"You're too naive." The red-uniformed soldier beside him immediately retorted, his tone fierce but deliberately lowered. "Then how do you explain their collusion with Earth Forces spies and their theft of the military's newest mobile suit, the Freedom Gundam? Whether it was the leak of intelligence at Alaska or how the Neutron Jammer Canceller data ended up in Earth Forces hands, the Klein Faction is the most suspicious in every case. Maybe they came to save us this time just to create chaos within the military, shake our resolve, and carry out an even greater coup plot."
"But during the Battle of Alaska, Lady Lacus also saved us through a broadcast, didn't she?" The green-uniformed soldier clenched his fists, unwilling to abandon his belief. "If Lady Lacus really leaked the intelligence, then she should have known long ago that the Cyclops System had been set up. Would she deliberately risk being caught in the base explosion and rush to the front lines just to stage some self-inflicted deception? That's absurd!"
Hearing this, Athrun's fist hanging at his side unconsciously tightened, his leather glove making a faint stretching sound.
Lacus Clyne—his former fiancée. The girl who had always softly hummed the Song of Peace, the girl who had stroked Haro in the greenhouse, was now a heinous criminal wanted across the nation on her father Patrick Zala's orders for treason.
Yet that very person, branded a traitor, had openly appeared on a deadly battlefield crisscrossed by nuclear missiles. Facing the intersecting firepower of both sides, she had used that wanted deep-pink warship to save PLANT from being reduced to ashes.
From the time he had left PLANT for Earth to pursue the Freedom Gundam until this final battle at Jachin Due, a meat grinder of a battlefield, Athrun had never understood