An enormous, agonized face was carved into the dome-a dragon's face, surrounded by ancient patterns like twisted tree roots, as though an endless rite were being performed.
The patterns reminded Aki of what she had seen during her "Spirit Vision" in the 3E Exam, but they were far more intricate. She wanted to take more pictures, so she lowered the output pressure on her oxygen tank to buy herself a little more time while she waited for Ye Sheng.
"Aki, your heart rate is rising. Are you all right?" Selma's slightly anxious voice came through her earpiece.
"I'm fine. Just a little dizzy," Aki said.
With each burst of the flash, Aki's breathing grew faster. The hand holding her camera began to tremble involuntarily. The bronze patterns seemed to come alive, turning into writhing venomous snakes that burrowed madly into her brain through her eyes.
Lu Mingfei sensed that something was wrong.
Instinctively, he spread an A.T. Field outside his diving suit. Golden hexagonal halos flickered, powerful enough to block the crushing pressure of the deep water and any physical attack.
But he was wrong.
The psychic contamination of the Bronze City was the malice a monarch of Dragonkind had accumulated over thousands of years.
An A.T. Field could reject matter from the outside world, but it could not reject nightmares that bred in the cracks of its host's consciousness.
The sound of flowing water vanished.
With a clunk, a steaming can of black coffee rolled out of the vending machine.
Misato Katsuragi, dressed in her red uniform jacket, bent down to pick it up. She leaned against the wall, her eyes weary from days of sleepless nights, yet when she looked at Lu Mingfei, they held the tenderness and helplessness of an older sister.
"Mingfei, come take a break." Bluish-gray shadows hung beneath her eyes as she rubbed his tense shoulders. "I'm sorry we made you and Shinji stand on the front lines. It's our job as adults to keep the kids behind us."
She paused. The corridor lights instantly turned dark red.
"On the battlefield, life and death sometimes have nothing to do with how strong you are. It's more like a coin toss. Kaji and I were both prepared for the coin to land the wrong way. As long as we could protect you kids, being torn to pieces would be worth it."
She offered Lu Mingfei the coffee. He reached out, but just as he was about to take it, Misato's hand suddenly froze.
Her gentle smile crumbled bit by bit. Two trails of blood snaked down from the corners of her eyes, and her voice grew hollow as a ghost's:
"But look. The adults died, one after another. Even the children are gone. Unit-02 was torn apart, and Unit-01 didn't escape either. Every one of us turned into LCL."
She stared at Lu Mingfei with lifeless eyes.
"If everyone died, why are you still alive?"
Lu Mingfei's pupils contracted sharply. The coffee can slipped from his hand, hit the floor, and rolled into the darkness with a hollow rattle.
"I'm the third," Rei Ayanami said, sitting on a hospital bed. "If I die, another vessel will replace me. I exist only for the moment of Instrumentality. No one in this world is irreplaceable. Human souls will all return to Lilith's egg in the end, merging into one within the LCL, without pain or barriers."
Lu Mingfei's throat tightened. He wanted to say something, but Rei's body suddenly began to disintegrate.
Her skin peeled away like a melting candle, turning into nauseating orange LCL that dripped down the hospital bed. Her red eyes slowly lost their luster. Before she melted completely into bloody liquid, she gazed quietly at Lu Mingfei, her eyes puzzled:
"I'm expendable."
Rei's ethereal voice rose from the pool of bloody liquid.
"But Lu Mingfei, you're suffering, and you have no value at all."
"Why are you still alive?"
"No..." Lu Mingfei instinctively took a step back. Cold sweat instantly soaked his combat suit.
"They're all dead..."
Shinji buried his face in his arms, shaking violently.
"Miss Misato is dead. Doctor Akagi, Asuka-everyone's gone! I never wanted to be here. I don't want to die. Why should we have to shoulder this? We haven't even finished school!"
The boy slammed his head into the control stick, then suddenly turned toward him, his features twisted hideously as he screamed at the top of his lungs, "We fought so hard! Why were you the only one who survived?"
"Urgh..."
Lu Mingfei felt as though his innards were being squeezed in a merciless grip.
He could neither resist nor argue. He had always been a loser who could only hide behind others. What right did he have to survive at the expense of people braver and better than him?
His hand moved toward his helmet clasp.
Why not undo it? Let the LCL flood in. Give this worthless life back to that red sea.
He felt he could finally do something right.
Lu Mingfei fell onto the wreckage of Unit-02.
Asuka lay in a pool of blood. The girl whose pride had known no bounds had red hair matted into tight knots by black blood, and her entire body had been all but mangled.
Lu Mingfei knelt beside her, tears bursting forth uncontrollably.
Asuka struggled to open her eyes. Her unfocused gaze finally settled on Lu Mingfei's face, and her bloodstained fingers inched forward.
"Idiot..."
Her parched throat coughed up bloody foam, but her tone was as cutting as ever:
"Who's that pathetic look supposed to impress...? You're a logistics guy. Since when was it your turn to die on the front lines?"
With the last of her strength, she squeezed Lu Mingfei's hand hard. The final light burned out in her blue eyes:
"Listen, Lu Mingfei... get the hell away from here. Live a good life."
Crack-!
It was as though an enormous glass mirror had shattered inside his mind.
Lu Mingfei's hand released the clasp.
No. None of this was right!
There was no question about why he had survived. Asuka had never asked that! Right up until her last breath, that proud girl had protected him in the most stubborn way she knew.
That wasn't what they had said at all!
"Mingfei, it's the adults' job to keep the children behind us. As long as even one person survives, our sacrifice means something."
"Thank you, Lu. Live on, and find the bonds that connect you to others."
"If only one person is destined to escape this place... Mingfei, escape for me too. Never come back to this hell!"
"Listen, Mingfei... get the hell away from here. Live a good life."
Not one of them had thought he should die.
In their final moments, every one of them had prayed with all their strength that he would live.
They... had all wanted him to live. They had all liked him.
With their broken bodies and souls, they had pushed him out of that hopeless apocalypse, buying him a ticket to this peaceful world at the cost of everything they had.
It wasn't over yet.
Since he had survived carrying their lives on his back, it wasn't time to throw his own away.
Lu Mingfei saw Aki trapped in the hallucination. He kicked hard through the water and swam toward her.
"Damn it!"