I sat in the command center in Narita. The room was a spartan space made to look like an old dojo. In the middle of the room stood a large table in a shape of an ellipse. A large map of japan hang on the wall on my left. I sat at the head of the table, looking over some reports. Around me my officers were discussing the recent developments.

All over Japan people were rising up thanks to the show Zero put up. In Fukushima some resistants blew up a transport of military hardware. In Kouchi another cell burned down a propaganda center, hanging all the workers on the lampposts. Hiroshima, the most violent response were there. A group of Japanese fighters killed two thirds of the Britannian population. And that's the worst of it. To add to all this chaos, our recruitment skyrocketed.

"Commander." Raising my head I saw Chiba looking at me with a concerned gaze. With a long sigh I turned to the rest of the room. "The MEF has fallen. Which means that the list of Britannian opposition is shortening by the day. And now that Clovis is dead, there is going to be a new viceroy. With Cornelia Free, she is the most likely candidate. What do you think about this, commander? "

I looked around the room. All faces were turned to me. They were expecting me to say something. But this...this is a really hard situation for me. It seems like Tohdoh understood what I was thinking. "Sir, if cornelia does take command, will you be able to fight her? " The looks turned to my second in command. Almost everyone wore the same questioning expression they were pointing a second ago at me. The only ones lacking this look besides Tohdoh were Chiba and Senba.

You see, before the war, Britannia and Japan were in talks over Sakuradite. I was the one to represent Japan. Cornelia represented Britannia. A memory pushed itself into the front of my mind.

Two people were sat at the table on the balcony. One of them was female. She had long purple hair and she wore a crisp military uniform. At her hip hang a sword. The second person was male. He had long blue hair gathered into a high ponytail. He wore a military uniform just like the woman, but his was a Japanese one. At his hip also hang a sword. But this was a katana, not a normal sword like the woman's. The balcony was overlooking a beautiful Japanese garden.

They both were sipping tea. With smiles on their faces, they were chatting pleasantly. Anyone who would know any of them would say that this is an unusual thing. Neither the man nor the woman would usually smile. In fact, the two bodyguards accompanying the man and the woman were just as astonished. At the man's shoulder stood a woman in a similar uniform to his. Opposite to the female guard stood a male one dressed in the same uniform, the woman sitting at the table wore.

It was a year before the invasion. Something just clicked between the two of us. Maybe it were the similar interests. Or maybe the shared dislike for our respective fathers. Despite the fact that the negotiations fell through, the both of us gained something more important. A friendship. Something rarely seen in our line of work. We had wrote letters to each other for a long time after that. The last one was the day of the invasion. I wonder if she still remembers me.

Remembering the question addressed to me, I finally answered. "I'll try my best. "

In Tokyo a gray military transport plane was just landing. With the plane on the ground, out stepped a woman in a military uniform. She clearly was at least a noble woman. But...she seemed to be something more. In fact, this was Cornelia li Britannia. The new Viceroy for Area 11.

While she was greeted by her sister and some officials, she might have looked calm. But inside her thoughts were running a mile a minute. She didn't know what to think of this place. On one hand, those islands had the corpses of three of her siblings on them. On the other he was here. Cornelia didn't know what to think about the former Japanese Prince. Despite the fact that most Britannian nobles would sneer at such a thing, she still held some feelings for him.

Seriyus Kururugi has been a great friend to her. He was the one to make her feel better after Lady Marianne's assassination. Sometimes before the invasion of Japan, she even turned to him for military advice. Every time he gave her a compliment that she would sneer at if it was from anyone else, she felt a warm sensation wash all over her face.

She almost had a heart attack when she heard about the invasion. Worry for her friend and her siblings combined. So to say that the day of invasion of Japan was a bad day for her would be an understatement. She really wished that he wasn't a member of the resistance. Oh, who was she kidding? He almost certainly was. Hell, most likely he was the leader of the greatest resistance cell in this place.

But she just couldn't bring herself to think of him as her enemy. Her stomach was tying itself into painful knots just at the thought of the motion. Ever since that fateful day seven years ago, She wasn't able to communicate with him. But she always thought of him. Overtime, her resentment of her father has grown. For not doing anything to discover Lady Marianne's assassins. And recently for putting her in this situation.

That night she was standing in front of the window of her room. Her thoughts were with her friend. Earlier, her knight had asked her if she would be able to fight him. She had told him that she would do her best. But deep within her soul, she wasn't sure herself.

The truth remains to be seen.