"Now... now... Rei! I'm coming!" Shinji Ikari did not let everything Getter Robo had created distract him. Piloting Unit-01, he charged toward the Apostle that was gradually dissolving and drove a fist at its core. The instant their AT Fields touched, the Apostle's AT Field was completely shattered. Yet strangely, the fist that should have crushed the Apostle's core instead slipped into it, as though it had entered another space.
No one knew what had happened between Unit-01 and the Apostle. They only saw the red light flickering around Unit-01 grow even more intense. After what seemed like a period of stalemate with the Apostle, Unit-01 gently pulled the Rei Ayanami who had been swallowed by the Apostle from its core. As the core cracked apart, the Apostle turned to ash amid the light of the Getter Ray.
"Rei, I got you out. I kept my promise."
Just as Shinji Ikari looked at the unconscious Rei in EVA's palm, delighted that he had kept his promise and saved his companion, countless enormous figures appeared in this world that seemed to lie beneath an endless starry sky.
Every one of those gigantic figures was blurry and illusory, making it impossible to tell what they were. Yet among everyone present, Xiao Ran alone immediately assumed a guarded stance upon seeing those vague, phantom projections. Though they did not truly exist in this world and were merely unreal like 3D projections, so blurred that no one could see them clearly, Xiao Ran still tensed up warily.
In Xiao Ran's eyes, every figure seemed to emit exactly the same light as Getter Robo. Their terrifyingly immense forms felt utterly real to him. Even though none of them could be seen clearly, as if shrouded beneath black veils, Xiao Ran recognized what they were at