Flay was cornered.
Her face had gone pale, and her body trembled faintly.
That twisted expression looked as though something had struck right at her sorest spot.
The consciousness induction had worked.
Just as Hanabi never cared what Zabuza thought of her, Inori didn't care what Flay thought either.
To get Flay to agree with her words, Flay needed to accept the underlying philosophy first.
In other words, Flay needed to arrive at the thought that "my own disgust toward Coordinators comes from jealousy" all on her own, inside her own head.
And that very thought had already been planted through consciousness induction beforehand.
So all it took now was another round of induction, to make the ideas already sitting in Flay's mind resonate with Inori's words.
In other words.
It wasn't Inori doing the persuading and the tormenting—it was the memories Inori had awakened inside Flay's own head.
Which meant it was Flay's own conscience torturing her.
Flay's voice turned sharp and hoarse, almost hysterical: "Shut up! You don't understand anything! You Coordinators… you're all monsters!"
"Negative. I haven't undergone any genetic engineering at all."
Hilarious. Hell, she didn't even have any genes to speak of.
Well, she could have some, technically, but it fell under "not required."
Still, to everyone else's ears, that statement landed in a rather odd way.
"Eh?"
Not just Flay—even Kuzzey and Miriallia, watching from the sidelines, were stunned.
"You're kidding! You're not a Coordinator?!"
Flay's eyes went wide.
"I rejected that classification from the very beginning."
Inori's words reminded Miriallia and Kuzzey of something she'd said earlier.
She… had actually denied being a Coordinator, hadn't she?
[So she's actually an AI]
[Dying]
[On the surface it's righteous logic, but really it's just a garbage AI torturing an ordinary person]
[This is seriously all just a personal grudge]
[I've figured it out—Inori doesn't lie, but she definitely hides key information]
"You're lying!" Flay stared, dumbfounded.
"I have no reason to deceive you. I welcome any physical examination of me, at any level."
Inori hadn't been trying to hide it in the first place.
Flay's expression only twisted further.
"Flay-san, your anger and resentment will only bring you more pain. Rather than wasting time on pointless accusations, you'd be better off thinking about how to improve yourself, how to find your own place in this world."
Inori went ahead and served Flay a dose of feel-good platitudes to go with everything else.
A flash of tears glinted in Flay's eyes, but she stubbornly raised her chin, her voice cracking: "Who do you think you are? What gives you the right to lecture me?!"
Inori tilted her head. "I'm not lecturing you. I'm simply stating facts."
Inori stepped aside.
With the pressure gone, Flay felt a wave of relief—but having lost the very tension that had been keeping her upright, her legs suddenly buckled, and she sank to the floor, trembling.
That was exactly the effect Inori had been going for.
By reducing the external pressure, she could lower the other person's defenses and resistance.
In a sense, it worked almost like the mechanism behind Stockholm syndrome.
Then Inori continued dissecting Flay's inner self without mercy: "Flay-san, your heart is full of contradictions and pain, but the root of all this isn't Coordinators—it's you, yourself."
Flay's body swayed slightly, her upper body, still held upright, looking like it might topple at any moment.
Her voice came out weak and powerless: "You… you don't understand at all… you Coordinators… you'll never understand…"
"I'm simply analyzing you based on your observable behavior, Flay-san. If you have thoughts you're unwilling to voice, I have no way of knowing them," Inori said. "And if you're using your hatred of Coordinators to hide some even more forbidden feeling deep inside you, I have no way to analyze that either."
[She just finished the whole analysis and then says she "can't analyze" it]
[Dying laughing]
[Righteous torture]
[But there's still a serious problem here—what if genetic modification ends up monopolized by the rich?]
[Here's a brutal truth: everyone in our real world has an ancestor with a name and history, and that ancestor was probably at least somewhat prominent at some point—any guesses why?]
[The more capable and higher-status someone is, the more likely they are to have more descendants]
[But there's an issue here—Coordinators have trouble reproducing]
"You said you agree with Blue Cosmos's ideals. But let's suppose, hypothetically, there existed some unique technology that could turn a Natural into a Coordinator after birth, for free, with no side effects. Flay-san, how many people within Blue Cosmos do you think would choose to become Coordinators?"
Blue Cosmos, on the surface, claimed to stand for "a blue and pure world."
But in truth, even Blue Cosmos's own leadership harbored feelings of envy and resentment toward Coordinators.
If you can't have it, destroy it.
Blue Cosmos even had combat Coordinators working within its own ranks.
Put plainly, what they really didn't want was power they couldn't control—what they hated was a Coordinator who wasn't "their dog."
Inori took another step forward. "And what's truly driving Blue Cosmos behind the scenes…"
"Don't come any closer!"
Tears finally spilled from Flay's eyes as she covered her face, her voice full of despair. "Enough… I don't want to hear any more of this…"
Inori said nothing more.
[Behind the scenes, what?!]
[Inori, finish the sentence!]
[Aaah I'm so anxious, I'm the King of Anxiety]
[Playing this game again, huh, always cutting off right at the crucial part]
[Cut off before, and now cut off again]
[Turns out it's the will of the great universe itself preventing Inori from spoiling anything]
[Feels like the final boss really is going to be Blue Cosmos]
[I think Blue Cosmos is probably the Earth Alliance's dirty-work front]
[Earth Alliance isn't exactly unified either though—the Atlantic Federation seems more likely]
[Recreating reality, huh]
"My apologies."
Inori returned to her seat. She picked her coffee back up, as if nothing had happened at all.
Flay remained slumped on the floor in a duck-sit, knees splayed to either side, tears sliding silently down her cheeks.
She held her face in her hands, feeling anger, feeling pain, but above all, a deep sense of helplessness.
She couldn't refute a single word Inori had said, yet the resentment inside her still refused to settle.
The lights in the mess hall stayed just as bright as ever, but to Flay, her whole world felt like it had gone dark.
She slowly shifted her position, wrapping both arms tightly around her knees, as if that alone could give her some sense of safety.
At that moment, Flay finally seemed to understand why she felt a little afraid of Inori.
Because that gaze of hers always seemed to see right through everything.
Like a surgeon's scalpel, utterly without mercy.
Flay desperately wanted to get up, desperately wanted to leave.
But—could she just hurry the hell up and go already?!
Inori remained seated right where she was.
If Inori had left, Flay could have simply gotten up and walked away.
But with Inori still sitting there, coffee in hand, Flay had no choice but to stay put, curled up and hiding.
And with that, the scene on the Stage smoothly cut away, moving over to Lacus and Kira on the other side…