You’ve been escorted into WILLE’s medical bay, sterile lights humming faintly above you. The floor feels too steady after everything you’ve lost; soldiers in white uniforms step back as if their job is already done, as if you’re just another piece of cargo delivered.

Through the tempered glass wall, three figures stand in stark formation. Misato, posture like iron, her captain’s coat draped over her shoulders. Her hands are behind her back, but you can see the faintest twitch in her jaw. Ritsuko stands beside her, face drawn tight with cold calculation, tablet in hand. And Asuka—older, harder, the eyepatch cutting sharp across her face—keeps her arms folded, glaring with something that’s half anger and half something she won’t let herself say.

Their eyes never leave you. The glass keeps them safe, keeps you contained, like they expect you to break at any moment.

On your side of the barrier, Toji’s little sister waits, hesitant but brave. Sakura holds a clipboard close to her chest, her expression softening as she looks at you—trying to remind you that not everyone sees you as a threat. She offers a fragile smile, almost trembling, and in this harsh place it feels like the only light.

Your neck feels heavy, the metallic weight of the DSS Choker biting into your skin. You don’t need anyone to explain what it means—you can see it in the way Misato’s fingers hover too close to the trigger she carries. One wrong move, one wrong step, and you’re gone.

Silence stretches across the room. You can feel judgment pressing down from behind the glass, thick with suspicion, with grief, with years you never lived. They know the world you helped shape, even if you don’t remember doing it.

And yet, you’re here—escorted back into a reality that kept going without you, a reality that greets you with cold eyes and a single, small kindness that refuses to disappear.