Chapter 14:
Summons
THE MOON’S ABRUPT TERRAFORMING had caused massive panic and anxiety among the population of Earth. There was a high likelihood that the falling lunar landmass would end civilization as they knew it.
The moon slab slowly descended to the critical zone where it was either going to be drawn back to the moon or pulled down to Earth. Calculating the trajectory of such a massive object was simple enough, but astronomers couldn’t work out whether it would actually penetrate the atmosphere, given its shallow point of entry.
The EU and U.S. urged the use of N2 warheads, which had been under the UN’s lock and key since before the Second Impact. Nuclear weaponry had been sealed away deep underground, but the gigantic rock in the sky seemed a noble enough motive to warrant its use.
The moon slab was so massive that its entry into the critical zone might rotate the Earth on its axis. Although, the worst-case scenario of it ramming straight into the planet was still likely.
The EU and U.S. were now in talks about a plan to break up the lunar mass into smaller fragments. Moving the slab out of the way remained the best course of action, but it was much too large.
“Maya-san, is there any way to destroy and then dispose of the detached mass?”
<<I don’t perform miracles.>> Maya sighed through the intercom from the cage.
“The main issue is the lack of distance from us to it. Whatever we do will cause catastrophe below.”
It was a bitter pill to swallow, but someone had to say it.
“Even if we were to break the slab into small chunks, those chunks would continue to fall to the Earth for several hundred years. Meanwhile, whatever’s left in the atmosphere will remain in the atmosphere. Humankind will never set foot in space again…assuming there’s anything left of us by then.”
“Not to mention,” said Misato, “the moon’s right behind it.”
The approaching moon slab was only a prelude to the real disaster.
An operator prompted Toji to look at the main display. Super Eva had safely returned from orbit.
“Shinji! Why’s Super Eva all burnt?! Maya and the rest of her team worked real hard to clean him up, you know!”
The purple giant had failed to properly decelerate when reentering the atmosphere. He took a few clumsy steps forward, as if he were underwater, and then began sinking into the ground, despite the lack of elevator shafts.
“What the hell?!” Toji exclaimed.
All eyes were fixed on the display, though not a single soul knew what was going on.
Shinji watched as a vast flock of birds flew across the sky, like rapidly moving mist.
I wonder where Kaworu-kun’s last dove is… I couldn’t catch it last time…
The white mist turned to darkness. A mountain? And stars? What was I doing…?
Wait! I just landed with Super Eva.
What am I looking at?!
Was he dreaming? The white mist rushed closer, and the flock of birds passed him like the wind.
When the mist faded, he noticed that Asuka—Torwächter A1—was beside him.
THRUM!
Shinji’s chest burned with his heartbeat. He felt blood rushing through his veins. The Center Trigonus in his chest burned as bright as a furnace. The heat it produced certainly wasn’t imaginary. If this was where Shinji’s stolen heart was, then—
“I’m seeing the world through Torwächter B’s eyes…”
Crap!
A chill gripped him as he made this realization. Why didn’t I think about it before? If I can call upon my heart’s power from afar, then the heart can summon me to it—
THRUM!
<<Return my body. Return to me that which you wield.>>
It was the voice of his other self.
“No… Wait!”
Wolfpack held the Lance of Longinus in its mouth. It shoved away an Angel Carrier and lunged at Asuka/Torwächter A1. Shinji, as Torwächter B, readied his giant weapon to protect her.
A weapon?!
<<Shinji, stop that this instant! What do you think you’re doing?!>>
Maya’s voice yelled at him through his speakers… Was he back in the cage?
Shinji’s consciousness was merged with Super Eva’s. He didn’t see through his entry plug but through the Eva’s eyes. The giant’s hands were his hands. What am I…?!
“The heart is calling out to me… Maya-san! It wants…the weapon…I’m wielding!”
What am I wielding?
Super Eva’s distant heart realized that he held the great bow Azumaterasu in his left hand.
<<Fire!>>
Shinji lost control of his hands, and they aimed Azumaterasu high into the sky.
Azumaterasu—previously dormant—finally activated.
Particle induction elements attached to the top and bottom of the bow’s frame lined up with their seven respective power injectors.
Seven dazzling beams of light focused in the center as Super Eva’s body rumbled. His distant heart was aggressively pouring energy into him.
Yet it still wasn’t enough.
Shinji felt like he was being strangled. He wheezed as he desperately tried to breathe.
Stop! He croaked. His heart beat louder and louder, as the life was being choked right out of him. That’s still not enough?!
Shinji couldn’t have stopped the flow of power even if he’d wanted to. He wondered if Trois could’ve done something about it if she were with him.
<<The vessel of the interlocutor must not fall into the hands of the beast.>> He’d heard something similar back in the Tower of Babel.
This voice… Shinji’s consciousness faded as the seven lights pulled in limitless amounts of energy. He felt himself and Super Eva drift away in the flood.
The lights focused into a single ray.
Is this an arrow…?
And with that, he faded into a wall of white.
Alarms blared throughout Nerv Japan as the base shook.
The seven-colored bolt of light didn’t just blast the reinforced roof off of Cage Two. It had a disastrous effect on the people outside as they were freed from the shackles of gravity and turned upside down.
They looked beneath them, at the sky over Tokyo-3, and found that a portion of the blue veil had been pierced, leaving behind a gaping hole that magnified the stars of outer space.
The moon that had loomed over the Earth and its smaller slab were gone. It seemed as if the atmosphere had vanished, too. Azumaterasu’s arrow of light sped by so fast that it didn’t even produce a whisper. The only thing the bolt left behind was the harsh contrast of black and white.
A violent storm erupted after that moment of miraculous stillness, and the sky sucked up anything that wasn’t nailed down, as if to demonstrate the repercussions of halting time.
Then again, the sky also needed everything it could get its hands on to patch the gaping hole in the atmosphere.
The arrow reached the lunar landmass at the speed of light, burning so bright that it seared a hole right through the Earth’s upper atmosphere. Once the light faded, only half of the lunar landmass was left behind. Even its fragments had been displaced.
The sky above Tokyo-3 sucked in everything around it. The surrounding air pressure rose to over 6500 hectopascals, causing great shock waves at all altitudes.
The window of the sky was slamming shut, and everything in and around the Hakone caldera was getting the brunt of it.
Most of the command center personnel had collapsed once gravity returned. Toji, however, had hooked his pale blue arm around the desk console and braced himself. By the time he got his feet back on the floor, damage reports from all over the base were flooding in. The command center turned into a buzzing beehive, but Toji remained calm and called Cage Two.
“Maya-san, report! What did Super Eva do?!”
Outside, an artificial night had fallen as clouds formed from the drastic difference in pressure. Heavy rain poured out of the sky, as if someone had punched a hole through the heavens.
Water rushed into the now-roofless Cage Two like a waterfall. Maya watched from the blast shield of her control booth as the gigantic salt sculpture before her crumbled.
“No!”
The thing that had been Super Eva was now falling apart.
The bow had disappeared immediately after firing, and now the white salt giant was being eroded by the heavy downpour, starting from its shoulders. Its body broke off into clumps, each over a hundred meters long, which fell to the ground with a resounding clang that echoed its destruction.