Crossing Orb: Newtype Commander

The golden machine weaved through the barrage of bullets, its golden armor drawing bright arcs in the starlight. Char's hands danced rapidly across the joystick and touchscreen, each command precise to the millisecond.

Kruze's Sigurd was locked in close combat with the golden machine, its linear rifle firing incessantly, but the golden machine dodged each shot with subtle maneuvers. The two machines locked in combat amidst the debris field, like two raptors chasing each other in the starry sky.

"Commander-in-Chief Asha, your piloting skills are impressive," Kruze's voice came through the communicator, tinged with admiration. "But I have a question—how long can your body hold out? There were noticeable pauses in your maneuvers; you must be injured. I can tell from the machine's movements. The left side's reaction time is 0.3 seconds slower than the right. How long can you continue piloting while injured?"

Char's fingers paused slightly. Kruze was right—his left shoulder was indeed aching. Although the shrapnel had been removed, the wound was still bleeding under the pressure of his pilot suit, and each pull of the control stick brought a sharp pain. His Newtype ability allowed him to ignore the pain, but his body was telling the truth; his reaction time was indeed decreasing.

"Enough to take you down," Xia's voice was calm.

The golden machine decelerated abruptly, its thruster nozzles shifting, and it completed an almost impossible emergency stop in the vacuum. Kruze's Xigu swept past it, the golden machine raising its beam rifle, aiming the muzzle at the Xigu's cockpit.

"Varied--"

Kruze's pupils contracted. He pulled the control stick, and the Xigu's thrusters sprang to full power, causing the machine to veer off course at the last moment. The beam grazed GINN's left arm, melting the armor and revealing the internal skeleton.

"Captain!" Two GINNs rushed in from the flank to cover Kruze's escape.

Char did not pursue. The golden machine's thrusters ignited again, and the machine withdrew from the combat zone, creating distance once more. His breathing was rapid, the pain in his left shoulder intensified, and the bandages inside his pilot suit were soaked with blood.

"Commander-in-Chief Asuka, you are tenacious," Kruze's voice rang out again, still steady. "But tenacity is not limitless. What about your teammates? That boy—Kira Yamato. Where is he now?"

Char did not answer.

"What exactly are you trying to say?" Char's voice remained calm.

Kruze laughed. "Athlan is a sentimental kid. He doesn't want to hurt his friends, but his loyalty and his feelings are at odds. Do you know that feeling? Being torn apart?"

"Know."

"Then you should know that this sense of being torn apart will not bring any results. Loyalty will triumph over emotion because loyalty is trained, while emotion is innate. Training can strengthen it, but nature can only be suppressed. When suppressed to the limit, it will explode."

"Are you talking about yourself, Captain Kruse?"

Kruse remained silent.

The battle between the Golden Machine and the Kruze team continued, but both sides began to become cautious. Char's stamina was waning, Kruze's Xigu was damaged, and the remaining GINN dared not approach rashly. The five machines faced off in the debris field, like five trapped beasts, staring at each other's throats.

Abandoned cargo hold area.

The Strike Gundam's beam saber and the Aegis Gundam's beam saber clashed in the vacuum, orange beams tracing arcs across the starry sky. Neither machine moved quickly; in fact, they were somewhat sluggish—not due to technical limitations, but rather a matter of mindset.

Athrun didn't want to hurt Kira, and Kira didn't want to hurt Athrun. They were fighting, but every attack was deliberate and slowed down. This wasn't a battle; it was two boys forced to stand on opposite sides testing each other.

"Kira, why did you go to this extent?" Athrun's voice came through the communicator, tinged with pain. "You're not a soldier. You have no obligation to protect those people."

"I told you, I just want to protect the people around me." Kira's voice trembled slightly.

"The people around you? Do you know those people? Did they call your name?"

Kira remained silent.

"You're not protecting anyone else," Aslan's voice turned sharp. "It's your own idea. 'Innocent civilians,' 'people who need protection'—these are your own ideas. You don't know them at all, you don't even know how they'll react when they find out you're a Coordinator, you don't know their names, where they come from, or why they're here."

"Even so," Kira's voice calmed, "I don't need to know their names. They were injured, and I saved them; they were afraid, and I protected them. That's enough."

The Aegis's beam saber slashed down, but the Assault's shield rose to block the attack. The orange beam exploded on the shield's surface, sending sparks flying. The two machines separated by the impact, regaining their distance.

"Enough?" Athrun's voice trembled. "Not enough! Far from enough! Kira, do you know how the people of PLANT will view you from now on? They'll call you a traitor—a Coordinator who served Naturals, slaughtering his own kind. Do you know how I felt when I heard those words?"

Kira's fingers paused slightly.

"You were my only friend when I was little." Athrun's voice lowered. "The only one. In PLANT, everyone says that Coordinators are 'perfect,' but we all know that perfection is lonely. Only when I'm with you do I not need to be perfect. I can just be 'Athrun.'"

The Strike's beam saber drooped down.

"Athrun—"

"But now you are my enemy." Aegis's beam saber lowered as well. "The captain ordered me to shoot you down. If I don't, he'll send someone else. Yzak won't hesitate, Diego won't hesitate, Nicole won't hesitate. They'll kill you."

"And what about you?"

Aslan remained silent for a long time.

Inside the cockpit of the Aegis Gundam, Athrun closed his eyes. His mother's smile flashed into his mind—an old photograph, taken on a PLANT agricultural satellite, sunlight streaming through her golden hair as she cradled a baby, her smile warm and serene.

"I have no idea."

Two mobile suits stood silently facing each other in the shadows of the abandoned cargo hold. Starlight seeped in from the cracks in the colony, casting dappled patterns on the metal floor. In the distant debris field, the battle between the golden mobile suit and the Sigurd continued, flashes of light and explosions appearing and disappearing in the darkness.

The thruster output of the gold machine began to decrease.

VEDA's voice echoed in Char's mind: "Minovsky nuclear reactor output has dropped to 65%. The wound on your left shoulder continues to bleed; immediate return to the ship is recommended."

"How much longer can we hold out?"

"Approximately twenty minutes in full combat mode."

"Enough." Char pulled the stick, and the golden machine swerved sharply to face Kruze's GINN. "Twenty minutes to end this battle."

Kruze's Sigur reappeared from the shadows of the debris field. The damage to the machine's left arm had been temporarily repaired, and the linear rifle had been replaced with a beam rifle—a spare weapon salvaged from a stolen G-series machine.

"Commander-in-Chief Asha, are you still not giving up?" Kruze's voice was tinged with exhaustion. "Your stamina is waning, your machine is damaged, and your teammates aren't providing support. You can't win."

Whether you win or lose is not up to you.

The golden machine's thrusters sprang into full force, propelling it like a golden meteor towards Kruze. Beam rifles fired in rapid succession, each shot precisely aimed at the Sigur's cockpit. Kruze's Sigur weaved through the barrage of bullets, its movements bordering on madness—ample, high-frequency, and unpredictable.

The two mobile suits clashed in the debris field, beam rifles exchanging fire, shards flying in the explosions. Char's hands gripped the control sticks firmly, the pain in his left shoulder vanishing in that instant—not because the wound had healed, but because his Newtype ability had shut the pain out of his consciousness.

"Char Langlad Ashar," Kruze's voice suddenly turned low, "Do you know why I hate this world?"

"Because you are a clone. Because your life was artificially created, you do not have your own life."

Kruse's fingers paused slightly.

How did you know?

"I see you have your own intelligence network," Xia's voice was calm. "At the same time, my intuition tells me... that feeling of being torn apart within you. You hate this world because you feel you shouldn't exist. But you already exist, so you can only prove your existence through destruction."

Kruse remained silent.

"But you're wrong," Xia continued. "The meaning of existence isn't proven by destruction. It's by protection. What you protect, that's what you are. If you protect nothing, you are nothing."

"Protect?" Kruze laughed, a laugh tinged with an almost insane desolation. "Protect what? Protect those who created me and then abandoned me? Protect those who used me as a tool? Protect those who used nuclear bombs to slaughter civilians?"

"Protect those who haven't given up."

The Golden Machine and GINN faced off in the debris field, only a few hundred meters apart. Both machines had exhausted their weapons and could only rely on hand-to-hand combat. But neither made the first move.

"Commander-in-Chief Askha, you are naive."

"Perhaps. But I'd rather be naive than be as desperate as you."

Kruze remained silent. Xigu's thrusters ignited, and the machine withdrew from the combat zone, flying towards the Wesalis. The remaining three GINNs followed closely behind, leaving the golden machine adrift alone in the debris field.

"Captain, why are we retreating?" GINN's voice came through the communicator.

"The fight is pointless. We've already gotten what we wanted," Kruze said calmly. "The Archangel has left port, the Golden Machine is still here, the Strike is still here. Continuing to fight will only increase unnecessary losses. Retreat."

Char watched the departing mechs, fragments of starlight reflected in his deep red eyes. A sharp pain shot through his left shoulder—the pain had returned, even more intense than before.

"VEDA, notify the Archangel that the Kruze team has retreated."

"Instructions recorded. Your injuries—"

"External injury. Prepare the medical bay."

Char pushed the control stick, and the golden machine flew towards the Archangel.

Abandoned cargo hold area.

The Aegis Gundam's thrusters ignited, and the mobile suit slowly retreated. Athrun's voice came through the communicator, tinged with weariness: "Kira, next time we meet, I won't hold back."

"Me too," Kira replied calmly.

The Aegis Gundam turned, its thrusters firing at full power, and the machine disappeared into the shadows of the debris field. The Strike Gundam floated alone in the shadows of the abandoned cargo hold, its amber eyes fixed on the departing green machine.

Kira leaned back in his cockpit seat and closed his eyes. His heart was still pounding, and his palms were still sweaty, but the tightness in his chest was gone—not gone, but transformed into something else, something heavier, something more real.

"When will we meet again..." he whispered.

The ruins of Heliopolis spun slowly in the starry sky, the broken armor plates resembling the skeleton of a giant. The engines of the Archangel ignited, and the ship slid out of the dock, heading south towards the debris field. The golden machine followed closely behind, its golden armor shimmering faintly in the starlight.

The Battle of Heliopolis ended on February 11, CE71.

The satellite did not collapse. Thousands of civilians were rescued during the evacuation, while hundreds perished in the rubble. Four G-series units were captured by ZAFT, and the Strike and Archangel managed to break through with difficulty. The Gold Machine made its first combat deployment, shooting down two GINNs, damaging one, and sustaining minor damage itself.

And those two boys, for the first time in the ruins, gripped the hilts of swords facing each other.

"I will protect those I want to protect," Kira Yamato said.

"I will fulfill my responsibilities," Aslan Sara said.

They were all too young to understand the weight of those words.

But they'll find out soon enough.