He didn't know how to define the darkness before him.

It was darkness, and yet it was not.

It was empty, and yet it was not.

It was nothing… and yet it was eternity.

All the times he reached beyond the state of existence known by Oldtypes couldn't even remotely compare to this. The "expansion of consciousness", as scientists called it, even though it was more than that. Only Newtypes knew for sure, only Newtypes could know for sure - and yet that description didn't quite describe it. Couldn't describe it. For Newtypes, their state of existence simply was. No description needed. And yet no description was possible, for thoughts put to words by a human mind simply could not describe what laid beyond the bounds of a human mind.

What his mind now glimpsed upon eclipsed all of that. There was no expansion. There was only him and the Beyond, towering over him in its infinity.

But even as it pulled at him, his very soul feeling the threshold of transcendence…

…he hesitated.

And as if to answer that hesitation, a familiar form appeared before him. – "You are not ready."

"What do you mean?" – He did not consciously will to respond, but the words were spoken true.

"I can feel it." – her spirit slowly circled around him. – "You feel as you still have things left to do."

And the nature of his hesitation revealed itself to him. There was no point in denying it. – "...you're right."

"And you are honest about it. I've always liked that in you."

"As opposed to Char?" – he asked bitterly.

He more felt than saw Lalah frown. – "I never wanted the two of you to fight."

"We don't always get what we want. If Char wouldn't have wanted to force the hand of history, none of this would've happened."

"If he wouldn't have done it, someone else would've."

Anger welled up in him. – "So I should've just left everyone to die?!"

"Am I not dead?"

"People only have one life! If they lose it, it's all over for them!"

"Am I not talking to you right now?"

"Don't give me that!" – He reached out and grabbed her shoulder. Though he wasn't sure if that really happened or if his mind was just making the sensation up to make sense of what it was perceiving. – "Being able to talk to someone isn't the same as being there with them! It can't even begin to compare! All the people, all those who died today, they still had things to do in life! Should they give all of it up just because you say it's okay to do so?!"

"I never said that–"

"If you say people should abandon their state of existence for another just because you think it's better for them…" – he interrupted her. – "If you truly believe that, then you are the same as Char. We cannot make that kind of choice for them. No one can. People must make that choice by themselves."

"You talk as though death is the end of everything." – Lalah remarked.

Which only rekindled his anger. – "If death is not the end, why didn't you stop him?!"

"You did that yourself, captain." – Chan pointed out as she materialized out of nowhere.

"And how many people died to make that happen?!"

"You're a soldier yourself. You know that we can't save everyone, no matter how hard we try."

"I know, but that still doesn't make it right."

He wouldn't accept it. He couldn't accept it. The frustration, the powerlessness, the knowledge that he could do nothing… all feelings he was familiar with ever since that day fate decided to put him on center stage. A day he always felt ambivalent about: the day when everything started going downhill…

…and the day when he became able to make a difference.

With that, a decision blossomed in his mind. – "I want to go back."

"You can't."

"Why not?"

"No one has the power to bring back the dead." – Lalah replied. – "Not even you."

"You said it yourself, captain: people only have one life." – Chan added. – "Even you."

But the decision was made.

"No." – Amuro Ray replied calmly, his anger being drained by a new emotion. Resolve. – "I will not accept this."

In that instant, the universe was no more.

Consciousness returned to Amuro as his eyes slowly cracked open.

It wasn't the spherical walls of a panoramic cockpit that greeted him; more like a crumpled pillow pressed against his face by gravity. Or rather, artificial gravity. Throughout his life, he traversed the Earth Sphere enough to get a feel for the varying amounts of gravity in various locations – and what he felt right now was neither the oppressive pull of Earth, nor felt quite like the Moon. By process of elimination, that meant he was in a colony somewhere.

Brain slowly rebooting, his head turned … and stared stupidly at the amateur electronics gear in front of him.

He couldn't, for the love of his life, figure out what was going on. Did someone pick him up and take him to safety?

That was unlikely. If a Jegan would've grabbed the Nu, he would be in the Ra Cailum's infirmary right now. If it would've been a Geara Doga, he probably would've been killed in his sleep for stopping their efforts. Then again, at least some of them did try to help him in the end…

What else? A civilian vessel wouldn't go anywhere near a pitched battle zone, much less a colony drop. Especially since he clearly remembered the Nu being seared by reentry heat as Char desperately tried to convince him to give up.

Amuro sat right up at that thought. If he was alive, chances were that Char made it too. And if so, might be up to something.

First things first, he had to find out where he was and how to get in contact with Londo Bell. Neo-Zeon was at their breaking point; time was of the essence before they tried to go underground. Last time that happened, nothing good came out of it. But then again, the same was the case with Char too. Amuro told the brass he was too dangerous to be left alone and Bright backed him up on that – but not only they didn't listen, they actually tried to bribe the man! Did they honestly think that someone who spent eleven years to stalk and kill five people and betrayed not one, not two, but three factions he worked for at various points, could be swayed by real estate?

It wasn't mere stupidity. It was incompetence to such an insane degree that Amuro, as much as he hated to admit it, honestly started to have doubts about the Federation as a whole lately.

Not to a level of actually agreeing with Char, even in hindsight, but he did remember Haman Karn's hateful words recounted to historians by Judau Ashta's friends, decrying the Federation as a herd of fatcats content on having their own fill and damn everything else. He remembered Jerid Messa's words, heard with his own ears: 'we have the power, therefore we have the right'.

And yet he also remembered the Federation Assembly unanimously repealing the 0087 Counter-Terrorism Act that day in Dakar. That right there is what kept Amuro hopeful when the Federation tried to avoid Haman's wrath by giving her Side 3 and leaving what was left of AEUG hanging out to dry. Why he risked his neck by re-enlisting in the military after having stepped on one too many toes through his protesting of the existence of the Titans' Newtype labs and technically having committed treason by joining Karaba – both worthy of being blacklisted and the latter worthy of a court martial.

Lalah was right. He did feel that if he could turn back the clock, there would've been many things he could've done better. Or done at all.

He slung his legs over the edge of the bed and frowned. His body felt… wrong somehow. In fact, the whole world felt wrong. Even his senses were… fogged, if that word could be applied to extrasensory perception. It was most definitely not helped by a bizarre sense of familiarity he felt as he looked across the room. It looked more like a teenager's room than a prison cell, including a slightly torn poster of a Zaku I above a desk. Where in the hell was he?!

Inching slowly to the window, he peeked around the edges of the closed curtains, careful not to touch it in any way a sentry outside could see. They didn't know he was awake yet, which meant he had the element of surprise.

No military base or hospital, just a normal-looking suburban street. That left two options: either he was in civilian hands – which was unlikely –, or in those of a Neo-Zeon group in hiding. And considering that he didn't remember ejecting, that could be trouble: if they managed to get their hands on the Nu and had a Cyber-Newtype in their ranks, there could be no end to the carnage they could cause with it. In which case, getting back in touch with Bright in a timely manner just got a whole lot more important.

Amuro was more than a little surprised to find the door unlocked. Were his captors seriously this sloppy or did his luck finally decide to help him out for a change?

Even so, he decided not to risk it and took the stairs behind as quietly as he could, listening to any sound indicative of someone about to jump him. Yet there was none. And as he arrived down to what looked like a dining room, he was starting to get more than a little paranoid. There was just no way someone with a prisoner could be sloppy enough to leave everything unlocked and post no guards whatsoever, no way at all.

'Even if they didn't recognize my face, they pulled me out of an enemy mobile suit. I'm the enemy, they have to know that!'

Yet as he spotted a computer in another room upstairs, he recognized the opportunity: no guards means no one to stop him from using it to get his bearings.

'Well. Don't mind if I do…'

Five minutes later, Amuro pinched the bridge of his nose with a frustrated sigh.

No matter where he looked, he couldn't find any online news more recent than fourteen years old and if it was censored, it was a very elaborate and seamless mechanism. There went that idea, he supposed. He chanced an attempt to log in to the EFSF global network as well, but found that the system didn't accept his credentials. News of his apparent death spread fast, it would seem. Only, he never quite remembered the military bureaucracy being so swift and efficient that they'd bother with locking out accounts in the immediate aftermath of a near-apocalypse. That being said, it still had a perk, though: if he was lucky, his attempted unauthorized access was flagged and traced to wherever he was, dragging security forces right to his captors' doorstep.

Not that Amuro intended to wait for the cavalry.

He was in the middle of standing up from the computer to tally up potential escape routes when he heard a voice from the stairs. There was no way for him to ambush or even hide in time…

…before a young girl looking very much like a teenage Frau Bow walked into the room.

"So this is where you're hiding!" – she regarded him with a sigh. – "I don't think your dad is going to be pleased if he finds you in here. And you didn't even touch the food I brought you! Were you up all night again? I know there's no school today, but-"

That was just too much for him.

He distantly heard her cry of alarm as he practically collapsed back onto the chair in the room he now recognized very well. The persistent feeling of deja vu he's been having ever since he woke up, the lack of recent news, and now Frau Bow suddenly appearing with a much younger look and just casually chatting him up as if she wasn't a thirty year old widow with a dead husband and foster son. No matter how much he tried finding the catch, there was none. His senses, though foggy, assured him that no, this was no illusion. The girl before him was Frau Bow, that much he could feel.

The entire situation was just absurd, but it was the truth and the realization hit with all the subtlety of a beam cannon to a mobile suit's reactor. Somehow, he was in 0079 – and if the way his body felt (and Frau's lack of reaction) was any indication, he was no longer 30 either.

This was just flat-out impossible – and yet Amuro Ray had seen many things that would've been impossible without Newtypes being involved. So there was that.

It took a pair of rapid, forceful slaps on his cheek to shook him out of his thoughts and back to reality.

"AMURO!" – Frau's voice snapped at him, her hands grabbing his cheeks and forcibly making him face her as she was leaning over him. – "Are you listening to me now?"

He shakily nodded.

"Okay. Now, are you okay? You looked like you've just seen a ghost and collapsed."

"...y-yeah… yeah, I'm okay."

"I don't think so. You haven't eaten. Again. And I think your blood pressure dropped from standing up too fast. You're lucky you didn't fall and hit your head on the edge of the table."

'Why do you even ask if I'm alright if you're not going to accept the answer anyway…?' he inwardly wondered. – "It's okay, I'm fine."

"Oh no, you're not brushing this off just like that." – She stood back up. – "I'm bringing that food here and you're not moving an inch from here, understand?"

"Frau-"

"No."

"I-"

"No. You. Are. Going. To. Eat." – she declared in a tone that left no room for resistance before marching out of the room.

'Yep. Same old Frau.' Amuro thought with some measure of amusement; despite all she went through, Frau could still force her way through when she really put her mind to something. Though it was more to distract himself from the matter at hand.

Eating did give him time to think, though. Here were the facts.

He was in Side 7, sometime around '79 instead of '93. How did he suddenly retrace the last 14 years of his life, he had no idea.

He was a teenager again. Again, how did he had fourteen years' worth of extra memories in his head, he had no idea.

However this happened, he still had his Newtype senses. Well, sort of. In any case, that was going to come in handy.

However he returned to the past, he didn't seem to bring Frau along for the ride. At least, she didn't show any remembrance of what he was still having trouble recognizing as the future.

The future… it sounded ridiculous to him as well, but Amuro has long since learned to trust what his senses told him. And right now they, dulled as they were, told him that this was no illusion. No, this was cold, hard reality. Outside the colony's walls and beyond the void, the One Year War raged. He didn't know the exact date, though; he made a mental note to check it first thing after he slipped away from Frau's motherhenning of him. As glad as he was to see her as a chipper youth instead of a broken woman, he had more important things to do right now.

Like getting his bearings to know where he stood.

'Whatever higher power steers the hand of fate has a strange sense of humor indeed…'

It was a good thing Musai cruisers kept the tradition of the commanding officer having separate personal quarters instead of hotbunking with the rest of the crew because Char Aznable didn't think he would've had an easy time explaining to the rest of the crew why he had a, as distasteful as the word sounded, freakout just a few minutes ago upon waking up in his bunk.

But at least he had a good excuse for it. After all, people don't visit death's door only to suddenly wake up inside a Principality of Zeon warship they commanded fourteen years ago, manned by the same crew and headed for the same objective. But there was no mistake: he was in the CO quarters of the Falmel, headed for Side 7 to investigate intelligence obtained by Principality intelligence about Project V.

And yet, he knew exactly what he was going to find: the Pegasus-class assault ship White Base and a few kilometers away, on a heavy trailer being transported to the docking facilities…

His mouth tightened into a thin line at the thought.

A part of him morbidly noted that for some reason, it was always a white mobile suit that came closest to killing him. First it was the Gundam, then it was the Qubeley and finally, Nu Gundam. But none of the other two left as heavy an impression upon his mind as the Gundam. And considering that it would seem the Nu Gundam actually succeeded in killing him, that was saying something. He still remembered the mounting frustration he felt as time and time again, he failed to score a decisive victory, no matter how often he switched rides to keep the upper hand. Yet even once he had a superior machine, all he was able to eke out was a draw.

Because no matter how advanced it was, a mobile suit was only as powerful as the pilot.

Char didn't care there were only a handful of other Zeon pilots who went toe-to-toe with the White Devil and survived the experience. To him, it was personal. The Gundam had taken everything from him: his pride…

…and his hope for the future.

Simply put, Char was scared. He was scared to sit down and contact her. If he were to see her face, alive and well, after all these years… he honestly didn't know what he would do. No matter how many of his comrades fell alongside him, all of them combined couldn't compare to the agony he felt when he lost her. And if he had anything to say about it, it would not happen again. He would not allow it, even if he had to choke the life out of Amuro with his bare hands. And if he were to lose her again…

He would burn it all. For he would know the universe existed solely to torment him and it would be only right for him to strike back.

For now, though, he needed to think about his immediate situation. He was on the Falmel inbound to Side 7, back in the past with a clean slate. Which meant the Principality of Zeon existed and with it…

He turned on his heel and walked to his quarters' private terminal, whereupon he sat down and calmly proceeded to type out a list of names before scrolling back to the first item on his list.

Degwin Zabi

After a few seconds of contemplation, he put an X next to the name. The man started this whole mess in the first place; there was just too much blood on his hands.

Gihren Zabi

Char put down another X without pausing.

Kycilia Zabi

He paused for consideration again. It was very tempting to mark her off as a target; she more than deserved it and did try to kill him and Artesia, him more than once. Yet at the same time, she did personally kill Gihren and wasn't quite as psychotic as him (which was faint praise indeed). In the end, he shook his head and put down an X. Better not to take any chances.

Dozle Zabi

A difficult question. Char had to admit, if it weren't for the man's heritage, he might have even respected him. Dozle wasn't a monster like his older siblings, it's just that he wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed and was too prone to blindly going along with what the rest of his family said simply because of who said it. And yet while Gihren might have been the one to come up with Operation British, it was Dozle who executed it. Char noted with some measure of mirth that he was probably the last person in existence who was in a position to criticize Dozle for Operation British, but that didn't mean he approved of it. In the end, he simply put a question mark next to Dozle's name. If the brute got in his way, by all means he would put him down but frankly, he had more important targets. Besides, Dozle would rot in military prison for the rest of his life anyway. That is, if Amuro didn't get to him first – not that Char intended to let Amuro live that long.

Garma Zabi

Probably the hardest question. Simply put, Garma was no threat to him whatsoever. Like Dozle, he was impressionable - but unlike Dozle, he lacked the stomach to get his hands dirty. Useless for anything but PR, really. Then again, Char noted with what he was surprised to realize was a measure of sentimentality, Garma was quite possibly the closest he ever had to someone he could call a friend. Not a subordinate, not someone who was merely a means to an end for him, but someone he could actually speak his mind to. Well, to a certain extent; Char didn't quite have any intention of telling him who he actually was. But still, the sole useful reason for killing him would be to hurt the others – with the exception of Gihren, who not only took the whole thing in stride, but turned it into propaganda to fuel Zeon morale instead. No, Char thought as he put a dash next to Garma's name, he would not give the bastard the satisfaction this time around.

Zenna Zabi

Char put down a dash without missing a beat. She was no threat to him and no one except Dozle would really care anyway.

Mineva Zabi

He idled on her name for a few moments before putting down a dash. While the girl had potential usefulness as a figurehead in case things went down the same way, Char didn't quite intend to sit on his laurels, so the chances of it happening were… well, not quite nil due to Murphy's Law, but if it was up to him, it wasn't going to happen. Besides, killing her at this point would be far worse than killing Garma, in terms of propaganda material. Killing the Sovereign's favored son would earn him the scorn of a traitor, but killing a helpless infant would have the entire Principality out for his blood right behind Dozle, even without Gihren siccing them on him.

Char's hand was halfway towards erasing the list from the screen before anyone saw it when he paused as a new name suddenly occurred to him.

Glemy Toto

He didn't know if there were any substance to the rumors of the boy being Gihren's bastard, but a quick calculation in his head stated he should only be around 8 years old at this time. Gihren obviously didn't care because if he did, the boy's identity would've been public; if anything, one could always count on Gihren Zabi being a narcissistic enough bastard to shill himself to the public. That being said, he knew from Neo Zeon fugitives who joined his forces at Sweetwater that the boy was charismatic and apparently staunchly loyal to the Zabi family, even if he was a bit naive at times. Come to think of it, Char thought, he almost sounded like Dozle in that regard. Nevertheless, he put a question mark next to the name; while Glemy could potentially have his uses, especially for PR, loyalty to the Zabis was a problem and Char didn't feel like being in the mood to try to convince him to look at the bigger picture. Frankly, he has had enough of herding snot-nosed little brats around, especially after his experience with Gyunei.

With that, Char leaned back and directed his thoughts to a different matter. Namely, the state of the Earth Sphere itself. He had no illusions whatsoever that the ultimate outcome of the One Year War was set in stone by this point in time. No matter what he would or could do, Operation Odessa was in the preparatory stages and Project V was too far along to meaningfully impede. Zeon already missed their chance to score a knockout blow when they failed to capitalize on their initial blitzkrieg and inflict enough damage before hitting the limits of their supply lines. But then again, Char Aznable had absolutely no intention whatsoever to help the Principality of Zeon come out on top. Even if it weren't for the personal insult of them using his father's name for their horrific deeds, there was also the fact that it was the One Year War when the fate of the Earth Sphere entered a downward spiral. It was when the corrupt fatcats of the Earth Federation realized that for the first time in the Universal Century, the status quo was threatened. It was when the actions of the Zabi family and their followers put the fear of spacenoids into the heart of the Federation.

The storm clouds were already gathering for a while now, but it was this cataclysmic conflict that ensured there would never be lasting peace for as long as more than one side remained.

Thus, to Char, the solution was as self-evident as the day when he walked upon that podium in Sweetwater.

The Federation had to go.

As long as it and its elite remained, content on maintaining the status quo in the now instead of looking to the future, there was no future for humanity. Yet there was no future under the Principality of Zeon either, that he was certain of. Thus it was obvious that both needed to go. Char wasn't stupid: he was fully aware he was just one man. He couldn't possibly overthrow one government by himself, let alone two. And without feeling the results on their own skin, literally no one else would share his goal. Only he knew the chain of wars flowing on pure inertia, of conflict sowing the seeds of the next conflict, and the next one after that, in an infinite cycle of dogs mauling each other over something that never belonged to them in the first place.

Earth.

For now, though, his strategic goal was simple. The Principality of Zeon was going to fall regardless of what he did, so them he could tick off his mental list already. All he had to do was ensure the Federation's victory was as costly as possible, to weaken them for the following years. Even if the Federation didn't collapse by itself, the sorrow of all those who suffered loss in this war would ensure there would always be those who opposed the Federation. He merely needed to even the scales so that they would have a chance.

Once again, Char Aznable would be the vessel of humanity's pain, striking a righteous blow at the chains that bit into their flesh to keep them from reaching towards the sky.

Post-it author's notes - 2018.12.04.

After having been sitting on this idea for several years, I decided to let it out of my head at last. This story was originally inspired by the alternate timeline routes of the PS2 game Gundam VS Zeta Gundam. Not exactly the most original of plots, but hopefully I've been able to carry it further than other attempts in this particular fandom. Updates will likely be irregular, but this will not be a short story. Expect progressively heavier butterfly effects as the plot goes on.