inside of the girl's heart

episode zero

Relena's back-story before the series takes place in AC 191 at age 11. We are taken to the Darlian estate and Relena's time in St. Gabriel Academy.

Relena is shown to be quite and withdrawn at her young age and as Mrs. Darlian remarks, it seems as though her past still held much of her soul back from moving forward and embracing the current. As we see Relena go to school, even at 11, her classmates already admire and respect her. This treatment, probably did not help Relena to open up to those around her and only making it harder for her.

That same day, Relena looks out of the classroom window to see a boy, with a striking resemblance to Heero Yuy whom she meets years later, only to hear her fellow classmates make comments about how the school shouldn’t be taking in "war orphans." Relena quickly leaves the room, annoyed with their comments, saying to herself: "Why do they look on those less fortunate with contempt? Nobody wants to be like that..." Even at this age, Relena doesn't look down on anyone and wants to accept everybody for who they are, much how she wishes she could be accepted by others for just being Relena. She then runs into the boy while walking in the hallway, unable to say anything to him, he walks away without looking at her.

She finally finds him sitting on the school’s rooftop, wanting to apologize to him for what happened earlier. But she then hears him talking over the radio about his current mission and wonders just who was he and why was he talking about her house.

Once again, Relena sees the boy sitting by himself outside, her classmates making more snood comments to one another. Relena ignores them and wonders to herself why she and this boy feel so much alike. Because of this, she says how she wishes to know more about him. Much like how during the series, Relena wishes to know more about Heero because she feels some connection with him. They are both outsiders in a way and don’t seem to belong where they are placed.

Later that night, Relena hears that some terrorists have escaped into the area around her home. She decides to take a walk outside, thinking why it is that people are always fighting and reasoning that, that boy had nothing to do with this attack at all. Out of no where, a mobile suit piloted by one of the terrorists crashes in front of Relena and decides to take her as a hostage. Thinking that she might die there and then, she sees a shooting star in the sky only then to be saved by Zechs Merquise. Zechs calls her a princess when asking if she was alright, to which Relena replies angrily: "If I'm a princess, then who are you? A knight on a terrible dragon?" Zechs can only laugh a little at such an accusation and tells her he's just a prince of the stars. Relena uses this same term when she thinks about Heero in the series. How she saw a shooting star before Zechs rescued her, Heero's entry into the Earth was covered up as a "shooting star" by the military and he looked much like one during his re-entry.

The next day, Relena over hears her classmates talking about how that boy has disappeared and that he was probably one of he terrorists from the attack the other day. She is again upset from their comments and when she sees the same boy standing outside the school gates while searching for him on the rooftop, she starts to run back outside in hopes to speak to him this time. As she runs she says to herself: "It shouldn't matter where you come from. We're all human beings. We should all be friends." This thinking could be the beginning of Relena's pacifist thinking and wanting equality in the Earth and space.

She doesn't make it outside in time, he is already gone when she gets to the gates. This is when Relena first does her self-introduction seen in episode one of the series. All the regret from not speaking out to her classmates to stand up for the boy or speaking to him when she had the chance, was all built up at that moment. Her self-introduction is filled with the desires not to make the same mistakes twice: to make the first step and to stand up for the things she believes in.

During the last chapter of the manga, entitled Operation Meteor which takes place the day before episode one, Relena has a small scene. She is on the same colony which Heero was seen in Endless Waltz blowing up a military base and accidentally killing civilians. She makes the remark that it also snows on the colonies, maybe noticing that colonies really are not much different from Earth. The same brief scene also seen in the first opening is played out next, when Relena is walking through the rubble of the buildings and sees the snow covered teddy bear and can only look at it with remorse. While unknowingly to her, Heero stands feet away, ready to commit suicide for his failed mission.