LNCrawler

Chapter 62: Hikari’s Homecoming

Neon Genesis Evangelion ANIMA — LNCrawler · All chapters

Chapter 62:
Hikari’s Homecoming
N ERV JAPAN BORROWED two UN transport planes designed to carry Eva-sized cargo. The flight to Morocco took sixteen hours, and an aurora danced overhead the entire time. Even in high altitudes, the air now carried a strong electric potential difference. Despite having avoided any thunderclouds, one mid-sized accompanying plane was struck by lightning out of the clear blue sky and had to turn around due to mechanical trouble.
But the most unsettling sight was the impossibly large depression in the ground, centered near Kyrgyzstan but reaching from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in China all the way to Kazakhstan. The earth was pushing in all around the depression and formed wrinkle-like chasms that consumed everything that got sucked in.
Since time immemorial, the region had been a frequent site for large earthquakes. There, beneath the tectonic plates, several of the mantle’s convection systems met and flowed downward, creating what was thought to be Earth’s only super cold plume. The Eurasian continent owed its size to the mantle’s flow toward this geological drainage pipe; the tectonic plates followed the flow and settled there like leaves during a storm.
The Earth’s mantle was mostly solid and had never flowed with any considerable speed. But with the Earth continuing to lose its inner mass, the slow-moving structure had begun to disappear. Much like honey poured from a jar, once the initial state of cohesion was broken, the flow didn’t stop.
As the Acting Deputy Commander of Nerv Japan, Toji couldn’t say it, but he thought—
This scale of catastrophe isn’t something humanity can do anything about.
On the inside, Toji was deeply troubled. And so was everyone else who saw it.
Their destination in Morocco was just barely within the transport ships’ fuel range, but due to the global disasters, the African side was unable to secure the fuel necessary for the return trip. Seeing no other choice, Nerv Japan had sought assistance from Europe as part of their countries’ obligation to the United Nations.
The countries balked at first, but, surprisingly, when word got out that Nerv Japan’s Acting Deputy Commander Toji Suzuhara was in charge of the operation, the air forces of several countries independently sent out aerial refueling tankers to help.
The survivors of the failed mission to assault Nerv Japan remembered how Toji—the Japanese high-school kid with a funny accent—had crisscrossed the mountains of northern Japan to offer aid and repatriation to the soldiers whose planes had crashed there. Now they were repaying their debt.
At the time, Toji had claimed he ran the rescue operation because he wanted to look good, but once he’d learned that Hikari was Euro-II’s pilot, he’d purposefully worked to build common ground with the Europeans.
Inside the temporary CIC in the giant-transport plane, the commander of the Akashima, Lieutenant Colonel Kasuga (superior of the pilot, Warrant Officer Endo) watched Toji looking at the main screen.
“Do good for others,” the soldier said, “and you do good for yourself, don’t they say?”
His ulterior motive having been correctly sussed out, Toji looked away and curtly replied, “Please, leave me be.”
An electronic tone beeped, and the pilot announced in English that the plane was approaching its destination. The chaos at the Atlas Mountains had largely subsided, and the European and African armies had separated and formed battle lines.
Nerv Japan’s arrival had been approved both on the UN level and with the involved nations, and African fighter jets had been escorting Nerv Japan’s fleet for some time now.
Apparently, a lot had happened on the ground, and a dangerous situation could still break out without warning. But for now, both the European and African forces were busy evacuating their wounded.
All around Toji, the soldiers and crew went into a flurry of activity, and the paratroopers began their preparations.
“We’re counting on you,” Toji said to Kasuga.
The Lieutenant Colonel offered a grin. “Well, you have our family hostage, so we’ll do the job right—even if we have to ad lib.”
“Ah… Your family, huh?” The dogs.
In the cargo hold of the lead transport plane was Akashima, separated into three containers. Toji had asked the JSSDF for the Akashima’s support because no other heavy machinery was readily available to help on the scene. Without the anti-Angel mechanized giant’s help, if the four-thousand-metric-ton Super Eva toppled over on this irregular terrain, they’d be stuck here for too long.
Well, he had one other option. He could have brought down Ayanami Six’s Eva-0.0 from orbit, where it remained fully operational, if in a suspended state. But that would have meant taking Six from Hakone.
“Azuchi, Momo,” said little Ayanami Rei Six inside a small park within the Nerv Japan HQ’s grounds. Two large golden retrievers walked up to her.
Near Six, the three N-Type monitoring robots cowered with fear at the approach of the large dogs. As before, they hid in a single-file line behind the girl—but this time there were two dogs, and hiding from both simultaneously wasn’t possible.
When they realized that fact, the cowardly consorts began pushing each other toward the dogs, each seeking to use its companions as a shield.
Ignoring her robots’ unsightly fracas, Six threw her arms around the dogs’ necks.
As the pilot of Nerv Japan’s only remaining Evangelion, Unit-00 Type-F, Six was the vanguard of the HQ’s garrison, which had been left under Fuyutsuki’s temporary command, and her job was to stay here at the ready.
“Shake!” she said. “No, my hand, not my head.”
Due to the circumstances, Toji had requested the JSSDF send Akashima overseas to cooperate in the recovery, and the request went through easier than he’d expected.
When most of the water drained from Lake Ashi, something had appeared from its former depths, and the Japanese government had asked to form a joint investigation with Nerv Japan.
Well, every relationship requires give and take.
A buzzer went off, signaling it was time for the first team to jump.
When Toji landed, he removed his mask and observed his surroundings from the cockpit.
He switched the Akashima from ground-effect cruising mode to bipedal mode, and the mechanized giant’s wings folded away. Beside the mecha, several N 2 Flankers landed—canopies open, turbines switched off.
The Akashima had been a testing unit for the graviton floaters in Eva-02 Allegorica’s wings, and now Toji was using the robot to walk on this distant land.
But still, he remarked, “Man, this thing doesn’t have a toilet, a bed, or a refrigerator!”
Then he said, “Yo!”
He greeted the approaching giant. It was white, aside from a deep crimson patch on its left shoulder.
<< Long time no see, >> replied Hikari’s voice from the Heurtebise.
“How’s it going?”
<< I’ve been better. >>