Chapter 67 99: Terminal Dogma.

[The Owls have made their move. They cut the power supply to NERV and forcibly ordered the Japanese government from behind the scenes to cease power delivery. External, internal, and emergency power sources are all offline.]

Ryoji Kaji was clearly far more useful than Mark. The moment the blackout occurred, the real cause was sent over, causing Shinji to furrow his brow.

During the construction of Tokyo-3, the designers placed power supply as the top priority. The city itself was powered by reactors, there was emergency power underground, and electricity could be diverted from all over Japan. As for why they did this, the reason was simple.

"To tell Gendo Ikari that no matter how high his authority is within NERV, he can be toyed with at will?"

This was the true method of warning used by the puppet masters. Dispatching assassins was too low-class; they wanted to tell Gendo Ikari: Everything you have was bestowed by us. Even if you run NERV like an impenetrable fortress, as long as you are on Earth, you cannot escape our control.

Just like this moment—no armed suppression was needed; a mere blackout could bring all of NERV to a halt.

"But didn't they consider what happens if an Angel attacks right now?"

This was what Shinji found unforgivable. He had seen too many fools like this; the power struggles among Hive World nobles never truly ceased. They could fight as they pleased, but if they triggered a Chaos invasion, everyone would die.

Creak—

With one hand, he pulled open a heavy blast door. Shinji entered a narrow maintenance tunnel and headed straight down. Those blast doors, which required immense arm strength to open manually, felt as light as paper to him. With the power out, MAGI had also lost control over the entire headquarters. No one knew that a youth was heading toward the core area at extreme speed.

"Over here."

Rounding a corner, a flashlight beam flickered ahead. Ryoji Kaji, who had been waiting there, looked completely astonished.

"Shinji-kun, you're here already? Didn't we agree you'd come from the school?"

"I did come from the school."

Shinji didn't offer much explanation. He saw the man's face drenched in sweat. After the ventilation system stopped, the interior of this underground fortress became incredibly humid and stifling, like being trapped inside a sauna; even breathing became difficult.

"What's the situation?"

"Those people really did it. They're quite crafty, actually, operating under the guise of the Logistics Department."

Kaji wiped the sweat from his forehead and explained, "They cut the emergency power under the pretext of line maintenance, and then pressured the Japanese government to perform maintenance on the external power lines simultaneously. Heh, they made it so no one can find a flaw in the excuse."

"Why do you think SEELE is doing this?"

"To show their strength and squeeze Commander Ikari. It's certainly not to test NERV's response capability in an emergency."

Ryoji Kaji was indeed very sharp, thinking along the same lines as Shinji. He asked curiously, "If an Angel attacks now, it's game over. Why didn't you stop them?"

"Unit-00 and Unit-02 are already at their launch positions. It won't be long before Asuka and Rei arrive. Since SEELE gave us an opportunity, I don't mind playing along."

Shinji didn't feel like beating around the bush with this clever man and spoke directly:

"Tell me, how do I get to Terminal Dogma? Now that NERV has stopped moving, it's the best chance to go down and have a look."

'Tsk, I've been seen through.'

Terminal Dogma was the most important place in NERV, requiring the highest clearance to enter. Since he had lost the Adam embryo, duplicating clearance wouldn't be easy for Kaji, so he had thought of using the blackout to sneak in.

"I've checked. Terminal Dogma is massive and holds all sorts of secrets. Which sector do you want to go to?"

'Truly a man of talent.'

Shinji felt somewhat gratified. This man had secretly gathered intelligence on secrets so vital that even Shinji hadn't fully mastered them yet.

"To the most central location—the place where Adam is. Lead the way."

"But that place has final defense mechanisms. They'll all be locked down after the blackout. How will we open them?"

"That is not for you to worry about. Lead the way."

Faced with this forceful youth, Kaji had no choice but to lead. He regretted it after only walking for a short while.

These maintenance pipes were a labyrinth; theoretically, they could lead anywhere, but they were only large enough for a person to crawl through hunched over. It was fine for a moment, but this time they had to descend to the depths a thousand meters below. Even with a map, it was exhausting. However, when he looked back at the boy behind him, he was stunned.

There was no impatience on Shinji's face. Instead, there was a sense of nostalgia, as if he were returning to the warmth of his own home. It left Kaji momentarily dazed.

'Does this guy spend his time as a thief climbing through pipes? Why does he look so much at home?'

He had actually guessed correctly. As Shinji infiltrated the headquarters, things buried deep in his memories began to resurface.

He remembered a time he went to steal—ahem, to inspect the combat readiness of allied forces—and had crawled through fortress pipes just like this. He had come within seconds of being caught on the spot.

Terminal Dogma was far too simple. Back in the day, after inspecting the allies' readiness, he had to help them "safeguard" some of their unfaithful equipment; crawling through such narrow pipes then had been truly difficult.

Whatever, he would treat it as a ruin exploration. Fortunately, there were no horrifying secrets here. Unlike in the Dark Galaxy, where finding certain records on a space hulk would result in immediate sealing.

He thought back to a certain ruin exploration mission. Inside a space hulk, the squad he led had found a suit of Power Armor from the era of the Great Crusade. He had happily handed it over to the Captain, only for the Captain's face to turn pale, immediately ordering the contents of the exploration to be classified as a Chapter Secret.

'Such nostalgia...'

Shinji flexed his hands. He felt his palms itching. After such a difficult infiltration, it felt uncomfortable not to take something back with him.

"Why are you looking at me? Time is limited."

"I just feel like you're better at infiltration than I am..."

'Nonsense. Am I going to tell you that we have Custodian equipment in our Blood Ravens' armory? I don't even know where we picked it up from.'

"Keep moving. If the power comes back and we're trapped in here, we'll lose all face."

Shinji urged him on. As a Blood Raven, being caught and having the Chapter Master come to pick him up would be enough for his brothers to mock him for a hundred years.

"Right, right."

There were no elevators. The surroundings were pitch black. Occasionally, they encountered vertical drops of a hundred meters at corners, requiring them to rappel down using cables. It felt very much like trekking through a forest of steel.

They walked for an unknown amount of time until they could no longer hear the complaints of NERV staff outside the pipes. Everything was silent, save for the dim red glow of emergency lights.

Terminal Dogma contained no humans, for humans represented unreliability. There were too many secrets here; exposing any one of them would cause global chaos.

Creak.

Shinji pushed open a half-meter-thick blast door with one hand. Ahead was the end of the corridor, covered in "KEEP OUT" signs.

"Terminal Dogma is just ahead."

Ryoji Kaji slumped down nearby. Under the urging of this demon, he had walked non-stop for hours. He was soaked through, his legs were numb, and several times, if Shinji hadn't grabbed him, he would have likely fallen to his death in the pipes.

'Climbing down ventilation shafts as high as a twenty-story building using cables—is this something a human does?'

"The security is laxer than I imagined. There weren't even any traps along the way."

"Uh, I don't think Angels would crawl in through the pipes. NERV is defending against human spies. All those sensors are networked with MAGI; even a movie protagonist would be caught."

Kaji complained weakly. If it weren't for SEELE's pressure, how could NERV have lost power? When the power was on, the AI monitored everything. There were at least five hundred sensors along the path. Who could get in? An invisible man?

Even he had underestimated the difficulty. Had it not been for Shinji's help, he would have likely died in the pipes and stayed there until he rotted before being discovered.

"The only way is to get clearance and enter openly. What do we do about that door ahead? That can't be opened manually."

He jerked his chin toward the blast door at the end of the hall, which could withstand a strike from an EVA. It was locked tight after losing power.

'A door? Is there a door in this world that can stop a Blood Raven?'

Shinji had explored countless ruins. Lock-picking contests were one of the Blood Ravens' favorite ways to pass time during rest. He stepped forward and carefully observed the door with his psychic senses.

Dozens of alloy bolts thicker than a human thigh were locked tight. They would only open once power was restored and the nearby instruments verified clearance. But if that happened, MAGI would be notified instantly.

'Simple. It's just a combination lock. I've opened these dozens of times.'

Kaji rested in the distance, watching as Shinji took apart the detector. The boy's practiced movements made him feel a sense of trance.

'Professional. This kid must have been a legendary thief in a past life.'

Lock-picking and infiltration were required courses for spies, but Kaji felt like a primary schooler compared to Shinji. Yet, no matter how professional he was, it was useless. Without electricity, how could he open it...

Beep.

He heard an electronic chime, and then the massive alloy door, at least a meter thick, slowly ground open. He stared, dumbfounded.

'No way... can you generate electricity with your bare hands?'

"Let's go. The Central Dogma is not far ahead."

Shinji stood at the doorway, the air pressure from the unlocking door blowing back his black hair. The principle was simple—he had psychic powers.

"Shinji-kun... you wouldn't happen to be an Angel in disguise, would you?"

Ryoji Kaji didn't dare move a step. This supernatural scene made sweat pour down his back. If Shinji was an Angel, letting him down there would surely trigger the Third Impact immediately. He instinctively reached for his hip, then froze again.

'Wait... where is my gun?'

"Stop your idle fantasies and move."

Shinji toyed with the gun in his hand. While infiltrating earlier, his hands had been too itchy, so he "borrowed" it to play with. It was just a convenient grab.

Ignoring the stunned man, he walked through the door. Inside, he saw indeed many rooms, all marked with "KEEP OUT" signs.

He opened one at random and saw a place that looked like an infirmary. Gray-black walls, a hospital bed covered in a white sheet, and some pills on the nightstand. This scene was very familiar to him.

'Wasn't this Rei Ayanami's former home?'

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