Chapter 59: Shape of Shinji

Chapter 59:
Shape of Shinji

 

<<LET ME TELL YOU a fairy tale of the lilin. Lilith was profligate. Eve swallowed the serpent’s lies whole. Now, why did Adam do nothing to prevent these things?>>

What are you talking about, Kaworu-kun?

<<Like I said, it’s a fairy tale. A tale in which the truth is concealed. You see, Adam was cut down.>>

What?

<<The snake—that is, sin and evil—was part of Adam from the beginning. To become as a god, Adam had to abandon his most human aspects.>>

What for?

<<To see the being who granted him Lilith. And for this reason, he was cut off.>>

See? See who?

<<The fullness…of light.>>

 

The Asuka/Eva synthesis was suddenly damaged as it circled

over to Armaros’ front. Had the Devil’s Backbone clipped her? That certainly appeared to be the case.

A vertical rupture had appeared in her lower body—a dimensional one—and it appeared on the synthesis’s belly. The rupture began to grow, and the heartbeat grew louder with it.

The Devil’s Backbone turned its maw toward Crimson A1 and tried to consume it, but an arm extended out of the rupture, grabbing the serpent’s head.

The Asuka/Eva synthesis arched her body, lifting her arms. The thing from the other side of the rupture came into the world, its hands clutching the shocked head of Armaros.

The serpent wriggled free, and Armaros—or whatever it was now—backed away, not quite knowing what to do with the thing in front of it.

“What’s going on?” Misato asked.

Was this Final Model with his wings cut off? It was similar but not quite the same. Indeed, a brand-new Eva had been born into this broken world.

“The Virgin Birth. The Immaculate Conception.” Fuyutsuki muttered.

“I see,” Kaji said, making the connection. “Asuka, when you were overwhelmed with the Earth’s life-form data on the moon’s Ark…”

Misato saw what he was getting at. “Shinji’s life-form data was in there, too.”

 

“Ow, that hurt!”

Asuka screamed in her plug, having regained her human body. Had the pain of birth returned her sense of self? The Asuka/Eva synthesis had expended all her energy closing the birth tunnel, and the bond between human and Eva had been dissolved. She was back in Eva-02.

The first thing she saw was the inside of her own plug. The first thing she heard was loud howling. The first thing she felt was Azuchi the dog’s tongue on her face.

“I can’t—”

Her face flushed when she realized what had just happened. She covered her still-throbbing lower body with her hands.

“I can’t believe you came out of… You idiot! Moron! Dumbass!”

Eva-02 began kicking the pristine Eva.

<<Ow! Asuka?!>> The voice definitely belonged to Shinji. <<What’s happening out there?!>>

Shinji had been reborn with a new body, along with Final Model.

“Data is getting updated for the new unit!”

“The reversal of the window to higher dimensions. Deleting all inconsistencies, making the window bidirectional.”

Final Model’s information came flooding into the command center. Maya and Ritsuko saw it update in real time. It was a completely different creature, but unlike its predecessors, it was inherently harmonious instead of dangerous.

“Yes, and this heart… It’s taking in so much energy that it’s creating a surplus. Is it breathing?”

“Maybe the lives of Eva-01 Final Model and his pilot were spent when his wings were cut off.”

The fingers of Aoba’s lecturer hadn’t stopped moving since he’d started looking at the data. With a strict ban on all mobile devices, the theoretical physicist had no other way to make his calculations.

“He really died. That heart should’ve been obliterated. And yet the waveform of the transdimensional window remained. Those waveforms may have gained their own unique signature, and when they reset…”

“Ah.”

Someone gasped as Shinji’s Eva burned a red trail through the sky.

 

<<Ikari-kun!>>

Having left Toji and the others in the hands of the JSSDF, Trois’ Eva-0.0 flung Shinji’s weapon to him. Everything was accelerated, and both her voice and the weapon seemed slow.

“Thanks, Trois!”

He turned to grab it and then unsheathed the Magorox Stage 2.

<<Suzuhara…got Hikari out… Do you know what to do now…my baby?>> Asuka asked.

“I know. It’d be worse if you guys took care of this problem!”

The one who killed Armaros would become the next Armaros.

<<So it’s okay if you go and sacrifice yourself…? Is that it?>>

“Well, someone has to do something. Nothing will get done if we just sit here arguing about it. But now the Devil’s Backbone might turn into Armaros. I don’t know what’s going on anymore.”

<<That’s rich, coming from you.>>

Armaros summoned four new Angel Carriers, but Trois’ gamma-ray laser cannon and Asuka’s Zeruel ribbons each brought one down. Shinji took a deep breath, and by the time he exhaled, the remaining two had been imploded by the glimmering blade of the Magorox.

“You lined the entire blade with micro black holes?” Maya sighed with an exasperated smile.

Carrier and cocoon were separated, and both were immediately sucked up to the moon, still hungry for matter.

Shinji’s Eva collided with Armaros. He felt a sense of déjà vu as he fought the writhing serpent head. He remembered his days as a Torwächter and that he’d fought a snake back then.

A vision flashed before him, and he flinched. It looked as if his own twisted face was within the mouth of the Devil’s Backbone.

Am I the snake, Kaworu-kun? Am I the deformity cast away from Adam?

<<That is not a thing for the you right now to know.>> A straightforward answer, devoid of mystery for once. <<And now, you wish to escape the wheel, do you not? Well, allow me to give you the right to do so.>>

You’re really not stopping me?

<<I told you, Shinji-kun. I am always on your side. No matter what you may become.>>

Kaworu-kun?

<<Goodbye.>> He sounded like he was smiling.

Shinji’s blade flashed, and it cut across Armaros’ gigantic body from its left arm down. The Q.R. Signums shattered into red shards. The black giant that had become part of the World Tree in the sky fell to the Earth like a spider whose thread had been cut. It crushed the edge of Yomotsu Hirasaka, hanging over the Hakone caldera, and fell onto the eastern shore of Lake Ashi.

Shinji couldn’t finish it off. And yet, he had to stop it, chain it. But how? Bakelite? That was impossible. Nothing in this world could restrain Armaros for long.

He heard Maya’s voice as he drifted in the extended flow of time. <<Absolute zero… Sink it to the bottom… Lake Ashi…>>

What had Kaworu said about escaping the wheel? But as Shinji hesitated, a giant beast used him as a stepping stone and leaped over him.

“Mari?!”

Wolfpack was missing its front paws and had probably used up what little power it had left in that jump. It clamped its jaw onto the Devil’s Backbone’s field, shattering the restraint armor on its head.

<<Mari, stop!>>

<<Asuka, Shinji…watch me! This is my last chance to make my dream come true!>>

Wolfpack fired a series of shots from its particle cannon into the Devil’s Backbone. Armaros’ armor was filled with a pale blue light. It exploded from the inside. Wolfpack had consumed the serpentine creature.

“What have you done?”

<<I have no interest in anything outside of the pack, and I think that’s for the benefit of everyone I’ve come into contact with…urp. Oh, I feel so satisfied now, I don’t know what to do!>>

The battle was over. And to the victor went the spoils.

The change occurred immediately. Wolfpack’s transformation into Armaros took place faster than it had with Heurtebise, possibly because Mari was a willing participant.

But the ceremony wasn’t without its anomalies. For although Wolfpack was an Eva, it wasn’t human. The black giant rejected its new host, writhing on the surface of the beast’s body. But even Armaros was powerless to resist the law: The one who killed Armaros would become the next Armaros.

The giant had fled into the Devil’s Backbone, making the serpent its new core. Each time it appeared on the surface of Wolfpack’s body, Mari’s field beasts immediately appeared to bite it, forcing it back into its body.

Perhaps that was how Mari retained her personality, despite becoming Armaros.

 

<<The Ark is moving from the island to Lake Ashi!>>

<<Saltification area moving west! Take caution!>>

During the storm, when things were being sucked into the heavens, unencrypted alerts were issued over the general frequency. The transmissions came from the multitude of armies on Yomotsu Hirasaka.

The Human Instrumentality Project’s structure, The Ark, was on the move.

Mari had called it to her. The Ark quietly followed the new Armaros as Wolfpack walked down a slope.

And so, the new minister for the Human Instrumentality Project was decided.

The vertical roots stiffened and took them into the sky.

“Where are you going?”

<<A quiet place where I can rest. The farther the better.>>

There was a place only accessible through the tunnel network. Shinji and the rest knew where the roots of the World Tree would take her.

“Mari, that’s—”

<<Bye-bye, and don’t wake me up.>>

And so, the black beast disappeared. Shinji tried pursuing her, but the tunnel network began crumbling. Perhaps she’d ordered it to leave no trace, or perhaps the effects of Shinji’s spear were finally running out.

Either way, the roots faded from the sky.

<<The Lance of Longinus is moving!>> Asuka shouted.

A golden retriever jumped out of the crashed aircraft and bounded over to Rei Six. Azuchi’s long-lost sister had finally returned.

“Momo!”

“Woof!”

 

Wolfpack and the Ark had arrived at the last stop of the tunnel network—the Apple’s Core. It was located on the other side of the sun, and it had been the testing ground of the first Human Instrumentality Project. Shinji’s Lance of Lucretius had landed here, and Wolfpack pulled it out of the ground with its mouth. This was the limit of Shinji’s consciousness. The spear that stood at the end of the world.

Wolfpack threw it into the heavens. It was his spear. It would eventually find its way back to Earth—no, to that forgotten planet. In the world of eternal night, Wolfpack curled its giant body around the Ark and went to sleep.

 

The Earth and moon each had their respective Arks. Now, Mari had taken one of them to the Apple’s Core, also known as Eden. With this loss, the planet Shinji was on had lost the right to be called Earth or moon.

The Lance of Longinus was exiting orbit. It took the broken fragments of the moon along with it, appearing like a whirlwind that would travel through space. The planet that had been its long-time companion began to move as if being pulled by the lance.

The next iteration of the Human Instrumentality Project would be between the new Earth, which was the moon, and the Apple’s Core, which was Eden. The two planets had quite a bit of distance to close before their next dance.

As for the survivors of the shrunken planet formerly known as Earth, well, they were stranded there.

“Good enough for me,” Misato remarked.

At least Shinji and the others—this iteration of them, anyway—had managed to escape the wheel of the Human Instrumentality Project.

 

And so the apocalypse came to an unsatisfying end. The world would eventually rebuild itself, even without closure.

The next day, the moon disappeared behind the sun, siphoning materials off of Jupiter, which happened to be in range.

“It’s probably quiet over on the Apple’s Core,” Asuka said. “Doubt it’ll get destroyed with Mari on it.”

As for Shinji and his friends, they’d have to procure a new moon soon to stabilize the planet’s orbit.

“Where do we start?” Rei Trois asked.

“With my father.”

And then…

They had their work cut out for them.

 

THE END