After the Battle 2

Jiliang bit down hard on her lower lip. The heaviness she sensed through the comms, rising from the depths of the other party's soul, left her entire body tense.

Cautiously, she stared fixedly through the main monitor at the Zaku's mono-eye. Yet the other side showed no intention of attacking, merely floating there in silence. The situation remained deadlocked.

Inside the Zaku's cockpit, Canard Pars gave a bitter smile, as if mocking himself.

"...When I first saw you on the ground in Orb—looking back now, perhaps it was from that moment that the hatred in my heart, as solid as steel, began to waver."

"...! You were the one from back then—"

Jiliang's cry was filled with irrepressible astonishment.

Just as Canard had said, the two had indeed met briefly in Orb. At the time, she had been deeply troubled by the war. The gaze cast upon her by a black-haired man had been sharp and complicated, filled with profound emotions she had been unable to understand then. It had remained vivid in her memory.

Now, the image of the Mass-Production Prototype Zaku's pilot came through the communication channel clearly onto the Freedom Gundam's screen.

Seeing that familiar, somewhat wild yet handsome face, Jiliang finally overlapped the pilot before her with the stranger from her memories.

"I always thought you were the same as me." Canard's voice pulled Jiliang back from her shock. His gaze seemed to pierce through the screen and stare directly into her soul. "I thought we were both monsters created by others, beings driven by irrepressible destructive urges, capable only of spreading killing intent around us and bringing misfortune to others—but I was wrong. You were different."

His voice carried deep self-mockery.

"You were different from me. You were not imprisoned by that inborn darkness. You