"Thank you so much."
Only after pulling Louise back onto the bridge did Saji let out a sigh of relief, expressing his gratitude to the young man before him. Louise, still shaken, gripped Saji's arm tightly, refusing to let go for fear of falling again.
"Be careful around the edge of the bridge. Next time I might not be here to catch you," Shinn said, leaning over to glance at the river below.
"Thank you, really. We'll be more careful," Saji said, scratching his head. "Still, it's hard not to be startled. Who would have thought a Gundam from Celestial Being would suddenly charge into downtown Tokyo... and open fire like that."
A Gundam from Celestial Being... huh?
I see. So that's one of the Captain's disguises. Now the whole world thinks the Penelope belongs to Celestial Being... well, it's not like they seem to mind taking the blame.
"I really don't get them," Saji muttered. "They talk about stopping all wars, yet they're launching attacks everywhere..."
"Staying in one place and shouting slogans won't change anything. You have to take action. That's common sense, isn't it?" Shinn looked at Saji, his expression calm.
"...Eh?"
Saji froze, clearly not expecting Shinn to speak up for Celestial Being. If anything, since their attack on Moralia, "opposing Celestial Being" had become the "politically correct" thing to do.
"I see. You two are still students, right?"
Shinn took one look at Saji and Louise and sensed that "pure, naive" aura about them. They were just like he used to be, before he had been "force-ripened" by cruel reality and a noble cause.
"I'm not making excuses for Celestial Being, but you have to realize that given their philosophy, their intervention in the world's wars will only become more frequent."
Shinn looked toward the nearby skyscraper where a floor was still burning. Below, red fire engines had already arrived.
"Parts lying on the ground won't assemble themselves. You have to use your hands to turn those parts into a working machine."
Hearing Shinn's words, Saji and Louise seemed to have an epiphany. Their naive ideals clashed with the reality Shinn described, leaving them with an indescribable sense of suffocation.
"Hehe, I didn't expect Big Brother to be able to preach like that..."
At that moment, a playful voice came from behind Shinn. "I see. As long as Aniki isn't around, your IQ actually returns to the high ground?"
Mayu popped her head out from behind Stellar, sipping her coffee like a little hamster. Stellar and Lunamaria, meanwhile, had picked up the shopping bags Shinn had dropped.
"Mayu, I'm not an idiot. I just choose not to think sometimes."
Seeing his sister, Shinn scratched his head and walked toward her. The reliable hero image he had just projected while saving Louise collapsed instantly, replaced by the look of a doting, foolish older brother.
"Ah, right—I don't even know your names yet..."
Seeing the coffee in the hands of Mayu, Stellar, and Lunamaria, and then looking at the spilled tea on the ground nearby, Saji realized the situation.
"I'm Saji, and she's Louise... As for the coffee, please let me pay for it."
Saji had some grasp of social etiquette. Moreover, since they had saved Louise, never mind a cup of coffee—he'd have happily treated them to dinner. Worst case, he'd just pick up a few extra part-time shifts.
"About that..."
Shinn was about to decline, but Mayu beat him to it.
"That would be wonderful!"
Mayu stepped out from behind Stellar, waving at Saji and Louise. "My dummy brother is Shinn, I'm Mayu, and these are big sisters Stellar and Lunamaria."
Mayu winked at Saji and Louise, smiling brightly. "So, I'll leave my brother's coffee in your hands!"
However, upon seeing Mayu, Saji was stunned, and even Louise snapped out of her daze.
"So... so cute!"
Louise instinctively covered her mouth with her free hand. Looking at Mayu—who looked like a porcelain doll with a certain "fragile" beauty—Louise felt a protective maternal instinct surge within her.
Witnessing the reaction of the two before her, Mayu Asuka's expression remained unchanged, but she covertly gave Shinn and the others a thumbs-up behind her back.
Free dinner mission: Objective secured!
"Tch... Mayu."
At this point, even Lunamaria, who doted on Mayu quite heavily, couldn't watch any longer. She walked over and gave the girl a light rap on the skull. Although Mayu looked soft and squishy on the surface, the recoil from her subdermal armor made even Lunamaria's Coordinator fingers sting.
"There's no need for compensation..."
Looking at Mayu, who was wearing an "ehehe" expression, Lunamaria rubbed her aching fingers. "It was just a small effort, no need to waste money. It's not very safe around here right now anyway; you two should head back home."
"It's fine, put it on my card."
Louise seemed to have completely recovered from her brush with death, her eyes practically sparkling as she stared at Mayu. As an exchange student from Spain studying in Tokyo, Louise came from a very wealthy family; the cost of a meal was nothing to her.
"But with the network down, will the card readers even work?"
Recalling how his phone signal had dropped to zero earlier, Saji instinctively checked his phone.
"Ah, the network actually recovered... though the signal is pretty weak."
Seeing the one or two bars of signal, Saji finally breathed a sigh of relief. "But... 'The Vanishing of Tokyo'... was the network outage range that large just now?"
"I bet every news headline right now is about Celestial Being attacking Tokyo," Louise said, losing interest after a quick glance at Saji's communicator.
While their attention was drawn to the newly restored network, the group of four—Shinn and his companions—huddled together.
"Mayu, what were you thinking just now?" Lunamaria frowned, looking at the girl. "That didn't seem like you."
"A debt of gratitude is the hardest to repay, Sister Lunamaria," Mayu said, her playful demeanor vanishing as she spoke seriously. "If we don't clear this debt now, it will become a thorn in their hearts. We won't be staying here long, and our identities are completely different from theirs. Rather than letting this favor become a burden to them, it's better to settle it right here."
"After all, paying back a life-saving favor for just a few dozen or hundred bucks? That's a massive bargain."
"I feel like you're using twisted logic, but I can't find a reason to—Oof!"
Shinn started to voice his opinion, proving his IQ was indeed occupying the high ground at the moment, but Mayu's iron fist struck his abdomen, effectively shaving a few meters off that high ground.
Cold sweat instantly broke out on Shinn's forehead after being struck by Mayu's prosthetic fist; he was nearly forced to his knees.
"Since you know, then stop talking about it."
Mayu withdrew her fist, her face once again adorned with a sweet, innocent smile.
-----------------------------------
At that moment, inside a UNION base in the Tokyo area.
"Truly a tragic sight... Can not even the Union Flag Custom contend with the Raven?"
Looking at the wreckage of the six Flags that had been urgently transported back to the Hangar, Billy Katagiri subconsciously frowned.
"Correct. The opponent's tonnage and output are completely beyond ours. However, the blessing in disguise is that every member of the FLAGFIGHTER squad survived the sortie."
Graham Aker, who was once again suffering from soft tissue contusions due to the massive impacts, was leaning on an IV pole. Despite being on a drip, he insisted on limping his way here.
"He likely held back; none of the shots were aimed at the Flag cockpits."
"It seems his primary target is the AEU, and he doesn't want to involve others... but what was the deal with the attack on Tokyo?"
Speaking of this, Billy scratched his head. "Professor Eifman, do you know?"
At that moment, Professor Ralph Eifman, located far away in the UNION's American branch, was participating in the analysis of the wreckage via remote video.
"Celestial Being just released all intelligence data regarding the terrorist network on the internet. Among them was a branch in the Tokyo area consisting of three strongholds."
Professor Eifman swiped his screen, sending the data to Billy.
"It appears the targets were those three strongholds. Celestial Being's public reputation is starting to take a slight turn for the better now."
"In any case, set those matters aside for a moment. What did the analysis of the wreckage reveal, Billy?"
"Based on the collected data analysis, Graham's Flag was kicked to the very brink of falling apart by the Raven. He was simply lucky it held together until the end of the battle; it disintegrated the moment it touched the ground."
At this, Billy sighed, glancing at his perpetually lucky friend beside him.
"I see. It looks like the machine's joints and frame strength need further reinforcement."
Professor Eifman tapped on his keyboard, noting down the proposal.
"There's something else. We found that the electronic instruments in the wreckage all suffered varying degrees of malfunction, especially the cameras... it's as if they were subjected to some kind of intense magnetic field."
At this point, even Billy had to scratch his head, utterly perplexed. "According to our past data, even under the GN particles of the Celestial Being Gundams, these instruments are merely jammed. Once they leave the particle field, they function without issue."
"The malfunction of these instruments is also why the pilots experienced occasional input loss and lag during the combat records."
"Instrument failure, intense magnetic fields, the paralysis of the Tokyo network..."
Eifman analyzed the factors but still couldn't comprehend why the instruments he had specifically sourced would fail. "As I thought, the data isn't intuitive enough. I must perform the analysis in person."
...................