Prologue
Meeting of Old and New
On a bright and clear spring day, three figures can be seen in a slightly worn car. In the driver's seat is a seemingly young man in simple yet slightly elegant clothing with a wide-brimmed hat covering his face, which currently has an annoyed yet enduring expression as he is informed, against his will, about the glory and wonder that is pizza by the two other occupants in the back of the vehicle. Sitting amongst the numerous boxes of pizza is a seemingly young woman with long lime-green hair pulled behind her in a lose braid and golden eyes that are far too old to belong to one looking so young. She, like the man driving the car, is clothed simply, yet it only serves to accentuate her natural beauty, and her face is alight with love for the delicious cheese-covered pie currently resting in her lap as well as love for the small child of about four years of age currently babbling away to her mother and father about pizza. The young girl in question is clearly her mother's daughter; resembling her in every way, save for her eyes, which are a brilliant amethyst so like her father's. Though unlike her mother, she does not have a piece of the delectable tomato-y cheesy treat as she does not want to ruin her new dress that she had coerced her beloved father into purchasing for her when she saw it in a small store in the town which the family had left only a half-day ago. They had been there for a week long pizza convention featuring Cheese-kun that the mother and daughter simply could not miss.
"How much longer 'tiw we're home, Papa?" the little girl asks out of the blue.
The man smiles slightly and says kindly, "Look ahead, sweetheart. We're almost there."
And indeed they were. The pizza filled vehicle is quickly approaching a farm, an orange farm to be exact, which has been their home for the entirety of the young girl's short life. As the car pulls up in front of the rather large house, the woman has to hold her daughter to prevent her from running out of the car (and knocking over the pizza boxes) to her beloved aunts, uncle, and cousin, none of whom she was in fact related to by blood or any other way. When the car is parked in such a way so that it will be easiest to move the numerous pizzas from the vehicle to the kitchen in the back of the house, the woman releases the wiggling little girl, which results in said little girl speeding out of the car and into the house shouting for the only other people she has ever had long-term contact with.
As the man gets out of the car, and then, being the gentleman that he is, helped his wife carry the pizza boxes in to the kitchen. He is so engrossed in trying not to drop any of the boxes that he fails to notice the unusual quiet of the normally buzzing house, as it is about time for lunch. When he has finally made it to the kitchen and sat the pizza boxes on the counter so that it is very unlikely that they would fall in the next hundred years, even though they really only need to hold out for about another hour or two, if that, a sudden scream sounded from the door leading back of the property in the next room. The man immediately rushes to the source of the sound, removing the purple contacts in both of his eyes, fully ready to destroy the culprit who dared do anything to his precious little girl. The site that meets him is not at all what he expects. Instead of an attacker and his daughter, he instead finds twenty-two faces contorted in absolute shock, four faces with very nervous expressions, and his daughter trying to decide if she is scared or excited with all of these new people suddenly showing up in her backyard previously enjoying a picnic.
"Lelouch! What is it! I heard Addy's scream! Where is Jeremiah and… Oh no," Cecilia, known to most as C2 or simply the Witch, who had rushed out to her husband and daughter, ready to attack like her beloved to defend their child, freezes in shock and minor dismay. She glances at her husband, not surprised to find utter shock etched in his face, combined with terror and slight joy at seeing the people in front of him, one person in particular. Such a face does not suit him, Lelouch, formally Lelouch vi Britannia, the Former Ninety-Ninth Emperor of the Holy Britannian Empire, the Former Second Supreme Council Chairman of the United Federation of Nations, the Former Leader and CEO of The Black Knights, and the Former Vice-President of the Student Council at Ashford Academy, also known as Zero and the greatest unsung hero of the world, is a man to be feared and admired, though one would never guess that the man who is hastily putting the contacts back in his eyes to cover up the twin red Geass symbols in them, is the same Demon Emperor who destroyed the world and then recreated it by dying in front of the very world he terrorized.
"B-brother?!" the soft voice comes from a middle-aged woman with long, wavy, light-brown hair that has slight streaks of gray, her pale amethyst eyes alight with shock and hope that said eyes are not lying to her and it really is her beloved older brother whom, until this very moment, she had thought dead and lost to her forever. "Is… is it really you?! Can it be…" And with tears in her eyes, she rises up on shaking legs and runs to the raven-haired, amethyst-eyed man who she had been mourning for the past thirty years sense his supposed death, wrapping her arms around him and weeping into his chest, chanting over and over, "You're alive! You're really alive!"
This snaps Lelouch out of his shock and, as he returns his beloved little sister's embrace, he smiles softly with tears in his eyes, as he never thought he would see her in person ever again in his life, whispering into her hair, "Yes, I'm alive… Nunnally"