"Inori, aren't you going to look around a bit?"
"Mm. I'd like to see Kira's work."
"Are you sure that's really okay?"
Kira scratched her head.
Miriallia, beside her, patted her shoulder. "I think Professor Kato will be even happier to see the Songstress of Orb drop by."
"Right, right—and I bet the guys' productivity will shoot up, too!" Tolle gave a thumbs-up.
The door opened, and Tolle stepped in first. "Morning!"
"Ah, you're finally here." Sai poked his head out and handed Kira a disc. "This is extra work from Professor Kato. Honestly—he knows you already have your own assignments, Kira."
"It's fine, I already finished the earlier stuff." Kira scratched her head.
More precisely, Kira had dumped this part of the work onto Inori, and the AI had gone zip and finished it in an instant.
Kira looked at Sai.
It suddenly struck her that Sai had already confessed to Flay; come to think of it, the two of them seemed to have some sort of history...
Sai looked at Kira, then dipped his head slightly.
[???]
[Don't tell me it's the "big bro caught feelings for the little bro, so he confessed to someone else to cut off the attachment" plot]
[Oh no, Flay's the substitute!]
[This is a bootleg ship for sure]
[Kira admires Flay, Sai likes Kira, but to sever his feelings Sai confessed to Flay]
[La la la, I'm not listening—you're all corrupting me!]
Viewers into gravity-genre idols really were a different breed—their minds could leap that far.
They could even force a bootleg love triangle out of this?
Inori the AI found it beyond comprehension.
"Oh, you're here... ah, you—are you Miss Inori?!"
The other student in the room was Kuzzey.
Despite an unbeatable name, he was a thoroughly ordinary guy.
Unlike the others, he was the first to notice Inori, who was just then slipping off her coat.
Could you blame him? The goldfish outfit was too eye-catching.
"Hm?" Another guest standing in the room lifted her head at the name "Inori," the Songstress of Orb.
"Who's that?" Tolle glanced over.
"Oh, one of the professor's guests. Looks a bit like Kira." Sai said it a little sheepishly. "When she first showed up I actually mistook her for Kira, and even ribbed Kira about dyeing her hair."
The person in the cap was Cagalli.
Hearing them ribbing each other, Cagalli looked toward Kira too.
There was a resemblance, sure, but...
Why did this girl seem to have finer skin than her own, softer features, more flowing hair?
And more crucially—did she seem... bigger than her?
"That person yesterday—could it really have been my mistake?"
Cagalli turned her face away. It flushed crimson all at once.
That's right—that blue-haired guy had said something about a "Kira" too, the same name as this girl in front of her.
So he really had just mistaken her for someone else...?
How mortifying.
[Dying of laughter]
[The bootleg ship evaporated instantly; turns out she just mistook her for someone else]
[So cringe I curled my toes hard enough to dig out a three-bed, one-living-room apartment 233]
[This kind of awkward, I get it, I really get it!]
[OP above—what exactly do you "get"? Don't tell me you...?]
[It's not me, I have a friend...]
[Doctor: This "friend" you speak of—wouldn't he happen to be...]
[No no no no!]
The audience was losing it.
Cagalli might not be the lead, but she was a key supporting character, and this blush-and-cringe bit pulled in no small amount of popularity.
At this rate, the ten-million Popularity Points would fill up in roughly twenty or thirty episodes' worth of content.
"What brings you here, Miss Inori?" Sai changed the subject to defuse the awkwardness.
"She came to watch Kira work," Tolle said. "Though our work's pretty boring, honestly."
"No—it's fascinating."
Inori walked over to a piece of exoskeleton equipment in the room.
(Supposedly the very first Gundam was about this size)
"Machines are tools created by humankind, an extension of the human will, and humankind's future," Inori said. "Human evolution is absolutely not a mere upgrade at the genetic level, but a leap in the tier of cognition. Before an intelligent, upright-walking hominid, even the mightiest overlords of land and sea can only grovel on the ground. Genes are a staircase, and so are machines."
Tolle gave a low whistle. "The songstress has some seriously impressive philosophical chops, too."
"It's merely a summary of human behavior."
[ME—CHAN—I—CAL AS—CEN—SION!]
[Exactly! My Gundam is all about mechanical ascension!]
[Newtypes should count as genetic ascension, then]
[Check the GBN news! They're releasing Inori's signature goldfish-dress outfit for sale!]
[How'd the folks next door suddenly get their act together, when did they switch up their strategy?]
[No chance for us, it'll get censored]
[That's the CN server for you]
[I really wanna go to the JP server]
[The CN server will release it too, but they'll definitely wall off everything from chest to navel]
["To keep your womb from catching cold," he really went and thought of that, I'm bawling]
[It's fine, I've seen an uncensor patch]
[Hold up, dude—the game isn't even out and there's already an uncensor patch?]
[If this isn't official-made, I'll livestream myself taking a dump upside down]
[What's the official angle here—why do I feel like they deliberately added some whale-bait spots?]
[Right now I just wanna know when the SEED units drop in-game]
[I want the Black Boss GINN]
[You could actually build a Gundam Deathscythe—it's a "death god" too, works for a cosplay]
[Cosplaying a Gundam Deathscythe as a grunt unit? What kind of upside-down-world nonsense is this 233]
The audience was having a blast, radiating pure "shut up and take my money" energy.
Inori casually switched over to the JP server.
Things were even livelier over here—some even wanted a matching Le Creuset cosplay set, to dress up as this Cosmic Era "Char."
With no "censorship" to worry about here, everyone was cheering and simping like mad.
Which raised the next question: sure, the outfit was getting released—but who was going to wear it?
"Still, the client on this project really is all about the money."
The Road to Ninja client had been dependable. The client here was off-the-charts absurd.
"Machines... things like that only bring war."
Cagalli couldn't help muttering.
She'd come to Heliopolis in the first place precisely because she was worried Orb was jointly developing MS with the Earth Alliance.
Now, hearing Inori's words, she just felt agitated and unsettled.
"Do you believe it's the machines themselves that cause war, Miss Cagalli?"
Inori turned to look at her.
"You know me?!"
Startled, Cagalli put on a guarded expression.
But Inori merely walked up to her, expressionless.
Inori repeated the question. "Do you believe war is caused by machines?"
"Isn't it?! Excessive force—that kind of thing only brings misfortune!" Cagalli clenched her fists.
"No. That only proves your force isn't strong enough yet, Miss Cagalli." Inori said, "War is the continuation of politics, the inevitable outcome once conflict passes the point of reconciliation. Do you... want to run from it?"