The rain poured down in torrents.
The orphanage on the cliffs near Orb had stood for thirty years. Tonight, its old roof tiles rattled rhythmically in the gale, like an old man's clenched teeth.
Sister Mary carried a kerosene lamp down the hallway, its flickering flame casting anxious shadows across her finely lined face. She was thirty-five this year and had spent fifteen years at this orphanage, witnessing too much life and death—but tonight was different. Tonight, an indescribable weight pressed on her heart, like the oppressive heat before a storm, the silence before a war.
The knock came just as she was about to give medicine to a sick child.
It wasn't at the main door, but at the small kitchen entrance. Three knocks, short and sharp, then a pause, followed by another three. Rhythmic, as if delivered with the last ounce of strength.
Mary set down the medicine bowl, picked up an oil-paper umbrella, and crossed the courtyard. Rain soaked her nun's habit, the chill biting to the bone. She pulled open the wooden door—
A bamboo basket sat on the doorstep.
Inside the basket was an infant.
Mary gasped, crouching down. The baby was wrapped in coarse cotton cloth, its face bluish, lips utterly devoid of color. She reached out to touch it—the skin was ice-cold, the breathing as faint as a thread on the verge of snapping.
"Holy Mother Mary…" she murmured, scooping up the basket and rushing back inside.
The baby was light, as light as a wisp of mist about to dissipate.
—
The hearth fire was stoked to its fiercest.
Mary wiped the baby's body with a warm towel. Once, twice, three times. The infant showed no response. She pressed on the tiny chest; the little ribs felt as fragile as a bird's skeleton under her palm. Once, twice, three times.
Still no response.
"Don't die…" Mary whispered, unsure if it was a prayer or a command. "Don't die, child…"
She kept pressing, losing track of time. The sound of the torrential rain outside was like white noise, the whole world reduced to this tiny body and her stubborn hands.
Then—
The baby coughed.
A soft sound, like a kitten's mewl. But it coughed.
Mary froze, tears welling in her eyes. She continued wiping. The baby's coughs gradually became more consistent, the bluish pallor slowly giving way to a healthier hue. And then, at a certain moment, its eyes opened.
Mary saw those eyes.
Black, bottomless. Not the blankness an infant should have, but… awareness. A kind of awareness that sent a chill through the heart, as if behind those eyes resided a complete soul.
"You…" Mary instinctively took half a step back.
The baby blinked. That eerie sense of awareness vanished, replaced by the befuddlement appropriate for an infant. But Mary knew what she had just seen was no illusion.
Then, the baby cried.
Not an ordinary wail, but a vibrant, loud cry full of life force, piercing through the sound of the downpour, echoing within the orphanage's old walls. The headmistress rushed down from upstairs, and the cook Tanaka peeked out from the kitchen.
"It's a boy," Mary said, looking up at the headmistress.
The headmistress was forty and had spent twenty years at this orphanage, having seen countless abandoned children. She walked over and looked down at the infant who had just been pulled back from the brink of death.
"He survived," the headmistress said.
"Yes," Mary said, "he survived."
But there was an indescribable complexity in her voice. Because she knew the way this child had survived was... unusual.
——
Nangong Wentian did not know who he was.
No, he did. He knew he was Nangong Wentian, twenty-five years old, a programmer, an anime enthusiast, who had died suddenly after staying up all night watching the remastered version of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED—and then woke up to find himself as an infant.
But he also did not know who he was.
Because the "self" in his mind contained too many things.
The Minovsky Physics of the Universal Century, a complete technological system, from particle generation to MS Frame design, every formula as clear as if he had just memorized it. The GN Particle Theory of the Anno Domini era, the manufacturing principles of the Solar Furnace, the operational mechanisms of the Trans-Am System, etched deep into his soul. He even had a thorough grasp of the Coordinator genetic engineering from the Cosmic Era world.
But these memories did not belong to him.
Or rather, they did not belong to "Nangong Wentian," the twenty-five-year-old programmer.
Where did they come from? He did not know. He only knew that as he struggled on the brink of death, countless pieces of information flooded into his mind like a deluge. In that instant, he saw the cosmos—an endless, dark universe, and countless green points of light shimmering within it.
One of those points of light was particularly close to him.
It flickered, as if watching him.
Then, he heard a voice. Not language, but consciousness, pouring directly into the depths of his soul:
"Accept it."
"This is the gift of the..." Static, unclear.
"...gift."
"Use it to change fate."
Then he woke up as an infant.
Now, he lay in the arms of an unfamiliar woman, being wiped with a warm towel. He opened his eyes and saw a weary but kind face—Sister Mary.
He wanted to say thank you.
But all that came out was the cry of an infant.
He cried, not out of sadness, but out of helplessness. His mind was filled with world-changing technology, yet he lacked even the ability to express gratitude.
The heavy rain continued to fall outside the window.
——
C.E. 50.
This year echoed in Nangong Wentian's mind.
He knew what this year meant—twenty years before "Bloody Valentine," twenty years before the outbreak of the first Cosmic War. Twenty years, neither long nor short.
He remembered the plot of Gundam SEED he had watched. Naturals, Coordinators, PLANT, the Earth Federation, Orb's neutrality, the tragedies of war, the deaths of countless people.
But now, this was no longer a story on a screen.
This was the reality he had to face.
He lay in a warm swaddle as Mary fed him warm water. He could feel his own heartbeat, faint but steady. In this unfamiliar world, he had gained a second life.
Why him?
He did not know.
The technological knowledge that flooded his mind, those shimmering green points of light, that mysterious voice—he did not know where they came from or what they meant.
But he knew one thing:
Since he had survived, he would live well.
Since he possessed this knowledge, he would use it to do something.
Outside the window, a bolt of lightning tore through the night sky, illuminating the entire room. In that instant, Nangong Wentian saw the scene outside—a massive transport ship struggling in the storm on the distant sea. On the deck, the faint outlines of enormous machinery were visible.
MS Training Machines.
He knew.
In this world, the arms race had already begun. The conflict between Naturals and Coordinators was intensifying. PLANT's colonial satellite clusters were taking shape, while Orb clung to neutrality but faced pressure from all sides. The shadow of war had already begun to spread across the Earth sphere.
Twenty years.
He had twenty years.
Twenty years was enough for him to grow from an infant into someone capable of changing the world. Twenty years was enough to transform the technology in his mind into reality. Twenty years was enough to accumulate strength, to do something when war broke out.
He didn't know what he could do.
But he had to try.
——
Mary gently placed the baby in the cradle and covered him with a thin blanket. As she looked at the child, complex emotions welled up inside her. She had seen too many abandoned children, but this one was different. The clarity in his eyes, the way he had been revived—it all unsettled her.
But more than that, it pained her.
No matter where he came from, no matter why he had been abandoned, he was now just a baby in need of care. A tiny life that had nearly died.
"Sleep now," she whispered, humming a lullaby.
The baby closed his eyes.
But Mary didn't know that the baby wasn't sleeping. In his mind, he was organizing the flood of knowledge, categorizing and archiving it, just as he had once organized code in his previous life. Minovsky Particles, GN Drives, E-Carbon Armor, Psycho-Frames—these unfamiliar terms lined up clearly in his mind, waiting to be awakened.
This was his first night in this world.
The rainstorm continued to pour, the old roof tiles of the orphanage trembled, and on the distant sea, the transport ship had vanished beyond the horizon.
Everything was as usual.
Everything had only just begun.
——
That night, the orphanage director had a dream.
In the dream, she saw a young man standing in space, surrounded by countless shimmering green lights. The young man turned his head and smiled
at her. His face was identical to that of the baby rescued that night.
She woke up to find herself in tears.
Outside the window, the rainstorm had stopped. The first rays of sunlight broke through the clouds, spilling into the orphanage courtyard.
A new day had begun.