By: Shadow Chaser
Previously on Gundam SEED: Entropy Rising…
"Look," Quinn seemed a bit uncomfortable with so many people staring at him like fish out of the water, "I'm not really good at this briefing stuff, but if the results are true, I think the next targets we should be protecting is somewhere on the Earth, most likely an Earth base. Senator, you know the risks…I mean if these guys attack an Earth base, then some of OMNI will probably blame ZAFT and then ZAFT will blame OMNI and there goes that ping-pong effect."
"It is a feasible idea, if not that bright, Captain. Since there is little we can do now, I will talk to OMNI and the President about your suggestion. However, no authorization will be given to the LF's warships to enter OMNI ports unless in extreme situations."
"If we're hit with a pronged attack, it would be bad for us. Though the Archangel is getting more supplies of the latest Astray models, it might not be enough," she said, a frown appearing on her face.
"I still get the feeling that this is just a warm up for something bigger, but what…" Quinn voiced his thoughts.
"I may be no psychologist, but during that meeting today, I saw that you were really worried for the Princess' safety. Now I'm not the one to pry into people's lives, but you truly love her and care for her more than anyone save Kira. Somehow I get the feeling that you're afraid of losing her, though I don't think it's to Kira oddly, but you're afraid that if you go off with the LF, and you one day come back, she might not be there. You're afraid of some terrorist trying to assassinate her and you won't be there to protect her."
"If it's to stop whoever's doing this and to protect all that I love," he stared at the gray face of one of two most powerful G-units ever built, "I'll pilot the Justice Gundam again."
Phase Eight – Returning to the Battlefield
Cagalli awoke to bright sunshine casting vertical beams into her room, little slits in the places where her curtains couldn't hold together. She squinted slightly at the brightness of the light and glanced to her end table where a digital clock was blinking the time. It was still fairly early in the morning and she wondered why she had awakened so early.
"Tori!"
The mechanical swish of wings made her look up to the end of her bed where Tori was perched, its head tilted and looking at her before giving a slight mechanical flutter of its wings.
"Myta! Myta! Haro!" a sudden red colored Haro bounced up from the floor and tried to land on Tori, who flew up into the air to avoid being smashed by the Haro who was trying to chase it.
Cagalli frowned as she saw the two robotic creatures chase each other around. She gave a soft groan of annoyance before she took one of her two pillows and placed it on her face in an effort to curb the noise the two were making. There was hell to pay for whoever let the two in. As she tried to block out the noise by squeezing the pillows over her ears, she belatedly realized that with all her efforts she still couldn't go back to sleep.
"Argh!" she finally took the pillow off of her face and opened her eyes, glaring at the ceiling of her four-poster bed. She sat up and chucked a pillow at both Haro and Tori and was mildly surprised to see it smack her Haro in the face before falling to the ground.
"Haro! That wasn't nice!" her Haro said in an indignant electronic voice but got the point as it bounded out of her room, Tori following it.
She flopped back down onto her bed, too awake to go back to sleep and sighed. Though she was still officially on recovery status, leaving the governing of Orb in the hands of the Councilors that had recovered with less injury than she had, she still felt like she needed to do something. After the briefing yesterday, she had talked with Erica on transporting a few of the newest Astray Mark II models to the Archangel which was going to be heading out of port and over to Panama where it would coordinate with top OMNI officials to try to prevent surprise attacks like those that caught the PLANT cities of Martius 5 and Februarius 3 off guard.
Though Orb had no real direct control of the workings of the LF, they were a major sponsor of funding and so Cagalli had the last say on certain things happening in the LF – otherwise it was just an independent military force, united by common bonds of peace and cooperation.
She rolled over and got out of bed, pulling some clothing from her wardrobe. Since there were no real important meetings for her to be in, she decided on casual clothing and went into the bathroom that was adjacent to her room. She quickly showered and cleaned up before she changed into her clothes and stepped out, feeling more awake, the tiredness gone from her body and eyes.
As she opened the door and headed downstairs, she heard the distant cry of "Tori!" followed by a multitude of "Haro! Myta!" and realized that with her and Lacus in the same house, that meant double the number of Haros rolling around. Though she loved the Haros Athrun built for her, having twice as many…she wished she could just shut all of them off.
"Good morning Princess," one of the servants, all loyal to her father and now to her, greeted her and she nodded a morning greeting, trying to suppress a yawn. She headed downstairs where she saw the butler of the house approaching her.
"Princess, the councilors would like to talk to you after your morning meal. It concerns the Senate and what proceedings should everyone take in wake of the bombing. Also there is the departure of the Archangel today and might I suggest that you take some time to visit the students that were wounded in the blast – it would provide an opportunity to tell others that Orb has not faltered."
"I know…" she said in a tired voice. "Tell the councilors I'll talk to them this evening. I want to spend the morning going over the specs of the new Astrays with Erica before they're to be loaded onto the Archangel. Schedule sometime in the late afternoon a trip to the hospital. Give me all the names of the students that are still hospitalized. Schedule sometime tomorrow a visit with the students that had been treated and released. I want to talk to every student including their parents if they've passed away."
Cagalli was sick of giving something to the press to show that Orb was still on its feet, but she also knew that as a leader she was responsible for overseeing the safety of her own people. She had already tried comforting Kira…but she felt like she needed another outlet. Pouring all of her frustrations onto Athrun wasn't a good way, as she didn't want to burden him further – especially in light of the information they had found out from Mrs. Yamato.
If her butler was surprised, he didn't show it, and instead nodded, "Very good, Princess. I will see that it is done." He left and Cagalli continued on her way.
She briefly wondered where Athrun was, as she had not seen him since last night…it was odd…
Kira didn't even know why he was at the hanger bay where the Archangel was docked; much less even know why he had attended yesterday's briefing. He supposed that he missed seeing Sai and Miri and wanted to get a chance to say hi before they were to depart on their next mission, but his mind was in such turmoil. Even with Cagalli telling him to be strong, he still couldn't as doubt ate at his every action.
He had begun to question everything he did, everything he had done…but silently as he didn't want to worry his friends further. He jammed his hands deep into the pockets of the windbreaker he was wearing, the hanger bay a bit more chilled than he would have liked in the summer heat. He saw technicians scrambling all over the place, working on last minute repairs or moving supplies onto the ship.
After leaving the Archangel for two years, he realized that the ship hadn't changed much. The paint was as bright as the day it burst from its docking bay on Heliopolis and into the middle of Rau and Mu's battle, and there weren't any apparent signs of damage from all the battles the ship had been through. He felt a twinge of nostagia for the days that he lived aboard the only thing he called home for the better part of a year, but quashed it immediately.
Even with the briefing, he had felt the pull to return to help defend all those who couldn't defend themselves, but he didn't want to be embroiled by death and destruction all around him anymore. With Freedom destroyed, it was his salvation to live the life of peace – but he still questioned that why was he still alive while millions of others were dead, either by his hand or by others.
He still questioned his own actions in the war – blinding fighting just to protect his friends, but even failing at that for the most part. He had let Tolle die because he didn't try hard enough to prevent his Skygrasper from flying close to his and Athrun's vicious battle. He had let Mu die because he failed to stop the Dominion from firing its Lohengrin cannons. He had not stopped Rau sooner from destroying the shuttle that Flay was on, or from heavily injuring Mu and the Strike. He had not stop his own bloodlust from destroying Athrun's friend Nicol and had not stopped himself from giving grief to Nicol's parents.
He had not saved the shuttle with the little girl who gave him a flower.
All those lives…
"Kira," Miri's voice made him look up from his musings and he saw both Miriallia Haw and Dearka Elsman walking towards him.
Miri hugged him briefly before stepping back and Dearka held out his hand to which Kira shook. "What are you doing here?" she asked.
He shrugged before gesturing to the Archangel, "I heard that you guys had your next mission so I guess I wanted to see you before you left." He attempted a small smile, hoping that Miri wouldn't be able to see past it. He still wasn't too comfortable talking with Dearka, even though they fought together in the Clyne Faction during the war.
"I'll go get Sai," apparently Dearka also wasn't comfortable talking with him either and went off into one of the Archangel's hatches to grab Sai Argyle.
"So…how are you feeling Kira? I heard that your class was also in the…" Miri trailed off, looking a bit uncertain and Kira placed a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm better. The doctors said the stitches should come off in a day or so," he reassured her before taking his hand off and letting it hang limply by his side.
"That's good," Miri smiled, "You know…um…"
There was an awkward moment of silence and in that short period, Kira realized that since he had left the Archangel, his friendship with Miri and even Sai had been growing further and farther apart. He was a civilian…they were part of the military – they didn't really have any common ground except for the fact that they were all friends back on Heliopolis. Talking about Heliopolis was always painful especially witnessing the destruction of their own home colony…so…
"Kira!" Sai called from the hatch that Dearka had went in a few minutes ago and ran over. Moments later, Tori flew from wherever it had been flying around and perched on Sai's shoulder, giving him and inquisitive look before it hopped over to Kira's.
"Tori!"
"I see you still have Tori," Sai shook hands with him, smiling slightly.
"Yeah," he replied, "so…um…how long are you going to be out?"
Sai shrugged, "I don't really know. Captain hasn't given us the full details yet, but we'll probably stay Earth-bound for now."
"Oh," Kira realized that they were probably going to be split up into small teams and suddenly was worried for them.
"Well, um, Captain's gotten me to prep the ship, so I shouldn't really stick out here too long," Sai suddenly broke the silence, looking a bit awkward and hesitant.
"I should also go and help. They're bringing in the new Astray models so…" Miri also looked a bit ashamed at leaving so soon but Kira shook his head.
"It's okay. You guys be careful, all right?" he clapped Sai on the shoulder.
"Yeah. You too Kira," Sai gave a small smile before he and Miri turned and walked back to the ship.
Kira watched them go and some part of him, he felt alone once more.
Athrun sat in front of the controls of the Justice, feeling a familiar swell of anticipation that he had never felt since the last time he had first gotten into Justice over two years ago. As he flicked on the power and did a systems check, his fingers running over the keyboard quickly, his eyes taking in the information, he thought back to what had happened only a few hours ago.
He had told Lacus that he was joining the LF and that the Justice and Freedom Gundams had been rebuilt, but she was the only one who knew. He didn't know how to tell Cagalli or worst, Kira. Part of him was afraid of their reactions… Though he didn't know if Cagalli or Kira was going to be seeing the ship off, he most likely suspected that Cagalli was going to be there…and therefore see him load up the Justice onto the Archangel.
He didn't want to leave them without any warning…but…
"Status check," the buzz of his comm system made him look at it for a second before he looked out of the main tri-window cockpit, seeing a technician waving to him from the console Erica had occupied the night before.
He ran his eyes over the results before replying, "All green."
"Roger that, Justice. Good luck out there," the technician started up the elevator to take him up to ground level where he would be able to load up onto the Archangel. He had told Murrue this morning that Justice had been rebuilt and he was joining them, but he didn't know if she told the rest of her crew.
"Thanks," he replied as the giant elevator propelled him and Justice upwards.
As the elevator went up, Athrun shifted in his flightsuit, the traditional orange-white of Orb. He was ZAFT no more so he felt that wearing his uniform and flightsuit, the red colors of ZAFT was a bit awkward and had asked for an Orb LF uniform. He didn't really know if Dearka was still wearing the red colors, but he did know that majority of the crew of the Archangel still wore the colors of the OMNI forces.
As the lift slowed down and then stopped, he moved Justice forward out of the lift to the hanger bay. As he rounded a corner, the Archangel came into view and on the upper left hand corner of his middle screen, Miri's face appeared. "Justice are you ready to board?"
So the crew did know that Justice had been rebuilt and he nodded. "Have all the Astrays been loaded?"
"Yes. It will be a tight fit, but when we get to Panama, we'll be meeting up with the Eternal to give them some of the Astrays," Miri replied.
"Didn't expect to see you here," Dearka's grinning face suddenly appeared underneath Miri's. "They didn't tell us…well, the Captain's probably told the main crew, but hey…this is a surprise."
"I've given it some thought," Athrun replied before Dearka waved a hasty goodbye and terminated the link.
"Did you tell Kira about this?" Miri asked, her voice full of concern and Athrun shook his head.
"No…"
"You might want to…he's here…" Miri said and Athrun looked beyond the Archangel to see Kira, standing to the side of the dock near some piles of crates, a shocked expression on his face.
"Oh…" the flightsuit suddenly felt a bit restraining, "thank you Miri."
Miri didn't say anything, but nodded and terminated the link. Athrun moved forward and clomped into the Archangel's hanger bay, noticing that Miri's statement about having a tight fit was correct. The Archangel was holding a lot of the new Astray models, and he barely got Justice to fit in. As clamps latched on, holding his mobile suit in place, he opened the cockpit hatch and rode down on a cable near the side of his Gundam.
"Hey kid, welcome aboard," Murdoch, the head technician aboard the Archangel greeted him with a friendly slap to his back, "haven't seen you since the cease-fire. Good to have you and that suit aboard again."
Athrun nodded, somehow feeling that if he said 'Good to be back' it wouldn't sit well with his own conscience. "I'll be back in a few minutes. How much time do we have before we take off?"
"About half-hour. Better hurry kid," Murdoch replied before he took off.
He ran outside to the dock and skidded to a stop as he saw Kira who stared at him with confused eyes. Tori flew from his shoulder and Athrun raised a hand to let the bird perch on his fingers as he walked forward to meet his best friend.
"Hi Kira," he greeted.
"Athrun…" Kira's gaze was an open wound, "h-how…why…"
It was the same look Athrun saw five years ago when they had parted ways. "It's not for war…" he found himself saying, "I…want to protect you… Protect Cagalli…protect everyone who's dear to me…"
"But…"
Athrun sighed sadly as Tori flitted from his fingers to his shoulder. "During that blast…I felt so helpless. Cagalli was injured…you were near death…I felt so powerless. After what…your mother told us," he hesitated slightly and saw a new pain spring to his best friend's eyes, "I wanted to stop whoever was doing this. I…didn't want them to hurt you anymore, Kira."
"Do you remember what you told me when we were living with Mariko?" Kira started in a quiet voice.
"Yes…" Athrun couldn't really catch what his best friend was getting at, "I said that the reason we were alive was to make up for things…"
"But is rebuilding Justice and taking it out to war the right way to make up for us to be alive while so many others are dead?" Kira asked.
Athrun turned away from his friend's open and vulnerable look, finding a sudden spot on the ground next to his feet very interesting. "It's not war…it's defending those we care about and those we love."
"But…" Kira's voice broke, "it's killing others by taking something so deadly as that machine!"
Athrun clenched a fist tightly before he looked up and met Kira's open gaze, forcing himself not to flinch from it. "With anything in your possession, you don't necessarily have to kill with it. You fought in Freedom to only disable because it wasn't in your nature to kill…but…I'm different from you…" He glanced at the Archangel for a second before turning back, "I was a trained soldier…"
"But even as a soldier, you don't have to kill…"
Athrun smiled sadly as he reached out and placed a hand on Kira's shoulder, "Which is why I'm not…unless it is absolutely necessary. Kira…you're a gentle soul and you should have never had the burdens you carry on you. Let me…let Cagalli…let Lacus carry your burdens for now. Please…"
"Departure in five minutes. All hands report to your stations!" a general announcement came from the speakers within and outside of the Archangel.
Athrun let go of Kira's shoulder and held up his right hand to his own shoulder and Tori hopped onto it. He held out his hand, Tori fluttering its wings. There were no words exchanged between them, but Athrun smiled as Kira reached his hand out to receive Tori.
It was only a few seconds of silence between them, but it lasted an eternity. The flashes of memories passing between them of all the times they had, both good and bad…the battles they fought together and against each other. The memory of prep school…of the recent bombings…finding out the truth of Kira's origins…everything.
How did two childhood friends become the worst of enemies? How did they become the best of friends afterwards? Simple. They trusted each other completely.
Athrun was the first to turn away and walked back into the Archangel, not looking back. He could feel Kira's eyes on him the whole time and a small wistful smile appeared on his lips. Kira needed someone else to carry his heavy burden…and he hoped he was up to the challenge.
"Athrun!" Cagalli's voice brought him to look around to see her running towards him, dressed in what would be the orange jackets of Orb and the LF. Beyond her he saw Erica and Lacus, watching them. He stumbled back slightly as Cagalli hugged him tightly, using all of her weight. She buried her face in his shoulder and he could feel a wet spot begin to form where her eyes were and realized that she was crying.
"Why?!" her voice was muffled, but Athrun wrapped an arm around her waist while his other arm stroked her hair.
He released her after a few seconds and she stared up at him with tear-stained eyes. "Why Athrun? I thought you were happy with you life here…"
"I am," he replied in a gentle voice, his left hand tracing the outlines of her face, "I am happy. But…I can do more if I'm out there. I can protect you from further harm…"
"You can protect me by staying here…" Cagalli sniffled, wiping her eyes roughly but the tears didn't stop.
Athrun sighed and stared at the wall on his right before looking back down at her. "I want to stop them, Cagalli," he started in a hesitant voice, "I want to stop the bastards who did this. They were aiming to take you out and I should have seen it coming.
"Please," he tilted her chin up so that she was looking into his eyes, "don't stop me…all right?" He leaned down and kissed her gently, until he felt her deepening the kiss and he obliged. Drawing her up into his arms, he closed his eyes. They both parted a couple of minutes later Cagalli's face tinged red while Athrun smiled at her blushing. She looked cute blushing, he thought as he held her at arms length.
"A-Athrun," Cagalli stammered.
"I will come back safely…don't worry," he pushed her gently back and she didn't resist his efforts.
He raised a hand and pushed the door close button on the hatch and watched as it immediately snapped shut between them, startling Cagalli out of her frazzled state. The door automatically locked as the rumble of the engines coming online for the Archangel buzzed through the walls.
Cagalli pounded against the door, her eyes filled with tears, but Athrun just waved a good-bye to her as the ship began to move out of port. He saw her hastily step back still calling his name silently as he watched her grow farther and farther away… Soon she was blended within the gray and blue of the fading port and emerging sea that surrounded the main island of nation. Athrun turned his gaze to the blue skies above him.
He had returned to the battlefield once more – but this time, not for war, but to keep the peace and to protect his friends and loved ones.
Notes:
Run away fic – I think Athrun ran away with this fic. Damn. It's supposed to be Kira-centric.
Shortness – Chapter is short, but they will get longer again. Don't worry.