Sorry about the delay, I was not happy with the conclusion to the chapter and had to mess with it a little.

Next chapter should still go up as planned.


Chapter Eighty-Five: The Razor's Edge

I cried for what seemed like an eternity. The tears wouldn't stop. Cut off from everything and just drifting alone, I felt like I had been transported into my own private purgatory, waiting to be cleansed so I could head to heaven.

"Kill me," I begged again. "Please kill me. Somebody kill me. Anybody."

It's all right, Cagalli.

I heard her voice then. My captain's voice. My heart stopped and I pulled my hands away from my face in shock. "M-Murrue?"

Please calm down.

I felt her then. I felt her warm presence surrounding me, and when I looked down, I saw her arms wrapped around my torso.

"M-Murrue! Murrue, I…"

I gritted my teeth as the tears started floating away from my eyes. "Murrue, I'm so sorry!"

It's all right. Don't feel sorry for yourself or for me.

"Don't say that!" It was a strange feeling. I wanted to hear Murrue, but I didn't feel like I deserved to hear her. My friend's forgiveness, wasn't something I felt like I deserved or had earned. I thought I deserved rejection and hatred for my failure, not something that would heal or save me like forgiveness.

"I wanted to save you! You sacrificed yourself for me and then you come back from the dead, and… what was the point of all of this if I couldn't save you?"

Calm down.

Her hands gripped me tighter, and the sensation pulled me from my stupor.

Thank you for everything you did. You allowed me to die as myself, Cagalli. That was still better than the fate Azrael had planned for me.

I knew, in my heart, that she was right, but I still didn't want to believe it. "Dammit, Murrue! Stop saying that!"

I know how you feel right now. I know you want to die. But you can't. You have too much to live for.

"Like what?" I yelled.

Her hands touched my abdomen. You have life inside you, Cagalli. You are responsible for more than just your own life now.

I stared into space then as she said that. Once again, she was right.

She was always right. My poor captain, always right, until she…

You have friends you need to protect, family you should go home to. Don't die out here in the middle of space. Finish this battle and go home, and live your life in the peace you deserve after all you've been put through.

"But Murrue-"

I'm the one who started a child like you on this path in the first place, by making you pilot the Strike when you did not want to. If you are looking for someone to blame for how this turned out, blame me.

We were approaching the end. I could sense it, somewhere in my heart. "I could never blame you for anything, Murrue!"

Then go and find your peace. End this war. I will be with you until then.

She vanished then, and that's when I realized I had my eyes closed the whole time, because when she was gone, I saw everything with renewed clarity.

I don't know if Murrue visited me for real or not to this day. Maybe she did. Maybe it was some buried part of my subconscious, trying to convince the rest of me to suck it up and fight one more time. Murrue had no way of knowing I was pregnant, after all. Though the afterlife, if it does exist, probably does work in mysterious ways.

Whatever the case, I found the strength to wipe my eyes and grab my helmet. I put it back on and locked it into place, and I switched my radio back on.

I was going to end this war, no matter what it took.

Radio frequencies were chattering everywhere, so I focused on finding the one of my team. I heard them then, well, actually, I heard Mu. "Princess, are you all right?"

"I'm fine," I said softly, trying to hide the way my voice was still quivering. "And don't call me princess."

"That was a hell of a maneuver you just pulled, kid. But don't do that again. I'm amazed you pulled out of that alive!"

That was because I had no intention of surviving that assault, but I wasn't going to tell him that. From the sounds of it, they had no idea of what happened between me and Murrue and Azrael. Considering I had switched to the Earth Alliance's channel, they had no way of hearing that conversation unless they had also switched to the Earth Alliance's frequencies.

If no one knew what had happened, I was going to leave it that way, at least until after the war was over. I had disobeyed orders again, I had gone against everyone's advice again, and I had paid dearly for that mistake again. I would accept whatever punishment they had for me after this battle, but until the war was over, they would know nothing.

"I'm amazed too," I replied. "Now find me something to shoot."

"It looks like your boyfriend's having trouble with that last Earth Alliance Mobile Suit," Mu said. "I'll clean up here so you can help him out."

"Got it." So Clotho was still alive and harassing Athrun, huh?

I refocused. "Thank you, Mu. Changing frequencies."

I switched over to my team's channel and shot off towards the Justice's location.

I was immediately greeted with wild laughter. "You can't hide from me, pretty boy! I'm gonna shoot you and stab you and murder you until there's nothing left to murder! HAHAHAHA!"

Not only Clotho was still harassing Athrun and the others, but he had gone completely psychotic. Lovely.

"Athrun, what's wrong?" I asked as I flew towards the battle.

"This guy's gone completely out of his mind! He damaged my METEOR and I had to send it back to base!" Athrun said.

"He's moving too fast for us to hit him," Hilda added gravely.

"Ohhh, who's that?" Clotho half-rasped, half-gargled.

So he had noticed me. "Hi."

"So it's you, final boss bitch! I'm going to enjoy slaughtering you! Kamikaze strike!"

"You can't be serious." But he was, from the way he made such a jagged maneuver from fighting Athrun and the others to targeting me.

"We're all gonna die, we're all gonna die, hi-ho the dairy-oh we're all gonna die!" Clotho sang in the most screechy voice imaginable. If it wasn't for my helmet, I'd have covered my ears.

He was firing every weapon imaginable too. Missiles, guns, and it turned out even his helmet had a giant beam.

"Shut up and die," was all I could say to his rampage.

I focused. I saw the seed appear in front of my vision again and shatter, and I knew what to do.

I dodged his helmet beam, and then aimed one of my METEOR rifles right for the center of the Raider.

Perhaps if he had not gone completely out of his mind, he still would have had a chance.

I fired, and much to my surprise, it didn't hit where I had aimed. Instead, I destroyed much of the left midsection, sending Clotho spiraling out of control, smoke trailing from the Raider. Now I knew why the others were having such trouble, he was in such a berserk state his movements could not be predicted.

"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Clotho screamed as the Raider continued to spiral away from me and the others, before his cry was suddenly cut off as the Raider conclusively exploded, leaving nothing but ash and tiny bits and pieces behind.

"Well, at least he died happy… I think," Hilda said, her tone deadpan.

I guess whatever makes people happy, even impending death. Though in his case I'm not sure whether he was truly cognizant of what was going on, considering how much he kept throwing in gamer stuff like 'final boss' whenever he talked to us. I guess to him life was but a game, just something to campaign before you died and you started over again.

To me, life isn't like that. As far as I'm concerned, especially now, you only have one go at it, barring some supernatural interference I can't hope to know or understand. I have to make it all count.

I think that's what Murrue was telling me.

"Anything else going on?" I asked.

"Negative." That was Feldt Grace. "The takeover of Boaz is proceeding according to plan. We're actually ordering Zala Team to fall back. No need to risk any of you with Boaz being taken over and no threat of nuclear weapons. Hopefully once this is all settled we can just fly to the PLANTs and there won't be any more shots fired."

It was really going to end that simply? It felt too easy. In my heart and head, I knew it was too easy.

I knew Asta Joule was still out there, for example. And after the way Rau Le Creuset had poisoned her mind, who knew if she had gone as crazy as he had been.

This wasn't over. Not yet.


The Archangel had escaped the battle without taking heavy damage, which was the plan. Still, even with the immediate battle over, no one was letting down their guard. Least of all Natarle Badgiruel, and yes, she had noticed my blackout.

"What were you thinking out there? What happened?"

I knew I couldn't tell her I disobeyed orders by contacting the Dominion. Otherwise I wouldn't finish this war. "You know as well as I do that Murrue was on that ship. I had to stop for a little bit after what I did."

She frowned at me. "I don't think that's true. Not one hundred percent. I have video of your movements and the way you destroyed the Dominion was a frontal assault with crazed movements that could have broken your neck from the G-forces. There's something else going on here, Cagalli, and I want to know what it is."

Feldt came up from behind me and came to my rescue. "Captain, or Rear-Admiral, as they're calling you now, this isn't a good time for this conversation. Even if Cagalli violated an order, the end result is the destruction of the Dominion which cleared the way for our side to take over Boaz. When we're still on alert, the last thing we need to do is discipline one of our elite pilots when we don't know if we need her yet."

Natarle turned her stern gaze to Feldt. "You have a lot of nerve to question me in front of my crew."

"I had a captain of a different mindset in charge of me and I am used to her approach," Feldt replied. "I apologize if I am overstepping my boundaries."

Badgiruel sighed. "No, you're not. The way this crew functions better is if I run it at least somewhat similar to the way Murrue Ramius did, and that is providing questions and solutions to the captain in charge."

"However," she said to Feldt, her eyes seeming lit with renewed energy, "I don't completely trust you. Your story, while it has some evidence, is still too bare to completely stand up to scrutiny. Be careful where you tread."

"I understand," Feldt said.

I saw Sai Argyle stand up from his station. "Ma'am, we have a communication from Naomi Misora."

"I don't see why. We've already agreed to our plan to approach the PLANTs," Badgiruel grumbled. But she picked it up anyway.

The video screen displayed Naomi Misora's prideful face as well as her still-meticulous Earth Alliance uniform. "Hello, Rear-Admiral Badgiruel.."

"What is it?" Badgiruel asked.

"I have been hearing reports that there is something odd happening at the PLANTs. Take your detachment and split off from Boaz. Do it now."

"Uh, understood," Badgiruel said, clearly reluctant. "What's the matter?"

"I've been hearing that Eileen Canaver may have jumped the gun. I want your forces to break off and keep an eye of the situation while the rest of us sort Boaz out. We'll follow you once we're done."

"Understood," Badgiruel said with a sigh. She turned to Neumann and Miriallia. "Hard to port, let's head to the PLANTs. Let's hope all we're doing is recon."

"Should the Eternal and Kusanagi travel with us as well?" Miriallia asked.

"Sure, why not. Let's make it a party," Badgiruel said with another sigh. "Order all ships aligned under my command to depart Boaz and head towards the PLANTs."

"Does that include the Earth Alliance ships recently transferred to us?" Miriallia asked.

"Why not, let's bring everybody. As many as possible before Naomi Misora gets pissed at us," Badgiruel replied.

Miriallia barely suppressed a smile. "Copy that, ma'am."

Badgiruel wasn't smiling. "This isn't right. Eileen Canaver was reported to me as being cautious, possibly too cautious. Why would she jump the gun and why?"

"Maybe it's bad intel?" I turned around and saw Mu La Flaga at the entrance to the bridge. "I mean, do we have anything other than Naomi Misora's word to go on?"

Badgiruel made a growling motion. "I bet she wants to use us as the bait for the meat grinder and then she can waltz right in and take control."

"All of the GUNDAMs are under your command though," I replied. "Why would she send all of the GUNDAMs to die when she can keep us with her?"

"Maybe you're right and I'm just paranoid." Badgiruel sat down in the captain's chair with a bit of an uncharacteristic slump. She looked exhausted all of a sudden, a look that didn't seem right on her.

"Naomi Misora has political ambitions; she had them even when we were all Earth Alliance. Why would they stop just because of a change of circumstances?"

It didn't take me very long to realize what Badgiruel was saying. "Durandal is the emerging leader in the ZAFT contingent we have, and Kira is the overall commander, and they're both coming with us. So I guess if we all got blown up it would work out for her, right?"

"Yeah," Badgiruel said. Her eyes looked beyond me then, to Miriallia. "Has the Kusanagi already begun following us?"

"Yes ma'am," Miriallia replied. "They're right behind us, actually, in the center of our detachment."

"Have them slow down and fall back towards the rear of our forces. No need for them to get directly involved if we're going to walk into the enemy's teeth."

I suddenly felt a sense of relief at that. This meant Kira wouldn't be in the middle of the fighting. But he was still coming with us, so I couldn't quite relax, not entirely.

"I don't know," Mu replied. "I think we should order the Kusanagi to turn around and head back for Boaz. If Misora's plan is to rub us out, having Kira linger back at Boaz would mean she still can't assume control over everyone, assuming it's her actual plan."

"I am paranoid but not that paranoid," Badgiruel replied. "We'll just have Kusanagi in the rear in case we need her."

Sai turned towards us again. "Got another call from Misora."

Mu chuckled. "Something's got her all riled up."

"Well, let's find out," Badgiruel replied, and she switched on the monitor. "Yes?"

"How many ships do you plan to take with you, Badgiruel?"

Mu tried to stifle laughter. Honestly, even I was smiling at that. We certainly had Naomi Misora's attention now.

"As many as I could get away with," Badgiruel said. "If we're flying into an uncertain situation, the more the merrier."

"Very funny," Misora replied. "Send ten of those Earth Alliance ships back. I don't want to leave Boaz this thin when we haven't completely pacified the interior of the base."

"Right," Badgiruel said with a sigh. "I'll have them heading back in a minute."

"Thank you," Misora said.

But that's when the warning klaxons went off.

"What the hell?" Badgiruel asked.

"There's a huge wave of thermal energy firing at us from the PLANTs!" Miriallia screamed.

"Can we evade?" Badgiruel yelled.

"No time!" Neumann replied.

So many thoughts flashed through my mind. How was this happening? Where was it coming from? What was going on?

"It's going to miss us!" Miriallia yelled.

I saw it then, and it flashed right by us. The bright light was almost blinding, and I wondered if we were going to die anyway just by how much of a near miss it wound up being.

I heard a voice from the monitor then, which made me realize we were still connected to Naomi Misora. "It's heading right for Boaz!"

"What?" she yelled, and it made me turn to look at her.

It made me wish I hadn't.

All of a sudden, as the picture began to distort, I saw Naomi Misora's body visibly inflate like she was some sort of disturbing, fleshy balloon, cutting off her scream just as she began it. But that wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was when she popped.

Yes, that is the right word.

She popped. That was even the sound she made. Pop. And there were more. Much more. The audio feed from the monitor was filled with popping, like a bunch of water balloons exploding all at once, before the feed mercifully cut itself as Misora's ship was presumably destroyed.

I think we all stared at the feed for about a minute or so before we finally began reacting.

"Jesus Christ, what the hell was that?" Mu finally asked, his eyes wide in disbelief.

"I can't raise Boaz!" Sai yelled from his station.

"I think everyone we took with us is still alive," Miriallia said softly. "But I think everyone who was at or by Boaz is gone."

I wondered why Badgiruel hadn't said a word. Then I saw she had her right hand over her mouth, and her left over her stomach.

After everything she had seen and been through, this was the moment where Badgiruel nearly broke. She was almost at the point of vomiting right in the captain's chair out of the sheer horror and disgust that had transpired right in front of her.

I don't know why I didn't do the same. Maybe because I had seen something just as bad, if not worse, at Panama, so in a way I was inured to this type of gory death.

"Should we scramble the Mobile Suits and Armors?" Feldt asked. "Rear-Admiral?"

Badgiruel took a gasping breath, and finally she spoke. "Get everyone organized in phalanx formation! I want all pilots in their Mobile Suits and launched yesterday. And I want somebody, anybody, I don't care who, finding out what the hell shot at us and how we keep it from shooting us again!"

She looked at me, her eyes wide in both fury and terror. I had never seen Badgiruel flustered like this. It froze me into place.

"Get to the Freedom, and do it now, Yamato."

The tone in her voice put such a fear in me that I immediately spun around for the exit. Badgiruel was a lot of things, but she was not someone to be trifled with when she was nervous.

"Yes, ma'am!" I yelled, and I barely avoided crashing into Mu La Flaga, who didn't even need orders to know where this was going.

I just hope I could launch before I got vaporized too.


Erica Simmons from the Kusanagi was stuck with the effort of explaining the super-weapon to us, after a lot of arguing and chaos for about fifteen minutes, during which they had launched the entire GUNDAM team including me.

"I have enough information to tell us what this is. This laser that fired at us is called the GENESIS. It's based off of a propulsion system called the GENESIS Alpha," she said. "It's a huge gamma ray cannon that uses nuclear explosions to produce a massive burst of gamma radiation, originally was designed to send ships to Mars. Either they modified it or built a new one whose purpose is to destroy enemy forces… and possibly Earth."

"Oh great," Dearka breathed.

"It seems to work differently from the GENESIS Alpha. GENESIS' laser is reflected back by an external alignment mirror and focused by a second mirror on the cannon to create a laser beam. The firing badly damages the external mirror and they have to change it with each shot. We have to get there and get in close enough range to prevent it from firing at us again."

"They fired at Boaz, where they had to have known some of their forces are still fighting," Badgiruel said.

"This is why Canaver jumped the gun. She found out about GENESIS and launched the coup d'etat earlier than scheduled. Right now, we're about to fly into a civil war, and we don't know who's friendly and who isn't," Simmons said.

"This also means that Patrick Zala's truly lost his mind," Talia Gladys said. "To kill some of his own forces to kill us crosses the line."

"Not only that, but he could fire it at Earth the moment the mirror changes. It could easily exterminate half of the life on the planet, if not more," Simmons said. "And L4 would be in the firing zone when they finish changing it. They could destroy L4 and Earth the next time they fire."

I thought about my family. L4 was supposed to be home now. To lose it, to lose Earth… what would happen to us? Where would we go?

This was such a sick, twisted endgame. It had to have been orchestrated by Rau Le Creuset. Even in death, he was still manipulating us, trying to set up the annihilation of humanity.

"We need to help Canaver secure the PLANTs, and we also need to destroy GENESIS," Kira said. "I say we use the existing phalanx formation to accomplish both tasks before GENESIS can fire again."

"We don't have much of a choice, we can't waste time while that thing charges up another shot," Badgiruel replied. "The left wing of the phalanx goes to help Canaver's fleet in the PLANTs. The center goes after the Jachin Doe fortress. The right wing destroys GENESIS. Everyone, go, go, go!"

She was still rattled by the attack that vaporized Boaz and microwaved Naomi Misora in front of our eyes. I wasn't sure if she was thinking entirely straight. The plan didn't seem to be a bad one, though.

"All right. How do you want my team to deploy?" Athrun asked Feldt.

"Athrun, you take Hilda and Nicol and attack Jachin Doe. Cagalli, your responsibility is GENESIS."

So I was taking care of the superweapon? Lovely. I was left thinking Athrun had the easy job.

Judging by his tone of voice, that was exactly what Athrun was thinking. "You sure about this?"

"Jachin Doe probably controls GENESIS in addition to guarding it. We seize Jachin Doe, we may not need to worry about it shooting again. So we need to make sure both possibilities of stopping GENESIS have GUNDAM support. That's all," Feldt replied.

"All right," Athrun said with clear reluctance. I saw the Justice turn towards me, slowly, embodying Athrun's desire to stay with me and not let me go.

"Be careful, Cagalli."

"I will, Athrun. Just take care of yourself."

They blasted off then, leaving just me, Flay, and Dearka here.

"I promised Kira I would bring you home, Cagalli," Flay said. "We can do this."

I knew that. I had seen the promise right before I boarded the Freedom again. She had her hand on the screen, as if trying to touch Kira's face through it, promising with all of her heart that she would bring me back to her brother.

"Don't do something stupid like dying for me," I replied.

"Look, can we go before Super Laser flash-fries us and makes these types of talks pointless?" Dearka asked.

"Right. Everyone, follow me. Let's eliminate GENESIS."

I hit the acceleration and went right for GENESIS, followed by what seemed to be a small army of Mobile Suits.

Somehow, I felt that all of this wouldn't be enough. I found myself wishing for Murrue's presence again.

I didn't know how right I was.

We were on a razor's edge and never knew it.


The true final battle begins next chapter. Thank you for your patience for so long.