"Lu Mingfei!"
Oh no, I fell asleep!
He jolted awake from his light sleep and propped up his upper body on his numb arms, his vision slowly coming into focus. The girl in the hospital bed still slept quietly, a fragile sadness showing on her face. He glanced at the monitor. The green waveform rose and fell with a steady, muted beep.
Was I hearing things?
It was someone else.
Someone behind him was panting hard. He had just turned around when purple hair fell into his field of vision.
Lu Mingfei opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, a fierce embrace cut him off.
Then-
Click. A chill touched the back of his neck. A lock engaged, and power flowed.
The thing that had clamped around his neck for so long came loose. He instinctively hunched his neck. It felt cold.
"I'm sorry."
She cradled Lu Mingfei's head against her chest. Her clothes smelled of gun smoke and sweat, and the metal zipper dug painfully into his cheek.
"...Bastards. Every last one of us is a bastard." Her voice began to tremble. "Finding reasons, making excuses... saying it's for the world, saying it's your mission... but that's only because we can't do it ourselves."
"You're supposed to be at an age where you argue with your classmates and buy ice pops at the convenience store after school..."
"You've never complained. Lu Mingfei, the more you act like this, the less I feel I deserve to call myself an adult. The more I... I'm sorry, I..."
The woman took a deep breath, then pressed him closer with an unreasonable amount of force.
Lu Mingfei stared blankly at the Collar Controller in her hand:
[CMD remote command: enabled] [Collar connection: disconnected] [Synchronization rate monitoring: disabled] [Suppression function: disabled] [Detonation function: disabled] [Master key mode: disabled] [Awakening analysis mode: disabled]
If any one of those parameters went wrong, his head would be blown off.
Only then did Lu Mingfei realize he had started breathing. His chest rose and fell, air filling his lungs.
For the past several months, he had been breathing only in shallow gasps caught in his throat, like someone trapped underwater, afraid to come up for air.
"Miss Misato, do I need to get into the entry plug now?"
Misato Katsuragi stiffened and abruptly pulled her hand away from his back. A force pressed against Lu Mingfei's shoulder, pushing him half a step backward.
He braced a hand on the railing of the hospital bed beside him.
The bed gave a faint metallic creak and rocked under his weight.
Lu Mingfei turned to look at Asuka. Her long red hair lay scattered across the pillow. Her arm lay outside the covers, her fingers slightly curled, holding nothing.
"Headquarters has been breached," Misato Katsuragi said from behind him. "The EVAs and their pilots are the primary targets."
"Unit-03 is ready," she said. "I need you to... pilot Unit-03."
"What about her?" Lu Mingfei looked at the girl on the bed.
"She's going too," Misato said. "Right now, inside an EVA is the safest place to be."
A muffled explosion came from the far end of the corridor. One of the ceiling lights shattered, and glass shards clattered to the floor.
Misato strode over, turning sideways to avoid Lu Mingfei's gaze, and forcefully pushed his hand off the bed railing. "I'll hide Unit-02 at the bottom of the lake."
"Go." Her purple hair fell forward, hiding her expression from Lu Mingfei.
"Okay." Lu Mingfei walked to the door and turned back for one last look at Asuka.
Misato bent over and began removing the wires and tubes attached to the girl. The oxygen mask came off, the IV line was pulled out, and the monitor let out a long alarm.
The girl's body shifted slightly as the cables were tugged free. Her arms hung at her sides, swaying...
He pulled open the door and walked out.
More than half the lights in the corridor were out. Broken glass and debris littered the floor. Doors on either side slipped backward through his peripheral vision. One, two, three. Every one looked the same.
He could no longer tell how far he had walked, or whether he had been going anywhere at all.
Someone seemed to be shouting in the distance, but he couldn't make out the words. The walls distorted the sound, making it seem as though it came from underwater.
"You're the Fourth Children? You've got to be kidding! Just look at those dead-fish eyes."
The corridor was swaying, or perhaps he was. He looked down at his shadow. Its edges were blurred, like a badly printed photograph.
Lu Mingfei tried to empty his mind. After a few steps, he realized he couldn't.
Things kept surfacing in his head on their own.
Like the way Asuka had looked just now, her hair spread across the pillow like red waterweed.
Like the Collar Controller. He recognized every word on its display, but could no longer piece together what the commands meant.
Forget it.
As he walked on, the corridor seemed to have no end.
What did Rei Ayanami think about whenever she walked down it like this?
The underground hangar, the Third Launch Pad.
When Lu Mingfei emerged from the maintenance passage, he looked up and saw it.
Unit-03 stood in the center, its enormous black body held in place by support frames, its head hanging like a dozing giant's. Repairs were still incomplete. The wound in its abdomen remained open, and the armor plates on its right arm had not fully closed. Their edges curled outward, exposing the flesh beneath.
He reached out with his left hand and gripped his right forearm.
His fingers pressed down. Bone, muscle, blood vessels-they were all there.
How long had he been pressing? A few seconds? A dozen? The green waveform on the monitor pulsed over and over.
No! That was the sound from Asuka's hospital room.
He dug his nails into the skin of his right arm and dragged them across it, hard.
The skin split, exposing the flesh beneath. Its edges curled outward, and blood slowly seeped out.
He exhaled, his body trembling uncontrollably.
That's how it should be.
The enormous armored face hung low, looking down at him.
"Fourth Children has arrived."
"Entry plug in position! Begin contact sequence."
Lu Mingfei stepped onto the Umbilical Bridge. The entry plug's hatch was already open. Its inner walls were dark gray, with densely packed sensor electrodes and neural interfaces extending from every direction. A curved pilot's seat was fitted into its deepest recess.
"Entry plug locked. Beginning LCL injection."
Orange-yellow liquid rose from beneath his feet. Then the smell of rust crept into his nose, like a cup of diluted blood.
As it rose past his chin, Lu Mingfei tilted his head back and took one last breath of air.
The liquid flooded his nose and rushed into his lungs. The LCL began supplying oxygen.
"LCL injection complete. Charge conversion."
"Beginning neural connection."
His mind expanded, and his bodily awareness swelled.
His fingers grew longer, his spine extended, and the outline of his torso was being overlaid by a form that was not human.
"Synchronization rate-"
"...100%."
"Confirm it again."
"Synchronization rate at 100%. Reading stable. No fluctuations or abnormal waveforms."
The dome shook violently. Large chunks of concrete debris struck the unit's shoulder armor.
"The seventh armored gate has been breached!"
"Central Dogma has fallen. The defensive line is retreating."
"Prioritize EVA deployment!"
The voices piled up, layer upon layer, as though striking something solid and shattering into unintelligible noise.
Lu Mingfei closed his eyes and relaxed his body, letting his consciousness merge with the EVA. Deep within his mind, a voice arrived right on cue.
"Welcome back, big brother."
Yes, he was back.
From the moment the DSS Choker had been put on him, he had known there was no going back. He had long since been swallowed by this nightmare called EVA and become a part of it.
Yet now, the nightmare had become where he belonged.
Lu Mingfei opened his eyes.
[EVA Unit-03, launch!]