Delling’s speech begins with several camera drones hovering around the conference hall, capturing it.

――Throughout my years of experience on countless battlefields, I’ve come to one conclusion. Weapons should only exist to kill people.

As he speaks, soldiers continue their incursion, the Fólkvangr control room already completely wiped out. The corpses of its crew floated in the air with their blood, like spectral apparitions.

――There should be no excuses for this. Once someone holds in their hands a tool meant purely for killing, they have to bear the sin that comes with it.

Delling declared, his voice growing more intense.

――But the mobile suits of Vanadis and Ochs Earth are different! Not only do they take the lives of their opponents, but of their operators as well. This is not a tool. It is a curse!

At that very moment, Nadim and Wendy were facing off against the enemy out in space, the two having already taken out four Heingra units.

“Keh!”

Breathing hard and in pain, Wendy’s face is mottled with red spots like bruises. The Gundam had overwhelmed the enemy, and maybe it was the price she had to pay, but she was gradually starting to show symptoms.

Nadim opens comms with her.

“Wendy! It’s too dangerous to raise the score further!”

But his voice didn’t reach her.

Back on Fólkvangr, the staff finally understood the danger they were in and made a move to escape. But just as they were about to flee, a squad of stormtrooper commandos appeared and unleashed a relentless barrage of gunfire upon them. Delling’s speech continued to play on the monitors in the room.

――The punishment for taking a life should be imposed upon us by humans, and not machines.

“Nyla… I’ll avenge your death!” Wendy hollers. Ahead of her, the Beguir-Beu appears, piloted by Kenanji.

Wendy’s mobile suit charges forward with zero hesitation.

――People must kill or be killed by people. I believe that’s the minimum courtesy in the foolish act of war.

She raises her Permet score and deploys her GUND-BIT in an attempt to surround Kenanji’s mobile suit, but he quickly activates his non-kinetic pods.

Her approaching GUND-BIT fall silent one after another, an attack known as an “antidote” as it neutralizes GUND Format.

As he moved to provide cover, Nadim noticed something unusual.

“Get back, Wendy! That’s no ordinary custom type!”

A claw-like mechanism unfurls from the legs of the Beguir-Beu, and it swoops down on her suit. Despite her desperate attempts to evade the attack, Kenanji’s piloting skills proved too much for her. The “claw” latches onto her rifle. She pivots to wretch the suit off her, but the claws have dug in, entirely immovable. A second later, more “antidote” completely dims the light of the suit’s shell unit, and the lights in the cockpit wink out.

“I can’t move. Why?!”

She tugs frantically at the controls, but there’s no response whatsoever.

Kenanji confirms the situation for her, indifferent to her plight.

“GUND Format link suppressed. This is the end of the Gundams.”

“Nyla…”

Wendy’s thoughts turned to her days with Nyla, just before Kenanji’s suit thrust its saber into the cockpit of her suit and fired off two additional shots.

“Wendy!”

Nadim cried out in agony, but his voice no longer reached her.

Delling’s speech, in the meantime, resonated far and wide throughout the entirety of the living spheres humanity called home.

――When we pull the trigger ourselves, we bear the burden of the life we’re taking, and of a sin we can never atone for.

In the conference room, one of Sarius’ underling’s whispers in his ear, and his eyes go wide in astonishment at the message. His facial expression broadcast at the time would later be replayed again and again as historical stock footage. It was here that he first learned of Delling acting on his own authority. Delling, however, continued to speak with a commanding voice, keenly aware of the murmurs going up behind him.

――In war, or any form of murder, that’s how it has to be.

With the casualties continuing to mount on Fólkvangr, Cardo found herself cornered in her office as she fled the invasion. She opened a drawer in her desk to reveal a gun she had rarely ever used. When was the last time I serviced it? Would it even fire?

As she looked up, she saw a souring, red-hot glow spreading across the door to the laboratory. Enemy combatants were about to burn through the door. She sighed as the door was wrenched open, and soldiers spilled into the room, immediately taking up positions around her desk. One of them, who appeared to be the commander, spoke to her.

“Dr. Cardo Nabo. You are going to die here.”

It amounted to what was probably the clearest death sentence that could be made, but she was unfazed by it. She continued to speak, her voice civil as she tried to get her point across despite knowing the other party had no interest in hearing what she had to say. She had lived most of her life that way.

“Humanity was born in the cradle of Earth. Our bodies are far too fragile for us to venture into space.”

The walls surrounding Cardo and the soldiers displayed various GUND tech and images of people afflicted by cosmic radiation. They were presentation materials for visitors. She remembered all of the material perfectly; it was all her own research, as much of it a child of her own bearing, or even more so.

“Still,” she thought to herself, “how did they manage to infiltrate so easily? Did the front’s management AI misidentify the assailants as visitors? No, the AI isn’t at fault. Content-aware errors by AI are over a hundred years old. Maybe the entire Fólkvangr system has been hijacked and is experiencing decoherence, a quantum information disruption. Hell, it’s overkill.”

“Just as an infant has to put on clothes, humanity must don the GUND to truly go out into space.”

The commander merely scoffed, leveling his gun at her.

“That’s just an excuse for a technology that requires sacrificial victims.”

“You don’t understand.”

Cardo said, reaching out imperceptively into the drawer she had just opened and gripped the gun.

“What all of you are taking away is the future that the GUND will save!”

In one swift motion, she brings the gun up and at the commander and in that instant, the sounds of heavy gunfire rang out.

The Gundam Lfrith Pre-Production model that Nadim was piloting was now doing its best to escape the enemy, its left leg exploding as its hit, slamming the suit into the outer wall of the research facilities.

“Nnngh!”

Nadim gritted his teeth. He just couldn’t find a way to counter the “antidote” being used by the enemy’s mobile suit, the “Beguir-Beu.” He had no way of knowing the proper names for either, though. He was unable to fight in close quarters, and when he tried to pull back for a long-range attack, the enemy quickly closed in on him.

A blow from the Beguir-Beu grazed his suit, destroying the outer wall of Fólkvangr. The impact also rattled the Gundam Lfrith in the hanger with Ericht in its cockpit. It was more than enough to terrify the child who was curled up in the pilot seat.

“Eri!”

There was only so far the child could have gone, but Elnora had finally tracked her down.

“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”

Ericht tried launching herself out of the cockpit, but she couldn’t move because the cable extending from the seat was still connected to a section on the back of her suit. So instead, Elenora rushed to her, clutching the girl tightly in her arms. Ericht sobbed as she clung to her mother.

“Mommy!”

“It’s okay now. It’ll be all right.”

As the hatch closed quietly and the cockpit immediately rose up,just then, someone’s voice could be heard. An automated comms probe connected to an external channel.

――Headquarters to all units. We’ve successfully neutralized the lives of Cardo Nabo and all key members. Retreat as soon as preparations to blow up the front are complete.

There was no doubt in Elnora’s mind that what the cold, callous tone said over the comms was true.

“Dr. Cardo… Why did you have to die…”

Elenora tightened her grip.

――I repeat…

“Mommy,” Ericht murmured softly.

In the next instant, all the monitors in the cockpit came up, and the boot-up prep sequence was initiated.

“A callback from layer 33? With whose authentication vitals…?”

Elenora looked at the screen and felt a shiver go down her spine. On it wasn’t her own name displayed, but Ericht’s. Layer 34 had been reached.

“Mommy, did she wake up?”

Aghast, she looks at Ericht.

“Ah… ah…”

The Gundam is taking a life.

As her mother stuttered and stammered, trying to find the words, her daughter merely pouted in her lap.