Athrun did not join in his group's discussion. Instead, he sharply observed the changes in expression on everyone's faces throughout the classroom.
He was familiar with the members of his own little group. From the puzzled looks on Lunamaria, Meyrin Hawke, and Ray's faces, he seemed to have noticed something. Then there were Shihe, with her long black hair, and Heine, with his orange hair. Their faces showed either curiosity or confusion, clearly indicating that they did not understand the situation either.
But then he thought about it. There were twenty-three people in the class, which meant that aside from those people, everyone else was from Orb. Athrun found that utterly unbelievable.
Xiao Ran looked over the situation below and lightly tapped the desk. "Quiet."
At Xiao Ran's words, the entire classroom immediately fell silent. Xiao Ran spoke again. "Everyone present was personally selected by me to join this class. From now on, you will also be acting together as teammates for a long time, so I see no need to hide the fact that there are Naturals among you."
"Asachi, Julie, and Mayura are Naturals. That much was evident from their virtual combat test results. If you still have not noticed, it can only mean that your powers of observation and information processing are far too poor."
"All right. What you are about to hear next is highly classified. Heine, stand up and tell them what happens if classified information is exposed."
Heine was the oldest person in the class, nearly three years older than Athrun. He had not been brought into this class as an ordinary recruit, either. He had been transferred back from ZAFT, where he was already wearing a green uniform, and forcibly made to repeat reserve recruit training. He also possessed a certain degree of