Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ Vignette ❯ Chapter 4

[ P - Pre-Teen ]
Vignette
By
Joshua Trujillo

2.1

She didn't need to die. It was only to prove a point that the bastard
was trying to make to his bosses, the old men at SEELE. She didn't
*have* to die. Why did she go? She wasn't even the first choice to
try...But that was Yui. With her husband and son watching on, she
was the one that decided to go. It was one thing that Shinji didn't
know. He was there. He knew it had been her decision, but then his
own psyche erased the memory forever. Well, perhaps erased is
too harsh a word. Glossed over? No. Hidden.

Yes, that was a much better choice, wasn't it Yui?

Lightening flashed beyond the huge field as the rains beat down
around him. It flashed again, revealing the name on the stone in
front of him. Yui Ikari. He had walked from the entrance of
graveyard to her grave; all the while the rains beat down on him
like tiny fists. Each one punctuating his own sorrow. He knew that
Gendo only came out once a year. Shinji only once then as well.
Fuyutski shrugged to the dead. Like father, like son, he supposed.
The two could never get along because they were so alike and yet
so different. Shinji, he thought, ended up more like her. Like his
mother. Yui. Kozou felt another sob grab him and he closed his
eyes against it. No one else was around. No one else would have
seen. He almost let slip his tight grasp on his emotions, but then he
remembered...Yui would have seen. She had been so strong. And
Kozou had loved her for that strength. At times, it was something
he failed to have. Only Major Katsuragi came close to the same
kind of strength. He supposed that only the Major would have
dared stand up to Gendo about anything. But, if she knew she was
right, she would. Yui had been the same way.

Kozou knelt in the mud before the tombstone. It was so sterile out
here, nothing would grow. That was sad because it made the dead
seem that much more harsh against the invasion of the living.
Humans were a dying breed. Second Impact had been the final
knife wound to the gut that only sped along the decline. What Yui
had wanted to do would have given us...What? Perhaps a new
humanity? Perhaps more of the same...He said a prayer for her and
placed a small bouquet of violets at the front of the tomb. Purple
had always been her favorite color. Green too because green, she
had told Kozou many years ago, was the color of life. Even the
dead decay to some shade of green, thus bringing back life again.

Green was the springtime back then. A springtime that would
never come again, at least to this part of the world. A spring that
found Kozou loving his Yui. But her heart found Gendo. And,
much to her credit, his accidentally stumbled onto hers in the
process. Green was the color when they'd been married, Kozou as
father of the bride. He'd wept then. Freely. For Yui.

But you didn't decay to rise again, did you? Another sob shook him
and he placed a hand to his eyes. She was in a place where shades
of green have no meaning. Trapped in the belly of the beast, Kozou
wished desperately that he could free her from her prison, either to
come out in some form and be among the living, or, at least, have
her soul set free so she could be at peace among the dead. He hated
the idea of his precious Yui trapped in Limbo. She wasn't a lab rat!
He pounded his fists into the wet earth. She was human! She was a
mother! A splash of mud against his face made him stop, his sobs
coming stronger now. And he had loved her...

"Yui..." he choked above the pound of the rain, "Please forgive
me...Forgive me for not stopping you when I could..."

He steadied himself.

"Please forgive me for allowing him to bring Shinji back to this,"
Kozou raised his voice slowly to a shout, "I know I'm damned, but
please forgive me for the sake of Shinji!"

Kozou sat on his knees and sobbed as the lightening flashed once
more before the rains began to die down. He thought that, perhaps
the soothing of the rains could wash away some of the taint on his
soul, but he knew he was wrong. Yui had her own strange ideas
about humanity and the future, certainly, but she was a good
woman, and a good mother. And she was loved. He was ultimately
sorry for not being able to talk her out of going. He was sorry that
she'd ever met Gendo. He was sorry at how he'd let Gendo and his
influence corrupt Yui's work. He was sorry...

Something soft brushed against his hand and he looked up. The
storm had taken the petals of the violets and strewn them about.
One had landed back on his hand. As soft as her lips. He closed his
eyes as he still remembered when she'd, one time, kissed him on
the cheek. He remembered that softness in the feel of the delicate
purple petal in the palm of his hand. Kozou clutched at the sign
and nodded fiercely. He *would* help Shinji in any way he could.
THAT would be the measure of his forgiveness. Kozou rose to his
feet, a fire alight in his eyes, a righteous purpose in his heart. He
would *do* what was right...

For Yui...