WILLE

WILLE enters the story in Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo as the armed opposition to NERV, existing to prevent any future impact from occurring. In German the name signifies will, intention, or desire, making it a deliberate philosophical counterpoint to NERV: nerves carry the body's physical impulses, while will names the higher faculty that directs them. The word also nods to Schopenhauer, who framed the will to live as the engine of all human behavior, and to Nietzsche's later concept of the will to power.

The organization forms out of a civil war inside NERV, erupting mere months past Near Third Impact, and destroying its parent becomes its founding purpose. Its ranks mix former NERV staff, leftovers of the UN's government and military, and civilian recruits, which gives the group a distinctly untested feel. Veterans like Ritsuko, Asuka, Maya, Hyuga, and Aoba anchor the roster, yet much of the crew second-guesses Misato's leadership, and the bridge team openly doubts itself before its first victory against the Nemesis Series restores some confidence. Ritsuko admits early on that the fleet is underequipped, short on supplies, and still learning what its own flagship can do. That flagship, the AAA Wunder, began life as the NHG Buße, an unfinished NERV warship seized during the schism, which fuels speculation that NERV built a whole series of similar vessels during the fourteen-year gap.

The rebellion traces back to Ryoji Kaji, Misato Katsuragi, and Ritsuko Akagi, who began plotting against Gendo Ikari once Kaji's digging exposed what Gendo and SEELE intended for humanity through instrumentality. The breakaway erupted into open fighting in the opening phase of Third Impact, with WILLE partisans marking themselves with blue bandanas and painting their vehicles to match. Kaji gave his life to blunt the impact itself, buying the fledgling group its future. The separatists withdrew from the GeoFront with the stolen Buße, completed it, rechristened it the Wunder, and made it their mobile headquarters alongside Evangelion Unit-02 and Unit-08, plus whatever data and materiel they could carry.

In Operation US, WILLE set out to retrieve the entombed remains of Evangelion Unit-01 from orbit. Boosted into space on pod craft, Unit-02'β and Unit-08α teamed up to bring down the Mark.04A standing guard, but the fight knocked their trajectories loose; Unit-08 broke off toward Earth while Unit-02 hauled itself to the target with a grappling arm. A second guardian, the Mark.04B, then woke and attacked, and the operation seemed doomed until Unit-01 briefly stirred, annihilating the enemy with a beam of light from its eye before going dormant again. Both units then rode reentry down to a WILLE recovery point. The organization later stopped Fourth Impact, an engagement that cost it Asuka's Unit-02 and coincided with the Wunder's maiden flight.

The Paris Assault Mission followed: a raid on the Euro-NERV facility to scavenge parts for the wrecked Unit-02 and battered Unit-08 ahead of the final showdown. Reviving the corrupted area required activating an Angel Sealing Hex Pillar, so WILLE fitted Unit-08β with ICC gear, hung shield-clad battleships in the air on the Wunder's power, and issued special plugsuits against the lethal environment. NERV answered with a swarm of Evangelion Mark.44A, which Mari shredded until her arm-mounted guns overheated, then finished bare-handed by balling the remnants together and hurling them into the ground. A hidden second wave of Mark.44B escorts and a colossal Mark.4444C followed, its positron cannon vaporizing the defensive ships in one shot. Mari answered by ramming the wrecked Eiffel Tower into the cannon's barrel, destroying the entire force. With the pillar activated, WILLE recovered the parts and weapons it came for, setting the stage for Operation Yamato, its last confrontation with NERV.

Misato Katsuragi commands WILLE, with Ritsuko Akagi as her deputy. Asuka Shikinami Langley pilots Unit-02 and its variants, and Mari Makinami Illustrious flies Unit-08 in its successive forms. The bridge and operations crew includes Maya Ibuki, Makoto Hyuga, Shigeru Aoba, Sakura Suzuhara, Midori Kitakami, Hideki Tama, Sumire Nagara, and Koji Takao. Ryoji Kaji, though dead by the time the group debuts on screen, shaped its founding and remains a touchstone for the crew.

Its arsenal centers on the Autonomous Assault Ark Wunder, ultimately lost in the formation of the Spear of Gaius, supported by Nekozame-class orbital assault craft, the DCLV Eagle landing vehicle, refitted defensive warships, anti-A.T. Field rounds, and N2-armed converted warship munitions. Non-combat assets include Angel-Sealing Hex Pillars, a Life-form Seed Preservation Capsule that WILLE fired into space, and the Shutdown Override Signal Plug, which Evangelion 13 destroyed. KREDIT is its known affiliated organization.