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?

21. Before my body is dry

Creation began on 05-11-15

Creation ended on 05-29-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

A New Cause: Before my body is dry

A/N: I just added a new MP3 to my music library that rocks from Kill la Kill, and it helps to inspire this chapter's title. Let's do this before my blood runs dry.

As the rain continued to pour over the land, Death continued to stand where he stood in front of the decimated city of Tokyo-3, awaiting for his moment to strike at NERV's Geo-Front and free the condemned soul he came for.

Neigh. His horse whined, sitting down behind him; unlike her companion, Rumi grew irritable at this game of patience, for it was different when she waited for Death to arise from the water of the river when he was unstable.

Mako manifested in between the two and softly patted her head.

"There, there," he calmed her restless soul. "In due time. In due time."

CLASH-FLASH! Thunder and lightning occurred, bathing the area in minute flashes of bluish-white light for mere seconds, and Death showed no reaction to the power of this side of nature.

He was immune to the cold, the moist and the chaotic rampage of this storm.

Nature does have an order, he thought in acceptance of this truth, recalling the film he watched with the Asagi family about the giant reptile that lived off radiation. Heaven has an order, Hell has an order in its disorder and chaotic energies, but the order that the Restorative has will bring order to the planet that has been maimed beyond regeneration. Mother Gaia has the order and power that will restore the balance longing to be returned.

Mako floated over to his twin and asked, "Shaved days for a moment of conversation, brother?"

"There's no need to bargain with me, Mako," he responded. "Do talk to me."

"Are you sure you should do this? I mean, it would be understandable if you want to back out, but you do know what else is down there besides Mrs. Asagi's imprisoned soul, don't you?"

As the rainwater ran down his hair and face, lightning flashed around Death as he responded, "I do…and I won't let a disgraceful relic that isn't even worth admiration hinder me from doing what must be done to ensure some measure of justice is done."

In the memories they shared with one another from their period of separation, Mako found in his brother the nightmarish memory of a life that could've been lived had he not existed and Death still being Shinji Ikari…and the horrible, carnage between Unit-01 and Unit-03…with the purple behemoth slaughtering the black one…along with the innocent life trapped within it. This, along with Death's nightmarish scream of hopeless rage that was powerful enough to shatter most of the Geo-Front's glass windows showed to the infant-looking elder twin that his little brother could be bothered by events that, in their current state of purgatory, couldn't happen because they were on the path they couldn't deviate from and return to who they had been in life, and how Death could show at least some fearful disgust towards Unit-01 because it was still in the underground facility.

"A behemoth without a soul attached to it is no threat or use to anyone," Death told him.

"That's just that, Death," Mako responded. "A behemoth without a soul attached to it. How do we know that they haven't attached some other woman's soul to it?"

Death closed his eyes for a moment before reopening them again and answered, "It's a gamble, I can't deny that. I shall risk that possibility…and if found to be a fact, sever the inhuman heartstrings beyond their ability to recover from. In that way, that particular behemoth…can never, ever rise up to oppose."

-x-

Yui stood in front of her youngest child, sitting on a gurney with a vacant expression, dressed in a blue, black and white plugsuit (the same type of plugsuit he wore in at least one other lifetime). The mere sight of him was quite worrisome because of her recollection of what he had done to her in anger; she still felt the phantom pain where he impaled her with Fuyutsuki's machete.

"How do you feel?" She questioned him.

"How am I supposed to feel?" He responded, as emotionless as the horseman that looked like him had looked when she saw him in the Geo-Front.

"Do you know what your duty is?" She tried asking him.

"Pilot the Eva, face the Angels, ensure the survival of mankind," he answered, almost like a robot.

"That's right. Do you know what your name is?"

"Shinji Ikari."

She sighed and nodded in the positive, though her reaction was anything but positive. Her youngest son had been, more or less, revived, but was still no different from a person that had expired sometime ago. And her eldest son had yet to complete his own reanimation and progress of the Dummy System.

"Do you…remember anything?" She then asked him.

"I remember only darkness and pain," he answered her, completely deprived of emotions. "A cloaked figure with a small blade, a feeling of righteousness, but bound to the servitude of another with a grander design."

"And…who is this person with a grander design?"

"I do not know."

-x-

Suddenly, Death staggered forward, as if struck by an unseen force.

Mako saw this action and asked, "Are you alright?"

Regaining his balance, Death responded, "I'm fine."

But Mako suspected that this was a lie, just as he suspected that something happened from afar…because he felt a similar sensation that felt like someone or something reaching out for him, trying to pull him back to a place that was cut off to him.

-x-

"…Urgh!" The German guy that Conquest went to acquire from Berlin groaned as he was dropped to the ground, surrounded by several dead men with arrows in them. "What the Hell are you?"

Conquest, aiming an arrow at the man, responded, "I'm the White Rider, Heaven's harbinger of sickness and shame. It's nothing personal, but you are a sinner, and sinners must be cleansed from this world."

SWAT! The arrow was released…and a hand was sent flying into the air.

"Aaaaahh!" He screamed, holding the seared stump where his right hand used to be. "My hand! You…you shot off my hand!"

Leaping into the air and catching the severed limb, Conquest landed in front of him and said, "Like I said, it's nothing personal. I could kill you, but I get the feeling your life isn't worth ending prematurely. Maybe you've been marked by my fellow horseman, Death himself, so I won't waste my time or my arrows on your hopeless husk."

Conquest then turned and walked away, leaving the German to whimper in pain over the loss of his hand that was now to be re-purposed for a different.

-x-

As Death continued to stand in front of the wretched city that was no longer a fortress, a gathering of fog surrounded him, and Mother Gaia appeared from behind him.

"This fog will keep our conversation between us," she told him. "Tell me what you know so far."

"Ever since my last visit to the Geo-Front, they have tightened their security measures against me," he explained. "The number of lives beneath our feet have diminished somewhat. I'm not sure how many, but the reduction in their personnel is somewhere in the triple digits. Maybe less than two-hundred."

"And…the behemoths?"

"The soul entrapped within the red one is as twisted as the girl that has hair as red as blood. A foreign presence within one that has never been seen is all but diminished in its spiritual energies. Probably a withered soul inside a behemoth that has very little energy within it. But the spiritual presence I've been trying to keep track of ever since I came back here is much stronger than before. Why this is so is beyond me right now. Can you answer why?"

"If the spiritual presence is stronger, it can only be due to two reasons: The spirit is more aware…or is simply in transition, which is a possibility."

"Transition?"

"It's the state of being relocated or shifted from one place to another."

"Could they be removing her soul from the behemoth and replacing her with a new soul from their enslaved reserves?"

"It's a possibility. A soul exposed is felt more than one encased in a vessel that mirrors that of a body."

"How will we go about this? I am following your way."

"While might isn't always right, the right time to use it is when it is unexpected. You shall learn…when I let them believe themselves to be in control."

Death then watched as Mother Gaia walked away from him, out of the fog and towards the city. He stayed where he stood, unsure of whether or not to follow her.

"I'll be alright," he then heard her say to him.

-x-

Creepy. That was the only way to describe the sight in front of the personnel watching the subject inside the Entry Plug. There was no other way to translate the feeling of fear they had right now, in their hearts and on their faces.

The reanimated Shinji Ikari with his eyes closed inside the plug, going through a synchronization test with the Dummy System that had been copied from the minute brainwaves…and the experiment seemed to be going smoothly.

"Kami, it's hard to believe," a woman uttered.

"Impossible," added a man.

"Yet, there he is, back from the dead," added another man, while Yui did her best to overlook their fear.

Her youngest son's body may have been regenerated and he was capable of communication, but he wasn't the same as he was when he died. It was like he was empty, and no matter how hard she tried with her science, there was no real way to restore him to his original state. Of course, even if there was a way to achieve this, she wasn't sure of what he would do to her if she tried and succeeded.

"Ikari," she turned around and faced a man with a black beard. "It looks like you'll be heading back to Tokyo-3 soon."

"Why?" She asked him.

"Some woman showed up at NERV HQ…and said she was responsible for the guy that's been reducing the crime rate allover. She also requested an audience with you, claiming you should know that the horseman everyone's talking about is not who you believe him to be, anymore."

This sparked Yui's curiosity.

-x-

Placed within one of the holding cells after attacking their guards, Mother Gaia, justifying her assault on the four men that ganged up on her after she entered the Geo-Front and walked into NERV HQ, causing a stir in the personnel's concerns that Death had come back after the incident with the ghost infant and Mana Asagi. She examined the dark cell, quite disgusted with the lack of lighting and detailed design, but had to consider that making the prisoners comfortable wasn't in mind when it was built years ago.

The door to her cell opened, and an elderly gentleman stepped inside.

"I take it that you're here to interrogate me?" She asked him.

"It was you that called on the phone," the gentleman responded, "saying that Death was coming back."

"Those that are warned of the impending danger that is to come…are those fortunate enough to survive it by walking away from that which brings the danger. And to who am I being interrogated by, exactly? It is always a good thing to get past the introductions."

"Sub-Commander Kozo Fuyutsuki."

"Mother Gaia."

"Miss Gaia…"

"Please, spare me the formality, sir. My face, just as my being itself, is a facade, a simple form with which to interact with those around me. Those that know the truth, those that believe in such myths and legends that hold more truth than those related to what you call science, know my true form, untamed by natural laws you believe exist for a reason."

"Okay, then… Mother Gaia… Are you the one that's responsible for the Restorative Horseman of Death that has been murdering people across Japan and the States?"

"I am."

"Why?"

"Why, what? Bring him back? Let him do what he has become accustomed to that ensures that the innocent will be spared?"

"Why…him?"

"That…is something you'll have to wait for Ms. Ikari to arrive to know, as well. She has just as much a right to know as those that seek the truth. Oh, and would you be a dear and inform the woman in the wheelchair that this is something she'll want to hear, too? Maybe it'll bring her some much-needed closure for her soul."

Fuyutsuki sighed and turned to leave…until she spoke up again.

"It sears those of you that believed you were close to something you thought would really change the world, doesn't it?" She questioned. "To create something that you feel promises a future thought to be impossible. A future of peace and happiness for generations to come. Maybe something much more than peace and happiness. Maybe power…unlimited power…harvested from the divine messengers themselves…to be used to further your own needs that are less than noble and unknown. Only then…to be reminded of a real power that exists beyond your comprehension, that cannot be used by you, no matter how much you desire it, for better or for worse."

He turned around to face her…and said, "Well, do let us know if this…'real power' would like something to eat or drink or something to pass the time until Ms. Ikari arrives."

The door resealed and the goddess lowered down to the cot she sat on, wondering if they would give her a pillow if she asked them to.

-x-

"…She probably didn't suspect she was being monitored when Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki spoke to her," Ritsuko expressed, as she and the personnel present had watched the entire conversation between the two.

"She's likely to keep her mouth shut until Ms. Ikari returns," went Misato.

"Whatever her game is, she's locked up where even Death can't touch her," added Asuka.

"I don't think she's concerned about him," said Commander Chansu. "She says that she's responsible for his return from the afterlife, yet she doesn't exhibit much concern for his well-being."

"It must be because he's already dead, so he can't be killed, no matter how hard you try. Or maybe she has a hold on him to protect herself from his methods." Ritsuko suggested, but the truth was that they were all unsure of what this woman had over Death.

"She must've been really stupid to bring him back," said Asuka.

-x-

Deciding to take Death's suggestion to update his armor, War adorned himself in a new suit of armor that was more modern and lighter than the previous armor he possessed prior to becoming a horseman. But, likely just to see how far he could irritate Death in silence, his new armor was styled after the samurai, but with the shoulder and helmet armor being smaller and sleeker than the rest of the suit. And unlike the previous suit, this one's coloring was glossy-black with silver trims on the edges of his helmet, boots, gauntlets, torso and skort assembly.

"Power, strength, speed," he uttered, performing a few punches and kicks in the air. "The power to control fire, the strength of generations and ages long gone…and the speed of a zephyr."

In front of him was a new sword to replace the one he lost to get away from the woman that was his unholy counterpart. And just like his armor, the sword was of the Asian theme, a katana, but with a serrated edge and cross guard. The blade possessed a dragon engraved on its right side and a tiger engraved on the left side.

"As God himself once declared," he uttered, picking up the hilt of his new sword, "he didn't bring peace…but a sword. With fire, the ore harvested from the Earth could be molded into tools with which to fight and defend."

Raising it over his head in his left hand, he willed the blade to ignite into flames.

"Death's not the only one capable of metaphorical evolution."

-x-

As the rain stopped pouring across the archipelago, Death continued to stand in front of the abandoned city that promised no future to anyone.

But as he continued to wait, he failed to notice a Sedan driving into a path leading into the Geo-Front.

Or did he fail to notice?

-x-

Commander Chansu wondered about Mother Gaia as she continued to sit in her prison cell. It was quite a marvel to see someone that claimed to be a deity.

"Do you think she could stop these horsemen if we pleaded with her to?" Fuyutsuki asked him.

"It would be an impossible feat to ask a deity to have her servants cease their activity to restore the Earth through whatever means that book stated. And I doubt that she could be requested to stop them, just as I'm sure there's no pain that would persuade her to stop them."

"Many people are likely to think that way…until the pain starts, that is."

Chansu looked at Fuyutsuki and questioned, "Do you suspect her of something other than the Eva?"

"She seems to know about the Evas requiring the souls of women that bore children after Second Impact, but she only seems to be interested in Unit-03's core."

"Along with Death himself."

"Yet Mother Gaia may be keeping him at bay from the Geo-Front to ensure his own safety from the methods that can harm him."

Chansu then got up from behind the desk and stepped out of the office. There was something he needed to know for himself…for the sake of knowing.

-x-

"…Where'd you get that hand, Conquest?" Famine asked the White Rider, seeing the severed limb he had in his possession.

"A sinner from German lands," he answered simply. "This hand is gonna cripple that organization that has those behemoths."

-x-

Her cell door opened again and two armed guards came and escorted her to different room constructed out of glass and steel, circular in its design. What made it better than her previous cell was that there was light, illuminating everything.

"Wait here, please," one of the guards told her, and sealed the door leading into the room.

"It's not like I have anywhere else to be right now," Mother Gaia expressed, seeing another cot nearby and sat down.

It was only when she sat down did she notice what she was to wait for.

"Heh," she chuckled slightly, seeing people watching her through the glass. "Not many mortals are able to sneak up on me when I let my guard down."

In front of her were Chansu, Fuyutsuki, Ritsuko, Misato, and Yui.

"In case it ever occurs to you to try and escape," Ritsuko expressed, holding a controller in her hands, "if you try to break the glass, the cell is rigged to self-destruct."

"Now, what's wrong with just flooding the cell with water?" She asked her. "It would save you time and a cell."

"You'll have to forgive her," Chansu told her. "She's been this way ever since the horseman known as Death showed up."

Gaia then noticed the faux-blond in a wheelchair and realized the severity of her current status.

"She has great rage over someone that is no longer alive in the traditional sense," she uttered. "Death isn't the boy that died here with a body count motivated by the desire for revenge against one's family that drove him over the edge of morality and into insanity. Those that survived either move on…or allow their hatred to consume them, as they can't get revenge on someone that is long gone."

"He looks like him," Ritsuko retorted. "He looks like him, he sounds like, he kills like he did!"

"So, basically, in your mind, from your point of view, anyone that looks like Shinji Ikari is Shinji Ikari to you?" Gaia questioned her. "You believe Shinji to be Death, the Endgame…and Death, the Endgame to be Shinji. That is nothing more than a glorified falsehood. It's just wishful thinking with no hope of being true."

"What would you know?" Ritsuko challenged.

"He's unlikely to demonstrate any interest in you. You were in his way in life, and he had to do what he had to in order to stop you from keeping him away from his objective. If anything, you were warned…and you didn't take him serious. If you had taken him serious and got away, you wouldn't be in that chair right now."

Ritsuko wanted to self-destruct the cell right then and there, but Misato kept her in check.

"What is your interest in the Eva?" Chansu asked her.

"The Eva? Why, I have no interest in the Eva. It is an abomination in the eyes of all deities that have existed, just as it is an abomination to the Earth. The fact that it uses the souls of women that had children after a calamity instigated by the hands of those whose greed, arrogance and immorality knows no bounds…is the greatest outrage against all things relating to nature, Heaven and Earth. The fact that you use it…and exploit children of the women's souls to use it…is a much louder outrage. What you call a scientific feat of mankind's ingenuity… I call the rape of natural life because Eva perverts what already exists."

"But creating the Eva is the pinnacle of mankind's existence," Fuyutsuki defended the Eva's existence.

"How can it truly be a pinnacle…if hardly a soul in existence that is shackled in actual flesh knows about it? You can't hide the Angels as they are an eyesore that can't be erased until their role in existence has been fulfilled. You can't hide the truth about a horseman running around, killing killers and rapists and working girls that didn't follow certain laws that were put into effect for various reasons, past and present. There's no such thing as a pinnacle, sir. For every mousetrap made, there's always someone that makes a better one."

"What choice did we have?" Chansu asked her. "It was either the Eva or the extermination of all mankind by the Angels."

"You mean Sachiel, the Angel of Water above our heads in that city without people that Death protects, that Shinji cleaned out in his quest for revenge? He hasn't made any attempt to exterminate any mortals, even though he could. He could've harmed Ms. Asagi that day you tried to disrespect the heavens further with the Evas, but unlike the red one, he showed the black one mercy if she backed away…and she did back away. How can you manipulate someone that has been kept safe from violence to do violence? That's like trying to get someone that despises rape to commit rape."

"That's terrible," Fuyutsuki responds to her criticism, "and it's not the same thing."

"No, it's similar. There's similarity in many things, but there's no such thing as one being the same as the other. We're similar in that our respective affiliates, the Evas and the Four Horsemen, require souls to actually exist, but where we differ is the source of these souls. You use the souls of mothers that are, either of their own volition or against their will, not involved in the lives of their children…whereas I obtain the service of lost souls that deserve salvation and renewal of their lives that were either short-lived, defiled before they even started, or even betrayed and condemned to suffering and death because of others. Mortals can't always touch the souls of the damned without damning themselves, nor should they…unless they're willing to lose something of theirs that they're willing to part from, such as their own souls. Moral deities won't make any use of the souls of the living, for they are blessed until they're not, anymore, so lost souls, souls that have no ties left to a life lost to them, are the beneficiaries in such goals that need to be fulfilled, as they will receive their just rewards for their services, even those that have waited within the well of eternal patience."

"Like the soul of Shinji Ikari, which resides inside of Death?" Misato questioned, which sparked Yui's curiosity. "He seemed interested in living again, but not as who he used to be."

"He could…if he wanted to, that is…and he doesn't. All that remains of Shinji Ikari is the soul, memories and the reactions of actions he committed while alive. The soul and memories, however tainted, however maimed, resides within the new Death, in a state of purgatory different from the cruelties of Hell that he condemned the sinners he went after to. I must confess that, while he is different from his predecessor in many ways, not even as vocal in his afterlife than he was when he killed his former father, I…do accept him as he is…and wouldn't attempt to sway him from whatever decision he makes on how to handle a situation that is his to handle."

"You accept that he is a killer?" Misato questioned. "You accept that he is dangerous and the risks that come with being near him or even associated with him?"

"I wouldn't be the woman I am if I wasn't," Gaia told her. "I must accept each of my horsemen as they are…as they strive to be more than the sum of their past selves."

"Why Shinji?" Yui finally spoke up, getting their attention. "And Mako? Why their souls?"

Gaia looked at her and answered, "Where one went in the afterlife, the other willingly followed. The elder sibling joined his younger sibling to spare him an eternity of loneliness and suffering. He gave up his place in Heaven to join the one person that was bound to enter Hell…because he didn't want him to suffer alone the way he did ever since he was abandoned."

"That was mentioned by the elder twin sometime ago when he was capture in place of his brother," uttered Fuyutsuki. "He also mentioned that he didn't have any degree of resentment towards his own death when he was here."

"His death was accidental, so of course he would have no resentment towards it, just towards the way his brother was treated when he was alive."

"He also mentioned about you being a Trinity Goddess," added Yui, though suspicious of the woman. "You don't look like you're associated to any trinities, whatsoever."

"If Mako said that, then he was lying to protect my identity. Mother Gaia is my name. Gaia…being the name of the primordial goddess that spawned many on the Earth from which she herself was born on."

"You expect us to believe that you're an actual deity?" Ritsuko asked her.

"If you don't believe in gods, how can you believe in hope, miracles or redemption? Do you mean to say that you do not believe in Heaven or its deities?"

"You can say that being a person of science makes any religious beliefs not worth believing."

"Um, I believe in deities," Fuyutsuki expressed to Gaia, just wanting to be in her good graces.

"It's nice to know that some still believe."

-x-

Placing his firearms and bandoliers on Rumi's saddle, Death, reducing himself to just his sickle, had his horse gallop away while he entered the city to enter the Geo-Front.

"Are you sure it was a good idea to forgo your guns, brother?" Mako asked him, manifesting in front of him. "You could've kept a Glock or two."

"I won't need them," he answered back. "I'm learning to have faith in Mother Gaia and the Restorative, which is a necessity."

As he approached the spot where Sachiel stood, the horseman became assaulted by memories that weren't even his or his past incarnation, but related to his past incarnation from a different life, seeing himself as a mortal, deprived of any meaningful bonds due to the curse and drawbacks of being affiliated to the Evangelion and the people in charge of them. The image of a boy with glasses and a camcorder and another boy dressed in black, looking like he was part of a team at a school made the undead member of the Restorative find many different lives lived by different variations of the boy he used to be in life to be nothing more than every method of trying to break him…and found the life lived with no friends to be just as pitiful and hopeless as the life he had when he still had flesh with a pulse…and no meaningful family ties.

"It wouldn't be like we could ever be friends again," he heard the glasses-wearing boy say to his alternative past self through a voice message.

Only the name of the boy ever made it to Death's mind: Kensuke Aida. It was a name that was as meaningless as the names of other people that he either never met in his past life…or killed as a Horseman of the Restorative: Gendo Ikari, Rick, Thomas, Alexandra, Samson, Olivetti, Miyuki, Kana, Irons, Nottingham, Lee, etc. Each name was an empty as the sinners that had them when they were killed by him.

In any life associated to the Ikari family or the Evangelion, he thought, coming to a halt in front of Sachiel, the boy I used to be, Shinji Ikari, was either weak, battered, betrayed and abandoned by everyone that saw him as nothing more than a means to an end. And all that remains are memories that echo every chance they get now. It's no different from people trying to either get away or talk their way out of their execution.

There was a small hole in front of him, which led to the Geo-Front due to Death's previous stunt of attacking the city and causing catastrophic damage.

"Time to get to work," he uttered, and stepped over the hole and fell in.

-x-

"…So your horsemen are all purgatory incarnations of dead people?" Fuyutsuki asked Gaia.

"Even the dead have a right to aid those that live," she responded. "They often have an edge to them…as they have nothing left to lose."

"No," Yui expressed. "I examined the blood left by one of your horsemen that looks like Shinji, and there's no degree of decay in him."

"Decay?" Gaia questioned Yui's response. "Why would I allow any of my horsemen to decay? They're like my children, and I can't have them wasting away."

"LCL was proven effective against the one known as Death," Ritsuko stated.

"LCL? You mean Lilith's primordial blood. You hide many things behind your lies of science, but you can't hide everything. I still remember the time when it was Adam and his brood that arrived to Earth."

"Adam?" Misato gasped. "The First Angel? There's no way you saw the First Angel! Enough lying!"

Gaia's face became stern and she said, "I did see him…and I don't like being called a liar when I speak the truth. He wasn't even a danger to anyone, not even after Lilith arrived. When he spilled his primordial blood, he almost managed to restore me back to life. Unfortunately, 'almost' pales in comparison to 'success', which is what Lilith's primordial blood did for me. I am the Earth herself, incarnated in the form of a mortal, made in the image of a deity."

Suddenly, the alarms rang and an intercom speaker made itself heard.

"Attention all personnel," a male voice uttered over the speakers, "the Horseman of Death has returned to NERV HQ. I repeat, the Horseman of Death has returned to NERV HQ."

"What is he doing here?" Gaia questioned, sounding disappointed in Death's presence.

-x-

"…Mana, you've barely touched your pancakes," Mordecai told his daughter, who only ate half her pancakes during breakfast.

"Hmm?" Mana responded, sounding depressed. "Oh, sorry. I guess I don't have much of an appetite."

"I guess Death and Mako were just a pair of energy sinks that spark some excitement whenever they're here," went Miroku, having finished his pancakes and scrambled eggs. "Even when he didn't need to eat anything, Death was an interesting person."

"Even so, we shouldn't cease our day-to-day lives just because Death and Mako aren't here." Mordecai told them. "They'll return when they return."

"Now, how can you be so sure of that, Daddy?" Mana asked him.

"Just a feeling," he answered her. "Just a feeling."

-x-

FLASH! The lights came on, exposing an LCL-soaked Death, the Endgame, holding the decapitated remains of a NERV employee that tried to shoot him in the head, and causing his skin to burn from the fact that the lights were ultraviolet and harmful to him.

"Aaaurgh!" Death groaned, letting go of the stiff and his sickle, dropping to his knees in front of the other employees. "No!"

The security force arrived and shot Death with several LCL bullets until he fell to his back.

"The horseman is in custody," one of the guards said into a radio.

-x-

Yui wished she found it hard to believe, but that was impossible right now. In front of her, kept restrained and in a vulnerable state was the Restorative Horseman of Death, formally Shinji Ikari in the past, staring at her and the others present through the glass of his cell.

His arms and legs were extended and kept in place by the strongest chains and cables that were available to NERV, made of the same resources used to create the anti-Angel capture system that they were never able to use. Strapped around his neck was a choker-like device that continuously beeped every five seconds, and his sickle had been taken again.

"I'm tempted to drop an N² bomb in there and call it a day," went Ritsuko, making no effort to hide her contempt for the horseman.

"I'm afraid if you did, he'd still be around," Yui told her.

"Don't tempt me any further."

"He doesn't even seem that vulnerable, even though he's restrained," went Fuyutsuki, concerned for their safety so long as Death was here.

"But we've taken him out with his personal Kryptonite," said Misato, pointing out the measures they took to containing Death. "He was shot with bullets containing LCL, the cell's precautionary feature periodically sprays him with additional LCL, he's constantly exposed to the strongest UV lights we have at our disposal…and a bomb was strapped to his neck for extra measure. The LCL and UV lights have weakened him, though…"

"Yet he still stands, as though he's still a formidable force to be reckoned with," Chansu cut her off. "I wonder what's going through that head of his?"

Suddenly, the top of the cell opened and an apparatus appeared, resembling a shower head, spraying LCL over Death, causing the strands of his hair to hiss as steam manifested on his exposed flesh; it seemed to take a lot of effort on Death's part to refrain from showing any emotion on his face.

"Look at him suffer in there," Ritsuko expressed. "Serves him right."

As the shower head stopped spraying him with LCL, Death never took his eyes off the glass that reflected his image, looking past the mirror and at the people that watched him, seeing the purple-haired woman that shot him in his face, the fake blond that was confined to a wheelchair, the elderly gentleman that had pleaded with him not to kill Yui, the woman that he despised for her own role in his past life, and a man he'd never seen before, but had a different, spiritual aura from the rest of the NERV-affiliated men and women.

"…This is only one of the horsemen, like Mother Gaia said," he heard the elderly gentleman say to the others in front of him. "Death may be vulnerable to LCL, but the other three are not, and they're likely to come for the both of them, sooner or later."

"That's what I fear," the man he didn't know of responded.

-x-

Trying to take her mind off Death and Mako, Mana sat in front of her computer and read an online medical document on how the treatments on cancer and diabetes were progressing. But then, by a stray thought, her eyes turned away from the screen to the Book of the Restorative, and then, either due to her foolishness or curiosity, turned her attention to said book and picked it up again.

Grandfather, this is your fault, she thought, heading to the chapter after the picture with Mother Gaia and the Four Horsemen of the Restorative. Whoa.

The next chapter of the book was titled, "Faith in the Darkness", and it depicted a small picture of a young girl dressed like a princess, but her attire was black and blue, and behind her was some sort of giant obscured by shadows.

"When the sun emerges from the darkness, let hope return to those that it was taken from." The first sentence read when she looked at the page with the narrative written. "As hope returns, the blood-soaked sinners try to flee from retribution, knowing that their end is near. When Heaven bestows upon the maimed world renewal and vitality, the Four Benevolent Ones shall soar beyond the reach of the grand poison that is sin."

-x-

Mako manifested in front of Death, his form appearing moist and soggy due to the LCL's effect on him.

"This is so not something we can endure forever, brother," he told him.

Death gave no indication that he was even listening to him, but knew that it was true; despite him putting on a strong and intimidating facade, the Restorative Horseman had lost a great deal of strength…and was getting weaker with the LCL deteriorating him at a fast pace.

Mako then noticed something spilling from the right nostril of Death's nose, resembling the blood that was unlike the kind they used to have.

"Oh, no," he gasped.

But Death never took his eyes off the windows the people were viewing him through.

-x-

"Not many people are able to sneak up on me more than once," went Mother Gaia to Commander Chansu, who stood outside her cell. "What brings you here?"

"Your Horseman of Death seems to be interested in Unit-03's core," he told her, now that there was some time to get a little clarity in the hour spent between the deity and the horseman, and he sat down in front of her cell in a folding chair. "I want to know why the interest."

"You could say that he has associated with Ms. Asagi," Gaia told him. "Innocent people do get to him in ways that guilty people can't. He wouldn't harm an innocent person…unless they got in his way of an objective he was performing."

"Okay. Say that…he were successful, that he came to do what he came to do…what, then?"

"He'd likely leave…until something else from here drew his attention."

"Why let him roam him free? Why let any of the Four Horsemen roam free?"

"I trust them with their independence. I know that they can be depended upon to save this world that is on the brink of extinction. It's a gamble, I'm well aware of, but it's one that I'm staking even my own life on."

"But the slaughtering of so many people that Death has gone after, isn't that something that brings some measure of shame to you?"

"I feel for those that are innocent whose lives were ended by Death, but they won't remain dead for much longer. A great change in upon us all."

Chansu leaned forward and then asked her, "Did you bring Shinji Ikari's soul back from Hell to piss people off, or was he just the best choice for your Horseman of Death?"

"There was never any desire to, as you so put it, piss people off," Gaia answered him. "The soul of Shinji was suggested to me by another deity, and I paid him and Mako a visit, and found that they were the most capable for the mantle of Death; Shinji being the horseman…and Mako being his spiritual anchor, able to keep his younger brother's moral compass pointing as close to north as possible."

"You mean, spiritual instability?"

"Yes. It was a necessity for the two to remain together. I would never separate them."

"Most people separate twins for certain reasons, like to avoid identity crises."

"Except, if you have taken notice of their current predicament, despite being twins, neither brother looks alike. They might've when they were born, but fate was unkind to Mako, who remained in the guise of an infant while his brother was permitted to go through the shadow of a childhood that was just as unkind."

"You don't like Yui Ikari, do you?"

"I don't like many people that do wrong and try to claim that they're helping the people they've harmed. Police that go bad and ignore the crime that happens, housing agencies that throw the low-income people that try to keep a roof over the heads of their families, parents that abandon their children and then exploit them later on. They're cruel, and cruelty deserves the retribution it gets."

As he continued to converse with her, Yui and Ritsuko continued to look at Death, who was being sprayed with LCL once again to weaken him further.

"He looks like he's beginning to experience necrosis," Ritsuko expressed, noticing that his face was losing more color due to the LCL and UV lights.

Yui noticed this, and then noticed how the skin on his neck was starting to rot.

"You're hurting him," she turned to see her youngest son's younger persona, Driving Force. "You can't kill him, but you can hurt him. You should've died that day you came back."

"It wasn't enough to revive the body, she has to come and aid in the suffering of the soul that won't return to the flesh that was abandoned." She turned to face Ritsuko, seeing the other persona, Slayer, behind her.

"What's wrong with you?" Ritsuko asked her, noticing the look on her face.

Within the cell, Death took notice of the phantoms that he hadn't seen in this purgatory state of existence since he started out as a horseman…and wondered what they were doing around Yui.

"Ugh," he suddenly groaned, unable to fall to his knees because of the chains keeping his arms bound.

Mako saw this, but reacted with frightened concern at the sight of several strands of Death's hair falling off his head.

"Death!" He gasped.

"It's nothing," he uttered, but his voice said differently; it was like he was deteriorating, and it reflected upon his body. "I've never felt more driven."

"Looks like the LCL is taking its toll on him," Ritsuko uttered, looking at him unable to fall to his knees. "How pathetic."

"You sinners wanna talk to me?!" She and Yui heard Death shout out. "I know you do! It's written on your flesh! You wanna talk! And Death does have a story to tell!"

Yui approached the window and pressed a button to speak to him without needing to be in the cell.

"And what could you possibly have to tell?" She asked him.

"I could tell you what Hell looks like," he answered. "I can tell you all about that night in Nagoya where I killed those men in that building for what they did to those women. I could even tell you why I chose to become a Horseman of the Restorative. The question is…when are you ready to listen before my body runs dry?"

A/N: So, is Death willing to share all that he has to tell to NERV? Or do any of you think there is something more planned?