In the Universal Century year 0079, the Y-02 Development and Training Team, a unit of Zeon test pilots under the command of Special Operations Lieutenant Cucuruz Doan, is tasked with field-testing prototype mobile suits. Doan is a harsh but gifted leader whose teachings define the men under him. However, his desertion from the military dissolves the team and haunts his former subordinates, leaving them to navigate the brutal one-year war on their own.

Rather than retelling the classic story from the perspective of the Federation pilot Amuro Ray, this manga shifts the focus to the Zeon soldiers Doan left behind. The protagonist is Vasili Bosch, a petty officer who once served under Doan. After his commanding officer abandons their post, Vasili is incorporated into the North American ground forces. As he advances through a chaotic battlefield, his unit encounters an unidentified mobile suit that rocks the Zeon forces: the Federation’s Gundam.

The narrative interweaves Vasili’s present fight for survival with flashbacks to his time with the Y-02 team. Scattered across different fronts, other former members of the unit, including Calca and Hjalmar, find themselves confronting not just the Federation military, but also the ghost of their former commander’s morality. The story follows their participation in the early stages of Operation British, a disastrous Zeon operation that results in billions of casualties, and the subsequent invasion of the Federation stronghold Jaburo. On the battlefield, they are forced to make hard choices as the pragmatism of war collides with the intrinsic morality that Doan seemingly rediscovered when he chose to protect orphaned children over following orders.

The setting expands from the infamous Dark Colony, a location implied in the original anime but fully realized here, to the decisive battle of A Baoa Qu. As the war reaches its climax, Vasily reunites with his surviving comrades from the Y-02 team. Their final showdown plays out against a backdrop of chaos as the Zeon leadership turns against itself. The implacable Black Gundam stands between them and survival, forcing the confused soldiers on the frontlines to question what is truly worth fighting for: love, family, or comrades. The revelation of the full truth behind Cucuruz Doan’s desertion of his post and his escape with the children provides a haunting answer, bringing much-needed solace to his former unit as the war finally grinds to a halt.