Gundam EXARE

"It's time to fight again."

Rey spoke bloody words when he was alone. It had been two days since the attack on Heliopolis. Both ZAFT and the Earth Army must have received the intelligence.

ZAFT is not a fool, they all know that the Archangel will head towards the moon.

The United Nations is not a freeloader. If ZAFT sends troops to block the road, the Earth Army will definitely respond.

In fact, the Archangel stopped at Junius 7 not only to collect supplies, but also to give the Earth Army time to act.

Simply put, ZAFT is the city wall across the center, and the Archangel must cooperate with the Earth Army on the other side of the wall to break through the wall.

As long as they can get through this level, the Archangel, which has joined forces with the Earth Army, can go directly to the moon, and then Rey can take the students back to Orb and say goodbye to this war.

It's not that Orb can remain immune, but the Federation only wants Orb's technology. During the war, Orb should directly become one of the Federation's MS production factories.

That's enough. Does anyone really expect such a small country to send troops to help? Even if you send troops, they may not appreciate it.

The Atlantic Federation's persecution of the Adjusters is actually not a big deal. Don't forget that there are also the Eurasian Federation and the East Asian Federation in the union. Orb just needs to move towards them.

Besides, persecuting the adjusters is just the political correctness of the Atlantic Federation. The Atlantic Federation government may not really hate the adjusters, it just cannot tolerate adjusters like PLANT that are not under its control.

If the Earth Federation wins this war, the position of the Adjuster will surely be even more embarrassing, and then it will be time to see how the Eurasian Federation and the East Asian Federation operate.

"In the end, soldiers are still dying."

Although everyone has their own duties, they are still soldiers who fight for the strategic goals of the motherland. They are volunteers. Is it worth it?

Just as Rei's mind was full of thoughts as usual, something pecked his forehead.

"Ok?"

Rey came to his senses and saw a small thing he had bumped into.

"What's this?"

A strange yellow thing, with very sharp protrusions on both sides.

Rei pulled it, and this action completely destroyed the original shape, revealing its original appearance.

"Is it paper?"

It turned into a piece of paper with many folds.

And this was just one of the things he encountered along the way. Ray was puzzled and picked up two identical paper toys on the way to the maintenance room. They were floating freely in the zero-gravity ship.

"When did this kind of thing appear on the ship?"

Confused about what was going on, Rei came to the maintenance room, where he saw more paper toys.

One of the students who was supposed to carry out the collection task was holding many identical toys in his hands, piled up in colorful colors. At a glance, there must be at least dozens of them.

"You dropped something."

Ray said as he moved closer and placed the three he saw back into the pile.

"And who can tell me what this is?"

There was no such thing in Rey's cultural circle. He just thought it was quite amazing to be able to fold paper into this shape.

In response to the question, Mirialia, holding a thousand paper cranes, replied:

"It's a thousand paper cranes."

It represents blessing, and there is a legend that if you fold a thousand of them, your wish will come true.

"It's a substitute for a bouquet."

Mirialia's reasoning was that flowers were essential for mourning the dead.

But they didn't have time to collect flowers from the floating broken land, so they just picked up some colored paper from the supermarket and made some paper cranes.

At this time, Mirialia continued:

"It's not good that we're the only ones taking things."

Respecting the dead is common sense for everyone, not to mention that these deceased people did nothing wrong.

Rei stretched out his hand, and his left hand suddenly changed direction midway, pressing it on Kira's head and rubbing it.

"why?"

Kira spoke with a puzzled look on his face. He saw very clearly that Ray's palm had not moved towards Mirialia before.

What's more, it was Mirialia who was talking the whole time. It was she who mentioned the paper cranes that made everyone do it together. How come she suddenly started rubbing his head?

"Because she's a girl."

Rei smiled, then laughed even louder at Kira's confused look.

Generally speaking, girls value their hairstyle very much. They don’t like others to put their hands on their heads and touch them casually. If it gets messed up, wouldn’t it be a waste of time to style it?

Now that we are ready, let’s go and collect supplies for the last time.

Dividing line

Floating near Junius 7 is a corpse. Can you imagine suddenly seeing a cold, dried corpse in the universe?

It was thrown out when Junius 7 was disintegrated by a nuclear bomb and has been floating to this day.

Whether cremation or burial, this is the last way the living can express respect for the dead.

However, the wreckage of Junius 7 is now a neglected tombstone. This is not a cemetery, but a mass grave.

Thinking of this, Aslan suddenly felt a strong sense of fear, and then this fear turned into painful sadness.

He was afraid that he would see his mother's body here, but he immediately thought that even if his mother's body was placed in front of him, he might not be able to recognize it.

A corpse exposed to a vacuum environment has its moisture drained away. No matter how radiant a person was in life, their ugliest side will be revealed after death.

People always pursue beauty, so they are afraid of death which is full of ugliness.

While Athrun was lost in thought, Cruze, who had been driving the MS with him, had already found something new.

"Aslan, come here."

Nothing could be heard from Cruze's tone, but if they were on video call, someone would definitely notice the corners of Cruze's mouth that he couldn't suppress.

Hearing his call, Aslan immediately drove the Holy Shield forward, and he immediately saw the reason why Cruze called him:

The wreckage is very new.

There are wreckages of ZAFT and Earth Army ships, as well as wreckages of Jinn and Mobius.

Judging from the closeness of the wreckage of the two warships, they must have collided with each other and perished together, without even having time to send out a distress signal.

At this moment, Aslan actually didn't feel anything real.

Cruze was wondering how the current Speaker of the House of Representatives Klein would react when he found out about this. Would he immediately turn around and agree with Defense Minister Sarah?

No matter how much we think about it, we still have to do a good job of superficial work.

"Aslan, let others search the sunken ship. You and I will continue searching other places. Perhaps Miss Lacus has already escaped."

"Yes!"

Is there really such a good thing? Anyway, they haven't received any distress signals until now.

After sending the message back to the mothership, the Assault-type MSs Xigu and Aegis continued to advance deeper into Junius 7.

This colonial satellite seems to be always still, and you can see buildings, vegetation, and various types of transportation.

But they simply exist here, telling everyone who comes that someone once lived here.

Cruze was not really focused on the search work. In fact, it was his first time to Junius 7, and he had a very uncomfortable feeling, as if someone was touching his body with a cold palm.

At the command of an unknown person, soldiers carrying nuclear bombs launched them at innocent civilians.

Isn't it interesting that humans did the same thing in the distant past, before industry even existed?

The only difference is that at that time the emperor was the ruler, and now the government is the ruler.

As long as these so-called superiors give orders, someone will carry them out. Even if the system changes, human beings will not change at all, and they will probably not change in the future.

The self-righteous upper class believes that they can really control everything, but everything has a cause and effect. Even this war is the retribution brought about by the distant past.

Unlike Cruze's body which was invaded by the cold, a black flame surged in his heart.

He wanted to laugh wildly in this mass grave where 240,000 people had died.

But as the Assault-Type Xigu approached, the light spot on the radar brought Cruze back to his senses.

"what?"

He didn't expect that there would be any living people in Junius 7. Could it be that Lacus Klein was really so lucky that she didn't die?

"team leader!"

"I know."

The two mobile suits headed towards the direction of the mark, and what was waiting for Cruze here was a reunion he had never expected.

"Mu?"

"Kruze?!"

Chapter 24 Among the Tombstones

There has been a question lingering in Kira's mind recently. Is there anything he can do?

Unfortunately, he couldn't think of anything he could do, so he kept thinking about this problem.

The working boat completed the last collection, and on the return journey, Kira and his friends scattered thousands of paper cranes out.

The colorful paper cranes and the bouquets are of the same nature, and that's all they can do.

This was just to make himself feel better. Even if he expressed his condolences, what would it matter? Junius 7's people were dead and that was it.

Before Kira's eyes were the paper cranes drifting away, heading toward the still building, perhaps to the dead within.

No one spoke and everything was quiet.

However, the silence ended here, and an urgent voice sounded in the space suit:

"Hey! Hurry back to the Archangel, the enemy is coming!"

"Eh?"

Enemy? What does that mean?

Kira's mind conjured an image of a sleeping figure disappearing in flames.

That was an association that arose unconsciously based on the real situation. The building, in which countless people were sleeping, was flooded with emerald light.

It was an escort attack. It fired with a rifle in hand. The beam of light penetrated the outer wall of the building, destroying everything in its path with high temperature, and finally moved towards a farther distance.

The dead silence that had lasted for almost a year on Junius 7 was completely broken today. Thousands of paper cranes carrying mourning messages scattered in all directions. The golden heretic rushed out at a high speed, and the blue fire gushing from its nozzles ignited the paper cranes, leaving behind brilliant sparks.

After the encounter, a battle ensued. The attacker passed over the building pierced by its rifle, and the first shot missed after all.

The Assault-Type Xigu within the engagement distance fully utilized its capabilities and easily dodged the assault's straight shots.

"I never thought we would meet again in a place like this."

Cruze also didn't think that the Archangel would be in Junius 7. After all, he didn't know why the Archangel came here.

Compared to Cruze who was very calm, Mu showed his disgust directly:

"Are you a fly?"

As long as you don't kill it, it will keep flying around you.

The assault fired again at the Assault-Type Xigu, and with the wreckage of Junius 7 in the background, it seemed that a battle was about to begin.

The rifle in the hands of the Golden Heretic was also aimed, and the assault-type Xigu seemed to have known that the Golden Heretic would shoot, so he dodged the attack horizontally and then moved upwards a short distance, making the Golden Heretic's pursuit in vain.

The next moment, the supporting Holy Shield retaliated with a rifle, hitting the shield raised by the Golden Heretic.

This was an unexpected gain for them. Aslan, who cared more about the Archangel than Lacus's disappearance, actually saw the Archangel here.

Although he was encountering the enemy he had been thinking about day and night, Shengdun's movements were very calm.

It kept its distance from the Golden Heretic while firing at each other, merely to restrain the Golden Heretic from joining the Assault-Type Xigu.

This allows the Assault Xigu to avoid the assault beam while turning, and the new large wing-shaped thrusters on its back open.

It is this large thruster that gives the armored Assault-Type Xigu a stronger thrust than the Xigu. The external armor added to various parts of its body also adds new posture nozzles.

Although the Assault-Type Xigu's external armor was born at an untimely time due to the emergence of the beam rifle, the mobility of this machine is genuine.