Creation began on 11-04-14
Creation ended on 11-13-14
Neon Genesis Evangelion
A New Cause: Inferno Visit
A/N: As the Restorative Horseman of Death, the former/late Shinji Ikari, accompanied by his twin, the late Mako Ikari, is to possess the darkness of the underworld behind him, just like the Apocalyptic Horseman of Death. Both possess ties to Hell, but serve different authorities for different purposes.
Blood, fire and brimstone were all around this strange realm that bespoke of only a handful of words that were the same in every language. Buried within the ground and pillars of hardened, parched soil were men and women of various ages and cultures, shadows of their former selves, either screaming in agony or wallowing in defeat at their inability to escape from what was their darkest fate.
"…Help me…"
"Let me go…"
"…I'm sorry…"
"No…"
Many voices uttered, either in sorrow or rage. And as they continued to do so, a young man wandered down the path of fire. The flames parting with each step he took, as if he were not to be harmed in any way by the terrain he traversed upon. The fallen people gazed upon him and could only fear his presence and his power.
The Restorative Horseman of Death was just as feared as the Apocalyptic Horseman of Death that these dead people never saw. But what would bring him down here to this abyss of eternal torment?
"So, you have returned from the mortal realm above," went a male voice to the horseman, just as a pillar of fire appeared in front of him, concealing a shadowed creature within.
Death didn't show fear or hesitation by the flames, and watched as they died to reveal the demonic creature that now stood before him.
To the eyes of those with less than half their sense of perception, this demon would've probably reminded them of the updated werewolf character from Killer Instinct, only with red and black fur with silver eyes.
"What brings you back to this realm of the inferno damned?" The creature asked him.
"You know why I am here," Death told him. "Lead the way to those I've condemned…or stand aside and I shall find them myself."
The demon growled at him…and then turned away, going down a path comprised of bones that had just appeared out of nowhere…and the rest of the environment turned dark and cold.
"This way," he told the horseman, who followed him. "Hell has become a booming pool of sorrow since you made the choice to hunt down the sinners of the world. Ever seen a rapist scream for more dick and ass down here? Heh-heh-heh!"
Death's face remained neutral, but an aura of fire surrounding his body was able to express his emotions for him, and the fire was burning green, which showed the demon that the horseman's emotional present was full of disgust towards the souls of men and women he killed for their sins against the flesh.
"Those men you sent down here from Nagoya, Japan, they're still trying to convince themselves that they're not dead. The guy that jumped out the window, on the other hand, he knows he's dead…and he can't stop screaming at the fact that you were there to kill him for raping those ladies."
But Death's silence still made itself known to the demon. It was like trying to converse with him about his victims was like trying to get a wall made of steel to talk.
"I swear, you're no fun to be around," the demon told him.
"Take me to him," went Death, "and I'll talk enough that you won't want to hear me speak again."
The aura of fire then turned black, indicating that the horseman was not interested in anything other than the reason he was here in Hell to begin with.
As the path they were on continued to be illuminated by their steps, it began to shift and mutate, changing from stone to charred wood, with the walls becoming skulls and skeletal limbs. Small gaps in between them revealing several men being skinned while screaming in pain.
"Aaaahh! Aaaaaaurgh! Please, stop!" Some of them cried out, but the chains and hooks that were skinning them continued.
"We're here," the demon told Death, and the horseman was led to a large wall modeled after the Nine Dragons Screen from the Forbidden City's Palace of Tranquil Longevity, but charred and with the dragons made of human and animal bones. "The Lair of the Heartless, a small abyss in the Second Circle of Hell."
The wall split in half and pulled back to reveal a red light that faded to show men and women, young children, even animals in various stages of depraved carnage and fornication over the flesh, either willingly or unwillingly. They were adorning the walls of the tunnel that led further down to where Death requested to go.
"Are you sure you want to see him?" The demon asked him, just wanting to make sure that this was what the horseman desired for real. "He is among the worst of souls that have desires that know no limits…and may never accept limits."
Death simply gestured for the creature to continue leading him to his destination, and the demon went on, leading him down the tunnel.
"Ah…aaaahh…aaaah…ohh…"
"Grrr…urgh…murgh!"
"Aaaurgh…urgh…aaah…"
"More…more…"
"Lick me…"
Death's burning aura showed for itself that he was completely displeased with the way these damned souls were being tortured, but how they suffered in Hell was not his place to talk. He stopped walking for three seconds, just long enough to avoid a woman's release of fluids that squirted into the air from his left to the wall on the right, hitting a man that was slowly being carved into by eight women that were skinned. Then, he resumed his following of the demon.
"He's in this pit," the demon told him, pointing to a large hole in the ground.
Death then levitated into the pit, slowly descending into a small room, seeing a middle-aged man that looked like he enjoyed sex when it was rough.
"You must be disappointed that Hell isn't just for children, as the song would suggest," he told the doomed soul of a man. "At least some of your needs are being met."
The man, not as cold-looking as he used to when he was alive, looked at Death, revealing himself to be none other than Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari, dressed in ripped pants, his only clothing left, and looked as though he had desired to see better days.
"Please," Gendo begged, sounding more pathetic than he had before his vengeance-driven son came and killed him, and had the metaphysical injuries to prove so. "Please, no more."
"No more?" Death questioned. "No more of what, exactly?"
"Gendo, love," the horseman looked up at the ceiling away from the hole and saw a demonic female that looked similar to that bitch of a woman that used to be his mortal mother, looking down at them with a hungry expression. "I'm hungry again!"
Gendo had expected the horseman to laugh at his torment, but Death didn't; this was a man that didn't laugh at anything, no matter how amusing or cruel it was.
"It looks like you just got lucky," Death said to him, and the demoness pouted, staying where she hung on the ceiling. "Stand up."
Gendo didn't obey the horseman, even though he only resembled his killer. He refused to take any crap from a fellow member of the damned, no matter how tormented they were.
"Stand up," he repeated, his dead tone, although not to the level of enraged, was heightened, and Gendo rose to his bruised and battered feet in front of him. "Sit down. Sit down."
Gendo then sat of a rock beside him, though his bottom hurt from doing so.
"Stand up," Death ordered him again, and Gendo got back up. "Sit down."
After obeying him again, Gendo could've sworn that he saw a smirk appear on the boy's face.
"There is a point to what I'm doing," he told the man. "There is an exhilaration to being the one in control, to be the one that gives the orders and forces those around you to carry those orders out. You enjoyed being control before your son murdered you, to be unquestioned and unchallenged in your authority. But now the tables and tides have turned on you. Whenever an order has been given to you, you can't ignore it and have someone else do it for you. If I tell you to jump, you jump. You don't even ask how high. If the lords of this realm order you to cut out a pound of flesh from your waist, you cut out a pound of flesh from your waist. This…is your personal pit of damnation…and the demoness above our heads…is here to tease, torment and brutalize you until the end of all existence. She represents your longing, twisted desires to suit Hell's needs, a perversion of promising eternal unity…and unbreakable bonds that transcend the ties of blood or other forms of mortal bondage."
"You enjoy the reversal, don't you?" Gendo asked him. "You enjoy being in control, having power over your victims?"
"Only people that have known power for most of their lives enjoy the feeling of control it brings them, never in any day anticipating that, in one moment or another, that power will betray them. But one that has never known power…understands its true value…and puts it to use that is most beneficial, not to themselves, but to those that truly need it most."
"That was what the Evas could've done."
"Now, we both know that is a lie in a series of lies."
"No. You could've had the power of the gods themselves! Evas were made in the image of the gods that watch from their castles in the sky, that do nothing while the people suffer! And you…you've doomed all of mankind by not doing as you were expected to do."
Death's face contorted, mildly, to show a neutral expression of rage, like he was angry, but you couldn't who or what he was angry at and for what reason.
"You must have me confused with someone else," he then said to Gendo. "We've only just met."
"You can't deny who you really are, Shinji," Gendo told him.
"Who is Shinji? There must be a million people in the history of Hell, past and present, to have gone by that name. You must narrow your search of identity to locate the right soul of the damned."
"You're Shinji Ikari! You're my son! You were the last person I saw before you killed me!"
"Now I know you have me confused with someone else. I am not the boy that used to be your son, as you blatantly put it. While I may possess his identity, his soul and memories, this child no longer exists, just as you no longer exist. Even if a small part of him were to remain around somewhere, even if there was a slim chance, a sliver of what people call hope, that his essence lingered, the truth remains that, because of the horrors of his past…and the actions of his life that drove him to the edge of insanity and bloodshed, he resides in his own pit of torment…and is quite unreachable."
"I don't believe you," Gendo told him, and then lunged toward him.
Death simply sidestepped out of the way and watched the former mortal crash onto some sharp rocks that were behind him, injuring himself further.
"But it's true," he continued to the man that was once his father. "Your son resides in his own pit of damnation here in Hell, just as you reside in yours here."
"And what about you?!" Gendo demanded of him.
"I have my secrets…just as every other lost soul has theirs. But for today, which can be measured in mere hours like a regular day, or several days in this realm…or even weeks…months…even centuries, you can try to get away from your tormentor that passes herself off as your wife. Feel a fleeting speck of freedom…and explore all that is Hell."
Suddenly, a large hole formed behind Gendo, leading to only who-knows-where.
"I'm not going to stop you from running, as there's nowhere to run to."
Gendo struggled to get up and ran into the hole, and the demoness waited for the right time to go after him to tease and brutalize him further.
"The fallen fiends…have an eternity to know every layer of your flesh," he heard Death's voice echo out to him, and he sounded nothing like Shinji had when he was alive.
All around him throughout the tunnel were people that had been cut up, decapitated, shot up or even burnt beyond recognition; he could only assume that these were all of Shinji's victims during the time he had escaped NERV and swore to come back to kill him for all that he had done to his son.
"…He's going to kill me…"
"There's no stopping him…"
"…A juggernaut… He's a juggernaut…"
"In a world without hope, he made his own…"
Gendo heard what sounded like thousands of voices, unable to identify them.
"Father?" He stopped in front of a little boy, identical to Shinji the day he had left him, sometime after Yui disappeared in the Eva, holding a severed head like a ball. "Why did you leave me? Don't you want me around, anymore?"
"Gendo?" He turned around, hearing the voice of the demoness that took after his desires for his wife. "I am hungry for you!"
Making an effort to continue to get away, he ran past the little boy, wanting only to get away.
"Don't leave me!" The boy cried out; it was exactly like Shinji had sounded when he was abandoned.
-x-
"Do you think it wise," the Sabrewulf-like demon asked Death, "to allow this man to explore Hell, knowing that there is no escape for him?"
Death looked at him and uttered, "Let him know that hope is a poisonous vapor down here. That escape is nothing but a pipe dream for the sinners of the damned. So long as one has hope, they believe they can conquer what's standing in their way of some sort of success, but because there is nothing here to link the belief of hope to the belief of success, there is no success."
"That is not entirely true, Death, the Endgame," the demon told him, wanting to clarify what he meant by this. "Lost souls like yourself, former mortals chosen by a higher authority, whether it's to reign utter chaos upon the mortals of Earth…or to restore the lost feeling of faith, love and salvation…are the only real hope that exist…even in Hell. Now, you may be a soldier of sorts under the realm of Heaven, but your actions toward the sinners are what link you to the realm of Hell…but you still do one thing that Hell will never do for those that have sinned with no intention of redeeming themselves: You give hope to the hopeless in need of it, even if you don't believe so yourself. And hope, to those in need of it, is more than just a word, more than just a belief… It's a gift that not too many are fortunate to receive."
As a fiery portal appeared in front of the horseman, Death accepted this demon's choice of words on the concept of hope being a gift, and then past through the portal, leaving the realm of the damned.
-x-
A tree that seemed different from the others that were seeded throughout the island home of Mother Gaia, stood alone atop the large cave that housed the majority of the mortals that the Earth Goddess had saved over the years and brought here to symbolize mankind's salvation, where said goddess sat against the trunk of the tree in front of a headstone. She was dressed in a white and pink yukata, which didn't match up with her blond and ebony hair with its green lock in front of her, but her serene, peaceful face made up for this, and the presence of small birds and squirrels brought comfort.
"I'm back," she opened her eyes and looked up at Death, who stood on her left, beside the tree, deprived of his firearms, looking like he wanted to say more, but couldn't find the words to do so.
She got up and picked a pink flower from one of the branches and placed it in front of the headstone…and then placed her left hand upon the engraving on it.
Death looked, but couldn't say anything more about who he didn't know, except…
"You truly miss her, don't you?" He asked her.
"With all my heart," she answered him.
"Tell me more about her."
"She wanted to be a scientist that specialized in renewable energy sources, to help create a world that could have cleaner air and no longer rely on fossil fuels or nuclear energy. She was surprised when I told her that there was such a time when the planet had much more radiation than today, and that there were animals that were adapted to thrive in environments that, by today's standards, would kill an ordinary human. She loved cherry blossoms over sunflowers, had a fascination over the rare metal that was platinum, and had hopes to find the right person for her to have a family of her own with. Zen had such hopes in a bright future full of love and change for everyone."
Death looked again the headstone, noticing that it wasn't like the ones he had seen in Japan or around the States. It was smaller, like a large square that had been too low at its base to create a slanted block that stuck out the ground, looked like it was made of stone, but had an armored sense around it, like someone tried to obtain metal from the stone, and had a plaque for the memory of the young girl that had been buried beneath it. It read, "Kyuukai 'Zen' Gaia, Earth's long-cherished hope".
Mother Gaia clearly had lost much of her joy with her daughter's death, but it was a different type of joy than what she had with the other mortals or even the Four Horsemen. Like how the affection one had for their friends was vastly different from the affection they had for someone close to their hearts.
"You don't need to tell me everything that occurred during your brief visit to the underworld," he heard her say to him, "but at least answer me one thing: Was your time there helpful? Did it ease your inability to murder a man that had wronged you in a past existence?"
"…Yes," he answered her, "although…a soul I tortured further continued to address me as the former soul of the young man that no longer exists. It…enrages me that anyone would see me as… I am not that boy that passed away at NERV, and I will never be him."
Mother Gaia knew what he was talking about; the fact that this Horseman of the Restorative possessed the identity of a former mortal didn't hinder most that knew of this former child of a disgraceful couple from addressing him as someone he clearly wasn't. And just because she was the one that made this lost soul of mankind a horseman of unquestionable power and skill, she wasn't blind to his anger over being addressed as someone who couldn't be around any further than after breathing their final breath. Once you take your final breath of life, and every attempt to revive you, even the smallest hope of resuscitation that others overlook or ignore, you were as gone as a building being demolished, and just a building, you couldn't be rebuilt like you were never taken down to begin with. But a horseman's incarnation was different; they could be brought back, but excluding the concept of visual/physical identity, everything else about them wasn't tied to the life they lost.
There was no blood that could be traced to a dead man, no follicles or skin that could be traced to a living person, not even a distant relation. Whatever relation the horsemen had with people of their past lives was only spiritual at best, with their purgatory relation being tied directly to the Earth Goddess. Any blood that was shed from their bodies was her own, which was no different from any of the elements you could find in the ground or trees. Any methods that anyone gifted in the practice of science that could isolate anything in blood, skin, saliva, hair or bones that even constitutes as genetic strands or alleles would get nothing concrete to identify the horsemen on a genetic level, even if they spent millions on new machines and recruited new pioneers on genetics.
"But surely, Death, not everyone you've encountered so far has addressed you as who you used to be since you came back," she suggested to him. "Can you think of anyone? Maybe a life you saved? Anyone at all?"
Death looked away from her and thought back to anyone he had seen when he came back…and one innocent face came up when the identity concept came to mind.
"Miki Serizawa," he expressed.
"And she was…one of the first lives you saved during your time in Nagoya?"
"Her, her mother and her aunt. They… Saving them gave me the belief that hope still exists…and made me want to do more…than I wouldn't do when I was alive."
Mother Gaia turned his face back to her and said, "I offered you the position of a horseman in order to grant you, and others like you and the other horsemen, the chance to live better lives once this cause was fulfilled. I merely started you on your path back into the light. Whoever you choose to save…for whatever reasons you choose to save them for…they become linked to your soul, serving as a metaphysical foundation for your path to redemption. The lives you save…become part of your salvation, not just regular lives that were almost destroyed by criminals or corrupted cops."
"I've never said this before, barely to Mako, even, but every time I go after the bad guys, saving people that they could harm, not just the ones they have harmed… I feel a little less dead…and something else that I can't describe."
"Proud? Happy, even?"
"I wouldn't say that I feel pride in saving their lives, but…I can settle for happy, even when I don't smile to show such an emotion."
Gaia gave him a smile and a hug, which he was mildly uncomfortable with because of the closeness.
"I…I don't know how to respond to this," he expressed.
"Let your soul's pavement show you the way," she told him.
He stood there with her hugging him, thinking about the lives he saved, their praise or respect, and then unintentionally began fantasizing about them, which didn't seem to help him. But then a little girl, much younger than Miki, and having blond hair instead of brownish-red hair. It only took a few seconds for to recognize the young girl as Mana Asagi, who pointed towards the sky, which was bathed in golden light. He then slowly brought up his arms and wrapped them around Gaia's back.
"Am I…doing this right?" He asked her.
"You're doing fine," she answered him.
A/N: And with this chapter, Death finally learns how to hug. You shouldn't deny that even a horseman needs a hug from time to time.