"Inori…"
After seeing Inori, Kira first let out a sigh of relief.
But immediately afterward, guilt began to well up inside her.
—I made Inori kill people.
Kira herself followed her principles, but she would never force those principles onto other people.
If Mu or someone else wanted to kill, Kira would feel awful about it, but she also knew this was a battlefield.
Of course, on a peaceful street, Kira would never allow anyone to do something like that.
"Kira, sad?" Inori tilted her head and reached out to take Kira's other hand.
[Grass (a type of exclamation), an equilateral triangle]
[Nothing matters more than the three of you living happily together]
[Why does this feel like Romance of the Three Kingdoms?]
[A tripartite balance, huh]
[What kind of setup is this?]
[???]
[Holy crap, they got muted]
[Wait, what was wrong with that?]
[The super-mod's mind is filthy, I'm dying]
[Hahaha]
[Stop challenging the super-mod. Everyone's getting muted]
"Um… I…"
Kira stammered, not knowing what she should say.
Then, under Lacus's encouraging gaze, Kira finally gathered her courage.
"I… hate fighting."
"I've never thought piloting a Gundam was fun."
Kira spoke her mind.
"Even more than that, I don't want Inori taking my place on the battlefield."
"I'm still not strong enough… I…"
Kira was about to say more, but Inori suddenly released both Lacus's and Kira's hands.
"Mm. I know. Kira is a gentle, good girl. You tell me not to sleep in, make breakfast for me, and feel sad because of me."
[A sudden reversal]
[Palace intrigue]
[So who's the top and who's the bottom?]
[I'm more curious how the three of them are supposed to do it later]
[An equilateral triangle!]
[??? Why did that get muted too?]
[What exactly do you people mean???]
[Could it possibly be some kind of body position?]
[Grass (a type of exclamation), instant mute and deletion]
[Got it got it got it]
[Give me a minute to laugh]
The scene had the players practically collapsing with laughter.
But the situation was not actually the sort of "bloodbath" the players were imagining.
On the contrary, what Kira felt right now was an extraordinarily warm sensation.
It was as if her entire body were being cleansed.
"Kira did nothing wrong."
Inori said it plainly.
"But… those people… because of me…"
Kira found herself at a loss for words.
"No. It was because of the war." Lacus cut Kira off. "This was never Kira's fault."
The viewers were always delighted by this kind of ship-bait.
So at that moment, another wave of danmaku swept across the screen.
And Inori knew the time had come.
Kira's thinking had begun to change.
Her transformation had already begun.
The process was destined to be painful, but that growth was exactly what the viewers wanted to see.
So Inori took out a loop of string.
"Kira, want to try?"
Inori asked.
"What's this?"
Cat's cradle.
Of course Kira knew what it was.
She did not know what Inori meant by it, but there did not seem to be anything wrong with playing cat's cradle.
Kira worked the string through her fingers.
She was still somewhat confused.
Then Kira heard Inori say, "Kira is my master, my manager, and only after that comes everything else."
"Mm?"
Lacus tilted her head.
When Inori said "master," Lacus's head seemed to start wobbling too.
[Lacus's CPU is fried]
[Lacus: You two are that kinky? lol]
[I'm dying lol]
[Lacus: Then what about me?]
[Lacus: Did I come to the wrong place?]
"I'm… still too weak." Kira lowered her head.
"Kira needs power," Inori said.
"But what can I even do?" Kira was lost.
"Power needs an ideal to guide it. Power without an ideal only turns you into a puppet of the battlefield," Lacus said as well.
"An ideal…?"
Kira was confused, yet inside that confusion, she somehow felt as though she had begun to understand something.
"An ideal… What I… can do…"
Kira looked down at the cat's cradle in her hands.
The bright red string rested across her fingers.
Now that she had power… what should she do with it?
"War… is wrong."
But what can I do?
Kira thought.
She hated this painful feeling, but she still did not know what she ought to do.
For now, Kira was still in the middle of her "Longchang Enlightenment."
What did she want to protect? What did she want to change? What did she want to see?
After the war, what kind of world would humanity face?
Kira looked toward Inori.
She loved Inori's songs. Whether they were sad or joyful, whether they spoke of longing or reunion.
Inori's songs always seemed filled with some kind of beautiful feeling.
As if they were saying that the world was never supposed to be like this.
She looked out the window.
The starry sky was so beautiful, yet now it was filled with death and sorrow.
"I…" Kira vaguely felt as though she understood.
"I don't know what the correct future is, but I do know that this shortsighted hatred and destruction can only bring endless emptiness. I want to protect everyone. I want to change all of this."
Inori placed her hand over Kira's.
"Kira has already obtained the key. Humanity on Earth does not merely resonate with the satellites nearby, but with this vast and boundless universe as well. This storm will one day carry humanity out of its cradle."
Kira fell into thought. Lacus seemed to understand something as well.
"Inori, there's something I want to ask you about the song Aimo." Lacus had not forgotten about that after all.
"Mm." Inori looked at Lacus.
"That strange song—what does it actually mean?" Lacus cared a great deal about the answer.
"That? Aimo means 'you.' And this song—it speaks of 'love.'"
It was somewhat unexpected, yet at the same time entirely reasonable.
Because most of Inori's songs seemed to be "love songs."
They were one person confiding in another, longing for them, and understanding them.
Lacus felt as though she understood something.
Yet it still felt as though a thin veil stood between her and full understanding.
This time, however, Lacus did not ask.
Although Inori would answer anything she knew, Lacus felt that if she could not understand its meaning on her own, then asking Inori to explain would not help.
Love?
Why love?
Lacus could sing every one of Inori's songs, but precisely because of that, the indescribable feeling only grew stronger.
In truth, Lacus did not know that she herself was the person most strongly affected by Inori's Analog Hack.
But some things still had to be realized and understood on one's own.
And so Lacus, too, began her own "Longchang Enlightenment."