2007 a.t.b
Pendragon, Holy Empire of Britannia
"Can you read me that story again?"
"Again? Impudent child, do you not constantly boast of being able to recite those hefty text books of yours by heart?"
"It's different. It's better when you read it."
"Leave! I have better things to-"
"I'll ask the chef for a second box of pizza."
"Make it three."
"Sure, you're the one who's going to get faaAAAAAAA-!"
"You sure wanna finish that sentence?"
"I APOLOGIZE! I APOLOGIZE!" A beat of silence, while the 7 year old nursed his cheeks. "I think you stretched them."
"Be grateful I only did that much. Now, I believe we made a deal." the woman grabbed the book from the shelf. It was old, dusty, barely held by the seams. Both of them already knew the words by heart, but it carried a special feeling for both of them. The rustling of the pages, the feeling of the paper, and the ink under their fingers.
The woman coughed to clear her throat and then began to tell the same tale they've read time and time again.
2010 a.t.b
Japan
They could hear it in the distance. The sound of gunfire, of bullets ripping through fragile bodies, of bombs falling, of murderous war machines advancing.
The symphony of death.
The boy, now ten years old, fell to his knees as he beheld the truth of this world. Tears fell from his eyes, briefly blurring his vision, but it gave little respite, for the vision was forever burned in his mind.
He felt two sets of arms trying to lift him up, trying to shake him from his stupor. Voices that were trying to reach him, but his mind kept drowning out, repeating a single question over and over.
Why.
Why why why why why why WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY
DIDN'T THEY MEANT ANYTHING TO HIS FATHER?! DID HE REALLY NOT CARE?
Then why...? Why did he start a war while knowing his children were at the other side?
Was he wrong? Did he misunderstood?
Were his memories wrong?
There was, however, something very clear to him. A truth that stood shining over the fog of uncertainty that clouded his mind.
He despised Britannia, and for taking his family and then their new home, he would see the Empire burn to the ground.
"I swear! I swear I'll obliterate Britannia!"
On August 15 of 2010, Britannia declared war on Japan, beginning the Second Pacific War. Faced with the military might of the Britannian superweapon, the Knightmare Frame, Japan was overwhelmed and surrendered after a month of resistance.
It's freedom, culture, and its name were taken away.
The bodies of the Prince Lelouch vi Britannia and Princess Nunally vi Britannia were never found, and eventually were declared dead. During the funeral, the Emperor Charles di Britannia showed no remorse, no sympathy, not even sadness. He merely took their deaths as justification for his invasion.
2017 a.t.b
Area 11, Holy Empire of Britannia
"We now see here in Osaka the medical facility that was just bombed by the terrorists," the reporter yelled, straining his voice over the noise of the wind and the rotor blades of the helicopter, "the perpetrators are escaping on a stolen truck, and are currently being pursued by the military officers that guard the facility. Back to you, Sam."
The field camera changed back to the studio reporter. "This horrible tragedy has incurred 8 Britannian casualties and 25 other dead..."
"And that is Check and Mate!" a teenager of 18 of age snickered. He had sandy blonde hair and brown- almost golden- eyes, an easy grin seemingly fixated on his face.
"Impossible! Defeated by a high schooler?" the plump noble gripped his armrest until his knuckles turned white.
"Now, as promised, you'll pay triple, isn't that right, mister Britannian Nobleman?" the blonde laughed, borderline taunting the older man.
"Tch, why am I even speaking to you! Impudent child, you didn't even play the game, while your partner here didn't even utter a single word! You damn brat, are you looking down on me?!" the hand that was picking back the pieces flinched as it was suddenly addressed.
Sighing, the black-haired, black-eyed teenager finished placing the black king with the other pieces before reaching behind his neck and pressing a button under his red scarf.
He moved his hands, making a few gestures that the nobleman didn't understand before a computer-generated voice came from the teenager. "Don't know, are you?"
"Perfect victory in 8 minutes 32 seconds! You really are amazing, Shintaro." the blonde praised as he readied his motorcycle.
"It was nothing," his voice assistant translated his signs for him. He pretended he didn't care about the compliment, but the blonde could see him preening in the way he pushed out his chest just a little and straightened his back. 'You really have it hard, huh, Shintaro?' , he chuckled to his inside, thinking of the little sister that gave no quarter to her older brother.
"Alright! Let's get going!" the blonde teen said as he jumped to his seat, Shintaro already sitting in the sidecar, scarf tightly secure around his neck.
The engine roared, drowning the voice of Prince Clovis coming from the gigantic televisions as they shot towards the highway.
"You were pretty motivated today, huh?" Kano asked.
"He was an asshole. Can't say I didn't enjoy the look on his face."
"Jeez, you hug your sister with those hands, mister?" Kano sniggered.
Shintaro snorted, resting his head on his hand.
The nobleman was one of the biggest backers of the Purist Faction. He must have thought that he was invincible, having the military in his pocket, but lo and behold, the battlefield reveals our true mettle, and at the end of the day, both the King and the Pawn go back to the same box.
But now that it's done and gone, he thought, 'so what?' He isn't conceited enough to think that it mattered at the end of things. This world yielded to no one. No matter what he did, it would never change-
Boom !
He was snapped out of his reverie when he heard an explosion far in the distance. Looking back, he could glimpse a tower of smoke rising above the buildings.
"Kano?" he signed, forever thankful for his voice aid.
"Yeah, I heard it. Seems like it came from near the center, so we'll take a shortcut around the edge of the settlement."
The truck swiveled wildly as it dodged the bullets, narrowly avoiding crashing against other cars on the highway.
"Oi, Nagata, keep it fucking straight." a girl, clothed in janitor's uniform and sitting in the shotgun seat, scolded her partner while glaring at him from beneath her cap.
"You should be telling that to them," he grunted as he dodged around another car.
"Honestly? Yeah, fuck this, and fuck them." she tossed the cap behind her, letting her shoulder-length black hair free before unlatching her seat belt, "They're about to have a really fucked up day."
'Jeez, the mouth of this girl' Nagata thought, very glad to have her on their side.
The girl stepped through the door into the back part of the truck. There awaited her metallic steed.
A horn blared loudly behind them. Kano caught the truck speeding towards them in his rearview mirror and quickly swerved to the side.
And just in time too, for the truck lost control and ran through the fence of a closed exit, crashing against a construction site.
Kano stopped the bike near the sidewall of the highway, along with a growing gathering of onlookers.
"That, uh, that wasn't our fault, was it?" he asked.
"I don't think so?" Shintaro answered, sweating bullets.
"Man, what a nasty crash!" one onlooker said. "Someone should do something about it," he said, content with filming using his phone.
All around them, more peanuts joined the gallery to gawk from afar.
"Tch!" Shintaro set off towards the truck. 'If it' s this... Even if it's just this...! I can change it, I can help. I have to help!'
"Hey, wait! Shintaro!" Kano called after him. He hesitated for a moment, before furiously scratching his head and running after him, muttering 'dammit' over and over.
The truck had lodged itself pretty deep. It didn't seem like the construction was going to fall on top of it yet, thankfully, but both doors were blocked. The only exit available was the truck's roof window he'd spied from above on the highway.
The ladder previously installed at the side had been knocked out by the impact, kick jumping against the truck, he latched onto the top and arduously tried to pull himself up, his feet sliding along the smooth metallic surface. 'Dammit, Momo'd never let me live this one down if she saw me!'
"Need a hand there?" a voice called from above him. Kano, the smug bastard, was already on top and offering his hand to him.
Once was pulled up, he thanked him first and flipped him off second. He only got a few giggles for an answer, to Shintaro's endless irritation.
Suddenly, the floor slipped below them as the truck ran full throttle in reverse and they both fell down the hatch, painfully landing in a heap.
They shared a single glance.
"We made a mistake, didn't we?" Kano asked.
Shintaro nodded as self-preservation and common sense came back to him before the truck went inside a tunnel and left them in complete darkness.
By the bumpiness of the road and the complete lack of phone signal, Shintaro quickly theorized they must have been moving through the abandoned underground system.
'The terrorists' network huh?'
They both sat each against the walls of the truck, Shintaro taking his little corner beside a big and ominous container.
"For being so smart, that was kind of dumb, wasn't it?" Kano sniggered, seemingly unfazed. Shintaro couldn't see it, but he knew he had that perpetual grin of his.
"Nobody asked you to come here," his aid translated for him, as it was too dark for Kano to see his hands. The words were harsh, but by now he knew that's just how Shintaro expressed his concern.
Still, Kano cradled his 'wounded' heart. "Come on, I couldn't very well leave you by yourself alone with terrorists."
Shintaro was hardly surprised Kano had also reached the same conclusion. He was perceptive like that.
I found you...
Shintaro snapped to attention as an unknown voice spoke. "Is someone there?" he asked.
"Hmmm?"
"Didn't you hear it?"
My little Black Prince...
"It's a voice! Don't you hear it?" Shintaro stood up, walking towards the voice, following it to the container. "Is there someone inside?"
'It was so familiar...' he thought.
Their ride came to an abrupt end as the truck fell upon a particularly big batch. Shintaro fell down again, but Kano was quick to catch him.
The side of the truck opened up, and in came a flying spinning kick, nailing Kano in the back and sending them both down.
"That's enough mindless murder!" the soldier, a female, yelled as he pinned them down with a strength that belied her size. "Using poison gas, such a weapon that could only be used on civilians is-!" she jumped back, just in time to avoid a knife plucking out her eye.
Kano had jumped back to his feet, wielding a quite big survival knife, to Shintaro's surprise ' where did he even hide that? '.
"Britannian scum." Kano spat with a hatred he had never heard in his voice before. "It was Britannia who developed that weapon, wasn't it? If you want to stop the mindless murder, you should be fighting them!"
Much expectedly, he didn't get an answer from the soldier immediately, but then he noticed she wasn't looking at him, but behind him.
"No way, Lelouch?" she muttered, dumbfounded.
...
Who? Kano asked himself before he felt Shintaro's breath hitching.
"That name..." he signed, slowly "belongs to a boy long dead. I'm just Shintaro, a half-breed."
The soldier took off her helmet, revealing a teenage girl, probably their age, with brown eyes filled with tears and brow locks that encompassed her cute face.
"I... I searched for you! But I only found your names in a common grave and I... I'm so glad! I'm so glad..." she broke down crying right there and then, even with an armed enemy just in front of her.
Kano never took his eyes off her, but he couldn't ignore his friend quietly crying behind him, either.
What the hell.
That's when the poison gas container decided to open by itself. The girl suddenly tackled him, and he only stopped himself from stabbing her when he realized she put her own gas mask on himself, and her spare on Shintaro. However, what came from the giant canister wasn't deadly gas, but a woman with long, wavy black hair and dressed in a straight jacket. She opened her eyes, revealing beautiful rubies, before she fell backward, unconscious.
Shintaro shoved the soldier from on top of him, silently screaming a name that he would never be able to say again.
"Sorry, Ohgi, I left my radio in the truck." the raven-haired girl scowled at nothing in particular, sipping from her juice box.
"That's OK, Takane, the Glascow's circuitry works just fine," said the voice from the other end.
"Has Nagata reached you yet?"
"No, and we can't get through with him either."
"Do you think they found him?"
"I pray that they didn't. If the Britannians get back that weapon again..."
"Yeah, a weapon that is useless against Knightmare frames. A weapon to control the Japanese civilians. Poison gas..." she crushed the empty juice box in her hand.
Shintaro could feel his eyes on him.
After dragging the girl out of the truck, they were trying to release her from her constraints. Kano was staring intently at him.
"What!?" he finally signed.
"Hmmm... Nothing!" the blonde-haired gremlin cheerfully said as he fiddled with the belt on the woman's mouth. More than a few veins popped on Shintaro's forehead, but he decided he would throttle him later.
"In any case, soldier girl, what happened to that dreadful 'poison gas'," Kano asked, air quotes included.
The girl flinched, and then cutely pouted. "My name's Ayano, by the way," her gaze turned serious, "I really don't understand. That's what we were debriefed on."
"So the military is corrupt to the bone, huh? Not like it's anything surprising."
"Damn Monkey!" As if to answer a new voice, a man, insulted them. Several flashlights lightened up the tunnel.
"Sire!" soldier girl- Ayano- stood up to attention.
"I shouldn't have expected better of damn Eleven. I ought to execute you for your blunder!"
What?
"My lord?"
"However, you are also an exemplary soldier. So I give you one last chance." he put a gun in her hands. "Kill those two terrorists and secure the girl. Prove your loyalty"
Kano was speechless. 'Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! DAMMIT!' he repeated in his head.
"I can't," Ayano said.
"What?"
She turned to look at them, at him. "I can't kill innocent civilians. I won't."
"Then die." the officer pointed his gun and pulled the trigger.
It was as if the world had slowed down. Ayano fell forward, her face in a serene but sorrowful smile. "Sorry." she mouthed before she hit the ground and didn't move again.
Shintaro tried to scream, but no sounds ever left his scarred throat.
And then, the world exploded.
The two teenagers and the woman ran through the tunnels. A tremor shook the earth, and the woman fell. Shintaro was quick to help her stand.
"Dammit," Kano growled as he rested against the wall. "At this rate, the Britannians are going to destroy the ghetto, all because of you." he glared at the woman. "Just what are you?"
The woman returned the glare, but it was Shintaro who put himself in between them, shielding her.
"Seriously? You're defending her after what happened? That girl, Ayano, she was your friend, wasn't she?"
Shintaro's glare turned murderous. Kano flinched, muttering a 'sorry' before helping the woman to her feet.
Finally, they came upon a staircase leading to the surface. Kano cautiously approached the exit when they heard a gunshot and a body hitting the ground.
"Are you sure this is where the exit leads to?" it was the same gruff officer from before.
"Yes, my lord!"
A tune breached through, and with startling Dread, Kano realized it came from his phone. He shut it off quickly, but the damage was done.
In a flurry, the royal guard surrounded them. Suddenly, Kano and Shintaro found themselves against the wall with a firing squad in front of them, and the raven-haired woman was restrained by two men.
"Not bad for a pair of students, but, well, this is the end of the line." he pointed his gun at Shintaro.
The woman struggled, breaking free of her captors and standing in the line of the barrel. "Don't you dare!" she snarled, taking a bullet on her forehead for her problems, a bird sigil momentarily revealed.
"Huh. We were ordered to take her back alive, but what can you do," he chuckled, as Shintaro fell to his knees and cradled the face of the woman. "I know! We found her, but unfortunately, she'd already been tortured and killed by the Elevens. How's that sound, schoolboys?" he pointed his gun again.
"You bastards!" Kano took a step forward in defiance.
Shintaro was deaf to all, his thoughts stewing and boiling. 'Again? Am I powerless to change things again? Will I die without ever knowing the truth!? I-!'
Suddenly, the corpse shot out her hand, grabbing Shintaro by his.
The world flickered away, technicolor filling their vision as they fell to the sky. Under the gaze of Jupiter, two souls met.
"A-two, you-!" Shintaro's hand went to his throat.
"It's been some time, hasn't it? However, time is of essence. Your chances of getting out of this are almost none." she extended her hand to him. "I can give you the power to succeed, but you must make a contract with me, you must fulfill my one wish. With this power, you will live unlike others, your existence a separate entity from theirs, for the King must rule over the people, but he cannot live amongst them. Even then, do you accept this contract?"
Around them, images kept changing. A star, falling from one world to another, legions of children bearing the sigil of a bird in their foreheads. And a hated man, standing before a setting sun.
"A convergence with The Ragnarok Connection? So it begins once again."
Shintaro's eyes were filled with determination.
"Yes! I accept the terms of your contract!" he yelled, and thus, the cogs of fate were put in motion.
The world came back, and the boy stood up. "Say, how should a Britannian that hates his country live his life?" he asked, his voice loud and clear.
"Oh? So you can talk, schoolboy. Are you some kind of anti-monarchical radical?" he scoffed as he pointed his gun, but hesitated as fear coursed through him.
"Oh, have you realized?" Shintaro asked as he revealed his shining red eye, "the only ones that should kill, are the ones ready to die themselves."
He raised his hand to the air. "Lelouch vi Britannia commands you. Time, bend to my will, and turn back the clock!" he snapped his fingers!
And yet, nothing happened.
The officer wanted to laugh, but his hand wouldn't stop shaking.
"All the conditions were cleared from the moment I stepped here," the Prince pointed their way. "In essence, you're already dead."
The officer willed his hand to aim right at the student's head. That was the last action he ever took before a bullet punched through his nape. As the lights left his eyes, he turned to see his men being mowed down by terrorists coming out from their hiding spot.
'An ambush?' was his last thought.
Shintaro stared dispassionately at the bodies for a moment before he let out a huge, exhausted sigh. "It took more than a couple of tries, but finally, I did it. And I couldn't have done without you, Kano," he signed.
The blonde shrugged, "I gotta hand it to ya, you're a better actor than you give yourself credit for. And you did just save our hides."
"Please, you did all the talking."
Kano smiled as he tilted his head, revealing his right eye glowing red between his bangs. "Well, I won't deny that. But you did all the motions, I just gave you a 'voice'."
Whatever further conversation was interrupted by one of the resistance fighters approaching them. "Kano, I'm glad you're fine. And you, you must be Zero."
"I am." Shintaro 'spoke', "I'm thankful for your help, and now, it's time to move onto the next phase." They couldn't see it, under the guise of a faceless mask visible only to them, but Shintaro's smile was vicious.
"Let's begin the game."
I promise there is a reason why he's mute. Why did I have that idea in the first place, I don't know, but I rolled with it and it came to be fitting.
So yeah, Shintaro's big poly feelings, cuz that's the shit I do these days. So expect some Kanoshin, some Quartet. Hell, I want to use this to do the rarer pairs, like Shintaro/Kido, Shintaro/Marry, Shintaro/Seto. Will they be one-sided? That I do not know yet.
Hibiya and Hiyori will be the same age as the rest of them, but to Shintaro, they're like his annoying little siblings, so only platonic there.