But with her fingers resting on the control stick, she simply could not press it down. The anger and humiliation were real, yet emotions far greater and more overwhelming than those—an almost instinctive sense of relief and deep dependence—held her limbs tightly in place, suppressing every shred of killing intent.
"Just... who are you to me?!"
Because of her missing memories, because of the fragmented, chaotic images in her mind, she was consumed by extreme agitation and panic.
Why was this man so determined to keep an enemy with blood on her hands alive? What did he know about her past?
Flay did not know. That was precisely why, to tear through the fog that was driving her mad, she cried out hoarsely as she demanded answers.
"Before, too... why did you have to save an enemy like me?!"
Ever since she had encountered that pure white mobile suit in this war zone, and met its pilot, the gears of revenge Djibril had so meticulously set within Flay had begun to slip violently out of place.
The hatred she had always regarded as truth began to waver deeply. Was the killing intent filling her chest truly her own? Was destroying everything before her really the ending she desired?
"Stop... driving me... insane!"
From the deepest reaches of her coldly sealed consciousness, that bottomless terror rose again.
That strange feeling she had experienced in the Doolittle's maintenance bay before sortie—the tearing sensation as though another version of herself had been imprisoned inside her shell. No, it had not been an illusion.
Enough... was enough.
It was no illusion, but something real. The real her—the Flay Allster who had once cried, laughed, and felt her heart race for someone—had always been here, sleeping in the depths of her heart beneath all that