Greetings,
You should probably have a grenade launcher within arms reach when you go showering. You know, just in case.
There may be references to things hidden in the story. Yes, in addition to the super obvious ones, like the DBZ one in chapter 8.
Also, 12,5K+ views. Longest chapter so far, this is.
Kallen felt angry and powerless. This was not a new feeling for her, rather it was something that unfortunately she had felt rather often, for minor and major reasons alike.
Sometimes, during one of Milly's mad schemes as the Madam President of the Student Council, she had felt this way while being forced into some ridiculous costume, but though she had felt this at the time, it now seemed silly and even humorous.
However what was happening now was nothing so trivial. She watched in anger as the Britannian military made their little procession across one of the main Tokyo streets, an event which also seemed like a sinister echo of Zero Requiem, making her feel even angrier and more helpless.
She clenched her fists in anger as the smug face of Lord General Duvant came into view. The man was a rather grizzled looking middle-aged man with short, militaristic brown, greying hair and a look of undeserved pride on his scarred face. His impeccable and pristine green-blue uniform, which was wildly in contrast with the ruined grey around him made her hate him even more.
Right now she could perfectly understand Lelouch's anger with Britannia. Being first thrown away like trash into a foreign country, then being declared dead and his deceased status being used as an excuse to destroy his new home, attempting to kill him in the process.
If anything, she was surprised that he seemed such a well-adjusted member of society.
Well, relatively speaking.
Right now, they, the Tokyo civilians stood on both sides of the road, looking uncertainly at the procession, unaware of just what was yet in store for them.
She looked to her parents and her brother, who stood beside her.
She still wasn't sure of her father, unsure of whether she should despise him or pity him, for after the capture of Tokyo he had rarely visited and had channelled most of his energy into the Imperial Court. For what purpose, she still did not know.
Her mother was still unbroken as despite the distress at seeing her way of life being destroyed, she hadn't lost Naoto yet and hadn't yet attempted to drown her sorrows in Refrain. She resolved to keep it that way and prevent either of those things from happening.
And her brother.
One of the main reasons why she saw this opportunity as a blessing, rather than a curse. Returning to year 2009 would have seemed as a dream come true, if not for the constant nagging in the back in her mind, telling her that it would not last.
But, this time it would be different.
Her eyes widened a bit as she noticed Jeremiah Gottward on the other side of the road, just as the last vehicle passed.
As far as she could see, he seemed to be in a particularly foul mood, if him attempting to flay the surrounding soldiers alive with his eyes was any indication.
He didn't seem to notice her, but seeing him there reassured her just a bit. Though he was one of the people she had once upon a time hated the most, she also knew who he now represented.
Naoto after all was not her only reason.
"Let's go, Kallen." her brother told her softly, not wanting to raise his voice in the presence of Britannian troops, fearing attracting their attention.
He took her small hand and held it, slowly leading her away from the already finished spectacle which she had seemed spell-bound by.
She looked up at her older brother and once again gulped at seeing all of his attention on her.
Seeing her uncertainty, he offered a reassuring smile to her, though she could still see his own doubts behind it.
"We'll get through it, I promise." he told her and though she though that he sounded doubtful, she also knew that he would be right in the end.
She narrowed her eyes and turned around, glaring at the soldiers.
They would get to live. For now.
"Alright, nii-chan." she told her brother and the two were followed by their parents as the small family left the area.
She only hoped that Lelouch and Naoto's visions for the future would be compatible. But, oh well, if they weren't, she could still kick their butts into compliance.
Lelouch glared at everything in sight as their stolen car (they couldn't exactly justify civilians coming into town in a military truck, now could they?) approached the half-ruined Tokyo central from the Shinjiku side of town. The damn old man had been entirely useless, which would require punishment from his part. If Charles though that he was now free of his command, he had another thing coming.
He narrowed his eyes at the surrounding soldiers, who were arrogant enough to believe that they had the right to stop their car and demand something of them.
Unfortunately, this time, they were not in the middle of nowhere, so they had to comply.
Suzaku and Lelouch sat in the back, with Nunnaly in the middle, while the two women sat in the front with C.C. in the drivers seat.
The car stopped in front of a checkpoint and a soldier, without a helmet, approached from the witch's side.
He peered inside imperiously (Lelouch rolled his eyes at that), looking at each of them in turn and stopped his stare on the Japanese maid.
Then he addressed C.C.
"Only Britannians are allowed in the centre." He told her in what to him must have sounded regal and commanding. To Lelouch it sounded more similar to the ravings of a man, who desperately wanted to get a bullet in the face. "Papers please."
Lelouch could see that at that moment, Suzaku and Sayoko seemed to both panic just a little bit, if only internally. Nunnaly had kept her calm, though she still looked a bit uncertain.
But C.C. was well prepared and produced a few documents from the somewhat tattered formal suit she was wearing and gave them to the soldier.
The eyes on his stupid idiotic face widened somewhat upon seeing something on one of those documents.
He returned the documents and he seemed to be much more humble now, which peaked Lelouch's curiosity.
But he still couldn't let them part without infecting the air with more of his stupidity.
"That's an Eleven, Your Grace." he told her, regaining some of his bravado, as if he had told them something terribly surprising. C.C. of course reacted in an appropriate manner.
"Thank you for that information." She told him snidely, while looking at him as if he was a particularly disgusting rodent that she had the displeasure of seeing. "You should join the OSI. I'm sure they'd love your epic observation skills."
The pathetic guard blushed an unflattering colour at her sarcastic remarks and decided to just cut his losses.
"Let them through!" he yelled and the others and the walking trash-cans finally stepped aside. C.C. gave the man a final look and drove forward through the city.
"How did we get through that, C.C?" Nunnaly asked the immortal gently. "What did you show them?"
C.C. looked at her through the front mirror.
"I had Charles manufacture me some nobility ID." she told, not unkindly, to the youngest of the group. "Without it, we'd never have been able to get in Tokyo central in a car. They are monitoring traffic. Only the military and VIPs are allowed through without any hassle."
She sighed.
"With the right ID, they wouldn't look at us too closely and Sayoko and Suzaku could accompany us." C.C. continued, keeping her eyes on the road.
"What that guy really needed was a knife in the throat, not papers." Lelouch spoke irritably. Suzaku looked at him in exasperation and rolled his eyes at him.
Sayoko perked up a bit though, at her master's implied order.
"Shall I go and take care of him then, My Lord?" she offered half-eagerly.
"Tempting, tempting." Lelouch spoke, but upon seeing Suzaku and Nunnaly's glares, he stopped and calmed down a bit. "But no. We don't have time for such things right now."
He rolled his eyes at his two pint-sized companions and their reactions. It's not like he said anything really terrible. He kind of wished Kallen were there, as she'd probably agree with him.
There were a few minutes of silence as the group drove through the half-ruined city and the 99th Emperor used this opportunity to look around a little bit.
Construction had began a few days previous to this, or maybe a better way of saying it would be preparation for construction as many obstacles still had to be cleared until the layered base structure could be started.
The city, or at least this particular part of it was rather empty, meaning that its original inhabitants had probably been expelled outside of it.
Lelouch had never really understood the sheer stupidity of the Area 11 occupation government. Whether one was talking about the current, temporary force or Clovis' numerous stooges for when his brother would formally be named as the permanent head of state.
The war had, truthfully, been rather short and although there had been several massacres (of course he couldn't confirm that at this point, but he was reasonably sure that they had repeated themselves at least partially), realistically many more casualties would follow afterwards.
War as an event brought chaos and it destroyed a lot of infrastructure. Unfortunately, the Area 11 government had never really bothered to repair all of the damage.
The government would focus mostly on Tokyo settlement and a few other important settlements as well as military bases, but it would generally ignore the rest, giving the remainder of the population so-called self-rule.
On paper it must have seemed a rather brilliant idea no doubt, but NAC, the group that would be or had already been tasked with governance of the numbered citizens was truthfully more or less an alliance of merchants.
As such and including their perceived status as traitors, the NAC's power was really limited to the immediate area surrounding Kyoto or if one were to be extremely generous with regards to them, to the biggest Japanese island, Honshu.
So, the Japanese casualties had not really even truly began. In the future, many more would die from such trivial causes as hunger, disease or freezing to death, as the collapse of the economic system and the poor establishment of the Britannian rule would mean that many former Japanese would lose the means of subsistence.
Basic infrastructure such as roads, electrical installation, even water access etc. was at least partially destroyed now and since the Imperial Government would not bother to repair all of them and NAC would many times lack the authority and the means to do so. This would mean that many, especially outlying small villages, would have a very hard time even just surviving.
All that from a 30-day war.
Meanwhile, Britannian forces would pretty much outright brag about how they had managed to "civilize" Japan, never-mind the fact that it had been a First world country already.
Though that same negligence would, at least to him, be a great opportunity for his own plans to develop.
But, at that point he was forced to stop thinking about the greater picture, as the group had pretty much arrived at their destination, which was the Ashford apartment in Tokyo.
Somewhat ironically, the apartment was located in a Britannian quarter of central Tokyo, which while rather prestigious looking, was both physically and mentally removed from the rest of town. Its white and pompous-looking buildings stood in stark contrast with it's grey surroundings.
C.C. drove the car towards the house and parked it haphazardly in front of it at the pavement. That was probably not the right thing to do in this situation, but Lelouch approved of the blatant rule-breaking, as there were hardly any policemen around that could punish them.
One of the house's inhabitants had apparently seen them, as as soon as they exited the car and C.C. rang at the entrance, the door had already opened.
"Yes?" An ageing, but tall Britannian male with greying hair asked upon opening it. He was, of course Milly's grandfather, Ruben Ashford. It seems that despite being in somewhat better financial position, the man had still deemed Pendragon to be unsafe at this time.
His eyes landed on the two women in the front and he appeared to be slightly confused upon seeing them.
"How can I help you?" He asked in a somewhat guarded voice. But that would soon change as Nunnaly chose that moment to break the ice.
"Hello, Mr. Ashford." His sister greeted in her usual sweet voice and the elderly man's eyes widened upon seeing the little girl on her rather simplistic wheelchair.
"Nunnaly, is that you?" He asked with quite some disbelief, passing between the two women and approaching the three children. Upon approaching the girl, he noticed the two boys. He became a bit confused after seeing Suzaku, not knowing who he was, but he gulped slightly upon seeing the other boy's cold eyes, recognizing him instantly.
"Ruben." The Eleventh Prince spoke in a calm, authoritative voice.
"Lelouch." The old man spoke in a whisper, full of wonder. "You're both alive?"
The former and future Emperor sneered slightly at this.
"No thanks to Britannia." He spoke coldly, making the future headmaster stare at him a little bit. "But, Ye-"
"Y-You guys are okay!" Another childish voice interrupted from the doorway and everyone looked towards its origin, which was a blonde girl, a bit bigger than the dark-haired demon.
"Hello, Milly!" Nunnaly greeted and soon after the older girl ran down the dirtied steps towards the girl.
Lelouch and Suzaku smiled at each-other slightly as Milly grabbed the younger girl in a hug and started to bawl her eyes out.
The Emperor smirked as the girl seemed to be even more god-damn emotional than his friend and the Knight must have recognized the thought on his face, as he threw him a narrowed-eyed glare.
Not that glares worked very much on him.
Though their roles were reversed soon after, as the girl then proceeded to hug Lelouch as well, while the Prince attempted to get her off of him.
"Lulu!" The god-damned mini woman cried as she pretty attached herself to him, disabling any movement.
He threw a sharp glare at Suzaku.
But he couldn't stay too annoyed at her as he was actually rather glad to see her. The last time he had seen her, she looked rather seething mad, which was understandable considering his status as the Demon Emperor.
"Now, now, Milly, let Lelouch breathe!" The future headmaster, bless his heart, chastised his granddaughter and thankfully, the girl soon obeyed.
"Good to see you again, Millicent." The Emperor told her teasingly and was amused when her face reddened slightly.
"D-Don't call me that!" She stuttered with quite some annoyance, rather disliking her full name. He simply smirked at her a bit, causing her to glare at him. The image was ruined by her slightly puffy eyes.
He did miss this little version of Milly, which was still somewhat easily flustered. Now, if only she'd stay that way and not turn into the evil she-devil that had tyrannically ruled Ashford in the future.
But he wouldn't hold out much hope for that.
Charles zi Britannia walked majestically from the side of the throne room and stepped towards the throne in the middle of the platform.
"Hail, Your Majesty!" shouted one of the ever present guards of that particular chamber.
The 98th Emperor did not respond with anything other than an acknowledging nod in response to his subordinate's hail and proceeded to sit regally in his grand chair.
There were a few people, most of them nobles, already present in front of the steps of the throne platform. He could spot for example, Lord Holliston somewhere in the back, while Lord Calares was a bit closer to the throne. He did not understand how Calares found the time to brown-nose, considering he was also an Imperial General of the Britannian Imperial Army. The campaign in Japan had just been completed, that was true, however the Emperor still believed that a high-ranking member of the military had enough to do, even in peacetime.
Speaking of Japan, his efforts at stopping the war had ended in failure.
He had been unable to directly communicate either his opposition or his displeasure at its commencement in a direct way, since that would ultimately conflict with his chosen image of both strength and indifference, but he had believed himself to be rather successful in subtly influencing the important peers against it.
Unfortunately, his brother's henchmen had come from an entirely different direction.
Namely, the Office of Secret Intelligence.
The information about Lelouch and Nunnaly's death had come from that direction, from a man called Agent Reginald Kitchener, supported by a few other members of the OSI.
Beatrice Holt, Head of the OSI, had been rather seething furious at her organisation being used in such a manner and had expressed her displeasure in one of the untelevised sessions of the Imperial Court.
Which worked out rather nicely, as this meant that Charles could justify their very public execution in front of the very same audience to his unfortunate brother, V.V. To V.V., he explained this as a way of appeasing Holt and to the nobility this was, a not very subtle, indication of what would happen to them, if anything similar were to repeat itself ever again. In addition to the obvious threat at the funeral, this should hopefully keep them in line, in the future.
"Now presenting, His Highness, the 3rd Prince, Clovis la Britannia." Declared one of the guards in front of the grand doors on the other side of the throne room.
Ah, great. Another one of those spoiled brats would arrive to ruin his day further. Clovis had been rather renowned for being a whiny brat and a sore loser to boot, although growing up and his siblings supposed death had fixed some of the more annoying tendencies.
Or, at least, Clovis took care not to express them in front of his father any-more. After the banishment, his numerous other children had become rather vary of him and were distrustful of him.
If he had cared about their image of him, he would be tempted to shed a tear, but as he didn't give a damn, he just continued doing what he was doing.
Finally, the blonde prince entered into the throne room as the grand doors opened. He was dressed in some rather subdued blue noble robes, with those white gloves the aristocracy seemed to favour so much.
After a few moments of walking, the dandy prince stood in front of his father.
"Your Majesty." he spoke warily and bowed at his waist.
Charles gave him his full attention. He knew precisely for what reason the boy had come in front of him.
"Why have you come here in front of me, Clovis?" The Emperor asked imperiously from atop of his throne, glaring down at his son.
Clovis gulped slightly upon hearing his voice and his impudent subjects started whispering behind him, like irritable flies circling around a dying animal
"I would like to ask a boon of you, Your Majesty." Clovis asked, his voice shaking slightly, though Charles was honestly somewhat impressed by his daring.
The 3rd Prince was not particularly cowardly for a member of the Imperial Family, but he was not an insane bastion of bravery and bravado either.
"Oh?" Charles zi Britannia asked regally, drawing out the word slightly.
"Yes, Your Majesty." His son confirmed, keeping himself together. "I would like to be named as Viceroy of the newly formed Area 11."
Though he was not going to be a particularly outstanding Governor-General, Clovis was actually overall, objectively, the best choice.
General Duvant was a rather typical Imperial General and was one of those people, who always approached a problem with the same attitude.
Like they said, if the only tool you possessed was a hammer, everything looked rather like a nail to you.
Duvant had approached governance with all the repression that the Imperial Army could muster and had attacked every settlement, which failed to comply, like a military target. Thus, he pacified dissent with copious amounts of force, which generally did not work out too well in the long run.
The other choices for Governor-General were other military generals, other members of the Imperial Family, like Cornelia, which were either better used elsewhere or would be just as bad as an Imperial general (which Cornelia would probably be as well). The only other option would be influential members of the nobility, who would probably make even worse governors, thanks to their profit-oriented uncaring attitude.
So, despite the fact that Clovis would be rather hated by the Elevens anyway and Lelouch would not be too pleased by his appointment either, he was still the best choice for either of them. He would be an acceptable governor for at least the Britannian part of Area 11 and would minimize military adventures on the islands, which would probably make Lelouch feel less homicidal than Duvant (who was probably by now a dead man walking).
But, he was not a man who would make such things easy for his son, so he didn't grant the position to him straight away.
The annoying chatter at Clovis' back had meanwhile increased while Charles had been considering the request.
"Oh?" The 98th Emperor drawled mercilessly, glaring at the 3rd Prince, who only semi-successfully disguised his gulp. "And for what reason would you like to head there?"
His son took a deep breath at that, probably not thinking that he would get this far.
"I ... I want to make myself useful to the Empire and solidify my position in the Imperial Court." His son told only somewhat shakily. "Also ..."
He trailed off uncertainly. His father glared at him, motioning for him to go on.
"I would like to look for my siblings remains and if possible, sent them back to Pendragon." Clovis continued, ducking his head slightly, as if expecting a reprimand.
There was silence for a few moments.
"Very well." Emperor Charles boomed after a few moments and Clovis lifted his head, looking at him with a bit of disbelief.
Charles raised his eyebrow at his gob-smacked expression in an imperious manner, but did not comment on it.
"Either of those reasons was acceptable." The Emperor continued in his regal voice, while whispering once again intensified in the background. "You are hereby named Governor-General of Area 11. You will keep this position as long as you hold to the principles of Imperial rule."
"Thank you, Your Majesty." Clovis answered as he bowed in front of the throne. He looked at his father uncertainly, but Charles motioned to him that he could leave.
Charles looked thoughtfully at his son's back. He considered if he should think about improving his relationship with the rest of the Imperial Family. Last time he had truthfully not cared overly much after Marianne's assassination, throwing himself fully into Ragnarok research.
It would certainly make Schneizel's idiotic Damocles-based plans more difficult. Some may have believed that his second son was one of his favourites, but truthfully, Charles had made things for him generally quite difficult.
The 98th Emperor had not actually granted to his son the title of Prime Minister. The sneaky child had actually achieved that bit quite on his own, though his birth status may have contributed to that.
Schneizel had become a member of the Britannian Conservative Party and would in the not-so distant future quickly rise in rank, becoming it's leader and the second man in the Empire after successful elections.
In any case, a good relationship with his other children might ruin some of his plans. Besides, Euphemia may make a much better family head for the Imperial Family. Whichever option he chose, he would attempt to subtly increase her future influence in the Court.
Jeremiah Gottward, a Colonel of the Britannian Army was on the phone and looked rather grim. The person on the other side was someone who was familiar to him, one of his most trusted colleagues, and that person was in the middle of relaying an order from His Imperial Majesty.
Therefore, he made sure to listen attentively.
To be honest, Orange was not particularly surprised to receive this order and had been preparing for this call for a while now. In his anticipation, he had made sure to make his observations on how best to fulfil it.
And now was the time to strike.
"Understood." He verbally confirmed his acceptance to the female on the order side. Though he was alone in the office and had checked for bugs several times, it was still better safe than sorry.
After another instruction from Sayoko, he said his goodbyes and hung up.
As soon as that was completed, he immediately checked his assassin blade, making it spring out from under his wrist.
Feeling satisfied by his inspection, he nodded to himself. As had become his everyday ritual after leaving the Directorate, he went to his fridge and took out a single bottle of beer, Carlsberg.
He poured the whole of the drink into a rather tall glass. Then he sat down behind his office table and slowly drank the beer, all the while considering how best to approach his mission.
After finishing with his small ritual of normalcy, he stood up decisively and headed through the door, closing it behind him. He would not fail his mission.
As he walked slowly through the side streets of ruined Tokyo, he observed his surroundings, noting all that had been ruined during the invasion. True, the construction of Tokyo settlement would mean that Britannians would no longer need be reminded that the city would be built atop ruins and numerous casualties, but the reality would still stay the same.
They had sinned and they would have to repent before his Master would deign to forgive them.
After a few minutes of walking, Jeremiah came across the unremarkable looking house which had been appropriated by the army. It looked like any other of the many houses in the Britannian part of time. It was gleaming white with an almost flat black roof with many beautiful windows, whose frames were in the colour of a beautiful gold. While not particularly tall for a manor, it was nevertheless a typical Britannian construction.
This house in particular was inhabited by his highest ranking army superior, here in Area 11, Lord General Almond Duvant. If this order had not been given to him, Duvant would have retired after his successful conquest of Japan and would have lived to a ripe-old age somewhere in the countryside of Florida.
The front was of course a no-go. Usually, it wouldn't have been a problem, but his instructions had been clear: the only target was the general and none could connect him in any way with his death as Jeremiah still had a role to play.
Getting into the house shouldn't be too much of a problem, Jeremiah though as he avoided the entrance and instead went into a narrow alley on the left of the entrance. It was getting dark, so not getting spotted was not a problem at that moment.
There were only a few guards inside the building itself.
Despite this, Jeremiah had put a black cloak around himself, covering his head as well to prevent anyone from recognizing him in case anything went wrong.
In the upper left corner of the building (if one were to orient himself according to the position of the entrance), there was a pipe, leading from the roof down to the ground. The pipe was supposed to leak rainwater down from the roof.
He gazed up at the second floor of the building and became somewhat annoyed that the window to the immediate right of the pipe was closed.
He sighed in relief however, upon noticing that the second window was actually opened. One of his observations had been that the servants of the manor often opened the windows for the purpose of ventilation.
He ran up to the pipe and jumped on to it, attempting to clear as much distance as possible. He became a bit alarmed at the ringing sound, which in his mind was a lot louder than it probably was realistically. His heart sped up a bit. He chastised himself for his impatience, but after a few moments, when nothing else happened, he started climbing, which was a somewhat difficult process, but he succeeded nonetheless by grabbing some of the rough edges of the wall.
He was nearly spotted by one of the guards in the first room, but thankfully he had ducked quickly enough.
After the guard had left the room, Jeremiah climbed sideways to the second room, which had an opened window.
He finally climbed into the room and was immediately alarmed as the only door started to opened.
There was a tall cabinet near the window, which afforded a possible hiding space as there was some free space between the cabinet and the wall on the left side of the window, so Jeremiah quickly went there and hid.
Thankfully, the door closed soon afterwards as the guard had only checked it slightly from the entrance and did not bother entering it.
Jeremiah then walked softly towards the door and slowly, silently opened it.
To his right there was the back of the guard, a few meters away from him.
He went the opposite direction and tried finding his way towards the General's suite (wherever that may be), ducking two other guards on the way.
He checked most of the rooms, but after a while he concluded that he might be in the floor above.
After a while he heard some terribly off-key singing. He almost snorted in incredulity as he realised that the sound seemed rather familiar to him, but restrained himself, not wishing to reveal his presence.
After stealthily checking two more rooms and not finding anything in them, he finally found what he had been looking for in the third.
He smirked as the saw his target behind the shower curtain and he closed the door behind himself.
He walked briskly towards the shower and in a quick and vicious motion, he pulled the curtain, earning a startled shriek from his target.
He snickered slightly as the good general grabbed his chest from the shock as if he had heart problems. Jeremiah was kind enough to not look lower than that.
"Greeting, my lord." The Orange knight greeted mockingly.
"Gottward, what THE HELL are you doing?!" Duvant shouted in response, but thankfully, as he had suspected, the upper floor was empty, apart from his target, so nobody came running. Britannian lords did like their privacy after all.
"Well, my lord, you are to be assassinated under the orders of my master." Jeremiah told the man as he attempted to cover himself using the curtain.
However, his words stopped the general in his tracks.
"W-What?" The brown-haired naked person muttered weakly. "Aren't you supposed to be some sort of white knight?!"
"Never presume the colour of my armour!" Jeremiah shouted in response and activated his knife, slashing his target across his chest.
He left soon afterwards, after watching Duvant start to bleed up in the shower.
He dropped a piece of cloth on the floor of the bathroom before he did though. The cloth contained the image of a black handprint. After all, it wouldn't do to have them believe that one of the Japanese had done this.
After living at the Ashford apartment for a few days, Lelouch decided that he finally had enough information on how to fix the damage in Nunnaly's legs. He had consulted a few books and had compared the inner structure of Nunnaly's legs to C.C.'s and Suzaku's, using his power and had finally gathered the courage to do it.
Unfortunately, Nunnaly had been rather obtuse about it for a few days, arguing that there were plenty of other handicapped people and that he should try a more normal method, using the possible application of his power, so that it could benefit more than just her.
Lelouch had set her straight and told her in no uncertain terms of just how stupid he believed she was being, making her blush quite a bit at the end.
The procedure, if you could call it that, was successful, but Nunnaly would still need quite a bit of physical therapy before she could really walk again without any support. But, by the time they would see Tohdoh again, she should be more than well enough to bully the Colonel (or whatever his rank was) into training her in martial arts.
He would comply … or else.
"How did you do it?" Milly asked once again, pestering him about Nunnaly's mysterious recovery. But as always, he would offer the same answer.
"I am Lelouch." He told her helpfully, in a rather smug voice, as if that was answer enough. As if not being able to cure a crippled person of all her ills would be completely ridiculous to him.
"Ughh!" she groaned irritably and threw her hands in the air in exasperation, stomping away loudly, while he looked on in amusement.
Let them make their own conclusions. If they wanted to believe her to be a miracle child, let them. If they wanted to believe that he had hired a former Japanese surgeon or something, then let them believe that.
He would always offer the same answer. He now knew why C.C. had always been so bloody infuriating. It was amazing.
"So, do you really have to leave now, Suzaku?" Nunnaly asked with a little bit of sadness in her voice. Lelouch glared at his friend in response for causing that.
Suzaku shrugged helplessly and nodded.
"I want to see my mother again." He confessed after a moment. "I know she'll probably hate me now, but I want to at least meet with everyone again."
Nunnaly frowned in response.
"There is also the matter of Britannian occupation." Lelouch said after a moment of silence. "Right now, the army is still high-strung and they might respond badly to any Japanese. So, maybe its safer for him to leave for a while."
"What about Sayoko?" Nunnaly asked.
"There is no need to worry about me." Sayoko spoke kindly.
Lelouch heard her coming and Nunnaly was used enough to her antics, but Suzaku yelped loudly once she suddenly showed up behind them.
"I'll be discreet whenever I leave the house." she reassured the young princess while Suzaku breathed slowly and attempted to calm his racing heart. He glared half-heartedly at the maid.
"When do you join the military?" Lelouch asked him calmly, though he was a bit tempted to throw an accompanying smirk for reacting so loudly to Sayoko.
"At sixteen." Suzaku answered his friend. The Emperor nodded and grasped his chin thoughtfully.
"Once you conclude your business at Kyoto, you may return here." Lelouch told him and though the second part may have sounded like a suggestion, the tone was that of command.
Lelouch didn't really think that Suzaku would be too happy there. Only a few people may have known what he had done, but one of them was probably his mother. His friend didn't really want him to be subjected to unfriendly stares and nasty treatment. He and Nunnaly got enough of that in the Imperial Court for him to know that it wasn't an acceptable option.
And given that Suzaku looked a bit pale at the thought of returning, he didn't think that the reception would be very good. Though Kaguya and Kirihara might help to make it a bit less horrible.
If they knew what was good for them, that is.
A boy with long blonde hair hummed in thought as he looked at a photo of a rather beautiful Britannian noblewoman.
"This woman is proving to be a bit of a pest." He said in his rather childish voice. His entourage, consisting of two rather tall and heavily cloaked individuals ignored his mutterings as guards usually did.
AN:
Poor V.V.
Charles' parts are always the best, IMHO, for some reason.
I don't know why, but at that last scene I felt rather bad for Duvant. I hope I didn't ruin Jeremiah's image now, but do know that he's following Lelouch's philosophy. The whole: Be a knight for justice, but also: Punish the strong for trampling on the weak. Ergo, Black Knight. Duvant didn't seem too evil perhaps, but generally speaking, evil is done most often for the most banal of reasons. Like practicality, habit, obedience etc. That's the true horror of it, perhaps, and Duvant killed and opressed for such reasons. I hope I gave a good enough idea of what he was guilty of. Clovis' crimes would fall more under negligence (mostly), though that might be a topic for another day.
I am not entirely satisfied with Kallen's bit, though in my defence I would probably have much less problems writing her interactions than her thought processes. I'll have to go and read some fiction now, so I won't waste too much time on char's thinking anymore, so this doesn't end up like Twillight!
I have a hard time believing that Britannia would accept recruits under 16 (though the Directorate is not so picky and there have been exceptions, but I do believe 16+ would be standard). Anime does like its child soldiers though.
I can't believe that for this chapter I've actually mostly followed my plan and have written all that I had intended. (Well, I did skip one scene, but I've added two unplanned ones). Also, Nunnaly's legs are fixed now. Now she can be a badass warrior as well as a badass stateswoman. I wanted to do the whole leg repair scene, but I lacked motivation for it. Also, I didn't precisely know how to do it well.
In response to one reviewer who said that Lelouch was getting OP. That is kind of the point of this story , though I do realise that his use of powers in last chapter was rather uninspired. Generally, I shall avoid him using them when he doesn't need to, though. Otherwise, why have minions, if you're going to do everything on your own?
Imperatia