A Young Girl's Guerilla War

[Maitue]

This chapter was so descriptive, it felt less like a punch to my gut and more like someone is wrangling it into knots. This has to be a turn in the story, a new arc of the coming war and bloodshed. We've seen the brutality in micro, what with fighting along the edge of criminals and occupation. What's coming next I can feel will be so much more, so much innocent life lost in macro, Tanya won't be the only one who will know what hell warfare is.

Can't wait!

 

[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.

 

[Lu Bu]

The ending part with vivisections....

C.C. ?

 

[Scopas]

The ending part with vivisections....

C.C. ?

Click to shrink...

Maaaybe...!

 

[war piglet]

God damn this is a good story.

 

[Scopas]

God damn this is a good story.

Click to shrink...

Thanks!

 

[Ranmabomb]

Really good chapter. A lot longer than I was expecting too. I really like his new Anglican church. Tonya making herself dicatator of shinjuku while running the evacuation was also interesting.

 

[Scopas]

Really good chapter. A lot longer than I was expecting too. I really like his new Anglican church. Tonya making herself dicatator of shinjuku while running the evacuation was also interesting.

Click to shrink...

Thanks! As a bit of a fan of religious history, Lulu's experiments with religion occupy a very special corner of my hear that doesn't really get much expression in my other works. Glad you like it too!

 

[Ranmabomb]

Thanks! As a bit of a fan of religious history, Lulu's experiments with religion occupy a very special corner of my hear that doesn't really get much expression in my other works. Glad you like it too!

Click to shrink...

Religious history is pretty interesting. Reading back some of the earlier comments it seems like he is mostly just manipulating the group though. Although, he is working towards sincere and genuine goals. One of the plot points to the of anime was Charles wanting to kill god. Although the way that was handled seemed a bit metaphorical and weird. So I don't think it really understood it. But to a certain extent the canon seems to imply one exists but doesn't say much about them. So now I am kind of wondering what we know about this world implies about its divinity if it exists?

Although there is also the slightly cliche approach of going meta with that. That doesn't really fit with the tone and focus of this story.

I am curious to see what lelouch does with it. I am also wondering if a sermon scene is planned. Seems like I could be funny/interesting. He has a quite a flair for the dramatic.

 

[Scopas]

Religious history is pretty interesting. Reading back some of the earlier comments it seems like he is mostly just manipulating the group though. Although, he is working towards sincere and genuine goals. One of the plot points to the of anime was Charles wanting to kill god. Although the way that was handled seemed a bit metaphorical and weird. So I don't think it really understood it. But to a certain extent the canon seems to imply one exists but doesn't say much about them. So now I am kind of wondering what we know about this world implies about its divinity if it exists?

Although there is also the slightly cliche approach of going meta with that. That doesn't really fit with the tone and focus of this story.

I am curious to see what lelouch does with it. I am also wondering if a sermon scene is planned. Seems like I could be funny/interesting. He has a quite a flair for the dramatic.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, the whole "I'll kill God" thing was... baffling. For one, I got the impression that "God" was just Charles and V.V.'s grandiose title for the collective unconscious, because CG stole Evangelion's homework. That doesn't understand where the floating temple over Jupiter came from, of course, but I don't know if I would go quite as far as to say that Charles' insane motivation is proof of a divinity in CG. Strong evidence, sure, but not necessarily proof. Mostly because that whole part of the ending felt like it'd been thrown together at the last minute.


On the other hand, in this story, we know that Being X very much exists. Tanya is here, after all, reincarnated after another death. That at the very least is one higher power in operation, although his credentials as a god are still in doubt, at least according to Tanya.


I do have more religious stuff in mind for Lulu, so stay tuned.

 

[Ranmabomb]

Yeah, the whole "I'll kill God" thing was... baffling. For one, I got the impression that "God" was just Charles and V.V.'s grandiose title for the collective unconscious, because CG stole Evangelion's homework. That doesn't understand where the floating temple over Jupiter came from, of course, but I don't know if I would go quite as far as to say that Charles' insane motivation is proof of a divinity in CG. Strong evidence, sure, but not necessarily proof. Mostly because that whole part of the ending felt like it'd been thrown together at the last minute.


On the other hand, in this story, we know that Being X very much exists. Tanya is here, after all, reincarnated after another death. That at the very least is one higher power in operation, although his credentials as a god are still in doubt, at least according to Tanya.


I do have more religious stuff in mind for Lulu, so stay tuned.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I would agree it doesn't give much of an indication that the universe actually has a personality. I agree it isn't proof. And more generally is kind of out of left Field. Although the stories themes do touch on ethics quite a bit. And is pretty heavy on the dramatic irony.

The main connection I spotted was that lelouch was a very deceptive leader of a group of rebels who got in trouble due to the web of lies he spun. But also accomplished a lot. While his father is focused on strength directly and wants to have a world without lies.

I never really liked evangelion. I did try watching it though.

My favourit portrayal of religion in an anime is probably in Vinland Saga. The movie about body swapping mixed with time travel was also pretty good.

Trying to kill god or a diety is pretty common in Japanese media generally though.

I kind of forgot about being X.

 

[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.

 

[Xilokiir]

Oof, RIP guy who was just too competent at his job. Even when Tanya fucks up and unleashes an unhinged murderer on the world, she actually secretly wins by wiping competent enemies out via nepotism.

 

[Scopas]

Oof, RIP guy who was just too competent at his job. Even when Tanya fucks up and unleashes an unhinged murderer on the world, she actually secretly wins by wiping competent enemies out via nepotism.

Click to shrink...

Tanya: "...Just as I had always planned. Yup, totally intentional on my part."

 

[Ranmabomb]

Great chapter, lulus sniffing is funny. I particularly like that kallen's dad and tanyas portions. After lulus part it makes me guess that we are 2-3 chapters away from the day of rebellion. Not sure.

I am very happy to see this updated. Also happy birthday!

 

[Aravis]

Thanks for the chappy! Happy (belated) Birthday!!!! Sorry, it took me a bit to find the time to sit down and read this chappy in one sitting, lol. Love the length of your chapters, though, that wasn't a comment on it being too long. Just me being shorter on time than I would like that said, thanks again for the chappy! I feel really bad for Tanya right now, being Tanya is... stressful, lol xD

 

[Scopas]

Thanks for the chappy! Happy (belated) Birthday!!!! Sorry, it took me a bit to find the time to sit down and read this chappy in one sitting, lol. Love the length of your chapters, though, that wasn't a comment on it being too long. Just me being shorter on time than I would like that said, thanks again for the chappy! I feel really bad for Tanya right now, being Tanya is... stressful, lol xD

Click to shrink...

It's a hard knock life, being an insurgent leader! And thanks! I'm happy you enjoyed the chapter!

 

[Psyraptor]

So even the Dad wants in on thqt rebellion action...he just has eyes on the Big Chair back home, feeling the Britannia blood line has run its course. God i wish this had been a thing in canon!

 

[Yohnos]

I love this fic!!!
But I'll admit that kind of want Tanya to loose it. Because right now she thinks about civilians in a defensive war.
I wish to see her in Britannia

 

[kalistira]

Woo. Long and good chapter, keep up the great work Scopas, love all the varying points of view and just all the plates you seem keeping spinning on this one.

 

[Scopas]

Woo. Long and good chapter, keep up the great work Scopas, love all the varying points of view and just all the plates you seem keeping spinning on this one.

Click to shrink...

Thanks! It's a massive pain, but comments like yours make it worthwhile!

 

[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.

 

[Xilokiir]

I feel like this isn't really the "ripples of the rising of the sun" since it hasn't even happened yet. Hiyashi annoys the hell out of me. "This movement isn't ideologically pure, so I'm gonna find another wagon to hitch my post to, disregard their ideological impurity, and damn thousands to death over a temper tantrum that I have chosen to throw". I suppose the misunderstanding field continues strong.

 

[war piglet]

Damn this story is fucking good

 

[Scopas]

Damn this story is fucking good

Click to shrink...

Thanks!

 

[Aravis]

Thanks for the chappy! I'll be honest, this was a good chappy, I just didn't care for the POVs all that much. So it kinda got buried under a flood of other new chappies until now, lol. I'd start to get into it and something else would update xD still a good chappy, thanks for writing it!

 

[Scopas]

Thanks for the chappy! I'll be honest, this was a good chappy, I just didn't care for the POVs all that much. So it kinda got buried under a flood of other new chappies until now, lol. I'd start to get into it and something else would update xD still a good chappy, thanks for writing it!

Click to shrink...

No worries! Thank you for your comment!

 

[kalistira]

I do always like seeing outside perspectives on things. Great chapter, definitely looking forward to seeing how this all turns out in the end.

 

[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."

 

[Xilokiir]

Well then. I didn't realize how garbage Britannian society was even for Britannians. I suppose that I didn't extrapolate how awful a society actually run on the basis of Darwinism would be. I thought it would just be a flavoring on top of normal civilization, but actually it is more like normal civilization is a flavoring on top of darwinian savagery.