Chapter 48: The Other Side of the Window
Chapter 48:
The Other Side of the Window
The Other Side of the Window
T
HE WINDOW VANISHED,
and Super Eva was falling into a deep, rocky ravine.
Shinji didn’t know what had brought him here—a side effect of the new cannon or the destruction of one of the Victors.
Probably both,
he thought.
Whatever the cause, the distance inside the space tunnel shrank to nothing and he passed through, only to be unceremoniously dumped into a red, rocky ravine carved into an unfamiliar mountain range. The window must have been above the cliffside, and now he was tumbling to the bottom of a gorge.
This is the place I saw on the other side of the window.
Where’s the other Victor? What happened to the Angel Carrier I stabbed? Is it dead? Is Trois still inside my chest? I have to find Quatre and her Eva.
Shinji was disoriented.
Where am I?
He felt utterly exhausted, despite only firing one shot, but he managed to focus his thoughts on flying. He righted Super Eva and touched down on a bluff overlooking the valley.
His shoulder cannon was completely broken, but luckily, that was the worst of it. The blast had killed all of Super Eva’s electronic systems. If the Eva hadn’t been his own body, he wouldn’t have been able to control it at all.
No use dwelling on hypotheticals.
Shinji shifted his attention to his present situation.
This place is dangerous. That open window turned people into pillars of salt all across Tokyo-3 and the area around Lake Ashi. The cause is probably that glass structure I saw… Now, where is it?
The window outside Tokyo-3 was the second place Shinji had seen the Ark; the first was when the hole had opened up during his struggle against Eva Euro-II in Hokkaido. He could vividly remember the revulsion he’d felt upon seeing it.
“There it is.”
The arrangement of smooth glass cubes was half-buried in the bottom of the gorge. Under the bright sunlight, as opposed to the dark nightscape Shinji had observed before, the structure seemed less eerie. But compared to the craggy surroundings, its smooth surfaces felt completely incongruous.
“And what’s with these rock formations? They look oddly like…people? Except they’re bigger than that. More like Evangelions.”
Just then, an explosion sent a cloud of smoke rising from the other side of the mountains to the north. Shinji’s body stiffened.
“What was that? I think I saw something flying.”
Shinji-kun! It’s you, isn’t it?
“Misato-san?!”
The electromagnetic pulse had disabled Shinji’s communicator, but for some time now, he’d been able to pick up weak comm signals through what he perceived as Eva-01’s ears. The first time hadn’t come easy, but lately he could understand most messages on the first try. Subconsciously, he decoded the signal and absorbed the meaning of the message, and his eyes naturally turned in the direction of the transmission’s source.
The gorge continued ahead toward the glass structure, where roughly two kilometers away Misato was a tiny speck, waving to get his attention.
“Misato-san!” Shinji said.
His vision zoomed in. Curled up beside the commander was…
“Kensuke? What’s
he
doing here?”
Aida-kun is hurt. He can’t move. He’s still conscious, but…he’s badly hurt.
“What?” Shinji exclaimed.
Stay calm. You need to be on your guard. Quatre’s Eva and the Euro Eva are fighting right near you.
The systems inside Super Eva’s entry plug remained shut down, and Ayanami Rei Trois didn’t know what was happening outside. She would have expected the plug to be completely dark, but the inner wall adjacent to the Center Trigonus flickered with a green light, and the LCL continued to circulate along with the giant’s heartbeat.
Trois curled into a fetal position and wrapped her arms around Shinji’s head.
Her mind drifted off. She might have fallen asleep like that—given enough time, she might have even melted inside Shinji—but instead, within her arms, Shinji spoke.
“Ayanami?” he said. “Whoa, it’s completely dark in here.”
“Ikari-kun?”
He could see her face faintly. She looked perplexed.
Shinji’s consciousness had returned to his human body.
“Trois,” he said, “we came out the other side of the window. I don’t know how or why, but Misato-san and Kensuke are down below.”
Shinji opened several panels along the wall of the plug and then spun the handwheel to unlock the exit latch.
“I’m going to carry you in my hand,” Shinji said. “Could you go over to them? Apparently, Kensuke is badly hurt, and I’d like you to help him.” He added, “Misato-san says that the salt effect doesn’t occur around Evangelions, so you’ll be fine. Kensuke is also carrying something that keeps him from turning into salt, so if anything happens, stay with him. I know that’s a lot to take in at once, but will you do it?”
“Yes,” Trois said, after a short pause. “Manual ejection?”
“Yeah, but hold on. I’ll have the big one do it. And there’s a battle going on out there between Quatre and Euro-II. Put on the armored vest before you go out.”
Shinji looked distracted for a moment. “I think the cover is…here.”
With a grating sound, Super Eva’s hand opened the plug’s external cover, and then, with much creaking and groaning, carefully pulled out the entry plug. The LCL drained, the hatch opened, and bright sunlight flooded the chamber.
“So, I guess this is North Africa,” Shinji said. “Can you believe it?”
The air was dry and smelled of sand. Trois let out a big cough.
Super Eva knelt in front of Misato and Kensuke on the ravine floor and lowered Trois down to them.
The howl of Allegorica graviton floaters sounded from nearby. The next instant, the sound grew louder. From Super Eva’s entry plug, Shinji shouted.
“Euro-II just crossed over the canyon! I think I’ve been spotted. Hurry up and—”
Something happened on the mesa on the other side of the gorge.