This way, no one would be able to stop it.
Rau Le Creuset thought so to himself. Being targeted by nuclear missiles once again had unconsciously unshackled the last restraint hanging over Patrick's heart.
If the Chairman had harbored any hesitation or concerns before, then the light of Boaz had burned all of it away.
Neither the Earth Forces nor ZAFT would hesitate any longer. The other side had fired—because they had killed, this side had to fire too. This side had to kill as well. They would neither know nor care to know what awaited them ahead. They would only charge forward blindly, until they marched together into the abyss of destruction.
...What was this?
Rau Le Creuset felt a sense of discord. Looking at the world he had wished for, he should have felt satisfied. The scheme he had laid out from the beginning, the outcome that had been within his expectations yet even more perfect than anticipated—everything was proceeding according to his script. He should have been immensely satisfied. He should have felt delight. He should have been sitting in that chair, leisurely sipping red wine as he enjoyed this tragedy of destruction he had directed.
But he did not.
Even Rau Le Creuset himself did not know what it was. In his plans, in his expectations, in his imagination—when nuclear missiles were once again launched at the Coordinators, when Patrick finally spoke that name, when humanity's final stairway toward destruction had been laid—he should have felt incomparable exhilaration.
That pleasure should have scorched his throat like strong liquor, shot through his spine like electricity, and drowned his consciousness like an orgasm.
But it did not.
He did not know why—but something weighed on his mind. It was an unfamiliar sensation, as though something had trembled faintly