Chirico recovers after all and join Fyana in another attempt to hold off the enemy. The battle is fierce, but this time Chirico is not up to it. He is hit again, and Fyana pulls him inside as the Balarant Fatties swarm the ship. Their disappearance is reported to the Balarant patrol fleet captain, who orders his men inside to capture their mysterious opponents.

Fyana evades the Fatties as they comb the inside of the ship for her and Chirico. She finds her way to the infirmary for medication, and Battleship X makes a move of its own, firing its engines and moving off in a new direction. While some of the invading Balarant ATs attempt to disable the engines, Fyana returns to Chirico and revives him with the medicine she obtained. He laments his own helplessness, saying that Ypsilon would never fail her...and he slips back into unconsciousness as she prepares to face the approaching enemy. Fyana now fights alone, both on foot and in a Scopedog, pausing only to wonder again who placed her in this situation.

Not far away, the Secret Society follows the battle in their own ship, the Teltain. Captain Futtor keeps watch as Arron and Gurran put Ypsilon through a battery of emotional tests and discuss the prospect of a rematch between him and Chirico. Far ahead, a planet looms in the distance, and Fyana cares for a sleeping Chirico. They have faced much already, but the worst is yet to come.

"I've wandered the depths of hell. Its hot, suffocating depths. And in the distance, a light. Our ship, as though following a beckoning beacon in the night, drew us ever closer to the planet that lay before us."

Arron and Gurran monitor Ypsilon's emotional index from the Teltain. Now that he faces Chirico, his readings have levelled out to those of a proper killing machine. ypsilon and Chirico lunge at each other, and Fyana holds off the Tortoises, admonishing Chirico to rember that they're both fighting to live. He instructs her to get back inside and stand ready in the control room. Carefully, Chirico lures Ypsilon and his troops toward the engines of the crashed ship and leaps off the edge. Ypsilon follows - and Fyana activates the thrusters! Caught in the backblast, Ypsilon's Strikedog is smashed, and the invaders retreat.

Now convinced that a third, more aggressive party has joined the fight in the nonagression zone, Zanjeny and his staff order a task force into the area in support of their patrol fleet. On board Teltain, Ypsilon recovers from his injuries and thinks of his next battle with Chirico.

Knowing Ypsilon will be back, Chirico tampers with the verniers on the now-silent hull of Battleship X and finally realizes what planet he is on: Sunsa, the site of the bloodiest battle of the Hundred Years War...a battle he himself has remembered in nightmares. An AT landing craft appears, and Chirico and Fyana rush to the control room as it lands on the hull. Out steps Ypsilon in another Strikedog, with more Tortoises backing him up. One by one, the verniers blast away at them.

Ypsilon reports this setback to Futtor on the Teltain, who suddenly has to face a problem of his own - Balarant ships approach, and he has no AT platoon to fight them off! Forced to tip his hand, Futtor goes on the offensive, and a devastating battle erupts in space! Having found their way inside Battleship X, Ypsilon and his remaining men reach the empty control room, and discover that Chirico has set the entire ship to self-destruct! They escape just in time, and launch as the vessel rips itself apart.

chirico and Fyana has also gotten away, loading a transport truck with ATs and driving deep into the Sunsa desert. There, others await them...

"Would we ever have any peace? I felt like screaming. If there was a God on this world, he was a cruel one. Too cruel. This planet's name is Sunsa. And I know it holds no welcome for me at all..."

Furious over the turn of events, Lepard is bolstered by the fact that his force outnumbers Rochina's, and when the battle is over, the prize of Quent will go to the Gilgamesh. Rochina relizes Lepard's attempt to recover Fyana was only a ruse, and he pauses to receive visitors; Gotho, Vanilla, and Coconna, who barely made their way through the battle to his ship.

Even Chirico is hard-pressed to emerge alive from this conflict. He makes it back to Rochina's ship with little room to spare. And it is then that Quent makes its move; enormous streams of energy burst our of the Tower of Gomer and blast into space, destroying everything in their path! Both fleets are devastated, and the only survivors are Rochina, Chirico, Fyana, Gotho, Vanilla, and Coconna, who manage to escape in a shuttle and power down to avoid being hit.

They are soon picked up by the only other ship now in Quent orbit - that of the Secret Society. Killy gloats over his victory, with all of his enemies now under his control and the secrets of Quent ripe for the picking. But before he can act, his ship is seized by an invisible force and pulled away from the planet by the same superior intelligence that has manipulated everything leading to this moment.

Chirico finally recognizes its identity.

"Wiseman. The name of Quent's mysterious, ancient intelligence. As we proceeded into the unknown, toward our destinies, I felt as if the fate of everything we knew now rested with us."