The immense contradiction plunged her into a painful struggle. Her hand, gripping the Spear of Longinus, tightened and relaxed, relaxed and tightened.
Whom should she believe? The Commander? Or Dr. Osiris, who had revealed the terrifying truth?
Just then, a familiar voice came through the combat channel, clearly reaching her ears. It was Ge...
He sat in the cockpit of the returning Wrench, holding his younger sister. Outside the porthole, Jupiter rotated slowly, its cloud belts flowing like molten gold. The child curled up in his arms, her breathing steady and faint, like a snowflake fallen into his palm. She didn't ask about the dream again, only occasionally twitching her fingers in her sleep as if still grasping at some invisible shadow. He looked down at her thin face; her brow was slightly furrowed, never fully relaxing even in deep sleep.
The smell of engine oil still permeated the cabin, mixed with a trace of a strange fragrance brought out from the core of EVA-13—a scent like rust and wild flowers coexisting. The old technician sat in the co-pilot's seat, replaying the final footage of the disintegration frame by frame. His finger rested on the pause button as he stared at the image of the unit transforming into rising points of light, remaining silent for a long time.
"Have you ever thought," he suddenly spoke, his voice so low it was almost swallowed by the hum of the ventilation system, "that it's not a machine, nor an Angel... it's a tombstone."
The man didn't look up: "I know."
"NERV buried too many things under the ice shell. Unit-13 wasn't a failed experiment; it was an altar. The name of every pilot was carved into its skeleton. We thought we were repairing a mecha, but we were actually digging a grave."
The man gently patted the child in his arms, his movements tender—unlike a craftsman who spent his days with bolts and welding torches. "Well, now the grave is open, and the soul is back," he said. "The rest is just taking her home for dinner, buying her candy, teaching her to ride a bike, and watching her grow up, fall in love, get angry, stumble, and get back up again. The path an ordinary person takes—she won't miss a single step."
The old technician smiled, wrinkles appearing at the corners of his eyes. "But she's not an ordinary person anymore. Her neural network is still connected to fragments of imaginary space, and her brainwave frequency resonates with the Earth's magnetic field. If the first thing she says when she wakes up is 'I saw the back of the universe,' how do you plan to explain that?"
"I'll just say," he plucked a guitar string—the note was out of tune, yet clear—"that it was just a dream you had. Big brother had it too. Dreamed I flew through Saturn's rings and walked on the aurora, only to wake up and find a hole in my pants because I brushed against a sharp corner while fixing the engine last night."
The two were silent for a moment, then laughed out loud simultaneously. The laughter echoed in the narrow cabin, waking the child. She opened her eyes, her gaze dazed, like waking from a long hibernation.
"Where are we?" she asked softly.
"On the way home," he answered gently.
"To Earth?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Are there... trees there?"
"Yes," he nodded. "And many children who play soccer, argue, and hide under their desks to eat stolen candy. Do you want to go to school? I can find someone to teach you how to read, paint, and even... fix radios."
She looked at him and suddenly reached out to touch his face, her fingertips cold. "Are you my brother?"
His throat tightened, and he nodded.
"But I don't remember you."
"It's okay." He held her hand. "I can introduce myself again. My name is Adam. I'm a repairman, specialized in fixing all kinds of broken hearts and machines. And you? What name would you like to have?"
She paused, her lips moving slightly as if chewing on a distant memory. "They called me B-0... but I want a real name."
Adam was stunned for a moment, then smiled. "Of course. How about Eva?"
"Eva..." She tried saying it, her lips curling up slightly. "It sounds like someone who fixes stars."
"Then you'll have to supervise me so I don't get lazy." He ruffled her hair. "When we get to Earth, we'll go to the beach first. You said the people in your dreams are always crying and want to soak up the sun? Then let them all come. My treat—I'll buy the biggest bottle of soda and the sweetest cotton candy."
Static suddenly crackled over the communication channel, followed by Osiris' voice: "Wrench, this is the Resonance Council Temporary Command Center. Confirmation received, please respond."
Adam pressed the talk button: "Received. Target recovered. EVA-13 self-disintegrated, no threatening residue remaining."
"Understood." Osiris paused. "Is she... alright?"
"She's awake. Has a new name."
After a brief silence, a very soft sigh came through: "That's good. The global resonance network is still receiving aftershock signals. Many children are starting to have the same dream—dreaming of a girl in a red dress leading an adult out of the darkness. Ritsuko says this is a release of the collective unconscious."
"Then don't let it go to waste," Adam said. "Record those dreams and turn them into textbooks. Let the first lesson for every child learning to pilot an EVA not be combat training, but listening to a recording: 'I am not a weapon. I am Eva. I am eight years old, and I like the blue sky.'"
"It's already being done," Osiris said with a wry smile. "The Antarctic base dismantled its last training simulation pod today. The workers used the scrap metal to weld a metal tree, covered in paper slips with children's wishes. When the wind blows, they jingle like bells."
Adam closed his eyes, as if he could hear that sound. Distant, yet real.
Three days later, the ship crossed the orbit of Mars. The Red Planet hung quietly in the night, its surface—once covered in scorch marks—now showing mottled patches of green. Underground reservoirs had been redirected, and moss and hardy plants were growing tenaciously along the edges of the canyons. An autonomous community of wandering craftsmen was building the first unnumbered registration station, with a hand-written wooden sign at the door:
Welcome to the Land of Freedom.
Heroes not recruited here; only repairmen hired.
Adam adjusted the course to a near-Earth synchronous orbit, preparing to dock at the civilian port on the periphery of the Silence Towers. Eva leaned against the porthole, seeing the full view of Earth for the first time. The blue and white sphere floated in the black universe, the clouds moving slowly, the outlines of the continents clearly visible.
"Is that home?"
"Yes."
"It looks... so quiet."
"Because it's finally learned how to breathe."
Before the return procedure started, the old technician handed him a data report: "The analysis of the energy fluctuation spectrum sent back by EVA-13 is out. It wasn't a simple mechanical reaction, but a directional resonance—it precisely triggered the fundamental frequency of the 108 Silence Towers on Earth. In other words, it actively woke up the resonance network."
"So it really did have a consciousness."
"More than that." The old technician lowered his voice. "It chose you. Breaking the synchronization limit wasn't an accident. The system didn't just recognize your identity code, K-07; it recognized your emotional patterns over thirty years of repairing machines—anxiety, persistence, reluctance, determination. It recognized the love behind the act of 'repairing'."
Adam looked down at the wrench in his hand, which was engraved with: "To the next person brave enough to smash the moon." He suddenly remembered what the leader of the Martian craftsmen had said: "We never die; we are just slowly forgotten. And now, people have started to remember the pain, so we have come back."
It turns out that pain, too, is a form of summoning.
When entering near-Earth orbit, the global broadcast cut in automatically. The return of the Wrench was designated as a major event for the second day of "Reunion Day." Giant screens in major cities played footage of EVA-13's disintegration, accompanied by that wordless humming ensemble. Schools organized students to listen collectively, hospitals paused non-emergency surgeries, prisons opened visitation rights, and even military bases lifted their alert status.
When the ship slowly docked at the terminal, hundreds of people were already waiting on the ground. Among them were technicians who had participated in the Gemini Project, family members of retired EVA pilots, and civilians who had never seen the units but had suffered because of them. They held no flags or slogans—only handcrafted small lamps of various shapes, each emitting a soft, warm light.
Osiris stepped forward, watching Adam carry the child down the ramp. He didn't speak immediately but knelt on one knee to look Eva in the eyes.
"Hello, Eva," he said. "I am Osiris. I used to be responsible for managing those machines that shouldn't have existed. I am sorry for everything you went through."
The child blinked, then reached out and gently touched the badge on his chest—a sun pattern made of broken glass and gears.
"Are you not cold anymore?" she asked.
Osiris was stunned. "What?"
"In the dream, you were always shivering, saying you were sorry. Now you're smiling, so I wanted to ask—are you still cold?"
The crowd went silent.
Osiris' eyes suddenly grew wet. He took the child's hand. "I'm not cold anymore. Because you came back."
That night, Adam took Eva to an old apartment by Tokyo Bay—originally a derelict NERV staff dormitory, it had been renovated by the Craftsmen Alliance to become one of the first pilot projects for "Trauma Recovery Housing." The facilities inside were simple, but there was plenty of sunlight. On the balcony grew several pots of improved sunflowers brought from Mars, said to be able to bloom in low-light environments.
During the night, Eva had a nightmare.
She bolted upright, drenched in cold sweat, her breathing rapid. Adam immediately rushed to her bedside and held her gently.
"Dreaming about them locking you in again?"
She nodded, her teeth chattering. "The hallway was so long, the lights were red... they said I was broken, that I had to be rebooted... but I didn't want to die..."
"You're not broken." He patted her back. "You were just put into the wrong shell. You're out now; no one can lock you up."
"But I'm still scared... scared I'll turn into that thing again..."
"Listen," he cupped her face and looked her in the eye. "EVA-13 is not you. It was the prison that held you, and also the shield that protected you. It endured thirty years of loneliness for you, and now its mission is complete. You are Eva, you are my sister, you are a child who gets scared, who cries, who wants candy. These aren't weaknesses; they are the proof that you are alive."
She sobbed and threw herself into his arms, her small body trembling.
That night, he held her on the balcony until dawn. When the east turned pale, the first ray of sunlight hit the sunflower petals, golden and dazzling.
A few days later, the Resonance Council formally announced the dissolution of the old system and reorganized into the "Humanity Repair Council," its function shifting from monitoring and control to psychological healing and social reconstruction. All EVA units were archived and sealed, with only three kept as museum exhibits: Unit-01 was displayed at the ruins of the old NERV headquarters, Unit-00 was sunk into the Pacific Memorial Trench, and the core crystal of Unit-13 was embedded in the center of a transparent monument with the following inscription:
To all the children who were never named:
You are not failures.
You are the deepest wounds, and the first light,
of this world's attempt to heal.
Meanwhile, Adam received an anonymous letter from a private observatory on the edge of the solar system. The paper was rough, the handwriting scrawled:
"You were right; the world will always have broken machines.
I have a bit of trouble here—a stray satellite that claims to 'have memories.'
Every day at 3:00 AM, it plays a nursery rhyme that only I can hear.
The doctors say it's a hallucination.
But I know it's not noise; it's a cry for help.
Would you like to come and take a look?
Address attached. By the way, the wind here smells like engine oil."
He finished the letter and smiled.
The next morning, while he was frying eggs in the kitchen, Eva squatted by the door watching him work.
"Are you leaving?" she asked.
"Maybe." He flipped an egg. "Someone needs help."
"Will you come back?"
"Of course. This house still needs new water pipes. Besides, you haven't learned how to tune the radio yet; how could I be at peace leaving you?"
She pursed her lips and smiled, then ran over to hug his waist. "Then promise me, you have to sing every time you finish a repair."
"Sure." He tapped her nose. "Next time, I'll teach you how to play the guitar."
A week later, the Wrench set off again. This time there was an extra crew member—the old technician insisted on coming along, saying "I'm old; I don't want to die on Earth listening to the news announce my funeral." Eva stood at the port waving, with Osiris and Ritsuko's child beside her. The boy handed her a paper flower, saying his mother had taught him.
The ship sailed into deep space, through the asteroid belt. As it passed the far side of the moon, the radar captured a faint signal. After decoding, it turned out to be a fragment of a maintenance log Adam had left in the NERV archives years ago:
"Today: Inspected EVA-07 power unit. Oil leak in the left leg hydraulic system; replaced three seals. Pilot reported operation lag; investigation found dust accumulation on the master chip. Restored to normal after cleaning.
Also fixed the music box she kept in the cockpit. It plays 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.' She says she likes hearing me hum this song while I fix things.
...Actually, I like it too."
The source of the signal was unknown, but the coordinates pointed to an abandoned shaft deep inside the moon. Adam stared at the screen for a long time before finally ordering a change of course.
"Not going to Uranus?" the old technician asked.
"Moon first." He gripped the controls. "Some maintenance has been delayed for too long. It'll rust if we wait."
The engines roared, and the wake cut through the silence.
Meanwhile, in a classroom on Earth, a little girl raised her hand and pointed to an illustration in her textbook: "Teacher, why did people in the past put children inside robots?"
The teacher was silent for a moment, then knelt down to be at eye level with her: "Because they forgot that true strength never lies in steel, but in a heart willing to shed tears for others."
Outside the window, the spring breeze brushed past new leaves, bringing the sound of a distant song.
The smell of engine oil still drifted among the galaxies.