====Kirihara====
Oh, but if he had one regret it was that he could not behold Lelouch's face when he saw Shinkiro block the twin blasts from Gawain's mighty hadron cannons. His jaw must have dropped. A terrible fright must have set in at the implications, ah, but then his cocky, supposedly brilliant mind must have set to work on how to overcome this obstacle.
Kirihara reclined in his cockpit seat within his Knightmare and popped his knuckles, then looked up at Gawain hovering in the sky. Let's give him something else to think about.
Behind Shinkiro a flowerbed reared up. They all faced towards Gawain, and let fly a storm of petals directly at the large Knightmare, and Lelouch wasted no time in his retreat.
"What's the matter Lelouch?" Kirihara taunted while bringing Shinkiro into a higher altitude. "Afraid of a few measly petals?"
"I won't allow you to clog Gawain's joints that easily," Lelouch replied. "I do not think much of your paradise, old man. Instead, I will throw you into hell!"
The communication ended abruptly. Well, it's only natural he would react this way. After what Lelouch had seen a few measly petals do to those Sutherlands, he would hardly want to stick around the garden and give Kirihara the chance to use his Stand and Knightmare in tandem, now would he? On that basis of course he would retreat. Anyone would.
"That's the problem with geniuses," Kirihara smirked to himself triumphantly. "They never think that anyone else might be as smart as they are. You fell for it perfectly, Lelouch! Run away as fast as you can, but the sins you carry will always be with you! Wrrrrryyyyy! Let that be your epitaph!"
Chapter 49: A Traitor's Epitaph
====Ohgi====
Everything was going well, so far as Ohgi could see. From what he could tell about the data coming in everything was proceeding smoothly. Vital targets were all under attack, and taking any one of them could easily turn the tide of battle. Although there were a few small issues, like for example...
"What's going on at Ashford?" he demanded. "The last I heard Tamaki was confronting an unknown Stand user who had appeared out of nowhere. Are they still hanging around?"
"No sir," an operator told him, and he didn't like the 'sir' too much if he was honest. "They're already on their way out. From the sound of things Tamaki was hurt in the fight." Blast it! It was selfish to only think of his friends at a time like this, but wasn't that also a human response? It was a real struggle trying to keep hold of the bigger picture, and Ohgi could almost feel himself trying to justify his interest.
'It's an unknown enemy Stand,' came the thought, whispering in his ear like a devil on his shoulder. 'Where did it come from? Are there more of them out there? If Tamaki is injured, does that mean it's still on the run? Could it interfere in our operations further?'
But no. That wasn't what he was worried about at all. Nor was he especially concerned about the students, Lelouch's friends, escaping. They had other precautions in place to keep the Viceroy from getting nasty, this was - Hell, this tactic was employing the same psychological effect hitting Ohgi right now. It's tragic enough to be told that a dozen people were dead. It cut deeper still when you knew them all by name.
"Tell me when they're safe. I want a full report on what happened as soon as possible!" Ohgi ordered. It was all he could do for now. Ah! Damn this responsibility. He didn't want it, but now that he had it he had to try to stay focused.
"Gawain has been sighted!" he heard someone else yell, and Ohgi froze. "Also... It's being attacked by an unfamiliar Knightmare! They're sending a message along our channel!"
"Let me hear!" Ohgi demanded. As worried as he was about his friend, Ohgi was grateful for the distraction. The worry would have made him feel like time was slowing down, and something this big absolutely demanded his attention. He pulled the headset to his ear in total disbelief. "Who the hell is this?"
"Who the hell is this?" answered the unmistakable voice of Taizo Kirihara. "Is that any way to talk to your elders? Tsk, tsk! And just last night we were talking about making you our first Prime Minister since Genbu Kururugi."
That was a one two punch that sent him reeling. One of their key backers! The legendary traitor, and secret backer to over three quarters of Japan's resistance: Taizo Kirihara! "S-sorry, I didn't realise!" he stammered into the mic. "Pardon me for asking, but... What are you doing in a Knightmare?"
"Cornering Lelouch in a dangerous ambush," Kirihara answered. "What else? Kukuku... Send a team over to help me out! We'll have him cornered in no time flat."
"Sir, why didn't you tell us about this in advance?"
It was Lady Kaguya who answered for him: "If we had, then you would have incorporated it into your plan," she explained. "Lelouch is a cunning strategist. Clever enough that he would have seen through such an attempt and figured out what was going on." She smiled at him. "Sorry, but sometimes you must first fool your friends before you fool your enemies."
That was not a satisfying answer, but there wasn't a whole hell of a lot he could do about it right now. Which was rather the point, he suddenly realised. Don't give him enough time to think about it, force him to react to the reality of the situation. Thinking about it like that it could almost be considered a form of training for the political life.
"Send in the nearest team," Ohgi ordered. "And tell Zero we've located Lelouch! Just in case Kirihara can't get him in his trap, we'll definitely get him in ours!"
They'd better. Because if they lost this, if they couldn't nail Lelouch to the wall... Well, let's just say that the Holy Britannian Empire took a dim view of traitors and leave the rest to your imagination.
====Kallen====
Have you ever been anticipating something? Like a birthday, or maybe Christmas. Or a party. Yes, a party would do. It's awhile away, so you anticipate it. You think all the time about what you're going to do when you go, what you'll wear, what you'll say... and eventually you stop looking forward to it and start dreading it. What if something goes wrong? What if I make a mistake? What if I humiliate myself? It winds you up, and the more you want it, the longer you wait, the worse and worse it gets.
"Eat my dust, Britannian bastards!"
The mighty red Knightmare known as the Guren Mk Two slid into a street with no less than five Sutherlands lined up, opening fire on her with their rifles. A silver claw was extended in front of this machine glowing a menacing red, melting or deflecting the bullets with a burst of radiant wave energy.
"Lousy stinking Eleven!" the nearest pilot made the mistake of yelling, earning him a roundhouse kick to the back of his Knightmare's cockpit that sent it bouncing twice off the ground before it stopped.
"I'll have you know," Kallen grinned. "I smell fantastic." After all the buildup, it was good to cut loose and wind down with your favourite hobby: Humiliating arrogant Britannians.
The next along thought it was a smart idea to try firing his slash harken. To this, Kallen had several options available to her: She elected to scare the living hell out of him. She summoned Jumpin' Jack Flash and punched the incoming projectile to the side, not changing its trajectory all that much, but that was hardly the point. Now she and all the other pilots on this street were flying blind for five seconds. And in that five blind seconds, Kallen aimed the Guren's arm mounted cannon and made two precise shots, then whirled around.
By the time she could see again she was standing back to back with the sole remaining Sutherland. The rest of them were down and out.
"Ask yourself," Kallen said to the last pilot. "How does it feel to be picked on by someone stronger than you?"
To his credit, the pilot did whip around rather quickly and attempted to strike Kallen with his stun tonfas. Not nearly fast enough. The Guren caught his arm easily and pushed it down before extending its claw over the factsphere, but not quite touching him yet.
"Please, no!" the pilot begged. "Don't kill me like that! Not like that!"
"Not liking it all that much?" Kallen asked. "Well there you go. Your philosophy seems fine if you're on top, but if someone else turns out to be stronger?"
She let him go. The Sutherland backed away, but Kallen didn't give him the chance to escape or counterattack or whatever else he might have been intending. Instead she shot him through the cockpit at point blank range. A more merciful death than the radiant wave would give him, quicker and less painful. She pulled away from the enemy Sutherlands and continued on her way toward her target.
"I don't think I like being a bully," she admitted. "Being a knight for justice... That's more my speed."
And her speed was considerable. She'd already caught up with the initial strike team aiming for the Viceroy's Palace. They were at the end of this next street, and she'd be by them inside of about two minutes tops. "Hey there guys! Behind you!" she called on her radio. "You don't mind me being a little late, do you?"
"So long as you're here, it's no issue. Security at the palace is bound to be rough, we're bound to need you."
Naturally. The palace was a vital tactical location, and besides which Lelouch would never leave his little sister unprotected. Even assuming she wasn't there, he was the sort who would probably try to distract them from her real hiding place by boosting the palace security while quietly moving her elsewhere. They were definitely going to need the Guren's firepower, no question.
Not to mention that a few of them might get the bright idea to try hurting a certain wheelchair bound girl just because she happened to be a Princess.
Just because, huh? What an interesting choice of words. It was hard to hate either one of them the same way she hated Clovis or Cornelia. Maybe it was because she never got to know them the same way she got to know these two. A little touch of bias can go a long way.
Suddenly Kallen's thinking was interrupted when a Knightmare dropped out of the sky and landed on one of the five Burai Kai ahead of her. Kallen's breath caught in her throat. It was a green tinged Knightmare with hands and feet a little bigger than a Knightmare would normally have. It didn't seem to be armed, but to Kallen's mind that made it seem more dangerous rather than less.
The strange Knightmare leaped off the Burai Kai with a height that made Kallen jealous. Even the Guren couldn't manage that! There was no flight enabler that she could see. How the hell had it managed to -
Gunfire at street level. The Burai Kai that had been jumped on was holding its rifle and had shot out the feet of one of the others.
"What the hell, man?!"
"I didn't do that! The Knightmare acted on its own!"
"Ripple!" Kallen seethed and set the Guren into high gear. "That Knightmare, its pilot must be her! All of you, get out of here before she lands!"
Too late. The revamped Okuni model landed lightly on the pavement and then spun around with a kick that looked like it should have missed, but the leg began to glow and it gained an additional couple of feet in moments. The kick sliced into the back of one Burai Kai, sending it into another and causing that Knightmare to grip onto its friend tightly, dragging them both onto the pavement. The last one tried to pull away in reverse and fired its slash harken, but Okuni seemed to melt around the projectile with perfectly flowing and graceful movements, before grabbing hold of the cable, causing it to ripple up into the air and wrap around the Burai Kai, leaving it completely helpless and trussed up just as the Guren arrived.
"C.C.!" Kallen yelled, lunging forward with the radiant wave generator leading the way. Okuni quickly jumped backwards out of harm's way leaving her clutching at air. Kallen scowled at her.
"Why hello Kallen. Fancy meeting you here. Do you come this way often?"
That snark made her skin crawl. She'd never liked the immortal witch all that much. Her motivation was cloudy even on the best of times. Then there was the way she went on and on about how awful Stands are, that Kallen and the world had been corrupted by its presence.
"Do you intend to stand in my way?" Kallen asked.
"If you are heading to the palace, then yes."
Kallen drew the Guren to its full height. "You know you don't stand a chance, right? I've seen your piloting. You're nowhere near my level. Between me, my Stand and the Guren, your Ripple and Okuni are barely a speed bump."
"That is true," C.C. admitted. "If it was purely a contest of skill and ability, there's no question you would win. However, I must ask you one question: What is the most important factor in winning a fight?"
Tactics. Strategy. Strength. Speed. Courage. So many answers flashed by Kallen's mind, but she sensed that none of them were what C.C. was looking for. "Why don't you tell me, oh enlightened witch?"
"Activate fire containment protocol: King Arthur Street."
The sprinklers on the street popped out of the ground like garden pests all around them, and began to douse everything in the street in a steady stream water. Why that senseless, cold hearted witch! Doing this of all things! It must be an attempt to rile her up, but then again it could also be - Kallen furiously threw a lever forward. Nothing happened. She tried again and again and again. Still nothing!
"Nng! The Guren's legs are stuck! I can't move them!"
Ahead of her, Okuni folded its arms as though dismissing Kallen as unimportant. The surface of the water between the two Knightmares was rippling, pulsing with the energy being used to pin her in place. Just like the zombies had been trapped by Lelouch's Shimmering City Overdrive."The answer is: Control over the battlefield."
====Lelouch====
Lelouch did not much care for retreat, but it seemed as though he had little choice under these conditions. That Knightmare, something about it worried him even more than the garden Stand. He fled into the city, ducking between buildings and hoping Kirihara had lost sight of him. As he fled he opened a communication line. "Asplund, respond at once!" he demanded. "That data I was sending you, what can you tell me about it?"
"Fascinating! But I'm afraid I don't give you much of a chance against that machine. It's an old concept Rakshata had, I'm shocked and mortified that she was able to work it out."
"Not to mention finding a pilot capable of using it so effectively," Cecile added from the sidelines. "Even with the druid system, it would require a mathematical genius to make it truly impenetrable."
Lloyd cut back in. "That's true. A computer would be unable to properly analyse its surroundings to work out how to weight variables, but nor could a human normally perform the calculations quickly enough."
A memory tickled at the back of Lelouch's mind. All of this reminded him of what Kirihara had been talking about, just the other day in his garden: "The easy problems are hard, and the hard problems are easy."
That must be what made this so shocking to both of them. The idea that a pilot could be capable of such rapidfire calculations, so quickly that it could use that system effectively must be hard for them to believe. On reflection Lelouch felt that he could probably manage it. And Kirihara was noted in the business world for his insane level of mathematical ability, sometimes solving sums as soon as he glanced at them.
Further considerations would have to wait. Something was coming in. Something fast and aiming directly for him. Gawain spun around and caught it. A jet? Lelouch had never seen a plane quite like this before, and those colours were the same as -
"You didn't think I'd let you run away so easily, did you Lelouch?"
Kirihara! The jet pulled back and shifted forms. It seems Shinkiro had transformative properties as well! Quite the adept little machine. It hovered menacingly in the air in front of Lelouch as though daring him to attack.
"Of course not," Lelouch answered. "That's why I called for reinforcements!"
Ten Sutherlands rushed up flying in from behind nearby buildings, opening fire with everything they had against Shinkiro. They hit the Knightmare from all sides with everything they had, bullets, harkens, missiles, chaos mines and Gawain even fired its hadron cannons for good measure. They hit from above and they hit from below. They hit hard, they feinted, they balanced out their strikes so they wasted no energy. Lelouch even turned a few invisible for good measure, thinking that might throw off his calculations enough to make him hesitate.
And through it all, Lelouch watched the hexagonal shield produced by Shinkiro deflect every single one of them. The Knightmare was not so much as dented. It hadn't budged an inch, had not been pushed back. It was as though the Sutherlands hadn't even been there. And stranger still it seemed to Lelouch that from moment to moment that shield's intensity in colour seemed to flow with the directions and momentum of the attacks, even the invisible ones.
"Invisible missiles? Tsk tsk, you forgot about the wind displacement. You can't make that invisible, can you Lelouch?"
That confirmed it. A computer might notice the wind difference, but it wouldn't necessarily expect that to be any kind of major factor. Only a sentient reasoning mind could have factored something like that into their calculations, yet only a computer could perform them so quickly. How was he doing this? And how could he stop him from doing it? How?
"But it is only natural you would summon reinforcements," Kirihara said once the last of them stopped. "A King cannot lead without those who would follow. As a King in my own right, I have also brought Pieces to the board."
Incoming hostiles! Flight enabled Burai Kai swarmed in to engage his Sutherlands. Lelouch grit his teeth. The old man was using the Black Knights against him! The damning part of it was that they wouldn't believe him. Why would they? What could he possibly say to make them believe that Kirihara was a vampire, that he was the real enemy at their back? Lelouch was a skilled liar and master manipulator, but instilling belief in any lie requires some level of trust: The truth from a man you despise might as well be a venomous lie!
"How does it feel, Lelouch?" Kirihara tauntingly asked. "All of your lies, all of your deceit has come back upon you like a snake feasting on its own tail. In the end that is what your whole family is: A bushel of snakes with fangs of poison."
An enemy Knightmare made the mistake of attempting to attack Lelouch. He bid the pilot no ill will, for he had been deceived just as surely as Lelouch himself had been, and so he contented himself with merely damaging the Knightmare to the point it would cause the pilot to eject. Unfortunately, this meant taking his eyes off Shinkiro and by the time he was looking again, something amazing and strange was happening.
The enemy Knightmare's chest had opened up, and a strange prism shot out into the night's sky. A bright beam immediately followed after it, and then -
There were lasers everywhere. They cut through the Sutherlands like a hot knife through butter, maybe even easier than that. Not a single of the ten Sutherlands was left unstruck, and all of them sliced cleanly in half. Yet even that wasn't the part that left Lelouch utterly mortified.
It was the fact that not a single laser had struck any of the Burai Kai engaged in battle with those Sutherlands. Not one.
"That level of accuracy," he gasped. "That's not - How did he even do that?!"
"Lelouch! It's terrifying, isn't it?" Kirihara asked. The Burai Kai fell into line behind him, waiting for the order to attack. "The capabilities of this Knightmare are positively inhuman, aren't they?"
Inhuman, yes that was very much the word. About as inhuman as its pilot! Analysing the situation, Lelouch could tell what Kirihara was intending just now. The configuration of these Burai Kai. If he tried to eliminate them first, this would leave his side exposed to Shinkiro's sneak attacks. On the other hand, if he attempted to focus on Shinkiro, the Burai Kai would be free to strike him however they pleased from all sides. He thumped the console in dismay. Stupid! Why couldn't he see it? That Knightmare had to have a weak spot! Something he could exploit, but no, its defense was simply too... Absolute!
His options were limited. No attack would work. Flee to buy time? No! He'd be dead within seconds! Lelouch's mind raced, but he had no options left that he could see.
Kirihara the Traitor... Capable of seeming to betray his home nation and bearing the hatred his fellow countrymen felt, while in truth supporting that nation's resistance efforts. A double betrayal in the same breath. Lelouch should have known better than to underestimate a mind like that. How should he do it? What could defeat a traitor?
"Loyalty!"
A lightning bolt split the night's sky, striking down one of the Burai Kai and causing it to plummet down to the ground. There was an unspoken 'What?' hanging over all of them, but as one all participants in this stand off looked at a brash and bold man standing with his one hand pointing outwards dramatically while the other was on his hip. A man who Lelouch had held in low regard until this moment, who was standing within the open cockpit of a Knightmare which was mimicking the same pose as its pilot.
"Gottwald!" Kirihara sneered, for it was indeed the former Margrave, Jeremiah Gottwald! "You... Have been a thorn in my side ever since you came here! You and your Pureblood faction, do you know how many lives you ruined?!"
"Oh, is that the voice of Taizo Kirihara I hear?" Jeremiah tapped the left side of his head. There was some sort of cybernetic attachment over his left eye. "I always thought it a poor idea to let the Elevens run their own industry. It's like letting foxes feed the chickens!"
The pair of Burai Kai closest to Jeremiah fired slash harkens at him. Bedivere shifted to dodge, then caught the cables and ran its arm mounted landspinners along them, pulling itself into the air between the hovering Burai Kai while he continued to talk.
"I will still give you credit, Kirihara! It takes a brave man to oppose Britannia in such a blatant manner! And to then come out and face my Prince on the field of battle, piloting your own Knightmare?" Jeremiah launched the Bedivere between the Burai Kai and flipped upwards, kicking them both and catching them in the waist with the ankle mounted landspinners. The adhesive energies they produced clung to them while also cutting into them a little at a time. "I can always admire a courageous enemy, even if they are misplaced in their loyalty!"
Another thunderbolt shot out, this time aimed at Shinkiro. It raised its Absolute Defense field yet again, blocking the thunderbolt before it could land and causing the electricity to dissipate. Undaunted, Bedivere leaped from the two Knightmares and fired a slash harken into a nearby building, quickly pulling itself in. Mid-flight Jeremiah let loose another thunderbolt which was also blocked perfectly, or rather, absolutely.
Yet Lelouch was far from idly watching from the sidelines during this confrontation. True enough that his attention was mostly consumed by his keen observation of the encounter, but he was still well aware of the Burai Kai surrounding him. Or at least, were surrounding him before a well placed series of shots from Gawain's hadron cannons sent them flying to the ground.
"This doesn't make sense," he said to himself. Another thunderbolt was blocked. "Even I couldn't calculate this quickly, he has to be beginning command inputs the same instant Gottwald's attack begins." He thumped the controls in frustration. It was right on the edge of his mind. The answer felt obvious, yet was also impossibly out of reach. Just like Moravec's Paradox: The easy problem was hard -
"Your highness, make ready to strike!" Jeremiah said. "His Knightmare's weakness is that it cannot strike while its shield is raised! At the very moment it attempts to attack, we shall strike it dead, as dead as all treasonous dogs should be struck down. By the judgement of Loyalty!"
As the lightning bolt crashed down Lelouch's mind raced. Something about this sight was making the back of his mind scream for attention. A bolt of lightning crashing down. An old man who was a mathematical genius beyond even Lelouch's ability. A vampire with a Stand. That game of chess. The walk through his garden, Shinkiro hidden by the plantlife.
Electricity...
The bolt struck the forcefield, and in that moment it all came into sharp focus. The solution lay before his eyes. Lelouch realised that from the start of this encounter he had drastically misjudged the 'true nature' of his enemy and the 'true nature' of their battle. The Knightmare's name was truly appropriate: This entire fight was a mirage from the very beginning.
This is where most tacticians would end their thought process and begin their counterattack, but Lelouch vi Britannia's thought process was like a runaway train. He thought about his own thoughts, and then thought about those thoughts too. And just now, he thought that it was strange that the clues that led him to this realisation were strange. It was almost as if -
A second epiphany dawned on the young Prince in that moment. Yes, this was not a Knightmare battle, was it? In truth it was two other things! And the second of these was a tragedy. Kirihara the Traitor had finally betrayed one man too many. There was only one course left to him now and he would start by...
"That's quite enough Jeremiah Gottwald!" Lelouch sternly yelled. "Did you think I would be grateful for your clumsy rescue attempt? Or for your blithering blatant advice? Declaring your communication so bluntly on this line, can you not see how Kirihara is already prepared to counter it?"
"Your highness?" Jeremiah asked in confusion. "Have I done something wrong?"
"Have you done something right? You fool! Can't you see how he's baiting you? He knows full well what you were trying to do, and if you had continued on this path he would have killed us both! Get out of my sight! Begone!"
"But, your highness! You can't beat him by yourself!"
"Do not presume to tell me what I cannot do! Go! Do something useful! Locate Zero, and do not dare show yourself before me again until you have!"
"At once, your highness!"
During all of this Shinkiro watched patiently, not moving to attack. As Lelouch expected he would. After a moment he could hear Kirihara's mocking laughter. "Kukuku... That is just like you, Lelouch. Using up someone until they are no more use to you. Then discarding them like trash! I don't even need to kill you, do I? You'll do a fine job of discarding all your allies all on your own!"
"Perhaps," Lelouch sniffed. He suddenly felt more confident than he had since first discovering Kirihara's undead nature. "Or perhaps I'm finally understanding what it means, to say that the hard problems are easy... And the easy problems are also easy."
====C.C.====
When you get right down to it, what does 'fear' mean to an immortal? It is an emotion developed by evolution to encourage heightened awareness and discourage risky actions, heightening the chances of survival. For an immortal survival is a non-issue. Does this not mean that fear is meaningless?
No, of course not. C.C. knew better than that. Where mortals fear death, immortals must fear something else. She had seen it befall Kars at Joseph Joestar's hands when the so called Perfect Life Form was sent flying into outer space. It had happened to her for two hundred years. It is a fate worse than death, much worse in every conceivable way.
To be unable to do anything at all. To be buried alive where nobody will ever find you. At the bottom of an ocean, with your body pinned beneath wreckage. Or in outer space, perpetually dying and coming back to life over and over again. The ultimate trap. The ultimate hell. You couldn't even call it living forever, because to live meant to take action, to experience the world and interact with it. To exist for all time. Yes, an immortal could quickly learn to fear that.
"Oh dear," C.C. tutted. "Having trouble moving?" She was channelling Ripple through Okuni's feet, into the water and using it to trap the Guren in place. Kallen was faster than her due to her Stand, an already innately skilled pilot in her own right, and while both Knightmares were best suited to close combat it was no contest at all. The Guren was better at it. She knew rather well who would win in a fight between the two of them if all things were equal.
So why should she let things be equal?
"Huh! You think you can trap me as if I'm a zombie?" Kallen asked. "I'm a hell of a lot more than some rampaging beast."
Oh dear. It seems as though she'd already noticed that the Ripple was only keeping the Guren's legs from moving, but the rest of her was more or less Guren slammed its radiant wave generator into the ground.
"Even that will take time to convert all the water into steam," C.C. objected. "That's more than enough time to finish this fight."
She fired Okuni's slash harken, mounted into the chest. She didn't really want to kill Kallen, of course. Her aim was simply to disable the Knightmare before it could do any real damage. Then maybe they could all talk things through rationally. No need to be hasty, and certainly no need to put certain contractees in greater risk or give a bunch of Kars worshipping idiots exactly what they want.
Suddenly, the Guren lurched to the side and completely dodged the slash harken, causing it to crash into a building. Inside her Knightmare C.C. scowled and looked more carefully at the water.
"I see," the immortal witch said calmly. "Your radiant wave surger is enough to disrupt the ripple without needing to turn the water into steam."
"You might have mastery of an ancient martial arts that uses the power of the sun," Ooh, but she could hear Kallen's undeserved smirk at a hundred paces, maybe even a thousand. "But you'll still need better aim if you want to hit the Guren."
"Hit the Guren?" C.C. said. "Whatever made you think I was aiming for the Guren?"
The building exploded around the slash harken, sending debris directly towards Kallen's back. A sudden updraft of steam erupted around the red Knightmare as it too leaped into the air. Astonishing. Her reaction time and skill was so great that she was able to move the Guren quickly enough to have it jump clean over the debris aimed at her back.
"Nothing," Kallen answered. She'd seen that coming? It seems that even a hothead can learn a few things, given time. The Guren landed behind the rubble and charged towards Okuni, being quite obviously careful not to catch up with it. Though C.C. felt as though it very probably could have if she pushed it hard enough. "Jumpin' Jack Flash!"
Her Stand! It was hiding behind the rubble, and punched it. Although C.C. had the good sense to look away, Okuni's factsphere had been observing the moment of impact. It was completely blind, but so was Kallen. She stuck out her Knightmare's hands. Do you know what? Just this one time, she was doing it.
"Concrete Shield Overdrive," she whispered, praying that Joseph never, ever heard a recording of that. She'd never live it down, and when an immortal witch who has lived centuries says that sort of thing you know they mean it. Ripple sparked through Okuni's fingertips and into the air around. She felt the ripple already in the incoming rubble interacting with her own. With this, she was able to arrest its momentum, and cause all of the pieces to stick together into a makeshift shield.
She also felt the fury of the Guren's radiant wave hand slam into the other side of it, and she knew that it must have been that for the ripple in her shield was suddenly abruptly disrupted by a wave of heat she could feel even through this distance.
Sure enough, as the final second ran out, the very first thing C.C. saw was a sight that would leave any other pilot terrified out of their mind, for they would know their life was about to end. The Guren, powering through the rubble as the radiant wave surger reached for her cockpit.
"Nice try," Kallen said. "But you underestimated me."
Unfortunately there wasn't enough time for a witty response, so C.C. chose to act instead. She took another deep breath. Trying to hit the Guren dead on with an attack under these conditions would fail for two reasons: She wouldn't be able to get either of Okuni's hands into position in time, and the radiant wave surger would block it. So instead she didn't aim at the Guren, but rather to either side of it.
The Guren was harshly pushed back by a sudden gust on either side of it. To her credit Kallen was able to keep her Knightmare from toppling over, but the sudden burst had clearly surprised her. Would you work this one out, you arrogant little girl?
"What pushed me back just now?"
"Your own limited experience," C.C. answered. "You have the skill and the drive, but you are held down by your inexperience of the real world. You think you have seen and lived both sides, oppressor and oppressed? You think that is all to see in the world? How crushingly naive!"
Okuni's fingers crackled with Ripple energy, and then thrust its arm forward as if throwing an open handed slap at a target far, far outside of its range. But it could still hit. A small ball of gas hurled directly towards the Guren, which rapidly dodged out of the way of the incoming attack.
"The steam!" Kallen realised, how nice for her. "You're using the steam to attack!"
"Ah, you noticed that time?" C.C. asked. This time she kicked the water vapour hanging in the air. "You see, I anticipated you might superheat the water and developed this strategy. Thanks to you, the environment is truly to my absolute advantage!"
Struggle away, Kallen Kozuki. Even though you can freely move, you were still trapped in a Ripple steam hell of your own creation.
====Kirihara====
Flee Lelouch. Flee! It's all the boy had been doing since the Stand battle began. Kirihara felt like a young man going on his first hunt. The difference here, he had something a great deal more destructive than any rifle at his command. His lifeless finger danced across Shinkiro's druid system. It was more like playing an instrument than piloting a death machine. There was a sense of keen irony to this that the vampire could certainly appreciate: Now that he was undead he had never felt more alive.
"Do you truly believe you can escape me?" Kirihara taunted. "Do feel free to delay the inevitable. Gawain will run out of power long before the sun rises." He grinned malevolently. "Not that you will be alive when it does run out of power. It will be good to have Royalty on a short leash. Perhaps I'll have you turn your sister into a zombie as well? Wouldn't that be nice? She'd be able to walk again, or at least shamble!"
"Are you quite finished?" Lelouch replied through grit teeth. Gawain didn't so much as waver from its flight path, ducking behind a building. "Or does senile blather carry on from living to undeath?"
"Oh? I expected that remark about your sister would make you a little upset? Don't tell me, you're actually resigned to your death?"
"Not at all," Lelouch answered. "I simply realised how pathetic you truly are."
Shinkiro rose over the building to avoid whatever trap Lelouch had planned for him, but then Kirihara grit his teeth in disgust. This was one of those disgusting outdoors malls Britannia saw fit to establish in his city. Gaudy, vacuous. The only good thing he could think of to say about it was that it was currently in a state of hard disrepair from the battle.
"Pathetic am I?" Kirihara asked. "Accusations from the Prince who can only run and hide. I wonder which dark shadow you are lurking within, your highness? Waiting for me to turn my back and launch an invisible attack? Kukuku..."
Shinkiro rose into the sky above. He had no need to descend into the darkness, when high in the night's sky was a far more suitable place for him. He looked it over, every dark space the Gawain could reasonably hide within. And then he calculated.
This was a skill he had since his youthful days, a rapidfire genius calculating ability. Before being known as "traitor," Taizo Kirihara was renowned as the "living calculator". Even with a computer, the calculations he was working on would normally take a skilled mathematician perhaps five minutes at least to determine, as the values of variables were painstakingly entered into their computer and their relationships to each other made clear.
Yet Kirihara did this in seconds. Shinkiro's chest opened up, and its prism extended out. "No place to run," Kirihara warned. "And no place to hide! The Diffusion Wave Transition Cannon is the ultimate mode of attack!"
A beam of light shot out of Shinkiro directly into the prism at just the right moment and just the right angle. If Kirihara's calculations were correct - and they were - then the prism would scatter the destructive laser in such a way that it would surely strike every shadow, every location in this mall that Lelouch could be hiding, with no possibility for escape.
Just as Kirihara fired, Gawain became visible. Ah, so the Prince could see the futility in hiding from the inevitable? The Prince's voice came through, and his breathing was ragged. Keeping the large Knightmare invisible must have been quite difficult for him.
"Then can that spear..." Lelouch said. "Pierce... That shield?"
The laser firing towards Lelouch's position illuminated him - and in the process also revealed the glass statue he had been hiding behind. "Wh-what is this?!" Kirihara yelled. He watched the statue scatter the light further, and saw reflective surfaces appear that had not been there before. These were variables he had not yet considered in his calculation! Including them, Kirihara traced the new paths his laser attack would take: Like this, they would miss Lelouch and reflect back towards -
So that was what Lelouch meant! According to Chinese legend, there was once a merchant, who claimed that a spear that he sold could pierce anything, at the same time attempting to sell a shield that he claimed could block any attack. In response to this, he was asked what would occur if the spear were to be turned against that shield. From this, the Chinese word for contradiction was born: Mao dun, spear and shield.
"So you're putting it to the test in the modern era, Lelouch?" Kirihara asked. His fingers moved quickly across the druid system built into Shinkiro even as the lasers struck the mirrors, rebounding off each of them until they all came back towards him. "Unfortunately for you, it will soon be made apparent that the merchant's shield was the superior product."
The Absolute Defense field was aptly named. With the proper input it could survive anything. Anything at all! There was yet to be a weapon on earth that could pierce it, and its own Diffusion Structure Phase Transition Cannon was far from enough to get the job done. Lasers struck from seemingly all angles, reflected back towards the Knightmare that had fired them. Yet to no avail. None of them could pierce the force field surrounding it, as it perfectly counteracted every single one of them. When the last laser dissipated Shinkiro dropped the field and immediately descended towards Gawain's position.
"Do you see yet, Lelouch?" Kirihara taunted. "My mind is superior. My vampire body is superior. My Stand is superior, my Knightmare is superior. There is nothing left for you to challenge." Gawain hauled back a fist, and Lelouch roared like a newborn kitten who fancied himself a lion. "How tedious," Kirihara tsked. The fist clanged against the invincible Absolute Defense. "No, I rather think I prefer your word: Useless."
Yet it seemed as though Lelouch was truly desperate, or more likely exhausted. Rather than trying to flee he pulled back his fist a second time, telegraphing his attack rather blatantly. It would be a trivial matter for Kirihara to calculate the input to block that attack.
The old man's eyes suddenly went wide open, and his fingers froze over the druid system interface. His limbs began to tremble. "No!" he hissed, and then Gawain's fist struck Shinkiro on the side of its cockpit, sending the smaller Knightmare reeling backwards and shaking Kirihara out of his distraction.
"Lelouch!" he growled like an animal. No, he could hardly believe it but it had to be. Lelouch had figured it out! There was no other explanation. "What have you done?! This is your doing is it not?"
"Not my doing," Lelouch said. "For this you can thank Jeremiah Gottwald. Jeremiah, how much of his garden is left?"
"I have torn up about half of it underneath Bedivere's feet," Gottwald's voice came across, broadcast freely from Gawain. Kirihara grit his teeth. He had figured it out! "As for the rest, Agent Orange is starting fires that should destroy much of the plants. This Stand will be utterly destroyed within two minutes at the utmost."
"Lelooooouuuch!" Kirihara yelled. "How dare you destroy my garden paradise!" He opened Shinkiro's chest cannon. He did not need to use the prism to make this a powerful weapon!
"It was more than a garden though," Lelouch observed, moving his Knightmare in close and tripping up Shinkiro. "A lot more. It was your Stand, and I must congratulate you Taizo Kirihara. You found a most superbly unique way to make use of it. You tried to trick me into thinking this was a Knightmare battle, when it was still in fact a Stand battle."
By the time Shinkiro had righted itself again Gawain had vanished back into the shadows. Where was he? Where was he hiding?! Too many possibilities! If only there was more light... Yes, that's it! If he could get high enough he could illuminate the mall and make it obvious where to attack!
"You made it into more than just a garden," Lelouch continued. A harken cable fired out of the shadows just as Shinkiro took off, dragging it back down to earth. "Every blade of grass, every flower, every petal, every branch and every root could act as an 'electronic bit'."
Shinkiro grabbed hold of the harken cable and tried to pull Gawain in, but the bigger Knightmare was already moving closer to kick the better model.
Lelouch continued. "It's quite astounding you know, even being able to control all those plants to such a degree. I should have seen it sooner. If you could control them to the point you could make blades of grass and flowers turn towards me on an individual basis, why not make it into a living computer?"
Shinkiro pounced, but Gawain shoved him aside with little trouble. Like a child dealing with a rambunctious younger sibling. That kind of treatment made Kirihara seethe in disgust, and he fired Shinkiro's slash harkens at close range. They were knocked aside with frightening precision by a single kick.
This way you could bypass Moravec's Paradox completely! Instant computation while retaining a human's ability to recognise and reason about the world around them. Kirihara the Living Calculator. How correct they were, yet never even knew it. The hard problems were easy... And so were the easy problems."
Damn him! Damn Lelouch and damn his family! And toss in that cocky toady Gottwald while you were at it, they could all burn together, they were all cut from the same cloth.
"I cannot let you kill me!" Kirihara hissed. He grasped the side of his head and tried to concentrate. He could still pilot this machine! All he had to was free himself and figure out a counterattack. The cannon... If he could get Lelouch close enough that he couldn't dodge, the prism wouldn't even be necessary. "I cannot let Britannia continue its control over Japan! We must be free!"
"They call you Kirihara the traitor," Lelouch said. Gawain was drifting around Kirihara in a wide arc keeping its speed slow, but varied enough to make it difficult to predict where he'd be at any given time.
"I bear that name with pride! Let it be my epitaph!" Kirihara answered. If only he could concentrate! If only he could use his beloved garden, the Prince would be a sitting duck!
"Yes, you should," Lelouch continued. Strange, his voice cracked for a moment there. Kirihara's eyes narrowed: A moment of weakness? Sentimentality at at time like this? "And let me tell you why."
====Kallen====
It turned out that the immortal had sharper claws than Kallen first thought. Ripple had a terrifying versatility that allowed C.C. to keep up with Kallen, even when everything else was in Kallen's advantage.
"If you want, I am willing to let you leave unharmed," C.C. offered.
"Funny," Kallen said. "I was about to make you the same offer."
As if she was scared of a little steam. If C.C. could channel her Ripple through the steam effectively, then she would have used it to knock her out already. There was no reason for her to hold back. None at all. With that thinking at the front of her mind, Kallen charged forward to confront C.C. while watching Okuni's hands carefully.
To start with, while charging she fired her slash harken. Okuni kicked upwards, causing an updraft of steam that sent the harken well over its target, but at the same time it would leave her off balance when the Guren lunged forward with its radiant wave surger.
Except that C.C. used that same lifted leg to kick off the steam, pushing her away from the lunge and seemingly leaving Kallen in a vulnerable position."Don't discount my skill or reaction time!" The instant C.C. did that she shifted the Guren's weight to bring its own leg up for a kick that would send Okuni reeling. The Guren's speed was the most obvious advantage it had, but its strength was also much greater than your typical Knightmare!
Which meant Kallen was more surprised than she should be when the Guren's leg hit resistance much sooner than it was meant to: Okuni's left hand had directed a blast of ripple infused steam directly into its path.
"Is this the limits of your vaunted reaction time?" C.C. said, blatantly miming a yawn around her sentence. Mocking Kallen without being shy about it. "How impressive."
Kallen kicked off the inexplicably tough steam barrier and used the momentum to lift the other knee, but Okuni wasn't there. It had jumped to the side into a spot that even Kallen couldn't easily move the Guren to immediately attack without throwing the Guren wildly off balance. There were limits to even a fast reaction time, and C.C. was lucky as hell to get into a position that could cause that kind of difficulty.
Unfortunately, the delay gave the witch ample time to back off and punch out into the steam, causing a small cloud of sparkling water vapour to shoot out towards the Guren like a bullet. Kallen ducked it, and it struck a building then dissipated. The building had a fresh hole in it. The Guren could probably fit a foot in there. This steam/ripple attack was deadly serious!
"Eat this!" Kallen yelled. Maybe a shot from the Guren's cannon arm would shut her up. Make that three shots in quick succession while rushing forward.
"No thanks," C.C. replied, handily ducking around Kallen's fire. "I'm on a diet. Pizza only."
While it's true that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, adopting that path on the battlefield makes you completely predictable. While Kallen was confident in her ability to react to anything C.C. threw at her, she wasn't arrogant enough to think that making it easy for her opponent was anything approaching a good idea. So instead of a straight rush, she had the Guren weaving its route haphazardly, left and right. Ducking, jumping whenever the mood took her. No pattern to it. No rhyme, no reason. All the better to throw her off.
All the while she kept on firing. But Okuni was proving more nimble than Kallen expected. It seemed that C.C. was adopting a similar approach, but with a more defensive bent: Hitting a moving target is a lot more difficult. Even trying to fake her out wasn't working, whenever Kallen fired her target simply wasn't where the shot wound up!
"Oh dear," C.C. tsked. "You're starting to bore me. How disappointing."
Then suddenly Okuni lashed out with a hard punch towards the Guren, sending a large cloud of ripple infused steam directly at her. Kallen stopped. No need to duck this one: She stuck out the radiant wave surger and switched it on.
"You're disappointed?" Kallen asked. "I wanted a serious fight for once instead of another gimmick battle. You don't know what disappointment even means!"
The comforting burst of red light met the sparkling cloud of water vapour, and just as Kallen thought the radiant wave disrupted the effect. Perfect. So long as she led with that, C.C. wouldn't be able to protect herself anymore!
A steam bullet hit the Guren's left knee causing a considerable dent. What? Kallen was left completely speechless. She looked over at Okuni in disbelief, and saw that C.C. was firing another round of steam at her.
"I know perfectly well what disappointment is," C.C. said. No snark. No sarcasm. Deadly serious. "I wake up with it every single day." Kallen dragged the Guren's controls, expecting a little more resistance than she actually got. It was slower than she'd like, but she dodged those shots. "Disappointment is my oldest friend," C.C. continued, firing another round with frightening accuracy. Which shouldn't be possible because the path Kallen was taking was curved around! How was she doing this?! "I have forgotten more disappointments than you will ever know. Little girl, you presume to lecture me on disappointments? All you've lost is a nation and a family. I have lost so much worse."
"This cruelty is the real you, isn't it?" Kallen asked, dodging wildly. She was on the back foot and didn't much care for the feeling. This was a bad situation to be in, really bad and she didn't know what the hell was going on here! How was she losing? "Beneath the jokes and the snark, you're just a petty little sadist. You've forgotten what it's like to be human."
"Maybe," C.C. said. A steam bullet shot out the piece of pavement the Guren was about to put its foot on. Kallen righted the Guren to ensure it didn't fall over. "The problem is, even I am not sure anymore. Perhaps in another lifetime, we could have even been friends. Yet another crushing disappointment." And then another shot hit her in the side.
This aim, this accuracy... The way she keeps dodging Kallen's attacks. Could it be the druid system? No. That system made a Knightmare much larger, and if anything Okuni was more slender and compact than comparable Knightmares. She should not be able to keep up with Kallen's higher than normal reaction time so consistently!
It was as though C.C. was reading her every action before Kallen even made it.
...
As if... No. That was exactly what she was doing.
"I suppose that is your limit then," C.C. said. "Don't worry. I'm sure Lelouch will commute your sentence considerably. After all, you are one of his harem."
But the Guren didn't stay down. Kallen pushed it up to its feet, just the same way that Japan would drag itself back into a real existence. "You and your stupid jokes," Kallen said. "You missed a real calling as a comedian."
"Maybe, but I don't find your resistance funny at all," C.C. replied. "Might I suggest that you stay down? If not..." Okuni fired another steam bullet, but this time around Kallen lifted her radiant wave surger to catch it. And more to the point she kept it switched on. "You really are determined to make things harder for yourself, aren't you? Oh dear, how troublesome."
Here comes another trio of steam bullets, spaced out so she couldn't block more than one with the radiant wave surger. Not like she needed to. Really now C.C. this was such a simple trick, Kallen was kicking herself for not seeing it earlier. But now that she had seen through this trick...
"Jumpin' Jack Flash!" Kallen yelled. Her Stand appeared and sent out its coil like arms to punch down the other two steam bullets out of the sky, while the radiant wave surger took care of the last one. In that instant her sight faded and would remain gone for five whole seconds, but so too would C.C. be operating completely blind. Let's see what she makes of this.
====Diethard====
It was stupendous. Glorious! Beyond all his wildest dreams! To think that he would be at the middle of it all. Two titans of melodrama and performance taking charge of a battle for the soul, the very beating heart of Area Eleven! Diethard revelled in it, the war and the conflict. The suitable multi-layered irony of the mostly Japanese Black Knights dragging Britannian civilians from their homes - but genuinely for their protection and not incarceration or execution!
"Marvellous, truly marvellous!" Diethard said, staring at it all in between the rectangle formed by his index fingers and thumbs. "More history, more spectacle! How much can it become before it's finished? How high can the bar climb? I have to know, I have to see, I have to record!"
"Get down, you idiot!"
That was a woman's voice, presumably the woman who grabbed him by the collar and pulled him into an alleyway, slapped a hand over his mouth and kept him there with a remarkable degree of strength from someone with such skinny arms. After about half a minute or so a trio of Black Knights walked by, dragging a cursing and screaming Britannian family after them.
"You stupid damned Elevens! You'll swing for this!"
"I always kind of liked the twist more," a Black Knight absently retorted, calm as an ocean breeze. Then, maintaining the same flippancy, "Really, you keep struggling like that. You want to stay in a place about to become an active war zone? I could arrange that if you want."
Now, Diethard did want to go out there and assist, naturally enough. His position within the Britannian regime wouldn't give him even half the opportunity to observe that being on the front line with the Black Knights would give him. This is an important note to make about Diethard Reid: He had absolutely no sense of loyalty to his own nation. This point would become especially relevant after the Black Knights had left, and the woman - Japanese, to Diethard's surprise - removed her hand from his mouth.
"Your survival instinct is like a depressed lemming," the woman said to him.
"My, don't you have courage?" Diethard asked. "I can't remember the last time an Honorary Britannian addressed a Britannian using such a tone."
The woman turned away, unable to meet his vision. What a curious creature he had stumbled upon. "Let me guess," he said. "The military doesn't trust you. You've been trying so very hard to impress them, but now they've shut you out during a crisis."
"I'm quite familiar with cold reading techniques, Diethard Ried!" she spat, then pulled away from him.
"Also, you watch the news," he chuckled, and she glared daggers at him. "Come now, there's no need to be annoyed with me. You put yourself at risk to help me, and I make a habit of repaying favours." Indeed he did. Diethard was quite familiar with a certain quote by J. Paul Geddy: 'If you owe the bank a million pounds, that's your problem. If you owe the bank a hundred million pounds, that's the bank's problem.'
Or to put it another way, Diethard understood the value of owed favours. So he put on a winning smile and said to her "So, maybe I can help you, Miss...?"
"Chigusa," the woman said, and to his surprise kept on walking. "And you're not in a position to help me out, Mister Ried."
"Oh, but I can certainly lend a sympathetic ear," he said, hurrying after her. Now this lady had caught his attention, his interest was piqued. His instincts were telling him there was something else going on here. "You know, from what I've heard a lot of Honoraries have joined up with the Black Knights. They can see the writing on the wall. They understand that no matter what Lelouch claims, to the Empire they are disposable. Their needs don't matter and they will never, ever truly be free. I'm curious what keeps you loyal?"
She stopped at that. Ah-ha.
"There really is no future with Britannia, is there?" she asked. "For the Japanese, I mean."
"That's not my opinion," Diethard honestly answered. "I am merely stating what some of the Honoraries are feeling. I am a reporter, after all. I must remain impartial, to a degree."
"I'm not going to let you turn me into your story of the hour, Mister Ried!" To that, he could only laugh. "What the hell is so funny?"
"You? The story of the hour? Compared to Lelouch and Zero, you simply don't rate. Journalists do get curious about this and that for its own sake, you realise." Well, that... And potentially scouting out a new recruit. So long as he was careful not to give the game away. "Strictly off the record, why are you staying loyal to the Empire?" he pauses for a moment. "Please, if we can at least understand your loyalty it might make it easier for us to trust Honoraries further down the line."
"Manipulate them, you mean," she retorts venomously, then rubs the side of her head. Aha! A good sign. "I'm doing it because... Legacy."
"Legacy?" Diethard asked. That answer was not what he expected. "Not fame, not glory, not honour or riches? Not even an attempt at equal treatment or greater rights?"
"We are not going to be here forever," Chigusa answered, sternly. "I must think about those who will be left behind after I am gone."
"Diethard! There you are!" a Black Knight suddenly called out. Blast it! Just as he was about to get to work wearing her down and making her see sense. Oh well. They could just take her prisoner, and then he'd have a chat with her. Make her see who the winning side was, and understand which side would leave her the better legacy.
"Your timing is impeccable," Diethard sighed. "Chigusa, it's quite alright. I'm with them, you see?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "And why do you betray your Empire to support them?" she asked nodding to the four Black Knights moving in with rifles. "You don't have to worry about being mistreated. What's in it for you? Why betray your nation?"
To that, Diethard could but shrug. "It was a more interesting story," he said. "Although I will admit it has been difficult: Lelouch is also quite the performer... But I feel as though this way will let me see things unfolding in a more clear manner." Now, alas, he must draw his own pistol and take aim at the Honorary. She could probably disarm him of course, but that would be a rather stupid thing to do with all of these Black Knights around.
"I hereby cordially invite you to take a look at our operations." Diethard smiled at her. "Perhaps it will help clear up which side will give you a more secure legacy to fall back on."
"Thank you," Chigusa said. "Sincerely, I thank you. Mister Ried, you have made this a lot easier for me than you realise."
"Not a problem," Diethard smoothly replied. "I tend to find that the truth does that to people."
"The truth?" Chigusa asked. She backed away from them towards a dumpster. "But Mister Ried, you don't deal in the truth. I think we both know that."
"Oh, but I do," Diethard smiled at her. Ah, she must be a little wary of him now that she understood a little better what side he was on. Or worse still, the reason he was on that side. "I deal in lots of truths. The truths being told by future generations."
"In other words, truth can be rewritten." Chigusa let out a single melancholy laugh, then opened up the dumpster behind her. "Forget about me!" Chigusa commanded, then before any of them could do anything she had closed it around herself - What had they been doing again?
"Come on Mister Ried! We've got to get you back to the base."
"Yes of course," he answered automatically, but with his brow furrowed. Something was bothering him just now. Why had they been standing in front of a dumpster like that? Never mind. It probably didn't matter too much. "I trust the lines of communication I've set up haven't caused any difficulties in my unfortunately time absence?"
"Hm, nah. Not so far as I've heard," the Eleven chuckled to himself. "Then again, guess I wouldn't have if there were problems, right? In the line of communication?"
"Heh. No, I suppose you wouldn't," Diethard agreed. He stepped on board the transport that would take them back to their mobile base, and felt a shiver of history wash over him. It was delightful. The shape of it, the feel of it, Diethard could almost see it, but not quite. It was as if it was just on the edge of the horizon, creeping toward him moment by moment with the sun at its back. Soon, very soon he would have a grasp of the shape of it within his line of sight, and in that moment, that wonderful glorious moment?
He would be certain it would be a sight he would never, ever forget.
====C.C.====
For once the immortal stayed completely silent. No biting remark, no pithy comment and no wry observation. To think that Kallen would so gladly take hold of the rope being offered to her, and even slip the noose around her own neck so willingly.
Credit where it was due, she was keeping the radiant wave generator active during these five seconds. It was disrupting the ripple C.C. was sending out through the steam to function as a radar system. Unfortunately for Kallen, it meant that the dead spot surrounding the Guren was as clear as day. She knew exactly where the Guren was. And better still, she could sense the area of most disturbance. Meaning that in spite of Kallen's attempts to leave her completely in the dark, C.C. could still sense everything in the fog.
She slipped by the Guren like a thief in the night, leaping silently but quickly around the big red Knightmare as it stumbled blindly onwards, leaving itself completely open to a hard kick in the back. It was such a shame. She really did like Kallen in spite of her being a Stand user. Her hair trigger temper made her so much fun to play with, but this kick would knock her out cold and that would be that.
"Got you."
Except... The kick hit something solid that it should not have hit. Something grabbed Okuni's knee. What? But that wasn't possible! She could feel it! The disturbance in the steam was at its strongest point directly ahead of the Guren, and she must be behind it!
"How did you –" she began to ask, and then her vision, and that of her factsphere sensor's returned in full. She looked at the readings in total disbelief. Where she thought the radiant wave surger was, instead it was Jumpin' Jack Flash! The Stand was using its arms to blow away the steam, creating a large gap around the Guren. That's what was causing the ripple to be disrupted. Not the radiant wave surger, but Jumpin' Jack Flash!
Okuni's leg began to bubble and glow red. D-Damn it! C.C. ejected it immediately before the explosive effect could spread further into Okuni's body. Impossible! She'd guessed that Kallen had worked out she was using the steam as a radar, but to think she would bluff using her radiant wave surger to make C.C. move herself into position like that!
"You predicted what I would do to that degree?" C.C. yelled. What was this? What was this feeling? Bubbling up inside of her, this wasn't fear or terror, or anything like that. It was something else. Something she hadn't felt in a long, long time. "How did you do that?"
"Dunno, I just kind of saw it coming somehow," Kallen answered. She tossed the leg out towards Okuni as it bubbled and exploded, scattering the steam in between the two of them. "Just like I see you losing this fight. Or what, are you going to reattach a leg with ripple?"
Okuni nearly fell over from lack of balance, but C.C. was able to use one hand to right itself while the other fired another burst of steam directly at the Guren's legs. But now the coil armed Stand came around to the front of its master, and used its arms to whip away the wind. Just like -
"Holy Sandstorm!"
The ancient hulking brute had completely seen through her attack. His arms were spinning around in completely contrary directions, while she was trapped in the middle. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. All she could do was take the attack as it tore into her body.
"Lady C.C.!" yelled a man with a thick Italian accent. Behind him, another man made to step forward, but the first stuck out his arm. "Wait Joseph! It pains me to say, but we cannot help her now."
"How dare they attack such a beautiful woman in this craven manner!" Joseph scoffed. "I can barely stand to watch it."
Joseph, Caesar... Don't think like that. It's essential that you watch! Understand what we are fighting. See firsthand how he countered her attack as an afterthought, and immediately set up this devastating counter. Watch it. Learn from it. And understand that you were up against -
A battle genius of the modern age.
Okuni's cockpit opened up, and C.C. lifted up her hands. "You got me," she said. "Kallen, you have grown quite a lot haven't you?" The Guren stopped. Perhaps she thought C.C. was up to something else? "There's nothing to be afraid of. I can no longer stop you with my level of power. This is my loss. Though tell me this: Do you intend to harm Nunnally vi Britannia?"
"Harm her?" Kallen asked. "I'll keep that girl safe. She's the rarest commodity this planet has: A genuinely nice member of the Britannian Royal family. Something like that is too precious to be destroyed."
In that case... What other reaction could C.C. have but to salute the enemy that had beaten her so thoroughly? Sorry Lelouch. This was a little bit selfish of her, but right now Kallen might be better suited at keeping Nunnally out of harm's way than her, at least on this battlefield. The Guren stood tall and saluted back. Ah yes. There it was. The reason that she liked you. In spite of your hot headed temper, there was still a decent person underneath it all who hated, but refused to be ruled by it.
Suddenly the Guren whipped around and leaped backwards, just as a trio of slash harkens struck where it had been standing. C.C. looked up and quirked an eyebrow. The cavalry had arrived just a touch too late.
"You've done enough for now C.C." said Suzaku Kururugi. Lancelot descended from the sky, pulling in its slash harkens and seeming completely menacing. "I'll take over from here."
====Lelouch====
Generally speaking when Lelouch had overcome a difficult opponent he could feel a sense of satisfaction in his victory. He could feel pride in his intelligence overcoming brute strength or someone who was supposedly prepared. Not this time. Kirihara was at his mercy. This fight was over, all except for the killing blow. Kirihara had been using his garden for so long that he could no longer maintain the necessary calculation pace to properly use Shinkiro.
"Kirihara the traitor," Lelouch said. "To the Japanese people, you played the part of the traitor and sold your nation's wealth. You betrayed Japan to give Britannia Sakuradite! Yet this was a cover to enable you the freedom and finances you would require in order to bravely betray Britannia to support various resistance groups. You became a vampire and forsook humanity. You attacked me with your Stand and Knightmare, double-crossing me as well! You have betrayed everything and everyone around you. Don't you see it?" His vision was blurry. Lelouch blinked, believing something was in his eye. Then he felt a dampness cross his cheek and knew that there had been. "The real tragedy of this fight?"
"That I should lose to another who betrays as a matter of course?" Kirihara snarled.
"No," Lelouch said. He wiped his eyes and shook his head. "Why did you attack me with your Stand first? You should have attacked me with the Shinkiro immediately! Instead you lured me into your garden and showed me what you could do. Why would you do that? Why would you let me know you had a Stand to begin with?"
"To make you afraid! So that I could capture you, turn you into a loyal zombie!"
"You could have done after killing me with Shinkiro!" Lelouch yelled. "The real reason was... Because subconsciously you didn't want to win. You wanted to give me a chance to take you down, before you ruined everything you had spent your life working towards. Whatever they did to you, deep down you knew that this was wrong. So you committed one last act of betrayal. Kirihara the traitor.
You even betrayed yourself."
After a moment, Shinkiro's cockpit opened, and what sat inside seemed somehow even less alive than the shambling corpse it truly was. Kirihara was slumped over, head bowed low.
"Kill me," he said. "Do it quickly, while I maintain a semblance of sanity." He corrected himself. "Of humanity. There may be no sanity left in this world. Not anymore."
"You're a good man," Lelouch said. He turned on the sunlight replicant lights attached to Gawain. Without Stand or Knightmare to protect him, Kirihara turned to dust right before Lelouch's eyes. "And let that be your epitaph, Taizo Kirihara."
Hatred. Oh, this hatred was like an old friend. He knew it well, and it knew him in turn. He had first felt this level of hatred for the one that had killed his mother and left Nunnally crippled. Only three had ever reached it. That person, his own father, and now whoever was responsible for turning a good man, a brave man like Taizo Kirihara, into a monster like that.
"Don't let that beast consume you..."
"Lelouch vi Britannia! At last, I have found you!"
Lelouch looked up and straightened himself out in his cockpit. A moment of weakness in a time like this, how unseemly. Gawain rose into the air, towering over this next opponent many times over. David versus Goliath, yes that seemed an appropriate comparison. Did they have a slingshot with them?
Whatever the case may be, Lelouch was about to learn the most important lesson in dealing with the supernatural. 'Never summon up...'
"Hello Zero," Lelouch said. Schizoid Man appeared in the air over her, and it looked like she was about to be joined by a quartet of flight enabled Gekka. How interesting.
"Lelouch vi Britannia! I have come to challenge you for the fate of Area Eleven!" Zero proclaimed. She swept her cape aside and pointed dramatically at him. Not at Gawain. At him. "You shall pay for your sins against the Japanese people! They shall be a free people again!"
"Yes, they shall," Lelouch said. Internally he sent apologies to Clovis. It seemed as though the beast would finish digesting him sooner than he hoped. "And yet the form of that freedom, no the fate of this world depends on who will win. You or me! Show me your version of justice!"
'... What you can't put down.'
[To Be Continued |\|]
Taizo Kirihara: Deceased
Stand Stats
Schizoid Man
User: Shirley/Zero
Stats
Destructive Power: A
Speed: A
Range: C
Durability A
Precision: A
Developmental Potential C
Abilities
Nothing He's Got He Really Needs: Stand will acquire any item required by user, within set limitations, warping space to bring it to the user. The larger or rarer an item is, the closer it must be before the Stand may retrieve it. Items directly attached to something else may not be retrieved separately.
Paranoia's Poison Door: Stand will tend to react to subconscious desires of Stand user. With concentration it can be made to behave to user's direct will.
