Neon Genesis Evangelion ANIMA Vol. 5
Neon Genesis Evangelion ANIMA Vol. 5
Color Inserts
Title Page
Copyrights and Credits
Table of Contents Page
Part 1: Beautiful and Dying World
Chapter 1: Final Regeneration
Chapter 2: Heurtebise Over the Atlantic
Chapter 3: New Routine
Chapter 4: Messenger
Chapter 5: Ogasawara Eastside
Chapter 6: Here I Am
Part 2: Final Model
Chapter 7: Heurtebise
Chapter 8: Mutual Acknowledgement
Chapter 9: Mari Escapes
Chapter 10: Breadth of Acknowledgement
Chapter 11: Europe’s Triumphant Rally
Chapter 12: Night Class
Chapter 13: Evil Unto Evil
Chapter 14: Night Class II
Chapter 15: With a New Name
Part 3: The Lance of Shinji
Chapter 16: Sudden Turn
Chapter 17: Shinji
Chapter 18: Nerv Japan
Chapter 19: Life-Form Deluge
Chapter 20: Stowaway
Chapter 21: Crowd
Chapter 22: Asuka
Chapter 23: Battle at New Island
Chapter 24: Into the Depths
Part 4: Hikari / Armaros
Chapter 25: Retribution
Chapter 26: Ayanami
Chapter 27: A New Mouthpiece
Chapter 28: Wrath of the Beast
Chapter 29: Mari
Chapter 30: Classroom
Chapter 31: Skeleton Key
Part 5: World Tree
Chapter 32: Fortress of Frosted Glass
Chapter 33: A Drop in the River
Chapter 34: Eva-02
Chapter 35: Longinus
Chapter 36: Hikari and Asuka
Chapter 37: Ogasawara Islands
Chapter 38: Roots of the World Tree
Part 6: Aether Flux
Chapter 39: Wayward Lance
Chapter 40: Pillaging Machine
Chapter 41: Marionette
Chapter 42: To the Light
Chapter 43: Ghosts
Chapter 44: Red Shift
Chapter 45: Substitute
Part 7: Battleship Return
Chapter 46: Armaros Hakone Assault
Chapter 47: Beyond the Twilight
Part 8: Pacific Partition
Chapter 48: Mari’s Assault
Chapter 49: Hakone
Chapter 50: A Wolf’s Wisdom
Chapter 51: Inside the Tunnel Network
Chapter 52: Pacific Partition
Chapter 53: Black Giant
Chapter 54: Classroom
Chapter 55: The Giant of Light’s Second Coming
Part 9: Immaculate Conception
Chapter 56: The Lance of Casuality
Chapter 57: Clash of the Titans
Chapter 58: Longinus Ring
Chapter 59: Shape of Shinji
Omake: Concept Gallery
Postscript
Newsletter
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THRUM!
The giant pulse echoed throughout the underground complex.
DA-THRUM!
Would Super Eva finally make its reappearance?
The crawling giant lurched one of its arms upward, as if trying to grab
hold of something. The thin layer of ice covering it slowly broke away as
smoke rose from its body. The giant was acting strangely. It trembled, as if it
didn’t have full control. Heat shot out of its body as it tried to reposition
itself.
“It’s lost its balance. It doesn’t need to accelerate as much as it did,”
Maya whispered.
The ruins of Central Dogma. The underground lab complex and former
headquarters of Nerv. Lilith’s Chronostatic Sphere, its defining feature, had
been stolen away, leaving an imprint in the place where it had been. Maya
had hurried to the deserted area on a hunch. She was grinning now, though
she didn’t know it.
“But… Look at you. Such an old model.”
The giant that looked like Super Eva turned again, shaking off the ice,
which highlighted the yellow accents of the old Eva-01. It broke through the
experimental aquarium, boiling away what little water was left. Steam rose
from the giant’s super-heated body.
“Heh… Ha ha… Ah ha ha ha ha!”
Maya, the grim chief of science and engineering, exploded with
laughter. The giant continued reaching for the invisible sky from within the
smoke and rubble, as if to say, “I should be flying by now.”
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Shinji’s plug seat. She looked up through the center hatch at the classroom
ceiling, gasping when it suddenly closed. The entry plug shook from all sides
now.
We’re accelerating through 3D space…and it feels like we’re inside
something much larger.
She heard the unmistakable contractions of a giant’s muscle fibers.
“No! We’re inside an Eva?!”
THRUM!
Shock waves reverberated through her body, originating from in front
of her.
“And a pulse… It’s Super Eva’s heart!”
I can’t believe it! We actually brought Super Eva back!
Asuka was shocked that her prayer had come true. She knew Shinji
would concentrate on his Eva once he was seated in the plug. And she
would’ve considered the experiment a great success even if Shinji had only
traced Super Eva’s signal from Yomotsu Hirasaka beyond the Bonin Islands,
also known as the Ogasawara Islands. She had not been expecting this kind
of magic to occur.
“Hah!” Asuka giggled. “Good job getting your better half back,
Shinji!”
She looked around, but she couldn’t tell where they were because of
the distortions in the virtual display.
His vision is getting narrower…
“Asuka,” Shinji croaked. She looked over and saw that he was turning
pale as he struggled to shift the heavy control stick. His breathing had grown
shallow.
It’s tunnel vision. He’s panicking.
“There’s something wrong… I can’t…breathe…”
Shinji clawed at his throat with his left hand. He unbuttoned his collar,
tearing off the first button of his shirt in the process.
“Father and Ritsuko-san… They’re here… The only things left in this
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body… Painful… All of it!”
“Stop talking nonsense and get up!”
According to Toji and the others, this Shinji was a representation of
himself in the dream. Asuka had placed her bets on the classroom being a
secure location that Shinji had dreamed up, but things weren’t as safe as they
seemed.
“Get a hold of yourself!” Asuka shouted.
Shinji was suffocating. Asuka tried to bring him back into reality
through his projection.
“I have to get out of here. But I can’t fly…and that’s the only way
out!”
The plug rumbled as the Eva collapsed to the floor. Asuka yelped, her
back slamming against the wall. She caught the interior of the entry plug just
as her face was about to smack into it.
“Pull yourself together!” she growled,
“I can’t fly,” Shinji said. “Where are my wings?! Did you take them
away, Father?!”
He’d lost control of himself. Asuka groped around in the entry plug,
raised her hand, and brought it down on Shinji’s face. “Calm down, you
idiot!” Several pop-up windows appeared on the screen, informing her that
the Eva was now in combat mode.
“An enemy…” Shinji muttered.
A chill ran down Asuka’s spine. Is he confusing his pain with the
Eva’s?
Shinji and Super Eva shared the same heart, and the line was blurred
between their two entities. But if the dream theory was correct, then the Eva
was currently his only remaining body.
Did the Eva feel that sensation just now? Is Shinji’s dream nothing
more than a dream?!
“Enemies… Aaah!” Shinji frantically tried piloting his Eva.
“Weapons… I’m defenseless! I can’t fly… I can’t even move!”
The Eva was kneeling, but it slipped as it kicked the ground, having yet
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to recover its balance. It tumbled forward as it struggled, kicking up a cloud
of dust. The giant rose and fell again. It looked like a baby that didn’t know
how to walk, lurching around the prefab laboratory, tearing it apart in the
process.
“Get back here, Maya! It’s not safe!” Misato shouted at the figure in
the white lab coat as she watched the whirlwind the giant was kicking up.
THRUM! THRUM!
Misato recognized the pulse, rapid though it was.
“Is that Super Eva?!”
Its head certainly looked like that of Eva-01…
But those orange shoulder pylons look like the ones Unit One used to
have. And there’s four of them. Wait, four?! It’s been modified! Did Maya do
that?
Misato knew there must be a reason why Maya had been preoccupied
in Cage Two, but even she couldn’t make such modifications this quickly.
Still, she knows something!
“Maya, what happened here? How did Super Eva return? And
Shinji…”
The giant’s modified appendages were skeletal, not fit for combat. It
lacked the polish of a newly installed system, and its movements seemed a bit
desperate.
“Maya!” Misato approached the scientist.
“This is the only place it could have appeared,” Maya said, not looking
at her.
“Appeared?” Misato asked. “Are you saying this thing came out of
nowhere?!”
But Maya remained silent.
“It would be really nice if you could explain this whole thing to me.”
“I don’t think you’d understand even if I did.”
Maya watched the flailing giant, her eyes filled with surprise,
expectation, and anxiety. Misato knew she couldn’t make sense of the
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situation herself. And she certainly couldn’t allow her friend to remain in this
stupor.
“Chief Ibuki,” Misato said, acting as the Commander of Nerv Japan,
whose mission was to protect human life and society from supernatural
threats. “You have used a great deal of energy and resources—natural and
human—without authorization. I know you and your people are exhausted.
How about we have a little chat, preferably in a small room, so you can
recuperate?”
Maya turned to face Misato, looking very annoyed. “I can’t stand by
such a foolish decision! That will only bring destruction down on humanity…
on us! We must tune this unit immediately!”
The modified Super Eva flailed, sending a block of concrete the size of
a car flying past them, shaking the floor as it landed.
Misato shrugged her shoulders and took a step back. “Well, excuse me
for being a fool, then.”
Maya sighed. “I apologize, Commander Katsuragi. I’ve been making
restraint armor in the cage for that thing.” She’d asked others to bear her
uncertainties long enough. “I took the liberty of preparing it on a hunch. This
place is still the hub of reality for all individuals last seen here—even without
Lilith’s Chronostatic Sphere—which is probably why the giant also
reappeared here.”
She turned her back on the struggling giant.
“I don’t know how it happened, but Super Eva returned to the location
of the Chronostatic Sphere, to where the decommissioning facility for Unit
Zero used to be, in the old Central Dogma.”
Back inside the modified Super Eva, the A.I. had begun pouring LCL
into the plug as an emergency measure after receiving information from the
unit’s accelerometer. Unfortunately, it didn’t fill the plug in time to prevent
the impact. Asuka yelped, clinging to Shinji’s neck as the liquid buffer failed
to absorb the shock.
“Stop it, Shinji!” she yelled. “There are no enemies around!”
Shinji was still fighting the invisible foe. The giant awkwardly thrust
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its hands up to the sky, destroying what little balance it had. Asuka hung on
for dear life, unable to tell what might come next.
“I can’t move, Asuka!” Something flashed across the display,
increasing Shinji’s panic as the giant turned to see what it was. “Let go of
me!”
“Stop it! That was your own shadow!”
Shinji grabbed her shoulder with his left hand. “Let go of me!”
Asuka’s thin shoulders flinched when she heard the anger in his voice,
but she squeezed his hand and shouted back at him. “Not on your life!”
The shock of this forced him to look at her for the first time. He
inhaled sharply. Her expression wasn’t one of fury but of sadness, her hair
tossing about in the LCL.
He turned away and muttered, “Sorry.”
Shinji’s apology seemed more reflexive than sincere, but at least his
panic had subsided for the moment. Asuka floated through the LCL over to
the pilot seat and pulled Shinji into her chest.
“All the power in the world and you’re still a big baby.” she said, her
arms trembling around him.
“Asuka…?”
She quietly exhaled, bubbles drifting away like stardust, and took a
deep breath of the LCL—slowly, so as to keep herself from sobbing.
“Shinji…they say you’re a denizen of this dream.” Asuka’s lips
brushed against his hair.
“This is all…a dream? I’m dreaming?”
“You are the dream! Your dream has invaded reality! The real you has
gone missing, along with Super Eva, after you triggered the Third Impact!
They say no one can survive that, but…”
Asuka held him tighter. Her chest rose and fell with the rhythm of her
breathing, and Shinji could feel the warmth of her body, even through her
uniform.
He could feel it. Him. Shinji. Not Super Eva.
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“But I made it back! And in one piece, too! So tell me how it
happened, Shinji! Tell me how I made it home!”
Asuka had kept this anxiety to herself long after her return. She’d spent
a significant amount of time as the Asuka/Eva synthesis. Her mind and body
had been scrambled after she was amalgamated with the ocean of organic
data on the Ark. Her memories about the experience were hazy to the point of
seeming unreal. She still found it hard to believe that she’d actually reverted
to her human state.
“Asuka, move,” Shinji whispered into her chest. “I was fighting
Armaros on Yomotsu Hirasaka…and then the Third Impact. Right.”
Shinji’s eyes were open now, next to the ribbon on the front of her
uniform. He was staring into the distance.
“I want to see what’s in front of me,” he said. Images began to appear
on the virtual display, reflecting his calm.
Where am I?
“I was in the classroom, but now… This is the ruins of old Central
Dogma,” Shinji said.
Asuka wrinkled her nose. “Where’s Lilith’s Chronostatic Sphere?”
“Armaros… He took it.”
“Excuse me? What the hell have you people been doing?!”
“I could ask you the same thing, you know.”
“Well, I… Stuff happened.”
“Uh-huh. Stuff happened down here, too.”
But what happened to me?
Shinji looked at the Eva’s body through the display. “Who modified
me? Maya? Where’d my Vertex wings go? I can’t fly without them.”
“You’ve got bigger things to worry about than flight right now,” Asuka
said. “How about standing on your own two feet? Look, you’ve got just the
thing to help you,” she said, pointing to what looked like a railing. “Use that
to support you as you get up.”
She was referring to the circular linear rail Maya had built around a
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Q.R. Signum to simulate the Tower of Babel.
“Stop treating me like a baby!”
“And look! Maya and Misato are at your feet.”
Misato gasped. The words had been etched into the otherwise pristine
metal with the precision of a progressive tool. Akagi Ritsuko’s name
appeared next, followed by dozens of others in different handwriting. A
single word connected them all at the end: ALIVE.
“What is—Maya?!”
Maya had disappeared behind the giant.
“There it is. The Time Brake.”
The small black disc took her breath away. Shinji had slowed down the
event horizon.
You have 0.8 seconds of the Third Impact left, Shinji. And you can use
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it however you wish, in whatever form you take.
“It’s all up to you, now.”
Thrum!
The rhythmic heartbeat of the Eva shook the air.
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Chapter 2:
Heurtebise Over the Atlantic
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brainwaves, the whole package. Hope my blood pressure doesn’t get the
better of me.
The experience still embarrassed her, even though she was used to it,
and the idea that Clausewitz could be contacting Japan to check…
His transmission window returned.
<<I’m sorry, Hikari. No response from Nerv Japan as to their current
whereabouts, though they’ll keep us posted. But I do hope we can see them
again if they’re still alive.>>
“I know they are. I’ll have to visit them soon.”
Why did I say that?
Hikari shook her head.
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Chapter 3:
New Routine
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lights had been emanating from the plug while she was inside the modified
Super Eva.
“Who cares whether I’m here or not? I’m just a dream, aren’t I?” Shinji
said, turning away.
Toji and Rei Six snorted.
“What?!” He blushed.
“At least we know you really are Shinji.”
“You’re sulking so bad!”
A mechanical hand and a miniature one slapped him on the back.
“Ow!”
“Whoops,” Toji said. He’d forgotten to control his strength.
Toji had recovered his fleshy left hand after the battle of Novaya
Zemlya, but in Shinji’s dream, it had reverted to his prosthetic from three
years ago. The dream used whatever memories and emotions Shinji had, from
the school building to the uniforms, down to the details of Toji’s arm. The
prosthetic was proof that Shinji had never quite gotten over the fact that he’d
almost killed Toji with Eva-03. Realizing this, Toji lightly bumped Shinji
with his prosthetic fist.
“Ow! Will you stop?”
Asuka sighed. “I guess the three stooges are reunited…after a member
change.”
“Ha ha ha! Toji’s a stooge!”
“She’s talking about you, too, Six…”
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Chapter 4:
Messenger
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First Airborne Brigade. He’s among the people that went M.I.A. during the
underground raid of Nerv HQ three years ago.”
His equipment was verified to be three years old, but that could easily
have been fabricated. Misato wondered whether Kasuga actually believed
that bit of evidence. She was more interested in the dead man’s watch and
terminal, which showed a date three months after the Battle at Nerv HQ.
Was time actually progressing in the sphere?
The JSSDF scanned the body with the medical equipment they’d
brought out of their field hospital. They homed in on the dead man’s left arm
and whispered among themselves.
“He really came from three years ago,” Kasuga said, to no one in
particular.
“Why do you think that?” Misato asked.
“We have medical records of his broken arm from seven months
before. A bit reckless, this one,” one of the JSSDF’s medical staff answered.
“The recovery of his broken bones is right where it was three years
ago. That’s impossible, even if we accounted for malnutrition.”
The master sergeant’s body was stuffed in a body bag then place in a
refrigerated container.
Nerv Japan wanted to respect the dead and had therefore risked a great
deal by inviting the JSSDF to confirm that it was one of their soldiers.
According to Maya, Super Eva had broken through the Chronostatic
Sphere, where time had stopped three years ago, and had received upgrades
appropriate to its new state. Misato wanted evidence for this theory.
Three years ago, at the Battle at Nerv HQ, between the feet of giants,
JSSDF special forces had been dispatched to eliminate all Nerv staff. It was
then that Lilith had brought time to a halt.
“Super Eva brought the force of the Third Impact into the sphere.
Master Sergeant Sakura probably saw his chance to escape and crawled into
his restraint armor.”
Not that I feel sorry for him. Misato shuddered from a strange déjà vu.
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The guy shot me in a different future.
She shook her head to chase out this grim thought. “More
importantly…”
They moved from the medical bay to the meeting room. While the
JSSDF staff had left, along with the body of their comrade, Kasuga stayed
behind, saying, “My soldiers on Yomotsu Hirasaka Island need every bit of
intel I can find.”
Misato respected his wishes and agreed to share whatever they knew
about the modified Super Eva. Just then, Maya returned from the cage with a
new discovery.
“What’s up?” Misato asked.
Maya ran her hand through her hair. She looked haggard. The strange
spirit that had previously possessed her had fled. “Basic modifications were
completed on the other side. All that’s left for us to do is fit him into his new
restraint armor and maybe switch some components out for more reliable
ones.”
“You mean those four sheets you were working on after sending your
entire team home?” Misato asked.
Maya crinkled her nose.
Misato went on. “Take two days off when you’re finished. Don’t worry
about reattaching Unit Zero-F’s arm. The cage team can do that just fine.”
Maya shrugged and took her seat.
With everyone present, an image of Fuyutsuki in the command center
flickered to life on the monitor.
“We speculated that time had frozen within the Chronostatic Sphere,
but it looks like it has advanced by three months.”
“I don’t think so,” Maya quipped. She was the one who’d speculated
that Super Eva’s modifications had taken three months to complete.
“Hang on, Maya. It’s only been a week since Yomotsu Hirasaka fell.”
“Perhaps time is accelerating on the other side.”
“It’s what?”
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Maya elaborated. Shinji’s mother had manipulated the dimensional
door from the other side to transport Super Eva, whose time was close to
stopping, to a place where time had completely stopped. Time had then
accelerated within the Chronostatic Sphere, as if Yui was telling her husband
to do something about their self-destructing son.
“Super Eva’s time was close to stopping?” Misato frowned.
“The Third Impact would have happened within the sphere if time
moved for him.” Maya continued. “We’ve seen instances where Unit One
would do everything in its power to make Shinji’s wishes of stopping
something come true. Take the freezing of Lake Ashi when Quatre’s Eva fell,
for example.”
“So, the rapid freezing…”
“Happened on a particle level, yes. But nine percent of its heat
remained. We still don’t know why.”
“So it can interfere with time. Are you saying it stopped its own time in
order to prevent Yomotsu Hirasaka from landing?”
“We have records of the power curve of the Second Impact. The Third
Impact, which happened over the Ogasawara Islands, appears to follow the
same curve. A massive accumulation of energy followed by a moment of
silence before the release. If it continues to follow the same rules as the
Second Impact, the explosion will reach Hakone.”
Misato furrowed her brow. “So…the Third Impact isn’t over yet?”
Toji raised his hand. “Shinji’s mom told me about that. Shinji’s putting
a tap over the impact with his remaining 0.82 seconds of life.”
“A tap?” Misato asked.
“A tap to control it, I suppose,” Maya said.
“The energy produced by the Third Impact is immense to the point of
bending space-time. It’s going to take a long while, but Shinji is releasing it,
little by little, throughout his new life. This is his duty now.”
“But isn’t he just a dream?”
“Well, if the real Shinji woke up, it’d all be over in 0.82 seconds.” The
edges of Kasuga’s lips hooked to form a smile.
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“I suppose this is all funny to you, sir,” Toji said.
“I apologize. All of this sounds like a fairy tale…or a horror story.”
“We can only work with what the facts have to offer,” Misato said,
although she sympathized with him.
“We’re throwing all our ideas at a wall to see what sticks. How we’re
going to utilize the massive amount of power in front of us is more
important.”
Kasuga conceded. “Very well, Commander Katsuragi. But if you
would allow me one more question: If the pilot Ikari Shinji is not the real
Ikari Shinji, then where is his body?”
“The real Shinji exists,” Maya said.
“What?!” Toji exclaimed, “Wait, but…how?!”
This was her new discovery. “We’ve scanned the Super Eva and found
the original plug inside the entry hatch along the spinal receiver.”
“That’s crazy. What happened when Soryu got in?”
Maya looked down at her tablet. The look on her face clearly said,
Don’t ask. “I don’t know. Maybe it disappeared, maybe it was stacked on top
of it. What we do know is about the plug itself. See?”
A figure was seated within the entry plug. The final moments of Ikari
Shinji were frozen into a single image. His hands were holding the control
sticks; his left clutched to his chest and his right thrust out in front of him.
His mouth was open in a scream, and his bangs flew every which way. Once
he resumed motion, it would all end in 0.82 seconds. The gray image of the
scanner made him look like a statue.
“You’re a damn hero, Shinji.” Toji felt his heart burn within him. He
couldn’t imagine what his friend had been thinking.
“What if you cut open the body? Can you get him out of there?”
“Even if we could operate on the chest, we can’t get the plug housing
open. Dr. Akagi referred to it as the Untouchable Space.”
“You did get a message from her!”
“They were all quite surprised. None of them expected an S2 engine to
expand and form a heart.”
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Maya took out an explosion-proof memory card, inserted it into the
LCD tablet, and slid it over to Misato. On it was information regarding the
Eva’s modification progress, along with the list of names carved into his foot.
The names didn’t quite match up with the list of missing persons, though.
Some had died inside the sphere. There were also messages to their family.
“There’s so much I want to ask Shinji, and even more I want to tell
him.”
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Chapter 5:
Ogasawara Eastside
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“Shrikes One and Two passing overhead.”
Two Platypus-2’s flew over the Akashima, one of them the vessel
Kasuga had used earlier. They flew in from the west, near Chichijima, where
the JSSDF had set up a command center for the Akashima unit. Kasuga was
there as well.
Unfortunately, the base at Iwojima hadn’t withstood the waves.
Yomotsu Hirasaka had creased the Pacific Plate, and the Philippine Sea had
risen over the Ogasawara Islands. It would be some time before Iwojima
resurfaced.
“Shrike Two to Shrike One. Flock of birds making their way to high
altitude. Watch out.”
“Shrike One to Shrike Two. Say again?!”
All birds capable of flight were supposed to have disappeared on the
day the great flock formed a belt that covered the skies. Their innate
navigation had gone haywire because of the geomagnetic disturbance, which
had started when the Longinus Ring began expanding as it orbited the Earth.
All over the world, people reported birds descending into a frenzy and
destroying themselves.
Then Armaros had spoken through the Ayanamis. He said it was time
for the Human Instrumentality Project to be fulfilled. The moon would be the
new stage for creation, once it traded places with the Earth. Most of the world
wouldn’t have understood what this meant, even if someone had explained it
to them.
But one thing was for sure. Across the globe, birds had disappeared
without leaving so much as a corpse. People began whispering to each other
that they’d gone to another world. Humanity had developed its own set of
instincts from observing other species, and this instinct had led them to the
truth.
“The birds are back!”
“Wow!”
But…are they really?
The pilots couldn’t shake the foreboding they’d felt since entering the
island’s airspace.
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What if this is the other world the birds flew to?
“Hold. Akashima to Shrike One. Detecting errors in terrain data from
your flight information.”
The Shrike, the JSSDF’s Platypus-2, used extremely powerful
synthetic aperture radar to penetrate clouds and other gases that would
normally block radio waves, in order to plot out a flight path for the
Akashima.
<<We’ll do another sweep. Requesting grid number.>>
“From A-3 to A-5—”
“Doppler radar’s picking something up! That mountain is moving! Is it
a landslide?”
Low vibrations rumbled through the valley, though they weren’t
powerful enough to be an earthquake. Alarms started blaring inside the
cockpit.
“A.I.’s detecting something… Giant threat?!”
“What?!”
“Picking up quadrupedal movement that doesn’t belong to the initial
vibrations.”
“Stop the Akashima! Shrikes One and Two, shut off your active sense
oscillators and pull out. We might be up against the monster sighted by the
American UAV.”
The two Platypus-2’s pulled out shortly after receiving the notification.
They’d been told to suppress their common sense before being dispatched to
the island. Shrike One took the initiative and charged its positron cannon.
They broke through the thick clouds that had gathered like cream soup.
<<Akashima to Shrikes. Be warned. Bogey looks like it’s about to
head up.>>
The monster was facing the sky? The Shrikes fled to even higher
altitudes, passing through another gas cloud. The creature broke through the
clouds like a fish breaching the surface of the ocean. They couldn’t tell
whether the thing had a face, but it looked like it was scanning for something.
“Shrike Two to Akashima. We have visual on the bogey. It looks like a
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big dog. No, like a wolf with armor. And it looks like it’s melting.”
Shrike One shouted in shock. <<Shrike Two, look at its crown! Behind
the horn!>>
The pilot of the Shrike Two zoomed in on the gun camera. There was a
red protrusion sticking out behind the horned forehead.
“Hang on…that’s a humanoid with its arms stretched out!”
<<Is that one of Nerv’s Evangelions?>>
The giant beast with a red Eva slapped onto its forehead barely noticed
the tiny Platypus-2’s. It continued to rise above the clouds.
<<A red Eva… That would be Unit T—>>
KROOOOOWL!
The Eva’s roar rolled like a thunderclap. The JSSDF pilots winced at
the sudden shock wave, the air around them crackling.
ROOOOOAAAAR!
Noise flooded the HMD, a long and distant howl. Then the giant sank
beneath the clouds once more.
Shrike Two’s pilot shook her head. “That was no dog. That was a
wolf.”
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Chapter 6:
Here I Am
M ARI HAD FOLLOWED Asuka and Six to Shinji’s school, but she was
pushed back by the invisible membrane at its gates. She wasn’t among those
who would take part in Shinji’s idyllic dreamworld.
Little Mari was the pilot of the U.S. Eva Wolfpack, which had been
destroyed when it consumed an excess amount of life-form data. She was
now sulking her way home, one hand holding Azuchi’s leash, the other
holding the hand of a female security officer. They were close to the LRT
station when she suddenly stopped.
“Mari?” the officer asked, thinking perhaps that the girl had yet to give
up on going to school.
Azuchi, too, looked at Mari. Then the dog jumped back and began
barking in surprise.
Mari’s eyes were wide open, her pupils strangely dilated as she stared
into the distance. She turned to the southeastern sky and started howling.
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Chapter 7:
Heurtebise
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chamber of the Devil’s Backbone, a Field Piercer grafted onto its left arm,
which looked like it might possess the Eva at any given moment. The veins
of the two scales continued to pulse red with power.
Armaros’ two lesser giants, the Torwächters, used them to open up a
tunnel network. Those tunnels looked as if they were made of the same black
membrane as the scales. Maybe the Q.R. Signums came from the tunnel
network and not from Armaros himself? There’s no way of knowing.
Kensuke shook his head, frustrated at the mysteries that still remained.
“Maybe that’s why…” He looked down again at the distant floor.
“Maybe that’s why Nerv Germany is still a little gloomy, despite having won
the battle.”
Kensuke was too far up to see the looks on the crew’s faces, but he
could tell that they were all pale.
<<Would you like to know?>>
A voice came from nowhere. Kensuke instinctively pushed away the
steel frame he was holding on to. There was still a bit of ceiling, despite him
being 150 meters away from the floor, and he ducked under a steel truss to
hide himself. He peeked out at the spot where he’d just been.
No one’s there. I’m getting jumpy.
“What am I doing?” He was embarrassed at himself for panicking.
I could’ve set off the motion sensors with that much movement.
Kensuke turned around. He gasped when he saw Hikari right in front
of him and backed away in shock, his back slamming against a slanted steel
frame.
“Horaki…”
Hikari was wearing an older plugsuit, the black one with gold circuits
running around it. She stood on the steel frame without anything to keep her
balanced. She didn’t even look bothered by the height.
“Run, Aida. Get as far away as you—”
An arm thrust out from under her jacket, grabbing Kensuke.
“What are you…?!”
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This act knocked both of them off-balance. They were falling now, and
still Kensuke tried to understand the reason behind her actions.
Is she taking her anger out on me?
This was the conclusion he came to as he plummeted.
Hikari had become the pilot of Heurtebise because of Kensuke’s—and
the rest of the intelligence division’s—shady transactions. She’d been bought
with information and resources. The Horakis had taken the move to Europe
well enough; they treated it like a holiday. Unfortunately, Armaros had
thrown the Lance of Longinus around the globe at that time, and the light it
gave off had turned hundreds of thousands of people into pillars of salt—
including Hikari’s sister.
Kensuke stopped struggling. I guess I had it coming.
Their free fall to the bottom of the cage continued until Heurtebise
broke free of its restraints and moved its black hand to catch them.
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Chapter 8:
Mutual Acknowledgement
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“What was that about Shinji and BLS?”
“Don’t say that out loud, Six,” Toji replied. The grade-schooler raised
her eyebrows and returned to her display.
“Have you found her yet?” Toji asked. She shook her aqua-colored
hair. They were still looking for Mari, pilot of the U.S. Eva, Wolfpack, who’d
been put under the care of Nerv Japan in Hakone…and had escaped on their
watch. As much as Six wanted to go out and find her herself, if she did, she
might be added to the list of missing persons.
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Chapter 9:
Mari Escapes
By the time Azuchi and Mari’s tracks were found south of Tokyo-3 to
the side of Lake Ashi, they’d already stowed away in in one of the aircraft at
Mount Daikan’s new airport. This was only discovered later, since the search
team was still focused on the mountains.
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“No luck with Mari?” Misato asked. She entered the command center
in a simple uniform that she didn’t get to wear very much. She only needed to
look at the display to answer her question.
“Afraid not, Commander. But how did the meeting with the Japanese
politicians go? What’s up with the New Island Committee?” Toji asked.
“It wasn’t something they could talk about over the phone. Although,
really, this thing’s going to leak in about five seconds.” Misato pressed the
folder she was holding into Toji’s chest.
He opened it. “Uhh… ‘Regarding Tsukino Yami Island.’”
“A temporary name. Not that it’s going to stick, since a U.N. goon just
plucked it out of the air,” Misato ranted, “but that’s not the point.”
Toji continued flipping through the report until he got to the page with
the red Eva. “What the…? Unit Two? Why—”
“Unit Two is now a relief on the forehead of a mountain-sized monster
on Yomotsu Hirasaka Island.”
“What?!”
Misato weaved through Toji and the others and sat in her command
chair. She took the headset at her side and contacted Cage One. “About
Trois’ Unit Zero. Her converted left arm and regenerated right arm are still in
the tanks, right? Okay.”
Toji was preoccupied with the picture taken by the JSSDF’s gun
camera. Eva-02 was half-buried within the forehead of the giant beast.
“Heat shock them and then use array cables to hang them over the
middle of the base, right above the sarcophagus.”
Misato’s mad request snapped Toji back to reality. “Excuse me?!” She
wanted to hang an exposed Eva’s arm outside? He immediately thought of
hanging fish over a doorway, mackerel and pilchards in particular, to keep
evil spirits at bay. “That’s enough tech to build a light aircraft carrier. What
are you trying to pull?”
But Toji’s snide remark only helped Fuyutsuki understand Misato’s
train of thought. “Are you making a deal with the devil?”
“Call Asuka for me,” Misato said, returning to the matter of Eva-02.
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“Are you sure? Soryu’s gonna want to retrieve it.”
“Like I said.” Misato sighed. “We couldn’t keep this a secret if we
tried.”
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Chapter 10:
Breadth of Acknowledgement
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“Your forehead and nose are red.”
Asuka’s face appeared tired and gloomy, as it usually did when she
was thinking about something.
“The Longinus Ring generated the spatial lens while in orbit, which
atomized Yomotsu Hirasaka and reconstituted it on the other side, close to
Earth.”
“Yeah. That’s how the moon slab managed to land here.”
Why is she reviewing this? Shinji thought.
“I was completely integrated into Unit Two’s synthesis, so when it got
atomized, I got reconstituted by the spatial lens, too. That’s how I managed to
return to my human form.”
“Uh-huh. Even Mari reverted to a normal human after all the animal
DNA that was spliced into her.”
“That’s right,” Asuka said. Then she glared at Shinji, “You never liked
Mari, did you? She was really sad because she couldn’t get into this school,
you know!”
“Don’t look at me,” Shinji balked, “I don’t know how any of this stuff
works.”
In fact, Mari couldn’t step into the school because she was an unknown
factor to Shinji.
“But this is still your dream. Can’t you just acknowledge her so she can
come in? And the teachers, too? You know what? Never mind.”
Shinji sighed. Was that really how things worked here?
“Anyway, back to my point. What if Mari and I weren’t the only things
reconstituted by the spatial lens?”
Shinji finally saw what Asuka was getting at. “So, you’re saying Unit
Two got reconstituted, too. On Yomotsu Hirasaka, no less. But I’m pretty
sure Wolfpack ate it clean.”
“Maybe it wasn’t completely digested yet. I don’t know, maybe the
Ark’s life-form data in its belly got reconstituted around Yomotsu Hirasaka.
No, that wouldn’t work. Maybe it’s operating on a different time scale.”
Shinji realized that this wasn’t the meat of Asuka’s worries. “You want
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to take Unit Two back, don’t you, Asuka?”
No one could tell if Eva-02 was still usable, or if they could retrieve it,
given the dangers. But making the most out of Eva-02 latent powers had
become Asuka’s life’s purpose. She sighed deeply. All Shinji could do was
offer her a shrug before the school bell rang. Everyone scurried back to their
desks. Shinji kept an eye on Asuka while returning to his.
What’s gotten into her? It isn’t like Asuka to be this scared.
Little Rei Six slid inside the classroom from the back—almost late,
though still in uniform.
The final member of the classroom entered, and it was enough to stun
everyone into silence, even Asuka, though a smile still touched the edge of
her lips.
Their homeroom teacher had made an appearance at last.
Asuka called out to the class representative. “Shinji!”
“Oh! All rise!”
“Terribly sorry about the trouble,” said the homeroom teacher. “It
seems the school has finally seen it fit to let me in.”
So this is how it works…
Shinji understood what Asuka had been trying to tell him a little better.
Now, how far could he open up his dream to the outside? Toji was currently
in the command center, while Trois was tuning up Eva-0.0 so it could be refit
with a new arm. Rei Six was trying to fill the void left by the two absentees,
but she was failing spectacularly.
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Chapter 11:
Europe’s Triumphant Rally
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camera, but upon closer inspection, the sixteen-ton vehicles really were lying
on their sides, like a bunch of cardboard boxes.
“Wha?”
“Is it an accident?”
If only.
The camera shook and rumbled as dust clouds rushed the lens at
terrifying speeds. Eventually, the feed cut back to the studio, but things had
descended into such panic that even the studio cameras were left abandoned.
The frame switched to standby before finally playing stock footage of
Heurtebise returning from space.
“What just happened?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps a whirlwind? See if you can dig up more
information.”
The internet would’ve been buzzing with theories right about now, but
the worldwide communications crisis had severely limited such speculation.
Fuyutsuki shouted to the comms officer on the lower deck. “Get on the
priority link to Nerv Germany if the media can’t come up with anything.”
“About that, sir,” the officer began, “We haven’t been able to reach
them for the last thirty minutes. They might be experiencing some hardware
trouble.”
“What?!”
Toji tumbled into the command center, looking significantly worse for
wear. He’d been watching the broadcast in his quarters, on the off chance he
might see Hikari in the parade. He’d seen the exact moment when rejoicing
had turned to panic.
“What the hell is going on?!”
The feed had returned and was now playing footage through a camera
whose correction software was being pushed to its limits. As it panned
sideways, it showed the beautiful cityscape. In the distance, a black giant
loomed, shrouded in fiery smoke.
“No!”
Armaros!
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His armor looked a little different, but it was still covered in black
scales. People ran through the streets, tripping over and trampling each other.
The image shook as the camera was knocked to the ground.
On the way down, it captured an image of Armaros’ left arm, which
now looked like a grotesque chainsaw. A ray of light shot out of it.
The Atomium, a monument that had been erected for the World’s Fair,
exploded.
Screams filled the air, half of which were calling for their hero, the
Euro Eva, Heurtebise. But the artificial angel didn’t appear. A family in the
rubble cried out for Hikari to help them. Toji felt as if he was being torn apart
watching them. Mercifully, the footage ended.
Fuyutsuki put out an emergency call for Misato.
“Suzuhara,” Asuka whispered. “We’re going to school now.”
What happened to Hikari? Where’s Heurtebise? Why is Armaros…?
As frazzled as Toji was, part of him remained Acting Deputy
Commander of Nerv.
“Hang on,” he said, in a voice inaudible to Fuyutsuki and the rest. “We
can’t go to school at night. The BLS Layer only activates during school
hours, since that’s the setting of Shinji’s dream.”
“Is now really the time to worry about that?” Asuka asked.
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Chapter 12:
Night Class
S NEAKING INTO SCHOOL at midnight was trickier than Toji and Asuka
had anticipated. A sleepy Aoba had to teach them how to get into the school
without alerting the security company.
Once they were inside, however, Asuka raised her voice. “Come on
out, Shinji! We don’t got all night!”
“Soryu!” Toji exclaimed. “I know it’s night and all, but he’s not a
ghost. He didn’t show up the last time you carried the entry plug in here, did
he?”
“No, and it’s a good thing, too. The BLS Layer would’ve kept the
science and engineering staff out of here.”
“You really put them through hell.”
They reached the classroom after an uneventful walk.
“You don’t expect me to lug this thing by myself, do you?” Asuka
tapped the entry plug in the middle of the classroom. “See? Nothing. Should I
turn on the lights?”
“Don’t bother. The moon’s annoyingly bright lately.”
“I mean, it’s sucked most of the Earth’s landmass and is only 110,000
kilometers away from us at this point.”
“Look, Shinji. The moon is so beautiful tonight!” Asuka pointed out
the open window. Immediately, her long T-shirt and hotpants dissolved and
were replaced with the black uniform.
There’s the BLS Layer!
“The transformation looks like something out of a magical girl anime.”
“You watch those things?”
“Look…”
<<His sister loved that stuff.>>
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They both recognized the voice and immediately turned.
“Kensuke…?!”
A shade resembling Kensuke sat at his desk, looking exhausted.
“You know, when they were kids.”
Six was right. Shinji can summon anyone he thinks would fit into the
dream, even those who are far away.
Toji had never seen anyone this blurry before, however. Perhaps
something was happening on Kensuke’s end.
“Aida…?”
“Hold on, Soryu. Kensuke, where are you now?”
“I was in Germany, but now… Things are bad here, Toji.”
“Does it have to do with Armaros?”
“So, you’re aware. Those final moments happened so fast. Darkness
spread all over that white body, over Horaki and Heurtebise. They’ve become
Armaros.”
Toji slammed the table. “What?!”
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Chapter 13:
Evil Unto Evil
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Chapter 14:
Night Class II
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battle.
He’d joined the intelligence division after being passed over to be a
pilot. He’d had his ideals, but he’d long since abandoned them.
“You wanna put your money where your mouth is?” he asked.
“Of course! But first…” Asuka pointed south-southeast. “We’re going
to Yomotsu Hirasaka. That’s where we’ll meet Armaros.”
“On the new island?” Toji wondered. “Wait… That might be it! We
won’t have to look for him. Armaros is sure to come for us if we stir up
trouble there. Yomotsu Hirasaka might be our opportunity to take the
initiative.”
“Right?” Asuka said. “The spatial lens is directly above the island,
siphoning seawater to the moon. It’s like a giant umbilical cable creating the
new world. The black giant will definitely come for us if we cut it off. Isn’t
that right, Shinji?”
“Yeah.”
Shinji had appeared at some point and was now sitting on top of the
entry plug.
“Come on, Toji!” he said with rare enthusiasm.
Kensuke couldn’t bear to watch them. Why did I ever leave this place?
Yomotsu Hirasaka. That was where Eva-02 was. Asuka desperately
wanted her Eva back. And if there was a chance to confront Armaros—and
save Hikari—all the better.
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“Oh, boy,” Toji muttered. “Shinji…”
Shinji was getting into the entry plug. “I know. It’s my turn. And
Toji?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll do everything I can,” he said, subtly reminding his friend not to do
anything rash.
Toji clenched his fists. “All right!”
He was encouraged by his spectral friend.
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Chapter 15:
With a New Name
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Shinji’s plugsuit. She noticed Toji and Asuka, and waved to them. The
mutant Eva copied her.
The one-armed mutant grabbed the Eva arm dangling off the cables
hooked to antenna arrays and grafted it onto its right shoulder.
“I guess that was bait,” Toji mused, finally understanding Misato’s
plan.
In the middle of the reflector, a vertical shaft offered a view down to
the sarcophagus covering the old Geofront. This was the same shaft through
which Quatre had once infiltrated the command center, so everyone was
understandably nervous. The air was electric as Trois trained her rifle on
Quatre from the Komagatake sniping post, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.
The searchlights lit up another spot, some distance away from Quatre’s
Eva. It was there that Katsuragi Misato, commander of Nerv Japan,
confronted Kaji Ryoji, vessel of Seele.
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was admonishing her.
“Nothing changes. The one who defeats the most powerful being in
existence simply becomes the new black giant. That’s all.”
The black giant was the minister of the Human Instrumentality Project,
which would continue to exist as long as there were humans.
“And that’s the Evangelion?”
“No. This is all part of the Mechanism, which is part of the Ark.” The
Kaji-vessel sighed. “You did good, Katsuragi.”
Don’t say it like he used to!
But her spirit had already been broken.
Toji and Asuka had made it to the VTOL deck. They contacted the
command center for permission to operate the Platypus-2.
<<You know how clumsy Soryu is. Apparently, she left something
huge on Yomotsu Hirasaka.>>
<<Oh, no you don’t. Sensei! This guy was planning to fly all the way
to Europe before I told him where we should go!>>
The two were pointing fingers at each other like children. Misato
listened to their banter.
What is going on back there?
Their tone didn’t reflect the hopeless situation that had just been
presented to her—the inevitable remodeling of the world and the
implacability of Armaros.
“Stop your bickering! Don’t you know this is an emergency?!” shouted
Fuyutsuki. “You have orders to stand down. Act your age!”
<<We’re acting because it’s an emergency!>> Asuka shouted.
<<We’re going off to save our friend and pick Unit Two up along the way. It
sure as hell beats sitting around and doing nothing. This is the final act, and
I’d much prefer to go out with a bang!>>
The final act.
Asuka’s words rang throughout the command center.
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She has a point. If there’s anything after this…
But no. Everyone felt that Armaros’ resurrection was a sign that
whatever came after this was the end. Fear, or perhaps determination, coursed
through the veins of all present in the command center.
<<Commander!>> Hyuga’s voice came through the comms. <<It’s
Cage Two! Super Eva is on the move!>>
Misato gasped, realizing that Shinji had agreed with his classmates.
They’d been on the defensive ever since Novaya Zemlya, always reacting,
while never really solving anything. Now, she felt the push toward action.
<<Can we go now, Misato? You can’t keep us any longer!>>
<<Fuyutsuki-sensei, I leave the rest to you.>>
<<You two!>>
Misato frowned and sighed deeply, scratching her head.
“List their flight under reconnaissance! Hyuga-kun, rewrite the code
for Super Eva.”
Misato directed her next question to Fuyutsuki, who’d gone silent over
her headset. “No objections, Assistant Acting Deputy Commander?”
<<And what is it that I must object to?>> the old man replied.
Fuyutsuki had long ago decided that he would go with whatever policy Nerv
Japan enacted. His only job was to give everyone a dose of common sense.
<<Now accepting new registration code!>> Hyuga said, waiting for
Misato’s command from the middle deck.
These damn kids. They’d sulk in a second if we stopped treating them
like adults!
Misato looked into Kaji’s eyes and said, “May the world never need
another Evangelion. Evangelion-01 Final Model, lift off!”
The power lines were still damaged from the previous battle. The
remaining city lights went out as what little power remained was spent.
Behind Misato, the 3,500-ton giant leaped into the air. Shinji took a deep
breath of LCL as the powerful acceleration shifted into weightlessness. He
clutched his grip uttered a single word.
“Fly!”
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The four pylons of the newly christened Final Model shifted positions,
wrapping around the small black circle on his back, the Time Brake. Four
black wings sprouted out of it—the wings of the giant of light.
Asuka whistled. She was already seated inside the parallel duplex
cockpit of one of the new Platypus-2’s, issued to replace the one lost at
Novaya Zemlya. Toji cheered from outside the craft when he saw the wings
of light; he was still setting up the cargo pods. The wings were relatively
closed, and they seemed to push Final Model through the air more than
anything else. Shinji sped through the east side of the caldera and vanished
from sight. Burning particles scattered behind him like feathers, leaving an
afterimage of the wings.
The 120-meter-tall giant left a shock wave as he went away, but the
caldera still rumbled.
“All right, Toji,” Misato said. “I know this seems like a waste of time
to you, but I hope you’ll tune in to our worthless struggle.”
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Chapter 16:
Sudden Turn
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platform.
In fact, these three nations had approached Japan several times to seek
their cooperation, but the government of the archipelago hadn’t responded.
Part of it was the chaos at the heart of the government due to the recent
disasters, but it was also the fact that Nerv Japan had been given more
authority to respond to such disasters in a timely fashion. The attempts to
limit Nerv’s actions in Japan had backfired.
“Do these Japanese not realize this is an emergency?” A gunner from
the U.S. Navy’s aerial platform disengaged the Akashima from his sights,
though he kept his hands on the console so he could lock on to it again if
need be.
“The Chinese Far East Collective probably think they can do anything
so long as they have their Evangelions.”
“Hah! They needed Germany to buy them time when Armaros
whooped them back in Europe!”
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through the lens of the terminal to record the moment Paradise was brought
low by human hands. Perhaps there would come a moment in the future
where the data would prove useful.
If any of them survived.
As the soldiers advanced around a great wall of rock, they came across
another startling sight in a deep valley.
“Isn’t that the thing intel told us about?”
“Bingo!”
They looked upon a large, gray cube, shining like glasswork.
The Ark.
It was a collection of terrestrial life information that had disappeared
after Armaros transported it away from the Atlas Mountains in North Africa.
The Ark turned slowly, concealing its true form as the main method of
jump-starting the Human Instrumentality Project.
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Chapter 17:
Shinji
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This feels like the dream…
The raging output felt like it could break the laws of Newtonian
physics.
Shinji brimmed with the worst power in the world. The peak of the
Third Impact’s energy, the energy that flowed through his heart from a higher
dimension, threatened to wrench open his chest through the time
compression. This violent knocking rumbled through every inch of Final
Model’s body at regular intervals, forming the Eva’s heartbeat.
THRUM!
The all-consuming power was somehow offset by reverberations
created by the artificial Kodama in his chest.
“I feel fine…for now.”
This was Shinji’s current reality.
“Toji, where are you?” he called out to the N2 Flanker Platypus-2.
<<Shinji…you’re going…too fast…>>
They could still communicate through electromagnetic waves, though
Toji’s voice was lagging and distorted. It was then that Shinji realized his
thoughts were traveling at an immense speed.
Still too fast… Calm down.
Final Model had been in a constant state of acceleration ever since
Hakone, and now it slowed in order to allow the Platypus-2 to catch up to it.
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Chapter 18:
Nerv Japan
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“Either way, I can’t get off to her. I can’t get off to any girl under the
age of thirty-two.”
You keep adding extra years to that, you jerk.
Security escorted Kaji Ryoji from the top deck. The thirty-two-year-old
commander of Nerv, Katsurage Misato, looked to the sky in the direction of
Super Eva—Eva-01 Final Model.
“I got a scare when I saw those wings of light come out of him,”
Misato said to Maya over her headset.
<<Shinji requested the installation of Vertex wings, but he already has
wings with the Eva’s ability to stop time indefinitely. The four shoulder
pylons aren’t really flight units. They’re quantum wave mirrors, like the
restraint armor around his heart.>>
“You need two, three layers to stop his heart from exploding?”
<<Yes. They form a sort of bottleneck to prevent instantaneous release
of that tremendous energy. That’s the part we can see.>>
“The Time Brake. The little black void on his back.”
<<Eva-01 Final Model can freely use the Third Impact’s energy, the
most immense energy in the known universe. It could take years to trickle
that energy out, or 0.82 seconds to blow it all at once. It all depends on
Shinji.>>
“A cruel business. How much does he know?”
<<All of it.>> Maya had tried to keep him from leaving. <<I told him
how changing the pylons’ formation would alter the shape of the brake field
and how it would cost him his life every time that happened. It only steeled
his resolve.>>
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Chapter 19:
Life-Form Deluge
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Chapter 20:
Stowaway
They didn’t send any lifeboats for her. They couldn’t, really.
Alarms notifying the approach of a bogey blared, and the crew
scrambled to their battle stations. Sonar picked up the propulsions of several
large submarines retreating from Yomotsu Hirasaka. It was as if Azuchi and
Mari were trying to replace them by swimming toward it.
Ogasawara Mobile Command wondered if they were up against large
submarines of American, Chinese, and Australian origin. The order to halt
resurfacing procedures was immediately issued after a preemptive
noisemaker was fired from the extended VLS to the nose of the unknown
vessel.
“Don’t shoot!” the unknown party responded. The bogeys surfaced,
revealing themselves to be super-class submarines that dwarfed the I-409
Revamped. They continued advancing, ignoring all warnings.
The XO of the I-409 Revamped heard a strange sound ring throughout
the inside of the approaching ships.
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“Their load is a lot lighter. There aren’t any soldiers within their cargo.
What happened to the people they left on the ground?”
They’d deserted the landing party, wanting to get away from this place
as soon as they were attacked.
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Chapter 21:
Crowd
The Akashima stood in wait, unsure of how to deal with the black
life-forms coming over the hill. Their movement was unnatural. Most were
quadrupeds, but they had none of the stability associated with animals. They
all seemed as if they might trip under the tidal wave of their own mass.
“IFF active scan complete,” Endo said. “It’s positive!”
“What?!”
Identification tags of the United Nations emergency forces from the
operation at Novaya Zemlya were mixed in with the beasts that approached
them.
Are they being run down by these animals?
“Arm Mode: Rescue! Trace their dog tags and pick them up!”
The A.I. picked a small creature out of the pack and set it on top of the
giant arm.
“Error with rescue protocol! That thing’s not human! Again!” Endo
commanded. But the animal on top of Akashima’s palm crumbled into white
powder before the A.I. had a chance to pick up another one. Among the
remains were torn bits of camo fabric that scattered in the wind.
A chill ran through the four operators of the Akashima when they
recognized what their display was showing.
No!
Incessant banging on their armor brought them back to their senses.
“Maintain forward position and retreat!”
“We’re going back to the valley with the third flag! Accelerate
thrusters and don’t let those things come near us!”
“But they—” the pilot hesitated, biting back the words “might have
been human once.” The thought of harming or killing such creatures…
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“It’s too late now!”
The animals couldn’t hit the Akashima hard enough to get through its
layers of armor, of course.
But they could hear it.
They could hear the desperate sound of hundreds of feet crawling up
the mech. They wanted something, but they shattered into white sand before
they could make their desires known.
The chromatograph showed that the white palm prints were made of
pure sodium.
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Chapter 22:
Asuka
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flood of memories rushing out of her.
“The Ark… Is it here?!”
Asuka had come into contact with the Ark on the moon during her
reconnaissance mission. The deluge of life-form data had crashed through
her, breaking her consciousness from the inside. She’d lost what made her
Asuka in the torrent.
Her mind had been overwhelmed by the data, and just when she was
about to be lost in the flood, Eva-02 had stepped in to protect her. Her limited
consciousness was absorbed into the Asuka/Eva synthesis, and so she’d
continued to exist—would have continued to exist, if she hadn’t been
reconstituted as a human being by chance.
The rush of emotions hit Asuka’s brain so hard that it told her to vomit.
She hyperventilated, threw the HMD helmet behind her, and unzipped the
front of her jacket.
“Urgh… Mind if I hurl?”
“Soryu, no! We’ve got Angel Carriers at ten o’ clock!”
Several Carriers came out of the ridge of the mountain, flapping their
terrible white wings.
“They’re fighting. Now, where’s Armaros…? He’s not here?!”
“Make enough noise and he’ll be here!”
Dammit. We were so focused on fighting Armaros, I forgot he had
backup!
“Soryu, charge the positron cannons!”
Toji began mental calculations to use the frontline base on the
Ogasawara Islands.
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Chapter 23:
Battle at New Island
Sparks flew as the tip of the Bizen Osafune broke through the field of
a Carrier to lodge itself in its head. Shinji left the blade where it lay, letting
go and grabbing Armisael’s double helix as its cocoon rose out of the
Carrier’s abdomen.
Eva-01 Final Model flew past the Carrier while yanking the torn helix
through the blade in its head with all his might. The remaining helix of the
Angel larva spun furiously as the sword unraveled it by force. It let out a
hideous screech before it died.
The Angel Carrier was still alive, but it stumbled when the cord in its
belly was pulled free. The Q.R. Signums in its shoulders were dispatched
with some well-placed shots from the lighter version of the Powered 8
railgun, the Powered 8 CL.
Asuka and Toji watched from the Platypus.
“That’s something else…”
“Why aren’t the other Carriers attacking?”
Because the Armisael Carrier was bait.
As the Eva-01 Final Model pulled away from the rapidly deteriorating
remains of the Carrier, the other four surrounded him, sticking their staves
into the ground.
“That’s the Tower of Babel! They’re enclosing him in a pyramid, like
back on Novaya Zemlya!”
Asuka sank into her seat as Toji charged toward the nearest staff.
“Don’t miss, Soryu!”
“What?!”
On her HMD helmet, a crosshair formed on the tiny staff in the
distance. Asuka pulled the trigger, but the positron cannon blasted the right
arm of the Carrier holding it instead of the staff itself.
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“You suck at this! This is what happens when you do too much mental
targeting!”
“Sh-shut up!”
The Platypus realigned itself, but it flew by the staff before they could
get another shot.
No!
Just then, a blast from an energy weapon kicked up a dust cloud.
Someone else had destroyed the staff for them.
“That’s the JSSDF’s… What was it called again?”
“Akashima.”
The pyramid formed around Final Model even with a missing staff.
The Eva tried to escape to no avail. By now, shots aimed at the remaining
staves couldn’t penetrate the field. The Carriers stepped harmlessly through
the enclosed space, charging up their vast energy.
The Akashima was accelerating backward as it distanced itself from
the pyramid.
<<Akashima to Nerv. Keep your distance from that structure! The
Tower of Babel causes disruptions in communications, even energy
communications. Your signals will be affected.>>
“Thank you, Endo-san. Our experiments at Nerv showed that using a
single staff lessened the disruptive effects of the pyramid. We did simulations
with three staves, too.”
<<Acting Deputy Commander? Why aren’t you at HQ? Anyway,
Akashima to Nerv. There’s one remaining Carrier that didn’t make it into the
pyramid. It’s the one whose arm you blew off. Be on the lookout.>>
We knocked one out for you, Shinji. The rest is up to you.
The Tower of Babel’s rainbow membrane was too tough even for Eva-
01 Final Model to break through at full power. The Angel Carriers inside the
tower swelled to great proportions, their skins cracking to make room for the
new growth.
Shinji yelped in surprise as one of the giant Carriers leaned toward
him. Though it had yet to attack, he drew the Bizen Osafune, which was far
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too large for melee combat in this enclosed space, and pointed it at the
enemy. The Carrier paid no heed to the weapon and fell upon Eva-01 Final
Model, intent on crushing him.
“What the hell is up with this thing?!”
The Bizen pierced its belly, and liquid poured out of its cocoon.
“Gah!”
The pain upon touching it was immediate. The fluid continued to burn
Eva-01 Final Model’s restraint armor, and it ate a hole in the ground when it
dripped down.
“Acid!”
Is it Matarael in that cocoon?! It hurts…but I can take it!
Final Model tried to regain his footing, but he couldn’t outrun the four
long legs that crawled out of the cocoon. They grabbed him in midair,
presumably intending to slam him into the ground.
Shinji braced himself as he felt the distance between them and the
ground reduce to nothing.
But the impact never came.
Matarael’s acid had burned the Earth away, exposing a cave network.
Final Model and the Carrier tumbled into the darkness.
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Chapter 24:
Into the Depths
“What?!”
Once past the initial resistance of the corroded ground, Final Model
found himself in free fall.
Was this an underground cave system?
“Dammit!”
He attempted to spread his wings on instinct, but the shaft was too
cramped. The wings slammed into the wall behind him, and the force
violently bounced him around within the stone cavity.
I’m putting out so much energy, I can’t make fine adjustments!
Final Model’s wings dispersed. He’d escaped the legs of the Carrier,
but now he experienced a kind of vertigo as he rattled down the shaft. He
didn’t know which way he was facing, but at least he knew where up was.
Matarael crawled across Final Model’s back, as if blocking his escape
path. It kicked its long legs into his body, sending the Eva tumbling. His free
fall continued. He tried activating his wings of light again, but they only
slammed his body into the wall.
I’m heading straight down.
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He’d inadvertently fallen into a deep fissure that ran vertically along
Yomotsu Hirasaka. While it wasn’t a wide crevice, it was wide enough that
you couldn’t span it by spreading your arms. Shinji extended his A.T. Field
outside of himself, scraping the walls behind and in front of him to slow the
free fall.
The Carrier gave chase as soon as he slowed down. Matarael’s four
long legs extended out of its belly like a lance. It brought its spear down on
the spherical A.T. Field, which Final Model had formed to prop himself
against the wall. He blocked the attack with the Bizen, but Matarael’s legs
were harder and sharper than before, possibly an effect of the Tower of
Babel. Shinji slanted his sword, redirecting his enemy’s attack, and slashed
up. Sparks flew as the two switched places in free fall.
He plunged the blade into the underside of the Angel Carrier and
pulled it out again with great force. The blow lopped off the Carrier’s arm,
along with the Q.R. Signum in its shoulder.
Pressure and temperature rose around him. Shinji looked down into the
fissure and saw a faint red glow. He’d succeeded in reducing the force of the
two-hundred-kilometer moon rock, but it had done plenty of damage all the
same. Its impact had opened fissures all over the Earth’s crust.
That red glow must be magma.
Perhaps the impact had caused it to overflow, or perhaps it was
escaping through a crack in the bottom of the sea.
Either way, lava had risen from the core to form a magma pool at the
bottom of this fissure. But there were circular rocks peeking out of the lava
that looked like they might make a good foothold.
Final Model put the Bizen to one side as his left hand held one of
Matarael’s legs at bay. He slipped past its other legs, lunging to the front of
the Carrier as the Angel’s remaining three legs tried to enclose him. The Eva
was too fast for it, and the Carrier’s back slammed into one of the circular
islands in the magma. Final Model brought his knee strikers down upon the
cocoon in the Carrier’s abdomen, crushing Matarael’s larva.
The one-armed Carrier thrust its hand at the Eva, but the Bizen quickly
destroyed its remaining Q.R. Signum with a side swipe.
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Shinji had succeeded in defeating one of the Carriers, but another soon
joined him. He’d seen this coming.
Another Sandalphon Carrier.
He kept it in his sights. “Toji, what’s going on at your end?!”
But then he remembered. The Babel effect prevented him from
communicating with anyone on the Earth’s crust.
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Final Model removed the Powered 8 railgun from the clamp on his
back and replaced it with the Bizen blade. His display warned him that the 8
might not work under these circumstances, but he fired a test shot to see.
With a successful bang, the gun told him that it would work just fine. He
lowered his body and approached the bubbling surface of the lava.
Trois remained expressionless, despite being the oldest of the Ayanami
Reis. She whispered, to avoid attracting the attention of the other students.
Katsuragi Misato invited the Seelefied Kaji Ryoji.
Memories came back to Shinji. “I thought I saw something when I left
Hakone. So it was the mutant Eva.”
The mutant Eva-0.0 was piloted by the turncoat Ayanami Rei Quatre.
She must have been present as well.
“She seems to be negotiating with him for information. For
something…in exchange for the replica Longinus.”
“She’s what…?”
“Will it be all right?” Trois asked, with a rare note of dissatisfaction.
Shinji didn’t have to say anything to make his dissent known.
Part of the lava flow slowly rose, and Shinji fired the 8 at it, sending
bursts of molten orange everywhere. But nothing came of it.
They’d gone through hell and back to retrieve the replica Lance of
Longinus, which had first been stolen when Asuka fought off a Carrier in
Eva-02. Shinji had then found it, and Rei Trois, on the Apple’s Core—the
testing grounds for the Human Instrumentality Project—with Rei Quatre’s
help.
“To me, the replica Longinus is our most dangerous asset. You also
took it back so that Seele wouldn’t get his hands on it.”
“I don’t think Misato will give it up so easily. I think she might hand it
over to Seele if there was no other way. But if we can’t use it…”
Not that he could go back and take it now if he wanted to.
Is that why she gave us permission to leave? Because things would get
complicated if we stayed behind?
“Dammit. To hell with the consequences. I would’ve brought it along
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with me if I knew this would happen!”
Chairs rattled as the school bell announced the end of a class.
“Thank you, Ikari-kun. I have to go now.”
“Trois?” Shinji glanced at the hatch and found that it had closed. His
virtual display returned to the screen.
Is she planning something?
The Lance of Longinus replica. A powerful weapon currently
possessed by Nerv Japan. Shinji had thought of bringing it with him, but
Misato had stopped him, saying it wouldn’t make sense to bring such a
weapon on a classified reconnaissance mission.
“I don’t know if it’s actually going to work against Armaros. Better to
leave Hakone with some way of defending itself.”
Perhaps they’d resigned themselves to defeat on their way to the island.
Either way, he’d be fighting Hikari.
<<God knows what effect the actual Longinus would have on
Armaros, given how wild this island is.>>
<<But we can’t let them take away the replica. That would be the
worst possible scenario.>>
“What? Who’s there?” Shinji looked around the inside of the plug. The
voice sounded like…his own. Or at least, it felt like it. “What was that?”
The voices were audible representations of Shinji’s thoughts. He was
inside the Tower of Babel, the structure made by the Carriers’ staves. It
interrupted communications on the outside, but it had the opposite effect on
the inside, where thoughts and energy were transmitted at a rapid rate.
Is it happening again?
Shinji remembered the battle at Novaya Zemlya. The Carriers were
stronger inside the tower, but their conversations still proceeded at a linear
pace.
A communications boost doesn’t mean anything when I’m alone. But
the Carriers are still a lot stronger…
<<They might be disrupting our A.T. Fields.>>
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<<And we’re up against Sandalphon, an Angel particularly attuned to
volcanoes. This won’t end well.>>
Shinji gasped as he felt the ground shift beneath him. Matarael’s
corpse, which Final Model had been standing on, was beginning to
disintegrate. Its body had been splayed out over the circular boulder, its long
legs spread in four directions, but the rock was softer than he’d expected. He
began to wonder whether it was a rock at all. Either way, the Matarael Carrier
was sliding into the red-hot lava with Eva-01 Final Model still on top of it.
Shinji grunted. While the A.T. Field was supposed to protect him from
the intense heat, he still felt the liquid fire coming in from all sides. He
struggled, grasping for the rocks within his reach. But the boulders were
slippery. He couldn’t get a good grip on them. To make matters worse, he
was now experiencing tunnel vision due to the bright magma around him.
The A.I. registered the surrounding curvature and reflection as a hit to the
library, and the icon for “Designated Sealed Target” popped up. As his entire
body sank into magma, a large oval shape layered itself on top of his display.
“Chronostatic Sphere 70%.”
“Wha…?!”
THRUM!
Final Model’s heart leaped in his chest.
Why here?!
The magma behind him erupted. All he could do was wait for the
Sandalphon Carrier to fall back down.
Immediately, Shinji readied the Powered 8.
Immediately, Shinji evaded.
Immediately, Shinji switched back to his blade.
What flooded his consciousness was more than mere words. The three
actions of Final Model overlapped like pictures and then froze. The three
Evas conflicted with each other, not only in words but in motion.
“The boundary between thoughts and words isn’t the only thing getting
blurred. The possibilities… They’re overlapping!”
Why had he immediately thought of that?
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Was this another effect of the Tower of Babel? Lilith was present on
the bridge to the new world. She was the center of the Chronostatic Sphere,
the black egg…
The Carrier tackled him as he stood frozen.
“Gah!”
His back slammed into the Chronostatic Sphere.
Blood rushed to his head.
What is this thing doing here?!
<<It’s because this is the elevator to the moon!>> one of his
fragmented possibilities said.
Shinji had had a hunch that the black egg would have been relocated to
the moon after it disappeared from the old Geofront. And now, here it was,
halfway on its journey. Its next stop would be the moon itself.
Final Model, waist deep in magma, pointed the gun with his right hand,
while his left hand reached for the sphere behind him.
“Father! Ritsuko-san!” Shinji banged on the surface with his fist.
Lilith had generated the Chronostatic Sphere three years ago at the
Battle at Nerv HQ, engulfing dozens of personnel. Commander Ikari Gendo
and Dr. Akagi Ritsuko were among those lost to the sphere.
<<Communication and impact shouldn’t get through if it’s made of the
same material as the Glass Egg in Hakone.>>
<<I can’t call on Father or Ritsuko-san in that case.>>
“Shut up!” Shinji shouted down his Possibilities.
He’d yet to find closure with his estranged father, even after three
years. In fact, he’d forced himself to forget about finding closure. But how
could he when time in the sphere had stopped? No one blamed him, and he
couldn’t even blame himself. The people inside the sphere had been counted
among the dead a long time ago.
That was supposed to be the end of it. The end of his father.
So why was he so troubled by it now?
Because time is moving inside that thing!
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<<Maya said that someone worked on Super Eva on the inside to turn
him into Final Model.>>
<<Father, Ritsuko-san, they all worked on me, touched me. But I can’t
remember a thing.>>
That’s insane!
His father had carved a message into the exterior of his foot,
presumably halfway through the remodeling.
<<I observe from the far side of time.>>
Shinji could almost see his smirk.
His heart pulsed like a warning bell. Yet the Chronostatic Sphere
remained indifferent. Much like his father.
Final Model continued sinking into the lava. Pain rushed up one of his
legs. The Sandalphon Carrier had bitten it.
His vision turned upside down.
The density of the magma here was three times that of water.
Theoretically, objects tended to float more easily in heavier liquids. But the
Sandalphon Carrier had latched its maw onto the Eva and was dragging him
down into the lava.
“Dammit!”
Shots flew from the railgun at his feet. The lava absorbed most of the
energy from the bullets, so it was doubtful that any of them had hit
Sandalphon.
Final Model’s pulse rang louder than the 8’s shots now. The Eva could
sense wavelengths from another planet if the pilot was up to it. But Shinji
couldn’t spot the Sandalphon Carrier hidden in the magma, possibly because
he was finding it difficult to concentrate. He carried on firing at his legs,
risking self-harm, but it seemed to be working. The force clamped on his foot
soon faded.
Final Model continued to flail within the pool of magma. Even as his
vision dimmed, he could still make out the object of his obsession—the giant
black egg looming over him like a shadow.
Magma continued to flow, burning Eva-01 Final Model’s shoulders.
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The Chronostatic Sphere started moving, slowly rising out of the lava.
“Ooooorgh!”
Final Model spread his wings of light, pushing the black sphere, which
was larger than he was, out of the molten pool. His heart raced, and the black
disk on his back, the Time Brake, glowed. The four pylons opened and
started pushing him out.
“Aaaaargh!”
Shinji screamed with all his might as he stumbled in the magma. With
a groan, he lifted the sphere out.
But that was all he could do.
The top of the egg stopped. Something was preventing its movement,
aside from the sheer weight of the thing.
“What now?!”
Sandalphon had smacked Final Model as it stood in the lava. He lost
his balance and fell. Without any footing, he could no longer hold the
Chronostatic Sphere, and the black egg landed upon Final Model, pushing
him into the magma.
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and Sandalphon’s girth. That was what the appearance of Pattern Blue
suggested.
I can’t breathe.
Final Model attempted a counterattack, but his branching selves
blocked him.
“I won’t fall for it twice!”
Shinji took a deep breath of the LCL, bracing for the Angel’s second
attack. His possibilities split again, but they didn’t come into conflict. The
three hypothetical Final Models jumped in three different directions, each
readying his own Bizen.
The wings of light were more difficult to close than they were to
spread. Kaworu had warned him about the difficulty of returning to his
human vessel once he flew in Super Eva. Now his wings were sparking like a
jet engine. The action was more thrust and less flap.
“Hah!”
Shinji did his best to control it through his breathing. With a flash, the
wings of light subsided and then he jumped. The three strikes lopped off both
of Sandalphon’s arms.
What is this? It’s hard to breathe, but I can put out a lot of power…
The giant Angel fell into the lava, its armless body splashing about like
a flatfish. Molten orange splattered in all directions. Three blades
immediately pursued it, piercing right through its core.
I’m burning up!
And not simply because he was in a high-temperature, high-pressure
environment.
Shinji slowly pulled the Bizen out of the Angel’s flesh.
“What’s happening over there?”
Another Final Model stood in front of him. He pulled the Bizen out of
the core, and his body was covered in black outlines. Then the shade
disappeared.
“Oh… That’s me…”
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Shinji felt like he was hearing an alarm clock in his sleep; distant and
constant. The warning windows in his plug were wrenching him from his
slumber as they detected what was happening to his consciousness. He’d
been going to school, but he’d never attended any classes that taught him
how to deal with a phase-changing Final Model.
“This is bad,” Shinji said, realizing the trouble he was in. He was
carrying the world’s biggest payload, the peak of the Third Impact’s power,
and with a lit fuse, no less.
His four pylons were already working overtime to help the Time Brake
halt the discharge. His display showed the black void on his back glowing a
menacing red. If the brake failed, the Third Impact would resume.
“Eva-01 Final Model to Hakone command!” he shouted at his console,
despite the futility of it.
“Aaaargh!”
Shinji calmed himself. He was out of breath.
Why… Why am I more worried about Father than my friends and the
world?
Ikari Gendo was a stubborn man. Shinji denied any similarity between
him and his father any time someone pointed one out.
We’re not alike at all. We’re complete opposites.
He remembered his father when he spoke to Ayanami.
That was the second Ayanami. But now…
An image of Rei Trois flashed into his mind.
“Ah…”
“You have to face your father.” That’s what Misato-san would say.
Shinji felt this was inevitable, the way things were going.
I have to see Father.
And that was why he couldn’t let it all end here.
The peak of the Third Impact’s power. He couldn’t just open the lid
like a boiling kettle. He had to figure out how to direct the energy.
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Which can only mean one thing.
“I have to gather the energy—in my right hand—before it runs out of
my body!”
Ayanami Rei Trois had previously decided to travel into space as a
sniper. Shinji had escorted her into orbit himself. Upon reactivation, Eva-0.0
had photonized the excess power of the exterior S2 engine and ejected it from
the Eva.
Now, get out! Shinji said this to himself, underlining his intent. Again,
the possibilities branched. Two more Final Models walked out of Final
Model.
<<I’m holding a weapon in my right hand. I’ll use my left hand!>>
<<There’s so much power. I’ll need both hands!>>
The possible futures are being realized in this prologue to the new
myth.
“Don’t screw this up, Shinji!”
It was the first time he’d been so assertive with himself. The two Final
Models turned to look at him.
<<So that’s how it is,>> said one of the possibilities.
<<No time for second guessing now,>> said another.
The possibilities should have returned to him, since he’d decided they
were mere possibilities. “But…”
<<But even if it’s a long shot…I’d like to see it.>>
<<Only one way to find out.>>
The three Final Models formed a circle before he could explode. They
put their right hands on top of each other. The concentrated light from the
impact felt dense and heavy, pulling their arms down under the weight. The
three Evas fell to their knees, their shoulder pylons scraping against each
other.
All the possibilities lifted their hands in unison.
“Woooooaaaaargh!”
He couldn’t fall now. He still had to confront Hikari/Armaros. Then
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they would all return to Hakone together. He would talk to his father in his
own words. He couldn’t fall. Not now!
“I don’t know what I am!”
<<I don’t know what this world will become!>>
<<I don’t know what my place will be!>>
The three Final Models came together, lifting their shining right hands
to the sky.
Hear me!
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The spear turned a metallic gold as it passed through the lens, grazing
the moon before speeding away.
The great pillar of seawater rushing from the coast of Yomotsu
Hirasaka lost its momentum and collapsed.
Victorious, Eva-01 Final Model had reverted to its original state and
was now clinging to the edge of the gaping fissure.
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Chapter 25:
Retribution
The Lance of Longinus came down upon Shinji like divine retribution.
<<Above you!>>
<<The lance is coming!>>
Toji and Asuka shouted at Shinji, who’d managed to climb out of the
deep fissure.
Eva-01 Final Model looked overhead, still unsure as to what was going
on.
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A chill ran down his spine. Shinji remembered his last encounter with
the lance. It had traveled at a blinding speed of ninety kilometers per second.
By the time he saw it, the thing had gone right through him.
“Aaah!”
He remembered North Africa, how the Lance of Longinus had gouged
Super Eva’s heart right out of his chest. His hairs stood on end.
What do I do?!
There was no escaping the absurd weapon and its ability to alter its
path at will.
The giant flinched from uncontainable fear.
CRASH!
It was as if the world itself shook.
Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds passed. They felt like an
eternity.
“What…happened…?”
Final Model had raised his hands to cover his face. Now he peeked
through the gaps in his fingers.
An unsettling silence.
<<Kzzzt—This is Hakone command to Final Model.>> Hyuga’s voice
streamed into Shinji’s ears as he gazed at the sky.
<<The Lance of Longinus has stopped, ten thousand kilometers over
Yomotsu Hirasaka. I repeat, the Lance of Longinus has stopped.>>
“Phew…” The twin-pronged lance had never stopped, not since
Armaros had thrown it from the surface of the moon. It had run right through
Ayanami Rei Cinque in orbit. It had pierced Shinji’s heart in North Africa. It
had flown from the South Pacific to the archipelago like the wire of God.
The Lance of Longinus had no regard for the hopes of humanity. And
now, it had stopped.
“Heh heh…” The corners of Shinji’s lips softened as the beginning of
an awkward laugh formed.
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“Heh heh heh… Ah ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!”
<<Shinji?>>
<<You okay, bud?>>
Shinji kept laughing until he choked and started coughing. He was
wheezing in the LCL now. It was a strange feeling. But he finally felt like he
was on the scoreboard. For the first time, he saw the overwhelming force of
the enemy being thwarted.
“You can’t bring the lance down on me even after I destroyed the lens.
This island is too valuable.”
<<There’s an Ark here,>> Asuka said.
“And I saw the Chronostatic Sphere deep in the Earth. I think Lilith’s
still in there.”
Along with Father and all the rest…
They were both objects impervious to physical damage. Their presence
on this island meant that it would be the start of the new creation. The
command center buzzed as they talked about their observations like one
might talk about the weather. With communications reestablished, Final
Model, Platypus-2, and Hakone could finally compare notes.
Hyuga studied the underground vertical space and whispered to Aoba.
“That fissure looks like a cannon. Do you think they’re trying to use the
pressure to launch the sphere from our side?”
“Launch it to the moon? The new world?”
“Yeah. There’s another Ark on the moon, and I don’t think it can move
there by itself. Probably the switch from Earth to moon would be complete
with the addition of Lilith’s Sphere. If we could prevent it somehow…”
<<Shinji-kun, what did you do?!>> Maya’s voice.
I threw something… But what?
“I… I threw a spear.” Kaworu had said that much.
“I was stuck in an underground magma pool…and my hand grabbed
the spear. I threw it at the sky, thinking it was made of lava. I think Kaworu
called it the Lance of Lucresomething…”
89 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com
<<That’s it! That was the thing that shot through the tower and
shattered the spatial lens!>> Toji cut into their conversation excitedly.
Maya proceeded to tell Shinji the cost of his actions. <<It’s your
telemetry reading. It suddenly dipped by 0.13 seconds!>>
<<Wha…?! Shinji, you moron!>>
<<Listen to me!>> Maya said. <<You just used sixteen percent of the
Third Impact’s power—of your remaining life.>>
Shinji didn’t answer.
I already saw everything she’s saying on the warning windows.
<<Detecting movement on the ground. Lots of it.>> Asuka said, the
sense of urgency returning to her.
“Are they the blackish creatures we heard about?”
<<No. They’re all of uniform shape and rock solid. Match found on
database. They’re Q.R. Signums!>>
<<To the north of you, Shinji! And to the south, too!>>
The JSSDF Akashima’s icon lit up on the comms display.
<<Nerv, black plates—Q.R. Signums—are covering the ground to the
south!>>
There was a beeping sound to the right. The North American Alliance
was calling in now. There were still survivors on the ground. They’d engaged
with the Angel Carriers and were requesting pickup and air support.
<<We have survivors! The Akashima will go back them up.>>
“He’s coming,” Asuka said.
“Yeah, that’s why we’re here. Shinji’s in a good spot to put a stop to
this damned creation myth.”
Armaros was coming. They’d rushed to the island, defying orders,
specifically to confront him. To confront her. The pilot of the Euro Eva,
Hikari, who’d been transformed into the black giant after defeating him.
The scales gathered on a steep rocky mountain at the center of the
island whose peak was taller than Everest. Toji and Asuka went higher in
their Platypus-2 to get a better look.
90 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com
“So, Suzuhara, what are you gonna do when you see Hikari?”
“Well… First of all—”
Asuka looked at Toji as he stopped himself mid-sentence. She’d
always thought he was dumb, but his was the type of dumb that was fool
enough to come up with a plan. This time, however, he wasn’t prepared.
“Suzuhara?”
“Shh. Wait… What—” Toji stiffened, twitching. “Sh-shut up! Go
away!”
Asuka’s skin crawled when she heard him scream.
<<What’s going on, Asuka?!>> Shinji picked up on her distress from
inside Final Model.
“It’s Suzuhara. He’s acting weird!”
Toji returned to himself upon hearing his name. “You… You didn’t
hear that just now? This is bad. Real bad. Soryu, take over the controls!”
“I-I can’t. I don’t know how!”
The jet began slanting to the side. Toji did his best to stabilize it with
the control stick, but he looked as if he was suppressing his right hand with
his left. For some reason, he had more control of his cybernetic hand. He
raised his head with grim realization.
“Is this…your voice? I want to be wrong…but I know I’m not…”
“You’re not saying…?”
Both Toji and Asuka had observed this exact situation before. It was
what happened to the Ayanamis when they acted as the black giant’s puppets.
“It’s Hikari’s voice…” Toji said.
But Asuka didn’t understand.
“Can’t you hear it? This Armaros is talking with Hikari’s voice.”
91 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com
Chapter 26:
Ayanami
92 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com
Chapter 27:
A New Mouthpiece
93 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com
down safely. But that thing… It’s crying.>>
Final Model stopped in midair after being reassured of their safety. He
now saw countless animals of all shapes and sizes running after the giant
beast. The creatures moved with an unnatural speed. Their bodies weren’t
even built to go that fast. Perhaps these were the creatures the Akashima had
seen, the humans who’d lost their form after being overwhelmed by the Ark’s
life-form data.
“What?!”
They jumped into the giant body like it was a pool, melting into it.
The beast swelled as it absorbed each and every creature. Its claws
raked the earth over and over, scattering broken fragments of Q.R. Signums
everywhere. It was as if it was trying to prevent itself from absorbing them.
But all across the animal’s gigantic body, the black scales stood erect. It lifted
its newly formed arm like a weapon, and the body of the new black giant
appeared at last.
“Eva-01 Final Model to Hakone command. Armaros sighted. E4,
twenty seconds, sixty percent of tentative map. Subject armed with… Is that
a trombone? It looks like a musical instrument…”
<<That’s the positron rifle.>> Euro Eva Heurtebise’s rifle had been
transformed in both shape and size.
The Platypus-2 found a relatively flat piece of ground, and it shifted
into landing gear and began its descent upon the soft moss. On the other side
of the hill, the giant beast was attacking Armaros. Flames blew out of the
black giant’s instrument.
On this strange island, their adversary now faced a representative of all
non-human species.
94 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com
Chapter 28:
Wrath of the Beast
95 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com
Misato stood silent next to him, not sure what to make of his statement.
The Kaji-vessel concluded, “But it would be a different story if they
got their hands on a core.”
As the flock flew away. Asuka saw a small white figure run into the
forest, as if giving chase.
“Wait…Mari?!”
Asuka put her hands on the throttle of the idling Platypus-2. She
clicked her tongue, “Ugh! I would’ve learned how to fly this thing if I knew
this would happen!” She started rifling through the equipment to see if there
was anything she could use.
“Mari… Mari what…?” Toji said, looking at her.
Asuka slapped his leg. “You pick now, of all times, to be useless?!”
She opened the cockpit.
<<Ikari-kun…>>
Shinji could hear it now. “Vice Rep…”
Hikari’s voice.
Final Model confronted the Armaros as birds flew off on either side of
him.
96 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com
“How about you get out of that thing, and we can all go back to Tokyo-
3 together?”
<<I can’t…>>
“Why—”
But the black giant pointed her gun at him before he could finish.
“Dammit!”
The positron rifle flashed. He managed to erect an A.T. Field, Bizen
still in hand, to repel it. But the knockback proved too great, and Final Model
tumbled from the impact. Armaros closed the distance within those few steps.
She swung the stock of her glowing rifle right past Bizen and into Final
Model’s throat.
WHACK!
It knocked all 3,500 tons of him into the air.
“Gah!”
The force felt like it would stop his breathing.
Maybe I don’t even need to breathe, since I only exist in an Eva’s
dream.
But the pain rattled his mind.
No! If I don’t fight her, I’m going to lose.
“Not that I wanna win, either!”
The body of the Euro Eva was close to two times its original size now.
Perhaps this happened to everything possessed by Armaros.
Final model crashed into an idyllic forest. Shinji felt the incoming shot
before he could see it. He spread his wings of light just enough to nudge him
away from the positron rifle’s gamma-ray burst.
Toji realized that Asuka had left him alone after they’d landed. He
roused himself, opening the throttle.
<<Stop it, Hikari!>>
The Platypus-2 flew again with a roar of its graviton floaters.
97 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com
<<I killed them… Destroyed them… Destroyed! Destroyed!>>
Armaros’ rifle had gained a bayonet, and it was now carving a circle
into the ground. Chunks of earth flew all around, several of them hitting the
jet’s shields.
<<You didn’t intend to!>>
<<But I carried it out with these hands!>>
Now linked to Armaros, Toji needed no words to understand the reality
of Hikari’s situation.
<<I can feel the pain of everything I destroyed, the deaths of everyone
I killed! I can feel it flow through my arms!>>
“Urgh!”
<<Help me, Toji!>>
The sight was beyond description. Human lives ended as quickly as
their bodies scattered. A major city was leveled in an instant. He didn’t know
how to save her after being confronted with such a vision. For an instant, the
stage went still.
And then…
THRUM!
THRUM!
Final Model’s heart, Shinji’s heart, pulsed from deep within the
mountain ridge.
<<I must stop…that noise.>> Hikari’s voice was monotone.
“Why?! That’s Shinji’s heart!”
<<You’re getting too close, Toji!>> Shinji shouted from the shadow of
the rock.
He’s trying to distract me by making me focus on Horaki!
<<With time…humanity will have no need for words or thoughts as a
basis for their actions. They shall have something purer.>>
“What are you talking about?!”
No one knew where Armaros started and Hikari ended. The words
98 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com
belonged to Hikari, and with her superior vocabulary, she could convey
things the Ayanamis couldn’t.
<<In a word, it’s the pulse. The rhythm that misleads life.>>
Toji blocked Armaros’ path. The black giant suddenly crumbled,
melting into the ground. Countless Q.R. Signums slipped right under the
Platypus-2.
“No! She’s going your way, Shinji!”
Shinji saw the first hints of Q.R. Signum form out of the rock he was
hiding behind and backed away. But it was too late. An arm protruded from
the pool of black scales, caught him, and knocked him to the ground.
The rest of Armaros’ body emerged from the rocks, which had acted as
her shield. She shoved the bayonet of the positron toward his heart, where the
Center Trigonus was located.
99 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com
100 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com
<<That is why I must erase your pulse!>>
Shinji grabbed the barrel, redirecting the fatal shot. The bullet exploded
into the ground behind Final Model, and he took advantage of the blast to
tackle Armaros.
Unfortunately, the black giant was already sinking back into the rock
wall. Hikari’s voice echoed over the broken valley.
<<Humanity will continue to hope as long as that thing exists! It will
continue to connect the rhythm of life! We cannot proceed to the new
stage!>>
The sound reverberated through the mountain.
“Why can’t I detect the effect?!”
The barrel of the rifle caught Shinji off guard as it swept his feet out
from under him.
<<We cannot proceed if the Human Instrumentality Project is not
brought to completion, no matter how many times we repeat this world!>>
Shinji activated his wings in panic. Hikari would know to go after his
feet. He remembered the struggle against this strategy of hers back in
Hokkaido. He’d hoped to cross the Armaros bridge when she got here, but
that ship had long since sailed.
“That’s enough!”
Toji couldn’t argue with Hikari when her thoughts were being
transmitted directly into his brain. He was talking to her now, not through
telepathy but through the Novaya Zemlya communications protocol.
“Let’s talk about this, Hikari!”
<<Why?>>
He heard Hikari’s voice as she fired at Eva-01 Final Model in the sky.
“Why?”
<<I don’t need words to talk with you anymore, Toji. See? I can
communicate with you just fine.>>
A SUKA HAD DEPLANED the Platypus-2 and was speeding away from it
on the dirt bike Toji had loaded into the cargo section. It was the same bike
Toji had used in Hokkaido as Nerv’s attaché, when he’d gone up and down
the northern mountains in search of Euro Rapid Response soldiers who’d
crash there. The bike was as battered as the heavy VTOL that carried it.
She was getting used to driving around the uneven terrain, but without
a destination, she was still wasting time. Could she really catch up with Mari?
I should’ve given this some thought…
Meanwhile, the birds that had flown north changed course, passing by
her overhead. Asuka dropped her eyes back to the road…and saw Mari and a
golden retriever. They were still following the flock.
“Mari! Azuchi!”
Mari gave her a passing glance, but Azuchi actually barked in
response. Neither of them stopped, however.
Tokyo-3.
Rei Quatre, bored of waiting for Seele/Kaji/Kaji, got off the mutant
Eva that was parked on the top deck of HQ and made her way to
Sengokuhara High School. This would be the second time Quatre had been to
the school layered under Shinji’s dream. She’d been far away last time and
only went to school when she was asleep. Now she broadcast her intentions
over the Ayanami mental mirroring.
<<I think I’ll walk today.>>
For once, Rei Trois wasn’t under troublesome security surveillance, so
she told Quatre how to get there.
“Well then…”
Quatre and Six had accepted Trois’ invitation to talk. All she could do
now was wait.
The school was restless as it entered break time. Turncoat Quatre
looked very similar to Trois, so she’d passed unnoticed. But the seat behind
her shuffled suddenly. This was what drew the class’s attention.
She turned around. “Suzuhara-kun? I thought you were supposed to be
at Yomotsu Hirasaka.”
Toji’s figure was hazy.
“This is…the classroom. I’m still in the middle of a fight.”
“You know this classroom is Ikari-kun’s dream, don’t you? It pulls the
consciousness of his classmates into itself. You have to go back. You might
lose your physical body.”
Quatre smirked, pressing her hand on Toji’s chest like she was about to
push him. The hustle and bustle of their classmates continued unabated.
“You’re…Quatre? Ayanami Quatre…I need a favor.”
“I’m getting a lot of requests today.”
A SUKA WAS TRAILING MARI with her dirt bike on Yomotsu Hirasaka.
At times, she saw flashes of light rise over the ridgelines. Shinji’s Eva-01
Final Model was locked in combat with Hikari’s Armaros. Toji’s Platypus-2
was there, too, provided he hadn’t crashed yet. Meanwhile, she was still
trying to retrieve her weapon. Mari knew where it was and had gone ahead.
Somewhere on this island, deep inside this forest, was Mari’s Eva,
reconstituted as a giant beast by the spatial lens, and upon its forehead,
Asuka’s Eva-02.
Asuka had followed a strange path so far. She hoped to be reunited
with her own Eva at the end of it. That said…
Why am I even doing this?
A good part of her questioned her actions.
Both of them had been exposed to the Ark before. Asuka was protected
by the powerful properties of the new orichalcum plugsuit, but she wondered
how it was with Mari.
Little Mari was leading her pack. She moved like a cat, climbing up
trees and rushing through groves. She didn’t saltify, but the effects of the life-
form data were becoming apparent. She had ears on top of her head and had
sprouted a tail for balance. Her nails turned into claws that gripped and
kicked the ground beneath her. She was faster than a child now. Indeed, her
current speed was inhuman.
For as long as she could remember, Mari’s DNA had been spliced with
genes from other animals. She had no sense of self. But she never considered
this a disadvantage. If anything, she found the wind that invaded her
humanity comforting.
Asuka did her best to follow her on the dirt bike.
The tests run at Hakone said she was wiped of all traces of foreign
DNA. What’s going on?
“Sorry, Suzuhara.” Asuka and Azuchi watched as the bike fell off
the other side of the giant. She looked to the beast’s head and saw Eva-02.
While features from its days as the Asuka/Eva synthesis remained, it had
regained most of its original design.
In a distant forest over the mountains, rays of light flashed with
explosions.
Must be Armaros’ positron rifle.
Could Shinji actually fight Hikari?
Fortunately, the beast’s quadrupedal movement didn’t cause much
turbulence to the head.
Will this thing even move? Asuka thought, as they approached Eva-02.
The mechanical parts activated, as if to put her worries to rest. Asuka
and Azuchi fell into the ejected entry plug. She looked around and found that
the virtual displays were all lit up.
“Hunh. It’s on? It’s activated?!”
She was shocked. The plug wasn’t even inside Eva-02 yet.
Asuka gripped the controller, but it gave no response. The readings on
the display didn’t make sense to her.
“Okay, what the hell is going on here?”
Azuchi barked, as if prompted by her surprise. The graphs on the
screen scattered like a pack of animals.
“I guess the one who tried to eat me is still around.”
Was Eva-02 part of Wolfpack now, as its appearance suggested?
Despite being powered up, she didn’t feel that unique pressure from the
front of the entry plug where the core resided. It emitted no A.T. Field, no
barrier of individuality. Instead, it allowed itself to be covered by Wolfpack’s
Final Model brought the blade of the Bizen down on Armaros, and
she blocked it with her serpent head gauntlet. The two giants were locked in a
test of strength, casting their shadows over the forest.
<<The world to come…has been prepared.>>
Shinji didn’t know what to do against Hikari/Armaros anymore.
<<There is no reason…for the future of this world.>>
Could he really persuade her to stop?
Asuka’s tragic “Probably not” sank into his mind. Could he bring
himself to defeat Hikari if it came to it? But even if he were to sacrifice
Hikari, the tidings from Hakone weren’t exactly optimistic. Shinji and Final
Model would simply become the new Armaros in her place. His heart would
be consumed by the enemy.
There was no solution.
His head was burning up. He had to come up with a way out of this.
The Platypus-2 fighter jet was still in the air, but Toji had grown
quieter and quieter. All the big words they’d said in Hakone before heading
out seemed pathetic now.
Never mind that. What am I going to do with Horaki-san?!
<<Nerv Japan Super Eva coded Evangelion, step away from
Armaros!>>
A shout came through the open communication frequency several
dozens of kilometers out in the ocean.
“Huh?! Who’s there?!” Shinji said.
<<Hang on, that’s JSSDF code!>>
Before Toji could confirm it, one of Akashima’s wingmen—Shrike
Two, equipped with the same engine as the Platypus-2—approached them to
Wolfpack made the first move. It opened its maw to reveal a bluish-
white ring lining its mouth. Even after being broken up and reconstituted by
the spatial lens, the United States Eva had retained the particle accelerator it
received after consuming Ramiel. The ring fired a bluish-white beam.
Armaros manifested a field over her serpent head gauntlet and
deflected the beam with her left arm.
Wolfpack closed its mouth, but it hadn’t given up yet. Its hairs stood
on end as it opened its maw again. This time, two particle accelerating rings
lined its mouth. This second beam was brighter than the first.
Armaros blocked again with her field-reinforced left arm, but the recoil
was so great that the black giant was knocked back.
Even so.
“Hikari! Can you hear me?”
Armaros growled in a stagnant, though still human, voice. <<A…su…
ka…>>
But she lifted the goose-necked muzzle of the Field Piercer and aimed
it at Wolfpack.
“I wanted to thank you, Hikari!”
Eva-02 remained dormant atop the giant Wolfpack’s crest. Asuka
shouted from within the protruding plug, the wind whipping her hair.
“I know you and your Eva saved me and Unit Two countless times!”
If Mari—Wolfpack—was headed to the Ark, then Armaros was sure to
stand in their way.
But the black giant looked like she was wavering as she prepared her
next attack. <<Your mother…is within…my Heurtebise…and your Eva…>>
Armaros fired the Devil’s Backbone. Wolfpack anticipated the attack
and leaped into the air. The phase light grazed Eva-02 on the giant beast’s
Black roots covered the sky over Hakone, weaving together. Misato
went out onto the terrace and looked up “What is this?”
“Impossible!” Even Seele/Kaji was surprised. “How did it manifest
itself in the third dimension?!”
“Wooowie!”
Little Rei Six whistled to herself as she looked at the roots in the sky.
Eva-0.0 Type-F had been tasked with suppressing Trois’ siege, and she was
currently headed northwest from the caldera toward Nagao Pass, where she
could assume sniping position.
The roots were intertwined, leading to a trunk high in the sky.
Countless thinner tendrils hung down from the thicker roots, though their tips
disappeared before they could reach the ground.
As Kaji had suggested, the roots spread all over the observable world.
Indeed, they were now covering the moon.
But their expedition didn’t stop there. One of the roots disappeared
toward the sun’s surface, like a fuse about to be lit.
“Asuka?!”
<<What the…?! Are these…roots?>>
Hakone command had momentarily lost Asuka’s signal from Yomotsu
Hirasaka Island, due to the appearance of the tunnel network. Her voice was
choppy now, and they had zero visuals.
“Hakone command to Final Model!”
<<Understood. Heading there now!>>
The phenomenon had spared Final Model from being skewered, but
they couldn’t afford to tarry.
Meanwhile, Aoba noticed a point of similarity among the reports
coming in about the World Tree. He notified Commander Katsuragi Misato.
“So, this was only visible immediately after the phenomenon
appeared.”
He brought the video over to the command seat.
“The thin, vertical roots hanging from the thick horizontal roots
disappeared before they could reach the ground, but they were reported to
have been sucking something up.”
The video was blurry, but it did look like there were lumps traveling up
the roots.
“They appear to be rocks and boulders, but I don’t think they’re
sucking up the ground. We can no longer see this happening.”
“How are we supposed to tell what this is?” Misato filed the
information away for later and returned her attention to the battlefield.
It was then that a distressed Maya barged into the command center.
“Who let Asuka pilot Unit Two?!”
Eva-02 had reappeared on Yomotsu Hirasaka, attached to the U.S.
Eva-02 was running with the Bizen while the mountainous Wolfpack
roared like a barrage of artillery. It pointed its gaping maw up and fired its
particle beam at the sky.
“S O IT’S STUPID SHINJI’S FAULT that the land battle turned into an
aerial battle!”
Asuka’s battlefield had gained a new dimension.
“Hikari!”
She still referred to Armaros by her friend’s name as the black giant
flew higher into the air. The two Torwächters now attacked like they were
rappelling on ropes. Their flight paths were easy to read on an individual
level, but the fact that she had to face two of them at once made predicting
their movements much harder.
Asuka tried predicting their maneuvers based on the fulcrums attached
to the roots but to no avail.
“This…isn’t…fair!”
To make matters worse, their momentum changed every time they
hopped from one trunk to another. She was currently equipped with the Bizen
Osafune, the longsword that Shinji had left behind. As far as swords went, it
had extraordinary reach, but it wasn’t designed to fight aerial enemies.
<<Hakone command to Unit Two. Fall back to the battleship! You
have weapons waiting for you.>>
<<This is the battleship Yamato. We are currently fifty clicks away
from the southeast shore of the island. ETA—>>
Whatever it was, she didn’t have time for it. To think that my Unit Two,
the first Eva aside from the specially equipped Unit Zeros to achieve flight,
would be reduced to this!
“Dammit! If only the Allegorica unit were reproduced, too! I flew to
the moon with that thing!” Asuka gritted her teeth.
Wait…what?
She felt a spine-chilling déjà vu as she looked at the sky, like she was
On the other side of the island, the JSSDF Akashima had regrouped
with the remaining forces of the North American Alliance. The three aerial
attack platforms, whose mission was to explode the Ark with their N2
charges, were somehow spared the fate of saltification and beastification,
despite their proximity to the Ark. The crew of the Akashima, a robot
equipped with similar N2 technologies, had also remained human.
They’d managed to repel a Sachiel-type Angel Carrier with a saturation
attack. Now they were fending off black creatures that crawled out of the
ground, ever-shifting, neither animate nor inanimate. The creatures were
fragments of life-form data that had spilled out of the Ark, pitiful but still
dangerous.
Humanity fought back, not to be defeated by these incomplete life-
forms. Soldiers fired their guns from the ground, while the American attack
platforms used their aerial battery to lay waste to their opponents with
depleted uranium that rained across the battlefield like a storm.
Supersonic downpour and the bloodied remains of black monsters fell
upon the beautiful forest. Overhead, scavengers circled the battlefield,
salivating as their feast of carrion was prepared for them.
A loud rumble echoed from the earth, louder than all the artillery fire.
Fresh greenery sprouted from dark red ground, rippling through the
battlefield like a shadow, again and again.
“This is unreal!” the pilot of the Akashima’s upper body said.
“The American attack platforms deployed on the coastal LZ have
<<Commander?>>
<<The shell is resonating…Dr. Akagi…cease operations…do not
make a sound…>>
Shinji’s voice called out to her. <<Final Model to Unit Two. Asuka,
just hang in there! I’m on my way!>>
Asuka had one hand on the control stick to swing the Bizen as the
fingers of her left hand played with the loosening zipper on her collar.
“Hikari… She’s looking at something.”
Her right arm lurched wildly, and the Bizen swung diagonally, as if
cutting the sky itself.
“I have to go after her now, or I’ll lose her.”
The Torwächters rotated their spindles, but she deflected their
projectiles.
“I have to go!”
She pulled the release tab on her neck. The zipper of her specially
crafted orichalcum plugsuit came loose in the LCL, immediately slipping
down her shoulders as the resin contracted.
“Huff!”
Asuka’s skin burned as the connection between her and the Eva
intensified. She remembered the agony she’d felt when the flood of life-form
data overwhelmed her, disintegrating her physical body.
And yet, she wasn’t afraid.
Stay with me.
Something was in the Eva-02. Time and time again, that something had
lent her its power. It was the force that had allowed her to return when Hikari
called out to her.
As the black giant, Hikari had confirmed the existence of this
something.
<<Your mother…is within…my Heurtebise…and your Eva…>>
Trois’ rebellion had been swept under the rug now that Armaros was
approaching. She’d been ordered to stay within the Glass Egg, though no one
Six suddenly felt a sudden, sickening chill that made her want to throw
up. It was as if a mass of negativity was pointing at her, staring at her. She
leaped away.
BOOM!
The explosion grazed Eva-0.0 Type-F and blew away Nagao Pass,
where it had just been standing.
“What was that?!”
The command center watched as the northwestern rim of Tokyo-3 was
blown to pieces.
“The enemy’s Field Piercer!”
“You mean the Devil’s Backbone that Euro Eva had before it turned
into Armaros?!”
Part of the mountainside was engulfed by the implosion, while the
surrounding area was blown away by the shock waves generated from the
impact. A giant mushroom cloud rose into the sky as dust rained down on
Tokyo-3.
The Angel’s Backbone was the ultimate firearm. It could pierce any
A.T. Field. The right arm and leg of Six’s Eva-0.0 Type-F had been fused
into the barrel in order to stabilize the shot.
Heurtebise, however, was equipped with the Devil’s Backbone, a Field
Piercer crafted out of an Eva’s spine and powered by a Q.R. Signum. The
mind of the core was severely twisted, but in exchange, the weapon was
hideously strong, as strong as the experimental Neyarl.
“Line 736 and its tunnel have burned down!”
“Be careful!”
<<I can still do this!>>
Six pressed on, flying over the mountain ridge to avoid firing at the
<<Not…there…>>
“That voice!”
<<Stay away…from my home.>>
The voice came from the roots in the sky, and it could only belong to
one person.
“Asuka?!” Misato watched as Zeruel’s arms extended from the roots
and chased after Armaros.
“What?!”
The Asuka/Eva synthesis, Crimson A1, had gained Zeruel’s razor-
sharp feelers as it consumed the life-form data of the Ark. They wrapped
themselves around Armaros’ right arm and yanked it up, dragging the black
giant away, even though she was twice Crimson A1’s size. This was the
power of the roots’ quantum flow. Even Armaros was helpless to resist, and
she disappeared into the thick primary root.
Armaros and Asuka/Eva synthesis dipped and bobbed, in and out of the
roots, shooting and slashing at each other.
“Asuka?!” Rei Six called out to her.
Crimson A1 responded in a monotone voice. <<Tell Shinji…to do
something…about that idiot Suzuhara…>>
“But I thought Toji turned into a Torwächter on Yomotsu Hirasaka!”
<<He did… Just look outside for a second…>>
And with that, the two giants were carried away by the roots’ current,
away from Hakone.
“Asuka bought us some time.”
“Not much,” Kaji said. “One wrong move, and she’ll be back.”
“Yui!”
Gendo desperately called out to the figure standing on the mutant Eva.
The woman smiled lovingly back at him.
<<My dear, sweet Gendo.>>
The prongs of the replica Longinus still glowed in the mutant Eva’s
hands. Yui was standing on its shoulder.
<<You will keep chasing me despite having lost all reason to. You will
exist only to pursue karma in the distant world.>>
The Carrier wings of the mutant Eva crumbled away. It began to grow
Shinji…
He felt someone call out to him and turned to face it.
“Ah!”
Shinji had returned to Yomotsu Hirasaka and was greeted by the sight
of a mushroom cloud, rising up through the roots of the World Tree and
reaching the stratosphere. Shock waves rippled out, causing the foundations
of the world to wobble. Then a pillar of flame shot straight up through the
mushroom cloud itself. Sound followed sight, and the eruption was so loud
that it knocked Eva-01 Final Model back.
Black smoke billowed. It broke through the clouds, bursting into an
aurora when it penetrated the ionosphere. It flew up into the Earth’s low
orbit, and the sun and moon illuminated it, shining over a sky that had been
colored by the roots of the World Tree.
A single point of light exited the cloud. It looked like a sphere. No, an
egg.
Realization dawned on Shinji.
Yomotsu Hirasaka had released Lilith’s Chronostatic Sphere into the
sky, into the moon.
Final Model raced after it. With Lilith gone, Earth was no longer the
stage for the Human Instrumentality Project. The planet had lost its reason for
existing. He spread his wings of light and accelerated into the heavens.
“The old HQ is inside that thing…along with it Ritsuko-san and
Father!”
<<It will be all right.>>
The U.S. Eva, Wolfpack, charged in a straight line. Its destination, the
Ark, lay in the shade of a mighty rock. Wolfpack cut through the tentacle of
an Angel Carrier that carried Shamshel, and it easily avoided the Torwächters
projectiles.
The Ark.
The key to repeating the world.
The congregation of all terrestrial life-forms.
The data of all organisms on Earth.
Both the Earth and moon possessed an Ark of their own. The two had
originally been one, but they’d been severed from each other, suddenly
invincible and incorporeal. Without a physical existence, they could only
deteriorate for all eternity.
But something had affected them.
When Asuka and Eva-02 had come into contact with the Ark on the
moon, they’d not only lost their egos but their physical shape as well, from
the amount of life-form data that had flowed into them. When they failed to
shed this excess data, the Asuka/Eva synthesis was formed.
But for Mari, becoming an amalgamated mass of genetic material was
her ideal. She’d once referred to the incomplete life-forms of the Ark as a
pitiful pack. They’d been sealed away for eternity, their only task to
accelerate the regeneration of the world.
She felt sorry for them.
Mari’s Wolfpack advanced to the Ark, intent on setting the countless
life-forms free. She didn’t know whether she’d be able to. But she was no
longer human enough to form a plan.
The girl now operated on the level of a beast.
Screams rent the air as everyone lost their balance. The whole island
was being pulled westward. The Akashima hovered over the battlefield, until
a mountainside rammed into it.
“What was that?!”
Endo would’ve been gravely injured if he weren’t strapped into his
seat. The Akashima wasn’t moving; the rest of the landscape was.
“This isn’t your regular tectonic plate shift!”
You didn’t have to be a geophysicist to know that much. The
screaming continued from down below.
The battleship Yamato had landed on the west side of the moving
island. The ship provided support at medium range as well as supplies from
Nerv Japan. At the ship’s rear deck, Shinji’s Final Model unlatched the Battle
Axe SRM-50.
Six dragged herself into the classroom. As usual, Super Eva’s entry
plug was in the center of it.
“Shinji, let everyone into the school! Nothing can destroy your dream
—the Eva’s dream—right?!” Six activated the hatch opener on the adjacent
desk.
<<Six? I don’t mind, but I’m about to…everyone…after…>>
“What? You’re breaking up!”
Six couldn’t wait for the slow-opening hatch. She stood on the tips of
her toes and smacked the surface of the plug with her little hands.
“Urgh!”
She squeezed her head through the crack like a cat.
But what she found inside was an empty seat in a darkened plug.
T HE BLACK ARMS that came down from the sky towed Yomotsu
Hirasaka at breakneck speeds.
“Oh, come on! You can’t be serious!”
All eyes were on Nerv Japan’s Eva, the giant whose body was half
made of light. He was fighting off a Gaghiel Angel Carrier. Aglow, Shinji
grabbed the larval Angel’s gigantic jaws.
Endo could only watch the strange sight through the eyes of the JSSDF
Akashima.
“That Nerv Japan Eva isn’t just glowing…it’s getting bigger! It’s
almost like—”
Final Model continued expanding as he held onto Gaghiel’s jaws. The
Carrier shrieked in pain. Now, the only part of the Eva that wasn’t glowing
was the Time Brake on its back.
<<More than half!>>
That was the amount of life span he’d used. Final Model grew to
Armaros proportions, swinging his shining battle axe.
The frozen time was released in the whirlwind, resuming the paused
power of the Third Impact. Could Shinji control it?
CRACK!
The sound reverberated across the island. Final Model’s four shoulder
pylons had fractured from the inside, wings sprouting out of each of them.
<<Break!>>
The island-pulling arm was now above Tokyo-3. Two Evas flew out of
the stump where the giant’s other arm had been—Trois’ Eva-0.0, and the
Asuka/Eva synthesis, Crimson A1.
Each wielded one of the Field Penetrators, Kesara and Basara.
They knew exactly where to strike.
“I’ll take right. You take left.”
<<Don’t boss me around.>>
Waves rocked the Hakone caldera, knocking down structures that had
been built to withstand an earthquake. The Yamato, which had landed on the
western shore of Yomotsu Hirasaka Island, was now sliding into Lake Ashi.
The orange Eva-0.0—equipped with a propulsion unit, but possessing
no airborne mobility—flew in a parabola that was practically a straight line.
Crimson A1 spiraled around it with great agility.
<<L ET ME TELL YOU a fairy tale of the lilin. Lilith was profligate.
Eve swallowed the serpent’s lies whole. Now, why did Adam do nothing to
prevent these things?>>
What are you talking about, Kaworu-kun?
<<Like I said, it’s a fairy tale. A tale in which the truth is concealed.
You see, Adam was cut down.>>
What?
<<The snake—that is, sin and evil—was part of Adam from the
beginning. To become as a god, Adam had to abandon his most human
aspects.>>
What for?
<<To see the being who granted him Lilith. And for this reason, he
was cut off.>>
See? See who?
<<The fullness…of light.>>
<<Ikari-kun!>>
Having left Toji and the others in the hands of the JSSDF, Trois’ Eva-
0.0 flung Shinji’s weapon to him. Everything was accelerated, and both her
voice and the weapon seemed slow.
“Thanks, Trois!”
He turned to grab it and then unsheathed the Magorox Stage 2.
<<Suzuhara…got Hikari out… Do you know what to do now…my
baby?>> Asuka asked.
“I know. It’d be worse if you guys took care of this problem!”
The one who killed Armaros would become the next Armaros.
<<So it’s okay if you go and sacrifice yourself…? Is that it?>>
“Well, someone has to do something. Nothing will get done if we just
sit here arguing about it. But now the Devil’s Backbone might turn into
Armaros. I don’t know what’s going on anymore.”
<<That’s rich, coming from you.>>
Armaros summoned four new Angel Carriers, but Trois’ gamma-ray
laser cannon and Asuka’s Zeruel ribbons each brought one down. Shinji took
a deep breath, and by the time he exhaled, the remaining two had been
imploded by the glimmering blade of the Magorox.
“You lined the entire blade with micro black holes?” Maya sighed with
Wolfpack and the Ark had arrived at the last stop of the tunnel network
—the Apple’s Core. It was located on the other side of the sun, and it had
been the testing ground of the first Human Instrumentality Project. Shinji’s
Lance of Lucretius had landed here, and Wolfpack pulled it out of the ground
with its mouth. This was the limit of Shinji’s consciousness. The spear that
stood at the end of the world.
The Earth and moon each had their respective Arks. Now, Mari had
taken one of them to the Apple’s Core, also known as Eden. With this loss,
the planet Shinji was on had lost the right to be called Earth or moon.
The Lance of Longinus was exiting orbit. It took the broken fragments
of the moon along with it, appearing like a whirlwind that would travel
through space. The planet that had been its long-time companion began to
move as if being pulled by the lance.
The next iteration of the Human Instrumentality Project would be
between the new Earth, which was the moon, and the Apple’s Core, which
was Eden. The two planets had quite a bit of distance to close before their
next dance.
As for the survivors of the shrunken planet formerly known as Earth,
well, they were stranded there.
“Good enough for me,” Misato remarked.
At least Shinji and the others—this iteration of them, anyway—had
managed to escape the wheel of the Human Instrumentality Project.
THE END