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?

20. The Penultimate Location

Creation began on 04-03-15

Creation ended on 05-11-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

A New Cause: The Penultimate Location

Rain was a cleansing necessity for most of Japan right now. It had been hot for several days, and a period of humidity was cooling the heat of the grass and concrete.

Inside the Asagi house, Death sat quietly on the floor in their living room, cross-legged and cross-armed, with his eyes closed so that he could focus on his hearing.

Creak. The sound of the floorboards shifting under the weight of a pair of legs caught his attention, but he didn't open his eyes just yet; he wanted to keep up with the illusion that he was inactive.

"Death?" A young, feminine voice spoke up, and he recognized it as Mana's, and then opened his eyes to look at her.

Mana was at the entrance to the room, dressed in a green nightie with her hair wrapped in a ponytail.

"You should be asleep," he told her. "It's still late in the night."

But instead of responding just yet, she stepped into the room and sat on one of the couches and looked out the window at the rainy weather.

"I woke up feeling a little restless," she explained to him. "So I came down to see you and Mako."

Floating aimlessly in the air of the room, Mako was asleep, mirroring a sleeping infant.

"Mako appears to be the one that sleeps for me as an undead."

-x-

"…Hmm, it would seem that the feeling of the winter season is aching to return badly," Mother Gaia expressed, sitting against the tree in front of her adopted daughter's grave. "I hope to see children play in snow one day."

The goddess rested her head back and dozed off, untouched by the rain that touched everywhere else on her island.

Mother Gaia, a voice called out to her. Mother Gaia…the finale is almost upon the planet. The souls of the innocent dead are restless… Heaven's avian servant shall arise, choosing its location… Salvage the tool that could hinder our desperation.

With her new instructions, the goddess rose up and walked away from the grave, needing to seek out her Restorative Horseman of Famine, having a new task for him to do.

"Famine," she called out for him. "Where are you, Famine? I need your assistance for something new and necessary."

From behind the trees leading to the woods, a black horse galloped towards her, carrying a small person atop it.

"Mother Gaia," the voice of Famine came as he appeared in front the deity. "You called for me?"

"Yes," she answered him, stroking the neck of his horse. "I have just been informed by the heavenly deities that a new messenger would arrive, but before you go to ensure that it is protected from harm, I need you to go to the South Pole."

"But, Mother Gaia, that place is a virtual wasteland. Nothing exists there…all save several pillars."

"We need to salvage the Spear of Longinus, Famine."

Famine's eyes widened at the sound of the request he was being given by her.

"That relic…is an omen of grave misfortune," he told her.

"Misfortune to mortal hands," she assured him, "but not to your hands or those of a deity. Mortals haven't reclaimed it yet because they rely too much on their science and technology for the wrong reasons. So long as they're distracted, you should have ample time to retrieve it."

"Very well, then. I shall retrieve the Spear of Longinus."

Before he left, Gaia assured him that when he brought the tool back, it would be kept safe from misuse.

-x-

The rain wasn't letting up, but that didn't stop Mana from looking out the window at the cloudy skies as said weather continued to dominate the outside world for the time being.

As she looked at the outside, Death continued to sit where he had been since the remainder of the night, now using Mana's drawing pad to create another picture of the girl that wasn't posing.

Mako, still floating aimlessly in the air above them as he slept, now floated above his brother, obscuring some of the light in the room that Death used to examine and evaluate the coloring detail of the picture, but the horseman didn't pay this no mind, since his previous incarnation had lived in an environment with limited lighting. Then, the ghost infant awoke and turned over, looking down at his brother and the incomplete drawing, seeing such surrealism in it.

"Looks like another masterpiece, Death," he expressed.

"Thank you," Death responded.

Mana heard the two and asked, "Is Mako awake?"

"Yes, I'm awake," Mako answered her. "And I feel as though my brother and I are turning into the guests that become parasites over time."

"In what way are we like parasites, brother?" Death asked him.

"We consume," he explained. "We consume…until there is nothing left to consume."

The horseman then stopped his progress on the drawing and looked up at Mana, still looking out at the sky…and then set the color pencil down.

"Miss Asagi," he spoke up to the girl, "are we like parasites in your eyes?"

Mana turned to look at the twins, confused a little by the younger brother's question, and responded, "No, Death, you two aren't parasites. If you take for yourselves and give nothing back, that's when you're considered a parasite. But if you take…and give back, then you're not a parasite…but a symbiote, which is the opposite of a parasite."

Death then recalled his spiritual encounter with the girl's mother…and decided she had every right to know of his current reason for needing to keep watch over her.

"You and that film about the boy that obtains spider-like powers said that secrets have a cost," he stated, "and how the second film states that the truth has a cost, as well. But…the revelation of a truth is able to set one free…in a way."

"Yes."

"Then…I have been keeping a secret…without meaning to…and I should explain why."

Death has a secret? Mana thought, wondering what this horseman was talking about now.

"When I said I needed to keep watch over you because I was requested by someone to do so, I didn't say who…because there were many ways to either drive a person into instability or be viewed as unstable…as I had been viewed in life," Death went. "But I will not lie to you. I was requested to look after you…by the soul of your mother, Ms. Asagi."

Mako looked at Mana and was just as surprised as she had been.

"Are you sure you were visited by a soul that had departed this world, Death?" He asked him, just wanting some clarification.

"It was during the last time we were with Mother Gaia on her domain, before we were informed of the Apocalyptic Horseman of Death," Death revealed, and the elder twin recalled his brother regaining consciousness during what had been a while he had blacked out.

Mana then got up and ran out the room…only to return with a picture from off the wall.

"You're sure my mother was speaking to you?" She asked him, her tone firm, as she presented the picture of her parents and herself. "Are you sure the person looked like her?"

He viewed the photo and expressed, "Yes. I don't forget a face. She was the person I saw."

"How did she seem?"

"At first, she seemed at peace, but then she saw me and after talking to me, another spirit, one that seemed full of malice, was approaching, and then she asked me to keep you safe from NERV."

"But…if I resigned from NERV, why would I need to your protection from them? Why would she ask of you to do this for her and myself?"

"She was afraid of NERV coming back for you, so long as the Eva existed. There was something else she said that I didn't understand very well…until I paid more attention to a previous conversation I had with Mother Gaia. Those behemoths they think they can control…are infused with the souls of women that had children after that devastating event fifteen years ago. Your mother said…that as long as she was trapped in one, NERV could come for you…and force you to operate their behemoths if they feel they need to."

"So she asked you to protect me from such a possibility. Wait a minute, I think that explains an odd feeling I often got whenever I was inside Unit-03."

"An odd feeling?" Mako asked.

"Yeah. In Unit-03, I felt like someone was watching me. Two people, one of whom feels compelled to keep me safe, no matter what…and the other that seems driven to consume all that they can."

"Like a parasite?" Death asked.

"Yeah, like a parasite. So…my mother…or at least her soul…is stuck inside Unit-03?"

"I can't confirm or deny this to be true, but if your mother is inside Unit-03, she needs to be set free."

"One thing I am glad about being away from NERV, though, is that I don't have to put up with Ms. Soryu's attitude against me."

"Soryu?"

"She means a girl with red hair," Mako explained to Death, "and an ego the size of her behemoth, Evangelion Unit-02."

"The mortal War has a violent lust for," Death expressed.

"I don't even want to know why," went Mana.

-x-

"…We shall get to it, then," Commander Chansu uttered over the phone, and slumped into his chair when the call ended. But their order doesn't make any sense. Why should the Unit-03 core be installed into Unit-01? Miss Asagi isn't even with NERV, anymore.

Meanwhile, during another synchronization test, Kaworu Nagisa and Asuka Langley Soryu were being evaluated by Ritsuko and the technicians in charge of the test.

"Doctor Akagi," went Maya to the faux-blond woman, "the commander requests you and Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki in his office after the test is over."

Ritsuko nodded in acceptance, still curious over how the Fifth Child was able to sync with the core of Unit-03…when it wasn't even configured to accommodate him. She wondered if there was more to this boy than what was known to them already.

"Captain Katsuragi," went Maya again, this time to Misato, who was also present during the test, "the commander wants to see you right now."

"Hmm? Very well, then," Misato responded and left the room.

-x-

Nothing could ever survive in what was once the South Pole, a former land of ice and snow.

Suddenly, from within the reddish ocean waters, deprived of even microbial lifeforms, a large, red, two-pronged fork arose into the air, gripped in the large maw of the serpent-like beast that was ridden upon by Famine, fulfilling his task appointed to him by Mother Gaia.

"Grrrr," the beast growled, keeping the Spear of Longinus gripped tightly in its maw.

"Mission accomplished, Hemokai," Famine praised his beast, holding onto the reins on its neck. "Let's get this back to Gaia."

The beast then swam against the tides and headed west, approaching a buildup of fog that appeared out of nowhere.

-x-

War had finished his rounds of checking Toronto and was checking New York. He had to incinerate at least eight people that were trying to loot a store, showing once more the consequences that befell any that tried to enter a chosen location.

"Whoa, there," he stopped his horse as he saw something on the streets of Brooklyn; after he had done his history on this city and the five boroughs that served as its physical foundation, War realized how much of the city he needed to clean out of people to ensure Shamshel's protection along with their own, and where the line was drawn so he couldn't stray too far.

He climbed off the saddle and approached what he saw. It was some sort of shuriken, but when he picked it up, he discovered something that seemed out of place for it.

This isn't ivory, he thought, raising the weapon over his head to get a better look at it, seeing that the four sides of it, while curved and sharp, had an organic feel to it. This thing's made of some sort of bone. Who makes a shuriken out of bone?

"My, my, you've turned out quite well for a fallen soul," he heard a female voice nearby.

Turning around, the horseman looked at a corner and saw a person dressed in armor, accompanied by a strange creature that looked like a cross between a horse and a rhino, draped in pieces of rags that didn't look like rags.

"You're trespassing upon grounds under divine protection," War informed them. "Leave now, if you value your life…or be burned into the abyss of Hell."

"Your idle threats don't frighten me," the armored figure responded, revealing herself to be the owner of the voice. "You remind me of someone I used to know. He was about your age, dedicated to a former cause that consumed him."

War removed his helmet and exposed his face to the person.

"Whatever your cause is, it's about to become scorched flesh," he threatened her.

"Now, now, could you really hurt me?" She asked him, removing her helmet and revealing her face to the horseman. "Could you hurt the very woman that bore you in life…and condemned you to death?"

War dropped his helmet in shock…and unsheathed his sword and set it ablaze.

"I could," he answered her. "I should know. I killed you after I rose back from being dead centuries ago. You went to Hell, and I went to sleep. I saved the kingdom you had betrayed."

"I wouldn't expect you to understand why I did what I did."

"Understand this: Before we stop talking, do you want to start running?"

The woman smirked…and then manifested a sword of her own, made of bone and steel.

"Not the battle I was really hoping for," she uttered, "but you'll do."

-x-

Mordecai and Miroku were sitting in front of Death, stunned on an emotional level over what had been said to them; it wasn't every day that a purgatory incarnation of a young man from a disgraced family revealed that he'd been contacted by the soul of a deceased woman associated to their family.

"…So…Himeko's spirit…was captured and bound to that giant monster that agency made?" Miroku questioned Death.

"It's the only explanation," the horseman responded. "It was only during a moment where I lost consciousness, but communication with her soul was real…and genuine. There's no such thing as a false soul."

"But how can people like this NERV agency just take her soul and cram it into a monster like that?" Mordecai asked.

"Probably through means similar to what Mother Gaia is capable of doing, but the only difference is that the souls in question are lost, their previous ties to society severed and left in a state of transition. My mother's soul, and those like her, on the other hand, aren't lost…but rather taken and exploited."

"If that's true, then it's inhuman," Miroku expressed his contempt. "People harvesting people for wrongful purposes."

"Wait a minute," went Mana, realization upon her mind. "If NERV uses the souls of women that had children after Second Impact, then…was that the only reason they tried to recruit…who you used to be in life, Death, the Endgame?"

The three Asagi members looked at the dead man and were left waiting for him to respond.

"Yes," he answered the girl, "but that woman's soul being bound to one of those behemoths was not the result of a murder or even an accident."

"What do you mean?" Mordecai asked him.

"That woman deliberately, purposely, bonded her soul to a behemoth for over a decade in an experiment, and made her youngest child watch her leave, with the intention of never returning. Unfortunately, nothing went the way she had intended because the youngest child had other intentions in mind, and she came back."

"Free will is both a blessing and a curse," Miroku sighed. "When people are able to cooperate, they work together well. But when people don't cooperate, when they have other intentions or goals in mind, and there is unpredictability, chaos and disorder are assured to come about."

"But so long as I remain away from the Eva, from Unit-03, they can't use my mother to help them," Mana explained. "If NERV can't exploit the children of the mother's soul they possess, the soul is useless, resulting in them having to exploit other children of a different soul."

"But it's wrong to use their souls the way they have," Mordecai expressed his disgust over this.

"The people that don't know they're using the souls of mothers are guilty of just being pathetic for not knowing or even being informed of the truth," said Death, "but the people that do know and try to get away with their crimes are the truly guilty…and will pay for their crimes."

"She must be going out of her mind," went Mana, "trapped in that thing, unable to do anything she's used to doing."

Then…Death's face became emotionless and devoid of any measure of a presence.

"Death?" Miroku addressed the horseman, but he didn't speak up. "Death?"

"Death?" Mordecai and Mana added, but the dead boy was quiet as a corpse was.

-x-

"…And so, hopefully, to rectify whatever ill will there is between our agency and the Asagis, I would like for you to go and apologize to them on NERV's behalf," Commander Chansu instructed Captain Katsuragi in his office, explaining the reason he requested she be here.

"You want me to go to the Asagi house and apologize to them for unauthorized surveillance that Dr. Akagi had on them, even though the Restorative Horseman of Horseman of Death may be there with them and may not take kindly to my presence?" Misato questioned him, making sure she understood him correctly.

"You should be able to walk away unscathed if your intentions are just to apologize for the unwanted surveillance. Death has only made attempts to murder sinners and those trying to get away from him without atoning for their crimes. So long as you intend only to apologize for the disrespect, Death shouldn't have any reason to want to lay a finger on you."

"And what of Dr. Akagi?"

Commander Chansu sighed and responded, "I fear that she may be emotionally unstable, ever since the horseman appeared, ever since Shinji Ikari died. Her instability, as a consequence, brings into question and under judgment, some of her decisions, including the unauthorized use of surveillance on Ms. Asagi. If I had asked her to apologize, she'd likely refuse, claiming she did nothing wrong."

"Understood, sir."

The purple-haired woman then left the office, leaving the man alone to do whatever it was he did in there that Gendo probably did or didn't.

Commander Chansu then opened the desk drawer and pulled out several folders, revealing few photos of women, one of whom was identified as Yui Ikari back from when her youngest son was still a toddler…and her husband was still alive and none the wiser. Another bunch were of Himeko Asagi, including a closeup of her on a gurney in a morgue.

This is getting out of hand, he thought, picking up the picture of the deceased woman. This is getting way out of hand.

-x-

"A crowd of people stood and cheered when he raped her," Death heard a female voice say, as though it were on a television and not in person. "They were, supposedly, good people, and they did absolutely nothing. Then he beat her to death with a tire iron. And today, the State of New York got its revenge. It's not enough…and it's too much."

The horseman was inside a dark hallway, saw blue light being cast out of a room in front of him, and found himself inside a small room that was probably a living room at one point. Within it, he saw a television set showing the ending of a program where there had been a car accident…and a young woman sitting in front of the television.

"It's never enough," he heard her say, "and it's always too much."

As he approached her, the woman turned around to face him, and revealed herself to be Himeko Asagi, but her appearance seemed depressed and almost battered.

"To seek the truth in its purest of forms," Death said to her, "one must be prepared to understand the keeper of the truth."

"And what truth is it that you seek out?" She asked him.

"The question of your sanity," he answered her. "Your daughter needs to know of your emotional state as a ghost in the shell. Are you still sane…or have you gone mad?"

"Thinking of my family, their safety, their welfare, is the only thing that has kept me sane for years in this cold and discomforting realm," she confessed to him. "Everyday, I pray that they're alive and safe from harm. Even when I was as close as possible to Mana, I couldn't be with her because I couldn't bear to let her suffer from what I was going through."

"So, even though your soul is trapped in a behemoth, you couldn't connect with her out of fear of harming her," the horseman clarified and realized; Mother Gaia had informed him that trying to connect with the entrapped soul of an Eva could scar the soul of the person unknowingly trying to do so, depending on the degree of attempt. "You valued her safety above all else, so you kept yourself away from her in the behemoth."

"The Eva is a bane upon children. I never want for my daughter to pilot one ever again."

The horseman sympathized with her refusal to hurt her child, even if it meant being unable to be close to her.

"The Eva is nothing more than an insult to the natural flow of existence," he uttered. "A disgrace to pre-existing organisms. Yui Ikari created these disgraces, and she will pay for them."

"I'm alone in here because of Yui Ikari. She put me here. Her work put many mothers inside places like this. These…inescapable places."

"Remove the soul, and the Eva becomes a waste of space," Death uttered in a recalled memory.

"What?" Himeko questioned.

"Remove the soul from the Eva, the Eva becomes useless. Remove the soul from the Eva, and the soul can either return to life or move on."

-x-

Slam! War's sword wedged into the pavement, as the Restorative Horseman's armor cracked and chipped off on his shoulders and waist.

"You've improved in your afterlife," the woman that had betrayed him in life expressed, having used fire against him to scorch his face, which began regenerating. "Quite a feat for someone that stabbed me with a flaming sword."

Without the chains and additional piercing he had over his existence as a member of the Restorative, his face regenerated into a clean version of what he used to look like, even the scars were gone, making him rather attractive were it not for his fiery temper.

"I don't know how you were able to come back from the abyss of the eternal damned," he said, "but I will send you back!"

"Oh, I have seen ways for one such as myself to escape Hell, even if it's only for a short while," she told him.

-x-

Standing outside the address of the Asagi home, Misato prayed that Death wasn't there and that he didn't show up and have a reason to go after her.

Great, she thought, wondering what their reactions would be when and if they saw her, as she stopped at the door and ringed the bell. Please, don't let Death have it out for me.

It was a few moments until the door opened and revealed Mordecai Asagi to the woman.

"Can I help you with something?" He asked her.

"I'm here on behalf of NERV to apologize for the unauthorized surveillance that was placed upon your home," she explained to him.

"The surveillance? Oh, those people in black suits that I was informed were watching my home. We'd been informed of them a while ago, though the last any of ever suspected of them was that they had returned to NERV with a message proclaiming we were off-limits."

"I see. Well, I…"

"Her only guilt is her ignorance, Mr. Asagi," they looked up at a tree branch, seeing Death crouched upon it, looking down at them like a predator. "There's not a shred of her soul that knows the extent of her agency's insanity. She's just following orders."

She wanted to reach for her gun, the lack of good it would do her against this horseman, but with his eyes staring at her, she feared that he would have enough of a reason to want to harm her.

"Well, you're forgiven, Ms. Katsuragi," Mordecai expressed. "You may go."

"Just a moment, Mr. Asagi," went Death. "Maybe she can answer me a simple question. The question that demands an answer: Who's in charge of running those behemoths that her agency uses to try and harm the messengers of Heaven?"

"Uh, the…behemoths?" She asked him, now worried.

"Those Evangelions," he clarified. "Who's in charge of running them? You either know or you don't. It's as simple an answer to so simple a question."

"Death, if she's ignorant of what NERV has done, then how could she know who's in charge of running the Evas?" Mordecai questioned, hoping that the horseman wouldn't kill her.

"I just want to hear her variation of the truth from her own lips," Death explained. "Just answer the question. Answer the question."

"I don't know who's in charge of running the Evas," she answered him. "I just know that Ritsuko Akagi was in charge of maintaining them."

"Ritsuko Akagi?"

"She's the woman that your past self left crippled."

Death's eyes flared white, and then he fell from the branch and landed on his feet in front of them.

"A woman with blond hair that's as fake as a doll's," he uttered, recalling the woman from his mortal memories. "And what is her excuse for doing so, running those behemoths?"

"To face the Angels, to save mankind. What better reason than that?"

"Not everyone's out to save mankind. Some are uninterested in whatever plight everyone's in, while others are out to benefit from these plights."

"And what about you? What is your reason?"

"Innocence, renewal, true salvation from the darkness that dwells within us all. Remove the guilty, the innocent will thrive. Condemn the sinful…and the virtuous will know unfathomable peace in their future. And…to live once more, with a clean slate…is to be my ultimate reward."

"To live again? You want to live again?"

"If you think of any possibility of my wanting to be a revived version of the person I once was, you're mistaken, for he has no future. No real one, anyway."

Misato felt a chill go down her spine.

"You want to see the future desired by those of moral fortitude, stand aside and let the unwritten be written by those that can face the darkness that exists in this world with nothing left to lose," Death told her. "You want to continue fighting against an order you can't even comprehend, you will face an inescapable agony for trying such."

Then, like some sort of after image ability, Death vanished, leaving the two adults alone.

"I guess he's still upset about an earlier mishap that NERV committed when they tried to deal with him," Mordecai uttered, to which Misato had to question something off.

"How can you stand there and act like he wasn't some sort of deranged monster?" She asked him.

"Hey, he's not a monster!" They looked inside the hall and saw Mana, offended by her choice of words used to address Death. "I mean, he is what he does, but in a huge way, he's the lesser of greater cruelties that have been committed in the world. How can he be a monster when…some of the real monsters are the people he goes after?"

Misato then expressed, "I saw who he used to be, and there was nothing but coldness in his eyes. There was no hint of remorse in him when he harmed whoever stood between him and his father, whom he hated with a passion."

"Is this because you still see him as who he used to be? He's not the same person, even if he does look like him. I've seen him as he currently is, having never seen him as the guy he used to be, and while what he does to whoever happens to be on his blacklist for whatever offenses they need to be dealt with for, he's not the bad guy, Ms. Katsuragi. He's not the bad guy."

Misato then sighed as she accepted this form of an explanation with a variation of a truth from the girl and bowed her head, and then left their home to return to NERV HQ. Somehow, even though it seemed to be more fact than fabrication, she couldn't stop seeing the Restorative Horseman of Death as Shinji Ikari just because he and others claimed he wasn't the same person. Even when she saw the ghost of his elder twin, it was hard to view the little brother as a completely different person.

-x-

Scraping against a wall as he traversed down an alleyway, War, completely stripped of his armor and reduced to a loincloth made of chain mail over leather trunks, dragged his cracked sword as he looked for the demonic incarnation of his former mother, his unholy counterpart.

"I'm as strong as you are," her words reverberated in his mind, "and as fast as you are."

Maybe so, he thought, but you're not as pissed as I am about you being brought back.

"Your arrogance is astounding," he heard her voice all around him. "You haven't changed that much in so many centuries."

"I'm arrogant? You used me! You lied to me! I was protecting the kingdom I had believed in, and you condemned me to my death! And for what? For what?!"

"I didn't believe you would come back from fighting the rival kingdom that sought to consume the one we resided in," she expressed, confessing her reasons for betraying him. "Your father fought with them, and he never returned. You wanted to be just like him, to fight an enemy that was beyond yourself, just to protect the lesser people."

"You were one of those lesser people! I was protecting those that couldn't protect themselves!"

"I was offered a place in the enemy kingdom. All I had to do was remove loose ends."

And that reignited War's anger towards her, being informed of why she did what she did to him. He had been betrayed by her, just so that she could become a civilian of the enemy kingdom he decimated as a Horseman of the Restorative to save the kingdom he had grown up and had believed in being worth fighting for to the end of his life.

"And you didn't think that any of what had been committed would come back to stab you in the heart?" He asked her.

A shadow appeared behind him, holding up a sword.

"Not like stabbing you in the heart is going to make me feel," she told him, and thrust her blade towards his back.

CLASH! War had anticipated a cheap tactic that has been used for generations, and countered her assault by turning around and blocking with his sword.

"Do you honestly think you're a match for me, child?" She asked him.

"I'm no child," War responded, and his sword shattered into pieces, some of which flew towards his former mother's face, cutting her.

"Aaaahh!" She screamed.

Pierce! With the remains of his sword, War thrust the broken blade into her abdomen and channeled fire through the metal.

-x-

"…So, you saw the horseman?" Commander Chansu asked Captain Katsuragi, who had returned from seeing the Asagi father and daughter.

"While they accepted NERV's apology for the unauthorized surveillance, the girl defended the horseman's actions and even seemed unafraid of his presence," Misato explained, relaying all that had happened when she was there. "I questioned how Mr. Asagi could just stand there when Death was when he should've been aware that he was a monster…and then his daughter defended his actions by saying that he isn't a monster, even though he is what he does to people."

"And she probably stated that the real monsters are the people that he goes after," Chansu suggested. "The corrupted police, the murderers, the rapists and so on."

"Yeah."

"And what do you think of him?"

"I believe that he is still a threat to NERV should he return to the Geo-Front. He wanted to know who was in charge of running the Evas, and seemed indifferent to the fact that who he used to be left Dr. Akagi paralyzed below the waist."

"Certain people that seek to distance themselves from who they used to be will go to great lengths to do so, even to the point where they will express that they're not who they appear to be."

"I see him, and as much as he claims to not be the same person that died here, I still see Shinji Ikari."

"I saw a guy that resembled Gendo Ikari, and I couldn't see an exact comparison when he stole that prototype weapon that I had disposed of when we regained it."

"It's…just hard to imagine him being accepted as a different person…and everyone's addressing him as though he actually is Death."

"How hard can it be for you to see him as a different person? You shot him in the face…and he spat the bullet out of his mouth. Surely, Shinji Ikari couldn't attempt such a feat and survive. I heard he was once shot in the leg by some men sent by his father…and he was still capable of walking. Some people are lucky to still be able to walk after getting shot."

-x-

"Here," Mordecai said to Death, holding out a damp cloth in his left hand to the horseman.

Death, who had seen Mana's face burdened with a sadness that he couldn't comprehend because of the mild rage she kept down (this was due to the revelation that her mother's soul was trapped in the behemoth she once piloted and that her mother was constantly thinking about her family to stay sane), decided that he needed to do something about her sadness and rectify the disservice the Asagi family was dealt, looked at the cloth and then at Mordecai.

"What is this?" He asked him.

"It's for your face, which is dirty right now," Mordecai explained.

Death accepted the cloth from the mortal man and wiped his face clean of the minor filth that had built up on his flesh.

"Thank you," he praised him, and handed the cloth back, needing both his hands to replace his shotgun scabbard and empty bandolier of shotgun shells.

"Are you sure that Miroku and I can't talk you out of this?" Mordecai asked him again, just hoping that Death could be persuaded not to do the thing he was attempting to do right now. "I mean, aren't there a bunch of nuts elsewhere that you can deal with before going back there? I'm not trying to intervene, that being impossible, but they did hurt you the last time you were there."

"I can't erase the look on her face," Death told him, referring to his daughter, "or the hurt that exists in her heart."

"You can still spend time with her. Mana doesn't resent you telling us what you found out. She's just upset that someone she loves isn't at peace…like we always wanted to believe."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Feel free."

"If you were me, and you had the power to do something, or to undo something, even if it's only by a small measure, and bring justice to people in need of it…would you do it? Would you get justice?"

Mordecai knew right then that Death couldn't be tempted to put aside this feeling of a duty or mission that was like an obligation that he couldn't overlook because of his other responsibilities. This was something that Death simply had to do…simply because he could.

"If I were you," he answered him, "I'd do what I can to make them stop."

Death gave him a small bow before turning to step outside the front door.

"Death?" He stopped and turned to face Mordecai. "Will…will we see you for breakfast? Mana will probably make pancakes tomorrow, and…you should try them."

"If I can, I shall return," he responded, "and…if possible, I shall bring her back, as well."

He then turned away and climbed onto Rumi's saddle, grabbed the reins and rode off into the night.

Mordecai closed the door and went upstairs. He stopped in front of Mana's bedroom door and knocked to request her attention.

"Who is it?" She called out.

"It's your father," he responded. "May I come in?"

"Sure."

He opened the door and saw his daughter on her bed, reading a medical journal with her glasses on.

"Has…he left?" She asked him.

"Yeah," he answered her.

"Daddy… Did I drive Death to this?"

"What do you mean?"

"He tells us that Mommy is trapped inside the Eva, and I say that I miss her, and he keeps away from me like I'm angry at him or something."

"It's nothing like that, sweetie. Death is… Well, it's like what you said about him not being the bad guy. He's not a bad person, but he does things that are deemed bad…because it's what he is…and isn't. For him to do right, he must do wrong."

"He's going back to Tokyo-3, isn't he?"

-x-

It was quite an astonishment in the eyes of Mother Gaia, to see both her Horseman of Death and Horseman of War to return to her domain at exactly the same time, though War had returned less than unscathed while Death had returned for a different reason.

"Wow, you two," she greeted them, while Conquest and Famine (who were with her) stared at War's current attire with disdain.

"I don't care what brings Death back here," War told them, making no attempt to cover his loincloth, "but I will say that I still adhere to my old habits and preference towards clothing of the medieval era. I will return to my quarters and cover up."

"Who did you face out there?" Death asked, which was a first for the other horsemen.

"Someone whom, like you, I had killed a long time ago," War answered him. "A disgrace…and a severe waste of flesh."

Death then blinked once and expressed, "All that sin are a waste of flesh. What was once pure has become tainted, and as such must be dealt with certainty."

As he left to his own cave, the other horsemen were left confused by his choice of words.

"Did something happen to him while he was out there?" Famine questioned. "He seems… I don't know the exact word, but something is up with him."

"Maybe he declared war upon some criminals and decided that he needs to replenish his ammunition to take them out," Conquest suggested.

"It may be the case," War agreed with him. "As his death toll of sinners keeps rising, the disorder keeps falling until it hits the bottom."

Mother Gaia decided to pay Death a small visit to his cave and found him reloading his bandolier of shotgun rounds, having already loaded his shotgun to capacity.

"Something happened out there, didn't it?" She asked him.

"Yes," he answered her, "but it was bound to come to this."

"Nothing happens…except what has to," she expressed, and Death began loading his pistols and sub-machine guns. "And I want to hear from you what has happened…and what you're going to do."

"I was once visited by the little girl's mother," he revealed, "and she asked me to protect her daughter. When I revealed that I had been contacted by her, the girl expressed some concerns about the spiritual health of her mother, up to the point where I tried to contact her myself to understand to what extent did being bound to those behemoths cause the souls of the mothers to wither in their sanity. I discovered that she was still sane, having spent a semblance of eternity in the darkness with only her thoughts of her family's well-being keeping the hopelessness of any salvation at bay. But this discovery didn't lift the girl's sadness, for she missed her mother greatly. I caused her sadness at the revelation that her mother's soul is a prisoner of the people that use the behemoths…and I got to do whatever I have to set her free."

When he was finished reloading, he set up to leave, but Mother Gaia stood in his way of leaving.

"Let me help you," she offered him.

-x-

Unit-03's core, unlike the other cores of the Evas that were built before it, was more organic than mechanical, resembling a massive, pulsating sphere with various cables protruding from three openings on its top and bottom. Externally, its outer covering seemed like hardened crystals over a ruby-like exterior, resulting in a double layer of sorts, but internally, the core was like a heart, only it pulsated every once in a while.

Commander Chansu, deciding to oversee the operation to transplant the core into Unit-01 (while still confused at the reason why this was insisted upon) instead of Dr. Akagi, had a difficult time hiding his disgust over the sight of it being removed from the black Evangelion by the working crew.

"…I heard that Captain Katsuragi had visited the Asagi family to apologize for my unauthorized use of Section Two spying on them," he heard the faux-blond utter out, also hearing the electric motor of her wheelchair as she entered the large chamber where the two Evas were being worked on. "Is this true?"

Turning to face her, seeing darker circles under her eyes, he answered, "Yes, this is true. What of it?"

"The dead boy was there, yet there was no attempt to even try and capture or do away with him."

"Unless Death has a reason for wanting to come back here, there's no need to trouble ourselves with provoking his wrath. The last time we did so, nothing went the way we wanted them to, and we ended up losing a few lives."

"And he continues to kill without limit."

"But if he comes back, your security protocols shall deal with him."

Ritsuko then looked up at the Unit-03 core, finding it puzzling that out of the other Evas, this one's core demonstrated a major difference in its design, trying to make it more mechanical than organic, but only achieving another hybrid solution; Unit-00's core was the most mechanical, given its prototypical nature and Unit-01 being a much more complex design due to its own nature as an experimental attempt, and then Unit-02 being a streamlined version of the Unit-01 core, albeit having a mechanical exterior to protect its organic interior.

"Unit-01 wasn't designed to accommodate an updated core," she expressed.

"The Committee insisted that Unit-03's core be implanted into Unit-01, regardless," Chansu informed her. "Their reasons being unknown at this point."

"And what of the Fifth Child?"

"A new core is being brought over to accommodate him and Unit-03."

"And if Unit-01 doesn't take to the Unit-03 core?"

"We'll find a solution."

But in truth, Commander Chansu wasn't entirely confident in Unit-01 being able to adapt to the new core, as there were certain attempts that weren't meant to be accomplished, regardless of the reasons or desires involved.

"There's something else, too," Ritsuko uttered. "It's about the Fifth Child."

"Go on," he told her.

"He's not who he seems to be."

"In what way?"

-x-

He stood outside the former fortress city that his mortal self had reduced to a ghost town before Sachiel had arrived, and with his arsenal replenished, Death waited for his cue to make himself known to NERV and settle the score that needed to be dealt with in order to release the soul he came back for.

-x-

"…Who is this?" Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki questioned, having picked up his office's ringing phone to answer whoever called him.

"I'm a concerned individual for the people that work in your underground facility, Mr. Fuyutsuki," a female voice answered him. "You're not the one at fault, but one of your behemoths serves as the metaphysical prison of a young woman that has spent over a decade trapped inside it. Someone we both happen to know from a different angle of existence is upset about this, and will seek to resolve this abuse of the soul."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Fuyutsuki expressed; he was unsure who this woman was talking about (if this was even a woman he was speaking to), but ever since the Japanese government found out about NERV had in its pit of hidden secrets, security had been both weakened and tightened.

"Believe me when I believe that he doesn't want to have to harm you when he comes back, but it's best if you come clean with whoever else is in charge. It does not do well to dwell upon the unpredictable agony that has yet to take place…and forget to repent, Kozo Fuyutsuki."

Before he could say, the call had ended, and he was left standing by his desk with enough confusion that only told him one thing: Death was bound to come back to the Geo-Front because of the Evas.

"He's coming back," he sighed, and decided that Commander Chansu needed to know. "He's coming back because of the Evas."

-x-

NEIGH! The whining of a horse could be heard on the streets of Berlin, Germany, just as a man had stepped out of a bar after paying for his drinks.

"Damn horses," he mumbled, checking his watch and knowing he had to get back work in a few hours.

As he walked down the street, nowhere near sober enough to drive (and unwilling to risk doing so), he resorted to catching the bus and going home. Though it wasn't really home, since his wife left him after the abuse became unbearable and the revelation of a dead guy taking out people that did wrong, left and right, and she was unwilling to be caught in the crossfire.

NEIGH! The whining of a horse continued, but it sounded like it had gotten closer to where he was right now.

"Ah-choo!" He sneezed, but the air wasn't as cold as it had been a week ago, and his immune system was impervious to the common cold. "Ah-choo!"

Swat! He felt something pierce his nape…and he fell to the ground.

"Oh…" He groaned, trying to get up, but was unable to, and noticed a pair of feet beside his head.

Looking up as he began to lose consciousness, all he could see…was a white-robed figure.

-x-

"…So, he's right above the Geo-Front, right now, and he's not at all pleased with whatever he think we did," Misato informed Chansu, Ritsuko, Fuyutsuki and the rest of the Central Dogma bridge personnel. "Whatever he thinks we did, it's enough to bring him back here."

"It's Unit-03," went Fuyutsuki, explaining what he knew.

"Unit-03?" Ritsuko questioned.

"Something about that particular Evangelion has him riled," he expressed.

"If it's just that Eva, then he must be selective of his targets."

On the monitors and holographics, Death stood just outside of Tokyo-3, immobile and looking like he was ready for a bloodbath allover again. His arms were crossed and his eyes were like white fire.

"My God," Misato gasped.

Suddenly, the alarms that detected the Angels went off, and that only meant one thing: Another Angel had finally arrived.

-x-

Over the lifeless waters of the South Pole, a large creature of unimaginable power appeared from the vastness of the night sky. If one were able to perceive it through lens that could resist the intense brightness, they could make out a massive, winged beast or a crystallized dragon with a multitude of wings in place of claws or legs.

This was Arael, the Angel of Birds, having assumed a less-menacing form that could cope with the presence of the damaged planet that needed to be healed in due time.

The brightness of this messenger's body was so immense that it made the red waters look blue, just as they had been more than fifteen years ago, covered in ice and snow.

-x-

"…It's at the South Pole," Hyuga relayed the discovery of the new Angel's location to the rest of the personnel.

This made Fuyutsuki recall something from earlier, about a note he had received that spoke of at least eight locations that would be taken.

"But there's nothing there," Misato expressed; she was confused at why an Angel would appear at the epicenter of where Second Impact took place. "No cities, no people, nothing."

"Maybe that's why it showed up there," suggested Chansu. "No people or structures there means no trouble for the horseman that watches out for the Angel's safety."

Ritsuko lost whatever fascination she could've had in wanting to know about the Angels and their reasons because of her obsession with the dead boy that crippled her standing in front of the city, still as a statue and carrying all that firepower.

"The Hell with the Angel," she uttered, "get rid of the horseman."

-x-

Sleep seemed to elude Mana tonight, even though she took a sleeping pill. She deduced that it was because of her minor actions and reactions that drove Death to do what he left to do.

But he didn't have to do it now, she thought, laying in the darkness of her room. I mean, he could've, but he didn't have to go and do what he does for my sake. He could've stayed a while longer and then go elsewhere and protect the innocent people. He didn't have to go and do something for my family as insane as that.

And yet…Death had gone to do what she had believed to be insane…for her family.

A/N: And here we have another completed chapter. Arael's form in this story was based on the form she had in My Special Keeper, and as before, read and review until the next chapter. Peace.