Love and Hate

"I was searching for any oxygen canisters left in the wreckage. I'd realized that I had miscalculated. My oxygen was running out. My initial calculations had let me to believe that I could just reach that unmanned supply situation. But I'd sacrificed one more canister than I'd counted on. Zophie's presence was the reason." Chirico has made the magnanimous gesture of giving Zophie one of his own air tanks, but now regrets it as his own nears its limit. Evading Balarant patrols, Chirico eventually finds an underground supply depot, and sets Fyana down to investigate it. Inside, he finds more air tanks, but gives up his bazooka to carry them. He returns to Fyana and resumes his walk...but Zophie intervenes, having grabbed and armed the bazooka! Before she can end it all, however, other come to Chirico's rescue - Gotho, Vanilla, and Coconna charge over the dunes in a salvaged buggy, and scoop everyone up just in time to avoid another Balarant patrol. The patrol chases them into the very supply station Chirico was bound for, and he takes over the buggy to face off against the single Fatty AT that pursues them. Destroying the Fatty, he rushes to Fyana, and prepares a liquid jijirium bath to save her from the edge of death. As he does this, Gotho and the others deal with Zophie...and Coconna emerges as the unlikely victor. Unleashing the pent-up anger of a lifetime, she pummels Zophie with everything she has, including the heart-rending truth that she, too, lost her family in the war. As Fyana's life is restored, Gotho and Vanilla inform Chirico that Zophie has gone...but she left no forgiveness behind. " I never answered her charges. Even if I had told her the truth, that my unit wasn't on this world when her family was killed, I still would have only been making meaningless excuses. Because I'd done the same thing in other places. Even if she knew the truth, she wouldn't forgive me. And in my heart, I felt the same way."