Chapter 9: The Delivered Tool
After driving in silence for a while longer, the car left the coastal highway and entered a tunnel leading into the mountains.
The lighting inside the tunnel was somewhat dim.
Misato gazed at the light at the far end of the tunnel, hesitated for a moment, then finally spoke up:
"Shinji-kun... aren't you... curious about what your father does for work?"
She was trying to use this topic to better understand this enigmatic boy and to prepare him for what he was about to face.
Shinji sneered inwardly.
Curious?
As a transmigrator carrying the "script," he knew better than anyone what Gendo Ikari was doing.
He understood the true nature of NERV, the reality of the Human Instrumentality Project, and how ruthlessly cold that man could be to achieve his goals.
He knew too much—so much that he couldn't confide in anyone, so much that it felt like carrying a heavy, invisible shackle.
Transmigrators might truly be the loneliest souls in the world.
Knowing everything, yet having no one to share it with; being part of the story, yet feeling like an outsider.
A faint, unmistakable smirk curled at the corner of his lips as he replied in an icy tone, "I heard from my teacher... that he's doing some 'world-saving' kind of great work?"
He deliberately emphasized the words "world-saving" and "great," lacing them with heavy sarcasm. "Hah, how... impressive."
Just then, the car emerged from the tunnel and entered the entrance to a heavily guarded, futuristic underground passage.
The massive, coldly glowing NERV emblem slowly lit up above the entrance. Thick alloy gates slid silently open to both sides, revealing a wide, brightly lit, metallic track inside.
Misato skillfully drove the car onto a conveyor device resembling a giant flatbed cart at the center of the track.
Once the car came to a steady stop, she unbuckled her seatbelt, let out a long sigh, and relaxed into the seatback as if she had completed a daunting task.
Hearing Shinji's bitingly cold, sarcastic reply, the ease on Misato's face instantly froze.
She turned to look at the boy, at the profound disgust and chill in his eyes that were so incongruent with his age, and a complex emotion welled up inside her.
She sighed silently, her gaze tinged with a hint of shared sorrow.
It seems... we all have trouble getting along with our fathers.
...
NERV Headquarters—Central Command.
The three UN military officials were no longer as arrogant as before. Their faces were ashen, and they slumped in their chairs, staring vacantly at the screen showing the invincible monster. The failure of the N² Mine had completely shattered their morale.
The UN military commander seated in the middle of the high platform said to Gendo Ikari, "We now formally transfer command of this operation to you."
"I admit our weapons are useless against the Angel, but are you really capable?"
Gendo smiled faintly. "NERV exists precisely for this purpose!"
"Then we'll wait and see..." The descending elevator platform carried away the three UN officials.
...
Gendo slowly emerged from the shadows behind the command seat, his steps steady.
He adjusted his rimless glasses on the bridge of his nose; the lenses reflected two cold arcs of light from the screen's glow, concealing his unfathomable gaze.
Deputy Commander Fuyutsuki Kōzō, who had been standing silently beside him, now furrowed his brow and asked in a low voice, "Even the United Nations forces are at a loss... Ikari, what do you intend to do?"
Gendo Ikari's footsteps halted before the massive screen, his back turned to the others.
He tilted his head slightly upward, his gaze seeming to pierce through the screen and lock onto the distant Angel.
His voice was not loud, yet it carried clearly through the entire deathly silent command center, each word ringing like the cold clash of metal:
"Activate Unit-01."
"Unit-01?!"
Fuyutsuki's eyes widened abruptly, his aged face etched with shock and disbelief.
"But... Unit-01 has no pilot!..."
Gendo slowly turned around, his cold glasses sweeping over Fuyutsuki's stunned face and then over all the officers in the command center who were holding their breath, awaiting his next words.
His face showed no expression, the lines of his mouth as hard as carved stone.
His thin lips parted, delivering the rest of his sentence in a tone as casual as if discussing an ordinary package about to be delivered:
"It doesn't matter."
He paused, his gaze shifting toward the entrance of the command center, as if piercing through layers of alloy walls to see the beat-up blue car being conveyed into headquarters.
"Another substitute..."
"Will be here shortly."
His words held not the slightest concern for his "son's" safety, no consideration for the dangers a first-time pilot might face—only a pure confirmation that a "tool" was about to reach its designated position.
Fuyutsuki watched Gendo's impassive profile.
He opened his mouth, but ultimately couldn't utter a word.
He understood that in Gendo Ikari's chess game, the boy about to be delivered was never a "son"—just a disposable component labeled "substitute pilot."
...
On the conveyor belt, the deep blue Renault sports car slid steadily toward the depths of the underground city.
Inside the car, Shinji watched the cold, massive underground structures flashing past the window, feeling the increasingly close call that seemed to emanate from the abyss, his body involuntarily tensing slightly.
The cold conveyor belt carried the battered deep blue Renault sports car, speeding through the deep underground passage. Only the faint hum of rail friction and the dying gasp of the engine echoed within the cramped cabin.
Misato unbuckled her seatbelt, relaxing into the dust-covered, cracked seatback. Her gaze pierced through the shattered window, watching the cold, monotonous alloy walls flash by outside.
After a few seconds of silence, she spoke softly, breaking the stillness in the cabin:
"It seems... your relationship with your father is quite strained..." Her voice carried a barely perceptible sigh.
Another brief silence followed.
Misato seemed to recall something, her eyes dimming slightly as she lowered her head and added in a voice almost too quiet to hear:
"...Just like me."
This whisper was like a stone dropped into deep water, stirring faint ripples in the stagnant pond of Shinji's heart.
He slowly turned his head to look at the woman beside him, who also carried a heavy past.
Her profile appeared weary in the dim light, the white cross pendant around her neck trembling slightly with the car's gentle sway.
Shinji's lips twitched with difficulty, ultimately forming an extremely bitter smile that seemed steeped in endless darkness.
He slowly shook his head, his voice low and clear, carrying a sorrowful understanding of everything:
"...It's different."
He knew.
He had seen that "storyline."
Misato's father, Dr. Katsuragi—the scientist who died in the Second Impact—at least... in his final moments on that sinking Antarctic continent, he chose to leave the only escape pod for his daughter.
With the end of his life, he redeemed part of his sins and left behind a belated, heavy form of paternal love.
He had hurt his family, hurt his daughter, but his love, in the end, briefly illuminated Misato's path to survival in the depths of despair.
But Gendo Ikari...
Shinji's gaze returned to the boundless darkness outside the window, as if trying to pierce through the thick alloy barriers to see the man sitting on the command seat.
That man's love had long frozen and solidified completely with the disappearance of his mother, Yui Ikari.
In his chest remained only an obsession with his deceased wife and a mad fixation on the "Human Instrumentality Project."
As for others? Including his own flesh-and-blood son, they were nothing but cold chess pieces, replaceable parts, and blatant, disposable tools on the path to his twisted goal.
No warmth, no remorse, let alone a shred of love.
Just as these heavy, almost suffocating thoughts weighed on him, the speeding conveyor belt violently broke through the heavy alloy gate ahead!
In an instant!
The darkness was completely dispelled!
An unimaginable, futuristic, and incredibly magnificent sight burst into Shinji's vision like the light of creation!
Even though he had seen it countless times in his "dreams," even though he thought he was mentally prepared, witnessing this colossal city hidden deep underground, unfolding like a divine miracle, the unparalleled visual impact still made him hold his breath instantly, his pupils contracting sharply from extreme shock.
Giant support pillars towering into the "dome" stood like colossal trees, crisscrossing three-dimensional traffic tracks resembled metallic blood vessels, and densely packed, layered buildings glittered with cold lights, stretching as far as the eye could see.
This was a massive, dizzying underground kingdom entirely shaped by human will!
"Is this where you and my father work?"
"Yes!"
Misato seemed reignited with a sense of mission by the sight. She straightened up, her face once again glowing with the pride from before, her voice regaining its vigor as she pointed at the breathtaking steel jungle outside the window:
"This is our secret base—NERV Headquarters!"
Her tone was resolute, filled with conviction:
"It's the key to rebuilding the world! The last and strongest fortress protecting human civilization!"
Her voice echoed through the empty cabin, carrying an almost devout proclamation. Yet, sitting in the passenger seat, Shinji could only feel a deeper chill and immense irony as he gazed upon this grand yet cold "human fortress."
What, in the end, was this fortress truly protecting?