Just then, a unique mechanical roar echoed at the entrance of the hangar—not the sound of power armor servos, but the low-frequency vibration characteristic of large-scale hydraulic systems. A Titan Princeps, draped in a surcoat bearing the crest of the Legio Canum, strode inside, followed by a team of acolytes piously recording data...
The wind and sand whispered among the ruins like the murmurs of the dead. Asuka knelt before the mechanical flower, her fingertips gently tracing the blurred carvings on the tombstone. The iron-gray petals glinted coldly in the setting sun; the miniature engine within had long since ceased to turn, yet it stubbornly maintained its blooming posture—an offering she had hand-crafted from the remaining armor fragments of the EVA-Titan, each petal inscribed with memories of battle.
"I wanted to bring some wine," she whispered, her voice fractured by the wind. "But the old nun at the monastery gate said no drinking allowed. Really... do they even control the dead this strictly?"
She smiled, but it looked more painful than crying.
The scene from three years ago, when her mother disappeared into the core of Unit-01, overlapped now with the image of Rei Ayanami sealed in a life-support pod. Two silent women, two vastly different fates, yet both had left unfillable voids in her life. She once thought that if she just became stronger, she could break this cycle of tragedy. But when she truly stood at the Gate of God, holding the power to rewrite the world, she realized that the hardest enemy to defeat wasn't the Angels, SEELE, or fate itself—it was the little girl deep inside who kept asking, "Am I worthy of being loved?"
As night deepened, the desert temperature drop began to tear at the air. Asuka stood up and brushed the dust from her military uniform. She didn't look back, but as she placed her hand on the ramp of the VTOL jet, she heard a faint sound behind her.
Click.
It sounded like gears meshing.
She spun around, her pupils shrinking—the mechanical flower was actually trembling. Its petals slowly unfurled, revealing a blue-glowing crystal at its center. A weak stream of data shot out from it, projecting twisted text into the air:
[Warning: Residual gene-resonance effect spreading.] [Target Individual: Shikinami Asuka Langley] [Abnormal neural signal frequency detected, 97.3% match.] [Recommendation: Immediate soul-stripping procedure.]
"What the hell is this?" Asuka frowned and approached, reaching out to touch the light, only to be repelled by an invisible force field. A sudden, sharp pain pierced her temples, as if countless needles were stabbing into her cerebral cortex. Her vision distorted—the outline of the church melted into the corridors of NERV HQ, the rose bushes turned into embryos floating in cultivation tanks, and she... was walking barefoot on a path of broken glass, flanked by countless pairs of open eyes.
"You can't run," a voice spoke, both familiar and strange. "You thought ending 'Ragnarok' meant you were free? But your very existence is a violation."
"Who?! Come out!" she roared.
[I am the part of you that you forgot.]
The light restructured, revealing a face—it was the young Rei Ayanami, wearing a restraint suit, but her eyes weren't empty; they were filled with the cold judgment of an adjudicator.
[You are a byproduct of the EVE Rebirth Project, a failed experimental subject created by the forced fusion of Astartes technology and Lilith's genes. Theoretically, you should have collapsed when your synchronization exceeded 90%. Yet you lived, and you even tampered with the ending. This wasn't a miracle... it was contamination.]
"Bullshit!" Asuka punched at the phantom, but her fist passed through its body. "I'm not anyone's experiment! I chose my own path!"
[Then why are you afraid to return to the base? Why do you fear seeing her?]
"Shut up!"
[Rei waits for you every day. She said you miss the snow in Germany, you like strawberry cake, and you hate it when people call you 'brat.' These details are only known by those closest to you. Yet you haven't sent a single message or taken a call in three months. What are you afraid of? Seeing another 'you'? Or admitting... that you also need to be saved?]
"I don't need anyone!" she screamed, blood seeping from the corners of her eyes. "I've been alone my whole life! Ever since Mom died, since the day Dad sent me to Germany! I don't rely on pity or charity, and I certainly don't need a clone to tell me how to live!"
As her words fell, silence as deep as an abyss surrounded her.
The mechanical flower suddenly exploded with blinding blue light. The entire plant began to deconstruct and reconfigure, metal fibers spreading like vines across the tombstone, quickly sketching out a holographic map—the deep structure of the Antarctic underground facility, marking an undisclosed area: Sector 13, The Memory Graveyard.
"All failed vessels were buried here," Rei's image said quietly, her tone no longer cold, but filled with pity. "Including nine unnamed 'Asuka Clones.' They all reached the critical point during synchronization tests and then suffered mental collapse, becoming vegetative. Do you know why you succeeded? Because you have a 'Star Core Fragment' from the remains of an Astartes Paladin inside you, which suppressed the genetic rejection. But the price... is that your soul is being eroded by an alien consciousness."
Asuka stumbled back, memories of her dreams flashing by: a little girl running in the night, a classroom in flames, and Latin prayers repeating in her ear...
"So... those dreams weren't memories? They were intrusions?"
"They were a calling." The image reached out—this time there was no judgment, only tenderness. "Someone is trying to awaken your true identity. You aren't just the daughter of the Langley family, nor just WILLE's ace pilot. You are the other half of the 'Twin Cocoon.' Only by coming into contact with Rei Ayanami again can you stabilize the out-of-control gene chain in your body. Otherwise... in seventy-two hours, you will become the second 'Unit-00 Revised,' a pure energy aggregate, losing your humanity."
"Seventy-two hours again..." she smiled bitterly. "Why is it always like this?"
She looked up at the sky; the Milky Way spanned the heavens like a flowing river of milk. Above this unknown desert, for the first time, she felt so small.
"If I go to see her... what will happen?"
[Possibility One: Your souls fuse completely, birthing an existence beyond the human realm.] [Possibility Two: Your consciousness is swallowed, becoming a part of her.] [Possibility Three: You both find a third path—just like last time.]
"More multiple-choice questions..." she murmured. "Can't I just catch a break for a few days?"
But she had already turned and headed toward the jet.
The roar of the engine cut through the night sky as the VTOL took off, racing toward the Pacific. Simultaneously, in the monitoring room of the Neo-Tokyo 3 base, alarms blared.
"Report, sir! Rei Ayanami's vital signs are fluctuating violently!" a technician cried. "Her brainwave frequency... is an exact match for the Antarctic signal beacon's encoding! And... she's speaking!"
The screen switched to the ward. Rei, who had been sitting quietly, slowly raised her head toward the ceiling, her lips parting slightly:
"She's back."
At that same moment, Osiris stood at the top of the command center, staring at the distant horizon. He held an encrypted file titled Final Evaluation of the EVE Project. On the first page, it read:
Experimental Conclusion: When two lifeforms of the same origin achieve empathy at a high-dimensional conscious level, they can break through the essence of the AT Field—which is not a defensive barrier, but the manifestation of 'Loneliness.'
Therefore, the true Third Impact is not a world-destroying catastrophe, but a ritual of connection for the collective psyche of all mankind.
We fear fusion because we fear losing ourselves. But we never realized that only by accepting others can we complete ourselves.
He closed the file and whispered to himself, "I see... you two understood it long ago."
Three days later, a blizzard swept through Neo-Tokyo 3. Asuka landed at the base and walked into the medical sector, her coat dusted with snow. Soldiers saluted and scientists made way, as if they were facing not a girl, but a walking deity. She ignored everyone and pushed open the door to the ward.
Rei sat in her wheelchair, her back to her, while the storm raged outside, reflecting their blurred shadows. The room was quiet, save for the rhythmic sound of the ventilator.
"You came," Rei finally spoke, her voice carrying more warmth than before.
"Yeah," Asuka stood at the door, hands in her pockets like a child who had done something wrong.
"I thought you wouldn't be back for another half year."
"I thought so too," she stepped closer. "But I dreamed of Mom. She said... I shouldn't shoulder all the responsibility alone."
Rei slowly turned her wheelchair, looking up at her. Those eyes that were once like stagnant water now rippled with life. "Do you know? These past few days, I could feel you approaching," she said softly. "Not just physical distance. Here." She pointed to her heart. "Something was resonating."
Asuka knelt down to face her. "I heard... you wrote a poem?"
Rei nodded and handed her a slip of paper:
[The wind brought a voice from far away, like a girl singing.] [I want to remember her name.] [Next time we meet, please call me 'Rei'.]
As she finished reading, Asuka's eyes grew hot. "Rei..." she tried the name, her voice raspy. "I... I brought a gift." She took a small box from her bag—inside was a silver hairpin shaped like a six-winged angel. "I was refurbishing an old jet in Africa and modified some parts. This was made from the last piece of Osiris's undamaged armor. Though... I might not pilot again."
Rei took the hairpin, her fingertips trembling slightly. "Thank you... Asuka." It was the first time she had actively called her by name.
At that moment, the entire base shuddered! Alarms shrieked, red lights flashed. "Emergency!" Osiris' voice came over the broadcast. "Deep-sea sensors have detected massive energy fluctuations! Location: Bottom of the Mariana Trench! Preliminary determination: signs of the Thirteenth Angel awakening! Its gene sequence... is a 100% match for Rei Ayanami!"
Asuka snapped upright. "Impossible! All the Angels were supposed to be..."
"It's different," Osiris burst into the room, his face grim. "This signal signature shows it was generated spontaneously from the 'Collective Unconscious Ocean'—born from the global human fear of the 'End.' In other words... it is a physical manifestation of our psychological projection."
"Then we crush it!" Asuka started to rush out.
"No!" Rei grabbed her wrist. "Did you forget the prophecy? Seventy-two hours... this is the start of a new cycle. If we respond to fear with violence, it will only breed more monsters."
"Then what do you suggest?! Sitting here waiting for it to surface and destroy the city?!"
Rei looked at her, a look of determination in her eyes. "There is only one way to stop it—we both enter the Sea of LCL and cut the connection between it and the collective consciousness. But that means... we must temporarily share our consciousness and enter a state of Deep Empathy."
"Empathy? Won't that cause personality fusion?!"
"It might," Rei smiled. "But this time it's different. Because we have learned to trust."
Outside, the storm intensified. A hundred-meter wave rose from the sea as a gargantuan black figure emerged from the abyss—humanoid in shape, but with twelve pairs of compound eyes and a spiral proboscis. It was the primal incarnation of human fear: the unknown, the incomprehensible, destined to swallow all.
Asuka stared into Rei's eyes for a long time, finally nodding. "Fine. But on one condition."
"What is it?"
"When we get back, you have to promise me one thing. Let's go eat strawberry cake together. Not in a virtual space, not in a dream... just the two of us, sitting in a cafe on the street corner, like normal girls."
Rei laughed—a true, genuine laugh. "Okay. My treat."
Ten minutes later, the two lay side-by-side in a specialized synchronization pod. Osiris initiated the program: "DSS Choker amplification device active. Target: Sever the connection between the Thirteenth Angel and the collective consciousness. Operation Code: 'Bridge of Hearts'."
"Synchronization: 10%... 30%... 60%..." Data leaped rapidly. "85%... 89%... 91%..."
Suddenly, a warning blared! "Warning! External interference signal detected! Source... the asteroid base wreckage!"
The screen flickered, and an elderly figure appeared—the old man who had planned the Divine Advent was not dead!
"Foolish children," he sneered. "You think ending the plan grants you freedom? As long as humans harbor desire and fear, we will always exist. Now, let me give you my final gift—the true 'Primal Voice'!"
A high-frequency pulse pierced the atmosphere, striking the synchronization pod!
"Dammit!" Osiris shouted. "He's activating ancient backup consciousnesses—the thoughts of Gendo Ikari, Fuyutsuki, even all the members of SEELE! They're trying to forcibly take over Rei's body!"
Deep within their consciousness, Asuka and Rei held hands tightly against the surging torrent of darkness.
"Can we continue?" Rei asked.
Asuka grinned, blood leaking from her mouth. "What do you think? A woman of the Langley family is never afraid of going crazy."
Together, they screamed: "COME AT US!!!"
Light exploded. The boundary between reality and dream shattered completely. In that boundless white ocean, ten million voices roared and pounced—
"You are worthless!" "You are just a tool!" "You don't deserve to be loved!" "Give up! Obey! Perish!"
But they just held hands, walking forward step by step.
"I wasn't born to please anyone," Asuka whispered. "And I don't exist to be a sacrifice," Rei followed. "I am me." "I am me." "We are me." "We are us."
Their voices gathered into a song, and the song turned into a blade of light, slashing through the layers of oppressive will. In the outside world, a rift opened in the sky, sunlight piercing through the black clouds to fall upon the giant waves. The black Angel let out a shrill scream, its body dissolving into countless black particles that scattered in the wind.
Inside the asteroid base, the old man's eyes widened as the monitors went out one by one. "No... impossible... how could humans... break free from fate?!" His body crumbled inch by inch, like a sand sculpture meeting the tide.
In Neo-Tokyo 3, the synchronization pod opened. Asuka and Rei opened their eyes, looked at each other, and smiled.
Three days later, at the seaside cafe. The sun was perfect, the sea breeze gentle. Two tables were pushed together, with a massive strawberry cake in the center.
"Hey, don't eat all of it!" Asuka snatched back the last piece. "You said it was my treat," Rei retorted flatly, but the corners of her mouth were turned up.
In the distance, children built sandcastles on the beach, their laughter clear and bright. And deep in space, the signal beacon went dark once again. Perhaps one day, a new crisis will descend. Perhaps new girls will stand up and grip the sword made of light and iron. But for now—
The wind brought a voice from far away, like a girl singing.