"Seriously, where did Kira go this time?"
Flay was in an excellent mood because she would soon be seeing her father.
The Archangel had resupplied at Junius Seven, so supplies were no longer scarce. Anyone who wanted a shower could take one.
Since she was about to meet her father, Flay planned to get Kira to take a shower with her.
But Kira was nowhere to be found.
Flay had begun to suspect that Kira was avoiding her lately.
"Right, Kira can pilot an MS. Maybe she's in the hangar!"
Flay thought of that possibility and headed for the hangar.
After the AI came aboard, the Archangel had begun operating much more smoothly.
But the shortage of personnel had not changed.
So even an "ordinary person" like Flay had little trouble getting into the hangar.
Besides, Flay herself could hardly be called an "ordinary person."
She was the daughter of a high-ranking official, and that very official was aboard the fleet they were about to rendezvous with.
"Phew, that should do it."
It was Kuzzey's voice.
Because of what had happened earlier, Flay now felt a little awkward whenever she saw Kuzzey and Miriallia.
So she hurriedly hid herself.
"Yeah. Once Inori-san brings Cagalli back, that should be everything, right?" The voice beside him belonged to Tolle.
"If Mobile Suits weren't something only Coordinators could pilot, I wonder whether I could take their place…" Sai sighed.
"Yeah. We're the guys, yet we're making girls do something like that." Tolle sighed as well. "They look so delicate. You'd never guess girls like them could pilot Mobile Suits."
"Well, they are Coordinators. Their looks… their voices… everything about them was engineered. But even though it's all artificial, why is it still so hard to look away…?"
Sai knew that everything about Coordinators had been created by human hands.
And yet, for some reason, whenever Sai looked at Kira, he simply could not take his eyes off her.
"Hey, hey, you already have a girlfriend, Sai. Your eyes are starting to wander," Tolle teased.
"That's not it. At first I always thought Kira was a boy. I only found out later that she was a girl." Sai looked a little embarrassed. "Mm… right. I think of Kira more like a junior who needs someone to look after her…"
Just then, Kuzzey suddenly remembered something. "Come to think of it, Inori-san said before that she apparently isn't a Coordinator."
"No way?!" Tolle was shocked. "Crap, crap. I've been assuming she was a Coordinator this whole time. Was that really rude of me?"
"I don't think Inori-san would care about something like that," Sai said. "She's a huge celebrity, after all."
"So if you put it that way, I guess Kira is the only girl here who's a Coordinator," Kuzzey said casually.
The instant the words left his mouth, Kuzzey noticed Sai standing in front of him, staring dumbfounded.
Kuzzey turned around and saw Flay.
Flay was staring at the three of them in disbelief.
"…Crap!"
The moment Sai saw Flay, he knew things were about to go very wrong.
Flay hated Coordinators. But Flay had never known that the girl she had cared for the most… was also a Coordinator.
In an instant, a chill crawled up her spine.
[We're screwed]
[Whoa]
[RIP]
[It really blew up]
[Ever since Inori went to find Cagalli, I had a feeling something was going to go wrong]
[Here it comes!]
This was exactly the kind of "bloodthirsty" drama the viewers wanted to see.
If nothing else, this one plot development sent the work's Popularity Points soaring by tens of thousands in one burst.
With no protagonist-tier character even appearing in the scene, gaining that many Popularity Points was already staggering.
"Kira… is a Coordinator?!"
Memories began flashing through Flay's mind one after another.
Scenes of showering together with Kira, and memories from school of taking Kira shopping for clothes and walking around town together…
The memories were clearly so beautiful, yet now Flay felt a skin-crawling chill spreading over her entire body.
Disgusting.
Awful.
"Flay, listen to me—"
Sai tried to explain.
"Stay away from me!"
Flay immediately backed away and fled the hangar.
The shot followed Flay's exit, then cut smoothly to Kira.
"Thank you, big sis!"
"Mm, you're welcome. Stay close to your mommy, okay?"
"Mm!"
There were many refugees aboard, and some of them were children.
To a child, the Archangel, hundreds of meters long, was practically an enormous maze.
A little girl had wandered into the corridors without realizing it and gotten lost. Unable to find her mother, she had started crying, leaving several boys nearby unsure whether they should try to comfort her or leave her alone.
Fortunately, Kira happened to pass by at that moment, so everyone called her over to help.
With a cute big sister there, the little girl finally stopped crying.
Kira brought her back to her mother, resolving the tiny incident.
After receiving the girl's heartfelt thanks, Kira left.
That felt nice.
Being needed by someone… felt really nice.
Kira was deeply uncertain right now.
In fact, she was even more uncertain than Kira in the original story.
Kira knew she needed strength.
With Inori's close, hands-on coaching, Kira had even become much better at piloting a Gundam.
But as her abilities improved, her heart only grew more uncertain.
In the original story, Kira could practically be called the Archangel's only real combat asset, with Mu at most serving as the one other exception.
Under the combined pressure of her identity as a Coordinator and her responsibility to protect her classmates, the "original" Kira had endured tremendous pressure.
But things were different on this set.
Because of various factors—mainly Inori—Kira could pilot a Gundam now, but deep down, she did not feel particularly useful.
She was the kind of girl who often felt inferior.
When no one showed her the road ahead, she easily lost her way. In fact, having "too little pressure" only deepened that uncertainty even further.
She was here to protect her companions.
But Inori seemed perfectly capable of doing that too.
Although she was Inori's master, other than giving Inori orders and granting Inori "authorization," she felt as though she could do nothing at all.
Just now, however, after helping the little girl, Kira had felt fulfilled.
At last, she had experienced the feeling of being needed.
"I'll go tune the Strike…"
With Inori away, Kira needed to pilot the Strike herself, so she decided to go check on it again.
But after passing through just one corridor, she heard a voice.
It was Sai and Flay. From farther down the corridor, fragments of Flay's shouting drifted toward her.
"Kira… Coordinator… disgusting…!"