Chapter 33: A Drop in the River

Chapter 33:
A Drop in the River

 

ASUKA WAS TRAILING MARI with her dirt bike on Yomotsu Hirasaka. At times, she saw flashes of light rise over the ridgelines. Shinji’s Eva-01 Final Model was locked in combat with Hikari’s Armaros. Toji’s Platypus-2 was there, too, provided he hadn’t crashed yet. Meanwhile, she was still trying to retrieve her weapon. Mari knew where it was and had gone ahead. Somewhere on this island, deep inside this forest, was Mari’s Eva, reconstituted as a giant beast by the spatial lens, and upon its forehead, Asuka’s Eva-02.

Asuka had followed a strange path so far. She hoped to be reunited with her own Eva at the end of it. That said…

Why am I even doing this?

A good part of her questioned her actions.

Both of them had been exposed to the Ark before. Asuka was protected by the powerful properties of the new orichalcum plugsuit, but she wondered how it was with Mari.

Little Mari was leading her pack. She moved like a cat, climbing up trees and rushing through groves. She didn’t saltify, but the effects of the life-form data were becoming apparent. She had ears on top of her head and had sprouted a tail for balance. Her nails turned into claws that gripped and kicked the ground beneath her. She was faster than a child now. Indeed, her current speed was inhuman.

For as long as she could remember, Mari’s DNA had been spliced with genes from other animals. She had no sense of self. But she never considered this a disadvantage. If anything, she found the wind that invaded her humanity comforting.

Asuka did her best to follow her on the dirt bike.

The tests run at Hakone said she was wiped of all traces of foreign DNA. What’s going on?

<<This is just that kind of place.>>

Asuka turned, recognizing the mysterious voice as belonging to an Ayanami.

Rei Cinque?!

Deep within the primitive forest, in the shadow of a large fern, the Rei that had disappeared between Earth and moon reappeared. Ayanami Rei Cinque looked more mature than Trois and Quatre, having spent more time in the artificial womb, and it was this Ayanami that Asuka saw.

She immediately slowed the bike, but Cinque pointed her hand at Mari and said, “Go.”

More voices rushed into Asuka’s head.

<<I have to take it back!>>

<<I have to get Unit Two back! I can’t just wait for Shinji to do it.>>

<<Who is that?>>

“Wha?!” she screamed in surprise. The voices in her head all belonged to her. Her wheels nearly slipped. She regained her balance, but by the time she turned back, Cinque was gone.

A hallucination.

Animals of every kind rushed by her to follow Mari. The beasts grew old, faded. Some of them fused into one another as they continued. The pack was in a constant flux.

What kind of place is this?

The strange pack mounted the wide, green slope at a great speed. Gas streamed down the middle of the mountainside, but Mari and her Ark life-form data pressed on.

<<It’s like they’re being called up into the sky.>>

<<I’m the only one I’m interested in.>>

<<There must be some hidden meaning to this.>>

My decisions… Are they converging? And with the other lives, too?

The Ark recorded life-forms from all time periods.

This is the umbilical cord that gives birth to the new world. Are the me’s from the other timelines coming together?

“Am I having second thoughts?” Unlike Shinji, she understood immediately. The steady drone of the engine remained constant. Asuka focused it to anchor herself in reality.

“Azuchi!”

She called the golden retriever out of the pack just as it was beginning to morph. The dog barked in response.

“You’re Kasuga-san’s pup, aren’t you? The one running the Akashima unit? You can’t go on mixing with the others. The Akashima’s on this island, so your master must be close, too!”

Azuchi barked again. Mari said to Asuka, as if speaking for the dog, “Take care of Azuchi.” And with that, she jumped off the ridge and out of Asuka’s sight.

“Huh? Wait!”

The pack followed suit. All were sucked into the mist. The gray expanse rippled like a field of wheat in the wind. Overhead and far into the distance, the clanging of restraint armor rang through the air like a carillon.

They’d closed in on it at some point. Closed in on Mari’s mountainous Eva, perhaps magnified through an accident involving the spatial lens, or perhaps because it had assumed the Ark’s life-forms.

The former U.S. Eva, Wolfpack.

Mari and her pack were finally home. Mari had been a trembling wreck who refused to leave Asuka and Six’s side back at Nerv HQ. She couldn’t bear being separated from the genes inside of her. They all wanted to save her, wanted to give her a life worthy of a human person, but she just couldn’t live that way.

“Azuchi and her sister Momo are together with Nerv U.S.A.’s mobile staff.”

Her voice grew softer and softer. These were Mari’s last words as a human being.

“Woof!”

The silver waves crashed again, and they melted away into Wolfpack’s surface. Asuka would never forget the look on Mari’s face until the day she died. It was the first time she saw her smile.

<<How pointless.>>

<<Do you feel left out even after seeing her meet that gruesome end?>>

“No! I’m just pissed that I saw her go out with a smile! C’mon, Azuchi!”

Asuka revved her rear tire to turn in the direction of the ridgeline. She shifted into a lower gear, accelerating up the narrow hill at full speed. She rushed through the gray gas, past Wolfpack’s curling spine.

“Come on!”

She jumped together with Azuchi, landing on Wolfpack’s back. Not a bad jump for a first try—that’s what Asuka thought, at least.

She felt as if Wolfpack’s armor was closing in around her. She needed to follow its spine and trace it all the way to the head, to where her Eva-02 had been reconstituted.

The giant beast lurched up, and Asuka felt the insides of her stomach churn as the air pressure rose.