Aozaki Aoko [648-649] (Patreon)

Chapter 648: Sisters' Battle

The fight began very suddenly.

At the instant Aoko stepped into the barrier, Touko snapped her head around and fired a cross-shaped light cannon at her, triggering a massive explosion.

This gave Asuka quite a scare, but she soon noticed that aside from herself, no one around her looked worried. Instead, they were excitedly discussing Miss Touko's various new abilities.

"Touko's new light-cannon ability looks really good. If I could install it on my mothership, that would feel so safe!" Melusine said to the nearby Gray.

Huh? What mothership? Big sis Melusine, since when are you a carrier-based aircraft?

Asuka pondered the true meaning of Melusine's words with a blank look, but her attention was quickly drawn back to the battle.

As the smoke cleared from the explosion, Aoko walked out unscathed and immediately counterattacked. A magic blast with a diameter of about two meters was casually hurled toward Touko.

If this had been the Touko from before, she would have either dodged using her soul-materialization shapeshifting, or relied on her perpetual-motion-level mana source to tank it head-on without flinching. But now she had a different method.

It was a semi-transparent, generally rainbow-colored hexagonal "barrier."

Among those present, anyone who had looked into AT Fields in advance would recognize the true nature of this shield: a special ability that only Angel-class beings could truly manifest—"The Wall of the Heart," which severs mutual understanding between people.

"Oh?" Aoko raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised by the strength of Touko's AT Field. But she immediately increased her output. The sound of shattering glass echoed around them—had Aoko's brute force broken Touko's AT Field—?

Just as the first layer of the AT Field collapsed with a boom, new AT Fields appeared one after another. They overlapped each other, and after sacrificing at least four layers, they fully balanced Aoko's magic cannon and began generating even more layers, pushing back toward Aoko.

Aoko's eyes lit up. She obviously knew this absolute-field application, because it was the signature move of the strongest rejection-type Angel—Power Angel!

Who would have thought that Touko, having only just been enhanced by the Key of Nebuchadnezzar, would intuitively master this technique on her own. As expected of a Third Magician!

"It's a bit cramped here. How about we take this upstairs?" Touko maintained the absolute field with one hand and pointed to the sky with the other.

"Of course," Aoko said as she activated the Soaring Wind Realm. "But we should control the scale of destruction. This is our own property, after all."

With that, the halo above Touko's head expanded slightly, and she shot skyward like an arrow leaving the bowstring.

Aoko followed close behind, raising her hand to cast "Greater, Maximized, Quickened Isaac's Advanced Missile Storm."

A barrage of magical missiles came screaming in from every direction toward Touko ahead, but she merely glanced back and used her AT Field to precisely block each one. Then, with a flash of cross-shaped light and a peculiar humming, she returned fire with an "Angel Beam."

This time Aoko didn't use Redshift State to evade the damage, because behind her lay the forests and lands of Land of Sapphire Flowers. So she firmly blocked Touko's beam with a force-field wall and retaliated with an even larger-scale magic cannon.

Ordinary Angels or ADAMs have an "upper limit" to the damage their AT Fields can bear, but for Touko, a Third Magician, that upper limit became unfathomably high. Though both drew on endless energy via soul materialization, Touko's output was clearly greater.

It should be a matter of energy source, Aoko thought as she fought. The Angels' hyper-solenoid structure is an antenna configuration that draws energy from the Anti-Universe, whereas the principle behind Touko's perpetual-motion-like soul materialization is unknown. Aside from Touko herself, who has mastered the Third Magic, no one knows exactly how it works.

Based on Aoko's own conjecture, the perpetual engine principle of Touko's Third Magic soul materialization probably exists due to some paradox-of-existence special mechanism. Maybe Touko's soul materialization could even be called a "Love Theory Engine."

The two sisters traded blows in the sky, fighting fiercely and putting on a spectacular "fireworks show" for the onlookers on the ground.

However, this was ultimately a test of Touko's new abilities. After all items were tested, the battle ended with Touko using a massive absolute field to block the meteor swarm summoned by Aoko's Falling Star Burst.

—Dividing line—

"Ahhh, that was so satisfying I'm over the moon today" Touko happily held a chilled beer and took a big gulp. "I think I'm starting to understand your love of light cannons and magic missiles, Aoko."

"You've got a long way to go!" Aoko rolled her eyes, then lifted her own drink for a sip. "By the way, what exactly is that halo of yours? Do you understand it now?"

"Mm, it's hard to explain," Touko said, frowning in thought. "You can broadly think of it as an application of the AT Field—though the reality is definitely more complicated~"

"Then keep it up, Touko-chan. Our future NHG battleship will be counting on you," Aoko whispered in Touko's ear. "Old Gendo is unreliable lately—we've given him quite a beating."

Aoko and Touko had discussed the "possibility" of using ADAMs to build a starship. Touko was somewhat interested, but since it wasn't top priority at the moment, that research remained in the "New Folder" stage.

"You rascal, don't try to shirk all your responsibilities," Touko said, pushing Aoko's big face away with a hand. "Don't think hiding in New Tokyo-3 means you can slack off!"

Since it had come to that, Aoko had no choice but to agree to Touko's request. Although Touko was immortal, if they kept overworking her like this, she'd eventually refuse to carry the load. Aoko needed to shoulder some research tasks for her.

"Touko, can your Key of Nebuchadnezzar be produced again?" Alice spoke up then, evidently very interested in Touko's newly displayed abilities.

In fact, Alice had been feeling anxious for a while. From her perspective, Aoko and Touko's combat power had skyrocketed over just a dozen years or so. Their cohabiting "good sisters" had all become Magicians, while she—who inherited a fragment of the First—had made no progress at all.

Touko's research result was a great opportunity; she had to try to seize it, even if it came with some risk.

Thus, the three sisters started competing too. Compete—everyone can compete.

"Of course it can be mass-produced," Touko answered crisply. "But it'll take time. If we want to safely harness this power, I have to create deep customization for each user, or else the user's body will undergo some unpleasant changes after using the Key of Nebuchadnezzar—like, say, growing a few extra pairs of eyeballs."

Aoko pictured a beautiful-faced Alice with three pairs of eyes and couldn't help shivering. It would still be kind of cute, but if that Alice stared at her, she might feel a bit overwhelmed.

Chapter 649: External Invasion

Having used a customized Key of Nebuchadnezzar to successfully "upgrade" her own life form, Touko returned to the Bethany Base to begin further research.

Normally, an existence like hers would surely be detected by the various NERV branches, and be tagged as "Type: Blue"—a signal type emitted only by Angels.

But as an absolute master in soul materialization, Touko easily fashioned an "outer shell" for herself. As long as she didn't use Angel/ADAMS-like special abilities inside the base, no one would discover her.

Her research on the "Anti-L System" had been completely finished. Using her authority within Bethany, Touko did quite a bit of "private business with public funds," manufacturing many Anti-L Field devices—"Angel-Sealing Hex Pillar." Through a customized teleportation array from Aoko's side, she secretly sent them back to Land of Sapphire Flowers, storing them beneath a new research facility Aoko had recently built in the forest, for future use.

Although the base director felt puzzled by the sudden increase in certain expenditures, the Bethany branch had received ample resources from the Committee thanks to a string of major research breakthroughs. He didn't care much about these "small sums," chalking them up to some employees' "consumption of supplies." All normal spending!

The bearded, middle-aged director finally had a hint of swagger these days—quite a sight.

While Bethany Base had entered a fast lane of development, with faint momentum to supplant NERV HQ, that very speed made quite a few "colleagues" anxious, sleepless at night.

When ordinary people see colleagues making rapid progress, there are two reactions: either grit their teeth and work harder, or start playing dirty tricks.

The North American branch and the Shanghai branch were the former. Through coordination with their local governments, they increased funding and accelerated the development of Units 03 and 08. They might even complete construction before the Angels formally arrive. By then, there would be at least six EVAs on the surface waiting for the foolish Angels to attack—and what awaits them would be a merciless gang beating.

But, as always, the world is full of insidious schemers. Although the North American branch publicly accelerated Unit 03, they also secretly started Unit 04 early, blatantly ignoring the constraints of the Vatican Treaty signed between nations.

And the North American branch still retained "some bottom line." NERV HQ's commander chose an even more underhanded approach: sending more spies to Bethany.

Because of Ryoji Kaji's earlier failure, Gendo Ikari had lain low for a while. This didn't mean he'd given up on Bethany—rather, during that time, he secretly trained a "special forces" unit.

Using intel passed along by Kaji, he devised a long-prepared infiltration-and-sabotage operation and had Ritsuko Akagi manufacture some "special equipment" based on research results Bethany had contributed.

Most ironically, Kaji himself, Gendo's "meritorious spy," knew nothing about this sabotage op or the existence of Gendo's secret unit.

It seems Gendo had long since lost any trust in Kaji. After all, who would stake everything on a triple agent?

—Dividing line—

Ryoji Kaji was recently quite dissatisfied with his progress. Aside from that time he "happened" to steal technical data related to the Key of Nebuchadnezzar, he hadn't even touched a single physical Key. That thing was still stored under the same security level as the Final Cocytus System, and employees without sufficient clearance had no idea it even existed.

Although he had subsequently sent a series of internal-structure intel on Bethany to both Gendo and the Japanese government, none of that was particularly classified anyway. Bethany was built to study the Third Angel, after all; it wasn't designed with strong counter-espionage in mind.

His regular communications with the Japanese government and the UN continued at the usual frequency, but contact from Gendo dwindled. Often it was just Kaji unilaterally transmitting intel, with Gendo's side replying with perfunctory "Read" acknowledgments.

This made Kaji uneasy. He vaguely felt Gendo might have abandoned him. After all, his results weren't enough for Gendo to keep cooperating. If so, getting more intel on SEELE would be difficult… He had to think of something.

While Kaji was brooding in his room at Bethany, the base alarm suddenly blared.

What's going on?

The spy's mind went blank. To his knowledge, Bethany was rock-solid at the moment—hard to imagine an emergency warranting a base-wide alarm. As someone planning covert sabotage, he knew this all too well.

Kaji could even confidently say, "No one understands Bethany's defense system better than I do."

Though puzzled, years of professional habit had him don his coat at once, tuck his sidearm into his belt, and head for the command center to find out what had happened.

However, the truth was more outlandish than anything Kaji could imagine.

The secret infiltration unit dispatched by Gendo arrived at Bethany Base in the Arctic Ocean aboard an unmarked submarine. Using internal layout information Kaji had provided, they moved unimpeded straight to the lowest level of the Final Cocytus System—the chamber where the Third Angel was held.

The "operability modification" of the Third Angel had basically been completed. Even the entry plug system had been installed. With an appropriate pilot, the Third Angel could be controlled like an EVA at any time to fight.

This achievement had been submitted to the Committee by the Bethany director, one reason the base was now so flush with funds.

But everyone, Touko included, had underestimated Ritsuko Akagi's research prowess. From the fragmentary, "spiced up" technical tidbits Kaji had leaked—courtesy of Touko—she forcibly built a prototype dummy-plug system and miniaturized it. The final form of the device was as compact as a metal coffin.

Using water-mirror magecraft, Touko watched through spider-doll surveillance as the black-clad infiltrators performed a "pallbearers" routine, carrying the "coffin" through dozens of Angel-sealing wards to the face-obliterated, still-dormant Third Angel.

Touko let out a cold laugh but didn't stop Gendo's private soldiers. She planned to use this incident to gauge Unit-05's combat performance anyway.