I used to pray for times like this, my search is over baby!
_________________________________
"Mother... is inside Unit-01?" he murmured to himself. This realization made his feelings toward the giant machine incredibly complex—a mixture of deep intimacy and paralyzing fear.
A sudden, violent impulse surged in his heart. He wanted to find his father—to find Gendo Ikari immediately—and demand to know if all of this was true. Was his mother truly inside Unit-01? Why had his father never told him in all these years?
"Shinji-kun," Osiris said, placing a hand on his shoulder before he could impulsively turn away. The grip wasn't heavy, but it carried an unquestionable sense of stability. "Calm down. You cannot go to the Commander right now."
"Why?! I have a right to know!" Shinji raised his voice, a rare occurrence, his emotions boiling over.
Osiris gazed at him with a calmness that seemed to see through the world's complexities. He spoke slowly: "To the Commander, you are not merely a son. You are the clearest, most indelible mark Yui Ikari left upon this world."
"Your very existence serves as a constant reminder of the most precious person he has lost. Every time he looks at you, it's like repeatedly tearing open a wound in his heart that has never healed."
His voice wasn't loud, yet it struck Shinji's heart like a heavy hammer: "If you go to him now with this newly discovered suspicion—that your mother 'exists' within Unit-01 in such a cruel manner—and question him directly, it would be no different from rubbing salt into that wound, or even twisting a knife in it."
"Do you wish to see your father endure that immense agony again because of your questioning? It would be a fatal secondary trauma for him."
Shinji froze.
The indifference his father had shown him—which he had always interpreted as pure hatred and neglect—now had a seemingly rational and tragic explanation. He had never considered it from this perspective: that his father's coldness might be a form of escape, an inability to face the "memento" of a wife he couldn't bear to lose.
His agitation vanished like a pricked balloon, replaced by a deeper sense of powerlessness and confusion. He slowly lowered his head, his shoulders slumped, his voice trembling with helplessness: "Then... what am I supposed to do? Doctor... what should I do?"
Osiris watched the mixture of shock, pain, and bewilderment in Shinji's eyes, knowing the boy was currently standing on the precipice of a cognitive collapse. He needed to guide this chaotic energy rather than let it spiral out of control or fade into nihilism.
Instead of answering Shinji's desperate question directly, Osiris tapped his finger lightly on the files spread out between them.
"There are other ways to learn about the past besides your father," Osiris' voice was steady, drawing Shinji's attention away from Gendo Ikari. "These records clearly state that both your parents were students of Deputy Commander Fuyutsuki."
Osiris paused, letting Shinji digest this strategy, then added: "Approaching him with an air of remembrance rather than interrogation will lower his guard. For instance, you could tell him you accidentally learned your mother was once his student, and you simply wish to understand what kind of person she was from an elder's perspective—her ideals, her personality, her academic pursuits."
"Perhaps, from those fragments, you can piece together a picture that is closer to the truth."
This advice provided the lost Shinji with a path that seemed feasible and less confrontational, while also returning the initiative to him, satisfying his longing to know his mother.
Shinji appeared somewhat nervous, his hands unconsciously clutching the hem of his shirt. He kept his head down, hardly daring to look at Fuyutsuki.
Fuyutsuki was indeed surprised by Shinji's sudden visit. Ordinarily, this youth almost never initiated contact outside of work with high-level management—especially not with someone so closely tied to his father.
I remained silent for a moment. The office was quiet save for the low hum of the air circulation system; that brief silence sent Shinji's heart into his throat.
But Fuyutsuki let Shinji enter anyway.
Following Osiris' guidance, Shinji didn't mention anything regarding the experiments, the disappearance, or Unit-01. He spoke carefully, his voice slightly trembling: "Deputy Commander... Fuyutsuki. I... I recently learned by chance that my mother... Yui Ikari... was once your student. Is that true?"
Fuyutsuki's eyes flickered slightly at the question, seemingly unexpected. However, he did not dodge it.
His gaze seemed to pierce through time, returning to the campus of many years ago. "That was a very long time ago..."
The lines on his face seemed to soften slightly; the underlying identity of a scholar and teacher briefly eclipsed the authority of a NERV Deputy Commander.
He gestured for Shinji to sit and began to speak slowly, his voice calm with reminiscence: "Yes. Your mother, Yui Ikari, and your father, Gendo Ikari... they were both students I held in high regard back then."
He didn't reveal any classified research. Instead, in his capacity as a teacher, he described the Yui Ikari in his memory: a woman of extraordinary talent, filled with curiosity and unique insights into the essence of life. Her thinking was leap-frogging and brilliant, sometimes even... unconventional, but she always reached the heart of the matter.
He also mentioned Gendo Ikari—a young man who was equally outstanding but more reserved and goal-oriented—and how the two of them gradually came together through their academic resonance. Fuyutsuki was not only a witness to those years but their guide on their academic path.
He shared seemingly trivial campus anecdotes, small segments that reflected Yui's character—how she once silenced an opponent in an academic debate, or her views on certain ethical issues that seemed quite ahead of their time.
Shinji watched Fuyutsuki as if searching for a single source of light in an endless darkness, throwing this lifelong question to the elder who seemed to always see through the mist.
Osiris knew the seed had been planted; now, it just needed to be guided in the direction of its growth. This move not only soothed Shinji's agitation but also laid a more stable foundation for his own future use of this father-son dynamic and the secrets of Unit-01.