After Lacus passed out that day, her consciousness had, in truth, remained perfectly clear. She could still sense everything happening around her.
She was like someone trapped in a vegetative state, unable to move at all. At first, she panicked. She had no idea what to do.
Once she calmed down, however, Lacus noticed something strange.
Her perception of the outside world was not coming through her body's senses of touch or hearing. Instead, it was as if she herself had become a radar, spreading waves outward to feel every movement around her.
In that state, Lacus unexpectedly found that she could also sense the emotions being released by the people nearby.
There was worry, agitation, concern, and anger.
She even sensed malice, and it gave her a distinct impression: that person was a bad person.
In fact, that was exactly the case. It was someone from Blue Cosmos who had infiltrated the country and was trying to kill her.
Before that person could get close, however, Mr. Kain took him down.
As for Mr. Kain himself, she could not sense any emotion from him.
When her senses reached toward him, it was like a stone sinking into the sea. There was no reflected wave, no response at all. For some reason, that left her a little disappointed.
But how long would she have to remain in this state?
The instant that thought surfaced, a vague answer naturally came to her. Roughly two or three days.
And what exactly was happening to her? Another vague answer came of its own accord. She was undergoing something like an evolution. Her genes were adjusting themselves.
As for why Cagalli and the others became dazed whenever they approached her, the vague answer she received was that it was a kind of self-defense mechanism active during the adjustment process.
Anyone who came near her would be affected by that field.
Those vague answers did not come from anyone else. They came from herself. They were answers from her own body, as if they had been carved into her DNA.
Once she understood that she would not become a vegetable, Lacus finally breathed a sigh of relief. All she had to do was wait quietly for the adjustment to end.
Later, Cagalli was able to get close to her. On one hand, it seemed Cagalli was adapting. On the other, Lacus was also trying to see if she could stop herself from affecting Cagalli.
It was like a computer firewall placing a specific program on a whitelist so it would no longer interfere with that program's operation.
The result showed that she had succeeded a little, but she could not fully add Cagalli to the whitelist. Cagalli would still be affected to a certain degree.
As for Mr. Kain, he was simply a humanoid black hole, completely ignoring the firewall.
Then, as night was about to fall, sometime around dusk, something seemed to happen. The child named Stellar had run into a problem, forcing Mr. Kain to go take a look.
That made Lacus very curious.
Unfortunately, her perception could not extend outside the room.
Then, a thought suddenly came to her. Until now, her perception had expanded in every direction, spreading out from her like a circle centered on her body.
In that case, could she extend her perception in one specific direction instead?
After trying it, she actually succeeded.
Her sensory range was like a mass of softened maltose. As long as part of it still covered her body, the excess could be stretched outward in a thin thread, allowing her to sense farther away. The only downside was that the observable range became narrower and narrower the farther it extended.
In the end, her perception reached the Morgenroete mobile suit factory not far away.
Stellar was there, continuing to adapt to operating that Knight suit. As a result, a problem had occurred.
Someone had accidentally mentioned the word "death," and Stellar heard it, causing her to fall into a state of extreme terror.
The word "death" was a forbidden trigger implanted into the Extendeds through the biological CPU program.
Because the word could cause their mental state to collapse and send them berserk, it had been installed through brainwashing as a restriction. The moment they heard that word, they would react, instantly falling into panic and helpless fear.
That was why Mr. Kain went over, opened the cockpit, and carried her down.
Stellar, trapped in panic, could not hear anything from outside at all. She could only fear death over and over again. Combined with the cockpit's own "electrical leakage" problem stimulating her, it was as if she felt death drawing closer and closer, driving her deeper into terror.
Of course, since letting Stellar pilot such a dangerous Knight suit was risky, Mr. Kain had prepared certain safety measures in advance. For example, he had locked the weapon systems, leaving Stellar able to do nothing but operate the machine's movement.
Once Mr. Kain appeared, the child looked as if she had seen the person who could save her life. She threw herself at him and curled up in his arms, and her emotions finally settled down.
It seemed she truly regarded Mr. Kain as the one thing she could rely on to stay alive. His chest had become Stellar's safe harbor.
At that moment, Lacus also noticed the Knight suit.
Something about it seemed a little strange.
Did it have emotions too?
She could not help reaching out to touch it with her senses. In the next instant, her consciousness was dragged away to some unknown place.
Then she gained sight.
She saw "herself" piloting the Knight suit in battle.
In the same moment, she understood the truth. These were emotional memories left behind by the Knight suit's former pilots, branded into the machine itself.
The pilot was also a woman. Before her stretched an endless horde of enemies: the Tyranids.
Unlike the Tyranids on the planet Mr. Kain had livestreamed from before, this time the ground was not the only thing covered in swarming bioforms. The entire sky was packed with them as well.
Calling it enough to blot out the heavens would not be an exaggeration.
She could also see colossal flying organisms. Those were probably the Tyranids' warships.
Their enormous bodies pressed through the atmosphere until they almost seemed to be bearing down on the surface. Then something resembling a mouthpart suddenly stabbed into the ground like a mosquito piercing skin to drink blood.
Only this monster was devouring the planet itself.
Humanity's counterattack was just as brutal. It was as though every force they had was launching a suicidal charge.
Suddenly, the image shifted.
Now the Knight suit was fighting Orks, and the pilot had changed to another woman.
It seemed they were defending the homeworld of the Imperium of Man: Terra.
Wasn't that Earth?
No, it seemed it was Earth. It was simply called Terra.
Soon, the fragmented emotional memories shifted again. It was another scene of war, but this time it seemed to be a civil war.
They were taking part in the suppression of rebels.
The image shifted once more.
Countless Knight suits and countless colossal war machines were advancing toward an enormous palace.
Was that the palace of the Emperor of Mankind?
The army entered a strange corridor-like space, crossing into an alternate dimension and clashing with countless monsters.
Were those daemons?
Before the owner of the viewpoint had fully stepped inside, she turned her head and looked up toward a certain place. Someone kept calling out, forbidding her from looking there, but in the end, she could not restrain her curiosity and looked anyway.
What was that thing that entered her sight?
She could not see it clearly. She could only vaguely make out a human figure seated upon a golden mechanical throne.
Strangely, she actually felt that silhouette was somewhat familiar.
(End of Chapter)
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