A Young Girl's Guerilla War

[Scopas]

Some freshly commissioned art by MinttSky came in!

 

[Scopas]

Alright, so I commissioned more art, and it didn't turn out great. Or, at least, not great for the purposes of this story. I wanted to get the scene where Kallen and Milly have their little social duel drawn, and I gave instructions for Milly to look smug and assertive and Kallen to look angry and upset but trying to be flirtatious. The artist nailed the flirtatious part, to their credit, but lost the point of the scene, so here we are. I'm not sure that SB would like it, but I want to post this thing since I paid for it.

Spoiler: Kallen & Milly

 

[Scopas]

(Thank you to my editors, Sunny, Restestsest, Mitch H. and MetalDragon. Thank you to Siatru for beta reading this chapter. And a big thank you to everybody on the AYGGW and the Tanya Writer's Discords for their help and support.)


APRIL 25, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
0655


"Good work leads to more work."


After three lives of hard work, that truth had become self-evident. Efficiency was always rewarded with more work, which was frankly understandable since people tended to bet on proven winners. My reward for surviving my watch on the Rhine had been command over a battalion destined for deployment to troubled zones until death or peace came; my reward for claiming Shinjuku was, for better and worse, becoming the authority in Shinjuku.


"You break it, you buy it," I thought gloomily, nodding my gratitude to Tanaka Chika as she refilled my cup with hot tea. Unlike her elder sister, the young Chika was a fairly happy-go-lucky person, always eager to find new ways to help out around the Rising Sun's Meeting Hall. It's a pity Inoue scooped her up first; I could use an aide or two.


Thankfully, I didn't have to handle my newly expanded workload all on my lonesome. Besides Chika, Inoue's backroom office was packed with people eagerly waiting for new assignments, courtesy of myself, Naoto, and Inoue. Below the murmur of side conversations between the assembled men and women, the rumble of feet and the clink of spoons on bowls drifted from the Hall's main room; breakfast was well underway, and as soon as I distributed assignments to the elected foremen, eager bodies with full bellies would set to work.


Eager or not, there's just not enough of them. The thought made me grimace, but it was the truth. Shinjuku Ghetto was home to somewhere around two hundred thousand men, women, and children, as near as anybody could guess without an official census. By contrast, the Kozuki Organization had just over a hundred full members, including the students undergoing training at The School.


Of course, that number didn't include the Sun Guard, the militia Naoto had assembled from the would-be recruits we couldn't immediately train, nor did it include noncombatants like Chika or Kasumi, Inoue's other assistant, who was currently occupied with overseeing the breakfast line. The Sun Guard numbered somewhere around a thousand five hundred but were under-equipped for the most part and entirely untrained.


Fortunately, I didn't need an army at the moment. What I needed was a workforce, and the Sun Guard had already been put to good use before during Naoto's Shinjuku Improvement project.


"Alright people," Naoto slammed a hand down on Inoue's desk, refocusing the room's attention on him. "Today's going to be just as busy as yesterday and the day before were, and I'm sure you're all eager to get to work. Before we start handing out assignments, I'd like to thank you and your crews once again; you're doing good work, hard work, and you're doing it quickly and efficiently. We're all pulling together, and I'm honored to have your help."


Smiles and nods filled the crowded room, and a few wags in the crowd responded with the typical lame jokes, which received the requisite laughter and a few witty replies from Naoto.


It's amazing, I reflected, how easily he wins them over. It's the first thing in the morning, but everybody is lined up happily waiting for their assignments. He'd have made a splendid manager, back in my first life. Back in a sane world.


Pulling myself back to the present, I picked up the list of assignments from the table beside me before climbing up on top of the stained wooden surface. I'd long since come to terms with my height and I usually had no problem handing out orders to people several heads taller, but the room was full of enough adult-sized people that I wanted at least a little room to breathe.


"Line up over here!" I instructed, pointing at the space I'd just occupied. "When I hand you your mission, don't just stand around; hurry up and get out of the way of the next person!"


"Heya there, Miss Hajime." The first man to step forwards had an easy grin, seemingly unaffected by the angry red scar that slashed up from his chin to his temple. From my experience on the rubble hauling work crews, I recognized it as the mark left behind when an overstrained cable snaps and lashes out. This man had been extremely lucky to have only been grazed. "What've you got for me 'n the boys today?"


"Mister Iwane, right?" I asked out of habit, already scanning the crowded list for the notation in Inoue's tidy hand indicating where the former masonry worker and his team should go. "You'll be over in Kawadacho today. I want you to take your usual crew and twenty others over to the old Wakamatsu station. Get the new hands working on clearing the platforms while your experienced men start checking the stability of the service tunnels."


Kawadacho, located just east of the central Shinjuku Ghetto and stretching south to the encircling wall, had belonged to the Eleven Lords up until very recently. They'd controlled the access leading to the Kawadacho Checkpoint with an iron fist, which was probably why they had so brazenly operated a slave brothel catering to deviants who wouldn't be welcome in more respectable quarters.


Sadly, liberating the territory from the gang's abuses would only be the first step on the path to recovery for the sector and its long-suffering inhabitants. Utterly untouched by the Shinjuku Improvement project, the area's infrastructure was crumbling and many of its buildings were husks barely capable of providing worthwhile shelter.


Even worse, directly to the west of southern Kawadacho was the dumping area, where the hauler crews left Shinjuku's garbage and its dead in the vast dumpsters the Britannians had provided for that purpose. Those dumpsters were only replaced on a two or three-month basis, which meant that the area swarmed with vermin feasting on the waste, consequently severely impacting public health in south Shinjuku.


Taken together, Kawadacho was only a few short steps over a total wasteland, but abandoning the district wasn't a viable option. Living space in Shinjuku came at a premium, after all, and most of the buildings that weren't already crammed with families were just as dubious in terms of shelter as the skeletal remains of the Tokyo Women's Medical University Hospital that stood like a tombstone at the northern end of Kawadacho.


"Going down into the tunnels, eh?" Mister Iwane scratched at his head, before pulling a sweat-stained rag from his back pocket and tying it around his forehead. "Alright, sounds good. Let's see if we can get the whole of the old station cleared out by sunset!"


"No need to strain yourself; the rubble's not going anywhere." While the man's passion for his task was a credit to his diligence, medical supplies were in frightfully short supply. The last thing I needed were working hands laid low by easily preventable workplace injuries. "Also, keep an eye open for rats. I imagine there's quite a few waiting down in the station."


"Good," the masonry worker, an experienced old hand in his late twenties, grinned up at me. "Me and the boys could use some extra protein!"


I waved him out with exasperated exhaustion that might have been partially faked and turned to the next job seeker. I blinked, searching for some memory of the squat, surprisingly broad woman who looked to be in her late forties, comparatively ancient by Shinjuku standards.


"I don't think I've met you before," I said after a moment when I failed to put a name to the face, "have you worked with us before?"


"Uh-huh." The woman grunted through yellowed lips, rheumy eyes watering with exhaustion looking up at me momentarily, before closing as she yawned. "Too damned early for all this line crap, but yeah."


Clearly not a morning person, I thought sympathetically. While I'd rarely had a problem waking up early, I certainly wouldn't want to face the day without some of the coffee Naoto had been kind enough to stock up our apartment with. I'll try to give her an easy task.


Before I could get her name, Naoto broke into the conversation. "Ah, Tanya, you don't need to worry about her. She's going to be with my team." Naoto grimaced for a moment, before turning and smiling at the woman. "Good morning, Missus Matsukawa. Got your boning knives today?"


The woman grunted something indecipherable before moving off with Naoto towards the doorway of the office. I shrugged and beckoned the next person forwards. Naoto had volunteered yesterday to handle the disposal of the two hundred and eighty-one bodies left in the wake of our operation and had put out the call for people with experience as butchers or slaughterhouse workers. Presumably, the woman had been one of those.


That particular task was a priority, especially since eighty-nine of those bodies were Britannian. At first, I had planned to leave them where they lay to convince the Britannians that some outside faction had engaged in hit-and-run attacks on the gang locations independent of the local people of Shinjuku. Of course, that idea had been part of a larger plan that had succumbed to resistance from an unanticipated source, Diethard Reid.


To my surprise, Diethard had flatly declined to run the story about Britannians running shady criminal operations in the Ghetto.


"It's not enough," he'd explained via Kallen's phone the afternoon after the raids. "I warned you that you'd need a smoking gun if you really wanted to accomplish anything, and this isn't it. I joined to see history being made, but I can guarantee this whole thing would blow over in a week, two tops. Clovis would get to demand some extra gifts, a few offices would change hands, and I'd probably be helped out a window or down a flight of stairs.


"Until you can get something more substantive," the irritating producer had concluded, "something that names big names, not just names next to big names, I'm not running it. Face it, the Britannian audience isn't going to care about tax dodges and weeping Elevens. Come back when you've got something that adds up to more than a slap on the wrist."


The prospect of overruling him had been extremely tempting, but I'd forced my initial frustration down after curtly telling Diethard that I'd call him back. Kallen had been gratifyingly indignant on my behalf, freely vocalizing my anger at the impudent man for me.


"I agree completely," I'd said, smiling at Kallen, who'd truly been a sight for sore eyes even with the sweat rolling down her face from our hand-to-hand training session. "Mister Reid is unquestionably an ass, and it would be incredibly satisfying to decorate a wall with the contents of his skull. Unfortunately, forcing him into submission would be a losing game; besides, he might actually have a point."


"A point?" Kallen's reply had been openly incredulous. "The whole point of the operation was getting all that dirty laundry, right? The goal was to make the Brits rip themselves to pieces! If that bastard's not gonna do it, what was the point?"


"Well, for one thing, we successfully rescued two hundred and fifty-six women and children from the gangs." Despite my mild tone, Kallen had winced. I hadn't meant it as a rebuke, but she'd clearly taken it as such. "But he does have a point. One way or another, almost a hundred Britannians died in Shinjuku. If that becomes public knowledge, even if we aren't implicated, the possibility of another unanticipated outburst like the Christmas Incident remains."


Kallen had paled at the reminder and nodded her understanding. "Yeah… Well, I guess we did get something. No need to be greedy, even if it does leave a bad taste in my mouth, letting that piece of shit tell us what to do."


"It's all about the give and take," I'd continued as we went back into the circle chalked on the training mats, "While we could destroy each other, him being broken as a traitor benefits us as little as our mass execution benefits him. Twisting his arm won't do anything to benefit Japan. On the other hand, letting him run the stories he wants could benefit us both in the long run, advancing the Cause. Now, let's work on your grapple again."


And so for now, the secrets we had purchased with blood and bullets would remain secret. Perhaps they would enter the public sphere in the future, or perhaps they would eventually benefit the Cause by way of blackmail.


Another person stepped up into the small patch of empty space at the foot of my table with a chirpy "Good morning, Commander!"


I narrowed my eyes at the insufferably energetic boy – and a boy he was, even if he was at least three years my senior. The last one was almost sleepwalking, and this guy is practically exploding out of his shoes. A pity the energy levels aren't distributed more equally.


"Good morning, Takahiro," I replied, resisting the urge to bark at the youth to wipe the stupid grin off his face. "You seem quite energetic this morning. I expect you to channel that vigor toward your work today, understand? More shoveling, less flexing in front of Rin and Miyu today."


"No worries, Commander!" Takahiro said, eyes bright and utterly devoid of shame, grin widening as the room broke into rueful and sympathetic laughter. "I'm gonna shovel up so much garbage that my biceps will get huge in no time! That way, I won't need to flex in front of the girls – I'll have one on each arm, enjoying the gun show up close!"


The room exploded into laughter, only some of it lecherous, at the lame joke. One of the men clustered around the table clapped Takahiro on the shoulder. In a more regimented setting, in a different life, I'd have had Takahiro down on the floor giving me pushups until his vaunted biceps quivered with exhaustion; here in a volunteer organization that relied on high morale to maintain group cohesion, I rewarded the attempt at humor with a raised brow.


As far as stimulants go, at least bad jokes are cheaper than coffee. Even the crap sold as store-brand instant, which… is admittedly still pricey, if you factor in the risks inherent in smuggling bulk goods into Shinjuku.


I allowed things to quiet down before responding. "Congratulations, Takahiro," I started with a smile even I'd categorize as threatening, "for volunteering your and your crew's services as haulers for the day. There's no shortage of garbage in need of urgent disposal, including lots of nice heavy building rubble. Go see Nagata for the keys to the dump truck."


I hesitated, and then relented and opted to show the boy some mercy. It would have felt like kicking a puppy otherwise. "Feel free to drag your friends into it as well. After all, a job shared is a job halved, and I'm sure they'll appreciate the experience of carrying your burdens."


"You bet! Thanks, Tanya!" The little shit's grin somehow got even wider as he gave me a sloppy salute. "You'll never see streets as clean as they're gonna be by dinner time tonight!"


"...I'm sure" I pointed at the door with an unimpressed look. "But if you have enough free time to keep dawdling around here, I might have you put it to work cleaning the sewers too."


That finally got a reaction out of the kid as he hurried out the door just as a grizzled man stepped up to take his place.


"Alright," I turned back to my list, "I've got you on loading duty, Mister Yanagawa. I need you to take ten people and go find Nagata, and he'll tell you which boxes he needs you to load for the various lunch lines. Once the lunch prep is over, head to Kuyakusho Road and assist the road crew. There's plenty of potholes to be filled, and someone needs to shovel the gravel."


The process continued for another twenty minutes until the last of the crew leaders closed the office door behind them as they left to find available hands, cutting off the dwindling sounds of breakfast. I hopped down from the table and dropped the assignment list, ticking off the first of many items from my internal list for the day with a sigh.


From behind her desk, Inoue looked up and shot me a sympathetic look. "Another day of fun and games, huh?"


"Don't I know it," I groused, stretching until I felt my back pop. "And not swatting Takahiro was probably the easiest item on my list today. Not swatting the old bastards in Kyoto is going to be far more taxing, even if they're technically too far away to hit."


"I'm sure you'd manage to find a way if they'd really earned it," Inoue reassured me, before turning back to her paperwork. "You are the reigning queen of ambushes, after all."


"Don't let Major Onoda hear you say that," I replied, ignoring the warmth in my cheeks at the compliment from a highly respected comrade, "he's bad enough without such a grievous personal slight lighting a fire under him."


"Go make your phone call," Inoue snorted, "and quit hovering. You're distracting me from my paperwork."


Resisting the urge to make a scathing parting remark – I was not hovering, no matter what Inoue said – I bid the Organization's quartermaster goodbye and made my way back to the apartment. Despite the short trip, every step I took was shadowed by Morihisa and Shuzo, sometimes known as Boar and Mallet, my assigned guards for the day.


Naoto had pushed for round-the-clock guard assignments after my speech, pointing out that my profile was now high enough that surviving gang members might specifically target me for retaliatory attacks. I hadn't protested – if a fight broke out, I'd want backup on hand, and since I'd helped train the pair I had no doubts about their competence.


As expected, no gangers lay in wait in the building's lobby nor on the staircase, and Morihasa and Shuzo took up their usual positions bracketing the door as I stepped into the apartment that had somehow become home to me over the last seven months.


The burner phone, delivered to me via a figurative railroad of hands that terminated with Nagata, who had passed it to me this morning along with the note specifying the time of the call, had only a single number saved in its list of contacts. I took a moment to spin up my enhancement suite, more as a calming mechanism than out of a serious belief that I was in imminent physical danger, and dialed the lone contact.


The phone on the other end of the line rang once, and then I heard an unfortunately familiar voice, just as dispassionate as I'd remembered, greet me. "Hello, Miss Hawthorne. You've had quite the eventful week, haven't you?"


"Hello," I greeted the man from Kyoto, "I would like to say that it's a pleasure to hear from you again. I will thank you for your advice, the last time we spoke; Major Onoda has been quite the boon to this Organization. Your facilitation is thoroughly appreciated. And yes, I have been very busy of late. Spring is the time for new beginnings, isn't it?"


"Quite," the droll voice replied, "although you could argue that every beginning entails the ending of what came before. In particular, it seems like the recent collapse of the organized underworld in Shinjuku has effectively brought an end to several potentially lucrative opportunities."


"Quite the tragic development for many, I'm sure," I said, affecting a disinterested air; the preliminaries were seemingly over, which meant it was time for negotiations to begin in earnest. "That said, I personally have little sympathy for drug peddlers and less for human traffickers. It's quite amusing, in a way: I'm sitting on a literal ton of amphetamines and other goodies, and I have no use for any of it. Frankly, I'd be tempted to tip it all into Tokyo Bay if I wasn't so worried about the environmental impact."


"How unfortunate," the man from Kyoto said, voice as dry as a desert, "but based on my understanding, it's not only the ready-to-ship product taking up your storage space, is it?"


"You have good sources," I smiled joylessly, baring my teeth at the wall, "you are quite well informed. Yes, Mister Kozuki was able to handle the guards and the floor manager before they could attempt any sabotage. As a consequence, we have come into possession of a large amount of chemicals that could presumably be processed into Ice with the help of some industrial lab equipment. Which we also have, and would love to see gone."


"I see, I see…" I could hear a pen scratching against paper as the representative of the SIx Houses muttered. "Hmm… Well, I suppose that could be of some minor interest to my managers. It would cut down on the cost of setting up a new laboratory from scratch, although transportation would be an issue, I suppose…"


"As you remarked during our first meeting, the maglev is a highly convenient method of transport, particularly now that direct services run between the greater Kanto area and Kyoto." My smirk was definitely coming through my voice, but I didn't try to hide it. I had the leverage here, and two-bit bargaining stratagems wouldn't work on me. "I'm sure your masters will have little trouble finding eager hands to help you ship your goods, especially if you pay in specie."


"Trade is the lifeblood of our enterprise; I am sure my employers would be happy to properly compensate any individuals or groups in Shinjuku willing to prove themselves helpful." The mild statement was a poor veil for the threat to sponsor potential rivals for control over Shinjuku. While that had been a concern during past negotiations, things had changed despite the wealth and influence the Six Houses could still bring to bear.


After all, it's hard to have much moral authority when you refuse to get your hands dirty.


"I'd be happy to provide a list of hard workers, free of charge. Think of it as a gesture of friendship." They would all be quite loyal workers as well – loyal to me. Hopefully, that would reduce the number of new spies whoever Kyoto sent managed to recruit. "In fact, as a further friendly gesture, I'll let you know that we recovered more than just a ton of meth from the lab. It turns out that production did not take up the whole warehouse, leaving the remainder to serve its original role as storage space."


"Oh? Well, good for you, I suppose." The man from Kyoto's bland voice slipped into a disinterest so profound it had to be feigned. "I don't suppose they were just storing extra tires, were they?"


"Nothing so useful," I scoffed, "in fact, nothing remotely useful at all. At least amphetamines have some medical use. Refrain, on the other hand, is just entirely useless to any but the most depraved or the most degraded."


"Refrain?" The waver in the man's voice was barely there, just the smallest of hitches in his voice. I likely would have never noticed had my enhancement suite not overclocked my brain. "How… Peculiar. And potentially valuable. That said, we aren't interested in any petty exchanges. How much product did you recover?"


"One of my associates estimates roughly four hundred thousand doses, already packaged in vials for distribution," I casually passed on Tamaki's estimate with all of the interest of a waiter reciting the daily specials. The enthusiasm that sold my message to the people wouldn't work here; instead, I needed to be as relentlessly and obviously bored as possible to really make my products seem worthwhile. "I think there's a few injector guns included too."


For a moment, the line was silent except for the slow, heavy breathing of the man from Kyoto, barely audible even with my hearing boosted to superhuman levels. Then, with an admirable attempt at a bored affectation, "Four hundred thousand doses, already packaged for sale, you say?"


"At least for distribution," I replied with a shrug. "And all of them completely useless, at least for me. You wouldn't happen to have any interest in almost half a million vials of Refrain, would you? I know that pharmaceuticals are outside of the two primary industries your group dabbles in, but…"


"I'm sure we could find a use for such an asset," the cultivated disinterest had returned to the man from Kyoto's voice, bland as beige. It was almost convincing. "Not that we particularly need to expand at present; business is good, after all. But in such uncertain times, it's good to diversify."


"Of course," I readily agreed, "and times are hard indeed. I wouldn't want to overly impact your organization or the good work you do. In the spirit of mutual cooperation that has marked our relationship so far, I will keep my requests modest. Four hundred thousand kilograms of lentils or beans, four hundred thousand kilograms of rice or other cereals, one hundred thousand kilograms of soy, fifty thousand kilograms of salt, and fifty thousand liters of vegetable oil. Also, four pallets of vitamin supplements. Preferably the five-hundred count bottles."


"Impossible." The man from Kyoto snapped, mildly irritated. "It can't be done. What do you even need a thousand tons of dry goods for anyway?"


"You might not realize," I began, choosing my words with care, "that outside of Kyoto, virtually every Number in Japan balances on the ragged edge of starvation, and that chronic malnutrition is the order of the day. I understand that your organization prioritizes armed confrontation, as is your prerogative as weapon manufacturers and industrialists, but please understand that a man weakened by hunger is an ineffective fighter at best, and a rotting corpse at worst."


"The general food insecurity of the Eleven population isn't exactly a great secret," the representative replied snippily, "but you're asking for too much. Several trainloads of food arriving in Shinjuku is far more difficult to hide than a few truckloads of our finest merchandise."


"Then don't make it a secret," I felt a familiar smile, a professional smile, spread across my face. I had him on the ropes if he was making such weak excuses. "Flaunt it instead. Make it an open donation. The Rising Sun Benevolent Association is an officially registered charity, complete with a noble charter. I'm sure they would love a donation from the Numbers Advisory Council, and I'm sure your masters would love some good PR for once. We'll even send a thank you card."


"...Audacious as always," remarked the gray man, "but audacity sometimes triumphs. I will pass your proposal on to the board – I'm reasonably certain that at least one of them would be eager to champion your terms. Now, unless there's anything else…?"


"There is, in fact," I broke in, "I'd like to place an order from your more standard catalog."


"Oh? Interested in some bullets to accompany the beans?" The dry voice spoke of mild amusement at an old and familiar joke, almost a private ritual.


"Indeed, and bandages too." I pulled the scribbled list of figures from my pocket. For all that Naoto had noble education under his belt, his handwriting was still nearly illegible. "First, let me point out that the estimated value, as best as I could figure, for one point two tons of unadulterated meth is one point eight million pounds. You owe me, and that's not even counting the additional value of the Refrain, about four hundred and eighty thousand pounds."


"Careful now, Miss Hawthorne," the dry voice was like a fingernail lightly rasping across the skin of my ear. "Be very careful. Wholesale deals are quite tricky, after all. Come now, be honest – you don't have any other options besides us, do you? No need to ruin a deal that could keep every mouth in Shinjuku fed for at least a few weeks, depending on how strictly you ration it."


"You are definitely my preferred purchaser, but you are far from the only interested party." I'd come prepared for this sticking point in particular. I'd known that the old bastards in Kyoto would do their best to inflict an unequal deal if I didn't push for every inch, and their representative had acted exactly as I'd expected.


"For one," I briskly continued, "I could sell the material back to the Britannians. I'd need an intermediary, but I already have one lined up. The Chinese would be more tricky, mostly due to the transportation issues, but I'd be willing to give them a discount on account of the oceanic shipping; I'm not unreasonable, and neither are my expectations."


This was half a bluff on my part. I had little doubt that Diethard could find a whole series of buyers interested in retailing amphetamines, but it was unlikely he'd be willing to act as the Britannian face for a wholesale distribution operation. The Chinese were an even longer reach, although I had little doubt that the superpower across the Sea of Japan had seeded agents in every Eleven ghetto near a port. It would take longer to find a broker, but it was still plausible.


Half a bluff or not though, I was still confident in my abilities to sell this deal to Kyoto House. And… Even if I didn't manage to close the deal, my willingness to bow and scrape for the collaborators in the ancient capital was practically spent. Their testing mission had led to a bloodbath, they had deliberately tried to put a stumbling block in my path via Onoda, and they had forced me to sell my organization's services to the JLF in exchange for basic supplies.


There will be, I swore to myself, a reckoning. Japan will be independent with or without these Honorary parasites, and fairweather friends will not be spared the rope if examples prove necessary. If they can't or won't help us now, then they are Britannians in all but blood.


A minute passed in silence, and then another. Digging for every scrap of information I could find, I tuned my enhancement suite to boost my hearing yet further still. Over the line, I could still hear the rhythmic breathing of the man from Kyoto, accompanied by the ever-so-faint periodic scratching of pen on paper.


There must be someone else in the room with him, I realized. He's the mouthpiece, but they're passing notes and giving him his instructions.


"My schedule is quite cramped today," I said, breaking the silence, "and I know you're not alone. I also know that you were sufficiently expendable to be sent to a low-level meeting in the Tokyo Settlement. If you cannot make a decision, kindly pass the phone over to someone who can."


The regular breaths stilled, and for a moment I wondered if I'd gone too far. Then, a moment later, another voice came onto the line.


"Hajime Tanya… I've heard surprisingly much about you…" The new voice was robust, but a quaver betrayed this second stranger's advanced age. "Some have started calling you the Savior of Shinjuku… Others whisper that you have the blessing of the kami and that the dust and wind disguise your appearance and conceal your footfalls… Quite remarkable rumors for a hafu who can't even claim to be a teenager…"


"I've never claimed to be a savior," I replied, keeping the anger at that old familiar slur from my voice as I balled my free hand into a fist, "nor do I claim divine blessing. I will, however, claim my identity as Japanese, no matter what color my eyes are or who my father was. Indeed, I've never been anything but Japanese, something that I doubt you can say no matter how black your hair is."


"They say you're quite the passionate one…" The elderly voice chuckled into the line, "and that rumor at the very least is true… Perhaps the other ones are too… After all, a thousand tons of foodstuffs would feed every mouth in Shinjuku…"


"But only for a few days, perhaps two weeks if everybody got a single meal a day," I cut in, "and as far as I can tell, the approximate value of the food would only come to a hundred and eighty thousand pounds, plus shipping. The pharmaceuticals I've got are easily worth twelve times that amount. I fully anticipate that you will come out ahead in our dealings, but I won't be fobbed off with a pittance while the city around me starves."


"Passionate indeed… Perhaps too much… Don't push me, girl. I've buried better than you." The musing tone and geriatric cadence abruptly switched to a rough, almost ursine growl. "You're good, but you're not special. You have a talent for organization, but you are arrogant as well, arrogant and easily baited. Young blood might run hot, but a loose tongue will see you broken on a wheel if left uncontrolled."


The familiar grandstanding of the old, powerful, and complacent. I snarled internally. As if I didn't already know that my entire life is spent dancing on the edge of a knife?


"Threats are meaningless unless backed by action," I riposted, entirely unimpressed with the old codger's threats, "and I have yet to see anything from you or your House that indicates the necessary testicular fortitude to follow through. You are powerful, I admit, powerful and rich, but the sharpest sword is useless in hands too weak to lift it."


I stopped myself before I could truly let my rage take me. Collaborators or not, they are still useful. No need to burn bridges before I've crossed them.


"But," I injected a conciliatory note into my voice, "we truly are on the same side, aren't we? The ultimate aim of the Six Houses is the liberation of Japan, for what else would justify the willful endangerment of your cushy positions in the Britannian Administration? I have the same goal. And, while I respect how you and yours have kept the hearth-fire of Japanese freedom banked through these bitter years, the times are changing. Can't you feel it in the wind? The status quo has been dead for almost four months now."


"Liberation doesn't mean the same thing to everybody," the quavering voice remarked, "and there are many different possible Japans that could rise from the embers if that happy day ever truly comes. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend, no matter how similar our goals may be."


"True enough," I acknowledged, "but no matter what Japan the future might hold, a land empty of its people is a hollow victory at best. At this moment, my primary concern is keeping as many of our people alive as possible. Whoever pushes the Britannians off our sacred shores will need strong backs and full bellies to rebuild a nation once again. Surely we can find common ground over that shared goal?"


"Indeed," the man on the other end of the line grumbled, cadence slowing down once more. "But people will remember who brought them food… Gratitude is fleeting as far as coins go… But it buys power… At least as long as the bellies are full…"


"You can take the credit." The answer was obvious; it was absurd that this was even an issue. "I already told your man that the Rising Sun would happily send a thank you card for your 'donation' of food. I meant that sincerely; if you are willing to sell and ship food to Shinjuku, you are free to take the credit as publicly as you wish. I would be willing to praise your name in the Meeting Hall if that would help ease your worries."


"Hmph…" The voice wavered indecisively, the aged quaver strengthening as the thoughtful hum dragged on. "Well… What else were you going to ask for…? Out with it. Let's hear what you have to say…"


"Two more shipments of the same composition and value, to be shipped at your cost," I replied promptly, "which would come to about five hundred and forty thousand pounds in total.


"Further, I have two lists of further inventory items, one of construction materials and some tools, the other of your usual stock in trade, namely munitions." I loosened my tightly clenched fist, flexing my fingers to try to get the pins and needles of impacted circulation out. "I wouldn't want to bore you by reading them out in full, so I will deliver them via your agent, Asahara, instead. There's nothing overly exotic on either."


"And the total…?" The old man's voice had relaxed a bit too, just slightly. The firm tone typical to hardball negotiators the world over was still present, but the fire had banked. "Come on, girl, I know you have it. You've had every other number on hand…"


"Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds for the construction equipment and tools, four hundred thousand pounds for the weapons," I smoothly replied, quickly consulting Naoto's notes. "Together with the food shipments, that's a total of one million, three hundred and ninety thousand pounds. Deducted from the estimated value of the drugs, Kyoto House stands to profit by eight hundred and ninety thousand pounds, complete with favorable PR."


"Done," the old man barked, some of the vigor returning to his voice, "contingent on the reception of your lists and the verification of the estimated prices, and contingent on an analysis of the product's purity conducted by our personnel."


"I accept," I said, the words sweet on my tongue. If I were back in the Japan of my first life, I would have been raked over the coals for agreeing to such a lopsided deal. Here, at the head of a comparatively powerless insurrectionary body, I was just happy that negotiations had been civilized for once.


I didn't even need to kill anybody this time! Perhaps even the old bastards can learn!


"Good… Good…" The vigor faded, leaving a tired old man behind once more. "We'll be in touch soon… Hajime Tanya… I will be watching your career with interest… Take care…"


"And you as well, Mister Kyoto," the typical pleasantry sliding effortlessly off my tongue as I relaxed at the familiar ritual marking the end of a business call. "And long live Japan."


A minute hesitation, and then a murmured voice replied. "Long live Japan, and long live the Imperial Family. Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians."


And with that, the phone went dead in my hand. I dropped it on the battered old table and collapsed down onto Oghi's bunk, suddenly exhausted.


I had done it.


I had secured possibly the most important deal of my life. There would be food for a while, long enough for arms to grow strong and for minds to focus beyond aching bellies. And in those minds, at least for a while, Japan would live on for just a little while longer.



---------



APRIL 26, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1235


"-and I met with the technician Kyoto House dispatched to evaluate the purity and quantity of the samples this morning." I stopped to take a bite of my bean soup, helping the spoonful of lentils down with a quick sip of water. "Happily, he had no complaints about either."


"So, that's it then, right?" asked Naoto from the end of the table. "The deal's done?"


"That's right," I confirmed, "and judging by how surprised Kyoto's man was, the quality of the product was quite high. Which," I continued contemplatively, "probably means that the Six Houses got an even better deal out of this than they'd anticipated."


"Well, hopefully, they'll put at least some of that money back into helping Japan," Inoue said, although she didn't sound particularly optimistic. "But even if they don't, a windfall like that might make negotiations easier the next time around."


"Assuming this doesn't all blow up in our faces somehow," I replied, trying not to sound too dour. "For all we know, a major 'donation' from a third party will give Clovis, or somebody close to him, an excuse to end the food dole. After all, Elevens don't need to eat that much, right? And ClovisLand North isn't going to pay for itself."


Early on in his reign as Area Eleven's Viceregal-Governor, Prince Clovis had proclaimed that nobody would starve under his benevolent leadership. While the Britannian press had lauded the prince's "fair but firm paternalistic heart" to the skies, it had been blatantly obvious to everybody that some form of food aid was necessary if the Area wanted a workforce after the mass starvation during the first year after the Conquest.


To accomplish the lofty goal of ending starvation in Area Eleven, Clovis had instituted a food distribution program in the urban ghettos across the Area. Like most things Britannian, the program had been poorly thought-out and rife with corruption. The food deliveries came irregularly, and the food that ended up in Shinjuku was far too little and often already rotten by the time it arrived. Much of it also fell into the hands of local gangs and petty warlords.


In spite of the mismanagement and cut corners, the program had worked as intended. Crews of hollow-cheeked workers overseen by better-fed Honorary Britannians had built the Britannian Concession and the ever-expanding Tokyo Settlement. Hungry workers with just enough calories to survive a day's hard labor had stepped up for the chance to work in poorly managed and incredibly unsafe manufacturies, at the constantly busy docks, and on innumerable job sites.


Of course, the work crews had never been acknowledged for their hard labor. The Britannians credited the speedy rise of their abomination of a city to their civilianized construction KMFs, the great machines strengthening the foundations of the empire on and off the battlefield. While the construction Knightmares had proven invaluable, without the efforts of tens of thousands of Elevens, the Concession that loomed over Tokyo on massive stilt-like supports would still be decades in the future.


But, the food had kept the Ghetto alive too, even as the Concession rose and the Settlement spread. Indeed, the ingredients in the soup I had purchased with my labor during the years between the Conquest and the death of my mother had come from that dole. The fact that I had been practically a walking skeleton when I met Ohgi and Naoto spoke volumes about the food program's efficacy, but the same could be said for the fact that I was alive to meet them at all.


"If the Prince is going to halt the distribution over something so petty, then it was always going to happen some time or another," Souichiro said, speaking up for the first time since our working lunch had begun. "That being said, I don't know how I feel about turning to… Honoraries… to keep us alive. I understand that we don't have a choice, but…"


"Food is food," Naoto opined with a shrug, "and these particular Honoraries are the same ones funding the JLF. They really are the best option, for now at least."


"For now," Souichiro reluctantly agreed. "I still don't like it, though."


"I like starving to death less." I gestured with my spoon. Predictably, the grumbling ceased at the reminder of the most likely alternative. Pride and ideological purity couldn't fill empty stomachs, after all.


"Moving on to the next topic," I pushed the empty bowl away from me, "Inoue, how is the reunion plan going?"


"Mixed results, I'd say," the logistics officer replied, "we've managed to find a few of the girls' families, but, well… Most of them don't really have families. Not anymore. Some of them might still have relatives in Saitama, but unless we load them on a truck and have Nagata drive them over for a visit…"


"I understand," I said, closing my eyes as I thought for a moment. I had put Inoue in charge of the slaves we had liberated during the raids, and she had delegated the task to Kasumi, her assistant and a former slave liberated from a gang herself. Kasumi had spent the last three days working herself to the bone to find surviving relatives to place the women and girls with, but it sounded like efforts had stalled out.


"I suppose we could hand them over to Chihiro," Naoto said, voice slow and full of reservation. The unspoken "but…" hung heavily over the table. "I mean, she has taken care of most of the rest…"


"Chihiro is already unstable," I replied firmly, "and I am increasingly dubious of her value to the Organization. She was intoxicated when I last met with her in the middle of the day and was both insubordinate and insulting. I would rather relieve her of command than entrust two hundred vulnerable people into her care."


"I agree with Tanya. Chihiro's recent behavior has been deplorable." Inoue's voice was hard and heated. "I understand that she's grieving, but we've all lost people and Makoto died weeks ago. If she can't handle loss without going to pieces, we can't let her stay a leader, especially not if she's becoming a drunk."


"Well, if we're not dumping them into Chihiro's lap, what are we going to do with them?" Naoto's tone was carefully neutral, although I doubted he had any more love for Chihiro than I did; she had never bothered to hide her antipathy for his mixed heritage any more than she had her feelings about mine. "Things are hard enough as is in Shinjuku without our own miniature refugee crisis."


"Break them up into groups of ten, with each group consisting of women of roughly the same age?" I suggested, turning to look at Naoto. "The adult groups can be distributed throughout the Rising Sun's area of control – ask the Council for volunteers to host them, and let them know that they'll get bonus rations for hosting. The children," I hesitated, "the children can stay in vacant apartments in our building. There are at least a few units empty, I think."


"Delegation, huh?" Naoto smiled knowingly. "Can't say I'm surprised. I'll raise the matter at the meeting at sixteen hundred."


"Fine. I think that's all of our outstanding business handled, yes?" I drummed my fingers quickly, scanning the other three faces around the table. "Alright. Let's get to why I called you here today."


"Besides the food?" Inoue grinned as she licked her spoon clean. "I thought you just wanted to share a meal with us, Tanya! I am hurt to hear that you had something else in mind!"


"You'll survive," I dryly replied in the face of snickers from Naoto and Inoue and a single muffled cough from Souichiro. "More to the point, we need to start thinking on a bigger scale. The deal with Kyoto is part of that, but even in that case we're still thinking too small."


"Half a million pounds worth of food is too small, huh?" Naoto asked as he leaned back in his chair, the question clearly rhetorical. "No, I get what you mean. Three million kilograms of food isn't very big, not when you're talking about a city."


"That's right," I agreed. "Let's talk about scale. At the moment, the Kozuki Organization itself has, in total, just over a hundred members, most of whom are still undergoing training at The School. The Rising Sun Benevolent Association has maybe twenty dedicated members who aren't also part of the Organization. Naoto, how many members would you say the Sun Guard has? I'm estimating somewhere between one thousand seven hundred and two thousand."


"Umm…" Naoto looked up at the ceiling for a moment, presumably distracted with internal calculations. "I'd say a bit more than that, but definitely no more than two thousand five hundred. And that's pushing it."


"Let's call it two thousand," I settled, "which gives us just over twenty-one hundred bodies across all three organizations. In other words, including noncombatants and untrained fighters armed only with sticks and knives, we have one percent of Shinjuku affiliated with us. That's not enough to control the Ghetto, much less conduct offensive operations."


"So, you're saying we need to recruit?" Souichiro asked, leaning forwards over his bowl. "I don't know how much use we'd get out of more recruits at the moment. Not until we can put guns in their hands, at least."


"True, we can't do much to expand our combat power at the moment," I nodded at the former police officer, "and I'm hoping the new arms we're purchasing from the Six Houses help with that particular problem. However, an army, even a guerrilla one, needs more than just frontline fighters. We also need to recruit engineers and medics, teamsters and administrators, mechanics, and even cooks.


"And then," I said, pausing slightly for effect, "there's intelligence. We have Diethard and Kallen, but two agents aren't enough. We need to find the people in the Ghetto who have work tickets and regular engagements in the Settlement, the ones who work as cleaners, janitors, and laborers in the Concession itself. Britannian arrogance likely keeps most of the occupiers from noticing servants, but they all have eyes and ears."


I stood up and began to pace back and forth as I continued. "Up until now, we've operated as a small, independent, armed band. We controlled limited amounts of territory, but virtually everybody in our organization was expected to be a frontline fighter, ready to pick up a gun at a moment's notice. We can no longer afford to think on such a limited level.


"When we took over Shinjuku," I continued, "we also took on the organizational requirements that come from running Shinjuku. A gang, or a militia, can't run a city. We know that for a fact. They simply lack organizational depth. Now, unless we want to lose control of the Ghetto in a few months, we need to stop thinking like a militia and start thinking like an army."


"Can you explain what you mean, Tanya?" Naoto inquired. "I mean, we've already implemented a training system or the start of one, and we've got something like a social services division with the Rising Sun and all that. That's beyond what gangs tend to do already, correct?"


"True," I agreed, "we've made a good start, but there's still a great deal to accomplish. For one, we need to start focusing on establishing institutions. Right now, everything is run on a more or less ad hoc basis, with personal loyalty to local leadership binding the Organization together. That will have to change. Personal loyalty only lasts as long as leaders can consistently deliver victory, and victory is never consistent over the long haul.


"We also need to start cultivating specialist units, particularly when we're talking about non-combat services. Inoue's an excellent quartermaster, and Nagata is a good driver, but what happens if they die? The institutional knowledge and skills die with them, without any clear idea about who takes over. No individual, not even you or I, Naoto, should be irreplaceable in an organization dedicated to fighting an empire that spans multiple continents."


I let that sit for a moment, giving my audience time to absorb my points. Change was difficult, but in our case, very necessary. The only reward for good work was, always, more work. Still, I was optimistic; my comrades had always risen to the challenge before, and I fully expected they would again.


"On another topic," I said a minute or so later, "we need to start thinking outside of Shinjuku. The outside world doesn't stop at the Ghetto's wall, and we need to stay on top of things. The situation in Niigata is turning into a quagmire for the Britannians, and while I'm sure the JLF are ecstatic about it, the rising food prices aren't helping matters here. Worse, the Britannians are also increasingly aware of the threat represented by Japanese uprisings; their complacency is waning in favor of paranoia. Sooner or later, they will act on that fear.


"At the moment, the Rising Sun has a presence only in Shinjuku, and the Kozuki Organization only has a single small outpost outside these walls. This is an issue for many reasons, the worst of which is that Shinjuku is entirely indefensible."


I turned on my heel to face my fellow insurgents. "Which brings me to my next point; we need to increase the scale of our operations, both in terms of expanding our organization and in terms of ensuring that we cannot be destroyed by a single catastrophe."


"We have put all of our eggs in a single basket, haven't we?" Naoto remarked, "but expanding beyond Shinjuku is a pretty broad umbrella. I mean, for one thing, if we're already overstretched trying to keep the Ghetto under control, how are we going to find the manpower to establish branches elsewhere? And how do we make sure they stay loyal? That's a resource investment all on its own, especially if we intend to expand Rising Sun's operations too."


"I think we should start relatively small," I said, nodding to acknowledge our leader's point. "I left half of the graduated trainees behind at The School to act as a training cadre. I think that, combined with Ohgi and Major Onoda, they can handle another training cohort or two ahead of schedule. The sooner we can turn militia into soldiers, the better.


"As for further expansion, we need more on-the-ground information, first-hand observations, to get a feeling for the available options. I recommend deploying the two squads of trained fighters I brought with me as scouts. Major Onoda has trained them all in infiltration, long-range scouting, and information collection. They will also be useful in training anyone we recruit with the potential to play a dedicated undercover role, amongst the enemy."


Or, I thought, amongst our alleged allies. Kusakabe's surely up to something, considering his recent promotion, and I need to know what he's planning before he blindsides us as well as the Britannians.


"Can I add something?" Souichiro asked, and continued after I nodded and sat back down, leaving the proverbial and literal floor to him as he rose from his chair. "The School… It's in Gunma. My family's ancestral homeland. I've got a few cousins there, and if they're still alive, they're farmers. Even before the Conquest, people were leaving Gunma, heading to the cities… That means there are plenty of empty villages and fields. They just need to be cleared out, rebuilt…"


"So…" Inoue frowned, "you're thinking about sending civilians to Gunma too, not just trainees? That… That would actually solve a fair number of issues, but that would also be a huge resource sink."


"But it would be an investment too," Souichiro countered, "after all, every bushel of rice we can grow is one less we need to buy from the running dogs sitting in Kyoto. Beyond that, what happens if another Christmas Incident happens, only this time directed at Shinjuku? Every civilian we can get away from the mobs, the better." The older man glared at the rest of us. "We're here to protect them, aren't we? That's our job. That's why we're talking about food instead of bombs. To protect the people."


That was… Unusually spirited for Souichiro.


I remembered when I had first met him, back when Tamaki had brought him to the old basement headquarters. The former police officer had been a broken man, still mourning the loss of both of his sons, one to a Britannian bomb and the other to an honorary Britannian citizenship. Now, months later, he was vigorous, and years had fallen away from his graying head.


"You make a compelling point," I replied after a moment, "and I agree that we need to invest in our people's future. That said, I can't agree with this concept unless we have more tangible information to work with. For starters, we need to see if your cousins are still alive and if they're willing to help teach people how to farm. Also, if they have any seed grain available for sale."


"Also," Inoue chimed in, "we need to find one or two of those abandoned villages to use as models. At the very least, we'll need to figure out if we need to send one of our generators out there for power, not to mention portable stoves, water purifiers… The list goes on."


"And we need to figure out how the JLF will respond," Naoto added. "From what you reported, Tanya, the Britannian presence in northwestern Gunma is pretty light, but the JLF maintains a presence. The last thing we need is a fight over territory with them, or to get in the way of some sort of operation they're planning. Or even worse, stumble into some extra secret Brit operation or base. They do have a habit of showing up where you least want 'em."


"Quite," I agreed and turned back to Souichiro. "How do you feel about taking the lead on this one, Souichiro? You're the one with the personal connections to the locals, as well as some familiarity with the area. Ohgi can introduce you to Major Onoda to cover the JLF angle. I suspect," I continued, a note of annoyance creeping into my voice, "that the Major will have absolutely no problem collaborating with you."


"I'd be honored," Souichiro responded, bowing slightly at the waist. "It's been far too long since I last went home."


"Good," I said, continuing briskly along. "I'm planning on sending Tamaki, his squad of pet goons, and about forty Sun Guards to The School. Find two or three people to help you out in Gunma, and you can travel with them. Get a list of what you'll need together, including whatever 'gifts' might be necessary. You'll be heading out in two days."


"Very well." Souichiro pushed his chair back under the table and retrieved his hat. "I'll begin my preparations immediately. Thank you for entrusting this mission to me."


"Thank you for your idea," I replied, waving a quick goodbye as he left before turning back to my two comrades. We waited in silence as the sound of footsteps receded down the hallway, and then continued to sit quietly until Shuzo, Mallet, poked his head in through the door.


"He left the building without talking to anybody, Ma'am," he reported, "and it looks like he's heading back towards the Meeting Hall."


"Thank you, Shuzo," I said, acknowledging his report with a nod, not looking away from my comrades as the soldier withdrew from the room. "Your thoughts?"


"I don't think he's the mole," Naoto said thoughtfully. "I didn't think he was before the meeting, and I don't think he is now. Definitely not for the Six Houses, at least. No way he'd work with them – that disgust in his voice was too real. I don't think that his son working for one of their companies means anything important; it's pretty clear that 'Keith' is dead to him."


"It could be a long con," Inoue countered unenthusiastically, "I mean… It could be. I just don't see Souichiro being able to pull it off. He's, well…"


"Painfully straight-laced?" Naoto supplied with a slash of a grin, "yes, during the time we've worked together, he's always struck me as a 'by the books' man, very uncomfortable with duplicity or misdirection."


"He's also hierarchy-focused," I mused, thinking about how Souichiro still lapsed into a more formal cadence whenever he replied to questions or orders. "I'm inclined to agree. If he's a spy, he certainly isn't Kyoto's."


"Which," Naoto began with a heavy sigh, "leaves Chihiro. Unless anybody thinks Nagata or Tamaki is telling tales out of school?"


"Not Tamaki, but I have considered Nagata as a real possibility," I admitted. "He was around to hear about the Lacy Garter plan, and considering how much he cares about them, his wife and child represent a solid hook. On the other hand, he was also the one who volunteered to introduce me to Mister Asahara, and he's the one Kyoto House used to pass the burner to me. The fact that he's openly associated with a Kyoto agent makes it hard to believe that he's a spy."


"I mean, unless he doesn't know he's a spy? For all he knows," Naoto pointed out, "he's just talking with a friend or whoever about what he's doing, and that friend is passing information on. I'm not saying it's likely, but maybe our problem isn't a mole, but just loose lips?"


"That's possible," I allowed, "and I really hope that you are correct about that. The idea that any of our comrades have been informing on us to anybody, even nominal allies, is… distressing."


That was putting it mildly. It had become increasingly clear that Kyoto House had a source close to the Kozuki Organization if not inside it, a source that had kept them annoyingly well informed about our group and our operations and internal dynamics. I had not wanted to acknowledge the possibility, but my conversation with Kyoto the other day had forced my hand. If I had to negotiate with Kyoto House, I couldn't allow information leakage, accidental or deliberate.


"Do you really think Chihiro could be spying on us?" Inoue asked, her tone full of a curiosity that I would call idle if I didn't know how proactive she could be. "I know that she dislikes both of you for stupid reasons, but that doesn't make her a spy. She's also not the only one who feels like that in Shinjuku, I'm sorry to say."


"I think Tanya and I are both fully aware of that," Naoto dryly replied, "but no, I don't think she's a spy. She wears her heart on her sleeve and is completely unable to control herself when she gets angry. I'm pretty sure she'd have outed herself by now if she was a traitor."


"No, it probably isn't her directly." I agreed with a shake of my head. "Given how much she hates Britannia, and myself and Naoto by association, I don't see her doing a bunch of powerful, shadowy, collaborators any favors on purpose."


"Alternatively… She could think that she's talking to a spy for the JLF or some other resistance group and have no idea who she's really feeding info to," Naoto mused. "It's not like a spy would be above lying about their loyalties."


Slowly, I nodded as I turned the idea over in my head. While he usually blended in quite well with the rest of us these days, a far cry from his occasionally ignorant or overly sensitive reactions back when I had first met him, sometimes it was still obvious that Naoto was from a Britanian noble family, at least as a bastard. After all, when it comes to duplicity, who can rival the Britannian nobility in their mastery of the art?


"Perhaps," I allowed, "or maybe she simply lacks any grasp of operational security; like with Nagata, rather than being a mole specifically, she might just be overly talkative. Alcohol in abundance will do that to a person, after all. Her hotel headquarters seemed pretty chaotic as well – it'd be hard to keep tabs on everybody there. It might not even be a person, her place could be bugged to listen to her drunken rants."


"Hmm…" Naoto rubbed his chin. "That's a good point. On the other hand, we have plenty of reasons to shitcan Chihiro, even if she isn't a spy…"


"Or," Inoue interrupted, "we could simply remove her from that environment and send her elsewhere. She's very passionate, and she clearly understands how to appeal to people; all of her girls follow her first, us second. Expelling her from the group could lead to a fracture – on the other hand, sending her on a scouting or a recruiting mission elsewhere could turn her back into an asset?"


"And separating her from her power base would give us a chance to bring them back into the fold," I said, nodding along to Inoue's point, "preserving resources and maintaining institutional homogeneity. Saitama might be a bit too close for that, but Yokohama's almost thirty kilometers away."


"And the largest Britannian naval base in the Area is less than ten kilometers from the Yokohama Ghetto, down at Yokosuka," Inoue pointed out. "I know that she's not exactly trained as a scout or an infiltrator, but surely even an untrained observer could dig up something of use down there."


"At the very least, she could warn us if all of the marines start heading north towards Tokyo," I agreed. "Hopefully, though, having her work in an environment rich with acceptable targets will prove a useful outlet for her issues. Especially if she doesn't think she has to worry about us hovering over her."


"And that dovetails neatly with our pre-existing plan to scout for potential expansion opportunities outside of Shinjuku."


"Yes, about that," Naoto leaned back in again, "where were you thinking of sending your teams, Tanya?"


"One team's going to Maebashi," I replied immediately. "If our fallback location from Shinjuku is going to be Gunma, which Souichiro's suggestion would probably lead to, we need eyes and ears in the prefectural capital. It's also the largest city in the prefecture, and probably the best place for local recruits. The proximity to The School will help us shuffle training cohorts in and out, along with supplies.


"As for the second location, I was thinking either Mito, in Ibaraki Prefecture, or Utsunomiya in Tochigi. I haven't made up my mind about which would be better, though. Each has strong arguments for and against – more of Tochigi Prefecture is rural, and it borders Gunma, meaning it has many of the same advantages. A foothold in Ibaraki, on the other hand, might allow us to form connections with the seaborne smuggling community."


"Go for Ibaraki," Naoto replied firmly. "The Oarai Isosaki and Oiwa Shrines are both located in the province, and can personally attest that Oiwa, at least, was still intact if abandoned as of three years ago. Lord Daikoku, the god of nation-building, is enshrined on the Oarai Coast; his blessing will surely help us prevail."


"...Well, I suppose such sentiments could prove helpful for recruitment," I conceded. Naoto, religious foibles or not, was the leader of the group for a reason. Perhaps he had seen something I'd overlooked. "I'm sure Yoshi will enjoy some seaside air as well."



---------



APRIL 26, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1507


"Missus Tsuchiya, right?" I exchanged bows with the woman, noting the vaguely harried look in her eyes. "Please, come in. Have a seat."


"Thank you very much, Miss Hajime." Despite her weathered features and the deep stress lines carved across her cheeks, Tsuchiya Hitomi still moved gracefully, carefully pulling out her chair before perching on the very edge, legs primly crossed. The years had not been kind to the former assistant principal; though I knew she was thirty-eight, she looked like she was already in her mid-fifties.


"I want to thank you for responding so quickly to my message," I began, smiling politely from across Inoue's desk. "As soon as I proposed this initiative, Kaname Ohgi all but insisted that you be involved. He was quite effusive in his praise of your skills as an educator and an administrator."


"I'm… very happy to hear that," the one-time assistant principal of Toyama Junior & Senior High School replied. "I was also very happy to hear that Mister Kaname was still alive… I haven't heard from him in years."


"I'm sure he'd be happy to catch up with you whenever he's next back in Shinjuku," I said smoothly, falling into the familiar cadence of office conversations across time and worlds, "although he is unfortunately away on assignment at present."


"Oh, that's…" Missus Tsuchiya struggled for a reply for a moment, "good, I suppose? I will look forward to the occasion."


"Indeed," I smiled, "now, onto business. I don't want to waste any more of your valuable time, Missus Tsuchiya, so I will be brief. Education is practically nonexistent in the Ghetto, except in the special case of the Shinjuku School for Elevens, where anything useful is so buried in propaganda that the whole structure is a net loss. It is long past time to tackle this issue."


"I'm definitely not against the idea…" Missus Tsuchiya said, her voice slow and heavy with some emotion I couldn't quite pinpoint. "But… How? I know of the Rising Sun, and I respect your work; you've fed me and my husband for a month now. But, and meaning no disrespect, you barely hold Shinjuku. Is this… Well, is this really something you can afford to focus on?"


"We can't afford not to focus on it." In that, I was certain. "The greatest wars are fought in the heart and the mind; what happens on the battlefield is just the byproduct. Make no mistake, the Britannians have sought to occupy our minds just as much as they have sought to break our bodies."


I paused, casting my mind back over the nearly six long years that had passed since the Conquest, searching for tangible examples of what I meant. There were too many painful memories to count, but two in particular would serve me well here. "...I saw the ashes of Naruko Tenjin Shrine myself. I have also sat through classes in the School for Elevens. I know of what I speak. If we do not teach the next generation, then we will be the last generation. Education for the Japanese and by the Japanese is the heart and soul of our struggle."


"I see, I think…" The former educator muttered, clearly mulling my words over. After a moment, she appeared to come to a decision. "Alright, Miss Hajime, you make a… compelling case. And, it's been far too long since I've heard anyone speak so passionately in favor of education, so… What are you looking for from me? How can I help?"


I can't quite tell if she's on board and asking for assignments, or if she's still non-committal and asking what her responsibilities would be. Why is she dragging her feet? I wondered, slightly frustrated by the ambiguity of the situation. Does she think this is a job interview? Ohgi said she was the best chance we have for reforming anything like a functional educational system!


For a moment, I tried to put myself in Missus Tsuchiya's shoes. She was a well-educated woman who had been a key member in an important pillar of pre-Conquest society, a high school attended by children of the upper-middle class. After years of desperation and struggle, it must be shocking to so suddenly be called back to duty.


"I have the utmost faith in your skills," I reassured the older woman, "and I am sure the children under the Rising Sun's care are eager to learn, if only so they have some structure to rely upon. I'm sure you understand how hard it is to feel secure when your daily schedule is unpredictable."


"That's very true," Missus Tsuchiya replied fervently, "and structure is definitely important when it comes to education and childcare. But, what exactly is it that you need from me?"


"First and foremost," I said, "I need names. Ohgi said that I should ask you for the names of other teachers, tutors, or other educators who might still live in Shinjuku. I'm not expecting you to teach the next generation by yourself, after all!"


I smiled politely, waiting for the obligatory chuckle in response to the ludicrous concept I'd just floated, but Missus Tsuchiya just looked relieved for some reason. Did she think I was expecting her to handle all eighty thousand children in Shinjuku on her own? Nonplussed, I continued.


"You will be given a budget to recruit any of your fellow teachers. We have a reserve of Britannian currency, but we can also pay in increased rations or by providing small luxury items on request," I explained. "Once you manage to recruit some staff, start working on a curriculum, and start working on a book list. I will put a bounty out on books that you recommend, so hopefully we won't need Britannian textbooks.


"Oh, and also," I continued as inspiration struck, "if you or the people you find happen to know any technical or vocational instructors, that would be useful too. We'll need to teach adults how to be electricians, welders, mechanics, and the like.


"And once you've got a curriculum and a materials list sorted out, well…" I shrugged. "I'm not going to dictate your job to you. Let me know what you will need to educate the children. I can set aside some of the rooms in the more intact office buildings for classrooms if those would be adequate; otherwise, I'm sure I can find some families willing to host sessions in their apartments. I might be busy in the near future, but Inoue Naomi will be on hand to help you out."


"Ah, good! That's… good to hear." Miss Tsuchiya smiled, bobbing her head in a nod of acknowledgment. "And…" She continued, somewhat hesitantly, "are you going to be joining the classes, Miss Hajime?"


"Ah," I replied eloquently, blinking in surprise. "Sorry, what? I don't know anything about education, so I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to help you conduct the classes. Inoue knows at least as much about the local supply situation as I do, so I don't think I can help you much there either."


"But…" And now Missus Tsuchiya was the one blinking in confusion. "But didn't you say you wanted the children under the Rising Sun's care to be educated? Weren't… Weren't you going to include yourself? There's no way you're over twelve – you must have been in first or second grade during the Conquest!"


I stared blankly at the former teacher, who I noticed had suddenly turned pale. That's right… Biologically, I just celebrated my twelfth birthday a month ago. I had almost forgotten that I'm still a child… Suddenly, Missus Tsuchiya's hesitant dithering made a great deal more sense. It must be strange as a teacher to take orders from a pre-teen… To rely on a child to keep you fed. She must have known before she had come, but seeing is believing, as the old line went.


"I-I'm sorry," Missus Tsuchiya said, her words jumbled, rushing over one another. "I didn't mean any disrespect. I know that you're quite important, and as a leader, you must be very busy. I'm sure you don't have any time, and you're clearly doing well for yourself…"


"No disrespect taken," I replied, holding up a hand to forestall the torrent of words. As soon as I raised my hand, the woman, old enough to be my mother, nearly bit her tongue as she slammed her jaws closed. "I didn't mean to alarm you. It's just… It's just been a while since I remembered that I am technically a child."


For some reason, Missus Tsuchiya looked incredibly sad for a moment, before her face firmed back up again. "Well, Miss Hajime, that's… Not entirely uncommon here in Shinjuku, I suppose. Lots of children have been forced to grow up far too quickly."


"I made it to the fourth grade, you know," I commented idly. "I was lucky enough to start kindergarten courseearly, and I managed to skip the third grade." It was meaningless trivia, but something inside me thrummed unpleasantly at the reminder of those long-gone days, when I still thought I had a chance to find a peaceful life. "My mother was very invested in my education."


She was always very invested in me, wasn't she? Even if she didn't need to be. I felt a lump in my throat. And where did it get her? Working hard for nothing, because she ended up in a dumpster all the same.


"I… see." Missus Tsuchiya said, her voice a bit hoarse. "I guess it isn't a surprise that you were a quick study, considering where you're sitting now. Thank you for this opportunity, Miss Hajime. I'd be honored if you chose to attend my class, but of course, I wouldn't want to impose. I will start reaching out to my old colleagues immediately; I'm sure they will be overjoyed to have the opportunity to teach again."


"Thank you for your time," I replied politely, if distractedly. The itchy heat in my eyes made it hard to focus, and a woman almost a year dead kept derailing my train of thought. "I appreciate your willingness to work with me. I am looking forward to hearing back from you soon."


The now no-longer former teacher said a polite goodbye that I could barely hear before all but fleeing from the office. I remained behind Inoue's desk for a few seconds, waiting until the sound of her footsteps disappeared into the hustle and bustle of the main hall before I got up, walked to the office door, and engaged the lock.


Ohgi was in Gunma, Kallen was in Ashford, and Naoto and Inoue were very busy, too busy to bother; aside from those four, I didn't want anybody else to see me cry.

 

[Scopas]

(Well, I got a bit overly ambitious this time around. With the advise of my beta readers and editors, I broke the 23k chapter that resulted into two halves. The upside of this is that the wait for the next chapter should be much shorter than usual. Thank you to, in no particular order, Siatru, Sunny, Restestsest, Mitch H., Rakkis157 and MetalDragon. I appreciate your help and advise.)


MAY 2, 2016 ATB
OUTPOST #2, CHUO WARD, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1707


The gate of the Chuo outpost slammed shut on Corporal Kururgi and his fire team's heels. For the first time in months, they were out of uniform and outside of the confining walls of Britannian encampments. It was Monday night, and 2nd Company had, as a unit, been granted twenty-four-hour liberty, starting seven minutes ago.


There was, Corporal Kururugi reflected, something darkly amusing about Britannian officers giving their men any liberty. It wasn't as if they particularly cared about their men, nor the regulations stipulating the leave troops were supposed to receive in the wake of a combat assignment.


No, Corporal Kururugi was certain that the sudden decision to give the regiment a day of liberty, staggered out so only a company at a time would be free, had come as a consequence of the suddenly plummeting state of the 1st Regiment's morale after the return from Toyama. Even the Britannians, his superiors in rank and race, couldn't miss the men's sudden dourness, and even the Britannians weren't foolish enough to brush the suddenly sour mood off completely.


I think they were surprised at how hard everybody took losing the guns, Kururugi thought, bouncing idly on his heels as he stood in the street. It was a habit from his childhood he'd never quite lost; Lelouch had once remarked that his thoughts, unencumbered by obstructions in his empty head, must be striking the sides of his skull hard enough to lift him off his feet.


Suzaku had whacked his friend over the head for that, carefully pulling his strength so he didn't hit too hard. And then Nunnally had chided her brother, and as always that had brought Lelouch to the point of an immediate apology.


As soon as the regiment had stepped off their buses in Tokyo three days ago, they had formed up on the parade ground. The humidity had been sweltering, even in the early evening, and the heavy uniforms and the helmets complete with full face masks hadn't helped in the slightest. In that thick, sweaty heat, company by company, the regiment had been disarmed.


Each Honorary Britannian had stepped up in turn to one of the tables manned by officers from the Military Police, all under the watchful eye of their Britannian platoon and company leaders. Each soldier had surrendered the pistol and ammunition he had been issued, along with his bulletproof vest, and had made his mark in the record book next to his name and ID number, all the while trying to ignore the ominous presence of the two Knight Police Glasgows looming over the growing heap of military material.


Corporal Kururugi wondered if the other men in the ranks, silent and faceless behind their masks, had noticed how schooled their officers' expressions had been, how white their fingers were, clenched together behind their backs in otherwise perfect parade rest. How the military policemen sitting at the tables had tensed up slightly every time an Honorary reached for his pistol.


Even if the others hadn't noticed the Britannians' fear, the implicit message of the whole hours-long process hadn't been lost on them. During their time in Toyama, the men of the 1st Regiment had been given their moment in the sun. They had been issued weapons, real weapons, and sent into the field to conduct crucial missions at the request of the Prefect of Toyama himself. Now, they were being humbled.


After the shameful assembly, the men were herded back into their barracks and reintroduced to the panoply of petty slights that came with garrison life. The quality of their food plummeted, just like Corporal Kururugi had predicted, and the men had to reacclimate to old bread and beans after weeks of fresh seafood. The daily routine of endless busywork returned as well, and while mopping already clean floors had been a boring if tolerable task before Toyama, even the most stolid in the ranks were having a hard time adjusting now.


Privately, Corporal Kururugi sympathized, even as he pushed the four privates of his fire team relentlessly in every petty task that came their way. It had been easier to handle the exact nature of their assignment in Toyama while he'd still been out in the field. The action, the need to stay present and engaged, the stakes… all of that had made it easier to push the nature of his work to the back of his mind. His mantra, "all for the Plan", had been more than enough to assuage any lingering qualms.


But back in the barracks with nothing but the internal politics of the regiment to distract him, it was far more difficult to push all of those faces away, all of the pale faces staring at him from the back of a truck as he slammed the tailgate up, all the pale faces uttering imploring words he hadn't bothered to hear as he'd stuck his gun under their noses… He had hated to do it, hated himself for helping with the oppression of his people, but he'd had no choice. Not really.


It was all for the Plan, Kururugi told himself with a final bounce, before reaching up to adjust his shades. He could feel the eyes of his four subordinates; on liberty or not, he was still in charge. He couldn't forget that. Time's ticking. All for the Plan. Only through the Plan can a truly ordered society emerge. And only by giving my people the security they deserve, the peace and the quiet provided by that ordered society, will my hands ever be anything close to clean again.


"Follow," Corporal Kururugi said, and strode away from the outpost, carefully listening as first one, then two, then four sets of footsteps fell in behind him. Some of the tension in his shoulders eased. His men were still obeying his orders. That was good.


It's unfortunate, he reflected, that they only obey out of fear. Instructor Tohdoh always said that fear could only carry respect's burden for so long. Even if my father disagreed…


"Fear is power," Kururugi Genbuu had once told him in one of their rare father-son conversations. "Love is transitory, gratitude short-lived, and greed is always unmanned by fear in the kind of men who chose politics over the battlefield. They all make for useful tools, but the only way to truly lead is through fear. A leader nobody fears is no leader at all."


Maybe that's why the men were so eager to give up? Suzaku's quiet, treacherous voice asked from inside Kururugi's mind. After… After it happened, after Father died… Nobody really seemed sad to see him go… Nobody who knew him, at least…


It was, Corporal Kururugi decided as he pushed Suzaku back into his box, his men's fault that he had been forced to terrorize them into compliance. He hadn't wanted it to be this way. He had tried to teach them to respect lawful authority, doing his best to pound the regulations into their skulls. Ultimately, his men had taken away a slightly different lesson than Kururugi had intended. They'd learned that the law was important, but only so long as the law was enforced by might.


It was a very Britannian lesson and one that his four-man section had learned very well. To Kururugi's grudging pride, his men had all become adept barracks room lawyers under his tutelage as well as fearsome brawlers, equally good at leveraging obscure regulations to carry out his orders as they were with their fists and their feet. They had eagerly learned every one of Tohdoh's hand-to-hand lessons that Kururugi could recall. He would put his fire team up against any other in the entire regiment, even the brigade.


That didn't change the fact that his four privates only followed Corporal Kururugi out of fear. He had physically dominated them almost from the day of his promotion in early spring, and that physical dominance had been reinforced by his actions in Toyama. For now, that fear was enough, but it meant that Kururugi could never show weakness or vulnerability; obedience rooted in fear would only remain for as long as his men feared him.


To his frustration, Kururugi Suzaku couldn't see a way out of his situation besides doubling down. The parallels of the situation weren't lost on him; he knew that tyranny would only engender eventual resistance. But he just didn't know what else he could do. Loyalty was built on trust, and he couldn't trust his men; any one of them could be an informer, after all. He also couldn't trust them to take the long view and understand the sacrifices necessary for long-term security.


Once again, he was trapped in a situation that he hated, doing things that he hated, and turning those whom he should be protecting into his enemies.


I don't beat them because I want to, I beat them because I have to, Corporal Kururugi thought, internally glum as he tried to rationalize his behavior to himself. I just wish I could trust them to understand. It would make everything so much easier if I didn't have to drive them forwards.


But every army, he supposed, needed foot soldiers as well as leaders. His soldiers didn't really need to understand, at least not yet, as long as they obeyed for now. Corporal Kururugi was thinking in the long term, and that was all that was really necessary. He could recruit fellow travelers as he found them, men who understood as he did that if their people were ever to have anything close to safety and security, they couldn't afford to be rash or in any way lenient.


It was fine if his subordinates thought of themselves as a tiny gang, he told himself, with himself as their feared leader. He didn't care what they thought, and it was a useful fiction for now. Corporal Kururugi had big plans, and his men would help him achieve his goals one way or another.


In Toyama, Kururugi had realized that he couldn't afford to sit on his thumbs and wait patiently for the Britannians to accept him into their good graces. Corporal Kururugi could in time become Sergeant Kururugi, and perhaps eventually Sergeant Major Kururugi, but he would never rise beyond that point. Regulations or not, time in grade didn't matter so long as the men doling out the promotions refused to recognize his service and contributions.


It was just another of the many ways in which Britannia fell short of the dream it had sold to a young Kururugi Suzaku. The Plan would set it right.


The Plan was not a necessarily fixed set of steps; it was more of a set of generalized goals and realizations, which had coalesced and evolved over time. First, the Christmas Bonfires had burned away his illusions about the current leadership; the soil of Toyama had fertilized his imagination of what sort of home Britannia could provide for his people. Independence was a fool's dream, but so was the hope that his people would be safe under the current leadership.


The Honorary Britannians were the key. Hated by both the unassimilated Elevens and the Britannian lower class, they were nonetheless the only bridge between the Britannian state and Elevens, and so they would have to be the vanguard.


The Britannians, Kururugi could see, had lost their way. For all their talk of Social Darwinism and the success of the best at the expense of the rest, social mobility was stymied by class and by blood. The Britannian philosophy, as far as Kururugi saw it, made sense, but its implementation was flawed, leading to weak leaders such as Major Humphry and Prince Clovis, weak leaders who couldn't protect his people.


Which meant that his people needed to protect themselves inside Britannia. They started from a handicap, as did all Number populations, but unlike all the other subjected populations, Suzaku knew that his people still had a deep reserve of strength, and Kururugi concurred; how else would his people still be able to fight six years after the Conquest? But strength of character wasn't enough, not on its own. Left to their own devices, his people would destroy themselves.


In Toyama, Kururugi had finally managed to square the circle. His people would be safe, and the strongest and smartest would rise through strict meritocracy, rigorously following the tenets of Social Darwinism made manifest. They would overcome the barriers imposed by race and by class by becoming more Britannian than the Britannians. Kururugi would be the Emperor's most loyal servant, and an Area Eleven would become a land of security, if not of freedom, instead of a wasteland of systemic abuse and rebellion.


But to achieve that new dream, Corporal Kururugi would have to play the game by its current rules. In truth, he had already begun to play. He had earned his second chevron by giving his Britannian officer what he wanted, exchanging personal favors for promotion. He had, in effect, found his way into the game of patronage, if on a very low level.


Unfortunately, Lieutenant Rockwell and his guilty conscience couldn't elevate him any further. Indeed, the Lieutenant had seemed increasingly wary of Corporal Kururugi over the last month and had ceased confiding in him at all in Toyama. This meant that Kururugi would need to find a new patron, someone with greater reach and vision.


But how? The question had bedeviled Kururugi for the last few days.


His thoughts on the matter often turned to Lelouch. Sometimes, Kururugi wished for his childhood friend's silver tongue. For all of his devotion to the rule of law, Kururugi had ultimately been forced to resort to his fists to earn the obedience of his men and his attempts to insinuate himself into Rockwell's life had only worked as well as they had because of the Lieutenant's disgust with the Christmas Incident. Lelouch, he was sure, would have had them all pledging undying allegiance with a single conversation.


But I don't have Lelouch's guile, nor his charm, Kururugi thought, relentlessly smashing past his own thoughts of what could have been. So I'm going to have to do things my own way. And if I can't find a patron for now, I'll handle the other matter. I can't let myself stagnate.


He'd scoured his mind for memories of Britannia, trying to remember what he'd seen in the Britannian commoners who had risen through the ranks unsupported by noble connections or wealthy families. He recalled anecdotes his own father had shared with him, as well as the things he'd said to Tohdoh and the others when he was in his cups. How to exhibit leadership potential, how to project authority and strength irrespective of the truth.


A true leader takes the initiative, Kururugi thought. He doesn't just wait for an opportunity to knock, he seizes his own fortune with both hands.


I need to make my own luck. He thought back to the murmurs he'd heard of Honoraries taking handouts, of his own people heaping shame upon the rest of them just to fill their own bellies. He remembered the sneers on the faces of the Britannians as they joked about how "a beggar once is a beggar always," and how they'd pointedly looked at him. And I know just how to do it.


It would hurt, and they would hate him for it, but it needed to be done. Not only for the Plan, but for their own good. Sometimes doing the right thing was hard. That didn't make it any less right.


After all, it's like my father always said. "Spare the rod, spoil the child."


"Alright, listen up," Kururugi said, voice cold and steady as he slowed, allowing his men to group up as they continued down the road. "It's time to get to work. We are soldiers of Britannia and the enforcers of her will. We are Honorary Britannians, not filthy Numbers. Unfortunately, not everybody remembers the oath they swore. We're going to help remind them of their pride, and their duty, as sworn citizens of Britannia."


"Sure thing, Corp," one of his men, John, or as he was once known, Senku, replied. "We're always down to provide some legal education."


The other three men snickered, and Kururugi feigned a smile. He knew exactly what they meant – they'd cornered a particularly weedy private from 3rd Company a few nights back when he'd foolishly chosen to use 2nd Company's showers. They'd provided enough education on the proper assignment of facilities per His Imperial Majesty's Military Code that the man had trouble walking the next day.


Without warning, Corporal Kururugi turned on his heel and buried his fist into John's stomach, sending the man doubling over, gasping for breath. "It's Corporal, John," Kururugi reprimanded, "not Corp. You must always address a superior with the rank and respect they are due."


Camaraderie is already impossible, Kururugi thought, and I do not need sycophants. These men are tools until proven otherwise, and I will not hesitate to remind them of their purpose.


"Y-you got it, Corporal," John wheezed, walking on as best as he could as he fought to catch his breath. Kururugi slowed just a bit – he didn't want to have to repeat himself for John once the man caught back up.


"Anyway," Kururugi continued, forcing himself to play the part his Plan demanded, "it's come to my attention that many of our people have started taking food handouts, lowering themselves back into the same category as the Numbers who rely on Prince Clovis's generosity to remain alive. This is unacceptable. As Honorary Britannians, we can never let the Britannians think of us as Numbers. The moment they do, we lose everything we've fought for."


"So… What are we going to do?" One of the other men asked, flinching slightly as Kururugi smiled back at him.


"Provide legal education," Kururugi quipped with a tight smile. "After all, I don't think that a charity handing out food is likely to bother with all of that paperwork, do you? I bet they haven't filed an assembly permit or bought a distribution license! Even if they did, whoever's driving the truck probably won't have them on hand to show a group of concerned citizens, now will they?"


"Probably not," John agreed, still rubbing at his abdomen, "But… Not to disagree with your plan, Corporal, but there are only five of us, and none of us have guns. We could definitely take any five random hungry civilians, or even any ten, but are we really going to take on a whole mob by ourselves?"


"Yes," Corporal Kururugi immediately replied. "Yes, we are. They are undisciplined and weak, otherwise they wouldn't be taking charity and risking their status. But we'll be stopping to pick up some… Oh, let's just call them some educational implements first. Legal ones, of course."


The purchase was legal. Corporal Kururugi had even insisted on a receipt at the sporting goods store. The pimply clerk behind the counter had been a bit nervous about the five Honorary Britannians buying baseball bats and fixed-blade camping knives, but he had been reassured by Kururugi's military ID and the implication that the small group was on a quietly deniable mission. He'd even wished Kururugi a nice night as he'd handed over the receipt.


It hadn't taken long to find the offensive soup kitchen once they'd left the sporting goods store, bats in hand. Some helpful soul had stapled flyers to utility poles throughout the Honorary Britannian neighborhoods surrounding the walled Shinjuku Ghetto. To Kururugi's surprise, at least one of the arcologies housing the poorer Britannians in the Settlement had likewise been carpeted by the flyers; at least one hung on every street, all with the same address and time.


When his little band arrived at the small pocket park, Kururugi was surprised and disappointed to see that the small greenspace was absolutely thronged with people, some still in line but most sitting on the grass or a curb, eating a spicy-scented soup from cheap ceramic bowls. To his mild consternation, at least a few Britannians were sitting in the dirt with his fellow Honoraries. True, these Britannians looked even more ragged than some of the Honoraries, but it was still astonishing.


"Times really must be getting hard," Kururugi heard John muttering to one of the other soldiers as they pushed their way through the densely crowded park. A few people turned to protest the sudden shoves, but most cringed back when they saw the five out-of-uniform soldiers. A few glared, but glaring impotently at their betters was all they could do.


Just like with the Britannians, over these six long years, Kururugi thought. I know what that's like, swallowing your pride to survive. I will have to teach them to stand up and fight for their rights. If you don't fight, nobody will ever respect you; if the Honoraries don't fight, my project is doomed to failure.


I know they can fight, Suzaku thought, loud inside his mind. My people are still strong. We're still strong! The problem isn't that they can't fight, it's that they don't have the weapons, the leadership, or the organization!


All of which I can provide, given time, Kururugi thought, shoving his way past a family. It just takes discipline, patience, resilience, and a refusal to give in and give up. These people should know better! They made the sacrifice to become Honorary Britannians, and now they're just licking up free food? It's just another drug, another weakness. I've beaten the weakness out of my fire team, and I'll beat it out of the rest of the Honorary Britannians if I must!


I wonder if Father would be proud of us? Suzaku thought, his tone mournful and bitter. We're turning out just like him, aren't we?


Kururugi Genbuu was a fool, just like how these people are fools, replied Kururugi, forcing Suzaku out of the way. I will not make his mistakes. I am Kururugi Suzaku, not Kururugi Genbuu, and I will save my people even if they curse me for the next thousand years!


With that thought still ringing in his mind, Corporal Kururugi finally broke through the packed crowd in front of the serving line itself, flanked by his fire team. He found himself in an open space centered on a line of portable tables creaking under the weight of portable stoves and heavy tureens and pots full of piping hot soup, a truck parked off to one side.


Kururugi looked over the line of servers behind the pots with cold eyes as they took notice of his arrival; judging by their tattered clothes, they were Elevens, all of them. His people, but those who hadn't seen the wisdom of embracing Britannian strength. Surprisingly, none of the servers looked down or away, and each met his gaze without flinching.


Idiots, the lot of them, Kururugi thought, internally shaking his head in dismay. It's this same stupid pride that led to all the violence in Niigata. If they just… just knew their place and were patient, none of this would happen! I wouldn't have needed to go to Toyama, and I wouldn't need to be here tonight. They keep forcing me to do horrible things, and I hate it!


"Who are you," a strident female voice demanded in heavily accented Britannian from somewhere to Kururugi's right, "and why are you trying to skip the line?"


Thankful for the distraction from his turbulent thoughts, Kururugi turned and sized up the talkative Eleven. She was tall for a woman, almost his height, and her face and clothes were clean and well-maintained. Indeed, if it wasn't for the hachimaki holding her long, indigo hair out of her face, he would have mistaken her for an Honorary Britannian.


"Corporal Kururugi, of His Majesty's 32nd Honorary Legion, 1st Brigade, 1st Regiment, 2nd Company," he said, identifying himself in the same language as his men spread out behind him. "And who are you?"


"Naomi," came the curt reply, "of the Rising Sun Benevolent Association. You're free to join us for supper Corporal…" Naomi's voice faltered for a moment, and Kururugi grimaced. She'd clearly just recognized his name. "...But you need to get in line with the rest."


"Ah, so you're the one in charge here?" She clearly was, as the only one speaking up, but Kururugi was only really asking as a formality anyway. "I'm surprised to see an Eleven outside of the Ghetto, handing out food to Honorary Britannians. Surely looking after your own people should be your priority?"


"My own people?" Naomi raised an eyebrow. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Corporal. All who want help are welcome under the rays of the Rising Sun, and unfortunately, many of your people are still recovering from the Incident at the beginning of the year."


"You know exactly what I mean," Kururugi ground out, already tired of this game. This damned stubborn pride, just like in Toyama. Just like Father. "Your people are the ones who rely on Prince Clovis's generosity for your food. If you somehow scraped together enough to buy extra, you should enjoy it in the Ghetto, where you belong. We who have taken the oath don't need your handouts; we're not stuck in the past, choking on our pride like you."


"Choking on our pride?" the woman replied incredulously, "We're the ones choking on our pride? Corporal, you get fed by the Army – do you have any idea how much the price of food has gone up over the last year? Do you think that all of these people are queuing up for soup for fun?"


"Life is hard. Life has always been hard." Kururugi began to stalk across the tarmac toward the Eleven. "And if good Honoraries continue to take the easy way out that you're providing them, it will never be anything but hard. The only way the lot of Honorary Britannians will improve is by demonstrating our strength; squatting in parks with free soup is what your kind do, and as long as we accept handouts from you, the Britannians will never see us as equals."


"See you as equals?" The woman had the gall to laugh. "They will never see you as their equal, Corporal. You could be a general and they'll still only see your Eleven face and your Eleven name. You will never be anything but a dog to them, and the moment you bark too loud, they'll put you down."


"Enough," Kururugi growled, bat in hand. I wish I still had my pistol. Sports equipment just isn't threatening enough to scare people into listening to me. If the officers trusted us more, we'd be able to do a far better job carrying out these missions, and things would be better for everybody, Britannian, Honorary, and Eleven alike.


"As a citizen of Area Eleven and a soldier in His Majesty's Armed Forces, I demand to see your food distribution permit, your assembly permit, proof of rental for the park, your access permit to the Settlement, and all other relevant paperwork." As he continued down his list, Kururugi began walking towards the Eleven leader.


"Did you think you had the right to be here, Number?" He felt angry eyes on his back and a snarl twisting its way across his face. Do they think I want to be here? Do they think I want to do this? "You should've stayed home in Shinjuku! Just take the damned oath if you want to get out of the gutter and back on your feet!"


Around him, the crowd muttered with discontent, but nobody, not the Eleven servers nor the mass of onlooking Honorary Britannians, stepped forward to intervene. Naomi hadn't budged, and stood, back straight and hands by her sides, staring directly at him. She showed no signs of movement.


"Well," Kururugi prompted, stopping a few feet away from the bitch with the familiar red circle sun on her brow, the same one that had once graced the flag that had hung behind his father's chair, back in his sumptuous office. The same flag Father had stood in front of when he'd issued that order to resist to the last, as well as that other order. "Where are your papers, Number?"


"You're looking for our papers?" A new voice broke in on the encounter from somewhere off to Corporal Kururugi's left. Carefully, not taking his eyes off Naomi, he took a half step back and to the side, trying to turn his head just far enough to see where the voice was coming from without taking his eyes off the troublemaker. "I have them here. I think you'll find everything is in order, Sergeant."


"It's Corporal," Kururugi replied in a growl, eyes scanning for where the voice was coming from. "If you've got something to show me, come here and give it to me."


From his side, John let out a muffled gasp, followed immediately by an equally quiet "Oh, fuck." With a curse of his own between his teeth, Kururugi took another step away from the potential troublemaker, putting distance between them in case she tried to rush him when his back was turned, and followed John's gaze out into the crowd.


Stepping out from behind the parked truck was a Britannian woman, a girl about Kururugi's own age. That would have been bad enough – a Number-loving Britannian would have required careful handling, after all – but as soon as Kururugi laid eyes upon her, it was hard to resist following in John's steps and cursing their luck.


The Britannian was obviously a noble. Kururugi could practically smell the stink of aristocracy rolling off of her from across the park's parking lot turned handout station. While she was wearing an unremarkable outfit of slacks, a man's button-up shirt, and a vest, even Kururugi could tell the garments were high quality and likely obscenely expensive. Even more tellingly, Kururugi couldn't remember the last time he'd seen someone move with such implicit arrogance.


He hadn't seen anybody act like that since Lelouch first arrived in Japan, eight long years ago.


Worst yet, the woman… No, the lady was absolutely, stunningly beautiful. Kururugi couldn't believe how quickly his luck had curdled. A Number-loving stunner of a noble was perhaps the greatest complicating factor for this entirely unsanctioned and self-assigned mission, second only to Lelouch suddenly putting in an appearance. He had no possible leverage over the lady, nor could he possibly intimidate her. Even attempting to do so would be extremely dangerous.


"Ma'am," Kururugi said in his most respectful tones, slowly lowering the baseball bat as she approached, "begging your pardon. Are you the one responsible for this… Charitable operation?"


"No," the lady replied, "that would be Rivalz. Rivalz Cardemonde, of the Gold Coast Cardemondes?" She gestured, and Kururugi suddenly realized that there were, in fact, two nobles in attendance, the male… the young lord dressed in a very high-class school uniform. "He is, in fact, the chairman of the board for the Benevolent Association. It operates under his charter."


"I see…" Kururugi slowly replied, trying to establish his options. Suddenly, they were all various shades of distasteful and counter-productive.


Dammit! If I don't play my cards right, I could endanger the whole Plan! I shouldn't have been so cocky, but how could I have predicted this? Britannian nobles setting up some kind of charity to help honoraries? Impossible!


Kururugi forced himself to take a breath and focus. That's all irrelevant. Right now, I need to find a way out. Fortunately, all of my actions up until now have been within the law.


"Well," Kururugi turned to the noble in the uniform, "in that case, my lord, would you mind if I checked the permitting for this distribution? I'm sure you filed all the correct documents, sir, but it would help set my mind at ease if I knew that everything here was in accordance with the law."


"Well," the lord, Rivalz, glanced over at his companion for a moment, "I guess-"


"It's the most curious thing, Corporal," the young lady interjected, seemingly ignoring Cardemonde entirely. Her gawky companion's half-open mouth snapped shut as he turned to her in surprised deference.


Behind his shades, Kururugi's eyes narrowed. And she says he's in charge?


"I notice you're not in uniform. And you said you're a soldier in His Majesty's Armed Forces? The 32nd Legion, I believe?" the lady continued, the predatory gleam in her eye growing brighter with every word. "Now, I'm just a student at Ashford Academy, so correct me if I'm wrong, but unless the Viceregal-Governor has declared martial law again, you don't have any law enforcement duties over civilians, now do you?."


"That's…" Kururugi gritted his teeth. "That's true… But, begging your pardon, my lady, my men and I have just returned from counter-insurgency operations in Toyama. Seeing Numbers set up in a Settlement is making me a bit jumpy; after all, who knows if they're rebels or sympathizers? I'm sure nobody employed by you would be, but I'd just like to make sure."


"Oh?" the lady arched an imperious brow. "And is there any reason I should indulge this…whim of yours?"


Kururugi bit his cheek so hard he could taste blood. "...No… my lady. There is not."


For a moment, they stood there in tableau, the lady looming over him for all that she was half a head shorter and Kururugi trying to ignore the sweat trickling down his back. He was a soldier, hardened by combat, and a proud Honorary Britannian who'd carried out the Empire's will with dedication and energy, but that had all been for the Plan. A Plan that was rapidly unraveling at the first hurdle. He could feel the situation sliding away from him, away from control.


It was all for the Plan! Kururugi thought, mind frantic. I can't have it all mean nothing! Not now!


But there was nothing he could do. Not with the lady standing before him, radiating purebred noble power and a supremely arrogant confidence as her stunning sapphire eyes roamed him up and down. He felt like an irritant, an insect, helpless before that cool gaze.


Finally, the spell broke as the lady rolled her beautiful cerulean eyes. "...I suppose I've wasted enough time with this foolishness." She said, stepping forward and pulling a folder from the satchel hanging at her side. "Here you go, Corporal. I can save you a look if you'd like. Naomi over here filed all the paperwork herself, and she's an expert at it."


To Kururugi's astonished rage, the redheaded noble casually slung a friendly arm over the Number's shoulders.


Why am I so angry about this? Suzaku thought, his internal voice cool and considering while surrounded by a maelstrom of emotion. I should be happy that some Britannian other than Lelouch actually sees us as people. They… They look like they're friends.


Why am I so angry about this? Kururugi wondered. It's what I want. Recognition of our skills and our worth, to work hand in hand with the Britannians for the betterment of both our peoples.


What am I even doing here?


Desperate for distraction from his treacherous thoughts, Kururugi accepted the folder and flipped it open. Just as promised, a thick sheaf of very official paperwork greeted his eyes. Gloomily, Kururugi pawed through the first several layers. He didn't really know what he was looking for; he hadn't anticipated the damned Numbers to actually have a signed and stamped assembly permit on hand. After a brief show of paging through the folder, he returned it to the lady.


"Everything seems to be in order, my lady," Kururugi replied through a grimacing smile. "Thank you very much for your help setting my mind at ease. I greatly appreciate it."


"Oh, don't thank me," the lady demurred. "Thank Naomi instead; after all, she's the one who handled the paperwork." A beat passed, and the lady's eyes narrowed just a touch. "Do it, Corporal. Thank her for helping you protect us."


I could kill her, Kururugi mused. In less than a second, I could drive my bat into her sternum, right between her breasts. She'd bend forwards, and I'd drive the butt down into her head. The knife at my belt would slash the Eleven's throat open. It would be easy.


…But…


He could see the look in her eye, even as she smiled. The way her body tensed just so, the way her lips twitched up as she met his furious gaze… It all seemed to taunt him. He could almost hear her arrogant voice in his ear, saying "Just give me a reason."


…That's exactly what she wants, isn't it?


Besides, It was, he knew, a fantasy, a way of coping with the apex predator whose shadow had just passed over him. Perhaps if the world was different, if life was different… But it was not different. In this world, Kururugi had no recourse, no way to fight back against a Britannian noble without effectively cutting his own throat. At least, not yet…


Someday, Kururugi promised himself, someday. Discipline, patience, and sacrifice. All for the Plan.


He carefully did not think about the thrill of fear deep inside at the prospect of defying the Britannians. Of what happened to those who defied the Britannians. He certainly didn't think about the way his heart leapt at the thought of that fate.


Of finally being punished, broken on the wheel. Justice at last, not for this act of defiance, but another…


"Thank you, Miss Naomi," the words were like sand mixed with ashes in his mouth, gritty and abrasive and choking, "I commend your bureaucratic skills. Crossing every T and dotting every I. You are a credit to your mistress."


"You're most welcome, Corporal Kururugi," the Eleven purred. Kururugi's eyes widened – she'd said that in Japanese! A language that Honorary Britannians were forbidden by law to use! She'd spoken in Japanese in front of a noble! "It's so good to see that Japan's sons continue to watch over her people."


Teeth clenched, Kururugi turned on his heel and strode away, back the way he had come. After a moment, four sets of footsteps fell in dutifully behind him. To Kururugi's finely tuned senses, that moment rang loudly in the quiet air of the park. His team's confidence in his strength had been shaken by this miniature fiasco. They'd seen him weak and helpless, caught in a cerulean ocean and barely able to swim. There would be consequences if he didn't move quickly.


"Back to the barracks," he commanded after they'd put a block between themselves and the park, "and when we get there, get changed into your training gear. Liberty or not, we have plenty to do before we get sent back out into the field. Clear?"


Kururugi paused. When nobody responded immediately, he turned and snarled at his four fellow Honoraries. "Did I fucking stutter? Are we clear?"


That got a round of "Yes, Corporal!" from all present, but Kururugi wasn't fooled. Obedience rooted in fear only lasted as long as strength persisted; it was clear that his fire team needed a reminder of just how much strength Tohdoh Kyoshiro's prize student could still bring to bear.


---------


As the small knot of out-of-uniform Britannian soldiers wandered away, Kallen slowly let out a tense breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Yoshi pick up a ladle with his left hand, which moments before had been creeping behind his back to the pistol she knew was hidden underneath his dirty white shirt. Next to her, Inoue sagged slightly, wavering slightly on her feet as the last of the bat-toting thugs left the park.


"Has… Has that happened before?" Rivalz piped up, speaking quickly and nervously from behind her.


Kallen straightened back up and stepped away from Inoue, patting the other woman on the shoulder as she turned to Rivalz. She was proud to see that, although her classmate was obviously nervous, his hands were steady, not shaking in the slightest.


He's come a long way since Christmas, Kallen thought, remembering a much younger Rivalz, vomit streaked down the front of his uniform and his hands full of glass. He's grown.


"I mean," Rivalz continued, eyes still wary as he darted a look back at the entrance to the park, "I think this is the fifth or sixth time I've come out to help, but… Is this new, or have I just been lucky?"


"This is new," the Stadtfeld heiress reassured her friend, and when had that happened? "Sometimes someone from the Knight Police loiters nearby, and sometimes we get the odd drunk yelling at us from the street, but I think this is the first time we've been hassled by a gang." She forced a laugh. '"Not really much to steal here, is there? Just soup."


"Eh?" Rivalz turned away from the entrance to shoot her an incredulous glance. "You think they were actually a gang? The tall one claimed to be a soldier, right? Corporal Kururu or whatever?" You think that was just a lie or something?"


"I didn't see any uniforms or ID," Kallen shrugged, "so yeah, I'd say a gang. Doesn't really matter if they have day jobs when they're wandering around looking for trouble. I don't think that the Army's quite at the point of issuing baseball bats to its men."


"You've got a point," Rivalz said with a brief chuckle before rapidly sobering back up. "Do you think that they were, uhh…" He looked side to side at the milling crowd that had once again begun to line up for free soup before leaning in and whispering "do you think they were some of the guys who were smashing stuff up and, umm… hurting people around Christmas?"


"No," Kallen replied, shaking her head. "No, if anything, I think that they might've come from the same unit as the soldier we… found. The 32nd Honorary Legion. I think those were probably some of his comrades."


"Oh." Rivalz looked mildly ill at the reminder, his lips pressed together and practically white from the pressure. "Then… I'm not getting something. Why were they here messing with us when we're trying to help people? Why was that Kururu guy so deferential to a pair of Brits like us, if we… You know…"


"I don't know," Kallen said, half truthfully. "I'm sure it makes some kind of sense to them. Look," she said, casting about for something else to talk about, "can you run this folder back to the truck? And let Nagata know that it's probably time to start packing up."


Rivalz nodded and turned to head off.


"Oh, and Rivalz?" The student paused and turned back to Kallen. "Thanks for the backup there. You really helped keep things from getting nasty. You did good."


"Anytime, Kallen!" Rivalz flashed his increasingly rare puppy-dog smile at her. She smiled back, her expression just a bit brittle. "It feels good to be able to help out the Cause, just a bit!"


As her fellow student jogged away, Kallen let herself feel guilty about her newest deceptions for a moment, before shoving the useless emotion away. Rivalz was a friend, but he was an agent as well, even if he didn't know it. And agents were tools, to be used and sacrificed to achieve objectives. Rivalz had played his role as a living smokescreen to perfection, defusing a potentially sticky situation without blood or fuss in the process.


Truthfully, "a sticky situation" didn't even begin to cover how complicated things could have been, had matters come to blows. For one thing, while Rivalz hadn't understood the importance of the Kururugi name, Kallen had recognized the name of the Republic's last prime minister. She couldn't even begin to fathom how the son of one of Japan's leading families, one that descended from a cadet branch of the Imperial House, no less, had ended up in uniform.


Exchanging a significant look with Inoue, a silent promise that we'll talk about this later, Kallen set to work with a will, slinging soup, scrubbing endless bowls, and hauling heavy sacks of garbage for the next half hour as the stream of hungry mouths gradually slowed to a stop.


A productive night, Kallen thought with satisfaction. I bet we managed to feed at least eight hundred people, maybe even nine! Pity it'll be the last one for a while…


That particular decision had come down from the leadership earlier that day. Her brother had announced their decision that morning, that, in order to guarantee food supplies inside Shinjuku, the food relief program for the Honorary Britannians would effectively be brought to an end. Tonight's distribution had already been scheduled and had supplies set aside for it, so was allowed to proceed, but it would be the last for the foreseeable future.


Kallen didn't know how she'd break the news to Rivalz. He really enjoyed participating, and while he didn't spend much time scrubbing pots and pans, everybody who came seemed to relish the chance to talk to a real Britannian noble, especially one who truly was friendly to the core.


Interestingly, from what Kallen had picked up from Tanya's call earlier that day passing on Naoto's decision, the end to the Honorary distributions hadn't been part of the leadership's plan. If Tanya was to be believed, for the first time in its short history the Council of Local Notables, as the political body Naoto had cobbled together had named themselves, had prevailed upon the leadership.


The collection of local headmen and power brokers had claimed to be the representatives of the people of Shinjuku, and as a sort of miniature Diet, had all but demanded the end to food donations for those outside the walls. The leadership had opted to concede the point.


"It will give us a chance to stockpile foodstuffs," Tanya had said over the phone, clearly trying to rationalize the loss into some kind of victory, "and it will display our commitment to the needs of the people. We can't rule by force and terror alone, Kallen. We'd just become another gang, and gangs are inherently unstable. Only through the consent of the governed and popular support can we hope to maintain control over Shinjuku."


Kallen had made all the appropriate noises, playing her role as confidant to the hilt. Privately, she had her doubts. While Tanya sounded like she knew what she was talking about, Kallen thought she was overemphasizing the say this "Council" should have. After all, Rising Sun had all the guns, food, and money. What did they need from the Council?


Then again, maybe that's just the Britannian in me, Kallen thought with a shiver of disgust. It had been far, far too easy to get into her character as a Britannian heiress, a role she only played infrequently, even at Ashford. The last time she'd played it was… probably when she'd stood with Rivalz under a hanged man. It's weird how just playing that role kinda has a hangover… It's easy to think like a Britannian. It's hard to think in Japanese.


As Kallen made her way back from the dumpsters, another load of trash deposited in the hulking steel beast, her thoughts lingered on the Honorary Britannian soldiers who had come by earlier. She had told Rivalz that she didn't understand why they had come, or what they'd hoped to gain, but that had been half a lie. Every time after sinking too deeply into Lady Kallen Stadtfeld, she felt an almost overwhelming need to prove that she truly was Kozuki Kallen.


She imagined that Corporal Kururugi Suzaku, saddled with a cursed name, would be willing to do a great deal if it meant becoming someone else. After all, she'd been willing to follow her Big Brother into danger over and over before Tanya had interceded – what would she have done if she was trying to gain acceptance from someone who actively hated her?


A quiet cough startled Kallen out of her uncomfortable self-reflection. "Oh, excuse me," she blurted out instinctively. Too late she realized she'd spoken in Japanese, and that the young man she'd almost run into was Britannian.


"Don't worry about it," the young man replied in the same language, although spoken with a slight Homeland accent, "you just looked a bit lost in your thoughts, and I wanted to know if you were alright."


"Ah, well, I'm fine," Kallen smiled uneasily at the Britannian. He looked vaguely familiar… It was something about the jawline, but the blond hair and green eyes didn't quite ring any bells. "Thanks for asking, though."


"It's my pleasure," the blond smiled, a simple heartwarming expression that somehow radiated a sincere joy in her company. "That was quite the alarming situation earlier, wasn't it? I swear, the whole Area's going to the dogs, when random gangs can just terrorize anybody they want."


"Interesting times, huh?" Kallen smiled back at the man. He was, she guessed, about her age. Maybe a year older. Judging by his clothes, he was definitely at least middle class, and maybe on the lower end of the rich. Perhaps he came from a wealthy commoner family, or maybe from a cadet house a bit down on their luck.


"You can say that again," the man chortled to himself. "Interesting times indeed. An event that nobody is allowed to talk about, a housing crisis, an uprising in the mountains, and now a food crunch, all in less than five months. And now, our esteemed Viceregal-Governor is just dumping a ton of free money out in an attempt to convince us that everything is fine and well in hand." The smile turned roguish. "Makes you wonder what'll happen in a month's time, eh, Lady Stadtfeld?"


"You're… Quite well informed," Kallen replied, suddenly feeling very much on the back foot. How does he know my name? I've never met him before. Maybe Rivalz brought another student along? He did bring that friend of his back in March… "And yeah, I'm umm… Not too certain about how well the 'give everyone five hundred pounds' plan is going to work out."


As the man nodded thoughtfully, Kallen frantically groped for more details from the news article she'd skimmed a few days back before throwing the copy of the Messenger into the trash where it belonged. "I'm looking forward to the new holiday on the 4th, though! 'Vi Britannia Day', huh?"


"Ah yes," for some reason, the man's smile tightened across his face, almost to the point where Kallen would call it a rictus. "It's… a wonderful idea. I'm not really sure how well it will catch on. Not like many people know about a dead pair of royals, nor care. Neither exactly stood to inherit anything."


"I'll be honest, I'd forgotten they even existed," Kallen agreed with a nod, "but if they get me a day off from school, well… I'll happily pour one out for little Lelouch and, umm… I don't remember the Princess's name."


"Nunnally…" The man said, helping her out. "Her name… her name was Nunnally."


"Ah, that's right, Nunnally vi Britannia!" Kallen said cheerfully, keeping her curiosity carefully concealed. Something about the way the man had said that name was odd; the first time he'd said the long-dead girl's name, it had practically throbbed with emotion. The repetition had still carried a strange inflection. "Well, I'll pour out some juice to her memory as well."


"What do you think of the Viceregal-Governor, Lady Stadtfeld?" The question was as abrupt as it was overt, but somehow all Kallen could read from the man's tone was genuine curiosity, as if they were sitting in some salon, discussing political minutia over fresh coffee. "Do you have much of an opinion about the man?"


The question itself was alarming, but somehow the utter artlessness of the delivery made the young man seem earnest instead of pushy. Kallen hesitantly put him into the mental box of "budding student radicals and freethinkers." Generally harmless, but probably useless.


There were some students at Ashford who prided themselves on being "freethinkers", and who made a big display of "asking questions" about the official line. Their "questions" particularly focused on the propaganda masquerading as history class. While it was interesting to listen to them interrupt class to point out the poorly concealed contradictions in the textbook, Kallen had no time for them.


For all that the limited number of milquetoast student radicals were "only asking questions", doing so out in the open could draw official attention to themselves, and to her via proximity. Attention she desperately wanted to avoid. Even more importantly, she sincerely doubted their teenage rebelliousness would ever push them over the brink from "asking questions" into actual activity against the imperial apparatus, making them weak allies at best and more likely active hindrances to her own activities.


Still… This one actually showed up. We're not exactly at Ashford right now, are we?


"Prince Clovis?" Kallen asked aloud with a friendly smile, "Well… he's quite the artist. I mean, I'm not really one for the arts and stuff, but I saw a piece of his on a class trip to the Museum of Art, and it looked pretty decent. How about you, Mister…?"


"Spicer," the man stuck out his hand, and Kallen gave it a brisk shake. "Alan Spicer. I've seen you at lunch a few times. You usually eat in the main courtyard, right?"


"Oh, that explains it!" Kallen exclaimed a tad theatrically as she let out an internal sigh of relief. "I thought I knew you from somewhere, but I couldn't quite put a name to your face. Yes, I do like the courtyard; the garden is lovely, and it's nice to get some fresh air between classes. Did Rivalz invite you along?"


"In a manner of speaking," Alan replied, releasing her hand. "He was wandering around telling everybody about what a fun extracurricular he'd found. I was curious and didn't have anything to do tonight, so I decided to give it a try."


"Well, thank you for coming out to help," Kallen said with a smile. "There's always room for more hands, or…" The smile slipped. "Well, I'd normally say that, but unfortunately it looks like this will be the last soup dinner the Benevolent Association will be serving for a while. I guess it's a good thing you didn't wait until next week to come."


"Really? But, why?" Alan's face artfully crumpled into a frown, lines of consternation and worry radiating across his face. The expression reminded Kallen of a barrister from one of the legal dramas her stepmother loved to watch in the Stadtfeld Manor's home theater. It was, she realized, an obviously practiced expression of concern.


"You served so many people tonight alone," Alan continued, tilting his head in a gesture that somehow conveyed a profound lack of understanding coupled with a sincere desire to learn, "and as your friend mentioned earlier, the price of food is only going up. Surely there's more need now than ever before?"


"Well, yeah," Kallen acknowledged, "but that's the problem. The Rising Sun Benevolent Association relies solely on donations from local businesses and philanthropic nobles, and if you hadn't noticed, the first aren't doing well at the moment and the other is in short supply. Since we help take care of the people who were affected by the event that, as you said, we can't mention, we can't exactly go to the Area Administration for help."


"That certainly is quite the pickle," Spicer nodded, "and yet, are you really okay with just leaving people to fend for themselves?"


"No, I'm not, but…" Kallen trailed off, trying to figure out how to convey her feelings without slipping out of the mask of Britannian nobility.


"I'm not happy about it in the slightest," she said, quickly throwing together a plausible lie, "especially not as a noble. Someone close to me once told me that loyalty is a two-way street; all of these people swore themselves to Britannia, shaking off their old lives in the hope of something better. How can we expect them to remain loyal without helping them? But I simply don't have the resources to make an impact by myself."


For a moment, Kallen thought she saw something flicker in the young man's eyes, something that said it understood her.


"I get it," Alan commiserated, "I really do. If you don't mind me saying it, it sounds like everything you're doing should be managed by the Administration. I think you're doing them an enormous favor by picking up their slack." The radiant smile returned. "I really respect what you're trying to do here, Lady Stadtfeld. It's very impressive. It's not exactly common to hear a noble talk about loyalty to those below us."


Dammit, Kallen! You did it again! You opened your mouth and let your brain fall out! Talking to a Britannian about obligations to the Honoraries? Tanya would be appalled. This kind of thing is why Diethard paid attention to you to begin with!


"It's just common sense," Kallen replied hotly, trying to defend herself. "Have you ever felt like working hard and doing your best for someone who just hits you all the time? I sure haven't! The people that really make me give my best are the ones who make me feel valued and important! And the Honoraries aren't stupid, and it's not like they don't remember what happened earlier!"


"Hey, no need to worry," Alan broke in, hands raised in a pacifying gesture, "I told you, I get it. Not going too deep into my own baggage, but the Honoraries are far from the only people to suffer at the hands of abusive and neglectful leaders, men who should care for those who depend upon them."


"Oh…" Kallen suddenly felt foolish. She'd completely misread Alan's smile. It hadn't been mocking in the slightest. She had been so wrapped up in herself she'd missed something personal. She felt embarrassed and foolish and, once again, very Britannian. "Well, good," she continued lamely, "I'm glad we agree."


"You know," Alan said, his tone considering, "I'd actually kind of wondered if you were some sort of employee of Prince Clovis when I came here tonight." He paused and hurriedly continued. "I mean, I had wondered if the Viceroy was trying to get around any sort of official pushback from the Purists by supporting your charity. It would have been a clever way to mitigate Honorary grievances without being seen to oppose a powerful political faction!"


Realizing that her fists were clenched and her teeth gritted with anger, Kallen forced herself to relax. "That would have been a very clever idea on the Prince's part," she agreed with a laugh, "but I'm afraid that's not the case. We'd welcome some official backup, but, as far as I know, nobody in the Rising Sun is drawing an official salary."


And if they are, Kallen thought, I'm sure Naoto will deal with them just as soon as that little fact comes to light.


"That's a real shame," Alan commiserated, shaking his head. "Honestly, I really hope the Prince somehow sees what you and your people are doing. You've helped him out of a hole that, if I'm being honest, he dug for himself. Hopefully someone in the Administration will see the worth of your organization and throw some of the budget from the Clovisland 2 project your way!"


"Hopefully," Kallen agreed, "but I'm not holding my breath. Anyway, I need to get back to help Inoue sort out the rest of the clean-up. Thank you again for coming by and helping us. I guess I'll look forward to seeing you at Ashford?"


"I'll certainly be looking forward to our next meeting, Lady Stadtfeld," Alan smiled, "perhaps we should do lunch sometime? Anyway, until next time."


"Until next time," Kallen said, smiling half in farewell and half in relief that the strange conversation had come to an end. It had been, she decided, a productive exchange, and she'd definitely never spoken to a Britannian in Japanese for half this long before.


To her surprise, instead of a parting wave, Alan bowed to her from the waist, hands folded in front of him in a formal farewell. Instinctively, she bobbed forwards, catching herself halfway down and converting the motion into an abbreviated curtsey. Alan didn't smirk or laugh at her slip-up, instead only tilting his head before turning on his heel and vanishing into the darkened park.


Alan Spicer, huh? Kallen shook her head and resumed her trek back to the waiting Rising Sun truck. Britannian nobles with actual brains inside their heads are pretty rare. He seemed a bit too happy with the Administration, but he was also sympathetic… Maybe he could be another Rivalz? Man, with three people on board, we'd practically have a cell of our own at Ashford!


The thought startled a giggle out of Kallen, who promptly slapped a hand to her mouth and looked around to see if anybody had noticed the slip-up. No way. That'd just be crazy. Who the hell would think of trying to set up a radical cell in the middle of a school for the upper crust? If I floated the idea with Tanya, she'd definitely think I was joking!


---------


Two miles and thirty minutes away from the park, Alan Spicer ceased to exist once again.


At least this time I'm not running from the police, Lelouch thought as he scrubbed the wig adhesive out of his hair. It's far easier to put myself back together with the aid of a mirror and sink. Less trash as well.


The cheap hotel room was comfortingly anonymous. Gray-green walls, beige carpeting, and furniture that had unquestionably been purchased in bulk. Just one anonymous room in a practically endless sea of identical copies. It was absolutely common in a way that Lelouch had only rarely experienced in his life.


In his youth, the ostentatious splendor of the Imperial Palace in the heart of Pendragon had seemed unremarkable; familiarity with the endless masterpieces and architectural wonders had bred contempt. The spartan Kururugi Temple, at first startlingly foreign, had likewise grown mundane over time. Ashford Academy was, for all of Milly and Reuban's pretensions, just a little slice of the land that would never again be Home, and it carried the shadow of all the vainglorious trappings of his childhood.


His life had all been a sea of luxury, a succession of palaces and estates and stately manors. All of his life, that is, except for the single two-month period of the Conquest and its immediate aftermath, before the Ashfords had arrived with the first wave of Britannian settlers. Lelouch had been far too focused on Nunnally's dwindling weight and his own shaking limbs to care about the burnt-out hovels Suzaku found for them back then..


In their own way, the surroundings of those two months had been just as extraordinary as the palace at 5 Saint Darwin Street.


The door clicked behind Lelouch as he left the hotel lobby, his overnight bag slung over his shoulder and his key dropped into the night deposit box. He doubted that Stadtfeld, Kallen, was going to report "Alan Spicer" to any kind of authority. Then again, he hadn't expected he'd have to flee from the imminent arrival of the police last time he'd stuck a toe into these waters. Better an abundance of caution than too little.


Well, the "she's a spy" theory seems dead in the water. I was right the first time; no spy who'd work for Clovis would stoop to serving soup to Honoraries. So, either she's somebody else's spy, or she just happened to try to break into my apartment right before she started hanging out with Rivalz.


It went against Lelouch's Pendragon-honed instincts, but coincidence seemed like the more likely option of the two. While there was certainly plenty of scheming going on in the Tokyo Settlement, he couldn't for the life of him think of any other faction that would be interested in him or Nunnally, except maybe the Purists.


Well, maybe some minor faction would want him to be the master of ceremonies for their private celebration of the new holiday Clovis had ordained in his memory.


And if the thought of one of Clovis's agents feeding Honorary Britannians is unlikely, the thought of a Purist agent doing the same thing is just laughable.


Purists aside, nobody else would have any interest in a prince and a princess supposedly six years dead, especially since the prince had been disowned and the princess was a cripple. The Japanese would probably kill him, but they surely had better things to do and probably wouldn't be able to recruit a noble spy. The Levelers, if they existed, wouldn't care about those the Emperor had already thrown away.


Maybe the Chinese or the Europeans? Both love to play the puppet "government in exile" game, although I think the Chinese would probably kill us just as readily as the Britannians. Royalty or not, they're not going to install a commoner's offspring on a throne. That would produce a bad precedent, at least in their eyes.


No, Lelouch decided firmly, that way lies paranoia. She's a nosy woman, far too intelligent for her own good, and she's probably up to something foolish. She's definitely connected to the Japanese somehow – she speaks the language like a native, and she's publicly associating with outright Elevens, not even just Honorary Britannians.


Either way, that's her problem, not mine. She's not after Nunnally and me.


For a moment, Lelouch felt accomplished. A minor mystery had been solved, a variable quantified. Then, his mood collapsed back down into the gutter. It was his first success in two weeks.


Two weeks wasted, two weeks without a single idea of how to move forwards… Lelouch kicked an empty beer can, sending the aluminum can skittering down the sidewalk. I need an idea, an edge… The Honoraries are a possibility; they seem pretty beaten down. On the other hand, they already knelt before my father once; they might do so again. And Suzaku…


Something inside Lelouch spasmed in pain at the memory of the current state of his best, and perhaps only, friend. His sudden appearance at the Rising Sun soup line had been a nasty surprise. Lelouch had been forced to blend into the crowd, head held low to obscure his features. It was unlikely that Suzaku would have recognized him, but Lelouch declined to take the risk.


Suzaku… I've been wondering if you were dead or alive for six years… Ever since we parted in that burnt-out town. I wish you had been there when Reuban found us… But I never expected you to turn out like this, Suzaku. What happened to you over these last six years?


His old friend had always gravitated towards authority and order. He had always seen things very clearly as right or wrong, with little patience for shades of gray. He had never shrunk from using violence to enforce and support what he saw as right. Lelouch could see all of those traits in the Suzaku who had threatened that Japanese woman with a baseball bat.


What he couldn't see were the less obvious traits of the Suzaku he had known. The honest kindness that had seen Suzaku tenderly doting on Nunnally, joining in Lelouch's endless descriptions of their surroundings so his blinded sister could feel included. The endless cheer that had followed Suzaku unflaggingly when they were younger. The sense of honor, the need to protect the weak and to care for those under his authority, instilled by Instructor Tohdoh. He had seen none of those traits in Corporal Kururugi.


Most of all, Lelouch hadn't seen the unflagging nationalism, the honest pride in his people and their culture, that the Suzaku he had known had carried as a standard.


Suzaku had been the one to teach him the culture and traditions of his people, the one to explain how to wear a kimono and how to open a bottle of ramune. Suzaku had been the one to sneak Lelouch into the ceremonies conducted at the heart of Kururugi Temple, the one who had bragged endlessly about anything Japanese. All of that was missing from the cold-eyed thug who wore his friend's skin and carried his name.


Still, at the very least, he's alive, Lelouch told himself. Nunnally will be overjoyed to hear it.


Unfortunately, Suzaku's reappearance hadn't sparked any inspiration. It had provided an example of how not to lead, but Lelouch hadn't needed any further examples when his father's shadow loomed so large over the entire world.


Perhaps the real lesson in that experience hadn't been Suzaku's actions, but the reaction they had provoked? Lelouch had seen the way the Honorary Britannians in the crowd and the Elevens at the serving line had looked at his old friend, and how they had looked at Stadfeld; he was certain that any attempt by the soldiers to harm her would have led to Suzaku and his men being torn limb from limb.


That's loyalty, the exiled prince thought as he continued down his solitary way. The streets were empty this late on a Monday night. A loyalty purchased by shared experience and mutual commitment. How had Stadtfeld bought it? Were some soup and commiseration truly enough? The King must lead, or else the pawns won't follow, but… how does one find the pawns to lead?


Even Suzaku found some pawns, at least four of them, an analytical corner of his brain pointed out, apparently by suborning the bonds created by an existing organization. Combined with his personal authority and the formal power granted by his rank, that was enough to create a cell willing to follow him into danger despite his lack of leadership skills.


Surely I could do better.


But what organization could I join to follow that pattern? The Army would require far too much documentation, not to mention a full-time commitment, which would effectively end my life at Ashford and separate me from Nunnally. Lelouch shook his head. The Army was a closed door to him for a multitude of reasons. But surely there are alternatives…


Mile upon mile of street and sidewalk disappeared under Lelouch's wandering feet. The hour was late and only getting later and he was no longer entirely sure where in the Tokyo Settlement he was. Somewhere northwest of the Concession, which lurked as a dark mound suspended on its vast supports over the nighttime horizon. He was in a Britannian working-class neighborhood, one much like the neighborhood south of the Ginza MagLev Station, the one where his first attempt at rabble-rousing had fizzled.


I wonder how the old men at the deli and Missus Fisk are doing? Lelouch thought, idling at a street corner. They were already treading water weeks ago, and prices, as always, had gone up since then. "Pedestrian concerns." Damn, what a fool I was to just dismiss all of their worries like that. I was so busy scanning for talking points that I forgot to listen to what they were saying.


A glint of silver reflecting from the grimy bricks of the alley across the street caught Lelouch's attention. For lack of anything better to do, Lelouch crossed the street to see what had caught some errant beam of light. He would have to turn his feet back towards Ashford Academy soon, or at least towards the nearest MagLev station, but something of the spirit of the night had taken hold of him, leaving him in a fey mood.


At first glance, the graffiti emblazoned across the stained bricks looked very similar to similar amateur paint jobs Lelouch had seen pretty much any time he ventured outside of Ashford Academy or the boundaries of the Concession. A broad silver line slashed across the wall was bisected by another similar line, and both were surrounded by a vaguely triangular shape. Something about it twigged Lelouch's attention and he leaned in closer, peering through the dark into the stinking alley.


If you squint at it, the triangle's sides bow out towards the middle before tapering down into the point… Almost like a shield, or a coat of arms. Suddenly interested, Lelouch pulled out his phone and thumbed on the light. In the white glare, he could see that the symbol had a smaller symbol in the upper left quarter of the pseudo-shield, daubed on the wall in black paint. The paint had smeared and dribbled, but he could just barely make out what looked like a P over an X.


P and X? He frowned, trying to puzzle out the hidden meaning. Perhaps the initials of the graffiti artist, or those of his sweetheart? Or, maybe… Maybe not a P and an X, but maybe the older Greek characters they came from… Rho and Chi. Lelouch's eyes widened slightly as a long-ago lesson in state dogma flashed through his mind. No, the other way around! Chi and Rho!


The squint deepened into a frown. The Britannic Church isn't popular, and I don't think I've met any Britannian who I'd call devout in my life. Almost nobody is anymore. In the Age of Darwin, it's passe. So, why would someone in a working-class neighborhood feel the need to paint an ancient and obscure Christain symbol on a wall, in a coat of arms…


As he mulled this fresh puzzle over, Lelouch scanned the rest of the wall with his phone light. Near the base of the wall, half hidden behind a dumpster, he saw a powder blue line pointing further down the alley. Walking around to the other side of the dumpster, he saw a vague looping pattern, followed by another X, or maybe a Chi and an eight.


The looping pattern looks like something in motion, Lelouch thought, bludgeoning his brain as he tried to remember the theology classes he'd been subject to so long ago. At the time, he'd considered them easily the most useless of his entire education, even less applicable than formal rhetoric or table etiquette. Maybe… Maybe a fish? That's important, I think. And an X and an eight would be… Eighteen?


What the hell am I doing, Lelouch suddenly wondered, wandering through alleys in the middle of the night? Nunnally's probably worried sick!


The thought of his sister broke through the peculiar fever that had infected Lelouch's mind. That's right, Nunnally expected me home hours ago. Sayoko probably put her to bed already, but she has trouble getting to sleep if I'm not there to say goodnight… And besides, I'm not going to figure out this mystery tonight; even if I did, what would I do with the solution? This will keep, and if it won't, there's no real loss.


Content with his evening's explorations, Lelouch turned his weary feet towards the MagLev station at long last. As he slumped down onto his seat aboard the train, he couldn't help but smile with anticipation. After days of intellectual starvation, he had finally found something to take his mind off his past failure and current listlessness.


I just hope that the news about Suzaku is enough to defer the scolding Nunnally's probably got simmering…

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 26: A Britannian Flower


(Thank you to Aminta Defender, Sunny, Restestsest, KoreanWriter, Mitch H., Rakkis157, MetalDragon, ScarletFox, and WrandmWaffles for beta-reading and editing this chapter. Thank you in particular to MetalDragon for his substantial input on the simulation sequence. Thank you to Aminta Defender for helping me thin out some of the scenes. I appreciate your help and advise.)


MAY 3, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
2023


"-And according to Miss Fujiko, the Terminal #3 office will be completely empty, as the fumigation process isn't expected to wrap up until next Monday afternoon," Tanya said, pausing to turn to the next page in her notebook. "Which means that we have almost a week-long window to take action. After that, the weekly password will cycle, and infiltrating the Harbormaster's Office will have to be postponed, and of course, a delay in acquiring the information Kyoto requested would be…"


"Be unfortunate, yes, as it would probably reduce the value," Naoto sighed, eyes half closed as he tried to remember where exactly Tokai was concerning Shinjuku. Somewhere to the south… east, I think? "I suppose that's all doable. It's a bit of a trip from Shinjuku, though; way too far to walk, at least without the day pass lapsing. So, that leaves either stealing a car or taking the train, right?"


"That's right," Tanya confirmed, "and of the two, I think the train is the best option. Stealing a car introduces an unnecessary level of risk into the operation, as well as an uncontrolled factor. After all, what if the car's owner happens to notice four or five Numbers driving off in his sedan? Police attention for any reason is undesirable, especially since information known to be compromised loses a good deal of its value. Which would give Kyoto House an excuse to haggle us down."


"Alright, train it is," Naoto nodded along, fully aware that the younger halfbreed had likely already come to that decision and was probably just humoring him by explaining her reasoning. "That's going to require work passes, though. Plus some Britannian currency for the fare, not to mention getting the exterminator getups together."


"Already handled," Tanya's cool voice came on the heels of his own, "I spoke with Inoue before I headed over here. Work passes, train fare, bribe money, and a few extra pounds will be waiting at the station by the Kawadacho checkpoint, along with packs containing the jumpsuits, gas masks, and goggles, not to mention dummy canisters and aerosol dispensers. All we'll need to do is fill out our names on the passes and stroll on through."


Naoto nodded along, again more as a formality than anything else. The so-called "station" was, in truth, just a reinforced basement similar to the old Kozuki Cell headquarters, one of the many Tanya had commanded to be established throughout Shinjuku. The pocket strongholds were each garrisoned by a five-man squad at all times, with fresh units rotating every eight hours or so. Naoto didn't know how effective they'd be if push came to shove, but…


His brow creased; Naoto replayed the last few lines of the planning session back through his mind. Something was bothering him, something Tanya had said…


"Now," the diminutive resistance leader was saying, "I'm going to need every man chosen to have at least a decent grasp of Bri-"


"Wait a second," Naoto interrupted, palms pressed against the table as he halfway rose out of his chair. "Stop. Back up a step. What was the last thing you said?"


"All of the necessary materials will be waiting by the Kawadacho Checkpoint," Tanya replied, head tilted inquisitively, "Inoue told me she'd take care of it. All we'd need to do is write our names down on the work passes."


"Right, that's what I was afraid of." Naoto relaxed back into his seat and gave the girl a smile he didn't feel. That is what Hajime Tanya was, after all; a girl, a child. It was easy to forget that she was only slightly older now than Kallen had been when their father came for them. For all of her maturity, she still thought like a child in some surprising ways.


"Tell me, Tanya," he continued, speaking carefully and calmly, trying to sound as reasonable as possible without being patronizing, "why did you use the term 'we' regarding this strike team?"


A pair of big blue eyes blinked questioningly at him from across the table. "Because I would be leading the unit, of course," Tanya replied matter of factly as if that was a given. "I am probably the most experienced small unit leader we have present in Shinjuku, with Ohgi currently in Gunma. After all, I have led multiple small unit actions in just the last month. I can also speak Britannian without an Eleven accent"


"You are mostly correct," Naoto said, before explaining. "You are absolutely correct about your qualifications, even if I suspect that you're underselling yourself. However, you will not be leading the unit tomorrow. In fact, Tanya, you should consider yourself removed from the list of personnel available for this kind of mission." He paused. "Besides, aren't you a bit short to be an exterminator?"


"I'm… I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying, Naoto." Tanya's tone was as cool and conversational as ever, but Naoto had grown wise to her game over the months. He heard the note of uncertainty under the smooth armor of the persona she had cultivated. Even if he'd missed that clear tell, the way her eyes had widened ever so slightly at his pronouncement would have served as an announcement of her sudden confusion.


So immature in strange ways, Naoto thought fondly. It almost feels like I caught her sneaking cookies or something. Didn't she raid Ohgi's snack stash that one time? I wonder if she ever realized that he'd bought those chocolate cookies specifically for her.


"Tanya," Naoto began again, "I know that you believe that leading the Rising Sun is your duty. Yes," he waved down the incipient interruption he knew was coming, "Yes, I know that you recognize my paramount leadership and so on. Just, please listen, alright?"


After a moment, the blonde slowly nodded, and Naoto continued. "Now, I know you feel like the Rising Sun is your duty. I don't know if I agree with that, but I will say you do a wonderful job at it. The people, in case you didn't know, love you. Personally, I think you have the blessing of the Gods, and that you are the leader we need. But, that doesn't mean you need to lead everything."


"And again," he waved placatingly at the brewing objection he could already hear, "I know that you delegate quite often. I am aware of your attempts to identify and raise more leaders to handle your duties. That's not what I'm talking about. Maybe I'm doing a bad job at explaining myself, but, to be completely blunt Tanya? You've become important. Too important. You are now too important to risk as the leader of a small unit."


He paused long enough to shoot her a dry smirk, "Congratulations, Tanya, you've become a general."


Naoto barely had time to lean back into his chair with his piece said before Tanya was jumping to rebuke it.


"I am not that important!" She immediately replied, words heated and passionate for all that she tried to hold onto her typical mask of chilly dispassion. "I am skilled, yes, and I am intelligent, but I am nothing special. You can give better speeches. Ohgi is a better teacher. Kallen will soon be the better fighter if she isn't already. Inoue is a far better logistician than I'll ever hope to be. I am good, but I'm not irreplaceable.


This…might just be the most genuine emotion I've seen out of her in quite a while. Naoto raised an eyebrow. Did I manage to touch a nerve somehow?


"I spent four months training twenty men and I got two of them killed. My greatest accomplishment was touching off a mass slaughter that has in turn spiraled out into a cycle of all-consuming violence!" With every word Tanya's volume and temper ratcheted higher and higher, dragging Naoto's worry over her mental state along with them. "And while I was busy leading good people to their deaths, you built a civic government and began a massive urban renewal project!"


"And, of course, I didn't stop there! I managed to negotiate not one but three disastrous bargains with Kyoto House," Tanya continued, "The first of which swapped handling dirty work for the Six Houses for an abandoned high school and the second of which involved indebting myself to a sociopath in exchange for basic supplies! The third deal handed the Six Houses a profit conservatively measured in the hundreds of thousands of pounds, if not the millions!"


I wonder how long she's been sitting on all of this, Naoto wondered, frown deepening with every word from her lips. Since Christmas, it sounds like.


"And then I spent weeks of my free time trying to figure out how to put my magic to use, and for all of that I got a half-assed joke I've only been able to use once!" The rant washed over Naoto as Tanya decided to take advantage of his invitation and the privacy to vent and get some things off her chest.


"So no, Naoto," Tanya said, her voice flattening back out, her pent-up emotions seemingly spent, "I am not irreplaceable. My magic is a non-factor, we have people capable of doing anything else I can do, and any public support I have is based on our Organization's material assets, not a particular regard for me personally.


"Were I to die tomorrow, the struggle would continue."


For a moment, both sat in uncomfortable silence. In the wake of her rant, Tanya seemed almost smaller somehow, almost lighter, as if she had been drained and exhausted by unburdening herself of her troubles. Naoto, on the other hand, was frantically scrambling for something to say in response to the matter-of-fact fatalism hanging in the air.


How do I inspire the girl who's inspired me to reach heights I'd never dared to dream of?


"...Perhaps," Naoto finally replied. "But… I'd miss you. So would Kallen. I know Ohgi would miss you too, as would Inoue, Nagata, Tamaki… Probably not Chihiro, but I doubt you'd miss her if she caught a bullet tomorrow either, so that's fair all the way around."


Naoto's small gallows-side joke was rewarded by an almost invisible smile, the corners of Tanya's mouth quirking up in cynical amusement for just a moment before she straightened her face back out again.


"That doesn't make me special, though," she stubbornly rebutted. "Most people have someone who would miss them if they die. I'm not special in that regard, nor irreplaceable. Everybody's lost something, yet the struggle will go on."


Naoto rubbed at his eyes. It's like dealing with Kallen, he thought with exasperation, but even worse. She's way too damned cynical for her age and she still hasn't figured out how to stop suppressing her emotions, at least when Oghi's not around.


"Look, Tanya," he tried again, "you're just wrong. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is. You've made yourself the face and the spirit of this fight. The fact is, for us rebels here? For the Rising Sun? You're more than a person, Tanya, you're a symbol now. You have to realize that, right?"


Predictably, Tanya fervently shook her head in denial.


I don't know whether to be depressed or annoyed, Naoto sighed. How about I settle for sarcastically amused?


"Oh, Tanya," Naoto groaned as he rubbed his tired eyes. "You're fucking killing me here, kid. Alright, let me spell it out for you."


He didn't need to look to know there was a frown on her adorably pinched face.


"You know why you're their symbol, Tanya?" Naoto started rhetorically, leaning in across the table for emphasis, "It's because you're a Shinjuku street rat, just like them. You've clawed your way to survive in this hell for years, just like them, all until you had enough power to do something."


"Most people? Hah-" Naoto let out a bitter laugh, "The moment they have an inch of power they use it to abuse everyone beneath them, always desperate for more. Selfish survival at all costs, even if it means you have to drag everyone else down to do it."


"But you, on the other hand?" Naoto shook his head with a proud grin. "When you found us, you didn't want us to just be another petty gang of power-hungry thugs. You inspired us to fight back against not just the Britannians, but against the gangs, the small evils that the JLF and Kyoto House tolerated and in fact made use of. As soon as you got money and supplies, you started distributing them to the community, sharing the wealth instead of hoarding it."


"Face it, Tanya," Naoto grinned at the girl, amused by how wobbly her stoic mask suddenly looked, "You are the prodigal daughter who's made it good and brought back food, medicine, and hope to the scrapings of the Ghetto. To them? I'm still an outsider. I still smack of Britannia and of nobility. I wasn't there. But you? You were. You were there with them. You haven't forgotten them. And they love you for it."


"Let's agree to disagree," Tanya proposed, her voice just slightly thicker than normal, hardly noticeable unless the listener was familiar with her usual metronome precision. "Whe-"


"Nope," Naoto cut her off, crossing his arms firmly over his chest.



Sorry Tanya, but if you're gonna be this stubborn I'm just going to have to pound this through your thick skull, Naoto thought, bracing himself for still more unpleasant conversation in an evening already full of the stuff. He could already see the shock at his interruption transmuting to outrage in Tanya's eyes. It's just like dealing with Kallen. Well, I guess it's time to put on my big brother pants again, eh?


"But, I-" Tanya started.


"Nope." Naoto shut her down again. He leaned down, making sure to meet her sapphire gaze, and spoke slowly and clearly, doing everything he could to broadcast his sincere intent. "You are irreplaceable, Tanya. That is a fact. The people love you, everyone in the organization loves you, I love you. And we wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today without your drive."


"I'm not!" Tanya protested futilely, the cracks in her mask growing, "I'm just-"


"The person who's inspired us to go farther than we ever dared dream?" Naoto smirked. "The girl who's led all of the most successful raids in our history? The kid who managed to take the fight straight to Britannia, and brought eight of her soldiers back alive? The only person I've heard of to pit infantry against Knightmares and win since Tohdoh left Itsukushima?"


She folded under the weight of her accomplishments, so Naoto ruthlessly pushed his advantage further.


"How about the girl who managed to negotiate with both the Six Houses and the JLF, people who were so far out of our league not even a year ago that I would have never even considered making contact?" Naoto leaned forward again, letting his voice soften. "I can't even begin to count the number of people who are alive today because of you, and you're only twelve. How many more lives will you impact as you grow older? How many more people will you inspire?"


Naoto sat back up, shaking his head with a soft chuckle. "The fact is, Tanya, you're the heart of this operation. Without you, we might all fall apart."


"Then why are you trying to demote me?" Tanya asked angrily, lashing out in response to his emotional appeal. "Why are you taking me away from the front, Naoto? Surely I am the best combat leader we have – why aren't you using me to my full potential? When we divided up responsibilities, you said I'd be in charge of combat operations! Have you changed your mind? Did I lose your confidence along the way?"


"What?" Naoto blinked, nonplussed. "No, don't be silly. Why would you even think that? Actually, no, don't bother. No, Tanya, you haven't lost my confidence or whatever. You're just too important. If anything, you're getting a promotion. I mean-"


He stopped himself and sighed, " Look, it's like… It's like chess. Do you know chess?"


When Tanya tentatively nodded, Naoto continued. "It's like chess. The king can't lead from the front, because if the king gets captured, that's it, game over. The king has to stay in the back and direct the movement of the other pieces. If a pawn or a bishop gets it, that's a loss. If the king gets it, well…that's that, game over."


"And so I can't lead from the front… I've got to stay in the rear…" A complicated expression crossed Tanya's face, and even after months of experience with the enigmatic girl with ancient eyes, Naoto couldn't begin to unravel what it meant. "A cushy position in the rear… because I'm too valuable to risk in combat…" Suddenly, she was glaring at him. "Is this some kind of joke?" she hissed, "are you trying to protect me like you did with Kallen?"


"Nope," Naoto easily replied. "I learned my lesson. Strange as this might be to say, considering that you are technically still too young to take your high school admissions exams, but your ability as a planner, a propagandist, and a living symbol now outweigh your admittedly impressive skills as a soldier, junior officer, and assassin."


Frustratingly, she still looked somewhat unconvinced. Gods, what do I need to say to her? Naoto half-thought, half-prayed. How do you convince someone who goes to war like she's meeting her beloved that she can do far more damage from behind a desk?


Suddenly, inspiration struck.


"I'm not trying to protect you, Tanya," Naoto continued, "I'm trying to take maximum advantage of a scarce resource; namely, your mental capabilities. There are over two hundred thousand people in Shinjuku, good killers and squad leaders are ultimately replaceable. Those who aren't replaceable are people like you. People who can command power with the wisdom and compassion needed to actually save our people."


"Wisdom and compassion? Pheh!" Tanya's scorn was obviously played up, a cheap emotional display to conceal the more sincere emotions Naoto could practically feel radiating off her from across the table. "Well, you are the leader and the Kozuki of the Kozuki Organization. If you're really sure about this…"


"I am," Naoto said firmly. "If I am your leader, I will put you where I think you will do the most good for the Cause. In this case, I firmly believe your mind is more valuable than your trigger finger."


"Well, in that case…" Tanya rubbed briefly at her eyes before lifting her notebook to her face and flipping through some pages. "Hang on, I have a list of promising squad leaders from amongst the Sun Guard somewhere…"


For the remainder of the meeting, Naoto stayed on edge, waiting for the seemingly inevitable moment when Tanya would just "happen" to task herself with some sort of role in tomorrow's mission, or in one of the multitudes of other, smaller tasks that involved significant personal risk. The moment never came, and the remainder of the meeting was quite productive.


As he got ready for bed and slipped between the sheets of his cot, all Naoto could think about was how, strangely, he had finally made good on the request Ohgi had made during that drinking session up on the roof of this very building almost a year ago now. He had finally found a role for Tanya in the Organization that kept her far from the frontline.


Somehow, he thought as he drifted off to sleep, I doubt this is quite what Ohgi had in mind.


MAY 4, 2016 ATB
ASHFORD ACADEMY, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1400


"Attention all students," Milly's voice came in, chipper and bright over the intercom as she interrupted sixth period, "please report to the gymnasium for a mandatory assembly. Teachers, please make sure your students arrive at the gym in the next fifteen minutes. See you there!"


At the front of the classroom, Missus Selwyn, the literature teacher, sighed as she dropped her chalk and wiped the dust off her fingers. "I suppose John Donne can wait for another day since I doubt this assembly will be over by the time the bell rings. He has waited four centuries, so it shouldn't be that much of an imposition."


Kallen forced herself to return the teacher's smile as she hastily packed her materials away and buried the familiar anger. Of course I couldn't enjoy one of the few things I like about this school in peace. No, of fucking course not! Milly just has to shove her arrogant head into things.


Missus Selwyn, at only thirty-three years old, was one of Ashford's younger teachers, and definitely one of the most popular. That was most likely due to her lax approach to homework, as well as the way she filled out her dress. Kallen had heard more than enough whispers swapped between the boys, and the girls, sitting around her regarding that particular topic, enough to make her gag.


I wonder if their disgusting depravity comes from being Britannians, nobles, or teenagers? Kallen grumbled internally. She very carefully didn't think about the fact that she was all three of those as well.


Still, what Kallen appreciated about Missus Selwyn was her actual skill as a teacher, not as a source of easy A's or eye candy. Unlike many of Ashford's other teachers, Missus Selwyn brought a genuine enthusiasm for her topic into the room. Her class never felt like she was just checking boxes off a list of mandatory topics while filling her students' heads with Britannian indoctrination; it felt like she took them on a real journey through history and culture every period. Though even for a literature teacher there were subjects and interpretations even Missus Selwyn avoided.


She was enthusiastic about teaching, not suicidal.


In the endless swamp of irritations great and small best known as Ashford Academy, Missus Selwyn's class was an enriching experience for Kallen, something that always made her soul sing with relief.


And that's a hell of a lot more than I can say about anything else in this gaudy shithole, Kallen thought as she sucked in a harsh breath, trying to force her anger back under control. And of course, Milly had to ruin it for her own amusement just like always. Can't wait to see what absurd farce she has waiting for us this time.


Kallen sighed and flipped her Academy-issued valise closed. She joined the queue at the classroom's door, wincing slightly whenever another student jostled her. Tanya had been particularly aggressive during yesterday's training session, not that Kallen minded.


Far from it! Kallen grinned to herself. I pinned her three out of five times last night! Her damned midget arms can't hold me down anymore! The grin faded. Now if only I could beat her on the range, she'd have to send me to The School…


The tiny tributary of teenagers fleeing from the works of John Donne fed into the slowly swelling river of the student body as more students poured out of classrooms and laboratories. Most took the opportunity presented by the sudden break from routine to chat with their friends as they made their way down to the Academy's massive gymnasium.


How many could I kill if I planted just a single bomb here, in this hall? Kallen wondered idly as she picked her way through the crowd. I wonder how many of these pampered nobles would survive to get the wake-up call they so richly deserve?


Kallen let the pleasant image of the aftermath, drawn from her memories of the subway station, linger. It was a temporary refuge from reality. The thoughts of stuffy Britannians screaming and crying as the real world crashed down on them in all of its horrors lifted her mood from her thoughts of Milly's frivolous interference. But, after a moment, Kallen regretfully let the fantasy drift away.


After all, I don't need Tanya giving me another lecture. She shivered at the thought. Her friend had made it abundantly clear to Kallen how unhelpful such an act would ultimately be, the one time she'd proposed it …But it's still fun to think about.


Heh! Just the thought of Milly's horrified face as her whole palace burns around her… This time, the smile that slipped onto Kallen's face was entirely genuine.


Keeping that thought in mind, Kallen kept the smile on her face as she rejoined the chattering flow. She was a professional, as she had so often told herself, and so she played her part as the well-adjusted and socially engaged young lady to the hilt as she made her way to the gymnasium. She nodded happily to anybody who made eye contact, fueling her smile with secret thoughts of murder.


I wonder how many of the smiles surrounding me are equally deceptive? It was a troubling thought. I mean, I'm betting none of these idiots have any idea who I really am or what I do at night, but that can cut both ways. How many of these smiling students are secretly police informers, eager to pass my name on to their handlers?


I can't stand out. I can't slip up. I can't trust any of them, not one bit.


Suddenly inspired by the paranoia-inducing thought, Kallen allowed herself to be dragged into a conversation with Steven and Cara, from the Student Newspaper. The nattering and shallow exchange was a waste of time in her opinion, even if it did make for effective social camouflage, and she happily moved on even before Cara started glowering at her. Cara tended to be protective of her boyfriend, and Kallen might have even called her clingy if it wasn't for Steve's wandering eyes, or hands.


As it was, she could only hope that he was found out in a suitably public fashion to maximize both of their embarrassment.


Is there a more revolting cesspool of disgusting masks and depraved intent than this excuse for a school? Maybe it's on purpose, to give kids practice at the circus called noble politics? Kallen almost sneered.


And don't think I didn't notice you two coming out of the ladies' room together, Kallen thought, adding the tiny detail to her internal notes as she swapped speculations about the surprise assembly with Cara. I wonder if Ashford has a maternity uniform ready to be issued? Considering who designed this absurd uniform, I wouldn't be surprised.


As she left her slow-moving club members behind, the pair seemingly more focused on each other than on the assembly they were supposed to be heading towards, Kallen noticed another quiet figure skulking along the wall.


That's the nerd from my chemistry class, right? Umm… Kallen frowned, trying to remember the name. Something European, right? Einstan? Eizenstein? No… Einstein! Nina Einstein, that's right. She's on the Student Council with Rivalz and Milly, and judging by how the teacher talks to her, something of a science prodigy.


For a moment, Kallen weighed her options. On the one hand, she'd love nothing more than to ignore the girl whose unsubtle gaze had lingered on Kallen uncomfortably often over the last few months. On the other hand, she had to at least appear to be a sociable young Britannian lady, and speaking with the quiet nerd with eyes for her would probably be less infuriating than dealing with any of her louder "peers".


Plus, if she really is that much of a science prodigy, perhaps I'll find some use for her.


"Hey there, Nina!" Kallen chirped in her best Milly Ashford-inspired voice; the immediate wave of self-loathing she experienced probably meant she had struck the proper balance of vapidity and smug self-satisfaction. God, I hate this place.


Still, Kallen forced her revulsion down and focused on the task at hand with all the false cheer she could manufacture. "Looking forward to the assembly?"


"Oh… Hi, Kallen…" The bespectacled girl's greeting was almost drowned out by the ambient clatter of the hallway. Kallen resisted the urge to demand that she speak up. "How… how are you…?"


Let's see, I've interacted with Nina a grand total of once before, and that was when I just asked if we'd had homework for chem the night before. So… no information about her likes or dislikes. Other than that wandering eye of hers. Damn. Sincerity it is, I guess.


"Curious to hear what interrupted literature class," Kallen replied with a grimace. "I stayed up late to finish last night's homework, and Selwyn didn't even collect the assignments before the announcement came in. I could have gotten a whole hour of sleep and pushed the essay on iambic pentameter off for a whole 'nother day!"


"You… Uhh… You shouldn't wait on your homework…" Nina retorted, flushing slightly under Kallen's incredulous gaze. "Well… It would only get worse… And this way, you won't have to do it tonight, right?"


"Well… You might have a point there," Kallen grudgingly admitted, "I guess that will give me time to catch back up on chemistry, freakin' molarity…"


"D-do you want any help…?" Nina timidly asked, clearly forcing herself to look at Kallen as she spoke. "I… I'd probably be able to help explain stuff to you…"


Real subtle, Nina. Kallen nearly sighed aloud with her irritation. It's totally not like you've been struggling to not stare at my tits the whole time we've been talking, right? Still, I could probably use a few pointers, and it wouldn't be too much trouble to break her if she got too handsy. And, unlike Milly, she doesn't have any special social status to protect her.


"I might take you up on that offer some other day," Kallen said aloud, "but I've got plans already. I really would appreciate some help, though – you seem to truly have a knack for all this science stuff!"


"T-thanks…" Nina blushed, "I genuinely like it… hard numbers, hard facts… it's way easier to understand t-than people are…"


"Aren't you on the Student Council?" Kallen asked as they approached the gym's entrance, feigning ignorance. "I think I remember Rivalz mentioning you at some meeting?"


"I'm the Treasurer…" Nina mumbled, "I'm good with math too… Math and science… and computers… that's all I'm really good for…"


"Hey now, no need to be down on yourself," Kallen replied, suddenly uncomfortable. Dammit, Tanya's the reassuring one! I'm the one who asks the hard questions! Well, me and Naoto… And Diethard… Maybe I need to branch out? "There's nothing wrong with liking computers! Heck, I wish I liked math too. That would make things so much easier."


"Thanks, Kallen…" Nina replied with a shy smile. "H-hey… Are you, uhh… Are you busy after the assembly?"


"Depends on how long it goes; if Milly doesn't take too long, we've still got seventh and eighth periods," Kallen pointed out. "And yeah, I have plans after school today, remember? Sorry, Nina. Maybe some other day?"


"Y-yeah…" Nina sighed, not before shooting Kallen what the Stadtfeld heiress could only describe as a glance pregnant with longing. "Someday… Bye, Kallen."


"Bye Nina," Kallen replied awkwardly as the shorter girl disappeared into the milling crowd of students. "See you around…"


What a creep, Kallen thought with a shiver of disgust as she waited for the crush of students around the gym's entrance to dissolve. A pair of teachers were bellowing something about standing in alphabetical order by last name, so Kallen moved towards the back of the crowd, reasoning that the "S's" would probably be at the back of the assembly anyway. Well, maybe not a creep. Just an awkward and weird girl. But… Man, even Rivalz isn't that obvious. Learn some control, Nina. Ugh.


Then Kallen remembered who she attended school with. Not just the Britannian noble children, with their arrogance and games and careless hedonism, who made up the student body, but the self-proclaimed Queen of Ashford Academy and sitting President of the Student Council. …Admittedly, all things considered, it's a miracle you're as reasonable as you are, Nina. After all, you could be another Milly.


Then, as if even thinking the name had somehow summoned her presence, a miniaturized yet energetic pocket catastrophe fell on Kallen's shoulders.


"Heya Kallen," a smirking Milly Ashford said by way of greeting, slipping out from the crowd and into Kallen's personal space, "Long time no see! It's almost like you've been avoiding me!"


"Not at all, Madam President," Kallen replied to the blonde, suppressing her rage at the other girl's faux-pout in favor of a sweetness just a hint too saccharine to be sincere. "I've just been very busy lately, you know how it is. Finals are less than a month away, so I've been pretty busy reviewing."


If pressed, Kallen would be forced to admit that she no longer hated Milly the same way she had last year, before their little detente in January when Milly had let her mask of aloof whimsy momentarily slip. The revelation that the teasing blonde actually gave a shit about Rivalz and even seemed to sincerely care about Kallen had been eye-opening. No longer did Milly seem like some sort of cold-hearted spider, constantly attempting to enmesh her in her shadowy web.


That slight improvement in her opinion of the other girl hadn't diluted the rest of Kallen's resentment, however. Whether or not she had a heart didn't change the fact that Milly swanned about the place as if it was her personal palace, tweaking and teasing everyone around her in elaborate manipulations for no purpose but her own sense of whimsy and perverse pleasure.



Oh yes, I still hate that frivolous bitch. I'd hack that oh-so-carefully shampooed hair from her scalp with a dull knife if I could get away with it. Kallen scowled internally. But, I can't say she's completely worthless as a human being. She's just a juvenile, nosy, arrogant, horny brat of a Britannian lady who's in dire need of a reality check outside the walls of her little empire, where she holds all the cards.


An image flitted through her brain, of taking Milly down to Shinjuku to see that pile of butchered meat they'd turned those other Britannian pervs into. Of showing the Ashford heiress her brother's special basement, where they'd ground the remains of other arrogant Britannians down into so much ash and slurry. Of introducing her to Tanya. Kallen knew it would never happen, but the daydream tasted as sweet as sin.


"Boooring!" Milly rolled her eyes dramatically, her expression suddenly drooping with feigned weariness. "You're going to grow old and gray before your time if you keep it up, and then how will you get a boyfriend?! Live a little, Kallen!"


Live a little? Kallen almost sneered. Do you call indulging in classroom debauchery living?


"I live plenty already, thank you very much," Kallen replied cooly. "I've got my classes, all of my holidays are booked solid with all the stupid social events my mother keeps forcing me to attend, and I've got my extracurricular! I'm busy enough, and that's not even getting into my study time!"


"Your extracurricular?" The damnable smirk returned to Milly's face, the exhausted mask vanished without a trace. "Which one? Do you mean the Ashford Gazette? Or do you mean the charity you're running out in the Settlement? From what I hear, you put on quite the performance there on Monday! I guess there's hope for you after all, Stadtfeld! I knew you had to have some of that deliciously hot redheaded passion somewhere deep inside!"


Fuck! In that instant, Kallen had to resist the urge to whirl around and pin Milly by her throat until her poisoned tongue protruded, bloated and swollen, from between her lips. Remember why you're here, Kozuki!


"I don't know what you're talking about," Kallen replied, trying to stall. "There isn't much about Monday that I'd call passionate. The soup was kind of spicy, I guess."


What does she know? Kallen scrambled through the memories of the night in her head. Whatever she knows, she got it from Rivalz. That boy is obsessed with her and would tell her anything she wanted to hear. So… She knows about the encounter with the soldiers, but not my talk with Alan. Why does she care about any of that?


"Ah, ah, ah!" Milly waggled a reproving finger under Kallen's nose. Kallen resisted the temptation to bite it off. "None of that sass! I know exactly what you did, even second-hand! Kallen, you might as well have handed that poor man a sword and told him to go slit open his belly! I mean, it probably would have been kinder than eviscerating him with words like you did!"


Milly smiled. "I'm proud of you, Stadtfeld. You're growing into a splendid young Britannian flower."


A splendid Britannian flower?! Kallen's teeth ground together so hard her gums ached, and it took all she had not to slug the bitch in the face. Fuck. You.


The tinkling of bells filled the air and Milly's eyes flew open. Her hand darted into her pocket, and as Kallen very carefully didn't react to the sudden movement she pulled out her phone and turned off an alarm. "Looks like I gotta go! Sorry Kallen, I'd love to chat, but today's a special day and I'm a little busy! Things to see, people to do, you know how it is!"


"Sure, whatever," Kallen said, still trying to push down her boiling fury. "Don't let me keep you, Madam President."


"Make sure you don't slip out of the assembly early, Kallen!" Milly said, turning on her heel and starting to dart away into the crowd. "It's in the memory of our dear departed royals, after all! Plus, there's a surprise at the end, and I'm betting you're gonna love it~!"


Kallen's eyes narrowed. "A surprise…?" She started through gritted teeth, but Milly was already gone, lost in a sea of uniforms.


Fuck. What does that bitch have planned next? Kallen forced her jaw to unclench with an angry breath. Dammit, I can't let this get to me. Deep breaths, Kallen. Focus on the mission.


Minutes later, Kallen finally found her way into the gymnasium and to her allotted spot in the neatly ordered lines. Finally, after much shuffling around, the assembly began with the opening bars of the Academy's anthem blaring through the public address system. Then Milly took the stage, leaping up onto the platform where commentators and referees sat during volleyball games, and where a podium with a microphone dutifully awaited her arrival.


"Goooooooooooood afternoon to all the handsome boys and pretty girls out there! And also to the rest of the Ashford student body. How are you doing this fine spring day?" The blonde basked in the dutiful applause and the adoring cries of "Milly, be my girlfriend!" from the audience. Kallen resisted the urge to scowl at the theatrics. "Glad to see you're all awake out there!"


"Now, while I'm sure you all would love nothing more than to watch me rock the stage for the next half hour or so…" Milly paused invitingly, and a chorus of wolf whistles obliging rose from the crowd, "I'm going to hand you all over to Major Pitt, of His Majesty's Armed Forces Reserve Officer Training Corps! I do so love a dashing man in uniform, so please be kind to him!"


The man Milly handed the microphone over to was, in Kallen's opinion, far from dashing. A finely pointed waxed mustache thirty years out of style failed to liven up the face of a born bureaucrat, and while his uniform was well tailored and fit him well, it still failed to be particularly flattering. But none of that changed the fact that he was still Britannian military, a threat and an enemy to any who opposed his cruel Empire.



I have a bad feeling about this.


"Good afternoon, my lords and ladies," Major Pitt began, his tone almost depressingly mundane after Milly's enthusiasm. "Thank you all for attending this assembly, and thank you to Ashford Academy for giving me some time to speak with you."


At some invisible signal, a light wave of applause washed through the gymnasium. Kallen reluctantly joined in, clapping presumably at the mention of the Academy's name. At least the bastard in gray shut up for a moment, so I guess that's something.


After a moment, Major Pitt waved for quiet and continued as the desultory applause faded away. "I'm sure that you are all aware that our beloved Viceregal-Governor, Prince Clovis, has declared May the Fourth as Vi Britannia Day, a holiday dedicated to his much lamented… royal… siblings."


What the hell? Kallen frowned, slightly confused. What was with that pause just now? And… it's a bit hard to tell from all the way back here, but did Pitt just sneer at the mention of the dead kids? That's… weird.


"I have a prepared statement to read on His Highness's behalf," Pitt said as he opened an envelope on stage, no trace of his peculiar expression remaining as he unfolded the contents. "Indeed, all of you fine young lords and ladies should be honored; this speech came straight to my hands from His Highness's desk itself, written expressly for you on this very first Vi Britannia Day.


"To all of my dear subjects," the Major began, making no attempt to add any rhetorical flair as he read the speech straight from the page. He apparently hadn't been chosen for his assignment on the basis of charisma. Or showmanship. "And in particular to all of the sweet students of Ashford Academy, I bid you greetings. Sadly, I cannot bid you the joyous greetings that the flower of the youth of Britannia deserves, as my heart is burdened with the tragedy of six years ago.


"Indeed, it was six years ago that my dear little half-brother, Lelouch vi Britannia, as well as his sister Nunnally, were callously murdered by the Japanese. It was the second great insult that petulant race offered up against our glorious Empire and the one that cuts me deeply to this day. Their first offense was a gauntlet thrown down at the feet of our Emperor as the head of state, but the murders were a cowardly attempt to knife the heart of our Imperial Father."


Just a pity we couldn't force a real knife between his ribs somehow… Kallen thought, enjoying the mental image as she tried to ignore the slights against her subjugated nation.


Up on stage, Pitt continued on, his delivery growing flatter with each passing sentence. "If my siblings were alive today, oh Ashford Students, they would walk amongst you. Lelouch would be sixteen this year, and Nunnally thirteen. Perhaps they would have been your classmates. And so, I now charge you to go forth to remake the world in their memory. To make a world more beautiful, more artistic, and more Britannian than the cruel world that took them.


"This I, Clovis la Britannia, Third Prince of the Britannian Empire, command you! All Hail Britannia!"


"ALL HAIL BRITANNIA!"


Even as Kallen joined her voice with the crowd's in acclaiming the empire she hated, she could only smile with pride at the last actions of the long-dead Prime Minister Kururugi, so different from his degraded son. For all of his foolishness in life, at least the Prime Minister had struck one last blow against Britannia by killing the hostage royals before he further denied Britannia the spectacle of his ritual execution.


For all of his failures as a leader, Kallen reflected, Kururugi Genbuu died with honor. At least Charles, the Man of Blood, learned the pain of losing his children thanks to the Conquest. Not that he probably cared, the monster.


"Now…" Major Pitt asked, absently returning the envelope containing the prince's speech to his jacket pocket as if it was a mundane document, nothing more important than a utility bill. "How many of you are familiar with the ROTC?"


A forest of hands rose. Kallen raised her hand as well so she wouldn't stand out in the crowd.


"Good to hear," Pitt said with a perfunctory smile. "For those unaware, the ROTC is a training cadre for young people from good families, such as yourselves. We provide a first introduction to the basics of military life and strive to educate Britannia's generals, admirals, and commanders of tomorrow, today. For those who show particular aptitude or dedication, the ROTC provides a special track to institutes of higher learning, including the Imperial College at Colchester."


Excited murmurs ran through the assembled student body. Kallen remained quiet, but she could understand the enthusiasm. The Imperial College was the premier center for higher learning in the Empire, and virtually all of the major military, industrial, and technological figures of note in the last century and a half had passed through its halls, including Reuban Ashford, the Academy's headmaster and the father of the modern Knightmare Frame.


The Imperial College at Colchester was also, Kallen knew, her own father's alma mater. She had seen the famous seal on a framed diploma hanging in his office at the family's ancestral estate, back in the Homeland, at New Leicester.


"But of course, the ROTC also has a mission to find and recruit promising candidates for roles as junior officers, specialists, or even in admittedly limited cases, Knightmare Devicers!" At the mere mention of the prized position, the major had the entire student body hanging onto his every word. Kallen was tempted to roll her eyes, but even she couldn't fully deny the flicker of interest deep inside.



Yet, neither could she deny her own churning instincts, all of which screamed that she was under threat, that this unassuming man was an enemy of hers in particular. What's your angle here, Major? Come to find more second sons eager to lay down their lives for a taste of pride?


"Yes, if you have ambitions to one day receive a knighthood and serve in His Majesty's Armed Forces as a devicer, your best option is to join ROTC, where you will have access to simulators and instructors," Major Pitt said, continuing his sales pitch. "Yes, not everybody can become a devicer – only the best! But, if you do manage it, you'll become the armored fist, the bared sword of the Empire!"


Of course. Kallen wanted to sneer. The "best of the best". Her lip twitched as she remembered the story Tanya had recounted, of how the so-called "bared sword of the Empire" met their ignoble end at the hands of a decent ambush conducted by infantry armed with simple rockets. But sure, keep padding their ego. After all, how else are you going to fill your purse with blood money if you can't scrape enough fodder together for the meat grinder? Gotta meet that quota!


"Why," the Major's waxed mustache flicked upwards in a smile, "it was less than a decade ago that those devicers, the Empire's later-day knights, seized this land from its unworthy inhabitants, conquering this barbaric country in three days of victory! When those pathetic Numbers caught sight of our glorious knights, they fled from the field in awe and terror! And all their excuse of a leader could do was kill a couple of children out of petty spite."


Lies! Kallen's soul screeched with indignant fury, ignoring the sour grapes of the Major's last sentence. Lies lies lies!


Yet for all of her anger, she couldn't immediately refute his claims. The Conquest had officially taken a month to complete active operations, but all of the major fighting had taken place during the first three days, including the famous Miracle at Itsukushima. The mop-up, of course, had continued through to the present.


Yeah! We didn't just flee! We're still fighting, you bastard!


"Why, I remember those days fondly. I was there myself, you know! Cutting down the cowardly Eleven 'army' like wheat before the scythe, showing them that their primitive military was no match for a truly honorable foe." The Britannian allowed himself a hearty chuckle. "Really, that's all the Elevens were good for, left to their own devices: running, hiding, and dying like the worthless dogs. They should thank us for taking them in hand!"


It was all Kallen could do to keep herself from growling aloud. Her hands ached from how tightly she clenched her fists, rage boiling in her veins. Her teeth ground together as she fought for self-control. She could hardly even think, so consumed was she with the effort of reigning in her hatred for the mediocre little man who bragged of slaughter.


And bragged to children about it! Kallen suspected the bland Major Pitt had been far from the cutting edge; otherwise, his words wouldn't reek quite so strongly of insecurity. A pig like him probably hasn't ever spilled blood. He's just gloating about the sacrifices of better men. Typical of Britannia.


"That is what the ROTC can offer you – a chance to become a knight, to go abroad seeking monsters to slay! And," Pitt grinned, "perhaps rescue a fair prince or princess as your very own reward along the way!"


A wave of lecherous laughter and whoops, both masculine and feminine, swept through the Academy gymnasium, accompanied by a susurration of fervent whispers as seemingly every student present exchanged dreams of glory and conquest. Britannian to the core, all of them.


The smile Kallen forced onto her lips hurt, but she fed it with dreams of her own glorious war. One day, I'll be the one peeling the skin off your cowardly backs.


"But," Major Pitt continued after the raucous laughter died down, "even if you aren't looking for a career in the military or planning on attempting higher education, ROTC can open many doors for you. The inclusion of ROTC on your resume will tell potential employers that…"


The sales pitch continued, peppered with smarmy thanks to the Ashford Administration for finally allowing ROTC to set up shop on campus, a "development that is far overdue, unfortunately, delayed by the circumstances of the Area."


For her part, Kallen did her best to endure the interminably long speech, trying to hold onto her anger as it was slowly drowned in a rising tide of boredom. She idly noted that office space had already been set aside for the on-campus recruiting mission and that part of the Equestrian Club's riding grounds would be converted into a rifle range.


Focusing on the details helped her control her temper.


Twenty minutes later, Major Pitt finally started winding down his speech. "Thank you very much for your close and patient attention. Remember, my door is always open. Now, without further ado, I'll hand you back to the gorgeous Miss Ashford."


"Thanks, Major!" Kallen stifled a groan as Milly bounced back onto the stage. "And thank you, all you Ashfordians! Let's give the Major a hearty round of applause to thank him for his time!"


Like a marionette dancing on a string, Kallen dully brought her hands together three times before abandoning the pretense. How much longer is this damned assembly going to take? She groaned inside her head, shifting her weight from foot to foot to try and channel some of her antsy energy. Even by Britannian standards, it's a waste of everybody's time. And we're paying tuition to be here!


"You've all been very patient," Milly said from on stage as if she'd heard Kallen's unspoken complaint, "and my grandfather and I really appreciate it. I'm sure Major Pitt does too! In fact, the Major actually set up a little activity to thank you all and to celebrate Vi Britannia Day!"


An ominous feeling washed over Kallen as uniformed men started wheeling boxy structures that looked suspiciously familiar into the gymnasium, one by one until a full two dozen of the things stood between the audience and the stage.


"So, all you fine-strapping young men and fine stripping-young ladies," Milly winked, "haven't you ever wanted to see what it's like to pilot a Knightmare?"


The crowd roared in agreement, a horde of screaming children crying out for a taste of martial honor without the faintest concept of what it meant to fight for your life. In that roar, Kallen thought she heard the true anthem of Britannia, stripped of all of its civilized pretensions.


Animals, all of them, she thought with disgust even as she raised her own enthusiastic voice. And they have the nerve to call us barbarians!


The teachers once again had to provide crowd control as the student body stampeded towards the line of what Kallen had belatedly recognized were KMF simulators. The iron-lunged PE instructor, backed by the Assistant Headmaster, managed to impose order, chivvying eager students into a long queue, which fed into the waiting simulators.


Not wanting to stand out in the enthusiastic horde, Kallen allowed herself to be herded into line and prepared to wait. The feeling of ominous tension in her gut only increased as the crowd's enthusiasm continued to mount. Something was going to happen very soon, Kallen could tell, something big, something awful. Every nerve in her body already felt like it had been scraped with a dull knife.


At least the boredom of standing in line was mildly alleviated once one of the tech's set up a screen displaying a digital scoreboard.


"We score your results based on the number of targets destroyed and the length of your time in the simulation," Major Pitt explained as the first students mounted the steps to the simulators. "The number of targets destroyed helps us quantify your reaction time and coordination, while the time helps us estimate your endurance."


Only a minute later, the first score appeared on the board as a simulator door popped open and a rather chubby boy staggered down the steps. The three columns of the screen populated with the boy's initials, the number of targets he had eliminated (zero), and how long he had lasted in the simulation, all of eight seconds.


"What kind of test are you running?" Kallen could clearly hear the petulance over the noise of the crowd. "There's no way that's fair! How the hell was I supposed to react to that?! I could barely dodge the first strike!"


"Ha!" Pitt barked, "I said we were here to recruit the best of the best, did I not? Seizing the glory of being a devicer is an honor reserved for only the most elite." The Major smirked. "We certainly couldn't let any common rabble carry the honor of the Imperial Knightmare corps, now could we?"


The boy balked at the man's choice of words and Kallen could feel the overall mood of the crowd dim slightly at his public humiliation. The whispers started quietly, but grew rapidly; the sotto voce sentiments were clearly shared by the bulk of the crowd.


"I don't want to just embarrass myself…"


"Do I really have a chance?"


"It sounds hopeless!"


Kallen almost scoffed, twisting her face into a mask of concern to fit in with the cowards around her. Just one hint of adversity, and you're already willing to call it quits? Typical Britannian nobility; no stomach for real work. No stomach for fake real work, even!


Up at the front of the line, just below the stage, Major Pitt frowned heavily at the sudden storm of disconsolate muttering. After a moment, he sneered at the balking line of students and pulled a notepad from his uniform jacket. To Kallen's sudden interest, Milly's polite smile stretched into a mockery of itself at the sight of the tiny black book. Immediately, she stepped forward and rested a hand on his shoulders.


"Not to worry, Major – of course they're a little shy! We so rarely enjoy the company of visiting notables such as yourself, after all! Even my heart flutters at the thought of making a fool of myself in front of you!" Milly's eyes darted back and forth over the crowd, undeniably frantic until alighting upon a target, an earnest if vulpine grin suddenly springing across her face. "Well, Mr. Vice-President, come on up here! Your constituents need encouragement!"


The packed gymnasium burst into excited tittering and the throng ahead of Kallen parted to allow a clear path up to the stage. At the end of the path, previously concealed by the cover of the crowd, a dark figure crossed his arms and glared.


"Please, Lelouch?" Milly begged, and while her smile remained plastered across her face, Kallen thought she heard a note of surprising sincerity underneath the lighthearted needling. "Come on up here and help us all show the dear Major the depth of our loyalty!"


With obvious reluctance, Lelouch Lamperouge climbed the steps up the bleachers and joined Milly on the referee platform turned temporary stage. Kallen had to admit they made an impressive pair; almost exactly equal in height, Lelouch's raven hair was a perfect contrast to Milly's cornsilk blonde. Like her, he smiled as he stared out over the crowd, but Kallen noticed how his hands balled into fists before he nonchalantly tucked them behind his back.


"Well, there you have it, ladies!" Milly shouted, "the top scorer will be wined and dined in our darling Lelouch's illustrious company." As the cheers crescendoed, the blonde leered. "If you are lucky, maybe you'll even luck your way into a passionate night – only the finest for the heroes and heroines of Britannia!"


Are people really this shallow? Kallen wondered, feeling suddenly very alone in the jubilant atmosphere. She knew the Vice-President was popular for some inestimable reason, but an obligatory date seemed entirely meaningless to her, barring Milly's mention of a passionate night. There's just no way she'd make him go through with that, would she? There's no way, but… No. Not even Britannians would sell themselves so cheaply… Would they?


"As for the gentlemen..." Milly's eyes swept over the room, on the hunt once more. "We need a noble lady of refined grace and skill for such a special occasion, which means I unfortunately don't qualify." Her laugh was slightly too shrill. Kallen wondered what she was so scared of. Displeasing her Britannian masters, presumably. "Hmm? What do you say, Shirley? Maybe your dear Lulu will rescue you, eh? Your very own knight in shining armor!"


"Madame President!" a red-haired girl wailed from up in front of Kallen. To Kallen's vague disgust, she didn't sound very offended by the suggestion. To her ears, the other girl's objections bore an unmistakably eager edge. Just when I finally thought I'd found another sane person in this asylum… Seriously, is everyone here but Rivalz and I a complete degenerate?


"Or..." Milly's gaze swept past the redhead and bore into Kallen.


I have a bad feeling about this, Kallen thought as her stomach knotted in sudden anxiety. Dammit, shut up Milly! Just stay quiet… Please just keep your damned trap shut…


"The favor of a proper lady would be perfect for the gallant winner of our knight-mare-ley competition, eh?" To Kallen's horror, Milly's finger lanced out from her perch like a thrown spear, all but dripping with evil energy. "Kallen, my dear, would you lend me and the Vice President a hand in stoking a fire in the heart of all of Ashford in the Major's honor?"


From all around Kallen lecherous gazes swept over her as her fellow students openly appraised Milly's choice. For her part, Kallen bristled defiantly, glaring back at the blonde gorgon. No, she growled silently, I won't be a pawn in your idiotic game. I refuse to contaminate myself with more Britannian filth just to soothe whatever is making you so scared. Fight your own battles, you bitch!


The crowd disagreed. Even as she raged internally, Kallen felt the invisible pressure mounting all around her. It started out quietly, a soft chant from somewhere off to her left. It quickly rose in volume as the crowd around her took up the cry. Kallen tried to drown it out, tried to force her jaw to unclench so she could curse them all into silence, tell Milly to fuck off and be the prize if she was so enamored with the idea… But the swelling chant stifled any protest she might've made.


"Of course," Milly added from the stage, Lelouch stoically silent next to her, "I would make voluntary participation worthwhile. Don't ever let it be said that an Ashford isn't good to their friends. Someone who assists in such a manner deserves a spot on the student council–"


And the guarantee to be used as a prize at all events to come? To join the President's collection of pet chew toys? Pass.


"–and a day in my family's library would not be amiss. Knowledge is power, after all!"


"Kal-len! Kal-len! Kal-len!" the room shouted eagerly, driven to a fever pitch by the promise of a second prize. Jealous and longing gazes swept over her, pinning her in place. To her horror, Kallen couldn't get her mouth to cooperate, couldn't scream out her objections. She was pinned against a wall again, and they were circling around her.


Please… No… Not… Not again…


"No," Kallen whispered, her jaw finally coming unstuck, but it was far too little, far too late.


The crowd pushed her forward and Kallen found herself staggering up the concrete steps of the massive bleachers, up onto the stage. She turned and saw the crowd ranged out in the gymnasium below her, like a multitude mobbing around an altar or a ravenstone, eager to see the chosen victim sacrificed in their ritual.


Milly, the high priestess of the rite, grabbed her and Lelouch's hands, lifting them into the air. Kallen couldn't muster any resistance, paralyzed by the sea of hungry eyes and gaping mouths spread out before her.


If she pushes me off, down into the crowd… The nonsensical thought blazed through Kallen's panicked mind, they'll tear me to pieces… They know I don't belong… They know!


"Whoever manages to earn the top spot in the simulators wins their choice of date between the most eligible boy and girl currently enrolled at the Academy, based on my network of informers!" Milly turned to her, cornflower-blue eyes dancing with sickening mirth over her smile, surprisingly ghoulish at less than a foot away. "Either Lelouch Lamperouge, or Kallen Stadtfeld, pick your poison!"


It took everything Kallen had, every scrap of self-control and every bit of discipline Tanya had hammered into her to not lash out, to not hook her hands into claws and rip the arrogant smirk off Milly's face, inch by bloody inch. It took even more of her strength to not look at the smiling students who surrounded her and see four equally amorous eyes leering out of long-dead faces.


Remember the mission. Anything for the Cause, Kallen told herself, her internal monologue unconsciously adapting her best friend's mannerisms as it held the rising strain at bay. You're not that same girl, scared and angry, trapped up against a wall. You're not just lashing out. You are a professional on a mission. Control yourself.


Remembering Tanya's long-ago advice, Kallen forced herself to focus on her breathing, ignoring everything else. She'd lasted among all the countless insults and indignancies of her position before, she wouldn't let this farce break her now.


I'm stronger than this, Kallen thought, pulling her resolve around herself like armor. I'm stronger than her.


So resolved, Kallen turned her attention away from the queued up students below her and turned her attention to her fellow victim in Milly's schemes. For his part, Lelouch seemed engrossed in a conversation with the President. Even though they were less than a meter away, Kallen couldn't hear their murmuring voices over the crowd's dull roar.


Well, at least he isn't looking at me like a piece of meat, Kallen noticed. In fact, he doesn't look at all happy, and I can guess why. Some idiot might call him a Prince Lelouch imposter in front of Pitt, and then we'll all have to attend another assembly where they'll wheel him to death for lese majeste.


Not that he was the only Lelouch attending Ashford. The three boys she knew by that name were discreetly trying to escape out the gymnasium's backdoor. Kallen noticed one of the boys exiting a simulator with an L as his first initial reflexively cringe away from Major Pitt before steeling himself to shake the officer's hand; another Lelouch, then.


Suddenly, the Lelouch up on the stage with her looked up from his conversation with Milly and caught her eye. It was all she could do to not flinch away from him just like the boy down below recoiling from Major Pitt. Thankfully, he quickly returned to his conversation with Milly, leaving Kallen now irritated with herself as well as with everybody else in the room.


It was strange, she thought as he descended from the stage to join the line, now much the enigmatic Vice-President still disturbed her. Kallen had no trouble remembering the unguarded look into his eyes last Christmas, when his mask had slipped, just for a moment. That he was some kind of crazy she had no doubt; what made his brand of crazy so frightening was how good he was at concealing it. Without that look, she'd have been like everyone else; convinced he was a lazy genius wasting his time and talent.


But it seemed like Lelouch had evaded everybody else's notice for another day. He descended from his simulator and, after trading a few amiable words and a handshake with Major Pitt, made his escape, disappearing into the crowd of spectators. Kallen checked the scoreboard; Lelouch Lamperouge had somehow achieved a perfectly average score, his time and number of kills the exact mean of the student body so far.


"Oh, look," Milly chirped beside her, finally relinquishing her hand. Kallen discreetly tried to wipe the memory of the other girl's hand off on her skirt, but the memory of the pressure remained. "Looks like it's your turn now, Kallen!" This time, the blonde's encouraging smile looked a bit less forced. Kallen didn't return it. "Make sure you put a good show on for me, okay? Perhaps you can even have a date with Lulu~"


By the time she had made her way down the stairs, Kallen had worked out her plan. Judging by the scoreboard, her fellow students were lasting just under five minutes on average and generally managed to destroy only one or two targets in the simulation. So, she'd do likewise. As soon as she destroyed her second target, she'd feign exhaustion and bailout, turning in an entirely unremarkable score.


I just need to think of this as another infiltration mission, Kallen told herself. All I need to do is hold it together, and I'll have a juicy report to hand in to Tanya and Big Bro. And then I can tape a picture of Milly to the punching bag back at the Manor and work some of my stress out on it!


"Alright, my lady," said the sergeant manning the small desk in front of the simulators, his rough, lower-class voice rumbling as he copied the information from her ID card into some form on his computer, "you're up next. Go ahead and get in number eleven. As soon as you sit down and grab the sticks, the simulation will start."


"Got it," Kallen replied, nodding to the soldier before making her way over to the vacant simulator pod.


Of course it would be number eleven! Kallen sneered and forced her apprehension at the bad omen down. Stick with the plan, Kozuki. Keep your hands steady and your mind focused. Just pretend you're Tanya; you'll get through this just fine.


Just remember the plan, Kallen, she told herself again as the seat began to roll forwards, retracting into the Simulator. I don't need to do much; it's not like the top scorer was that impressive.


Five kills is the best Ashford Academy can offer up? Kallen scoffed, trying to imagine Tanya's reaction to such a poor showing, So much for noble supremacy.


I'll just kill a Knightmare or two, run around for a few minutes, let myself die, and then pretend to be disappointed when I step out of the simulator. She nodded to herself, firming her resolve. I probably won't even need to take a dive or whatever – I've never been in a Knightmare before!


Kallen took a deep breath, trying to reassure herself as the box began to close behind her. Her breath came uncomfortably rough, catching in her throat as the lock clicked shut. The din of students faded, overtaken by the electric humming of the machine.



Remember what's at stake, Kallen. Anything for the Cause.


Then, Kallen was alone in the darkness of the simulator, with only the thought of the Cause to sustain her in the box she found herself trapped inside. Her breath hitched as the darkness pulsed, pressing on her unbearably.


The large screen in front of her suddenly flickered to life, the darkness fleeing as the seal of the Imperial Britannian Army Knightmare Corps seared into her retinas. As she blinked her suddenly tearing eyes, the loathsome seal disappeared, replaced by a message in dull blue flashing across a light gray background.


[Loading Simulation…]


Anything for the Cause.


Almost without thinking, her hands slid into the primary control interfaces as they rose to her from the sides of the pod. Various buttons and levers dotted the rest of the cockpit, their purpose lost on Kallen.


Blinding light filled her simulator, and her eyes squeezed shut on reflex. A moment later and a view spanning a hundred and eighty degrees of coverage sprang up before her, banishing the darkness under the harsh glare of its artificial light. She lowered her arms back to the controls, feeling vaguely ridiculous and even more on edge.


Looking around with her screens, Kallen found herself in a bare-bones urban environment, empty but for "her". Looking down, she saw a large rifle waiting, cradled in "her" four fingered purple hands.


Disturbingly, Kallen felt entirely at ease in the simulated Knightmare. It should've been a waking nightmare, sitting high above a city's streets in one of the machines that had gutted the Japanese defenses. Instead, Kallen found herself marveling at how quickly the simulated Frame responded to her motions, one hand flexing up at the mere twitch of her fingers.


With every action, every minute movement, the barrier between Kallen and the Knightmare seemed to fade further away. It was as if she was steadily becoming the Sutherland, and with it, finally being the instrument of Britannian dominion and imperialism her father had always intended her to be, despite all his circumlocutions and claims to the contrary.


You should be at ease sitting atop your knightly steed, a corner of Kallen's mind said. This was what you were born and bred for. This, just as much as the Barony of New Leicester, is your birthright. When you were a child, you could believe in fairy tales, like your Japanese identity. It's time to grow up, to put aside childish things, time to embrace your blood.


What a fine young Britannian flower you're becoming.


"No," Kallen growled under her breath as she took her first smooth step in the simulation, willing the treacherous little voice in her head to shut up. Walking in the simulation felt so natural and easy; quieting the voice that sounded so much like her stepmother was all but impossible.


No, this isn't me! Kallen yelled back in response to the intruding voice worming its way through her mind, I'm not Britannian, not where it counts! Kallen Stadtfeld doesn't exist! Only Kozuki Kallen is real!


She breathed out, forcing her jaw to unclench


That's right… That's right, I'm Kozuki Kallen. I'm Japanese. I'm just playing a role right now, she reassured herself. I just need to remember to stick to the plan and it'll all be fine.


[Adequate movement and coordination confirmed] A cool mechanical voice spoke in time with the words that suddenly flashed in the center of her screen.


Kallen yelped in surprise, before realizing she'd continued moving forwards in the simulation. Presumably her waffling around had satisfied some programmed threshold, confirming that she knew the basics of Knightmare operation.


[Skipping Introductory Tutorial]


[Advancing To Combat Scenario #4]


[Good Luck, Devicer]


Kallen blinked, and then–


–Crumbling highrise buildings boxed her in as the setting sun illuminated the narrow alleyway she found herself in. The ground was covered in filth – broken beer bottles, faded bloodstains – just another alleyway in another ghetto. A Knightmare rounded the corner ahead of her, an ugly froglike thing that Kallen recognized as a Gun-ru, the standard Chinese model. With a start, Kallen realized that it was charging right at her and–


–Up against a wall, a tiny knife is all that stands between her and the four men surrounding her. "I'm no damned Britannian!" Kallen cries, trying for anger and displaying naked desperation instead. "I'm Japanese! Kozuki Naoto's my big bro, so don't you mess with me!"


The rifle snapped up, simulated thunder barking a staccato beat as 30mm gauss rounds lashed out, the gigantic rifle kicking back against her shoulder.


The boxy mech, clumsy on its fragile third leg, reeled under the impacts, her shots drilling deep into its cheap, substandard simulated armor and tearing the Gun-ru's central hull apart in a withering barrage.


And then it was over. The echoing reports of her gunfire rang out across the empty imitation cityscape. The shredded hulk of her first kill teetered over and crashed to the ground, a surprisingly lifelike simulation of a lifeless hulk.



A moment of staring at the smoking Knightmare later, Kallen's mind finally caught up with her.


"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Kallen cursed as she tried to get her breathing back under control. Her knuckles were white with pressure as they squeezed down on her gauntlet-like controls, heart hammering in her chest as her adrenaline surged.


"Just calm down… Calm down, and stick to the fucking plan," she said, barely remembering to use Britannian in the likely recorded simulator, even as her mind fumbled for what that plan had been. "I just… I just need to-"


The building in front of her exploded.


She ducked, feeling something roar past her overhead, hurling herself behind the skimpy cover of a parked truck as-


The sound of the bombs thunder up from below her, making the pavement under her feet shake with the impact. The two men at the station's mouth are knocked halfway off their feet and they turn away from her, towards the staircase behind them. From the corner of her eyes she sees Tanya give the signal and suddenly she's running and-


She surged forward, scrambling from the truck and scanning for a better hiding spot or for her enemies as she tried to get a handle on her surroundings.


A distant part of her mind remembered her Knightmare's controls, which had seemed so complex yet intuitive at the time. She remembered one option in particular, and her fingers danced across the buttons she needed, effortlessly directing her steed even as she scrambled forwards.


Two smoke canisters nestled on the Sutherland's left pauldron popped, shrouding her form in a dense cloud of black smoke formulated to block infrared as well as visual detection. Now hidden from her unseen enemy, Kallen took a moment to pop her faceplate open to expose the factsphere and scanned the area with her sensory suite.


More shots slammed into the walls of the buildings around her, but with her smoke cloud reducing visibility, none got within two meters of her. The radar of the factsphere cut through the smoke, its report giving her a rough map of her surroundings. As expected, most of those surroundings were static and immobile, the simulated urban jungle and digitized vehicle window dressing reassuringly harmless.


The hazy silhouettes staggering through the gloom, on the other hand, were the furthest thing from safe. Even "seen" through a crude rendering on her instrument panel, they were obviously sweeping the area looking for her, looking for the enemy who had killed their squadmate.


She's back in the alley, the figures of the men looming over her. Lecherous grins shine on their faces as they grab her, pulling her knife away and pulling her down to the ground-


Kallen burst out of the smoke, her rifle up and spitting hate as she strafed hard around their flank, her landspinners kicking up a wave of sparks as she skidded across the cracked pavement.


The clunky Chinese mechs were too slow to respond, their scattered fire lagging far behind as her own rounds punched through their paltry armor.


She saw one of her shells rip through the central armor of an unlucky "frog", eviscerating the machine as it tore a hole between its "eyes", right through where the cockpit should have been-


-Where Tanya's bullet is supposed to hit the man but Tanya isn't there and Kallen is fighting alone. A shrill scream rips its way from the man's throat as her tiny three-inch blade finds his kidney, and gritting her teeth Kallen rips the blade sideways towards his spinal column, cursing as his lumbar muscles catch the dull blade and-


Kallen threw herself to the side as a burst of 20mm shells slashed overhead, quickly turning her headlong plunge into a mad dash by pivoting on the fingers of one hand, redirecting her momentum towards her assailants.


The Gun-Rus, lacking any melee weapons, frantically backpedaled but in the narrow road there was nowhere for them to go as Kallen stooped upon them.


The man screams as she runs at him, backpedaling frantically as he slashes the air with his knife, trying to keep her at bay. With a burst of speed, she is inside his guard, and with her free hand she first blocks his swing then forces his arm away. Before he can continue his retreat, she punches him in the nose with her knife-hand and feels the cartilage crumple under her knuckle. With a burbled scream the man falls to the ground, and she is upon him.


The nearest enemy tried to hold her at bay, both of its built-in machine guns and auto-cannons attempting to catch up with her speedy approach. The explosive shells lanced overhead and behind her, closer and closer as she neared but still far too slow to even threaten her.


Contemptuously, Kallen raised her rifle with one hand, a burst from the Knightmare-scaled coilgun silencing one of the Gun-ru's pauldron-mounted guns as her other hand, her real one, thumbed a switch on her console.


[Slash Harken Armed]


A solid Thump reverberated through the cockpit as a diamond-tipped blade slashed through the air at the end of a wire, burrowing deep into the hapless Gun-ru's leg.


Grinning, Kallen charged the trapped Knightmare, generations of conqueror ancestors howling for blood in her soul as her fingers clenched tightly inside her gauntlets, bearing down on the sticks that controlled her arms.


Steel shrieked as she met the crippled Chinese trash fist first, her iron hand ripping through layers of cheap armor and plunging into the beating heart of the dying Frame.


The man's open eyes stare up at Kallen from his ruined face, the tongue forced out from his crushed throat. They are close, close enough to be lovers, and Kallen can smell the stench of his rotting teeth as she looks into those eyes fixed on eternity and screams and screams and-


The remaining pair of Gun-rus rushed to aid their disemboweled friend, guns blazing as they desperately tried and failed to force her back. With her handhold on the guts of the other machine, Kallen heaved her hostage up from the pavement and threw her landspinners into gear, distantly hearing the sporadic thump of impact against her impromptu shield as she maneuvered backwards.


She returned fire from behind the relative safety of her improvised cover, rifle whining as she spat hypervelocity slugs at the last of the pathetic machines that dared to attack her, punching ugly holes in its fragile hide with impunity.


[Increasing Difficulty]


But there were more.


There were always more.


No matter how many of the endless waves of Gun-rus Kallen killed, more were always somehow waiting just around the corner. Autocannons and machine-guns pounded the streets all around her, the simulated city ripped asunder as a neverending tide of enemies harried her through the burning streets.


So she killed and killed and killed until-


[Ammunition Zero]


Click


Kallen's eyes flew wide at the flashing red symbol suddenly flaring to life in the corner of her screen, and she spat a mangled curse as she realized her assault rifle had run dry.


The last of her smoke popped from her shoulders, shrouding her in just enough darkness and haze to give her the cover she needed to fling her Sutherland into a hasty retreat down an alley.


Kallen paused there in the mouth of the alley, taking a moment to gasp for breath and to get her thoughts together, but her head was swimming in so much fear and adrenaline that it was difficult to stay still, even for a second. Her blood thundered in her ears, her heart pounded so hard it felt like it wanted to rip its way out of her chest, and her whole body was drenched in sweat.


"Fuck," she huffed, chest heaving with harsh breaths. "Fuck, fuck, fuck… I… I was supposed to…"


Scrambling through her memories, Kallen desperately tried to recall what her objective was, tried to claw together the scraps of the plan she'd started from into something workable, something beyond the next few seconds, but all she could find were twisted reminders of how she'd ended up here, in this alley.


The men smile at her and Kallen feels her skin crawl. "And I'll take one of your eyes, just for the taste," says the man with the knife as he saunters closer, his comrades pinning her arms behind her shoulders, "but I'll let you keep the other so you can see just what we're gonna do to your pretty little body…"


"Dammit!" She roared, punching the console and suddenly remembering that this was all a simulation, a game. She'd forgotten that; she'd forgotten that she wasn't back in the alley, not really…



I should stop, she thought, but it was hard to hear her own voice over her jangling nerves. I was supposed to stop. I can still… stop…


Blinking the sweat from her eyes, Kallen gazed critically down at her rifle and her shield. The Gun-ru was mangled scrap barely held together by ragged mechanical sinew and her rifle was totally spent. She discarded the now-useless tools with a sudden spike of disappointed anger, feeling ever more frustrated by her lack of options. She couldn't just fight with her hands! She wasn't Tanya!


But I was supposed to stop, she reminded herself. I… I can't remember the plan, but… but I was supposed to give up… Right?


Distant gunfire echoed in the ghostly city. All around her, gray and abandoned buildings bloomed to sudden life as explosions shredded them from within, inching nearer to her temporary sanctuary with each passing second. Every breath she wasted in deliberation saw the walls of flame and dust advance ever closer.


I've done enough, Kallen swallowed, her dry throat working to swallow the syrupy, choking saliva. I should just let myself die, right?


Really, that's all the Elevens are good for, left to their own devices: they run, they hide, and they die like the worthless dogs they are. They should thank us for taking them in hand!


Kallen's teeth clenched down, her jaw aching from the grinding pressure as her hands throttled the plastic sticks, her pride stoked to a boiling, bloody-minded froth. Dogs, were they? She'd show him… She'd show them all…


A tenement building next to her exploded, the roof slumping in with palpable exhaustion.



Her radar swarmed with signals, all clustered around her.


There are at least ten of them, and Naoto is standing alone between them and eleven year old Kallen. Her brother is always in fights, but this is different. Instead of the lone hoodlum or two or three hooligans picking a fight with the halfbreed or his helpless little sister, a whole gang of them are there, standing in a line across the road. Kallen chances a look behind her; a cul-de-sac. There is no escape that way. The only way out, is through.


Something in her snapped.


[Chaos Mine Armed]


Kallen flew out of the alley, dancing on her landspinners as she quickly fired and withdrew her slash harkens, spinning her in a twisting, erratic pattern through the throng of clumsy, malformed troglodytes waiting for her out in the street.


The army of Gun-rus surged around her, aiming their guns and grabbing for her with their manipulators and-


The sky exploded.


White hot fragments of near-molten shrapnel ripped through the compacted horde, scything through the first ranks in a scream of shearing metal as the always-volatile Sakuradite drives cooked off in a series of sympathetic detonations.


Her hands dipped down to the holsters at her hips as she hurled herself into the panicking throng of shit-eating cowards who thought they'd cornered her and-


[Strike Mace Armed]


Kallen lashed out, a club of super heavy, durable, metal slamming down on the neckless head of the first Gun-ru in her path, smashing the steel cranium that might as well have been eggshell with ease and pulping the pilot within-


The pipe, heavy and rusted, jolts against her hands as she brings it down again and again and again, sending shocks of impact into her arms until her fingers grow too numb and the pipe flies from them, disappearing into the gloom.


She laughed with the childlike joy of murder, smashing through the horde absent of any hint of finesse or grace, reveling in the brutality of the slaughter. She killed, and she killed, and she killed, and nothing satisfied her; every stick of fuel was only further kindling, sending the fires of heaven scorching through her soul as she killed again and again.


When her clubs snapped, the ultra-durable composite finding its limits, Kallen resorted to her fists. When her fists broke, useless dented steel joints hanging from cables like ripped tendons, she lashed out with her slash harkens. When her landspinners broke, she charged at the pitiful bastards who tried to retreat, hounding them down and dragging them to asphalt with her, where their awkward tripod legs and weak clawed manipulators had no hope of holding her at bay.



Kallen howled, she screamed, she even sung in a moment of lunacy, and through it all her soul rose in exultation.

Snarling, Kallen uses her teeth instead, biting and gouging and clawing and wondering where Naoto is, where her Big Brother is, and why he isn't here to help her when she is alone and there are so, so many…


And then, the darkness returned. For a moment, Kallen continued to jerk and pull at the control sticks, trying to find more enemies, trying to find fresh blood. Slowly, awareness flooded back in, and she let go of the sweat-slick controls, flinching away as if they had burnt her.


The whole cockpit stunk of sweat and copper, she realized, and her mouth tasted like blood. Her clothes stuck uncomfortably to her skin. Suddenly, Kallen felt exhausted, every muscle taxed and worn down to quivering jelly. She sucked down greedy breaths, trying to calm herself as tiny shuddering tremors racked her body. Something had gone wrong, but she couldn't remember what; all she could focus on was the need to inflict further violence coming from deep within.


As the door to Simulator Pod #11 opened, the lights of the gymnasium flooded into the tiny space, wrenching Kallen back into the present. Dimly, through the blood hammering in her ears, Kallen could hear the sounds of cheering and applause. To her faint horror, she could hear the same chant that had driven her up the steps of the stage mixed into those cheers.


"Kal-len! Kal-len! Kal-len!"


She frowned; before, the chant had been strident and demanding, a hungry flail of public opinion and pressure forcing her onwards. Now, as she unlatched the harness holding her in the simulator's throne, the tone was undeniably celebratory.


As Kallen staggered to her feet and down the stairs, the chant swelled in volume before collapsing into an incoherent shriek of celebration, so loud it almost battered her down to her feet. She blinked mutely at the horde of blurry faces through eyes teary from sweat.


Are… Are they all cheering for me? Kallen's thoughts came slowly and somehow felt distant as if she'd snuck into her big bro's secret stash of moonshine again. Why…? What'd I do?


Numbly, she looked up at the screen standing in front of the line of simulators as Major Pitt thumped her shoulder in congratulation. There on the screen were her initials, and next to them were…


Oh… So that's why they're cheering.


A wave of nausea struck Kallen like a fist and she swayed on her feet, her eyes glued to the screen. The average Ashford student had 'killed' between two to three enemies and had lasted five minutes. To her shock, Kallen found that somehow fifty minutes had passed while she was in that tiny sweat-stinking box and that she'd killed no fewer than thirty-seven enemies in that simulated hell.


Oh… Fuck. Fuck, fuck… Fuck. I… I fucked up. I fucked up bad.


She had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. She had failed in every way that mattered.


Because every disaster, no matter how dire, can always take a turn for the worse, that was when Milly suddenly bloomed into existence, springing into Kallen's peripheral vision next to the unremarkable features of Major Pitt. Slowly, Kallen turned from the screen towards her mismatched tormentors.


Kallen frowned; Milly's lips were moving, but she couldn't hear what the harridan was saying. "Sagh-" she stopped, realizing that her mouth was full of blood seeping from her cut lip. Instinctively, she turned and spat the mouthful of blood onto the smooth polished boards of the Ashford Academy Gymnasium, idly wiping at her mouth with her arm as she turned back towards Milly.


Shit, Kallen thought vaguely, I smeared blood all over my blazer. That's gonna be a bitch to get out.


She blinked, realizing she'd said her last sentence out loud, before shrugging and continuing on. She was having a very difficult time caring about anything at all at the moment. "Sorry Milly, I didn't hear you. What was that you just said?"


"Oh! Umm," Milly tore herself away from the bloody smear on the floor, her eyes strangely wide to Kallen and her cheer even more obviously forced than before. Kallen idly wondered if the Academy's president had ever seen blood before. "Well, I just wanted to congratulate you on winning your date with Lulu! Aren't you happy? You've got a guaranteed dinner date locked in with the Academy's most eligible bachelor."


Kallen goggled at the other woman, trying to figure out what planet she'd dropped down from. She blinked, and the space behind her eyes was full of men and machines, all the same, and all trying to pull her down. She blinked again and Milly was still there, clearly waiting for an answer. Major Pitt lurked behind her, a man who was somehow just as gray as the uniform he wore in Kallen's eyes.


"Fuck the date," Kallen growled without thinking, "and fuck you too, Ashford. I'm fucking sick of you treating me like a goddamn puppet for your petty fucking games. I did this for me, so everyone else can fuck right off!"


For a timeless moment, all Kallen could feel was a twisting satisfaction as Milly stumbled back, one hand half raised as if she was trying to protect herself or perhaps to reach out to Kallen. Under her makeup, her face had gone bloodlessly white and her eyes were wide and hurt.


Then, someone muttered a surprised curse, and Kallen abruptly realized that the gymnasium had fallen completely silent and that every eye in attendance was fixed on her. Even the blind girl in the wheelchair she'd noticed earlier was oriented her way. Worst of all was the speculative gleam in Major Pitt's unremarkable brown eyes; he wasn't looking at anybody, least of all the Ashford heiress standing next to him. Instead, he was looking at her with undisguised interest.


Suddenly, it was all too much. Kallen turned on her heel and half stumbled, half ran out of the hauntingly silent gymnasium, away from the stricken Milly Ashford and away from the horribly intrigued eyes of the Britannian Major. She ran into the first bathroom she could find, slamming the stall door shut behind her and pulling her legs up into her chest as the stress of the afternoon finally overwhelmed her completely.


When Kallen's tremors finally released her and when she'd cleaned her face and fixed her makeup and hair, Major Pitt was leaning against the wall outside the door to the Ladies' Room, clearly waiting for her.


"I think," the recruiting officer began, "that it's time we had a talk about your future career in the Knightmare Corps, Lady Stadtfeld."


---------


MAY 4, 2016 ATB
ASHFORD ACADEMY, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1810


Come on… Pick up… Pick up, dammit!


Anxiously, Kallen checked her watch; it would be… four in the morning in New Leicester, or three in the morning in the imperial capital of Pendragon.


Come on… Wake up… Please wake up…


Finally, after a seemingly endless series of rings, the line picked up. Kallen's heart leapt into her throat, but she forced herself to continue breathing slowly and steadily.


I need to stay calm, she told herself. If I sound calm and deliberate, he'll take me seriously. He'll have to!


"Kallen…?" A groggy voice asked, and Kallen could almost imagine the man at the other end checking his bedside clock. "Are you alright…? It's… a bit early for a social call… Did you forget your time zones?"


"No!" Kallen snapped, before forcing herself to calm down and lower her voice, very aware that Major Pitt was, in all likelihood, still on the other side of the closed door at the end of the room. He'd been all but attached to her for the last two hours, badgering her about the many benefits of the ROTC program and how far she could go in the Knightmare Corps. He'd only grudgingly allowed her out of his sight to make her phone call.


I wonder if he thinks I'll try to escape out the window? I can't deny that the thought's crossed my mind…


"No," she repeated, "I… I know it's pretty early for a call… But…"


"But it couldn't wait," the voice sighed, its owner clearly resigned to the fact that further sleep wasn't in the cards. "Alright Kallen, I'll be right with you. Let this old man get some coffee on board, and then we can talk about the situation."


"Thanks," Kallen sighed into the phone, annoyed by how she already felt more at ease with the situation after talking with the man on the other end of the line. "Sorry to wake you up so early, Dad."


Ten minutes later, Alvin Stadtfeld, Baron of New Leicester and Head of House Stadtfeld, came back on the line.


"Alright, I'm feeling marginally awake now." The tired drawl hadn't quite left his voice, but Kallen could hear her father's typically amiable tones slowly reasserting themselves as the caffeine began to kick in. "So, Kallen, my beloved daughter: What's gone so wrong that you couldn't let these old bones sleep for another four hours, especially after months without a single text?"


"Umm… Yeah," Kallen shifted uneasily, put on the spot from across the Pacific Ocean by her father's easily envisioned gimlet eye. A moment later, she scowled as she realized what she was doing. I don't owe him a thing after he abandoned Naoto and me for years! "Well, about that… It's kind of a long story…"


"And yet, you, of all people, felt it necessary to wake me up at three in the morning. Normally, getting you to talk to me is like pulling teeth," her father rejoined, and Kallen could just hear the wry smile on his lips, "which means this is important, and you know it's important. So, come on, tell me. How can your father help you, Kallen?"


It would almost be easier if he was just open about being an asshole, she reflected. It's when he actually sounds like he cares, actually seems like he cares, that it's harder to deal with him.


In a moment of reflection, Kallen remembered how her best friend had never met her own father, and in fact didn't even know who her own father was because he had been a random Britannian bastard just looking for a quick fuck with a broken condom. Her gut twisted, and suddenly Kallen felt ashamed.


Tanya actually has an asshole father, Kallen reminded herself. I don't have any room to complain. At least Dad tried, kinda. I mean, Naoto likes him, so… Fine, fine. Dammit.


"Alright," Kallen began, cramming her baggage to the back of her mind; it could wait until after she no longer had to worry about Major Pitt forcing her into the Army. "So, for some reason, an Army recruiter came to my school today and kinda forced everyone to try out the Knightmare Simulator. And, umm… I apparently did good. Really good. And now he's trying to force me to join the ROTC program that he just started today here on campus."


"...So, let me get this straight," Alvin Stadtfeld sighed, taking a long sip of coffee before continuing. "Your school, a private school that does not take any imperial subsidies and offers no ROTC program, which I know because I checked before enrolling you there, has suddenly been arm-twisted into starting up an ROTC program and now you're being badgered by some puffed up Major who won't leave you alone?"


"Y-yeah," Kallen confirmed, blinking with surprise at how hard her father's voice had grown as he recontextualized her problem. "I mean, there's a bit more to it. I think this might've been the Viceroy's idea? The recruiter, Major Pitt, read a speech he claimed came straight from the Prince that mentioned Ashford by name. Also, Milly – that's the president's granddaughter – looked really scared when people started refusing to get in the simulator."


"Hmm…" Over the line, her father hummed thoughtfully to himself. "Alright, now… What are your thoughts on the matter, Kallen?"


"About what?" She asked, before wincing slightly at how loud she'd been, casting an anxious glance at the sealed door. "About what," she repeated more quietly, "the stupid assembly? Or joining the Army?"


"Both, I suppose," her father said idly, his mild tone not giving her any clues about his own thoughts. "But… you wouldn't have called me if the situation wasn't urgent, would you now? So, let me rephrase myself. Do you want to join ROTC and presumably the Army, Kallen? And do you want my thoughts on the matter?"


Kallen quickly mulled the matter over. Do I even care about his opinion? He's just another Britannian aristocrat, only out to protect and boost his own personal status; he sure as shit doesn't care about us. Otherwise… Otherwise, he would have stayed.


But as soon as the thought passed through Kallen's head, she remembered all of the times Naoto, her big bro, had stepped up for their father. "Dad cares. It's why he came back, Kallen. It's… it's also why he had to leave. To keep us safe."


She clenched her free hand into a fist. Why can't I just hate him? It would make things so much easier…


"Yeah, sure, I guess," she said out loud, trying not to sound too interested. "What do you think about all of this?"


"Well," Alvin replied dryly, "I seem to remember hearing that Area Eleven is still experiencing some rather unfortunate domestic troubles, correct? Troubles bad enough to wipe out entire units of Knightmares, which are typically in short supply in occupation garrisons. I also know that Prince Clovis has many rivals amongst his royal siblings who would love to assume the Viceregal-Governorship in his wake."


"Yes, yes, court politics are always going on," Kallen interrupted impatiently, "but how does that lead to some pig in a uniform showing up at my school?"


"Well, why does a farmer eat his seed corn?" her father asked rhetorically. "It sounds to me like someone in the Area Administration, maybe His Highness himself, is getting anxious about his supply of devicers on hand and is trying to increase that supply via aggressive recruitment. If this is true, it also indicates that His Highness or his advisors aren't expecting many new devicers from the Homeland. This priority is seemingly high enough to justify some level of coercion to force even high-caliber schools that aren't financially beholden to accept on-campus recruiters."


"...Huh. That's…" Really interesting, something Tanya needs to know, "fascinating, I guess. If the powers that be are really desperate for devicers, then it's a good time to join up, right?"


"Well, there are some undeniable benefits," Alvin mused, sipping at his coffee again. "I can't fully endorse you joining the service as my sole heir, especially since you don't have a child – or if you do, I'm going to have words with Nathan – but there are benefits. If you serve as a devicer, you would accrue a knighthood in your own right, as well as a barony once I'm gone. Serving in the Army is an excellent path to power, military as well as social and political. Even economic.


"It would," he continued, "also help burnish up your own loyal image, Kallen. If one day someone examines your documentation and finds a discrepancy, and if someone questions our claim that Alicia is your mother, an honorable service record will help ameliorate any stain on your reputation."


"That's… probably true," Kallen admitted. "And if I'm in the service, I don't need to worry about marriage offers, huh? Since I can just say I'm married to my Knightmare or some other garbage."


"You could certainly say that," her father chuckled, before yawning, "but honestly, that's something you don't need to worry about, Kallen. I'll be able to keep all of the old bats in the attic for the next decade at least, and even if I didn't, Nathan would run interference for you. Besides," he chuckled again, "I know you'd probably knife me if I ever tried to force you into a wedding dress, Kallie."


"S-shut up!" Kallen growled into the phone, trying to ignore the deep pang of emotions she didn't want to think about at the mention of her childhood nickname, of the name her father had called her by before he'd abandoned her and Naoto and their mother in a neighborhood full of bullies and bastards. "Don't fucking call me that, Dad!"


"Alright, as you wish," he sighed tiredly, "anyway, those are my thoughts about the Army. It could benefit you in a number of ways, great and small."


"And it would benefit our house too, wouldn't it?" Kallen asked, unable to resist the small dig. "After all, that's what's important, right? Anything to make sure that the Stadtfeld name is free from any blemish."


"If the heir had a reputation strengthened by honorable military service, that would benefit House Stadtfeld," Alvin acknowledged, not bothering to deny it. "But, that's neither here nor there. I'm only slightly less interested in trying to force you into a marriage than I am in trying to force you into a uniform. What do you think, Kallen? Do you want to join the Army after you finish school?"


"I don't know," Kallen replied half-truthfully. "I haven't really thought about what I want to do after I graduate. That's still two years away and all. I haven't thought about the Army at all."


It could have some advantages, she acknowledged. Knightmare training could come in handy, along with learning how the Britannians communicate and think… And I guess I could learn to shoot just as well in the Army as I could at The School… but fighting for the Empire, in their uniform? Ugh!


"But either way," Kallen rallied, summoning her anger back with ease, "I'm not interested in being harassed into signing up! It's going to be my choice!"


"...Alright," her father replied after a moment, "so, what do you want me to do about this recruiter, this…?"


"Major Pitt," she supplied.


"Thank you," he said. "Now, what would you like me to do about this Major Pitt, Kallen? If you want, I can… lean on him, so to speak. Pull some strings back home and take pressure off you.."


"I… I guess that would help," Kallen admitted, suddenly unsure of what exactly she did want. What the hell was I expecting when I called him? That he'd just wave a magic wand or something and this would all go away? "I don't really know what I should do…"


"Do what you think is best for yourself, Kallen," Alvin said, a sort of tiredness entering his voice that sounded much heavier than his previous sleepiness. "Just make sure you can still live in your own skin afterward. And come back home safe, for your mother's sake if not for mine."


"I'll…" Kallen swallowed; the mention of her mother even from her father's mouth bringing a painful lump into her throat, "I'll try."


Both Naoto and I are in a war against the most powerful empire on the planet, she thought. What happens to Mom if we both die? The Bitch will just throw her out, at the very least. Tanya would probably take her in… She stuck up for her that one time… But that's if Tanya's still alive…


"I suppose that's all I can ask," Alvin sighed. "Well, you've heard my thoughts, Kallen. Whatever your choice, I'll support you." After a pause, he continued. "I love you, Kallen. You know that, right?"


"T-thanks for the advice, Dad," Kallen replied, gulping slightly as she realized she meant it sincerely. "I'll… I'll let you know what I choose to do."


"Don't be a stranger."


With a tap, Kallen ended the call and collapsed into one of the luxurious couches scattered around this parlor.


I hope Milly hasn't done anything weird on this one, she thought idly, letting herself go boneless as she breathed out the emotional turbulence speaking with her father always stirred up. I'm so definitely not in the mood for any of that shit. Not now, probably not ever.


With a weary sigh, Kallen brought her phone up and dialed another contact, this one listed under a false name with the initials TH.


The recipient picked up the phone immediately.


"Kallen. What's the situation?"


Kallen almost gasped as Tanya's cold, clear voice cut through the haze of confusion filling her head.


"Tanya," she began, speaking in Britannian just in case Major Pitt truly was at the door, ear pressed to the wood, "there was a recruitment event at Ashford today, and I couldn't get out of it. They put me in a KMF simulator and I, uhh, kinda freaked out but I still did really good. Too good. They want me to join ROTC and the Army. What do I do?"


"Someone's close enough to hear you, I take it, but you think that your line is clear enough to reach out for advice," Tanya said, immediately grasping the situation. "I understand. Are there any signs that they know anything about your other background?"


"No, they haven't been making any threats or anything, not yet at least." Kallen took a calming breath, trying to slow her nervous tongue. "That said, the recruiter's been giving me the soft sell for the last two hours, and back during the event, Milly looked really nervous when he started to frown. I get the feeling that if I don't say yes, they're going to try to make me."


"I understand," Tanya repeated. "In that case… Go for it."


"Wait, what?" Kallen blurted, shocked by the conversation's sudden turn. "You… You want me to agree?"


"I do," Tanya said smoothly, her tone clipped and precise. "Listen to me carefully, Kallen. I know you are more of a warrior than a spy by inclination. Despite this, you have performed admirably so far. Good work always earns more work, though; so, I am tasking you with a new mission. You will become a soldier; moreover, you will be the best soldier you can be. You will learn all that you can from the Britannians. You will be as Britannian as possible. You will be Cadet Kallen Stadtfeld.


"And then one day, when the time comes, you will come home to us, to your brother and I. You will become Kozuki Kallen once again. And you will come back with the expertise of a Britannian devicer, brimming with knowledge about our enemy. This will be a difficult mission; I'm asking much from you. But your credo is Anything for the Cause, and I am certain, Kallen, that you'll live up to it. You've never failed anything I've asked you to do before now. Do you accept this mission, Kallen?"


She felt like she was standing on the edge of a cliff. She couldn't see the bottom. She desperately wanted to step back, to say that she wouldn't, couldn't do it, couldn't take the plunge.


But you know that you can, a treacherous, cruel voice said from inside her. Perhaps it was just her emotional strength failing her after a long, trying day, but Kallen couldn't help but listen to it. You know you can do it and nobody else can. Anything for the Cause. Duty is a mountain. There is nobody else who can pick up this mountain. This is your sacrifice. If you step back now, you have betrayed everything you've ever said about your duty, your dedication.


Your mistress has given you an order; a good soldier obeys her orders.


"Yes," Kallen said, her tongue like lead, "yes, I'll do it."


"Good." The clear voice was sharp-edged in its purity, free of any touch of regret or any second guesses. "Then you must cut off all contact with us. Give the Britannians no reason to suspect your loyalty. Delete my contact, and Ohgi's and Naoto's. If you must pass us a message, hand it to Rivalz and tell him to pass it on to Inoue.


"And…" Tanya's voice softened, "don't worry about your mother or your brother. I'll go to the Stadtfeld Mansion this very night with Naoto, and we'll bring her back with us. She won't be staying in Shinjuku; she'll be going someplace that's safe, far from the Britannians, far from your stepmother. I'll be sending Naoto out into the countryside too. You won't need to worry about them, Kallen, I promise."


"Will I need to worry about you?" The words were out of her mouth before she could think about them, but Kallen couldn't find it in herself to recall them. Was this really the last conversation she would have with her friend? Surely not.


"Anything for the Cause," Tanya replied. "If Naoto is going out of Shinjuku to assist Ohgi with our program outside of the Ghetto, someone needs to stay behind to maintain the chain of command. Just as you have your duty, so too do I have mine."


Of course that's what she would say. I don't know what else I expected.


"But," Tanya added, "I'll likely be busy with my leadership duties. I doubt I'll have much time for frontline work in the foreseeable future." For some reason, she sounded oddly wistful. "You don't need to worry about me, Kallen. Do your duty and I'll do mine; we will meet again."


"If you say so," Kallen replied. She chanced another look at the closed door; there were no signs of any eavesdroppers. Nevertheless, she dropped her voice down to a whisper and turned away from the door, tucking the phone up close to her mouth as she lowered her face into the pillows. Then, in Japanese, she bid her leader a farewell in the language of duty.


"Long live Japan."

---------


MAY 6, 2016 ATB
ASHFORD ACADEMY, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
0900


For the second time in a week, Kallen found herself standing up on a stage in front of the Ashford student body. This time, instead of joining Milly and Lelouch on the commentator's perch overlooking the gymnasium, she stood front and center on the school theater's stage, a line of six of her fellow students behind her. And, instead of facing the student body directly as she had before, this time Kallen was only facing Major Pitt.


Look on the bright side, Kallen thought sarcastically, at least they aren't looking at you with the same disgusting eyes as before. That's probably just the uniform, though; hell, that's a silver lining right there – I don't have to wear something designed by Milly Ashford any longer.


In place of the Ashford Academy creme blazer and navy blue miniskirt, Kallen and the other six members of the inaugural cohort of the Ashford ROTC program wore their newly issued formal uniforms. The five boys had uniform slacks while Kallen and the one other girl wore knee-length skirts, all in the same uniform gray of their uniform jackets, unadorned save for their shiny leather belts and the yellow stripes proclaiming their status as trainees.


The change in uniform was a vanishingly thin silver lining, though. Considering what Kallen was about to do, what she was about to swear… She'd almost be happy to wear anything Milly so chose if it meant that the last three days could somehow be undone, that her leader's final order could be recalled.


Almost.


At a subtle nod from Major Pitt, Kallen's right arm snapped up to a right angle, hand over her heart and elbow straight up. Her left arm was at her side, her garrison cap cradled at hip height. Just as she'd rehearsed for the last hour.


Her last hour as a civilian, free from the confines of His Majesty's Armed Forces. While she'd still be attending classes at Ashford Academy and sleeping in her bedroom on weeknights, her weekends and holidays belonged to the Army now. As did the next ten years of her life.


Until I take them back, Kallen reminded herself. This is all a ruse, all a deception. Don't forget that, Kallen. You aren't Britannian. You will never be Britannian, not where it matters. All for the Cause, anything for the Cause. Even this.


"Do you," Major Pitt began, "Lady Kallen Stadtfeld, swear your allegiance to His Imperial Majesty and to his Empire?"


"I, Kallen Stadtfeld, swear by almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Imperial Majesty Emperor Charles zi Britannia, and to his heirs, and to the Empire he rules." The words rolled off Kallen's tongue with a solemn gravitas heated by passionate ardor. They tasted like ashes.


"Do you," Major Pitt continued, "swear to defend his crown, his dignity, and his mandate against all his enemies?"


"I, Kallen Stadtfeld, swear by almighty God that I will, as in duty bound, zealously and faithfully defend His Imperial Majesty, his heirs, his crown and his dignity, and his mandate, against all his enemies." Kallen stared straight into Pitt's eyes, unable to blink or look away, trying her best to convey a fidelity with feet of clay to her new commanding officer, her new superior.


Never my leader. Never my lord. Never my master.


"Do you," Major Pitt asked, "swear to obey all orders of His Imperial Majesty, his heirs, and his generals and officers set over you?"


"I, Kallen Stadtfeld, swear by almighty God that I will obey any and all orders of His Imperial Majesty, his heirs, and his appointed generals and officers set over me, without objection or dissent. I pledge my life, my land, and my sacred honor to His Imperial Majesty, until such time as he sees fit to free me from this solemn bond."


As she publicly announced her loyalty with every intention of breaking her vows, Kallen extended her right arm up and out, until it was straight out in front of her, pointing above Pitt's head. Even though Britannian history claimed that they had driven Caesar and his legions from their shores, the Britannian Empire had still made the Roman Salute their own at some point.


"Then it is with pride that I, Major Phineas Pitt, accept your oath of loyalty on His Imperial Majesty's behalf," the officer intoned, raising his arm to mirror hers. "We shall exchange loyalty for fidelity, honor for honor, and blood for treachery. We name you Cadet Kallen Stadtfeld, and in recognition of your achievement and noble descent elevate you to Cadet Sergeant Kallen Stadtfeld. Long may you serve our Empire."


With that, and with the storm of applause from the audience, it was done. Kallen stepped back into line as the next cadet stepped forth to take the oath. There was no going back now. She had pledged herself to the service of the enemy.


She was a soldier of Britannia.

 

[Scopas]

Sidestory: A Day in the Life of Alicia Stadtfeld


MAY 4, 2016 ATB
ASHFORD ACADEMY, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1730



Lady Alicia Stadtfeld, née Maplethorpe, narrowed her eyes as she watched the vermin scuttle across the foyer below. The vermin, the Number, wore the same long black dress and white apron as the other female domestics, but to Lady Alicia's trained eye that single surface level commonality was as far as the civilizing touch of Britannia extended.


Though you know that the touch of one Britannian in particular went quite a bit deeper than a mere superficial touch…


With a sneer, Alicia pushed that errant thought to the back of her mind. She had a great deal of practice in that; she'd shoved many similar thoughts back into the darkness over the course of her four year long joke of a marriage.


When her brothers had informed Alicia that they had somehow found a second husband for her, she had been torn by overwhelming relief and gnawing suspicion. Relief that someone, anyone, finally wanted her, and suspicion over why, exactly, he wanted an empty, broken, useless vessel like herself.


Her condition was sadly no secret; her first husband, Justin, had made its existence all but public knowledge when he'd divorced her on the grounds that "their union was not blessed by God, as evident by its unfruitfulness." As a result, she had endured five long years of humiliation as a prematurely dried up old hag at the age of twenty three. Her life was functionally over before it had even begun.


Alicia had spent those years in utter misery. She was useless to her family, because how could they form a marriage alliance using her if she couldn't produce heirs to seal it? Nobody would take her. Nobody wanted her. Not even the commoner magnates her older brother Franklin had approached were interested in taking her, noble blood not outweighing an empty womb. The only thing that had made that long half-decade bearable had been the bottle she'd crawled into.


But then, Franklin had somehow found Baron Alvin of New Leicester, head of House Stadtfeld.


At forty-four when they'd met, Baron Alvin was sixteen years her senior. An unmarried man at that age holding title raised all sorts of questions, but Franklin and Alicia had both been desperate, and so neither asked anything remotely uncomfortable. If Baron Alvin had undignified tastes, they had reasoned, he had done a good enough job concealing them for there to be no whisper of scandal dogging his name.


Yes, you didn't ask a thing, you just praised God for his blessings, the snide voice murmured, returning from its exile. You didn't even bother to ask yourself why a baron without a recognized heir would marry a barren woman from a middling family. You didn't want to risk it all being a dream, did you?


She had not, Alicia could admit to herself. Looking back on it, she probably still would have committed to the marriage even if she had known what role her husband to be had in mind for her. She just would have appreciated some sort of warning. She wished he had bothered to ask. Instead, he'd whisked her off to Area Eleven, to the newly built Stadtfeld Manor.


It had been like her girlhood dreams. Marriage to an older lord, being swept away to a palatial estate in an exotic land, a whole team of servants bowing in unison to greet the new mistress of the house…


Yes, that had been the moment when things had started to go awry, when the servants had been introduced to her. Well, started to go awry in a way she couldn't ignore – Alicia hadn't pushed her new husband when he declined to consummate their marriage, after all, reasoning that it would have been unladylike, even if it had been a very long, very lonely five years.


I could have handled it! She thought furiously as she turned away from the insect dusting the windowsills and retreated to her suite and her liquor cabinet. I could have handled a loveless, sexless marriage! I wouldn't have cared if I had to beard for a sodomite! If he had the discretion to keep it out of my sight, I would have smiled and played the role I was born to! The role I was meant to play!


But no, Baron Alvin hadn't been kind or considerate enough to keep his disgraces out of her sight. Indeed, immediately after she'd been introduced to the servants as the mistress of the house, she'd been introduced to a snot-nosed little brat as her new mother. A brat that Alicia had never so much as heard of, a brat Baron Alvin had never mentioned to Franklin when negotiating the union.


From their first meeting, young Kallen had obviously hated Alicia and had displayed no hesitation in letting her feelings be known. The little bitch had shouted and screamed in both honest Britannian and in her heathen tongue, and to Alicia's astonishment Baron Alvin had replied likewise in both tongues, patiently doting on his rotten brat and allowing her to beat her fists against his shoulders as he wrapped her in an embrace.

And that was when he had offhandedly informed Alicia that she would be listed on Kallen's official documents as her birth mother. The Baron hadn't even looked at her when he'd said this; all of his attention had been focused on his sobbing daughter. He hadn't asked if she was willing to pretend to be the mangy little halfbreed's mother, he'd just informed her that her name had already been appended to the documents.


Never mind that the only way she could have had the girl was if she had cheated on Justin! Never mind that Baron Alvin hadn't even bothered to apologize for springing a bastard he'd whelped with a Number on her! No, she was expected to just stand there and take it and, presumably, to be thankful that the Baron had found a use for something as useless and unwanted as her.


And I could have handled that too! Alicia told herself as she poured four fingers of the tawny brown liquor into her glass without bothering with any ice. I never really wanted children, but I could have been a mother if… if that had been possible! But, no, even that wasn't enough for the great Baron Alvin!


The freshly married Alicia had, it turned out, already had the displeasure of meeting Baron Alvin's whore by that point, not that she'd known. Oh, she'd noticed the lone Asian face in the row of bowing maids, but she'd assumed that the woman, whose graceful bow had been significantly deeper and better practiced than the rest, had been of some Britannian commoner stock, some sailor's child perhaps. Instead, she'd been horrified when Alvin had introduced her to Hitomi.


Just the thought of the wretched woman's name made Alicia's hand spasm around her glass, and she tossed the remaining scotch back in her throat before she could spill the spirit. The burn it left behind helped take her mind off the memory of that first meeting somewhat. Just a bit.


They were obviously in love, Baron Alvin and Hitomi. It had been Alicia's honeymoon, technically, but he and that Elven bitch were all but cooing over each other. The most galling part was that it was the Eleven, Hitomi, who showed a hint of contrition. Only the Eleven, the servant, had apologized for the imposition to Alicia. Baron Alvin hadn't even bothered.


"I paid her for the service," the Baron had explained to his paramore, "or at least I paid her family. They have an alliance with House Stadtfeld and will be a preferred supplier for the family's business interests in Charleston, and I took an unweddable daughter off their hands. For the role she'll be playing, I paid quite handsomely."


The worst part was that Baron Alvin had been absolutely correct in his statement, which had been delivered matter-of-factly. He hadn't tried to be cruel, nor was the arrangement particularly strange, if Alicia was being honest. Many noble families had daughters or sons just appear out of thin air, their birth certificates suspiciously shiny and new, free of any stain of bastardry.


It just hadn't been what Alicia had anticipated, hoped for.


Days later, Baron Alvin had returned to the Homeland, leaving his wife, his secret Number mistress, and his daughter and newly announced heir in Area Eleven. Four years later, he hadn't returned, nor had he summoned her to his side. Hers was a comfortable exile, but an exile it was nonetheless.


Somehow, Alicia had found that she'd exchanged the loneliness of sitting in her brother's house, once her father's house, for the loneliness of sitting in her husband's house. Her bed was just as cold, her life just as empty. All through childhood, she'd been told that her purpose was to give her husband heirs and to raise them while he tended to his family's, or the empire's, affairs. Baron Alvin might very well be doing just that, but she had nothing, would never have anything.


The vermin had fulfilled Alicia's purpose better than the lady of the house ever could. Alicia had very carefully not noticed the Eleven with red hair and her husband's jaw visiting once every few months; her lord husband's instructions on that matter had been very clear on the matter. Alicia was only thankful that he hadn't forced her to pretend that his other bastard, almost as old as she was, had also been hers.


Lonely and abandoned, Alicia had taken her first lover within her first year at Stadtfeld Manor. It had been an act of rebellion, a cry of defiance that she'd perversely hoped that Baron Alvin, her only wedded lord, would hear and heed. She'd hoped he'd fly over the Pacific, come to call her out or divorce her or to make her his own in truth, his passion heated by the flames of jealousy.


He hadn't even asked her about it during their weekly call.


At first, Alicia had wondered if the man was blind, so blind he hadn't noticed her flagrant affair. She knew that he had eyes in the house, at least one pair, because she'd slept with Vernon, the majordomo, in the second year. One night when he was still asleep, she'd checked his archive of reports, and found her indiscretions in black and white. Baron Alvin had known; he just hadn't cared.


And so, she continued her affair with the head butler. The man was happy to serve a Britannian mistress, both in bed and out, and was quite happy with the tacit encouragement she provided in regards to the other servants' treatment of the vermin. After five years of solitude and months of indifference from Alvin, Vernon's devotion to his lady, to her, was intoxicating, almost as intoxicating as the fine scotch and brandy her generous allowance afforded her.


The next two years had continued along the same general trajectory. Alicia had charmed, used, and thrown away more men than she could easily remember, only keeping a few as long-term conquests. The pain of rejection had never fully faded, but the open arms and endless bottles of strong spirits had helped the wound scar over. In a strange, sometimes empty way, Alicia had finally found a measure of happiness, the queen over her little domain.


Now, the only flies in the ointment were "her" daughter and the bitch who had truly whelped the girl. Kallen had only grown worse with age, proving the old adage that blood will always out. She'd grown from a petulant child into a petulant teenager, privately disrespectful and defiant though thankfully subdued in public. What little time she spent at home these days, she spent locked in her room with… with that vermin.


The vermin herself, Kozuki Hitomi, was even more infuriating to Lady Alicia. While Kallen had the utter gall to remark on Alicia's diversions to her face, the quiet smile Hitomi wore as she went about her duties never failed to inspire fury. Up until recently, Alicia had been pleased to see that the whore of a maid's smile grew increasingly strained with each passing month, but even that simple pleasure had been denied her of late.


The scotch bottle tipped over the table and Alicia slurred a curse as it fell to the floor. Thankfully, it was already empty, leaving her fluffy white carpets unstained. A moment later, one of the servants – a good Britannian servant – slid in through her door, smoothly closing it behind him.


"My lady," the underbutler said, smoothly scooping up the fallen bottle as he bowed low, "I heard your cry. Can I assist you with anything?"


"Yes, go to the kitchen and fetch me another bottle," Lady Alicia ordered. "Oh!" She continued when he was halfway out the door, "has the mail arrived yet today? I'm expecting a letter from the Daughtrys this afternoon."


"I will ask the concierge, my lady," the servant assured her, bowing his way out, "and I will return immediately with another bottle of the Halifax '07."

"See that you do," she said dismissively with only the slightest of slurs, and reclined back in her chair. The door swung shut behind the man and Alicia was once again alone in her private lap of luxury.


After a moment, Alicia got to her feet and made her swaying way over to her secretary. It was an antique, just as exquisite as every other stick of furniture in her suite, but unlike most of the chaise lounges and loveseats scattered about, her desk bore the signs of actual use. The built-in shelves were home to a tidy row of ledgers, the household accounts for the last four years.


Those ledgers were just as much another insult in a list of insults from her lord husband as they were a private refuge.


It was, of course, a lady's place to handle the family accounts; everybody knew that while men were better at fighting, their overly emotional brains generally lacked the capacity to understand the more cerebral parts of life, such as math and physics. True, their emotional volatility inspired them to great works of art as well as war, as demonstrated by the Viceregal-Governor Prince Clovis, but science, logic, and mathematics were all inherently feminine pursuits.


And yet, when Alicia had arrived at Stadtfeld Manor, only the ledgers detailing the household accounts waited for her. Over the next four years, not a single page detailing the productivity of the Stadtfeld holdings nor the incomes of the Barony of New Leicester had arrived at the Manor. It was a clear sign that her lord husband didn't trust her to fulfill her wifely duties.


So, Alicia had buried herself in the household books. She wasn't a professional accountant by any measure, but she felt she could congratulate herself on a job well done for managing the house's expenses over the last few years.


Not that he'd ever appreciated it, she thought venomously. At least Vernon is quite appreciative of my abilities. Although, her lip curled contemptuously, he'd be willing to say anything for a few pounds. How very like the help; always willing to sell themselves for a few coins.


Then how much did Alvin spend to buy Hitomi's loyalty? The treacherous thought was like a murky bubble bursting in her consciousness. What coin did he use, and how much of it did he expend to secure her loyalty for years without meeting? Clearly whatever coin he used, he spent it all on her, and didn't save any for you.


A rap came from the door to the hallway.


"My lady?" Alicia blinked; that wasn't the voice of the underbutler she'd sent off for further refreshment. In fact, that was Vernon's voice, the majordomo himself and her lover of the last two and a half years. Unbidden, a smile spread across her pleasantly tingling face. "My lady, are you decent? There's a soldier here to see you. He has a letter for you, my lady."


All thoughts of afternoon fun shattered like spun glass at the announcement. Alicia blinked again, realizing that Vernon's tone had been quite sober – his public tone, with none of the… panache he deployed when they were alone and she had that outfit on.


Wait, she thought as the words finally registered, did he say a soldier is here? What would a soldier be doing here? Maybe… hope rose in her heart, maybe he's here to arrest that bitch Hitomi!


"Send him in, Vernon," Alicia replied as she sauntered back to the table and draped herself back over her chair. "Don't worry, I'm quite decent, I assure you."


Seconds later, a fine young man of obviously solid Britannian stock was saluting her with one hand, proffering a letter with the other. "Message for you, Lady Stadtfeld," the youngster announced, "courtesy of Major Pitt, of the Recruitment Command!"


"Major Pitt?" She repeated, turning the name over in her mouth. Her lips felt unaccountably dry, so she licked them, and then, noticing the effect on the young soldier, licked them again. "I don't believe I know of any Major Pitt, certainly not any recruiters… Vernon, dear? Do I know of any Pitts?"


"No, my lady," Vernon replied from his post by the door. "As far as your registry goes, you haven't exchanged any correspondence with anybody named Pitt, certainly not a major."


"Well then… Sergeant," Alicia hazarded, regarding the fine young man through heavily lidded eyes, "what does this Major Pitt have to say to me?"


"It's, ahh, it's private, my lady," the young man gulped nervously, and Alicia couldn't help but notice how lovely his chestnut hair looked under the soft light of her lamps.


"The message is, Sergeant?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "What, you didn't want to take a look at my… private matters?"


"Ah, no, my lady," the soldier said with a delightful blush, "I mean, my rank is private. Private Jenkins. And, no, my lady, I did not look at your letter."


"How dutiful of you," she murmured, finally accepting the letter from the boy's hand, laughing internally at the slight tremor she felt as she accidentally ghosted her fingers over his. "Well, let's see what this Major Pitt has to say…"


The adhesive paper seal, a nod to the old fashioned wax seals now used only for formal or royal correspondence, tore easily beneath her nail. The letter itself was hand-written in a fine copperplate, the handwriting inked across a fine plush paper of the highest quality. Alicia again raised an eyebrow; whoever this Major Pitt was, he was truly pushing out all the stops, doing everything in his power to make an excellent first impression.


How long has it been since someone was quite this desperate to get on my good side? Alicia wondered to herself.


The buzz of pleasure from the gesture lasted almost until the end of the first line. The first minute wrinkles spread across Alicia's forehead as she read the rest of the opening paragraph and realized the letter was about Baron Alvin's hoyden of a daughter. By the time she was through the second paragraph, the roses left on her cheeks by the scotch had blossomed as angry red spread across her face.


By the time Alicia had finished the letter, she was furious, and the drink wasn't helping. She glared balefully at the young soldier, at Private Jenkins. To his credit, the boy didn't flee immediately; in a different time and mood, she would have found that delightful. Now, it only made her angrier.


"Get out," she demanded, barely holding her composure together, "get out and tell your Major," her lip curled like it was a pejorative, "to never contact me or send postage to this house again!"


"M-my lady," Private Jenkins tried to fit a word in edgeways even as Vernon tried to usher him out of the room, "I was instructed to wait for a reply…"


"Get out!" Alicia shrieked, her temper's fragile leash snapping at last as the drink brought out what her little brother had once jokingly named Dark Alicia after a night spent in her cups. "Get out, and don't you ever dare come back, you odious little man! And Vernon, if I don't see a bottle of Halifax in front of me in the next two minutes, I will peel the hide away from your fat backside! Go!"


Half an hour and two mellowing glasses of scotch later, Alicia smoothed the crumpled letter back out on the table and reread the second and final paragraphs. Their contents were just as inadvertently cruel as they had been on the initial read.


"That damned brat," Alicia muttered to herself, sipping at her third glass of ten year old scotch. "Kallen, Kallen, Kallen! Everything is *always* about Kallen! At least when it isn't about that woman!"


It was… so infuriating, to the point that Alicia was having trouble putting it to words even inside of her mind. Although that might be the scotch. But it was only in these moments, when she'd already put a bottle of Nova Scotia's finest behind her, that she could ever find those words in the first place. Those heretical words that went against everything she'd been taught she should want.


Alicia had been raised to be a wife and a mother. She had been educated enough to fulfill her wifely duties and to entertain guests for her husband. She had been steeped in the values of post-Emblem of Blood Britannia. She had done everything right, but all of that work had been slapped aside by an accident of birth that left her dead inside, in the one place it really counted for a woman of her rank and birth.


But she'd never had the chance to go beyond that set of expectations, even when motherhood had forever been barred to her, even when Justin had sent her back to her father's house in disgrace. She'd never had a chance to decide if she wanted to be a wife or, indeed, a mother; it had simply been put on her shoulders, just like how Baron Alvin had never asked her if she would be Kallen's stepmother and the aristocratic cover for his halfbreed heir.


Alicia had never been asked for anything, because Alicia's opinion had never mattered. Not once in her thirty two years had she ever truly had a grain of independence. Even her flings with soldiers, with gardeners, with deliverymen, with Vernon had a taste of the expected, of the typical behavior of a neglected noble wife. Her minor rebellions had been just as pre-planned as every other part of her life, it seemed.


She hated Hitomi Kozuki, and she hated Kallen Stadtfeld. Partially, it was because they represented the life that she should have had, could have had if God hadn't blighted her body for some strange reason. Partially, it was because he so obviously cared about them, showering them with love in the letters she'd intercepted, a love that he'd never offered to her. Mostly, it was because both Hitomi and Kallen had tasted, at one point or another, independence.


The letters had made references to a different Hitomi, one from before the Conquest. A professional businesswoman and executive who had met Baron Alvin when he'd still been Alvin Stadtfeld, the unwed second son unlikely to inherit from his elder married brother. They had met when Alvin had come to negotiate some deal for the Imperial Fruit Company, his employer at the time, and the two had apparently met as equals.


All of that had come to a well-deserved end in the fires of the Conquest, thankfully, but for a time Hitomi had been free to make her own decisions, to live her own life, and Alicia would never forgive her for it.


Now, her dirty tomboy of a daughter was walking down a similar path. Keeping Kallen in the Manor and paying attention to her etiquette and mathematics tutors had never been easy; she'd always tried to run away, to escape from the Manor. Alicia knew she'd always tried to run away to the ghettos where her kind truly belonged. Alicia would have encouraged it if she didn't know that her comfortable life depended, in part, on Kallen Stadtfeld.


"Let her," Alicia said, finally breaking her silence even if there wasn't anybody else present to hear. "If she wants to spread her wings? Risk her neck? Let her. Not like I can stop her anyway… Not if her father already gave her permission…"


It was only seven and dusk had yet to even touch the spring sky, but Alicia already felt done with the day. She just wanted to sleep, to just put an end to the day and all thoughts of young girls going off to become heroes of the empire.


At least I'm not going to have any dreams tonight, she thought as she pulled on her nightgown. Not after a bottle and a half of scotch. Small mercies…


"M-my lady," Vernon's diffident voice came from the door, accompanied by a light rap. "My lady, are… Are you decent?"


"Nothing you haven't seen before," Alicia replied, just as done with formalities as she was with the rest of the day. Besides, it was only the truth, at least as long as Vernon was alone. "Come in, Vernon. What's the matter?"


"Well, my lady," Alicia grimaced in response to Vernon's pained expression as he came through the door, closing it behind him, "I've got some news that I'm not quite sure whether to call good or bad."


"Out with it, Vernon," Alicia waved impatiently. "I'm too… too tired to be patient. What's wrong?"


"My lady," the majordomo began, smoothing his mustache, "it's Hitomi. She's… She's left."


"What?" Alicia frowned at her servant, trying to make sense of his words. "My husband's whore ran away? Why? Err… Why now?"


"I haven't the haziest, my lady," Vernon said apologetically. "Marcus, the inside dogsbody, noticed her carrying a heavy bag out the door and ran to tell me. I followed her out to the street, but just as I approached her an unmarked truck of the sort used for grocery deliveries pulled up and she climbed inside. It pulled away and the driver ignored my signs to stop completely!"


"Oh…" Alicia tried to turn the thought over in her head, trying to figure out how this fit into the puzzle of the day. She found that she couldn't, and that she didn't care to try. "Well, she left of her own will, clearly. So, she's not my problem anymore. I didn't beat her away nor fire her, so my husband will have nothing to complain about, I suppose."


She smiled. "If she ran away to die in a gutter with the rest of her kind, who am I to stand in the way of Baron Alvin's chosen woman?"


"Quite so, my lady," Vernon replied with a chuckle. "Should I go ahead and order her room be cleaned out? I doubt we'll be seeing her back again, and if she does return…"


"If she does return, she won't find a job," Alicia snapped peevishly, and smiled again at Vernon. "Yes, clean the room out. Have it fumigated as well; no telling what vermin the vermin might have left behind, after all."


"As you wish, my lady," Vernon bowed and left the room. As the door closed behind him, Alicia could hear him yelling orders at some servant or another.


And then, Alicia was once again left alone. Strangely enough, she didn't feel any happier, now that her least favorite servant had exited Stadtfeld Manor. Hitomi would never darken her door again, and for that Alicia was thankful, but…


But Alvin still won't love you, Kallen still won't be the daughter you never had, especially with her running off to be a Knight, and Vernon will do anything for a few pounds, her treacherous distillate-soaked mind supplied. You are alone, just as alone as ever, and just as alone as you will ever be. Now you've even lost your whipping girl. Can't even keep a reliable victim around.


Her bed looked so inviting, so comfortable, but when Alicia crawled between the sheets they were just as cold and lonely as the rest of her luxurious suite. Just as empty as her womb. Just as abandoned as Alicia was, stuck here in a savage land far from her only wedded lord, who wanted nothing to do with her.


Just another day in the life of Lady Alicia Stadtfeld.

 

[Scopas]

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 27: A Second Attempt


(Thank you to Aminta Defender, Sunny, Restestsest, KoreanWriter, Mitch H., Rakkis157, and MetalDragon for beta-reading and editing this chapter. Thank you in particular to MetalDragon for his substantial input. They were all a huge help with this chapter, and with helping me revamp Lelouch's first appearence in this fic in Chapter 22.)


(This chapter contains some mention of religion. Please do not take this as commentary on any real world faiths, please and thank you.)


MAY 4, 2016 ATB
ASHFORD ACADEMY, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1625


That, Lelouch thought as the gymnasium's door swung shut behind Kallen Stadtfeld, sounds like it was a long time coming.


It was all he could do to force his typical mask of serenity into place in the aftermath of Kallen's riveting performance. The newly discovered natural Knightmare talent had been magnificent in her anger, ripping into Milly with all the rage of a wolf brought to bay. Watching Milly be taken to account for hauling them both up on stage had been immensely cathartic.


And frankly, she's lucky that Kallen just settled for a spot of public humiliation. After all, he mused, the spotlight has an unfortunate habit of illuminating secrets best left in the dark.


It took Milly less than a minute to regain her composure and laugh the whole incident off, declaring it a byproduct of adrenaline overdose, effectively wiping away Kallen's social transgression from the student body's guppy-like collective memory.


"After all," Milly goaded, "if the delicate Lady Stadtfeld can manage such an upset, then surely all you big strong boys can as well!"


Predictably and perhaps naturally, the collective male ego of half of his so-called peers rankled at being upstaged in their domain of war. The usual chest-beating had ensued as boys who had already had a try with the simulators lined up anew for a second chance at glory, all under the paternal gaze of Major Pitt.


Spoiled children, the lot of them, and idiots too, Lelouch thought disgustedly. All so eager to die for the sake of That Man, who wouldn't even blink as he sacrificed ten times their number on a whim. I doubt any of them have so much as smelled the aftermath of a minor skirmish, much less a battlefield.


Certainly, none of them had walked through killing fields days after the front had moved on. Nobody who had seen the rats scrambling to their feasts would ever be so eager to find "glory" ever again.


Finally, even that fresh wave of ardor dissipated, bringing the long assembly to a conclusion. Freed from the prying eyes of his classmates, Lelouch finally gave himself license to glare at Milly from across the gymnasium, letting the weight of his displeasure be known. There were some advantages to an education in royal etiquette – abbreviated as it had been.


His outrage wasn't lost on the target of his ire, who blushed shamefacedly and all but scampered out of the gymnasium, escaping out onto the Academy's verdant quad. Lelouch was not particularly worried; he knew where she would go, and what room he would find her in.


"Lelouch," Nunnally whispered, grabbing his hand before he could pursue the fleeing Milly. Lelouch started; he hadn't even heard her wheelchair roll up beside him. "Let it go. She must have had her reasons."


"She went too far," he said, not bothering to conceal his wrath with only his sister in earshot. "I can't let it go. Not this time."


Nunnally sighed in disappointment, and his anger recoiled. "Give her a chance to explain herself then, at the very least. She is our hostess. You must not forget that."


More than her disappointment, Nunnally's admonishment stung him to the quick. The last time he had forgotten his place, they had both been sent to die in a warzone for his impertinence. What had happened once could happen again; it would only take one misstep with the Ashfords for them to decide the risk of harboring them was too great and to cast the vi Britannias back out into the cold and unforgiving outside world.


"I will come with you," Nunnally declared.


Lelouch scowled. "I don't–"


"You are reckless and relentless, Big Brother," Nunnally easily rolled over his half-spoken protest. "Your mind latches onto ideas and refuses to let them go. You do not know when to stop and you have never learned that you do not need to achieve victory to avoid losing."


"Draws are irritating," Lelouch grumbled, but the anger was already withdrawing, allowing him to breathe easily once more. Somehow, whenever they squabbled, Nunnally always won.


He could never deny her anything she wanted. Except, of course, the one thing that she truly wants.


He sighed and began walking towards the gymnasium's exit, Nunnally easily keeping by his side in her chair. This was, he had to admit, her fight as well. There was no point trying to keep her out of it now. Besides, she had been just as threatened by Milly's foolhardy antics as he had; she had every right to claim her pound of flesh, should she so choose. "Very well."


"I happen to like draws," his darling sister said cheerfully as they left the gym, still lined with the simulator pods, behind them.


"Of course you do," he said indulgently, shaking his head.


She has always lacked the killer instinct. It's for the best.


"I think it's quite balanced," Nunnally insisted, somehow just as aware of his thoughts as always. "Both sides survive and work together to reach a mutually agreeable solution."


He bit down on his sarcastic rebuke. She could afford to be happy in her innocence. They were not at court, where such idealism brought only ruin and was harshly punished at every turn.


What would they do to you, Nunnally? I can never let it happen. Never. He felt his anger returning and forced himself to focus on his sister's chatter instead.


"It's like two birds building a nest!" She said by way of explanation, "they both need to help out or it doesn't work for either of them!"


"It is fortunate," he jibed, entirely unable to stop himself, "that birds don't go to war."


"Lelouch!" The swat on his wrist was practically avian in its insubstantiality, in its frailty.


She is so weak, and so horribly, horribly fragile…


"Sorry, sorry," he begged her forgiveness with a laugh, "but were a bird to betray its mate, then--"


"Lelouch!" Nunnally huffed and accelerated her motorized wheelchair. "You are far too young to be a grouchy old man. They're birds! They're cute. And have beautiful songs. And they do this most wonderful mating dance…"


Just like Milly, flamboyantly vibrant and dancing just out of the reach of her many suitors and admirers. Maybe if she wasn't so distracted with her petty displays and distractions, he could be enjoying the day like the students sprawled out across the luxurious campus, enjoying the bright sun of a late spring afternoon. Maybe he could focus on his sister and her recitation of all that she knew about birds instead of wondering what sounds Milly would make upon a rack.


My mother was gentle and kind, for all that her enemies hated her. His thoughts were cold and distant, but far from clinically detached. And yet, for all that they hated her, they feared the Flash both for her battlefield skills and for her inventive punishments. Perhaps some of her old tricks would help Milly learn? After all, even apt students require correction. Perhaps her scheming would be aided by a taste of the courtly fear so endemic amongst the true nobility…


Lost in his dark thoughts, Lelouch was almost surprised to find himself in front of the pink-painted door of the Student Council's favorite conference room, on the first floor of the Clubhouse.


"Lelouch," Nunnally spoke up from beside him, tugging insistently at his jacket sleeve. "Hey Lelouch! She's inside already. Remember–"


The burnished handle of the conference room door beckoned. The bronze was warm under his hand. "I know. We owe the Ashfords a great deal."


A great deal indeed. Reuben had been good to them for years; his loyalty to their deceased mother stretching far beyond anything Lelouch found explicable. The only rationale Lelouch could assign to the old man's protection was his political aspirations. It was so easy to go from being in someone's debt to being under their thumb, and if Lelouch or Nunnally ascended the throne under the Ashford patriarch's supervision, all that his house had lost and more would be theirs once again.


But that was far off in the distance, a long shot at best. Here in the present, Milly was the anointed heir to the Ashford holdings, what remained of them, her disappointing parents passed over. Lelouch and Nunnally, on the other hand, were worse than useless to the Ashfords; they were active liabilities unless that long shot paid off.


And so it behooves me to remember my place. Not that such wisdom has ever truly held me back, oh no, perish the thought. Just like how Nunnally and I nearly perished because of my foolish pride.


"Good afternoon, Madame President."


"Lelouch..." From the head of the table, Milly smiled at them, a strained, bleached thing. "And Nunnally."


Nunnally's smile was a potent weapon indeed, Lelouch knew from long experience. It could be as sweet and treacherous as an angel's lie and just as barbed as any fishhook when her occasional fey moods took her. Now, that guileless expression was cutting as it smoothly transitioned from polite greeting to disappointed pity.


"Would you perhaps elucidate your thought process this afternoon?" Lelouch asked, his tone as polished as any of That Man's lickspittle courtiers. "I had not been informed that I would be called upon to fulfill my duties as the Vice President, nor that such duties included being paraded before one of His Majesty's glorious and honorable men."


"Does any man ever really know when duty will call?" Milly replied, aiming for breezy but shooting into tempestuous.


The tension in the room undermined her attempt to inject levity. Lelouch simply remained patiently silent, aware of his sister's presence at his arm.


After a moment, Milly tried again. "Look, it's been a stressful day for all of us. I'm not feeling particularly splendid at the moment myself. I don't suppose there's any chance we can pick this up later?"


That, Lelouch decided, was the wrong answer.


"Millicent Ashford," he ground out, manners held only by a thread and the light touch of fingers on his hand, "there is no time quite like the present to discuss just how little I care about how splendid or otherwise you are feeling. You damn near served Nunnally and me up to the Army today, on the inaugural Vi Britannia Day of all possible days! Do you understand what you put at risk with your ingenious plan?"


"Do you understand what I had at stake?" Milly shot back, her voice high and thrumming with tension. "Do you think Grandpa and I just let the Army show up on a whim? Absolutely not! They applied pressure, and we were given the choice of participation or investigation!"


Milly's voice had begun to creep upwards towards a high, almost hysterical note.


"That joyless prig of a major showed up just this morning in my grandfather's office," she continued, "with an entire truckload of simulators parked outside and a letter with the Viceregal-Governor's seal requesting we consider partnering with the Army to open a ROTC branch on campus! When Grandpa declined, Pitt threatened to investigate our lack of patriotism and determine whether Ashford Academy required new leadership!"


She's terrified, Lelouch realized, noticing how Milly's perfectly manicured hands had curled into tight white-knuckled balls as she had ranted. Pitt must have made quite the impression.


Fear is a disease, and Lelouch had to resist succumbing to Milly's anxiety as he imagined what sort of pressure Major Pitt must have brought to bear to convince Ruben Ashford. "And what," he quietly replied, "did he demand in exchange for withholding the investigation, Milly? I assume consideration was not the half of it."


"A branch of the ROTC opened on campus with dedicated grounds, which means the Equestrian Club can kiss their back pasture goodbye," Milly replied, ticking items off her fingers, "a seat for the leader of the ROTC in student government to incentivize participation and ensure that a properly patriotic voice is present, the enthusiastic participation of the student body in any recruitment events, and rubber-stamp approval for any would-be recruits who wish to leave school to join the Army directly.


"Oh, and of course, a small remuneratory gift for Major Pitt himself," Milly concluded with a bitter smile, "just to reward him for his excellent work, you understand."


"Quite," Lelouch replied mirthlessly, "the price of doing business. And in exchange for all of that? What did you secure from that masterfully negotiated transaction?"


"Don't be difficult, Lulu," Milly sighed, leaning back in her chair. The tension had almost disappeared from her voice, concealed by her usual honeyed tones. "Ashford Academy is still Ashford Academy, and will remain free of prying eyes."


"Splendid," Lelouch replied only half sarcastically, "our secret remains our own for another day. Assuming, of course, that Pitt did not recognize me when you hauled me up on stage, an action that seemingly completely undermines your goal to avoid the attention of the authorities."


He would have continued, had the fingers that rested lightly on his wrist not tightened and pulled, dragging Lelouch's attention away from the Ashford heiress.


"Peace, Big Brother." Nunnally's firm command was unsoftened by the sweet tones of the delivery. "Milly is our hostess and our friend, and I am sure she is doing her best in a stressful situation."


"As you say, Nunnally," the delicate fingers loosened on his wrist, and Lelouch turned back to Milly. "I apologize for my disrespect. My point stands, however; what possessed you to haul me up on stage, Milly? What were you thinking? Elevating my profile amongst the school body is one thing, but bringing me to the attention of an Army officer?"


Milly sagged in her chair. "That was not my intention, Lelouch, but… I saw the lack of enthusiasm, and I saw Pitt pulling out his notebook… I had promised him the enthusiastic participation of the students, and they were all shying away, all afraid of the possible humiliation… I had to find something to goad them on with." She gave him a strained smile. "You were the first thing I thought of, and I saw a way to get everybody's blood back up."


As Milly had recounted the pressure Major Pitt had applied, Lelouch had been temporarily distracted from his anger by the implications of the apparent new recruiting push by the forces garrisoning Area 11. The fact that, according to Milly, Pitt had shown up with a letter bearing the official seal of the Viceregal-Governor's Office all but guaranteed that this project, whatever it was, had the personal blessing of Clovis la Britannia.


The Student Council President's admission that she had pulled him out from the cover of the crowd onto the stage immediately brought that anger back to the surface.


"I repeat," Lelouch asked, voice heated, "what were you thinking, Milly?"


"I was thinking about all of the other students, Lelouch!" As always, Milly rose to the challenge. "You two might be the biggest secret I'm keeping, but you're far from the only! If Pitt brings his so-called 'suspicions' to the attention of the military police, they would be crawling all over the Academy in hours! How many of our students do you think are holding, Lulu? I can tell you if you'd like! And it's not just drugs! How many do you think have 'questionable literature' in their lockers?"


"Probably quite a few," Lelouch grudgingly conceded. "Nothing quite like flirting with danger to give a sheltered life meaning, I suppose."


"Indeed!" Milly nodded. "You should know, Mister Illicit Gambler! And once just one of those lockers is found, we will no longer have to worry about the military police because the IDSS will be on hand to investigate potential subversion! And I am sure that you know that, as soon as the witch-hunt begins, there will somehow be plenty of witches to find! Tell me, Lelouch, how long do you think the Academy you live at would remain open if half of the faculty were arrested for subversion and perverting the minds of the youth with unapproved doctrine?"


"If you had just told me before the assembly, we could have worked something out!" Lelouch retorted, temper barely restrained by the gentle fingers on his wrist. "If you had told me a display of enthusiasm was required, I would have primed Rivalz and Shirley and made sure they were at the head of the line. Even if they botched their own simulations, they would have had the sense not to publicly complain about it. And they don't have secrets in need of concealment."


"That would have worked," Milly admitted with a moderately ashamed smile. "But I was panicking, you know? I mean, how was I to know that one of the most incompetent pilots in the whole school would be the first up? And how was I to know that the students would be so fickle? They had the opportunity to pilot Knightmares! Why would I expect them to just wimp out like that?"


"Why would you go into any high-stakes engagement without a fallback plan?" Lelouch riposted. "Why would you stake your family's security and our lives on the reactions of a group of children?"


"Brother!" This time, Nunnally didn't bother veiling the iron with velvet. "You will remember your manners; this is a discussion between equals and friends, and I will not hear either of you raise your voices. Am I clear?"


Reluctantly, Lelouch nodded, noting Milly follow suit from the corner of his eye.


"Thank you. Now," Nunnally turned her smiling face, distinctly chillier than normal, back towards Milly. "Millicent Ashford, I am disappointed in you. I expected better. A lady does not panic. A lady always has a plan. Title or not, you are a lady, and I expected you to conduct yourself as such."


And most of the idiots at this school think Nunnally is the nice Lamperouge sibling, Lelouch thought sympathetically as Milly all but crumbled at the calm dismissal. Nunnally's only nice as long as you don't make her angry.


"I… I know," Milly said with a wince, "I just… panicked. I thought about soldiers ransacking the Academy, and all the students who I know would get arrested… and Grandpa losing everything he managed to save after Her Highness died…"


"And you thought about what you would be losing yourself, should Ashford Academy close," Nunnally continued, remorseless despite her dulcet tones. "After all, the Academy is just as much a refuge for you as it is from us. Why, it was only last week that your parents called about another potential suitor they had found, was it not? Surely you cannot put them off for much longer, Milly."


"Yes!" Milly half said, half screamed. "Yes! I don't want to be married off by my stupid parents, and the Academy's the only place where I have anything close to freedom! I don't want to see that get ruined because of some stupid political game the stupid prince is playing! I'm sorry! I'm sorry that I didn't warn you two, and I'm sorry that I pulled you up on stage, Lelouch!"


"Apology accepted," Lelouch cut in before his sister could speak, "by us both. Just please, Milly, do better next time."


I can't deny her anything, he thought wryly, but I can't deny that Nunnally definitely got some of That Man's cruelty as well as Mother's sweetness. His hypocrisy as well; she called me out for my anger at Milly, but she would hurt her far worse than I ever could.


"Regardless," he continued, striving for something like detachment, "what is done is done, and now we must adjust to recent developments. The most important one being the ticking time bomb in our midst."


"Bomb?" Milly stared at him, outwardly incredulous but with fear flickering in her eyes. "Lelouch, after the day I've had, I am far too drained for any more overly dramatic theatrics-"


"I fear that, unless we handle the matter carefully, that bomb will become all too literal," Lelouch said, cutting her off. "And frankly, Milly, I am surprised that you are so readily willing to dismiss this threat when you are the one who set her up to explode in all of our faces."


"Set her…?" Milly asked, frowning in confusion.


Then it hit her.


"Kallen?!" The Student Council President reeled back with a gasp. "I-I mean, I know what she did on stage was a bit…" a flicker of hurt tugged at the corner of her mask. "...harsh, but what on earth does that have to do with bombs, Lulu?"


"You truly do not know?" Lelouch raised a challenging brow. "She seems to have quite the clear opinion of your machinations. Given that we just discussed how many dangerous secrets of the student body you are privy to, I am amazed that you somehow failed to notice exactly what your newest toy was hiding when you decided to play with her. Quite the oversight, Milly."


"Machinations?!" Milly all but squawked in protest. "Lelouch, I'm not some kind of scheming puppet master who treats people like toys! Besides, she liked it!"


"...You feel that you do not treat people as if they were toys?" Asked Lelouch, leveling a deeply unimpressed glare at Ashford's Queen.


Something about the way he'd said that made Milly hesitate. "...N-no?"


"Then," Lelouch pressed inexorably on, "what do you believe prompted today's performance?"


"I told you," Milly exclaimed, "they forced my hand and I panicked! I already apologized for that!"


"Yes, for dragging me on stage, but what about Kallen? Not to mention," Lelouch pointed out, "that while this time you were pressured into acting, you have pulled the entire Academy into some impromptu game purely for your own amusement time and again. An outburst like that is not the product of a single squandered afternoon."


"I'm just trying to inject a little fun into people's lives, that's all!" Milly said, defending herself. "School life is so dreary and all the formals that young nobles have to attend are ridiculously stuffy! There's gotta be more to that to make young life worth living! The students need more! They need a little adventure!"


"...Adventure?" Lelouch quietly asked, a cold prickling sensation seeming to dribble over his skin. For a moment, he was almost eleven again, filthy and hungry and bone-weary. "You believe they need adventure to give their lives form?"


"Yes," Milly nodded definitively. "Adventure, Lelouch. Life, fun, parties, excitement. Teens who aren't sticks in the mud like you happen to love the shows I put on for them."


"Indeed…" Lelouch replied, "Kallen seems to have really enjoyed your approach to morale-boosting activities for the student body. I believe she made that quite clear today."


"I don't get it!" Milly groaned, flushing red at the memory of Kallen's adamant rejection. "She always enjoyed everything else I did! Why did she just suddenly flip out this time? And in front of everybody! Geez!"


Lelouch felt dread shiver down his spine in icy tendrils. "...Milly, what exactly do you mean by 'everything else'?"


"Oh, you know," Milly said offhandedly, "I saw Kallen was trying to break into the more popular circles, so I gave her a hand." A salacious grin slipped onto her lips. "Well… maybe a few. Even a prude like you has to admit she's filled out quite nicely!"


An almost spiritual exhaustion washed over Lelouch as he slowly blinked at Milly.


"....So," he finally replied once Milly's words had sunk in, "you have been giving Kallen the Shirley treatment for the past… what… Seven months now? Eight?" Lelouch rubbed at his forehead. "How are you still alive, Milly? No, do not bother answering. I am shocked it took this long for Stadtfeld to finally snap. Frankly, it is a miracle that no one has died yet."


"How was I supposed to know she wasn't having fun?" Milly plaintively asked, almost wailing. "I thought she was having fun! People have fun around me! I'm a fun person!"


"Clearly not according to Kallen," Lelouch replied acidly, "otherwise, I doubt she would have registered her opinion of you quite so publicly or vehemently."


"If she didn't like how I treated her, why didn't she just tell me? I thought I was doing exactly what she wanted! She was just trying to be popular and wanted my help, so I helped!" Milly sounded genuinely baffled. "I mean, I'm super approachable! I try to be super approachable!"


"And who," Lelouch asked, "would dare to tell the Academy's Queen that she had stepped out of line?"


Hurt flashed across Milly's face, gone as fast as it had appeared, but Lelouch had still caught the crack in her affable mask. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," she rebutted.


"Really, Milly?" Lelouch sighed. "You are the Student Council President, as well as the granddaughter of the Principal, who is also the Chairman of the Board of Regents for the school," he shook his head as he carefully explained the obvious. "The teachers never put up so much as a peep when you make an announcement – if every authority figure here bends the knee to you, why would any of the students assume you would listen or care about any objections they might voice?"


She may not be a bad person, Lelouch mused, but Milly is absolutely a spoiled brat. Perhaps this will give her a reason to grow, now that she understands that she can truly hurt people in her enthusiasm.


For a moment, he thought he'd gotten through.


The hurt blossomed into indignation.


"Wait a second! That's not something you just came up with!" Milly leaned forwards over the table, an accusing finger jabbing aggressively at Lelouch. "You knew! You knew people weren't talking to me because they were scared I'd tattle to Grandpa! Why didn't you tell me people weren't having fun?"


"Because I did not want to interrupt your game?" Lelouch raised a puzzled eyebrow. "Are you implying that I should have stepped in and advised you that most boys do not like being forced into mandatory cross-dressing and most girls do not, in fact, like having their breasts 'honked' from behind by way of greeting?"


"Yes!" A tinge of heat touched Milly's cheekbones, unshed tears pooling in her eyes. "Yes, Lulu, that would have been good to know! I thought that they were having fun! Why did you think I was doing it?"


"...Well, given the way you smile when you grab at people? It seemed obvious that you enjoyed flaunting your dominance over the student body via pseudo-sexual displays as well as demonstrations of authority. I mean, why else would you molest everyone like you owned them? Or constantly interrupt classes for impromptu events dominated by your vivacious personality?" Lelouch scanned the frowning Ashford's face, and then looked down into the very unimpressed glare Nunnally was shooting his way. "I take it that this was not, in fact, the case?"


"Why did you…" Milly shook her head, a frustrated growl slipping out. "Right! Right, right. Raised at the Imperial Court, and then thrown to the wolves. Of course you would see it all as dominance games."


What on Earth would all that have been, if not elaborate dominance games? Lelouch wondered, momentarily baffled.


"No, Lelouch, that was not what I was trying to do. In fact, that was the opposite of what I was trying to accomplish!" Milly huffed and looked away, but she couldn't hide the tremor in her voice. "I just… I just wanted people to have fun! Is that so wrong?"


Lelouch didn't know what to say to that. And now I feel like the bastard here. How did she manage that?


"Did you ever ask what they want?" Nunnally's calm voice sliced through the awkward silence.


"A-ask?" Milly turned back to give the younger girl a confused look. Lelouch carefully didn't notice the unshed tears at the corners of her eyes. "What are you talking about? I ask them all the time!"


"With all due respect, Milly, you do not," Nunnally carefully rebutted, her closed eyes somehow fixed unerringly on Milly's own. "You ask them with all the sincerity of a velvet-wrapped fist. When Milicent Ashford asks her subjects if they would like a party, everyone knows what the Queen of the Academy wants as her answer. Who would risk denying her?"


Milly opened her mouth to argue, but Nunnally continued relentlessly on, an unstoppable force in a frail body. "When you play your games, do you ever pause to consider what others truly want? Or do you only think about what you desire? If you do not ask people what they want and give them the latitude to answer honestly, you cannot truly claim to have given them a voice."


That comment, uttered in soft soprano, brought Milly up short. For a moment, neither Lelouch nor Milly could say anything, each silent for their own reasons.


She has truly grown, hasn't she? Lelouch mused, gazing at his sister with fresh eyes. Even if she speaks with the conviction of naivety, her eloquence befits the royal rank stolen from her. Nunnally… When did you begin to grow so fierce?


He sighed. I suppose even a bird with broken wings can develop sharp spurs… But please, save your spurs for a more deserving target. Even our best intentions can put us on the path to hell if we do not mind our step. Milly has not quite learned that as of yet.


Unfortunately ignorant of his silent plea, Nunnally was far from done.


"Now, Big Brother," Nunnally's sightless gaze turned back to him, "what was this about Kallen being a 'ticking time bomb'?"


Milly stiffened at the reminder. Lelouch felt dread pool in his gut.


Pointing this out felt like a win before, Lelouch thought as he silently apologized to Milly. Now, it just feels cruel.


But the last thing Milly needs right now is more coddling… And the potential threat is far from insignificant.


"Right… well…" Lelouch rolled the words around in his head, trying to figure out a way to phrase what had to be said in a manner that would let Milly down gently.


He failed.


"I have reason to believe that Kallen may be, perhaps, a Japanese insurgent."


Despite her closed lids, Lelouch imagined he could almost see the violet eyes he remembered from their youth, a perfect match to his own. In that imagined image, his darling little sister's gaze bore down upon him with the same fell intensity that his mother could bring to bear, easily winkling the truth out of him no matter how he tried to prevaricate his way to safety.


"Oh?" Nunnally cocked her head, furthering her almost owl-like impression as if she were able to pick him apart by sound alone. "And pray tell, Big Brother, why on Earth would you think that?"


"Detecting her nature was far from easy, and I was forced to draw upon many sources to reach that conclusion," Lelouch admitted. "She first came to my attention when I thought she was a spy for Clovis. By the way, she most definitely is not, but in clearing her of that charge, I incidentally discovered several factors that lead me to believe that she is probably half-Japanese and, if not an outright insurgent, then a sympathizer to their cause."


"Big Brother, did you spy on Lady Stadtfeld due to another fit of paranoia?" Nunnally shook her head, clearly disappointed. "I had rather thought you had learned your lesson, after the unfortunate incident with the plumber."


"That plumber had it coming! He was-!" Lelouch caught the look on Milly's face and stopped himself before he got sidetracked even further. "Regardless," he continued with a cough, "while I admit that my initial assumption was incorrect, I do not regret investigating her, not after what I found."


"Oh? And what did you find, Big Brother?" Nunnally was still clearly signaling disappointment, but Lelouch could detect an edge of interest in her familiar voice. "I certainly hope that all of your snooping yielded at least something of substance."


"I began by searching the database of the Administration's Ministry of Justice," Lelouch said, skipping over the tedious process of socially engineering his entrance into said database. "I wanted to see if she had come to anybody else's notice. Indeed, she has come to the attention of the Knightpolice, who have a log of her comings and goings through the checkpoints into Shinjuku." He allowed himself a smile. "She makes very frequent visits, it would seem."


"That… That's kinda troubling," Milly replied, a hint of a quaver in her voice. "Not that she's visiting the Ghetto for whatever reason, but that the police are already tracking her movements. Does… Does that mean she's already…"


"Already as good as dead?" Lelouch chuckled. "No, not quite. For some inexplicable reason, her file has been marked as a classified object, as well as a case not to be investigated. All of the additions and recent edits were made by automated systems monitoring traffic through the checkpoints. Her records are, for all intents and purposes, clean."


"Her records…" Milly interrupted in a haunted voice. Lelouch, taken off-guard by her hollow tone, blinked. "Her school records… They're doctored, aren't they? Kallen's really a bastard?"


"You knew?" Lelouch asked.


"I… suspected?" Milly offered him a mirthless smile. "It's not exactly that rare these days. Children born out of wedlock or to the 'wrong' parents get quietly legitimized fairly often. There are more than a few students at the Academy who share her burden. For some, it's something of an open secret, for others, a buried shame. For Kallen, I just figured…"


Milly trailed off, at a clear loss for words, before eventually shrugging helplessly. "I guess I just thought it wasn't a big deal. She doesn't act like someone who hates her parents, you know?"


"But…" she sighed, "I suppose her being Japanese would explain her fixation on Eleven and Honorary Britannian issues as a journalist. Not to mention her work with the Rising Sun Association."


"So you know about that as well?" Lelouch asked, surprised.


"Rivalz told me." Milly gave him a sad smile. "He talks to me a lot, you know. He's very proud of that charity, and he told me all about how he may have set it up, but it was Kallen's idea. About how much she runs it. About how passionate she is about helping the Elevens… all because I asked him."


Milly's smile turned brittle and for a moment it looked like she was about to say something, but at the last moment, she bit her lip and looked away.


"I see…" Lelouch organized his thoughts. "Well, did he mention that Kallen also speaks fluent Japanese in a Shitamachi dialect? The native Tokyo dialect," he quickly explained, seeing Milly's baffled expression, "the one especially used by the middle and lower classes pre-Conquest."


Milly made a noncommittal sound. "Not quite… I mean, he said that he heard her speaking in Japanese once and that she sounded pretty smooth, but Rivalz obviously doesn't speak it himself… If she is a half-breed… I suppose it makes sense she'd speak her mother tongue."


"By any chance," Lelouch asked, "did he mention that the Rising Sun Benevolent Association is almost certainly a front for insurrectionists?"


Milly's head snapped up, fear blazing in her eyes. "What?!"


"By any chance, did Rivalz mention that Kallen had a little confrontation with a group of thugs at one of their outdoor soup kitchens the other day?" Lelouch mused aloud. At Milly's confirming nod, he continued, "I was watching when that happened. Those were no mere thugs; I have absolutely no doubt that they were Honorary Britannian soldiers out of uniform and that the members of Rising Sun were entirely prepared to shoot them."


Lelouch's fist clenched at the memory of that thing wearing his dear friend's face. Oh Suzaku, what has happened to you?


"Even if they were garden variety criminals," Lelouch continued, "the fact that Japanese, Elevens to be precise, had access to guns and the capacity to smuggle them through the Ghetto's checkpoints indicates that they are either a highly organized criminal group or affiliated with one of the myriad factions of the Japanese Resistance. Considering their charitable actions outside their native territory of Shinjuku, I am inclined towards the latter."


Although, somebody had to have put that hold on Kallen's official file, somebody with sufficient access to tamper with its classification. That does not sound like something the Japanese rebels up in the mountains would be capable of, and if they were, I doubt that they would use their skills to cover for a half-breed. Which might indicate that somebody's on the take inside the Administration, hinting at potential criminal activity…


"Given that Rivalz neglected to mention your presence as well, I am willing to venture that you had been following Lady Stadtfeld in disguise," Nunnally stated, shooting him a disappointed look. "My Big Brother, stalking young maidens through the streets like some sad, desperate beast…"


Nunnally let out a long, hopeless sigh that actually managed to tug at Lelouch's heart, to his great irritation.


…Maybe I should do less creeping about? Lelouch wondered, then tried to shake the thought from his head. No, no! I'm not going to let my sister chide me into being less thorough! …Even if it would make her happier… No! This manipulation is as blatant as it is cheap! You will have to do better than that, my darling little sister!


"Regardless," Lelouch continued out loud, "what Rivalz likely further failed to notice is that, while Kallen was standing up to the soldiers, all of her Japanese companions were preparing to kill at her command." He locked eyes with Milly, trying to impress upon her the implications of that moment. "They weren't just subtly reaching below their aprons for guns, others were taking quiet steps to flank the soldiers. All of them hanging on Kallen's every word, ready to react immediately.


"I have no doubt that if Kallen had so wished, or if those soldiers had attempted to harm her, none of them would have left that park alive."


Lelouch leaned back and let the words sit.


For her part, Milly looked shaken. It hurt Lelouch to see his normally vivacious friend in such a state, no doubt suddenly worried and acutely aware of her own mortality. Nunnally, however, merely seemed thoughtful.


"Enlightening as this is, none of it means that Lady Stadtfeld is partially Japanese by birth. After all, much of your evidence could describe us equally well, as far as our 'official records' and our familiarities with the local tongue go," Nunnally pointed out, "and just because she has earned the loyalty of the locals does not make her a native."


"True," Lelouch conceded, "and I will admit that she certainly doesn't look Japanese, not even a jot. At this point, however, I would argue that the distinction is irrelevant. Whatever the case, Kallen is tightly bound to a group willing to open fire on a group of obvious soldiers if they posed a threat to her. That's not the kind of loyalty or dedication that just comes from an ordinary charity, and certainly not the kind of loyalty a teenage noble can earn in a few months."


"Hmm… If she is the one truly responsible for creating this organization, one that just so happened to employ dedicated Japanese, instead of Honorary Britannians who could easily become indebted to her…" Nunnally hummed thoughtfully as she trailed off, tapping her chair with her free hand as she considered the possibilities. "I still say Kallen has a good heart, but I do understand the reasons for your concern, Big Brother."


"So, to conclude," Lelouch said, "Kallen has somehow acquired the loyalty of a group of Japanese insurgents, a loyalty that is reciprocated, probably due to her mixed blood. Despite her obviously shaky loyalty to the Empire, the Peelers have been convinced through some unknown method to look the other way on her… indiscretions. This already made her a very dangerous person before our very own Major Pitt revealed her to be a natural ace Knightmare pilot. She is also very clearly a deeply angry person.


"I trust," Lelouch said, looking around the room, "that you understand my concerns."


"Well… maybe she can be talked around?" Milly's tone betrayed her desperation. "I mean, if she's got people she's close with, maybe… Maybe she isn't out for revenge? I mean, surely she's got better targets then… then…"


"...Then a school crammed with the children of the moneyed elite profiting off her people's suffering?" Lelouch finished for her. "No, Milly… I… I remember that day, that month… I remember…"


The smoke filled the sky, entire cities turned into mass funeral pyres, carrying the souls of murdered millions up to their impotent goddess. The feral dogs yelping and burrowing into the rubble, slat-sided with hunger. The stench of decay wafted up from those holes into the unquiet tombs of the dead, homes smashed down by distant cruel hands onto entire families, wiping out lineages in moments.


"She will want her revenge," Lelouch continued, speaking just as much to explain the danger to Milly as to keep his throat open, his tongue moving, his mind distracted from memories now six years old. "However kind her heart may be, the ruin Britannia has likely brought to her has certainly given her ample cause to hate the Empire with all her soul. Considering the damage the Empire has inflicted, can you blame her for such anger?"


"Big Brother…" Nunnally said, an unbearably sad look on her face as she took his hand in both of hers. "You don't know that. You are merely speculating. Not everyone is out for revenge, some people just want to help a noble cause."


"In this instance, dear sister, I worry that the difference between those two is not so clear cut," Lelouch replied with a heavy heart. "Even if Kallen were a saint, it is not as if Britannia has not provided her with a bounty of sinners against which she can direct her righteous anger."


"Including me," Milly muttered in a hollow voice. "This whole time, I've just been convincing her to hate me, haven't I?"


"I…would not put it quite like that, but…" Lelouch grimaced. It was difficult to deny the obvious.


"But what else can I say?" Milly snarled. "If Kallen is Japanese, then everything I've been doing to be 'nice' has done nothing but make me the face of everything she probably hates about us!"


"We don't know that!" Lelouch hastily pointed out, briefly wondering how he had become the one arguing against pessimistic paranoia. "All my evidence is circumstantial at best! I'll admit, it could be a problem, but-"


"But she said it herself!" Milly cried. "She hates me for being a puppet master! Because I-" Milly cut herself off with a choked sob. "Nunnally was right, I never asked what she wanted. I never really thought about who Kallen was or what her heart was like. I just… forced myself on her, like Britannia forced itself on her life."


"When she was about to go up onto that stage today, I…I said she was growing into a splendid young Britannian flower, Lelouch," Milly looked up, eyes haunted by the realization. "If she's the ticking time bomb you think she is, I'm the one who's been winding her up."


Lelouch found his victory over Milly utterly cold, the taste sickening in his mouth.


"Well… I must say that Kallen seems to have a commendable reservoir of self-control," Nunnally commented half a minute later, making a valiant attempt to break the silence and force the conversation back on track. "Kallen, excuse me, Lady Stadtfeld, that is. Truly impressive. It will take a meaningful apology to make this right."


"Well… I suppose that is the next topic, regardless of what Kallen is actually up to outside of school grounds," Lelouch replied, pulling out a chair and taking a seat next to his sister at the table. "I do not believe that a simple sorry is going to be enough here; we need to offer Kallen something of value to both make things right, and to avoid any… lapse in control."


"It's probably best if I'm not the one to deliver that apology," Milly said gloomily, "I… I don't think she'd take it well. Lelouch?"


"I would be happy to help you out, Madam President," he replied, earning a pleased smile from Nunnally. "I can deliver that apology when I welcome her onto the Student Council. It would probably be best if that welcome were a one-on-one affair; Lady Stadtfeld does not strike me as a party person. Certainly not a fan of surprise parties, above all else."


"...Yes, probably for the best," Milly agreed, an admission that must have hurt coming from the party queen herself. "So, what do you get for a noble lady who hates her country?"


For a moment, Lelouch entertained the idea of giving an honest answer. Between the Ashford's assets, their own checkered history with the throne, and their ex-noble status, he supposed something could be arranged. After all, the Ashford Patriarch had already committed sedition when he had kept the vi Britannias hidden, instead of handing them back over to That Man.


Of course, that's a rather simplistic way of evaluating the matter; aiding a pair of disinherited royals is a far cry from providing material support to a Number rebellion.


"If I might make a suggestion," Nunnally chimed in, "she would almost certainly appreciate some help with her records, as well as a copy of our current file for her own perusal. Especially since Big Brother was easily able to find some discrepancies. It would demonstrate a willingness to help her secrets stay just that – secret."


"That would be easy to accomplish," Lelouch added, with Milly nodding in agreement. "Honestly, I could probably go even further with the same idea; if the Knightpolice have already been told not to investigate the contents of her folder, I doubt anybody would pay much attention to some subtle editing of the contents. After all, there is really no reason for our earnest protectors to know when a young lady chooses to visit her family, is there?"


"None at all, Big Brother," Nunnally agreed with an angelic smile. "Indeed, I feel like those gentlemen were quite crass in their observation of Lady Stadtfeld. Do you think you could help them make amends for their indiscretions?"


"That could be a bit more difficult," Lelouch admitted, rubbing his chin, "but on the other hand, the Peelers have never been the best at information security. I happened to hear that Kallen's pet "benevolent association" was experiencing some money problems… Do you think a donation would be adequate amends, dear sister?"


"Oh? Just happened to hear that, did you?" Milly smirked from her end of the table. "You certainly were very thorough in your investigations, weren't you, Lulu? You really probed Kallen's background very deeply…"


Lelouch ignored Milly's harmless provocations and stood up from the table. "And on that note, I believe we have a plan. Milly, you owe me for this."


"Sure, sure." The languid mask of the Queen Bee of Ashford was well and truly back in place. "You know I'm always happy to do anything that might make you happy, Lelouch."


"Except, of course, for your own share of the Council's paperwork," Nunally interjected helpfully. "Really, Milly, it is quite rude how much of Big Brother's time you take up. I need some Lelouch time as well! And Sayoko is ever so sad when he stays out late, slaving over the budget!"


"Hey, that's not because of me!" Milly protested with faux indignation. "You should check some smokey den of gamblers and thieves if you really want to make Sayoko happy by having him back by curfew!"


Being the master of strategy that he was, Lelouch knew instantly that there was no way to fend off the combined teasing efforts of his sister and his hostess. "I will get started on our conciliatory gift to Kallen," he said, retreating from the conference room, "plenty of work to be done, after all. A good day to you both, Madam President, Madam Junior President."


Nunnally's peals of delighted laughter followed him out into the hallway as the door swung shut, and Lelouch smiled at the sound as he began trudging his way back up to the apartment. He sincerely hoped that Kallen would enjoy the gift and take it in the spirit intended, burying the hatchet. He quite liked Milly and enjoyed how Nunnally came alive around her.


It would be a shame if it became necessary to prevent Kallen from disturbing that happiness.


MAY 6, 2016 ATB
ASHFORD ACADEMY, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1240


The view from the roof of Ashford Academy was, as always, distinctly lacking, in Lelouch's opinion. The trendier neighborhoods of the Tokyo Settlement, home to the upper crust of the commons and the lower orders of the nobility, stretched out to the east towards the looming edifice of the Britannian Concession squatting atop its gargantuan platform. Looking out from the roof of the Science Wing, a casual viewer could believe themselves back in the Homeland.


Britannia, as far as the eye can see! So much progress yet so little taste. So much construction, yet utterly devoid of anything that could be called architecture.


It would almost be farcical if it were not for all the bones beneath the foundations of those shining halls, not to mention the jagged spires of broken Tokyo, still rusting in place, six years after the old city's murder.


To the north, the prosperous neighborhoods extended a bit further before gradually tapering off into the more working-class neighborhoods and finally out into the Honorary Britannian districts. Barely visible over the hodgepodge of two to four-story structures, residential and industrial and commercial all jumbled up, the walls of the Shinjuku Ghetto cowered against the horizon, peeping out towards the Concession like a dog afraid of being beaten.


How ironic that the walls of the ghetto were raised by those caged within? The same hands that laid down the piling for the stilts also poured the concrete slabs that were raised around their refugee camp turned open-air prison.


Lelouch often came up to the roof to think. He had always had an affinity for high places, even back in childhood, when he had scrambled onto the widow's walk atop the Aries Palace to survey the grounds. He had watched the chain gangs of newly christened Elevens raise the walls around Shinjuku five years ago, standing on the roof of the expropriated home purchased by Ruben Ashford as his temporary residence. He had wondered then if one of the tiny figures toiling away was Suzaku, beaten and forced into submission.


I had half-hoped that would be the case, for it would have meant that he was still alive. I suppose in a way that hope has been fulfilled. I suppose there is a lesson in that, if I squint hard enough to see it.


Four days ago, Lelouch had seen his best friend again for the first time in years. It had not been the reunion he had dreamt of; although Suzaku was Nunnally's friend as well, Lelouch had yet to tell her that he had seen the other boy alive and… well, he supposed.


At the very least, Lelouch thought, leaning on the railing guarding the roof's edge, I saw that he was alive. I am not sure if I can describe the man I saw menace supposedly unarmed civilians mentally well. Suzaku… What happened to you?


That was the question indeed. What had happened to Suzaku, after Lelouch had bid him return to his father? Three weeks after Suzaku had promised eternal friendship and left, the Britannians had broadcast the news of Prime Minister Kururugi's suicide, helicopters flying overhead dropping leaflets as radios boomed the announcement out on all frequencies.


For his part, Lelouch had doubted that the Kururugi patriarch had ordered a general surrender before taking his life. That did not mesh with the man who had been his reluctant host for a year. Lelouch had found it far more likely That Man had ordered the assassination of Kururugi Genbuu and had falsely claimed the surrender, destroying Japanese leadership and morale in a single fell swoop. At the time, he could only assume that Suzaku had joined his father in the grave.


But that was clearly not the case, because Corporal Kururugi was unquestionably Suzaku. But, while the Suzaku Lelouch had known was a pigheaded, violent pain in the ass, obsessed with honor and rules, he was also a kind boy who had endless patience for Nunnally, who always strove to be the best, and who had eagerly joined a young exiled prince in petty childhood mischiefs, such as filling Todoh's gi with itching powder.


I can still see the edges of that boy in the soldier he has become if I squint hard enough.


Behind Lelouch, the door to the rooftop opened and the reason why he was up on the roof thinking about Suzaku stepped out, eyes wary and stiff in her new uniform.


"So," Kallen Stadtfeld said, her level tone conveying a calm professionalism that almost successfully hid her simmering anger from Lelouch's educated ears. "If Milly put you up to this, please just tell me right now. You can consider your job completed and message delivered, and I'll have enough time to enjoy my sandwich in peace."


"Congratulations on your ceremony, Cadet Sergeant Stadtfeld," Lelouch replied in lieu of an answer, turning from the railing to face his classmate. "I do not believe that it is precisely common for cadets to be promoted two grades before their first day of training, not even for noble cadets. That is quite the accomplishment indeed."


"Thanks," she replied curtly, "I'm honored. Was that all?"


"Not quite," Lelouch said as Kallen half-turned back towards the door. "As the highest-ranking cadet enrolled at Ashford, you are also the first leader of the newly founded Ashford ROTC. Has Major Pitt already gone over your responsibilities?"


"Not… yet," Kallen admitted, her lips twisting with momentary distaste. "I have a meeting scheduled with him after school, though, so maybe that's when he'll tell me what exactly being a 'cadet sergeant' entails. I would have appreciated the warning and maybe an explanation…"


You and me both, Stadtfeld. Although at least Milly doesn't demand that I salute when she gives orders. Not usually, anyway.


"Sprung it on you, did he?" Lelouch asked sympathetically. "Well, I cannot claim much insight into the ROTC, not exactly being a military man myself," he smirked at his own self-depreciation, "but I did want to let you know that, as the leader of the ROTC, you have a seat on the Student Council."


Momentary surprise flashed to annoyance. "Wha-? Fuck, of course I do," she muttered, clearly irritated, "Dammit… Seriously, is there anything at this damned school that Milly doesn't somehow control?"


"Funny you should mention that, Cadet Sergeant," Lelouch couldn't help but smirk at the irony of her comment. "The ROTC is at the Academy by decree of Prince Clovis, and such it is well outside the purview of what the Ashfords can command."


Lelouch's smile turned apologetic as he continued. "Much as you may believe otherwise, your addition to the Council as the voice of the ROTC is not one of her machinations. In fact, you can thank your new commanding officer for this particular obligation. He was quite insistent that the ROTC should have the opportunity to speak for the most patriotic students enrolled at Ashford Academy. Which, I suppose, means you."


Kallen drew herself up, and for a moment Lelouch worried that she was about to do something unwise, but instead, she released her mounting frustration in a controlled huff halfway between a sigh and a growl.


"I… see," Kallen carefully enunciated through grit teeth. She forced a smile at him, boiling rage locked tight behind a brittlely thin mask of gratitude. "Thank you for the… information, Lelouch. It seems we shall be colleagues soon enough."


How did Milly fail to notice her anger? Lelouch marveled. To him, Kallen's attempts to conceal her feelings behind smiles and small talk were decidedly wooden and transparent to the point of obviousness. Perhaps she is still shaken from the ceremony? It would be understandable if my deductions about her political loyalties are anything close to accurate.


"Indeed… So, welcome to the Student Committee, Cadet Sergeant Stadtfeld," Lelouch said with a smile full of sympathy. "Actually, do you mind if I call you Kallen? The title is frankly a bit much."


Kallen's brow furrowed, her mask strained yet further by the naked suspicion dancing in her eyes. Lelouch could practically feel the brush of her scalpel-like glare against his skin as she scanned him up and down, searching for hidden motives and potential threats.


Oh, Milly, Lelouch chided internally, you had no idea of just how dangerous the beast you were prodding this whole time was, did you?


"...Sure," Kallen eventually allowed, sliding back into the mask of the casual noble cadet with effort. "It's just a stuffy rank, anyways, don't worry about it." She shrugged. "Besides, we're gonna be working together soon enough anyways, aren't we? Standing on ceremony sounds like it'd just get in the way."


"True enough, Kallen," said Lelouch, "and that brings me to another matter. While I was getting your council membership paperwork organized – you get a small, discretionary salary as a sitting member, by the way – I happened to come across a few small irregularities in your Academy records."


Kallen's breath stilled, the potent energy that had swirled around her since she had stepped through the door abruptly focused entirely on Lelouch. The sudden air of menace was almost palpable.


And without even lifting a finger! Quite impressive, really.


"And what," Kallen asked, her voice very careful, very contained, "irregularities did you find, Mister Vice President?"


"Lelouch, please," he replied with a casual smile.


It would be best, I think, to humanize myself in her eyes as quickly as possible. And to let her know that people know where I am.


"Do not worry overly much, Kallen," Lelouch continued. "I even asked my little sister if she thought there would be any issues from the minor clerical errors I spotted before I took her to her classes this morning. She assured me that all would be well."


"How… reassuring."


The noble cadet and secret dissident looked anything but reassured. Her face had all the mobility and warmth of porcelain, and Lelouch noticed that her fists were tightly balled at the sides of her uniform's gray skirt. The vibrant red hair under her garrison cap practically screamed warnings to his animal brain to stay away and not to touch under any circumstances.


She looks just like Cornelia, only slightly less headstrong.


"Well, I am sure you will be happy to hear that all of those clerical errors have been addressed," Lelouch blithely continued, pretending that he hadn't noticed how her eyes had fixated on his throat. "None other than yours truly corrected your record at the Academy. I took the liberty of running off a complete copy of your new, accurate school record for you to peruse."


Taking a very small gamble – they were still on school grounds, after all, and he doubted she would murder him in the middle of the lunch hour – Lelouch turned his back on the simmering girl and stepped over to the valise he had left leaning against the rail. As he reached down, he slowed and carefully twisted just enough so Kallen could watch him reach into the satchel and withdraw a folder.


"Here we go!" Lelouch said cheerfully as he returned, deliberately not noticing how one of her hands was slowly creeping back into sight from behind her back, "One copy of the Academy records of Kallen Stadtfeld. Now with corrected information regarding your middle school attendance, your mother's marriage date to your father, and also with updated medical records to reflect your problems earlier this year."


Kallen's eyes narrowed as she accepted the folder from him, and she barely looked down as she flipped the folder open.


So, now she knows that I know that her records are fabricated. She also knows that I have gone out of my way to cover for her. I think her reaction will be… suspicion.


"That was very kind of you, Lelouch," Kallen replied, her voice notably less than gracious. "Although, I can't help but think that there could be some problems in the future when someone contrasts my Academy file with the Ministry of Education's files. Also, while I'm not questioning your word, if the Academy's files are so easy to mess with, how can I be sure that someone with enough access like, say, the Council President wouldn't be able to screw with them again?"


"By wondrous design," Lelouch said breezily, "the Ministry's records were recently updated to reflect data corrections submitted by some of Japan's, I'm sorry, Area 11's educational facilities. As for future interference, well…" He grimaced slightly. "Look, to be forthright about this, Milly unquestionably acted dishonorably towards you. Multiple times. But, she wants to make this right. Whose access code do you think I used when I edited your files?"


When she forgets to pretend to be a noble, Lelouch mused as Kallen's eyes flew wide at his "accidental" slip of the tongue, before narrowing in anger at her tormentor's name, she has an amazingly expressive face. She would have been devoured alive by the Court in an afternoon. Figuratively speaking, of course. Probably.


"If I don't accept this apology…" Kallen ground out, "what then? Will Madam President somehow arrange for me to fail a test? Contrive to force me into some humiliating and revealing costume? Put me up for grabs again?"


Oh, Milly… Lelouch almost sighed, you really did a number on this girl. All in the name of "fun".


I hope you've learned your lesson.


"If you do not accept her apology, it will simply create an awkward work environment," Lelouch replied calmly, carefully pitching his voice towards honest openness. "I understand that Milly is difficult at the best of times – truly, I do. But, and I say this as the other person she put up for grabs recently, she truly is not a bad person. Spoiled? Yes. Thoughtless? Often? Over-sexed and bored? Always. But you will be on the Student Council with her, Kallen, unless you can convince Major Pitt otherwise."


"...I wonder if the Army would just let me transfer schools?" Kallen thought aloud. "I know most of the other schools here in Area 11 suck, but…"


"I think Major Pitt would allow a great deal," Lelouch carefully answered, "but… Tell me, Kallen, do you think a man like that would do you any favor for free?"


"Do I have any reason to believe this 'apology' from Milly is anything other than a noose around my neck and a pat on the head?" Kallen shot back. "My father sent me to this Academy in part to avoid the military meddling with his house. But that plan's dead and gone, thanks to Milly's kind assistance, so…"


Kallen's smile was anything but nice. "So, what do I have to lose?"


"That…" Lelouch began, carefully recalculating, "...is a fair point, and I can see why you might see things that way, but I do not think sitting on the Student Council will be quite as bad as you expect. Rivalz will be there, for one, as will I. Milly did not understand before quite how she was affecting you, but she has been made to see the error in her ways. Before you consider transferring, kindly give us a shot. You might even enjoy yourself."


"...Why are you giving me the hard sell here?" Kallen asked as the pendulum swung back to suspicion. "What's in it for you, Lelouch? Why are you so eager for me to join your Council?"


I doubt she would respond well to my reasoning, namely "Knights of the Round grade pilots don't just fall from the sky, and I plan on making you my tool."


"Because I think that you and I combined can effectively check most of Milly's more outrageous ideas," Lelouch responded instead. "Rivalz is quite impressed by you, impressed enough that he might resist Milly's charms if you ask him for your support. Between my role as Vice President and his role as Treasurer of the Student Council, the three of us should be able to put the kibosh on most of her inane impulses. Just imagine it, an Ashford Academy without weekly parties!"


Lelouch had hoped that the remark would help open a chink in her armor. Humor was, after all, an invaluable diplomatic weapon, when wielded correctly.


Instead, Kallen gave him a long, slow, blink.


…Well, it might be time for plan C. Lelouch thought, sure she was about to refuse.


But then she surprised him.


"...Alright, fine, whatever," Kallen sighed. "I'll attend a few meetings. But! If that bitch tries to grab my chest even once, I am going to smash her perfect fucking teeth out of her stupid fucking face, understand?"


Clearly, Kallen wasn't entirely sold by his pitch, but that she was still willing to play ball at all meant Lelouch wasn't out of the game quite yet. And if I have an inch, I'll take a mile.


"Like crystal," Lelouch replied with a smile of his own, stretching out a hand. "Welcome to the Student Council, Kallen. Together, we shall do great things."


And if I can truly bring you into my confidence, perhaps a noble Britannian junior officer with sympathies for the Japanese can do what I cannot. I would not have survived without Suzaku's help, I am sure of that. I cannot repay the favor to save him from his own bad decisions now, but to a rising young ace, many doors are open.


I have not forgotten the fields of the dead, and I remember who brought food and water for Nunnally. Hold on, Suzaku – I was strong enough to carry Nunnally then, and soon I will be strong enough to carry you.


MAY 6, 2016 ATB
ALLEYWAY, KITA WARD, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1758


Long ago and far away, Alexander lo Britannia, the Eighth Prince and one of Lelouch's ten elder half-brothers, had scoffed at a then-seven-year-old Lelouch's claims of possessing a genius to rival their elder half-brother, Prince Schniezel's. Alexander, a thin bespectacled boy, had been very bookish, and just as Schneizel favored Chess as his intellectual battleground, Alexander had favored the memorization and recitation of long books.


"If you're so smart," Alexander had challenged, "memorize the entirety of the Holy Bible. Schneizel did as much when he was ten, and if you really are smarter than him, you should be able to do the same at seven!"


For the next three days, Lelouch had spent every free minute committing the old tome to his memory, preparing to defend his clearly obvious genius against his petulant elder half-brother. As it turned out, he need not have bothered; Alexander was found dead in his bedroom four days later, the skin around his mouth red and blistered. The very next day, nine servants and a guard had been proclaimed guilty of regicide and flayed for poisoning the Eighth Prince.


Emperor Charles, of course, hadn't attended either the mass flaying or Alexander's funeral.


But, Lelouch still had that book pressed into his memory. He'd had little reason to summon up his knowledge of the King James's text in the last nine years, but it was still there, squatting toadlike in the back of his head.


Alright, something about fish and the number eighteen… Mark one seventeen is the bit about "fishers of men", and Mark one eighteen is… "And straightaway they forsook their nets, and followed him." Which tells me nothing, but… Maybe the arrow was pointing past the puzzle?


Lelouch, back in the same working-class neighborhood he'd wandered into on Monday night, ventured deeper into the alley, walking past the cross half-hidden behind the dumpster as he looked for further paint in either the silver or the blue shades left near the entrance.


At an intersection with a larger alley, a smudge of powder blue in a vaguely arrow-like shape pointed Lelouch northwards. Two intersections down, a vague blob on a sewer grate gestured to the east. Lelouch, already tired of the game, pushed on regardless; he'd devoted enough time to this nonsense that the pressure of the sunk cost fallacy overmatched his mounting irritation.


Finally, after what felt like an endless series of hints that presumably would have been barely noticeable to someone without his observational skills and genius, Lelouch reached the end of his impromptu hash run in front of a set of stairs descending to the basement access. Checking his phone, Lelouch found that it was almost nineteen hundred already, and the streets were thronged with pedestrians.


I will have to come back again later, perhaps after nightfall, he decided. There are simply too many people around. But… That puzzle must be some sort of password or code, something to get in. When would they most likely meet, though? Sunday? That would be the most obvious day for a secret group of heretics or schismatics to meet…


Lelouch stepped back from the stairs and looked at the building the basement was under. Albert's Taphouse, eh? So a bar. It sounds like it's pretty busy in there… Makes sense for a Friday night. He walked up to the bar's entrance and peered at the paper menu taped to the inside of the windowed door. Next to the daily specials was a list of weekly events.


Lady's Night every Saturday from sixteen hundred until twenty-one hundred? No, that doesn't feel right… But bar trivia at twenty hundred, every Tuesday night, huh? Sounds like a bunch of traffic coming in and out… Good cover for any individual or group of any age… Perfect for an illicit basement meeting.


Well, Lelouch smiled to himself, I do enjoy a round of trivia now and again. I would just have to make sure that I avoid winning by too much… Actually, he frowned, I probably should not win; that would make me memorable. That's the last thing I want, and assuming that the group meeting in the basement has any organization, there will be someone watching the crowd, looking for police plants.


Which, he mused as he turned and started making his way back down the street, means that I should not come by myself either, as a single outsider could strike paranoid heretics as suspicious. Rivalz is probably out as well, as two strange young men are probably just as suspicious as one alone. But Milly, maybe? A young couple using a casual social event to facilitate a date? Now that has legs.


Besides, she does owe me for cleaning up her mess with Kallen. I'm sure she'll be happy to wipe the slate clean so quickly!


Milly picked up on the second ring.


"Hey there, Lulu," the Ashford heiress said by way of greeting, her voice sultry even over the phone's tinny speakers, "making a night-time call to little ol' me? How intriguing! I hope you aren't calling me with honorable intentions?"


"I am afraid that I will have to disappoint you," Lelouch chuckled, walking as he talked into the phone. "After all, when are my intentions ever anything less than honorable?"


"That's the disappointing part…" Milly sighed. "You know, you really could stand to be a bit more adventurous, Lulu. Just a bit."


Lelouch ignored the flare of annoyance with practiced ease, a swift rebuttal already on his lips. "I need to be more adventurous, hmm? Remind me, Milly, which one of us actually dares venture outside the campus to find their fun?"


He could practically hear her pout from the other end of the line. Lelouch didn't even bother to try and hide the smile it brought to his lips. "In fact, it was just the other day you were chiding me for braving the Black King's gambling halls while you sat around a boudoir, was it not?"


"Fiiiine!" Milly whined into his ear, "You made your point, Lulu! Forgive a delicate maiden such as myself for wanting to have a little fun with the Academy's very own tall, dark and charming bachelor! If I'd known you'd be so black-hearted as to spurn such a beautiful flower's advances as well as Shirley's, maybe I shouldn't have bothered?"


"Well," Lelouch said aloud, "ask and you shall receive, Milly. I have a sojourn to the Kita Ward planned for next Tuesday; an adventure, if you will. Would you care to be my plus one?"


"Oh my, so forward!" Milly all but purred in his ear. "You'd take an almost-noble girl like me out to such a rough and tumble place? What villainy do you have in mind? Something that would scandalize Shirley, I hope! Did you find a new dive to play cards in? Or perhaps it's a cockfighting ring this time?"


"Neither! Milly Ashford…" Lelouch grinned into the phone, injecting as much unwarranted seriousness into the invitation as he could, "would you do me the honor of joining me for a night of bar trivia?"


"...You cannot be serious," the disappointment in her sigh was bottomless, and Lelouch's grin grew an inch wider. "Bar trivia? Seriously, Lulu? Why the hell are you going to bar trivia?"


"We can discuss it further in person if you wish," he said, allowing the smile and silliness to slip away in favor of a more somber tone. "But just to keep things short, I want a good look at the inside of the basement of the bar in question. A young couple out for some school night fun seems less obviously suspicious than a lone man skulking around."


"Oh?" Predictably, the flirtatiousness returned to Milly's voice. "We'd be posing as a couple? Well, just so long as you know what you're getting into, Lulu; the great Milly Ashford is a method actress, you know~"


"I never kiss on a first date," Lelouch replied blandly.


"Who said it had to be our first~?" Milly purred in his ear. "I certainly don't intend for it to be our last~."


Lelouch sighed tiredly. "...Thanks Milly, I appreciate it."


"It's always a pleasure," she said warmly, "even if you are a tease. My, Shirley's going to be jealous~"


"Somehow, I doubt I will lose much sleep over it," Lelouch replied. The comment, intended as a casual dismissal, reminded him of a topic he had already been losing sleep over. "Hey, Milly?"


"What is it, Lelouch?" Milly had clearly noticed the change in his voice, her own growing equally serious.


"Do you…" He gulped. "Do you or your grandfather have any connections in the military?"


"Umm…" Milly hesitated. "You'll have to be more specific than that. Why? What do you need?"


"I have a friend," Lelouch began, "a friend from before… Before the Conquest. Before I accepted the hospitality of the House of Ashford. A… A Japanese friend. Recently, I discovered that he has, for some baffling reason, taken up the oath in one of the Honorary Legions."


"Oh… Oh, Lulu…" Milly's voice was instantly sympathetic and pitying. "I'm so sorry. But… I mean, chances are that he'll survive his stint. And ten years isn't too long. By the time it's up, things might have simmered down a bit…"


Good to know that we both suck at being reassuring.


"I am not content to take chances, not when I can avoid it," Lelouch replied dispassionately, pushing the instantaneous throb that the thought of losing another important person inspired back down. "However, I have limited means and no inroads into the military. On the other hand, the Ashford name still carries weight, at least in regards to Knightmare-related matters. Do you think that there could be any possibility that…?"


"I mean…" Milly sounded uneasy. "I guess there's always a chance? Grandpa has a pretty deep favor bank, so… possibly? But… C'mon, Lulu, they're not going to let an Honorary, especially not an Eleven Honorary, anywhere near a Knightmare."


"Just… try," he requested, hating the waver that entered his voice. "Please. It does not have to be with the Knightmare Corps; I would just be happy with his transfer to a unit not comprised solely of expendable cannon fodder. While I am confident that my friend will survive his term of service even in the Honorary Legion, I doubt that he will still be the person I remember by the end of it."


"...I can't promise anything, but I'll try," Milly agreed, sympathy warring with reluctance. "What's this friend's name? Do you know what his unit and rank are?"


I should have looked up the unit; it would not have been difficult to find his service record. But… I just could not bring myself to look for it. I did not want to know… Know what he had done in That Man's name.


"His family name is Kururugi," Lelouch said gratefully, "and his given name is Suzaku. I think I heard one of the soldiers I saw refer to him as Corporal. I do not know his unit; they were out of uniform when I saw them."


"Kururugi, eh?" Clearly, the name was not lost on Milly. "And a corporal? Man, the Legion has no idea who he is, do they? That's good, that'll help. I'll see what I can do."


"Thank you," Lelouch replied, and ended the call.


I have done what I can for Suzaku for now, and I have already spent my favor with Milly. I hope her grandfather can do something to save him because I surely cannot.


MAY 10, 2016 ATB
ALBERT'S TAPHOUSE, KITA WARD, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1948


By the time Milly and Lelouch arrived at the Taphouse, an impressive crowd had already gathered at the bar. The common area was practically standing room only, and the shared table the middle-aged waitress guided Milly towards only had a single seat available. Lelouch graciously pulled it out for his "date," before leaning against the wall behind her.


"New faces, eh?" A matronly woman greeted them with a tired yet cheerful from across the table. "Good to meet you, dearies. I'm Hilda, and this is my husband, Charles."


"Here for some trivia, eh?" A slender man with the shiny burns and thick calluses of a machinist waved from Hilda's right. "What're you kids good for, hmm? I'm pretty good at football trivia myself, and the missus knows everything there is to know about the soaps and shows."


"It's good to meet you guys too!" Milly beamed. "I'm Milly, and this is Leland. I'm pretty good at botany, biology, and all kinds of anatomy! Oh, and I watch a ton of TV too, so I can help you out, Hilda!"


"And I have a pretty solid command of history," Lelouch put in, leaning forwards onto the back of Milly's chair and resting his hands on her shoulders. "We cover each other's weaknesses quite nicely! I am certain that tonight, we shall triumph!"


"Quite right!" The wire-thin man across Charles put in, bright eyes blazing under a manic shock of hair as he turned to greet the newcomers. "The name's Havelock, and if you want any poetry or literary trivia, I'm your man!"


"Do you guys have a team name or anything?" Milly asked as Lelouch waved down the waitress. "And who's asking the questions tonight, do you know?"


"Ah, your first time?" Hilda asked with a knowing chuckle. "Not to worry, dearies, we're always looking for fresh blood. Old Tim always asks the questions, and we don't do team names – each of the tables is numbered, so we just go those instead."


"Didn't always use to be that way," Havelock interjected. "Used to be that everybody would spend a good fifteen, twenty minutes hashing out the names! But, as always, some young prick got all pissy about it and tried to glass his buddy when they just couldn't agree, so the table number is the house rule now."


"My, how violent!" Milly gasped theatrically behind her hand, miming a worried glance up at Lelouch. Familiarity made the dancing sparks of interest in her eye impossible to miss. "Glassing… That's when someone breaks a bottle and slashes someone with it, right? What happened? Was he okay?"


Nothing like a bit of danger to inject a note of adventure, Lelouch thought wryly. And Milly certainly loves her adventures.


"Mhm." Charles nodded, lips tightening momentarily. "Smashed a pint glass over the poor devil's head. Damned mess to clean up. But the Peelers showed up soon enough to haul the bastard away, and Doc Lawn got the glass out of the other man's scalp. Damn eventful for a Tuesday night, I tell you."


"Quite," Lelouch replied as the order of fried onions arrived. "Here, help yourselves, everybody. Thank you for letting Milly and I join you for the night."


"Thanks, Leland!" Havelock didn't wait for any further invitation, and as a second platter of fried onions and a round of cheap beer for the adults and cokes for the two sixteen-year-olds arrived, the small talk turned increasingly amiable.


By the time Old Tim stepped up to the ancient microphone to start the Trivia Night in earnest, Milly already had all three of the locals eating out of her palm, to Lelouch's amusement. She had dressed them both up as commoners for the night with an efficiency and a deft touch that he should have expected in hindsight, considering her love of costumes.


Interestingly, away from Ashford Academy and everybody who knew her as Milly Ashford apart from himself, Milly had chosen a very demure outfit, contrary to Lelouch's expectations. Her long skirt was loose and reached all the way down to the middle of her calves, and the shawl draped over her blouse covered up any stray hint of skin. Not that there were any, as she had buttoned said blouse all the way to the neckline.


Honestly, I think the modest outfit would shock our classmates more than the Queen of Ashford lowering herself to a blue-collar bar.


Disguises aside, it was surprisingly easy for Lelouch to allow himself to slip into "Leland", the pleasant and polite student and amateur historian. The role felt light on his shoulders and it gave him a reason to feign ignorance about most of the questions asked. By forcing himself to only give input on questions relating to history, Lelouch was proud that his team was in second place by the end of the round, narrowly avoiding the first-place slot.


The only downside was how… persistent Milly was in sticking to her self-assigned role as his girlfriend.


When someone at another table had left, Havelock had managed to snag their chair and had offered it to Lelouch so he could sit down. No sooner had he taken his seat than Milly had hopped up from her chair and deposited herself in his lap, to the men's approving laughter and Hilda's tolerant smile. Before Lelouch could protest, Havelock had slid the now-vacant chair back over to the other table, leaving him with a lapful of smiling Student Council President.


Then came the long, soulful stares when Old Tim had asked about some soap opera relationship, which character had left his wife for his mistress or some rot. Then had come her fanciful nonsense when Hilda had asked how they had met. Apparently, "Leland and Milly" were childhood friends who had been briefly separated by a parental move before they had reunited in Area 11, a triumph of young love, to hear Milly tell it.


Hilda had been properly appreciative, cooing in all the right spots. Lelouch had been less enthusiastic, although he had managed to play his irritation off as coy shyness.


To his mild horror, Havelock had been very sympathetic when Milly had hopped off to use the ladies' room.


"Enjoy it while it lasts, lad," he'd advised, clapping "Leland" on the shoulder with surprising strength for such a thin man. "Birds come and they go, and scarcely do they linger on a branch for long. Just don't let that one tie you up in too many knots, okay? Sometimes," he winked, "they like to be chased, you know. Just so long as it's on their terms."


Thankfully, before Lelouch had been forced to try to respond to that, Hilda had ridden to his rescue.


"Havelock Smythe, you horrible man, what nonsense are you putting in that boy's brain!" Her spoon had smacked down into the table beside Havelock's hand, causing the man to jump in his chair. "Damned poets!"


Fortunately, by the time the third round had begun, Lelouch had managed to escape into a second chair, freeing himself temporarily from Milly's admittedly convincing acting. That acting served as an excellent smokescreen, allowing "Leland" to steadily retreat away from the conversation as Milly chatted on.


By the time they secured third place, in no small part thanks to Lelouch's iron self-control stopping him from providing all of the answers to his teammates, Milly was deep into a conversation with Hilda about some convoluted television plot Lelouch couldn't even begin to make out. Meanwhile, Charles and Havelock were bitching about some unknown party. Seizing his chance, Lelouch muttered something about paying for the appetizers and slipped away from the table, leaving Milly to hold all attention firmly in place.


The bartender was, to say the least, unwelcoming.


"...Whaddya want, kid?" His accent was pure Pendragon, revealing the man's Homeland heritage. "You hear to settle?"


"Yes sir," Lelouch smiled as he fished a few pound coins out of his pocket. "The onions were quite good."


"Good to hear it," the bartender muttered as he pushed a grubby note across the stained wooden surface of the bar. "Three and ten, please."


"Here you go," Lelouch dropped five of the worn coins onto the receipt and pushed the paper back across the counter. "I was kind of disappointed that you did not have any calamari available, though. I guess the fishermen forsook their nets for the night, eh? They must have followed some loudmouth off to other engagements."


The bartender frowned for a moment, presumably wondering what Lelouch was on about since calamari rings were very clearly listed on the appetizers. Then, his expression went blank again, as placid as a lake. "Could be the case. You know how it is, someone sees some sign and decides to upend their whole life over it. They get it in their head to go out and conquer the world."


As the bartender spoke, he wrung out a wet rag on the bar in front of Lelouch. Without breaking eye contact, Lelouch drew a very sloppy Chi-Rho with the water droplets, before the rag swished back and wiped away the symbol.


"Past the bathrooms and down the stairs," the bartender said in a conversational tone, a non sequitur to anybody not in the know. "Mind your head – there's a bump halfway down."


"Many thanks," Lelouch tapped a finger to his forehead as if miming a salute, before letting his fingers drop straight down to brush over his lips. The bartender mimed touching his heart and nodded, and Lelouch walked past him into the dimly lit back corridor.


The hallway was thankfully deserted and Lelouch quickly found the splintered wooden door marked "Stairs" just past the restrooms, tucked away behind a pile of empty crates. The only sign that anybody had slipped past the crates in recent memory was the lack of grime where the opening door had pushed it back.


Without so much as a single backward look, Lelouch stepped around the accumulated crates, turned the knob, and quietly slipped past the door into the darkness beyond.


Confidence is the key. The most crucial part of any disguise was the confidence that you were who you claimed to be. It had been that way everywhere Lelouch had gone in life, from the Imperial Court to the shattered post-Conquest streets of Hachioji. And now, by sign and by signal, I have told whoever is down in the basement that I am one of them. Therefore, I am coming home, not plunging into danger. Confidence.


Halfway down the stairs, Lelouch was forced to duck under a low-hanging HVAC conduit.


Just like the barman warned me about, he thought with amusement, rubbing at his aching forehead, although not quite the way I had expected. With all of those double-meanings we were tossing around, I expected "the bump" I should watch for would be a man with a baton. I suppose that was not, in fact, part of the skullduggery.


The basement Lelouch stepped out into was built of dingy red bricks and had clearly seen long service as the storage room for the bar's excess inventory before it had found a new purpose. His eyes darted from the twenty-odd people standing around the basement clearly waiting for someone to show up to the obvious altar standing at the head of the room, if such a term could be used to describe a pair of boards on top of a keg draped in a tablecloth.


Above the altar, an old banner hung from a nail driven into the brickwork. The white linen had yellowed with age, but the embroidered device still retained its original colors of red, white, and blue.


It was unmistakably the same shield he had previously found painted on a wall, picked out in fine stitchwork instead of crude spray paint. The red of Saint George's cross gleamed against the pure white inlay, the symbols of the Chi-Rho and the letters Alpha and Omega contrasted against cerulean blue quartering.


The old church sign!


It was a symbol from a different Britannia, a Britannia that existed before the Emblem of Blood. When Baudoin du Britannia, 92nd Emperor of Britannia, had been assassinated in 1955, it kicked off a struggle for the throne that would not be fully resolved until That Man brought the conflict to a shuddering stop in 1998. The Britannia that emerged from the calamitous four-decade-long succession struggle was a very different creature from what it had once been.


Virtually every source of legitimacy had been demolished over those long, bloody years, including the old Britannic Church. Long a handmaiden of the Imperial Family, as the various dynastic branches fought for the throne the ecclesiastical hierarchy likewise ripped each other asunder. In the end, Bishop Warren of Tucson had backed the right horse in Charles zi Britannia and had been elevated to the position of Archbishop of Rochester and Chief Primate of the Britannic Church.


A match made in Hell, if ever there was one.


The religious reforms had been just as overarching as the temporal reforms. As That Man ruthlessly re-centralized power and brought nobles who had grown used to their freedoms back to heel, Archbishop Warren had made crucial changes to church doctrine, including the open embrace of polygamy, long an informal practice but never officially sanctioned, and the enshrining of the Emperor as the living voice of God in the temporal realm.


There had been, of course, protesting voices and dissidents pushing back on the radical new doctrine. Those voices had been branded heretics and had been executed as the heretics they now were. Drowned, beheaded, staked, and burned, Archbishop Warren had been ruthless in rooting out any old believing clergy unwilling or unable to go underground.


And now, Lelouch thought as he looked up at the aged banner that had, in all probability, once graced the wall of a parish church, the remnants hide among the settlers in the newly conquered Areas in the Pacific, or in the jungles of Areas 6 and 7 amongst the Catholic insurgents. All the while preaching of the day when a true king shall come to reopen the Emblem of Blood and cast down the usurper.


I can work with this.


Drawing on old lessons from his childhood spent as a prince of a holy empire, and thus required to attend public devotions on the high holidays, Lelouch drew himself up straight and, defying the orthodoxy of his childhood, raised the first two fingers – one straight and one slightly bent, thumb folded just so – to his forehead, before brushing down over his lips and down to his heart. Then, oriented towards the banner, he bowed low from the waist and crossed himself on rising.


A gentle sigh of collective relief drifted from the small crowd as he made the appropriate ritual genuflection. Hands relaxed around copies of the Book of Common Prayer and the few whose hands had slipped out of sight as Lelouch came down the stairs released whatever they had secreted in their pockets.


A man stepped out from the crowd. "Peace be with you," he said, greeting Lelouch with a smile and an outstretched hand.


"And also with you," Lelouch replied, shaking the proffered hand before adding, "and upon all who gather here in congregation."


"We're still waiting on Father Timothy," the man explained as he guided Lelouch towards the gathered knot of people, away from the stairs. "He usually takes his time. But, in the meantime, you can call me Brother Phillip. What name do you choose to worship under, Brother?"


Assumed names to introduce distance, in case one or more are found, Lelouch assumed. Some of them were probably in the crowd upstairs, and one could have heard me introduce myself as Leland, so that is not an option if I want to appear to be a savvy fellow traveler. So, what should I use?


Remembering the elder half-sibling who had challenged him to memorize the Bible, who had inadvertently given him the tools to find this meeting, Lelouch promptly replied "Brother Alexander, if you please."


"Good to meet you, Brother Alexander," Phillip said, his flashing white teeth a sharp contrast against his dark skin. "You can share my Book for the service if you'd like?"


"Thank you," Lelouch replied politely, "I'd appreciate that." He looked down at the rough cement floor. "Pardon me for asking, but…" he gestured towards the unyielding surface, "are we kneeling on that?"


"Not hardly," Phillip chuckled. "There's a pile of old seat cushions in the back corner. Just make sure to put whatever you take back afterward."


As Lelouch returned to Phillip's side, an old cushion spilling foam from busted seams tucked under his arm, an old man hobbled his way down the last step of the stairs. Judging by the carefully cleaned and bleached Roman collar around his neck and the much-mended but fraying stole around his neck, Lelouch deduced that the old man was the awaited Father Timothy.


Or as Havelock and Charles might call him, Old Tim. Lelouch smiled, shaking his head. A schismatic priest conducting a bar trivia night! Splendid, splendid. Although, he reflected as Father Timothy coughed wetly into his sleeve, time has clearly not been kind to this old priest.


For all that he was old and infirm, Father Timothy's voice was still quite robust as he raised his hands in benediction. "Light and peace, in Jesus Christ our Lord," he declared.


"Thanks be to God," the crowd replied as one, Lelouch mouthing the time-worn ritual response.


"Bless the Lord who forgives all our sins," Father Timothy continued, before plunging fully into a rite that was apparently "An Order of Worship for Evening Prayer," according to the title splashed across the page Phillip had open in his dogeared tome.


Lelouch let the words pass over him, facing forwards and appropriately attentive as his eyes passed over the heretics in attendance. Almost half were female and all, to a man, were obviously poor. Of the twenty-seven people in attendance, not counting himself or the priest, fifteen were gray with age and only two children were present.


And yet, one thing all have in common is the yearning hope writ large across their faces. They are all hungry for hope, for meaning, for a reason to look forward to the next day. And that old, sick man at the front is giving them just such a reason, even though his presentation skills are nonexistent and he stands one foot in the grave.


There is so much potential here if I can tap into it…


"And now," Father Timothy continued, his voice rough and cracked, "a reading from the Book of Isaiah:


"How is the faithful city become a harlot! It was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water; Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: Every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore, saith the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries and avenge mine enemies.*


"The word of the Lord."


"Thanks be to God," Lelouch chorused with the rest of the audience as the sermon began.


"Brothers and sisters, I will keep this brief." Father Timothy paused with a weary smile. "As the eighteenth year of this new Babylonian Captivity comes to a close, the news is bleak at every corner. The usurper sits on his bloody throne and his confederates turn Mother Church into a prostitute, as they have for nigh on two decades now. Every day brings us rumors of renewed purges of the faithful, of new martyrs brought to the ravenstone and bound to wheel or spike.


"And yet, brothers and sisters, I implore you to keep strong in your faith and to cling onto hope. Every day that passes with some new atrocity or blatant malfeasance from the princes of men weakens their foundation, though they know it naught. Everywhere, nobles and wealthy men scheme and steal and exploit. I tell you, in doing so they salt their own fields, and future harvests will rot in their hands!


"Likewise, the liars who wear miters and vestments gorge themselves as their parishioners starve. For all that our people were desperate for stability, desperate for room to breathe, they will not suffer depredations at the hands of their intended protectors forever. As the churches grow empty and tithes wither away, the whores who call themselves priests will grasp ever more greedily, and in doing so dig their own graves.


"But," Timothy paused and smiled out at his tiny flock. "You know this already, brothers and sisters. You have heard it all before, and the knowledge that our enemies cannot stand forever is scarce comfort when your bellies are empty and our brothers in Christ writhe beneath the bone-shattering blows of the rod and squirm helplessly as their limbs are braided about the spokes of the wheel. I know. I understand.


"I shall not lie to you, brothers and sisters; I doubt that most of us gathered here shall see the Promised Land reborn, cleansed of the rot and inequity that so plague our beloved Homeland. I certainly shall not – death is in my bones, and I doubt I will be with you to celebrate Christmas. And yet, I tell you, there is hope yet! The True Prince shall come, the one who shall sit on the throne and drown the traitors in their own blood! He shall come to us as was promised, shall renew the holy empire as the true Kingdom of God on Earth!


"I know not when he will come, brothers and sisters, but I am ironclad in my certainty that he already walks amongst us, that he sees our suffering and hears the cries of his people. The perversity that Charles the Usurper has wrought upon us demands justice, demands retribution, and our God would not deny us an instrument of his will to balance the scales.


"And so I say to you, brothers and sisters, as the spring gives way to summer and new life buds and grows – have faith! Hold on, my people, for our Heavenly Father will not long suffer a liar to sit in His chair and speak in His name! As surely as spring shall give way to autumn and autumn to winter, all that is man shall rot and decay, and our dross will be turned back to silver once more! Our reading goes on to promise the restoration of Zion, of our Pendragon!


"Brothers and sisters, truly I tell you, she will be redeemed with judgment! She will be converted with righteousness! All who have forsaken our Lord will be consumed! Liar-king and corrupt cleric alike, both shall burn, and nobody shall be able to put out the spark!"


A wrenching cough ripped its way out of Father Timothy's mouth, interrupting his sermon. Lelouch took the opportunity to glance sideways at Brother Phillip; the man's face was enraptured, his eyes aglow as he stared at Father Timothy.


"The word of God," Father Timothy forced out as another bout of coughing interrupted him, "for the people of God."


"Glory to you, Lord Christ." The reply of the congregation was fervent, a new fire breathed into them in the promises Father Timothy had made.


And nothing that Old Tim said is necessarily untrue, Lelouch considered, turning the brief sermon over in his mind. The empire is unquestionably riding for a fall; it is most obvious here in Japan, where all of the symptoms of imperial rot run rampant, but Clovis is merely a symptom of a larger failing, a decay that stems from That Man and him alone. He emerged victorious from the Emblem of Blood, but the Empire as a whole certainly did not. For all that Britannia rules a third of the world, she sits upon a crumbling foundation that no amount of conquest can mend.


Another man stepped up as Father Timothy was given a glass of water to drink, and the congregation duly recited the Nicene Creed and chanted a brief hymn on the theme of light. Finally, Father Timothy recovered enough to deliver the closing blessing, and the service drew to a close as the congregation chorused a final "Thanks be to God" in reply.


After thanking Phillip for the use of his book, Lelouch made his way over to where Father Timothy rested, leaning against the wall beside the banner of the Anglican Shield.


"That was quite the sermon, Rector," Lelouch said politely. "It's been quite a while since I heard such a passionately full-throated lesson."


Admittedly, that is because I have not attended a service since before Mother's passing. It is not as if the Britannic Church fully shuns fire and brimstone, after all.


"Thank you, young man…" Timothy smiled amiably up through his beard, but the cool intelligence in those rheumy eyes was not lost on Lelouch. "I don't think I've met you before, and yet, you clearly are familiar with the proper ways."


"I am," Lelouch replied with a deft smile, "from another flock than yours, yet follow the same shepherd. Or, at least, I was from another flock. I relocated to Tokyo from the Hiroshima Settlement a few months ago."


"Ah, I see!" The old man smiled, although the smile again didn't quite touch his wary eyes. "I rejoice that you found your way to us. Now, pardon an old man's curiosity, but your accent… I couldn't help but notice the traces of Pendragon…"


"My father hails from Pendragon," Lelouch replied honestly, "although my mother is from Area 2. I lived in Pendragon before orders came down that sent my family to Area 11."


"Ah, that would be it," Timothy nodded. "Forgive an old man's curiosity. It's not as if Pendragoner accents are exactly rare – lots of us came from the Homeland, after all – but just that combined with the touches of an aristocratic tone…"


"No worries," Lelouch said jovially. "My father is from a very minor noble family, but only barely; grandson of a third son, you see. He tried to squabble against the main branch for the family holdings back in the day, which played a role in how we ended up in Area 11."


"Lot of that going around," the old priest mused out loud. "Well then, my son, consider yourself welcome here."


"Thank you, Rector," Lelouch replied politely, probing carefully for an edge to carry the conversation along.


This is the man to impress; the congregation was practically eating out of his hands. If his health is as bad as he said it was, he is also vulnerable and without a successor.


"Ah, no need for formalities," Timothy waved the title away. "I haven't been a rector since '98, when the diocese discharged me from my post for refusing to swear to the new rite."


"And you have been out of communion with the state church since then?" Lelouch asked. "Have you been underground since then, Father?"


"Of course!" Timothy wheezed slightly as an embittered laugh slipped out. "Eighteen years of sleeping rough and traveling quietly from place to place, of preaching in basements like the Catacombers of Old Rome. They chased me all the way from Bainbridge in Area 4 to Tokyo, my son! And I'm one of the lucky ones… Old Uncle Knapsack is very thorough, you know."


Lelouch nodded, recognizing the Four slang for a secret policeman of any affiliation. Someone who could cram you into his sack and make you disappear into the night.


"All the way to Tokyo from Cuba? That must have been quite the change, in climate if nothing else." Lelouch paired the joking remark with a smile. "Still, you must have run quite fast to have lasted so long underground."


"I suppose so," Timothy sighed, "although, as you heard, my running days are done. I can barely get around the Settlement these days, even with that nifty new train our fool of a governor built. These old bones just can't take the stairs or long walks like they used to, and my wind is completely shot."


"Well, if it would not be too forwards of me…" Lelouch began, sensing an opportunity, "can I offer my assistance? I have some education, courtesy of my father, on the intricacies of our faith, and I have youth and vigor as well. I understand that those are the primary qualifications to be a Lay Eucharistic Minister, and if I could assist you with your duties in that office, it would benefit the church in hiding here in Area 11."


"You make a good point," admitted Timothy, "and I do need help. Unfortunately, those with the time and energy here lack the education or the ability to move freely about the Settlement and beyond, which I understand you have. This is not, you understand, the only congregation I tend to; there are others, hidden throughout the Settlement and the countryside beyond."


"I had figured as much," Lelouch confessed, "or at least hoped. It would have been quite… saddening to have finally found my way back to the true faith, only to find that it had withered to a score and seven in all of the Settlement."


"It's not quite that bad, but…" Timothy shook his head. "That's neither here nor there. I no longer have the luxury to turn down any assistance offered, and… While I have only just met you, Brother Alexander, I am certain you are no police plant nor a spy. When the Numbers are running rampant over the countryside, I doubt they would waste such an intelligent young man on our dregs. If you are willing to take on Eucharistic Minister duties, I would be happy to have you."


"Thank you for demonstrating your faith in me," Lelouch replied, extending a hand. "I will see that you will not regret it. Tell me, when would be best for us to meet further?"


"Would you be willing to take a day trip out to Chiba this weekend?" Timothy asked, grasping Lelouch's hand with a dignified frailty. "There is a small gathering of the faithful out on the Boso Peninsula. If you wouldn't mind, they are due for the Eucharist this Sunday, and I would appreciate the aid. We meet at a tobacconist's, near the sewage treatment plant in Hamanocho, south of the barracks in Chiba City."


"I would be honored, Father," Lelouch said, releasing the old man's hand. "I will stand ready to help keep the fire alight until the time comes for dross to turn back into silver once more."


"Then go in peace, my son, and I'll see you on Sunday."


Milly was waiting impatiently for Lelouch back up in the almost empty main room of the Taphouse.


"There you are," she said with a smile, honeysuckle sweetness not quite covering the acerbic exasperation. "I thought you'd left and stuck me with the bill, but the bartender said you'd already paid up. Then I thought you'd somehow tripped into the toilet and had been flushed down the pipes with all the other turds, but nope, no sign of you in the bathrooms. Where the heck did you go, Leland?"


"Oh, you know, I just went to my father's house," Lelouch jokingly replied, momentarily relishing her immediate and obvious shock before continuing. "Well, not really, but something like that. I went to see a man about some silver. Hopefully not thirty pieces of the stuff. Do not worry, I will tell you more back at home."


"You had better," Milly retorted playfully as she fell into step beside him, "otherwise the engagement's off, Leland! I can't have a husband who keeps secrets from me."


"We are engaged now?" He turned to look at her, brow raised. "I am all but certain that, when I left to pay the tab, we were just out on a casual date. When did we get engaged?"


"That's what you get for zoning out on the conversation all night, Lulu!"


As he and Milly made their way back to the Academy, Lelouch found his mind drifting back to the congregation in that dirty brick basement. Unlike the crowd of workers in the neighborhood by the train station, these were desperate people already actively hunted by the authorities. They had very little left to lose at this point.


Which means they have everything to gain. And unlike economics, religion is a guaranteed hot-button issue. I made mistakes last time, but this time will be different. I will let Nunnally and Sayoko know, for one. Lelouch involuntarily shuddered, remembering the scolding he had received from his darling little sister after the poster debacle. And depending on what she says, I might bring Milly in on it too.


The plan went awry last time, but now… Things will be different. Britannia will fall. A new world for Nunnally. The True Anglicans are waiting for a True Prince to come? I can be that. This can work. It will work.


It has to work.


*(Copied from the King James Version of the Bible, Isaiah 1:21 - 24)

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 28: Grinding Responsibility


(Thank you to Sunny, Restestsest, Mitch H., Adronio, and MetalDragon for beta-reading and editing this chapter. Hope you enjoy this first chapter of 2023.)


JUNE 30, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1015


The sun beat down, the scorching heat undiminished by the tepid breeze rolling off the distant waters of Sagami Bay. Noon was still an hour and a half away and the true heat of the day wouldn't come until two hours after that, but it was already unbearable.


Spring, I decided, is well and truly dead.


At the very least, I could take solace in the fact that, as the de facto ruler of Shinjuku Ghetto, nobody expected me to haul chunks of broken concrete and twisted rebar to waiting wheelbarrows, as I had done in past summers. Indeed, using my authority, I had done my best to ensure that nobody else was expected to do likewise; all above-ground work had moved to a nocturnal schedule, to the rejoicing of all the work crews toiling within the encircling wall.


There were complaints, of course. No matter how universally approved any given decision might be, there would always be complaints. I was sadly aware that their presence was something of a fundamental axiom of society. There was no such thing as a hundred percent approval rating, not so long as those surveyed were free to speak and their words were accurately recorded.


Mister Nishizumi Tsutsumi, the source of many of those complaints, had managed to draw me out of the coolness of the Rising Sun Headquarters' basement before the evening hours, out into the unrelenting heat. Mister Nishizumi, or more properly, Councilor Nishizumi, represented almost a third of the northwestern district of Kamiochiai on the Council of Notables, the governing organ Naoto had set up to help him handle the management of Shinjuku. Since the elder Kozuki had left for the countryside, that group had rapidly become my personal nemesis.


Of course, if I were being honest, I really only had myself to blame for that particular metamorphosis.


"There he is, I think," Masatsugu, the leader of today's three-man security detail, said. "Looks like he's got four others with him."


"Any of them armed?"


The question was mostly pro forma. Of course Nishizumi would have armed bodyguards. Shinjuku had become drastically safer once the Rising Sun took full control over the entire Ghetto, but nobody with property worth stealing would wander around unarmed given any other option. As a Councilor, Nishizumi both had access to enough supplies to make him a potential target and, thanks to my attempt to garner legitimacy, no shortage of people willing to carry arms for him.


"Yeah," came the laconic reply. "I think two of them that I can see? They just have bats, though. Old baseball bats on their shoulders. The rest could have knives or whatever. You never really know."


"You never really do," I agreed, and winced at how tired I sounded. I would have to do a better job at injecting energy in my voice once I got within earshot of the Councilor. The man was a politician and would have no qualms about leveraging any perceived weakness. "Let's go say hello to the fine Notable, shall we?"


As it turned out, the first greeting came from the Kamiochiai contingent.


"Commander! Welcome to our little slice of heaven!" The Councilor's greeting boomed out into the street, empty under the baking sun save for our respective parties. According to Nagata, Nishizumi Tsutsumi had been part of Japan's Merchant Marine before the Conquest. The ex-sailor clearly hadn't lost any of his capacity for leather-lunged bellowing over the six years he had spent away from the sea. "It's damn hot today, isn't it?"


"Truly an excellent reason to spend the next hour in the Meeting House's basement," I agreed, returning his quick bow with an abbreviated bob of my own, running my eyes over his party. The two openly-armed men both wore Sun Guard hachimaki and presumably were members of the militia unit drawn from Nishizumi's constituency. Nominally, they were just as much my men as my security detail. Nominally. "So why are we still out here on this street instead of making our way inside?"


"Hey," Councilor Nishizumi, a deeply tanned man in his late thirties sporting a prematurely gray beard, replied with a joviality that rang false in my ears, "nothing wrong with the street! The boys have done a fine job with the repaving work!" The former merchantman paused, before adding, "Send my congratulations to young Kozuki, will you?"


"I'm sure he'd be delighted to hear from you, Councilor, as always." Deciding not to stand on ceremony as I traded barbs with the man, I swept past him and continued on my way towards the newest Rising Sun Meeting House, located only a few blocks away. "You might be happy to hear that I was, in fact, the one who ensured the repaving crews reached as far to the north as Kamiochiai. As such, I am very pleased to hear that you like the new roads."


The Notable was only a pace behind me, following me just as I had known he would. Behind us, his party - his two militiamen, an aide, and a boy a few years older than me who I assumed to be a message runner - fell into step behind my two trailing guards. A petty power play, admittedly, but so had Councilor Nishizumi's choice of meeting location. We could have met in the shadowy interior of the Meeting Hall, but that would have started the meeting in "my territory."


As if this entire city isn't "my territory," I thought with a repressed sneer. Some days, it feels like this city and its people are merely the Notables to toy with, to hold hostage to their whims, for all that they acknowledge my position. I swore that I would fight for an independent Japan; I didn't swear that I'd recreate the Republic of Japan in all of its maladaptive oligarchic glory.


Long ago, in a different life, I had read a line somewhere about how gratitude was the currency with the shortest half-life. Nothing I had seen from the Council of Notables in the two months since I had taken responsibility for Shinjuku and all those who dwelled within it had disproved that forgotten author's assertion. The gifts I had given and the privileges I had extended had turned into entitlements and sacred rights with remarkable speed. Those first few weeks, when the first and second shipments from Kyoto arrived, had been the good times.


From that highwater mark of cordial relations, my relationship with the Council of Notables had slowly degraded. Their willingness to cooperate had dwindled as the supplies allotted to their districts from the Rising Sun's stockpiles diminished, as had my willingness to tolerate their incessant wheedling.


I still didn't think that I had made a mistake when I had given the Council of Notables control over their home detachments of the Sun Guard. In a way, I had just formalized the current situation, while spinning the facts to suit the narrative that I was in full control of Shinjuku.


The Notables had been elected to the Council by the votes of electors, who were in turn nominated by the various tenements, blocks, and streets within each district. The Notables, therefore, were the local magnates, those with sufficient resources or influence to convince or cozen their district electors to vote for them. They were the people who the young men and women who made up the militia would naturally go to for orders or for help.


By recasting their de facto control of their people as the result of procedures and consensus beyond my decisions instead of the usual outcome of the human tendency to form hierarchies, I had turned that potential vulnerability into a tangible sign that I wasn't a power-hungry lunatic eager to consolidate power in my own hands.


That I was having enough trouble managing my responsibilities as it was without any further consolidation of power was not something I felt the need to share with the Council of Notables. They expected me to seize every scrap of power I could and had prepared to dig in to resist my encroachment once Naoto named me the authority in Shinjuku. They had told each other that my Britannian blood and tender years would make it inevitable that I'd go mad with power, that I'd prove myself just a gangster who had somehow manipulated the softhearted Naoto.


They didn't understand me, nor did they understand Naoto. Anybody who thought the elder Kozuki was softhearted was a fool; he was simply strong and wise enough to show mercy when he could and should. In truth, I envied his skill at diplomacy and political maneuver. Similarly, they misunderstood me. I had no desire to fight the Notables for power, and so, to their vast surprise, I had simply given it to them, a gift instead of a contest. Entrusting the Notables with their Sun Guard units outside of times of emergency had been the clearest way I could signal that the Rising Sun wasn't just a gang and I had no desire to be a king.


At the time, I had been hoping that such a clear signal, coupled with the free distribution of the food I had purchased with gang money, would lead to mutual cooperation and understanding. For a while, it had. Then, the first Notable had turned down my request to use their Sun Guard as a labor force for a specific project in another district. Another would only agree to a similar request if their district got an extra meal every day for a week, which would have decreased the amount available in all other districts. Battle lines were drawn in the Council.


Past that point, the rot of factionalism had begun to bite in earnest.


It would have been easy, so easy, to force a solution to this problem. The Rising Sun maintained its monopoly on coilguns and ammunition, radios and medicine, and most crucially, over the majority of the stockpiles of food, clothes, and construction materials. The Council of Notables was riven with internal divisions, and while most continuously connived, a distinct minority were loyalists who never asked for more or quibbled when I requested the use of their young people for the greater good of Shinjuku.


It would have been the Britannian thing to do.


Realizing that had been enough to show me the trap that temptation represented. Even with the best of intentions, coercing support from the people of Shinjuku would forever contaminate the public relations well and tarnish my name. I would set myself and my organizations apart as yet another oppressor in a line of oppressors, come to take and take. Once I crossed that line, even to guarantee unity among the governors of Shinjuku, it would be easier to cross it again in the future.


And once I reached that point, I might as well start dressing like a Britannian, because that's what I would be.


With that nightmare scenario in mind, I had set myself to a task I was ill-equipped for and heartily disliked: playing politics.


Which isn't even part of my brief! That was Naoto's job, his and Ohgi's, to a lesser extent! The whining was just as self-serving as any of the endless complaints from the Council, but in the private sanctuary of my mind, I had little compunction about delving into selfishness.


"So, Councilor Nishizumi," I began, slowing slightly to walk beside the man instead of a pace ahead, "what was it exactly that you wanted to inspect at the Meeting House?"


"Your man," the sailor-turned-politician began, "is being a real pain in my ass, Commander. He just came in here, took over the old Post Office, and started throwing his weight around! Considering how much crap your boys hauled inside, he must be sitting on a whole mountain of resources! As the Councilor for Central Kamiochiai, I wanna see what he's hoarding!"


By the end of his miniature rant, Nishizumi was practically spitting the words out; the last word, in particular, was like a curse in his mouth, and it was hard not to wince at the accusation. Given how desperate everyone was in the wake of the Conquest, even the mere accusation of hoarding was a matter taken very, very seriously in Shinjuku, both back before the Rising Sun had established hegemony and after.


"I can see that you are quite concerned about this matter," I began, trying to remember how Naoto had spoken to the Councilors on the handful of times I'd accompanied him to meetings, "but that doesn't sound like the Nagata Takeshi I know. I trust him and Kozuki Naoto trusts him; they've known one another for years, after all. I doubt he'd throw all of that away just to put the screws to you, Councilor Nishizumi."


To my irritation, only the reminder that Naoto trusted Nagata dented the Notable's hostile expression even slightly. "Even good men can have bad friends," Nishizumi rebutted, thankfully lapsing into silence as we approached the Kamiochiai Rising Sun Meeting House, where Nagata stood waiting by the door for us.


It was immediately obvious that there was no love lost between the two men.


"Nagata," I said, stepping out ahead of Councilor Nishizumi and greeting my lieutenant, "thank you for agreeing to meet with us today. I'm sure you're quite busy as it is."


"Commander," he acknowledged, and I tried not to wince at the title someone in the Rising Sun had slapped onto me. I suspected Inoue was the responsible party, judging by the way her lips twitched whenever someone used the title in her earshot. "I'm always happy to make time for you. I hope the trip all the way out here wasn't too bad?"


"A little heat won't stop me," I replied, full of false heartiness, which fell away as I continued. "Especially considering the… concerns Councilor Nishizumi has raised."


"Concerns, eh?" Judging by the way the Councilor's lips twitched, he had clearly intended to punctuate the sentence with a gob of spit but had thought better of it at the last moment. "Yeah, I've got some concerns, if that's how you want to put it. Commander," his voice rose, full of belligerent certainty, "Like I said, your man here is a hoarder! He's skimming off the top of the distribution for my district, for Central Kamiochiai, and keeping it squirreled away for his own use! Believe me!"


"I certainly believe that I've heard you say all that and more," I coolly replied, turning to look up at the former sailor, who stood a solid two heads taller than me. "Indeed, I believe that's why I'm out here this bright and sunny morning. I have heard your concerns and shared them with Nagata here. We three will inspect the measuring devices and the stores here at the Kamiochiai Meeting House and hopefully put your mind at ease in the process."


"Right," Nishizumi nodded curtly, his temper, for the moment, back under control. "And in the interest of fairness and transparency and such, you won't mind if my man Shun here," he hooked a finger over at the skinny man I had apparently correctly identified as his aide, "tags along as a witness, right?"


"Well," I said, smiling blandly up at the man, "I can certainly respect your love of transparency, Councilor Nishizumi, and fairness also. So, in the name of fairness, I think Nagata should be allowed to bring along a witness of his own, wouldn't you agree?"


Before the Notable could protest, I turned to Nagata. "Nagata? Would you kindly find us a witness and lead us to the distribution room, or wherever you're keeping the cups and the scales? Let's hurry up and get on with this."


That conversation more or less set the pace for the next hour and a half. As Masatsugu and my other two guards cooled their heels in the Meeting House's dining room in the company of Nishizumi's two guards and his messenger, I did my best to keep the peace between Nagata and Nishizumi as we examined the cups used to dole out rice and flour, the scales that weighed the measure of biscuit, and the larders that provided for the thrice-weekly communal meals.


Throughout the entire ordeal, Nishizumi took every chance he could to snipe at Nagata. The usually quiet and mild mannered Kozuki Organization member was uncharacteristically giving back just as much as he got, once even snarling at the Councilor in reply to some snide comment or another. While the root of their tension was still unknown to me, it was clearly a deeply personal and mutual resentment they shared.


Annoyingly, this was a situation that could have been avoided had I spent more time with the individual Councilors before or, for that matter, if I'd shared more one-on-one time with Nagata in the last several months. In my defense, I had been busy and Nagata had fully capitalized on his return to Shinjuku to spend as much time as he could with his wife and little daughter, Ami and Yukari respectively, and before he had left Naoto had done a fine job managing the Council.


But perhaps if I had shown more interest in the lives of my subordinates and in the network of social grudges and alliances in the Council of Notables, this whole situation could have been avoided!


It was an unhelpful thought, self-castigating and based on speculation about the hypotheticals. Yes, it would have been helpful to know that Nagata had a long-standing grudge against the man who represented a third of the Kamiochiai District before I had put him in charge of the new Meeting House distribution point in that area. Yes, perhaps I should have asked the three Councilors who represented the district for their input on the Meeting House and its staff.


But what was done is done, and I was thoroughly sick of trying to manage the pair of them. But, while neither Nagata nor Nishizumi had endeared themselves to me lately, it rapidly became apparent that Nishizumi had no evidence of any embezzlement from the Rising Sun's supplies on Nagata's part beyond vague claims about "what everyone knows", nor did the inspection of the measuring devices find any indications of tampering.


"You saw it yourself, Councilor," I said, trying to keep my tone level and my frustration off my face. "We looked all around the Meeting Hall. Every room was made available for your inspection. No signs of any hoarded supplies, no signs of rigged cups or unfair scales. Unless there's some further evidence you can supply, I will insist that you recant your accusations against Nagata."


"Like hell I will!" The former merchantman's stentorian was deafeningly loud in the lobby of the post office turned Rising Sun building. "Mark my words, Commander, that man is a slippery little shit! He's stealing from you, he's stealing from me, and more importantly he's stealing from my people!"


"Don't blame me for your own failures, Councilor. " Nagata retorted, his face an ugly mess of blotchy spots, his fists tightly clenched at his sides. "Just because you can't keep your own house in order doesn't mean I'm sabotaging you. Unlike some people I could mention, I don't need to stoop to gangsterism to earn respect!"


"You little shit!"


At Councilor Nishizumi's bellow of rage, I took the opportunity to physically step between the two men, forcing them to separate or shove me aside.


"Enough!" I barked, all but snarling with barely contained frustration. The voice of authority, honed on the Prussian parade grounds and Alsatian battlefields, effortlessly cut through the chaos of the argument like shrapnel through a teenaged draftee. For a moment I stared down both men, cowing them into silence with the unspoken weight of my displeasure. The armed members of my security detail looming behind me were an unnecessary afterthought as the two squabblers fell silent, neither able to maintain eye contact with me.


"Nagata," I said, starting with my old ally and friend. The ex-plumber's arms immediately snapped to his sides as he stood at attention, the lessons from The School making themselves known. "The Rising Sun never lacks work for idle hands. Kindly take this opportunity to start working on preparing your staff for the next distribution. Handling those matters is your responsibility; I will handle things here."


For a moment, I saw defiance flicker in my subordinate as his eyes darted to the Notable beside me, almost aglow with simmering rage. Thankfully, that rage wasn't quite enough to make Nagata forget himself; he took a breath, held it, and let it go. "...Yes, Commander."


Nishizumi looked like he was going to make a parting crack as Nagata left, but thankfully he caught my quelling look and kept his mouth shut. For now, at least.


"Councilor Nishizumi," I began again, my voice not nearly as level as I would have liked, "I understand that you have personal business with Nagata, and I understand your commendable dedication to the welfare of your district. However, unless you have evidence that he has actually committed some wrong against you or yours, I insist that you cease making accusations against him."


Before the inevitable angry rejoinder could come, I continued in a more conciliatory tone. "I won't ask for an apology, as that seems like a bridge too far. And, if you can actually provide evidence," I spread my hands, as if I was accepting something from him, "I would be more than happy to see it. I think we can all agree that while we struggle under the boot of Britannian oppression, betraying each other for greed and selfishness is among the most intolerable of crimes.


"And you don't like Nagata? Fine. He is a valued friend of Naoto's, but I won't force everyone to bow and scrape to him just because of his personal connections. We're not Britannians, after all, desperately trying to pad our fragile egos." I paused as I gave him an opportunity to respond, levelly meeting his hostile gaze. After the Councilor proved himself wise enough to not take the obvious bait, I continued. "If you have a personal problem with Nagata, that's between the two of you; I'm not your mother and I won't force you to kiss and make up.


"But," I growled, "When you make your personal rivalry my problem? When you waste what precious time I have with your nonsense and petty animosity? When you waste all of our time dragging us out to some warehouse in order to grandstand to a captive audience? Well, now you have entirely exceeded my personal capacity for patience. So, I am telling you now to stop making this my problem. Settle matters between yourselves or get over it. If there is actual theft, bring me evidence that I can use. Solve your problem, or I will solve it for you, and I assure you that you will neither like nor enjoy my solution."


I paused, looking for any sign of give in Councilor Nishizumi's deeply tanned and lined face. "Am I understood?"


Councilor Nishizumi's jaw clenched, and for a moment I thought he would actually take a swing at me. The old sailor loomed over me, glaring down and all but demanding that I submit. I refused to look away or step back, and for a long, silent minute, we teetered on the edge of escalation.


Then, the big man subsided. The old merchantman slipped away and the politician swam forwards to take his place. "Oh, I understand you," he agreed readily, and for all that his voice was level and his volume approximately normal, his tone was only a small step above a growl.


"I thank you very kindly for your wise advice, Commander." Nishizumi's expression was closer to a pained grimace than anything recognizable as a smile. "I can see why young Kozuki entrusted his city to your just rule. So, you want evidence, do you? Fine. That's fine. I'll make sure you get all the evidence you could possibly need to see your way clear to giving my people what's theirs and getting that thieving rat well away from me."


"If such evidence exists," I confirmed, nodding slightly but not breaking eye contact for an instant, "I will review it objectively and follow up on it if I find any indications of rule-breaking, hoarding, or embezzlement."


"Good, good." The Notable's reply came out in a horrible almost-crooning sing-song, his smile frozen and immobile on his face as if it had disconnected from the mind behind it. "Of course, I never had any doubts that you'd do any less, Commander."


"I know exactly what my duties are." I didn't bother to keep the snap out of my voice. "I know exactly who and what I fight for. The people of Central Kamiochiai are not forgotten. Nor are their interests. I will not stand for anybody in my organization to impede or misrepresent those interests, just as I will not permit any factional division while we live under the Britannian hammer."


"Of course you wouldn't," Councilor Nishizumi cried out, mocking horror at the very idea. "After all, there's no way that young Kozuki's substitute would ever stoop to something so unjust as separate standards or crass nepotism! Certainly not. After all," he continued, a smirk curdling on his lips, "there's certainly no way a fine young lady like yourself would ever stoop to something so… Britannian, now is there?"


More posturing followed, but I stubbornly refused to rise to the bait or give the Councilor the satisfaction of knowing any of his barbs had found purchase. I kept my eyes fixed on the tiresome old man's until his bluster finally subsided, when he gathered his small party and at long last made his exit, all the while making none-too-subtle threats about nebulous "evidence" he would present at the next gathering of the Notables.


I waited until Councilor Nishizumi had left the Rising Sun Meeting House before I called for Nagata.


Despite all of the morning's efforts, the issue of the Kamiochiai Meeting House and its relations with the local Notable remained open. Between the inspection which had turned up nothing of note and the Councilor's own words, it was abundantly clear that the question of unfair distributions was a mere pretense for a more personal quarrel, one I hadn't been aware of before I'd blundered into it. Such, I had found out to my great annoyance, were the ways of politics.


No wonder Naoto had been so eager to shift it all onto my shoulders.


And yet, like it or not, it was my mess to clean up as the only meaningful authority in Shinjuku. I would do my best; to do anything less would be to betray myself and all of the work of my comrades and coworkers. But to resolve this irritation, one among many, I needed to learn where its roots were, so I could rip it out entirely.


As it turned out, they lay in infuriatingly shallow soil.


"He was Ami's boyfriend when I met her four years ago," Nagata said, answering my question immediately and without further prompting. "They were together when I met her, and she left him for me."


"I see." I nodded, grasping for reasonability. "And there wasn't any overlap, was there, Nagata? No possible reason why any third party might reasonably conclude that either Ami was cheating on Mister Nishizumi or that you stole her from the man? Assure me that much, please."


"The relationship was all but over already," he protested, although I saw guilt flash across his face for an instant. "She was already planning to move out before I even met her! She told me that they were through and she was leaving him, so I went ahead and took my chance!"


"...So that's why he accused you of theft, is it?" I sighed. "This entire mess, all that shouting, all over some stupid soap opera tier relationship drama?"


"To be fair to Mister Nagata," Masatsugu put in from where he stood by the only door out of Nagata's office, on the second floor of the Rising Sun Meeting Hall, "Nishizumi's a piece of shit. He used to be a sub-boss for the Kokuryu-kai, back in the old days. Once the Purist fuckfaces broke them up he spun his group off into their own gang, the Oni. They were bastards then and they're still bastards now. I don't blame Miss Ami for ditching his old ass."


"I didn't ask for your input, Masatsugu," I replied, turning on him. Seeing my bodyguard's scarred face, a thought occurred to me. "Weren't you in a gang too, Masatsugu? Who was your boss?"


"You killed him," he replied with a broad grin. "Well, not you personally, but me and my crew were King's Men."


I quickly ran the name through my mind, trying to remember where I'd heard it before. "One of the Kawadacho gangs, right? That was the group who used to control the Refrain trade in Shinjuku, wasn't it?"


"That's the one," he confirmed. "But, well… You know how the big boys used to operate, right? The difference between 'core' members and the rest of us, yeah?"


In my mind's eye two groups of gangsters forced their way into a communal dinner, ready to steal our food and anything else that took their fancy. One group was as well fed as any Japanese in the Ghetto, their hair bleached blonde and sporting shoddy imitations of Britannian fashion. The other group was a pack of wretched-looking men: their clothes were almost as ragged as everybody else's, and only the scarves wound around their arms and the knives and bats in their hands announced their status as gang members.


"Indeed," I managed a half-smile at the man. "Well, I appreciate your willingness to work for me now. I am sure that, with your help, the Rising Sun will continue to climb ever higher into the heavens. I appreciate you braving the heat and joining me here for the express purpose of wasting your morning."


"Yes, Commander!" His salute was full of vigor yet sloppy, a gesture he had seen others do and tried his best to emulate. I had selected him for his current duty based on that keenness, and though he didn't know it yet, his place in one of the upcoming School cohorts was guaranteed. Keenness aside, the glowing respect and pride I saw in his eyes when he looked at me made me uncomfortable.


I was respected by my companions and friends in the Kozuki Organization, both the old Kozuki Cell members and the men and women I'd trained with at The School. They knew I was a capable individual, and treated me as such. That said, they'd also seen me when I screwed up, when I was weak, when I was vulnerable, and so none of them looked at me with the hero worship I could see glowing in Masatsugu's eyes.


Except for that one evening when Naoto saw my magic… I shuddered and pushed that memory away. It had been profoundly uncomfortable to see adulation on my leader's face as he gazed upon the fire in my hand.


I turned away from that uncomfortable reverence, back to the familiar territory represented by Nagata's stoic face. "Let me know if Nishizumi tries anything, Nagata. I'll send a unit or two of Sun Guard from other districts, just to help out on some projects in the area, for the next few days. That ought to send a message."


"As you say, Commander," Nagata nodded attentively, clearly relieved that I wasn't delving any further into any potential misdeeds he might have committed against Nishizumi.


I was tempted to tell Nagata to knock it off with the title, that he'd known me when I was Tanya and that he'd more than earned the right to call me by name.


And yet, I thought, I'm not just Hajime Tanya now. I'm Commander Hajime, head of the Shinjuku Rising Sun. Cringing away from that helps nobody, and if embracing the title and authority helps keep other parasites like Nishizumi in their place…


I returned his nod. "Best of luck with next week's distribution, Nagata."


---------


Back at the Rising Sun Headquarters, the original Meeting House and distribution center in the Waseda District of central Shinjuku, I had another meeting to attend. Thankfully, it was conducted inside and over lunch, a welcome break from the heat of noon.


"Alright," I said, pushing the empty rice bowl away and bringing the chatter to an immediate halt, "let's get started. We're all quite busy these days and we've got a lot to get through, so please keep your reports short. If I want further detail, I'll schedule a follow-up so everybody else won't need to hang around."


My six lunchtime companions nodded in a chorus of bobbing heads. This little assembly consisted of an equal number of skilled experts and picked members of the Sun Guard militia whom I felt had shown enough responsibility to shoulder a few of the tasks I could delegate. Much like the Sun Guard, I had fished the experts from the sea of humanity constrained within Shinjuku's enclosing walls.


Taken together with the currently absent Inoue and Nagata, they constituted my Leadership Commission.


The first to speak was one of the experts, a scrawny man even by the malnourished standards of Shinjuku by the name of Junji. Before the Conquest, he had worked at the Japan Broadcasting Corporations' FM radio station servicing the western parts of Tokyo Prefecture as a technician, in charge of maintaining and repairing radio equipment. In recent months, he had become the backbone of our expanding pirate radio network.


"The Gunma Relay is up and functional again, as of yesterday," Junji said, starting the meeting off on a high note. "Seems like it was just a wiring issue, easy enough to fix that I was able to walk your man there through the process via text. I should warn you," he continued, his tone dipping as he tried to convey the gravity of the matter, "the parts issue still needs to be addressed. We can only stretch what we have so far."


When the Rising Sun's activities had been all but entirely confined to Shinjuku, it had been easy to conceal our communications. We had used burner phones and cryptic word choice to reduce the chances that any Britannian intelligence officer monitoring cell traffic in and near the Ghetto would be able to piece our operations together, but that strategy had relied mostly upon the protective camouflage of a city's worth of communication obscuring our handful of calls and texts.


Now that the Rising Sun had begun to spread out into the rural areas of central Honshu, spearheaded by Naoto and Souichiro as Ohgi and Tamaki kept an eye on The School, relying on luck and Britannian laziness was no longer acceptable. Cell traffic, routed through Britannian telecom companies and their cell towers, was too risky. Which was when Junji had brought himself to my attention.


The former radio technician had heard that I was looking for new routes of communication and had placed his professional experience at my disposal. Indeed, he had been practically giddy to tell me everything he could about operating a radio network, which unfortunately led to a lengthy lecture heavily laden with technical details that were, broadly speaking, entirely lost on me.


But more importantly, Junji had come through with a connection to some shady Honorary Britannians with unspecified access to a warehouse full of last generation radio equipment, all second-hand from various commercial stations upgrading their equipment to the current models provided by some noble monopoly or another. Thankfully, Junji's connections had been all too eager to sell whatever outdated surplus equipment we needed at very reasonable rates.


And, after the first shipment had arrived, Junji had set to work with gusto. He had been eager to return to indoor work without any heavy lifting after weeks of helping to pack new insulation into the freshly repaired crawlspaces of various tenements around Shinjuku, although he had been less happy when I told him that his technical expertise had landed him a post on the newly-organized Leadership Commission.


Within weeks, antennas began to appear throughout the Shinjuku Ghetto, each connected to concealed receivers. So far, our crude little network was quite small and almost entirely confined to Shinjuku. Five transmitters, each broadcasting on a different frequency, were scattered around Shinjuku, with the nearest located in a building down the street from the Rising Sun's headquarters.


More recently, Ohgi had managed to get his own receiver/transmitter established in an abandoned farm near The School. Unfortunately, his gear lacked the range to communicate directly with us, so a team had been dispatched to install a relay in a small shack on the slopes of Sakurayama, just over the Gunma-Saitama border.


"Your concerns are noted," I replied, nodding to Junji. "Money's tight, but I'll reach out to my partner to see if he's got anything in our price range. Feel free to ask around yourself, by the way. Surely someone's worked as a janitor in one of the Britannian stations or whatever. If they know about anything easily stolen, bring it to me and I'll see if it's feasible."


Junji nodded and sat down, his report apparently completed.


"I suppose if we can talk to Naoto and Ohgi again, we can pick up the pace of the evacuations?" I turned to the woman next to him, one of the Sun Guard militia officers I'd picked out for special attention. "What are your thoughts on the matter, Lieutenant?"


The title sat uneasily on the shoulders of the recently dubbed Lieutenant Ichiya, who very much lacked any sort of military bearing. And yet, I had dropped that title on her anyway; the Kozuki Organization and its appendages had reached the point where a formalized chain of command was necessary. Even though Naoto, Ohgi, and I were handing the ranks out more or less as a matter of fiat, all three of us had agreed to insist they be respected. So far, nobody had pushed back against the rash of sudden promotions.


This lieutenant in particular had the dubious honor to be the point woman for one of the Rising Sun's most ambitious projects to date: The steady evacuation of as many people out of Shinjuku Ghetto and the Tokyo Settlement as possible.


"It'll definitely help, being able to talk to Gunma again," Lieutenant Ichiya said, belatedly rising to her feet as she realized that everybody else in the room had turned to look at her. "I mean, I guess that's pretty obvious, but it'll really make things easier, especially when some people get lost or whatever. Which, you know, happens, especially during the night handoffs."


Five weeks ago, I had sent out several volunteer units of Sun Guard to establish way stations on the route Naoto and I had agreed upon between Shinjuku and his current location in the mountains north of Takasaki. The way stations traced a line from Asaka just over the Tokyo-Saitama prefectural border to the outskirts of Honjo, just south of Takasaki, and each had hiding spots for two or three trucks and up to one hundred tightly packed people.


Ever since the last way station was finally established - at Ogawa, in Saitama Prefecture, after the original station was discovered and destroyed by the local Honorary Britannian auxiliaries - up to a hundred people every night had slipped out of the Ghetto, following paths through derelict subway tunnels and sewers under the Ghetto walls and out into the surrounding Settlement, where waiting trucks carried them to the first way station.


"Broadly speaking," Lieutenant Ichiya continued, "things are going about as well as we could reasonably ask for. I mean," she grimaced, "shit happens. Trucks break down, someone has a heart attack, whatever. But, the important part is, there's no sign that the Brits have realized anything's up. The only time we've run into anything like a patrol was just a pack of traitors, and they were happy enough to take the money once the driver told 'em a baron up north had bought the cargo."


She's getting better, I thought, noting how the lieutenant's hands barely shook at the mention of traffickers. Hopefully, she continues along that trajectory. A less jumpy officer would be ideal.


Lieutenant Ichiya had earned her promotion by stepping up from Chihiro's crowd to take her leader's place in her absence. Almost as soon as Chihiro had left the Ghetto, I had begun working to reintegrate her free company back into the main Rising Sun organization, starting by giving Ichiya her rank and handing her responsibilities that extended past the several hundred freed slaves who had fallen into Chihiro's orbit.


Now I nodded at my officer's report, impassive despite my anger. Not at the lie, but rather because the fact that the local Honorary Britannian police had accepted it implied that it hadn't been the first time they'd stopped a truck loaded with Japanese. And the drivers probably weren't lying, most of those other times.


Sometimes, it was very difficult to remember why I had continued to lobby against the general desire to kill any Honorary we could reach. Intellectually, I knew that excising however many percent of the Japanese population who had taken up oaths to the invaders was counter-productive, especially in a theoretical post-independence state, even more so when that percentage represented the bulk of the recently educated population. Emotionally, though…


Remember, I told myself, if you could have taken up the oaths and become an Honorary Britannian, if that path had truly represented a better life with upward mobility, you certainly would be on the other side of that line now.


"Very good," I said, nodding at the lieutenant. "Keep up the good work. Let me know if you need further resources, besides-" I raised a quelling hand, seeing the words already forming in her mouth, "besides the usual rations and such. Inoue said she found a contact who'd recently come into possession of two shipping containers worth of Britannian Army ration packs, so hopefully that will be handled for the next few weeks, at least."


Lieutenant Ichiya subsided with a curt nod, and I moved on to the next person waiting. "Miss Tsuchiya, do you have anything to report?"


The teacher gave me a wan smile as she stood to address the room. I'd spoken with the woman a handful of times since we'd first met back in April, the latest of which had been when I had requested her presence on this Commission. All of those conversations had unfortunately been quite stilted and awkward for both of us. Miss Tsuchiya clearly didn't know quite how to interact with me, someone the age of her students yet a major political figure, and speaking with her always reminded me of things and times I'd rather not think about.


Her invitation to sit in on some of her classes with my age-group peers still hung between us. She had reassured me once that the invitation would always be open, should I choose to accept it, but despite thanking her I had never felt the impulse to go. Frankly, I didn't know how attending a middle school level class could possibly benefit me, considering the memories I carried of my previous lives' educational experiences.


And besides, I thought as I smiled encouragingly at the former educator, the head of both the embryonic Shinjuku Educational System and the vocational training program, I have no desire to see the children of Shinjuku, or, rather, the other children of Shinjuku. Life in the Ghetto with all of its daily tragedies is depressing enough without seeing all of those too-old faces. I see that enough in the mirror… Or without seeing those children with their parents… With their mothers.


Just brushing up against that word brought a familiar stinging pain and an upsurge of memories. Despite the time, they were still as sharp as always, as difficult to handle.


It's like a broken tooth, I considered, or some exposed nerve that I just can't help probing every now and again. Every time I do so, it hurts, but I just can't quite leave it alone.


Thankfully, despite my earlier admonition, Miss Tsuchiya seemed in no hurry to speak, so I didn't miss any of her words with my woolgathering. Perhaps she had been waiting for my focus to return to her, some teacher's instinct informing her that her intended audience wasn't quite ready yet to learn, but it was only when she saw my infinitesimal nod that she began.


"The recruitment program is outpacing my expectations," she began, glancing down at her notes to check her figures. "It seems like my fellow educators are quite eager to return to their professions. As of this week, I have managed to secure the services of sixty-four primary school instructors, thirty-five secondary school educators, and seventeen college-level lecturers with varying specialties. I've also managed to find fifty-three early learning and childcare specialists who were willing to help run a kindergarten program as well.


"On the vocational training front," Miss Tsuchiya flipped to a different page in her notebook and took a second to refresh herself on the figures before looking back up to meet the collective gaze of the room, "it's been a bit harder going since many of the prospective instructors are otherwise engaged with the construction projects and the like. Still, I managed to find a number of electricians, plumbers, and carpenters willing to teach. I've also found a few former nurses who are willing to conduct first aid classes as well."


"Junji," I said, turning back to the radio technician, who had been taking the opportunity to make headway into a second helping of beans and rice.


He startled to his feet at the sound of his name, gulping down his mouthful. "Y-yeah?" He got out, licking a few errant grains from his lips to the general amusement of the gathering. "What's up, Commander?"


"Get in contact with Miss Tsuchiya and get some classes scheduled," I instructed, ignoring the unprofessional sniggering echoing from certain corners of the room at the radio technician's expense. "Your skills are too valuable to live solely inside your head. Besides, this way you'll have other people to foist handling tech support questions off on, not to mention extra hands to help carry the load as the network expands."


When I'd begun, Junji'd had a distinctly uncooperative expression plastered across his face. At the implication that he'd no longer have to walk unskilled Shinjuku residents turned rural guerrillas through the basics of radio set-up and maintenance, he brightened visibly. Then he paled, as some new and terrible thought dawned on him.


"Wait, but…" I gestured impatiently for him to continue. "Does that mean I'd have to… to teach those classes?"


"Yes," I said, not entirely without sympathy. "I know, public speaking can be a hassle. But, we all have our sacrifices to make for the Cause."


He nodded resignedly at that and retook his seat, turning his attention back to his food as I turned my attention back to my very own Minister for Education, if on a tiny scale. "Thank you for your report, Miss Tsuchiya. Please keep up the recruitment efforts. Have you had any success finding usable textbooks in Japanese?"


"Not much," she admitted, before adding "but I'm still looking, Miss- I mean, Commander Hajime. I'm sure I'll turn something up eventually. They… They can't have burnt everything." Her mouth tightened. "I hope…"


In my mind, Naruko Tenjin Shrine burned again, the last place of worship in Shinjuku gone up in flames as the last doddering priest of the Kami bled out in a gutter two streets away.


They certainly could have, I thought, seeing a similar awareness writ across Miss Tsuchiya's face, after all, mere Numbers have no need of culture and less need of books and educational materials. And besides, even if the Britannians hadn't burnt every remnant of Japan in their reach, who would prioritize keeping books safe and dry over six years' worth of flooding, fire, and rot? Especially when even wood for cooking fuel was so scarce…


"I'm sure you'll find something eventually," I said, deciding to outwardly buy into the optimistic dream of some hidden cache of Japanese literature waiting to be rediscovered in the Ghetto, "and I'll pass a message to Naoto, asking him to keep his eyes peeled for any books he might find out in the rural villages. In the meantime, why don't you set those professors you dug up to the work of putting something together for use until more books are found?"


The look on Miss Tsuchiya's face was almost pathetically grateful, and I didn't know if it came from the understanding and support I'd extended, or if it was because I hadn't brought the cruel hammer of reality down on her head. Either way, she humbly ducked her head and thanked me before sitting back down.


As with seemingly every interaction I had with the woman, I felt wretched immediately afterwards. Ohgi should have been here; he was a teacher as well and could speak to Miss Tsuchiya as a peer, without all these... complications.


It wasn't that Miss Tsuchiya was unpleasant, or that I found speaking with her a burden, as much as it was that I had difficulty handling what she represented. With her teachers rested the last hope of saving some part of our fading and torn culture, to preserve what it was to be Japanese in the minds of the young. The hope that the people of Shinjuku would have a future beyond a life of hard work and drudgery, a future that extended past walls pocked with bullet holes, a future where people would have the time and freedom to sit and read, to learn, to develop new ideas that weren't chiefly concerned with guaranteeing that tomorrow would come.


Sometimes, it was very difficult indeed, to keep that hope alive. The hollows under Miss Tsuchiya's eyes were a wordless testament to her own private troubles and worries. In her obvious gratitude for even the crumbs of support I could offer, I could plainly see how tenuous her own hopes for the future were.


Pointedly turning my face away from Miss Tsuchiya, I moved on to the first figure seated on the other side of the table.


Asahara Hiyashi was just as I remembered him from our first meeting, in the waning days of last November. The engineer looked like a man from a different world, or perhaps a different time. In his fifties, he was at least ten years older than anybody else in attendance, and his smug, almost haughty expression betrayed no concession to six years of hard living in Shinjuku, nor the loss of the lower half of his left leg. For all that his crutches rested against the wall behind him, his neat button-up shirt and slightly stained tie made it look like he had just stepped out of some pre-Conquest office to join our meeting.


"Mister Hiyashi," I began, my tone coolly respectful, "how are your projects progressing? Anything to report?"


"Nothing worth my time," he grumped. "Nothing particularly difficult to manage, except in terms of scale and the need to explain every last thing to the work crews."


"But you are still making progress despite that impediment, I hope?" I knew the answer already; the stench of new asphalt hung over the length and breadth of Shinjuku like morning fog. Every entrance to old subway tunnels was a hive of activity, and buildings with particularly spacious basements were hubs for foot traffic in and out.


"Yes, yes," Mister Asahara replied, his wave impatient. "Things are well in hand. Just over half of the old subway tunnels are navigable now, and those should be sealed against the worst of the wet for when the rain comes back. As for the air raid bunkers, we crossed four hundred of them yesterday. Keep in mind, though, that they won't do a thing against a direct hit."


"Noted," I replied in the same desultory tone as he'd spoken in. "We just need places where noncombatants can hide, not a bunker fit for the Prime Minister, if we still had one. How are the nest installations going?"


The "nests" fell into two broad categories, but both referred to specifically strengthened and fortified rooms in the many cadaverous, unevenly canting buildings across the Shinjuku skyline. The nests at or just above street level had been reinforced with concrete slabs and piles of sandbags; if the Britannians pushed into Shinjuku in earnest, each would be manned by Sun Guard or Kozuki Organization rifle units. If I could get crew-served weapons out of the Six Houses, some of those low-altitude strongpoints would become machine-gun nests.


The high-altitude nests were comparatively skimpy, just rooms that had been lined with thermal blankets to baffle the infrared scanners built into Knightmare FactSpheres, with heaps of sandbags at the windows to provide some additional cover for those inside. These locations would, if necessary, become the haunt of smaller kill teams equipped with long-range scoped rifles and any shoulder-launched anti-armor or anti-air weapons I could shake loose from Kyoto's pockets.


"They're fine," Mister Asahara replied shortly. "They're completely useless at the moment, since you don't have anything to put in them and your militia are too amateurish to be effective, but at least hauling sandbags up twenty flights of stairs gives the men who aren't doing anything productive something to do."


That comment earned a round of angry muttering from the three militia officers present, but a quick glare at the trio brought them back to grudging silence.


"Thank you for your insight, Mister Asahara," I said, not letting an iota of sarcasm reach my voice. "Now, about the special project…?"


"All handled, don't worry about it." For the first time at this meeting, a smile flickered across Mister Asahara's face. "Anybody stupid enough to pilot a Sutherland in is gonna get what's coming to them, assuming your boys aren't asleep on the switch." For a moment, the old engineer looked almost wistful. "It's been fun, doing something that actually has a bit of scale for a change. After fiddling with pressure cookers and pipe bombs for years, it's a nice return to form."


And what, I wondered, was that form you so clearly long for, if building wire-detonated anti-vehicle mines and carefully setting them in recesses in the roadbed below the fresh pavement represents a return to it?


I didn't vocalize that question, partially because I knew I wouldn't get a straight answer, and partially because I could tell he was desperate for someone to ask so he could pointedly not answer.


Damned drama queen.


"I rejoice for you," I replied, my dry response in lieu of asking the baited question. "Anything else to report?"


"Not in regards to the work," Mister Asahara replied, elegantly moving on from the unasked question and almost managing to fully conceal the quick flash of disappointment. "But, I do have something else I need to speak to you about. Preferably, alone."


And there's my post-meeting appointment, I suppose.


I nodded my assent to his request, and the one-legged engineer relaxed back into his chair. "Nothing further, Commander."


Ignoring his smirk at my title, I nodded at the militia officer sitting next to Asahara, a lanky specimen with closely cropped hair and a face disfigured by a long, ropy scar that slashed a line from the center of his forehead down along the bridge of his nose and across his lips, terminating at the chin. Even ignoring the badly healed cut that divided his features into two, his face was particularly spare, as if someone had boiled all the fat away from under the skin. Perhaps that had been a further result of his disfiguring injury, some fever melting away at him from the inside.


Without further prompting, Lieutenant Koichi stood. Unlike Lieutenant Ichiya, the man didn't seem to find his new rank discomforting in the slightest, standing easily in a position approximating parade rest. "Commander," he acknowledged, lowering his head slightly in a suggestion of a bow. "Nothing extraordinary to report. Of course, should you wish further detail…" His voice trailed off suggestively, hinting at a wealth of data at my disposal.


Very comfortable with his new standing indeed, I mused, meeting Koichi's eyes. For all that his injury left his face nearly immobile, his eyes were lively, expressive and thoughtful. Perhaps a bit too comfortable, now that I think about it.


Lieutenant Koichi's special unit of Sun Guard drew from the militia units of several different districts, but most came from the areas of Shinjuku with the longest history with the Rising Sun. In fact, some of his men and women came from the same tenement I'd lived in with Naoto and Ohgi. Many of them had previously assisted Naoto with his "special work", the details of which had only been made clear to me after Naoto had left for the country.


While the newly formed special unit had the same hachimaki tied around their foreheads as all other Sun Guard units, they also wore navy blue sashes over whatever else they happened to be wearing, setting themselves apart from their comrades. Initially, I had planned to institute an armband, but changed my mind when I remembered that the common way to display gang loyalty had been scarves of the gang's colors tied around the bicep.


Considering the work the special unit, the Internal Affairs Force, would be handling, anything that spoke of gangsterism had to be avoided to the greatest extent possible.


Especially since the IAF, with the most loyal of the various Sun Guard units in its ranks, is the closest thing Shinjuku has to a police force now. I tried not to frown at the thought. And yet, thief-taking is only their secondary duty. Their main job is to make sure that all of the mutterings don't turn into action. For that, if for no other reason, Lieutenant Koichi is well placed to act as their chief.


"Let's schedule a meeting for tomorrow," I replied, mentally penciling the appointment into my schedule. "We can go over your details in greater length then, without detaining everybody else present."


The intact corner of Koichi's mouth flicked up at that, amused by my choice of words. "As you like it, Commander," the policeman nodded, settling back down into his chair. "Just let me know where and when."


"I will," I assured him, before moving my gaze to the last member of the Commission in attendance. "Lieutenant Fumiaki, what news do you have from the missions to Ibaraki and Kanagawa?"


"A mixed bag, Commander."


Lieutenant Fumiaki was another of the seemingly endless crowd of hardworking men who populated the Ghetto, all callused hands and careworn faces. Unlike most of those hard workers, however, and unlike everybody else in the room with the exception of myself, Lieutenant Fumiaki, also known as Jo-on, was a hafu. Born to a Korean father and a Japanese mother, the lieutenant had the good fortune to look almost entirely Japanese, something that I could have resented him for if it wasn't for his easy charm and eternally buoyant personality.


"We've been hearing daily reports back from Yoshi and the boys you sent to Ibaraki," he continued, correcting himself by hastily adding "Captain Yoshi, sorry. But," he continued, "communication with Yokohama's been decidedly more spotty. I don't think we've heard from Lieutenant Chihiro in at least four days or so. And even before that, we hardly heard at all from her and her lot."


Well, that has the potential to be quite worrying.


It was difficult to decide what was more likely, that Chihiro had encountered some enemy action or adverse accident that had destroyed her capability to communicate with us via any one of the number of burner phones she'd left Shinjuku with, or if she had simply pitched another temper tantrum. Either way, it was bad news. While I cared little for Chihiro or her welfare, I had sent two of her more vocal allies along with her, and as their leader, I had a duty towards them.


That said, there's only so much I can do from Shinjuku. I have neither the time nor the freedom to take a day trip down to Yokohama.


I do have the freedom to send someone in my stead, however.


"Someone, find a trustworthy messenger," I said, scribbling a quick note to Inoue on my notepad to entrust one of our portable receivers to the bearer of the note, "someone who knows how to drive. Tell them to pick up a radio and whatever they need and get out of Shinjuku. Once they're out, they're to steal a car and head south, but be careful! The Britannians mustn't know. Ask Inoue for where she thinks Chihiro set up. If they can't find the lieutenant in a day or three, they're to turn around and head back home."


Lieutenant Ichiya all but snatched the note from my hand and hustled her way out of the room. Considering her personal connection to Chihiro, I was unsurpised that she volunteered for the duty.


Hopefully she doesn't add a secondary message of her own. The thought was reflexive paranoia. Even if Ichiya was keeping Chihiro privately updated, it didn't particularly matter. Not yet, at least.


Either way, the matter was settled for now. Putting the issue out of my mind, I turned back to Lieutenant Fumiaki with a polite smile. "So, what does Captain Yoshi have to say for himself? Is he enjoying the fresh salt air?"


"This time of year?" Lieutenant Fumiaki asked with a smile. "I know I sure would, Commander! Beats the Tokyo heat, hands down. But," he said, sobering back up, "it sounds like he's made some further progress since his last update. While he's not exactly been heavy on the details for obvious reasons, he wanted you to know that the 'fish are in the sea,' if that means anything."


Indeed it does, I thought, allowing a smile. It means that Yoshi's made excellent progress indeed.


I had sent Yoshi and his squad of trained Kozuki Organization soldiers to Ibaraki accompanied by two squads of Rising Sun men for two reasons, three if I included Naoto's claim that seeking the blessings of the gods enshrined on the coast would bring us good fortune. The first reason was to set up a subsidiary Rising Sun branch in the prefecture north of Chiba and to recruit more soldiers for our cause among the fishing villages and harbor towns there. The second reason was to seek out and contact the smugglers operating out of those same coastal settlements.


The phrase 'fish are in the sea' meant that he'd finally come to an agreement with at least one smuggling crew that he felt was reliable enough to be good business partners. Based on his previous reports, the crew in question was probably connected with one of the numerous Triads who worked hand in glove with the Chinese government.


The Chinese represented a sea of opportunities matched only by the net of practically inevitable entanglements those opportunities came with. And like the sea, Chinese politics represented an almost entirely unseen depth of unknown dangers and cold secrets. To say I was hesitant about forming even tentative connections with the Chinese would be an understatement; for all that the remnants of the Republic of Japan's government had fled to the Chinese Federation and formed a government-in-exile, I was under no illusion that the Chinese would be any more kind to us than the Britannians.


On the other hand, if I'm already willing to go to bed with collaborators, why not foreign powers as well?


"That's good news indeed, Lieutenant," I said aloud, nodding at Lieutenant Fumiaki and fully aware of how Lieutenant Koichi was staring fixedly at my face, clearly trying to suss out whatever clues he could about the Ibaraki Operation. It was outside his brief and so he had no real need to know, but that he was curious nonetheless was obvious. "If there isn't anything else?"


"No, Commander." With that, Lieutenant Fumiaki dropped back down into his seat, pulling the remains of his lunch back towards him. A practical man, he clearly had no intention of letting anything in his bowl go to waste.


"Well, on that high note," I rose from my chair, painfully aware that I was the shortest person in the room as I stood at the head of the table and yet remained shorter than everybody else there except for Miss Tsuchiya, "thank you all for attending this meeting. I appreciate all of the hard work you put into your responsibilities, and I expect nothing less than that level of dedication moving forwards. You are all free to go, although I believe you had something we needed to discuss, Mister Asahara?"


Recognizing their cue to leave, the other four men and women said their goodbyes and made their way out of the private room on the second floor of the Rising Sun Headquarters. After Lieutenant Koichi - predictably the last to leave - closed the door behind himself, I turned back to the engineer again, waiting to hear whatever it was he had that required privacy.


"You'll be having a visitor soon," said Mister Asahara, his tone brisk and matter-of-fact, stripped of his usual condescension. "In fact," he continued as he checked his watch, "you can probably expect her to show up at the Yotsuya Gate in thirty minutes."


"Right," I said, scanning his face for any subtext that I had overlooked, any nonverbal hints. There was nothing but the usual scowl. "So, let's skip ahead a bit in this conversation and assume that we've done the usual polite conversational dance. I assume that the need for privacy is because you are announcing this guest not as a local engineering expert, but rather because you are the agent of Kyoto House placed closest to me?"


"I wouldn't know about that," he demurred, "but you are correct in the basics, Commander Hajime. Your business partners back in the Old Capital requested that I bring this to your personal attention, in large part because you will be held directly responsible for any misfortune your guest might come to."


Damn that pack of old geezers! Why would they send someone they didn't consider expendable to a place like Shinjuku? They might as well have sent their precious and uninvited guest into the heart of Niigata! In fact, I snarled to myself, keeping my face as stoically blank as I could manage, sending some hapless old fool into Niigata might have been safer, now that the Purists have broken the spine of the popular uprising!


Wait… An uninvited guest… That could be my way out!


"I don't accept that responsibility," I said, speaking just as bluntly as Asahara had when he'd leveled Kyoto's latest threat. "I did not invite the Six Houses to send an emissary, nor did they send adequate warning for me to even consider guaranteeing security. Besides, we in Shinjuku have precious little, as you well know, Mister Asahara, far too little to provide hospitality to any visiting guest from Kyoto."


"Don't bother trying to convince me," came the unfortunately unsurprising response. "I'm just the messenger; I have absolutely no say in the Houses or their doings. I'm not asking you if you're willing to accept a guest. I'm telling you that a guest is going to show up on your doorstep any minute now, and if anything happens to her, it'll be on your head."


At least he has the grace to not make any pretense of an apology, I thought with an internal grimace. Still, I suppose this isn't much different than the worthless president of some company demanding a job for his worthless nephew. In fact, if any of Kyoto's ilk existed back in the Japan of my first life, I would bet anything that they made exactly that sort of demand on a regular basis.


"Fine," I sighed, giving in to the inevitable with bad grace. "So, I've got a guest. Who is he, what does he look like, and how long is he going to be around? Should I set aside a toothbrush for him as well, or was he able to find a place in his bags for his own?"


Suddenly, the image of a fat old man dressed in Britannian finery striding through Shinjuku popped into my mind, followed shortly by the likely reaction of the locals to the appearance of such a fool in their midst.


"Wait," I said, speaking up just in time to cut off Mister Asahara's reply, "please, please Hiyashi, tell me that this idiot guest of mine brought their own security. Tell me that they didn't just walk through the Settlement alone and unarmed, and are even now flashing a large amount of cash in front of the very buyable guards posted at the gate's checkpoint."


"I could tell you exactly that," said Mister Asahara, visibly amused, to my great annoyance, which clearly only amused him still more. "And indeed I will. Your guest has their own security, Commander, and the security will handle the gate negotiations. As for the rest, though?"


Asahara's lips quirked up into a smile under his salt-and-pepper mustache. "Send one of your fine lieutenants with an honor guard to the gate, Commander. You don't need any other answer from me; I don't know what your guest wants or how long they will be here, but I do know that there's absolutely no way your militia will mistake her for anybody else."


An angry retort died stillborn on my tongue as I picked up on the subtle emphasis the engineer had placed on that last pronoun. "Her?"


---------


Tea had been procured from somewhere, and likewise a variety of cookies and sweets. The second-hand tea service now sat in pride of place in the center of the same table I'd conducted my recent meeting around, clean enough to shine despite the numerous chips missing from the pot and mis-matched saucers alike.


And now that those minor details had been handled, I had nothing else to distract myself from the nervous energy coursing through me.


Impatiently, I rose to my feet and paced another lap around the room for the fourth time in the last ten minutes, checking my watch as I circled back around behind my chair. Assuming nobody was running late, Lieutenant Koichi and his detachment of picked men from the Internal Affairs Force should be meeting the emissary from Kyoto on our side of the Yotsuya Gate at any minute.


My handheld radio remained stubbornly silent, though, as it had for the last ten minutes since Koichi had relayed the news that he'd taken up a waiting position a block away from the checkpoint.


Why am I wasting my time like this? More to the point, why am I letting myself get so worked up over this?


It was a reasonable question. In my first life, I'd gone into meetings with senior vice presidents and directors free from worry, confident in myself and my place. In my second life, the periodic encounters with the likes of General Zettour had been undeniably stressful, but that stress had stemmed from the awareness that they could order me to the Front or to a prison cell at any moment. While this new stranger from Kyoto undeniably had power over me, it couldn't match the same level of authority wielded by the Empire's generals.


And yet, while I am undeniably stressed, I am not afraid… I paused, another lap around the meeting room behind me, and pursued the thought deeper. No, I don't fear this emissary from the fence riders in Kyoto. She can make any threat she likes, and in doing so will just undermine her position and that of her organization as reliable business partners. No, it isn't fear…


It was, I realized after a further moment of contemplation, anxiety. While that sensation was a close cousin to fear, it wasn't quite the same. I didn't fear angering my unasked-for guest. The prospect of miscarrying my first interaction with a member of the secret cabal's ranks, of appearing like some foolish, out-of-her-depth child in front of this potentate…


At the mere thought, I wiped my suddenly sweaty palms dry on my pants.


You are worrying about nothing, I scolded myself. You are just engaged in pointless, self-sabotaging behavior. You have negotiated with the Six Houses before and achieved your goals.


…But that was back before Naoto left.


And that was the heart of the matter. Somewhere along the way, I had made an undeniable mistake, and that mistake had continued to tumble down on my head as I made blunder after blunder. The interaction with Councilor Nishizumi this morning would have been unthinkable, were Naoto here; not unthinkable that a politician would use his power to pursue petty grievances, but unthinkable because the noble's son would have soothed the man weeks ago with a disarming comment and some personal mediation between the Notable and Nagata.


In contrast, my own efforts had been crude, and while I had successfully punted the confrontation off for another week or so, I was under no illusion that I'd heard the last from Councilor Nishizumi. Making matters worse, that confrontation hadn't happened in a void. I had staggered forwards for the last six weeks, doing my best to hold things together and fully aware that the current state of affairs could only last for so long.


This wasn't supposed to be my job! The wail sounded pathetic, even inside my own head. Naoto was supposed to be the political leader while Oghi handled the minutiae of internal affairs and administration!


Unfortunately, the triumvirate I had worked out with Naoto and Oghi had of late, for a number of reasons, begun to come apart at the seams.


While my conversations with Ohgi had been short and stilted of late, that had been a function of the radio we were speaking through. Despite the heavy buzz of the static and the constant "overs", the former teacher was always a joy to speak with, cordial and supportive and willing to listen as I complained about the Council or the other hundred headaches that came from running Shinjuku.


We had fallen into a bit of a routine of trying to find some item of good news we could exchange with the other during each of our conversations. He had been overjoyed to hear that I had reached out to Miss Tsuchiya and never failed to ask how the plans to re-establish the educational system in Shinjuku were progressing. In return, he had passed on the news of how he had prevailed upon Major Onoda to requisition a mortar and sufficient ammunition for training purposes at The School.


Despite this, there was only so much Oghi could really do to help me. He could advise me on particular matters, what benefits modifying some internal policy might secure or how to best satisfy some stubborn faction's demand, but he couldn't teach me his skills as a mediator and trusted voice. Not for lack of trying, but the radio and our busy schedules made such lessons impractical. Besides, he'd been away from Shinjuku for long enough that his grasp on the local politics and personalities had slipped.


With Naoto, the conversations had been equally stilted yet entirely free of the easy comfort I felt with Oghi. Naoto was cool and businesslike, his tone clearly audible even over the radio interference. Ohgi called me Tanya; Naoto referred to me as Commander Hajime. He didn't protest when I referred to him by name, but he never reciprocated.


The reason for the new reserve between us was the furthest thing from a mystery, even though we never addressed it directly. We never spoke about Kallen. She hung heavily in the conversational air between us, her presence glaring in its absence.


Kozuki Naoto, twelve years older than his baby sister, had always been Kallen's steadfast protector and had always done whatever he could to keep her from harm. I'd overridden him once before on that matter when I had sent Kallen into Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station. He had barely accepted that brief and one-sided engagement. It had only been in the face of my reason and Kallen's fervent passion that he had caved at all, and even then it had been the one time Naoto had ever threatened me.


And now, I had thrown Kallen into a prolonged deep cover project, seemingly on an impulse, without even consulting him. While I had explained my logic after the fact, once he and his mother Hitomi were well on their way to Gunma, the leader of the Kozuki Organization had acknowledged the logic of my choice over his phone, not bothering to conceal the icy anger he clearly felt. Hitomi had refused to speak with me.


Thankfully, Naoto was enough of a professional to remain in contact, updating me about the progress he had made in establishing hidden enclaves and refuges for the fleeing people of Shinjuku throughout Gunma, Tochigi, and Fukushima. He passed on word of the setbacks he experienced, of the villages discovered by patrolling Honorary Britannians, of the vanloads of refugees ambushed by bandits, of the difficulties of making farmers from ghettoized city dwellers. He accepted my condolences with cool politeness and my advice with demure disinterest.


I had passed on word of my troubles in Shinjuku to him as well, albeit just the bare facts of the matter, stripped of emotion. Naoto had been receptive to my worries, but it had felt like I was speaking to a mere coworker; his suggestions had been vague and half-hearted, his expressions of solidarity mere platitudes.


I worried that I had permanently damaged our relationship.


But it was still the right call to make, I told myself. A chance to infiltrate an agent into a cadre of Knightmare pilots in training would have been difficult to pass up, but a chance to infiltrate an agent into a cadre of Knightmare pilots in training who were also being groomed for leadership was impossible to ignore. Once she returns to us, Kallen will be a precious resource of institutional knowledge and skills, stolen from the classrooms of the strongest military in the world!


And, a colder part of my mind, a segment shaped by cutthroat office politics and sharpened by the dispassionate calculus of the War College, remarked, If all it cost to acquire that edge was a single personal relationship, then I secured a true bargain, cheap at that cost.


Even if the cost is Kallen's life or the lives of a hundred Kallens… It would still be cheap.


Even though the part of me that had stood watch on the Rhine and had calmly watched Arene burn knew that statement to be true, another part of my mind recoiled against it. It was the part of my mind that had reeled in numb horror when Manabu and Sumire had died, the same part that had mourned the slaves killed in the crossfire back at the club in Shinjuku. The same part of me that had admitted that the members of the Kozuki Cell were my friends in truth, not just useful tools.


Everything had been so simple, back then, I thought, ludicrously nostalgic for the time when I had been near starvation, where seemingly any problem could be resolved with my knife and adequate creativity. Hard, yes, but simple. Fight against the gangs, make new connections, scrounge for food and money and weapons…


Besides, I reminded myself, you knew getting Britannian-trained Japanese soldiers for the Cause would be a fraught business. Sacrifices would have to be made for such momentous gains, that much was never in doubt.


Admittedly, I conceded to myself, I had expected to recruit from the members of the Honorary Britannian Legions, who would recognize their true loyalties and bring their training with them when they crossed the line. I hadn't anticipated ordering anybody into Britannian service.


A knock at the door returned me to the present. "Commander," came Lieutenant Koichi's voice, "are you ready? Your guest is here."


"Yes," I replied, internally marveling at how steady my voice was, the anxiety of minutes before dropping away as if it had never been there at all. "Come in, please, Lieutenant. Don't keep our guest waiting."


One of the lieutenant's detachment was the first man through the door, his spotless sash incongruous over his battered and much mended gray t-shirt, a Britannian rifle slung over his shoulder. As he stepped into the meeting room, he turned on his heel with an almost military flair and took up a position by the wall, as smoothly as if he'd practiced that move for a week.


Which, considering how worryingly passionate Lieutenant Koichi is about his newly awarded rank and duties, he might very well have.


The next man through the door was what the Britannian-aping gangsters of the Eleven Lords and the Kokuryu-kai had wanted to be. He wore a tailored suit with a matched tie and pocket square, both in a tasteful mahogany, and only his Japanese features and association with Kyoto House betrayed his Honorary Britannian status. A bulge under his jacket, flattered into near invisibility by clever adjustments to the suit, hinted at a concealed pistol. Following the Internal Affairs Force man, he took up a position by the wall on the opposite side of the door.


An impressive choice of guard, I thought appreciatively, noting the economy of motion and the way the man's eyes roamed over the room, searching for hidden threats and ways of ingress with a professional's detachment. I had briefly wondered if Kyoto was really treating this meeting with the gravity Mister Asahara had implied, but the obvious quality of the guard put such thoughts to rest. Anybody they sent this man to watch over is clearly someone of value, someone who can make decisions or can speak directly with those who do.


And then a girl only a few years older than me all but skipped through the door, utterly incongruous compared with the two men who had preceded her. I closed my eyes, but when I opened them, she was still there, neat as a pin in her tweed two-piece suit and smiling at me.


For a moment, I wondered if I'd suffered some sort of mental break. Ah, I thought, my face cracking into a wry smile to answer the girl's own radiant expression, so this is how it feels to be on the other end of the introductions. I've always wondered if it was really that shocking to see a young girl in a leadership role, and, now that I've seen it from the other side of the table, I suppose I have my answer.


Then, I remembered how it had felt to always be greeted with incredulity, astonishment, and all too often, a surprising degree of hostility. In my second life, it had been a continued source of private irritation to me, that no matter what I accomplished and no matter what respect my deeds might garner, so few of my fellow Imperial officers would take me seriously in face-to-face meetings.


Looking closer at the girl, apparently Kyoto's emissary since all I could see behind her were a second suited security man and Lieutenant Koichi, I could see signs of a similar concealed frustration. For all that the energy behind her smile seemed sincere, the expression itself was an unnatural thing, fixed and carefully practiced.


It's her chosen armor, I realized, just like how my past insistence on Imperial professionalism was mine. Only, for all that my age and gender made me a vulnerable target, my undeniable power as a mage and War College credentials gave me tools to push back instead of just holding the line via personal presentation. That damnable Silver Wings Assault Badge helped too.


"Welcome to Shinjuku," I said, bowing over the table between me and the visitor in greeting. "On behalf of the Rising Sun, I sincerely hope that you had a safe and easy journey here."


"It is good to be here," came the reply, and for a moment, I was back in my first life, visiting the Old Capital in all of its ancient majesty. The Kyoto Dialect, slower than Standard Japanese, harkened back to a different time and a different Japan, just like the city itself did. I hadn't heard anyone use it in my time in Shinjuku, except perhaps for the call with the Kyoto bigwig.


It was a relic of a past world, a Japan from before the Republic, never mind the Conquest.


"Yes," she continued, and I realized that she had approached the table without my notice, resting her hands over the back of the nearest chair, "it is indeed good to be here. I have been eagerly awaiting the chance to meet you, Commander Hajime. Although, would you take offense if I called you Miss Tanya? At least," she giggled, "when it is only us girls talking."


The moment dragged on for just a bit too long, and I suddenly realized that it was my turn to speak.


Focus, dammit! You're fucking it up again!


"Excuse me, but," I coughed, gesturing at the three men lining the walls, and Lieutenant Koichi where he stood in front of the door to the room, "just us girls is a bit of a stretch, wouldn't you say? But, I'm not one to stand on ceremony. If you want to call me by name, I don't have any problem with that…?"


I trailed off, leaving the meaningful silence hanging, waiting for her to offer me a name. It would be a false name, almost certainly, as the Six Houses were secretive by necessity and by nature, and I doubted any of their higher-ranking members would give out such information freely, no matter how young they were. Still, I needed something to call this envoy, and I didn't want to accidentally cause offense by simply assigning her a name.


"Lady Sophie," the girl promptly replied in Britannian. Despite the fact that her pronunciation of the language was perfect, almost as if she were a native speaker of the tongue of our overlords, it still sounded like an abomination after the smooth tones of her Kyoto-ben. "But," she continued in our language, "you can call me Kaguya, though! Or Lady Kaguya if you really must. The last name is not important."


"...Charmed," I said, gesturing for her to take a seat as my mind whirled. "Lady Kaguya, would you please join me for some light refreshments? I'm certain it won't live up to your standards, but some tea's always nice after a journey, no matter how safe and easy it was, yes?"


"Ooh, please!" Kaguya clapped her hands, her expression abruptly joyful as she slid into her seat. "Here's a real Six Houses secret, Miss Tanya," Kaguya, smiling slyly, said as her guards tensed. "I have a really huge sweet tooth! Whatcha got, huh?"


I blinked, trying to keep up with the sudden hairpin turns in Kaguya's presentation. First the shift from Kyoto Dialect straight to Britannian, and now her high diction was abruptly abandoned in favor of a speech pattern that wouldn't have sounded unnatural among the attendees of Miss Tsuchiya's classes, all refinement vanishing. As I pushed the tray of sweets over towards Kaguya, I noticed her guards relaxing now that her so-called "secret" had been revealed.


The fact that they tensed up at all over any such revelation is an interesting hint, I considered as Kaguya devoured a third of a cookie in a single ambitious bite. Clearly, even though Kaguya is important, she isn't the only person these men report to. Equally clearly, someone else gave them orders to intercede if Kaguya crossed certain lines. Interesting indeed.


"So," I began, trying to take some level of control over the conversation back, "I have no wish to seem ungrateful for your company, Lady Kaguya, but I am very surprised by your presence here. Not that you are unwelcome here in any way," I quickly added, "but I am accustomed to dealing with your organization through intermediaries and interlocutors."


"These are some good sweets, Tanya," Kaguya replied, thankfully after swallowing her current bite. "I'll have to remember to send you some yatsuhashi once I get back home in thanks!"


"I… would certainly appreciate it," I said, speaking slowly as I poured over her words, searching for a hidden meaning that I suspected wasn't there at all. "I haven't had yatsuhashi in quite a long time."


Not since my first life, in fact, when someone gave me a box as a souvenir gift.


"Don't tell Lord Taizo or Lady Annabeth," Kaguya stage-whispered, leaning in over the table like some conspirator in a play, "but I don't really like them very much. I know they're traditional and all, but they're just not sweet enough to really scratch the itch, you know? Now, these," she hefted a store-bought chocolate chip cookie, taken from the supplies Inoue bought to distribute among the take-home boxes for families with children, "are really good! Do you have more?"


"...Yes," I replied, trying to match the two names to anybody I remembered from the news, or from Diethard's reports. Neither rang any bells. "I'm sure we can find some more for you to take home with you if you so choose."


"Yay!" Kaguya cheered, reaching for another cookie. "Seriously, Miss Tanya, you've got no idea! It's always 'look out for your weight, Kaguya,' or 'it's not ladylike to eat cookies, Kaguya' or something! You're a real lifesaver!"


"I am, of course, happy to be of service to the Six Houses," I replied politely, trying to figure out what the point of this baffling visit was. Certainly, it wasn't just to eat cookies. Surely someone of the young lady's status and wealth could go to a Britannian store and buy her own if she was so hungry for the damned things, instead of scarfing down the limited quantity we had expended scarce resources to purchase. "Perhaps if you explain more about what brings you to Shinjuku today, I could be of even greater service?"


"Ah…" And suddenly, Kaguya's eyes had turned unaccountably shifty. "Well, there were several items of business I needed to handle in the Tokyo Settlement, you see, and since I'd be in the area…"


"...You decided to drop by for a social visit?" I asked, finishing my visitor's explanation for her as it trailed off into silence.


"Absolutely!" And suddenly Kaguya was all smiles again, nodding in energetic affirmation for a moment before catching herself. "I mean," she said, starting again, "recently, there has been much discussion about the Rising Sun Benevolent Association and its sister organization. As I was in the Tokyo Settlement already, I felt I could improve my understanding of the situation with a private fact-finding trip of my own." And then, the smile was back. "Surely you don't mind, Miss Tanya!"


"Not at all," I replied, the smile tight against my face. "I am, of course, eager to assist the Six Houses in any way possible. After all, we both strive towards a common Cause, don't we?"


What a disappointment. It's highly unlikely that this Kaguya has any real responsibilities or input on Kyoto House's policy if she's got sufficient freedom and time to swan off to Shinjuku on a whim. Even a treacherous conspiracy apparently has deadweight members. Still, even though impressing or pleasing her will likely gain me nothing, angering her could still shift the Six House's general estimation of the Kozuki Organization unfavorably.


"In that case," I said, falling back on old memories from my first life about how to handle important pain-in-the-ass clients, "would you like a tour of Shinjuku? I can't say that we have a great deal worth seeing, and certainly nothing that could compare to your own lovely city, but if I can assist your fact-finding trip, I would be happy to guide you myself."


This time, all four of the men lining the walls shifted uneasily, and I felt a twinge of sympathy for their obvious distress. The last thing the Kyoto House personnel wanted was for their principal to just go strolling through the crowded streets of Shinjuku along an unsecured route; it was a security nightmare, especially considering the number of weapons and people accustomed to violence contained within the Ghetto's walls. For the Internal Affairs Force men, I was sure they were both concerned about my personal security and leery of allowing outsiders to poke and pry into our efforts to rebuild Shinjuku as a fortress.


I crushed that sympathetic impulse relentlessly. Impressing Kaguya is of tantamount importance; the only thing more important is keeping her safe from harm. While keeping her in a locked room would be second only to kicking her out of the Ghetto as far as fulfilling the second condition goes, it would constitute a failure of the first condition. Both security teams will just have to suck it up and do their jobs despite the unreasonable demands.


"Well…" And the wheedling tone was predictably back. "I mean, I am sure it would be lovely to explore your city, but it's simply too hot for a fair maiden such as I to venture out at the moment… So why don't I just stay in here with you, Miss Tanya?"


Kaguya smiled like the sly child she was, clearly accustomed to wielding her childishness as a mace whenever it was convenient for her. I smiled back, for lack of anything else to do. It was galling how little control I had over this conversation. Yet, for all that Kaguya was obviously directing this dialogue towards some end, she was still acting cagily, her eyes flickering to the two suits standing by the wall.


Clearly, the girl from Kyoto wanted something and only the presence of her guards, perhaps more accurately described as her minders, and her own sense of propriety was stopping her from voicing her demands. Equally clearly, I would have to be the one to figure out what those demands were and meet them, were I to bring this meeting to anything like a satisfactory close.


"Well, that suits me," I said, giving conversational ground before her with a smile I hoped was graceful. "I'm not really a fan of going out into the heat of the day myself, not if I can avoid it. But," I eyed the sweets tray, all but stripped of its load, "I'm not sure what insight you'll be able to glean about the Benevolent Association or the area it administers from here, especially since I seem to be out of cookies to feed you."


She giggled at that, a disarming gesture that made me want to smile along with her.


This girl is an obvious politician, I thought from the reservoir of cool reserve behind my pasted-on smile. I know that she's actively manipulating me towards some end, and yet I still feel the impulse to do whatever I can to make her smile. She must be some favored daughter or niece of one of the Houses, wanting for nothing and spoonfed politics and manipulation from childhood.


"Oh," Kaguya said, smiling fondly at me from across the table, "I think I can get plenty of insight into your organization from right here, Miss Tanya." She sipped her tea, smiling with a delight that was surely feigned, considering the fact that the tea was just the bagged stuff the Britannians used, instead of the loose leaves or matcha a scion of the traditional Kyoto elite would prefer. "So, why don't you tell me about yourself, Miss Commander Hajime Tanya?"


She has, I realized, something like the same charisma that Naoto has. Some benefit of an aristocratic background? But Naoto didn't have an aristocratic childhood, as he was a bastard officially unrecognized by his father, and he stayed in Japan with his mother. Maybe it's just the confidence that comes with knowing you are born into a powerful family, then? She doesn't have the same raw magnetism, but she's spent a long time honing what advantages she has.


"Well," I began, my eyes glued to Kaguya's features, hunting for any minuscule facial movements that might give me some insight into what, exactly, she was fishing for, "you already know my mother's family name, because I carry it as well. My mother was Hajime Aika, and she…"


I paused, remembering Kaguya's age. She might have two years on me, but definitely not three.


"...She did as circumstances forced her to preserve both our lives," I continued. "I never knew my father, except that my mother claimed he was a Britannian sailor."


"Don't worry about censoring yourself, Miss Tanya," Kaguya butted in, and I realized that the flush of interest was mixed with well-hidden irritation. "I shouldn't really need to tell you, of all people, but being of a young age and of the 'fairer sex' doesn't mean that I can't handle ugly truths."


So, I thought, turning that little outburst over in my mind, that's part of what she's looking for. She hates being treated as a child, despite her willingness to use her child status to her own advantage. But, "I shouldn't need to tell you," hmm? Interesting… If I'm correct, that might partially explain why she's here taking up my afternoon.


"Fine," I snapped, letting my control slip just a little bit for added verisimilitude. If she wanted to know 'me' and wanted an unvarnished 'true' version, I would be happy to cater to her desires. It wouldn't require any lying, just emphasizing a different part of my life's story than what I'd usually prioritize in introductions. "Let's start again, then."


"My mother, Hajime Aika, was a prostitute before and after the Conquest, selling herself to make ends meet and keep me fed and in school. My father was a worthless Britannian merchant sailor who hopefully died years ago. When the Britannians came, our lives went from bad to worse. I was forced out of school and we were both forced from our homes and into Shinjuku Ghetto before the walls around it were even completed."


Kaguya's attention was almost palpable, her eyes rapt and locked onto mine. For a moment, I almost let myself fall into the verdant green of her gaze. I noticed that tiny flecks of gold seemed to float on top of the green as if some mocking creator had set her superior social status and wealth into her very genes in cruel contrast to my own lowly, threadbare existence.


"My mother paid our rent with the only currency she had available," I continued, "and usually made enough for us to both eat a meal each day. It was barely enough to keep us alive, so I decided to join the workforce as best I could.


"By the age of seven, I was spending the bulk of my days on the work line, trading ten to twelve hours of hard labor for a bowl or two of thin soup and clean water. And even with those mean wages, I had to compete for those jobs with all of the other kids in Shinjuku. Of course, people being people, my hair and eyes guaranteed that I would only get work when no other alternative presented itself."


A pattern that holds true to today, I thought with an internal chuckle. It wasn't funny in the least, but it said something unpleasant about my people that it had taken all of my work and sacrifices for them to overlook my mixed heritage. And even now, if they had an alternative, I am sure a fair number of the Sun Guard and most of the Notables would be all too happy to dispose of me and my services.


"Sometimes, some foreman, softhearted or softheaded, would give me an extra ration; sometimes, some kind adult on the line would share their meal with me. Mostly, I did my best to work hard enough to justify my presence there, next to the adults, hauling away rubble and garbage and, when winter came, corpses, all for disposal."


From the corner of my eye, I noticed the Internal Affairs Force man's eyes go wide at that little revelation. My seasonal employment on a hauler crew wasn't something I mentioned very often; while the corpse disposal crews served a necessary and valuable role, transporting the dead from the streets and tenements of Shinjuku to the Ghetto's dump site near the Kawadacho Gate, nobody liked them for obvious reasons. Nobody wanted to think that their beloved would be buried in a landfill, unburned and disrespectfully interred with the garbage.


"I did what I had to do," I said, forcefully and entirely unapologetically. "Just like my mother did what she had to do to keep us both alive. And somehow, amazingly, we both managed to remain alive until I was eleven."


The familiar wave of pain hit just as I had anticipated, but I still managed to keep my face stoically blank. It was one thing to tell my story to amuse some flighty noble girl in search of a taste of authenticity; it was another thing to display my private pain for a stranger's titillation.


After she left, I would permit myself to feel. Until then, I was on the clock.


"I don't know who killed my mother," I admitted, the words cold and sour in my mouth. "She often worked in the brothels frequented by Britannian soldiers, and she was beaten to death in the street outside of one of those establishments. Perhaps it was a dissatisfied customer and his squaddies, perhaps it was just a pack of drunken thugs hunting opportunistically. It could even have been a local group of thugs, angry that she was sleeping with the enemy. I never bothered trying to find out; it didn't seem to matter. Done is done, and I doubt anybody involved in her murder remembered her face two days later."


How about that, I thought uncharitably, eyes fixed on Kaguya's. Is that unvarnished enough for you? Enough of a glimpse at how the rest of us live to scratch your voyeuristic itch?


For her part, Kaguya gave no sign that I should stop, so I obligingly continued to talk. "After that, I was lucky enough to fall in with Kozuki Naoto and Kaname Ohgi. At first, Mister Kozuki wanted to find some other place for me to go, afraid that I would be caught up in their private war against Britannia, but I convinced him to reconsider."


"How?" I blinked at Kaguya's sudden interruption. "How did you manage to convince them to let you stay? How did you convince them to take you seriously?"


Ah, I thought, so that's what you're after, is it, Lady Kaguya?


I felt like a fool for going into such depth about my childhood. Clearly, it had all rolled off the young mistress's back, the information irrelevant for her purposes. She wanted respect, and, seeing that I was held in high regard by my friends and associates, wanted to learn my "secret."


Fine. If that's what the lady wants, that's what she'll get.


"It was a difficult process," I admitted, leaning back in my chair and feigning relaxation. "My first step was convincing them to not just kick me back out onto the street, or worse, killing me as a suspected Britannian spy.


"Not," I raised a hand, cutting off the shocked interruption I could tell Kaguya was on the cusp of vocalizing, "that they would have. But I didn't know that; I was not in exactly a trusting frame of mind. Life is cheap in Shinjuku and who would mourn another orphan gone missing, or some wretched hafu found the next morning by the haulers making their rounds? So, I had to convince them not to kill me."


I really have been in need of someone to talk to, I mused. What with Kallen and Ohgi elsewhere and Naoto… currently disinterested in a heart-to-heart, it's been a while since I had the chance to speak to someone who wasn't a subordinate of mine in some way. That said, Lady Kaguya might be a potential ally, perhaps, but she's certainly not a friend. So, not too much frankness.


"They thought I was Britannian at first, and that was the first thing I needed to change. I am Japanese, just as much as anyone else in Shinjuku, and I would be damned if I was mistaken for a Brit. I said as much and swore loyalty to Japan. And in that moment… I knew it was true. It hadn't just been an act of chance that I ended up an orphan in a stranger's apartment. There had been a purpose after all, because I had come to fight for their Cause if they would have me." I smiled, nostalgia momentarily taking away the bitterness of dredging up old memories even as I obscured my motives in a fresh layer of deceit. I was, after all, still making a sales pitch; no need for her to learn what my true thoughts had been back then.


"Of course," I laughed with forced casualness, as if I were some old man spinning a yarn involving some anecdote from the misty past, "I immediately ruined my defiant pitch by breaking down and crying. In retrospect, even if either of them was the kind of man who was willing to kill a child, that definitely put an end to any thoughts along that line. Especially when Naoto hugged me."


Naoto… For a moment, I smelled the old leather of his jacket and felt his warm arms around my shoulders, pulling me into his chest as I wept. Will you ever forgive me, Naoto? But, I did what I thought I had to do. I knew there would be a price, but…


"So, that's how I found my way to both a new home and more importantly, a new reason to live. Before, I had worked as hard as I could to keep myself alive and to lift as much of my mother's burden from her shoulders as I could. Now I had a new family, a family of rebels, fighting for the freedom of our people." I smiled self-deprecatingly as I spread my arms in a hopeless shrug, inspired by half-remembered TV broadcasts of politicians playing to the crowd. "What else could I do? I set myself to learning how I could help advance the Cause."


"But you were just eleven," Kaguya objected, her voice surprisingly soft, lacking any trace of the demanding noble. "How could they possibly have let you join their fight, especially if they were of the moral caliber you ascribe to them? How could you have possibly convinced them to let you join in earnest?"


I shrugged, "As I said, it was a difficult process. I think they decided to keep me on as a charity case, perhaps with some idea of treating me as a mascot or whatnot. That got me a foot in the door, so to speak."


"Or to put it differently," Kaguya said in a thoughtful tone, "you played upon their perception of you as a child in need of protection until they brought you in close to their confidences. But then what? How did you take the next step into becoming their leader?"


"Well," I replied, slightly uncomfortable at how Kaguya had characterized my actions, "to start with, that wasn't the next step. The next step was proving that I could haul my own weight, just like I had back when I was on the work crews. I had picked up enough survival skills while living in Shinjuku to prove I could hold my own, and at the first chance they gave me, I demonstrated those skills."


Not entirely true, but there's no need to bring up any inconvenient past lives or other unnecessary complications.


"And then," I leaned forwards in my chair towards Kaguya, "then I took the initiative. There was a gang that had been giving the Organization some… trouble. I saw an opportunity while out on reconnaissance, and turned a simple scouting into opportunity."


I smiled at the Kyoto House member, giving her just a small glimpse into how I had felt that night. "Some gang members were loading a vehicle with… items. I don't remember what it was now, weapons or drugs, something like that. I slipped into a blind spot and ambushed them while they were driving off. The first sign those poor bastards got that they'd picked up a passenger with their cargo was when I split them open like-"


And for a moment, leaning so far over the table that I was almost touching noses with Kaguya, I was back there in that truck cab. That hapless pair of gangsters had been my first kills in this life, and the smell of their bowels opening in death mixed with the blood soaking my arm to the shoulder had been a ticket back to the trenches west of Kaiserslautern. After years spent in toil, in keeping my head down and avoiding any attention, it had been such a return to form, a return to when I was strong and respected… It had been intoxicating.


Then, I was back in the present, noticing how both of Kaguya's security were on the brink of reaching for their concealed weapons, how Kaguya's eyes were wide and dilated with emotion, although to her credit she hadn't recoiled away from me.


"Well, in any case..." I coughed a bit awkwardly as I slowly sat back down in my chair, the tension in the room dissipating almost all the way back to where it had been moments before.


"Afterwards, we drove that truck to our own safehouse and claimed its cargo for our own. And then the others cleaned the mess out of the cab, as I was pretty much falling asleep on my feet. After that," I said, speaking in a deliberately nonchalant manner, as if I hadn't lost myself in remembered emotion for a moment, "I no longer had any worries about not being taken seriously. The key, Lady Kaguya, was proving my competency in an undeniable manner. Of course," I added, "after that, I had to prove that I was something other than just a lunatic, someone capable of planning, capable of managing details beyond the simplicity of slaughtering our enemies. That took longer, but I had bought adequate breathing space to build that reputation."


"I understand." Kaguya's voice was even and seemingly entirely unruffled, despite my little act out. Reluctantly, my respect for her rose a degree. "You built a reputation as an individual who had useful skills and the necessary will and initiative to deploy them effectively. And from there, you have simply been following that road, I daresay? Proving your competence again and again, and in the process eroding any perception of yourself as a child?"


"As my mother taught me," I replied, "I am doing what I must to fulfill my goals. However, my goal is no longer just my personal survival; as long as the flag of Britannia flies over the Home Islands, that struggle is pointless - die now or die later. My goal is to see the sun rise over a free Japan once again. To that end, I will do as I must. If that means that I must take up arms to free my country despite the fact that I just turned twelve back in March?" I shrugged. "So be it."


"I see," Kaguya said, barely suppressing a sigh as she did so. Despite her attempt to cling to civility, her disappointment was clearly legible, her previous enthusiasm suddenly absent from her face. Clearly, she had hoped for something more, perhaps a step-by-step guide to securing her own influence and power. "Well, thank you for your story, Miss Tanya. I'd… I had heard so much about you, and I thought…"


"You thought that if a girl who was even younger than you could assert herself as a leader in her own right, you could emulate my path to likewise establish yourself as a player in your own organization?" I lifted an inquisitive eyebrow, already knowing myself to be correct before Kaguya nodded. "Lady Kaguya, if I might be so bold, what are you trying to accomplish? Why are you so eager to gain power? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you are from one of the Six Families, aren't you? Surely your family will educate you and prepare you to become their agent as you mature."


Kaguya let out a very unladylike snort, openly incredulous and almost smiling at my apparent display of ignorance for a moment before sobering up.


"Miss Tanya," a ghost of Kaguya's amusement still hung in her voice, but her eyes were suddenly much older, host to a very adult cynicism, "I admire your optimism, although I suspect that it may be rooted in ignorance."


"Perhaps so," I allowed, trying not to take offense at the comment and failing. What could this child know that I didn't after three lives? "Enlighten me, please."


"I'm a woman," Kaguya said as if that explained everything. Considering the expectant pause that followed, perhaps to her it did.


"So am I," I replied reasonably, "and so are almost a third of the Sun Guard at last count." My lips twitched at that, a humorless smile squirming across my face. "It seems like women have a better chance of surviving here in Shinjuku, what with the gangs recruiting more heavily from the young men and the Britannians preferring… well, let's call them less lethal corrective measures with Eleven women who cross them, instead of the simple bullet to the brain most men who cross them get."


"R-right," and it was Kaguya's turn to blink with momentary surprise, momentarily put off her point. "But, you don't understand, truly you don't. The people who I work with, the people who run the oth- the people who run the Six Families, they are traditional. They are the last survivors of the old noble lines from the Empire, our empire," she clarified, "the ones who became the not-so-secret masters of the Republic."


"Ah," I replied eloquently, finally understanding what Kaguya was saying. "So, I assume you're receiving a very full and in-depth education on the intricacies of tea ceremonies, flower arranging, and how to run your husband's affairs, once you acquire one?"


"Yes!" For a moment, Kaguya almost glowed with happiness, clearly overjoyed to finally meet someone who got her point. "Do you know how it feels, just being seen as an object, some investment just waiting to mature before it can be cashed in on? It's like they just see me as a bloodline and a womb on legs! My guardian and all the old men are in on it! I'm just as smart as any of them, and I'm not so stupidly tied up in all the old traditions and worries about profitability and all that rot!"


"Indeed, I do know what it's like to be seen as an object, a vessel transporting tainted blood." The biting words, dry as a desert, sprang unbidden from my lips. "I'm a hafu, Lady Kaguya, with the bad luck to look as Britannian as one of the Emperor's spawn. Do you think that was lost on the fine people of Shinjuku? Or, for that matter, on the JLF's own Major Onoda, whom your agent put me in contact with, knowing full well that he both despises Britannians and holds women in contempt?"


By the time the second sentence had passed my lips, Kaguya's face had already gone ashen. She was clearly smart enough to realize how foolish and self-absorbed she sounded, complaining about being valued only for her heritage to someone whose heritage was so easily despised.


On the other hand, I did know how it felt to be seen as lesser for reasons beyond my control. Further, I remembered from my first life how often traditionalists had harped on about how women should stay in their place, and that had been in a considerably more liberal Japan, one that hadn't been subjected by a foreign power governed by an absolute hereditary monarchy of all things. With that knowledge, it was difficult to hold Kaguya's hasty words against her and easy to let her off the hook. After all, she was still a child.


And a child in truth, not a cuckoo with the memories of two lives crammed into her head. Probably.


"But," I waved my hand in a conciliatory fashion between us, as if I were literally trying to clear the air, "I do understand, Lady Kaguya. You are clearly intelligent and driven; just marrying you off to secure some alliance or agreement would be a foolish waste of your potential by your family."


"So, will you help me?" Kaguya asked, her voice low and intense as she leaned forwards over the table, nearly upsetting her half-full teacup as she interrupted me yet again. "Think about it, Miss Tanya! I know that Old Man Munakata's been playing hardball with you, forcing concessions for every scrap of support he throws your way, even the kind of support we provide the JLF with for free! And I know you've got plans and ambitions - did you think we hadn't heard about your evacuation program? You need support for that, right? I can be that for you! Just help me!"


I leaned back slightly, letting my hands relax on my chest as I met Kaguya's wide-eyed stare.


So, I thought, the old man on the phone's name is Munakata, is it? There's a Munakata on the Numbers Advisory Council, isn't there? A Lord To-something or another. And how did you know about that, Lady Kaguya? And don't think I didn't notice how you just slipped up and referenced "we". I doubt a mere daughter would say that, even the daughter of a family head.


"And how," I said, not breaking eye contact, "do you propose that I help you, Lady Kaguya? What leverage can I possibly call upon to help you? Not that I wouldn't help you if I could," I added, reading the thought on her face, "but what can I do that would assist you? I don't see how I could possibly influence the internal politics of the Six Houses."


"Oh?" Kaguya's eyes flashed with amusement as she settled back in her chair, once more in control of herself now that we were negotiating terms. "But you already have, Miss Tanya! You see," she scooted forwards again, probably to the edge of her seat, clearly excited, "by your actions, you've shaken everything up! Before you showed up, the JLF had settled into a rut, Prince Clovis was comfortable on his throne, and nothing was happening, but now…"


She held up a hand and started ticking off fingers. "You've managed to tilt the balance of power in the JLF strongly towards the more aggressive elements-"


"You mean Lieutenant Colonel Kusakabe," I noted, taking the opportunity to get some of my own back by interrupting Kaguya for a change.


"That's right," she nodded in approval. "The lieutenant colonel managed to net all of the credit for setting Niigata on fire as well as the bulk of the recruits from that province, as well as the credit for securing a supply of Knightmare parts and support materials. He's been pointing out how it took the Britannians ages to get control of Niigata again when they were just facing peasants with small arms! And that's just one of the icebergs you've thrown into the machine!"


"I think you're mixing your metaphors," I remarked, my dry humor covering my private considerations. I remembered Onoda's news that our actions had set Lieutenant Colonel Kusakabe's star rising, but the man had clearly capitalized even further on his newfound reputation for action over the intervening months.


"Details!" Kaguya waved an impetuous hand before an enthusiastic grin broke through her huffy mask of noble disdain. "Anyway, remember how a bunch of Honorary Britannian-owned businesses got smashed up and shut down after that Christmas thing your guys touched off? A whole lot of them belonged to Old Man Munakata! It's kind of a double whammy for him since he's also one of the most traditionalist of the family heads, but he's the one who's supposedly responsible for supporting your organization, which is kinda radical compared to the stodgy old JLF central command! So now the traditionalist bloc in the Six Houses is weakened because Lord Tosei looks like he can't control his own project!"


That explains the seemingly personal animosity from my previous main contact with Kyoto House if that accidental riot we started destroyed some of the assets of his master. Maybe that's why I got saddled with Major Onoda. I smiled at the thought. And then I actually got a working relationship established with the major, so instead of him killing me we both ended up benefiting against the personal inclinations of this Munakata Tosei.


"You've made your point," I replied, cutting in before Kaguya could drop another bombshell in my lap. As fascinating as this was, I needed to get to the meat of what Kaguya was asking for before her increasingly twitchy security detail hauled her out of the Rising Sun building by force. "But none of those actions were tailored towards influencing Kyoto House. That was just an apparently happy byproduct of fulfilling other objectives. Also, I should note that I am already stretching the Rising Sun's resources to the breaking point just to keep my people here in Shinjuku clothed and fed as it is, and that's not even mentioning how Britannia could attack us at any minute.


"So I repeat: what can I do to help you?"


"Work for me instead!" Kaguya's eyes gleamed with frenetic energy. "I promise I'll be a better partner than Old Man Munakata! I'll give you what you ask for without making you grovel and beg! Just do what I want, attack what I want you to attack, and keep stirring the pot! That way, I can claim the credit for your successes at meetings and stuff, Munakata looks even weaker because he can't keep his own house in order, and best of all, instead of waiting around forever for the perfect time to throw Britannia back out, we can finally reclaim our land from the invaders!"


It was only at that last sentence that I realized I had once again fallen for Kaguya's trap, seeing only what I had expected to see and, presumably, what she had wanted me to see. I had seen the power-hungry noble, eager to find her own authority. I had seen the girl who would become a woman, looking for a way to establish some autonomy. I had missed the zealot completely.


She really is just like Naoto, I observed, remembering how he had reacted to my magic, how he had all but declared a holy war when we had bombed the Station. I can work with this. Moreover, if she's sincere in her willingness to actually provide what I want, when I want… I really can't refuse to work with her. With her support, feeding Shinjuku might actually become a reality. A winter without hunger, with adequate heat and medicine for the sick…


Still, I had to put up some token objection, if I didn't want to look like I was being railroaded in front of Lieutenant Koichi and his man. "You paint an appealing picture, Lady Kaguya," I replied politely, "but, correct me if I'm wrong, wouldn't that just make the Rising Sun your private army? I'm not entirely certain if I want to simply hand over our autonomy to you. After all, we fight for a free Japan, not for your advantage in your noble intrigues."


"You're missing the point, Miss Tanya," Kaguya replied, dismissing my objection. "I'm not a soldier or a fighter or whatever. I mean," she gestured at herself, "that's pretty obvious, right? I'm not going to be bossing you around, but if I can reasonably say that you're doing what I want, well, that's just as good for my goals as actually telling you what to do! Besides, unlike some people in the Six Houses, I want what you want! I remember Japan, Miss Tanya! Your goals are mine! Just back me up when I need your support, and I'll give you my support in exchange."


"...An alliance, then," I said aloud. "An alliance between the Rising Sun Benevolent Association and…?"


"An alliance between the Kozuki Organization and the House of Sumeragi," Kaguya replied firmly. "And between all of our associated groups, of course. Sumeragi Industries, Rising Sun, so on and so forth."


"I hesitate to ask, this late into our discussion, but…" Kaguya tilted her head inquisitively, waiting for the question. "But do you actually have the authority to make this agreement stand? Or am I going to need to confirm this with whoever the head of the Sumeragi family is?"


"Well," Kaguya replied, drawing noble arrogance up around her like a cloak, for all that her grin undermined any true haughtiness. "You are of course free to confirm my offer with the head of House Sumeragi. Her name is Sumeragi Kaguya!" She waited for a beat before adding "you can have her number if you like," with a winking smile, the mock arrogance vanishing like mist.


"You're the head of House Sumeragi?" I stared at the other girl, who grinned cheekily back. "You are one of the Six, the oligarchs who control Kyoto House? The ones who some say are the greatest batch of traitors in the history of Japan?"


"Yup!" Kaguya chirped back in reply. "Sumeragi Kaguya, also known as Lady Sophie to our Britannian friends. Pleased to make your acquaintance, I'm sure!"


I looked past Kaguya and locked eyes with Lieutenant Koichi. "Not a word of this leaves this room," I commanded. "Nobody is to know who she is. You both heard her," I met the other soldier's gaze before turning back to Koichi, "she's just some middle-ranking Kyoto House member's daughter, visiting here on a lark."


Lieutenant Koichi nodded, his eyes thoughtful in his mangled face. After a moment, he seemed to remember his military rank and saluted me, his subordinate quickly following suit.


"Lady Kaguya," I turned back to my guest, who was still smiling at me, "you have a deal. Help me and I will do my best to help you in exchange. Help me keep my people alive, and I will do what I can to expand your power and influence in Kyoto House." I extended my hand across the table.


Suddenly remembering how the previous Kyoto House potentate I had negotiated with had ended our conversation, I awkwardly added, "Long live Japan, and long live the Imperial Family. Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians." It had borne ritual weight when I'd heard it, and I had taken it as a quirk of their organization, or of the social class their leadership stemmed from.


"Thanks!" Kaguya chirped, taking my hand and pumping it once, twice, and three times. "That's probably me! Anyway, pleasure doing business with you! We're gonna achieve great things together, Miss Tanya!"


---------


JULY 4, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
0700


"-eight cars loaded with barley, and finally, no fewer than ten cars loaded with 'special goods' with Kyoto and Tokyo Settlement Assessors stamps already paid for and applied."


The Sun Guard messenger flipped his notebook closed with a flourish, a broad smile on his face as he did so. He was clearly proud of delivering his report in good time, beating any other competing report of the new delivery to my door.


"Thank you, soldier," I replied, too drowsy to remember what the man's name was at the moment. In my defense, I had been asleep five minutes ago. I couldn't be expected to remember names before I'd had at least half a cup of coffee! "Your prompt report is appreciated. That will be all."


"Ma'am!" He fired off a truly sloppy salute and strode out of my office, the door swinging shut behind him, leaving me at my desk with my mug and the hand-delivered envelope that the conductor had passed to a Rising Sun member working as a janitor at the station when his train from Kyoto had arrived.


If someone from the Six Houses wanted to kill me, I doubt they'd use ricin or any such nonsense, I reasoned as I cut the envelope open, dumping the single sheet of paper out.


"Dear Commander," the letter read. "Hi there! I hope you like your surprise gift! Consider it my way of saying thank you for telling me your life story. It was super sad, but also really inspirational. I can see what N. saw in you, and what your people saw in you. Stick with me, and we'll go far. Let's be good friends! S.S."


"Sophie Sumeragi, I assume," I said to the empty room, wincing at how dry my voice sounded.


Maybe some water before I enjoy the first coffee of the day.


I looked down at the brief letter again. I was confident that the special packages that Kaguya had bribed both ends of the track into sealing without further inspection contained weapons, the weapons I would need to make the lives of any Britannians trying to force their way into Shinjuku utter hell. With those weapons and the huge shipment of food, medicine, clothes, cigarettes and other small luxuries, and toiletries I had just received the kind of material support I needed to strengthen my position in Shinjuku against the discontented Notables as well as the invaders.


And so the deal is fulfilled already… I stood up from the desk and walked over to the window of my office on the second floor of the Rising Sun's Headquarters, a few rooms down from the room I had met Kaguya in. The window squealed as I forced it open, but it rose nonetheless, letting the breeze still cool with the night into the room. The lighter flicked to life, and soon the letter was just ash.


I was in Kaguya's debt, and that was an uncomfortable place to be. I had no idea how ruthless she would be as a creditor or how soon she would expect a return on her investment. And yet, no matter how ruthless she might be, Shinjuku will live for another few weeks. If that means putting myself into personal debt, then isn't that what it means to be a leader?


I wonder if Naoto would be proud of me?

 

[Scopas]

An Overview of the Britannian State Security Apparatus


Derived from publicly available information regarding extant Imperial security bodies and their interaction with law enforcement agencies.


Bernhard Mattys
Department of Social and Political Studies
University of Munster, Westphalia Department, European Union

Abstract:

The Holy Britannian Empire is served by a broad variety of security agencies with varying remits, powers, and scopes of operation. In order to provide an introduction to the world of the Britannian state security apparatus, a brief overview of the more prominent agencies and their roles has been assembled from information available to the public. Resources for further research are available at the end of this report.

Introduction:

After the assassination of the 93rd Emperor of Britannian, Ferdinand van Britannia (1919-1953) and the ensuing Emblem of Blood era (1954-1998), the Holy Britannian Empire and newly crowned 98th Emperor Charles zi Britannia (1955-present) inherited a wide range security and law enforcement organs across the breadth of the Britannian Homeland and its then-eight Administrative Areas. In addition to the traditional pre-Emblem of Blood institutions like the Directorate of Imperial Security (DIS), also known as the Imperial Directorate of State Security (IDSS), new agencies founded during the bureaucratic chaos of the Emblem of Blood were also incorporated into the newly reunified state security apparatus.


Even before Charles was crowned as the 98th Emperor of Britannia, turf wars between the feuding agencies of the security state had begun. These security organs' areas of responsibility frequently overlapped, sparking feuds between the different agencies as each body fought to burnish their own reputations while slighting their competitors, all in the pursuit of larger budgets and expanded powers.


Furthermore, the periods of intense infighting interrupted by intervals of consolidation and alliance building between the feuding claimant factions and various noble potentates of the Emblem of Blood era had led to a certain amount of decentralized authority in some Areas. Local nobles and landowners had taken on the responsibilities of law enforcement and judicial sentencing as the Imperial Family focused on its own disputes. In some cases, Claimant Factions negotiated for the support of powerful nobles by reducing their feudal obligations or by permitting the creation of police agencies under direct noble control.


While much of this chaos was resolved by Emperor Charles and his administration with the reconstruction and reorganization of the Ministries of Justice, Defense, and the Home and Area Offices during the first years of his reign (1999-2006), the security apparatus remains divided against itself to the present. With the total authority of the throne fully restored and the curtailment of many of the special privileges granted to noble cliques during the Emblem of Blood, the continuation of the inter-agency conflict indicates that this state of affairs has become the intentional de facto policy of the Empire.


The reason for this policy is unknown. It could be that Emperor Charles contextualizes competition between the various security agencies as an outgrowth of his own ideology of Social Darwinism and hopes that the end quality is a stronger, smarter intelligence apparatus. It could be that the Emperor learned how a divided enemy is weak during his conflicts with the other claimant factions during the Emblem of Blood and seeks to keep potential rivals in the state security apparatus weakened. Either way, the fact that constituent agencies in the Britannian security apparatus attack one another is plainly apparent even from publicly available materials.

Military Intelligence:
Army Intelligence:

The Intelligence Command of the Britannian Army is broadly subdivided into two constituent corps.


The Signal Corps has the primary assignment to ensure communications between different army detachments and installations and comprises the bulk of the Army's communications staff. As an intelligence organization, the Signal Corps also has the secondary assignment to gather and analyze intelligence on hostile state and non-state actors using sensory data and data gathering platforms.


The Interrogation Corps has the primary assignment of operating and managing the Army's network of penal barracks and stockades, and acts as both the jailers and the prosecutorial body for courts martial. As an intelligence organization, the Interrogation Corps extracts human intelligence from hostile state and non-state actors via a number of interrogatory techniques.


Both corps have the power to requisition assistance from the Army's Military Police units, also known as the 'redcaps' for their distinctive red berets or field helmets. The Military Police (MP) are not an intelligence organization in their own capacity, but do have the power to incarcerate suspects wanted for questioning by local representatives of the Army Intelligence Command. At times, MPs may also be suborned by representatives of other intelligence groups for enforcement purposes.

Naval Intelligence:

Unlike the Army, the Office of Naval Intelligence has a single unified intelligence service. Also unlike the Army, the Office of Naval Intelligence directly commands the Navy's own police force, who take on many of the responsibilities held by the Interrogation Corps including incarceration.


Naval Intelligence prides itself on a vast array of specialized sensory units with varied portfolios, including the Office of Meteorology and the Seismological Observatory. Little information is publicly available about the more obscure naval signal units, but historically a great deal of credit for breaches of hostile communications has been attributed to the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Paramilitary Intelligence:
Military Faction Intelligence:

While entirely unofficial and lacking formal recognition, military factions and societies are widespread and powerful in both of the Armed Services. Officers from the same Area frequently band together to produce local factions, while officers of the same political, ideological, or religious affiliation form inter-Area factions. This tradition extends back long before the Emblem of Blood, back at least to the Filibuster Society, founded in 1848 by General William Walker. Currently, the most prominent faction is the so-called "Purist Faction," founded by the 2nd Lord Lauderdale, Colonel Zebediah Gottwald.


These factions, usually led by cabals of high-ranked military officers and constituting mid- to low-ranked officers along with their commands, often count members of the Army Intelligence Command and the Office of Naval Intelligence among their ranks. As a result, the longer-lived factions will at times develop unofficial yet very active intelligence services dedicated to providing faction leadership with information on rival factions, unaffiliated officers, and the political situations of the Areas in which they are active.


By the nature of their unofficial status and lack of accountability outside of their faction, and considering how many of their members are active members of the official intelligence community, little is known about the workings or the successes of these faction intelligence organizations. Nonetheless, abundant anecdotal evidence of their success exists, with some factions, including the Purist Faction, going so far as to operate internment and interrogation facilities on their own recognizance.

Church Intelligence:
Office of the Inquisition:

Primarily focused on preserving the religious and ideological dominance of the Britannic State Church and the purity and consistency of its mandated canon, the Office of the Inquisition operates as a Church intelligence service with powers to investigate, detain, interrogate, and condemn laymen and clergy alike who are found to have non-standard religious beliefs or practices.


In practice, the Inquisition operates as another arm of the state security apparatus. Information garnered by Inquisition investigations and under Church interrogation is legally admissible in civil and criminal proceedings; likewise, the findings of civil and criminal proceedings can be admitted to canon law trials as evidence against the accused.


The Office of the Inquisition is always headed by a cleric of a bishop's rank, which grants a noble equivalency of a count or an earl. Only suspects of ducal rank or its equivalent or higher are exempt from detainment and investigation by the Office of the Inquisition. In practice, this means that the high nobility, Area governors, the highest clerical ranks, and the Imperial Family are the only Britannian subjects exempt from arbitrary investigation by the Inquisition.

Civilian Intelligence:
Directorate of Internal Security (DIS):

The oldest of the currently extant security services, the Directorate of Internal Security, also called the Imperial Directorate of State Security, claims an origin in the spy networks first organized by the Duke of Marlborough in the early 18th century. While factually dubious, the DIS has operated in its current form since at least 1854, when DIS agents unearthed the so-called "Santa Fe Ring" and brought the conspirators to Imperial justice.


In the century between the earliest confirmable DIS triumphs and the Emblem of Blood, the Directorate developed into a police force primarily concerned with checking the power of the aristocracy and the rising industrial plutocracy. With their imperial mandate, the DIS could investigate and pursue suspects across Area boundaries and without constraint from local feudal or municipal authorities.


During the Emblem of Blood, the DIS was subjected to the same pressures as the rest of the central government of the Empire; riven by conflicting orders from the claimant factions as well as whoever currently held the throne, the DIS was gradually paralyzed. The resurgence of local magnate and aristocratic powerbases led to the curtailing of the broad powers the DIS had enjoyed in its heyday, and agents were increasingly toothless in the face of highly ranked suspects.


In 1984, Sir Hamish Cole, then the Director of Internal Security, decided to surreptitiously back Charles zi Britannia in his claim upon the Throne of Britannia. Director Cole used his authority to funnel information to the then-Prince Charles as well as access to the vestigial resources of the DIS. In 1989, with the initiation of the last period of open conflict between claimant factions after the assassination of 97th Emperor Baudouin ni Britannia, Director Cole made his allegiance public as he swore loyalty to Charles zi Britannia at his factional headquarters in Halifax.


From that nadir of power, the DIS has risen again as the preeminent tool of the throne to maintain a firm hold over the aristocrats, plutocrats, and bureaucrats that govern his far-flung empire. Operating once again under imperial mandate, the DIS retains its primary mission of policing the representatives of the Emperor and the other powers of Britannian society in addition to a secondary mission to monitor the discontent of the lower classes.

Imperial Bureau of Investigation (IBI):

Founded in 1901, the Imperial Bureau of Investigation (IBI) has always prioritized the suppression of the lower rungs of Britannian society. Originally tasked with the pursuit and detainment of criminal gangs operating out of the mountains of Area 5 and the jungles of the newly declared Area 6, the IBI's writ expanded over the years as they were tasked with combating a range of political and criminal actors.


Due to their heavy focus on policing the lower classes, the IBI long received the mixed blessing of official inattention. On one hand, as the greatest threats to Britannian monarchs have historically been their extended families and aristocratic cliques, for most of its existence the IBI received little respect and scarce resources, operating on a shoestring budget. On the other hand, the IBI survived the infighting of the Emblem of Blood era almost entirely unscathed, as all claimant factions recognized the shared necessity of suppressing any potential uprisings from beneath.


Emerging from the Emblem of Blood, the IBI benefited immensely from the recentralization of the Britannian government and the subsequent period of rapid Imperial expansion. As the conquests of Emperor Charles rapidly brought Areas 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 under the Britannian flag, they also brought a vast number of disgruntled and angry Numbers and Honorary Britannians who still remembered what it had been like to be free under that same banner. The IBI expanded rapidly in response, with the newly-inducted IBI inspectors granted the power to issue commands to local and Area-level police forces and military formations commanded by junior-grade officers in the pursuit of their duties.

Imperial Security Agency (ISA):

The Imperial Security Agency (ISA) is the youngest of the "Big Three" civilian security services, and the one with the least amount of information publicly available. Founded after Emperor Charles zi Britannia came to the throne, the ISA is supposedly tasked solely with gathering intelligence on non-Britannian sources, and is nominally a purely foreign oriented intelligence agency.


Despite this outward focus, a great deal of rumor swirls around the ISA, perhaps aggravated by the agency's closemouthed approach to public relations. Some external sources have postulated that the ISA acts as an internal security force within the broader state security apparatus. Other experts accept the official stance that the ISA focuses on surveilling foreign powers, but claim that the ISA also engages in activities far beyond intelligence collection, including assassination, sabotage, and the destabilization of governments.

Swirling Ambiguity: Cloak and Dagger

While the Big Three civilian security agencies compete against one another for budget and recognition, and while the military agencies defend their areas of responsibility against their competitors, these only represent the largest and most prominent segments of the security apparatus. This report only touches on the agencies best known to the public with the most information published about their operations and histories.


By no means should it be assumed that the groups listed above represent the full extent of Britannia's covert arsenal. Endless rumors abound about shadowy cabals of intelligencers and manipulators advancing opaque agendas, and while such rumors are impossible to substantiate, it would be far from a surprise if the labyrinthine world of Britannian intelligence concealed entire directories and agencies of spies.

 

[Scopas]

MARCH 3, 2014 ATB
BRITANNIAN ARMED SERVICES RECRUITING OFFICE, PORTSMOUTH, DUCHY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, HOMELAND


"Sorry, Mister Coffin," the recruiter said with a professional smile, not sounding the least bit apologetic, "but His Majesty has no need of your services at present. Thank you for your interest in national defense."


"Are…" hearing the tremor in his own voice, Roger Coffin stopped, swallowed, and tried again. "Are you certain? If it's a matter of seniority, I'd be willing to relinquish any claim to time in grade, and as for physical fitness, well… I could make it work. By the time I'm out of the refresher, I'd be back to fighting trim!"


"Not interested." The recruiter, by long tradition a sergeant, was unmoved, and indeed seemed well on his way to dismissing Roger entirely as he shuffled the papers on his desk. "If you were five years younger, you might have had a chance. But a re-enlistment at thirty one?" He looked up from his stack of forms to give Roger an incredulous look. "Who do you think you're fooling, old man?"


The slight twinkle of sympathy in the sergeant's eyes was the most galling part, far moreso than the "old man" comment. Roger was certain that the recruiter was probably at least his age, if not older, but those years hung far lighter on his shoulders than they did on Roger.


Probably because he's spent them sitting behind a desk instead of humping a R-4 across three Areas, Roger thought uncharitably, before a nagging internal voice added, not to mention that he's probably been working out regularly and eating well instead of drinking himself under the table for the last three years.


"Fine," Roger stood, drawing the tattered shreds of his dignity around him like a coat, sheltering against the winds of time. "Fine. Thank you for your time, Sergeant."


A different Roger would have stayed and fought it out with the recruiter. Young Roger Coffin had been a pugnacious fighter, hard as nails in his own opinion and eager to prove it. Indeed, that need to prove himself had led a seventeen year old Roger to take up the Oath and to make his mark in the regimental books of the 3rd New Hampshire Fusiliers.


That combative urge, that hunger for the respect and acknowledgement of his peers, hadn't survived Roger Coffin's twelve year stint with the 3rd. After seeing all he had seen in Area 5, 10, and most especially 11, and after all that he had done in the course of fulfilling his oath, very little of that young Roger had remained intact when he had finally been honorably discharged from the ranks.


What had remained of that contentious prick of a boy had drowned in the vat of booze the former sergeant had spent his meager pension on.


And now, Roger thought, a sour smile twisting on his lips as he pulled his hat firmly down, anticipating the cold northern air waiting for him outside the warmth of the recruiting office, even the Army's not willing to take me back… And considering some of the privates I've seen…


Roger snorted ruefully. Done was done, and he was done here. Perhaps, he considered, he was done in general; nobody was waiting for him back at his rented rooms, neither of his ex-wives had contacted him in over a year, and in another month his brother would have been interred in the New Haven Military Cemetery for five years.


Go home and relax, he told himself. You've still got half of a fifth of Appalachia Farm left. Just… let it all wait for another day.


But, just as Roger reached for the handle to the door out of the office, his moping was disturbed by a cry of "Hey, wait!" from the desks behind him.


Turning, he saw the recruiting sergeant standing behind his desk, his less-than-trim belly pushing against the neat lines of his uniform as he gestured for Roger to come back over.


Not like I've got anything else happening today, Roger thought as he dutifully obeyed, sitting back down in the chair he had so recently vacated.


"I just remembered something," the recruiter said, pawing through a filing cabinet drawer crammed to bursting with swollen folders. "Something that might interest you… Hold on…"


After a moment, the overweight recruiting sergeant dropped back into his desk chair with a folder in hand. He quickly looked down at the file already open in front of him, Roger's name clearly visible at the top, and then opened his new folder to check some detail.


"You were in Area 11," the sergeant stated.


"For the initial Conquest, and for a few months afterwards," Roger agreed, already knowing that his sleep tonight would be even more troubled than usual. The mere mention of his last duty station was already raising a host of unpleasant memories from shallow graves.


There had been a reason he had opted not to extend his term of service for another two years after the stint in His Majesty's newest Area, and why he had crawled into a bottle as soon as he was back in the Homeland and officially a civilian once more.


"Right," the recruiter nodded, following a line on Roger's service record with his finger. "Did you pick up any of the local lingo, by any chance? Even a few words?"


"Enough," Roger shrugged. "You know, the basics. 'Stop or I'll shoot,' 'surrender now,' 'get me a beer,' and 'where are the whores.' Not much else."


Not that we bothered using them very much, he added silently, and then forced his treacherous monologue to shut up.


He had heard plenty of Elevenese, and while he hadn't understood any of it, he hadn't really needed to.


Some things were universal.


"Good enough," the recruiter concluded with a shrug. "Got any opinions about Honoraries?"


"Depends on the Honorary," Roger hedged. "In general? I mean, the ones from the Heartland, the ones that are left, are just as Britannian as you or I. Most of the ones hailing from the Old Areas are more or less decent. A bit lazy, mind you, and prickly at the best of times, but generally decent."


"Fine." The recruiting sergeant leaned back in his chair, hands folded across his mildly pudgy midriff. "So, you want back into the old gray and black? And you say you'd be willing to take a pay cut?"


"Yes," Roger bobbed his head, refusing to acknowledge the frail hope lighting his heart. "If that's what it takes…"


"Well, in that case, I can give you your rank back, Sergeant Coffin," the recruiter's eyes were shrewd and clever. "Your seniority too. You wouldn't even lose a grade in rank."


"But I'd be taking a paycut?" Roger frowned, not seeing the connection. Base pay was determined by rank, but the higher your internal grade and time in rank was, the greater the net became. "What's the catch here?"


"You'd be in an Honorary Legion," the recruiting sergeant revealed, eyes still glued to Roger as he spoke with the air of a poker player laying his cards down one by one, searching for any hint of a reaction. "They're raising a few new ones, over in Area 11. Prince Clovis has expanded the intake for Elevens into the ranks, to gain their Honorary Citizenships via service."


"The Prince is still the governor of Area 11?" Roger asked, and whistled with slight surprise when the recruiter nodded. "Guess it was too much of a sweet plum for him to let go."


"Well," the recruiting sergeant shrugged, "maybe the Elevens don't want to see him go, and that's why they're still pitching their tantrums. Doesn't really matter, but what does matter is that Prince Clovis got permission to commission two new honorary legions, full strength and all, to help maintain order. They probably won't be filled-out for a few years, but the point remains that there's going to be a ton of green troops all flooding in."


Roger whistled again. An honorary legion had the same paper strength as a regular division, fifteen thousand men, and like a division was commanded by a Major General.


"A full corps of vegetables, huh?" He said out loud, marveling at the sheer scale of the probable incompetency of such a formation. "And I'm guessing the command will be the usual for Honorary formations?"


"In all likelihood," the recruiter said, with an expression that spoke volumes. "Apparently, the lieutenancies are going for a bargain price."


The tradition of purchased ranks had been quite thoroughly crushed within the regular Army, and among the more elite and longstanding of the Honorary formations. Those were very much the exception, however; in most units drawn from the honorary citizens of the Empire, the old English tradition of selling commissions was alive and well, if entirely unofficial.


In a way, Roger could understand why the tradition had been allowed to continue.


To be a "proper noble", a scion of an aristocratic family hoping to succeed to their father or mother's titles had to serve at least a short time in the military. The Army, however, needed competent officers. Moreover, the Commoner Magnate families wouldn't stand for a noble monopoly of the military; nor, Roger suspected, would the Emperor.


So, there had to be some space made available for young nobles in need of military credentials, some space where they wouldn't endanger anything or anybody too important. Hence, the quietly brokered sale of commands in Honorary formations. Roger was quite sure that the Army's clerks were pleased to charge the wealthy noble families trying to spruce up their unimpressive offspring's resumes for the privilege.


"But," the recruiter continued, "that means that the Powers That Be have let it be known that experienced noncoms have a place in the new legions, if they want it."


Roger very much didn't want that place, certainly not back in Area 11, where the ghosts of the Conquest weren't even four years buried yet.


But I want to die of exposure or cirrosis even less…


"Cadre duty, huh?" Roger asked rhetorically, buying time as he tried to come to terms with what he had already decided to do. "I guess I could manage that… Someone's got to ride herd on the produce section, eh… And God knows I've had to deal with plenty of troublesome or outright braindead privates over the years…"


"It's a five year stint," the recruiter warned, "and the pay's on the Honorary chart, since you'd be in a legion as an enlisted."


"That's…" a part of Roger rebelled at being lumped in with the newly minted Honorary Citizens, but he pushed it down with the ease of long experience. Pride was a luxury he hadn't been able to afford in years. "...Fine," he finished. "I'd be able to handle it somehow, I'm sure."


"Well then," the recruiter leaned forwards, hand extended, "allow me to be the first to welcome you back to His Majesty's Army with welcoming arms, Sergeant Coffin."


MAY 29, 2016 ATB
ALBERT'S TAPHOUSE, KITA WARD, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1305


Roger Coffin, Color Sergeant of His Majesty's 32nd Honorary Legion, 1st Brigade, 3rd Regiment, 1st Battalion, stared blankly down into the cup of pale yellow liquid sweating on the bar in front of him.


He looked at the drink. He drank the drink. The thankfully quiet bartender poured him another drink as Roger slid another pair of pound coins across the bar's sticky surface.


He looked at the drink. He drank the drink. He tried to forget.


The bar, located in a working-class Commoner district that reminded Roger of the old industrial town he had grown up in, was all but empty this Sunday afternoon. Only a handful of other derelicts had joined him in escaping the heat of the outside world, a pair of men who both had at least two decades on him worn thin and gray and an equally haggard old woman. Each was slumped over their own table, their faces buried in their beer, leaving Roger alone at the bar with the silent barman.


Alone with his thoughts, with the memories that the weak local beer was doing nothing to soften or blur.


It had been just over two years since Roger had set foot in Area 11 for the second time. After a quick month and a half of hellish physical training to whip him back into shape and a quick two week course on the finer points of his duties as a cadre sergeant, Sergeant Coffin had stepped off a transport plane and onto the tarmac of Tokyo International Airport in the company of thirty other over-age NCOs returning to His Majesty's colors.


That, in Roger's opinion, had been when the "good times", such as they were, ended.


The frustrations had been endless. The captain in command of his new company had served in the regular Army as an infantry lieutenant before "graciously accepting" an offer to transfer to the open captaincy in the newly-formed Honorary legion. The way his new commanding officer had told it, Sergeant Coffin would have thought that he had been handpicked by the Brigadier himself for the assignment. Considering the man's incompetency, it seemed much more likely that his family had purchased his rank to move their disappointing relative to a place where he could do less damage to their reputation.


The four lieutenants heading up the platoons of 1st Company were marginally better; their chief sin was a degree of inexperience almost incomprehensible to Roger. Not one of them was over the age of twenty and none could so much as grow a decent mustache, to say nothing about leading men effectively.


As for the men themselves, Sergeant Coffin couldn't remember the last time he had encountered such a dispirited, browbeaten lot. The only thing worse than their morale was their training in the basics of soldiering, which was slapshod at best. There were a few exceptions, a handful of the Honorary citizen-soldiers whose enthusiasm for their newly sworn allegiance was disconcerting in its intensity, but by and large the men of the 32nd Honorary Legion were depressed, sullen, and shiftless.


Roger couldn't find it in himself to blame the layabouts. The men were obviously aware of how little regard their masters had for them, and just how little faith anybody in the Area Administration had put in their services. It was, after all, hard to feel like a soldier when your superiors didn't trust you to carry a weapon greater than a knife, and when the MPs at the gate to the barracks were facing inwards instead of out towards the street.


Sergeant Coffin had done his best to fulfill his duty. He had conducted informal "advisory seminars" with the lieutenants, trying to make his wealth of experience available to the teenaged officers. He had taken the captain aside "for a private word" on an almost daily basis, although most of his advice had been waved off. He had gathered the rapidly expanding ranks of newly minted Honorary noncoms in the company around him and had taught them the basic lessons of officer wrangling and in keeping discipline among the men.


All of this had been at his own recognizance. Nobody, it seemed, had cared what the Honorary soldiers or their minders were doing, provided they stayed quiet and kept the Honorary neighborhoods docile. So long as they stayed out of their betters way, and so long as the sectors of the Tokyo Settlement zoned for Honorary families maintained their shows of ardent Britannian patriotism and swallowed the casual abuse with a smile, nobody cared.


Most of Sergeant Coffin's peers had taken the opportunity presented by that neglect to embrace the same malingering lifestyle as their officers and their men. Sergeant Coffin and a handful of others, men who, like him, had returned to the colors after finding the taste of civilian life bitter, had done their best to actually make the Honoraries into something close to real soldiers.


For a moment, it had seemed like his efforts weren't entirely in vain. A year into his assignment, Sergeant Coffin had been pleased and gratified to find out that his name had been entered for a promotion. As he had stitched the crown of a Color Sergeant onto his sleeve over the trio of chevrons, Roger had even gone as far as to promise himself that he would start going easy on the bottle.


He didn't need it anymore, Roger had assured himself. Things had taken a turn, and he had a new lease on life.


And then, Christmas had come, and everything had gone to hell.


"Another one?"


Roger looked up from his contemplation of the bar's whorled surface to give the bartender a jerky nod. The man's thick Pendragon accent wasn't so different from his own Maine accent. "If you'd be so kind," he croaked, passing over another pair of pound coins. "Just keep 'em coming, in fact. I'll settle at the end."


"...As you say, Sergeant," the bartender said after a moment, reminding Roger that he had come straight here from Outpost #2 as soon as his shift on duty ended.


He'd even taken a bus to get to this particular bar, although really any in the neighborhood would have done just as well; he had just wanted to drink far enough away from his post in the Chuo Ward that nobody would recognize him.


"Do you… That is to say, would you like some water as well? It's looking to be quite the scorcher."


Before Roger could retort that he could hold his beer just fine, he realized how cottony and dry his gums were, how his tongue felt swollen in his mouth, and how he could already feel the first strains of painful tension at his temples. "If you would, please," he said, trying to sound as gracious as possible. "Thanks."


The bartender shuffled off without a reply, returning soon after with a pint glass in each hand. Roger barely waited for the man to deposit the cups in front of him before taking a long pull on the water. It tasted delicious in his mouth, new life leaching into sour flesh.


"Good afternoon, Fred. Quite the warm day today, isn't it?"


A new presence dropped down into the bar stool immediately to Roger's left, much to his surprise. He'd heard the bar door creak open a moment earlier, but he'd anticipated another shambling shell to shuffle over to claim a table of their own like the rest. Instead, a startlingly young man was sitting next to him, his face alive and animated as he greeted the bartender. Just the momentary glance was enough to send Roger's eyes darting back into his beer; the boy couldn't be any older than half the men in his battalion.


"Ah, it certainly is at that, Leland," came Fred's rumbling reply. "If you came looking for Old Tim or for some calamari rings, you'll be disappointed, I'm afraid. Haven't seen the old man all day and kitchen service ain't starting until four."


"No worries," came the smooth reply, and to Roger's shock he could hear just the slightest touches of an aristocratic accent in the young man's voice, wildly out of place here in a Commoner bar. "I'm just here to relax in peace for the day. Busy morning, you know."


"Oh?" The bartender slid a glass of water in front of the newcomer, "that so? And yer sure that yah aren't just trying to avoid Miss Milly? She'll be mad if you are, and so will be Goodwife Hilda."


"Sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof," came Leland's pious reply, and the young man grinned as the bartender, Fred, rolled his eyes. "In the meantime, can I get a Moxie? I know you've still got a few cans back there somewhere, Fred."


That reminder of home made Roger turn around in his chair to get a good look at Leland for the first time. The new arrival was a sharp-faced boy, with a narrow chin and high cheeks, with a thick mop of black hair barely suppressed under a battered cap. The youth wore the white collared shirt of an office worker under a neat waistcoat, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and ink staining the side of his left arm where he'd leaned against some not-quite-dry paper.


Taken together, Leland was almost the picture of a junior clerk or office-drudge, although one that kept odd hours if he was off the clock at three in the afternoon.


A picture that doesn't match the voice at all, Roger decided.


He blinked and found Leland looking back at him, the young man's deep purple eyes, the color of the emperor's, a part of Roger noticed, meeting his own over a welcoming smile. "Hello there, Sergeant! Haven't seen you here before. Just assigned to Area 11?"


"Afraid not," Roger replied, his voice gruff in his dry throat. He took another sip of water. "Been here for two years now."


Two long years… Two years on, and I'm just where I started, full of booze and wasting my time.


"You must be almost up for rotation, then," Leland noted. "Are you eager to leave? I wouldn't blame you if you are; it seems like the price of living here gets higher each day."


Fred grunted in sour acknowledgement as he passed by again, leaving a can of Moxie and a glass full of ice in front of Leland. Roger didn't know if the barman owned the dingy little pub or not, but if he did he could fully understand the man's irritation. Everything was expensive lately, and the Viceregal Administration's attempt to rectify the matter by just increasing the supply of money had done nothing but swell the already inflated prices.


Not a good time to rely on customers with fat wallets… Although I guess as long as people have two shillings to rub together, they'll still be lining up to buy beer.


And besides… Roger's hand clenched around his cup as he remembered why inflation had jumped so steeply in recent months, there's steeper prices to pay than a few extra pounds for groceries…


"No such luck," Roger replied, but somehow felt compelled to add, "I'm with the Honoraries. Full term contract," to his explanation. Something about Leland's eyes welcomed the detail. "Signed up for another hitch after I got discharged from the Fusiliers, so I'll be here for the duration."


"Ah," Leland's expression, suddenly saddened, spoke volumes that Roger couldn't read, the details lost in the blur. The eyes stayed the same though. "I understand. You chose a hard time to sign up for another tour, Sergeant. First the Purists, then Christmas…" Those eyes sharpened, and Roger suddenly felt like he couldn't look away. "And then the business up in Niigata. You were dragged into that, weren't you, Sergeant? What was it like?"


It might have been the beer that loosened his lips, or it might have been the distance from anyone who would know him, or perhaps it was the suddenly inescapable impression that Leland somehow already knew everything he would say, but Roger found himself speaking freely and all together too frankly before he knew it.


"It was bad, real bad. I was in Hanoi back in '09, coming ashore in Saigon when we pushed the Chinese back… And I was here back in 2010, back when we first took this place for our own. But…" Roger licked his lips, and took a deep drink off his fresh pint. Even as he wiped the foam away from face, he felt those prying purple eyes upon him, forcing the words out.


"The Conquest was nothing, nothing at all. Walk in the bleedin' park. At least where I was, since some of the landings down south ran into resistance, but up north of here where my regiment landed, the naval artillery had broken the Elevens up before we set boot on sand. Dead simple. I don't think more than half of us fired our guns in anger. Indochina was worse, but not by much. The Chinese are only worth half a damn when there's a whole pack, or when they've got a good leader, and the Tens were only too happy to help us kick them out…"


That didn't last long, though.


Roger slammed another mouthful down, trying to wash away the memories. As soon as he gulped the watery beer down, his tongue was moving again, his sotted ramblings pouring out like a ruptured cask.


"That was all fun and games. The usual stuff, you know. Shoot a few, the noisy ones, have some fun with the girls, leave a few coins for the breakage. You know, the usual. Well… Maybe you don't; age aside, you don't look like a man who's seen a uniform, but take my word for it. But… That was all invasion, you see? Even when we came by here last time. We were taking our claim, making the place ours. But Niigata? That was rebellion. Whole different story."


The pressure of those eyes was inexorable, and Roger found himself squirming in his chair like he was a fifteen year old delinquent again, powerless in the face of his old grammar school's headmaster. That old withered stick of a man could silence an assembly of the entire student body with a single sweep of his eyes, and now, two decades on, this youth had somehow taken on the same mien of the long dead teacher.


Master Reynauld had the same cheekbones, a crazy thought spurred through his mind. He was a son of some minor house, wasn't he? It must be an aristocrat trick, somehow.


"Not that I ever got to Niigata," Roger admitted, feeling a lunatic need to explain himself, to whom he didn't really know. "We were on a holding operation in Toyama, at the prefect's behest. He was shit scared of the refugees coming across the border from the prefecture to the north. Thought they'd bring rebellion with them, and even if they didn't he was scared all the new Numbers would eat up the food or start robbing the good folk's houses. He paid someone high up to bring us up to interdict traffic and to weed out any malcontents that might cause trouble in his fief."


"The filtering operations," Leland mused, the hint of nobility bleeding over into his voice as he rolled the words over in his mouth.


"Right," Roger agreed, "that's what they called them. Pass the refugees through the wringer to weed out any guerrillas slipping in with the swarm, and yank any suspected sympathizers out of the villages and towns near the border so they couldn't link up with their bastard friends squatting in the mountains."


His questing hand found a fresh, cold glass of beer sitting where his almost drained pint had been; Fred must have passed by. Sergeant Coffin lifted the frosted glass to his lips and took a long pull, soothing his rasping throat.


"Hard times indeed, Sergeant." Leland's voice was sympathetic, full of understanding. "But, I am sure you are proud, proud that you did as you were commanded… Aren't you?"


"I…" The immediate, instinctual response caught between his teeth, and Roger realized that the kneejerk confirmation had been a lie, even if he hadn't really known it to be one a moment earlier. "I… wasn't proud…" he said slowly, thinking out loud as he tried to impose order on his muddled thoughts. He belatedly realized that he was drunk. "I mean… I didn't… object, not really, but… It seemed… Empty?"


"A curious choice of words, Sergeant," came Leland's smooth reply.


"Roger," Sergeant Coffin corrected. "I'm off duty… And I'm tired of hearing my rank repeated back all day, every day.. 'Yes sergeant,' 'no sergeant…' It's all an act… Who gives a shit…"


"Roger then," Leland agreed easily. "Was it the act that felt empty, handling the dirty work the Prefect was too afraid to deal with himself… Or were you already empty, and it just became impossible to overlook past that point?"


"Both," Roger replied, suddenly certain of his reply. "There's… Well, there was a point to what we were doing. Obviously, there was a point! But…" He felt like he was pawing at something he couldn't quite wrap his hands around. "Why? Why are we here? The Sakuradite? Why the fuck aren't we just focusing on that? The Elevens were selling it to us! Why is the Administration being so fucking incompetent? We know how to run Areas! The Old Areas are doing great! What the hell is the problem?"


He knew he should shut up, but he couldn't get his mouth to close. "I spent a decade in the uniform! My little brother died in it! And what the fuck was the point? We keep conquering Areas but we can't be bothered to manage them worth half a damn! Did the Emperor just get so used to fighting back during the Emblem of Blood that he can't stop, and since he wheeled everybody in the other factions and gave their fiefs out to his men, nobody wants to say boo to him?"


It was impossible to stop the surge of memories now. Village upon village heaped with the dead and the dying. A woman screaming, broken arms reaching for a child in the arms of a laughing soldier. Endless trenches packed with the dead and the soon to be dead, naked limbs writhing among the blood-laced flesh as the unlucky survivors were crushed under the weight of their relatives. Fiveish militias waging their private wars against the insurrectos and the narcos, the lines between all three vague. The blackened skeleton of Hanoi, incinerated under two days of firebombing.


And over it all, the lion and serpent over Saint George's Cross as he marched forth with his regiment at Emperor Charles zi Britannia's merciless command.


"What…" Roger muttered, feeling just as spent and worn out as the handful of derelicts he vaguely remembered were sitting in the shadowed corners of the taphouse, "what was the point, really? What was the point of any of it? Two decades… Two wives… a brother… all for what?"



"Not for anything worth the cost of your service, sergeant," the man said. The lights were somehow dimmer and the taphouse far away, and Roger could barely see the sharp lines of his face through the haze growing in his vision anymore. Nothing but phoenician eyes glinting in darkened hollows... "Not for any Emperor worthy of your loyalty, Roger, astride the Throne of Pendragon. Nor for a House worthy of your worship, sullied as its hands are with all that is unclean."


Roger blinked, thinking, quietly, yes. How long had it been since he'd set foot inside a house of worship? He had never been a patriot; he had made his mark and kissed the flag because he wanted to prove he was more than another lost soul, and had never thought much of the claims of divine right trumpeted from the throne and its servants at the pulpit...


The violet eyes blinked, and before Roger could follow, they were gone, leaving him alone in the blurry haze of confusion and memory. But the voice, its aristocratic notes and Pendragon accent growing more pronounced by the word, continued, urging him on a dark path as he stumbled forwards without ever standing from the barstool.


"The Emblem of Blood. Do you recall?"


"I remember the Emblem of Blood… The last years of it," Roger rasped, scanning the filmy gray fog, memory thickened with alcohol and filled with past ghosts, desperate to find those imperious, understanding eyes in the miasma, "when Brandon and his faction and Charles and his had it out at last. The Church said that God's will had been done when it was all over, that it was all God's will, and that everything would change… From where I'm standing, nothing has. Nothing that matters. The Emperor's never done shit for me, nor have any of his officers or his priests… And what the fuck do I care if we unite the world but the Emperor can't be arsed to rule it for shit? No wonder the Elevens rose up, with Clovis in charge."


"You are a man who needs someone to follow, aren't you, Sergeant? A man who craves authority, who must have a banner to follow, a sigil to guide him through the night..." The voice was suddenly all around him, telling him who he was, and the eyes opened before him, radiant and loving in their purple glory. "A true cause, in the service of the holy and unsullied truth. The princely truth."


"A true prince…" Roger said, remembering as he spoke the hopes people had pinned on Brandon, back in the day, hopes that Brandon would usher in a new age of liberty in Britannia. Hopes that had been crushed once Charles cemented his rule by killing as many of the surviving scions of the Imperial House as he could. "A true cause…" To make the Holy Empire the land of God on Earth as promised. "One worthy of all the blood."


"And one worthy of your devotion," Leland added, unobtrusively as Roger nodded, his drunken mind piecing things together bit by bit, slowly arriving at a conclusion as the fog receded before him, leaving only Leland, staring unblinkingly into his soul. "The Church lied to you only in who they claimed God spoke through, Roger. You remember how the true sons of the Church, the ones who actually served, were driven out. You remember how the righteous princes were murdered. Surely no good could come from following a kinslayer."


Now that Leland had mentioned it, Roger remembered those things. How the old rector at Saint James had always been generous with the aid funds, how so many of the old Imperial Family who had been executed for treason had been so young… It was all so wrong, so monstrously wrong…


"They were his own blood," Roger mumbled, "and that's who my brother died for? Who I gave my years for? Who I swore my oath to?"


"Emperor Charles's name might have filled the space in your oath," Leland replied, his voice armored in certainty as he shook his head, "but you didn't really swear your oath to him, did you? How could any oath sworn to a kinslayer, to a heretic who declares himself to be God in all but name, be binding? No, you swore your loyalty to the true ruler of Britannia, didn't you? The True Prince, no matter who might be on the throne now."


"Right!" That had been the final piece, the conclusion Roger had been building towards! That had been why he had felt so empty for so long! It all made sense now! It wasn't that he had done anything wrong, made any mistake! He had followed his orders faithfully and loyally! It was just that those orders had their ultimate source in a serpent undeserving of his imperial robes!


"The True Prince!" he gasped, suddenly armored in conviction, the last vestiges of his old certainties dripping away and the rotten cords of misbegotten oaths falling from his shoulders, "that is who I serve!"


"Then come," and suddenly Leland was standing, the sunlight streaming through the open door outlining him in a corona of gold, "come with me, brother. Come and hear the word, and then go back to your base a new man. Come and be made new, full of a new purpose. An old bottle refilled with fresh-pressed wine. Come with me."


And for a moment, it wasn't Leland guiding Sergeant Roger Coffin to his feet and leading him out the door, but rather Robert, his brother two years his junior, who had always been so eager to do everything Roger had done. His little brother, who had signed up for the Army at sixteen, one year after Roger had taken up the oath.


His little brother, who had died in the Cambodian jungle while his elder brother had lived it up in the newly established Saigon Settlement on a rec leave pass, all because that bastard Charles could never be satisfied, would never be satisfied. The Man of Blood had taken Robert away, had sown the seeds that led to his wives leaving him, who had left Roger with nothing but the bottle.


Nothing but an empty bottle, to be filled with new and consecrated wine.


Squinting against the blinding light and the purifying heat, a scorcher just as Fred had said, Roger Coffin followed Leland out of the bar, eager for purpose and ready to be made into a new man.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 29: A Snipe Hunt, Part 1


(Thank you to Aminta Defender, Sunny, Restestsest, Mitch H., Adronio, WrandmWaffles, Rakkis157 and MetalDragon for beta-reading and editing this chapter. A bit shorter than normal, but Chapter 30 will hopefully arrive sooner than normal as a result.)


MAY 16, 2016 ATB
OUTPOST #2, CHUO WARD, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1600


Inspector Nelson Dutra Garcia took a long pull from the paper cup of mediocre office coffee sitting on his temporary desk. The awful brew was lukewarm and a trial upon his tongue, but he needed the caffeine desperately. Anything to keep the jet-lagged exhaustion at bay for a few hours more, until he could sleep, was welcome.


He sighed with boredom as he flipped through the personnel files of the supposed "cream of the regiment." Garcia, better known as Gus to his friends and colleagues back at the Pleasanton Field Office due to some long-forgotten incident at an office Christmas party and alternatingly called "Nelito" or "You Bastard" by a string of ex-lovers across the New Areas, was having a devil of a time keeping his eyes from crossing as he took in the bland details.


Unfortunately, he had already cut all the corners he could with this task. Some things a man just had to handle himself, and choosing a local guide wasn't something Nelson was willing to delegate. Recommendations were all well and good, but he wouldn't be able to rely on the guide in the slightest if he didn't have at least some hand in the selection.


Bureau policy called for agents abroad from their Area of assignment or the Homeland to use local Honoraries as ciphers whenever possible, even when the agent in question had a strong command of the local language. The locals, even those who had put aside old loyalties for their new Empire, would always have a better grasp on the peculiarities of the Area. Even the most ardent Honorary Citizen who had shared every detail he thought would be useful to Britannia benefitted from the half-dozen details he hadn't thought to share. From such nuances success or failure could grow in equal measure.


Even if the Bureau hadn't mandated the use of Honorary Britannians when possible, Nelson still would have sought out local help of his own initiative. As an Honorary Citizen himself, albeit one descended from latifundiários who had seen which way the wind was blowing four generations ago and who had pledged their allegiance accordingly, Nelson fully appreciated the advantages that Honoraries brought to the table. More to the point, he understood what drove them to work harder and take more risks than Britannian commoners; above all else, every Honorary strove to be useful. If you were useful to the right person in just the right way…


Well, Honorary Citizens had become Britannians before, typically via the fiat of some noble potentate or highly placed governmental officer, who imparted the grand reward of Citizenship as thanks for some great or long service. Failing that, it was far from unheard of for an ambitious commoner family to bring a skilled Honorary into the fold via matrimony; while that Honorary might never enjoy the status of full citizenship in the Empire, their children would.


And so, with at least five hours to go before he could surrender to his body's demands for sleep, Inspector Garcia forced himself to concentrate on the files in front of him, always on the quest for diligence in the execution of his duties.


True to form, most of the Honorary soldiers recommended to him by their officers were stolid, seemingly uninspired men. No doubt they were all strong, neat, and obedient, as only a fool would recommend the dross for duty with a Bureau agent for fear of their name appearing in his report, but Nelson had little doubt that the officers would likewise only recommend their safest bets for the same reason. Their reliable men, and the handful of women, were certain to be all but oxen in human form, dull and unimaginative as they were uncomplaining.


Nelson blinked and turned back to the last profile he had looked at. His eyes had filmed over with exhaustion as he had skimmed its contents and, while he couldn't remember what he had read, something had seemed off…


A moment later, his eyes widened, all fatigue dropping away. It was inconceivable, an almost unimaginably stupid blunder, but… He scanned the page again, carefully searching for inconsistencies, for hints of misdirection or omission, but found nothing.


Moving carefully, as if any sudden jerking motion might send the impossible document spiraling away into the ether once again, Inspector Garcia carefully entered the relevant name and rank into the pre-written standard personnel requisition and printed the completed form on Bureau letterhead. A quick phone call to the staff sergeant on duty sent a messenger to the Inspector's temporary office, and after a few words, back away again.


The two military policemen whom Colonel Prescott had assigned to nursemaid him around the outpost fell into step behind him as Nelson strode past, just as he knew they would. He had worked with their brothers in arms many times before, most recently in the round-up of a ring of subversives smuggling banned literature across prefectural borders.


The redcaps had never given Inspector Garcia any cause to doubt their loyalty or willingness to dole out violence on a moment's notice. But, if the military police force had a weakness, it was a crippling lack of imagination, both in terms of investigation and in the interrogation room.


Fortunately, Nelson thought, no hint of smirk showing under his habitually broad and friendly smile, the Bureau is here to provide plenty of both on their behalf. Which makes my arrival here before they realized who they had tucked behind a clerical error so serendipitous; I would hate to have seen the Military Police try to co-opt such a resource without breaking it!


"Stand by the wall at parade rest," Garcia directed as the small entourage arrived at Conference Room C. "I need you to look as bored as possible while still looking professional."


"We can manage that," the MP with sergeant's stripes acknowledged with a wry smile. "Least I can't fall asleep on my feet."


"Sure you can," Nelson continued briskly, "I have faith in your abilities, Sergeant. Now, when the mark gets here, I need scary faces, but I need you to make a show of focusing on me. As soon as I give an order, jump to it. No need to ham it up, but if it looks a bit dramatic, that's fine."


"Building you a pedestal, eh, Inspector?" The redcap private nodded knowingly. "As you say, Sir."


"Get in place, then," Nelson said dismissively. "The boy's file said that he's quite keen, so he'll probably be here soon. Remember, as soon as he gets here, you're terrifying and bored, and when I speak, professional but terrified. And," he smiled knowingly, feeling the scar pulling at his lip, "I'll make sure Colonel Prescott knows how helpful you were."


"Right you are, Sir," the sergeant agreed, before tapping his subordinate on the shoulder and leading him to the wall. For his part, Garcia artlessly arranged himself in the chair at the head of the table, striving to look as stern as possible without being unapproachably formal.


First impressions mattered, after all. Especially when an asset like the son of the last Prime Minister of Japan fell into your lap.


MAY 16, 2016 ATB
OUTPOST #2, CHUO WARD, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1630


"Sir!" Corporal Kururugi came to attention, clicking his heels as his fist thudded into his breastplate directly over his heart, the very model of military professionalism. He hoped. "Corporal Kururugi, reporting as ordered!"


"At ease, Corporal," came the disinterested reply from the officer seated at the immaculately neat desk in front of him, barren of any paperwork save for the single document said officer was theatrically perusing. "Do you know why I've called you here today?"


There were many possible replies Corporal Kururugi could have offered up to answer that leading question, ranging from attempts to curry favor to self-incriminating confessions for crimes imagined or real. After just over a year of service under the command of Captain Collins, commanding officer of His Majesty's 32nd Honorary Legion, 1st Brigade, 3rd Regiment, 1st Battalion, he had learned better than to volunteer any of those possible answers.


The battalion's commander didn't appreciate "lip" from the Honoraries who served under him.


"No Sir," Corporal Kururugi said, following the script with as much enthusiasm as he could muster as he settled into parade rest. As the silence lingered just a bit too long, he elaborated with a "Couldn't hazard a guess, Sir."


Behind the seated officer, Color Sergeant Coffin, the battalion's senior NCO, gave a minute headshake, discouraging any further additions.


The sergeant's blotchy face was impassive beneath the florid blooms on his cheeks, and Corporal Kururugi fervently hoped that the man was sober. When sober, the middle-aged Britannian was the only soldier in the battalion capable of putting a check on the captain's youthful impetuosity. When drunk though, his help was… dubious at best.


"I called you here today to bid you farewell," Captain Collins said, looking up from the desk for the first time since Corporal Kururugi entered the office. His burgundy mustache, elaborately waxed, arched with aristocratic disdain as he deigned to make eye contact. "Farewell for now, at least. You are being detached for temporary duty as a local guide. Do thank Rockwell before you go, Corporal; he's the one who recommended you."


As he spoke, the captain spun the single sheet of paper towards Corporal Kururugi and, with an elegant flick, sent it skimming across the polished mahogany surface. Instinctively, Kururugi left his position of parade rest to catch the paper as it slid off the desk. Judging by the contemptuous sneer on Collin's face, that had somehow been the wrong move.


Fail if you try and fail if you succeed, Suzaku murmured. And all for an audience of two. How petty…


"Yes Sir," Corporal Kururugi responded smartly, quickly skimming the document. "I will, Sir!"


Printed upon the document under an unfamiliar letterhead were his orders. Apparently, Corporal Kururugi was to render all due assistance to one Police Inspector Nelson Dutra Garcia, of the Pleasanton Office of the Imperial Bureau of Investigation, out of New Wales, Area 7. His orders particularly emphasized his duty to provide the inspector with interpretation, translation, and local knowledge on demand, as well as "handling any and all miscellaneous tasks delegated upon him."


"I would hurry if I were you, Corporal," Captain Collins drawled, amusement that tried for sardonic and settled for jeering on his face. "The Inspector has already arrived. He's waiting for you. Full kit, I'd say; no idea when you'll be back to trouble our halls again."


Ten frantic minutes later, Corporal Kururugi was in the Administrative Office's lobby, greeting the Britannian duty sergeant. "Corporal Kururugi, 1st Battalion 2nd Company, reporting to a summons from Inspector Garcia."


"He's waiting for you in Conference Room C, Corporal, along with a couple of redcaps" the sergeant replied in the distinctive accent of central Area 1, using the nickname of the Army's Military Police Corps. "Bit early, aren't you? Good man. Haven't seen much of that from your lot. That'll keep 'em happy."


"Thank you, Sergeant," Corporal Kururugi nodded, taking pride in the compliment even as he tried to quash his sudden spike of anger at Captain Collins. "Have a good shift."


It's always good to excel in the little things, Kururugi told himself as he made his way down the hall to Room C. Take their spite and turn it into a step upwards. Captain Collins had his fun sending me scrambling, but I just impressed a sergeant working in the major's office thanks to him. And now… Now I have to impress a police inspector.


The door to Room C was open and unguarded, so Corporal Kururugi walked straight in, his pack still slung over his shoulders and his helmet tucked under his arm. He immediately spotted the redcaps, where the pair of military policemen waited by the far wall at parade rest, their faces flat and hard. To his eyes, they had the mien of bored men who were attending to a pointless task out of rote professionalism.


Good Britannian soldiers, he decided approvingly.


The seat at the head of the table was occupied by an apparent civilian in a tailored suit. Corporal Kururugi was immediately suspicious; in his experience, a civilian whom the military and especially the military police showed deference towards was likely either a noble, a representative of one of the myriad of competing intelligence agencies, or perhaps both. The quality of the man's charcoal three-piece ensemble indicated the sort of wealth established money brought, but the white scar lancing across his dusky cheek indicated a bit more of a rough and tumble life than Corporal Kururugi typically attached to the Britannian upper crust.


After all, Suzaku remembered, Lelouch could hardly lift a practice sword when he first arrived, much less knife-fight.


"Sir!" Corporal Kururugi barked, coming to attention as he saluted the suited man. For all that he wasn't in uniform, the man's presence was enough to announce his dominance over the room. "Corporal Kururugi, reporting as ordered, Sir!"


"Take a seat, Corporal," the inspector replied, his voice coolly melodic with an accent Corporal Kururugi had never heard before. "I will deal with you shortly."


Then, as Corporal Kururugi negotiated his heavy pack down to the floor and gingerly sat down in the finely cushioned chairs, desperate to not hurt the leather upholstery, Inspector Garcia turned to the brace of policemen, who remained poised like unlovely statues save for their eyes, which had fixed on the Bureau man.


"Kindly pass my regards and thanks onto Colonel Prescott for me, gentleman," Garcia began, "and reassure him that I will not forget his name when I next report in. I will, of course, be anticipating the friendly cooperation and hospitality of your counterparts in the Navy this evening. Your office will make the necessary arrangements, I am sure."


"Yes, Sir!" came the crisp reply in two-part harmony.


"Wonderful!" Said the inspector with a genial smile that somehow contrived to only make his words all the more menacing as he dismissed the men with a nod. "Carry on then."


Corporal Kururugi could only watch in amazement as the two redcaps, clear Britannians and hardened fighters both, almost fell over themselves to acknowledge the Inspector's orders and to awkwardly mumble the requisite pleasantries as they beat a hasty retreat out and away.


As the door to the conference room closed behind the MPs, the Inspector stood up from his chair and stretched with a theatrical yawn, the brooding aura of potent menace immediately dissipating at the casual motion.


"Finally!" Inspector Garcia exclaimed with a sudden, almost boyish burst of energy as he circled the table, stopping beside Corporal Kururugi's chair. "I thought they would never leave! Corporal Kururugi, eh? I'm Nelson, or Inspector Garcia in public. It's very good to meet you!"


He extended a hand, which Corporal Kururugi shook automatically, a mechanical smile hoisted up on his face as he struggled for the correct reaction. "It's… good to meet you too, Sir. I hope to be of service to you."


"None of that formality," Inspect- Nelson insisted with a dismissive wave. "Nelson, please. I'm no military man, nor am I some Britannian blueblood who takes offense at familiarity, Corporal. In fact, I'm an Honorary Citizen of our glorious Empire, just as you are, so there's no need to stand on ceremony."


Corporal Kururugi blinked.


Sure you are, he thought dismissively, which is why you just gave an order to a pair of Brit redcaps with the full expectation that it would be obeyed.


Still, I suppose it doesn't matter who he is; all that matters is that he's in charge and I've been ordered to assist and obey him.


"As you say, Sir," Corporal Kururugi said agreeably. "I look forward to assisting you with your business here in Area 11."


"...Please, Corporal Kururugi, call me Nelson," Inspector Garcia insisted, before smiling and adding, "I am far too young and handsome to be called sir! The day people start 'sirring' me is the day I know I have been trapped behind a desk at last!"


The man's smile was infectious, and Corporal Kururugi found himself automatically returning it. Whatever doubts he might have about the idea that he and Inspector Garcia were on the same social level were swiftly being eroded in the face of that apparently sincere charm. Some part of him that had been tightly clenched since Christmas had begun to relax without him noticing it.


"As you say, Nelson," Corporal Kururugi replied, deadpan but with a ghost of a younger Suzaku's humor, and felt his nascent smile broaden as Nelson chuckled warmly in response. "So… Sorry for asking, but you really are an Honorary Britannian too…? I mean," he gestured vaguely at the inspector's tailored suit, "begging your pardon, but I don't think I've seen many Honoraries wearing Schulster Row."


"Ah, you have a good eye, Corporal!" Inspector Garcia exclaimed, straightening his lapels. "And to answer your question, yes, I am an Honorary Citizen of the Empire."


He paused, clearly anticipating some sort of reaction, but Corporal Kururugi kept quiet. What would be the point in mentioning how life for Honorary Britannians in Area 11 was scarcely better than it was for their recalcitrant Number cousins?


Clearly, his silence had spoken loudly enough, as a hint of strain entered the older man's smile. "Ah, well… I understand that things are still quite rough here in the New Areas, and in Area 11 in particular, but these things take time, Corporal. Don't worry, soon you and your fellow Honorary Citizens of Eleven heritage will enjoy the same quality of life as we do in the more civilized Areas. Why, Area 9, New Mann, was only proclaimed seventeen years ago, and already the Honorary Citizens there enjoy the same privileges as we from the Old Areas, if not the Heartland."


He's right, Kururugi told himself, it takes time for the system to work. If I can just get my people to put down their weapons and give the Britannians some time, I'm sure they'll see the wisdom of it soon enough. Area 11 is too valuable to ever be independent, but its Sakuradite makes it too important to neglect. If the fools would stop running around and getting people caught up in dreams, surely they'd all understand it!


Area 9 had a population of fifteen million after they were conquered by the Britannians, Suzaku whispered from his cloister, and Japan had over a hundred and twenty million citizens. Area 9 didn't offer any significant resistance after they were taken over too, I remember that from Instructor Tohdoh's lessons. Japan hasn't known peace in a decade. If it took the Empire almost two decades to handle a complacent population an eighth the size of ours, how long will the Elevens have to wait?


That's where we come in, Kururugi reminded himself. If our people want to fight, we should fight for the Empire, so they will understand what valuable contributions we can make.


"I'm certain that you're right, Inspector," Corporal Kururugi said out loud, slamming the mental door on Suzaku. "Anyway, I've been commanded to give you all the help I can offer, so… How can I help you?"


"To business, eh?" Inspector Garcia returned to his chair and took his seat again. "You're a keen one. I like it! Very well, Corporal, if you're going to be my native guide as well as my translator, let's see what you know."


I wonder if this was all some extended trick, to see if I had any personal affinity or connections with the insurgents? Corporal Kururugi turned the thought around in his mind for a moment, before discarding it. No, that's stupid. Why would they bother with such a convoluted plan when the redcaps would have happily beaten a confession out of me? So, if he's not trying to entrap me, I wonder what it is he wants to hear?


"For starters," Inspector Garcia began, fidgeting with his cuffs for a moment and loosening his tie before leaning in over the table, eyes alight. "Tell me… what do you know about Yokohama?"


As Corporal Kururugi began to talk, regurgitating everything he had ever heard about the vast port city and the naval base to its south at Yokosuka, he was gratified to see that Inspector Garcia was listening to him. He was paying attention, and not just the minimal consideration of bored officers or the sullen wariness of beaten soldiers, but close attention. The inspector never looked away from him and never looked bored, but nodded attentively as Corporal Kururugi added detail after half-remembered detail, jotting down notes on a pad every now and again.


The sensation of someone voluntarily heeding his words and listening to him scratched another itch deep inside Corporal Kururugi, inside Suzaku, just as their friendly conversation had. And over the course of the next two hours, he told Inspector Nelson Dutra Garcia everything he could about Yokohama, Area 11, and the fight to once and for all put an end to the intransigent Number resistance in the eastern gem in Britannia's crown.


JUNE 22, 2016 ATB
POLICE STATION, FUNAKOSHICHO WARD, PORT YOKOSUKA IMPERIAL NAVAL BASE
1630


"Thank you very much for your time, Mister Eisaku," Inspector Garcia said as he flipped his notebook closed. "My partner and I will pay this mushroom farm you've brought to our attention a visit very soon."


From his seat at the table next to Inspector Garcia, Corporal Kururugi kept his expression blankly emotionless. There was, he reasoned, no point in giving the criminal seated across from them any cause to believe that his offenses had been forgotten or forgiven.


Just because he's willing to throw his former friends under the bus to save his skin doesn't make him a law-abiding citizen again. Corporal Kururugi felt his jaw clench at the thought and tried not to glare too openly at the informant. Transactional loyalty is no loyalty at all.


"Just think," the police inspector added with a friendly enthusiasm Corporal Kururugi felt was wasted on the pathetic wretch, "if we recover any of the stolen property or catch the perpetrators at their stash spot, you could be a free man again by this time next week!"


"Ah…" The informant sagged slightly. "So… You won't be letting me go, then?"


Corporal Kururugi glowered at the fool until he quickly added "Inspector?"


The corporal hadn't been brought into this interrogation to intimidate the witness; he had taken that particular responsibility on his own initiative. While he was officially in attendance as the official translator, this particular informant spoke Britannian fluently, rendering his presence redundant. All the same, Nelson claimed to value his perspective and insisted that he attend all interrogations, and dutifully Kururugi had complied.


"I am afraid not," Inspector Garcia replied, shooting a quelling look at Corporal Kururugi. "While I have complete confidence in the information you have provided, I will of course need to keep you in custody until I can act on it. Way of the world, I fear."


Somehow, the Eleven managed to sag even further in his straight-backed chair, prompting the inspector to hastily add, "Think of it this way; if your information proves useful, your reward will come that much sooner if I know where to find you."


It was difficult for Corporal Kururugi to hide his scorn at the softhearted display; only his habitual deference to authority allowed him to suppress his instinctive sneer.


He's far too soft on them, the corporal thought, not for the first time. Always the soft touch. Always babying them and rarely pressuring them. And never allowing even a little bit of persuasion… And yet, he was forced to conclude, again, he gets results. And he's in charge.


The middle-aged Number found the temerity to look back up at the inspector. "...My reward?"


"What," Inspector Garcia asked, "did you think I would be so ingracious as to not compensate you for your time and your information beyond restoring your freedom?"


Judging by the Elevenese snitch's expression of wide-eyed shock, he would have counted himself extremely lucky to leave the police station under his own power with all of his fingers unbroken.


"No, my friend," Inspector Garcia continued expansively, "I will see to it that, if we recover the stolen shipment, you will be rewarded appropriately. A finder's fee is the traditional expression of gratitude for the restoration of missing property, after all!"


And to Corporal Kururugi's disgust, the Eleven practically came to life at the mention of a monetary reward. Further details fled from the man's lips, describing hidden rooms and even offering up the address of a Britannian-owned garage that doubled as a chopshop for a local gang.


Once again, he gets results through dishonorable means. Corporal Kururugi grimaced. It was galling to see what could only be described as a corruption of the system in action, and worse still to know that Inspector Garcia's bribery would almost certainly yield fruit. The results speak for themselves, but… Rewarding any criminal for defying the system, for reaching beyond their place… It's wrong.


Over the month and week he had spent trailing after Inspector Garcia, Corporal Kururugi had seen an unfamiliar side of the Britannian justice system, a softer, more decadent side.


Inspector Garcia never asked for him to administer a corrective beating to a mouthy prisoner, nor had he ever so much as threatened any of his interviewees with such measures. That had been a relief to Corporal Kururugi; extrajudicial violence was against the law and indicated a misunderstanding of how justice should work.


Of course, had the inspector ever bothered to submit the necessary paperwork for active interrogations, Corporal Kururugi wouldn't have had a problem assisting him, once approval was given. One of the earliest of the few lessons Kururugi Genbuu had taught a young Corporal Kururugi was just how effective a good beating could be when it came to convincing someone to change their behavior. So, in the spirit of helpfulness, he had even approached Nelson about it on his own initiative, offering him a copy of the form on the off-chance that he was unfamiliar with the Area Administration's particular paperwork.


The inspector had just thanked him for his offered assistance before waving the proffered form away.


Instead, the inspector just… talked to the men and women who he requested be hauled up from the cells. He asked for their stories, for their recommendations of good local restaurants, for what the names of their children and parents were. He put them at ease, brought smiles to their faces, and somehow parlayed those good feelings into actionable intelligence through a process that remained inexplicable to Corporal Kururugi, even though he had seen it over and over.


Somehow, Inspector Garcia could just charm the details of criminal operations and the personalities of the crooks behind them out of the mouths of their imprisoned associates. Even through Corporal Kururugi's translation, which he kept completely faithful to the inspector's word and intent, the man was able to work his magic.


And whenever his charm wasn't able to fully extract all the details, Inspector Garcia would resort to bribery. He never called it as such, always dressing it up as rewards or incentives, but Corporal Kururugi knew what he was seeing.


And yet, Suzaku noted as he stood beside Inspector Garcia at the gate to the farm, leaning against the boundary fence as they watched the police officers lead a line of shackled Numbers from the main building of the mushroom farm, he got results. Again.


"Inspector?" Corporal Kururugi asked after the coffle made its way to the truck that would haul them back to the police station, "if you don't mind my curiosity, why are you bothering yourself with all of this… petty small-time crime?"


"Because I'm part of His Imperial Majesty's police force, Corporal," Inspector Garcia murmured, watching as the prisoners were loaded into the armored truck one by one. "It's my job to track down and detain those responsible for acts against the Empire."


"Yes, of course," Corporal Kururugi agreed with a quick nod, "but that's… Not really what I meant. I mean, you're supposed to be some sort of famous rebel hunter and an expert at dealing with bandits, but you've spent the last month here in Yokohama just going after… small fry stuff. And… it's not like there aren't bigger problems going on around here, work that's more fitting your talents..."


Seeing a trace of disappointment cross the foreign Honorary Britannian's face, he hastily added, "not that it isn't important to deal with petty criminals; all crime must be rigorously prosecuted, of course! It just seems like the local police should be handling this sort of thing, so you can focus on dealing with the insurgents!"


"Oh, but I am," Inspector Garcia replied, smiling now that he had the chance to indulge himself by explaining something. "So, let me ask you, Corporal… What was the stolen property that led me to this farm?"


"One of the trucks that transports fuel out to the stations went missing, right?" Corporal Kururugi frowned, trying to remember the details. "A tanker full of diesel, if I'm remembering correctly."


"Right," Inspector Garcia nodded. "Someone slid behind the wheel and drove the truck off the yard, tank and all. And they drove it to this farm."


"...I'm not seeing the connection to terrorism, Nelson," Corporal Kururugi admitted, irritated by his failure. "They stole some fuel; fuel's expensive, though. They were probably going to siphon the tank off into multiple containers and sell it to their friends." Corporal Kururugi frowned. "What even uses diesel, though? Just trucks, right?"


"Farm equipment too. But yes, the resale idea is entirely possible," Inspector Garcia acknowledged with a nod. "And it's entirely possible that the tanker truck would simply be processed through that chopshop and resold once all identifying markers were removed. Perhaps the crooks running the ring would have even found the balls to sell our truck back to us!"


The inspector laughed at the theoretical audacity of the thieves and Corporal Kururugi dutifully chuckled along in response.


"However," continued Inspector Garcia after the moment of ritual amusement passed, "the other possibility is that the thieves would have sold the truck and its fuel to an insurgent group. It's even possible that some of those even now being loaded onto the wagon as we speak are actually more rebel than criminal, although that distinction is often meaningless. In which case, that truckload of diesel could be a formidable weapon, especially when combined with another ingredient this mushroom farm has in abundance?"


He trailed off, his tone turning the statement into a leading question, clearly testing Corporal Kururugi's knowledge. To his immense frustration, Kururugi still couldn't quite figure out where the inspector was headed. "I'm sorry, Sir. I don't understand."


"Nelson, man, Nelson!" Inspector Garcia reminded him, before sighing. "Not one for chemistry are you, Corporal?"


"I wouldn't know," Corporal Kururugi said apologetically. "I never quite got that far before… Well, before things changed and my instructor went away."


"Ah." Inspector Garcia nodded and sighed again. This time, the exhalation sounded like it came from an older man, a man who had years stacked on his shoulders. "I'm sorry, I forgot. You are just so competent, Corporal, that it's difficult to remember that you are only fifteen."


I should still be in school, not in the military, Suzaku agreed. If only things were different… If only Lelouch had been able to somehow negotiate peace, or if Lelouch had been appointed the Viceregal-Governor…


"Actually, Sir," he corrected, "I'm sixteen now. My birthday was a few weeks ago, on the tenth."


"Ah, yes," the Inspector's expression grew tight across his face. "My apologies, Corporal."


"...Don't worry about it, Sir," Corporal Kururugi replied, at a loss for how else to reply. "But, can you tell me what you were getting at with the diesel, though?"


"Certainly, Corporal." Inspector Garcia favored him with another smile, commending him for his focus or perhaps simply happy with the change in topic. "Simply put, the farm has an abundance of fertilizer, and in particular a stockpile of ammonium nitrate. It's already a very dangerous substance, prone to detonation when mishandled or stored incorrectly. Combined with diesel, however, the fertilizer is highly explosive."


"So that's why we're here," Corporal Kururugi breathed, in awe all over again with the inspector's results. "You realized that they were making a bomb here!"


"I considered it a possibility," Inspector Garcia gently corrected. "Or perhaps they were selling materials that could be used to make improvised explosives for their guerrilla friends. Fertilizer bombs are hardly a revolutionary technology, and I'm sure that many in the local insurgent groups know how to put something worrying together. If the criminals resold the truck, perhaps the insurgents would have even driven our own truck back onto the yard before flicking the switch."


"I understand," Corporal Kururugi nodded along, finally getting the connections. "The rebels do business with the criminals; it's how they get money, materials, and access. Sometimes, they're even the same people. By cleaning up the local criminal groups who steal from His Majesty or from regular Britannians, you're cutting off the local rebels from those citizens!"


"That's right," Nelson grinned at him, clearly pleased. "Trying to hunt down each individual insurgent is a fool's game; you'll always miss some. But, if you cut down on their ability to arm themselves and attack anything important, you can render the actual fighters practically impotent."


"And once you manage that, you can just start detaining everybody connected to those you picked up in the sweeps," Corporal Kururugi continued. "You can rip out the criminal networks and in the process tear the rebels out of the community!"


"Precisely!"


This is so much better than the filtration camps! Corporal Kururugi felt almost drunk on the knowledge. This was a better way! A way to deal with the malcontents that poisoned all of the good people around them without having to kill all of the civilians. Of course, Inspector Garcia is still being needlessly nice to the criminals – I'm sure they'd talk just as readily after some rigorous interrogation. It's not like anyone would care, after all. Nobody cares about criminals and rebels. My people will thank me for ridding them of such parasites!


"So," Corporal Kururugi pressed, fascinated by his new discovery, "is this what you were doing against the ungrateful rebels back in your own area? Back in New Wales? Deprive them of the support of the criminal element and then rolling up their social networks?"


"At times," Inspector Garcia replied with a vague hand gesture. "That's almost in the rearview mirror these days, back at home. The work of the previous generation, of my predecessors. Most of the remaining guerrillas have been driven back into the jungle, up into the highlands and the mountains. They're still out there, squatting in the mud and the muck and the mosquitos, but far away from the Settlements, where the people who matter live."


"It must be nice," Suzaku said, "to have all of the violence so far away from everybody's homes… To have all of the rebels separated out from the innocents…"


"It does make the cleanup easier, whenever we do find one of their Maroon communities," agreed Inspector Garcia. "Sadly though, we have yet to fully push all of the violence out into the countryside. There are still plenty of criminal gangs operating in the favelas, and plenty of angry young people who go on individual rampages. They are pathetic, lashing out without any hope of truly achieving anything, but they are a persistent nuisance. I am sorry to say that we have yet to become a worthy Area, like those of the Homeland."


Corporal Kururugi felt a great rush of respect for the inspector. The man was a tireless warrior, striving towards a worthy goal; despite his own people's stubbornness, he and those before him had managed to find a place within the Britannian hierarchy and had found purposes worthy of respect, even from their overlords.


He wondered if he was seeing his future incarnate before him.


"Someday, Nelson," Corporal Kururugi said, entirely certain in his assurance, "I am sure you will make your people Britannian in every way that matters."


"Hopefully," Nelson responded, "and hopefully, you will convince your people of the wisdom of extending their submission to Britannia into their hearts and minds. If any Honorary of this Area can accomplish it, I suspect it might be you, Kururugi."


At the inspector's knowing look, Corporal Kururugi felt his heart sink all the way down to his boots. "So… You know, I take it? Sir?"


"Nelson," Inspector Garcia gently reminded him, "just Nelson. And of course I know. You didn't bother to change your personal name, much less your surname. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who you are."


"Then…" Suzaku gulped, "do they know? I mean… About…"


If they know that I'm the son of the last Prime Minister of Japan, why are they letting me walk around free? Unless… do they also know that I am the reason why the Japanese surrendered so soon…?


"As far as I know, they do not," Inspector Garcia asserted firmly. "The Britannians are many things, Corporal, but subtle is not one of them. I am fairly confident that, had they known that Kururugi Genbuu's only son had enlisted in an Honorary Legion, they would be trumpeting the news from every rooftop."


Suzaku couldn't help but agree. The Britannians were anything but subtle; one only needed to look upon the ever-climbing towers of the Settlement to realize that their culture was one of great dramatic gestures and flashy exhortations to conquer new domains.


"But… How can they not know?" He hated how plaintive the question sounded, but he had lived under the shadow of this particular sword for almost a year and a half, since his enlistment. Every day, he had dreaded discovery just as he had secretly longed for it. "I mean…" he continued, "I've never hidden my background, not really… I just never really brought it up. How can they not know who I am? I put my name down on the form when I took up the Oath."


"It's quite simple, Corporal," Inspector Garcia sighed. "They misspelled your name. Someone misspelled your name in the official files when they were entering the data from your enlistment papers, and nobody has noticed the error as of yet."


"That's…" Corporal Kururugi didn't know quite how to respond to such a mundane explanation.


That was it? That was all? He raged in the confines of his head. Weeks and months of wondering when the axe would fall, when the DIS would haul me away, and I never had to worry because of a random clerical error?!


A shudder passed through him as Suzaku suddenly realized that the day of his discovery had, in fact, finally come. After all, no matter how pleasant Inspector Garcia was, no matter how willing to answer questions and explain himself Nelson could be, he was still a police officer.


"...Are you going to tell them?" Suzaku didn't know what answer he was hoping to hear. "About who my father was?"


"...I think you're a good soldier, Corporal Kururugi," Nelson said after a moment of silent contemplation, "and I think that you will do great things for the Empire. I don't think that depriving the Empire of a good soldier out of a fit of unjustified paranoia serves His Majesty's interests. And besides," he smiled, "who am I to second guess the fine employees of the local Administration?"


I should protest against this, Corporal Kururugi knew. Purposefully hiding a fugitive from the Security Services is a crime, and even though I don't know if I was ever listed as a fugitive, if DIS or any of the other spooks knew I was still alive, surely they would want me. I should turn myself in, now that I know they aren't aware of me.


But what about the plan? Suzaku asked. If I get taken away or killed by the police, I won't be able to help my people build enough strength and respect to find security within the system. We will never be anything more than disposable, second-class citizens. My father was the one who doomed Japan, so don't I have a responsibility to give my people the best lives possible?


And besides, his inner voice added, my orders told me to do whatever Inspector Garcia decided. He's decided to conceal my identity, so who am I to go against him?


"Thank you, Inspector Garcia," Corporal Kururugi finally got out. "I'll keep your words in mind."


"I'm sure you will, Corporal," Inspector Garcia said with a nod, turning back to the farm, where a second team of police officers was inventorying the contents of the storage sheds and outbuildings. "In fact-"


Before the inspector could finish his thought, he was cut off by the shrill wailing of his phone, a sound that Corporal Kururugi had come to detest over the last five weeks. When he had asked Inspector Garcia why he had chosen such an offensive ringtone, the Seven Honorary had explained that he'd wanted a ringtone that was utterly impossible to ignore. The annoyance, it appeared, was both shared and entirely intentional.


"Ah, duty calls," Nelson quipped as he slid the phone open and put the mobile to his ear. "Inspector Garcia here."


The other half of the conversation was almost inaudible to Corporal Kururugi, but the news conveyed by the urgent murmurs was clearly dire. All sense of levity fled from Inspector Garcia, and it was very clearly Inspector Garcia once again, no longer Nelson.


"At 605 Cartwright?" Inspector Garcia confirmed, turning on his heel and beckoning to Corporal Kururugi as he started to briskly walk back to the car they had borrowed from the Navy's motor pool. "Fine. Tell whoever gets there first to set up a perimeter and to keep everybody there. Honoraries, Numbers, Britannians, whoever – we need witness statements, and I don't care what else they had planned for the evening."


Further inaudible murmurs issued from the phone as Corporal Kururugi clambered into the driver's seat, Inspector Garcia circling around to the passenger side door.


"If he can find a tarp or some sheeting, he can cover the body, if he thinks it will help keep the civilians calm," Inspector Garcia allowed, clearly in response to some query. "Otherwise, no. Nobody should touch the body. Don't let the medics haul it away; she's already dead, there's no point."


Corporal Kururugi turned the key and the car's electric motor hummed to life.


"Fine," Inspector Garcia said, "I'll be there in…" He covered the phone's speaker. "How long will it take to get to the intersection of Cartwright and Margaret? It's just south of the main gate."


"Twenty minutes," Corporal Kururugi replied immediately, easing the car onto the road, "assuming traffic's not too bad."


"Throw on the sirens," Inspector Garcia directed, before uncovering the phone. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Don't let anybody leave, don't let anybody touch the body or anything around it. And tell whoever takes charge of the scene to get everybody inside, preferably behind a thick wall. Garcia out."


The phone slid shut with a clack, and Inspector Garcia sagged back into his chair. From the corner of his eye, Corporal Kururugi saw him run a hand along the scar puckering his cheek, a gesture he had learned the older man used as a soothing motion when he was stressed.


After a quiet moment, the police inspector collected himself and sat upright in the passenger seat. "Well," he sighed, "it seems like our mysterious sniper is back at it again."


"Damn them," Corporal Kururugi muttered, his good mood rapidly descending into black anger. "I guess it was too much to hope that they'd been swept up with the gangs or whatever."


"Too much to hope for indeed," Inspector Garcia agreed with bleak humor. "Personally, I doubt that our friend the Sniper has any association with the gangs. Everything about the attacks screams 'lone gunman', except for his ability to flee the scene without anybody even noticing their departure."


The killings had begun a week before the inspector had arrived in Yokohama with Corporal Kururugi in tow. Despite a total lack of any suspects or leads, it was a practical certainty that the same person or group was behind all of the murders to date; each had been carried out with a high-powered rifle with sufficient strength to punch cleanly through the victim and often the wall behind them, and each victim had seemingly been shot at great range, judging by the complete lack of any sightings of the shooter.


"They're coming closer and closer together," Corporal Kururugi remarked as the car skidded around a corner, siren blaring, channeling his frustration through the pedal under his boot. "At first it was once a week, but the last one was only three days ago."


"The cool-down time is shortening," nodded Inspector Garcia. "Although it's probably too early to guess why. Perhaps they want more blood, perhaps they have a quota they need to hit before a certain time. Maybe they're just frustrated with the lack of any significant reaction on our part."


"They're not the only ones," Corporal Kururugi groused. While he was well aware that Inspector Garcia had been alluding to the media blackout regarding the sniper attacks, or what the police had taken to calling the Yokohama Sniper Attacks, he was more frustrated by the lack of any retaliation.


But who would we be retaliating against?


The thought was just as galling now as it had ever been, but the point remained. There was no sign that the local Numbers were concealing the elusive marksman in their ghettos, nor had any of the informers among the ranks of the Honorary Britannians overheard any gossip about any disgruntled janitors getting their hands on a rifle or whatever.


And if the DIS or the IBI have any Britannians under suspicion, they're not telling us anything about it.


"Have patience, Corporal," Inspector Garcia said encouragingly. "Sooner or later, they will slip up. Someone will see something or they will get sloppy, and then it will only be a matter of time before justice is served."


"You're right, Inspector," Corporal Kururugi acknowledged, "but how many innocent people will they kill before that happens?"


And, Suzaku added, how many of our people will pay the price when the retaliatory executions are mandated? Doesn't this terrorist understand what will happen? Don't they know what blood price the Britannians will demand? If only they would just… Just wait for me to get the system to work for the betterment of us all, instead of this… this stupidity!


Inspector Garcia had no response, and they drove the rest of the way to the scene of the Yokohama Sniper's latest attack in silence.


JUNE 23, 2016 ATB
POLICE STATION, FUNAKOSHICHO WARD, PORT YOKOSUKA IMPERIAL NAVAL BASE
1020


On the other side of the large one-way window, Corporal Kururugi was putting on a very credible performance of a reasonable officer willing to make a deal. It was abundantly clear, at least to Nelson Garcia, that it was not a role that came naturally to the young man. While Corporal Kururugi had been blessed with a deceptively open face and a veneer of friendliness, he had a troubling tendency to resort to forceful coercion at the drop of a hat whenever his inflexible inner world was challenged in the slightest.


But if I can convince him that simply beating down all of your challengers isn't the end-all to maintaining order, he has such potential…


And Area 11 desperately needs men who are more than just hammers.


Nelson sighed and returned to his own paperwork, periodically looking up to check in on the young corporal's progress. His own duties had kept him constantly busy since he had arrived in Area 11 five weeks ago and he couldn't spare the time to truly give the younger Honorary the quality instruction he needed, so Nelson had been forced to squeeze lessons into any available scrap of time, like now.


And with this 'Yokohama Sniper' business kicking off, I doubt my availability will improve in the foreseeable future.


It was a deeply frustrating situation; by prioritizing Corporal Kururugi's training as a beginner counter-insurgency specialist, Nelson would by necessity be sacrificing his own time-sensitive workload, but conversely emphasizing the backlog of old business would undercut Corporal Kururugi's development, leaving him just as focused on short-term gains as seemingly everybody else in this cursed Area. For a man who prided himself on competency and delivering quality work that could stand the test of time, both choices seemed like bad options.


Which, he concluded with a sip of bitter coffee, the Yokosuka station's brew no better than that offered by the Chuo outpost, is just Area 11 in a nutshell, isn't it?


In all of his time in His Majesty's service, Nelson Dutra Garcia had never had the misfortune to set foot in such a poorly administered Area as Area 11. Worse, the only time he had ever encountered such poor governance before had been at the sub-prefectural level, typically when the local intendant succumbed to flattery or gifts from the counts, earls, or estate-holding barons of his intendancy. In those cases, when the usual corruption had grown into an active detriment to the function of the state, it was an easy matter of replacing the intendant.


But who had the authority to remove a viceregal-governor? The hint was in the name: Such men ruled with viceregal power and reigned directly in His Majesty's name. Consequently, only the Emperor or his Chancellor could remove viceroys from their offices.


And considering that Area 11's viceregal-governor is fifth in line to the throne and liable to throw his support behind the Chancellor, the only way His Highness will be removed is in the course of a major power struggle inside the Imperial Household, something the current Emperor took considerable pains to ensure would not happen given his own rise to the Throne.


Which meant Area 11 was stuck with the leadership of Clovis la Britannia, the utmost source of almost all of its current woes.


Profoundly frustrating didn't even begin to cover Nelson's thoughts on the matter.


Every Area had its problems. For example, the hinterlands of Areas 5 and 6 were ravaged by Catholic and Gracchite insurgencies and by the endlessly inventive narco gangs who somehow managed to smuggle their wares into the EU, the Heartland, and even the Homeland itself.


Area 7 likewise had remnant Papist rebels squatting among the maroon communities of the jungles, not to mention its own criminal gangs among the destitute urban Number populations.


Area 8 was a smuggler's paradise, and keeping order on its far-flung islands was a Sisyphean task.


Areas 9, 10, and 12 had rebel movements as well, discontented Numbers backed by foreign sponsors; New Zealander and Papuan rebels backed by the nominally neutral Kingdom of Australia in Area 9, a swarm of Indochinese groups taking money from the Chinese whenever they weren't launching raids into Federation territory, and the same damned Catholics in Area 12 backed by the papal wealth from the far away EU.


None of these Areas had problems on the same scale as Area 11, however, and none were so crippled by deep-seated problems in the Administration itself. Indeed, in Nelson's opinion, the Administration was its own worst enemy.


It was a baffling situation: By dint of its massive Sakuradite lodes, Area 11 was the most important overseas possession in the Britannian Empire, the gem in the crown of the New Areas. Its proximity to both of the other Great Powers should have only accentuated the importance of good administration in the face of the circling Chinese and Europeans.


Perhaps it was that natural prosperity and proximity to the corrupting factor of foreigners, far from the eyes of Pendragon, that had attracted the worst of Britannia to the Area? Idealogues, lickspittles, and the brazenly corrupt… All flourishing at the expense of every part of the Area not directly involved in the Sakuradite industry.


In most Areas, his own homeland included, the Honorary Citizen system was used to give the cream of the Numbers, local elites and promising prospects, a stake in the Empire. In Area 11, it was a cruel parody, where the newly fledged Honorary Britannians were treated worse than the Numbers of most other Areas.


In regards to the Numbers themselves, the Empire had historically worked to steadily integrate Number populations into itself over time. When the Crown had first flown from the Isles to the Homeland, a general proclamation of emancipation in exchange for service had simultaneously replenished the depleted ranks of the Royal Army and had broken the back of the rival power bloc of the planter aristocracy. Then, the Empire had set to the task of rooting out any foes within its borders with ruthless expediency, killing entire tribes of natives to the last adult man and distributing the women and children to guardians willing to enlighten and elevate those fortunates to a Britannian level of understanding.


Those early years had imparted key lessons on dealing with subjugated populations to the Imperial Family. Bread had to be offered as well as the stick, and stinting on either only diminished the total returns. Rebellion had to be punished harshly, as it was when the Quebecois and Acadians had risen, but cooperation had to be rewarded as well, as the Cherokee had been rewarded en masse with Honorary Citizenship.


Which made the treatment of the Elevens all the more baffling to Inspector Garcia. Herding the rump urban populations into the shattered districts and walling them off with only the most basic of services available for use as unskilled labor pools, forcing rural populations onto estate villages or into company towns, deliberately leaving the Numbers uneducated and unable to participate in the economy beyond the most base level, and practicing collective punishment on a scale not seen since the end of the last Plains War against the Comanche Lords…


It's almost as if the Viceregal-Governor and his advisors want the Elevens to rebel. Honestly, if I were deliberately trying to set the conditions to make Number rebellion all but inevitable, I'd be hard-pressed to come up with something better than the official policy of Area 11…


Which, in a roundabout way, led Inspector Garcia to the matter of the so-called "Yokohama Sniper."


So far, the Sniper had claimed seven victims, taking their first Britannian only the day before, while he and Corporal Kururugi had been out overseeing the bust at the mushroom farm. Nelson had little doubt that the death toll would be significantly higher by the time the Sniper was brought down; past experience coupled with the complete lack of any leads so far told him as much.


It was a bit early in the investigation to come to conclusions, but the inspector had already begun to put together a profile based on the little evidence he had available.


Until yesterday, all of the victims had been Honorary Britannians, but their ages and gender had varied greatly. None of the victims had been killed by accident; each had been shot through the neck or the head. Several had been shot outside of charging stations, while two had been shot coming out of restaurants or stores. Of the victims, only one was a soldier or policeman, as one of the Honorary victims had been an off-duty policeman. The sole Britannian victim had been a sailor's wife.


All of the attacks had occurred in either the districts of the Yokohama Settlement zoned for Honorary Citizens, or in close proximity to Yokosuka Naval Base. The attacks took place at all hours of the day, with little preference for morning, afternoon, or evening, but so far none had taken place at night.


The same rifle had been used in each attack, as far as the forensics team could determine, based on their analysis of the rounds recovered from the scene of the last three attacks. The Sniper was apparently using either R-11M, the standard Army designated squad marksman rifle, or a similar civilian model with the same round.


Which is interesting, because an R-11M isn't exactly a small weapon, nor one built to be concealed. Anybody carrying one would be very obviously armed.


"Taken together," the conclusion to the report Nelson was finishing began, "it is almost certain that the Yokohama Sniper is an Eleven or a small group of Elevens engaged in an individual rampage against opportunistic targets. While a Britannian malcontent could execute a similar series of attacks on Honorary Citizens, motivated by similar factors as the Christmas Incident, the presence of a Britannian in Honorary districts populated predominantly by ethnic Elevens would have been noticed. The death of Mrs. Nora Evans further reduces the chances of a Britannian culprit."


And this is the reason why the Numbers aren't simply hammered into submission in a well run Area, Nelson thought, looking up from the keyboard to check on Corporal Kururugi again. The subject of the interrogation was scribbling away and chatting with the corporal, apparently on friendly terms. While the subject was clearly wary, he was still freely cooperating. We want them to fear us, not hate us. When they hate us, when they feel they have nothing to lose…


He glanced back over at the pile of incident reports. Six dead Honorary Citizens so far and one dead Britannian. A paltry butcher's bill so far, compared to the only recently suppressed rural rebellion in Niigata Prefecture but made far more ominous by its proximity to the second largest Settlement in Area 11.


When Numbers feel like they have nothing to lose, it's only a matter of time before rebellion breaks out. Even if we do catch this sniper, ten more will be ready to rise in his place. This isn't an isolated incident; it's a sign of the times.


It was painfully clear to Inspector Nelson Garcia, Imperial Bureau of Investigation, that only through a change of leadership in the Area paired with a thorough-going reform of its Administration could a Number rebellion, likely aided and abetted by dissident Honorary Citizens, be averted.


It was equally clear that no such change would be made. So long as the Purist Faction held sway over Prince Clovis, no reform would come. So long as Prince Clovis backed Prince Schneizel as the next true emperor, once Prince Odysseus stepped back as everybody expected, the Third Prince would retain his viceroyalty.


In that light, his duty was clear. The line had to be held until Prince Schniezel took the throne, until the Empire got the new and vigorous Emperor it deserved. As a genius and a statesman, surely the current Second Prince would understand the necessity for reform, and once Prince Clovis's support was no longer needed, he would clean house in Area 11. Until then, it was the duty of every loyal citizen and subject of the Empire, Britannian and Honorary alike, to keep the machine of state functional.


Hence his own service.


Hence his training of Corporal Kururugi.


Hence his eagerness to bring this case and all others like it to a rapid close.


The Empire had to hold until the next generation could take the mantle of leadership. Repeating the destruction of the Emblem of Blood could not be allowed, nor could dissension in the face of the Empire's many enemies, within and without.


Because if the Empire fractures, came the grim thought, it won't be the Britannians who see the worst of it. It will be the Honorary Citizens who will be caught up in the jaws of internecine war and ground to dust. Men like me, like Corporal Kururugi… If only the Britannians understood their Empire as well as we do. Perhaps then they wouldn't treat it with such contempt.


JUNE 28, 2016 ATB
ROYAL ELECTRIC REFUEL STATION, KONAN WARD, YOKOHAMA SETTLEMENT
1314


I never should have left Shinjuku.


A bead of sweat rolled down Kanae's cheek as the familiar, panicky refrain passed through her mind for what must have been the fortieth time so far that day. She liked to think that she hadn't made many mistakes in her twenty years of life, but she had surely made up for that surplus of temperance and good sense when she had volunteered to accompany Tanaka Chihiro on her mission to Yokohama.


It hadn't been a carefully considered choice. Obviously it hadn't been a considered choice in the slightest, otherwise she would have stayed back where it was relatively safe in Shinjuku.


And wasn't that a crazy thing to think?


But Kanae had never been able to resist Chihiro's persuasion, not since she'd attended middle school with the other woman back before the Conquest. For all that Chihiro had changed over the years, going from the smiley, happy-go-lucky schoolgirl Kanae could barely remember to… Well, to Chihiro as she was now, she had always been incredibly convincing.


And when Chihiro had stormed back into the hotel, spitting nails after being "sent away" to Yokohama, Kanae had been one of the handful to step up when her leader had asked for volunteers. The fiery passion in Chihiro's eyes had been enough for Kanae to overlook the stench of moonshine on her breath; her call to spread the war against the raping Britannians beyond Shinjuku's walls enough to let her awareness of Tanaka's unpredictable rage slip from her mind at the worst possible moment.


After two months spent in Chihiro's constant company, the shine had well and truly worn off. The drinking, once reserved for nighttime or company, had overtaken her leader, and now Chihiro was almost constantly drunk. The rage, loosely collared at the best of times, was a constant lurking menace.


Away from Shinjuku and the Commander's watchful eyes, Chihiro had gone feral.


And she had dragged Kanae and Sui, the third member of their little trio, down with her.


I never should have left Shinjuku.


Outside, the intersection's traffic signal flashed green, and Kanae mechanically sent the stolen van, full to the brim with hidden modifications and armed militants, trundling forwards. From behind her, the sound of one of those modifications sliding open sent her heart lurching in her chest, but Kanae didn't dare let her spiking adrenaline floor the accelerator or, even better yet, send her scrambling from the van entirely, oncoming traffic be damned.


Any outside observer could be a plainclothes policeman, ready to arrest any apparent Honorary stepping out of line and subject their unfortunate prey to the full rigors of Britannian "justice". Worse yet, any sign of disloyalty to the supine woman stretched across the floor of the van would lead to a brief yet painful existence as an object lesson about the wages of treachery.


Having borne witness to several of Chihiro's previous examples, Kanae almost preferred her chances in the hands of Britannia's dogs.


Ahead of the van, almost at the next intersection, the familiar neon crown of a Royal Electric refuel station glowed. Even though it was far from peak hours, there were still a few cars parked at the charger stations, their ports open and their drivers idling nearby or darting inside to grab a quick snack as their batteries topped off.


Behind Kanae, the distinctive sound of a coilgun's motor whirring to life cut through the sweat- and whiskey-laden air of the van's interior.


Another bead of sweat rolled down Kanae's cheek.


There aren't any police cars at the station, a part of her wailed, the words trapped behind her lips, and we're nowhere close to any Brit outpost!


But they were passing through the streets of the Settlement, down a road that skirted between a Britannian commoner district and one of the more upscale Honorary districts. According to Chihiro's drunken rantings, that made everybody here an enemy, uniformed or not, combatant or not. Either they were a Britannian and damned by virtue of blood, or an Honorary and damned by the oaths they had sworn.


Or they're Japanese and doing their best to work whatever sucky job they can find to make ends meet, just like most of the people back in Shinjuku. Just like me, and just like Chihiro, once upon a time.


Chihiro hadn't mentioned their people during those rants, and Kanae hadn't seen any reason to draw the woman's quicksilver temper her way by bringing herself to her leader's attention.


There hadn't seemed like there was any point to it.


Kanae felt differently now.


Just as the stolen white van came abreast of the refueling station, the car just ahead and to her left began flashing its turn signals. Kanae obligingly slowed down, waving to the other driver to scoot in ahead of her. With her dyed red hair and fake glasses, Kanae must have looked like a Britannian, as the other driver gave her a grateful wave before accelerating forwards, right through the light of the next intersection as it changed from yellow to red.


Kanae slowed to a halt, her heart in her mouth. Any moment now…


As soon as that light turns green, she knew, as soon as we start moving forwards, past that charging station… Another life will end.


She wondered who it would be, whether it would be a Britannian family or a Japanese one that would have an empty spot at their table starting from tonight's dinner and stretching on forever.


I should say something, do something…


The mere thought made her flinch as Kanae imagined Chihiro's furious glare, remembered the wet sound of bones popping out of joints.


Do something! Kanae castigated herself. Say something!


But the words wouldn't come. Her throat had closed up as her hands, wet with sweat, clenched down on the steering wheel. Time seemed to flatten out as Kanae fought for breath. This wasn't what she had signed up to fight for. This wasn't where she wanted to be, who she wanted to be, the getaway driver for a murderer who had dropped the pretense of fighting for anything beyond revenge when her little sister, her last surviving family member, had rejected her by choosing a life of pacifism.


But it was too late to back out. Too late to turn back.


You coward… Kanae cringed, whimpering as she tried to escape her own thoughts, knowing without any doubt that it was true, that she was a coward. Stuck between a devil pocked with burn scars and a sea of terror and pain, she was scared, too scared to do anything to help anybody.


I never should have left Shinjuku…


The light turned green.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 30: A Snipe Hunt, Part 2


(Thank you to Aminta Defender, Sunny, Restestsest, Mitch H., Adronio, WrandmWaffles, Rakkis157, Aemon and MetalDragon for beta-reading and editing this chapter.)


JUNE 30, 2016 ATB
ROYAL ELECTRIC REFUEL STATION, KONAN WARD, YOKOHAMA SETTLEMENT
1326


As he pulled the car up to the cordoned-off recharging station, Corporal Kururugi cut the siren off in mid-wail. For a moment, all he could do was sit in the driver's seat, eyes pressed shut and exhausted. The oppressive summer heat had seemingly conspired with the week's stress, and the young soldier's limbs felt leaden and unresponsive.


He didn't want to step out of the car and onto the scene of yet another seemingly unsolvable crime. It was demoralizing.


Not as demoralizing as filtration work, though, he reminded himself. Besides, I need to keep up with Inspector Garcia!


That exhortation fell flat, however, as Inspector Garcia had yet to make any move to get out of the car either. Dark rings had appeared under his brown eyes, and the normally immaculate counterinsurgency specialist had two days' worth of five o'clock shadow crusting his face.


This was the twenty-seventh Yokohama Sniper attack they had been called to in a week since that first urgent call that had sent them racing away from the farm. Twenty-seven attacks and twenty-nine bodies in only eight days.


It was enough to tire anybody out.


Of the twenty-nine victims to date, only twelve had been Britannians from the Homeland or the Settlements in other Areas. Of those twelve, only four had been soldiers, all of whom had been off-duty when they were shot.


One had been a child, shot while making his way from his mother's parked car to the front door of his elementary school.


And seventeen of my people, Corporal Kururugi thought with a smoldering resentment. Seventeen men and women who were just trying to live their lives, trying to prove to the Empire that we are just as loyal as the Honorary Britannians in any other Area.


With every new body, the pressure from on high to find the culprit had ratcheted up. Worse still, after a month of suppressing the story and thirty-eight bodies so far, the Yokohama Settlement's Municipal Administration and the Commandant of the Yokosuka Naval Base had finally decided that the public had the right to know that a lunatic with a sniper rifle was out in the Settlement somewhere. Predictably, reporters from every major publication in the Area and even a few from periodicals back in the Homeland had descended on Yokohama like camera-wielding sharks.


This had done nothing to reduce the crushing pressure on Inspector Garcia's shoulders, and by proxy, on Corporal Kururugi.


From his seat behind the wheel, he could see a small crowd of the bastards mobbing a beleaguered police lieutenant, his gas mask slung across his chest and his face visible as he tried to field the insatiable questions.


"Better him than us," Inspector Garcia remarked, clearly following Corporal Kururugi's gaze. "We might be able to get some actual work done while he's holding the gutter press at bay."


"I hope you're right, Nelson," Corporal Kururugi said without much hope. "How much do you want to bet that they've already frightened off anybody who might've seen something?"


"I'm not much of a gambler," Inspector Garcia demurred, "it's a bad habit to get into. Either way," he popped open his door, "we won't find any leads sitting here. Up and at them, Corporal."


"As you say, Inspector."


A squad of Honorary Britannian police stood guard around the chargers, but their sergeant waved the inspector and the corporal through. The same squad seemed to have drawn some sort of short straw, that or they were the "usual detail" for standing guard around public crime scenes; Corporal Kururugi recognized the men present from the last two attacks. He tapped his fist against his breastplate to the sergeant, before following Inspector Garcia over to the tarp-covered body.


Inspector Garcia was already kneeling by the corpse, an active recorder sitting next to him. Corporal Kururugi dutifully pulled out a pocket notebook, ready to copy down anything Inspector Garcia wanted in writing or to record his own thoughts.


By now, they had worked out something of a routine.


"Victim was a light-skinned Britannian woman in her late thirties," Inspector Garcia began, flipping the tarp back. "The victim has been identified as Joceline Tennyson by her driver's license and was the wife of Captain Steward Tennyson and mother to Joshua and Alice. The victim was five foot five inches and just over a hundred and fifty pounds. Victim has medium-length auburn hair and was wearing a yellow and white sundress.


"Victim was shot through the neck from behind while recharging her minivan's battery," Inspector Garcia continued, his voice clinical and emotionless. "I am not a medical professional, but judging by the wound and the state of her neck, I think the bullet passed straight through her spinal column before exiting through her throat."


That, Suzaku thought, was a very fair assessment, considering that the "state of her neck" is practically severed.


"After exiting the victim's body, the round continued through the window of her minivan, and…" Inspector Garcia stood back up and squinted through the holed window, "out through the window on the other side of the minivan. Trajectory looks close to flat, but it might be proceeding at a slight uphill angle."


Corporal Kururugi made a note to point this out to the crime scene techs, once they showed up.


"Considering that the round still had sufficient velocity to pass through the minivan and probably on into the recharging station itself after passing through the victim's neck, it seems reasonable to conclude that a high-powered rifle was used for this attack." The inspector scooped the recorder up from the pavement and flipped the tarp back down over the late Mrs. Tennyson. "Unless this was a copycat, the use of a high-powered rifle on a seemingly random housewife indicates that this is another Yokohama Sniper attack."


Corporal Kururugi followed Inspector Garcia past the other chargers and into the recharging station. The two clerks unlucky enough to be on duty at the time were standing awkwardly behind the counter, another Honorary policeman keeping an eye on the pair.


Inspector Garcia ignored all three in favor of the fresh bullet hole in the front window.


"The bullet penetrated the window and," he craned his head up and around, "lodged…" he tilted his head down slightly, "just above the beverage coolers. A height of probably six and a half feet, definitely not more than seven feet. As Mrs. Tennyson was five foot five according to her license, this definitely represents an upward trajectory."


A note of excitement had crept into the Inspector's voice; Corporal Kururugi felt a similar excitement welling up inside. That angle said something very interesting about the shooter's location when he had fired the shot – namely, that the shot had to have been fired from a very low elevation and from a location very close to the target.


"So," Inspector Garcia continued into the recorder, "this shot rules out the idea that the perpetrator is firing from an elevated position, at least in some cases. I will have to check back over the scene records from previous locations, but in this particular instance, the upward trajectory is unmistakable. However, this raises further questions. If the shooter is at or below ground level, how are they escaping notice?


"Corporal," Inspector Garcia said, turning to Kururugi, "please go ask the clerks for their security cameras' recordings. Also, ask if they remember seeing or hearing anything. I doubt they will, but the formalities must be observed."


Corporal Kururugi sketched a salute and ambled over to the clerks, who gazed suspiciously at him. He smiled blandly back at the two Britannians. While they might be full citizens of the Empire and his superiors, he was vested in the borrowed authority of an Inspector of the Imperial Bureau of Investigation, his own Honorary status and Eleven features be damned.


"Where do you keep your cameras' recordings?" He asked, purposefully blunt and enjoying a slight thrill at their clear distaste at his presumption. "Do the street-side cameras record to the same computer or whatever as the ones inside the store?"


"There's only one camera in the store," the older of the two replied, "it's behind the counter, looking over the cash register. There's one camera looking at the chargers, and one focused on the exit."


Corporal Kururugi waited patiently, his bland smile as immovable as granite.


A moment later, the clerk grudgingly added "...Corporal."


"So where're the recordings?" Corporal Kururugi asked, reiterating his question. "Hurry up, I don't have all day."


The younger clerk looked like he was about to say something, looked from Corporal Kururugi to the other uniformed Honorary Britannian standing by and over at the suited Inspector Garcia, and thought better of it.


"They're in the back office," the older clerk said, rising from his stool. "Here, I'll show you."


A few minutes of scanning fast-forwarded footage later, Corporal Kururugi reported back to the Inspector. "Bad news, Inspector. The cameras aren't pointed toward anything off the recharging station's grounds. There's some good footage of Mrs. Tennyson getting hit, and there's a few frames of the clerks cowering behind the counter once the bullet went through the window, but nothing else."


"That," Inspector Garcia frowned, "is unfortunate."


"It is," Corporal Kururugi agreed, "but when I asked that gentleman about other cameras," he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the older clerk, who had returned his place behind the counter, "he said that there's a camera on the traffic light down the street. If the shooter was firing from street level, we might see something."


"Good thinking, Corporal!" The Inspector grinned, the expression boyish on his tired, unshaven face.


"As you say, Inspector," Kururugi agreed, his tone easy and bland.


For a moment, Inspector Garcia stood still and looked off into the distance, clearly mulling over his options. Then, his eyes refocused on Corporal Kururugi and the familiar smile bobbed back into place. "Well, go ahead and help hold the press off, and for God's sake don't say anything they could quote. The forensic lads should be arriving soon to make an official report of the scene and I need to call and get some sergeant assigned to prying that traffic camera footage out of Public Works' sticky hands."


With a smart salute, Corporal Kururugi turned on his heel and started heading for the door, reinvigorated by the sense of progress being made. Before he got more than a few steps away, he heard Inspector Garcia behind him.


"Oh, and Corporal?" Kururugi turned. "Good work, finding an alternative source of footage. Let's hope that it has our Sniper in it, yes?"


"Yes, Inspector!" Corporal Kururugi replied with an answering grin, thrilled by Nelson's approval. "The sooner we can find him, the sooner justice will be done!"


JULY 5, 2016 ATB
POLICE STATION, FUNAKOSHICHO WARD, PORT YOKOSUKA IMPERIAL NAVAL BASE
0637


To the gratified surprise of Corporal Kururugi, it took very little investigation to solve the twin mysteries of the shooter's placement and their amazing ability to escape from the crime scene without detection. With the benefit of hindsight, as he stood in front of Inspector Nelson's desk, he supposed the answer should have been obvious.


Obvious, sure, but there's no way I would've ever come up with it!


"Well done, Corporal," Inspector Garcia murmured as he flipped through frame after grainy frame of traffic camera footage. "Very well spotted."


"It didn't take much…" Corporal Kururugi began before pausing to stifle a yawn. He'd managed to catch a few hours of sleep early in the morning as he'd waited for the labyrinthine police bureaucracy to spit out the information he'd needed. "Just had to spot the pattern."


He had found the first piece of that pattern in the topmost picture of the stack on Nelson's desk. Timestamped seconds after the frame of the recharging station surveillance footage of the bullet smashing through the window, the traffic camera mounted on the stoplight at the nearby intersection had caught a white panel van in mid-turn, its rear oriented directly towards the station.


The van's plates had unfortunately been outside of the frame, the car turned at just the wrong angle, but the vehicle had stood out to Corporal Kururugi when he had first reviewed the footage while Inspector Garcia had immersed himself in the forensic report.


For the first time in his short career as a counter-insurgency agent, Corporal Kururugi Suzaku had a hunch.


Following this hunch, he had filed further requests with the Directorates of Public Works managing several different Settlement wards for any camera footage they possessed near the locations of previous Yokohama Sniper attacks. In most of those cases, the footage of the days of the attacks had no van to be seen. But after hours and hours of searching, Corporal Kururugi had found vans of the same apparent make and model lingering near the scenes of four different attacks throughout the month of June.


And in one of those scenes, Corporal Kururugi found a frame where half the van's license plate had been captured. Between that half of a plate number and the description of the van, and with the increasing pressure of the Prefect of Yokohama and the Commandant of Yokosuka Naval Base behind the investigation, records of a van recently stolen from a landscaping business in Kanagawa turned up with remarkable rapidity.


"That's really all it takes sometimes," Inspector Garcia replied, already reaching for the phone. "Honestly, finding these patterns among the chaos and following up on them, pursuing the niggling little leads down… That's what makes a good investigator, Suzaku."


The Seven Honorary paused mid-dial to shoot Corporal Kururugi a proud smile. "You did very good work this time, Corporal. Very good work indeed."


Jerkily, Corporal Kururugi nodded a reply, trying not to let the sudden spiking pride burst across his face. Thankfully, Inspector Garcia seemed satisfied by that mute response, as he turned his attention back to his call. Corporal Kururugi vaguely listened in as Nelson passed on his discovery to the Naval Base's Commandant and soon to the head of the MP force garrisoned at Yokosuka, but only a fragment of his mind was oriented towards the call.


The rest of his sleepless focus was directed inwards, on that swelling pride and satisfaction.


The long hours spent searching grainy footage, the wheedling negotiations with petty Public Works officials and archivists, that sense of recognition for a job well done made all of it worth it. Inspector Garcia was proud of him, and more than that, was listening to him! The Bureau man put enough stock in his words to immediately put out an all-points bulletin on the stolen van.


It was an almost overwhelmingly-complete vote of confidence. Suzaku found that he wasn't sure how he felt about anybody, especially an authority figure, having such faith in his words, in him, when he had so little faith at times in his own decisions.


But that just goes to show that I need to have more faith in myself, and in the Plan, Corporal Kururugi thought as he dropped into the comfy chair across the desk from Nelson. If I have confidence in Nelson's understanding of how to succeed in Britannia as an Honorary and if he has faith in my ability to deliver the results the Britannians want to see, doesn't that indicate that I'm on the right path and I can act more confidently moving forwards?


He paused and tried to turn that tangled chain of thought over in his head. I really need to get more sleep…


"And that's that," Nelson said jubilantly as the phone rattled down into its cradle. "Every patrolling officer and camera-minder knows that finding this van is the new top priority. The Prefect is activating every officer available and the Commandant is turfing all of the redcaps out of their bunks and onto standby! As soon as we lay eyes on that van, we'll be coming down on them like a pile of bricks!"


"So…" Corporal Kururugi hesitated, "what do we do now? I mean… We can't do much until they find the van, right?"


"Well, you can go find some coffee, first and foremost." Nelson softened the barb with a smile, but nevertheless waved towards the door; with every muscle in his body screaming reluctance, Corporal Kururugi forced himself to his feet. "Neither of us have time for sleep tonight, I'm afraid. So, caffeinate yourself and splash some cold water on your face, whatever you need to get some pep in your step, because as soon as someone radios in a sighting, we need to be on-site as soon as possible."


"As you say," Corporal Kururugi nodded, reverting for a moment back into the unthinking submission that his officers in the Legion had demanded, before suddenly remembering the standing order to ask for clarification when he didn't understand Nelson's reasoning. "Why do we need to be there? Surely any prisoners will be available for interrogation, right?"


"Oh, absolutely," Inspector Garcia nodded, the scar puckering his lip twisting the cynical smile up into a sneering grimace of disgust. "That's the problem. They'll be available for interrogation by any fool of a redcap officer who wants to earn a feather in his cap by 'breaking the rebels.' God forbid the DIS bastards up in Tokyo hear about the arrest either, or we'll lose access entirely."


"You think they'll steal the credit for taking down the Sniper," Corporal Kururugi asked, his mind still slow and bloated as he fumbled to make the connection. "That they'll swoop in to take the credit…?"


"That too," Nelson admitted. "Make no mistake, Corporal; now that the news has heard about this lunatic and given him a name, made him a story, whoever is responsible for writing the coda to that story will have considerable, if short-lived, influence in Area 11. But," he added, "that's only one of two broad reasons why we need to be on hand to see this whole scenario through."


"Can you think of the other? Think about what I just said," he urged, "think about how I conduct my interrogations. Can you see it?"


"If the police or the DIS interrogate the prisoners," Corporal Kururugi said, speaking his thoughts aloud, "they'll want results and want them soon. The police in particular just want this all over as soon as possible… They've been humiliated by not being able to stop the attacks. So if they get their hands on the prisoners, they'll just force a confession…"


"And…?" Nelson prompted, leading him on.


"And they'll confess to whatever they're told to confess, or they'll die under interrogation," Corporal Kururugi concluded. "Which means that if they've got any friends, or if the Yokohama Sniper just handed their van over to one of their buddies, we'll lose the lead and the Sniper could just lay low for a few weeks and then start killing again."


"Exactly!" Nelson rose halfway out of his seat, leaning on his knuckles as he thrust his face forwards over his desk, towards Kururugi. "If I, if we, aren't on hand to keep the police at bay, they'll stomp all over this case with their ham-handed techniques, just so the Prefect can announce that all's well again! If the DIS gets their hands on the prisoners, God alone knows what they'll do, but if it means sabotaging a Bureau operation, they might just let them go! Credit aside, if we want to end Number terrorism in Yokohama, we need the Sniper once and for all!"


"...I'll get the coffee," Corporal Kururugi nodded, suddenly alert as a fresh wave of energy flowed through him. The stakes were too high to give in to his exhaustion now, and sleep's siren call suddenly seemed all but muted. "I'll even use the machine in the officer's mess so I can add a few shots of espresso to each. That lock can't keep me out."


"Make mine a double," Inspector Garcia instructed with a smile as he dropped back down into his chair. "But for God's sake man, hurry back. As soon as you're here with the coffee, we're checking a car out from the motor pool. Tonight, the speed limits won't matter - as soon as the call comes in, we'll be there."


JULY 5, 2016 ATB
HIGHWAY POLICE STATION, TOTSUKA WARD, YOKOHAMA SETTLEMENT
1023


"Hey there," Corporal Kururugi said with a practiced smile, speaking in Elevenese as he slid himself down onto the unyielding planes of the steel chair, the match of the straight-backed seat on the other side of the interrogation table, "I'm Suzaku. It's good to meet you, even under such unpleasant circumstances."


The first step, Nelson had taught him, is to establish rapport. Figure out who they are and what they need, and you'll be halfway done.


"Man," Kururugi continued with a sympathetic wince, sucking at his teeth as he looked down at the mangled hand spread flat on the dented metal surface, "they really did a number on you, didn't they? Fucking Britannians… Don't worry," he added with another smile, more comforting and soft, "you're safe now. We've got you."


The woman, fettered to the chair across from him, remained silent, but that was fine. Corporal Kururugi didn't need her to say anything; after months in the care of Inspector Garcia, it was easy to read everything he needed to know at the moment on her face.


Search for tells, for signs of emotional insecurity. A clammy brow, clenching hands, facial twitches, all indicate nerves and a sense of insecurity. A clenched jaw or a red face probably means they're angry, but could be a cover for nervous anxiety too.


"I know, I know," Kururugi waved a dismissive hand, smiling conspiratorially at the subject as if he were sharing a joke, "an Eleven in Britannian uniform? I'm a traitor to our people, our gods, and the Yamato Spirit. I've heard it all before, but believe it or not, I just want what's best for our people. Just like you, right?"


Almost involuntarily, the woman opened her mouth and seemed on the cusp of speaking, but then she shot a frightened look at the broad expanse of opaque glass that made up one of the walls of the room.


"Don't worry," Corporal Kururugi soothed, plastering a smile he certainly didn't feel on his face. While his smile was only skin-deep, he would privately admit to feeling a spark of anticipation; she was about to speak! Already, a crack had appeared in her facade! "There's only another Honorary behind that glass. He's making sure the local cops don't try to sneak back in."


Don't lie if you can avoid it; cultivate a sense of trust with the subject, to encourage a spirit of reciprocity.


He carefully let the smile lapse into a perturbed frown, shaking his head as he gazed down at the woman's left hand again, letting his eyes linger on the twisted fingers and the mangled joints. "That must really hurt. We'd better get you to a doctor soon; I can't promise anything, but if they can at least get everything pointed the right way again, you should make a full recovery… Oh," Kururugi added offhandedly, "and give you something for the pain too."


Left unsaid was the implication that not seeing a doctor soon could lead to lasting damage and greater pain, along with the corollary that only cooperation could purchase access to medical assistance. Nelson had taken great pains to point out that pain perceived was pain received. This woman already knew what could happen if she didn't cooperate, it was up to him to show her that she had choices.


"I…" For the first time since Corporal Kururugi entered the overly bright room, the Eleven spoke. "I… I'm not going to say anything… There's no point."


Her voice was raw and brutalized, presumably as a result of the screams the prefectural Britannian highway police had ripped from her throat when they'd broken her hand and twisted her fingers out of their sockets. Coupled with the obvious bend in her leg, a product of the highway crash that had ended her frantic escape, the Eleven was in bad condition. Honestly, the fetters to the chair were redundant; it's not like the suspect could have walked out under her own power.


Corporal Kururugi found it difficult to care, although he did his best to pretend otherwise. Indeed, the only outrage he felt over the clear torture the prisoner had sustained before Inspector Garcia had arrived to put an end to it was the clear illegality of the Highway Police's actions.


Still, it's hard to blame them… he mused behind his sympathetic smile, carefully modeled after Nelson's own. She didn't pull the trigger, but she was the driver for the bastard who put one of their buddies in the hospital this morning, and another in the morgue.


It had been a very busy morning. Shortly after the all points bulletin had gone out on the van, a spectacularly unlucky patrol unit had noticed the stolen vehicle trundling along down a frontage road. The two-man patrol had tried to pull the van over, but as soon as they'd turned on their flashing red and blues, a hail of gunfire had smashed through their windshield, killing the driver and sending the police car off into an uncontrolled crash trajectory with a telephone pole.


All units in the district, including the borrowed car with Corporal Kururugi behind the wheel and two VTOLs launched from Yokosuka, had converged on the Britannian suburb on the southern edge of the Yokohama Settlement. Amazingly, the van had been quickly cornered and, after a brief pursuit, ran into an unyielding brick wall by the panicking driver, who now sat across the table from Corporal Kururugi.


But, he knew, she isn't the Sniper. Or, at least, she's not the triggerman in the group of people we called the Yokohama Sniper.


The search of the van had turned up three sleeping bags and an abundance of detritus, more than enough to suggest that multiple people - multiple women, judging by the abandoned clothes - had been living in that van over the last few weeks.


Of whom only one, the driver, had been caught.


And by the time Inspector Garcia and I finally caught up, the cops had already dragged her back and begun their own little amateur interrogation. And that's not even getting into what else we found in the van…


"What makes you say that," asked Corporal Kururugi with a quizzical frown. "You're not the one we want, are you?"


"When's that ever mattered?" came the instinctual bitter response, exhausted emotion dripping from every word. "When the hell has that ever mattered, Brit? We both know what happens to anybody your side doesn't like, and anyone next to them too. No matter what I say, it's all gonna end the same way."


Long trenches full of bodies, disappearing under shovelload after shovelload of soil… What would happen once word of those long scars in the earth leaked out? The whole street reeked of an unholy mixture of burning garbage and overcooked pork… "I swear... Suzaku, I swear! I'm going to obliterate Britannia!"


"That's not always the case," Corporal Kururugi replied with easy reassurance, cramming the memories of Toyama and Christmas back into the vast mental storehouse that was always under lock and key. "There's plenty of leeway, depending on the circumstances of the matter. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but… there's lots of people who want all of this 'Sniper' business to end sooner rather than later. They're willing to make significant concessions to make that happen."


The anxious, self-centered character, Nelson had advised him after the interrogation of a previous subject equally concerned with their own self-preservation, is fearful, although they constantly try to conceal their fears, often by presentations of bravado. Don't push back on these displays, but instead try to reward their "courage" by soothing their fears. If pressed for time, offer them a way out with an obvious catch.


"Uh huh…" The subject didn't seem convinced, but Kururugi felt like she really wanted to be convinced. In his estimation, she didn't want to die, but didn't see a way out of her situation. "That's why your thugs fucked up my hand, right?"


"They're not my thugs!" Kururugi let a bit of "Suzaku" slip into his voice, along with a taste of his very real disgust at the unsanctioned violence. "I am truly sorry for the way they treated you, Miss…?"


"Kanae," the subject muttered, prompted by his pointed silence. Her reply was reflexive; the fatigue and fear inspired by her situation were undermining her focus and will to resist. For the first time, she had answered one of his questions. He felt a slight thrill at the petty but important triumph; Nelson had taught him that the first answer was always the most difficult, and that the next answer would always come easier.


"I am truly sorry for your treatment, Miss Kanae," Kururugi repeated, "and believe me, I want to get you to the hospital as soon as possible to get that hand looked at, and your leg. It's amazing that you're still able to hold yourself together after so much pain! But…" he shrugged apologetically, "I don't have that much say, you see? I need something to convince the police to release you to my custody."


It's working.


Kururugi could see it in Kanae's eyes, the way her walls were crumbling. Her hand must be a mass of pain, and her leg little better; beyond that, she was sitting in an interrogation room in a police station basement, the worst nightmare for any Number terrorist. And, Kururugi was increasingly certain, Kanae had never been strong, but preferred instead to follow the strong.


And here in this little room, even though he wore the uniform of her enemies, he was strong.


And that means I can protect you, Kururugi thought, keeping his face earnest and open, shamelessly using his youthful and seemingly guileless features to his advantage, I can get rid of your pain, get your hand splinted and leg treated, and best of all, I can keep the cops and the executioner's wheel away from you…


"I need something," he reiterated, catching Kanae's eyes and holding them with his own, "something that I can send them off on, something to distract them. They're angry, you see? Someone shot their buddies this morning. But it wasn't you, right? They don't need to have any interest in you… especially not if they know who they should be interested in instead."


A dry tongue flicked nervously across split lips. Kanae was wavering.


"I…" She swallowed convulsively. "I didn't shoot anyone… Not here. Not Britannians."


"I know that," Kururugi replied with a supportive nod and a smile. "You were the driver, weren't you? We found the hole in the back of the van, by the way. That was a really clever idea, concealing a firing hole just above the license plate! And that sliding panel was some good work too. But there's no way you could have shot a gun out that hole while you were driving… And we didn't find the gun either."


Kururugi paused for a moment, letting Kanae simmer, before asking, "Where is the rifle, Kanae? Where are the other two girls who were riding around with you?"


Kanae wavered.


Kanae fell.


"I…" she licked her lips again, "I don't know… One of them's been gone for weeks… She was smart enough to see how things were going… I… I think that's what made… Made her go nuts. And… Once we knew the van was made… She said we should split up, and meet back at…"


The words caught in the injured woman's throat.


"Do you need some water?" Kururugi asked, all solicitous concern. "I'll get you some, and I'll get the key to unlock your wrists so you can drink… But first, tell me about her."


And so, haltingly at first but with increasing fluidity and detail as she fully collapsed, Kanae told Corporal Kururugi about the Yokohama Sniper.


JULY 5, 2016 ATB
TOTSUKA WARD, YOKOHAMA SETTLEMENT
1147


An hour and a half later, Kururugi Suzaku left the Totsuka Ward Highway Police Station, ready to join the urgent efforts to hunt down Tanaka Chihiro and her remaining accomplice and bring them to justice, assuming said accomplice hadn't skipped town already.


Behind him, a squad of Honorary Britannian police trailed out from the station with all the fearsome certainty of a gaggle of ducklings. They seemed almost terrified of the freshly issued pistols hanging at their hips, jerking their hands away from the weapons whenever their hands accidentally brushed up against the stiff leather holsters.


This is probably the first time most of them have even touched a pistol since their training ended, Suzaku thought glumly, letting a hand drift down to his own sidearm. Not exactly the team I'd want backing me up on the hunt for a dangerous terrorist, but needs must and all that.


For his part, Corporal Kururugi had redonned the familiar charcoal body armor and helmet of His Majesty's Armed Services, freed from his footlocker for the first time since he'd come to Yokohama. The perennially useless gas mask hung loosely around his neck; now freed from the 32nd Honorary Britannian Legion's command structure, he would have left the cursed thing behind entirely, were it not for the thermal imaging capacities of the built-in goggles.


And if I were still just Corporal Kururugi of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Company, I'd never have drawn my last piece of equipment from the stores… But the Bureau of Investigation and its auxiliaries are beholden to different rules.


Indeed, while the leadership of the Armed Services in Area 11 had seen fit to prohibit their Honorary soldiers from using any weapon more deadly than a pistol, and even that in only the most dire of circumstances, the Bureau leadership in Area 11 consisted solely of Inspector Nelson Dutra Garcia at this point, which meant that Nelson had a practical monopoly on the Bureau's fearsome reputation. A reputation he had already drawn on three times this morning.


First by seizing custody of Morita Kanae and ordering, as soon as Corporal Kururugi completed his interrogation, her immediate transfer to the Richard Hector Memorial Hospital in the Yokohama Settlement for medical treatment. Inspector Garcia had gone to the hospital with the prisoner to both keep her under his supervision and to continue the interrogation where Corporal Kururugi had left off, but before he had left, he had commanded the Highway Police to give Corporal Kururugi command over a draft of Honorary Britannian officers to assist him with his mission, and that this draft and Corporal Kururugi be armed from the station's stocks.


The second and third uses of the Bureau's authority, respectively.


"I've given you the tools you'll need, Suzaku," Nelson had said once the police lieutenant in charge of the station had left the observation gallery behind the interrogation room's one-way window. "Now, it will be up to you to use them to deliver results. You've done magnificently so far; keep it up. Make the Bureau proud. Make me proud."


That was a mission Corporal Kururugi Suzaku was determined to complete. It was the chance he had dreamt about for months. Ever since Christmas.


And if I can capture Tanaka Chihiro in my capacity as a deputized Bureau agent after extracting the information leading to her in that same role, then the entire operation will suddenly become a Bureau operation. A successful, clean-cut operation in Area 11 will give Nelson an opportunity to request further support and a longer-term assignment here…


Corporal Kururugi very carefully didn't notice Suzaku's enthusiasm at the prospect of Inspector Garcia's deployment to Area 11 extending.


A Bureau field office here in the Area will make everything better, Suzaku explained, the thought curiously tense. The Bureau will keep a closer eye and a tighter hold on the Purists, putting an end to any further "Incidents" like back in Tokyo, which will benefit all Honoraries. The Numbers will benefit too, if the counter-insurgency tactics that Inspector Garcia's predecessors used in the Old Areas replace the wasteful and indiscriminate slaughter of the filtration operations or the retaliatory quotas!


"Alright," Corporal Kururugi turned back to his little knot of Honorary Britannians, who clustered warily in front of him. "Listen up, boys and girls. We've got a job to do."


The ten men, all older than him by at least five years, let the remark pass without challenge. He was a stranger to them, but his military gray uniform and the familiarity the man from the Bureau had shown him, clapping him on the shoulder and shaking his hand before hopping aboard the ambulance taking the prisoner to the hospital, made the pecking order abundantly clear.


"The Yokohama Sniper is out there, somewhere in the Totsuka Ward. We're going to find her."


That little revelation sent a shiver of unease through the cluster of police officers, but none of them spoke up. None of them wanted to mark themselves out as weak, as lazy, as fearful cowards.


And in doing so, they only prove how frightened they really are. But if they fear the system, they'll be happy to make sure everybody else is just as afraid as they are.


"She's just one woman, far from home and all alone," Corporal Kururugi went on, his tone deliberately casual as he addressed the men in a way his old fireteam would have been shocked to hear, "although admittedly a dangerous one. But," he patted the butt of the rifle slung over his shoulder, "we're dangerous too, aren't we?"


I need to relate myself to them; if I'm a stranger, they won't trust me and will be slower to take my orders. Use inclusive language.


"I won't lie to you," Corporal Kururugi continued, pointedly making eye contact with policeman after policeman, holding their gaze for a moment before moving on. "This isn't going to be easy. Someone could get hurt. I can't promise everything will be all nice and safe. If I could, well…" he shrugged and leaned back against the nearest police car, "do you think they would have sent us out?"


That brought a light wave of feeble smiles, and Corporal Kururugi smiled back, sharing the common experience of Honorary soldiers given an unpleasant and dangerous task.


"This is how the Britannians think this is going to go," Kururugi continued, theatrically lowering his voice and prompting his audience to lean in almost conspiratorially. "They think we're bait. The Sniper is a rabid bitch, and as soon as she sees our uniforms, she's going to start shooting. We'll cower and hide, but most importantly we'll hold her in place while our betters swoop in to make the arrest and claim all the credit."


Grimaces and nods, but no trace of surprise or dismay appeared on the faces of his fellow Honoraries. These men knew the score; they, Kururugi was bitterly certain, had never bought into the Britannian propaganda the way a younger Suzaku had. Just like his former comrades in the 32nd Legion, their low expectations prevented any disappointment.


On the other hand, expecting nothing makes any sign of something better welcome.


"That's not how this is going to go." The change of tone was textbook Nelson; Corporal Kururugi even heard a faint touch of the melodic accent of Area Seven7 in his voice as it strengthened with conviction and certainty. "Not this time. This time, we will take the credit along with the danger, for both ourselves and for the Bureau of Investigation, who Inspector Garcia has pledged will reward us if we bring the Sniper down."


There were no cheers, no smiles, no signs of enthusiasm, but Corporal Kururugi hadn't expected any. These were disillusioned men, working for a paycheck and the vague hope that things wouldn't get any worse. But none of them stepped back, none of them looked outwardly skeptical or incredulous.


It will have to do.


"Load up, men," Corporal Kururugi directed, straightening up from the police car and stepping aside. "The Sniper's gone to ground, and she's had two hours to dig herself in. Time to pull her back out and show the world what happens to those who would raise a hand against His Majesty's citizens, Honorary or not!"


Minutes later, the two overloaded squad cars were rolling out through the web of secondary roads surrounding the Totsuka Station, making their way towards the High Street central artery.


The miniature convoy was slow going without the flashing lights and sirens; it was almost lunchtime, and traffic thickened with every minute. With five men packed in one car built for four and six in the other, and with the heat of a summer's noon beating down, it was a claustrophobic, stuffy trip across town. Behind the wheel of the lead car, Corporal Kururugi tried to ignore the sweat rolling down his spine, infuriatingly difficult to scratch under his body armor.


A constant stream of updates drizzled from the dashboard radio. Corporal Kururugi kept half an ear open for anything pertinent; mixed into the usual police chatter were the occasional updates from the units still patrolling the ward hunting the Sniper. The VTOLs had gone home, but the local police force was still out and about, making their presence known.


And no doubt drawing all kinds of cushy overtime, Corporal Kururugi thought sourly. Still, if I can complete this mission… I'll get payment in a far more valuable coin.


Smiling at the thought in a conscious attempt to cheer himself up, Corporal Kururugi idled up to the next traffic light. As he waited, he scanned the surrounding crowd of mostly Commoner Britannians, noting the industrious way they scurried from place to place, many with beverages or wrapped sandwiches in hand. It almost seemed dreamlike, how ordinary it all was. So divorced from the chaos of the morning, or from the shameful horror of Toyama…


"All units! All units!" Suddenly, the radio dispatcher's urgent tone had Corporal Kururugi's full attention, everything else fading into irrelevance. "Gunfire reported on Charleston Square. Civilian casualties reported. All units, standby for situation updates and dispatch."


Before the dispatcher was done with her update, Corporal Kururugi was already flicking on the lights and sirens. Trusting the squad car behind him to follow suit, he floored the accelerator and squealed out into the intersection.


Charleston Square is just a few blocks ahead, straight down High Street, Corporal Kururugi thought, remembering the map of the Yokohama Settlement he'd committed to memory a few weeks earlier in the course of his chauffeur duties. A big open field, surrounded by trees and a few paths. Lots of community events happen there. The place is surrounded by plenty of tall buildings… hotels and the like, along with the Angels Triumphant Britannic Church. A perfect killing ground for a sniper. Why the hell didn't I think to go there immediately?


"Uhh, Corporal?" Kururugi spared a look over at the man sitting in the passenger seat, who swallowed nervously but pressed on. "Didn't the dispatcher tell us to standby and wait for orders?"


"She told the police to standby," Corporal Kururugi corrected. "We're not 'all units'. We're Bureau, and we don't answer to them."


Not unless we screw up, that is, he silently added as he turned his eyes forwards once more. Best not to fail, then.


From his driver's seat, Corporal Kururugi watched as the normal run of daily life disintegrated before his eyes. As he raced closer and closer to Charleston Square, the sidewalk-bound crowds of pedestrians scrambled for cover, or otherwise stampeded back the way he'd come. Most drivers had the sense of mind to likewise turn back the way they had come, but some lost their heads completely and lept from their cars for cover, leaving abandoned cars cluttering the road.


Unfortunately, a delivery truck driver appeared to have split the difference by trying to turn in the middle of the intersection at the southeast corner of Charleston Square, where High Street met Elizabeth Avenue, before giving it up as a bad job and running away, leaving his truck in the middle of the intersection.


"Son of a bitch!" The curse came involuntarily to Corporal Kururugi's lips, and he winced at the knowledge that Inspector Garcia would disapprove of such a display in front of the men. "Alright," he continued, slamming the car into park, "end of the ride. Everyone out!"


The fire team crammed into his car didn't need to be told twice. The five other men packed into the cruiser boiled out immediately; nobody wanted to be a stationary target in the parked cruiser, even with the truck separating them from the open air of the Square.


As the second cruiser emptied, Corporal Kururugi cautiously peered out from around the boxy frame, ears straining for the distinctive cracking hiss of rifle fire. It was a fool's errand: any such warnings would be drowned out by the cacophony all around him. Down the street, cars screeched and swerved. Civilians sheltering behind any scrap of cover available yelled at one another, voices angry and hysterical. Others whimpered into their cellphones, making calls home or to the police to tell them what they already knew.


Somewhere out on the broad expanse of green, someone screamed in agonized pain.


Turning back to his borrowed squad, Corporal Kururugi found ten pairs of eyes fixed on him, waiting for instructions. Waiting for him to tell them what to do. Looking past the Honorary policeman, he saw still more eyes fixed on him, as civilians took the cue and looked to him as a leader.


The rush of emotion at the awareness, at how all of these people, his nominal social superiors were begging for his protection, beseeching him to tell them how to escape, how to survive, was intense.


"All civilians," he called out, doing his best to project authority by speaking loudly without shouting, deeply conscious of just how good it felt to give orders, "stay under cover, and stay off your phones. The police are aware of the situation, and help is already on its way. Please keep calm, and keep your heads down."


Amazingly, none of his Britannian audience questioned why an apparent Eleven, even with a rifle and uniform, was giving them orders. More than the panicked flight, that spoke volumes about their fear.


"Now," Corporal Kururugi continued, his eyes jumping from civilian to civilian in the shelter of the truck, still trying his best to channel Nelson's unflappable charm and aura of natural command, "did any of you see anything? Did you see anybody go down, or see the shooter?"


Mute gazes and silent headshakes met him. One man wrapped his arms around himself, trying to resist the wracking shakes.


All useless…


Corporal Kururugi stuck his head back out around the truck. One side of the square, proceeding north along High Street, was lined with a multitude of two- and three-story buildings. Shops on the ground floor and presumably apartments on the subsequent stories. To his west, along Elizabeth Avenue, stood a tall hotel, somewhere between ten and twenty stories. He couldn't see past it, nor through the trees that lined the Square to the other side, but he could see a tall steeple reaching skyward over the foliage. Presumably, the church itself stood at the north end of Charleston Square.


Nothing but vantage points for a lunatic bitch and her rifle… And, Suzaku added, no shortage of targets either.


There had been some kind of open-air market happening in the Square, Corporal Kururugi saw. That, or perhaps the food trucks were always set up out in the grass at this time of day to feed the crowds of workers who needed a cheap meal on the go. Either way, while some of the market's patrons and sellers had managed to scramble to the shops or the streets leading away from Charleston Square, many were stuck behind the pitiful shelter afforded by garbage cans, trees, and benches.


At least one was down, and judging by the blood oozing from his holed head, already dead.


"Alright," he began, turning back to his men, "we're going to be as careful about this as possible, but we're going to do our duty. Our first job is to evacuate the civilians as best as we can. Split up into pairs; one of you will talk to the civvie, try to keep them calm, the other keeps their eyes up. If someone can't move under their own power, carry them over here to this truck, you hear?"


Among the chorus of "yessirs," one of the policemen asked, in Elevenese, "What about you, Corporal? What are you going to be doing?"


…Save it for later, Suzaku decided. It's a stressful time. Whatever it takes to get them moving.


"I'll be keeping a lookout for the Sniper," Corporal Kururugi replied, pointedly in Britannian, shrugging his rifle off his shoulder and into his hands. "As soon as I see something, anything… I'll let you know. If you hear the shout, drop whatever you're doing and follow me. Clear?"


It apparently was clear, and seconds later the squad started moving out. The five pairs of policemen, Honorary Citizens all, warily fanned out across the intersection, keeping one eye on their surroundings and one eye on their leader. Corporal Kururugi sidled out behind the last pair, eyes scanning the crowded sidewalks and Square.


It was a bright day, sunny without a cloud in the sky. The heat, already sultry, became oppressive as Corporal Kururugi focused on the now, putting everything else away. Nelson, Toyama, his men, the ever-watching ghost of Kururugi Genbuu, none of it mattered. None of it was real.


Only he was real. Only he mattered. He and the Sniper.


He and Chihiro.


Dazzling sunlight glinted off the windows of the hotel to this left. Minor mineral imperfections in the marble facade glittered in flecks of gold, each of which could be a glint off the lens of a scope. The branches, heavy with vibrant green foliage, swayed in the desultory breeze, and above them the distant steeple-top cross of the Britannic Church reared proud against the azure sky.


Corporal Kururugi swallowed heavily, his tongue swelling in his throat as he padded forwards. The rifle's unfamiliar weight was heavy in his hands, the metal and plastic unaccountably bulky, as if the weapon was trying to escape from his hands to join the civilians in pressing their faces into the sod and cement.


Eyes open, eyes open, eyes open…


From the trees, a crow cawed. A woman moaned. One of his pairs was darting back from the tree line, a civilian's arm over each man. The girl's yellow blouse was vibrant against the sanguine blotch in her abdomen. A gut shot.


Eyes open…


Kururugi was suddenly on the ground, his chin, unprotected by the facemask, scratching painfully against the rough grains of the cement sidewalk. Belatedly, he realized that he'd heard the crack-hissss of a round slashing through the air and had hurled himself to the ground by pure force of instinct. The injured woman screamed; her two escorts had likewise plunged away from the deadly wasp-sting of rifle fire and had dropped their cargo in the process.


Her wound torn open by the fall, the blotch began to spread across her blouse anew.


Corporal Kururugi climbed to his feet, his jaw sore and wet. He felt something trickle down his chin, running down his neck. Sweat or blood, he couldn't tell. His gloves were full of sweat. Belatedly, he realized that his rifle's safety was still engaged, and flicked it away.


Where had that shot come from? He cursed the senselessness of it, and his own failure to get a direction from the shot.


He was certain the Sniper would give him another hint soon.


His whole body felt tense, heavy with electric energy that Corporal Kururugi had to struggle to control. Muscles were locked tight as his fingers clasped down on fore- and hand-grips. The heat was unbearable, now that the breeze had gone. A policeman was leading a trio of Britannians in suits back towards the truck, his almond eyes almost bulging from his face with nerves. His partner brought up the rear, his pistol in his hands and pointed skyward as he walked backwards, his sidearm held aloft like some protective charm and about as useful as an ofuda in warding off a sniper's shot.


From up ahead, to Corporal Kururugi's northwest, out on the green of the Square, a man screamed in sudden agony. An aproned man, still absurdly wearing the paper dixie hat of a food server, stood up from his worthless shelter behind a park bench, blood streaming from his mouth and from the hole in his neck. One of his policemen, only feet away from the unfortunate man, reeled away from the dying man, his hands darting to his holstered pistol. His partner, who had been trying to coax another man up from behind a mobile grill, dove for cover next to the civilian, his face a pale streak in Kururugi's adrenaline-blurred vision.


It was a perversion, how relieved Corporal Kururugi was that a man was dying, his last breaths drowned in his own lifeblood. And yet, to see it happen, to finally bring the anticipation to an end… To finally feel that tension snap, to know that the time of waiting was over, and the moments of action had begun?


Freedom.


"To the north!" Corporal Kururugi bellowed, already running. "The bitch is to the north! Follow me, men!"


The blood was pounding in his ears as he ran, the adrenaline that had jangled every nerve and constricted his vision to a hyper-sensitive pinpoint finally given reign to send him flying like an arrow across the pavement and grass. He couldn't hear his men behind him, but Corporal Kururugi couldn't hear anything over the heaving in his ears, nothing except for the crack-hisss of another bullet flying overhead, and the distant, irrelevant scream of a man down. Irrelevant, because it was not him, and he was running, charging.


Above him and before him towered the church, a massive building of dusty red and creamy white, with a steeple as supremely proud as the man who ruled the Holy Empire. Tall windows in iridescent blues, greens, and imperial purple suggested at the divine mysteries of royalty, of power. High above in the steeple, through a yellow-tinged window, Corporal Kururugi could dimly see a suggestion of a massive bell… And could see a shadow darting from window to window.


"The church!" He yelled again, his wind coming deep and strong as he ran. The rifle, previously so heavy in his hands, had all the mass of his childhood training sword, practically a stick. "The bitch is in the church!"


Grass turned to pavement once again as Corporal Kururugi hurdled over the ornamental hedge separating the Square from the perimeter sidewalk. He was so close to the church now, so close! Only a handful of parked cars, a stretch of asphalt turned sticky and soft under the summer heat, and the flight of stairs rising up to the edifice separated him from the door leading into the vestibule, painted red and banded with black iron in the old style.


He felt, rather than heard, the shot.


Standing in the shadow of the steeple, the Yokohama Sniper had snapped off a shot at the last possible second, just before he lunged under her line of sight. He had no idea how she could have overlooked him during his charge down the length of the Square. Maybe she hadn't. Maybe she shot at him, but he simply hadn't noticed, his whole world reduced down to the tunnel stretched ahead of him.


He didn't know. An overwhelming explosion of pain as his vision disintegrated into a momentary flash of searing white light was all he knew. Immediately matched with the fiery coal under his helmet burning a hole straight down through his scalp.


Stumbling steps carried him forward into the side of a parked car. The velocity of his running leap exhausted, he reeled back from the unexpected obstacle. The urge to slump down behind the pitiful shelter of the sedan, to collapse onto the hard, hot asphalt, and to claw at his aching head, was almost overwhelming.


If I stop and sit down here, Suzaku thought, ludicrously calm in the near-blind chaos as Corporal Kururugi desperately blinked the starbursts out of his vision, she will kill me. She can still shoot me from here, and the car isn't tall enough to block her vision.


I can't die yet; I can't let myself die yet! Not with a chance to start the Plan in earnest just within my grasp!


With renewed energy, Corporal Kururugi half slid, half skidded around the car's trunk. One hand braced against the shining silver surface whose reflected light made his blurry eyes weep, the other holding fast to his rifle. Another crack-hisss slashed down from above, and off to his left where one of the cobblestone paths through the park led out onto the street, he heard a gurgling scream.


He didn't give himself time to think about who that could have been, or how close it was to his own fate. He needed to push on, to bury the fear, the pain, and keep moving. Don't think, just move. Move. Move, move, move!


The sun-softened asphalt sucked at his boots as he sprinted madly across the road, rifle clasped to his chest as he dashed for the shelter of the monolith rising before him. The stairs, broad and gentle, suddenly loomed up like the very stones of some vast mountain, rising to the heavens or at least to the promise of sanctuary and salvation behind a red-painted door. Pushing through the sudden vertigo, he flew up the steps in an almost uncontrollable wave of energy and threw his body, all of its armored weight and frantic, desperate energy, against the door.


The door flew open, bouncing of the wall behind it with a protesting groan echoed by Corporal Kururugi as he flung himself around the corner and into the vestibule of Angels Triumphant. It was like stepping into another world. The noon heat and bright, eye-searing light of the world outside vanished as he stepped into the twilight of the manmade vault. Sunlight poured in through the open doors behind him, along with the huffing, panting remnants of his squad.


Seven of the Honorary Britannian police, he saw, had survived the run. Of the other three, there was no sign. Perhaps they were still alive and well, and had just been too cowardly or smart to charge straight at a sniper's nest. Maybe they were wounded, bleeding out on the sidewalk or the Square behind him. They were most probably dead.


At least these seven are okay, Suzaku considered, running his eyes over the group as they slumped against walls and fought to reclaim their breath. To his pride, two of the men already had their pistols drawn and pointed at the door labeled 'to the belfry.' No signs of any injury. Good… That's good…


At the thought of injuries, Corporal Kururugi suddenly remembered that he'd been shot only a minute before. Shot in the head, no less, for all that he was still ambulatory and, apparently, alive.


Swaying slightly under a sudden spike of nauseous vertigo, he fumbled with the strap's buckle, pulling the helmet from his head. For a moment, Corporal Kururugi couldn't bring himself to glance down at the protective equipment; the sudden, irrational fear that if he did, he would find a hole clean through the ballistic fibers stained red with his lifeblood, or worse still gaze upon wet pieces of his head enmeshed in the torn fibers. In an effort of will, he forced himself to look down at the helmet.


To his great relief, it was instantly obvious that the hit had been glancing at best, presumably the result of Chihiro firing too rapidly to place the shot with the same level of precision she'd demonstrated during the Yokohama Sniper Attacks. The ballistic fibers were torn in a line from the crown of the helmet halfway down to the base, before the tangential trajectory had taken the round down past his back and into the ground behind him.


If I hadn't been wearing this helmet…


Pushing the thought and the shiver such a brush with death evoked aside, Corporal Kururugi slapped the helmet back into place, wincing as the weight settled back onto his sensitive scalp and bruised skull. While the helmet had saved his life, it hadn't managed to negate all of the bullet's kinetic energy.


Could've been much worse… My sight's even coming back. Only some floaters now. And the nausea… I think… I think I've got a concussion…


"Alrigh-," he started, only to be cut off by a rasping cough. Abraded from shouted exhortations and orders to his men, his throat registered its cracked dryness. One of the policemen passed him a canteen, which he took gratefully and drank from before passing it back with a nod of thanks.


"Alright," he began again, trying to focus through a sudden wave of wooziness "we've got her cornered up in that steeple. Only one way down, but that also means there's only one way up. We can't leave her just sitting up there taking potshots at the public."


Nobody spoke up. Most looked resigned. The one officer without a partner, who Corporal Kururugi thought he recognized as one of the pair who he had seen carrying the injured girl, looked angry.


They're just as silently obedient as the men back in the Legion were, Suzaku noted. It wasn't a happy thought. Silently obedient doesn't mean much if they drag their feet or only follow my orders if I'm standing behind them with my finger on the trigger. Sullen obedience isn't good, not good enough. Not for an elite group. That was my mistake last time.


Nelson would want me to lead them, not just drive them.


"Did anyone see what happened to the other three?" Kururugi asked, trying to control the ache in his head as he attempted, at this late juncture, to show concern for the strangers put into his care. "I was a bit too focused on the run to look around."


A few men smiled at the lame comment, and one or two even snorted slightly. It wasn't funny, but everybody present was tense enough to laugh at anything.


Nobody relaxed. The door to the belfry seemed to loom in the corner of the collective eye.


"I saw Yasu… I mean, James, go down," one of the officers finally offered, the man who had lent Corporal Kururugi his canteen. "Took one to the shoulder, I think. He… I think he got behind a tree…?"


The officer's voice trailed off into a question Corporal Kururugi didn't know how to answer.


I wish Lelouch was here… Or Nelson. Lelouch would say something asinine but profound, and Nelson would just figure out what they needed to hear to keep them moving…


"I'm sure he'll be fine," Corporal Kururugi replied gruffly, knowing as he said it that it was probably a lie. Even if James hadn't bled out, he doubted that the Highway Police had much use for an Honorary officer with a useless arm. "What's your name, officer?"


"Eugene, sir." The name was stiff and unnatural in the officer's mouth, the reply stilted. "Eugene Araki."


Nelson would say something about a mutual bond or whatever…


"Good to meet you, Eugene…" Corporal Kururugi said, the words dropping from his mouth like leaden weights. Exhaustion crested over him, the tiredness of sleepless nights held at bay by first coffee and more recently adrenaline suddenly, inexorably returning as his surge began to recede.


It's time to move, before I fall asleep standing up… Wait, you're not supposed to sleep with a concussion, right…? I think Instructor Tohdoh told me that once… I'm so tired…


Pushing himself back up off the wall took Herculean effort. His helmet straps hung freely; he'd forgotten to rebuckle them after he put the scored thing back on. Suddenly, he realized that his rifle was still active, the safety very much unengaged.


So tired…


"Well boys," said Corporal Kururugi, then laughed at the silliness of the statement when everybody else was at least in their twenties and wondered why the men looked alarmed. "She's not coming down, so we're gonna have to go on up." He paused. "I'll go first. I've got the big gun."


He gestured with it, swinging it up at the roof of the vestibule. Every eye present followed it.


Def… Definitely a concussion. Woopie.


"She's had some time to dig in up there, so who the fuck knows what she's done with the stairs? Our source said that the Sniper's got a thing for grenades and knives, as well as rifles…" Corporal Kururugi's mouth was dry again, and he wished he had something stronger than lukewarm water to quench his thirst.


"I'll go first," he repeated, "so… If you see something, let me know."


And on that muddled note, Suzaku decided that the moment of action could no longer be put off. Crossing the vestibule to the neat little door with its neat little sign, printed in faux cursive felt dream-like. With each sleepwalking step across the plush carpeting, the door grew larger and larger. His neck, unaccountably stiff, wouldn't let him swivel his head away, wouldn't let him break his focus on the door.


Lulu could play chess in his sleep… He hated it when I called him that…


He barked another laugh.


He's probably been dead for years now… Two Britannians, one a blind paraplegic, alone in the wake of the Conquest? Well… Don't worry, Lelouch… I was supposed to die today, I think, but Chihiro fucked up her first chance. She'll get another…


The doorknob turned easily in his hand; despite the visible keyhole, it was unlocked. Corporal Kururugi hesitated, and pulled his combat knife out of his belt.


The first and only weapon most Honorary soldiers get… Well, unless you count the truncheon, I guess. And if I was chasing Lelouch through the woods near Kururugi Shrine, he'd set up a tripwire to snare me up.


Carefully, he cracked the door open just wide enough to smoothly slide the blade, sharpened to a razor-edge every morning, up and down the height of the door. At chest-height, he encountered just a trace of resistance that parted under his descending blade.


Gotcha.


Stepping back, Corporal Kururugi let the door quietly glide open on its well-maintained hinges. The same deep plush carpet that blanketed the vestibule's floor extended into the tiny room housing the staircase and up the stairs at least to the first switchback. Looking up, Corporal Kururugi noted that the stairs met a longer balcony-like structure a floor up; presumably there was an exit onto the sanctuary's upper gallery there, and then the stairs up into the steeple proper would begin.


More importantly, a grenade, Britannian Army-issue, was securely taped to the wall to his right, just beside the staircase door. A string dangled from its ring-pull pin, the other end hanging limp and impotent. If Corporal Kururugi had opened the door with any more force, he would have ripped the pin from the device and blown himself up.


"A classic…" Suzaku said happily to himself, remembering a pepper bomb Lelouch had set up just outside of his room one happy spring morning. "Didn't get the scent out of my hair for two whole showers!"


By the time he was halfway up the first flight of stairs, the first man, Private Eugene – Officer Eugene, he corrected himself – had entered the stairwell after him. To Corporal Kururugi's disapproval, it wasn't until the third man had entered the room that someone else noticed the live grenade still taped to the wall beside them.


"Yes, be careful," Corporal Kururugi muttered at the shocked curse. "And keep your voice down. No need to give the Sniper precise updates on our progress…"


Chastened, the men began slowly ascending the stairs behind him, and Corporal Kururugi resumed his trudging progress; trudging, because he was, as best as he was able, eyeballing every inch of banister, runner, carpet, and creaking pine-wood step, scanning for more improvised bombs or spring-loaded knives connected to tripwires or whatever other nonsense Chihiro had managed to cook up during her hours of preparation for her final stand. It was infuriating how his addled mind simply refused to focus, eyes turning and swiveling seemingly at their own pleasure. Every motion, intentional or not, gave him a fresh twinge of vertigo.


The next hurdle, such as it was, came not at the balcony door, but at the base of the wrought iron staircase spiraling upwards at least sixty feet, towards a trapdoor in the floor high above. A second tripwire stretched across the skeletal base, and worryingly Corporal Kururugi couldn't see what exactly it was supposed to activate. One end was firmly bound to the side of the stairs at mid-boot height, perfectly placed for an unwary soldier to activate, but the other wound around the other side of the stairs before simply going… up. Up, somewhere, to some higher turn in the stairs.


Or up all the way up, Suzaku added. The exact purpose of the trap was a mystery, either way. Even more mysterious was where Chihiro had gotten so much material to go to ground with; Kanae had referenced some sort of rebel organization, but in Corporal Kururugi's experience most Eleven insurgents had very limited resources. If an operative working independently like the Yokohama Sniper enjoyed such a wealth of explosives, that spoke volumes about the dangers of this mystery organization.


There were charges leveled against a pair of corrupt lords several months ago, Corporal Kururugi dimly remembered, trying to remember the almost forgotten news item. And something about the theft of explosives from a warehouse… Last summer?


A chill washed over him, the sweltering heat of the steeple momentarily forgotten. My outpost… It was only three kilometers away from the Shinjuku Ghetto… How long has this pack of terrorists been lurking, right under my nose? A year? Two years…?


Why am I standing around and staring at a flight of stairs? Worry about this later.


"Mind your step," Corporal Kururugi grunted as he carefully stepped over the thin wire. "There's something here."


Indeed, it wasn't until Corporal Kururugi was ten feet and two twists of the spiral staircase up in the air that someone, some idiot of an Honorary, some uniformed fool, fucked up and stepped on the line. Suddenly, the wire, heretofore invisible where it stretched up through the central axis of the spiral, thrummed into visibility as high above a bell tolled loudly.


Not a trap, he thought frantically, already running as his adrenaline surged at the memory of hissing rounds streaking from above, but an alarm! She knows where we are now!


Resisting the urge to crane his head up towards the trap door high above, Corporal Kururugi focused on nothing but running up the steps. He couldn't afford to look away from the stairs, to look up as the memory became reality with a thunderously echoing crack that put her shots under the open sky to shame. The stairs provided minimal cover, and he was in the lead. If he lost focus now, if he let his feet get caught under the iron stairs' treads, he would be horribly vulnerable to Chihiro's fire and a simultaneous obstacle to his men's advance on the madwoman's elevated position.


They might not even stop running. They might just trample over me and smash me between the stairs and down to the floorboards below.


Below him, a few of his officers were returning fire. He caught sight of Eugene through a gap between the stairs, two turns below with his face and sidearm craned almost straight up, firing away at something Corporal Kururugi wouldn't let himself be distracted by. The crack of rifle fire continued to lash down from above, and he fancied that he could almost hear the sound of the piston motor working as it propelled round after round into the accelerator coils.


How many stairs are left? How high up am I? Suzaku asked both questions before pushing the wonderings aside. No past. No future. Only the present.


Up and up, the rifle swinging side to side in his arms, a stitch growing under his ribs, under his body armor. He had lost his helmet at some point, he blearily realized, the air flowing through his sweat-damp hair pleasantly cool.


Up and up and up, until suddenly there wasn't an up anymore, only the tight confines of the clock room, a nest of gears and shafts against one wall and a vast glass clockface studded with yet more gearwork on another. And, in the center of the room, rising from the floor next to the trap door, was another, shorter staircase, practically just a canted ladder, rising to a second trap door. Presumably, the belfry was above their heads, through that second door.


Chihiro was nowhere to be seen in the clock room, although Corporal Kururugi vaguely noted a bullet hole in the ceiling just over his head, where one of his men had made a lucky shot up through the first trap door, presumably narrowly missing the Sniper.


Corporal Kururugi kept his rifle warily trained on the opening in the ceiling as he side-stepped clear of the entrance to the room, allowing the men on his heels to stumble up the last few steps after him. Five men made it, the last Eugene, who turned a sweat-soaked face towards him as the officer slapped a fresh magazine into his pistol.


"Report, Eugene," Kururugi said around his thick tongue, his saliva syrupy thick in his parched throat. "Where's the rest?"


"Dead, sir," came the expected reply. "Eddie overbalanced and fell over the railing… He might still be alive. Andrew isn't. She got him right in the fu- sorry, right in the face, Sir."


"Oh."


There didn't seem to be anything else he could say in that moment. He'd never heard either man's Britannian name before that moment, and wouldn't have been able to pick them out of the squad's initial lineup if his life was on the line.


He'd only paid attention to the uniforms, not to the men wearing them.


Mistake, mistake, mistake, muttered a voice that sounded old and fat, yet pathetically proud. No end to your mistakes, no pause in your endless betrayals. First your country, then your family, then your own command. Mistake, mistake, mistake.


"Shut up, Father."


Eugene blinked, and Corporal Kururugi realized he'd said that out loud.


"Up!" He snapped, and before he could think twice about it, Corporal Kururugi was in motion once more, pushing his flagging body for everything it could give him.


And there she was, appearing at the head of that last flight of stairs as if in answer to his call, a twisted thing that barely seemed human, much less female, down on one knee. For all that Tanaka Chihiro's face was locked in a grimace of demonic, tooth-baring hatred, her rifle was stone-steady as it pointed down at him like the accusing finger of a judgmental god.


Or the sternly unwavering disapproval of a father whose demands he could never quite appease.


His finger twitched, hours of training under first Kyoshiro Tohdoh and then under the merciless hand of Britannian drill sergeants taking over where his mind faltered. The butt of the rifle, pressed tightly against his shoulder, kicked back and tried to rear, but Corporal Kururugi's grip was iron tight and unyielding.


It was kill or be killed, and he would be damned if he died here, his work unfulfilled and the vast debt he had amassed unpaid.


But, some seductive corner of his mind murmured, what better absolution could there be for a murderer like you than dying in the pursuit of another murderer? Dying a hero has its upsides, you know…


Nelson can use your sacrifice almost as well as he could use you. Perhaps even better – after all, you wouldn't be around to fail him like you failed everyone else.


Dimly, Suzaku felt something hot pass through his hair, leaving a curiously-numb line tracing behind it that he knew intellectually would soon scream with burning pain, and he knew that for the third time that day, Tanaka Chihiro had failed to kill him.


Damn her.


He didn't fail. When it came to killing, Kururugi Suzaku had never failed.


In that way, he was not his father's son.


The first rosette bloomed on Chihiro's bracing arm, the limb inconsiderately placed between her breast and the bullet's trajectory. The second and third shots lanced over the Sniper's stolen rifle and slashed into her chest, just under the shoulder, just under the neck.


Another shot lashed past him, and Kururugi Suzaku could have wept with the misery of the moment. Killing himself for his crimes would be far too easy, his life worth far less than the debt he owed. But surely, nobody would begrudge him a death in combat at the hands of an enemy…


Kill me! Kill me, you murderous bitch!


And yet, violence had always come so easily to the only son of Kururugi Genbuu. Even as a boy, he had sparred with a proficiency that old Tohdoh had praised, naming him the most promising student he had ever taught. That training-ground violence, so intense and exhausting and artificially constrained, had been a pale shadow of this moment.


All of it, all of the beatings of criminals and dissident soldiers with fist and truncheon, even the ghostly memory of a sword stabbing into muscle gone soft and fatty with age, all had been just a pale shadow of this moment. For the first time, Kururugi Suzaku found himself in a fight to the death with another killer, and found himself utterly at home in the confrontation.


Always the traitor, even to myself…


Abruptly angry at himself for finding even a moment of comfort, he fired another burst with a quick-pull clench of his finger, squeezing not jerking.


The rage in Chihiro's eyes slipped into the shocked agony and awareness of her death as his bullets pulped her face, reeling back as cheeks and jaw vanishing in an explosion of splintered teeth and pulped meat. Charging into the cloud of aspirated blood, carried by an unstoppable momentum, Suzaku caught a last moment of awareness from Chihiro in an instant of fragmentary eye contact as he slammed into her at full speed.


For the second time that day, Corporal Kururugi's vision disappeared in a starburst of white light as his head slammed forehead-first into Chihiro's. He was yelling, but he didn't know what he was saying, what he was doing, just that there was an enemy before him and she needed to die for her failure to kill him. Was dying. Had died. Died in his arms, died in his hands, died under his croaking screams and incoherent demands, shouted down into her wide brown eyes, pretty eyes, dead eyes absurdly untouched in the intact upper half of her face.


Hands were on his shoulders, lifting him up, pulling him back, and almost sending him toppling to the ground as wave after wave of deferred agony assailed him. His whole head was a a burning star with three hateful poles, the two head wound joined by his forehead aching from the impact, but some part of him recognized that the hands were those of his men, his comrades if he dared, and that he was safe.


Corporal Kururugi Suzaku sagged, almost collapsing to his knees as the last of his adrenaline spike ebbed into nothing before his men, Eugene at his right, hauled him back to his feet.


"Someone…" His voice was a ghost, thin and reedy and whistling. "Someone get my phone… It's in my left pocket…" A searching hand thrust in, withdrawing a moment later with the cell phone in hand. Corporal Kururugi grunted out the passcode, and then added, "call Inspector Garcia. His contact is listed as 'Nelson'. Call him, and tell him…"


He looked down at his feet, at the suddenly all-too-human corpse of Tanaka Chihiro. Her eyes, a warm chocolatey brown already glazing over in death, smiled back up into his from the remaining half of her face. Dimly, he noticed that she'd had more grenades, a whole belt of them, with the pins tied together with a daisy chain of wires, the braided cord of which hung to the side, ready to be pulled.


If I had been just a bit slower… If she had been just a bit further back inside the belfry…


"Call him and tell him the Yokohama Sniper is dead." Corporal Kururugi… No, Suzaku commanded, pushing the sense of overwhelming longing and keening despair down with the dead woman as he turned to grin Nelson's smile at Eugene. "We did it… We got her. Sti…" he swallowed. "Stick with me… I'll need you. We'll need you."


Not the end, not a beginning… Just another step of the Plan.


JULY 20, 2016 ATB
NAKA WARD, HIROSHIMA SETTLEMENT
1000


Inspector Garcia had moved mountains in weeks, and the Area Administration still didn't know what hit it. In June, Area 11 had been an exclusive fiefdom of the secretive and moribund DIS, the great traditional rival to the Bureau of Investigation through the long years of the Emblem of Blood.


No more.


One of the first lessons on the art of the interrogation Inspector Garcia had taught Corporal Kururugi was the importance of information and the appearance of information.


"A suspect who thinks you know everything already will be much less cautious than a suspect who knows you're just groping around in the dark," the Bureau man had instructed. "If you don't know anything, come in with a thick file of blank paper, just as a prop. But, if you know one thing, make sure to capitalize on it. As soon as the suspect gets confident about your ignorance, spring it on them. Once their illusion of invincibility falls apart, they'll panic."


Corporal Kururugi had, from his convalescent bed, watched Inspector Garcia pull the same trick on the entirety of the Area Administration, most especially on its leader, the Viceregal-Governor Clovis la Britannia, Third Prince of the Empire. Unlike the other officials who had consented to media interviews during the height of the Yokohama Sniper attacks, Nelson had known exactly how to handle the aftermath.


He had, after all, always been convinced that between his counterinsurgent experience and Suzaku's own abilities, bringing an end to the Sniper's reign of terror was only a matter of time. He had told Suzaku as much on his hospital bed on the first day he was allowed visitors.


When the news of the Sniper's death had broken, it was Inspector Garcia informing the media of that development in the name of the Imperial Bureau of Investigation scarcely minutes after he had informed the Administration itself, thereby guaranteeing that the Bureau's narrative would get a running start. When other officials had been asked for comment, they had barely been able to splutter general assurances and tritely arrogant soundbites. When the press had called on Nelson, he'd freely offered plenty of juicy details about both the "incredible actions of our dutiful Honorary brothers" and the "badly mishandled investigation conducted by the Directorate."


When the announcement had come that Inspector Nelson Dutra Garcia, Agent of the Imperial Bureau of Investigation, would be promoted to Special Agent Garcia and put in charge of the embryonic Area 11 Field Office, everybody seemed to just accept it as the natural conclusion.


Of course the Bureau should open its first office in the New Areas in Area 11 – the Sakuradite reserves made it the newest and grandest gem in Britannia's imperial diadem! Of course they should be put in charge of anti-insurgency operations – wasn't that what the Bureau had mostly handled, over the long years of the Emblem of Blood, and hadn't they proven their competency time and time again in the Old Areas?


Information and the appearance of information…


Special Agent Garcia had even displayed magnanimity in victory, or so the public might believe. Instead of insisting that the new field office be headquartered out of the Area capitol in Tokyo, right on the doorstep of the DIS branch installed in the Viceregal Palace, he had accepted a location in the Hiroshima Settlement, at the extreme southern end of the central island of Honshu.


The general public might take this as a sign that the new darling of the Area was trying to reduce the DIS's embarrassment by giving the senior intelligence service some room to breathe. Corporal Kururugi knew better.


And, true to his promises, vocalized and implied, Special Agent Garcia had not forgotten about him. The paperwork permanently transferring him to a newly established militia unit under the authority of the IBI went through with incredible speed. Never mind that the Bureau hadn't had such units since the worst of the Emblem of Blood, when insurgencies had raged across the Old Areas as the Britannians fought amongst themselves. No less a seal than that of the Office of the Prime Minister adorned the charter of the new unit.


Command was still sadly unthinkable. A unit made up purely of Honorary soldiers and police would have represented a massive political vulnerability for the fledgling Bureau field office.


"Besides," Special Agent Garcia explained during a subsequent hospital visit, "you almost never want to be the nominal commander, Suzaku. Yes, you get the recognition, but you also lose a great deal of your freedom to operate on your own initiative. The real trick is to have someone who can misdirect attention be the public face, while the real operators handle the serious issues from a position safely out of sight among the ranks."


"But you're in charge of the field office now," Suzaku had retorted. "Where does that leave you?"


"When you're as handsome and capable as I am," Garcia smiled charmingly, an expression Suzaku now recognized as his 'reporter smile', "a cipher would simply be gilding the lily! But, alas, despite your new scar, you're not pretty enough to manage that. So, congratulations, Sergeant Kururugi, on embarking on your fresh new career of puppeteering gullible officers!"


"'I've already got some experience with that," Suzaku confessed, remembering how easy it had been to play on Lieutenant Rockwell's ethical misgivings. "Have you seen the kind of officers who get sent to Honorary Legions?"


Nelson had laughed at that, and promised more of the same, but with "lieutenants who have a greater understanding of their place in the pecking order."


Which was how Sergeant Kururugi Suzaku had found himself meeting Captain Edwin Dreyer, the newly appointed commander of the Imperial Bureau of Investigation's Counter-Insurgent Branch Area 11, IBI-COIN-11.


And, also known as the Yokohama Scouts, thanks to Nelson's "accidental" use of that name in an interview.


"Ah, Kururugi," Captain Dreyer greeted him as he knocked and entered the office, "what's the word from the Special Agent?"


"Approval came in from Pendragon, Sir," Sergeant Kururugi replied, handing the printout over, along with the envelope it had arrived in. "We're to fly out on the 20th from Tokyo. Once we hit Newcastle, there will be buses waiting to take us to the school in Guayaquil. Expected start of training is listed as the 22nd, so it looks like we'll have a day to recover from the flight."


"Capital!" The Britannian replied with a hardiness that Kururugi could hardly tell was forced. The watchfulness in the man's eyes gave him away. Dreyer knew his place indeed. "And just on time too! You've finished with your recruiting, haven't you, Sergeant? All twenty-five of your lads, ready to be all they can be?"


"As you say, Sir," Kururugi replied, following his steps in the charade. "We're all very eager to learn as much as we can, and to demonstrate our proficiency here in Area 11, Sir."


After all, Suzaku thought, Nelson is an alumnus of the Guayaquil Counterinsurgent School. He's setting me to walk in his shoes and to give me the tools I'll need to walk where only an Eleven, where only a Japanese man, can go.


"Well… good." Captain Dreyer's waxed mustache, twenty years out of style despite his middling age, twitched uncertainly. "Pass the word onto the men, would you, Sergeant?"


"Yes, Sir." Kururugi nodded dutifully, as if he hadn't already told Corporal Araki, Eugene, the news an hour earlier when he'd first gone through the Captain's mail. "I'll do that."


"Good, good… Dismissed."


With a parting salute, Suzaku left the rubberstamp behind and descended down through the Bureau's new field office, a typically overblown example of Britannian architectural sensibilities. There was so much to do to prepare, to account for, to learn… And he wouldn't waste this second chance as a leader. He'd sworn as much, first to himself, and then to Nelson.


He had a people to save and an Area to secure. If the rebels in Shinjuku that Kanae had told Special Agent Garcia about were all like Chihiro, as murderous and dead-set on a war to the knife as the Yokohama Sniper had been…


Then by the time the Britannians are finished exacting their retaliation, all of Area 11 will be just as desolate as the Yokohama Ghetto is now.


He stopped for a moment, halfway down the hallway to the stairs, and shivered at the thought. Once the Britannians' initial wave of relief at the end of the Sniper had subsided, their rage at ever being threatened had boiled up with a bloody froth the likes of which Suzaku had only ever seen before on a much smaller scale, back on Christmas…


At least this time they spared the Honorary districts, he told himself. It meant something, that Honorary soldiers bagged the Sniper. I meant something.


And bad enough that the terrorist forced the Britannians to practically depopulate an entire ghetto! If there's a whole nest of them sitting on the very steps of the Viceroy's palace, on the steps of a prince's palace, this needs to be handled very carefully indeed. Otherwise, there won't be a Japan left for me to save.


The last time the Japanese were accused of killing a prince, we lost our freedom. If another prince dies here…


Sergeant Kururugi shivered at the thought and resumed his walk towards the barracks at double speed. He couldn't let that happen. He'd come too far to let it all fall apart now.

 

[Daemon Targaryen]

My father told me "son you will be soldier.
You will bring glory to Emperor and Fatherland.
Wether in the western Sea or against Old Europe
You will fight, for our Great Britannia."
My mother told me "we are a holy land, and our sons and daughters must convert the heathens"
"So fight my son, for this is holy war, for Church and Emperor a soldier give his life. "
So full of hope and the most holy fervor, I marched on to become a fighter.

For years I fought, under heroes and monsters, I saw my brothers slaughtered by the thousands, I burned, killed and raped, convinced I was righteous, yet my soul burned from my guilt and sorrow.
As I marched on, in the ruins of old Japan, oh so battered and bruised.
I saw true horror, such a vile nightmare
From elderly to children, their corpses were now trophies, and finally my illusions were broken.


My comrade told me "Imperial glory? That's a farce, a tragedy, look here brother do you think it worthwhile? For this Monster who sit on a throne of lies, Britannia bleed while his filthy kind thrive"
And my soul told me "How could it be holy? Our Lord in Heaven told us to love our peers.
Look at this Madness, this Hell on Earth we made.
So leave now for this land isn't ours to take"

Poem/song by an unknown soldier opposing Britannia's wars of expansion and racial and religious policies, used by the pacifist anti colonial organization.

 

[Scopas]

Governance and Industries of Area 11: An Overview

Area 11 operates on a mixed centralized-feudal government model. With the exception of the Sakuradite industry, including the mines, the refineries, the dedicated port at Sawadacho, and the dedicated network of roads and rails connecting these elements, the whole of Area 11 is under the care of the Governor, or in the case of Prince Clovis la Britannia, the Viceregal-Governor, and his Administration. Said Administration is the centralized portion of the government, with regional deputy Prefects administering the various Settlements and the surrounding lands in the name of the Administration. Beside these Prefects are the estate-holding nobles who comprise the feudal portion of the government.


The Prefects & Civil Service


The prefects are the regional administrators of the various prefectures of Area 11. The Britannian Administration uses more or less the same prefectural boundaries inherited from the defunct Republic of Japan, although some prefectures might be administered by the same prefect in regions with low Britannian settlement. For example, the Prefect of Koichi also administers the other three prefectures on Shikaku, being Ehime, Kagawa, and Tokushima, as none of these three has a Settlement of its own.


Prefects are generally landed nobles, who in most cases have been awarded estates within their prefectures as both incentives to work for the profit of their prefectures and to provide them with personal income and a labor force to supplement their government subsidies and employees. The heads of the Area Administrations ministries and key offices are likewise enfiefed. Apart from the Prefects, the Ministers, and key departmental heads, most Administration civil servants are either of the lesser nobility, nobles with a fief or a personal connection to an enfiefed noble, or independently wealthy commoners.


The Area Administration has the following ministries:

• The Ministry of War
  • Which contains His Imperial Majesty's Armed Service, Area 11 Command,, and His Imperial Majesty's Naval Service, Area 11 Command.
• The Ministry of Justice
  • Which concerns itself with the law, the judiciary, and the application of judicial punishment.
• The Ministry of Internal Affairs
  • Which concerns itself with Number issues, Honorary issues, and the tracking and apprehension of Britannian traitors to the state.
  • The local branch of the Directorate of Internal Security/Imperial Directorate of State Security is subordinated to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
• The Ministry of the Exchequer
  • Which concerns itself with the collection of taxes, the issue of state bonds, and the settling of the Administration's debts.
• The Ministry of Economic Development
  • Which concerns itself with the continued construction of Settlements in Area 11 and the expansion of the Britannian Concession, as well as the development of and investment in new economic opportunities in Area 11. Economic Development also produces regulations and requirements for businesses operating in Area 11, and provides operation licenses and inspections.
• The Ministry of Farms and Fisheries
  • Which concerns itself with the agricultural production of the Area, the management of labor to safeguard the same, and the eradication of blights and the propagation of best agricultural practices.
• The Ministry of Education
  • Which concerns itself with the establishment, management, staffing, and funding of public schools for commoners, noble academies, Honorary schools, and Number schools. Education also establishes the curricula for each category of school and determines the materials allowable to each.
• The Ministry of Transportation
  • Which concerns itself with the administration, expansion, and maintenance of the highway system as well as the rail system. The Ministry of Transportation also provides vehicle operator licenses, vehicle registry, and operates the Area Rail and Settlement mass transit systems.
• The Bishopric of Tokyo
  • Who concerns himself with the moral rectitude of the Area and its Administration, and also provides missionaries to instruct Honoraries in the correct applications of the Britannic Church.
  • Also oversees the Area's branch of the Office of the Inquisition.
• The Minister for Sakuradite Interests*

With the notable exception of the Minister for Sakuradite Interests, all of the ministers are both full Britannians and of comital rank. Even Lazaro Pulst, 1st Bishop of Tokyo as well as Minister for Economic Development and chaplain to the Viceregal-Governor, privately holds multiple counties. The Minister for Sakuradite Interests, by special Imperial appointment, is Lord Taizo Kirihara, who is also the head of the Numbers' Advisory Council and the CEO and chief shareholder in Kirihara Industries. Lord Taizo, titled Baron Fuji by Imperial order, is an Honorary Britannian. While he too is a land-owner, he is accorded only the rank of Baron due to his inferior blood and due to the majority of his holdings being in truth Imperial possessions, held in trust by the baron to promote efficient extraction of Sakuradite.


The Nobility


Akin to their cousins in the Homeland, the Heartland, and the Old Areas, the nobles of the New Areas can be broadly divided into three categories:

• The Greater Nobility
  • Greater Nobility includes enfiefed nobles, their heirs, their close family, and their dynastic bonds. For example, Kallen Stadtfeld is the heir to the Barony of New Leicester, which makes her a member of the lowest rung of the Greater Nobility as the heir to a fiefdom.
• The Lesser Nobility
  • Lesser Nobility includes the extended families of Greater Nobility, noble families with considerable holdings or wealth without title, nobles with considerable records of service to the Crown, and nobles with considerable military accolades. Unlanded knights from established Petty Nobility are considered Lesser Nobles.
• The Petty Nobility
  • Petty Nobility are the lowest rung of nobles, and are generally obscure, far from power, and the descendants of second and third sons. The Petty Nobility also includes recently ennobled commoners who were not granted a title along with their patent of nobility. Any unlanded knight from commoner stock is considered a Petty Noble, and thus eligible for the privileges of nobility.

In the Holy Britannian Empire, nobility has a number of privileges, chief among them the application of "Noble Law" instead of "Common Law" as well as the application of a different tax schedule and numerous social benefits. The privileges of nobility are a mix between explicit and implicit benefits, with some being directly embedded in the patent of nobility, such as the application of Noble Law, while others simply being "the way things are done," like the marital preference for nobility. Generally speaking, however, the only way to achieve significant rank in either the civil or armed services is by holding a title of nobility as well as proving yourself sufficiently competent.


In Area 11, most of the land is held by a variety of noble estates. An "estate" is a short-hand for a grant of land, which generally includes the inhabitants of said land and the facilities thereon. An "estate" of sufficient size can be recognized as a noble title.


The noble titles of Britannia are, in descending order:

• Crown Prince/Princess - the title for the current heir to the Empire
• Prince/Princess - the title for a recognized son or daughter of the Emperor or Empress.
• Duke/Duchess - holder of a duchy (for reference, New Hampshire is a duchy.)
• Count/Countess - holder of a county (for reference, Baron Alvin/Lord Stadfeld is a vassal of the Count of Lewiston, north-central Kentucky in our timeline)
  • Margrave/Marchioness - holder of a county currently in military service
• Baron/Baroness - holder of a barony, which is typically a small- to medium-sized city with the surrounding lands. (Baron Alvin holds New Leicester, which includes Radcliffe, Elizabethtown, and Fort Knox, Kentucky, in our timeline)
• Knight/Knightess - An unlanded and non-inheritable noble title endowed at the pleasure of the Emperor or one of his authorized deputies, typically in recognition of military service and typically attached to an allowance.

In the example above, a common estate, a barony, and a county within the Prefecture of Toyama are identified. The Prefect of Toyama is also the Count of Toyama, who holds the property in red. The orange patch details a "common" estate, the like of which was distributed to Lesser and Petty Nobility after the Conquest, as well as some favored commoners.


The exact amount of control an Administration can exert over the estates of the nobility varies based on the authority and strength of the Emperor, the authority and strength of his local deputies, the strength of the various lords, and the exact diplomacy between local potentates and the Administration. In Area 11, characterized by the leadership of Clovis la Britannia, a comfortable detente has set in due to the mutual weakness of both sides. On one hand, Clovis is far from a dynamic or indomitable leader, happier in his studio or at a party than attending to the affairs of state. On the other hand, many of the nobles enfiefed after the Conquest are the second sons and cousins of noble houses more firmly established back in the Heartland or Old Areas, which is to say, second stringers. The general character of their relationship is consequently that the lords won't deny Clovis's inspectors access, provided they don't make a bother of themselves.


In terms of the relationship between the local Numbers and their noble landlords, there is a range of variety. At best, the Numbers are generally ignored so long as taxes are paid, quotas are met, and criminal behavior is self-policed without the lord having to lift a finger. At worst, the Numbers are mistreated and abused mercilessly.


Economics of Area 11


Extraction


Mining

• Sakuradite is placed in a separate bucket, due to its status as an Imperial protected industry and the monopoly granted to the Numbers' Advisory Committee headed by Baron Fuji/Lord Taizo Kirihara
• Area 11 has numerous deposits of gold, silver, magnesium, iodine, sulfur, gypsum, coal, zinc, titanium (in Hokkaido), and off-shore deposits of rare earths and petroleum, all but the latter two of which are extracted with the use of Number workers generally overseen by Honorary supervisors and managers.

Forestry

• Timber production and the extraction and processing of forestry products are significant industries on inland estates. While the native Numbers left 80% of Area 11's forests untapped due to their cultural and religious inclinations, this has presented a wealth of old-growth and well-managed trees available for harvest. However, the steep slopes and the possibility of mudslides necessitates an active program of regenerative forestry to maintain water supplies for agricultural and municipal use.
• Main tree crops include cedar, cypress, and pine.

Agriculture

• Area 11 produces a vast quantity of rice (~9 million tons per year), the majority of which is exported to the Homeland and Heartland Areas, as well as to the densely packed metropolitan hearts of Areas 5, 6, and 7. The residue is mainly produced by local Number farmers for subsistence purposes
• Secondary agricultural moneymakers for estate owners include sugar cane and sugar beets, persimmons, strawberries, melons, and limited quantities of coffee in some volcanic soils.
• Secondary food crops harvested on estate farms by tenant farming communities include cabbage, potatoes, onions, carrots, barley, pumpkins, and soy.
• Actual caloric income and diet of Number communities vary depending on the policy and economic stability of their local noble. Honorary communities, who tend to be more concentrated in urban areas or in mid-sized towns and who provide a great deal of the coercive and administrative manpower on an estate level, almost universally have a greater caloric income and a more varied diet than the local Numbers.

Fisheries

• In keeping with the defunct Republic of Japan, Area 11 has a highly robust fishing industry, with numerous active fisheries producing over 2 million tons of fish per year.
• There are large salmon aqua-farms located off the coasts of most maritime prefectures, especially off the sheltered western coast. There are also substantial coastal aqua-farms of shellfish of varying breeds.
• Area 11 is also host to a large fishing fleet that conducts operations in the North and South Pacific regions and includes the exploitation of tuna, sardine, anchovy, whale, and seabass fisheries.
• There is also a small recreational fishing industry aimed at the Britannian nobility, which prioritizes sport fishes such as swordfish and marlin.

Labor

• In the immediate months post-Conquest, three different and distinct diasporas of Elevens occurred. The first and second consisted of refugee Elevens fleeing across the Sea of Japan to the Chinese Federation and European Union respectively. The third diaspora consisted of the harvesting of choice Numbers for distribution to various industries and interests across the Empire.
  • Exports included trained engineers and chemists, computer and software developers, and scientists and researchers of all descriptions. These were offered employment with a number of governmental institutions and corporations.
  • Exports also included a pick of young men and women.
• While the former export has been all but expended in Area 11, the harvest of the latter remains common, as it does across all Number populations. In addition to domestic employment, further drafts have been conducted in Area 11 for unskilled and semi-skilled labor. Due to the high pre-Conquest population density, extensive labor drafts were conducted during the initial years, with the product exported for employment in the other new Areas, particularly as support staff in Areas 10 and 13.

Manufacture


Semi-Finished Goods

• Area 11 has a number of steel plants, primarily around the Osaka and Sapporo Settlements.
• Area 11 also manufactures a large number of semiconductors, some of which are manufactured by the Sumeragi Industries conglomerate, which is also a member of the NAC and thus a participant in the walled garden Sakuradite industry

Finished Goods

• Area 11 has a significant shipbuilding industry, with significant shipyards in Yokohama, Osaka, and Sendai.
• Area 11 also manufactures a significant number of consumer-grade vehicles for export to other Areas, with a particular hub located in Sendai.
• All rails used in Area 11's transportation network are manufactured within the Area.

 

[Scopas]

JULY 2, 2016 ATB
STRATFORD PLACE, HONORARY DISTRICT #2, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
2200

"-ings a final end to the Yokohama Sniper's reign of terror." The newscaster concluded. "Now, fo-"

The next item in the bulletin fizzled out as the screen died. Keith Forester slumped back into the couch, hand still loosely grasped around the remote. It had been the third time he'd seen that particular "special bulletin" over the last two days; seemingly, the death of the feared Yokohama Sniper at the hands of the heroic agents of the Imperial Bureau of Investigation was all anybody could talk about. It was as if nothing else of any note was happening.

If only God were so merciful.

Keith closed his eyes, letting the cynical thought flow out and away through his nostrils along with his breath as he exhaled. Keith, he reminded himself, wouldn't think that anything else of note was going on. Keith wouldn't think of anything that he had not been directly ordered to think.

Keith, he thought as a cry from Hannah cut through the apartment from the bedroom, quickly hushed by Emily, is a father now. And all that matters is making sure that Keith doesn't stop being a father because he thought too much and did too little to remain Keith.

From the other room of the small two-room apartment, Keith heard Emily cooing something to their five year old, suffering from a bad case of strep throat. He didn't know what tune she was humming, what words might be carried on her breath too low to be heard through the wall.

He only hoped those words were Britannian. They'd agreed years ago to not speak Japanese – Elevenese – around Hannah.

It would be, they fervently hoped, easier that way. They couldn't do anything about the hair or the eyes, but they could make sure that Hannah would be as Britannian as any Honorary Britannian could be.

It was better than the alternative. Better an Honorary Britannian than a Number. Better to live than to be a corpse.

Better to be a traitor to thousands of years of dusty ancestors and useless traditions than to be a corpse.

Even if it was hard to remember that sometimes.

With another sigh, Keith allowed his eyes to flicker open. The half-remembered meditation exercises from… from before would not be bringing him any peace tonight, he could tell as much already. He was too agitated, too uneasy; his mind might be sick and tired with unease and neverending stress, but his body was full of nervous energy.

Keith walked over to the window, sliding it open with difficulty. The low-rise apartment building, one of hundreds like it originally thrown up for temporary worker accommodations in the burgeoning Tokyo Settlement before gradually gaining an aura of permanency as the land was zoned for Honoraries, was less than four years old and already home to a host of tiny problems. Fortunately, he'd fixed the window's slide with a bit of judicious banging with his hammer, so he could enjoy the summer breeze, cool this late at night.

Five kilome- three miles away to the southwest, the walls surrounding the open-air prison called Shinjuku Ghetto rose, the flat gray concrete blanched by the moonlight from above on all sides save that facing the Britannian Concession. There, the reflections of gaudy red, green, and golden lights mottled the walls like some strange pox.

Unbidden, a cool can of beer slipped into his right hand as Emily came up from behind him, tucking herself against his back. Without looking away from those distant walls, barely a hump on the horizon at this distance, he slipped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close.

Hannah's throat must be doing better, Keith thought as he hugged his wife, if she went back to sleep so easily. Good girl, giving her mom a break.

"What're you thinking about, Kei…?" Emily's voice was husky in his ear, and for all that she spoke in the Britannic their status legally compelled them to use, he could still hear the voice of the same girl he had met years ago, back in a different Shinjuku. The girl he had married, in the dust of that Shinjuku as the walls went up and the dispossessed of Tokyo were herded inside. The girl he had married, almost five years ago now. The girl who had joined him in turning his back on Japan and had signed up for the Citizenship Classes, their baby daughter in her arms.

Despite her best efforts to cultivate first a Tokyo accent and then a Homelander accent, Emily still had the faintest touches of Osaka on her tongue. Even if it hadn't been just the two of them and their daughter in this apartment, that lingering accent meant that Keith could always pick her out of even the noisest of crowds.

"Just…" He swallowed, his throat dry and stuffy. A sip of the cold beer helped loosen it back up. "Just thinking about the old man again."

"Ah…" Her arms tightened around him just slightly, and Keith reciprocated the embrace as he stared out across the nightscape.

"I miss him." The words hung in the air, hideously underwhelming and entirely incapable of carrying the emotion welling up from deep inside Keith's heart, from a place that had once been the younger son, proud of his policeman father, full of irritated admiration for his naturally achieving older brother. A place that had once gone by a different name, in a different country. In a different life. In a different world. "I miss my father."

Emily was silent, her face tucked against his chest. Her warmth, the pressure of her arms, surrounded him, contrasting with the cool wind on his face, the cold beer in his hand. "Father was proud," he said, "always so proud… Proud of his uniform, proud of his country, proud of his sons…" Keith swallowed.

"I really loved my father."

In his mind, he could dimly see that colossus of childhood gain, that bushy mustache under the thick-rimmed glasses, that prematurely gray streak through his hair, and the tie pin his mother had once given Officer Matsumoto Souichiro of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police department always glimmering against the breast of his dress shirt when he wore a suit. He could see that same colossus crumble as they wandered Shinjuku, freshly returned from a trip to visit Grandpa's farm and finding the world had shifted on its axis while they were away.

He remembered the fury in his father's eyes when Keith, hand in hand with Emily, had told him their new names and that they had become Honorary Citizens, their applications approved and tests complete. The Oath sworn.

At least the Yokohama Sniper ended up being a woman… It had been all too easy to imagine a familiar face, worn down by years of privation and twisted with hate, glaring down the barrel of a rifle. At least… At least I don't have to wonder if the Yokohama Sniper had been thinking about Hannah when she shot that kid…

"I really loved my father…" There was still a part of the boy he had once been who cried when he remembered that rejection. "I wish…" He trailed off. What did he wish? That his father had been less proud, less stiff-necked, more willing to adjust to the changing times? That wouldn't have been Matsumoto Souichiro.

"I wish he could be here with us… That he could watch his granddaughter grow up… Could help you take care of her…"

Even if his father was still alive somehow, even if he had somehow found a way to beat the odds and survive as a Number, Keith knew that dream was dead. Souichiro, his father, would never accept that the mother of his only grandchild was an Honorary Britannian, and that his granddaughter would be raised to be an Honorary Britannian, completely cut off from anything Japanese if Keith had his way. The knowledge that his father would never, could never be part of his daughter's life gnawed at him. Who was he to cut Hannah away from her grandfather? How could he?

"My son is dead! You killed him, you bastard!"


Because, Keith answered his own question, it's the only way for Hannah to have a long life, if not a happy one. To be Japanese is to be vermin, utterly disposable. I'll do anything to keep her alive.

"But… as long as you're Emily, and as long as she's Hannah… And as long as I'm not who I was… He won't… I can't…"

He could never go home again. But what was home, if not this apartment? It wasn't much, but it was where his wife lived, where their child lived.

The thought of his old bastard of a father's reaction to Emily, not Ami, and to their daughter curdled the old grief into anger again, just like it always did when thoughts of what could have been bothered him.

"Fuck him!" The can crumpled in Keith's fist, and he pressed Emily close to him, trying to ignore the way the wind chilled the wetness on his face. "What did he want me to do? Curl up and die with him in the ashes of our old home? Lay down next to Mom and Kotaro's bones and join them? Fuck him and his pride! Pride wouldn't fill our bellies! Being Jap- being Elevens wouldn't keep my daughter alive, it would only trap her in the same misery he was too proud to turn away from! He didn't even try! He just wanted to die, and hated that I wanted to live!"

He didn't know who he was trying to convince. Souichiro, if he was still alive, was miles away and no doubt hated him still. Hannah was still too young to understand, or at least he fervently hoped that five was too young to understand hatred, and thankfully still asleep despite his outburst. Emily had heard it all before.

Emily…

Abruptly, Keith felt ashamed. Emily's parents were both dead, and she'd been an only child. She had no family other than him and Hannah.

In his darker moments, he couldn't help but envy his wife, just a bit. It would have been easier if Souichiro really was dead, as dead as the Japan he represented. It would have made it easier to keep Kenji buried.

"I miss your father too…" With a start, Keith realized that it was Emily who had said that, talking into his chest.

"You never liked him," he mumbled back, letting the can drop from his fingers and turning away from the window, wrapping his freed arm around his wife, running his fingers through her short hair. "He was always stiff around you… He never welcomed you in…"

"I know, but…" Emily tilted her head back, looking up at him. Her eyes glimmered, wet with moonlight and pooling tears. "I miss what he could have been. What he should have been. He should have been proud of his son. Proud of what his son managed to accomplish. Made a life for himself."

"He said the wrong son died." The old hurt coated his tongue like the scum after a night's hard drinking, and Keith, realizing he was lashing out at the image of the Souichiro that could have been in his wife's eyes, moderated his tone. "When I told him what I was doing… He said he wished he had taken Kotaro with him to Grandpa's place, that I'd stayed behind in Shinjuku with Mom…"

"That was wrong of him to say, to think," Emily replied, heat touching her voice. "He had a wonderful son in you. And now you're mine, and you're my wonderful husband. You've got a good job and career in the Honorary Legion, and the pay's enough for the rent and food, so I can stay home with our daughter. It's your hard work. He didn't deserve a son like you."

"It didn't need to be this way…" And now the anger was gone, cycling back to grief. "Plenty of cops just changed what laws they were enforcing… Swore new oaths…"

"If he had been as good of a man as his son," Emily insisted, no hint of compromise in her voice, "that's what he'd have done. Instead of making you work your own way through Citizenship, he could have given himself and his son a new life, a better life than what he settled for. So he lost his son and the chance to have a family with us." She stood on her toes and touched her nose to Keith's, forcing a reluctant smile to his lips. "His loss."

"Yeah…" Not his loss; Keith hadn't been the one to push his father away, to reject him. To choose to cling onto a rapidly dying past instead of finding the courage to reach out to a new life. All he had done was keep his family alive and fed, and damned the costs to himself. "Yeah, you're right. His loss." As he repeated his wife's words, Keith felt certainty creep into him. "I loved my father. I miss my father. But, if my father was more willing to see me dead instead of dishonored, instead of an Honorary… If he'd rather Hannah be dead than speaking Britannian…"

It was only a quarter turn, only a slight shuffling of his feet, Emily obligingly following him into the darkness of the apartment. Only a small adjustment, only a minor change, but Keith's back was to the open window, to Shinjuku.

"If he wants to lie down and die with Japan, with Mom and Big Bro…" It hurt, saying it out loud, but in that hurt was the first seed of catharsis. "If he wants death, then let him die. I am not my father. I chose life, and I'll choose my family." Emily was radiant in that pale light, her smile and eyes loving and beautiful, for all that her face was unwashed and drawn with the exhaustion of a young parent tending to a robust if occasionally ill daughter. "And if the price of that is kissing Britannian feet, well…" The smile felt crooked and forced on Keith's face, but he thought it could feel natural someday.

"Pride is death; if nothing else, that's my father's lesson."

 

[Scopas]

Another commission handled by Scitty Kitty, this time a simple headshot of Tanaka Chihiro, once of Shinjuku, also known as the Yokohama Sniper.

 

[Scopas]

FishTheTaco/Silencio finished another commission for me, this one depicting the recruitment of Diethard Reid in Chapter 21.

 

[Scopas]

(Thank you to Sunny, Restestsest, Rakkis157, and MetalDragon for beta-reading and editing this sidestory.)


A Voice for the Future: A Spot of Golf


JULY 7, 2016 ATB
FILLMORE COUNTRY CLUB, JUST OUTSIDE THE KYOTO HONORARY SETTLEMENT
1230


"Oh… Oh… C'mon…" The ball trembled on the lip of the hole, perfectly balanced on the brink. The suspense of the moment was heady as Bradley, Bradley's unnamed caddy, and Lady Sophie Sumeragi, also called Kaguya, waited with bated breath. Or, in Kaguya's case and quite possibly that of the caddy's, waited behind expressions which were very convincing facsimiles of the eager tension written across Bradley's face.


Finally, with a desultory thump, gravity passed its verdict and the ball tumbled out of sight and went to its destiny in the depths of the hole.


"Huzzah!" Bradley's broad, pink face flushed with passion as he pumped his fist exultantly. "A birdie! I got a birdie!"


He actually said 'huzzah,' Kaguya marveled from the sanctuary of her mind. What century does this boy live in?


"Is that very good?" Kaguya asked with cloying sweetness, playing dumb and making a show of listening attentively as Bradley, the third son of a noble unimportant save for his post as the vice-president of the second largest trans-Pacific shipping concern, took the opportunity to "educate" her once again on the finer points of golf scoring, tooting his horn as he did so.


"Splendid showing, milord," the caddy said after Bradley finished explaining the difference between an eagle and an albatross, perhaps taking pity on Kaguya by cutting his noble master off before he could ramble any further. "That makes eight holes straight where you have come under par. Very well done, if I do say so myself. What a way to end this morning's game!"


"Thank you, Alex," Bradley, an overweight boy two years her senior, replied offhandedly, not even looking at the man. "Yes, a fine morning if I do say so myself." Seemingly remembering some scrap of his etiquette training, Bradley turned what he probably thought was a charming smile on Kaguya. "You did quite well yourself, Lady Sophie. At least, quite well for a… beginner."


Ah, what a graceful last-minute correction. And the man's name is Alex? Good to know.


It was always a good idea to learn small but important details like the names of the servants, at least in Kaguya's experience, even though she would never call the man by name, at least not anywhere his employer could hear her. It was also an excellent idea to politely ignore any peculiar gaps in sentences where a slur or a comment on her status or personal history might have been barely excised from the printer's tray of the speaker's mind just before publication.


To effectively play a role, the minor details were just as important as the broad sweeps. A poor performance of a "civilized" Britannian noble at one of these "encounters" could do greater damage to her acceptance in the Area's upper crust than showing up at tee time, or heaven forbid tea time, wearing a kimono.


After all, a full and public embrace of her native culture would convey the impression of perceived strength, even if it also conveyed temerity of the highest degree. Likewise, an excellent impression of a Britannian noble communicated an embrace of the Britannian way of life, as well as a certain willingness to "play ball", as it were, and to make sacrifices to meet the Britannians on their own terms.


A poor performance, on the other hand, only conveyed incompetence and weakness. Kaguya could afford neither.


"Thank you, my lord," Kaguya smiled sweetly at her suitor for the day. "Perhaps I will be able to impose on you again next weekend for another lesson? The Fillmore is such a beautiful course, after all… But good company makes it all the more enjoyable."


"Ah…" Somehow, Bradley found some way to become even more floridly pink, the color of his cheeks darkening to a shade that made Kaguya think of freshly sliced ham. It was an unfortunate shade, considering the boy's porcine face and the way his fair hair made him look all the pinker. "I… Umm… I'd like that…?"


The caddy, Alex, coughed lightly and Bradley's features firmed up.


"That is," the noble boy continued, his voice much firmer, "I would be willing to spare some time to help you improve your game, Lady Sophie. I am sure that, with my help, your handicap will drop to scratch in no time."


So not just a golfing caddy from the Club, hmm? Kaguya bobbed her head eagerly as she eyed the servant from the corner of her eye. A family servant, certainly. Perhaps Bradley's personal valet? Certainly a chaperone, sent to keep youthful hijinks in line and to make sure that the boy doesn't get too friendly with the Honorary, I'm sure. Pity that.


It came naturally to Kaguya to think of Bradley Dean as "the boy" despite him having two years on her. It was clear that Thaddeus Dean had not passed down much in the way of his business acumen to his third son, which was probably the reason the Britannian magnate was willing to consider even in passing a match between his boy and an Honorary Britannian. No matter that she was brilliant, that Sumeragi Industries was far more successful than Pacific Shipping Solutions ever could be, and no matter that the blood of emperors ran in her veins, while the Deans were mere lesser nobles with good business sense.


A third son was all an Honorary Britannian could rate, no matter how noble the Honorary was.


If Kaguya Sumeragi had truly been a social climbing Honorary eager for her children to be full Britannian nobles, she would have rejoiced to even get that sort of consideration, leaving Kaguya little choice in how to play her role.


And even that would be far too straightforward, now wouldn't it? If I play the "eager would-be Britannian" role too well, the Old Men might start getting tetchy again like the hypocrites they are. Kaguya sighed to herself, indulging in a moment of self-pity. Guess it's time to play the "demure maiden" card.


Kaguya carefully blushed and made a show of fiddling with the baggy fabric of her golfing trousers, the already voluminous garment made moreso after she bloused the legs into the high argyll-patterned socks. A touch of feigned embarrassment also gave her a fantastic excuse to look away from Bradley. He truly did resemble a pig, and not even a bristly boar brimming with bombast; indeed, Bradley looked fit to wallow in a sty, his mouth in the trough, and it was difficult not to mess up her poise and snicker at that mental image.


"I am honored you think so highly of me," she said, brushing an errant lock of her hair back behind her ear in a carefully calculated 'spontaneous' act of maidenly demurity. An old reliable, that, according to her official Britannian guardian, Lady Annabeth. "I am very thankful for your time. I am sure you are in high demand, and I appreciate your personal, undivided attention."


It was a bit of a dangerous move and not one that strictly fit with Lady Annabeth's lengthy lessons on Britannian courting etiquette, but Kaguya had always found it best to follow her instincts at times like this. She knew full well that Bradley was emphatically not in high demand, after all, evidenced by the way his father had instructed the boy to begin his attempt to court "a girl below his station."


She also knew that Bradley very much wanted to be wanted, and as he swelled up with self-importance before her, Kaguya knew that she had been right to trust her instincts.


He's barely even a Britannian, Kaguya thought with a trace of pity. Real Britannians lust for power and strive endlessly for it. I've met real Britannians. Bradley, though… Bradley just wants to be liked.


Tanya was more of a Britannian than him.


It was amazing the difference a little time could make. Just a week ago, Kaguya had felt all but helpless in the course of her life, her attempts to carve her own way frustrated by the accident of her birth and her desires to improve the lot of her people hobbled by the cautious conservatism of the Old Men.


And as far as anybody else outside of a chosen handful of close collaborators would know, none of that had changed.


Just another role to play, Kaguya mused as she burbled something simpering and enthusiastic as she followed Bradley towards the next hole. Honestly, it's starting to get a bit hard to keep them all straight.


The other Houses knew, of course, that the House of Sumeragi had contracted with the Kozuki Organization. Concealing the purchase and transportation of the supplies she had already shipped to Shinjuku would have been all but impossible, with the quantities to follow unmissable by any save the blind and fatally concussed. Instead, Kaguya had seized the initiative and brought the matter up at the last meeting of the house heads. Lord Tossei had been most displeased, but Lord Taizo had run interference on her behalf. The other three members of the Numbers Advisory Council were thankfully too absorbed with their own scheming to care, especially not after Lord Taizo had claimed that it was "important for the young lady to learn the importance of safe and sensible investments."


Which, if they were as canny as they think themselves to be, should have only served to heighten their suspicions. They are fully aware that Lord Taizo is my actual guardian, Lady Annabeth be damned, so what reason would he have to downplay my intelligence at a meeting save to obfuscate my goals?


"You know, Lady Sophie," Bradley said as he stumped up the hill to the next hole's teeing area, wiping the beading sweat from his brow with a monogrammed kerchief as he went, "there's no reason for us to be out in the heat of the day. The course isn't going anywhere, you know! Why don't we break for lunch at the Clubhouse?"


Cool and comfortable in her lightweight argyll-patterned golfing outfit, Kaguya didn't feel any particular need to retreat from the fairly mild noonday sun and she wasn't hungry either. On the other hand, she didn't care about golf and Bradley looked like he might actually melt if he was left outside for much longer.


Besides, I hear that the Fillmore has a complete dessert buffet on offer!


"Certainly, my lord," she said with a sweet smile, peering up at the Britannian from under her white flat-cap. "I could do with some refreshments myself!"


"Very good!" Bradley replied with poorly hidden relief. "Alex, tend to our clubs."


"Very good, milord." The caddy sketched a slight bow to Bradley before turning to Kaguya. "Lady Sophie, shall I take your clubs as well?"


The man's smile was appropriately servile, but his eyes were cold and assessing. Kaguya met them with the smoothly bland expression of disinterest reserved by Britannian noble etiquette for furniture and the help. It was a subtle test that Alex, if that was the servant's name, had sprung on her, but Kaguya already knew the correct response.


On one hand, a lady of her true rank did not speak directly to a mere valet, especially not one in the service of a club or another noble. Etiquette dictated that a lady of royal lineage only spoke to her handmaids, the ranking maid in charge of the household, and if she must, the butler, when in public. On the other hand, while Kaguya was the descendent of a cadet branch of an old imperial family, that family was no more and the empire they had ruled had not been Britannian and thus inferior. Claiming the same rights as a lady of the Britannian royal family could be a sign of disloyalty on her part.


So, instead of standing pointedly still and quiet or responding to the man's barb, she channeled just a touch of the fire she had seen glowing in Tanya's eyes as she recounted her first kill.


"The key, Lady Kaguya, was proving my competency in an undeniable manner."


The breath wooshed out of Alex's mouth as the 35 pound bag slammed into him like an inelegant sledgehammer, his knees thudding into the green as his strength left him.


"Oops!" Kaguya tittered behind a raised hand, coyly covering her mouth as she sought out Bradley's eyes. "I think your caddy's got butterfingers, Bradley!"


She pointed at her golf bag where it lay at the servant's feet, her drivers spilling out of the unzipped mouth. He had tried to grab the bag even as she'd rammed it into his gut, an impressive display of dedication considering how he had still scrambled for the handle as he wheezed for breath.


"He fumbled his catch… Wait," she put a finger to her chin, turning her face up in thought, "does this mean I got a hole in one?"


Bradley stared blankly at her for a moment, before snorting with laughter as he came back to himself. "For taking down Alex? Not hardly, Lady Sophie! Good show, though. Can't take lip from the help, eh?"


"Too true!" Kaguya agreed happily as she linked her arm around Bradley's in the prescribed manner for a young lady escorted on promenade.


All the while quashing the discomfort in her belly. Abusing the servants was a time-honored Britannian tradition, a casual reminder of noble privilege and might and thus beloved by the aristocracy, and so her role forced her to go along with the practice. Bleeding hearts stood out in Britannia, especially if they had Japanese faces.


She still hated the pointless cruelty of the culture of abuse, not to mention the waste. Kaguya had no issue with pointed and useful cruelty – no daughter of Kyoto who sought to maintain her position in a man's world could afford to be squeamish – but cruelty for its own petty sake did nothing but make more enemies.


And isn't that just Britannian culture in a nutshell, she thought wryly. Utter swine, greedy and bullying, power-hungry and always, always so desperate to show how dominant they are of everything around them. To them, the only unforgivable crime is that of weakness… Funny how they never realize how that constant clamoring for strength only makes them look weaker in everybody else's eyes.


One day, Kaguya promised herself once more, I will reveal their weakness for all to see. I think I have already found my best tool towards that goal… But for today, I must still play along.


"They're all the same, you know," she confided to Bradley as they strolled off down the hill, leaving Alex to handle both sets of clubs behind them, "all of the lower sorts. You wouldn't believe how much trouble my own Honorary housestaff gave me before I finally drove some manners into their heads."


"Oh?" Bradley chuckled, wiping his moist brow again with his handkerchief. "You know, hearing that from you should come as more of a surprise than it is. You really do have some teeth, Lady Sophie. No wonder my father's so impressed."


And there's that weakness, noted Kaguya with distaste. Bowing to the opinion of your father instead of drawing your own, only seeing a sweet face and finding that a tongue that can drizzle honied words can be bitter and venomous as well… And did you think I didn't hear the slightest hint of unease in your laugh, Bradley-boy? Time to set you back at your ease, I think.


"I will defer to your father's wisdom on that score," Kaguya demurred, smiling up at her companion again at just the right angle for her bright green eyes to peep out from under the brim of her cap, a practiced look of playful cuteness. "He's so smart! I'm really impressed with how well your family has done, Lord Bradley! A vice-president must be so busy all the time! I could never keep up with all of that!"


She was laying it on a bit thick, but Bradley was a bit thick too. No reason to risk him drawing the wrong conclusions.


"But you own your own company, don't you?" Bradley's big, stupid face creased in a frown of honest puzzlement. "Don't you know all of that… business stuff too?"


"Me?" Kaguya adopted an expression of artful surprise. "Lord Bradley, I have people for that! After all," she sniffed, "a lady doesn't dirty her hands with business outside of the household books, of course… Especially not when there's sweets to be had! I have heard so much about the Fillmore, but I have never been here before! Is it true that they have an entire kitchen devoted to the dessert menu?"


"It's true," Bradley acknowledged, before adding with a sniff, "although the food is, in my opinion, barely adequate. Let me assure you, Lady Sophie, that the chefs back at the Dean Estate in the Homeland are far finer."


Before Kaguya could follow that comment up with the usual round of giggled flattery, an almost furtive look passed over Bradley's face. When her golfing companion spoke again, his voice lacked the usual noble oiliness; for the second time that day, Kaguya felt like she was seeing a shy boy glancing out from around the edges of the edifice of the scion.


"That's what Dad says, at least. But, between you and me…" Bradley was muttering, and were they not all but alone, the heavily laden Alex trailing behind them on the hill, Kaguya would have thought he was trying to avoid being overheard, "the Crème brûlée is really, really good. I'm not really supposed to like it, since it's European and all, but…"


Well, well, what do you know? It looks like there might be a real person somewhere inside the Brit pig after all.


"If what you say is true…" Kaguya replied, voice solemn and grim… "then your secret will be safe with me, Lord Bradley." The mock seriousness slid from her tongue like a viper's molt, leaving an impish smile behind. "Us sugar lovers gotta stick together, eh?"


As Bradley beamed down at her, his smile far less stiff and uneasy than before, Kaguya pressed her advantage and wrapped her hand around his. "Come on! Why are we standing around in the heat when there's desserts with our names on them waiting for us? Come on!"


It turned out that, no matter Bradley's numerous other faults, chief among them the bad taste displayed by being born Britannian, he had an excellent taste in food extending beyond a keen eye for sweets. Over their extravagant lunch, thankfully free of the usual protocols in the designated informal space of the clubhouse dining room, the third son spoke knowledgably and at great length about all of the dishes Kaguya chose to sample. From the selection of vinaigrettes that arrived with the salad starter to a step by step explanation of how the much-vaunted Crème brûlée was prepared, the teen was a practical font of knowledge.


Incidentally, the Crème brûlée was indeed just as wonderful as Bradley had promised.


I wonder if Tanya would like to try some, Kaguya mused as she stared at her empty dish, only the remnant of the crust left behind. She ate almost as many cookies as me, after all…


As the after-lunch conversation began to wind down, Alex the caddy discreetly slipped up to their table and, with a quick bow, knelt by Bradley's chair to murmur something into his ear. Bradley's spoon, still laden with a last bite of his pudding, paused in mid-air as the young noble listened intently to his servant before turning to Kaguya, a broad smile worming its way across his face.


Something about that smile made Kaguya's gut clench with unease. It's the gloating, she decided. He's pleased, very pleased, about something.


"Well, Lady Sophie," Bradley began before pausing to take the last bite of his pudding, relishing the taste as he replaced his spoon by his plate, "there's one less troublemaker in the world now."


"Oh?" Kaguya blinked guilelessly at the Britannian from across the table, her eyes wide with clearly telegraphed interested innocence. "Well, that sounds delightful! But… I must ask, which troublemaker are you referring to now, Lord Bradley? Sometimes, it seems like the whole Area is full of nothing but troublemakers. It's so hard to keep track of them all!""


"Oh," Bradly blinked, surprise at her question momentarily displacing the smug satisfaction from his face. The surprise in turn firmed into a frown of patrician disapproval that sat ill at ease on his flabby features. Indeed, the expression was so clearly unnatural and practiced that Kaguya was forced to assume that the boy had practiced it at length in a mirror, presumably trying to imitate one of his betters, most likely his father. "Yes… yes, I see your point. The Empire is truly vexed with an abundance of rats scurrying underfoot these days, isn't it? Sad that such a state is practically taken as a given now… Not that a lady in your position would need to burden herself with the specifics."


"Not for the most part," Kaguya agreed with a careless shrug that, while equally as practiced as Bradley's disapproving frown, suited her role as Lady Sophie, wide-eyed gadabout. "That's really what the help is for, isn't it? I'm not really much for the news myself, I'm afraid. It's far too dull and always so depressing, except when Prince Clovis is giving a speech! Honestly," she rolled her eyes theatrically, eliciting an appreciative chuckle from her companion, "it's enough of a bore keeping up with all of the reports my company's directors insist I read, not to mention all of the household accounts Lady Annabeth forces me to slave over!"


"Quite understandable," Bradley nodded understandingly. "You bear a heavy cross indeed, Lady Sophie. It's no fault of your own that your lessons were… delayed, and it's commendable how hard you have worked to master them."


The happy smile on Kaguya's face was not at all forced. Indeed, it was sweet as honey, as elegantly manicured as any hedgerow and, indeed, just as naturally occuring. "Thank you so much for your understanding, Lord Bradley."


"Not to worry," he replied, magnanimous in his dismissal. "But… Where were we… Oh, yes, in any case, this particular troublemaker is the infamous Yokohoma Sniper! Surely," he implored, "you have heard the name, at least? That's all any of the news stations have talked about for a week now!'


"Ah, yes," Kaguya smiled as the knot in her stomach cinched itself tight. "I think I've heard about him, but I more or less tuned it out. I'm not much of a newshound, remember? So I don't really know all the unpleasant details, but… well, the name is quite self-explanatory, isn't it? Almost on the nose."


"Heard of her!" Bradley corrected triumphantly. "They just got her! And not a day too soon."


"A… woman?" Kaguya blinked, momentarily taken aback. "I… can't say I was expecting that." Remembering herself, she quickly added, "I mean, aren't men supposed to be the ones who are all about passion and the hot blood of battle and all that? Flying off the handle like this Sniper presumably did seems like a very… masculine thing."


That's it, Kaguya told herself as she carefully deflected the lordling's attention away from her gender, play into the Britannian norms and use them to your advantage… The girl sitting across the table from you definitely has no stomach for the fight. And another girl commanding a city from a bunker doesn't have passion enough to rekindle a nation's fiery heart. Just a pair of harmless girls, nothing to see here…


And as 'Lady Sophie' deflected and disarmed, the rest of Sumeragi Kaguya smoldered with fury. Damn that bitch of a sniper! She'll blow the cover for the rest of us!


"Well," replied Bradley dismissively, resettling himself in his chair as Kaguya's stomach dropped through the floor, "what can you expect from the Elevens, Lady Sophie? Unlike yourself, they're hardly… Civilized."


She nodded along, her tongue heavy and still behind her lips. It was, a distant corner of Kaguya noted, almost sweet how he made exceptions for present company without having to be reminded. By Britannian standards, that's positively cosmopolitan.


"Yes," Kaguya heard herself say, "they're so childlike sometimes. I mean, you wouldn't believe how much trouble I've had with even the newer Honoraries, to say nothing about the outright Numbers. It's like they don't want to understand."


It was her voice, but those weren't her words. Kaguya was busy, a cascade of possibilities running through her head as the lessons and propaganda her Britannian tutor had hammered into Lady Sophie operated autonomously.


"Exactly!" Bradley agreed vigorously, his eyes alight with interest and misplaced sympathy. "They just don't seem to understand their place! You would think after six years the lesson would have seeped into their thick heads, but…" He shrugged. "Maybe this time, they'll learn. His Highness the Viceregal Governor did up the punitive quota, after all, and if a thousand to one doesn't send a message, nothing will."


It will send a message indeed. Kaguya felt cold with the certainty, all ice and cut-glass clarity. Oh yes, it will send a message indeed. Lord Tossei and his faction have just lost once and for all as soon as that message is made. If the Britannians seriously carry out the full penalty set forth in Proclamation Nine in a city, not just out in the Niigata countryside, it means that it will only be a matter of time before there are no Elevens left, and quite likely no Eleven-descended Honoraries either. The conservative "wait and see" approach is doomed.


By sending this message, the Britannians have only guaranteed that the Day of Liberation will soon dawn. And I have secured the sun in my camp and given her as many bright beams as I could to scour the barbarians away.


"Quite right," Kaguya agreed aloud, directing a fraction of her attention at Bradley as her mind whirred. As soon as the news broke, events would begin to unfurl at breakneck speed. She wouldn't be the one to set the tinder ablaze, of course, but she wasn't going to stand around waiting to be burnt either. Timetables would have to be accelerated, shipments of weapons and supplies in and people out would have to be accelerated… "And if they won't learn this time, won't understand the course history has plotted for them now… Then they will never understand."


And if that's the case, then we truly are dead as a people. If a mass sacrifice of ten thousand, even twenty thousand, isn't enough to breathe renewed life into the Yamato-damashii, then it matters little how many bodies the Britannians stack, for we will already be as corpses.


"Quite right!" Bradley nodded, his budding double-chin bobbing slightly as the servant Alex stood at his back, thoughtful eyes nestled in a bland, empty face. "But for now… I think the rest of our game awaits. Nine more holes, eh?"


"Then by all means," Kaguya replied, rising to her feet in a single graceful movement, an almost burning energy suffusing her limbs in a desperate need to move, "I'm ready for the next round if you are!"


A Voice for the Past: A Warrior Without a War

JULY 7, 2016 ATB
KAWAKAMI, NARA PREFECTURE
1900


As the sun slipped away beyond the broad shoulders of Mount Sanjo, Tohdoh Kyoshiro settled down on the cracked old foundation stones that marked the place where Obatani Hamlet had once stood.


Once of the Republican Japanese Army, for a time the personal armsmaster of the Kururugi Household, now of the Japan Liberation Front, many miles had passed below Kyoshiro's boots since his childhood, much of which had been spent at his grandfather's home in Kawakami Village, or at the Kendo dojo the old warhorse had devoted himself to in his retirement.


Tohdoh Koichiro, like his son and his grandson, had been a military man for the bulk of his adult life. Unlike his son, Koichiro had seen combat under the last Emperor of Japan, during the failed attempt to expand the Empire of Japan onto the Asian mainland. The scars the great undertaking had left on his grandfather had been clearly visible to the young Kyoshiro, for all that his body had survived the trials of Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, and Karafuto intact.


The stories the old man would tell when the snow fell over the Omine Mountains left an indelible mark on Kyoshiro. Stories of dedication to the Emperor and the Land of the Rising Sun, of the devotion forged between comrades in untenable situations, of ingenuity in the face of overwhelming might. Stories of the loss of comrades and the loss of hope, the suffering of the wounded, and of how the dedication to something greater than oneself became a shield against the pain and the despair.


All of these stories, Kyoshiro Tohdoh had carried with him when he followed in his father and grandfather's footsteps. Like his father and grandfather, he had enrolled at the Republican Japanese Army Academy, and like his father and grandfather, had graduated with honors, whereupon he had taken the oath of service to Japan and her government.


He had been commissioned as a Lieutenant of the Artillery.


Between his excellent grades, his father and grandfather's networks of contacts in the Army bureaucracy, and the Tohdoh family's history of military service dating back to the Bafuku, he had risen rapidly through the peacetime RJA. His superiors were impressed by his stoic demeanor and sincere devotion to the ideals he had learned from his grandfather's stories. His non-coms were impressed by his willingness to get his hands dirty in the pursuit of deepening his proficiency as an artillery commander.


That last aspect of Kyoshiro's command style had been taken directly from his grandfather's stories. Although his grandfather had served as an infantry officer, he had always emphasized how important it was to prove to the men that you understood exactly what they were doing, and that you could hold your own in any one of their tasks.


"That," Koichiro told his attentive grandson, "is how you get more than just respect for your rank. That's how you get their loyalty. Prove that you know what they're doing, what they're feeling. Show that you're not afraid of an honest day's work."


Consequently, Kyoshiro had always made a point to serve on one of his battalion's self-propelled howitzers at some point during every field exercise, not as a battery commander or even displacing the sergeant commanding the howitzer's crew, but rather as a mere loader or a gunner. His grandfather's wisdom had paid off; in every command Kyoshiro held on his way up the ranks, his men consistently outperformed every other artillery formation in every metric assessed.


Oh, how they had cheered…


Kyoshiro sighed, brought back to the present with the echoes of his long-dead 2nd Battalion still ringing in his ears. It was, he noted, a beautiful night. The moon was already out, hanging brilliantly in the sky in the last rays of sunlight, and the cicadas were out in force.


Here, a kilometer and a half away from the nearest access point into the JLF tunnel system radiating out from below the sacred mountain to his west, he was thankfully alone. Only here, in a village that had already been dying when he was a boy, was Kyoshiro free, free from his subordinates in the Knightmare Corps, free of General Katase's endless need for advice and support, and most of all, freed from the damnable "Tohdoh of Miracles."


Miracles… How grotesque.


Intellectually, Kyoshiro understood the name he had been given by some propagandist in the dying Kururugi Administration. It was important to give the people hope that the Britannians could be defeated, and symbols were crucial in inspiring and preserving hope. It was that cold understanding that had kept his grief-stricken temper and shattered nerves intact during that meeting with the remnants of the General Staff, where they had congratulated him for his victory and had addressed him by that nickname in a speech broadcast via radio to all of Japan, immediately making him a living symbol of hope.


His stoic demeanor had held fast until he found his way to the quarters assigned to "Tohdoh of Miracles." Being the man of the hour, he had been given a private room, a reprieve from the crowded barracks bunkers the surviving rank and file had been crammed into. As soon as the door had closed behind him, once he was confident that he was alone, Kyoshiro had finally allowed himself to grieve for the lost 1st Battalion, 7th Heavy Artillery Regiment, the sister formation of his own 2nd Battalion.


No miracle had been enough to save them, to save the city that they had died to a man to protect…


Kyoshiro sighed again, and closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing. In and out, in and out…


And as his breathing calmed and his heart rate slowed, Kyoshiro allowed himself to remember Itsukushima.


It was August 13th, 2010. The Britannians had made landfall three days earlier, and Japan hadn't been anywhere near ready to receive them. The Navy, somehow caught flat-footed by the massive Britannian armadas approaching the Republic from three directions, was for the most part caught in their berths, the handful of vessels who managed to put to sea sent below the waves in hours. The Air Force was similarly under-prepared, and by the time the Britannians advanced on Hiroshima, they had enjoyed air supremacy for days.


Despite enjoying an uncontested sky and control of the waves beyond the coastal artillery guarding the harbor's mouth, the Britannians had still managed to bungle the assault on the city. It was the first piece of luck Lieutenant Colonel Tohdoh had enjoyed that day.


From his post at the Takanosu Battery on Itsukushima, Kyoshiro had watched as the Britannians attacked Hiroshima from the east the day before, following National Route 2 and the Sanyo Expressway in a baffling line of advance from Fukuyama. The fighting in the city had been intense, if tragically short. The city's garrison had done their best to hold their position but over the course of the day and the night the Britannians had steadily forced their way through the dense suburbs and urban core, driving the Japanese Army back.


The stand of the Hiroshima Garrison would have been over much more quickly if the Britannians hadn't somehow miscoordinated the second mandible of their pincer, the seaborne force arriving only after everything east of the Ota River had already fallen to the Britannian landward forces. But somehow, whether it had been poor communication or some bizarre interservice rivalry, the Royal Britannian Navy only arrived in Hiroshima Bay after the fall of Hiroshima City was all but assured.


If that mistiming of the two assault wings had been Kyoshiro's first piece of luck, the second must have been whatever failing led to the initial Britannian disregard for his Takanosu Battery, and for its sister battery across the harbor, the Mitakayama Battery.


Oh, how arrogant the Britannian sailors and marines had been in their approach! Kyoshiro could still see the pale gray profiles of the destroyer escort, the two warships carelessly shepherding the four slab-sided amphibious assault vessels directly into the mouth of Hiroshima Bay. Those assault vessels were already deploying a swarm of tiny landing craft by the time the approaching flotilla advanced to Onasabi Island, each carrying a squad or so of Britannian Marines, or else one of the at the time newly revealed Knightmares.


He and Lieutenant Colonel Ienaga, in command of the 1st Battalion of the same 7th Heavy Artillery Regiment that was the parent formation of Kyoshiro's own 2nd Battalion, had frantically coordinated as they realized that the Britannians would motor right past their positions without so much as an attempt at suppressing fire. Kyoshiro, by dint of having a commission three months senior of Ienaga's, had the dubious honor of deciding the moment to fire.


It had been glorious.


The Britannian destroyers sweeping into Hiroshima Bay had been grand vessels, all clean steel lines and bristling spires, standing as tall and proud in the water as the Britannian emperor's own household guard on their parade ground. Both ships were stuffed from stem to stern with the most advanced sensors and missile systems the arrogant superpower could boast and carried enough ordinance to level a city while hiding behind the horizon, all protected by teeming point defense cannons.


Even an army officer with multiple generations of antipathy for any naval force such as Tohdoh would freely admit that the destroyers of His Imperial Majesty's fleet were impressive, true knights of the waves in all of their menacing glory.


But so close to shore, under the twenty four total howitzers of Tohdoh's two artillery battalions, all of the flotilla's might meant nothing. Their point defense cannons, designed to fend off aircraft or intercept air-to-surface missiles, were hopelessly overwhelmed, drowned under the iron rain of eight batteries. Their gleaming steel hulls, triumphs of technology each, were ripped asunder by the merciless 15cm high explosive shells that fell as swift and true as the gods' own vengeance. Trapped in the Bay between Kyoshiro's battalion to their west and Ienaga's battalion to their east, all the Britannian naval detachment could do was die.


Within four minutes of Kyoshiro's order to fire, the once pristine ships were almost unrecognizable, smoke belching from their ravaged hulls as a terrible blaze consumed them. One destroyer was halfway submerged, sailors launching lifeboats as the stern sank below the surface of Hiroshima Bay. Her sister, holed below the waterline by a lucky shot, was already capsizing, her crew desperately throwing themselves into the sea as the unlucky were sucked down into the depths along with their ship.


The transport ships loaded with Britannian marines, their supplies, and their vehicles, most especially including the complement of Portmans, had likewise met their doom.


The battalion had been elated, and Kyoshiro, knowing even then that the Britannians would not allow their defiance to remain unpunished, hadn't the heart to quash their enthusiastic cheers. Instead, he'd radioed his compliments to Ienaga and set to work coordinating with the battalion of infantry attached to his 2nd Battalion as guards; the Britannian transports had managed to offload many of their soldiers and even some Knightmares into their landing craft, and those survivors would be out for revenge.


As it turned out, Lieutenant Colonel Ienaga and his unlucky 1st Battalion would be the recipients of that vengeance. The Britannians spurned the high cliffs and densely forested slopes of Itsukushima in favor of the lower-lying Etajima Island, where Ienaga commanded the Mitakayama Battery. Kyoshiro could do nothing but silently watch the ensuing slaughter, gripping his binoculars with white-knuckled fury. Could do nothing but watch, and make adjustments.


Before the Conquest had begun, before Britannia had come to Hiroshima's shores, when they had first been assigned to coastal guard duty, Kyoshiro had sat down with his fellow officer of the 7th Artillery. As their colonel would be otherwise engaged with personally directing the 3rd and 4th Battalions in their defense of the landward approaches into Hiroshima Prefecture, it would be up to the pair of them to direct their own efforts to keep the seaward approach to the city clear.


Among the many plans and contingencies he and Ienada had worked out, Kyoshiro had suggested a last, desperate fall-back, for use in the event that troops had already landed on the beaches and it was too late to attempt a retreat. In such an occasion, each battery would sight on the other's position and wait until the enemy broke through the defensive perimeter and into the cleared ground of the Battery itself, a prepared killing ground conveniently stocked with sensitive ordnance primed to provide secondary detonations.


Kyoshiro had passed the order himself, breaking radio silence to give the codeword. "Gyokusai," he had stated into the radio's receiver, the taste of the word cold and revolting in his mouth. The long arms of his howitzers had risen as one, battery commanders passing down pre-planned firing solutions and gun lieutenants making hurried adjustments before all twelve guns of the battalion spoke as one.


The resulting sea of explosions had washed over the northern reaches of Etajima Island, the munitions in the Mitakayama Battery's bunkers detonating in sympathy with the bombardment Kyoshiro had ordered on his sister unit. While the view through his binoculars was obscured behind thick, burning smoke and plumes of debris during the shelling itself, Kyoshiro had no difficulty imagining the shrapnel scything through friend and foe alike, nor the bleeding eyes and ears ruptured from overblast.


When the smoke finally cleared, Kyoshiro kept himself steelly calm as the concussed remnants of the Britannian assault staggered back down to the beaches where their landing craft waited. As the invaders pulled themselves back together, Kyoshiro kept himself calm, issuing new orders as he shoved the horror at what he had done away.


There was still, after all, much to do.


The next set of targeting solutions were distributed among the grimly waiting men of his batteries by runners, the radio shunned on the off-chance that the Britannians were listening in. The battery commanders and gun lieutenants again made adjustments until Kyoshiro was satisfied that the entirety of the channel between Itsukushima and Onasabi Island was blanketed in overlapping fields of fire.


The Britannians, Kyoshiro had known with bleak certainty, would be frustrated that their revenge had been spoiled and infuriated at the fresh insult. Their renewed assault was never in question.


He had also known that he had no intention of allowing his battalion to follow Ienaga's into the afterlife. Admittedly, there was little risk of that now, not until the Britannians managed to muster reinforcements, but going to war with only a single arrow in the quiver was foolish. He had summoned the major commanding the infantry battalion guarding his artillery to him and had brought the man in on his plans.


Unsurprisingly, the infantry major was all to eager to collaborate, his awe at the destruction Kyoshiro had wrought written plainly across his face. Soon, the infantrymen had joined his artillerymen in making their own hasty preparations. Though both worked frantically with shovels and entrenching tools, the infantrymen's rifles were never far from their hands.


They needn't have hurried; by the time the Britannian officers had finished licking their wounds and reimposing some measure of order on their surviving forces, all was in order.


When the Britannian marines and sailors set back out to sea in their landing vessels, they had been like some awful oil slick spreading across Japanese waters. Among the swarming flotilla of ships overly-burdened with blood-mad sailors and marines, a handful of Knightmares had stood like demons among the churning mortals, their giant frames haughty and unmoving among the onslaught. Despite their reduced numbers, the Britannians were still clearly spoiling for a fight.


Their pride remained unchallenged until the survivors of the naval invasion of Hiroshima were more than halfway to Itsukushima, too far to easily turn back to the shelter of Etajima or Onasabi's coasts.


For a second time, as Hiroshima burned behind them, Kyoshiro's guns bellowed their fury. This time, his howitzers were joined in their chorus by the infantry battalion's 81mm mortars as the first Britannian marines and sailors stumbled onto Itsukushima's shores. The infantry, dug into shallow foxholes between the trees on the slopes overlooking the lower firing positions of Takanosu Battery, did their best to throw the intruders back into the bay as the artillery company assigned to the beachside position retreated up the hill to rejoin the rest of Kyoshiro's 2nd Battalion.


That battalion of infantry had fought like lions as Kyoshiro again ordered his section chiefs to make adjustments. As rifles blazed and mortars thumped on the beach below, the howitzers' barrels had climbed towards the sky until they had practically reached their maximum elevation. Then, once the word was passed down the line once more, Lieutenant Colonel Tohdoh Kyoshiro had commanded them to fire as one.


The last of their explosive shells rose in high arcs into the skies over the shrine island before descending almost straight down like the lightning of Susanoo himself, and like the kami's wrath, the howitzers smote the Britannians as they huddled on the beach, the infantry pinned in place for just long enough to bog down the Portmans wading ashore through the sticky mud of the tidal flats. And, while the armored Knightmares could withstand the light shells of the infantry mortars with ease, the ship-killing artillery under Kyoshiro's command was a different matter.


Even as the last survivors of the Britannian flotilla meant to take Hiroshima by sea died on the beach below him, Kyoshiro had given the order to prepare to retreat. The Fall of Hiroshima was already an inevitability, and even then Kyoshiro had known that the fight for Japan was only just begun. But as his men scrambled around him, he had thought of nothing but the shelling he had ordered on the 1st Battalion's position.


He had been watching through his binoculars as his order was executed. He had seen figures in the olive green of the Republic's army still fighting the gray-clad invaders, before both had vanished under fire and steel.


Such was the cost of victory.


Ultimately, the "Miracle of Itsukushima" had been a tactical victory at best, from where Kyoshiro had stood at his island command post six years ago, and from where he knelt in the ruins of the present it hardly looked like a victory at all. His battalion had retreated in good order, their self-propelled howitzers, their personnel carriers, their ammunition trucks, and their headquarters vehicles accompanied by the jeeps and the trucks of the infantry battalion on a convoy west into the mountains of Shimane Prefecture, but they left Hiroshima burning behind them, the last stalwarts of the doomed garrison succumbing to the Britannian advance.


But, tactical victory or not, it had been the only victory of any note won by the Republic's forces during the Conquest. To a people desperate for hope, and to a leadership hungry for symbols, that had been all that mattered. Even as he led his convoy up into the mountains, the shattered remains of other RJA units joining his column as he retreated to the prepared positions in his nation's spine, every radio broadcast spoke of "Tohdoh of Miracles" and "the Miracle of Itsukushima."


Even the men who had fought under his command, infantrymen and his own artillerymen alike, parroted those stupid phrases, preferring the propaganda over the contents of their own memories. Kyoshiro's stoic resolve, modeled after that of his Imperial grandfather, had saved him from despairing as all of those hopeful eyes turned towards him. Carrying the weight of their hopes was another duty, he had recognized, and Tohdoh Kyoshiro had never backed down from duty.


Which was why he had left his column under the command of his second, Major Urabe, to bring the men the rest of the way. Lieutenant Colonel Tohdoh Kyoshiro had been Instructor Tohdoh during peacetime, and he had a duty to his student. He had left to find the young Kururugi, the young man who bore the ancient blood and the name of the last ruler on his strong shoulders, and in that duty Kyoshiro had failed. The Britannian advance swept over Kururugi Shrine long before he got anywhere close to the Prime Minister's residence, and Kyoshiro had been forced to return to the Matsumoto Headquarters empty-handed.


Only to learn that Urabe, doing his best to advance his commanding officer's glory and honor, had heavily stressed how Kyoshiro had bested the naval Portmans during the battle, taking advantage of the environmental factors to slow the highly mobile armored units before bombarding them into burning wrecks.


General Katase, Kyoshiro learned, had been most impressed, saying that "any man who understands the enemy so well must surely be able to imitate them! When the Day of Liberation comes, we will need our greatest warrior to turn the Britannians finest blades back against them! upon themselves!"


The words had stoked the fires of his hidden rage to an even greater inferno. It had been a great trial over all of these years, holding his composure together in the face of similar comments. General Katase and the rest of the JLF's staff had, Kyoshiro feared, drawn entirely the wrong lessons from the Conquest. As if the Knightmare is truly the reason Britannia won. As if an artillery officer could hope to turn the tide of war commanding such an entirely different beast. As if a coward of a man could be called a great warrior while the true heroes lay dead and forgotten.


He was a coward. If Kyoshiro had truly been brave, he would have forced those lessons down Katase's gullet, decorum and the protocols of rank be damned. Instead, he had hidden behind his stoicism and avoided that fight, his emotions far too tender and raw for the confrontation. He had swallowed his words, grudgingly accepted the praise, and set to work learning how to pilot the enemy's weapon as best he could without a Knightmare to call his own, hiding in his work both from his own pain and from "Tohdoh of Miracles."


And now, it was far too late to say what should have been said then. It had been six long years since the Battle of Itsukushima. Six long years since he had fought and failed to save the burning city behind him, and over those six years Kyoshiro still had yet to save anybody from the same devouring maw that had fed upon Lieutenant Colonel Ienada, his colleague, and his command.


And yet, they still look to me, look to "Tohdoh the Miracleworker." Even now, as Yokohama bleeds, they look to me. What can I say to them? What can I do for them? How can a second-rate artillery officer become the knight in shining armor they so desire? With a sword sharp enough to avenge a million wrongs and a shield to ward away all blows?


The moon, waxing gibbous overhead, kept her secrets and gave no relief.


Tiredly, Kyoshiro got to his feet once more. It was time to return, time to put together some sort of response to Yokohama. Time to become "Tohdoh of Miracles" once more.


That was duty, and that was all that Japan had ever demanded of him. He had never measured up to his duty as he saw it, not to his student Suzaku, not to his battalion, all gone now save for himself and Urabe, and not to his nation. But the demand still went forth, and there was nothing Kyoshiro could do to answer it but be another man.


A Voice for the Present: A Voice from Yokohama


JULY 7, 2016 ATB
KONAN WARD, YOKOHAMA GHETTO, YOKOHAMA SETTLEMENT
2100


They came at sundown.


Nobody was surprised.


The entirety of the Yokohama Ghetto had been waiting for the hammer to fall for days. As soon as the Sniper had begun to target Britannians in the nearby Settlement, an inescapable gloom had fallen across the Ghetto.


Everybody knew what was coming. It had been six years since the Conquest, six years of unremitting random cruelty periodically punctuated by outbreaks of utter mercilessness. The walls of Yokohama Ghetto bore the silent scars of past acts of retribution, lines of bullet holes at chest height, with occasional pitting lower down, where the Britannians had aimed low enough to hit the children.


Back before the Conquest, Sayuri had been a proud wife and mother, a happy sister and daughter. Now, she was only a wife, though she had woken up this morning a mother.


Beside her, Susumu lurched forwards, his left arm hanging limply at his side, the crude bandage on his shoulder doing little to immobilize the useless appendage. Dried blood caked his fingers and the leg of his worn trousers. Though she hadn't looked at him in over an hour, she was certain that his face was still gray with pain and streaked with tears, his eyes fixed on some point down the tightly packed road.


His lips still fluttering in mute apology to Kazuha.


Just like Sayuri's were.


"Kazu…" Her throat was dry, so dry. Her eyes hurt. That was good. They should hurt, for what they had seen. "Kazu… I'm sorry, baby… I've been a bad mother to you…"


Behind her and off to the side of the road, Sayuri heard a shot. Someone had fallen out of line.


"Kazu…"

Her husband had always had a nice, deep voice, good for singing the dirty drinking songs he'd always break into when he and her brother would get together to "play cards." Now, it was barely a croak.


"Kazuha…"


The sticky summer heat was almost intolerable, but Sayuri could feel her skin prickling, clammy and inexplicably cold despite the night's sultry summer heat.


"Hurry up! Keep moving!" The barked order came from somewhere up ahead, and Sayuri momentarily shied away from that horrible voice, so much like the one that had said "that one" over a finger pointed straight at her six-year-old daughter.


Sayuri stumbled on. What else could she do? The time to stand and fight was over, long since over. If the time to stand and fight hadn't ended with the Conquest, it had certainly ended when the gray-clad soldiers had pulled Kazuha from her arms, when she had let them take her away.


"Momma! Momma, help!" She could still hear her daughter's voice in her ears. "I'm scared, Momma! It hurts!"


"Kazu…" She swallowed, her throat tight, her eyes painfully dry. "I'm sorry… I'm a bad mother to you… Please forgive me… But…"


Susumu stirred beside her, and she saw his head start to turn towards her in her peripheral vision. She hoped he would be angry, that he would strike her, beat her, kill her for daring to be alive and unwounded while their last child was heaped up in a pile at the foot of the wall outside their apartment building, while his bones were shattered from a stray bullet slashing through his shoulder.


Instead, Susumu only sighed, his head slumped forwards as he trudged on. Where were the Britannians taking them? It didn't matter.


"But…" Sayuri continued, still seeing her daughter standing right before her eyes, her arms pinned to her sides by a towering giant in a faceless mask, as real as her half-visible neighbors, her comrades on this nighttime march. "But… I realized I'm scared to die, Kazu… I'm scared… I'm sorry… I know you don't want to die either… But Momma is scared, Kazu… Forgive me…"


Ahead, the crowd was slowing, halting. Bellowed orders drifted from the front. Something was happening.


"Get in line!" A rough hand shoved her, shoved her away from Susumu, who stood silent, his face exhausted and grief-stricken. "Get in line, bitch!"


A gloved hand grabbed Sayuri's hair, still tied back in its usual ponytail, dragging her face forwards and down. She staggered forwards, into whatever queue the soldier had put her into, and when she turned back around she couldn't see Susumu through the milling press. Somewhere behind her, someone screamed. There was another gunshot, then another two, and then hard-edged laughter mixed in with something in Britannian she couldn't quite understand.


An overwhelming fear struck Sayuri, the first thing she had felt, truly felt, since she watched Kazuha crumple to the blood-streaked concrete. Where was Susumu? Where was her husband, her last link to the life she'd once had, to the time of family dinners after long work days, to picking out baby names, and to dates in college?


"Kazu…" She croaked, fear bubbling in her chest. "Is this you…? Did… Did you take Daddy, because I left you… Because I let them take you…?"


More screams came over the crowd, followed by more shots. Suddenly, with a lurch, the group Sayuri had been herded into was starting forwards, gloved hands shoving her into motion. She scanned the seething crowds around her as she moved, desperately looking for any familiar faces and finding nothing but strangers and darkness all around her.


Before her, a truck loomed, its open back gaping like some terrible maw. Sayuri tripped and almost fell as the crush of bodies slammed into her, first from before her as the people ahead stalled in the face of that terrible mouth, and then from behind her as the soldiers shoved them forward. Step by step, Sayuri staggered up the plank ramp leading up and into the truck, feeling the boards creaking below her feet.


Darkness surrounded her for an instant as wood disappeared in place of steel. The back was still open and only an arms-length behind her, but already the heat was sweltering and the claustrophobia was overwhelming. The truck was packed with people, forced shoulder to shoulder with no room to sit, barely any room to breathe. Fighting to turn, Sayuri saw the soldiers behind them, two of them training their rifles on the crowd while their comrades forced another few women, and they were all women being forced into this truck, up the ramp with the help of batons.


"Susumu!" Her voice was suddenly so loud, the croaking grief wiped away by animal terror. Where was she? Where were they taking her? Why were they only putting women into this truck? "Susumu! Susumu!"


The crowd heaved forwards again, and Sayuri almost lost her footing. Terrified at the idea of stumbling, of being trampled underfoot, she grabbed for the women around her, seizing their clothes, their shoulders, trying to fight off the hands she could feel scrambling for her shoulders, her hair, as the others around her struggled to find their balance.


Suddenly, everything went pitch dark as the doors to the truck slammed closed, the sound of steel on steel deafeningly loud in the unlit metal box. An instant later, a collective howl of terror, of grief, almost primal went up, filling the truck with the sound of human fear. Despite the din, Sayuri could clearly hear the sound of a bolt slamming home.


We're locked in! They locked us in!


"Susumu!" Sayuri cried out, more by instinct than by any hope that her poor shattered husband could do anything to help her! "Susumu!" Another name came to her lips and caught there, in the back of her throat, almost choking her. For a moment, she saw her daughter reaching out for her again, felt herself shying away from the soldier behind her daughter's tiny form…


And then the truck lurched forwards, sending the entire crowd scrambling again as they were forced backward, bloody hands clawing at the unforgiving rivets and sheets of the shipping container's interior, and Sayuri lost herself entirely to her terror and her grief.


"Kazuha! Kazuhaaa!"

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 31: A Mounting Tension


(Thank you to Aminta Defender, Sunny, MetalDragon, Adronio, WrandmWaffles, Rakkis157, and Aemon for beta-reading and editing this chapter.)


JULY 11, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
0540


Outside of the old apartment building Ohgi had led me to so long ago, Shinjuku waited.


The lobby was empty save for the two Sun Guard militiamen standing guard by the entrance. The broken doors of old mailboxes yawned open from the wall. The street outside was uncharacteristically thick with loitering men and women. Any crowd in this otherwise quiet corner of Shinjuku was uncharacteristic in general, but I had ceased to be surprised. A crowd much like this one had greeted me along with the sun each morning for the last several days, ever since the news of Chihiro's identification and death had broken. Word of the two-day-long massacre and forced deportation had only swollen the anxiety-ridden ranks.


As I stepped past the guards and through the door, I felt the pressure of the crowd's undivided attention settle on my shoulders. Men and women, young and old, all stared silently at me. While the noise of a city rising for work seeped in from the surrounding streets, a brittle quiet reigned here, in front of the apartment building where Ohgi and Naoto had offered me a home so many months ago.


"Brothers and sisters…" My eyes swept over the attentive crowd, picking out familiar faces in the gray light of morning. There stood Takahiro, the never-ending font of youthful enthusiasm flanked on either side by his friends, Rin and Miyu. The trio of youngsters stood silent and still for once, their faces drawn. Two rows back stood Kaho, the long-suffering girlfriend of "Trainspotter", better known as Youji, who had joined me in ambushing a convoy of Knightmares, holding her toddler in her arms. Next to her stood a gray-faced Mrs. Maki, whose children Ohgi had once tutored.


So many tired faces, speaking of sleepless nights… Everybody knows what has befallen Yokohama could just as easily happen here, could happen to them… They have all come together to find solace, and so they have come to me once more. A crowd is made up of individuals, all drawn together as their individual wants and needs coincide into a greater goal. By pooling their strength and speaking as one, they advance on their shared objective.


In the wrong hands, a crowd can easily become a mob lashing out with unthinking violence. How fortunate that they are in my hands instead, and that it is up to me to set their objective.


"Brothers and sisters," I repeated, raising my hands up and outwards as the energy of the crowd's attention filled me, palms tilting towards the crowd as renewed certainty ran through me, before snapping them into fists and thrusting them skyward, ready to speak. "Good morning! Japan lives!"


"Banzai!" The cry went up from the throats of the multitude thronging the street, their fists joining mine in the sky. "Ten thousand years!"


"Yes," I called out, the cheers cutting off immediately as the crowd strained to hear me, "the Japanese people are still strong, still fierce, still proud. No matter what insults are heaped up on us, no matter the abuse, no matter the murder of families and friends and parents and children! Ten thousand years, brothers and sisters!


"Ten thousand years would not be enough to make us forget the pain! The loss! The cruelty inflicted on thousands for the crimes of one!"


An ugly murmur of agreement rose from the crowd, and I nodded firmly back, establishing solidarity with their loss.


I'd had a hand in causing it, after all. Unintentional or otherwise.


I should have murdered Chihiro myself while I had the opportunity.


"Brothers and sisters," I called out, sweeping my gaze across the crowd, "I will not deceive you; bad days are coming."


The silence was back, as was the intense sense of focus. Glimmering eyes stared out from gray faces, every line trembling with anger and pain.


"Yes, bad days are coming indeed. Things will get worse before they get better. But…" I smiled conspiratorially at the crowd, "you already knew that, didn't you?"


A wave of nods and a few chuckles rose in reply, and I gave them a moment to express some of the tension, allowing the momentary laughter to fade.


"Yes," I agreed with myself once the rapt silence returned, pitching my voice low, "you don't need me to tell you that hard times are coming. Hard times are always coming… Hungry times, trying times…"


I smiled back at the crowd again and took a step down from the lobby entrance, so I stood only a single step above street level. I knew that some of those in the back would have to crane over shoulders and heads to see me, but today I wanted to remind the Shinjuku crowd that I had risen from the same street as they had. I was one of them, not just an authoritarian voice from above.


Above all else, I had to be beloved by Shinjuku, by the hardscrabble men and women of the tenements and streets if not by its power brokers. In the hard days ahead, I would need that love. It would be the coin I would spend to buy their sacrifice.


"But," I continued, letting my gaze soften as I stretched out my hands towards the crowd, adults and children alike reaching back out towards me in a sea of mute pleas for reassurance, "I also know that you, the people of Shinjuku, know how to endure the unendurable without letting the Japan in our hearts die."


I sought out the eyes of individual members of the crowd, letting them read in me my bonafides, my own life of trauma, and saw their acknowledging nods. "I also know that you are busy people, practical people, who don't have time to stand and be lectured about what you already know, so I'll cut this short so we can all get to the Meeting Hall for breakfast."


A ragged laugh burst from the crowd at the mention of food, as well as scattered applause. I smiled, again letting the tension soften, before raising my hands once more towards the overcast skies, drawing all attention back to me.


"Hard times shall be upon us!" and now my voice was a clarion call, cutting through the hearts and minds of the people like a scythe. "But we will rise to the occasion, brothers and sisters! You are angry – keep that anger alive in your hearts, and know that your enemy thinks you weak and beaten! You are grief-stricken – take the time to grieve, to share memories of the dead with the living, so their names will live on!


"We might join the dead soon enough, but our names will live on and one day be spoken again by Japanese tongues under a Japanese sky! Until then, work hard and train harder! Our time will come soon, brothers and sisters, and I expect everybody to do their duty below the Rising Sun! For when that time comes, we shall rise up and return this injustice so harshly foisted upon us ten-thousand-fold!


"Once more and again! Long live Japan! Long live her people! Death to our enemies!"


"LONG LIVE JAPAN! LONG LIVE JAPAN! LONG LIVE JAPAN!"


The lingering ghosts of night shaken off at last, the crowd began to dissolve as its members ambled off towards the Meeting Hall for breakfast and work assignments. The noise level began to swell and rise as conversations broke out between chatting friends or chiding parents trying to herd children off to get food before their lessons. No trace of the earlier silence remained, save in a tiny pocket around me as a few stragglers hung back, clearly hoping for a private word.


I looked past them, out over the column of retreating backs, and found myself wondering how many more speeches I would give out under the open air before such gatherings became death sentences.


If the Britannians turn their gaze upon us in earnest and start using artillery to shell any large concentrations of Elevens, the time for speeches will already be over. But, I told myself, turning to look back at Yuyuko, my bodyguard for the day, that's a consideration for the future.


"Time?" I asked, mouthing the word at Yuyuko, who consulted her watch before slashing the air in front of her. Half an hour left, apparently.


Just… Just a moment then.


I nodded to Yuyuko, who stepped forwards flanked by the guards as I slipped back away through the door, retreating into the lobby. "The Commander is taking a quick break! If you have questions or concerns, please form an orderly queue here! We will-"


The door swung shut behind me, cutting off the sounds of the street. Knowing that I was still visible from the outside through the broad windows by what had once been a receptionist's desk, I kept my back straight and my pace unhurried as I turned the corner and stepped into the first floor apartment my bodyguards had appropriated for their guardroom.


Safely out of sight, I closed my eyes and tried to feel my fingers. They were completely numb, as if I had left my hands in an icy stream for an hour. Similarly, the only thing I could feel below my knees was the dim awareness of the pressure exerted by my own body weight.


Just what would Ohgi say if he could see you now? I scolded myself as I picked my way over to a chair, practically collapsing down onto the uncushioned wood. Bad enough that you forgot dinner last night, worse still that you only managed three hours of sleep, but keeping your enhancements running practically all day yesterday only to spin them back up on first waking?


Well, that particular bill was coming due. My enhancement suite, a polite term for a collection of stripped down Imperial spells bashed together, gave me the physical and mental edge I had required for survival as a child laborer. The enhanced reflexes and improved mental processing my magic provided me had likewise made me a force to reckon with during the hit and run raids I had conducted in the mountains of Nagano and the tenements of Shinjuku.


Not without cost, though.


A wave of disorienting fatigue slammed over me as the weight of sleepless nights tried to drag me down. Eyes slamming shut, I clenched my teeth as pins and needles exploded down my arms and throughout my legs, the sudden sensation almost agonizing after hours spent numbed on magical analgesics. My back hurt, my eyes burned, and I was so, so hungry.


Blinded as my eyes dilated open, unable to handle even the minimal light of the ersatz guardroom, I grabbed the wooden lip of the chair with both hands and squeezed down, trying to anchor myself in a swirling audio-visual mess of stimulation.


The deferred emotional reactions were the worst part of spinning down, though. When I was enhanced, everything seemed so clear and easy to understand. Plans appeared almost fully formed before me, the correct and rational decision always ready at hand. Now, all the stray thoughts and tangents rampaged over my tired synapses as the highs and the lows previously smoothed out into minor dips or hills expanded into fissures and peaks.


Somewhere, a door opened. I heard footsteps approaching me, but couldn't find the will or the capacity to react. Exhausted and unenhanced, I was all but sapless, incapable in my weakness.


"Good morning, Commander." I couldn't see her through my watering eyes, but I knew that somewhere in the room, Tanaka Chika stood. "You don't have time for breakfast, I think, but I brought you an apple." She paused, evaluating my state. "I'll cut it up for you."


My exhaustion was so great that I could barely muster any concern at the thought of being helpless and alone in a room with Chihiro's little sister even as she pulled out a knife.


Or, I mused as the sounds of chopping began somewhere off to my left, you simply know that Chika is nothing like her big sister. You have nothing to worry about.


If I could, I would have laughed scornfully at that second assertion. I had no end of things to worry about. But, I would freely concede that Tanaka Chika, Inoue's devoted assistant, was nothing like the bloody-handed butcher who had condemned some thirty thousand of our countrymen to death for absolutely no gain.


Thirty Britannians… Thirty four Honorary Britannians… and consequentially, thirty thousand of our own… Chihiro, you damned fool… And I'm equally the fool for letting you off your leash. I would have killed those Britannians myself, given the chance, and already my operations have led to the deaths of far more of the invaders than your paltry trick, but every risk I took was calculated towards the accomplishment of an objective, no matter how shrouded my reason! But subtlety was never acceptable to you, was it?


Thankfully, Chika had not been in the room when the news of the official Britannian proscription against Yokohama Ghetto arrived four days ago. She had been off running some errand for Inoue, a coincidence I had regarded as a great mercy as Junji read the latest dispatch from Yokohama aloud to Inoue and I.


Less mercifully, Chika had been in the room when the news of Chihiro's unmasking had arrived two days before that, slipped quietly in front of me by a wincing Junji as Inoue and I discussed the latest district allocations with the Leadership Commission. Chika, serving as our stenographer, had dutifully noted the moment when I called for a quick break in the official minutes.


"I understand," had been the twelve year old's only response when I took her aside to explain that her elder sister had been discovered on her mission, her voice solemn and her eyes knowing. "She won't be coming back."


It hadn't been phrased as a question, and the girl – although she was my age, almost to the month – had only nodded politely as I explained that Chihiro might escape and survive to return home yet. Perhaps after losing her parents and who knew how many friends to the Britannians, Tanaka Chika had grown understandably fatalistic. Perhaps she had been savvy enough to realize that I would kill Chihiro if she ever showed back up in Shinjuku again after abandoning her mission in favor of an independent month-long killing spree. Perhaps Chika had put herself in the shoes of a fellow orphan and found something in me that she understood.


When the news of Chihiro's death had arrived as we all knew it would, Chika had shown little further reaction to the news of her big sister's fate. She had only asked Inoue to be excused for an early lunch before quietly slipping away to some private corner. Crowded as Shinjuku was, the skyscraper's weeping shells afforded plenty of hiding places for a skinny child. Thirty minutes later, Chika had returned red-eyed but ready to take notes for Inoue's afternoon meeting with Miss Tsuchiya.


And now she haunts my steps like a little ghost, I thought, blinking as she appeared with her typical unobtrusive sidle, the opposite of her sister's furious stride, in my slowly recovering peripheral vision, a dish of apple slices at the ready. Always there to feed me at the appointed times, or to pass messages on from Inoue…


It's just a bit unnerving.


It was strange to admit that the last Tanaka made me feel that way. I had never felt so much as a hint of disquiet around the survivors of the others I had lost under my command; some had raged, some had wept, and some had shown an understandable if undignified interest in what benefits they could still expect in the wake of their loved one's sacrifice. Mister Tokihaku, Sumire's widower, stood out in my mind as an example of dignified grief.


But in the cases of all the others who have died executing my orders, the personal dimension was not the same as it is for Chihiro. I trained with Sumire and Manabu and knew their stories, but when they died, they did so as soldiers under orders. For Chihiro… She was a personal enemy of mine and I sent her away to further my own agenda.


But Chika had proven herself reliable. More than that, she had proven herself trustworthy, enough that Inoue had put her in charge of making sure I ate. In quiet moments like this, the quiet girl, eyes huge and dark behind her spectacles, would appear with a small snack or a steaming glass of tea. At scheduled mealtimes, she would guide me with sheepdog tenacity down to the Meeting House's communal kitchen, refusing to leave me be until I had taken on a bowl of porridge at the very least.


A part of me noted that true betrayal could only come from trust.


"Thank you, Chika," I managed, realizing as I felt the grit on my teeth that I hadn't brushed in at least two days. I reached for an apple slice, as much for something to mask the horrible taste of my teeth as for the energy its sugars could provide me. "Just… give me a moment."


"Take your time, Commander," Chika replied in her dull, passionless voice, the antithesis of Chihiro's fire and bile. "Guard Yuyuko is running interference. There is no need to rush yourself."


"Time is too valuable to waste," I muttered rebelliously, but allowed myself to slump back into the chair. I ate another apple slice. Somehow the fruit only made my hunger more difficult to ignore. "Breakfast is at seven, right?"


"It can be earlier, Commander," said Chika, before pointing out that, "you were the one who set your schedule. All I do is keep you to your commitments."


"True," I chuckled, my voice rasping unpleasantly. "True, true… Thank you for your help, Chika…"


I paused, wondering what more I could say. What should you say to a child after you sent their only living family off to die? After you had fervently hoped for their sibling's death?


"I will get you some water too, Commander." Thankfully, Chika filled the echoing silence for me, taking the need to find something appropriate to say out of my hands.


She really is quite good at helping me with my commitments after all.


The bleak humor of the thought wrung a tired laugh out of me, prompting Chika to raise a quizzical eyebrow.


"It's nothing," I waved her down, "nothing…" I sighed. It seemed so patently unfair that the day had only just begun and I already felt so, so tired. "Well… No need to keep them waiting any longer, I suppose."


With a deep breath, I closed my eyes and I reached down into myself, down to where the magic went. The formulas flickered through my mind, their equations as familiar as well worn boots.


Where had my exhaustion gone? Where was the fatigue that had felt so crushing, all of the emotional surges that wracked me like a ship caught far out from shore? As my eyelids flicked back up, the world shone.


Destroyed, and remade anew.


Chika stood before me, somber as she watched me hop to my feet, momentarily ecstatic as new life surged through my veins. I smiled at her. "Thank you, Chika. I'll be by for breakfast soon. Make sure the kitchen sets a bowl aside for me, please."


With a jerked nod, Chika turned on her heel and vanished, ghosting out of the room, leaving only glimmering apple seeds behind as evidence of her passing.


Fully spun back up, I stepped past the trio of Sun Guards in front of the apartment building and down into the street itself, down on equal ground with the queue. I smiled at the first of my waiting constituents and dipped into a polite greeting bow. "Good morning. How can I help you?"


Each of the four subsequent conversations followed a similar path; a polite greeting paired with a compliment about my impromptu speech, vague statements about how wonderful Shinjuku was looking these days, and finally some mention of the particular issue or complaint that was the speaker's supposed reason for lingering behind. Those complaints were, to a one, incredibly trite and minor, almost irrelevant.


They were also not the reason for the conversations. No, that particular truth was layered throughout all the rest, through the meandering anecdotes and forced laughter. It was the quiet, desperate need for some reassurance that things weren't really as bad as they looked, that I as the closest thing to an authority figure left in Shinjuku had some plan up my sleeve to keep Yokohama's fate from finding a home in the Tokyo Settlement's ghetto.


I was careful to make no promises.


As the last person waiting to speak with me stepped forwards, Yuyuko tensed beside me. I heard the two door guards approaching as well, leaving their posts to back up my bodyguard. I could almost see their hands drifting towards their pistols, ready for trouble.


Masatsugu had clearly gone out of his way to warn the rest of the IAF about Councilor Nishizumi Tsutsumi.


I turned and gestured for the guards to return to their posts, and glared at Yuyuko until she took a reluctant step back, before turning to bow a greeting to the Councilor for Central Kamiochiai. "Councilor Nishizumi. What can I do for you, the Council of Notables, or possibly Kamiochiai this morning?"


"Commander," the one-time 'legitimate businessman' rumbled in return. "It's good to see you again."


As our previous meeting had concluded with mutually unsubtle jabs, the manifest dishonesty almost brought a smile to my lips. After dealing with the upheaval left in the wake of the almost stupefying act of mass slaughter so recently perpetrated by the Britannians, it was almost refreshing to return to the usual sleaze of politics.


But, even the Notable seemed shaken by recent events. Unlike our previous encounter a mere two weeks ago, Councilor Nishizumi had come to my door alone and unarmed; three concessions in one act. In the language of power politics, a tongue in which we were both fluent, he was unquestionably assuming an almost submissive role, arriving as a supplicant rather than a rival. That he had waited until the prospective audience of the early morning crowd had dissipated before approaching me furthered that impression.


Today, apparently, was not for showboating.


"And you as well," I replied, allowing my voice to soften as I threw the man a bone. If he wanted to deal in good faith, I would happily oblige. "I've got a meeting in ten minutes, so let's make this quick. What can I do for you today?"


"Busy morning, eh?" Nishizumi's smile didn't touch the worry dismayingly easy to find in his eyes. "That's fine. I won't take much time. It's…" He coughed awkwardly into his hand, shifting side to side. "It's just that… Lately, things have… changed."


"Mhm," I hummed noncommittally, simmering as I nodded, allowing the Notable to continue to struggle to find his words. "And of course, the Council of Notables would like some reassurances, I am sure."


If this is the council's attempt to come running to me begging for handouts, or worse yet, demands, after the Britannians just finished murdering a town's worth of our people, I think I just might enjoy "re-educating" them on the nature of our relationship.


"Not today," Councilor Nishizumi denied, shaking his head. "Look… Commander… I know that there's a bit of bad blood between us – hell, between you and the whole Council! – but, well…"


"But things have changed," I supplied, beginning to see what he was getting at.


"But things have changed," the old sailor agreed. "And none of us in the Council is stupid enough to think that the Britannians give a good goddamn about us, any more than they do about anybody else in any ghetto in the Area. An Eleven is an Eleven is an Eleven."


"That's always been the way of things," I pointed out. "We've both lived in Shinjuku for years, Councilor Nishizumi, so please, be blunt. What's changed specifically?"


"Blunt, eh?" Councilor Nishizumi paused, as if weighing up his words, before proving true to his nature and bull rushing ahead. "Fine. Once you and Kozuki and Kaname flattened all the gangs and started rebuilding Shinjuku, and once you proved you weren't just gonna be another bigger gang, we got… Eh…"


He sagged, suddenly, as if the shame and exhaustion was physically pressing down on his shoulders.


"Well, ain't no two ways about it, we got cocky. It was like the Republic was back for a bit, you know? We kinda got drunk on the feeling. Thinking the good times were back, that we had power again, that we were in control again. Then, well…" he grimaced, shaking his head, "we've sobered up now. Thirty-k dead…it's a helluva smack in the face for us. One we sorely needed."


"Sobering indeed," I agreed. "Not to mention the deportations. Junji's still trying to attach some hard figures to those."


"Right, right…" He ran a distracted hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. "Right… Well, the Council wants you to know that all the normal business is on hold for now. We're behind you now, all the way. You don't have to worry about us. Understand?"


You weren't behind me before? I almost said before pausing and biting back my initial incredulous response. No, think, don't react. Why this little announcement? On face value, it makes sense – if the Britannians could kill us all, cooperation is the logical response. But why wouldn't he announce that in front of the crowd? A show of unity in the face of the enemy would have been a good PR move…


Ah, I realized, finally putting the pieces together. The show of humility, the worry in his eyes, the emphasis on personal matters being put aside… What would Nishizumi, a former gang boss, expect from a rival whose power base had suddenly grown and firmed?


He would anticipate a revenge attack, the settling of old slights. He saw how the crowd responded to me, and was worried that I would take the opportunity to sweep the board clear of rivals. Caught between the Britannians on one side and myself on the other, knowing full well that the Britannians would just see an uppity Eleven, he came to submit before I forced the issue.


Of course, that submission will only last for as long as his terror of the Britannians outweighs his disdain for my leadership. But right now… as he said, things have changed.


"You don't have to worry, Councilor," I said, inclining my head to catch and hold his eyes. "After all, should the Britannians come here in force, death would be among the least of our concerns if we fail. You have my word that I will do whatever is necessary to keep us from sharing that fate, just so long as I have your full cooperation."


I paused for effect before rhetorically asking, "Do we have an understanding?"


Councilor Nishizumi sighed, bone deep weariness worn on his sleeve, yet so too could I see the edge of a smile on his lips.


"Heh, that we do, Commander," he said with a bitter chuckle. "Long live Japan."


An hour and a pair of brief stops later, I walked into the conference room I had claimed for my own on the second floor of the Rising Sun Benevolent Association's Headquarters, a bowl of porridge in hand and just in time for Lieutenant Ichiya's board of inquiry.


Not that Lieutenant Ichiya had been informed that this morning's meeting was slated to be her board of inquiry, of course, nor that she had even been under investigation. As far as she knew, she was simply coming to the Rising Sun's headquarters to deliver her regular weekly report.


It was easier for all this way.


I am sure she would be surprised to learn that her successor has already received word of her sudden promotion as well. Or, perhaps not… the reward should be commensurate with the services rendered, after all.


The habitually nervous lieutenant was seated on the far side of the conference room table, a Sun Guard with a navy-blue Internal Affairs sash quietly lurking behind her. On my side of the table, Inoue and Lieutenant Koichi waited patiently, separated by an empty chair. Inoue had predictably taken the opportunity to catch up on her paperwork and only looked up from the stack of manifests at her side to nod and smile a greeting before signing off some hand receipt. Equally predictably, Koichi was engaged in some whispered side conversation with one of his men, who hastily stepped back as I approached.

"Inoue, Lieutenant Koichi," I nodded a greeting, before turning to include "Lieutenant Ichiya. Shall we just get things started?"


Inoue muttered something approving as she pushed her wad of papers away into a satchel, clearing the space in front of her for a notepad. Koichi merely nodded.


"Alright." I turned and looked at the Sun Guard sitting unobtrusively at the end of the table, a notebook of his own ready to take the official record. He nodded, ready to execute his duty.


After years of fearing being the subject of a military tribunal… How ironic is it that when I finally experience one, it is from the other side of the bench?


"Alright," I repeated, shaking the stray thought away. "I, Hajime Tanya, Commander of the Kozuki Organization and acting board member of the Rising Sun Benevolent Association, call this board of inquiry to order. In attendance are Lieutenant Inoue Naomi, board member of the Rising Sun Benevolent Association, and Lieutenant Koichi, representing the Internal Affairs Force, as well as the accused, Lieutenant Ichiya, commander of the 14th Sun Guard Company, also known as the Naka Free Rangers."


The room was silent except for the scratching of the stenographer's pen as I turned to Ichiya. "Lieutenant, you stand accused before this board of inquiry of willful participation in unsanctioned actions, of communicating with members on deployment in contravention of standing orders, of disobedience of the same, of conspiring against the Kozuki Organization and its leadership, of concealing evidence of the same conspiracy, and of providing material support to an outlaw.


"Lieutenant Ichiya, do you understand the charges against you?" I paused, and when no response was immediately forthcoming, repeated "Do you understand the charges against you, or do you require an explanation before submitting your plea?"


"I…" Ichiya shook her head slowly, disbelievingly at first but with mounting concern as she looked from unsmiling face to unsmiling face. "No, I don't understand… I don't understand any of them. I don't remember seeing anything about any of them written down anywhere…!"


"In order," I replied, speaking over her rising panic, "willful participation in unsanctioned actions describes voluntarily aiding an attack or raid not approved by the Triad, or by the Leadership Commission in their stead.


"Communication with members on deployment is forbidden according to standing orders, on the grounds that unregulated communication could reveal operational details to the enemy. Disobedience is self-explanatory.


"Conspiracy against the Kozuki Organization indicates voluntary participation in the planning of acts contrary to the interest of the Organization, while conspiracy against the leadership is the same only against the well-being of the leadership. Concealing evidence is again, self-explanatory, while providing material support means that you assisted a noted enemy of the people of Shinjuku."


The stenographer bent over his pad, pen scribbling industriously. Next to me, Inoue was doodling in the margin of her otherwise empty page. Koichi looked just as cadaverous as always, except for the small motions of his head as he looked from me to Ichiya and back, faint interest gleaming in his eyes.


"Now that the charges have been explained to you," I continued, "how do you plead?"


"Not…" Ichiya swallowed, fighting for some shred of professionalism, her eyes darting and nervous. "Not guilty…? Yes, not guilty!"


"Very well." I turned to the stenographer, who looked up briefly from his page. "Let it be known that the defendant has pled not guilty to all charges."


"Noted," the man nodded, his hand twitching back into motion.


"Examination will now begin." I turned to Koichi, split-faced and expressionless but for an unsavory sparkle in his eyes. "Lieutenant Koichi, would you do the honors?"


"Certainly, Commander Hajime," the scarred man replied, unfolding himself from his chair to stand as I regained my seat and took the opportunity to shovel rapidly cooling porridge into my mouth. "Lieutenant Ichiya, you remained in contact with the former lieutenant Tanaka Chihiro after her departure from Shinjuku Ghetto, did you not?"


"Well, yeah?" Ichiya's reply quirked up into a question, with just the slightest patina of fear coloring the inquiry. "Why wouldn't I? She's… she was my friend as well as the one who'd been in charge before I took over after she got sent out. Why wouldn't I have stayed in contact?"


"Strike her question from the record," I told the stenographer, looking up from my breakfast. "The defendant does not have the right to ask questions, save when the board of inquiry specifically grants her said permission."


"Noted."


"So," Koichi pressed on, one corner of my most enthusiastic lieutenant's mutilated mouth flicking up into a joyless smile, "you admit to both unapproved communication and disobedience at the same time, as you fully admit to knowing that Tanaka was sent away on the Triad's authority. Very convenient; thank you for keeping this short. Now, let's discuss the content of your communications with Chihiro, shall we? They were carried out via your cell phone, correct?"


"Y-yes." Ichiya looked increasingly pale, the last remnants of her confusion deepening into fear. While the specific point of this exercise might still be lost on her, she had clearly grasped the gravity of her situation. Inoue looked up from the pad, met her eyes, and dispassionately returned to her doodling.


"We are told," Koichi revealed with just a touch of the theatrical, "that on the night of her departure, Chihiro publicly cursed Commander Hajime in particular and the Rising Sun Benevolent Association in general. We are told that she made several threats, both general and specific, against both. Despite this, and despite repeating those curses and threats as well as expanding to a few new ones, you continued to communicate with Chihiro and kept her up to date on affairs in Shinjuku independent of the designated official radio channel. Is this correct?"


"L-look," Ichiya began, licking dry lips, "I don't know who told you all of this, but… Yeah, Chihiro talked a lot of shit! We all know that, right?"


The room remained silent as Ichiya scanned desperately for support.


"Well, she did! But… she drank a lot, right? And she was my boss. Besides, it's not like she was going to do anything against us! Why would I betray her confidence by passing on random shit-talk like that?" Ichiya once again got no response. "Look, can I just know who you heard all this from? They might be lying!"


"No," Koichi replied, utterly unperturbed, "you may not. Note," he turned to the stenographer, who looked up again, "that Lieutenant Ichiya has admitted to conspiracy against the leadership and concealing evidence of that conspiracy on behalf of Tanaka Chihiro."


"Noted."


"Now," Koichi said, his tone never rising from its quiet interest, "we have established that you understood that Tanaka Chihiro had been sent to Yokohama, where she made pointed threats against the leadership in general, particularly Commander Hajime on the basis of her heritage, and on the basis of her involvement in humanitarian relief efforts for Honorary Britannians in the Tokyo Settlement.


"You remained in communication with her after the killings of Honorary Britannians in the Yokohama region had begun, did you not, and continued to pass along intelligence about the mood in Shinjuku?"


"Yes, but-"


"And when your messenger, a certain Iwamoto Miyako, returned from Yokohama in the company of Ogasawara Sui on July the eighth," Koichi purred, now clearly fully engaged with his role, "what did you do? Why did you refrain from informing the Leadership Commission of this development?"


"Well…" Ichiya trailed off for a moment, before rallying. "Look, I had a duty to my command, to the Rangers! We look out for ourselves because we can't trust anybody else to have our backs! I had a duty to discharge, and so I did! Once everything was safely handled, I noted their presence in my daily report on the ninth! I did bring it to the Commission's attention!"


"Your report on the ninth was late," Inoue interjected, "so late that it only crossed my desk the next morning. Your note was a single sentence appended to the end of a paragraph concerned with an unrelated manner. As you are generally a competent officer, Lieutenant, this seems less like a mistake in report structure than a case of deliberate obfuscation."


"Take a note," Koichi said, turning to the stenographer again, "that the defendant has admitted to harboring an outlaw, one Ogasawara Sui, who was declared an outlaw due to her culpability in the so-called Yokohama Sniper Attacks, an unauthorized spree of attacks on Britannian and Honorary Britannian civilians. As the reprisal of these attacks was the mass slaughter of thirty thousand Japanese in Yokohama, the defendant has also admitted her guilt on the matters of participation in unsanctioned attacks and of conspiring against the Kozuki Organization as well."


"Well," I said, reclaiming the whip hand of the proceedings as I pushed the empty bowl away and looked up at Koichi, who graciously returned to his seat so I wouldn't have to crane my head up, "that accounts for all the charges, I think. Stenographer?"


"Yes." The Sun Guard rose from his chair. "On the charge of willful participation in unsanctioned actions, Lieutenant Ichiya pled not guilty and has subsequently admitted without coercion to her guilt. On the charge of communicating with members on deployment in contravention of standing orders, Lieutenant Ichiya pled not guilty and has subsequently admitted without coercion to her guilt. On the charge of disobedience of standing orders, Lieutenant Ichiya pled not guilty and has subsequently admitted without coercion to her guilt. On the charge of…"


As the stenographer droned on down through the list, Koichi nodding gravely along, Inoue leaned over to whisper in my ear. "So… We haven't done any of these before, but since this is your show, I take it that you've already got a sentence in mind?"


My show indeed…


Show was absolutely the correct term for this so-called "board of inquiry". Ever since Ichiya's messenger, Umeda Kimi, had quietly made a surreptitious second stop at the Rising Sun's headquarters after reporting in at Naka Street three days ago, the day after the news of the slaughter in Yokohama broke, I'd had the show's conclusion firmly in mind. All that had remained was setting up this pantomime of a legal proceeding.


I will not allow a second Chihiro on my watch. This disobedience ends now. If I am to wage a war against Britannia, all internal threats must be excised before they can metastasize. And if I am to save the rest of Chihiro's command, their leader and Chihiro's closest surviving collaborator must be dealt with.


After all, Sui was both already dead and far too lowly to serve as a sufficient object lesson. Leadership as well as followers would be held accountable.


The quiet basement corner Naoto had ordered be walled-off back during his private war with the gangs had been my first stop after arriving at the Rising Sun's headquarters. There, under the silent guard of two women in Internal Affairs' sashes, Sui had been waiting for me.


To her credit, Sui had neither begged my forgiveness nor pleaded for her life. I had frankly anticipated an escape attempt. Surely she knew what was coming, and surely she would react the same way she had in Yokohama after Chihiro's madness had spiraled if the newly minted Lieutenant Umeda Kimi's report was to be believed. Instead, the cornered rat had finally discovered her teeth, and all I had found in that tiny room was a second Chihiro. I had listened patiently to her accusations of treachery, of favoritism, and all I could think about was how this woman might have saved thirty thousand of our countrymen had she shown this same defiant fire earlier.


Technically speaking, I hadn't needed to pull the trigger myself. I had no shortage of willing hands these days, not to mention how many angry, grieving people would jump at the opportunity for some personal vengeance for Yokohama. I had pulled it anyway, the snap-crack of the accelerated bead echoing in that tiny concrete box as Sui's last futile struggles faded away.


It had been painless and quick, though that had more to do with my desire to be done with her than any altruism.


When I executed Sui, I had felt no anger, nor any satisfaction, and certainly no guilt. I had only felt the vague pressure I recognized as magically muffled exhaustion as I holstered my pistol, another item on my daily list checked off as the two IAF soldiers began handling the corpse. Taking Sui's life was simply another duty, and one that I had found far easier to shoulder than offering condolences to grieving survivors or offering hope to a desperate crowd. A burden all the same, but one slightly less emotionally exhausting than the others.


I wondered if Naoto had felt that same weary detachment. Remembering his waxen skin and hollow eyes, that he'd felt the same exhaustion was unquestionable. That he had carried on regardless without any obvious crutch was nothing short of remarkable. He had no magic; perhaps he didn't need any.


But, I thought, looking across the table at Ichiya's drawn face, perhaps I can grant the lieutenant a greater degree of grace than I afforded to Sui. Unlike Sui, she didn't egg Chihiro's foolishness on, as best as I can tell. Nor did she encourage the women under her command to follow in their leader's example. If she had, if the entirety of her command had gone rogue, who knows what damage might have resulted? And despite her poor choice in friends, Iciya has done good work on the evacuations. She was a comrade once.


…Once, my train of thought continued, but now, an example needs to be made. We are not terrorists, striking out at random targets in the hopes of changing something. We are an army fighting for the liberation of Japan.


Breakdowns in discipline will not be tolerated, and misplaced sentimentality will merely damn the cause to a shallow grave beneath the boot of our heartless oppressors.


"Yes," I whispered back without looking away from the stenographer, nodding as he read the finding of the penultimate charge. "I have a sentence in mind."


"Tanya…" For the first time since the board began, Inoue looked… not uncomfortable, but perhaps conflicted. "Are you sure about this? The phone, the disobedience… This is about Chihiro, isn't it? She's already dead. Nothing you do to Ichiya will change that."


"Thirty thousand dead for nothing," I replied, entirely unmoved. "This isn't justice, but that doesn't render this proceeding meaningless. After all, unlike theirs, Ichiya's death will not be in vain."


Inoue held my eyes for a moment, and I did not look away, allowing the rest of the ersatz courtroom to fade away as I tried to convey my sincerity, my vision to her. I must have succeeded, for after a few seconds she slowly nodded and looked away, toward the doomed Ichiya.


That, it seemed, was that.


At last, his recounting of the charges and the findings complete, the stenographer returned to his seat and I rose again. "As the chairwoman of this board of inquiry, I ask for a verbal verdict on the guilt of Lieutenant Ichiya. On all charges, what say you?"


The formalities, after all, must be observed.


"Guilty," chorused Inoue and Koichi. Ichiya, who had grown increasingly pale as the list of charges she had inadvertently admitted her guilt to was read, swayed in her chair, face ashen gray.


"And I also say guilty," I echoed, a moment later. "As the chairwoman of the board, I name you a dishonored member of the Kozuki Organization and the Rising Sun Benevolent Association for your part in the conspiracy against myself and others. For this, you will be stripped of your rank and your name struck from our membership. For your role in the murder of civilians, both invader and otherwise, I sentence you to death.


"However," I raised a quelling hand, even though the condemned had shown no sign of interrupting, "I am not unmerciful. In recognition of your otherwise unblemished service record, you will be given an hour to write your goodbyes and last statement, and to enjoy a last drink if you so choose. You will then be provided with the final means to reclaim your honor."


Ichiya, lieutenant of the Kozuki Organization no more, looked up from her private hell to meet my eyes. Then, in a shuddering nod, her head jerked up and down as if puppeted by unseen hands, her eyes wet holes in a sallow face. She understood exactly what I was saying, what I had offered her.


Redemption and a place of honor, should she make the only apology the ancient ways had deemed acceptable and appropriate for failure in battle.


Coincidentally, such an expression would all but guarantee that any blame for the whole Chihiro Saga would land on her shoulders even after her death. The choices of the Leadership Commission, the Triad that had set Chihiro loose, would be washed away along with Ichiya's own dishonor.


"Lieutenant Koichi…" I stood and wavered slightly as exhaustion washed over me, now that the deed was done. Even my still-spinning enhancement suite could only blunt the edge. The pressure weighed down on my shoulders like a soaked blanket for a second before I pushed it away.


Focus! I had no time to be tired. Already, my mind was turning to the next item on my agenda. My list was long, and every item clamored for resolution, like a flock of nattering birds. One task was accomplished and yet so many more remained. Every time it seemed like the end was in sight, Junji or Inoue or somebody else would arrive with yet more reports and yet more work.


Good work is rewarded with more work. I reminded myself. And duty is a mountain.


I turned from the room, showing condemned and board alike my back. I had another appointment, and my time here was through.


"Lieutenant, I leave matters in your capable hands. Please ensure that she has a capable second and a cloth to wash her neck."


JULY 11, 2016 ATB
RSBA HEADQUARTERS, SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1130


"Tanya," Ohgi greeted me, the warmth of his voice only slightly sapped by the crackling static of the radio, "it's good to hear from you. How're you holding up?"


"As well as can be expected," I replied, my habitual reserve holding for a moment as I checked that Junji's technician had closed the door behind him.


"Of course, when my expectations were formed by how utterly exhausted you were when we returned to Shinjuku, Commander Kozuki, that really isn't saying too much. Truth be told," I added, trying to inject a note of levity, "I could really use a vacation."


"Well," said Ohgi, and I could almost hear his smile, "you'll be happy to know that in the course of our recent expansions that The School now has an onsen! Let me tell you, Tanya, that nothing takes the edge off a long day quite like a soak. Now, it's no Kusatsu, but I'd say it's just about the next best thing!"


"That does sound really nice," I admitted, imagining the feeling of sitting down in steaming mineral water and allowing myself to relax. After years of filth punctuated by freezing cold showers, it sounded like heaven. "Someday, perhaps…"


"Someday," he agreed with an air of wistfulness. "Not too long, though… After all, nothing's ever certain these days. Who knows when we'll… Well, when we'll no longer have the chance to enjoy another party together, eh, Naoto?"


"Right, right…" Whatever he might have said next disappeared into a burst of static, and I could almost imagine Naoto yawning into the radio receiver. The leader of the Kozuki Organization sounded as stressed as always, but that was, unfortunately, to be expected; like his sister, the elder Kozuki was always prone to overwork. "Well, I'm… glad to hear that you're doing alright… Tanya."


Despite myself, my heart leapt into my throat at the sound of my name. For months now, ever since Naoto had vanished into the hills of Gunma and Kallen into the Ashford ROTC, my fellow half-Britannian had only referred to me as "Commander Hajime," a title that sounded profoundly wrong coming from him. I had reluctantly followed suit, giving him the same title that the people of Shinjuku had given me.


Commander Kozuki never rolled off the tongue as well as Naoto's given name did, though.


"Thank you… Naoto." It was absurd that the simple use of my name should make me so emotional, but for Naoto and Kallen, both of whom walked half in our world and half in the world of their father, names were very important. "I will admit that my load has, in some ways, lightened recently. I haven't heard any pointed comments from the Notables on your leadership skills since the news from Yokohama arrived."


"Right…" The momentary levity dispelled immediately. "Yokohama. We need to talk about that… Lots to get done, before… well, before."


"But first," Ohgi cut in, his smile still audible but with an unmistakable firmness not previously in evidence, "Naoto has something important to say. Don't you, Naoto?"


"Yes." The solitary word hung in the air for a moment, and I could almost see Ohgi shooting a prodding look at his friend, our leader. "I've… I've sulked for long enough. That's over. There's no room for that garbage. There wasn't before, but now…"


"I understand." And I did. Thirty thousand dead had a way of putting things into perspective. "For what it's worth… I regret the pain I brought to you and your mother. If I'd had the time, I would have asked for your input."


"That…" Naoto sighed, "that doesn't really help. But I appreciate the gesture."


And that, seemingly, was that.


"Onto business, then," Naoto continued briskly, the brimming emotions that not even radio static could entirely hide slipping away with the topic of his sister. "We've begun to have a traffic problem. The ratline to Takasaki was pretty visible when we were still passing seven hundred or so people a week. Too few safehouses with too many people leaving behind way too many tracks. If you want to increase throughput, we'll need more routes."


"That will take time, though," I noted, not disagreeing with Naoto's assessment in the slightest. "Scouting out new waystations, determining patrol schedules, making contact with locals and establishing supply caches… All of that requires time that we don't have."


"We-" Naoto started.


"I have a suggestion," said Ohgi, accidentally cutting off Naoto's reply.


"Ah, sorry about that. But," Ohgi continued, "I recommend looking north to Ibaraki. It sounds like Yoshi's been doing a good job setting down roots outside of Mito, at least according to the reports Lieutenant Junji has forwarded on to us, and Naoto, we have a few friends up near Katashina now, don't we? It's less of a direct route than heading straight through Saitama to Takasaki, I admit, but what if we go on through Nikko instead?"


"Katashina, eh?" Naoto mused. "Yeah, you could say we have a few friends…"


"Friends?" I asked, practically certain that I was missing out on something here. "Could you please elaborate, Naoto?"


"I've embraced regionality," Naoto replied, a hint of a smile in his voice, "by which I mean, I let nature take its course. Things are…" he paused, "different out here in the countryside, compared to the city. There's fewer people, but they're spread out over a much larger area, which makes it difficult to centralize. Instead of trying to force the issue, Ohgi and I came up with a different pattern."


"Once a training cohort of recruits from Shinjuku is almost done," Ohgi put in, "we pair them up with local recruits, or with members of an allied band."


"Allied bands?" I reached for my notepad. "Last I heard, you were experiencing difficulties with the locals. When did that change?"


While the overwhelming violence of the Conquest had shattered the old pillars of Japanese society, Britannian negligence had allowed those shards to fuse together into new sources of authority as the people sought order in the chaos. In Shinjuku, those sources of authority had been in large part the gangs, who carved fiefdoms out of the cluttered streets with the tacit support of the Britannian backers who used those gangs as procurers and knee-breakers. Authority also stemmed from local self-defense groups, who all too often became gangs in the fullness of time. Naoto's burgeoning rebel cell could have grown to become one such group.


In the countryside, things had taken a different path than in the Settlements. Instead of numerous but geographically limited street gangs, a vast mosaic of groups had sprung out of the rural towns and villages of Japan even as the first Britannian surveyors arrived to parcel them out into noble estates.


Some of these groups were simple bandits, the country cousins of the old Kokuryu-kai, women and mostly men who took Britannian negligence as license to take out their pain on their neighbors. Others had more closely paralleled Naoto's group and had taken up arms against the Britannians and their collaborators. Most of these groups died quickly as punitive columns swept out of the Settlements to burn and kill anything in the offending region. Many of the survivors had found their way to the JLF, but not all.


The mountainous central spine of Honshu, running from Shizuoka and Nagano up through Akita, had long been haunted by guerrilla bands that ranged greatly in size and equipment but were generally united in their lack of success. Some had claimed small victories in helping people escape from the estates of the more… involved nobles, funneling the refugees either to hidden communities in the mountains or to more laxly governed towns. Others took pride in assassinating particularly hated Honorary overseers or policemen, striking back at the Britannian apparatus without provoking a full reprisal.


Almost to a one, the existing guerrilla bands had spurned Naoto's offers of cooperation. They had stuck it out alone in the wilderness for years, without Kyoto's support and while resisting the pressure of the JLF or the other three or four major regional groups to join up. They were dubious, to say the least, of a half-Britannian leader. They wanted to see results before they committed.


I wondered what had changed.


"That's right," Ohgi confirmed, his voice almost cheerful for a moment. "Our efforts have finally begun to bear success. We realized that we had a lot of idle hands, including plenty with specialist skills. It's amazing how much goodwill pitching-in can bring, especially when you've got people who know how to get old water heaters working."


"Everybody likes a hot shower, I suppose." I paused, then asked, "How is Major Onoda taking it? Considering how these new allies are coming to us rather than the JLF, do you see this as a future wedge?"


"Hmm…No. No, I don't think so," said Ohgi after a thoughtful moment. "To tell you the truth, I think that we're beginning to grow on the Major. Or, at least, he's seen the value in working with us. He's been increasingly helpful of late; he even wrote back to some contact of his back at his divisional headquarters and… Well, let's just say that we've been able to expand our training curriculum dramatically."


How much of that is Onoda's changing sympathies, I wondered, remembering the sour old cuss, and how much of that is a result of Kaguya's influence? Doubtless his own ambitions are mixed into all of this as well.


"I want to know more about that, but let's finish the discussion of the refugee issue," I said, turning the conversation back. "You pair new graduates up with members of allied bands, and…?"


"And we give them a few weeks of freedom to roam the land and meet people," Naoto replied, smoothly cutting back into the conversation. "Then, they come back and tell me about who they met, where they went, what they saw, and so forth. And then we reach out to Junji, who does his best to scrape together what the Britannians are saying or doing or talking about in that region, and we ask Onoda what the JLF is doing in the same region."


"Once we've got a pile of intelligence," Ohgi put in, "we assemble a group spearheaded by the trainees who went to that region along with whatever refugees want to go with them and send them out with a radio, some supplies, and instructions to set up a camp. Once they radio back and inform us that they've found a foothold and elected a leader from the group of trained soldiers with them, we give them the order to stand ready and a few objectives, but otherwise let them do as they feel best, so long as they keep their heads down."


"Honestly," Naoto continued, and I could almost see him shrugging, "that's more or less what they would do anyway, and I think it's probably for the best. It preserves an element of control, and everybody knows to keep their hands off the Britannians for now, but it also allows the commanders on the ground to adapt to what they're seeing. Hence, regionalization.


"And in the case of Ohgi's proposed route, Lieutenant Matsuda has control over the region north of Katashina and south of Oze. He's got somewhere around a hundred people with him and is partnered with two bands, each less than fifty strong, operating independently in the same area."


"I see…" I paused, fighting against my exhaustion as I tried to figure out what I felt about this development.


Only three hours ago, Ichiya had shared the ritual last drink with Lieutenant Koichi, who had volunteered to serve as her second, as the consequence of an officer operating without oversight in a manner not dissimilar to that which Naoto and Ohgi had just finished describing. Just nodding along to their report made me feel like a hypocrite, condemning one while applauding the other. On the other hand, the flexible structure my fellow triumvirs were describing sounded appropriate for a geographically dispersed operation, as they were running. Besides, they enjoyed equal standing to me, and surely they best understood the organs they had established.


And, I couldn't help but admit to myself, I just made peace with Naoto after months of icy politeness. Do I really want to inflame relations again now, not even an hour after we let our last disagreement rest?


"So," I continued, moving past the uncomfortable concern and into the safer waters of practicality, "do you think that's enough of a base to provide concealment and lodging for over a thousand people a week? Assuming we split the traffic currently routed through Takasaki evenly, that's the probable low-end of what they can expect."


"Sounds like we'll need more routes, then," Ohgi replied, "or maybe more branches coming off the Takasaki and Ibaraki routes? No need for everyone to go to one place before scattering," he reasoned.


The conversation continued along that topic for a while longer as we worked out a number of potential routes and, equally importantly, destinations for the people fleeing Shinjuku Ghetto. So far, just over five thousand people had made the journey from the Tokyo Settlement to the hinterlands of Gunma Prefecture, with the very old, the very young, and intact family units overwhelmingly represented in the refugees. While this reduced the at-risk population in the Ghetto itself, it meant that the first waves of refugees generally represented a short-term burden wherever they ended up. So far, Naoto had done his best to keep the resettled populations spread out across the prefecture to keep that burden as light as possible, but that added a further element of complexity.


"Alright," I said an hour later, leaning back from my desk and massaging some feeling back into my cramping hand, "I think that's a good stopping point for today. Ohgi, you mentioned that The School is expanding its curriculum? Can you tell me more about that?"


"Not just the curriculum," Ohgi corrected, an old yet still vibrant passion enriching his voice as the topic turned towards education, "but also the number of trainees, the training staff, and the grounds of The School itself."


"Well," I replied, smiling at the renewed enthusiasm audible in his voice, "tell me more. What have you been up to these last few weeks?"


"Alright, so, I decided to shift the entirety of the last two cohorts over to cadre," Ohgi began, "especially as we started getting feedback from your Commission in Shinjuku, especially Mister Asahara, from Captain Yoshi over in Ibaraki, and since Major Onoda started writing to his superiors for more and varied support."


"Oh?" My ears perked up at that last item. "That's a surprise. It was less than two weeks ago that he managed to shake loose that mortar for training purposes."


"Perhaps not that big of a surprise," said Ohgi, "since most of that greater support is, in fact, more infantry mortars. So far, twelve of the Type 16's – 81 millimeter man-portable – have been delivered, along with six hundred bombs. They're handy little things, and the current cohort is learning how to break them down, build them up, and sight them in four minutes or less."


"Outstanding." That was good news indeed. Paired with the heavy machine guns that Kaguya had begun shipping to us for emplacement in the hardened aerial and streetside "nests" throughout Shinjuku, we were starting to develop quite the heavy weapons load for an army lacking any industrial base. "What else?"


"Our good friends in the 3rd Division have graciously lent us a pair of Type 62 heavy machine guns for training purposes," Ohgi wryly replied, making his opinion of Major Onoda's parent unit abundantly clear. "Quite generous indeed, since as far as I know nobody asked for such a loan, but… Well, they and their ammunition will be handy. From the same source, we have also received… Wait, hang on…"


There was a sound of rustling papers, and then Ohgi triumphantly returned with a cry of "Six! Six deliveries of demolition supplies, including blasting caps, remote detonators, detonation cord, eight crates of anti-personnel mines, and supplies of plastic explosives adding up to a total of two hundred and fifty kilograms!"


He paused and cleared his throat. "Frankly, the sudden burst of generosity from the JLF, while welcome, has begun to worry me. It wasn't so long ago that they refused to hand over more than a handful of shoulder-fired rockets and rifles."


"We did provide them with enough spare parts to outfit a platoon of Knightmares," I pointed out, "to say nothing of how many recruits the 3rd Division specifically gained from Niigata, in no small part thanks to our operation there. Besides that, I suspect that our new friend has begun to exert pressure."


"Ah, yes," Ohgi agreed, chuckling slightly. "I can see why that might be the case. I'm glad the negotiations are finally paying off."


Naoto and Ohgi knew that I had made an arrangement with a highly placed member of Kyoto House in exchange for food support and munitions, but that was about the extent of their knowledge of Kaguya. I hadn't wanted any rumor of the… what was she?


The arch-traitoress? I considered, remembering the names I'd heard bandied about Shinjuku for the Numbers Advisory Committee that served as the public face for the Six Houses. No, that doesn't fit… Even if she was a Britannian collaborator in truth, she's barely older than me. She would have been just seven or eight when Japan fell. A seven year old cannot commit treason. Especially not a girl growing up with the benefits and blindspots of a noble education. The fact that she's found the willingness to operate independently against her erstwhile masters, Britannia and Japanese alike, is truly amazing.


So, if not an arch-traitoress, then… Perhaps the Empress-in-Waiting? I smiled at the thought. It was ludicrous, even though Kaguya had all but named herself as such at the end of our first and only meeting. As if that title doesn't come with its own litany of problems, first and foremost the knives of every Britannian assassin the Homeland can offer. Not to mention that the old Republican oligarchs would probably be less than happy to see the Imperial House return.


Either way, I had no intention of filling them in any further until we met in person. Much as I trusted Junji and his prowess with radios, I didn't want to run the risk of some Britannian signal intelligence officer picking up any hint of "Lady Sophie Sumeragi" being involved in armed rebellion.


"Indeed," I nodded at the invisible audience seated a hundred and forty kilometers away. "But I suspect that you're right to be worried, Ohgi. If the JLF were still a state military, I would say that it sounds like they just received funding for the latest and greatest and are clearing stocks to make way for the new model.


"As the Republic of Japan no longer exists, it does sound as if they are building towards something and have decided to share their toys with everybody who might be inclined to join in."


"I can see that being the case," said Ohgi, "considering how they also were kind enough to ship us several crates of fragmentation grenades, a crate of incendiary grenades, six radio sets from the Eighties, a generator…"


His voice tapered off for a moment, and I heard the rustling of paper once more. "Well, I suppose the details aren't that important, but they also gave us several hundred carbines, submachine guns, and pistols, plus enough dextroamphetamine and codeine phosphate to keep an entire battalion zooted up for a month. Oh, and seven hundred kilograms of expired canned pre-Conquest rations, can't forget those.


"So, either they're clearing all of the expired detritus out of some supply dump, or…"


"Or someone is expecting or hoping for something quite flashy to happen quite soon," I said, giving voice to both of our thoughts. "And all of this is coming specifically from the 3rd Division? Naoto, are any of your allied bands getting handouts from the JLF as well?"


"Not that anybody's willing to admit," Naoto answered, "although we're making sure to share the wealth, now that we've got it."


"Smart" I said, fighting down a yawn. It had already been a long day, although it was just after noon, and I could really use a coffee about now. "Alright, I'll get in touch with Yoshi and ask him about safehouses in Mito, Utsunomiya, and Nikko. I'll also send a scout unit out west to Yamanashi with an eye towards finding a route north through Matsumoto, although I am still reserving judgment on that one. I'm not certain about the wisdom of running a ratline so close to the Fuji Mines."


"Well," Naoto reasoned, "even if we don't route through Yamanashi, more intelligence on the Fuji Special District can hardly hurt. Anyway, I'll send out word to Lieutenant Matsuda instructing him to start finding places to stash incoming refugees, and the same to Lieutenants Hiroyuki and Shigeo, who are both operating north of Ueda. If we end up routing people through Nagano, they'll be best placed to receive."


"Sounds like a plan," I agreed. "Other than that…"


I swatted down the urge to wring my hands like some guilty messenger bearing ill tidings. Not that the petty victory made me feel any better about the news I was about to deliver.


I took a deep breath. "Naoto… I got a call from our producer friend an hour ago; you know the one. He's apparently got a source somewhere in the staff of Thornton International, one with access to the week's scheduled flights. Diethard was snooping into some starlet or whoever who Clovis invited for a visit to the Area, but when he got that list he saw a chartered flight out of New Leicester on it…"


For a moment, all I could hear over the radio was the sound of heavy breathing.


"My father… It has to be my father, coming to Area 11. The airport at New Leicester is tiny, almost nobody uses it for anything but local flights. For someone to charter a direct flight from there to Area 11?" Naoto sighed. "It's him, no question about it."


Somehow, his sigh, almost of exasperation, failed to set my heart at ease.


"Will Kallen be alright?" I wanted to ask, the question leaping to my lips with alarming speed, seemingly bypassing my brain in the process. It was all I could do to close my mouth before it could escape the tip of my tongue.


According to Inoue's status reports, her cadet training was proceeding swimmingly, but the arrival of her father could throw everything into the garbage! She has a difficult enough time remaining civil around Britannians who didn't have a personal hand in abandoning her and her family to the tenderness of the Settlement. Asking for her to remain civil and collected in front of her father…


The potential fallout from a mishandled confrontation between Lord Stadtfeld and his rebellious heiress was practically incalculable, which explained how worried the prospect made me.


"Does this present a complication?" I asked instead.


Of course, at the same time, Ohgi asked "Do we need to go get Kallen, Naoto?"


I felt my heart jump at Ohgi's mention of her name despite myself.


Just another reason to accelerate the evacuation of Shinjuku, I thought grimly. We can't afford any single point of failure anywhere. Not Kallen, not me, not even Shinjuku Ghetto.


"Hmm…no, I don't think so." Naoto replied, and I felt the tension begin to ebb out of me. "At least, not immediately. Dad's… got his own things to do. I don't think we'll cross his radar, not like that. He's not above pulling a few strings or twisting some arms, and given Kallen's whole deal with the ROTC, well…I certainly don't envy whoever her school pushes in his way. But I doubt he'll be showing up in Shinjuku, Tanya, and certainly not out in Gunma.


"Still…" I could almost see the sudden anxiety crossing his face, the stress matching my own at the thought of an angry Britannian aristocrat dragging Kallen before Clovis for judgment, "I guess I'm going to need to tell Mom, huh…?


Wait… I stopped, reorienting towards Naoto's concern. I'm going about this all wrong. Naoto got his initial resources and contacts via his father, didn't he? I even suspected early on that this whole organization was all a stalking horse set up by Lord Statfeld. Was… no, why is he coming?


The knot in my chest so suddenly tied began to loosen.


This isn't an Organization matter; this is a family matter. In which case…


"That would be wise," I replied briskly, trying not to sigh with relief or roll my eyes at Naoto's curious blindspot towards his relatives.


Judging by his relationship with Kallen, Naoto had a bad tendency to squirrel away information from his family that they really should know in the name of 'their own good.' Remembering how Hitomi had reacted after I punched out Lady Stadtfeld, I doubted she'd stand for it.


"Please convey my greetings to Mrs. Kozuki as well, when you tell her the happy news, and also my regrets. And…" I hesitated, before adding, "I am… glad to hear from you again, Naoto."


"I will, Tanya," the leader of the Kozuki Organization promised. "Until we meet again, walk with the gods."


"Stay safe, Tanya," urged Ohgi, and then I was alone, with only the empty static of a quiet channel buzzing in the communications room for company.

 

[Scopas]

(Thank you to Aminta Defender, Sunny, MetalDragon, Adronio, WrandmWaffles, Rakkis157, and Aemon for their services as beta-readers and editors. I'll be blunt: I'm not... hugely in love with this chapter. I tried to do a few more things with it, and none of them worked out. The chapter's also a bit shorter than I would have liked, but... Well, it is what it is, and as one of my beta-readers pointed out, perfect is the enemy of good enough. So, thank you for your patience.)


JULY 13, 2016 ATB
STADTFELD MANOR, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1725


Kallen thought it was shocking how a system as expensive as the much-touted Tokyo Settlement MagLev could have overlooked something as basic as functional air conditioning during the design process.


No such mention of the oversight had made it into the fawning media, of course. Not during the construction phase, and certainly not after the system's twice-delayed grand opening. "A tracked palace," one particularly brown-nosed presenter had dubbed it, "from which all of Britannia's sons and daughters can view the fullness of this new gem in the imperial diadem!"


Despite the fact that she was no longer free to pursue her budding career as a journalist, Kallen found it grimly satisfying that every turning of the seasons proved the lies of the Britannian media again and again. While Prince Clovis had set a circling crown around his capital, the wet heat of the Tokyo summer had still infiltrated the densely-packed train carriage with contemptuous ease, turning the tight rush-hour confines into a sweatbox. No matter how much the Administration and its Fourth Estate lackeys might claim otherwise, the truth of the matter was manifest to anybody who relied on the magnetically levitating train system for their commute.


It's fitting, in a way, Kallen supposed, sitting straight-backed in her chair as befit a noble cadet, knees and heels firmly together in emulation of a posture diagrammed in her Cadet's Handbook, that, try as he might, lie as he might, the Viceregal-Governor cannot keep Japan out of his shiny new train. To say nothing of his Settlement.


Even in her own ears, the connection sounded tenuous and forced. While Clovis's incompetence as a leader and as a manipulator of perception were manifestly apparent, equating the all-pervading seasonal humidity to Japanese nationalism was a harder sell. The comparison didn't really make much sense, especially since the Britannians and their lackeys seemed entirely unconcerned with the ongoing struggle for liberation. The death of the Yokohama Sniper the previous week – damn you, Chihiro! – had inspired a satisfied if short-waved burst of elation throughout the Britannian Concession and the broader Tokyo Settlement; the heat, by contrast, had popped open collars, loosened ties, and in some extreme cases, even forced some of the office workers packing the car to remove their jackets entirely.


Sitting prim and proper in her army gray ROTC uniform, Kallen took the opportunity to glare at a particularly scrawny example of this last breed, silently venting some of her frustration on the pasty-faced man seated across from her on the opposite side of the train and enjoying his obvious discomfort. He'd had the misfortune to attempt what she was sure he considered a "winning smile" on her when they had first made glancing eye contact across the train car; Kallen had spent the rest of the trip punishing the fool for his mistake.


Serves him right, Kallen thought, satisfied with the misery she'd returned in some small way back to Britannia. Who the hell smiles at a girl on a train? Creeps, that's who… Bastard…


Even her attempts to spark self-righteous fury felt damp and half-hearted, sapped into exhaustion by the cloying heat and the strain of keeping the mask of Kallen Stadtfeld firmly in place.


It had been another long day at Ashford Academy, the grounds of which were almost deserted now that summer vacation was in full swing. Almost all of the noble student body had fled the Tokyo Settlement in favor of South Pacific vacations or summer homes on mountain estates, high above the swampy summer heat; a few even went "back to the Homeland," back to the festering cesspool of human rot they liked to call civilization. Now the campus was populated only by the handful of students who lived full-time in the dorms and by the ROTC cadets, whose vacation had been given over fully to their training.


Judging by the expressions of her fellow cadets when they had heard the news, Kallen reckoned that only she had actually read the enlistment papers before signing up. If any of her fellows had done the same, they wouldn't have been surprised by this development, especially considering how behind the fledgling cohort was in achieving the mandatory training benchmarks laid out in the Cadet's Handbook each had been issued after taking the Oath.


Every page of which Kallen had committed to memory. While her fellow cadets might be content to merely play at soldier, she had no such freedom. For a variety of reasons, ranging from her own standards to her secret mission, Kallen couldn't afford her ROTC career to be anything less than exemplary.


So, she leaned in. Using her rank as Cadet Sergeant, Kallen had reserved a place for herself at the front of every class, taking notes and asking questions right under the noses of the revolving cast of Army officers Major Pitt brought in to serve as guest lecturers. The major himself generally sat in the rear of the classroom, well outside of Kallen's field of vision, but the pressure of his gaze never lifted from her shoulders. Every time she glanced back, the Major's watchful eyes met hers until she returned her focus to the lecture.


The washed-up old pilot had clearly identified her as his meal ticket, and just as clearly had no intention of letting her slip away from his tight-fingered grasp.


The regard of her fellow cadets weighed almost as heavily on Kallen's shoulders as the focus of their "mentor". In the classroom and out on the training field, every eye turned towards her, following her every move and evaluating her every word.


But I'd expected as much, Kallen thought resentfully, channeling a bit of her anger into a clenched fist as she bit down on a scowl. No thanks to him and his stupid title.


Attention had followed her, ever since Alvin Stadtfeld had reclaimed her and made her his heir. New Leicester was, all things considered, a minor barony without any great incomes attached to it, but that didn't really matter; it was still a fiefdom in the Homeland itself, and therefore prestigious. As its heiress, even though she had yet to be formally introduced to society as such, Kallen had been rendered prestigious as well.


And that's not even getting into all of the other reasons creeps keep sneaking looks at me from the corners of their eyes when they thought I wouldn't see…


She had nothing but contempt for all six of them, male and female alike, almost as much contempt as she had for Pitt. They were all Britannians to the core, avaricious and scheming, smug in their superiority and proud in their duplicity. Just like with Pitt, Kallen kept her true feelings secret, guarding her thoughts with cool smiles and a single-minded focus on her duties as a cadet. So far, during the summer training camp, Kallen had spoken only to issue commands during formation practice, to ask questions during lecture, or to endlessly bark "yes sir!" to Pitt's satisfaction.


Both to advance her true mission and to preserve her sanity over the summer, Kallen hurled herself into her training.


Again, she had leaned into "Cadet Sergeant Stadtfeld," playing her role to the hilt. To her muted horror, Kallen found herself greatly enjoying the intensive summer program, particularly the physical components and, worst of all, the time spent in the Knightmare Simulator. The intensive program played to her strengths to an extent she would have found otherwise disturbing had it not quickly become her refuge.


Every morning, Kallen left Stadtfeld Manor at six, vanishing long before her drunk of a stepmother stirred and arriving at Ashford by seven for morning PT. After an hour of running, pushups, and crunches, four hours of classwork began, with lectures ranging from Knightmare specifications and upkeep to basic tactics to Army culture. Another hour of PT followed the half-hour set aside for lunch, and was in turn followed by three and a half hours of simulator time spent running scenarios and learning how to pilot in earnest.


A quick shower later and she was on a train back to the Manor, where she cloistered herself away in her room to review all the notes of the day's academic workshops and expand her knowledge on any points of interest referenced in class.


Unpleasant colleagues aside, it all came so easily to her.


The classwork, which covered relevant topics like physics and mechanical engineering as well as all the rot about the history of the Army and such, seemed far simpler than Kallen's usual classes. Either the ROTC curriculum had been dumbed down so every cadet no matter how inbred could comprehend its contents, or her desire to not think about anything but the task on hand had sharpened her mind's edge to a razor hone. Likewise, she stood easily head and shoulders over her fellow cadets on the practice field, beating their track times and continuing to crank out pushups long after everybody else had collapsed into the dust.


Of course, it was on the simulators where Kallen truly shined. While the same twisting, knotted agitation that she had experienced back during the recruitment assembly rose in her belly every time the simulator's hatch closed behind her, it grew easier and easier to ignore the momentary spike of nausea with each session. The voices and flashbacks were harder to push past fully, but with hours in the simulator every day, the edges slowly grew less jagged, the voices less loud.


"Now arriving at Emperor Albert the Second Station," a cool female voice chimed through the train's overhead speakers, the only thing cool in the sweltering cabin. "Doors will be opening to your left. Please remain clear of the opening doors."


As the levitating train slowed to a smooth stop – none of the jolting Kallen dimly remembered from the long-dead, but not sweltering, Tokyo Metro in evidence – she rose to her booted feet and pulled her ROTC-issued rucksack down from the overhead rack, its cargo of filthy workout gear and notebooks smacking into her back as she slung it over her shoulder. Across the train car, the pale office drudge let out a sigh of relief as she began to walk away, only to stiffen up again as she spun on her heel to glare at him.


That last moment of discomfort would be the final drop of pleasure she would wring from the day, of that Kallen was gloomily certain. She was returning to the place she felt least comfortable these days, a hollow shell of a home that was no longer anything of the sort, bereft as it was of the friendly face of her real mother. Compared to that absence, or to the presence of her drunken hag of a stepmother and all of her cronies, Kallen almost found herself longing for the boors who made up the remainder of her training cohort.


Honestly, a corner of Kallen's mind huffed as she made her way down the station steps to street level, you have no reason to be this petty. Lelouch and Milly even stole you away for lunch today, so you didn't have to play polite in front of Major Pitt! Today was a good day!


A vague flicker of guilt wormed its way up from Kallen's gut. Perhaps the office drudge had just been trying to be friendly? Now that she thought about it, he hadn't been that much older than her, only two or three years at most. Even if he had been trying to flirt, at least he'd been far more subtle about it than her overly-bred fellow cadets…


Who gives a shit, Kallen asked that annoyingly reasonable part of her mind incredulously. He's a Britannian! He should consider himself lucky I didn't kill him where he stood on Japanese soil! Or, sat, at least. I already showed him far too much mercy!


Her traitorous mind didn't offer up any further arguments, but Kallen couldn't quite shake that heavy, guilty feeling that rolled around in her gut as she listlessly made the short walk to the nearest bus stop. Tired of the day and depressed that even her momentary joy of ruining a Britannian's commute home had been spoiled, she slumped down in the first open seat she could find and just stared straight ahead. Thankfully, the bus had functional air conditioning, and the cool air was so welcome on her sweaty skin that Kallen almost missed her stop, hesitant as she was to leave the sanctuary for the cicada-haunted humidity outside.


The clatter of those insects intensified as Kallen keyed herself through the pedestrian gate and made her way up the walk paralleling the driveway, passing through the ornamental ring of trees surrounding Stadtfeld Manor her father had once jokingly named "the Forest". Alvin Stadtfeld had sourced those mulberry trees from the slopes of Mount Kumotori, in what had once been Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park, ordering that they be dug up before they could be logged and replanted on the grounds of his new family estate in Area 11.


Kallen had distant memories of enjoying a trip to that National Park as a very little girl with Naoto, her mother, and her father. Those memories might have faded entirely with age if it wasn't for the framed photo of her, Naoto, and her mother together, Mount Kumotori rising behind them.


Her father had taken that picture.


Now, the handful of refugee mulberries sheltered Stadtfeld Manor from any inquisitive eyes that might peer over the boundary wall or through the bars of the gates protecting the driveway and the pedestrian access.


Not that there's anything really worth hiding there now, thanks to Tanya…


With practiced effort, Kallen pushed the stab of anger away. She fully understood why her leader had ordered Naoto to take their mother away to safety; in the heat of the moment, Kallen had even found herself appreciative, touched even, that Tanya would take the time to care for her and Naoto's mother.


It had been a relief during that first crowded week, as Kallen worked to mold herself into the perfect image of a Britannian student-soldier and calm down from her emotional meltdown in front of the entirety of Ashford Academy. The sudden absence of her real mother and her obviously hafu brother had simplified the details of that new mask wonderfully, simultaneously dispensing with loose ends while removing a temptation to hare away to Shinjuku instead of sticking it out in Ashford.


That relief had melted away over the ensuing weeks and months as it became steadily more and more apparent to Kallen that the dreaded investigation into her past by her new superior would never come. At first confused that the obvious social climber wasn't trying to force his way into her private life, Kallen was annoyed and amused to discover that Major Pitt in fact had, only to crash face-first into a sauced Lady Alicia Stadtfeld as full of fury as she was of gin.


Sending the pain in the ass ROTC officer scampering had been perhaps the first and only kindness Kallen's stepmother had ever done for her.


Which makes me all the more certain that she only did it by accident. Kallen didn't bother to suppress her smile at the thought. The idea of her two enemies tripping over one another and their respective agendas made the renewed loss of her mother sting a little bit less.


We were doing so good too… After months of me treating her like shit, we were finally acting like a family again, at least behind closed doors…


Kallen pushed that thought away too and looked up from the path towards her destination. She was almost to the Manor's front door, and… Kallen narrowed her eyes. She didn't recognize the black sedan parked out on the Manor's driveway, nor the uniformed driver leaning against it and lighting a cigarette. The latter began to nod respectfully at her approach before he noticed the chevrons on her collar. Dropping his cigarette, the driver straightened to attention, his fist snapping to his chest in salute.


No rank tabs on his uniform or any unit patches, Kallen considered as she paused to return the salute before releasing it and taking another few steps closer. And he's saluting a sergeant? A cadet sergeant?


"There really isn't any need for that, you know," said Kallen, hiking her rucksack back up over her shoulder. "I'm just a cadet. What are you doing here? At ease, by the way."


"Begging your pardon, Sergeant," the man replied as he slipped into parade rest, "but you're a cadet with a Knightmare Corps patch on your shoulder. Not all cadets are built the same, you know. Besides, red hair here? You've got to be a Stadtfeld. Respect where respect's due, you see."


"Uh huh," Kallen nodded skeptically, already seeing another Pitt standing before her. "Would that respect extend to answering the question I asked? Perhaps in addition to a follow-up, namely, who are you?"


"I'm waiting until your Lord Father has finished his visit home to his loving wife and children," the driver answered, smirking as Kallen's first spike of fury transmuted into confusion as she processed his response.


"As for who I am, that's really not important." The driver paused, before adding, "were I you, I would not keep the Old Man waiting, Lady Kallen. In his words, 'the jig is up.' Best just to go in and take your lumps, that's my advice."


With this last comment, the driver's initial amusement faded into something approaching sympathy. Kallen didn't trust it, not when his eyes still danced with hidden laughter.


But he's right, who he is doesn't matter… What does Dad know? Why… why is he here?


As a long list of potential discoveries the Baron of New Leicester could have made regarding her recent activities unspooled behind her eyes, Kallen moved by impulse. Following the instincts hammered out over hours spent out on the former equestrian track turned ROTC training grounds, her heels snapped together and her fist rose to a parting salute. The unnamed driver smirked again but held his peace, fist rising lazily to bump against his chest again.


Almost before the parting ritual was complete, Kallen was turning back on her heel towards the Manor. During her brief confrontation with the anonymous man with a soldier's bearing, someone had clearly spotted her and gone running to alert the household of her arrival. Now, Vernon, head butler of Stadtfeld Manor and her slut of a stepmother's barely secret lover, was waiting for her next to the open door, fat as butter and twice as greasy.


There was an unsettling air of coordination about all of this, as if she had stumbled into the jaws of a trap when she'd passed through the ring of mulberries. Kallen resisted the urge to turn and shoot a glare at the driver, certain she'd just find him smirking at her back, cigarette restored to its place between his fingers. Instead, still stinking of exertion and sweating freely from the summer's heat, Kallen stalked forward up the short flight of stairs leading up to the Manor's door.


"Lady Kallen," Vernon greeted her, extending a hand as if she needed help up the stairs. "Pl-"


The breath rushed out of the majordomo as Kallen shoved her rucksack forcefully into his chest.


"Why, thank you for offering to help with my bag, Vernon!" Kallen bared her teeth in an expression that could be called a smile. "It's crammed full of laundry, so see to that too. Now, where are Father and Mother waiting? Let's get this over with."


"T-the Day Parlor, Lady Kallen," Vernon wheezed, to his credit still managing to stand up somewhat straight with one arm holding the door open and the other wrapped around her rucksack. "Th-they're waiting for you."


So, no time to go change and freshen up, eh? Dad must be taking this seriously… Shit, shit, shit!


The impulse to run away was almost as strong as the urge to seize this sudden threat by the throat. For a moment, Kallen stood on the threshold of her family's house, torn between those two instincts. A third urging, to call Tanya or her big brother and request assistance, request orders, percolated up in between.


Ruthlessly, Kallen pushed each instinctual urge face down into a pool of water and held them down until the bubbles stopped. Or, at least, that was how she pictured the process as she closed her eyes and took deep, calming breaths, ignoring Vernon sidling around her and into the depths of the Manor.


Then, as the panic flowed out of her, Kallen Stadtfeld opened her eyes. Her hands didn't twitch as she strode through the Manor's atrium; when she turned left, down the hall towards the Day Parlor, her legs were steady as ancient cypress trees. It was only when her hand clasped the handle of the parlor door that her composure faltered slightly, an anxious tremor running through her limbs as Kallen considered what could be waiting for her on the other side of that white-painted door.


If he knows that I've joined the Underground, that I am fighting for the liberation of Japan… I have no idea how Dad will react. It could go either of two ways, Kallen thought. On the one hand, Alvin Stadtfeld had taken a Japanese lover and not abandoned her, not really, not like how Tanya's dad had. Also, someone had helped Naoto get his hands on that first batch of weapons.


On the other hand… he's a Britannian noble. An enfiefed lord. That means that he's loyal to the Empire, if perhaps not the Emperor himself…


It was, Kallen knew, entirely possible that she would walk into that parlor and find an entire squad of Royal Guard waiting to take her into custody, as befit her rank and her crimes.


But what choice do I have? Calling Tanya is pointless; she can't help me now. Running away would just mean they'd shoot me in the back… Give me a coward's death.


And that would not do. Not for Kallen Stadtfeld and certainly not for Kozuki Kallen.


For the Cause.


Resolved, Kallen turned the door handle and smoothly stepped into the Day Parlor.


Anticlimactically, Kallen found the room was entirely free of uniformed goons, save perhaps for herself. Instead, her father and her stepmother were sitting on separate couches on either side of a coffee table. A full tea service was laid out and each had a steaming cup perched on a saucer.


Kallen noted that the tasteful array of finger food accompaniments had been left entirely untouched.


There was no desultory conversation to interrupt as she stepped through the parlor door. Indeed, there was no sign that either of the two adults present had noticed the presence of the either, except for the way their eyes seemed to skim over and through one another as Alvin, Baron of New Leicester, turned to greet his daughter and heir with an air of unmistakable relief.


"Baron Alvin," said Kallen, conscious that she was still in uniform as she took the initiative of breaking the instantly uncomfortable silence. Almost unbidden, her chin dipped as her hands found the edges of her skirt between thumb and forefinger. Then, in a single smooth motion, her right foot slipped behind her left, her hands gently spread to pull her uniform skirt flat across her thighs, and she dipped down, knees moving outwards as she genuflected before the patrician of House Stadtfeld.


"Well met, Heiress Kallen," her father replied, rising from the couch and turning towards her. Eyes the same blue as her own found hers, and the baron's head dipped into a respectful nod, releasing her to straighten back up.


"And now that I have greeted my heir as procedure demands…" He spread his arms wide, his gray mustaches twitching above a spreading smile, "why don't you come over and give your old man a hug, Kallie?"


On some reflex long-buried from the time when she and Naoto had lived with their father and mother, a reflex that she'd never managed to fully snuff out, that was exactly what Kallen did.


"Hi Dad," she murmured, unable to even protest his use of her childhood nickname as she felt her father's strong arms wrap around her shoulders. "Good to see you."


"It is a pleasure most fine to see you too, my dear Kallie," Alvin replied, speaking into her hair as he pressed a whiskery kiss onto the top of her head. "No matter what else is going on… Honey, it will always be a damned fine pleasure to see you again.


"And today? Oh, today, it has been far too long."


Past her father, Kallen could see Alicia continuing to stare straight ahead, through her husband and out the window behind him.


"So…" Kallen pulled back from the hug, looking up into her father's face, "what else… is going on? I'm really happy to see you too," she added quickly, before so much as a hint of disappointment could cross her father's face, "but I'm… well, your driver said I should hurry up and take my lumps?"


And if the tension of waiting for the other shoe to drop continues on much longer, I think I'm going to scream.


"Ah, Errol…" A look of amused pain stretched across Alvin's face, complete with a theatrical wince. "Don't pay him too much mind, Kallie. I've known him for years. He's… Well, he's not harmless, but he does love mak'n a mountain outta a hill of beans. Best just to nod along with whatever he says and then dial it all down about ten percent."


You say that, Dad, but you don't just take surprise trips across the Pacific. You rarely leave the Homeland at all, and certainly not for some spontaneous jaunt to Japan. You came here for a reason, and don't think I didn't notice that you didn't deny the warning entirely.


"But…" Kallen prompted, still waiting for the other boot to come crashing down.


"But nothing," Alvin Stadtfeld shrugged effortlessly. "Like I said, Honey Bun, Errol just likes to give people a good fright. A reliable man, but a bit of a jokester, hmm?"


He chuckled, and for a second, some part of Kallen could almost relax.


"However, I must say, I have heard the most wonderous things about how the geraniums are coming along this year," said Alvin, offering Kallen a genial smile. "Would you do your old man the courtesy of escorting him through the gardens, Kallen?"


Behind him, Alicia remained stone-faced, still staring blankly out onto the view of the front lawn. By contrast, Alvin's smile seemed to Kallen as pure as driven snow, as down-home and warm as biscuits fresh from the griddle. She couldn't find a hint of deceit in that smile, nor a single note of malicious intent in his tone. Indeed, by all appearances, he was nothing but a merry old father eager to take a walk with his daughter through a garden, no cunning machinations or sly traps to be found. Despite her father's overwhelmingly innocuous air, it was blatantly obvious what he meant, what he really wanted.


In that moment, her inability to see past his amiable smile scared Kallen more than standing at Milly Ashford's left hand, vulnerable before the leering eyes of the entire Academy.


"Sure thing, Dad," she said, hoping that her smile held intact over the sudden fearful acceleration of her heart. "That sounds like a great idea."


As the two of them made their quiet way out of the Day Parlor and through the Manor's back door, Kallen noticed Vernon heading in the opposite direction. Judging by the way her father's eyes tracked the butler for a moment before dismissing him, he knew just as well as she did where he was going, and to whom.


Neither Kallen nor Alvin spoke until they were out on the grounds, surrounded by flowers, cicadas, and the oppressive, wet heat.


"Ah, just like being back home again," Alvin pronounced, rolling his shoulders as he stretched his arms out above his head. "Minus the cicadas, of course," he amended. "No broods in New Leicester, thank the Lord."


"Oh?" Despite being the heiress to New Leicester, Kallen could practically count the number of times she had set foot in the barony south of the Ohio River. She might be a Stadtfeld, but she'd never be a local in her family's ancient seat. "That… sounds nice? It must be nice to get a good night's sleep without all the bug sounds."


"Don't you worry about that, Honey Bun. The Smokies have their own variety of critters howling in the dark," Alvin smirked as he lowered himself to his haunches to examine some flower whose name Kallen couldn't recall. "I just happen to agree with the chatter of my old stomping grounds more than the local ensemble."


"That said, I think I'll always have a special affection for cicadas… They were chirping, you know, on the night your mother and I… Well…" The graying Britannian looked up from the flower, his smirk softening into a simple smile as he looked at his daughter. "You probably don't want to hear the rest of that story, but suffice it to say, cicadas will always have a place in my heart. Just as you will, Kallie."


"You could stay here then, you know," Kallen mumbled, abruptly feeling very young.


It had been over a year since she had last seen her father, and so much had happened over that span. She'd published articles in real papers, even if they'd mostly been suppressed. She'd joined first an insurgency and then the inaugural cohort of Ashford Academy's ROTC. A year ago, she hadn't met Rivalz and Lelouch, nor had she met Chihiro. She certainly hadn't met anybody like Tanya.


A year ago, when she had last waved her father off at the airport, she hadn't killed, nor had anybody seriously tried to kill her. In so many ways, that Kallen of a year ago had been so naive.


"Your wife's here, after all," Kallen added, glad that her voice sounded slightly stronger in her ears, "not to mention Mom. Nathan'd be happy to see you too, I bet. You… You don't have to go back there…"


"Oh… oh, what I wouldn't give to live in a world like that, Honey Bun." A breath too soft to be a sigh escaped his lips like the last breath of a dying man as Alvin's smile turned somber, almost melancholic. Regretful. "Unfortunately, the real world is not so kind. And as the old Japanese Imperial sorts were so fond of saying-"


"-Duty is heavier than a mountain," Kallen quoted by rote, having heard that line far, far too many times. Her gut twisted as she remembered all the times she had heard it, and from whose mouths it had come. Her father had said it before he left her and Naoto. Naoto had said it before he vanished into Shinjuku. Tanya had said some variation of it in her hearing at least half a dozen times.


She was so tired of hearing about duty. She supposed that was part of the mountain.


"That it is, Kallie, that it is…" Alvin hummed noncommittally. "Although… speaking of duty, tell me about your cadet program."


Kallen could see something in her father's bearing shift. A kind of energy seemed to be creeping out from some inner reserve, seeping from every pore of his bones and pushing the melancholy out in favor of something that set her teeth on edge.


"Is this ROTC, led by Major Pitt," a faint hint of a sneer touched his face before fading back into his genial smile, "everything you feared it would be?"


"Yes… and no," admitted Kallen, eyes on her father's back as he dusted his hands off and stood back up. "I mean… Don't get me wrong, Pitt's still a complete pig of a man. He's… he's just so obvious, you know? He keeps complimenting me all the time and tells all the other cadets they should be just like me, but… I feel like he's saying that because I'm watching, and he knows I'm watching?" She took a breath. "Does that make sense?"


"Oh, entirely, Honey Bun," Alvin nodded, straightening up and knuckling his back. "Ah! Don't get old, Kallen, I promise you it isn't worth it. But, yes, men of the good major's ilk are common as dirt and half as useful. Be polite and respectful to him but keep your distance, and never, ever accept a favor from him, that's my advice. What about your fellow cadets?"


"If they're the cream of Britannian nobility, I have no idea how we all escaped the fate of the French," Kallen said, dismissing her entire cohort as one. "Half of them are just miniature Pitts too."


"My my, I see you have inherited your mother's sharp tongue to go with her enchanting beauty," Alvin chuckled fondly. "But I would not be so quick to dismiss the sons and daughters of Britannia. Your fellow cadets might be as green as the Forest's leaves, but their families survived the Emblem of Blood where many other noble lines did not. Do not let their inexperience blind you to the threat they present."


"I'm not," Kallen replied shortly. "Don't worry Dad, I'm not going to forget that they're a threat; they're Britannians."


"In case you have forgotten, my dear, as are you. And unlike your fellow cadets, you have already proven yourself a true lioness in waiting, or perhaps a cub. Maybe it's time you set about making yourself a Pride, hmm?" Alvin pointed out.


Kallen remained stubbornly silent and tried not to think about the implication. The Britannian flag, after all, featured a lion prominently on its crest.


Eventually, he sighed. "Well, it breaks my heart to hear that you haven't made any friends yet among the ranks. What about the rest of your school? You are on the Student Council now, aren't you, and weren't you with the Newspaper Club before? Find any new friends there?"


"Not really," Kallen admitted. "Not in the Newspaper Club. Nobody else really took it seriously, except for a few of the girls, who took investigating Lelouch a bit too seriously." She rolled her eyes. "Seriously! As if we didn't have anything better to report on! I blame Milly; her influence has scrambled the entire Academy's sensibilities!"


"Lelouch?" Baron Alvin, Lord Stadtfeld inquired, the curious smile on his lips growing fixed. "I didn't realize that the murder of the Lost Prince had become such a captivating topic of interest for schoolyard news clubs."


"What?" Kallen blinked and then remembered the fate of the Vice-President's namesake. "Oh, no, nothing so interesting. Or dangerous. No, the Student Council Vice-President happens to be named after the prince; lots of boys that age are, you know. For some reason, lots of the other girls like him."


"But not you?" As Kallen had explained the name, Alvin's smile relaxed into a teasing expression. "I'll point out that he's the first boy I've heard about from you so far, Kallie! Or, perhaps Milly's the one who I should be speaking with after I'm done here?"


"Dad!" Kallen yelped, before noticing the smile and huffing. "No, I'm not interested in either of them! But…" she added grudgingly, "they aren't… that bad. Milly's… Milly gives me a headache, but after the assembly she… She realized she'd overstepped and apologized. Well, honestly, it was Lelouch who probably told her that she'd overstepped, and was the one to deliver her apology… And he's the one who's helped keep her under control at Council meetings since then. He's been helpful."


"Hmm," Alvin hummed again, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet as his eyes raked the flowerbeds before turning to catch Kallen again. "So, is this Lelouch boy your hacker friend, Kallen?"


Suppressing her shock took all of Kallen's practice at concealing her emotions behind a pleasant mask. As ice water filled her veins, Kallen's expression didn't flicker.


This is it, Tanya's cool voice pronounced behind her eyes. The other shoe has fallen. But, while it's impossible to know how he learned of Lelouch's edits to your file, it is possible that those edits are the extent of his knowledge. Keep your cover.


"My hacker friend?" Kallen met her father's questioning look with an inquisitively raised eyebrow of her own. "I don't know what you're talking about, Dad. Lelouch is pretty skilled with computers, I guess, but the real computer wiz on the Student Council is definitely Nina. Shirley's the Treasurer, but I think she pushes her work off onto Nina. Probably for the best."


"Did you really think I wouldn't notice the alterations made to your file, Kallen?" Alvin asked, clearly unimpressed with his daughter's attempt at a smokescreen. His blue eyes, suddenly cold, hammered against Kallen's composure. "What kind of fool do you think that I am, to not leave tripwires on your files? I was notified the moment someone tampered with your Ministry of Justice file. Besides, that file was locked and only a handful of people had the clearance necessary to edit it, much less access it. So, yes, your hacker friend."


"My… Ministry of Justice file?" The earth wobbled under Kallen's feet. She was suddenly very light-headed. Her right hand, she realized, was inching towards the knife concealed in her compact. She grasped her hands together to stop it, and to hide the sudden unnerving tremble. "Not… Not the Ministry of Education? Why…" She swallowed, "why would the Ministry of Justice have a file on me? Because of my articles?"


The knowing look in her father's eyes was terrifying. The realization that she had just tipped her cards and revealed her hand even more so.


Tamaki was right… Kallen thought miserably, I'm really not cut out for these spy games… Dammit, Naoto! Dammit, Tanya! And damn you, Lelouch! You and your fucking "peace offering!" I knew I should have stabbed you when I had the chance!


Then, another thought crossed her mind.


"Wait…" She peered suspiciously at Alvin Stadtfeld, Baron of New Leicester. "Why would you know if the Ministry of Justice had a file on me? How could you have had any sort of alerts about changes made to it set up?" Another question bubbled horribly up from the depths of her mind, like gas rising from the bottom of a bog. "Dad… You… The driver called you the Old Man, but… You're not Army, are you?"


"I'll be asking the questions, I think." His gray Van Dyke mustache twitched upwards, but the smile below it was anything but amused. "Starting with Naoto and Hitomi's locations. Interesting that you brought up your mother and brother earlier, Kallen, and invited me to join them when both seem to have vanished completely. I left your mother in a safe position here at the Manor. Where did you put her?"


"I don't know!" This time, Kallen didn't need to bother with any emotional masks. "I haven't seen her in months! I've got no idea where she is!"


Her protestation did not put her father at ease. "And your brother? I know you visited Shinjuku quite often, although you stopped dropping by for a few months at the start of the year before resuming in April. Then, you suddenly stopped visiting the Ghetto at the same time your file was edited and your mother spirited away. Should I assume that you know nothing of your brother's location either?"


"No," Kallen ground out, her panic quickly transmuting to anger as it always did. It was much easier to be angry than it was to be afraid. "I've got no idea where he ran off to. But…" she allowed, taking a deep breath and remembering that this was still her father, her dad she was speaking to, "I think he and Mom are together. I don't know where they are, but… But they're supposed to be safe."


For a moment, Alvin Stadtfeld said nothing. His eyes, distant and unsympathetic, picked over her face. Kallen could almost feel those eyes peeling her back, layer by layer, and wondered if she had ever known her father after all. She had never seen that look before.


Not on his face, at least.


"Can I assume," Alvin said, venturing the question in a tone suggesting that the answer had better be as the asker expected, "that they are supposed to be safe in some place that is quite far away from Yokohama?"


Kallen couldn't have said what it was that gave him away, but she was suddenly cognizant of the way her father was holding himself, the way his hands were tucked behind his back, out of sight, and the way his face was so artificially flat and void of emotion.


She recognized that expression immediately. She'd seen it often enough in the mirror.


So that's why you came, Kallen thought, a sudden wave of bitter disappointment crashing over her head. I should have guessed.


"You don't have to worry," she replied, her voice barely above a hiss, her fragmented composure shivering like drops of water on a hot stove, "the only Japanese woman you need care about is fine and, as far as I know, completely safe. Thousands aren't, but that's not what matters, is it?"


For a moment, Alvin's eyes glimmered with emotion. Then, he took a deep breath, and the glimmer snuffed out like a candle flame. "That's good," he replied, his words terse but unmistakably relieved. "That's… good. And your brother is as well, I take it, as you said that they are together? That's… very good."


Silently, Kallen nodded. Yes, it was good that her mother and brother weren't among the thousands of murdered Japanese piled up on Yokohama's street corners. On that much, she could agree. That much, she could concede. No more.


"Would you…" Alvin licked his lips, a quick, darting motion. A crack in the smooth mask, a vision of the man within. "Would you pass a message to them? Assuming you have some way to contact them, of course. No need to tell me what that way is," he added quickly, "and no need to confirm. Just… If you can manage it, I would consider it a personal favor."


Kallen nodded again, pointedly noncommittal. After all, she thought vindictively, he's the one asking the questions, isn't he?


Besides, she reasoned, I'm not even sure if I can get a message out to them. I'd have to wait until Rivalz comes in for a Student Council meeting and pass a message to him without Lelouch or Milly seeing it… Get him to hand it over to Inoue, and hopefully she'll know someone who can get it to Naoto or Mom. And… Tanya did say I should only do that for emergencies, and since Mom's safe… does this really count?


Something of that last thought must have flashed across her face, as seeing it, her father nodded resignedly. "If you can see your way clear," he added, "I would appreciate it. But, if not…" He waved vaguely. "Now," he continued, clearly letting the topic go, "I know that you're not in the most… cooperative mood at the moment, Kallen, but please set aside your anger for a moment. I still need a bit more information from you. Please."


Again, Kallen met her father's eyes. They were imploring, but not desperate. Not like they had been in that one moment, where Alvin Stadtfeld's concern for her mother, his lover, had shown through. Still… they were her dad's eyes.


And Naoto trusts him.


"Alright," Kallen said, exhaling her anger as best she could and trying to find Kallen the Journalist in her head, pushing Kozuki Kallen, Kallen Stadtfeld, and, most of all Kallie, out of her way. "What do you want to know? You seem really well-informed already, so I don't see what I can tell you, but… Ask away."


"Hmm… Well, to start with," Alvin began, one hand emerging from behind his back to idly play with his narrow beard, "what are your thoughts on the death of the Yokohama Sniper? What are your thoughts about the establishment of a new branch office of the IBI in the Hiroshima Settlement?"


"The Sniper?" Kallen's lip curled. "Good damned riddance."


It was the least she wanted to say about the late and very much unlamented Tanaka Chihiro.


Just a pity she brought so many people down with her.


"And the same goes for the ones who brought her down," Kallen continued, shaking her head. "I mean, the IBI. I'm not sure what they're hoping to do, setting up shop here in Area 11. I mean, it's not like there's a lack of police running around, and the DIS is supposed to be keeping everybody working under the Viceregal-Governor's decree, so…"


Kallen allowed her words to taper off with an artless shrug. Her eyes never left her father's face. She might not be the best spy, much to her irritation, but she hadn't been a half-bad rookie reporter. At least, not in her own opinion. Diethard Reid might scoff at her work, but he'd still read it, which was something in and of itself. Her few months of finding stories that the Administration hadn't wanted people to know about, about the treatment of the Honoraries and the exploitation by the nobility of everybody else in the Area, had given her at least a few instincts.


Every one of which was telling her that her father knew much more about the situation than he was telling.


And perhaps by feigning disinterest, he might take it upon himself to educate his daughter.


Judging by the flash of amusement in Alvin Stadtfeld's eyes, he wasn't taken in for a second. Still, he couldn't seem to hold himself back. "You don't think the IBI establishing a presence in Area 11 will change anything, do you?" He shook his head sadly. "Kallen, Kallen, Kallen… It's all about using the correct tool for the job at hand. You wouldn't use a spanner to…" He checked himself, remembering his audience. "You wouldn't use a Knightmare to attack a naval vessel, would you? That's the wrong tool for the job."


"Oh?" Kallen cocked her head to the side, interested despite herself. "So, what job is the Directorate supposed to be doing? I remember seeing something about them uncovering corruption in the judiciary…?"


"Above all else, the Directorate handles issues internal to His Imperial Majesty's Administration," Alvin confirmed with a nod and just a hint of a wry smile. "At least, they handle all the issues that they themselves don't cause. Broadly speaking, the DIS are tasked with hunting down traitors in the Lesser and Petty Nobilities, the upper ranks of the civil service, Commoners over a certain level of wealth and influence, and the officer corps."


"But not the Greater Nobility," Kallen pressed, noting the absence. "So, they wouldn't bother us?"


"Oh, they wouldn't dare," Alvin chuckled, "but that has nothing to do with our title. We're barely Greater Nobles. Country barons are very much in the DIS remit. Really, anybody without a ducal tiara or a bishop's mitre is their rightful prey. Excepting the Imperial Family, of course…"


"Of course," Kallen parroted, noting the way her father's words trailed off into an unspoken but nevertheless clear Unless. "So, in that case… What does the IBI do?"


"Ah, that's the right question!" said Alvin, beaming with pride. "It took Nathan a while to remember to ask me that one. The Bureau, like the Directorate, is tasked with hunting traitors and criminals to His Imperial Majesty. Unlike the DIS, the Bureau focuses on the lower strata of Commoners, Honoraries, and Numbers."


"I… see," acknowledged Kallen, speaking slowly as she turned the new information over in her mind. "Isn't that what the Knightpolice is for, though? Surely another group setting up here will make everybody already here upset?"


"The Knightpolice!" Alvin didn't even bother trying to hide his contempt. "Oh, the Knightpolice… I have so much sympathy for the poor fools in the actual Military Police who have to put up with that blunt instrument. The Knightpolice…" The graying lord shook his head, smiling to himself. "No, Kallen, the Knightpolice won't make a peep. They're a tool here, not a player. The Directorate, on the other hand, will be quite upset. But the Bureau stole a march on them by bagging the Sniper, so if Director Ramkin has any sense, he'll keep his powder dry for now."


"Does this mean that the DIS and IBI might start going after each other?" Kallen tried to keep from sounding too interested in the answer. Judging by the look her father shot her, she failed. "I mean," she hurriedly added, "the regular soldiers and the Purists got into a massive brawl back around last Christmas, and there's practically a brawl every other day down by the docks between off-duty soldiers or marines from the line regiments and the ones from the Purists troops!"


"Ah yes," Alvin shook his head, a moue of disgust curling across his lip. "Garrison troops. And Purists." He snorted again. "Bastards should have taken the hint back in the 80's. But," he cleared his throat, "you aren't wrong. There is likely to be a degree of conflict between the IBI and the DIS, but unless it is truly amateur hour, it won't be so obvious. However, the Bureau's newest field office should signal a shift in strategy, as far as intelligence gathering in Area 11 goes. A greater focus on the Numbers, a lighter focus on the upper crust. For better or worse."


"And… Is this all the Sniper's fault?" Kallen asked, silently damning Chihiro's ghost to an even deeper hell. "I mean, she was just… just one woman, right? Some crazy murderer with a rifle? Is that enough to cause a strategic change?"


"Not on its own," Alvin replied placidly, "but never underestimate the power of a nice, bloody shirt. Sometimes, Britannians do far more in His Imperial Majesty's service as convenient corpses than they ever could have accomplished in a lifetime of service. But leaving aside the capital the Bureau gained by ending the Yokohama Sniper's reign of terror, something along these lines has certainly been in the making for a while. At least since the troubles back in the spring." The gray mustache quirked back up into a smile. "Someone's running out of patience for Prince Clovis, I think."


"I see," Kallen nodded her understanding. "Yeah, that… That sounds plausible."


I see that this is information that Naoto and Tanya really, really need to know, Kallen thought as she babbled, filling time. I don't think we've got anything going on all the way down by Hiroshima, but if we don't, we really should. If the Bureau really is that good, we can't let them get set up here in Japan!


"Yes," Lord Stadtfeld nodded back to her, "do make sure Nathan hears all about that. Make sure his friends hear about that too. If I were you, I would tell all of them, Nathan most especially, to crawl into the deepest holes they can find and to close the doors behind them. For their sake, and for yours. This is not a battle he should want to fight, not if he can avoid it. Whatever business he has outstanding, tell him to bring it to a speedy conclusion as soon as he can."


For a second time, the earth swayed under Kallen's feet.


Dammit! She raged inside her head, staggering back a step from the Britannian in front of her. I got so engrossed in the topic that I completely forgot! No, I just thought the hacking thing was all he was here for, that and Mom! He knows!


Yes, a cooler voice in her head agreed, he knows. And what will you do about it, Kozuki Kallen? Anything for the Cause.


Anything…? Almost all of Kallen revolted at the thought, Kozuki Kallen and Kallen Stadtfeld agreeing unreservedly for once with Kallie. But… that's Dad. Our Dad!


Almost all of her agreed.


He's old and slow, that same cool voice said. His back hurts. Look at his knuckles - they're swollen and arthritic. And we have a knife. It would only take one swift move, just a single slice across the neck. We've got the strength for it. It would be over in an instant, and he wouldn't be able to tell anybody else about us.


That's stupid, thought Kozuki Kallen, and you know it's stupid. What the hell comes next, huh? What do we do with the body? With our clothes covered in blood? How the fuck does killing Dad help the Cause, huh?


That, thought Kallen Stadtfeld with Britannian cruelty, sounds like something Chihiro would do, doesn't it? All fury, without the least bit of thought.


With a terrific wrench, Kozuki Kallen forced it all to the back of her mind and lifted her eyes back to meet her father's.


All she saw there was disappointment. No anger, no fear, no confusion; it was painfully obvious that Alvin Stadtfeld had read the course of her thoughts without her needing to vocalize a thing.


It sent a pang through her belly, that disappointment.


The cool voice slunk away.


"How long," Kallen ground out, not noticing until the words were out that she had defaulted to Japanese. "How long have you known about… About them?" At the last second, she caught herself and used the ambiguously inclusive term.


After all, there's no guarantee that he knows about Ohgi and Inoue, much less Tanya.


"When I gave Naoto the seed money and contacts he requested," Alvin replied in the same language, his Japanese slightly rusty at first but quickly gaining steam, "I had assumed that he would be starting a criminal enterprise of his own, and would carve his own way to power in the Ghettos and villages of Japan. I could not give him his true inheritance, the lordship of New Leicester, so I gave him the means to create his own lordship, after the manner of other half-Britannians who couldn't quite pass."


His mustache twitched up over an undeniably proud smile.


"'Ah, a chip off the old block,' I thought." The smile faded. "So, imagine my surprise when I started getting notifications that you, Kallen, had begun visiting the Ghetto with increasing regularity. At first, I was more than happy to let you continue; after all, the Imperial Family aside, siblings should remain close, if at all possible. And…" The last traces of amusement vanished. "And he was there for you when I couldn't be. Who was I to step between you and your brother? I wasn't there when you needed me to be, and I didn't want to make things worse between us by interfering any further."


Words caught behind Kallen's teeth. What words, she couldn't quite say. Agreement that Alvin, her father, hadn't been there to stop the childhood bullies? Protestations that she wanted him to be involved with her life? A rebuke to say that he was right to stay far away?


"But then," Alvin continued, "Christmas came, complete with its little pogrom. I began to worry, especially when you started trying your hand at journalism, of all things." He shook his head, with almost an admiring look of disbelief stamped across his face. "Never let it be said that Naoto is the rebellious one of my children. But, Christmas came, and I grew worried, especially when the notifications suddenly ceased. And then, in two days, you called me about Pitt and all of the tripwires I had guarding your files went off as one.


"You have no idea how badly you scared me, Kallen." Her father's eyes were locked on hers, Lord Stadtfeld temporarily dismissed in favor of Alvin. Dad. "Calling me like that, that early? You never call me, and then I get a sudden call about some major harassing you? I thought…" He sighed and ran a hand over his pointed beard. "Well, never mind what I thought. You were more nervous than a teen approached by an Army recruiter should be. So," he smiled grimly, "I started wondering what had made you so nervous to receive official attention, albeit from a major.


"And wouldn't you know it," Alvin's rant had taken on an almost avalanche proportion, a mix of long-suppressed professional and personal stresses finally given voice. "As soon as I started looking, I understood entirely why you were so worried! Naoto has done quite well for himself, hasn't he? I can't tell you how surprised I was to learn that the Kozuki Organization had taken over an entire city, all under the Administration's nose, practically within sight of the Viceregal Palace!"


A look of acute pain passed over the man's face. "Why my idiot son chose to name his clandestine rebel organization after himself, I will never understand. Both his mother and I are far too smart for that."


"But you are arrogant enough," Kallen shot back, before forcing her mouth closed, her teeth clicking together.


Dammit, Kallen!


Her father shot her a quelling look, but then barked with harsh laughter. "Perhaps, perhaps." He sighed again. "I am quite proud of him. I certainly hadn't anticipated that. I do wish he hadn't felt it necessary to all but declare war on His Imperial Majesty, though. And," Alvin sighed again, "I wish he had been brave enough to turn you away and insist you keep your nose well out of it. Perhaps I really should have come back for longer earlier… Even a few years earlier… Only seeing you two for a weekend a year…" Alvin shook his head, an expression of resigned weariness clear to see. "You make me proud, both of you, but I really should have kept a closer eye on the pair of you… On you in particular, Kallen…"


A long, quiet moment passed between them. Alvin's pent-up emotions seemed spent. Kallen felt unsteady and uncertain of where they stood. The mulberries surrounding them moaned and creaked, shaken by the wind.


"...Well," Kallen finally got out as the silence grew unbearably heavy, "what will you do?"


Now that you know what I've been up to, what Naoto's been up to… Are you our dad first? Or Baron Alvin Stadtfeld to the core?


"God knows," replied Alvin, his breath exploding out in a heavy sigh. "What do you think I should do, Kallen? What would you do if you learned that not one but both of your children had involved themselves in a war against an empire that controls forty percent of the earth's surface?"


"I would back them to the hilt," Kallen replied immediately. "What other option would I have? Throw them onto the Emperor's grace? Last time I checked, the only punishment allowable for a finding of treason is execution by the wheel. If the choice is going to war against that empire or watching my children's limbs being broken and wound around the spokes of a cartwheel, well… is that any choice at all?"



Alvin closed his eyes, sighed, and let his head fall backwards. His lips moved soundlessly for a moment, and Kallen wondered if he was praying. Then, he reopened his eyes and glared irritably down at her. "You know," he began, his tone pointedly bland, "when I learned that you had chosen to sign up with the ROTC even after I extended an offer to drive Pitt away, I was truly hoping that this was a sign of maturity. I see that I was overly optimistic."


"Maturity?" Kallen hissed incredulously. "I can be plenty mature! I am a model cadet, I will have you know, and I have yet to lose my temper even once! And I have been tempted!"


"Yes, yes," said Alvin, waving her words away, "very impressive. Tell me, Kallen, why is it that you stubbornly refuse to use your brain? You are an incredibly intelligent young lady, and I am proud of you, so it truly hurts me to see you act in such a deliberately stupid fashion."


Almost snorting with anger, Kallen opened her mouth, mentally rolling up her sleeves for a full-contact brawl with this Britannian who dared to tell her how she should think… and paused. This wasn't some Brit bastard; this was Dad.


He only wants the best for us, Kallen. She could almost hear Naoto's non-explanation, repeated so many times over the years. Deep breaths. Act in deliberation, not out of impulse. Tanya's advice was more useful. In and out. In and out. Breathe in, hold… release.


"Alright," Kallen said, meeting her father's eyes as she mimicked his flat tone. "You clearly want me to say something. I clearly don't know what it is. Can we stop with the Socratic method and skip ahead to the part where you tell me what I should be thinking?"


"Kallen…" Alvin paused, and Kallen could almost watch as he mapped out his path through the conversation to whatever objective he had in mind. Not for the first time, she wondered who, exactly, her father was. "I don't object to your determination or your resolve," he said, cushioning his statement, "but you are far too prone to a binary mode of thinking. Us versus them, right versus wrong, etcetera.


"In truth, very little in life is as cleanly cut as all that. Take, for instance, the divide between Britannian and Japanese. You hate Britannia, but you have friends who are Britannian, don't you? You love Japan and the Japanese, but surely you have encountered bastards who speak your mother-tongue? There can be good Britannians and bad Japanese, and already that clear division between good and bad begins to blur on anecdotal experience alone."


"Sure, there's assholes everywhere," Kallen interrupted with deliberate crudeness. "But that doesn't mean that Britannia isn't evil."


"Kallen…" Alvin looked increasingly pained. "Please, just… Just listen, alright? There's a good girl. Now, binary thinking is comfortable and easy; it will also lead you to incorrect conclusions. Now, I am a Britannian, by birth and by upbringing. Yet I gave Naoto, my son, my money and my blessing to go forth and undermine His Imperial Majesty's law in Area 11. When I did this, it was not treason. If Naoto had been arrested before he became a rebel, I could have easily removed him from the cells and his arrest from the record.


"This is because 'us and them' only exist so far as both blocs can remain coherent. As soon as you find leverage into the individuals or the factions below the giant defining masks, understandings can be worked out. Agreements can be made. Blackmail and bribes trade hands."


"You're not answering your own question," Kallen pointed out. "You asked what I thought you should do with me, and you're just rambling on about philosophy."


Her father gave her a dirty look but sighed. "Fine. Kallen, you clearly cannot remain unsupervised. As your father, I find myself obligated to intervene for your own protection. For some reason, I cannot protect Naoto from his own stupidity and I would have better luck taking over the Fuji Special District than I would prying Hitomi away from her son. You, however, I can keep safe from the worst consequences of your own rash decisions."


"You can't stop me." Kallen didn't spit defiance; it was the simple truth. "I will never stop fighting for Japan. I am not Britannian, not where it counts."


"What makes you think I want you to stop fighting?" Alvin smiled, a hard-edged thing that gleamed with friendly malice. "For that matter, what makes you think that I want you to stop fighting Britannians? Again, Kallen, it isn't a matter of us and them, it's a matter of us and us and us, with 'them' being a fluid category for whoever isn't us at this very moment. And in Area 11, the Japanese are the least of the Empire's concerns." His mustache twitched at some private joke. "Consider it a favor, from a patriarch to his heir, that I shall be providing you the tools to serve His Imperial Majesty's interests without shedding a drop of Japanese blood."


"What…" Kallen frowned, finding that the conversation had turned in her hands like a snake, and now she was the one on the backfoot. "What do you mean? How could I possibly help Britannia and not be abandoning the Japanese? Your whole damned empire is fighting the Japanese!"


"Britannia isn't fighting the Japanese," Alvin scoffed. "The Japanese aren't worth fighting. It'd be like saying exterminators fight rats, or that gardeners fight weeds. They don't. His Highness might like to describe the occupation as a matter of life and death for the health of the Empire, but not on account of the Japanese. No, his real concern is the Chinese or the Europeans taking advantage of the chaos to stick their own oars into our pond, and even with that in mind his reports seethe with hyperbole. So no, the Administration isn't fighting the Japanese; they are simply conducting pest control operations."


The dismissive words tore at Kallen's heart, and from the wounds bubbling rage seeped. Face twisted, she opened her mouth, although what she could say in refutation was anybody's guess, but already her father was holding up a hand to forestall her. "I am not saying that the Japanese are vermin, mind you, nor am I saying that Naoto's efforts are destined for failure. I'm simply saying that the locals are too weak to give the Army the proper, stand-up fight for which they hunger. The kind that brings glory and recognition instead of drudgery. Those confrontations are like catnip to a certain strain of military mind, all simple and straightforward and proper. The insurgents present an adversary of sorts, an obstacle certainly, but Japan isn't a proper enemy, not one worth their full attention."


"...I don't understand," Kallen admitted, feeling the spike of rage peter away into something like grief at her father's frank assessment.


"Good, good!" Alvin praised, bobbing his head approvingly. "Admitting as much is the first step."


He's trying to teach me something… Kallen knew that much already, but… What is the lesson here? That Britannia isn't united? That's obvious, with the Purists running around. That the real threat is a foreign invasion? I suppose, but the Chinese are too busy being pushed up the Malay Peninsula and out of Indochina, and if the news isn't complete bullshit the EU is desperately trying to prop up the Middle Eastern Federation facing Cornelia's invasion. So… Who is the real enemy in Area 11, then?


And… How does he know all about this? Again, who are you, Dad? You know far, far too much…


"But," Alvin continued, "that is only the first step."


Drawing himself up to his full height, a weight seemed to settle over her father's shoulders as he peered down at her. Kallen met him look for stony look, still uncertain about all her father had said but determined not to submit.


Baron Alvin of New Leicester smiled as he folded his hands neatly behind his back. "Moving forwards, Lady Kallen, I will be overseeing your training. For the next few months at least. To be clear, this isn't a punishment, nor is it entirely a corrective measure. I have neglected my duties as Head of House Stadtfeld and as your father for far too long. There is much that I should have taught you by now, but… I was always busy. This ends here."


It was everything Kallen had wished for years, delivered at the most inopportune time.


"Well, I'm busy now," Kallen retorted, savagely pushing down Kallie and her sudden eagerness for time with Dad. "You were too late, and now I have my obligations to tend to! For starters," she gestured at her stinking uniform, "I'm a cadet, sworn to the Army. My days aren't my own!"


"Major Pitt doesn't have the spine to stand in the way of a father-daughter outing," Lord Stadtfeld asserted, eyes cold. "Men desperate enough to bait in teenagers in service of supporting their decrepit careers are generally locked into those careers for excellent reason, most often a gratuitous lack of competency, a gratuitous abundance of cowardice, or both."


"Well, I still need to learn how to pilot a Knightmare, let alone how to be a 'good soldier of the Empire'," Kallen shot back, and wondered why she was pushing back so hard against this. "How the hell are you going to train me to be a pilot or a soldier when, to my knowledge, you've never been either?"


"Pilots can be purchased," Lord Stadtfeld riposted. "Like practically everything in this world, skilled individuals are available for sale, should the buyer have the correct currency in the necessary amount."


He's not giving up, Kallen realized wonderingly. New Leicester isn't exactly rich either, and pilots skilled enough to teach don't grow on trees! But… If he's willing to throw around cash on this… Maybe I could convince him to buy a simulator too? Or even a real, actual Knightmare!


Alvin's lips parted in a smile and Kallen cursed herself, certain that her father had, once again, read her thoughts like words on a page.


"That really must be corrected as well," Lord Stadtfeld pointed out. "No peer of the realm should be so easily read. You might be tolerable – barely – as a provincial schoolgirl, but as the heiress to a Homeland barony, well… failing grade, I'm afraid."


I'm not getting out of this, Kallen thought, a numb sense of horror mixed with a strange relief, almost a joy, suffusing her limbs. Can't escape to Ashford without Pitt sending me back, can't escape to Shinjuku without breaking Tanya's orders… Can't stay here, not with the drunken hag…


"So," Kallen tried for a perky smile, as if she hadn't just knuckled under her father's persistent demands, "some father-daughter bonding time, huh? Sounds… Well, what do you have in mind?"


The bastard smiled. "Oh, I was thinking about an educational trip, for a start. After all, if you want to be a Knightmare pilot, I would say that you owe yourself a trip to Itsukushima. It could be quite valuable for you to visit the site of the only defeat suffered by Britannian Knightmares at the Japanese hands, wouldn't you agree?"


"And…" said Kallen, something like understanding finally entering her mind as some of her father's earlier words sank in at last. "What's the real reason we're going to Itsukushima, Dad?"


"That's my girl!" Alvin laughed, his baronial authority fleeing at once. "Why, that's just on the other side of Hiroshima Bay from where the new Bureau office is being established in the Hiroshima Settlement! It would be rude not to drop by and offer my congratulations to the opposition, now that they've finally entered the game in Area 11."

 

[Scopas]

JULY 25, 2011 ATB
MORIGUCHI GHETTO, OSAKA SETTLEMENT, AREA 11


The outbreak began in the usual fashion.


Too many unwashed bodies had been crammed into filthy, overcrowded tenements and the shattered remains of office buildings, shops, and subway stations, few of which had functional plumbing. Of those structures that were fortunate enough to retain relatively intact interior plumbing, still fewer were close enough to the freshly built walls surrounding the newly designated Moriguchi Ghetto to benefit from the potable water flowing to the sectors designated for Britannian use.


As summer sweltered and the ranks of the new Britannian residents swelled with each shipload arriving from the Old Areas, that minimal flow of water leaking over into the Moriguchi Ghetto had dwindled still further. In desperation, the ghetto's thirsty residents had turned to whatever liquids they could find to soothe their dry tongues, including the contents of storm drains, the condensation budding off the cracked cement walls of defunct subway tunnels, and of course, the turgid waters of the Yodo River itself.


First had come the bouts of nausea and vomiting, but the first spasms of uncontrollable, milky white diarrhea had followed close behind. With water already vanishingly rare inside the reinforced concrete partitions, thorough cleanup was entirely out of the question.


By the time any of this came to the attention of Doctor Harlan de Veers of the Osaka Administration's Ministry of Health, the disease was spreading with wildfire speed.


Well, thought de Veers, flipping the stapled report back to the front page and noting the time and date of its receipt in the margins, it was never really a question of if cholera would come, but only when. And it seems like that question's finally been answered as well. Sunken skin, extreme thirst, low blood pressure, and of course, pale but copious diarrhea? Can't be anything else.


Man, what a way to start a Monday.


With a sigh, he reached for the telephone receiver and punched in his supervisor's number. The secretary picked up two rings later.


"Good morning, Doctor de Veers," said John, his voice rich with the accent of the Pacific reaches of Area 2. "What can I be doing for yah today, sir?"

"Good morning, John," Harlan replied, minding the pleasantries as a wise man always did when talking with the gatekeeper to his boss's scheduling book. "It's looking to be a warm one, isn't it? I'll be needing to see Doctor Bozeman sometime today though, and preferably sooner rather than later. Something important's come up."


"That so?" There was a brief rattle of typing on the other end of the line. "Looks like his morning's already full, but he's got some time right after lunch. Does one sound good?"


"Umm…" Harlan hesitated for a moment, glancing back down at the brief report from the medic stationed at one of the perimeter checkpoints. "Best not to discuss this on a full stomach. Is he free at two thirty?"


"You betcha!" John replied exuberantly over the sound of more rapid-fire typing. "He'll be expecting you then. Have a good morning, Doctor de Veers!"

---

"Harlan!" Doctor Jessup Bozeman, head of the Ministry of Health's division in the Prefecture of Osaka, half-stood from his comfortable chair to reach across his desk to shake Doctor de Veers' hand. "How've you been? How was your weekend?"


"Pretty good," Harlan replied as he settled into the visitor chair across the desk from his boss. "Can't complain. I managed to get to the Blackhorse on Saturday."


"Oh?" Bozeman raised an interested eyebrow. "How did you do?"


"Above my handicap," Harlan admitted sheepishly. "Not one of my finest showings, sad to say."


"Ah, you'll get 'em next time," Bozeman said encouragingly. "But, that's not why you're here though, is it? Not unless you thought some sub-par putting was bad enough to put me off lunch?"


"Afraid not." Without further ado, Harlan dropped his lightly annotated copy of the report on Bozeman's desk and pushed it across the glass surface. As he continued speaking, Bozeman picked up the document and began leafing through its pages. "Looks like the Numbers couldn't figure out how not to shit in their drinking water, and now cholera's come out to play in a big way."


"Dammit…" Bozeman muttered without much emotion. "Well… Yup, looks like cholera to me. Give it a week and it'll run its course."


"Maybe." Harlan was less sanguine, but didn't see any reason to directly contradict his boss. That was rarely a good idea. "I'm a bit concerned about the potential for the Numbers to spread their disease to the slum commons, though. Enough of the Numbers have jobs outside of the ghetto that at least some won't be showing symptoms when going through the checkpoints, so a partial quarantine isn't really going to work."


"We could just cut off traffic to the ghetto for a week or two," Bozeman pointed out, before immediately shooting down his own idea. "Ugh, no… Who else is going to keep the construction going in this heat? Not to mention mop the floors and scrub the toilets…"


"My thoughts exactly," agreed Harlan. "Fortunately, it shouldn't be too hard to keep the worst of this under control. Move some of the Elevens out into temporary quarters outside the ghetto, send in cleaning teams to reduce the filth a bit, rig some public faucets so they stop drinking out of their own shit-stinking puddles or the river…"


"But who's going to pay for all that?" Bozeman interrupted, shaking his head. "No way the Prefect's going to be allocating discretionary funds towards any of that, especially not secondary quarters for Elevens. If we do any of this, the Ministry of Health's going to get stuck with the entirety of the bill, and if I agree to that, Gwen's going to bite my head off."


Harlan nodded in sober appreciation of that threat. Gwendolyn Hereford, Countess of Guernsey in Area 8 and Minister of Health in the Administration of Area 11, was known far and wide for her complete lack of humor and her tendency to shoot the bearers of bad news.


"Perhaps see if the Ministry of Economic Development or maybe Farms and Fisheries would be willing to step in?" he offered, fully aware that it was a long-shot either way. "I mean, if all of the Numbers are too busy shitting themselves to work, that's going to impact the available labor pool, which could slow down the construction of the Settlement here or divert labor away from paddies and the boats."


"Not a chance," Bozeman scoffed. "No way in hell is that fat prick Pulst going to spare a shilling. Not for a bunch of Numbers."


"What about for the commons?" Harlan shrugged as Bozeman turned a gimlet eye on him. "It's going to spread sooner rather than later. We can either deal with it now while it's only a Numbers issue, or we can wait until we start losing Britannians."


"You're missing the point, Harlan," Bozeman replied, folding his hands over his belly. "The issue is, all of this is preventative measures. Nobody likes to spend money on preventative measures, man! Especially not ministers. If they work, nobody knows about it, and if they don't, then they're a waste of money. Curatives are far easier to pitch since you can tell if the damned things are working."


"I don't know if I'd say it's preventative at this point," Harlan pointed out. "I mean, the ghetto's been ravaged already and it's only going to get worse."


"I meant preventative in that it's preventing this from becoming a problem to someone who actually matters," said Bozeman, rolling his eyes.


"The commons-"


"Matter almost as little as the Numbers do," Bozeman interrupted. "Look, there's already way too many Elevens crawling around here for anybody's comfort, including the Prefect and the Viceregal-Governor. A little bit of thinning out would do everybody, the Numbers included, a world of good. As for the commons? If we lose a handful or two, nobody cares. If we lose more than that, we'll just shake out every slum between St. John's Red Zone and Vancouver's Hastings. Anybody too stupid to avoid recruitment can explore what Area 11 has to offer for them."


Harlan considered arguing the staggering inefficiency of that last point, but decided against it. "If you think that's best, sir," he said instead, conceding the argument.


"Look," replied Bozeman, gracious in his victory. "I'll grant you that keeping track of this thing could be important. The boys at the Census will appreciate the numbers at least. The death counts, I mean, not the Elevens." He smiled at his joke for a moment. "So, how about you take that on as your project? You can take full credit on behalf of the Osaka Office. Hell, you might get a promotion out of it, how does that sound?"

---

Keeping count of Moriguchi's dead was surprisingly easy, Doctor de Veers soon found. Several groups of enterprising Elevens had already set up networks of "haulers," who transported the feces-smeared corpses from their place of death to the fresh plague pits dug into the old football pitch by Yodogawa Kasen Park. The newly minted businessmen kept close count of their profits and expenditures, and thus kept a good count of the number of trips they had made from various stops to the park and back.


They were, of course, all too happy to let the "good doctor" take a look at their scroungy, sloppy records, especially with the squad of Royal Marines he had borrowed from the garrison standing at his back. Together with Henry, his manservant and orderly, Harlan had managed to put together a solid list of daily losses along with a general demographic breakdown.


Keeping that initial dataset updated was, of course, a daily undertaking, one that Harlan was all too aware that he frankly didn't need to bother himself with. The demographics were exactly as he expected, with children, the elderly, and the weak making up the bulk of the deaths, and he was well aware that nobody save for himself and maybe a clerk or two at the Ministry of Health office at the Viceregal Palace back in the Tokyo Settlement would ever care about this data.


But, I'd know if I did a bad job, and that's just not my style. Harlan stifled a groan as he sat up straight in his chair and stretched, feeling his vertebrae pop in his stiff back. Dammit, why am I the one stuck handling this bullshit? I'm a general practitioner, not an epidemiologist! And besides, Jessup straight up said that nobody's going to care about any of this. Not until it affects someone who matters.


Not until it affects someone who matters…


The thought lingered in Harlan de Veers mind for the remainder of the day as he finished updating the daily count with the numbers Henry reported back to him before continuing on with the rest of his business. His work so far on the budding epidemic was entirely futile, entirely passive, and of no help to anybody. Not to the Numbers, of whom some thirteen thousand had already died, not to the Commoners, of whom fifty seven had died so far and over three hundred were currently hospitalized, and least of all to himself and his career.


Not until it affects someone who matters…


"Henry," he greeted his servant the next morning, "I have a special task for you today."


"Yes, Doctor de Veers?" A pen was already hovering over the tiny notebook Henry kept with him, always ready to jot down a grocery list or a phone number. "What can I help you with?"


"When you go to the ghetto to collect the latest butcher's bill, collect some samples of whatever water the Numbers are currently drinking," de Veers directed, setting foot on the path he had mapped out the night before. "Take samples of their stool as well. Be careful about it, use the necessary protective gear, and sterilize the exteriors of the containers before you come back."


"As you say, Doctor," Henry confirmed with a bow, clicking his pen closed. "I will have those samples on your desk by ten."

---

The only difficulty in the whole affair was, as it turned out, securing a social invitation to luncheon with "the right sort". The people who mattered. Harlan was technically nobility, but only barely; the pettiest of the Petty Nobility, whose only connection to the gentry was a third son of a Lesser house for a great-grandfather. Moreover, he hadn't been particularly social since coming to Osaka, preferring the comforts of his labs to forced small-talk at soirees or formal dinners.


But, petty though his lineage was, he was still a noble, and introverted though he might be, he was still a doctor with nothing but solid prospects in his future. A quiet word here, a meaningful glance there, and the invitations began to arrive.


Including, after several tedious social engagements and eighty dead commoners as well as three thousand Numbers, an invitation for an after church lunch with the Laffey family. Of the Lesser Nobility, Sir Bedevere Laffey was a second-cousin of the Count of Saint John, a vassal of the Duke of Palm Coast in Area 4, and thus very much someone who mattered. His wife, Helena, came from much humbler stock, but their daughter Abigail had tutored the Prefect of Osaka's fourth son over the summer, and so by proxy they both mattered as well.


It had been the work of an instant to slip the contents of the vial hidden in his cuff into the Laffey patriarch's limoncello as de Veers had graciously offered to pour another drink for his kind host. The elder Laffeys had both been too inebriated to notice and Abigail had slipped away from the table to "powder her nose," perhaps literally, for the third time. The private nature of the luncheon meant that no other witnesses had been present, especially since Henry had played his role to a tee and had taken the Laffey's help aside for a quick game of cards back in the kitchen.


The results had been everything Harlan de Veers could have hoped for and more. It was shocking, he had noted in the privacy of his mind, how much greater the sickness of a family of three seemed in the eyes of the Ministry of Health then the sickness of three thousand commoner Britannians, to say nothing of the Numbers.


Startled into action, Old Ironpants herself, the Countess of Guernsey, had come roaring down on Osaka demanding to know why quarantine and mitigation efforts hadn't been in place weeks earlier, before a family of quality had come down with the cholera. Doctor de Veers had stepped in and smoothly saved his valued colleague Doctor Bozeman's career by presenting a fully updated account of the outbreak so far, complete with daily casualties, as well as a developed plan of action informed by the current demographics of the afflicted. With the Minister of Economic Development and first Bishop of Tokyo Lazaro Pulst coming to Osaka personally to pray over the afflicted Sir Bedevere, the coffers had opened.


Almost overnight, the fevers both metaphorical and literal that gripped Osaka broke. And, just as Doctor Jessup Bozeman had promised, Doctor Harlan de Veers received the lion's share of the credit. After Countess Gwendolyn had caught him with his pants so thoroughly down, the Prefectural Head of the Ministry of Health really hadn't had any choice but to keep his word.


And so, his star on the rise and exciting new vistas of opportunity opening up before him, de Veers was extremely surprised to find an unannounced guest waiting for him in his very own bedroom one evening when he returned home from work.

---

"Don't bother yelling," the seated man said, his voice flatly matter of fact. "Nobody's going to come. You can keep your phone in your pocket as well, Doctor de Veers. Kindly take a seat and let's get down to brass tacks."


Harlan looked from the man to the door and back again, weighing his chances. He was unarmed, but so was the stranger. Or, at least, the man's hands were empty and his suit was absent any suspicious bulges that would hint at a hidden pistol.


And Henry should still be within earshot… and whoever this is, he must have at least two decades, maybe three on me…


"I said sit down, Doctor de Veers," the man repeated, a hint of steel in his voice. "Believe it or not, I just want a short, simple chat. Play your cards right and this will be a doorway to all kinds of opportunities that a career minded man such as yourself would hate to miss. Conversely, act a fool and you will be treated as much."


The man gestured towards the bed, inviting Harlan to sit down on his own furnishings.


"Who are you?" Harlan asked instead, ignoring the invitation. "Who sent you, and what do you want?"


"Linus Porterfield, the Directorate of Internal Security, and a moment of your time, Doctor de Veers, in that order," replied the apparent Agent Porterfield. "Now, if you are disinclined to give me that moment I will simply leave."


The urge to demand just that was on Harlan's tongue in an instant, but he held it back. His mind, stunned into inert stupor by the shock of finding a stranger in his bedroom, whirled to action at last, and Harlan actually thought about his situation.


They probably know about my infection of the Laffey family, but that isn't a certainty. If they do know, then I could be arrested at any time for attempted murder of a noble; there would be no need to break into my bedroom for that. If they don't, then presumably my handling of the outbreak is what drew their attention. And if they aren't here to arrest me…


"I am always eager to assist the Directorate with its mission," Harlan replied, crossing from the doorway to sit on the edge of his bed, facing Agent Porterfield where he sat at the small secretary desk Harlan kept in the corner of his room. "What can I do for you tonight, Agent Porterfield?"


"Your eagerness is greatly appreciated," Porterfield replied, angling his face towards Harlan. It had been mashed at some point in the past, Harlan noted, the nose almost flat from multiple breaks and the lines of the cheekbones jagged and uneven under the blotchy red skin.


A brawler's face, Harlan decided, noting the cauliflower ears.


It matched the rest of Porterfield, who now that Harlan inspected him gave off the air of a powerful man gone slightly to seed. He looked as if he might have played rugby when he was younger; he certainly had a forward's frame and the bulk necessary to dominate a scrum, even though the muscles under that neatly tailored suit had begun to be replaced by fat. His hair was still thick but had silvered completely.


For all that, Porterfield's eyes were still intent and focused, if chillingly blank.


"To brass tacks," Porterfield continued briskly. "Your actions here in Osaka have not gone unnoticed. We wanted to ask a few questions in regards to your motives and decision making process." Another smile quirked across his lips. "For our files, you see."


"Ask away," Harlan replied, gesturing broadly. "I'm an open book for an agent such as yourself, I'm sure."


Porterfield made a strange motion with his head, half an affirming nod and half an inquisitive turn of his head. Taken together, the gesture was disturbingly avian.


"Why did you continue to push for an active intervention plan for the Moriguchi Outbreak even after Doctor Bozeman rejected your initial request for funding?"


"I pressed forwards on the grounds of public health and efficiency," Harlan replied immediately, having been asked this question before. "Disease outbreaks may subside over time, but without a change in the sanitation standards for the afflicted area a recurrence is only a matter of time. Chronic outbreaks of sickness among the Number and commoner populations would adversely impact the efficiency of their work, lengthening the timelines of their assigned projects."


"And besides the obvious reasons?" Porterfield pressed. "Consider all of the answers you gave to your superiors at the Ministry of Health known to me."


"I…" Harlan hesitated, wondering how he should reply, then. If not with the same answer he gave Countess Gwendolyn when she had asked…


They want to know about my motives, eh?


Taking his courage in both hands, Harlan answered again. "Put plainly, at that point promotion didn't particularly feature in my future. I mean, Area 11? If it doesn't relate to the Sakuradite mines, nobody cares. And while Doctor Bozeman is getting up in years, he won't be retiring for at least a decade, by which point some fresh graduate with a better family name will make themselves available to fill his shoes. I needed leverage."


"Understandable," Porterfield made the nodding gesture again. "Successfully alerting the Administration to a public health issue of this scale would guarantee a smooth career progression from then-on. When did you decide to help the spread of the outbreak along?"


In for a penny…


"Doctor Bozeman was quite clear in his warning that sufficient resources wouldn't be invested in managing the spread until members of polite society began coming down with the cholera," Harlan explained, forcing his voice to remain level and his diction to remain slow and unhurried. "In light of that instruction and after it became clear that Doctor Bozeman's categorization of commoners as unimportant became self-evident as the outbreak made inroads into their population, the way forward rapidly grew clear."


"Why the Laffeys?" inquired Porterfield. "As far as we can tell, you had no previous dealings with Sir Bedevere or his family."


"That's correct," Harlan confirmed, nodding. "I'd never met them before. As far as the selection went, well… The who didn't really matter, beyond being of the requisite class. I just needed an opportunity to interact with the family in a situation where I could likely operate without notice. Getting caught would have ruined things completely."


"Clearly." Porterfield's voice was desert dry. "What would have happened if any of the Laffeys died?"


Harlan shrugged, not seeing any point in pretending to care. "Probably the same thing that happened when a few hundred commoners died. Ship in another aristocratic branch family and call it good. Besides," he caveated, "it was vanishingly unlikely any of them would die. They had access to quality medical care and all the fluids they could drink. Honestly, if they had died, it just would've gone to show that they really didn't need to keep living."


"Pretty cold of you, Doctor," Porterfield replied. He didn't sound shocked or upset though; he didn't sound much of anything. Just a statement of fact.


"Just doing my part as a loyal subject to act in the best interests of the Empire," Harlan replied piously, before gesturing with his hands, rolling them upwards in a brief "what can you do" motion. "I won't pretend to have a heart. The problem needed solving and the results speak for themselves."


"That they do," Porterfield acknowledged, "which is the reason you aren't currently dangling from a short rope as a poisoner." Noticing Harlan's suddenly wooden expression, the agent waved his hand dismissively. "You don't need to worry about that. As you said, the results speak for themselves. Besides, you didn't get caught. Why would we hang you when you've aptly proven your intelligence and discretion?"


"...Well, thanks for that," said Harlan, trying to calm his racing heartbeat. "I'm glad I passed muster." He paused, waiting for Porterfield to reply. "Was that all you needed?"


"How attached are you to a career in the Ministry of Health?"


"Umm…" Harlan blinked at the abrupt nonsequitur. "Well… Not very? I only really considered the Ministry as a first step to begin with. With some ministerial experience under my belt along with my medical credentials, I would be a strong contender for a head of staff position at most small to medium sized hospitals, which was my next step in a decade or so."


"I see." Porterfield seemed to turn something over in his mind for a moment before arriving at a conclusion. "Well, Doctor de Veers, from where I'm sitting, it seems like you have your pick of three options. The first," he held up a single, sausage-like finger, "is that you stay the course. As a doctor in his mid-thirties with a feather in his cap and his superior deeply in his debt, I predict that you'll go quite far at the Ministry. You can probably name your price wherever else you might end up."


"Gratitude's a pretty short-lived coin," Harlan noted, "and Doctor Bozeman's not going to like being in debt."


"I'm sure you'd find a way to handle the matter," Porterfield said with the confidence of a man who doesn't really care. "Regardless, that's option one. Option two," a second sausage link joined the first, "is much like option one. You remain at the Ministry of Health and continue to work your way up, but you take on something of a side job at the same time. The DIS could always use more eyes and more ears. Not," Porterfield added, "that we don't already have plenty in your office already; after all, how do you think we found out about you?"


"...I'm listening," Harlan replied carefully. "I wouldn't be against the idea…"


"Good," Porterfield nodded, raising a third finger. "Hopefully you are equally as positively disposed towards the third option. Tender your resignation to the Ministry of Health and begin a new career with the Directorate."


"In what capacity?"


"Most likely research and in-house medical staffing," said Porterfield, returning his hand to its fellow in resting on his lap. "DIS has excellent coverage for its staff, of course, and I can assure you a more than competitive salary, scaling with time in grade and so on. I can also assure you multiple fringe benefits as well, including a great deal of latitude when it comes to independent research and…" he hesitated, gunbarrel eyes darting from Harlan's eyes to his bare fingers, "your pick of spouses. I couldn't help but notice that you aren't married yet; a bit of an oversight for such a committed practitioner of Britannia's greatest traditions. Male, female, old, young… The DIS looks after its own, Doctor."


"I… see." Harlan licked his lips. "What would the consequences of declining this generous offer be, Agent Porterfield?"


"I bid you a good evening and walk out of that door and out of your life, Doctor de Veers," the DIS man replied, "and you remain content with your lot. Make no mistake," he said, leaning forwards slightly, "I am not attempting to strong-arm you. We do not conscript into the Directorate; we do not want coerced agents or employees working under duress. If you become one of us, we will trust you with our own and with our secrets. But tell me this, Doctor; would a man as ambitious as yourself be willing to settle for simple contentment? Or would you rather see just how far His Imperial Majesty's government can carry you?"


Well, Harlan thought, standing to extend his hand towards Porterfield's waiting grip, when they put it like that, there really wasn't any choice at all.

 

[Scopas]

(Thank you to Aminta Defender, Sunny, MetalDragon, Adronio, Larc, Rakkis157, Mitch H., and Aemon for their editing, beta-reading, and suggestions.)


MAY 10, 2016 ATB
STUDENT COUNCIL CLUBHOUSE, ASHFORD ACADEMY, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
2300


"Hello, Nunnally," the warm presence she knew to be her brother said, lowering himself into the chair beside her bed, which creaked under the familiar weight, just as it had for years now. "I apologize for keeping you up so late."


"I expected you back an hour ago at the latest, Brother," said Nunnally Lamperouge, once Nunnally vi Britannia, daughter of Marianne the Flash and the man who had remade Britannia in his own image, and now nothing, clasping her big brother's offered hand. "I was beginning to worry."


It was cool and dry, that hand, with skin that had roughened ever so slightly over the last few weeks. Long-fingered and as clever as the mind of its master, the hand turned over in hers to wrap its fingers around her own thin digits.


His welcoming squeeze was soft, gentle; she returned the squeeze with all of her strength, built up on the rare occasions she practiced with the manual wheelchair reserved for emergencies. Despite mustering up every scrap of pressure that she could, Nunnally could barely equal her famously unathletic brother's grip strength.


Weak.


"I'm sorry," Brother repeated, and Nunnally knew that he was sorry, both by the way the air currents shifted as he ducked his head slightly and by the way his voice trailed off into the breathy sigh that only emerged when he apologized sincerely. She believed him; he was always sorry when he left her behind. At least, once he realized that he had left her behind.


Not that it ever stopped him.


Nothing ever stopped him. Unlike her.


Broken.


"I forgive you," she said, just as she always did. What other choice did she have? "Sayoko said that she would save some dinner for you. You can make up for keeping me from my beauty sleep by eating it; no skipping meals, Lelouch! Sayoko and Milly say you're not eating enough and are getting too thin."


Orienting her face toward the direction of his voice, Nunnally frowned ferociously and, when he chuckled, tried to smile at his amusement.


Pathetic.


"Why were you out so late?" she asked, channeling into that question some of the ever-present frustration that always threatened to swallow her whole. "It's one thing for you to spend your Fridays and weekends gambling, Lelouch, but this is a school night!"


"I had special dispensation from the highest of authorities," Brother said, and Nunnally could hear in his voice the smile she hadn't seen in years. "After all, Madame President herself accompanied me, so surely I could do no wrong."


"You went out with Milly?" Curiosity flooded Nunnally, along with a hunger to hear more. In her bubble of carefully guarded peace, invigorating stimulation was a rarity. "I hope you were every inch the gentleman, Brother."


"Of course I was!" Brother replied, before adding a moment later, "after all, I was out taking in a trivia night with my fiance on my arm; how could I be on anything but my best behavior?"


Lost time. Losing time. A central theme of the recurring nightmare that had plagued Nunnally for years. In her dream, she woke up old and gray in her bed, still blind, still broken. Sometimes her brother was still there, sitting by her side, his hand in hers, telling her sweet lies as he had when they were children. Sometimes he was still there, still holding her hand, but his flesh was cold and clammy, and she was too frail to push his corpse away as it collapsed forwards onto her, pinning her against the bed that had been her prison for years.


Worst of all were the dreams when she woke in darkness, old and gray, and found that her beloved brother wasn't there. When she dreamed that he had left her long ago, as he should have done long ago, to live his own life. To find a woman to love and another few to bear his children, just like their father had done, and had left her behind like a forgotten childhood toy. A ragdoll, button eyes gone and legs shredded, left to gather dust.


Nunnally had never told her brother about those dreams, first because she feared putting the idea in his head, then because she realized that she only wanted to tell him about her fears because it would bind him to her ever tighter.


The fact that she knew as much made the temptation all the sweeter, but Nunnally loved her brother. She would never do anything to hurt him, most especially not anything that would convince him to throw away his whole life just to burden himself with her pathetic simulacrum of living.


Still, it was easy to make a commitment to suffer in silence when Nunnally knew, knew with a childlike certainty that had long since outlived her childhood, that her brother was still there, would always still be there. Actually hearing him refer to another woman, a woman that he would always be there for, sent ice water racing through her veins.


"I…" She swallowed her panic and ignored the cold dread that gripped her heart. "I didn't know you had proposed at last, Brother! Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials!"


"Thank you, dear sister," Brother replied jovially, and Nunnally relaxed as she heard the joke in his voice. "Honestly," he sighed, "remind me to never again grant Milly free reign to invent her backstory. And no, you don't need to worry about her virtue, or mine; we found God, you see."


"What?" Nunnally couldn't even muster a witty response to that apparent non sequitur; her heart was still beating rabbit-quick after the fright Brother had inadvertently tossed her way. "I am sorry, Brother, could you kindly elaborate?"


"Well, perhaps not God," her brother conceded, "but perhaps the next best thing. It started with a strange piece of street art I saw a few days back, you see…"


So Nunnally lay in silence, a captive audience in her own bed. Though she would have happily listened to her brother tell stories of a world she could barely remember seeing all the same, had she any choice in the matter. She cooed appreciatively in all the right spots and gasped appropriately when he revealed the identity of the strange group of heretics.


Providing an attentive and appreciative audience was the least she could do for her brother, the only thanks she could afford to give him for allowing her to vicariously experience a side of the world her infirmities and his love would never allow her to see through his stories.


It's so unfair, an ungrateful, resentful part of her moaned, and Nunnally couldn't help but agree. All Brother has to do is walk down an alleyway to find a mysterious society of hidden heretics! All he has to do is listen to an old man ramble and murmur a few platitudes to become a leader in their midst! I listen all the time and murmur platitudes, but nobody gives me anything but condescending headpats!


If I had his luck, his life… I would put it to far better use than Brother ever could… That thought Nunnally pushed back into the dark, along with all of the other evil, useless thoughts. It was crowded, in that darkness, but there would be time enough in the long hours of the night for those shameful and shamefully satisfying thoughts. For now, her brother wanted his sweet Nunnally, all innocent and pure and forgiving.


If he knew the least part of what I thought to myself, Brother would never hold my hand again.


Speaking of Brother, he had fallen silent, and Nunnally realized he was waiting for her to say something.


"Well, Brother," she said, rewinding through the last moments of half-heard story as she beamed brilliantly at the place she knew her brother filled in the endless dark, "it truly is a treat to hear that you have found some new friends. Good for you!"


"They aren't friends, Nunnally!" Brother protested, "they're a means to an end!"


Which is almost certainly how my own friends see me, Nunnally thought. It was just a suspicion, one she had pointedly chosen not to confirm by never taking their hands in hers, but it was difficult to see any other reason for their interest in her. Perhaps they wish to get closer to Brother, perhaps they are simply displaying a most un-Britannian pity for a cripple. Either way, they serve their purpose well enough, I suppose, by providing me with some company other than Sayoko while Brother is occupied… So what are friends, Brother, if not a means to an end?


She patted his hand in teasing congratulations, enjoying his spluttering denials as she felt the truth behind his words through his grip. He was always so well-spoken around others; it was nice to know that he still allowed himself sufficient vulnerability around her to react like a child. It was even nicer to know that, try as he might, Brother still had far too much empathy for others.


After all, if he had already bonded so quickly with these True Anglicans, it surely meant that his bond with her was in no danger of fraying.


Unless he decides to invest his time in those with actual value, Nunnally worried. He still has time for me, even with his friends on the Student Council, but Rivalz and Shirley never afforded much use for a prince, even a prince pretending to be a student. If he actually bonds with people willing to follow him, willing to help him, willing to kill for him… Will he still have time to hold my hand?


"You are correct, Brother," the words came blurting out, almost before Nunnally could think them. "They are not your friends. You are wise to keep that in mind."


"Nunnally?" His grip on her hand tightened, painful for a moment before Brother remembered her frailty and regained control of himself with an apologetic murmur. The surprise lingered in his voice as he continued, though. "I… You are correct, of course, but… I am surprised to hear you agree with me…? I mean," he forced a chuckle and Nunnally read the uneasy truth behind the joviality, "I had honestly expected you to scold me for being too risky or too callous toward them…"


Weak.


"Do you want me to, Brother?" Nunnally asked, hating her useless eyes again as she always did when she wondered what expression her brother's face bore while he measured her words. "I will happily chide you for taking the risk of fraternizing with proscribed heretics, should you wish, but…" she sighed, knowing that the plaintive sound would tug on her brother's heartstrings and soften his discomfort, and hating herself for knowing as much and doing so anyway, "I know you, Brother. You thrive on risks. Telling you to stay safe is foolishness…"


"Nunnally…"


The guilt in his voice was familiar. To Nunnally, it always sounded like old wood, the surfaces worn down and polished over the years for all the use it had borne. She had used that guilt time and time again, sometimes for small things and sometimes for important matters and sometimes just to prove to herself that she could make a difference, if only by the proxy of altering her brother's actions.


Those last occasions made her feel guilty as well, although not guilty enough to stop laying hands on that familiar old lever.


"I know you, Brother," Nunnally continued, lowering her already damnably frail voice to a coo, hearing the rustle as Brother stooped to get closer. "You are reckless and relentless, but you are also caring. I know that you like to think of yourself as aloof and cool as you pretend to be at school, but I also know how easily the distance you place between yourself and others shrinks when you allow them to get close. Do not allow yourself to get too close to these True Anglicans, Brother."


Don't leave me behind, was the first of her unspoken messages; use them, don't allow yourself to be used by them was the second.


Honestly, she thought, concealing her scowl at the mingled confusion and compassion she felt in his hand, Brother is far too soft for this, far too weak… If only… If only I had his eyes, his legs, his luck…


How fortunate that I already have a hand upon his heart.


"Use them, Brother," Nunnally encouraged, levering herself up as best she could in her bed, her shoulders barely lifting from the sheets. "Remember your goals, Brother, and remember yourself."


And remember me when you come into your kingdom, Brother. Remember me when you avenge Mother and claim your birthright. Please… just remember me.


JULY 5, 2016 ATB
ALBERT'S TAPHOUSE, KITA WARD, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1830


Above the empty cellar-turned-secret sanctuary, the celebration raged on in the streets and in the taphouse as it had for hours now, ever since the news had broken. Ever since the Viceregal-Governor had declared, in a very special broadcast, a half-day general holiday to mark the occasion.


The Yokohama Sniper was dead, her reign of terror brought to a sudden and cinematic end.


As good of a reason to celebrate as any, Lelouch reflected as he grabbed a pair of kneeling pillows from the communal pile, one for himself and one for Milly. Besides, a holiday is a holiday. To bastardize a line, "the celebration will feed itself".


Smirking quietly at the irreverent thought, Lelouch turned back to the knot of True Anglicans, milling around as they awaited Father Timothy's arrival.


Although, perhaps "knot" no longer does the congregation justice…


Their numbers had expanded over the two months Lelouch had spent in the company of the underground church, in no small part due to his efforts and Milly's. The first clandestine service he had attended had a mere twenty-seven ragged souls, the majority of them elderly, in attendance. Twenty-nine, with the addition of Father Timothy and himself. Now, more than twice that number crowded the basement, several still in uniform and others in the garb of professional tradesmen or well-heeled clerks.


We've doubled our numbers, Lelouch thought with justifiable satisfaction, and not just at this congregation either.


Working his way back through the crowd to the "front" oriented toward the old church banner, where he had left Milly, Lelouch shook hands and exchanged nods and smiles of recognition with familiar faces. Havelock was there, the excitable poet from that long-ago trivia night, along with Hilda and her husband Charles, who stood tall and proud with a dogeared copy of the Book of Common Prayer in his hands. Closer to the front stood Color Sergeant Coffin, now a full month distant from the bottle and already looking years younger for it.


Would that they were all so willing to follow my suggestions… Lelouch hid a sigh behind a smile as he shook another hand. There's power in the scraps of authority I've acquired, but a pulpit it is not.


Waiting for him in the very first "row" of imaginary pews was Milly, fully costumed in the long skirt and high neckline preferred by "Milly Ashland". She had made a concession to the heat of the season, and perhaps to her own particular tastes; gone was the shawl she had previously worn draped about her shoulders, instead her sleeves had been rolled up so high past her elbows that her blouse almost resembled a casual shirt, save for the garment's cut.


The seemingly effortless charm that Lelouch knew she assembled each morning and wore like a mantle still followed her though, modest and understated clothes be damned. She still stood out in the congregation like gold among straw.


Of course, Lelouch thought with a slightly guilty pang, Nunnally would stand out even more.


Not that his darling sister was content to remain on the sidelines; not in the slightest. After Lelouch had brought Nunnally in on his latest plan two months ago, she had taken to her advisory role like a fish to water. Each time he returned from some quiet trip to the fringes of the Settlement or slipped back into the quiet apartment over the Clubhouse after meeting with Father Timothy for private lessons on the True Anglican creed, Nunnally had been up and waiting for him to return, eager to go over his latest experiences and mine for ideas or angles.


Nunnally's incredible enthusiasm and willingness to help him brainstorm new recruitment schemes as well as possible solutions to various issues bedeviling existing members had been a happy surprise. Milly's understandable reserve regarding his involvement in a church of hidden heretics had been much less surprising, though entirely understandable.


At least, Milly had been reserved toward the idea of joining a heretical fringe movement initially. When she learned that Charles, Hilda, and Havelock, their trivia playing partners, were also members of the church, she warmed up to the idea, presumably on the basis that the former two were sensible enough to not get involved in anything too crazy.


And both have been instrumental in helping me become instrumental to Father Timothy and his congregation, Lelouch thought, returning Milly's smile. Not that they aren't essential too. Honestly, considering how much the congregation adores the first of my confederates, it is almost a pity that they will likely never learn about the second.


"Thanks~" the incognito heiress chirped as he handed over a cushion, casting a critical eye over the foam bulging through the tattered seams. "Man, I really should bring my sewing kit one of these days…"


"You can sew?" Lelouch asked, curious despite himself. "I don't think I've ever seen you with a needle and thread."


"Duh, Brother Alexander." The dramatic eye roll following that exasperated reply was entirely Milly Ashford, but thankfully sass was part of her disguise's persona as well; Lelouch doubted even Milly's considerable talents as an actress could have fully concealed that. "Who do you think makes all those costumes you love ever so much?"


Before Lelouch could rebut and clarify his opinion on the costumes his friend had foisted on him in the past, he noticed the poorly concealed stares from the other church members standing around. Several grannies looked a hairsbreadth from laughing at his expense, while at least two of the new soldier converts looked like they were busy imagining what costumes he had "loved" on Milly.


As always, there seemed like no point in protesting. Judging by the twinkle in Milly's eyes, it would only make the teasing worse.


"Well," he lamely replied instead, beating an inelegant retreat instead of fighting a losing battle, "I'll remind you next time, Sister Jane."


Before "Sister Jane" could respond, Lelouch had turned back to make his way back through the crowd again, this time unencumbered by pillows and with his hat quite literally in his hands. One hand held the second-hand bowler out, upturned and pointedly empty, while the other remained free to shake hands and slap backs.


A few crumpled banknotes disappeared into the faded lining as "Brother Alexander" made his way down the first line of parishioners, old ladies and gentlemen reaching into handbags and wallets to find what they could give up. The next row, day laborers mixed with skilled tradesmen, yielded a hail of pound coins and, from one man in the starched-collar uniform of an accountant, a brown envelope firmly taped shut.


"Thank you, Brother Jackson," Lelouch murmured to the last man, appropriately discreet. "Your contributions are appreciated. How's Teresa?"


"Doing well, Brother Alexander," replied the first-generation Britannian, the son of a Seven Honorary and a Britannian mother. He had been one of Lelouch's first recruits. Lelouch had managed to snag his loyalty with Milly's connections, putting him in contact with a physician willing to provide discreet surgical corrections to certain clientele. The man's daughter had the misfortune to be born with a facial deformity that would have otherwise forever marked her as inferior in Britannian society, but with the right funds and the right friends, it was an issue of the past. "The bandages will be coming off next week. Thank you again for-"


"No need for that, Brother," Lelouch smoothly interrupted, patting the man's arm. "Just remember who your Brothers and Sisters are when the time comes."


He continued on like that, shuttling through the congregation with a word here, a smile there, the bowler getting progressively heavier in his hand. Eventually, Lelouch turned back around and returned back to the first "row", where Milly was holding court. As she saw him approach, she waved a dismissal and the two young soldiers who'd been hanging off her every word stepped back.


Nodding a greeting, Lelouch retook his place next to her, discreetly nudging the hat full of donations out in front of his pillow so he wouldn't accidentally upset the collection when it came time to pray. As he stood up, a ripple passed through the crowd as conversations fell silent and people fell into their ordered rows, leaving a neat aisle from the entrance to the basement on up to the front of the hidden church.


Up the cleared aisle, an old man limped; Father Timothy had arrived at last. Perhaps fittingly, the priest who had summoned his congregation for this impromptu and unscheduled meeting was the last to arrive. He had forsaken his vestments, Lelouch noticed, save for the faded stole hanging from his shoulders.


Some might have chalked that up to this being a Tuesday and thus not the designated meeting time for the weekly mass. Better informed about Old Tim's flagging health, Lelouch knew that the old man could no longer don the Roman collar that was the sign of his office; he no longer had the strength to breathe with even the collar's mild constriction banded about his neck.


Pneumonic or not, Father Timothy still had the necessary strength to raise his voice in greeting as he turned to face his congregation from below the banner that had once decorated his pulpit. "The Lord be with you!"


"And also with you," the congregation replied in a dull rumble, the old words falling neatly into place, following tracks worn smooth with repetition.


"Let us give thanks to the Lord our God," Father Timothy intoned, raising a trembling hand high.


"It is right to give him thanks and praise," agreed the congregation, speaking with one voice.


"Ah, but what shall we thank Him for this day?" The question, a break from the typical ritual call and response that initiated the mass, seemed to throw the congregation into a moment of confusion, swiftly ended by Father Timothy answering his own question. "I myself shall thank Him for bringing all of us together today. But for us all? Why, let us give thanks that He has seen fit to bring a final end to the reign of terror perpetrated by the Yokohama Sniper! Let us give thanks, brothers and sisters, for His grace!"


"Thanks be to you, Lord Christ," came the fervent response from every other tongue present, Lelouch's included.


Although the thanks would probably be best directed to the IBI, he considered, not that they would be happy to accept such remarks from the likes of us.


"But," Father Timothy's hands fell to his side, "while it is meet and right to thank the Lord for His mercy in ridding us of the vile Eleven scourge, it is equally proper to take the opportunity to mourn for our fallen."


As one, the congregation bowed their heads, the motion smoothly automatic even among the new converts. While the dogma of the state church had changed, the trappings of the rituals had remained all but the same.


Which, Lelouch thought as he angled his face toward the floor, provides a convenient point of familiarity for newcomers to cling onto even as the substance shifts below their feet.


"While the Sniper is felled, the shadow cast by her acts lingers on in absent faces and lives cut short."


Father Timothy paused to cough, the wet hacking forcing its way out of his chest and into the crook of his elbow. But as the coughing fit passed, he raised his hands anew.


"Blood cannot wipe away blood," he intoned, "nor can death wipe away death. We cannot bring back our lost, for that is solely the Lord's domain, instead we must wait until our judgment day to see them again. And so, we mourn the loss of thirty four Britannians, avenged yet still lost to us nonetheless."


"Sixty four," a voice from the congregation interrupted. "Not to contradict you, Father, but we lost sixty four of our own."


That voice… Lelouch turned toward the source of the interruption, eyes widening with surprise. Sergeant Coffin?


And it was Sergeant Coffin whom all in attendance now stared, the burly noncom standing tall and meeting the weight of their gazes squarely, showing no sign of backing down.


This is… unexpected. The man's initial wave of almost drunken zealotry had cooled and hardened into a firm loyalty that had already served Lelouch in good stead as he expanded his efforts to find converts among the garrison forces, but Coffin only rarely ventured an independent opinion, and generally only when directly asked.


For him to interrupt the service like this…


"Forgive me," Father Timothy replied, peering through tired eyes at the soldier, "but all of the reports I have seen placed the final death toll at thirty four. Where are you getting your number from, Brother Roger?"


"Yessah," confirmed Sergeant Coffin, bobbing his head in a brief nod. "That is what all of the talking heads are saying. But what about the Honorary Citizens, eh? That bitch nailed thirty of them; are we not going to remember them as well?"


"Ah yes," Father Timothy replied, his lip wrinkling in clear distaste. "The… Honoraries." The disdain in the old priest's voice was almost palpable.


"The Honoraries, ayup," replied Coffin, his Mainer accent thickening as he glared back at the cleric, seeming not to notice the silent pressure for him to fall back into line. "They're just as much of us as the poor dead Britannians, aren't they now? They took up the Oath, didn't they? Swore to serve in return for citizenship, didn't they? And they were Britannian enough to put a bullet through the Sniper's lousy head, weren't they?"


That last point sent a ripple of murmuring through the crowd. The statement put out by the Bureau of Investigation informing the public of the Sniper's death had been quite clear in the composition of the unit that had hunted her down. Honorary constables had killed the Yokohama Sniper, not Britannian regulars.


Suzaku… It was vanishingly unlikely that his old friend had been involved in the IBI's operation; as far as Lelouch knew, Corporal Kururugi was still serving with the 32nd Honorary Legion. The same formation that Sergeant Coffin serves in…


Lelouch hadn't pursued that connection, despite personal desire. There was, after all, no reason for either "Leland Gelt" or "Brother Alexander" to have any interest in a random Honorary noncom; if Suzaku hadn't brought himself to Sergeant Coffin's attention on his own, then Lelouch had no intention of drawing unwanted attention to his friend.


But for Coffin to feel sufficiently attached to his men that he speaks up on the behalf of their comrades in arms… The knot in Lelouch's chest loosened slightly.


"Be that as it may," Father Timothy replied, just as hard-headed as Sergeant Coffin, "they are not of us, Brother Roger. They swore their Oaths, yes, but they swore them to a usurper emperor and his handmaiden of a church! And what oaths can be held as consecrated and true when sworn by false names and in the honor of perversion? Any oath sworn to Charles, the Man of Blood, cannot be binding, any more than an oath sworn to a foreigner could be. They are not of us."


"But how were they to know as much when they took up the Oath?" Lelouch stepped out from his row and into the cleared "aisle" running between the two blocks of standing worshippers.


Far from coincidentally, his chosen place to stand placed him squarely between Father Timothy and Sergeant Coffin. He looked from one to the other as he extended an arm toward each.


"How were they to know," he repeated, looking at Coffin and the small sea of faces around him, "when they swore their Oath that the ruler they swore to was an evil, twisted mockery of all that is good and right about Britannia? How were they to know that the priest who anointed him as Emperor of Britannia and Head of its Church was a heretic determined to pervert the holy ways with corrupt doctrine?


"How were they to know," Lelouch continued, turning to face Father Timothy, allowing his arms to fall to his sides as he firmly turned his back toward Sergeant Coffin, "when there were none to teach them the correct doctrine, to show them the true way forward? Is ignorance a sin, even in light of such service as killing a foul wolf who preyed upon the innocent fold of our misguided brothers and sisters?"


Milly's gaze was like a brand on his cheek, burning a hole through his face with its intense focus. He kept his eyes focused on Father Timothy, ignoring her stare and the consideration and worry he knew he would see if he turned to meet it. Alone among those present, she knew about Suzaku, knew about his friend in the service, who had sworn his Oath to That Man, and had turned his back on Lelouch and on Japan in the process.


Lelouch fought off the urge to cringe in embarrassment. He'd done it again, dammit! He had seen a golden opportunity and had impulsively seized it, just as he had sworn to himself he would not do. Yes, Milly knew of his motives for seeking reconciliation with the Honorary Britannians; she, alone among those in attendance, also knew his real identity, knew the name nested below Brother Alexander, Leland Gelt, and Lelouch Lamperouge. She certainly knew the kind of risk he was running by publicly drawing attention to himself like this, and by proxy the risk he was posing to her and her family.


I'm sorry, Milly… But I must help Suzaku, and if this Church can pose a safe haven for him… Perhaps I can smuggle him out of the Legion before the worst comes to pass.


So it was with mixed feelings that Lelouch raised his hands again, imploring Father Timothy to hear the sensibility of his words and their weight on his tongue. "I say that, so long as they swore loyalty to Britannia in their hearts, then surely God will know his own! For better or for worse, he will surely acknowledge their pledge and know them by the works of their hands to be true servants of Britannia!"


An unwanted image of Corporal Kururugi glaring at a line of hungry Honoraries queueing up for food served by Japanese hands forced itself into Lelouch's mind. A true servant of Britannia indeed…


There was a rustle of motion to his side and Lelouch knew without looking away from Father Timothy that Milly had stepped up beside him.


"Britannian or Honorary…" the Ashford heiress mused, slipping her hand into his as she spoke. In his mind's eye, Lelouch could imagine what it must look like: The young lovers, standing steadfast in their convictions in the face of convention. It was an admittedly powerful visual narrative, instantly relatable to all and sympathetic to most.


Count on Milly to seize on an opportunity for drama, Lelouch thought wryly, keeping his amusement firmly contained. And, his thoughts continued as her fingers slid between his own, count on Milly to take full advantage of the moment.


"...surely all are equal in death?" Milly paused, giving her audience a moment to consider the matter. "Surely a Britannian soldier and an Honorary soldier, both sworn to the same empire's service, will be counted as equals in the regiments of the Most High? Just as we are all equals, brothers and sisters all, in His earthly service? And," Milly lightly squeezed his hand, "adding the Honoraries to our list of prayers surely costs us little, right? Some of them did manage to put down the Sniper, after all."


Lelouch returned the gentle squeeze, touched by the unspoken message and the implicit understanding of his motives Milly displayed. Clearly, she hadn't forgotten his plea for help for Suzaku. With that in mind, he couldn't begrudge her forwarding their false relationship at all. Not for now, at least.


For his part, Father Timothy looked thoughtful. His distaste still lingered, but clearly he was listening to what they were saying. A traditionalist at heart, the old cleric wouldn't have survived so long if he was too stubborn to notice when the winds of change began to blow. Objections from the senior-most military man recruited so far, from the only recruit with sufficient education and energy to act as a minister as his health flagged, and from the most successful recruiter the church had found so far were enough combined to represent a veritable gust.


"Very well then," he said at last, bowing to the inevitable. "We will remember our Honorary brothers and sisters as well in our prayers. Now," Timothy cleared his throat, "please kneel as we pray."


A murmur of movement coursed through the congregation as men and women, impoverished and merely poor, knelt on ratty cushions. Still out in the aisle between the two blocks of attendees, Lelouch knelt directly on the stained concrete floor of the old basement, Milly joining him a moment later with a pained hiss as her knees met the unyielding and grainy surface.


For his part, as he bowed his head in an empty gesture of reverence to an existence he was agnostic at best toward, Lelouch found himself reveling in the uncomfortable pressure against his kneecaps. It was a welcome distraction from both the hand still firmly wrapped around his own, and from the sure knowledge of what was soon to come for Yokohama.


"Oh God," Father Timothy began, raising his hands in supplication, "whose mercies cannot be numbered, accept our prayers on behalf of your servants, both those born to the Church and those who came to it later, and grant them an entrance into the land of light and joy, in the fellowship of thy saints; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord who liveth and reigneth with a rod of iron with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever."


"Amen," chorused the congregation, Lelouch allowing the word to slip limply from between his lips and Milly with surprising vigor.


"For Christ is risen from the dead," Father Timothy continued, painfully lowering himself down to his waiting kneeling cushion, "and with the sword and the rod he laid waste to Hell and conquered it for his own. With the sword he cut the chains of the grave and rose in glory and triumph. He trampled down the Adversary and gave death unto Death, and restored life to the entombed righteous. He will come again in the company of his legions and his saints to judge and to rule again, as he did in the days before the Fall. Amen."


"Amen," replied the assembled people. From behind him, Lelouch heard Coffin's voice, rough from a life of barking orders, brimming with righteous fervor. "Amen."


"Oh Lord God Most Hol-" Timothy stopped, wrapping an arm about his chest as he coughed, his shoulders heaving at the violence of the action. "Oh Lord," he rasped, beginning again, "in the midst of life we are in death, and from whom shall we seek succor, oh Lord, save yourself, who for our sins is greatly angered? Truly, Lord, from you no secrets are hid and to you all sins are known. Spare us, oh God, and deliver us not into the bitterest of death and the scourge everlasting, but let us march beside you and Saint George and Saint Sebastian and all of your martyrs in glory. For this, we pray."


"Amen."


"Speak with me," Father Timothy commanded, "oh brothers and sisters, the affirmation of our faith:"


"Christ has died in suffering," the congregation spoke as one, Father Timothy's thin reed of a voice wavering like a flag over the dull monotone chant, "Christ is risen in glory. Christ will come again in conquest."


"Yea, he shall!" Father Timothy confirmed, spreading out his arms again in reassurance, "and so in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to life eternal through the passion and might of Lord Jesus Christ, we commend all of his martyred servants to Almighty God, Britannian-born and Britannian by Honor alike, and we commit their bodies to the ground or to the flame. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."


"Amen."


"Let us now take a moment, brothers and sisters," Father Timothy wheezed, his shoulders jerking as he fought down another coughing fit, "to remember in silence those who have perished. Britannian and Honorary Britannian alike."


And Japanese, Lelouch added silently, closing his eyes. Proclamation Nine proclaimed that each Britannian death would be repaid a thousandfold. Whether he ever intended to execute the proclamation in earnest or not is irrelevant now; the Purists will demand it, as will the bulk of the rank and file of the commons. After the media whipped them up in the fear of death by sniper for weeks, they'll be hungry for blood, and Clovis is far too cowardly to deny them their wish. And so… the Japanese will pay the price, at least for now…


I know what is coming, and I can do nothing to stop it. Lelouch realized his teeth were grinding, that he was squeezing down far too tightly on Milly's hand. He forced himself to relax, to breathe out his tension. After a moment, she lightly squeezed his hand again, silently asking if he was alright. He squeezed back in reassurance and fell back into his thoughts. More blood on the hands of Clovis… And by extension, more blood on the hands of That Man, more blood that I was too weak to stop from being spilled.


"And now, brothers and sisters," Father Timothy said, breaking the basement's silence, "we make bold to say:"


"Our Father, who art in heaven…"

---

"...Go now in the faith and unity of Christ the King, the only true emperor, and know that his triumph is only an inevitability," Lelouch bid, arms raised to the exact angle used earlier in the service by Father Timothy. "Go forth knowing that your deeds and dedication are heeded, that your faith shall be rewarded, and that one day all will curse by the foul name of the Man of Blood. Amen."


"Amen," came the resounding echo, full of both hope for the future and relief that the service was finally over.


Lelouch lowered his arms and shot a sideways look to Father Timothy, who nodded his thanks and approval. "Brother Leland" had been invited up to conduct the remainder of the service after the conclusion of the Lord's Prayer, a measure both practical and keenly symbolic. Practical, because the old priest's cough had continued to worsen as he struggled through the prayer, and symbolic, as the parting benediction was generally administered by the ranking cleric in attendance. By waving "Leland" up from the crowd to end the service and to dismiss the congregation, Father Timothy had signaled his rising status yet again. Now, "Leland" stood between the congregation and the pulpit, not quite a priest but certainly not a layman any longer.


With the ritual of the service concluded, the structure of the crowd disintegrated, the illusory rows vanishing as congregants turned to chat with their neighbors, stooped to pick up knee pillows, or began the process of stowing their personal copies of the Book of Common Prayer within jackets, purses, or in one case, in a hollow concealed in the sole of a boot.


Lelouch joined the milling throng and easily fell into a succession of casual conversations, shaking hands and catching up on the daily happenings of various acquaintances as, one by one, the hidden church slipped out through the bar or the basement entrance and into the still busy streets. As he gladhanded and chatted, Lelouch felt Father Timothy's eyes linger upon him, weighing his every action and word.


Slowly, the crowd dispersed, until the basement was empty of all save Milly, Father Timothy, and Lelouch. Sensing that the priest had something he wanted to say as clearly as Lelouch, Milly made eye contact with Lelouch and nodded toward the old man before jerking her head up toward the bar. Her message was clear: "Hear him out, and then come tell me what's up. I'll be waiting."


With a confirming nod from Lelouch, Milly vanished up the stairs. Lelouch waited, listening to the old slats creak under her weight, hearing the slight pause as she stooped under the dangling HVAC duct, and then the slight jingle of the bell above signaling that the door into the common room of the taphouse had opened.


Then, he turned to Father Timothy and waited, expectant, as the frail and sickly elder picked his way across the bare concrete floor.


"Good work with the benediction, Brother Alexander," the priest said, coming to a halt in front of Lelouch. "Always send them out on a high note, that's what I was taught all the way back in seminary. You have a natural gift for the pulpit, it seems."


"Thank you, Father," Lelouch replied politely.


"Yes," the old man mused, as if he hadn't heard the response, "you were certainly born for leadership, Brother Alexander… You chose your worship name well, Leland… Chose it well indeed."


Under his thick, bushy gray eyebrows and behind the yellow rheum lining his ancient eyes, a keen and watchful intelligence glittered.


"Thank you, Father," Lelouch repeated, suddenly wary of the man who had served as his introduction to the disparate True Anglican cells scattered around the Tokyo Settlement, the man in whose stead he had acted for months now. "I appreciate your confidence."


"I believe it to be well-placed, Leland." A weary smile crossed Father Timothy's face. "Spending almost two decades on the run teaches a man a thing or two about human character, and how to judge it… And I find myself placing more and more faith in your abilities, Leland… Born to the grandson of a third son, was it? Before you left the Homeland…"


He knows! The thought sent a shock through Lelouch's arms, down to his hands, utterly absurd yet somehow certainly true. Somehow, he knows!


"Yes, Father," Lelouch replied, drawing on his long-ago lessons from court to keep his cool. "A family dispute that led to my pursuit of other opportunities across the Pacific from old Pendragon."


"I see…" Father Timothy seemed to consider something, his eyes boring through Lelouch. "You have done sterling service, ministering to my flock all around the Settlement… You know all of their names now, their problems, and details about each… They come to you, always eager to speak, because they believe that you will lighten their load…"


"They believe the same thing about you," Lelouch pointed out, attempting to deflect the probe. "I noticed as much when I first came here. They all believe in you, believe in your witness and your word."


"And it took long years for me to build that faith," Father Timothy remarked mildly. "Years of hard work and long suffering. Years that you have made up in weeks. I'm not jealous," he said, holding up a staying hand, "not at all… Quite the opposite, in fact. I am…" A tired smile pulled itself across the worn face as Father Timothy paused as if savoring the word. "Relieved."


"Relieved, Father?" Lelouch tilted his head inquiringly, doing his best to involve himself in the conversation as fully as possible to ignore the way his nerves were singing with anxiety. "About what?"


"That though I will die without seeing the True Prince sit the throne in Pendragon, I shall pass on like Moses, content that my successor shall bring an end to the long journey I began eighteen years ago," explained Father Timothy, his voice serene despite its exhaustion. Years fell away for a brief moment, as if the pure relief was burning through the accumulated weight of old age and hard living. "I have devoted my life to this cause, and as the candle of my life began to flicker, I allowed doubt to enter my heart. I see now that I was wrong to do so. Perhaps that is why that candle has begun to gutter."


"You still have years left in you, Father," Lelouch reassured, not believing a word of it. There was, he was certain, nobody worthy of sitting the Britannian throne; anybody with sufficient moral fiber to be proclaimed as such would burn that wretched old chair to ashes before so much as squatting above it.


"I told you at our first meeting," Father Timothy replied, shaking his head, "death is in my bones. I said then that I will not see Christmas; I say now that I will not see August."


"I… I see, Father," said Lelouch, blinking as the thought entered his mind. The timeline would have to be moved up, of course, and he would have to consult with Milly and Sergeant Coffin about their next moves, and perhaps bring Brother Phillip in…


"Yes," Father Timothy nodded approvingly, clearly reading Lelouch's thoughts on his face, "do not let the moment go to waste, my Joshua. Strike while the iron is hot, and let none stand in your way. Within the month, my bones will be cold and my people yours, although they are in truth yours already, are they not? Purple eyes… Fitting for a man born to the purple…"


The comment, delivered so casually, was a whip slashing down on Lelouch's back once again, startling him with the blow. His whole world stopped, the corners of his vision growing dark as his balance shifted and quaked around him. Before him, Father Timothy, Old Tim, stood placidly, not making any attempt to run, to defend himself…


Miraculously, Lelouch held his control firm, keeping his hands flat by his sides. Even more miraculously, he managed to hold his tongue, matching the old man's silent stare with his own stillness.


"I will not live to see the True Prince sit his throne," murmured Father Timothy, eyes distant, his voice growing rough again. "After years of hiding from long knives and running from corner to desolate corner, it won't be the Inquisition that gets me, nor the Bureau, nor even the Army… Just a pair of worn out lungs, drowning in their own phlegm… I will not live to see the True Prince upon his throne, but I have lived long enough to know that the end has come for the Man of Blood. The reign of Charles the Usurper has ended, and he doesn't even know it yet…"


"That seems… premature," Lelouch ventured, doing his best again to ignore the stubborn old priest's talk of thrones as he slowly pushed the clanging anxiety the risky line of conversation invoked back down.


The man hates the Emperor, hates the Britannic Church, Lelouch reassured himself. He's not going to turn anybody over to them now that he's at death's door. Besides, who would believe a sick old man when he claimed he'd found a secret Britannian prince who was a heretic to boot? Especially not if he admitted to being a recalcitrant priest in the same breath.


"Have faith," Father Timothy chided, his smile growing by an extra tooth. "It's a great solace, my son. I have faith. I feared before what would become of my church, once I was no longer around to lead it, but now… Now I know what the future will bring for my church, for the Church, and for the Empire and the world. I know, Brother Alexander, that you are that future, that you will bring the sword and the rod and will guide my people unto the Promised Land. Keep the faith, when I am gone."

---

JULY 14, 2016 ATB
STUDENT COUNCIL ROOM, ASHFORD ACADEMY
1215


It was a beautiful day outside, a rare summer day where a skimming of high altitude clouds and a favorable breeze from Tokyo Bay conspired to reduce the heat and humidity down to balmy perfection. Regrettably, Lelouch was in no position to enjoy the glories of summer.


For multiple reasons. It had been a stressful two weeks. Ever since that damned priest had…


With a quiet growl, Lelouch wrenched his attention back to the teetering stack of printouts, envelopes, and notarized documents towering above his desk, the better part of a month's paperwork come due at last.


And all of it for me. Huzzah. Despite himself, Lelouch found the heap a perverse sanctuary, a balm numbing his frenzied thoughts. No matter how many times he woke in a cold sweat, belly clenched with anxiety, at the end of the day the janitorial staff still needed their payroll run.


Most students of Ashford Academy would, if pressed, admit to an understanding that the Student Council had functions other than acting as Milly Ashford's personal toy. Lelouch suspected that most of the student body would be shocked to learn just how much time and energy serving on the Student Council demanded, and how little of it was spent either playing along with or refusing Milly's various whims.


For some reason best known to himself, Reuben Ashford, once Lord Ashford, had endowed significant administerial responsibilities upon the Student Council some two summers ago in commemoration of his heiress's sixteenth birthday. At the stroke of a pen, the Student Council had become responsible for the entirety of the Academy's discretionary fund, as well as for running the payroll for the janitorial and gardening staff. Perhaps the former aristocrat had seen it as a way of replicating in miniature the old tradition of entrusting an estate to the heir presumptive to give them some managerial experience in advance of their inheritance, perhaps it had been an attempt to occupy some of Milly's boundless energy. Either way, by the time Milly had turned seventeen the previous year, the Student Council had become intimately familiar with the processes of budgetary formation, labor arbitration, and contract remediation.


Excellent stewardship training for the heir to a fairly sizable estate, Lelouch conceded, initialing a request from the Equestrian Club for a replacement track as their previous training ground had been requisitioned by the ROTC. Or it would be, if Milly actually handled a tenth of the paperwork. Then again, delegation is a valuable skill in a leader as well. Theoretically, anyway.


Always the moneychanger of favors, Milly had cashed in all the evenings she had spent covering for Lelouch's activities at last. She had, as she put it, tolerated being a walking smokescreen for all of her free evenings, so now he could handle her share of the backlogged paperwork.


"And here I thought you'd finally brought me in on your illicit gambling operation, Lulu! Instead, all you did was take me to church!" had been her pouting comment on the matter, before dropping her faux annoyance in favor of a devilish grin. "You owe me big, Mister Vice President!"


So here he was, wasting away and trying to find some room in the discretionary budget to pay stabling and track fees for the Equestrian Club's mounts at some estate outside of the Tokyo Settlement instead of enjoying the summer's day with Nunnally.


His sister had uncharacteristically left Ashford for the day, venturing forth for a day of shopping and fun in the Concession in the company of a few of her friends, the ever dutiful Sayoko standing ready at his darling sister's elbow. The presence of the secret bodyguard, keen awareness of the ever accumulating stack of paperwork waiting for his attention, and his sister's clear eagerness for a moment of freedom from the confines of the Academy had conspired against Lelouch, and he hadn't offered even token resistance to Nunnally's plan.


I do hope she remembered her sunscreen, though… Lelouch sighed, the anxiety he always felt whenever Nunnally left Ashford's protective embrace heightened by a week's worth of nights haunted by dreams of thrones and ermine robes. Sayoko will handle it, he told himself, crushing the anxious thoughts down. She is a professional and highly skilled. Nunnally is safe. All is well.


For a moment, Lelouch sat still in his chair, fingers poised above the keyboard. He strained, trying to resist the temptation, trying to hold the line… His traitor mind served up an image of Nunnally with sunburns on her poor sweet face, skin peeling from her delicate nose. In moments his phone was unlocked and in his hand. Thirty seconds later, a text reminding Sayoko to remind Nunnally that the SPF 70 was in the kitchen drawer right by the refrigerator was sent.


A minute and a half after sending his text, Lelouch felt incredibly silly as a reply definitely not written by Sayoko arrived, the slight grammatical errors betraying the aid of a speech-to-text program.


Nunnally, as was so often the case, kindly thanked her dear big brother for his concern but assured him that she was only blind and not braindead. Her wish for him to butt out and allow her to enjoy her afternoon of freedom undisturbed was as loud as it was unspoken.


Not that Lelouch was at all upset by this. She was a teenager now, he reminded himself, in the midst of her rebellious phase. Such disregard for pseudo-parental worry was only to be expected, at least in private.


With perhaps slightly more force than was required, Lelouch rubbed the approval ink-stamp on its pad and brought it down on the Equestrian Club's proposal, tossing the document into his Out Tray. Whenever Rivalz finished fiddling around with his motorcycle, the Student Council's secretary would enter the outlay from the proposal into the budgetary software and then file the document away. Shirley would finally approve the amended budget item and the Equestrian Club would receive permission to start hunting for a new stable.


Bully for them, he thought with knee-jerk resentment toward anybody not stuck inside handling paperwork. But perhaps that would be an opportunity…? Moving all of the horses would require several trips in large vehicles, all with appropriate paperwork and probably reeking of manure…


Shelving the idea for later reflection, Lelouch reached for the next item in his overflowing In Tray. Before he could snag the next proposal, complaint, or memo from the stack, the door to the Student Council room swung open.


Did Rivalz finish tuning up his bike already, Lelouch wondered as he looked up from his paper-strewn desk, or maybe Milly "let it slip" to Shirley that I'm alone in the Council Room? Either way, they just volunteered to help with the backlog.


Instead of the Student Council's Secretary or its Treasurer, Lelouch's number one source of heartburn short of That Man's continued existence slipped into the room and pulled the door firmly shut behind her.


By the time the latch clicked in the frame, all thoughts of budgets and paperwork had slipped from Lelouch's mind. He was in danger, he knew; any moment he was alone with Kallen Stadtfeld represented a significant risk to his well-being. While the detente he had forged between them still held, strengthened by Milly's sincere apology to Kallen and her good behavior toward the Stadtfeld heiress over the last two months, Lelouch had not forgotten the peril the probable rebel posed.


Nor had he forgotten the potential she represented. A natural-born prodigy pilot is worth a bit of risk on her own, but a plug into the heart of the Japanese Underground and a potential connection to the weapons and resources flowing from Chinese and European hands into Area 11 would be worth a great deal.


That had been his decision two months ago; every time they met, Lelouch recalculated that risk, weighing up the stakes. So far, his initial decision held.


"Ah, Kallen," greeted Lelouch, nodding a friendly welcome and taking care to rest his hands on the desk in clear view of his guest. "I thought you weren't going to be here today? Major Pitt has you marked down as excused absent, you know."


"Oh?" Kallen blinked, disinterested. "Good to know, I guess. But, no, I'm not here today, not officially. I'm just here to drop this off." She glanced down at his desk and blinked again, this time surprised. "The… custodial payroll?"


Following her eyes, Lelouch looked down at the document he had retrieved from his In Tray just as Kallen entered the room and saw those exact words printed across the top.


"What of it?" he blandly asked, meeting her eyes once again and lifting an inquisitive eyebrow.


"Isn't that women's work, balancing the accounts?" Kallen asked, her slight smirk tugging at her lips. "I mean," she continued, her voice dripping with faux innocence, "that's what my st… my mother always insists during our lessons."


"What of it?" Lelouch repeated, the second eyebrow rising to join its predecessor. "It's all Milly's work, if it makes you feel any better. She called in a favor," he hastily added, noticing how Kallen's gaze began to heat at the implication that Milly was abusing her power over someone else. "I asked for her help with something and agreed to her price of assistance with the paperwork."


"Alright," said Kallen, subsiding slightly. "But really, Lelouch… the payroll? Are… Are you sure you don't find it demeaning or whatever…?"


She sounds almost intrigued, Lelouch noted, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. I wonder how angry she would be if I pointed out how similarly the majority of Ashford's female population reacted when I was introduced as the belle of the Crossdresser's Ball last autumn?


"Not in the slightest," he replied, completely sincere. "Honestly, I think I lost my capacity for shame in this specific context after the fourth time she crammed me into a dress. Didn't you have something to drop off, Kallen?"


"Oh, yeah," Kallen tore her fascinated gaze away from the hour sheet on his desk. "One second…"


As she reached into the purse dangling from her shoulder, Lelouch clenched his teeth, forcing his smile to remain in place, his eyes to stay interested and guileless, his hands to keep loose and still. To his great relief, she retrieved only an envelope, which she deposited neatly on top of the summit of his In Tray.


Waiting until she'd finished and after it was clear that her addition had not triggered a paperwork avalanche, Lelouch slowly reached out across the desk toward the envelope, keeping his eyes locked on Kallen's face, searching for any warnings that the crimson viper on the other side of the table was about to strike. Her eyes narrowed slightly as he touched the envelope, but she relaxed again as his hand retreated, letter in tow.


She really needs to work on governing her microexpressions, Lelouch reflected as he carefully reached for a letter opener, and then rethought his course of action as he noticed a slight tightening of the muscles around her jaw. She's still far too easily read. Which I suppose I should be thankful for, at least for now.


The envelope, stamped with the Stadtfeld coat of arms, contained a single, tersely worded page. Between the usual salutations and the formulaic farewell, the letter announced that Lady Kallen Stadtfeld would be taking a sabbatical from Ashford Academy and her obligations as a member of the Student Council for the remainder of the summer. Interestingly, the letter also stated that the Lady Kallen would also be discharging her duties as a Cadet "under special supervision" for that same period of time.


The letter was signed by Alvin, Baron New Leicester and Lord Stadtfeld, Patriarch of House Stadtfeld, and co-signed by the noble staring cooly down at Lelouch from across his desk.


I wonder what the chances are that the good Lord Stadtfeld actually signed this? Lelouch turned the idea around in his head, pretending to reread the letter as he thought. If the signature is authentic, that implies Kallen's father has come to Area 11, which is… interesting, I suppose, but not really important. If she forged his signature and is taking a vacation on her own recognizance, though… I wonder where she could be going?


"So," Lelouch began, breaking the silence as he refolded the letter, "a summer-long sabbatical, is it? Sounds like an excellent idea!"


He attempted a gormless smile, aiming for a jolly note.


Kallen didn't return it.


Lelouch's eyes narrowed. Something wasn't right. Something had changed.


Why is she being so prickly all of a sudden? She was more than content to join Milly and me for lunch yesterday, and she even unbent far enough to be the fourth so Rivalz, Milly, and I could play a hand of Bridge the day before. It is as if she regressed a month overnight.


The idea that Kallen could be trying to get away from the Academy suddenly seemed much more likely. She was certainly hiding something.


"Do you have any plans for your sabbatical?" The question was meant to sound innocuous, a puff question that blanketed his first gentle probe. Under Kallen's blank stare, it hung impotently in the air. Patience abruptly departing, Lelouch rammed the probe home. "With your father, I mean. It is his signature on the letter, is it not?" Lelouch asked, shifting to a pointed, rudely direct, inquiry.


Again the itching in his palms as a Pacific gaze, cold and dark, sized him up, searching for something Lelouch couldn't guess. Lelouch met Kallen's eyes directly, refusing to back down. It was stupid, pointlessly risky, but it had been a trying fortnight, and he had work to do.


Fortunately, whatever Kallen had been searching for, she had apparently found. Her hands stayed in the open as well, blissfully knife-free.


"We will be going on a tour," the young noble replied, the delay between question and answer just slightly too long to be comfortable or natural, "of Area 11."


"A tour of Area 11," Lelouch repeated, rolling the Britannian name, no, name was giving too much credit, the Britannian designation, over his tongue and noting the flash of distaste that crossed Kallen's face at the sound. In her mouth, the official name for the conquered archipelago had sounded almost natural. Perhaps she was learning.


A point toward this vacation not being her idea, he noted, adding a mental tally to the appropriate imaginary column. That or she still has yet to realize just how subpar her acting skills are. Perhaps both.


"That sounds like an excellent idea," Lelouch smoothly continued, smiling broadly as he leaned back in his chair, feigning relaxation while carefully keeping his hands in sight. "The Sapporo Settlement must be splendid this time of year, certainly less humid than Tokyo. Perhaps Karafuto would be even better?"


"Probably," Kallen shrugged, the gesture comparatively unguarded. "I've never been further north than Sendai. Ah," she corrected herself, a muscle twitching minutely in her cheek, "the Sendai Settlement, I mean."


A swing and a miss, Lelouch considered, noting how the stress had ebbed completely from Kallen's voice. It seemed like the option most obvious to a radical part-time journalist with access to the internet, though. If I wanted support for an anti-Britannian insurgent group in Japan, and especially if I had sympathy for an empire purporting to hold the freedom of the press as sacred, I would reach out to the European-aligned groups operating out of Vladivostok long before I went south to find an agent of the Chinese-backed government in exile.


Which, he concluded, likely means that this isn't connected to her actions as a rebel, and so the signature on the letter is presumably authentic.


"Well, in any case," Lelouch levered himself back upright in his chair and flipped the ink pad open again, reaching for his stamp, "kindly pass on my regards to Baron New Leicester and a welcome on behalf of the Ashford Academy Student Council to Area 11."


He brought the stamp down on first the letter, then its envelope with a muted thump-thump before slipping the former back into the latter and tossing the result into his Out Tray where it ceased to be his problem.


"Now," Lelouch continued, his anxiety ebbing minutely at the sensation of completing something in his ever mounting pile of responsibilities, "was there anything else I could help you with, Kallen? If not, well…" he motioned vaguely toward his mountain of paperwork and then the door she had entered from. "I wish you a thoroughly enjoyable and informative sabbatical."


Kallen followed his hand enough to glance at the door, but she remained firmly rooted in place across his desk. "Actually," she said, turning to look back at the door again, "there was one other thing I wanted to ask you about, Lelouch…?"


"Oh?" Palms itching once more, and damn Kallen and her hot-and-cold attitude, Lelouch forced a smile equal parts welcoming and helpful. "What would that be?"


"A few months back, when I was first 'invited' to join the Student Council," Kallen grimaced slightly, presumably at the memory of what had preceded that invitation, "you mentioned that you'd edited my files?"


Lelouch very carefully didn't let his eyes narrow or his smile stiffen. Of all the things she could have asked about… why this one?


"On the Ashford Academy server, yes," he confirmed, nodding authoritatively. "As I explained, the Ministry of Education's database updates automatically, drawing from the databases of each constituent educational institute in the Area."


"Right," Kallen nodded, "I remember that. And… that's as far as you went when you were 'correcting' my files, right? Just using Milly's credentials to get into the Academy's servers and letting the Ministry's own automatic update handle the rest?"


She's trying to maneuver me into admitting something, Lelouch realized. Quite audacious of her. But why? Blackmailing me over the database tampering is a losing proposition for her; doing so would expose the edits I made, drawing undue attention to her heritage and activities in Shinjuku. Even if her father's connections are enough to protect her, it would gain her nothing and cost a great deal to hush the matter up.


"More or less," Lelouch admitted, smiling ruefully. "Honestly, it was pretty easy to do. For all that people like to think of hacking as something magical or whatnot, mostly it just involves exploiting flaws in a system's security. That or finding shortcuts some lazy user already made for their own use."


"That's it?" Kallen looked crestfallen. "Just a simple trick like that? That's…" She tilted her head to the side, clearly considering something. "...Less impressive than I'd expected, I guess."


Immediately, Lelouch was forced to wrestle with his pride for control over his tongue. A simple trick? He raged in the security of his skull. You, as an insurgent and a rebel hiding herself behind the mask of a schoolgirl, should understand the advantage of securing a key piece of intelligence to exploit a systemic weakness!


Then he saw the smile. It was only barely noticeable, just a slight upward bowing of her lips, but it was there on Lady Kallen Stadtfeld's face. And it was smug.


She's trying to bait me again. The thought splashed over his inflamed pride like ice water, permitting him control over his faculties once more. Perhaps bait is the wrong word, or at least it might be more adversarial than what she has in mind. I myself noted that Kallen's skills represent a significant enough value that recruitment is worth pursuing. Perhaps she's reciprocating to some degree or is considering what value I could provide?


"As I said," Lelouch began, a patently guileless smile spread across his face, "it certainly isn't magic by any stretch. Just a relatively simple process. That said, I did a bit… more. Just to maintain consistency, you see. It wouldn't have done for some clerk at the Ministry of Education to one day realize your medical records on file diverged significantly from those kept by the Ministry of Health. To that end, a bit of clean up was necessary. A file here or there… Nothing too major."


"I see…" Kallen nodded, mulling that over. "That was a good move, Lelouch. Good thinking."


"Oh, you know," Lelouch said, allowing a touch of well-deserved pride to touch his voice, "I am capable of a bit of foresight every now and again. Not that you would know it, looking at my In Tray!" He forced a laugh at the ritually humorous observation, joined briefly by a pity chuckle from Kallen.


"But seriously," he continued, "you can rest easy about your digital profile. It is entirely consistent with what you and I understand to be your history, Kallen. Your chronic health issues, your biography, everything's been handled. You can rest easy on that score, and," Lelouch smiled, hoping it came off as warmly sympathetic, "you can rest knowing that not a single mention of Shinjuku is present in connection to any file with your name on it. Nor on any of the backups; consistency, after all, must be maintained."


"Ah," Kallen sighed, and for the first time since she'd entered the room, an entirely natural smile found its way to her. To Lelouch, it looked like a knot of tension had eased in the perpetually on-edge Stadtfeld. "That's… a relief. Thanks, I guess… Lelouch."


"It was my pleasure, Kallen," Lelouch replied with complete sincerity. Throwing grit into the gears of the Administration was its own reward. "Now, if there isn't anything else…"


"So," she interrupted, and though the smile was still there, it looked decidedly sharper now. Hungry. And this time, it wasn't his palms that itched; no, this time it was his ankles, as if he had just set his foot into a bear trap and felt the triggering pan under his foot tremble. "Can you enter the Ministry of Justice's servers and edit the contents of their database as well, Lelouch?


"After all," Kallen pressed on relentlessly, raising her voice over his silence, "you did just admit to infiltrating the Ministry of Health as well as the Ministry of Education. So what's one more scalp for your belt, Mister Vice-President?"


Lelouch instantly clamped down on the kneejerk panic flooding his system. Keep calm, he told himself, ice water running through his veins, feeling the steel jaws trembling with tension, eager to snap shut on the leg he had shoved down his throat. She's fishing. She has no evidence.


More likely than not, this is her paranoia speaking. She must think that I have set her up for failure when someone notices that the Ministry of Justice files are different from every other governmental file pertaining to her. Which would be a reasonable fear if I had not, in fact, edited the Ministry of Justice's files. After copying them for myself, of course. They were both extensive and overly protected for the daughter of a mere baron…


"It would be extremely difficult to infiltrate the Ministry of Justice," Lelouch said, resorting to the truth. "They maintain a rigorous cybersecurity regime, at least for a governmental institution. Why do you ask, Kallen?"


"Just recently, I was interrogated in regards to unauthorized changes made to my Ministry file," Kallen revealed, no trace of a smile on her face, only a razor-edged intensity and a terrifying coldness behind her eyes. Lelouch's gaze darted to her hands again and found them still thankfully empty of weapons. "Naturally, as soon as someone started asking about recent updates to my files, I thought of you."


"Hopefully you kept those thoughts to yourself," snapped Lelouch, the sudden terror at the prospect that "Lelouch Lamperouge" had come to the attention of the security services entirely overwhelming his rational fear of the insurgent before him. "Whoever it was who interrogated you was lying. I was not joking in the slightest when I said that the Ministry of Justice takes cybersecurity seriously. The only people who have full access to the edit history and the metadata of a biographic file are the members of the Technical Services Division and high ranking ministerial personnel. I doubt any would have the time or interest to interrogate a baron's daughter sneaking out to the ghetto, Kallen."


For a moment, the air between them thrummed with tension. Lelouch couldn't help but curse himself for his slip-up; he was trying to build rapport with Kallen, to convince her of his utility. If he could join forces with her and her mysterious Japanese connections…!


Snapping at her served none of his goals.


But apologizing now will convey weakness. The training he had received at court was quite clear on that point. The only thing worse than making a mistake was publicly admitting to your error. Weakness be damned, screamed another corner of his mind. What do you think you're doing here? She's dangerous! What, would you go back on your promise and leave Nunnally all alone over a point of pride?


And yet, his tongue was leaden, the apology choked behind his lips.


Thankfully, it proved unnecessary. Just as Kallen began to grudgingly nod her acceptance of the point, the door to the Student Council room banged open, shocking Lelouch to his feet and sending Kallen spinning around into a combat stance, center of gravity low and arms spread wide.


"Milly?" Lelouch and Kallen chorused, identifying the panting intruder. "What are you doing here?" both said as one, before exchanging surprised looks at the momentary synchronization.


"...You know, I was about to ask that," said Milly, looking from one face to the other, "I didn't expect to find anybody here but Lulu. Hello Kallen," she continued, turning fully toward Kallen and bobbing a brief curtsey. "It's good to see you again. Are we still on for tea tomorrow?"


True to the promise she had made via Lelouch, Milly had remained almost painfully respectful and courteous in all of her interactions with Kallen since the other girl had joined the Student Council as the ROTC's representative. Privately, Milly had confessed that the self-censoring this policy required remained something of a strain on her willpower, but to Lelouch it seemed like the effort was already paying off. Kallen had remained true to her word as well and had met Milly halfway, allowing the President to address her by name instead of Lady Kallen after a week.


Now the two of them are practically friends, Lelouch thought, almost smiling, or as close to friends as Kallen's circumstances allow. Which means that she might hesitate for a few heartbeats before knifing Milly. Joy.


"Sorry Milly, but I'll have to cancel," replied Kallen, pairing the remark with a regretful smile as she drew herself up from her stance, brushing her bangs back out of her eyes. "You can ask Lelouch for the details, but I'll be elsewhere for the remainder of the summer. Actually," she looked down at her wristwatch, "I should be heading out; I need to pack my bags."


"Oh." Milly blinked. "Well, in that case, have a… good trip?"


"Meh," Kallen grunted in a distinctly unlady-like, if not unkind, fashion. "Bye Milly, Lelouch. I'll see you in the fall."


"Goodbye," Milly replied to Kallen's retreating back, with Lelouch repeating her farewell a heartbeat later, adding "enjoy your tour!" for good measure.


Just as Kallen's hand fell on the handle of the still-open door, she paused and turned back. "Oh, that reminds me, do either of you know where Rivalz is? I've got one last goodbye to say before I leave."


"Probably still in the Automotive Club's garage," Lelouch said, helpfully adding, "he said something about tuning up his bike for a ride this afternoon. Not that I'm letting him get out of his filing duties that easily."


"I see," Kallen replied. "Thanks, Lelouch… You've been quite helpful."


And then she was gone, the door swinging quietly shut in her wake.


With the click of the latch, Lelouch sank back down into his chair, sparing his still-crowded In Tray a gloomy look before glancing up at Milly, who was still eying the door, worrying at her lip with her teeth.


"Apparently Kallen's father has come to visit," Lelouch said, answering the unspoken question as Milly turned to face him. "He apparently wants to spend the summer touring Japan with his daughter."


"Kallen's dad is here?" Milly asked, surprise writ large across her face. "The Baron of New Leicester? That's… honestly not as out of character as I first thought." At Lelouch's inquisitive look, she elaborated. "I mean, he recognized Kallen as his heiress, despite her heritage, long before anybody could have guessed that she'd be a genius in a Knightmare simulator. He must care for her as his child; if he didn't, he could have taken a few fertile wives and made some trueborn scions. It's not like there's any doubt that Kallen's his daughter, not unless her mother was sleeping with his brothers or something. The family resemblance is far too strong for it to be anything else."


"Which he presumably would have noticed," Lelouch replied lightly, ignoring the way his gut seized halfway through Milly's explanation. "So him flying halfway across the world is not out of character on the grounds that… he actually wanted to spend quality time with his daughter?"


"Sometimes the simplest answer makes the most sense," Milly replied, "no matter how strange to us the concepts might be."


Lelouch carefully didn't acknowledge the way Milly's face had tightened as she spoke, nor how hollow her familiar laughing smile, returned once Kallen had left, had grown. Though it wasn't his business, he knew that some tension had entered the lives of the Ashford family once Reuban had proclaimed his granddaughter as his heiress, rather than his son. It wasn't his business how Milly's relationship with her parents had developed in the wake of that announcement, and he doubted she would appreciate him involving himself in the matter.


He also carefully didn't notice how she had included him in her last statement. Some things were left best unsaid, and some scars weren't to be picked at.


"Putting Kallen and her fascinating dynamic with her father aside," he said instead, "what was it you wanted? Surely you almost rushed face-first into Kallen for a reason."


"Eh?" Milly blinked again, shook her head, and smiled again, returning to the track of comfortable conversation. "Oh, right!" She pointed an accusing finger across the desk. "You haven't been answering your phone, Lulu!"


"I…" he hesitated, glancing guiltily at the drawer he had crammed his phone into after he'd read Nunnally's text. "I wanted to minimize distractions," he extemporized, waving at his burdened desk. "There is a great deal that requires our attention, and I for one want to catch up on the paperwork as soon as is feasible."


"Liar," Milly replied, offhandedly dismissive. "You were nagging Nunnally again, weren't you?"


"I…" Lelouch gritted his teeth, feeling his upset stomach churn at the mention of his sister's name.


If there is even a trace of a burn on her face, Sayoko had best prepare to give an account of herself!


Unable to defend himself against Milly's knowing smirk, Lelouch opted for an offensive instead. "Did you come here for a purpose or not?" he asked irritably. "If you just came here to disrupt Council business, Madame President, then I'm sure you wouldn't mind reviewing the latest outlays filed by the landscapers! Who could have guessed that constructing a Knightmare maneuver course on short notice and maintaining the blasted thing would cost extra?"


"Sounds important!" Milly cheerfully replied with an impudent smile. "I sure am lucky to have such a capable and dedicated fiance to handle it all, aren't I, Leland?"


"Not here, Milly," Lelouch chided, eyes darting instinctually towards the closed door. "Look, you surely had a reason to come disturb my work; out with it."


"Ah." And suddenly, Lelouch noted, Milly's smile didn't look quite as vivacious as usual, nor as sincere. "Lelouch… you really should pay more attention to your phone."


The hairs on the back of Lelouch's neck rose as Milly's smile faded rapidly away.


Seeing the wet pearls beading in the corners of her eyes, Lelouch kept his voice gentle and soft as he asked, "What did I miss, Milly?"


"Phillip's been trying to get ahold of you for half an hour," Milly replied, her voice brittle with checked emotion threatening to slip her control. "When you didn't answer, he called me instead."


"Phillip?" Lelouch frowned at the name of his first acquaintance among the True Anglicans, the one who had shared his book of rituals with him the night of the first post-trivia service. "What was he looking for?"


"It's…" Milly drew in a breath, hands curling into fists by her side. "It's time, Lelouch. Old Tim… He couldn't get out of bed this morning, and according to Phillip, he's having trouble breathing. He's barely awake, but… He asked for you. He…" She looked away, licked her lips, and forced her eyes back onto Lelouch's. "He wants you to say the words over him."


Once again, the old man was right, Lelouch marveled. It looks like he will not be seeing August after all, just as he said.


And just as he said, he is passing his mantle over to me. This time for keeps, this time in the eyes of the congregation. By saying the words over his body at his request, my leadership over the Church will be set in stone.


My time has come. The thought was supposed to have been triumphant. Finally he would achieve a place of power. This was to be the moment where he tasted victory.


Instead all he tasted was ash.


"I see," he said out loud, feeling a weight hanging from his back as he climbed to his feet, the same weight he had carried since he walked through a dead city six years back. "Call Phillip back, please, Milly. Let him know…" he hesitated, then committed. "Let him know that I'm on my way."


"Will do," Milly nodded. "Some reason you're not calling him yourself?"


"Yes," Lelouch smiled thinly back, opening the desk drawer and retrieving his phone. "I doubt Sayoko will accept a call from another number and, before I do this, I need to let Nunnally know. She has demanded updates on any major developments." His smile tightened. "I would say this counts."


"Ah," said Milly, instant understanding flooding her eyes as she nodded again, clearly in favor of anything that saved her from another velvet-soft, razor-edged dressing down, courtesy of the younger vi Britannia. "I'll just step out to let Phillip know, then, shall I?"


Lelouch nodded absently, scarcely noticing when she left the Council room.


This is not a final victory, he knew, not even as the undisputed master of the True Anglicans. But Father Timothy has set the stage for me to cement their loyalty to me, first as Brother Alexander, and perhaps eventually as their True Prince. Not my final victory… But at last, I have a weapon I can use against That Man. At last, I have found people who hate him just as much as I. All I have to do now is turn that discontentment and rage into a dagger to drive right through his rotten spine!


As Lelouch thumbed Sayoko's number into his phone, raising the device to his ear just in time to hear Nunnally's protector pick up on the first ring; he didn't realize that he was grinning until he heard the smile in his own voice.

---

JULY 31, 2016 ATB
ALBERT'S TAPHOUSE, KITA WARD, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
2000


Curtains drawn, the dingy room over the taphouse was stiflingly hot in the absence of any stray breezes that might break up the sultry evening air. Turning impotently, an ancient rotary fan oscillated from side to side, the decrepit motor barely strong enough to move its blades. From the corner of the room, an equally old standing lamp shed just enough light to qualify the impromptu office as "dimly lit".


All of this was immaterial to Lelouch. He was, at the moment, entirely fixated on his laptop and the evening's operation, already well-underway.


Compared to playing cat and mouse with the Ministry of Justice's anti-infiltration measures, cracking the servers of the Diocese of Tokyo had been child's play. Almost before the operation began, Lelouch had spread their contents wide open, ready for his perusal. The security measures guarding the database of the Britannic Church in Area 11 were adequate at best, their limited effectiveness degraded by diocesan staff who took digital security guidelines as suggestions and who updated their security software on a schedule best described as haphazard.


After all, why wouldn't they be smugly complacent? Lelouch grinned to himself, watching as his rootkit finished installing itself and began loading a prepared list of account numbers. Who would steal from the Church, after all? If not for the risk of their eternal soul, surely fear of Lazaro Pulst's vengeance would cower any would-be thieves.


Sadly for them, His Eminence will soon be beyond such petty mortal disputes.


Almost before Father Timothy's body had time to cool in its grave, unmarked by the side of a Chiba road save for an unpainted cross, Lelouch had put the first steps of his new plan into motion. For the moment, he had momentum on his side; Father Timothy's last request had passed the mantle of leadership to him in as smooth of a succession as any underground group could hope for. Lelouch had spent every available minute of the last two weeks taking merciless advantage of the old man's legacy, traveling to every fractured cell and clandestine congregation in the Tokyo region to re-introduce himself as the new head of the True Anglican congregation.


For the most part, this announcement had been met with acquiescence. Lelouch had met most of the congregation before and formed personal connections with as many leading figures in the disparate fragments as he could. Now, he drew upon those connections and upon the work he had done on behalf of each congregation, pointing out when he had sourced funds for new clothes or anticongestants during hay fever season or when he had helped write a letter to the electric company clarifying the matter of an unpaid bill after the power to a congregant's apartment had been shut off.


And for now, his inherited authority was holding. For now. The dual flaws in the foundation of his inherited priestly authority were blatant to Lelouch and, he was certain, to his followers. Well spoken and intelligent though he was, he was both not a priest and still only sixteen. This later fact wasn't known to his followers, but they all knew that he was young, far younger than most of them.


He was, in short, riding toward an authority shortfall. Short of somehow becoming ordained in the defunct pre-Archbishop Warren Britannic Church, drastic measures were necessary.


Besides, Lelouch admitted to himself, toying with a pen as white text scrolled faster than the eye could follow across his console, there is only so long a revolutionary movement, or really a reactionary movement, can squat in a basement before it loses any vigor it may have once possessed. Better to burn the powder now than wait for it to degrade entirely.


From that seed, Lelouch's plan had sprung. He had no priestly credentials to fall back upon, nor the appearance of wisdom and temperance that Father Timothy's advanced age and years on the run had brought the old man. He would have to manufacture his own authority through actions, through victories, through giving the double-handful of people who were his now fresh hope. Hope not only of survival, but hope that their long-awaited triumph would soon stoop upon the earth.


There was really only one target suitable to deliver all of that.


And by happy coincidence, that target is perhaps the only man holding Clovis's entire rotten Administration together. Only to advance his own graft, but the sheer power vacuum his absence would open is guaranteed to prompt infighting.


By not-so-sheer coincidence, that same target had been the subject of Lelouch's thankfully forgotten abortive poster campaign.


Lazaro Pulst, Bishop of Tokyo and Minister of Economic Development. The Viceregal-Governor's economic advisor and the widely hated "Fattest Man in Area 11" made for a natural target, but one too well-protected for his legion of malcontents to do anything but mutter about.


Or that had been the case until Lelouch had brought organization and planning to the members of his congregation most willing to risk direct action.


The first stage of his plan to topple the Fattest Man from his episcopal throne had been inspired by Kallen. Her curiosity regarding his hacks into the Administration's various databases had lit the spark. Almost on an impulse, Lelouch had tried his hand at cracking into the Diocese's financial database. The dummy donation he made to the "widows and orphans fund" complete with an almost unnoticeable worm piggybacking on the entry had, to his muted surprise, led to the discovery of a veritable world of graft.


And the embezzlement of donations and smudged lines between the Diocesian coffers and the Bishop's personal accounts had only been the start of what Lelouch had found in his first dive into the thoroughly cooked Church books. Over a fevered, sleepless night, he traced accounts, cross-referenced names against recent news items from the society page, and, later, checked for some of those same entries in digitized police blotters and Army incident records.


"The scale of it is shocking," he had told Nunnally and Milly over coffee, "though the content is sadly typically exploitative. Trafficking in 'conscripted' Elevens, buying up debts owed by poor citizens and immediately declaring the markers due, operating multiple brothels…


"None of that is particularly shocking, not really, not to anybody with even the most cursory of windows into the sleaze oozing below the Settlement's gilded facade. Rather, the sheer scope of the operation is the surprise here, and how hollowed out the Diocese has truly become. Truthfully, I think that Pulst and his ilk simply grew too greedy in their efforts to skim the fat and now the Church here in Area 11 is little but a carcass. Only the bloat of its own rot gives it any substance, held in check only by a thin skin of propriety." Lelouch had shook his head, almost dismayed by his own findings. "Pulst is sitting on a bomb, and I doubt he has even the slightest of clues."


"So… what're you going to do?" Milly had asked curiously. "Gonna leak it to the press or something? Prick the skin and pop the bubble all over the Fattest Man in Tokyo's face?"


"Why bother?" Lelouch had snorted. "Viceregal-Governor la Britannia effectively owns all the press in the Area, so I doubt any would be interested in running the story. Sending it back across the Pacific would be equally pointless; the entire story is local to Area 11, so nobody who matters in the Homeland will care."


"The news is always quite complimentary of brother Clovis," Nunnally had sighed, gently replacing her teacup on its saucer. "Still though, Brother, I am sure you have no intention of giving up and allowing this abuse to continue, do you?"


His darling sister's comment had only technically been a question. The implicit command had been as clear as it was already unnecessary.


After all, Lelouch thought, mentally patting himself on the back as he typed in the next string in his prepared list into the prompt, when a man as important as His Rotundity offers up such a plum opportunity, it would be rude to refuse.


The real question, he had found, was what to do with the remaining funds in the Diocese's coffers and slush funds. His initial knee-jerk response had been to divert them into one of his own illicit accounts. Stolen Church money could cover his and Nunnally's expenses for a very long time, to say nothing of improving the lots of his parishioners. His second thought had been on how easily traceable such digital diversions of funds were, especially if the Exchequer smelled an opportunity to appropriate untaxed and dirty money for their own ends.


As Nunnally had provided the question, she likewise also provided the answer.


"Give it away," his darling sister had said after he laid out his predicament, looking up from her muesli to smile at him from long habit, her forever closed eyes oriented just to his right. "It was donated to the Church in the name of protecting the helpless and needy, was it not? Send it where it was meant to go."


"What makes you think that the Administration would allow whichever lucky charities benefit from the surprise donation to keep their new wealth?" Lelouch had inquired, mildly incredulous at the suggestion.


"Absolutely nothing, dear brother," Nunnally had replied with a sharper smile. "Other than how much our dear brother Clovis wishes to be seen as a kind and benevolent prince. As you mentioned, he owns the Area's media, and they cannot cease singing the praises of his humanitarian deeds. No doubt at his prompting. A kind and benevolent prince does not snatch bread from the mouths of poor veterans and orphans, at least not where there is any chance someone might find out."


And with that, the next piece of the plan had clicked into place.


Dirty laundry aired, funds distributed to the poor, and the third, all important, leg of the plan. Which, Lelouch glanced down to the corner of the screen, checking the time, should be reaching its crescendo any minute now.


Somewhere in the massive pile of steel, glass, and concrete that enjoyed the name of the Bishop's Palace, built adjacent to the equally ugly Tokyo Cathedral and only a stone's throw from the Viceregal Palace in the heart of the Britannian Concession, the last stages of that third leg would be unfolding. Havelock, his old trivia partner, had shaved his easily identifiable sideburns and donned a carefully crafted replica of the uniform worn by Diocesan stewards. Even now, he would be padding through the no doubt decadently decorated hallways of the bishop's private apartments, pushing a cart laden with freshly laundered bedding.


Wrapped around his narrow waist below the steward's tailcoat was a sedated Western Taipan, straight from Area 9 and freshly liberated from the Clovisland Zoo Reptile House.


In just under two hours, the sedatives will wear off. Lelouch was quite certain of that point; he had been the one to calculate the dosage necessary to incapacitate the incredibly deadly reptile and had been in the room when the snake had been very carefully injected with the pilfered drug. By which point Havelock should have long since made the bishop's bed and continued on with his rounds, just another servant among hundreds. Assuming Pulst's nighttime entertainments conclude before midnight, he'll be leaving the Concession just as Pulst is slipping between the sheets…


It was not the most practical of plans; Lelouch could freely admit as much. It would have been much simpler to rig a grenade below the bishop's official vehicle or, if push came to shove, to simply shoot the cleric in mid-sermon.


But in such matters, optics are everything. Blowing Pulst up would be a mere political act, while desecrating a chapel, even a state church chapel, with bloodshed would elevate Pulst's name posthumously on the wings of martyrdom.


Being bit by a snake, however, the archetypal symbol of evil and corruption… Lips quirked in a cruel smile, gone in a flash. Well, that's just the devil taking his due, isn't it?


In Lelouch's opinion, it was an easy narrative to follow and to understand, with undeniable symbolism and a clear message. It was also a clear attack on the legitimacy of the Britannic Church, and thus would certainly be covered up by the official media to the greatest extent possible.


Which was why Lelouch had no intention of conceding control over the narrative to the Viceregal-Governor's lickspittles.


The door to the sweltering apartment over the bar creaked open and Milly slipped inside, closing the door behind her.


And speaking of narrative control…


"Ah, Milly," Lelouch said, glancing up from his laptop to greet his confederate. "Is it ready?"


Wordlessly, the Ashford heiress placed a small drive down on his temporary desk, the aluminum casing clicking against scored wood. "It's here," she confirmed, her voice uncharacteristically toneless. "Just as you asked."


Frowning, Lelouch looked back up from his computer and gave Milly a critical once-over. In the room's poor lighting, she scarcely looked herself.


Beyond her guise as Milly Ashland, she looks… tired. Tired and anxious.


Lelouch couldn't blame her; it was only natural for a young lady shielded from the fullness of court life to blanch at premeditated murder.


"It will be alright, Milly," he said reassuringly, standing from his chair and pacing around the desk to stand beside her, half to convey his support and half to massage life back into his cramped legs after too long behind his screen. "I am certain you did an excellent job with the credit and denunciation video. You really do have a knack for this kind of work; you'll definitely be a wonderful anchorwoman some day."


"I…" Milly forced a tremulous smile. "...Thanks, Lulu. But…" the smile cracked. "That's… not really why I'm concerned."


"Oh?" Lelouch quirked an eyebrow, remaining confident though he felt a sudden wave of concern at the prospect that he had overlooked something. "What's the matter then, Milly? Everything's going smoothly so far." He paused, then added more gently, "Having second thoughts, Pres?"


"Yeah…" Milly sighed at the admission and turned slightly so she could rest against the edge of the desk.


A moment later, Lelouch joined her, holding his tongue in companionable silence.


"...It's not Pulst that's making me worry," she said after a quiet minute had passed. "As a man, he's absolute garbage. What he's done, the abuses he's committed, facilitated, and covered up…" She pulled a face, a grotesque expression of theatrical disgust. "We should be applauded for killing him! It's a public service, really!"


"The prospect of becoming accessory to a murder doesn't trouble you?" Lelouch asked, gently prodding as Milly fell silent again. "Make no mistake, I would not hold it against you if it did."


After all, he reflected, it's also my first time being directly responsible for the death of another human being… I wonder if my lack of feeling about that should be a cause for concern? Pulst has a family, presumably; even corrupt, bloviating bastards have those. Perhaps they will miss him, but I simply cannot bring myself to feel any regret for their loss…


"Well, I'm not thrilled about it," Milly admitted, grimacing slightly. "But… No, at the end of the day, there's just some people the world could do without, and I think he's one of them."


Lelouch nodded carefully, keeping quiet. Something was clearly weighing down on Milly, and if it wasn't the murder, then she had yet to mention what the real source of her concerns was.


"Hell, the only one I'm worried for tonight, like, right at this moment is Havelock," Milly continued, looking up at the water-stained ceiling as she spoke. "Assuming the snake doesn't bite him or nobody realizes that he's not actually on the staff, he should be alright… It would be really unlucky if a random police patrol picked him up on the way home, but he should be okay…"


"Havelock knows what he's doing," Lelouch said soothingly. "All of his papers are in order, he's got more than enough cash on hand to handle any shakedowns, and I even made sure he knows how to apply the false sideburns he'll be wearing for the next few days."


He also knows exactly what is expected of him in the event that some unforeseen factor complicates his escape beyond recovery. Even knowing full well what would have to be done, he still volunteered… And all he requested was that I say the last words with him before he left this afternoon.


"Yeah," Milly agreed, "he'll be fine. For today at least, probably. But," she looked back toward Lelouch, meeting his eyes squarely, "what about tomorrow? Or a month from now? What about everybody else?"


"Impossible to say," Lelouch conceded. "The Church already has plenty of experience keeping a low profile and relying on codes and signs to pass messages, but if the security services actually take an interest in us, who knows how effective those will be. The Bureau setting up a permanent field office down in Hiroshima is undeniably worrying, but the other option is just to continue hiding until we dwindle into irrelevancy. Ultimately," he shrugged, "I can plan as much as I like, but I cannot see the future, Milly."


"...I'm not really saying this right," Milly mumbled, then sighed with exasperation. "I get all that. I know all that. I heard you say as much to Nunnally, remember? Look, I'm not… worried… about our physical safety. Well," she caveated, "I am, but that's not… Ugh!"


She shook her head vigorously, carefully pinned blonde tresses escaping their bindings, and turned back to fix Lelouch with a skewering focus. "Look, Lulu, I just gotta ask… Do you think what we're doing here is right?"


"You said it yourself, didn't you? Killing Pulst would be a public service. But…" Lelouch frowned, peering into Milly's cornflower blue eyes, "this isn't about Pulst, is it?"


"Who cares about that tub of lard?" Milly snorted dismissively, before quickly sobering up once more. "No, Lelouch, I'm talking about how you… we… are manipulating the members of the church. I mean…" she took a breath, held it, and exhaled. "I mean, do you really… believe all of this? Not just the God stuff, but that the True Anglicans will ever return to power? 'True Prince' or not, Leland, you've gotta admit that an actual victory like that is a very long shot, but you're selling it as an inevitability. Selling them hope is what you're doing, and… and I don't know if you have any intention of ever delivering."


And that's Milly Ashford right there, Lelouch thought, calmly meeting his friend's imploring eyes. She likes to have fun, likes to tease and play jokes, but at the end of the day she's an intensely caring person. Moreover, she's an intensely responsible person; once she moves past her jokes and recognizes her responsibility. It seems like she's taken responsibility for the welfare of the congregation, and… probably because she helped recruit some of them, a sense of responsibility for my promises.


If not handled delicately, this could be an issue.


"Big questions indeed, Milly," he said at last, unflinchingly meeting her gaze. "Truthfully, I have been struggling with some of them myself."


Pushing off of the desk, Lelouch rose to his full height and stretched, rolling his shoulders back as he tried to loosen his back after hours hunching over his laptop, buying time in the process.


"Starting from the easiest question… I'd say I'm ambivalent on the 'God stuff' as you put it. Whether or not there is a god or an afterlife matters very little when Britannia is free to do as it wishes in this life. I won't lie, the prospect of That Man spending the remainder of eternity burning in Hell is pleasing, but ultimately it matters very little. God, I assume," Lelouch added, "will presumably tend to that while leaving the small matter of sending That Man to his just reward up to me."


"I don't think there is a God," Milly admitted, almost offhandedly, and then looked shocked at her own words. "Er, I mean-! I-it's just… If there is, He doesn't really seem to do very much, does He? And if that's the case… Well… isn't that basically the same as there not being one at all?"


"I will admit that it is difficult to argue that point," Lelouch chuckled, before continuing. "As for the real meat of your questions, about whether or not I am deceiving the True Anglicans… I do not believe that I am."


"You think you can win." Milly's voice was incredulously flat.


"How can I believe otherwise and still function?" Lelouch asked, an old weight hanging on his back, his stomach knotting with a hunger long since sated and nostrils full of the remembered scent of corpses sweltering in the summer's heat. "If I cannot win, if the world truly is immovable and cruel, if there is no chance of ever tearing down Britannia and building a world worthy of Nunnally from the ashes, then why bother getting up each morning?"


"That's not an answer," Milly accused. "It's inspirational, sure, but an affirmation isn't an answer."


"True," Lelouch nodded, "it isn't. But like you said, a final triumph is a long shot. We have to have hope, and hope is built from the belief that there is a chance of victory. Do I believe that triumph is inevitable? No, but that does not mean that I am any less dedicated to doing all in my power to pave a road toward that glorious conclusion. Do I think it is probable that the True Anglicans shall again preach from the pulpit of Rochester Cathedral? It is not probable, but it is possible.


"You are right, Milly, in your silent but pertinent point: I am manipulating the True Anglicans. But I ask you, do you think that they don't know this? Don't accept this? They know just as well as you or I how many they number, how scarce their resources are. They know that victory is a dream, at least for now. But that hope I sell them is the same hope I feel, the same hope I sell myself. I know how great and terrible That Man is, Milly, and I know how cold, uncaring, and awful the world can be.


"But," Lelouch continued, his voice quieting, losing none of its vigor as volume bled away, "I will not give up. One way or another, either I will die or I will be victorious. Britannia will burn, Milly, or I will burn myself up. Too much has happened. Too much cannot be undone. If I am selling hope to the True Anglicans, then it is only because I am hooked on that same hope already. Call me a liar for telling them that they will be the winners when this all shakes out, but then I am a liar twice-over because that is the same lie I tell myself whenever I gaze into a mirror.


Pausing, Lelouch looked away from Milly, giving himself some time to collect himself as the previous silence returned to the room. It thickened in the sultry air as Lelouch waited for his co-conspirator's reply, seeming to condense into some dreadful unseen fog as the long seconds ticked by. When he could stand it no longer, Lelouch mustered up his courage and, dragging his eyes back down to hers, asked:


"Does that answer your question?"


"Y-" Milly stopped, her voice quavering and her eyes wide and staring, as if she had never seen him before, and coughed. "Yeah," she tried again, "it does… Whew…"


A hint of a smile, a touch of a blush, and something like her usual mischievous sparkle returned to Milly as she took a deep, heaving breath. "You sure do talk fancy, Mister Leland…" Her lips parted into a devil-may-care grin. "You always have dreamt big, haven't you? Jeez… Well, there's worse ambitions for a son of Britannia, I suppose? After all, isn't it the most Britannian ambition of all to destroy Britannia once and for all?"


Lelouch stifled the flinch that last comment evoked. The idea that everything he was doing was only playing into the lies That Man spread about the nature of humanity, the nature of Britannia… He pushed the disconcerting thought away entirely and focused back on Milly. At least Milly saw he wanted to destroy the throne instead of claiming it for himself, that was something.


"All that aside," he said, "are you still with me, Milly? You asked if I was certain that I can deliver victory, and I have admitted that I am not. Does that shake your confidence? If you want out, I will not hold it against you."


"Oh, you're not escaping our engagement that easily, Leland~" Milly sang back, Ashford peeping through Ashland even as she clung to her disguise's backstory. "Sorry, but you're stuck with me. From now until… Until the end, I guess."


"Keep up with the jokes," Lelouch replied with a smile, stepping back and away from Milly to return to his computer, checking on his program's progress. "It's good for morale. But, Milly?" He looked back up, catching her eyes once again. "Thank you. You and your family have done… so much, so very much, for us. It will not be forgotten, I promise you."


"You make a lot of promises," Milly mused, rising from the desk. "But… I'll take your word on it." A smile touched her lips as she turned toward the door, Lelouch only catching a glimpse of the expression. "Lord Lelouch… Remember me when you come into your kingdom."


A joke, Lelouch knew, and knew that it wasn't.


Several minutes after Milly left, Lelouch's phone pulsed against the side of his leg.


"Havelock?" he said, recognizing the number. "How was your shift?"


"Complete dogshit," came the reassuring counter-phrase, affirming that, paradoxically, all was well. "Just another day on deck, you know how it goes. Having to deal with another smug pig in a suit work'n us boys to the bone. Just stepped out for a smoke break to see how the kiddos are."


"Polly's well," Lelouch replied, informing him that the first prong of the offensive, the hack, was already well underway. "Megan's just gone to bed." The second prong was ready for deployment.


"Well at least there's that," Havelock said, relieved, and Lelouch heard the sound of a lighter clicking in the background as Havelock made good on his cover. "Ahh, hits the spot, that. Long shift tonight. Miguel was shifty as hell tonight, but I saw him off just fine. Hopefully that holds."


The snake was in the bishop's bed and the sedation had already been wearing off when Havelock had put it there. Nobody had noticed that anything was amiss yet.


"That's good," Lelouch said, feeling quite relieved himself. So far, everything was going splendidly. "Well, hang in there. You don't have much longer left on the clock, so just keep your head down and stay away from that guy. He's a troublemaker." He hesitated, then asked, "do you need a ride home?"


Stay in place for the remainder of your scheduled shift, and leave with the rest of the evening shift when they clock out. Do nothing to draw attention to yourself. Are you on track for exfiltration?


"Nah," Havelock demurred, "I'll be taking the train home. Smells like piss, but it gets the job done, dunnit?"


"Alright," Lelouch nodded, "hang in there. See you back at the bar; first round's on me."


Hanging up, Lelouch turned back to the computer and busied himself preparing Milly's video for distribution, giving it a quick viewing himself. It was short, only a few minutes long, but it was quite punchy. It aped the ritual of excommunication, listing Pulst's many and varied sins while flashing between photos of news items, shots of the crooked ledgers, and numbers and names of those wronged by Pulst, before building to a thundering climax, first declaring Pulst defrocked and expelled from the company of the Saved, then levying a forced penance upon him. "Blood shall pay for blood, and only blood shall wipe away your sin, Lazaro Pulst!"


Milly really does good work, Lelouch thought, uploading the video to a blind server located in Australia before mirroring the video to a number of servers distributed across the EU and the Britannian Heartland Areas. And of course, so does Nunnally. Nobody would think that the thundering voice came from a wheelchair-bound thirteen year old girl with a voice changer. Maybe she's got a career in voice acting?


As the computer dinged a merry notification that the uploads were complete, Lelouch pulled the virtual machine he was running the hack from back onto his screen. A quick check proved that all was ready. A single keystroke would lock the Diocese's servers, giving Lelouch's manufactured credentials administrator privileges and stripping access from all other accounts. Another keystroke would initiate millions of involuntary micro-donations from the Diocese of Tokyo to thirty selected charities, each transferring between one and ten pounds. Each donation would be made out "in honor of Timothy Hamilton, late of Bainbridge."


And with the tap of Enter, Lelouch thought, smiling as he pressed that key, I have eviscerated the Bishopric of Tokyo. Now, he thought, minimizing the window as he began uploading his collection of evidence of the crimes of Lazaro Pulst to a number of file sharing sites, to salt the wound.


The door to the office swung back open, and to Lelouch's surprise, Milly re-entered the room, pushing a rolling office chair laden with a light blanket ahead of her.


"Milly?" Lelouch asked, blinking at the intrusion. "I thought you had left."


"Why would you think something as silly as that, Leland?" came the arch reply. "What kind of fiance would I be if I left my man all alone in the office, slaving over a hot computer?"


"...A perfectly ordinary person with her own life to lead?" Lelouch tried, before sighing. "You know, it's just us here. Even Fred's gone home for the night. You can let the joke rest for now."


"Mmm…" Milly put a finger to her lips and made a production of looking upwards, miming contemplation. "Nah!" she said at last, scooting her chair up beside Lelouch's. "You're already too serious, Lulu, and if I can't force you into a dress for a crossdresser's ball, I'll have to resort to the next best option!"


"Pretending that we're together?" Lelouch asked wryly as Milly shook the blanket out. "Tame by your standards, Milly."


"Who said I'm pretending?" she rejoined, dropping down into her chair. Somehow, she had maneuvered it behind the desk so it directly abutted Lelouch's own tired swivel chair, and Lelouch couldn't help but notice that her knee was pressing up against his own. As was her thigh. "But if you want to let it rest for now, Lelouch… That's fine. Be a party pooper. I'll just take a nap instead of putting up with your no-fun anti-antics."


Killing a bishop doesn't count as an antic? Lelouch thought incredulously, but held his tongue even as Milly spread the blanket over them both and leaned into his shoulder. After all she had done to help him, well… I'll let her have her fun for now.


And she had provided an abundance of help over the last few months. While Lelouch could travel freely through the Settlement and the Concession, a Britannian among Britannians, a lone man was suspicious, especially if he kept stopping in bars, coffee shops, and churches. A man roaming with a pretty girl on his arm, however, was a man about town, taking his lover out on a date. That said date had a handbag full of True Anglican literature that she slipped under placemats and between the leaves of hymnals and library books was lost completely on whatever eyes might have noticed her.


And that doesn't even touch on her efficacy as a recruiter.


As it turned out, soldiers, clerks, and workers were all eager to open their hearts to a pretty and attentive girl who seemed not only receptive but happy to listen to their gripes and concerns. The knowledge of which she always passed to Lelouch, who tailored his recruitment pitch to each prospective recruit individually.


For all of that… She can have my shoulder for an hour, he decided, looking down at the apparently already sleeping Milly. She had been up late the night before, he knew, working hard editing the video that would announce the death of Lazaro Pulst and the resurrection of the True Church from the graveyard of history. With that in mind… It's the least I can do.


An hour passed, and then another. Just as the clock ticked toward midnight and Lelouch's swelling unease grew almost uncontrollable, the phone rang again. This time, the phone number was Sergeant Coffin's.


"Alexander," the noncom said as soon as Lelouch picked up, sirens wailing in the background, "headquarters has declared a state of lockdown across all installations manned by the 32nd. Scuttlebutt has it that it's just the Honorary barracks going into lockdown for now, but that might change. No explanations given so far. I'll get back to you if that changes."


The line went dead before Lelouch could reply. "Best of luck, Roger," he said to the empty room anyway, putting the phone back down on the desk. "Best of luck to us all."


Ironically enough, determining whether or not the assassination attempt had been successful was perhaps the greatest blind spot in Lelouch's entire plan. Havelock would be long gone from the scene by the time the bishop slipped between the sheets, and any stranger lingering outside the Bishop's Palace to monitor traffic would soon have cause to regret it from within their new holding cell.


Ultimately, "Father Alexander" had commanded the soldiers and low-ranking bureaucrats of his congregation to alert him of any unusual developments. Coffin's heads-up about an entire Honorary Legion being placed into lockdown was just an example of just such an unusual development that could mark the successful assassination of Bishop Lazaro.


But it could also mark the failed assassination of that same worthy, Lelouch considered, drumming his fingers against the desk. Or it could be in regards to something entirely independent of our operation. Putting out the announcement claiming responsibility without certain proof of success is a gamble, both because the True Anglican cause would look foolish if Pulst takes to the pulpit at Tokyo Cathedral tomorrow, alive and healthy, and because it would spoil the element of surprise.


On the other hand, the attempt has already been made and the Diocese's coffers are rapidly being emptied. It's a little late to hedge my bets.


As Milly's artfully assembled video announcing the excommunication of Bishop Lazaro from both the company of the faithful and the mortal coil went live on half a dozen sites simultaneously, with multiple download links to the trove of evidence Lelouch had retrieved posted in the comments, Lelouch wondered how Viceregal-Governor la Britannia, the Third Prince Clovis, would respond to the death of one of his closest advisors.


Whatever he decides, Lelouch knew, it's all but guaranteed that Clovis will find some new and innovative way to fuck it all up.


Content with the night's work, Lelouch allowed himself to lean back into Milly, his eyes slipping shut. They'd have to wake early, he knew, to sneak back to Ashford's campus before they were missed, but for now…


For now, let us rest, content that the fruits of our labor are coming to fruition at last.

---

AUGUST 1, 2016 ATB
PRINCE CLOVIS'S PERSONAL STUDY, VICEREGAL PALACE, BRITANNIAN CONCESSION, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
0455


"-And thankfully one of the maids managed to behead the serpent before it could bite anyone else or escape," said the Agent, flipping his notebook shut. "As soon as the snake, a Western Taipan, we believe, was killed, paramedics evacuated His Eminence to the Nunnally vi Britannia Memorial Hospital where the receiving doctors declared him dead on arrival."


The Viceregal-Governor, hollow-eyed despite four cups of coffee after a sleepless night and slumped so far over that he was practically sliding out of his chair, nodded jerkily and beckoned the Agent to continue.


The contrast to the ramrod straight posture of the Royal Guard standing vigilantly at a stiff parade rest directly behind the prince's armchair drove the pathetic display up to the very line of farce.


"Investigations are of course still underway," reported the Agent, smothering his momentary amusement at the state of his "natural superior", "both in regards to the exact circumstances leading up to His Eminence's unfortunate demise and the… video released in the wake of his passing."


Which had been, in the Agent's opinion, a brilliant move. Not only had the brief video been extremely memorable, but the soundtrack that played over the opening and closing moments had been simple enough that anybody could hum it and incredibly catchy. Paired with the continued lack of success in scrubbing the thing from the internet, half of the Area's population had likely watched the video at least once already.


Even if we somehow managed to remove it from the public's view entirely, the horse has already fled the stable. The narrative has been set.


"Heretics…" Clovis snarled, outrage breathing temporary vitality into his fatigued, hungover frame. "Heretics here, in my Area!" He glared balefully at the Agent, who met the prince's eyes with bland equanimity. "Why didn't the Inquisitors know about this infestation?"


Because, as intelligence operatives, they are entirely worthless, the Agent silently answered, sure that similar thoughts were passing through the mute Guard's mind as well. Because their methods, rewarding false accusations and pursuing confessions through whatever means necessary, are best used to terrorize a population back into line rather than to actually identify and disrupt organized opposition.


"The Holy Office has assured the Directorate that the heretic population is quite negligible and entirely confined to the lower orders," the Agent replied smoothly, neatly deflecting the blame. "The Purges were, of course, quite thorough, and the benefits the reformed creed endowed upon the nobility obvious. As such, the ranking inquisitor for the Area decided that the Holy Office's resources were best devoted to hunting crypto-Papists hiding amongst the commoner populations hailing from the Old Areas."


"Well, that certainly was a wonderful choice, wasn't it?" The Viceregal-Governor said with biting sarcasm, throwing up his hands with a touch of his usual theatricality. "First they couldn't find anything on that jumped up Honorary, and now they dropped the ball so hard their own bishop got killed!"


"I cannot speak to the efficacy of my colleagues in the Holy Office," said the Agent, pausing pointedly to convey his unspoken opinion about that efficacy, "but I can assure you that the Directorate has already begun our analysis of the alleged evidence released, presumably by the perpetrators of the murder, in concert with the propaganda video."


And what a damning packet it is, that evidence. Every sin of the Church, every blemish on her face, all laid bare in the microcosm of the actions of a single bishop. The secret Leveller shook his head, amazed despite himself. Lunatic zealots they might be, this "True Church of Britannia" has just released the single greatest argument against canon law and canon courts we could hope for. Clerical hands, rich with stolen lucre, dismissing their own crimes from the judge's chair with prejudice and tasking the in-house enforcers with harassing those who would stand against them… Absurd.


"Regrettably," the Agent continued at Clovis's irate prompting gestures, "none of the material seems to be falsified in any way we can distinguish. Our analysts have yet to complete the process of cross-checking names and numbers, of course, but from what progress they have achieved thus far, the Diocese of Tokyo was almost certainly responsible for one of the largest money laundering operations I have ever heard of in the service of tax evasion. Beyond laundering the money of others, the Diocese and Bishop Lazaro appear to have misappropriated tens of millions of pounds, both from donations and from Bishop Lazaro's ministerial budget."


"Bah," Clovis waved dismissively, still frowning though the Agent noticed how he relaxed in his chair. "All money problems. Nobody will care about something so grimey and base. Everybody will have forgotten about all of this nastiness within a week."


"Unfortunately, Your Highness, I doubt we will be so lucky," the Agent said, shaking his head regretfully. "It also seems like the Bishopric of Tokyo was deeply involved in the misappropriation and unlicensed trafficking of conscripted Numbers as well. While the bulk of the conscripted labor was put on the usual tasks, it seems like a fair number were assigned to a number of companies that do not, in fact, exist."


"And?" Clovis blinked, his near-stupor resuming as his interest in the conversation waned again. "Who cares? There's no end to the Numbers. If we want more, we can find them. A handful going missing here or there doesn't matter."


"Generally, you would be correct, Your Highness," the Agent conceded, bowing his head. "However, one of those shell companies was also the listed purchaser for a large consignment of medical and surgical supplies. The Directorate noted this in the context of a different investigation, so the company's name is flagged. This combination of medical supplies and disposable bodies in a single entity raises worrying questions."


And now, the Agent noted, His Ineptness has gone quite still in his chair; he isn't bored now, nor half-asleep. Interesting…


"Hmph," Clovis snorted condescendingly a moment late, his usual impeccable stage timing notably off. "Sounds like nothing more outlandish than a simple harvesting operation. But… oh, fine. I suppose if the rabble got wind of this detail, they might raise a fuss. So many weeds in my garden… It's so difficult to stay on top of them all!" His eyes flashed to the Agent, intense and fearful despite the bravado. "I will be expecting another briefing on this… shell company… no later than this afternoon! Instruct the analysts that discovering the extent of this rot is a priority! Understood?"


"Yes, Your Highness," the Agent replied, raising fist to chest. "It will be done. Every available analyst will be tasked with following this lead."


"Good, good…" Clovis sank back into his chair, his hand questing toward a steaming cup of coffee waiting on a table nearby, where another soldier from the Guard had left the carafe before taking up a station outside the door. Clovis, it seemed, wasn't feeling particularly trusting toward his household staff at the moment. "Be off with you, then. I have… Much to attend to."


"By your leave, Your Highness," murmured the Agent, backing out of the room and closing the door behind him. He was eager to carry out the Viceregal-Governor's instructions, though not for reasons Clovis was likely to appreciate.


Unlike most of my interactions with the man, the Agent thought, nodding to the brace of Royal Guards stationed in front of the door, who didn't return the gesture, that conversation lacked an audience beyond his bodyguard. As we are both his sworn and trusty servants, it's unlikely that Clovis was manufacturing his reactions; why would he bother, after all? So his reactions were likely sincere, most especially his sudden interest in the company purchasing human meat and medical supplies.


Now, Clovis could be correct about its nature as an organ harvesting operation, the Agent conceded as he made his way through the Viceroy's Palace, returning to the sub-basement domain of the Directorate. It would explain both of the purchases, but the reaction from the Royal Pain doesn't match something so pedestrian.


And, the Agent thought, turning his mind back toward a meeting months in the past, all the way back in the April springtime, Clovis is always talking to General Aspirus of the Special Weapons Corps, isn't he? They are good friends… Perhaps good enough friends that Aspirus was able to convince Clovis to sign off on some special project sufficiently secret or grotesque that it had to be kept off even the Corps' official books? If Clovis didn't know about Pulst's operation or didn't know the full expanse of that operation, he could have simply told his most trusted advisor to handle the matter. But if he was fully aware of Pulst's operation, a conspirator rather than a dupe… Perhaps he used the machine Pulst had built to launder both money and responsibility?


But why? What could possibly justify such secrecy?


The mind boggled at the implications.


If it is something that the prince wants to hide, the Leveller resolved, then it is something that the people must learn about. To protect the common welfare, this investigation must proceed, and as soon as the prince tells us to stop… That's when the real work shall begin.

 

[Scopas]

(Alright, it's been a while. I had a move and a bunch of other stuff, so please excuse the delay. This is a somewhat unconventional chapter, but it describes a pivotal event that happens offscreen from the main action. I hope you enjoy it, since I had a real blast outlining it. A big thank you to Sunny, MetalDragon, Larc, Rakkis157, Rain and Aemon for their editing and beta-reading. Thank you to Koreanwriter for his research and ideas. Thank you to Mazerka for the new TvTropes page.)


Elphinstone in Indochina, A Tragedy in Four Parts



SCENE 1: Bite and Hold



NOVEMBER 27, 2015 ATB
VICEREGAL PALACE, SAI GON SETTLEMENT, AREA 10


"To His Grace Field Marshal Joseph Milburn, 6th Duke of Vancouver and by the grace of His Imperial Majesty commander of the 4th Army:


Whereupon it has come to the attention of His Highness Schneizel el Britannia, Second Prince of the Holy Britannian Empire and Chancellor of the same, that progress towards a final victory in Area 10 over the rebellious Numbers and their Chinese backers has been delayed, and whereupon the Districts of Kampuchea and Lao Long remain in a state of rebellion, His Highness has seen it fit to issue a revised order (FO 2015-11-25 #0317) in regards to the Indochina Campaign.


You are ordered to begin construction upon an installation in the Son La Prefecture from whence the forces of His Imperial Majesty may conduct long range anti-insurgent patrols, thereby stabilizing the influence of His Imperial Majesty's government upon the northern prefectures of the District of Annam and curbing the infiltration of rebels from Lao Long. Said installation shall be sufficiently spacious to house and stage a minimum of two brigades, and shall prove a capable mustering ground for an incursion in force into the Lao Long District within a year. Construction shall be completed no later than May the Seventh, 2016 ATB. Schniezel el Britannia commands it to be so.


You are also ordered to begin construction upon a highway connecting the previously mentioned installation in the Son La Prefecture to the Port of Ha Noi, to facilitate the advance, resupply, and reinforcement of His Imperial Majesty's soldiers stationed in the hinterlands and to facilitate anti-rebel actions in the Districts of Annam and Lao Long. Said highway shall be built along the most direct route allowable and have sufficient width that four standard supply trucks may proceed unhindered, two headed westward and two returning east. Construction shall be completed no later than June the Thirtieth, 2016 ATB. Schniezel el Britannia commands it to be so.


In recognition of the imposition these orders imply upon your command, the 4th Army shall be reinforced that it might conduct active patrols in the northern districts of Annam and garrison the new installation therein without weakening our citadels pre-existing in Area 10. The 16th Honorary Legion, late based out of Elizabethtown, Area 5, is due to arrive in Sai Gon no later than February the Twenty-Seventh, 2016 ATB. The 19th Honorary Legion, late based out of Pleasanton, Area 7, is due to arrive in Sai Gon no later than April the Thirteenth, 2016 ATB.


May these reinforcements aid your pursuit of victory against these ungrateful and rebellious Numbers. May Saint George hand you his sword and Saint Charles his rod.


All Hail Britannia!


Kanon Maldini, Earl of New Uxbridge
Private Secretary to His Highness Schniezel el Britannia, Second Prince of the Holy Britannian Empire"


With a sigh of disgust, Joseph Milburn dropped the new orders onto his desk and leaned back, rubbing at his temples. Across the desk, Robert, his aide-de-camp, shifted uneasily from foot to foot, clearly dying to take a look at the new orders himself but not quite willing to breach protocol enough to ask.


"No need to stand on ceremony, man," Joseph growled, waving at the orders. "Read them and weep."


"As you say, Your Grace," the aide responded diffidently, scooping the document, printed on quality paper and dripping with the seals of the Chancellery, the Second Prince, the Earl of New Uxbridge, the Courier Corps, and so forth, up into his hands and eagerly reading.


Joseph watched as a dismay that reflected his own spread over the young captain's face.


"This…" Robert swallowed. "I suppose Sir Harrison finally got his interview with His Highness, then?"


"It certainly seems as much," Joseph grunted sourly. "Don't know anybody else as wedded to the damn-fool fort concept as he is." The field marshal shook his head. "That idiot must think that we're still fighting the Horse Lords, the way he wants to fortify every hill and ridge in the damned Area."


If pressed, Joseph Milburn would admit that Sir Harrison Dunmore, 12th Baron of Morgantown and an old hand in the Ministry of War, was not a complete fool. Indeed, "Mad Horse Harry" occasionally had his moments of brilliance. It was just that those moments were firmly wedded to a personality that stubbornly refused to ever admit to its own fallibility. When challenged, Sir Harrison was fully capable of moving mountains solely to prove that his ideas were correct. Unfortunately, this stubborn refusal to concede extended equally to Sir Harrison's less than brilliant ideas as well.


And it doesn't help that the Dunmores have held title in the Homeland since before it was the Homeland! That carries weight. Coupled with several shrewd matches made with other leading families back before the Emblem of Blood and old Mad Horse has no difficulty finding well-connected friends behind every door at the Ministry. And now the Chancellery as well, it would seem…


"It's a stupid idea," Joseph said, shaking his head as he ground the base of his palm against his aching forehead. He could already feel the resignation washing over him; the prospective "Advanced Fort" plan had clearly progressed from something that could be fought to something that must be endured. "It's a stupid, stupid plan."


"Your Grace?" Robert asked diffidently, more to give him a chance to complain, Joseph knew, rather than out of genuine curiosity. His loyal aide had already heard that particular rant before.


Still, no reason not to take the opportunity.


"A single gigantic fort way out in the boonies is nonsense!" Joseph groaned, feeling the rapidly developing headache spike behind his eye. "What possible use is it, sticking an entire division, plus support elements, out at the end of a nice long road?"


"It would be a serviceable base of operations for the invasion of Lao Long that His Highness appears to be angling for, Your Grace," Robert pointed out, busying himself with copying out the Chancellor's order for dispatch. "Perhaps that's how Sir Harrison sold the concept to His Highness?"


"That's almost certainly the case," Joseph conceded. "That doesn't change the fact that it's still going to be hideously difficult to keep the base supplied, even if we can get the highway built on schedule. For one, if we only have a single viable route to the base, every Ten squatting out in the bush is going to understand exactly where we are vulnerable.


"The whole idea of a single massive base to mount patrols from is ludicrous as well," Joseph continued, aware that he was starting to yell and not caring a whit. "What, do they think that the Tens will be content to just present themselves for slaughter? It's like the idiots learned nothing from the Area 11 Campaign! Mobility won us that war, Robert! By the time the Elevens knew where we were, they were already dead!"


"As you say, Your Grace," his aide consoled. "But perhaps His Highness sees the ongoing menace of the Ten rebels as insignificant compared to the potential gains? I mean," Robert continued, looking up from his copying, "if the Fourth can firm up our grip on northern Annam, you will be ideally placed to apply pressure to Lao Long. If you can apply pressure on Lao Long, then the Chinese will be forced to route supplies and reinforcement destined for Kampuchea and Malaya all the way through Bengal and down through Burma, instead of straight south from Yunnan Province."


"Leading to a glorious toppling of dominoes from here to Sumatra, firming up Britannian control over Area 10 and Area 12 after half a decade of war in a single fell swoop," Joseph sourly concluded. "Yes, I know all about the grand plan the Second Prince has in mind to conclude his Imperial Majesty's adventure in Southeast Asia once and for all. And if it all works, it will be a major feather in His Highness's cap and a boon to the entirety of the Empire."


The unspoken corollary of "but what if it doesn't work?" hung heavily in the air.


"There's just too many ifs for me to feel at all comfortable," Joseph said at last. "If we can site a good location for this base and build it on a timely scale, and if we can build and keep open a highway from it to Ha Noi to keep the base provisioned, and if we can mount sufficient patrols to keep the Tens away from the highway and clear the insurgents out of northern Annam, we might have a good opportunity to invade Lao Long, a district that Chinese regulars have been digging into for the last five years. If we take Lao Long, we might significantly impede Chinese efforts to continue the fight for Area 10, potentially giving Viceregal-Governor McCarthy an entire Area to govern for the first time in his tenure.


"But if we fail to accomplish any of those milestones, somewhere north of a division is going to be stuck out in the ass-end of nowhere, right on the border of China proper, with Chinese forces on three sides, in the middle of a jungle where every tree has a Ten or two hiding behind it."


"But those are His Highness' orders," Robert noted unhappily. "The decision's been made."


And neither of us want the DIS to inquire about our unwillingness to execute our orders, Joseph thought, and nobody would ever mistake Schneizel el Britannia for a particularly forgiving man.


"Summon the corps and divisional commanders," Joseph ordered, bowing to his fate. "Let them know that I'll expect them in two hours. No excuses. Send someone to the Viceroy and let him know he's free to send a representative, if he so chooses." He hesitated, then added, "but first, get me some aspirin for this damned headache!"


SCENE 2: Clipped Wings



JUNE 8, 2016 ATB
FORT AURELIAN, NORTH OF SON LA CITY, SON LA PREFECTURE, AREA 10


Two weeks ago, Warrant Officer Lowrie "Dutch" Kramer had been a proud member of the 13th Support Wing, a storied part of His Imperial Majesty's Army's VTOL forces with a pennant strung with battle honors and dripping with commendations.


More importantly, two weeks ago she had made every flight out to Fort Aurelian or any one of half a dozen lesser but equally embattled outposts studding the mountainous Annam backwater known as Son La confident in the knowledge that a dry bunk and a hot meal were waiting for her back at Air Base Ha Noi.


Then her transport VTOL, never the most agile of birds, had caught a rocket, and Dutch had caught a one-way ticket straight to soggy Hell.


It could have been worse, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time as she scuttled down the duckboard-strewn communications trenches connecting the subterranean headquarters bunker to the outer trenchlines. That rocket could have hit my side of the bird. I made it to the ground in one piece, which is more than Rodney can say.


Warrant Officer Junior Grade Roderick "Rodney" Kapoek had exhibited his characteristic exemplary good sense and died immediately, bailing out on Dutch one last time, just as he had done before so many ill-starred trips out into the "recreational" district just outside the air base. Despite his lackluster skills behind the control yoke of a "Fatty," as the admittedly bulbous PH-173 Transport VTOL was best known, Rodney's overall assessment record was almost as good as Dutch's thanks in large part to all the infractions he had avoided by not being around when the shit hit the fan.


When Dutch had sprinted and splashed her way through the soupy mud of the No Man's Land the valleys surrounding the Hill had become after months of artillery and mortar bombardment, she had left the pulpy thing that had once been Rodney strapped to his chair, the smashed Fatty's final crew.


She had almost joined him in his fate during that desperate run. Bullets had buzzed hornet-like all around her, slashing out of the tattered treeline to the north, on the other side of the man-made mudflat from the rat's nest of trenches and dugouts that were the outermost outpost of Fort Aurelian, dug into the foot of the central Hill itself. Dutch had arrived at those shallow trenches facefirst, throwing herself ass over tits straight into the huddle of muddy, half-drowned infantry oiks cowering in the meager shelter, periodically lifting a wary eye over the soggy parapet to send a few return shots winging towards the hidden enemy.


Another graceful landing, Dutch thought as she left the deeper trenches of the central network and stooped lower, lifting her knees high as the mud sucked at her boots; the embarrassment she had felt at the moment turned into wry amusement with the passage of time. Just another drop into Fort Aurelian.


"Dutchie," a corporal guarding a junction in the trenches by the shattered remains of a prefabricated concrete pillbox said with a nod of recognition, the stylized numerals of the 35th Infantry Division glimmering gold under the spatter of dried orange mud coating his gray fatigues. "Keep your head down. The Chinamen have been noisy today."


"You know it," Dutch promised with a nod. "What's the weather like today, wouldja say?"


"What's it ever like?" the guard laughed, the laugh turning almost immediately into a pained cough. "Sunny as the petals of a smilin' daisy. Best keep your head way down, is what I'd say."


Grimacing, Dutch nodded again and clapped the corporal on his shoulder. "Thanks for the warning. See ya around, Corp."


"Later, Dutchie."


The teeth exposed by the man's grin were stained yellow from the crystalized coffee that came with each packaged meal ration. As water had run short, the soldiers trapped at Fort Aurelian and their support staff had taken to simply pouring the crystals straight into their mouths and crunching them down dry. The effect, surrounded by the corporal's dirty beard, grown out despite regulations since razors had grown more precious than gold, was like a vein of amber sap oozing out from a crack in blackened bark.


In Dutch's considered opinion, Fort Aurelian was cursed. When the 4th Army's engineers had set to work building the ill-starred installation, they must have knocked down some heathen temple or disturbed a whole pile of Ten graves or something. Whatever they had done, it had clearly cursed the whole wretched place.


Not that the curse had to do all the work. The Tens were happy to lend a hand.


From what she'd heard from her fellow internees trapped in the humid open-air prison of Fort Aurelian, the attacks had begun before the engineers had even finished clearing the broad, low hill just outside of the village of Muong Bu that had been chosen as the site of the new fort. Probably by the unhappy former inhabitants of Muong Bu, all of whom had been evicted as the lead elements of the 35th arrived to protect the engineer detachment.


Dutch could understand why someone who had never been to that hill would think that it was an ideal place for a fortification: The creek that wound past the western flank of the installation joined the Da River only a mile to the north, meaning that water would be abundant, and the pre-existing Prefectural Route 110 meant that the planned highway would have its path proverbially pathed before it. The low valleys to the north, west, and south meant that Fort Aurelian's future defenders would have clear fields of fire against any attacking elements.


The fort had been completed in record time. The top of the hill, formerly a tea plantation, had been cleared to make way for an airstrip, and VTOLs lumbering under the weight of prefabricated buildings had come in an endless stream.


Dutch's first trip out to Fort Aurelian had been as a part of that great airborne convoy, her Fatty groaning under the weight of construction supplies and tools. When she'd landed on the graveled airstrip in the middle of a pounding monsoon rain, the landing gear of her VTOL had sunk straight through the thin layer of gravel and into the thick, slurping mud below. The sound of the mud relinquishing her bird's feet had been clearly audible even over the whine of the gyroscopes.


The consequence of this rushed construction had been that every corner conceivable had been cut and that the construction had gone way, way over budget. Worse yet, somehow the genius responsible for planning the fort had only accounted for the fighting strength of the division destined to take the Fort Aurelian slot, and had not accounted for that division's support staff, its storage, its handful of dependents, or the camp followers that always somehow arrived at any installation. The discovery of this oversight had prompted a second rush of construction and, Dutch hoped, several executions.


When construction of Fort Aurelian was finally completed, three extra cantonments had sprouted up to the west, south, and east of the main hill, crammed full of still more prefabricated concrete buildings as well as an abundance of tents and unofficial shanties that popped up on any exposed patch of ground like mushrooms.


The overdrawn budget and the rushed accessory constructions had conspired to slow construction of the all-important highway from Ha Noi to Fort Aurelian. That crucial artery was woefully behind schedule. Last Dutch had heard, only fifty miles of the planned hundred and twenty-seven mile stretch had been completed. That royal deadline had been left dead in the water. The importance of the airstrip had consequently grown ever more prominent as the primary route of supply.


Worst of all, while so much water had fallen on Fort Aurelian back during the monsoon months that Dutch had felt like she was drowning when she'd flown in and out of the airstrip, the garrison was now finding itself high and dry.


It was all, she had learned, a result of the rushed construction and unplanned expansions Fort Aurelian suffered from. The initial plan for the installation had called for a pressurized waterline leading from the creek, which would supply the bulk of the fort's needs for drinking water as well as water for showers, sinks, latrines, and kitchens. Whatever shortfalls occurred would be compensated for by great filtering cisterns that would retain monsoon rains for the dry season.


Most of those cisterns were gone now, battered down and broken open by the hails of shells, the precious few survivors converted into sub-surface retaining chambers fed by ramshackle raincatches. The fancy waterline was likewise gone, first compressed by the unexpected weight of the cantonment walls and then broken completely by the regular shelling that had pulped the outer cantonments.


Making matters worse, the hill and the area surrounding it had been cleared completely for construction and for the killzone, and now everything not covered by intact cement or corrugated metal was mud. Not on the surface, which had been sunbaked to a crisp, but as anyone who lived in the holes studding the slopes of Fort Aurelian could tell you, the mud was still there, waiting just below the surface.


Which all contributed to the current situation. No matter how much water the garrison had schlepped in from the creek to the west or how much rainwater they filtered, potable water was in critically short supply. Even before shit had well and truly hit the fan, the deliveries from the pipe system had proven frighteningly irregular and entirely insufficient, meaning the majority of the fort's water had to be either flown in from Ha Noi or trucked up the narrow, poorly maintained roads connecting the Son La Prefecture to Britannia's northern foothold.


And that was before it all went to shit, Dutch thought, stopping by the timber-clad mouth of a dugout to knead an aching muscle in her back. Before the-


Suddenly, Dutch was in motion, hurling herself bodily into the earthen shelter of the dugout, subconscious reflexes made hypersensitive by the events of the previous week identifying the shriek of incoming artillery before her waking self had even noticed the warning whine. She landed hard on the packed clay floor, knees and palms screaming with immediate pain that the grounded pilot ruthlessly shoved away.


It's close! Too close! Terror clawed at her throat as she desperately tried to pinpoint the exact moment she'd first heard the dreaded whistle, trying to estimate just how long she had until impact.


Even as her thoughts ran in frantic, useless circles, Dutch's hindbrain took ruthless control, determined to survive. Scrambling forwards on bruised knees and elbows, she pushed herself deeper into the dugout until she hit the back wall, where she pressed herself against the join of wall and floor.


As she scrambled, she clapped her filthy hands to her face, thumbs plugging her ears and eyes covered by her remaining fingers. She left her mouth wide open, following the advice imparted to her by a soldier of the 35th shortly after the crash landing that had marooned her at Fort Aurelian.


"When the Daily Ration is served, just 'cause you're underground doesn't mean you're safe," the teenaged private had advised, the boy with his patchy beard now a veteran of months worth of those daily shellings from the guns concealed in the thick foliage of the surrounding hills. "If a shell comes down close enough, the overblast will gitcha just as much as the shrapnel will. If it's too close, well…" he shrugged, almost philosophical. "Then that's just bad luck. But if it doesn't just come down on your head, just the force of it can still fuck your day right up."


Intrigued, Dutch had asked for further details, which had been immediately forthcoming.


"If you're too close to the blast and you don't take precautions, your eyes will burst, your eardrums will pop, and your teeth will shatter like glass," the private had explained. "Seen it myself, y'know. One of the heavy shells came down only ten yards away from one of the dugouts. All the survivors were bleedin' from the ears and the eyes, and the sergeant didn't have any teeth. Must've clenched his jaw when he heard the shell come down."


That image had stuck in Dutch's mind even before she had seen it for herself. Soldiers and trapped civilians alike, staggering up from deceptive subterranean sanctuaries, empty sockets gaping over yawning jaws, mouths full of frothy blood and white shards of shattered teeth, lurched in her dreams and disturbed her sleep, even when the distant krump of nighttime artillery didn't trouble her.


And so, openmouthed and blind, Dutch did her best to push herself into the wall, to do anything she could to get further away from the mouth of the dugout. Distantly, she noted pressure against her legs, and kicked out savagely. It was probably some other soldier, some comrade in arms, but that didn't matter, not when they were trying to force their way into her tiny slice of wall.


Then, the world fell apart at the seams.


It was impossible to describe, to fully capture in words the moment when the shells shook the order and stability of the world to pieces. When up became down, and when the solid ground became liquid from the shock of overlapping explosions and the air became a solid mass of unrelenting noise.


As the shocks rolled over her, each overlapping with its predecessor and fighting against the hungry successors that bit at its tail, Dutch flopped, fishlike, as detonations ripped their way across the moonscape feet above her head. From the dugout's rough ceiling, dirt fell in clods and showers, the ground shuddering with the concussive force of the Daily Ration.


I wonder if the ceiling will give in?


Dutch had seen it before in these hellish weeks, had stood in mute witness as squads had dug into the collapsed walls of trenches and into basements below the ruined foundations of buildings with hands and with shovels in desperate attempts to retrieve comrades buried alive by dugouts turned into tombs.


Sometimes, the rescue attempts were successful, unearthing wildeyed men and women from the clutching clay, their uniforms a ruin of mud and their chests flailing in shocked hyperventilation. More often, the attempts came too late or never had any chance to begin with, all of the buried crushed by the collapsing soil, timber, and concrete or asphyxiated as tiny pockets of trapped air ran out.


God… Your Imperial Majesty, she prayed, pressing her hands down over her eyes and ears with renewed firmness as a particularly close call sent the ground bucking below her, please don't let me die in the dirt! Please! I'm a pilot! I should die in the sky, not buried alive!


She vomited, then, her stomach spasming and forcing its scarce contents out between her parted lips in an acid burp. Dutch hardly noticed the spasm in her gut; all of her muscles were twitching spasmodically, save for her clamping hands. Her legs kicked out again, slamming into whatever or whoever else was sharing her dugout. Only the bitter taste and the syrupy sensation of thick fluid seeping over her lips and chin told her of her lost breakfast.


Dammit… Dutch moaned, absurdly vexed by the comparatively minor inconvenience. That was the last of my chocolate too…


Apparently, the sacrifice of her calories for the day was enough to buy an end to the Daily Ration. Just as suddenly as it had begun, the bombardment ceased. The flow of shells, the heavier howitzers interspaced with the lighter mortars, stopped all at once, leaving an almost echoing silence behind.


Slowly, Dutch forced her hands away from her face, blinking the spots away from her eyes as she ran her tongue over her puke-dripping teeth, checking to make sure that they were all still there. When she found that her inventory was complete, and that she could still both hear and see, she spat once, then twice into the dirt inches from her face, trying to rid her mouth of the taste of the vomit.


"Here," a piping voice said, and a canteen appeared under her nose.


Rising up onto her knees, Dutch gratefully took the canteen, swigging from the stale, metallic water within after she scrubbed the vomit from her face with her shirtsleeve. Taking a second drink, she regretfully passed the canteen back to its owner, a scrawny infantryman with an already purpling cheek.


"Ah, sorry about that," Dutch muttered, suddenly feeling guilty about her panicked kicking. "Thanks for the water."


"'Snot a problem," the reedy-voiced soldier replied, wiping the rim of his canteen and taking a careful sip. "It happens. Not the first time, hopefully not the last."


Because caring about a bruise means that I'm still alive, went unspoken.


"What," Dutch asked, forcing a smile as she stabbed for comic relief. "Like getting stepped on by girls or something? Wouldn't have jumped into this hole if I knew it was filled with pervs."


"Hey," a second, deeper voice objected. "Don't lump us in with him! This is a good clean dugout. Family friendly, if you count spiders as kin!"


Turning, Dutch realized that she had, in fact, shared the sanctuary of the dugout with three other people, two in the same army gray that she wore and one, the other woman present, an apparent civilian.


"I'll… Take your word for it," Dutch replied, staggering to her feet as a ridiculous feeling of being an intruder washed over her. "Thanks for sharing your dugout. It's…" she looked around, taking in the filthy bedding the woman was sitting on, the bucket in one corner that had survived the bombardment without overturning thanks to the rocks wedged below it, and the shreds of ration packing scattered liberally around the hole. "...Homey," she finished lamely. "Would love to stick around, but…"


"Places to go, things to see," the soldier with the canteen nodded. "Plenty to see at scenic Fort Aurelian. Remember us when you plan your next vacation! Now, if you'll excuse me…"


Walking on rubbery legs, Dutch quickly exited the dugout and returned to the communications trench, ducking her head back down just in case.


At least they were friendly, she mused as she resumed her trip out to the West Cantonment. Could've stumbled into another impromptu heroin den… or an active murder… or the suicide bunker… Jumping into a threesome's nothing at all, compared to that.


Swallowing her still-acrid saliva, Dutch pressed on. She had a job to do.


When she had first found herself without a Fatty to fly or supply runs to make, Dutch had been at loose ends. Lost in the sea of the fifteen thousand surviving Britannians trapped in Fort Aurelian, Dutch had drifted through the tiny, bizarre world of an isolated, overcrowded base entering its fifth week under siege. Eventually, she had found herself attached to the divisional staff as a runner, carrying orders from the headquarters bunker out to the peripheral command posts and back.


Runners like herself had become a necessity as the generators burned through the stockpile of Sakuradite and the supply of batteries fell perilously low. Out of necessity, use of any powered device, radios included, had to be rationed. Every day a wire would be run up a temporary antenna to broadcast a report back to Ha Noi, but aside from that necessity the use of radio communication was held back for the frequent attempts by the surrounding enemy to overrun the outer lines of the fort.


Today, Dutch had drawn the boobie prize in her task to collect a mid-morning report from the command post halfway up the hillside from the ruined West Cantonment.


The west of the fort was the side closest to the creek, Fort Aurelian's nominal water supply. Dutch suspected that the "nominal" part of that designation was doing a bunch of the heavy lifting, considering that the creek lay almost half a mile from the foot of the fort's central hill with a major artery of local traffic running between the fort and its water. When the necessity for new additions to house the overflow from the hilltop barracks had prompted the construction of the three cantonments, the West Cantonment had been the first to complete construction and had stretched all the way the base of the hill to Prefectural Route 106's roadbed, on the creek's shore.


Now, the flat expanse between the creek and the hill was muddy ruin, the Cantonment's broken walls and crumbling prefabs jutting up irregularly from the flat swampy stew.


A few of those holes weren't there yesterday, Dutch noted as she cautiously followed the switchbacking communication trench over the crest of the hilltop. That's probably all the report I need… I could probably just turn back here and now and report back in… But it's not like I've got much on the schedule for the rest of the day…


With a suppressed sigh, Dutch ducked back behind the meager parapet topping the trench once more, returning to the clasping clay.


At least the command post is only halfway down… Not like I have to go all the way down to the waterboys…


The thought of setting foot down in the swampy, flooded trenches at the foot of the hill, full of knee-deep stagnant water and the parts and pieces of the unburied dead, sent a shudder through the pilot turned messenger.


While death came easily in all manner of forms across Fort Aurelian, nowhere outside of the medical tents was the misery so condensed then among the outermost ring of defenseworks at the hill's foot. By day, snipers hiding in the dense jungle across the creek or in the hills were a constant menace, as were the Daily Rations and the similarly hidden machine-gunners. This was true all across Fort Aurelian, as were the malarial fevers, the septic wounds, and the parching, unrelenting thirst. By night, however, a special horror would descend on the waterboys in the outer rings as Ten insurgents creeped across the sodden moonscape to slip into trenches and foxholes, slitting the throats of unwary sentries and sleeping soldiers taken in their dugout barracks.


Dutch hated going down to the Outer Ring and thanked her lucky stars and her warrant officer's tabs that she had lucked into a position at Divisional Headquarters instead of filling some dead sergeant's boots down in the swamp.


Not that there aren't even worse options than that…


The West Hill Post was just as Dutch remembered it from her previous trips to the sector: Centered around what had been intended as a checkpoint between the West Cantonment and the core of Fort Aurelian and better known as "Water Street" – as it was on the way to the swampy hell of the outer ring, better known as the "Bog" – the succession of staff officers from the various regiments and battalions of the 35th had excavated something like a sunken pit in the hillside, the hillward wall of which hosted a trio of entrances into a network of tunnels dug out from the red clay of the hill. The tunnels terminated in a room carved from the rocky bones of the hill and reinforced with rebar scavenged from the Cantonment's ruin. A single dingy bulb connected to a noisily chugging generator in another room lit a table matted with scribbled reports and stained maps.


Inside that room, Dutch found the usual knot of junior officers, most of whom were sitting around the edges of the wall without even finding a useless task to busy themselves with. She couldn't blame them for taking advantage of their ranks to elbow their way into the command room itself, rather than trying to find a place to squat in the less finished dugouts with the rank and file. Not only was the command room far drier than the crusty mud outside, the rocky ceiling and twenty feet of dirt atop it offered superb protection from any stray mortar shells the Tens or the Chinese might be inclined to send their way.


Standing out amidst the knot of useless lumps were two men, only one of whom she recognized. As both wore captain's ranks, Dutch turned to the devil she knew first.


"Captain Parker," she said, offering the customary battlefield greeting of a firm nod in place of the rear echelon salute. "How are things looking today in these parts?"


"As expected, Dutchie," came Silus Parker's tense reply. "Had a brisk night last night. Two platoons, plus the mules. Poor bastards."


The "Water Street" command post, as the only open area in the sector with anything approaching security, was the jump-off point for the nightly "water runs" conducted by particularly unlucky units. It was a horribly dangerous task, but deeply necessary; Fort Aurelian, for all the rain that had fallen upon the hill during construction and later in air-dropped steel jugs, was a profoundly thirsty place, now that it was cut away from its main water supply.


Two solutions to the problem had presented themselves. The best solution, more airdrops, had been thwarted by the concentrated anti-air capacity of the besieging enemies, the same capacity that had brought Dutch low. The "water runs" had thus become the default solution to the endless thirst upon the hill. When night fell, the remaining heavy machine guns and mortars mounted on the hillcrest would lay suppressing fire down into the jungle while the chosen platoons and their unlucky civilian "mules" would run out across the ruins of the West Cantonment down to the stream, where they would fill heavy jugs with muddy streamwater before running back to the Britannian lines for more jugs.


The Chinese and Tens would, of course, do everything they could to prevent these runs from succeeding. Which was why the West was so particularly pockmarked with artillery craters and strewn with minced corpses.


In fact, according to the scuttlebutt Dutch had heard, the shelling of that particularly half-mile square area of the old Cantonment had been so thorough that the ground itself had broken. While footing was tricky but still generally solid below the first few inches of mud to the north, east, and south of Fort Aurelian, between the old Route 106 roadbed and the defensive lines the mud was deep and soupy.


"'Slike oatmeal," a private had said, all but wailing his disgust. "You put your foot in ten paces past the parapet and you sink balls-deep in the muck!"


Trying to cross that slick, sucking, deep mud with heavy panniers, heavy when empty and heavier with sloshing water, was a practical death sentence.


But without water, we all die.


"Brisk night," Dutch agreed, her eyes lingering on the fresh coat of mud drying on the captain's trousers, a new layer atop the dried layers of previous forays down past Water Street. "So, uh… Did they manage to get us a drink, at least?"


"About fifty gallons," Parker replied, his face grim. As well he should be; with the daily ration of a pint of water per soldier and half that for civilians, that accounted for the intake of only two companies or so, three at tops.


Enough water for four hundred men, in a fort with around twelve thousand survivors…


The second, unnamed captain winced slightly at the number, but to Dutch's eagle eye it looked a bit too theatrical. A reaction that had been feigned to meet expectations, not one springing from sincerity.


And now that I look closer, Dutch thought, peering at the other officer, he's hardly got any mud at all on him. Damn near could be up in Headquarters, the way he looks. And… Wait a second, he's not wearing the 35th's patch…


"Hey Parks," she said, turning back to Captain Parker, a man she had grown passing familiar with during her month of messenger duties, "who's this guy? Where the hell did he pop up from?"


"Not popped up," the other man said, in an accent that practically screamed Area 4 to Dutch's West Coast ears, "but dropped down." He smiled, pleased with his own joke. "James Yates, Captain James Yates, of the Lucky 13th Division, at your service. I parachuted in last night."


"Sir," Dutch replied woodenly, wondering what kind of an idiot would voluntarily jump out of a perfectly good VTOL – like her Fatty – when it wasn't actively on fire. Especially when the destination for that jump was Fort Aurelian. "Isn't the 13th holding Sai Gon for us all? What're you doing up here in the north?"


"Word's gotten out that you could use a hand or two up here," Captain Yates smoothly replied, a grin bubbling up to his lips. "I figured Fort Aurelian would be a good place for a man of my skills, so I volunteered to lend my help."


Bewildered, Dutch glanced to Parks, looking for an explanation. The veteran's face was resolutely stony, any opinion he might own up to concealed behind the grim facade. Disappointed, she looked back to the still smiling Captain Yates.


Maybe I misheard.


"You… volunteered?" Her question was careful, probing. "Because of your… skills? Sir," she added, a tad belatedly.


"Oh yes, quite," Captain Yates replied agreeably. "Been a soldier all my live-long life, just like my father was and his father before him. To tell you the truth, when I first heard His Highness's orders about the new 'northern fort' bit, I was really hoping it would be the Lucky 13th tapped to fill the slot!" He chuckled for a reason beyond Dutch's tired comprehension. "Of course, Iron Pants Wyman was having none of that, so you 35thers managed to snag our spot instead!"


Iron Pants Wyman… Dutch blinked; she doubted she'd ever have the bravery to refer to Lieutenant General Joyce Denton Wyman, Countess of Hartford and the commander of 9th Corps as well as the second in command of the 4th Army as Iron Pants.


Not like there aren't probably a few DIS or MI types hidden in the ranks… I'm beginning to understand why he volunteered.


"I see…" she said, stalling for time. "So… Why are you… Here?" Her wave took in both the specific command post and, more broadly, all of Fort Aurelian. "You volunteered?"


"Oh, quite!" The chuckle came again. Dutch was rapidly finding it quite irritating. It was just so satisfied. "Not much glory in garrison duty, you know, and majorities don't just earn themselves. A spot of action here in the balmy Son La seemed like just the ticket to get my Crown and Cross!"


The crown and cross being a major's rank tab… Right.


"Actually," Yates squinted at her collar and frowned at what he saw. "You aren't a 35ther either, are you… Ah, Dutchie, was it?" He blinked. "Is that your… given name?"


"Chief Warrant Officer Two Lowrie Kramer, late of the 13th Support Wing," she replied, a bit testily. "No sir, Dutchie isn't my given name. Most people call me Dutch, on account of the last name."


"Ah, so you're a 13-er too, eh?" Yates' grin widened by a tooth, clearly pleased with himself. "After a fashion, I suppose. A thirteen on the wing!"


"She's a 35ther," Captain Parker, Parks, broke in, his voice tired. "She's also here to take a report, isn't she?"


"Yes," Dutch agreed, seizing the offered out with both hands. "I need to run the numbers back up to Divisional toot sweet. What were you saying just now, Parks?"


"But she's not one of yours though," Captain Yates objected, clearly not finished with the conversation nor willing to let a point rest. "What, did you parachute in too, Chief? Or do you prefer Dutch? Dutchie?"


"She's a 35ther," Parker growled, rounding back on Yates, "on account of her havin' been on this fucking stupid excuse of a fort for weeks, after she spent months flying in the food and ammo."


"I got shot down," Dutch said, taking a step between the two captains. "Sorry, Captain, can't say I was brave enough to volunteer to be here like you. I'm just unlucky, that's all. Captain Parker," she continued, turning back to the man with the 35th Division's patch, "the numbers?"


"Two platoons and ten civvies came on through last night," Parks ground out, glaring at Yates, "and twenty three passed back through, most of them injured."


"Ah." This time, Dutch did wince. Those were bad numbers. At forty soldiers to a platoon, less than a quarter of those who had ventured over the parapet last night had returned. "A bad night, eh?"


"Starshell," Parker agreed with a nod. "Lit the whole place up. They must've hauled a machine gun right to the treeline."


"Ah." There wasn't really much else to say to that.


"Sort of a net win though, isn't it?" Both Parker and Dutch turned to stare at Yates, who rolled a shoulder in a half-shrugging motion. "They brought back enough water for ten platoons, all told. With the losses, especially the civilian losses scratched…"


"More water for us," Parker finished, nodding with unwilling agreement.


"Still not enough," Dutch muttered unhappily. "The water runs… They just aren't working out."


"Men are cheaper than VTOLs," Yates pointed out, "though I'm sure you don't need me to tell you as much, eh, Dutchie?"


"Dutch will work," she replied curtly. "Thank you for your report, Captain Parker. I will pass it on to the duty officer immediately. Captain Yates."


Turning on her heel, she strode out of the rude bunker at the heart of Water Street and back out into the muck of the trench network.


Which, for all the mud and the shit and the blood, not to mention the tiny bits of the unlucky recipients of the Daily Ration everywhere, has the advantage of lacking Captain Yates completely.


Back at Divisional Headquarters, safely below the hilltop in one of the few purpose-built bunkers available at Fort Aurelian, the mood was little better. Despite being hundreds of yards away from the Water Street command post and further yet from the suffering soldiers trapped in the muddy hell of the West Cantonment and the outer ring defenses, the eyes were all the same. Exhausted, thirsty, and desperate for any good news, the major who took Dutch's report visibly sagged in his chair at the report that only fifty gallons had made the trip from the creek to the fort the previous night.


"Fifty gallons, Emperor preserve us…" The duty officer took his glasses off and rubbed at his bleary red eyes. "That's nothing, next to nothing…"


"Yessir," Dutch acknowledged. "Captain Parker noted the use of a starshell by enemy forces once the water party was out beyond our defensive lines. He also indicated that they had placed a machine-gun at the treeline. They knew where we were going."


"Of course they knew where we were going," the major snapped. "We go to the same damned creek every bloody night!"


"Yessir," Dutch agreed. "Perhaps we should stop?"


"...Perhaps we should." The major sagged deeper into his chair. "But then what, Warrant Officer? Every pint we can't pull out of the creek comes from our stockpiled rainwater or the reserve from the last airdrop. You more than anybody short of Baron Traub should know just how deep those reserves are, and how few drops have been successful of late…"


Before Dutch could find an answer to that comment, the door to the duty room burst open.


"Message from the Radio Room, sir," the corporal who ran into the room announced, brandishing a scrap of paper torn from a notebook. "The daily from Ha Noi just came in! Reinforcements are coming!"


"Reinforcements?" Dutch breathed, turning to stare at the soldier. "They're coming to relieve Fort Aurelian?"


"Just so!" came the enthusiastic reply. "The Knightmare Corps landed in Ha Noi, a whole brigade of them! They'll be linking up with the 23rd and the 3rd Honorary, then they're all marching up-country to crack the damned Chinamen wide open around us!"


The 23rd Infantry Division and the 3rd Honorary Legion… Dutch's mind reeled at this sudden turn of events. The 23rd was the 35th's sister division, the other half of the 17th Corps, while the 3rd Honorary Legion was one of the oldest Honorary units and one of the few considered on par with true Britannian units. It was also a division-sized unit in its own right. Plus a full brigade of Knightmares, that's at least thirty-five thousand men and three hundred Knightmares, rolling to our rescue.


That's one hell of a relief force!


"Well then," the major remarked caustically, cramming his glasses back onto his face, "in that case, they'd better be bringing their own damned water, because the 35th certainly isn't going to share!"


The deflating comment, perhaps made by the duty officer to prevent his own long-numbed hopes from rising anew, passed far below Dutch's feet. All of a sudden, though she was still in the bunker room, still entombed in the open-air graveyard that was Fort Aurelian, the grounded VTOL pilot's head was in the clouds.


Back where she belonged.


She knew it was foolish, especially at this first news of a relief that might not arrive for days or even weeks, but Dutch couldn't help herself.


After so long spent in the stinking, sodden horror of Fort Aurelian, after sprinting away from her burning Fatty and away from the charred thing that had been her sensible, trusty copilot…


After days of cowering under the pounding Chinese artillery and thirsty nights spent sucking on stones in a vain attempt to soothe a thirst so dire that it kept her awake…


After watching men and women die gutshot, shrapnel-ridden, malarial, and suicidal, watching doughty soldiers scream and gibber under the incessent shelling and watching cheeks hollow and eyes sink after foodless days…


For a moment, Lowrie Kramer allowed herself to believe that, one blessed day, her clipped wings would spread once more and would carry her up, up into the clouds, and she would leave the jungle mud of Fort Aurelian far below her and far, far away.


SCENE 3: Futility



AUGUST 10, 2016 ATB
A PASS IN THE TA XUA MOUNTAINS NEAR NGHIA LO, FORTY MILES EAST OF FORT AURELIAN, YEN BAI PREFECTURE, AREA 10



Six weeks hence, a great and terrible beast had ventured forth from its lair in Ha Noi; a great tentacle in Britannian gray and navy had reached out across floodplains and mountains, rice paddies and the endless jungle. Now brought to bear and bleeding from a thousand cuts, the monster was too worn down and exhausted now to even roar defiance.


The initial leg had been all triumph, a near parade up the unfinished Imperial Highway 27, the landspinners and boots of His Grace the Duke of New Lancaster Sir Stewart Cavendish's mighty Relief Column marching with regimental precision along the broad elevated spans of the great road. Unstained by mud, the beast had sauntered forth arrogantly, confident in the awe its purple might would inspire in the Numbers who bore witness to its majesty.


Said Euan Cameron, a private of the 23rd: "It was incredible. I had never seen anything like it before, not back in the Heartland and certainly not in the two years I had spent humping my way through rice fields north of Da Nang. 'At long last,' I remember thinking, 'we're finally getting tough on the Chinamen bastards.'"


Private Cameron's impression was common to almost all who witnessed that triumphant exit. This was, after all, a Britannian field army in all but name. An entire corps-worth of soldiers marched, two divisions of infantry supported by engineers and doctors, mechanics and drivers, cooks and intelligencers and technicians and generals. A fully mechanized force, the 23rd Infantry Division advanced in an endless procession of lightly armored personnel carriers, while the 3rd Honorary Legion followed in their wake, making do with the same model of truck their fully Britannian comrades used to haul supplies for transport.


Behind the main body of mechanized infantry, still more trucks followed, heaped with provisions and ammunition and all the other necessities for a Britannian Army in the field. Towed artillery jolted behind some trucks, and field kitchen trucks rattled and banged. Almost endless fuel trucks, loaded with diesel for the trucks and carefully padded Sakuradite fuel cells for the more exotic machines, swelled the train still further. In sheer quantity, the supply train made up the body of the great monstrous column, with each division's support elements outnumbering the combined transport vehicles of both.


The great and ponderous supply train was further reinforced by the support elements attached to the most distinctive unit in the column, the spearhead that the lieutenant general commanding the army was depending upon to force a path through the forces encircling the invested Fort Aurelian.


Said unit was found, for the first leg of the journey at least, at the very head of the column. In rank upon neatly dressed rank, as if rolling down Saint Darwin Street for His Imperial Majesty's birthday celebration, the three hundred Sutherlands of the 7th Armored Brigade had led the way out of the Ha Noi Settlement to the enthusiastic cheers of thousands of Britannian settlers and Honorary Britannians.


When it left Ha Noi, New Lancaster's Relief Column had been the single largest concentration of Britannian forces seen in Area 10 since the initial conquest just over seven years ago. The idea that a force of conscripted Chinese and ragged Tens could stand against such a magnificent relief, even a force that Military Intelligence estimated at almost twice the size of the Relief Column itself, had been ludicrous.


The idea had remained ludicrous for the first fifty miles of the planned one hundred and twenty seven mile track to Fort Aurelian.


Then, with startling abruptness, the finished stretch of Highway 27 terminated, and with the end of the elevated highway came the high water mark for the Relief Column.


Immediately, the hithertofore silky smooth logistics devolved into a hopeless traffic jam stretching back almost all the way to the gates of Ha Noi itself. Highway 27 had been an impressive four lanes wide, freshly paved, and elevated over all the pesky mud and vegetation. Some had quietly criticized the use of the traditional pillared skyway structure as opposed to a cheaper highway built on a roadbed atop a graded mount of fill, citing that a less sweeping structure could have been finished with greater speed and lower cost, but such dissent was kept quiet for the road contractors were close friends of Area 10's Viceregal-Governor.


In stark contrast to Highway 27, the unimproved expanse of Prefectural Route 32, the best road past the end of the Imperial Highway, consisted of a mere two lanes of irregularly paved track whose muddy shoulders narrowed perilously when passing by rivers, through mountain passes, and in the stretches between the tiny hamlets full of warily watching Tens.


"The Highway was a huge disappointment," Colonel Javier Gutierrez, commander of the 3rd Honorary Legion's 2nd Regiment and ranking prisoner taken during the campaign, complained after his eventual escape from Chinese custody. "Not the finished road itself, but that less than half of the planned length of Highway 27 was completed by the time we left Ha Noi. Whoever thought that diverting funding and manpower towards completing Fort Aurelian before work finished on the supply route necessary to keep that damned base functional deserves to be wheeled."


It had taken a full week for the Relief Column to begin moving up the strictured route, a week of reorganization and slimming. The Honorary Legion was obligated to reduce its truckload, forcing the infantry to walk from here-on out. They would soon be joined by increasing numbers of their Britannian colleagues in the summer humidity of Indochina as the armored personnel carriers and fighting vehicles began to break down, as did the first of the supply trucks.


In the midst of the snarl, the behemoth sustained its first few superficial injuries.


A lone Honorary sentry was found with his throat slit by a comrade sent to relieve him; a handful of unlucky Tens were unceremoniously put up against the nearest wall and shot.


Unknown saboteurs snuck into the still column in the middle of the night and set three of the 23rd's supply trucks on fire; six families of Tens were nailed up in their houses, which were set unceremoniously alight.


A Britannian sergeant kicked a paint can out of the road while leading a clearing detail up the shoulder of the Prefectural Route, and lost the leg to a crude black-powder charge concealed within the can; another thirty Tens paid for that insult to His Imperial Majesty's forces with their lives.


"That's how it went," Private Cameron later confirmed. "The Tens knew the rules just as well as we did. We'd been fighting the bastards for years, so we both knew how it went. It was almost an understanding, you know? They'd knife one of ours, so we'd machine-gun ten of theirs. Didn't matter if the paddy-squatters in question were responsible or not. If they hadn't come to us to point out the Viet Trung sympathizers in their village, then they were complicit. Hell," Cameron recalled, smiling with amazed respect, "if we didn't make them complicit in the Trung's lot, the Trung would do it for us! They'd kill one of ours, then tell the villagers that they could join them or wait for Britannian bullets!


"Point is, we both understood one another, us and the Trung and the damned Chinamen."


And on it went. Swatting away annoyances, the beast dragged its way along the poor roads of interior Area 10, heaving its way through Phu Tho Prefecture and through Yen Bai, coming at last to the border of Son La Prefecture, wherein stood Fort Aurelian, weathering now its third month of siege. By the time the Relief Column reached the shore of the Da River, three full weeks had passed since the triumphal exit from Ha Noi.


It was there, as the Column began to cross the shaky, overtaxed Ta Khoa Bridge, that Duke New Lancaster's forces first encountered Chinese resistance.


As would be the routine for the ensuing week, there were no Chinese to be seen, nor hardly any Tens. A sentry might see a flicker of a face through the brush, or perhaps a particularly aggressive patrol might be able to chase down and subdue a living captive for interrogation, but by and large the only Tens the Column encountered in Son La Prefecture were either already dead or soon to be.


After the first woman carrying the swaddled form of what an unwary patrol mistook for a baby detonated in a suicidal blast that took three Honorary legionaries with her, any Ten approaching the Column was shot on sight.


Those Tens the Britannians did see were unimportant compared to the observers they missed, lying prone in the mud and elephant grass and reporting the Column's position back to the Chinese regulars up in the hills or deeper in Son La.


From those hills and hidden bases came the lash of artillery fire. Mortars smuggled close to the Column by grimly determined Ten partisans dropped from above with shrill whistles while Chinese howitzers sent 105 and 120 millimeter shells screaming down upon the long, vulnerable stretch of the Column.


The field artillery attached to the Relief Column of course attempted counter-battery fire, but without observers or really any way of knowing where the unseen tormentors were, the attempted suppression was ineffectual at best. Worst, the need to disconnect the artillery pieces from their towing vehicles and the fury of the Britannian reply to the Chinese fire did nothing but slow the Column still further and provide the hidden observers with the exact locations of Britannian artillery, which they dutifully fed back to the waiting Chinese artillery officers.


Britannian artillery rapidly became an endangered species in Son La Prefecture, as did the attack VTOLs that had buzzed overhead for the first leg of the Relief Column's journey. Tasked with suppressing the harassing artillery, VTOL after VTOL fell prey to waiting anti-air assets squatting in the jungle around artillery emplacements, waiting for just such Britannian impetuousness.


By the start of the fourth week on the march, progress had ground to an effective halt for Sir Stewart's forces. The sound of explosions great and small was an almost constant harrange as Chinese artillery sent irregular and variable bursts of hate slashing down from above, while roadside mines and grenades hurled from the undergrowth by insurgent Tens erupted from the sides. Infantry patrols sent into the bush to clear insurgent fire teams and observers away from the Column vanished into the green maw, while squads of Sutherlands found themselves almost immediately sunk down in the soft red mud, the Tens retreating away and leaving the bogged Knightmares with nothing to do but squelch ignominiously back to the wallowing Column.


That was when supplies began to truly run low.


The Relief was supposed to arrive at Fort Aurelian within two weeks, three at the outside, and the siege was meant to be lifted almost immediately. Duke New Lancaster had sent word back to Ha Noi and ordered the dispatch of further supply, as well as vehicles to convey the wounded back to the Settlement, but the previously tranquil roads of Area 10 now bristled with explosives both improvised and manufactured, while the jungles crawled with snipers and ambushing parties of Tens, armed to the teeth and disinclined to show anything approaching mercy. Ambulance loads of Britannian casualties were hacked to death and left nailed to the trestles of the Imperial Highway. Burnt out trucks and wrecked VTOLs blazed an iron road from Ha Noi to Son La.


Rationing became necessary, not only of fuel but also of spare parts, medical supplies, food, and, increasingly, water.


With the Britannian counter-battery capability degraded, Chinese artillery began to target any concentration of supply vehicles, almost dismissively ignoring the armored personnel carriers and Knightmares in favor of the soft-skinned trucks and support vehicles.


"It got to the point where our captain warned us not to go out alone, or with men from other units," recalled Lieutenant Eddie Bower. "It was too risky, too likely to leave you with a knife in your back and your rations shared out among the bastards who put it there. Our battalion held together, as did most of the 23rd, but in some of the support units and especially among the Honoraries, discipline was all but gone by the end of July."


Morale began to break down.


Officers at all levels of command, from lieutenants commanding platoons all the way up to the lieutenant general commanding the entire Column, the Duke of New Lancaster himself, grew increasingly dubious of the chances of relieving Fort Aurelian. In quiet conferences between trusted brother officers, more and more voices began venturing their thoughts about turning back to Ha Noi "to regroup and replenish."


One particularly daring lieutenant colonel of the 23rd made bold to say that the entire Relief had already failed and they might as well head back to Ha Noi before someone else had to come out to relieve them as well.


For his cowardice, that particular disgrace was quickly shot by the Military Police. His words, the thoughts of many in both the ranks and the officers' mess, were less easily dispatched.


A handful of Honoraries tried to desert. After a night riven by the sound of screaming, an extra-strength patrol sent to bring the deserters back to face military justice found their work already accomplished by the hands of the vengeful Tens.


Unable to flee and unable to handle what was rapidly becoming a siege situation, no matter that the Column was still technically mobile, the suicides began. Singly or in pairs, soldiers found an escape from the roadbound hell.


Discipline began to collapse, prompting officers and Military Policemen to lash out at insubordinate soldiers with mounting brutality.


"Before Indochina, I had ordered a total of three floggings during the entirety of my career with the 3rd Honorary," Colonel Gutierrez admitted. "The entire legion, barring the greenest recruits, were career men, and all were acutely aware of the general regard the 3rd enjoyed as a Honorary unit with a service history more distinguished then most Britannian divisions. In Son La, though… three floggings was a good day, almost outstanding." He chuckled wryly. "We damn near ran out of rope, we were hanging so many barracks-room lawyers and compromisos! We left an orchard in our wake…"


At last, by the end of the fifth week, not even the Duke of New Lancaster could find the optimism necessary to continue the plodding, painful advance. Still ten miles out from Fort Aurelian, the besieged base's hilltop redoubt tantalizingly visible to the advance scouts from their ridgetop positions, the great beast, now wounded, turned back.


It was not permitted to retreat in peace.


Flush with supplies, the unseen Chinese artillerists continued their explosive deluge, endlessly flaying the rearguard with shrapnel and high explosive. Every other tree and shrub seemed to have a Ten lurking behind it, who leaned out of cover only to make a handful of hurried potshots at the Relief Column's flanks before diving back into the jungle under a fusillade of return fire. And always the mines, always the booby-traps, always the tripwires and the buried fuses.


It came as a surprise to the surviving engineers of the Column that the bridge over the Da was intact when Duke New Lancaster's command retraced their footsteps back across its span, and the comparatively intact state of Prefectural Route 37 was also a surprise. By contrast, the network of tiny unpaved roads had been deliberately undermined by the Tens to render them impassible to vehicles, leaving only a single viable route forwards. Attempting to turn and make a stand was not an option; Every village and town between Chieng Sinh and Bac Yen was burnt, the water fouled, the fields left barren of even the green rice.


The already gloomy resignation bit harder as the Relief Column trudged on down a single unbroken line of intact roads towards Ha Noi. Harried on three sides, with every alternative route destroyed and trapped in a land that may as well be a desert for all the food or clean water it offered, it was clear to all in New Lancaster's Column that they were being herded forwards. Even the strength to choose their course had been sapped away, worn by shell, by mine, by endless ambush and constant hunger and thirst.


The Column trudged on, leaving broken down vehicles and dead men in its wake, fleeing an enemy they had yet to see over the course of the short, brutal campaign.


Nobody even pretended to care about Fort Aurelian any longer.


"Fort Aurelian?" Private Cameron chuckled, shaking his head. "Who gave a shit about them? Who could be arsed to give a shit about the men in the next regiment, or even the next battalion?" He leaned forward in his seat, eyes intent. "I'll tell you who gave a shit about the men in the next regiment: The idiots too stupid to survive the retreat from Son La. Want to know who survived? The bastards. The ones who stole rations, who bribed and bullied extra food and ammunition out of the quartermasters, the ones who didn't share their last heels and scraps, that's who survived. On Sir Cavendish's Wild Ride, if you gave a shit about anybody else, you died. They're probably still moldering in that Goddamned jungle, the bleeding hearts are."


Finally, strung out in a pass in the Ta Xua Mountains, just at the border of the damned Son La Prefecture and the cursed Yen Bai Prefecture, the enemy at last showed their face, offering battle only now that the Britannians were almost entirely dismounted, save for the 7th Armored Brigade and their few straggling support vehicles.


"You really can't begin to understand how we felt at that moment, if you weren't there," said Lieutenant Bowers, closing his eyes at the memory. "Six weeks of hell, where the majority of the fighting was in the ranks, between the men, and then… Cresting over that ridge, halfway through the pass, and then… Chinamen. Chinamen on every ridge, on every mountain."


The confrontation, later called the Nghia Lo Massacre despite the battle taking place some distance from the town in question, was the fulfillment of a strategy devised by General Nguyen Minh Hue, leader of the Viet Trung's Northern Department, and Field Marshal Qin Zheyuan of the Southern Command of the Indochina Army, of the Federation of China. Called "tuna hunting" in reference to the traditional practice of funneling schools of tuna into smaller and smaller netted corrals, the Duke of New Lancaster's Relief Column had similarly been guided into an increasingly untenable strategic position during its time in the Son La Prefecture.


Now, its momentum bled away and its supplies stretched to the breaking point, Sir Stewart and his staff were left with a force still thirty-thousand strong yet possessing an almost negligible capacity for combat. The pilots of the 7th Armored Brigade remained eager for their Sutherlands to fulfill their long-anticipated role as a vanguard charging into enemy forces, but were alone in keenness. The formerly mechanized infantry divisions were exhausted, dispirited, under provisioned, dismounted, and stretched out over almost four miles of jungle road all but completely lacking in effective cover.


By contrast, the Chinese forces waiting for them on the slopes and ridges of the Ta Xua range were well rested, well positioned, and in extremely high spirits. They were also running a supremely high risk as they were also on the brink of overextension, though this was unknown to the Britannians.


As the bulk of available Britannian forces in northern Area 10 had bogged down south of Son La City, Field Marshall Qin had sent the majority of his forces marching north and east through northern Yen Bai Prefecture. Though the defenders of Fort Aurelian didn't know it, the force besieging them had been reduced to a bare skeleton of its former strength. Similarly, the units harassing the retreating Relief Column were predominantly Viet Trung, with a double-handful of Chinese artillery units chivvying the retreating Britannians forwards.


It was a spectacular gamble, and one that paid off spectacularly as the Britannian "tuna" swam at last into the narrowest of the nets at the pass near Nghia Lo.


When the leading elements of the 23rd Division and the 7th Armored Brigade crested the pass and looked down into the high mountain valley and the village of Ban Cong, they found the road forwards had been rendered completely impassable. A trench fully sixty feet wide and twenty feet deep had been scoured and blasted across the roadbed, while every ridge, hill, and slight elevation bristled with anti-tank gun emplacements behind earthen fortifications.


Field Marshal Qin's pioneers had been extremely busy.


The situation on the mountain ridges converging on the pass looked no better. Further light artillery had been hauled by gangs of Chinese and Ten soldiers, and now those guns looked down on the head of the column.


The remainder of the Relief Column, stretched out over four miles of unpaved switchbacks, was in an equally dire situation. Driven forwards by harassing machine-gun fire, the infantry and support units were disinclined to retreat back down the slopes towards the dense jungle and its menacing insurgents. Further machine-gun emplacements on the foothills of the Ta Xua mountains, well-guarded against any attempted Britannian VTOL sorties by numerous anti-air units, further discouraged any attempt to balk at the path up into the mountain pass.


Had the infantry pushed back against their Ten pursuers, the encirclement could well have been broken. Due to the requirements of the trap within the mountain valley ahead and the need for manpower to fortify the ridges and peaks of the Ta Xua Range, only a few thousand Viet Trung light infantry, backed by a battalion of Chinese artillery and a few crewed weapons were available to drive the Relief Column forwards.


It is a mark of how far Britannian morale ebbed that breaking out back towards Son La seemingly never entered the minds of the soldiers of the Relief Column, nor their leaders.


Caught between the tightening jaws of a vice and with only a hard, bloody road leading back into the hostile wilderness at their backs, the 7th Armored Brigade, under their Brigadier Sir Aibert Penwright, requested permission from Duke New Lancaster to make an assault upon the enemy's blocking emplacements. Such an assault would necessitate crossing the ditch dug across the roadway, as their Knightmares' landspinners would be ineffective on the mud of the paddies and the thick undergrowth of the Indochinese jungle, but Sir Albert asserted that the Sutherland model's Slash Harkon, significantly upgraded in range and strength from the version fielded by the previous generation Glasgow, would permit a crossing with sufficient speed that the 7th Armored stood a good chance in dislodging the enemy force from the hills within the valley and above the village of Ban Cong.


Lost for ideas, Lieutenant General Sir Stewart granted permission to Sir Albert to make the attempt.


At roughly the same time, Major General Sir Henry Hyde, commander of the 23rd Division, requested permission from Sir Stewart to advance his division forwards, away from both the punishing hail of artillery falling on the trailing end of the Relief Column from the persistent Chinese still attached to the pursuing Viet Trung forces, and from the handful of machine gun emplacements established by the Chinese at the summit of the nearby ridge, whose commanding field of fire allowed the gunners to shoot almost straight down into the cowering infantry trapped out on the muddy, near coverless track up the slope of the pass.


Optimistic regarding the outcome of Sir Albert's Knightmare advance, the Duke of New Lancaster granted permission for Sir Henry to advance as well, with duplicate orders passed on to Major General Alfredo Espinoza, commander of the 3rd Honorary Legion.


As is almost always the case for battles involving field elements of the post-Emblem of Blood Britannian Army, the battle hinged on the moment the Knightmares made their charge. Two hundred and thirty seven Sutherlands, the still-functioning core of an entire armored brigade, who no matter how badly attrited, were still piloting the latest generation mass-production model of Knightmare Frame, plunged down from the lip of the pass, landspinners churning the already degraded unpaved Prefectural Route 112 into slurry.


By all accounts, it was not a textbook perfect charge; the geography conspired against Sir Albert in that regard. The pass was simply too narrow, the ground too variable, to commit to the precisely augmented sweep of regimented formations called for by Knightmare Corps doctrine. Instead, the 7th descended in a near manic avalanche of killing power, blazing suppressive fire at the waiting anti-tank cannon strewn across the folds and hills of the valley floor.


In this moment of chivalry misplaced from the battlefields of the Hundred Years' War, the Knightmares truly lived up to their name. Much like their spiritual predecessors at Crecy and Agincourt, the pilots drove their mounts hard into the oncoming fire, certain that once they pushed out of the geographic obstacle and over the broad trench dug across the road, they would slaughter the puny crews manning the decidedly unchivalrous 100 millimeter towed anti-tank guns.


Perhaps two thirds of the Frames in the initial charge made it across the trench. Sir Albert's estimation of the capacity of the Sutherland's Slash Harkons proved well-founded, although the brigadier did not live to see himself vindicated. Caught by a well-placed shell during the initial rush down from the pass, Sir Albert was killed before his force managed to close with the enemy, leaving Colonel Valentina Smythe in command.


While the 7th made its charge, the 23rd and 3rd Honorary were rapidly advancing up the mountain road towards the pass itself, whose angle they hoped would protect them from the lashes of the heavy machine guns mounted on the slope above, as well as from the artillery, whom they hoped would be forced to reposition in order to shell their new position. In fact, to say that the two divisions "rapidly advanced" to their new position would be quite kind to the units in question, both of whom had admittedly sustained significant losses by this point in the campaign. By Chinese and Ten accounts, some elements broke and fled for the safety of the pass, although others successfully maintained the leapfrogging advance as planned by Major Generals Sir Henry and Espinoza.


"The fucking Honoraries broke," snarled Private Cameron, still clearly angered by the memories of that day. "There we were, walking backwards up that damned hill, giving back to the Tens just as good as they gave to us, when the fucking Honoraries ran for their miserable hides!"


"The Britannians fled," claimed Colonel Gutierrez, flatly denying that soldiers from his legion had routed in the face of the enemy. "They couldn't handle it any longer. They all but pushed us into the hands of the insurgents as they fled, so eager were they to save their hides."


By the time the 7th Armored had forded the trench, leading elements of the 23rd and 3rd Honorary had already begun to bunch up at the mouth of the pass, effectively blocking the Knightmares' sole egress, should retreat prove necessary. As more units straggled up to the mouth and saw the concentration of dug-in Chinese units ahead, the congestion in the pass grew increasingly problematic for both transportation and for cover, as the increasingly packed infantry proved an irresistible target for the southernmost light artillery elements.


Back in the valley, the bulk of the surviving 7th had crossed the trench, but had found themselves minus their original commander. While Colonel Smythe managed to rapidly take control, the momentary pause in the advance disrupted the initial momentum and allowed the anti-tank guns positioned around the rim of the valley to reorient to target the bulk of the Knightmares anew. This proved little consolation for the closest Chinese positions, which were rapidly overrun by individual squads of Knightmares acting at their commanders' own recognisance.


As Colonel Smythe re-established command, she directed the Brigade to advance down the secondary road heading east, towards the Hoa Ban Hostelry located halfway up the valley slope. This position would allow her brigade to gain sufficient elevation to rake the anti-tank positions on the low hills within the valley with their Knightmares' assault rifles and Slash Harkons while both outflanking those same positions and reducing the effective field of fire of the bulk of the cannon mounted on the valley's upper slopes.


The downside of this strategy was that it placed the Knightmares well out of range of any possible support from the infantry units congregating in the pass and left the 7th surrounded on three sides by hostile units.


In this case, however, speed proved sufficient armor for the massed Sutherlands. The outflanking maneuver met with initial success, reducing the volume of incoming fire while providing a range of targets for the Knightmare Frames. Capitalizing on this momentary success, Colonel Smythe ordered independent operation by platoon, increasing the flexibility and dispersion of the 7th as well as chaos on the battlefield while reducing the concentration of her forces. From here on-out, the 7th Armored Brigade began to operate as roughly fifteen units of six to ten Sutherlands apiece.


Back up at the increasingly crowded mouth of the pass, the last straggling units of the 3rd arrived, ceding the road back to Son La entirely to the mostly-illusory pursuers. To the great dismay of the bedraggled, shell-shocked infantry, the lash of Chinese shells followed them right to the lip of the pass, ruthlessly punishing the outermost layers of predominantly Honorary infantrymen. At the same time, as the 7th plunged deeper into the valley, emplacements bypassed by the armored unit's rush turned their focus on the leading elements of the infantry carefully stepping out of the northern side of the pass, forcing their withdrawal back to the dubious shelter of the pass itself.


As the fragments of the 7th began to range out across the valley floor, speeding across the valley and strafing Chinese positions, the final "paddle" of Field Marshal Qin's plan arrived in the form of several wings of attack VTOLs, launched an hour earlier from airfields at Muang Mai, in Lao Long. The arrival of Chinese ground-attack assets came as an immense surprise to all elements of Duke New Lancaster's command, as no such air units had heretofore been deployed by the Chinese during this campaign.


"We should have seen it coming," admitted Lieutenant Bower. "After all, it's not like the Chinamen didn't understand what air power could accomplish – Hell, they had enough anti-air on hand for the entire trip to Son La to shoot down any Fatties trying to resupply us, not to mention our own attack VTOLs. But, well…" He shrugged, clearly embarrassed. "They hadn't thrown a single VTOL against us for so long that we just figured they didn't have them. Stupid, really."


Justifiably wary of the highly capable Sutherlands and perhaps leery of the potential for friendly fire, the VTOLs opted to target the highly concentrated, immobilized infantry instead. There was almost no cover, nor were there any viable escape routes. The slopes were rocky, steep, and bare, the road back down to Son La entirely exposed to artillery and sniper fire, and the road into the valley led down into an increasingly dangerous warzone of dueling Knightmares and light artillery.


It was for this moment, more than any other part of the battle, that the name "Nghia Lo Massacre" was earned. An estimated twenty-seven thousand soldiers, trapped in a space roughly a quarter-mile wide by a half-mile long, were bombarded from east, west, north, south and from straight down all at once.


Machine-guns, mounted on the slopes to either side of the pass, exhausted their entire stock of ammunition, forcing crews to resort to small arms to drive escaping soldiers back down onto the killing floor.


Artillery, zeroed in with precision to the areas directly fore and aft the pass, fell in a constant sleet, pulping soldiers maddened or desperate enough to flee north or south.


From above came machine-gun fire in killing hail, supplemented occasionally by air-to-ground unguided missiles. VTOLs launched from Lao Long left, ammunition racks emptied completely, and returned restocked to pour more hate down upon the cowering wretches still crawling maggot-like in the sea of the dead.


"What could we have done?" asked Private Cameron, raising his hands in supplication. It is unclear if this is a rhetorical question or a prayer. "What did I do? I told you, sentimentality was a killer. Is a killer. I found a rock, crawled underneath it, and shot anybody who tried to squeeze me out and themselves within. I was safe and cozy down there, all fourteen hours I spent, till some damn paddy-squatter reached in and pulled me out."


In the valley too, events had begun to turn from bad to worse for the remaining Britannian forces. While the initial wave of Knightmares operating in small units disrupted the Chinese plan to simply deluge the 7th in a sea of artillery, the commanders of the valley-top batteries soon adapted the plan to fit the changing tactical situation. Particular armor squads or platoons venturing into open areas of the valley or within the overlapping ranges of multiple batteries would be pinned in place by coordinated battery fire, with a secondary or tertiary battery firing the kill-shots on the pinned unit.


This approach took time, of course, and a great deal of ammunition, but Field Marshal Qin's plan had originally called for "drowning the Britannian Knightmares in a bottomless well of shells," and so stockpiles more than sufficient were available for the batteries on hand. It was a near-run thing, though: Per witness accounts, "in one day, six month's worth of carefully transported and stored shells were expended, all within the scope of a single valley not more than a hundred kilometers square."


By the second hour of the battle, less than a third of the initial strength of the 7th remained active.


By the eighth hour, as night fell on August 10th, the last surviving Sutherlands powered down, their fuel cells expiring at last. While a handful of the 7th's pilots would be taken alive, mostly those who had been knocked unconscious in the disabled wreckage of their Knightmares, none of the pilots who had danced and dodged until their Knightmares had shut down around them surrendered. Knowing full well the usual fate of pilots who fell into the hands of the Empire's enemies, all including Colonel Smythe opted for suicide via their sidearms to captivity.


By the time the clock ticked over into August 11th, the only living Britannians within the valley and pass of the Ta Xua Range were prisoners. While a few lucky survivors had fled out down the southern slope, willing to take their chances in Son La, few of those survived the solo trek south and east through the Indochinese jungle back to the Britannian holdings along the Annam Coast.


For the first time since the Invasion of Great Britain and the Humiliation at Edinburgh, a Britannian field army had not only been defeated, but had been utterly destroyed. It was a Britannian Cannae, with Lieutenant General Sir Stewart Cavendish, Duke of New Lancaster, a new Lucius Paullus.


And for Japanese and Filipinos, Vietnamese and Malayans, Papuans and Javanese and a dozen other nations who had in living memory been free from the Britannian yoke, Nghia Lo proved both an opportunity and an inspiration. Not only had the single most significant field force in the Pacific Areas had been crushed practically to the last man, but that force had included a full brigade's worth of Knightmares, conclusively defeated in a field engagement.


The Holy Britannian Empire was not unbeatable, and so it was not invincible. Victory might only be a distant possibility, but for the first time since the effortless Conquest of Area 11, hope flared in the hearts of millions of Numbers.


And if freedom was out of reach, vengeance would be a fine consolation.


SCENE 4: Weep for Aurelian



AUGUST 15, 2016 ATB
FORT AURELIAN, NORTH OF SON LA CITY, SON LA PREFECTURE, AREA 10


After so long spent ducking behind parapets and hiding in bunkers, standing out on the pock-marked expanse of Fort Aurelian's battered airfield felt intensely alien to Lowrie "Dutch" Kramer, late of the 13th Support Wing and now of Fort Aurelian.


It was strange, she reflected, for a pilot to become an agoraphobe, but sometime over the months spent dropping to her belly at the crack of an unseen rifle and scurrying for cover at the warning cry of a mortar, Dutch had grown to fear the open air. The sky, once her workplace and personal refuge, had become abominable.


No guns anymore now, no incoming shells… Cracked lips ached as Dutch forced a smile, trying to find a sense of long-awaited relief amid the numb foreboding. That's all over now… It's all over.


Before and behind her, to her left and to her right, the surviving garrison of Fort Aurelian stood in ranks below the open sky. Overgrown hair and lengthy beards hung lank and brittle from withered faces grown pale with hunger. Filthy uniforms, threadbare after months of wear, looked oversized on the soldiers of the 35th, while swollen legs made the worn, holed boots all but impossible to remove.


Bleary-eyed confusion was written large across every face as soldiers and the scant handful of civilian dependents who had survived the siege blinked in the harsh light of a summer's morning. It was the dehydration, Dutch knew, that mostly accounted for those stupified looks, but only mostly. Everybody, herself included, was asking themselves the same question.


"How could it come to this?"


Months of siege, of deprivation, of a heroic struggle against thirst, against malaria, against the damned Tens waiting in the jungles outside of the fort, all for this conclusion. Two months of expectations, so fervently raised when word of the column sent to relieve these loyal sons and daughters of Britannia, all dashed but four nights ago, when word of that column's fate had come through, first from a Ten messenger under a flag of truce and then confirmed by Sai Gon.


How could it come to this?


It didn't matter, Dutch supposed. Somehow, all of the blood and the tears, the courage and desperation, none of it mattered.


They had lost. The siege was being lifted at long last, but only because Major General Sir John Traub, Baron of Rigby and commander of the 35th Division, had sent word to the Tens the day before last that he wanted to discuss terms of surrender.


Bullet in the head if we're lucky, she thought. Beats dying of thirst, I guess. Or fire.


From her place in the ranks, Dutch watched as the small knot of officers, the divisional staff, saluted the flag one last time. At some signal, the Flag of the Holy Cross began its descent down the battered old radio antennae used as a flagpole, one of a long succession of impromptu flagpoles that had borne the Colors of Britannia high over the hill, that had marked Fort Aurelian as a tiny patch of Britannia lost in the verdant, heathen sea of Indochina.


Facing the line of staff officers was another line, a line of cowards, of sneaks, of knives flashing in the dark and bullets whizzing out from the shadows under trees. The Viet Trung had, at last, set their filthy feet upon Fort Aurelian.


It was difficult for Dutch to believe that these were the unseen tormentors, who had kept His Imperial Majesty's forces pinned up here in their private hell for an entire summer. Round-shouldered and stooped, the skinny men and women who ringed the twelve-thousand strong square of surviving Britannian soldiers looked far from intimidating. Nearly as gaunt as the Britannian survivors themselves and dressed in clothing nearly as ragged as their uniforms, only the rifles cradled in their arms looked remotely dangerous.


But then again, I suppose that's really the only thing that matters.


At the head of the formation, someone was talking, though Dutch couldn't make out the words in the flat, still air. Not as her head spun with the familiar dizziness born of months-long chronic dehydration. It took all her focus to keep herself drawn up straight, thumbs in line with where she thought her trouser's seam should be.

There were, she realized, actually two voices coming from the front. The first was garbled nonsense, though she'd heard enough of the Tens' barbaric language to recognize the sound. The second, almost as nonsensical, was an interpreter.


"-will march out a half-mile to the edge of the old road," the interpreter was saying, "where you will divide into companies for processing. All weapons and ammunition are to be surrendered, including side-arms and knives. All food and water are to be surrendered. All valuables are to be surrendered. Any attempt at resistance or concealment will be dealt with stringently."


So that was it, then.


Closing her eyes, Dutch tilted her face up, savoring the sensation of the sun against her skin as she let the meaningless babble of the translator wash over her. None of it mattered. All that mattered was that she was finally, at long last, leaving Fort Aurelian. Not as a heroic defender, greeting the cavalry with a quip and a handshake. Not as a pilot, taking wing once again to leave the earth and all its troubles behind her.


But also not in a body-bag, her more pragmatic side pointed out. It could be worse.


When Dutch had sprinted from her burning VTOL, over fifteen thousand soldiers had manned the defenses of Fort Aurelian. Now, barely twelve thousand stood by to enter captivity. A full fifth of the garrison had died during the last two months, few of them falling to snipers or shellfire. Hunger, thirst, disease, and despair had been the real killers stalking the trenches and bunkers of Fort Aurelian.


And now, I'm leaving it all behind.


Suddenly, the soldier standing in front of her began to move, and Dutch realized that it was her file's time to join the desultory procession off the hill. Half-staggering, she lurched into motion, barely holding herself upright as the world swung around her again. Looking down, she focused on putting one foot in front of the other, step after step, feeling as if she were sleepwalking her way down the hill's gentle slope.


When the bedraggled column snaked its way past Water Street, the old command center dug out halfway up the western slope, Dutch looked up in time to get her first up close view of a Viet Trung. He was young, perhaps fourteen or fifteen at most, but he carried his rifle with an air of long familiarity.


Give him twenty more pounds and put him in Army gray and he'd look just like some of the enlisted did back when I arrived.


Appearing to notice her eyes upon him, the young soldier spat at Dutch's feet and jerked his rifle down the hill, yelling something in the Tens' language. Dimly, the former pilot realized she'd stopped to gawk and, shaking herself, rejoined the stream of humanity flowing downhill, out of Fort Aurelian.


That stream continued to flow past the network of timber-lined communication trenches and over the boards laid over the top of the outer ring defenses as an impromptu bridge, past the half-flooded foxholes and through the ruined swamp of the West Cantonment, all the way to the slight rise that marked the former course of Prefectural Route 106.


Further humiliation awaited the defeated Britannians at the roadbed. Overseen by two hundred or so rifle-toting Tens and who knew how many of their friends lurking under the jungle's cover, twelve thousand sons and daughters of Britannia threw down their rifles and pistols, dropping the coilguns into waiting tarps as an apparent Ten officer tallied the number of each. Grenades were collected with greater care by a trio of insurgents carrying egg cartons. Finally, the survivors of Fort Aurelian were even forced to discard their utility knives and eating utensils, dropping them into another waiting tarp at the shouted direction of an officer bellowing in broken Britannian.


Then, the bastards forced the parched and starving survivors to surrender any food or water they might have.


The circulating boxes came back predictably all but empty, to nobody's great surprise. The fighting spirit of the 35th Division had been eroded by months of sleepless nights and hungry days, but the urge to save a last heel of bread or a carefully husbanded canteen had only been reinforced by long suffering.


At long last, the beatings Dutch had been expecting began. The Tens prowled up and down the lines of captives, yanking anybody they thought might be concealing food out of line. The offender had a chance to turn their pockets out voluntarily. After that…


Feeling numb, Dutch stared blankly ahead as a man wearing sergeant's stripes folded, breath driven from his lungs by a riflebutt's stroke. Another Ten, perhaps the battlebuddy of the woman with the rifle, grabbed the collar of the sergeant's uniform, and then laughed as the rotted cloth tore easily away, taking the back of the threadbare uniform shirt away with it.


The riflebutt came down again, this time on the unfortunate sergeant's neck, and the second Ten joined in, kicking the man to the ground and joining in the beating. Growing bored after a minute, the Tens cut the pockets of the unconscious soldier's uniform open and, finding nothing, waved two more prisoners over to haul the non-com back into line. They did so, carrying the limp man between them, naked to the waist and bleeding from his open mouth.


From somewhere behind Dutch and to her left came a shout, then a gunshot, then laughter.


Maybe someone tried to run. Doesn't sound like it worked.


The heat was relentless; the Tens were moreso.


After an interminable half-hour spent carefully not reacting to the random beatings and occasional gunfire, a great shuffling movement rippled through the assembled Britannians. Slowly, under the incoherent barks of the guards, the increasingly disorganized mob, now bereft of weapons and even the most meager of provisions, were turned back around to face Fort Aurelian.


Looking at it from the outside, it's amazing that anybody would want to fight over it, Dutch reflected.


It was a horrid place, all red mud and bare concrete without a shred of the greenery that grew so thickly over all of the other hills, nature reclaiming the tea plantations abandoned by farmers escaping the crossfire. Surrounded by a wide scar of denuded land, a thin hard-baked crust with sticky mud waiting below like the world's worst shepherd's pie, the central hill of the fort reminded Dutch of nothing less than a vast ingrown hair in the surface of the world, swollen and infected and utterly at odds with the surrounding Indochinese landscape.


In that way, I guess it truly is a little piece of Britannia abroad. If for no other reason then so many Britannians died for it. The thought stirred a tiny shred of defiance in her heart. Yes, she reflected, glaring at the Ten guards from the corner of her eye, enjoy your victory, you damned rebels, but you will never truly take that hill back. It's still Britannian, it will be Britannian again, and it will always be Britannian. We might never see it, but the Holy Empire will triumph! God is with us!


Another barked order, another far away interpreter translating the call and… the great captive force began to stagger back across the Cantonment, back to Fort Aurelian?


Dutch blinked, looking from side to side at her similarly confused comrades, recognizing a dawning horror on their faces that she felt in her heart as she stumbled unwillingly forwards, back towards that little piece of Britannia, that open-air prison.


Why are we going back? Are they making us go back? What's going on?


Up ahead, she saw a handful of Tens filter out, lugging boxes and crates with them. It was only as she passed the party going the opposite way that she recognized those crates as similar to the ones she had once off-loaded from her VTOL in a life that felt like it had belonged to someone else.


The ration stores, Dutch realized, her traitor feet dragging her forwards. They took the last of the stockpiled rations out… They made a point of taking all of our personal rations away…


She glanced around again, finally seeing her captors, as if for the first time. There were so few of them, perhaps only a regiment's worth of the short little pajama-clad bastards. Just enough to keep watch over prisoners stunned by their own surrender and shocked to be outside their ringing fortifications for the first time in months, but nowhere near enough to actually guard a massive column of captives outnumbering them eight to one.


These are Tens, not Chinese regulars! They're jungle fighters, insurgents! They don't have a camp to put us in! But… But they do have the fort…


A fort that had just been stripped of even its paltry stock of food. Drowning in her horror, Dutch was absolutely certain that when someone went to check the water tank that held the rainwater, or the big steel jugs carried in by VTOL, that they would all be holed and empty, the precious drinking water spilled away into the endless mud.


Not enough Tens to march a column of prisoners to some prison compound somewhere, she thought, but definitely enough to shoot anybody who tries to leave the prison we built for ourselves.


When Dutch set foot back on that little patch of Britannia, lost in the green Indochinese sea, it was with the bleak certainty that neither she nor any of the 35th would ever leave Fort Aurelian again.


They had surrendered, and the Chinese and their Ten auxiliaries had acted in a manner directly after her own emperor's heart.


Woe to the vanquished.


Coda: An Early Herald



AUGUST 10, 2016 ATB
LATE EVENING
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT, AREA 11


"I understand," I replied, speaking into the phone's cheap microphone. "Thank you for the warning. Your services are most appreciated, Mister Reid. I wish you a profitable news cycle."


Closing the phone on the turncoat Britannian's no-doubt snarky retort, I allowed the apartment's silence to return as I stared at the abandoned cot that had once been Naoto's.


Diethard had proven his worth yet again tonight, delivering word of the devastating defeat of the Britannian field army in Area 10 at the hands of the Chinese as well as the main gist of the official story due to be aired first thing tomorrow morning. While I had little doubt that Kaguya and the rest of the Kyoto leadership would receive similar reports of the calamity from their own agents, the rest of Japan would remain ignorant of the details of the Britannian reverse. Indeed, I was certain that all but a handful of Britannians in Area 11 would remain similarly ignorant.


That mattered little, from where I was sitting. No matter how the Britannians tried to spin the defeat – Diethard said that the current story would claim that the Britannians had halted their march in order to provide humanitarian aid to local Ten civilians in the wake of wide-spread flooding and had been cruelly attacked by Chinese and Ten collaborators while spread out and unprepared – the two infantry divisions and armored brigade would be no less incapable of reinforcing Britannian garrisons across the East Asian and Pacific spheres.


That should be cause for celebration, I thought glumly, resisting the urge to juice my enhancement suite as my mood plummeted. No, the defeat itself certainly is cause for celebration; the issue is the anticipation that now is the moment to strike, before the Britannians can repair their temporary handicap. And even that isn't necessarily the issue, so much as the fact that we are still so, so far away from true readiness… and that the slaughter in Yokohama has thoroughly discredited any appeal to patience in advance.


Damn you, Chihiro.


Here in this worn-out studio, my home for lack of any other location I could rest my head with any sense of security, I felt trapped. It felt so obvious to me, how things would proceed from this point.


According to Kaguya's excited chatter, Munakata and his conservative faction among Kyoto House had fallen from grace in the wake of Yokohama, and their loss had been to the gain of the nationalist faction headed by Kaguya and her mentor, Lord Taizo. For all of her clear acumen, my impression of Kaguya was that she positively burned with desire to free her country. Asking her to turn back from this opportunity would be all but impossible.


Even if I declined to honor our deal, I doubted she would lack for swords. From all that Major Onoda had told me about his commander, Lieutenant Colonel Kusakabe, I could envision no scenario where the commander of the JLF's 3rd Division declined an attempt to bring about the Day of Liberation he had dreamed of for so long. Based on the colonel's previous acts of gekokujo, General Katase would be at the very least wary of issuing any orders countermanding his powerful subordinate's decision. Indeed, since I had handed Kusakabe an opportunity to take full credit for the only successful operation of scale conducted by the JLF in years, I imagined any such order Katase was nevertheless inclined to give would soon be followed by a changing of the guard in the JLF's leadership.


And to cap it all off, I even gave him a consignment of Knightmare parts, tools, and energy filters. Just what Kusakabe would need to guarantee a successful lightning assault.


And if I decided not to go along with this madness… Perhaps the JLF wouldn't be the only organization to sustain a sudden change in leadership.


That might be simple paranoia or catastrophizing brought on by fatigue, but I couldn't fully discount the possibility. The reluctance to take orders from a hafu had subsided of late, but a sufficiently unpopular order, especially one to hold back from attacking the Britannians in their weakness, could breathe new life into the old resentments. Nishizumi was a snake, of course, but he at least had a certain cynicism that passed for reasonability. What worried me more was the potential for some fresh Chihiro to step out from the crowd some day and fire a bullet straight into my back.


But we simply aren't ready. Am I the only one who sees as much?


With a chill, I realized I might very well be the only person in possession of the facts who had sufficient knowledge of full-scale war to indeed see as much.


The last war the Japanese had fought had been a one-sided slaughter, but for all of its devastation, it had been remarkably quick. Japan had been taken by surprise and its leader had brought the war to a screeching halt with a shocking surrender. Both factors made it easy for angry Japanese to discount the humiliation as the result of perfidy. Not a fair fight, as if such a thing mattered.


The war before that was effectively out of living memory. I doubted many veterans of the First Pacific War had survived the hard years since the Conquest, not as food became scarce and casual cruelty common.


But I stood watch on the Rhine. I captured Orse Fjord. I witnessed the death of Arene, a death delivered by merciless artillery and an encircling military that the partisans and their Francois mage allies could not overcome.


More than any other living Japanese, I know what will happen if Kusakabe gets his way.


In my mind's eye, I saw Shinjuku, that twelve and a half square kilometer prison encircled by walls, home to just over two hundred thousand people, despite the ongoing evacuation up the ratlines. I envisioned howitzers, towed guns lined up wheel to wheel in great lines, barrels heaving and buckling as the caissons jumped and rolled with the recoil. I saw the rotten skyscrapers of dead Tokyo buckling, old steel screaming as the concrete dust rose in plumes from shattered tenements.


The guns… The guns… I shivered at the thought, clenching my upper arms. Somehow, the self-embrace did nothing to push the cold away.


I had seen death in many forms, but few were quite as terrible as death by artillery. The way it pulverized the body, obliterating anything familiar or recognizable… The way it left its victims smashed into the mud, spread out for meters all around… The way men unharmed by the explosion itself were injured by the bone shards, the helmets and bent rifles, the jewelry and shovels and sometimes just by the dismembered limbs all sent flying… Nothing about it smacked of the human.


It was a mechanical death, death by shelling, the final result of a dehumanizing system that stripped the individual first of their rights, then of their autonomy, before finally ripping away any hope for a future and eventually their existence. There was no way to buy one's way free of the thresher, nor any opportunity to reason or plead with some tormentor. It was a faceless enemy, remorseless and deadly. It took everything from you, most especially your dignity, all without giving the poor soldier writhing in the churned mud anything human to rage against. When the iron rain fell, there were no depths of desperation to which a soldier would not sink…


Please, please, please! Help me! Did you want prayer? That's what you wanted, right?! I'll pray to you! I'll use the Type 95! Just please! Help me! Not like this! I don't want to die like this!


Yes, I knew all about artillery.


But how could I convince my people of the folly? How could I tell the girl upon whose largesse my starving people depended that she had to push back against the hotheads who told her that she could finally be free under her own name?


How could I tell any child whose father or mother had died at Britannian hands to keep their calm and play the long game?


…No matter what else, the news will come out soon. Best, I decided, that Shinjuku hear it from me.


There would be celebrations, I knew. People would embrace and laugh with joy. I would laugh and smile with them tonight, for to do anything else would spook them and steal this precious moment of hope away. I had a duty as a leader, and part of that duty was to make the daily horror of our situation into something palatable, and so I could do no less than encourage my people to celebrate and to remember that all empires died some day.


After the celebration, I could continue to find an escape out of this trap I had placed myself within. And if no such escape was possible… I would just have to figure out how to triumph despite myself.

 

[Scopas]

(For various reasons, this chapter took a great deal of rethinking and reworking. A big thank you to Sunny and MetalDragon for their remaining patient throughout and for their help with the editing once the finish line finally approached. Thank you to all of the people on Discord who helped me hash my ideas over and who contributed input.)


AUGUST 11, 2016 ATB
KIRIHARA TOWNHOUSE, KYOTO HONORARY SETTLEMENT
0550


The summons – and a summons it was, regardless of the invitation's polite wording – had come well before dawn in the hands of a private courier, who seemed quite surprised to find the lady of the house wide awake when he arrived.


Of course she had been awake; how could anybody sleep, after the delivery the evening before of such momentous news?


Lady Sophie had politely accepted the invitation and had bidden the courier to return to his master to convey her reply. Almost before his car had retreated down the driveway leading away from the Sumeragi Compound she had followed on his heels, accompanied only by Lady Annabeth, her official guardian and unofficial Britannian minder, and a token pair of bodyguards.


That this little retinue was merely a token to keep up appearances was reaffirmed upon their arrival at the Kirihara Townhouse, a sumptuous Britannian-style residence in the most trendy neighborhood in the Kyoto Honorary Settlement. There, in a flurry of polite courtesies and diplomatic flourishes, the Kirihara household servants had effortlessly peeled Lady Sophie's attendants away, sending the small trio to a side parlor off the reception room to enjoy prepared refreshments, while the lady herself was ushered into the "Master's Study" one floor up.


Kaguya knew that study well. She could call its dark wooden paneling and heavy limbed antique furniture to mind immediately from long memory. It could have been ripped from some stately Charleston manor, or perhaps purchased whole from one of the nouveau riche imitations studding the piney hills above Holy Angels, disassembled, and shipped with furnishing included straight to Area 11, to Japan. It could have been the study of a particularly humble scion of the Greater Nobility, or perhaps the lair of some vaultingly successful commoner magnate.


But only Kirihara Taizo, once the Minister of International Trade and Industry in the Kururugi Cabinet, now the Chairman of the Numbers Advisory Committee, and always Lord Taizo of the ancient Kirihara Clan, CEO of the Kirihara Zaibatsu, could have put that ineffable stamp on the room. More than the furnishings or the paneling, it was that stamp that Kaguya knew, the invisible web spun by the master of the Six Houses of Kyoto, first among nominal equals.


How could she not? It had been in rooms marked by that stamp, filled by that presence, where she had learned all she knew about manipulation and subterfuge, about how numbers could dance and figures could lie, how a slip of the tongue could be just as sharp-edged and dangerous as a finely honed blade.


More than the faded memory of a man now six years gone, it was the mark of her father that stained those walls.


Unbidden, Kaguya sat in the same seat she had always sat in. Took the same place she had always been put in.


My hands, she noticed distantly as she exchanged greetings with the man and accepted a hot drink, are shaking.


"I assume that you have heard the news by now, Kaguya," Taizo said, dispensing with the minimal pleasantries after only a few minutes. "It seems as if our Britannian friends have encountered quite the misfortune."


"Indeed, Lord Taizo," Kaguya murmured, slipping back into the familiar cadence of childhood as she sipped quietly from the steaming mug of matcha cradled in her hands. The heat was soothing on her throat and against her still faintly trembling hands, warming even though the summer's wet heat had managed to infiltrate even the opulence of the grossly misnamed "townhouse." "One wonders whether Field Marshal Milburn will attempt another relief, or if the Fort Aurelian garrison has already been written off entirely?"


"'One wonders,' eh?" Taizo looked up from his Britannian-style coffee to quirk an incredulous eyebrow at Kaguya. It was almost jovial, though to Kaguya's familiar and wary eye, the incredulity and humor barely went skin-deep. Those dark eyes, like shining pebbles hidden within a mossy bed of concealing wrinkles, glimmered. "Well, if 'one wonders' as much, I can certainly answer. With what army would the field marshal, Duke Joseph, try to break the siege? The army already tied down in garrisoning cities across the fragment of Indochina remaining in Britannian hands?"


He's talking too much, Kaguya noted, Taizo's usual economy of words absent this morning, in their place an ebullient loquaciousness. Why? Is he in a good mood? Drunk? Is he… nervous?


That was a frightening prospect, both to the part of her that was still a child and still identified him as the father she had lost, and to the rest of her, that he had honed into a diplomat, a financier, and in true Britannian fashion, a murderer. Taizo was always controlled, always scheming, always weaving a new plot.


If he is nervous…


The old man snorted, as if to drive the very thought from her mind. His hot breath, heavy with an amusement that Kaguya was increasingly convinced masked something else, was almost bull-like in the dimly lit study. Suddenly, the dark walls seemed far too close, almost claustrophobically tight.


"No, Kaguya," Taizo continued, answering his own question, "Duke Joseph has no intention of throwing away the rest of his forces. He sent the strongest Britannian field army ever deployed to Asia into the jungle, and watched it disappear down that stupid highway the Chancellor forced him to waste time building."


"You sound almost sympathetic to the field marshal's plight," Kaguya pointed out, her tone neutral yet attentive. It was an empty response, a mere observation. A placeholder, to keep her hand in the conversation. A response as bland as her smiling face, such as her true guardian had taught her to offer, that revealed not a contour of the topology of her own thoughts.


Judging by the way those ever-mobile eyebrows, so bushy, twitched up towards his bald pate, that guardian recognized the trick he had taught her and approved its use. The small smile, a twitch of gray lips, could have been paternal in its pride, if it wasn't for those ancient eyes in that broad, wizened face. Still glimmering, still assessing.


Another small test passed.


"Do I?" Taizo asked, and yes, he was amused, at least to a degree; the amusement could mask something else, certainly masked something else, but the geriatric spider still enjoyed watching the flies twitch. His ancient voice, already cracked with age, cracked again with a sort of gloating satisfaction. "To give the man his due, Duke Joseph possesses middling skills as a commander; enough so that his baton is not entirely unearned. But, Kaguya, a general must be more than a blunt instrument, baton or not. At a certain point, a general cannot be merely a strategist; he must also become a politician."


Like Tanya? Kaguya silently asked, remembering the way the other girl had effortlessly commanded the attention of both the blue-sashed soldiers and her own bodyguards, how it had taken almost her full will not to lean back from the furnace raging below that shaggy blonde hair and behind those lambskiller blue eyes when that girl had leaned across the table, getting into her face as she demonstrated how close she had gotten to the first man she had stabbed. A street rat who built her own army and crowned herself lord of all she surveyed? Like that, Lord Taizo?


"The Duke of Vancouver," the old man continued, seemingly lost in his sneering reverie, "found himself in control of an Area in all but law by dint of his failure as a political operator as much as for his generalship. The only reasons why a noble unchained to the Imperial Family by blood or marriage would be granted his command are visionary excellence or political impotence. In Vancouver's case," Taizo snorted again, and Kaguya pushed away the thought of how the wet heat pressed against her face, "there is little reason to suspect that he earned the 4th Army with his reputed strategic wit."


So… is this just gloating, Kaguya wondered, concealing her curiosity behind a sip from her rapidly chilling tea, timed just as the master of the Taizo clan took another sip from his coffee to avoid any hint of disrespect by looking away, or is there a lesson hidden behind the indulgence? That a general must be a politician is hardly revelatory – politics and war are simple extensions of one another – but what does that lesson mean now, in application to the monumental defeat the Britannians just suffered and coming from the mouth of a man who has always dominated from the boardroom and the Cabinet, but never from the head of an army? Is it a simple comment on the quality of leadership we should expect from the Britannians? An insight into the nature of Britannia, Social Darwinism sowing the seeds for its own collapse as trust from within withers? Something else entirely?


What would Tanya have to say about the news out of Indochina? What lessons would she pull from the slew of random details and panicked reports my agents have passed on to me?


It was far from the first time Kaguya had asked herself some variant of that question. They had only met once, but thanks to the plethora of reports she had requested on Tanya both before and after their meeting, and thanks to the Shinjuku leader's own surprising candor during their short meeting, Kaguya felt like she had a decent handle on what her…


What? On what my acquaintance thinks? My ally? My contractee?


Yes, Kaguya noted, contractee works, as far as our current relationship goes. She buys material from me, all the guns and bullets and food and whatever that her people need, and in return she has promised to provide muscle on demand, but that's not really all…


Contractee worked, but it fell short of the role Kaguya saw for Commander Hajime in their shared future. Contractee was too mean a descriptor, she decided; Warlord fit much better.


Regardless of our exact relationship, I still feel like I understand how she would react to most of the recent developments that have crossed my desk. She would have celebrated Pulst's death, I'm sure; he was never a friend to anybody save himself, and a holy terror to the Japanese as the Minister of Economic Development. She would have mourned the butchery in Yokohama, especially since she would so clearly see her own home and her own people in the accounts of whatever survivors managed to flee north to the Tokyo Settlement.


But what would that shrewd, bloody-minded, yet – when it came to her own people – surprisingly compassionate girl think, when she learned of the broken Knightmares and the long bloody chain of men sinking into the thick jungle mud?


When I spoke of Japan, she burnt with passion, Kaguya recalled, nodding internally to herself as she watched Taizo fuss over his coffee mug. Indeed, she matched the fire that burnt in my heart with equal measure. Certainly that fire will prompt jubilation when the news of the Chinese victory over Cavendish's Column reaches her, assuming she hasn't learned about it already…


Somehow, that estimation rang hollow in Kaguya's ears, off in a way that her previous two guesses were not.


Because she will have come to the same conclusion that I have, Kaguya thought bleakly, tightening her grasp on her traditional clay cylinder of a tea mug to keep the treacherous shakes away from her hands. Because a crisis of this magnitude cannot go unexploited. Someone will exploit it in Area 11, and the Britannians in their temporary weakness will not be able to immediately quash the first embers. When other groups realize as much, when the great groaning mass of Japanese and reluctant Honoraries realize as much, the fire will spread… But once that easy tinder is burned, Tanya will ask herself, just as I asked myself last night, what then?


"So in your estimate, this defeat stemmed from the field marshal's lack of political dexterity?" Kaguya asked, automatically picking the conversation back up as Taizo settled back into his chair, his cup refreshed. Though she had posed it as a question, Kaguya knew her mentor well enough to see the conclusion he was reaching for, and so concurred in advance with it.


But asking instead of stating will put the onus for speaking that conclusion aloud on him, rather than myself, Kaguya noted, the portion of her internal monologue plotting her course through the conversation cool and detached. After all, it behooves a woman in my position poorly to lay the fault for the defeat on the duke's inability to stand up to the unreasonable demands of his superiors, lest my own self-appointed superiors begin to wonder.


The rest of her internal monologue was screaming itself hoarse as she imagined a vengeful Britannia, the great leviathan wounded but all the more dangerous for its pained, lunatic rage, slashing back down on the reborn Japan, still fragile as it shook off clinging shards of eggshell and spread soft wings.


In her mind's eye, Kaguya could almost see the incendiaries falling in their thousands already.


"Clearly," Taizo snorted again, and then coughed when the snort dislodged something in the back of his throat. The wizened schemer had been suffering badly from allergies this year, Kaguya recalled.


"Clearly," he repeated, spitting the word out in lieu of spitting out the stifling post-nasal contents of his throat. "The order to build that damned stupid fort came from the Chancelry, allegedly on the advice of a Baron Harrison, a man who reportedly failed his way to seniority with commendable efficiency. Duke Joseph is at least rumored to have been smart enough to resist the drivel that spews from Harrison's mouth when it spewed from the mouth of a social inferior alone, but apparently lost his courage when the same blabber was regurgitated via the Second Prince's mouth instead."


Kaguya wrinkled her nose at that mental image with unfeigned disgust, happy at last to give her own, much more personal, disgust the slightest window of expression.


I wonder if they will even bother retaking the cities, her gloomy mind supplied. Why bother, when all the Britannians truly want is the damned Sakuradite?


"And of course," Taizo continued thoughtfully, appearing to be lost in the depths of his cup, peering down into steaming coffee adulterated with milk, the Britannian habit persisting even now, "the emergency dispatch of an armored brigade and two infantry divisions also arrived with the Chancellor's seal, just the same as the initial orders did, just as the approvals for the budgetary overruns and the late hour additions to Fort Aurelian did. Schneizel wanted to save his investment, and like the amateur general he is, immediately resorted to the blunt deployment of overwhelming force to save himself from his foolishness. And Duke Joseph did nothing but dutifully follow his orders, all without uttering so much as a peep of protest."


…What am I supposed to say to that? Kaguya wondered, her conversational navigator stalling out as the silence stretched on. What is the point of this conversation? She also wondered, that question almost snapped out by the increasingly despondent part of her mind that dreaded what this conversation was building towards. We both know what happened, we both heard the news…


Think, Kaguya! Think! Taizo is nervous, you realized that as soon as he tried that jolly old man act. He wanted you off balance, that was why he summoned you so early… He's talked a lot, and said very little, but what substance there has been has all emphasized how reactionary Britannia has become, will become… Duke Joseph waited for orders and, when they came, only followed orders… Schniezel reinforced failure and compounded his original mistake…


Something clicked in Kaguya's mind as she remembered her earlier internal question, about why a man who lacked anything approaching military experience would be pontificating on generalship. Schneizel was, after all, far from the only politician who lacked anything beyond a surface level understanding of the military sciences.


Another such man sat across the low coffee table from her, clothed in a Britannian-style dressing robe and drinking Britannian-style coffee.


So this is it, Kaguya realized, a numb sensation spreading up from her belly, retracing the warm path her sipped tea had blazed down her throat. The Britannians will never, in his estimation, be weaker than they are right now. The JLF is swollen with new recruits and increasingly responsive to a clique of highly aggressive officers; moreover, Yokohama proved that the Britannians will not stop until they slaughter us all. They will never be weaker, and we will never be stronger. And Kirihara Taizo has always been a man to make his own opportunities, to seize whatever advantage he can secure.


It all makes sense, when I think about it like that.


And it did. It made so much sense. More than sense, the prospect of rising up now, striking back against the hated, weakened enemy now… it felt right, deeply so. Kaguya remembered Japan, for all that she was certain that just as many Britannian mannerisms had crept into her personal habits as had crept into Taizo's, and she longed to see her country free again.


He has no intention of waiting for some lone spark to rise up and set the entire forest on fire; he is no general, but he has generals on retainer, just as Schniezel is and does. And just as Schniezel did, he is preparing to send off his orders to ensure that the fire touches off all at once, guaranteeing an intense blaze. A blaze enough to resurrect the phoenix from its ashes… A fireball of sufficient intensity and luminosity that people across the world might mistake it for a sun rising at last from dark night, rising again furious and free…


But what comes next? asked a voice with equal intensity, as frigid as midwinter corpses stacked in the bed of a ramshackle truck, bound for interment with the rest of the unwanted waste of Britannia. Once the gamble is placed, once the glorious blow is struck, what comes next? What will the cost be, for that momentary rebirth? Will you stake an entire nation's existence, that Japanese intensity will outlast Britannian vengeance? And even if the fire of outrage gutters in the Britannian soul, what about gnawing hunger for Sakuradite? Can will alone outlast a potentially fatal threat to all Britannia holds dear, a threat that their world-conquering war machine might stall?


"Fortunately," Kaguya heard through her rushing thoughts, as Taizo continued his musings aloud, his attempts to reassure himself above all else now as shrill to Kaguya's ears as a tin-whistle, "even Duke Vancouver's limited success and mediocre performance is likely beyond the reach of our illustrious Viceregal-Governor."


"As you say," she replied, gratified that her voice had somehow escaped her rapidly constricting throat without betraying her. "Prince Clovis, after all, has no military background to speak of, and is advised primarily by officers of the Purist Faction, who are broadly held in jealous contempt by their peers."


"He lacks both the cleverness to stand back and let his military advisors take the full measure of responsibility onto their own shoulders, as the Viceroy of Area 10 chose, and the wisdom to actually choose competent advisors instead of sycophantic fools hopelessly bound to a futile ideology," agreed Taizo, nodding with such satisfaction that Kaguya almost screamed. "Undoubtedly, he would see it as below the dignity of his royal status to simply sit back and allow his generals to run the Area into the ground on their own accord. Besides, the man's the worst kind of micromanager; ever present wherever he is least helpful. No competent general would stand for such interference."


Would Colonel Kusakabe? Kaguya wondered. Or is he also a fool bound to a self-defeating ideology? Considering who his orders will apparently be stemming from, Lord Taizo, I have my suspicions, though I have never had the misfortune of his acquaintance.


"As you say," Kaguya repeated, wondering at how rapidly everything that had seemed so solid even in her own fragile double life as a Honorary Britannian debutant and as a secret bankroller of rebellion had fallen apart. The Chairman of the Numbers Advisory Council and the secret master of Kyoto House had likewise led a double life for more than half a decade without betraying himself, and even before then, he had been a formidable presence in the halls of power of Republican Japan.


And yet here he is, speaking to a captive audience, unable or unwilling even now to cross the threshold and openly state his intentions. Minutes are running through our fingers like sand as time hurdles on, and yet here we sit in this townhouse, him talking but not speaking, me nodding but not listening.


But now, Kaguya considered, he is trying to convince himself that Britannia's strength is ebbing, and that Clovis is too incapable to adequately defend Britannian dominance over Japan. That means Lord Taizo is, in fact, not fully convinced on such points already.


Her stomach lurched, and it took all of Kaguya's careful self-control to hold her tea down.


"Lord Taizo," she began, drawing on years of lessons in manners, in deportment, in the respectful way an inferior wheedles truths and concessions out from their unwary superior, "why did you want to meet with me so early in the morning? What prompted you to call this meeting?"


"What," Taizo asked, looking up from his coffee to shoot a sardonic look her way, "did you want to be caught napping when the Day of Liberation dawned?"


"Indeed." The word fell tonelessly from her lips as Kaguya's heart plummeted again. The look on Taizo's face was not triumphant, nor was it eager. Instead, it was… resigned. Old. Not tired, but… not energetic. Not a reassuring look on the face of the chessmaster standing ready to overturn his board at last and set it on fire. "So, today's the day, is it?"


"We will never be stronger," Taizo remarked, echoing Kaguya's thoughts. Perhaps he had been following the same paths as she, paying just as little attention to their conversation as she had. For a moment, Kaguya wondered if that was the reason for his nerves; that he too had concluded that he was not the right man for this job. "The Britannians will never leave us, and if this generation passes without a fight, there will be no Japan to liberate."


"They will kill us," Kaguya replied, simply but with a heartfelt sincerity she didn't have to force. The words escaped gracelessly through her lips, and from each utterance more bubbled forth, pressure given vent at last. "You realize that, Lord Taizo? If we do this… If we call for a general uprising against the Britannians, they will kill us all once they retake the Home Islands. There will be no Japan, just as you say, but there will be nobody who can even claim Japanese ancestry still alive here on whatever burnt rocks are left! Only the refugees in the camps in China and Europe could claim to be Japanese, and they would be only a fragment of a fragment! Lord Taizo, if we do this… If you do this…!"


"Throwing in with Munakata's faction at this late date, Kaguya?" Taizo asked, rhetorically, as it turned out, for he continued relentlessly on. "What other choice do we have, would you say? Letting this opportunity go to waste would be foolish in the extreme.


"The best of the Britannian Army is battling its way through the Middle Eastern Federation while the second raters are tied down in Sumatra and Malaya, or are scattered across three continents in pick-penny garrisons. The Britannian Navy is dueling the Chinese and Europeans across two oceans, from the Malaccas to the Canaries. Their Knights of the Rounds are scattered from Persia to Pendragon. Even without counting the two infantry divisions and the Knightmare brigade Schniezel just threw away, the Britannians are overstretched and exhausted from fifteen years of constant conquest."


Even after almost eight decades of life, Kirihara Taizo was still a big man, still broad across the shoulders. When he leaned forward, craggy face set in hard lines below his sloping, wrinkled brow, it was as if Mount Fuji itself had stirred from its tormented sleep to bear down upon her.


And in the face of that pressure, Kaguya was eight years old again and an orphan, head of a clan of one, cowering before the brooding pressure of her new guardian. His word had been law for years now, scraping away what he had disapproved of and reshaping the remainder to enshrine Old Japan behind protective Britannian walls.


That word spoke once again, brooking no defiance, and Kaguya knew Taizo spoke the truth when he said:


"We will never get a better chance at restoring Japan."


I can't argue against any of that, Kaguya thought dismally, feeling like a stranger in her own body. Her head swam, her hands as numb as a corpse. He's correct, as far as he's gone. But he hasn't gone far enough, hasn't thought far enough, if that is the entirety of his argument.


"Lord Taizo," Kaguya replied, clinging to the structure of formality, anchoring herself back in herself, pushing through her dizzy despair and trying to argue what could laughably be called her case, "I agree that this moment of unexpected Britannian weakness presents an incredible opportunity. But…" she swallowed, trying to articulate her thoughts.


What were her thoughts? Hadn't she been resolved that any sacrifice would be worth a free Japan? It had seemed that way, when she had heard the news of the Sniper's death in the company of Bradley Dean, when she had resolved to honor the soon-to-be slain of Yokohama as martyrs.


"But…"


Sacrifices are only justified retroactively, came the grim rejoinder, and it came in Tanya's voice, surprising Kaguya not in the least. If the sacrifice of a nation only buys a month or two of freedom before the hammer falls, then that sacrifice was worth very little, because it bought very little. Renegotiate before committing to such a foolhardy exchange.


"Before we inform the JLF of our support for a general uprising, before we call in all of our debts with the other resistance groups, before we ask our people to take up whatever weapon they can find to kill the invaders…" Before we ask them all to die for us, for me, "I humbly ask what end you envision, Lord Taizo."


"What end indeed…?" The old man echoed, tilting his head back as if the answers were written on the ceiling's dark paneling. "Lady Kaguya, how many more years do you think the people of Area 11 will remain Japanese? How many generations will it take before the name "Japanese" is just as irrelevant as "Iroquis" or "Quebecois"?


"How long until we all become Elevens in truth, just as the Mexicans became Fives? How long can a national identity last, without a homeland? Our shrines and temples are burnt; where will we offer gifts and prayers to our ancestors? Will we continue to entomb their bones in garbage pits?"


"Eulogies for Japan from Lord Taizo?" Kaguya asked, almost disbelievingly. It seemed so… trite. What were the worth of eulogies for a dead country, coming from a man already one foot in the grave? "And don't think that I'll accept a question for an answer. This uprising… What is the point of it? What will it accomplish? Surely you, you who have survived the rise and fall of cabinets, you who survived Conquest and collaboration, have a plan to survive past the uprising!"


Kaguya realized she was breathing hard, panting for breath. She hadn't raised her voice, but the effort to keep her tone level, sane, polite even had pulled the wind from her lungs all the same. She felt like she was drowning, the way the pressure on her chest crushed her, the way her thin throat sucked for air like a long slender straw.


"You won't accept a question for an answer?" For a moment, Taizo's fey mood broke and Kaguya steeled herself even as she fought for air, fought for composure, against the impulse to shrink back, as the hard-faced titan of her youth swam back into focus through her blurring vision. "Well then, Kaguya, I will simply say this: I would rather my bones rest in Japan than in Area 11. How is that for your answer? Japan will live. I will see the sun rise again. I was born in Japan, and I will die in Japan."


"So that's it, then?" Kaguya rose to her feet, the lingering shreds of propriety deserting her. "It's all just an old man's dying wish? That's why you're risking everything we've built up and husbanded now on a final hurried push? What happens when the Britannians come back, Lord Taizo, assuming we even manage to push them out of Tokyo? They defeated the Republic – what will ensure the JLF won't meet the same fate? Or what if the Chinese or the Europeans invade, after both we and the Britannians have expended our strength?"


Abruptly frustrated with herself, that she still couldn't bring herself to fully confront the man, Kaguya balled her hands up into fists.


"You don't have a p-plan!" The accusation came out splintered, almost broken. "You don't have a plan for this… this uprising!" Finding her voice, Kaguya glared down at the living fossil. "How could you have a plan? Nobody expected the Britannians to lose that bad, or the Chinese to actually be competent for once! You didn't see this coming – nobody did! You're just… just reacting! Just like Schniezel did! Why do you think this will go any different than the Chancellor of Britannia's attempt to buy victory by just throwing people at the problem!?"


"What would you have me do?" Taizo asked, almost bemused. Kaguya found the sudden detachment in his eyes deeply frightening. Before those two shimmering pebbles, as dark as rocks at the bottom of a well, her momentary outrage guttered. "You know as well as I do the mood of our countrymen, and in particular the disposition of Colonel Kusakabe and his little clique. News of Nghia Lo has certainly reached his ears, and he will see nothing but an opportunity to replicate Niigata on a nationwide scale. Would you have me squander the Six Houses' influence in checking his ambition, consigning you and I to the same impotence that has overcome Munakata?


"Face it, Kaguya," and this time, when he chuckled, Kaguya saw the man who had replaced her father again, just for a moment, but not this time the terrifying presence. Instead, she saw the man who had taught her how to sharpen her teeth against the other clanheads, who had applauded her when she duped Britannian inspectors and factors with her apparent childishness into sloppy negotiations. The one who had given an orphaned girl the weapons necessary to become a power all her own. "As soon as the last Sutherland collapsed into the Indochinese mud, this was inevitable. Not only in Area 10, but in Areas 9 and 12, and what's left of 10 and 13, others just like us and just like Kusakabe are preparing to unwind seventeen years of Britannian conquest.


"An old man's stubbornness or not, Princess," and now Taizo was leaning forwards, detachment vanished from his eyes, as he spoke to her not as Kaguya or as Lady Kaguya, but as the last sprout on the great tree of Yamato, "this has gone beyond you and beyond me now. One way or another, someone – probably Colonel Kusakabe, no need to beat around the bush now – will fire the first shots against Britannia, with or without us. Past that point, the cycle of escalation and retaliation will continue, until either they or we are all deceased. Our choice now isn't whether or not we should start the general uprising, but whether we shall ride this wild horse or be trampled below its hooves."


"You still haven't answered my question, Lord Taizo, and I don't believe for a moment that you are throwing some long-prepared plan into action," Kaguya doggedly replied, fire replaced by a certainty just as firm as her mentor's, still glaring down at the old man as she tried to ignore how pointlessly academic this conversation suddenly rang in her ears. "You have simply attempted to shift responsibility for the actions you clearly intend to take away from yourself and onto the inevitability of history. So be it. If the uprising must happen, then surely there must be a plan for the aftermath. If this uprising you forecast succeeds, if the sun rises on a Japan again, what comes next?"


Surely you have an answer! The silent addition was near begging. You have always had an answer, have always articulated the importance of deliberate action! Surely, Taizo, you won't prove a hypocrite now, at this latest juncture?


"I am sorry that you find my answer inadequate, Lady Kaguya," Kirihara Taizo said, leaning back in his armchair once more as his fervency again cooled to the same resigned detachment as before. "I hope that you will understand my intentions once the heat of the rising sun again graces your face in a liberated Japan. Now," and he was looking down at her again somehow, for all that she stood tall upon her own two feet, "will I have the cooperation of the Sumeragi Clan in this undertaking, when I go to meet with the other clanheads in half an hour? Or will I have to begin this great undertaking alone?"


At last, Kaguya heard something familiar in Taizo's voice, something that belonged to the shrewd old man, the pillar of her childhood and the foundation of Kyoto House: It was the language of negotiation, of the forging of clauses and the establishment of contracts. Meat and rice to Kirihara Taizo.


And the milk she had grown up upon.


"Oh?" Kaguya angled her head inquisitively, merchant instincts coming to the fore through the emotional turmoil. "What can the House of Sumeragi offer the great Master of Kirihara? I thought you were already resolved to your plan, or at least to whatever shambles you've thrown together."


"Lord Tosei and Lord Tatsunori are a spent force," Taizo said bluntly. "Neither is in any position to push back against anything I should propose, not with the House of Munakata losing all leverage over the functional portion of the JLF's leadership and the severe damage its finances sustained during the Christmas Incident, and not with how hollowed out the House of Osakabe has become. I hold both seats in the palm of my hand.


"Lords Yoshino and Kubouin are a different matter; while central and southern Honshu might dance more or less to my tune, Lord Kubouin has an iron hold on the north, and on Wakayama and Nara. The hidden shrines and the militant brotherhoods both adore him… And they both hate me. Lord Yoshino married a southerner, and she's delivered Kyushu and Shikoku into his hands."


Kaguya nodded along, sinking as best as she could into the familiarity of the exchange. The names and facts were nothing new, nothing she hadn't heard before in so many other meetings in this study, where she and Taizo had planned out their strategy for upcoming general meetings with the other heads of the Six Houses.


"The House of Hidenobu and the House of Hiroyosi could provide formidable stumbling blocks for a general, Japan-wide uprising on their own," Taizo continued, gesturing broadly over his lukewarm coffee. "If Lord Yoshino holds himself aloof, not only does that mean the Britannians could plausibly withdraw to form a redoubt on the southern Home Islands, but that the Kagoshima Settlement will remain unscathed and the Fukuoka and Kitakyushu Naval Bases will remain in Britannian hands. That would sound the death knell for a reborn Japan, just as much if Hokkaido, Aomori, Sendai, and everything south of Osaka remain in Britannian hands because Lord Kubouin was unable to convince his supporters to follow my plan.


"This uprising must include all of Japan, or it is doomed."


"'We must all hang together, lest we hang singly,'" Kaguya replied in Britannian, quoting from her lessons about Washington's Rebellion. She idly wondered who among Kyoto would play the role of Franklin, the Judas. Though in a way she supposed they were all traitors, to one master or another. "How do you propose the House of Sumeragi assist you with your goal to set all of Japan ablaze, Lord Taizo? Unfortunately, I lack a southern wife."


"True, but you bear the Imperial Bloodline," Taizo retorted, his gaze knowing as Kaguya felt a familiar creeping discomfort at the mention. "Whoever you marry will be the next emperor, when the time comes, and his children will be of the Blood. While that might not matter so much in Nagoya or Yokohama or Tokyo, it still matters a great deal to the peasants working in the fields of noble estates… and it matters even more to those following the Path of the Gods in Wakayama and in parts north of Fukushima. With your approval, the House of Hidenobu will have to follow me or lose control over at least some of their followers."


It didn't take long for the gears to click into place in her mind. "And with Hidenobu, Munakata, Osakabe, and Sumeragi at your back, the House of Hiroyosi will have no choice but to join in your effort, lest they either fall to our own knives or those of the Britannians," Kaguya concluded.


As she tested the weight of the idea in her own head, she had to admit that there was some merit to Taizo's hastily thrown together plan. Denying the Britannians a safe staging ground for any reconquest was still putting the cart before the horse to a degree, but it indicated at least some thought beyond the immediate push to dislodge the Britannians from their settlements. Of course, the plan still rested on the massive assumption that the foreign invaders would even bother with such niceties instead of simply slagging every square inch of the Home Islands.


So, Kaguya thought, I do have some measure of power here after all, in spite of all of his efforts to render me a helplessly passive observer to the unfolding of my own fate. He could take his own assets and whatever he salvaged from Munakata and Osakabe up in his hands and throw them at the Britannians, but to have even the slightest hope of success, he needs my back-up.


Of course, she noted, he seems determined to advance his plan and is already resigned to die, so if I back out he will still drag us all down. I doubt I can truly stop this mad gambit of his, but perhaps I can wrangle out some concessions before I truly bind myself to this ride to damnation?


"An interesting proposition, Lord Taizo." The words sounded alien, almost like birdsong. The familiar melody of hemming and hawing over details here and obligations there. So small in this moment, but still the fulcrum around which everything else swung. "What are you prepared to offer in exchange for the full and public support of the House of Sumeragi?"


"The throne."


Kaguya blinked. Did I hear him correctly? He would back my enthronement in my own right, not just the enthronement of my husband-to-be…? Not since 1771 has Japan been ruled by a woman. Coming from Taizo, never one to promote equality between the sexes… It's a shocking offer.


"The… throne?" she asked, probing for confirmation. "Didn't the Britannians destroy it?"


"Yes," Taizo admitted, grimacing. "Takamikura and Michodai both burned, and soldiers scrapped the gold for themselves. But, I offer you the Chrysanthemum Throne, Princess, and not just in name, nor as a cipher for your eventual husband. When I die, I will die without a heir; should I predecease you, all of my wealth and all of my power will be yours, along with your own formidable holdings. I cannot guarantee the loyalty of all who serve me and take my money, but you will have that money to buy soldiers of your own.


"I said that I would see the sun rise on Japan, but I see no reason to resurrect the pretense of the Republic, sham that it was. When we drive out the Holy Empire, Princess, join me in returning Japan to the true way, to the proper way."


A throne? Kaguya could have laughed, but there was nothing remotely funny about the seriousness of the situation. But still, he thinks he can buy me with a throne?! What, in the name of all gods great and small, is the point of a throne if the cost is my nation's future? Taizo, you have all but told me to my face that you mean to see the Japan of your memories come again even if it takes a mountain of bodies to buy that momentary glimpse!


But seeing a country, her country, its desolation outlined in the unyielding planes of Taizo's face, Kaguya knew that nothing she could say would turn back the old man now. After years of bowing to Britannians, Lord Taizo had succumbed to a moment of hope, and now he was caught in that cruel vice.


In a way, she considered, searching that faded face, so familiar and yet a stranger still, I can sympathize. All of this, this last desperate gamble… This is Lord Taizo's suicide, extended out across the land he has guided for the better part of a century. An entire country turned into a pyre… And now, he has handed me a candle of my own and asked if I would care to join him atop the bonfire, an empress of the dead.


A horrid image passed before Kaguya's eyes, of sitting in Taizo's private office atop the Mount Fuji mining complex, sharing a last drink while, far below, Tokyo drowned in a tsunami of fire and steel.


But this represents an opportunity as well, Kaguya told herself, shoving the sight of fire and the taste of fine sake away. Not so much with the rest of Kyoto House – for all their jockeying and factional games, they are Taizo's equals in their fixation on the past and on their own fates – but for all those that Kyoto House shall trot me out before. I've always resented my blood, resented how my heritage always outweighed anything that I could ever be or do of my own ability, but if I can fashion it into some rope to pull my nation away from the edge, from self-immolating in their millions… He may not see a road mapped out to secure Japan after the uprising, but that does not mean such a path does not exist.


"Revere the Empress," Kaguya said in a voice that she didn't recognize as her own, that she didn't recognize as Sophie Sumeragi's, even. "Expel the barbarians."


"By your will, My Empress," Taizo affirmed in a voice that reeked of the same gloating satisfaction as she had heard earlier in his meanderings regarding the Duke of Vancouver. "I summoned the other heads before you arrived – they should already be waiting for us, down in the dining room. Let us not keep them waiting for us any longer."


AUGUST 11, 2016 ATB
COUNCIL OF NOTABLES, SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
0930


"Leaders of Shinjuku, luminaries of the Chamber…" Behind the lectern in the center of the former middle school gymnasium, I raised my hands in greeting. "Salutations to you all. Thank you for heeding my call and attending this emergency meeting."


Irritatingly, my audience was far from silent. Murmurs swept in swirling eddies across the seated men – and they were almost all men, and most well above the average age in Shinjuku to boot – as members of the Council of Notables conferred with one another and their aides. The full Council was in attendance, or as near to its hundred-head strong muster as could be scraped together at two hours' notice. Supplementing the assembly was nearly three times their number in assorted hangers-on, all packed into the reclaimed shell of the old Shinjuku Junior High School.


Pushing past my annoyance at being disrespected again by these useless old men, I continued on with my speech.


After all, I consoled myself, this could very well be the last opportunity they will ever have to ignore me.


"I am sure most of you have heard the wonderful news from Indochina," I said, knowing full well that everybody present had eagerly devoured any scrap of information they could discover, myself very much included, "but I will relay it now for any who have not been so blessed.


"Rejoice!" I called, hands rising even higher into the air, as if I was reaching for the sun itself. "Britannia has suffered a grievous defeat! Bogged down under mud and inept leadership, the invaders have squandered an entire field army! The armies of the Chinese Federation yesterday butchered two entire divisions of infantry and a full brigade of Knightmares at a place called Nghia Lo!"


Cheers rose from the crowd along with a crashing wave of applause, which I contributed to gladly, making a point of keeping my clapping hands in full view of the crowd, reinforcing this moment of harmony. Though our interests diverged in many ways, everybody in the room benefitted from the death of Britannians and the ruin of their formations.


"Yes," I declared as the cheers began to die down, calling on just a hint of my magic to lift my voice over the raucous din, "the so-called Holy Empire has experienced a cataclysmic defeat in the Chinese jungles! Even now, Britannians from the soldiers in their barracks to the murderer called Clovis in his throne room tremble, imagining the fate that has befallen their brothers in arms!"


Another cheer rose, this one harder edged. It was a joyous sound still, but in it I could hear the baying of hounds, ready to leap for the bear's throat now that the scent of blood had filled their nostrils.


Time to rein the pack in.


"Many people across Japan, and across the other nations enslaved by Britannia, will see this weakness and decide that now is the time to strike. That now is the hour long awaited for, come at last."


And now there was silence, or the closest thing to it the frankly awful acoustics of the old gym could manage. A sea of keen-eyed faces gazed back at me, watching my every move, assessing my every gesture and weighing every pause.


"This…" I drew out the moment, "is not so."


Clamor rose from the audience as, indignant, men began rising to their feet, yelling over one another. Eyes fired with passion, faces red with anger at the denial of the nectar, so close they could almost smell it, filled my vision.


Behind me, even over the cacophony, I could hear the faint sounds of my bodyguards tightening their grip on their rifles. Standing directly at my back, I heard Nagata swallow hard and could imagine the way my old comrade – the only other person in this room who had been with me in that first basement hideout so long ago now – was picturing his wife and child, wishing he was back home with them instead of facing down the mob of the petulant fools I had humored for so long.


"Be silent!" I boomed, drawing on my magic in earnest this time to effortlessly overwhelm the useless noise. "Pretend, at least, to possess the dignity worthy of being called 'Notable' among the long-suffering people of Shinjuku!"


"What the hell do you think you're doing, Hajime?"


That lone voice, refusing to knuckle under, came from one of the few men still on his feet. Nishizumi Tsutsumi, Councilor for Central Kamiochiai, stood, fists at his side, glaring balefully at me and, I realized, at Nagata standing behind me.


"Britannia will never be weaker than it is today!" Councilor Nishizumi proclaimed, his voice, roughened by years spent bellowing orders at sailors and honed by guiding the gangsters he had commanded through the brutal turf wars of Shinjuku, carrying throughout the so-called Chamber of Notables wherein the Council of Notables met with equal ease as my own. "We should kick them now, while they're hurt and bleeding! That army was their fist, not only for Indochina but for any uprising here in Japan! That army is gone, which means we have a chance!"


"Do we?" I demanded, my eyes narrowing as I glared at my old enemy. That he was my enemy, I had no doubt of. First he had tried to undermine the structure of my organization, both by casting aspersions on the character of Nagata, my chosen agent, and then by attempting to swindle extra supplies for his constituency at the expense of the rest. Then, he had made a public show of reconciliation in the wake of the Yokohama Massacre, throwing all responsibility onto my back and washing his hands of the hard work of governing in a crisis.


And ever since I took over for Naoto, he's been part of the clique muttering against me, I knew. Always saying that I was weak, that I was foolish, that I was disloyal. That I was a whore's daughter, a Britannian in all but language, a stupid girl who should have known her place… My enemy, offering himself up for special attention at last.


"And what would you say we should do, Councilor for Central Kamiochiai?" I continued, leaning forwards over the lectern and pretending I wasn't standing on a wobbly box to achieve the height necessary for such a maneuver. "Should we throw ourselves into the teeth of the Tokyo Garrison, slaughtering as many Britannians and Honoraries as we can before reinforcements converge and crush us all, squandering the work of months in hours? Perhaps we should push a grenade into the hands of every child with the strength requisite to pull the pin and direct them to find a Britannian – any Britannian – to take with them into the afterlife?"


"And what would you have us do, oh great Commander Hajime?" came the sarcastic reply. "Cower and die in our homes? Piss on this last chance to breathe free Japanese air so we can choke on Britannian smog in a month?"


Frustratingly, the crowd of Notables and lackeys murmured approvingly at his rejoinder. It was the response most of those present would have given, I knew, just as readily as Nishizumi had given it.


The answer of old men who rest content that, when the Britannian hammer comes down, they will be among the last to die, I thought, sneering from behind my mask of command at the whole flock of carrion eaters. Fortunately for the people of Shinjuku, they will not have the chance to enjoy such a luxury.


"I would give the people of Shinjuku a hope to see a month from today, rather than die within the week," I replied curtly, allowing a small measure of my contempt to leak out. "Make no mistake, honored Notables, the Britannians will be coming to Shinjuku. One way or another, that much is inevitable. The question is whether we are prepared to wage the long war I have been preparing this entire city for, or if through hotblooded foolishness the work of months as well as any tactical advantage will be offered up in blood sacrifice for a mere double handful of Britannian corpses."


"If the Britannians are coming to Shinjuku no matter what we do," one of the other Notables chimed in, rising to his feet, "it would be better if we were to choose the time of their arrival. If we send out a few small forces to attack the barracks and neighborhoods nearest the gates of the ghetto before retreating back within the walls-"


"And mark ourselves out for special attention once the Britannians recover their wits and start attacking anything that makes them say boo?" It was enough to bring me to tears. All of these fools had no idea what they were talking about, had no idea what war was like, truly like. Before the Conquest, Japan hadn't gone to war in two generations, and the Conquest itself had lasted a month. The Britannians had barely broken a sweat seizing the Republic of Japan.


None of them had seen what I had seen in a different life, in a different world. None of them had done what I had done, had watched as massed artillery devastated the very land and killed entire cities.


Nobody here knew war.


Nobody but me.


It has to be this way.


"Now hear this!" I raised a hand again, but not in greeting. Behind me, the line of soldiers from the Internal Affairs Force in their blue sashes and Sun Guard hachimaki took a step forward, still-safed rifles at present-arms before their chests.


The room again grew silent.


It was, I reflected, ironic that yet another turning point in my life would unfold here, in this building.


While the structure had once been the Shinjuku Junior High School, before it had become the meeting Chamber of the Council of Notables it had housed the Shinjuku School for Elevens, an institution I had so briefly attended. It had been in that school, where Britannian instructors dispatched by the Area Administration worked to convert Japanese children into dutiful Honoraries, that I had learned I would never have the chance to work within the Britannian system towards anything I would consider success. A path to a potentially peaceful life stymied before it could even begin, all due to discriminatory fiat.


In a way, I suppose it was in this old school hall that I became truly Japanese once again, before Naoto and Ohgi ever met me.


It was a bitter thought. I had been forced onto this path of rebellion, of fighting against the state and against institutional power in favor of a chaos I could only barely control at the best of times. While I was far past the point of turning back now, I still couldn't help but wonder at the counterfactuals. If I had succeeded in becoming an Honorary, could I have made something of myself, that teacher's candor be damned? Turned my Britannian features into an asset, rather than a constant burden?


Would my mother, hanging on my coattails as I left the ghetto to find a place in the Honorary neighborhoods of the outer Settlement, still be alive today?


That was a truly bitter thought. As was the knowledge that, even though I had considered myself as Japanese both before and after that pivotal moment, my blonde hair and blue eyes had always marked me out as an interloper among my own, just as much as Kallen's own crimson hair announced her own Britannian heritage. I'd had to work so hard to stay alive in the long hungry years in the streets, struggling for every calorie I could find, the usual leniency shown to children gone when the people saw the face of an enemy among them. Even after I had proven myself, the likes of Major Onoda and Councilor Nishizumi had still looked down upon me for reasons as nonsensical as blood and birth, in Onoda's case not even deigning to speak to me directly when we had first met.


Never again.


"By my authority as a Triumvir of the Kozuki Organization, by my rank as a Commander of the Sun Guard, by my works as the founder of the Rising Sun Benevolent Association, and by the oaths sworn by every living person who bears arms in Shinjuku, I declare a state of emergency. All Sun Guard units are now placed under the direct command of my appointed officers, my Leadership Commission, and myself. All resources stored within Rising Sun depots or distributed from that same organization's kitchens are now requisitioned by the same to preserve the common good in the face of such overwhelming catastrophe.


"This Chamber," and I tried hard not to smile, and mostly succeeded, "is hereby declared dissolved for the duration of the emergency, as is the Council of Notables. Should any of your advice be required, citizens of Shinjuku," oh, it was a joy to no longer require myself to honor the silly title Naoto had granted them, "I shall seek you out to ask for it."


They hungered for war with Britannia? Fine! I would give them all the war they could stomach, starting with a stiff and long-delayed serving of martial law.


May they choke on it.


Though my feet were firmly on the ground, or at least an old tinned-beef crate, I felt like I was flying as the burdens of long days and sleepless nights fell away. Like the king of old, I had cut through the Gordian Knot of my domestic problems.


There would be issues, of course. There were always issues. Judging by the mounting volume of voices as more and more of the former Notables rose to their feet, the issues were already beginning to arise. Fortunately, I had planned for such an eventuality, or at least, prepared. "Planned" was such a strong word, especially since I had thrown all of this together over a sleepless night, determined to steal a march on the Council before their clear inadequacy doomed us all. Already, agents and officers from the IAF and other trusted squads of Sun Guards were fanning out across Shinjuku to announce the new orders and to begin distributing new work assignments to the units most tightly enmeshed in the patronage of various Notables.


There would be plenty of work to do, starting with the dispersal of the angry crowd that was quickly descending into an enraged mob. Plenty of tunnels would have to be dug, deeper under Shinjuku and fanning out in all directions headed away from the Settlement's core. New ratlines, new escape routes, new bunkers and new spiderholes, dug from the old mud of Kanto's plain. Stocks of supplies and munitions needed to be consolidated and reportioned to subterranean caches across the breadth of Shinjuku, keen eyed watchers had to be assigned to the observer posts keeping a wary watch over the gates into Shinjuku, and a thousand other tiny things had to be handled in preparation for the inevitable attack.


Nagata was leading me away, I noticed, callused hands on my shoulders as he guided me, in the middle of a knot of armed men in blue sashes, towards the door out of the hall.


"Take her to Inoue's Office," I heard him say, Ohgi and Naoto's old friend, the ever-reliable designated driver of our organization. "Get her there now, and send reinforcements. We'll hold them here."


Ah, yes, Inoue. How could I have forgotten to include Inoue in my plan? It was all moving so fast, now that the balloon had well and truly gone up. At the center of my web, I had been kept busy, so busy, keeping all the wheels greased and the gears turning. Some things had slipped while I was busy, it was clear. Like sleep, or informing Inoue of what I was doing.


Yes, I decided as Nagata turned his back, the gymnasium doors closing between him and me, going to Inoue's would be a fine idea. She's the quartermaster, so her office will be the best place to coordinate the newly centralized administration of the free city of Shinjuku. No more need to listen to any carping from any of the old bastards Naoto picked to mismanage their little slices of Shinjuku. My city, finally, at last.


At last, I thought dreamily, my enhancements hiccuping, at last we will be free.

---

Ah, nostalgia, I vaguely thought, my mind flitting back to the first time I'd found myself visiting Inoue's former den, on a quest for information about the underground Shinjuku economy. She forced me to eat that time too, I recalled, and it was probably soup then too.


Experimentally, I raised a heavily laden spoon to my mouth, blew on it, and took it in. The soup was warm and thick, vegetable broth full of barley and vegetables and scraps of meat. Delicious and nourishing.


"So," Inoue said from the other side of the narrow table I had once sat down with her and Naoto at, breaking the tense silence that had filled the narrow office since my IAF bodyguard deposited me here with a quick muttered explanation of the meeting's events in Inoue's ear, "care to tell me what you were thinking, Tanya? Because… Because I'm frankly at a loss here. I thought you didn't want to be the sole source of authority? The one everybody was depending on?"


"I don't," I grumbled, spooning up another bite. "But that's happened anyway. I just formalized what was already the case."


"...Perhaps," Inoue allowed, folding her arms across her chest. "Keep eating," she snapped as I made to put my spoon down. "Don't take my demand that you explain yourself as an excuse to escape a meal. You can eat while you talk."


"Fine, fine," I acquiesced, taking another bite of my soup. It was quite tasty.


How long has it been since I last ate? I tried to recall. I think Chika forced me to eat a roll for breakfast…


"So…?" Inoue prodded.


"So, I didn't want it to come to this, but I couldn't let those idiots just throw everything away," I answered, taking another bite as Inoue looked expectantly at me. "I knew they would be eager to strike at Britannia – understandably so – but I couldn't allow them to take our forces out from behind prepared fortifications just to launch an impulsive assault without achievable objectives. That would be insanity."


"I can see that," Inoue nodded thoughtfully, "but surely you could have waited until they actually… proposed that plan? And I am certain you could have delivered that message in a less confrontational manner. Perhaps if you had explained your concerns, they would have listened?"


"They would not," I flatly denied, fingers tightening around my spoon. "I know them, Inoue. Not individually, and not really as people, but I know their kind… Stubborn, ignorant, proud old fools… That Nishizumi of all people would be the one to stand up and say what they were all thinking demonstrates their collective intelligence. But, you are correct," I conceded, frowning, "I should have let them put their foot into the trap before I pulled them back, but… Between the raw stupidity of it all, the fact that I knew that, stupid or not, most of the idiots would love it, and the way that I know that some of them, despite everything, still see me as a Britannian because of my blood…" I shrugged, staring into my soup. "I couldn't trust them to see the sense of it. I couldn't trust them to back down if I didn't force them to submit immediately. Done is done."


"Tell me more about your plan for the defense now," said Inoue, smoothly switching topics. "Based on what your man reported, it doesn't sound like you're very optimistic about our chances, when the hammer finally falls?"


How do I answer a question like that? I wondered, taking another bite to buy time. Defeatism is unacceptable. But…


"I am very confident in our ability to ward off the Britannians, at least initially, should they roll into Shinjuku like they did Yokohama," I explained, gesturing with my spoon. "Based on the reports Junji's assembled from eyewitness testimony, the Britannian reprisal in Yokohama was conducted by perhaps a brigade's worth of infantry backed by a few squads of Knightmares and a few… special elements."


My mouth twisted at the mention of this last group. That was, apparently, the euphemism used to describe the Army detachments who collected and processed prisoners. Perhaps a better name for them would be the "Slaver Corps" or similar.


"All told," I went on, "just about five thousand soldiers equipped with small arms and backed up by a handful of armored cars and Knightmares, plus a sufficiency of trucks. If that's what they send to pry us out of Shinjuku, we will slaughter them. Anti-armor missiles, mines, snipers, machine-gun nests – as soon as they entered the kill zone, they'd be finished."


"So…?"


"So what happens after that?" I retorted, trading Inoue a question for a question. "What happens next? In all likelihood, and considering how the Britannian forces in Japan have operated to date, they'll send in a significant force of Knightmares. While we will have lost the element of surprise, this still wouldn't concern me overly much. We could handle it. But then what happens once we handle that, once we prove ourselves a legitimate threat?


"They'll deploy the artillery." This time, I hadn't needed Inoue's prompting to answer my own question. "The Knightmare can be quite dangerous in urban areas, I'm sure of that. The sheer utility of the Slash Harkons is enough to convince me of that, along with the formidable amount of firepower any Knightmare can bring to bear. But while Knightmares can be made to operate in cities, artillery is specialized in killing cities. And once whichever idiot Britannian is placed in command of the initial efforts gets punted, and once someone serious is put in charge, well…"


My mind was again in Arrene as I spoke, and in faded memories two lifetimes old. Memories of black and white pictures of destruction in history books, and memories of news anchors talking about cities with names like Grozny and Sarajevo.


"They will shell us into submission, Inoue," I said, fingers tight on my bowl and my spoon. "Grid square by grid square, they'll hammer us until the rubble bounces. Then they'll send in light infantry to scout the remains, and anytime they find anybody still alive they'll pull back and shell the place again. When they find the entrances to our tunnels, our basements, and our bunkers, they'll throw poison gas down into our holes.


"Even if we don't die from the poison, any food and water not stored in air-tight containers would be contaminated, so we'd get the choice of starving below or being shot aboveground. Our only reprieve would be the sheer size of the mountain of shells destroying Shinjuku utterly would require. But even that only means that any commander with half a brain will keep us bottled up until their next munition ship or whatever arrives in Tokyo Bay! A ship loaded with fifty thousand shells would be the sure death of everybody here.


"By the time the guns fell silent for lack of ammunition, there would be nothing left of Shinjuku."


"...How do you know this?" Inoue asked, brow furrowed as she stared at me. "That wasn't what the Conquest was like at all."


"It's not like the Conquest is the only war humanity has ever waged in the modern age. Certainly not the only one Britannia has launched," I pointed out, still staring into the dregs of my soup. My appetite had fled me once again. "The Conquest was merely an explosion of overwhelming power against a criminally underprepared foreign state. A state that collapsed almost as soon as the fighting started.


"In comparison, an operation conducted against us in earnest would be the quashing of a fully prepared and organized rebellion whose members are willing to fight to the death. In such affairs, nobody can afford half measures. Besides, if I had to pry a determined organization such as ours out from an urban environment and I cared neither for the population nor the mess I would create, this is how I would go about things."


"Alright," Inoue nodded. She still looked dubious, but mercifully she didn't press further. "So… Why not attack the Britannians now, if that's what will happen if we turtle up? In fact, why bother trying to defend Shinjuku at all? Why not just… abandon it?"


Abandon Shinjuku? My mind reeled at the prospect as my eyes snapped up from my soup bowl to meet Inoue's questioning gaze. Leaving behind the memories of years of pain and deprivation, the memories of a slow death of a people… of my mother… Leaving behind all of the hard work, of watching hope dawn in eyes and fat beginning to plump out gaunt cheeks…


Instinctually, I rebelled at the idea. Shinjuku is mine. My home, my territory.


How dare the Britannians try to push me out? How dare Nishizumi deny me its mastery? I have taken it and remade it as best as I could in the image I saw for it. How dare they?


"How?" I asked, half-indignant, and immediately went on the offensive as I ignored the ridiculous feelings bubbling in my heart. "We've already been doing our best to smuggle people out, sometimes hundreds at a time, but we still have two hundred thousand people here. A fifth of a million. If we all tried to leave at once… it would be chaos!


"How would we provide transportation? Where would we even go once we found the means of conveyance? A flow of hundreds at a time can be distributed across the emptied spaces of rural Japan without serious economic dislocation or privation. Two hundred thousand, though? Starvation would walk in our shoes. We'd die on our feet before we ever made it to safety.


"Besides, how could we escape the Britannians' notice? They would just follow us wherever we ran and would kill us on the open road, if they didn't just shell us on our way out."


Hopefully that's enough to satisfy her.


"As for just attacking the Settlement haphazardly and inflicting what damage we can…" I shook my head, my eyes slumping back towards the cold dregs, the sudden spike of passion exhausted. "I don't even know where to begin with the errors in that…


"Why throw away the element of surprise at a time like this? Why mark ourselves out for special attention once the Britannians finally get around to taking their vengeance? What could we hope to achieve with our makeshift bombs and small arms before the defenses of the Viceregal Palace crushed us into the dirt?"


"...So, that's it, then?"


Inoue and I both jumped slightly in our seats, turning to look where the voice had come from. There, sitting in a previously empty corner of Inoue's office, Chika sat crosslegged on the ground, staring up at us through the round discs of her spectacles.


"If we stay here," the girl, my aide, said, her voice flat, "we die. If we leave, we die. If we attack, we die. If we defend, we die."


"Yes," I answered, succinctly but not curtly. "Most of us, at least. I plan on accelerating evacuation efforts as best I can until the last hour, and to drag the defense out for as long as possible to buy more time for people to sneak away and vanish into the countryside.


"Shinjuku will die… but it won't die quietly. Its death throes should be more than loud enough to distract Britannia from refugees escaping into the night." I paused, then added, in as gentle of a voice as I could manage, "Would you like a place in the next group out, Chika? If you want to go… That's fine with me."


Rising, the sister of the Yokohama Sniper crossed the office and sat down in the empty stool by my side.


"Not until you go," Tanaka Chika replied, the smile on her face a ghost of the happy girl I had first met, before her sister had left her to find her destiny. "Until you leave Shinjuku, there will be hope. And where there is hope, there is a chance."


I couldn't find it in myself to point out her folly.


AUGUST 11, 2016 ATB
APARTMENT ABOVE STUDENT COUNCIL CLUBHOUSE, ASHFORD ACADEMY
1100


"Out of love for the truth and from a soul-felt desire to break the scales set over the eyes of the chosen people," Lelouch wrote, his ballpoint scratching over the yellow pages of the legal pad, "I, Father Alexander of the Holy and True Anglican Church, shall administer correction to the whore who garbs herself in the name and miter of the Church of Britannia, both in the destruction of the corrupt bishops who labor in her service and in the following attack upon her fallacious and heretical doctrine."


I wonder if this is how Martin Luther felt, Lelouch wondered as he stared down at the expanse of the paper before him, hungrily awaiting the caress of his pen. Perhaps I should emulate him and send the congregants out with hammers and nails? It would certainly be a rather direct delivery, and without any need for the post office to facilitate either…


"Point the First: the man Charles," and Lelouch permitted himself a small smirk at the petty joy of describing That Man as such, "of late styled the Emperor of Britannia, is not God. This should be self-evident, as no man can be God, save only for the Carpenter, whose nature as both wholly man and wholly divine is the cornerstone of our faith. The Britannic Church claims that upon his coronation at the hands of his chosen Archbishop of Rochester, the man Charles ascended both to the throne of Britannia and to the throne of God on Earth.


"Not only is that second institution a sign of creeping popery within the rotting edifice of the Britannic Church, but such a transformation equates the renowned deviant and predator Warren of Tucson with the Baptist and even more ill-fittingly, Charles with the Carpenter. This is clear blasphemy of the highest degree.


"Point the Second: Just as the True Church is the bride of the true God and no other, so to can one man be the spouse of one and no other. In the past limited exceptions were made in times of great distress and to those whose lives rested entirely in the hands of almighty God. That is wholly divorced from the lustful doctrine of polygamy devised by Warren of Tucson to justify his unholy craving for the flesh of the wives and daughters of other men, and embraced by the man Charles during his campaigns to secure his blood-tarnished crown. Indeed, it is entirely antithetical to the very spirit of God and heresy to the True Anglican Church."


Which would presumably make Nunnally and I bastards, what with Mother being the hundreth woman he chose to marry. Lelouch gave an internal shrug. Compared to everything else he had to worry about, possibly attainting himself as a bastard was far from the top of his list of concerns. If anything, the illegitimacy would be a slight but welcome degree of separation between himself and Nunnnally and That Man.


"Point the Third," Lelouch began, frowning slightly as he began writing the blatant and distasteful yet necessary falsehood, "the Britannians are beloved by God and are his chosen people, their royal line declared Defenders of the Faith by the Papacy before that institution fell into unrighteousness and European decadence.


"The Church is meant to serve the needs of that chosen people, and should be the first, last, and eternal refuge of every Britannian in need of succor and aid. That the state Church is overrun by thieves and embezzlers, con men and swindlers, whoremongers and slavers, is emblematic of the fall from grace and reflects the withdrawal of God's grace from the church who claims to act in His name.


"Point the Fourth-"


"Hello, Brother."


Swiveling around in his office chair, Lelouch smiled as his sister rolled through the doorway connecting his bedroom to the rest of their apartment. Beside her, the ever faithful Shinozaki Sayoko stood in the shadow of his little sister's chair, hands meekly folded over her white apron. To Lelouch's approval, the Japanese woman's eyes were active and roving the corners of his room, checking for assailants even here, in the heart of the Lamperouge siblings' private sanctuary.


Commendable in her diligence and ever faithful; what else could one ask for from a servant?


Ever faithful at least, so long as I remain in congruence with the interests of the Ashfords, thought Lelouch, chiding himself for the momentary lapse as he met the maid's restless eyes with a slight acknowledging nod before refocusing his attention on his sister. She was Milly's sworn servant first, after all, and her loyalty to Reuban in particular is obvious. So long as I keep the Ashfords close and tend to their interests, she should have no reason to betray Nunnally and I.


Although, at this point any plans on my part to intentionally betray the Ashfords may as well include gouging out my own eyes, for all the good they'll do me, Lelouch admitted. One way or another, I have bound my fate to their own, and it is entirely too late for me to think about double crossing them now.


Especially not when Milly has proven herself such a capable partner in… Rebellion? Revolution? Crime? Let's just say a capable partner and leave it at that.


"Good morning, Nunnally," Lelouch said, greeting his sister with a smile he knew she could hear in his voice. "How goes your morning? How was class?"


"Saying it was educational would be something of a stretch," his angelic little sister opined, her face twisting into a frown. "All anybody, Mrs. Swainn included, could talk about was the news from Area 10. All of the asides and exclamations from people looking at their phones made focusing on Chaucer quite difficult."


"Hmm… perhaps I should bring this up with Milly?" Lelouch muttered darkly, frowning in consternation at this report of poor performance from the staff. Tuition at Ashford was quite expensive and instructors were well compensated, so there really was no excuse. "No matter the distraction, such a performance is unacceptable.


"In fact," he turned to glance at the waiting maid, "Sayoko, would you mind finding Milly for me and asking if she would care to join us for lunch?"


"Certainly, Master Lelouch," the maid murmured, bowing low. The door closed behind her with a light click.


"No matter the distraction?" Nunnally asked, resuming the thread of their conversation as she leaned forward in her chair, her eyebrows elevated though the lids remained closed over her eyes. She was, Lelouch realized, clearly mimicking some inquisitorial authority, leaning forward to peer dubiously at a subject. I wonder if she is imitating some memory of Mother? "Tell me, Brother, have you turned on a TV today? I scarcely think distraction is the best word to describe the pandemonium."


"Oh, yes," he waved off her incredulity with a laugh, "I know what the distraction is, rest assured of that. Momentous or otherwise, it remains irrelevant to this circumstance. You deserve the best education money can buy, Nunnally. Something, I assure you, that Reuban and I have invested no small amount of money and resources into. If Britannia can't handle suffering its gravest defeat at the hands of a foreign enemy since the days of the Little Corporal, then perhaps they should stop sticking their hands into beehives, hmm?"


"Then surely you must already be scheming how best to exploit that great defeat, since you already know of it," Nunnally persisted, unwilling to be put off by his humor. "Come, Brother, out with it. What's going through your head?"


"Oh, very well." He truly could never deny his sister a thing. Besides, her interest in his thoughts was gratifying. Bringing her in on his plans had truly been a wise move.


Besides, Lelouch thought, feeling a worm of guilt squirming in his breast, Nunnally hates being left out, and I was going to tell her anyway, once I came to a decision… Perhaps she can assist me in choosing my next step.


"To say that the cock-up in Indochina is a significant development would be underselling matters. This is…" Lelouch sighed, leaning back in his chair as he tried to put his feelings into words,


"...unprecedented," he decided at last. "In the truest sense, at least in this century. Even during the Emblem of Blood, the Army and Navy had little trouble fighting against non-Britannian enemies despite laboring under at times conflicting orders and a fractured home front. Admittedly, the struggles in the North Atlantic and South Pacific played to the Navy's strengths and the attempted uprisings in South America were hilariously poorly organized for all their scope, so it was hardly a case of dire straits for the Armed Services.


"Regardless, the illusion of Britannian supremacy remained fully intact, even as the succession conflicts raged. This… Well, it isn't quite the Humiliation of Edinburgh again, but it might well be the closest thing to it."


I can only imagine the flurry of activity that must have ensued in Nanjing and Paris when the news arrived. I wonder if even the Eunuchs anticipated their field marshal's success? Perhaps the news came as great a surprise to them as it must have come to Schniezel. And speaking of Schniezel… What the hell was he doing, allowing something like this to happen? Was being a renowned politician not enough for him, so he chose to play his hand at generalship as well?


"Every enemy Britannia possesses will jump at this," Lelouch prophesied, closing his eyes and lifting his chin as he tried to imagine all of the dominoes across the world the defeat might send sprawling.


"While the forces lost are paltry compared to the full might of the Armed Services, the material element will matter less in the next few days than the perception of disarray in Britannia's projects. Besides," Lelouch continued, Nunnally almost forgotten as he allowed his mind the liberty to gallop down this tangent," the Armed Services and the Army in particular are already heavily committed: between Cornelia's expeditionary army in the Middle East, the struggle in Malacca and Malaysia, the garrisons across the Pacific Rim and the constant need to keep a sufficient home guard to keep the nobles in check…


"Well, the loss of an infantry corps and an armored brigade is a blow that cannot be shrugged off completely. Especially not here in Area 11, where Clovis is apparently in dire need for Knightmare pilots."


"You expect brother Clovis to be left incapable of action?" Nunnally inquired, Lelouch opening his eyes just in time to watch her head tilt inquisitively to the side. "He was already worried about his strength and if the units that could have reinforced him will be filling the holes left by Elphinstone's Column, well… dear brother Clovis was never the most audacious of men, was he?"


"Certainly not the most farsighted," Lelouch agreed, nodding his head as his thoughts turned to a blond boy who could never come close to measuring up to brothers his elder or junior. "When we played against one another, he tended to veer between overly aggressive maneuvers that cost him badly needed material and overly conservative defensiveness that cost him initiative and time. His time as viceregal-governor has been much of the same."


"Hmm…" Lelouch opened his eyes to watch as Nunnally raised a finger to her chin where she began to tap it thoughtfully against the corner of her mouth. "Poor, poor brother Clovis, so full of fear… Do you expect him to lash about wildly, or turtle up within his defenses, Brother?"


This from the girl who was enjoying the peaceful imagined beauty of birds building nests together not so long ago? A distant part of Lelouch noted. Is this new, or has she always been so… sharp?


"Both," Lelouch answered firmly, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. "First the one, then the other. I expect that he will be immediately terrified by the prospect of a seaborne Chinese invasion; it would be Clovis's worst case scenario, as he would be stuck defending Japan's Sakuradite reserves from an assault by a credible peer army and would bear full responsibility for the loss of those reserves. Assuming that the Chinese don't immediately attack across the Sea of Japan, which while a possibility I doubt will be their next move, he will attempt to demonstrate how unafraid he is by aggressively attacking any threat within reach."


"Since the Japanese will certainly be hearing the news, brother Clovis will likely have no shortage of threats to target," Nunnally noted. "And I assume, Brother, that will not be the end of his worries? I am not sure I fully agree with you about the Chinese not invading, by the way, but I'm willing to set that to the side for now."


"How kind of you," Lelouch drawled, smiling at his sister's "allowance" and the haughty way she had drawn herself up in her chair to deliver it.


"But yes," he continued, rubbing his hands together, loosening up the incipient cramp that had been just starting to trouble him when Nunnally had distracted him from his writing, "I anticipate a very busy few days for Clovis. For a start, Tokyo has a new bishop. Or, at least, a new man to wear the miter, though he's very much of a sort as the unlamented Fattest Man in Area Eleven was. Unsurprisingly, the Church appears just as stubborn as any true Britannian institution to learn from its mistakes."


"A new bishop?" Nunnally raised her eyebrows again, curious. "That's a curious first point to jump to when listing Clovis's woes. I would have suspected you would think first of the Japanese and their insurgents."


"They are also a factor, but I was thinking mostly of how we would be taking advantage of the situation," Lelouch explained, pointedly using the inclusive pronoun as he smiled fondly at his sister. He knew she couldn't see it, but he hoped she could hear it in his voice. "That was your question, wasn't it? What I was planning? Well, the new bishop is scarcely better than the last, and already there are mutterings from the Commons about him.


"Plenty of people downloaded and saw the evidence of institutional corruption we provided, and a promotion from within is hardly a sign of any change. And if Clovis is unwilling to provide change, the resulting discontent could mount rapidly. Especially if we help it out and continue to evangelize."


"How wonderful, Brother!" A sweet smile, innocently gleeful, happily spread across Nunnally's lips. "When will we be striking this new bishop down? Killing Pulst yielded significant dividends for your church, after all! Proving that you can replicate your achievement will surely undermine brother Clovis's Administration even more!"


Blinking, Lelouch started and shot a disbelieving glance at his sister, who smiled happily at him from where she sat in her plushly appointed wheelchair.


How quickly she jumps to murder! Lelouch marveled, shaking his head incredulously. That Man was such a fool, to throw her away just because she was "broken". If only he had been wise enough to see her for who she is…


"You are probably correct, dear sister," Lelouch agreed, settling back down, "but I am certain that both Clovis and the newly raised Bishop of Tokyo are equally aware of that particular threat. Security around the Cathedral and the Bishop's Palace will certainly have been tightened since Havelock's last visit. Besides, if the Church can replace a corrupt bishop with a successor indistinguishable from his predecessor in such a short time, taking another head seems a bit pointless. Instead, I was planning a strike against the body of the snake itself."


"The body?" Nunnally angled her head, looking almost avian in her scanning curiosity. Perhaps a hawk, ready to stoop. "Are you going to begin butchering the parish priests and their decadent deacons? They would certainly be easier targets, I suppose…"


"True," Lelouch agreed again, smothering the momentary pang of disquiet at just how fast his sister was to counter with yet more murder, "but I have similar thoughts about the lower ecclesiastical ranks as I do about their superior. No, the real way to strike a blow against both the money-making potential of the Church and against its authority as an institution is to destroy the Diocesian infrastructure. And by that, I mean burning down the churches."


"Ah!" Nunnally clapped once, her hands coming together in surprise. "I see! Yes, I think I see what you're getting at, Brother! The church is an institution and derives its authority from remaining a firm and immovable institution; if the people of the Tokyo Settlement see all of its properties reduced to ash, their faith in its authority will suffer, and likewise their faith in Clovis!"


"Just so," Lelouch smiled indulgently at his sister's enthusiasm. We can add arson to the list, then dear sister. "That's just about what I was thinking. Plus, since all of the Diocese's available funding was oh-so-recently donated to a range of charities, I imagine they might be facing a bit of a liquidity crisis. Coupled with a potential reduction in tithing from parishioners who just saw every church in Tokyo burn to the ground, the Church in Area 11 will have far more issues to worry itself about than assisting Clovis in stabilizing his regime."


"It will probably be easier to manage a coordinated wave of arsons than culling the priesthood." Nunnally nodded understandingly. "Very well, Brother, I approve of your plan. You may proceed."


"...Thank you, oh grand and glorious leader," Lelouch chuckled, miming a low seated bow. "Your humble subject rejoices in your approval."


"Ooh, rehearsing for the autumn production, Lulu?" Milly asked as she swept into the bedroom, Sayoko quietly closing the door behind her. "Hey there, Nunnally! Putting Lulu through his paces, are you?"


"It is of crucial importance that the pecking order be respected," Nunnally sniffed, lifting her nose into the air over a poorly concealed smile. "Thankfully, Brother is a good boy and knows who is really in charge around here."


"Of course I do," Lelouch said, turning not only his head to look at Milly but his swivel chair as well, so his sister would be sure to hear the noise of the move. "After all, she just arrived. Good morning, Madame President."


"Good morning, Lulu!" Milly replied happily over Nunnally's squawked outrage. "Gotta say, I'm a bit disappointed to find you two truants conspiring here… without me!"


"Well," Lelouch nodded to Sayoko, who slipped out of the room only to return a moment later pushing another chair into his bedroom, "I would say that you are free to join our conspiracy, but… Well, you already have. So why not sit down and help Nunnally and I figure out our next step?"


"My pleasure!" Milly beamed as she took her seat. "Thanks Sayoko! Tea, please?"


"Certainly, Mistress Millicent," Sayoko murmured, closing the door behind herself again.


"So," the Ashford heiress turned back to the Lamperouges, the smile remaining but firming up into something slightly more serious than her usual teasing expression, "what's the word, Lelouch, Nunnally?"


"Brother has opted to try his hand at iconoclasm," Nunnally brightly replied. "Or, I suppose that's the word for torching churches in particular? Arson is somewhat lacking as a description."


"We have not gotten very far," Lelouch clarified, shooting his sister a quelling look that he was certain she would pick up on somehow, blindness or not. "I was discussing with Nunnally what the next offensive operation should be, but that is honestly not the highest priority at the moment, though it might be the most time-sensitive. Strike while the iron is hot and all that."


"Makes sense," Milly nodded along. "So… Iconoclasm?"


"Burn down churches to diminish the institutional authority of the Church and to advertise the True Anglicans in the process by leaving notes claiming responsibility," Lelouch quickly elaborated, "but while that is certainly important, especially since it will destabilize Clovis in an already shaky juncture, I don't think I can reasonably call it the most important task before us.


"I think," he continued, glancing from his sister to his friend and back, "that the True Anglicans are at something of a juncture. Our numbers are growing rapidly, which is good, but our organization is entirely inadequate, which is not."


Two heads nodded in agreement.


"That is true," Nunnally hummed thoughtfully. "Save for yourself, your Brother Phillip, and Sister Jane over here," she gestured towards Milly, "your congregation is lacking in any form of leadership. Quite an impediment to action, and since your Church is comprised mostly of scattered cells of hidden worshippers, an impediment to a cohesive identity too."


"We also need to figure out something to do with new recruits, converts or whatever you want to call them," Milly noted, scratching at her chin. "We're getting a pretty nice trickle of newbies either finding their way to us or responding to one of our recruitment campaigns. Even the untargeted campaigns, just the pamphlets hidden in books and such, are meeting with solid success. Probably because of the whole 'just assassinated a bishop' thing."


"People always love a winner," Lelouch said, nodding along, "especially when it comes to matters of faith. Especially," he allowed himself a smile, "when the so-called man of God succumbs to a viper's bite."


"Yes, yes, you were very clever," Milly replied indulgently, "but since we don't really have a formalized instruction process or really anywhere to put these new arrivals, we haven't been using them to their full potential."


"Sergeant Coffin's militia aside," Lelouch noted. The converted noncom had taken to zealously waylaying any convert with military experience and all but press-ganging them into his rapidly growing militia. "But yes, I understand your concerns, Milly. I think that we can really break the whole problem of our new recruits down into three smaller issues: filtration, education, and organization."


Holding up three fingers, Lelouch began to expand on each. "Since we have been attempting to expand, we have made it easier to find the True Anglicans and to join us, which inevitably presents security concerns. We need to figure out how we can search out potential spies from the Holy Office or the Administration in our new converts." Lelouch lowered one finger.


"We also must devise an actual programme of beliefs, doctrines, and goals." Lelouch ticked off his second finger "Now, the old doctrine of the Church must, by necessity, make up the bulk of this programme, but we needn't be bound to it fully. Considering how my standing with the congregation now has more to do with the assassination of Lazaro Pulst and the pastoral care I have administered and less to do with Father Timothy's inherited mantle, we have some breathing room. We need to educate all of the existing congregation and the converts on this doctrine, once we've decided on what that doctrine will be.


"I have already made a start on this part," Lelouch gestured towards the partial manuscript on his desk, "but I would of course welcome both of your input.


"Finally, organization." The remaining two fingers folded and Lelouch settled back in his chair. "You were completely correct, Nunnally, about the issues disorganization will inevitably bring. Organization is clearly necessary. At least one officer, or deacon or whatever, for every cell seems like the bare minimum to me, along with specialist officers in charge of specific units, projects, or tasks."


"That's a lot of work, Lulu," Milly observed, and then paused as a knock came from the door.


"Your tea, ladies and gentlemen," announced Sayoko, her voice somewhat muffled by the door. "May I come in?"


Milly glanced to Lelouch, who nodded. "Yes," the Ashford heiress said, standing to open the door for the maid, "please come in, Sayoko."


As the Japanese maid and bodyguard arranged the tea service on Lelouch's hastily-cleared desk, a reflective silence fell over the room. That lingered as Sayoko poured the tea, wordlessly adding sugar and cream to Nunnally and Milly's cups as fit their preferences, and continued after the maid had bowed herself out of the room once more.


"Brother," Nunnally said, breaking the silence as she cradled her cup, "I believe it would be best if we each took a piece of the puzzle you have laid out before us to focus on. After all," she smiled, "there are three of us and three areas upon which to work. That's quite handy, isn't it?"


"So it is," Lelouch agreed, returning his sister's smile, certain that she was about to ask for something but happy to go along with her requests. "Do you have a preference, dear sister?"


"Filtration," came the immediate reply. "I have some… ideas, as to how we might potentially weed out the disloyal and undedicated. Give me some time to sort through them, and I believe you will have little to worry about."


"Alright," Lelouch nodded easily. "I have faith in your clever mind. I'm interested in seeing what sort of ideas and theories you come up with."


"Thank you, Brother!" Nunnally smiled sweetly up at him. "Is your faith in me sufficient to allow me to finally help you start handling the practical side as well? These would be my ideas, after all – I would very much like a chance to implement them."


"Ah," the words caught in his throat as Lelouch looked at his little sister once again. Her chair sat in a midday sunbeam, whose golden light caught the fine strands of her ash brown hair in a luminescent blaze that, with her delicate features and soft smile, was positively angelic. Once again, he was struck by just how overbearingly fragile she looked, as if she could be dropped to the floor like the china teacup she cradled and would shatter just the same.


But the hands cradling that teacup know the truth, his mind whispered back to him, recalling Nunnally's particular skill to him, and while her arms might be thin and her hands soft, there is some muscle on those arms and a few hard-won calluses on her palms, trophies of physical therapy exercises and the times she uses her manual wheelchair to move under her own power. She understands suffering and endurance. She is not weak.


And besides, Lelouch thought with amused discomfort, considering how enthusiastic she has grown in regards to murder and arson, I doubt that any spy she detected would understand just how much danger they stood in until it was far too late.


"I am not… opposed to handing the theory over to you," Lelouch began, "not in the slightest, in fact. I have confidence in your clever mind, Nunnally. But… I don't know if you will be able to help us put them into practice."


"You do not want me to place myself into danger and you wisely do not want to attract attention to us by bringing a herd of strangers onto Ashford grounds." Nunnally's voice was like a sword as it cut through his hemming and hawwing, steely and straight to the point. "Fine. These are understandable, if disappointing, objections. In that case, I would like you to bring Sayoko in on your plans, Brother, so that she may act as my aide in this matter."


"But then who would take care of you while I was away?" Lelouch protested, this time immediately finding the words. Nunnally's safety was, after all, the one point he would not concede. "It would be unsafe and irresponsible to leave you bereft of help, should something go wrong.


"I don't have any issue bringing Sayoko in on our plan, though," he added, deciding to offer his sister a small win. It was an easy thing to offer, since he had already been planning to do just such a thing at some point. "Perhaps in a similar capacity as yourself, as an advisor. Maybe more once I finish softening the congregation's views on Honoraries."


"And I don't suppose we can just hire another maid to make sure I don't escape my chair," Nunnally quipped acidly, but then frowned and sighed. "No, the vetting would take too long, and your finances are strained enough as is, Brother. I understand, it was a foolish idea. Fine, I will handle the theory for security and filtering, with Sayoko's input. I'm sure she'll be able to help; it seems close to her other competency."


"In that case," Milly slid back into the conversation now that peace between the Siblings Lamperouge reasserted itself, "I would like to handle the organization of the congregation. After all," and the teasing smile was back as she turned to Lelouch, "I believe that's the traditional remit of the minister's wife, isn't it, Leland?"


"I seem to remember something like that," Lelouch coughed, noticing how the frown on his sister's face had returned, and for a moment, deepened. "Talk with Phillip. I think that he knows pretty much everybody of the old congregation on some level. His recommendations could work as a short-list for deacons. Although, it might be to our benefit if the cells nominate their own deacons, just so we can be sure they'll choose leaders they'll be happy to follow."


"That's pretty much what I was thinking!" Milly said with a smile and a clap. "It's just like organizing the organization for one of the festivals! Throw a bunch of people into a committee here, set up another committee over there, and then ride herd on the personality conflicts while everybody else handles all the real work!"


"Management is real work too, Milly," Nunnally noted in a mildly reproving tone, but Lelouch relaxed. Whatever bad mood had briefly manifested on his sister's face seemed to have already passed. "Just ask Brother! Sometimes he spends whole days just 'managing' Student Council affairs. Surely whatever he is doing in that time wouldn't be anything like slacking!"


"Hey now," Lelouch protested at Milly's reproving glare. "I was providing crucial management and oversight. Very important, very crucial."


Lelouch's meager defense earned him the light smack of Milly thwacking him across the shoulders with a rolled up magazine.


"Anyway," he continued, impervious to his sister's giggling and Milly's ineffectual blows, "I suppose that actually coming up with a doctrine will be left to me, as well as a way of passing it onto our church."


"And don't forget the church burnings!" Nunnally hastened to remind him. "The State Church won't just collapse itself, Brother! It is important to be proactive towards the accomplishment of your goals!"


…Something feels off about her enthusiasm. Now, what could it be?


"I agree completely, Nunnally," Lelouch said aloud, smiling indulgently as he considered his little sister. Setting the topics of her suggestions aside, the vehemence of her insistence was decidedly unusual. She almost seemed desperate… "It is of course important to maintain pressure."


Does she worry that I will not listen to her unless she advocates the most extreme options available? If so, it was a pointless concern.


Lelouch would always have time for his little sister.


"Now," he turned to Milly, "I recall you saying that you had a few ideas regarding new outreach opportunities. Let's discuss those before we dive into the organizational framework…"


As the conversation continued and ideas traded back and forth slowly coalesced into something approaching policy, Lelouch's focus kept straying to his sister, and to the weight that still shadowed his back.


Don't worry, Nunnally, he thought, renewing his old vow. I will never leave you. I will keep you safe, no matter what.

---

Several hours later, Milly declared that she needed a break and dragged Lelouch outside into the mid-afternoon sun, demanding a walk.


"Enjoy your stroll, Brother!" Nunnally had called after the two of them, doing nothing to save Lelouch from a blonde brimming with pent-up energy.


"Yeah, c'mon Lulu!" Milly encouraged, though the way her lips twitched made Lelouch suspect there was a joke here that he wasn't party to. That or his sister and friend were scheming against him, which was entirely plausible. "Exercise is key to mental health, you know!"


He'd only grumbled a bit as he gave in. It wasn't like spending time with Milly was a particularly onerous burden, after all.


At least as long as she didn't start trying to organize an impromptu party.


The stream of light chatter continued until the door of the Student Council Clubhouse closed behind them.


"Whew!" Milly sighed, and then to Lelouch's alarm sagged against one of the columns of the facade. "Lulu… your sister's getting kinda… scary."


"That's…" Lelouch hesitated, not quite able to to say that the Ashford heiress's feelings were ridiculous. Mostly because, as disinclined as he generally was to criticize his sister, he thought Milly might have a point.


"She is just happy to have a way to help," he said at last. "You know how much she hates being left out. She just wants to make sure she will remain involved."


"I know," Milly acknowledged, her voice serious. "That doesn't make her any less scary. Remember, Lelouch, we're talking about people's lives here. It's not a game."


Alexander lowered into the ground, nine dripping hides serving as his burial shroud. A much younger Nunnally staring up at him with wide eyes, her hands shaking as they reach out for him from below the pinning weight of their mother's crumpled form. A city of the dead in the heat of summer, swollen hands stretching out for help from under shattered concrete.


"I… know that, Milly," he said, and pretended he didn't hear the momentary waver in his own voice. "Nunnally knows that too."


"Yeah…?"Milly peered into his face, then nodded. "Yeah, guess you do."


Uncomfortable under the sudden scrutiny and desperate to not think about True Anglicans, empires, or That Man, Lelouch changed topics to the first subject he could think of. "How did the swim meet turn out? Shirley took the gold again, I bet."


Milly arched an eyebrow at the non sequitur, but, clearly picking up on his discomfort, played along. "As a matter of fact, she did. Freestyle, back, and breast stroke, our cutiepie treasurer swept them all!"


"It is entirely possible to mention that style of swimming without the lascivious intonation," Lelouch said chidingly, but smiled in silent thanks for Milly's return to form. "Point of fact, I know you are fully capable of saying that name without sounding disreputable. I've heard you say it before."


"But where's the fun in that~?" came the blonde's rhetorical reply. "You should congratulate her, Lelouch. Seriously. When was the last time you talked to her, huh?"


"Just last Thursday," Lelouch answered quickly, figuratively sweating under Milly's suddenly gimlet-eyed stare. "I had to get her to approve the club budget for the next quarter."


"I meant, when was the last time you spoke to her outside of a council meeting or class?" Milly pressed, unmollified. "For that matter, when did you last hang out with Rivalz? I know you haven't been gambling much lately, but surely you can do something else together."


"I… I've been busy…" Lelouch replied, squirming under the silent yet unrelenting pressure radiating from his co-conspirator. "I… I'll talk to him."


"What a good idea!" Milly declared brightly, the pressure vanishing like dew in sunlight. "He's a good friend. You should pay attention to your friends, Lulu! If you get too sucked down into work, you'll be gray by thirty, and, while I bet you could pull off the silver fox look, might wanna put that off for a few decades."


"I already said I'd talk to him," Lelouch grumbled, "I don't know what else you could ask for."


"Consider bringing him in," Milly replied bluntly, serious again as she caught his eye. "And before you shut me down by saying you'll think about it and then not doing anything, I'll just tell you that he's been feeling at loose ends lately, since the Honorary assistance efforts shut down and Kallen left on that trip with her dad. If you want to encourage the church to soften towards Honoraries, he could be a huge help."


"I'll think about it," Lelouch replied, and then raised a hand to ward off Milly's skeptical expression. "Really, I will. The prospect of involving another Ashford student concerns me, but you do make a solid point."


I also very much doubt that Rivalz would thank me for inviting him into the church on the eve of our launching a campaign of terrorism through arson and assassination. No matter how disgruntled with the system he is, he isn't a killer.


On the other hand, who would have guessed Milly Ashford would have volunteered to join a murderous conspiracy? Hidden depths…


"Alright," Milly nodded, accepting his answer. "Well, with all that out of the way…" she waved a hand towards the verdant grounds stretching out all around them and offering her other arm to him, "I believe you're still under orders to enjoy a stroll, Lulu!"


"Far be it from me to defy that command," he replied, words wry but with a smile tugging at his lips as he linked his arm around Milly's own, his hand ghosting across the top of hers. "Lay on then, Lady Ashford!"


AUGUST 11, 2016 ATB
OLD BENJY'S PUBLIC HOUSE, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1630


During the early morning hours of darkness on the occasions that forced the Agent to work all-nighters, when moods fae and fanciful overtook him as lack of sleep took its toll, he sometimes imagined himself as a terrier. A rattie, perhaps, small in the greater scheme of things but indefatigable once set upon his query's scent, with paws darting quick and skillfully as they plunged into the dirt, digging down to find the rat his nose told him lurked below.


And oh, how he and his cell-mates had dug over the last fortnight!


"Franklin," a professional woman in her late forties said in curt greeting, sliding into the unoccupied bench across from him in the booth. "You look like shit. When did you get to bed last night?"


"Bed?" the Agent whose name was not Franklin raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, and took a long and pointed sip from his mug of black coffee. His fourth in the last two hours. "What a strange concept, Mrs. Wilbur. How's the mister doing?"


"He looks like shit too," the woman who was not married bluntly replied, giving the grimy menu a desultory once over. "I haven't been here before; what would you say isn't completely terrible?"


"I'd say the Pitt Pot Pie," the Agent replied with a pleasant smile whose apparent guilelessness immediately inflamed his conversational partner's suspicions.


"You would, would you?" she peered at him, the bags under her eyes a match for his own save for the concealer. "You'd recommend it, then?"


"Oh, never," the Agent demurred. "You just asked what I would say isn't completely terrible; I happen to enjoy the alliteration."


Happily, he took another sip of coffee. "So," he continued after a moment, "did Joe manage to schedule an appointment? You know, for the…" he trailed off suggestively, as if delicately avoiding any mention of a particularly embarrassing medical condition.


"Yes, yes, I know," the woman known at times as Mrs. Wilbur snapped, opening her voluminous purse and jerking a stained envelope out. "It took some doing and he needs you to sign off on the schedule. Here," she withdrew a folded packet out of the envelope and thrust it into the Agent's unoccupied hand, along with a somewhat fancy ballpoint. "Just need you to sign on pages two and four, and initial on the last."


"Oh my," the man who some documents claimed had a cousin named Joseph Wilbur said aloud, seeming to pour over the frankly exorbitant loan schedule detailed on the sheets. "I see Christmas isn't coming this year, is it now? Fine, fine," he waved placatingly at the stony woman sitting across from him, as if she'd begun a scolding reply, "never let it be said that I don't take care of family. Here…" the pen moved, "and here… and there you go."


"Thanks," the person who was possibly in their late forties, and also probably a woman, grunted, stuffing the signed papers back into their envelope and the envelope back into her purse. "I'd stick around, but…" she looked around the mostly empty pub, "the atmosphere here is terrible. Tah!"


After the other person left, the man they had called Franklin remained for some time, nursing the steadily cooling cup of coffee as he tried to navigate a rapidly growing digital serpent across the minute screen of his phone. The elegant pen, resting half under the crumpled napkin he had "accidentally" pushed it under while handing the papers back, was inches from his hand but seemed forgotten.


Another cup of coffee and three more games of Snake later, the Agent stood, hand slipping to the pocket of his trousers as he fumbled in his wallet for a few notes, and left the pub.


"Nasty place," he muttered as he strolled along the garbage strewn expanse of 39th Street, hands jammed firmly into his pockets. On the very border of Arcology #3, where almost a tenth of the entire commoner population of Tokyo was housed, 39th was a far cry from the shining boulevards of the Concession above their heads. "Now…"


His hand reemerged from his pocket, the false wooden shell of the very ordinary disposable pen wrapped in his palm. A quick twist and the panels split down the middle, revealing a slip of rice paper scrolled tightly around the tube where the real pen had rested.


Without breaking stride, the secret Leveller quickly skimmed over the note, committing the list of numbers, bracketed in sets of three and separated by comma, and the single column of letters, A to J, to memory. Message received, he pretended to cough and popped the scrap into his mouth, gulping the rapidly softening paper down. One half of the shell went into a storm drain, the other into a burnable trash bin a block away.


Back in his humble apartment in a much nicer quarter of the Settlement, the Agent retrieved a dogeared mass market paperback copy of Hobbes' Leviathan from his shelf along with a pad of paper and set to work.


Ten minutes later, the man whose sobriquet for the day referenced the supposed founder of his hidden order leaned back to read his society brother's report.


"Target location confirmed. Medical research activity confirmed; vivisection observed after organ implant. Objective remains unclear. Next report at…"


Well, the Agent thought, tearing out the used sheet from the notepad as well as several other sheets below it, that explains His Ineptitude's fervency to keep this out of the public eye. Why he is concealing his research from the remainder of his Administration is unexplained, though, as is the goal for all of this.


The report was frustratingly lacking in detail, but it was still cause enough for the Agent to claim a personal sense of triumph. Once again, his senses had proven true. The rat still eluded him, but he was unphased. No matter how many layers of dirt and filth the rat spread to cover his tracks, the Agent and his fellow terriers would drag him out onto Level ground.


And then, just like Charles so long ago, his neck will be bared for the chop.

 

[Scopas]

(As a birthday gift to myself, I finally wrote a chapter. A big thank you to Sunny and MetalDragon for their editing and encouragement. Thank you also to 0th Law, Aminta Defender, and KoreanWriter.)


AUGUST 15, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
0430


Before my eyes had snapped fully open in the early morning darkness, I was already on my feet, pistol in hand and my thumb on the safety.


From across the narrow studio room, one of the three cheap cell phones lined up on Ohgi's old cot buzzed again. Its diode flashed a bright red.


Relaxing marginally, thumb creeping away from the safety, I crawled to the bed, looked down, and resisted the urge to spin up my enhancement suite. I did not need magic for everything, certainly not for just examining the contents of my own room.


Besides, just the thought of using magic made something deep in my chest ache with fatigue.


Let's see… It's not Diethard's phone… Not Naoto and Ohgi's phone…


I swallowed hard as the third phone lit up once again.


I had only given one person the number for that particular burner phone.


Kaguya.


"What cookies did I serve when we first met?" I demanded of the faintly buzzing line, phone tucked up against my ear.


My pistol was still firmly in hand, just in case.


"Chocolate chip cookies!" the voice on the other end replied in a familiar Kyoto-ben. "The cheap good kind!"


Relaxing, I put the pistol down on Ohgi's cot and sank back down onto Naoto's. Chocolate chip could have been anybody's guess, but only somebody with the atrocious sense of taste that appeared to characterize the nobility of all societies would have deemed the cookies I had served at that meeting "good".


"Hello, Lady Kaguya," I greeted in Japanese, putting some warmth into my voice, trying not to sound like I had just been forced awake by the call. "How may I help you this morning?"


"Ah…" Kaguya breathed, the line going silent for a minute. I heard slow, breezy sounds; inhales and exhales.


Trying to calm herself down, I guessed. She's nervous.


Brace for the worst.


"So…" Kaguya began again, speaking at last, just as I was starting to wonder if she had gone to sleep, "remember how, when you said 'revere the Emperor' at our first meeting, I said that was probably me…?"


"Yes," I replied without hesitation, remembering exactly how that flippant response had provoked immediate consternation. "I do remember you saying something along those lines."


"Well…" More breathing. "Well… That's changed."


Two can play this game, I thought, hands clenching on each other as I took in a deep breath. I need to be awake for this.


"Tanya?" Kaguya asked, her voice worried. "Did you just… groan? Are you alright?"


"Fine, Lady Kaguya. Just fine," I replied shortly, unclenching my teeth as directed mana flowed through my brain, stimulating me to full, forced wakefulness. "What has changed, if I may be so bold as to inquire?"


"...My coronation was two days ago," she replied unhappily. "So… 'probably' doesn't really apply anymore."


"I… see," I said, speaking slowly as my mind blurred.


We have an empress now? What does that matter? We aren't even a sovereign country anymore!


No, I told myself, taking hold of my racing thoughts and pushing away the clamor. Think. Why does it matter? Are you Japanese, or are you Eleven?


Deep breaths. One, two, three.


Why did it matter? Think, we don't just need men and material to win this war, we need morale. We need symbols to rally our spirit behind. Symbols like the old office of the Emperor. An office abolished by the old oligarchs who founded the defunct Republic. The oligarchs who failed us.


The oligarchs are gone now, or will be soon. And now we have a monarch once again.


"Your Imperial Majesty," I said, scrambling to remember lessons long, long ago, in the childhood of a life two deaths removed from the present. "May your rule last forever."


"Please don't," came the unhappy reply. "Not from you… And not before you hear why I called."


And now the hammer falls, I thought, absurdly calm as something under my breastbone screamed in panic and pain. We have an emperor… No, an empress. The sun is truly rising.


Rising far too early.


"I take it that this is not a social call, then," I replied, striving for equanimity. "I can't say I thought it was."


"It is not," Kaguya confirmed, and took another breath. When she spoke again, her voice was resolute. "I call upon you to fulfill the deal we struck. Loyal service for loyal support."


"Our deal stands," I affirmed, my tongue heavy in my mouth. Around me, I could feel Shinjuku like a smothering blanket, enfolding me in the arms of hundreds and thousands. "Your food has fed thousands, your weapons have armed hundreds, your medicine has kept us healthy. What are you asking for, Your Majesty?"


There is no escape.


"To steal a line, the pebbles have voted for an attack on Britannia," Kaguya said, her own voice rich with stress and, behind its superficial brightness, clotted with despair. "They even voted for their own figurehead in yours truly. I tried to discourage them, believe me… I tried to convince them that it was all too rash, but…" she sighed again. "But, in the end, I guess I was just a girl before I was an empress."


"I had that problem too," I replied, and winced as I heard the snap in my own voice. "But," I continued, more conciliatory, "I suppose having a line of rifles pointed at their heads will make even the most thick-skulled old greybeard change their mind."


"I suppose so," Kaguya husked a laugh. "I could have perhaps used a few of those… But that water has gone well past the bridge now."


"...You have called in your marker to demand that I join in this mass suicide." It was a statement, not a question.


Already, I could see the howitzers lifting their long black arms up into the sky.


"Yes…" Kaguya admitted, "and no…"


"And no?" Suddenly, my heart was in my mouth. Had she found some way out of this trap, this country-wide trap?


Damn you, I cursed the girl, remembering dancing green eyes flecked with gold. How dare you inflict hope upon me, you vicious bitch?


"It turns out that becoming an empress, even a puppet empress, comes with some benefits. 'Rank has its privileges,' as you might say," Kaguya said with a dry little chuckle. "Not very many, certainly not as many as I might claim were I to have an actual crown or control over even a single plot of truly sovereign land, but a bit. Enough to make some alterations to the original plan. Alterations that will require some of those rifles you mentioned earlier, and trustworthy soldiers to wield them."


"Tell me what you need," I demanded, trying to keep the desperation from my voice. And doing my best to ignore the suspicion that the meat I was biting at concealed a truly massive barb. "What is the plan? What are your orders?"


"The Rising will happen," Kaguya affirmed, "a coordinated strike at Settlements, military bases, and Britannian enclaves great and small across the country. That much is out of my hands to stop. But in the first hours of the Rising, before anybody in the Administration truly understands the scope and the organization involved in our effort, a special unit will enter the Fuji Mining Complex, concealed within trucks with Sumeragi Industries livery. This unit will consist of a squad picked from the JLF's Knightmare Corps, along with as many of your best as you can give me.


"This unit," Kaguya bleakly continued, no enthusiasm in her voice, "will first take control of the Mining Complex, allowing the remainder of Colonel Tohdoh's command to enter the Complex. Next, they will plant explosive charges at a number of key locations throughout the mine according to the direction of my experts. Finally, they will hold the Complex against any attempt by Britannian forces to retake the mines.


"And should all else fail, every officer and sergeant of the unit will have the detonation codes for the charges. The detonation of even one will be sufficient to initiate a chain of sympathetic explosions throughout the length and breadth of the Sakuradite veins that make up the Fuji Lode."


And here we are again, staring into the jaws of a suicide pact, just like the old men. I could see the bleak humor in it, though I wouldn't be laughing. Only three days ago, I had made myself a dictator out of the sincere desire to maintain all that I had built, despite efforts from within to overturn all that I had labored towards on a single throw of the dice. But unlike Nishizumi, Kaguya has proven herself a reliable partner. Which means diplomacy might have a chance.


"...And then what?" I asked, breaking the pause that had grown tumorlike across the line's dead air. "If all goes according to plan, you will have put, at the very least, the entirety of the Home Islands into a massive hostage situation. I assume you have some ideas for the negotiations to follow?"


"I have a few," Kaguya acknowledged, with a sort of giggling snort utterly lacking in humor. "While I'd love to just insist that the Britannians leave, I don't think that will happen for a whole range of options. Instead, I think the best achievable solution would be a sort of return to the pre-war arrangement, where we pay Britannia to stay away with our Sakuradite."


"It has merit," I grudgingly admitted. "Leaving aside the Britannian hunger for conquest, the only thing they really need from us is our Sakuradite."


But what is it that we really need? We would effectively be purchasing protectorate status from the Britannians in place of direct rule; we still would not be free, as we would forever labor under the hanging sword of Britannia, always keenly aware that, should the exports stop, the Britannians would return. And when the rest of the world languishes under the Britannian heel, conquered by war machines powered by Japanese Sakuradite, what then?


And besides, a darker, less reasoning voice added up, what about the shattered cities and squandered lives? The destruction and theft of cultural treasures, the devastation of infrastructure, and the enslavement and export of tens of thousands? What about the callous cruelty, all of our dead sent to landfills with the trash?


Where in a peace purchased with our scarce remaining natural resources can we find our revenge?


And… and even that fragile bridge towards peace was founded on the assumption that the Brittanians would allow such an affront as an Area overthrowing its overlords. Would their pride let them give up the mines? Even if they still exact their tribute, the loss would doubtless stick in their craws. Their supreme yet glass-jawed superiority could force their hands and prompt another attack, an effort to call the "Craven Eleven Bluff," and then we'd be forced in turn to make good on our threat.


And let the world burn.


"I have a suggestion," I said, breaking the renewed conversational pause. "Will you hear me out?"


"Absolutely," Kaguya immediately replied. "You're the one who knows about this kind of thing, after all."


I am? Whatever gave her that impression?


"A threat only has teeth so long as the willingness to execute exists," I began, laying the first bricks of my argument on a bed of conventional wisdom. "I am not convinced that men and women fighting for the safety of their families and the freedom of their home would be willing to push the button destroying everything that they love when the moment comes. I am not questioning their bravery nor their dedication, mind; I am simply stating that, when the cost of something you love is everything else that you hold dear, hesitation is only to be expected."


All of which can just as well be applied to you or, indeed, to me, I reflected, alone in my dark room save for the phone's weak light. If push comes to shove, Kaguya, would you be willing to kill our entire nation in a final act of spite?


Would I?


But if she'll listen…


"We can find somebody," Kaguya said, grimly certain. "There is no shortage of people without any families left, after all…"


"Certainly," I agreed, "and do you want any of those people to wield life and death over your head?" The answer was obvious, so I didn't bother waiting for it. "Instead, consider this: We do not need to destroy the Sakuradite, we simply need to render it unusable for the Britannians."


"...True," Kaguya admitted, mulling the idea over. "But anything short of destroying the Sakuradite veins only means that the Britannians lose access to the lode for a limited period. Assuming we lose, of course."


"Which we would, given unlimited time and no other constraints on the Britannians' freedom of action," I conceded, "but that is very much not the case. Consider the current state of affairs beyond our borders, Kaguya: Cornelia, the Witch of Britannia, is deeply enmeshed in a campaign intended to conquer a territory stretching from the Nile to Anatolia to the Caspian Sea; the campaign to complete the conquest of Malaya is stretching into its second year; Indochina, a secondary theater, has roared back to life with the annihilation of a Britannian field army, and every single one of the New Areas is awash with rebellion.


"In short," I concluded, "Britannia is fighting a multi-front war of global proportions."


And I know from personal experience just how even the strongest of Empires can crack under the grinding stress of maintaining armies on multiple fronts. More importantly, I know exactly how ruinously expensive it is to fight a war on every front, and how thin the operational margins can be.


While Kayuga was the princess-in-waiting of Kyoto House and has become the first Empress of Japan in centuries, I learned the art of logistics from a civilization of masters. It wouldn't take a Lergen to note how many steps it takes to convert raw ore into military materiel, nor to realize that each step represented a vulnerability in the great and hungry machine that is an imperial war apparatus.


"Moreover," I continued, emboldened by the thoughtful silence on the other end of the phone line, "the Britannians are also trying to maintain a hold over two continents' worth of people while patrolling the breadth of two oceans. All of this, only a few decades after a three decade long succession war between claimants to the throne. So far, the Britannians have managed to exploit their technological prowess to manage these almost impossible achievements, most especially in their rapid development and deployment of the Knightmare Frame.


"And that is where their weakness lies. They need the Knightmares now – who can imagine a Britannia without them? But Knightmares need Sakuradite, lots of it in a constant flow. Without it, new Knightmares cannot be constructed nor can existing Knightmares or a dozen-dozen other technological wonders be powered.


"And you, my Empress, are set to control the flow of Sakuradite," I said, increasingly certain that I had stumbled onto something that could answer at least one of my private questions, "If we play our cards well, their entire Empire will be dealt a body blow.


"I asked you how long we need to hold the hostage earlier, but that was the wrong question, Lady Kaguya.


"The real question is, how long can the addict, or an empire of addicts, endure without their fix?"

---

AUGUST 16, 2016 ATB
"THE SCHOOL" TRAINING FACILITY, GUNMA PREFECTURE
1700


The circle of seated officers and instructors remained silent as Masayoshi, a pale man who Ohgi recalled hailed from somewhere up north near Akita, poured out the sake. Masayoshi had been elected by his fellow trainees as the commander of their training cohort, the man charged with maintaining the discipline and health of his fellows throughout the course of their training, mediating between instructors and trainees when necessary and advocating for his cohort's interests if and when conflicts arose.


The post of cohort commander had been Ohgi's idea, and he was quite proud of it. It wasn't exactly innovative, just a reinterpretation of the class representative concept so familiar from his pre-Conquest days as a teacher. What was important to him was that it had been his idea to implement it for the incoming cohorts. It was a small contribution, but it was his contribution as a teacher to the Cause. It was another opportunity to resurrect the man he had once been, and Ohgi always treasured such chances.


Giving the trainees some say in who led them certainly wasn't standard for an official military, but for an organization that operated just as much on force of personality as it did organizational structure…


In such situations, I know I would certainly want a say in who I followed, Ohgi thought, and glanced wistfully over at his old buddy, his friend since high school. Hell, I guess I had my say, back when this all began.


The tray of tiny ceramic cups, barely large enough to contain a mouthful each, went round the circle, and each man or woman present took one, even the non-drinkers.


Then, as Masayoshi took his place in the circle, joining his fellow officers on the ring of pillows, Naoto rose to his feet.


"Thank you all for coming."


The half-Britannian's voice was pitched low and still, almost quiet in the room's thick air; Ohgi felt it pass over him like a wave as Naoto glanced around the circle, seemingly catching everybody's eyes with his own in a silent acknowledgment, his easy charisma pulling his audience under his sway.


Kozuki Naoto drew their attention as naturally as a lodestone drew fillings, and held it just as firmly.


"I will not take much time," Naoto continued, injecting his seriousness with just enough humor to be personable without entering into overfamiliarity. "I know that you all are very busy training our fellow soldiers in the skills our struggle requires. I have heard much about your efforts from Commander Kaname and Major Onoda: Thank you, all of you, for your hard work."


Each looked down into their cups. Something about his tone, something about his inflection… It was enough to send anticipation rippling through the stuffy room. Even Ohgi couldn't resist leaning in just a bit, eager to hear what he already knew Naoto had to say.


"The time has come."


A simple announcement. Nobody needed to ask "for what?"


They all knew.


"Word has come down to us," Naoto explained, somehow managing that same inexplicable orator's trick again, where every person in attendance felt like he was the only one in the room, "from the High Command of the Japan Liberation Front, through Major Onoda, from communications with our allies stretched all across Honshu, and from the mouth of Her Imperial Majesty herself, as relayed to us by Commander Hajime."


An empress, crowned again…


Ohgi felt his heart quicken despite himself. He placed no stock in the old stories of blessed bloodlines descended from the gods, nor did he particularly care for monarchy in general. He was old enough to remember hearing about the last gasps of the Emblem of Blood in the nightly news, and his professors at university had drawn from the plentiful examples provided by the Britannians of the dangers of hereditary rule in their lessons, usually in the service of supporting the Republic of Japan's own government.


And yet, to have a member of the House of Yamato enthroned once again…


"What lies before us will be neither easy nor painless," Naoto said, relentlessly pressing on, but his grim words somehow did nothing to dent the anticipation Ohgi could see on every face in the room, even on the typically blank visage of Major Onoda. "Our enemy is technologically superior, backed by the largest empire on the face of the planet, and incomparably ruthless.


"Many of us will die before Britannia is driven from our shores."


Even that did nothing to suppress the quietly mounting enthusiasm. With a pang, Ohgi realized that, except for Major Onoda, he and Naoto were the oldest people in the room. Everybody else, the training cadre he and Onoda had assembled from by picking out the best from the previous training cohorts as well as the junior officers representing the cohorts currently passing through The School in this meeting, ranged from their late teens to their mid-twenties.


When did we become the old men in the room?


"I tell you this not to frighten you," Naoto continued, "but to reassure you: By the time Britannia is forced from our blessed land, you could be dead, your friends could be dead. I could be dead. And so, I say to you all… consider yourselves already dead.


"Lay down your life now, not in the hopes that you shall one day pick it back up, but certain in the knowledge that your sacrifice will buy our nation the peace and harmony under Her Imperial Majesty's benevolent hand to mend the scars of the last six years. Fight now, that your children will know freedom and your grandchildren will live to enjoy the peace we purchase with our blood!


"Soldiers, not more than a month from now, I shall not ask you to fight, but rather to die! To die, and to drag Britannians and the lackeys of Britannians with you to the afterlife! With the blessings of the Gods, we will have our homes again!"


And so, Ohgi thought, freeing himself from the spell of his old friend's words just enough to glance around the circle of awestruck listeners, we mortgage our future in the hope of purchasing a present to amend the evils of the past. These young men and women… these children… are our best and our brightest, the minds and the hearts we will need to build a new Japan… And yet, we call upon them to be the kindling for the blaze.


Recriminations later, he told himself firmly, hardening his heart. For you have a part to play in this needful monstrosity still; after all, who better than a teacher to seal the students' sacrifice?


On cue, Ohgi rose to his feet, his tiny cup of saki lifted high in his outstretched arm. His students eagerly rose up with him, radiant faces turning to follow his motions still bright with the fire Naoto had stoked in their hearts. Swiveling on his heels, his own heart heavy, Ohgi guided them in facing the Japanese flag hanging on the wall, the old Rising Sun. "To Japan!" Then, turning back to his oldest and best friend, he cheered, "To Commander Kozuki and the Kozuki Organization! Victory or death!"


"Victory or death!" chorused the young men and women, zealotry burning in their eyes under Onoda's approving glow, the hierophant overseeing this voluntary burnt offering.


"Banzai!"


Half an hour later, Ohgi, Naoto, and Onoda reconvened in Ohgi's private study, off-limits to all but the room's occupants and a chosen few of the training cadre, leaving all of the trainees not currently on sentry duty to enjoy an evening of freedom and carousing as news of the meeting rippled out from the attendees across the cohorts.


Behind the closed door, the earlier fervent cheering was entirely absent, although the saki was still very much in attendance.


"Gentlemen," Onoda Hiroo drawled, his normal formality all but absent as a ruddy glow suffused his cheeks, "I could not have said this honestly when first we met…" his gaze flickered briefly to Naoto's crimson hair, "but it has been a pleasure to work with you. After so many solo assignments, I had…"


He trailed off awkwardly, clearly uncomfortable with that level of emotional honesty even in the depths of his cups. Ever the diplomat, Naoto sprang forwards to relieve the JLF officer from his embarrassment.


"It has been an honor working with you as well, Hiroo," the half-Britannian said with a cheery sincerity that Ohgi would have believed, had he not known from numerous private conversations exactly how Naoto felt about the man who had so grievously insulted Tanya in their first meeting and who had done so much to complicate the process of acquiring material support from the JLF. "You've already finished your packing, I take it? No need to hunt down loose socks come the morning, eh?"


"There was very little to pack," Onoda observed, nodding to himself with absurd solemnity. "Never own enough to require more than a backpack to carry your life away."


"Some more?" Ohgi offered, gesturing with the bottle and allowing the drunken mumblings to pass without comment. Come this time tomorrow, Major Onoda would be hours away, much to Ohgi's relief.


While he had come to form a strong working relationship with the seasoned commando, he had never warmed to the bastard. His insistence on iron-handed strictness and his preference for corporal discipline were both contrary to Ohgi's beliefs as an educator and his understanding of his role in an army comprised solely of volunteers.


And, Ohgi added, gazing with near-unconcealed contempt at the alcohol-befuddled Major for a moment before bending over to pour, I will never extend more than the degree of respect absolutely necessary to any man who refuses to extend so much as that bare courtesy to Tanya.


"Thank you, but no," Onoda declined, not without clear regret. "My head will be fat enough in the morning…"


"Drink some water and curse Colonel Kusakabe for the emergency recall," Naoto advised, and it was a mark of how far Onoda had unbent over the course of their working relationship, or perhaps a sign of how drunk the JLF officer currently was, that he smiled at the slight towards his commander.


"I have plenty of reasons to be unhappy with Colonel Kusakabe," Major Onoda admitted, and Ohgi had to scramble to keep the easy-going smile locked on his face as Onoda casually ejected a months-long habit of only mentioning his commander in the most glowing terms.


"Oh yes," Onoda continued, apparently without noticing the slip, "many reasons indeed. I think he fears me, the fool…" he snorted, and then hiccuped, swaying slightly on his chair.


Naoto and Ohgi exchanged a glance over the desk.


"Major," Naoto began, personable smile almost glowing with friendly interest. "We've heard quite a bit about Colonel Kusakabe from you, but… honestly, it sounds almost like you and the rest of his officers are the ones really doing the hard work of advancing the Day of Liberation. I mean," Naoto spread his hands wide, miming shock, "we all hear so much about how his 3rd Division is the only active unit of the JLF, but outside of the mountains, we've only ever seen you."


"Heh!" Onoda shook his head, a pleased smirk crinkling cheeks red with drink. "Halfbreed or not, you're damned smart, Kozuki. Although, no particular intelligence is necessary to see the obvious, I suppose. Why do you think Kusakabe fears me, like I said? It's because he knows he owes me, and the likes of me, all of the credit he's hogged for himself and he's terrified we'll take it out of his hide. Why do you think I've been assigned one long-term away assignment after another?"


"Ah, well," Naoto feigned embarrassed surprise, scratching the back of his head in a deliberately artless gesture calculated to evoke boyish charm. "I figured it was mostly a matter of your training at the Nakano School, not to mention your time in Hanoi…"


"Yes, well," Onoda preened for a moment, "that was the on-the-books reasoning. Kusakabe would have been an even bigger fool than he already is to not put my skills to use! But after a certain point…"


The major shrugged. "Well, what does an incompetent braggart of a boss fear more than gekokujo? And you know the saying, 'the guilty man suspects everybody of his crime?' Well…" he tapped his nose meaningfully. "I will just say that General Katase had better be keeping an eye open when he sleeps, if he knows what's good for him. He is a very old man, though… He should have retired years ago."


Well now, Ohgi thought as he casually refilled his and Naoto's sake cups with water, and then unobtrusively filled Onoda's cup with more rice wine. Doesn't that just inspire confidence in our allies? An ambitious bastard or a doddering old man, what a wonderful range of options we are blessed with.


"Hiroo…" Naoto bent over his desk, resting on his elbows as he met Onoda's bleary eyes with his own clear gaze, and Ohgi allowed himself to fade back into the furniture as Naoto worked his charismatic magic again. "I deeply appreciate your sincere thoughts on this matter, which is why I would like to be straight with you, just for a moment."


Naoto paused just long enough for Onoda to jerkily nod, responding instinctually to the flattery and the subtle authority he was projecting, before continuing. "What is Colonel Kusakabe playing at? We are all on the same page here, Hiroo, all preparing for the Day of Liberation, so why is the colonel taking away one of our best officers and our finest instructor just as we need your services the most? Please, as a comrade, tell us what is going on."


Surely it cannot be this easy, Ohgi worried, almost on his seat with the anxiety of the moment as the other two men locked eyes. Bastard or not, Onoda is a trained commando, a skilled operator. Surely he won't succumb to this, even in his currently soused state.


"...I really shouldn't say," Onoda began, for a moment proving Ohgi's fears. "But," he added almost immediately, "the Day of Liberation is upon us. We have an emperor again! Or at least an empress, which is the next best thing.


"Besides," he added, somewhat grudgingly, "you and your fellow commander… Hajime… Have been quite active. Much as I hate to say it, your soldiers are at least as well motivated and perhaps better trained than the bulk of the JLF is now.


"So in the spirit of comradeship… I will tell you."


Half an hour later, Major Onoda had at last tottered off to bed, leaving the office to Ohgi and Naoto.


Running a finger over the rim of a bottle that tempted him with oblivion, Naoto was the first to speak.


"It's been a while, Ohgi." A beat, and then, "since we were last together and alone, I mean. Face to face and all that."


"Calls from burner phones and coded radio transmissions really aren't the same," Ohgi agreed, settling back into the comforting embrace of his office chair to regard his friend.


Naoto, he noted, looked so much better than he had when he and Tanya had returned to Tokyo some four months ago. The excess decades that had settled on his friend like snow had melted away once he had left the city and had instead begun his new career as the central coordinator and lynchpin of the entire Rising Sun movement.


Shocking that somehow coordinating relations between multiple insurgent groups, managing the hidden village project, and distributing supplies and soldiers to quasi-independent bands ranging from Fukui to Miyagi is somehow less stressful than being the de facto king of a single city.


Which, Ohgi didn't bother suppressing a grimace, only underlines just how stressed Tanya must be. Competent or not, equal or not, she's still a child. A child in charge of a city.


No wonder things have gotten so far out of hand.


"Well…" Ohgi sucked at his teeth, mood already ruined. "We don't have much time. Shall we get to it?"


"Might as well," Naoto gloomily replied, setting his water glass down and leaning forward, elbows on his knees. His characteristic "getting to business" pose. "So, which catastrophe shall we discuss first, old friend? The ratline issue and the general clusterfuck that is the evacuation? All of the reports saying that Tanya is halfway to an outright mental collapse and the fact that she's antagonized a good portion of Shinjuku by declaring herself a dictator? The fact that we're so hideously unprepared for an all-out war against the Britannians for control over the Home Islands that it isn't remotely funny? Or perhaps how we're suddenly a monarchy again?"


"When you put it like that…" Ohgi sighed, and rubbed his forehead. "How the hell did we even end up like this, Stadtfeld? If you'd told me two years ago that I'd be in charge of perhaps the fifth or sixth most powerful resistance organization in Japan, or at least a third of that organization, I'd have thought you'd gotten a head start on the night's drinking without me."


"If you'd have told me that you were adopting a daughter in that same time frame," Naoto grinned, gloom dissipating for a moment, "I'd have laughed in your face! Kaname Ohgi, a father? Hah!"


I think I'd better ignore that for both of our sakes, Ohgi grumbled, tamping down on the pang the word evoked. Father… Inoue must be laughing herself silly. Then again… Probably not.


"Let's start with Tanya," Ohgi solemnly replied, not bothering to rise to the bait. "She's clearly not in a good place, Naoto. Inoue's worried about her and so is Nagata. So is everybody on her Leadership Commission, especially that teacher, Tsuchiya."


"Everybody but Asahara and that damned Lieutenant Koichi," Naoto muttered darkly, all traces of humor gone. "Mister Asahara, I can understand; he was always a cold fish, and considering how much he loves to watch things explode, perhaps he's getting some sort of professional pleasure out of watching the fireworks. Koichi though…" The leader of the Kozuki Organization shook his head, clearly displeased. "I don't like him. He's bad news."


"Tanya appointed him on the basis of personal loyalty," Ohgi commented, not disagreeing with Naoto's impressions. "So far, it seems like he has indeed displayed the qualities she desired."


"Not the ones she needs, though," Naoto shot back. "C'mon, Ohgi, you and I both understand the value of a hatchetman, but don't pretend that you're happy about a clear sociopath wielding influence over your daughter. It's just you and me here," he added, his tone softening, "no need to keep it proper."


Well then…


"Of course I'm not happy that Tanya's found a willing enabler, necessary or otherwise," Ohgi replied tersely, "but that doesn't mean I'm going to afford myself the luxury of putting all the blame on Lieutenant Koichi. This is our burden, and Tanya's."


When Naoto didn't immediately reply, Ohgi went on.


"First," he said, "we fucked up with our assignments. Or…" Ohgi blinked again, trying to sort his jumbled thoughts out. "Alright, that's a bit much. You and I have both accomplished a great deal, and I am not sure that Tanya could have done as well at establishing friendly relations with other groups as you have or could have done so well with setting up multiple small towns–"


"Don't praise me too much about that second one," Naoto broke in. "We still need to talk about that."


"And we will," Ohgi agreed, "but I don't think that task would have suited Tanya's abilities very well. I'll flatter myself in saying that I doubt she would have done as well at running an improvised military academy or coordinating with Major Onoda as I have as well. But," Oghi held up a finger, "I think that, with the benefit of hindsight, it has become abundantly clear that agreeing to leave Tanya solely in control of Shinjuku was a bad move on your part."


An understandable decision, I'll admit, considering Tanya's fears that the Britannians were onto Kallen, and through her, onto you and your mother. But if you had pushed back against her panic and gone to ground in Shinjuku instead of heading out into the countryside with Missus Hitomi in tow…


Done is done.


"We left Inoue in place," Naoto pointed out, not disagreeing with Ohgi. "She's done a good job organizing the logistics of feeding an entire city, not to mention keeping the machinery working."


The machinery, in this case, meaning things like duty rotas and work assignments, transportation of dry goods from newly arrived shipments to central warehouses and onto distribution hubs. Most importantly, keeping the ratlines providing routes for the evacuating citizens of Shinjuku out into the countryside open and anchored through the strenuous urban-bound first leg of the trip.


"Still, though," Ohgi replied unhappily. "Perhaps we should have kept the three of us together in Shinjuku and created a group of sub-commanders to manage everything out here."


"All the eggs in one basket," Naoto disagreed, shaking his head. "Look, no need to beat ourselves up about the past. As for sub-commanders, training people to fill those boots is a problem we have here at a training camp; it'd be even more acute in Shinjuku. Yes, I should have done a better job preparing Tanya for managing a city. Perhaps both of us shouldn't have agreed to place the responsibility for thousands of lives on the back of a twelve year old girl."


"Still better than leaving her on the frontlines, as she would undoubtedly have preferred," Ohgi sighed, and Naoto nodded in unhappy agreement. "At least we did that one right."


"Did we?" Naoto's shoulders shuddered in a half-hearted shrug, barely lifting before slumping back down. "It seems that the line has come to her, then. Strange how these things happen… But perhaps, considering who she is… Perhaps that much was inevitable."


The following silence was uneven. Lapsing into pensiveness, Naoto gazed out into the middle distance, perhaps finding himself walking the paths of his faith once again, a refuge Ohgi knew his friend increasingly relied upon for support. Ohgi, for his part, could hardly find it in himself to wonder; he could think of nothing but how the preservation of even a single young life had somehow become impossible, somewhere along the line.


If he couldn't even protect a single child, how could any of them expect to save anything from the calamity soon to come?


"Alright," Ohgi roused himself from the moment of troubled melancholy, "where was I… Oh, yes. Second… We trusted Tanya to be an equal member in the leadership of our group. In large part, this was recognizing what had already become self-evident, but that doesn't change the fact that we decided to say that her word carried the same weight ours does. This was… not a mistake, at least not a total one, much as I would like to say it was. Without her leadership, we would not be where we are today, nor would we have the unreserved backing of the newly declared Imperial House."


"Do you think it would be easier if we could just say that we made an out-and-out mistake when we agreed to use a child as a soldier?" Naoto's question was almost plaintive. "If that had been a mistake, it would be easier to… I dunno, to turf her out now? Come back in and reassert control?"


Oh, if only we could… Hell, what father wouldn't want to save his child from the consequences of her actions? Let alone his actions.


"We said that she was adult enough to die for the cause," Ohgi replied simply. "Who are we to say that she isn't adult enough to command others to die for the cause?"


"In that case," Naoto pointed out reasonably, "we have to say that one of our comrades is showing signs of increasing unreliability, and that she's in command of the only major city under our control. We also have to pretend that her being a child has nothing to do with this instability."


"We live in a farcical world," Ohgi agreed. "After all, Her Imperial Majesty is… What, two years older than Tanya?"


"Can't be more than three," Naoto sighed. "Alright, enough of this self-flagellation. Tanya's become a dictator, she's barely sleeping, and apparently needs a dedicated minder to even feed herself. And that's not even getting into the real matter concerning her new plan, which I can't help but notice we've both been dancing around without addressing directly. What do we do?"


"What can we do?" Ohgi asked helplessly. "Demand that she leave Shinjuku? Who do we put in her place? You? As for the plan…"


"It could work," Naoto said, turning the idea over. "I could probably salvage the Notables… At the very least, I could calm the situation down."


"Just in time for the hammer to drop, when we'll need you coordinating with the other groups and leading our own efforts out in the countryside the most," Ohgi replied, and tried not to feel bitter about how the task of arguing in favor of his daughter staying in the death trap had somehow fallen to him.


"Not to mention that, that…" he swallowed. "Not to mention that should conducting an actual battle in Shinjuku truly prove necessary, she can almost certainly do the job of conducting the defense at least as well as you or I ever could."


And now I feel like a kinslayer and a traitor for saying as much. Damn it all.


"...What are your thoughts about Tanya's plan," Naoto asked, his voice gentle. "Call this a move to the topic of the Day of Liberation in general, and for a moment forget who will be in Shinjuku when the ball goes up. What are your thoughts?"


"It is…"


Suicidal.


"Audacious," Ohgi said instead, screwing his eyes closed and leaning back into his chair. "If we succeed, then the doomed dream of a Japan reborn will no longer be doomed to inevitable failure. Full independence might even be in the cards, or at least independence to the same degree the Republic enjoyed. If we somehow survive all of this to boot, or at least if Tanya does, we will also be ideally placed at the hand of the Empress."


"High reward," Naoto agreed, nodding along. "But equally high risks."


"No chance the Kozuki Organization fades away into the countryside or the slums to fight another day," Ohgi concurred. "Anybody who knows us will pay the price, and not only Britannians will be wielding the knives."


That point had been underlined by the secrecy with which Tanya had passed her plan on to her fellow triumvirs. One plan meant for dissemination among the ranks and for Onoda, and one for their private action. That Onoda had revealed so much about his own leader's intentions and attitude after just a touch of smooth words and smoother liquor showed Tanya's wisdom in playing her cards so close to the vest. "We will be choosing a side in a factional war, and neither Kirihara nor Kusakabe strike me as particularly indulgent men. And that's not even getting into the role that Shinjuku will play."


Shinjuku. Shinjuku, his city. The ghetto he had been herded into at gunpoint, when the Britannians emptied the rest of Tokyo. Where he had educated the children of his apartment building as best as he was capable, sneaking in lessons between his charges' working hours, receiving thin payment from their parents in food and bottled water, occasionally a new shirt. Where he and Naoto had reunited and called their old friends and coworkers together to found an insurgent cell. Where he had brought word of a mother's death to a freshly-minted orphan, and where he had found a daughter.


Shinjuku, squatting almost at the foot of the Viceregal-Governor's gate, the ultimate distraction and, thanks to Tanya, a thicket prepared to entangle the troops that the Administration would urgently require elsewhere.


"...Threats to us aside, all of that would happen either way now, wouldn't it?" Naoto observed after a half minute of silence. "As for any threats against ourselves and our people, well…"


"They only matter if we win," Ohgi finished as Naoto trailed off. "I agree." He opened his eyes again and met his best friend's gaze, feeling like absolute scum as he said, "It seems like we're on the same page regarding Her Majesty's plan. Both parts of her plan."


"We are," Naoto agreed, and Ohgi saw his own thoughts played out across his friend's sudden fatigue. "I will begin sending word out to the detached units to send their best to rendezvous here. We will be ready to do our part; hopefully everybody else will be ready to do theirs."

---

AUGUST 17, 2016 ATB
ASHFORD ACADEMY
1230


"–reaking news! At 1157 this morning, a fire broke out within Saint Edmund the Martyr's on 32nd Street. Though first responders arrived quickly on scene, the building has since become fully engulfed. The Tokyo Fire Brigade has issued a statement that arson is suspected in this case, pending a full investigation. This will be the third church within the Tokyo Settlement to suffer an unexplained fire in the last two days. Diethard Reid is live on the scene. Diethard, w–"


With a sigh, Lelouch turned the television off.


Three churches and no results.


No, he corrected himself, mouth thinning, no positive results. The general mood of the public is decidedly against whoever is burning down local parish churches, and Clovis has already made a grand statement announcing the diversion of funds from his infantile Clovisland 2 project towards reconstruction.


At least the True Anglicans seem pleased.


"Pleased" was a decided understatement. The mood at last night's basement gathering had been outright jubilant. The young people of the hidden church had raised their glasses in toasts to the cleansing flames charring corrupted pulpits, with Sergeant Coffin lifting a bottle of grape juice in solidarity. The handful of children in attendance had laughed and cheered with their parents, eyes fixed on the dancing colors of the old television screen.


Standing right alongside those children with noses almost pressed against the screen were, to the surprise of "Brother Alexander", the elderly pensioners of the hidden church. Grandmothers with arthritic hands clasped tightly around crucifixes and prayer medallions watched the broadcast of the two churches set ablaze yesterday with tight-lipped intensity, the heat of the fire glowing in their eyes.


Perhaps not so surprising at all, Lelouch mused, putting the remote to the AV Club's television back into its proper place and packing up the remnants of his hasty lunch. After all, they are old enough to remember a Britannic Church far different from its current incarnation. And besides, the front rows at every execution are always packed with young boys and old women – why should a church-burning be any different?


But, whether or not the flames pleased his parishioners almost didn't matter. They were, after all, already his: They had committed themselves to a new vision of their religion and lacked any other priestly figure to fill his shoes. More important was the tepid and unhappy reaction of those who had not yet joined the ranks of the True Anglicans, and yet more important was the fact, obvious with the benefit of hindsight, that the State Church would be in no serious threat until the Administration itself was broken.


And that means dealing with Clovis. As both the leader of the Administration and the source of its legitimacy in the structure of the Empire, he represents a keystone. Remove him, and the entire heap will tumble into a sea of personal squabbles. At least until a new governor is appointed, and likely until said new governor shows up with their own private armies of soldiers and bureaucrats.


It was easy enough to make the logical connection, to see the smooth path from Point A to Point B. The practicalities, Lelouch knew, would be more difficult.


And that's not even touching on the matter of kinslaying.


Grimacing at that, Lelouch sauntered out of the clubroom and made his way through the halls of Ashford Academy, smiling and nodding with recognition as he went, moving almost on autopilot.


Biologically speaking Clovis is mine and Nunnally's half-brother. But, biologically speaking, That Man is my father, and that is simply not the case. Indeed, it is only through That Man that Clovis is my brother, so if That Man is not my father, then Clovis is not my brother.


Again, easy to say.


Clovis had been a friend, once upon a time. Or, at least, as much of a friend as any prince of Britannia could be with a potential rival. In retrospect, Lelouch found himself wondering how much of Clovis's amiable air and gentle words had been sincere, and how much had been a facade just as pretty as his pedestrian paintings with an equal depth. He had been seven years' Lelouch's senior and a full decade older than Nunnally, and yet he had made time for them, even though Marianne's children were generally despised by the majority of the court.


Why?


He made time for Alexander as well.


Alexander, who was dead. Lips blistered and buried with the skins of the guards who had failed to protect him.


Clovis never tried to inquire further into Alexander's death, just as he stood back when That Man threw Nunnally and I away like garbage, hurling us to certain death.


Can such a man truly be called family?


Lelouch had a sneaking suspicion that he knew how Nunnally would answer that question, should he pose it to her.


That knowledge did not make him any happier.


He worried about his sister.


He was also worried about the practicalities of assassinating the Viceregal-Governor of Area 11.


Trying to kill him in the middle of his palace is a fool's errand. By now he will be paranoid and defensive. Any abnormality he sees could set him off, but so could some random terror or a stupid mistake.


But, once Clovis is out and away from the areas most familiar to him, when he is surrounded by abnormalities… How will he identify a true threat in a sea of menacing swells?


Only fear will move Clovis from his throne, Lelouch knew. It was the only thing that had ever truly moved Clovis from his self-indulgent path. Fear for himself, and fear of what That Man will do to him if he fails in the duties entrusted to him will be the goads to drive him forwards, to put him off his balance. So, the blow must come when he is already distracted by a mortal threat. He will want to be close to his armies, to as many armed men loyal to him as possible.


If the Japanese rise up, not just in penny-packets but in a wholesale popular uprising, that will drive Clovis to utter distraction. He will be beside himself.


But when will that uprising come? It has been years since the Republic fell, and months since the last outburst of violence in Niigata and Toyama.


This was beyond Lelouch's contacts in the lower classes of Britannian society and the lower ranks of the Army. It was beyond Milly's network of gossips in the classrooms and salons of Ashford and of the noble estates surrounding the Tokyo Settlement.


Fortunately, I know two someones who almost assuredly have contact with the people who would know if and when a general Number Rebellion would be in the offing. And only one of those people will stab me if I so much as ask.


Lelouch's lips twitched up into a half-humored grin. Well, Milly was quite insistent on our reconnection. It seems that her wish will be granted.


The Automotive Club Garage was on the outskirts of Ashford Academy, near one of the service entrances. When Lelouch arrived, he found Rivalz Cardemonde bent over the open engine panel of his motorbike, sleeves rolled up past the elbows and hands black with grease.


"Have you tried adjusting the sprockets?" Lelouch called out, having absolutely no understanding of or interest in the workings of the machine.


Rivalz cursed as he dropped something and turned on his heel, no doubt ready to express his irritation with whoever had crept up behind him as he worked on the guts of his splayed-open motorcycle.


But when Rivalz saw who it was that had startled him, his anger abated, replaced by a sort of wary happiness. Happy to see his friend, but clearly suspicious about his motives.


With long practice, Lelouch ignored the pang in his chest and smiled just as easily as he had when the two of them skipped class to attend an illicit poker game.


"Lelouch?" Rivalz reached for a rag to wipe his greasy fingers off, moving automatically through the motions, his eyes still fixed on his long-absent friend. "What are you doing here? Milly's gonna be pissed if she finds out you're skipping lunch."


"I doubt that," Lelouch snorted, content for a moment to play the familiar and, relatively, relaxing role of friend and Student Council Vice-President. It was nostalgic, comfortable… Simple. A relic of a different time. Has it been that long?


"You know how she gets when she thinks you're not eating enough," Rivalz sighed, leaning back against a toolbox. "Just you wait, she's gonna pull Nunna in this time too, and then you'll be sorry."


"Ordinarily, I would agree," Lelouch lightly replied, and looked up from the incomprehensible interior of Rivalz's bike. "But not this time. After all," his smile hardened as business neared, "she is the one who sent me here to have this conversation."


Admittedly, he privately noted, it was almost a week ago that she asked me to talk to you, but needs must when the devil drives.


"She did?" Blinking with surprise, Rivalz crossed his arms over his chest, either ignoring or not noticing the black smudges they left across his white undershirt. "Huh. So… What's the Prez up to this time?"


Setting herself up as the madonna of a heretical cult, for one. Conspiracy to commit murder, for another. All to advance a programme of sedition and treason.


"...Have you heard anything from that charity you're the paper president for?" Lelouch asked, declining to answer his friend's question immediately. "I haven't heard you mention it for some time."


"The Rising Sun Benevolent Association?" Rivalz shook his head. "No, it's… kind of alarming, actually. I know that they're still active within Shinjuku, helping out the Elevens, but…" He shrugged. "Nobody tells me anything. I honestly don't even know how they're still operating at all, to be honest."


"Hmm…" Lelouch nodded understandingly. "You were helping them with collecting donations, weren't you? That and providing a noble Britannian name for the paperwork."


"Mostly that second thing," Rivalz corrected, "but I also filled out paperwork they needed to renew the passes they needed to get trucks through the gates into the ghetto. Not to mention paperwork necessary to set up those mobile kitchen things. And signing off on expense sheets, sometimes. Aside from that, I didn't do much."


Just enough paperwork to get you a spot on a rack.


"It sounds like you did quite a bit," Lelouch replied, allowing his hand to drift down to the saddle of Rivalz's slightly disassembled motorcycle. "Are you feeling at all at loose ends, now that it's over?"


"Is it over?" The question didn't sound rhetorical in Lelouch's ears. "What makes you think things are over, Lelouch?"


Lelouch paused, weighing the curious inflection his friend and onetime co-conspirator had placed on the word "think."


It seems we are both taking advantage of this conversation to sniff the other out, eh, Cardemonde? So what is it that you are probing for?


"Truth be told, I have my own doubts about the current calm lasting for very much longer," Lelouch admitted, stepping away from the bike to lean against the wall, pointedly gazing down at his fingernails, as if checking to make sure no spec of grease or motor oil had jumped ship from the machine under repair. "Simply put, I'm trying to find a… weatherman, of sorts, who could venture a forecast for when the storms might come."


Rivalz seemed to consider that for a moment, and then lifted a finger, gesturing for patience. Walking over to the corner of the garage, he wheeled an air compressor out into the center of the shop, and, beckoning Lelouch over, flipped the compressor's switch.


Immediately the garage was full of the earsplitting racket of a compressor at work. Standing only feet away, Lelouch had to strain to hear what Rivalz was saying.


"There!" the young noble yelled out. "Some privacy! Even if this place is bugged, nobody's going to hear anything we say!"


A commendable degree of paranoia. Seems like Kallen really left a mark on him. They did spend quite some time together, back in spring. She was always talking with him during their private lunches…


"Well done!" Lelouch praised, trying to pitch his voice over the din without quite yelling. "Have you found any sign that someone's bugging you?"


"Nope!" Rivalz called back with a cheer Lelouch felt was slightly inappropriate, considering the subject. "But hey, if anybody starts, well…"


His grinning shrug conveyed an entire range of emotions.


"Anyway," Rivalz said, dropping his arms and refocusing, "you were saying, Lelouch? Something about the weather?"


"Yes…" Lelouch paused again, searching for the correct angle.


You are overcomplicating your approach; this is Rivalz. You have worked with him in the past. He is motivated by the need to be needed above all else, and by the need to be included.


"I know you are still in contact with the Rising Sun."


It was halfway a lie, as Lelouch knew no such thing, but considering how close Kallen had gotten with Rivalz and how proud he still was of his association with the alleged charity group, Lelouch had no qualms about his bold statement.


"I already said that nobody's talking to me anymore," Rivalz deflected, "in fact-"


"Spare me," Lelouch interrupted over the racket, holding up a hand. "How many underground casinos did we find our way into? How often did you tell me that your bike and your background made you an ideal driver and messenger? You were absolutely correct on that point, Rivalz, and I don't think for an instant that a Japanese insurgent organization would let such an asset slip through their fingers."


And now it's out in the air. That sound is all of the dice rolling as I cross the Rubicon and mix my metaphors.


Rivalz had gone pale, as Lelouch had anticipated, but shock soon transitioned to something harder. His friend's jaw set and his gray eyes turned flinty and bleak.


"I don't know what you're talking about."


The denial was pro forma and flat, empty of inflection or emphasis.


"Perhaps you don't," Lelouch allowed, mirroring Rivalz's previous shrug. "On the other hand, Kallen certainly does. And as she had time before her departure, I am certain that Miss Stadtfeld took steps to ensure that whatever portion of the Rising Sun's web routed through her would remain intact in her absence. And who better to serve as a courier than you, Rivalz?"


"...I won't say anything about any of that," Rivalz said, pokerfaced like Lelouch had never seen him before. It was impressive how much his friend had grown while Lelouch had looked the other way. "I can't, because I don't know anything about it."


"Good," Lelouch nodded respectfully. It was heartening for his own reasons to see that Rivalz was taking things seriously.


It also meant that his friend actually had some chance of surviving the typhoon that would soon fall upon all of their heads.


"I have no need to know what Kallen told you to do, or even what the Rising Sun is doing," Lelouch said, keeping his voice calm and reasonable above the howling of the pump. "All I need is word of when your people expect the situation to become… dire, let's say."


"Why do you care about any of that?" Rivalz's face was painted in colors of honest confusion, but to Lelouch's jaundiced eye, the sudden emoting was patently false. "Are you planning on heading back to the Homeland, Lelouch? It might be safer for you and Nunnally…"


Well, at least that secret's still safe, probably.


"Not quite," Lelouch said aloud, and spread his arms again in a conciliatory gesture. "In a spirit of quid pro quo, I'll just say that I have of late become… involved with a group that has some parallel interests with your friends in the Rising Sun. Not fellow travelers, mind, but we recognize the potential a mass uprising represents. That's why we need to know when we should expect said uprising to come."


Silence unbroken save by the hammering compressor filled the garage, the conversation brought to a sudden cleave by the insurmountable presence of the ask. Towering and arrogant, it sat between the two young men like a brick wall.


One second ticked past, then another.


Perhaps I overplayed my hand, Lelouch thought, starting to second-guess himself. Perhaps he will decline to respond… But I doubt that. Despite his recent changes, I know Rivalz Cardemonde. He will do anything for a friend.


"...You know, I really should have known." At last, Rivalz shook his head, smiling, and this time the expression was sincere and unforced. Exhaustion, knowing amusement, and sadness, each in equal measure. "All of that apathy… Should've known that was just as much of a mask as the perfect vice president bit. Not gonna lie… I'm kinda hurt you didn't bring me in, Lulu. I thought we were friends."


…Well played, Cardemonde, Lelouch thought. Kallen taught you how to cut so well that you don't even need a knife to wound.


"This is a relatively new development," Lelouch said conciliatorily, "and… Well, I would have brought you in, except that your public profile was already too high to be safe. You appeared in the Ashford Gazette, both as a quoted figure with that picture of you as the perfect paternalist scion. You have been mentioned in several of the articles Kallen wrote, a decision I'm sure she's kicking herself for now. Most importantly, your name is attached to the Rising Sun on the charter paperwork. If at least one of the intelligence services doesn't already have eyes on you, I'll be shocked."


From the way Rivalz's mouth set, Lelouch guessed that his friend had thought along much the same lines himself, perhaps on some sleepless night.


"It had to be done." The statement emerged uninflected but brimming with absolute conviction. "It was the only way I could live with myself after what I saw."


"What did you see?" Lelouch asked, with honest curiosity. He had never gotten the full story out of Rivalz, and hadn't felt the need to dance with death by asking Kallen. Whatever they had seen last Christmas, it had clearly impacted his friend.


Milly was right. I should have talked with him more, and actually listened too.


"I…" Rivalz paused, and then slashed his hand through the air, uncharacteristically angry. "I don't want to talk about it. So, you didn't want to involve me because I was too high profile, but now you want my help, yeah?"


"...Correct," Lelouch agreed, moving on as his friend clearly wished and allowing the matter to drop. "In a similar spirit to yourself, I will remain quiet on the further details, but if you could see your way clear towards approaching whatever contact you might happen to retain among the Japanese on my behalf, I would… appreciate it. Greatly."


"Well, when you put it like that…" Rivalz grinned, and after a moment, Lelouch grinned back, taken by the wave of nostalgia for afternoons spent together in smoky casinos and for darting trips down the highways of the Tokyo Settlement, "how could I say no?


"After all, anything for a friend… Right, Lulu?"

---

AUGUST 19, 2016 ATB
ITSUKUSHIMA ISLAND, HIROSHIMA SETTLEMENT


The summer sun shone down upon the Island of the Gods.


Standing next to her father on the slope of Mount Misen, Kallen gazed out over the channel where a brigade of Britannian soldiers, most still aboard their transports, had met their watery end. She could almost smell miracles on the breeze.


"Quite the view, eh, Kallie?" Alvin, her dad for the moment and not the Baron of New Leicester, chuckled as he raised a pair of lightweight binoculars to eyes just as blue as her own. "What a splendid day for a hike!"


Kallen tried and failed not to feel a pleasant warmth in her chest at the sound of her old childhood nickname.


Oh, c'mon! It was the Journalist, shrewd but passionate, scolding her this time. Yeah, it's been a great month, whatever. That doesn't make up for years of him not being here! That doesn't make up for him leaving you and Naoto behind in Japan, or for him just swooping back into your life when he remembered he needed an heir!


I know that! Kallen yelled back at herself, irritated with her self, and with herself. I know he's calling me that because he knows I react to it! I know! Just… Just stop. Let me enjoy it.


Dad's home. For now.


But, the Revolutionary quietly noted, he's still an enemy.


Kallen shuddered, rubbing her arms. Suddenly, the sun's warmth momentarily chilled as the sea breeze cooled her bare skin uncomfortably.


"So, Kallen," her father said, still looking out across Hiroshima Bay through the binoculars, seemingly without a care in the world. "As a pilot in training, what are your thoughts about this battlefield? Quite the monumental location for your profession, eh?"


"A tombstone is a monument," she agreed, gazing out at the steep, heavily forested slopes that stooped to the shore. It was high tide at the moment, but Kallen could easily imagine the mud flats that would be exposed when the tide ebbed.


She wondered if rusty Knightmare fragments could still be seen when the tide went out, bones protruding from the sucking mud.


"Honestly," Kallen continued, turning her head to take in the whole panoramic view, of the Bay and Osanabi Island, stopping as her eyes found the still blackened stones that marked the remains of the other Japanese battery on Etajima Island, where Japanese soldiers had immolated themselves in a suicidal explosion as the Britannians overran their position, "I'm having trouble imagining a worse battlefield for a Knightmare force. Especially one made up of those old Portmans. Even with naval support… Well, naval artillery can't do much against slopes. Or, apparently, against ground-based artillery."


"Now now, Kallie, don't twist the truth just because it spins a good yarn," Alvin admonished, lowering his binoculars to playfully frown at her. "Naval artillery is perfectly capable of demolishing land defenses… provided, of course, that the commodore in command isn't just some jumped up prize boob too drunk with power to use the eyes the Lord gave him."


"Or so long as he doesn't march off down some jungle roads," Kallen sniped, immediately jumping on the opportunity to point at Britannian weakness her father had just offered. Over the course of their month together, he had made it clear that he would entertain such comments only in moments like this, when they were alone. "And that idiot only did that because an even bigger idiot told him to, and the general was too much of a coward to say no! Seriously, Dad, you're smart – why the hell do you listen to these idiots?"


"Sadly, leadership is a rare quality among the higher forms of the Empire, I must admit," Alvin acknowledged, his mustache twitching up as his lip curled into a wry smile. "Indeed, even at the highest forms, common sense is quite uncommon. The Chancellor, as you so aptly pointed out, demands that something be so. He has plans, plans that cannot wait, and so he cannot wait. The order passes down to the governor, who also has plans, plans which cannot come to fruition under the pressure of royal displeasure… And on and on it goes."


"But you still serve them." As soon as she uttered the words, Kallen wished she could take them back. Not for their content, but because of how sulky they sounded in her own ears.


The unspoken "you chose them over me" was not lost on either Stadtfeld.


"I do," Alvin agreed. "I have the unfortunate distinction of serving two masters, Kallie – never a wise decision. The Empire is one. My family is the other. Now," he raised a finger, "I am sure that you are thinking that ultimately, I will always choose one, and for that you will damn me.


"Perhaps in that much, you are correct." Alvin's shrug suggested not so much disinterest in her feelings on the matter as an utter confidence that he had chosen his path correctly. "I will not try to dissuade you from your path, Kallie, but I will ask you to consider this: where else save Britannia would the daughter of a Britannian aristocrat prosper?"


Her father's smile was kindly. Even his eyes were warm, though they remained as watchful as ever. "I'm not the only one serving two masters, Honey Bun. Just as much as you are a part of Japan, you're a part of the Empire. This twisted thorny bramble of loyalty… it's in our blood, Kallie. Ain't no hide'n from it."


The wink that accompanied that last comment filled Kallen's stomach with gall. Her fists tightened again.


"I don't believe that," Kallen growled, "that rot about blood. I've seen enough of it to know that we all bleed red. It's all about our choices; nothing that matters is hereditary."


"We make our choices and our choices make us," Alvin agreed, nodding companionably along. "But the choices we make reflect the opportunities presented to us. His Imperial Majesty is not incorrect when he states that not all men are created equal. Some are born blind, some lame… Some are born to the nobility and benefit from an opportunity for education.


"We make our choices, but the choices we can afford to make are informed by our circumstances. Often, the circumstances of our birth. Can you truly say a penniless pauper in a Baltimore slum has the same opportunities as a noble heir raised with a silver spoon stuck between their gums? How can two such children be considered equal, hmm?"


This is going nowhere, the Revolutionary sighed with disgust. Arguing in circles is wasted breath.


But, the Journalist noted, he isn't upset yet. He's eager to talk… And he didn't really answer the last question now, did he?


"Why do you serve Britannia, Dad?" Kallen was proud of herself; the question had come out as level as any innocuous comment ever could, with just the right amount of curiosity to pitch the whole matter into the realm of the philosophical.


Just as her father had instructed her, when it came to interrogation.


"Oh, Kallie," Alvin chuckled fondly, "what else could I serve, save the Empire? Myself as a baron? Small change. Petty! Beneath me. The interests of some faction, aiming to position themselves as the new imperial favorite? Uselessly shortsighted; the Emblem of Blood proved that much.


"No, no, Kallie; only the Holy Empire of Britannia is worthy of me. Despite ourselves, we are the greatest power to stride the earth, in this era or any other. What could be a greater goal, than the care and preservation of that great behemoth?"


Retorts teemed on Kallen's tongue. After a moment, the Journalist chose one for her, pushing aside useless defiance for something more interesting. "You mentioned yourself and you mentioned factions; you didn't mention the Emperor."


"L'etat, c'est moi," Alvin quoted, the language of the Old Enemy flawless on his tongue. "For emperors and kings, that is the ideal: A functional unity with the state, where the state's interests are inextricable with the interests of the king.


"Sadly, we are all only humans, even if the State Church sometimes claims otherwise. The ideal is seldom within our reach."


"...That's a fine distinction," Kallen noted, her heart suddenly pounding in her ears. What her father, the arch-servant of Britannia and almost certainly a highly placed member of the Directorate of Imperial Security, had just said was tantamount to treason. Was treason, if he truly was of the secret services, as she suspected.


Perhaps some things truly do run in the blood? Kallen squeezed her fists shut, fighting down the urge to laugh at that manic thought. But… What was it he said, about Naoto…? "In Area 11, the Japanese are the least of the Empire's concerns." So, what is the greatest of the Empire's concerns in Area 11, then?


Himself, perhaps?


"What do you do when those two interests diverge? When the emperor falls short of that ideal?"


Who are you?


"I serve two masters," Alvin replied imperturbably. "I do whatever I must to advance their interests, according to my own best instincts. I know that you resent my taking you on this trip and preventing you from charging off into danger, chasing after your brother's footsteps. I know that too many among the peers and princes of Britannia mistake service for and to themselves as service to the Empire and bitterly resent being brought to heel. In either case, I am content with my choices, for I know that I am true in my service."


"Arrogant," Kallen muttered. It was the word that best described Alvin when he was like this, when he was the Baron of New Leicester. When he was Dad, "affectionate" fit better, but this was unquestionably the Noble, not the Father.


"And proud as a cat," Alvin agreed with a smiling wink, "but consider this, Kallen: I saw the Emblem of Blood with my own eyes. My hands played a small part in bringing it to a close. I saw how the Empire suffered then, for lack of a strong leader.


"What do you think I see now, when I look to the work of the last decade?" Her father's mouth twisted, the amiable smile beneath his bristling mustache souring with a disgust so genuine that Kallen could only read it as perfectly sincere. "Unsettled Areas, quickly conquered but only half-digested. Settlements half-built, but full of idle hands and unemployed bodies. Our Empire, masters of the world, but still unable to master itself! Every faction that mattered was broken and brought to heel, so why now does my Empire suffer?


"And, what should a true servant of the Empire do, in the face of this drunken, gluttonous fever? What, pray tell, do you think I am attempting, Kallen?"


In the blood indeed, Kallen thought, impressed despite herself as she turned away. And here I was, thinking I was playing a dangerous game infiltrating the ROTC and sparring with Lelouch.


Clearly, she had been thinking on too small a scale.


Following her father back down the ridgeline trail towards where Errol, her father's sardonic chauffeur waited with the car, Kallen couldn't help but wonder if, buried under all the court politics and parlor tricks, there might be a thing or two worthy of her time her father could teach her after all.

---

AUGUST 19, 2016 ATB
IBI FIELD OFFICE, HIROSHIMA SETTLEMENT


It was Alvin Stadtfeld's firm opinion that service was a way of life, and that the only true demonstration of faith came from the fulfillment of one's duty.


Those had been the articles that his father, the previous Baron of New Leicester, had carved into his conscience as a young boy growing up on the banks of the mighty Ohio.


"Our seat is high and proud, though our fief be small and lowly," the old man was fond of saying, the clipped Pendragoner accent he used at court softening into the melodious tones of their native interior Homeland. "We come from a long line, an old line, of nobility. We once held fief in the Lost Lands, and when we lost those estates to the Vampire of Europe, we were given new lands to hold in trust.


"Why were we given fresh estates, when so many other ancient families slipped down the rungs from the Greater to the Lesser Nobilities?


"Because, my boy, we Stadtfelds understood that privilege comes with obligation, and that those obligations run both up and down. Loyalty above all, my boy, and to the Empire above all other allegiances."


Even then, Alvin had wondered who his father was trying to convince.


Alvin himself had been born in 1956, a year after the birth of Charles zi Britannia and two years after the commencement of what had even then been called the "Emblem of Blood"; imperial unity was already a faded dream by 1972, when the old man's sense of duty at last broke, along with his neck as he hung himself in the yew copse just behind the family chapel.


Already recognized by his tutors and his peers as a leader, Alvin had stepped into his father's still cooling shoes without pause or much in the way of feeling. A sign of the times, that; despair was an unaffordable luxury and any perception of weakness invited attack by the circling vultures at the rump Imperial court. New Leicester was too insignificant of a fief to merit the attentions of any of the aspirants to the teetering imperial throne, but that same insignificance meant that none of the self-proclaimed monarchs would be inclined to offer protection.


Besides, for all the old man had lectured on about duty to the Empire, the thought of the duty he owed to his family, to his sons and daughters, to Alvin, had clearly fled his mind at some point.


Alvin had resolved to never make his father's mistake.


He had walked many miles since, in many shoes and under many names, but the two lessons his father had taught him had never left Alvin's mind.


Loyalty to the Empire.


Loyalty to Family.


One taught in contraveyance to the obvious failings of the time, one taught by the failings of the teacher and the scars his passage had left.


To each, Alvin applied his own twist, a refinement upon the lessons his father had passed down that paired nicely with the developments he made to the fief he had inherited.


Emperors and Empresses came and went, striving to fill the shoes left empty by the ancient Ferdinand van Britannia, whose advancing senility had seen more and more of his authority slip away in the twilight years of his reign; while they fought, Alvin ordered factories built and roads maintained, his castellans churning out munitions even as Alvin served in first the Royal Fusiliers, and then in units whose names and existences were a state secret. Alvin served each sovereign in turn as they seized Pendragon, their predecessors drowning in blood or choking in poison, but always his eyes were fixed upon the realm itself, his own true king.


Monarchs came and went in their ostentatious colors, but the institutions that kept the fires burning and the navy guarding the seas against foreign incursion remained.


Years dragged on and Alvin matured into subtlety. What was the knife compared to the hand that brandished the blade, yes, but what use could the hand be if the mind that guided it was held captive?


He did not forget his blood. Aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces and cousins twice removed all found choice job offers falling in their laps, unexpected windfalls from unlikely investments paying out.


Alvin did not advertise these achievements, nor did he claim credit.


Duty was its own reward, at least when it came to family.


From the ranks of the commandos, Alvin proceeded further into the dim labyrinth of the security state, where the passage of emperors and archdukes, princes and magnates was almost unremarked. Those "men of note" were like strider bugs, skimming across the surface of a pond, leaving ripples that never penetrated the cool depths.


Down in the depths, quiet wars were waged in whispers and slips of paper blackened with tiny rows of immaculately neat code. The ripples of those wars seldom disturbed the surface of the pond, where the striding insects vyed for dominion, but every now and again, something would emerge in a heaving rush, surging through the water like a hungry carp… and one of those striders would disappear forever, forgotten completely.


It had been there, down in the cold muck, that Alvin had truly made his bones. Among the carp, bottomfeeders all, he had become a pike. Unlike the relentless cynicism of his fellow gray men, Alvin had believed, believed with the purity of a child and the fervency of a prophet.


He had believed in Britannia. He had believed in a people who, properly led and properly guided, could face down the entire world in the full expectation of triumph.


Sometimes, Alvin thought, it had only been that belief that had kept him sane, kept him himself, as so many of his fellows spiraled into paranoia and into greed. Had whored their talents and connections out to one pretender or another, or worse still, to foreigners. Had begun lining their pockets instead of greasing the wheels. Had succumbed to despair, like his father, succumbed to wanton lust for power and flesh, or succumbed to arrogance and betrayed the Empire itself


When Alvin at last cleaned house, the few ripples that percolated up to the surface did not go entirely unnoticed. An invitation was issued; words and an assurance were exchanged.


Alvin had found a different service to call home, a new set of hidden masters to issue the quiet, neatly typed lists of names and sentences.


His allegiance had not changed.


What was the role of an emperor, save to lead the people? What was the role of an aristocrat, save to guide his people in service to the emperor, and thus, service to themselves?


In Japan, Alvin had found love. Kozuki Hitomi was an intelligent and determined rising star in the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, deeply embedded in the Sakuradite concerns of the Kiriharas and the Sumeragis but stymied by her low birth, important even in Republican Japan, and especially by her gender.


Posing as a factor for a private consortium of importers, Alvin had first cultivated Hitomi as a contact, an agent embedded within the bowels of a nation already on the chopping block a full two decades before the first Knightmares made landfall on Honshu. Reuben Ashford's insane invention, put to deadly effect in the hands of Marianne the Flash, later Empress Marianne, had seen to that.


He had been astonished that his new paramore, freshly seduced into his bed, actually believed in Republicanism, in the same way that he believed in Britannia. Alvin had been certain that nobody so thoroughly mistreated by their own could retain such loyalty; that, after all, had been why he always took care to see to the bondsmen and freemen of his own fief, so that the commons would always know who their benefactor was in lean times.


But still, Hitomi had believed. Believed with sufficient conviction that Alvin had found his own beliefs shifting, ever so slightly, to more closely align with hers.


After all, Britannia had managed with only the most nominal of emperors for four-and-forty tortuous years, had it not? Properly guided and properly led, who knew what the Britannian nation could be capable of?


Alvin loved Hitomi. He loved her for her wit, for her strength, for the sincerity of her belief. He loved her for the way she had opened his eyes, had given him cause to re-examine himself and the world he would leave to his heirs.


Above all else, he loved her for the children she had given him.


Nathan – Naoto – had come into the world screaming his lungs out, hands balled into tiny fists as he screamed his healthy outrage.


His two stillborn siblings that had followed had emerged blue and cold, dead before Alvin could hold them.


When Kallen entered the world, she had been so small.


She had captured his heart along with her mother's, and along with her big brother's. Nathan had stood by Hitomi's hospital bed, at eight years old enough to be immediately protective of his new little sister.


Alvin had let go of his son's hand so his boy could reach out to take Kallen's own tiny hand between his own, even as her mother fed the infant her first meal.


Alvin had renewed his vow to himself then, as he had when Nathan had been born, that he would never be his father's son.


Nothing was ever easy. Since that moment by a hospital bed, Alvin had walked still further, the miles vanishing behind him as he strode in an ever older man's shoes. The Conquest, the invasion of Japan, had aged him greatly. He had not been there with his family when it truly mattered, called back to the Homeland for duties that could not rest.


Always torn between his two masters.


Kith and Kin had conspired against him, demanding that he marry. For years, Alvin had held firm in his denials, truthfully claiming that he was indeed already married and thus could not take the hands of the eligible young bachelorettes introduced to him. When Bishop Warren of Tucson became Archbishop Warren of Rochester and bigamy became the law of the land, pressure had increased.


Torn again between two masters.


Torn by the knowledge that his little girl could not, should not, be expected to hold her own in the bloodsoaked lands of Britannia, where the Emblem of Blood was only the freshest deluge of fratricide to feed a swamp already choked thick with the rotting dead..


Knowing that he had no choice in the matter, Alvin had done what he could. Alicia was a shrew, an intolerable presence in both his bed and his life, but she was a useful mask to conceal Kallen's heritage. Nathan's, sadly, was too clearly emblazoned across his face to maintain any such deception. Alvin had introduced Alicia to his life and installed her in the manor he ordered built on a plot of land near where the hotel that he and Hitomi had first consummated their love had stood. His money had purchased a polished past for Kallen and a place in Ashford Academy under the knowing eye of the Father of the Knightmare himself, Reuben Ashford.


He would, Alvin had decided, give his daughter a soft entrance to Britannian society. The watered-down circles of provincial nobles would give her the skills she would require while he kept the fires in the Homeland burning, both in a professional and a private capacity. Nathan, he would give his blessing and the support he would need to carve out a new life for himself in the same shadows Alvin had moved in for the majority of his adult life.


Words could not express Alvin's frustration when he had learned just how much Kallen and Naoto had proved themselves his and Hitomi's children. Assaults on the local Administration in papers too lowly or too niche to worry the censors, yet with exactly the circulation necessary for those who would matter to notice! Involvement with criminal organizations, with obvious shell organizations masquerading as charities, and with outright rebel insurgencies! And that wasn't even touching on Kallen's unexpected entrance into the Training Corps as a Knightmare Pilot of all possible specialties!


Any other aristocratic parent, Alvin was aware, would likely rejoice at that latter development.


He could only shake his head at how completely his daughter failed to hide her light under a bushel. Her feeble attempts to conceal her tracks by hacking the Ministry of Justice only underlined just how poorly Alvin had equipped his heiress when it came to the shadow games that came so naturally to him, after his long years of web-weaving.


When he learned that his son had given his insurgency Hitomi's name, it had been at last a bridge too far. Alvin had taken the first flight he could charter to Area 11, determined to save his children as best as he could from the consequences of their own stupidity.


In a way, he supposed he should be proud of them, of how they had apparently taught themselves the basic skills of his profession from first principles. He would have been proud, had they not demonstrated their mother's intelligence with only the meanest fragment of his guile, groping unknowingly forwards like toddlers unaware of the danger posed by a hot stovetop. Or a loaded gun.


It had been his efforts to smack at least one of his children's hands away from the danger that had, by a roundabout way, brought him to the newest outpost of the Imperial Bureau of Investigation, and to the office of one Inspector Nelson Garcia.


Having met the man, Alvin was very glad he had found a reason to pay the inspector a visit; like recognized like, and Alvin recognized Nelson for the quiet menace he was.


"Interesting group, these Yokohama Scouts of yours," Alvin mused aloud, sipping his tea. Seated next to him, Kallen likewise partook with a distinct lack of enthusiasm or appreciation for the delicate blend. While she had improved markedly since their jaunt began, she still resembled a compressed coil to his experienced eye, all but screaming with tension.


Nelson, Alvin was sure, was equally aware of his daughter's barely concealed energy. He could only hope that the Honorary assumed that the source of her tension was fear of the Bureau, rather than the murderous rage he was certain she harbored against the man arguably responsible for the punitive actions in Yokohama.


"Thank you, Baron Alvin," Nelson replied in his almost unaccented voice, each word perfectly shaped on his tongue and coolly respectful to Alvin's ears.


There was, after all, no love lost between their services. Or, at least, between Nelson's service and the one he obviously assumed employed Alvin.


"I find their enthusiasm and their dedication quite commendable," Nelson continued after Alvin failed to reply immediately. "They are young, but their understanding of their roles within the imperial hierarchy is impeccable, as is their belief that they have something to offer the Empire."


"Just as you believe," Alvin noted, taking care to inject a certain careless note into his voice. It was an old interrogator's trick, to convey an unspoken disbelief in what the subject had just said without deigning to voice that disbelief aloud.


Judging by how the Honorary's eyes narrowed, the barb had not been lost on him.


Struck right on that chip you carry on your shoulder, didn't I? Alvin thought with a certain grim satisfaction. It's the same chip that every Honorary with a position above the menial carries.


Truth be told, Alvin had little against Honoraries – despite his background, he retained sufficient self-awareness to recognize the staggering level of hypocrisy required to begrudge the potential of his true love's kin while elevating his own half-blooded children to the aristocracy. He most certainly had little to hold against third generation Honorary Britannians, such as Nelson Garcia. While the first and second generations might still harbor memories of previous national identities, by the time the third generation came around very little was holding them back from becoming valuable and doughty servants of the Empire.


Were Nelson any other dutiful Honorary servant of the Empire, Alvin would have been content to pat his head at a job well done. Such men were the cogs of a vast machine whose greater components men such as Alvin represented, the machine of the state and its institutions. It was the same reward for service a lord might give a dutiful bondsman.


But unlike the rest of the intelligence community in Area 11, inept or compromised as they were, Nelson Garcia posed a threat to Alvin's daughter.


Alvin had not known as much before he had seen the way Nelson's eyes had ever so briefly widened when he saw Kallen, a hasty reaction suppressed in an eyeblink as his daughter entered the inspector's office a pace behind him. The inspector had concealed it well, bending to kiss his daughter's hand in acknowledgment, thankfully without any hint of Latin passion or impropriety, and then focusing his attention wholly on Alvin for the duration of their conversation, but Alvin had known by that traitor shock that Nelson recognized Kallen.


He had also known that Nelson recognized her not by name, as might be expected of a man who had likely educated himself on every member of the Greater or Lesser Nobilities in his new Area of posting, but by description. Someone had described his little girl to the Bureau man under a name besides Kallen Stadtfeld, Heiress of House Stadtfeld.


And that meant that Nelson had to die.


Although not until Alvin figured out who was telling tales about his daughter to men from an apparatus of state security. The things a father did for his indiscrete children…


Though it is the duty of a parent to clean up after their children's first mistakes, I suppose, he mused, and to make a lesson out of the experience in the hopes of preventing repeat performances.


Errol, at least, will be thrilled to dispense with the chauffeur pretense for a while, Alvin reflected with private amusement. Why, to hear him moan, an uninformed listener could be forgiven for thinking I had put the man out to pasture instead of putting him in charge of keeping my daughter's foolish head attached to her shoulders!


But, such is the price of good help… And never let it be said that I am so distant from the Regiment to forget that it is a soldier's sacred right to endlessly bitch…


"Indeed, my lord," Nelson replied, dipping his head slightly. "I am a humble servant of His Imperial Majesty, as was my father, as will, God willing, my sons. After I am so blessed by children, of course."


"Of course," Alvin smiled back pleasantly, casually passing all thought of Errol and his multitude of useful little skills to the back of his mind as he met the inspector's eyes, "children are indeed such a blessing. Why, my own daughter has recently found her calling behind the control yoke of a Knightmare!


"Kallen," he added indulgently, turning to smile at her, tapping on the side of his teacup in a code he had taught her on the train ride to Hiroshima from Tokyo, "why don't you tell the inspector all about Major Pitt?"


The code, of course, had been a message to play nicely and to cooperate.


Kallen needed no further invitation to go off on a wave of invective about the despised Major Pitt, comparing the man against any number of other soldiers to the major's universal loss. Nelson made all the appropriate encouraging noises and gestures, as well as a few remarks agreeing with Kallen's assessment of the unfortunate officer's shortcomings.


As his daughter talked, Alvin carefully observed Nelson as he refreshed his teacup, searching for more tells.


Sadly, the man had clamped up behind his politely interested facade.


Grudgingly, Alvin gave the inspector a point for professionalism. It was enough to give him cause for regret as to what must be done. It was always a shame to waste competent servants of the Empire.


This is pointless, he decided. Best to just get what we came for and leave.


And once we're out of Hiroshima Settlement with a copy of everything the Bureau is willing to reveal about their interrogations of the Yokohama Sniper's companion, it will be time to ensure that Inspector Nelson and the rest of the Hiroshima Field Office meet with an unfortunate fate.


Another strider gone from the surface of the pond. Hopefully this one will not leave many ripples.

 

[Scopas]

(Thank you to Sunny and MetalDragon for beta-reading and editing this chapter, to Aminta Defender and Mazerka for beta-reading this chapter, and to KoreanWriter for the copious brainstorming.)


August 21, 2016 ATB
Senatorial Annex, near the Tuileries Palace, Paris, Republic of Francia, European Union


The conversation began, just like most of the conversations that actually mattered, with the mundane banalities.


And like oh so many banal conversations, the "chance" meeting between Maurice Jacquin, legislative aide to Girolamo Ciari, Senior Senator from the Republic of Piedmont, and Lieutenant Colonel Volodymyr Teterya, Second Operations Officer on the 93rd Armored Division's staff, began near a water cooler in an unpopular hallway in the Senatorial Annex.


"Volodya, how are you?" Maurice belted out, jovially elbowing the larger man out of the way and deftly sliding his cup under the cooler's spigot. "It must've been a fortnight if it's been a day! How's the wife?"


"Last I saw her? Fine." Volodymyr replied, slumping back against the wall next to the cooler and bringing the cup to his lips. "How about yours?"


"Still divorced, and God bless me for it!" Maurice cheerfully replied. "Now, nobody can insist that I must take my shoes off before entering my own damned house!"


"Liberation has come, I see," teased Volodymyr. "Tremble, the oppressed mass, that freedom has dawned and all that."


"Would that someone would free me of this damned meeting," Maurice groaned, and Volodymyr nodded in glum agreement. "I swear to the Blessed Virgin, if Pillet asks one single more question, I'll cram that odious tie of his down his throat myself!"


The burly Kyevan nodded again, this time in fervent agreement. Every meeting, in the staff officer's experience, had a quota of assholes to meet. The presence of Madame du Pillet, who had been blessed with a particularly grating voice, was enough to exceed requirements for a half-dozen meetings.


"Well, if you're that desperate for relief…" Volodymyr began, a conspiratorial smirk broadening on his lips, "allow me to bend your ear for a moment, my friend."


"Oh?" Carefully, Maurice turned from the cooler to eye the thick-set Kyeven. He and the soldier were on friendly terms, but he would hesitate to call the man a friend.


But the familiarity hadn't been what set his finely tuned hairs on edge; that had been the peculiar emphasis on the word, "friend." A career political operative, Maurice knew exactly how important "friends" could be in the halls of government.


"Certainly!" Maurice beamed, and took the big man's elbow. "Please, Volodya, just this way! There's a nice little conference room just down this hall, should be empty this time of day…"


The room was one of a species riddling the Senatorial Annex, colonizing every hallway intersection with its progeny of bland little rooms just large enough to fit eight men comfortably around a table, or ten if they squeezed. It was undecorated save for the apparently requisite bust of the First Consul, comfortably roosted in a niche above the presentation screen.


Just like every other one of its ilk, the little conference room was thoroughly soundproofed. As soon as Maurice closed the door behind himself, the dull office murmur of the Annex fell away.


"Quite an extreme approach to escaping a dull meeting, I'd say," Maurice remarked, releasing Volodymyr's arm as he took a seat at the blondewood conference table. "So, out with it. What's happening, Colonel?"


"Nghia Lo," came the simple reply. "It's all anybody's talking about. 'What will the Chinese do next?' 'For how long will the Britannians reel?' 'Will the Areas rise up?'"


Heavy brows cleaved down in a severe frown as Volodymyr took a chair and immediately leaned forwards, elbows on the table.


"And most of all, 'what are we going to do about all of this?'"


"The heart of the matter," Maurice agreed. "That topic, and that question, has certainly gained quite a bit of traction around the tables of every canteen and cafe I frequent. It has also, I do not think it is unwise to say, occupied a great deal of Senator Ciari's attention of late as well.


"Although, of course, not as much as the question as the latest support tranche to the Middle Easterners." Maurice shrugged helplessly. "Their need is, admittedly, the more pressing concern. Cornelia is in Damascus, after all!"


Both men looked soberly at one another for a long moment, and then burst out in laughter.


"Still can't believe they aired that crap!" Volodymyr choked out. "She took Damascus a month after landing in Muscat? Did Britannia lose all their maps that day?"


"Let it never be said that the Imperial Press Office has a high regard for the intelligence of the average Britannian," Maurice grinned. "Or indeed, for their geographic knowledge!"


Volodymyr snorted at that. "Probably just know both cities aren't in an Area and couldn't care less. Maybe they believe Muscat to be a mere day's leisurely walk from Damascus, instead of trying to march across the entire length of one their dear Homeland's unreasonably long coastlines under enemy fire."


"It's, what, 3,000 kilometers? Longer?" Maurice mused. "I doubt their supply lines would be happy with a single month-long offensive stretching them that far, even should such a monumental leap somehow prove possible. Not that their propagandists likely care about such trifling matters"


"They are not paid to provide reason, only red meat," Volodymyr said, shrugging philosophically. "But, while the Federation's issues of course are important, it is not the topic of the day."


"No," agreed Maurice, "Nghia Lo is. Everybody has an opinion, many of which I have been told a great deal about, but as of yet, what I have not heard is anything approaching consensus."


"I have heard," Volodymyr began, his words ponderous with artificial neutrality, "that the Navy has a plan. A cheap one, which requires minimal commitment of uniformed forces and has a reasonable claim towards advancing republican values."


"A triple threat," Maurice murmured. "Cheap being the most dangerous, of course, but not risking any of our own skin is always an advantage. Good press," he added generously, "always helps too, of course. Tell me more."


"Before I go on, I should say that I am only speaking for myself," Volodymyr clarified. "This should in no way be construed as anything beyond that. Got it?"


Of course Maurice nodded; the message was clear. Either Mediterranean Command, which the 93rd Division belonged to, wanted this message slipped into Senator Ciari's ear, or perhaps the Grand Armada wanted the same and were using their landbound cousins as a deniable catspaw.


Considering how Senator Ciari had recently gone off on an "unscripted" tirade in public about his ardent commitment to pacifism despite chairing, among other senatorial subcommittees, the Armed Forces Requisitioning Board, Maurice could understand the need for deniability. He knew that the senator was polishing his Dove credentials, necessary for any Piedmontese officeholder, and he was relatively certain that Volodymyr and his masters knew the same, but he knew that they couldn't know for certain.


Hence the circumlocutions.


"Just a word between friends, eh?" Maurice nodded agreeably. "It will go no further than me, Volodya, don't worry. Now," he leaned in, "out with it."


"It's about that pocket navy we have been harboring," the colonel began, "and of how far any cargo bound to Japan must travel across the open seas. A few destroyers and a pair of submarines could do very little against the island itself, but as a harrying force or commerce raiders…"


As the two bent their heads together, the First Consul looked on through the pouched, heavily-lidded eyes still instantly recognizable almost two centuries after his death. Brooding and hawkish between his huge nose and his elevated position, Napoleon's face remained enigmatically blank as the plotting continued.


Whether or not he would have nodded approvingly at the small consensus the pair achieved, reached at last along with the draft of the message the senator would be allowed to hear, who could possibly say?

---

August 24, 2016 ATB
A Village near the Machala-Cuenca Road, Area 6, Holy Britannian Empire


"Damn them," Sergeant Kururugi growled, glaring angrily at the Roman priest, who shook like a man with the palsy as the IBI special constables wrested him from his refuge below the nameless mountain village's tiny chapel. "Won't they ever learn to just behave?"


For all of his fervency, the sergeant's words had come out in a near whisper, a private sigh of exasperation. If Corporal Mary Pines, previously Marisol Pineda, had not been standing at Kururugi's shoulder, she doubted that she would have heard him at all.


"Seriously doubt it, Sergeant," she said, answering his rhetorical question. Considering the way he jumped slightly, the freshie must not have noticed her approach.


Still academy green, no matter what else he's got going for him.


That Sergeant Suzaku Kururugi had something going for him was obvious. Very few first-generation Honorary Britannians were allowed to enroll at the Guayaquil School, after all, and even the students from the more established Areas were most often significantly older than the young sergeant. Men and women slated to be inspectors or special agents, not freshly-made sergeants, were the usual enrollees in the premier IBI-COIN training program. He was immensely talented, very well connected, or both.


That someone decided to attach him to a bush patrol already indicates talent, as does the way Lieutenant Bowers listens to him. A practical exam, maybe? Just to make sure his reported talent checks out? Yeah, that could be it.


"I mean," Mary continued, "Cristeros have been waging La Lucha for over a century now and still haven't given up. We've been makin' good progress, no lie there, but there's still plenty of fools squattin' out in the mud."


I should know, after all.


"La Lucha…" Sergeant Kururugi repeated, carefully enunciating the L's. "The Struggle?"


"That's right," Mary agreed, rewarding the man, and he was only just barely that, being two years her junior, with a quick smile. "That's what they call it. The Struggle. The Struggle for the Old Church, the Struggle for the old ways, for the old languages, against the guy next door who finally passed the citizenship test and got his Honorary status… The Struggle has many foes."


"Which ones were you fighting against?" Kururugi asked, blunt as he always was when he forgot to be mindful. Whoever had first taught him to actually use his head well enough to have a decent chance at being an investigator must have struggled mightily to pound those lessons into his thick skull.


"I mean," he added, catching himself a half second late "back when you were still amongst them, Corporal, who were you…?"


"Whoever the big guys said," Mary said, accompanying her smooth reply with another smile, just enough to soften the tension she saw in the sergeant's face. He softened after a moment, relaxing into the conversation.


Just like I'd hoped. That's right, Kururugi, you can trust me… I'm not gonna tear out your throat, I'm not doing anything. Just talk to me… Get used to me…


"I mean," Mary continued, speaking lightly as, across the narrow road from them, the constables not keeping the townsfolk under their wary eyes busied themselves with chaining the priest to a telephone pole, "I didn't exactly sign up out of undying faith in Saint Joan and the Virgin. It was just that the Cristeros had guns and got free food from everybody. That seemed like a good deal to me."


"Even though you were betraying Britannia and contributing to the rot within your own community?"


And there it is, Mary thought, and struggled not to roll her eyes. She liked Kururugi alright; he was handsome, strong, and when the bullets started flying, a capable leader. The sanctimonious bullshit, though, she could do without. As if any of that shit matters. We both joined a gang and his is bigger and stronger. Which is why I'm part of it too now.


"C'mon, Kururugi," she said, purposefully pitching her tone towards jocular familiarity. Buddy to buddy, comrade to comrade. "We both know you're smarter than that. When you're some poor farmgirl in the ass-end of nowhere, when the nearest Britannian presence is the lord's estate a full thirty miles away and he's only there maybe two months outta the year, Britannia's like the horizon. You know it's there, but it's way too far away to really matter. The local constables and the mayor and the lord's stewards are real, but they're all Honoraries, so they're not really better than you, so what's it matter?"


Seeing the reply already blooming on his lips, Mary quickly added, "I know, I know. Rebellion against the empire, death penalty, so on and so forth."


He's hot, but fuck me sideways, Kururugi, get that stick out your ass, she grumbled in the privacy of her mind. Deep breath, keep calm, keep smiling. Yeah, just talk to me, dumbass. Get familiar with me. Real familiar. We're all buddies here, yeah?


As if the mention of the wages of rebellion had drawn him forth, one of the constables returned from the Pavise armored vehicle with a sledgehammer in his hands and a grin on his face. The specific constable, Lewis, had once been called Luis; like Mary, he had once been a Cristero guerrilla, squatting in the bush and defending the Roman Catholic Church from the Britannian heretics.


And like Mary, Lewis had upon his capture by His Imperial Majesty's forces promptly turned his coat and joined the IBI-COIN Unit 28, Task Force "Crowbar", where he now served as a tracker, scout, and all-around expert on anything Cristero.


This Crowbar platoon, fifty special constables spread out across four Pavise armored vehicles, a fuel truck, and a supply truck, included two other former Cristeros besides Mary and Lewis, and the four of them had proven instrumental in hunting down scores of their former comrades. They knew how the guerrillas liked to hide their supplies and their tracks, what words needed to be said to lure the locals into giving them food and a place to sleep, how to find the hidey-holes the peasants carved into the foundations of their homes and the walls of their attics, and other places where people and items were commonly concealed by the insurgent cells.


All crucial in stamping out of the last sullen embers still glowing in the dark heart of Area Six.


Indeed, Mary and Lewis, along with Daniel and Sawyer, had been the "crowbar" to pull the nails out of this tiny village the night before. Dressed in battered jerseys and work pants, festooned with rosaries and brandishing ancient coilguns taken from Cristero corpses, the quartet had slipped into the village with the dusk and had found refuge and a meal without any trouble. That they had also found a priest to bless them when they left the next morning had been an unexpected bonus.


Mary herself had pointed out the false wall concealing the priest's secret cellar room that afternoon, when she had returned to the village on the back of a Pavise, back in her Britannian uniform.


The look on the village headman's face when he recognized her had been far more delicious than the watered down stew he'd served them the night before.


"But that's all behind me now, of course, just as whoever you were before you took up the Oath is behind you, yeah?" Mary smiled as the minor barb sailed home, prompting just the slightest of flinches before Kururugi pushed it down. That he kept his Elevenese name was a sign the Sergeant couldn't let go of his past, not entirely. And that was just another point for Mary to pry at. "Now, we're both Honorary Britannians, and more importantly, both part of the Bureau, yeah?"


"Y-Yeah…" Sergeant Kururugi agreed, his voice thick, for a moment, with emotion. "Both of us are members of the group that will finally bring peace to this land… And to all of the other Areas… It will all be over then. Peace at last."


"Sure," Mary said, and smiled again. "If you say so."


He was kinda cute when he got all high and mighty, she decided. But he's even cuter when he's all teary-eyed. Kinda like a puppy, only more pathetic.


Behind her, the whoosh of air followed by a wet crack and, in turn, a tearing scream harkened the start of the priest's execution. Lining the road and forced to watch by the rifle-toting IBI constables and the gunners lounging in the cupolas of the Pavises next to their heavy machine guns, the villagers who had not been directly party to the aid and comfort Mary had received last night while in her Cristero costume were forced to watch as the priest was broken to the pole, lacking the traditional cartwheel.


Once his procedure was done, Mary knew, those who had been directly involved would all find themselves given a lucky break. They would only be hung for their mistake of backing the wrong horse, instead of subjected to the same hours-long process the old Jesuit had just embarked upon.


Considering the vast number of techniques the constables knew for exerting "moral pressure" on the stubborn and the rebellious, Mary found the hangings boring and uninspired. And also too soft, far too soft. A product of some Britannian officer's policy, not understanding the Numbers like Mary, Lewis, and their fellow penetitos did.


Not that I'm expecting the local trash to understand that and be grateful or whatever, she thought, shaking her head at it all. Only someone as soft in the skull as Kururugi would expect these fools to learn a single damned thing. But, perhaps the next time a band of Cristeros drops by to ask for food and a blessing, well… They might be surprised by the reception they receive.


The image of angry and scared villagers beating "the traitors" to death, and the shocked faces of the imagined Cristeros betrayed by the "little mothers and fathers" was enough to coax a smile onto Mary's face.

---

August 26, 2016 ATB
Camp of the Indochina Army, near Yen Bai, Area 10/Annam Province (Disputed)


"Field Marshal, Major General Li reporting, sir!"


"The Honorable Field Marshal greets Major General Li," Qin Zheyuan wryly replied, slowly rising to his feet, careful not to tip over the unreliable camp chair until he was safely standing.


He'd grown to hate that damned chair over the last few months, but it had come from the same stock of military-issued camp furnishings that the rest of his army drew from. Consequently, the infernal furnishing had become more than a chair; it was a symbol now, just like his leaky canvas tent and his rickety folding cot.


Compared to the might of symbols, his aching joints and sore back were irrelevant.


"And now that you've reported in, General…" Zheyuan nodded to his aide, who quickly began ushering the various staff officers and guards out of the headquarters tent, "come and welcome your uncle, you damned bean sprout!"


"It is good to see you, Honored Uncle," Xingke murmured in the courtly tones that always drove Zheyuan insane. Judging by the small, almost imperceptible twitch of his lips, Xingke had not forgotten that little fact during his time in the Vermillion Palace. "And I will have you know that I have gained a full three kilograms since last we spoke."


"You're still too damned skinny," grumbled Zheyuan, his broad frame dwarfing his nephew's. He grabbed the extended hand, his hairy paw all but engulfing the Xingke's, and pulled the young man in for a one-armed embrace. "Still, it's good to see my favorite nephew again. Even under the circumstances."


"I'm your only nephew," Xingke reproved, though he smiled at the old joke. "Now, if we were talking illegitimate sons, on the other hand…"


"Let's not," Zheyuan hastily replied, pulling a face. "Besides, there are none – your aunt would kill me. Like any wise commander, I always know when to pull out!"


The serene smile on his nephew's face grew strained.


"...Rather than intruding further into your personal life, why not discuss why the Eight have sent me here?" Xingke said, reclaiming his hand from his uncle's grasp. "For my own sanity, if nothing else. Though, we may as well just get the nonsense over with just the same."


"If we must," sighed Zheyuan, carefully lowering himself back down into the torture implement disguised as a camp chair, and beckoning his nephew to take a seat in the similar chair usually occupied by his aide. "Fine, fine. What's the damage?"


"The Council of State," recited Xingke in a carefully neutral tone that did not contain an ounce of mockery, "commend the Honored Field Marshal Qin Zheyuan on his great victory over the Britannian barbarians and their running dogs. His name is honored across the world as the Savior of Indochina and the death of the Duke of New Lancaster."


"Uh huh," grunted Zheyuan, feigning a yawn. "How kind of the eunuchs to be so effusive with their praise."


"There's more," Xingke replied grimly, his normal voice briefly returning.


"In light of your great victory, a grand accomplishment in a lifetime of grand accomplishments, and in light of your advancing age," the young man continued, "we the stewards of this most grateful nation, serving on behalf of the Tianzi, Daughter of Heaven, see that it would be a fit and august opportunity to receive the notice of your retirement in advance of the celebration we have ordered held across the Federation in your honor.


"As the previous messenger appears to have gone missing before he had the opportunity to deliver this humble dispatch," concluded Xingke, not bothering to conceal his knowing smile as Zheyuan coughed slightly, "we have dispatched your nephew, Major General Li Xingke, commander of the Vermillion Guard, so that he may convey news of your honorable retirement directly to the ears of Her Celestial Majesty."


"...Good to hear that the humility so characteristic of the eunuchs remains intact," drawled Zheyuan, once Xingke signaled that his message was complete. "At least they deigned to mention Her Celestial Majesty this time. Twice even. The previous envoy, before his unfortunate encounter with a mine, entirely failed to mention her in his dispatch. Clearly an omission on his part, as the Eight surely would never imply that the mastery of the Federation rested in their hands."


"Certainly not with my voice," growled the hardeyed Xingke, eyes flinty. "I would rather swallow my tongue than deliver such a missive."


"I assume that's why they edited their statement," Zheyuan said, shrugging indifferently. "And I assume they bestowed the honor of conveying that statement to you in the correct belief that I would allow no unfortunate accident to befall my nephew."


"That, and they always rejoice in cutting the Tianzi away from those true to her," growled Xingke. "I will have to keep my trip short for that reason, Uncle; a snake-hunt awaits my attention back in Nanjing.


"Besides," the young general grimaced, "while it is always a pleasure to enjoy your hospitality, Uncle, this province never fails to stir up memories…"


"Indeed," Zheyuan nodded understandingly. "I imagine it would."


Yes, he decided, I expect it would, Nephew. The ghosts of Ha Noi yet dog your shadow, if you are anything like me, and your nape still prickles in anticipation for a sword only deferred by celestial intervention.


Seven years ago, Britannia had been a typhoon storming across the Province of Indochina. The ill-prepared garrisons of Viet Nam and Kampuchea, consisting mostly of unenthusiastic conscripts and old veterans and led by overaged junior officers and over-connected senior officers, had drowned in the violent deluge. Shelled from the sea and bombed from the skies, the shell-shocked Imperial soldiers and their territorial and prefectural comrades had, for the most part, broken, fleeing headlong for the safety of landlocked Lao Long, far from Britannian marines and Britannian naval artillery.


One of those over-connected officers, a twenty-year old colonel freshly graduated from the Imperial War Academy, had been granted command of the Northern Military District of Viet Nam scarcely two months before Britannia allowed war to fall from their toga.


The post was Zheyuan's doing, of course; his nephew's talent had been clear to see, but assignment to the posts necessary for a general's rank required patronage. At that time, Zheyuan had only occasionally met his nephew and knew virtually nothing about his sister's son, beyond rumors of his talent as both a fighter and a thinker. Those rumors hadn't prompted the field marshal to secure a post for Xingke; patriarchal obligation alone had moved his hand.


Consequently, Zheyuan had been just as surprised as everybody else when, instead of fleeing headlong before the Britannians, then-Colonel Li Xingke had attacked the Britannian beachhead outside of Hai Phong, pushing the surprised Britannian marines back into the Bei Bu Gulf. By the time a Britannian relief force pushed north from Nam Dinh, Xingke had already slipped the noose, retreating in good order past Hai Duong and collecting up refugees and the remnants of splintered units as his brigade marched towards the city of Ha Noi.


It had been there, amid the pyre that Britannian incendiaries dropped in the tens of tons had made of the City Between Rivers, that Colonel Li Xingke had made his stand. As Ha Noi burned behind him, Xingke had dug into the fork of the Red and Thien Duc Rivers, prepared to execute the evil-minded orders issued by panicking men who deemed themselves generals. Those men, all part of the Court Faction, as most generals appointed to commands near the borders of China itself were in those days, had cared not a whit that the city and the prefecture were lost; they had only known that the general who failed to pull victory from the pit of defeat would be an ideal scapegoat.


And only by the whim of a child was my nephew spared from the headsman's sword, grimaced Zheyuan. And by that whim, the child won the unquestioning loyalty of the most undoubtedly talented officer of the New Generation. Arguably, that accidental masterstroke might be the Tianzi's only true proof of holding the Mandate of Heaven, because surely nothing else indicates as much.


That last thought was one that Zheyuan could never share with his nephew, despite their shared blood and mutual affection. For all that they held together in common, the broad gulf of factional difference yawned widely between them, and Zheyuan had no more faith that he could ever cross that gulf to reach Zheyuan than he had that he could reach out to one of the Eunuchs' henchmen.


In his heart of hearts, Zheyuan knew, Xingke loved the Tianzi as his monarch. For all that the young commander of the Vermillion Guard spoke out about the need for the Federation to face the future instead of dwelling on past glories, Zheyuan knew that any future Xingke envisioned for China and her subject provinces would have a place in its center for the Daughter of Heaven.


And while I can respect the Tianzi's chief bodyguard for always placing her interests foremost, thought Field Marshal Qin Zheyuan, I will not see the Federation's future bound to such anachronisms as child rulers or hereditary monarchy, just as I will extirpate utterly even the image of the imperial eunuchs.


"Well," Zheyuan said, slapping his knee as he leaned forwards onto his collapsible desk, "now that you've gotten the nonsense from the Eunuchs out of the way, how about you tell me what's really being said at court, Nephew?"


"A great deal," murmured Xingke, a slight smirk tracing across his lips. "Needless to say, while all were united in their surprise at your success, the reactions have been as varied as the fish of the sea.


"To start," and now Xingke drew himself up, erect and proud, "Her Celestial Majesty, the Tianzi, congratulates you and General Hue on your shared victory and exemplary cooperation. She says that she would bid you visit the Vermillion City so she could congratulate you in person, but will refrain from doing so out of the conviction that you are doing far greater service for the Federation where you are, and out of respect for your known distaste for the ceremonies of court."


"Does she now?" Zheyuan asked, and smiled politely.


There were several things that he found interesting about that message, starting with the fact that the Tianzi had extended her respects to General Hue of the Viet Trung, the leader of the Indochinese fighters in the northern regions of Britannian occupation. Neither of the two messages sent by the Eight, as the Council of State were unofficially known, had so much as mentioned the woman's name.


That the Tianzi, unlike the Eunuchs, realized the advisability of not issuing an order, no matter how cloaked as a suggestion it might be, that would not be followed is of course also of interest as well. Which only proves once again that a fifteen year old child is a better leader than that committee of worthless old men ever could be.


And, Zheyuan noted, that such a small step up is notable only indicates how easily a proper military leader backed by a cadre of experienced officers could surpass either of them.


"Please express both my official and my personal gratitude to Her Celestial Majesty," said Zheyuan, "both for sparing me from the obligation to exchange brotherly smiles with Gao Hai and for permitting me to continue my work in relative peace."


"I will," promised Xingke. "On the other hand, the Eight are predictably displeased with your failure to die honorably in battle, and even moreso by the gall you exhibited in triumphing over the foreign invader. They are greatly disturbed by the spontaneous celebrations across the Federation held in honor of your victory."


"My heart weeps," Zheyuan dryly replied. "Naturally, I will take their feelings into account when planning my next campaign."


"Of course, I am certain that you shall," Xingke replied with matching sobriety. "In the meantime, the Eunuchs' pets in command of the Liaodong Militarized Zone have expressed the opinion that, as you have achieved so much with your current forces, Uncle, you require no further reinforcements."


"Of course," grunted Zheyuan. "Hadn't expected anything less from those chickenshits. So, where do they propose sending my reinforcements instead, hm? Malaya, maybe? The northern border with the Europeans, perhaps? No," he said, holding up a quelling hand while raising the fingers of his other hand to his brow, miming deep thought, "let me guess: Straight into the ranks of their own banners, where they can squat uselessly in Dalian and Dandong, yes?"


"Half right," confirmed Xingke, tipping a hand back and forth. "Assigned to their command? Yes. Merely cooling their heels in their barracks or working for one of the businesses owned by the Eunuchs? Not so much."


"Oh?" Zheyuan was somewhat taken aback by the answer he'd received. The men who begged at the table of the Eight for favors and indulgences were not, as a whole, given to audacity, or indeed, initiative. "Alright, spit it out. What scheme are the fools in Liaodong cooking up?"


"You might recall, Uncle," Xingke began, speaking slowly, "that the remnants of Japan's former government have been enjoying Her Celestial Majesty's hospitality in Beijing for the last six years… Almost on the very doorstep of the Liaodong Militarized Zone. You might also recall that the 'Free Japanese Army' established a training base just outside Shenyang last year…"


"No…" Zheyuan was already shaking his head, desperately in his disbelief. "They wouldn't be so foolish. Not even the Eunuchs would risk so much on a single roll of the dice, not for mere comeuppance. Not when we've already lost all but the nubs of Malaya and Sumatra to the Britannians already, not to mention the bulk of Indochina. Surely nobody would be such a fool to consider an invasion, pardon me, a liberation of Japan."


"Cao Guofan would," Xingke replied, the corners of his mouth tight with disapproval. "With the express backing of the Council of State, no less. They have directed him, in his office as the Commandant of Liaodong, to offer up any and all military and logistical support to 'aid the re-establishment of the Republic of Japan under the leadership of Prime Minister Sawasaki."


"Damn them all…" Zheyuan slumped slightly, suddenly feeling every one of his sixty-seven years stacked high upon his shoulders. "Japan… Area 11… If there's any territory Britannia will defend to her utmost outside of their Homeland itself, it's the damned Sakuradite Mountain. And Cao is the one in command of the operation? Lieutenant General Cao, who to the best of my knowledge has never held a field command? That Cao is going to spearhead a surprise invasion unsupported by heavy fleet assets or significant air power?"


"The same," Xingke confirmed, "although… I don't believe it will be entirely unsupported. If the rumors going around the Vermillion City have any grounding whatsoever, the Eight might just have a man on the inside…"

---

August 19, 2016 ATB
JLF Headquarters Bunker below Mount Ana, Gifu Prefecture, Area 11


Fuming, Colonel Kusakabe Josui slammed the door to his temporary quarters behind him. Standing in the dark of the unlit room, the colonel's breast heaved as he struggled to master himself.


How dare they? How dare they?!


In his mind's eye, a row of graying faces appeared, each graver than the last. Katase, the old man still clinging on in his dotage, his unctious chief of staff, the three uniformed fools who dared call themselves divisional commanders, Josui's so-called peers, and most damnably of all, Tohdoh of Miracles, all arrayed in full uniform olive.


Behind each of their calmly grim contenances, Josui could just see the mocking smiles. Could hear the snide comments that he knew they exchanged behind his back, just as he mocked them in the presence of his own subordinates.


But I've earned that right! I've fought! I've struggled! What have they done all this time instead, hmm? Squat in their caves, terrified of their own damned shadows! They let their strength molder, their swords rust, all while I was recruiting new soldiers and sharpening my blade!


And this is my reward?! This… This humiliation?!


In his clenched fist, the official copy of his orders crumpled, the ink of the freshly printed characters smearing as Josui trembled with rage.


Those characters, he knew, would still be undeniably clear, should he decide to torment himself by rereading the words already seared into his heart.


'The Third Division is to dissolve into company-strength units, with a battalion from each regiment set aside as an operational reserve. The new company strength units are to make best speed to Southern Command, where they will prepare to initiate operations in support of local elements throughout the Chugoku Region. Your primary objective is to support local Kyoto House-affiliated units in securing control over the Hiroshima Settlement; your secondary objective is to cut off outside contact to the Okayama Army Base and to reduce the garrison.'


It was insulting enough that Josui's role was clearly envisioned as a mere supporter to "local elements," whomever that might be – He was a divisional commander, after all. He was an officer with a long and distinguished record of service proving his worth! Why the hell should he play second fiddle to a bunch of peasants with fish guts on their hands and mud on their boots?! – but the fact that his orders sent him to Chugoku, of all places…!


They might as well send me clear to Kyushu, or perhaps Okinawa! They're pushing me clear out of Honshu, as far from the capital as possible!


Tohdoh must be behind all of this. Of that much, Josui was certain. He's jealous of the glory I could earn, and so he's sending me as far away as possible! How else could I interpret these orders, considering how all of my forces are deployed in fucking Tohoku!?


Josui had protested, of course, had argued his case before that useless old shit Katase and the rest of his so-called peers on the General Staff, all to no avail. When the new empress and Lord Taizo arrived, he had argued his case again in their presence.


"We have complete confidence in Lieutenant General Katase's strategic acumen," Lord Taizo had said, replying on both of their behalfs. "We will not alter his plan without his say so."


All very well and politic, of course, except that only twenty minutes later the damned girl, the empress, had broken her silence to demand that Tohdoh's Knightmare Corps be detached from the thrust towards Tokyo and attached to her "special operation" instead.


A demand that Katase, Lord Taizo, and everybody else in attendance except Josui had fallen over themselves to allow. For what reason? Just on the word of a pampered child who had never once led soldiers into battle, much less enjoyed a single thought in her entire life not sourced directly from the crew of old bastards in Kyoto?


And I could have overlooked all of that, all of the stupidity, except… Josui's hand spasmed again. Except that she asked for Tohdoh. For Tohdoh, the jumped up artillery-man, and not for the finest the 3rd Division could have offered…


Tohdoh… All of the other jeering faces had faded away from Josui's broiling mind, leaving only that hateful, sharp-featured survivor behind. Tohdoh of Miracles, the golden boy, the only one to defeat the Britannians where it counts… Never mind that auxiliaries led by my own man Hiroo managed to replicate his so-called feat of defeating Knightmares without any assistance from our own.


Hell, my command did Tohdoh one better! He used artillery in fixed emplacements while the expendables Hiroo scraped together only used anti-tank tubes!


How dare he steal my glory, then?


Who gave him that right?


Katase, Josui's inner voice murmured, the old man who has remained relevant solely through my hard work, and has remained in his position solely out of my mercy and sentimentality, only to repay me like this… Katase, and the girl.


Yes, he decided, relaxing his hands, allowing the unacceptable orders to drift unheeded to the floor, the girl is to blame. An empress? Don't make me laugh. I swore my oaths to the Republic of Japan.


I never swore to follow an empress, like some Britannian!


Months and months ago, a quiet exchange of messages had left Josui in possession of a scrap of paper bearing a name and a phone number. The colonel had memorized both, and then committed the incriminating paper to the flames, wiping the only physical evidence away. As if he was some criminal, some traitor!


I'm not the traitor, Josui reassured himself as he crossed the quiet room, retrieving a cell phone that none of his alleged comrades knew about from his baggage. If anything, I'm the only officer of the old RJA in all of the Home Islands who has remained loyal. Katase, Tohdoh, and I… we all swore ourselves to the Republic, didn't we? And now they follow an empress…


Damn them all, he cursed, tapping the number and lifting the phone to his ear. Once the government-in-exile is restored, and once I'm the Minister of War, I'll see them all hanged.


The phone picked up without a word of greeting, leaving only an expectant silence in Josui's ear.


A silence which he was only too eager to fill.


"Good afternoon, Prime Minister," Josui said, injecting respect into his voice as he spoke to whom he presumed to be Sawasaki Atsushi, once the Chief Secretary in the Kururugi Cabinet and now, by the legal chain of succession, the rightful head of the Republic of Japan, "I have decided to accept your offer.


"For the Republic, once and forever."

---

August 26, 2016 ATB
Tokyo Settlement, Area 11


Over the course of his life, the Agent had seen a great deal that argued against the inherent goodness of mankind so often evoked by the European idealogues.


Over the course of his time in the service of the Tyrant and the Directorate, the Agent had blackmailed, bribed, and stolen. He had betrayed, murdered, and tortured. He had coerced confessions, compelled obedience, even carefully led children to convict their parents and husbands their wives with the strategic application of information and cruelty. For all of that, he had witnessed much worse meted out by low men for petty reasons, or indeed, no reason at all.


And while many of those low men had been Commoners, Honorary Britannians, or Numbers, the meanest had all come from the ranks of the finest Britannia had on offer, from the Three Nobilities and of course, from the Royalty.


Unlike many of his fellow travelers, it had been this increasing cynicism about the human condition rather than an optimistic view of the common man that had guided his path towards Level ground. Meanness of spirit was not the sole province of the aristocracy of blood or of coin, he had reasoned, but those with the least fetters imposed by society or circumstance had the greatest opportunity to indulge every trifling cruelty.


Binding the hands of all to reduce the damage any one man could inflict upon those around him, he had decided, was the only rational choice.


All of which was to say that the Agent was not easily phased.


The contents of the drive he had just finished reviewing, however, had nonetheless managed to accomplish just that.


The important thing, the Agent told himself as he carefully sipped at his soothing tea, stared out his window, and tried very hard to not throw up, is to look past the details to see the larger picture instead.


That much was obvious, a no-brainer. Easily said, but harder to accomplish when the "details" were videos of a woman still somehow alive despite–


The Agent's stomach lurched.


The real question, he considered, eyes pressed tight as he took deep, soothing breaths, is what His Ineptitude is trying to accomplish with all of that nonsense. The man is a petty, vindictive bully, yes, and one utterly lacking in any awareness of the pain felt by his fellow men.


But to the best of my knowledge, for all of his faults, Clovis is no Luciano Bradley, no unrepentant sadist.


Which means that a reason exists for the torture, beyond torture for its own sake.


The data drive had come to the Agent's hands through a chain of other agents, fellows in the Conspiracy of Equals, but had its utmost source in an operative that he and his society brothers had carefully inserted into the only environmental systems maintenance service with security clearances in the area of the concealed medical facility.


During a standard maintenance visit, said operative had slipped keyloggers and rootkits into a number of the facility's computers; when the air conditioning had "mysteriously failed" a few days later, the same operative had all the keys and passwords required to access the office of one of the physicians involved, as well as the woman's office computer and laptop.


When the operative had left the facility, two specialized jump drives loaded with clones of the doctor's systems had left with him, tucked away in a "defective sensor" in a bin of other replacement parts for the central heating system.


Now, it was up to the Agent to try to make sense of the contents of those drives. Much of the information, particularly the dryly written medical reports, was easily understandable, at least from a technical standpoint. All of the reports discussed procedures conducted on a single subject, or components of that subject, and most focused on an unnatural healing factor displayed by the subject.


Considering all that the girl had endured, the Agent was forced to concede that there had to be something to her mysterious regenerative properties. Unless, of course, the doctors had somehow failed to notice that their subject had been replaced multiple times, or that the doctors had decided to refer to all of their subjects as if they were the same person.


To his mild surprise, the Agent found the prospect of perfect regeneration, inexplicable though it was, less difficult to believe than the idea that researchers and physicians of the quality employed by this mysterious "Project R" would willfully butcher their reporting standards so egregiously.


So, Clovis discovers a woman who can regenerate perfectly through unknown means. An impossibility, but the… The Agent took another deep breath and set to work preparing another cup of tea. But the videos prove that the impossibility is, in fact, a simple fact. So, a secret project is commissioned to examine this subject. The project is entrusted to General Bartley and is funded via a slush fund without any connections to either the Ministry of Science and Technology or the Ministry of Health.


Why the secrecy? Why was this project kept secret from the Emperor? Did Clovis want to ensure he got full credit when he brought his findings to the Emperor? Perhaps, but that's not enough to evoke the fear I saw in his eyes back in his chambers, when we were discussing the financial indiscretions of the late Lazaro Pulst.


And… The Agent returned to his seat, steaming teacup cradled in his fingers, unheeding of the uncomfortable heat radiating through the china, what is "Geass?" The rest of the various mystical nonsense is easily understood – the Grail is the girl, clearly, the source of immortality, for a start – but the mentions of "Geass," always capitalized and never explained, make no sense. A geas is an obligation or a quest, typically imposed by fate and always inescapable, but how that factors into medical research is impossible to determine.


We have, the Agent scowled, insufficient information, even with one of the physician's own papers. Everything the doctor knew came from interactions with and experiments conducted upon this singular unnatural test subject, the girl.


Which means that there is only one rational course of action.


To find out what it is that Clovis is so deeply worried about, I must ask the girl myself.


His stomach lurched, the thought of the task he had set before himself, his very own geas, almost sufficient to undo all that the tea had accomplished.


Oh, I always did like to set such attainable goals. What joy.

---

August 29, 2016 ATB
Shinjuku Ghetto, Tokyo Settlement, Area 11


"...And the status reports for Nishishinjuku West, sir," the clerk announced, brandishing a small stack of papers. "Fortunately, nothing seems to have gone wrong in the last few days. Supervisor Kita reports that his supply of thermal blankets is getting low, though, and requests we send more over. He's not satisfied with the level of thermal baffling in the new nests."


"What does he have to be dissatisfied about?" Asahara Hiyashi grunted, accepting the proffered reports and leafing quickly through the pages. "Would Supervisor Kita happen to have access to a Sutherland FactSphere for us to test our concealment? No? Thought not."


"I'll just mark that request down as denied," murmured the clerk, nodding as he jotted down a note. "Anything else?"


"...No," Hiyashi said after a momentary pause, deciding not to comment on the apparent grade-school level of literacy the supervisor's report demonstrated. It really wasn't all that much worse than the writing exhibited in most of the other reports, and besides, Hiyashi hadn't expected much from the bulk of his conscripted workforce.


Standards, he thought, shaking his head internally, truly are falling everywhere. At least the special sections have a few functional brains in their ranks. So long as those standards don't fall… I suppose I'll just have to keep muddling on.


The "special sections," as Hiyashi had privately termed them, were the teams of former technicians, plumbers, chemists, and electricians the old engineer had scraped together for the purposes of bomb construction and installation. Using the authority that his post on the Leadership Commission granted him as a flail, Hiyashi had threshed the teeming crowds of Shinjuku for those with quick minds, deft hands, and a keen understanding of the importance of following directions.


It had only been with the assistance of this corps of skilled helpers that Hiyashi had managed to stay almost abreast of the ridiculous demands imposed upon him by that radiant pillar of stability, Commander Hajime.


Tch.


"No, that will be all, Morimoto," Hiyashi decided, waving the clerk away.


The man had been a wonderful find, a former analyst from some ministry back in the old government who had eked out a living through the hard years. He had the technical knowledge necessary to understand the contents of the reports, the judgment to know what required Hiyashi's attention and what could be handed off to Inoue's administrators without concern, and sufficient initiative to not require micromanagement.


Without Morimoto, Hiyashi knew, he would have struggled mightily to remain on top of his job.


Well… more than I already am, Hiyashi admitted. The difference, I suppose, is the margin between merely treading water and actively drowning.


That such a quality aide had fallen into his lap was a marvelous coincidence, and so of course Hiyashi distrusted the man. He had vetted Morimoto thoroughly before offering him a position in his branch of the Kozuki Organization, though, and had continued his surveillance through Morimoto's first few weeks on the job. Despite finding no reason for concern, Hiyashi kept a close eye on his secretary's activities.


Past a certain point, paranoia became a way of life.


As Morimoto made his unobtrusive way out of the office, Hiyashi's hand crept down to the abbreviated remains of his left leg and gingerly rubbed at the stump. It always ached – it ached in the cold, in the heat, during dry spells and during the rain, it was all the same; the ruins of his left leg always hurt.


The greatest injury of my life, and all because some bastard Brit was insufficiently mindful of how thin the walls are in Shinjuku. After everything I've done, all the risks I have taken, only a stray bullet has posed a real menace to my skin…


The thought brought a grudging smile to Hiyashi's lips; you had, after all, to laugh about such things.


The alternative, killing it all away with the bottle and the pill, had proven far too alluring in the past.


Besides, he was on the clock now.


At long last… thought Hiyashi, allowing his weary eyes to rest, just for a moment, I'm finally in a place where I can do real good. After so, so long spent collating reports from scraps and mending small appliances to earn my supper… Finally, the gears have begun to turn in earnest.


Assuming, of course, that recent developments don't cock everything up.


The thought of "recent developments," of how, still unknown to most of his countrymen, a monarch had once again been raised up among them, was enough to twist Hiyashi's neutral expression.


As a young student studying at the Polytech Marseille, Hiyashi had drunk deeply from the wellsprings of the republican values that the Europeans had exported at bayonet-point to his countrymen a generation before. He had devoured Voltaire and Rosseau first, of course – one had to respect the classics – before moving on to Lafayette and Mirabeau. That had been as far as the confines of the university library allowed him to venture on his journey of political and philosophical discovery.


Ever plagued by his curiosity and increasingly disappointed by how short the Republic of his homeland had fallen from the high ideals of the great philosophers, the young Hiyashi had not been content to limit himself to the contents of the university stacks. Carried along on tides of heady intellectualism and a sense of wonder that was as close as the lifelong atheist had come to true veneration, Hiyashi had dived deeper, and had found his way, groping in the dark, to Marat, to Danton, to Babeuf, and ultimately, to Robespierre.


To the writings of men who were still, to that day, proscribed by the Union whose first seeds they had sown.


It had been his interest in the radical ideals that the First Consul had buried below the flagstones of his Third Rome that had drawn Hiyashi into the orbit of the Direction de la surveillance du territoire, the Directorate of Territorial Security.


With the benefit of retrospect, Hiyashi supposed that he had been under surveillance for some time before the agents of the "Cabinet Noir" came for him. Under interrogation, his reading list had proven to have been well known to them, with unsmiling agents asking specific questions about when and from whom he had acquired certain volumes; when Hiyashi attempted to claim ignorance of any such books, the agents of the Directorate had thrown his very own copies down onto the steel table before him, freshly retrieved from the secret library he had concealed in the fire hose cabinet of his dormitory's boiler room.


Fortunately, the security agents had picked him up the day after his graduation, and so after things had shaken out, Hiyashi had rather stridently been returned home with an entirely legitimate degree from the Polytech in his luggage.


That degree had opened many doors for the newly minted mining engineer.


European universities, particularly those back in the metropole union states of Western and Central Europe, enjoyed an enviable reputation in the Republic of Japan, and Hiyashi's diploma was enough to overcome his lack of the family connections usually required for placement in choice ministries or companies. Despite his thoroughly bourgeois background, Hiyashi had quietly slipped into the preserve of the scions of the unofficial aristocracy that still controlled the so-called Republic of his home.


Three decades of solid, unremarkable employment passed. Hiyashi had quietly moved from company to company, keeping his head down and his eyes open for the first decade, long enough to build a reputation and learn the industry.


From there, with a firm foundation under his feet, Hiyashi accepted a series of positions of escalating responsibility, accepting posts at a variety of companies that provided secondary services and support for the Sakuradite zaibatsus.


Somewhere along the way, the young man with lowly origins and a European education had attracted the eyes of his alleged superiors. In those days, the work had all been industrial espionage and the collection of blackmail material: bread and butter work. A small house of provincial stock had been his first employer, its master eager for an edge in an upcoming contract negotiation.


Good work had brought more work, and so Hiyashi had found more work as a pair of hands, a straying eye...


Not forgetting his day job, Hiyashi had worked hard at his drafting bench as well, eager to prove himself as an engineer as well as a sneak. Ultimately, he had contributed significantly to several new Sakuradite extraction techniques. The raw ore was notorious for its… variety, and for the challenging composition of various seams. Using these small victories, he had worked tirelessly to expand his knowledge and enhance his reputation, exploiting every edge to advance another rung.


He had kept his eyes wide open, and it had been that sustained attention that had ultimately yielded enough material for Hiyashi to assemble a portfolio. That portfolio, delivered to Lord Tosei, head of the Noble House of Munakata, had served as Hiyashi's introduction to true spycraft.


When the Conquest had come, all of that nonsense had fallen by the wayside in the scramble for survival. Far from unaccustomed to personal danger by this point, Hiyashi had remained in his Shinjuku apartment as missiles streaked across the sky and improbable robots stormed the streets outside. By the time the dust had settled and the new Britannian Administration was established, Hiyashi had already made a name for himself among the crowds of refugees shoved into Shinjuku by the victorious soldiers as an indispensable mender of machines.


That reputation had seen him safely through the horrors of the first year, when the dead rotted where they lay, unburied and unburned. When the cholera came, Hiyashi had repaired water filters and stills, hot plates and stoves, as everybody fought to clean whatever water could be found. When hordes of fleas infested the packed slum, Hiyashi had rigged crude washing machines to drown the tiny biting bastards where they nested in clothes, and had even briefly worked as a barber, shaving heads.


From his neighbors, Hiyashi had accepted payment in food and in protection. From Lord Tosei, and then from Lord Taiso, though…


They paid through the nose, Hiyashi snorted to himself. They probably expected no less, all things considered. Especially Kirihara, considering his recruitment pitch. "You always knew what was going on back then, Asahara. Surely your eyes haven't clouded over the years you've spent eating dirt under the Britannians' feet?" Not at all, Lord Taizo, not at all.


But you failed to ask why it was that one such as I would be content to squat in Shinjuku, eating dirt. You never wondered why that was, and that is because you were Britannian where it counted long before the Empire ever set foot on our soil.


That your rebellion began by installing an empress to reign over us all only proves the point.


Aching, Hiyashi pulled himself to his foot and, reaching out behind him without bothering to turn his head, scooped up his crutches. The cushioned caps went under his armpits, the sealed envelope went under his shirt, and the bribe money went into his pocket.


As he locked his office door behind himself, Hiyashi heard the patter of feet, and turned just in time to see Morimoto turn down the hall, a militiaman with a blue sash draped over his shoulder beside him.


The old fear returned, still spine-tinging for all that its edges had been worn smooth with the passage of months and years. The fear of being found out, the perpetual terror of the intelligencer and the spy – for as long as Hiyashi had worked for the Six Houses, had agreed to serve the outwardly traitorous Honorary elite from the heart of Number Shinjuku, he had been a subject to that fear.


Even now, a trusted leader and advisor here, in this tiny state in embryo, one of perhaps a handful of truly irreplaceable individuals in this city-wide crucible, the Internal Affairs man bearing down on him inspired a raw spike of terror in the engineer's bowels.


Hiyashi pushed that fear down ruthlessly, deliberately arrogant smile already on his face. Men in organizations such as the IAF, in Hiyashi's experience, were very sensitive to the trepidation they inspired. They fed off it. Even though the Force had merely been a band of picked legbreakers notable only for their loyalty to Commander Hajime and Lieutenant Koichi a few months ago, when their remit was established, Hiyashi had no doubt that they had already come fully into their inheritance as an internal security organization.


"Director Asahara?" the Internal Affairs soldier asked, and without waiting lifted his fist to his chest in salute. "Commander Hajime's compliments. She's calling an emergency meeting of the Leadership Commission."


Ah, so it isn't the wall or the scaffold for me quite yet, Hiyashi supposed, relaxing slightly as the personal terror was replaced by a more general sense of existential dread. On the other hand, the list of occasions that could prompt Hajime, even in her current state, to call an emergency meeting is as short as it is dire.


It must be time, then.


"Has she?" Hiyashi coolly replied, unmoved by the plea for urgency. At this late a juncture, when the shape of things to come in the next month was so clear to any with eyes to see, haste was unreasonable. More to the point, he would be damned if he would allow himself to be rushed by some young fool in a sash. "Well, I will make my way over to headquarters presently."


"Commander Hajime thought you would say that," the soldier replied, still saluting, "and wanted you to know that the Leadership Commission won't convene for another hour still."


"Oh?" Hiyashi raised an eyebrow at that, impressed despite himself. "How courteous of her to provide early warning. Did she attach a threat regarding what tardiness would entail?"


"Nossir!"


She's come so far. The musing was almost paternal, almost fond. At least compared to our first meeting, when she paid in drugs and threatened to shoot my other leg, at least. Finally, she has mastered basic subtlety.


Such a pity no such development occurred before she reduced even the Thermidorian so-called Chamber to an outright state of leadership by fiat, the Consul of her own tiny empire.


"Splendid," Hiyashi drawled. "In that case, soldier, consider your message delivered."


"Sir?" Morimoto asked as the slap of the IAF grunt's old, but yet unholed, sneakers descended down the stairway to street level. "You don't seem surprised by this emergency meeting."


"That isn't a question," Hiyashi evaded, making his own much slower progress down towards the door. "But no, I'm not."


After all, he thought, grimacing, nothing comes from the hands of a king without a price, and I've trafficked enough material into Shinjuku on the Six Houses' behalf to know their catalogue. All of the components my special sections needed for the ordnance, the food that kept the city alive, all of the new crew-served machine guns, anti-armor, and anti-air missiles, even the asphalt patching the roads and concealing the mines… We have enjoyed a great deal of credit, and now our empress has called in her marker.


"What will you do, sir?"


Two stairs down the flight, Hiyashi paused, taken aback by the unusually frank question. Turning to look back, he saw Morimoto still in the hallway, his aide's gaze fixed squarely upon him. Cool, implacable, and waiting for his answer.


Past a certain point, paranoia becomes a lifestyle. I knew you were too good to be true, Morimoto. The only question now, is who.


"What I have always done," Hiyashi grunted, turning his back on his secretary as he continued the painful descent down the stairs. "I will serve the people, and I will serve virtue."

---

And still, Nghia Lo's waves rippled on.

 

[Scopas]

(Thank you to KoreanWriter, Sunny, and MetalDragon for their ideas and edits.)

Excerpts from "Captive Voices Set Free: Britannians in the European Union, 208 - 224 RC."

(Republished by Dogshead Publishers with permission. Dogshead Publishers, York, Republic of England.)​

A Legacy of Dispossession: Jane Salter


"For four generations," Petty Officer Jane Salter recalls, sitting at her usual table in Madame's Teahouse, a favorite haunt for the Britannian community in Dover, "my family had lived and worked on the estates outside of Davenport, generally as husbandmen or drovers. Anything to do with livestock, though not with poultry. Swine were our trade, mostlike, save for a few sons from every generation who would join the Army instead.


"At least, that's how my gran told me, when she told stories of when the Salters owned their own patch. Before the Emblem of Blood began, before the princes began to fight for the throne, and the lords fought one another for anything under the sun."


Jane's mouth tightens, as if she had bitten into something sour. She is in her early forties, too young to remember anything except the last decade of the period of internecine violence stretching from 172 to 207 RC which the Britannians call the "Emblem of Blood."


"First they took the young and the strong for their armies and their militias," Jane says, her voice flinty with ancestral pain. "Then they took money and produce, first through tax and then through requisition. Who it was who was doing the taxing could change week to week, depending on which lord had fallen to an assassin, or if the local battlelines had shifted. There was no consistency, nothing to rely upon. Especially not the Church, the useless buggers.


"We had to flee. The soil was rich and fertile, but what was the point of sowing crops whose harvest would only feed soldiers? What was the point in fattening up a fine sow, if the lord could always claim it for himself? The damn war would steal the hard-earned dinner right off our plates before we'd even managed to take a bite for ourselves! You tell me, how the blaze's a family supposed to make a living like that?


"You can't, so we didn't try and stick it out. We sold our farm for enough money to book passage aboard a ship to Lewiston, and then all the Salters fled.


"Lewiston was safe, of course, being the seat of the Duke of Lewiston and all, but it was packed to the gills with other families, hungry and desperate for work. Davey, John, and Josiah, my Ma's brothers and nephew, all managed to find places on the Armorer line, at the meatpackery. My Da went to work at a corder making ropes and hawsage for the rivertrade."


Jane is again silent, her eyes distant. When at last she begins to speak once more, her voice is soft, but emphatic.


"Here in Europa, in the Commonwealth, it's… hard to truly describe for you what it meant, living in Lewiston. Living in any Britannian city, I should say, and I mean in the city, not in the districts where the yeomanry and gentry live, and most certainly not in the districts where the lords and ladies keep their estates, is an experience that I daresay few in Europa will understand. Not because you don't have your poor, of course, and not because you don't have crowded neighborhoods packed with refugees neither, but…


"You just don't get what it is like to be poor in Britannia. To be truly poor… It's about as bad as being a Number, nevermind an Honorary. It is wretched, sir, and made all the more wretched by how merciless, how cruel, Britannia is, cruel to its very core. Here in Europa, you have your regulations – so many regulations! – guaranteeing this and prohibiting that and mandating the other, and you even enforce most of 'em. You have provisions for the sick, for the crippled, for the destitute…


"There is no provision for man or for beast in Britannia, not for clean water, not for clean food, nor for enough of either to keep a single beggar alive, to say nothing of a family driven from their farm by war. The Church tells us that we were chosen to conquer the world, and failure to do so only arises from personal weakness. The strong dominate, and the weak take what they must. So it is with the world, so it is at home.


"I'm not proud of what I did to survive. The only thing I am proud about is that, after I took His Imperial Majesty's coin and joined the Royal Navy, and after I seized my chance to desert and flee to Europa aboard the whaler I'd thieved, I took the Oath to the Commonwealth as soon as I could. And I say, may God curse Britannia, for I've had enough of that poisoned land."


Bond to Bond: Rifleman James Barclay


While unremarkable in appearance, the path James took from the plains of his native Area 2, Canada, to the sanctuary of Vladivostok and Europa is remarkable both for its near-circumnavigation of the globe and for the insight it offers into the tenant sharecropper class of rural Britannia.


"2nd Army, 1st Corps, 17th Infantry Division, 1st Regiment."


Almost before I have turned the recorder on, James is talking.


"We were called Prince Edward's Own Islanders, on account of how the regiment was headquartered out of Charlottetown and how the bulk of the old men had all come from Prince Edward Island. By my time, the regiment'd become informally known as the Brunswick Poor Boys, as the ranks were filled with conscripts from all across the Duchy of New Brunswick. Which," James adds, shrugging, "included Prince Edward Island, so I guess the name still fit. Kinda."


James waves his hand, dismissing the detail like an irritating gnat.


"That's not important. The point is, pretty much everybody in that formation started off their life in His Majesty's Armed Services as a conscript, pulled straight off the farm or the docks with mud and fishguts still on his hands. Most go back to the mud or the boats, once the term of service is up, but some stay on. They become sergeants, sometimes, or corporals… The old bastards.


"Point is, most go back. Most conscripts end up mustering out at first opportunity. Sometimes it isn't up to them, of course – death in the family and someone needs to keep up the plot so the local lord gets his due, or sometimes a lord will petition for the early release of the conscripts from his fief if there aren't enough hands to work – but for the most part, if a conscript can leave, they do."


For a moment, James falls silent, eyes closed as he breathes steadily; a self calming mechanism, clearly. I take the opportunity to observe him. He is in his late twenties, with a tired face. His blond hair is worn long and tied back; combined with his heavily tattooed arms, bared by his rolled up sleeves, he has a vaguely nautical air, despite having spent his childhood on a tenant farm and his adulthood in two armies.


"I get why they leave," James continues, eyes still tightly closed. "Make no mistake, life is hard out in the estates, on the tenancies. I should know; I grew up on one. My father inherited the lease on the patch from his father, and with it the debt we owed to the Baron of Bathurst. My older brother inherited both a year into my mandatory service, after a thresher got Da's arm.


"I'm sure that when people hear of sharecroppers, they'll immediately think of barefoot kiddos scraping up weeds from the dust, as thin as a bundle of stakes. You'uns wouldn't even be necessarily wrong; that was what sharecropping looked like, back in the hard times of the Emblem, or when times got hard again.


"Not that times were ever necessarily good, of course – the landlord would tell you what you could plant, and the landlord reserved the right to buy half the crop for a price he deemed 'fair', so there was never that much money coming in, especially since we had to buy seeds from him too, or more like from the estate store. Times was always difficult, and with five kiddos running around needing clothes and food, things were lean too.


"But Da was a good farmer and the ground was good. Nice wet soil, full of loam and sand, that, and so perfect for the cranberries that were the main crop in the farms around Bathurst. We had enough cash to keep clothes on our backs, and with the small plot reserved for potatoes, enough to keep more or less fed. Even if the debt to the estate store, and to the baron's castellon, grew each year."


James pauses, eyes popping open again, clearly confused.


"Where was I going, again?"


"You understood why most conscripts returned home when they could."


"Oh, that's right. Well, yeah, nobody will ever say that working as a sharecropper is easy or fun. It's dirty, it's wretchedly tiresome, and you'll damned never turn a profit. Even if you do, it'll only go towards paying down the family debt just a bit.


"But it's still better than life in the ranks as a conscript. Believe me.


"Anyone who talks to you about brothers in arms, about comradeship, about any of that crap is lying to you. At least when it comes to Britannia's arms, I'll say; the Union's army is much less prone to all'ah this shit that I'm about to say. Make that clear since I'm still in service, you hear?"


After I assured him that the text would be clear that his criticism is leveled solely at the Britannian military, James continued his story.


"They call it the 'Old Bastards' Reign.' Anybody who's gone through it calls it hell."


James's tone is flat, matter of fact, and almost casual.


"On my fourth night in the depot, newly arrived for basic training, the first night visit came. Three of the 'Old Men' held my arms and legs down, pinning me against the bunk, while the fourth worked me over. When I saw other night visits arriving for other fresh meat, I saw that the instrument they used to bludgeon us was a short whip the length of a man's forearm, the kind drovers use to goad cattle forwards into slaughter pens.


"That was my welcoming ceremony, of sorts, but that wasn't neither the pinnacle of it, nor the end. A bastard named Stewart took particular interest in me, made me his while we were at the depot still. Most days, he made me do his chores for him – polishing his boots and such, or taking his slot to scrub the shitters – but some days…"


James snorts.


"Well, there's a reason they say that two wives are allowed in the army. No need to say more.


"The beatings continued, of course. Sometimes as punishment, for a screwed up chore or, more seriously, for attempts to fight back or rebel, but sometimes for no reason at all. Fist, whip, bar of soap in a sock, all or none of it. Sometimes it was a group affair – once, the Old Bastards, including my squad leader and his corporal, rousted my entire squad out and forced us to walk in circles for hours, stark naked, hitting us with the drover whips when we slowed. Other times, it was a private thing, you and your owner or the bastard and eight of his buddies…


"Anybody with half a brain and the eyes the Lord gave him could tell why this all happened, of course. I've got no idea what it was like back before Old Ferdy kicked it in '53, but all throughout Britannia's history, we've been told that we were the strongest, chosen by God to dominate the world. That some men are just born stronger by divine favor, and that's that. All throughout the Emblem, when we spent years clawing at our own throats… Of course that same perspective got turned against the man next to you.


"If you could dominate him, beat him down… Well, that was just divine will. The Emperor's will too, once Charles took the throne and remade both this world and the next into all 'steel sharpens steel'. If the handicapped were terminally weak and could be disposed of, what about the only sort-of weak? The weaker than you?


"The ranks knew the answer to that question.


"When I got my orders, I was more than happy to leave the depot behind, as that meant leaving some of the Old Bastards behind, namely the drill instructors. The rest came with me, of course, the noncoms of the Prince Edward's Own Islanders heading across the Empire to the newly conquered Area 11. And it was newly conquered – the Elevens hadn't even fully surrendered yet, by the time we set foot on the islands."


At last, James' almost placid disconnection frays. Something like yearning fills his voice, his tone almost wheedling with need.


"We were ecstatic, the new guys. I was ecstatic. At long last, we had the opportunity to take everything that we'd taken on ourselves out on someone else. Which, if I'm being honest, is probably a big part of why nobody who could do anything about the Old Bastards's Reign lifts a finger about it; they think it makes the rankers harder, merciless, willing to get tougher on the enemy.


"Thing is, they're probably right. I mean, it's not like any man among us gave a shit about the Elevens regardless of whatever, but at the same time, not a man of us was really profiting from the new conquest. We weren't getting new estates like the nobles, nor were we promised plots of our own or brand new apartments and paying jobs in the settlements, once they were built. But, and this took me some time to figure out, giving us all an opportunity to get our own back at the expense of the Elevens… That gave us, gave me, a sense of ownership. A stake in the Empire.


"Because, while I was the son of a poor sharecropper, without a foot of land to call my own, I was an overseer now of sorts, just as much as the baron's castellon was back home. And when I heard that my Da died and my brother had taken over the patch… Well, that feelin' of ownership was enough to convince me to go professional. To stay in after my conscript period ended. To become an Old Bastard myself."


"Why did you desert, then? Once you were no longer at the bottom of the heap, once you decided to remain in the Britannian Army as a professional soldier?


"The leash was longer, but I was still collared," James replies, smiling grimly. "Okay, I could fuck with the fresh meat, just like the bastards had fucked with me. Okay, I could do whatever I wanted to the Numbers, and believe me, I did whatever I wanted. Great. Great! But that didn't make my blood one bit more blue, nor did it mean that I was suddenly immune to getting the sergeant's fist or the lieutenant's cane if I pissed them off. It didn't mean I had to stop watching my back at all times, both from the other bastards and from the fresh meat. Who knew if one of them would decide that the best way to sharpen his steel would be sinking a knife between my ribs?


"At the end of the day, I was still a sharecropper, still plugging away in the mud for the benefit of men who wouldn't piss on me if I were on fire. 'Where the hell is the point in all that?' I asked myself. 'How is this strength, to just live in fear all the time?'


"That last question was what really got me thinking. If we were the strongest, our divine favor made clear by the Numbers huddling at our feet… Why was I still so afraid? How is that strength, if you can't sleep in peace, can't live in peace, can't stop kissing the feet of the bastard on the next rung up on the ladder?


"It isn't strength. It's just a different kind of weakness, one that makes it impossible to ever trust anybody to the fullest. Funny, how the fear of looking weak is so obviously a weakness itself, once you look at it square in the face for long enough.


"And if that's not strength, being part of the Holy Britannian Empire… Well, perhaps the best way to find strength is in standing up to the damned place, to drive them away. And only one army has ever driven the Britannians back for good."


Beaming with pride, James turns on the bench so I can get a good view of the European flag sewn onto the shoulder of his jacket. He's not in his uniform, but rather his civilian clothes, making the military-style addition somewhat peculiar. Still, that pride sticks with me when I thank Rifleman Barclay for his time.


You can take the Britannian out of Britannia easily enough, but removing Britannia from the Britannian is clearly far more different, at least in James's case. Is that a strength or a weakness? In my opinion, the fact that his cruel empire could impart its "strength" to James without fostering a grain of loyalty is indictment enough of both the empire, and its strength.


The Music Shall Set You Free: Daniel Owens


In his mid-thirties, Danny Owens is a handsome man originally hailing from the Duchy of Lower Cascadia, in Britannian Area 3. Though a tailor by profession, Danny is a lifelong musician and an avid collector of folk tunes from throughout Britannia. His interest in music led him to the Leveller movement, and to official attention. An early warning from a musician friend led to his escape via Iceland to the European Union, where he began a radio station specializing in the music of the Britannian Diaspora.


"Not much of a shocker, but the Holy Empire's just full of places you don't want to be," Danny says, grinning broadly. Danny is almost always grinning, a man who chooses happiness whenever possible, but there's no joy in this particular smile. "The factories, the slaughterhouses, the prisons, of course… But there's no place I'd less rather be in all the Empire than any given orphanage.


"I was born in 1981 ATB, 189 RC for you. Deep in the heart of the Emblem of Blood. Old Ferdy has been moldering for the last twenty-eight years, and Emperor Chuck wouldn't be crowned in Pendragon for another eighteen.


"It really is impossible to understate just how badly things were falling apart by this point. Whole regions of the Heartland and the Old Areas were effectively autonomous, answering only as far as the Area's governor at most, and sometimes not beyond the local count or margrave. Traveling on the imperial highways was a difficult proposition; the roads hadn't been consistently maintained in years, and every lord who bothered so much as filling in a pothole seized the opportunity to establish tolls on their tiny stretch of the old network.


"And that's not even getting into the actual, no shit bandits that turned up in some parts."


Danny shakes his head wonderingly, his bald pate gleaming in the sun's reflected light. Ever the outdoorsman, he'd asked to meet at Conham River Park, intent on enjoying every halfway sunny day that makes itself available. A holdover from a life spent on Britannia's northern Pacific coast.


"Sorry, I wandered there. What was I talking about?"


"The orphanages."


"Oh yeah, that's right. The orphanages." Danny purses his lips. "Right, yeah… Okay, so, the central creed of Britannia has always been that strength forgives all else, right? Right. It's a stupid belief to base a complex society upon, which is why, for all that Britannia and Britannians love to talk about how strength justifies all, and our strength stems from God and that's why we have the right to fuck everything up, we also spend a bunch of time dreaming up exceptions to that whole strength rule. Justifications for why we shouldn't just solve everything with a knifefight or, heck, even a good old bare knuckle brawl."


"Which it still often is. Dueling is a leading cause of death for Britannian youth."


"Nah, that's just the kids being idiots too hyped up on hormones and tales of "honor and blood" to have any good sense," Dany replies, waving his hand dismissively. "It isn't a leading cause for anybody who lives long enough to develop a cool head. It also isn't a significant issue in the military, which is one of those cutouts.


"You can't have soldiers challenging their commanders, leastways not the common dog-soldiers, the nobles are a whole nother story, of course, but what do you do if a captain is obviously weaker than a sergeant? Or if you have some big brawler of a commoner, or even worse, an Honorary, come under the command of some prissy twig of a blueblood officer barely capable of holding a blade? If might truly makes right, shouldn't the officer, however rich their lineage, submit to whoever can decorate the floor with their noble blood? That would be plenty Darwinian now, wouldn't it? So, what's to be done, eh?"


Danny leans back, a broad smirk on his face.


"Simplicity itself! Just make it clear that the higher ranked officer acts and speaks with the Army's strength! You see, that way we can still chalk it all up to 'only the strong survive, and we are the strongest!'"


"But what about orphans, huh?" Danny asks, unsmiling again as he leans back in. "Cripples now, they're pretty easy to discard as weaklings, defectives, and can be gassed just as easily as the lunatics. Easy peasey, no great reach there. The failures are thrown away.


"But what about the kids? They're weak by nature, and so should just be sacrificed on the altar of Social Darwinism along with the clubfoots and the hunchbacks, yeah? Ehh!"


Danny makes a sound like a buzzer, and holds his hands up over his chest, crossed in an "X" pattern like a referee calling a foul.


"Can't do that if you want a functioning society. You need kids to have more kids, unless you don't want an empire at all in two generations. And in the Emblem of Blood, when walking down the road could be a death sentence, nobles periodically went to war with each other, Area governors periodically went to war with uppity nobles, and nobody was spending money to handle minor details like maintaining sewage treatment plants, every kid was valuable. A resource."


"And so, the orphanages."


"And so, the orphanages!" Danny throws his hands up in the air, grinning toothily again, but with no sign of joy. "Praise God for his mercy." He lowers his hands. "Yup, the single greatest expansion of the child welfare system in Britannian history happened during the Emblem of Blood, and if that doesn't get a chuckle out of you, you're probably not Britannian. Anyway, it should come as no great surprise that the whole thing was an absolute shitshow. Absolutely nothing systematic about it at all, for a start – calling it a child welfare system is a total misnomer. Just all at once and out of the blue, every lord and bishop seemed to realize that someone should do something about all of these damned kids roaming the streets.


"'But by damn,' those worthies probably all told each other, 'once those kids are off the street, they'll be good and productive members of Britannian society!' Or they would be beaten until they were."


Danny stands up, turns around, and rolls his shirt up, exposing his back for me. Under the sun's clean light, numerous silvery scars glisten on his dark brown back, along with raised weals made permanent by repeated beatings.


"Let me tell you, as a beneficiary of the Lady Catherine House of Foundlings, we were generally considered some of the lucky ones," Danny says, lowering his shirt and sitting back down across the picnic table from me. "We were fed twice daily, with real meat at least twice a week and also on Sunday. We were taught our lessons, and also a trade. I left the House of Foundlings at sixteen as a fully qualified electrician. We were only beaten with the official 'incher' instead of any of the other more inventive punishments dreamt up in other orphanages."


An 'incher' is a one-inch thick rod of firm wood or hard plastic, commonly between a half to three quarters of a meter in length. Per Britannian statute, no servant or child may be beaten with a rod of greater than an inch's width.


"Shockingly," Danny drawls, "the proctors failed entirely in their quest to beat a love of Emperor and Church into my ass. It couldn't have helped that three different emperors came and went just in the time that I was at Lady Catherine's. Hard to develop a love for the monarch when the proctor keeps forgetting his name. But that didn't stop them from beating the shite clear out of me.


"Of course, with all that aforementioned shite being beaten out of me, well… I needed a refuge. A way to stay sane."


"That's when you became interested in music?"


"Yeah, the music." Danny nods, somewhat absently. His eyes are fixed on the past. "I had a good voice, so I was allowed to join the Church Choir. It was a start. Frankie, one of the others at Lady Catherine's, had a crank-up radio he'd gotten from somewhere, and we used to listen to it after lights out, when the proctor was asleep in his cups. That was another start.


"But I tell you what, after I left Lady Catherine's, back still stinging, and after I had spent a year scraping pennies as an apprentice electrician… The first big purchase I made for me, for Danny, was a second-hand fiddle, bought from a pawnshop down the way. It took a long time to learn how to play – no money for lessons, y'know – and I'm sure my neighbors hated me for the squalling and the squawking… But when I put bow to string, it all came out. For my parents, dead on the road, for the people lost and abandoned by the system as the lords and ladies fought themselves, for me…"


Danny pauses, and I look casually away as he rubs fisted hands against his watering eyes. When I look back, he's grinning again.


"It was in the Wolf and Hound that I first met Stan," he says, picking the story back up without any trace of the encroaching shakiness. "Stan was a known commodity in the Portland bars by this point, and he was good enough to take a rookie fiddler under his wing. He finally got my fiddle to stop shrieking and start singing, which, I'll say, makes the tips come way easier.


"He also taught me far more than that…"


Danny smiles to himself, privately.


"But more relevantly, he was a Leveller, not that I knew as much when I first met him."


The Levellers, or the Society of Equals, are a rumored underground movement in Britannia. While variations in Leveller ideology exist, most self-professed Levellers describe their aims as broadly republican, pointing towards Locke, Lafayette, and the luminaries of Washington's Rebellion as the intellectual founders of their programme.


"Honestly, it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure it out," Danny confesses, and now his grin is happy. "I thought he was a guy with a love for all of the old blue-collar standards, y'know? The ones the boss's hate to hear. 'Process Man,' 'Sixteen Tons,' 'Soyer's Soup…' One and all enough to get you kicked off the assembly line by any foreman who hears your hum, and some enough to earn a beating in a certain sort of bar.


"But then he started teaching me other songs… 'Song of the Leaders,' 'Give and Take,' 'Which Side are You On,' and of course, 'The Digger's Song.'"


Danny begins to hum.


"To conquer them by Land, come in now, come in now… To conquer them by Love, come in now… To conquer them by Love, as it does you behoove… For he is King above, and no power like to Love… Glory here Diggers all!"


With a sigh, Danny stills his hands, which had been tapping out a beat on the table.


"I wasn't there when Stan died. I was already in Saint Lawrence City, searching for work at the shipyard hiring hall, looking for passage aboard the few light cargo ships that somehow end up in European ports. There really wasn't much choice about it – a man's got to live, after all – but… I do regret that I wasn't there, that I couldn't make his last hours on the scaffold, out in front of everybody, a bit shorter, somehow… It's been done before, you know. Someone's buddy finds a rifle and gets upon a roof, and before the executioner gets a chance to savage him, he just pops the poor bastard in the head…


"But that's a short road to death, and I wanted to live."

 

[Scopas]

(Thank you to Sunny, MetalDragon, 0th Law, and Mazerka for beta-reading and editing this chapter, to Aminta Defender for beta-reading this chapter, and to KoreanWriter for beta-writing and brainstorming.)


(Note: There is a portion of this chapter that explicitly references a slogan used by Imperial Japan. This should in no way be construed as apologia for Imperial Japan, nor does it represent anything of my views on the actions and atrocities committed by that historical entity. In the universe of Code Geass, nothing of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" happened, which is why I am using the slogan in-universe, but I fully understand why this reference could be triggering for anybody whose family suffered under the IJA or who has studied the wars fought by Japan between 1894 and 1945.)

Scene 1: A Father's Arms​

August 31, 2016 ATB
Neighborhood #12 (Honorary), Tokyo Settlement


One week before the Rising


It had taken everything he had to get to this point. Every scrap of credit he had earned over the last months' work, he had spent. Every favor he had, he called in.


In Souichiro's eyes, his ticket back to Tokyo, back to Shinjuku, had been worth it.


When he had seen the target list, read the orders, heard the plans for the first hours and days… the former policeman had known that there was no choice.


That there were things that he could not bring himself to sacrifice for the Cause.


Favors had bought him a reassignment, away from teaching new recruits the basics of firearms and onto an assault unit half-made up of his own former students. Credit had bought a blind eye turned to his age and his health, had seen him placed on that unit despite the fact that his fiftieth birthday was long behind him.


Hoarded money and moonshine had bought him quiet passage through the Britannian checkpoint at the gate leading into the Shinjuku Ghetto, along with the necessary permit to work outside of the Ghetto, valid only for a day.


A day, Souichiro knew, was all that he needed.


For all of that resolve, everything that had driven him forwards, only a single thought was in his mind as he stared up at the whitewashed concrete face of the apartment block, still full of sleeping families an hour before dawn.


He could not do it.


Could not betray the Cause. Could not betray his blood. Could not carry out his self-appointed mission.


I should not have come, he thought.


That much, at least, was obvious.


His new unit, a six-man section designated as a mortar-supported rifle team, had been one of the last to come home to Shinjuku, and had ridden one of the last trucks carrying "donated food relief" into the ghetto. In the final days, there would be no trucks packed with contraband weapons or hidden soldiers entering Shinjuku, nothing that could prompt last minute Britannian suspicions.


Accordingly, when his squad disembarked at one of the Benevolent Association's satellite kitchens, Commander Hajime herself had been there, waiting for them. She had not been standing on ceremony, surrounded by guards, but instead had been waiting in the distribution line for her dinner, clutching a battered tin tray identical to those in the hands of the neighborhood's locals.


When Souichiro and his five comrades stepped down from the truck, the commander had handed her tray over to a girl whose owlish glasses made her look years younger than Hajime. Her place in line secured, though Souichiro doubted very much that anybody would boot her from the queue, she had come to greet them. To welcome them home.


"Mister Matsumoto," Commander Hajime had said, greeting him personally. Below her hachimaki, identical in every respect to the bands worn by all of the Sun Guard, piercing blue eyes had held him in place as she inspected him.


Souichiro had known, known then, known with certainty, that she knew why he had come, why he had returned to Shinjuku. It was impossible to understand how this girl, only twelve years old if his memory had not failed him, could possess eyes so feverish in their intensity, so wise in their regard, so heavy in their exhaustion. It was impossible to think that any secret could survive such scrutiny.


"I know why you have returned," the Commander had continued, sotto voce as she stepped close, almost treading on his shoes as she looked up into his face. "I know why you fought so hard to secure your transfer; I was surprised when I saw your name on the list, I'll admit, but a moment's thought made it all clear to me."


The contempt that had flashed in those sky-blue eyes, incandescent in the heartbeat it had taken for shutters to close around that inner furnace, had scorched Souichiro's soul.


"You must have understood from your orders that your hour to make good on your long-cherished revenge had come around at last," Commander Hajime mused aloud, unblinking and quietly resolute, her voice as cold as her eyes were fevered. "Allow me to remind you, Mister Matsumoto, that I expect only the highest standards of professionalism from all soldiers of the Rising Sun. Do I make myself clear?"


If only I could tell her… What, tell her that I considered it, really considered killing my own flesh and blood, but decided to warn them instead? Decided that it was worth betraying the Cause, betraying my country, even for just a little bit, to save my son and granddaughter's lives? Would admitting to my treachery but denying that I am the detestable would-be murderer she sees me as reduce that contempt by even the slightest degree?


…What would telling her help? If she believed me, I would make her complicit in my treachery, unless she orders me shot, punished as a traitor deserves. If she doesn't believe me, then I would only have lowered myself still further in her eyes.


Besides, I deserve the contempt. I came so close to a different decision… Too close.


"...Yes Ma'am," was all that Souichiro had said, all the words he had allowed himself.


"Good," she had replied, but to Souchiro's continued surprise, she had not drawn away. Instead, something like a tremor, a momentary shake passed over her face.


When she had continued, her voice was even quieter still.


"Mister Matsumoto… Souichiro…" When he had not protested, she had continued. "Souichiro, far be it from me to step into private matters, but…" Another tremor. "Far be it from me to judge, but it is… Unsound, from a psychological point of view, for a father to… dispose of his own child. No matter what the circumstances.


"I have taken the liberty of assigning your team to a unit in the south of the city. I… Hope that you will not resent this imposition, but…" Commander Hajime had squared her shoulders, the momentary weakness vanished, impossible to see in that youthful face, prematurely lined but still implacable. "My decision is final. Your son and his family might be traitors, but the Cause is too important for the futures of too many people to lose a soldier as a psychological casualty. Understood?"


"Yes Ma'am," Souichiro had lied, and had stared dumbly as the Lady of Shinjuku, the one that barracks gossip held to be both a Britannian princess and Amaterasu Herself descended to Earth as in the oldest days, turned on her heel and marched back to the chow line, every stiff line of her body radiating discomfort.


They are traitors, Souichiro told himself again, struggling to reason himself away from the cause that had brought him to Stratford Place despite Commander Hajime's attempt at, he believed, mercy. Misplaced though it was. They betrayed Japan, they betrayed their ancestors, and they betrayed me. Worst of all, he betrayed my son, his brother, and my wife, his mother. They were in their graves thanks to Britannia, and he had the gall to take a Britannian name!


The pistol hung heavily under his workman's overalls, weighty as a guilty secret.


The wave of revulsion brought the tang of bile to Souichiro's mouth, as bitter as the hate he had harbored for years, and the pain.


Kenji, Ami, whatever they might have named my granddaughter in a better world… The trio of half-recalled faces swam before his weary eyes, barely recognizable through the residue of five long years. The anger was cold ash now, energy spent now that the dawn had come at last. My son, my little boy… The girl who I could never bring myself to love… Mari, would you have loved her as the daughter we never had? You always wanted a daughter, and now you have a granddaughter, though I have no prayers to reach you, to pass along the news…


I should not be here. I should not have come. They will call for the police. Kenji will drive me from his door.


But how could I ever feel clean again if I did not warn them? How can honor ever command a father and a grandfather to let his son and his son's family die without even trying to save them?


Beside him, the dustpan and broom leaned against the wall. Souichiro had stolen them, along with the overalls he wore over his own clothes, from an unlucky street sweeper. It had been easy to come up behind the Honorary, to loop an arm around the man's neck, and to jerk up and to the side just so. It was a trick that he had learned from Major Onoda.


Killing a traitor to save a trio of traitors.


Souichiro mustered up a half-hearted snort at the thought. The hypocrisy was not lost upon him; the man he had murdered, and it certainly was murder, presumably had a family too, just as Kenji did. Just as Souichiro once had. Children who depended upon him, maybe, a wife who would fret and worry as he was late to return home.


He could not muster up any sense of guilt, of shame, over the murder of a traitor, civilian or not.


And yet, he thought, forcing himself to take a step, and then another, I cannot muster up enough guilt or shame to stop myself from betraying the Cause that I just killed a man for.


Who am I to accuse anybody of treachery?


The lobby of the apartment building, Stratford Place, according to a sign written in Britannian that Souichiro struggled to read, was spotless. For all that every surface screamed of hard wear and maintenance deferred, the floor was swept clean and gleamed with polish. Every door handle shown, every window glistened despite the cracks, and every step of the stairs Souichiro trudged up was thoroughly scrubbed.


The people who lived here cared about the building in which they lived, the building in whose shelter they worked to build their new lives. The paint might be flaking and half the light bulbs flickering, but everything that could be cleaned, was.


Souichiro supposed that said something about the people who called this place home.


He did not want to think about it.


The stairs opened onto a hallway lined with doors, each with a neat number and plaque with a surname engraved in the bronze.


No snow-crusted mountain slope could be so difficult to climb as it was for Souichiro to shamble down the hallway, dustpan and broom trailing after him. The gun weighed him down with every step, with every passing door whose name Souichiro had to sound out in his head as he passed.


Win-Ham. Gra-Den-Hey. Whale-ey.


All Britannian names on Japanese faces.


A plaque caught his eye, with a name he remembered from the second worst day of his life.


Forester.


Keith and Emily Forester.


All Souichiro could do for a long minute was stare, cowlike, at that door. That door, with that hated name.


If I squint just a bit, though…


The letters engraved in the metal plaque swam, and for an instant, Souichiro could make himself see the familiar strokes of his surname, the Britannian symbols dissolving into Japanese characters.


This could have been home. My home. If I had allowed myself to give up, to give in. To submit.


It still isn't too late to prove myself true to Japan, a seductive voice whispered. Killing an Honorary Legionary, an armed collaborator in the rape of my homeland, can be nothing short of honorable.


Even if I remember changing that collaborator's diapers… Remember his giggling laughter as I lifted him up and down, so light in my arms… Remember standing next to him beside what was left of our house and bowing our heads…


If the price of proving myself is my son's blood, my granddaughter's blood… It is not worth it.


Nothing could be worth such a high price.


With that, Matsumoto Souichiro took a deep breath, steeled himself, and, before his resolve could fracture, knocked upon the Forester's door.


All throughout his journey towards Britannian Tokyo, hidden in the back of a truck along with the rest of his six-man unit and the disassembled mortar they were sharing the cover with, past the guards yawning at their checkpoint, along the dark and trash-strewn streets of the Honorary districts, and, most of all, when he had hesitated in the shadow of the Stratford Place Apartment Complex, Souichiro had steeled himself to meet his soon, his Kenji, for the first time in half a decade.


It was not Kenji who opened the door.


"Good morning," mumbled Ami in Britannian, yawning as she stood in the door frame, her eyes still bleary with sleep. "What can I help you with, Mister…"


Even before she had joined his son in betraying Japan, Souichiro had disliked Ami. The Osakan was crude, stupid, and in Souichiro's opinion, far below his son in potential and worth. She laughed extravagantly, mocked authority, and had ensnared his son between her legs and bound him to her with a baby.


But Kenji loved her, and whore or not, she is my granddaughter's mother.


That thought was enough to still Souichiro's hand before it could even begin to creep below his overalls towards his gun. Standing there in a loose housecoat quickly belted on over pajamas, hair still rumpled from sleep, blinking in the early morning hours, it would be ease itself to kill her, Souichiro knew, and knew that he would feel just as little about the deed as he had felt in regards to the street sweeper.


She is Kenji's wife; he would miss her.


The gasp of recognition startled Souichiro back into the moment. Looking into Ami's eyes, he saw the exact moment when she managed to look past the pilfered overalls and cap to see the man within; to see him, and to recognize him.


Eyes widening in horror and sudden, desperate fear, Ami took a step back, her mouth opening to yell, perhaps to scream.


"Wait!" Souichiro barked, the enemy's language harsh on his tongue.


"Wait," he said again, softening his tone as he slowly lifted his hands up to waist-level, open palms facing the frightened woman. "I… To talk. A warning… Please. Li-listen."


"...You should not be here," Ami said after a momentary silence, her voice almost as stilted and unnatural as Souichiro's own. "You should not have come."


What a thing for us to agree on. Common ground, at last!


"Yes," Souichiro said aloud, agreeing with her, "but… No choice."


For a moment, he just stood there, hands out and throat full of words. Words that would not come to him, so long as he spoke in the invader's language.


"Listen…" Souichiro continued, lowering his voice as he switched to Japanese. Seeing the wince on Ami's face, the way her eyes darted up and down the corridor, made him want to ball up his fists in anger, but he kept his hands open and raised. "Listen to me, Ami. Is Kenji home?"


"It's Emily," she corrected, lips tight with disapproval and anxiety. "Emily and Keith. Those are our names."


This time, his fingers did flex briefly before Souichiro could master himself enough to shove the immediate anger away.


Judging by the way Emily blanched and took a step back into the apartment, hand drifting to the door, no doubt preparing to slam it shut, she had noticed too.


Damn it!


"Emily," Souichiro said, forcing himself to keep his voice level, to not spit the alien name out like gristle, "please…" he switched back to Japanese, "please do not close the door. I am trying…"


"Trying what?" Emily spat, and now she was speaking in Japanese, face twisting as fear gave way to anger. At least in part; Souichiro could still see the fear lurking below the anger. "Trying to say hi? Trying to mend bridges now, five years too late?"


Would that I had, and would that you hadn't made such bullshit necessary by… No, keep calm. Anger is personal; this is important. Although, I suppose it too is personal…


"I am trying to save your lives," Souichiro ground out, and took a deep breath. "I am trying to help. You are in danger."


"...How do you know that?" Emily snapped, but took another step back. "Is this a threat?"


…I can't do this.


For a moment, Souichiro despaired.


I must do this. My son… My granddaughter…


Mari…


"Emily," Souichiro tried again, forcing himself to speak slowly, calmly, "is K… is Keith home? This is not a threat. This is not… Not revenge. I am… I am trying to help. You are in danger.


"Not," he raised his voice as Emily opened her mouth, clearly about to interrupt again, "not from me. Not because of me. But because your husband is a soldier for Britannia. Please…" he spread his hands, carefully, out to his sides, "I am trying to save my granddaughter's life."


It was the mention of her daughter that finally brought a crack to Emily's mask of anger.


"No…" she swallowed, "no, Keith isn't home… He was on duty last night, at the base."


Dammit.


He had no choice but to give Ami, this bitch, the warning.


He would have no chance to see his son one last time.


"Then you listen to me," Souichiro said, and heard despair in his own voice, mixed with an anger all his own. All for his own. All for him. "If you are still here in a week, you will die. K… Keith will die. My granddaughter will die. Get out of Japan, all of you. Take what you can, and go. If you are still here in a week… It will be too late."


"...What happens in a week?" Emily asked, still suspicious.


I've said enough.


"Death," Souichiro replied shortly, and then hesitated.


Honorary soldiers are not issued guns, he remembered. Except in battle, and even then, sometimes not.


This will truly be treachery, arming a traitor… But he is still my son.


"Emily," Souchiro said again, putting his life into the hands of his son's wife, "I have a pistol at my side, under my overalls. Please don't close that door!"


When she paused again, Souichiro relaxed, his shoulders slumping back down. "I have a pistol under my overalls. I am slowly going to take it out and put it down on the floor, along with a magazine. It…" he licked his lips, the untrimmed hairs of his mustache stiff and spiny against his tongue, "it might help."


When Emily did not immediately reply, but also did not slam the door shut, Souichiro took it as his cue. Moving with exaggerated slowness, he reached into his overalls and unclipped the holster from his belt, freeing the magazine pouch that hung next to it as well, and carefully putting each on the apartment threshold.


Then, he stepped back, out of armsreach of the weapon, and then took another step back, his back brushing against the far wall. When he saw Emily still hesitating, he carefully raised his hands again, this time to shoulder height.


With rabbit swiftness, Emily bent, scooped up the pistol and the ammunition, and then was back on her feet, eyes fixed on Souichiro. Her stance told him both that she had never held a firearm before, and that she had halfway expected him to attack her when she was stooping.


When she saw that he had not moved, that he was still well out of reach, hands up… Her eyes softened.


"Would…" Emily swallowed again, nervous still, though the anger had drained completely from her face. Her hand flexed convulsively around the pistol's grip. "Would you like to come in and meet Hannah? Would you like to meet your granddaughter?"


I should not, Souichiro told himself. I need to go, to get back to my post. I need to forget that these people live. I need to let go now, forever.


"I would love to," he said aloud, and then, feeling as if he was taking a knife to his own flesh, said it again, this time in the hated language of the bastards who had killed his wife and his boy. His boys.


"I would love to."


Mari… She is beautiful. You would have loved her.

---

Scene 2: Outreach Meeting​

September 2, 2016 ATB
Ashford Academy, Tokyo Settlement


Five days before the Rising


Nunnally's grip was tight around his hand. She was squeezing his hand for all she was worth, hard enough that it was beginning to hurt Lelouch's fingers.


He did not pull away.


"I love you, Nunnally." Four little words, oft repeated but still fresh on Lelouch's tongue.


Ever since they had so narrowly avoided death, first at their mother's side and again in suffering Japan, Lelouch had tried to say those words with the gravity they deserved, as if each time he uttered them would be his last chance to assure his little sister of how much she meant to him. He knew that he had fallen short; during those quiet years, of torpor and safety, the urgency had slipped, replaced by rote routine.


"I love you too, Brother," his sister replied, as ferociously intense as her thin voice allowed. The tightness constricting her throat made her words husky with nerves, but her grip still did not slacken. "I love you so, so much, Brother. Please… Please come home."


I promise nothing will happen. The temptation called. The urge to put his sister's heart at ease with but five more words. Yet, he could not say them.


I will not lie to her. He had promised as much, just the same as he had promised to include her in his secret life, in his rebellion against That Man.


Just as Lelouch had pushed the temptation to leave without informing Nunnally, without saying goodbye, away, so too did he push away the temptation to offer empty platitudes he knew that neither of them would believe. If I am to defeat That Man utterly, Lelouch resolved, I must remain a better man. One who does not fill his family's ears with convenient lies and cast them aside.


Instead, he said, "I will not take any unnecessary risks, Nunnally… And I will look forward to sharing dinner with you tonight."


"If anything happens," she replied, voice low, flat, and, to Lelouch's ear, brimming with commitment, "if even a hair on your head is harmed, Brother, I will make Rivalz pay for leading you into this trap."


"I'll have you know that I quite literally asked for this," Lelouch gently pointed out, trying to bring a playful smile to his lips, but then hesitated. "Though… I suppose if… In that case, I suppose it would be your prerogative to do as you wish, Nunnally. In this matter, and in any other."


"Then I assert my prerogative to demand that you come back alive, Brother," Nunnally replied, and Lelouch could swear the bones in his hand were grinding together in that grasp, made vicelike by determined practice of moving her manual wheelchair up and down the accessibility ramp outside the Clubhouse. "You idiot."


The grip loosened; despite his stinging fingers, Lelouch cradled his little sister's hands between his own for a moment longer.


The discreet cough from Milly, standing near the door to the apartment, reminded Lelouch that he was on the clock.


"I will be back for dinner," Lelouch said, rising to his feet. "Let Sayoko know that it will be a special night, alright?"


Outside the apartment, Milly took him aside as well. In the shadow of the heavily locked and reinforced door protecting the sanctuary, she offered him her own goodbye.


"...Come back in one piece, Lulu," the Ashford heiress sighed, pulling away from their kiss. "I'm too young to be a widow."


"Don't you mean Leland, Miss Ashland?" Lelouch replied, smirking slightly as he tilted his head to brush the tip of his nose against hers. "After all, Milly Ashland is Leland's fiancee; no such nuptials have been concluded between Milly Ashford and Lelouch Lamperouge. I know, because I would have remembered. Nunnally certainly wouldn't leave us unchaperoned in such a case either."


"...On second thought," Milly mused aloud, arms looped around his neck, over his shoulders, "I would look pretty good in black… If anybody asks, I could just say I am going through a phase, and that black frills are all the rage back in the Homeland."


"A worthwhile silver lining for my death," Lelouch noted, nodding agreeably. "I will try not to disappoint."


"You never do, Lulu," Milly sighed, and pulled him down again to meet her upraised face. "Just… Be safe, okay?"


"Rivalz will be with me," he pointed out, "I won't be going alone. It will be just like old times in that respect."


"You mean all the times you almost got stabbed in the kidneys for cheating at chess or cards?" Milly wryly asked, a mocking eyebrow lifted high as she teased him about his chess hustling, just like she always had. In a different time, Lelouch would have risen to the bait, protesting that he'd never needed to stoop to cheating. It all seemed so irrelevant now. "Wow, you sure know how to reassure a girl, Lamperouge."


Only with the benefit of knowing Milly Ashford for six years was Lelouch able to detect the tremor beneath the confidence of "Madame President" that Milly wore like armor.


It was the same tremor he felt too, whenever he allowed his thoughts to linger on all the ways this meeting could go wrong. The mere thought of it, of leaving the mystery of his mother's death unsolved, his vengeance against That Man unfulfilled… the thought of leaving Nunnally alone, of leaving Milly so soon, after whatever it was that stretched between them had only just started to bloom…


I will not be shackled by fear, Lelouch told himself once again, pushing the bowel-dissolving thoughts of empty chairs and lonely tears away. If the True Anglicans are to truly become a weapon against Britannia, certain risks must be taken. And Father Alexander must be the one to take them.


"Almost stabbed in the kidneys, thank you very much," Lelouch rejoined with a smile an equal to the last one he had shared with his sister in its gentle protectiveness, carefully disentangling himself from Milly's arms, not without regret, "Rivalz and I have quite the experience making dashing getaways, after all. Then you can join Nunnally and I for a celebration dinner once I return. I am certain Sayoko will make enough for three."


"I'm sure she will," Milly smiled, stepping back. Her smile through her smudged lipstick was wistful, not quite sad. Lelouch was certain that she was fixing his image into her mind, trying to see him in the shade of their stolen kiss in a way that she could remember. Would remember, should he not return from the meeting. "Let me check my makeup, and then… Rivalz is waiting for you outside."


"Rivalz and I can handle ourselves," Lelouch said, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the apartment door. "Could you just… Make sure Nunnally isn't by herself? I know Sayoko will be there, but…"


"The more the better," Milly said, and nodded understandingly. "For sure, Lulu. I promise that she won't be alone."


The unspoken half of the promise, that Milly would be on hand to support Nunnally should Lelouch not return for dinner, hung heavily in the air.


"...See you later, Madame President," Lelouch finally said, and took another step back. It felt like a goodbye. "...Milly."


"See ya, Lulu…"


Outside the Clubhouse, Lelouch found Rivalz lying almost flat on his back, splayed out across his motorcycle as he stretched hugely in the warmth of the mid-afternoon sun.


"Oh?" Rivalz perked up at the sound of footsteps on the cobblestones and, levering himself up onto his elbows, turned to look at the approaching Lelouch. "Ah, at last! Took you long enough!"


Said the divine to the condemned.


"Apologies for the wait," Lelouch said, acerbic as a lemon. "I hope I have not delayed your busy schedule."


"Nope," Rivalz replied, grinning unrepentantly as he heaved himself up to his feet. "No need to worry for me. Here, catch."


The spare helmet thudded into Lelouch's hands. It was the same one he had always worn before, back when he rode in Rivalz's sidecar nearly every day. He donned it without complaint or comment; One wouldn't want to take undue risks on the drive to this dangerous meeting, after all.


"Let us be off, then," said Lelouch, speaking past the lump in his throat as he settled himself down into that same so-familiar sidecar. "No time like the present."


Rivalz gunned the engine in acknowledgment, and with a guttural roar from the motorcycle's diesel engine, they were off.


As they streaked out through the Academy's gates, Lelouch couldn't help but turn back to catch one last glimpse of Ashford, before his refuge for the last six years vanished behind the buildings rearing up over the curving road.


"Here," said Rivalz, still looking straight ahead. "Put this on."


Glancing down, Lelouch found a bundle of black cloth dangling from Rivalz's outstretched arm, and, gingerly accepting the thing, recognized it as a blindfold.


"I'm sure you know how this is going to go," Rivalz went on, speaking with the same cool voice Lelouch had heard in the garage, over the thunder of the compressor. "Inoue wants to talk to you, and only to you, but also knows that you don't want anybody outside of Shinjuku to know that you're talking to her. For both of your benefits, I'm going to drop you off at a certain place, where a few of her people are waiting. You'll be blindfolded so you don't know who they are or what route they take to get you into Shinjuku."


"You certainly aren't asking for much," Lelouch murmured, doffing his helmet temporarily to wind the blindfold around his head and replacing it once he couldn't see anything.


It's a leap of faith, he acknowledged, but so is this entire meeting. If they decide to kill me, there is very little I can do to prevent them from doing so. So, why not walk into this serpent's mouth quite literally blind?


After that, Lelouch tried to focus on nothing beyond the wind on the exposed lower half of his face, and the breath flowing steadily through him. In and out, in and out…


It was almost a shock when the wind slowed and softened as Rivalz came to a stop, his bike's motor guttering for a moment before stilling.


"Sun's up!" Rivalz called out, loud and cheerful. More quietly, as he unbuckled the helmet's strap from beneath Lelouch's chin, he added, "keep calm, buddy. I'll be waiting here when you get back."


"So, this is him?" A different voice cut in, the Britannian enunciation slurred by a non-native's tongue. "He doesn't look like much."


"Neither's Kallen, and we both know she could fold me like an omelet any day of the week," Rivalz replied, a casual shrug in his voice almost hiding the tension and respect beneath. As rough hands half-guided, half-dragged Lelouch out of the sidecar, he couldn't help but wish that Rivalz had been perhaps a bit more firm in iterating that point. "But yeah, that's him. I'd like him back in one piece, alright?"


"No promises," a different voice muttered as strong hands gripped Lelouch's left arm. "He'd better keep a polite tongue in his mouth…"


Without further ado, the presumed Japanese insurgents began leading Lelouch away from where he thought Rivalz and the motorcycle were. He walked willingly, doing his best to respond to changes in his escort's grip, cooperating as best as he could while blinded.


Especially as the small party entered into first the still air of a building, and then the humid subterranean coolness of a tunnel or basement.


The old subway tunnels, Lelouch decided, gingerly making his way down a set of stairs, trying not to lose his footing on worn concrete. Hardly a surprise that they're still in use. I'm certain that criminals of all ethnicities have made good use of them since Tokyo fell. Hopefully someone's been maintaining them well enough that I don't need to worry about cave-ins.


He was gloomily certain that he would worry about cave-ins regardless of any slapdash maintenance conducted over the last six years, and tried instead to focus on his escort's muttered conversation. From the voices, there were three of the Japanese escorting him, with one in front of him, another behind, and then the third who still had not let go of his arm.


"Fucking rats," the leader cursed, kicking something away with a wet squeak. Lelouch was gratified that he had no issue understanding the grumbling; his Japanese had gone little used in the last six years, but his fluency hadn't slipped at all. "We should tell Mishima to add more tunnel duty assignments to the pot."


"Who cares?" the trailing escort asked, the soles of his shoes slapping against the pavement. "This far out from Shinjuku, why should we be wasting our time with these tunnels? And especially with the rats. Keeping the roof up, I'll grant you, but the rats are gonna be here no matter what we do. Might as well save our energy…"


"They'll follow us home," came the gloomy reply from up ahead. "Mark my words."


"How could you even tell?" the one gripping Lelouch's arm asked reasonably. "A rat looks like a rat, yeah? Besides, if any come sniffing under Shinjuku, they'll give the kids something else besides each other to club for once."


"And then maybe the evening soup will have meat in it for a change," the trailing guard chuckled. "Boil it long enough and nobody'll know."


The reflective and somewhat hungry silence following that remark lasted until the group came to a halt, and someone guided Lelouch's hands towards the bars of a ladder.


"Climb up," the guard who had been up front grunted to Lelouch in Britannian, "but once you come out, just take a few steps forward and stop. Don't touch the blindfold. There'll be eyes on you, and we'll be right behind."


"As you say," Lelouch murmured in the same language, and then nodded his assent to emphasize his compliance.


No need to risk ending up in the soup along with the rats thanks to an overly anxious guard, he thought as he clambered up the rungs. We walked quite some distance in those tunnels… I wonder if I'm climbing up into Shinjuku, or if we're somewhere in the Honorary districts…?


No hands immediately grabbed at Lelouch as he clambered out, but he still heeded his orders and left his blindfold untouched; if there was a sniper, or even just a gunman waiting out of arm's reach, there was no need to antagonize them unnecessarily. He took the moment to lift his face up towards the unseen sun, enjoying the clean warmth of the afternoon after the clamminess of the tunnels.


Half a minute after he returned to the surface, Lelouch heard his escorts emerge up the ladder, one by one. As a familiar hand closed around his left arm, more lightly now, presumably since he hadn't tried to run, the grating sound of metal on pavement followed the ring of metal on metal.


Closing the manhole back up, Lelouch realized. Either an old maintenance port, or at some point we left the subway tunnel and entered a sewer or drain instead.


"Alright, Britannian," the apparent leader of the escort said, again speaking in the tongue of his enemy. "Just come this way…"


More stairs followed, and then the coolness of a building's interior, the heat of late summer left behind as a door closed. More walking, more stairs, and another two doors led Lelouch to the side of a table, which he bumped into, and a chair, into which he was gently pushed.


"You can take the blindfold off, Mister Gelt," a female voice speaking, bizarrely, European-accented Britannian said from somewhere on the far side of the table. "Or is it Mister Lamperouge? Or is 'Father Alexander' your preferred method of address?"


Lelouch's breath caught on the second name. Dammit, Rivalz!


"I see that Rivalz has told you all about me," Lelouch replied, grateful for the distraction provided by the blindfold's stubborn knot. Focusing on picking the damned thing apart gave him something else to focus on besides the unwelcome invocation of his "true" name. "Mister Gelt is my preference, but as I am here in my clerical capacity, Father Alexander will serve."


"Young for the priesthood, aren't you?" A different female voice replied, again in accented Britannian, although this speaker's voice carried the tones of Tokyo instead of… Brandenburg, maybe? "An early calling, I suppose."


"When the call comes, one must answer," Lelouch murmured, saying what he imagined Father Timothy might in answer to such questions, and then grunted with satisfaction as the blindfold slackened at last and fell around his neck, giving him his first clear view of his questioners.


He blinked, and wondered if the pressure of the blindfold had somehow impacted his vision.


Three people sat before him on the far side of the table, all staring keenly at him from behind poker faces. Two of them, the man and the women flanking the central speaker, were about what he had imagined when he had tried visualizing the leaders of Japanese resistance to Britannia. The man was gaunt, almost skeletal, and the ropey scar splitting his face gave him a savage, almost inhuman, mien. In the woman's hard face, eyes lively with intelligence sparkled below hair tied up in a scarf, her dispassionate gaze unapologetic in its dissection of his features.


Meeting the woman's eyes, Lelouch realized that he knew her, or at least had seen her before. During his short-lived time as Alan Spicer, he had taken orders from her while volunteering at one of the soup kitchen dinners in the Honorary district just outside the Shinjuku Ghetto itself.


That must be Inoue, then. Rivalz's contact.


Both Inoue and the scarred man sat tall and upright in their chairs, but both of their body language screamed deference to the short figure caught between them. The one whose incongruity had briefly inspired Lelouch to question his own eyes.


She can't be any older than Nunnally, was his first overriding thought, his horror tinged with fascination. She might actually be younger… Although, he thought again, noting the signs of a hard life with too little food on the figure's thin face, perhaps not that much younger. She just looks that way because of the impacted growth…


There was no question that this girl was the leader, and not Inoue or the man Lelouch mentally dubbed Scarface.


There was equally no question that the girl looked just as Britannian as Lelouch himself did.


"Well then, Father Alexander," said the girl, her lips twisting in a pinched expression that, after a moment, Lelouch interpreted as amused, "you requested this meeting; so, speak. My schedule is quite cramped."


Skipping the niceties, hmm? Not particularly Japanese, if my memories of Kururugi Genbu and his interminable meetings are anything to go by, but… Well, the circumstances make the impoliteness understandable.


"To business, then," Lelouch agreed, with a polite smile. "Though, you have me at an advantage, I'm afraid. What names would you prefer me to use for the course of our meeting? After all," he said, injecting just a touch of levity into his voice, "I can hardly think of you as just 'Man, Woman, Blondie,' now, can I?"


For a moment, as the girl slowly blinked at him, reptile eyes cool and dull, Lelouch thought that he had overstepped already.


He refused to look away, though, refused to back down or apologize as the silence stretched on.


It's just like being back at court, he had realized, staring boldly back at the lean Britannian face with a Basilisk stare. Any sign of weakness, and they will eat me alive, guaranteed safe passage or not. If I demonstrate weakness now, they will never consider me a serious partner, and if I am not a serious partner in their eyes, then there is no reason to permit a Britannian with knowledge of their faces to live.


"That would hardly be conducive, yes," the girl said at last, breaking the silence. From his peripheral vision, Lelouch saw the two other insurgents seated at the table relax just as he did.


Neither of them knew how she would react either. That is… worrisome.


"I am Commander Hajime," the trio's leader went on, and blinked at him again, her big blue eyes unnerving in their intensity just much as in the way shutters seemed to close behind them. "This is Inoue, the primary officer on the board of the Rising Sun Benevolent Association, short of Lord Cardemonde, of course. She also serves as our outreach officer, and is here in that capacity."


Commander Hajime offered no name for the man seated on her left.


Lelouch did not press for any further identification. The lack of introduction was all the information he required.


Outreach officer, is it? She was in charge of the soup dole, and the men escorting me mentioned a soup kitchen and evening meals in Shinjuku. She must be the soft face of the leadership, and probably has something to do with logistics support too, or at least the part involving keeping people fed. Scarface must be the other face of the leadership, then. The kind whose attention nobody wishes to catch.


But neither has a rank attached to their name, or any badges of office. Only Commander Hajime has that dignity. So, what does that mean?


"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Commander," Lelouch bid, nodding gracefully, "and yours, Miss Inoue. I have heard many good things regarding your attempts to mitigate some of the suffering in the wake of the rampage last winter. Such mercy for those who have no reason to care for you speaks volumes about your organization."


As does the sudden cessation of those efforts. Kallen was quite upset about that, when she talked to "Alan" about the end of the public dinners. Although she said it was just a matter of funding, I am sure that feeding potential enemies was not an idea without foes. Yes, Scarface just grimaced; I am certain that he, at least, did not approve of feeding the homeless Honoraries.


"They are Japanese," Commander Hajime said flatly, "even if they have forgotten as much. Besides, when Britannia is so determined to make enemies of them, who are we to decline to assist the Administration in their efforts? Which," she continued, setting her hands flat on the table in front of her, "brings us back to you, Father Alexander, friend of Rivalz Cardemonde, without whom we would have struggled mightily. You too wish to make an enemy of Britannia? Or did you just come in hopes of soup as well?"


"Not Britannia," Lelouch admitted with an easy smile, allowing the jab to pass unchallenged, "not per say, at least. The Britannic Church, however, as well as its head and the state figures that support the heretical beliefs of the Church, are all very much our enemies."


"...The head of the Britannic Church is Charles zi Britannia, isn't it?" Commander Hajime asked, glancing at Inoue for confirmation, who nodded. "Right," Hajime went on, looking back at Lelouch, "so your enemy is Charles zi Britannia, the Emperor of Britannia?"


"Correct," Lelouch said, in perhaps the most truthful statement he had ever given.


"But not Britannia?"


"Also correct."


"...That appears to be a distinction without a difference."


"From the outside, it likely is," Lelouch agreed. "From our point of view, that is, from the point of view of the True Anglican Church, we are loyal Britannians. The only loyal Britannians. We did not leave Britannia; Britannia, you could say, left us."


Which is indeed how the True Anglicans see themselves, and how Father Alexander sees himself, Lelouch thought, almost idly, still not breaking eye contact with Hajime. For that reason, it is indeed as close to the truth as is necessary to come.


"...Alright," nodded Commander Hajime, her voice still flatly skeptical, though thankfully not outright hostile. "Far be it from me to debate a man of the cloth in such weighty theological matters. Instead, tell me why I should permit such a loyal son of Britannia to leave this room, much less to leave with any agreement between your church and ourselves. And," she raised a quelling hand, "do not think that our agreement with Lord Cardemonde leaves you untouchable. We are no longer dependent upon his name for transit through the checkpoints."


"Because our internal loyalties are, as you put it, a distinction without difference, at least from where you sit," Lelouch said, shrugging. "At the end of the day, both you Japanese and we Old Believers have excellent reasons to hate Charles zi Britannia and vested reasons to fight his agents. It will be the wheel for any of you who are taken alive, and then the public exhibition of your broken bodies until the birds are through. For me, it would be the burning stake for heresy. For the moment, we are in the same boat."


"For the moment," Hajime slowly nodded, accepting his argument, "but what about a month or two down the road. I am… not interested in setting a fire that could burn my own house down. You say that you are loyal to your idea of Britannia? Fine. What relationship does Japan have with this dream version of Britannia?"


"A restoration of the status quo before the invasion of Indochina," Lelouch said, leaning forwards slightly, now that business was finally at hand. "The True Anglican Church repudiates the wanton corruption and grasping actions of Charles zi Britannia, both in his reformation of the Britannic Church and in his unwarranted aggression."


"And what does that mean?"


"Put simply?" Lelouch feigned a grimace, "it means that given my druthers, I would immediately hand Areas 10, 12, and 13 back to the Chinese, and I would restore the independence of New Zealand and Japan. Ruling half the world is already more than enough, and trying to hold down the Western Pacific Rim on top of rebuilding from the Emblem of Blood and squashing noble and Number uprisings in the Heartland and Old Areas is an impossible task. Of all of the New Areas, only Area 9 is close to stable and only Area 11 is profitable, and that's only because of the Sakuradite.


"Collectively, all of the New Areas are a massive net loss. We only benefit by cutting them loose."


"That makes… a great deal of sense," Commander Hajime replied, rubbing a thumb over her chin, her eyes drifting away over Lelouch's shoulder as she seemed to lose herself in thought. "Colonies can be quite sticky, though… What about all of the Britannians who have gained title over Japanese land? Who now live in the atrocity called the Tokyo Settlement, or in all of the lesser settlements scattered across the Home Islands?"


"They can leave and remain Britannian or stay and deal with you on their own," Lelouch said, entirely untroubled. "Ideally, if you Japanese somehow manage to actually push Clovis and his followers out of Japan, the bulk of the Britannian migrants will return to the Heartland. They will be dispirited and angry with the Empire's current leadership, and my followers will be mixed into their ranks. Word will spread, hopefully, and then the True Anglicans will have a presence wherever the would-be settlers go next."


"Hah!" Hajime barked a laugh, and at last the shutters behind her eyes opened a crack, just enough for the glow of cynical humor to shine. "Spoken like a true priest, always eager for souls to save!"


"When we are called," Lelouch replied, answering smile with moderate smile, dripping with deliberately mocking modesty, "what are we to do but answer? And if the call perhaps needs help in arriving…" He allowed the sham piety and most of his smile to slip from his face. "But, you see, we have a good reason to hope for your victory and to desire your help."


"So you do," the blonde agreed in her incongruous European-accented Britannian. There was, Lelouch was certain, a story there. "Indeed you do. Fine, we have sufficient reason to enter a… let's call it a business relationship. Not a friendship, not an alliance, but we can talk. We can talk about what you want, and what currency you will use to tender your purchases."


"Indeed," Lelouch laughed, relaxing. His foot was in the door, and that meant that, regardless of how else this meeting proceeded, he would be returning home for dinner. "Indeed, indeed. Well, to put matters quite simply, my flock is growing rapidly but remains quite poor and low on the social strata. We have a few connections, sufficient to gain access to many of the places where technicians work and enlisted rankers guard, but not the sort of connections that can deliver significant quantities of money or of weapons. We have hands and we can reach for necks, but we lack the knives to put through barred throats."


"How illustrative," remarked Commander Hajime dryly, also relaxing slightly in her chair. "Access, you say? Access to what?"


"Take your pick," Lelouch glibly replied. "The arsenals for the Honorary brigades stationed around the Shinjuku Ghetto? I have a devout sergeant with a key. The conduits through which the fiber cables run? Telecom workers need hope too. The Tokyo power grid? I have enough electricians with access to enough infrastructure to ruin a good part of the distribution network. Plumbers, boilermakers, custodians, clerks… so many little, but ever-so-important, trades have representatives among my flock."


"What about the artillery base out on Chiba?" Commander Hajime asked, "or the aircraft hangars at the airport, where the VTOLs are based? Perhaps most importantly, what about the Knightmares?"


Ah, of course. Hardly a surprise, but is it doable…? Lelouch considered it for a beat. Despite himself, he felt his heart race and lips twitch. I always did love a challenge.


"Hmm… Access wouldn't be easy," he qualified, steepling his fingers as he let his mind run through the possibilities, "nor do I believe that outright theft of military hardware on that magnitude is possible. Sabotage, though…? Well, that's another question entirely."


"...I will want a demonstration first," Commander Hajime said, and Lelouch grinned inwardly at his victory. "You are making some very impressive claims; forgive me if I do not take your word as your bond on the matter, Father."


"Every doubting Thomas can be won over eventually," Lelouch said, but nodded. "That is a very understandable demand, and one that I would be willing to meet to advance negotiations. With that in mind, let us discuss what you could spare to help the True Anglican Church burn the heretical usurpers to the ground."

---

Scene 3: The Empress's Speech​

September 4, 2016 ATB
JLF Central Command Bunker, Matsumoto Prefecture, Area 11


Three days before the Rising.


Kaguya had spent all her life in the shadows cast by a parade of ambitious men.


Heading that parade was her father, back straight and proud, face as haughty as a hawk upon the wing, and dead these six years, nobility and high office proving poor shields in the face of Britannian missiles and bombs. He had died in Tokyo, in the opening salvo of the Conquest, had died alongside thousands of others. Though the details of what had called him to Tokyo on that black August day would remain forever unknown, Kaguya was confident that it had been a development in some scheme that required his personal attention. Always bitter that the Clan of Kururugi stood only a bare degree closer to the extinct House of Yamato than the Clan of Sumeragi, her father had forever pursued an ever greater share of power in the Republic's government.


In his daughter's memory, he still strode forwards, undefeated by death and unhumbled by sharing a final resting place with the common men and women who had died with him, all buried under mountains of trash and broken concrete in one of the great landfills outside of the Tokyo Settlement.


Next in line was Kirihara Taizo, the man who had shaped her and protected her. Her real father, Kaguya supposed, in all the ways that mattered. His heavy-handed instruction had never been sparing, but neither had she ever doubted the affection she had seen in his eyes. He had made it equally plain that she would always have the protection of his faltering house, just as she would always be a tool in his eyes, a piece within his schemes. For all that the great bear of the Kirihara Clan was failing at last, leaving only an inheritance of fire for alienated grandnephews and for Kaguya herself, ambition still burned like coals within his vast, sagging belly.


Clovis la Britannia had a place in that superb parade as well, a strutting peacock and a boy who refused to become a man. "Lady Sophie" had paid homage to the prince annually, coming to the Britannian Concession along with her fellow great traitors of Kyoto to reassure Clovis of their loyalty, and of course to offer generous gifts. During these "voluntary displays of steadfast loyalty," Kaguya had taken Clovis's measure; even as a child of seven, she had found him wanting. Indolent and callous upon his viceregal throne, the Prince of Passion had prattled on, about himself, his art, his unbridled emotions, and the great joy he found in the love his subjects felt for him.


She had only counted herself lucky that she had been too young to attract his attention, either as a prize to be won or a player in her own right. Clovis's hunger for the pleasure brought by the conquest of the former and the satisfaction yielded by the domination of the latter were secret only to those without ears to hear, and as the head of a clan of one, Kaguya had ears sharpened keen by necessity. In every laugh and every pronouncement of his passions, she heard the words beneath all of Clovis's many wasted breaths; that he would never allow himself to be upstaged, to be forced from the stage's center into obscurity in the wings.


That the only joy he would allow any under his control was the fawning over the ever-greater accolades for which he yearned.


Above him stood his father, the Emperor of Britannia, Charles. A man whom Kaguya had never met, but whose face she could envision with equal clarity as her own. Where her father had been a hawk and where Clovis was a peacock, Charles was some great eagle, a roc from an older world, a different time. A holdover from the days when titans still wheeled overhead on dread wings, and giants still flourished in the great abyss. A time when every prince had waged a war to the knife upon all of his siblings, and when every imperial scion was a kinslayer.


Alone of all of those, the founder of the last surviving branch on that great old tree, Charles strode the world, vast and terrible. A man so assured of his power and of his glory that the entire world had no choice but to bow in subjugation. A man who was as proud as a demon, with ambition enough to declare himself a god through his priestly puppet.


Kaguya had lived her life in the shadow of ambitious men, and so she had paid close attention to Colonel Kusakabe Josui during the planning meeting with the rest of the leaders of the Japanese Liberation Front. He had concealed the rage flashing in his eyes when the 3rd Division was ordered to head south with commendable speed, but she had been watching, and she had seen it. Likewise, she had seen the fury directed personally at her when she had named Tohdoh as the man in charge of executing the key stroke of her audacious plan.


That second burst had been a bright and searing thing, fueled both by personal grievances and, Kaguya knew, with thwarted ambition. She suspected that it was the second of these that had truly set Colonel Kusakabe's soul ablaze.


Fortunately, she was not the only one in attendance with eyes to see. The JLF officers had kept to their own council, perhaps unwilling to express concern over a brother officer with outsiders, but Lord Taizo had taken her aside after the meeting, intent on working out a scheme to dismantle this newfound obstacle suddenly lying in their path.


Killing him, they had agreed, was out of the question, as was simply removing Kusakabe from command. A sudden death at this juncture would inject suspicion and division into the ranks of the JLF at the worst possible time, while too many of his soldiers were personally loyal to Kusakabe to safely pluck him from their head. He had been the most active commander in recent years, and the champion of all of the hotheaded urges to attack now rather than wait another day.


The answer to the quandary of Kusakabe was easily found. Ultimately, the colonel was only worth worrying about because of the men whom he could command. If their loyalty could be diverted away from Kusakabe to the broader cause that the JLF served, the man would be neutralized as a factor without becoming a martyr or a rallying point for the dissatisfied.


And the best way to redirect personal loyalty to something as insubstantial as a cause was, of course, to make the cause personal.


Which was where Kaguya, Empress of Japan, became a factor superseding anything that Kaguya herself might achieve.


A fact that the clothes enrobing her, the costume, only reinforced.


"Your Imperial Majesty," a JLF lieutenant whose rank insignia bore the blue piping of a signals officer said, stooping into a deep bow. His brief expression of flickering uncertainty loudly telegraphed that he had no idea if this was the proper way to greet his monarch or not. "All is ready for your broadcast. As soon as you have been introduced, your voice shall reach all of Japan's soldiers!"


"Thank you," Kaguya replied, accompanying the simple words with a smile. She savored that quiet, concise expression of her thoughts; soon, she would have to drizzle formality over everything she did, all in order to reinforce the costume. "We are gratified by your professionalism."


She ignored the lieutenant's babbled thanks as he proceeded backwards out of the room without rising from his bow, blowing well past respect and into inadvertent self-parody. Or at least, that was what Kaguya thought of the man's performance, but she struggled to think badly of the man. He was an overaged lieutenant who had remained a junior officer for well over half a decade because his world had vanished out from under his feet, not from any mistake or failure. He was, apparently, buying into the world that she was offering him to replace that lost one, a world based on memories harkening at least to the time of his great-grandfather, rather than any one among the living could recall.


So what if he is acting out what he feels would be appropriate to such a world? Am I not doing the same thing?


With effort, Kaguya resisted the urge to look down again at herself. At the black hakama and the white kosode under the breastplate and gorget lacquered black and gilded with gold, at the uchikake patterned with cranes draped over her shoulders and belted about her waist with a thick obi gleaming with golden threads. She did not look, but her fingers tightened around the dark shaft of the naginata fully two heads taller than her; at least the spear's blade was of fine steel and razor keen, for all that tassels drooped from its crossguard and gilding encrusted its haft.


In the privacy of her mind, Kaguya could only think of the outfit as her costume. Every fold dripped with symbology, from the cranes spreading their wings across her back to the golden imperial chrysanthemums accenting the center of her breastplate and of her gorget, to the dragon chasing its way up the naginata's blade, all of it meant to convince all who saw it that the girl buried within was an empress in truth. Only Kaguya, Lord Taizo, and a select few servants knew that she had been forced to resort to accounts written by Britannian and European servants for details on old court costumes, and that everything had been put together on the basis of those foreign accounts and half-guessed approximations.


It is as if I am an underprepared actress, arriving on the stage for opening night without having read the script to the end and without the benefit of any dress rehearsal.


But if it is opening night, it is for an entirely new play, one perhaps based upon old themes but never performed before. Which means that the audience will be even more clueless about how all of this is supposed to work than I am. Which means that, so long as I can sell a sufficiently convincing performance, they will not recognize just how far out of my depth I am.


"It is time," Kaguya, Empress of Japan, announced, mostly for her own benefit, and turned to the small conference room's only other occupant, her herald for the day at the suggestion of Kozuki Naoto, passed along to her via a call from her Tanya. "Announce me, Major."


"As you will, Your Majesty," murmured Major Onoda Hiroo, rising to his feet at her bidding.


For a man in his fifties, he still moved with a grace Kaguya found surprising, with none of the aging stiffness that had so plagued Lord Taizo over the last few years. That easy mobility did not extend to his face; beneath the thin iron line of his cropped mustache, the major's lips remained as immobile as they had since Kaguya first made his acquaintance two days previous. But, while neither smile nor frown crossed his face in her presence, his eyes were always keen, always watchful.


An ambitious man, the nascent empress thought, following the officer out of the conference room, taking care to lower her naginata before the blade scored the doorframe, but per Mister Kozuki's reports, a competent and dutiful officer. In short, a sword without a hilt in my hands, perhaps, but in Colonel Kusakabe's eyes, nothing but an outright liability and a clear threat.


The perfect tool, Lady Sophie murmured, just as much a part of Kaguya as the girl who adored cheap cookies. Britannian lessons, refinement and quiet docility draped over bloody-handed ruthlessness, given a convenient voice. Too renowned for Kusakabe to act directly against, yet too strong for him to overlook or tolerate. If the colonel embarks upon a rash act, he will be forced to neutralize Onoda first, a move that will inevitably weaken his forces' trust in their commander.


Better still, if the Kozuki Organization reports about Onoda's enthusiasm for the return of our rule are accurate, a man as cunning and ambitious as Onoda might spot the danger Kusakabe represents and handle him for me, without any need for further investment.


Kaguya hated thinking like that. It was so Britannian in its disregard for anything but immediate victory, of how people could be useful to her, regardless of how that use impacted them. The way she could so easily turn her own people against each other to suit her own ends… Just the meat and drink of Britannian politics, and now, apparently, hers.


She suspected that she would have to think a lot more like Lady Sophie in the future, provided she survived the next few days.


"Announcing Her Current Majesty, by the grace of the Sun and the Sea," Major Onoda's surprisingly stentorian bellow rang out, effortlessly dominating the auditorium and the several hundred soldiers assembled inside as soon as he stepped across the threshold, a few steps ahead of Kaguya. "Kneel! You are in the presence of Her Reigning Majesty!"


Then, he stepped neatly to the side, leaving the aisle straight through the auditorium to the stage, and the hastily assembled impromptu throne thereupon, empty and clear for Kaguya's approach.


The throne was not the only attempt to dress up the space most commonly used as basketball courts by the garrison of the vast Matsumoto Bunker Complex; the "aisle" cleaving the neat ranks was a somewhat battered roll of navy blue fabric hastily removed from some peripheral barracks, hastily relocated to save Kaguya the "indignity" of setting a slippered foot on the erstwhile basketball courts herself.


The stage, located on the far side of the courts, was generally used by formation leaders to conduct and guide calisthenics exercises, a key part of the bunker-bound force's regular physical training, so it at least had not been erected solely for her benefit.


Kaguya had asked for none of this, but had reluctantly accepted it all as inevitable when she turned down General Katase's offer of the Command Bunker for her venue. She had specifically requested the use of the largest space available within the Complex, eager to speak to as large of an audience as possible. A few concessions to monarchical dignity were worth the opportunity to ensure her words went beyond the cliques of the upper ranks.


As soon as Kaguya's toes touched that repurposed carpet, a rippling wave of motion swept the hall. Soldiers in their ranks dropped to their knees, hands on thighs, and touched their foreheads to the auditorium's floor. On the stage, Colonel Kusakabe knelt and bowed forwards, but did not go so far as his subordinates. Instead, he lowered his head only a respectful degree, and kept his eyes open.


Those suspicious eyes tore away from the hole they were boring into Major Onoda to fix upon her, noting each small, careful step down the runner.


My message, Kaguya thought, recognizing the seething hostility in that glare, was very clearly received and understood. Good.


As Kaguya processed, the major himself fell into step a few discreet paces back, shadowing her across the courts and up the shallow stairs to the elevated rise of the stage, where he found a place to stand on her left side as she turned to face her audience, Kusakabe seething in her shadow to the right.


"Rise, soldiers of Japan!" Major Onoda bellowed out, repeating the formula Kaguya had laid out for him in advance. "Rise, and hear the words of the Daughter of Heaven, the Empress of Japan!"


As the soldiers in the audience, and Kusakabe, rose back to their feet in a thunder of noise, Kaguya cast her eyes across the crowd. They were, almost to a man, male, and all bore the insignia of the Third Division upon their shoulders. The first three ranks were all officers, majors to lieutenants, and likely represented the bulk of the leadership of the division's several battalions. Behind them, a rank and a half or so of non-coms stood, with a further four ranks of enlisted standing in the very back, together comprising the better part of the two companies Kusakabe had brought with him to the JLF Strategy Meeting as an escort.


Which means these are all his most loyal, his picked men. The ones he trusts enough to put on a show before his peers and his rivals. But how far could a man like Kusakabe ever trust his subordinates? Moreover, how successful was he in concealing his mistrust from those subordinates? Little corrodes personal loyalty quite like the knowledge that your superior doesn't trust you, after all. Kaguya paused at that, and then winced internally at the arrogant assuredness of that last thought. At least, she amended, no good leader that I have met has ever indicated any mistrust of his subordinates to their faces.


And loyal to Kusakabe though they might be… They are all Japanese soldiers. All of their attention is focused now upon me, and me only. That's all that really matters, now.


"Soldiers of the Japanese Liberation Front!" Kaguya cried out, raising her free hand up and out, palm extended towards the raptly attentive audience, "Heroes of the Japanese people, of their ancestors and their gods, we hail you!"


That did not get the appreciative roar Kaguya had half-expected. There were few smiles, especially among the rankers in the far back, but noise or effuse reactions.


There was only the hungry, expectant silence.


And so, in that instant, Kaguya cast all of her carefully laid plans aside and threw herself headlong into the moment.


"What is the purpose of something so archaic as an empress? We are sure that all of you have wondered just that much, asked yourselves that same question. Well, we.. I have wondered just the same! What is the purpose of an Empress of Japan when there is no Japan, when the Japan that my father served, that your officers swore their oaths to, was the Republic of Japan?


"But what is Japan?"


That silence still yawned like an open grave, ready to swallow her soul whole.


Kaguya gave herself over to it unstintingly, Lady Sophie and the Current Empress and even Sumeragi Kaguya all speaking with her tongue.


"Is Japan merely a collection of islands, a cartographer's label on a map? I say to you, no!


"Is Japan merely her people, those who call themselves Japanese? The remnant of a remnant who have endured hunger and disease? Those who survived cruelty and indifference, and who resisted the easy route offered by taking the enemy's Oath?" This time, Kaguya let the silence linger for a few thoughtful beats, before answering her own question again, voice low as her fingers tightened around the spear shaft in her hand. "Again I say to you, no. The people are the heart of the nation, but the nation is not merely a huddled tribe of starvelings."


There was a rustle through the ranks, an angry murmur. Many of the recruits who had come to expand the 3rd's ranks after the Conquest had come for the food above all else, including the many recent recruits from Niigata, at least a few of whom must be in the crowd.


That touched a nerve, Kaguya observed, concealing her smile. Good. You're angry, ashamed… But that still means that you have your pride.


"Japan is her people," Kaguya acknowledged, "starved and sick, the passion that burns within the Japanese heart for revenge and for a restoration of our pride is the hearthfire of our nation… But that is not all that Japan is. Japan is her gods, her traditions and her institutions! Japan is our language, our customs, our festivals and our funerals!


"And as our long history shows, the heart of Japan belongs to no one else, is not for anyone else, save the Japanese! We are not the Chinese, to absorb foreign conquerors and to make them our own. We are not the Europeans, however much they tried to corrupt us with the help of opportunistic aristocrats happy to prattle republican ideals while lining their own pockets and securing choice appointments for their own kin and clients."


Behind her and at her side, Kusakabe stirred angrily, but held his peace for now, presumably content for her to dig her own grave without his help.


"Believe me on this, for I was fathered by one such aristocrat, and raised by another."


On her other side, Onoda stood stock-still. Kaguya wondered if he recognized the barely veiled attack on Lord Taizo, and if he cared about it if he had.


"Above all else, we are not Britannians, something our Honorary Britannian former brothers and sisters would like to forget. But, as one who has taken an enemy's name and eaten the enemy's bread, I tell you this: No matter how deeply they might wish to forget it, a Japanese heart beats in the breast of every Honorary Britannian, and one day, those hearts will make their way to their throats and there they will choke them! Choke them, unless they remember who their true brothers and sisters are before we remind them ourselves…


"But now, I come back to you, oh heroes of Japan. You humble me! For six weary years, the JLF has rebuilt itself from the ashes of the old army, all in preparation for this very moment. Throughout your training, your observation and spying, your long preparation, you have never lost hope… An accomplishment that I cannot say with full-throated honesty belongs likewise to me!


"You have never lost hope… And you have not forgotten a single insult, a single torture. You have not forgotten how our best and brightest were packed aboard ships and sent east across the Pacific! You have not forgotten how all the rest of us were herded into ghettos, where cholera and hunger stalked, nor how the Britannians took our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, and threw them into the garbage like dogs! You have not forgotten the looting of our treasure houses of knowledge and beauty, nor how the discarded scraps were burnt!


"You have not forgotten, nor have you forgiven, nor did you abandon hope.


"All for this day."


The naginata whistled as it spun, flipped upside down in Kaguya's deft hands. The blade thudded into the timbers of the stage as she drove it home, the sharpened steel sinking deep into the worn planking.


"I am the last of my house, the last of my line!" Kaguya cried out. "You ask what the purpose of an empress is? I am Japan, all of her ancient traditions and her hopes for the future! The blood of the gods waters my veins, and the knowledge of my enemy sharpens my blade! When I die, so too will Japan die!


"Unless you heroes of Japan can save me, save your mothers and sisters, wives and sweethearts, and save all of our futures. If there is a Japan again, a free nation of Japanese ruled by the Japanese, unencumbered by foreign shackles and foreign dreams, it will be your doing, and your doing alone!


"Once, a great wind overturned the invaders, but what great wind can sweep away the Knightmares of the Britannians? Only the last dying breaths of every Japanese soldier necessary to sweep the Britannians back into the sea! Only the hands of each Japanese man and woman holding Britannian heads down in the water, until the salt purifies their wretched souls and the bubbles cease! Only until each stolen Japanese child rips the Britannian name from their heart and their tongue and throws it to the stones and the ravening gulls! Only until each traitor, be they loyal in their heart to China, to Europa, to Britannia, be cast out and burnt from our ranks and from our memories!


"So, I say to all of you! Revere the Empress! Expel the barbarians! Let us all shed our blood, until the Sun rises again and our enemy's drown in their own froth!"


Recognizing his cue without ever having needed to be warned of it, Major Onoda stepped forward in the silence to stand next to her, reaching down to run his palm across the blade of her naginata.


Then, with blood running down his arm and staining his uniform jacket, the major pivoted on his heel and brought his dripping hand to his brow in a salute, crying out, "Long live Her Majesty the Empress! Long live Japan! Ten thousand years!"


And when the crowd of soldiers, Kusakabe's own picked men, echoed his cries with one voice, Kaguya knew with a curdling certainty that, whoever else they might once have been, they were now hers.


"Long live the Empress! May she rule for ten thousand years!"

---

An interminable hour later, that cheer still rang in Kaguya's head as she carefully excavated her own face from the mask of the empress, standing before the mirror of her ensuite.


"They were certainly enthusiastic," Kaguya muttered to herself, releasing her hair from its carefully-organized pins. "Just as I'd hoped they would be. By any reasonable measure, the speech was a success. Any plan Kusakabe had that hinged on his men's personal loyalty to him has almost certainly been rendered into nothing but ash on the wind now…"


But it is equally certain that I have let loose a tiger, and though I might be riding atop it, I have no control over how that great cat might move, or who it might maul.


"...How did I get into this mess?" she asked herself, hanging up the ornamental robe. Despite its old-fashioned cut, Kaguya knew that its stitching was merely a few days old, the product of a last-minute commission from a well-paid tailoress of her acquaintance.


Just as much a modern product aping antiquity as "Empress Kaguya" herself was.


The only part that was real was the steel, both in terms of the costume and in terms of my own masquerade as a monarch. If I lacked steel, I would have been just as the other house-heads believed me to be, a mere puppet for Lord Taizo's ambitions. If my costume lacked the spearhead's steel, then it all could have broken down, for if Major Onoda had not taken it upon himself to cement my speech with his own decisive gesture…


And that act, all by itself, demonstrates just how foolish the concept is, that any one person should have supreme and endless authority, that blood alone should bestow power! By all accounts, the major came from common stock, but he usurped my entire presentation with one move! But what was that move in service for? Was it in the name of his own power? In ensuring that men such as himself should have the freedom to choose their fates, to find their own fortunes?


For a moment, the major's eyes gleamed from the mirror, as shiny and cold as the moon. Like the moon, all that light was only a reflection; the Empress, not Kaguya but the old robe she wore, was his sun, the source of that light. Kaguya felt that she rarely erred when taking the measure of men, and in Major Onoda, she had found a fanatic.


He believes it all, she knew, shaking her head with amazement. I know who he is, from Tanya and Commander Kaname's reports, but… He believes it, and now, most of those men in that audience believe it too.


Nothing justifies horrors like unquestioning belief. What will these men do in my name?


More importantly… What will these men do, when it comes time for a new Japan to be reborn?


What wouldn't they do?

---

Scene 4: Accidents Happen​

September 6, 2016 ATB
IBI Field Office, Hiroshima Settlement


The day before the Rising.


"Thank you, sir, everything seems to be in order."


With the practiced smile of receptionists and secretaries the world over, William Monmouth slid the ID card back out under the reinforced glass shield cordoning his booth away from the front lobby of the IBI Hiroshima Field Office.


"Please take the elevator on the right up to the fourth floor, and then it will be the second door on the left," William continued, a fixed smile still glassy on his face as he told the nodding visitor where he needed to go. The man was already three paces away by the time he finished, clearly in no mood for the niceties.


Sighing at the rudeness of some people, William reached under his desk and pressed the button to activate the elevator's control panel. If the visitor was not welcome or unexpected, he would have found that the elevator's steel walls made an entirely serviceable cell, immovable with a dead control panel. The in-house goon-squad would have plenty of time to prepare a warm reception as he cooled his heels in the elevator.


Occasionally, William contemplated pushing that button on approved visitors, just for the hell of it.


"Get thee behind me, Satan," the young commoner clerk muttered, turning back to the pile of paperwork sitting on his desk, waiting for any moment not otherwise occupied by checking in visitors. "Probably a fast way to get fired too…"


A fate that William was eager to avoid. Not so much for the salary, which was meager, or the joy of working as a receptionist, which was nonexistent, but because of how his menial post meant he could tell the girlies at the club he liked to frequent after work that he worked for the Bureau, and be completely honest.


Ever since he'd gotten this receptionist post a month back, William's nightlife had improved dramatically.


A slight cough from the other side of the window announced that William's newest customer had arrived, and had perhaps been waiting around for a few seconds as William stared blankly down at the document uppermost on his heap.


"One moment please, sir," William smoothly replied, instantly transitioning from astonishment to the long-suffering endurance of a clerk unwilling to be hurried or, in his case, admit that he'd been daydreaming.


In service of this face-saving maneuver, William spent another few seconds staring at the form jumbled with nonsense before snatching up a pen and jotting an indistinct scribble of a note to the margin, contributing to the incomprehensibility of the document. Honor saved, he at last looked up to greet the waiting man.


Seeing the guy's put-upon expression and cheap suit, William felt a pang of guilt. The lack of any impatience or outraged entitlement underlined that this man, whoever he was, was accustomed to waiting on the pleasure of others. The crumpled packet of smokes sticking out of the breast pocket of his yellowed shirt, just the way his old dad had always socked them away, was really just the icing on the cake.


All and all, the waiting man was definitely a Commoner, just like William.


"Sorry about that," said William with a bit more warmth than usual. "Who are you here to see, sir?"


"No worries," the visitor replied, his smile knowing but sympathetic. "And no one in particular; I'm from the Fire Marshal's Office, here about the annual inspection.


"My credentials," he added, sliding both a personal ID card and a warrant card identifying him as an accredited fire inspector and arson investigator.


"Thank you," murmured William, scooping up the cards and checking that the names matched one another and that both pictures fit the man standing before him.


"Leonard Orr" was a tall, stout man, someone who had probably been strong as a youth but had since allowed himself to go to seed. Beneath broad shoulders, an equally broad paunch waggled, barely constrained by the straining belt and suspenders clearly outlined by the suit jacket's cheap fabric. A salt and pepper beard, flattened on one side like the man had somehow slept face-down on his pillow, fringed a flushed, flabby face.


A perfect match for the pictures.


"The annual inspection, you say? You'll need an escort," William said, scanning the personal ID into the visitor registry. "This is a controlled area; we can't just have people wandering around." He flashed the downtrodden man an apologetic smile, "Sorry, that's just the rule, nothing I can do. I'll get the duty guard to send someone down."


"I'm an official fire inspector," Leonard Orr pointed out, and William nodded in agreement; the scanned card was valid. "That means I'm allowed to go wherever I need to if I'm inspecting fire control mechanisms. Besides, d'you think I could honestly report on any issues if one of your co-workers is leaning over my shoulder the whole time?"


"Above my paygrade," William shrugged, sliding the ID cards back under the window, along with a visitor's badge made out to "Leonard Orr - Fire Inspector". "I don't have any say in it. But… Yeah," he conceded, "I mean, I don't like it when people are looking over my shoulder while I work either…"


Sympathy and guilt bit at his heart again, prompting William to throw up his metaphorical hands and say, "Look, I'll talk to the section chief, see what he has to say…"


"Thanks, Bill," Leonard replied, a smile creasing his ham-pink face. "You're a credit to your boss."

---

"Alright, thanks for your help," said Leonard Orr, clipboard tucked up against his armpit and cup of employee canteen coffee steaming in his hand as he shook the hand of his IBI escort. "Have a good one, Tim."


"Eh," the agent shrugged, pulling a face. "I'm not expecting much. Just a few hours left on the clock, anyway."


The young commoner took a long sip of his own coffee, clearly in no great hurry to return to his desk.


"Well, yes," Leonard agreed, a hint of impatience colouring his joviality. "Just enough time for me to finish up here and get back to the office to file my report. So, if you'll excuse me…"


"Oh, yeah." Tim, as the agent who had accompanied Leonard through his inspection of the secure areas of the IBI field office had introduced himself, grimaced slightly. "Well… Alright, poke around as you need. Be mindful not to let your hands wander now, Leo; we'll be watching."


He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the security camera fixed down the corridor.


"I'd be disappointed if the Bureau wasn't keeping a close eye on things," Leonard lightly replied, "but don't worry, I'm not that big of an idiot, no matter what the wife says! Anyway…"


"Right, yeah. Be seeing you."


Having at last shaken off his escort, Leonard finished his coffee and resumed his inspection of the IBI field office. Proceeding floor to floor, room to room, the inspector took careful note of each fire extinguisher's maintenance tag and logged each potential tripping hazard near an exit.


As his pen scratched across the complicated forms pinned to his clipboard, Leonard's darting eyes searched the ceiling corners for cameras. Not that there was anything for the faceless observers on the other end to see, of course, as Leonard certainly wasn't foolish enough to fiddle with any of the desk safes or locked drawers he saw, but the placement of the cameras gave him some idea about their range, and their coverage.


Almost an hour after he parted ways with Tim, Leonard found himself on the very bottom floor of the converted office building, standing in front of a white-painted door hung with an unobtrusive sign labeling it as "Mechanical Room #2".


Eyes darted left, and eyes darted right, and Leonard's eyes found only a single camera pointed down the hallway he had come from, back towards the elevators. He reached out to test the mechanical room's handle, and found it locked.


Unsurprising.


A hand slipped behind his belt buckle, returning with a flattened metallic capsule about the length of a finger joint. A quick pull tipped the capsule's contents out onto the form-ridden clipboard; a narrow steel shim with a slight flattened end, a small twist of steel wire, and a similar length of much more malleable copper.


Humming to himself, Leonard casually inserted the shim into the lock, pushing back the sliding plate inside to expose the inner crevices. The steel wire wormed inside, probing for recesses and their yielding tumblers. When the lock was mapped to his satisfaction, Leonard quickly bent the copper into the appropriate shape, inserted the bent wire to match the groves, and rotated the still placed shim.


A click on one… three is binding… four is a false set… and-


With a satisfying click, the mechanical room's door handle moved under his hand.


Moving without worry or hurry, the fire inspector and arson investigator gathered up his tools and stepped inside, closing the door firmly behind him and leaving "Leonard" on the other side.


Packing his lockpicking kit back away into its easily hidden container, Errol Kefenick took an opportunity to peer around the mechanical room, looking for any cameras or other sensors that might betray his presence.


Definitely the risky part here, he thought, scouring pipe fittings and the narrow gantry overhead for any treacherous electronic eyes. If there were any cameras here, I'd be fucked. No way to really tell in advance either… Which made this the only interesting part too. The only hint of risk…


That risk, the feeling of taking his life in his hands… It was unprofessional, Errol knew, but it was part of what gave his life the salt he needed, the seasoning to leaven the unendurable boredom. It had been the joy of the risk, the freedom from tedium, that had first driven Errol into the Army's greasy bosom. When the Army with all of its rules and traditions had grown unendurable, that same adventurous craving had propelled him into the Directorate's Special Activities Center, and from that rarefied group of unmentionables, into the arms of the never-boring "Black Baron" Alvin Stadtfeld.


Although things have been a bit boring since he came to check up on the family homestead… Errol mused to himself, spotting the control panel for the building's gas main and crossing the room with a purpose. Kallen's a little spitfire, though. If she manages to keep her pretty head attached to her shoulders, she might grow up to be half as interesting as her old man some day… Now, where's that dongle gotten…?


Moments later, the dongle was jacked into the control panel's monitor port and the worm was happily disgorging all the options Errol could want or need onto the tiny screen. A few quick adjustments to the distribution's settings and the disabling of a few warning sensors later, as well as a quick edit to the control panel's log to delete any mention of those changes, and the dongle was back in his pocket.


Content with his work yet aware that soon, someone would come looking for him, Errol quickly moved on to the next stage of the plan and quickly located a likely location in a slight crack in the insulation around a hot water pipe.


While he had been quite the smoker as a younger man, it had been well over a decade since a cigarette last graced Errol's lips. Nevertheless, he had found that a crumpled cigarette packet could conceal any manner of sins, particularly when paired with artfully applied yellow stains on his fingers and teeth, along with an odor acquired by spending a peaceful quarter hour reading in any given bar. With all of the tell-tale signs of a chronic smoker, few bothered to even check if the packet contained cigarettes. There were, in case a particular nosy guard wanted to steal a few, but even those were just another layer of misdirection to conceal the device tucked right beside them.


It had started life as a disposable lighter, a cheap plastic butane-fired thing like thousands of others. Little had changed on the surface, but within that white shell, an entirely different beast lurked. One with an electronic sparker circuit governed by a remote receptor, as well as an ancillary timer, and one connected to an incendiary agent that burned a great deal hotter than mere butane.


Moving swiftly, Errol extracted the device, gave it a once-over to check that it was still in working order, and then quickly rubber-banded a few sheets of notebook paper over the plastic shell. The sheets when heated would flame up, the tinder for what he hoped would be a much larger blaze. The wad he wedged into the cracked insulation, out of sight or casual reach behind the heated pipe.


In seventeen hours, it will be quarter past ten, the occasional chauffeur noted, checking against his watch. By which point, all of the uppermost floors of the building will be flooded with gas. That should include the IBI server room, up on the fifth floor, as well as the off-limits hallway on the fourth. Inspector Garcia's private office is down on the first floor, but the explosion of that much natural gas will be enough to gut the building immediately. First floor or not, he'll be gone in a tragic accident.


At last. Thought I'd go insane if I had to spend another week watching the Black Baron try to remember how to be a father.

---

Right now, I should be dead.


Try as he might, drink as he might, Nelson Garcia could not shift that thought from his mind as he stared at the crater that had been his office only hours ago, still smoldering on the screen of his laptop, frozen for his perusal.


By all rights, I should be dead.


And if it hadn't been for the governor demanding an urgent report on that smuggling ring, I would be dead. Just like the rest of the Bureau's Area 11 branch, not to mention Kanae.


For all the urgency of Governor Kleinfeldt's barely polite summons, the report itself had been an utterly mundane affair. Nelson had arrived at the Settlement Administration Office at nine-thirty sharp, and after cooling his heels for a good half hour, had at last been allowed into the governor's office just after ten. The presentation had been extremely brief, its contents so straightforward that Nelson had been able to go over all the highlights in less than ten minutes.


It all could have been covered by a single email update, or even a brief phone call.


For his own sake, Nelson was grateful that it hadn't been.


Just as he was wrapping up his report, that the three commoners who had headed the smuggling ring out of the old Hatsukachi docklands and their Honorary factotums had all been dutifully rounded up in a Bureau sting along with their confederates on Quelpart Island, the governor's secretary had burst into the office.


The IBI's Hiroshima Field Office was gone, vaporized in a massive explosion. That his entire branch had been annihilated by a gas explosion that had, in addition to killing the twenty-three Bureau agents assigned to the office, killed an additional ninety-six others, ranging from the janitors sent by the dispatch agency to a Britannian child playing hooky from school and who'd had the stupendous misfortune to be on the sidewalk across the street from the IBI building when it had blown.


By the time that Nelson arrived on the scene, his initial stunned disbelief had dissipated completely, replaced by calmly professional detachment. As the settlement's fire fighters strove to save the neighboring buildings not yet fully engulfed by the flames radiating out from the burning crater where his office had once stood, Nelson had swung into motion.


His superiors were contacted and informed about the situation. The off-site backup server was checked to verify that the last bi-weekly backup had been completed without incident or data loss. It would need securing, but Nelson was rather short-handed at the moment. Messages were sent out to the next of kin of the deceased and agents who were like him, out of the office at the time, were contacted.


And all throughout the process of addressing the immediate issues of the explosion, Nelson's had kept the thought of "I should be dead" at bay, pressing it back with all the needs and requirements of duty and rank.


Once those burdens began to lighten, Nelson had smoothly moved on to the next lifeline, the next task to occupy his restless mind.


Someone has done this to me. Who could it have been?


Certainly, the accidental gas leak could have been just that, a dreadful and tragic accident, perhaps brought about by lacking maintenance or the poor installation of some gasket.


But that was not a thought Nelson could accept, certainly not before any possibility of hostile involvement had been thoroughly examined. While random strokes of misfortune could simply happen, it was not a survival skill for an Honorary Britannian of any stripe to assume as much. Random fires destroying buildings under Honorary Britannian proprietorship had far too long of a history for Nelson to ever assume misfortune in their case in particular.


The most obvious answer was of course that the incendiary device Nelson was sure a subsequent investigation would find somewhere in the ruins of what had previously been the better part of a city block had been planted by some band of Eleven insurgents. This was also the potential explanation that Nelson felt the most confident in dismissing.


While it was theoretically possible that Elevens could infiltrate the building, perhaps disguised as Honorary janitors or repairmen, those groups were also the expected route of observation, and thus kept under close surveillance while on site. Further, some nameless band of infiltrators would have had to source at the very least a tool to tamper with the gas mains without raising notice, and another tool to act as a remote incendiary.


Another possibility was that some band of organized criminals, not willing to tolerate Bureau interference in their operations, had instantly escalated to bombing the branch out of existence. This, Nelson was unwilling to immediately dismiss: The slaughter back in April of the clients and proprietors of the underground brothel on the outskirts of the Shinjuku Ghetto made it very plain that the criminal element in Area 11 were fully prepared to kill to protect their businesses or remove competition.


I should be dead… But why would a criminal organization of such significance attack a field office in Hiroshima instead of a police barracks in the Tokyo Settlement? That's where all the big fish swim – out here in Hiroshima, we've only been seeing the smallfry. Either we were on the brink of uncovering something big… Or the attack was specifically targeted at the Bureau, not at the policing apparatus in general.


So, who of significance in Area 11 carries a specific animus against the Bureau?


That list was much shorter, and consisted mostly of the Directorate of Imperial Security, the Bureau's great internal rival and, up until recently, the holders of a monopoly on the security apparatus in Area 11.


Well, not quite a monopoly; the Inquisition has an office here as well, at the Bishop's Palace. Nelson didn't bother suppressing his snort at the thought. For all the good they do.


But the DIS aren't complete fools, like the Inquisition is, and are fully capable of engineering a gas leak if it serves their goals. That said… Why would they have bothered? Field Director Felt was quite willing to parcel southern Area 11 off to the Bureau, so long as nobody said anything about the Directorate's conduct leading up to the Sniper Attacks. What good would destroying the Bureau's presence in Area 11 do him, particularly in such a public manner?


So, probably not the Directorate, at least not officially… But what about one particular agent of the Directorate…?


The half-melted ice cubes clinked in Nelson's whiskey glass as a heavy fist landed against his hotel room's door.


"Hey!" A man called out from the other side of the door. "Garcia! Nelson Garcia! You in there? Eh? I's gotta delivery for you that needs signing for!"


A delivery? Nelson blinked, cursing how slowly his mind seemed to be working, thrown suddenly out of his semi-soused introspection and into whatever this was. What could he be delivering?


How did he know that I was here?


That second question washed down the inspector's back, colder by far than the now barely-cool contents of his tumbler. Rising carefully to his feet, trying not to make any sudden motions that might cast shadows against the hotel room's windows, Nelson reached for the shotgun he'd brought up from his official car.


After all, if someone truly had blown up an entire office building in a bid to kill him, it was foolish to think that they would be content to make only the one attempt on his life.


The tumbler in Nelson's hand shattered in unison with the room's window as the tipsy night exploded into a storm of noise. Bleeding from his shredded hand, Nelson hurled himself down between the beds before the scything bullets could find his flesh, the inebriation seared from his mind by the sudden burst of adrenaline.


Almost before his knees and elbows hit the hotel's cheap carpet, the pain of the impact muted into irrelevance, Nelson was bouncing back up again to snatch the shotgun up from the bed. The shell was already chambered, the acceleration coil already charged, and so three seconds after that first burst of fire, the inspector braced the stock and began returning fire, blasting blindly away at the door with the first two shells of his semi-auto's clip each with nine rounds of buckshot, gouging though the cheap clapboard.


Five shells left, Nelson noted, absurdly cool as he hurled himself back down towards the floor as vengeful hornets whirred past his ears. So much lead in the air, doubt I'll get much of a chance to aim. They must have a submachine gun, at least.


As soon as they reload, I'll rush the window, he decided. There's nothing I can hide behind in this room. Die now or die later.


Belly to the floor, the inspector was about to climb to his feet and start lumbering for the window when the fire streaming in through the bullet-ridden wall of the hotel unit faltered, but caught himself just in time as a second torrent of fire began to pour into the room through the same holed wall, but from a slightly different angle.


Two of them, Nelson knew, his heart sinking. At least, maybe more. Not just a single hitman, but an entire team.


Whoever sent them wasn't willing to countenance a second escape from certain death.


His options were limited. Besides the front wall, where both the window and the door to the parking lot, not to mention the assassins, were, the only other way out of the hotel was through a connecting door leading to the next door unit. If a large party rented both rooms, the door could be unlocked to join the two units together; as it was, the door was certainly locked from his side, and, Nelson assumed, likely from the other side as well.


But considering how cheap this entire pile's construction is, perhaps I could break down the door quickly enough to… What, run around through the other room, stumbling in the dark, and come out the front door to take the team from the side? I would still be one man against a group…


Still better than waiting until one of the shooters gets lucky, or just charging into glorious death.


Carefully turning himself around on the floor to face the joining door, nearly biting his tongue off as the tumbler shards buried in his hand ground against each other and against his bones, Nelson rose up onto one knee, shotgun braced against his shoulder, and pulled the trigger.


With a thunderous boom and a percussive crack, the bottom third of the joining door practically sublimated under the impact of a cloud of several dozen steel pellets.


Underlying that sound and the constant whining zip of the bullets was the howl of pain that ripped its way out from Nelson's throat as the bucking shotgun tugged the impaling shards sideways, shearing at his hand.


By contrast, the white hot skewers piercing his side halfway up his ribcage and slashed across the back of his head were almost nothing, lost in the incredible pain from his hand.


Had Inspector Garcia not already been kneeling in a shooter's stance, the pain would have driven him forwards and down to his knees. As it was, it simply drove him forwards as he launched off his feet like a sprinter, hurling himself across the narrow confines of the hotel room and through the splintered hole that gaped out from between the smashed lintels of the doorframe.


This time, he had no breath to scream as he half-stumbled, half-fell onto more cheap hotel carpet, presumably in the same colorless gray, though the complete dark of the neighboring hotel room kept him from seeing it. As it was, Nelson could only sob with the agony now flaring from his side and his head in sympathetic chorus with his hand, the wet, mucous-ridden sounds hacking out as he pulled himself up, semi-automatic shotgun still in hand.


The room, he found, had been occupied. The beds were unmade, open suitcases were strewn around.


Nobody here, thought Nelson, the words sounding almost groggy in his head. He lifted a hand to his aching head, and found wetness all down his neck. Head injury. Bleeds like hell.


The bathroom, maybe?


He chanced a glance over his shoulder, towards the small antechamber with the sink, and the closed door beyond it.


Must be hiding in there, whoever they are. Not my problem.


Behind him, the hail of bullets slackened again. Nelson thought he heard some movement, but the ringing in his ears and the increasingly woozy feeling filling his extremities made it hard to tell.


Think I'm dead, he considered. They'll be trying the door, probably reaching in through what's left of the window. They'll want to establish positive ID.


And while they're focused on that…


Shotgun in hand, and without giving himself any further time to hesitate or slow, Nelson Garcia crossed the connected room and clicked back the lock.


Dios del Terror y del Poder, dame tu vara y tu espada. Salve Emperador, Salve Britannia.


The door banged open; the shotgun bucked, once, twice against his shoulder.


The man with his arms through the window of Nelson's decimated hotel room sagged, leaning heavily against the wall, arm abruptly skewered on the jagged glass teeth protruding from the bottom of the frame as his knees lost their strength.


The man standing a yard behind and to the side of the corpse at Nelson's door had already turned to face the inspector before he had the chance to take his second shot; Nelson's mangled left hand, pushed beyond endurance at last, slipped on the shotgun's receiver, sapless fingers hanging free by cut tendons, betraying him at last.


I know him, the inspector's mind garbled, almost incoherent with the blood loss and hammering adrenaline, absurdly out of place in this final moment. He was with Lord Stadtfeld! That's his damned driver!


The last thing that went through Nelson's mind as the baron's servant squeezed his own trigger was the realization that both the man he had just killed and the man about to kill him were Britannian, about as Britannian as they came. His killer had come from the Homeland, no less; a servant of one of the old lines.


A Britannian's Britannian.


Not by a Number, not by a treacherous Honorary, but in the end… Killed by a Britannian at the end.

---

Scene 5: Miracle Man, Immortal Mountain​

September 7, 2016 ATB
Sumeragi Industries Fuji Sakuradite Extraction & Refining Complex
0700


Frowning at the filth, Kyoshiro cast around for a rag or something similar he could use to wipe the blood spatters from the surfaces of his newly acquired command center. Unfortunately, the back-up control room nestled deep in the heart of the Sumeragi Industries' own Fuji Sakuradite Extraction & Refining Complex was entirely bereft of cleaning supplies. He would have to tolerate the blood, at least for the moment, until all the more important matters had been seen to.


As soon as I hear the base is secure, I'll order someone to clean up the mess, Kyoshiro promised himself, trying to ignore the heavy scents of death permeating the room. The team Commander Kozuki had sent to secure the command center in the initial flash of violence hadn't had time to haul the bodies of the Britannian "consultants" away, understandably busy with more time-sensitive matters, but Kyoshiro was having difficulty thinking clearly with the stench of loose bowels filling his nostrils.


Mess aside, young Kozuki's commandos did a good job, Kyoshiro noted as he poured over the the computer's contents, hunting for the most recent comm log, just in case anybody had managed to slip a message out. Honestly, I'm hard pressed to think of any units within the JLF who could have done better. So many unblooded recruits, so few old veterans…


At the thought of some of those old veterans, the men who had been his classmates once, his brother officers later, Kyoshiro's mind slipped his leash for a moment and wandered back to brighter days. Back when the future hadn't been something worth worrying too much about.


"Out of curiosity, Captain Chiba… Did you ever climb Lord Fuji, back before… all of this?"


From the corner of his eye, Colonel Tohdoh Kyoshiro saw his aide-de-camp blink, pulled from her contemplation of the back-up control center's communications system by his question.


Why am I distracting her? Kyoshiro berated himself, shaking his head at the wandering course his thoughts had taken. The time for navel contemplation has come and gone. I need to be focused on the task at hand.


"Don't worry about it," he added, waving the question away. "It was just idle curiosity."


And some superstitious bunkum.


"No, I…" Chiba Nagisa hesitated, her mouth slightly open and a minute frown crinkling her forehead. It was, Kyoshiro couldn't help but notice, a decidedly different frown from her more common, and more pronounced, irritated expression. "I didn't get the chance, Colonel. I had the opportunity, you know; I was in college, and a whole group of my friends went one weekend, and they invited me… But I turned them down. I… had other things to do, back then.


"I've always sort of regretted it…"


Noticing how sober her voice had become, Chiba pulled herself back together, an expression of forced joviality smeared unnaturally across her features.


"Well, I'm here now!" she got out, in a tone the match for her expression in artificiality. "Six years too late, but right on time to send a few Brits to hell, eh?"


"Too true," Kyoshiro conceded, and turned, meaning to leave the conversation there. But instead, words not his own forced their way from his lips.


"A wise man will climb Fuji once, but only a fool climbs it twice," he said, quoting the old cliche. "I climbed Fuji once, you know, Captain… I was a young student back then, just like your friends, still deep in my studies at the Army Academy… I went to Fuji with them, my friends, and we sang together as we jogged our way up the Yoshida route…"


Noticing how rapt Chiba's focus had become, how intently she was waiting for his next words, Kyoshiro fell silent, abruptly embarrassed.


No doubt she's expecting some sort of sage wisdom dispensed by Tohdoh of the Miracles, he thought, somewhat bitter. They always do. Sorry, none of that here. Just an old fool who should've died six years ago wondering what it means that he's come back to Fuji again…


"...Yes?" Chiba prompted, clearly not realizing that his silence hadn't been for dramatic effect, but out of a sudden reluctance to discuss the topic. A second later, she quickly added, "Sir? I mean… What then, sir?"


"...We had a good time," he grunted, memories of that "good time" and the afterparty he and his friends had thrown after they returned to the hostel at the foot of the mountain suddenly swam to the forefront of his mind. Glancing furtively around, Kyoshiro lashed out to grab the first topic he could seize. "We… Of course, we didn't see the mines then, not as they were."


That reminder, uncomfortable and jolting, was enough to remind Kyoshiro of where he was, and what he was supposed to be doing. It seemed enough for Chiba as well, as his aide took a hasty step away, formalities of rank slipping back between them.


Ah yes, the mines…


"What's the latest from Commander Kozuki?" Colonel Tohdoh asked, leaning over one of the secondary command center's consoles, currently demonstrating a map of the refinery's ground floor. "Has he reported back in on the progress of his special teams yet?"


"Yes, Colonel," Captain Chiba crisply replied. "All teams have reported back with successful emplacements. All charges are set in the refinery itself, as well as in the mines. Her Imperial Majesty's diagrams of the gantry system were entirely accurate, along with her description of the stabilization centrifuges."


Kyoshiro made himself nod, focusing entirely on conveying the necessary solemnity the moment called for.


After all, in the eyes of Captain Chiba and all of the other men and women preparing to die to defend the mining complex, barring a very select group, Commander Kozuki had just cocked back the hammer of the pistol placed to the temple of all Japan by Her Imperial Majesty, Kaguya.


Such moments called for an element of recognition.


"Very well," the Miracleworker acknowledged, gravely nodding his head. "It is done, then."


Perhaps I should have told her, Kyoshiro thought, hating himself just a little for lying to someone who had shown him nothing but earnest loyalty and devotion over their four years of shared service. But, Her Imperial Majesty was most clear in her orders… And I cannot fault her reasoning. And, soldiers gossip. Best to keep temptation away when possible.


"What about the rest?" he asked, brusquely moving on to a different topic. "Updates, Captain; I want them."


"Yessir!" Chiba smartly replied, and began reeling off a list of guard rotations instigated, fortifications installed, communication systems sabotaged, and exits plugged.


"...And we've got all the Honoraries that weren't with us and managed to survive the shooting all down in the Number Three Ore Locker," she beamed, with the overzealous tone of devoted subordinates who had addressed a problem their superior had overlooked without requiring any consultation. "All the ones who caught a bullet when Commander Kozuki entered the facility have been put with all the Brits out by the loading docks."


The infiltration, now a full half hour in the past, had been a rather neat piece of work, in Kyoshiro's considered view. The Fuji Mining Complex had enjoyed the protection of a complement of Britannian regulars who, along with a handful of Britannian "consultants," kept an eye on the Honorary managers, laborers, and specialists employed by Sumeragi Industries.


But, over the years of quiet productivity, security had slipped and complacency had set in. It had been easy for Lady Sophie Sumeragi, with the assistance of a select few others, to doctor the composition of the morning shift of September Seventh. Several new faces under old names appeared in the system as long-time employees with fully vetted backgrounds. Several old faces who had long cherished certain views were rotated off the night and swing shifts.


When Commander Kozuki, his Britannian red hair dyed black, had stormed out from the Complex's mess hall at the head of fifty of his picked men, each armed with pistols smuggled in via lunch pails and toolboxes, the Britannians on guard at the main gate and those keeping watch over the server room were taken entirely off their guard. By the time that the surviving Britannian officers, not to mention their civilian consultant charges, had instilled a vestige of order into their disordered soldiers, Colonel Tohdoh was already through the gates of the Fuji Complex.


And for once, Kyoshiro thought, allowing himself a private smile, it was we who had Knightmares coming to our aid, along with a full column of reinforcements. Amazing how much easier that sort of heavy support makes it to root out the last diehard pockets of resistance…


A lesson I should keep close to my own heart.


But, there he had been, at the controls of his Burai Kai and at the head of another thirty-one Knightmare Frames, the flower of his carefully hoarded Knightmare Corps. Behind them, a river sprung from many hidden tributaries had flowed as hidden trucks gunned their engines and surged for the compound, eagerly bringing their cargos of men, munitions, and supplies into the mountainside mining and processing facility even as the last few Britannians were hunted like rats.


Leaving Kyoshiro in command of the mountain, and also in command of thirty-two Knightmares, a hundred and thirty two commandos picked from Commander Kozuki's Rising Sun formation, the commander himself, and thirty-odd Sumeragi Industries employees who had chosen to follow their lady into a life redeemed of their Honorary names and identities.


And now, thought Kyoshiro, waving Chiba away, confident that she would know what she needed to do while he contemplated the battles stretching off as far ahead as he could see, all I need to do is to hold on as tightly as I possibly can.


Ienaga and his battalion held on to the death; hopefully, I will not be forced to order my own troops to hold to that same bitter end.

DAY 0 OF THE SHINJUKU RISING​

+6 Japanese
+23 Honorary Britannians
+54 Britannians
Daily Total: 83
Cumulative Total: 83

 

[Scopas]

MinttSky has completed another wonderful commission for me, featuring Her Imperial Majesty Kaguya speaking to the JLF's 3rd Division