[ The mask’s relative inscrutability usually a tiny bonus to hiding a face he hates, but it’s a nice bonus right now. He’s closer to perplexed frustration than disappointment—the perplexed frustration of never quite being able to kill Mwu, of never quite being able to break Kira Yamato, of not being able to make someone see the world as he does. He has said it so many times, that people will always desire, that desire will spiral into hatred and destruction until there is nothing left to destroy. And yet there is that handful that resists.

He shakes his head. ]

You really are incredible. Even after walking a bloody path to defeat, you still believe that there has to be something wonderful out there — somewhere, somehow, someday.