Chapter 42: To the Core of Being
The decades have not reflected kindly on me. Even at the relatively tame age of 60, my body begins to turn against me. My degeneracy is a rare sort, the entire body rebelling in a cascade of weakness. So, as the flesh begins to fail, I turn to metal and science to preserve me until our work is done. The first implants, decades ahead of their time, allow me to continue standing, even as I begin to walk with a cane. My sight begins to fail me as well, requiring glasses for the moment, and likely requiring still more in the coming years. It makes the process of translating the Scrolls… difficult, to say the least.
Our research on Lilith continues apace. The secretion she produces, aptly named Lilith Catalyst Liquid, has remarkable properties. On the merely physical spectrum, it acts as a sort of perfluorocarbonate, allowing a man to breathe in it as easily as he breathes in the open air. An amusing discovery, if nothing else. Far more interesting, and with far more serious implications, is that, when fashioned into a sort of droplet lens, it reveals… something. A field of some kind within the body. The Scrolls speak much of souls. Perhaps we have found the first evidence of such.
- From the personal journals of Lorenz Kihl, September 1989
JSV Kaga, Off the Coast of Australia, Another World, Late 2025
Captain Misato Katsuragi stared out the window of the command tower towards the coastline that buzzed with activity and wondered. She had been doing a lot of that lately, since the last Angel attack. Questions, worries, and fears swirled in her mind with an intensity that could only be rivaled by the days when the Angels came more frequently. And yet, the anticipation of so long between was almost worse than the certain frequency of the past.
The Angels, or perhaps, only an Angel, were foremost in her mind as she idly watched cargo aircraft flitting back and forth between the fleet and the town on the continent. Why had they waited so long to attack again? When would the next one, the last one, appear? Would it ever? Why had the last one appeared all the way in India, 2 years ago?
She hadn't the slightest clue. She hadn't felt like she'd known how things would work out since Near Third Impact. Well over a decade now in the dark, stumbling forward and grasping for solutions that didn't even stretch beyond survival at this point, staving off NERV and, it seemed, the world itself. 'When will this end?' she wondered with no small amount of weariness. 'When can I just move on and…'
What would she do after this? What could she do? Was there even an 'after this' at all? For anyone?
'Well… we'll get there when we don't have to worry about the end of the world.' she decided, as she had decided every time the question had come to mind. That day… would still be a long way off.
Makoto came to a stop by her side, a sure rock in what had become a storm-tossed life grabbing her hand for a brief moment and squeezing as she looked at him and smiled slightly. "Is everything going well?" he asked quietly.
"That's a good question. We've at least got a lot of activity in the air." Misato replied as she looked back at the comms officer. Now, most everyone in the fleet had started wearing civilian clothing, jeans and t-shirts capped by a jacket of various shades of grey, a ribbon of bright blue wrapped around one arm uniting them.
As for herself, however, Misato wore a red, almost raincoat-like jacket over black pants and simple black boots, a distant reminder of her days in NERV. Her hair, once hanging free, was now tied back into a neat bun. She had been in command of this group of people, this branch of WILLE, for years now. She was no mere Colonel in NERV now. And, as she had come to conclude years ago, she had to actually act like it. Utterly maddening as it would have been to the Misato of years prior.
"Lieutenant," she said to the comms officer, one of the more experienced civilian volunteers, "contact the salvage team leaders. See what they've come up with."
. . .
In the Ruins of Toowoomba, Australia
Toph reached for the radio on her chest, the sealed hazard suit crinkling as the voice back at the fleet asked for a status update. "Well…" she began, her voice echoing somewhat through the speaker port in her suit.
She looked out across the fields of core material that coated the now-abandoned town far as the eye could see. The buildings, encrusted by the crystal, had become geodes of desperately needed supplies, factories, storage houses, and government record-keeping buildings especially high on the list, even as they tried to reach them before the massive, at times headless, copies of Evangelions stepped on them and scattered what could be used to the wind.
"It's taking some time to crack into anywhere. We've located a few locations that we've decided to focus on, an electronics factory, a government building, and a food processing plant, but our safety precautions are making it so we have to resort to pickaxes and drills." Toph shook her head. "I'll report back when we've found anything interesting."
"Good copy. Have a good scavenger hunt, Team 1. Fleet out."
With that, the radio clicked off, and Toph looked around the town as she went walking towards one of the groups she had sent towards the electronics factory she had mentioned.
As she walked, she wondered slightly at how quickly the… well to just call it just crystal was almost selling it short, had spread across this entire world. She and those others who could had discretely tried to earthbend it away when they had the chance years ago, and had continued trying since. It hadn't budged a bit until Korra tried, weaving in spirit bending, of all things, to the task. Even then, the act exhausted her. Like the crystal was alive. Pushing back.
And, Toph mused as she passed beyond the cordon of aircraft and caught sight of a group of the increasing number of wandering, Evangelion-sized and shaped crystalline masses striding across the landscape far away, that might not have been too far from the truth.
She shook her head slightly as she continued on, coming to a stop in front of a crew that beat down upon the crimson gemstones in front of them, trying to breach the doorway that led to the prize within. The leader of the effort, who looked down at a tablet in her hands, was appointed by Toph herself. From what she'd come to learn during her time traveling with her, she had a… specialty when it came to electronics and anything related to it.
"How goes it, Asami?" Toph said as she came to a stop by her side, causing Asami to look up at her.
Asami Sato, junior head of non-Eva engineering, was silent for a moment, then sighed quietly as she shook her head and looked back at the structure. "Well, this stuff still defies all expectations, even after all this time." she began as she looked down at the core material in front of them. "If we had the facilities and the ability to study it as is, I'm sure Doctor Akagi would have us working on a way to shut it off, as it were, without using the ACC Pillars. The fact that this stuff… well, goes dead, for lack of a better term, when you break it apart…"
"I imagine it doesn't help things." Toph summarized succinctly, a somewhat sour note to her voice.
"Yep." Asami sighed in annoyance. "That's just having to do with the core material itself."
She looked up at the electronics factory with an uncertain look on her face. "And the fact that we're down to trying to scavenge consumer electronics…"
"Consumer? There's differences?" Toph asked somewhat incredulously. She had been famously out of the loop as her world of birth advanced in technology, preferring the solitude of the spirit swamp.
"Yes, compared to the military stuff our tech base uses, there are several differences, quality of parts being only the first of them." Asami said patiently. "It's been… difficult, learning the differences on the fly, but I think I'm getting a handle on the little intricacies."
"You…" Toph trailed off for a moment before nodding. "You do that."
She shook her head slightly as she tried to wrap her head around all the things that had become a part of her life since leaving her birthplace behind. It was… staggering. So, she decided to try and focus on something else for the moment, her gaze sweeping around until she found another person whom she had put with Asami, more directly involved with the work of breaching the factory before them as she helped operate one of the scavenged mining drills that worked at the door. "How's Korra taking all this… modernity?" she said after looking around herself to ensure that they had privacy to speak.
"Well…" Asami chuckled slightly, and Toph could hear the slight smile on her face at the mention of her dear wife. "She's getting the hang of it. It helps that she's got her dear wife to help troubleshoot things. Just like I'm here for all of you if need be."
"I'm touched, as always." Toph said wanly as she smiled slightly.
Before she could continue, a loud crack, followed by a series of quieter ones, drew her focus to the door as it swung open into the musty darkness.
"Oh, good." Toph said as she stepped forward. "A breakthrough. Let's go see what's there to scavenge."
. . .
NERV HQ, Geofront, Early 2026
Commander Kaworu Nagisa of WILLE pondered the possible future, and the events that had led up to the present, as he sat sequestered within the slowly decaying headquarters of NERV. It had become… a strangely beautiful place, by now, far different from what he had seen in visions. With much of the city guarded by the Angel Contamination Containment Pillars, and none left to keep the forest at bay, verdant, vibrant nature had reclaimed much of the ruins, green vines creeping up tilted cable poles and crumbling walls, the roots of trees cracking the sidewalks and roads once nearly choked with humanity. What animals remained clustered in ruined highrises, shattered windows having become the cavernous entrances to runways that birds flew from into the sky to find their food.
During one of his many secret excursions to the surface, it had rained, a quiet, weighty noise completing the scene as he simply… stood in the rain, and let it drench him. How utterly… human, that experience was.
Drawing his mind back to his immediate surroundings, he looked up and around him, listening intently for the tune of souls that only he could hear. Most clear to hear was Deputy Commander Ryoji Kaji's soul, thrumming with a skillfully hidden anxiety, a longing, all covered by an almost overwhelming sense of boredom. He'd had to keep him sequestered in the deeper parts of the base, where Ikari and Fuyutsuki would no longer roam. This was, even with his sharpening cognition of possible futures, his power to begin again, still one of the first times the world had developed thus. He would have to tread carefully as he moved forward, just in case something unexpected caught him off guard.
Further away, far more quiet, were the songs of the souls of the members of SEELE. Old songs they were now, further removed from the rather wretched, though mortal, old men that they first were. They still desired a reunion with the now-dead Mother that lay below them all, but now they were far more… intimately connected with her than most. An unusual development, to be sure, but not one that could not be used, should the need arise.
Above them, still more quiet, were the seemingly inseparable souls of Ikari and Fuyutsuki. The sound of Ikari's soul had changed. Become both alien to his former self and… familiar, somehow, in a way that he couldn't quite place. It had left him even more inscrutable than he had already been, a shift that Kaworu had found… somewhat unsettling. A commendable accomplishment for one such as he was. It had made him cautious of what could come next. Fuyutsuki on the other hand was… utterly melancholic. Carrying on as if he had a sacred duty to do. What duty that could be, Kaworu could not fathom, and did not care to try.
And now, somewhere else up there, there was the clone. Ayanami. At least, it bore her face, her name. There was… no recognizable tune to her soul. Simply a long, droning sound. Was there a soul in there at all? He wondered what that could possibly mean, knowing where the original Ayanami was interned.
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door, looking up as Kaji entered discreetly. "Commander." he said quietly. "Am I interrupting anything?"
"Not at all, Deputy Commander." Kaworu responded coolly, his signature slight smile appearing. "Tell me, what news do you have?"
"Well," Kaji began as he shut the door quietly behind him and took a seat in the decidedly spartan room, "I've been looking into Commander Ikari's files on what's left of the Magi. He has…"
He puffed his cheeks after a moment's silence. "Well, to say he has some pretty wild plans would be underselling it by a big margin."
Kaworu arched an eyebrow. "How so?"
"In a rather heavily encrypted series of files, fairly old ones," Kaji began as he pulled over a tablet, retrieving a USB stick and plugging it in with an adapter, "I found plans for massive ships. Truly massive ones." Kaji shook his head. "As for how he plans to construct them quickly, I haven't the slightest clue, but… if he somehow does…"
He pulled up the schematics, turning the tablet to show Kaworu. He scanned the document with discerning eyes, noting the four rather dramatic German names the vessels would have on completion. At the core of their constructions…
"Artificial Spears?" Kaworu wondered aloud. "Why make these vessels around those to, what I may assume at least, try and initiate an Instrumentality when he has the Spears of Longinus and Cassius in his possession?"
Kaji shrugged. "I haven't found anything on Ikari's database to suggest any sort of plan beyond simply having them. They're battlecarriers, after all. Capable of containing at least two true Evangelions, with space for several more deep within. Perhaps he just wants them to secure the world while he tries something new. However…"
He paused for a moment as he put a hand to his stubbly chin, scratching it thoughtfully. "SEELE's own database has gotten another batch of files recently. Ones that are far more encrypted than anything else in there. I still haven't been able to crack them, though not for lack of trying."
Kaji looked at the tablet with a thoughtful expression for a moment more, then back up at the seeming boy that was his commanding officer as he arched an eyebrow. "Do you happen to have any idea of what Ikari might be hiding there?" he asked somewhat slowly.
Kaworu shook his head slightly. "I must admit, it escapes me as to what they could want to be kept so secret. That database is mostly storage for their records of the Dead Sea Scrolls. SEELE is quite stringent in maintaining it as such, even in their senescence."
Kaworu looked back down at the schematics. "Perhaps it may have something to do with Ikari's visit to the Middle East?"
"I wouldn't be surprised." Kaji said with a shrug. "I'll keep trying to break in."
It fell silent between them for a moment. Then, softly, as he had so many times before, Kaji asked a familiar question. "How is the fleet doing?"
Kaworu's brow furrowed slightly as he thought back to the last progress report that they had sent to him. "Last I recall… they're still setting up townships for the remaining populations of Indonesia and the Philippines."
"Ah." Kaji nodded slightly, as he always had, a melancholic look in his eyes. "I see." he said softly.
"Well," he said after a moment, standing up, "I'm going to see if I can't crack SEELE's database, see what Ikari might have planned. Maybe there's something we can do with these plans for these ships."
"Perhaps there is." Kaworu agreed. "Were you able to glean when and where they might be constructed?"
"Well, from what I've seen, it says the automated foundries in Russia, South America, North America, and Europe started this January, and they're on track to be completed in about 2 or 3 years. What were you thinking of doing with it?" "
"Perhaps…" Kaworu trailed off for a moment as he pondered. "One of these vessels may yet serve us."
Kaji's eyebrow arched as he waited for an elaboration. When none was forthcoming, he shrugged. "Okay, Commander Nagisa. Let me know how when you've got it all figured out."
With that, he exited, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.
Finally alone again, Kaworu noticed something else. Something familiar. Was it… yes. It was indeed.
'Ah. Hello, brother.' Kaworu thought, his smile widening slightly. 'Welcome to the world.'
JSV Kaga, Somewhere in Southeast Asia
A trilling sound brought Lieutenant Midori Kitakami's attention to her sensor screen. As she studied it, her eyes widened slightly in shock before she turned back to look at Captain Katsuragi. "Captain! Our satellite systems are picking up a massive Pattern Blue!"
Misato strode over to the sensor station as murmurs rippled through the bridge. "Where at?" she said, leaning down to look over Kitakami's shoulder.
"Currently on the island of Hokkaido." Kitakami replied. "It's moving south-southwest at about…" her eyes squinted at the calculations being done for a moment. "10 kilometers per hour. If it's heading for Tokyo-3…"
"Then it could only be one thing." Misato said grimly. "Another Angel."
"12 of them, now." Ritsuko said with a quiet sigh as she joined Misato's side. "How many did Ryoji say SEELE had planned for?"
"13." Misato replied quietly, a note of hope, almost utterly foreign to her now, ringing her voice. "We're close now. We've had 2 years to prepare for this one. Now…"
She paused for a moment before chuckling softly. "It makes you wonder why they didn't do this before, when we actually had the defenses to do something more than this."
Misato shook her head slightly as she turned to the rest of the bridge. "Signal the fleet to move out at full speed, 30 knots to Japan. The Borneo colony is going to have to get set up the rest of the way on its own. We have about four days to outpace this thing, so let's not waste them."
. . .
The Titanskeep, 2 Days out of Japan
The holding bay for the Evangelions under WILLE's command was, once again, a carefully managed tempest of activity. Now though, instead of fumbling, unsure volunteers, years of almost nonstop maintenance on the Evas and their equipment had sharpened them into precise, careful engineers.
Ymris couldn't help but have a little spark of pride as she oversaw their most important project: the mechanical arm of Unit-02. It had become a sleek thing, dull grey with splashes of red and orange. But that sleekness carried with it an upkeep that far outstripped the biological portion it augmented.
She blinked her sight on for a moment, and looked upon the giant's Frame. It glowed like the inside of a massive fluorescent bulb, active Metos thrumming throughout its length. All except through the mechanical arm.
She'd considered, when the first iteration of the arm had been fitted to Unit-02, trying to regrow the Frame through the arm. Asuka had complained about a tingly, almost numb feeling in the cybernetic prosthetic ever since she'd first tested it, as well as a difficulty, if not an inability, to generate an AT Field along it. But she was no Mender, and even if she was, such a task would have taken up until now to even get to the halfway mark.
So, Ymris thought with a sigh as she shifted her gaze away and let her Sight drop, it would simply have to do with careful maintenance and no small amount of prayer to Jezriga, lord of blacksmiths.
Her gaze fell on one of the newer technicians, shepherded along by a somewhat more senior mentor. Both had encountered a snarl in their open panel of wiring and electronics, it seemed, and both were obviously, at least to her somewhat more observant view, struggling.
With another quiet sigh, she set her service tablet aside, climbed down the ladder from her perch onto the arm itself, and made her way towards her wayward disciples.
"What seems to be the problem?" Ymris asked as she came to a stop by them.
"We're not reading any power going towards the index and middle finger's knuckles, Captain." the senior technician said, looking up from his handheld diagnostic device. "We've narrowed it down to somewhere in this processor cluster, but our progress has stopped there."
Ymris nodded as she pulled out a diagnostic device of her own, sliding out a probe and touching it gently to one circuit board or another, her eyes darting as she checked the screen. Good on ZzCa-15… good on ZzCa-16… 17, 18, 19, 20…
There. Circuit board ZzCa-21, no power flow. Shutting off power to the cluster, Ymris extracted the board after a few moments of work, studying it closely.
After a moment more, Ymris nodded as she motioned for the two technicians to come closer. "See here, scorching around the transistors and a few of these capacitors. This thing probably got fried when we ran the motor function test yesterday. If you find one that you think looks like this in there but aren't sure, pull it out and check. Here in this section at least, it's easy enough to slot back in."
"But this one we'll need to replace, obviously." the junior technician said somewhat slowly. "No repairing it, I presume."
Ymris nodded, glancing over at the woman's woven name tag for a moment. "Right you are, Leroux." she said simply. "Best we can hope for now is that we can strip it for spare parts for other boards. A tall order for any circuit board."
"And how much are you willing to bet this is one of those civilian boards we got a few months back?" the senior technician, a man with the last name Olsen embroidered on his coveralls, said ruefully as he shook his head.
"More than I'd care to admit." Ymris replied as she handed the board to Leroux. "Go and get another CX-59 board. Olsen will run you through diagnostics if you haven't done it before."
Ymris stood as the two technicians nodded their assent, Leroux carefully making her way towards the edge of the arm as Ymris turned and scanned down towards the hand. Spotting another cluster of engineers in the midst of digging into the artificial muscle strands near the wrist, she began to make her way over to the problem. One more out of thousands, tens of thousands, she'd dealt with to keep this blasted arm functioning.
'I swear,' Ymris mused grimly, 'this arm might well be the death of me.'
. . .
The Kaga, 1 Day out of Japan
Asuka and Mari looked down at the holotable on the command bridge of the Kaga, its surface showing a satellite view of Japan, a red, pulsing dot with a bubble above it in the southern half of the Iwate prefecture.
Within the bubble was suspended another image, a reconnaissance satellite's view of the Angel from far above. It showed something utterly… odd. It looked like a flying stream of hexagonal rocks, twisting through the air as it stood out dark, nearly black, against the brilliant red crystals.
"So," Mari began, leaning forward to stare at the Angel with wide, wondering eyes, "what's with the floaty columnar jointing?"
"Well, the 12th Angel," Ritsuko began, putting some slight emphasis on the latter two words, "possesses, even with what ramshackle Fuyutsuki detectors we have trained on it, a spectacularly powerful AT Field. You'll have to be quite cautious when approaching it."
"Are we able to read anything resembling a core yet?" Asuka asked, regarding the Angel far more coolly.
"That's another thing." Ritsuko replied. "As far as we can tell from our preliminary scans, the entire Angel's structure is made up of core material. It's likely a large part of how powerful its AT Field is."
The rather sobering revelation hung in the air around the table for a moment before Misato interjected. "With that in mind, you'll likely need to take off chunks of it as you nullify its AT Field with your own. Or perhaps NERV will recognize the threat as well and send a flight of Marks to do that for you. Either way, we'll need to be ready to stop this thing before it reaches Tokyo-3, or Lilith. If that happens, I hardly need to reiterate what comes next."
"And what about the anomalous Eva, Captain?" Asuka asked archly. "Should we expect to see it as well?"
"Seeing as we'll be operating on Japanese soil, it's more than likely." Misato replied. "If you can manage to detain it after we've finished killing the Angel, do it. We need to know who's side this pilot's on definitively."
"Well, with how nonexistent the chap's been for the most part," Mari said with a quiet sigh as she straightened back up, "I hope we can catch him." she paused for a moment, her head tilting slightly as a thoughtful look fell upon her face and she cupped her chin. "Say… d'ya think that there are any more Evas we don't know about out there?"
"I can certainly hope not." Misato said quietly, her eyes widening at the frankly terrifying prospect before she shook her head slightly. "Now, get over to the Titanskeep. We need you ready to go the second we reach the shore."
. . .
The Next Day
Asuka Shikinami-Langley (A name that, for whatever reason now, she had to remind herself of) took a deep breath of the ever-familiar blood-tinged musk of the LCL that pumped into her Entry Plug as she prepared to synchronize with Unit-02 once again.
It had become, if nothing else, a drearily boring process in its familiarity. Put on Plugsuit and A10 connectors. Enter Entry Plug. Get winched into the port for the Plug. Wait as LCL was pumped in. Same old, same old. The gleam of preparing to go out and show that she was the best, that she had earned the mantle of Evangelion pilot, had become tarnished with time and the certainty that, really, she might become the only Evangelion pilot, given the wrong circumstances.
'And wouldn't that just bite?' she mused grimly as the synchronization process started, a sense of feeling expanding from her tiny, comparatively frail body to fill the whole of the Evangelion as she regained a simulacrum of her binocular vision thanks to the Eva's sensors. It was a warm, comfortable sensation… everywhere except in her left arm. 'Speaking of…'
She had never fully gotten used to the numb, fuzzy sensation of her prosthesis. The darker part of her liked to taunt her for it, even as squeamish as it found it as well. If there was any sort of pleasure to be found in the ordeal of synching to the thing in order to use it, Asuka found it quite perversely in the darker part's unease.
"Alright, princess!" Mari chirped into an open comm panel as Unit-08 stood, sweeping away Asuka's thoughts as it secured its sniper rifle to an attachment point on its back. "Ready for another day in paradise?"
Asuka sighed quietly. "As long as you don't screw around too much, Specs, we should be able to handle this just fine." she replied in as level a voice as she could project.
As she stood Unit-02 up, securing what Doctor Akagi called the 'Positron Rifle', she took in the coastline of the Niigata prefecture, a raised, glittering red line above a similarly glittering crimson sea. Though it did not look it, it was only about a hundred kilometers to the ruins of Tokyo-2, 150 more afterward to their intercept point in the Saitama prefecture, only scant miles outside of Old Tokyo. 'From one set of ruins to another to defend a third.' Asuka mused as she stepped Unit-02 out onto the shore. 'Just another day at work, I guess.'
Any other war machine would have needed the better part of two days to traverse the distance. For the Evas, who jogged, then ran, their near breakneck sprint would carry them to the point in a little over an hour. Just as well, too. Their target, it seemed, had also picked up speed. Now, it dashed towards Tokyo-3 at almost 75 kilometers an hour.
'A race to the finish line.' Asuka thought, memories from long ago returning unbidden as she settled into the rhythmic, almost heartbeat-like pace the two Eva's thundering steps made as they nearly flew over the open ground, dashing past the wandering Eva-sized husks that had become a common sight around the world. 'The fact that he held it up for so long…'
She had to admit, even after all that had happened after the idiot had screwed it all up, Shinji Ikari had had his moments, even if first impressions hadn't been… great.
But that didn't matter right now. This wasn't the Eighth Angel, and they would make do without Shinji getting in the way of things and somehow screwing up again.
'Against one of the strongest AT Fields yet?' a part of her whispered. Whether or not it was the darker part of her or her own mind was a distinction that was becoming less and less important by the day. 'Who's to say that we'll win this time?'
'Me.'
Asuka stubbornly replied before a comm screen popped into being, Kitakami's face tense with anxiety.
"We're reading another Pattern Blue emerging from Tokyo-3. Scans are consistent with an activating Evangelion." she said, the calmness of her words contrasting with her expression.
"Ah." Mari nodded slowly. "Our tall, dark, and handsome friend, I presume." she said with a slowly growing grin. "I'm glad we can share a proper dance with His Mysteriousness."
"Well, I'm sure NERV is probably as concerned as we are." Asuka replied. "They'd have to be utterly dense to not send something out to try and stop the wrong end of the world."
As she said this, she glanced down at the geolocation screen below the comm screens. They were only a few minutes from their intercept point, their target closing fast. And, Asuka noted as the dot of the anomalous Evangelion appeared, the other Unit seemed like it would arrive before they did.
That old fear from 2 years ago stirred in her gut, her darker part anxious at what contact would be made with the Evangelion. Or was it the pilot within it?
Right now, those thoughts could wait as the intercept point came into view, the slowly descending Evangelion a dark point in the darkening sky. Even with the mission at the front of her mind, however, the fear remained as Asuka and Mari approached the Eva.
"Hey, hey!" Mari chirped through the speaker system as they came to a stop, the Angel still several minutes out from them. "Nice to see you again, big blue."
Silence was the only audible reply, text scrawling across a suddenly open panel the Eva's only answer. 'And it is good to fight by your side again as well, Shikinami. Makinami.'
Asuka's gaze was drawn toward the crimson spear in its hand, pointed down towards the ground. The darker part of her seemed utterly terrified by the sight, even as Asuka recalled Misato and Doctor Akagi talking about it. "And what's that you got there?"
'The Spear of Cassius. The counterpart to the Spear of Longinus.'
Far away, as those within the command bridge of the Kaga studied the message as well, Misato's brow furrowed. "Another Spear like the Spear of Longinus?" she mused quietly, a hint of concern in her voice as she considered the potentially world-ending implications.
"Fascinating." Ritsuko interjected as she stepped forward to get a closer look at the weapon held in a relaxed one-handed grip. "Now that it isn't obscured by dust and smoke, it's striking how different it is. If it could stop Near Third Impact…"
"Then we need that Spear. It'll be the best trump card we could ever ask for." Misato said decisively.
"I don't know how likely the Eva is to part from it." Ritsuko said slowly as she took in what, exactly, Misato wanted. "If anything, we might need to convince it to stay before we try and take the Spear from it."
A tone sounded on Kitakami's console before the two could discuss any further. "Target making contact in 2 minutes! Get ready, pilots!"
The warning sharpened Asuka's senses as she turned to face the Angel heading towards them, unlimbering hir Positron Rifle as Mari began to walk back and ready her massive sniper rifle. The anomalous Eva, in contrast, simply took its Spear in a two-handed grip, leveling it at the advancing enemy like a knight of old. Somehow, a part of Asuka figured he would still be just as effective as they were should he become able to use the Spear. If not more.
The time passed almost at a snail's pace in Asuka's reckoning of it before they caught sight of the Angel itself, a narrow, snaking view that twisted through the air as if it were underwater.
And even at this distance, its AT Field was… smothering. Even as she stretched forth her AT Field in response to try and nullify it, it was like pushing against an oncoming wave. The thought made her stubbornly push harder as she lined up her shot and fired.
As a bolt of brilliant blue light sped towards the Angel, she could nearly feel the anomalous Eva's AT Field slam against the Angel's as well, breathtaking power clearing the way for her shot to bend the flickering defense set up against it.
But it did not break, nor did the cracking sniper shot from Mari behind her get much further. Before they could fire again, the Angel was upon them, the surface of the smooth, geometric grey rock beginning to shimmer as planes of prismatic light that vaguely resembled arms folded out from the body of the beast.
They swung wildly towards Unit-02 and the anomalous Eva as the Angel circled overhead, causing them to jump back as the navy-blue Unit swung the Spear of Cassius, cutting through the prismatic arm and dispersing half of it as an echoing howl thundered from an unseen mouth.
More arms sprouted out as it began to drift lower to the ground and coil around them, jabbing and raking at the three Eva's defenses as they continued to try and strike back, the circle which the long Angel slowly began to tighten.
A pair of arms grabbed at the barrel of Asuka's Positron Rifle, jostling it savagely as it tried to pull it out of her hands. Asuka growled as she fought back, firing again and again, seemingly to no effect as the rounds splashed on a defensive AT Field. Finally, after a grueling minute's struggle, she heaved an angry sigh. "Big blue!" she shouted as she glanced back at the anomalous Eva. "I could use a little help here!"
The Eva turned to the sound of her voice, pausing as it dragged its spearhead through a long line of ethereal arms, turning and stepping to her side smoothly, the chop it gave through the arms equally smooth as their grip evaporated, causing Unit-02 to stumble back.
"Perfect!" Asuka shouted as she felt her AT Field begin to pierce the Angel's defenses, taking yet another series of shots into the side she aimed at, shouting wordlessly with a nearly feral grin as a trio finally broke through, sending a shockwave of cracks from the impact points.
With a roar, the Angel's constriction stopped as it uncoiled and rose into the air, making a beeline past them. The Evas that were armed with rifles fired after it, Unit-08 shaking its head after a moment. "Oh, come on!" Mari sighed in a rare show of exasperation. "We were just starting to have a little fun." she continued, finishing with a pout.
"After it!" Asuka shouted, wasting no time in breaking into a run, the others following after her in short order as they pursued the Angel overhead.
'I do not believe I need to remind you what will occur shall we not reach Lilith ahead of the Angel.' the text from the anomalous Eva said, scrawling across the Eva's screens yet again as they pursued the twisting, dark, almost foreboding line above them.
"Can you either start talking or just stop with the distracting text until we get to Lilith?" Asuka shouted as she gained speed. "It's getting stupid to put up with!"
The sentence disappeared, the words 'Audio Only' accompanied by a quiet sigh. "Very well." a soft, almost effeminate boy's voice replied. "Though I cannot show my face, I will agree to this in order to defeat the Angel."
"Ooooh." Mari crooned as they gained ground on the Angel. "Such a pretty voice! Got a pretty name to go with it, or are you content to remain mysterious?"
A quiet chuckle from the other end of the line. "For our purposes, I am simply the pilot of the Evangelion Mark.06, Ms. Makinami." the boy replied with a bemused tone.
"Great, cool, whatever, Mark.06." Asuka replied. "Come on! We're pulling ahead of this thing! Let's give it a proper greeting in Tokyo-3!"
Indeed they were, the Angel's speed insufficient for keeping ahead of its foes as the three Evas sped ahead, the ruined city of Tokyo-03 coming into sight.
It was an appropriately apocalyptic vista for the site of Near Third Impact and its completion, buildings strewn around like discarded building blocks providing the Evas with one last obstacle that led towards the center of the city, four massive crimson triangles peeling into the air like the rind of a terrible fruit. From the center of the peels, rising from within the Geofront, a breathtakingly tall spire of core material stretched into the sky, mostly unheeded by the three pilots as they entered the edge of the city, and the crag-like course that awaited them.
Unit-02 and Unit-08 jumped onto a building on its side, the wall, and skillfully applied AT Fields, supporting weight that would have sunk through the building as they jumped towards two separate buildings, both girls' eyes scanning for the next best perch to jump to and from.
As they jumped from building to ruined building, Asuka risked pausing for a moment to look back behind them. She felt a little relief that a moment's searching showed that the Angel was out of sight for the moment. Then, she noted an absence.
"Where are you, Mark.06?" she asked as she looked back towards their destination. "I didn't…"
She trailed off as she saw the Eva floating overhead, past the rubble that the other Units had to contend with.
Asuka tsked as she scrambled to catch up with Unit-08. 'Neat trick, pilot. I'll give you that much.'
Yet, a part of her was terrified by the sight. By the boy that had spoken to them. That part of her knew his name. His true name. 'Tabris.' the very thought of it felt… taboo. As if Asuka would begin summoning a demon of some kind if she said it aloud.
But, as they all reached the edge of the peeled Geofront, Asuka pushed the thoughts down and wasted no time jumping into the depths of the earth.
Landing with a splash in the now deep red lake, Asuka looked back up towards the blue sky, scanning as best she could for the Angel. "Alright," she said after a second, "where do we want to stop this thing?"
"We must keep it contained up here as best we can." the Mark.06's pilot replied levelly. "Otherwise, we would have to fight within Terminal Dogma itself."
"Uh, guys…" Mari interjected, her words slow in coming as she displayed an outright uncertainty. "I think the 10th Angel left us with no choice in the matter. It blew a hole in that pyramid thing there and made it all the way to Central Dogma before Unit-01 stopped it."
Asuka tsked in frustration. "Then it looks like we'll be making our stand in Terminal Dogma, then." she sighed quietly as she looked over at the Mark.06. "Any ways down that would actually fit us?"
"If you'll follow me to the route to Heaven's Door." Asuka swore she could hear the slight smile, almost a smirk, in the boy's voice as the Mark.06 turned towards a far wall, the mirrors on it having shattered to reveal a grey metal door that looked very, very heavy.
As the trio made their way towards the door, Asuka keyed up a comm panel to the fleet. "We've outrun this thing for now. How far behind us is it?" she asked as she paused before the massive door as it started slowly sliding open.
"You've got about 5 minutes before it reaches your position. It's closing in on the city limit- ow." a haze of static began to settle over Kitakami's face as they entered the massive tunnel that the door revealed. "-And by. I- osing- y-"
And with that, the connection was lost, leaving only the three pilots as they jogged deeper and deeper into the earth.
It was nearly silent as they went, the sound of the door shutting booming behind them as it mingled with their footsteps.
After what felt like ages, the three Evas stood before a door seemingly more massive than the one they had first passed through. Mari whistled quietly as she appreciated the tall doors. "So, is this Heaven's Door, then? I have to say, pretty impressive."
"Indeed it is." the boy pilot chuckled as the doors began to slide open, revealing a dark, cavernous room. The only light shone down from a source far above, revealing a macabre scene as the Evas walked in.
In the center of the room, surrounded by a small ocean of LCL, was the bent-over corpse of Lilith, surrounded by an island of massive, Eva-sized skulls. The comparatively tiny Evas, it seemed, had stepped into a tomb.
As Asuka took in the sight, she noted a prominent absence. "Where's the Spear of Longinus? Still embedded?"
"No." the boy pilot replied coolly, the Mark.06 walking towards a nearby wall. "I will retrieve it for us. I feel it will prove quite useful in the coming battle."
Asuka shrugged as she took her Positron Rifle from Unit-02's back. "I'll stick with an actual gun, thanks."
"As for myself, on the other hand…" Mari said slowly after a moment as the Mark.06 reached the wall, placing a hand on it that began to glow. "I've always wanted to be a knight in shining armor. If this is the closest I'll get to it, let me have it."
"Very well." the boy pilot replied as the wall slid aside, the gleaming Spear of Longinus mounted on the wall behind it. Taking it in hand, he flipped it within the Eva's grip, presenting it to Unit-08 as it stowed away its sniper rifle again.
"Oooh…" Mari's eyes were wide with wonder, and she grinned as she took the Spear in waiting hands, hefting it for a moment as she tested its balance. "This is… weird. A little long in the tooth as it were, but I'll make it work."
Before anyone could continue, a distant, rumbling crash came from beyond the now sealed Heaven's Door. "Well, I hope you know how to handle something like that." Asuka said as she turned towards the massive door. "Because our downtime is now up."
"Oh, please, princess." Mari rolled her eyes as she stepped over to Asuka's left, the Mark.06 taking up position on Asuka's right. "It can't be that hard, really. Pointy end goes in the other man. Simple as that."
"I hope so." Asuka said slowly, somewhat unsurely as she drew a bead on the door, her Positron Rifle fixed on the seam of the doors, almost impossible to make out in the shadowed expanse they stood sentinel in. "Because there isn't any time to practice."
Silence in Terminal Dogma for moments that felt stretched into hours for the pilots, only broken by the subtle hum of the Positron Rifle and the clamor of the Angel likely slamming into floors, walls, and ceilings beyond them. Then, Heaven's Door shuddered, a slight curtain of dust floating to the floor. Then, it shuddered again. And again.
"How long d'ya think it'll hold?" Mari said, an edge of caution to her usual cheery tone.
"Not much longer." the boy pilot admitted. "If it is as persistent as it seems…"
Another thundering blow cracked the center of the door, and the pilots could all feel the Angel's AT Field pressing against the door as it howled, their skin physically tingling from the power that lashed at the other side of the door as their grips on their weapons instinctually tightened.
Another impact to Heaven's Door knocked a chunk out of the door, allowing a glimmer of a pulsating prismatic glow to peek through. It drew back for a moment, then finally, Heaven's Door burst open, revealing the front end of the Angel sheathed in a broad, wedge-shaped battering ram of an AT Field as it roared.
Asuka wasted no time smothering the Angel's defenses as she fired the Positron Rifle over and over again, the energy packets slamming into an AT Field as it charged at them, ethereal arms fading into existence as they flailed at the closest targets. Those being the Mark.06 and Unit-08.
The two Evas dashed to the sides as they in turn helped counter the Angel's defenses, one swinging up its Spear a little more smoothly than the other as they raked the Angel's sides, the arms that they hit dissipating like mist as the blades passed through them.
The Angel twisted its sinuous body out of the way, the long cuts on its body slow to be covered by other shifting hexagonal pillars. As it did, Asuka continued to step back, onto the island of skulls, shooting at the Angel's twisting, turning body, the AT Fields flashing out to meet her shots bending more and more before one finally broke through, leading the way for more shots as they shattered parts of the Angel's body, sending them raining onto the skulls and splashing into the LCL below.
Asuka's brow furrowed as her eye narrowed. 'Come on… just a little more and I could break this thing in half…'
It continued to writhe in the air for a moment, the Mark.06 floating up to try and press its attack with the Spear of Cassius, weaving through the air with an inhuman grace as it swooped and dived at the Angel, more chunks of the Angel falling to the ground before an AT Field like a wave sent the airborne Eva tumbling away as it tried to correct itself.
In the meantime, Asuka's eye widened as it swooped down towards her, and she fired again and again as the Angel came low, a pair of reaching, inhuman claws grabbing Unit-02's waist.
Asuka felt a jerking motion, saw her view tilt madly, and shouted as her Eva was lifted into the air, Unit-02's feet kicking on instinct as she continued to unload into the Angel's underside. After a moment, another pair of hands grasped her ankles one after the other, and the Angel began to juke side to side, shaking Unit-02 wildly and throwing her shots wide of the Angel and into the ceiling.
"Spectacles!" Asuka cried out, whipping back and forth in her seat and fighting both the whiplash and rising nausea. "Boy wonder! Somebody, help me out of this, dammit!"
"Hold on! I'll try shooting it!" Mari replied, and Asuka rolled her eye at the idea of Mari setting the Spear of Longinus down to line up a shot.
She heard the crack of Mari's sniper rifle as a round whizzed past her head, clipping the side of the Angel and ricocheting into the ceiling. "Just don't hit me!" she shouted in reply as she fought to steady the Positron Rifle in her hands before taking another shot.
It was at that moment, however, that the Angel decided to add vertical movement to its horizontal juking, Asuka's view of the world becoming even more insane as she began to slam back into her seat, shouting wordlessly in pain, hoping that she wouldn't fly out of it and pining for some sort of seat belt system.
As she shook and tried to keep a grip on her rifle, it slipped out of the prosthetic arm of Unit-02 as the hand jerked open, resisting Asuka's attempts to do more than slap the rifle before it flung out to the side, Asuka tightening her grip on it as best she could. 'Stupid hunk of metal…'
But try as she might, a shotgun blast of fear slammed into Asuka's heart and gut as the Positron Rifle flew out of her hand, and she lost it from sight as she continued her mad shaking. "Oh, come on!" she shouted.
"I am on my way." she heard the cool, calm voice of the boy pilot finally reply as the barrage of Mari's sniper fire stopped. She probably wouldn't be able to catch sight of the Mark.06 to make sure it was approaching.
"Just don't try and hit me…" Asuka shouted, pausing as she slammed back into her chair with a grunt of pain. "Or you're dead!" she was secure in the knowledge that, should they fail, they were all likely dead anyway.
"I aim to be careful." was the boy pilot's only reply, and Asuka grit her teeth as she grabbed one of the wrists with her functioning hand, trying in vain to pry it off herself. After a moment's struggle, the boy pilot spoke again. "Hold still."
Asuka let go, letting her arms flail to the sides as she watched the bright red blade of the Spear of Cassius flash across her vision, the arms around her disappearing… and for the briefest of moments, she felt weightless before she began to tumble down towards the island of skulls far below.
Asuka felt her stomach leap into her throat as she took in in flashes just how high the Angel had carried her, the pale, dull-white of the skulls growing closer and closer at a breathtaking rate.
Asuka squeezed her eyes shut, fighting nausea that threatened to spill out of her and make her choke on her own vomit in the LCL as she finally impacted the ground, pain blooming in her left side and even registering in her prosthetic arm.
The pain rippled through Asuka, threatening to overwhelm her before she managed to stumble to her feet. Taking stock of herself, she noted the utterly mangled prosthetic arm dangling by her side, tsking slightly. She considered for a moment simply tearing the dead weight off. But if she did, she risked throwing off the balance that she needed for this fight. Besides, Tennison would probably rather repair it than replace it.
'Not before an aneurysm, I'm sure.' Asuka mused grimly as she began to scan for her rifle. Her amusement flickered out as she realized the Rifle must have landed in the LCL. 'Damn.'
"I've lost my rifle!" she growled as she advanced toward Mari. "I'm…" she paused, not wanting to admit the truth, then sighed quietly. "I'm not much more than another AT Field at this point. I'll go and cover Mari. Boy wonder, keep that thing busy!"
. . .
Kaworu Nagisa pondered the developing situation silently as Ms. Shikinami, and his fugitive brother within her, pulled Unit-02 towards Ms. Makinami's Unit-08, the Mark-06 responding to his every whim as he dueled his brother. Ptahiel.
It was utterly… novel.
"Acknowledged." was his only reply to Shikinami as he dodged out of the way of what he could only describe as 'wings', massive flapping AT Fields that forced him to either keep his distance or take a chance at getting close and getting caught in the tangles of grasping limbs that now covered the surface of the Angel like a mat of fur.
It made moving forward, in any way, difficult. So, Kaworu focused, tapping into that ancient part of him that could see beyond the bounds of this world, and sought another world with the answers he needed.
His searches were fragile, fleeting things, mostly flashes of images, emotions, words, feathered by shadows and brilliant white light. Most he saw in the moment he focused were, even in their multitudes, utterly useless to him.
Then, a single image came into focus. The Mark.06, subsumed into Lilith, pale and large, twin Spears glinting as they pierced the body that emerged from the rotting corpse. The image's clarity, he had found, was often tied to its commonality of occurrence. 'Ah. There is the way forward. But how?'
He let the visions drop away as he chanced darting into range of the flailing hands, swiping through a chunk of the Angel's rocky body as he considered his options. As he darted away, he smiled slightly at the plan, risky though it was, that came to mind.
As he dodged away from the Angel, he came to a stop floating right in front of the stooped, headless body of Lilith. As he did, he stretched his will out towards his brother Angel and connected, sensing the confusion within it. Yes, this was a new one, wasn't it? Created by a wrinkle in the universe, an acceptable flaw in the way of things.
Kaworu relayed what he wished to do. Commanded Ptahiel to obey or be subsumed into his power. And after a moment's struggle, the Angel bent the proverbial knee to its better.
Such command took only moments, and the Angel looped in the air with breathtaking speed before lancing towards him point-first.
Kaworu was unprepared for the pain as it slammed into the Mark.06's chest, its body slipping through his armor plates and connecting to its core. But the pain did not prevent him from throwing the Spear of Cassius over the back of the Angel, the point slamming into the ground a little ways from the other Units.
"Ms. Shikinami!" Kaworu gasped. "Take the Spear! This Eva is compromised, and will likely soon enter the corpse of Lilith. You'll have moments once it enters before it begins its ritual to impale it with both Spears. They will guide themselves to their target."
Kaworu pulled at the lever by his controls, and the back covering of the Mark.06 blasted off, the Entry Plug rocketing out of it moments before the Angel disappeared from sight, the Eva falling back into the massive pallid corpse and sinking into its skin.
As Kaworu flew away, he prepared the transmission that his Deputy Commander had gone over, along with the modifications that he'd sequestered into the design sent to the automated factory. "Take this back to your fleet." he said, ensuring that the transmission was encrypted to ensure, like their conversations, to never be known by Ikari. "It may well be the best chance you have at truly stopping NERV."
He smiled slightly as he felt the Entry Plug reach its zenith and begin to fall back down. "Perhaps we shall meet again someday. Farewell. Good luck."
. . .
Asuka dashed over towards the Spear of Longinus embedded in the pale white artificial shoreline, grabbing it with Unit-02's remaining good hand and pulling it out, shifting it to an overhead grip as she looked up to watch what remained of the Angel disappear into the Mark.06's chest, the Unit falling back and disappearing into Lilith. It was still for a moment, then the skin around what had probably been its neck bubbled growing and forming into the upper half of the Mark.06, its surface the same clammy, pale skin tone of Lilith, its fingers becoming claws as it arched its back and roared.
"You'd better be right, boy wonder…" Asuka muttered as she aimed, barely noticing Mari lining up a similar throw beside her. "Now!"
The two Evangelions of WILLE took a single step forward, then threw, the Spears aiming true as they zipped through the air at an almost impossible speed. One caught the Angelic Eva in the head, jerking it back as the other lanced through its chest. The howl it gave became quiet, then silent.
Asuka and Mari both stood there for a moment, taking in the breathtakingly close call they had just made. Then, Asuka took a deep breath. "Alright. Let's go home, then."
. . .
Far above them in Central Dogma, Commander Ikari and Deputy Commander Fuyutsuki watched intently as the two Evangelions began to pick their way out of Terminal Dogma. As they exited, Fuyutsuki looked over at the stoic, silent Commander, once again silently cursing that he could not read him like he once did. "Are we not going to try and detain them?"
"No." Ikari said coolly. "Firstly, with the loss of the Mark.06 and the pilot of the Mark.09's relative inexperience, any attempt to capture them will end with a net loss. And also…"
Fuyutsuki found himself shocked as, for the first time in years, he saw Gendo Ikari… hesitate. "There is a part of me," he continued after a silent moment, "that tells me that they will be necessary for what comes ahead."
Fuyutsuki waited with bated breath for elaboration. He then wondered as none came. 'Would it have something to do with the power of the Key, I wonder? He never spoke of himself like that before.'
His hypothesizing was interrupted as Ikari changed the subject. "And what of the digital intrusion into ours and SEELE's files? Has the perpetrator been identified?"
Fuyutsuki shook his head and sighed wearily. "I am not a computer scientist, Ikari. I cannot tell who is hacking us. Only that they are skilled, and likely working with this WILLE organization."
"Have you considered my request to have the old men's neural nets used in security?"
"Some. They will have to acquiesce, but to use the neural nets in the plinths that allow them to exist outside their bodies should make up for the loss of most of the Magi system."
Ikari nodded. "Very well. Our operational security must depend on them for a while longer. Then, when the time comes, we will release them so they may join their ancient mother again."
With that, he turned, walking out of the vast room, his steps echoing as Fuyutsuki considered what he had said, comparing it to the ritual which they now began to follow.
'How much longer until then, I wonder. Until we unbar the third Door of Imagination.'
. . .
The Fleet, the Next Day
Misato watched intently as Ritsuko and Captain Ibuki worked around their tablets, typing madly as they sat in front of the holographic table and decrypted the file that the mysterious pilot of the Mark.06 passed to them in the final moments of their battle.
After another moment, the tablets both buzzed, and the women regarded what was now doubtless on their screens, Ritsuko's eyes the first to widen as she sent it to the holo-table.
As the schematic bloomed into being, Misato's eyes widened in turn as she took in the utterly alien craft before them. It looked like it had been constructed around a massive, helical skeleton, the wider fore-end sporting most of the mechanical details. Twin hulls sat on either side of it, bridged over the top by a spine that ran most of the front half of the skeleton. A broad, arrow-shaped 'head' contained what Misato assumed was the bridge, hanging down below in a pod that looked eerily similar to the head of an Evangelion writ large.
The whole display was capped off by two massive wings on either side, stretching almost a kilometer and a half wide, according to the schematics, while the vessel, including a back half that was uninhabited, stretched for nearly 2 kilometers.
Ritsuko stood, walking around the table as she studied the blueprints intently, noting the name of the vessel: the Buße. "My, my…" she said quietly. "Whoever our mystery pilot was, he was quite capable if he could pull this out of NERV's database."
"You've got that right…" Ibuki said as she nodded slowly, intently looking at her tablet. "A new Magi system, the… Achiral, built-in storage for several Evangelions, flight capabilities… And all this started back in…" she shook her head slightly in amazement. "2019."
Misato looked the length of the ship up and down as she joined Ritsuko's side. "That long ago, huh?"
Before anyone could reply, a "huh" from Ibuki drew both their attention back to her as her brow furrowed. "Apparently… there's a change that was made in mid-2020. A pretty radical one. We lose a lot of our Evangelion capacity, save for two bays in the frontward hulls, but…"
"Well?" Misato said after a moment. "No need to keep everyone in suspense. Show us."
With a series of taps, the overview of the hull disappeared, a detailed view of the interior showing four circular bays in what was likely the most armored portion of the ship, each 80 meters tall and probably capable of holding 4 of the Units. If it weren't for the stores of samples and seeds embedded within them.
Ritsuko scanned through the manifest quickly, her brow furrowing slightly. "It's all genetic samples of animals, seeds of important crops, and other necessary plants… along with the instructions on how to utilize them."
"But why?" Ibuki replied as Misato continued to look at the sight on the holo-table. "Why would NERV convert useful storage for Evangelions into… an ark, for lack of-"
"What's this?"
Misato pointed at something nestled between two of the bays, an utterly out-of-place outline of a heart. "Why is that there?"
Ibuki looked down at her tablet, querying silently for a moment. "Huh. Odd. It just seems like a text file. A tiny one."
A moment later, the view was gone, the storage bays replaced by the text that Ibuki had claimed was hidden in the heart.
'One more gift to my Darling. Ryoji '
'Ryoji…'
The very thought of the name sent a cascade of memories tumbling down in Misato's mind as she beheld what appeared to be the last message of Ryoji Kaji. The man that she'd loved. The son that she'd had by him. The boy who their son shared a name with.
The memories seemed to have a physical weight as they pushed down on Misato's shoulders, leaving her braced against the table as she fought, and lost to, the tears that welled in her eyes and began to drip onto the holo-table's surface.
It was a silent moment before Misato composed herself enough to stand straight, wiping her eyes and looking upon the concerned faces of Ritsuko and Ibuki in turn. "I need a moment." she said simply, huskily.
With that, she exited the bridge, making her way towards the admiralty quarters which had been designated as hers, taking a moment before the door to take a deep breath before she let herself in.
As she entered, Makoto, who must have been off duty, looked up from the futon in the room, standing. "Misato?" he said quietly, one of only three people left that called her by her first name. "What's wrong?"
Misato stopped dead where she was. And for a moment, she didn't see Makoto standing there before her, a concerned look in his eyes. She saw Ryoji.
Tears welled up again as she said nothing, walking past Makoto and sitting down on the futon. Her lip trembled for a moment, then she buried her head in her hands as sobs began to wrack her body.
Makoto was utterly unsure of what to do next for a moment as he watched the woman he had come to love utterly despondent. Then, he slowly made his way to her side, sitting down beside her and hugging her to him as she battled the memories, the guilt, that would torture her more thoroughly than anything or anyone else ever could. It would be, it seemed, a long night for the both of them.