A week passed.
Shinji was transferred to a sealed room and confined there. Now he felt anger, helplessness, guilt, and doubt...
What exactly was his purpose and motivation for piloting EVA? He couldn't even save his friend and had nearly killed him by mistake...
Was it his own fault, or someone else's?
Shinji had no desire to think it through. During his confinement, he slowly calmed down.
All day, he wondered whether none of these troubles would have happened if he hadn't piloted EVA.
Was piloting EVA a mistake?
And what was his reason for piloting EVA?
Was it right?
Was it wrong?
Was it his own loneliness, or his longing for approval from that cold, indifferent father?
In the end...
Shinji decided-he would never pilot EVA again.
Whether for himself or anyone else, it no longer mattered.
Someone else would replace him anyway, and Shinji never wanted to face Gendo Ikari again.
He would escape this place and return to where he had come from.
Nothing here had anything to do with him.
Shinji's eyes gradually grew resolute. This time, he decided he would no longer obey his father's arrangements and pilot EVA.
Clang-whirr.
As Shinji was lost in thought, someone opened the door.
"Come out, Shinji Ikari. The commander-in-chief wants to see you..." Light streamed through the doorway, obscuring the person's figure.
Shinji couldn't see him clearly and didn't particularly care.
The person who opened the door was a character from a single-player Neon Genesis Evangelion game, and also the person who would later kill Kaji.
Looking at the light outside, Shinji slowly spoke his first words in days. "It's truly... disheartening."
Command headquarters.
In the spacious hall, a single desk stood alone at the far end.
Gendo Ikari sat there, his interlaced hands covering his mouth as