Chapter 53: Sleeping Shinji

Chapter 53:
Sleeping Shinji

 

THE STUDENTS BOWED as the teacher entered the classroom. When they raised their heads, they saw that “Self-Study” had been written in bold on the blackboard, along with some assignments so they wouldn’t get too rowdy. A video recording of the lesson was playing.

But none of the students could remember whether they were in homeroom or some other class.

No one’s surprised that Hikari’s gone.

Little Rei Six continued observing the classroom from her seat—front row next to the windows. What surprised her most was how little she was actually surprised.

My thoughts aren’t slowing down or anything… It’s like there’s some strange power at work…

Still, she continued inspecting the hallway, the classroom, and everyone inside it.

Why is Cinq here? That’s not even funny.

Ayanami Rei Cinq was one of the four remaining Ayanami clones. She was the most physically developed among them. Ayanami Rei Trois was the oldest, having survived even the Battle at Nerv HQ three years ago. But Cinq had had a longer incubation time. After they pulled her out of the artificial womb, her growth had quickly surpassed Trois’. She was killed on the first lunar reconnaissance mission.

So what was she doing here now?

Six pondered as the class quieted down. Soon, the recording was the only source of sound.

 

In the back of the class, Quatre propped her elbows on the desk and whispered to Kensuke in front of her. “This absurdity seems nostalgic to you, Aida Kensuke. I think you’re quite right in calling it a dream.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Kensuke sighed as he continued to observe his surroundings. He knew he couldn’t let his guard down. “I wouldn’t pick something this stupid for some kind of deception. This place is probably here to throw me off. So let’s assume it’s a dream… I couldn’t care less about the physical implications. But whose dream is it?”

“You’ve got a hunch, don’t you?”

“Yeah. It’s the one who seems most at home here…”

Rei Quatre and Kensuke fixed their eyes on Shinji.

“This being a dream would explain why Rei Cinq’s here when she’s supposed to be dead. But…” He felt a strange presence as he watched Cinq’s back. “I don’t know…”

“What is it?”

“Could be nothing. Anyway, can I borrow you for a sec?”

The two of them got out of their chairs without a sound and opened the door in the back of the class. The hallways were strangely silent.

“Ten bets we’re the only class in attendance…”

Kensuke went down the stairs, holding his hands out the whole time like he was feeling for something. Quatre followed suit. They finally reached the entrance where the shoe lockers were.

Kensuke’s hand disappeared after it passed a certain point in space. “Looks like this is the border between dream and reality.”

“So, you’re not here.”

“And neither are you, fugitive Ayanami Quatre.”

He pulled back his arm, and it returned to normal.

“My right hand’s made of flesh instead of a prosthetic. That’s how I knew this was a hallucination from the start.”

Kensuke and Quatre made their way back to class.

“Say, you’re with Kaji-san, aren’t you? I mean he’s Seele now, but you know what I’m saying.”

“And what if I am?”

“Tell Kaji-san to team up with Nerv Japan.”

Quatre scoffed. “As if he would listen… What’s the point?”

“There will be a point if we can clarify what Kaji’s doing,” Kensuke said.

“Meaning?” Quatre’s curiosity was piqued.

“Seele is obsessed with the replica Longinus. I think he said they were the ones who made it. Either way, they’re worried about whether they can secure the lance for future Instrumentality Projects. I’m telling you, Kaji-san can make a deal with Nerv Japan that will satisfy everyone involved.”

Quatre was entranced, until Kensuke added…

“As for you, you can go back to Nerv. Aren’t you running out of reasons to stay in your rebellious phase?”

He’d lost her. She turned around, but her vision was growing blurry.

“Why would you…?!”

Kensuke shrugged.

Anyone can tell by the way you smile at Ikari and the rest.

“Yo, Kensuke!” A loud voice cut their conversation short.

Toji, Six’s backup, was yelling from outside the entrance.

“Oh, hey… It’s Toady Toji!” Kensuke grinned and stepped outside the dream.

“What’d you call me?!”

Toji rushed at him in his superior officer’s suit, extending his arm to form a lariat. His arm whooshed right past Kensuke like he was a ghost, and he lost his balance, plunging into a trash can next to the shoe lockers. When he got up, he discovered that he was now wearing his black school uniform.

“Acting Deputy Commander Suzuhara!”

The scientist with the observation instruments caught up with him, but an invisible barrier denied him entry into the school. Evidently, there were conditions for entering the dream classroom. Toji stepped out, took the equipment, and walked back in. Quatre watched this with some amusement.

“Wait, Quatre?! Are you the one who warped Kensuke here?!”

Toji took up a fighting stance, and that was when he noticed the terminal on his arm. The Hakone caldera had been equipped with eight quantum flow inclinometers, which had proved their worth on the Apple’s Core, just in case any hostiles decided to teleport in unannounced. But now, those terminals weren’t giving out any warning signals.

What is going on?

Kensuke had demonstrated to Quatre that all she had to do to leave was step outside. She answered Toji calmly.

“I’ve been dragged into this space, too. It would be quite pointless to put handcuffs on me. Aida and Horaki-san were here as well. You could say we’re the ‘dream transfer students.’”

“What’s Hikari doing here?”

“Good question… Perhaps the dreamer thought she fit the scenery of his everyday life…” Rei Quatre smiled—rebelliously but not without relief.

“Stop talking in circles and give it to me straight.”

 

“Self-study? Where’d the teacher go?” Toji said upon entering the room.

Some students noticed him. “Yo, Suzuhara! Did you see our clothes?”

The recording had stopped playing, and the classroom was noisy again.

“Our clothes? Well, they look like something my folks would wear back in the day, but that’s about it.”

He scanned the room and thought, Wow, everyone’s here. He waved to Shinji, who was sitting a few rows from the windows. He fiddled with his right hand, reveling in how good it felt, when someone started pinching his ear.

“Ow, ow, ow!”

Rei Six was not pleased. “You are late! You missed Hikari.”

Kensuke disappeared, but I guess she just woke up…

The slender barrel of a camera lens had been crammed into the chest pocket of his stuffy black uniform.

Quatre returned to the classroom with a bag full of complex broadband observation equipment she’d received from the science division. She set it on top of the lockers.

Toji had arrived with science division personnel, but he was the only one who could carry things through what Kensuke called the border between dream and reality. In fact, Toji’s beat-up school bag was apparently the only object allowed to enter the dream, so they’d enlisted Quatre to stow most of their equipment inside.

In his ear was a tiny transceiver, which he’d used to receive Six’s phone call and would hopefully allow him to maintain contact with the command center, too. Toji felt that he was at the center of the phenomenon. He walked toward Shinji, who sat in the middle of the classroom.

<<You’re late, Suzuhara-kun. Get to your seat.>>

“Oh, yeah, sorry…”

He felt strangely oppressed by the scolding and quietly shuffled to his desk. He’d already been informed of Cinq’s existence, but he had no idea why she would say that.

Back in the command center, the footage that was being broadcast wasn’t footage at all. Rather, it was still images that changed every two seconds.

Several students had already reported that they were being taught different subjects. It was thought to be some kind of hallucination or psychological interference that pandered to the individual’s memory. The stills were likely a product of all the filtering.

“What’s going on? We’re getting audio through the speakers, aren’t we?”

Misato stopped drafting their next plan and shrugged. To her eyes, the subject was Divisions of Ancient History.

“The A.I. can’t make out any English written on the blackboard. The image and voice recognition engines are repeatedly saying they have no information to process. The voice coming through the broadcast is mostly noise, although it looks a lot like a sine wave, if that helps.”

For Hyuga, it was Foreign Language.

“What do you think?” Misato turned to Fuyutsuki. He looked shocked. “Sensei…?”

Fuyutsuki saw Rei Cinq in the teacher’s position.

The old man remained quiet, and Misato couldn’t make out what had gotten him so spooked. She turned to the display and picked up her headset to give some orders.

<<Toji-kun, you might not want to stay there for too long. We think it could be messing with your emotions!>>

Toji snapped out of it upon hearing her warning. He reached for the eraser on his desk and threw it really hard at Shinji. “Ow!”

Who? Shinji turned and saw Toji give him a thumbs-up.

“What are you doing,” Shinji mouthed. Ever thin-skinned, that was the Shinji Toji knew. He smiled but then remembered what he’d come here to do.

He wrinkled his forehead and leaned forward. He banged his elbow on the desk, making a loud noise that drew the attention of all his classmates.

“Shinji can’t be here. He made sure that he couldn’t be here, so who the hell are you?”

It was a cold fact that Shinji’s Super Eva had turned into a giant of light and brought an extraterrestrial island down on the Pacific Ocean. No one knew where he was now, not even Toji. But the way this Shinji was acting, it was as if the tragedy had never occurred.

Toji regretted letting Shinji carry the burdens of heaven and earth on his shoulders all by himself. He couldn’t accept this false peace.

“Suzuhara-kun, you can talk after class.”

Cinq said this like she was the class representative. But Toji continued.

“Shinji protected everyone! This guy beat Armaros and took the weight of Yomotsu Hirasaka by himself!”

“Suzuhara-kun!”

“Arma…? Yomotsu…” Shinji muttered to himself.

“Yeah! Remember…”

“That’s enough,” Cinq said.

She sighed, and Toji’s view grew dim.

 

“Don’t wake him, Suzuhara-kun.”

Cinq reprimanded Toji with a glare. He was standing in the hallway with her.

What happened? He shook his head to try and make sense of things.

Cinq had finally noticed that something was going on by the way Toji had tried to get Shinji’s attention.

“That boy wanted to stop it.”

Does she know what’s going on?

“The Impact was frozen in time in its last 0.82 seconds. That’s why it didn’t do as much damage as you expected. Put another way, Shinji has 0.82 seconds left to live. So you can’t wake him up. Not yet. But I promise we’ll do something about it.”

Toji didn’t know where all of this was coming from, so he could only stare at Rei Cinq as she wrinkled her forehead.

“Oh… Do you think me wearing a high school uniform is too much? I’m sorry, but I felt nostalgic for it, that’s all.”

Fuyutsuki gasped as he saw the image from Toji’s pocket camera. He finally recognized the outline of her figure. He uttered the name that he’d buried deep in his memories.

“Yui…? Isn’t that Shinji’s…”

The woman bearing Cinq’s likeness opened the door. She turned to Toji and smiled.

“Take care of Shinji for me, Suzuhara-kun.”

She closed the door behind her.

Toji’s vision blurred again, and when he came to, he was sitting on the grounds outside the school. He’d managed to get himself kicked out of an imaginary classroom.

Shinji didn’t remember what his mother looked like. Among the Ayanami’s, Cinq bore the most resemblance to Yui. Perhaps that was why she’d assumed that form, to protect the peaceful dream of her son.

“I’m not sure how I feel leaving mommy dearest to handle everything…”

Toji got up and brushed off his pants. In the end, he hadn’t been able to figure out anything about the dream classroom. His classmates were under a strange mass hypnosis. That was about the extent of his findings.

The roar of jet engines droned over Tokyo-3. They’d taken off from Mount Daikan airport, located on the southern face of the Hakone caldera, and were circling the city overhead, probably as a sensor test. After a lap, the jets zoomed away to the Yomotsu Hirasaka crash site.

Toji called the scientists over to him. “Come on, let’s get outta here.”

Meanwhile, Rei Trois’ Eva-0.0 had appeared in the western skies. By sheer luck, Trois had managed to secure the rehumanized Asuka, along with Mari, pilot of the U.S. Eva.

From afar, her unit seemed to be descending slowly, but even with all her deceleration, she was still falling fast. Her gamma-ray laser cannon and propulsion units opened like a parachute, and she took on the appearance of a bouquet floating toward Lake Ashi.

“Pretty good with the current wind speeds.”

Toji perked his ears and heard a delayed bang in the distance. Eva-0.0 had activated its A.T. Field and landed in a body of water outside the caldera. He wondered whether the classroom would still be here tomorrow. He wondered how Rei Trois and Asuka would react to it.

“How’d she set up an A.T. Field with three people in an Eva?”