Chapter 58: Many Roads to Home

Chapter 58:
Many Roads to Home

 

TOJI COULDN’T STOP YAWNING that morning. He was exhausted. He was going to school after a very eventful night that had left a lot of unfinished business. He wanted to see Shinji and Cinq, not so much to shirk said business, but to finish it.

He scratched his head.

What should I talk about? What am I allowed to talk about?

The entrance to Shinji’s dream was in a slightly different place that morning. Toji had barely reached the shoe lockers when his clothes changed into the black uniform.

The attending students had gotten used to the strange phenomenon, yet they were still entertained by the compulsory change of dress.

“Beats having to change every time.”

The uniform belonged to a time when Shinji’s mother, Yui, had attended school. Yui had taken Cinq’s form in the dream, and the first time they’d met, she’d kicked Toji out of the school.

“This dream is brought to you by Mom…”

Kinda weird not letting your own kid know that he’s dreaming, though…

“Hm?” He noticed a commotion in front of the classroom.

Are there more classes now?

“’Scuse me. Comin’ through…”

Toji slipped through the crowd and then dropped his bag to the floor. The seats had been pushed to the walls. In the center of the classroom was a long, tube-like structure. Its entire length was covered with two to three classes’ worth of curtains, whose excess flowed to the floor over its round nose. Toji didn’t need to look under the fabric to know what it was.

How did an entry plug get in here?

Trois had arrived earlier and looked as surprised as her expressionless face allowed her to. She pointed at the windows. There was a thin line between them and the wall…

They broke the wall and carried it in here with construction equipment?! Of all the stupid…

Look inside, and I’ll kick your ass.

There was a note stuck to the curtains. It was written on copy paper, in Asuka’s handwriting. The students whispered and murmured. Things were even stranger than yesterday.

Crap, I really feel like apologizing to everyone here…

“Toji…” a voice said from behind.

He couldn’t do anything yesterday, especially because this was Shinji’s dream. Toji thought the same thing was going to happen today, which was why he was shocked when he turned around to meet the voice.

“This is what I think it is…isn’t it?” Even Shinji was surprised at the presence of the object.

The door to the classroom burst open, and Asuka strutted in like a model. Her hair had been cut short, and it bounced with every step. She was like a living supercar, and everyone cleared the way for her.

Asuka was so happy that she actually looked a bit terrifying. A camera shutter clicked. Trois had taken a picture of her in the old uniform she’d sworn not to be caught dead in.

“I had a feeling you’d come,” Trois said. “Six wanted me to take pictures.”

“Oh, shove it,” Asuka spat. She took a deep breath to compose herself. “Nice morning today, Shinji.”

“I dunno, it looks like it’s gonna rain,” Toji said. He immediately received Asuka’s bag to his face.

She walked over to Shinji, arms folded over her chest. “It’s a nice morning because you get to see me again.”

“Hey, Asuka. Yeah, I guess it is a good morning now,” Shinji said.

“Very good.” Asuka walked around the tube and pulled down the curtains.

Everyone in the know had already figured out that the object was an entry plug—Super Eva’s, to be precise. But its sudden appearance in the classroom raised many eyebrows among the lay students.

“Ow…” Toji groaned as he got up.

There’s going to be trouble later. Our classmates don’t have clearance for this top secret stuff. But who gave the order? I don’t think it was Misato. Could it have been Maya?!

“You can’t be bringing that stuff to school,” Shinji said.

“You say that like it’s a bag of potato chips.” Asuka pulled the lever to open the access door. The internal power supply hummed to life.

Asuka dragged one of the desks over and set it right next to the plug. She sat down and elbowed the center hatch. “Get in, Shinji.”

“What? No.”

Shinji immediately refused, but Asuka had been expecting that response.

“What are you talking about? You’re in it already.”

As soon as she finished her sentence, Shinji disappeared, to the confusion of everyone around them. Asuka peered through the center hatch to look at Shinji sitting in the plug.

“Don’t worry, he’s in here now. You can’t just jump into the plug like that Shinji, it’s creepy.” Asuka stuck her tongue out.

Soryu… She knows it’s a dream, so she used the power of her words to force Shinji into the plug. Toji was impressed. But what now?

“It saved me during the Battle at Nerv HQ three years ago, and it’s stayed with me since, but Unit Two’s gone now.” Asuka said this as if she was starting a eulogy. “There was a battle last night. Six isn’t here today because she’s still asleep. She’s the only one of us that can fight now, you know? It sucks… I could’ve fought, too, if I had an Eva…”

She paused.

“Shinji, where’s your body now?”

So that’s what she’s up to! Toji finally understood. This was the solution to his problem.

Asuka had put Shinji inside the plug to answer this one question. His dream was now playing only in this classroom, and only students were allowed in while it was playing. The dream eliminated anything it thought unnatural, which was why Asuka snuck the plug in before school started.

Wow… And to think she’d come up with this idea overnight!

“You and your Eva aren’t bound by the same relationship other pilots have with their Evas. Did you forget that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Are you sure?”

Yeah, you tell him, Soryu!

“Your heart is the Eva’s heart. The Eva’s body is your body. Neither of you can exist without the other. Remember?”

Shinji sank into the plug seat. “I do.”

“And if you’re here, that means…”

Toji noticed Rei Cinq beside him. She’d been watching Asuka do her work.

“You okay with this?” he asked. “She’s going to drag Shinji out of the dream.”

Cinq had warned him not to wake Shinji before kicking him out of class.

“Shinji might never wake again unless that girl does something. As it is, he’s stuck going back and forth between his consciousness and the Eva’s.” Cinq look forlorn.

“Because he has less than a second to live?”

“Yes. I thought I’d allow them to meet. Even a second in a dream—”

“Can seem really long. I’ve heard of people who dream for days and wake up to find it’s only been a few hours.”

The woman bearing the fallen Cinq’s resemblance smiled at Toji’s comment.

“If she plays her cards right…the peak power of the Third Impact might be dammed up in exchange for his life.” She sounded like she’d already accepted the end of things.

“Any other questions you want me to ask?”

“Goodness, you’re smarter than you look.”

My mother has gone to the other side.

That’s what Shinji had said the first time he came back to life through Super Eva’s heart.

And now she’s back to clean up after her son. Probably for the last time…

The legs of the desk Asuka sat on started rattling. She leaned over to look inside the entry plug like she was going to dive into it. She didn’t seem to notice Rei Cinq sitting next to Toji.

Well, no reason to tell her about it.

Asuka stood on the desk on her tiptoes, enjoying how the hem of her skirt swayed. Toji knew she still felt remorse over Cinq’s death. Breaking her heart now would be mean and pointless.

 

Something was happening.

No one in class knew what, but they were all giddy with anticipation.

“Welcome home, Asuka.” Shinji entered the activation sequence on his command console.

“Little late for that, buster…” But the warm welcome had caught her off guard. Asuka crossed her arms and leaned her chest into the pressure-resistant seal. Shinji touched her hair as it flowed from her shoulders.

“It’s been forever. Do you remember what happened when you were a synthesis?”

It should’ve been obvious to him that she was an entirely different person during that time, but that was just how Shinji’s innocence worked.

She thought about it. “Something about the way I picked up objects. It feels so different now. It’s jarring.”

Asuka had completed her recon mission from the moon at the cost of absorbing massive amounts of organic data into her body. To protect her identity, Eva-02 had assimilated all of it to create the Asuka/Eva synthesis, better known as Crimson A1.

“I can’t remember details, but I do have something like a continuous memory. Most of it is blank, and the peripherals are usually hazy, but I do remember what I was looking at and where I was going.”

She was once a giant who’d forgotten what words were, and yet she’d still been able to communicate and deceive. She’d lost the shackles of human pride and become unable to perceive the finer shades of morality. She was, in a sense, innocent.

But above all, she was unfettered. That was the one thing that had allowed people to identify the giant as Asuka.

“What if I said you were better as the synthesis?” Shinji joked.

Asuka smiled. “Very funny. Now cut the crap and get your body over here!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I really am home… The realization finally sank in for her.

The virtual displays, which weren’t supposed to run on backup power, suddenly came to life, opening windows that projected onto the classroom ceiling as a pillar of light. The students gasped as they saw strange lights running across the surface of the entry plug.

“Everyone, back off! This isn’t supposed to happen!”

 

There was a sudden thud, followed by longitudinal tremors.

The shock was powerful enough to trigger the seismic sensors of the command center.

“Is there an earthquake?”

Misato, awakened from her thirty-minute nap, climbed to the command deck while checking the environmental map for aftershocks from Yomotsu Hirasaka. The new island wasn’t the culprit.

Regardless, the A.I. rang the alarm.

Aoba wheeled over to his console after almost choking on his tubular lunch.

“Sudden appearance of a massive entity underground, in the ruins of old Central Dogma! Subject estimated to be 3,500 tons in weight! A.I. thinks it might be hostile!”

“We’re getting attacked from underground now?! Hurry up on the ID! Put out an emergency call for pilots and prepare the Lance of Longinus for immediate embarkation!” Misato ordered.

What could it be now that Armaros was gone?

“Is it more of the monsters from last night?!”

“Maybe it’s Rei Quatre and Kaji in the mutant Eva!”

Everyone in the command center flung guesses left and right.

“Wait!” Hyuga shouted through the speakers to calm them down. “We’re picking up an IFF signature! It’s Super Eva’s… No. It’s the signature used by Unit One during the Battle at Nerv HQ three years ago!”

 

Maya was the first one down to the ruins of old Central Dogma.

She wanted to see it with her own eyes.

The black egg that was the Chronostatic Sphere had formed around Lilith, swallowing all of HQ and its surroundings. Former Nerv Commander Ikari Gendo and Dr. Akagi Ritsuko, along with several others, had also been trapped in the Sphere.

That was three years ago. Then, the black egg had been stolen by Armaros, leaving only the cavity where it had once lain.

A giant was now hunched over in that cavity. Its body was white hot, turning the water around it to steam.

“Super Eva!”

That was the first thing she thought of when she saw it. It was wrapped in orange, and its body was covered in restraint armor that looked very much like the old Eva-01.

“Yes. I suppose that’s all you have ‘over there.’”

The hulking figure leaned forward and put its hand up.

SMASH!

Compressed air tugged the hem of Maya’s lab coat, blowing subterranean dust all over her body. Dr. Akagi’s glasses were also carried away, smashed to a million pieces.

And yet the figure stood there, looking perfectly satisfied.

Maya smiled. She’d heard the voices of Ritsuko and Gendo in her room, and this was proof that that conversation, at least, had been all in her head.