Creation began on 10-16-15
Creation ended on 02-19-16
Neon Genesis Evangelion
A New Cause: Music and Art
A/N: We all know that canon Shinji would sometimes listen to that player of his, but A Maddening Cause Shinji never did and expressed himself through drawing pictures. So what if Mana introduced his purgatory incarnation to the world of music?
He couldn't face her yet. He still needed to wrap his head around the current situation that was Gaia's captivity at NERV HQ. Not only her, but the captive soul of the Mrs. Asagi that had been acquired through unforgivable means. The sooner he found a solution to both problems, the sooner he could face Mana for his lack of success in returning to her family its parental matriarch. And that would remove her from NERV's list of people to exploit for good.
Gazing at his reflection in the pool of his cave, the restored Horseman of Death pondered how to remedy the situation that needed to be remedied. Unfortunately, his face was something he found himself not recognizing at the moment. This may have stemmed from a lack of access to a looking glass in the mortal flesh.
-x-
In the ventilation shafts, Conquest stayed silent as he kept watch over the cell Mother Gaia was kept in. The Poison Master would make sure that she would not be harmed by these people that she played the role of a prisoner for. As benefited by free will as these Four Horsemen of the Restorative were, their devotion to Mother Gaia was a definite in their purgatory existence. So she needed to kept safe like any other mortal that needed to be preserved from cruel forces.
"Gaia," he whispered to the goddess.
The goddess didn't make any moves to indicate that she heard him above her, but her voice made her awareness of him known.
"You should be careful, Poison Master," she whispered back. "This cell is rigged."
"What is a rigged cell to a lost soul pulled from the abyss by one such as yourself?"
"So long as I am here, the potential for danger is limited to places where it can take hold of those that invite it into their hearts."
"In the face of that danger, you shall need the protection of one of your most devoted of believers and a broken soul that wants to believe in the redeeming power of a second chance."
In her cell, Gaia's eyes watered at Conquest's devotion.
"It will take the four of you to change the world," she told him.
"But maybe just one of us to break you out if things get rough," he responded.
-x-
At the park, Mana lied on a blanket on the grass, watching other children younger than her play on the jungle gym and swing sets. She was by herself because her father had gone off to continue his search for employment, and her grandfather went to help him, leaving her alone. But she was okay with that. All she saw were good people out and about (and she was positive that, because of the Restorative Horseman of Death, this was all because the crime rate was down).
She had gone over the news media again before she left the house and found the list of crimes (ranging from domestic disputes to rape and murder, even petty crimes) had all seen a rapid decline in Japan. There wasn't even any talk about the Yakuza or other street gangs trying to make a grab for power.
"It's so peaceful out here," she sighed, laying back and looking up at the blue sky. "Why can't I enjoy the serenity?"
"Maybe it's 'cause you're rigid, miss," said a male voice to her, and she looked up at a boy that looked older than her and was standing in front of her. "There are rigid children around that are trying to enjoy the sudden drop in crime, but feel that it's only a matter of time before something bad happens…and he comes back."
"He? You mean, the Horseman of Death?" She asked him.
The boy was around the height of Ms. Soryu (judging from the distance between his body and Mana's), with ragged, ebony hair that covered the left side of his face.
"He can install a measure of fear in those that don't commit crime, and will take steps to ensure that they don't, fearing that he'll come after them," the boy told her.
"Why would he go after the good people? They would have to get in his way of his search for more sinners to actually be viewed as a problem."
"It's just a belief, a simple assumption."
Mana then crossed her right leg over her left leg and introduced herself.
"I'm Mana," she greeted him. "Who are you?"
"My parents just call me Shiruba. If they were the gold, that would make me the silver."
-x-
As the afternoon sun set and the blue sky became a pinkish-orange, Mana had left the park and walked back home. When she turned a corner on the sidewalk, she stopped at the sight of who was there on the wall outside her home's gate.
Death, the Endgame, without his arsenal, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
She calmly walked over to him…and then around him to enter the gate where she stopped.
"Are you alright?" She asked him.
"I have never been alright," he responded, looking at her. "What I said I would do…I haven't given up on…but must refrain from for the time being."
Mana had to be honest with herself, but she didn't expect Death to just show up with her mother after finding out that her soul was placed into Unit-03. She knew better than to get her hopes up over anything.
"I didn't expect you to do well, Death," she told him. "You came back here. That shows progress. I'm…glad you came back here."
She then gestured for him to come inside with her.
"Can I ask what happened to you while you were there?" She asked him, as she removed her shoes and set them by the door.
"I allowed myself to be taken prisoner," he explained, "and had a less-than-joyful encounter with that…disgrace of a woman. In the end, I engaged in a spiritual encounter with the damaged soul of Lilith and had a physical encounter with the Apocalyptic Horsemen of Pestilence and Death while in a tarnished and emaciated state until I needed to be rescued by my fellow horsemen. I experience being immersed in boiling water to purge the primordial blood of Lilith out of my body and a longer time to recoup…and a longer time to get the will to come back here and face you. Mako demonstrates persistence when it comes to coming here."
Just as she was about to sit down on a floor mat, the ghost infant manifested, and Mana sat down.
"It's not nice to bully people, Mako," she told the elder twin.
"It's not really bullying if he wanted to come here and see you, as well," Mako defended his actions. "All I did was nudge him."
"Verbally or physically?"
Mako made a pouty face and bent his right arm like he was disappointed or offended.
"He knows he can't touch anyone on the physical realm, so he needs to do everything verbally," went Death as he sat across the living room table from Mana, trying to reduce whatever friction there might've been. "Some consider words to be an inexhaustible form of sorcery, no?"
"It was mentioned in the second part of the film version of the last Harry Potter book series," Mana told them. "But…you haven't seen the film, have you, Death?"
"I haven't. There are many things I haven't seen."
"And lately, I've only introduced you to the world of television. There are other forms or ways to stimulate one's mind. You have drawn many pictures, but have you ever seen the artwork of others? Have you ever listened to music?"
"If I have, they were from a time before my mortal fall from grace, Ms. Asagi."
Mana got up and went over to a bookshelf and selected a magazine from the collection. It was an old one that possessed several paintings by a popular guy from the earlier generations. She set the magazine on the table and flipped it open.
"These are paintings by Claude Monet," she told Death.
"He was a French man that owned a garden that people adored for many years," added Mako further. "He died in the Nineteen-Twenties."
"He was known as an impressionist. The first impressionist, in fact. He painted flowers and things differently than they were depicted in reality, which didn't interest him at all."
Death looked at the pictures depicted on the pages, and had to admit to himself (if not anyone else) that looking at another man's artwork was intriguing. That there were others that devoted a great deal of their time to their craft. His variation of art was just capturing past memories in near-perfect recollection and translating them onto whatever paper he had available.
Turning to the next page, he saw a bridge and a pond with waterlilies.
"He liked the Japanese?" He asked Mana.
"Yeah," she answered. "I think I have a book somewhere that spoke about his fascination with the Japanese.
She got up again and ran upstairs. It took a few minutes before she came back down with a book that was different from the magazine.
"Here it is," she revealed to the twins. "One of my favorite books growing up. Linnea in Monet's Garden. It's written right there."
Unfortunately, while Death was good with words, his skill set didn't include reading books. He knew enough words to function, but his mortal incarnation hadn't read anything besides an outdated dictionary that he had managed to keep hidden from the people that were supposed to be watching for a long time until he was relocated to Tokyo-3.
Mana realized her error when she saw the horseman look down at the book.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have," she apologized to him.
"It's okay," he responded, and instead focused on the pictures on the pages. "Could you…read it to me?"
"Me?"
"Yes, you."
She reached for the book and placed her left finger on the page.
"Don't you need your glasses, Ms. Asagi?" Mako asked her.
"That's right," she answered, and placed on her glasses. "Are you ready?"
"Begin," Death requested.
-x-
Commander Chansu sighed as he looked at the item that was inside his desk. It was dangerous and needed to be disposed of quickly.
It's not safe to keep anything so dangerous so close, he thought, and picked up the small case that contained what he viewed as being too dangerous to be in anyone's possession. You'll need to be disposed of soon to ensure that there's still a future for mankind.
He never saw a shadow looming over.
"I am sorry about this," a male voice uttered to him.
-x-
"…Well, that's another potential job I can possibly kiss good-bye," said Mordecai to Miroku as they walked home.
"How can these people require more of a reference than what's already there?" The elder questioned. "And then, there's the requirements. Next thing you know, they'll want a personality test and a blood sample."
As they stepped inside and took off their shoes, Mordecai saw something he didn't expect to see.
"Whoa," he gasped, and Miroku saw what he saw.
Mana and the Restorative Horseman of Death, both with earphones on, listening to a music video on YouTube.
When it ended, the girl looked up at her father and grandfather, and removed her earphones.
"Hey, Daddy," she greeted, and Death removed the earphones in his ears.
"People listen to this?" Death asked. "That makes twelve of these…music videos that I've listened to now?"
"You've been showing the horseman music videos?" Miroku asked Mana.
"Yeah," she answered him.
"I didn't know he liked music videos."
"I've never listened to music videos, let alone music," Death revealed.
"Really?" Mordecai asked. "Never listened to any opera music? Heavy metal? Rock?"
"Daddy, he's never even heard of 'R' and 'B'," Mana told them.
"That's terrible."
"A lot of horsemen have never heard of any of these types of music before," went Death. "I am no exception."
"But who you used to be was. I mean, he drew pictures, but never heard of any music? Music is one of the greatest forms of entertainment to have ever been discovered."
Mana then switched from YouTube to Google and searched for Death's mortal incarnation. Specifically, just his DOB.
"Death, it says here that your previous incarnation was born on the Sixth of June, Two-Thousand-One," she told the horseman. "That would make him, and by extension, you, a snake, according to the Chinese Zodiac."
"And…what is that supposed to mean, exactly?" He asked her.
"People born in the year of the snake are said to enjoy good music, stories and plays."
"Along with possessing artistic interests," added Miroku, who know about zodiacs. "In addition, according to another zodiac, that would make you and your brother, who was also born on that date, a Gemini. The Twins, to be precise."
Mana showed Death what they were talking about on her computer. First, she showed him the Chinese Zodiac, and then the Astrology Zodiac to show him the Gemini symbol.
"I can understand the snake," he expressed, and his brother appeared again, "but I don't understand the other one. The Twins."
"Some say someone who's a Gemini is associated with the concept of duality, brother," Mako told him. "Duality. Two identities belonging to the same person. Two people that are, in truth, just one person who is neither one or the other."
Death looked at them all, as if needing an example of this concept.
"Um, Batman," Mordecai went. "Batman, Death. He's a good example of duality. By day, he's a billionaire orphan of a respected company and foundation in some incarnations, and at night, he's a vigilante crime-fighter that goes after the bad guys beyond the scope of the law. He separates these two lives by behaving differently in both, making people wonder just who he is. A rich playboy that makes scenes wherever he goes. An intellectual detective that dresses up like a bat and beats up the bad guys with his bare hands and using martial arts and devices the police don't have access to."
"Some of the people that know who he really is sometimes have to wonder who he really is," Mana added in. "Is he really Bruce Wayne…or is he the Batman. Sometimes, he's just the Batman…and Bruce Wayne is just a mask he wears to deceive people. His opposite is Superman, the Man of Steel."
"Man of Steel?" Death spoke, and Mana showed him images of Superman. "He wears red underwear on the outside."
"Yeah, that was way back when there were costumes where there was nothing wrong with underwear worn on the outside. Anyway, Superman's an alien from a doomed world in every incarnation and his parents send him to Earth for his safety. He ends up possessing powers due to being exposed to the sun's rays and becomes a hero to protect the people from all sorts of threats, whether they're human or alien. His human identity is always Clark Kent, and he spends the majority of his time being him, a farm boy from the town of Smallville that works at a newspaper company called the Daily Planet in the city of Metropolis."
"So, basically, there is a rich guy that fools people around him and spends his night as a bat-themed vigilante hero…and an alien hero that masquerades as an ordinary person," Death stated, making sure he understood what they were using to clarify duality. "A guy that hides that he is a vigilante…and a powerful alien that lives like other people. That's a strange way of duality."
"It's dual identities, dual lifestyles. People that live two lives try to figure out which one is the real them." Miroku told Death. "Another example of duality is an old story I enjoyed in my youth. The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."
"Yeah, he's also a good example of duality," Mordecai backed up his father-in-law. "He's a respected scientist that discovers a potion or serum that brings out his repressed dark side instead of keeping it suppressed. He becomes someone that does everything he would never do, say things he would never say. The duality of that story was the light and darkness that exists within us all."
Death, who had his right arm covered in the armor of his gauntlet, retracted the plates and looked at his skeletal limb, and then looked at his left arm. One side was flesh and the other was bone. One hand represented what was once life…and the other represented the end of life, which was death itself.
"Is there any music that speaks of duality, as well?" He asked them. "Or any other type of concept? This…intrigues me."
-x-
"…I take it that once more, your trip to NERV was less than productive?" Yui was asked by one of the other scientists.
"You'd be right," she responded.
"Well, the subject's synchronization ratio has jumped while you were away."
The subject, of course, was her younger son's reanimated corpse. She expected him to progress in piloting an Evangelion, especially since it was one she was working on. SEELE had requested the acceleration of the Eva Series by ramping up the Eva her team was assigned to, with her dead son's reanimated corpse serving as the pilot with Dummy Plugs included.
"Has anything else happened in his development?" She asked.
"Yeah, something else did happen," the man revealed. "He said something that didn't make any sense to anyone."
"What was it?"
"'Shinji wants to die'. That's what he said. Does that make any sense to you?"
Yui found herself at a loss on how to answer that. She didn't understand why her son's corpse would say that…he wanted to die.
-x-
Mana awoke in the night with a need to use the bathroom and stepped out of her room. She stopped by the hallway leading to the bathroom door and saw her father stepping out.
"Hey, Mana," he greeted her.
"Hey, Daddy," she responded. "When I went to sleep, was Death still using my computer to access YouTube?"
"Yes…unfortunately."
"Well…in a way, he is like a child, so he needs to learn new things."
"A child in a body that is unlike anything we've ever seen before. I just hope he doesn't do something crazy, like hum the lyrics of any song to himself."
Mana then stepped into the bathroom and sat on the toilet to relieve herself.
Meanwhile, downstairs in the living room, Death sat in front of the girl's computer, still listening to different songs from different categories of music…until he chose to stop and stood up. He looked down at the clock on the bottom of the girl's computer and saw that it was after three in the morning, and decided that there had to be time in the remainder of the night to search for sinners on the streets.
"Death?" He turned and faced Mordecai. "You've finished?"
"I have," he answered him. "I am going out into the remainder of the night now, but I shall return before the sun rises to the new day."
Mordecai bowed his head to the horseman.
"If Ms. Asagi is still in the bathroom, may you tell her that I thank her for introducing me to the world of music and art? They were… They are…revitalizing."
"Okay."
Before he stepped out, he turned to face him again.
"Yes?" Mordecai asked him.
"If you had to listen to another girl sing…and then listen to your daughter sing…who would you cheer for the most?" Death asked him.
"Honestly, I'd give my best cheer for Mana."
Death then gave him a small smile.
"I would, as well, Mr. Asagi."
-x-
Whenever he wasn't performing any Eva testing for them, the reanimated corpse of Shinji Ikari was strapped to a gurney. Not only was he strapped down, he was sedated to keep him in check, since they have yet to estimate a proper amount of medication that put him under control without causing a regression for him. And by "regression", that meant turning him into a killer, just like he had been before he died.
"I guess you heard about what he said while you were away," Yui turned away from the window displaying her reanimated son on the gurney and looked at Nama.
"You think that's what he's been saying all this time?" She asked him.
"Honestly, I believe it's all he says. I can't fault him on it. Someone dies, then finds themselves alive again, only to want to die again. Maybe it's just a half-life for him, not really dead, but not really alive, either."
"Some would be joyous at a second chance to live."
"But that's just it. Only some. Not many want it, and for different reasons. What good is a second chance to one that doesn't want it? I don't know exactly who it was that said it, but I believe them when they say it. Sometimes, death is better than being brought back to life like this."
Yui thought about it, but found it hard to comprehend from her perspective. She had been displaced while inside Unit-01, but she wasn't dead in the actual sense, so she didn't understand how hard it was for others to comprehend. True, she was declared legally dead, even though her body wasn't recovered, but she was still alive. When she returned to the physical realm outside of the Eva, she returned in her body, perfectly preserved since the day she participated in the experiment, and was declared having faked her death in the experiment by SEELE, but her presence had done nothing to stop Shinji from wanting to murder his father for his role in his pain, and he expressed his own hatred of her, as well, but not as severe as the hatred he had for his father.
"I take it you find it hard to believe because of the horseman that runs around after criminals and crooked cops?" He asked her.
"That…and everything else," she responded.
-x-
For some strange reason, Death found himself drawn back to Nagoya. It was something even Mako found unusual, as he couldn't understand why his brother would return here and be unable to find any sinners.
"How is it that we come back here, to the place where the most impact was made against the guilty of mankind…and find no trace of any sinners to send to Hell?" Death asked Mako as he walked in the middle of the empty street. "Yet, there is a stench of darkness residing here."
"Something we should consult about with Mother Gaia," the ghost infant suggested. "Something is not right here, but there's nothing to be seen or heard."
"Or felt," Death added; he was also able to mildly feel the torment of the victims created by the guilty he would go after, feeling as though everything they would suffer, from being grabbed and manhandled, stabbed or shot at, even the worst of physical torture, just like what had happened when he first showed up to the city, was actually happening to him, only like what he learned was a phantom sensation. "I can feel the suffering of victims now."
The streetlights illuminated the two as the horseman walked further down, but many of the building lights were out, signifying a drop in the population. There wasn't even a single person out and about, as if someone had instigated a curfew that everyone was following. Everyone but these two.
"I'd listen to the words he'd say, but in his voice, I heard decay," went Death.
"The plastic face forced to portray," Mako followed suit, "all the insides left cold and gray."
"There is a place that still remains. It eats the fear, it eats the pain."
"The sweetest price you'll have to pay."
"The day the whole world went away."
Death then jumped off the ground and soared up to a nearby building, overlooking the neighboring buildings in the fading darkness of the night.
"So long as we keep the whole world from going away," he told Mako, "people with purity in their souls will not have to pay that sweet price."
"That price might as well be the price of extinction," Mako expressed. "An entire world…with everyone that did nothing to deserve any form of retribution…laid in a grave."
"And nobody is kind enough to leave roses on that grave."
As the sky began to embrace the morning hours, Death decided to return to the Asagi house in the hopes of learning more about art from those that had seen more of it than he ever hadn't in life. It would become another aspect of mankind that he would partake in whenever he chose to.
-x-
"…Although he doesn't look anything like his ghostly incarnation," Nama informed Yui, showing her the other corpse that had been in their possession, "he's not as intimidating as either the horseman or the ghost that goes with him."
Yui looked down at the bassinet that held the reanimated remains of Mako Ikari, looking as though he'd been asleep the entire time. It was shortly after Shinji's remains had been reanimated that Mako's were restored to a semblance of life. His respiratory functions, skin temperature and motor functions had been revived, but the only thing missing was the semblance of a mind, even though the nervous system had been restored, too. It was like he was there, but, just like his younger, physically-older brother, he was only there in body.
"Have they both been revived in a close-to-stable condition?" She asked him, touching her firstborn on his head, feeling his skin no longer as being like that of a preserved corpse.
"They're as close to stable as they can be with our existing technology," he answered her.
"Very well, then. We should begin the contingency plan for the Dummy System."
"Shouldn't you ask something like whether or not it's going to hurt them?"
Yui ignored that question. It wasn't something she needed to ask because it was a difficult excuse to mix her private, social and work lives.
To be continued…
A/N: I'm sorry I took so long to finish this. Life has become too complicated than I hate it to be. Please, do review the story. Don't just fave and follow it. I want to know what you think about it.