I figured

When the light faded from the Fourth Angel's eyes, Tokyo-3 lay in ruins.

But the purple giant kept advancing, the hellish city seeming to give shape to a god's wrath!

Misato Katsuragi sprang to her feet in delighted surprise as she watched the wavering, octagonal screen of warm-white, translucent light on the monitor.

"Unit-01 deployed an AT Field!?"

The Angel's destructive light gradually dimmed until it vanished completely, yet Unit-01 remained unscathed.

As a decisive weapon built to fight Angels, an EVA naturally needed the power to oppose them. Otherwise, the whole operation would have been a joke.

But what had blocked the Fourth Angel's attack was not that artificial armor restraining its body, but the power possessed by the biological weapon within.

Such as the octagonal, diamond-shaped shield now appearing around Unit-01.

Misato Katsuragi's voice reached Shinji Ikari's ears, and he listened with interest. "So this is an AT Field? That's what they call this ability of mine."

It sounded as though they had researched it before, so the ability probably was not unique to him. But the experience felt different from before, and Shinji Ikari's lips involuntarily curled upward.

"It can actually unleash my power. I knew it, Unit-01. I can't do without you!"

His mounting fervor manifested fully through Unit-01. Its eyes, which had originally emitted a faint yellow glow, now blazed with a chilling scarlet light.

Keenly sensing the approaching danger, the Fourth Angel raised a hand. The bony organ at its elbow lit up, and a white lance of light shot from its palm at tremendous speed.

But the instant it fired, Unit-01 tilted its head just enough. The lance grazed its metal helmet, throwing off sparks as it passed.

The Fourth Angel raised its other arm and repeated the process, but this time, the moment light surged in its palm, a brilliant radiance flared before it.

A second later, it roared in fury. Its body had been torn open, and hot, thick crimson fluid gushed from the stump of its severed arm.

It was Unit-01!

Its eyes were glowing. Two high-energy particle beams shot from them, moving faster than the Fourth Angel could react and instantly slicing through a similar warm-colored screen of light along with its arm.

Even Shinji Ikari had not expected Unit-01 to be able to fire lasers.

He had merely thought, If only I had a similar ranged attack, and the lasers had actually fired.

While the Fourth Angel wailed, Shinji Ikari had already closed in on it.

Under Shinji Ikari's control, Unit-01 moved incredibly fast, easily breaking the sound barrier as it ran.

By the time the Fourth Angel reacted, Unit-01 was already right in front of it and had seized its only remaining arm.

Unit-01's arm no longer looked like something that belonged to a machine. Its armor seemed to have been burst apart by invisible muscles.

Shinji Ikari caught a vague glimpse of skin beneath the machinery, bearing unmistakably biological traits. But he did not care. All he knew was that Unit-01 was responding to him.

The power it displayed was exactly what Shinji Ikari had hoped for.

Unit-01's strength was astonishing. The energy the Fourth Angel had been gathering abruptly stalled, and though it struggled desperately, it could not break free.

Shinji Ikari simply grabbed the Fourth Angel's wrist. There was a sharp crack, and then he twisted its arm apart.

What Shinji Ikari piloted was supposed to be a "mobile suit," yet he could clearly feel the explosive strength coursing from its swelling muscles.

"Powerless, powerless, powerless! Rebellious angel who defies a god, suffer divine punishment!"

Unit-01 lashed out with a savage kick, tearing the Fourth Angel's right arm clean off and sending its entire body flying backward.

With both arms severed, the Fourth Angel seemed to have reached a dead end, powerless to resist Shinji Ikari's punishment.

Under Shinji Ikari's control, Unit-01 pushed off the ground with both legs and lunged forward, knocking down the Fourth Angel just as it tried to rise and straddling it.

Unit-01 pinned the struggling Fourth Angel with its left hand while its right, still gripping the severed arm, swung again and again, smashing the limb wildly into the Fourth Angel's head.

Crimson fluid sprayed onto the earth wherever flesh struck flesh, and a bloody mist spread between the two giants.

The thick, pungent stench of blood filled the air, mingling with the showers of gore to form a horrifying scene.

Unit-01 through Shamshel's eyes

Cracks spread across the Fourth Angel's two white mask-faces under the relentless blows.

But just as Shinji Ikari shifted his target to the conspicuous red spherical organ in the Fourth Angel's abdomen, he felt a powerful resistance.

The severed limb clenched in his hand had already been reduced to countless scraps of flesh, and his descending fist stopped in midair, as though caught by an invisible force.

The armor on Unit-01's hand had even shattered completely, exposing a white fist with an unmistakably organic appearance.

Layer upon overlapping layer of warm-yellow light spread outward, standing like a wall between Unit-01 and the Angel and separating them.

At that moment, Misato Katsuragi's voice sounded inside the cockpit.

"Shinji, that's the Angel's AT Field. It's difficult to break through with the EVA's physical capabilities alone. As long as that absolute territory remains, you won't be able to touch it."

Beside her, Ritsuko Akagi added, "You can use Unit-01's AT Field to neutralize the phase space. Hurry. The Angel's regenerative abilities and rate of evolution are both astonishing!"

The instant Ritsuko Akagi offered that advice, layers of concentric octagonal barriers knocked away Unit-01's left arm, which had been pinning the Fourth Angel down.

As it turned out, everything Ritsuko Akagi, the chief technician, had said was correct.

Fleshy growths swelled at the stumps of the Fourth Angel's arms, quickly taking on the rudimentary shapes of two arms and growing at tremendous speed.

Flesh writhed within its two nearly shattered heads, pulling the white masks back together. Two ghastly mask-faces stared at Shinji Ikari.

Even the flesh beneath its second head kept swelling and bulging, as though something was about to emerge. Perhaps it was growing a third head.

"Neutralizing phase space sounds like technical work. I don't know how to do that," Shinji Ikari said as Unit-01's eyes lit up again.

The technicians in the command center instantly understood Shinji Ikari's intent. But just as everyone thought he would use the eye beams to tear through the Angel's absolute territory-

They instead observed the Fourth Angel's body rapidly expanding, stretching like rubber before wrapping around Unit-01's upper body.

"We're detecting intense fluctuations in its energy signature! Is it going to self-destruct!?" Misato Katsuragi asked urgently, cold sweat streaming down her forehead.

While everyone worried about the power of an Angel's self-destruction and whether the EVA could withstand it, the purple giant had already thrown a punch before the black body could completely engulf it.

The AT Field expanded outward in several clustered geometric shapes. Before the fist even touched the Fourth Angel, the impact had already blasted it away.

While the Fourth Angel was still in midair, light shot from Unit-01's eyes. Purple beams of energy sliced through the night sky and shattered the Fourth Angel's red spherical organ!

BOOM!!!

Dazzling red energy bloomed in midair. The shock wave tore through the clouds, and an immense pillar of energy rose like a cross of crucifixion planted in the earth!