Shinomiya Kaguya sat alone in the executive office, the city lights far below reflected faintly against the glass walls. A single tablet rested on the desk, its surface filled with financial ledgers, logistics flows, and long columns of resource allocations that only someone raised in the Shinomiya household could read at a glance.
Her expression remained calm.
Her eyes did not.
"Mining output from Lunar Block C stabilized," she read quietly. "Helium-3 contracts renewed. Capital reserves… sufficient."
Sufficient was Shinomiya language for obscene.
She closed one report with a precise flick and opened another—inter-corporate transfers. Her finger stopped.
"…Side 3?"
The line item was small, intentionally buried. Rare alloys. High-output reactors. Magnetic sail materials. Long-haul construction composites.
Not military-grade on paper.
But Kaguya knew better.
Her gaze lifted to the wall screen as the news feed continued in the background.
—FEDERATION FORCES CLAIM DECISIVE VICTORY AT SOLOMON— —ZEON RETREATING TOWARD A BAOA QU— —FINAL BATTLE IMMINENT—
So that was the stage now.
She exhaled softly through her nose. Zeon was losing. Anyone with a functioning brain could see it. And if Zeon fell, then the political justification for her engagement—an "insurance alliance," as her father had so generously described it—would evaporate.
The marriage to Lelouch Von Zehrtfeld could be canceled.
Cleanly.
Logically.
She should have felt relieved.
Instead, her eyes drifted back to the resource manifest.
Side 3.
Requested under Lelouch's authorization.
Her grip tightened on the tablet.
"He's doing this on purpose," she said flatly.
As if summoned by irritation itself, the door opened without ceremony.
Shinomiya Gan'an stepped inside, cane tapping once against the polished floor. He did not look at her immediately; his attention was on the news display, watching analysts discuss Zeon's "inevitable collapse."
"Solomon has fallen," he said calmly. "A Baoa Qu will be the end."
Kaguya did not respond.
Gan'an turned his gaze to her desk. To the tablet. To the paused transfer order.
"I approved the shipment," he added.
That got her attention.
Kaguya stood slowly. "Father."
"Lelouch made the request through the correct channels," Gan'an continued, tone even. "Non-military classification. Private construction use. No violation of Federation statutes."
Her eyes narrowed. "And you agreed."
"Yes."
"…Why?"
Gan'an met her gaze at last. There was no warmth there. Only calculation.
"Because he asked," he said. "And because I wanted to see how you would react."
Silence filled the room, thick and sharp.
"You are angry," Gan'an observed. "Good."
Kaguya's composure cracked just slightly. "Zeon is collapsing. Any association with Side 3 is a liability. And you still allow this?"
Gan'an smiled faintly.
"Precisely because Zeon is collapsing," he replied. "Which means Lelouch is not investing in victory."
Kaguya froze.
"He is preparing an exit," Gan'an said. "And he is doing it loudly enough that you would notice."
Her fingers curled into her sleeves.
"…That infuriating man."
Gan'an nodded once. "If Zeon falls, the marriage can be annulled. Politically, it becomes unnecessary."
He turned toward the door.
"Unless," he added, "you decide it is not."
The door closed behind him.
Kaguya remained standing, staring at the glowing word SIDE 3 on the tablet.
Lelouch was moving resources in the middle of a collapsing war. He was provoking her. And worse—
He was succeeding.
She shut the tablet off with far more force than necessary.
"Running to God know where?" she muttered. "Dragging Shinomiya assets with you. And expecting me to stay calm?"
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
"…Unforgivable."
Outside, the news continued to praise the Federation's momentum, the inevitable end of Zeon, the approaching final battle at A Baoa Qu.
Kaguya Shinomiya watched the city lights burn below and felt something far more dangerous than political irritation take hold.
Determination.
If Lelouch thought he could move Shinomiya resources, shake her position, and escape without consequence—
Then he had gravely underestimated her.
And that, she decided coldly, would be corrected.
Kaguya Shinomiya did not sleep that night.
Instead, she sat once more at her desk, sleeves neatly folded, posture immaculate, eyes sharp with resolve rather than fatigue. Anger alone was useless. If she wanted her father to accept that she no longer required political scaffolding—no arranged marriage, no "insurance alliances"—then she needed leverage that spoke his language.
Results.
By morning, she had already drafted the outline of her independence strategy.
Phase one was simple: demonstrate that Shinomiya Corporation could innovate without relying on legacy partners like Anaheim or Yashima. Not merely finance, but creation. Control the future, not just fund it.
And that meant mobile suits.
She summoned one of the researchers she had quietly recruited weeks earlier—an unassuming man with impeccable credentials and no loyalty to the old corporate factions. When he arrived, she handed him a data slate.
"I want a technical review," Kaguya said calmly. "This design. No politics. No brand bias."
The researcher's eyes widened slightly as he scrolled.
"…This is new," he admitted. "Frame philosophy is completely different from Federation mass-production doctrine."
Kaguya's gaze remained fixed on the holographic blueprint now projected in the air.
The name hovered beside it:
FLAG
Union designation.
A mobile suit with a minimalist frame, extreme mobility, simplified maintenance architecture, and modular hardpoints. No excess armor. No Newtype optimizations. No ideological baggage.
Efficient. Replaceable. Scalable.
"It's not a Gundam," the researcher continued. "But that may be its strength. Production cost would be far lower than a GM once tooling stabilizes. Pilot training time as well."
Kaguya nodded slowly.
"That's what I thought."
Her eyes traced the lines of the suit again, imagining squadrons instead of prototypes. Fleets instead of heroes.
This was something her father would respect.
"Who authored this?" she asked.
The researcher hesitated. "Officially? A small internal team."
Kaguya turned her head.
"Unofficially."
"…One person," he admitted. "He's listed as head of R&D on the project, but it doesn't make sense."
"Why."
"He's eighteen."
That earned him her full attention.
Moments later, the doors to the adjacent design office slid open.
A young man stood there, posture stiff, hands awkwardly at his sides. He wore a simple engineer's jacket, scuffed at the cuffs, eyes sharp but uncertain—someone clearly more comfortable with schematics than boardrooms.
"Iori," the researcher said. "Sei Iori."
Kaguya studied him in silence.
Eighteen. Head of R&D. Union-derived MS architecture refined into something dangerously practical.
"…You designed this?" she asked.
Sei blinked. "Ah—yes. Mostly. I mean, the core structure. The team helped with simulations."
"Why the name 'FLAG'?"
Sei scratched his cheek, embarrassed. "It was already called that in the Union database. I just… didn't see a reason to change it."
Honest. Almost painfully so.
Kaguya stepped closer to the hologram, then gestured for him to join her.
"This machine," she said, "could be mass-produced faster than the GM. It requires fewer specialized parts and no proprietary reactor tech."
"Yes," Sei replied, a spark lighting in his eyes despite himself. "That was the idea. If war keeps escalating, the side that can field competent machines faster wins. Not the side with the prettiest prototype."
Kaguya glanced at him.
That was not a teenager's answer.
"That philosophy," she said carefully, "will make you enemies."
Sei looked down. "I know. But it works."
Silence followed. Then Kaguya smiled—just slightly.
Not the sharp, aristocratic smile she wore in boardrooms.
A genuine one.
"Iori Sei," she said, "do you understand what it means to be independent?"
He hesitated. "Not… exactly."
"It means," she replied, "creating value so undeniable that no one can force you into a corner."
She turned back to the projection, already calculating production lines, political ripples, and the look on her father's face when presented with a fully Shinomiya-controlled MS program.
This was her proof.
A mass-producible mobile suit. A genius designer no one else had noticed. And a path forward that did not involve marriage as leverage.
Kaguya folded her arms, eyes calm, mind razor-sharp.
"From now on," she said, "you work directly under my authority."
Sei froze. "M-me?"
"Yes," she replied evenly. "Congratulations. You've just become very important."
And for the first time since Solomon fell, Kaguya Shinomiya felt something close to certainty.
She would stand on her own.
And no one—father, fiancé, or war—would decide her future for her again.
Kaguya Shinomiya was already recalculating projections when another alert surfaced on her tablet.
Two unopened design submissions.
She paused.
These had not come through the usual corporate filters. No committee reviews. No branding approvals. They were raw—flagged only by the system as high-risk, high-potential.
That alone was enough to earn her attention.
She opened the first file.
The hologram expanded instantly, unfolding into a mobile suit silhouette that made the room feel smaller.
Angular. Predatory. Unsettling.
The frame was unmistakably Gundam-based—but warped into something far more aggressive. Limbs reconfigured along articulated rails, armor plates shifting into a quadrupedal posture. The head unit recessed, sensors redistributed across the body like hunting eyes.
A transformation sequence auto-played.
Humanoid. Beast. Back again.
"Adaptive morphology…" Kaguya murmured.
The designation appeared beside it:
GUNDAM GAIA
Not a gimmick. Not a novelty. The transformation wasn't for spectacle—it optimized terrain dominance, close-combat pursuit, and ambush warfare. Urban ruins. Colonies. Ground engagements where conventional MS lost initiative.
"This one's dangerous," she said quietly.
She sent an immediate summon request.
The second file loaded.
Kaguya's expression changed—not to curiosity, but to measured caution.
The hologram did not stop expanding.
A mobile armor.
No—a fortress.
The structure was immense, grotesquely beautiful in its excess. A central core surrounded by layered armor rings, countless sub-arms, and deployable weapon pods. Tendrils extended outward, segmented and alive with internal mechanisms.
The system highlighted them.
Remote attack units.
Multi-vector assault appendages.
Autonomous strike control.
Worms.
Not metaphorical. Literal segmented attack units designed to pierce formations, ensnare mobile suits, and crush them through coordinated swarm logic.
The name appeared in cold, clinical lettering:
RAFLESIA
Kaguya exhaled slowly.
"This isn't a weapon," she said. "It's an assertion."
This was not built to win battles.
It was built to dominate them.
She authorized the second summon.
Minutes later, the doors opened.
Two men entered—both young, both carrying the weight of obsession in very different ways.
The first stepped forward hesitantly.
He had sharp eyes but a reserved posture, like someone who preferred observation over confrontation. His clothes were practical, his expression thoughtful rather than proud.
"Hiroto… Juga," he said, bowing slightly. "I designed the Gaia Gundam."
Kaguya studied him.
"You modeled it after predatory movement patterns," she said. "Why."
Hiroto hesitated, then answered honestly. "Because battlefields aren't flat. Machines that only fight like humans lose against terrain itself."
A strategist's answer.
She nodded once.
Then her attention shifted.
The second man did not wait to be acknowledged.
He stepped forward with a grin that bordered on defiant, eyes bright with ambition, hands spread as if presenting the world itself.
"Masaki Shido," he said. "Creator of Raflesia."
No humility. No hesitation.
Kaguya's gaze hardened slightly.
"That mobile armor would consume resources equal to a small fleet," she said. "Why build it."
Masaki's smile widened.
"Because fear is a force multiplier," he replied. "You don't win wars by trading suits. You win by breaking the enemy's will. Raflesia does that the moment it appears on sensors."
The room fell silent.
Sei Iori, standing off to the side, looked between the two designs with barely concealed disbelief.
"These are… completely different philosophies," he muttered.
"Exactly," Kaguya replied.
She walked slowly between the three of them, heels clicking softly against the floor.
"A mass-producible mobile suit," she said, nodding toward FLAG's projection.
"A flexible Gundam capable of redefining ground combat," she continued, glancing at Gaia.
"And a mobile armor designed to end battles through overwhelming presence."
She stopped.
"All created without the backing of a major power bloc."
Her eyes met each of theirs in turn.
"This is what independence looks like."
Masaki crossed his arms, clearly pleased. Hiroto straightened, a mix of nerves and resolve. Sei swallowed, realizing the scale of what he had stepped into.
Kaguya turned back to her console and issued three simultaneous authorizations.
"You will all remain here," she said calmly. "Under Shinomiya Corporation protection."
Their eyes widened.
"I will decide," she continued, "which of your creations shape the future—and which are buried before they ruin it."
A faint smile touched her lips.
"Congratulations. You've just become the nucleus of something far larger than yourselves."
Outside, the news continued to loop: Zeon retreating. A Baoa Qu looming. The war racing toward its final inferno.
Inside the Shinomiya R&D wing, something else was being born.
Not allegiance.
Not ideology.
But leverage.