Chapter 10: Where Memories Lie
Chapter 10:
Where Memories Lie
THE TWO TORWÄCHTERS showed up unannounced in a small hamlet on the Euro-German mountain range near the Rhine.
Torwächter B, the one in possession of Shinji’s heart, stood still on the outskirts of town where it had first appeared. The giant looked like an empty suit of armor, fully recovered from the battle of Novaya Zemlya. The dissection marks the battle had left were barely discernible.
THRUM!
Though Torwächter B stood perfectly still, its pulse still echoed menacingly.
Asuka/Eva—Torwächter A1—on the other hand, had begun infiltrating the small town.
The Euro Eva, Heurtebise, was currently undergoing repairs to deal with the damage it had suffered at Novaya Zemlya. Its engineers were also using the opportunity to equip it with tech that would hopefully take care of the giant moon rock on a collision course with Earth. Suffice it to say, Heurtebise’s pilot wasn’t with the Evangelion right now. She was at the feet of the sneaking Torwächter.
Her escorts wasted no time warning her and immediately started to extract her from the dangerous situation. “Wait!” Hikari said. She held a bouquet of flowers in her hand and had made up her mind to deliver it.
“I think she… Asuka wants to see her, too.”
Hikari was in town to visit a certain individual who was hospitalized there.
Torwächter A1 raised her sharp heel to keep walking.
You’ll step on someone!
She stopped as soon as she remembered those words. Shinji had said something similar at some point.
The dark red giant carefully navigated around the cars and buildings, walking much slower now to avoid causing damage.
But try as she might, the gigantic, multi-thousand-ton humanoid could only be so careful. The plate hanging from its back left the ground in a state of utter chaos. While Asuka/Eva didn’t move with quite enough force to leave a trench wherever she went, the plate still acted like a broom, sweeping objects away like dust. The ground shook, the streets were littered with rubble, the power lines were cut, and the trees were felled.
Two Tornados equipped with penetrator charges had been dispatched after the appearance of the Torwächters and were currently circling the small mountain town, though they showed no signs of attacking. Protocol bound them to observe before using artillery, and the pilots had resolved to keep what little order there was left.
Besides, Horaki Hikari was down at the Torwächter’s feet.
The Japanese high school girl was Heurtebise’s only pilot and Europe’s only Evangelion pilot. Losing her would permanently impair their firepower.
She was the one who’d asked them not to lay a hand on Asuka/Eva.
“Weird enough she’s choosing to stay, but why does she insist on not evacuating the rest of the area?”
The fighter pilots had reason to worry. A skirmish here could produce a second Novaya Zemlya, which, considering the state of the world, might spell the end of the European continent.
Asuka’s mother was asleep.
There had been fluctuations in her brain waves several hours ago, but she was equipped with implants that created a calming environment. Her body rejected drugs after being exposed to them for too long, and now her brain had to be maintained by nanomachines working through an exterior electromagnetic network. Her doctors told Hikari that she was not to be disturbed until they could figure out the cause of the fluctuations, which happened in the shallows of her memory’s neural network.
“That’s all right,” Hikari said.
She proceeded to wheel the smartbed Asuka’s mother lay upon into an elevator. Their destination was the roof.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am. Asuka’s with me today. We’re here to see you.”
Hikari had requested the facility’s administrators let the Asuka/Eva synthesis see her mother. They’d been reluctant at first, but she added, “If you don’t let her see her mother, she might destroy this place while looking for her.”
The administrators had relented.
The mountain town wasn’t just a scenic healthcare facility. It was, in fact, one of Europe’s Evangelion research facilities. It also acted as a holding area for failed pilot candidates. Those who weren’t chosen by Heurtebise would spend the rest of their lives here under strict observation. The town also held individuals who possessed highly sensitive information.
But even if Asuka’s mother were to wake now, she wouldn’t recognize her own daughter.
Hikari thought it was a cruel irony. The vestiges of her consciousness in Eva-02 had asked Hikari to take care of her daughter in North Africa. The same entity was probably what had protected her on the moon and had desperately tried to save her by forming the Asuka/Eva synthesis.
That kind of herculean effort would tear anyone to pieces.
What was left of Asuka’s mother had melted into her daughter’s Eva. Hikari doubted whether the soul of this pale woman with sunken cheeks would ever come back to her body.
The door opened. They were greeted by the sound of Torwächter B’s beating heart and the melody of A1’s graviton floaters. Hikari’s eyes adjusted to the sunlight, and she saw that the glistening red-and-black body of Torwächter A1 cast a shadow over the rooftop.
“At least the patient’s out of direct sunlight.”
Hikari took the lead, as the rest of the facility’s personnel showed no intention of leaving the safety of the elevator. She pushed the stick of the smartbed forward and walked toward Asuka.
Asuka remained still.
“Is she…hesitating?”
Hikari gave it some thought before answering. “I think she’s surprised at how small her mother seems… Being in an Evangelion has that effect on people.”
“Is that really so surprising?”
“Yes, actually. Especially when you’re used to seeing that person loom over you…”
Hikari remembered how Toji had looked in the cockpit of the N2 Flanker.
There was a rumbling noise as Asuka/Eva contracted her muscles. She extended her arm, which made everyone present save Hikari flinch and take a step back. Hikari stood stalwart next to the smartbed and looked the giant straight in the eye. She hovered her middle and index fingers over the bed to signal what her friend should be doing.
“Hey, Asuka.” Hikari didn’t know whether the Asuka/Eva synthesis had heard her, but the red giant had cast the shadow of her finger over her sleeping mother.
“I’m sorry for yelling at you about Toji. I know you were trying to save him. Thank you.”
The way you are now, I wonder if you have any reason left to fight…
“Ritter, the patient!”
One of the personnel noticed the change. Though Asuka’s mother was still asleep, her frozen expression was slowly melting into a smile.
“—!”
The things that existed outside her closed eyelids were the stuff of nightmares. A red giant with black streaks gazed upon her, its red arm covering the sky like a bridge to another world, from which there would be no return.
Did the smile of Asuka’s mother call to the portion of her daughter that still lay inside the Asuka/Eva synthesis?
Or maybe…
Maybe one could understand the situation better through closed eyes.
Suddenly, the air around Asuka/Eva changed. She jerked up and looked north.
“Torwächter B on the move!”
The black giant in possession of Shinji’s heart stood still, though its head also faced north.
The two Torwächters turned their bodies and started walking. They faded like mist and sank into the ground with every step as they opened a dimensional portal under their feet. They walked into the earth as if it were water. First it came up to their waists, then their chests, and eventually even their horns disappeared below ground.
“Asuka’s been called away… But by who?”
THRUM!
Super Eva’s heartbeat pulsed in the forest of the northern coast.
Mari wasn’t surprised by the appearance of the Torwächters, since she was the one who’d summoned them.
The trees here had turned white, perhaps from a swarm of locusts or extreme climate change. Wolfpack cleared a path through the withered woods to where the black messengers had appeared.
Is that B I see? Looks like he’s fully recovered. And here I thought I could finish him off while he was damaged!
Wolfpack kicked the ground and leaped at the black giant with reckless abandon.
Torwächters A1 and B summoned their Angel Carriers. With a two-on-one situation, the fight was already in their favor, but the Carriers widened the gap in their firepower. Even Wolfpack couldn’t kill them instantly.
The two Torwächters had had their back plates pressed against each other when Wolfpack attacked. The two giants split apart, opening a pitch-black dimensional window between them.
Wolfpack had no choice but to charge right through the window.
The Torwächter on the left was partially red. Mari turned to it and shouted, “Asuka!” but it was too late.
Wolfpack fell into the Torwächters’ trap.
Mari felt that she had been released from her chains, only to lose her freedom.
Where is this? Where am I?!
The Torwächters’ ability to open dimensional windows was common knowledge by now.
Doesn’t matter, I guess.
Wolfpack was launched into the air. It extended its claws to latch on to a nearby slab of rock, but it missed.
What is going on? Her gyroscope couldn’t detect which way was up. Wolfpack turned its body in midair but failed to kill its own momentum. Its lower body slammed into the ground and rebounded across the large boulder.
Are we still in free fall?! Is the rock surface falling, too?!
Mari felt her otolith rise in her semicircular canals. She and Wolfpack were falling all right.
Her virtual display shifted from the slab to a darker expanse.
“What?!”
Alarms blared as her environmental sensors picked up the sudden change in her surroundings, and she finally noticed the jump in her electromagnetic radiation shields. External air intake was completely sealed off, which meant that the parts of her equipment that relied on radiator cooling were automatically shut down.
The U.S. Eva’s body started floating again, but Wolfpack held on to the ground by generating an A.T. Field with its legion of animal souls. Mari extended her claws and finally brought the Eva to a standstill.
She looked beyond the mountainous boulders and spotted the moon nearby, hanging in the jet-black sky.
I’m in space?!
Mari’s Wolfpack was currently on the 430-kilometer-wide chunk of moon rock that was falling to Earth.
Before she could process what was going on, she was overwhelmed by a rumble of wings beating right behind her.
What is it now?!
Having barely adjusted to the vacuum of space, Wolfpack was now subjected to a rush of wind.
What the…?!
The giant tumbled forward.
A white mist whipped toward her, and she discovered its true identity. Countless birds, which had disappeared from the face of the Earth, emerged from the mist, casting a dark shadow over her with their outstretched wings.
A hallucination? Mari hoped so, because she couldn’t possibly avoid the swarm. Thankfully, they all passed harmlessly through Wolfpack.
She could still feel the wind, though. She turned to her environmental sensors and was shocked to find the barometer showing a solid zero. When the “wind” disappeared, the pitch-black sky and rocky terrain returned in nauseating contrast.
What the hell was that about?!
Mari had no time to dwell on it. She’d have to wait until she caught Torwächters A1 and B and the heartbeat. She leaped out of the window they opened—together with four Angel Carriers.