Okay, I've some 'splaining to do, everyone.

Time constraints caught up to me in a hurry, and I realized the only thing I could do was write the chapters when I can and build up a buffer like I did in previous years. It was not something I wanted to do, but I didn't have much of a choice. So here we are again, time for yet another burst of activity for this story. It's still not finished, but I have made it to the final battle. I am hopeful that this burst will be the last one and Bloodlines will be finished by the end of this year or the beginning of the next one.


Chapter Seventy: Chariots of Dawn

"Where's Kira?"

Those were the first words out of my mouth when we entered the Kusanagi. The first thing they wanted us to do was transfer over to the Archangel, but I wasn't going to do that. Not until I saw Kira. Not until I saw my brother, and could acknowledge him as my brother.

As my family.

I was pointed the direction and I made it by the bridge, where I saw Kira, standing alone, staring at a picture in his hand.

I knew what picture it was before I could even get a close look at it. It was likely the same one Prime Minister Athha had shown me back at Onogoro, and now it was here, in Kira's hands.

"Kira," I said.

He looked over at me, tears streaming out of his violet eyes. "Oh, Cagalli."

He floated over to me and I wrapped my arms around him.

"I-I've got . . . I've got no way to tell you this . . ."

I managed to smile. "I already know. Your father . . . showed me the picture . . ."

I didn't have the heart to tell him I had known for a long time, far longer than he could have possibly guessed. But it was wonderful, embracing him like this, knowing we weren't just friends anymore, butfamily. We had been a brother/sister team the whole time we were on the Archangel, and we never knew.

We were going to treat each other differently from now on. That wasn't even a question at this point.

"He told you first, huh?" Kira asked softly.

"Yeah," I said, which was the truth.

I held him tight for a few more seconds before I let go. "I'm sorry. I wish . . . I wish there was some way I could've told you earlier."

"Don't apologize," Kira replied. "It's not your fault."

But it was. It always was. I was still wearing the ZAFT uniform, which embodied why it was my fault. If I had just stayed in Orb, I would have been able to tell Kira much, much earlier. And who knows what would have happened from there?

But those are questions that will never be answered, because I blew it. But now, I had an opportunity to redeem myself, and be Kira's sister. I was different from the girl who had run away. I was determined to be different from her. It wasn't like I had found peace, but I knew what I needed to do, and who I needed to be. That was better than wondering who I was and who I was becoming.

"Prince Kira." I looked behind my brother and I saw a tall man of what seemed to be Arabic descent floating in the hallway behind us. "You are needed onboard the Archangel."

He did not seem to like me very much. I was curious why. "That's good! I need to head there too! I'll take him with me!"

The man sighed. "Look, that is not necessary-"

"We're brother and sister, dammit!"

Kira turned towards him and raised his hand. "I'm sorry, Colonel Kisaka. I know you have . . . personal things with Cagalli right now, but I would like to travel with her. She's right, we are brother and sister, Father just confirmed that for the both of us."

Kisaka slowly nodded, clearly reluctant. "I understand. Please be careful, Prince Kira."

"I will, Colonel."

Kira tugged on my arm, which made me float down the hallway with him. "Let's give him some space. He still hasn't forgiven you yet."

I, of course, was confused. "Forgive me for what? I've never even met him before!"

"His hometown was Tassil," Kira said softly.

It hit me right away. Now it did make sense. Though I still didn't understand why he would blame me for it, unless that wasn't the reason why he seemed to dislike me.

I only crashed there and spend an entire night basically running for my life. I had no control over those circumstances.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"You're a reminder of what happened," Kira replied. "He knows it was not your fault. He has a bigger grudge against the Duel. However, you teaming up with the Duel for a while left a sour taste in his mouth."

That made a little more sense to me. "Well, I'm not teamed up with the Duel anymore, so he shouldn't have a problem with me anymore. I'm sorry about what happened in Tassil but that wasn't my fault."

It occurred to me then that Asta Joule was the only pilot from Athrun's unit that did not come along with us. Instead, Hilda Harken took the Aegis and joined up with Athrun. I needed to ask Athrun about that.

We stopped by a door. "Go get yourself into a spacesuit. You're going to love the Freedom. So many new features I haven't had the chance to explore yet."

"Yeah," Kira said softly. I hugged him around his shoulder in response to his soft reply.

"Kira, no matter what happens, I will protect you, okay? The reason why your father told us this was so we would be family. I'm here for you."

Kira nodded. "I know you are, Cagalli. I know."

He was acting weird, and I was wondering if he was going to cry. "Kira, what's wrong?"

"Nothing . . . I know you're here for me, but . . . of all of the people would be my sister . . . never mind."

Kira suddenly went behind the door and closed it before I could even think of a response to that awkward mumbling.

That didn't make any sense. He wasn't mad at me, but why . . . why would he be disappointed that I was his sister, unless . . .

Then it hit me. Oh crap.

Kira must've been nursing a crush on me this whole time. Could you imagine how that would feel, having these romantic pangs for someone, and then find out they're actually your twin?

I felt both disappointment and relief all at the same time. Disappointment because I couldn't give me thattype of love, but I was relieved that neither of us wound up doing anything on the Archangel. Because if we had . . .

Well, let's just say things would be even more awkward now than if they were. I don't think either of us would have looked at each other in the eye if we had actually kissed while we were on the Archangel.

And that's the last I'm going to say on this subject, dammit.


"We have got to get you out of that ZAFT uniform, Cagalli," Miriallia said to me. "It doesn't look right on you at all."

I laughed awkwardly. "I thought it looked pretty good at the time?"

I had already made my rather odd greetings to the crew of the Archangel. I was expecting an emotional reunion, but instead, I felt like I was a bit of a stranger now. At least it was better than feeling like I was a traitor for what I did. But judging by the looks I was getting, particularly from Badgiruel and La Flaga, I was definitely being thought of as a bit of a fool.

Which I don't blame them for. Running off to ZAFT, how bad could that end? It turned out it ended pretty badly.

"It's all right," Miriallia said. "We still have your uniforms in storage, if you would like to wear them again."

"I think I'll take you up on that offer," I replied. I turned to Athrun, who looked about as embarrassed as I felt. "No offense, Athrun."

"None taken. At this point the uniforms don't mean a whole lot."

I looked at my old friends, and I realized that they were all wearing the old Earth Alliance uniforms. "Uh, I thought you guys would be wearing the Orb military uniforms and insignia right now."

"Well," Mu La Flaga said, "The problem is that we're all deserters, and Orb was denying they were giving us harbor. If they put us on the payroll they would have to admit that they were harboring Earth Alliance deserters, and considering how angry the Alliance was, they would take the reveal as an act of war. Not that it mattered."

"Regardless, that is enough discussing the uniforms," Badgiruel said. "We need a plan. Two ships are not going to last very long in space, despite all of the firepower we have."

"The Earth Alliance's space forces are crippled or occupied," La Flaga said. "And ZAFT lost nearly all of their military at Alaska. No offense, but I think space is going to be pretty empty for a while."

Badgiruel glared at La Flaga. "We're not letting our guards down, La Flaga. I'm not going to leave anything up to chance at this point."

"Well," Athrun said, "We could head to L4. Those colonies are abandoned but we could resupply and hide there for a while."

Hearing Athrun suggest L4 reminded me of initially attempting to head to L4 to help Lacus . . . only to find out she was beyond help right afterwards. It was not Athrun's intention, but that brought back the imagery of Lacus dying in my arms and I didn't want to talk.

"L4," La Flaga said. "I've heard strange things about that place."

"Yes. Supposedly it was abandoned due to a pandemic," Athrun said, "And it was never reoccupied. However, ZAFT's suspected that there might still be people living at L4. For what it's worth, I think its ghost stories."

Badgiruel nodded. "I don't have any better options in the vicinity. Let's head to L4, but once we're there, we're treading lightly until we know the area's secure."

"Yeah, don't want any zombies grabbing us," Sai grumbled. Badgiruel shot Sai a death glare, which made him shrink away.

Badgiruel's face softened then. "I understand the graveyard humor, but we must stay focused until we're at L4 and the area is secure. I need someone to communicate our intentions to the Kusanagi so we can depart once they're ready. In the meantime, I need regular Mobile Suit patrols in the event that some enemy does manage to find us. It's us against everyone at this moment, so nobody's a friendly."

The order was clear. Everyone would need to be shot down. There was no choice.

Badgiruel looked at me and Athrun. "I want Freedom and Justice to take the first patrol. One thing we do have that no one else does are the GUNDAMs. Let's put them to use."

"Yes, ma'am . . . Captain." I wasn't sure what to call her at this point.

Badgiruel smiled thinly. 'Call me whatever you wish. Even 'Natarle' if you want. We are not soldiers anymore, Cagalli."

"Um, all right." It felt weird to think of Badgiruel as having a first name that wasn't her rank.

"At the same time, I am still in charge, and anyone who wishes to challenge my authority will learn their place the hard way," Badgiruel said towards everyone else in the room. Nobody looked like they were up to question her, much less challenge her.

"Before you two set off," La Flaga says, "I have some questions for Athrun Zala here . . . and his squad, who I know are all eavesdropping behind the door to the bridge."

I turned around, and sure enough, Hilda (who looked like she wanted to die from embarrassment), Nicol, and Dearka all came inside. "Um, sorry?" Dearka offered.

La Flaga just sighed, and he held up his hand before Badgiruel could lecture them. "What I want to know is [i]why

the four of you are here. Why did you desert ZAFT? What do you think of the idea of potentially fighting ZAFT, your own comrades?"

Hilda recovered enough to step in. "Would you allow me to speak?"

La Flaga smiled thinly. "Sure, this might be entertaining, traitor."

I saw that Mu La Flaga certainly hadn't forgotten what Hilda had pulled on this ship in the desert. Considering the hard, steely look Badgiruel was giving Hilda, she hadn't forgotten either.

Hilda didn't lose all of her composure. "I understand that my presence makes things complicated . . ."

"Understatement," Sai said from his station.

Hilda was undeterred. "But we all made this call, knowing that it was what had to be done. A lot of the moderates have had to go into hiding in ZAFT, or have had to exile themselves. Siegel Clyne is trying to set up a resistance network, and if necessary, get some of the higher-profile moderates out of the PLANTs entirely. This has become a civil war, and in a civil war, you will have brother against brother, sister against sister, parent against child. It's something we all realized was going to happen, and we chose the side we believed to be right."

"Interesting," Badgiruel said. "Do you think we might encounter Clyne's faction on the way to L4?"

"It's a possibility," Hilda said. "Right now, most of the moderates are going to be drawing to put themselves underground, and try to staff as many ships as they can. The hope is that when Clyne is in a position to pull a coup d'etat, they will rise up."

"Do you think there's any chance that can happen in the Earth forces?" Kira asked.

Badgiruel's eyes widened. "I suppose I could try to get in contact with some people I know and trust, but I don't know how many could get in a position to take their ships and Mobile Armors and fight the Alliance."

"We're not going to survive, much less stop this war, with just a group of two, three, four ships," Kira said. "We need thirty, forty, a hundred. As many as we can possibly can. There is no way either ZAFT or the Earth Alliance can kill everyone opposed to the war. We need those people, whether they're fighting with us, or just lying in wait for the right moment."

Kira's words hung over everyone for a moment. He had raised an extremely good point there. Even if Clyne and his band of open dissenters did make it to us, what would that do; double our forces from two ships to four? We needed a lot more than that if we were actually going to achieve our goals.

But what were the goals, exactly? Preserve Orb's honor? Stop the war? Just try to survive? It seemed that Kira was thinking our goal was to 'stop the war and defeat all of the extremists'. It was a noble goal, but the most difficult one by far.

"I suppose that is what we will have to do," Badgiruel said, finally. "Not much we can do until we make it to L4 and turn some of their systems back on."

Badgiruel was actually going to follow what Kira said? Completely unexpected.

Mu La Flaga just smiled cryptically. "So you want to make this a full-on rebellion, Natarle? Never expected you to go for something like that."

"It's worth looking into," Badgiruel replied coolly. "But like I said, we can't implement that until we're at L4. I want our plans relayed to the Kusanagi. Until that moment, I want Mobile Suit patrols around the clock."

Badgiruel looked at both Athrun and I in the eye, and it was clear our presence was no longer required. "We've wasted enough time. Get out there."

"Yes, ma'am!" What was more amusing was that Athrun said the exact same thing I did at the exact same time. I guess Badgiruel provokes the same reactions from everyone.

I looked over at Kira. "I'll be back soon, okay? I'm sure 'Natarle' won't keep me out there forever."

"Heavens no," Badgiruel said. "But I'll keep you out there until you think it is forever."

I looked back at Badgiruel. "You need to work on your jokes."

"Who says it was a joke?"

Natarle Badgiruel in a nutshell, folks.


"Do you think Kira will be all right?" Athrun asked me while we were doing our next flyby. The Kusanagi was coming together, but it would still be another hour before it would be all set.

"He'll be fine. Eventually. I hope." I didn't feel comfortable flying around like this, while Kira probably wanted friends and yes, his only surviving family member, with him at this moment. But not much I could do. I knew the moment I came back inside, though, I would spend as much time with Kira as possible.

Even if that meant neglecting Athrun to a degree. Maybe we were becoming boyfriend/girlfriend finally, but right now, I didn't have time for romance. Not when there was so much else to ultimately do.

Then we got the call from Miriallia. "We've spotted something on the infrared, and we've identified ZAFT Mobile Suits. The captain wants Justice and Freedom to check it out.."

"Think it's your Clyne faction?" I asked Athrun.

"I don't know. Maybe."

Athrun wasn't being a big help. I turned my attention back to Miriallia. "We'll get to work. Hang on, we'll be right back."

I turned the Freedom towards what Miriallia had pinpointed and blasted off, Athrun right behind me.

I wasn't sure what we were going to face, but I hoped it wasn't a ZAFT trap. We were not ready to deal with any warfare yet. Not when the Kusanagi wasn't ready to go.

If Athrun and I couldn't deal with what was up ahead, there was no way our puny forces had any chance.

Suddenly, I saw what was going on. "Athrun, I'm detecting the Mobile Suits, they're firing on the vessel!"

"I can see that! I'm trying to get an I.D. on the ship!"

As we got closer, I saw that it was a ship I had never seen before. Must be a new prototype, much like the Justice and Freedom.

Athrun suddenly interjected. "Cagalli, Siegel Clyne is on the ship! We need to get those Mobile Suits off of him!"

I had no idea how Athrun found that out, but I wasn't going to question him. "All right! I'm opening fire!"

I engaged the auto-lock, and I realized that the Freedom basically took care of a lot of what the pilot had to do in the earlier GUNDAMs. Unless I fought the Justice or something of that level, there wasn't much I ultimately had to do. The Freedom would just take care of it.

I began opening fire, shooting at all of the Mobile Suits. It was odd that the ship had no escort, but maybe they had all already been shot down, considering the overwhelming force being arrayed against the ship.

Athrun had also unleashed the FATUM-00, which also did its fair share of attacks. It was a clinical, measured counter-attack, using surprise and superior weaponry to beat the enemy back. It wasn't long before half of the attacking Mobile Suits were defeated and the remainder opted to retreat than to deal with the rest of us.

The FATUM-00 returned to the Justice. "I wasn't expecting it to be so easy."

"They had to be either rookies or just completely taken off guard. They weren't ready to deal with us, and keep in mind we didn't kill all of them," I replied. "They know we're out here now. They'll be back, and in greater numbers. We're going to have to really hightail it to L4 now."

"Good point. That might actually have been the general idea once they realized they were outmatched.

Suddenly, my coms were buzzing. Someone was talking on the general channel, not a ZAFT one. "This is Captain Talia Gladys of the Eternal. Thank you for the rescue, but who am I speaking with?"

"Athrun Zala and Cagalli Yamato of my team," Athrun replied. "I heard you broadcasting on the ZAFT channel and heard you have Siegel Clyne onboard.[/i]"

"Yes, I do," Gladys replied. "Unfortunately, the ones they sent after us were true believers. None of them would halt their attacks and try to help us."

How many Mobile Suits had their been? Twenty? Not a good percentage if not even one could be persuaded to switch sides. Then again, if only one or two did, they'd just get shot down. The numbers probably had a role in what those pilots were thinking, if any of those words had gotten through to them at all.

Suddenly, Siegel Clyne's voice appeared. "Cagalli Yamato? Do you have information about my daughter? Where is she?"

It took me a moment to realize that Siegel was addressing me. It made sense why. He had to have seen footage of me having to take Lacus with me in the Freedom. Except . . .

I never expected having to tell him this. It was surprisingly hard, and every word I spoke brought back the visual of Lacus gradually fading away as she spoke her last words. "I'm sorry, sir. Lacus Clyne was shot when we were boarding the Freedom. By the time I got away from the PLANTs, it was too late to save her. She died in my arms."

Silence.

Just silence, for what seemed to be like a small eternity.

"I'm sorry," I finally said, just to try to fill the silence. "I'm sorry."

I didn't want to cry over Lacus again. I had gone through way too much to cry again. Over having to leave Lacus behind. If silence was going to greet me, how would Siegel take it that I left Lacus behind in Junius Seven?

I was dead. If not literally, I was dead to Siegel Clyne at least.

I had achieved nothing but the ultimate failure in his eyes.


During the lull, I took the time to commission a cover page for the fanfiction from AdvancedDefense at deviantart. I've already posted it as the fanfic cover.

If there is anyone capable of imposing a badass logo on the cover, that would be much, much appreciated.

Sorry about the wait. But you hopefully should know by now that it's the start of an update string. I won't be leaving you guys again for a while. XD