"I'm sorry, but I don't have the time to convince you not to fight!"
The words sound childishly naïve, I know that, but they are words I must say. If I did not say them, they would burden my mind and heart, knowing I had let the opportunity to speak slip away from me.
What significance would those words carry with them? Those who dies by my hands, my Sandrock's hands, would they care? My words must surely mean little to them. What consolation could they possibly be for taking from them that essence of vitality that permits them their very existence? What reparation for their grieving families and loved ones?
This war has done nothing but take, condemning the innocent along with the guilty, until all have given what they can, and more besides. The fine line between the two has been thinned and broken in so many places, allowing what innocence there is left to be consumed by bitter understanding - which so often twists to hatred and darkness.
I see it every day in the eyes of my fellow Gundam pilots. All of them; even Duo, despite his carefree mask. They have all lost so much of themselves that now they seek to drive away what little bonds of friendship they may still have left. They think that by pretending that they don't care, they won't be hurt, as they were before…
They're wrong. So very wrong. They hurt themselves, and those who care for them, far more by denying what scraps of affection are offered to them.
Strange, how love hurts so much; strange, how in seeking peace we are forced to kill, to destroy.
Even my father.
He all but disowned me for wanting to fight with my Sandrock. Yet, when the time came, he, too, became a destroyer, and his words became as meaningless as my own.
No. I don't believe that. I can't believe that - not and keep my will strong, my purpose fixed. All words have meaning; different meanings for different people…
To my opponents in battle, my words must bring bitterness. They must surely wonder at first how such a foolish child could even step out onto a battlefield - until they see themselves and their companions falling beneath my Sandrock's blades. Who is it that is foolish then?
No, I do not say those words for them. Their fate is harsh enough in this grim, grey world. It is not my intention to make their departure from life any worse than it must be. Nor do I say them for myself. It would be pitifully naïve of me indeed to believe in the innocence those words seem to convey. I know myself better than that, even if no-one else does.
What is it that the others see in me? An innocent angel?
So strange, so very strange… and yet, above all other reasons, that is why I spoke those words. Not for me, not for my opponents, but for them.
They are the people who believe in an angel of mercy, one who has only reluctantly taken up the sword to defend the innocent population against tyranny and dictatorship, no matter that the very people he seeks to protect revile him as a war-monger rather than an advocate of peace. That is what they see - and that is what I am, what I must be, for them.
They need to have something they can believe in, something full of purity and goodness. It doesn't matter if I'm not the angel they think I am inside. They say that all you need to be a god is someone who truly believes that you are. If the belief is strong enough, anything is possible…
They believe that I am an angel, so I say those words as an angel would say them, regretful of the sacrifice of life he must make. It is for them alone I persist in my ways, living up to the image of their expectations as much as I can; it is for them that I fight, to win for them the peace they so desperately crave. I will do it for them, even convince the people of earth and of the colonies we fight for to unite in peace and harmony. Those that I cannot convince…
My Sandrock and I will bring eternal peace to the universe, as an angel should -
- one way, or another.
[MirrorForest - http://www.geocities.com/rhionae/ ][rhionae@hotmail.com]