In that moment, Rei Amami allowed herself a small, private smile. The word on the screen was not just a grade. It was a mirror. Her ambition, once a silent and private flame, had finally been rendered in incontrovertible terms. FEDV 343 had not given her ambition—it had only verified what was always there: a mind that refused to break, a will that refused to be compromised. And in the quiet of that lab, surrounded by the sighs of her defeated peers, Rei understood that being verified was never the end. It was only the beginning of the next, more ambitious build.