After the events involving Bardiel and the dummy plug, Shinji holds Unit-01 under his control and refuses to exit the entry plug. Angered with Gendo for putting Toji's life in danger, he threatens to destroy NERV Headquarters using the few minutes of power that he has left if his father doesn't explain himself, and refuses to be talked out of it. Cold and pragmatic as ever, Gendo does not speak to Shinji, and instead has the pressure of the LCL inside Unit-01's plug raised until Shinji loses consciousness, stating he won't waste his time on Shinji throwing a tantrum. Shinji is subsequently forcibly extracted from the plug.
Some time later, Ritsuko and Misato survey yesterday's battlefield, which is still littered with pieces of Unit-03, their talk soon turns to the incident with Shinji, and Misato fears for his state of mind. Meanwhile, Asuka and Rei hang around near the hospital wing while Asuka remarks on how Shinji can't talk himself out of this situation. Rei asks her about Shinji's condition, and Asuka answers that Shinji wasn't injured during the extraction, so he is probably safely dreaming away as they speak. "Dreaming?" asks Rei puzzled. "Yeah. Don't tell me you don't dream?" says Asuka, but Rei doesn't answer her.
Toji lies in the bed next to Shinji and when he regains consciousness, wonders why Shinji is lying in the bed adjacent to him. He then falls asleep again.
The scene then shifts to the train car inside Shinji’s mind. Toji is there as well, seemingly as a separate entity, standing in the next car over. Studying his surroundings in a daze, Toji is confused to where he is. As he looks towards the other car, he registers that Shinji and Rei are in there, sitting opposite each other and are having a conversation that he is not able to hear. In the other car, Rei asks Shinji why he threatened to destroy NERV. He says it’s because his father betrayed him. Even though the two of them was finally able to talk to each other, Gendo didn’t try to understand his feelings. Rei continues to press him by asking him whether he tried to understand his father’s feelings. Shinji becomes more frustrated, bending down and covering his ears, saying that he tried. Rei tells him that he is just running from reality again. "What's wrong with that?! What's wrong with running away from unpleasantness?!" Shinji shouts back at her.
At this point, Toji wakes up again to finds Hikari sitting by his bedside. She tells him he has been out cold for three days. Toji is about to ask if it means she has been watching over him the whole time, but she quickly nips his question in the bud and frantically explains that she is just visiting as part of her duties as the class representative. "Yeah, I know that," answers Toji with a knowing smile. He apologizes for not being able to eat the lunch that Hikari made and asks her to tell his sister that he's okay. He also notices that Shinji is no longer in his bed.
After he regained consciousness, Shinji was detained in a cell to await a debriefing in the Commander's office. As he is brought before his father in handcuffs, Gendo tells him that his insubordination and attempted hijacking of Unit-01 constitutes serious offenses, before asking Shinji if he has anything to say in his defense. Shinji just coldly tells him that he doesn't want to pilot an Eva anymore and has resolved to go back to living with his old teacher. Gendo's only response is to tell Shinji that he is just running away again and he is disappointed in him, but Shinji is unmoved by this. "I assume that we'll never meet again," Gendo notices. "Yes, that's my intent," answers Shinji with clear determination in his voice as he calmly walks out of the office. Gendo proceeds to order the deletion of all of Shinji’s data and designates Rei as Unit-01's pilot with the dummy plug as backup.
Preparing to leave Tokyo-3, Shinji is back in Misato's apartment. Having finished packing, he lies down on his bed one last time, as the phone starts ringing. He takes the call and it turns out the caller is Kensuke, who has found out about Shinji's decision resign and he demands to know if it is true, but Shinji remains silent. "Why are you running away again?", Kensuke asks, as he admits that he both admired and envied Shinji. "Damn it! Even Toji became an Eva pilot, while I-" he continues, obviously trying to keep his voice from breaking, before he is cut short. A formal voice takes over and tells Shinji that the line is monitored and the call has been terminated for security purposes, thanking him for his cooperation.
At the train station, Shinji has one last conversation with Misato. She tells him that his life will be very difficult if he keeps cutting his ties to people like this, but Shinji answers that it might very well be her philosophy, but he can't live like that. Being straight to the point, Shinji asks her the only question he has; why was Toji chosen? She relays him the information she only recently discovered herself; that all of his classmates are potential pilots. She acknowledges what happened with Toji was a mistake, and that she and everyone else at NERV have been placing a lot of responsibility on Shinji's shoulders since he is a pilot of an Eva Unit. She knows it has been a huge burden but remains steadfast in her belief that the end justifies the means. She tells him that she will be saving his pass-code to Headquarters and keeping his room unchanged. He tells her that won’t be necessary and firmly states that he won’t pilot an Eva again. Misato is surprised by his tone and wonders if Shinji is truly speaking his mind for once. As Shinji waits for his train to arrive, the alarms begin to wail signalling the arrival of the fourteenth Angel, Zeruel, a huge and bulky, vaguely humanoid creature with a leering skull-like mask for a face.
Zeruel's attack is relentless and more destructive than anything NERV has encountered so far. With one strike, it manages to pierce through 18 of the 22 layers of armor that protect the Geofront. Asuka is quickly positioned for battle within the Geofront. Rei, however, is rejected by Unit-01 as she attempts to synchronize. All attempts to activate the dummy plug is similarly instantly rejected. Gendo begins to tense, wondering whether the unit is defying him. He resolves to send Rei out in Unit-00 which still hasn’t fully healed its wounds from the last battle. Rei agrees amidst protests from Misato and says that if she dies, she can be replaced.
Soon enough, Zeruel blasts its way through to the inside of the Geofront with Asuka waiting to challenge it, haughtily declaring that she can easily do this even without Shinji's help. She tries to bring it down with every weapon she has in her arsenal but it's all completely ineffective and the Angel calmly advances completely unhindered towards Unit-02 before it pauses and extends two razor-sharp limbs to cut off the Eva's arms. As she screams in pain, Asuka charges toward the Angel in a blind rage, while the creature prepares to attack again. Misato orders the nerve connections to be cut just as Unit-02’s head is severed from its body.
Shinji, in the meantime, is sitting in a shelter reminiscing about Asuka telling him how pilots like them never have to go through evacuation drills. His thoughts are soon interrupted as Unit-02’s head comes crashing through the shelter’s roof, crushing and injuring several civilians in the process. As panic erupts around him, he stares at the giant served head in stunned horror.
With its nerve connections cut, Unit-02 is rendered completely immobile. Asuka, while still alive, sits fuming with anger inside the Eva, cursing her own weakness. As the Angel moves forward toward NERV Headquarters, Shinji watches the battle rage on. As he stands outside, he sees Kaji taking care of his watermelons. Kaji asks him what he is doing here and Shinji explains to him his decision to quit being an Eva pilot. When Shinji asks Kaji what he's doing here, Kaji replies that now that the end of the world is near, he just wants to enjoy what little time he has left. Optimally he would have liked to have been in the arms of Misato for this dark occasion, but since that was impossible and gardening is the second best thing he knows, he figured that it is what he is going to do as he dies. He explains that it is said that when an Angel makes contact with Adam (who Kaji believes to be under NERV Headquarters) it will result in the complete eradication of mankind. As they talk, Shinji sees Rei come up with an N2 mine cradled in Unit-00's arm. Despite both Misato and Gendo ordering her to stop what she is doing and fall back, she runs toward the Angel, pierces its A.T. Field, and detonates the mine. But it has no effect on the Angel, who emerges unharmed from the explosion, and soon Rei is put down as well. Kaji reminds Shinji that all he can do is care for his watermelons at this point. Shinji, however, has something else. He has an ability that no one else has and with that, Kaji leaves the final decision to Shinji. Gathering all of his resolve, Shinji starts running towards the battlefield...
Zeruel blasts an entrance into the central shaft and prepares to descend. Gendo, meanwhile, stands in the Eva Cage, still fruitlessly trying to get the dummy plug to work, as Shinji arrives and demands to pilot Unit-01. As it is registered that the Angel is heading straight for Central Dogma, Misato orders the command center evacuated, but the Angel breaks through the wall before the personal can manage to escape, and its eyes lights up as it readies its attack, but in the nick of time Shinji arrives in Unit-01 to meet it head on. Wrestling with the Angel, Shinji is able to force it into the EVA cage. In its struggle, Zeruel is able to cut off Unit-01's left arm, but, despite the pain, Shinji is still capable of manhandling the creature onto one of the launch catapults and he launches the EVA and the Angel to the surface of the Geofront, where upon he pins it to the ground. In a moment of genuine bloodlust, he tries to rip the Angel apart, but before he can, his power runs out. The Angel recovers and tosses Unit-01 to the side and blasts its chest open, revealing a core inside that looks just like the one in an Angel. Zeruel begins to pound on the Eva's core with its arms, causing it to slowly crack. Inside, Shinji begs and pleads before screaming and demanding for Unit-01 to move. Suddenly, he is shocked into silence as he hears a heartbeat in the darkness...
At that moment, Unit-01 goes berserk.
It grips one of the Angel’s arms and kicks the creature, ripping off its limb and sending it flying backwards. Unit-01 then integrates the torn limb into its own severed arm and regenerates it. The regenerated limb, however, is nothing like how it looked before and actually looks like a human arm. The Angel tries repelling Unit-01 with its A.T. Field, but with a swat of its hand, the Eva extends its own A.T. Field, which smashes through the Angel's barrier and slashes the creature, making its blood and chunks of its flesh spray all over the Geofront. Ibuki notes that Shinji’s sync ratio with Unit-01 has reached an astonishing 400%, with Ritsuko remarking on how the Eva unit is finally aware. As the Angel is down, Unit-01 crawls over on all fours, growling and snarling like an ape. Zeruel, gasping as if it is in pain, meekly attempts to attack the Eva, only to have its face swiftly crushed by Unit-01's hand. The Eva goes on to eat the Angel, with Ritsuko explaining that the Eva has begun assimilating the Angel's S2 engine into herself. As the Eva continues to eat, it starts growing, causing the armor to break. This armor turns out to not only protect the EVA but also serve as restraints for the beast inside. "We can no longer stop the Eva," Ritsuko darkly comments.
As Eva Unit-01 stands roaring and howling against the Geofront's dome, Kaji watches it all from a distance. In a combination of horror and grim amusement, he wonders how Ikari is going to explain all of this to SEELE. Inside Gendo's office, Fuyutsuki asks Gendo if this was all part of his plan.
Gendo affirms his suspicions and says that this is only the beginning.
Tropes:
- Achilles' Heel: While Shinji has control of Unit-01 as he's about to begin his rampage, NERV still has ultimate control over the internal systems. So when Shinji goes rogue, Gendo simply orders the LCL pressure within the entry plug to be increased until it knocks out and disables Shinji.
- An Arm and a Leg: It is a bit subtle, but the observant viewer will notice that Toji's right leg is missing in some of the shots during his conversation with Hikari. More obviously, Unit-02 gets both its arms chopped off as well as its head in battle and later Unit-01 also gets its arm blown off while Shinji's fighting Zeruel. She grows it back though by ripping off Zeruel’s arm and attaching it to herself. It's an arm and leg party!
- Big Damn Heroes: Shinji arrives in Unit-01 and interrupts Zeruel's attack, just as it is about to point blank blast Misato, Ritsuko, Fuyutsuki, and the bridge bunnies to smithereens.
- Blood Is the New Black: Half of Gendo's face and body is splattered with blood from Unit-01 when its arm is dismembered during the battle with Zeruel. He still wears said blood on his face as he and Fuyutsuki are watching the berserk Unit-01 from his office, which only adds to his menacing image as he smirks in triumph at the sight and declares that It Has Only Just Begun.
- Break the Haughty: Downplayed example. While we don't actually see it on-screen, Zereul's attack and desperation force Gendo to eat crow, swallow his pride, and to allow Shinji to pilot Unit-01 again in order to save NERV.
- Call to Agriculture: Kaji once again tends to his melon patch amongst the chaos of Zeruel's attack. In a dark twist on the trope, he does so because he is facing the end of world.
- Disappointed in You: Gendo tries this line with Shinji during his reprimanding of him, but at that point, Shinji is so angry with Gendo that the approach has absolutely no effect on him.
- Misato later tries her own variation of this during Shinji's departure from Tokyo-3. It doesn't work either, as Shinji likewise doesn't care what Misato thinks of him anymore (and he's still angry she kept him in the dark about Toji).
- Dynamic Entry: Unit-01's arrival into Central Dogma's Command Center by bursting through the wall, stopping Zeruel's attack.
- Foreshadowing: Unit-01, i.e. Yui's Soul, rejecting Rei and the Dummy plug to punish Gendo for what he did to Shinji. This foreshadows how their official reunion will go come End of Evangelion.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Gendo's lack of reaction to Shinji refusing to pilot Unit 01 again after forcing Shinji to hurt Toji bites him in the ass hard in this episode when, after believing that Rei can always be used as a replacement for Shinji, Unit 01 rejects both her and the dummy plug, leaving NERV down one Eva.
- Hope Spot: While he's taken a beating, Shinji's kicking Zeruel's ass and he might just triumph where Rei and Asuka failed...only to realize too late he wasn't paying attention to his internal battery and it's reached 0%...
- Then ironically, it immediately gets a villainous inversion with Zeruel. The 14th Angel looks like it's going to survive this ass-kicking and complete its goal of getting to the Central Dogma to initiate Third Impact. And then Unit-01 reawakens...and it's both pissed and feeling a mite peckish...
- I Am What I Am: By the climax of the episode Shinji, with some guidance from Kaji, has come to realization that being a pilot is inherently painful, but it also something only he can do, and it is the only way he can save what he cares about. This understanding enables him to shout out a resoundingly confident version of this at Gendo, when his father asks him the question that has been haunting him for a while: "Why are you here?"Shinji: I am the pilot of Evangelion Unit 01! Shinji Ikari!
- Internal Reveal: Before Shinji is set to leave Tokoy-3 for good, Misato shares Kaji's intel about the Marduk Institute and Class 2-A being Evangelion Pilot candidates.
- Irony: In his post-Toji disdain and ice-cold resentment of Gendo, Shinji has finally begun to emulate his Father.
- Laughing Mad: While Shinji is trying to rip Zeruel's face off a brief shot of the cockpit shows him anxiously chuckling. It’s unsettling to say the least.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": The entire NERV staff as Zeruel effortlessly cuts through Rei, Asuka, and their defenses like a hot sword through butter. Even Gendou, who's still the ice-cold operator, has small cracks in his composure as things get worse.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: If Zeruel had waited just a little while longer before attacking Tokyo-3, Shinji would've been on a train out of town and wouldn't have changed his mind and gone back (a decision which ultimately turned the tide of battle).
- No-Sell: Shinji's attempted rampage against Gendo is quickly kneecapped and shut down by his Father. Gendo's not even taking it seriously, either, and is irritated he has to deal with a childish tantrum.
- Not Afraid of You Anymore: An unspoken version. After the whole Bardiel incident, Shinji finally decides that his father's approval isn't worth a damn to him anymore and shows none of his usual fear, reluctance, or skittishness when being confronted by him, only responding to him with ice-cold resentment.
- Resigned in Disgrace: Shinji leaves NERV in disgrace for his attempted rampage. Of course, it doesn't last long...
- Revenge Before Reason:
- Shinji tries to do this in response to Gendo nearly killing Toji...at least until Gendo effortlessly shuts him down.
- Yui's soul also ends up doing it to Gendo by rejecting Rei and the Dummy Plug when they try to launch Unit-01 against Zeruel. NERV is in serious trouble and the Angels might just win the race to Third Impact...but Yui's priority is instead to punish Gendo for what he did to Shinji.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: While Shinji's rampage is averted before it gets started, he's still taken into custody and faces charges of insubordination, hijacking military equipment, threats of intimidation, etc. Resigning from NERV saves him from any immediate prosecution (and Gendo likely doesn't press charges both to avoid any further political embarrassment and because he wants his son gone and out of Tokyo-3 ASAP). However, resigning from NERV does not mean Shinji's free from the organization. As a disgraced ex-Pilot, he's now classified as a security concern (as demonstrated when Kensuke's phone call during Shinji's last night in Tokyo-3 is monitored and ultimately terminated once Kensuke wanders into sensitive topics). Misato likewise warns Shinji that his post-NERV life and behavior will be heavily restricted because of his actions.
- Wham Line: From the ADV dub: "Yui is refusing me". Gendo's reaction to Unit-01's refusal to sync with Rei is another clue as to who's really inside the Evangelion.
- Worf Had the Flu: Due to the damage is sustained in the previous episode (i.e. losing an arm), Unit-00's in no shape to engage Zeruel after Asuka and Unit-02 are knocked out of the battle. Rei actually takes this handicap into account and goes for a desperate, one-hit K.O. by bum-rushing the Angel with an N2 mine. It almost works, too, before Zeruel manages to get its defenses up at the last second.
