Chapter 35: The Person Inside
Chapter 35:
The Person Inside
The Person Inside
T
OKYO-3 HAD SOMEHOW SURVIVED
the assault by three winged Angel Carriers. The night had grown late, and the submerged buildings rose back up among the wreckage and offered their light. A fleet of heavy vehicles rumbled as the repair and resupply of the fortified districts continued.
But their pace left much to be desired. The widespread catastrophes had wreaked havoc across all borders. The death toll from earthquakes and tsunamis caused by the reduction in the Earth’s circumference had long since surpassed the Lance of Longinus’s destruction, and the total number of victims was incalculable. The governments of the world and their citizens were struggling to respond. Nerv Japan had so far managed to keep up with their supplies and maintenance through sheer force, but signs already indicated that these days were numbered. Toji had presumed that Fuyutsuki’s help would make life easier for him, but the resupply efforts after this most recent battle had him running around frantically.
Given the circumstances, repairs to Cage Two were put on hold.
The cage had been destroyed by Super Eva’s unplanned flight and was designated off-limits. No one was supposed to be there. But in the darkness—
THRUM!
THRUM!
A loud heartbeat echoed through the ruined chamber, and a light flickered among the rubble. With a flashlight in hand, Shinji jumped from one fallen chunk of reinforced wall to another.
This light fell upon an external unit that belonged to Super Eva, and when Shinji saw that the equipment had been pinned under a collapsed, multi-tier metal frame, Super Eva’s giant hand reached out from the shadows at his back.
A voice spoke. “What are you doing, Ikari-kun?”
Shinji yelped. His surprise carried over to Super Eva, and the frame slipped from the giant’s fingers. Amid the thunderous crash, Shinji turned to the source of the voice. There, poised at the top of a munitions tree—an Evangelion weapons supply tower, this one loaded with magazines for a Powered 8—Ayanami was looking down at him.
“Trois?! What are you doing up there? That’s dangerous!”
The tall bundle of metal released a shrill, ominous groan, and Shinji extended Super Eva’s arm, placing its open hand before her feet.
“That’s dangerous, too,” she said but quickly leaped onto Super Eva’s hand.
“Ah! You’ve gotta at least look before you leap!”
“Oh?”
Super Eva’s hand lowered her eighty meters through the darkness, and she bounded onto the top of the same precarious piece of rubble Shinji had climbed. He stumbled, and Ayanami caught him by the waist. Shinji wondered how she could possibly maintain such perfect balance in the dim glow of a single flashlight.
“Well, thanks,” Shinji said. “At least you helped me find the tree with the spare ammo.”
“I had a hunch you were planning to make a break for it. You are, aren’t you?”
She didn’t quite make him laugh, but her casual, lighthearted phrasing suggested that this Ayanami was thinking like Cinq.
Toji said that Ayanami Rei Trois’ body hadn’t been completely taken over by Cinq and that Trois’ mind was still alive in there, even if she didn’t assert herself. Shinji wondered if that was true.
“I’m only sneaking around because no one else was going to let me in here,” Shinji said, “let alone search for salvage. Everyone else is too busy fixing the other facilities.”
“You know that moving Super Eva from its hangar is going to cause quite a stir. And…I notice you didn’t deny you’re leaving.”
“If I don’t hurry, I won’t make it on time.”
“You’re worried about Soryu, aren’t you?” Ayanami asked.
“Asuka puts on a brave face, but she’s the lonesome type.”
Rei Trois would have called her Asuka, not Soryu. She’d made a point of doing that to train Asuka to call her Rei. Cinq was the one who’d called her Soryu. On the surface, Cinq was sociable, but she didn’t let others in past a certain distance. The fugitive Quatre was the only one who still called Asuka “the Second Child.”
“Oh, er,” Shinji stammered. “Don’t tell Asuka I said that. She’d be seriously pissed.”
“I won’t.”
Ayanami looked up at him. This close, he could feel her warmth.
Flustered, he said, “Ayanami, you’re too close!”
Her expression abruptly went blank, and she said, “Look at me.”
“Huh?”
“I’m not your mother.”
“I…I know that!”
“You don’t.”
“I do.”
“That’s a lie,” Ayanami said, looking down. When she looked back up, she was smiling again. “Sorry, did I make you uncomfortable?”
Shinji made a noncommittal sound.
That was Cinq now, defusing the tension. But who had she been leading up to that?