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Animedia Exclusive Original Story
Heavy Metal L-Gaim
Good-Bye My Love
Five years have passed since the battle ended—the youths who once fought together now walked their own paths. Then one day, a turning point arrived for Leccee. It was the moment to bid farewell to a love...
An L-Gaim original story by Yuji Watanabe!
-Chapter 1-
In the crowded lobby of Quito Spaceport, Leccee fidgeted with a letter from her mother, Telles, while waiting for the boarding announcement.
Even now, she was still hesitating.
As an executive of the New Pentagona World Construction Committee, using the name Gaw Ha Leccee would have allowed her to reach her destination, Ugoor, via a government-exclusive ship without using this disordered civilian airport. Yet she had deliberately chosen a civilian spacecraft, one that had been in service for quite some time since the port reopened. Perhaps it was because she wanted a little more time to think.
Still, in this lobby bustling with excited travelers, she was tormented by a strange loneliness, like a lost child.
Six years had passed since then...
It had been six years since she, as a former Poseidal military officer, had met Daba Myroad and left the planet Koam, as if chasing after him.
A mixture of nostalgia and loneliness washed over her as she looked around once more.
The tense weariness, sickness, and decay of that time had been swept away; a sparkle shone in people's eyes. Outside the spaceport, the cold wind still blew relentlessly, but inside the buildings, the heating kept them warm.
It was clearly a symbolic sight, showing a planetary world racing up the slope toward the new world Leccee and the others aimed for.
Yet, for some reason, Leccee couldn't bring herself to covet that sight. She felt nostalgia for a more rustic, more human-like cityscape. Perhaps it was the scent of the battlefield soil, mixed with dust and sweat, that she had once raced through alongside Daba Myroad.
Shaking her head as if to shake off the gloom creeping into her heart once more, Leccee scanned the words of the letter from her mother, Telles.
'I feel I can understand the mental strain you must endure now, holding such a demanding position and laboring to build a new nation. At one time, I tried to convince myself to accept your father's words, to resign myself to thinking of you as dead, given your series of actions. But now, hearing rumors of your achievements, I can only say one thing: splendid. We who failed to understand you back then may not be worthy to call ourselves your parents. But knowing full well the risk of being called unfilial, I must make this request. I will be frank with you. Since Father's passing, factional strife within the prestigious Ha clan of Gastogal has begun to surface. If you would return, I believe the Ha clan could unite once more, with you at its pinnacle...'
What followed was a relentless stream of words expressing her mother's love, selfishness, and complaints. How many times had Leccee reread this desperate plea? A plea born from the desire to protect the pride of a distinguished family that had reigned as King of Ha for centuries, and survived as the Ha clan even after the formation of the unified nation under Gastogal.
Each time, she let out a deep sigh.
That was...
It was after the committee had decided to increase the personnel of the Interstellar Security Force—Leccee recalled the day the servant arrived bearing her mother's letter.
It had already been five years since Daba had returned to the village of Ugoor on the planet Koam with Olibee.
The youths who shattered the corrupt adults' false utopia established a new Interstellar Federation, entrusting its governance to the so-called ‘Five-Person Committee’ composed of representatives from each planet. Among them were neither Leccee, Amu, Kyao, nor Semuj. They were merely heads of various sections assisting the ‘Five-Person Committee’.
This was partly because Daba, the greatest contributor, had relinquished the highest position. But it was also the conscious choice of Leccee and the others themselves—they believed that automatically placing battle heroes at the top would merely repeat the mistakes of past nation-building.
They prioritized reviving the interstellar development agreement, which had become a mere formality during the Poseidal regime, and restoring the vitality of the era when the Five Star Dynasty flourished. Their goal was to rekindle people's desire to work, their faithfulness to their way of life, and to bring back songs and laughter.
Both Leccee and Amu had calmed their attitudes to the point where they could now look back fondly on the days of fierce romantic rivalry over Daba, treating it as a laughing matter. When Kyao grumbled, "Those cold-hearted women," they just smiled wryly.
It was simply because they had found a different purpose in life by immersing themselves in building the new nation.
That said, she had never truly given up on Daba. There were moments, like when she happened to gaze at the stars shining in the night sky, that she would recall the color of their twinkling—the same stars she and Daba had looked up at during brief respites on the battlefield—and her chest would tighten with a mix of longing and sweet ache that she struggled desperately to suppress.
It was during one such moment that an old servant of the Gaw household arrived bearing a letter from her mother.
"Your mother, my lady, has been so troubled by the factional dispute that she spends more days confined to her bed than not lately."
"But I abandoned my family."
"I believe she made that request fully aware of that fact... Even if you say you abandoned them, you are still bound by blood. It is a bond that can never be severed for life."
With teary eyes, the servant gazed at Leccee, who had grown strikingly beautiful over the years.
For some reason, Leccee couldn't meet his eyes.
Was it a feeling of indebtedness towards her parents?
No, that wasn't it.
Was it because the construction of New Pentagona World was still underway?
No, that wasn't it either.
Leccee endlessly repeated this internal dialogue, finally arriving at the answer: it was her lingering attachment to Daba.
She instinctively understood that returning to the Ha clan now would make meeting Daba impossible. Shouldering the Ha clan would mean she could no longer act on her own free will.
The eyes of her servant pleaded this truth.
She realized anew then that her ability to immerse herself so completely in nation-building had stemmed from her strong belief that her beloved Daba would return someday.
And she wavered...
It was two days later that she told Amu and Kyao she was taking a few days' leave to go on a journey without revealing her destination.
She desperately wanted to see Daba.
Indeed, just as on that battlefield, whenever doubt arose, seeing Daba's fierce expression and gentle gaze had allowed her to make up her mind.
But she didn't know what answer she could possibly get from seeing Daba.
Leccee boarded the domestic flight to Pryamo from Quito Spaceport three hours late.
From there, she took a transit bus, the Mobile Works, and traveled for two days to reach the village of Ugoor.
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