Chapter 8 – Love Train

Lelouch, the Dishwasher Prince
1965, November 8th, 2:30 P.M.
Shinjuku Prefecture, Midtown

There's only so many times that one can pull the same excuse out of their ass and expect it to work. I'd hit that point a very long time ago, and as a direct result of my inability to convince Nunnally that I'd show up at the front door in anything but a casket had been set in stone long before this. I knew without a doubt that it would have a negative effect on her regardless of anything I could force myself to do, but in the end I kept on doing what I'd been doing. Were Nunnally any other girl her age she'd have decided a long time ago that I simply didn't give two shits about her – but Nunnally was Nunnally, and so even now, after she had been almost certain that I'd died along with Jeremiah, she doesn't object to any of this.

She hates our way of life, but she'll smile and bear it. Of that I'm certain. But there's no other way. At least not for someone like me. And now the situation was at an all new low, with the only thing that provided any cover from my new assailants was the inexplicable assurance from Zero that they couldn't track me to the bar.

But even then, even though she knows, she still doesn't care. She refuses to let her smile waver. Whether she's doing it for my sake, or doing it for herself, or maybe even doing it for Alice or Kallen, all that matters is that I can convince myself that I can keep going with all of this, even though every logical notion I could possibly have would suggest against it.

When I came home this time, all she wanted was for me to sit with her in her room that night as she went to sleep. And on top of that, she accepted the blatant lie that nothing had changed without any argument. Whatever weakness there was in her heart she could always cure it, no matter how severe, as long as there was someone near her that she loved. Whatever trauma was left over from her isolation during the war she had trained herself to suppress without fail.

This is not how Nunnally should be growing up. But there isn't any other way. At least not anymore. And especially now whatever concept of escape from all of it I had in the back of my mind was gone now.

I could swear I've made a remark like this before, but of all people, Nunnally is the only one who could lead the world into a prosperous future. The fact that she exists is in of itself some sort of miracle. The fact that she's lived this long and pushed her way through so much is no less miraculous. And this miracle I've always considered being worth dying for – even though now I'm going to become nothing more than a violent murderer on my inevitably bloody path towards the future, in the end nothing is really changing.

Unfortunately, Kallen did not share my sentiments. Especially not this afternoon, when she closed down the bar right around the time I was cleaning the morning's dishes. See, whenever she shuts the bar down in the middle of the day it means she's going to start swearing at someone. And since Nunnally was the ideal little sister who did nothing wrong ever except all the time to Suzaku, in which case every two wrongs end up making a right, chances were she'd start swearing at me.

This time she came into the kitchen and was actually rather passive. Which means that the chances of me surviving this encounter were absolutely not in my favor.

"Tell me something." She starts out casually enough.

"If you want me to comment on your state of dress I'd rather –"

"You've been here two days. How long are you going to keep acting like nothing's changed?"

I continue my dish washing, not really paying all that much attention to her. "I'm not sure what you're talking about."

"Do you think I'm some kind of idiot?"

"Well I've never questioned your intelligence before so I'm not sure why you'd think I'd be –"

She slams her hands on the counter in front of me. It seems that playing this off was a bad idea. How unpredictable. "You went off on a job with your uncle. And it just so happens that right when you do he turns up dead in an explosion he started himself."

"They made that much public?"

"He tried to kill you. Is this somehow not that big a deal to you or something?"

"It's not as though this sort of thing hasn't happened before. Hell, you should've seen the guys I had to get past on the way back into town –"

"I already know how close you two were. If he dragged you into that pit with him there's no way he did it voluntarily."

"And what –"

She doesn't waste any more time. "Someone with enough power to take down the biggest syndicate Japan's ever seen in a fucking hour is trying to have you killed! Why the fuck are you being so indifferent about this?!"

"Well, actually it's a group of people who are trying to have me killed, but aside from that –"

Before I can finish my thought she punches me rather squarely in the face. It hurt a lot, but it was very obvious that she'd held back. "What kind of shit did you get yourself into?! This goes way fucking beyond what we agreed on –"

"I've a very strong feeling that this mess tracks us all the way back from the homeland. There's nothing that could've been done about it."

"So you're just going to wait it out? Without even telling anyone about it?"

"Think for a moment – if I'd straight up told you what was going on, would you have reacted any less spontaneously than you are right now?"

"That's not the point -"

"But more importantly, no, I don't intend to sit on this and wait for something to happen. All I can ensure is your safety here. Nothing's going to change for you or for Nunnally –"

"You really don't get it, do you? Do you have any idea what she was like when she heard her uncle turned up dead? Right after you ran off with him?"

"Whatever comes her way she manages to overcome it. She's been through much worse than –"

"Oh, so crying yourself to sleep every night until you run out of tears is a healthy way for a teenage girl to behave. Yeah, I'm sure she's going to be just fine if her brother shows up at her window with a gaping hole in his chest –"

"As I've always said, in the worst case scenario she has you to rely on –"

"For fuck's sake, it's like I'm talking to a fuckin' wall…" She turns around and slams her fist into the wall. "Do you really think you can keep all of this from her? Do you really think this is all going to pan out like always?"

"No."

"Then what are you going to do about it?"

"There's nothing I can do. I'm going to be sticking around for awhile, though – I'm not going to be taking any risks. Not until I have to."

She sighs. She's still angry enough to probably beat me into the wall but she holds back, apparently accepting those terms as begrudgingly as she had. "This was too close. Too fucking close, Lelouch."

With that she stormed out of the room. I wasn't exactly up for dealing with her outburst any further – she did have a point, as she always did, but there wasn't anything that she could say that would have any influence on things the way they are now.

The rest of that day I'm in a crappy enough of a mood that I start to get a little lazy during the bar's peak afternoon hours. Kallen starts cracking the whip like normal, and things slowly start to ease back to the way they normally were, as though there wasn't anything all that different about today.

At some point Alice shows up alone, and after a quick greeting wordlessly sits in the kitchen and watches me clean dishes. It's usually a good idea to assume that Alice had something to say whenever she was this pensive, as it was also a good idea to wait for her to initiate a conversation herself.

She doesn't seem to have anything to say, though. She's just watching me work rather intently. But eventually, once I'm done, she finally comes up with something to say.

"Nunnally wanted me to let you know that you need to pick her up from the academy today."

"She asked for me?"

"Yes… She's meeting with some classmates to discuss some project, and she didn't want me to have to wait around on the campus all day on her account. She told me to go home and get some rest after I came here, but I'm not very comfortable with leaving her there."

Ah, I see – it was certainly true that Alice needed some rest. It was apparent on her face, even – the bags under her eyes were unhealthily dark from all the time she'd spent at the bar with Nunnally while I was gone. I knew she was a light sleeper but the way she looked at the moment it would seem that she was running on even less sleep than usual.

"I agree with her. You should go get some sleep. And don't worry about letting her loose on the school grounds. She's safe there. And as for the rest, I'll take care of her for the rest of the day."

"Are you sure? There must be any number of things you were planning on –"

"I'm not planning on going anywhere for a few weeks at least. Spending time with Nunnally is something I have to devote a bulk of that time to anyway."

Alice seems a little reluctant to let me go, but she eventually resigns. She's about to turn to leave, but something suddenly occurs to her. "O-Oh, it's worth noting that Nunnally did not eat any lunch today. She's probably planning on skipping dinner as well."

"Oh?" This was news to me – I wasn't aware that Nunnally was alright with skipping meals. In fact, based on how she usually behaved she would consider no such thing.

Alice hesitates to answer, but her concern for Nunnally wins out in the end. "If I'm to be honest… When…" She struggles to find the right words.

"If you aren't comfortable telling me you don't have to. It's not like you –"

"It's not the eating that's the problem. It's everything else." She blurts out. "O-Oh, I'm sorry, I should have –" I'm about to repeat myself but she stops herself midway through her sentence and continues speaking. "When she heard that her uncle had died we were eating lunch together in the cafeteria. I'd helped her make her favorite side dishes that morning and she was looking forward to it all day. But in that moment she got up and left. She told me to finish the rest on my own. And then she shoved someone into the snack rack who wouldn't get out of her way and she almost started a fight – It was like she became a completely different person. After that she wouldn't speak to me for awhile, and she started forgetting to bring books to class and didn't study for our exams. And once she realized something was wrong she started forgetting to sleep and started struggling so much with her homework even though it was always so easy for her – when you came back, she made me swear not to say anything, but…"

"I see…" In that case she might as well have told Kallen about it, but Alice was only really sociable with Nunnally and could only approach me because I never judged her level of awkwardness so she likely wouldn't have been able to get across what she wanted to. Naturally this was the first I'd heard of any of this – perhaps Kallen was already largely aware of Nunnally's change in behavior, which was why she took off like she did earlier. I had imagined that Nunnally's mental condition would have deteriorated but I hadn't thought that things would have progressed so quickly.

Then again, none of this has happened quickly. This has always been building up.

This makes things complicated. More complicated than things needed to be.

I feel like I have to apologize to Kallen later – this requires immediate attention.

"These past few days I've been at a loss. She's just become so very distant – if you didn't come back when you did, there's no telling where she was going to end up. I'm afraid that once you go out again she's going to end up somewhere I won't be able to pull her out of." Alice had broken a promise she'd made with my sister – she knew full well that doing so was a complete betrayal of Nunnally's trust, but she'd done so almost without any hesitation when she believed that I could help her. She cared for Nunnally enough to be ready and willing to do what was best for her without any doubts.

"You took a fairly big risk telling me all of this."

"She's obsessed with staying strong. She's trying to fool people that know her too well, she's trying to act like she can deal with all of this but she clearly can't… I don't care what she thinks of me, as long as she stays healthy." She reminded me far too much of our own mother, back when we were still together as a family. Only Alice's affection for Nunnally was an entirely different sort.

I knew how important Alice's bond with Nunnally was – without it she'd be as lost as she was before they met. The fact that she'd risk it at all meant she loved Nunnally dearly, as much if not more than I did.

It was in that moment that I realized that I could always entrust my sister to Alice, no matter what. Even if Nunnally came to hate her, she'd continue to protect her no matter what. I had to take direct advantage of this. While Kallen wasn't the sort who would let Nunnally do anything stupid there was only so much she could do and as Nunnally gets older and apparently more and more uncontrollable what she can do becomes that much more limited. Alice didn't have this problem since her life's work amounted to keeping Nunnally safe. The way things were right now, Alice was the only person who could sustain what was left of my family.

I decide that if I'm going to place that much trust in her I'd have to inform her of how things were. But more importantly, I had to make something very clear with her – Alice was emotionally fragile to a very significant extend and very often she listened to whatever Nunnally said without question. The fact that we were even talking like this was evidence of a tremendous amount of courage that it took for her to speak up.

I really shouldn't be leaving this much on her shoulders, but I don't have any choice. Not the way things are right now.

"Going forward, I can't promise that I'm going to be able things easier. Right now everything is completely out of control and I can't keep acting like I can manage things anymore. I'm going to leave Nunnally entirely in your hands."

"I-In my hands…?"

"I need you to continue to stand by her, but if I can't be around to protect her you have to. I need you to keep her from doing anything like this again."

"I-I understand… Yes, I understand." She repeats herself more firmly. "…But how? I don't think I can –"

"If there's anyone that Nunnally will listen to, it'll be you."

"…You really think so?"

"Nunnally would probably believe something you say over something I'd say." Actually I pretty much knew that would definitely be the case in every situation.

Alice contemplates my sentiments for a few moments, but soon makes her decision. "If it's for Nunnally, I'll do it. I'll do anything."

Later that evening Alice accompanies me to the academy. Based on her reaction Nunnally had expected Alice to come along the whole time.

The moment the other students had cleared out and those two were alone in the same room I decided that it was best to take my leave – Alice was about to pour her heart out like she'd never done before and having any onlookers would only complicate things. Instead I chose to watch through the window outside – Nunnally was clearly baffled, as I'd expected her to be. But despite that Alice went on and on, her heart racing about as much as you'd think it would. And when she finally finishes her struggle to convey herself, Nunnally just smiles and takes her hands – with that the two vanish further into the building. I wonder if she realized I was watching them, but ultimately I guess it doesn't matter.

I decide to head back to the bar. I don't have any other business here, and I knew Nunnally was safe as long as she was with Alice. Although the way things were now I figured that the truth actually went the other way around.

I more or less go back the way I came. The more time I spend away from these streets the less I remember about them – I'd probably get lost if I just wandered wherever like I tended to. I guess this is the sort of thing that happens as you grow up – your memory becomes so clogged up by so many new things that a good deal of the old fundamentals seem to fade away. One day perhaps I'd forget everything about this city, if things continued to go the way they were going. But even then I suppose that as long as I kept living for the same purpose that it really didn't matter what I remembered. Losing one's heritage is certainly not the same thing as losing oneself – that was why Nunnally had tried so hard to maintain her ideal nature despite how impossible it ended up being.

I couldn't risk Nunnally's life changing any more drastically. This I knew for certain. That was why I had to stop all of this insanity as soon as possible. And Zero was the only one who was going to be able to help me do it. No, it's more simplistic than that – without Zero doing so would be impossible. So even if I didn't really trust a word that woman says I still have to rely on her.

I need to make contact with her as soon as possible –

But before that, there's a more immediate matter that requires tending to.

At first I was too lost in thought to notice. But after crossing no more than three blocks into Midtown it's become apparent to me that I was being followed. There wasn't a soul around at this hour – most of the Japanese were either passed out in front of their houses or working the tunnels, while the Britannians were all off at the high society joints on the upper streets. Even so, whoever it was that was chasing me had been silent as the grave – I'd only detected them in the first place was because I'd done enough of this exact same sort of tracking to know when I was being followed myself.

The moment I figure this out I completely scrap my plans of returning to the bar – I fix my fedora which had gotten a little lopsided due to my slightly quickened pace and walk off in a tangent direction and start to wander the streets aimlessly. All the while the presence is following me without slowing down. I try to lose them in more open areas but even then they aren't deterred in the slightest – this level of tracking was only possible for either a trained assassin or a former Frog – I knew how to smoke a Frog out, but only the kind that would crap its pants if you covered its eyes so it couldn't see anything. This was rather obviously not that kind of Frog.

Eventually I'm far enough away from any of the routes to the bar that I remembered that if I had to get into a fight and need to make a quick escape I had as many options as I could possibly want. There weren't any other conditions I could set up on such short notice, so I decide that now is the time to lure them out.

I end up trapping myself in an alleyway – that alone wasn't enough to draw this person out of hiding, but I had to wonder if it was possible to spot them from the safety of the darkness, in a scenario where it would be easier for me to see them than it would for them to see me. I hug one of the walls and slowly survey the street in front of me, almost entirely through my peripheral vision. Sure enough there wasn't any sign of anyone that I could pick up – knowing this, they must have been much further away and were surveying me from a distance, but close enough as to not lose track of me.

For a moment I consider the possibility of the rooftops. They might have had sufficient dexterity to use the rooftops as their cover.

And when I turn around to suddenly find someone in the alleyway with me, it's safe to assume that my assumption was correct.

Fortunately enough for me, the figure wasn't expecting me to suddenly turn around the way I did, so they were far enough back that I could make the first move before they could react.

And I do so – I immediately throw a kick in their direction – as expected they're fast enough to dodge, but not fast enough to anticipate my next move. The moment my foot touches the ground I spring off of it, and with a very slight spin I throw a revolving kick into the figure's face and manage to land – this strike hits home and without allowing even a moment for conscious thought I charge into them, forcing them against the back wall.

Of course at this point I fail to notice that I hadn't managed to trap their right arm, which I'm then promptly punished for with a sidelong punch – I take the hit and only barely manage to catch my fedora before it falls off as I back away. But I'm not given any breathing room – I'm suddenly under a rather swift assault consisting of very well timed jabs that I only barely manage to escape from –

At this point we've both escaped the alleyway and are standing in the middle of the road. My attacker wasn't wearing the white, but their stance and fighting style was identical to that of an unarmed Frog, at least as far as my experience with them could tell me. They were clearly male – he was dressed in some very low grade military armor with a coat thrown over it and didn't really do much as far as hiding his identity was concerned – in fact, I could've sworn I'd seen him somewhere before.

At this point there's a slight pause in the fight –

And during this slight pause, apparently a third party had managed to sneak up behind me without alerting me in the slightest, and very suddenly I'm struck over the head and I black out immediately.

I don't have the time to question what's happening. Everything just happens, and as usual everything happens far too quickly.

The Following Morning

The moment I open my eyes I'm up and ready to cut someone's throat. There isn't even a drowsy moment – I'm up as suddenly as I'd passed out.

The moment I do so I take in the entirety of my surroundings. I was in a fairly cheap looking room, lying on a bed that I wasn't familiar with. Sunlight spilled into the room from a lone window with its blind raised and onto the floor in front of me and lit the room – surrounding me were the effects of what appeared to be a completely normal bedroom, complete with a night table and a dresser as well as a shoddy looking television set stuffed in the corner on top of a laundry hamper packed to the top with clothes.

My eyes glance towards the doorway to my left –

But before that I manage to notice the person standing almost directly next to me –

I instantly try to reach out and grab them, but the moment I actually get a look at them I stop.

At the side of the bed was a little girl with blonde hair, easily no more than eleven, dressed in a grey school uniform with a breakfast tray consisting of pancakes and syrup coated waffles complete with a glass of orange juice in her hands. The moment I started radiating my killer intent she seemed to lose all composure – her eyes grew wide and her hands started shaking. She almost drops the tray – she looked like she was going to take off at a moment's notice.

"Uh…" I find myself at a loss for words. I'm suddenly reminded of how Nunnally always admonished me for my method for dealing with children and I end up not saying anything at all.

She doesn't give any sort of reply and instead chooses to act as though I hadn't even opened my mouth. She quietly sets the tray on a retractable snack table just off to the side and without any warning dashes out of the room like she'd seen a fire.

I hear muffled voices from outside the room. One of them breaks down into light sobbing.

A few moments later, Shirley Fenette of all people comes storming into the room in a rage. Before I even know what's going on she starts yelling at me – she's actually a little more distressed than she normally was, which I had to guess had something to do with it.

"You have a real great way with kids, don't you?" She frowns. "You scared the poor girl to death! Can't you be even a little personable?"

I'm still gawking at her, bewildered at both the turn of events and her state of dress – she was wearing a pink apron, some kind of white t-shirt underneath that was clearly a full size too large, a pair of sweats that barely even fit her, and very little else. She definitely wasn't even wearing anything under the shirt and the neckline was hanging a little too low -

But before I let myself wander any further into that obvious danger zone I sigh and shake my head. "...Look, feel free to toss whatever lecture you feel is necessary my way after we establish what's going on."

"What're you talking about? You showed up at my doorstep last night with a huge gash in your head and you passed out on the welcome mat – did I even tell you where I lived? You aren't stalking me or anything are you?" A few moments after she says that her expression lights up as she laughs a little to herself, but no more than a moment later she's back in that miffed pout with her hands on her hips.

"I did what, now?" I try to think back, but all that I managed to do was give myself a headache. All I really remembered were a few flashes of that fight I had on the street. "...Did I really... just wander here?"

Shirley gives me an odd look before sighing. Her whole body relaxes. "Well, I guess it can't be helped... Geez, I knew you got yourself beat up pretty regularly but I never thought it'd be this bad. What were you even doing?"

"Someone was following me and got a little too close for comfort."

"Did you rob a place or something?"

"No, I... I was on my way home, from the academy, and..." I decide trying to dwell on things any longer wasn't going to serve any purpose. "It's nothing more complicated than that, I guess. I just got jumped... Anyway, this is where you live?"

Shirley seems willing to change the subject, and surprisingly so. She didn't seem like the type that would let this sort of thing go once she was involved. "Yep, it's not anything spectacular but until I can get a job this is about as good as it's going to get."

"And what about the girl?"

Shirley smiles warmly. "She's mine." And just as suddenly she frowns. "And you owe her an apology. She had to work up a lot of courage to go anywhere near you, thanks to your scary face."

It seems that almost every day I'm in town I learn something new about Shirley – the fact that she was a mother, and presumably an unwed teenage one, wasn't something I'd have ever seen coming. But more importantly - "Scary?"

"Do you have to wear so much black all the time? You look like a really nasty pirate out of a Halloween movie."

"Wearing black makes it harder for others to see you at night. On these streets it's a very normal safety precaution."

"Certainly did you a lot of good... But on second thought, maybe apologizing isn't such a good idea. It might just make things worse..." She ponders something, something I was almost certain involved taking advantage of me in my reduced state, until eventually she lights up with some sort of solution. "Oh, I know – wait here." She leaves the room without any delay. I hear rummaging for a few moments – and a few seconds later Shirley comes back into the room, with the little blonde haired girl from before in tow.

The girl is practically clinging to her as she stares at me like a deer in headlights. I might've used that description once already but it still applies in full force. Shirley is gently rubbing her shoulders to get her to relax, but it didn't seem to be doing any good. It didn't help that I probably looked like a complete mess anyway, nor did it help that I'd almost snapped her neck earlier.

"See, honey? He's one of momma's friends. He's not a scary pirate. He's just big dumb Lelouch." I narrow my eyes a little – the level of absurdity at work here was off the charts, but if it helped cut the tension in this room then screw it.

Admittedly I'm a little nervous in the girl's presence. I always get flashbacks of how badly Alice had reacted to me the first time we met and how Nunnally wouldn't speak to me until I better understood the fragile hearts of children – which I ultimately failed at, by the way – whenever I encounter kids like this. That was why Nunnally always did the social bonding while I sat on the sidelines.

Eventually the girl seems to relax enough that Shirley steps a little away from her. "Now why don't you say hi? ...Oh, right, tell him your name first."

The girl trembles ever so slightly. I wanted to berate Shirley for making her do this, but eventually she opens her mouth and lets out a little squeak. "...L...Leila..."

Shirley suddenly glares at me – I guess I'm supposed to say something now. "U-Uh... Hi, Leila... I'm Lelouch... I'm sorry about before, I promise it won't happen again." And then I stop. Fantastic – two seconds in and I'm already out of things to say. My eye darts around the room for a bit – I suddenly remember the food she put on the table. "...Did you make this, by any chance?"

Leila nods her head slowly. I grab the plate with the pancakes and I steel myself for whatever catastrophe might lie ahead and I take a single bite. And then I recall how pancakes were supposed to taste, and I find myself marveling at how much better these pancakes were. I take another bite, and another -

"T-This is very good...!" I eat a little too fast, and I end up gagging a little bit on my food.

I was expecting Leila to leap at the slightest twitch in my behavior, but she seems to be a little in awe – maybe she's never seen anyone eat that fast before?

"T-Thank you." She politely stammers after I inhale the orange juice to stifle my coughing.

"Okay. You run along now." Shirley lets her go, bu instead of taking off instantly this time Leila stares at me for a few more seconds before she retreats to another room.

"Heh... That wasn't too bad for improvising. I'm a little impressed." Shirley smiles, fortunately satisfied by the turn of events. I sigh with relief. "Leila's like that with strangers – she's very bottled up but if you sit down and talk with her at her own pace for a few minutes she's a lot of fun. Doesn't help her with making friends at school, though."

"...All things considered, she's a cute kid."

"She bandaged you up, by the way."

"Did she?" I suppose it wasn't entirely out of the question considering how she was evidently a good cook, at least as far as breakfast material was concerned. "How old is she?"

"She's going to be twelve in three weeks."

"And does she do all the cooking?"

"She likes making breakfast. Granted she doesn't quite grasp the whole batter concept that great so I have to help her occasionally, but..."

"I see..." I try to sit myself up – while everything from my shoulders up felt like dead weight it would seem I hadn't lost any feeling in my legs. "...So, about her father -"

"Oh, I don't have a clue who he is."

"... You d-don't have a clue...?"

She rolls her eyes. "It's not like that... Okay, I know I've asked you this before, but do you really think that little of me? She's adopted. Sort of."

"Sort of?"

"I don't know who her parents are – she doesn't really know either. I found her in a run down orphanage when she was four, and even though none of the kids had any clean water or heat when it got cold she was still just so cute that I had to take her home with me."

"Is that so?" It sounded more like she'd been browsing an animal shelter than an orphanage.

"Yep, her and her brother -" And as if on cue there's a sudden sound of a crash coming from elsewhere in the building. "Yep, right on schedule too... You should come along. I might need your help." With that she briskly leaves the room. I hesitate for a few seconds but I decide that following suit was the best idea.

It turns out that Shirley lived on the second floor of an apartment complex – I would later learn that most of the building was occupied by Japanese and so the rent was extremely cheap for a Britannian student, but even then it was fairly well kept. Shirley's apartment had three bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a small space that served as a living room with a Christmas Tree stuffed in a corner. In almost every room there were pictures of Leila and a young boy that I assumed was her brother at various points in their growth, some of which included Shirley at various stages during her growth. It would seem she'd been taking care of these two for a fairly long time. But oddly enough she didn't seem to physically change all that much, even in the photos taken when Leila was a toddler.

I don't get much time to inspect things as we cross over into the room that the crash had presumably come from.

Struggling to stand is a young Japanese boy with black hair, his limbs coated in bandages that were seeping with blood. His eyes were a very strange, almost empty shade of blue that conveyed an emotion I wasn't too terribly familiar with. He seemed to be a little older than Leila and quite obviously had a fairly high threshold for pain, but that didn't seem to help out his limbs all that much.

Leila starts shouting. "I told him not to get out of bed – I told him, but he wouldn't' listen, and -" Her eyes sparkle with tears

"It's okay, it's okay, don't worry, we're gonna fix him like always." Shirley embraces her and gently strokes her hair. Leila nods into her chest before Shirley backs away and immediately drops to the boy's side. She looks up at me - "There's a closet out in the hall – get me the first aid kit and the box of bandages."

I don't waste any time – I head out into the hall and towards the closet at the end. Inside there's nothing but stacks of first aid kits and similar stacks of boxes with huge rolls of bandages inside. I grab one of each, choosing to reflect on the oddity of the closet at another time and head back into the room.

The next few moments consist of Shirley and I attempting to change the boy's bandages while Leila occasionally hands us things. The boy's wounds are deep – his arms and legs had been scarred by what seemed at least to me as shrapnel damage as well as cuts of all varieties, while his chest had been split open at some point by what I was certain was a slash from a katana – the more we checked the more apparent it became that this boy had essentially walked right out of the kind of warzone that hadn't existed for eleven years. I was utterly baffled by his state, but Shirley seemed reluctantly used to it.

It takes a little work but we manage to get him back up and onto his bed. Leila almost immediately flies to his side, her bedside manner strangely well developed. Shirley pulls me out of the room before I could ask any questions in front of the kids.

"Thanks for that... I know you just got out of bed yourself, but this sort of thing can happen around here at the drop of a hat."

"That's not important. I'd be more concerned about that kid if I were you."

She sighs, staring off tiredly into the room behind us. "That's Akito. He's been like this ever since he was a little kid – this isn't exactly the safest neighborhood, and very often Akito wanders off into Midtown to buy groceries and things while I'm off at school since it's always too dangerous for Leila to go on her own... He comes back like this a lot. I don't think I need to explain why."

"What's his story?"

"Well... I can't really say. He's always so distant, at least from me. He's been protecting Leila since before I even met them, though. He's a really good kid, even so."

"But what's with some of those injuries? Most of those wounds aren't things that kids who get beaten up usually sustain."

"...It's my fault, is what it is." She doesn't elaborate past that point – she goes back into the room to check on the two. All I can do is gaze quietly from the doorway as Shirley acts out the motherly role she'd been given, even though it was clearly difficult for her.

I could only imagine what had landed her with a life like this one, with an antisocial adoptive daughter and a violent adoptive son despite still being a high-end Ashford Academy student – there was definitely more to it than she was letting on. But I didn't have the right to demand an explanation.

A few minutes later, Leila comes out into the hallway by herself. She nervously gets my attention by tugging on my pant leg.

"U-Um... Thank you for helping Akito." She speaks with some substantial volume in her voice this time. "Please forgive him for imposing." She recites that bit as though she's said it a thousand times. Perhaps she had -

When children become victims of war, that war is no longer worth fighting. If the children can no longer carry on the future will be nothing more than a dark haze, waiting to swallow up the whole world. But even so the struggle goes on and on, and no one with power cares. People without power are obligated to reject that reality even to the point of stupidity.

These children had clearly already suffered enough. The boy has suffered wounds that grown men would barely be able to walk away with and the girl has cried for him just as endlessly.

"It's no trouble..." I pause briefly. "... But I promise that I'll do what I can to help your brother."

"H-He's not my brother... But thank you." She smiles ever so slightly before she scurries off down the hall and out of sight.

That more or less rounds out the events of my first encounter with Leila and Akito. I had no idea how I'd dragged myself to an address that I didn't even know, but since nothing had been stolen from me, nor had I received any real lasting damages or even lost my hat, I decided that it would be best to leave things at that for the time being.

About a week goes by before Zero finally calls out to me. During that time Nunnally visibly improves and Kallen's mood improves almost proportionally. I ended up spending a good deal of my spare time hanging around Shirley and the kids, if only because it didn't feel right to knowingly ignore those three when they were under so much pressure. Leila apparently doesn't warm up to people in any reasonable span of time so I tried to make my visits shorter at first. Akito, at least when he was conscious, began insisting that I stop threatening her even though I never had outside of that one time given how overprotective he seems to be, while Shirley would always just look on with more amusement than anything else. I wasn't aware that watching me deal with children was worthy of comedy gold.

Day by day, though, Shirley seemed to slip back into that mischievous high schooler mask she normally wore. Her tiredness was still always apparent, but the more I visited the more she seemed to perk up. I wasn't sure why I'd started doing any of these things, but somehow it all felt right. Maybe it was because of the kids, maybe it was because I'd grossly underestimated Shirley's capacity for things in general, but ultimately I guess it didn't matter.

In any event, Zero decides to disturb the peace fairly late one evening. She shows up in Nunnally's bedroom one night more or less by accident. After narrowly escaping a situation I'd have no chance in hell of explaining away we began plotting our next course of action. And before I knew it I was saying my goodbyes to Nunnally again. But noting how Alice didn't really seem to object to my leaving I felt as though I could do so without as heavy a heart.

Lelouch, the Dishwasher Prince
1965, November 17th, 4:30 P.M.
Yamato Prefecture, Raksha Wall

Zero's plan this time around was actually fairly straightforward, although the reasons why she wanted to go through with this were too far beyond me to even be worth my attention. Our goal was to enter Yamato and find Kaguya Sumeragi. At that point we either had to subdue her or outright kill her if she didn't cooperate in handing over whatever it was that Zero was after and had deemed important enough to take me along with her. Once again I objected to being left in the dark about all the details, but it occurred to me afterward that Zero might not have been entirely aware of what it was she was supposed to be taking from Kaguya in the first place. The way she described our plan, it would seem that her information this time had come from some third party. But it must have been a trustworthy source if she was going to risk things by coming out in the open like this.

It took three days to reach the center of Tokyo – just as I'd remembered it from my past visit, the Raksha Wall towered over the capitol itself, protecting it from all outside influence. The wall was an impregnable fortress in of itself, having been built with all that was left of Japan's monetary legacy. Scaling it was impossible due to the exterior surface, breaking through it was impossible due to the four layers of reinforced steel that supported the external stone surface, but most importantly any military attack against the wall was just as impossible as the skies were being surveyed on a twenty-four hour basis by the child soldiers that constituted Yamato's military force, as well as a good percentage of its citizens.

There was only one way to get behind the wall. You had to be voluntarily let in.

"I still don't think this is a good idea." I say for perhaps the seventh time since we set out on our journey.

"Have a little faith." Zero's been very nonchalant about this plan the entire time – I'm not sure why she feels that walking into some very hostile territory is such a good idea, but she apparently thinks that I don't need to know why.

"I'm not all that religious."

"Hm… No, you don't seem the type who'd have to rely on that sort of thing." She pauses briefly. "It's a little sad, though. You really don't believe in angels?"

"I'll let you know if I ever spot one."

"What about your sister? I thought she was supposed to be an angel. Or so I've been told."

"I'd like to get through one day this week without having to discuss my sister with complete strangers, if you don't mind."

Zero laughs before striding off towards the wall. "If we're still complete strangers then you've got some serious personal space issues." I follow her almost begrudgingly.

Once we get close enough we're commanded to stop. Several child soldiers, all geared up and ready to pass out at the first sign of the setting sun if the bags under their eyes were any indication, approach us and immediately start questioning us. They spoke a very particular dialect of Japanese that I wasn't really familiar with – Zero on the other hand managed to communicate with them without fail. It takes very little work to convince them to let us through – all Zero really had to do was recite some boring patriotic nonsense and the kids all felt right at home with us.

After a few moments of deliberation on their part we're led closer towards the wall – the closer we got the larger the volume of soldiers became. There were enough of them to stop a battalion of Britannian soldiers, but only just enough. Skill could be beaten out with numbers, but only to a point where the numbers could last out. A single standard issue tank was more than enough to pick these numbers apart, though.

All the children out here are no older than fourteen. Most of them seem much younger than that. At least there weren't any infants manning the perimeter.

We aren't blindfolded, but we're led into an underground tunnel through an old manhole that I assumed was taking us under the wall. Yamato was about as high-security as I remembered it being from the short time I considered breaking into it – high security in the sense that the walls were well guarded twenty-four hours a day. Even in these tunnels there were sentries posted around every corner. Of course, this being a ruined sewage system and all, it wasn't all that pleasant underground, especially not for the child soldiers that spent almost every waking moment down here.

There were several checkpoints that went down a very linear path – at each checkpoint we were looked over by children varying in both age and conscious awareness of their surroundings. The older ones were more awake than the younger ones, but despite how threatening they tried to look with their outdated rifles and shaved off shotguns every one of them looked disease ridden and on the verge of collapse. Some were passed out completely while others were off to the side with their skin as clammy as could be, leaning over the dried sewage trench that lined the tunnel waiting for the moment they needed to vomit. Lining the walls in fairly large quantities were blood and mucus stained cots, mason jars, first aid supplies, military rations – everything one would expect to find in an army's camping area, only in such poor quality that it seemed more like a run-down trauma ward.

There were far too many of them down for the supplies, however. And somehow I don't think that they had any medicine going around – this tunnel was a pit for the dying. It almost went without saying that the sheer quantity of the children down here was the solution to the complete ineffectiveness of any normal sized group. Based on what I'd gathered from Naoto's letters only the children that were either too young or terminally ill were stuffed down here – he'd been afraid of being sent here himself, which inspired him to work as hard as humanly possible. It goes without saying that the same sentiment was shared amongst all the child soldiers among Yamato's ranks. And it was probably an entirely intentional phenomenon.

It was a sick and twisted experiment, and what little was left of Japan's youth was the test subject. But Yamato's entire military force was comprised of these children. And the only way to get a child to fight is to turn them into a monster. It's like this is all some sick and twisted recreation of the Frog Corp – only now there's nothing driving them but Japan's broken nationalism. Something that the Frog Corp had been engineered to reject in every sense, and for good reason.

Nationalism will never win a war. Nationalism can only start a war. It's all the controversy and the moral rule-breaking and the social stigma that people despise the ruling class for years over that wins wars. And what was left of the Japanese government could no longer rely on anything like that.

Our tour of the tunnels thankfully didn't last all that long – before too long we were led into the light of the surface. The sky had clouded significantly and it seemed like rain was on the way – although for a moment my attention was drawn to the massive building that towered over the city laid out before me. I'd never actually been this far in before –

Before I confuse you any further, Yamato itself is a massive circular city build around a tall western style capitol building, complete with a rotunda that had survived the bombings – in the past this had been the Britannian Embassy Headquarters, which in the aftermath of the bombings was raided in a bloody attack against a group of scared politicians that had no way of defending themselves. While most of the surrounding city had been decimated by the attacks, the headquarters had managed to stay standing and in largely working condition to boot. The only reason why the newly constructed capitol was built around the building was due to the sheer quantity of active facilities in the building itself – everything from the gas line to the plumbing still worked. It's all ironic, really, since the survivors that had managed to hold on to their Japanese homes were left in the dark with neither food nor water for months on end.

The way Yamato was now the Embassy Headquarters stood as its sole defining landmark on this side of the wall. The rest was a mess of ruined buildings and temporary-yet-permanent wooden lodgings that were stacked on top of each other in as haphazard a fashion as possible. The fact that there were working pipes at all was nothing short of a miracle, although the notion that they'd managed to carve huge chunks of the ruined soil into sustainable farmland was perhaps even more miraculous.

Of course, as was the case with the soldiers down below, there was always a shortage of supplies above ground. The soil turned healthy crops, but never in enough quantity and never quickly enough to sustain a population of approximately a hundred thousand. Taking rotation into account they'd have about half a season without any produce whatsoever, and on top of this all the grown men were either physically impaired from the war or unfit for labor due to radiation related issues, so only the inexperienced children were left to actually till the soil – that was why there was always so much pillaging going on. Yamato actively sent out emissaries to other prefectures to essentially gather up usable material in mass when it was impossible for them to grow anything. Even then every citizen lived on a diet of tomatoes and poorly cultivated wheat – Yamato was in of itself a third world country, slowly rotting away in a pit its people had trapped themselves in.

So why was it a substantial force in this fallen Tokyo? Because Yamato was sitting on top of around half a billion dollars worth of equipment – a nuclear warhead that had failed to go off, which had lodged itself right inside Mount Fuji. An aerial assault was impossible – and Britannia wasn't in a positive enough state to organize a full scale assault on a relatively well fortified area. There wasn't anything more to it than that.

As we'd requested, we were led down the streets towards the Embassy Headquarters – the streets were naturally nothing more than dirt paths and the wooden houses were starting to show signs of structural weakness. Most of them were nothing more than one room apartments – the people lucky enough to live in the collapsed buildings at least had some semblance of a standard residence, and those with full two story houses to themselves were more or less the new ruling class.

There weren't any merchants or anything like that. There were no businesses, there were no drug stores or marketplaces or anything the sort – there were small squads of soldiers that were assigned to deliver supplies to each and every house until they ran out, several of which were out on the job now.

The path to the center was fairly long, but before too long we're led to the front entrance. The soldiers leave us there – apparently they weren't allowed past that point. For all the intense security the fact that they let their visitors wander their headquarters without even an escort was absolutely absurd. Regardless, we both head on inside.

"That wasn't as bad as I was expecting." I remark as we head into the dimly lit lobby.

"It's pretty depressing on your way in, but once you get past the doom and gloom this place gets as close to the old 'hot springs and sake' attitude as we're ever going to get." Zero straightened out her coat before popping her collar. "Granted it's a little darker in here than I remember it being."

"There doesn't seem to be anyone around either." There wasn't a soul around – there was one very dimly lit chandelier up top, which made it hard to even see around this room. It was spacious – that was pretty much all I could tell.

"Hm… Yeah, I guess that's a little strange. The last time I was in here there was this whole welcoming squad and everything – the old guys who run this show want to look as rich as possible even though none of them have a cent to their names anymore."

"So… Would you consider the current situation to be… 'amiss', or 'worthy of concern', perhaps?" I sigh.

"They might just be in the middle of a meeting – I think I can get us there, so follow my lead."

Before I'm really able to object Zero takes off, finding her way towards the nearest flight of stairs and throwing all caution to the wind. I was under the impression that this was the exact opposite of what we were going to be doing, but ultimately I don't really have much choice other than to follow her.

The interior was definitely more of a Chinese theater than that of some high profile western building – I was certain the ruling class had made some liberal changes to the design but overall there was at least some substantial Asian heritage embedded in these halls, as dimly lit as they were. Zero seemed to lead me around aimlessly as we went from hallway to hallway and went up three flights of stairs and down two, but eventually we find ourselves in a hallway that was somewhat better lit than the others.

Just ahead was a set of double doors – there was light shining through the cracks and the faint sound of voices could be heard from the other side. Zero didn't show any signs of slowing down though – she strode towards the doors as though she were planning on walking right in without warning.

Which, of course, she does, and I'm forced to follow in step behind her. If I'm being honest I would've liked a second or two for her to run her strategy by me. Fortunately enough I manage to grab her attention right before she pushes the doors open.

"Wait."

"What's up?"

"Are we just going to walk right on in? Or do you have some kind of a plan?"

"Don't worry so much – I know what I'm doing."

"So are we going to negotiate, are we going to hold whoever's inside at gunpoint, are we going to join their ranks and double cross them, or –"

"We're going to get some intell out of them, just like I said. Then we go after Kaguya. Nice and easy."

"Nice and easy? Assuming she's even in there you want to take out a skilled assassin in a room filled with her subordinates –"

"Leave Kaguya to me. All you need to do is sit back and talk. Maybe find out where this kid of yours is. Just make sure that you don't say anything about Jeremiah's dying words, alright? We don't need any unneeded information getting around." Without any further warning Zero pushes the doors open –

The room inside is actually the rotunda – we were on the third floor, which was apparently the base of this room, with doorways on the floors above leading out onto several levels of grating that lined the walls. Before us was a massive table, at which many men dressed in formal Japanese clothing filled most of the seats. At the far end of the room, standing by the entrance all the way across from us, were seven guards, all under seventeen and all wearing masks with worn rifles slung over their shoulders, and right in front of them was a man dressed in slightly more ceremonial robes that I assumed was the leader – the tallest of the guards I had a feeling was Naoto, but before I can focus on any of them any further I notice the catwalk directly above them – there was someone wearing a similar looking mask sitting on the edge with their legs hanging off the edge, swinging them from side to side like a child.

"We've been expecting you." One of the men at the table speaks. There doesn't seem to be any sense of alarm from any of them, nor from the guards in the back – it seems as though they knew we were here all along. "We were not, however, expecting you to have brought someone with you."

"He's got to do with the reason I'm here. I brought him for insurance."

Another man speaks, this time directed at me. "Identify yourself."

I don't answer. Partially because I'm a little overwhelmed by the room, partially because I was concerned about the person on the upper level, who was obviously a ninja, by the way, jumping down and slicing my throat, and partially because giving my name to very dangerous people that I'd never even seen before was definitely not a good idea.

"You were asked a question." Another one of the men speaks after my silence sits for a little too long.

"You might want to say something, you know." Zero whispers. "I thought you had a name you gave out to people at times like these."

I hesitate to reply – but then I'm suddenly reminded of a very important detail regarding that person sitting up on the catwalk.

"I could give you my name, but one way or another I don't think it would do either one of us any good."

The men clearly don't understand my meaning. "…Are you going to explain yourself further, or is that all we're getting to work with?" Despite how extravagant their dress was these men didn't seem to be all that refined. I suppose that since most of them were likely Japanese home owners rather than elitist politicians this sort of thing was to be expected. "If you don't identify yourself we will have you leave the premises."

"I'm afraid I can't do either." I speak with slightly more confidence. "The consequences would be disastrous."

The men could hardly believe what I was saying – one of them signals to one of the guards in back to remove me from the room.

"It's alright, he's clean." A feminine voice from above calls out. I look up – the ninja-like person up top is looking down at me. "He's just a common crook. You don't need to worry about your battle plans leaking out, senators. No one would believe him anyway." She says in a rather tired voice. It looks like I'd made a decent choice, although I had to take that insult without question. I couldn't really get a good look at her from here, but it was definitely Kaguya Sumeragi watching us from up above.

One of the men sighs. "Princess, would you care to join us? It would be much easier for everyone if you came down here to identify our guests for us."

The girl doesn't respond, seemingly unwilling to budge. The man then continues speaking. "At any rate, if the princess approves of holding your audience here, we have no choice but to comply."

"These guys are the Prime Jurors. All the power that Japan has left on its own land is consolidated in this room." Zero then explains to me.

"Uh, yes, I had more or less figured that out."

"Well, then I guess I don't have to waste any time explaining things – let's just get straight to the point." She turns away from me and towards the men once more. "If everything's in order let's get down to business." Zero moves towards the seat at the table that was the closest to her – after a few moments of staring blankly I decide to do the same. As I sit down she throws her legs up cross-legged onto the table, leaning as far back into the chair as possible. For some reason the men don't seem to react as adversely to the gesture as I do. "You might've guessed this already, but I didn't come here to collect what little money you have left – I want to know who it was that set up that big operation in Shibuya."

"A question we would like to know the answer to as well." One man speaks.

"It's not exactly a complete certainty, but we are aware of the goings-on in Shinjuku, as limited as our resources are. We have evidence to suggest that forces from the Britannian mainland were mobilized to interfere with the balance of power here in Tokyo," speaks another.

"Tell me something I don't know. We've lost the one force that kept street crime under control. And the way GHQ started mobilizing their troops I'm willing to bet that they're well aware of that fact. That rules out the government, don't you think?"

"This assumes that the government isn't split on this matter." Another man speaks. "It was always known that Jeremiah Gottwald was under heavy surveillance by the government, but it was also always known that the government had no intention of ever arresting him under any circumstance."

"Always known…?" I have to express my confusion, at least to some extent. But there was likely a whole realm of information networking in Tokyo that I was completely oblivious to – there's only so much a common thief can pull out of their ass, no matter how skilled they were.

One of the men is kind enough to explain. "GHQ always indicated that its intentions were to eventually control the Scarecrows. Jeremiah Gottwald never complied with any of their demands, and in the end all GHQ could do was wait for the moment when the organization was the weakest."

"Then what about the blockade, and the attack on the meeting? If what you're saying is true then none of this makes sense."

"I agree." Zero chimes in. "Our mysterious third party was involved, no question – but if they had the credentials to steer the government in our direction on top of throwing together such a large scale invasion the two can't be so thoroughly separated."

"In your direction? Is there something you're not telling us?" One of the men suddenly speaks up.

Zero sighs, placing a hand against her mask as though she were trying to rub her eyes underneath. "Look, it's like this. I'm being targeted. So his he." She gestures to me. "Whoever set Jeremiah Gottwald up is the same party that's after us. I need to know who these people are, and this is literally the only place on earth I can turn to. So now that you know pretty much everything I know, you need to give me your best guess. If we're being targeted from the mainland there's not exactly much we can do unless you help us out."

The men speak amongst themselves for a few moments, contemplating Zero's information. Eventually one speaks. "And in return?"

"…Are you being serious?"

"We require some form of payment this time. Please understand –"

"Payment?" Zero slams her fist on the table. "My payment is not cutting your throat open with a box cutter, you know, like how I dealt with the last prick that sat in that seat."

The man Zero speaks to seems visibly uncomfortable but seems to maintain his composure. I had to imagine that I was about as uncomfortable looking at the moment myself. The guards in the back seem ready to jump on her at a moment's notice but the man sitting closes to them assures them that it wasn't an act of aggression and their rigid stances slacken.

The onlooker from up above laughs. "That's our C.C. If you're going to ask her for cash you might as well seppuku yourself right now."

"…We have just one request to make. It will likely fall into your list of things to do in the near future anyhow." The man furthest to the back clears his throat. "As you are likely aware one of our former comrades, Ougi Kaname, was killed in the Shinjuku Park bombing. We need you to recover his body… If our sources are accurate he was carried into Ueno three nights ago – his 'present' is still hidden away on his person and hasn't been tampered with. We need you to bring the body here, or at the very least retrieve the 'present'."

"Ougi Kaname, huh…? I'll consider it." Zero cocks her neck in my direction. "You know anything about him?"

I have to smile wryly at least a little bit at that. "Sure I do. I can definitely verify that he's dead – but I think what's more important was that he wasn't loyal to Jeremiah."

"What makes you say that?" One of the men asks. "When he left us he swore himself to that man's ways."

"Considering how he tried to kill him on the way to the park, I don't think that oath mattered all that much. Although I take it from how you've described him that it wasn't the money he was after."

Once again there's talking amongst the men – but the one in the back silences them. "We can theorize about this all we want at another moment. I would rather not waste any more of C.C.'s time. What you've just told us is more than enough to warrant our assistance."

"Ah, so prime minister-kun gets it." Zero sounds a little relieved.

The man continues. "But first and foremost, we have to explain the current situation here in the capitol. Right now it's only a matter of time before we are ready to lay siege to Ueno prefecture. But as the days go by it seems as though Britannia is mobilizing its forces for something larger than riot control. Already we have three separate confirmations on at least four members of the Knights of the Round having come here for an indefinite period of time."

"And they haven't been all that secretive about it either. But neither has the royal family." Zero remarks, referring to the service at Upper Shinjuku's City Hall in honor of Suzaku's erratic behavior on the battlefield that ultimately turned into a welcoming ceremony for Princess Euphemia.

"The fact that the royal family is here can indicate any number of things, but what is more concerning is how the military is still occupying every prefecture nine years after the conflict has ended. Many assume it's nothing more than a series of precautionary measures regarding the underground digging, but everything seems to suggest against this. As for your inquiry – every major faction in Britannia, save of course for the actual political parties, has a stake in Tokyo right now. The group targeting you is likely the one with the least amount of power, in other words, the one that has the easiest time moving about in the shadows."

"And which faction might that be?"

The man pauses briefly before continuing. "…It's a long shot, but we have heard rumors…"

"Do you really feel the need to unveil every last one of our secrets, Inukai?" One of the men at the table shouts at the man, apparently named Inukai.

"Would you rather we keep this a secret from the world?"

"But these are nothing but baseless rumors –"

"If you seek to preserve honor, of all things, you best find yourself another decade to live in. We must act on reasonable impulse if we are to survive in this new world. I believe I've made this point apparent many times in the past." Inukai's argument leaves the other man silent. "In any case, we have heard rumors of a rouge social group that found its roots on the Alaskan coasts of the Britannian mainland. It has since… expanded, but very negligibly. Apparently it collectively attended a single event at the Aries Palace four months ago, but such a thing is hard to prove."

"Give us a name."

"Odalphis. The Society of Odalphis… Rumor has it that it is led by GHQ's recently appointed Chief of Detectives – the masked man Xenolith."

Xenolith –

It seems that even though we made sure not to make any mention of anything Jeremiah had divulged, his name came up anyway –

I'm about to speak but Zero cuts me off. "Tell me what you know about that man – about Xenolith."

"We know nothing more than what the public is aware of. All we know is that he was a child soldier during the Russian Conflict and that his mask apparently blinds him entirely. He was apparently seen recently with the mask off, and it appears as though his face is covered in bandages."

Zero turns towards me. "Sound about right, doesn't it?"

"There's no doubt."

Inukai looks between the two of us before Zero elaborates. "We've heard about Xenolith before. Your story matches ours… But…" Zero stars muttering to herself. "…A mask that blinds him? I mean… it's one hell of a long shot, but…" She decides to leave her thought behind and continues speaking to Inukai. "…Well then, with that bit out of the way, there's one other thing I need to take care of."

"Not until I've had my supper," Kaguya cuts in. It would seem that the whole purpose of this visit was hardly a secret at this point – as calmly as Zero seemed to be about there was no doubt that she hadn't been expecting Kaguya to call her out like this. "As a matter of fact, I think I might retire for the evening after supper. If you're willing to stay the night, we can talk in the morning, 'kay?" She says sweetly.

Zero sighs. "As high maintenance as usual, I see."

"Hee hee, don't act like you were expecting anything else." With that she hops back on her feet and, looking in my direction for all of a moment, disappears into the doorway behind her.

"Well then," Inukai clears his throat, "it would seem we're going to have to adjourn this meeting for the time being. As confident as I am that you won't be… causing any trouble here, I'm afraid we can't let the two of you wander freely around our city."

"Fair enough. Chances are if you did let us do whatever this guy would rob the whole town in an hour or two." Zero gestures towards me. I'm definitely going to talk with her about this later, nut for now I didn't object to her statement. We definitely would benefit from staying the night here – if we had to take off right away without resupplying we might not be able to make it back to Shinjuku in one piece.

Inukai seems content with our terms. "Kozuki." He calls to one of the guards behind him. The tallest moves forward, standing in attention. "Escort these two to one of the empty apartments in the circle. You will stand guard until tomorrow morning."

"Yes, my lord." He answers without hesitation. He quickly strides over towards the entrance before bowing at us. "Please follow me."

Zero glances at me for a moment, and I just shrug my shoulders in response. I wasn't even consciously considering having to drag Naoto out of this city at the moment – I was a bit too tired of dealing with kids in general at the moment to consider dealing with one that was as particularly troubled as Naoto was. As long as he didn't recognize me I had time to deal with things.

Naoto wordlessly escorts us out of the building and down the streets towards wherever it was we were being force to stay. The roads were about as badly paved in the residential areas as they were in the main areas and the number of people stuck on the streets was about proportional. The grand majority of the citizens that weren't dressed in rags wore identical sets of clothes, likely pulled straight from whatever shipment the Yamato emissaries had intercepted. There wasn't any contemporary concept of style or personal appeal, obviously – but as far as the people were concerned they didn't need it. After all, Japan moved as a single unit. One life meant nothing. In all likelihood that was the only reason why it had managed to stay standing for this long.

We're eventually led up one of the steep sides of the crater to what seemed to be two shipping containers with one stuffed inside of the other – this, apparently, served as a two story 'building' that was very similar looking to the countless constructs all around it that were more or less the same. Naoto very listlessly explains how these are very experimental apartment establishments that are not entirely safe to settle in, but therefore entirely vacant and as such perfectly suited to our needs. The second story did have a fairly healthy looking bed, so these conditions were already more than enough. There weren't any windows, though, save for one rather shoddy looking opening near the bed.

I decide to rest immediately, being assured by Naoto that no one would threaten us during the evening, while Zero apparently feels the need to spend some time outside overlooking the city. I decide not to question things, as I've gotten good at doing as of late. There are things I'd rather not trouble my already extremely troubled mind about.

It's at least a full three hours after I've retired to bed that Zero wanders into the room. I hear enough clanking noises to be able to accurately imply that Zero had removed her helmet and whatever other armor she might've been wearing. She wordlessly crashes onto the bed next to me – it was too dark to make any of her features out, but at this point I'm not really all that interested in whatever was under that mask anymore. I was more concerned about the sudden rise in temperature in the room that paralleled something I remember happening the last time Zero had to take off clothes in front of me. On top of this she was a little too close for comfort, but objecting wouldn't result in anything constructive.

"Isn't that a little risky?" I question.

"I can't sleep with this crap on indoors." She breathes a little heavily. Her voice isn't obscured by the helmet anymore – it's clearly feminine, although a bit rough, and to some extent maybe even a little familiar. "I wouldn't be able to get up in the morning if I did."

"You certainly seem to trust these people. More so than I was expecting since you were willing to go after Kaguya if necessary."

"We go way back. Me, Inukai, and that little girl. I've even done some shit for that council in the past. I don't really care about what happens to any of them, though."

"Why's that?"

"We don't really see eye to eye on anything anymore. Kaguya would probably throw me under the bus given the opportunity, even. It's all because I ditched this place awhile back. These people don't care about anyone that won't blindly support their ideals – their hearts are black as sin. They're just really ugly people."

"Kaguya seems a little more aware of that than those councilmen."

"She still does what she's told anyway – she doesn't like having to take care of herself, and once she's out of her comfort zone she can't do much of anything reliably. She can't even kill anyone effectively without a safety net. That's why she's been a little more inactive as of late than she was back when she made a name for herself."

"Yeah, that sounds about right."

"That's right, you're familiar with her too, right?"

"It was back when I was trying to find my sister. I spent three months working on the Kururugi Family plantation with all the other displaced children who were separated from their families during the war. Kaguya was a supervisor. Mostly meant that she harassed the kids she didn't like when she felt like it."

"So I take it that's where you found your sister?"

"Kaguya is more or less the reason I did. She liked Nunnally and had her follow her around for awhile one day. I spotted her when Kaguya came around to pick on the toddlers."

"Sounds like a blast."

"I can only imagine what your time with her was like."

"…It wasn't all that bad. She wanted to have a lot of freaky sex though."

"I wasn't aware she swung that way."

"She doesn't, really. She was just really curious at that age. Most rich girls are at one time or another." I was going to question that point, but I decide it's best to keep my mouth shut and change the topic.

Kaguya being sexually curious wasn't entirely out of the question, though. I mean, she demanded that I sleep with her back when I was thirteen. I don't exactly remember how I got out of that, but all of it probably was a result of Kaguya having a fairly lonely childhood. As well as some particularly intimate incident that I'm pretty sure Suzaku was somehow at fault for.

"Maybe I should be worried." She continues before I can say anything. "Maybe you're going to want to have a lot of freaky sex with me too."

"Don't get full of yourself now. I don't even know what your real name is."

"Hahah, I guess that's true." She falls silent for a few moments. "…We've come quite a ways to get this far, haven't we? We're very close to the answers we need. I can almost smell it. Once we deal with Kaguya we should be on the right track."

"…Yeah, I suppose we are."

"Soon enough we'll be able to preserve our way of life. It might not be the best way to live, but I suppose it's all we can manage."

"Provided, of course, that once all of this is over that we have a 'way of life' to go back to."

She doesn't initially have a response for that, but after a few moments she says something fairly unexpected. "Say, Lelouch… If it comes to that, do you wanna pick up our pieces together?"

"What're you saying…?"

She shifts further away from me. "…Sorry. I might've said that a little prematurely. It's been… a very long time since I've been able to speak freely to someone else about something like this."

It made sense, at least. Based on what I knew about her Zero had been alone for seemingly years, running away from this threat that apparently had taken the lives of people she cared for. Now she was partnered up with someone who knew very little about her, but perhaps that was what made her comfortable enough to be frank with me.

I shrug my shoulders. "It's not that big a deal. You're probably just exhausted."

"Hm… You might be right."

With that we lie there in silence. There was still a little tension hanging in the air, but I was willing to let it go.

But rather suddenly, after a full five minutes of silence, she speaks .

"…C.C."

"Hm?"

"My name. It's C.C."

I have to suspend my disbelief for a moment to respond. "That's a rather odd name."

"Can you figure out what it means?"

"I can't say I can."

She sighs. "Well, that makes two of us, I guess."

"Hm…?"

"I wonder – maybe when this is all over, maybe then we'll finally figure it out."

I don't really get a word of what she's saying, but for the time being it didn't matter. I was really tired and I wanted to get some sleep. I can leave all of this complicated crap for the morning.

Of course, when morning came – when morning came I'd have a whole lot of crap on my plate. But I suppose that if Zero had entrusted me with her name, then I could entrust her with my trust.