Char drifted deeper into the fortress, the Great Zeong limping through the cracked corridors of Solomon's interior. Systems flickered. Warning lamps pulsed red across his cockpit.
But none of that compared to the shock pounding in his chest.
Sayla.
Artesia.
Alive.
Alive and standing against him.
His breath shook, rage and guilt and grief tangling inside him like chains. The image kept replaying—her face illuminated by the cockpit light, eyes trembling yet unbroken.
"Why, Casval?"
Her voice echoed in his skull.
He struck the console with his fist, knuckles cracking.
"This is war," he spat to the empty cockpit. "This isn't the time for…"
His voice died.
Because he knew exactly what it was the time for.
He had hesitated.
He had flinched.
He had let memory override mission.
For a pilot like him… that was unforgivable.
He leaned back, exhaling slowly, gripping the controls until they stopped shaking.
He forced the mask of Char Aznable back over the wounded boy inside.
"…I can't afford this weakness."
But even as he steadied himself, the smallest, most dangerous thought whispered inside him:
She's alive.
She's safe.
He crushed the thought mercilessly and restarted systems.
There was still a battle to win.
---
Sayla Mass didn't move for several seconds, frozen in the silent, floating debris. The Gundam's sensors flickered back to life, but she only stared at the empty space where Char disappeared.
Her brother.
Her lost family.
Her pain.
She swallowed hard, emotion trembling in her throat.
"Casval…"
A click sounded beside her as Blitz Gundam decloaked, dropping back into visibility.
Hikigaya's voice came over the open channel with all the subtlety of a brick to the face.
"Alright, emotional breakdown over. We need to move."
Sayla blinked, still shaken. "Hikigaya… could you… for one moment… be quiet?"
There was a long pause.
Hikigaya sighed the sigh of someone who had seen too much nonsense in one day.
"…Yeah, fair."
His tone softened—barely, but real.
"I get it. Family stuff. Complicated. Painful. Insert dramatic music."
Sayla looked at him, surprised.
"You… understand?"
"Sayla," he said flatly, "I'm the guy who avoids people so hard I've basically become a stealth system. I understand awkward emotional baggage better than anyone."
She actually snorted, a tiny, helpless laugh breaking through her tears.
Hikigaya nodded like he deserved a medal.
"See? The Hachiman method works."
"You're impossible."
"That's what people keep telling me. Usually right before leaving me alone, which is the ideal outcome."
Sayla wiped her face, the weight on her heart easing.
"Thank you, Hikigaya."
"Oh no. Don't thank me. That implies I did something worthy of gratitude. I'm just trying not to get killed by your brother."
Sayla smiled—genuinely this time—then tightened her grip on the controls.
"We should go. White Base needs support."
"Finally something sensible," Hikigaya muttered.
Blitz Gundam flickered away as the Mirage Colloid recast.
Sayla's Gundam ignited its thrusters.
Together, they headed back into the burning halls of Solomon.
Behind them, Char had already vanished into the depths of the fortress, burying his emotions beneath the steel mask of the Red Comet.
But for all his efforts…
The tremor in his hands had not yet stopped.
The space above Ananke had devolved into pure chaos.
Dozle Zabi's massive Big Zam staggered under repeated impacts, its armor cracked, its I-Field flashing erratically. Inside the cockpit, Dozle's breath came in ragged bursts. Sweat dripped down his face as he slammed his fist on the controls.
"ZEON WILL NOT FALL HERE! ALL UNITS—FORWARD!"
But even his roar was losing strength.
The Strike Gundam's blade scraped across the Big Zam's knee joint—Gary Lin pushing past his own exhaustion. Every muscle in his body screamed, yet his instincts kept whispering the same thing:
He's reaching his limit… this is it.
Duel Gundam shot past, Mikazuki's voice calm and flat.
"Finish it, Gary. He's open."
Gary wanted to. He needed to.
But his hands trembled. Not from fear…
From something else.
A sudden spike of data flared across the Strike's OS—
warnings, system echoes, resonance pulses.
> SYSTEM WARNING: MENTAL FRAME SYNCHRONIZATION RISING
LIMIT APPROACHING
—DO OR NEVER
Gary froze for a heartbeat.
"…Yeah. I know," he whispered.
And then—
The world folded.
A pressure exploded outward from him—visible, audible, impossible. A Newtype-like shockwave ripped across the battlefield. Mobile suits on both sides paused mid-maneuver, pilots gasping as their minds were pulled into the resonance.
Tanya's Graze Ritter halted mid-swing.
Samus, her armor flickering unstable, staggered for breath.
The wave hit them both—raw, blinding force.
But—
Samus steadied first, forcing the power back into control through sheer will. She grit her teeth, visor shining.
Tch… not again. Not this time.
Tanya wavered, nearly collapsing under the mental pressure—
until a voice echoed through her memory.
"Do not let the field define you. You define it."
Lelouch's words… the one moment where he touched her mind, nudging her away from Being X's influence.
Tanya clenched her jaw.
"Not… today… damn it!"
The resonant shock passed over her—and she forced her mind back into focus, armor stabilizing, eyes burning.
The battlefield froze for one impossible moment:
Dozle, Gary, Samus, Tanya, every pilot around Ananke—
all staring as the Strike Gundam glowed with an unfamiliar power.
Dozle's eyes widened.
"That… that aura…?!"
Gary lifted the Strike's blade, now trembling with energy.
"This ends now, Dozle Zabi."
The Big Zam staggered as chunks of armor tore away, each system warning screaming in Dozle Zabi's ears. Smoke filled the cockpit. The heat was unbearable. Yet he grinned with the ferocity of a dying comet.
"Federation worms—COME! I'LL CRUSH YOU ALL!"
The Strike Gundam dove through debris, Gary Lin shouting through gritted teeth. "DOZLE! THIS IS IT!"
The Alex Gundam streaked in from the flank, Amuro's psychic pressure spiking like a blade cutting through the chaos.
And then something erupted—Gary's Newtype aura flared white hot, a psychic shockwave rippling through the entire battle like a storm front tearing open the sky.
Every Newtype froze.
Tanya's breath hitched.
Samus's pupils constricted, her frame pausing mid-attack.
Even Char in the Great Zeong felt the tremor, like a ghost brushing his spine.
Griveous in the Elmeth snarled as the funnels fluttered.
Dozle felt none of it. His mind was too far gone into the depths of fury and grief.
The Big Zam's main cannon began charging but Amuro pierced the secondary generator with a single devastating shot.
The explosion lit the void.
"AMURO! NOW!" Gary roared, throwing everything into one desperate strike.
The Strike's saber plunged into the exposed core.
The Alex's beam rifle fired point-blank.
Two lights speared forward.
Two wills intertwined.
The Big Zam erupted in a blazing white inferno.
Inside, Dozle Zabi clutched the small picture of Hamon and Mineva. His fingers brushed the image as fire reached him. His final words were a whisper no radio captured.
"Live… little one…"
The cockpit vanished in the explosion.
A sunburst bloomed where the giant once stood.
In the distance, Tanya's Gelgoog Ritter halted mid-flight. Her visor reflected the brilliant flash.
" Dozle…this fool"
Her jaw clenched, eyes trembling for the first time in years. All the discipline she had rebuilt inside herself cracked like thin glass.
She forced her squad to retreat, swallowing her grief with a soldier's brutality.
"Fall back. Now."
No one disobeyed.
No one dared.
The Zeon lines shuddered, their anchor gone.
Far from Tanya's retreat, Solomon's interior was collapsing into hell.
Athrun's Aegis shielded Lockon's Buster as flames vented from ruptured bulkheads. GM pilots crawled over shattered walkways, one dragging another who could no longer stand.
Dozle's adjutant appeared like a demon of iron, wielding a massive anti–MS cannon, shredding a GM instantly. Metal limbs spun through the air like broken feathers.
"YOU FEDERATION FILTH!" his distorted voice roared. "LORD DOZLE HAS FALLEN—AND I WILL SEND YOU AFTER HIM!"
Another GM dissolved into slag.
A third lost its legs.
A fourth charged anyway, knowing what was coming.
"Commander… let us clear the path."
Athrun shouted, "STOP! GET BACK!"
But the GM pilot ignored him, sprinting straight toward the adjutant.
"For everyone we lost!"
The shot vaporized the GM completely—
—but the recoil forced open the adjutant's armor shutters for one fleeting moment.
Lockon's eyes widened.
"There it is…"
He leveled the massive rifle.
"One shot. Don't move."
The Buster Gundam's cannon glowed.
"Goodbye."
The beam fired clean through the exposed joint.
The adjutant spasmed, collapsing through the support platforms beneath him. Sparks and fluid cascaded around his dying frame as he clawed at the floor, then went still.
The path to Solomon's heart lay open.
Outside, Gary floated amid drifting debris, the Strike heavily damaged, smoke curling from its shoulder vents. Amuro's Alex wasn't much better. Both pilots breathed hard, sweat dripping into their eyes.
Then another psychic shockwave blasted outward—this time from Tanya, her emotions erupting, balanced precariously by Lelouch's earlier intervention. Samus met the power with her own, stabilizing herself with sheer force of will. The space around them pulsed like a heartbeat.
Gary twisted, but before he could speak, the sensors pinged. A massive signature approached.
The Great Zeong drifted into view.
Not attacking.
Not fleeing.
Char wasn't looking at Gary or Amuro.
He was staring at the Gundam facing him.
Sayla.
"Brother…" she whispered, voice trembling.
Char's hands shook on the controls.
Before he could answer, a black shadow drifted between them—Hikigaya's Blitz Gundam, sparking from ten different places.
"Hey," Hikigaya muttered flatly, "if you two are going to have a melodramatic family reunion, pick literally any time that isn't during a war."
Both siblings froze.
Sayla blinked.
"Why… you even here?"
Hikigaya sighed. "just wants all of this to end so I can sleep."
The tension wavered—long enough for Char to regain his composure. Sayla opened her mouth again—
—but alarms blared across all Federation channels.
Two Zeon battlecarriers were diving toward Ananke, trying to avenge Dozle.
Gary raised his saber.
Amuro steadied his rifle.
They moved without speaking.
The Strike carved through the carrier's left wing.
The Alex pierced the second's bridge in a single flash.
A double explosion lit the battlefield like a burning shrine for Dozle Zabi.
At Solomon's exterior, Revil's fleet pressed its advantage. Zeon was collapsing inward. Tanya pulled her unit away. Griveous retreated with heavy damage. Char vanished into the debris field. Samus regained full control. Hikigaya dragged Sayla away from the emotional crossfire. Athrun and Lockon advanced deeper into Solomon's reactor sector. And Gary and Amuro floated in the silence left behind by the fall of the giant.
Solomon cracked under its own weight.
Zeon lines shattered.
Victory spread like wildfire.
Tanya, watching from afar, whispered a final angry oath.
"… this war is not over, being x."