Chirico demands to knwo where Fyana is, but the PS refuses to tell him anything, and their battle resumes. As Kan Yu watches from hiding, Chirico's Marshydog is wrecked, and Chirico barely escapes into the jungle on foot. Kan Yu returns to Zonmu Village, which is now being leveled. The others insist on searching for Chirico, but he orders them back to base.

Later, another type of combat is taking place at the palace of Prince Kanjelman. The prince duels Fyana in a round of Balancing. She does well, but is beaten by the more experienced Prince. The Prince's other student, Ypsilon, returns from the jungle ad reports to Borough that he had fought Chirico again.

Out in the jungle, Chirico is caught by robotic sentries and brought to the palace. Everyone gathers to watch, including Fyana, who recommends that he be imprisoned. Instead, Ypsilon offers to duel him in a round of Balancing. Chirico is completely out of his league, and is quickly beaten. Fyana herself delivers the final blow, which draws blood and finishes the match.

That night, Fyana goes to Chirico in his cell and apologizes. This was the only way she could think of to save his life. She helps him to escape, but once again refuses to go with him. Saddened, Chirico nevertheless slips away. Monica lends aid as well, asking Chirico to tell Potaria that she remembers their childhood together. Agreeing to do so, Chrico vanishes into the Kummen night.

"Fyana hadn't forgotten about me. Knowing that was good enough for now."

Lost and exhausted, Kan Yu stumbles through the Kummen jungle from one pitfall to another. He runs right into a Veela platoon and very nearly loses his life...until Shako appears out of nowhere and saves him. Later, he wakes up in the EX-10 hospital to seek Gon Nu standing over him. He will soon be back in action; the Melkian army is nearly ready to launch their attack on the prince's palace.

With Potaria's knowledge of the area, Chirico's group hijacks a Veela AT truck bound for the palace and takes it over, sacrificing Kiderra's and Potaria's mercenary ATs in favor of Veela Turtles. On the Palace ground, Monica wanders aimlessly, confused by Kanjelman's orders to abandon guerrilla warfare. Others speculate that he is giving up the fight, so she decides to find out for himself. She arrives just in time to overhear a conversation between Boorough and the prince, who states his belief that his kingdom is doomed, and that he has called all the guerrillas back to die with him. Shocked, Monica can only run.

Chirico's group smashes their way into the place grounds. Potaria leaps out of his AT and dashes into the palace on a mission of his own. Ypsilon is anxious to go and fight Chirico, but Borough orders him to wait until his new AT arrives. Tearing through palace corridors in search of Kanjelman, Potaria runs into Monica, who gets caught in a crossfire. Potaria drags her to safety, and she tells him of the prince's treachery...just before she dies in his arms.

In the skies above the palace, countless enemies appear; the entire fleet of mercenary ATs from EX-10 is preparing to attack. The battle begins in earnest, and Chirico looks up to see yet another object approaching from on high.

"There was no way of my knowing at the time...that the light I saw was a new custom AT made for Ypsilon..."

Far away at his home near EX-10, Gotho receives a radio message for Vanilla, who is about to join the attack on the palace. Gotho and Coconna can do little more that wish him luck as all hell breaks loose.

Under the cover of air-to-ground fire, Kan Yu leads an AT platoon as they drop to the ground. Vanilla's helicopter is hit, and he bails out, intent on finding Chirico somewhere in this madness. Inside the palace, Ypsilon's new AT has finally arrived: the Strikedog. He jumps in immediately and peels out. He runs right into Kan Yu's platoon, and demolishes even Shako's AT with ease...but Chirico is nowhere to be found.

Elsewhere, Chirico, Fyana and Kiderra stand waiting for Potaria to return. Instead, Vanilla emerges from the palace with the news that Potaria has gone after Kangelman himslef. Chirico decides he must now go after Borough. Deep within the palace, Kanjelman retires to his quarters, content to wait for the inevitable conclusion of the battle raging outside. But Potaria appears and threatens to kill him for all he had done to their nation. Kanjelman faces him down - but then agrees to a Balancing duel.

Ypsilon is alerted that the prince is in danger, but there is little he can do now that mercenary ATs are beginning to overrun the palace. Kanjelman fights Potaria with grace and skill, but Potaria is a Balancing expert as well, having practiced against kanjelman many times in their younger days - and it is Potaria that finally gets the upper hand, piercing kanjelman through the chest in one quick motion!

Elsewhere inside the palace, Chirico finally locates Borough and bears down on him with full fury. Again, the call goes out for Ypsilon, who charges back into the palace, leaving the grounds undefended.

Kanjelman lies dying in Potaria's arms, finally admitting his reasons for doing all of this; he decided long ago that the only way for Kummen to be born into a new age was to test fate itself. If the old ways were destined to survive, Kanjelman's guerrilla war would have succeeded. Now that it has failed, he will allow himself and his followers to be swept away as symbols of the old order. Before he dies, he hands Potaria a small metal key.

Chirico finally corners Borough and holds him at gunpoint above a deep mineshaft. The time has come for questions to be answered.

"Of course I knew he wasn't the man responsible for all this...but he'd used Kummen's war and manipulated the two Perfect Soldiers all for some purpose. And that purpose...was what?"

Zanjeny and his crew debate the continuing situation. Space Battleship X cannot be identified as a Gilgamesh ship, but the Balarant still cannot risk starting an incident in the nonaggression zone. All they can do is wait for their opponent to make the first move. On the ship, Fyana has come to a decision - she will surrender herself to the Balarant in exchange for medical treatment for Chirico. Her attempt to do so is observed by Futtor's men, and just as Fyana seems to have won, the Balarant ship is destroyed by the Teltain.

She makes it back safely to Battleship X, and as the unknown planet looms closer, the Teltain launches another attack. Fyana attempts to radio Ypsilon, begging him to stop the assault, but communication is knocked out before anything can come of it. The ship begins to descent into the atmosphere of the planet, and a platoon of MKII Tortoises is launched against Fyana. Ypsilon joins the attack in his Strikedog, but when he faces off against her directly, his emotions begin to cloud his judgment.

Despite this, he manages to capture her, and as his men haul her away, Teltain launches another barrage of missiles at the descending battleship. Horrified, Fyana tears herself away and plummets to Chirico's aid once again. She dives inside, followed by more Tortoises, but everyone is thrown into chaos when the giant ship finally smashes into the surface of the planet and comes to rest. Just as Fyana is finally cornered, Chirico rushes to her aid in a Scopedog of his own, and fights his way out to the surface of the smoking ship...where Ypsilon awaits. The sun of the unknown planet rises as they level their weapons at each other.

"My strength had returned to me. But, as strong as Ypsilon's murderous rage was, the smell of blood from this planet's past was even stronger."

"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."

Arron and Gurran have tracked Chirico's progress and speculate about following him themselves. Killy agrees to let them go, provide they use extreme caution.

Chirico and Shako enter the Quentian village, but rather than talking with the chief, Shako instead gives Chirico a drink which causes him to pass out. That night, the women of Shako's tribe perform a strange ritual. Chirico wakes afterward, and Shako explains that they wanted to determine if he was "one who was changed," but says no more.

Rochina prepares to leave the Sunsa system, and Fyana demands to know what he thinks Chirico will find on Quent. Rochina doesn't know precisely, but he does admit to having been following the orders of a higher mind...and has questions of his own to be answered on Quent.

The next morning, Chirico questions Tedaya, the chief of Shako's tribe. Tedaya explains that Chirico might be "one who was changed," but says that he must speak with Meji to learn more. Venturing deep into an underground labyrinth, they find Meji, who appears more ancient than the very rocks around him. Meji explains something of Quent history, about beings who appeared 3,000 years ago and where driven away into darkness after they said all Quentians would be reborn by their hands.

More confused than ever, Chirico later runs into Arron and Gurran, who chase Chirico and Shako deeper into the caverns...which give way to ancient underground technology. They corner Chirico and fire a tranquilizer dart at him. The air around them comes alive with power, and everything begins to fade away...

"Even as consciousness faded from me, I saw it. Saw how they'd disappeared. What had happened? And what was going to happen to me? Was I still even alive?"

Vanilla makes one final attempt to radio Fyana as he flies the others to safety away from Quent. She begs him simply to leave her behind. Only she can reach Chirico now.

The Gilgamesh and Balarant landing forces descend in staggering numbers, but Chirico cuts right through them in his Rabidlydog with the Secret Society's Zwerg platoons backing him up. They quickly fall to the greater numbers, and when Chirico is down to only a few allies, he orders Gurran to begin the second phase of their plan. Gurran orders the Secret Society ship to descent into the battle.

Fyana trails Chirico in secret, and just manages to attach herself to a landing craft as Chirico hijacks it. Chirico orders Gurran to prepare missiles, calling atention to himself and drawing the fire of the enemy. Gurran interposes his ship between Chirico and the combined army, taking devastating hits and striking back as best he can. As Chirico descends into the crevasse toward the underground labyrinth, the ship is overwhelmed and crashes to the ground. Gurran is mortally wounded, surviving just long enough to see an uninjured Rochina step out of hiding and slip away. He will find out once and for all if Chirico is a suitable successor to God.

Pursued relentlessly by a few tenacious enemies in Scopedogs, Chirico and his last two Zwerg pilots plunge into the labyrinth. Exhausted and bereft of ammunition, Chirico is called ever deeper by Wiseman, who declares that his true successor should need no help reaching his final goal. Chirico pushes beyond his fatigue and fights on.

"I'll have my vengeance on everyone in this galaxy! Unending war and chaos...I'll plunge them all into hell! To be the absolute ruler of this galaxy, that is what I desire! To become a living God!"