Editing KSGU:Volume 10 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 34===

The psycoframe parts were swaying, as though lifted by the wind. It was a sign. The moment Banagher braced himself, a light took his breath away, looming forth, dyeing his vision white.

The rainbow light of the psycoframe was devoured by the overheated light, and the “Unicorn Gundam” was parried aside, creaking away. ''I’ll be burned to death.’’ He felt this fear at that moment. His mind and flesh, embalmed in light, returned to space, and he felt himself floating in the world of light.

The consciousness breathing in the “Unicorn Gundam” was starting to rise, resonating with Banagher’s thoughts. Cardeas, Marida, Daguza…the remaining traces of these familiar people were not actually them, but yet somewhat time. They had passed the boundary, and were at a place that could not be explained with the concept of three dimensions. They could be said to exist everywhere, yet not exist at all. They were part of the ‘collective’, with no ‘ego’ that could be felt from the flesh. Banagher however realized that they remembered those moments.

One by one, they meshed together, were led into his heart, and guided him—or rather, he went and became part of them—Banagher saw time rewind in the light. The light of the colony light overwhelming him, the battle against Frontal, the darkness of the cryo, Marida’s ‘voice’ echoing through the battlefield, his kiss with Audrey, the gunshots in the “Nahel Argama”, the “L1 Lagrange Point” fading away like a snowflake, the “Garencieres” engulfed in the rainbow light as it sank into the atmosphere. Banagher’s thoughts too were dragged deep into Earth’s gravity.

There was also the space fortress “Garuda” surrounded in flames, Alberto yelling at him while pointing a gun, Marida piloting the “Banshee”, Riddhe’s “Delta Plus” flying about, the Zeon army remnants attaching Triton Base in old mobile suits, the madness at Dakar, the massive mobile armor…’’yes, that’s the moment Miss Loni died’’. Ahh, Banagher finally felt a belated lament. The sight of him wandering the desert with Zimmerman, when he saw the starry sky melting away when he was dragged into space. The sight of “Laplace” wreckage being burned away.

Gilboa’s “Geara Zulu” was splintered by the limbs, Daguza’s body was vaporized, the berserking “Unicorn Gundam” attacked the “Kshatriya”, the sadness he saw of marida the first time he shared consciousness with others. The pain and exploding emotions when he recognized what was going on, and his thoughts returned back to “Industrial 7”, the days when he felt ‘disjointed’ from the world before he saw everything.

The first time he entered the mini mobile suit, the nervousness and overwhelming emotion he felt when he entered spac, the Anaheim technical school shone upon by the artificial sun, his mother’s funeral done at a common graveyard, the stench from his hometown colony—felt so nostalgic. There was the couple next door arguing, the brakes of the bicycle echoing in the night, Haro’s eyes blinking. Mom’s back from her night job. The reflection on the water surface, the pet bottle boat floating on it…it’s not a sight of the colony, but when the house was on Earth. There was a lake nearby, and his father showed a rare smile under the dazzling sunlight. The plane clouds pulled white trails in the air, and his mother’s piano sounds could be heard afar—

A vanishing life would replay its fading lights at the very end…it was shared with ‘everything’, preserved with the emotions felt back then, never to disappear again. The ‘lights’ formed within oneself would pass one after another, reforming as the ‘ego’ was peeled layer by layer, meshed into the ‘collective’. At this point, Banagher was part of the ‘collective’, and the ‘collective’ itself. It, a fusion of countless thoughts, looked towards the host called the “Unicorn Gundam”, as it stared into the chaos, weaving humanity’s war.

The commotion that would be known later as the Laplace War instantly vanished in a single light. After the destruction of Zeon, the Federation’s peace would not last a quarter of the century before a new rebel movement began, engulfing space and Earth in war. It would extend from the Earth Celestial Sphere to Mars and Jupiter. The more humanity’s living space increased, so would the flames of war. The unmanned weapons would kill indiscriminately, and there would be a beam satellite more potent than the colony laser. Earth’s skies, Mar’s lands, the eternally frozen lands of the satellite surrounding Jupiter, the mobile suits taking after the “Gundam” would continue to run.

A hundred years, two hundred…the regular cycle of destruction and rebirth would continue. Humanity’s still humanity, and would continue to fight for dominion in the extremely small space in this universe. Time and light remained a high wall that could not be overcome. There were no different civilizations reaching out to humanity. Humanity never changed, they never would learn, and even the name Newtype would be buried in the abyss of oblivion. As Syam would predict, it would be a future without change—was the human revolution just a dream? Possibilities merely remained as possibilities, just an instance of ‘light’ in the eternally passing time? Banagher asked the ‘collective’, and he, as part of it, heard a throbbing heartbeat.

Thud, thud, the sound echoing in the vacuum seemed to be from the inside, and yet from the outside. The sound he once heard in the cryo was the same he heard many times in the “Unicorn Gundam”. The repeated expansion and contraction, the repeated destruction and rebirth of humanity as they carved the rhythm of life. It’s full of life, the sound of life that’s showing itself in eternity—!

It’s not a repeat. It felt like a loop in a sealed ring, but the world did not remain at a single place. Humanity would be pushed forth by the sounds of life, and would continue to move on without thought. They would be beckoned to be better, driven by illogical instincts, and would walk down the long, massive spiral called the wheel of time.

This path was not a mistake. Would foresight be the start of a misfortunate? There were some who were imprisoned by such doubts, but humanity’s steps would not step. They would be driven by instinct to act, and perhaps in this sense, were not too different from animals. Just as the birds would fly South, the Caribous wandering the wilderness, humanity would seek the supernatural, and this order of events would continue. They would be driven by ‘ego’, led by the trace of kindness, and would seek the ‘light’ of possibility as they move up the spiral staircase of time.

At the end of these steps─after countless eras and wheels of time, Banagher saw another possibility. After the cycles of destruction and rebirth, the Earth would need a long rest. It decided that thousands of years later, people would live on the revived Earth, and the same life would happen between Earth and the Moon. The spacenoids would leave the Earth Celestial Sphere, the excessive population would live on artificial lands…thus would be the end of the mission called the evolution cradle. They broke free from the solar system, their ships headed out of the distant Milky Way. Its belly was lit by light, and like fish, they would head towards the glowing water surface, towards the ‘next world’ on the other side. They would not be headed here, but beyond the other rainbow.

They would obtain the technology to surpass light, but would be no different from humanity at this point. Even if those ‘lights’ were in the far distance, they continued to reflect, moving to the distant end of the wheel of time, their hearts being moved. ''The future is just the result of today.’’ Banagher heard Audrey say this. ''There is no need to despair, no need to be anxious. Just connect to the ‘lights’ of possibilities that were there out of kindness. The ‘promised future’ has always been in our hands. The moment we looked at the water surface from the dark abyss, the journey to the other end had begun.

Thud, thud thud…the lively heartbeats continued, and the psycoframes acting as relay between the ‘two worlds’ resonated. The “Unicorn Gundam” was floating in the scorching wilderness, giving off a rainbow light. It’s a power flowing from the ‘collective’, the field of souls released by the countless ‘lights’. The spirits that became the cores harkened the past and the future. Banagher’s existence was expanding and overflowing from his body, and he too was caught in this heartbeat filled with the breath of time.

Everything became the heat of a bawling baby, the smile of a mother smiling peacefully on the bed, the hands of a father who was unused to this. With the sun still smiling for a million years, this would be a new cluster of ‘lights’ born. The chain of ‘light’ linking beyond the time dazzled radiantly—

Banagher Links saw the world.

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