Chapter 54: Classroom

Chapter 54:
Classroom

 

While earthquakes ravaged Hakone, Six was locked in combat with a Carrier of the double-helix Angel Armisael. She was currently being assaulted by the Carrier’s hardened spiral rings. She managed to block them with the whip form of the Angel’s Backbone. But a chill ran down her spine as she looked east.

“That quake just now… It can’t be!”

Something was cutting former Izu Peninsula in half. The island had been divided by a road of sorts. On the horizon, two black arms extended from the sky, as if pulling the thing.

Six looked west. A gigantic black shadow had fallen over Mount Fuji and the Sea of Japan. Its armored lower half walked under the roots, but its top half extended high above and was covered by them.

“No…I hate this.” Blood rushed to her head. “Trois!”

<<I see it, Six. Armaros has expanded to the point of being visible outside the tunnel network. We can only see her chest from here.>>

“What should we do?”

<<I’m sorry, but I’m a little preoccupied.>>

Six saw through Trois’ eyes. Within the dark corridors, Armaros’ body was so large that it felt like she was seeing it through a magnifying glass. Meanwhile, Torwächter Toji and Torwächter Kodama, fashioned after Hikari’s sister, were coming at her. They’d been summoned into the tunnel network to deal with Trois’ Eva-0.0 and the Asuka/Eva synthesis, Crimson A1.

Six felt dizzy, like her little head was filled to its brim.

“This is crazy… Marmaros is huge now, and its arms are dragging Yomoyomo Island all the way to Hakone.”

<<It’s what?!>>

“I don’t know anymore!”

An alert came from Hakone command as she let out an exasperated scream.

<<Hakone command to Six! You’re falling into a commercial-residential area! Take evasive maneuvers!>>

The Eva didn’t have enough space to accelerate and crashed into something on the ground. Or it would have, anyway, if it hadn’t bounced away from that something.

CRASH!

Eva-0.0 Type-F was stranded in the city, leaning against an invisible wall as the Angel Carrier approached the urban combat area. Six ejected her entry plug, but the hatch didn’t open. The outer plating was caught against some kind of tube.

“Ungh!”

She pulled the offending debris out of the small crack. The hatch opened properly now, and the small pilot rolled out of the plug right into—no, through—the invisible wall.

“This is…the school.”

 

Six dragged herself into the classroom. As usual, Super Eva’s entry plug was in the center of it.

“Shinji, let everyone into the school! Nothing can destroy your dream—the Eva’s dream—right?!” Six activated the hatch opener on the adjacent desk.

<<Six? I don’t mind, but I’m about to…everyone…after…>>

“What? You’re breaking up!”

Six couldn’t wait for the slow-opening hatch. She stood on the tips of her toes and smacked the surface of the plug with her little hands.

“Urgh!”

She squeezed her head through the crack like a cat.

But what she found inside was an empty seat in a darkened plug.

She knew she’d heard his voice earlier.

But Shinji wasn’t here.

 

“Huh? What gives? We could always meet at the school!”

Shinji’s Final Model still existed in this world because he’d frozen the final second of Third Impact. Now he only had one foot in this world—no, a mere toenail.

Final Model’s internal clock was nearing its end. As a result, Shinji could no longer leave it.

The Shinji in the classroom was part of a dream. That was why Six’s Eva had bounced off the impenetrable barrier of the school. The dream wasn’t bound by natural physics. As such, it was a strange place. Asuka had brought Shinji’s entry plug here. Shinji had managed to get inside the Eva from here. And Final Model had activated in the cage when he did. Not as a dream but as an Eva who could interact with and fight in the real world.

At least, that’s how it was supposed to be.

 

Six knelt on the desk she’d been standing on.

<<That idiot isn’t here? That’s weird.>>

<<He was just here a second ago,>> a voice said.

Six gasped. Asuka and Toji appeared, the former in a plugsuit and the latter in a g-suit.

“Toji! Asuka!”

Both of them looked fuzzy.

There were two other figures with them, both too vague to make out.

<<The little one’s Mari. I think the other one’s Hikari.>>

Asuka stood next to the window as Toji seated himself sideways. He folded his hands over his knees with a pained look.

“I thought you turned into a Torwächter!” Six said.

<<I did… Sorry about that. I tried fighting back, but I wasn’t strong enough. My ego’s about to go at any moment.>>

<<I can still fight,>> Asuka said. <<I’ll put you out of your misery.>>

<<Please and thank you.>>

Their physical selves were currently within the tunnel network, battling it out as enemies.

<<But…>> Noise ran through Asuka’s figure. <<I don’t know how much longer I have left.>>

Her consciousness would eventually be overwritten again if she remained synthesized with her Eva.

Six shook the smaller shadow. “Mari… Mari! Cat Ears, come on!”

<<It’s no use. It’s what she wants.>>

The small shade split into smaller, animal-shaped ones and ran to a distant desk before reforming into a humanoid shape.

<<We made the same attempt with Hikari earlier, but it’s no use. And have you noticed, Six?>>

“What?”

<<Your clothes didn’t change.>>

Before, they’d always switched to old uniforms whenever they entered school.

<<The being that halted time, Shinji’s mom… She’s probably gone now.>>

Toji winced as he balled up his left hand. His pale, human hand. <<Shinji was so traumatized, he forced me into a prosthetic. Dammit! If only Quatre had come through with the thing I asked.>>

<<Six, you have to go back! The Carrier is attacking headquarters.>>

What would be waiting for her when she did?

“Okay…” Little Rei Six nodded, not out of determination but out of a lack of options. Her blue hair bounced as she bounded out of the classroom.

But she tripped on something in the hallway and came back.

“By the way, I found this earlier.” Six held out the thing that had jammed Eva-0.0 Type-F’s plug hatch. “Is this what you asked Quatre for?”

It was a metal container, a working bio-preservation canister.

“Her name’s written on the other side of it.”

She turned the tube, showing them the “4” that was the Ayanami’s name.

Quatre did this? Toji decided that it must have been when Six was pulled in by the mutant Eva at Lake Ashi. Quatre could have forced a mental routine into Six’s mind via the mirror link.

He didn’t need to check inside to see what it was.

It was his cultivated leg.

<<Just what I’ve been waiting for!>>