Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam SEED Destiny or any of the associated characters. The premise of this story was devised by Tellemicus Sundance as Gundam SEED Destiny: Kira, and this chapter uses scenes from the corresponding chapter of that story, as well as an identical title. The OCs used here are all mine.

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny
Dark Angel of Freedom
Original Story By: Tellemicus Sundance
Revised Story By: Maileesaeya
Phase 1: My name is…

Complete, utter, inconceivably dark blackness surrounded him. Where was he? How did he get here? Why was he here? To the darkness, he asked these questions. And from the darkness, he received no answer. Then, slowly, it started as a whisper that gradually grew louder.

"How do you determine the winners and the losers?"

A voice? From where and who? It sounded male, and there was a definite note of iron in that tone.

"If you have the power to make a difference, why not put it to good use?"

Another voice?

"Everyone's fighting desperately to protect the things that are so important to us!"

"But you're already a traitor to your fellow Coordinators, are you not?"

"What gives you the right to sound so superior?!"

"You are the dream of humanity."

"There would be no wars in this world if things could be resolved through discussion."

"NICOL!"

"You soldiers wanna be cowards and runaway, do ya?!"

"The enemy's beside the bridge! Get back here!"

"It really makes you wonder if the only option is for one of us to destroy each other."

"We know the reason why you're kind. It's because you are you."

Emotions he didn't understand the reasons behind were attached to those voices. They flooded through him with all the force and power of a tsunami. Confusion, fear, anger, helplessness, joy, regret, affection, the list was nearly endless. But the voices… so many voices saying so many things all at once! Stop it. It hurt to know what was said, yet completely not understand at all! Stop! Make them stop!

Eventually, the voices softened to a dull noise. Then, at some point, they stopped altogether, leaving him emotionally numb as he continued to float aimlessly through the blackness. It was a blackness that he happily surrendered himself to, before a final whisper echoed through the darkness with the voice of an angel.

"Wouldn't it be nice… if we could stay like this… forever?"

KIRA - Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny - KIRA

Near Jachin Due, 71 C.E.

A graveyard. That was the one word that came to her mind as the brown-haired young woman known as Setsuna Tsukirei looked out at the debris from the bridge of the Valkyrie, green eyes shifting. The remains of hundreds, even thousands, of mobile suits, mobile armors, and warships floated out there. Their pilots and crews, lost to the mysterious grip of death and the unknown. Most would treat this graveyard with the utmost respect, in tribute to the lives needlessly lost or nobly sacrificed in the final battle of one of the greatest wars in human history. And the crew of the Valkyrie was no different.

That being said, the purpose of the uniquely designed Valkyrie was less than morally righteous. They were playing the role of grave robbers, but inevitably, it was what they did to survive.

The Valkyrie was the flagship of the small military of the Izanami colony. A secret colony hidden amidst the debris littering the Earth Sphere, Izanami was home to a small population of Naturals and Coordinators, seeking to avoid the conflict in much the same way as the Orb Union—though, when the colony was originally built, it was home to only one family. Setsuna's. People throughout Earth and space who had sought to avoid the conflict by all but disappearing had eventually come to the attention of the Tsukireis, and Izanami had swiftly grown into a thriving, if small, colony that was utterly self-sustaining.

However, with numbers had come the realization that they could become serious targets, were they ever discovered. But rather than reveal themselves by contacting and 'allying' with the Orb Union, they'd taken to scavenging.

And Jachin Due, in the wake of its great battle that had concluded a mere two days earlier, was the ultimate goldmine for scavengers. It was here that they could, beyond a shadow of a doubt, gain the latest and best technology of the modern era.

Sighing slightly, Setsuna stood up from her seat and headed towards the tactical station, which presented a holographic display of the area within a one hundred kilometer radius—a tiny area of a space battlefield, to be sure.

To say what they were doing was dangerous would've been the understatement of the century. If they were discovered, they'd have fleets from both sides bearing down on them in short order—and worse, they'd have exposed their existence, which had been kept carefully secret for decades before the colony expanded with the outbreak of the global conflict. Their recent acquisition of Mirage Colloid technology from a Morgenroete database had been perhaps the biggest boon they'd ever obtained, and it was now equipped to every machine in their fleet.

"Report," said Setsuna, glancing out of the main viewport before looking once more at the tactical displays and bringing up the search areas for the other three ships in the fleet.

"Well, we've gotten an impressive haul," said Nanami Ayabito from the comm. station. "We've picked up what looks to be the leftovers of some prototype mobile suit. A backpack is the most intact part of it. There's also a lot of the latest parts, Natural and Coordinator friendly alike."

"And the others?"

"The Einherjar is much the same it seems," said Nanami. "Fenrir, again, the same. Midgard, sam—wait! Midgard is reporting that they've found a survivor!"

"A survivor?" gasped Setsuna, head snapping up. "Bring him in immediately!"

"They're already on it ma'am," said Nanami. Setsuna sighed, and resisted the urge to smack herself. Of course they'd bring in survivors. No one from their colony was a cold-blooded monster, after all. "Misuumi's bringing him in, and reports a great deal of salvageable wreckage in the area, including several dozen largely intact mobile suits."

"Largely intact mobile suits?" questioned Setsuna with a raised brow. "In the kind of chaos that this fight was?"

"Well, by largely intact, they're referring to the torso," admitted Nanami. "The rest of the body is usually floating somewhere in the general area…"

"Yeah, I get it," said Setsuna. "Alright, we'll rendezvous with the Midgard. I want to see this survivor for myself."

"Yes ma'am," said Nanami.

"Give everyone a few more minutes to clean up their search areas, then bring everyone to the Midgard's area. If there's as much potential salvage there as is implied, we can probably clean up that area and be done with this mess."

"And then go home," said Nanami, smiling. Setsuna returned the smile.

"Yeah," she said. "Home…"

KIRA - Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny - KIRA

After what felt like an eternity to the young man, the total blackness from which he'd been encompassed in for as long as he could remember began to change. A feeling of weariness and complete disorientation washed over him. The world seemed to be spinning at tremendous velocity and his body was sluggishly attempting to follow it.

"He's waking up, ma'am," a nearby voice said, seeming to have come from somewhere beyond the darkness.

Oh no, were those voices back?! He didn't want to have to deal them now! He was too tired still, emotionally. However his body disagreed, it was time to wake up. They had slept long enough.

Blearily, he became aware of a light. It seemed to be shrouded over by something, dimming it partially. However, the longer he focused on it, the brighter it became. Yet the brighter it became, the more it began to hurt his eyes. Letting out a small grunt, he tried turning his head away from the light. To his immense relief, it did help a bit.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, boy," the voice from earlier spoke up. It was much clearer than before. As it spoke, a hand grabbed his jaw and turned it back straight as another hand gently cracked open the boy's eyes one at a time. "I'm Doctor Ohira. How are you feeling?"

"I… I… don't feel well," he managed to grate out as the world suddenly started spinning again.

"That doesn't surprise me one bit, boy," said Ohira gently. She finally released the boy and picked up a clipboard to survey. "Given what your body had gone through before we found you, I'm honestly surprised that you'd even survived for as long as you did out there."

"What… are you talking… about?" he asked, glancing around him at his surroundings. He was in some kind of infirmary, an IV stuck into his arm, resting on an uncomfortably stiff bed with a worn-out pillow.

"Presumably your mobile suit had been badly damaged during the battle and you were forced to eject yourself into space to escape the explosion," the doctor said as she stood up and headed over to rummage in a nearby cabinet. "I am not aware of how long you were drifting out there, but I do know you had exhausted your flight suit's air supply. When we found you, you had fallen unconscious from lack of oxygen. It's nothing short of a miracle that you'd survived like that out in space for easily two days alone!"

"Mobile suit?" he asked, trying futilely to understand what the doctor was talking about.

"You don't remember?" asked Ohira, glancing over at the brown-haired teenager. "We found you drifting amongst the battlefield of Jachin Due. We assumed you were the pilot of an Earth Alliance mobile suit; you were wearing their standard issue pilot suit after all."

"…Sorry," he said quietly as he tried to sit up. "I… don't remember… anything."

A sudden bout of nausea swept through him and forced him to retreat back to the pillow that his head had just vacated. He had only just managed to settle his empty stomach through sheer force of will. So lost in the throes of suppressing his sudden need to vomit, he didn't even notice the doctor walk up to him and inject him with a syringe.

"Try not to move too much just yet," said Ohira kindly as she gently withdrew the needle. "Your body still needs to readjust and you're still too weak. You need some more rest. Those sedatives I just gave you should help you with that."

"Where am I?" he asked, feeling a bit more balanced and alert now.

"Currently you're onboard a… ah… a freelance salvage vessel, for lack of a better term, called the Valkyrie," answered Ohira somewhat uncertainly. After all, they'd never been in a situation like this, and if she wasn't careful, she could reveal too much about them. "We're headed for an old colonial outpost to give you some better medical attention. Our arrival time is sometime within the next three hours. You've been unconscious since we found you four days ago."

"Four days?" he repeated, not at all surprised. "I guess that's why…"

"Why what?"

"Nothing, forget about it," he said quietly as he tried to recall why he had such trouble remembering what he'd been dreaming while unconscious.

"By the way, young man," said Ohira as she turned and headed for a desk on the other side of the room. "What's your name? We couldn't find any identification or anything else on you when we found you, just this ring."

"Ring?" he repeated, utterly confused.

Digging through a drawer, the doctor quickly withdrew something and returned to the boy's side. Hanging limply from her hand on a chain necklace was silver ring with a gentle, flowing wave-like pattern that circled its length. The simple design of it seemed to scream out that it had once belonged to a girl. It was both elegant and plain at the same time.

Without realizing his own actions, his uninhibited hand was reaching out to grasp the delicate looking artifact and examine it much closer. In doing so, he noticed a pair of letters scratched into the underside of it. L.C. Who was that? Perhaps the girl who'd given it to him? Or had he merely found it on the ground somewhere?

Looking back up at the doctor, he blinked slightly in confusion as he tried to search his memory for the answer of the first question. He knew he should've remembered. He knew he had a name, and that he belonged somewhere with someone. But all he could find in his memory was that all-consuming blank blackness that had been haunting him for the past few days.

"I… don't remember, doctor," he said slowly, as though to confirm it to himself as well as Ohira. "All I do remember is… nothing, nothing at all of who I am… or was."

"…I see," was all the response he got. Not that he was really paying attention anymore anyway.

KIRA - Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny - KIRA

Secret Colony Izanami

Kotori Tsukirei stood next to the bed of the sleeping teenager the scavenging fleet had found amidst the debris of the Second Battle of Jachin Due. Her features, as soft and gentle as those of her daughter, had a prominent frown etched onto them. It was a little after midday on the colony, and the sunlight reflected into the colony by its mirrors shone gently through the windows as Kotori stared down at the brunette boy her daughter's age.

She'd never been one to really believe much in the concept of John Does, but this boy was a real one. Beyond any shadow of a doubt, he was a mobile suit pilot—besides wearing a pilot suit of the Earth Forces, he was a Coordinator—any Coordinator who fought for the Alliance was a mobile suit pilot. And there was little doubt that he was suffering from total amnesia. Truth be told, he was lucky he wasn't brain dead from oxygen deprivation. And without anything to identify him but that ring, they were forced to perform record searches almost completely in the dark.

When the Valkyrie had returned to Izanami, Kotori, Setsuna, and their resident hacker, Kaede Shigemitsu, had immediately commandeered their three best computers. With the boy unable to remember anything, they were forced to go on the chance that someone was still looking for him, assuming he hadn't simply been declared KIA with the countless others who really had died at Jachin. Since he'd been wearing an Earth Alliance pilot suit, it was only logical to start there—particularly since the database was easier to hack than the ZAFT database.

They'd spent hours scouring the Earth Forces database for the boy's identity. And despite their considerable computer hacking talents (a necessity, both for scavenging purposes and to keep Izanami away from areas they could be discovered), they couldn't find anything. While it was a given that the EA personnel roster was nothing short of overwhelmingly enormous, the fact that the boy was a Coordinator somewhere from fifteen to eighteen years old who should be reported MIA or KIA at Jachin Due made the search much simpler.

After they'd given up any hopes of finding him in the Alliance database, they had switched to hacking into the ZAFT computer network, predictably much more difficult and with only limited success. Even still, the boy wasn't listed as a ZAFT member or even a citizen of the PLANTs at all. With the choices narrowed considerably on where he was from, Kotori came to a new conclusion. If he was neither in ZAFT or the Alliance, then he must've belonged to a neutral nation. The Orb Union was the most logical—despite being the smallest, it was the only one that hadn't been wholly integrated into the Alliance, as the others gave in before the Alliance could attack them. When that proved fruitless, they proceeded to the only other place they could potentially find information on him. The Copernicus Lunar City database.

But once more, it was empty.

This, ultimately, could mean only two things: one, the boy was either a survivor from one of the destroyed colonies, where he must've been born, with the colony destroyed and without the records being backed up—most likely Heliopolis, in this particular situation. Or, the alternative, that somebody had wanted to erase all records of his existence.

This last one seemed much more likely than the conclusion of him being a colony survivor who never had new or backup records made. And that merely raised a whole new set of questions.

"How long are you going to stare at me, sir?" asked the 'sleeping' boy suddenly, a small smile pulling at his face.

"Oh? You're awake," said Kotori, smiling slightly. "I prefer "ma'am" or "miss" though."

"Miss then," said the boy, eyes opening to reveal bright amethyst orbs. "Who are you, Miss?"

"I go by the name Kotori Tsukirei," she said evenly. "I'm the leader of this colony. My people have been working on finding your family for the past few hours, but we haven't found anything yet. To be honest, at this point, we think someone erased you from the records… or the records never existed, for some reason ."

"I see," was all the boy said as he stared up at the tiled ceiling of the hospital room. "… So, I'm a nobody after all."

Not liking the teenager's saddened expression, Kotori frowned, coming to a quick decision on what to do. Patting the boy's shoulder in an affectionate manner normally reserved for her children, she gave him a small smile as he looked at her questioningly.

"The only person who's a nobody is someone who doesn't have the will to live life to the fullest, and seek out all that they have lost and may yet gain," said Kotori. "Tell me, do you lack the will to not only survive, but live?"

The curiosity was momentarily overridden by a look of pure steel in those amethyst eyes and that small frown he now wore.

Taking the expression for an answer, Kotori continued. "As long as you possess the will to live, you will never be anything or anybody but yourself… Akira Iyadomi."

"What?" asked the teenager, his hard gaze softening immediately in his confusion.

"Your name shall be Akira Iyadomi," stated Kotori with a smile. "Until you find your own name, I would be honored if you bore this one in its place… I'm sure my old friend would've been honored as well. After all, the fire in your eyes burns greater than even his own had."

"… Okay," said the newly-named teenager, uncertainty thick in his voice. "My name is… Akira Iyadomi."

Author's Note: So, what did everyone think? I ended up writing/editing this chapter during the time I was struggling with Mobile Suit Gundam SEED The White Queen and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Dauntless. This chapter has little real change from the first chapter of Gundam SEED Destiny: Kira, but that's because I couldn't think of a better way to set the premise of the story. Future chapters will, of course, be different.

This is closely tied with the fact that Captain Brimfield and the Early Harvest have been replaced by Kotori, Setsuna, and the Izanami colonists. You'll learn more about all of them in future chapters.

Until then! Please leave a review!