Chapter 7 Unambiguously happy ending.

With the personal notes Ritsuko managed to hack from Gendo's computer with him able to do nothing about it now that his former followers had all turned against him, the result of Gendo's trial came as no real surprise to anyone.

He was sent straight to jail on multiple accounts of child-abuse, domestic abuse and violence and leading various successful and attempted genocides.
The Tokyo government had been wanting him arrested for years now but never able to find enough conclusive evidence and with him having such a strong following and such influence, things got complicated.

Another anecdote that the wisdom of the crowd was not something to depend on for making good judgement in life.

The former chief of NERV screamed that he needed to see his wife again, but there was no love lost from anyone in the courtroom who completely ignored his tantrum.
He didn't want to see his wife again, he wanted to remind Yui that he would always be in control of her no matter her attempts to escape and to destroy the rest of the world to demonstrate his power in the process.

He got life for his crimes, but one look at him stated this wouldn't be too many years.

When the falsehoods were pushed out of the way, Gendo really was just a snivelling weak cry baby.
In return for a lighter sentence, he freely exposed all the incriminating evidence he had about SEELE including the codes to hack the parts of his notes that Ritsuko couldn't hack by herself.

They joined him facing each other in parallel cells, looking at each other poisonously like two snakes, though at least Gendo could take solace in the fact SEELE weren't profiting from his absence or imprisonment.

Gendo's ploy to earn himself a few gold bars got him only iron bars instead.
The only eggs he ended up getting were not Faberge as he would have liked, but hard boiled instead.

He took one look at SEELE's heavily disabled CEO Lorenz in the cell to the front of him, and grudgingly accepted his fate of being kept in solitude until people forgot he ever existed and he was declared old and senile enough to be given a pardon to die at home.
At least here in prison, his legion of haters couldn't kill him.

A few weeks later and Misato suffered a similar fate in which she was finally tried for her part in making Shinji and the other pilots lives a living nightmare.
Her list of crimes also included child abuse along with reckless drink driving which had put many citizens in Tokyo 3 in danger multiple times.

Feeling some measure of guilt for her mistakes unlike Gendo, she pleaded guilty and was given fifteen years rather than life in prison with the possibility of parole once she had served at least ten.
She would however, be banned from NERV completely even once she was released.

Woody Pride Nee Shinji Ikari wound up being able to fully express himself on the stage with his amazing cello abilities he was free to hone to perfection with no need to pilot an EVA.
He would play while his new wife Bo, formerly Rei sang her completely open heart out now that there was no overbearing dictatorial master to look over her shoulder and force her into doing monstrous acts she would never dream of.

Their first album went five times platinum and in just three short years they were the first band ever to be given the never before won accolade of "bigger than the Beatles."

It allowed them to be very good parents and to live very fulfilled lives with their two adopted children Andy and Hannah, who Woody found with wan eyes in a dark corner of the orphanage huddling each other like they were the only two kindred spirits.
Andy had severe neural depression and Hannah, chronic suicidal intentions but under Woody and Bo's wise and loving parenthood, they quickly grew to become two of the brightest stars in the world known for both their optimism and mature responsibility.

Buzz and Jessie, formerly Kaworu and Mari weren't doing badly either.
Buzz considered going off into space following a complex astrophysics course lasting usually four years that he finished in only two, but decided that he would wait until Andy and Hannah and by extension his own adopted girls Emily and Bonnie came of age to join him so that they could all go together.

He instead became the pianist in Woody's band while Jessie became Backup singer. Jessie and Bo's voice really synergized to create the sound of the heavens.
He still insisted he was a space ranger wherever he went though and when asked to demonstrate his flying skills, he would take a gigantic rock and throw it up into the sky while he jumped onto one side of the seesaw just as the rock fell and took him high up into the air.

He would grab the branches of a tree as he soared but was about to drop, using it as leverage to propel himself yet higher. He would do several cartwheels and front flips mid air for added style before landing feet first gracefully on a trampoline and shooting up once again.

This time he took out an umbrella with one hand and opened it so that while he eventually touched the ground, it was very slowly and only after he had had time with his free hand to plop an apple into his mouth and eat it up mid-air, spitting the seeds out at a pigeon with amazing velocity like a gun.

"See. Flying" Buzz proudly announced as his audience bowed to his amazingness before heading away.

"That wasn't flying. That was falling with style." Woody would sarcastically protest as even Bo was bowled over by Buzz's awesome act, secretly amazed with his half-angel friend himself at how he was able to keep his promise of reformation after all.

It would be another few months before it was announced that Jessie and Bo were pregnant with Buzz and Woody's biological children respectively (the sheer amount of radiation Rei suffered during her many close shaves with death and the Angel part of her genes meant that she and Shinji were biologically different enough to not have to worry about incest or genetic disorders in their children).

The first step into harmonizing Angels and Humans.

…

Jet alone went off without a hitch sure enough that the evil emperor Gendo and his equally wretched chancellor Kozo were safety jailed.
Everyone was screaming their heads off as the two gigantic Angels Gabriel and Lucifer stormed towards the city only to be nailed in the chest and the last moment by a concentrated beam of superheated plasma which vaporized the beasts almost instantaneously, leaving no mess for the clean up crew nor collateral damage.
A recently finished Jet alone robot stood proud and tall as the news crew captured every last shot of the curb stomp battle in which the Angel threat was over before it truly begun.

And with Maya's fangirling, everyone knew who to thank for their new and improved ultra-weapon and sure-enough despite every precaution being taken to keep the election as unbiased and incorruptible as possible, the polls unanimously voted to have Ritsuko immediately made the next chief of NERV.

The day of her ascension, she wore no fancy clothes.
She threw no massive party for her wealthy elite, but rather a modest meal in which every citizen in Tokyo and every arrival from outside the city had their fair share to eat and be merry with.

Never much of a talker, there was no speech aside from a few modest thanks to everyone who got her this far.
She then immediately set to work, starting with the section of NERV controlling the Japanese government to for the first time since NERV's founding, to NATIONALISE banks instead of selfishly bailing them out to leave the country starving as it slowly had been for far too long.

Spending entire days in her office rather than lounging in his mansion like Gendo had in his tenure, Ritsuko led a rigorous crackdown against the corporate lobbyists who had managed to escape imprisonment along with Gendo and SEELE through bribery and lies, to ensure tough regulation for all big businesses not just NERV were passed.

There would never be another Gendo and Lorenz under her watch, as long as it lasted.
And on the day she became another Gendo, someone would hunt her down.

The EVA's were for the most part disassembled and used for parts after careful decontamination while the entire country of Japan was demilitarized, and the extra manpower was put into future technologies instead as the world rushed to produce more Jet alone's so that their pilots would never have to suffer anymore.

The remaining EVA pilots once relieved of their duties, were given a hero's welcome and an estate for life as reward along with licensed therapy that Gendo had tried to remove in an attempt to hasten the world's demise.

Their sacrifices would never be forgotten and they would be immortalized in both memory and life, for synching with an EVANGELION successfully granted eternal life.

A part of Yui's desire, to give this amazing gift to Shinji so that he might outlive his old man to survive to see a better age.

Ritsuko was only glad this came sooner rather than later.

Jet alone brought the world well under human control once again as Ritsuko in the peak of her success isolated herself away into a lab for an entire year without meeting anyone, causing great fear and concern among the ranks of workers she had under her command.

A year later and in a fit of desperation, officer Maya ran down the stairs and kicked down the door to the lab despite Ritsuko's orders that everyone not worry about her and enjoy a well deserved rest after all they'd been.

What she saw, made her nearly happy enough to die.

Standing beside the tired but incredibly satisfied Ritsuko still holding a wrench in her shaking hands with the broken remains of EVA units 0, 1 and 2 behind her, were three short haired women also in lab coats.
Two brunette's and a dark bluenette. The only smiling brown haired woman much younger than the other two.

"Yui, Naoko, Kyoko?" Maya hesitantly asked half expecting these figments of her imagination to disappear the second she spoke for this all to be a dream.

Yui Ikari simply stepped closer to the now trembling Maya and simply smiled as she took the newly promoted Major's hand and gently shook it.

"Still as adorable as ever. Maya." Shinji's long dead mother teasingly commented.
It would take a keen eye for anyone to see that Yui's skin was in fact a special kind of plastic designed to be almost indistinguishable, and a thorough x-ray to see that it was not blood vessels under that thin sheet of plastic but rather thousands upon thousands of wires, cogs and gears.

Like Shinji, she wouldn't age and with her new cybernetic body she would have far greater stamina than most humans as well as the ability to breath even water or most other toxic gases without harm thanks to a built-in air filter.

She still needed food and rest, though far less.

It didn't matter one bit to the now overjoyed Maya who had never felt this happy in her life as she hugged Yui back.
Life was not defined by simple functions but by a soul and the ability to decide and be one's own person.

She did not need to ask Ritsu-Senpai for a complex scientific explanation on what she had done.
The broken pile of EVA's and Yui's sweet and innocent charm said more than enough.

An EVA was simply a soul cage, like a body.
The soul made the person, just as a knight made the armour they wore.
All that was needed was another body able to contain the soul and capable of more human functions for Ritsuko to "resurrect" Shinji and her own mother, without destroying the Earth in the process.

Gendo would call it unnatural and against science with this only being a cheap knock-off imitation of his "beloved wife".
Maya called it ingenious.

It didn't matter that there was no skin and only plastic. It didn't matter that there was only metal and wires in the place of veins and arteries.
Yui, the pride and joy of NERV was back.

She was back and everything was alright once more.

A person wasn't their body or what they owned. A person was their thoughts, their experiences, their decisions.
Yui had always been here and alive. Shinji's long line of victories and his heroic deeds stood as proof of that.

"I'm proud of you, my beloved daughter" Naoko Akagi simply stated, unsure of what else to really say at this heart-warming family reunion. "I hope you can forgive me for what I've done."

"I already have mother. I already have. Now let's all go back. NERV is gone and now GEHIRN needs us"

The blue haired Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu simply nodded and smiled as she followed the group upstairs.
She wasn't much of a talker, and never would be. And while she would later be disheartened to learn of all the atrocities her daughter had committed before going missing never to be found again, something deep in her long term memory from the confusing years she spent as a bodiless soul in EVA 2 still enticed her to say the words she never got the chance to say while her daughter was still with her.

"I'm proud of you Asuka. You're a good pilot."

A long distance away in another part of Japan, a dark-haired Shinto priestess carrying out her daily prayers felt a warm and fuzzy wave of affection as she doused the sacred ritual flame to begin laying out the tea sets for the arriving guests.

She didn't know what it was, but she knew something wonderful had happened somewhere. Someone was deeply grateful of some of the things her past self-had accomplished. And though she'd never know who or what for, it still put a spring in her step for the rest of the day.

…

The end of one story was the beginning of another.
Casting aside her Germanic accent for a more traditionally Japanese and later making her previously red hair permanently black with the aid of surgery, Rei Hino continued to stay with Hitomi, the girl whose life she had saved.

She was the guest of honour at the exquisite tea parties and fashion shows the green-haired girl was previously forced to go to alone with only complete strangers who didn't give one damn about her as company.

"Homura, my last best friend had dark mysterious hair and eyes just like you Rei. Like you, she never put herself above anyone else and always wanted to do what was right. But then she left me and told me not to look for her" Hitomi one day explained over a nice warm fire as she and Rei shared another glass of refreshing herbal tea and a finely prepared plate of sushi garnished with wasabi. "And after that, Madoka and my other friends all suddenly started ignoring me as if that was my fault."

"I'm sorry for your loss Hitomi. I will stay here with you forever and always. I'm a good friend." Rei could only promise as she took a napkin and wiped the tears from her friend for her.

She began to realise Sushi and other Japanese traditions were actually pretty snazzy when you got to know them a bit.
And if the national life-expectancy charts even after the impact was anything to go by, much healthier too.

She decided as penance for the years she spent blasting Japan as an ungrateful brat to take a more active part in learning it all.
So Rei Hino began to practice Kendo.

She could soon slice steel like butter with her sword, and with the job she took at the Juban district police station to continue her fight against injustice, she spent her first paycheque to build a ornate and traditional shrine which she dubbed "the Hikawa Shrine" in the until then empty vast backyard of Hitomi's mansion. (Hitomi looked great in a Shrine Maiden outfit too and she loved being able to meet so many new and exciting people every day).

The place where the rich and poor came together to pay their mutual respects to the spirits that would watch over them eternally.
And a place where Rei went to herself every day to make peace with her own parents who deserved her sympathies in spite of the rocky childhood she had.

The self-proclaimed flamboyant but very serious blonde leader of Rei's squad was called Minako Aino. Her name everywhere as pretty as her appearance and voice.

Their forensics expert and pathologist as well as computer expert all in one, Ami Mizuno.
Her short blue hair reminding Rei that she was not the first Rei ever to exist.
She could only pray that Rei and Shinji were happy together, which she did every day at her shrine.

Then there was their ballistics master and main fighter, Makoto Kino.
Not much could be said of her that couldn't also be said of the now no longer existent Asuka Langley Soryu. Both quick tempered hothead's with hair trigger tempers, though Makoto at least knew to go after the right bullies and had friends to hold her back.

The second in command and profiler on account of her impressive empathy skills in spite of her slight klutziness, was another blonde. Her propensity to cower in fear at even minor threats, nothing Rei hadn't seen before.
"And I thought Shinji was a coward" she murmured to herself before reminding herself that she was here to help her team be the best they could and to make up for her past mistakes.

She would end up becoming the most protective of the team ditz, the aptly named Usagi Tsukino.
"She's a bit of an idiot, but she's my idiot and no one lays a hand on her" Rei would furiously insist to herself when during a firefight, her teammate was nailed in the chest by a shot and she was forced to carry the blonde girl out of the building, firing back at her attackers all the while despite how easy it would have been to just leave her behind, being outnumbered ten to one with her attackers having her and her friend almost completely pinned.

Perhaps she saw Usagi as Shinji 2.0 and a second chance to prove herself? Who knew at this point?
Whatever the case, though she had a deep respect for every member of her squad but Usagi and her were something different altogether.

They went everywhere together even after work was finished (with Hitomi able to take full part in it all of course) and were able to understand each other like no others.
And gradually with Rei's help, Usagi was able to go from being the load on almost every mission that needed to be babysat to being the second to charge each time even ahead of their leader Minako, tagging confidently just behind Rei with no fear whatsoever.

While she helped "Rei" overcome the last of her anger issues still left from her bitter days as a neglected prodigy under constant parental abuse, so that while the former EVA pilot was never fully tamed, the fire that blazed within her was undeniably no longer the flame of vengeance but of justice instead.
It made her more reasonable, and more determined to trust in her friends and right wrong than ever before. She was eternally grateful to Usagi for helping her realize this.

Minako's squad used to have proper police uniform but after this made the public very afraid of them and very eager to close down the entire police department they had no faith in, they changed their outfits to be much more child friendly.
They each had white sailor outfits and skirts (not miniskirts) in the place where their police jackets should have been, and gold plated tiaras in place of their badges. Of course befitting both her new name and position as the hottest hottie of the group, Rei took the red skirt while Minako took orange to highlight herself as leader and Makoto took military green to go along with her hair and her grit.

Ami and Usagi both had blue. The colour of mildness and modesty to show they were more support troops rather than main fighters, though that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

It made being a police officer much more fun and the public much more open to the idea that police were not useless.
It provided them more protection than Kevlar vests ever could.

As Rei learned one time her back was turned to help a bleeding out Usagi leaving her completely exposed to a hidden gunner who gleefully raised his gun.

The Gunner's infatuation kept him from attacking.

The distracted bandit was then nailed with a heel kick to his face, love hearts in his eyes as he fainted.

Juban district was a remnant of the old world. A fragment of land that the impacts had affect the least seriously out of all of Japan and the world.
It was a lovely city full of plump and luxurious sights, but its remaining wealth and beauty made it the underbelly den of criminals everywhere.

Some of those criminals took out most of the parents of the girls in Rei's merry gang, leaving them orphaned to fend for themselves.
Usagi's parents though, had their daughter beaten multiple times with a rod and thrown from their house in shame after she had scored one mark too low to get into the college they wanted her to get into. The resulting injuries leaving Usagi in intensive care for several months as multiple ribs and joints were broken.

It was the cause of much of her apparent lack of courage, and the bond that connected her deeply with Rei.

Evil scientists, corrupt businessmen in dark skyscrapers, superpowered freaks and just about every kind of being both human and non human with the label "villain" could be found here.
Well not by the blissfully unaware public but that was why the Juban district was in bad need of proper law enforcement that had gone neglected for a long while during the impacts where much of the city budget had to be paid to NERV and SEELE instead.

It was this combination of factors along with Hitomi and Usagi that made Rei decide that this was where she made her stand.
She would return this ruined cesspool to its former glory or die trying. Life and death situations were nothing new for her and now that she was no longer a pilot, she still belonged on the battlefield guarding the unprivileged majority as a member of the privileged minority.

A simple job behind a desk getting fat and lazy was not her life. Not while Usagi despite her soft and demure cowardice was willing to stand up and fight anyway and when "Homura" hadn't come back yet.

Rei and her unsupported small squadron "the pretty sailor guardians" faced down all kinds of criminals trying to profit from the peace of no more impacts.
As Shinji had tried to teach her in his days while he was still with her, balance was a vital factor that could always be tipped.

There may have been no more Angels, but the defeat of the Angels only left more threats.

Looters, con artists and cold-blooded murderers were on a wild growth spurt now that Jet alone was keeping the Angels in line.
Rei's team took out dozens of them, trying when possible to negotiate and not kill but finding that many were just as unreasonable as Asuka had been in her own guilty past days as a psychotic bully.

Rei fought them well, having been one of them herself.
As the team's new "middleman" and sixth sense who provided the missing link between the abrasive, crass and brash Makoto and Minako and the shy softies Ami and Usagi, the pretty guardians finally found their competitive edge to overcome their incompetent mediocrity at long last.

Rei Hino led her team without leading, resolving the petty conflicts bound to stew up between any well meaning group of friends leaving the actual commands to Minako.
She was always first to charge into any fight, and the last to flee as she hurried her friends into the last lifeboat and checked they were all safe before jumping in herself as the enemy ship burned down behind them.

Though she had good science and Maths grades from back in Germany, Ami was still ultimately the better scholar.
Rei often described the blue haired "mathemagician" as being cool like ice.

Though she could and still could punch Shinji's skull hard enough to shatter his nose into blood, Makoto could throw cars over a 3-foot wall and kick through a two-foot metal door.
How electrifyingly terrifying, Rei shuddered as the brown haired ballistics expert then nabbed the enemy's bazooka and lifted it with one hand like it was a toy.

Her social skills had gotten better, but it was blatant she would never match charms with Usagi who she slowly realized she would never have met if Shinji never left. She took great pains to thank Shinji for his tough decision at the next prayer by the sacred fire at her shrine.

And it went without saying that there was a reason Misato and Maya and not her directed her pilot battles back in NERV and she would never wish to ruin her new relationships she had worked so hard to form by challenging Minako.

Yet in spite of these deficiencies, Rei Hino "the fire soul's" presence was always welcome on the crime scene of battle.

Being gripped with gratitude after finding such a righteous group of friends after tarnishing her reputation made Rei fearless.
It was not her combat ability, her wits or her still below average person-person skills that shielded them but her very life itself.

The mob boss who had been bribed by a few remaining members of SEELE who had avoided arrest, learned this the hard way after he shot her three times in the shoulder with his gun but she was still able despite her injuries and her own gun being out of ammo to pin him down and choked him hard until he told her where all her friends were hidden.

…

Speaking of SEELE. The next turning point of her life came when once again, they were trying to initiate human instrumentality with the power of five highly energetic stones they had found in a inexplicable set of ruins on the moon.

"Track down and destroy the stones at any cost before SEELE destroys the Earth" was the prerogative of the now widely respected Pretty Guardian Juban district police squad who were even popular enough to have a series of cartoons as tribute for their sharp strongarm enforcement skill.

The search was long and nerve wracking and the discovery, disheartening to say the least.
In a shady area of thick forest in the secretive country of Burma, SEELE had put their best men in charge of guarding their final attempt to enslave mankind and the odds were very much stacked against Rei's friends and her.

But something in new Rei's soul told her that this was what her entire purpose had led her to.
Her duty for her to do in the previous Rei's place since she drove the poor bluenette away with her neglect and indifference.
Her final gruelling rite of penance for her past misdeeds to truly become the new and better person she intended to become.
Rei might have gone, but she had passed her metaphorical mantle to Asuka for her to inherit her legacy.

SEELE, the masterminds behind the mastermind of NERV, ended right here and right now.

With no time to call for backup (and the signal jammed anyway thanks to SEELE's cleverness in putting up jamming beacons several miles around their new secret base) Rei Hino offered a brief prayer to the spirits. No sign came but her friends certainly felt the better for it.

Then she raced to the attack with her friends following closely behind her.

They did well, each getting to one of the five rooms where the crystals were being kept to finish powering up the ultimate weapon that would even without Rei Aynami and Kaworu Nagisa's help, initiate instrumentality.
As the last guard fell and the last bullet in Rei's pistol was used up, she managed in spite of her many bullet and stab wounds to get near the red crystal in her room, said to contain a vast quantity of mars ore according to the scanner beside it.

Her sense of victory was short lived as more SEELE personnel flooded from a distant doorway revealing those she had beaten to be nothing but the vanguard.

"Go on and shoot cowards. You're only killing a girl." She weakly but confidently whispered as she managed as she heard the sound of machine gun fire to wrench the crystal from its place between a vicegrip. How good it felt to die in battle saving others instead of it being the other way around for once in her life.

Now she knew why Shinji managed despite his hatred of all things NERV and EVA to do his job so well and surpass her in spite of having no training.
Why he never went completely depressed and always managed despite his hardships to cook nice meals and play nice music for her.

She closed her fingers tightly around the red Martian crystal as a storm of lead swooshed through the air straight at her. She hoped if she crushed it hard enough it might break before the bullets got her.

But then the unthinkable happened. The unthinkable phenomenon weirder than any weirdness she had endured in NERV even when she took her encounter with the Angel Asriel into the equation.

The incredibly solid feeling stone shattered without her needing to put all her strength into clutching it.
Into tiny pieces which seemed to dissolve away as time seemed to turn to a blur.

She felt as the stone cracked that the very essence of all things hot was surging through her from heart to soul.
It burned. Hotter than when her EVA caught fire and she was screaming for Shinji to come and save her like a pathetic wimp.

But she didn't scream in spite of the burning agony her entire body became wracked with. Something in the wave of sharp incineration seemed to communicate silently to her mind that had any other living being but her touched that stone, she would indeed be a smoking pile of cinders.

Yet for some inexplicable reason, the stone appreciated her heated pride, her fiery passion, her fierce and scorching devotion to her new friends which steamrolled all resistance and made her selfless.
She would be spared. She would not die. The one time she did not mind whether she died as long as others could live, her reward was undeath.

The heat became comforting rather than painful. Like a hot summer's day spent under a palm tree eating ice cream on the beach.
Her grimace twisted slowly into a grin as time seemed very slowly to regain its normal speed and the bullets now centimetres from thudding into her unprotected body were all consumed by a searing ring of crackling flames.

Though she had no idea what just happened, the same telepathic force that had heralded her exemption from being burnt to a crisp once again wordlessly encouraged her.
She followed its mystical guidance and raised her inexplicably no longer bleeding right hand whose wounds had somehow miraculously all closed up as the massive army of heavily armoured SEELE elites jaws dropped and eyes bulged from beneath their nigh impenetrable titanium masks.

Less than a second later, and they had no emotions at all.
Not even time for a scream as several thousand degree infernos engulfed them all, and in the time it took Rei to effortlessly struggle back to her feet with all her injuries healed there was nothing but smoking piles of ash where a mighty battalion that could easily have overpowered even NERV once stood.

While this was happening, the SEELE regiment in the blue crystal's chambers were imprisoned in huge blocks of ice by a shyly beaming Ami.
Bright flashes of white light reduced the occupants of the yellow crystal's room sans Minako to mere atoms.
And several thousand volt sparks of thunder enough to make even the fabled god Zeus seem insignificant in comparison turned the brown crystal's protectors to mush as a mercilessly scowling Makoto wiped the dust from her face.

And a gigantic tornado of magically conjured blades of a metal harder than diamond pierced armour, skin and bone as the remains of the grey crystal melted away in Usagi's free hand, her other hand balled into an aggressive fist to show the few survivors of her deadly attack how far Rei's tough but fair training had taken her from her first day where she barely scraped through both the physical and theory parts of her policing exam.

They took due note and quickly threw down their guns with their head in their hands as Usagi rejoined the others in the main hall and they rushed out of the building as the last beams of sun began to fade.

Knowing from past experience that SEELE were ruthless and could not be trusted, Rei stayed behind last as her friends with their newfound powers flew out of the forest. She dropped a tear as she clutched her aching chest.
Then with the last of the mysterious ability the crystal had lent her, she threw a sheet of roaring fire at the entire area of Burmese forest surrounding SEELE's final base.

She had seen on her way in that there were still bunches of valuable crystals inside. Greed. The dangerous vice that killed Gendo, NERV, SEELE and her previous self that she regarded as good as dead.
She pictured as she took one last look to make sure everything was indeed burning, a German girl in a yellow dress and heels delivering a vicious kick to the completely innocent brown haired Toji who was just trying to get his hat back, and her childish screams as she too was consumed with infernal agony.

"Goodbye SEELE. Goodbye Asuka. May the few noble sacrifices you made never be forgotten." She humbly eulogized as she flew away with the rest of her friends thinking they were home and dry and not able to wait to tell Hitomi all about her mission and her new powers that she promised to use only for good.

They had not gotten far when a brilliant blast of pure cosmic energy knocked them all from the sky back onto the filthy soil of a clearing.

A huge makeshift ramshackle grey EVA the size of a fifty-floor skyscraper was awaiting them.
And inside the biotechnological behemoth, none other than Gendo's right hand man Doctor Kozo.
A male Ritsuko, without any humanity.

He still bore the marks of several prison brands and was still dressed in a prison suit.
There was nothing but seething hatred in his tunnel like eyes.

"You children need to know when its time to stop meddling in grown up matters." He snapped as he turned his killing machine on the battered underage police officers, not even their attractive clothing able to sooth his fury.

"Now take your punishment like good little kids. AHAHAHAHA"

He cackled maniacally as he opened his mouth wide and prepared his faceless device to strike down the foolish little twits who had seen his life's work ruined. He could have gotten so much in taxes from his regime if it came into fruition which now it didn't.

"What you're doing is sick and inhumane. Why are you doing this?" Rei weakly asked, knowing she and her badly injured team was doomed and that they had used up all their power in their battle earlier.
But oh well, if they were going out, they could at least go out with a bad and cheesy one liner being the last thing they heard.
And perhaps, there was a 0.00000001% chance that a logical mind of a scientist might listen to logic?

The "scientist" turned out to have as much logic as a brain-dead trauma patient who had fallen down a three hundred storey building to land on hard concrete on his head. Perhaps the only explanation why he could even pilot.

Unable to resist the chance to make one taunting gloat to show these misbehaving little ankle biters that responsible adults like him ruled the world and always would.

"We've got to have… MONEY!"

He responded as he readied his killer ray once more as a far too crippled to stand Rei offered her final spiritual condolences as the Miko of the group for safe passage into whatever next life they might go to.

Then the ground below him began to shake violently as a heavy storm of big and sharp rocks out of nowhere fell onto his EVA.
The spontaneous Earthquake and rockslide combo was enough to knock his EVA off its feet and he was about to re-steady when from out of the ground, huge vines sprouted to completely restrain it to the spot so that it could do nothing as a shining cane wielded in the hands of a mysterious stranger clad in a dark tuxedo and a mask was smashed repeatedly into its chest plate until finally its power systems were thrown out of whack, disabling its pilot along with it.

Rei realised without needing to ask, that her hunch that there might have been a sixth crystal was unfortunately correct.
Her friends had mentioned that the crystals they found, contained ore from Mercury, Venus, Moon and Jupiter respectively along with her mars crystal.
They and by extension the limited intelligence they were supplied, FORGOT EARTH!

"Who are you?" Rei asked, now the only conscious member of her squad after everyone else had passed out from exhaustion and pain. "We're grateful for your assistance, but why did you save us?"

The figure very slowly landed beside her and cautiously crept up to her shaking all the while.
Then very hesitantly it removed its stylish black ball mask to reveal the nervously frowning freckled face of Toji Suzuhara.

His entire form was trembling as he managed to gather the courage to help "Rei" up, knowing full well from their younger that her temper was very quick.
Then he took a step back and raised his hands up as if to shield himself from the punch he knew was coming, his shy mannerisms in complete juxtaposition with his incredibly respectable and carefully organized attire.

"T, Toji?" Rei managed to sputter as he politely bowed and nodded, but then fished from his right tuxedo pocket a decorated id card which he nearly dropped with how unsteady his hands were as he held it up for his childhood bully, terrorizer and secret crush all in one to see.

"Mamoru Chiba" Rei silently read as Toji then drew out from the folds of his tuxedo a section of newspaper which he once again held up, knowing what happened the last time he went anywhere close to Asuka when she wasn't in a good mood. Also included on his ID was the confirmation that he too was a Juban district PC who had started work just a few weeks ago.

The newspaper clipping detailed how along with Asuka, the entirety of Tokyo 3 thought he too was a monster for letting Shinji take the abuse he did and standing idly doing nothing while his own manner in his days as Shinji's so called friend wasn't void of roughhousing either.

Misato really did like to blame everyone except herself and Rei only shook her head in earnest sympathy as Toji or "Mamoru" as he clearly now preferred to be called returned to her side once she had dropped her arms completely and smiled to show she was harmless, and placed his hand onto her shoulder.

She felt her strength completely return as eventually he withdrew with a bow and did the same for the rest of her friends.

"You know this stranger, Rei?" Minako suspiciously asked once she was brought back to consciousness by his touch and he had backed away to a respectful distance once more.

"Yes. Stand down friends. This man, this man was the closest thing I had to a partner growing up. I'm so glad he's back."

Yes while it was true that Shinji was the guy she spent the most time with.
But even removing how nastily unfairly she had treated him from the equation, he was with all due respect a very good friend at best.
She loved him and always had but she wasn't in love with him.

Perhaps this explained why she didn't just press her lips up to his herself and instead awkwardly waited for him to do it.
She tried to force a romance when a friendship would have been better suited, and in doing so thrown down the potential partner who did have eyes for her.

She had to admit the way Toji was still idolizing her even after she kicked him and the way he fumbled about kind of funny in a good way.
And his unerring dedication to his little sister, it was like he was more of a father to Sakura than Asuka's own father was to her.
It was sweet. Toji was a immature boy but a fulsome family man. Something that could not be said of any other boy she had ever met, not unfortunately even Shinji.

And not bad looking either, not even In his younger days.
The years had really brought out his finer features despite his agelessness like her as had his incredibly formal choice of garb that was a complete one eighty from his goofy baseball cap, tracksuit and jacket.

"It's good to see you. Toji." The Shinto priestess simply stated, unable to express with words how grateful she was to see him again.
"Thanks for saving us."

He simply politely nodded.

"If you have something to say, please just say it. I'm glad to see you again. Really I am." She encouragingly tried to tell him as still not uttering a word, he drew from his other pocket a black box.

He held the box up before the puzzled crowd of his fellow female law enforcers, and opened it to reveal a glistening silver ring with a single tiny diamond embedded at its core.

Then without so much as taking a breath as his mouth stayed tightly shut the entire time, he bent on one knee and held the ring out as Rei's friends watched on in amazement and utter celebration for their lucky friend who herself was blushing as red as the red on her skirt.

This was more than just the fortunate day where she finally found her lost love as Shinji found his, Rei graciously reflected as without a moment's thought she decisively took the ring.

Her past, present and future.
Her failures. Her accomplishments. Her eventual realization of her faults and the efforts she took to reform herself.
The fact that at the end of the day, her flaws were just as defining as her good qualities.

Everything had come full circle for Rei Hino as she put the ring onto her finger and placed her hand into that of the Tuxedo clad Toji now Mamoru as their squad began to head out of the woods.

Their purpose didn't end with the end of NERV, SEELE and the angels.
It began. The end was the beginning.

And so concludes the first story I've ever managed to complete.
I hope you enjoyed the journey. I know I have and I'm grateful to all of you for taking it with me.

See one of the things I personally could never stand in superhero shows is the fact that the hero keeps their identity a secret, and doesn't get any kind of reward whatsoever for all the good they've done.

They spend the entire night fighting evil and saving the world, and the next day they get grounded because they failed a test even though they had a perfectly legitimate reason and their parents wouldn't be alive to ground them if they didn't save the world. Heck the teacher wouldn't be alive to give the test.

So I must ask. Why? Why don't heroes get paid for their hard work. Why don't they just reveal themselves and then people will know to stay out of their way when they're fighting the bad guys (instead of trying to defend the bad guy) and can even instruct the police and government on which criminals to catch even without their intervention.

I mean, in a lot of shows, the all powerful demon needs loads of help from stupid petty thieves with no combat experience to even be reawakened, nothing the police couldn't deal with if they just knew who to go after which they would if the hero revealed themselves.

Heroes do not need a degree or high-test scores. They've saved the world and that's already a valuable service in and of itself. If soldiers are paid to fight for their country, and police are paid to guard the streets and doctors are paid to treat diseases, why aren't heroes paid?
Doesn't that seem a little unfair?

Some heroes might genuinely want to be selfless, but even they need to eat and rest and sometimes to buy equipment. In fact the reason a lot of hero's turn into villains in the first place is because they feel no one appreciates them. And scientific research does show that people need human contact and approval to be healthy.

The concluding point I guess I'd like to make is that many of the Evangelion characters were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Asuka's violence and fiery passion when her EVA was supposed to be the one doing most of the actual fighting and not her, actually inhibited her piloting skills and of course her fellow pilots Shinji and Rei since she took most of her fire out on them.

If she could just be in a setting where her fiery motivation could be used to motivate others and against her enemies rather than her friends, she probably would have done a lot better.
Not that that's any excuse for her inexcusable behaviour of course.

Gendo's purpose to bring his wife back was noble. Neglecting his son and wanting to destroy the world in the process, was not.

So thank you all so much for reading and to everyone, have a nice day.