Chapter 25: A Plan, A Cause, A Sign
(Well, I got a bit overly ambitious this time around. With the advise of my beta readers and editors, I broke the 23k chapter that resulted into two halves. The upside of this is that the wait for the next chapter should be much shorter than usual. Thank you to, in no particular order, Siatru, Sunny, Restestsest, Mitch H., Rakkis157 and MetalDragon. I appreciate your help and advise.)
MAY 2, 2016 ATB
OUTPOST #2, CHUO WARD, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1707
The gate of the Chuo outpost slammed shut on Corporal Kururgi and his fire team's heels. For the first time in months, they were out of uniform and outside of the confining walls of Britannian encampments. It was Monday night, and 2nd Company had, as a unit, been granted twenty-four-hour liberty, starting seven minutes ago.
There was, Corporal Kururugi reflected, something darkly amusing about Britannian officers giving their men any liberty. It wasn't as if they particularly cared about their men, nor the regulations stipulating the leave troops were supposed to receive in the wake of a combat assignment.
No, Corporal Kururugi was certain that the sudden decision to give the regiment a day of liberty, staggered out so only a company at a time would be free, had come as a consequence of the suddenly plummeting state of the 1st Regiment's morale after the return from Toyama. Even the Britannians, his superiors in rank and race, couldn't miss the men's sudden dourness, and even the Britannians weren't foolish enough to brush the suddenly sour mood off completely.
I think they were surprised at how hard everybody took losing the guns, Kururugi thought, bouncing idly on his heels as he stood in the street. It was a habit from his childhood he'd never quite lost; Lelouch had once remarked that his thoughts, unencumbered by obstructions in his empty head, must be striking the sides of his skull hard enough to lift him off his feet.
Suzaku had whacked his friend over the head for that, carefully pulling his strength so he didn't hit too hard. And then Nunnally had chided her brother, and as always that had brought Lelouch to the point of an immediate apology.
As soon as the regiment had stepped off their buses in Tokyo three days ago, they had formed up on the parade ground. The humidity had been sweltering, even in the early evening, and the heavy uniforms and the helmets complete with full face masks hadn't helped in the slightest. In that thick, sweaty heat, company by company, the regiment had been disarmed.
Each Honorary Britannian had stepped up in turn to one of the tables manned by officers from the Military Police, all under the watchful eye of their Britannian platoon and company leaders. Each soldier had surrendered the pistol and ammunition he had been issued, along with his bulletproof vest, and had made his mark in the record book next to his name and ID number, all the while trying to ignore the ominous presence of the two Knight Police Glasgows looming over the growing heap of military material.
Corporal Kururugi wondered if the other men in the ranks, silent and faceless behind their masks, had noticed how schooled their officers' expressions had been, how white their fingers were, clenched together behind their backs in otherwise perfect parade rest. How the military policemen sitting at the tables had tensed up slightly every time an Honorary reached for his pistol.
Even if the others hadn't noticed the Britannians' fear, the implicit message of the whole hours-long process hadn't been lost on them. During their time in Toyama, the men of the 1st Regiment had been given their moment in the sun. They had been issued weapons, real weapons, and sent into the field to conduct crucial missions at the request of the Prefect of Toyama himself. Now, they were being humbled.
After the shameful assembly, the men were herded back into their barracks and reintroduced to the panoply of petty slights that came with garrison life. The quality of their food plummeted, just like Corporal Kururugi had predicted, and the men had to reacclimate to old bread and beans after weeks of fresh seafood. The daily routine of endless busywork returned as well, and while mopping already clean floors had been a boring if tolerable task before Toyama, even the most stolid in the ranks were having a hard time adjusting now.
Privately, Corporal Kururugi sympathized, even as he pushed the four privates of his fire team relentlessly in every petty task that came their way. It had been easier to handle the exact nature of their assignment in Toyama while he'd still been out in the field. The action, the need to stay present and engaged, the stakes… all of that had made it easier to push the nature of his work to the back of his mind. His mantra, "all for the Plan", had been more than enough to assuage any lingering qualms.
But back in the barracks with nothing but the internal politics of the regiment to distract him, it was far more difficult to push all of those faces away, all of the pale faces staring at him from the back of a truck as he slammed the tailgate up, all the pale faces uttering imploring words he hadn't bothered to hear as he'd stuck his gun under their noses… He had hated to do it, hated himself for helping with the oppression of his people, but he'd had no choice. Not really.
It was all for the Plan, Kururugi told himself with a final bounce, before reaching up to adjust his shades. He could feel the eyes of his four subordinates; on liberty or not, he was still in charge. He couldn't forget that. Time's ticking. All for the Plan. Only through the Plan can a truly ordered society emerge. And only by giving my people the security they deserve, the peace and the quiet provided by that ordered society, will my hands ever be anything close to clean again.
"Follow," Corporal Kururugi said, and strode away from the outpost, carefully listening as first one, then two, then four sets of footsteps fell in behind him. Some of the tension in his shoulders eased. His men were still obeying his orders. That was good.
It's unfortunate, he reflected, that they only obey out of fear. Instructor Tohdoh always said that fear could only carry respect's burden for so long. Even if my father disagreed…
"Fear is power," Kururugi Genbuu had once told him in one of their rare father-son conversations. "Love is transitory, gratitude short-lived, and greed is always unmanned by fear in the kind of men who chose politics over the battlefield. They all make for useful tools, but the only way to truly lead is through fear. A leader nobody fears is no leader at all."
Maybe that's why the men were so eager to give up? Suzaku's quiet, treacherous voice asked from inside Kururugi's mind. After… After it happened, after Father died… Nobody really seemed sad to see him go… Nobody who knew him, at least…
It was, Corporal Kururugi decided as he pushed Suzaku back into his box, his men's fault that he had been forced to terrorize them into compliance. He hadn't wanted it to be this way. He had tried to teach them to respect lawful authority, doing his best to pound the regulations into their skulls. Ultimately, his men had taken away a slightly different lesson than Kururugi had intended. They'd learned that the law was important, but only so long as the law was enforced by might.
It was a very Britannian lesson and one that his four-man section had learned very well. To Kururugi's grudging pride, his men had all become adept barracks room lawyers under his tutelage as well as fearsome brawlers, equally good at leveraging obscure regulations to carry out his orders as they were with their fists and their feet. They had eagerly learned every one of Tohdoh's hand-to-hand lessons that Kururugi could recall. He would put his fire team up against any other in the entire regiment, even the brigade.
That didn't change the fact that his four privates only followed Corporal Kururugi out of fear. He had physically dominated them almost from the day of his promotion in early spring, and that physical dominance had been reinforced by his actions in Toyama. For now, that fear was enough, but it meant that Kururugi could never show weakness or vulnerability; obedience rooted in fear would only remain for as long as his men feared him.
To his frustration, Kururugi Suzaku couldn't see a way out of his situation besides doubling down. The parallels of the situation weren't lost on him; he knew that tyranny would only engender eventual resistance. But he just didn't know what else he could do. Loyalty was built on trust, and he couldn't trust his men; any one of them could be an informer, after all. He also couldn't trust them to take the long view and understand the sacrifices necessary for long-term security.
Once again, he was trapped in a situation that he hated, doing things that he hated, and turning those whom he should be protecting into his enemies.
I don't beat them because I want to, I beat them because I have to, Corporal Kururugi thought, internally glum as he tried to rationalize his behavior to himself. I just wish I could trust them to understand. It would make everything so much easier if I didn't have to drive them forwards.
But every army, he supposed, needed foot soldiers as well as leaders. His soldiers didn't really need to understand, at least not yet, as long as they obeyed for now. Corporal Kururugi was thinking in the long term, and that was all that was really necessary. He could recruit fellow travelers as he found them, men who understood as he did that if their people were ever to have anything close to safety and security, they couldn't afford to be rash or in any way lenient.
It was fine if his subordinates thought of themselves as a tiny gang, he told himself, with himself as their feared leader. He didn't care what they thought, and it was a useful fiction for now. Corporal Kururugi had big plans, and his men would help him achieve his goals one way or another.
In Toyama, Kururugi had realized that he couldn't afford to sit on his thumbs and wait patiently for the Britannians to accept him into their good graces. Corporal Kururugi could in time become Sergeant Kururugi, and perhaps eventually Sergeant Major Kururugi, but he would never rise beyond that point. Regulations or not, time in grade didn't matter so long as the men doling out the promotions refused to recognize his service and contributions.
It was just another of the many ways in which Britannia fell short of the dream it had sold to a young Kururugi Suzaku. The Plan would set it right.
The Plan was not a necessarily fixed set of steps; it was more of a set of generalized goals and realizations, which had coalesced and evolved over time. First, the Christmas Bonfires had burned away his illusions about the current leadership; the soil of Toyama had fertilized his imagination of what sort of home Britannia could provide for his people. Independence was a fool's dream, but so was the hope that his people would be safe under the current leadership.
The Honorary Britannians were the key. Hated by both the unassimilated Elevens and the Britannian lower class, they were nonetheless the only bridge between the Britannian state and Elevens, and so they would have to be the vanguard.
The Britannians, Kururugi could see, had lost their way. For all their talk of Social Darwinism and the success of the best at the expense of the rest, social mobility was stymied by class and by blood. The Britannian philosophy, as far as Kururugi saw it, made sense, but its implementation was flawed, leading to weak leaders such as Major Humphry and Prince Clovis, weak leaders who couldn't protect his people.
Which meant that his people needed to protect themselves inside Britannia. They started from a handicap, as did all Number populations, but unlike all the other subjected populations, Suzaku knew that his people still had a deep reserve of strength, and Kururugi concurred; how else would his people still be able to fight six years after the Conquest? But strength of character wasn't enough, not on its own. Left to their own devices, his people would destroy themselves.
In Toyama, Kururugi had finally managed to square the circle. His people would be safe, and the strongest and smartest would rise through strict meritocracy, rigorously following the tenets of Social Darwinism made manifest. They would overcome the barriers imposed by race and by class by becoming more Britannian than the Britannians. Kururugi would be the Emperor's most loyal servant, and an Area Eleven would become a land of security, if not of freedom, instead of a wasteland of systemic abuse and rebellion.
But to achieve that new dream, Corporal Kururugi would have to play the game by its current rules. In truth, he had already begun to play. He had earned his second chevron by giving his Britannian officer what he wanted, exchanging personal favors for promotion. He had, in effect, found his way into the game of patronage, if on a very low level.
Unfortunately, Lieutenant Rockwell and his guilty conscience couldn't elevate him any further. Indeed, the Lieutenant had seemed increasingly wary of Corporal Kururugi over the last month and had ceased confiding in him at all in Toyama. This meant that Kururugi would need to find a new patron, someone with greater reach and vision.
But how? The question had bedeviled Kururugi for the last few days.
His thoughts on the matter often turned to Lelouch. Sometimes, Kururugi wished for his childhood friend's silver tongue. For all of his devotion to the rule of law, Kururugi had ultimately been forced to resort to his fists to earn the obedience of his men and his attempts to insinuate himself into Rockwell's life had only worked as well as they had because of the Lieutenant's disgust with the Christmas Incident. Lelouch, he was sure, would have had them all pledging undying allegiance with a single conversation.
But I don't have Lelouch's guile, nor his charm, Kururugi thought, relentlessly smashing past his own thoughts of what could have been. So I'm going to have to do things my own way. And if I can't find a patron for now, I'll handle the other matter. I can't let myself stagnate.
He'd scoured his mind for memories of Britannia, trying to remember what he'd seen in the Britannian commoners who had risen through the ranks unsupported by noble connections or wealthy families. He recalled anecdotes his own father had shared with him, as well as the things he'd said to Tohdoh and the others when he was in his cups. How to exhibit leadership potential, how to project authority and strength irrespective of the truth.
A true leader takes the initiative, Kururugi thought. He doesn't just wait for an opportunity to knock, he seizes his own fortune with both hands.
I need to make my own luck. He thought back to the murmurs he'd heard of Honoraries taking handouts, of his own people heaping shame upon the rest of them just to fill their own bellies. He remembered the sneers on the faces of the Britannians as they joked about how "a beggar once is a beggar always," and how they'd pointedly looked at him. And I know just how to do it.
It would hurt, and they would hate him for it, but it needed to be done. Not only for the Plan, but for their own good. Sometimes doing the right thing was hard. That didn't make it any less right.
After all, it's like my father always said. "Spare the rod, spoil the child."
"Alright, listen up," Kururugi said, voice cold and steady as he slowed, allowing his men to group up as they continued down the road. "It's time to get to work. We are soldiers of Britannia and the enforcers of her will. We are Honorary Britannians, not filthy Numbers. Unfortunately, not everybody remembers the oath they swore. We're going to help remind them of their pride, and their duty, as sworn citizens of Britannia."
"Sure thing, Corp," one of his men, John, or as he was once known, Senku, replied. "We're always down to provide some legal education."
The other three men snickered, and Kururugi feigned a smile. He knew exactly what they meant – they'd cornered a particularly weedy private from 3rd Company a few nights back when he'd foolishly chosen to use 2nd Company's showers. They'd provided enough education on the proper assignment of facilities per His Imperial Majesty's Military Code that the man had trouble walking the next day.
Without warning, Corporal Kururugi turned on his heel and buried his fist into John's stomach, sending the man doubling over, gasping for breath. "It's Corporal, John," Kururugi reprimanded, "not Corp. You must always address a superior with the rank and respect they are due."
Camaraderie is already impossible, Kururugi thought, and I do not need sycophants. These men are tools until proven otherwise, and I will not hesitate to remind them of their purpose.
"Y-you got it, Corporal," John wheezed, walking on as best as he could as he fought to catch his breath. Kururugi slowed just a bit – he didn't want to have to repeat himself for John once the man caught back up.
"Anyway," Kururugi continued, forcing himself to play the part his Plan demanded, "it's come to my attention that many of our people have started taking food handouts, lowering themselves back into the same category as the Numbers who rely on Prince Clovis's generosity to remain alive. This is unacceptable. As Honorary Britannians, we can never let the Britannians think of us as Numbers. The moment they do, we lose everything we've fought for."
"So… What are we going to do?" One of the other men asked, flinching slightly as Kururugi smiled back at him.
"Provide legal education," Kururugi quipped with a tight smile. "After all, I don't think that a charity handing out food is likely to bother with all of that paperwork, do you? I bet they haven't filed an assembly permit or bought a distribution license! Even if they did, whoever's driving the truck probably won't have them on hand to show a group of concerned citizens, now will they?"
"Probably not," John agreed, still rubbing at his abdomen, "But… Not to disagree with your plan, Corporal, but there are only five of us, and none of us have guns. We could definitely take any five random hungry civilians, or even any ten, but are we really going to take on a whole mob by ourselves?"
"Yes," Corporal Kururugi immediately replied. "Yes, we are. They are undisciplined and weak, otherwise they wouldn't be taking charity and risking their status. But we'll be stopping to pick up some… Oh, let's just call them some educational implements first. Legal ones, of course."
The purchase was legal. Corporal Kururugi had even insisted on a receipt at the sporting goods store. The pimply clerk behind the counter had been a bit nervous about the five Honorary Britannians buying baseball bats and fixed-blade camping knives, but he had been reassured by Kururugi's military ID and the implication that the small group was on a quietly deniable mission. He'd even wished Kururugi a nice night as he'd handed over the receipt.
It hadn't taken long to find the offensive soup kitchen once they'd left the sporting goods store, bats in hand. Some helpful soul had stapled flyers to utility poles throughout the Honorary Britannian neighborhoods surrounding the walled Shinjuku Ghetto. To Kururugi's surprise, at least one of the arcologies housing the poorer Britannians in the Settlement had likewise been carpeted by the flyers; at least one hung on every street, all with the same address and time.
When his little band arrived at the small pocket park, Kururugi was surprised and disappointed to see that the small greenspace was absolutely thronged with people, some still in line but most sitting on the grass or a curb, eating a spicy-scented soup from cheap ceramic bowls. To his mild consternation, at least a few Britannians were sitting in the dirt with his fellow Honoraries. True, these Britannians looked even more ragged than some of the Honoraries, but it was still astonishing.
"Times really must be getting hard," Kururugi heard John muttering to one of the other soldiers as they pushed their way through the densely crowded park. A few people turned to protest the sudden shoves, but most cringed back when they saw the five out-of-uniform soldiers. A few glared, but glaring impotently at their betters was all they could do.
Just like with the Britannians, over these six long years, Kururugi thought. I know what that's like, swallowing your pride to survive. I will have to teach them to stand up and fight for their rights. If you don't fight, nobody will ever respect you; if the Honoraries don't fight, my project is doomed to failure.
I know they can fight, Suzaku thought, loud inside his mind. My people are still strong. We're still strong! The problem isn't that they can't fight, it's that they don't have the weapons, the leadership, or the organization!
All of which I can provide, given time, Kururugi thought, shoving his way past a family. It just takes discipline, patience, resilience, and a refusal to give in and give up. These people should know better! They made the sacrifice to become Honorary Britannians, and now they're just licking up free food? It's just another drug, another weakness. I've beaten the weakness out of my fire team, and I'll beat it out of the rest of the Honorary Britannians if I must!
I wonder if Father would be proud of us? Suzaku thought, his tone mournful and bitter. We're turning out just like him, aren't we?
Kururugi Genbuu was a fool, just like how these people are fools, replied Kururugi, forcing Suzaku out of the way. I will not make his mistakes. I am Kururugi Suzaku, not Kururugi Genbuu, and I will save my people even if they curse me for the next thousand years!
With that thought still ringing in his mind, Corporal Kururugi finally broke through the packed crowd in front of the serving line itself, flanked by his fire team. He found himself in an open space centered on a line of portable tables creaking under the weight of portable stoves and heavy tureens and pots full of piping hot soup, a truck parked off to one side.
Kururugi looked over the line of servers behind the pots with cold eyes as they took notice of his arrival; judging by their tattered clothes, they were Elevens, all of them. His people, but those who hadn't seen the wisdom of embracing Britannian strength. Surprisingly, none of the servers looked down or away, and each met his gaze without flinching.
Idiots, the lot of them, Kururugi thought, internally shaking his head in dismay. It's this same stupid pride that led to all the violence in Niigata. If they just… just knew their place and were patient, none of this would happen! I wouldn't have needed to go to Toyama, and I wouldn't need to be here tonight. They keep forcing me to do horrible things, and I hate it!
"Who are you," a strident female voice demanded in heavily accented Britannian from somewhere to Kururugi's right, "and why are you trying to skip the line?"
Thankful for the distraction from his turbulent thoughts, Kururugi turned and sized up the talkative Eleven. She was tall for a woman, almost his height, and her face and clothes were clean and well-maintained. Indeed, if it wasn't for the hachimaki holding her long, indigo hair out of her face, he would have mistaken her for an Honorary Britannian.
"Corporal Kururugi, of His Majesty's 32nd Honorary Legion, 1st Brigade, 1st Regiment, 2nd Company," he said, identifying himself in the same language as his men spread out behind him. "And who are you?"
"Naomi," came the curt reply, "of the Rising Sun Benevolent Association. You're free to join us for supper Corporal…" Naomi's voice faltered for a moment, and Kururugi grimaced. She'd clearly just recognized his name. "...But you need to get in line with the rest."
"Ah, so you're the one in charge here?" She clearly was, as the only one speaking up, but Kururugi was only really asking as a formality anyway. "I'm surprised to see an Eleven outside of the Ghetto, handing out food to Honorary Britannians. Surely looking after your own people should be your priority?"
"My own people?" Naomi raised an eyebrow. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Corporal. All who want help are welcome under the rays of the Rising Sun, and unfortunately, many of your people are still recovering from the Incident at the beginning of the year."
"You know exactly what I mean," Kururugi ground out, already tired of this game. This damned stubborn pride, just like in Toyama. Just like Father. "Your people are the ones who rely on Prince Clovis's generosity for your food. If you somehow scraped together enough to buy extra, you should enjoy it in the Ghetto, where you belong. We who have taken the oath don't need your handouts; we're not stuck in the past, choking on our pride like you."
"Choking on our pride?" the woman replied incredulously, "We're the ones choking on our pride? Corporal, you get fed by the Army – do you have any idea how much the price of food has gone up over the last year? Do you think that all of these people are queuing up for soup for fun?"
"Life is hard. Life has always been hard." Kururugi began to stalk across the tarmac toward the Eleven. "And if good Honoraries continue to take the easy way out that you're providing them, it will never be anything but hard. The only way the lot of Honorary Britannians will improve is by demonstrating our strength; squatting in parks with free soup is what your kind do, and as long as we accept handouts from you, the Britannians will never see us as equals."
"See you as equals?" The woman had the gall to laugh. "They will never see you as their equal, Corporal. You could be a general and they'll still only see your Eleven face and your Eleven name. You will never be anything but a dog to them, and the moment you bark too loud, they'll put you down."
"Enough," Kururugi growled, bat in hand. I wish I still had my pistol. Sports equipment just isn't threatening enough to scare people into listening to me. If the officers trusted us more, we'd be able to do a far better job carrying out these missions, and things would be better for everybody, Britannian, Honorary, and Eleven alike.
"As a citizen of Area Eleven and a soldier in His Majesty's Armed Forces, I demand to see your food distribution permit, your assembly permit, proof of rental for the park, your access permit to the Settlement, and all other relevant paperwork." As he continued down his list, Kururugi began walking towards the Eleven leader.
"Did you think you had the right to be here, Number?" He felt angry eyes on his back and a snarl twisting its way across his face. Do they think I want to be here? Do they think I want to do this? "You should've stayed home in Shinjuku! Just take the damned oath if you want to get out of the gutter and back on your feet!"
Around him, the crowd muttered with discontent, but nobody, not the Eleven servers nor the mass of onlooking Honorary Britannians, stepped forward to intervene. Naomi hadn't budged, and stood, back straight and hands by her sides, staring directly at him. She showed no signs of movement.
"Well," Kururugi prompted, stopping a few feet away from the bitch with the familiar red circle sun on her brow, the same one that had once graced the flag that had hung behind his father's chair, back in his sumptuous office. The same flag Father had stood in front of when he'd issued that order to resist to the last, as well as that other order. "Where are your papers, Number?"
"You're looking for our papers?" A new voice broke in on the encounter from somewhere off to Corporal Kururugi's left. Carefully, not taking his eyes off Naomi, he took a half step back and to the side, trying to turn his head just far enough to see where the voice was coming from without taking his eyes off the troublemaker. "I have them here. I think you'll find everything is in order, Sergeant."
"It's Corporal," Kururugi replied in a growl, eyes scanning for where the voice was coming from. "If you've got something to show me, come here and give it to me."
From his side, John let out a muffled gasp, followed immediately by an equally quiet "Oh, fuck." With a curse of his own between his teeth, Kururugi took another step away from the potential troublemaker, putting distance between them in case she tried to rush him when his back was turned, and followed John's gaze out into the crowd.
Stepping out from behind the parked truck was a Britannian woman, a girl about Kururugi's own age. That would have been bad enough – a Number-loving Britannian would have required careful handling, after all – but as soon as Kururugi laid eyes upon her, it was hard to resist following in John's steps and cursing their luck.
The Britannian was obviously a noble. Kururugi could practically smell the stink of aristocracy rolling off of her from across the park's parking lot turned handout station. While she was wearing an unremarkable outfit of slacks, a man's button-up shirt, and a vest, even Kururugi could tell the garments were high quality and likely obscenely expensive. Even more tellingly, Kururugi couldn't remember the last time he'd seen someone move with such implicit arrogance.
He hadn't seen anybody act like that since Lelouch first arrived in Japan, eight long years ago.
Worst yet, the woman… No, the lady was absolutely, stunningly beautiful. Kururugi couldn't believe how quickly his luck had curdled. A Number-loving stunner of a noble was perhaps the greatest complicating factor for this entirely unsanctioned and self-assigned mission, second only to Lelouch suddenly putting in an appearance. He had no possible leverage over the lady, nor could he possibly intimidate her. Even attempting to do so would be extremely dangerous.
"Ma'am," Kururugi said in his most respectful tones, slowly lowering the baseball bat as she approached, "begging your pardon. Are you the one responsible for this… Charitable operation?"
"No," the lady replied, "that would be Rivalz. Rivalz Cardemonde, of the Gold Coast Cardemondes?" She gestured, and Kururugi suddenly realized that there were, in fact, two nobles in attendance, the male… the young lord dressed in a very high-class school uniform. "He is, in fact, the chairman of the board for the Benevolent Association. It operates under his charter."
"I see…" Kururugi slowly replied, trying to establish his options. Suddenly, they were all various shades of distasteful and counter-productive.
Dammit! If I don't play my cards right, I could endanger the whole Plan! I shouldn't have been so cocky, but how could I have predicted this? Britannian nobles setting up some kind of charity to help honoraries? Impossible!
Kururugi forced himself to take a breath and focus. That's all irrelevant. Right now, I need to find a way out. Fortunately, all of my actions up until now have been within the law.
"Well," Kururugi turned to the noble in the uniform, "in that case, my lord, would you mind if I checked the permitting for this distribution? I'm sure you filed all the correct documents, sir, but it would help set my mind at ease if I knew that everything here was in accordance with the law."
"Well," the lord, Rivalz, glanced over at his companion for a moment, "I guess-"
"It's the most curious thing, Corporal," the young lady interjected, seemingly ignoring Cardemonde entirely. Her gawky companion's half-open mouth snapped shut as he turned to her in surprised deference.
Behind his shades, Kururugi's eyes narrowed. And she says he's in charge?
"I notice you're not in uniform. And you said you're a soldier in His Majesty's Armed Forces? The 32nd Legion, I believe?" the lady continued, the predatory gleam in her eye growing brighter with every word. "Now, I'm just a student at Ashford Academy, so correct me if I'm wrong, but unless the Viceregal-Governor has declared martial law again, you don't have any law enforcement duties over civilians, now do you?."
"That's…" Kururugi gritted his teeth. "That's true… But, begging your pardon, my lady, my men and I have just returned from counter-insurgency operations in Toyama. Seeing Numbers set up in a Settlement is making me a bit jumpy; after all, who knows if they're rebels or sympathizers? I'm sure nobody employed by you would be, but I'd just like to make sure."
"Oh?" the lady arched an imperious brow. "And is there any reason I should indulge this…whim of yours?"
Kururugi bit his cheek so hard he could taste blood. "...No… my lady. There is not."
For a moment, they stood there in tableau, the lady looming over him for all that she was half a head shorter and Kururugi trying to ignore the sweat trickling down his back. He was a soldier, hardened by combat, and a proud Honorary Britannian who'd carried out the Empire's will with dedication and energy, but that had all been for the Plan. A Plan that was rapidly unraveling at the first hurdle. He could feel the situation sliding away from him, away from control.
It was all for the Plan! Kururugi thought, mind frantic. I can't have it all mean nothing! Not now!
But there was nothing he could do. Not with the lady standing before him, radiating purebred noble power and a supremely arrogant confidence as her stunning sapphire eyes roamed him up and down. He felt like an irritant, an insect, helpless before that cool gaze.
Finally, the spell broke as the lady rolled her beautiful cerulean eyes. "...I suppose I've wasted enough time with this foolishness." She said, stepping forward and pulling a folder from the satchel hanging at her side. "Here you go, Corporal. I can save you a look if you'd like. Naomi over here filed all the paperwork herself, and she's an expert at it."
To Kururugi's astonished rage, the redheaded noble casually slung a friendly arm over the Number's shoulders.
Why am I so angry about this? Suzaku thought, his internal voice cool and considering while surrounded by a maelstrom of emotion. I should be happy that some Britannian other than Lelouch actually sees us as people. They… They look like they're friends.
Why am I so angry about this? Kururugi wondered. It's what I want. Recognition of our skills and our worth, to work hand in hand with the Britannians for the betterment of both our peoples.
What am I even doing here?
Desperate for distraction from his treacherous thoughts, Kururugi accepted the folder and flipped it open. Just as promised, a thick sheaf of very official paperwork greeted his eyes. Gloomily, Kururugi pawed through the first several layers. He didn't really know what he was looking for; he hadn't anticipated the damned Numbers to actually have a signed and stamped assembly permit on hand. After a brief show of paging through the folder, he returned it to the lady.
"Everything seems to be in order, my lady," Kururugi replied through a grimacing smile. "Thank you very much for your help setting my mind at ease. I greatly appreciate it."
"Oh, don't thank me," the lady demurred. "Thank Naomi instead; after all, she's the one who handled the paperwork." A beat passed, and the lady's eyes narrowed just a touch. "Do it, Corporal. Thank her for helping you protect us."
I could kill her, Kururugi mused. In less than a second, I could drive my bat into her sternum, right between her breasts. She'd bend forwards, and I'd drive the butt down into her head. The knife at my belt would slash the Eleven's throat open. It would be easy.
…But…
He could see the look in her eye, even as she smiled. The way her body tensed just so, the way her lips twitched up as she met his furious gaze… It all seemed to taunt him. He could almost hear her arrogant voice in his ear, saying "Just give me a reason."
…That's exactly what she wants, isn't it?
Besides, It was, he knew, a fantasy, a way of coping with the apex predator whose shadow had just passed over him. Perhaps if the world was different, if life was different… But it was not different. In this world, Kururugi had no recourse, no way to fight back against a Britannian noble without effectively cutting his own throat. At least, not yet…
Someday, Kururugi promised himself, someday. Discipline, patience, and sacrifice. All for the Plan.
He carefully did not think about the thrill of fear deep inside at the prospect of defying the Britannians. Of what happened to those who defied the Britannians. He certainly didn't think about the way his heart leapt at the thought of that fate.
Of finally being punished, broken on the wheel. Justice at last, not for this act of defiance, but another…
"Thank you, Miss Naomi," the words were like sand mixed with ashes in his mouth, gritty and abrasive and choking, "I commend your bureaucratic skills. Crossing every T and dotting every I. You are a credit to your mistress."
"You're most welcome, Corporal Kururugi," the Eleven purred. Kururugi's eyes widened – she'd said that in Japanese! A language that Honorary Britannians were forbidden by law to use! She'd spoken in Japanese in front of a noble! "It's so good to see that Japan's sons continue to watch over her people."
Teeth clenched, Kururugi turned on his heel and strode away, back the way he had come. After a moment, four sets of footsteps fell in dutifully behind him. To Kururugi's finely tuned senses, that moment rang loudly in the quiet air of the park. His team's confidence in his strength had been shaken by this miniature fiasco. They'd seen him weak and helpless, caught in a cerulean ocean and barely able to swim. There would be consequences if he didn't move quickly.
"Back to the barracks," he commanded after they'd put a block between themselves and the park, "and when we get there, get changed into your training gear. Liberty or not, we have plenty to do before we get sent back out into the field. Clear?"
Kururugi paused. When nobody responded immediately, he turned and snarled at his four fellow Honoraries. "Did I fucking stutter? Are we clear?"
That got a round of "Yes, Corporal!" from all present, but Kururugi wasn't fooled. Obedience rooted in fear only lasted as long as strength persisted; it was clear that his fire team needed a reminder of just how much strength Tohdoh Kyoshiro's prize student could still bring to bear.
As the small knot of out-of-uniform Britannian soldiers wandered away, Kallen slowly let out a tense breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Yoshi pick up a ladle with his left hand, which moments before had been creeping behind his back to the pistol she knew was hidden underneath his dirty white shirt. Next to her, Inoue sagged slightly, wavering slightly on her feet as the last of the bat-toting thugs left the park.
"Has… Has that happened before?" Rivalz piped up, speaking quickly and nervously from behind her.
Kallen straightened back up and stepped away from Inoue, patting the other woman on the shoulder as she turned to Rivalz. She was proud to see that, although her classmate was obviously nervous, his hands were steady, not shaking in the slightest.
He's come a long way since Christmas, Kallen thought, remembering a much younger Rivalz, vomit streaked down the front of his uniform and his hands full of glass. He's grown.
"I mean," Rivalz continued, eyes still wary as he darted a look back at the entrance to the park, "I think this is the fifth or sixth time I've come out to help, but… Is this new, or have I just been lucky?"
"This is new," the Stadtfeld heiress reassured her friend, and when had that happened? "Sometimes someone from the Knight Police loiters nearby, and sometimes we get the odd drunk yelling at us from the street, but I think this is the first time we've been hassled by a gang." She forced a laugh. '"Not really much to steal here, is there? Just soup."
"Eh?" Rivalz turned away from the entrance to shoot her an incredulous glance. "You think they were actually a gang? The tall one claimed to be a soldier, right? Corporal Kururu or whatever?" You think that was just a lie or something?"
"I didn't see any uniforms or ID," Kallen shrugged, "so yeah, I'd say a gang. Doesn't really matter if they have day jobs when they're wandering around looking for trouble. I don't think that the Army's quite at the point of issuing baseball bats to its men."
"You've got a point," Rivalz said with a brief chuckle before rapidly sobering back up. "Do you think that they were, uhh…" He looked side to side at the milling crowd that had once again begun to line up for free soup before leaning in and whispering "do you think they were some of the guys who were smashing stuff up and, umm… hurting people around Christmas?"
"No," Kallen replied, shaking her head. "No, if anything, I think that they might've come from the same unit as the soldier we… found. The 32nd Honorary Legion. I think those were probably some of his comrades."
"Oh." Rivalz looked mildly ill at the reminder, his lips pressed together and practically white from the pressure. "Then… I'm not getting something. Why were they here messing with us when we're trying to help people? Why was that Kururu guy so deferential to a pair of Brits like us, if we… You know…"
"I don't know," Kallen said, half truthfully. "I'm sure it makes some kind of sense to them. Look," she said, casting about for something else to talk about, "can you run this folder back to the truck? And let Nagata know that it's probably time to start packing up."
Rivalz nodded and turned to head off.
"Oh, and Rivalz?" The student paused and turned back to Kallen. "Thanks for the backup there. You really helped keep things from getting nasty. You did good."
"Anytime, Kallen!" Rivalz flashed his increasingly rare puppy-dog smile at her. She smiled back, her expression just a bit brittle. "It feels good to be able to help out the Cause, just a bit!"
As her fellow student jogged away, Kallen let herself feel guilty about her newest deceptions for a moment, before shoving the useless emotion away. Rivalz was a friend, but he was an agent as well, even if he didn't know it. And agents were tools, to be used and sacrificed to achieve objectives. Rivalz had played his role as a living smokescreen to perfection, defusing a potentially sticky situation without blood or fuss in the process.
Truthfully, "a sticky situation" didn't even begin to cover how complicated things could have been, had matters come to blows. For one thing, while Rivalz hadn't understood the importance of the Kururugi name, Kallen had recognized the name of the Republic's last prime minister. She couldn't even begin to fathom how the son of one of Japan's leading families, one that descended from a cadet branch of the Imperial House, no less, had ended up in uniform.
Exchanging a significant look with Inoue, a silent promise that we'll talk about this later, Kallen set to work with a will, slinging soup, scrubbing endless bowls, and hauling heavy sacks of garbage for the next half hour as the stream of hungry mouths gradually slowed to a stop.
A productive night, Kallen thought with satisfaction. I bet we managed to feed at least eight hundred people, maybe even nine! Pity it'll be the last one for a while…
That particular decision had come down from the leadership earlier that day. Her brother had announced their decision that morning, that, in order to guarantee food supplies inside Shinjuku, the food relief program for the Honorary Britannians would effectively be brought to an end. Tonight's distribution had already been scheduled and had supplies set aside for it, so was allowed to proceed, but it would be the last for the foreseeable future.
Kallen didn't know how she'd break the news to Rivalz. He really enjoyed participating, and while he didn't spend much time scrubbing pots and pans, everybody who came seemed to relish the chance to talk to a real Britannian noble, especially one who truly was friendly to the core.
Interestingly, from what Kallen had picked up from Tanya's call earlier that day passing on Naoto's decision, the end to the Honorary distributions hadn't been part of the leadership's plan. If Tanya was to be believed, for the first time in its short history the Council of Local Notables, as the political body Naoto had cobbled together had named themselves, had prevailed upon the leadership.
The collection of local headmen and power brokers had claimed to be the representatives of the people of Shinjuku, and as a sort of miniature Diet, had all but demanded the end to food donations for those outside the walls. The leadership had opted to concede the point.
"It will give us a chance to stockpile foodstuffs," Tanya had said over the phone, clearly trying to rationalize the loss into some kind of victory, "and it will display our commitment to the needs of the people. We can't rule by force and terror alone, Kallen. We'd just become another gang, and gangs are inherently unstable. Only through the consent of the governed and popular support can we hope to maintain control over Shinjuku."
Kallen had made all the appropriate noises, playing her role as confidant to the hilt. Privately, she had her doubts. While Tanya sounded like she knew what she was talking about, Kallen thought she was overemphasizing the say this "Council" should have. After all, Rising Sun had all the guns, food, and money. What did they need from the Council?
Then again, maybe that's just the Britannian in me, Kallen thought with a shiver of disgust. It had been far, far too easy to get into her character as a Britannian heiress, a role she only played infrequently, even at Ashford. The last time she'd played it was… probably when she'd stood with Rivalz under a hanged man. It's weird how just playing that role kinda has a hangover… It's easy to think like a Britannian. It's hard to think in Japanese.
As Kallen made her way back from the dumpsters, another load of trash deposited in the hulking steel beast, her thoughts lingered on the Honorary Britannian soldiers who had come by earlier. She had told Rivalz that she didn't understand why they had come, or what they'd hoped to gain, but that had been half a lie. Every time after sinking too deeply into Lady Kallen Stadtfeld, she felt an almost overwhelming need to prove that she truly was Kozuki Kallen.
She imagined that Corporal Kururugi Suzaku, saddled with a cursed name, would be willing to do a great deal if it meant becoming someone else. After all, she'd been willing to follow her Big Brother into danger over and over before Tanya had interceded – what would she have done if she was trying to gain acceptance from someone who actively hated her?
A quiet cough startled Kallen out of her uncomfortable self-reflection. "Oh, excuse me," she blurted out instinctively. Too late she realized she'd spoken in Japanese, and that the young man she'd almost run into was Britannian.
"Don't worry about it," the young man replied in the same language, although spoken with a slight Homeland accent, "you just looked a bit lost in your thoughts, and I wanted to know if you were alright."
"Ah, well, I'm fine," Kallen smiled uneasily at the Britannian. He looked vaguely familiar… It was something about the jawline, but the blond hair and green eyes didn't quite ring any bells. "Thanks for asking, though."
"It's my pleasure," the blond smiled, a simple heartwarming expression that somehow radiated a sincere joy in her company. "That was quite the alarming situation earlier, wasn't it? I swear, the whole Area's going to the dogs, when random gangs can just terrorize anybody they want."
"Interesting times, huh?" Kallen smiled back at the man. He was, she guessed, about her age. Maybe a year older. Judging by his clothes, he was definitely at least middle class, and maybe on the lower end of the rich. Perhaps he came from a wealthy commoner family, or maybe from a cadet house a bit down on their luck.
"You can say that again," the man chortled to himself. "Interesting times indeed. An event that nobody is allowed to talk about, a housing crisis, an uprising in the mountains, and now a food crunch, all in less than five months. And now, our esteemed Viceregal-Governor is just dumping a ton of free money out in an attempt to convince us that everything is fine and well in hand." The smile turned roguish. "Makes you wonder what'll happen in a month's time, eh, Lady Stadtfeld?"
"You're… Quite well informed," Kallen replied, suddenly feeling very much on the back foot. How does he know my name? I've never met him before. Maybe Rivalz brought another student along? He did bring that friend of his back in March… "And yeah, I'm umm… Not too certain about how well the 'give everyone five hundred pounds' plan is going to work out."
As the man nodded thoughtfully, Kallen frantically groped for more details from the news article she'd skimmed a few days back before throwing the copy of the Messenger into the trash where it belonged. "I'm looking forward to the new holiday on the 4th, though! 'Vi Britannia Day', huh?"
"Ah yes," for some reason, the man's smile tightened across his face, almost to the point where Kallen would call it a rictus. "It's… a wonderful idea. I'm not really sure how well it will catch on. Not like many people know about a dead pair of royals, nor care. Neither exactly stood to inherit anything."
"I'll be honest, I'd forgotten they even existed," Kallen agreed with a nod, "but if they get me a day off from school, well… I'll happily pour one out for little Lelouch and, umm… I don't remember the Princess's name."
"Nunnally…" The man said, helping her out. "Her name… her name was Nunnally."
"Ah, that's right, Nunnally vi Britannia!" Kallen said cheerfully, keeping her curiosity carefully concealed. Something about the way the man had said that name was odd; the first time he'd said the long-dead girl's name, it had practically throbbed with emotion. The repetition had still carried a strange inflection. "Well, I'll pour out some juice to her memory as well."
"What do you think of the Viceregal-Governor, Lady Stadtfeld?" The question was as abrupt as it was overt, but somehow all Kallen could read from the man's tone was genuine curiosity, as if they were sitting in some salon, discussing political minutia over fresh coffee. "Do you have much of an opinion about the man?"
The question itself was alarming, but somehow the utter artlessness of the delivery made the young man seem earnest instead of pushy. Kallen hesitantly put him into the mental box of "budding student radicals and freethinkers." Generally harmless, but probably useless.
There were some students at Ashford who prided themselves on being "freethinkers", and who made a big display of "asking questions" about the official line. Their "questions" particularly focused on the propaganda masquerading as history class. While it was interesting to listen to them interrupt class to point out the poorly concealed contradictions in the textbook, Kallen had no time for them.
For all that the limited number of milquetoast student radicals were "only asking questions", doing so out in the open could draw official attention to themselves, and to her via proximity. Attention she desperately wanted to avoid. Even more importantly, she sincerely doubted their teenage rebelliousness would ever push them over the brink from "asking questions" into actual activity against the imperial apparatus, making them weak allies at best and more likely active hindrances to her own activities.
Still… This one actually showed up. We're not exactly at Ashford right now, are we?
"Prince Clovis?" Kallen asked aloud with a friendly smile, "Well… he's quite the artist. I mean, I'm not really one for the arts and stuff, but I saw a piece of his on a class trip to the Museum of Art, and it looked pretty decent. How about you, Mister…?"
"Spicer," the man stuck out his hand, and Kallen gave it a brisk shake. "Alan Spicer. I've seen you at lunch a few times. You usually eat in the main courtyard, right?"
"Oh, that explains it!" Kallen exclaimed a tad theatrically as she let out an internal sigh of relief. "I thought I knew you from somewhere, but I couldn't quite put a name to your face. Yes, I do like the courtyard; the garden is lovely, and it's nice to get some fresh air between classes. Did Rivalz invite you along?"
"In a manner of speaking," Alan replied, releasing her hand. "He was wandering around telling everybody about what a fun extracurricular he'd found. I was curious and didn't have anything to do tonight, so I decided to give it a try."
"Well, thank you for coming out to help," Kallen said with a smile. "There's always room for more hands, or…" The smile slipped. "Well, I'd normally say that, but unfortunately it looks like this will be the last soup dinner the Benevolent Association will be serving for a while. I guess it's a good thing you didn't wait until next week to come."
"Really? But, why?" Alan's face artfully crumpled into a frown, lines of consternation and worry radiating across his face. The expression reminded Kallen of a barrister from one of the legal dramas her stepmother loved to watch in the Stadtfeld Manor's home theater. It was, she realized, an obviously practiced expression of concern.
"You served so many people tonight alone," Alan continued, tilting his head in a gesture that somehow conveyed a profound lack of understanding coupled with a sincere desire to learn, "and as your friend mentioned earlier, the price of food is only going up. Surely there's more need now than ever before?"
"Well, yeah," Kallen acknowledged, "but that's the problem. The Rising Sun Benevolent Association relies solely on donations from local businesses and philanthropic nobles, and if you hadn't noticed, the first aren't doing well at the moment and the other is in short supply. Since we help take care of the people who were affected by the event that, as you said, we can't mention, we can't exactly go to the Area Administration for help."
"That certainly is quite the pickle," Spicer nodded, "and yet, are you really okay with just leaving people to fend for themselves?"
"No, I'm not, but…" Kallen trailed off, trying to figure out how to convey her feelings without slipping out of the mask of Britannian nobility.
"I'm not happy about it in the slightest," she said, quickly throwing together a plausible lie, "especially not as a noble. Someone close to me once told me that loyalty is a two-way street; all of these people swore themselves to Britannia, shaking off their old lives in the hope of something better. How can we expect them to remain loyal without helping them? But I simply don't have the resources to make an impact by myself."
For a moment, Kallen thought she saw something flicker in the young man's eyes, something that said it understood her.
"I get it," Alan commiserated, "I really do. If you don't mind me saying it, it sounds like everything you're doing should be managed by the Administration. I think you're doing them an enormous favor by picking up their slack." The radiant smile returned. "I really respect what you're trying to do here, Lady Stadtfeld. It's very impressive. It's not exactly common to hear a noble talk about loyalty to those below us."
Dammit, Kallen! You did it again! You opened your mouth and let your brain fall out! Talking to a Britannian about obligations to the Honoraries? Tanya would be appalled. This kind of thing is why Diethard paid attention to you to begin with!
"It's just common sense," Kallen replied hotly, trying to defend herself. "Have you ever felt like working hard and doing your best for someone who just hits you all the time? I sure haven't! The people that really make me give my best are the ones who make me feel valued and important! And the Honoraries aren't stupid, and it's not like they don't remember what happened earlier!"
"Hey, no need to worry," Alan broke in, hands raised in a pacifying gesture, "I told you, I get it. Not going too deep into my own baggage, but the Honoraries are far from the only people to suffer at the hands of abusive and neglectful leaders, men who should care for those who depend upon them."
"Oh…" Kallen suddenly felt foolish. She'd completely misread Alan's smile. It hadn't been mocking in the slightest. She had been so wrapped up in herself she'd missed something personal. She felt embarrassed and foolish and, once again, very Britannian. "Well, good," she continued lamely, "I'm glad we agree."
"You know," Alan said, his tone considering, "I'd actually kind of wondered if you were some sort of employee of Prince Clovis when I came here tonight." He paused and hurriedly continued. "I mean, I had wondered if the Viceroy was trying to get around any sort of official pushback from the Purists by supporting your charity. It would have been a clever way to mitigate Honorary grievances without being seen to oppose a powerful political faction!"
Realizing that her fists were clenched and her teeth gritted with anger, Kallen forced herself to relax. "That would have been a very clever idea on the Prince's part," she agreed with a laugh, "but I'm afraid that's not the case. We'd welcome some official backup, but, as far as I know, nobody in the Rising Sun is drawing an official salary."
And if they are, Kallen thought, I'm sure Naoto will deal with them just as soon as that little fact comes to light.
"That's a real shame," Alan commiserated, shaking his head. "Honestly, I really hope the Prince somehow sees what you and your people are doing. You've helped him out of a hole that, if I'm being honest, he dug for himself. Hopefully someone in the Administration will see the worth of your organization and throw some of the budget from the Clovisland 2 project your way!"
"Hopefully," Kallen agreed, "but I'm not holding my breath. Anyway, I need to get back to help Inoue sort out the rest of the clean-up. Thank you again for coming by and helping us. I guess I'll look forward to seeing you at Ashford?"
"I'll certainly be looking forward to our next meeting, Lady Stadtfeld," Alan smiled, "perhaps we should do lunch sometime? Anyway, until next time."
"Until next time," Kallen said, smiling half in farewell and half in relief that the strange conversation had come to an end. It had been, she decided, a productive exchange, and she'd definitely never spoken to a Britannian in Japanese for half this long before.
To her surprise, instead of a parting wave, Alan bowed to her from the waist, hands folded in front of him in a formal farewell. Instinctively, she bobbed forwards, catching herself halfway down and converting the motion into an abbreviated curtsey. Alan didn't smirk or laugh at her slip-up, instead only tilting his head before turning on his heel and vanishing into the darkened park.
Alan Spicer, huh? Kallen shook her head and resumed her trek back to the waiting Rising Sun truck. Britannian nobles with actual brains inside their heads are pretty rare. He seemed a bit too happy with the Administration, but he was also sympathetic… Maybe he could be another Rivalz? Man, with three people on board, we'd practically have a cell of our own at Ashford!
The thought startled a giggle out of Kallen, who promptly slapped a hand to her mouth and looked around to see if anybody had noticed the slip-up. No way. That'd just be crazy. Who the hell would think of trying to set up a radical cell in the middle of a school for the upper crust? If I floated the idea with Tanya, she'd definitely think I was joking!
Two miles and thirty minutes away from the park, Alan Spicer ceased to exist once again.
At least this time I'm not running from the police, Lelouch thought as he scrubbed the wig adhesive out of his hair. It's far easier to put myself back together with the aid of a mirror and sink. Less trash as well.
The cheap hotel room was comfortingly anonymous. Gray-green walls, beige carpeting, and furniture that had unquestionably been purchased in bulk. Just one anonymous room in a practically endless sea of identical copies. It was absolutely common in a way that Lelouch had only rarely experienced in his life.
In his youth, the ostentatious splendor of the Imperial Palace in the heart of Pendragon had seemed unremarkable; familiarity with the endless masterpieces and architectural wonders had bred contempt. The spartan Kururugi Temple, at first startlingly foreign, had likewise grown mundane over time. Ashford Academy was, for all of Milly and Reuban's pretensions, just a little slice of the land that would never again be Home, and it carried the shadow of all the vainglorious trappings of his childhood.
His life had all been a sea of luxury, a succession of palaces and estates and stately manors. All of his life, that is, except for the single two-month period of the Conquest and its immediate aftermath, before the Ashfords had arrived with the first wave of Britannian settlers. Lelouch had been far too focused on Nunnally's dwindling weight and his own shaking limbs to care about the burnt-out hovels Suzaku found for them back then..
In their own way, the surroundings of those two months had been just as extraordinary as the palace at 5 Saint Darwin Street.
The door clicked behind Lelouch as he left the hotel lobby, his overnight bag slung over his shoulder and his key dropped into the night deposit box. He doubted that Stadtfeld, Kallen, was going to report "Alan Spicer" to any kind of authority. Then again, he hadn't expected he'd have to flee from the imminent arrival of the police last time he'd stuck a toe into these waters. Better an abundance of caution than too little.
Well, the "she's a spy" theory seems dead in the water. I was right the first time; no spy who'd work for Clovis would stoop to serving soup to Honoraries. So, either she's somebody else's spy, or she just happened to try to break into my apartment right before she started hanging out with Rivalz.
It went against Lelouch's Pendragon-honed instincts, but coincidence seemed like the more likely option of the two. While there was certainly plenty of scheming going on in the Tokyo Settlement, he couldn't for the life of him think of any other faction that would be interested in him or Nunnally, except maybe the Purists.
Well, maybe some minor faction would want him to be the master of ceremonies for their private celebration of the new holiday Clovis had ordained in his memory.
And if the thought of one of Clovis's agents feeding Honorary Britannians is unlikely, the thought of a Purist agent doing the same thing is just laughable.
Purists aside, nobody else would have any interest in a prince and a princess supposedly six years dead, especially since the prince had been disowned and the princess was a cripple. The Japanese would probably kill him, but they surely had better things to do and probably wouldn't be able to recruit a noble spy. The Levelers, if they existed, wouldn't care about those the Emperor had already thrown away.
Maybe the Chinese or the Europeans? Both love to play the puppet "government in exile" game, although I think the Chinese would probably kill us just as readily as the Britannians. Royalty or not, they're not going to install a commoner's offspring on a throne. That would produce a bad precedent, at least in their eyes.
No, Lelouch decided firmly, that way lies paranoia. She's a nosy woman, far too intelligent for her own good, and she's probably up to something foolish. She's definitely connected to the Japanese somehow – she speaks the language like a native, and she's publicly associating with outright Elevens, not even just Honorary Britannians.
Either way, that's her problem, not mine. She's not after Nunnally and me.
For a moment, Lelouch felt accomplished. A minor mystery had been solved, a variable quantified. Then, his mood collapsed back down into the gutter. It was his first success in two weeks.
Two weeks wasted, two weeks without a single idea of how to move forwards… Lelouch kicked an empty beer can, sending the aluminum can skittering down the sidewalk. I need an idea, an edge… The Honoraries are a possibility; they seem pretty beaten down. On the other hand, they already knelt before my father once; they might do so again. And Suzaku…
Something inside Lelouch spasmed in pain at the memory of the current state of his best, and perhaps only, friend. His sudden appearance at the Rising Sun soup line had been a nasty surprise. Lelouch had been forced to blend into the crowd, head held low to obscure his features. It was unlikely that Suzaku would have recognized him, but Lelouch declined to take the risk.
Suzaku… I've been wondering if you were dead or alive for six years… Ever since we parted in that burnt-out town. I wish you had been there when Reuban found us… But I never expected you to turn out like this, Suzaku. What happened to you over these last six years?
His old friend had always gravitated towards authority and order. He had always seen things very clearly as right or wrong, with little patience for shades of gray. He had never shrunk from using violence to enforce and support what he saw as right. Lelouch could see all of those traits in the Suzaku who had threatened that Japanese woman with a baseball bat.
What he couldn't see were the less obvious traits of the Suzaku he had known. The honest kindness that had seen Suzaku tenderly doting on Nunnally, joining in Lelouch's endless descriptions of their surroundings so his blinded sister could feel included. The endless cheer that had followed Suzaku unflaggingly when they were younger. The sense of honor, the need to protect the weak and to care for those under his authority, instilled by Instructor Tohdoh. He had seen none of those traits in Corporal Kururugi.
Most of all, Lelouch hadn't seen the unflagging nationalism, the honest pride in his people and their culture, that the Suzaku he had known had carried as a standard.
Suzaku had been the one to teach him the culture and traditions of his people, the one to explain how to wear a kimono and how to open a bottle of ramune. Suzaku had been the one to sneak Lelouch into the ceremonies conducted at the heart of Kururugi Temple, the one who had bragged endlessly about anything Japanese. All of that was missing from the cold-eyed thug who wore his friend's skin and carried his name.
Still, at the very least, he's alive, Lelouch told himself. Nunnally will be overjoyed to hear it.
Unfortunately, Suzaku's reappearance hadn't sparked any inspiration. It had provided an example of how not to lead, but Lelouch hadn't needed any further examples when his father's shadow loomed so large over the entire world.
Perhaps the real lesson in that experience hadn't been Suzaku's actions, but the reaction they had provoked? Lelouch had seen the way the Honorary Britannians in the crowd and the Elevens at the serving line had looked at his old friend, and how they had looked at Stadfeld; he was certain that any attempt by the soldiers to harm her would have led to Suzaku and his men being torn limb from limb.
That's loyalty, the exiled prince thought as he continued down his solitary way. The streets were empty this late on a Monday night. A loyalty purchased by shared experience and mutual commitment. How had Stadtfeld bought it? Were some soup and commiseration truly enough? The King must lead, or else the pawns won't follow, but… how does one find the pawns to lead?
Even Suzaku found some pawns, at least four of them, an analytical corner of his brain pointed out, apparently by suborning the bonds created by an existing organization. Combined with his personal authority and the formal power granted by his rank, that was enough to create a cell willing to follow him into danger despite his lack of leadership skills.
Surely I could do better.
But what organization could I join to follow that pattern? The Army would require far too much documentation, not to mention a full-time commitment, which would effectively end my life at Ashford and separate me from Nunnally. Lelouch shook his head. The Army was a closed door to him for a multitude of reasons. But surely there are alternatives…
Mile upon mile of street and sidewalk disappeared under Lelouch's wandering feet. The hour was late and only getting later and he was no longer entirely sure where in the Tokyo Settlement he was. Somewhere northwest of the Concession, which lurked as a dark mound suspended on its vast supports over the nighttime horizon. He was in a Britannian working-class neighborhood, one much like the neighborhood south of the Ginza MagLev Station, the one where his first attempt at rabble-rousing had fizzled.
I wonder how the old men at the deli and Missus Fisk are doing? Lelouch thought, idling at a street corner. They were already treading water weeks ago, and prices, as always, had gone up since then. "Pedestrian concerns." Damn, what a fool I was to just dismiss all of their worries like that. I was so busy scanning for talking points that I forgot to listen to what they were saying.
A glint of silver reflecting from the grimy bricks of the alley across the street caught Lelouch's attention. For lack of anything better to do, Lelouch crossed the street to see what had caught some errant beam of light. He would have to turn his feet back towards Ashford Academy soon, or at least towards the nearest MagLev station, but something of the spirit of the night had taken hold of him, leaving him in a fey mood.
At first glance, the graffiti emblazoned across the stained bricks looked very similar to similar amateur paint jobs Lelouch had seen pretty much any time he ventured outside of Ashford Academy or the boundaries of the Concession. A broad silver line slashed across the wall was bisected by another similar line, and both were surrounded by a vaguely triangular shape. Something about it twigged Lelouch's attention and he leaned in closer, peering through the dark into the stinking alley.
If you squint at it, the triangle's sides bow out towards the middle before tapering down into the point… Almost like a shield, or a coat of arms. Suddenly interested, Lelouch pulled out his phone and thumbed on the light. In the white glare, he could see that the symbol had a smaller symbol in the upper left quarter of the pseudo-shield, daubed on the wall in black paint. The paint had smeared and dribbled, but he could just barely make out what looked like a P over an X.
P and X? He frowned, trying to puzzle out the hidden meaning. Perhaps the initials of the graffiti artist, or those of his sweetheart? Or, maybe… Maybe not a P and an X, but maybe the older Greek characters they came from… Rho and Chi. Lelouch's eyes widened slightly as a long-ago lesson in state dogma flashed through his mind. No, the other way around! Chi and Rho!
The squint deepened into a frown. The Britannic Church isn't popular, and I don't think I've met any Britannian who I'd call devout in my life. Almost nobody is anymore. In the Age of Darwin, it's passe. So, why would someone in a working-class neighborhood feel the need to paint an ancient and obscure Christain symbol on a wall, in a coat of arms…
As he mulled this fresh puzzle over, Lelouch scanned the rest of the wall with his phone light. Near the base of the wall, half hidden behind a dumpster, he saw a powder blue line pointing further down the alley. Walking around to the other side of the dumpster, he saw a vague looping pattern, followed by another X, or maybe a Chi and an eight.
The looping pattern looks like something in motion, Lelouch thought, bludgeoning his brain as he tried to remember the theology classes he'd been subject to so long ago. At the time, he'd considered them easily the most useless of his entire education, even less applicable than formal rhetoric or table etiquette. Maybe… Maybe a fish? That's important, I think. And an X and an eight would be… Eighteen?
What the hell am I doing, Lelouch suddenly wondered, wandering through alleys in the middle of the night? Nunnally's probably worried sick!
The thought of his sister broke through the peculiar fever that had infected Lelouch's mind. That's right, Nunnally expected me home hours ago. Sayoko probably put her to bed already, but she has trouble getting to sleep if I'm not there to say goodnight… And besides, I'm not going to figure out this mystery tonight; even if I did, what would I do with the solution? This will keep, and if it won't, there's no real loss.
Content with his evening's explorations, Lelouch turned his weary feet towards the MagLev station at long last. As he slumped down onto his seat aboard the train, he couldn't help but smile with anticipation. After days of intellectual starvation, he had finally found something to take his mind off his past failure and current listlessness.
I just hope that the news about Suzaku is enough to defer the scolding Nunnally's probably got simmering…