during the invasion of nerv, he saves shinji from being killed by jssdf soldiers by projecting an at field from his left hand, which now has adam embedded within. gendo also reveals the extent of his madness with his plans to use third impact to become god and asks his son to pilot unit-01 once again to aid in his plans, since after all shinji has experienced he can now understand gendo. he covers shinji and misato's escape to unit-01's hangar, certain that shinji will do as he is told.