Chapter 300: Awakening 2
Mentor Malchio gave Kira a vague explanation of how he had been rescued, but he didn't mention a single word about Rau saving Kira and leaving him at their doorstep.
Kira tried to recall what had happened before he passed out. Memories of that life-and-death battle with Athrun resurfaced.
His body instantly tensed, sweat dripping down his face as he trembled in panic and sorrow. Breathless, he asked, "Why…? W-why…? Why let… me… live…?"
Malchio replied calmly, "Because you possess SEED. That means you must live…"
At that moment, Kira—his body wrapped in bandages—sat up in pain, completely ignoring Malchio's words.
He gasped heavily, tears streaming down his face.
Tolle once again sighed to himself—Kira really wasn't an ordinary Coordinator. To sit up in that condition was unreal.
A normal person wouldn't even be able to budge with injuries like that, let alone endure the pain.
"Kira, are you alright?" Lacus watched him cry in anguish. She quickly reached out to cover his hand and comforted him. "Don't be sad. You're still seriously injured—you shouldn't be moving around."
The sudden touch only made Kira cry harder. Through his sobbing, he said, "I… Athrun and I… we fought… I should've… already… died…"
Seeing his despair, Lacus gently hugged his back, closed her eyes, and spoke softly, guiding him with warmth:
"Don't be sad, Kira. Everything will be alright. And Athrun isn't dead. You aren't dead. Both of you are still alive.
As long as you're alive, there's hope. There's even hope that you and Athrun might reconcile…"
Listening to Lacus comfort Kira nonstop, Mentor Malchio realized it wasn't the right moment for his usual philosophy, so he quietly withdrew.
Under Lacus's gentle guidance, Kira slowly calmed down.
Then he lay back on the bed, looking utterly dejected, and explained, "It's beyond fixing now. I killed… Athrun's… teammate.
And then… Athrun… killed my… good friend, Tolle. So…"
"So you wanted to kill Athrun, and Athrun wanted to kill you. Is that what you're trying to say?" Lacus said softly with a hint of sorrow. She lifted her teacup, took a sip, and continued, "But isn't that unavoidable?
It's a war. The two of you were always going to end up on opposite sides."
"Isn't that right?" Lacus looked into Kira's eyes, guiding him again when he said nothing.
Malchio, unable to join the conversation, could only eavesdrop from afar.
Meanwhile, in the PLANT colonies, even though Siegel strongly opposed Patrick's Operation Spitbreak and kept advocating for peace talks with the Earth Alliance…
The Earth Alliance's demands during negotiations were far too unreasonable.
Despite ZAFT winning battle after battle, the Alliance acted as though it were the victor, demanding outrageous concessions.
In the end, the furious Supreme Council and ZAFT high command approved Patrick's Operation Spitbreak unanimously.
They prepared to drop mobile suits directly onto the Earth Alliance's Panama Base from orbit.
Siegel could only give in with great reluctance.
But Patrick had deceived the Council — his real target wasn't Panama, but the Alaska Base.
He planned to gather most of ZAFT's forces from Earth and space to seize it.
Unfortunately, Operation Spitbreak had already been leaked to the Earth Alliance. What awaited the ZAFT soldiers was yet another Cyclops System detonation.
After receiving news that the operation was about to begin, Tolle originally planned to raid the new Artemis Umbrella base.
But he had no choice except to immediately head to Orb's satellite, the Pillar of Heaven.
After all, he couldn't possibly miss Freedom Gundam's first sortie.
Besides, his girlfriend was at the Alaska Base — if anything were to happen to her, Tolle would be devastated.
When he returned to the Pillar of Heaven, Mina looked at the Huayan warship with curiosity and asked, "Tolle, this is the ship you went to retrieve? It looks like a high-speed warship. Does it have any weapons?"
"Mm, you guessed close enough. But I didn't retrieve it — I left for a while to build it.
I went to the ruins of the Heliopolis satellite and used the debris as material to construct this ship.
As for the Huayan's weapons, they're basically the same as your Izumo's.
If you go inside, you'll see I used the Izumo's layout as a reference when building it. Most of the internal arrangement is similar."
Tolle definitely wasn't going to say he had used Archangel's data and modified it — there was no way to explain that cleanly.
And since they had given him the Izumo's data, it would just make them jealous if he used something else.
Besides, the Archangel's internal design was already very similar to the Izumo's, so he wasn't exactly lying.
Yulia, however, exclaimed, "Seriously? That fast? From the moment you got the Izumo's data to finishing this entire ship, only a few days have passed — and that's not even counting travel time.
Normally it takes months to build a warship like this. What you did is insane."
Mina responded with deliberate calm, "Yulia, you're underestimating our darling. He built three Gundams for us in less than a day last time — is this really worth fussing over?"
"Ahahaha, right, I totally forgot." Yulia laughed awkwardly and hooked her arm around Tolle's, then quickly changed the subject. "But darling, introduce it properly — what functions does this ship have?"
Mina also linked her arm through Tolle's other arm and echoed, "Yes, I want to know too. What special features does the Huayan have?"