Creation began on 11-30-14
Creation ended on 01-02-15
Neon Genesis Evangelion
A New Cause: Between Blood and Choices
A/N: The more time passes, the more choices that become either unexpected or difficult make themselves known.
"…So I take it that Death won't be joining us this evening, either?" Conquest asked Mother Gaia, sitting across the stone table from the goddess with War and Famine, merely enjoying a cup of tea with her.
"No," she answered him, adding more chamomile powder to her beverage. "He didn't say it, but he wants to be alone."
"He's not exactly alone if he's in the presence of his brother," said Famine to her, refilling his glass tankard of ginseng tea.
"Solitude is solitude, no matter whom it's with," War expressed, looking down at his cup of jasmine tea.
"Is something wrong, War?" Gaia asked the knight.
"It has been two weeks since Death's short journey to Hell and back," he told her. "Two weeks since that day…and Death has not spoken since his last conversation with you. He might not be much for talking, but even he shouldn't go as long as he did in his past without talking to someone."
"He has much on his chaotic mind that he is trying to find stability in," she explained to him. "Yet, he is demonstrating a virtue that he showed through his actions when his heart beat with much pain and anger towards his tormentors and those that stood in his way. The virtue that is patience. He is waiting for something to happen. Perhaps a new sinner, or perhaps the next of the heavenly messengers to appear. Or perhaps…he is waiting for an absolution he didn't receive in life."
Conquest sighed…and then finished his cup of chamomile tea.
-x-
In his little corner of the Restorative's underground caverns, in the company of his twin, Death sat cross-legged on his stone cot. Two weeks since his visit to Hell, two weeks since his brutal torment of Gendo Ikari for the abuse and neglect he had committed against his mortal incarnation, which the damned soul addressed as the horseman himself. But within the time between that day up to the present, Death was under the mild sense that something was amiss out there in the world beyond Mother Gaia's island home…and it alluded him as to what this was in its entirety. All he could suspect, however, was that a wrinkle, a current in the present would disturb the delicate flow between light and darkness that needed to be protected in the world.
His eyes stared blankly into the unknown, as if there was something to see that couldn't be seen just yet, and he hadn't blinked once since he sat down two weeks prior.
"Maybe if you go after some more criminals, your sense of impending danger will subside," Mako suggested to him.
"After my visit to the judge, when I paid everyone that lived in that building with foul intentions a visit, the crime wave suddenly dropped, like a flu that passes when enough time has been spent on a victim of the sickness to recover from its effects," Death responded.
And it was true, for the overall rate of crime, ranging from the heinous, sexually-based ones to the ones where there was fraud, drug dealing, money laundering, even kidnapping were rare to the point of never to occur unless you didn't fear being sought after by the Horseman of Death, who would stop at nothing to ensure you paid the ultimate price for your deceit. In fact, some believed that even the very sounds of galloping or a horse whining was enough to shake the confidence of certain criminals.
-x-
"…And you're certain it will be in the next two days?" Hei-Bai asked the woman that called him over the phone in his apartment. "Thank you."
He hung up and set his cell phone on the counter. He only had to wait two more days until the reading of his father's will, after which he would leave the country and return back to the States. Japan may have been his place of birth, but it didn't have that feeling of being at home. And on a personal level…he really just wanted to get away from Yui, feeling that no good could come from associated with her.
"Call from…restricted," his phone spoke up, ringing as it received its latest call.
Even with the latest in cellular telephone technology, someone will always want their identity to remain anonymous, he thought, deciding not to answer it, hoping they would be smart enough to leave a voice message so that he could get in touch with them.
The phone stopped ringing…and then acted up once more as it received a voice message. He picked it up and pressed the button to hear it play.
"…First unheard message," the machine uttered, and then resumed in the voice of the person that called him. "Hei-Bai, it's Yui. I know we haven't been on friendly terms since our father past away…or even before. I'm probably the last person you want anything to do with…"
"Uh-huh," he sighed.
"…All I'm suggesting is that, no matter what happens at the will reading, we can at least put up with each other's presence," Yui's message continued…and Hei-Bai wanted nothing more than for the message to stop.
There was no way he would ever reconcile with her.
-x-
"I saw on the morning news that several men turned themselves over to the police after having revelations of salvation if they turned themselves in before the Horseman of Death came after them for their crimes," Mana told her father as she swung in the swing a little at the park. "Some of them worked in warehouses, running loaders and guarding shipments. You could apply for new openings, just in case the supermarket people don't call you."
"Thanks, Mana," Mordecai expressed, sitting in the swing on his daughter's left side. "I can't imagine what I'd do without you in my life."
"I guess we owe the horseman's interference and periodic hunting of criminals for new openings in the job market, then."
"Yeah… I guess we do."
Mana noticed how her father looked around the park, as if he were expecting to see Death nearby, and looked around herself, just seeing several couples and children younger or smaller than she was either on benches or around the jungle gym.
"Daddy, it's been two weeks," she informed him. "I think it's safe to say that if he wanted to show up, he would've done so earlier."
Mordecai sighed and responded, "Am I that obvious right now?"
"Yes. If we haven't seen him, then that must mean he's out there in the world, looking for criminals to punish for their acts against others."
"He said you owed him a song, and he has yet to hear you sing in front of him. I wonder when…and if he'll return to collect on the would-be debt."
The young girl sighed and sped up her swinging. As true as it was that the horseman wanted to hear her sing, that had yet to happen. And if it was ever to occur, she had no idea what to sing to a dead guy; not many members of the deceased came back from the realm of the dead and gave revelations on what they truly liked in life, and the young man Death had been in life never showed an interest in music.
"Daddy," she then spoke up, slowing down, "before the horseman came back to NERV to get his brother… I met with the woman that used to be their mother."
Mordecai's face then became possessed by an expression of woe; he feared the possibility that his daughter would have an encounter with the only living matriarch of the Ikari family. It was no secret that he disliked the woman.
"She made me feel very uncomfortable being near her," Mana continued. "She even asked who my mother was."
"She makes me very uncomfortable, too," he told her. "Your mother got uncomfortable to the point of almost hyperventilating after… It was about a year and a half before you were born."
Almost all the time, Mana wished her father would stop trying to beat around the bush with what he was saying to her. She knew that when he said a year and a half, he actually meant to say that it was shortly after Second Impact, and she knew that her mother was known to have moments of hyperventilation when she felt intimidated or threatened by someone.
"There was something else, too, while I was at NERV," she told him. "It only happened sometimes whenever I was in Unit-03."
"The black giant?" Mordecai asked.
"Yeah, the black giant," she confirmed. "Every now and then, whenever I was in it, it seemed like someone was watching me. I got through that feeling of being closely watched by humming to myself."
"Somehow, I always got the feeling that those giants are just bad news. Heh… That Soryu girl proves their ill fortune against people."
"She probably spent more time in hers than I had in the one they paired me with. They had two others, but they couldn't use them for some reason."
"We're better off without seeing or knowing of any more of those things."
"I don't believe it!" Both father and daughter turned around and saw a woman, about Mordecai's age, dressed in a green dress, with shoulder-length, ebony hair. "Mordecai?"
"Huh? Well, I'll be… Mitsuko?" He asked back. "Mitsuko Saotome?"
"Oh, I've been Mitsuko Aoi for the last thirteen years," the woman, Mitsuko, revealed, holding her left hand up and revealing a gold band on her finger. "What brings you back to Japan? It's nothing but perpetual summertime here."
"Oh, it was a… An opportunity that went sour a few weeks ago brought us back. Now, we're just trying to build a life here."
"Is this Mana?"
Mana looked up at Mitsuko and extended her right hand out in front of her.
"Nice to meet you," she greeted the woman, who shook her hand.
"You look just your mother," Mitsuko expressed.
"So I'm told."
"Though, your father's hair color makes you stick out."
"I have the best of two sides of the coin that is the east and the west."
"What of you, Mitsuko?" Mordecai asked the woman. "You have any children of your own?"
Mitsuko's face then shifted from happy to meet old and new faces to an expression of sadness.
"No," she answered him. "My husband and I tried for years, but we had no such luck."
"You shouldn't give up on having children," Mana expressed; ever since she read about the Second Impact's other effects on the world, including the population decrease and mortality rate that didn't seem to stop until five years after that horrid day. "I mean, you haven't given up yet…have you?"
"Hardly," she answered her. "I have been taking a break from trying ever since I saw on the news that a wave of murders being committed by a one-man juggernaut was affecting the populations of cities not invaded by those giant monsters that were shown on television."
Mordecai and Mana looked at each other and then back at Mitsuko.
"Uh…a one-man juggernaut, you say?" Mordecai questioned.
"I'm sure you've heard of him," she went on. "That boy that all of Japan believed to be dead? The Ikari kid that murdered most of his family and decimated Tokyo-3 before he murdered his father and died?"
Mana sighed and uttered, "You mean the young man that had a body count of over three-hundred victims, including cops, bounty hunters and criminals?"
"Yeah, him," Mitsuko expressed.
"I heard that he calls himself Death, like the last member of the Four Horsemen," Mordecai explained, "though, without much of the religiousness involved."
"He also only goes after a specific type of people, mostly criminals," Mana added. "You heard about that night in Nagoya?"
"Yeah, but it puzzled me on why he would do what he did. I mean, if he is who the rumors and media believe him to be, why help anyone when he's not exactly a people person? Nobody's ever been nice to him or tried to associate with him. I mean, all but two of the Ikari family is nothing but bad blood."
"Maybe…it's part of his penance," Mana suggested, trying to lie about why Death did any of what he does to people that deserve it. "He can't move on until he learns to accept what most view as unacceptable that happened to them in their former lives."
"Some people believe that he just has some unfinished business around here. Whatever his reasons for coming back, he won't let himself be stopped from achieving his goal."
"Sometimes, the dead take whatever secrets they can to the grave with them," said Mordecai.
-x-
In the silence of his solitude, Death had lost consciousness again, something he was growing irritated with now. In his subconscious mind, the environment he was in resembled a small garden, filled with beautiful flowers and shrubs and a small path from the garden itself to a large, Japanese-styled house. He looked around, but the place looked devoid of any further existence.
Creak. The sound of something from close by caught the horseman's attention, and he walked around a large tree…and saw the source of the noise.
Several feet away, under the shade of the tree, a wooden rocking chair creaked, occupied by a young woman in the company of a man. The horseman recognized the man by his blond hair, and the woman he saw bore an uncanny resemblance to a girl he had seen before.
"I hope we don't have to endure a lot of summer out here," the man said to the woman. "I know I enjoy the days of summer vacation, but a season of summer that may last for years is asking for too much."
"There are parts of the world outside of the country that aren't as affected by what happened as the regions and islands are here," said the woman to him, as Death slowly walked around them, seeing that the woman was holding a bundle in her arms. "I do want for us to have a picture taken in a snowy place, just for one time to reflect upon the times when we could've sat in front of a fireplace or enjoyed drinking hot chocolate."
From a close-enough-yet-far-away distance, Death saw that the woman's bundle was in fact an infant that was being breastfed, oblivious to the world around it. With his enhanced sight, Death saw that the infant was a girl, wrapped in a yellow blanket, with several strands of hair similar to her father's covering her head.
"I don't want this life for us all," the man told the woman, expressing his concern over something. "Second Impact has damaged much of the world, and I don't want for any of us to have to suffer as we try to have a nice life. We should consider moving to the States, maybe to a small countryside where it's peaceful and the neighbors don't gossip about you a lot."
"Maybe, but for the time being, let's just let our daughter enjoy the small life we have here," the woman suggested, not disagreeing with him, but wanting to wait a while, just as her daughter's left hand moved to the upper curve of her left breast. "So long as we have each other, it's not entirely bad here, is it?"
"It's not Heaven, but with you two in my life, it's close enough…and that's enough for me," the man agreed with her, showing a smile on his face.
Then…time seemed to stand still in the garden…until the woman turned to face Death.
"Now, how can such a face that was so young…look so withered with premature aging…and look as though it wore so many burdens?" She questioned him, and seeing the horseman's eyes exhibit a degree of confusion. "A boy that suffered at the hands of people that wouldn't show him an ounce of love or acceptance, shamed by the choices of his family, and driven by anger and desire, only to experience the ultimate pain that he couldn't escape."
Death then approached her, but kept a small distance away from her so as to avoid exciting her to fear.
"You see me," he said, "and know what I am?"
"Your face, withered by a rage that I cannot comprehend, reminds me of a little boy's whose face I saw in a picture only once. You used to be someone that the world after Second Impact took for granted, but now you're something else entirely, not bound by the laws or restraints of the world. Who are you? What more could you be…if not bound by what people refer to as the human condition?"
"I am Death," he answered her. "Death, the Endgame, one of the Four Horsemen of the Restorative. The end of all living things in the form of a deceased child of the world's ravaged state. Who are you?"
"Himeko," she answered him. "Himeko Kannazuki "Kana" Asagi."
"Asagi? As in…Mana Asagi?"
"You know Mana?"
"Is she a relative of yours?"
She looked down at the nursing infant and then back up at the horseman.
"She's my daughter," she revealed.
Before Death could even attempt to utter a new word in a series of words, the world around the two appeared to turn gray. The infant, the husband, the tree, it all turned gray.
"Your daughter is a warm and caring soul," he then told the woman. "You are a lucky woman to have borne such a good person."
"Thank you. Why are you doing what is that you do?"
"I do not follow your question, ma'am."
"You hunt down people that have harmed, lied, stolen and every other form of unforgivable acts to innocent lives…and you pass the ultimate judgment upon them, condemning them to where hope is something that must be earned or bestowed upon you to be redeemed. Why do you go after those that have sinned…knowing that you may be unable to stop them for good?"
"Have you ever been left feeling that you can't save your soul, however twisted, however hopeless, maimed or what have you, unless you save the souls of those that can be saved? Or seen people made to endure some form of degradation that leaves them damaged…or a part of their soul…crippled? And that, no matter how hard you try, how many sinners you condemn, you can't undo what befell the innocent? I've seen several lives of innocent people turned upside-down by people that don't even hope to whoever it is that they worship in their spare time that they'll get away with their crimes. I still carry the memories of my previous self, and he accepted that one way or another, he couldn't wash the blood he covered his hands in…and that he couldn't stop until he made the people that wronged him paid the ultimate price for their cruelty against him. But in his final days, he saw a boy watch his dog get killed by some heartless teens…and he made the killer pay for his crime…just as I made crooked men in business suits pay for harming women by indulging in the flesh."
"You're…you're talking about rape…or…molestation, pedophilia and the like, aren't you?" She asked him, trying to comprehend what he said.
"Yes," he answered. "Also, there have been several authority figures that have abused their power in every sense of the word, and they had to pay for letting the power get to their heads and make them disregard their duty to protect the innocent. For what? Money? Perks? Things I, as a person, will never fully understand? There is no forgiveness for those that will not repent for their sins, and must be punished to the full extent of retribution."
"How many have paid for their sins since you've taken the mantle of Death? Two-hundred? One-thousand? Thirteen-hundred?"
"Seven-thousand-four-hundred-eighty-six and counting."
"Wow. That's a lot of bad guys."
"And bad girls. I've been a busy reaper. But one of the alleged sinners on my list was all but a sinner. He committed a series of indelible acts against others, but he had no choice in the matter. Like certain others that had anything to do with my previous self, they were threatened and made to bend to the will of those that are as heartless as they are or were hopeless. I let him go after examining his soul…and seeing how hard he tried to get away from the shame of his past and start anew…with an adopted daughter from the States. As much as I wanted to murder him, I couldn't do so."
"It must be a sign, then."
"A sign? Of what?"
"That you, a horseman, a person, a former man of mortality, can feel pity, remorse, emotions that those that take or change lives for selfish reasons or for no other reason than to see what could happen. Even a killer can decide not to kill."
"Maybe…maybe… But to protect and serve the innocent, I must punish and enslave the guilty. By ending the lives of sinners, I'll have saved countless lives to live longer."
"But will it be worth your efforts?"
"If there's a day where I can actually enjoy myself, where I can just sit in the sunlight and not worry over even the smallest of troubles…then, yes, it will have been worth my efforts."
"Hmm… You're clearly nothing like that woman you used to be related to," she said. "You have a different approach to the world's flaws and your own methods of how to best handle them."
"What do you know of her? The woman?" He asked.
Himeko sighed and expressed, "We used to be good friends when we met up in college…but after a long time, we went our separate ways. She just…seemed to have a degree of wanting to control you a little more than what was accepted as necessary. And then…she started to push her friends away, including myself, with what she wanted for us to do with her and for her."
Death remained silent, but gestured for her to continue.
"It was about a year after Second Impact, after the horror that was unleashed upon the world, devastating much of the land and causing a decline in the population of the planet, that I saw her again, but instead of a reconciliation of friendship, there was nothing but resentment and disgust on my part. She found out I had become a pediatrician and…"
"A what?" Death cut her off, confused by the word she had used to define herself.
"A pediatrician," she answered him, but he still looked confused, despite his blank expression. "A doctor that specializes in taking care of children. A baby doctor, if you will."
"Oh," he responded, and motioned for her to resume.
"She wanted me to quit my job and come work for some research organization called GEHIRN," she resumed, "but I declined, saying that I liked what I did for a living, that it was my dream, and I had fulfilled it. I was also happily married to my husband and we were expecting Mana (she looks down at the infant in her arms), but then she started to get too demanding."
"Demanding?" Death echoed.
"Have you ever had anyone say 'no' to you before? Have you ever been refused?"
"In that pitiful past and this purgatory existence."
"She would call obsessively. So much so that I had to get my number changed at least two times. I would even get the feeling that I was being followed. I couldn't take my daughter for a simple, afternoon stroll without her trying to persuade me to come work with her. One day, I confronted her about why she really wanted me to join her organization…and soon wished I hadn't."
Death continued to listen, hearing this ghost of a woman that used to be friends with his bitch of a former mother, how Yui had explained to her that GEHIRN was on the verge of changing the world for all of mankind, and that she was being offered the chance to usher the people into a brighter future. But Himeko had declined for the final time, saying that people couldn't save the world with whatever it was she was doing, and that her family came first before the world and that there was no way she would be interested in anything beyond helping the children in the capacity that she had set for herself. And then, she revealed that she had to get a restraining order placed on Yui because she kept harassing her wherever she went.
Suddenly, a gentle breeze swept up beside the two, and, like dust, the man and the infant disappeared from sight.
"It's because of Yui that I lost my family…my friends…and my future," she revealed to him, falling out of the chair and onto her knees and palms. "I never saw a white light. I never saw the deities, or any angels. There was only darkness…for what felt like an eternity…and then I saw my daughter for the first time in over a decade. It was through her memories that I discovered that my absence had spanned ten years, and ever since my death, the family has lived abroad, like nomads, never staying in one place for more than a few months or more."
"Until one day, they returned to Japan, most likely after Shinji Ikari died, and your daughter was requested by NERV to operate one of their behemoths."
"Yes. She ended up in the seat of a dangerous weapon that I didn't want her to be in at all. I guess it was only blind luck that your continued presence in her life kept her from getting harmed."
"Except she was made sick by one of the horsemen I have yet to ride with. Conquest, the Poison Master, he used her to spread a sickness that crippled NERV when I was incapacitated. She may have not been killed, but she was harmed for a time."
"But her later encounter with you was proof that she wasn't in any real danger. She recovered and got away from further danger."
Death then concluded that this woman's knowledge of her daughter's encounters with him through her memories weren't as concrete as they could've been because she hadn't been made aware of the danger Mana had been in with the most recent encounter with him.
"My presence endangered her with a red behemoth," he told her. "I endangered her…when all I was trying to do was rescue my brother. I wouldn't say that any encounter with me is blind luck. There is no luck with Death."
"That's not what some of the people whose lives you saved believe," she told him, once more relying on her daughter's memories during each of her stints in the Eva. "Those people in Nagoya, the children in Osaka, even those beyond the Asian lands, they view you as a saint, a guardian, someone that does what he can to protect the helpless."
Suddenly, a dark presence was felt by Death, and he looked up at the sky. He saw a burning sphere approaching where they were.
"Oh, no," Himeko gasped. "She's found me."
"Who?" He questioned, turning to face her.
"Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu. She was a fellow scientist that worked alongside Yui Ikari, but unlike Yui, she went insane. She and her daughter are both bad to the bone, violent, invasive, intolerable. Death, could you do something for me?"
"What?"
"Keep my daughter safe from NERV and Yui," she requested of him. "No one is safe from the Eva as long as it exists. It's a sickness that mustn't spread any further than it already has."
As the burning sphere got closer, it began to look like the red behemoth that stepped on Death.
"But she left NERV," he told her. "She gave up the behemoth after her father pleaded for her to get away after my continued presence placed her in would-be danger."
"As long as the Eva exists, Mana won't be safe from it. So long as my soul remains trapped in one, they'll come after her and force her to pilot it again if they feel they need to. Please, I beg of you, horseman, keep her safe. Look out for her!"
Soon, the color around them became red and orange.
"Please!" She cried out to him, and soon enough, the entire place became engulfed in flames.
"Grrraaurgh!" The burning behemoth roared at them.
FLASH!
Death's eyes flashed open, and he blinked several times as he rose up from his stone cot.
"Death?" Mako went, seeing him get up onto his feet. "Are you okay?"
"Please!" Death heard Himeko beg him in his mind. "Protect my daughter!"
With an unnecessary intake of new air, the horseman sighed and went over to the trunk where he kept his firearms. Putting on his scabbard and shotgun, pistols and sub-machine guns, magazines and bandolier of shotgun shells, Death left out of the cave, leaving his twin to follow him.
"Um, Death," Mako tried to get his attention, "what's in your pit?"
"It could be nothing," he told him. "It might be nothing. I just need to go make sure that it is nothing."
"Care to tell me what this nothing could be about?"
"You'll know when I know."
"I thought as much."
-x-
"…This is the prototype of the new Dummy Plug," Yui introduced the holograms of the SEELE council to the Entry Plug that was painted red, green and black. "It has been successfully uploaded with the thought patterns of…the chosen subject, however the digitization of a soul hasn't been possible with him. His soul…wasn't there, anymore. In the end, it's nothing more than an advanced machine designed to imitate one's thought patterns."
"The Dummy Plug works by sending a signal to the Eva," went SEELE 07. "All the Eva needs to do is think that a pilot in inside the plug, then synch with the signal."
"Will it function enough that it replaces the need for human pilots?" SEELE 03 asked.
"My team has ran several simulations, but an actual test has yet to be concluded," Yui responded. "We hope that by the end of the day, it will meet all the requirements."
"See to it that it does so, Ikari," went SEELE 01, only partially pleased with this progress. "With only two pilots present, there's no telling when, if at all, the Angels will make their move on us. Or the horseman himself."
"Yes, sir," she replied, and then the meeting was over.
-x-
"…This is the seventh time this has happened," went Maya Ibuki to Ritsuko Akagi, as the entire bridge crew watched the synchronization test continue with the Second and Fifth Children, both amazed and curious about the Fifth Child.
"Were the systems checked again before this test was ran?" Ritsuko questioned.
"For the seventh time," Hyuga answered. "Everything checked out perfect."
"It's still incredible that this is happening," the commander expressed. "And this was originally thought to be impossible, to be able to sync with an Eva…before the core was even reconfigured to accommodate you. And yet, this is happening."
"Should we investigate this?" Fuyutsuki asked him.
"Be discreet," he answered.
In the plug, the Fifth Child, Kaworu Nagisa, sat quietly as he focused on synchronizing with the soul of Unit-03, though this was unlikely going to happen, as the soul refused to connect with him. But the lack of contact between soul and pilot proved not to be a problem for him, as he still managed to have a high enough synchronization ratio to pass the tests he was put through.
In the neighboring plug, the German redhead, having recently had her suspension lifted by the commander, found the presence of the Fifth Child to be quite irritable. With the loss of the Fourth Child (which she later discovered that several Section Two agents that had been assigned to watch the Asagi house where the girl "miraculously" turned up after being taken by the Horseman of Death), she felt that NERV's acquisition of the Fifth Child made her status as the best pilot all the more endangered, though she didn't need to voice her opinion of this. She knew that they knew that she was the best, that she was the strongest pilot. Even against the Horseman of Death, she managed to cause him some trouble in the initial encounter, incapacitating him by stepping on him.
Even she knew she was the best, and there was no one and nothing that could or would change that.
-x-
On their way back home, Mana noticed a small body of fog that seemed to be dissipating.
"Hey, Daddy, do you see that?" She asked her father.
Mordecai looked up ahead, but barely saw the dissipating fog.
"I don't see anything, Mana," he told her.
"I saw some fog up ahead."
Then, coming from around the street, they saw Death walking their way, accompanied by his ghostly twin, Mako.
"Ugh," Mordecai shuddered.
Death then stopped three feet away from them. He looked at the father and daughter, seeing that they seemed well.
"Hello," he then greeted them.
"Hello," Mana replied.
"It's been quite a while since I last seen you."
"Almost three weeks."
"Has it really been that long?"
Mana nodded that it has been that long.
"May I presume that you're here to collect on a would-be debt that my daughter owes you, Mr. Death?" Mordecai asked the horseman.
"No," he answered him. "My reason for being here…is about keeping her safe (he pointed to Mana)."
"Safe?" Mana questioned. "From what?"
"NERV."
Mako turned to face Death and responded, "Why would she need protection from NERV? She's not affiliated with them any longer. She's just a kid."
"All I can say for now…is that I've been asked to watch over her. And I must ask…that you trust me when I say that I mean you no harm."
As the sun was now out of sight, the horseman's presence was all but obscured from the public. Unless people were out and about and walking down the street, Death was as he always was in existence, and that was unseen, unheard and unstoppable.
"Daddy," Mana said to her father, "may we invite Death inside?"
"Can I trust you won't try anything with Mana?" Mordecai asked Death, who nodded. "Okay."
They led the dead twins into their house, but as Death stood in the small yard, he began to notice an aura of familiarity that was similar to what he had experienced in his most recent gap of being unconscious. It was as though…he had a moment where he could smile…but not quite yet.
"Death?" Mana called to the horseman, getting his attention. "Would you like to come in?"
He nodded again, and stepped inside the house.
"My Kami," he heard an elderly man's voice express, and saw an elderly man.
"Grandfather," Mana uttered to the elder, "this is Death, the Endgame. He's visiting for a while."
Death looked at the elder and suspected that he was trying not to show fear, which might've been difficult due to Death wearing his weapons. He could see the aura of this man's soul and saw no inch of sins layered in him.
"Might I place my arms somewhere to alleviate fear?" He asked Mana.
"Um… Well, there's the closet," she suggested, guessing that her grandfather was afraid of Death because of his weapons.
Death removed his shotgun scabbard, sub-machine guns and pistols, though he made sure that they were disarmed and emptied, and placed them in the closet. He kept his magazines and bandolier on him, just in case he needed them.
"Grandfather, there's no need to be afraid of Death," he heard Mana say to the elder. "He's not here to hurt us."
"It's hard not to be afraid of him when he resembles someone that amassed a large body count of victims before he came to an end," the elder expressed.
"I won't deny that he still frightens me a little, but I can't see Death as the same person that past away in that city. And…he actually looks nice when you look past what he's done to the bad guys."
Death entered the living room where Mordecai was, seeing the father sitting on one of the floor mats, where he looked at him.
"Well," he asked the horseman, "are you going to sit down?"
Death sat on the floor mat opposite of his and placed his hands on the small table in between them. He looked at the girl's father and could smell the tenseness of his heartbeat.
"I make you uncomfortable?" He asked.
"A bit," the man answered. "It's not everyday you have somebody that is, more or less, supernatural in your home."
"I wouldn't know of the sort…and I've seen the supernatural."
"You've seen people perform feats that are beyond logic?"
"Seen, hear, even performed for myself. Sad to say, I can't express amazement in the things I've done."
"That must be the downside of being the undead incarnation of a young man that had to cripple himself emotionally to refrain from reacting to pain," both mortal and undead turned and looked at Mana, who had changed out of her clothes and into an oversized, yellow shirt, carrying a tray with a teapot and three cups. "Who you used to be must've had a difficult time with his emotions if he couldn't express them. To be unable or unwilling to smile, to laugh, or any such emotion, however large or small, can leave you wondering…if at all…if you'll ever demonstrate any emotion ever again."
His neutral expression didn't change, but Mana knew that Death was affected by her choice of words.
"Of course, I'm not one to talk about such things," she added, hoping to alleviate any measure of negativity he might've felt.
Death turned away from her and uttered, "It…wasn't difficult for him to cease feeling when the people around him showed him nothing but apathy. As a consequence of this apathy, all but one emotion remained that was all he could express…without expressing it. And that emotion…was the smoldering rage that he didn't want to feel towards people, but his maternal aunt lit the metaphorical match and sparked the inferno that would consume him to his final moments. It was only when he saw that woman that was supposed to be his mother that his rage reached a breaking point over him…and he lost control over his facial expressions, showing his rage. Even as he allowed himself to succumb to his end, he could feel his anger still holding onto him."
"Like a grudge?" Mordecai asked him.
"Daddy, I don't think anything that references that particular movie will make any sense to him," said Mana to them. "And…that was only make-believe."
"Anger is an emotion that can take over anyone," Death uttered. "While the anger still resided within Shinji Ikari, he had already paid the ultimate price for his revenge against the Ikari family, thus having no further need to indulge in violence against anyone else. The people he had marked for his brand of justice were no different from how people of the generation the Atom Bomb was used. He took them out in anger…in order to make sure that he never had to be angry at them again. Anyone can die with their soul locked in rage, but the ones that can keep their rage in check…or even let it go…are the ones that normally ascend to a better place after their time among mortals."
As Mana poured some tea into the cups, she sat down in front of the two, just as Mako floated around the room with no destination in mind.
"Does he often do that?" Mordecai questioned, referring to Mako floating around.
"He's only grounded when he's at rest," Death explained, and accepted the cup of tea from Mana. "But he makes good company, regardless of his levitating around."
Accepting the second cup from his daughter, Mordecai uttered, "Most unusual for a ghost baby."
"And I'm the elder twin," Mako told him.
"And he's more adept at talking than I am," added Death.
-x-
SWAT! Conquest had fired his seventeenth arrow of the evening at one of his dummy targets, honing his aim and accuracy. He looked at how each arrow had hit a vital spot of each target, guaranteeing that each potential victim would go down without a fight. And what was an improvement was that he had increased the distance between himself and his targets by an additional thirty-seven yards, making his accuracy one-hundred-forty-two yards.
"I thought I'd find you out here," he turned and saw Gaia approaching him, and he put his bow down. "No shame in improving one's accuracy."
"I'm starting to wonder if the last two messengers will ever arrive and this cause will progress further," he told her. "I feel like I'm going crazy, feeling like I'm repeating the same day too many times."
"The other deities haven't spoken to me about the remaining messengers and their chosen locales," she told him. "What about doing what Death has been doing with his time?"
"I've found hunting criminals to be more of his thing than anything I could do. How he manages to do what he does and not get bored doing such a difficult labor is a mystery."
"Death has the patience for the choices he makes. He has lived with his patience when he died as Shinji Ikari, and his ability to be patient transferred to his horseman incarnation…just as many of your traits were transferred to your horseman incarnation."
Conquest sighed and picked up his bow again, conjuring a new arrow, and hitting the head of his dummy target, cleaving the previous arrow that was there.
"Bravo," Gaia praised him, clapping her hands.
"I'm starting to regret something I once said to my mother when I was alive," he expressed. "She once told me that she dreamt of angels, but my father was her demon that she had to live with. I once told her that…how could I dream of angels…when everyone treated me like I was a demon. After she died, for the longest time, I had wished I could've taken back what I said to her. My only hatred for her…was her inability to truly love me, regardless of how I came to be. And I've yet to find the guy that hurt her."
Gaia approached him and removed his hood, placing her palms on his scarred and inhuman face.
"A famous poet once wrote, 'The mind is its own place, and it can make a Heaven out of Hell, a Hell out of Heaven'. People, even Horsemen of the Restorative, can torture themselves with a sense of hopelessness or even a feeling of failure when they should perceive what they've done as measures of success or just another step closer to an achievement."
"John Milton's Paradise Lost," Conquest expressed, revealing that he had spent some time reading the poet's work. "One portion of his work that plagued me was always this: 'One state cannot be severed; we are one, one flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself'. I could never understand what that meant, that one state cannot be severed, and to lose thee were to lose myself."
"One can say that it means, in a mortal sense, that what becomes part of them can never be undone. To lose what became part of them…is to lose themselves entirely. But can we really never be severed from one state or another?"
"Can a soul that has left its original vessel to be reborn in a new vessel truly leave its emotional and psychological baggage behind?"
"That's up to the soul in question."
As she traced the scars on his face with her fingers, the Poison Master's eyes glazed over with the memories of his previous life, of how he was shunned because of what he was in life: The bastard offspring of a man believed by his mother to be a member of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It was this aspect of his existence that has, more or less, kept him from moving on, and it was the desire for closure and revenge against the man that made his mother's life a nightmare towards the end of her days that led him to becoming a Horseman of the Restorative…and the oldest member of the new quartet that served under Mother Gaia, and Heaven by extension.
"Will I get justice?" He asked Gaia. "Will I ever face the monster that hurt my mother?"
Gaia thought about his question…and answered, just as she reached for his hood, "I have faith that you will come face-to-face with the horseman that cursed you…and I have a feeling that you won't be the only one that will have to face a personal demon."
Conquest's left eye glowed brightly for a moment, but then returned to its normal coloring.
Neigh. The whining of his white stallion came to their attention, and the Poison Master turned to face his beast of burden.
"Looks like you have a messenger to protect," Gaia told him.
"Yeah," he agreed. "I guess I do."
-x-
"…Um, Daddy," went Mana, stepping into the living room where her father and Death were still. "Dinner's ready."
"I know, Mana," Mordecai expressed. "Death could smell it."
The girl looked at the horseman and asked him, "Is there anything you can't smell?"
"There is nothing that I can't smell that leaves a scent," Death told her.
"Well, I'll… I'll let Daddy wash his hands while I set up the table."
As Mordecai got up to go wash his hands, Death also got up to follow Mana to the kitchen. Within the kitchen, the smell of the warm food was strongest, and it made the horseman's nose take in more of the scent than he had in the other room.
"Um, maybe you could help me set the table, Death," Mana suggested, holding a small stack of plates in her hands.
He nodded, and held out his hands.
When Mordecai returned with his hands sanitized, the table was set, but what caught him off guard was who was sitting next to his daughter.
Death, probably uncomfortable with what he was doing, was sitting on Mana's right side, as if he was going to dine with them. His right hand, still covered in the armor of his gauntlet, was no longer sporting those spiked knuckles that had been similar to the ones he had removed from his left hand, and he had removed his coat.
"Don't ask," went Miroku to Mordecai, "but your daughter offered him a warm meal."
"Oh. But… I thought that Death couldn't eat."
Mako appeared behind Death and expressed, "None of the horsemen, with the sole exception of Famine, need to eat or sleep, but can because old habits as a mortal are hard to break. The old habits being eating and sleeping."
"Except that I don't sleep," Death explained. "Ever since I was stepped on, there have been periods where I lose consciousness, which is different from sleep. I lose various gaps in time."
"That's…very rough," said Mordecai, as he sat across the side of the table where Mana was sitting. "Tuna casserole and meatloaf. I do hope that you enjoy your meal, Death."
Death nodded, though he had a different situation in front of him right now: He had never used eating tools before, not since the day his mortal incarnation committed his first kills. He had always used his hands, as humans had since the primeval times. A knife and fork in front of him, and he felt like was being tested of his former traits that he had to have still possessed.
Mana noticed this, realizing that he must've never used utensils in a long time, and decided to give him a visual lesson. It was never wrong to help someone learn something, even if that someone was not like other people. She picked up her fork and knife and slowly cut through her piece of meatloaf so that Death knew what to do.
Death watched her, and slowly picked up the fork with his right hand and the knife with his left hand. He placed the fork into the meatloaf and the knife against it, cutting into the soft substance. It brought up the memories of the time he cut through flesh with a knife… No, he wasn't going to go down that path, not tonight, and not in front of some nice people. He cut a small piece and picked it up.
Mordecai watched as Death put the piece of meatloaf into his mouth. Something in the horseman must've been triggered, because Mordecai thought he saw the young man's skin tone change a little bit. The sight of his mouth moving as he chewed on the meatloaf before swallowing, and he was curious.
"Well, Death?" Miroku questioned their guest.
The horseman's face was straining, contorting…into a small smile. Death had formed his first, actual smile in front of them.
"Good," he told them. "This is…good."
"It's his first warm meal," went Mako, as his brother tried some of the tuna casserole.
-x-
"…Dummy Plug has been successfully implemented," a female technician said, as Yui watched the Evangelion the autopilot device was being used on.
"It works, Ikari," a male scientist said behind her. "The Eva's fooled into thinking there's some kid in it when there isn't. Congratulations."
As the new tests were being run, the woman could only sigh as SEELE would be pleased that their new Dummy System was now capable of being mass-produced and replace the human element that was any child pilot that may have had trouble following orders that they were uncomfortable following…or demonstrating fear or hesitation.
-x-
Replacing his spiked knuckles after enjoying such a meal, Death stood outside the house and stared at the night sky. He smiled for the first time in his undead existence, and he wasn't even trying to. It just…happened, and after eating something warm for the first time.
"I must say, you were an unusual dinner guest," he turned and saw Mordecai behind him.
"For smiling or for asking for seconds?" Death questioned.
"Both, really. But a good dinner guest, all the same. I'm glad Mana offered you dinner."
Before he could respond, Death turned to the house across the street, looking up at the roof. And then, he closed his right hand into a fist.
"I need to get going now," he told Mordecai. "I appreciate your hospitality…and I shall return."
"Just tell me one thing," Mordecai stopped him from leaving for just a minute more. "Is it NERV?"
Death nodded that it was, and the young girl's father sighed in acceptance of this revelation.
"Do what you have to," he told him.
"I always do," the horseman expressed, and jumped up into the air, impressing the father.
"Whoa."
-x-
"He saw us! He knew we were there!" A man in a black suit cried, running down the street with his partner.
"How could he know we were there?! It was dark! Unless he has demonic eyes!" The other man panted, trying to get to their car.
Their dark blue, unmarked Sedan was in sight, but they had to stop due to the horrid sight in front of them now.
"Oh, Hell, no!" They gasped.
Death, sitting on the hood, with his sickle out beside him on his right, which he had used to slash the car's tires, looking at them with his cold, emotionless face.
"I'll allow you a moment to pray before you die," he told them, getting off the car and standing in front of them. "You can use this moment to tell me why you were spying on the Asagi house, as well."
The man on the left took out a gun and aimed it at Death's head.
"You will not kill me," he told him.
"You were spying on a family that had a member that severed their ties with NERV. You made yourselves a threat to their lives by trying to put tabs on them, and for that, you have sinned, and sinners must be dealt with."
"We were just following orders," the other guy explained.
"Whose orders?"
"Doctor Akagi's."
Death recalled Mako's details to him about the faux-blond woman he had crippled in life, and how she was driven by revenge to get rid of him, despite a feat being impossible. He suddenly frowned at how the woman from his mortal past tried to get in the way of his future and the future of the world itself.
"I want you two to give your superiors a message," he then told the men, and swiftly slashed the gun out of the hand of the one that threatened to shoot him, watching it fall to the ground.
"Aaaurgh!" He groaned, fortunate enough to still have his fingers.
"I want you to spread the word," the horseman continued. "The Asagi family is off-limits to NERV and any other agency that deals in trying to eliminate the Angels and the Four Horsemen. Leave them be. If you value however many days you have left to live, you will leave them be."
And then, Death slashed at their arms and legs until they were both on the ground.
"Aaaaahh! Aaah! Aaaahh!" They screamed, feeling the blade cut through the flesh and down to their bones, unable to believe he was able to move at such an impossible speed.
"Consider yourselves lucky for now," he told them, appearing behind them. "As painful as your injuries may feel, the majority of them are nonfatal. I can't have you dying before you deliver the message. Now, get the Hell out of here…and don't let me catch any more of you spying on the Asagis. Got it?"
They nodded and painfully got up and staggered to their Sedan, driving on their slashed tires and getting away from the horseman.
-x-
"Even with the successful implementation of the new Dummy System, dealing with the Angels is only half the battle," went SEELE 05 to the other council members. "There's still the Four Horsemen. Mostly Death."
"We may have to trespass on grounds that were never meant to be trespassed upon in order to deal with the horsemen," SEELE 01 expressed.
"Do we mean to evoke the damned souls of the Book of Revelation?" SEELE 07 questioned.
"We may have no choice if we want to dispose of these horsemen."
"Very well, then," went SEELE 10. "Evoke the damned from the book. Offer them the souls of those left on the planet, all save our own, or even several Evas after this struggle is over. Send them after the dead boy that has caused us enough trouble. Let them destroy those that dare to get in our way!"
-x-
The fallen few that dared to return to Hong Kong were now reduced to sickly, emaciated husks. This was the result of Conquest's arrows of poison designed to kill and leave only dried-out remains. As he counted at least eighteen men that thought they could get into the city without being seen or heard, the Poison Master thought them to be fools for trying the impossible, for the Four Horsemen would always know…and be around to deal with them in order to ensure that both the cities were empty and the Angels were protected. Nothing and nobody were to interfere.
"Pathetic," he called the remains, walking over them as he returned to his horse.
PIERCE! Conquest suddenly felt something strike him in the back of his heart, but felt nothing penetrate his flesh. It was almost as if something had happened outside of his awareness, but was close enough to spark a sense of disorientation and concern.
"Rrrrraaurgh!" Gaghiel roared, and Conquest looked up at the buildings he was hanging on.
With his superior sight, the Poison Master zoomed in on the Angel and saw someone atop its head, someone that wasn't supposed to be on the messenger at all.
"What in the name of Gaia is that?" He questioned, and then jumped up into the air, caught an updraft of thermals, and levitated higher into the air until he was over the Angel's body, where he lowered to its back, facing the new culprit that dared to interfere with the Restorative's good work. "You have no business being here."
"Oh, I have every right to be here," the man, looking well into his late-forties, dressed in a black suit and wearing reddish-orange glasses, responded. "You're to give Death a message from me."
"I don't do errands for those I've just met, and I certainly don't do errands for mortals." Conquest told him, and then shot an arrow through him in the chest.
"Ugh!" The man grunted, and his glasses fell off.
Conquest waited for the poison on the arrowhead to take effect, spreading through his bloodstream and seeping through his organs to cause instant death. But then his eyes widened as the man grabbed the arrow and removed it.
"If I were still alive, this would've killed me," he told Conquest, and discarded the arrow. "Thankfully, I'm no longer among the living. I have Death to thank for that. I stand here because of Death. Because of Death, I've lost everything."
"Everyone tends to lose everything because of Death, though he has his reasons for going after those that deserve it."
"Not me. Not me! You tell him that his mortal past will come for him! His past will be his undoing!"
Conquest saw him walk to his left of the Angel and fall off the messenger. He ran over to see what would become of him, but saw no trace of the man that had fallen.
He had vanished.
Mother Gaia will need to be informed, he thought.
A/N: Any guess on who that man talking to Conquest was and why he didn't die from his arrow? Hope you'll look forward to the next chapter. Read and review, please. Peace!