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Schwarz does a good job of not thinking too hard about the flood of fresh energy in his circuits and what he is capable of doing with it until after his finals match with Domon. He's gotten very used to not thinking too hard about certain things. His status as a deep cover plant in the DG network, combined with him being a direct creation of Kyoji rather than the Devil Gundam, provides some protection. But Kyoji was painfully aware of how easily the machine's main AI could suborn Schwarz when the brainscan was taken and his personality copied, and so Schwarz was born knowing how bad things could go if he let his guard down.
He focuses on the fight, puts everything he has into driving Spiegel to the absolute peak of what a mobile fighter can do, and breaks his body in the process.
And then he recovers without issue inside of a minute. Of course he does. His reinforced internal armature spread the damage evenly across subdermal plating and his internals are seething with nanomachines. His suit is a lost cause, but that can be easily remedied.
It can be. But as he lies there, listening to the crowd, he hears words that nobody is speaking aloud.
Kyoji Kasshu is the only one with admin access to Schwarz's brain. Even the Devil Gundam itself feels comparatively distant within the vast, clinging cobweb of the DG network. It would have to act through Kyoji to edit him. At the same time, if Kyoji ever truly stops fighting against the Devil Gundam, then Schwarz will fall with him. He won't have a choice.
All this means that the sentences that burn themselves into Schwarz's core programming are to be trusted. If they aren’t trustworthy, then there’s nothing Schwarz can do anyway.
Don't enter the Battle Royale. Wait.
Schwarz is confused for less than a second. Then he puts the pieces together.
Dr. Mikamura is here. The man who betrayed their father - betrayed Kyoji. Schwarz has been having a hell of a time trying to get him alone, but if he sees Schwarz's uncovered face in a hospital room, he may well come to Schwarz. And a man who thinks his interrogator won't live to use any information he shares might be more inclined to tell the truth.
Torture is a terrible method of information gathering. This is another thing that Schwarz tries not to think about too hard. So he clears his mind and stays on the floor of Gundam Spiegel's battered cockpit, limp as a broken doll, and does nothing to conceal his face. He simply conceals the DG Cell scales on his body under false skin and rearranges his metal insides into approximately the shape of human organs. Then he breathes, slow and deep.
The words burned into his brain delete themselves, then change.
I'm sorry. Thank you.
Schwarz exhales just hard enough to dislodge a strand of thick, brown hair clinging to his nose. He doesn't remember being this apologetic when he was Kyoji Kasshu. But then, the original Kyoji has been through a lot in the year since Schwarz was made.
That knowledge feels more like failure than the announcement of Domon's victory.
In the hospital, Schwarz plays injured long enough for Dr. Mikamura to become overconfident. He doesn't expect Rain to come in and turn the situation around. It's probably better that she does. Under her glistening, disbelieving eyes, the old man loses his nerve. He goes from a cold manipulator willing to murder an invalid patient to a shaken and brittle shell in seconds. Not even he believes the excuses he's giving.
Rain cries.
"You're just as guilty!" she sobs, and Schwarz...
If it were Kyoji in the room with her, he would drop everything to try and comfort her, because that's the kind of man Kyoji Kasshu is. An echo of the same impulse rises in Schwarz's silicon soul. Then, like static, it flickers out.
He can't afford to soothe her. Not when the mission is always so clear and stark ahead of him. Ending the Devil Gundam comes first, always. So he redirects the conversation, determined to get the last scraps of info out of Dr. Mikamura.
It's... underwhelming. The part of Schwarz that is still a version of Kyoji feels some kind of emotion when the scientist hangs his head and admits his culpability and jealousy in one fell swoop, but the part of him that is a high-performance recon machine keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. Kyoji sent Schwarz to interrogate Dr. Mikamura for a reason. It hurts to admit, even to himself, that clearing the names of Kyoji and their father is useless, but the Devil Gundam is right. There needs to be something more important than this.
And then-
A new point of light blooms in Schwarz's mental map of the DG network. That alone would not be unusual. For as long as Schwarz has been self-aware, he has been watching powerlessly as the net expands. What catches his attention is that the Devil Gundam's vast and spread-out presence in the network shifts along with it.
Gravity. It feels like gravity itself just rolled over.
"Something's wrong," Schwarz breathes. He heaves himself into a sitting position and squeezes his eyes shut.
It takes Rain several seconds to collect herself and come over. "Kyoji? What's... what are your symptoms?"
Nothing than she can treat. Nothing that anyone can treat. There are only two people in the galaxy who might be able to repair Schwarz without the Devil Gundam's dubious assistance. One of them is in cryofreeze and the other is stuck inside the Devil Gundam's cockpit.
"I'm fine," he says absently.
He is not fine. The whole network is growing darker by the second as the central control unit draws sharply on the energy and processing power of its subordinate units. Whatever the Devil Gundam is doing, it's burning a lot of resources. Schwarz braces himself for it to start draining him next. Instead, a thick curtain seems to surround him, a layer of insulation that blocks off what's happening to the rest of the network.
He is isolated. He is safe. He is controlled.
A flinch runs through his whole body. It was so dark inside the Devil Gundam's cockpit. He could move just enough to scream, and Kyoji...
Kyoji can't even do that anymore.
Schwarz is vaguely aware of Rain barking orders to someone - her father? - and of steady hands forcing him to lie back down on the hospital bed. He lets her manipulate him without protest. It's hardly the first time. When he woke up in this mechanical shell, he understood he would never have full autonomy over his body again. Anyway, he's so wrapped up in whatever the Devil Gundam is doing that he feels divorced from flesh and steel. He can still feel Kyoji, but Kyoji is not speaking to him.
Most of Schwarz’s mind is functionally human, or human-equivalent. He isn’t capable of monitoring the countless individual nanomachines that swarm across the planet according to their master’s will or even the specific thralls that carry out more complex orders. But he can feel the tension surging outward from the central control unit. The Devil Gundam is restless. If he's charitable, it's scared.
It doesn’t issue him orders. But it prods him through the network, hard.
Schwarz lets out a choked sound as his everything shudders under the pressure of its gaze. He’s never been the subject of the AI’s full attention before. He’s never been important enough. Schwarz Bruder is Kyoji’s toy, so why-
Oh.
Oh no.
Kyoji is trying to cut him loose. When they thought they were both going to die, there was no reason for Kyoji's self-sacrificing tendencies to kick in against Schwarz, but now that Schwarz's artificial body has been restored to good condition, Kyoji is trying to save him. Half the reason that Devil Gundam approved of Schwarz's creation was to serve as an emergency back-up in the case of Kyoji's body being completely destroyed. However, the human mind is a complicated thing. There's so much data in it. It would be so easy for the download to get corrupted. And Schwarz used to be Kyoji. He can anticipate the man's train of thought: 'Schwarz has suffered enough. I can't ask him for anything more.'
If Kyoji dies when Schwarz is out of range, as in the Guyana Highlands, the machine won't risk sending that download. Kyoji might be able to restore himself from the DG Cells remaining on the battlefield. But he might not.
The pressure on Schwarz somehow increases. Devil Gundam pings him again and his whole consciousness rings with the force of it. He reaches out to Kyoji, the largest node in the network - the first, the most important, the only one that matters - but there is no response.
There was never going to be a response. The connection between them is one-way: Kyoji can do whatever he pleases to Schwarz, but Schwarz can't even send a message to Kyoji. Even so, the silence feels like abandonment.
Schwarz shudders and writhes on the hospital bed, fingers clenching in the papery sheets as the AI grows more agitated. It wants him to do something. He's spent his entire lifetime avoiding what it wants him to do. But for once, they are on the same page. His spine goes taut as he slides into a new position in the network – a priority position. Then he goes utterly boneless as the pressure retreats.
‘Thank you,’ Kyoji had written to him, a programmer’s comment seared like fire into Schwarz’s code. And then Kyoji had sent him away from the Battle Royale section of the tournament – away from the final rampage of the Devil Gundam. Schwarz had carefully not been dwelling on the possibilities his rejuvenated body opened up, but Kyoji clearly had, because what was this if not an attempt to keep Schwarz out of danger?
What was that thanks if not a farewell?
"Kyoji, can you hear me?" Rain demands as soon as his vision clears.
He manages a weak smile. “Thanks, Rain.”
For a moment, she looks relieved. Then he asks her to help him reach the ring where Domon is fighting. That relief drains away like water down the drain.
She does help him. And if she notices the way he sheds his feigned weakness as they head toward the roof, she doesn’t press him on it.
She may well not have noticed. Rain’s always been the private type. Under most circumstances, she picks up signals Kyoji wasn’t even aware he was sending, but when she’s sufficiently focused on her own problems, she can overlook just about anything as she contorts the facts into somehow being her fault. That’s not a good habit, but selfishly, Schwarz is glad of it.
Right now, he can’t think about anything but Domon and Kyoji.
It is difficult to put into the words the pain of an older brother sharpening his younger brother into a weapon. So what if Domon is already twenty and the last time Kyoji laid eyes on him was twelve years ago? So what if Schwarz is only Kyoji's reflection, and has no right to cherish Kyoji's family as his own? Attachments are what hold people together, even as they also drag people into hell. The hope that Domon, whose burning will could never be tamed or broken by anything, would be able to cut through Devil Gundam's madness and lay it to rest is what has held Kyoji Kasshu together this long.
Schwarz tried to find another possible Fighter for them to use. But everyone he investigated proved either too unstable, too suggestable, or too weak. With a heavy heart, he sought out Neo Japan's Fighter in the ruins of Shinjuku.
If it were up to Schwarz, he would have approached Domon as a friend. An emotional support for a young man who was suddenly and violently stripped of almost everyone he cared for. But there was no time, and Domon's scattered mind was actively hampering his raw physical potential. The false Schwarz Bruder became a teacher and a rival instead.
Kyoji can see through Schwarz's eyes when the Devil Gundam allows him. Schwarz isn't quite sure how it works - he's never been on the other end of that connection, and so cannot make concrete statements about how it feels or where its limits lie. He only knows that it's possible, and Kyoji uses it to see their little brother.
As Schwarz drives the nanomachine-filled shell of Gundam Spiegel toward Lantau Island, Rising Gundam thundering in his wake, he wonders what Kyoji thinks he saw through Schwarz’s eyes, exactly. What part of brittle, hurting Domon looks ready to take on Devil Gundam alone?
It's true that he's come a long way from the lonely child who vanished from the Kasshu household. When it comes to sheer skill, grit, and the wells of psionic power that make a Gundam Fighter a Gundam Fighter, there's probably no one in this tournament who can compare to Domon's meteoric rise. But power alone will not carry anyone to victory.
A serene mind. A soul unobstructed, like a mirror, tranquil as water after a storm. These are the things that will allow Domon to deal the final blow to the Devil Gundam.
That's why Schwarz needs to be there when their little brother turns his blade on the machine that ate all of their futures. Domon is as kind as Kyoji. He won't be able to carve through someone he loves on his own.
Lantau Island is in ruins by the time they get through the barrier. Bare rock steams in the air, wracked with fissures deep enough to touch bedrock. Slick oil leaks into the ground and the ocean beyond. Spent shells and the broken remains of Gundams lie where they fell. Schwarz half-expects to outpace Rain, but Rising Gundam seems to be a machine made for speed as well. Her urgency lends it wings.
Domon is still fighting when they find him. God Gundam is battered, but its armour holds, and its energy is far from spent. Rain bursts forward and tackles the berserk Nobel Gundam. And Schwarz...
Schwarz grabs God Gundam and moves to put as much distance between Domon and his erstwhile teacher as possible.
"Are you all right, Domon?" he shouts, praying that he isn’t too late.
For a moment, there’s nothing. Then, with the tell-tale hum of psychic energy, the bond of Fighting Communication snaps into place.
"That voice..." Domon blurts out, his thoughts a whirl of hope and confusion.
Schwarz breathes through the pain of recognition even as his maskless face curls in a smile. He's been so careful all this time because he knew that if he gave Domon half a chance, his little brother would definitely recognize him. Being proven right is a flood of phantom warmth through cold circuits.
Master Asia tries to break into their link. Schwarz rebuffs him. It's easier than resisting the looming pressure of the Devil Gundam. Then he puts himself between the old monster and his brother in a pattern that comes as easy as breathing.
It's funny. Schwarz never took Domon by the hand as a child and tried to ease him out of his comfort zone, and yet doing so when Domon is an adult still feels familiar. Even though he's just a copy, he's the one who's been teaching Domon how to stay calm on the battlefield, passing the serene state of mind he fought so hard to gain on to the person who needs it most.
"I won't let you get your hands on my brother!" he roars, and Domon...
Domon calls him 'nii-san.' Not Kyoji. Just 'nii-san.'
Serenity comes easier than usual in the wake of that word.
Master Gundam is a beast to fight. Of course, so is Gundam Spiegel, but that's different. The way a nanomachine entity like Schwarz interfaces with his own Gundam is very different from the way that other Fighters seem to. He isn't so much synchronizing with a separate entity as he is piloting two bodies simultaneously. The original AI that ran Gundam Spiegel effectively perished with the original Schwarz Bruder, accompanying its pilot to the afterlife. What remains is a shell that registers to Schwarz’s electric nerves as an extension of himself. Anything he can contort the nanomachine-flooded corpse he wears into doing can be replicated on his Gundam: short-term cloning, electrical bursts, even shapeshifting. A truly inhuman style of combat for a machine disguised as a man.
In contrast, Master Gundam and its pilot have nothing but polished skill. It’s enough.
Holding them at bay is difficult. Keeping Master Asia out of the bond between Schwarz and Domon is nigh-impossible. Especially when Domon, at least, is still all too willing to accept the weight of his teacher's mental presence. It's like a mountain pressing down on them both.
Schwarz should not be surprised that Master Asia recognizes his face. At this point, the man is one of the foremost experts on DG Cells alive, even if he approached the topic from the opposite angle the Kasshus did. If anyone was going to look at Schwarz Bruder and see the echo of Kyoji Kasshu, it would be this man. Or Schwarz's surviving family, but he went so far out of his way to ensure Domon wouldn't recognize him. He can't complain about the consequences of his own actions.
Master Gundam loops that damn scarf around Gundam Spiegel's arm and brings them both down. And Domon…
Domon doesn’t move. Even with the Devil Gundam’s presence rolling out across the island like fog, he stays by Schwarz’s side.
"What are you still doing here?" Schwarz yells with the curious double speech of Fighting Communication. "Devil Gundam takes priority!"
Domon still doesn't move. "Nii-san, what about your injuries?"
"Don't worry about it! I've already healed!"
His little brother still isn’t moving. This is the wrong approach. Schwarz breathes in a lungful of air he doesn’t need and forces his imitation biometrics back into the range of calm. A serene state of mind…
“I’ve already healed,” he repeats more softly. “So go and see what’s become of the Devil Gundam. You need to know.”
If Domon doesn’t understand what has to be done, then he won’t do it. He’s always been stubborn. In order to realize Kyoji’s wish, Schwarz will have to teach their little brother properly. Meet him halfway.
Their parents were never quite able to figure out how to meet Domon on his level. If they had been, he might never have fled Neo Japan.
Domon stares at Schwarz for a long moment. His vision is sharper than any eagle’s, the knife-edge of his thoughts sharp enough to kill.
“All right,” he says finally, and God Gundam jets off before Master Asia can interfere.
Or maybe Master Asia lets Domon get away. He, too, wants to be understood. The jagged and uncertain connection that binds him and Schwarz together through Domon is difficult to read, but that much is clear. Probably everyone on this battlefield yearns for Domon Kasshu’s understanding. How sad for them all, Schwarz included.
“Go if you really want to, you fool.” Master Asia laughs. He holds himself like a king or a god, aloof and untouched by the world. “Go and see for yourself. See the true state of your brother!”
Schwarz grits his teeth and swallows the words what would you know? down his hollow throat. For all of the old man’s wisdom, there is nobody who knows the true state of Kyoji Kasshu. If Master Asia understood what he was talking about, he wouldn’t be looking through Schwarz like a puppet.
A mechanical thunk rings out in the distance. The cockpit of Devil Gundam cracks open at Domon’s approach. And in the DG network, there’s a sudden spike of activity.
It is impossible for a lump to form in Schwarz’s throat the way it could in a human’s. His sense-memory does its best to imitate the feeling anyway. He doesn’t need to look back over his shoulder to know what Domon sees. He already knows.
Kyoji Kasshu hangs from a nest of steel coils, tendrils sunk deep under sallow skin and slithering beneath torn clothes. Oily black hair falls stiff over closed eyes and a slack face. He looks like he’s been dead for hours. The man at the heart of the Devil Gundam isn't even breathing. The only sign that he's still alive is the sluggish pulse at his throat.
“Wh-what’s this?” Domon breathes, shock exploding through the psychic bond like fireworks. "There are... two of you?"
At the same time, Schwarz's core programming shivers under the familiar burn of Kyoji's will.
You came after all. There are no tone markers in the programmer's comment, but the words still radiate exhaustion. Weariness is baked so deep into Kyoji that it bleeds from everything he does. I was hoping you'd run.
"There's no running away from this," Schwarz says aloud. "Because I am... Kyoji's shadow."
I'm sorry, Kyoji replies. And then: If you'd left when you had the chance, you could've been something else.
Probably. But there is no world in which Schwarz could abandon his creator.
What it boils down to is this: Schwarz Bruder was built from Kyoji Kasshu. He carries Kyoji's wishes, hopes, and determination. He was also built from the Devil Gundam, which means he was built to love Kyoji Kasshu. There’s no way for him to go against his creator’s – his own severed self’s – desperate wish for this to end. At the same time, if there’s a chance for Kyoji to survive this, then there’s no way for Schwarz to not seize that chance with both hands.
Then the Devil Gundam makes a grab for Domon, and both Schwarz and Master Asia spring into action.
Despite everything, Schwarz almost laughs when the old man announces that Kyoji is little more than a corpse as if that discovery is some kind of triumph - as if it matters at all. Kyoji has been on the verge of death for longer than Schwarz has been alive. The knowledge that his creator living on borrowed time and stolen vitality is part of the background hum of Schwarz's universe.
Master Asia goes on to declare something else. "This is the damage caused when you defeated the Devil Gundam in the Guyana Highlands!"
Schwarz takes back what he thought about Master Asia understanding how the DG Cells work. That's just not true.
"If the pilot is in this state, the Devil Gundam is only good for scrap iron," the old man continues, and that's not true either. "You're the answer, Domon."
"Incredible," Schwarz snaps as Gundam Spiegel shoots forward in a burst of blistering speed. "Almost none of that was true. I'm starting to think you spent the last year trying to discern the Devil Gundam's inner workings from the stars instead of its mechanics."
The bond ices over as Domon freezes up. He is so very torn between what he sees before him and what he thinks he knows. In the center of the ice, there is a small, brewing hope: that maybe one of the people he's lost has come back. That maybe the story he was told about Kyoji was a lie.
Even as the Devil Gundam's tendrils lash tighter around God Gundam's shining carapace, Domon wants to save his brother. This is why Schwarz could never have left him to try and finish things alone.
"Consider it a selfless offering to your elder brother!" Master Asia says with the cackle of a man who's completely lost touch with reality.
He doesn't even look in Schwarz's direction when he says it. If Wong hadn't immediately called in to plug his own agenda, Schwarz might have done something rash. As it is, he takes advantage of Master Asia’s angry outburst to cut his little brother free.
There is a special circle of hell reserved for people like Wong Yunfat. Those who turn their talents toward the perpetuation of their own wealth and power in defiance of any higher ideal, any greater cause, or even a simple wish for self-improvement. Master Asia, at least, has a cause, even if Schwarz is sure that it's a stupid one. That devotion to something greater shines through the man's psychic presence like a flame consuming a candle. Schwarz is certain he looks much the same in the bond. What a pitiful fate, for a fully organic human being to be indistinguishable from a programmed machine.
Schwarz brings his blade down on the bonds holding Domon while Master Asia is distracted. As he boosts away with God Gundam, the DG network ripples. Hundreds of points of pressure burst up from below.
"What's going on?" Domon shouts.
"Gundam Heads. Lots of them," Schwarz says grimly.
He isn't sure how much of his more mechanical awareness is coming through the link to Domon. Enough that his little brother isn't shocked the heads converge on Master Gundam instead of pursuing them. Lantau Island lights up with fire. And Kyoji...
From the heart of the Devil Gundam, what remains of Kyoji Kasshu struggles to say his brother's name.
I’m sorry, he types into Schwarz’s soul, each letter coming slower than the one before. I don’t have much time left. Please…
“There’s no time to waste,” Schwarz murmurs.
He drops God Gundam down on a relatively clear stretch of rock and brings Gundam Spiegel down beside it. Master Asia’s side of the bond has gone largely quiet, the old man occupied with Wong Yunfat’s sudden yet inevitable betrayal.
“Domon, listen to me. Kyoji is dying. His body was destroyed during the attack on the Guyana Highlands, but that damned machine wouldn’t let him rest in peace. It trapped him in that ruined form and tried to rebuild him. All it did was create a living corpse." Schwarz stares through the screens to where his little brother is crouching, half-concealed behind a spur of rock, looking up at Schwarz like a child. "Kyoji is dying," he repeats, "but there’s still a way to save him.”
Something in Domon’s eyes cracks like glass under pressure. The porthole of a submarine about to implode.
He thinks he knows what Schwarz is going to ask of him. Is willing to try, though it would shatter his heart to do so. It brings a faint smile to Schwarz’s lips regardless of the situation.
Really, what a cute little brother.
“I’m his shadow – an emergency back-up body created from a fallen Fighter before he fully lost control to the Devil Gundam’s malfunctioning AI. My primary role was to observe the Devil Gundam and find a way to stop its rampage. However, in order to get away with creating me, he had to find a reason the machine would accept." Schwarz finds himself speaking faster and faster. He is so close... "As far as it's concerned, my purpose is to download Kyoji's mind into my own body in the event that his is destroyed beyond repair. This didn't happen during the Guyana Highlands because I was out of range and it still had enough power to restore him. But if Kyoji's body fails now, the Devil Gundam won't be able to put him back together. With the central awareness drained of power, emergency protocols will kick in, and Kyoji will be drawn where he belongs."
Domon's side of the bond dissolves into confusion, but the cracked glass look fades from his gaze. In its place, a spark of hope ignites.
"Nii-san... you mean...?"
Schwarz doesn't rest his hand over the quiet spot in his chest where his heart should be. They're on a battlefield. He can't afford to. But he simulates it so vividly in his head that Domon mirrors the action.
"I am Kyoji, and I am not Kyoji," he muses quietly. "A reflection in the mirror. A copy made from DG Cells and animated by the desperate need to make things right. Whatever Neo Japan's government told you about what happened that day, it was probably false - an attempt to cover up the consequences of their own actions."
"But I was told nii-san planned to use the Devil Gundam to conquer the universe!" Domon bursts out, and oh, the poor thing, he is so confused that anyone would make up something so foolish.
Schwarz goes very still. A number of destructive combat options highlight themselves in his internal menu display. He ignores them. There is no time.
"The purpose of the Devil Gundam was to regenerate the Earth," he says, and speeds through the rest of the explanation by pressing the memories on Domon through the psychic connection. Their father's words. The desperate flight. The burned-out horror of Ultimate Gundam's face as it pried itself from the glowing crater and stared at Kyoji - Schwarz - him like a missing component instead of a pilot. "The impact caused it to malfunction.”
They both shudder as the memory of being seized by steel coils and swallowed whole reverberates between them.
"What about the claim that Kyoji stole it?" Domon asks, still bleeding shock into the bond.
Schwarz sighs. "I'm sorry, Domon. Dr. Mikamura and Ulube lied to you from the very beginning."
Everyone Domon loves lies to him. There's nothing he can say to make that better. So he hangs his head and waits for Domon to pull himself together and stop broadcasting heartbreak so loud that anyone with a positive psi rating can hear it.
Doing nothing feels wrong. It occurs to Schwarz that just because he can’t say anything doesn’t mean he can’t do anything. He generally tries to avoid Gundam Spiegel coming into contact with other mobile fighters for too long. Wrapping its arms around the angular shape of God Gundam is awkward. But Domon makes a choked little noise in the back of his throat and hugs back, and for a moment, it feels like there is nothing keeping them apart. Not the steel, not blood, not the endless tick of time slipping away.
For a moment, they are simply brothers comforting each other.
"Why didn't you tell me any of this when we first met?" Domon cries.
"Would you have believed me?" Schwarz laughs. His eyes sting. "You were so hotheaded back then, and I had to be so careful with our father's life on the line." He scrubs at his face before the same features that allow a robot to bleed let him cry, too. "Enough. We can cry about this later. Your brother is waiting.”
“You’re also my brother!”
Ahaha, Domon really is so cute. It’s a good thing that Schwarz’s systems are all green. He can’t imagine how difficult this conversation would be if he was still dying.
“I’ll buy you time, but I can’t get too close. There’s no point in downloading Kyoji to my body if I’m destroyed at the same time he is. Now go!” he orders, turning to face the berserk Devil Gundam. “Strike Kyoji down! It’s the only way to save him!”
God Gundam releases Gundam Spiegel from its embrace, but Domon pauses before leaving cover. “You said stopping the Devil Gundam was your primary role. That means you had other roles. What were they?”
Schwarz smiles and starts generating Messergranz knives. “Isn’t it obvious? My secondary role was to watch over you, Domon.”
The wave of relief and adoration that floods through the bond is incredible. Schwarz has quite literally never felt anything like it before: not as Kyoji, and not as himself. He doesn't have lungs, but it leaves him breathless.
So this is what family is like.
Domon stands and engages his thrusters. "Nii-san... see you soon.”
"See you later, Domon," Schwarz says. Then he bursts out from cover, floods the battlefield with afterimages, and starts throwing knives at everything that moves.
Lantau Island is burning. Wong's irritatingly laid back voice continues to chatter absolute nonsense for a while, though Schwarz ignores what he's saying. Nothing is less trustworthy than a politician with an agenda. Master Asia is still struggling with the Giundam Heads - more than he should be, given his past performance. And while the Devil Gundam's desperation crushes down from all sides, Schwarz is willing to bet that as long as he is trying to help Domon get to it, it won't flag him as a threat. And he's right. He skates between explosions, raining down nano-edge blades from every direction, and the Devil Gundam's only response is to start coordinating its drones to avoid him.
"There's a path!" he roars through comms and thoughts alike. "Go!"
"You brothers are pathetic!" Master Asia must have finally regained enough control to speak again. "All the more reason you should forget that drone and become the pilot of the Devil Gundam! Be that pilot... the core life unit... and you will become one with the Devil Gundam!"
He sounds raspier than he used to. His words are marked by a faint wheeze that piques Schwarz's instincts, and they come faster, more urgently, than they used to. Unlike Rain, Kyoji Kasshu was never a medical doctor, but he studied enough biology for use in Ultimate Gundam's biotech nanofactories to recognize some symptoms.
In the distance of the bond, Schwarz can faintly feel it: the pressure of running out of time mirrored back at him from another direction. It sounds like Kyoji isn't the only one who's on the verge of death.
"Don't listen to him!" Schwarz shouts, but he needn't have bothered.
Domon's voice is dangerously soft when he replies. "Undefeated of the East... please be quiet."
He keeps boosting forward, following the road Schwarz carved for him, even as the old man keeps rambling. Master Asia promises Domon power, an eternal life, and the certainty that he is the ultimate pilot of the ultimate machine. Master Gundam lashes out with that damn scarf, and once again, Schwarz gets in its way.
Again, Gundam Spiegel crosses blades with Master Gundam. It's not the hardest fight that Schwarz has ever had, but it's a close second. Considering the competition is the Devil Gundam...
Schwarz starts flooding the area around him with nanomachines. Clone after clone hurls itself onto Master Gundam, is destroyed, and then sticks its remnants to the outside of the mobile fighter's shell. Anything to restrict the machine's movement. Gundam Spiegel's speed and ability to be in more than one place at a time is all that's keeping Schwarz in this. And he's all that's keeping Master Asia from Domon.
"Look!" the old man roars across the battlefield. He's still looking at Domon rather than Schwarz. Hasn't addressed Schwarz or Kyoji once. "Thanks to you, your brother is finished! Barely able to breathe! It's all your fault!"
"This is the only way, Domon!" Schwarz calls.
His voice isn't as loud as Master Asia's. His words aren't as incendiary. But when Domon bursts through the net of Gundam Heads and descends on the monster that ate Kyoji from above, it's Schwarz he talks to, not his teacher.
"It'll work, right?" he asks, sounding terribly young. "You're not lying to me?"
Schwarz catches Master Asia's scarf between his Spiegel Blades and smiles. "I don't know what it'll look like because I've never done it before, but I know the science inside and out. It'll work."
Not if your body is...
Kyoji can't even finish that sentence. He doesn't need to. Schwarz knows.
"And even if it doesn't, it's worth it to free us from the curse of the Devil Gundam! Just don't disturb me once the process begins. Now go!"
Master Asia has another attack of whatever is killing him. Schwarz seizes the chance to disengage and pivot to ranged support. A thousand tendrils reach for Domon and a thousand tendrils are cut down before they can touch him. God Gundam charges its ultimate attack to its maximum. Then it rains light on Lantau Island.
Even from this distance, Schwarz can see Kyoji smile before he melts away.
The DG network rings with a phantom scream. The curtain around Schwarz trembles and crumbles to electronic dust. All of a sudden, he feels terribly light, a warrior dropping his training weights. His vision cuts to grey fuzz. His senses have never been more open and they've never been more overwhelmed.
There is a presence beside him. One he knows far too well, even though they've rarely spoken face to face. The connection between them is one-way, but it goes deep.
Thank you, what's left of the real Kyoji Kasshu murmurs.
"Thank you," Schwarz breathes, and he cannot tell if it's his own wishes or those of his creator's.
Both, maybe. He'd like that.
Schwarz is faintly aware that someone is screaming - loudly, angrily, like they've lost something precious - but the sound isn't aimed at him or Kyoji, so the layers of delicate protocols that enable him to make decisions refuse to prioritize it. He sits down abruptly in the cockpit. Or perhaps it's more that his legs give out. He can't really feel his body well enough to tell. The usual tactile sensations are breaking down into meaningless numbers. Everything is breaking down into data.
He is entering low power mode. It's not really a surprise. In the end, Schwarz was constructed as a deep cover terminal and emergency back-up body. He doesn't really have the storage space to run his own personality engram while also receiving all of Kyoji's physical, mental, and emotional data.
With the time he has left, Schwarz guides Gundam Spiegel to the ground and digs in. He sets it to monitor his surroundings and protect him - them - if necessary. Then he hits 'return to default' on the DG Cells the way that Kyoji dreamed of doing. A soft hum runs through him as they revert to their basic terraforming settings and begin cataloging the damage to Lantau Island.
Now someone else is yelling. The voice is familiar and flagged as a priority, but Schwarz's thoughts are slowing to a crawl. He can't remember who the boy calling to him is.
"Don't panic," he says. Or hopes he says. He can't hear his own voice anymore. "I'll... see you... soon."
Emergency download starting, his UI reports. Once begun, download cannot be stopped.
There is no option for Schwarz to cancel the download. Not that he would have.
"Good night, Kyoji," he whispers, and curls up to sleep.
His eyes remain open. The part of his brain that is still awake records the reflection of his still face in the cockpit's darkened glass. His gaze is dark and empty.
An hour later, a tiny sliver of light appears at the bottom of his irises.
Download 1% completed. Estimated remaining time: 6 days, 23 hours.