Facing the Participants

"How were they here!?" Xiao Ran stared at the figures slowly approaching from not far ahead. The shock in his heart was written all over his face. He had seen these people before, and two of them had left an especially deep impression on him.

Without even thinking about it, Xiao Ran was certain that these six were Participants like him. He had seen several of their faces in previous news reports. The two he recognized best were the most memorable among the five Participants who had orchestrated the Airport Hijacking Incident: one was a tall, powerfully built Participant, and the other was the only Female Participant among the five hijackers.

The tall, muscular Participant wore a savage grin. His shirt had vanished somewhere, but more than a dozen obvious bullet marks could clearly be seen across his body. One look was enough to tell that the bullets had struck him and lodged in his muscles. They looked serious, but perhaps they had not affected him much at all. White smoke was still curling from the muzzle of his gun. There was no need to guess who had fired at Xiao Ran just now.

The other Female Participant did not look as badly off as the first. Her previously neat hair was now disheveled, and her clothes had not suffered much damage. However, a patch of blood had stained her shoulder, and there was a trace of pain on her face.

The other four were not any of the companions who had taken part in the airport hijacking with those two. It made sense when he thought about it. Even if Alien Races surpassed ordinary humans, they were still human. They could not possibly have escaped unscathed and without losses while surrounded by countless guards. Those three men must have died during the battle.

Xiao Ran vaguely remembered these four as well. They were the passengers and hostages from the news reports whose expressions had seemed strange. They were not all of the Participants present at the time, but Xiao Ran still had not expected anyone to join this group of reckless lunatics who had gone so far as to take hostages.

"But why are they here?" Xiao Ran's heart was full of confusion.

"I never expected such a big fish to be waiting for us after we ran out." The burly man grinned viciously, a cruel gleam in his eyes as he looked at the Strike Gundam. "Kid up there, get down here now, or your friends are dead!"

"Kira..." Miriallia hid fearfully behind Xiao Ran and Sai, looking up at Kira inside the Strike Gundam. Her eyes were filled with helplessness and pleading. She was not begging Kira to jump out of the Strike Gundam; she was begging him to save them.

Standing inside the Strike Gundam, Kira stared at the six people in disbelief. Their guns were all aimed at Xiao Ran and the others, and the shot fired at Xiao Ran earlier proved that these six meant what they said. If he did not come down, they would definitely kill Xiao Ran and everyone else. Yet even if Kira left the Strike Gundam, there was no guarantee these lunatics would let them leave safely. Kira was caught in a struggle, his expression shifting uncertainly.

Faced with these six vicious people who had appeared out of nowhere, the three boys—Sai, Tolle, and Kazui—were at a loss as well. Sai was doing slightly better. Though afraid, he stood beside Xiao Ran and shielded the other three behind them. He shouted at the burly man, "What makes you think you can guarantee we'll be allowed to leave after he gets out of the MS?"

"Haha!" The burly man was Stunned for a moment before bursting into laughter. Perhaps his laughter was especially infectious, because the others beside him started laughing too, their faces full of indescribable mockery.

The burly man fired another shot. This time, the bullet struck the ground in front of Xiao Ran and Sai, startling them into retreating several steps. Seeing this, the burly man sneered disdainfully. "As long as he comes down obediently, I guarantee I'll let you go."

Xiao Ran remained silent, his mind constantly searching for a way to resolve the situation. They were being held at gunpoint by six people, while Kira and the Strike Gundam were their only remaining protection. If he did not know what would happen next, if he were merely an ordinary person living in this world, then naturally he would hope the other side was telling the truth and would let them leave safely after Kira came down. But that was only hope, because Xiao Ran could not be sure they were telling the truth.

But in reality, Xiao Ran was neither an ordinary person from this world nor an ordinary Participant who knew nothing. He was an Earthling who knew nearly the entire plot of Gundam SEED. He knew the Archangel would appear later. He knew the colony would soon collapse. If they did not board the Archangel, or if they boarded it without the Strike Gundam's protection, then whether it was him or Kira, they would both become cold corpses within a few hours.

Xiao Ran did not want to die here. He did not want to die before properly seeing and experiencing this world. He had the advantage of knowing the plot; he did not want to die before even getting the chance to stand within Prometheus's massive Space Fortress by relying on that advantage. He wanted to live. So the burly man and his group had to die!

"Sai, Tolle, Miriallia, Kazui..." Xiao Ran gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, and spoke in an icy voice. "Kira cannot come down. These people will never let us go... They're terrorists who took hostages at the airport before. We've seen their faces. If Kira gets out of the MS, we'll definitely all die together. If Kira doesn't come down, we might not die, and Kira will definitely survive. What do you choose?"

"Teacher..." Miriallia was Stunned. Not only her—Sai and the other two were Stunned as well. They slowly raised their heads to look at Kira, whose face was full of conflict. Kira seemed to sense their gazes. At that moment, all their eyes seemed to converge into one. The fear and confusion in Miriallia and the others' eyes gradually turned into resolve. Kira seemed to understand what they meant. His expression abruptly became shocked, and with trembling hands, he slowly Turned His Head toward the burly man and the other six. A fury unlike anything he had ever felt erupted from his eyes.

Kira's eyes suddenly became devoid of light. He seemed to have calmed down, but inside his heart, he was roaring, Unforgivable. Unforgivable. Why? Why did you come and disturb our peaceful lives? Unforgivable!

"This..." Xiao Ran looked Astonished at Kira, who was clearly in a different state from before. His heart was shaken beyond measure. This makes no sense. He entered SEED Mode just like that?

"Have you made up your minds or not?" The burly man's face was filled with impatience. At some point, his gun had once again been aimed at Xiao Ran's head.

"Don't be afraid. Don't panic..." Xiao Ran fixed his eyes on the six gun muzzles aimed at them. For some reason, he felt extraordinarily calm at this moment. Less than a second had passed between his shock at Kira entering SEED Mode and his return to calm, yet he had already adjusted himself into the best possible state of mind. "When I count to three, everyone rush toward the MS. Trust me. Trust Kira. Kira and I will definitely stand in front of you."

"Mm." Xiao Ran heard soft responses from behind him and began counting slowly. "One... two... three... Kira!"

At the exact moment Xiao Ran counted to three, Tolle and Kazui grabbed Miriallia and rushed straight toward the Strike Gundam's feet. Sai also threw himself forcefully to the side. With a leap, he flew three meters away and nearly landed beneath the Strike Gundam's feet.

The burly man and the other six reacted a second later, raising their guns with vicious expressions and firing. Xiao Ran narrowed his eyes, gritted his teeth, spun around, and lunged forward, tackling Miriallia, Tolle, and Kazui to the ground. They avoided most of the bullets.

But that one second was already enough for Kira to return to the pilot's seat. Roaring, he shoved the controls forward. Before he even had time to close the cockpit hatch, he controlled the Strike Gundam to extend both its foot and hand at once, then turned its head and Launched the head-mounted Vulcan Auto-Cannon.

Bang, bang... "Ugh..." The sound of two bullets entering flesh and a suppressed groan of pain reached Miriallia and the others. Terror immediately appeared on their faces, but then darkness fell over their heads, followed by the clang of bullets striking steel. Only then did they realize they were safe. They cried out in panic, "Teacher! Teacher!"

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The power of handguns and machine guns could not compare to the Strike Gundam's head-mounted Vulcan Auto-Cannon. Both were firearms, but their power and sound were entirely different. The burly man and the others had never imagined that a teenager who Appeared to be only in his teens could act so quickly and decisively. Less than three seconds had passed from the moment they fired to the moment the auto-cannon opened fire. What could be done in three seconds?

Three seconds could hold a breath or several blinks of the eye. For most people, it passed in an instant, too quickly to do anything. But for the burly man, three seconds could let him run thirty meters. Unfortunately, even though he began sprinting the instant the Strike Gundam's head Turned His Head, just over one second passed before the auto-cannon fired. At most, he had only run a dozen meters.

But could a speed of over ten meters in one second be faster than the bullets fired by the auto-cannon? Of course not. Especially after Kira heard Miriallia and the others' grief-stricken cries, endless coldness burst from his eyes. His mouth opened wide as he screamed soundlessly, Die. Die!

The Cannonball fired by the auto-cannon had an initial velocity exceeding a kilometer per second. There was no way the burly man could evade it. In an instant, a fist-sized shell tore straight through his chest, spraying countless fragments of blood as it slammed heavily into the ground. The burly man himself was hurled more than ten meters away by the force before scattering into countless pieces.

Perhaps the burly man had been the strongest among the six. The others barely had time to reveal terrified expressions before losing consciousness forever.

Six Participants—six Alien Races far stronger than Earthlings—were slaughtered within mere seconds. Only then did Kira's eyes return to normal. Looking at the blood and flesh covering the ground, he raised his trembling hands. "I killed people... I killed people..."

"Kira! Teacher's been shot!" Sai's loud cry interrupted Kira's confusion and fear. Panicking, Kira looked around, pulled a First Aid Kit from a compartment in the cockpit marked with a cross, and hurriedly jumped down from the Gundam. The moment he got down, he saw Tolle and Kazui supporting a deathly pale Xiao Ran. At that sight, some of the guilt and confusion in Kira's heart faded.

Two bullets had struck Xiao Ran's right shoulder. They had nearly pierced through the bone, leaving two Sharp Horns protruding from the front. The pain from his shoulder nearly made Xiao Ran pass out, but his mental tension and the resilience of his data-based body kept him conscious. His face deathly pale, he smiled at Kira. "Are you okay? I'm sorry. As your teacher, I made you do something like this..."

Kira's entire body trembled, then he silently Shook His Head.

"Heh." Xiao Ran laughed weakly. "Don't think too much about it. These people were the terrorists who hijacked the airport before. I don't know why they were here, but judging from how they were dressed, they may have already killed too many innocent people. People like them have no right to live in this world. Their deaths were deserved. If they hadn't died, then maybe we would have."

"Teacher..." Kira stared blankly at Xiao Ran before finally nodding heavily. "Mm."

Miriallia's eyes were red. She snatched the First Aid Kit from Kira's hands and began treating Xiao Ran's wounds. Taking advantage of the moment, Xiao Ran looked at the watch on his wrist. The instant he saw it, his eyes nearly rolled back in shock.

He had thirty points of endurance, yet two nonfatal shots had already deducted eighteen points of health. If one more bullet had struck a vital spot, he really would have died here. Though they were safe now, Xiao Ran still felt a lingering fear.