Chapter 275: Encounter 3
Tolle flicked Yzak hard on the forehead, making him yelp in pain. "Ow—! Hey, you bastard, what are you doing?!"
But Tolle had no intention of going easy on him. He scolded, "If I were your father, I'd beat you half to death first. You never let anyone finish talking—why jump in blindly?"
Then he deliberately turned toward Dearka and said, "Uh, right, that… Di-ya-gou, where was I just now?"
Feeling like he couldn't beat Tolle anyway, Dearka could only purse his lips and answer, "You were saying not to blame the Earth Alliance."
"Mm, very good, thank you, Di-ya-gou. So, back to what I was saying—Blue Cosmos, you know who they are, right?"
Athrun and the others nodded. "Yeah, we know."
"Good, then that makes it easier. They're the puppeteers behind everything.
The conflict between Naturals and Coordinators was stirred up—and wholly orchestrated—by them.
Those inhumane operations, the nuclear strike on Junius 7, the Cyclops System at the Endymion Crater—those were all their handiwork.
So they're the ones who should be our real enemy!"
Athrun and Nicol both looked devastated at the mention of the nuclear attack on Junius 7.
Only Dearka muttered in dissatisfaction, "So whatever you say is the truth now, huh? But whether it's you or us, none of us have the authority to decide any of this. That's for the higher-ups. So saying all this is pointless."
Tolle immediately flicked his forehead too, making Dearka cry out in pain.
Hearing his pained yell actually eased Tolle's irritation a little.
"Anyway, I've said everything I want to say. Ah—much better."
Nicol stood beside them, full of envy. He wanted to speak up too, but didn't dare. He was worried that saying anything might disrupt Tolle's plans, especially after being talked to—and "reconditioned"—by him. Now he trusted Tolle completely.
Tolle didn't bother continuing the conversation. Instead, he pointed toward a factory and said to Athrun, "Athrun, Kira's over there. If you go before sunset, you might run into him."
Then Tolle shook hands with Nicol, updating the neo DG cells in his body just in case, and said, "Nicol, let's talk more another time."
Next, he turned to Yzak and Dearka. "Alright, I'm heading out. I won't disturb you any longer. See you on the battlefield."
Yzak turned his head aside proudly. "Hmph, don't think we'll show you any mercy in battle. I'll kill you myself."
Dearka just spread his hands and stayed silent, afraid Tolle would flick him again. He had a strong feeling Tolle was specifically targeting him.
Tolle waved a hand behind him as he walked away.
Once he was far enough, Mina called. "How did the talk go?"
"Great. The seeds are planted—now we just wait for them to sprout."
"Good. Stay safe. I'm hanging up, bye."
"I will. Bye."
And just like that, their short call ended.
Then Tolle resumed his day of high-speed power-transferring training.
As sunset approached, Tolle found Kira and greeted him.
"Kira, done with work yet?"
"Mm, Tolle—not yet. The Natural-use MS operating system is already finished.
But now I have to code several more versions of the OS, and a few are already almost on par with the Coordinator-specific versions. I'm exhausted."
"Yeah, same here. I've got a whole bunch of trainees to teach MS piloting one-on-one. And now that I'm almost done with the girls' group, it's mostly guys left. Being an instructor isn't easy."
Kira lowered his voice. "Is this the thing you told me about before? I even signed a confidentiality agreement. Is it really that impressive?"
Tolle also lowered his voice. "Of course. But we still have to stick to the official story. If the Earth Alliance finds out, I'm done for—they'll probably dissect me."
"It won't be that extreme, right?"
"I think it will. Captain Murrue and the others wouldn't, but if the Alaska base people find out, who knows? And you've seen their ridiculous orders. Who knows what awful things they're doing behind the scenes?
They're treating the Archangel and Strike like bait to stall ZAFT.
If they don't even care about their own best weapons, think how they'd treat volunteer soldiers like us.
So please keep this secret, Kira. I'm counting on you."
"Don't worry, Tolle. I won't tell anyone."
"Thanks, Kira." Tolle leaned closer to his ear and whispered, "Kira, guess who I ran into in the city today?"
"Who? Do you have to be so mysterious?"
"You'll never guess…"
Just then, the mechanical bird, Torii, perched on Kira's shoulder, suddenly took off and flew toward the outside of the Morgenröte factory.
Tolle immediately understood: Athrun and the others—just as predicted—had come near the factory.
He and Kira hurriedly ran after it.
As always, Torii found Athrun first and perched on his hand.
Athrun stared at it in surprise, then saw Tolle jogging up behind Kira through the fence.
"Ah, this mechanical bird belongs to that guy… huh? Huh—!" Nicol, who had just started speaking, froze in shock when he saw Tolle coming up behind Kira.
Yzak, gritting his teeth at the sight of Tolle, could only hold back. They couldn't risk alerting nearby military units.
Kira also noticed Athrun on the other side of the fence. With Torii in hand, he walked toward him slowly, looking dazed.
Athrun gently held out his hand with Torii on it, but he forced himself to restrain his emotions and asked nervously, "This… it's yours, right?"
"Yes. Thank you." Equally tense, Kira stiffly held out his hand, and Torii returned to him automatically.
The two of them stared at each other, full of emotion, neither knowing what to say.