Creation began on 05-19-16

Creation ended on 05-20-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You: Renewal

A/N: Here's a revitalized version of the original story of a young man and his little girl.

Shinji awoke after what felt like a horrid nightmare he had been trying to wake up from. He found himself in a sparse, white room that had a stale smell to it. The events of the previous day echoing in his mind: His father, after over a decade of neglect, sends for him, only to force try and force him into a conflict that he knew absolutely nothing about, and he wanting nothing to do with the problem this NERV agency was facing because he, a young man with his own measure of responsibility, had his own priorities to deal with, but obliged the paramilitary agency's need of him only because of his own concern for what was important to him, not their concerns or their desire to live to see tomorrow.

"Shado?" He called out, his voice weakened from his exhaustion as he got up. "I hate unfamiliar ceilings. They're never the same."

As he got out of bed, the door to the room opened, and a woman in her late-twenties or early-thirties came in, sporting a short, black dress, a red coat and purple hair. This was Misato Katsuragi, the woman that had been tasked with picking him up to meet his father. And beside her was…

"Daddy!" A little girl cheered, running past Misato and over to Shinji. "Are you okay?"

She had to be at least around four years old, dressed in a green coat and blue skort, with short, ebony hair and pale eyes of the same coloring as the young teen in front of her.

"I'm fine," he assured the girl that was, despite what everyone that had been around to even bother with being freaked about, his child.

"This is just too weird," Misato expressed, and Shinji frowned at her; she was ruining the pair's happy moment. "How can she be your daughter?"

"That's none of your business," Shinji responded; if she couldn't understand it, then she was better of not knowing because it was a tormenting experience that left him with a lack of peace of mind and stability. "Where are my clothes from earlier?"

-x-

"…First Unit-00, and now Unit-01," went Kiel Lorenz to Gendo Ikari during their sanctioned meeting to discuss the Third Angel incident. "The costs needed to repair both of them will be as much as a small nation."

"And you made your son pilot it?" A man bathed in yellow light questioned Gendo.

"Time, money, and personnel," a man bathed in red light expressed. "Exactly, just how much of these must be wasted by your family, Ikari?"

"And what's this we hear about the boy having a little girl to look after?" A man in green asked. "How is this possible?"

"Unforeseen circumstances," Gendo answered him; in truth, he had no idea of how his son had father any children with anyone. "This will not, however, hinder anything."

"It had better not, Ikari," went Kiel to him. "It's not just the matter of the Angels' return. Our primary concern must be the Instrumentality Project. To us, this above all else, promises any actual hope in these desperate times. We'll not have anything, from the second return of the Angels…or the 'unforeseen circumstances' of a little kid associated with your son, delay this project. We may consider adjusting your budget requests."

"Understood, sir," Gendo responded.

-x-

"I swear, this place is a labyrinth," Shinji uttered, trying to find the exit to this hospital-like environment he and Shado were in.

"Daddy…we're not going back to that house that man's relatives lived in, are we?" Shado asked him, referring to his father's in-laws; she was only four years old, and already had an opinion of the Ikari adults that were her father's aunt and uncle and their son.

"No, sweetie," he answered her with a smile. "No matter what, we're never going back there. I don't think we could go back there, even if we wanted to. It wasn't welcoming for either of us."

"Hello, you two," the young father turned towards an open stairway and saw an elderly man in a brownish suit. "I'm Kozo Fuyutsuki."

Shado, being held by Shinji, held onto her father as she expressed a mild fear of the elder in front of them.

"What do you want, sir?" Shinji asked him.

"Just to try and convince you to consider to stay in Tokyo-3," Fuyutsuki answered back.

"If this has anything to do with those creatures you call Angels, I'm going to have to put my foot down and decline. They're not my problem, nor should they be my problem. Now, either show the way out of here or step aside."

"But, surely, we can reach an agreement of sorts that can be acceptable for both you and NERV," Fuyutsuki suggested; his orders from Gendo were to try and persuade Shinji to stay and help them against the Angels, by whatever means necessary, because there was no way he would waste his time trying to reach an understanding with him…and because they needed to understand the relationship between the boy and the girl.

"There's nothing to agree on. I don't even know you, let alone trust you around my daughter for more than two minutes."

-x-

"…This guy's different from his old man," said Aoba Shigeru as he and the other technicians in Central Dogma watched through the medical ward's surveillance cameras the meeting between Shinji and Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki. "He doesn't want to get involved, even when our future's at stake."

"Yet, he seems to care a lot for that little girl," expressed Maya Ibuki, still wondering how the Third Child could be a father himself at his age. "She does seem to resemble him a little."

"Can you really go home and forget about all of this, Mr. Ikari?" Fuyutsuki asked Shinji.

"Please," went Shinji in response to this address, "don't call me that. I'm not my father. I hate it when people try to compare me to him, just because we're related. He's a sore loser in my book, and I want nothing to do with him…or want him anywhere near my daughter."

"Ouch," said Makoto Hyuga.

Ritsuko Akagi, also watching as the conversation took place, pondered how to convince the boy to stay and help them.

"My apologies," Fuyutsuki expressed. "He's not well-liked here, either."

-x-

"Well?" Gendo asked Fuyutsuki as the Sub-Commander returned to his office later that day. "Were you successful?"

Fuyutsuki sighed and answered, "Not successful…but Shinji has considered staying awhile. However, he enforced that his primary concern is his daughter, not any of us. He's not even at all concerned for your well-being."

"So long as he pilots the Eva, what he feels doesn't matter."

"It will if she is harmed. He's already made it clear to me that he doesn't trust anyone, his age or older, around Shado. He claims he has Yui's relatives to thank for that."

-x-

It was actually the only apartment within the list of buildings owned by NERV that met the requirements for Shinji. So long as his daughter was permitted to stay with him and was kept out of harm's way, he would offer his service to NERV in exchange for their right to actually have a life together. It was a small, two bedroom unit that had the needs of a parent and child, and Shinji was the type of young man that didn't ask for too much in terms of material possessions. Nothing material could come between him and his daughter's well-being.

-x-

"…So he's agreed to stay for awhile?" Misato asked Ritsuko over the phone whilst taking a hot bath.

"Yes, but he's made it clear that he doesn't want any of us laying uninvited hands on his daughter," the faux-blond explained, "and I found out why he views those around her and himself with distrust. The girl is his biological daughter, but her mother had an impact on him that he didn't recover from."

"What are you talking about?"

"Five years ago, he was kidnapped by a woman with the aid of her brother and best friend. He was missing for three days, and his maternal relatives weren't exactly very intuitive or caring on who kidnapped him and why; if it was a ransom, they weren't willing to pay for his return. The police found him, but the damage had already been done. His daughter's the product of the damage that was inflicted upon him."

"You're saying…the woman that kidnapped him…raped him?" Misato questioned.

"Yes, Misato," Ritsuko answered her. "She raped him…and got pregnant by him. It's quite unusual that she was able to, given his prepubescence at the time of his kidnapping. Refused to get an abortion, had the baby in prison and died a week later in a riot. Because the brother was also in prison and their other relatives were dead, the girl was handed over to the Ikaris, since they were also her relatives by blood. I guess you could say that the boy accepted what had happened to be a sign of hope for him. The others, though, didn't take to the girl as he did."

"The boy distrusts adults and other people his age, but he accepts that he fathered a child with a woman old enough to be his own mother? How damaged is he?"

-x-

"Daddy," Shinji recalled his daughter's question to him one day before they left to Tokyo-3. "That man with the bad look on his face called me something I don't understand. What is a…bastard child?"

There was no love between Shinji and his maternal relatives at all. Not then, not ever. And his uncle calling his daughter a bastard just because she was a child out of wedlock, not that he was planning on getting married after what he went through as a child whose innocence was stolen from him. And then returned to the very people that didn't even bother to ask him if he was okay.

"Daddy?" He heard his daughter call out to him, breaking him from his train of thought to looking at his little girl as she lay in her futon as he sat beside it to keep watch over her. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, sweetie," he answered her; she was actually the only person he knew and trusted that ever took his feelings into consideration. "You should get some sleep. I'm hoping for you to have a good day tomorrow."

"You sleep, too, Daddy?"

"After you sleep."

-x-

"…So how was Rei today?" Ritsuko asked Gendo, as they overlooked the damaged Unit-00 in the damaged chamber half-filled with melted Bakelite. "You did see her at the hospital, didn't you?"

"She can work in thirty days," Gendo responded. "By that time, we'll be able to reactivate Unit-00 and will have obtained Unit-02 and the Second Child."

"Provided that NERV doesn't do anything to cause the Third Child to leave, that is."

This, of course, had Gendo irritated, and found his perception of the little girl that came with him to be a challenge because of the way she looked. If anyone had been smart enough to ask him, the girl Shinji called Shado looked like a splitting reflection of Yui Ikari, only little and more innocent to look at. But Gendo felt like her presence here could actually cause more trouble for him than anything or anyone else could in the future, just because she looked like someone he loved more than anything else in existence.

"What do we have on the girl?" He asked Ritsuko.

"Everything there is to know about her from her genetic background to her diet…but the only person that probably knows her better than anyone…is the girl's father." Ritsuko explained.

Gendo's left hand balled into a fist; it seemed that every time he tried to find a way to tip a situation in his favor, it showed signs of the potential to backfire in his face.

"It surprises you that he was capable of something like this, even if it was against his will?" Ritsuko asked him.

"Nothing of this sort…was supposed to happen in the years leading up to the present," he responded back.

"For someone that doesn't think about his kid, you seem to be thinking about his kid. How long do you think it will be until she decides to keep her distance from you? Assuming she's not aware of the type of person you are?"

Gendo didn't answer her.

To be continued…

A/N: Well, here's a new beginning to a recently-finished story. What do any of you suspect will happen later in this remake?