Chapter 47: Beyond the Twilight

Chapter 47:
Beyond the Twilight

 

“Now that I think about it…”

Kaji’s explanation had struck a chord with Maya, who’d seen the helix of the replica Longinus unravel.

“Using the Eva to release the spear’s energy might prolong the displacement phenomenon.”

I could see senpai again?

But the mature part of her immediately suppressed her emotions. The scientist in her risked overlooking something.

Maya couldn’t see the mutant Eva because of the smoke that rose from the fire at Nagao Pass. But she knew Quatre was fast approaching.

“Maybe we only heard the voices because the sphere is finally moving after a long period of stasis. The Glass Egg was formed as an approximation of the shell of the previous sphere.”

The earth rumbled from outside the Glass Egg. Six’s Eva-0.0 Type-F had landed.

<<Who do I shoot?!>> Six asked. <<Do I just let Kaji and Quatre in or do I try and stop them?>>

Despite being destroyed, the command center had retained its ability to process information. Fuyutsuki continued to issue orders from under an oxygen mask. A group of engineers had been hooked up to tubes and cables to provide support for the cage.

Had any good come out of it?

Armaros, who’d come to steal the Longinus replica, was now miles away. And there was a possibility that Ikari Gendo and Akagi Ritsuko, along with the rest of the personnel of the old HQ, might return.

But not everything smelled of roses.

The Lance of Longinus was lost. The Eva who’d used it had been transported to the sphere at the bottom of Yomotsu Hirasaka, where the fires of hell burned all around.

Misato wiped the dirt off her face as she weighed her options. “Put Quatre on the line.”

Hyuga entered the communication protocol of the old Eva-0.0. “Go ahead.”

“I forgot to ask earlier, but how is Lilith? You wouldn’t like it if she came over here, would you, Kaji-kun?”

There was a slight pause before Kaji responded. <<No need to worry. Lilith has already settled on the new world. Though the yolk and the white of the egg might be switched out, the embryo remains the same.>>

Ultimately, Seele’s goal would serve humanity.

The visor they found in the basement of a church in Cyprus, where Chairman Keel’s soul slept.

The soul that should not have reawakened in this world on the brink of the apocalypse.

Kaji’s will had fused with Seele’s when he put the visor on, and there was one thing Seele wanted: to observe the fickle system of Armaros and his messengers, and to make sure that they didn’t break until the next iteration of the Human Instrumentality Project wiped out what was left of humanity.

With Seele’s soul fused to Kaji, his next destination would be Lilith’s side.

Goodbye…Ryoji. Let’s do this.

Misato grabbed the receiver on the console.

“Six, let Quatre through. Do not attack.”

<<Uh…Six here. S-sure…>>

“Trois, you are to hand over the replica Longinus to Quatre, but do not leave the Glass Egg. Understood?”

<<I cannot comply with this plan,>> Trois said. <<Even if there were some way to return…>>

Trois understood that Misato was ready to part with Kaji.

<<Wha?!>>

An arm grabbed Six’s Eva-0.0 Type-F and flung her to the side.

A pillar of water shot out of the ground. Quatre’s mutant Eva stepped out of it instead of Six.

<<Guess who went through a hole in the ground to get from HQ to Lake Ashi?>>

<<That would be me.>>

Quatre had passed through the flooded underground using a passage Six had opened up with the Angel’s Backbone. The mutant Eva made her way to the surface. She stepped to the entrance, wary of any bullets that might come her way, but the opening of the egg forced her into a crouch, leaving her defenseless.

She spotted Dr. Ibuki Maya inside. Trois’ gamma-ray laser cannon was the perfect weapon for barricading herself, but she could no longer fire it due to the wide area of effect it had. That would be as bad as stepping on the chief of science and engineering. Instead, Trois armed herself with the Longinus.

<<Hand it over, Trois,>> Rei Quatre said.

Trois took a step back to avoid stabbing Quatre as she came through the cramped opening. <<Even if all goes well, you might not make it back, Quatre.>>

<<No matter. I’ve been tainted by Armaros’ scale and betrayed Nerv as a result. At this point, I hate the world we live in.>> She was now inside the egg.

<<Quatre, I’ve always felt that you’re more alive than I am.>>

Quatre took another step forward, close enough now that the prongs of the Longinus replica brushed against her Eva’s chest. Trois immediately stepped back.

Quatre stepped forward again. <<And I feel that you misunderstand the concept of living!>>

The A.T. Field-encased black wings of the mutant Eva flapped open to cover Trois’ line of sight. Quatre already had one hand on the spear.

<<Six, get Dr. Ibuki out of here!>> Quatre called out, making Maya finally notice the precarious position she was in.

The giants stepped around the construction decks and ran for the entrance. Overhead, Quatre’s Eva pulled the spear closer to herself.

<<It irritates me to see someone with my face think that she’s allowed to die or be sacrificed. As Ayanami Reis, our personalities have become irreplaceable.>>

Six switched the Angel’s Backbone to the weapon’s free-joint mode, and she neatly coiled it up so that Maya could ride on her bayonet. They got out of there, but Trois was still holding on to the lance.

<<I do not plan on sacrificing myself. Ikari-kun picked a color for me. I am going to look for clothes to suit that color, to find myself so I can suit that color. I have no intention of dying before then.>>

<<In that case…>> Quatre shifted her momentum and pushed the lance back. Trois lost her balance, and her Eva tumbled forward from the shift in her center of gravity. Quatre crouched, scooping Trois up as she fell.

<<Give it to me!>>

Trois’ Eva rolled all the way from the entrance to the outside of the egg, letting go of the lance.

“Let’s begin.”

“What kind of a silly ritual was that?”

Kaji arose within Quatre’s plug. It mattered little to him what she did.

<<It’ll be the same regardless of who does it.>>

Seele saw Ayanamis Rei and Trois as nothing more than puppets of Ikari Gendo, fashioned after his wife for the completion of the Human Instrumentality Project. They were all the same.

And yet we have our differences.

Quatre giggled.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Was I actually proud of myself for a second there?

She felt as if there was an A.T. Field that spread from her abdomen to her chest and all the way to her arms.

The helix of the replica Longinus swelled, emitting light from the inside.

“So, what is this lance?”

“The spear form of the Longinus has a simple enough function. It can join and sever causality. Even Lilith, that being that creates life indefinitely, would stop if this were driven through her.”

“Causality?”

“Every effect has a road leading up to it. This shell is connected to the inside of the egg underneath Yomotsu Hirasaka.”

The Q.R. Signum in the mutant Eva’s chest began to throb.

“Urk!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Armaros…noticed that I’m holding the spear. She’s looking for…”

Blood rushed through her neck, making her veins pop and pulse. It looked black, but perhaps that was an illusion caused by her pale skin.

Her hair, tinted silver by the initial corruption of the Q.R. Signum, now turned black as well. Her left hand let go of the control stick of its own accord, and Quatre had to hold it down with her right hand to stop it.

There was no record of Q.R. Signums taking over a person’s bodily functions, even when they were mentally infected. This might be a first. The Euro Eva had been built around one of Armaros’ scales. Many had speculated how Armaros would use this feature. Now they had their answer.

“Heh heh heh.” Quatre strained to laugh, but she was satisfied. She knew she’d made the black giant desperate if it was reduced to such measures.

Kaji got up. “Let me out and I can interfere with the Q.R. Signum for you. It should alleviate your pain.”

“Look… The space around us is changing. It’s like the sunset…” An Ayanami memory.

While the two eggs hadn’t switched places, they had begun overlapping in the strange twilight. Seele/Kaji stepped out onto the chest of the mutant Eva and touched the Q.R. Signum to prevent it from being taken over by Armaros.

There were thousands of figures in the distance.

Gendo’s minions from three years ago.

Ikari must be among them.

Will I rely on you, even in the next world?

Seeker, if only you would abandon your karma. You, too, could have become Seele…

Kaji realized too late that someone was standing behind him.

<<You did your best, but it wasn’t enough.>>

He turned. Rei Cinque—in an old school uniform and carrying Rei Quatre—stood before him.

<<Take her home.>>

“H-hey!”

Kaji took Quatre, but Seele inside him was distressed.

What is happening?

Now unburdened, Cinque turned around and touched the Q.R. Signum with her right hand.

THRUM!

The black scale pulsed. Its countless veins glowed red. And then, it shattered.

“What?!” Seele/Kaji was shocked.

“Yui!” Ikari Gendo, former commander of Nerv, called out and ran after her.

When Kaji turned to look again, Ayanami Rei Cinque had aged several years and was wearing a white lab coat. She was now Ikari Yui.

Seele/Kaji’s vision went dark. The next moment, he was in a different place entirely, holding Quatre. Everything was orange twilight, and he could still hear the hum of the mutant Eva behind him. They were somewhere inside the egg.

He looked ahead.

“Ooooh!”

Mist flowed at their feet, flowing toward and pooling around Lilith.

The white and swollen source of all life was nailed to the cross.

She would take whatever data was in the Ark, go to the moon, and continue to produce life. The Earth would wither and become the next moon. The swollen moon would become the new Earth.

The Seele within Kaji felt reassured that his mission in this world was coming to an end.

Fruits will grow even if you neglect the tree.

Given time, humanity would fail the same way, over and over.

The Human Instrumentality Project had been imposed on humans as a product of original sin, and unless they completed it, they would never progress to the next stage. The best thing to do was finish it quickly.

Seele had guarded the memory of the world ever since the time of the first Noah. Though they’d never attained success, they’d kept the record of all the failures.

The world had no blueprint.

All they could do was eliminate one failure at a time.

They were the ones who’d learned how to interfere with the messengers. They were the ones who’d crafted the Ark to shorten the creation of new worlds. They were the ones who’d created a replica of the original Lance of Longinus.

Seele/Kaji looked at Lilith.

What was the entity imposing the Human Instrumentality Project?

Whatever it was, it had abandoned the world.

No…perhaps it was still present. Perhaps it had chosen to keep its silence for all eternity. Indeed, perhaps it had forgotten its original plan and now had nothing left to say.

Such was the eternal question that had haunted humanity from the dawn of time.

<<My God, are you with us?>>

He took a step toward Lilith.

Then Kaji noticed something twisting around his legs in the mist, like it was trying to pull him down.

Lilith’s cross was planted in his watermelon patch. Type-N monitoring robots, stained with water and moss, scurried about with their creaky crawlers, watering the plants with a hose.

It was no hallucination. Little Rei Six had moved Shinji’s patch inside the Glass Egg. It was looking pretty good by now. The striped green spheres glowed beautifully under the orange light.

Seele/Kaji knelt in the black soil, Rei Quatre still in his arms.

Shinji’s watermelon patch. It had been Kaji’s once.

What is this…feeling?

Something fell from Kaji’s face and bounced onto the watermelon vines. Kaji Ryoji’s existence had been overwritten ever since he’d found Chairman Keel’s visor in Cyprus.

Now, the visor hit the ground and rolled away.

 

“Yui!”

Gendo desperately called out to the figure standing on the mutant Eva.

The woman smiled lovingly back at him.

<<My dear, sweet Gendo.>>

The prongs of the replica Longinus still glowed in the mutant Eva’s hands. Yui was standing on its shoulder.

<<You will keep chasing me despite having lost all reason to. You will exist only to pursue karma in the distant world.>>

The Carrier wings of the mutant Eva crumbled away. It began to grow bigger. The S2 engine on its back cried like a baby as it was separated from its body and then calmed as it was cradled in a newly synthesized right hand.

<<You will be stripped of everything that makes you yourself, until you become like a single, slender arrow. Like the me you see right now.>>

The S2 engine turned into an egg, and the being that cradled it was no longer an Eva, but Yui’s bare and radiant body.

“Will we become one, then?”

<<You are to follow me from a place only you are able. That is the rule imposed upon you and no one else.>>

The giant of light no longer resembled Yui.

The replica Longinus was glowing now, and she pushed its shining tip into the walls of the egg.

The light consumed everything.

 

<<We shall meet again in a future iteration of the Human Instrumentality Project.>>

Back in Hakone, the invincible shell of the Glass Egg cracked, bringing the Chronostatic Sphere, the sealed-off world Lilith had created three years ago at HQ, back into existence.

The ground under Tokyo-3 shook.

The vertical structure that was old Central Dogma materialized, landing sideways on the shores of Lake Ashi.

 

Shinji…

He felt someone call out to him and turned to face it.

“Ah!”

Shinji had returned to Yomotsu Hirasaka and was greeted by the sight of a mushroom cloud, rising up through the roots of the World Tree and reaching the stratosphere. Shock waves rippled out, causing the foundations of the world to wobble. Then a pillar of flame shot straight up through the mushroom cloud itself. Sound followed sight, and the eruption was so loud that it knocked Eva-01 Final Model back.

Black smoke billowed. It broke through the clouds, bursting into an aurora when it penetrated the ionosphere. It flew up into the Earth’s low orbit, and the sun and moon illuminated it, shining over a sky that had been colored by the roots of the World Tree.

A single point of light exited the cloud. It looked like a sphere. No, an egg.

Realization dawned on Shinji.

Yomotsu Hirasaka had released Lilith’s Chronostatic Sphere into the sky, into the moon.

Final Model raced after it. With Lilith gone, Earth was no longer the stage for the Human Instrumentality Project. The planet had lost its reason for existing. He spread his wings of light and accelerated into the heavens.

“The old HQ is inside that thing…along with it Ritsuko-san and Father!”

<<It will be all right.>>

A distant voice came from the other side of the World Tree’s network of roots.

Final Model stopped in his tracks. The wings of light he’d activated at the cost of his life span melted into particles in the sky.

Mother?

The shores of Lake Ashi, where the world from three years ago lay on its side. Figures, one after another, stepped out of the dusty rubble. People who’d disappeared three years ago reappeared, looking no older than when they’d vanished.

Nerv Japan and JSSDF’s joint rescue team escorted the bewildered-looking crowd. Both civilian and political rescue squads were exempt from the operation, since they were still under emergency lockdown.

Kaji, too, appeared from the rubble, Rei Quatre on his back and two watermelons in his hands. Misato shot out of the black SUV and ran toward him.

“’Sup.”

“You look like a hot mess.”

“I couldn’t let that melon patch go to waste. That thing’s on the moon now.”

Kaji motioned with his chin. Behind him, the Nerv crew each carried a watermelon or two.

“I’m so tired.”

Nerv’s former commander, Ikari Gendo, had also made it out, but he’d been injured by the crumbling scrap heap. He’d lost consciousness and was moved onto a stretcher and into an ambulance that carried him away, sirens blaring.

On the other side of the scene, Akagi Ritsuko consoled Maya, who was bawling into her chest.

Misato wasted no time in issuing orders to the rescue team.

“Find out where everyone’s from and put tags on them. Keep all of them under surveillance. Put them on the Togendai linear rail and move them to the shelter inside HQ. You can part with JSSDF there.”

As much as Misato wanted to talk to Ritsuko, this was what she needed to do for the moment. “I’m going back to the command center.”

“How about some watermelons before you go?”

“We’re still under a Class One Threat. Our kids are still fighting out there, one on the Pacific and another right over our heads! Also—”

Huh?

Misato paused.

Why am I talking to him so naturally?

Kaji read Misato’s mind. “Oh, Seele was inside the sphere, too. They’re blasted to the moon now.”

Misato froze, her expression blank, her hand still holding the open door of the SUV. It flustered him, and he looked away, adjusting the sleeping Quatre on his back.

“Probably.”

“Uh-huh.”

Misato fought back the tears. “I already said my goodbyes to you.”

“You’re an awful woman, you know that?”