Spinning blades make a gentle noise when they want to. It depends on the circumstances at any time. At this time, all things were gentle. The noises were gentle, the smells of the streets, and the hum of chatter in a crowded place. The world was gentle, soft and calm. Nothing could interfere with it, peace had finally come. It was seven years after the reign of the Demon Emperor Lelouch vi Britannia and his assassination by the Black Knight, Zero. Peace had finally come to the world, there was no fighting, no strife. The leaders of the world reflected that which they lead, they were without malice, and without contempt. All people were working together, not for their own ends or because they felt they had a right to improve over others, but because they felt fulfilled in working. The evils of racism, of discrimination and social Darwinism had become a thing of the past, barely remembered, even though they were a decade ago. This end had been exactly as he had foreseen. The Demon Emperor himself, the man who gave it all so that he could change this world. Now his sister was on the throne, advised by the man who killed her brother, Zero. Even now, after the years that have passed, no one knows Zero's true identity. Some claim that it was Prince Clovis, the Third Prince of the Empire who was killed in 2017. Others claim its Princess Euphemia, the so called "Massacre Princess". They claim that the actions that gave her this nickname were actually that of her older brother. Others say, that in fact, Lelouch was never killed, that he was impersonated on that float that day, and that he killed a man disguised as him. None of these claims can be proven however, as all people avoid asking Zero to remove his mask. As a matter of fact, it has been debated that it should be outlawed, but that would be against the interests of Empress Nunnally vi Britannia. It is Empress Nunnally who this day is about. After the long transition to this state of absolute peace, Nunnally vi Britannia had not been allowed back to see the school she used to attend in Japan. Formerly known as Area 11, Nunnally and her older brother, the later Demon Emperor, spent some time in hiding under the care of the Ashford family, at their school, the Ashford Academy. When given the opportunity by Prime Minister Kaname Ohgi, Nunnally was only delighted to accept. The gentle sound of the spinning blades of the Empress' helicopter was fast approaching the roof of the school. Waiting for them was the Prime Minister as well as the acting Empress of Japan, Kaguya Sumeragi.

"Will Zero be with her?" asked the young woman of the Prime Minister.

"Yes I think so," the man's hair had not changed in seven years, but its colour was starting to fade. In certain parts it was noticeably greyer, especially the in the sunlight of a beautiful day like today. "See if you notice anything different about this Zero compared to our one."

"Don't call him our Zero, he was just…" Kaguya paused as she attempted to find the words. "He was just Zero, he was never ours." The helicopter had come into land and security guards had ordered the two diplomats to stand back. The blades were a hazard for one thing, but the Empress had been crippled many years ago when her mother was killed, getting out of a helicopter in a wheelchair is a rather difficult task. When she had been safely removed from the vehicle her Highness was brought over to the two diplomats by Zero, his long black cape gentling rolling in the wind from the helicopter blades.

"Your highness welcome back to Japan." Ohgi smiled warmly as he bowed like the Japanese do in greeting. Zero was bowing back since the Empress couldn't.

"Thank you Mr. Ohgi, it's very good to be back." Her Majesty bowed her head towards him, attempting a greeting of her own.

The tour of the school was rather brief. The principal was now a young woman of the Ashford family, Milly Ashford. She had been a member of the Students Council with Nunnally. Rather than show her Majesty around the school, the two of them wandered, Zero pushing the wheelchair, around the various corridors that her Majesty would have frequented. In her time in school the Empress was blind from trauma. This was the first time that she saw her school, although she spent a significant number of years here. They even maintained the room that she and her brother stayed together, keeping a very secure lock on it as there were always people trying to get into the Demon Emperor's room and deface it.

"I haven't let anyone in Lelouch's room. I don't think I'll ever go in there myself. Even after all this time, I can't…. I mean, what Lelouch did…" the young woman stopped as her mind wandered.

"Yes, I didn't know big brother was capable of those unspeakable acts either Milly. I can't bring myself to forgive him." Nunnally uttered a brief sentence and both of them knew that they had no desire to continue with the conversation. "However, I want to see his room."

"You, do?"

"Yes, I never saw big brothers room. I want to see it, Milly, please?"

For security reasons Milly kept the key for Lelouch's room on her at all times. She unlocked the door and Nunnally moved the wheelchair forward herself, not allowing Zero to come into the room. "Please close the door behind me." The Empress requested, and Milly did as she was asked. In the silence of the room, Nunnally drew in a deep breath. She looked around, everything was neat and tidy, just as she expected of her loving older brother. She moved around the room, taking in every little detail of the person she once loved so much, who she had seen as a little boy, and suddenly as a murderer. There were photos on his desk, photos of him and a brown haired girl. Nunnally never saw her face, but he knew that this was Shirley Fennette, a friend who had killed herself when she was only 18. Lelouch's Geass did that too, he killed the girl who loved him Nunnally thought to herself. She moved closer to the desk to get a better look at the pictures and noticed a very small indent in the woodwork. She stuck her finger in it and it felt like a handle. She pulled, softly as she couldn't manage any more strength and suddenly it came loose. Inside were more pictures and two different books. The pictures were also of Lelouch, but this time they were of himself and a young boy. He looked only slightly younger than her brother and when she turned them over, they read Crossdressing ball with my older brother or something to that effect. There was also another, of the whole student council together. Nunnally held this photo in her hands and noticed that they were quaking. She noticed that her eyes were suddenly very painful and she felt a great urge to blink. She blinked and tears flooded from her eyes so fast that she had no opportunity to stop them.

Wiping her eyes dry she held up the photo again. The first person she noticed was Lelouch, so happy, there was no malice in those eyes at all. The photo was of all of them, the student council, all together. Milly, Rivalz, Nina, Shirley, Lelouch, Suzaku, Kallen and herself. In the corner of the photo, just before Suzaku's feet was Arthur the Cat. All of them, this is my first time, seeing all of them. Nunnally couldn't stop herself anymore, she let herself cry as much as she felt she needed to. For what seemed like an eternity, she was wrapped up in her own emotions, then she managed to compose herself. She started examining the books she had found. One was what seemed like a royal Britannian notebook, but she couldn't read what was engraved in the gold because of the remains of her tears. Flicking through the book it seemed to be an official journal, not a personal one, which documented Lelouch's various activities. Its most significant mention was that of a "younger brother", someone who she had never heard of, Rolo Lamperouge. Then other was a bound leather journal. Nunnally opened in carefully and noticed first the attention to detail with which all the letters were written with. It opened with the following:

"This is insane. I cannot keep a journal. But I know, that what I am doing, what I am seeking to do, it is going to change the world. I want someone to know, I want Nunnally to know, I want Suzaku, Kallen, C.C., Shirley all of them, I want them to know and understand what I did and why I did it. I am Lelouch Lamperouge. I am Zero. I am Lelouch vi Britannia. I am nothing. I lived a life, a life of lies for most of my life, and now I am fighting to change that behind another mask of lies, and a mask of truth. Zero fights with my true ideals, Lelouch fights everyday life with the lies. Living a life of lies, it is deplorable. It is abhorrent and a disgrace. I don't want to have to lie to her, to Nunnally anymore. C.C., thank you, if it wasn't for you. If it wasn't for your counsel, I would have gone mad from the strain. You will never hear that from me C.C., but in here I can admit it. I said that to you once, and that is enough.

I am fighting to destroy the world, and recreate it so that my younger sister Nunnally can be happy…"

Nunnally threw down the journal and held her hands over her eyes. The tears were fierce now. Lelouch, you did do it, you did all of that… that brutality… for me?

On the other side of the world, yet not so far away there stood a cabin. A cabin built in such a terrain that one has to wonder how on earth it got there. Sometimes there can be days at a time when nobody goes in and out. There is movement on the inside, quite a lot. But it always the same outside. A green haired young girl leaves the house and comes back a few hours later with food and other basic essentials. She is not of this land, she is a Westerner. Her skin is pale, but it has enough colour to suggest that it has not always been pale. Her eyes are light green, almost like a pair fluorescent suns, but not half as harsh. Like the world around her, her eyes are gentle, and they are wise, as if she has seen enough of this world for one lifetime. There is someone in the house with her no doubt, she says goodbye as she closes the door and there is a noise like a grunt heard back. But this person never leaves the house, no one has seen them and the identity of this person is of much debate to the pilgrims who frequent the area. But this day, there is an exception. Emerging from the house holding the hand of the young girl was an equally young man. He worse a Chinese style conical hat that hid the majority of his features but left exposed a very triangular chine which made his face seem like a disfigured parallelogram.

"It's unwise for me to leave the house C.C." the young man started, "if someone recognises me…"He was cut off by the young girl who simply told him to be quiet. "I don't understand why we have to go buy food anyway, it's not as if starving to death has any more consequence."

"That may be true," the young girl spoke, "but it's not something that I enjoy doing."

Her companion smiled at this, "And we only do things you enjoy?"

She looked at him with a playful look in her eyes saying, "It's not like you don't enjoy them too."

They laughed at this together, and the man made a comment confirming that she was correct.

The journey down to the closest village was nothing short of arduous but the pair managed to do it with a great amount of ease. A trip which would normally be an hour long on foot, not due to distance but due to difficulty, took them at least twenty minutes of non-stop walking. The girl was clearly the more athletic of the two, moving swiftly along the winding mountain track as if it was a sprinters lane. Her companion however, had a certain degree of difficulty on this surface, and spent some time at a pause making note of his surroundings before expertly avoiding any obstacles in a lightning flash. The village which they arrived at seemed as though it had been untouched for hundreds of years. The traditional architecture was still in use, as were the symbols of faith which decorated their respective facades. The shop was run by an elderly Englishwoman, according to the girl her family had settled in this part of the world generations ago as part of a failed Britannian colonial adventure.

"She says that there's no point in leaving now," The young girl explained, "Her family lived with the locals as part of the Chinese Federation, and fought against it for almost a hundred years."

"This part of the world, we must not forget their struggle…" the younger man reflected, more to himself than to his companion.

"It was you who set them free, I thought you would feel better, seeing all your hard work showing some results. Even if it isn't someone you know, you always took pride in how you were working for your sister, now it's more than just her who's benefitting."

"I know, I always knew that would happen. Yes, I feel better, I understand what I gave is what saved these people from that despicable tyranny. Even, the tyranny…" before he could finish he was ordered to stop talking by the girl. She gestured, subtly to a rather older looking man who was sitting on the side of the broken road. He was a foreigner, like themselves, but he also had an aura of the unknown of him. This unknown did not spark inquisitiveness, it was an unknown that sparked fear and apprehension. He had looked up, as if he could hear the conversation the pair were having, although he was sitting at least three hundred metres from them. His eyes, they were similar to the girl's eyes, they had a sense of the familiar in them for the young man, and this was a familiar that he had no desire to see. "It couldn't be…"

"I think, no, I know, that's another one of our kind. He's another one of those people who completed their contract for Geass."

"He's an immortal."

Suddenly he stood, his posture straight and rigid. He looked a contradiction, both too old to stand up straight, but now that he had stood, he looked too young to match his withered face. Slowly he made his way over to them, but in such a way that the pair were too shocked to move. Like himself it was a contradiction, too slow yet too fast to do anything. His distance was of no consequence, if they ran he would catch up with them, no matter how far away they got. In fact, if they ran it might provoke him, not to chase them but perform any violent actions that he may not have otherwise intending to do. It seemed as though he had teleported from one side of the village to the other, as in no time at all, he was standing right before them.

"I am D.D." He spoke clearly with no inflections in his voice. He glanced upwards, for what seemed like an age, into both of their eyes. With those brief actions, he walked past them, as if he had seen nothing of consequence. The young man raised his head as if to bark questions at him, but before he could the girl had placed her hand on his shoulder and shook her head, informing him that she doubted he would answer. He scowled and looked around, noticing that his hat had suddenly moved in such a way that it gave away too many of his features. His eyes were now visible and a slight brown fringe was nestled a short distance above them. They were a bright hue of purple, like the sky as it touches the mountains peak in the distance.

"Lelouch, don't linger, let's do what we have to do here and go back home."

The clean air atop the roof of Ashford Academy was poisoned with the toxins of the nearby city. The campus of the school made the air clean, as it had made vast lakes of water and rivers appear to add to the grandeur and aesthetics of the institution, but it could never cover up the distinct feeling that there was a city nearby. It was here that Zero and his Empress looked out across the vast campus and the city in the distance. In the doorway leading up to the roof stood Milly Ashford with the two diplomats who greeted her Majesty. Not a word was spoken between any of them, but there was a feeling of unease among them that made for an apprehensive atmosphere. Milly tried to break the tension by making her way over to the Empress and converse with her.

"Nunnally, I mean, your Majesty, how do you like the view up here? It's very nice I think, you can see all the hard work that the Japanese government has done in rebuilding."

"Milly, it's alright call me Nunnally. I wish I could help Japan, after all, they have to rebuild because of Britannia."

"I see, well I don't know what to tell you Nunnally, I don't think I'd be a very good Empress." She laughed at her remark, Nunnally smiled, albeit only slightly.

"I think you'd be a better Empress than me Milly, you've made this school into a beautiful place and there's so many students here!"

"Well, that money came from my Grandfathers inheritance, and the Prime Minister gifts subsidies every year because a certain woman orders him to."

"I wonder if it's…"

"Kallen." Ohgi had stepped forward, with a smile on his face. "She told me to keep this schools spirit alive. And well, I think Japan owes her everything, her and her Guren."

They all preceded to have a conversation about Kallen Kozuki, the most formidable solider in the Black Knights. Ohgi told them all he knew, about how she refused to attend her graduation ball in a dress, but went in her normal clothes. Nunnally laughed at that, while Milly just noted how it caused such a huge bother. He had no idea what had happened to her now though. Ohgi said he knows she still lives in Japan, because she gets letters from her every month, but she never mentions were she is or what she's doing, rather, where she was at the time of the last letter, and what she was doing then. "Maybe someday she'll be forced to do the same thing again and I'll find out where she is!" Ohgi joked. "I told her you were coming today Empress Nunnally."

"I wonder if she'll come back here…" Milly looked off into the distance and at that moment she noticed a truck moving at an almost astronomical speed towards Ashford. It came to a sudden halt and out jumped a young woman. She may have been at a distance, but certain features made it so that she was very easily identified. "It's…. It's Kallen!"

Greeting her in the old student council room, Milly Ashford and Kallen Kozuki reunited after almost a decade apart. "The last time I saw you was in the Chinese Federation!"

"Yeah, it's been too long!"

For at least two or three hours the entirety of those assembled spent their time catching up, bar Zero who did not talk, unless he was alone with the Empress. Kallen had a number of stories to tell and was interested to speak to the Empress about Britannia as well as about the people both of them knew from that nation. Gino Weinberg had been spending the last few years training under Kyoshiro Tohdoh, now Kallen didn't know what he was doing. Anya Alstreim had completely disappeared after the Battle of Mt. Fuji, although there were rumours that she was seen working at the 'Orange-kun' farm in Kyushu. Kallen herself never said what exactly she was doing, just travelling around and seeing the country she and her brother fought so hard for. After they had all caught up, Nunnally asked to speak to Kallen alone, atop the Academy.

"Kallen, do you know who Zero is?" Nunnally had no intention of letting her feelings get the best of her like they had in her brother's room. Steel yourself Nunnally, you need to do this. She repeatedly told herself.

"No, I know who it was… before, but now…. I'm sorry your Majesty, I don't know." Nunnally then produced the journal and the photo which she found in the drawer. They spoke with fondness of the time they spent on the student council together when looking at the photo, then they spoke in rushed whispers about the journal, so that Zero, who was standing nearby, would not hear them or see what they were doing. The journal had a few extracts devoted entirely to Kallen, her exploits, how hilarious it was for Lelouch to see her acting so differently in the afternoon in school, and then at night see her real personality. The sun had begun to set now and quarters were arranged for Zero, the Empress and Kallen who were to be in separate rooms, Nunnally preferring her old one.

Kallen Kozuki found the calm and easy nights both a soothing relief from what she had experienced before, but also she felt apprehensive after them out of a fear that something about the peace was so temporary and couldn't last very long. Spending the small hours of the nights with her eyes wide open and fixated on the ceiling, she decided to forgo sleep entirely and go for a short walk on the campus. The campus hadn't changed in her absence, it was still an abundance of nature, and it felt real which was more important. As she walked around, taking in the cool dawn air she spotted a figure standing by one of the small streams. His long cape and mask were unmistakeable, it was Zero. Suddenly, she was reminded of seven years ago, of the parade. Of the tragedy. Seizing the moment she approached Zero, who was for now unaware of her presence.

"Suzaku"

A sudden movement and Zero had spun around and put distance between the two, reaching for a small pistol hidden in one of his pockets. Realizing who it was, Zero returned to a more comfortable disposition, while maintaining a threatening aura.

"Did you spot the Butcher of Zero, m'lady?" he asked.

"Don't start with that crap Suzaku I know it's you!" Kallen's voice was hushed but forceful and sent shivers down Zero's spine.

"I am not who you believe I am. I am Zero."

"Suzaku, please! I know it's you!" her eyes had formed small tears that were unnoticeable to anyone but Kallen herself. She pushed on, seeking closure on her feelings for Lelouch. "Suzaku don't worry, I'm not going to tell Nunnally or anyone, I just, need to know, about Lelouch…"

"I…" Zero sighed. "Kallen." Putting his hands to his mask, Zero made a rather small deliberate action which forced the mask to open. Pulling it away his face was revealed for the first time in seven years. "I can't have this off for too long, nobody can know who I am."

"Its fine, nobody will be awake for another few hours." Kallen smiled warmly, "It really is you. And Lelouch, he's…?"

"Dead. Yes"

"He fixated all hatred on the world on him and then he was killed, made you and Nunnally into a symbol for justice in this world, Zero was the Knight for Justice after all." Suzaku was taken aback by this.

"You figured it out?" he exclaimed, immediately his thoughts moved to who else could have.

Kallen explained how it had come to her just as Lelouch was killed and how she never told anyone else about it. She had been keeping it inside her all this time, and so she tried to distract herself by doing other things. Anything, because it was something that kept dragging her into a hole which she couldn't escape from. Suzaku spoke about being Nunnally's guardian and how she hadn't changed in the last few years. Kallen then warned Suzaku to be careful with Nunnally, since she was getting inquisitive as to who Zero was, and was eager to learn his identity.

"Maybe I'll have to tell her."