The first time they met was toward the end of the First War, in the bridge of the Vesalius.
There would be a new arrival, Yzak had been told, to replace the losses of his team. There was no way that a ship with only one pilot could be a viable force anyway. He was still seething with anger at his commander's statement. That damned masked face and his knowing smile, saying that he, Yzak Joule, second chair at the military academy, a ZAFT red, was worth absolutely nothing alone.
He could go on fighting, even if he were the only one left. He was strong enough to defeat those infidels and to avenge his teammates…
Instantly, he felt a pang of pain in his heart. Rusty was killed in Heliopolis. Nicol, the innocent 15-year old kid, was brutally murdered by the Strike. Athrun blew himself up trying to avenge Nicol, and while he was later confirmed to have survived, he went AWOL soon after. And Dearka. Dearka had gone MIA right after a battle with the Archangel, and everyone knew that MIA really meant he was dead. Yzak Joule was the only remaining piece of the original Creuset team.
And nothing would ever be enough to replace his able comrades and friends.
He knew, deep down, that the administration was right. He was useless alone. Hell, he was useless back then, when he could not do anything but watch his comrades die. If he had been able to kill the Strike. If he was even a split second faster, if he were the slightest bit stronger…but he wasn't, and they were gone.
The door to the bridge slid open, and Yzak Joule was momentarily paralyzed by what he saw.
It was a girl. The replacement was some stupid girl who did not look old enough to be out in the battlefield to begin with.
"Shiho Hahnenfuss, reporting duty."
His blood ran cold. He could not believe that the administration thought she would be enough to fill the large, gaping hole left by his comrades. Something exploded inside of him.
"You've got to be kidding me! She's just a fucking girl! A girl, for Christ's sake… What the hell can she do out in the battlefield? Do they realize we're fighting a war here?"
He took a breath to continue his angry tirade, but he was silenced by the girl's sharp glare. There was fire in her eyes –the kind of fire that was cold, angry, destructive. The kind of fire that made you savage. The fire that, all the while, kept eating away your soul.
There was no way Yzak could miss it; it was the same flame he saw in his eyes every time he looked into a mirror. The anger, bitterness, helplessness of being caught in the middle of a war he did not start. The last flicker of any normal human emotion left in him. The fire he was terrified of, because he knew, deep down, that it would eventually consume him whole.
And yet, somehow, it took his breath away as it danced in her eyes.
"Hold your fucking tongue, you chauvinist pig. If you were competent enough, then I wouldn't be here in the first place."
Shock quickly turned into hate as her spiteful words reached his ears. Yes, hate. Hate for someone who could not possibly be more competent than him, but scorned him anyway. She was too much like him. Too young, too fragile, too weak… Everything about himself that he hated with a passion.
How else could he explain the growing pit inside his stomach?
"I hope you survive your first engagement, you little twat."
"And I hope you'll be lucky enough to escape the STRIKE next time, bastard."
It did not help that her eyes were the same shade of violet as Dearka's. Yzak clenched his fist and stormed out of the bridge.
It was war from then on. Yzak hated her, although he was not sure if this violent reaction was caused because she was trying to replace Dearka and Nicol and Athrun and Rusty, or because she was a stupid girl, or because she was the first person he had ever met who did not seem the tiniest bit alarmed by his temper. No. In fact, she hated him back with as much passion, if not more, and she was every bit as explosive as he was. Every single time they came face-to-face in the ship, they would end up screaming at each other so loudly that occasionally, Le Creuset himself had to step in.
After a few small skirmishes with the OMNI, even he had to admit that she was more than a decent pilot. In fact, she probably was better than Rusty or Dearka. But what did that even mean? Yzak himself was a better pilot than Rusty or Dearka, but he was still incompetent and useless.
And she continued to remind him of everything he'd lost and the part of him that was slowly being consumed by vengeance.