Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam

Also, I'm really, really sorry this fic took so long to update, I haven't given up on it I promise you. in fact this will get more frequent updates, which was why two years after my last update, I bring you two chapters, one being a viewpoint chapter, which is kind of a focus on a few of the OC's and what they were doing before and during the first Seed.

Gundam Seed Destiny or Liberty

Chapter 31: Past Regret

Cain Euthanas

You might say that the war began with the destruction of Junius Seven. But the truth is that it has been going on for much longer than you can believe. As far back as the start of the Plants, when coordinators were first created, when our stars were first significantly explored. Those behind the shadows had manipulated events and Blue Cosmos has been all but happy to carry out their part, even Logos could be considered an unknowing pawn in 'their' games. My role in this story, in this war began with a colony called Mendel and a project to create a better coordinator. Further back though I was set on my path by my family, or rather to spite my family. I am a child of wealth, I could've run a company or even formed a colony, but I didn't want that. I wanted to make a mark on the world, to guide it from the shadows. To fight for my world, my father and I had our disagreements but he didn't live long enough to stop me from joining Blue Cosmos. Why Blue Cosmos you might ask? When my best friend (or as close as I can get to one) had a coordinator lover? Well its quite simple really, I believed in the original cause of Blue cosmos, to create a pure world, a perfect economy a perfect system. Youthful optimism drove me astray and into the service of men like Muruta Azrael and Djibril. These two men believe themselves to be the driving force behind Logos, but in actuality they are, or were in Azrael's case weak, they do not drive the world, feelings drive this world forward. Hatred, anger, despair, these feelings have dominated mankind. I came to realise this, to accept it as fact.

I was young when I was sent to the Mendel project, my role there was security on paper. But in actuality I was sent to spy on the project, to report on its progress to my superiors. That included details on Ulen Hibiki and his wife Via. The pair were no ideal couple, though they put on a good facade. Via hated her husband for rejecting their first child, for sending him away. Almost immediately after they tried for another baby. Everyone was so pleased to know that Via would bear twins, though I noticed the look in Ulen's eyes, the disappointment. The second child was spare parts to him, the revelation that the child would be a girl drove Ulen further away from her eyes. Strangely though, I found myself drawn to Via and the company she kept.

"You can see their heads, aaww look, they're cuddled up!"

CE 55, I was young and as close to love as a person could be, as I ever will be. She was Via Hibiki's friend, she wanted to be a god parent. Her name was Sheryl Mercis. After the ultra sound, after seeing those two little children she and I spent time together. I found myself genuinely laughing for once, genuinely enjoying someone's company. Sheryl was smart, independent and beautiful in her own way. But common sense took over and I broke the relationship up, for as much as I loved her I couldn't choose her over the job. When the babies were finally born I reported everything to Azrael. Even though I hadn't told them everything they denied my request to sabotage Mendel, they wanted an industrial 'accident' to destroy the research. That's when I met a young man who would change my life.

"He's so young, younger than me even, should we really leave this in the hands of a child, a genetically imperfect child at that?" I had asked my superior.

"Don't be fooled by his appearance, he's been raised by some of the most ruthless mercenaries in the world, you think out training camps are hard, they're a holiday compared to some of the sick things these men have done. You're looking at the best person qualified to carry this job out," Azrael explained to me.

I looked at the youth in the back of the transport. We were on our way to destroy a colony and he was just sitting there, holding the barrel of his rifle and spinning it across the floor occasionally. He wore a full face mask but I had known beforehand his age and background. I simply had doubts that he could carry the job out. Not only did he do it, he did it to the point where nothing could be recovered to recreate the process. Coordinators it seemed were doomed to sterility. I watched the young man get back onto the transport and sit in the same pose, letting his rifle clatter to the ground. He pulled his mask off and I saw what he looked like, younger than me, grey hair and a blind left eye. The young man seemed, hesitant, he didn't smile or enjoy his work. In fact his look of anger was enough for me to see that he despised Blue Cosmos for his work.

The project burned, Via disappeared, and Sheryl, I have no idea what became of her. The children however were smuggled out of Azrael's reach. He kept calm about it, but I could tell he was truly angry, the twitchy little bastard was yelling inside. It was his own fault in a way, the mercenary he hired wasn't as blood thirsty as he hoped. He was a man with integrity, with a code, a dangerous kind of man. When Azrael told me to eliminate him I didn't hesitate. The young man was on the streets at the time, talking on the phone with someone. It seemed to be a heated discussion at the time. I pulled the trigger and then walked away. Returning to my car, I contacted the man who had commanded me.

"It's done Azrael!"

"Well done Cain, it's too bad really, he was a mercenary, we could've kept using him through our shell companies," the Blue Cosmos leader sighed.

"With all due respect sir I think we shouldn't be relying on mercenaries anymore, it'll only be a matter of time before we have control of every major power in the world, once that has been achieved no one will dare to question us, because we will be the ones in charge," I explained.

"You're not even a full member of Blue Cosmos or Logos Cain, but I suppose this has earned you something along the lines of a raise, a new position perhaps?"

"More money, useless to me really, I just want assurances that everything we do will restore order to the Earth," I said.

"Of course, get back to the warehouse and we'll continue our discussion, as well as our next move, there are some ideas I have concerning those troublesome Plants," Azrael smirked as he put the phone down.

I thought about them, the Plants and the dream they held. The belief that there could be a nation of Coordinators, that they could be self sufficient, and above all accepted.

"A nation of coordinators wouldn't have worked anyway," I said to myself.

I truly believed it at that time, the Plants were still young then, I was still young then. Naive and foolish, I didn't think to shoot my target in the head. Looking out of the window of my car, I widened my eyes as something flew towards it.

"GAAAGH!"

The cinderblock crashed through the windows, I felt my ribs crack as it slammed into my chest. Glass cut into my face and my gums began to bleed. A piece of glass had cut into my mouth, grinding against my teeth. The very force of the blow had made me sprawl across the hand brake. Blood spread across the seats of my car, I even cut my hand on some of the glass. Then I looked up, and I felt fear for the last time in my life. There he was, his shoulder bleeding, but alive. I couldn't even describe him as a man anymore, his, it's expression was one of fury, the pupil of it's still functional eye was narrowed like a slit.

"CAIN!" it yelled, grabbing me and lifting me out of the car.

It threw me to the curb, then slammed its elbow into my gut and proceeded to beat me. With every punch it threw it grunted, and I got closer and closer to death. I thought I was going to die then, I don't know whether it was intentional at the time, but I uttered what I thought would be my final words.

"Sheryl!"

My voice was as low as a whisper, but somehow, the monster heard me. It stopped, looking down at me in pity, before smirking. The last thing I remember was being thrown through a skylight, falling onto a table, glass coating my body, and the shocked expressions of Djibril and Azrael.

The mercenary had broken my body, and my mind. I would rant and rave about the 'one eyed dragon'. No military hospital could repair my body back to its original state. They would have left me a cripple, and worst a traumatised cripple at that. Djibril however took my body to a place called Mendel.

They spent the next decade not just repairing the damage that had been done, but making my body better as well. I was intended to be the test subject, subject zero of the Extended project. They created a cocktail of enhancement drugs, placing it into an injection device on my spine. The pain was almost as agonising as the beating that cost me my spine, but at some point I learnt to embrace the pain, even enjoy it. The injection device repaired the fractures in my spine, and my immune system began to accept the drugs, making the enhancement properties permanent. My strength, reaction time, even my intelligence had increased on a dramatic level. But there was a catch of course, my feelings of regret, anger and even love, had become stunted.

When I emerged from the facility, some may be as dramatic as to say that I was no longer Cain Euthanas. I was, just changed, just different, no longer a man who would be weak. Even Azrael and Djibril were surprised at the results of my enhancements, and how far I would take the mission. When I killed my father, they put me on standby, only using me when they deemed it necessary. Then the war happened, and Azrael died. Djibril then hatched a new plan, one that would ensure Logos could create its pure, blue world.

Pure blue world! There will never be such a thing! Why do I fight then? Even I'm still trying to find the definitive answer.

Sheryl Mercis

My dad was a soldier, that's not something we openly admit often. He fought in the middle-eastern conflicts, and Southern Africa, something people tend to forget is that the desert dawn were pretty brutal to foreigners, and their own people. He actually spent some time in a prison camp. When the wars were over, Dad came back without a scratch on him, but he was by no means fine. I grew up with a man who had nightmares every night. We never really connected, though he was protective, to an extreme degree. When I came of age, I was as eager to get away from the family as I was to work in space. That's what led me to the Mendel project, and friendships that would change my life.

Working there was fantastic, we were beginning an age of evolution, not just sustainable housing and environment for people in space, but a way for people to live in space, and be able to live on a planet too. Experiments before had resulted in weak humans only able to live in a zero-G environment. The coordinator development was a means for us to enable our children to be strong enough to live both in birth and space. A lot of people make the mistake of believing that the 'Ultimate coordinator' was about making a better coordinator. It was about curing the gene that results in sterility in the third generation.

We failed once, and I wanted so badly to raise that child when Hibiki wouldn't. But alas, I was just a lowly engineer. Ulen always tried to cut the time I spent with his wife short, the man was in complete control of Via's life, beyond the degree of control a husband, or even a doctor should have. That wasn't to say my time was spent all on work, I made a good deal of friends, one of whom became something more. Cain, a difficult man at first, when we first met I ended up slapping him. But over time, I learned to love his withdrawn nature, perhaps even love him.

Months later, Via gave birth to twins, one of whom was put through the process. Via was so happy, so was I, but there was a problem, I found out I was pregnant too. But before I could even talk to Cain, disaster happened. Mendel burned, and the children were lost. I moved on, raised my son alone. Wesley was my treasure, but then the bloody valentine war kicked off. Despite how I had raised him, he wanted to become a soldier.

"Kids my age are dying out there mom, I've got no right to do anything less than what they do," he told me.

"You have every right Wes, to survive," I told him.

"Survive, whilst people are dying on the battlefield, and the aftermath of those battles, whilst I'm sitting in Orb safe, I have a duty!"

"Duty? Is that why you feel you have to go? Is that what the propaganda has been saying? What the other recruits have been saying? They're idiots Wes, there are no winners in war, just survivors, and even then there is a chance they'll end up as wrecks like your grandfather," I explained to him, tried and tried to make him see sense.

"I'm not as weak as grandpa was, I know what I'm getting into," Wes said.

"No you don't, you have no idea!"

I tried to make him see sense, but he left anyway. He fought, travelled across the world, and he rarely kept in touch. It wasn't until the battle of Jachin Due, that I finally saw his name appear on the phone.

"Wes!"

"Hey mum," he sounded older at least, I imagined he had grown somewhat since we last spoke.

"Wes, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, we're about to go on Sortie, Azrael's been accused of all that shit, the evidence is right in front of them, and the brass? They've ignored it," he sounded angry, and tired too.

"I saw the news, son, please for once be honest with me, swear on my life that you aren't one of the pilots carrying a nuke," I demanded an answer, part of me wonders if I would have disowned him if he said yes.

"I'm not mum, I would never do what they're about to do, but I don't have a choice but to sortie with them. I've heard some whispers that someone leaked information on a ZAFT super weapon, we've got this Intel, but the operation is still apparently going to be about threatening the Plants. A year nearly has gone by, and still we're doing the same shit that started this war in the first place," Wes explained. "You were right mum, you were right, about everything, there are no winners, just survivors, but I'm not going to live with myself, knowing that I was a part of an operation like this!"

"Don't worry about any of that Wes, just get home, get through the battle and come home so we can hash this all out," I told him, trying to cling onto some sort of hope.

"Mum, make sure grandpa and granny know okay, whatever happens tell them...know that I tried to do the right thing!"

He had hung up before I could even speak to him. About a month later I got the news back from the EA, Wes hadn't made it.

"Oh god...no...NO!" I screamed, tears falling down my face.

I was in actual pain, falling onto my knees and clutching my chest. A part of me had been ripped out and I spent weeks after crying, barely holding together. But there is a certain beauty to tragedy. I knocked onto a door I didn't think I'd go back to.

"Sheryl?" my father looked at me in confusion as he opened his door.

One look at my expression, at the redness in my eyes, and he knew, he understood completely what had happened. He didn't say a thing, he just wrapped his arms around me, like he did when I was a little girl once. Sometimes tragedy is what drives people apart, other times it is what draws them together. When Sensou approached me for my engineering skills, I didn't hesitate to join. In that tragedy, I formed a stronger bond with my father, and I found other children to care for.

The pilots of Sensou, many of them are as old as Wes was. I love them as if they are my own children. But I know they'll never see me as anything more than a 'den mother'. Yet, maybe...maybe there is that hope.

It was after the true faith incident, when Vincent was forced to make, an impossible decision. I had been working at the time, and I just found him sitting by the Ground Gundam. He sat on its foot, resting his arms on his knees, with this depressed look in his eyes.

"Vincent, are you okay?" I asked, stupidly, mind you.

"Kids Sheryl, I had shot kids, they were sick, not like those iron blooded orphans, these guys, they were fanatics, they actually thought that when I killed them, they would go to a better place, that by trying to kill me, they'd be sending me, to a better place," he lowered his head, his hands shaking as he struggled to contain his rage.

"You...made the best choice you had available at the time," I said.

"Don't lie to me, tell me what you're really thinking," Vincent snarled. "Curse me," his head sunk even lowered, his shoulders shaking as he gripped the knees of his trousers. "Call me child killer, say that I'm a blood thirsty bastard, that I was too weak to at least try the better path!"

"Vincent," I whispered.

He was really trying not to cry, and I realised something I should have sooner. That despite him being our leader, he was still a young man, as young as Wes, and so full of idealism. I wrapped my arms around his head, squeezing him tight.

"There are not many who will appreciate the sacrifice you made, but there are those alive now, because you stopped monsters," I told him. "Those people, who brainwashed kids into becoming their cannon fodder, they probably didn't waste a moment wondering if they were monsters? Reasons matter Vincent, they do, they truly do!"

I continued to be a mother, or at least a friend to those who needed it most.

Lain Holland

The Bloody Valentine war, we were nearing the end of the tragic conflict, but I had no idea. I wanted so badly to be a part of ZAFT, to fight for my people. I felt that, being in ZAFT would allow me to protect Nia. She was the book smart girl, the girl who had such a bright future ahead of her. So I joined up to fight for that future, or at least die for that future. I was put in a two seater GINN and sent off to fight a losing battle at Jachin Due. My eyes were as wide as saucers as I watched the explosions from those Nukes. Boaz went down so easily, when the Three Ships alliance showed up, things just dived into chaos. The Freedom and Justice destroyed waves of the nukes with their Meteor packs.

"Wow," I whispered.

"Eyes open kid, spot me some targets," my pilot, Cutter said.

He was a veteran, round about my dad's age before he died. The man was always good to me, not patronising at all. I'm speaking in past tense for a reason here.

"INCOMING ENEMY G-WEAPON!" I screamed.

Our GINN faced off against one of the Earth Alliance Gundams. It was a winged one that had given both Freedom and Justice a run for its money (I could never remember its name either, something devilish at least). The thing ran its red sabre straight through the GINN's chest, and I heard Cutter scream through the radio.

"CUTTER-SENPAI!"

Then the Gundam just kicked us aside, as if we weren't worth its time anymore.

"Cutter, Cutter, please answer me, Cutter are you okay?" I asked.

I looked through my main view screen, unable to control anything. I had to watch enemy and ally die, and sometimes worse. Something I bet the Freedom pilot doesn't consider, is what happens to the enemies he disables. Unarmed EA suit and ZAFT suit alike became easy pickings for other enemies. My first battle, and I was a spectator. I cried, I stupidly cried like a little girl, because at that moment I realised just how powerless I was. Then I saw two incredible things.

The first was the Black Storm, best fighting unit in ZAFT. Even with their numbers greatly reduced, they were the best fighters on the field. They flew across space, and I found myself enamored by their fighting styles. Just through how they fought, I could see that this was a unit with members from all walks of life. Then there was him, Commander Thanos, he threw himself into battle, always shouting orders both to his troops and himself. He was incredible, and I wondered, 'how great would it be if I could fight with a man like that?'. I wanted so much to protect people, like my sister, like Cutter, like everyone in the Plants. I wanted to be so much like him.

Then, when the battle was at its bloodiest, when our own forces were ready to release a super weapon. I, along with hundreds of other soldiers, witnessed a miracle.

"THIS IS, MY PURPOSE!"

Gekido Jaeger, that Gundam he piloted, gave off such an incredible light, a light that actually blocked the beam created by that monstrosity Genesis. Then when Genesis, and the Omega Gundam were destroyed, everything was silent. I was quiet, even when ZAFT rescue crews recovered my suit. As the days went by, I continued a joyless routine, moving almost like a machine. But then I heard a whisper.

"Dagger Thanos has deserted, he's taken his entire unit with him!"

The Black Storm had left ZAFT behind, supposedly sick of the corruption of the organisation. Some of us wondered if he'd abandoned the Plants, or just ZAFT? I wanted so much to join the Black Storm unit, so much that I was willing to abandon ZAFT myself. I didn't even really think about it at the time, I just took a flight suit, climbed into a Guaiz, and flew off. Nobody cared enough to go after me, and I just flew in the direction I heard the Black Storm had gone off into. But then, days went by and my suit ran out of power. I floated through space, just as helpless as I was that day at Jachin Due. My suit was beginning to run out of oxygen, and I started to give into despair. I curled up into a ball and floated in my mobile suit, counting down the time it would take to run out of oxygen. But then, as if by fate, I was found.

"Don't be so eager to die, and don't be so eager to dedicate your life to a single cause, you still have the advantage of youth," I was told, by the very man I wanted to meet for so long.

Dagger Thanos, within a few minutes of meeting him, I already understood what made people want to follow him so badly.

"If you wish to do something, then help in the kitchens, practice in the simulators, see if you want to stay before you dedicate yourself to us," he told me.

It wasn't the most grateful start, I'd work in the kitchens every day, and every night I would be practicing in the simulator. Shooting digital target after target, going through one melee drill after another. I practiced until my fingers actually hurt, until I fell asleep. One of those days, the hatch opened and Cairo took me back to the barracks. It happened again the next day, and this time I woke up in his arms.

"What? What are you doing?" I asked him.

"Taking you back to your room, you shouldn't push yourself so hard little one," he said.

"I'm sorry, but please don't call me that," I said, trying to sound tough.

He put me down, and much to my shock, I needed him to catch me as I stumbled. Cairo patted my head, it was awkward but not unpleasant. He was a big guy, a giant, he'd been with the admiral since the beginning. Yet he was still the sweetest and gentlest man I had ever met.

"You are little, and you are still just a child, don't be so eager to throw your life away, or throw your innocence away simply to please the commander, he has no desire or need for people who will do whatever he says," Cairo explained.

"How am I supposed to prove myself to him, how am I supposed to become worthy of his respect?" I asked, believing I had the answer.

"You already have his respect Lain," Cairo said.

I looked at him with a look of complete confusion. How could I have earned the respect of someone as renowned as Commander Thanos? As if sensing my confusion, Cairo knelt down and looked me in the eye.

"You see Lain he respects the effort you have shown, the dedication to us, you already do such great work," he explained.

Part of me wondered if Cairo was telling me to all of this to encourage me? Or because he didn't want me fighting. He's always been the most gentle of Thanos's soldiers. First time I looked at a body, I was horrified, Thanos had gone to mars to assist the rebels there seeking independence from the assigned government. We weren't just glorified mercenaries, Thanos only accepted what we needed to keep going. Often, people would give us more than we asked for, simple because we had been so good to them. But I'm digressing, the first time I saw a body was when we campaigned in Jupiter, we fought losing battles and we lost precious people because of it. I still remember Cairo, holding the body of a young soldier, someone much younger than me. He had tears, and anger in his eyes, the kind I hadn't seen in him.

The commander was standing before Cairo, who was knelt on the ground with the boy's body in his arms. He looked up at Thanos, who was as unkempt and as tired as the rest of the soldiers, but most were shocked to see Cairo so angry with the commander.

"We will lose if we continue to fight, can you not see what we have already lost commander?" Cairo asked, demanded of Thanos.

Dagger looked down at Cairo, and everyone could see that there was uncertainty in his eyes. It didn't discourage me at least, to see that Thanos doubted himself at times, to see that he made mistakes, it made me all the more loyal to him. He squeezed his hands into fists, and I thought for a moment he would punch Cairo. But then he shocked us all by taking one hand, closing the dead boy's eyes with it, and grabbing Cairo's shoulder with the other. The giant started crying like a baby, but the commander didn't judge him, didn't scold him.

"When we have taken back the hill, then we will leave my friend, no more battles will be fought on Mars," the commander said.

That was the day Thanos finally showed me, the trust he had in me. He presented me with a Zaku Kai, and told me to fight. I don't claim to have fought well, but I took a few enemies down before my suit ran out of ammo. By the time I got recharged and reloaded, the battle was finished. That day people celebrated, but Thanos held up his hands and declared that the day would be spent mourning. We put together all of the dog tags, and gathered the bodies. Dagger personally cleaned some of the bodies, preparing them for transport back to their families, or in the case of those who had no one, Viking style funerals. When we got back to space, we put the bodies in life pods and sent them out towards the sun.

"You fought well on Mars," Dagger praised me.

I looked at him, and I was idiotically close to crying.

"Commander Thanos, you don't know how long I've waited to hear such praise from you," I said.

He chuckled, amused by my admiration of him. Then he put a hand on my shoulder and smiled at me.

"You don't have to train in your free time anymore, instead your cooking duties will be replaced with drills that you are to run now with all your fellow pilots," he explained.

'My fellow pilots' I thought, finally I was acknowledged as a pilot. From then on I fought beside the grunts and the elites, until I finally became part of Thanos's inner circle, his most trusted advisors and pilots. Of course I still do a bit of cooking from time to time, some of the men missed my recipes. But then this new war started, I thought at first we would go back to ZAFT, that we would protect the Plants as we always have. But Thanos said no, that we would not fight for ZAFT, that we would not join the chairman.

He said that the chairman had a plan, a plan that would effectively strip the freedom of every human in the Earth sphere. This plan would look good at the time, because Durandal had made himself look good. But once it had been announced, and enacted, once people were actually under the thumb of this plan, wars would start again, and this time, they would be so much bloodier than they had before.

Kojiro Sasaki

On the battlefield I was born, and on the battlefield I was raised. My...Purpose, has been to fight and protect Orb. The fight is all I have really known, it's what I've been raised to do. From the moment I stepped into a cockpit, I have been good only at fighting. Uzumi Nara Athha trusted me to protect the borders. When people got too far, often the task of shooting down those unwelcome went to me. Occassionally, he tasked me with watching those he trusted with eliminating potential enemies. Casvall Aznable, Sakon Date, he never completely trusted them. So I was told to watch them. From a tank, or a jet, and even a mobile suit, I would watch those men fight and end threats before they began.

I was born to fight, to be a warrior, but still those two men puzzled me. Both were completely different, Sakon enjoyed the thrill of a fight, Casvall enjoyed silence and solitude. Sakon relished and respected those who could fight well, Casvall despised everything about good fighters. I even felt fear for Orb, if they were the ones who would protect it. But alas, the war got too big, and I had to protect Orb not as a spy, but as a soldier.

"Kojiro Sasaki, Astray launching," I declared, and launched into the battle of Orb.

I've never been good with guns, I can hit targets. But my skill was always with the blade. I slashed through targets with my sabre. But ultimately, the true battle for Orb was being fought by the Archangel crew. My fellow Astray pilots and I were just the ones trying to survive. I fought and fought, until eventually, the mass driver was destroyed, and Archangel and the Kuzunagi left.

"Your battery is low, if you continue to fight you'll die, and our forces will still reach the capital," a Strike Dagger pilot told me.

"The capital is in ruins, I will not allow the Alliance to damage it further," I declared.

My comrades had fallen, and I was alone, everyone else was either dead or had surrendered. I faced the Strike Dagger, slamming my sabre into its shield.

"Stop this please, right now Orb's defences have crumbled, if you keep fighting you'll still die, you'll only be dying for your pride!"

His words hit me, I realised it was futile to fight. Athha was dead, by his own hand. When defeat came, he and all those loyal to him ended their lives. Why I wondered? If it was just to protect the mass driver, then they'd need not have ended their lives to do it. Was it pride? I didn't understand, I still don't, would they have been too proud to surrender, too proud to at least say that they had lost, whilst still acknowledging they had done the right thing? Even now I still don't have the answer. I turned off my sabre, and I stopped fighting.

"Survival is possible, so long as you're alive," that man told me.

The Strike Dagger pilot was Vincent Rach. He had no authority to provide care to those left on Orb. But still, I heard of how he did his best to help the people before he left, and I respected him for it. The Seiran's declared themselves temporary governors, but those left on Orb were not loyal to him. We were satisfied with the aid they secured us, but we concealed our hatred for him well. For whilst we fed on scraps and lived in trucks, he and his kind continued to live in luxury provided by the Earth Alliance. I watched from Earth as the battle of Jachin Due raged, and saw the great light generated by the Gundam of Gekido Jaeger.

After the war was over, Cagalli Yula Athha took her father's position. She dissolved the spy program, and I was left to enjoy a peace hard won. I felt, deprived of my purpose. Cagalli then sent me to serve as part of Sensou, and I felt shamed somewhat. I wasn't good enough to serve as part of her guard, so she sent me away as a token gesture of good faith. She had no idea that I would turn the Gundam she gave me into one of the elites of Sensou.

I continued to serve in Sensou, protecting the world, and by extension Orb from developing wars. There, something happened that didn't when I served as part of Orb's military. I began to develop bonds, and actually try to keep those bonds, and develop more. I was happier knowing more people, happier than I've ever been. It confused me somewhat.

"People need people," Miss Mercis told me. "We humans are truly weak, because we can't get on without people. Sometimes we need others to do the things we can't, but deeper than that, more meaningful than us simply using one another, is being with one another. People need friends, family, they need bonds to function in life. If we don't have bonds, then we don't feel alive, and we become broken, or worse...we live our lives as machines, just existing and never truly feeling anything," she explained.

I could tell there was pain behind it, and I asked her how she could believe so strongly in bonds.

"I will always mourn for Wes, but also celebrate the time I had with him. It's a two way street Kojiro, when you forge a bond with someone, when you let yourself feel, you become open to two kinds of feelings, the good kind and the bad kind. Nothing that was worth having doesn't come with hardship, and let me tell you Kojiro, having friends is worth it," she told me.

This war, there is no right side of it. Even now, I will be forced to fight those who feel they are protecting Orb. But I will remain with...my friends in Sensou. I will fight beside my comrades until we are victorious, or until we have been defeated. That is what a bond is, to face victory or defeat.

Next Chapter 32: Moving past

Hoping everyone enjoyed the chapter, and I hope if you've read this 00virtuezero, unafraid and Kojiro-kun, hope you all approved of the perspectives I gave your characters and how I wrote up their backgrounds.