Although she was defying Djibril's orders, this time she intended to fight with destroying the machines as her premise. If she could not have them, then she would destroy them. As long as she turned those machines into scrap metal and killed the pilots inside, more than half the mission would be complete. Besides, only utter destruction could soothe the uncontrollable urge to destroy within her.
Flay stood on the lift platform, slowly rising toward the cockpit. The instant the hatch opened, that voice rang through her mind again without warning.
...Because I don't want to kill you.
"...Then I won't hold back when I kill you."
She quietly replied to that hallucination-like voice.
Before retreating from the last battle, the enemy pilot's gentle voice had brushed through her mind. Thinking back on that gentleness now, it was practically an insult. Was he going easy on her because he thought she was a woman? Or did he think she was too weak to be worth killing?
He was looking down on her. Did he really think she would fight with such feelings—that she would waver because of such cheap tenderness? She had no intention of holding back. On this battlefield of life and death, only those who survived had the right to speak of feelings. And this time, she no longer wanted to be the weak one who was protected and pitied. She would use her own strength, the power of this Goddess of Liberation Gundam, to prove her worth.
"This time, I'll definitely shoot you down—"
The fierce words that left her mouth stirred Flay's spirit. They were not merely a declaration, but a hypnotic suggestion she had given herself.
Hatred, the driving force behind her revenge, dyed her heart pitch-black. Those dark emotions flooded over all reason and