Leaving aside the G series clash, the coordination between Siegfried and Mu formed a solid defense that the enemy's three GINNs could not break. The remaining standard Mobius units regrouped, and the ships adjusted their firing positions against Vesalius.
"It should not be shot down now."
The advantage was clear on the GINN's display. Without PS armor, a mistake under 76mm machine gun fire meant instant penetration. Under Siegfried's controlled bursts, the ZAFT side suffered its first disabled unit.
He was about to press the attack and help capture Aegis when everything seemed to go as planned. Then Haro suddenly spoke.
"Haro, Haro, timeline error. Hilde must be corrected."
The red electronic eye began to flicker, and Siegfried froze. The assault rifle showed a locked state, and even the Heavy Slash Blade was unusable. Confusion and fear filled his mind as every weapon system failed at once.
"Haro, check the weapon systems."
"Haro, timeline error. 2044. Repair."
"I want to go home."
The voice was no longer familiar. Before he could react, the enemy GINN raised its rifle and fired. With no weapons and no way to retreat, Siegfried closed in, trying to fight with the machine's limbs.
Instead, the GINN moved on its own. Under Haro's control, it darted around the Nelson class ship, forcing it to cease fire to avoid friendly fire warnings. On the bridge of Archangel, Murrue stared in disbelief.
At that moment, Flay slipped onto the bridge and saw Siegfried's mobile suit using her father's ship as a shield. ZAFT fire continued to strike the hull.
"Please! I apologize! Please save my father! Do not hurt him!"
Her voice pierced the bridge, and the only response was a massive burst of fire.
With the explosion of the Nelson-class, the GINN's weapons returned to green status, and control of the machine came back to Siegfried's hands. No matter how the boy shouted, Haro never answered again, as if nothing strange had happened at all. The cockpit felt suddenly empty, leaving only the alarms and his own breathing.
ZAFT units immediately noticed that the machine that once belonged to Miguel had stopped evading. Without hesitation, they locked it in their sights, and 76mm machine gun rounds poured down in a dense stream. Tracer fire crossed the GINN's field of view again and again.
"Haro, Haro. If you do not fight, you will die."
The lock warning kept screaming inside the cockpit, and Haro finally stopped pretending to be dead. Under its control, the GINN's evasive moves had been even sharper than Siegfried's, yet once its goal was reached, it deliberately handed control back. The familiar electronic voice now sounded different to Siegfried, unclear whether it felt more like mockery or like a cruel joke.
He dodged the hail of bullets on instinct, but his emotions were still trapped in the sense of betrayal by Haro, or rather by Hilde. For a long time, he had believed that Hilde was his only family in this world, someone who shared the same past and the same goals. Now he realized that he himself had been nothing more than a puppet on Hilde's strings.
That ordinary enemy attack seemed to flip a switch deep inside him. When he looked at the opposing mobile suit again, he could faintly sense its next move before it happened. The battlefield slowed in his perception, each action coming a moment too late for his enemy.
"Left. Left. Right. Down."
Long ago on Mendel, he had driven a hover car like this, his feet casually resting on the console. Back then, he thought it was just familiarity with the roads, nothing more. In those days, he and Hilde depended on each other, and the words she said most often were "go home."
At that time, Siegfried did not even know where he truly was, yet he lived without worry. He once thought that spending his whole life like that with Hilde might not be so bad after all. Those memories now felt painfully distant.
"Why did you lie to me!"
The silent scream echoed in his mind, and Hilde's promise from Heliopolis still rang in his ears. Reality answered him with a harsh blow, forcing him to face what he never knew. When had Hilde arrived here, and what had she experienced alone in the isolation of Mendel?
He had no answers, and perhaps he never would. Anger burned through the boy, and the enemy GINN realized that the identical machine before it had completely changed its movement pattern. No matter how the pilot adjusted the sights, the crosshair refused to stay on target.
Panicked shots missed one after another. Siegfried's mobile suit had a fresh magazine loaded, yet he showed no intention of firing. Only when the two machines closed to point-blank range did the Heavy Slash Blade fill the enemy pilot's view, until everything went black.
On the bridge of the Archangel, the development of events left everyone, including Badgiruel, speechless. First, Siegfried had deliberately exposed George Alusta's warship, leading to the destruction of the vanguard until only a single Drake-class remained. Then a ZAFT Nazca-class seized the chance and sank that last Drake-class with a main gun volley.
Finally, Siegfried's GINN slaughtered the enemy mobile suit in a way that could only be described as inhuman. After the Heavy Slash Blade pierced the cockpit, he seemed unwilling to let the pilot die cleanly. He pulled the blade out twice and stabbed through the cockpit twice more before the enemy unit finally exploded.
Immediately after, he locked onto the GINN fighting Mu. Using the same eerie movement, he outpaced even the Mobius Zero's support unit. From above, he stomped on the GINN's shoulder, aimed the assault machine gun at the cockpit hatch, and with a flash of fire, another mobile suit was added to his tally.
With all allied units wiped out, Aegis disengaged from Assault and pulled back. After gaining distance, it transformed into MA mode and withdrew from the battlefield. The fight had begun abruptly and ended just as abruptly, leaving everyone with emotions they could not clearly name.
From start to finish, Flay never even had time to attempt taking Lacus hostage. From the sinking of George Alusta's ship to Siegfried's sudden outburst, only a few minutes had passed. The Archangel group had completely dominated the field.
If not for the Vesalius being a high-speed warship, Badgiruel might have ordered a direct counterattack. Yet many things did not end when the battle did. Usually the first to return, Siegfried came back last this time.
When he opened the hatch, he found everyone, including Marduk, looking at him with strange expressions. No one knew about Haro's betrayal, and no one even knew of Hilde's existence. To them, Siegfried had allowed three allied ships to be destroyed out of anger.