The news reached Granada first, traveling faster than any retreating mobile suit. Whispers slithered through the hallways of the administrative fortress long before the official report arrived.
By the time the messenger reached Kycilia's command chamber, she already sensed the shape of the truth. She didn't look up from the console when the young officer saluted.
"Report."
The officer swallowed hard. "Lord Dozle… fell in combat over Solomon. Big Zam destroyed. Enemy forces advancing."
The pause after his words hurt more than the words themselves. Kycilia's gloved fingers curled slightly, just enough to whiten the leather. Her eyes remained cool, but something in her shoulders tightened with the smallest tremor.
"Understood," she said, voice sharp enough to cut through steel. "Dismissed."
The door slid shut behind the stunned officer.
Only then did Kycilia allow her face to shift, not into sorrow, but into something colder and sharper. Her brother had died exactly the kind of death she'd always expected he would: reckless, violent, loyal to a fault.
"Idiot," she whispered, though the word cracked slightly. "You big, sentimental idiot."
On Zum City, Gihren received the same report in the midst of a cabinet briefing. He didn't bother pausing the holo-display. He simply skimmed the tablet, eyes sweeping the text with surgical detachment.
"Dozle has died."
He said it the way one might comment on the weather.
Generals and ministers froze, expecting… something. A sign of grief. Anger. Anything.
Gihren continued without missing a beat.
"His sacrifice will be used to harden the resolve of the people. Two days from now, a speech will be prepared. Have propaganda distribute images of his bravery. Do not show the explosion, it will make him look incompetent."
Not a single person in the room breathed too loudly.
Degwin, however, reacted nothing like his eldest son.
When the news reached the sovereign chamber, the old man didn't stand. Didn't shout. He simply pressed his forehead into his palm and exhaled a single broken breath.
"Dozle…"
He sounded like someone whose ribs had caved inward.
Hamon entered the room seconds later, her composure shredded the moment she saw Degwin's face. She didn't ask. She already knew. And when she sank to her knees, clutching the tiny sleeping Mineva against her, the cry that tore from her was raw enough to silence the guards outside the throne room.
"No… no, not him… he promised… he promised he would return…"
Mineva stirred and whimpered, as if sensing the storm around her. Hamon held her tighter, sobbing into the baby's hair.
Degwin reached out a trembling hand, resting it on both of them.
His voice barely rose above a whisper.
"My son… my foolish, brave boy…"
When word finally spread to the rank-and-file soldiers stationed around Side 3 and Granada, morale cracked like brittle glass. Bars fell silent. Training rooms emptied. Newly built Gelgoogs remained untouched in hangars because no young pilot wanted to be the one sent to "honor Dozle's memory."
Some cursed the Federation.
Some cursed Gihren.
Some cursed fate itself.
Many simply sat in cold corridors with their helmets beside them, staring at the floors as if the tiles could answer why the one Zabi who truly loved his family had been the one to fall first.
Among them were pilots from Solomon who had barely escaped with their lives. They whispered that Dozle kept fighting even after the Big Zam's armor peeled away. That he roared his daughter's name as the beams cut through the cockpit. That Zeon had lost something more precious than a commander.
By the next morning, the sorrow had curdled into a quiet, shaking fear.
If Dozle Zabi—Zeon's monster, its shield, its rampaging guardian—could die…
Then who among them could possibly survive the next battle?
Even in retreat, Tanya von Zehrtfeld felt the heaviness in every Zeon transmission. Her unit drifted silently through debris clouds, Gelgoogs moving with the slow heaviness of mourning. She didn't speak. She didn't need to. Every pilot could feel her grief through the cockpit static.
They all knew what waited behind them at Solomon.
They all knew who they'd lost.
And they all knew something else too, something colder, something that made every veteran's skin tighten.
Zeon wasn't trembling because the Federation was strong.
Zeon was trembling because it had lost its heart.
The sun lamps over Zum City were still dim when Gihren began drafting the speech.
He paced before the holo-screen, hands clasped neatly behind his back, the morning light sharpening the angles of his expression. Ministers hovered at the edges of the room like nervous shadows.
"Public morale has collapsed," one of them said. "If we do not address the people soon—"
Gihren cut him off with a flick of his fingers.
"We will address them," he replied calmly. "Through Dozle."
He brought up a still image: the Big Zam lunging forward, cannons blazing, debris scattering around its massive form. The expression in Dozle's final moments had been rage born of loyalty. Gihren viewed it clinically, as if studying an anatomical diagram.
"This image," he said, "will be the symbol of our resolve."
Another minister flinched. "Sir… are you planning to use his death to—"
"To win a war," Gihren finished sharply. "Dozle's sacrifice will unify the population. Fear becomes resolve. Grief becomes purpose."
He tapped a new projection: a battlefield map of A Baoa Qu, the final defensive fortress.
The place where Char and Amuro would one day clash.
"This is where we make our stand. The remaining fleet will retreat here. Engineers will fortify the central fire corridors. Broadcast towers will transmit Dozle's 'final message' on loop for the next twelve hours."
Someone swallowed. "A fabricated message, sir?"
"A message fitting for a hero," Gihren corrected.
He spoke the rest with eerie serenity.
"A Baoa Qu will be the crucible. We will bleed the Federation and shatter their momentum. Dozle's death will be the rallying point. His corpse will win us battles he could not."
The ministers stared, caught between fear and obedience.
Gihren didn't notice. Or more accurately, he didn't care.
He was already planning the funeral… for Zeon's humanity.
Tanya sat alone in her quarters aboard the Iron Serpent, legs crossed, helmet resting on the desk beside her. The room was dark except for the faint blue glow of her cockpit diagnostic pad. She stared at it, but her thoughts wandered far beyond the numbers.
Her fingers drummed slowly.
"So this is the path," she muttered. "A hero's corpse used like a banner."
The idea sickened her more than the Federation's advance.
She'd met Dozle. Seen the man behind the growl. How he treated soldiers like people, not chess pieces.simple maybe but that remind her she still can see that human have many side.
Now he was propaganda.
Zeon was sliding toward a cliff, brakes torn off, and she was stuck inside the vehicle watching everyone argue about the scenery.
The worst part wasn't even the war.
It was the knowledge creeping into her gut that the peaceful civilian life she wanted—the one she'd clawed toward for so long—was crumbling like dust in her hands.
"A Baoa Qu…" she whispered, rubbing her temple. "That's where it all ends."
And she felt something else too, something far colder.
Zeon wouldn't survive the end.
Neither would most of the people she cared about.
She closed her eyes. She'd felt Newtype echoes through the battle with Samus. Felt the surge from Gary Lin. Felt the trembling response from Char, from Samus, even from the shadows of the battlefield.
The war was accelerating.
And the universe was twisting.
She sighed softly.
"Just my luck."
Meanwhile, deep below Granada in a shuttered hangar lit only by emergency strips, Lelouch stood with his back to the metal scaffolding, his coat fluttering faintly from the ventilation.
A single figure stepped from the shadows.
Jason.
He didn't salute. Didn't smile. He just looked at Lelouch with the tired expression of someone who had seen the same disaster from a different angle.
"So you called me," Jason said quietly. "You said it was urgent."
Lelouch nodded and handed him a data chip.
"This contains proof of Gihren's next move. He's going to use Dozle's death to mobilize Zeon for a final battle at A Baoa Qu."
Jason frowned. "And you care because…?"
"Because that battle will destroy Zeon," Lelouch replied bluntly. "And it will drag the Federation into a bloodbath they can't control."
Jason arched a brow. "And? Isn't that exactly what war does?"
Lelouch stepped closer, eyes cold, voice low.
"I intend to end this war. Not feed slaughterhouses."
Jason's expression sharpened.
"What's the plan?"
Lelouch smirked—just barely.
"To fracture the cycle. To preserve the people who still deserve a future. To ensure that A Baoa Qu doesn't become a graveyard for every Newtype on the field."
Jason breathed out slowly.
"So… we're interfering."
Lelouch's gaze hardened with purpose.
"We're going to rewrite the ending."
And as alarms from Solomon's defeat echoed through every Zeon channel, the two of them walked deeper into the hangar, toward the machines that would shape a war and break a destiny.
But...
Jason weighed the data chip in his hand, expression unreadable. The distant rumble of bulkhead doors echoed like someone dragging chains down a hallway.
Instead of pocketing the chip, he looked straight at Lelouch.
"You're thinking too small," Jason said. "A Baoa Qu, Zeon, the Federation… you're still playing inside their box."
Lelouch's eyes narrowed. "Then enlighten me."
Jason exhaled, like he was about to explain basic arithmetic to the most dramatic student in a classroom.
"Zeon is finished," he said, voice flat. "Even if they win the next battle, the internal fractures will eat them alive. If they lose, they go down in flames. Either way, they're gone."
He stepped past Lelouch and tapped a console. A star map flickered to life above them, red dots marking the Earth Sphere, green lines stretching outward into the deep void.
Beyond the asteroid belt, a faint arc lit up in blue.
Mars.
"You want to break the cycle?" Jason asked. "Then stop trying to fix a dying machine. Walk away from it."
Lelouch stared at the projection, frowning. "You're suggesting exile?"
"I'm suggesting survival." Jason zoomed the map outward again. Past Mars. Past the belt. A long, thin line extended toward a swirling dot of storms.
Jupiter.
"I have tech that can get me there," Jason continued. "Engines, habitats, resource modules. My… system… has access to a development catalog far beyond anything Zeon or the Federation can dream of."
Lelouch blinked, just once.
"So you've been hiding a technological library that can casually bypass a century of research."
Jason shrugged. "You never asked."
For maybe the first time in hours, Lelouch actually looked thrown.
Jason kept going before the man could rebuild his composure.
"The plan is simple. When Zeon collapses, when Gihren burns everything to ash, when the Federation thinks it's won… we leave. Mars first. Jupiter later. A clean slate with no politicians trying to reenact feudalism with nukes."
Lelouch recovered fast, his mind already chewing through the implications.
"You expect me to believe you can create a frontier colony from nothing?"
"I expect you to understand that I don't need belief," Jason replied. "I just need time. The tech is ready. I only have to construct it."
He folded his arms, eyes half-lidded.
"You keep trying to save everyone. Fine. Try. But if you can't stop this war from eating itself alive, I'm not sticking around for the encore."
Lelouch stepped closer, searching Jason's face. The map's cold light sharpened the edges of his smirk.
"You're still a genius," he muttered. "An infuriating genius with no respect for the stage I'm trying to direct… but a genius."
Jason snorted. "And you're still pretending the universe is a chessboard. You want to rewrite the ending? Then start planning for a future that actually exists."
The alarms continued echoing overhead—Solomon's fall still shaking Zeon to its core. The whole base was a storm only held together by metal and stubbornness.
Jason shut down the map.
Lelouch straightened his coat.
And for the first time, the path forward wasn't just blood and ruins.
It was the possibility of escape. Of rebuilding. Of leaving the madness behind.
A future carved on Mars.
And one day, Jupiter.
Not victory.
Survival.