Before coming here today, Cagalli had visited the Eternal a few days earlier. Mu had been with her then, and they had gone to ask Xia Ya and the others about the contents of the documents he had brought back from the research facility on Mendel.
Those documents were like Pandora's box. Once opened, they cast all established understanding into the abyss. The cold data and experimental records radiated a nauseating madness between every line, yet they were inextricably tied by blood to everyone present.
Cagalli's mind had been in complete turmoil at the time.
She had known that she and her father were not related by blood, but the information about her true father had come far too suddenly.
That man named Ulen Hibiki, a scientist with a mad obsession for genetic engineering, was her biological father.
And Jiliang, whom she had trusted without the slightest doubt as a friend, was actually her twin sister—though Jiliang had likely been just as confused, Cagalli had wanted answers no matter what.
She needed confirmation. She needed something real to hold onto, or she would lose her way in the face of that sudden truth.
"Ah, yeah. I guess so."
Jiliang's initial response had been remarkably straightforward. Her tone had been as calm as if she were discussing how the cafeteria was serving curry rice that day.
She had even tilted her head slightly, as though puzzled by why Cagalli was making such a fuss over something like this.
Cagalli had felt as if the ground beneath her feet had collapsed, yet her twin sister, who should have witnessed the truth firsthand, had accepted it without hesitation.
That calm attitude had been completely unlike the reaction Cagalli had imagined—she had expected Jiliang to cry, to get angry, or at least to show