Asuka is soaked in the eaux-de-vie LCL, a feeling of tranquility, moistness and warmth.

All that came to her ears was the surging sound of the LCL.

Curled up in a ball, hugging her slender legs, she stared silently at the countdown to the top right of the bolted screen.

It was a countdown to the life support system, and the tiny charge passed through the lamp, and under the control of the auxiliary optical module, it presented a series of changing numbers.

This is the only light source inserted into the plug, and almost all of the electricity is supplied to the heating and oxygen circulation in order to maintain an environment suitable for the driver as much as possible.

Asuka was in the dark, cramped darkness, and all she could see was the dwindling number that emitted a faint glow.

There's nothing here, no one is talking to her, and no one is going to look at her.

It's been a while, and she's confined to this space that only holds her.

She couldn't do anything.

She closed her eyes, but there was silence.

Some scattered memories surfaced. In the darkness, the boundaries between reality and self become more and more blurred

She felt as if she had lost her shape, as if she was gradually becoming one with something.

Someone is calling her

"Asuka, Asuka"

It was a very gentle voice, reassuring.

"Is Asuka good at school today?"

"Eh, Asuka was praised by the teacher, it's amazing."

"This one, called a bag doll, is a gift for Asuka because Asuka does well in kindergarten."

"Promise my mother that I will be good in the future"

"Mom." Asuka remembered that it was her mother's voice.

It was a memory she had buried in her heart and had only forgotten with great difficulty.

"I didn't expect this kind of thing to happen."

"Yes, I am an advocate of experiments, but I am insane because of experiments."

"EVAGELINO, IS IT REALLY TOO EARLY FOR HUMANS TO COME INTO CONTACT WITH THAT KIND OF THING?"

"It's so pitiful, her daughter is only four years old, and now she doesn't even know her own daughter."

"Pathetic is pitiful, but I'll be honest." The person who spoke lowered his voice: "Isn't it very infiltrating to hold a doll and talk all day?" Sure enough, that's not the Miss Kyoko we know anymore, is it? ”

"Although there is no detection of brain damage, it is obviously another person, and I think that the real Miss Kyoko is dead, and what is still here is just a corpse."

"Hey, don't talk nonsense about that."

Young Asuka came out of the corner, and the two people who were talking immediately shut up and smiled on their faces.

"It's little Asuka, are you here to see your mother? Come, come here, we'll take you there. ”

Asuka looked at her mother on the hospital bed through the glass of the hospital room.

She didn't understand what was going on or why...... Why was Mom fine until that day, but she just went out and came back like this?

Why is it that after just going out to work for a day, when we meet again, I can't even remember her?

She walked into the room and looked up at her mother's face.

Mom didn't look at her, just hugged the rag doll in her arms, like a baby.

Woman in a white hospital gown, calling the name of a rag doll.

"Mom, Asuka is here." Asuka stood on tiptoe: "That thing isn't me, Asuka is here!" ”

She reached out and wanted to take the rag doll from her mother's arms.

"Give it back! Give it back! That's my daughter! ”

The mother pushed her away, turned her back, hugged the doll tightly, and hid it under her belly.

"Asuka don't be afraid, mom is here, don't be afraid."

"Mom...... What the hell is wrong with you! Mom! ”

"Is it because of my fault? That's why you don't recognize me as a daughter? ”

"I will definitely be a good child, and I will become a child that my mother likes!"

"So...... So, look at me, mommy look at me! ”

No matter how much Asuka cries, her mother won't turn back for her.

Crying countless times, sobbing for countless days, her voice was already hoarse, her tears had dried up, but it was useless, and Asuka's little heart gradually became numb and cold.

Mom was taken home, and Dad spent less and less time at home, but she still went to Mom's room every day, and even if Dad didn't go, she would still go to that pale, cold, dark room.

"Your dad hates mom anymore, don't want mom anymore."

"No, you must have disliked me in the first place."

"You must have never wanted me in the first place."

"Daddy doesn't want us anymore."

On that day, Asuka opened the door and saw her mother who had hanged herself, and the rag doll with a rope around her neck.

"Asuka, let's die with my mother!"

Until many years to come, this scene would appear in Asuka's nightmare.

Hanging from the corpse in the room, looking at her mother, the rag doll whose head had been torn off by a rope

"yes, dead." Dad said lightly on the other end of the phone: "It's okay, let's move tomorrow, I just want to introduce a new person to you." ”

When her mother died, her expression looked very happy, but Asuka hated it.

She hates death, she hates her disappearance, she hates ragdolls, she hates her dad, she hates her mom.

Hate everyone.

No one wants to protect her, no one wants to stay by her side.

So to live alone.

But it's so annoying to live alone.

A man's house is so scary.

A night alone is so scary.

One fights, one drives the EVA, and one dies inside the plug.

It's scary.

"Are you lonely?"

A voice spoke in my ear.

"Are you lonely?"

It was as if a pair of hands had touched Asuka's head.

Asuka opened her eyes and saw not the dark space inserted into the bolt, but the hazy and illusory sea.

"This is the inside of EVA?"

"Mom. Is that you? ”

"Mom, are you here?"

"Have you been here all along?"

"So you've been by my side all the time, watching me all the time!"

"Asuka, are you lonely?"

The shadow of the void and the real stretched out his hand towards Asuka.

"Are you lonely?"

Asuka stared at the hand and hesitated.

Other hazy memories appeared in front of her.

"Let me introduce myself, my name is Ian, and I work on the farm, but although I say it's a job, I'm actually a slave, and I was sold to the farm."

"Please, Asuka-sensei, please teach me."

"The gunpowder was really made! It's really amazing! ”

"I can get three gold coins a month now, and the housekeeper is teaching me how to read."

"I want to learn how to make a waterwheel, and if there is no good harvest this year, many people will starve to death."

"It's not fighting people, it's fighting man-eating giants, so you need some more powerful weapons."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry to trouble you again, without you, I would have died on that farm by now, and we people on Paradis Island have all been able to get to where we are today."

"This is my last request, please teach me how to make a nuclear bomb, I swear, I have no bad intentions, I only want to protect my country and my companions."

Actually, that time was not long. But Asuka sees that person every night

He was always noisy and shouting, he wanted to learn this, he wanted to learn that.

At first, he was shorter than Asuka and wore old cloth clothes, but later, he grew taller and taller, and Asuka could clearly see the changes in him.

Is that a real person?

She often had this kind of question, and with the help of Mr. Blessing, she went to the German branch of NERV for a brainwave test and a psychiatric examination, but nothing was found.

After that, she doesn't talk about it to anyone else, but she still pays attention to what the person mentions, and takes the time to memorize the knowledge that she doesn't know or understand.

Maybe it's not that person needs her, but the other way around.

Until one day, she never saw Ian in her dreams again.

It's a person, a room, a night.

No one needs her anymore.

No one needs her anymore

Whether it's the apostle or SEELE, it will be solved smoothly

He's grown up, he doesn't need her anymore, no one needs her anymore.

Asuka turned around and hesitated for a long time.

Yet the shadow withdrew her hand.

"So you're not lonely."

The figure in front of Asuka dissipated like the wind.

The dream came to an abrupt end here, and Asuka woke up in the driver's seat.

With an hour and seventeen minutes left in the countdown in front of her, she fell asleep.

"It's been a long dream, I didn't expect it to become so tiring to sleep."

There was still no movement, no rescue, and no outside communications.

"What am I looking forward to?"

As she thought this, suddenly, a touch of fluorescence appeared in front of her eyes.

In the darkness, a faint light lit up, like a firefly, illuminating the surroundings of the second machine.

Even though there was no energy source, after the dream just now, Asuka still synchronized the vision of the second machine and saw the situation outside.

Those rays of light, thousands of rays of light, surrounded the second machine, illuminating the surroundings as if it were daylight.

"What is this? What are they? ”

Asuka was full of doubts, she didn't know what was going on, but these points of light did not make her feel afraid, but gave her warmth in the plug where the heating and oxygen supply gradually failed.

"Found it!"

"This is it!"

"This is the second machine!"

"There's no mistake, I've seen the picture drawn by Captain Hanji, and this is it!"

The point of light got closer and closer, and Asuka finally saw their whole picture clearly, it turned out that it was a figure one by one, they were holding "torches", and walked in front of the second machine, wearing strange costumes, each of them was as illusory as an illusion.

Asuka had seen this kind of dress, and in her dreams, she saw Ian wearing it.

"Could it be. Is it someone from that island? ”

"Why did they come to the apostle's space?"

In the Sea of Dirac, in the far distance, Ian sat in front of the grotesque.

He saw where Machine Two was, and finally determined the location of Machine Two and the Apostle in the Sea of Dirac.

After learning that Unit 2 had been swallowed into the Sea of Dirac, he began to try to connect with Asuka.

It should be the Apostle's AT force field that hinders him, and he has no way to determine where Asuka is, only an approximate direction.

The Dirac Sea and the material world are completely different realms, and although the second machine was swallowed up in the third new Tokyo city, it is impossible to determine the location of the second machine in the negative universe based on this.

As for the rush into the sea of Dirac with a bloody body, this kind of thing is a reckless thing that only young people who can't find a way to do.

The grotesque insects that sleep in the sea of Dirac, the power of coordinates that can connect with the Eldians, Ian uses what he already knows to find a solution.

Because of the elimination of the power of the Ancestors, he could no longer forcibly pull the Eldians over, unless they had a strong will.

For example, when I connected with Heatria, Captain Hanji, and Levi at that time, it was because they had that will to connect with them.

So, he went to the crowd and explained the situation.

"My teacher, the one who taught me a lot, is in trouble and she needs our help now."

The news soon spread throughout the island of Paradis, and the people put down what they were doing and came to help the man who had helped them,

Tens of thousands, the soul projection of the Eldians, was pulled over by Ian.

They searched for the second machine in the near-endless, dark and lightless sea of Dirac.

If Ian is the only one, there is only a very low probability that the second machine will be found before the second machine completely loses energy.

But when the spark illuminates this darkness, it becomes an inevitable result.

"Are you hiding here? The Twelfth Apostle, Angel of the Night! ”

Ian's soul was transferred directly to the second machine.

In the realm of the grotesque worm, that is, within the coordinates, he can teleport by consciousness, although this place is outside the domain, but those who connect with him are his "coordinates".

Through the Grotesque Worm, Ian and Ymir were able to exchange the material and material worlds within the Sea of Dirac to create something like the "Giant" and the "Apostle" in reality.

In other words, Ian could have been in the Sea of Dirac and let the apostles restore!

In the more than ten hours he had been searching for Asuka, he had already prepared.

The Fish Angel, the Sky Angel, the Rain Angel, and the Music Angel, four apostles made of "sand", appeared around the second machine, and from Ian's body, four fluorescent flowers floated out, as if Ultraman Tiga, who had obtained light, and the apostles gained life.

They moved, and the powerful AT force field exploded, attacking the Night Angels!

(End of chapter)