In evas-9999.ebuild there is: export MY_ECONF=" ... $(use_enable mmx cpu-mmx) \ $(use_enable sse cpu-mmx) \ $(use_enable sse cpu-sse) \ ... " which, given USE="mmx -sse", will expand to export MY_ECONF="... --enable-cpu-mmx --disable-cpu-mmx --disable-cpu-sse ..." which will effectively disable mmx. A fix might be to sed '--disable-cpu-mmx' out if it is following '--enable-cpu-mmx', or maybe not to make any assumptions if the USE flags are "-mmx sse" and drop "$(use_enable sse cpu-mmx)" ...
this was on purpose as evas used to have problems building with only one or the other feature enabled seems this has been sorted out now though so dropping the use_enable should be fine