that Tokyo-3 is out of bounds, so the ghost child must be transferred through the underground tunnel system, which is where your protective detail shall be around should these horsemen make themselves known."

"Understood, sir," Yui told him, and then walked away from the desk that used to be owned by her late husband, but then she stopped to face him again.

"Yes?" He asked her.

"This book that the Fourth Child possesses," she uttered, "why is it only she that reads it and informs the personnel of what she discovers? Surely, it would be in the best interest of the personnel if the MAGI or even Dr. Akagi herself were to study the book rather than to ensure that such information is passed over by a child."

"Maybe, but sometimes, the best way to understand anything is from someone younger and less directed as a child is. I trust Ms. Asagi's judgment over the information she relays to me from the Book of the Restorative. She hasn't given me any reason, whatsoever, to distrust her. Also, the book is a family heirloom, and I will not authorize that it be removed from her possession."

"Very well."

As Yui walked away, the commander had to wonder why she would suggest that Dr. Akagi or the MAGI be charged with extracting information from the Asagi girl's book. He chalked it up to something that only detached scientists could understand without much morality, which is how he viewed both Yui and Ritsuko at the moment. There was no need to entrust anyone other than the girl to provide NERV with the secrets behind the Four Horsemen's vulnerabilities, and he wasn't going to try to deprive her of the book just to satisfy the needs of his superiors.

-x-

Ritsuko didn't like this idea at all. Any chance she had of dealing with Death would've been nullified the instant the ghost infant was removed from the Geo-Front and off somewhere to be studied by SEELE's scientists. She needed the ghost within NERV HQ to use as bait to bring the horseman down to exact her vengeance, and Gendo's wife was hindering and overriding her authority.

Overseeing the preparations of the child's transport out of the base, the wheelchair-bound woman watched as several men were tasked with carrying the LCL-filled container that housed the ghost into a truck with NERV's logo on it.

"You're making a serious mistake here," Mako told them, which still surprised the people because they never believed that a dead baby was capable of speech and understanding. "Doing this leaves you exposed to danger. You stayed out of the city where the Angel is, but my presence will attract a different danger that will send you to an early grave."

"Ah, shut up, fool," one of the workers told him, linking the container to a mobile generator that reestablished the electrical current for the LCL, providing additional security to keep Mako from getting away from them.

"Okay, but as you lay dying, do try to remember this: I did warn you." Mako expressed.

Ritsuko muttered something under her breath about the scorn of dead children being the death of many people…and the Ikaris being a thorn in her side.

-x-

"Come on, Daddy," went Mana, sitting in front of her computer, trying to contact her father through the Skype. "Be on the computer doing something. Answering your emails…or figuring out what Twitter's supposed to be about. Something, please."

Then, her Skype channel came on and revealed her father's face.

"Hey, Mana," he greeted her, sounding out of breath.

"Hey, Daddy," she responded. "Why do you sound out of breath.

"Because I ran back home after finding out that Tokyo-3 was damaged further. I worried that you were hurt or worse."

She saw the worry in his eyes and assured him with, "I'm fine, Daddy. Nobody down here was hurt, just…rattled. It was Death. He…got rid of the criminals that were employed by NERV to draw Death in so that he could be captured."

Mordecai sighed in relief that she was alright, but then became serious.

"Mana, I think you should come home," he finally told her. "This time, you were fortunate to survive, but the next time could be worse."

Mana didn't say anything, but a part of her did agree with him; ever since she met Yui Ikari, she didn't feel safe inside the Geo-Front (and after finding out that Yui was believed to have cheated people out of more than ten years of their lives by being absent for that length of time). The longer she or the Ikari woman resided within the facility, the more she felt they were exposed to the danger that the horseman brought with him.

"Mana, I had a nightmare last night about your mother," he told her, which caught her attention. "She told me to keep you safe, that you were still as precious to her as you are to me and your grandfather, and that I promised to watch over you. And now… Now, I feel like I haven't been watching over you."

She felt saddened by his words and clutched onto her mother's locket.

"Well, um…you're busy," she uttered to him. "You're trying to find employment so that I don't worry about anything. I can understand that."

"That's still no excuse for me to let you be over there, Mana." He responded. "Please, come home."

Mana sighed and told her father that she would speak with the people in charge and see if they would let her go.

"I'll talk to you later," she told him. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

She turned her computer off and sighed as she looked the Restorative book. Burying her forehead in her left hand, she didn't want to feel like she was lying to her father, and got up to speak with the commander to fill out her resignation papers.

-x-

"Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki!" A female technician shouted, running down the hall to the elder that was accompanied by the Evangelion creator, Yui Ikari. "This message was printed out to you!"

Fuyutsuki accepted the piece of paper from her and read what was written on it. Someone wanted him to go to where he had lived within the damaged city…tonight…where he would be met by a harmless loner that would seek an answer from him. He could bring a protective detail with him if he wanted to, but nobody was out to get him.

"But that's in Tokyo-3," went Yui, now concerned for her former teacher's safety. "You'd be in danger if Death were there."

Looking at the printed information further, they found that there was an additional message written: "You can either meet him…or he can come find you. The choice is yours."

-x-

Standing in front of Unit-01, the commander sighed at how useless the purple behemoth seemed. As it lacked both a pilot and a spiritual presence within its core, all it was now was a waste of time, space and resources. While he was in charge of NERV, he didn't have the authority to dispose of the Eva, as his superiors still declared that it could still be of use if they found a way to make it work for them. But he knew that would be no different from trying to make a deal with the Devil, which is what the Eva looked like in a way, due to its appearance, and any deal with that sort of demon wouldn't benefit anyone except the demon itself.

"Well," he spoke to the soulless giant, "are you nothing more than another mistake created by human beings…or the Devil incarnated in pretty armor?"

It didn't even so much as make a sound, and he didn't expect it to.

"…Sir?" He turned to his left and saw the Asagi girl standing a good distance from him.

"Miss Asagi," he greeted her, and she walked closer to him. "How may I help you?"

Mana sighed and came out with her reason for finding him.

"My father has requested that I return home," she explained, "as he is concerned for my safety after what happened today."

He smirked and expressed, "I don't blame him, as he's being a concerned parent. Do you agree with him, though?"

"Yes," she answered him. "I don't want to leave my family…but I don't want to be responsible for the fate of all mankind suffering the end of the world…and I don't want to die a painful death."

"At least you're honest, Ms. Asagi," he told her. "I still stand by what I decided upon when I took this duty as the leader of NERV, which was to clean up the mess of the previous commander, as well as ensure that the Evangelion pilots were protected. If letting you leave guarantees your safety…then you're free to go."

"Thank you, sir."

But as she turned to walk away, he stopped her.

"Just do one thing," he expressed. "Don't give up your personal goal."

"Yes, sir."

-x-

"…Wow, Death knew what he was doing when he dove in," said Famine to War, as they walked over the damaged streets of Tokyo-3, seeing the devastation their lifeless member of the quartet caused.

The Knight of the Restorative touched a nearby streetlight…and it fell over.

"With this sort of power at his disposal, he could very well destroy the planet," he told Famine.

"That would be bad," the pauper responded. "We're trying to save the Earth, not kill it off. He knows that, so he wouldn't try to anything that would damage it beyond our capacity to mend."

"Then again, this city is the most artificially-dominant city in all of human history, built over the Black Moon of Lilith and is therefore, fortunately, not truly a part of the planet. Only a layer of soil is etched onto the edges of the city, so he could damage it as much as he wanted to and the Earth wouldn't be crippled any further than it had been fifteen years ago."

"There he is, over there," Famine stopped him, pointing over toward Death, who was walking into a building that hadn't been too damaged by his attack.

War saw that the dead boy had carried with himself a black duffel bag and wondered what was in it.

"Let's go see him," he told Famine, and they approached the building.

-x-

Declining a protective detail might've been a bad choice, but Fuyutsuki didn't want to risk the safety of anyone with him if the person aiming to meet him at his former apartment was the same person he saw before they died. As much as he didn't want to get Yui's hopes up, he had a hunch that it was Death himself that would be waiting within his home, just as he had once before, and like before, he would want his assistance in doing something.

Walking over the ruined streets, he entered his building and walked up the steps, wishing that the power hadn't been disabled by the horseman.

Then again, I am getting my daily exercise, he thought to himself.

Once he reached the floor his apartment was on, he walked down the hall and stopped in front of his unit's door. The knob, which hadn't been fixed, was now laying on the ground, and the door itself was ajar, allowing a minor glimpse inside. He pushed the door open and stepped inside, noticing a layer of dust on everything.

"Hello?" He called out. "It's Kozo Fuyutsuki, Sub-Commander of NERV's Japan branch, responding to a message addressed to him today. It's night, just as I was instructed to show up here."

"At least you're of the few that has no blood on his hands," he turned around and saw the knight blocking his way out. "Oh, don't be frightened. This is Tokyo-3, not New York. I could hurt you, but not kill you. Besides, I'm not here to harm you. None of us are."

"Who…who are you?" Fuyutsuki asked him, and then saw a boy, a bit younger than Death, dressed in rags made to look like a shirt and pants, wearing a gauntlet that read "Famine" on his right arm. "Who are you two?"

"Oh, we're…uh… Well, uh…" Famine, who found it hard to address themselves to a mortal that had nothing to do with their purpose, had difficulty talking to him. "Well, I wouldn't say that we're friends of Death's. He tends to keep away, but we're comrades of his. Fellow horsemen."

"Are you…sure you're not here to kill me?" Fuyutsuki asked him.

"No," he answered. "You've done nothing wrong, so why would we want to inflict any sort of harm upon you?"

"And the person longing to see you for an answer to a question he has," went War, raising up his left arm, pointing to him, "is right behind you, having listened to everything said."

As he turned around, Fuyutsuki saw someone getting up from off one of his sofas and turning to face him. And it was just who he had expected it to be.

Death stood in front of him, now dressed like he was to attend a funeral from ancient Japan, but had modified his attire with modern weaponry, the same as Shinji Ikari had with his clothes, but the dead boy's arsenal was less than it was the previous time he saw him. He wore a bandolier full of shotgun shells over his right shoulder and seemed to possess a scabbard on his back. There were two Glock 17 pistols on both sides of his waist, contained in holsters like the kind used by police officers and was further detailed by an additional bandolier that possessed magazines for them and at least two other weapons that Fuyutsuki was for certain the horseman possessed, along with a pair of spiked knuckles on his hands, the same as the ones he had on before he died that day, except the ones on his right hand didn't look like they fit well due to wearing the gauntlet that covered his skeletal limb. To anyone that had a sense of fear, this guy was like a one-man army, just like the late Shinji Ikari had been, but with a backer that gave him more than what the Ikari family didn't.

"You're intimidating, Death," went War, seeing the shotgun handle over his shoulder in its scabbard. "What is your question to this man?"

Death approached Fuyutsuki…but stopped in front of him, divided by the closet door's frame, his face as neutral as ever. If the elder was frightened by the horseman, he hid his fear quite well.

"My question is this," he spoke up. "Is my brother still under the city in that place where I died?"

"Yes," the elder answered him. "Are you…going to kill the people down there in order to get him?"

Death leaned in forward to get in his face.

"If they keep us apart," he told him, "I won't be merciful."

Then…he walked past Fuyutsuki and his fellow horsemen that were, more or less, tasked by Mother Gaia to help him should he need them to.

"You can go now," the elder heard Death say to him when he turned to watch the other horsemen turn to leave. "Your presence was…appreciated."

He felt relieved and, reminded of his talk with Death's elder brother, somewhat troubled by the fact that, despite Death, pre- and post-mortem, didn't have any contempt or malice toward him at all. And the fact that he was told by the ghost infant that his brother was touched by his sympathy made him more concerned by the fact that, even when he was viewed by NERV and SEELE as the enemy because he aided in protecting the Angels, he was still a victim of the coldest of fates, turned away by even the gods that people believed in with all their hearts.

"Death!" He shouted, running out into the hall, where the three were, and the Horseman of Death stopped to face him again. "Death… Don't kill Yui, please. Please!"

His right fist clinched at the request the elder man made to him, remembering how, when he had been Shinji, despised her for abandoning him just before her husband had done the same. He had recalled the other times when those he killed that were beyond redemption had begged him for mercy, to spare them the highest degree of retribution, and he still killed them…to save the lives of those they had harmed or were going to harm for various reasons or for no reason at all. There wasn't a single shred of his soul that wanted anything to do with her, except maybe to obtain further closure and justice for all the torment he had been through, but this man, this innocent life he held no hatred for at all, was begging him not to kill her…because he himself had some measure of affection towards her. Maybe an unrequited affection…but was as pure as innocence was in people that didn't seek out others to harm.

"If she crosses me," he told Fuyutsuki, "I won't leave her pretty face untouched."

He then left with War and Famine, leaving the elder hoping that Yui would stay out of their way.

-x-

"…You're letting the Fourth Child go?" Ritsuko questioned the commander's decision on the Asagi girl.

"Her father was worried over her and requested that she return home," he stated simply. "The horseman's attack on the city above had him rattled, and he didn't want her to be in any further danger."

"But we don't have any other pilots for Unit-03, and we don't have any projects attempting to produce an autopilot system that would replace the need for pilots. What's more, we still don't know everything on how to deal with the horsemen in that book of hers."

"We know enough about the Horseman of Death. If LCL doesn't affect the other three, then we'll resort to other methods."

"Letting the Fourth Child go is a risk that we shouldn't take."

"I've spoken with Dr. Ikari, and she's close to a breakthrough on the new Dummy System the Committee commissioned her to work on…and the Committee have found another pilot for the Evangelion program. He'll be arriving within two days' time (he pulled a folder from out of his desk and placed it on the table). However, I don't trust the Committee's choice of the pilot."

Ritsuko picked the folder up and examined the details of the new pilot. It was a boy around the age of fifteen, with a similar appearance to the First Child and, judging by his picture, he had a similar personality with the attention span of an untrained dog.

"Kaworu Nagisa," she uttered, and then looked at the subject's DOB…and was left confused. "Is this accurate here? He was born on the Thirteenth of September fifteen years ago?"

"It's almost like an omen of sorts, to send NERV a child born on the same day half the world went away," he gave his opinion on the boy. "An omen that seems worse than what these horsemen are believed to represent."

-x-

As the details regarding the relocation of Mako to the research facility Yui worked at were nearing completion, said woman sat in the truck with the ghost child, trying to understand what could drive him to side with his brother, despite the horrors he had unleashed upon people.

"No matter how you put it, Death will always be the bigger victim of our past life," he told her. "If it's between following your goals and having to be separated from him in life due to an accident in which I paid the ultimate price…and he has to live in misery allover again, until we are united once more in the abyss of agony and perpetual hopelessness…and I give up my place in Heaven to share that hopelessness with him… I'll choose the ties of brotherhood over the ties between parent and child every chance I'm offered. As much as blood may be thicker than water, right and wrong are thicker than any ties of blood."

"But what if I were to tell you that people will return to life should Human Instrumentality be successful?" She asked him.

"I would decline spilling any secrets to you. I would be betraying both my brother…and her."

Yui then recalled a message she had been given at the same time as the drawing Death had sent her, about how a woman sent him and his brother free.

"You two and the other horsemen serve a woman?" She asked him.

Mako then realized that by addressing Mother Gaia's gender, he had said too much, endangering the Restorative and their cause to heal the planet.

"The woman I serve is known as the Trinity Goddess," he lied to her; he would protect his brother and the Restorative to the point of being a deceptive ghost. "She represents redemption, retribution and renewal. Some crazy belief that was derived from lost souls centuries ago. Peace and freedom can be obtained by grasping the power to punish those that get off easy or scot-free while the innocent are sacrificed for selfish reasons and no one seems to really care for their loss."

"Sometimes, greatness requires a certain sacrifice to be made," Yui told him.

"Well, the sacrifice shouldn't be the innocent lives that have nothing to do with whatever faults that were committed by others. You spill innocent blood, your hands become stained by the fact that you have disgraced the lives you ended for selfish reasons, you have disgraced the lives you committed these selfish reasons for, and you disgrace yourself…until the day comes for you to pay the ultimate price for your sins."

"But Human Instrumentality will save every life lost."

"You can't guarantee that every life will return. Nobody has a strong will to either return to life, escape from the depths of Hell…or the desire to leave the paradise that is Heaven. And even if you could guarantee that they could all be brought back to life…would they truly want to? It's never in the place of a mortal to move Heaven and Earth. It's a forbidden desire, one that should never be fulfilled."

Knock-knock! Someone banged on the door and then opened it up, revealing one of the men in NERV uniform, there to deliver a message.

"We'll be ready to depart in five minutes," he told them.

Yui nodded that she understood, and the man closed the back of the truck again.

As he left to get into the driver's seat of the truck, a sudden drop in temperature came.

-x-

Fuyutsuki returned to the Geo-Front, around the time that Mana was packed to leave once her father arrived to get her.

"I take it your father made an impact on your decision?" He asked the girl.

"Yes," she answered him. "He's concerned for my safety."

"That's good."

Suddenly, the alarms went off and the lights flared red.

"Alert! Alert!" A computerized voice went. "The Horseman of Death has attacked the base!"

"Uh-oh," Mana gasped.

I hope Yui stays out of the way, Fuyutsuki thought.

-x-

Yui had never heard the ghost of Mako cry like an infant in distress before. She remembered his cries when he was born, but his deceased cries were like a megaphone with the volume set on high. But what was more unusual was that his cries weren't like cries of distress…but akin to a scream-based signal. And then she heard the whining of a horse and its hooves beating against the ground. She turned on the camera atop the container…and saw the horrors of her past brought back.

Death, on his horse, riding out of a body of mist and carrying a shotgun.

"Death comes to claim!" He announced to the men present, including Yui's protective detail, and pumped a round into the chamber of his weapon. "He comes to reunite…with his other half!"

"Shoot him!" One of the NERV workers shouted, and they opened fire upon the horseman.

They missed, only hitting the air around him and his horse.

"My turn," he expressed, and opened fire at the NERV worker, blowing a hole in his chest and sending him to the ground. "Let the innocent be spared! And the damned condemned!"

BANG! He fired another round and forced the security detail to back away as they opened fire on him some more, even as he got off his horse.

"As more innocent blood is spilled for wrongful purposes, the Earth dies a little more each day!" Death shouted out, just as a bullet that wasn't filled with LCL pierced his left shoulder. "Justice will be obtained! The hands of fates have been set into motion!"

BANG! He fired another round at them and blew a hole in a second man's waist, sending the NERV employee to an early grave.

This reminded Yui of her son's body count prior to his death…and how he used firearms to dispose of his flesh and blood obstacles. The horseman he had become was just as proficient in the use of weapons as he had been in life. Her protective detail, which consisted of five men in black suits and three additional NERV security workers, were now paying the price for this dead boy's proficiency.

BANG, BANG! One of the men in suits shot at Death in the waist, but the two bullets didn't phase him in the least.

BANG! Death fired his fourth round, blowing up the ground at their feet. BANG!

"Aaaurgh!" They panicked, running into the wood nearby in the Geo-Front, hoping the trees would hinder the horseman's advance upon them.

BANG! He fired a fifth round, but it hit the trees instead of a man.

Then, knowing that his shotgun, a Mossberg 500, was powerful, it wouldn't serve him within the wood, he placed the weapon back into its scabbard and replaced it with two sub-machine guns with jungle-styled magazines.

"Death knows when someone has gotten away with crimes that should've never been walked away from," he told the men in suits as they ran deeper into the wood. "Come out and face the consequences of your sins! The worst is yet to come!"

Neigh! Rumi neighed, reared up and got back down.

-x-

"Where is the horseman?!" Ritsuko demanded.

"He's in the Geo-Front's forest section," Hyuga answered her. "He's going for the security detail."

"Unit-02 is being sent to intercept," went Maya.

And true to her words, the red Eva had been sortied out into the Geo-Front, carrying an excited Asuka that wanted to destroy the horseman that protected the Angels with these other horsemen. As she rose from the ground, the red Eva looked to the wood and began to advance toward it; her orders were just to destroy the horseman, meaning that the security detail (among any other lives) was a secondary concern that didn't matter to her.

-x-

SWAT! A series of bullets hit the trees, missing the black suits.

"Shit!" One of them shouted, hiding behind a tree, and then looking back to shoot at Death. "You're going down, you son of a bitch!"

He fired at the dead boy, but the bullets only hit the trees while he was fortunate to have one hit his right shoulder, but it only stopped him for a moment.

"No amount of bullets, no body armor, not even an army will protect you from me!" Death yelled at them, maneuvering around the trees.

As he continued to look for the black suits, back at the truck, the Horsemen of War and Famine had showed up by the truck.

"Death clears the truck, goes after the security detail that would be keeping him from his brother, and we pick up the baby," War spoke.

"But we didn't anticipate one or more of those behemoths made to harm the Angels would go after Death," went Famine, getting off his horse and walking over to the back of the truck. "If he gets stepped on again, he could be out cold for longer than two hours."

"He adapts, learns not to make the same mistake more than once," War explained his belief on Death's ability to come out on top of the enemy, unsheathing his sword and slashing at the doors, breaking the locks. "It is like he said in his blood message… He has evolved."

Ripping the doors open, the knight and pauper looked inside and saw Mako and Yui, the latter of whom was terrified of their presence; she could remember their appearances from the nightmare she had of the Four Horsemen.

"I was expecting Death," Mako expressed. "What are you two doing here?"

"Death's a lot smarter than you think," War told him. "He's a beguiler in this rescue, getting all the attention while we get the task of getting you out of here."

Famine looked at Yui, who was pressed against the back of the truck, and asked Mako, "Who's this woman that stinks of blood and deception? Your spiritual energies have a remnant of her stench."

"She was me and Death's mother in our previous life," he explained. "She's of no importance. She can't harm you. Let's go."

War approached the container and was about to rip it off its foundation when he hesitated.

"Famine," he then said.

"Hmm?" Famine responded.

"We need to drain the blood of Lilith before we can free this baby. Put your skills to use."

The knight then stood aside and the pauper approached the container.

Famine raised his hands up and pressed them against the glass.

"I might throw up later," he told War.

"Just don't get any on my boots," he responded.

The pauper then focused on the LCL…and Yui saw the glass cracked as the LCL was soon drained out through his hands, being sucked into his palms like they had apertures or vacuums grown into them.

"My God," she shuddered, and then Famine removed his hands from the container, just in time to see his palms reveal closing apertures that looked as organic as he had to be.

"Not God," he responded to her choice of words. "Not even close."

"You ain't seen God," went War, who then ripped the container from its foundation like it weighed next to nothing, "until you've experienced the depths and limits of pain anyone can experience…and only after passing through the gates of your demise…will you see God."

Then he ripped the container in half, releasing the ghost child.

Mako floated above their heads and then phased through the truck's left side, escaping into the Geo-Front's environment while War and Famine came out through the back.

"Let's get Death and be on our way," War told them.

"One problem," went Famine, pointing to some NERV men carrying guns.

"Oh, they brought this upon themselves," the knight uttered, and ran towards them. "You brought this upon yourselves!"

-x-

BANG! BANG! Death was struck in the chest by two bullets, but he was as smart now as he had grown prior to his death; even with his invulnerability to pain, the fact that he had been shot at with bullets full of the blood of Lilith reminded him of his former vulnerabilities, so he put on a bullet-proof vest that Mother Gaia had provided him with, and it was much stronger than the previous version he had lifted off one of the dead cops.

"When blood is split upon fertile soil, it becomes diseased," he told the shooters, and fired the sub-machine gun in his left hand at the trees they hid around. "Let the blood of the sinful be split upon the grounds stained by their disregarded guilt! Vengeance for the innocents slain!"

"When the Hell did this freak get to be like this?!" One of them asked, running through the trees still, as bullets whizzed past him.

"Third Child!" Death stopped shooting and turned around, seeing the red behemoth that stepped on him. "It's time for you to die!"

FLASH! The horseman recalled being stepped on by Unit-02, losing consciousness for two hours, unable to defend himself of the Third Angel, and all because he'd been stepped on…by a girl with an attitude problem…and in need of a retribution that freed the Earth of her rampage. FLASH!

GRASP! Asuka willed her Unit-02 to reach out toward the horseman with her right arm, only to see him leap into the air, over her arm and running up the limb.

"Not again!" Death shouted. "Never again!"

He replaced his guns with his sickle, intending to cause a facial injury to the four-eyed behemoth. But he didn't anticipate the other arm of Unit-02 swatting him aside, back onto the ground by the trees.

Thud! He fell through the branches and onto the base of one tree, but luckily, he remained conscious.

As the red Eva approached him, it was attacked from behind by a large stream of fire! The flames were hot enough to melt the armored plate surrounding the artificial muscles and nerves and cause a minor stinging sensation to the pilot's nervous system.

"Aaaurgh!" Asuka grunted, feeling the nerves in the skin behind her nape on fire.

Turning around, she saw a large creature made of fire, originating from a figure wrapped in ancient armor, wielding a sword. It was the Horseman of War, creating a monster of flame to get the Eva's attention…simply because he had a score to settle with the girl.

"Hey, violent maiden!" He shouted at the red behemoth. "Why go to town on the Horseman of Death when he's not even good enough to feed the chickens? Come after someone that has more meat under his armor and can put up a fight!"

Surrounding him were the scattered bodies of the armed, NERV workers that came after him and Famine, sliced to pieces and burnt alive.

The Horseman of Famine was nowhere to be seen.

Unit-02 quickly turned back to look at Death, but found that the horseman was no longer there; in all the distraction by War, the deceased Third Child had fled the scene.

-x-

As War got Unit-02's attention, Death ran through the woods and claimed him the members of Yui Ikari's security detail that were still present…and left them as freshly-laid corpses.

Way to go on the distraction, War, he thought, climbing up a tree and seeing the red behemoth getting its hide handed to it by War's power over fire.

"You impress me yet again, brother," he turned to his right and at the person speaking to him.

"Mako?" The sight of his infant twin brought the horseman's chaotic energies within his soul to a halt. "Are you really here?"

"I'm here, Death," Mako told him. "Let's get out of here while we still can."

-x-

Arming herself with a small pistol, Yui climbed out of the truck and saw Unit-02 knocked down by a giant creature made of fire being generated by the knight known as War. The red behemoth had fallen so hard that the ground shook due to the impact.

"Oh!" She groaned, almost hitting her head against the truck.

"Yui?" She turned around and saw Fuyutsuki approaching her. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, sensei," she answered him.

Neigh! They looked away from the truck and saw the unicorn that belonged to Death, seeming either agitated or excited.

Then Yui turned to where Unit-02 had fallen…and saw Death coming their way, looking as emotionless as he had been when he was Shinji Ikari, but with a clarity that seemed pronounced as the ghost of his twin was with him.

"Death has who he came for," Fuyutsuki expressed.

As the dead boy, now accompanied by War and Famine, who revealed himself to be draining the fluids out of the body parts that were scattered by War and having drained the fluids out of Death's victims, Yui became tense about their approaching her and Fuyutsuki…and was about to raise the gun up.

"No!" Fuyutsuki gasped, reaching for her arm and keeping it down. "No, Yui. This isn't necessary."

"They could kill us," she expressed her fear.

"If I wanted to kill you two, you'd be dead the second the trigger was pulled," Death told her, catching her attention. "And if I wanted to kill you, simply because you're not worth a petty breath of air, I would've done so the instant I got here. The only reason you're still alive after your dead son left you for dead, the only reason why I haven't killed you myself right now, with my own hands…is because he begged me not to."

She looked at Fuyutsuki, now understanding the reason why he had been asked to go to the city above alone…and why he grabbed her gun-wielding hand to keep her from shooting.

"You owe him your gratitude," Death continued. "The guilty being protected by the innocent can only get you so far. We shall be off now."

He and the other two horsemen walked past them while Mako floated past them, staying close to his younger twin, but giving Yui and Fuyutsuki a solemn expression that was deprived of the malice that resided within the voice of the other. They climbed their horses and rode off toward the underground road that the truck was to use in relocating the ghost child to the SEELE facility.

SLAM! Unit-02 had gotten back up and resumed its assigned task to dispose of the dead Third Child.

"Aaaaurgh!" Asuka growled.

As Unit-02 approached where the path to the underground road was, Fuyutsuki and Yui jumped out of the way to avoid getting trampled by the violent redhead.

-x-

The drive through the underground tunnel was the wrong kind of quiet for Mordecai as he drove toward the Geo-Front to pick up his daughter.

Of course, I don't trust them bringing her home, he thought, referring to NERV's people when it came to where his daughter would be. I'd sooner come get her myself than to leave her coming home by their means. Huh?!

He saw three men on horses gallop past his car, and all he could make out were a unicorn, a knight and a black horse.

"Oh, my Lord," he gasped, and then saw a giant leg slam onto the ground in front of him. "Aaaahh!"

He drove around the leg and into a nearby pole, causing the airbag to inflate in his face.

"Oh…" He groaned, glad that he had his seat belt on.

-x-

"…Unit-02 to Central Dogma," went Asuka, "the Horseman of Death has escaped through the underground tunnel system. Unable to follow."

"Damn it," Ritsuko groaned.

But fortunately, she was prepared for such an outcome. Typing in a few commands, she put into effect the new flood system within the tunnel network, having replaced the water with LCL.

I will get him! She thought, watching on the control console as several blue lights turned red.

-x-

As they continued to ride underground, the Horsemen of War, Famine and Death were about to catch their path back to Mother Gaia's domain…when they saw something bright orange coming towards them.

"What is that?" Famine questioned.

Death's eyes zoomed in towards the orange, and widened at the sight of a rush of LCL, the blood of Lilith, coming towards them.

"BLOOD!" He yelled, and turned Rumi around, causing the other horsemen to do the same with their horses to escape the wave.

"Famine, couldn't you just consume that LCL like you did with the tank?" War asked the pauper.

"No," he answered. "My powers don't work like that. I can consume, but there's a limit to the ways that I can consume. There's no way I can devour a wave."

NEIGH! Their horses cried out as the LCL wave rushed up behind their legs.

"Aaaaaaurgh!" War screamed, as the wave caught them all.

Death couldn't believe that he was surrounded by the blood of Lilith, the primordial substance from which all life was believed to have originated, and couldn't stop the same substance from entering his body through his nose, ears or other available pores that it could get through. If he got exposed to sunlight while saturated with it, he would be vulnerable again.

The LCL wave rushed them out of the tunnel, back into the Geo-Front and onto the ground.

"Ugh!" Famine choked, getting up from the unwanted experience. "War? Death? Are you two…"

"I think my mail under armor's going to need to be replaced," went War. "Are you alright, Death?"

Death, unlike the previous time he was injured with LCL, was out cold completely because of it. He lied where he had washed up on the ground, soaked to his skeletal right arm in the blood of Lilith, and looking like he had died again.

"Death!" War gasped, crawling over to him. "Death!"

Mako manifested by the tree near Death's feet, and looked like the LCL had affected him, as well: His flesh and hair looked wet and the blanket that covered his body looked soaked.

"We gotta get outta here," he told the knight and the pauper. "Now."

Death's eyes, while still open, were colorless, like all semblance of life energy had been siphoned from his body by the LCL.

"Hey!" They heard a voice call out to them. "Are you alright? Do you need any help?"

It was a man, with blond hair and dressed in casual jeans and a black shirt with a white coat.

War and Famine looked at each other before the knight got up and brandished his sword in front of the man in a defensive manner.

"Stay where you stand!" He ordered the man. "Don't make me hurt you."

The man stood still and looked at Death, recognizing his face.

"Is that who I think it is?" He asked, pointing his left hand toward the Horseman of Death.

STOMP! The ground shook, and Mordecai turned around, seeing Unit-02 advancing towards them.

-x-

"Unit-02 preparing to eliminate the horsemen," Asuka informed Central Dogma, which got a perfect view of what she was seeing within her Eva.

"Wait a minute," went Mana, observing the horsemen and the man being intimidated by War, "who's that guy with them?"

The Eva's cameras zoomed in on the guy…and Mana was frightened by what Asuka could've done if she tried to eliminate the horsemen, even though it was unlikely a feat that could be achieved.

"Daddy!" She gasped, and ran out of the room.

"It's Mr. Asagi?" Misato worried; Asuka couldn't have known that Mana had resigned as an Eva pilot, or that her father was coming to get her to take her home, otherwise she wouldn't have been more focused with the eradication of the horsemen. "Asuka, wait a minute! Stand down! There's a civilian present on the ground!"

But Unit-02 didn't cease; Asuka was too wrapped up in wanting to eliminate the horsemen that she was willing to overlook the loss of a few civilians.

"Asuka, cease and desist! That's an order!" She tried again, but Asuka continued to ignore her. "Damn it! Disconnect her nerve connections!"

"We can't!" Maya declared. "She's cut us off!"

-x-

"Hey!" Mordecai called out to the red Eva. "Hey! Stop! I'm down here!"

"Famine, you know what to do!" War told the pauper.

"Right," Famine agreed with the knight. "Hemokai! It's time to feed!"

His horse got up and began bulging on its sides and then its head extended from its body. Its hooves and legs became flipper-like and all the hair on it was replaced with a slimy covering. Then, it expanded in size until it was much larger than it had been in its initial introduction to the Horseman of Death, almost the same size as the Eva opposing the horsemen. In less than a minute, the skinny field hunter was a massive serpent that almost imitated the Angel that had invaded Hong Kong, now looking formidable enough for the Eva.

Feed upon the brutality of this behemoth, Famine thought, and his beast of burden approached the Eva, colliding with it and sending it to the ground.

"Come on, Death," went War, trying to get the deceased boy to revive. "Stop laying there and come back to life!"

But he didn't react to anything around him, not even the danger they were in. He was as still as…

War then looked up at the Geo-Front's ceiling and the lighting system, seeing that the lighting didn't seem like those of lanterns or flashlights or whatever advancements mortals had made over the centuries since they obtained the power of fire. Then, he looked at the skin on Death's left arm, noticing how it seemed to react violently to something more than just the blood of Lilith…and finally realized why the group's fourth member was unresponsive.

"The light," he uttered. "It's like sunlight. You need to have the blood of Lilith washed off."

"There's a lake over there!" Famine pointed out to the knight, under the hopeful belief that the water that made up the lake was just water.

The knight picked up the undead boy and ran through the trees toward the lake while the pauper's beast handled the red behemoth.

But within Unit-02, Asuka saw War carrying the incapacitated Death towards the lake.

"The Horseman of War is taking Death towards the lake," she informed Central Dogma, engaged in wrestling-like feud with the beast that looked like it belonged in the water.

-x-

Running out of the pyramidal structure, Mana ran to where her father was, ignoring the wrestling Unit-02 and the creature that resembled one of the four beasts from the Book of the Restorative. As much as she knew how dangerous it was right now, she was more concerned with her father's safety rather than her own. There was a high probability that Asuka, simply due to her dislike of her, would willingly endanger her father's life…and she couldn't take that if the Second Child did such an unforgivable crime. If she lost her father, she knew she wouldn't be able to deal with two close loses.

Daddy, she thought, running as fast as she could across the base, please, be there for me.

As she approached the truck that was meant to transport Mako, she ignored Fuyutsuki and Mrs. Ikari in favor of the road that led to the tunnel system leading out of the Geo-Front.

"Huh?" Yui gasped, seeing her running up the road. "Mana?"

"Miss Asagi!" Fuyutsuki gasped. "Wait! The horsemen are here!"

But Mana wasn't listening; to her, her father could be in danger.

-x-

"…If you're ever near a source of water and Death has been exposed to the blood of Lilith under the influence of the sunlight," War recalled Mother Gaia's suggestion to him and the other horsemen prior to looking for Death a second time, "get him immersed as quickly as possible. The water won't eliminate any of the blood that gets inside of him, but it will slow its reaction to him until it's been removed with an extended immersion."

When the knight was close enough to throw Death into the lake, he did just that, throwing Death into the lake. He watched as the former Japanese boy sank beneath the water.

Beneath the lake, sinking deep to the bottom, Death's eyes fluttered as his vision corrected itself, allowing him, as he regained consciousness, to see a form he hadn't seen since before he stopped being the man he was in his previous existence.

A girl, around his physical age, dressed in a school uniform, with blue hair and red eyes, standing in front of him as he sank. Her blank expression was similar to his, but without any degree of anger or malice toward anybody.

"Do you have a reason for being here?" He asked her, his voice unhindered by the water.

"I have always been here," she answered him. "I have nowhere else to go, not since I've been replaced. Who you used to be, the boy whose face you wear, put me here. It's lonely."

"You can't move on? Have you even tried to move on?"

"Have you?"

Reaching the bottom of the lake, landing right next to an obsolete patrol cruiser that NERV had which sunk after the initial attack with the Third Angel, Death lied there as the water's cleansing properties sterilized him of Lilith's blood. His flesh-covered left arm regained its calm and invulnerability along with the rest of his enhanced being. He then floated into an upside-down state, looking at the female hallucination while in a circling rotation, floating around the girl.

"Sometimes, a soul that is lost can't move on," Death told her. "Sometimes, a soul that is lost must do more before they can finally lay down their baggage and ascend to levels or planes higher than ones ascended to."

"Sometimes, a soul that is lost won't move on," she countered him, "until the duty or obligations are fulfilled…and sometimes, those can take the equivalent of an eternity."

"And an eternity can be tiresome. But whether or not these obligations are fulfilled shouldn't matter to anyone or anything but the lost soul or souls in question. If they aren't fulfilled, then you shouldn't really concern yourself with whether or not they will ever be fulfilled, and if they ever do become fulfilled, what then for you? Where will you ascend to?"

"You don't understand. I was to become united with all the souls of this world, harmonizing them into a single existence, eliminating all sense of insecurity and hopelessness. But now I can't do my duty to end human suffering. Your previous incarnation put an end to that before it could even begin. It's lonely here. Shinji Ikari put me here."

"Maybe, but he got his closure before succumbing to his own death. Also, you accepted that there was no hope left in this world, just as he had accepted. You…told him to kill you, and he did…and then the bastard that replaced him with you bit the bullet and reaped the rewards of his own sins…as he deserved the worst Hell had to offer him…many times over."

"But…you are Shinji Ikari…are you not?"

Suddenly, the water around them, which had become cold due to not being heated, got colder, almost to freezing temperatures.

"I…am not…that person," Death defended his identity as being separate from the late Shinji Ikari. "I merely have his soul, his memories, even his rage, but I am not him. He cannot come back, no matter how much he is feared or desired."

"Are you sure?"

"I am dead serious, girl. I am not the young man that died that day…and I will never be him. Dead means dead, and dead for me means damned, unable to be free until the sanctity of my soul is free of the impurity it received from the past life of being shackled in the Ikari flesh!"

"Some people cannot deny who they are or were. Surely, you cannot deny who you were deep down…or who you are…"

"Truth be told, I may have the soul, the consciousness of that man…but I am not him. And I can see through your personal illusion. Your face, your voice…are nothing more than a facade. Your true form, I have seen once before in one previous existence. And when I was that man that killed his father that deserved what he got, I saw your face…or at least your mask. You would know a thing or two about masks and whatever about duality…wouldn't you, Lilith?"

The girl that looked like a perverted mockery of a younger, albino Yui Ikari lowered her gaze at him, and it seemed as though her face became covered in a mask of purple metal imprinted with at least seven eyes within an upside-down triangle.

"There is no hope left for this world," she told him. "There is sadness and despair everywhere."

"Oh, there is hope," he countered. "From those that strive to save this world that is dying from the poisons that are greed, genocide, abandonment and deception. You believe what you want to believe, but as long as I'm able, I will continue to cut down the guilty until the ones that are left pay for their crimes with their own blood. There are still two more Angels left to appear and chose their destiny points on this blue marble. And if need be, I will make the people believe in something greater than vengeance from beyond the proverbial grave."

"And what will you make them believe in?"

"The power to hope again, for the right reasons."

"Death doesn't give hope."

"Well, you're not giving hope to anyone. I have been given hope, but it seems that you've lost your ability to hope, which isn't hard to see."

As Lilith's face regained its deception in front of Death, she uttered, "You can try all you want, but you will fail."

"I can try…because maybe I like a challenge. And unlike you, I have the independence necessary to decide many things."

Then, she was gone, and his body had regained its considerable strength to emerge from the lake now that the blood of the woman he had finished conversing with was no longer affecting his flesh.

-x-

"Daddy!" Mana called out to her father, seeing him with one of the horsemen that looked like a skinny, preteen boy dressed in rags.

"Mana?" He responded, seeing her running over to him, all the while the giant creature that was once the horse of Famine continued to fend off Unit-02.

"Daddy!" The girl cried, grabbing her father by his legs and holding onto him like he was a balloon. "You're okay."

BOOM! From within the lake, Death burst from the water and caused a light shower of rain as he looked as though he was levitating as he descended from the air.

Unit-02 looked over at the horseman and saw him looking like he could take her out, right then and there, and raised its AT-Field to its limit as a precaution.

"That behemoth's mockery of a shield won't stop Death," went War. "Death can't be stopped by any means used against him."

As he descended, Death summoned his sickle and extended the blade.

CLASH! It slammed against the orange, octagonal wall of energy that was being generated by Unit-02, and slowly passed through it…along with Death himself.

Asuka tried to increase the strength of her AT-Field, but nothing was keeping the horseman from advancing upon her.

Death's face was shown being affected by the barrier. Several strands of his hair seemed to burn away, his left ear crumbled off his head…and then the skin on his face fell off, revealing the front of his skull, which seemed no different from those of regular people.

SLASH! Unit-02's left arm was sliced off by Death's sickle, falling to the ground as the behemoth's bluish-purple blood spilled out of its severed limb.

"Aaaaaurgh!" Asuka groaned in pain, the synchronization ratio being extremely hazardous due to being so high. "Verdammt! Sie lausiger reiter! You lousy horseman!"

As the rest of Death passed through the AT-Field, his head regenerated back into the visage he wore in life, and he slammed his feet into the Eva's waist, knocking it down with such force that paled in comparison to the stunt he performed on the city above.

CRASH! Unit-02 fell, and stayed down.

-x-

"All Unit-02's systems are frozen," went Maya to Ritsuko and Misato.

"Incredible," went Hyuga, unable to deny his sight of the deceased boy that just knocked down the Eva, despite its AT-Field.

-x-

Death stood atop Unit-02's head, knowing that the girl inside the behemoth could see him. He could've killed her by simply decapitating the mockery's head and then her life would cease, but the people controlling it from a safe distance would've severed her connection to it by now. So he wasn't going to risk it. He just wanted the girl to know that if could behead her through her glorified puppet, right here and now, he would. But it wasn't the reason he was here.

The reason he was here for had been fulfilled.

"Keep away if you value your life," he told her. "If you wish to live…you will keep away."

He then jumped off the red giant and onto the ground in front of the beast of Famine, just as it reverted back into the form of a field hunter horse.

"How are you feeling, Death?" War asked him as he walked past the knight.

"Cremated," he answered, which didn't explain much of anything to the knight.

"Maybe we should get going now," suggested Mako to them.

"Yeah, we should," Famine agreed with the ghost infant.

"What about them?" War asked, pointing his sword toward Mana and her father, along with Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki and Yui Ikari, who soon joined the pair.

Death's right hand closed into a fist at the sight of his former mother, but he wasn't about to renege on his word to the elder he had no beef against unless she tried something against him or his twin.

"The sooner we leave, the better," he told War, and resumed walking away from where Unit-02 fell.

Mana looked at the horseman and wondered how his mental state was now that he had who he came back for. She could only assume that his instability had faded due to the elder twin's presence.

Death turned his head and looked at her (though, from the clear distance between the horsemen and the bystanders, it looked as though he were looking at all four of them), wondering why she was looking at him as though she had been concerned, which, to him, seemed unusual for a mortal of her status and affiliation. But was reminded of her wanting only to talk to him that night she trespassed into the city above in order to attract him to her presence. He stopped walking, and stood still, looking at her, recalling, through the haziness he suffered when separated from Mako, the sound of her voice as he heard her sing.

"Uh, Death?" Famine questioned, waving his left hand in front of his face, trying to get his attention. "Endgame? Death of the Restorative?"

Mana let go of her father and slowly approached Death, something she must've been foolish to be doing in front of him and the other adults.

As she stopped five feet away from him, the dead boy's eyes became completely black, like a black-colored bearing ball the size of a human eye. They even seemed reflective to a degree.

Famine then looked back and forth between the chronologically-youngest member of the quartet and the little girl that seemed to attract him, and then backed away.

"What the Hell is this?" He asked Mako.

"I wish I knew," he responded.

Again, Yui tried to raise the gun up, this time to protect the girl in case Death made an attempt on her, but, just as said horseman's right eyebrow raised up in anticipation to her action, Fuyutsuki brought her gun-wielding arm back down, not wanting her to pay the price that already had a tag yet to be paid by the young man that had passed.

Mordecai looked at her and inaudibly agreed with the older man that it was unnecessary violence at best. And just an attempt to stop the unstoppable at worse.

Death's eyes then returned to normal, and he uttered to Mana, "You still owe me a song."

"Huh?!" Yui gasped.

"Okay," added Mordecai.

"Until next time," Death expressed, and resumed the walk away from those alive and unaffiliated with the Restorative toward his horse.

Mana sighed heavily, knowing that three people hearing this were bound to question her about it.

RUMBLE! They all turned and saw Unit-02 turning over onto its front.

"This maiden's persistent," went War, raising his inflamed sword up.

The red behemoth's four eyes stared at the horsemen with its enraged pilot, and raised up its remaining arm, now wielding a rifle.

-x-

"Damn it!" The commander gasped. "Override Unit-02's LCL pressure! Raise it enough to incapacitate the Second Child! Now!"

The technicians worked on the command override, and were able to raise the LCL pressure inside Unit-02's plug. Unfortunately, Asuka seemed one step ahead of them, and threw the rifle at them!

The bridge crew saw the rifle collide with the tall trees that surrounded the horsemen, the Fourth Child, the Sub-Commander and the Ikari woman, and created a small explosion that seemed unlikely to have resulted from a Pallet Rifle breaking.

-x-

She was knocked out, but she was certain that the horsemen couldn't survive getting scattered around the ground in pieces.

As the fire spread, a burning sword was raised and the flames were sucked into the blade. The hand holding the weapon regenerated and revealed War, stripped bare of his armor's upper portions and left with recovering muscles and nerves with scarred flesh.

Beside him was Famine, regenerating from his severe burns, looking around them and seeing half-burnt trees and land.

"Where's Death?" He asked the knight. "Where is he?"

War brought his sword down, looking around them, seeing just their horses, the mortals that were nearby, but no Death, the Endgame.

"Death!" He called out to him, but got no response.

"Mana!" Mordecai yelled for his daughter. "Mana!"

CRASH! A piece of the Eva's rifle fell over, revealing a rising figure from within small flames, cradling a smaller body.

It was Death, partially burnt and his face's left sight damaged from being torn, possibly from the metal that made the weapon up. And cradled in his arms was Mana, barely showing any burns on her person, and unconscious. He looked down at her and wondered what had possessed him to shelter her from the explosion that could've killed her had he now shielded her with himself, able to survive without a fear of meeting his maker a second time.

"Mmm…" The girl moaned, and Death looked at the red behemoth with a frown of disgust.

Then, because he felt the need to, he looked at the three mortals that were fortunate enough to escape the flames. As the muscles and nerves around his eye reappeared, his gaze on the man that seemed to be associated with Mana stood in fear and awe at the embodiment of the end of life holding his child, and then shifted his gaze toward Yui, who looked like she had never seen a dead man rise from the flames of an explosion before.

"Yui Ikari, your mother in life, was the mind behind the birth of these mockeries of creation," Mother Gaia had told Death, letting him know who was responsible for the creation of these abominations that needed the souls of women that bore children like him after the Second Impact. "Made from the salvaged remains of Adam after he was forced to self-destruct, they were molded into the forms desired by the hands of mortals that desired their power. Unfortunately, nothing designed to be active and mobile can function properly or even near the degree of being proper without the strongest source of energy to animate a mass of substance made to be mobile. Similar to you horsemen, these Evas need souls to be animated, but they're not natural life. They can never be natural lifeforms because they're abominations made to imitate natural lifeforms. Remove the soul from the Eva, the Eva becomes a waste of substance. Remove the soul, the woman that became a mother can be free to return to life or move on."

"Grrrr!" He growled at her.

Neigh! His horse came to him, and he placed Mana on the saddle and got on.

"Death, what are you doing?" His brother asked him, but he didn't say anything.

Rumi reared up and galloped off, followed by War and Famine, who had gotten on their horses.

As they returned to the underground tunnel to get away from NERV, Death's regenerated flesh began to sting from the blood of Lilith that was still inside him, and he would only be able to move for a little while longer until he immersed himself in water for a longer time.

-x-

"…Disobeying orders," the commander told Asuka, over an hour after she had recovered from the LCL pressure, letting her know how serious the situation was with her. "Endangering the safety of civilians. You might've even provoked the Horseman of Death to snatch a little girl that didn't even do anything to him. Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

"I was only following orders," Asuka defended. "The horsemen showed up, and I was to dispose of them. Everyone else is a secondary concern."

"But when it comes to the safety of civilians, you're to stand down until they're in shelters away from the battle zone. You're suspended until further notice, Ms. Soryu. Dismissed."

Asuka frowned and left his office.

Meanwhile, Fuyutsuki had been a witness to the verbal spat that Mana's father had with Yui, which revealed, to him more than anyone else present outside NERV HQ, of a rather resentful history that was between the Ikaris and the Asagis. It turned out that Mordecai had been against his daughter joining NERV from the start after finding out that Yui Ikari was still alive, but once he got word that she wouldn't be present at NERV, he relented to a degree, but wanted a guarantee that Yui would keep away from Mana, which indicated to Fuyutsuki that there was something more had happened some time ago between the two families.

"…But surely, she didn't mean to endanger her," Yui expressed to the American man as he finished gathering Mana's things into his car.

"Just so that you know, it's a point of pride for me that I can tell when someone means to harm my family," he responded to her as he got into the driver's seat, "and you and Ms. Soryu are as awful as any other person I've seen or heard of over the years. And now a dead boy, one of your dead boys, has my child, and only God knows what he might be doing to her. What can NERV or the police do about that, huh? What can any of you do about this?"

Yui couldn't answer him, knowing that this man blamed her for most of the trouble they were dealing with because of the horsemen, particularly Death himself.

"I used to wonder why Himeko became afraid of you. Now I know why. You're a living hazard."

He started the engine and drove away.

"What was that about?" Fuyutsuki asked her.

"Nothing," she lied to him, and walked back to the pyramidal building.

-x-

"Death, the Endgame, are you crazy?" Conquest asked, seeing Death had placed the unconscious girl on the stone cot in his cave, keeping a vigilant watch over her, despite the intrusion of the other horsemen, and he received a cold frown from the youngest member.

"Yeah, Conquest, I'm crazy!" He answered him. "And you're not the first person to ask me that, and you certainly won't be the last one to, either! I'm a lunatic! Deal with it!"

"Why?"

"Why? Why? Oh, I don't know! Because I felt the need to redecorate, maybe. You know, grab a bunch of bunny pillows, a little girl that's unconscious because of a psycho girl's rampage! You ask War and Famine, and they'll tell you what happened!"

Soon enough, Mother Gaia and several elderly men and women can by.

"Death, what is going on?" She asked him. "Raised voices will raise angry spirits."

Death calmed down and answered, "This girl was hurt in the aftermath of my rescuing Mako, so I brought her here to recover."

"Though, he could've left her there," expressed War. "She rides one of those behemoths. The black-colored one that Conquest infected with the cold that one time."

Famine looked at Mana and expressed for himself, "This girl doesn't seem attracted to violence like the other girl that War has a battle crush on. And it would seem that there's something about her that attracts Death."

"Hey!" Death grunted, and Famine shut right up.

"She's not going to recover any quicker laying there with no basic medical aid," Gaia told them, and instructed the elders that came with her to go fetch some water and a towel.

As she turned to leave, Conquest followed her.

"Is it really a safe thing to do, letting an unaffiliated person recover here in this sanctuary?" He asked her. "She could be bugged, the people she served could be tracking her right now."

"You know as well as I do that the other deities that gifted me with this island made it so that no mortal hands, through any means, magical or technological, can find this place," she assured him. "This island virtually doesn't exist anywhere on any maps, and the only people that can get to here from wherever they might be are ones affiliated with the Restorative, which includes the four of you."

"Still, she could endanger the people here, and they're the keystone to salvaging the future of this world. How do we know she's not a threat?"

"If she had been a threat from the start, Death would've took care of her when he had the opportunity presented to him. If Death didn't sense or detect any level of sinfulness in her soul, then she clearly has no intention on endangering anyone here."

Conquest sighed in defeat…and had to accept that Mother Gaia may have been right about the girl's potential inability to bring danger to the Restorative.

-x-

"…So, the Committee's displeased because they feel their prized scientist wasted a trip due to an outside party arriving at around the same time they were set to leave…and taking off with the closest thing we had to a soul that could exist outside a body," the commander expressed to Fuyutsuki in his office.

"And no concerns, whatsoever, over the loss of the Fourth Child?" He questioned.

"Is any child's loss any concern to them?"

"So, what now?"

"We wait for the Fifth Child to arrive…and then proceed from there."

The commander then looked into the drawer on his right side and at a small case that contained a very dangerous tool that could turn the tide against the Angels if used properly…or spell disaster if misused. He sighed as SEELE would kill the people responsible for removing it from their possession and do whatever it took to get it back. But it would still be a while before he would be asked if he knew anything about the missing object. As much as he could've informed them that NERV had it and knew who brought it over, he had an ulterior reason for keeping his mouth shut about it.

-x-

"…Ungh," Mana groaned, feeling like she'd been asleep for a long while, rising up from where she lay, but felt her head ache from some pain she just felt.

"Lie still," she heard someone say to her. "You may have a slight fracture."

She opened her eyes and saw Death.

"Uh, where…where am I?" She asked, wanting to know at least that much.

"You're safe," he answered, keeping it simple, though it wasn't the answer he knew she was looking for.

"So, she has regained consciousness, I take it?" Death looked at the entrance to his cave and saw Mother Gaia, dressed in a blue and yellow hanbok.

He gave her a small nod, and she came over to look at Mana.

"Hello, little miss," she greeted. "I'm Mother Gaia."

"Mana," Mana responded. "Mana Asagi. Grugh."

"She may have a slight fracture in her head," Death explained, and Gaia placed her left hand on the girl's forehead.

Mana felt a slight ping where the woman touched her head and winced.

"I'm sorry," Gaia apologized, trying to be gentle as she confirmed for herself whether or not the girl was injured. "She doesn't have a fracture in her head. It's just a slight bruise. A little more rest and some herbs in her food and she'll be okay."

She removed her hand and sat next to her on the ground.

"I'm surprised that you brought an injured person back, Death," she told the horseman. "You could've left her alone."

"I could've," he expressed, "but I didn't."

Mako then manifested and expressed, "Something you might've regretted had you done so?"

Death didn't say anything in response, but Mother Gaia suspected that Mako had struck a nerve within the younger twin's conscious.

A/N: Here's the latest chapter until further notice. Please, review it and let me know what you think of it. I think my favorite scene so far has been Shinji/Death's conversation with Rei/Lilith, and telling her that he will make the people believe in hope once more. Peace out.