I tweaked the earlier chapters up to this point. So, if anyone of you went back and see this, well, some parts might not be the same as when you first read it. XD


Chapter 9.071: Resolve

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Kallen let out a chortle as she straightened out Lelouch's cravat. Said prince was still red-faced after all the teasing Kallen gave him prior.

"Seriously, Lelouch. Calm down already... and let me dress you in peace—"

Lelouch grabbed Kallen's hands before tugging the cravat off him. "I can do this myself. And why did you pick up this outfit?"

Kallen shrugged. "Why not? You didn't complain about my choices of clothes on you before—"

"It's because this outfit isn't your normal casual wears! Where this you find this royal outfit anyway? Don't tell me you somehow had these tailored or something. How did you even managed to do that?"

Kallen clicked her tongue at him.

"Now dear, don't worry about the minor details..."

"Are we going somewhere—?"

"Not really—"

"So I'm asking why we even need to—!"

Kallen placed a finger on Lelouch's lips, which somehow has always flustered him.

The girl smiled, "You can always pretend that we're doing this to celebrate the fact that you can see again—"

"I still can't see everything clearly. And that's a rather weak reason to warrant us to have to be dressed up so much. Especially when we're both still cooped up here. It's not like we're having people coming over as well..."

"—can't I just dress you up because I want to?" Kallen's voice raised slightly, as Lelouch stopped talking immediately. It was clear to him that Kallen was slightly agitated.

"I'm sorry..." he started to say as Kallen leaned over to kiss his cheek.

Kallen let out a soft sigh. "Then how about this? We do a small party—just between us four—to celebrate your recovery." She shrugged. "If that's not enough reason for you, how about we turn it into a belated birthday party for you?"

Lelouch stared at her in surprise. "K-Kallen, how did—?"

"I found out while I was looking for this royal outfit earlier. If I'd known, I could have—nah. Then again, you were still sleeping before and so much have happened after you woke up."

"Kallen... I—"

"Is that still not enough reason? Or... you're right. I should find something else for you to wear—"

Lelouch hurriedly grabbed her arm before she could get too far from him.

"It's fine..." he said slowly, as he passed the cravat to her. "And thank you."

That made her smile again as Kallen proceed to put back the cravat around Lelouch's neck. Once she's done, she ran towards a nearby desk to take a small box before bringing it to his side.

"I just remembered that Dr Ainsley sent this over yesterday. I was supposed to tell you about it but, you know—" She sighed again before continuing, "I know it's not really much for a birthday present of a sort but..."

Lelouch nodded as he watched Kallen open the box and took out the item inside it. Kallen knelt in front of Lelouch as she fastened the leg brace on his right leg.

"I thought that you'd like to try to get used to this. And now that you could see—" Kallen glanced towards Lelouch as she corrected herself, "—a bit, I don't think it's too soon for you to start practising on how to walk by yourself."

Kallen handed him an elbow forearm crutch as she stood up to help Lelouch get on his feet. As he stumbled on his feet, Kallen briskly caught him before hearing a faint click behind her.

Both of them turned towards the sound just in time to see Anya put down her phone. The girl smiled at them, whimsically.

"What a nice picture..."

xxx

When Jeremiah heard the cries of alarm from upstairs, he had been imagining the worst. He had raced as fast as he could towards the direction of the room of his young master, wondering if something terrible has happened.

He was taken aback when he arrived to see the red-headed girl, Kallen and Anya hovering around the young prince as he tried to walk by himself using a crutch. The sight of the young prince concentrating in his ordeal gave him a mix of emotions.

"You can do it... Lelouch! One more step!"

It was as if he had been instantly taken back into the past, back to the time when the young prince was barely a few years old. He had been sent to the villa, to let him familiarize with the household at first. Since it was a bit too early for him at the time to enrol into the Imperial Institute, yet his parents insisted that he needed to be at the Empress's good side. Since it would not be too bad for his future if he did end up serving the empress once he was older. And coincidentally, the day when he arrived at the villa the Empress and the young Princess Cornelia were spending the day with the young prince. So while he was helping them out to watch over Prince Lelouch, the young prince had stood up suddenly and tried to walk by himself. The young prince had a few trial and errors... but somehow in the middle of it, little Lelouch seemed to start heading towards him rather than to the Empress!

"Ah, Lelouch! Be careful! Not too fast!"

Jeremiah was immediately taken back to the present as he briskly caught the young prince from crashing towards him. Kallen and Anya stared at him in surprise as he looked down to see the young prince smiling happily, cheeks flushed after all of his efforts to trying to master the use of his crutch. Jeremiah smiled, as he recalled having had a similar accident happening to him long ago.

As Prince Lelouch glanced up towards him to mutter some words of apologies, Jeremiah was reminded again the reason why he has sworn loyalty to forever serve Lady Marianne and his children until the ends of time.

xxx

A few days later, Viceroy's Palace of Area 11, Tokyo Settlement, Area 11

There was something that she needed to confirm for herself. Princess Cornelia ran up towards the Viceroy's office to find both Schneizel and Nunnally inside, apparently having just finished with an announcement broadcast, that was aired minutes ago. It's just that, she couldn't believe that her brother could do something drastic like this...

"Brother! What's that announcement earlier was all about?"

Schneizel just turned his head towards her, seemingly unperturbed. "It's just as you can see from the announcement. I'm setting up an ultimatum to end this war completely. We've been playing cat and mouse with those rebels long enough and it's about time we end this."

"But setting the battlefield at the ghettos again? Even if some of them had been the hiding place for some of the other rebelling groups besides the Black Knights, there's still a lot of normal civilians that lived in those ghetto areas. Making those areas a battlefield—"

"Which is why I set the deadline for tomorrow. If those Numbers were smart enough, they'd know what to do. Also, there's no use for us to keep those rebels alive. And since they like to fight anyway, why don't we give them a place to die with honour. The way those Elevenses seem to glorify anyway."

Schneizel just shrugged. "Besides, knowing how those smaller groups of rebels might be in danger would have led to those of the bigger rebels to finally show themselves. We still haven't captured half of the remaining members of the Order, have we?"

She turned to look at Nunnally to see if she could say something to change their brother's mind but then decided that it makes no difference. Their brother has placed Nunnally as the Viceroy for appearance only. If Nunnally ever had any say on this, that ultimatum wouldn't even be announced!

Cornelia bit her lips. If she was still the old Cornelia that she used to be before, she wouldn't have batted an eye at such strategies like this. In fact, she used to employ strategies like these in the past. But then, that was before she'd seen many tragedies that changed her thoughts about everything. And there were some things that Zero—Lelouch—had said to her before that started to affect her now. During the battlefield in Narita... and then the incident in Kawaguchi...

And finding out about many other things which include the fact that Lelouch was the one who was leading the rebellion against Britannia, it made her take a step back and reexamine her ways. Was what she—Britannia—has been doing all this time the right thing? Was subduing countries and placing them under Britannia the only way for them to keep the peace?

Honestly right now, she wasn't sure about it anymore...

xxx

"Oh no!"

Lelouch turned his attention towards Kallen who was sitting on the desk, reading yesterday's newspapers that she managed to convince Jeremiah to let her have. "What is it, Kallen?" he asked, getting up from his spot to walk towards her.

"It's nothing, Lelou" she started to say as Lelouch arrived at her side while he tried to see what was it she was reading. Kallen turned around as she noticed Lelouch squinting at the papers. Of course, even when Lelouch's sight was gradually returning he did tell her earlier that it was still blurry for him to see anything clearly. And fine prints were not part of the things he could see properly at the moment. She sighed before pulling out a chair beside her to let him sit as she offered to read the articles for him.

"It seemed that the situation has started to escalate in Japan again. Apparently, after Schneizel's forces over there kept having the Ikaruga on and off the radar for these past two months they're not putting up with it anymore. So they put up an ultimatum for the final battle," Kallen pointed towards the article she was reading. "This was from yesterday's news, and the announcement placed the deadline of the ultimatum to today. In the next eight hours, they're going to set the battlefield over the ghetto areas to exterminate every rebel or revolutionist that remained in hiding there. So unless they surrender, regardless if it was mere civilians or terrorists, none of them would be spared."

Lelouch frowned. "That's no good. We can't let that happen! We need to get back to Japan—"

Kallen let out a cry as she turned to see Lelouch already headed towards the stairways before tripping over himself midway. She hurriedly chased after him before helping him back on his feet.

"But Lelouch, you're still not completely well—"

Lelouch turned to face her, looking very determined. "Even then! Aren't you frustrated as well? Our allies there were still fighting a battle while we're over here, unable to help. Rather than staying cooped up here, don't you prefer to return there and fight?"

Kallen frowned at him, torn between her desire to rush straight to Japan and wanting to keep Lelouch safe. She shook her head soon after, realizing that she wouldn't be able to choose. "Regardless, how on earth should we head back there? And even if we did, what is it that we can even do to save our allies?"

"What's the problem?"

Lelouch and Kallen turned towards the voice as Jeremiah and Anya walked over towards their direction.

"We have to return to Japan!" Lelouch exclaimed loudly as Jeremiah gave him a peculiar look.

"And what did you want to do once you've returned there?" asked Jeremiah again. Kallen gave him a wary look. Throughout their stay in this villa, she was fully aware of Jeremiah's feeling regarding their involvement—especially Lelouch—with the Black Knights. And as much as Jeremiah had mellowed out on them for the last few days, she hadn't dared ask if that opinion of his has ever changed.

Kallen turned her attention towards Lelouch as he remained undaunted.

"I vowed to change the world so that Nunnally would be able to live in a kind and gentle world. In order to do that, I needed my allies—the Black Knights—by my side to aid me to reach that purpose. And I need to stop Schneizel from hurting my people just to attain his victory."

Kallen's eyes widened at Lelouch's statement.

Did Lelouch just... called the Black Knights—no, all of the Japanese people perhaps—as his people? In all her memories, while Lelouch was Zero... he rarely ever made it a point to claim that the Knights were his minions. Pawns perhaps but even while leading them into battle, she always felt that Zero always placed a certain wall between them and him. And even if he called them allies, it wasn't as if everyone had been following him having the same kind of loyalty as any other loyalists. After all, Lelouch has been hiding his identity from them all these times. Zero might have been their leader, but it wasn't as if he was leading them as a monarch.

For Lelouch to say something like that...

Yet it seemed that was the very answer that Jeremiah was seeking as he bowed his head before kneeling.

"Very well, then I will do my utmost to serve you with everything I have," said the man as Kallen stared at him, amazed at the quick answer.

"So... have you finally made a decision on a path to take?"

Kallen immediately turned her attention towards Anya again. And she noted seeing... a reddish glow in both her eyes. This wasn't Anya speaking to them. This was Marianne, Lelouch's mother.

"Yes, I've made my decision already," said Lelouch as Marianne smiled.

"Very well, then I supposed you'd need some help."


A/N: This chapter originally was part of the Sand Dream (initially named Resolve) before I decided to stretch the timeline a bit more and have the two remain in Aries a few days longer.

A/N: Out of the blue I decided to add an extra backstory to Jeremiah because really, I'm a sucker for cute stuff. That aside, the next few chapters might take a while to complete. Since I haven't actually pinned down most of the important parts on how I wanted things to happen.