Chapter 4
June 19, Year Zero

Rivalz came into Sifir's room early the next day, carrying a pamphlet with the picture of a large pizza on the front. "Hey, Sifir, Ashford's hosting a pizza festival today, where we'll make the largest pizza in the world. Wanna come?"

Sifir blinked the sleep out of his eyes. "Pizza festival?"

Rivalz practically shoved the pamphlet in Sifir's face in his excitement. "I'm the announcer and coordinator over there, and it'll be really fun. You should come."

…pizza. Such an ancient cuisine. I haven't had one in a very long time, I think. Sifir thought. "Is it going to be very noisy though? The nurse says that I should keep away from it."

Rivalz frowned. "Well, it'll be as noisy as any other normal festival, I guess. We can get you some earplugs though."

Earplugs? What's that? "That's okay, I can use my own." he replied. Whatever those 'earplugs' were, it was probably a worse alternative to the noise eliminator he had in his PSD.

"So you'll come, right?" Rivalz said.

"Um, yeah. I'll see you there."


That annoying witch! Lelouch thought as he finally exited the warehouse building. The mess that Kallen caused by pushing over some panels would take hours to clean up later, and he still had to manage the rest of the school clubs. And find out why Ohgi was there at the warehouse. And return Diethard's call. And, worst of all, deal with C.C.

Being a student and a terrorist leader sucked.

If Diethard was going to say what I thought he was going to say about the Zero Squad's operation, then there might be a problem transporting the Knightmares to their destination. We could hijack one of the ships passing through, but that would be too obvious. If Rakshata could finish developing that float system sooner, then…what? he thought as he saw his foot disappear for a brief moment. He moved his foot back and part of it reappeared, his black heel abruptly ending to reveal the grass underneath.

What the…

He walked forward and observed the way his legs disappeared and reappeared, almost as if he were walking through a sphere. He leaned down and stuck his hand inside the radius of the sphere, watching it disappear up to his elbow. When nothing happened, he leaned down farther, groping for the source of the anomaly.

His fingers made contact with something–were those handlebars?–underneath the bushes and pulled, shifting the radius of the sphere at the same time.

A sleek black vehicle covered with leaves and dirt suddenly appeared as his eyes entered the radius of the sphere. A motorcycle? No, it doesn't have any wheels. But the controls indicate that it can steer and turn on and off. He pulled the vehicle farther out of the bushes and a glass paperweight tumbled out of one of the vehicle's compartments and settled on the grass. Some black thing sat in the middle of the warped glass.

Curious, Lelouch picked the paperweight up. As he did so though, the black thing inside emitted a soft white glow, which died out after a few seconds. The screen between the handlebars of the vehicle lit up, showing a picture of the face of a blond boy with icy blue eyes. Underneath the picture was the name "Sifir Opelo". The name of the owner, perhaps? He would have to find that person then, if only to find out where he got these contraptions.

He picked up the paperweight and stood up, noticing that whatever was making things invisible had stopped. Maybe the paperweight was the one causing it. If so, then it would be very useful to the Black Knights, no matter how small the radius of it was. He could practically see the possibilities popping into existence. The vehicle likely had even more useful features. Rakshata would love to have this. he thought. And so would the Black Knights.


"Now, introducing our special dough tosser, the Ashford family Ganymede!" Rivalz announced through the microphone, pulling the tarp away to reveal an oddly-shaped blue Knightmare, with protrusions from its arms that rose higher than its head. Sifir's eyes widened. He'd only seen the Ganymede in videos, and as a mini action figure in the museum just, what, yesterday? Or was–no–will it be in a thousand years? Whatever.

The Knightmare performed a few gestures as Rivalz continued speaking. "Yes, it's a bit of an antique. However, at its controls is the student council's special member and Princess Euphemia's personal Knight, Sir Suzaku Kururugi!"

Suzaku Kururugi?! He's here?!

It made sense, actually. As the pilot of the legendary Lancelot, Suzaku should be one of the most skilled pilots around to toss the dough. Though Sifir still couldn't understand why anyone would want to spend so much money on making such a large pizza.

"Excuse me," he muttered as he backed out of the watching crowd. He hated being in the middle of lots of people. Too claustrophobic, and neither did he have any good experiences with it.

He bumped into someone just when he reached the edge of the crowd. "Sorry!" He yelped and turned around to see an orange haired girl standing with her back to him.

She turned with a bright smile. "That's fine. I also came out here to escape the crowd. Have you been enjoying the festival so far?"

He smiled back uncertainly. "Yeah, I guess. But how did the people here manage to get the Ganymede? Isn't it the really antique Knightmare that Marianne the Flash piloted?"

"Oh, the Ganymede is from Milly's family, the Ashfords. They only take it out for occasions like these. I mean, nothing can throw a giant pizza quite like a Knightmare can." She laughed. "Milly's the one behind all these crazy schemes though. Me and the rest of the student council are just the subordinates that she orders around. By the way, what's your name? You must be a visitor."

"I'm Sifir. And actually, I woke up with a concussion on the school grounds and I still can't really remember how I got there. So I'm staying here until I recover from it."

Shirley's eyes widened. "Oh! So you're the person Rivalz found lying next to the camping club's practice camping trip! He told me about you. How's Ashford so far?"

Sifir laughed. "It's actually pretty incredible here. I mean, why would anyone want to make a giant pizza for no reason?"

"Well, Milly has a way of cheering everybody up. It's what makes her such a great president. Everybody loves her festivals and events, no matter how crazy they are, because it's what relieves the tension and stress that's built up in the weeks before. This time, it's really needed, since the Chinese Federation just attacked the other day. Anxieties are high, and many of the Elevens here are really enjoying seeing Suzaku piloting a Knightmare."

There it was again. Elevens. "How is he, I mean, Suzaku?"

"Oh, he's pretty nice. He's very busy a lot of the time, so he can't attend every student council meeting. Some students don't like him just because he's an Eleven, but once you get to know him, he's really not that bad."

Suzaku Kururugi, future Knight of Zero, is "nice"? Maybe he was just putting on a false persona.


"I never want to see people unhappy ever again," Euphemia stated with all the gentle but fiery determination she'd possessed as a child. Lelouch recalled her complete and utter confusion when she'd first heard of poverty. She had made a similar declaration to him and Nunnally back then as well.

He looked away. "Remember, we can't meet after this."

"That's not true, I found a solution for everything."

He turned to stare at her. "Everything?" He should've expected her to say these things, but after so many years it was hard to get used to them again.

"Yes, I'm going to establish a specially administrated zone surrounding Mount Fuji, where Elevens can call themselves Japanese and have equal rights as any other Britannian." she said excitedly.

"What? A specially administrated zone?!"

Euphemia looked surprised at his reaction. "You're not happy about it?"

"A specially administrative zone for the Japanese?" Nunnally piped up. "Oh, that would be so nice, Euphy!"

Lelouch froze, his mouth open in surprise. "Are you sure you want the administrative zone to be established?" He asked Nunnally almost hesitantly. The Black Knights will lose their reason to fight if this madness actually happens, and the Japanese will end up all the worse for it!

"Of course, big brother. Isn't that what you've wanted all along? For the Japanese to to be treated equally with the Britannians?"

"…yeah." All the Japanese would get from the deal would be an illusion of equality, with those who couldn't get into the zone subjected to even worse discrimination as Britannians sought to reassert their dominance.

"Is there something wrong?" Euphemia asked.

"Just…nothing. I'll talk to you later about it." There was no way he was going to mention anything about the Black Knights and his identity as Zero in front of Nunnally. He looked away from his sisters towards the ongoing festival. Suzaku had just finished tossing the dough and had moved it down so that the cooking club could add the tomatoes.

The watching crowd cheered as Suzaku lowered himself from the Ganymede and bowed to them while Rivalz continued narrating. At the back, he saw Shirley talking to another boy.

The Japanese look so hopeful when they see Suzaku doing things that only Britannians usually get the privilege to do. It's ironic that Zero's popularity is dropping because of my best friend's success in thwarting my plans. And it'll only drop even more if Euphemia's plan is put into motion. Because most of the Japanese just want a safe place to live regardless of whether Britannia is still in control of Japan. Nevertheless, the special zone doesn't have an unlimited amount of space. The ones who can't get in will be subject to the wrath of the affronted Britannians and suffer just as much, if not more, than before the special zone.

He listened disconsolately as Nunnally and Euphemia continued to chatter enthusiastically. If Nunnally wanted the special administration zone to happen, then so be it. He would have to revise his plans to go along with it though. The Black Knights were definitely not going to be happy about being forced to act under the yoke of Britannian rulers, and Cornelia was also going to oppose it as well.


"So what was it that you wanted to talk about?" Euphemia asked Lelouch when they were alone. Sayoko and Nunnally were getting some of the newly baked pizza for them.

"I'll go through with the specially administrative zone, but only under certain conditions." Lelouch said.

"Of course."

"The Black Knights will be in charge of the administrative zone's police force, and I will have a say in the day to day affairs of the zone." He wasn't about to let the Black Knights become defunct; he still had plans for them, and being able to manage the zone meant that he could get closer to powerful Britannian officials and Geass them if he wanted.

"The other people in charge might not like that, especially Cornelia." She pointed out.

"I'll deal with them. You don't have to worry about it, and Cornelia will be opposed to your idea anyway, even more so when she realizes that I'll be involved in it. I take it that you haven't told her yet?"

"No…" She trailed off, a frown crossing her face for a moment before it lit up again. "Oh! I know! If Cornelia knows who Zero is then she might not be so opposed to it."

"You mean show myself to her? She'll drag me back to the Homeland in an instant!"

"I'm sure you can convince her not to. Besides, didn't you want to ask her about Marianne's death?"

Lelouch paused. He could very easily convince Cornelia to do anything with Geass if she were standing in front of him like Euphemia was proposing, and if things got out of hand, he could make Cornelia forget about Zero's identity and Euphemia forget that the meeting ever took place. In the end, the gains were worth more than the risks, which should be slim to none if everything went according to the plan that had started forming in his mind.

He sighed. "Very well then."


AN:

Yay! More Lelouch! I promise that there will be more of him in later chapters. Kallen is also coming shortly.

However, I have some bad news: I've reached the end of my buffer. That means updates will take much longer to come out. I'm aiming for at least once a month, but given how busy life is quickly becoming, I can't guarantee it. But I will show signs of life by updating my profile periodically with status updates.

On the other hand though, I have a beta reader, dw77! *throws virtual confetti* We'll be finalizing the plot and coming up with more goodies to throw at our beloved characters.