The Following work of fiction incorporates the works of Hideaki Anno, the wonderful people at Studio Gainax and Studio Khara, and of Robert E. Howard, with respect to John Millius and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Hither came Conan, black haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirths, to tread the jeweled throne of Earth under his sandalled feet.

-Robert E. Howard, The Phoenix on the Sword

Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment.

-Wilhelm Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

-Ancient Klingon proverb

It was raining the day the boy was delivered unto the old man.

Every rain in Japan after the impact was a summer rain, falling on land parched by summer endless. The water that fell was never cool, but warm as the air. He was standing on the train platform, waiting, and he was six years old. His mother was dead and when she went away, she took the world with her. The vibrant city of his youth was replaced by the muted greens of the countryside, tamped down and grayed by the rain. His hair, black, soaked with water and ran through, down over his forehead and his face, where blue eyes flashed with the lightning. His suitcase rested next to him. It was forced open by the weight of its contents, and bits of cloth peaked out from the opening, now wicking moisture into the inside.

The train was met at the station by a bus and the bus was the one he was waiting for. His father made him repeat the number even as he was weeping on the platform at home. Two men in dark clothes watched him on the train but left him here once it stopped. He dragged his now heavy, sodden clothes down the platform to the bus. The driver stared through him, showing neither concern nor impatience. Drag-thump, he pulled the heavy container of sodden clothes up the steps into the bus and fished in the pocket of his trousers for the pass he'd been given. It was wet from the rain but the driver took it without saying anything and scissored the doors closed.

The rain drummed on the roof of the buss and clattered down the sides, and when the lightning came it painted the empty interior in stark relief. His rear end was cold and sore from sitting in sodden trousers and he was cold, now, the water having pulled the heat from his skin. He ran his fingers through his hair and flicked his fingers out, and the water hit the floor with a wet slap.

"Don't do that," said the bus driver.

The boy said nothing as the bus rumbled on. It came to a slow, squeaking stop, paused for only a few seconds, and rolled on. The boy stood up to wait for the next stop, where he would leave the bus behind. He wondered what would happen if he didn't get off, if the bus driver would care or leave him until he completed his route and pulled back into the bus yard, if he would leave him there again and again, day after day, until he withered away to nothing and there was only a ghost on an empty bus. He was sure no one would care. Mother was dead and father sent him away.

In that moment he decided he hated his father.

The bus stopped. He dragged the suitcase along the center of the floor, and again the driver paid him no mind, not even looking as he half pulled, half dropped it down the steps and into the gutter. The bus stop was alone in trees and was a cave of wood, pressure treated and gray, like old bones. Long worn gaps in the boards of the roof let water in, making it poor shelter but better than the outside. Shinji stood inside, not wanting to risk a splinter in his thighs on the old bench. The bus rumbled away as the rain picked up, falling in sheets now, disappearing until it was only a set of taillights, like the eyes of a monster lurking in the darkness.

It may have been a minute, or an hour, when the old man arrived. Shinji was staring at the floor, watching the mud rise up over the edge of the boards and start to spill over, lapping at the rim like ocean waves. It would file into the cracks, growing thicker each time, until eventually it would form a thick enough layer for the water to flow in and flood the enclosure.

The old man was wearing a yellow rain slicker. Only his face was visible, old and gray and lined. His eyes were milky.

"You are Shinji Ikari."

Shinji nodded. With each dip of his head, he felt the tears building behind his eyes, trying to spill out.

"If something happened to your mother and father, I was to see to your care and education. Follow me."

Shinji looked around.

"Do I have a raincoat?"

"Do you?"

He shook his head.

"You'll be wet, then."

Shinji pulled his suitcase to the edge of the shelter where the water was rising, and lifted it. He waddled along behind the old man, the weight of the suitcase trying to drag itself down into the mud. After a time he stopped and switched around to the other hand, but the old man did not slow. He continued walking, stooped and the only source of color in the gray world of rain, shuffling through the mud from one foot to another.

Shinji's foot hurt. There was mud in his shoes. The roads here were not paved, and the water slashed into them and made an endless river of slowly flowing mud. His feet began to slip, sliding backwards under him and making his stomach ball up with fear he would fall. The old man continued at his steady pace, widening the gap between them, not looking back.

His strength gave out, and he started dragging the suitcase through the mud. A caked ring of filth accumulated around the front of it as it pulled a channel in the wet ground. Shinji had to plant his foot for each step and push forward to keep it moving, and each time his foot slipped. The gap between him and the old man widened, and soon he was only a thin line of yellow in the growing dark, a single brush stroke on a broad canvas, only truly visible in the flashes of lightning.

Shinji pulled, stopped, pulled, stopped, no longer caring that he was grinding mud into his clothes. He took step after laborious step even as the ground began to arch upwards. He sucked in a breath and coughed at the inhaled rain. His lungs were coals in his chest and his legs felt like springs, pulled to their limit and then pressed too tight. He had to close his eyes to take another step, and through the rain running over his eyes and the mist and the dark, he couldn't see the old man at all.

He fell.

His knees sank in the mud, and he put his hands out to steady himself. Mud slipped between his fingers, caked into his knuckles and slid under his fingernails. He got one foot under himself but it slipped out when he tried to stand, and then he tried again, finally managing to get up. He was sodden, covered in filth, and shivering. He turned around and saw the suitcase. It had burst open, spilling its contents over the road. Slowly, he gathered up the rags and let them rest on one side of the open case, until he could pull it across the mud, like a sled.

Walking backwards, he worked his way up the hill, step after step, using the road he left behind him to judge the cures and rises so he knew where to put his feet. Now he could remember only when he'd last slept, and the last time his belly had been full. Each step cost him a ragged gasp, and at last he fell backwards, losing his grip on the suitcase, and fell into the mud. His head hit the ground with a wet slap. He closed his eyes, and swallowed, and hoped the old man had left him to die.

When he woke, the ground was sliding beneath him. He gasped and spat out a mouthful of mud, and it ran down the old man's back. He was over the old man's shoulder in a fireman's carry, his arms hanging down. He was too tired to speak or squirm, and simply watched the ground beneath him sway. The old man carried his closed suitcase in his other hand, and Shinji let out a breath of relief. The rain was beginning to relent, going from heavy slashing sheets to heavy drops that ran down his back under his shirt and made him shiver. A chunk of mud slid out of his hair and hit the ground behind the old man with a slap.

It felt like the trip took forever. The old man turned off the road up a narrower path that was not much of a path at all, folding and rolling between trees. The old man had to turn sideways, now and then, to walk between them. The path turned down a hill, zig-zagging this way and that, and in places old boards were fixed to it to give purchase to walk in the rain, such was the slope. The old man grunted as he came to the bottom of the hill and walked along the path to the house.

The house was barely deserving that name. The sides were open, making it mostly a pavilion, a low roof held up by timbers. It was shored up well, though, and offered ample shelter against the rain. It was bigger than it looked at first. The whole area was a network of wooden roofs and tarps stretched out with rope. Under one was a kitchen, such as it was, with a large fire pit and an assortment of cast iron dutch ovens and a pile of cut wood, covered in another tarp. Some of the small structures were more enclosed. Under one of the roofs was a pair of hammocks.

The old man let the suitcase thump to the floor under the widest roof, and then gently put Shinji down on a bench, letting him lean against the rough wooden table. He carried over a lantern, set it on the table, and looked down at him.

"You're filthy. Wait here."

The old man disappeared into the darkness and returned, carrying a bucket. Without ceremony, he dumped it over Shinji's head, washing away the mud. His clothes were still stained with it, but he felt less weighed down and grubby.

"Bath, later. When the rain stops."

Shinji looked around.

"You're my teacher?"

The old man stopped. "No. I was your mother's teacher, once."

Shinji looked down at his hands. They were shaking. He put them under his armpits.

"I'm scared."

"You should be."

The old man appeared in front of him.

Slowly, he removed his hat. He was old, worn looking. His hair was silvery grain, and there was a thin scar that ran along the side of his head. He pulled the rain coat he wore away, and let it flop on the concrete pad. Shinji was beginning to think this place was not the house he was meant to live in. The old man was wearing fatigues, old and faded. There was a nametag on his left breast, and it read FUYUTSUKI.

"Are you Fuyutsuki?" Shinji said, dumbly.

"Yes," said the old man.

"You said you were a teacher. Why are you wearing army clothes?"

"I was in the army. After Second Impact, everyone was in the army."

Shinji watched him as he moved to a heavy locker set up at the corner of the shelter. He opened it, retrieved a can, and then opened it with a small, old fashioned can opener from his pocket. From inside the locker he produced a spoon, and carried the can to where Shinji sat. He thrust it out to him. Beans.

Shinji took a bite. "It's cold."

"No fires, now. They'll be looking for us."

The old man sat down in front of him, folding his legs under his body. He was wiry, the skin of his arms loose, from lost weight, but he had a deep chest. Shinji looked at the bruise along his jawline, but said nothing. He looked down at the can of beans, lifted some onto the spoon, and took a bite.

"You noticed the bruise."

Still eating, Shinji nodded. He was hungry, and the beans weren't that cold.

"I killed the bus driver."

He almost dropped the beans.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"No. Eat."

Shaking, glancing from the can to the old man's face, Shinji continued to spoon cold beans into his mouth, feebly chew, and swallow. The rain had almost stopped, now, and its remnants pattered down into the earth around the shelter.

"I haven't been a teacher for ten years," said the old man, watching him eat. "I will be again. You are my new student."

"What do you teach?" said Shinji, his eyes flicking to the treeline around the camp.

"You're thinking about escaping."

Shinji froze.

"You might as well scream it. I can read it in your expression."

"I wasn't," Shinji lied.

"I am going to teach you everything you need to know."

Shinji scraped out the bottom of the can, making a cold rasping sound of metal on metal, and swallowed the last of the beans. The old man took the can and spoon from him and walked it off, somewhere, and quickly reappeared.

"Your father did not send you to me."

Shinji swallowed again, and continued to stare out into the dark. His eyes were beginning to adjust to the lack of light, and the trees stood our more strongly now, lines of gray in the darkness.

"You… you kidnapped me?"

"No," said the old man, as he stood up again. "I rescued you. They had a plan for you."

"A plan?"

"You wouldn't understand. You're too young. When you're old enough, I will teach you."

"Teach me?"

"The Scenario," said the old man, "and your place in it."

Shinji looked out at the dark. The old man stepped out into it, out of the pool of light from the lantern, and returned a moment later holding soap and a towel.

"Come with me."

Shinji stood up and followed him, dragging his feet. The old man walked through the darkness, under a tarp, along a path of boards fixed in the ground. Shinji glanced to either side, the darkness a solid wall pressing in on him. There was another lantern in the darkness, beside a metal tub filled with water. Shinji touched the surface. It was cold.

"You will clean yourself. I will return."

"Where are you going?"

The old man stopped, without turning. "Are you afraid of the dark?"

"Yes."

"There's nothing out here worse than me."

When the old man was gone, Shinji took off his clothes and climbed into the tub. He ended up standing in it, throwing water over himself and rubbing the bar of soap to scrape off the muck. Eventually, he was standing knee-deep in dirty water. He stepped out of it and found there was a towel lying on a crate, and dried himself. Under the towel was a shirt like the old man wore. Considering the condition of his own clothes, Shinji had little choice but to put it on. It hung down to his knees. There were no shoes or socks to put on.

"Over here," the old man called, form the darkness.

Shinji looked around, then gingerly put his bare foot on one of the boards. It was rough under his skin. He stepped from board to board, working his way towards the sound of the old man's voice. He came to another pavilion, surrounded by mosquito netting. The old man parted it and Shinji walked inside, onto a cool concrete pad. The old man lifted him and put him in a hammock suspended between the two posts of the shelter. He was amazingly strong.

There was no pillow. The cloth was not rough but not smooth, either. He had no choice but to turn sideways in the hammock and lay there. From the drag up the hillside, he was exhausted, and he felt the weight of fatigue on him when he was actually lying down. His surprise at falling asleep almost registered before he fell under, the world swirling around him a bit as the hammock rocked gently back and forth.

He woke, without dreaming, to the sun peeking over the horizon, filtering through the trees. The world was strange now that he could properly see it without rain or darkness. The camp smelled of turned earth, and was even larger than he thought. The old man apparently slept under the roof of the pavilion, which was connected to others by paths of boards and tarps. It looked like he'd built it all himself. There was a small shack, and a long wooden structure with a high roof, surrounded by tarps. Shinji wondered what was in it.

The old man appeared, stripped to the waist in his green fatigue pants and bare feet. There were scars criss-crossing his back and chest. Shinji wanted to ask where they came from, but thought that might not be a good idea.

"I want to go home," he said quietly.

"You can't," said the old man. "Your mother is dead. Your father murdered her."

Shinji sat in the rocking hammock for a moment, more. The old man's unflinching eye watched him.

The first sob almost made him fall out of the hammock. He plunged his face into his hands and swept them upwards, grabbed a double fistful of hair, and pulled. His sob stretched into a gurgling whine before he drew in another breath, and his palms were wet with tears.

"I want my mommy," he cried.

He wept for what felt like hours. When he finally lifted his face from his hands, the old man was standing there staring at him. There was cloth folded over his arm. He tossed a pair of pants and a shirt at Shinji.

"I cleaned your clothes."

The garments flopped over the hammock. Shinji stared at them and sniffed. He tried to stifle a sob and it got out anyway, and his lips contorted as he tried to press them closed and failed.

The old man drew near to him, and he shied away, tilting the hammock. He put out a hand, reassuringly, and with the other reached into his pocket. He took out a folded piece of stiff paper and handed it to Shinji, who took it in his trembling hands. It was a photograph of a beautiful woman, holding a smiling child to face the camera.

Mother.

"Where did you get this?"

"I took the picture," said the old man.

Shinji looked at it, turned it in his hands. It was so hard to remember her face, her voice. Remembering how fuzzy it all was only made him curl on himself and sob again.

"Keep it," said the old man. "You have more claim to her than I do."

He waited while Shinji rocked back and forth in the hammock, staring at the picture and sobbing.

"Your father is a cruel man," the old man said, quietly. "He did not love your mother. He cared for her only because she made him happy. When you were born, he began to hate you for stealing her from him."

Shinji looked at him. "Is that true?"

"Yes."

He looked at the picture. "Did you love her?"

"Yes."

"Then why did you let my father marry her?"

"It was more important to me that she be happy. She was, for a time."

"Then what happened?"

"We murdered the world."

Shinji folded the picture again and held it for a while. The old man left him and he dressed, pulling on a pair of slacks and a white shirt, a school uniform. His shoes and socks were still missing. When the old man returned, Shinji asked of him,

"Where are my shoes?"

"No shoes," said the old man, pointing at his own feet, leather-soled and horn hard. "Don't need them."

Shinji looked up at him. "But my feet hurt."

"They'll stop. Follow me."

The old man turned without waiting for him and headed along the boards to the strange pavilion with the tarps, nimbly picking his way from board to board. Shinji followed, doing his best to keep up. The old man was faster than he should have been, and it was difficult. When he reached the other pavilion, he pulled the tarp aside and gestured for Shinji to enter.

He looked around inside. It was dark, lit by a single lantern. There were shelves and shelves of books, and even a computer. One end of the space was taken up by strange equipment. There was a heavy cage of square iron beams, and a bench with supports at one end. The old man had an array of long iron bars, and circular iron plates marked with numbers. He walked to the equipment, selected a bar, and set it on the floor. He then started putting plates on either end, the biggest of the selection, of which he had many. When he had four on either end, he beckoned Shinji forward.

"Lift it."

Shinji bent over and put his hands on the bar. It had rough spots on it, marked to grip, and just touching them hurt his skin. He curled his fingers around it and pulled.

"I can't," he said.

The old man motioned him back.

He stepped up to the apparatus, so that the bar touched his shins. He bent in a specific way, so his back was straight and his knees bent, and took a grip on the bar. He grunted and grimaced, the air from his breath blowing out the sides of his mouth as he stood up. The bar moved with him, and he raised it until he was standing. Corded muscle stood out all over his body, angling up to his neck and across his belly. He put the weight down with a great thump and stood over it, drawing in deep breaths.

"I can."

Shinji looked at it. "How did you do that?"

"Practice. I'm old. Soon you will be a young man, and you will do more than I ever could."

The old man knelt down, then, and gave the bar a heavy, open-handed slap. Shinji flinched.

"There is one thing in this world you can trust, Shinji. Not man, not woman, not beast."

He glanced down at the long bar.

"This. This you can trust."

Shinji watched the deer.

It moved beneath the tree, lazily poking along the streambed. Shinji clung to the branch, pressing his body into the rough bark. In his left hand he held the spear, a short half of wood with the old man's survival knife bound to the end. The deer did not see him, and did not look up. He slipped forward on the branch, positioning himself just above it, and it stopped. Its head rose and its ears turned in all direction while it stared dumbly, scanning the woods ahead for the source of the sound.

A wordless scream escaped his lips as he slid off the branch and dropped. He folded the spear out in front of him and held it two-handed in his fists, and it was the point of the spear that struck the animal first. It sheared down along its length, drawing out a long wound. Warmth sprayed over him, and he slid down the animal's flank as it spasmed. His eyes went wide and he barely rolled out of the way of slashing hooves, mixing the gore that coated his arms with wet mud. The deer screamed, strangely human, and darted forward.

The old man stepped out of the brush and opened its neck with a single stroke of his sword. Old and battered, the blade was of recent make, the kind that had been mass produced for officers, with a minimalistic, practical grip and unpolished blade. It had none of the craftsmanship of older blades. It was like the man who wielded it. The old man flicked the blade, whipping it in the air to an abrupt stop as he turned the blade, so the long line of red that coated it slashed out onto the branches with a wet slap. He then slid it back into the green metal scabbard that held it, shoved through his belt.

Shinji approached the deer. The old man knelt beside it, whispering.

"Are you praying?"

The old man ignored him.

"I thought you didn't believe in God."

He stood up. "I don't. I was apologizing to her."

"Why?"

"Long before men lived in cities or grew crops on farms, our ancestors on another continent prayed to the creatures they slew for food. The honored them and called them brothers."

He glanced off into the distance. "The people out there murder them in factories and buy their bodies wrapped in plastic."

Shinji nodded. "I understand."

"Do you?"

He pulled the spear free, and started unwrapping the cord that held the knife in place. Shinji took it and slipped the blade into his belt sheath, and threw the stick aside. The old man knelt down, drew some cord from where it was wrapped on his belt, and began tying it around the deer's back legs.

"Help me pull it."

Together, they drug it up the hillside and then along the path to the camp. When they arrived, the old man threw the rope over a branch, and motioned for Shinji to take it. The boy took it, turned, and held it over his shoulder while walking forward, gradually pulling the deer upwards.

"It's too heavy."

"Grow stronger."

He redoubled his efforts and pulled, and the deer rose up until its forelegs and head dangled, and blood ran down and mixed with the earth. When it was a few feet high, Shinji tied the rope off on another tree and returned. The old man took Shinji's knife and sawed the head off, cutting through the joints of the neck, the tough meat and sinew, until it fell. Then, he ran it up the deer's belly, sliced it open, and spread it apart.

"Watch."

The old man wedged the blade into the animal's ribs, breaking them from its collarbone. Shinji felt a thickness at the back of his throat, but watched. The sounds made him flinch as the old man forced the deer's body apart, spreading the bones with his hands while he held the knife in his teeth. He reached up into the deer's body with the blade, cut at the viscera, and the lungs and heart and guts all came out in a great wet slap.

Shinji bolted to the nearest tree, bent double, and vomited.

"Come back."

He stood up, wiped the last of the bile from his face, and walked back to the old man.

"You have blood on your face."

Shinji blinked.

"Help me."

Wincing, and looking away at times, Shinji helped the old man, pulling on the skin or holding a limb where he directed, denuding the deer of its skin. The old man took it, folded it so the bloody side was in, and threw it over the branch.

"Go and get the cheese cloth."

Shinji did as he was told, stopping first to clean the blood from his hands and arms with soap and water, very thoroughly. He brought the bolt of cloth with him, and when he arrived, the old man was holding the first cut of meat. Together, they wrapped it very carefully, and Shinji carried it to the cooler. This went on until the last cut, which would not fit in the container. They wrapped it, and the old man motioned for Shinji to carry it to the fire pit.

"The backstrap," said the old man. "The best part. We will eat it first."

"What about that stuff?" said Shinji glancing at the gut pile, and the skin.

"The offal, we leave outside the camp for scavengers. They need to eat, too. The skin, we will keep."

Shinji carried the meat to the pit, while the old man attended to the rest. He came bearing the skin folded over his arms, and the animal's severed head. He tossed it on the ground with a thump and carried the skin off.

Shinji laid out the meat on their table, near the fire pit, in the open space at the center of the camp. The coals were low but still hot, and so he took some kindling from the pile and carefully tossed it into the center, where it began to catch, and then layered split logs over it, wincing and pulling his hand back from the heat while the old man cleaned and prepared the meat, running it through with a spit. When it was skewered, the old man laid it out on the forks that held the spit, over the heat of the fire. The smoke embraced it, and hissed with joy at dripping fat.

The old man sat down. He'd cleaned himself, and carried over a pot of water from the rain catch. He put the head in it and carefully set it inside the broad fire ring, close enough to the coals to draw heat but not enough to deform the metal. He turned the spit now and then, looking over the flames at Shinji in his quiet, unfocused way.

"What are you doing with the head?"

"I will clean it, and you will keep the skull of your first kill."

"I didn't kill it."

"Yes, you did," said the old man, gazing into the fire. "It was your stroke that condemned it to die. It would not have survived that wound. I only corrected your mistake, and gave it a clean death."

"How did you learn to use the sword like that?"

"A man I knew in the army taught me."

"Will you teach me?"

"When you are ready."

The old man pulled the sword out and looked at it, turning it in his hands. The blade caught the flame, and spread the light of the fire out across the camp as the sun drew near the horizon.

"I have heard a legend," said the old man. "In the beginning, before men, giants lived in the earth, and stole the enigma of steel from the gods. The gods struck down the giants, and fire and water fell on them, and the giants were destroyed."

Shinji watched the light playing along the blade.

"In their rage, the gods forgot the secret of steel, and left it lying on the battlefield. Those who found it were not gods, not giants, but men. Just men."

Slowly, the old man sheathed the blade again. "You must learn its discipline, Shinji. You must answer the riddle of steel."

When the meat had cooked, the old man piled it high onto a plate for Shinji, leaving not as much for himself. Shinji ate it hungrily with his hands, for the hunt and the dressing of the game had drained him, and he felt weak until he began to eat, slurping down the long slices of hot meat hungrily. It tasted of blood and fire, salt and smoke.

When he was finished, the old man helped him to clean the plates, and together they lowered the cooler with ropes into the pit where it was kept, which the old man covered with a straw mat. It was cool in the Earth, and the meat would keep there for a time without being salted. When all was done, Shinji was left to clean himself and his garments, alone.

When he was dressed again, the old man returned.

"Come with me."

Together, by light of the lantern, they walked to the hut with the books and the weights. Shinji sat down inside, as the old man pulled a book from the shelf.

"Tonight, we begin learning algebra."

"But I'm too young for that," said Shinji. "in school, we-"

The old man silenced him with a blank look. "You are Yui Ikari's child. Those things don't have any meaning for you."

Drawing on the concrete floor with chalk, the old man began to teach him. They would sit long into the night, discussing the figures scratched out on the floor, the old man reasoning with him over the meaning of the variables, explaining the relationship with the symbols. Shinji listened, and repeated when bidden, often making mistakes, in time correcting them. The old man expounded on poetry, philosophy, and history. When the night was over, Shinji walked sleepily beside him to the hammocks, listening as he spoke of ancient warrior kings from halfway around the world, and their adventures.

He drifted into a dreamless sleep, swaying in the darkness. When he awoke, it was to the meaty thwack of a long dowel rod slapping into his stomach, pushing the breath from his lungs and drawing a groan.

"What was that?" said Shinji, grabbing the stick. He rolled onto his feet.

The old man had a stick of his own.

"Before you answer the riddle of steel, you must answer the riddle of wood," said the old man.

Shinji blinked.

"That was a joke. Defend yourself."

Shinji went wide with his swing, and the old man corrected him with a hard stroke to his hamstrings that sent pain jarring up his legs and knocked him off his feet, out of the hut where they practiced, and into the dirt. He rolled over quickly, bringing up the stick to cover himself, but the old man had paused to drink from his canteen.

"I don't need to kill you. I severed your hamstrings. You can't walk."

Shinji blew out a breath, and slowly stood up, leaning on the stick. His chest heaved and beads of sweat rolled down his forehead even as perspiration matted his heavy mane of long, black hair, making it cling to his neck and shoulders. The old man always looked the same, always totally calm even when stripped to the waist and holding a battered practice "sword", basically an old dowel rod.

"I'd start training you with live steel if I didn't think you'd kill yourself."

"Kill myself?" said Shinji. "You hit me, remember?"

"You gave me the opening. Your failing killed you, not my skill."

"What does that even mean?"

The old man lowered his canteen, letting it hang from the strap over his shoulder, and flipped the practice sword up to rest against his neck. "You must master yourself, and be in the moment. You think too much."

"I think too much?" Shinji panted, leaning against one of the posts holding the roof over their heads.

"You think about where to put your feet, and where my sword will go, and how you will strike me. To hit me you must think of none of these things, only desire the outcome and let your mind and your instincts guide you. You've been doing this for years. Stop trying to hit me, and hit me."

Shinji nodded, danced lightly back up into the hut, and squared himself up. He was almost as tall as the old man, now, and was starting to gain some meat of his own, his long limbs filling out with mass, his shoulders broadening and growing into carved stone from the sword practice and the weight training. He'd been with the old man for nearly seven years now, and could barely remember his time before. He could barely remember anything but rising, day after day, to be beaten bloody by an old man with a stick before studying calculus or Greek philosophy or the history of the ancient Sumerians, sometimes all at once.

Fuyutsuki avoided all ceremony, never bowing nor beckoning him to attack nor saying anything at all, he simply moved, a blur despite his age, his face set in concentration. Shinji barely turned his first attack, leaving himself open for the recovering swing, and barely dodged that, too. He took a solid hit on his upper arm that would flower into a bruise later, to hammer home the lesson. Lose an arm, lose your weapon, and you die. Every part of the body was equally vulnerable, concealing some weakness of the human machine. Pull the string in the right place, and the whole thing came tumbling down.

He focused, turning these thoughts from his mind as the old man renewed his attack, and he felt his face slacken. He watched the sword but also watched the world, watched the old man's muscles flow and bunch under his sallow skin, watching how the pull of his shoulders or the tightening of his stomach presaged a blow or indicated a feint. Shinji moved with him, not trying to batter past his defenses or even touch him, just keep up, moving in time with him. He almost forgot he was holding the practice sword.

For the first time, he saw the old man tense and start to sweat in the never-ending swelter, his movements becoming just slightly less fluid, a tiny bit less sure. Shinji continued to move, not worrying about making contact but focusing on the dance, the movement. Without quite realizing how, he saw something he had never seen before, and almost forgot to take advantage of it. He swung his sword wide and almost hit the old man's neck before he stopped himself, panting, eyes wide in shock.

"You killed me," the old man said, dryly.

Shinji started to grin. He felt the tap of a dowel rod on his own shoulder, just beside his neck.

"As did I, you."

Shinji snorted in annoyance, but grinned in spite of himself. The old man's face was a tight cipher, betraying only the slightest hint of approval in the gentle upturn of his chin, and the change in his eyes. Shinji felt elated, as if he were about to float away on the wind.

"Good," said Fuyutuski. "Good."

"Now what?" said Shinji, lowering his sword. A glance told him the sun had risen to mid-day.

"Walk with me," said the old man.

Shinji dutifully did as he was bidden, walking just behind and to the left of the old man, out of the hut, and out of their camp, into the forest. The mossy understory crushed beneath his feet and he felt the mud beneath his toes, and through it could feel the contours of the rock beneath it, singing to him in an ancient song that modern men who girded their feet had long forgotten. He kept pace with long, loping, irregular strides, not slowed down by his practice of carefully placing each footfall. The sun had long bronzed his skin, which he left exposed to the elements as much as possible.

"What are the Dead Sea Scrolls?" said the old man.

Shinji gazed into the trees, ever watchful for enemy or prey. He sniffed the air like a beast, seeking after the musk of deer, and listened for the movement of small things that yet bore meat. Always was he alert, always waiting.

"A set of religious texts discovered on the West Bank in 1947," said Shinji. "Gnostic texts from the Essenes."

"Very good," said Fuyutsuki, "That is what I told you. I was wrong."

"You lied," said Shinji.

"I concealed. Remember your study of philosophy, Shinji. Imagine, if you will, scientific proof of the existence of the soul, of the afterlife."

Shinji considered this for a moment, standing on a great upraised root as he leaned against a tree, watching the pockmarked horizon through the trunks of the forest.

"Applied metaphysics," said Shinji.

"Just so," said the old man, continuing his walk. "The true scrolls were discovered a year earlier, and the excavation of the Essene texts used to hide their removal and, eventually, translation. The scrolls were gathered and translated by a man named Lorenz Keel."

"Keel," said Shinji, dropping to the soft earth beside the old man, to follow him. "Who is he?"

"A man that you will have to kill, one day."

"I see," said Shinji.

The old man went on, his gaze becoming distant, fixed on a nothingness that remained far away.

"Keel toured the world as he translated the scrolls, gathering around him sympathetic minds in chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics, people who have been marginalized in their fields for some eccentricity or other. One of them was your grandfather, Yui's mother. To a one, they were all rich, and well connected."

"They led lives of leisure," Shinji surmised, "and that made them easily manipulated."

Fuyutsuki nodded. "Perhaps, or perhaps Keel simply directed his efforts more towards wealth and political or social connections than the truly sharpest minds. "

"One of the people he approached was you?"

The old man shook his head. "No, not yet. He started his Society in the 1960's, drawing together his various contacts for the first time in Vienna, in a hotel. He swore them all to secrecy and unveiled his plan- they would gather the resources they needed by fabricating a secret society, the Society of the Soul, or Seele, and manipulating their personal connections to grow and empower it."

"I see," said Shinji.

The old man shook his head. "The Society is real, Shinji. Keel revived an ancient order, so ancient it was gone before Christ is said to have walked the Earth, before our people were even a people, wiped out for their heresy."

"Heresy?" said Shinji. "What heresy?"

The old man paused, and leaned on his sheathed sword like a cane, studying the angle of the sun. "The members of this sect eschewed the faiths of the ancient Near East for vastly different religion- one that spoke of a spherical Earth orbiting an unremarkable sun, and of life on other planets that deliberately seeded our world with life."

"The exobiotic theory," said Shinji. "You've mentioned this."

The old man smiled slightly, perhaps with an iota of pride. "Yes, but it isn't a theory. They were right, Shinji."

He blinked, and stood staring at the old man's gnarled back, noting how stooped he had become, lately. The old man took a slow breath, as if gathering strength.

"When the Earth's surface was still molten, the first Seed arrived. The ancients called it Lilith, but whether that is their term or that of the progenitors is unknown to us. It crashed into the Earth and in the process, sheared off the material that formed the Earth's moon."

"It must have been huge," said Shinji.

"Yes, and traveling very fast. The creation of a moon, I think, has something to do with the process. It protects the Earth from meteor impacts. In fact, I think this solar system was chosen because of the presence of large gas giants in the middle of the orbital plane, to sweep up cosmic debris and limit extinction level events."

"What about Alvarez' meteor, and the other strikes?"

"It's not a perfect system," said the old man, "and life survived, which is all that matters. Without Jupiter, life could not exist on Earth, or would have less of a chance, anyway."

Shinji nodded. "What is this seed?"

"The object was not the seed, but the vessel within which it crossed interstellar space. Whether its creators fashioned a hollow moon to carry it or the creature somehow does that itself, we don't know. The actual creature is an immense, inert giant made of a unique form of matter that is unstable in the quantum state, called particle-wave matter."

"So it still exists," said Shinji.

"Yes. The object and its inhabitant came to be buried beneath Hakone, over the course of millennia of tectonic shifts, but it isn't alone."

Shinji stopped. "What?"

"There are two seeds," said Fuyutsuki. "A second one, which the ancients termed Adam, landed at the Earth's southern pole, billions of years later, after life had already taken root."

"What happened?"

The old man looked up at the sky. "They battled, the giants of light. Two seeds were not meant to co-exist, and their creators made them different, incompatible. Somehow, Adam was contained, and locked away within its white moon, pinned in place with a giant alien weapon."

Shinji walked up to stand beside him. "I think I see where this is going."

"Keel launched expeditions to find the moons, and the creatures. The Black Moon was found first, but the nature of its hiding place prevented them from excavating it. The White Moon was found twenty years later, in the early nineteen-eighties. It had actually been discovered years before by an expedition from Massachusetts, but the expedition was a disaster. Most of the members died, and the rest went insane."

"That sounds promising," Shinji said, dryly. "Wait."

"Yes?" said Fuyutsuki, turning slightly.

"The gods left the enigma of steel lying on the battlefield…"

A small smile crept across Fuyutsuki's face. "And we who found it were not gods, not giants, but men. Just men."

"What did they want with it?"

"Godhood," said Fuyutsuki. "Keel convinced the others that Adam could be manipulated, harnessed and used by human beings to simultaneously force the evolution of the entire human species into gods, immortal and perfect."

"I take it didn't work," said Shinji.

The old man shook his head. "I was brought in around '96. At that time, your mother and father were graduate students working under me in the burgeoning field of applied metaphysics. Our research was meant to unravel the mystery of the absolute terror field."

"The what?"

The old man turned to him, and prodded his chest with a gnarled finger. "What holds you together?"

"The membranes of my cells, I suppose," said Shinji. "Chemical bonds."

"Partly," said Fuyutsuki, "but only partly. The science of the ancients is so advanced we can only use vague terms like soul to describe it. There is an essential you, Shinji, a being of light that exists within the physical shell, that comes directly from Lilith. Our research unraveled the means by which that soul can move on beyond the body as a coherent being."

"Proof of the afterlife," said Shinji.

"Of sorts. There was much we did not understand. Your father had already left by the time I discovered the truth."

"What truth?"

"That Seele had found Adam, and meant to awaken it. My experiments showed, only a few days before the experiment, that tampering with the AT Field in an attempt to transmigrate the soul results in the dissolution of both soul and body. It utterly destroys a person, rendering them down to their component materials."

Shinji balked, his eyes wide. "It's like a story," said Shinji. "Joseph Curwen."

"Yes," said the old man. "The problem is, the person can't be brought back. You can't rebuild what has been rendered down."

"What did you do?"

"I tried to alert the media, sent messages to the government. I was given this for my trouble." He traced his finger along the scar on his head. "Since I was no longer of a use to them, they tried to kill me."

"Then what?"

"Second Impact. The contact experiment took place not long after you were conceived, not long after your parents married, in September of that year. Seele had designed a device called an Entry Plug, partly my work, that was meant to insert a test subject into the creature in an attempt to merge with it. They were going to use one of the scientists'' own children first, then Keel himself, followed by the others. Join with it and become a god."

"What happened?"

"It activated, broke loose, and strode across the Antarctic, killing nearly everyone. In a panic, they tried to use the Lance to return it to its inert state. The end result was a gigantic explosion that instantly melted the entire ice cap, destroyed almost all of Seele's assets, and sent a tsunami roiling around the planet. The world was immediately plunged into chaos as every coastal area, where the bulk of humans live, was devastated."

"What about Keel? How did her survive?"

"Cowardice," said Fuyutsuki. "The tests were carried out by the most expendable of assets. Your father was merely en-route, or he would have been killed. Your mother was saved because her father's political connections were useful to Keel."

"I don't understand," said Shinji. "Shouldn't that have been the end of them?"

"Yes," said Fuyutsuki, "but Keel is a snake, and a madman. He convinced his followers that it was a sign from God, and that they had erred. He had plenty of evidence."

"Why?" said Shinji.

"When it exploded, the creature reverted to an embryonic state, not much bigger than a man's fist. Most of that material was ejected into space or around the Earth, in an abbreviated version of the creature's function. Keel taught his sycophants to believe that the creatures must be defeated in accordance with some damned prophecy he made up."

"Creatures?" said Shinji.

"Alternate evolutions," said Fuyutsuki. "Immensely powerful, merciless, inhuman. They will come and they will try to reunite with Adam, or with Lilith, maybe."

"What happens if they do that?"

"I don't know," said Fuyutsuki.

Shinji looked at him. "How do they mean to fight them?"

"I don't know that either," said Fuyutsuki. "When I left, it was to flee into the chaos of the post-Impact world. I spent some time in the National Defense Forces, eventually fleeing when things came back enough that I would be tracked down and liquidated. I built this camp up during those last months, spent my time preparing."

"How did you know to find me?" said Shinji.

"I saw your mother's death in a newspaper, and knew what your father would do, where he would send you."

"Do you know what killed her?"

"No," said Fuyutsuki. "What do you remember?"

Shinji looked into the distance, under the red disk of the sun. "Not much. I remember something, some kind of machine, but it looked like parts of it were alive. It had muscles, I remember, but there was no skin over them and its head was inside some kind of helmet. I don't think it even had legs. Mother, she… they put her in this suit, this skin tight suit. She squeaked when she walked and she hugged me before she left. There was a tube, a metal tube…"

"An entry plug," said Fuyutsuki, quietly. "They must have tried to clone it."

"I don't know, no one would tell me. Father never spoke to me after that, he just sent me away. Security men took me to the train station, rode with me out here."

He looked down at his hands, and slowly relaxed his fists, and his fingers trembled. He moved them to his side, trying to find his calm.

Fuyutsuki looked at him. "Your mother was chosen for a reason. It has something to do with you, I'm sure of it. There was a reason a child was chosen for the first experiment, but I don't know why. I never had access to that research, only guesswork."

"What was his name?" said Shinji. "The child they used."

"Her," said Fuyutsuki. "Her name is Katsuragi. Misato Katsuragi. She was about as old as you are now, when they took her to Antarctica. I can only wonder what they told her, what excuse her father used. How could a man do that to his own child?"

Shinji looked at him blankly.

"Why are you telling me all of this?"

The old man drew the sword with a quick snickt of metal on metal, and studied the blade. "One day, you will return, and you will put this in your father's black heart for your mother, and for me, and for the world, but there is so much more you must do. An evil wizard commands them all, Shinji, and you will be his end."

"Return?" said Shinji.

"Yes," said Fuyutsuki. "It's almost time. The creatures are gestating somewhere, preparing themselves. They will return, and so must you. I don't know how Seele plans to defeat them, but you will find a place in that plan and turn it to your own ends."

"How will I do that?" said Shinji. "I'm just a boy."

"For now," said Fuyutsuki. He planted the blade of the sword in the ground and too a few steps across open ground. "Attack me, with your fists."

Without hesitation, Shinji darted forward, hands out, ready to grab the old man by the neck. Before he was even aware of what had happened, he was lying on the ground, his head shaking from the impact. Stars swam in his vision.

"You are younger than I am," said the old man, "and I think, stronger, yet I am standing and you have fallen. Master yourself, Shinji, and no matter what power is directed against you, it will be drawn into your control and directed to your ends, as I accepted your advance and turned it away from myself. Now get up and hit me."

By the light of a burning lamp, Shinji swayed in his hammock, bowing it with his weight as he curled around a book. He had to learn German to read it, and so he did, not without difficulty but never with the faintest decline in his resolve. The old man, who lay in his own hammock, watched him with lidded, rheumy eyes.

Marked on the wall of their hut were Shinji's days. Since he had arrived, each day was marked out with a cut in the posts, and each month with a deeper cut, and each year deeper still. He would be sixteen years old, soon, and the boy he had been when he first haltingly crept into this place, covered in filth and tears, was a distant memory buried under the weight of the riddle of steel. The many weight plates the old man had somehow accrued in his hideaway were all suspended from the end of the bar, now, and Shinji could move them all through sheer force of will, tear them from gravity's grasp, or as he fancied, push the Earth itself away with his feet.

He sometimes gazed at himself in wonder. He was lean and long of limb, and ropey muscles moved under his skin, folding and stretching it as he turned the pages of the book, in imitation of the way they bulged and strained under load. He could feel himself at ease, feel himself drawing in each breath, the slow pulse of his heart within his breast, beating hate for his father and the world that had inflicted its cruelties on him, and yet he was light, filled with air and feeling as though he might float away. It was almost time to go back.

The old man watched him in silence, until his eyes drifted closed. He held the sword across his chest.

Shinji flipped through the book. It was filled with handwritten notes, also in German, flowing, precise script of a scientist, but with a curious, feminine artistry to it. He turned a page and, curiously, found the text covered with a faded picture stuck there, rooted in the spine. He plucked it free and studied it in the light. His mother he knew, but the man that embraced her from behind was a stranger to him, a ghost of a happy man that was hidden under an indifferent beard and perpetual scowl before Shinji could remember. His father held his mother in the familiar, not quite sexual way that happy couples do, supporting her breasts with his forearms as she clutched at him and leaned into his embrace. Next to them, also smiling, was the professor, and he too was a ghost, a strange, jowly mockery of the lean forest creature Shinji knew. Beside him was a tall, lithe woman, red of hair and fair of skin, with piercing blue eyes that remained vibrant even as the ink that showed them faded. He turned the picture over.

"All the best,

-Kyoko".

Wondering at who the woman was, he decided to keep the picture, tucking it in beside the picture of his mother the old man had given him, seeing it too was faded with time. Shinji stared at it, closing the German book, studying the picture, drinking in the curve of his mother's jaw. The only thing that ever threatened to bring tears to his eyes was the realization that the image had become the subject, and he could no longer picture her but for the sake of the photograph. He could recall the feeling of hearing her voice but not the sound of it, the joy of pressing his face into her the feel of her embrace, the exultation of burying his face in her hair as she carried him on her shoulders but not the smell of it. He put the pictures away and turned to lie on the hammock.

In the morning, there would be practice, more sparring and forms with the sword and unarmed combatives, and then study of calculus and particle physics and all that the old man knew of the metaphysical field where he had pioneered, the science of the soul and of the fates. He dreamed that night, dreamed of raging monsters and giants on a field of battle, and the secret they forgot in their rage.

When he opened his eyes, it was not to the old man's prodding, but to the chirping of birds. Somehow, despite oversleeping, he felt more groggy than usual. He saw the old man lying in his hammock, and wondered how either of them could have missed the sunrise. Slowly, meaning to surprise him, Shinji stole to the concrete floor, cold under his spreading toes. On the balls of his feet, he lightly padded to the old man's side, and poked his shoulder.

Nothing happened.

Shinji reeled, almost falling. The old man's lips were blue, and he lay unnaturally slack. His arms had fallen to his side and with them the sword, which lay tangled in the strands of the hammock and, curiously, his fingers still curled about the battered hilt. Shinji shook him again, put his hands to his cold, papery flesh, and screamed.

Birds flapped in a rising torrent from the trees, and the sound of his anguished cry seemed to stir the trees themselves, such was their shaking from the crawling of small things. Shinji sank to his knees, burying his face in the old man's flank, shaking with confusion, fury and raw, unexpected terror. What was he going to do?

What was he going to do?

For a time, he leaned on his forearms, resting on all fours beneath the swaying dead man like a supplicant praying to an ancient idol. After a time he rose into a kneeling position, gazing on his fallen master. The old man kept no religion, held no faith, but knew many stories, many truths of ancient gods real and imagined, idols of the Hindus and the old Norse and his own people, and the creations of the old pulp authors he mingled with Shinji's education. Slowly, Shinji rose to his feet.

The old man had passed clutching his sword, small comfort to one who had died the straw death. At least he had a weapon in his hand.

Slowly, haltingly, Shinji worked loose the cold fingers grasping the hilt of the sword. The scabbard was hung with a strap, and slowly, he put it over his head and let it settle about his shoulders. He stood, breathing, feeling his sorrow press at the back of his eyes, staring at the old man's form. He seemed too small, now, too thin, as if something of great weight had slid off him in the night and crept away.

He couldn't say how long he stood in observation of the old man's frail form, wondering at its emptiness. Day may have slid into night before he moved, or it may have been a few minutes, but he understood what he had to do. He walked into the center of their camp and dragged the table where they ate to the very middle of it, and began working. He emptied the wooden tub where they bathed and cleaned their few clothes and slammed it into the table so hard it broke apart into splinters and boards. One by one, he gathered up every object, everything that would burn, books and clothes and the dowel rods and all of it, gathered it and piled up it up in the center of the camp.

When he had done that, he went into the hut, drew his sword, and slice the ropes suspending the old man's hammock. The corpse hit the ground with a meaty, hollow thud, and Shinji felt no shame, no reproach, no need to dishonor his teacher with foppery or ceremony. He easily heaved the old man up, shocked at how light he was, and bore him across the camp. He ascended the pile of wood he'd made and laid the old man out there, wrapped in the corded hammock, and strode down to the shed where the supplies were kept. There he took the red can of gasoline that had sat long unused, gathered from some place Shinji did not know when the old man disappeared one evening. He carried it across the camp, screwed the lid open and with a great flourish hurled a long stream of fuel across the old man's body.

From there he walked in slow circles, wetting the pyre with the gasoline, and let it stream out as he walked until the can was empty. He took some rags, some of the old man's clothes, and soaked them in gas before tying them around the wooden beams of their huts and pavilions. When that was done, before it had a chance to dry, he cleaned his hands in water from the simple pump the old man used, the one set in the ground at the edge of the camp, and took the lantern by whose light he had learned the terrible secrets of the men who ruled the world. He raised it high and whirled it, spun it in a circle until the glass cracked and it became a scything wreath of fire that circled him, and he hurled it into the old man's side.

The fire caught with a great thump, and spread out through the wood, crackling along the lines of gasoline, spreading from there. It moved across the ground in snaking trails until it caught the rags and they too went up, spewing bright orange flame. The heat was upon him all at once and he bore it, raising his arms high, sword held in one hand. He raised his arms high and cried out, not a scream of fright or agony but a roar of triumph. The old man was on his way to hell.

Others would be joining him, presently.

As the fire burned to embers, Shinji gathered what he had saved. It was all in a simple black bag, long enough to hold the sword. A few articles of clothing, the one book he'd kept, the pictures, and some neatly wrapped pieces of meat from their last kill. All of this he shouldered over a cloak, made from the skin of the first deer he'd so badly killed, the skull of which hung from his waist, surprisingly small to him, now. He looked around the camp for the last time, breathed in the hateful, charred wastes of his entire life, and started walking.

All these years later, the path was still known to him, somehow. He circled between trees, picked a route through the forest he'd never trod before, in a direction he had never sought, back to the world that had been so cruel to him. He knew he had succeeded when he first set bare foot to pavement, the feel of asphalt alien under the leathery soles of his feet. He stood on the edge of the road and turned to and fro, until he remember the direction. He had marched up, that night so long ago, and so today he would march down. Hanging in a small bag around his waist were the old man's minimal effects, among them a book inscribed with telephone numbers and a healthy ration of money, the bills tied up with strings. Though old and faded, it would serve.

He walked in his deer skin cloak and walked, the sun beating down him, but he felt free. Each step he took was a battle, each breath a victory. He drew nearer and nearer, and was unafraid. He expected to see the dilapidated hut where he'd first taken shelter that night, but found a newer structure, clean and brightly painted. Though he was innocent of the ways of the world, to an extent, he was wise enough to decide not to wait for the bus, after all, and continue down the road on foot.

The town where he had left the train was bigger than he remember. There was no one on the street, though, no one to gaze upon him as he walked down the center of the road. He remembered, vaguely, the sunset city of his youth, the world of Tokyo-3, but in truth even the simplest, rudest structure was all he knew, and to look on modern, prefabricated buildings set him to gawking in confusion. It was like walking in a long forgotten dream.

He saw something he only vaguely remembered, a telephone.

The phone, hidden inside a small alcove, demanded either coin or some sort of card jammed into its guts to work, unless he "called collect". Calling and collecting money seemed appropriate, so he adjusted his shoulder bag, pulled out the book of phone numbers, and thumbed to the page he wanted. The old man had underlined a number and marked with a legend reading, "When you return", probably in anticipation of this day.

Shinji touched the phone to his ear and listened to the hissing silence. He pressed the zero button and was shocked by another voice when a recording spoke to him, urging him in a pleasing, female tone to press certain buttons to make a collect call. He had forgotten what a woman's speaking voice sounded like. By the time he realized that the recording had hung up on him, it was too late, and he dialed again. This time, he managed to actually type out the number, following the prompt.

The phone rang.

"Who-"

The recording cut off the speaker. "This is a collect call. To accept, press 1."

"Accept it," Shinji snapped.

There was silence on the other end, followed by the hollow tone of a pressed button. The voice on the other ended sounded familiar to Shinji, because it sounded like Shinji.

"Who is this?"

He drew in a quiet, even breath, so as not to betray his anxiety.

"Father?" he whispered.

You have been reading

The Riddle of Steel: Director's Cut

Chapter One: The Anvil of Crom