Jiliang was still sitting in the cockpit.
She maintained her previous posture, her right hand pressed tightly over her eyes, as though doing so could erase the scene from her mind.
Flay's voice still echoed in her ears, those cold and merciless words gouging at her heart like a dull knife, stroke after stroke.
The red-haired girl who had smiled at her on the Heliopolis campus, the girl who had handed her lunch bread and juice in the classroom, was now nothing more than a shell filled with drugs and hatred. And Jiliang herself could not even pull the trigger.
She had heard Canard shout, "You still owe me a drink," from beside the maintenance bay, but she had not answered.
It felt as if something had lodged in her throat, leaving her unable to force out even a single word. The cockpit was lit only by the faint white glow of the monitor, outlining the soft profile of her face as an unfathomable darkness churned in her purple eyes.
A dull crash rang out over the shipwide channel as Mu struck the bridge hatch, followed by his hoarse, urgent cry—"Xia Ya...!"
Jiliang's body jolted.
She lowered the hand covering her eyes, her fingertips touching the controls.
Freedom Gundam's nuclear engine rumbled to life once more, and the main monitor lit up.
Jiliang bit her lower lip, a resolute fire flashing through her purple eyes. She pulled the controls, and Freedom Gundam's restraints disengaged one by one as it flew out of the Archangel.
The missing left wing caused the unit's posture to shift slightly for an instant, but she quickly compensated with the attitude control thrusters. She pushed down the throttle, and Freedom Gundam slid from the launch rail, its exhaust leaving a searing afterimage across the deck as