The battle resumes between the Archangel and the Dominion. Rau launches Vesalius and weave its way through the two battleships, saying to target the Eternal. But then Rau suddenly tells both ships that he will release and return a prisoner who was in custody of ZAFT. An escape pod is launched into the combat airspace. Inside the pod, was Flay, who has no idea what is going on. Both parties are wary of Rau’s action. Flay panics and desperately sends out a distress call to the Archangel. “I have the key!” Flay cries out which suddenly piques Azrael’s interest. Kira moves to rescue her but Azrael gets in the way, and the pod is recovered by the Dominion.
In the meantime, the surrounded Eternal and Kusanagi concentrate their fire on the Vesalius so that they can use it as a breakthrough point. The Vesalius explodes, and both the Earth Alliance Forces and the ZAFT forces retreat.
On the returned Eternal, Kira sobs with grief that he could not rescue Flay. At around the same time, Azrael reviews the contents of the disk handed over by Flay and laughs maniacally when he sees he has the specs for “the N-Jammer Canceler” which allows the use of nuclear energy.