The audience had indeed grasped the key point.
That's right—Inori had performed "input reading."
—The OS was one she'd written herself; what's wrong with leaving a backdoor in it?
If she wanted, Inori could even interfere with those four Gundams to a certain degree.
But there'd be no need for that.
It would ruin the flow of the story.
This was Kira's moment to shine—no need to do anything superfluous.
Yzak, you all just go ahead and be the Strike's stepping stones!
"How can there be someone like this…"
Dearka had been firing at the Strike the whole time, yet it felt like he simply couldn't land a hit.
It was like a shooting game where you've already got the enemy dead center in your scope, you take the shot with total confidence—only to fire into empty air.
—I was aiming right at it!
[Weirdly, I think the gray-black Strike is cooler than that classic protagonist blue-and-white.]
[But it's got zero defense.]
[As long as it doesn't get hit, none of that matters!]
[Inori—she's a woman who could have been a mother to me!]
[Chars, all of you cool it. This is where I should step in!]
[Thought you had some grand point to make, turns out you just wanted to hog her!]
[To this day we still don't understand just how strong the Prologue Boss really is.]
[How strong? Just look—right from the start of the story she got straight-up called the Grim Reaper and got studied inside and out. That tells you how strong.]
[Actually, compare them and you'll notice—back in the Prologue she struggled badly in the one-on-one, but here she's fighting one-against-four with room to spare.]
[Adding to that—she also pulled off a bare-handed blade catch.]
[Gundam martial art—Disarm!]
[Dying, lmao.]
"That child's outfit… the Songstress of Orb?!"
The situation outside had settled down a little.
Only now did Murrue finally have the presence of mind to notice other things.
Inori's bizarre goldfish getup really was eye-catching.
"But what is this child even doing?"
A moment ago Kira rewriting the code live had already been off the charts, and now Kira had taken both hands off the keyboard yet could still control the Strike—that was bizarre too.
No—this rice-cooker robot that had suddenly appeared before her, and the screen the rice-cooker was projecting, were already strange enough.
"Could it be… stage equipment?"
This kind of projection device and camera looked a lot like the sort of thing you'd use at a concert.
But Murrue couldn't figure out how Kira was controlling the Strike in that posture.
"Could it be… through Songstress-san?"
But why would that even work!
Someone tell me—why does a thing like a human OS exist in this world?!
While Murrue was puzzling over it, the expressions on ZAFT's four-man squad were just as remarkable.
"Yzak got disarmed!" Athrun fired as well, but his attack was once again effortlessly evaded.
No—calling it an evasion was too generous. It was clearly just a slight shift, like an idle step on a stroll.
"What in the world is with that machine?!"
Yzak's face darkened as he studied this infuriating opponent.
"Athrun!"
And at that very moment another GINN came flying in from the distance.
"Why are you all still here?!"
"Miguel!"
The one piloting this MS was one of Athrun's squadmates, Miguel Ayman.
"Great, another one's shown up." Murrue wiped away sweat.
There were more and more enemies now—was this really going to be fine?
[After watching that Boss GINN from before, seeing this cannon-fodder GINN now, the gap is just too huge.]
[I want to know—which is stronger, a Zaku or a GINN?]
[Hard to say—their power sources aren't even the same.]
[How come everything here feels like it's battery-powered? Where's the nuclear power?]
[Fun fact: actually in our real world, nuclear power is mainly good for stability. When you need high-output bursts, nuclear power isn't really up to it—you need big batteries or big capacitors as buffers.]
"That MS is being piloted by an Alliance pilot!" Nicol said. "Be careful—that machine's pilot is bizarre!"
"Even the four of you together aren't a match for it?"
Miguel refused to believe it, and tried to press the attack with his assault rifle.
"Nani?!"
But at that moment the Strike suddenly accelerated, dropped into a slide, sheared clean through the GINN's arm, then caught the falling assault rifle in one smooth motion.
"Miguel!" Athrun charged in with the Aegis, trying to cover him.
"I'll handle the trajectory correction—Kira, you just hold down the trigger!"
"Got it!"
Kira aimed straight at the Aegis and pulled the trigger.
Ammunition poured out.
For a Gundam with Phase Shift armor, kinetic rounds naturally had no effect.
And the Aegis was a close-combat specialist—that red Phase Shift armor was already in its strongest defensive state.
"What's going on?!"
The Aegis's advance was stalled.
Every round came for the cameras, each one striking the Aegis's cameras with pinpoint precision.
It was practically like getting punched in the face over and over, his movements interfered with at every turn.
"No lock-on?!"
Athrun checked the Aegis's systems—the lock-on system hadn't sent any alert.
"You're going by naked-eye estimation alone?! You monster!" Athrun understood now.
[He's done for, Amuro's done for.]
[Dying, Amuro got hard-countered.]
[Who's Amuro? First time watching Gundam here.]
[Amuro Ray of the Universal Century. Protagonist of the original Gundam. One of his classic tactics is "baiting the lock-on."]
[What even is lock-on?]
[Simply put, when you detect the enemy suddenly cranking up their radar power to scan you, you know for sure you've been locked on. The specifics are a bit more complicated, though—the danmaku has a character limit, I'll post an explainer thread later.]
[Thanks, boss!]
"But I can still do this!"
Athrun switched to the sub-camera.
But almost the instant he did, the rounds started peppering the sub-camera too.
On Athrun's screen, he could see almost nothing.
"Athrun, fall back, quick!"
Nicol's voice came over the comms.
Athrun instinctively retreated, but the armor in front was still scored by the Strike's beam saber.
"Retreat, Athrun!" Dearka had the clearest view of the battlefield from his current position.
They'd been completely suppressed by a single machine.
"Execute Plan D, Athrun. Bringing the intel on this machine back is what matters more right now." Yzak had cooled down too.
"But…" Athrun still wanted to say something, but the Aegis's low-power alarm had already begun to blare.
The Aegis had the strongest Phase Shift armor, but its power consumption was higher too—and it had been struck by kinetic rounds again and again.
The Aegis's charge had now dropped below twenty percent.
"Retreat."
Athrun had no choice but to pull back now.
Dearka immediately loosed a covering barrage at the Strike, then began to withdraw.
And the Strike reactivated its Phase Shift armor, standing amid the smoke and dust without giving chase…