"Yuzuriha-san."
Murrue had been on her way to find Kira when she spotted Yuzuriha Inori halfway there.
Inori was crouched on the floor, staring intently at that strange rice-cooker-shaped robot.
Murrue vaguely recalled that it was some sort of... Stage device?
[Little Inori's so cute]
[Saikō]
[Off-duty Inori is such an adorable little airhead]
[The blank-faced kuudere—now that's the true path]
[Cagalli: Say that one more time?!]
[I hereby declare: Inori is my waifu!]
"Hello, Captain Ramius," Inori said as she rose to her feet.
Kira was still off talking with Cagalli, so Inori exchanged a few words with Murrue here, delaying her a little.
Inori hadn't expected the Stage to actually cut her a shot of screen time.
Saved her a camera card, at least.
Murrue hadn't quite decided what she wanted to say. She'd meant to ask where Kira was, but her eyes fell on the outfit Kira had been wearing.
"That skintight suit Kira has on—what is it? It looked a little like a pilot suit."
"An MUV Protective Suit," Inori said.
"MUV...?" Murrue was a technician herself, and she was certain she'd never heard the name.
"Modular Unison VitalSuit. MUV Protective Suit for short," Inori explained. "A spacesuit that can withstand considerable G-force acceleration and lets you modularly install all kinds of equipment and devices."
"Forgive me—I'm a researcher too. Our fields may not overlap, but I've never heard of technology like this."
Back when they were developing the MS, Murrue's team had done research on pilot suits as well.
But this outfit didn't seem to be an ordinary anti-G suit either.
"I custom-built it for Kira."
—And it cost me a full ten thousand Popularity Points, too.
Murrue had only asked in passing, but now that she'd heard Inori's answer, she turned serious.
"When you piloted the Strike together with Kira, was that your own technology as well?"
Murrue didn't doubt for a second that a songstress could develop technology.
Coordinators were simply that absurd.
The world's very first Coordinator had been an Olympic champion, a researcher, a pilot, and an astronaut all at once.
"I can only perform at my best when I'm together with Kira."
"That life-support suit—could you tell me more about it?" Murrue kept probing.
"The MUV Protective Suit has two parts. The inner component is a full-coverage latex bodysuit, the MUV-Core," Inori explained. "The letters carry their own separate meanings here. M stands for Molecular Adaptive—a 'molecular-adaptive latex material' that dynamically conforms to the pilot's body surface through nanoscale fibers, combining breathability with vacuum sealing. The material embeds a bio-sensor network that monitors vital signs in real time, such as heart rate and neural electrical signals."
"U stands for Unison Interface. Through the conductive-gel layer of the latex making contact with the pilot's skin, the neural-sync interface reinforces spatial-awareness feedback, strengthens synchronization with me, and substitutes for the body's own neural current transmission—reducing latency, among other functions."
"V stands for Vascular Support. The MUV-Core has a built-in circulatory life-support system. Through external modular components it can handle bodily cleaning, nutrient injection, metabolic processing, and more. It's also effective against blood pooling and cerebral hypoxia caused by high G-forces. Over long stretches of wear in a space environment, it can even use electrical stimulation to keep the muscles active."
[It's all Greek to me]
[You're telling me Inori developed this herself?]
[Bro, highlight this part: "strengthens synchronization with me."]
[Grass (a type of exclamation), it was buried in a mountain of jargon—I didn't even catch it]
[What does "spatial-awareness feedback" mean? Holy crap, an artificial Newtype suit???]
[Probably not, right?]
[She already said it's Kira-exclusive—maybe it's just her own innate talent]
[Substitutes for the body's own neural current transmission to cut latency? I kind of get it, and I kind of don't]
[Our movement commands travel from the brain through the nerves to the muscles. That's what the MUV-Core replaces. Simply put, it swaps a national highway for a bullet train, copper wire for a superconductor—get it?]
[Boss, that's impressive!]
[Bowing down!]
And that was only the core function of the inner layer.
The external modular design could pull off far more.
Anyone else, hearing Inori rattle all this off, would have been just as lost as the audience—it might as well have been a foreign language.
But Murrue understood the implications.
"Can a Natural use this technology?"
Latency reduction and all those assist functions—Murrue's sharp instincts told her this gear seemed capable of helping someone pilot an MS.
A Natural fell short of a Coordinator in reaction speed, motor ability, and resistance to high G-forces—but this suit seemed like it could let a Natural "shore up the gaps" too.
"It was developed for Kira. If the Strike had more interface hardware, the system could be developed further."
The Strike right now was a "single-seater," but some things could be changed.
For one, if it could be refitted into one of those 360-degree panoramic cockpits, the visuals and the staging would come out far better.
"The Strike, hm?" Murrue sank into thought.
"The Strike's control platform severely holds back Kira's performance. She needs me to act as the intermediary before her control headroom can be pushed any further. But that compromises my own performance."
[The gap between the two sides is night and day]
[The protagonist crew's playing on hell mode, but these two are actually the BOSS, aren't they]
[The White Devil of the Federation, huh, lol]
[Are all the Federation's MS monsters?!]
[Fair's fair, ZAFT's got four Gundams too]
[Yeah, but over there the pilots hold the Gundams back—here the Gundam holds the pilot back]
[Can't really put it that way—what's holding her back is the input hardware]
[Excuse me, are you asking about: the Psycho-Frame?]
Having teased another wave out of the danmaku, Inori went on: "If you want Kira to keep piloting the Strike, then please have the Strike's cockpit further refitted and reinforced. It would push Kira's combat ability even higher."
"Mm. I understand." Murrue was a little curious. "You don't object to Kira piloting the Strike?"
"The Strike's cockpit is the safest place there is, and the Strike is an important tool for keeping her safe," Inori said, then paused. "Unless the Archangel grants me authorization."
—Then I'll show you all exactly what it means for a father to beat his son.
"Authorization..."
Murrue found it odd. Inori had used that word before too.
Authorization... authorization of what?
And what would such authorization even accomplish?
The Archangel?
Could she actually exert influence over the Archangel?
"Ah, Yuzuriha-san! And, uh, that Alliance woman!"
As the two of them were talking, Cagalli and Kira came walking over together from the other side.
Before Murrue could go looking for Kira, Kira had come straight to her instead.