——2016.2.14——
Underground fortress, special ICU ward.
Drip, drip, drip.
Shinji Ikari opened his heavy eyelids, looked at the familiar ceiling and Rei Ayanami, who was holding a book and reading beside the bed, closed it again, and murmured to himself:
"Really, [Angel Falls] plan or something, he has gone completely crazy in order to resurrect his wife."
He was not worried at all that Ayanami Rei wouldn't understand. In other words, he still had many doubts that she needed to solve for him.
"Oh, so you ran to [that world line]?" Ayanami Rei put down the book and looked at the patient on the bed: "How does it feel to be surrounded by countless 'Ayanami sisters'?"
"How did you do it?" Although it felt inappropriate, Shinji Ikari still asked this question.
"..." Ayanami Rei opened his eyes slightly and looked at Shinji Ikari up and down, as if he saw some rare animal.
"What, what... Isn't it okay to ask?" Shinji Ikari subconsciously wanted to pull the quilt up to block it, but found that his arms could hardly use any strength.
"You saved 'all' Ayanami sisters? 'I' didn't kill any of them?" Ayanami Rei asked.
"Right? They are so cute..." Ikari Shinji changed his words mid-sentence: "Just like you."
"Then how did you defeat [The Thread of Life]?" Rei Ayanami asked.
"What is that?" Shinji Ikari wondered.
"..." Ayanami Rei lowered his gaze slightly: "Don't you know?"
"So what is that? Did I miss any BOSS that I didn't defeat?" Shinji Ikari asked repeatedly.
"Probably not," Rei Ayanami shook his head: "Maybe [they] don't bother to destroy a 'false world'."
Really, although Ayanami’s taciturn personality is cute, it’s also very frustrating when she hides something and doesn’t say anything.
You're already so arrogant that you dare to tease her in person, right?
Unit 1 is tired. Let's switch to Unit 0 to kill him.
I don’t want to die, but I’m pretty sure I won’t die at this level.
Huh, those who drown are those who can swim.
"You asked just now, how could I do this?" Ayanami Rei changed the subject himself: "If you accidentally let any 'Ayanami sister' be killed, you will find that she was 'absorbed' by me, and we will become Nothing will disappear when you become the same person."
What Namekians...
"They are not Namekians," Rei Ayanami continued: "It should have been called the 'Ayanami Completion Plan' at the time. Commander Ikari, no, Director Ikari wanted to use this plan to upgrade my LV5 superpower to LV6. I waited until the end I only guessed what he was thinking when I saw the 'Weave of Life', but it was too late."
So I really haven’t encountered this yarn-weaving thing.
"Then what did you encounter?" Ayanami Rei asked.
"It's the 'angel' attracted by the 'Angel Falls' plan," Shinji Ikari was too lazy to complain about Rei Ayanami's claim that he was not a mind reader: "Its appearance and ability are similar to those of the Fourteenth Apostle, but more elegant and flexible. "
"That's it..." Ayanami Rei seemed to be thinking about something: "This plan failed to succeed at that time. I'm not sure about its effect."
"The theory of that plan is..." Shinji Ikari thought for a while: "There are countless 'angels' observing our world, and they will choose the right people to come to them and give them 'superpowers', and if you don't wait" If they come down on their own initiative and use some method to pull them down, they will gain corresponding abilities. Director Ikari believed that his wife was one of these angels, and he made a plan to resurrect her. This plan."
"And the host body is a certain 'Sister Ayanami'," Ayanami Rei replied, "otherwise you wouldn't care."
"No... that actually doesn't matter much. The main problem is that after the 'angel' was 'pulled down', everyone's personality and memory were messed up." Shinji Ikari rolled his eyes: "It was later confirmed that although people's will It is very fragile, but it can only be 'squeezed away' but not 'replaced'. After the descending angel squeezed away the original consciousness of the host body, the squeezed sister Ayanami squeezed others along the way, and the dominoes fell all the way, and finally reached me. It stopped here and I had to clean up the mess this father had made."
"That's it." Ayanami nodded.
"Well..." Shinji Ikari glanced at her secretly: "Is there anything I can know now? For example, the spider of life, or the world line..."
"If the world you just experienced was not destroyed by the 'Weave of Life', it should have been reset by 'I' launching the 'Third Impact' in the end," Rei Ayanami said in a nonchalant tone: "So far , all world lines have this ending, and this time, although there are some interesting changes, the ending may not be any different."
"ah……"
Although there are still some key information missing, the overall framework can be understood.
A long, long time ago, Rei Ayanami, who did not know what state he was in, either actively or passively launched the third impact, and found that it was not "destroying all life and starting to evolve again from microorganisms" as recorded in the literature, but "going back in time" ” or “Change the world line”.
If nothing else, she can only go back or reset to the time when the "Second Impact" occurred, which was fifteen years ago. After that, she may try to prevent the Third Impact from happening and "backtrack" multiple times. "After achieving her goal, the result was that the "Weave of Life" and other unknown beings who could be called "them" alongside him appeared, completely destroying the world she thought was safe.
So, reincarnation starts again.
What exactly happened next is unknown, and she most likely won’t say it, but there is no doubt that the phrase “It’s better for me to do it myself than to be destroyed by others” when building a sandcastle was the idea she came up with after countless reincarnations. "If we cannot defeat the enemy this time and continue to maintain the world, we will launch a third impact and try again."
Therefore, the same people always existed in different worlds, just because she knew them.
In the process of countless reincarnations, she may have been confused, sad, angry, and abandoned herself. She even created a world line for various possibilities that was completely inconsistent with the current world view like the previous world for experiments, but she has always been no result.
In the end, she became too familiar with everything she might encounter, and she became the person she is today who doesn't care about everything.
No, wait, after she was thrown into the rift of time and space by Kirishima's real name and returned with little Ayanami, she did say that she "saw the hope of ending reincarnation", right? Therefore, this world line and herself at this moment are different. of!
The beautiful angel is calling you from the front!
Brave young man, go and create a miracle!
"Ayanami, no, Zero," Shinji Ikari tried to get up from the hospital bed: "I'm sorry to you——"
puff.
Ayanami Rei raised her hand and stuffed something into his open mouth.
"Don't get carried away after seeing some of the truth about the world." She stood up and walked out of the ward: "Let's talk about it after you successfully save the world."
Well? She didn't directly say "you are a good person"?
Shinji Ikari looked at Rei Ayanami's leaving figure and chewed something in his mouth subconsciously: "...Chocolate?"
He looked up at the date attached to the clock...
Great!
————
After a while.
"Really, why didn't you faint for two more days?"
Asuka, wearing school uniform, stood in front of Shinji Ikari's hospital bed with her hands on her hips, looking unhappy:
"Choosing this day to wake up must be intentional, right?"
"That's right," Shinji Ikari bared his teeth at her: "If you don't give me chocolate, you'll get trick-or-treating."
"Are you so dizzy that you can't tell the difference between Valentine's Day and Halloween?" Asuka rolled her eyes at him and took out a box of chocolates from her handbag: "Here."
"Friendship chocolate or lock chocolate?" Shinji Ikari took the chocolate and looked at it, knowingly asking.
"Huh?! Are you an idiot?" Asuka tilted her head: "I saw how pitiful you were that no one gave you chocolates, so I bought a box of chocolates for you in the convenience store of the hospital. Of course, it's 'friendship'! Don't know that. Wrong idea!"
Hmm... Did you also pay special attention to whether Ayanami brought any chocolate? And don’t “deliberately” and “casually” conflict?
"Then I accept it with gratitude," Shinji Ikari put the box on the bedside table: "I will taste it when the doctor says I can eat it."
"Hmm," Asuka crossed her arms: "If you can't make it in time, you can just throw it away."
Hmm... It's obvious that I have a good impression of myself, but I don't know how to express it, but it seemed a bit... before.
"Your--"
After a moment of silence, they both spoke and shut up at the same time.
"You first." Shinji Ikari said.
"Thank you so much when I beat the Fourteenth Apostle," Asuka said with evasive eyes: "I thought about it afterwards and it seems that it is not good to call you nicknames all the time. I decided to call you 'Shinji-kun' like Sister Misato from now on... Okay ?"
Does this kind of thing still need approval?
If she replies "No" now, will she get angry and hit someone?
"Of course there is no problem," Shinji Ikari replied: "And what I just wanted to say is that although you are a genius pilot and Unit 2 is also very strong, it should not be a problem to deal with a group of apostles alone, but everything is unexpected. , we are not sure what special abilities the apostles who will appear in the future will have, so it is better to fight in groups or in groups."
"Humph!" Asuka instantly turned into a proud face: "That's right, no matter what enemy you encounter, this talented pilot can solve it. If you encounter any trouble that you can't handle in the future, just call me and I will definitely solve it." The one who rescued you from the sea of misery, oh hehehe~"
Hmm... Now there is no need to remind her that EVA's attack was decided by the headquarters.
"Shinji-senpai? I heard you're awake..." Kirishima Mana, wearing a hospital gown with half of his face still covered with bandages, came in from the door in a wheelchair: "Ah, did I come at the wrong time? "
"No, you came at the right time," Asuka walked over and pushed Kirishima's wheelchair to Shinji Ikari's bed: "I still have training tasks, so I'll leave first~"
I always felt that it was a bit strange. When Shinji Ikari looked at Asuka's back, anyone with eyes could see Kirishima's real name towards him, but she seemed completely unaware or indifferent.
Combined with what she said before, "If you dare to bully your real name, I will kill you"...
Could it be that she was not aware of her own thoughts at all and thought she was assisting her best friend?
Is it true that girls are more thoughtful than boys?
"Well, Shinji-senpai, happy Valentine's Day," Kirishima's real name took out a box of chocolates similar to those of Asuka: "I originally wanted to make it myself, but the doctor didn't approve of the discharge, and there are no conditions here, so I had to go to a convenience store to pick it up. One box, please don’t dislike it.”
"Don't worry, I won't dislike it," Shinji Ikari took the chocolate and looked at it, then glanced at Asuka's box on the bedside table: "Look, Asuka's friendship chocolates look like this too."
Even the prices seem to be exactly the same.
"Ah...that..." Kirishima Mana also saw the box of chocolates, and his expression became a little panicked: "That's because there is no better one in the convenience store, but it is not friendship chocolate, but... Lock the chocolate.”
Hey, I have won the favor of two beautiful girls at a young age. Although I have to fight for my life, I can still be a little proud.
Oh, and the wicked Asasi.
But the problem is that what I want to pursue is actually the third beautiful girl, but it seems to be quite difficult to achieve the goal. If nothing else, just fighting with ordinary apostles will cause bloodshed at every turn. Ten days and a half month, let alone something above them that can easily destroy the world.
Why don't you discuss it with Ayanami when you can't do anything, preserve your memory in the new world line, and work with her to find a solution?
If it doesn't work once, do it ten times. If it doesn't work ten times, do it a hundred or a thousand times.
Although the will of ordinary people may be overwhelmed by this continuous accumulation of memories and experiences, if you can't bear this pressure, you are simply not qualified to stand with her.
Although what you said is good, thinking about other girls in front of a girl is a complete scumbag behavior.
Number 1 will give you a thumbs up and then slap you to death with his backhand.
I don’t want to die yet, so you’d better say no to Kirishima immediately.
It's useless, it's too late, Kirishima is already dead set on him this time around.
"Well...thank you," Shinji Ikari tapped his forehead to stop his chaotic thoughts from wandering off: "I will return the gift to you in a month, as long as there is no trouble that day."
"There was no trouble that day~" Kirishima's real name curled his eyes: "The next apostle attack will be on February 18th."
"...Really?" Shinji Ikari looked at her a little surprised, but he had no doubts.
In another world line, he had confirmed that the ability of the space-time guidance system was really strong, and the accuracy was quite high when it came to judging the time of events that would not be affected by external factors.
So I still have four days to recover...
"[Woo——Woo——]"
"[Emergency evacuation alert! The fifteenth apostle appears! All doctors and patients are evacuated immediately! Repeat that——]"
Hmm... Shinji Ikari looked up at the hospital loudspeaker and then looked down at the duel disk floating in his hand.
forget it.
