Creation began on 11-29-17
Creation ended on 05-13-18
Neon Genesis Evangelion
A New Cause: Auxiliary
It was nearing Thanksgiving now, and as Mana read and watched the news daily, the girl had never seen so much mayhem for the criminals that was being created by Death. The messages written in blood were more intense and the reports that most prisons had been attacked by the horseman for their most unforgivable inmates and crooked guards had spiked in the past two-and-a-half weeks.
"…Well, it's not like he could take a few days off and permit the criminals to run wild," Himeko stated, also looking at the news articles on Death with her daughter in the living room. "If what he did were akin to a working job with a few days off, he'd probably be making an above-average pay grade."
"If he were an unconventional or unstoppable assassin of sorts, Mother?" Mana asked her, setting down one article clipping about Death killing up to a thousand inmates and ten prison guards in one of the prisons hit by him three days ago.
"Sort of," her mother responded, putting down another clipping that explained the aftermath of Death attacking at least twelve strip clubs and leaving only a handful of men and women unharmed, but sending over seven dozen more back to their makers. "It was never my area of expertise, but I've been looking over the crime statistics ever since the last time Death was here visiting, and his actions have made a serious impact upon the world. The number of crimes committed, ranging anywhere from drug running to human trafficking, kidnapping, even domestic abuse, all of these have dropped way below the usual standards that they're known to happen by."
"If this keeps up, he'll have made the police's job easier for them."
"But he'll make most governments hard-pressed for him to stop if they have certain criminals they want information from on other criminals."
"I've read a bit more in The Book of the Restorative regarding the Four Horsemen, and it states that anyone who's life is ended by Death or any of the other horsemen, all their knowledge, all their memories…become theirs to use however they see fit. For example, if he killed a biker, he would have complete access to their expertise on how to operate or maintain a bike."
"Meaning he could disclose the knowledge of everything and everyone his victims knew of in the criminal underworld if he chose to."
"That's right."
"…I mean, look at what's going on right now," one of the reporters on the television uttered, getting their attention regarding the horseman. "This is Death-mania here! Multiple murders and blood messages left in many different parts of the world! How is it that this one man, this one kid that everyone knows is very dead suddenly able to get around without any signs and continuously end so many people before even the police can find them and apprehend them to the full extent of the law?"
"Because he's not bound by the laws like we are," said Mana.
"They don't know that," Himeko told her.
"There have been reported sightings from all over," a woman on the television revealed, pointing to geographic points of interest. "I mean, he's hit North Korea, South Korea, a few places in Nevada, Texas, Chicago, Sapporo, Vietnam, even the Hawaiian islands! This is someone clearly with the means and the will to go after these people he views as bad."
"Do you think any criminal masterminds are watching these updates, Mother?" Mana asked.
"I hope they are," Himeko responded, "because then, they'd know that they're doomed to fail against dealing with Death. When he comes after you for your crimes, there's no reasoning, no making deals with him. He will end…anyone that's got it coming."
-x-
SLASH! The sword War used to cut through solid stone had managed to enable him to cut through solid steel…and rather cleanly, too.
No melted ends, no searing edges, no imperfections at all. The horseman had only returned from a two-day-long check of Toronto and New York to make sure they were empty of mortals, and resumed training in his swordsmanship, still angry over their defeat at the hands of Pyre.
SWAT! He quickly turned around and grabbed an arrow that had almost struck him in his neck, breaking in half.
"Conquest!" He yelled at the White Rider, who was hovering above a large stone nearby. "What was that about?!"
"Venting," the Poison Master expressed, setting his feet back onto the grass. "We're all disgusted by our defeat. Even Famine has gone off on an eating binge in St. Luis to cope with the loss."
"And Death has gone into overkill with his growing list of criminal and sinning victims. If he keeps this up, he'll have reduced the entire criminal underworld to near-nothingness."
"The same goes for those that don't fit the pathology of a criminal. The wife beaters, the school bullies, the homeless scum, etc. We were instructed by a deity to cease our interference…and we disobeyed."
"No, we obeyed the orders of the deities we follow, ignoring the deity we don't follow. Our allegiance is to the Restorative and the people that believe in the cause, not the Fire God that attacked and threatened us. Even if I were to be razed to the bone, I'd still do as Mother Gaia tells me to do because I believe in her above all others."
"Likewise, and it's not like we could be killed. Put down for a while, yes, but never killed."
Whoosh! A breeze crept up on the two horsemen and they were now in the presence of the Restorative Wind Goddess, Malu, who seemed to have something on her mind.
They bowed to her in respect before War asked, "To what do we owe the pleasure of your unexpected visit, Wind Goddess?"
"A long and anticipated conversation between Gaia, Genki, Kai and I on how to move things forward," she explained. "Tonight, there will be something we need to tell you four about that may change everything from what once was to what could be."
"Something all Four Horsemen must be present to hear?" Conquest suspected.
"Yes."
"We shall be here."
Malu bowed her head to the two before disappearing in another breeze, like a ghost.
"What could they have to tell us that may change everything from what was to what could be?" War wondered aloud.
"Something they haven't told us, that is for certain," Conquest told him, looking down at his longbow. "Something they haven't told us."
-x-
RIP! Death tore down the door to the solitary confinement room that housed his next target, seeing a gray-haired man of forty-three years in nothing but faded underwear on the cold floor.
"Why?" He asked the Pale Rider, closing his eyes. "I'm here for keeps. I'm never getting out for what I did to my wife and son. I've made my peace with my sins. Why come after me?"
"Cutting away at the weeds that spread sin," Death told him, raising his sickle up; he could tell that this man had taken the time to regret his actions of murdering his family and felt true remorse, but was still unable to accept his responsibility for why he did what he did. "It's not the dying part that hurts those that enter Hell for their sins, you know. It's everything that comes later. And just so that you know…dying isn't really all that bad."
"Because you've died before?"
"Yes."
"Then do what you're here to do."
The man raised his head up high; there was no escaping the Grim Reaper, so all he could do was accept his untimely fate and the revenge that was desired by the ghosts of his past.
Death decided that this man didn't deserve to have his head cut off like several others had, along with their other body parts. Instead, his end would be a different form of quick.
Pierce! He rammed his blade into the man's chest, severing his heart so fast that he had no time to gasp for another breath.
"May you find a semblance of peace where you're going," he told his corpse, removing his sickle from his chest and vacating the room.
"Aw, shit! He killed the guy!" He heard a prison guard yell as he and eight more showed up down the hall. "Quick! Shoot him!"
They weren't sinners of any sort, just men following their orders. This meant that he couldn't kill them unless they refused to step aside of his way to more sinners, but Death, deciding to be merciful towards them, took out one of his Glocks and ran towards them as they raised their machine guns at him.
BANG, BANG, BANG! Legs, shoulders and small areas that were nothing but flesh were pierced by bullets under body armor.
The guards fell to the ground…and Death simply walked away, knowing they would live.
Mako manifested beside him on his left and said, "That was nice, but I think you killed all the worst of the worst in here, brother. This prison's been cleaned out."
"That's good. Onto the next round of scum."
Walking past cell after cell full of other inmates in for lesser crimes that they wouldn't get out for until finishing their terms, the Grim Reaper had quite an effect on the men that were kept separated from the women, as they were pressed against the back walls of their cells, too terrified to even try anything.
-x-
"…There are so few of them left to go after now," Miki Serizawa expressed in the kitchen, looking at the newspaper articles with her mother that spoke of the Horseman of Death's escapades. "What do you suppose he'll do next?"
"I honestly don't know what he'll do next," Hiroko told her daughter, "but whatever he does do next will have another impact upon the people."
-x-
SCREECH! The prison transport stopped on the road in front the last person the driver expected to see in the darkness.
"Oh, God," he shuddered.
It was Death himself, looking at the driver with burning, white eyes. He jumped up and landed on the roof of the bus, walking over to the middle…where he unsheathed his sickle and began to carve through the frame.
The prisoners yelled as they tried to get away; most of them were sentenced to a quarter of a century for murder and rape, but knew those sentences were no better than a death penalty when this guy was after your hide.
Rip! He ripped open the roof and stuck his head inside.
"Everyone, sit down!" He told them, but they were banging on the gate that kept them locked in the bus. "I said…SIT DOWN!"
His voice was like ten megaphones put together when they heard him a second time, and they obliged his order as he set down inside the bus, looking at them.
"There are only two classes of prisoners on this bus," he revealed to them. "There are forty-eight of you here…and depending on the level of remorse in your souls…there is a chance that more than twenty of you will live to die from old age or other natural causes. There is a chance that more than twenty of you will live to see the end of your lives. The only question you need to ask yourselves is who. Who will be sent to Hell tonight…and who won't be sent to Hell tonight? That is the question."
He looked down at an African-American man of twenty years and asked him, "What was your crime? What was your sin?"
"Grand Theft Auto," he answered the horseman. "Fifteen years. Eligible for parole in five years if I show good behavior."
"Did you hurt anyone?"
"No, sir."
"Did you kill anyone?"
"No, sir. I just wanted the car."
"Do you regret your choice to steal that which did not belong to you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are you afraid of me? Are you afraid of dying and going to Hell and burning for your sins?"
"Yes. Yes, I am."
"That's good. That's really good. Look at this young man, mortals." Death told them, raising his sickle at his neck. "This is a poor soul…who will leave here tonight with his heart still beating. If he's lucky, he will serve out his time and walk away with a clean slate. He will live…but what of those that remain, hmm? Who else among you…has true regret in their souls for their crimes and seek to pay for them with years shaved off their own lives instead of paying the full price?"
"Aaaaugh!" One man, a large, light-skinned guy, yelled as he pushed others out of his way to get to Death. "Come on! Come on, dead guy!"
Slash! His head came off and rolled on the floor underneath one of the seats, his body running past Death and falling to the floor.
"Nobody's going to miss him," he told the prisoners. "He was a rapist. Heh-heh, he actually reminds me of my night in Nagoya, Japan. Do any of you know what I discovered that night? Hmm? I…hate…rapists! I hate 'em!"
Of course, this only narrowed his victims down on the bus.
"I can smell the stink of rape in your souls," he informed them. "It's like a poisonous vapor in the air. A shapeless gas that lingers as it spreads into the flesh. A vicious feeling which, when acted upon, results only in blood and sorrow."
"Your face!" Another African-American man gasped. "Your face! What's wrong with your face?!"
Death, who was walking over towards them, stopped and looked at one of the windows that gave an adequate reflection of his visage, revealing that it was now different from before. The skin was paler, a small series of cracks forming in the right cheek, and heavy decomposition in the skin surrounding the jaw, forehead and around the eyes.
"Beware, Death, the Endgame," he recalled something the Aether God had informed him. "Sometimes, when you demonstrate heightened emotions, your appearance responds by revealing the negative side of your position as a horseman. You are the only one of the quartet that belongs to the other side of the line. Don't let yourself get consumed expressing yourself too much."
And this was the negative side of his position as the Horseman of Death: Whenever he displayed a heightened degree of emotion, his face would begin to rot and resemble a heavily-decrepit corpse that hadn't been properly tended to.
"Do forgive me," he told them, calming down, and as he did, his face returned to normal. "Our emotions, they'll be our undoing if we let them get the best of us."
-x-
The fire built by War when Famine returned from his eating binge did nothing to ease the minds of the three horsemen present as they and the four deities of the Restorative waited for Death to arrive.
"Are we sure he got the message?" Kai asked them.
"Death will appear," Gaia assured him. "He's never late…nor is he ever on time. None of us are."
"Yet, we're bound to the mortal concept of time and patience," went Genki. "My patience is that of a black hole."
"Sorry I took so long," they heard Death, as he appeared sitting on the log that Malu was sitting on, his clothes damp and smelling like he had been submerged in water.
"It's okay," the Wind Goddess expressed. "We're all on edge."
"No disrespect, but I may be over the edge."
Mako manifested and sat beside his twin on the left side of the log.
"Tonight, he murdered twenty-seven prisoners being transported to a different prison," he explained. "It was…very cramped."
"Claustrophobia?" Conquest asked them.
"When you spend most of your life in an enclosed space, the open spaces allow for a greater revelation," Death explained; he wasn't claustrophobic, but didn't enjoy being in enclosed spaces where his freedom of movement was reduced. "What is it that we must discuss here tonight?"
"Creating a deviation in what has been to what could be now," answered War, who gestured to Gaia on the other side of the fire.
"Since the very beginning, there have always been the four of you," the Earth Goddess explained. "Four Horsemen to represent the Restorative. Every so often, we found ourselves wondering if the four of you would always be enough to break this cycle of death, destruction, rebirth and renewal…and every now and then, we thought of expanding the number of horsemen to aid in breaking the cycle, even by a small amount."
"Expanding the number of horsemen?" Famine questioned, confused.
"Four plus one more," explained Genki. "A fifth horsemen for the Restorative."
"A fifth horseman?" Conquest uttered. "Is such an act possible? The four of us represent what has been known throughout mortal history as calamities they can barely escape from, but what could a fifth horseman represent?"
"Conquest, War, Famine and Death," went Genki. "Individually, any one of you are powerful in your own right. Together, you are unstoppable against any that dare to stop you from accomplishing your goals…but what keeps you together? There must be something behind the teamwork, behind the gathering that binds the four of you as a whole. What ties you four together?"
"Friendship?" Famine suggested.
"Loyalty," went War.
"Respect," said Conquest.
"Death?" Kai asked the Pale Rider.
"I don't have an answer," he responded. "I'm not sure what binds us together. What truly unites the Four Horsemen of the Restorative beyond Mother Gaia. We're each different in many respects, yet we must rely upon each other in the face of adversity when we can't deal with a situation alone. There's only an 'I' in 'I', but there's no 'I' in 'team', no 'you' in 'group'."
"The whole point of what the mortals that desire to undo all of current existence call Human Instrumentality is to unite the souls of everyone," Gaia stated. "However, to truly unify all souls in existence, each and every one has to be willing to unite with the rest, to remove their hidden barriers and allow their personal spaces to be trespassed upon by others. One and All, All and One. Each needs the other. Each of you are the One…and the world itself is the All. When you put those together, you get unity. Unity, when all are one."
"The Horseman of Unity?" Mako asked.
"Yes," all four deities answered.
"Another aspect of changing the future is to ensure that beings like Adam and Lilith can never be exploited to unite all souls against their volition," explained Genki, "something you've each made possible by helping to remove Adam from NERV, as well as procuring the Spear of Longinus…and one of the Evas themselves."
"But…how can we be sure they won't try to find an alternate way to achieve their twisted desire?" War asked him. "They still have Lilith and could produce more Evas to suit their needs if they feel they need to."
"They won't be able to," expressed Malu to the Red Rider. "If they express so much disgust in their mockeries of Adam due to them having a price to pay in order to create, no one is going to be willing to pay that price for even one of them. Five of them have already been made, two of which the soul of the new Death here has a rather bitter history with."
Conquest, War and Famine looked at Death, who, despite his vacant expression, did look like he'd rather be thinking of something other than a piece of a past he didn't have or a life he had lived once before and would never live now.
"The purple one is soulless and useless as long as no woman with a child born after a fifteen-year-old tragedy created by sinners that desired to end the world is used as its replacement soul," he stated, referring to Unit-01, "and the black one is in the custody of the Restorative, also soulless and can't be exploited by mortals. But you want to use the black one…don't you?"
Kai then uttered, "Only if we choose to…and we must all agree on such a choice."
"We could also use it to restore Adam to his previous state before he was manipulated by people," suggested Genki.
"I'm already dealing with Adam's safeguarding," Gaia reminded him. "I could restore Adam without resorting to that. We could use the black behemoth to fulfill a different purpose if necessary. Shall we show the Four Horsemen where we stashed our auxiliary horseman that could've been…and could be?"
"Wait, you four already made a fifth horseman…and hoarded him away?" Famine asked, confused by Gaia's suggestion.
"Them," Kai corrected. "We created a vessel to house the soul of the horseman, but it has no identity until the soul is merged with it. It doesn't even have a face to look at."
There was a silence that lasted a full minute…until Death spoke up again.
"The only way for evil to win is for those who can do good…do absolutely nothing," he stated. "To counter evil, those that can do good must do good. Let's meet this vessel that could be our next great ally in this cause to change things."
-x-
Maybe it was a consequence of having so many different chemicals intravenously injected into his remains, or even due to harvesting his reanimated blood and tissue cells for the Dummy System, but all Yui could understand at the moment…was that her younger son, the revived body of Shinji Ikari, was slowly deteriorating. Her son's body was deteriorating…and she needed to find a way to prevent it before he quit on SEELE, on her, again. So far, immersion in LCL slowed the decaying process down, but only for as long as he was in it. At best, the body had about a month before it deteriorated past the point of mobility.
"So long as his body is still alive, we can still harvest his genetic material for cloning," she reminded herself, looking at his submerged body in the LCL tank, seeing his skin looking rather worn and thin. "He may not be able to pilot an Eva, but his genetic duplicates won't be hindered by this deterioration."
"So, is that he all he is to you now?" She heard one of Shinji's alternate personas say to her as she saw the little boy sitting in the shadows of a corner. "He's just genetic material for you to harvest? That's just like a scientist with no morality to do to someone else who is unable to give consent or cannot be understood by an extremist intellectual. Yet, you know what he wants most…but you won't permit it because you're so arrogant and unwilling to let go."
"Yet he is alive, so he can have the chance to be happy."
"Bullshit," said the secondary persona as he appeared behind her. "Whatever chances he had for being happy, they died with him the day he was set on the path of vengeance. Your sister, your nephew, your brother-in-law, your husband, all of those people that got in his way, he knew he couldn't walk away from any of that…and he was going to die, regardless of the aftermath. He knew the consequences of his only choice to deal with the contempt the Ikari family members he knew of dealt him with…and he accepted them. He paid the ultimate price for his dealing in retribution. So, why try and undo a debt that has been paid?"
Yui turned to face the illusion of her son's decrepit state from when he was set free from the institution, but he was no longer behind her.
"Right here," he uttered elsewhere in the room and she turned to the same spot where the little boy Shinji used to be when he made his first kill sat, seeing the other boy looking much worse than before. "It's a pity how things never work out for anyone that won't listen to reason or accept what has happened already. You can't change the past and you shouldn't be allowed to destroy the future if it doesn't work for you. So I guess the next few days will be quite the anvil that gets struck by the falling hammer of fate."
"What Slayer is saying that we're both past our expiration date and have lived in a state of limbo for as long as possible…and we have nothing left to say or do. So…we shall return to the abyss of the lost soul that resides within Death, the Endgame. Sayonara, Mother." Driving Force explained, looking rather…sickly and pale, and then he disappeared from sight.
"I hope the horseman your son has become does find you hiding out here," said Slayer as he began to disappear from sight. "I hope that he finishes what he started when he was mortal flesh! And when he does, he grants his body's aftermath request!"
Then, both ghostly personas were gone.
Yui couldn't feel like she was even being watched by the two, anymore.
They're truly gone, she thought, looking at Shinji's body and sighing at needing to come up with a new and more-effective regenerative solution to save him. It's so quiet now. I never thought I'd be returned of the peace and quiet that helps to find solutions that make lives easier.
-x-
"…I've never been down this deep before," Conquest stated to Mother Gaia as they and the others had traveled deep under the Earth Goddess' island domain.
"We had decided to preserve the vessel near the core," she explained. "Far enough down to keep people away, but close enough to be retrieved if necessary."
But as they all traveled further down, Death and Mako noticed how the tunnel looked less like a cavern and more like a modern-day hall, only made of dense stone and marble. It was as though someone actually lived or worked down here on a regular basis to require a semblance of stability.
"Mother Gaia," the Pale Rider uttered, "did you make this path?"
"Yes, Death," she answered, "a long time ago."
The Four Horsemen, Mako and the Four Primordial Deities came to a fork on the path and Gaia led them all down the left path.
"Left, like the left hand," said Malu. "The heart is traditionally located on the left side of the body, so the left paths are often the best ones to take. When in doubt, follow your heart."
Death stopped for a minute while the rest walked further down; what the Wind Goddess stated felt difficult to do in his position…because unlike all other beings, his heart was devoid of a pulse so he couldn't follow it.
"She meant it metaphorically, brother," said Mako to him. "The heart is just an organ that aids in blood flow. What people mean when they say that is to follow your emotions, your instincts, what you feel is the right choice, even if there's a chance it's the wrong choice."
"These concepts seem so complex," he responded. "Why can't they be kept simple?"
"Human nature, Death. Nothing's ever simple."
Yet death is one of the simplest of concepts in existence because of its pointless aspects.
The Pale Rider resumed walking and rejoined the others. Half an hour later, they came across the location of preserved horseman vessel, marked off by an unusual sign. A rather large, war hammer-like weapon was wedged into the ground, the shaft base slanted, ending in a ring with a folding fan hanging to it by a small chain.
Something about it made the horsemen curious.
"Something tells me that wasn't meant for any man to wield," went War, slowly approaching the weapon and examining its details. "This is… I don't know, just too…delicate."
"It's my war hammer, War," revealed Gaia to them all. "Many generations have passed and many more a lifetime has passed since I last saw it. It was meant to serve as my symbol for my having walked away from inflicting harm onto others. I haven't wield it in so long."
Death then remembered the damaged and faded mural at the ruins from before, where he saw the depiction of Mother Gaia wielding a hammer.
Mother Gaia walked over to the wedged-in weapon and grasped the shaft.
"Recognize…your wielder," she uttered, and the weapon glowed golden-yellow as she pulled it out of the ground, revealing the hammer portion resembled a large, clubbed mallet with its back end shaped more like a closed, curved fan.
Slam! She brought its bottom onto the ground and caused a tremor, shaking the cavern and unsettling the horsemen.
A small crack formed in the ground she removed her hammer and it expanded until something smooth and metallic rose from under it. A large box or coffin with a purple coating of paint, with a five-pointed star with different colors for each point, as if representing the five elements of existence.
"The tomb of the fifth horseman," Kai uttered.
Malu got in front of the tomb and brought her hands together, unleashing a powerful stream of wind at it, forcing the lid to fly open.
The soulless horseman was, true to its current state, devoid of any features. No trace of hair, ears, not even a nose or mouth was present upon its body. The body, however, was present of only one aspect, and that was its build and height. An average height of five feet and a slim structure; it was like a life-sized, naked doll that was unfinished because the creator ran out of inspiration or motivation to complete the job and give it an identity of its own.
"I give to you the vessel of the fifth horseman," Gaia introduced to the four riders.
"Now, the question becomes…who will they be?" Conquest stated. "Who shall become the new horseman in our cause to prevent the end of the world?"
"We could always request the services of a former lost soul that filled a role as a previous horseman," suggested Genki, "but when they retired, we swore not to disturb their slumber."
"It doesn't have to be just a lost soul, brother," Kai told him. "We provide lost souls with a way to redeem themselves, but with this horseman's position…we can request the aid of any soul…so long as they're human."
"How human we are to not think these things through," said Malu.
Mako floated over to the vessel, looking down at its faceless head, almost willing to admit that if the color texture wasn't that of carbon, it almost seemed glossy and reflective.
"Hey," he then spoke. "Could I do it?"
"You?" Death questioned. "You want to be the fifth horseman? Are you sure?"
"Yes. I'm dead, I stick by you to the very end, and I support your decisions as the Horseman of Death. I'm asking to become the Horseman of Unity."
-x-
"…It would seem that your brief visit to your brethren didn't have the intended effect, Lord Pyre," went Pestilence to the Fire God in his personal domain. "The Four Horsemen of the Restorative are still acting out in the mortal realm."
Sitting in a cross-legged position, while levitating three feet above the grass, Pyre turned around to face the demonic fiend and responded, "The Four Fallen Ones are loyal to the Earth Goddess and her alone. Even a little threat won't change their goal. However, anything you intend to do against them can still affect their decisions…for better or for worse."
"If it becomes necessary, and it will become necessary, I will unleash Hell on Earth. I despise the horsemen. Death, the Endgame more than the rest of them. Things are going to get uglier than they were before those sinful mortals reached out to the inferno masters."
Pyre looked at him as though he were the one offended by the demon's choice of words.
"Beware the wrath of the Restorative," he told Pestilence. "You may have the capacity to release Hell on Earth, but you're not the only ones able to bring forth a semblance of unending suffering onto mortals. Don't forget that your position as one of the Four Riders of Revelation is the same as the White Rider of the Restorative. Your powers are those of spreading decaying sickness, plagues that weaken the endurance of the flesh, and illnesses that degrade the strength of the mind. You're a strong being in your own right…but the Pale Rider of the Restorative is stronger than they who ride atop white horses. I fought Death, the Endgame…and I felt a strength to him that was beyond the other horsemen. He's only begun to tap into a power unlike anything any previous Horseman of Death has ever tapped into before. You don't just despise this particular horseman my siblings have brought into their cult of salvation that isn't so much of a cult… You fear him because he made you feel an instinct of fear, even when he was damaged, broken, weakened and humiliated by NERV. It was bound to happen."
"Not to me."
The demonic horseman left the Fire God alone…and Pyre pondered how he should best deal with the Restorative to keep them from interfering in the affairs of these demons' human dealings.
"Nothing ever works out the way I wish they would," he sighed.
-x-
Thunk. The body of the fifth horseman was placed on the altar Gaia made two minutes ago by Conquest in preparation for the ritual to bring it to life.
"This body isn't as light as I thought it would be," he told the deities as War set the horseman's previously-selected weapon aside for later, a custom-made halberd.
"Once the ritual is performed and life is imbued into the body, the weight will be readjusted," said Kai to them, filling the indentures with water as Malu lit the torches.
The indentures were patterned to make up an inverted, five-pointed star around the soulless body, with a sun on the left side and a lion on the right.
"We're nearly ready to begin," Genki informed them, looking at Death and his twin. "You can still back out if you want to."
"No, sir," went Mako. "I said I'd do it, that I want to do it, no matter what happens."
"And you, Death?" Gaia questioned the Pale Rider.
"I won't stand in my brother's way," he answered her. "I have to believe that this is the right thing to do for the Restorative."
"We still don't know what the ramifications could be if we do pull this off."
"We're lost souls. I think one such ramification we don't need to worry about is what's left to lose. We have nothing left to lose…except for what's left of our souls."
"We're ready to begin," Genki announced.
"Mako," Death uttered to his brother. "Whatever happens…try not to lose yourself."
Mako nodded and floated over to the blank slate vessel, sinking into it and disappearing from sight.
"Let's do this," Kai told them.
The deities raised their arms into the air while Four Horsemen surrounded the altar and the four deities. A strong blast of wind blew past each pillar, sending sparks of flame into the night. The bodies of the deities began to glow; Gaia's was green, Malu's was orange, Kai's was blue, and Genki's was purple.
"Echoes of the past," they spoke together, "phantoms of the future, we call forth the untold in this dark night. We shed our flesh, we spill our blood, we bare our souls into the light…and give this soulless horseman new life. Rise from our hopes, the fifth of the fallen, the harbinger of our unity."
The torches flared and the water-filled indentures glowed white, illuminating the fifth horseman. Then…the light ceased, and the soulless vessel didn't stir, didn't change its appearance. There was nothing to give any indication that any life had poured into it.
"Isn't it supposed to change to accommodate the soul inside it?" War questioned the deities.
"I'm not surprised," said Gaia, almost disappointed. "The absence of Pyre in such a ritual means we're lacking additional energy to fuel the awakening."
"So, we need a fifth deity?" Conquest suggested.
"Maybe not," went Death. "Any source of energy can potentially be substituted by another source, can it not? What if the Fire God's presence were substituted by the energy of the Four Horsemen themselves? Is that possible to achieve?"
"It's possible," expressed Genki to the Pale Rider. "You four would have to be more involved in the ritual for it have any success."
"Then shall we try again?"
"Yeah," answered Kai.
-x-
Mana tossed and turned in her sleep that night. In her dreams, she was a witness in front of a ceremony of some kind. She could hear drums being beaten as a series fires surrounded five pillars that aided in the pattern of a star with a raised platform in the center.
Four strange beings formed a ring around the platform, and one of them was Mother Gaia, glowing a greenish glow alongside the other three that were glowing orange, blue and purple. They looked like a strange serpent of a man, a fairy woman and a space cutout of a man in robes.
"What's going on?" She wondered.
"A new chapter that has been long overdue to be written to change history," she heard Mother Gaia's voice as she turned to see the Restorative Horsemen of Famine and Death beating drums.
The Four Horsemen? She wondered, seeing War, the Violent One manipulating streams and rings of flame with his sword and Conquest, the Poison Master fanning the flames to light up the darkness.
"Echoes of the past," they all spoke harmoniously, "phantoms of the future, we call forth the untold in this dark night. We shed our flesh, we spill our blood, we bare our souls into the light…and give this soulless horseman new life. Rise from our hopes, the fifth of the fallen, the harbinger of our unity."
A ceremonial prayer? Mana thought, watching as the Four Horsemen glowed white.
The light they radiated from their bodies shot up into the sky above the lifeless vessel…and shot back down upon it, bathing it in multicolored light.
FLASH! The light was so intense that Mana had to shield her eyes.
The last thing she did see…was a left hand rising up to the sky.
"Unity," she heard a voice say before she blacked out.
Thud! She felt her face making contact with a hard surface as she opened her eyes to the new day; she had fallen out of bed and onto the floor.
"Ahh…" She groaned as she got up.
"Mana? Are you alright in there?" Her mother called.
"Yes, Mother," she responded. "Just a dream."
An unusual dream, too. But she didn't want to concern them over something that might've been nothing to be concerned about.
-x-
Yui extracted more of Shinji's blood from his wrists while he was still genetically viable, and looked at his face as the skin looked like it was slacking on the cheeks and beside the nose.
"The flesh is weak, seeking release," he uttered again. "Let it die. Let…it…die."
The regenerated body had longed for death once again, but she couldn't permit that. So long as he was alive, he still had a purpose. She couldn't let him go just yet, not until she found a way to remedy the circumstances of NERV and SEELE's current predicament.
"Everything happens as it must," she sighs as she removed the needle from his right arm.
-x-
The afternoon had Mana helping her mother with lunch when the doorbell rang, getting her father's attention.
Mordecai answered it and saw Death…without his firearms, which was actually the rarest of times they ever saw of Death. Not that he was intimidating without them; whether or not he used guns or just his kama…or even just his bare hands, this incarnation of Death was likely the most intimidating version by far.
"Good afternoon, Death," he greeted him.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Asagi," the Pale Rider responded. "I brought along my brother for lunch, if that's okay with you."
"Yes, of course, but…isn't Mako always with you?"
"Last night, our relationship deviated into a new venture for the Restorative. So, I should reintroduce you to him."
"Huh?" Mana, who stepped into the hall and behind her father. "Has something happened with Mako?"
Death took a step back and pointed to the tree on their yard.
They and Himeko and Miroku looked up and saw someone crouched atop a branch.
"Whoa," Himeko uttered, looking back and forth between Death and the other guy. "Is that…"
Death nodded and took another step back, just as the other guy jumped off the branch and landed on the ground in front of the family.
"You've met him before as my ghostly elder twin who was in the form of a floating infant wrapped in a red blanket with his right hand exposed," Death expressed, now standing beside him, "but he received a position as a new horseman. This is Mako, the Horseman of Unity. The fifth horseman."
Mako, now resembling his younger twin, was dressed in black trousers and a blue shirt. His only other decorative feature was a gauntlet on his right arm that read, "UNITY".
"Hello, everyone," Mako greeted them; he still sounded the same, different from his brother.
"I just have a question about your new look," Mana stated, just needing to understand their whole twin thing. "You're the elder twin, so does Death take after you…or do you take after Death?"
The twins looked at each other before looking back at the young girl.
"I take after Death," Mako answered her. "I mirror my brother as he is…as I never got to grow up."
"I hope you two won't do a freaky twin prank on us," Miroku stated.
"What freaky twin prank?" Both asked him at the same time.
"Never mind."
As the elder walked away, Death was still confused; he didn't understand how twins were capable of performing pranks.
"Put quite simply," Himeko explained, "we hope you two don't pretend to be the other whenever you're spoken to. Identical twins can do that as a sort of joke because not many people can tell them apart. But you two don't look entirely the same. I can tell."
Mana could tell the difference, too. While both boys were, in one way, practically identical down to the last strand of hair on their eyebrows, the young girl could see in their eyes that gave them both away. She could see in Mako's a sign of light that was absent in Death, just as how she could see within Death's a sense of rage that was alien to the elder twin. But it wasn't a good twin/bad twin scenario; both were on the same side, they just may have had different ways of doing something.
"It's probably not necessary, but are you two hungry?" She asked them.
"Yes, I am," Mako answered her; he had only been a new horseman for less than twelve hours, and as energy coursed through his veins, he discovered that he might've been, according to the Restorative's four deities, the most human of the Horsemen of the Restorative due to being their creation and not a lost soul bound to a fallen being that protected the world from a great darkness.
-x-
"…So, he can still return to his ghostly form whenever he chooses to," Mother Gaia clarified to her divine siblings on the open field. "He just became a horseman, so he'll require time to fill out, just like they did."
"Yet his brother is still in his own development," said Kai to her. "Death and Unity, even though the later's still addressed by his previous life's name by the former. Will the Horseman of Unity ever be as strong as the primary horsemen, however?"
"Being as we made him from scratch in the beginning," said Genki to them, "it is unlikely that he will ever be as strong as they are. But that isn't a disappointment, as he was meant to be more in tune with humanity, and as a result is as strong as a mortal would be beyond their peak. He will improve in his own time, so we must show patience."
"I don't mind waiting for him to join the ranks of the others, but do you three think he'll be able to use that weapon we chose for him?" Malu asked them.
"Malu, sister, you're the one who won the coin toss," Gaia stated, reminding the Wind Goddess that she was the one that suggested they alter the weapon they paired the fifth horseman with. "I was all for keeping it as it was, but you felt it needed to be adaptable like he would be, so we gave him a weapon that could change its form to suit his needs."
"You sound as though you're ready to cause an earthquake, Gaia," claimed Kai to the Earth Goddess.
"I'm simply stating a fact."
"One can never be too prepared when in a situation that requires force, no matter how excessive," Malu declared in her defense.
"Conquest, War, Famine, Death and Unity," Genki sighed. "Five representations for the Restorative. We have taken our first step off the predetermined path. We're officially in uncharted territory now. The question now is…can we stay off the previous path…or will we be forced to return to it?"
"I pray to the Restorative that we don't now," Gaia confessed, taking out a picture of her adopted daughter from before Second Impact to look at. "A little change before going back to the beginning with a clean slate would be appreciated."
To be continued…
A/N: Never enough time to do everything. There's never even enough time to simply embrace life.