Sphere of Longinus

The Sphere of Longinus comes into being during Asuka Langley Sohryu's battle against the Angel Carrier Type-2, fought in Evangelion Unit-02 Type II. Confident of victory, Asuka drives a replica spear into her enemy's abdomen, unaware that the Carrier conceals a passage modeled on Leliel within its body. That tunnel delivers the weapon straight to Armaros, which absorbs the spear and projects the Sphere into the air behind its head.

At a glance the orb reads as a ghostly ornament rather than a solid object. Light and energy crossing its boundary bend away in a manner resembling an event horizon, yet an observer positioned behind it perceives brightness shining through, as though looking at a window or an eclipse, and its brilliance stands out even from far away.

These qualities disguise its true purpose. Anything drawn inside the Sphere is torn apart with merciless efficiency. Unlike the Dirac Sea transit associated with Leliel, which moves bodies from place to place, the orb behaves like the singularity of a black hole and permits no escape. When Rei Cinq loses her duel with Armaros and vanishes into it, the staff at NERV conclude she is beyond recovery, a grimmer verdict than the comparable incidents involving Shinji in the original series. Later arcs add another capability: the Sphere can project immense, nearly impenetrable AT Fields large enough to swallow entire celestial bodies.

Armaros alone wields the Sphere. SEELE, however, engineers its birth. After 2015 the organization treats the delivery of an artificial spear to the incomplete Armaros on the Moon as its prime objective, and it spends three years building the deception that achieves it. A captured Ryoji Kaji is brainwashed, and Angel Carriers fitted with Leliel-derived stomachs, able to appear and vanish at will, are fielded to bait the Sword of Damocles network.

While Shinji engages the known Carrier, Asuka is sent on a separate assignment to recover an artificial spear buried in the GeoFront. A second, previously unrecorded Carrier intercepts her mid-mission. She secures the weapon, but her desperate thrust into the Carrier's belly hands SEELE exactly what it has waited three years for, and Armaros manifests the Sphere moments later. The orb's placement behind the giant's head invites comparison to the halos of Christian art, extending the religious imagery that runs through the whole franchise.