[I'm dead]
[He's been labeled a pickup artist now]
[I thought we were getting a wholesome reunion scene—but no, it's a thunderstruck meet-cute??]
[It's a childhood friend reunion, technically, but they missed each other completely]
[Wait, are these two actually the ship here?]
[They do kind of look alike—though this one's not as pretty as Kira]
[Hold on—why is she also dressed like a boy??]
[That's not crossdressing, that's just bad fashion sense]
[Oh my god. If their horrible taste in clothes is a genetic trait, they might actually be related. 2333]
[You know, maybe don't say that]
The audience was, of course, just riffing on a joke.
Linking two unrelated things through tenuous logic—that was peak viewer entertainment.
—Though if they ever found out that this girl and Kira were actually blood sisters, they'd lose their minds for real.
Cagalli.
Kira's sister.
During the embryonic development stage, Kira had been transferred to an external artificial incubation environment—and the second embryo, the one left unmodified, became Cagalli. So biologically, they were real sisters.
But Kira had been adopted by the Yamato family, while Cagalli was taken in by the Athha family—the leadership of Orb—and neither of them knew the other existed.
After Cagalli heard that Orb was secretly collaborating with the Earth Alliance to develop new Mobile Suits, she'd disguised herself and come to Heliopolis to investigate firsthand—searching for proof. In her view, partnering with the Alliance was a betrayal of Orb's neutrality.
She'd only just arrived, and some obnoxious guy had already grabbed her wrist.
And he'd used the oldest trick in the book—"You look like someone I know." That line had been wearing thin since the old AD calendar.
"I'm sorry. You really do look like a friend of mine." Athrun wanted to sink into the ground.
His best friend had apparently become a girl. He'd just crashed into a total stranger thinking she was someone else. His brain was actively rejecting the situation.
Meanwhile, just around the corner:
"Is this good?" Kira had bought ice cream and handed a cup to Inori.
"Thank you. What's this?"
Inori noticed a croquette sitting alongside the cup.
"Oh—the shop owner said to give it to you." Kira explained.
Inori looked up.
"Keep it up, Songstress!" The shop owner was a middle-aged man, and his smile held no ulterior motive—just the kind of warm, uncomplicated fondness an adult has for a young person doing something they love.
Inori bowed deeply to him, then walked out the other side of the shop with Kira.
[Hahaha they just slipped out the other exit]
[Okay, this dramatic near-miss is making my stomach hurt—but why am I laughing so much?]
[Because this isn't that kind of love story]
[I was wrong. This isn't idol Gundam. This is romantic-comedy Gundam.]
[Making oink noises because I can't stop laughing]
The chaos-gremlin audience struck again, sending another wave of tens of thousands of Popularity Points into the count.
Sacrificing a little personal fame now and then was fine. The key metric was the film itself—once it hit ten million Popularity Points, that milestone meant new markets would open to the Stage. When that happened, the Road to Ninja film footage could be broadcast here too. Even at a tenth of the viewership, that would translate into substantial Popularity Points and new fans.
Cagalli's appearance had been Inori's arrangement, of course.
More precisely, Inori had worked it out in the background—manipulating traffic signals and navigation data to maneuver Cagalli into position at just the right moment.
The invisible work of a director was exhausting. That was just how it went.
What Inori hadn't anticipated was Athrun grabbing Cagalli by the wrist—or being immediately branded a pickup artist.
But the comedic chemistry between these two wasn't bad at all. Worth keeping an eye on.
"Please excuse us. My friend was having dinner with us—he spotted who he thought was an old friend and got a little carried away." Nicol and Yzak, noticing the commotion outside, had stepped out to find Athrun tangled up with a girl.
Nicol had read the situation in an instant and moved to intervene.
"Tch." Cagalli wasn't going to drag it out. She had bigger things on her mind, and this annoyance wasn't worth the energy.
"Next time, open your eyes properly before grabbing someone." Cagalli dropped that parting shot, turned on her heel, and walked away. "I hope we never meet again."
"You're a lifesaver. Nicol, seriously—thank you."
Athrun exhaled.
"You've been distracted since we arrived, Athrun. Did you run into someone you know?" Nicol asked.
"Yeah. She… he… no, anyway—my friend's name is Kira. A Coordinator. The kind of person who always makes you worry about them—gentle to a fault, soft-hearted."
For some reason, the client had chosen this moment to insert a flashback.
The screen filled with young Kira and young Athrun.
This wasn't in the source material.
The production team, emboldened by their ninety-minute runtime, was clearly adding scenes wherever they pleased.
How to describe the dynamic between Athrun and Kira as children…
[An overprotective babysitter and a timid little animal?]
[That tracks. Kira's energy is very small-creature.]
[Oh—is Athrun actually worried about Kira?]
[Don't tell me these two are the Shiina Taki and Takamatsu Tomori pair?]
[Can MyGO even be beaten at this point lol]
[Everyone's been calibrated to MyGO!!!! this season, so everything looks like it could go toe-to-toe with it. Ave Mujica is the only real competition.]
[Shame Athrun isn't a girl—otherwise the idol duo debut would write itself]
[Wait doesn't Athrun have a fiancée? What if Athrun cross-dressed and they debuted as a duo?]
[Bro, keep it together—this is a Gundam set]
[I'm a little nervous. It's been so lighthearted—that usually means something big is coming.]
[In idol dramas, fan-favorite characters don't die. That's the genre rule.]
[They can't kill you until they've squeezed every last drop of story out of you]
[After that you get a resurrection arc just to be squeezed dry one more time]
[You people are terrible!]
The chaos-gremlin audience thrived.
"Athrun, I hope you haven't forgotten why we're actually here!" Yzak had finally hit his limit.
Once the street had cleared, the three of them retreated to the hotel they were using as their base. Yzak started in immediately with a complete dressing-down.
"Bottom line—if this operation goes sideways tomorrow, that's on you. You'll have hell to pay."
"I'll complete the mission."
On that point, Athrun was steady.
He wasn't certain the person he'd glimpsed was Kira. But he was a ZAFT soldier, and he had a job to do.
"They're all civilians. Our operation shouldn't touch her. And if it really is Kira—she can come to PLANT afterward…"
Athrun made up his mind.
(Cagalli really doesn't hold a candle to Kira)