Chapter 4: Messenger

Chapter 4:
Messenger

 

REPLACEMENT AND VERIFICATION of the modified Super Eva’s components had begun. He’d managed to return as an Eva even after descending upon the Earth as a giant of light with several hundred kilometers worth of moon rock on his back. An operation to rescue his pilot, Ikari Shinji, was already underway but had been halted. The hatch refused to open, and attempts to cut it open bore minimal results. Complicating the situation was the fact that Asuka claimed to have entered the Eva from the plug in the classroom.

In the process of assembling a 3D scanner to perform an X-ray on the unit, other divisions had begun dismantling his parts. It was there that they found the corpse of an unknown man. He hadn’t been dead for very long, and he was dressed in a JSSDF uniform.

Fuyutsuki proposed dealing with it internally, but Misato said, “Let’s contact Lieutenant Colonel Kasuga.”

Kasuga arrived only two hours later. He was already on his way toward Yomotsu Hirasaka with his Akashima unit, but he used the JSSDF’s N2 Flanker, a.k.a. the Platypus-2, to fly back to Hakone.

Nerv Japan had three more aircraft in Novaya Zemlya, aside from the one Toji had been in when it was shot down. They were used as aerial turrets, since they were equipped with positron cannons. Tonight, they were undergoing a simulation set up by an A.I. interceptor. The aircraft, which needed no runway, rumbled their graviton floaters and landed one after another in Nerv HQ’s VTOL hangar.

Kasuga’s Platypus-2 used Toji’s IFF to land along with them. He avoided passing Mount Daikan Airport, now controlled by the JSSDF, so they wouldn’t see that he was going to Hakone. This incident was liable to explode if the JSSDF caught wind of it. JSSDF senior officers, along with a medical team, rendezvoused with Kasuga at Nerv HQ to inspect the body.

“That’s one of ours, all right. Master Sergeant Sakura Yoshio of the First Airborne Brigade. He’s among the people that went M.I.A. during the underground raid of Nerv HQ three years ago.”

His equipment was verified to be three years old, but that could easily have been fabricated. Misato wondered whether Kasuga actually believed that bit of evidence. She was more interested in the dead man’s watch and terminal, which showed a date three months after the Battle at Nerv HQ.

Was time actually progressing in the sphere?

The JSSDF scanned the body with the medical equipment they’d brought out of their field hospital. They homed in on the dead man’s left arm and whispered among themselves.

“He really came from three years ago,” Kasuga said, to no one in particular.

“Why do you think that?” Misato asked.

“We have medical records of his broken arm from seven months before. A bit reckless, this one,” one of the JSSDF’s medical staff answered.

“The recovery of his broken bones is right where it was three years ago. That’s impossible, even if we accounted for malnutrition.”

The master sergeant’s body was stuffed in a body bag then place in a refrigerated container.

 

Nerv Japan wanted to respect the dead and had therefore risked a great deal by inviting the JSSDF to confirm that it was one of their soldiers.

According to Maya, Super Eva had broken through the Chronostatic Sphere, where time had stopped three years ago, and had received upgrades appropriate to its new state. Misato wanted evidence for this theory.

Three years ago, at the Battle at Nerv HQ, between the feet of giants, JSSDF special forces had been dispatched to eliminate all Nerv staff. It was then that Lilith had brought time to a halt.

“Super Eva brought the force of the Third Impact into the sphere. Master Sergeant Sakura probably saw his chance to escape and crawled into his restraint armor.”

Not that I feel sorry for him. Misato shuddered from a strange déjà vu. The guy shot me in a different future.

She shook her head to chase out this grim thought. “More importantly…”

They moved from the medical bay to the meeting room. While the JSSDF staff had left, along with the body of their comrade, Kasuga stayed behind, saying, “My soldiers on Yomotsu Hirasaka Island need every bit of intel I can find.”

Misato respected his wishes and agreed to share whatever they knew about the modified Super Eva. Just then, Maya returned from the cage with a new discovery.

“What’s up?” Misato asked.

Maya ran her hand through her hair. She looked haggard. The strange spirit that had previously possessed her had fled. “Basic modifications were completed on the other side. All that’s left for us to do is fit him into his new restraint armor and maybe switch some components out for more reliable ones.”

“You mean those four sheets you were working on after sending your entire team home?” Misato asked.

Maya crinkled her nose.

Misato went on. “Take two days off when you’re finished. Don’t worry about reattaching Unit Zero-F’s arm. The cage team can do that just fine.”

Maya shrugged and took her seat.

With everyone present, an image of Fuyutsuki in the command center flickered to life on the monitor.

“We speculated that time had frozen within the Chronostatic Sphere, but it looks like it has advanced by three months.”

“I don’t think so,” Maya quipped. She was the one who’d speculated that Super Eva’s modifications had taken three months to complete.

“Hang on, Maya. It’s only been a week since Yomotsu Hirasaka fell.”

“Perhaps time is accelerating on the other side.”

“It’s what?”

Maya elaborated. Shinji’s mother had manipulated the dimensional door from the other side to transport Super Eva, whose time was close to stopping, to a place where time had completely stopped. Time had then accelerated within the Chronostatic Sphere, as if Yui was telling her husband to do something about their self-destructing son.

“Super Eva’s time was close to stopping?” Misato frowned.

“The Third Impact would have happened within the sphere if time moved for him.” Maya continued. “We’ve seen instances where Unit One would do everything in its power to make Shinji’s wishes of stopping something come true. Take the freezing of Lake Ashi when Quatre’s Eva fell, for example.”

“So, the rapid freezing…”

“Happened on a particle level, yes. But nine percent of its heat remained. We still don’t know why.”

“So it can interfere with time. Are you saying it stopped its own time in order to prevent Yomotsu Hirasaka from landing?”

“We have records of the power curve of the Second Impact. The Third Impact, which happened over the Ogasawara Islands, appears to follow the same curve. A massive accumulation of energy followed by a moment of silence before the release. If it continues to follow the same rules as the Second Impact, the explosion will reach Hakone.”

Misato furrowed her brow. “So…the Third Impact isn’t over yet?”

Toji raised his hand. “Shinji’s mom told me about that. Shinji’s putting a tap over the impact with his remaining 0.82 seconds of life.”

“A tap?” Misato asked.

“A tap to control it, I suppose,” Maya said.

“The energy produced by the Third Impact is immense to the point of bending space-time. It’s going to take a long while, but Shinji is releasing it, little by little, throughout his new life. This is his duty now.”

“But isn’t he just a dream?”

“Well, if the real Shinji woke up, it’d all be over in 0.82 seconds.” The edges of Kasuga’s lips hooked to form a smile.

“I suppose this is all funny to you, sir,” Toji said.

“I apologize. All of this sounds like a fairy tale…or a horror story.”

“We can only work with what the facts have to offer,” Misato said, although she sympathized with him.

“We’re throwing all our ideas at a wall to see what sticks. How we’re going to utilize the massive amount of power in front of us is more important.”

Kasuga conceded. “Very well, Commander Katsuragi. But if you would allow me one more question: If the pilot Ikari Shinji is not the real Ikari Shinji, then where is his body?”

“The real Shinji exists,” Maya said.

“What?!” Toji exclaimed, “Wait, but…how?!”

This was her new discovery. “We’ve scanned the Super Eva and found the original plug inside the entry hatch along the spinal receiver.”

“That’s crazy. What happened when Soryu got in?”

Maya looked down at her tablet. The look on her face clearly said, Don’t ask. “I don’t know. Maybe it disappeared, maybe it was stacked on top of it. What we do know is about the plug itself. See?”

A figure was seated within the entry plug. The final moments of Ikari Shinji were frozen into a single image. His hands were holding the control sticks; his left clutched to his chest and his right thrust out in front of him. His mouth was open in a scream, and his bangs flew every which way. Once he resumed motion, it would all end in 0.82 seconds. The gray image of the scanner made him look like a statue.

“You’re a damn hero, Shinji.” Toji felt his heart burn within him. He couldn’t imagine what his friend had been thinking.

“What if you cut open the body? Can you get him out of there?”

“Even if we could operate on the chest, we can’t get the plug housing open. Dr. Akagi referred to it as the Untouchable Space.”

“You did get a message from her!”

“They were all quite surprised. None of them expected an S2 engine to expand and form a heart.”

Maya took out an explosion-proof memory card, inserted it into the LCD tablet, and slid it over to Misato. On it was information regarding the Eva’s modification progress, along with the list of names carved into his foot. The names didn’t quite match up with the list of missing persons, though. Some had died inside the sphere. There were also messages to their family.

“There’s so much I want to ask Shinji, and even more I want to tell him.”