Mobile Suit Gundam: Code Nova [Rewrite]

[Gundam Nova]

 

March 27th, I.J.C 200, Atlas class Ship, The Klasna, activity hub.

 

We continue to walk, passing many places in this little ship, though it seems grand in the eyes of Klara, The little model I make is tugged in Klara’s bag as she will take it with her, I don’t need them, they are far behind me now, though I wonder, why do I feel quite sad at the sight of numerous model that would make me happy?

 

Is it…something to do with my now Hazy memory? I don’t remember much of my time as a child now, back when I was still with my mother, it was…froggy like something was blocking me away from it, though I remember every detail of my life there at the same time, I don’t remember it.

 

I talked to Fu Hua about it before, and she said it was normal for me, a person with trauma to act like this, my brain is concealing my memory, fearing that I would become oversensitive at the trigger and do something harmful to my body, and it would heal with time, hopefully, she is right, but I…want to know more.

 

Though that hardly matters to me now, after all, I have something that would get me through this, I look behind me, seeing Klara marvel at the sight of things she had never seen before, it makes my heart feel full, knowing little something like this will make her happy.

 

Knowing I could see her smile more, I wanted to indulge in it, I wanted to savor it the best I could, because, in my heart, I felt something was wrong, like calm before the storm, something was coming and I fear that I wouldn't be able to stop it.

 

My training isn’t complete, I can’t lead the Ottoman, I can’t even lead a squad of mobile suits, and I can’t kill a person. But…my gut was telling me that something was wrong, why? Why is it telling me that? 

 

I swallowed my dry saliva as my gut was churning painfully. I was being paranoid about the nonexistent threat. But…my gut was never wrong, and I always…always fail to act on it. Is it because of the stress? I don’t know, I feel my headache worse just thinking about how many parties I need to make the connection to the other children, most won’t know about politics but the problem is that children are sensitive to intention, most kids would know that the person thinks differently than they appear.

 

“You ok? You look a bit pale.” Klara asked me in a concerned voice, hm…look like, I started getting too used to her that I couldn’t even maintain myself…is this a good thing? Or a bad thing…

 

“Don’t worry, I'm just not used to places like this, there…a bit too many people here,” I said as I looked around, finding many passersby, this ship…should be able to hold over 200 people, that was the staff include alongside the security, students from the fifth to tenth years would board this ship and go to Military camp that why they need 4 of these ship to have enough to deliver the student to Polemios. But that was not the reason why I was pale in her eyes, and she knew it too, after all…I was never one to shy away from people, deceive them I was but I never shy away from them.

 

“That's not really true, isn’t it? If you are not feeling well, we can come back later, y’know?” She said, her step falling behind me a bit, prompting me to stop myself. 

 

I turn toward her, and smile, as genuinely as I can, though I don’t really feel the smile coming to me for some reason. I should smile when I see her, but somehow…I feel my gut churning more painfully, maybe at the prospect of not seeing her during the camp.

 

“You're right, I think I feel sick, so let us go eat something, my stomach feels quite empty,” I change the topic, and pull her toward the food court, Klara’s hand feels heavy in mine, but I pull through and I sit her down on one of the table. “Is there something you want to eat? They have… Chinese, Japanese, European, and…Asian?” I said, looking at the menu board from a distance, huh, the chicken dish looks good, it says spicy fried chicken with rice.

 

“...Hm…I want…r-ramyun? Eh? Is it different from ramen? I mean, it was just below the ramen.” She said, and I looked, both are noodle dishes, just that one is of Japanese descent while the other is of Korean. 

 

“They said the Ramyun is quite spicy, do you think you have good spice tolerance?” I ask her, look at my phone as I just search for it.

 

“W-wha?! W-well, I don’t have much of a spice tolerance…I will just go with Ramen or whatever.” She said, hiding her face as she was embarrassed about her spice tolerance, though I do find it more cute than anything.

 

“Ok, I will order then.” I get up from the table and walk toward the receptionist at the counter. He instantly straight up, readying to receive my order. “Spicy fried chicken with rice, make it extra spicy, also a bowl of ramen, make them a bit mild, not too strong on the soup.” I scan my phone as a payment and leave a tip, before walking off.

 

“Ah…I forgot about drinks…” Hmm…the distance is a bit far from the table…well since Ramen is a noodle dish, with a hot broth, I think she wants something to cool down. I turned back to the receptionist who was talking to the chef, after looking at the drink menu.

 

“Add 2 melon sodas.” I scan again, leaving a tip once more before walking away, uncaring of the receptionist guy's reaction to the amount of tip I was leaving…huh…Grandfather…is really a bad influence, huh? I should learn from my grandmother more, not him, that guy is rude, he shouldn’t be made an example, except for a practical reason, like politics…or commanding.

 

My sense of money is…quite screwed since I was little already so I can’t blame him for that. I returned to the table, and seeing Klara messing with her phone stirred me to prank her all of a sudden, the feeling…was weird, why would I want to prank her? Is it because I want to see her startle? Or do I want to see her yelp out? Getting a quick and cute scream out of her? Though I would probably make her mad I think I will refrain from it.

 

I sit down on my seat and Klara turns her attention to me the moment I sit down, it seems she just notices me. “So, there is something I want to ask, it is about the camp itself. What would you do there? I know it's Military camp but what is going on at your end?” She asks and I start to think about it. Nothing much would be going on, training mostly, most kids my age will probably drop out since the harsh training is not suited for them, and most will probably change course the next year…

 

“It's just like the name, Military camp, there is nothing much to talk about…if there is something interesting then…every week, of the camp, which is 4 weeks, there will be a duel held every Saturday and Sunday, which will allow other students in a different department to come and watch. As for what we will be doing itself…well, it is training, for both mind and body, we would be subjugated to the harsh training of Earth Military, and those who can’t survive the first week will be sent back to the Academy if they from the good household, they would become a laughing stock for others, for us, it was basically… a show of one power, whether we will survive or not.”

 

Ah…I end up blabbering around… it's not that interesting of a detail though, I think she wants to hear about how itself-

 

“It’s hard, isn’t it? Being an important person's descendants. Having to worry about everything, careful with each step, and not even allowed to make mistakes.” She suddenly said, the words that entered my ear were clear. I looked up at her and saw her eyes…it looked…sad.

 

“You look quite shocked, y’know? You are always tired, and you even puke out a lot, right? Though I hope you are not puking so much anymore, it was terrible for your health.” She said as if what she said was natural.

 

“I…didn’t puke much anymore, sometimes but not much that it becomes inconvenient,” I said, my hand touching my lip a bit, the feeling of puking…I don’t remember them anymore, frankly…I wonder why? I used to puke out all my food almost daily but…after meeting her it suddenly slowed down, now it is just a distant memory.

 

“Ah…why is our date turning to depression talk! Let’s talk about something happy! Right! When was your birthday? I don’t remember you telling me about that before.” She said as her eyes fell on me, at that moment, our food arrived, piping hot. “Wow! Those look good!” she said as she picked up the chopstick and tried to scoop up the noodles but she failed miserably…

 

“W-why?! Why is it so hard?!” Her hand spat around, and the chopsticks were unstable as they constantly slipped out of her hand. I slowly reach my hand out and hold her, stopping her in her tracks.

 

“The trick is to place the end of the chopstick in your pointer finger and thumb, like this,” I slowly adjust her holding stance, “Then use your pointer finger like this.” I let her move her pointer finger, making her chopstick move in response.

 

“Amazing…you know how to use these annoying things?” 

 

“It the basic, since I would meet a lot of people from different nationalities I must know of their customs, and since Asia is a big part of the world and chopsticks are used there a lot, grandmother taught me how to use this,” I answer her question and she nods at me, simply amazed at the fact she could move her chopstick as she wants now.

 

“As for my birthday, it was the 15th of May. and What about you?” I returned her question and she took a moment to think.

 

“W-wait…so your birthday is 15th…in the may?” I nod at her question, and then she suddenly starts counting her fingers, muttering January February, the month generally, “So your birthday is 2 months away, woo…good thing I remember the month, man why do they gotta give it annoying names to remember?” she said as she wiped off her imaginary sweat, it was cute, her little antic, which made her more human than me, “Well, my birthday is on 20th September…wait..your birthday is before me, doesn’t that make me your junior?!” 

 

Her being shocked at something simple…is cute, everything about her makes me think of cute, she is like a cute animal, one you could never tame.

 

“Well, let’s eat first, we don’t want the food to be cold, especially yours since the noodles can and will get soggy, which makes them quite…unappetizing,” I said as I used a fork to pierce the fried chicken, it was quite crispy from the sound. And I heard the sound of slurping, normally it would be rude but I don’t really care much about manners so I ignore it. 

 

“Wow! It’s delicious! Though it was a bit hot.” She said as she covered her mouth, I just smiled at her and continued with my food. Hmm, it got quite the kick to it, the spice in here is not that bad at all.

 

Suddenly. I feel a stare at me, I glance up to see Klara eyeing my food. Curious about my fried chicken. I smile a bit before taking out the chicken and holding it out to her mouth, she coils back in surprise but quickly regains herself as she stares ominously at the red chicken.

 

“Y-you can…eat these?” She asks.

 

“Yes, it is quite sweet and a little hot but not too much.” I lied, it is actually quite hot for an amateur but I want to see her face when she eats it.

 

She squinted her eyes at me, trying to pressure me into saying otherwise but I maintained my cool and just simply smiled at her. She was suspicious, but her curiosity for the food outweighed her suspicion. So slowly, she took a bite out of the chicken and savored the flavor for a bit, before her face turned red as tears fell down her eyes.

 

“Ehehe…Even though you know it is spicy, your gluttonous side couldn’t ignore the food in front of you?” I ate the chicken she hadn’t finished but before I could think much about it, Klara suddenly stared at me, shocked at what happened. “Is there something wrong?” She didn’t answer, instead, she drank all the melon soda in one go. That is definitely not healthy….

 

Hmm…now that I think about it…did she think it was kind of…an indirect kiss? From a piece of chicken? heh…I think this would be a good story to tease her in the future.

 

We continue to eat our food, with Klara suddenly being awkward as hell and I just maintain my cool, once we finish eating Klara finally decides to speak.

 

“Welp, thank you for the food.” She said, rubbing her tummy a bit as she was full.

 

“No problem, I enjoy it, so, should we go back or do you want to go somewhere else?” I ask her, looking at the map, I think there is someplace we haven’t visited yet but the activity hub is mostly done now, if there are things then it is karaoke or the library.

 

“Hmm ... .nope, nothing I want to do now, maybe we could go watch a movie or something but I’m pretty bored now.” She said, movie huh? We could just watch in our room, ah…there is something I haven’t shown her yet.

 

“Let’s go back, there is something I want to show you.” Klara stared at me for a bit before she nodded, walking behind me, I grabbed her hand and pulled her a bit making her speed up a little as we walked back to our room.

 

Just as I work on the MARIA System, I also work on one other project, but truth be told, that project…didn’t go well, until I started working on MARIA that I was starting to see the pattern which can help me. 

 

Quickly getting into our room, I took out my laptop and placed it on the table. Klara was already sitting on one of the chairs, and I took my seat beside her, quickly booting up my laptop, I saw Klara’s eyes widen, knowing what it was.

 

“Is…she woke up?” She asks but I just smile, I want her to see it herself. Once the laptop finished booting up, there stood a single egg. My heart jumped in anticipation, just like that time, she took the form of an egg because she believed it was the beginning. “Why an egg?” Klara asked, but I didn’t answer her. 

 

“Klara, do you remember the reason why she didn’t wake up?”  I ask her, thinking back to when I first took her to my house.

 

“Eh? Isn’t it that she was processing the wrong emotion at that time?” She answered after thinning for a bit.

 

“It is both true and false, but do you know what is the first emotion Human should feel?” She thought for a bit before her eyes widened in realization.

 

“Is it…fear?” 

 

“Bingo, Fear is the primordial Emotion, probably one of the first emotions we would ever feel. In fact, the fear of darkness or the fear of the unknown is what makes us human, it is what makes us evolve to this point. Now, why has she never woken up? The reason is…she can never know fear.”

 

“She never feels real emotion, she never feels happiness or any other kind of emotion. Now, how would we fix that problem?” I look at her, her face full of confusion.

 

“I don’t…know? I mean, the simplest and most straightforward is to program what emotion is like but that is just artificial. And I can’t think of any other way.” She said,

 

“Right, that is what you also thought, isn’t it? I thought of the same thing as you. But it won’t work because just like you said, everything is artificial. So, how would I solve that problem?” I ask her, waiting for her answer but she comes up blank and just shakes her head.

 

“What is it?” 

 

“The solution is luck,” Her face instantly squinted up, looking at me as if she couldn’t believe what I said. “Her, it is so unbelievable, isn’t it? Luck, but it is true. My luck leads me to The MARIA system. Inside the MARIA, I found one program that it hadn’t used, or rather, been sealed away.” I got up from the chair and walked toward my Bags, searching for one thing. Once I found it, I pulled it out, revealing to Klara, a headgear.

 

“The program is called…Link, allows the pilot to insert his information into the program itself. If you want to put it more simply then, think of the information inside our brain, as a soul and I would put my soul inside a machine.”  I sat down next to her. She probably wonders why I told her about this.

 

“Klara…Do you know how humans keep progressing?” I ask her as I plug it into the laptop, I watch as the headgear comes to life, as light slowly fills up the line of headgear, this was something I asked Jenna to make, normally she wouldn’t be able to make this in just one night, but due to the blueprint I found alongside the program, I was able to have her make it. Of course, knowing what it could do, she was hesitant but I was basically ‘forcing’ her, in my words.

 

Of course, she wouldn’t want to build this thing…

 

“Huh? Why does it matter? Isn’t it because we invent things?” She said as if it was natural.

 

“That right, our mind is much more complex than the like of an animal, we survive by inventing spears to hunt, fire to cook, and cloth for comfort in the chilliest of the night. Now, we have to go beyond the round thing that is Earth. So why do we continue to strive for even higher? Now that we reach it?”

She stared at me for a bit but she didn’t answer. So I will answer for her. “Because human curiosity never ends.” I put on the headgear and turned it on, before Klara could stop me, I was already deep within the digital sea.