Flay's Reunion with Everyone

She slowly raised her head, her gaze sweeping over every crew member on the bridge who was holding their breath, awaiting her orders. Their faces were young, inexperienced—some had still been civilians only yesterday—and all were etched with tension and fear.

In that instant, she made her decision.

Murrue's voice no longer wavered. Carrying the authority and decisiveness expected of a captain, it rang across the bridge, shattering the previous silence and instantly setting everyone's nerves on edge. The atmosphere shifted from stagnant stillness to a tense, orderly frenzy.

"Hear my orders! Prepare to launch decoys! Simulate a Level One combat readiness signal!"

"As the decoys launch, ignite the main thrusters! Fine-tune the maneuvering jets and correct our heading! Destination—Artemis Fortress! Use silent cruising mode and shut down all unnecessary external signals!"

Her orders flew out like thunder. Operators throughout the bridge immediately sprang into action, their fingers dancing rapidly over their consoles as they carried out the captain's commands.

After issuing the main orders, Murrue turned her gaze toward Mu. There was a trace of exhaustion and plea in her voice that was difficult to detect. "Captain Flaga."

Mu immediately understood what she meant. Straightening his back, he replied in a low voice, "I know. I'll notify those two kids and have them prepare to sortie at any time."

He meant Xia Ya and Jiliang. They were currently the ship's only force capable of fighting ZAFT's new mobile suits.

A flicker of gratitude passed through Murrue's eyes, but beneath it was even deeper guilt and helplessness. "...Please," she said softly. Sending children who should never have set foot on a battlefield out to face death again and again tore at her heart.

Mu seemed to see through her thoughts. He forced a carefree smile, patted her shoulder, then turned and left the bridge.

Yet that seemingly relaxed smile was like an invisible blade, piercing deep into Murrue's heart.

She knew she had no right to indulge in that pain. She was the captain now. She had to be strong.

She watched Mu's back disappear beyond the hatch, then slowly, almost weakly, sat back down in the captain's chair—the one place where no one could see her vulnerability.

The cold seat could not dispel the chill in her heart. She clenched her fists tightly, her nails digging deep into her palms, as though only that could force down her helplessness, resentment, and heavy worries for the future.

Mu La Flaga left the bridge and moved slowly through the corridor leading toward the hangar and living quarters. Once the atmosphere of forced determination for survival faded behind him, the crushing weight of reality washed over him like a tide.

His steps became exceptionally heavy, each one feeling as though he were dragging a thousand-pound shackle.

The corridor was brightly lit, but the light could not reach the gloom in his heart. Thinking of what he was about to say to Xia Ya and Jiliang—that he had to ask them once more to prepare for battle, to face cruelties far beyond what people their age should endure—made it feel as if an invisible hand had gripped his heart, squeezing until he could barely breathe.

He suddenly stopped, leaning his back against the cold metal wall as his right hand tightened into a fist. He squeezed so hard that his knuckles turned white, his hard nails digging deeply into the soft flesh of his palm.

A sharp pain shot through him. He could clearly feel his skin breaking and warm liquid slowly seeping out.

One drop, then two. Bright red blood fell onto the polished alloy floor, splashing into tiny, glaring blossoms of red.

"...Damn it," Mu murmured under his breath. He stared at the wound in his palm and the blood on the floor, his brows drawn tight.

Xia Ya's face, always carrying gentleness and understanding, surfaced in his mind without warning.

If Xia Ya saw this wound, that sensitive little brother would surely worry himself sick again.

Xia Ya had already exhausted too much of his strength in the previous battle. His mental state was probably stretched taut already. Mu absolutely could not add any unnecessary burden or pressure to him.

Mu took a deep breath, as though trying to force down every trace of weakness and pain.

Without caring in the slightest, he raised his hand and casually wiped the blood from his palm onto his dust-covered combat pants.

A blurred yet glaring streak of blood immediately stained the dark fabric.

After doing all that, it was as if he had cast off some burden. He started walking again, leaving only an almost ruthless resolve in his eyes.

From here to Artemis Fortress, at Archangel's current cruising speed, using silent navigation... it would probably take around two hours.

He calculated silently to himself.

Two hours was neither long nor short, but it was enough time for anything to happen.

The question was whether they could truly slip through this perilous region like ghosts, without a sound, and safely reach that destination whose future was uncertain.

It was like walking a tightrope stretched by the goddess of fate. Every step could send them plunging into an abyss beyond salvation.

...Please, don't let us be discovered.

Mu prayed over and over in his heart. It was nearly the only thing he could do at this moment.

His voice trembled faintly in his heart, carrying a trace of fear that even he himself had not noticed.

More than anyone, he understood that if they were discovered by ZAFT's Vesalius or another patrol force before reaching Artemis, the consequences would be unimaginable. Relying only on the Moebius Zero MA he piloted, which had undergone emergency repairs and could barely sortie, would never be enough to fight the enemy.

That red Aegis Gundam, the Duel Gundam piloted by Yzak Joule, and perhaps even two more—the Blitz Gundam and Buster Gundam.

Any one of them would pose a deadly threat to him.

If they sortied together... Mu did not even dare imagine it. He would probably be shot down in an instant, consumed by despair and helplessness before he could mount any meaningful resistance.

If they really encountered the enemy, the only ones who could protect this ship would be Xia Ya's Blaze Gundam and Jiliang's equally high-performance Strike Gundam.

They had to rely on those children...

Realizing that filled Mu with indescribable helplessness and deep frustration.

He was clearly an experienced ace pilot, known in the Earth Alliance as the Eagle of Endymion, yet now he had fallen so low that he could only place his hopes of protecting the warship on two teenagers.

That feeling made him feel so useless, so defeated. Tears welled uncontrollably in his eyes, almost spilling over.

But reality did not allow him to drown in weakness.

He blinked hard, forcibly driving the moisture back.

There were only two things he could do now. First, pray sincerely that Lady Luck would watch over them and allow them to evade the enemy's search. Second, act like a dependable elder, find those two children, pat them on the shoulders, and tell them that they had to prepare themselves for battle once again—to face a fate filled with the unknown and the cruel.

Back to Xia Ya.

He strode forward and stepped into the "war" that was escalating by the second.

Jiliang's little face was still flushed red, blazing with fury, while Flay, though at a disadvantage, refused to back down and continued firing back.

"Alright, alright, both of you calm down," Xia Ya said. His voice was not loud, but it carried a steady, convincing strength.

He did not try to pull the two apart by force. Instead, he cleverly squeezed sideways between them, first blocking Jiliang's incoming punch before catching her arm and gently pulling her aside.

"Jiliang, don't be angry. Look, Flay didn't mean it either. She just went through something dangerous, so she might be emotionally unstable. Besides, fighting in a place like this wouldn't look good if someone saw you, right?" Xia Ya patiently persuaded her in a soft voice. His tone was gentle and his gaze sincere, like a mild spring breeze trying to blow away the flames in Jiliang's heart.

At first, Jiliang still tried to break free, muttering under her breath. But under Xia Ya's calm gaze, the violent rise and fall of her chest gradually eased. The anger in her eyes slowly faded, replaced by a trace of grievance and exhaustion.

Perhaps she was tired from fighting. Perhaps Xia Ya had persuaded her. Or perhaps she had realized herself how inappropriate it was to argue in an environment like this.

Seeing Jiliang finally calm down, Xia Ya secretly let out a sigh of relief.

He turned to look at Flay as well. She had stopped moving and was straightening her disheveled clothes and hair, her face showing lingering fear and embarrassment.

"Alright, let's leave here first," Xia Ya suggested. "Tolle and the others should be waiting for us in the cafeteria or lounge. Let's go meet up with them."

Jiliang silently nodded, while Flay softly answered, "Mm."

So Xia Ya led the two girls, who had just been at each other's throats, out of the hangar filled with the smell of engine oil. They followed the cold, long metal corridor toward the cafeteria.

Quite a few Heliopolis survivors had indeed gathered in the cafeteria, most of them students around Xia Ya's age.

When Xia Ya, Jiliang, and Flay entered, they happened to witness a touching scene.

Flay Allster spotted Sai Argyle in the crowd at once—her fiancé.

At that moment, time seemed to stop. Flay's eyes instantly shone with unbelievable joy, and then tears surged out beyond her control.

Sai, too, was overcome with excitement, concern, and relieved joy when he saw Flay appear safe and sound.

He hurried forward, and the two embraced tightly, as though trying to press one another into their own bodies, as though the entire world contained only the two of them.

Everyone around them, including Miriallia, Tolle, and Kuzzey, fell silent. They watched the lovers reunited amid disaster, their eyes revealing more or less the same emotion.

That warm yet bittersweet scene of surviving a catastrophe moved both Jiliang and Flay after their recent quarrel, and the atmosphere eased considerably.

After a few simple greetings and once their emotions had settled, the group returned to the spacious room where Captain Murrue Ramius had initially placed them.

For the time being, it had become a temporary base for these civilians.

The moment Flay sat down and heard Sai explain their current situation in the briefest and gentlest terms possible—that Archangel was not a safe refuge, but a warship being pursued by the ZAFT Forces, and that battle could erupt again at any moment—her beautiful blue eyes, which had just shone with the joy of reunion, widened in shock. All color drained from her face, leaving only terror and disbelief.

"W-What!? This ship... is being pursued!?" she blurted out, her voice trembling.

Although Flay's escape pod had fortunately been discovered and recovered by the Strike Gundam, from the moment she was rescued until now, she had merely been transferred from one drifting "coffin" to another seemingly sturdy but equally perilous "cage."

She had only just escaped the extreme tension and terror of piloting the escape pod. She had thought she was finally safe, but reality was far crueler and more hopeless than she had imagined.

Hearing the shock and fear in Flay's voice, Jiliang lowered her head even further. Her face was full of guilt and self-reproach as she said in an almost inaudible voice, "...I'm sorry."

In her eyes, it was because she had piloted the Strike Gundam to recover the escape pod that Flay had been dragged into this even more dangerous situation.

If not for her, perhaps another rescue ship would have found Flay and taken her somewhere safer.

Yet Flay's next reaction caught Xia Ya by surprise. Not only did she not blame Jiliang, she hurriedly waved her hands instead. Forcing a pale yet gentle smile onto her face, she comforted her, "Ah, no, Jiliang, don't say that! Don't ever think like that!"

She reached out and gently held Jiliang's slightly cool hand. "If you hadn't found my escape pod, I definitely would have ended up in an even more dangerous situation... I might have died already. So really, don't worry about it. I should be thanking you."

Flay's heart must have been a tangled mess at that moment—fear, lingering terror, despair, and perhaps confusion about the future.

Yet after hearing Sai's explanation of their grim circumstances and getting over her brief shock, she could still think first of comforting the girl who was blaming herself.

The kindness, strength, and gentleness Flay showed at that moment were completely different from the image in the fragments of Xia Ya's memories of the "original story," where she became obsessive and hysterical after her father's death, even going so far as to use and frame Jiliang.

...Huh? A thought flashed through Xia Ya's mind like lightning. This Flay... feels different from the one in the "plot."

Was it because of my intervention, or because Jiliang rescued her ahead of time and changed something?

Or was this world's corrective force at work?

He looked at the two girls standing before him. Flay was like a considerate, caring older sister, comforting the dejected Jiliang, who resembled an obedient younger sister.

No matter how he looked at it, they seemed like sisters with a close bond. There was not even a trace of the twisted hostility from the "original story."

A strange feeling rose in Xia Ya's heart. He could not help but begin thinking about another question. In that case, had Jiliang already met Cagalli Yula Athha by this point?

According to the "original story," they should have crossed paths once on Heliopolis.

I didn't interfere with that part, so it shouldn't have changed, right?

But... what if, because of some butterfly effect I don't know about, they never met?

Would that have some unforeseeable negative effect on Jiliang's future growth and psychological development?

While Xia Ya was lost in this somewhat detached train of thought, Flay gently and tenderly stroked Jiliang's soft hair, trying to comfort her in that way.

The scene resembled the moment in the hangar when Xia Ya had consoled Jiliang. It was filled with sincere warmth between people, allowing one to glimpse a bit of human light beneath the cold shadow of war and smile knowingly.

However, the warm atmosphere did not last long.

Although Jiliang, comforted by Flay, had calmed down a little, the unease and fear buried deep in her heart were like dark currents in the deep sea, impossible to disperse so easily.

She raised her head and looked at everyone in the room—Xia Ya, Flay, Sai, Miriallia, Tolle, Kuzzey... Friends who had been enjoying peaceful school lives not long ago were now, like her, trapped in this cold steel cage with an uncertain future.

Weakly, her voice carrying an unmistakable confusion and tremor, she asked the question shared by everyone present:

"But... what... what will happen to us?"

No one could answer that question.

It was only natural that she felt uneasy. This warship called Archangel was being relentlessly pursued like prey by a powerful enemy—the ZAFT Forces.

If they could successfully repel the enemy and drive them away for good, that would naturally be the best possible outcome.

But Sai, Tolle, and the others, as students who had come into contact with the Strike Gundam and had even helped during the early stages, understood their difficult situation better than any ordinary civilian aboard the ship.

They knew it would be anything but easy. The enemy's mobile suits had terrifyingly powerful performance, and their pilots were all experienced soldiers.

That was why Jiliang was so uneasy.

She did not know what sort of fate awaited her and everyone else.

Would they ever have a chance to return to the ordinary yet peaceful lives they once had?

Or even... would they be able to survive this sudden, cruel, merciless war?

The question weighed on every heart like a massive stone. The faint warmth and joy of reunion that had just begun to rise were quickly replaced by a heavy gloom.

The room sank into silence once again. Only wordless fear and deep anxiety over the unknown filled the air.