Chapter 52: Ayanami Trois
Chapter 52:
Ayanami Trois
Ayanami Trois
“S
HINJI-KUN, WITHDRAW!”
Misato shouted. “You need to collect yourself!”
Left behind, Misato couldn’t help but feel powerless. She tried to get through to Shinji, but he persisted in ineffectually charging his enemy.
“Trois,” she said, “we’re heading out. Aida-kun, I need you to try to move.”
“I’m not leaving,” Trois responded.
Trying to escape from beneath the feet of fighting giants was an exercise in futility. Battles took place over a larger area than typical ground conflicts, but predicting which way the giants would move was difficult and ultimately harder to deal with than even an air raid.
But I have to get us away from here,
Misato told herself.
Not for myself but for the children. What was I doing bringing kids into a war? I guess it’s a little late for regret, isn’t it?
“Trois!” she called out.
Rei Trois hadn’t moved. She gazed vacantly in the direction Super Eva had gone, while standing fully exposed to the force that turned humans into pillars of salt.
She hadn’t told Misato that her shielding gear was broken. She didn’t want to tell anyone.
It was as if she had been told,
You’re nothing but an object that happens to think.
“I can’t save him,” Trois said.
“What?”
She spoke aloud, though only to herself. “Even though we all stem from the same soul, Quatre, Cinq, and Six can express their own selves, no matter what form they take. But I can’t. I’m not even worth turning into a pillar of salt.”
Unsteadily, Ayanami Rei Trois walked away.
“Trois!” Misato called out to her. “Where are you going? You can’t go that way!”
She tried to chase after the girl, but Kensuke couldn’t keep up, and she had to stop.
Instead, she stayed with the wounded boy. When they both looked up again, Trois had vanished between the rocks and the white hail that bounced off of them.