Creation began on 02-21-20

Creation ended on 02-24-20

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Suffering is Universal: Blood ties meant nothing to them

A/N: Even at the end of the world, those in control will refuse to listen to one voice that asks for the most important of wants and needs. How cruel is that?

Shinji Ikari. While that name may as well have been an omen for most of existence, it only held a sickening weight on the crippled soul of the man that possessed it, and he no longer looked anything like the person he used to be. It may have been an eternity since he last returned to the former blue-now-red planet that was no longer Earth in his universe, fractured into many a great multiverse, still searching for the woman that wronged him with her agenda, her self-righteous beliefs and need to exploit him, but time had lost much of its sway on him. At least in the physical sense due to his premature aging had ceased after his face developed several wrinkles under the dark spots of his eyes; not even a year's worth of sleep could've mended his complete lack relaxation. What was time to one that didn't want it…but was forced to go on like the condemned Cain for, supposedly, murdering his brother, Abel?

Shinji often felt like he had lost bits of his own mind since he came to in the aftermath of Third Impact, which was as true as the reaction he demonstrated when he murdered Asuka for rejecting him…or rather, what he perceived as rejection; he wasn't sure of anything, anymore, beyond his need to find his mother…and kill her, therefore freeing himself of this wretched damnation she forced upon him, living these different lives that were never truly his own. There was no sense in these different, fractured existences where he was either worse than his present state or with people that he didn't know for real. Who lives a ten-day life of murder and bloodshed in order to murder their own father for abandoning them? Who lives with strangers that treat you as family without the blood ties? Not even the life where one had to sacrifice much of their own flesh and blood for a fake mother that might as well have been better than the one that left you!

None of these lives made any sense or brought any comfort to his tortured soul…and never could replace the pain in his heart or undo the past he was dealt.

"…This world is only cruel…because of the people in this world that choose to be cruel," he heard a little girl say to someone, which caught his attention as he stumbled into another world's shadow, seeing a little girl laying on the ground under a pool of blood. "…And you people are just too cruel to be around… If he's no longer around, then I don't want to be around any of you. I'll go to where he is."

Shinji suddenly felt like his body had made contact with a wall of stone and every inch of his insides had been reduced to a jigsaw puzzle or something else awful.

"Who are you?" He asked the girl on the ground, and she raised her head up to look at him.

She looked about three or four years old, with short, ebony hair partially soaked in blood, giving it a wet aspect, with pale-brown eyes, dressed in a blue nightie with blood smeared onto its right side, as the girl had been laying on her right side.

"Shado," she answered him, somewhat frightened by his face. "Shado Ikari."

Shinji recalled a distant memory of why her name sounded familiar; in one of his fractured lives, she had been his illegitimate daughter by a woman that had kidnapped and assaulted him. The young man that he had been in that life put up with many levels of suffering to keep her with him, swearing that he wouldn't echo to her what his father had done to him.

"What happened to you?" He asked her.

"The last thing I remember doing…is escaping from these people that lied to me about my daddy," she responded.

"They lied to you about your father?"

"His aunt and uncle, these awful people his father left him with, tried to get rid of me by setting their own house on fire with me in it, tied up so I couldn't get away. Daddy came and got me out, but he got hurt and sent to the hospital. I didn't understand what anyone was saying…and nobody was really telling me anything, except asking me why I was there. Then this man with orange glasses and a face so cold that he frightened me came by…and he wanted to take me with him. I tried to run and hide, but these other people at the hospital caught me and kept telling me I had to go with him, something I didn't want to do. The next thing I know, these grown-ups keep telling me things I don't understand, that make no sense to me. They keep using words I can barely make out, like 'bagels' and 'navels', telling me, "You have to fight in place of your father", "Grow up or die", or that they didn't have the time or 'adequacy' to waste on someone that wouldn't or couldn't 'tight'."

While her vocabulary and comprehension were small, Shinji understood what she was telling him. He understood because it wasn't all that different from his own past that led him straight to this unending Hell he was in. Somehow, her world's wretched version of his father had decided to replace her father, another version of himself that had gotten injured saving her life, to pilot the Evangelion against the Angels, something that was a violation of professional and moral ethics; you couldn't go and just force a young child that wasn't even five years old to operate some heartless abomination you perverted against inhuman monsters and expect her to understand what was at stake if you chose not to explain it in ways that were comprehensible to her young mind.

"They wanted you to fight monsters," he told her. "They couldn't do it themselves and they couldn't have your daddy do it, either, so they thought they could use you."

"And they did," Shado explained to him. "Only once, though. They just sent me out against this thing that was scary. I wanted to run away, to call out for my daddy. They kept yelling at me to 'tight', but I didn't know what to do."

Suddenly, their background shifted into a perception of motion picture film that showed Unit-01 going up against the Fourteenth Angel (Shinji could assume that in Shado's mind, this Angel was scary as is) in Tokyo-3. The Angel used its paper-thin arms to pierce the Eva in the torso, causing agonizing pain to the little girl.

"The next thing I knew…I woke up in the hospital," Shado told him, and they saw the Eva move on its own and defeat the Angel. "I asked for Daddy…but this lady with purple hair told me he'd be by later. I didn't realize it until I tried to leave…that Daddy was never coming back for me."

They saw her past self with a look of pain on her face when Misato told her that the Shinji the girl knew would be by later for her (even he was disgusted by lying to a little girl with such a straight face)…and then the girl running from these people in white…and from Gendo, whose only concern was whether or not the girl could pilot the Eva again.

"I run out onto this roof and climb onto the side of it," she continued, "and then that lady goes and calls me by that awful name Daddy didn't like anyone calling me by."

"Fuyona, stop!" Misato had gasped.

"That's not my name!" Shado told her. "Don't call me that!"

"Shado, don't do what I think you're going to do."

"Why'd you lie to me?!"

"What are you talking…"

"You did lie! You said that Daddy was coming to get me, but that was days ago! I kept asking, and everyone kept telling me the same thing! You know what happened to him, don't you?! You do! And you won't tell me!"

"Shado…we don't have time for any of this. There are more of those monsters out there…and we need you to fight them."

"No! I don't want to do that again! I want my Daddy! Don't make me do that again!"

Then they saw Gendo show up…and he said something so awful to the girl that it shattered her belief in there being good people like her father in what remained of this pain-filled world.

"Only an infant would whine for their parents, little girl," he spoke with such cruelty towards Shado. "Grow up and face reality. Your…father…is not here to help you navigate the world."

That bastard, Shinji thought. He never has anything nice to say to anyone! He has no sympathy towards anyone that he hurts!

Shado then looked over the ledge of the rooftop…and knew what she had to do to get away from these people that she wouldn't aid in a conflict that she knew nothing about.

"No, don't do what you're thinking about doing!" Misato warned the girl, trying to approach her.

"You don't know what I'm thinking," she told her, standing up on the ledge. "Daddy was right about something he told me a while back, about there being people in the world that were either good or cruel…and how this world is only cruel…because of the people in it that choose to be cruel. And he was right about people like you. This world is only cruel…because people like you choose to be cruel. And if he's not here…then I don't want to be left alone in this cruel world with people like you in it. I'll go to where he is…where people like you can't follow."

Shinji saw tears escaping the girl's eyes as she didn't need to contemplate her fate any further than she had already.

I'm sorry, Daddy, he heard the girl's final thoughts…and watched as Misato tried to stop her as she jumped off the ledge. This world is just too cruel when you're gone. Will the next one be kind? Will you be there waiting for me? Will you forgive me for coming to be with you?

Shinji watched as the girl hit the ground below, understanding the subtle feelings of pain he felt within his own body now; her impact with the pavement had caused multiple broken bones, ruptured organs and turned her skull into a broken can of pulp. There was no hint in her way of thinking that what she was doing was wrong, that ending her own life was a sin. All she wanted, all she asked for…was just to be with her daddy again, the only person she ever trusted in this world that treated them both with cruelty. He felt sympathy for her, reminded in some way of something he knew that Misato had told him in at least one other lifetime that wasn't his own: "You're not the only one in pain, Shinji."

But what do you know about being in pain? He questioned to himself since she was not there to answer for herself. What did you know about anyone else's pain? You just watched from the safety of an underground bunker, barking orders…and in this life, you just lied to a little girl about her father…and then watched as she died to get away from people like you and Father. You don't know anything about other people's pain. You weren't forced to pilot something that robbed you of your life, piece by painful piece, ordered by soulless people that were more concerned with their own wants and needs over the wants and needs of other people, that chose to hide the truth from the ignorant minds of the world, or that… You simply didn't understand anything about other people's pain, no matter what you said back then.

"You look a little bit like him, you know," he heard the girl say to him, "but you're not him, though you both have suffered."

"You have suffered, too," he told her. "And your…daddy was right about the world being cruel because of the people in it choosing to be cruel. You were both dealt an unforgiving hand in life by those that chose to be awful towards you."

"The aunt and uncle wanted me gone just to hurt Daddy…and Daddy got hurt because he wanted to save me. I was happy that he cared about me, but I was sad that he was hurt."

"In the end, he made the choice to save your life, a choice that he, as an actual parent that was concerned for your happiness and well-being, would've made again without any hesitation, no matter what might happen to him."

"Then why, despite what happened to him, did these people hate us so much just for being around? Why did that man, his daddy, hate me so much when he didn't even know me? Why were they all being so cold and awful towards us when we didn't know what was going on?"

"Because they had personal goals they wanted to achieve, no matter how it affected everyone else around them."

"Even it meant hurting us both?"

"Especially if it meant hurting you both."

"They really were cruel people."

Shado, despite her young mind and sensitive mentality, felt anger more than she felt confusion towards the people that despised her father and she. Anger because the people she saw last had lied to her about her father's current state after he was hurt saving her from a house fire, anger because they didn't have any place to call home…and anger because they didn't have a future in a cruel world that didn't want them to be happy. She felt she had to ask this man that was just as hurt as she was by cruel people something she needed to know.

"Is this Hell, the way we're living right now?" She asked him.

"For me, it's always Hell," he told her. "For most others, it's purgatory, a limbo between Heaven and Hell."

"How do you get to Heaven?"

"Heaven doesn't exist for me, anymore. Heaven never existed for me like it did for others. Everywhere I go, every breath I take…is just another part of my personal Hell that I'm trying to escape to go to wherever it is where my soul can sleep for eternity…as it fades away into nothingness, never to be found again."

Shado bowed her head to him; she got the impression that he had been around for a very long time…and had lost more than he cared to admit he had to lose…and now had nothing left to lose…and only one thing to gain.

"Who was it that hurt you the most?" She asked him.

"My parents," he answered. "First my mother…and then my father. They abandoned me. They used me…and then they abandoned me, and left me with nothing…but pain and suffering. My father paid for his arrogance and cruelty…but my mother constantly runs from her retribution, which is long overdue. I find her, I make her pay for her role in my hurt…and I know I'll be free from it all. I'll be free to close my eyes for the final time, knowing that I'll never wake again."

"That sounds…like a good dream, to leave it all behind, to stop feeling pain from everything that hurts you."

"Whether or not Heaven or Hell exists for me on this road of vengeance, I don't really know…but when nobody you know comes back from an existence that was forced upon them…and see you only as an excuse to get away from…a life where you don't exist at all, where you can't suffer because of anything or anyone…because you're not there is a prize that you want so much that you don't want to play anyone else's game or live under their plans. Do you believe in God?"

"For a while, I did…but I wasn't sure what god to believe in. I don't blame any god for the hurt we've been put through, though. Gods don't hurt people. People hurt people. Unless the god you believed in hurt you."

"God didn't hurt me, Shado. You were right about the gods not hurting people. It was people that hurt me. It was people that hurt you and your daddy. Deities, demons, those are blameless because they don't walk into your life and turn it upside-down or pull it inside-out. I can't blame God for my suffering. I blame my mother for my suffering. I blame my father for my suffering. I blame the people that rejected me for my suffering. God didn't do this to me or you."

Shado then stood up and dusted her dress of the minute traces of dirt.

"How do you find the people that hurt you…if they keep running away from you?" She asked.

"In this vast multiverse, you can only run for so long before you realize that it's running out of places for you to hide in. I've been chasing after my mother for so long, I've forgotten how many worlds, how many lifetimes I've had to live against my will in order to find her. A thousand lifetimes? Over a million lifetimes? I've lost count…and lost much of my sense of clarity and humanity to make sense of it all. But she can't run forever."

"Then…I'll help you find her," she told him.

"What?"

"You still have a monster that won't let you rest until you stop it for yourself. The way Daddy told me in a story, the people that hurt you the most are the monsters you have to stop from hurting you further. If you stop them, they can't hurt you, anymore. Maybe if I help you find your monster, I'll find Daddy and move on, too, just like you want to."

"I couldn't ask you to do that, even to help me. I have plenty of others to do that, others that have suffered in one form or another."

"Nobody should have to let others suffer when they can offer to help them. And there's no going back to that life I had back there with those people, anyway. So…lead the way, please."

And she was right about that; neither one could go back to their previous lives, no matter what they did. There was no going back for Shinji because everyone was just gone beyond his reach…and Shado couldn't because that life only had one person that mattered to her that was no longer there. And they both felt anger in their hearts that didn't fade over time, but now Shinji felt something besides his own anger for the first time in a long time: He felt like he had to help save this little girl that was an innocent soul from being condemned to a fate far worse than the fate he had been dealt. It was too late to save himself, but he hoped that it wasn't too late to save her from following him to his fate.

-x-

"…I'm here to see Ikari, Shinji," Misato Katsuragi spoke to the receptionist at the hospital where the comatose boy was admitted following his severe burns.

"I'm afraid you're too late," she told her. "Ikari, Shinji passed away three hours ago from multi-organ failure."

"What?"

"Apparently, someone let his aunt in…and she told him that his daughter died while in his father's custody. He just lost the will to live without his little girl. It's such a terrible way to go, for both a parent and their child to up and die."

Misato found it to be awful to know that the boy that was originally supposed to pilot the Eva was dead…and how she was among those labeled cruel because they decided to use a little girl that was his daughter to save themselves from the Angel that appeared. She thought the idea of having the child pilot until her father recovered or until Rei had recovered and they had the Second Child and Unit-02 over from Germany was originally flawless, but then realized that they would have to use growth accelerants on her, something that would've hurt the girl. And then to watch her jump to her death before they could stop her…was clearly a sign that they were crossing too many ethical lines just to survive.

"Cowards are always useless," Commander Ikari informed her, referring to his granddaughter after she killed herself.

Except she wasn't a coward, she thought. She was just scared of us…and had every right to be. We forced her to pilot the Eva…and lied to her about her father.

Now NERV was in a hole they had to dig themselves out of before the next Angel arrived.

"…Did you hear about that girl?" She heard some of the people gossiping about what happened. "I heard she killed herself to get away from her grandfather."

"The guy that murdered his own wife in an experiment and abandoned his son? How messed up is that? What about his son?"

"He died because his aunt and uncle tried to kill his daughter in a fire."

"Those Ikaris are just bad people."

"An unprepared father for an unwanted girl, and they both end up dying because of the ties of blood that hate them."

"It's a cruel world we live in."

Misato couldn't deny this. It was a cruel world they lived in…and it was only going to get crueler as time passed by.

"…You're cruel," she thought she heard a boy say to her.

People who are cruel…are just evil when they breathe

A/N: Not exactly a Different from You story, but it certainly drew in an alternate version of Shado Ikari that was victimized by people alongside her father…and drove her to make a choice between life and death in order to escape from manipulation. And now we see the primordial Shinji Ikari own up to how he feels that it's too late to save himself from some retribution caused by the unkindness he was dealt, but he feels that he needs to save her from a similar fate because she never asked to be someone else's pawn or scapegoat.