Random Curiosity

Summary:

In Tokyo, Louise shows up for dinner with her mother dressed in a furisode, but to her mother’s displeasure, she’s invited Saji to come along too. Commenting on how Saji has little will power, Louise’s mother tells him to go home, and Saji almost does so if not for Louise refusing to let him leave. Unbeknownst to them, a battle is taking place above the planet, and Setsuna is realizing that his opponents are stalling for time. Sumeragi has figured out that the enemy is trying to capture a Gundam, and indeed, Soma and Sergei are leading a mobile suit force against Allelujah. Due to how strangely the Kyrios is moving and how it isn’t emitting the special particles, Sergei wonders if this is a trap, so he orders his men to use their nets. Once these nets restrain the Kyrios, Soma approaches it, and Allelujah can sense her, giving him a flashback of a Tieren suit from his past. When the sound of Allelujah’s screaming gets broadcast to the Human Reform League forces, Sergei recognizes it as the same voice as the person who helped during the low orbit station gravity block incident.

In trying to figure out why the enemy pilot is suffering like this, Sergei remembers how the scientist had previously told him about the brain wave abnormality in Soma that was likely caused by an outside influence. Back then, the scientist had concluded that if this was the case, then the other party has the same kind of enhanced glial cells as her and uses the same brain waves. Regardless, Sergei now orders the capture of the Kyrios and has it brought back to the fourth transport ship. As a crew working to remove the pilot - who is currently unconscious - Sergei comments on how this must have been a disappointing first mission for Soma, but she claims not to have such feelings because completing the mission is everything to her. Soma then detects a heat source rapidly approaching, and an energy blast suddenly vaporizes two of the nearby Tierens. The Virtue has arrived, and Tieria detects that the Kyrios is inside the enemy transport. Seeing the Virtue take on its firing stance, Sergei wonders if it intends to fire on its ally along with the transport. Indeed, Tieria declares that Allelujah was not a person suitable to be a Gundam Meister and almost shoots if not for Soma flying in and distracting him.

Noticing that Soma’s mobile suit is fast and different from a normal Tieren, Tieria tries to shoot at it instead, but he misses. With the Tieren Taozi keeping the Gundam busy, Sergei orders the transport to another location and authorizes the use of a cutter to remove the Kyrios’ pilot. Soma meanwhile pelts Tieria with fire from close range, and Tieria responds by destroying the Taozi’s right leg. Seeing that Soma is in trouble, Sergei sends his forces to cover her and to capture the Virtue too. Back on the transport, Allelujah can hear Soma’s voice and recognizes it as the voice of the girl from before. He then changes into Hallelujah and breaks the Kyrios free of the restraints inside the transport’s hanger. The Kyrios ends up destroying the entire ship, and when Sergei realizes that it was lost, he blames it on his own miscalculation. Since he refuses to return empty-handed, Sergei pushes his forces to capture the Virtue. They quickly surround the Gundam and restrain it by tying up all of its arms and legs, and they also use a blue goo that hardens on the Virtue’s joints. Despite this, Tieria is still able to point his cannon at the Tieren to his right, however he’s stopped from firing because Soma’s Tieren Taozi kicks the cannon out of the Virtue’s hands.

That still leaves the two shoulder mounted cannons, and those have to be manually restrained by a pair of Tierens. Tieria refuses to give up and tries to power his way out of all this with maximum GN particle output, so Sergei sends Soma to take out the Virtue’s head. In a bind, Tieria’s eyes start glowing, and the Gundam Virtue’s monitor suddenly changes to “GN-004 NADLEEH.” To everyone’s surprise, the various armored part of the Virtue pop off, revealing a slim Gundam with red, hair-like cords attached to its head. Grabbing the Virtue’s two shoulder cannons with the Nadleeh’s hands, Tieria fires and destroys six Tierens in one instant, causing Sergei to order a retreat. Despite his victory though, Tieria is frustrated to tears by what he considers to be a blunder because he had to bring out the Nadleeh at such an early stage. Back at the spot where the Exia and the Dynames are fighting, the pilots see a flare signaling the Tierens to retreat. Even though the immediate fight is now over, Sumeragi orders her crew to stay sharp because they still need to recover the Kyrios and the Virtue.

As they fly away from the battle, Soma reports to Sergei that though her Taozi can’t accelerate for long distances, it can still cruise along. They then detect something approaching them, and it turns out to be the Kyrios. Hallelujah has been searching for Soma who he now knows is the same kind of person as him - someone who’s had their body strengthened and their brain tinkered with. He starts bombarding her with rifle fire, and with Soma in so much danger, one of the other Tieren pilots steps up to protect her so that she and Sergei can escape. This Tieren tackles the Kyrios, but the Kyrios pushes it off and digs its claw into the enemy mobile suit. Soma wants to help the pilot, but Sergei orders her to withdraw, and the two get away. Addressing Hallelujah, the Tieren pilot declares that the time will come when Celestial Being will have to face the consequences. Since the Tieren pilot talks about their country punishing for breaking the peace and order, Hallelujah retorts back by questioning what kind of order a society has if it converts people into soldiers. And because he’s angry that Soma got away, Hallelujah decides to kill this pilot by slowly driving a blade straight into the Tieren’s cockpit.

As the enemy pilot screams, Hallelujah taunts him about begging for his life and crying for his mother. However, he then hears Allelujah’s voice trying to get him to stop this. Hallelujah almost looks like he’s willing to spare the pilot’s life, but he then laughs and finishes the Tieren off. Afterwards, Hallelujah reverts back to being Allelujah, and he questions why Hallelujah wanted to kill someone so much. He wonders if that’s his true nature and feels that if it is, then he’s a heartless beast. Meanwhile, the Ptolemaios arrives to pick up the Virtue, and the crew realizes that it’s the Nadleeh now. When the Kyrios arrives back too, Christina can hear Allelujah crying in the cockpit. Even Sumeragi is incredibly frustrated at how she made a mistake and was helpless. On Earth, Wang Liu-Mei comments on how the Gundams embody the ideal that Aeolia Schenberg wanted, but she questions why the Meisters are nevertheless so imperfect. Elsewhere, Livonze asks Alejandro if it’s okay to leave things this way, and Alejandro replies that he’s an observer, not a perpetrator. All he can do is to continue to watch them, even if they are going down the path to ruin.

Preview:

Weight loss for Gundams anyone? This must be what they meant in last week’s preview about the hidden ability of the Virtue. The sleeker version has a nice hair-like effect because of the red cords, but I think it’d look better if the front ones weren’t there. Actually, I spoiled myself for the appearance of the Nahdeel because I had seen it in the latest issue of Newtype, so this wasn’t a huge shock. On the other hand, the fact that Tieria’s eyes glowed - I thought he was about to go into SEED mode - was a bit startling. He kept addressing Veda, so I wonder if it signifies a direct connection to the AI or something. There was also the weird part where he was switching between all the different forms of “I” (ore wa…boku wa…watashi wa) as he was crying. Looks like Tieria has some self-identification issues too. Of course, it’s not surprising that each pilot has his own problems since character development has always been something I felt Gundam series were particularly good at.

The latter part of the episode put the focus on Allelujah/Hallelujah, and all signs point to him having been developed by the Human Reform League using the same process as with Soma. That doesn’t answer the question of why there are two personalities inside of him though, and maybe next week’s Allelujah-centric episode will shed some light on that. On a separate note, the new OP and ED set to premiere in January have been announced: the OP will be Ash Like Snow by the brilliant green and the ED will be Friends by Stephanie.