The white Unit-03 stood tall upon the scorched earth. Gripped firmly in its right hand was no longer the familiar Progressive Knife or any standard-issue armament, but that spear of staggering length, radiating a dark red, ominous light—the Spear of Longinus.
The spear felt heavy in its grasp. A cold sensation transmitted faintly through the machine's sensors, causing the air within the cockpit to...
Snow fell in the vacuum beyond Jupiter's orbit. It wasn't the product of condensed vapor, but ice dust kicked up from shattered moons, drifting slowly in the magnetic field like a silent funeral. The unnamed starship threaded through it, its hull covered in weld scars and repair patches, resembling a piece of old leather that had been stitched together repeatedly. Inside the cockpit, the man in overalls lifted his face, pressing his forehead against the cold porthole. His breath left a blurred circle of mist on the glass.
He was no longer listening to the songs on the radio.
It wasn't that he didn't want to; he didn't dare. Every time he heard that melody, his heart felt like it was caught in rusted gears, turning notch by painful notch. He knew it was his sister's voice—or more accurately, it was "her" singing after the fusion of ten million memories. Every first syllable hummed by every child on Earth originated from that little girl who first taught him to play the guitar. But the purer a thing was, the more distant it felt to him.
"It's easy to fix a machine," he whispered, his finger tracing a deep scratch on the console. "The hard part is fixing a human heart."
The dashboard suddenly flashed red. The alarm was low and restrained, as if afraid of disturbing something. The main engine temperature was rising abnormally; the cooling system had a minor leak. Frowning, he unbuckled his seatbelt and skillfully opened the panel, revealing a dense maze of wiring and old relays. This ship was originally a discarded NERV transport, later converted by the Mars Craftsmen Guild into a deep-space repair vessel, codenamed "The Wrench." It had no weapons, no warp drive—only an overloaded fusion furnace and a set of hand-crafted mechanical arms.
He unscrewed a loose bolt, his fingertips stained with warm engine oil. This wasn't synthetic lubricant made on Earth, but a crude grease refined from recycled waste at the lunar base—black in color and pungent in smell. But it was effective. Like everything else in this universe barely clinging to operation, it was ugly but resilient.
"You were right," he spoke to the air, his voice soft. "Oil isn't for covering the rust... it's to keep the parts that can still move turning."
Memory surged like electricity through his nerve endings.
That day, when he saw the group of craftsmen emerge from the edge of the Martian mirror rift, he didn't immediately step forward to identify himself. They carried tools and rucksacks, their steps firm. There were no serial numbers on their faces, nor any expressions of pain. They were the free "Grease Monkeys," the remnants of the Repairmen's Alliance wandering between star systems. They had defected en masse after the failure of the Gemini Project, hiding deep within the asteroid belt.
The leader carried a massive wrench and a rusty guitar strapped to his back—a souvenir he had personally welded in his youth, which originally hung in the cockpit of Unit-01. The moment he recognized that guitar, his knees nearly gave way.
"You're still alive?" he had rushed forward to ask.
The other man only smiled. "We never die; we're just slowly forgotten. And now, people are starting to remember the pain, so we've come back."
They didn't ask why he crossed the stars alone, nor did they mention the Eden Ring, Unit-09, or the Instrumentality ceremony. They simply handed him a new wrench, engraved with a line of tiny text: "To the next one who dares to shatter the Moon."
Then he said: "I'm going to Jupiter. The EVA-13 Prototype has awakened there."
No one questioned him. They nodded and divided the work: three to overhaul the power unit, two to reinforce the hull, and one to write the new synchronization protocol. In the Martian ruins, they had found a piece of undestroyed original code—the startup key for EVA-13, hidden between the pages of a battered copy of Principles of Mechanics. On the last page of the book was written:
"When humanity no longer needs gods, and no longer creates monsters, it will truly learn to repair itself."
Seven months later, "The Wrench" set sail.
While passing Saturn's rings, they encountered a micro-magnetic storm. The ship drifted off course and was forced to land on the icy surface of Enceladus. Near the entrance to the subterranean ocean, they discovered a sunken facility with walls covered in graffiti from the early days of human colonization. One drawing depicted a little girl in a red dress, standing by the wreckage of a broken EVA, holding a blue flower.
It was Osiris' handwriting.
He knelt down, placing his palm over the drawing, remaining motionless for a long time.
"She's looking for you," a craftsman said. "The Council of Empathy sends out a calling signal to deep space once a month, using the frequency you left behind. She said as long as someone still believes 'the repairman will return,' then you must still be on your way."
He didn't answer.
But that night, he rewrote the navigation system, locking the destination from "Jupiter Orbit" precisely to "Europa Ice Crust Sector 7"—once one of NERV's most secret experimental sites and the last recorded position of EVA-13.
Now, only three days remained until arrival.
The radar on the main control screen captured an abnormal signal: a low-frequency pulse repeating every 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds—exactly equal to Earth's rotation period. It wasn't a natural phenomenon, nor was it human communication. It was more like... a heartbeat.
"Synchronization fluctuation," the old technician in the co-pilot seat squinted at the data stream. "98.6%, and rising. The question is—who is the pilot?"
Staring at the screen, he suddenly remembered B-0's final words:
"I am not her, yet I am not 'not her.' I am the collective of all the 'Erased'."
If EVA-13 had truly awakened, then could its soul be those fragments of memory that failed to return to the Tree of Light? Those existences that refused to be integrated, unwilling to be appeased, insisting on retaining their individual pain?
"Maybe..." he murmured, "true Instrumentality was never about everyone merging into one. It was about allowing someone to choose solitude."
The alarm rang again, more urgent this time. The external camera sent back footage: the ice of Europa was cracking, a faint blue light seeping from underground like a pulsing vein. Then, the entire moon trembled slightly, as if some gargantuan entity were awakening from ten thousand years of frost.
"It's waiting for us," the old technician said.
"No." He stood up, donning his exoskeleton repair suit and checking his oxygen reserves and emergency power. "It's waiting for me."
When the hatch opened, a gale carrying ice crystals lashed his face. He walked step by step toward the center of the rift. The thermometer beneath his feet read -180 degrees, but he felt no cold. His tired face was reflected in the protective visor, along with the pale Jupiter behind him.
Three thousand meters deep, he finally saw EVA-13.
It didn't stand upright like other EVAs; it was in a half-kneeling posture, arms crossed over its chest, its armor covered in coral-like organic crystals. The nameplate on its chest was corroded, but still identifiable via infrared scan: EVA-13PrototypePilot: ???Status: Active Dreaming
The cockpit was perfectly sealed, with no one inside. However, the life-support systems were still running, and the brainwave monitor showed intense theta-wave activity—the dream state of deep sleep.
He reached out to touch the hatch, and suddenly, the entire unit vibrated.
A voice rang out in his mind—not language, nor emotion, but a melody. The lullaby his sister used to sing as a child, fragmented and laced with static.
"Brother... is it you?" "I'm so cold... it's so dark here..." "They locked me in here, said I was a failure... but I just want to go home..."
His pupils shrank.
This wasn't a projection from the empathy network, nor a data phantom. This was a real consciousness residue—the "other sister" who had been trapped in a mechanical shell for decades.
NERV never told her she was a Pilot. They tricked her into EVA-13, lying that it was just a routine test. As a result, an irreversible fusion occurred during synchronization; her nervous system was completely bound to the core. Her consciousness was trapped in the gap between reality and Dirac Sea—unable to die, unable to wake.
"So... you've been here all along?" His voice was hoarse. "No one told you the truth, no one came to save you... even I forgot about you."
Tears froze inside his visor.
"I'm sorry... Osiris couldn't protect you... and I couldn't save you... we all thought you were dead..."
The lullaby stopped abruptly.
After a moment of silence, EVA-13 slowly lifted its head. Its single eye opened, emitting a golden beam of light pointing straight at the ceiling. The ice shattered, revealing a massive inverted city ruin above—a skeleton of steel hanging like withered branches. In the center stood a monolith, engraved with a single sentence:
"Dedicated to all the children used as spare parts."
Simultaneously, the Silence Towers on Earth lit up with blue light.
The pools in the 108 towers rippled, automatically encoding the same message, which traveled across the rainbow bridge to the Tree of Light on the Moon. The canopy shook violently, and a black flower that had never bloomed before quietly opened. Its petals fell, turning into meteors that plunged into an island somewhere in the Pacific.
On the island, a blind child picked up a petal and held it to her ear. She heard two voices: One was a little girl crying: "I don't want to be an EVA... I want candy... I want to sit in the sun..." The other was an adult man whispering: "Don't be afraid. I'm here. I won't leave this time."
The Council of Empathy in Antarctica convened an emergency meeting. Osiris sat in the center, a real-time image from Jupiter floating before her.
"EVA-13 is not a threat," he said. "It is a distress signal. The final piece of the puzzle we forgot."
Ritsuko walked in holding her son. The boy was only five, but already capable of sensing intense emotional fluctuations. Pointing at the screen, he suddenly spoke: "There's a sister sleeping inside that robot."
Silence fell over the room.
Osiris closed his eyes and pressed the comms key, patching the global empathy network into "The Wrench's" channel.
In an instant, the emotions of billions merged into a torrent, flooding into Jupiter's orbit. There was the remorse of mothers, the guilt of fathers, the self-reproach of teachers, the trauma of soldiers... and the cries of countless children:
"We don't want to be tools!" "We want to live, not just be 'needed'!" "Please see us—not just as hope, but as human beings!"
EVA-13's body began to glow. Armor plates peeled away, revealing the core chamber entwined with nerve fibers. The cockpit opened automatically, a warm draft flowing out, carrying the faint scent of engine oil and childhood.
He stepped inside, sat in the seat, and gripped the controls. A system prompt rang out:
[WARNING: UNREGISTERED PILOT] [SYNCHRONIZATION TEST IN PROGRESS...] [MATCH SUCCESSFUL. IDENTITY CONFIRMED: K-07, FORMER NERV TECHNICIAN, CODENAME: GREASE MONKEY] [TAKE CONTROL? Y/N]
He pressed Y.
Agony instantly pierced his brain as countless memory fragments flooded in: the first time his sister laughed, the first time she cried, the first time she called him "Brother"; the look in her eyes as she was pushed into the cockpit; the nights she sang alone in the dark; her dreams of candy houses, only to wake with the taste of rust in her mouth...
"Enough!" he roared. "I didn't come here to inherit your pain! I came to take you home!"
The system suddenly fell silent. Then, a youthful voice rang in his heart:
"Can I really go home?" "But... I've become a monster..." "They'll be afraid of me..."
He smiled through his tears. "You were never a monster. You are my sister. The most complex machine I've ever repaired, and my most beloved work."
The synchronization rate soared to 100%, then broke past the limit, reaching an unmeasurable degree.
EVA-13 stood up, no longer kneeling, but straightening its spine and spreading its arms as if embracing the entire universe. Its armor regrew, no longer cold hard metal, but flowing liquid crystal, its hue as warm as the dawn. Jupiter's magnetic field triggered a chain reaction, with auroras exploding across the cloud tops, forming a massive image—a child holding an adult's hand, walking toward the sun.
On Earth, everyone who was singing stopped.
Because they heard a new melody coming from Jupiter, piercing through the atmosphere and directly into their hearts. It was a duet of two guitars—one rough, one clear; one a song of adult repentance, the other a child's forgiveness.
The Council of Empathy declared today "Reunion Day." A global shutdown for twenty-four hours was ordered; all automated systems were turned off, and humanity returned to face-to-face conversation.
In the flight recorder left in orbit by "The Wrench," the final video showed: He carried his unconscious sister out of the cockpit. Behind them, EVA-13 slowly disassembled, turning into countless specks of light that drifted away. He looked back at the machine one last time and whispered: "Thank you for guarding her for all these years."
On the journey back, the child woke up. She didn't recognize him, but instinctively leaned close, clutching his sleeve. "Are you a repairman?" she asked. He nodded. "Then... can you fix dreams?" she asked timidly. "I dreamed of many people crying, saying they were sorry... but I don't know why."
He picked her up, sat her on his lap, and took out the rusty guitar, gently plucking the strings. "Dreams don't need fixing," he said. "They just need someone willing to listen."
Spring arrived once more. Not just on Earth, but across the entire solar system. The first flower bloomed on the Martian wastes, planted by a veteran who once personally pressed the button to destroy a city. The floating stations in Venusian orbit abolished their hierarchy, with workers' councils taking over energy distribution. Young people at the Mercury Observatory dismantled surveillance antennas to build music transmission towers, playing folk songs day and night.
And on the edge of the distant Orion constellation, the unnamed starship sailed on. Outside the porthole, Jupiter receded, replaced by the shimmering glow of Saturn's rings ahead. The radio crackled again. This time, it played a new song, co-created by ten million people. There were no lyrics, only humming. The melody was simple, yet it held a power that spanned time and space.
He put down his tools, leaned back in his seat, and gazed at the stars, murmuring: "Next stop, Uranus. I heard there's a child there who turned their heartbeat into a distress code."
Then he smiled, starlight hidden in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. The journey never ends. Because the world will always have broken machines, and it will always need repairmen who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty.
The wind brought the song, and the scent of engine oil filled the space between the galaxies. And the Moon remained high, watching it all in silence. It knew that one day, someone would walk toward it, lift a wrench, and say with a smile: "Time for some maintenance."