[The mood shifts almost immediately once they get away from Shinji's classmates. That had been a trial, but a mundane one, and this is something else entirely. Shinji grips the strap on his bag hard enough that it digs into his palm.]

You were another test subject, then?

[There's real dread in Shinji's voice, guilt and horror and something unrecognizable even to him. This is the other shoe dropping-- he'd known NERV was involved somehow, it just had to be.]

I'm sorry, I only knew the kids they put me with for fights. I thought... the records Misato found made it seem like everyone before us died.