Canard's Decision

Canard's gaze swept over the hands resting on her lap. They were fair and delicate, with slender, well-proportioned fingers. It was hard to imagine how those hands operated the complex controls in the cockpit with such speed and precision, guiding the machine called Freedom as it danced through a storm of gunfire.

And yet, she possessed power capable of overturning the entire battle. That terrifying coordination, that almost innate capacity for learning and reaction speed, had made her one of the most exceptional Coordinators.

It was a cruel irony. The universe seemed to have forcibly bound the soul least suited for battle to the talents most suited for it.

If she had never possessed that power... If she had never been given this cursed talent...

Canard's thoughts drifted toward an empty hypothetical. If Jiliang had merely been an ordinary Orb citizen, an engineering student skilled in programming, then perhaps she would have been in a shelter with the other civilians right now, worrying about the fighting at the front instead of standing here and declaring that she was about to become the center of the storm.

She could have... lived an ordinary life.

But the thought had barely surfaced before reality's coldness shattered it.

At this point, no amount of resenting fate's unfairness or cursing the source that had granted her this power meant anything.

He was nothing to her. He had no right to make choices in her stead, much less judge her origins.

That tangled, dark past, those ties of fate that coiled around their bloodlines like venomous snakes, were not burdens she should have had to bear.

Then what could he do?

After a brief moment of chaos and struggle, Canard's heart quickly settled.

The answer had been clear from the start, standing unwavering before him like