First Battle of the New Machine

His thoughts inevitably returned to the sudden disaster at Heliopolis.

He remembered the first time he had boarded that crimson machine, developed as a sibling unit to the Strike Gundam—GAT-X106 Blaze.

Later, that machine had been modified into the Blaze Gundam that truly belonged to him alone.

It had accompanied him through countless battles between life and death, from space to Earth, from deserts to oceans.

Unfortunately, that kind of mobility would never return.

And now, the terrifying mobility displayed by this pure-white Unicorn, the acceleration it unleashed in an instant, enough to tear through the air, made him recall once more the exhilaration of freedom and unrestrained movement he had felt when first piloting that red companion.

No, it should be said that it far surpassed that time.

The Blaze Gundam's response speed and agility were like those of a toddling infant before this Unicorn.

The 360-degree, blind-spot-free view afforded by the panoramic cockpit completely freed him from the sense of being confined to "peering outside through a window," as though his soul had merged with the sky itself.

More importantly, back in his university days, relying on the vague knowledge in his memories, he had continually carried out theoretical deductions and material experiments, eventually discovering a mineral that resonated in a special way with human brainwaves—or rather, with the sensory abilities of a "Newtype" like himself.

This mineral, which he had named the "Sensor Crystal," had been ingeniously integrated into the Unicorn's cockpit frame and the key joints of its skeletal structure.

At this moment, as his mind became intensely focused, he could feel a wondrous connection.

His every thought, every intention to operate, seemed able to bypass the physical movements of his fingers and pass directly to the machine.

Every minute change in the machine's posture, every