EVA: Shinji Ikari Returns from Tiga

Chapter 147 Humanity's Greatest Enemy

It hurts so much...

The excruciating, tearing pain that I had initially ignored due to extreme excitement and the buzzing in my brain...

As her body temperature gradually cooled, the tearing pain of her arms being ripped off swept through Asuka's mind...

But, even though it hurts a lot... it feels so fulfilling.

"Thank you, Mom..."

Immersed in the stagnant darkness, as if frozen in clay, Asuka knew perfectly well that simply mimicking the Beast Mode was absolutely insufficient to break through the Eleventh Angel's defenses single-handedly.

Whether it's the ability to maneuver around it... or the aggressiveness that ultimately allowed Mari to successfully snipe through the Absolute Territory... both are inseparable from Unit-02 and her mother's help...

Ah, that feels so good...

…the taste of victory.

Moreover, it was a victory achieved by our own hands... without relying on anything else, solely by our human hands!

It hurts, yet I feel satisfied... I'm terrified, yet I feel fulfilled... This is the moment that the little girl who had been pursuing... the feeling that she was special had dreamed of for fifteen years.

She personally defeated the strongest Angel and protected the human world... But, at this moment—Asuka fully realizes... whether she is special or not is no longer important...

I protected my friends with my own hands... I safeguarded my life with my own hands... I defeated the enemy who tried to take away everything I cherished!
This is an ultimate expression that no amount of repetition can fully convey.

"...Asuka!"

Then, just as Unit 2 was still overloaded and completely paralyzed by the Beast Mode... something... swiftly swept in from the sky.

"Huh!? What's going on?!"

Asuka felt a slight sway in her body, but the now completely silent Unit-02 no longer provided her with the ability to share vision…

In the dim light, all she could do was furrow her brow and ask, "What happened?"

Then, she heard Misato Katsuragi's incredible murmur coming through the communication channel...

"The Spear of Longinus...?"

Yes, it was projected from directly above in the distant sky... aimed at Unit 2 and the Eleventh Angel, who were almost both dead and overlapping on the ground, intending to pierce them both...! It was the blood-red spear of god-slaying—the Spear of Longinus!
Fortunately, Unit-00 was extremely close and disregarded its own safety, using its own body to ram into Unit-02, causing it to deflect from the trajectory of the Spear of Longinus.

The result was... the blood-red spear pierced precisely through the already shattered core of the eleventh apostle who lay on the ground.

"High altitude! Unidentified high-energy object!"

Following the trajectory of the Spear of Longinus, Shigeru Aoba quickly began reconnaissance.

"There's an unknown wavelength reaction...!? Ripples... Huh??"

Following the coordinates provided by Aoba and the usual wavelength spectrum analysis performed by Ibuki Maya…

However, they discovered that the other party's graph was not fixed, but rather constantly fluctuating, sometimes orange and sometimes blue!
Representing the boundary between apostles and humans, breaking it again and again... leaping into each other's territory.

"Found it! The image is already displayed on the big screen... It's... EVA!?"

Beneath the bright, full moon... like an apostle of God, defying neutrality, slowly descending from the sky—

"EVA Unit-06?!"

Gazing at the unfamiliar EVA bathed in the bright moonlight, revealing its ferocious face... Unit-08 from afar immediately rushed towards this direction.

Mari knew very well that Unit-00, Unit-01, Unit-02, Unit-03... had all lost their combat capabilities in the battle against the Eleventh Angel.

If the other party is indeed sent by SEELE to reap the benefits, then the only one who can confront them now is oneself.

"...There's no need to be so nervous, Maria..."

"—!?" During the sprint, Kaworu's voice, as sweet as honey, ignored the transmission of sound and rang directly in Mari's mind.

The strange sensation of that flirtatious voice echoing ethereally in her mind sent shivers down Mari's spine...

"What's the meaning…!?"

"The meaning is simple: I am not your enemy—so there is no need to be wary of me. And please do not attack me... I don't want to be hated by Shinji for killing you."

Faced with Kaworu's words, Mari grinned and raised her rifle to aim at Unit-06, which was floating in mid-air defying the laws of gravity.

"You bastard, you just tried to stab the princess and the apostle together, and you still dare to say you're not enemies?"

Of course, facing such a small-caliber rifle, Kaworu could not possibly show any fear; he was completely at ease and even continued speaking with a hint of mockery in his tone.

"That was just a coincidence, and... do you really have the energy to keep an eye on me? I'm not your enemy, but that child is..."

"That child—!?"

Before Mari could even react, and before she could even think about who the child Kaworu was talking about was… a chilling sensation, as if she had fallen into an ice cave, forced Mari to instinctively avert her gaze from EVA Unit-06…

It moved onto the eleventh apostle, who was lying on the ground.

"...Disappeared?"

In an instant, the sound vanished... This sky and earth, devoid of light, fell into the deathly silence of eternal night... An immense, indescribable terror raged deep within everyone's heart.

Disappeared—

In the silence... the God-Slaying Spear slowly vanished...

No, that's not right!
It didn't disappear... it was eaten!
The core of the Eleventh Apostle... the core that had died because of the penetration by the Yangzi Cannon, has now regained its activity... transforming into a mouth with its upper and lower parts closed and its sharp teeth bared... and with silent chewing, it swallowed the bright red Spear of Longinus bit by bit... completely clean.

Then... he stood up.

"They've...they've been resurrected..."

"The eleventh... apostle... restoration... restoration activity!"

"...What should we do...Shinji, sir..."

After devouring the Spear of Longinus, its shattered core fused with the Spear of Longinus, giving birth to an even more intense cruelty.

Click...!
Their bodies were torn apart, and the apostles, who had once looked rather orderly, became twisted and chaotic.

"That's...!?"

Even more strikingly similar to Unit-00... EVA's skull and its fragments were seen growing wildly from various parts of the Eleventh Angel...

“Ugh…!!”

My right eye is in excruciating pain, as if countless venomous insects are emerging from the depths of my right eye... a pain that feels like they are gnawing at my brain from the inside!

The excruciating pain, as if tearing at his soul, jolted Suzuhara Toji awake from his unconsciousness…

"This...this feeling?!"

And he, as the person involved—will never forget… that overwhelming feeling that makes you want to vomit your soul out!

"That... is no longer an apostle...!!"

"——!?"

"A monster...it's a monster!! The same stench as back then...! It's that bastard's...! A chimera!!!"

Unreasonable, pure malice, solely aimed at annihilation and destruction... humanity's greatest enemy!

Cerebro Synthetic Beast... Destrudos Angela - Apostle Beast Form!!
(End of this chapter)