"Flay?" Kira said, trying to rouse her back to consciousness but to no avail. "Flay?" He tried shaking her body a bit. "FLAY?" The shaking became more frantic. "FLAY! WAKE UP!"
Kira's voice attracted a medic nearby who came to look and, upon seeing Flay's condition, panicked and called for help. Her colleagues quickly swarmed her, assessing her vital signs and checking her injury. From the side, Kira could hear clips of conversation that she required urgent medical attention. One thing led to another, and the assembled team quickly brought Flay to a bed and quickly connected a plethora of tubes, wires, and equipment to her.
"It's better for you to wait outside," a medic said to Kira, as he ushered the distraught young man out.
As the door to the medical room closes, Kira dropped to the floor next to it and hunkered down, barely holding himself together as regret, guilt and heartache tore into his psyche. He put his hands on his face and let out a low, pained growl as tears flowed out of his eyes.
He should have fought harder. He knew he could overwhelm Athrun with little effort. There were so many times that he could have ended the battle and incapacitate the mobile suit, but didn't, because he didn't want to risk his friend being captured. There were even a few instances when he had a clear shot at the cockpit but let the chances pass by without pressing the trigger. Kira went through his memories, trying to recall each instance where he had the chance to defeat Athrun but didn't.
What made him feel worse was that before the battle, Flay met him to say something, but he dismissed her.
Kira was moving toward the hangar where Strike was located, his mind was busy thinking about the possibility of facing Athrun or his friend's colleagues. It was at a junction where he met Flay, already decked out in her space suit. "Kira," Flay said as she held her hands nervously, eyes darting away. "I have something to tell you,"
"Sorry, we'll talk later," Kira said while smiling softly, "after I return,"
The words he said were supposed to reassure her, but it had an unintended consequence. Her expression fell, but then she tried to put on a brave smile. "Sorry for troubling you,"
Despite the situation they're facing, Kira somehow felt that if he walked away right and then, something bad would happen and he would undo any progress that he had made to her opening to him. Not knowing what to do, he followed his heart. He closed their distance, put his hands on her shoulders, and leaned in for a kiss.
After he broke the kiss, he looked at her in the eyes and said, "I promise I will come back this time,"
"This time?" Flay, eyes dilated, said absently.
He chuckled. "All the time," He pecked her lips. "As long as I get to kiss these lips," he said as he put a hand on her cheek and she leaned toward it, closing her eyes. "So will you let me?"
Flay slowly smiled. "I'll wait,"
"See you later,"
He had been so preoccupied with his personal concerns that he never made time to hear hers and when push came to shove, he failed, even though he said it was going to be alright, because he was there. It was excruciating to see Flay's calm and serene expression, even though she was bleeding out right in front of his very eyes. She said nothing, even though she had the right to demand his reason for not fighting at his very best; she was supposed to be angry at him because he couldn't find it in his heart to fight against his fellow Coordinators.
Kira swallowed a sob and growled in anguish.
"Do you have boo boo?" a girl's voice suddenly invaded his forced solitude.
Kira raised his hand to see a young blonde girl crouching, so that she was at his eye level, looking at him curiously. She was sucking a lollipop, judging from the white stem sticking out of her mouth.
"Do you have boo boo?" the girl repeated. When he didn't answer, the girl made a face as if understanding something and patted his head. "I don't know you, so I'll just pat it and make it better," she said as she continued patting his head.
"Hey, stop it!" a male voice said. "Don't go pat people's head!"
Despite feeling down, Kira turned toward the speaker. Just like the girl, the speaker was a man around his age, no, a boy. What struck Kira was the intensity in viridescent eyes looking at him. There was another boy next to him, with light cobalt hair, who was looking at him with disdain.
"Don't know him," the girl said while pointing at Kira. "A stranger,"
"That's not what I meant. Don't go patting people's head or kissing people's boo boo to make it better!"
"Yeah, Bro has a point. In this guy's case, I'm supposed to make his boo boo bigger," the one next to him said in a sneering manner while cracking his knuckle.
"Stop it," the first boy said, "We have our order. Don't force me to discipline you,"
The second boy clicked his tongue. "You're not fun," he said before approaching the girl, grabbed the collar and pulled her away. "Come, Stellar. Don't go around picking up mangy stray dog,"
"He's not a dog," the girl named Stellar said, arms slowly flailing, even as she and the boy moved away.
The first boy looked at them and then at Kira. "Sorry about that, Mr. Yamato. My friends are agitated," the boy looked at the door, "because we feel helpless. Just like him, I would love to beat you… forget it," The boy took out a lollipop, removed its plain red wrapper and put it in his mouth and left. "See you later,"
Kira stared at the trio and was barely cognizant of the door next to him opening. A woman with wearing a surgeon's mask exited, followed by the medic who ushered Kira out. "This kid?" she asked.
"Yes, Doctor," the medic said while approaching Kira, "Excuse me, is your blood type A or O, preferably with type complement receptor Co-Delta antigen?"
"Sorry?" Kira asked, puzzled. "My type is A, but what's that?"
"Stop wasting time," the surgeon said as she pushed the medic away to approach Kira. "You're a Coordinator?"
"Yes? But…"
"You'll do," the gruff surgeon said. "We're going to stick a big straw into you and suck your blood to give to the lady,"
Athrun fist hit the wall in front of him, missing Nicol's face by a few centimeters. "You told us we were destroying a device that defeats our N-Jammers!"
Nicol had seen Yzak, Rusty, and even Dearka being angry before, but even those left him unprepared for the furious man glaring at him. Even though he could feel fear dripping out of his body, he maintained his composure. "It was what we received from our sources! And I made it clear we're uncertain what Antervorta was."
The explanation placated his friend a bit, but there was still a bit of anger in his eyes. "The diagram?"
"At that time, I honestly believed it was a diagram for a device that nullified the N-Jamming field, not a manned control module!"
"Athrun, wrong intelligence is something normal, not an exception," Miguel said, while putting a hand on the man's shoulder to calm him down. "Besides, you forget one very important thing,"
"What is it?" Athrun said gruffly.
"It wasn't Nicol who took down Antervorta. Not Commander Creuset, not Dearka, not you and I, and certainly not Yzak." The man was about to protest, but Miguel had a hand in front of his face, stopping him dead on his track. "All of us were there, and we're searching for the device, not someone. If we're hunting for someone instead, it would have been easier since we can just shoot anything and anyone in sight without having to care about accidentally triggering something,"
Nicol didn't agree with Miguel's reasoning as killing people indiscriminately would make the job of identifying the target more difficult, but he remained quiet since he knew the man had something else to say.
"But we didn't. We thought that the mission was to find the device, but I don't think that's the real one."
"You're saying we're just patsies?" Yzak said, scoffing, just as the door to the room opened.
"Would you prefer baits instead?" Rau said as he entered.
"You knew from the very beginning," Nicol accused.
"Interesting proposition, but unfortunately, I have to deny it,"
From what Nicol knew about the masked man, he would mislead or withhold certain information, but Commander Creuset would never outright lie. "You didn't know?"
The man sighed and theatrically ran his fingers through his hair, being careful not to detach his mask by accident. "You may find it hard to believe, but I may have fallen out of favor with Chairman Zala. Perhaps every one of us has,"
Nicol couldn't believe his ears. "Do you expect us to believe that?"
"He purposely ignored my suggestion to reinforce the fleet, giving the excuse of wanting to minimize casualty, even though he knew very well that there's no risk of a nuclear attack. If the fleet had reinforcement, we wouldn't have lost, would we?"
What Creuset said made sense. In fact, if the Alliance saw the ZAFT fleet guarding the orbital entrance was reinforced, it would probably reconsider attacking.
"Maybe he didn't know and really didn't want to risk more lives," Yzak said.
Creuset smiled. "Do you really believe that? If there is a risk of a nuclear attack, wouldn't it be more prudent not to deploy all of you?"
The smile was supposed to be reassuring, but it had a negative effect on Nicol. Nicol was under no illusion that his father was close to Athrun's. The two of them disagreed on a lot of things, as his father belonged to the moderate faction as opposed to Patrick Zala, one of the war hawks. The man wouldn't care what happen to Nicol and Miguel, but there was the case of Athrun being on the same team, together with Yzak and Dearka. Even discounting Athrun, Patrick wouldn't risk alienating his war hawks allies Ezalia Joule and Tad Elsmann by sending their sons to die unnecessarily.
"We almost got snipped without having the chance to launch!" Dearka said in protest.
"It was unforeseen, yes, but what I said remains true," the masked commander said.
"Our presence is to convince the Alliance that ZAFT is giving it all," Miguel said in realization. "The bigger the bait, the bigger the fish,"
"According to my sources," Creuset said, "the big fish in this mission is a top NAGI executive involved in the development of artificial neural network to simplify mobile suit controls,"
Nicol narrowed his eyes. The development of mobile suits leading up to their deployment was a recent event, taking place only five years prior. Because of that, there were still kinks to be ironed out. For ZAFT, the main focusses were the portable beam weaponry, lightweight armor, and better sensors. Besides propulsion, the Alliance needed to work on their mobile suits operating system since there was a lot of automation required. The application of a hardware-based neural network might speed up the automation process and allow the system to learn from the current missions to improve itself for future deployments.
"What do you think, Dearka?" Creuset continued. "You fought against Buster. What's your assessment?"
"The pilot's quite inexperienced, but he's quite good. Shrugged off a few shots from him and the repair people kept telling me how lucky I was,"
"Same with Aegis," Miguel said. "The pilot kept transforming and zipping around so many times that I suspect he was trying to confuse me to death,"
From his friends' evaluations, Nicol concluded the threat posed by such a system was such that the decision made to target its proponent was a correct one.
"But that doesn't explain the white prototype," Athrun said.
"Prototype?" Creuset asked. "You saw it?"
"Yes, it looked like," Athrun hesitated, "a Gundam,"
"A Gundam… How do you know about the operating system," Creuset did a double take, "I see, you're referring to the two-camera setup. I think this Gundam you saw is undergoing a field test," Creuset answered. "The best place to test a mobile suit is on a battlefield, and since the pilot had killed the target, I believe it was a success,"
Kira found himself strapped to a bed, feeling lightheaded and nauseated from his own blood loss. From what he was told, the medical team took 2 pints of his blood to transfuse to Flay. Normally, taking over 15 percent of one's blood, in his case around 1.5 pints, was frowned upon; taking 2 pints was borderline unethical and approaching illegal. But, with his own approval, they did it anyway, all for the sake of saving Flay. He was told that the emergency surgery performed on Flay was successful in stabilizing her condition. However, since she had already lost around 30 percent of her blood when they realized what was happening, she remained comatose and was in a critical situation.
As Kira lied on a bed, feeling lightheaded and nauseated from his own blood deficiency, he found out that there because the fleet didn't have a dedicated hospital ship, Henry Bake's captain had decided for the ship to retreat to Copernicus with Flay and all other injured patients to get further treatments while McIntosh would remain with the fleet. He turned toward Flay, who was next to his bed. Nothing but the steady sound of the monitoring machine was audible, but he could see her shallow breathing as her chest rose and fell slowly. He had failed her again and again, and as usual, she had taken the brunt of it.
Afterwards, they arranged for him to be bunked in a nearby room, but Kira spent most of his time maintaining a vigil by her bedside. During that time, the trio of youngsters dropped by to visit Flay. While the other male didn't talk to him and prevented the girl named Stellar from doing so, the green-haired did. From him, Kira learned the trio were part of NAGI's security guard details. He didn't know why, but he recalled the strange operation in Copernicus City, but the laid-back attitude of the three contrasted with the rather brutally efficient way those operators went about completing their mission.
Kira only returned to Archangel a day later, after Henry Bake had finished the preparation to retreat. There, he was swamped by his friends, wanting to know what happened. It turned out only he knew her current condition. Miriallia tearfully blamed herself for what happened. If Kira had met her a day before, he would have been inclined to do the same and blame her. However, having had the time to think more clearly, Kira realized his friend wasn't to be blamed. That became clearer when, during the debriefing later, Natarle shared the recording of what happened.
He already had too many on his plate, but the revelation of Flay forced Miriallia to stand down to prevent him and others from being involved was depressing. Flay knew she couldn't rely on his wishy-washy attitude to save her, which was why she had to do it. Unbidden, Kira's pupils shrank while his irises grew as he swore to himself that he would do anything to prevent such a thing from happening again. He would not hesitate to shoot anymore.
Angela Meyer looked through the window as the heavy downpour dampened her mood to do her work. She hated springtime, as spring was the time when most budgets were set and approved, and then spent faster than a snowman melting under the scorching sun.
The Eurasian Minister used to like springtime though, when she was a naïve six-year-old girl four decades prior, content to spend most of her time in the nearby park carrying a net in search of an artic skipper or safflower skipper butterfly together with her siblings. Angela and her two sisters would pick flowers and make daisy chains while their older brother was more content with playing with his phone while keeping an eye on them. Angela and her sisters had nothing to complain about the arrangement, since he always bribed them with ice cream for not reporting his conduct to their parents upon reaching home.
Those memories remained memories though. Her brother died in an accident during a blackout during the April Fool's Crisis the previous later when the street and traffic lights stopped working. He could have been saved if he had been sent to the hospital earlier, but the communication system was also out of order, delaying his rescue effort. Then, just a month later, her two sisters, who were part of the Eurasian navy, lost their life during the First Battle of Casablanca. It was fortunate that their parents had passed away or they would have been heartbroken.
As for her, Angela didn't cry. However, on each grave, she had poured a bottle of wine from her personal collection. Even though she didn't really like drinking wine, she had bought a crate of them to celebrate them reaching the ripe old age; to hasten their deaths, as her brother had suggested. But in the end, with her siblings passing, Angela still had 9 unopened bottles.
Damn those ZAFTs for causing problems upon problems for her.
The door to her office opened, and from the reflection on the windowpane, Meyer could see a silhouette of a man entering. "The budget for spring offensive had been checked, Spencer?"
"Yes, Ma'am. Projected five weeks of sustainment,"
That meant enough resources and logistics to support the next operation for five weeks, and not a day more.
Coordinating resources for Operation Starlight was a major effort, given the scale of such an operation and the need to keep it a secret. If Angela was to be honest to herself, she had predicted that it would fail, a pessimistic mindset hammered into her psyche through years of training and practicing as a financial controller and her family member's deaths during the ongoing conflict.
However, she was proven wrong. While ZAFT wasn't as invincible as its propaganda machine would like everyone to believe, which was proven by many setbacks it suffered during operations on Earth, it had an overwhelming advantage in space. Which is why many planners were caught off guard when the news that Operation Starlight was successful reached them. Even Angela was surprised, to put it mildly. The next operation was contingent upon Operation Starlight's success, with a lot of 'if's riding on it, that her team barely worked on it, preferring to focus on other things such as ensuring food distribution. Despite that, the team persevered and managed to come up with a workable budget given the short notice.
A thought occurred to Angela. "Spencer, did we put in the budget for entertainment?"
"No, Ma'am,"
"Arrange for some funds to be funneled for that. I'll sign it off,"
Raised eyebrows greeted her remark.
Suddenly feeling her age, the finance minister sighed. "This is something that I'm normally don't endorse, but as that," she took three seconds to come up with a suitable word to replace the 'bitch' which was already at the tip of her tongue, "defense chief keeps saying, there's a need to keep the troops' morale up. Maybe she has a point. We should recognize their contribution,"
Spencer nodded in understanding. "Yes, Ma'am,"
The sounds of machinery reverberated throughout the hangar as Tolle floated through it. It was a hive of activity, with some workers busy working on mobile suits and Mu's lone mobile armors, some were operating cranes and other equipment, and others were moving supplies back and forth. A few seconds later, his girlfriend's voice went on air, announcing the arrival of a cargo shuttle. Immediately, a net was deployed to catch the shuttle and absorb its momentum to bring it to a full stop. The shuttle was moved to an empty parking bay where there was a group already waiting to unload its contents.
Despite the chaotic situation, Tolle could see a sense of purpose in the air. Every person in the hangar was working tirelessly to complete his or her work to prepare for the next operation. One of the impending works includes upgrading the mobile suits. He looked at his tablet and then at the three deactivated mobile suits. Tolle noticed each unit had different alphanumerical numbers assigned to it; Strike's number was 11-EN, Aegis's was 7-EN, while Buster had been assigned number 5-EN. "I'm just wondering," he said to Kojiro, who was nearby, "The number means something important, right?"
"The number shows how many times the unit had been upgraded. Maybe some software or hardware, if it's big enough, it is counted," Kojiro replied.
The man further explained that Buster had its operating system had a major upgrade to allow for easier control by a Natural pilot in Block 2 through integrating supporting hardware and software. Block 3, which was carried out in Copernicus using parts provided by the Eurasian and NAGI, swapped out Buster's current optics and aiming system with higher performing systems. During the previous battle, Buster was at Block 4 configuration, as it had its system upgraded to use the modified pod from the DSSD.
Tolle thought he was passionate about robotics but realized that he couldn't hold a candle to the other man. "So, Block 5?"
"Block 5 is mainly that one," Murdoch said as he pointed to the 'backpack' behind Buster.
"Looks larger,"
"More ammo to shoot and more battery for a longer duration. Heck, it even allows Buster to jump a bit on Earth. All at the expense of making it more slowpoke than ever,"
"I don't think Buster's designed for winning a sprinting contest,"
"Well, you'll rethink that once they rain bullets on you,"
Tolle looked at Aegis. "Same thing the doctor ordered for Sai's?"
"Block 2 and Block 3 are more about the OS. Block 4 is about transformation, 5 is about reducing speed to increase operating time, 6 is about transformation again and the 7 is all about the new engine that allows it to fly short range on Earth in mobile armor mode. Couldn't shoot a thing though, but still useful to get to a spot in a jiffy."
Tolle chewed on the information given to him. "I seem to notice that both Buster and Aegis' mods are geared to making them usable on Earth."
"I said nothing, you hear?"
The denial confirmed what Tolle dreaded to hear. But as part of a military force, he couldn't back out of it. "How about the letters?" he asked in an attempt to run away from reality.
"The first letter corresponds to the shared upgrades that have been implemented."
"Shared upgrades?"
"Components shared among the five, for example, the main OS, the cooling system and even the pilot chair,"
"Pilot chair?" Tolle asked skeptically.
"We stuffed more foam into the chairs," Kojiro said. "That and stuffing more foams, wires and display into the helmets count as 'D'."
"We're up to 'E' though,"
"Pee pack,"
"Oh," An important thing was important, after all. But that item should have 'A', not 'E' though, Tolle thought to himself.
"The second letter means NAGI, since they're the one carrying out the current upgrades. They've been quite anal about us recognizing that fact."
"I'm wondering, why does Strike is up to 11 when mine is only 5 and Sai's 7?"
"Thing is, even before Yamato got it, Strike is already Block 5. And those two really worked on Strike since it was the only operational mobile suit we had for some time. There was Aegis, but that came later, followed by Buster," Kojiro said while shrugging. The conversation went awkward as the two of them looked toward Strike's open cockpit as a dim light came out of it. "Last time I sent him to get her out, and now…" the man said while gesturing at Tolle.
"Copy… er… I mean alright," Tolle said as he went to fetch Kira. It took some persuading, but he managed to get his friend to go and rest by telling the latter that he wouldn't want to make Flay worry about his wellbeing. Tolle had to admit that using her name was a blow below the belt, but he didn't want to waste time and it was the most effective move he could use. The next day, he also volunteered to bring Kira to the briefing room. To his relief, Kira had somewhat recovered from his funk.
"Alright, ladies and gentlemen," Mu said, starting the briefing session as the main screen behind him changed to show a map with some text on it. "Good news. Higher ups have approved the budget for some sight-seeing tour, which will start in 20 hours' time,"
One phrase caught everyone's eye. "Starlight Picnic?" Sai asked.
"It tickles your imagination, doesn't it? Under a warm summer night, with millions of stars twinkling above, laying a blanket on the ground, and settling in. Coffee Pod can set the blanket and brew us some coffee while you can throw some hot dogs and burgers on the grill. Meanwhile, Signal Wolf can sing us some songs while Monarch strums a banjo while I play the harmonica to keep us entertained. Then we can chat a bit, before packing up, extinguish all the fires and say goodbye to the stars, thanking them for accompanying us. It will be a memory we will cherish forever. How does that sound?"
"Wow, that sounds fantastic!" Tolle said, expressing his approval. "Count me in,"
Mu grinned. "Glad to hear you like it,"
21 hours later, Tolle found himself grumbling as Buster combined its Gun Launcher and High-energy Rifle and Gun Launcher to form the Anti-Armor Shotgun and used it to attack the five GINNs units beneath it.
Meanwhile, Mu's Skygrasper soared overhead at incredible speed as it went on a strafing run, firing its 20mm Machine Gun and unguided rockets attached to its external pylons. The rockets hit and ignited their targets, an ammunition warehouse, triggering a large explosion that illuminated the night and bringing to live a raging inferno that quickly engulfed the building. Flamed licked the sky as thick black smoke billowed upward. "Saber One, kill confirmed,"
"Copy. Saber Two, first wave of drop pods coming in hot. Covering fire requested," Miriallia said, her franticness apparent despite the noise littering the communication.
"Roger," Kira said as Strike, equipped with Aile Striker pack, fired a few shots at an approaching flight of ZAFT helicopters, hitting one of them and forcing the others to retreat.
"Saber Three, we have multiple spikes in our drop pods. Attack the ground radar installation,"
"Confirmed. Attacking ground radar," Aegis assumed its mobile armor cruise mode and sped toward the indicated target. Once near the site, it reconfigured into its attack mode and fired a shot of its Scylla 580mm Multi-phase Energy Cannon which tore through the fixed array radar which was tracking the drop pods. "Ground radar splashed,"
"Copy. Engage the next target,"
"Roger,"
"This Saber Two, drop pods landing and deploying,"
From his cockpit, Tolle watched as the drop pods' hatches opened and armored personnel carriers came out of them and quickly made their way to strategic locations and disgorged the troops they were carrying. The soldiers spread out and formed a defensive perimeter around the landing site. Most of them were armed with rifles, but there were a few who carried large tubes behind their backs. Those tubes either contain portable anti air missiles, or MANPADs as he heard Kojiro called them, or anti-tank guided missiles. Assisted by Strike, troops guarded the landing site against ZAFT's attempts to retake it as more drop pods landing on the designated area.
"Saber Flight, incoming Pig Launcher squadrons to AO, Squawk Flash,"
"Roger that. Team, flash your IFF ID like you hold that school championship trophy," Mu said.
"I didn't do any sport," Kira said.
"Okay, some hacking competition or whatever you did,"
Tolle pressed the button that performed the IFF Flash. The IFF transponder would then broadcast a signal containing Buster's affiliation and its current location, which is recognizable by all friendly units in the Area of Operation. The so-called pig launchers Miriallia mentioned were most likely bombers since Pig was a reference to a glide bomb. Tolle's guess was proven correct when a minute later, multiple explosions rocked the area as the ZAFT units surrounding them were attacked.
"Saber Two, still waiting for that coffee,"
"Busy with hosting drop-ins here, sir,"
Even though the battle was still ongoing with no clear indication of ending soon, Mu and Kira having the time to chatter, even though through channel private to the Archangel and its units, meant the worst situation had passed. The battle was ongoing, that was certain, but from the good progress the team had made suppressing the ZAFT. He noticed both had developed some weird coping mechanism while under duress, making jokes or comments that were not even funny. "This is not what I was imagining when picnicking under the stars," he said to himself, not realizing that he had not switched off his microphone.
"Millions of stars twinkling above, Monarch," Sai said dryly in response.
1
TERMINOLOGY
AO: Area of Operation.
Blue-on-blue: A unit attacking another unit on the same side.
IFF: Identification, friend or foe
Pig: Glide bomb, with wings to allow controlled descent and increased range.
Squawk Flash: Use the flash feature on the IFF so that friendly units know you are friendly to them and your current location on their radar to prevent a blue-on-blue situation.
A/N
1. Some reading on blood transfusion led me to the topic of blood type personality, or ketsuekigata. While I don't use it to write this fic as well as my earlier works, it is interesting to see how it influenced the original series
2. Some Japanese believe in ketsuekigata, personality based on blood type, just people believe in zodiac or Chinese zodiac. Without questioning whether the theory is true, I instead would like to point out that blood type is a 'shortcut' when explaining certain personality traits and are being used in many manga and animes. Do note that I didn't come up with the descriptions but am regurgitating what I read.
a. Both Kira and Flay share the same blood type, which is A. People with this blood type are described primarily as kichōmen, or well-organized. They like everything to be in order, be it in arrangement, way of thinking, and even relationships. However, this tendency causes them to be stubborn and set in their way of thinking and get stressed easily when things don't turn out the way they do. Besides Kira and Flay, Cagalli, being Kira's twin, Lunamaria, Meyrin, and Tolle, have the same blood type.
b. Lacus and Nicol have B blood type. B is described as jikochū, or selfish. I believe this is not 'selfish' as we normally understand. Remember, Japanese society values collectively over individuality. So, the term probably means introspective or 'individual'ish. Someone with blood B is supposed to be known for his or her creativity and have a strong sense of curiosity, but loses interest easily.
c. Creuset, Mu, Murrue, Athrun, Sai, Yzak, and Shinn have O blood type, the archetype for rakkanshugi, or optimistic. These people have charisma, attracting people with their leadership qualities. They are big picture thinkers, keeping a clear focus on the strategic point of view to the detriment of missing out on crucial details that may impede their success.
d. Dearka, Miriallia, Natarle have AB blood type, which means they have a mix of A and B personality in varying degrees. Because of that, they may be private people, like type A but are also outgoing just like type B. Or they could appear friendly in day-to-day interaction, just like type B but are actually preferred to be closer to a select group of people, just like type A. Because of difficulty to peg them to a single classification, they are considered kawarimono or eccentric.
3. With that, let us view the interaction between couples in Gundam Seed.
a. Kira x Flay (A x A). Because they have similar personalities, they are empathic and affectionate to each other. However, because they are driven by emotions, their relationship has high mental energy and risk devolving into something destructive if unchecked.
b. Kira x Lacus (A x B). Kira envies Lacus's ability to be introspective and enjoy things at her own pace. Lacus may be uncomfortable with Kira's effort to engage her most of the time. The affection may be perceived as intrusive.
c. Cagalli x Athrun (A x O). Both Cagalli and Athrun have polar personalities. While they could cover each other's weaknesses, they really must sit down and work through their differences. Meyrin x Athrun is also A x O, and so does Lunamaria and Shinn's relationship. However, it has to be pointed out both Luna and Shinn's seiyus are 'A' type, and their relationship is A x A. It is a confidence, but Cagalli X Shinn's matchup in my earlier story Soaring Above worked if based on this.
d. Tolle x Miriallia (A x AB). The relationship depends on whether the one with the AB blood type (in this case Miriallia) leans toward A or B. I may be wrong, but since Mir seems to exhibit the personality of an 'A' blood type, the relationship is like an x A, but less intense.
e. Dearka and Miriallia (AB x AB). Since they're eccentric on their own rights, both Dearka and Miriallia tend to understand each other, and thus more sympathetic and emphatic.
f. Mu and Murrue (O x O). Being optimistic, they can become the best, or the worst, being together, depending on how they channel their differences.
4. People may think that it's a coincidence, but Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny came out when blood personality was popular (and still is). So, if you think that Kira and Lacus' interactions in GS and GSD sometimes seemed awkwardly wooden, or at other times forced, you're not wrong. It is because their personalities clash. In comparison, Flay and Kira's relationship escalated drastically. Even if we argue Flay was using Kira, that didn't explain the glacial progress between Kira and Lacus in GSD. Because of various reasons, there were some retcons to show how close the two were. However, in my personal opinion, the retcons were not enough to hide the incompatibility between the two.
5. It can be argued that in GS and GSD, blood type didn't matter, and didn't correspond to their personalities. I would like to point to the contrary: despite the ability to manipulate genes to a very high degree, Coordinators still have O, A, B or AB blood type even though logically speaking, having O blood is more advantageous as people having it can donate to all blood types. Or if I flip it around, maybe it's way better for them to have AB, so that they can receive blood from everyone else. Yet, Coordinators with 'A' or 'B' still exist, even among first gen such as Kira. The writers clearly prefer special humans, such as Coordinators, Newtypes, SEEDs and Extendeds. But after that, they also place importance on blood type.