The defenders of Kanime Island were mostly eliminated by the time Schneizel and the Black Knights arrived, courtesy of the Imperial Guard. Although the pilots of the Imperial Guard were elite and had more skill than the basic soldiers that were stationed on the island, the emperor's personal troops had suffered quite a lot of casualties.

This was largely due to being caught off guard and having been outnumbered when the fighting started, never mind the almost suicidal determination their opponents had had. But this was eventually remedied when reinforcements arrived.

Kallen, who was the first to jump into the fray with her Guren Mk. 2, was currently flying through the battlefield, tearing apart rebel Sutherland units seemingly without effort. The Zero Squad, which she took with her, were flying close by, serving more as decoration than anything else as they didn't really get a chance to do much while the Red Lotus was cutting enemy knightmares to pieces.

When most of the enemy units were in the process of being eliminated, a select few seemed to retreat while their comrades gave them time to do so, paying for every second with blood.

All of the retreating units went in either of two directions, one group went to the west, which would coincide with the main base and command center of the outpost. Another group, a little smaller than the one going to the west, went in a northern direction. It appeared they were hell-bent on getting to the docks that had previously been used to load off cargo from transport ships.

This coordinated retreat did not go unnoticed, and as Kallen had already expected, Ohgi soon connected to her communication link.

"Kallen, the enemy knightmares are retreating to two different points, it's obvious someone's pulling the strings. Our flagships and the Imperial guard will finish the remaining units here. Go to the west and take out the remaining soldiers there, it's likely Lelouch will be somewhere near the command center to oversee the battle."

Before she could respond with confirmation, she heard Tohdoh's voice over the same audio link, which was likely connected to the command bridge of the Ikaruga.

"Also, send the Zero Squad to the north. We need our units everywhere the Britannians deploy their own, otherwise we risk them finding Lelouch first."

She couldn't find any fault in that, as even though they were now on the same side, the Black Knights did not trust Schneizel enough to let his units run rampant without them to observe. So, she simply gave a short "Understood", and changed directions to the west, destroying any opponents that wanted to slow her down.

…

Meanwhile, Zero Squad, which was now comprised of ten members total due to the promotion of nine promising pilots, was informed of their new objective and similarly changed course to the north. Halfway there they were joined by a group of Britannian Vincent Wards, who kept their distance from the Black Knights' Akatsukis. Although they were technically allies right now, they had been killing each other not a full day earlier, so tension was unavoidable between the two groups that were flying towards the docks.

Benio Akagi, the last original pilot within the Zero Squad barring her captain and their operator, was currently leading the detachment of elite Black Knights. She had her doubts about why they were even here, but orders were orders, so she connected to the captain of the Britannian Vincents to communicate.

"What do you want eleven?" said the captain before she even had the chance to speak. Her monitor displayed a frowning Britannian man, who was apparently disgusted with talking to an 'eleven' on equal footing.

She decided to ignore it however, they were in a battle zone and now was not the time for petty grudges. "I wanted to devise a plan of approach, the enemies that retreated could be hiding within the warehouses, waiting to ambush us."

"Tsk, fine. We'll split up in groups of six, three each, and we'll clear the buildings. You and I will clear the last storage unit there." the captain said as she saw a red dot appear on her map, an indication of her target. It was one of the warehouses right in the middle of the docks. Although one of the smaller ones, it could still house some knightmares and supplies, so it needed to be cleared nonetheless.

"Agreed." she curtly responded before cutting the connection, soon after giving orders to her squad. The docks seemed to be silent, not a single movement could be spotted from this far away. At least, not any knightmares, since human figures would be too small to spot even with her zoom function.

'Strange,' she thought, 'where are the rebels?' Was it an ambush or did they retreat farther into the woods behind the docks? Did they leave their knightmares and were they walking on foot? It would explain the lack of visible knightmares but why would they do something that suicidal?

She didn't have a good feeling about this, although she didn't know why exactly. The rebels were in not that great a number, so why did it feel like something was very wrong?

…

"Did you find him?" Ohgi asked her, a small degree of anxiousness in his voice. "Negative," Kallen answered, she was currently standing within the control room of the main base of the island, which was bloodied and had multiple fresh corpses lying around. She had a pistol in hand, which explained the new decoration. "the command center is clear, but there's no sign of Lelouch." she sounded slightly downcast, but didn't let her determination waver.

"Do you have any other possible locations?" she asked back while walking out of the room, returning towards her knightmare.

"No. No-one has spotted him yet. I'm beginning to doubt if he's even here…" Ohgi replied while beginning to doubt himself. Did Schneizel perhaps trick them?

"He has to be Ohgi." Kallen was quick to interrupt his train of thought. "Schneizel doesn't have any reason to ask for us otherwise."

"Yeah, right." Ohgi replied, still not sure. Perhaps Lelouch could have slipped away during the chaos? Even though he doubted if coming here had been truly the right choice, he still had to give his orders, "Anyway, the battle is almost over, come back to the Ikaruga and we'll start sear-" He didn't get to finish that sentence as suddenly a bright flashing light interrupted him, the signal becoming heavily distorted by the sudden energy interference.

Kallen, who had just arrived at her Guren and was about to close the cockpit, had to shield her eyes from the bright pink light which kept expanding in the far distance. Although she was shocked to her core by the sudden explosion, she knew what would come next and hurried to close the hatch.

Not even a second later, the shockwave hit her knightmare like a freight train, toppling her Guren to the concrete ground.

Even though Kallen was relatively safe from the shockwave, the sudden fall was another matter as she hit her head hard against the walls of the Guren, knocking her out cold.

…

(10 minutes before detonation.)

Lelouch was standing before a terminal which displayed the camera feeds of the docks, with his digital map in hand. He watched on as his soldiers hurried to put everything in place. It would only take another minute or so for them to be done. Then he would take his leave as fast as he could.

When he devised this plan he had already suspected that there might be less time than he would've liked, but now he was really cutting it close. Maybe he had had a little too much confidence in his soldiers to stall the approaching knightmares, they were only guards after all.

"Your majesty, what shall we do with the prisoners?" a soldier asked. Lelouch looked behind him and saw one of his remaining geassed slaves saluting him, a solemn expression on the man's face.

The prisoners, or rather the dock workers who had been too stupid to leave an active warzone on the many boats available when the fighting began, were detained when he barged in here. He would've let them go in advance, but then there would have been a possibility they would warn his enemies, which could make this entire operation useless.

He had thought of geassing them so as to keep them quiet, but he didn't want to risk raising suspicion by the sudden retreat of a large group of civilians. The chance was high they would be spotted, drawing enemy soldiers to the docks before everything was set up, dooming his plan either way. In short, their safety wasn't worth his own.

Looking back at his virtual map, which had been updating constantly to give him an accurate view of the current state of the battlefield, he answered the soldier, "Can they be relocated in time out of the blast radius?"

"I'm afraid we won't have enough time to do so before the moment arrives that has been designated to detonate, your majesty." the soldier dutifully replied after quickly calculating if it was possible.

"Then don't bother, put them in the empty structures, then proceed to your station." he ordered offhandedly, waving the soldier away.

"Yes, your majesty!" the soldier saluted once again before turning around, walking out of the room towards his destination to complete his orders.

Lelouch was about to return to his musings when he heard a voice with a bored tone, "Shall we leave then, I really dislike blowing up, my clothes always vanish when I return…"

C.C. was laying on a couch to his right, not at all fazed by the disregard for human life. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind the next time we deal with highly explosive material..." he said while glancing sideways, amused by her illogical priorities.

He looked one last time at the terminal before shutting it off. Taking his digital map, which was essentially a military grade tablet, and proceeded to walk outside, C.C. right on his heels with Cheese-kun in hand.

"By the way, how are we going to get out of here in time? It's quite a long way to get out of the blast radius." she asked, curious what he had planned for transportation.

As they continued to walk to a hangar on the edge of the docks going inland, he answered her, "You'd be surprised how much the automobile sector has improved over the years. It's been overshadowed ever since the knightmare frames released, but they certainly didn't slack off."

As they approached the hanger, a soldier drove a car out for them. It was nothing special in speed relative to a 7th generation knightmare, but it would do the trick to make a getaway unnoticed if they stuck to the forest.

"I hope you know what you're doing." C.C. said while looking at their transport with doubt in her eyes.

"Actually… I don't have a driver's license." he responded with an awkward chuckle as he climbed into the passenger seat. C.C. gave him a deadpan look, slightly irritated, before sighing.

"You're unbelievable." she said as she climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine.

…

(3 minutes before detonation.)

The mix of Black Knight Akatsukis and Britannian Vincents began to breach the large doors of the warehouses, entering with the weapons of their knightmares at the ready. Benio noticed soon however, that they were not used, as the expected gunshots did not appear.

She was approaching her target with the Britannian captain next to her when she received multiple reports of having found no hostiles, only some civilians huddled in the nearby buildings. Strangely, the warehouses were not just empty of hostiles though, as they only had a few containers present, much less than there should have been for a military outpost of this size.

This did nothing to help alleviate her suspicion, and she was quick to voice it to her rude companion, "Captain, something isn't right here."

"Indeed, it's too quiet, perhaps they dumped their knightmares and retreated on foot… Come on let's make sure this warehouse is clear too." the captain replied, his voice laden with slight caution as well.

They both proceeded to tear open the doors on either side using their knightmares' powerful arms, revealing what was held within. When they saw the contents however, they could not help but freeze their movements.

What they saw was likely most, if not all, of the sakuradite that could have been present on the island, explaining the empty warehouses.

The large amount of explosive fuel wasn't the only thing present though. Multiple soldiers were in the room, all facing towards the pile of sakuradite, where, if one were to look closely, a small camera could be seen with a little red light flickering from it.

Wide-eyed, they looked on, terrified, as one soldier, the one with the highest rank, took a single step forward before saluting. The other soldiers saluted as one not a second later, with smiles across their faces, all chanting the same thing before the officer took out his pistol and aimed at the pile.

"All hail Lelouch!"

"For fu-" the captain at her side tried to say, but didn't get to finish his curse when they got swallowed by a bright pink light.

…

They were riding on a dirt road when Lelouch watched two knightmares, a Vincent and Akatsuki, open the hangar doors through the camera. The device was connected to his tablet via remote connection. Before he gave the signal to the soldiers there, he made sure Kallen or anyone else he cared about wasn't near. After seeing there were only some soldiers he did not know the specific names of and his former guards, a sacrifice he was willing to pay, he gave the signal.

He watched on with a stoic expression when the soldier in the middle aimed, while the others gave their final declaration of loyalty, and fired.

The video feed turned static, yet he didn't need it to witness the result. A pink light erupted from behind him, and knowing the cause he turned around to observe the carnage he was responsible for.

A giant ball of burning pink energy swallowed everything within its range, like a force of nature, uncaring for the petty little details of what it destroyed, just that it did. It was awfully reminiscent of a F.L.E.I.J.A. but that wouldn't do the nuclear warhead justice, as this explosion was 'milder' in comparison, with a smaller range and less of an absolute annihilation of matter due to slightly lower temperatures.

As expected, a shockwave soon traveled outwards after the thundering sound of the explosion reverberated throughout the island, flattening any structure on the docks that might have survived the initial onslaught.

"Weren't those your guards? Kallen's squad, I mean." he heard C.C. say. Lelouch turned back to look in front of him while he simply said, "Yeah."

Raising an eyebrow she shot him a curious glance. "And you're fine with that?"

He kept looking forward, yet not really focusing on the scenery that was going by, contemplating his words. There was a brief silence between them, the engine of the car and the loud rumbling of destruction behind them the only sounds to be heard.

"No," he finally said, surprising his companion, who now turned her head to look at him fully, uncertain of his thoughts. An uncertainty she was about to give voice to when he continued, "but I'll do it anyway."

And as though to support his statement, he turned his eyes to his tablet and pressed a few buttons, which made it connect to the remaining devices of his soldiers.

"Soldiers, fight to your deaths. If you are unable, commit suicide. Do not be captured alive."

Only a few dozen confirmations were given, the rest most likely already to have perished for their master. After gaining confirmation he disconnected the links and shut off the device.

He looked back at C.C., who was once again focused on the road with an impassive expression. She appeared to be thinking, so he didn't disturb her, turning his gaze to the uneventful state of nature around them.

"How are you so certain humanity will destroy itself?" she finally asked, "I mean, I get why you're doing this, you said it yourself. But how are you so convinced peace can't be achieved through cooperation?"

"I never said peace can't be achieved through peaceful means, C.C.." he said as he sighed ever so slightly. "Anyone can achieve peace, yet no-one in the entire history of the human race has ever been able to keep it for long enough to matter.

"It's in our nature to overreach, to compete and to want what is not ours. Conflict is inevitable, it's a result of what makes us human."

He looked back, the smoke of the explosion forming a mushroom cloud. "And that," he continued as he pointed towards the black cloud which still had a faint pink hue to it, "is why I have to act.

"In the past, humanity only fought itself with swords and muskets, weapons not nearly as destructive enough to risk extinction." he kept staring at the horizon, seeing some knightmares trying to approach the bomb site.

"But now? Now we have the capability to bomb ourselves until there is nothing left. If I don't stop the conflict by unifying the world and purging those that would destabilize it, before even larger weapons than the F.L.E.I.J.A. are developed, I'm sure humanity won't live to see the third millennium."

He turned to look at his witch once again, curious what kind of reaction she would have to his longwinded speech. Her reaction however, only consisted of giving him a concerned look, before returning her gaze towards the road.

"Just make sure you don't lose who you are Lelouch. You might fashion yourself a monster, but never come to enjoy the cruelty of your actions, or you'll know you've truly become one." she said, to which he just shrugged.

"I'll never enjoy this C.C., but on the off chance I lose sight of my goal, I know you'll be there to set me straight." he answered her concern with a smile.

To his trepidation however he could see a little smirk forming on her face as he finished his sentence, knowing that expression couldn't mean anything well for him. "Oh, I'll be sure to set you straight, my warlock."

He gulped slightly, knowing he can't take back what he said now, so he just agreed, "Y-yeah. You do that."

…

Ohgi watched on in horror as the docks exploded into a fiery pink inferno, incinerating everyone there, including the people he had sent there. If he were to listen to his surroundings he would be able to hear the panicked shouts and the rapid orders that were being sent in the control bridge of the Ikaruga.

He couldn't hear it however, or he at least didn't notice it. He was too shocked by the sudden destruction that plagued the northern part of the island that he simply forgot to even try and give orders in response to the sudden development.

As such, Tohdoh immediately took over, giving orders to the captains to regroup himself, a precaution for any further explosions that might occur.

"He- He killed them…" Ohgi muttered in disbelief, his mind trying to deny the fact Zero Squad, their most elite force, was wiped out in a single move. He had known the soldiers that had recently joined the squad, he had picked them together with Kallen only a few weeks ago.

Tohdoh decided to ignore him though, knowing Ohgi wouldn't be of any use in the state he was in. "Try to reconnect with captain Kozuki, now!" he ordered, hoping at least the leader of the now wiped out squad was still alive.

"We can't get through sir!" replied an operator he didn't bother learning the name of.

"Then send someone to search for her. Who do we have left?" he asked, fearing the answer. They had only taken a few squads with them, and most of them where still dealing with the last few enemies that had suddenly increased in their tenacity, uncaring for the damage they received.

"Uhm, only mr. Shinichiro, sir." The operator answered in a small voice, knowing her reply was less than adequate for the situation they were in.

Tohdoh sighed at that, "Fine, he'll do, get him on the line." he ordered reluctantly.

Only a few seconds went by when he could suddenly hear Tamaki's voice going through the control room. "Hey guys! What the hell was that loud noise?! And why do you all sound so panicked?"

Tohdoh didn't have the time to explain to their 'Internal Cleaning Supporter', who was still stationed in the Ikaruga's hangar, the entire situation. So he simply said, "Kallen isn't responding, we've sent you her knightmare's location, go make sure she is alright and retrieve her."

"Oh, uh, ok I guess. I kinda hoped I could kill som-"

"Tamaki!" Tohdoh interrupted him, "This is urgent, get in your knightmare and go to her location, now." He didn't give him any time to respond as he cut the link before he could get any more annoyed.

'I honestly don't know why we still bother with him…' he thought before redirecting his attention elsewhere.

…

To say Schneizel was surprised by the ruthlessness of his brother's retaliation would be an understatement. He had expected his little brother to try and confront them directly, or perhaps infiltrate them in the chaos; but it seemed he had had enough.

"To think he blew up his own guards…" Kanon, who was standing by his side like always, muttered in disbelief. He too expected Lelouch to try and minimize the casualties of the Black Knights, but it appeared such an assertion was completely wrong.

"Indeed, it seems he's made up his mind on the lengths he's willing to go to. Looks like I underestimated his resolve." Schneizel said, not at all concerned with the lives of the soldiers he had sent to the docks, they were barely worthy of the name 'pawns' anyway.

"What shall we do now, your majesty?" asked Kanon with uncertainty.

"What's the damage?" the Prime Minister asked back.

After hearing the inquiry, Kanon looked at his tablet while pressing some buttons in search for the requested information. "The flight systems of the knightmares within range of the resulting shockwave, a large amount of our troops, have sustained light to mild damage. It isn't extensive enough to keep them from flying but they'll need to be repaired soon."

"And the Avalon?" he asked, which resulted in more buttons being pressed on the screen before he got an answer.

"Some compartments have been shaken by the blast. It's still operable, but the engineers recommend we return to the settlement for repairs within the next two hours, otherwise more dangerous complications could occur." his assistant replied once again.

The prince sighed with reluctance when he heard the report, "Very well, make sure to eliminate the rest of the rebels and send the units without damage to help search for any survivors. We'll be returning to the Tokyo Settlement."

"But what about the target, your majesty?"

"We don't have enough available units to completely search the island anyway, let him have this one, he deserves it." Schneizel replied while he looked back to the mushroom cloud that was starting to fade.

'Did you finally wake up from your naïve dream, brother?'

…

AN:

Aaahhhhh, madness and murder, just how I like it.

Reviews:

Perfectcell69: Fair enough, I just wanted Schneizel to be a bit more ruthless in this story so it could create more conflict ;). And about Suzaku, I won't elaborate too much but I'm going for a more observant role for him, and see how it could influence and change his character.

Imperator's slave: Thanks for leaving a review! I love your stories btw, His Britannia was actually the main reason I began writing this, so I appreciate the support :).

Covid69: Thanks for the analysis! I'll be sure to keep those suggestions in mind. The introduction might've been a little rushed, but I could always change some details later on to make it more streamlined as it wouldn't have any major effect on the story.