Creation began on 03-11-16

Creation ended on 03-23-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You: Epilogue

A lot has changed since that day, thought an older Shinji Ikari, standing in front of the grave of somebody he knew. It's hard to believe that things have changed.

He placed a bouquet of white roses on the grave.

"Uncle didn't call me again like he was supposed to," he said to the tombstone. "Shado tells me I shouldn't be too concerned. That's funny, however. She's concerned about me when it should be the other way around."

A silence loomed over him for a while, and then Shinji spoke up again.

"Shado's school teacher called me and informed me of a social event coming up tonight, and I'm going," he said to the tombstone. "I gotta see how well she's been doing since she started. I promised her that I would be involved in these important events with her."

Thinking back to that day at the beach all those four years ago, Shinji had thought he was experiencing deja vu allover again when he saw a woman with purple hair and a red coat. And then, there was what he was being asked that was unlike what he thought had happened once before in a dream: His father wanted to see him and his daughter simply because he wanted to explain to his son why he left him when his mother died. At first, he wanted to disregard everything involving his father, the woman with purple hair and the woman with faux-blond hair, as his relationship with people older than him was anything but positive, and he didn't want people telling him how to raise his daughter or that he was incompetent in caring for her when nobody else would or should.

"I've hated you for a long time until that day," he said. "Though, that hatred was tempered by my devotion to my own child, despite the way she was made. And then, you call for me from out of the blue…and explain to me everything you did and why. You didn't even ask for my forgiveness, not that I was sure I'd forgive you. But I can forgive you now. I can forgive you now…Father."

Shinji then walked away from the grave that belonged to his father.

"Here lies Gendo Rokubungi-Ikari", it read on its tombstone.

-x-

Shinji and Shado had met with Misato Katsuragi three days after they had decided not to go to Tokyo-3 that day. She explained that Gendo didn't have much time left due to an illness he contracted in the aftermath of the same experiment that killed his wife, and that he needed to put his affairs in order before he died. At first, he wanted to disbelieve that this was true, that he was being lied to in order to manipulate him, but when he met with Gendo for the first time in over a decade, he saw how deteriorated he looked in his face and hair.

Gendo, for all intents and purposes, looked like he had a terrible bout with cancer. Even his skin seemed like it had been stretched out over his arms to give the impression that he still had muscles.

"I don't expect you to forgive me, Shinji," Gendo had told him after revealing everything to him. "I just wanted you to understand why I did what I did to you that day."

And then, probably due to the fact that he wasn't trying to be anything like his father had been like to him (as he had led himself to believe for a long time), Shinji said some words that he didn't regret saying to Gendo.

"My daughter is four years old," he said to him. "Her mother named her Fuyona…but I call her Shado. I never want her to feel like nobody loves her. Would you like to meet her?"

Ever since that day, Shinji didn't think of ever looking back at his past. All he had was his future.

-x-

They didn't have any contact with their other relatives after that day. Not that the disassociation meant anything. At least, not to Shinji and to a lesser extent his daughter. Even after Gendo died and his funeral came and went, there were no meeting or even a call or letter from the aunt or uncle.

Shinji didn't let them get to him. He had his daughter to occupy the large hole in his heart. Shattered by the adults in his life, but slowly mended by the happiness of a little girl that put a smile on his face.

Gendo, prior to his death, had made sure to put his affairs in order and made sure that Shinji and Shado were taken care of. Ever since his wife died and he got sick in the aftermath of her experiment, his original intention to try and reunite with her was never attempted because his illness had left him deteriorating, and the very experiment itself was considered a lost cause. He even explained to his son what NERV had originally been up to before everything changed.

Although, this didn't ease his concerns for Shado's safety whenever he saw familiar faces that he was certain that he had never met before. One of whom was a woman he felt had been more troublesome towards them than he once thought of his father.

In fact, even Shado exhibited a measure of discomfort around many of the adults around them, mostly the Akagi women that worked at the Geo-Front. While the elder Naoko Akagi didn't disturb her as much, the younger Ritsuko Akagi (even without her faux-blond hair) gave her the creeps. And the strangest thing was that neither she or her father knew why this was so.

-x-

"…So, I hear that he's legally an adult now," went Ritsuko to Misato as they were walking through the supermarket in Tokyo-3; Ritsuko was referring to Shinji, who had recently turned eighteen.

"Yes, that's right," Misato responded; she had offered to help the teen father refill his parental forms so that he retained his custody rights to Shado (even after four years, the woman never understood why any father, even one that was barely old enough to have any children, would name their kid Shado). "Why do you ask? You think he's seeing anyone?"

"Why would I want anything to do with a newly-legal adult that acted as much as he could to be an adult to an illegitimate child?"

Misato couldn't fault her on that. Not many people wanted anything to do with someone else's problems like an association with a child out of wedlock or the child of a criminal that, just for the sake of making sure their victim never forgot about them, went and raped them and got pregnant as a consequence, dying later in prison. At least the people she knew of because it was part of the gossip she overheard every now and then. But she had to admit that there had to be some people out there that believed in the seriousness demonstrated by other people that had children and chose to do right by them, even if it meant being deprived of any life of their own.

"Ever since I met him, he never seemed to be the type of guy that was interested in pursuing any potential love interest," Misato told Ritsuko as she grabbed a box of herbal tea bags off a shelf. "I was told he self-helps himself deal with his abuse through the Law & Order franchise that deals with similar crimes involving children."

"What's wrong with seeing a therapist?" Ritsuko questioned, helping herself to another case of coffee powder. "Usually, talk medicine is the best kind."

"He tried that before, a year after his father died and he found an apartment for himself and his daughter. It turns out that, despite his ease at being around Shado, the mere thought of any adult woman touching him, even if it's just a tap on the shoulder, causes him to feel trapped in their presence. The girl's mother, despite being gone, clearly left a great impact on him."

"It didn't effect me as much as you think it did, Ms. Katsuragi," both women stopped walking with their baskets and turned around, seeing the very young man that they were talking about, who was accompanied by his eight-year-old daughter. "I am at least able to stand and speak with any woman older than me and not back away."

"Oh, uh, Shinji," went Misato, surprised to see him here. "What brings you here?"

"It certainly wasn't the overpriced fish," he stated, looking at the shelves and selecting a box of herbal tea bags. "This is the only store in the city that sells herbal tea bags."

"He doesn't drink coffee as much as others," went Shado, holding a basket with items light enough for her to carry.

"I'm still applying for my culinary degree," said Shinji to them, going over to the shelves opposite of the ones he got the herbal tea off and selected a box of cereal. "Some people still like to see improvement in ingredients used in a recipe."

This, of course, seemed to stem from the recovery after Second Impact, which, while still viewed as a crippling disaster, wasn't as brutal as it was viewed initially. An actual meteorite struck one of the areas of Antarctica's waters, causing a massive tsunami that only caused minor damages to coastal cities close enough to be affected, but there was very little loss of life, from people to animals. Still, some areas didn't do as much recovery as was originally intended, as the original Tokyo was still rebuilding its damaged buildings and economy. This resulted in two, lesser, Tokyo-like cities, Tokyo-2 and Tokyo-3, to deal with the population discord until the original was fully restored.

"And how was school today for you, Shado?" Misato asked the girl.

"It had an open house event," the girl expressed, "and a boy in my class asked me to go out with him. I told him no."

"I would take it that you had a reason?" Ritsuko asked her, to which the girl gave her a distant look.

"I'm not looking for a relationship of that sort," she answered, rather bluntly. "Plus, I barely knew him."

Neither woman saw the pair until they were at the checkout line.

"So, Shinji, what are your plans for the weekend?" Misato asked him.

"My self-therapy, spending time with Shado, and paying my taxes," he answered her, putting his wallet away into his pockets after paying for his groceries. "Not many people are capable of going out of dates…or are interested in dating much of the time."

As they stepped out of the supermarket, they all saw an advertisement sign that displayed a light show to advertise that the original Tokyo would be habitable again in two days' time.

"You ever considered living in Tokyo, Shinji?" Ritsuko asked.

"No," he answered back. "I prefer the tranquility and simplicity of Nagasaki's rural areas."

"Nagasaki? What about Osaka's rural areas?" Shado asked him.

"Osaka's fine, but Nagasaki's quieter."

Misato saw this as two, simple relatives bickering over where they would want to live at a later time. She couldn't help but giggle at the pair.

"What's so funny?" Shado asked her.

"You two," she answered her.

-x-

"What a day," sighed Shinji as he tucked his daughter into her futon.

"Daddy, can I ask you something?" Shado asked him, holding onto her stuffed bear that she treasured second to her father.

"Sure, ask me anything."

"That day on the train, four years ago. You asked me something that I can't remember much of. What was it that you asked me? It was after I tried to wake you up."

Shinji remembered what it was that he had asked her and responded, "I asked you if you ever felt like something just happened to you, only you didn't know what it was exactly."

"And that's when I said not unless it involved fire and wind," she started remembering. "I had another strange dream last night that seemed like it had something to do with a prior dream back then. It was a nice one, too."

"Oh, do tell me about it."

"Well, you were on the ground. I think you were hurt because you were unable to get up, and there was a giant mushroom of fire…but then there was robot dragon that was black and green and a large, bird-like creature that looked like it was made of blue fire. They appeared and turned into a blinding light. There was a voice, too. It said, "Letting you suffer greatly is not an option. Not in a world that is irreplaceable. Let everything that has happened before feel as nothing more than an unpleasant dream". What do you think that meant?"

Shinji thought about it and answered, "Not sure. Maybe you're a little psychic. Maybe you can see through different types of lives that are lived differently."

"That seems weird," she told him her opinion. "But I am happy with our life here."

"Yeah, Shado," he agreed with her. "Me, too."

He kissed her forehead and then left out her room, returning to his room. Sitting on his futon, he looked over at his bedside dresser and at a small photograph. It was a picture of his parents and himself from when he was a newborn, the one photograph that his father never could throw away, no matter how much it grieved him to want to. Shinji was glad that he didn't discard it; it was the only photo he had of his mother and the only picture Shado had of her paternal grandmother.

"Everything's different from what I had initially expected," he told himself, holding the framed photo in his hands. "For a long time, I didn't think that anything would get better for Shado and I…but then they did. Everything's quieter and not many people get on your nerves."

He set the photo down and turned in for the night.

-x-

Above the skies of Tokyo, a blue phoenix soared into the moonlight, unseen by mortal eyes. A blue phoenix…whose blue flames burned greater than the traditional fires of its red and orange relative of myth. Blue, while the color of sadness, was the color of the Earth, a planet that knew of rejuvenation and rebirth. Just not the rebirth that was desired by those with dark intentions.

As it flew away, it knew that someone it left would be happy in the new world, and that was enough.

The End

A/N: Well, here's the epilogue. If those of you are wondering why there was no mention of Fuyutsuki, Asuka or Rei, it's likely because they simply never existed. If you feel there needs to be one with them, you know what to do. Peace.