How did Mari manage to pilot EVA Unit 02?

Question

I distinctly remember, in the Anime anyway, a scene where Eva Unit 02 sorties to fight an Angel without Central Dogma's authorization (If I find the scene online, I will link it here), seen when EVA Unit 01 descends back into Central Dogma for reasons I can't remember (damage, maybe?).

Seeing that EVA Unit 02 has the soul, at least the maternal part of Asuka's mother, imbued into the EVA itself, piloting the mech would be impossible for everyone except Asuka, going on the basis of EVA Unit 01's connection with Shinji.

My question is this, if EVA Unit 02 has a soul that is only known to work with Asuka, how did Mari manage to pilot EVA Unit 02 without any known difficulties?

There is no character with the name Mina in NGE. Dou you mean [Mari](https://wiki.evageeks.org/Mari_Makinami_Illustrious)? — Turamarth, Oct 28 '18 at 16:04
@Turamarth Oh jeez. My bad, For some reason I thought her name was Mina. Changes have been made. Thanks for the assist. — GipsyD, Oct 28 '18 at 17:20

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 29 '18 at 02:16

If you watched 2.22 you will see that the cores for Asuka and Mari were switched out before Mari took control of Unit-02.

Depending on the language, you csn hear in the background the crew rewriting Unit-02's access keys when Mari's gearing up to fight Zeruel. One assumes this has some bearing with how Mari is able to take control.

There's no clear-cut canonical explanation of why but there are theories, one involving the time loop theory and Kyoko. But that's a topic for another question.

How did Mari manage to pilot EVA Unit 02?

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