Chapter 1339
Lilith: When gods fight, apostles suffer!
Meanwhile, on the other side, Lilith saw Kaworu Nagisa, whose face was deathly pale.
She was dragging her heavy steps towards her room, a blood-soaked cotton ball stuck to her arm. She looked completely drained of energy, even her shadow seemed unusually weak. As she turned the corner, she bumped into Kaworu, who was also leaning against the wall and moving forward. The Seventeenth Angel, who was usually elegant and composed with a mysterious smile on his lips, was now frighteningly pale, his silver hair had lost its luster, as if he had just been dug out of his grave.
"You ran into Hikari too?"
Lilith stopped, a hint of shared misery flashing in her red eyes. She looked Kaworu up and down, noticing that his posture of clutching his arm was exactly the same as hers, and immediately understood seven or eight parts of the situation.
"yes……"
Kaworu leaned against the wall, his voice so weak it sounded like a groan. He raised his head, his red eyes filled with the exhaustion of surviving a disaster, even his usual composure completely gone.
"You also had a large tube of blood drawn?"
Lilith leaned closer, lowering her voice, as if confirming some terrifying consensus. Her gaze fell on the obvious needle mark on Kaworu's arm, the area around it already turning bluish-purple, clearly indicating that the needle was ridiculously thick.
"That's right..."
Kaworu gave a bitter laugh, a laugh more painful than a grimace. He remembered the enormous syringe he had to hold, Hikari's fanatical gaze behind his glasses, and the utter humiliation of his status as an Angel being shattered before that scientist. He couldn't help but tremble.
"It's so miserable..."
Lilith sighed, her voice filled with empathetic compassion. She patted Kaworu's shoulder gently, as if afraid of breaking something, then withdrew her hand and rubbed her own arm, which had also been ravaged.
"You too."
Kaworu Nagisa nodded, the two apostles exchanged a glance, and then both sighed...
That single glance contained so much—sympathy for each other's plight, helplessness in the face of the present, fear of the scientist from the Land of Light, and a certain absurd resignation. One was the Second Apostle, the embodiment of the Source of Life; the other was the Seventeenth Apostle, the Angel of Freedom, a noble being possessing Adam's soul. In the past, they would have been beings capable of making the entire human world tremble, kings standing at the top of the evolutionary chain.
"Oh, how did the world become like this..."
Lilith stared up at the ceiling, her voice hollow as if she were talking to herself. She recalled her majesty when she was sealed underground, the way those humans trembled before her, and compared that to her current pathetic state of being chased by a giant syringe. She felt that everything was absurd beyond belief.
"Who knows..."
Kaworu shook his head, slowly sliding down the wall to sit, hugging his knees like a bullied child. He stared unfocused at the pale light in the corridor, his mind still replaying the image of Hikari approaching with the syringe. Kaworu had a headache…
In any case, the apostles can't win, they absolutely can't win...
He closed his eyes, his forehead resting on his knees, his voice muffled, carrying a sense of utter despair, as if utterly crushed by reality. It wasn't that he didn't want to win, nor that he was afraid to win; it was that he simply couldn't win. That guy on the other side, Cui Ming, could throw steel coils like toys, could slice otherworldly beings and apostles into pieces; that guy on the other side, Hikari, could use apostles as experimental subjects, drawing blood from syringes as thick as cannon barrels. How could he fight like that? How could he even play?
The monsters and Ultraman in TM are not even in the same league as their apostles!
Lilith crouched down beside Kaworu, hugging her knees, and sat on the corridor floor next to him. She recalled the days when she was monitored by Cui Ming, which, though frustrating, at least allowed her to watch soap operas; she remembered the horrific sight of the fetal angel Sandon being shredded, and the despair of this unfortunate creature being rubbed into the ground by Cui Ming along with the Mazar people. The Angel's proud AT Field was as thin as paper before Ultraman's Light Chainsaw; the Angel's proud level of life was a joke in the face of the monster's brute force and Ultraman's fighting skills.
“…Let’s just lie down.” Lilith buried her face in her knees, her voice muffled. “Lying down is fine, at least I won’t have to have my blood drawn.”
“…Agreed.” Kaworu’s voice came from beside her, weak but firm.
The corridor fell silent. The two apostles sat side by side on the cold floor, like two dried-out salted fish, having completely given up the struggle.
Lilith looked at Kaworu Nagisa and asked again, "By the way, why did you fall for a human?"
Lilith was talking about Shinji Ikari.
She crouched on the corridor floor, her arm still throbbing, her red eyes glancing sideways at Kaworu beside her. The seventeenth Angel was currently hugging his knees, his silver-white hair hanging messily over his forehead, his usual elegant and composed demeanor shattered by Hikari's giant needles. Lilith tilted her head, her tone tinged with curiosity, confusion, and a hint of skepticism, as if to say, "Has your brain been slapped too?"
"It's just a feeling."
Kaworu raised his head, his red eyes gazing at the window at the end of the corridor, letting in a faint light. A gentle smile appeared on his lips. That smile contrasted eerily with his deathly pale face, like a flower suddenly blooming in ruins. He didn't launch into a long speech, didn't invoke Adam's soul resonance, nor explain the intertwining of fates; he simply gave an answer that left Lilith even more speechless, in an almost dreamlike tone.
"...You're awesome..."
Lilith opened her mouth, but only managed to utter three words after a long pause. She stared at Kaworu as if looking at an incomprehensible monster—although she herself was an Angel, at least she chose to lie down because she was afraid of death, because she wanted to watch soap operas, and because she didn't want to have her blood drawn. But this guy in front of her had actually thrown himself into the complex and fragile life form of humanity just because of "a feeling," and he even happened to choose Shinji Ikari, that autistic boy.
She shook her head, buried her face back in her knees, and muffled her voice: "...How did such a love-struck fool like you emerge from among the Apostles..."
Kaworu simply smiled without refuting, his gaze still fixed on the window, as if he could see through the glass a boy lost in thought in the music room.
In any case, the apostles have no chance of winning now, so...
Then why not enjoy life as a human being?
Kaworu Nagisa's thinking was that simple.
He had already seen through it all.
Why.
When gods fight, mortals suffer!
Kaworu Nagisa knows that the Angel™ is currently caught in the middle, suffering the consequences of its actions.
Waaaaah, we're so miserable. (End of Chapter)