This stalemate couldn't go on.
Nicol watched the two mobile suits tangled together ahead, his heart seeming to be gripped tightly by a giant hand.
This couldn't continue. If the fight went on, Michel would definitely kill to protect himself.
Or Yzak would kill Michel.
No matter which outcome came to pass, it would be irreversible.
Was this really how it had to be? Killing each other with Yzak and Dearka—was this the ending of his "rebirth"?
He had to pull the trigger. But if he did, the things most important to him would shatter forever.
He couldn't fire. He absolutely couldn't do it.
Even if reason told him this was war, even if they were enemies, the compass in his heart pointed stubbornly in the opposite direction.
The one sitting inside that targeting frame wasn't some code or data. He was a living person—a friend!
Besides, hadn't he chosen this side, chosen to follow Xia Ya and betray his original country, precisely because he hated this sort of thing? Because he had had enough of that hopeless cycle where mutual destruction was the only possible outcome?
If he didn't do something here, then there really would be nothing left.
Since he couldn't shoot, since he didn't want to kill, only one path remained. On the battlefield, it was considered the stupidest, most insane path—and yet it was the only one available to him right now.
Strike Gundam's high-speed combat maneuvers suddenly ceased, replaced by an utterly defenseless hovering posture.
With trembling hands, Nicol did not reach for the weapons control panel. Instead, he reached toward the communications dial on the other side of the console, one that was almost never used in battle.
He chose to open a public channel.
"Yzak! Dearka!"
That voice tore through the static of