Chapter 47:
Shinji’s Impact

 

THE COORDINATED MANEUVERS of Torwächters A and B were finally broken with Eva-00 Type-F Allegorica’s return to the battlefield. A’s left shoulder took a hit from the Angel’s Backbone, forcing it to retreat.

“What are you doing back here?!” Shinji grunted painfully.

<<I’m here because you look half dead!>> Six snapped at him as she charged through Torwächter A. The black messenger kicked off Yomotsu Hirasaka to regain its balance, but Six chased it to the ground.

“Whoa.”

As she jumped off Yomotsu Hirasaka, Six was startled by the rumbling of the entire structure. The beating of Super Eva’s palpitating heart was sending shock waves throughout the entire rock formation.

What’s going to happen to this thing…?

<<Ikari-kun, this is Horaki in the Euro Eva.>>

Horaki-san’s here, too? I told you to go… Toji can see…

<<Hikari? Are you there?>>

<<Toji?>>

How was she hearing him? Hikari felt the Field Piercer Devil’s Backbone, along with the Q.R. Signum attached to Heurtebise, resonate.

It’s the Q.R. Signum you gave me… It’s still connected… At the bottom of Tokyo-3… That’s where Toji is.

<<Shinji, Maya thinks you deserve a medal for not losing your personality despite turning into a giant of light. She says it’s because the Q.R. Signum that tried to eat you is anchoring your existence. I agree with her—>>

The sound of breaking glass echoed in the lab set up in the old Central Dogma.

“What just happened?!”

Toji turned around and looked at the aquarium. A large crack now ran down Shinji’s Q.R. Signum as it glowed menacingly.

“But that was at maximum output!”

A’s tightly woven shield dispersed the Angel’s Backbone’s shot into stray energy. B came in from behind it, and together they formed a black bolt that almost sliced through the Eva-00 Type-F Allegorica’s waist.

“Six! Stop being reckless and listen!”

The battle on Yomotsu Hirasaka was observable by telescope from the Hakone command center. The image on the main screen was distorted, however, mainly by the A.T. Fields Super Eva was continuously putting out.

“These Torwächters form a lightning bolt between them that they use to cut down their enemies. Take care that the other one doesn’t come at you from behind, even when you’re just dealing with one.”

Six finally listened to Misato after almost falling victim to the Torwächters’ attack. “So, what should I do?”

<<Kzzt…pincer formation. Give them a taste of their own medicine. You should have the communication protocol from the Novaya Zemlya operation, so contact the Euro Eva for help.>>

“Uhhh… This one?”

Six’s virtual display was now transmitted to Heurtebise’s plug. Hikari was taken aback when she saw the scribbles—Six’s battle plans—drawn in crayon all over her screen, “Wh-what is this?”

Hikari was seeing the 3D map drawn inside Rei Six’s head. Heurtebise’s assistant A.I. struggled with the uniquely individual diagram, taking four entire seconds to process it into a map that was up to Euro Sixth standards.

“This is the child version of Ayanami-san…the Eva who was supposed to be part of the Novaya Zemlya operation. Heurtebise to Kommandobrücke. Awaiting confirmation.”

<<Hikari…it’s probably too late to do anything now, but you do have permission to fire the Devil’s Backbone. We wouldn’t want anyone to think Europe has abandoned Asia to the falling landmass. But make sure you come out of this alive after suppressing the Torwächters.>>

“I know you too well to think that you would abandon us, Herr Clausewitz. Thank you, and I love you. Reactor output stable. Taking Devil’s Backbone out of sleep mode. Beginning activation sequence.”

The Eva-00 Type-F Allegorica had a wealth of terrain data, since it had been the first Eva on Yomotsu Hirasaka. It attracted the two Torwächters’ attention and began weaving through the hills and crevices. The Torwächters attacked, and the Eva-0.0 was seemingly affected as its flight became inconsistent. It played its role as bait perfectly.

Heurtebise, the firing half of the pincer formation, drifted to Yomotsu Hirasaka on pure inertia. To avoid detection, it didn’t use its graviton floaters.

Hikari didn’t have time to analyze the entirety of Six’s mental map. “Okay, I get it,” she said to her A.I. “Cut the conversion process!” Rei’s drawings were reminiscent of her little sister’s. There was a happy flower on the map to indicate that the Eva-00 Type-F Allegorica would be just out of firing range when the Torwächter showed its back during their next maneuver.

“Activating Devil’s Backbone!”

An ominous chill ran down Six’s spine. “What was that…?”

<<Have you ever cursed the day you were born?>>

Six and the other Ayanami clones had often received this question from researchers and civilians if they knew about her condition. People asked it out of good intentions as well as malice. She’d never resented her existence, though, even after she’d gained self-awareness.

But the chill that ran down her spine cursed its existence. Understandable. A spine was supposed to have hands and feet, not a rifle barrel. Perhaps it was the Q.R. Signum’s power, or perhaps Euro Eva amplified whatever emotions the objects around it felt.

Either way, Six said, “Your output’s too strong!”

The Torwächters had taken notice and turned around. But the Eva-00 Type-F Allegorica’s Angel’s Backbone was now fully charged.

“Over here!” Six aimed at Torwächter A and fired. A flash of baryons shot out of the barrel at near light speed and hit her target. They failed to pierce its field, however. Torwächter A thrust its spear at Six, but she wrapped the spine’s barrel in an A.T. Field and cracked it like a whip to deflect the attack.

Torwächter B was still a threat behind her, but Six moved out of the way after she felt something invisible tap her chest. If she’d remained in the same position, that invisible something would have gone right through her A.T. Field.

This was the Devil’s Backbone’s firing line, and Heurtebise had aimed it straight at Torwächter A. It was the same kind of weapon as Six’s Angel’s Backbone, but the difference in degree was unbelievable.

“Your phase contrast barrel can reach all the way here?!”

Six was shocked. Heurtebise fired. Torwächter A’s body spasmed as something pierced its chest and began squirming inside its armor.

“Urgh!”

The next moment, an event horizon ripped open in Torwächter A’s chest, producing a micro black hole that devoured it, blowing a powerful jet of air in the direction of the firing line, which grazed Six’s head.

“Hey, watch it! You almost killed me!”

<<Six, neutralize the remaining one with your cannon!>> Trois said.

Six’s gamma-ray laser sparked as it shot through Torwächter B’s shield, causing the black messenger to waver.

“I was going to!”

But B wasn’t going down so easily. It rushed closer to Hikari, forcing her to engage in melee combat. She readied her halberd, realizing she’d let her guard down slightly upon seeing how badly damaged her opponent was.

B extended its spear, stabbing the white Euro Eva in its thigh.

“Aaaah!”

She fired a second shot of the Devil’s Backbone as pain racked her body, but it only ended up taking off B’s left arm. The Torwächter tackled Hikari. Her consciousness was growing dim.

She was knocked all the way to the front of Super Eva.

Horaki-san! Six!

Six cracked the barrel of her Angel’s Backbone like a whip and latched it around Heurtebise’s foot. She yanked Hikari to safety just before B could deal the killing blow with its spear. Super Eva hid Heurtebise and the Eva-0.0 under the plumes of his wing. The Torwächter B extended its remaining hand toward Armaros, who was still under Super Eva’s bonds.

<<Become one with me…>>

“Huh?” Six was startled to hear a Torwächter speak.

“That’s Trois’ voice! No. Our voice…? It sounds like a really old recording…”

Suddenly, Armaros pushed back against Super Eva with a force greater than the giant of light’s. Super Eva was many times larger than Armaros and yet…

And yet the black giant grew.

And grew.

Armaros grew to the point of breaking through the Super Eva’s field, and his hand, which had been suppressed by the Magorox, brandished Azumaterasu against him.

FWUMP!

Six squealed as her Eva was blown away by a powerful wind that ripped across Yomotsu Hirasaka—powerful enough to level mountains.

The giant of light reeled as the landmass on his back shook and swayed. The black giant had broken free of his A.T. Field prison and was now running amok on the lunar landmass.

Shinji felt a great aura spread above him.

Such power!

They’d reached the thermosphere now and had twenty seconds left before they made contact with the Earth’s surface.

There’s no time. All this energy, and the Third Impact still isn’t triggering!

The giants of light and dark fought upside down on the falling landmass, one armed with a sword and the other a great bow. What am I missing?!

Shinji clumsily swung his blade.

But the black giant didn’t bother evading. He’d already lost one of his legs, and Super Eva’s sword sliced harmlessly through empty space. Armaros maintained his posture and readied his bow.

Crap!

Azumaterasu left a trail of seven-colored light when it fired. Seele had referred to it as Sacrilegus, the Relic Thief, and this was its most powerful attack. The force that had vaporized a large portion of Yomotsu Hirasaka now pierced Shinji’s heart.

It felt as if lightning had punched him in the chest. An overwhelming force wracked his body, adding to the already violent outflow of energy and incinerating his organs with a loud crackle.

Gaaaaaah!

The arrow shot through Yomotsu Hirasaka, its vast energy rocking the stage where the Human Instrumentality Project was supposed to begin. All of it poured into Super Eva.

Wait…I know what this is…

The outline maintaining Super Eva’s form melted away into photons.

The Impact had begun.

 

Super Eva’s body spread wide. His sword had followed his transformation and was now an arc of light lacking any outline. He realized that, in the distant past, the completion of the Human Instrumentality Project had probably been expedited by manipulating warp technology. Perhaps the great bow Sacrilegus had been a creation of their version of Dr. Akagi. The arc of light fell upon the great bow and split it in two, cracking Armaros’ hardened field like ice.

THRUM!

The giant of light took a powerful step forward. The photon longsword ran through the black giant—the Eva-01 of the past, perhaps even the Shinji of the past.

<<Take… Eat… This is my body…>> Armaros said.

Ah…

<<Now I remember… This is what I needed…>> He spoke in Shinji’s voice for the last time. Shinji felt his heart burn within him as the fire coiled around it consumed all.

I see… Of course.

He’d been fruitlessly trying to trigger the Third Impact through his own will. What he’d needed in the end was a loud voice that could overwhelm everything.

Let’s do this. I can’t stop the descent, but I can at least slow it down… Where should I drop it?

The people of Earth watched with bated breath as Yomotsu Hirasaka came to a stop. The three wings of light suddenly split into six, spreading and covering the entire sky.

 

<<Kzzzt…Kommandobrücke…Heurtebise. Hikari, get out of… Kzzzt.>>

Heurtebise was the last Eva left on Yomotsu Hirasaka as Super Eva’s shock waves buffeted it. Alarms blared in the plug warned Hikari about her injuries and the extreme surface temperatures. Clausewitz’s voice roused her from her daze.

“Eegh…!”

In the wave of brilliant light, the black giant unleashed his arrow, even while pierced with a sword. Alarms continued to ring. Hikari could barely make out anything in the storm of brightness, but through the confusion she saw the giant of light fighting an enlarged Armaros.

It sent her into a panic.

Compared to them, Heurtebise looked like a child’s plaything.

The warning colors in Heurtebise’s entry plug shifted. The telemetry readings transmitted to the Euro control center shocked Clausewitz.

<<Kzzzt… Dial it back! She’s going too deep with the dummy plug’s parallel consciousness! She can’t…>>

Heurtebise reached for the Devil’s Backbone in its left shoulder and opened its armored louver. Rainbow-colored phase light leaked out of it.

“I’m sorry…but I’m not strong enough. I said I never wanted to go under the parallel consciousness again! But I’m just so weak…!”

In the storm of light, the white Eva had finished charging its black dragon.

“Activate!” Hikari yelled, and the cannon obeyed by opening its mouth.

She felt the recoil through her entire body, an ominous rumble.

The Field Piercer. The Devil’s Backbone.

Unlike the Angel’s Backbone, which used parts originally belonging to the Eva-00 Type-F Allegorica, the Devil’s Backbone could have become a new Eva by itself. The spine had had its four limbs amputated, and it was now cursed to shoot powerful, consuming fields out of its mouth.

Hrgh… Huff…

New warning windows appeared. Hikari’s heart rate and breathing were slowly going haywire. Her emotions exploded to the point of no longer being restrained by the dummy plug’s fail-safe.

“You took her away from me…! Kodama…! Kodama!!!”

She remembered that Armaros was the reason her sister had turned into a pillar of salt.

Vengeance—was that what she wanted? Or justice? She suffered a brief moment of clarity in all that confusion, and in it she saw the thing that was actually driving her.

Fear.

The coils that had generated the field looked like teeth at the end of the barrel. They produced a micro black hole, which moved at a blindingly fast speed.

 

Horaki-san… Didn’t make it out?

Shinji noticed Heurtebise at his feet, which seemed so far away from him. His comment reached the old Central Dogma in Hakone.

“Shinji, please! Hikari…!” Toji yelled.

And then the cracked Q.R. Signum finally shattered into a thousand pieces.

I’ll try… Just take care of the—

Shinji’s voice echoed like a dream.

 

The giant’s tidal wave of explosive light engulfed everything around it. Armaros stood his ground and maintained his aim. It looked as if he noticed Hikari for a moment, perhaps even smiling. It was an odd thing to do to someone firing a micro black hole directly at your head.

<<Hikari-chan…?>>

The next moment, Armaros’ entire body was consumed, leaving only his feet. The nearly invisible black hole forced out boiling jets of light as it flew. But this was soon outshined by the light surrounding it, making it impossible to see.

An intense light focused at the center of the six wings, which grew in size, absorbing the force of Yomotsu Hirasaka. But now the heart of the giant of light was shining like a miniature sun. Despite losing its Eva form, he still seemed to be standing upside down on Yomotsu Hirasaka, and his circle of light expanded to engulf the whole mass.

A softer light enveloped the Pacific Ocean as dusk fell. People who were fleeing for their lives suddenly stopped and looked at the oncoming apocalypse from between their fingers.

The detached lunar landmass was slowly breaking into the stratosphere after a long delay. As slow as it was now, its sheer size still caused ripples visible to the naked eye as it entered the atmosphere.

The amount of water displaced in the sky generated myriad basin-like clouds in the troposphere, and the vast potential difference in the air formed thunderclouds, which lit up the sky like nests of lightning. The compressed atmosphere billowed out in a wide shock wave that broke the speed of sound.

Meanwhile, the six-winged figure at its center continued to absorb energy, even as it rapidly began losing its glow.

The shining giant had lost its human form. It barely even looked like an Eva.

It was brought to its knees in the middle of all that light.

 

Trois had used the full power of her FSB to launch herself upward and watched the whole procession from above.

“Ikari-kun…!”

“He’ll be back…” Asuka sighed. “He hates being around people, but he hates being alone even more. Auf Wiedersehen, Shinji. See you soon. I’ll leave the lights on for you. I’ll get you home this time.”

Asuka finished her goodbye, and the smile disappeared from her face. If it weren’t for the LCL, light would have trickled down her cheeks.