Miracle

In September, PLANT's artificial climate-control systems maintained pleasant weather, but the atmosphere inside the ZAFT military academy's advanced simulation training center was as taut as a bowstring. Three months of hellish training were nearing their end, and every eye was fixed on the same name-Mei Hock.

Month one: the first signs of brilliance

The first four weeks focused on basic adaptation and intensive training. While his classmates were still struggling to control the bulky but powerful ZGMF-1017 Ginn, Akira had already displayed a remarkable aptitude. There was nothing flashy about his piloting. Every burst of thrust, every turn, and every shot fell precisely within the optimal parameters laid out in the MS Standard Operating Manual, as though a flawless execution program had been built into his body.

Dust billowed across the training ground. Five Ginns were conducting a squad combat exercise. Akira's machine, call sign Silver Wing, took point. Two enemy Ginns tried to exploit their numerical advantage by attacking him from both sides.

"Silver Wing, enemy unit approaching fast from the right!" A teammate's slightly breathless warning came over the comms.

Akira did not reply. His accord ability operated at minimum output, feeding the charging enemy's trajectory, the possible firing angles of its machine gun, and even the unnecessary inputs its impatient pilot might make through his consciousness as cold streams of data. He did not rush to dodge. Instead, just before the enemy entered optimal firing range, he brought his machine to an abrupt halt and pulled back in a seemingly reckless maneuver. He slipped past the first burst of gunfire with perfect timing, then fired a precise three-round burst from his 76mm Heavy Assault Machine Gun straight into the shock absorber in the enemy Ginn's right knee joint. The simulation system ruled: target mobility reduced by 70%.

Almost simultaneously, he used the shield in his left hand to block fire from the left. The Heavy Slash Blade in his right hand was already drawn. Using the momentum of his retreat, he delivered a swift spinning slash, slamming the back of the blade into the torso of the Ginn attempting to ambush him from that side. The system ruled: confirmed hit, cockpit shaken, target temporarily disabled.

The entire exchange lasted less than ten seconds. Clean and decisive, without a single wasted movement.

In the observation stands, the tactics instructor nodded slightly. "Perfect crisis-management efficiency. That wasn't reaction-it was anticipation. He's a born warrior."

By the end of the first month, Akira held a firm lead in total kills. His report card read: "Possesses battlefield intuition beyond his experience and an almost ruthless efficiency."

Month two: the king of anticipation

In the second month, training shifted toward tactical combat in complex environments. Dense asteroid belts and the wreckage of abandoned Space Colony satellites were added to the training zone. Here, pure marksmanship and close-combat skill gave way to exploiting the terrain and devising tactics.

A typical encounter unfolded on the simulated battlefield in the L3 Region. Akira's four-member squad encountered six simulated enemy machines, piloted by senior instructors with AI assistance. The enemy held favorable terrain and had established overlapping fields of fire.

"Captain, their frontal firepower is too strong. I recommend flanking them," a squad member suggested.

Akira studied the faint energy signatures and movement paths of the enemy machines on his radar as his accord ability rapidly constructed a dynamic model of the battlefield. He noticed a brief, out-of-rhythm pause at the enemy's left firing position and a slight forward lean in one machine on the right-the telltale sign of an imminent charge.

"No," Akira said calmly. "Everyone, follow me. Stay in tight formation and wait for my orders."

Rather than choose the safer flanking route, he led his squad straight toward the heaviest concentration of fire. Just before they entered the lethal firing zone, he ordered, "Nova"-a squad member's call sign-"fire a smoke grenade behind that large asteroid at three o'clock! Everyone else, overload your engines by 30%! Climb with me, then turn hard!"

Smoke instantly obscured part of the enemy's view. Using that brief disruption and an unexpected vertical maneuver, Akira's squad narrowly avoided the carefully prepared ambush position of the enemy machine on the right, which had been about to charge. Instead, they appeared on its flank.

"How is that possible?! It's like he knew I was going to come out from there!" the instructor playing the ambusher exclaimed over the comms in disbelief.

The rest of the battle became a one-sided slaughter. Akira consistently anticipated the enemy's tactical intentions half a beat ahead, directing his squad to strike the weak points in their formation again and again. When his Heavy Slash Blade "shot down" the final enemy machine from behind in an asteroid's shadow, the results showed that his squad had wiped out the enemy without suffering a single loss.

"This isn't intuition," the training director said gravely in the monitoring room. "This is... anticipation. He put himself in the enemy commander's position, worked through every possibility, and chose the optimal solution. That kind of grasp of the battlefield... is rare."

By the end of the second month, Akira had risen to the top of the overall rankings without any suspense. His evaluation now read: "Possesses strategic-caliber tactical anticipation. His grasp of the overall battlefield far surpasses that of his peers and even some veteran officers."

Month three: the legend of one against five

In the third month, training reached its climax-the extreme stress test. Akira was assigned an outrageously unfair match: one Ginn against five machines of the same model, piloted by experienced elite instructors.

When the news spread, the entire academy erupted. No one believed Akira could win. It was practically an impossible mission.

The combat zone was a complex belt of industrial ruins. The five instructors closed in from different directions, coordinating seamlessly to seal off every conventional escape route.

Inside the cockpit, Akira's breathing remained steady. With his accord ability fully active, a torrent of data flooded his mind: the vectors of all five machines, their weapons' warm-up status, the movements corresponding to tactical hand signals they might use under radio silence, and even each instructor's past preferences in combat style... A faint sting throbbed at his temples, a sign that his ability was approaching its current limit.

He did not choose to defend. He attacked! The Ginn's engine roared as he charged the instructor directly ahead, seemingly the strongest opponent. Just before entering firing range, however, he abruptly pushed his thrusters to their critical limit. His machine forced itself into a sideslip that looked close to tearing it apart, barely avoiding two intersecting lines of fire. At the same time, he hurled his shield with pinpoint accuracy at an instructor's machine attempting to ambush him from the flank, briefly impeding its movement. His Heavy Slash Blade darted out like a venomous snake-not at an enemy machine, but at a massive steel cable attached to the ruins!

The cable snapped and swept across with tens of thousands of tons of force, instantly disrupting the formation of two instructors' machines. Exploiting the brief chaos he had created, Akira slipped his Ginn through the gap like a phantom. Precise bursts from his 76 mm machine gun struck the thruster nozzle of a third instructor's machine, throwing its thrust out of balance. A fourth attacked from behind, but Akira's Ginn seemed to have eyes in the back of its head. A Cobra Maneuver found in no textbook, followed by emergency braking, sent his opponent lunging past him while the back of his Heavy Slash Blade slammed into the enemy machine's back.

The final instructor seized the opportunity to lock onto Akira, but Akira's Ginn had already used its previous maneuvers to conceal itself in the shadow of a massive abandoned reactor. As the last instructor approached cautiously, Akira's Ginn burst from the darkness, its Heavy Slash Blade aimed straight at the cockpit!

The system ruled: match concluded. Mei Hock, victorious.

The training ground fell deathly silent, then erupted in thunderous cries of astonishment. One against five, and he had defeated a team of elite instructors! This was no longer mere genius. This was legend!

The graduation battle: a symphonic poem in the asteroid belt

The graduation simulation was raised to the highest standard: a five-on-five squad battle, with each side assigned one Laurasia-class warship and five Ginns. The opposing force was a top squad of five senior Red Uniform Elites.

The battlefield was the Ghost Asteroid Belt, an area of extraordinarily complex terrain. As soon as the battle began, the Red Uniform Elite squad drew on its extensive experience to launch a fierce offensive. Akira's teammates quickly became bogged down in hard fighting, while a friendly warship also came under concentrated attack.

"Silver Wing! We're pinned down! Command-the warship-is requesting support!" An anxious shout came over the comms.

Akira did not let the local setbacks distract him. His Ginn threaded through the dense asteroids like a ghost, while his accord ability imprinted a three-dimensional image of the entire battlefield in his mind. He noticed that the enemy's formation had become slightly disjointed in its pursuit of a quick victory. Its warship had moved relatively far forward to provide fire support. A massive asteroid on one side served as a natural barrier, but also restricted its room to maneuver.

A plan so bold it bordered on madness took shape in his mind.

"All units, listen to my orders!" Akira sounded far too calm for someone facing a desperate situation. "Ginn squad, abandon your current positions and conduct a fighting retreat toward the Alpha-7 Region. Keep the enemy mobile suits focused on you. Courage, hard to starboard! Increase engine output to 110% and head for the shadow of the largest asteroid in the D-9 Region!"

"What?! That's a dead end!" the warship's captain cried.

"Carry out the order!" Akira's tone left no room for argument.

A miracle happened. As the Courage seemingly charged into the asteroid's shadow like a creature throwing itself into a net, both the pursuing Red Uniform Elite squad and the enemy warship concentrated their fire on that area. But this was precisely Akira's trap. He had already calculated that an extremely unstable, high-density stream of small asteroids lay hidden behind the massive rock.

"Now! Courage, emergency reverse! All Ginns, fire every chaff round and smoke grenade you have at the intersection of the D-9 Region and the asteroid stream!"

In an instant, dense interference clouds and explosions erupted at the designated coordinates. The resulting shock waves and energy disturbances seemingly triggered an accidental chain reaction in the asteroid stream-though it was, in fact, the result of Akira's precise calculations! Countless asteroids, large and small, swarmed like enraged bees, raining down on the enemy warship and mobile suit squad shrouded in the interference cloud!

The enemy formation collapsed into chaos! Akira's squad seized the opportunity to launch a lethal counterattack from the flank. The battle became a one-sided cleanup operation. When the system announced, "Blue team has eliminated red team," the entire observation center fell silent before breaking into irrepressible applause and discussion.

"He... he used the environment! He directed the entire battle! Including that warship!"

"That's not a mobile suit pilot's ability... that's a fleet commander's talent!"

At the graduation ceremony, Mei Hock's name was read first. The chief instructor personally placed the red uniform signifying elite status into his hands, his voice slightly hoarse with excitement. "Ensign Mei Hock, you are hereby awarded the rank of Red Uniform Elite. You have broken every record in the academy's hundred-year history. ZAFT is proud of you!" At just sixteen years old, he had risen to Red Uniform status only three months after enlisting-an unprecedented miracle.

Greater scrutiny followed behind the honors. His graduation report, particularly his tactical analysis paper titled "On the Possibility of the Earth Alliance Forces Using Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Potential Countermeasures," was secretly delivered to the PLANT Supreme Council and placed on Chairman Siegel Clyne's desk.

A few days later, Akira was secretly escorted to a secluded office in the Parliament Building. Siegel Clyne, the leader of the Coordinators, had a gentle expression but a piercing gaze. Holding the report, he asked directly, "Ensign Mei, I'm very interested in this. In your report, you predict that the Earth Forces might deploy nuclear weapons, and even identify several potential targets. What is the basis for these projections? We haven't intercepted any intelligence to that effect."

Akira stood at attention and saluted, calmly meeting Siegel's scrutiny. His answer was already prepared. "Historical patterns and the weaknesses of human nature, Mr. Chairman. When conventional warfare reaches a stalemate, or one side feels its survival is threatened, the emergence of an ultimate weapon that crosses moral boundaries is a tragedy that has played out repeatedly throughout history. The growing influence of Blue Cosmos within the Earth Forces, along with their extreme demonization of Coordinators in public discourse, are warning signs that they are paving the way for such drastic action. This is not based on specific intelligence, but on an analysis of how the logic of this conflict will develop."

Siegel watched him in silence for several seconds, his wise eyes seeming to peer into the young man's heart. Finally, he nodded slightly. He expressed neither agreement nor disagreement, merely saying gently, "A very distinctive perspective. Your talent is quite exceptional, Ensign. I hope you will put it to proper use. You may go."

Akira saluted and left. He knew he had successfully planted a seed in the minds of the highest leadership and had been marked as "a promising talent requiring close observation." That was crucial to his future plans.

As he stepped out of the Parliament Building in his brand-new red uniform and gazed up at the simulated stars on PLANT's artificial sky, the countdown to Bloody Valentine ticked away in his heart. He had already created a miracle, but the true test was about to begin.