Hikari's Surprise

"Shinji, let's go home." Putting on the Paraghi Shield, Zero looked back at Z's Earth.

"Yeah, let's go home."

Even though Z's world was very beautiful and free of those disasters, this ultimately wasn't his real home.

Zero targeted the coordinates of the Eva world, opened a portal, and stepped through.

After passing through the distorted Subspace, the Earth of the Eva world appeared before their eyes.

Zero took a close look and saw that the axis of rotation was indeed tilted.

He gave up on the idea of straightening it out himself; it would be better to call over a few more Guard warriors another time.

Zero flew toward Japan.

In the Eva Hangar, Serizawa tapped Unit-01 on the head; he had just implanted something inside it.

Fortunately, nothing had happened over the past two days.

Unexpectedly, however, Ritsuko took it into her head to ask him to be her mentor! And she clung to him about it for an entire day.

"Please be my teacher, Mr. Serizawa!" Ritsuko pleaded with an earnest expression.

"This is the 66th time today you've repeated that to me!" Feeling as though his head was about to split open from Ritsuko's nagging, Serizawa snapped angrily.

"Then I'll answer you one more time, and I hope this is the last!" Taking a deep breath and trying to calm himself, Serizawa solemnly said to Ritsuko, "I will not take students from other races!"

"Unless I get the Captain's approval, you can forget about this!"

Hikari's words weren't actually unreasonable. After all, much of the technology of the Universe Technology Bureau was strictly confidential, and teaching advanced technology to other civilizations required permission from the higher-ups of the Guard.

In reality, however, there was an even more crucial reason: Hikari simply didn't believe Ritsuko could pass the Technology Bureau's entrance exam, let alone make him tutor her in person.

Yet, faced with Hikari's refusal, Ritsuko didn't give up easily. She pressed on relentlessly, saying, "I'll write an application to your Captain!"

"Even if you write that application right now, you still have to wait for me to take it to the Captain!"

"Now, don't stop me from calibrating the equipment!" With that, Serizawa went back to working on a device in his hands that looked like a large toy.

The technical staff in the laboratory stared in amazement at Ritsuko; she was completely different from her usual self.

The usual Ritsuko was a cool-headed female scientist whose emotions were rarely ruffled by anything.

Yet in front of Hikari, her desire for knowledge overrode everything else.

"Fine, I'll go write the report right now!" Ritsuko turned on her heel and walked away.

"She's finally gone... My head..." Serizawa massaged his temples.

"You really are a miracle worker, getting Ritsuko to show a side of herself I've never seen before." Misato arrived fashionably late.

"Tell me, are you really the director of that whole universe... science bureau?"

"The Universe Technology Bureau."

Misato struggled internally for a moment before speaking slowly, "Regarding that revived life, are there any requirements?"

"How long has it been?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"How long has the person you miss been gone?"

"I hear what you're saying..."

"Uh... It's my father. It's been fifteen years." Misato confessed honestly.

"Is there any form of soul preservation?"

"As far as I know... probably not..."

"Then unless you go find the King-provided you can find him." Serizawa didn't even raise his head.

"I'm powerless to help. Without a soul, even if someone is revived, they're just an empty shell."

Misato's spirits plummeted, and a glimmer of hope was extinguished.

"We aren't gods, after all. My condolences." Serizawa remained expressionless.

"Everyone, I'm back!" A familiar voice rang out.

The group turned around and saw that it was Shinji.

"Welcome back, Shinji!" Misato forced a smile and walked up to him.

"Come with me." Serizawa grabbed Shinji and led him over to Unit-01.

"I've implanted a fairly simple control system into Unit-01's brain. Now I'm going to connect it to your Palaj Bracelet."

Hikari pulled a curved beam of light out of Unit-01's head and connected it to the Palaj Bracelet on Shinji's wrist.

"From now on, you and Zero will be able to pilot Unit-01 with much less Psychokinesis consumption than before."

"Thank you very much, Mr. Serizawa!"

"Don't thank me. Although this robot is built rather crudely, combining machinery and biology is something even I rarely see."

"Now, try operating it, but don't use too much force."

A golden glow flickered in Shinji's eyes as he began to use Ultra Psychokinesis.

Unit-01's hand slowly rose out of the water, mirroring his hand.

"Now try making some gestures."

Unit-01's hands moved in sync with Shinji's without any delay.

Gendo Ikari and Yui Ikari were watching the events in the hangar via surveillance.

For fear of being discovered by SEELE, Yui Ikari had been hidden away by Gendo Ikari.

"What a miracle." Yui Ikari couldn't help exclaiming as a scientist.

"Science that we consider divine is as easy as eating and drinking to them."

"Perhaps they are the true evolutionary path for humanity..." Gendo Ikari slowly murmured, his worldview thoroughly shattered over the past few days.

In the hangar, Shinji finished the test.

"I'm not tired at all. This is amazing." He still remembered how, the first time Zero had used Ultra Psychokinesis to pilot Unit-01, he had been too exhausted to even stand afterward.

"Sorry for the trouble, Hikari." Zero thanked Hikari.

"Right, I have something for you too, Zero."

With that, Hikari pulled a Riser out of his clothes.

"Isn't this the Z Riser? Wait, no."

Zero looked in astonishment at the Riser before him.

The circular slot for inserting Medals was gone, replaced by a slot for inserting Capsules.

"The Medals and the Riser were stolen, and there wasn't time to build new ones, so I combined the Z Riser and the Geed Riser."

"This is a custom Zero Riser I developed for you."

Hikari took out a box.

"Inside are the Capsules of the Ultra Warriors. I've enhanced them using Medal technology."

Seizing control of Shinji's body in pleasant surprise, Zero took the box and opened it.

"These are... New Generation Capsule Alpha and Beta!"

Ginga and Orb, Victory and X were respectively imprinted on the two Capsules.

"To solve the annoying problem of the Geed Riser requiring four to be swiped, I specifically integrated them. Convenient, right?"

"Thank you so much, Hikari!" Zero was overjoyed. For him, injured as he was at the moment, this was timely assistance.

"There are also the Ultra Brothers Capsules. In battle, you can use their moves with the Capsules, and you or even Shinji can use a portion of them while in human form as well. I won't demonstrate that here, though."

"How come there's a Geed one too?" Zero looked somewhat puzzled at the Geed Capsule in his hand.

"I modified it from a Medal; it couldn't go to waste. Just use it."

"Wait... That means..." A thought occurred to Zero, and he stared at Serizawa with a somewhat irritated expression.

"Why didn't you give this to me when I left?"

"You didn't ask, and besides, I wanted to give you a surprise." Serizawa smiled with the satisfaction of a scheme succeeding.

"When did you get so mischievous, Hikari? Did Mebius teach you that?"

"You don't need to know that. Since you're back, I can leave now." Having been pestered by Ritsuko for so long, Hikari just wanted to return to the Land of Light.

"Please take this with you before you go!" Ritsuko ran over, out of breath, holding a piece of paper.

Serizawa's expression instantly turned ugly.

"This is the application I wrote! Please make sure to hand it over to your Captain!"

"Alright, alright, I promise I'll give it to him, but since Zero is back now, I have to leave. Goodbye!" Serizawa walked away without looking back.

Of course, before leaving, he still said goodbye to everyone.

"I will definitely do my best to cooperate with Zero and Shinji to destroy the Human Instrumentality Project." Gendo Ikari promised Serizawa.

"Hmph, you'd better mean what you say." Serizawa retorted ungraciously; he was incapable of putting on a pleasant face for Gendo Ikari.

He turned to Shinji. "Zero, Shinji, take good care of yourselves! After you go back, the Land of Light will continue to provide instructions."

"I need to warn you, this world seemingly also has Devil Splinter; be extremely careful!"

Finally, he turned to Misato, looking at her with a solemn face yet a gentle tone.

"Although I don't know what happened to you, I still suggest you move forward and stop being bound by the past."

"Even though some people have left, I believe they will accompany those who miss them in another way."

"Mr. Serizawa, thank you..." Misato's eyes welled with tears.

"Farewell, everyone!"

Serizawa transformed into Hikari and flew off into space.

"Let's go back, Shinji. Asuka's been talking about you a lot these past two days, you know." Misato chuckled slyly.

"I don't want to think about her at all..." Shinji protested stubbornly.

At home, Asuka was boredly watching television.

Shinji's figure occasionally floated into her mind. Why do I keep thinking about that idiot... She felt somewhat depressed.

At that moment, the door unlocked and a familiar voice rang out, "I'm home!"

Asuka sprang up like lightning and bounded over to the entryway.

Welcoming Shinji with a hint of tsundere pride, she said, "Welcome home, idiot..."