BLOOD TEARS

by Gunman

Disclaimer: I do not own NGE or its characters.

Warning: this story is a little darker than some of my others. Something in me demanded I do this one. Don't read if you have an aversion to torture of innocent people. You have been warned.

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"WHY THE HELL DO WE KEEP THESE IDIOTS ON THE PAYROLL!" Misato shouted as she pushed the whole of NERV into action.

The idiots she was referring to, was Section 2.

The reason was because Shinji and Asuka had been kidnapped.

It had been rather easy to take the pilots.

The kidnappers were able to get them by intercepting a delivery boy and drugged the take-out that they had ordered. Once the kids had eaten and passed out, they made their move. They entered the apartment and easily carried them out wrapped in large rugs.

Section 2 barely noticed anything unusual until a couple hours passed and they didn't hear Asuka yelling at Shinji.

When they investigated and found the pair missing with only a ransom note in their place, they informed the Major; naturally she was righteously pissed.

"I WANT THEM FOUND, GOD DAMMIT! I DON'T CARE WHO YOU BRIDE, BEAT UP, BONE, OR BLACKMAIL! I WANT THE PILOTS FOUND AND I MEAN NOW!" the irrate Major shouted, doing her best not to burst into tears at the loss of her two favorite people.

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(Kidnappers hideout...)

"Man, you think they got our message by now?" the first man with long hair asked.

"They had to. It's been three hours." the second man with the two scars on his neck said. "Heck we left the note right on the door and in the living room just in case."

"Well, when do you think they'll send the ransom?" the third man with the large earring in his left lobe asked, setting down his friends food he had just received.

"If what I hear about their commander is true, then it could be a long, LONG, time."

"So what do we do until then?"

"Let's play with the pilots!" the first man grinned.

"Hey! We won't get jack-squat if they're dead!" a fourth man with a teardrop tattoo said.

"I'm not going to kill them. I just wanna play with them."

Sadistic Yakuza killer tendencies. he grumbled, but didn't try to dissuade him. "Which one did you want to play with?"

"The boy. I hear he's the best one. Got the highest kill-record and all. Must be strong."

"I hear he's a real wimp." Earring said.

"The stronger a person appears to be, the greater their weaknesses." Two-Scar said.

"What's your point?" Teardrop asked.

"About three inches." Long Hair said, whipping out his knife.

"That's not what I meant." he sweatdropped.

"Well what I meant was, let's see how strong he really is." he grinned.

Nearby, Asuka and Shinji were tied up in chairs, eyes covered. They couldn't hear what was being said; Asuka knew what was going on, but Shinji was confused.

"Shinji? Are you here?" the redhead whispered.

"Asuka? Is that you?" the boy replied.

"Yeah, I'm here. Can you see anything?"

"No. There's something over my eyes."

"Mine too. We've been kidnapped, that's obvious."

"But why? Why would anyone want to kidnap us?"

"Are you dense? We're Eva pilots! Our value is immeasurable."

Yours maybe. Shinji thought glumly.

"Let's hope they just want to ransom us. A pretty girl like me would fetch a high price in the black market white slave ring." she declared.

Shinji was sure she was grinning, wisely he said nothing and just hummed his concurrence.

The pair heard footsteps and instantly shut up.

"Alright, listen up, kid. We're going to play a little game." he said as he undid the blindfold that was over Shinji's eyes. "Basically, we've got a bet going as to how strong you really are, seeing as how you're the number one robot pilot and all." he continued as the men arranged the two pilots chairs so that they were facing each other in the middle of the room, about three meters apart. Shinji could see Asuka fuming over that last piece of news. Her blindfold had been removed as well, and replaced with a mouth gag. He was sure that had her mouth not been restricted, she would be telling them she was number one. "So here's the game:" Longhair said, "we're going to torture you, boy, and if you scream, even once, we're going to punish the redhead. By raping her."

Shinji's eyes shot wide open at that.

"Remember: one scream, and we gang-bang her till Jesus comes."

"Ohhh, nice one." Earring said.

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(NERV headquarters...)

Section-2 had been running their assess off in a frantic search for the two kidnapped pilots. Misato had been very...descriptive...as to what would happen if they failed their given task.

Just then, Kaji walked onto the bridge.

Misato turned on him like a rabid dog.

"Where The Hell Have You Been!" the purple-haired woman shouted.

"Uh...out. Quite busy actually." the unshaven man said. In reality he had been trying to dig up more dirt on Gendo and his dirty deeds.

"I suppose then you've heard the news."

"Shinji and Asuka both kidnapped. Any idea who's behind it?"

"None. We need them back Kaji. And fast."

"And you want me to lend a hand."

"Of course."

"And what's my incentive?" he flashed his smile, trying to lighten the mood.

"I'll screw you six ways from Sunday, just bring them back to me alive!" she shouted.

Kaji bowed out and got to searching without another word.

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(Kidnappers hideout...)

Longhair pulled out his switchblade and started making long cut marks along Shinji's face, mostly around his cheeks.

"You'll come out with some nice scars, kid, don't worry. Chicks dig scars." he said, trying his best to make tiger scars across Shinji's face.

Shinji felt the sharp pain as the knife did it's work. It was serrated so Shinji could feel it doing its job. He didn't cry out, but he could feel the tears starting to form within his shut eyes.

Eventually he was done. Shinji could feel the cuts, they numbered about eight he figured. When the pain stopped he slowly opened his eyes, to see the same man who was doing the cutting on his face, twirl the knife around and point it down.

The boy braced himself as he felt the blade sink sharply and deeply into his left leg above his knee.

"And we TWIST the knife." Longhair said as he did just that.

Shinji had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming at the intense pain, his head thrashing around, indicating he was obviously in pain.

"Tough kid. A grown man would have cried out by now." Two-Scar said, watching the show.

"Told ya he was tough." he said as he pulled the knife out of the boys leg, and then started cutting his shirt off.

"What are you doing?" Earring asked his buddy tossed the torn shirt to the side.

"Taking things up a notch." he grinned as he pulled out a set of jumper cables and opened the hood of his car that was close-by. He attached the long cables to the battery and pulled the others towards the boy pilots.

He touched the connectors to each other, causing a blinding flash of electricity to light up the large room.

"Remember, you kill him, we get nothing." Teardrop said.

"Relax, I know what I'm doing." he said as he jabbed the cables into Shinji, one in each shoulder.

To everyone's continued amazement, he didn't scream.

"Shocking, isn't it?" the man said as he jabbed the cables into Shinji a second, third and fourth time. He still didn't scream. "Come on, kid. One little scream, just a little one and it'll all be over."

But Shinji continued to hold his tongue. His mouth was open, he was breathing heavily, but he didn't say a word.

"Here." Two-Scar said. "Maybe you'll get a better reaction from this." he said as he held out a sodering iron to his friend.

"Maybe." Longhair grinned as he set the cables aside and took the iron.

He lit it up as he gripped Shinji's left arm. He pushed the hot tip of the iron into Shinji's shoulder and drew it slowly across his skin.

Shinji's eyes were closed, his mouth clamped shut, his breathing was sharp and short, his head turned away from the man causing him pain. He groaned with every centimeter the man sketched over his skin.

But he didn't scream.

"I guess this means I own you, kid." Longhair said as he finished with the iron. "And a pretty picture it is too." he grinned as the crudely made skull on the arm of the boys shoulder.

"Yeah, real nice." Two-Scar said. "But man, how the heck could someone go through all that and not even scream? Not once."

"Tell me about it." Earring said, then turned back to the redhead he was standing next to. "Well? How 'bout it red? What do you think of your boyfriend now?" he asked as Shinji's torturer started to make small X-shaped cuts along the boys chest with his knife.

Shinji closed his eyes, but Asuka's were wide as dinner plates. Tears had filled them and she was fighting to look away. But the man with the earring kept her head in place, her eyes open, forcing Asuka to watch the entire brutal affair. The whole thing to her was cruel and inhuman. No human being deserved this, not even a baka-hentai like Shinji.

But that's what really confused her.

She remembered the number of times Shinji had cried out when she had abused him. Even Misato's teasing had gotten a shriek out of him, mostly due to embarrassment and frustration. But now, here he was being tortured for fun, and he was silent as the grave.

She had started to cry when the man had started cutting on Shinji. Not because it was a brutal scene, but from the fact that Shinji wasn't screaming. Not one sound, one peep.

She was as confused as she was horrified at what was happening to him. All the pain he was taking was on her behalf. She didn't understand it. Why? Why was he doing this? Why wasn't he crying out? One scream and his torture would end. A strong wave of shame passed through her as she thought she would have cried out well before now to end her pain and suffering.

She would have cried out to keep them from starting to cut her pretty face. Had they started doing it anyway, she was sure she could have taken it.

That's when it struck her. Shinji wasn't screaming out because of his pride. As far as she knew he didn't have any. He wasn't screaming, because if he did, then they would rape her.

It wasn't his pride that was on the line, it was her virtue.

That's when she started crying out. Crying through her gag, trying to yell at Shinji to scream, to save himself the pain and suffering he was going through. She tried to, but she couldn't. He could only sit there and watch.

Tears were streaming down Shinji's face, mixing with the blood from the opened wounds that drip onto the floor. Blood was dripping down all of his body, from every wound. It would only be a matter of time before he died due to blood loss.

Suddenly, one of the thugs spoke.

"I've got an idea." Longhair said after nearly an hour of straight torture.

"What?" Earring asked.

"Salt on an open wound. Hurts like hell." he said, grabbing a big heaping handful of a large salt container and eyeing Shinji's bleeding leg and most of his bodily cuts.

"If he doesn't scream after this, we abandon the whole thing and get the kid patched up." Teardrop said. "They're still worth a lot of money to us."

"Right, right, right." Longhair said as he moved towards the bleeding child.

Fortunately, he never got the chance.

Kaji and the Section-2 agents burst into the hide out without any hint or preview. The gangsters were taken by complete surprise, leaving them open for stupidity, as Earring and Two-Scar immediately went for their guns. Kaji opened up two rounds, nailing them straight in their heads.

Longhair and Teardrop were not so lucky as the Section-2 agents slammed into them and smashed the pair into the ground.

The pair were totted out as Kaji went over to untie Asuka.

"Asuka, are you alright?" Kaji asked as he undid the ropes.

"Oh, my, god." the agent said as he undid Shinji's ropes. "MEDIC!"

Get ready, Ryoji. She's gonna be all over you now for saving her life. Kaji thought as he undid the ropes that bound her legs and wrists. To his surprise, she rushed past him and went right for Shinji, pushing the Section 2 agent out of the way, holding the boy tightly.

"Shinji! Shinji are you alright? Say something!" Asuka cried as she cupped his bleeding face gently between her hands.

"Asuka..." Shinji said weakly, tears and blood dripping from his face. He couldn't lift his head much higher than to look at her mouth.

At this point Kaji finally turned and got a good look at Shinji. The double agent froze in shock at the state the boy was in. He had seen tortured people before, but this was beyond his experience.

The redhead stared at the boys face, looking weak and worn, like he was ready to pass out then and there.

"I'm here, Shinji-kun. I'm here." Asuka cried as well, not bothering to stop her own tears from falling as she looked at him.

"Are you..."

"I'm fine. They didn't touch me." she said quickly.

He gave her a weak smile. "I kept quiet, Asuka. I kept...quiet."

"I know, baby." he kisses the side of his face, not caring about the blood on her lips. "I know."

Naturally, Kaji is dumbstruck by this. Shinji suddenly passed out before them.

"KAJI! Get a doctor, now! Paramedics, an ambulance chopper NOW!"the redhead screams, breaking the man out of his stupor.

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Shinji was rushed into surgery the second he got in. Asuka had to be restrained by both Misato and Kaji when the doctors told her that she couldn't come in.

Fortunately, the surgery room had added an observation booth, and Asuka was escorted by Misato there.

While the doctors and nurses worked feverishly to fix the damage that had been done to Eva 01's pilot, Misato talks to Asuka about what happened.

Asuka tells her guardian everything she remembered, heard and saw. She left no detail out.

Misato was horrified at the state Shinji had arrived in, but Asuka's account of the whole event made her want to kill Section 2 a hundred times over for letting this happen, and then do the same to the ones who had caused it.

"He loves me, Misato." Asuka suddenly said.

That wasn't something the purple-haired major had expected to hear. "What?"

"Shinji...he loves me. He must right? I mean...you don't take all the pain and suffering for nothing, right?" the redhead rambled.

"Not for just anyone, Asuka." she said with a smile.

Tears started to form once again. "I didn't get it, Misato. I mean...normally I'd be calling him a baka for not screaming and saving his own skin. But instead he took all the torture...for me. To keep me from getting raped. Why? Why does he care about me Misato? I've been nothing but a bitch to him and he nearly...I don't get it!"

Misato could only smile at this as she wrapped her arms around the crying girl.

"Yes, Asuka. Shinji loves you. No one else would do what he did."

The redhead was bawling like two-year old who had fallen off her bicycle and skinned her knee. Her guardian could do nothing but hold her and rub her back gently.

I really envy you, Asuka. To have some guy do that for me, to nearly die just to protect me, would be the bravest thing I could have never imagined. I'd wish I'd met a guy like Shinji back when I was younger. Maybe I wouldn't be so screwed up now.

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Shinji was in surgery for ten hours. The doctors had been painstakingly working to make sure everything was working and properly healed. The blood had to be replaced, every wound and cut had to be stitched up and sealed, and then there was the sodering iron tattoo which had to be removed.

After which Shinji was moved into his regular room. He was passed out asleep and no one was sure when he'd wake up.

The doctors actually gave him credit. After hearing about Shinji's ordeal via third person from someone who overheard Misato and Ritsuko's conversation, the whole medical staff could only gasp in amazement at the boys strength. Most people having survived that whole affair would have died or screamed right at the start. Some people don't even survive something like that.

The irony of this whole affair, was that the thing that had saved Shinji, was the very thing that had caused him the most pain in the beginning.

Eva.

Right from his first piloting mission Shinji was onset by tremendous amounts of pain.

When Unit 01 got it's arm crushed, his head pounded, and his body smashed by the Third Angel. When he was blasted in the chest by the 5th. When the 6th Angel had sunk its teeth into Unit 02 with him inside it. Getting pummeled into the ground by the 7th Angel. Rescuing Asuka from the merciless heat of the volcano after she killed the 8th. The acid of the 9th Angel. Catching the massive 10th Angel when it was trying to land on Tokyo-3, and the explosion that followed afterwards.

And the many other times his high synch-ratio with Unit 01 caused him to feel all the pain that his Eva felt.

The only thing that had saved Shinji from his torture, were his memories of Eva. Every feeling of pain, every jolt of anguish and discomfort, amplified hundreds of times normal, he called upon to help him endure the torture he was receiving.

Recalling those painful moments helped him to endure the torture that the kidnappers inflicted on his person. It was all he could do to keep Asuka safe.

Strange that he should do this for someone that had shown very little concern or even respect for him in the past.

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The boy awoke two days later, not surprised to see the unfamiliar ceiling staring back at him. But what did surprise him was the beautiful redheaded German girl snuggling against him in his bed. He was about to say something when a familiar blond scientist and an overly happy purple-haired guardian entered the room.

"SHINJI-KUN!" Misato shouted as she jumped into the bed, waking Asuka and nearly throwing her off of it.

"Misato are you crazy! What the hell are you doing?" the girl screamed. "He just woke up and you're pouncing on his like a starving wolf!"

Asuka shouted at her guardian again and pulled her off Shinji with impressive strength and all but tossed her into the hallway.

While the pair argued outside, Ritsuko talked to Shinji and told him what had happened. Misato had gone to tell the others, meaning the NERV bridge crew, the sub-commander, and even his father, about Shinji's recovery. Asuka walked back inside the room as Shinji was sitting up.

"What are you doing!" the girl cried out. "Shinji lie down, you're still not a hundred percent!"

"He's good enough to be discharged in a couple days. But perhaps some walking would do you some good too." Ritsuko suggested.

Shinji nodded and stood up. He winced in pain as he nearly fell down, saved by Asuka's arms.

"Asuka." he said weakly.

"Yes, Shinji?" she asked, holding him as she straightened him up.

"I need you..." her heart lifted. "...to help me around."

"Help you? I don't understand." she said, shooting a questioning look to Dr Akagi.

Ritsuko was glad to explain why he'd said that.

"The knife blade that penetrated his leg severed most of the sensitive nerves that control his muscle functions. The doctors did what they could, but it'll be months before they're completely healed and Shinji can walk normally. He's going to need assistance."

"Then I'll volunteer. It's the least I can do." she said as she helped him out of the room and down the hallways.

After several minutes of walking, Asuka couldn't contain herself any longer.

"I love you, Shinji."

"Asuka?" the boy looked shocked, as if he hadn't heard her right.

"What you did for me, was the bravest, most noble, most heroic thing anyone has ever done for me. You must really care about me." she smiled.

Shinji nodded.

"Do you...love me?"

Shinji gave her a weak smile. "Yes Asuka, I do. I just..."

"Just what?" she was worried now.

"Didn't think you would loved me back."

Asuka gave him a beautiful, dazzling smile. "Well, I do, Shinji. And I'm going to prove it to you." she said with a kiss to his lips, hugging him tighter around his chest, and continued to help him down the hallways.

At the end of the hallway, a pair of eyes were watching them.

"Ah, young love." the unshaven Kaji said with a grin.

"Yeah. God I never thought I'd be jealous of that girl." Misato smiled happily.

"Misato...about my incentive."

"I meant it Kaji. So whenever you want..."

"I don't."

"WHAT?"

"Don't get me wrong, Misato. I do want to sleep with you. But what you said you said under stress and extreme concern for two people you consider like your own children. You would have promised to screw the commander if those kids were safely returned."

That sent a shudder up Misato's spine, but she realized it was probably true.

"I'd do Fuyutsuki before Gendo." she quickly said.

Kaji rolled his eyes. "At least you have standards. But the point is, if anything does happen between us, I would prefer it to be done out of mutual attraction, not concern for a third party. It's much more intimate I think." he said, flashing his killer smile as he turned and walked off.

Misato was left stunned. Kaji had turned down her offer of sex, since she had been concerned for someone else. She couldn't fault his logic in this case, and smirked that he would never again get another chance with her. Not so long as she had Shinji and Asuka to care for. Once they were grown and out on their own, maybe she could care for someone on a more intimate level. But right now, she had her priorities.

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Author's Notes:

I hope those that read this story don't criticize me for putting Shinji through all this. For some reason I couldn't get this particular idea out of my head and had to commit it to paper.

While I'm not a big Shinji/Asuka fan, writing these two into this story made sense only because a kidnapper (or more) could take both pilots in one shot. It would have been difficult to put Rei in Asuka's place without a very worthwhile and believable excuse. And I can't see Hikari being there to get kidnapped, since she isn't a pilot, which would negate any reason for her being kidnapped.

Lastly, I'm sure that anyone who had read this story was probably thinking that Kaji would take advantage of Misato's 'extreme under stress' offer, but to be honest...I don't really like the guy too much.

Thank you for Reading, now please Review!