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Shiro Tokita has a Weird Visitor (Evangelion Fanfic, Canon Character Protagonist, OG Eva + Rebuilds

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by Repentant_Dragos, Apr 3, 2023.

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  1. Extras: Public Service Announcement:
    Repentant_Dragos

    Repentant_Dragos Versed in the lewd.

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    There will be gay, straight, and lesbian content later on in this fanfic - All SFW unless I make a version exclusive to QQ NSFW.
     
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  2. Extras: PSA 2
    Repentant_Dragos

    Repentant_Dragos Versed in the lewd.

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    I will be conducting major revisions of the fanfic to close up some plot holes and violations of common sense.
     
  3. Extras: PSA 3:
    Repentant_Dragos

    Repentant_Dragos Versed in the lewd.

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    Everything from Chapter Two is going to be revised; the plot holes and bad ideas went deeper than I thought. Sorry for the inconvenience.
     
  4. Extras: Reboot Announcement!
    Repentant_Dragos

    Repentant_Dragos Versed in the lewd.

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    There will be a reboot no later than Christmas Day, December 25, Philippine Time (December 24, Christmas Eve, America).
     
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  5. Extras: Omake: Who You Are in the Dark
    Repentant_Dragos

    Repentant_Dragos Versed in the lewd.

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    Omake: Who are You in the Dark?

    Author’s Note:
    Despite this fanfic being dropped, and then rebooted, I wanted to write out a key scene I never got to in the story itself; a scene I only had vague ideas about in my head, but which I wanted to write - Too bad I exhausted myself before doing so.

    Disclaimer:
    I do not own Evangelion, but I do own Ken Illustrious Ikari and have commercial rights to the picture used for him. Camael, meanwhile, belongs to my friend @AtomicVandal and all credit for her belongs to him.

    Section One: The Dark I am In

    It was the Spear that saved him.

    Ken Illustrious Ikari held in his hand a miniature replica of the Spear of Gaius. Despite possessing a mere fraction of the original's might, it was capable of cloaking him in an AT field, a barrier from the light of his soul, the glow defining his outline, form, and color even inside the darkness of the Dirac Sea, a pocket dimension formed from Leliel's shadow.

    The fourteen-year-old broke out in cold sweat on realizing he was on his own devices, smothered by the weight of his inexperience. Damnit! Why did I suddenly become so stupid!? he thought.

    All he wanted was to rescue Parallel Dad and Uncle Kaworu, only to find out they were in no danger at all. His pointless quest was rewarded by a punch from that Camael girl which tossed him into the shadow, forced to confront the one thing he feared, that which had broken his father and catalyzed his descent into madness. Despite his fear, he stood his ground, yearning to defeat it, to prove he was stronger and better, a genius capable of enduring and outlasting this beast before rescue arrives - if it arrives.

    He walked forward on solid ground - or at least its simulacrum - there was no other choice, lest his inner demons trick him into letting go of his spear, his sole lifeline. Compared to to Arael's brutish approach, Leliel's methods were far more subtle and insidious, having a way with weaponizing its victims' psychological issues against them. But Ken was savvy about its abilities and methods, and had insights into how they worked.

    Such hubris was merely posturing, posturing to hide how insecure he felt, how he only felt he was better than his parents because they had done the dirty work of going through danger and peril and secrets first. If he didn't have the knowledge they and the people from previous timelines had gained for him through toil and sacrifice, he would have broken faster than they had.

    The boy dared to retort to this voice; whether it was his idle thoughts or something more malevolent, Isn't that what all parents do? Every generation builds on the achievements of the previous generation to build a better life for themselves. That's how we resist entropy, the wearing-down of all progress and achievement, the tendency to return everything to nothing.

    Entropy always finds a way,
    was the retort, more insistent, not completely his head this time but not wholly someone else's input either. Or are you your grandmother, seeking to build an eternal monument against it till the heat death of the universe? Then again, considering how you bargained with her, promising an Eternal Ikari Lineage across multiple worlds and timelines to serve as that monument... Maybe you are more similar to her than it seems.

    "Tch!" Ken finally opened his mouth, his miniature spear's AT-Field providing the vibrations needed to form sound in the absence of air. "Are you trying to compliment me, saying I am similar to the brilliant scientist who was able to inspire obsession among one of the most important people on Earth?"

    So this was who he was in the dark. Someone who emulated his grandparents, blinded by their status, their talents, their power, and the perks that came with it. His grandparents ignored the harm they caused to the people they loved or who loved them, and Ken, deep inside, ignored that too to get the exalted status, clout, and influence he not-so-secretly believed to be his by right because...

    Because I wanted it, and am willing to get it, were his next thoughts, uncorrupted by Leliel's presence. And I am young enough to believe that I can get it without harming anyone.

    He heard it, the sound of a drop of water hitting a pond. A pin falling onto an invisible floor. And finally, a dry laugh; not his own. A voice, masculine, so not Camael's.

    "Ironic, considering how your aunt Asuka has not forgiven you for blowing your life apart. How Parallel Shinji Ikari subconsciously prefers a daughter to someone like you. How Rei had a path to develop as a person cut short."

    Ken retorted, "Less than they suffered in the original timeline. Or even the Rebuilt one where I came from. This world's Parallel Children managed to avoid the worst of it all... But I acknowledge my actions anyway. What I point out are mitigating circumstances, not excuses - At the end of the day, I hurt them. I will do better next time. I'll avoid repeating my mistakes, and any new ones I make... I won't avoid them either."

    "You aren't lying."

    His footsteps echoed in the darkness, and then another set of them could be heard, walking toward him, mirroring his own almost pitch-perfect.

    And Ken came face-to-face an older version of himself; tall, gaunt, and hunched, with matted, greasy, grey hair where there had been black, stubble on his wrinkled chin, and a larger, somewhat oversized vision of his green jacket and white shirt that paired with a set of oversized pants and boots that made for a pathetic parody.

    "But then again, neither am I,"
    said this vision of unappealing pathetic-ness, an affront to Ken's vanity that stood before him. For a brief moment, Ken hoped this was just Leliel or his hallucination.

    Both glared at each other, and Ken could not avoid the observable reality that this was what he could be, and in some dark corner of the Multiverse, was.

    Section Two: Who I don't want to Be

    "At least you don't have fleas," Ken blurted out the first thing that came to mind to his counterpart (?) a future self (?) bad timeline made manifest (?). Then he continued, "So, are you here to tell me not to go through my deal with Grandmother, to wander universe after universe making things right and securing her 'Eternal Ikari Lineage'?"

    "You'd wish it were that easy,"
    Uncool-Ken replied, "But no, I'm not a male version of Sailor Cosmos trying to undo the past, because there's nothing to undo on my part - Complete and utter success is a heady drug, after all."

    His eyes lit up, not with reflected light, but with a glow of its own, a glow that was exactly like Gendo's from the Rebuilt Timeline before he and Shinji talked it out. There, Gendo had used the Key of Nebuchadnezzar to turn himself into a Psuedo-Angel, and all Ken could feel as he realized such a possibility was open to him was...

    "Pleasure,"
    both of them said at the same time, then followed up with, "Hubris rewarded with absolute fulfillment."

    But what about the moral cost? Ken asked himself, before opening his mouth to inquire, "Where is Raphael?"

    "Do you, truly, love him?"
    was the rejoinder. "We both know the answer to that - You don't. And when the going gets tough and he offers to fuse with you to give you the power you cannot access with a miniature spear alone..."

    On the one hand, Uncool-Ken was not truly Uncool but Super-Cool, but at the same time, that coolness came from an act that this Ken knew to be evil beyond belief. If not for Ken's horror at those thoughts, he would be piercing his future self's heart through and through, completing the circle that this man had hinted at.

    He admitted it, "I am the sort of person who can kill my boyfriend for power, yes, when offered something to salve my conscience with. I count my sociopathic, cold streak as a strength; after all, Mom did groom my Dad to be her crush's replacement. But it is a streak, not full sociopathy - I am not going to kill Raphael as a shortcut to power."

    It was a struggle to not add that he wanted to kill him, his future self, for impugning his self-righteousness. It was even more difficult to feel bad about it instead of reveling in being the sort of person who would commit some sort of elaborate time-travel suicide to achieve a genuinely good goal.

    But his father had raised him like a conventional person, loved and respected him even though he knew that as his son grew up to resemble the parents he had to forgive, it was going to be a test to steer him right.

    Ken was tempted to tell Future Ken, Uncool-yet-Cool-yet-Utterly-Immoral Ken, to do it himself. But he remembered his father's lesson, that sometimes, people have their suffering and that even if their actions cannot always be excused, they and their pain can be understood, and forgiveness extended whether they want it or not.

    So he asked, prepared for a negative answer, "Do you still love father?"

    Future Ken's eyes opened wide for a brief moment, before he looked down, with understanding, and said, "Always."

    Ken then said in a firm, final tone, "He would never have wanted this. So I don't want to be you. But tell me, what made you succumb? Why kill Raphael?"

    Why that exact method? Was there something we had to prove?

    Another set of footsteps perpendicular to where he and his Future Self faced each other, and it was Raphael himself; still at fourteen, but with a firmness of purpose to his gait, not shown before, that made Ken doubt as though whether this was the Raphael from this world - His Raphael.

    The tone was stronger than he was accustomed to, as his boyfriend spoke, his voice echoing endlessly through the emptiness, "Because you, in the past, present, and future, are driven by pride, self-righteousness, and vanity. You want to do the right thing, yes, and have deep friendships with others, but you also want to be correct all the time, among other failings.”

    Raphael faced Ken, his bangs hiding his eyes yet the glare was still felt, “A self-aware fake is still a fake, Ken Illustrious Ikari. And you killed me, or will kill me because once I give you permission to absorb me for power, once your conscience is satisfied that you won’t necessarily be wrong, you’ll do what your Grandfather does and take the shortest way to your goals and think yourself smart!"

    "This is true,"
    Future Ken earned back Ken's loathing with those words. "But what will you do about it?"

    Raphael's smile can be seen underneath his bangs, as he continued, “You pride yourself on accepting the truth even when it hurts. So here’s the truth - You’re wearing a mask. A delusion that if you are ever banished or cut off, it was because you were entirely in the right, correct, good."

    A patch of sand was in front of the ground, illuminated by the Angel Boy’s own AT-Field. Suddenly, a stick appeared in Raphael’s hands, and he drew a circle, before saying, “There are two kinds of rejection.”

    He drew a second circle just above the first one, making it look like the Earth and the Moon.

    “The person who is driven into exile because they are right is the Moon that lights up the Sky; utterly beautiful and unreachable unless you’re Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.”

    Then Raphael lifted the sand telekinetically, transmuting it into shards of clay pottery with Ken’s name in Japanese on it - A shout-out to the ancient Athenian practice of writing politicians’ names on shards of clay called ostraka and banishing the one whose name appeared on most shards, hence ostracism.

    “The second kind of rejection is being banished because you are in the wrong. Because you’ve hurt others. Because somehow, you are innately wrong due to something that observable reality says is an accident of birth or because society says you and your family carry shame. That banishment isn't rising to become the Moon, it's being thrown out into the darkness and gnashing of teeth."

    Raphael continued as the pottery shards melted into the darkness, "And you don't know for sure whether you're being thrown into the dark, rising to the sky, or some combination of both. But if you convince yourself and others that you’re perfect, you can tell yourself when, in the future, you are rejected by people you want to connect with, for that behavior, for being too good for them.”

    Section Three: Who I Am

    Ken whirled at his boyfriend, ignoring Future Ken entirely as he shouted, "I am not afraid of being rejected!"

    Liar, his mind spoke in Parallel Asuka's voice.

    You are lying, yes, his mind imagined Rei in her plug suit saying calmly, but with a brief undercurrent of fury that made the serenity only skin-deep.

    Lastly, Raphael was initiating Shinji Ikari's voice with his vocal cords, which were somehow usable in this empty air, "You only pretend to be perfect for our benefit."

    "I am perfect!"
    both he and Future Ken blurted out impulsively, before both stared at Raphael, then each other, mouths agape as they realized what they just said.

    "And this is why people reject you, you dolt," Raphael could not avoid the warmth that crept into his tone as both hung their heads in shame.

    He drew out the moment; they had several hours, after all.

    "And why even when they don't when they are naive enough to be taken in by your mask of perfection, you cannot connect to them, because you are so focused on making them love a mask of you that they don't see the real you."

    Future Ken scratched his chin, "You are not the Raphael I killed; he never saw through that mask you talk about."

    On the one hand, Ken saw hope in that statement. On the other hand, he felt the urge to melodrama. But there was a third option - Try and dig up what he was, what he felt, and instead of playing it up or weaponizing it, just be plain.

    He mumbled, "Don't embarrass me. Don't tell anyone about this either."

    Then he bowed his head, but not soon enough to avoid seeing Raphael's frown underneath his bangs, before forcing out the words, "I'm sorry. You win."

    For the first time since they met, Ken conceded that the other boy was his equal.

    He then glanced at 'Future Ken', his bravado returning, albeit in muted form, as he spoke with genuine warmth, "I guess you're only going to be a possibility, then - Because I am not killing this Raphael."

    "Indeed you're not," a void, loud and clear, echoed through Leliel's shadow, the other dimension connected through its 'Dirac Sea'. It was Rei in Unit-00, who promptly clarified, "We were tracking your location using Raphael as a beacon."

    To Ken's fright, Unit-02 appeared just out of nowhere, with Asuka announcing, "We were here for that 'I am Perfect' comment, you fraud!"

    Then her voice softened a little as Unit-02's head tilted down to look at Ken, and she said, "You should be more careful with what you say, you little brat. If it were just last week, I'd have squished you like a bug."

    Then a hole was busted above, in the Dirac Sea's 'ceiling', as Unit-13 descended from the glowing rift, Shinji Ikari and Kaworu Nagisa piloting it downwards, even as the former said, "Now, now, I'm his father, aren't I? That means I get to decide his punishment once he gets back home."

    As for the latter, Kaworu said, "Now, let's bust open Leliel, shall we?"

    Future Ken had vanished; was it truly a potential version of Ken, or just Leliel playing tricks? Or maybe some perverse combination of both?

    It mattered not; for now, Ken was at peace -

    But not forever.

    That was truly Leliel's voice this time, but it mattered not - Against all three Evangelions (and Kaworu, Raphael, and Ken), it was no contest.

    One flare of their combined AT-Fields, and the shadow burnt.

    Then they were back in Tokyo-3.

    Section Four: Who I want to Be

    Ken didn't have all the answers but as he and Raphael stood on the cliffs overlooking Tokyo-3; Misato (the real one, not the impostor planted by SEELE) had given them a free ride.

    He looked at his boyfriend and said as he rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment, "I don't need all of the answers. Not instantly, and nor do I need to be the only one who gets or gives them. I just need you. Well, you and father and maybe mom and my relatives in both this world and my own. Oh, and Mr. Tokita, too."

    Raphael patted his hair before saying, "I'm just happy you don't want to be perfect anymore." He then held Ken's hands, and continued, "Because I love you, and have always wished the best for you... My family."

    Ken blushed, turned away a little, then asked, "How did you know that my future self would have killed you? Why did you stay with me despite that, and even bothered to set me straight?"

    Raphael did his best Kaworu impression and said, faux-enigmatically, "There are still secrets left in the Multiverse - Maybe you'll find the answers you seek for yourself. As for the second question... You're cute when you let yourself be a dork."

    "I'm not a -" Ken then saw how the sunset lit up Raphael's dyed-purple hair, and he had to ask, "Hey, why do Angels need hair dye?"

    "Energy costs," was Raphael's response before he questioned the other boy, "Serious question - Who do you want to be?"

    Ken chuckled, then said, "Here's a mysterious answer of my own - Myself, whoever it may be. But seriously, I don't know, and it feels like a relief!"

    If they succeeded, they'd have extended lives to find out just who Ken Illustrious Ikari wanted to be, if it was achievable, and how to reach that goal in the best way possible. It was honestly something worth waiting for...

    END

     
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