Chapter 44:
Convergence

 

BACK ON EARTH’S SIDE of the lens, Trois was hunched over the center console of Eva-0.0 after a violent pain had assaulted her chest.

Pain…? No. Heat?

She remembered the sensation from when Six had focused sunlight on her palm with a magnifying glass as a joke. It was the same feeling, only thousands of times more intense. Trois didn’t realize that she’d opened the zipper of her plugsuit. It wasn’t just the heat, either. She could feel a presence inside her.

It’s the suit. Something is entering the suit!

At first, she thought she’d imagined it, but then she saw light gathering inside of the suit.

“The orichalcum fabric is…glowing?!” The material wasn’t supposed to have luminescent properties, and Trois quickly took the rest of it off. She stripped in the LCL and kicked the suit out from under her feet.

Red particles started emerging from her virtual display, as if they’d been waiting for this moment. Was this real or a system error? The light within the suit had become too bright for her to see. Back on Earth, the figure had stepped around Trois’ body to look at Lilith’s Sphere. She’d then taken Trois by the hand and dragged her to a shopping mall.

Trois smiled at the memory.

“Asuka is coming into herself…”

The suit, which had been originally created as part of the abandoned Asuka salvage mission, was capable of recreating her physical features. It had been fluttering in the LCL, and now pulled itself taut as a slender figure filled the inside of it. Locks of golden hair formed above the collar, blowing wind into the LCL.

Trois reached out her arms to catch the figure and felt resistance. The suit had weight. It was heavy. As she pulled Asuka into her, she noticed the little girl in her arms. Trois had seen her face before.

Mari…? But I thought she had ears on her head like an animal…

“This is Trois to Hakone command…”

She contacted Nerv Japan, whose orders she’d disobeyed.

“Organic body of Nerv Japan Eva pilot Soryu Asuka Langley is forming within the experimental orichalcum plugsuit. Currently situated in front of the lens’s focal convergence point. Someone else also regenerated with the subject, but both vitals are stable. Awaiting further commands.”