Friends' Argument

"You..." Yzak had just been about to rebuke him for saying something so demoralizing.

"No, I'm not afraid of dying!"

Dearka cut him off first, his voice rising with an agitated urgency to defend himself. "I'm also one of ZAFT's elite red uniforms! Before graduating from military academy and coming here, I had already made my own resolve! But... but after seeing this recent string of battles with my own eyes, I can't help thinking. Are we... are we really going to be okay if we keep fighting like this—?"

Resolve... Athrun turned the word over in his mind.

Thinking back, from that sudden first battle at Heliopolis until today, it seemed as though a lifetime had passed.

He wondered whether he, Yzak, and Dearka beside him had truly possessed the kind of "resolve" Dearka spoke of back then.

Looking back now, perhaps it could be said that they had known nothing at all of war's brutality.

More than anything, they had entered the battlefield out of contempt for Naturals, the arrogance of elite students, even with a mindset that treated it like a game.

But things were different now.

After long and bloody fighting, after taking many lives with his own hands and witnessing the deaths of many comrades, Athrun had finally forged, through countless pains and uncertainties, the resolve a soldier needed to protect PLANT.

He believed Yzak and Dearka were the same. They were no longer those reckless boys from before.

Each of them had taken up the weapons in their hands with their own beliefs, their own reasons, and their own resolve.

Then what had shaken Dearka's resolve?

"Dearka," Athrun asked, his voice steady and firm, "what exactly did you see in Panama?"

"..."

Dearka lowered his gaze, staring at the ground in silence for several