Anything That Burns

by Darkenning

In a very damaged world, a very different Negi Springfield comes to a very different Mahora Girls Middle School ... where girls start throwing themselves at him. Sometimes, the greatest difference is no difference at all. AU, Multiple Crossovers, Lemon, Massive Harem. Inspired by "Anything That Moves" by OverMaster.

13. Chapter 10

Day Five - Shanghai

Six hours ago, it had been a pretty good day for Clovis la Brittania.

(Before we get going, a word about those two-letter 'words' that pepper up the names of members of the Brittanic Royal Family. They are abbreviations of special code words, known only to the individual Royal and to one specific member of the Office of Special Intelligence, not written down anywhere, implicitly to defend the Royal Family from infiltration. That this prevented their murder by someone who could, hypothetically, kill people by writing their names in a book was a bonus. In any event, the 'la' in Clovis' name represented the word 'labyrinth'.)

He'd been attending a party, enjoying the limelight, even when he had to take time out to deliver what he considered a moving speech about a recent terrorist attack here in Area Eleven. Then the idiotic General Bartley had ruined his day by bringing him the news that a certain very important research subject had been stolen out of the hands of other idiots who'd failed to prevent that theft. As anyone would, Clovis had calmly dispatched every possible force to recover that very important research subject, and make sure no one else found out about it.

It was the terrorists' fault that things got a little out of hand after that, giving him no choice but to order the liquidation of the Huangpu Ghetto. Damn them! Damn them for making him do this! (And he'd made sure to express just that sentiment in front of his official biographer, an obsequious fellow named Ellis or something.)

But then everything had started to go wrong. Somehow, the terrorists who'd started the whole thing had managed to get their hands on Knightmare Frames that began to turn the operation into an actual battle, and worse, a losing one. But that couldn't be all of it; someone had to be giving these Elevens tactical advice and coordination. Things had turned around when they'd launched the prototype Knightmare Frame dubbed 'Lancelot', but that meant Clovis now owed his older brother a debt he really didn't care to owe.

Worst of all, the whole situation had gotten much more public than he'd liked! Someone, somehow, had alerted the international media to what was actually going on in the ghetto, and while his private spin doctors were passing it off as a rebellion which had started thanks to the theft of and release of a poison gas by the terrorists, Clovis had the distinct feeling that they'd gone to the well with that particular story just a few too many times. He was going to get yelled at over this, and he still wasn't even sure that his operatives had managed to recover the very important research subject!

And now - now! Some short psychopath in a royal guard's uniform and helmet had managed to steal his way into his nerve center, point a gun at Clovis' own precious self and order him to give the command for a ceasefire and other ridiculous suggestions. Of course he'd done just that - he wasn't crazy - and was now eying the infiltrator, hidden in the shadows. "So what now?" Clovis wearily asked. "Do we all hold hands and dance? Or -"

"That's funny," the person holding the gun said as they pulled off their mask. "As I remember, you taught me how to dance."

Clovis la Brittania's heart stopped beating as he stared at an impossibility. "No," he said. "It can't be."

"Oh," said Nunnally vi Brittania. "But it is."

(The "vi" stands for "victorious", by the way.)

---

Mahou Sensei Negima Alter:
Anything That Burns

Inspired by OverMaster's Anything That Moves

Chapter 10: Nunnally

---

"You're alive," Clovis whispered.

"Yes, despite your best efforts," replied the petite, brown-haired, violet-eyed girl pointing a gun at him.

"My - wha -" the prince stammered, and then a great thought came to him. "That student - the one who was found with the package - that was you? My God, Nunnally, I swear that this isn't what it looks like!"

"Well, that's convincing," she said.

"No, I mean it! If I'd had the slightest idea you or Lulu were alive -" He broke off as certain other implications occurred to him. "Is Lulu alive?"

"I do not choose to have that discussion at this time," she said. "If you'd had the slightest idea I was alive, I wouldn't be, right? You'd have finished the job that started with my mother?"

"No! No, no, no!" Clovis nearly sobbed. "How you can think that of me, Nunnally? I worshipped your mother! All the children of the family did. Yes, my mother hated her, but she hated everything, including me! I would never, ever do anything to hurt Marianne, you, Lulu, any of you!"

"Did your mother kill mine?" she asked, very quietly.

"I don't know, and if she did, you're two years too late for vengeance. Cancer finally put her out of of our misery. Please, Nunnally, for heaven's sake, put down the gun! You don't need it!"

"I think I like it where it is," said Nunnally. "Who would know who killed my mother?"

"Cornelia," he answered swiftly. "She's never stopped investigating Marianne's death, but I have no idea what she's discovered. If you remember anything, you know that she held me in complete contempt." Clovis briefly considered revealing that he suspected that Schneizel might know something - but no, that was too dear a truth to be given away like this.

"Cornelia," she repeated. "All right." She took a deep breath but did not lower the gun.

"What are you going to do?" Clovis asked after the lull in the conversation had gone on for a while.

"I'm still thinking about that," she admitted.

"None of this is necessary," he insisted. "I'm on your side, little sister. I want to bring you and Lulu home!"

"Oh yes," she said dryly. "I remember how loudly you cried out in protest of our exile. Oh, wait, no, it wasn't loud at all, nor a protest, either."

"I couldn't do anything about that!" Clovis insisted. "You know what Father's like, all that making a fuss would have done was put my ass on the same flight to China! But things are different now, you'll be welcomed back with open arms! This whole business, this whole invasion, everything that's happened, it was all because we thought you'd been killed! Everything I've done since then has been to punish them for killing you! Or even to find a way to bring you back to life when we finally got someone to tell us what they did with your corpses!" Oh, what was he saying, he was revealing beyond black information, there!

But he was getting through to her. He was certain of it. He could see her hand, no, her whole body trembling. "So everything you've done these past five years ... has all been because of me?" she asked, voice so quiet he almost couldn't hear it.

"Yes! Please, Nunnally, put down the -"

She put down the gun.

"Oh, thank you!" he cried, and started to stand up, to rush forward, to hold his little sister tightly.

"Castrate yourself, then eat your own testicles," she said, one of her eyes going very odd for a -

What a remarkably good idea! he thought. It took some doing, but with his pocket knife - and who'd have ever thought that carrying a pocket knife, a ridiculous little affectation that his mother had urged on him, would come in so handy? - he was able to get the job done. The actual amputation was much harder than getting them down his throat, even though he gagged repeatedly on the taste. And he didn't feel at all well, once he was done, with all the bleeding involved. It would probably have been a better idea to go down to the medical bay so someone could control the bleeding, but then he'd have had to leave Nunnally behind, and -

Wait, where was Nunnally? He looked around frantically. She must have slipped out while he was focused on doing what had come into his head so suddenly. Oh, the poor dear innocent had probably been shocked by what she'd seen once he pulled down his pants. Now he felt even worse.

Focus, focus! There was something he needed to do, something absolutely critical. Somehow, he managed to pull himself over to the display, and stamp the recording button. "Cornelia," he gasped. "By the time you see this, I will be dead by my own hand. That's not important. What is important is that Nunnally is alive, and here in Area 11! You have to rescue her from this den of deceit and treachhhhhhhhhh ..."

Speech abruptly became impossible, as did remaining upright, and so Clovis collapsed to the floor and made no more intelligible sounds. And, when enough blood had passed out of his body that his brain shut down, the world went dark forever, as it does for king and commoner alike.

A few minutes after that, the recorder also shut down and saved the Holographic/Stereophonic Digital Media Information file just generated under its transcription of the first sound uttered within it.

---

Day Six - Shanghai

Kozuki Kallen (who only pretended to be Kallen Stadtfeld sometimes, or so she believed) had had a very strange day, filled with advances and reversals, and ending in a way that made no sense whatsoever. It had begun with a heady mixture of terror and excitement as her unit pulled off the greatest operation they'd ever managed in the three years they'd been operating here in China, went through a series of battles, and then resulted in her walking away in a crowd of people whose lives had been suddenly spared by royal decree. She found herself wondering if this was all just a dream she was having as the bullets slammed into her brain and ended her life.

But why would she dream about being Kallen, and feigning illness and debility in front of the spoiled, contemptible children of the aristocracy, here at Ashford Academy?

No, that was ridiculous. No matter how strange things had gotten, Kallen was sure that this cold, hard reality was her life - technically, her lives. On the one hand, a member of a private military corporation hired by someone she officially did not know was the Japanese Secret Service to make ruling Area 11 as difficult as possible for the Brittanians. On the other hand, the daughter of a prosperous (if not yet aristocratic) Brittanian family with a substantial interest in the reconstruction of Area 11, and a student among students.

Somehow, she was managing to balance the needs of the two lives. For now.

The problem is, balance isn't really what I want, she admitted to herself as she hung up from her short conversation with Ohgi. She wanted to be out there, with her comrades, even if - no, face the facts, especially if it meant risking her own life to do so. Even beyond her frustration with this place and the people here, there were questions which she was only going to be able to answer out there.

Even if she'd been told to forget about the stranger who'd assisted them in the battle yesterday, she couldn't. Kallen felt a strange, personal connection to the person with the deep voice, and the almost magical way their schemes had had them winning the fight - at least until that damned new frame had shown up. (The bad guys were not supposed to get cool stuff like that!) And even then, she couldn't help thinking that the wizard must have had something to do with the otherwise inexplicable ceasefire.

Maybe Ohgi was right. Well, sort of right. Once she'd gotten out of this place, she was going to do some serious investigating and find out just who they had to thank for that miracle. But right now, she was going to compartmentalize all those thoughts as things that a shy, sad, retiring Brittanian maiden would never even dream about, and glide through life that way. Well, at least she didn't have any real attachments to any of the people here.

---

Day Seven - Shanghai

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Kallen asked to buy time.

The taller, bustier, blonder young woman who was grinning down at Kallen had no problem repeating herself. "Welcome to the Student Council!"

"But ... I don't remember any elections," she said.

"Oh, goodness, no!" the bombshell said, looking scandalized. "This isn't some village! There's no democracy, here! The Student Council is by appointment! And it has been willed where what is willed must be, Ms. Stadtfeld, that even if your ill health won't allow you to join other clubs, someone of your obvious academic gifts cannot possibly be allowed to waste away, uninvolved in the life of our dear old school. And so, here we are." She flashed a perfect grin.

If, by some equally implausible chance, she ever got the chance to do it all over again, Kallen decided right there and then, she would definitely play a bit dumber. "Oh," she said, as a first step.

"I am, as it happens, the President of the Student Council, Milly Ashford!" declared the President of the Student Council, Milly Ashford.

"I know who you are," Kallen told the President of the Student Council, Milly Ashford - in the process letting just a bit of her true personality show. "Ahem, after all, you're really famous."

"It is a curse, like my beauty and intelligence," agreed Milly, looking somber for a moment. The moment ended and she went back to being maniacally cheerful. "Come now, let's go introduce you to the rest of your colleagues."

Oh joy, oh bliss, oh elysian transport, Kallen thought, but did not say.

---

"This is where you hold student council meetings?" Kallen asked, staring at the huge building, easily the size of one of the main schools. Every time I think I have a handle on how extravagant they can be -

"Oh, no no no," Milly assured her as the two of them walked up to one of the glass doors. "We hold sessions in the main building, of course. This is for special occasions - dances, pageants, the occasional orgy, and of course the induction of new members to the council!"

"What was that one right before -" she started to ask.

"Heyyy!" Milly cried as she opened the door. "Here she is!"

"Aw, dammit, Prez, we're like five minutes from being done with the decorations," complained the only visible male in the large hall that seemed to take up the bulk of the building. "You couldn'a given her the grand tour?" He paused in his efforts to attach a banner that said "Welcome Kallin" to the building's arch, and offered Kallen a friendly grin that seemed almost as wide as his bangs. "How you doin'?" Make that a lecherous grin.

"Fine, thank you, good afternoon," Kallen said, keeping her voice quiet and reserved. "There's no I in my name," she added after a moment.

"And none in team, either," agreed Milly. (That was an agreement, right?) "Kallen, this is Rivalz Cardemonde, the Student Council's secretary."

"Also lackey, dogsbody, drudge, and all around doer of unpleasant deeds," Rivalz added as he finally attached the banner so that it hung nicely. He took a moment to consider his work, and stared at the name thus displayed. "Ohhhhhh," he said, demonstrating how swift he was on the uptake.

"Good afternoon," said the dark-haired girl in glasses who was setting the tables that took up the hall's floor.

"And this is Nina Einstein, our director of research," Milly continued her introductions.

"Einstein?" Kallen repeated. "By any chance are you related to -"

"Yes," interrupted Nina, without looking up from her work, in a tone which suggested that she'd heard this question just a few too many times. "I am nonetheless Brittanian."

"Ah," said Kallen, getting the subtext. The way that her famous family member had chosen the United States over Brittania when he fled Germany would probably be a sore spot, even if it had been nearly eighty years ago.

While she was considering this, a pair of small girls walked in from one of the doors on the far side of the hall, pushing wheeled trays covered in plates of food. "Ah!" said the brown-haired girl who was leading the way. "She's here already!"

"Milly!" said the blonde just a bit behind her.

Blissfully ignoring the implied scolding of that reaction, Milly pressed onward ever onward. "And let me now introduce to you the two honorary members of the Student Council, who are not in any way considered to be the most likely to replace the current President on that dark day when she graduates and they in turn rise to the high school level - Nunnally Lamperouge and Alice Vitesse."

"I'm Alice," said the blonde.

"And I'm Nunnally," added the brown-haired girl, who offered Kallen a small bow. "Pleased to meet you, at last."

Kallen tilted just slightly before she stopped herself and turned that into a polite curtsey. "Ah, yes. Ha ha. Um. There's no vice president?"

Milly shook her head firmly. "No elections, no runner-up, no vice president. I flatter myself that I have some small influence with the faculty as to who gets picked to succeed me, but it's ultimately in their hands."

Kallen managed to resist rolling her eyes. The superintendant's granddaughter has some small influence. "Ah, of course."

"Well, now you've met everybody," said Rivalz, who'd moved his ladder over to the middle of the banner and was hastily painting the 'I' into a really bad-looking 'E'.

"Almost everybody," muttered Nina as she helped Alice and Nunnally set the food on the tables.

"Ummm," replied Rivalz.

For a moment, Kallen wondered what that was all about. But she only got a moment, because it was just that long before, to the sound of squeaky wheels, two more people entered the hall. "Miss Nunnally," declared the middle-aged Chinese woman in a maid's outfit who wheeled in a young man in a wheelchair. "I think he need you," she added in broken English.

"Hnnnnnnnn!" said the young man, eyes firmly shut, arms clenching his shoulders.

"The noise!" Nunnally said in the manner of someone cursing something, and set the plate down on the table before rushing over to the young man's side. "Lulu. Lulu! It's okay, shhh, shhh. No one here wants to hurt you! Everything is fine! I'm here, everything is fine."

"Who -" Kallen half-whispered to Milly.

"This is the other honorary member of the student council," Milly answered, sotto voce, and looking genuinely solemn as she spoke. "Nunnally's older brother Lelouch. He was injured very badly eight years ago, and he's never really recovered." No, not just solemn ... genuinely grieving.

"Sooooo!" said Rivalz, who'd finished his impromptu paint-job and slid down the ladder, and now produced a large bottle of unidentified liquid. "How about a toast to Kallen?"

Everyone (with the exception of Nunnally and Lelouch, who were still wrapped up in their world for two) stared at him.

"Okay, it can wait."

"No, it can't wait!" snapped Alice, marching over to him. "We're minors, Rivalz! Give me that!"

He clutched the bottle protectively, swinging it around behind him. "Well, if it's wrong for me to have it, it's very wrong for a middle schooler to have it, so I cannot in conscience -"

Nina had quietly walked up behind him and yanked the bottle away from Rivalz. "No, it's more wrong for you, because as a member of the Student Council, rather than an honorary member, you are held to a higher standard of behavior. Under no circumstances should you ever be found with alcohol in your possession," she said, pointing to the bottle that was in her possession.

"Um," said Rivalz, as he and Alice both pointed at the bottle.

Nina blinked behind her glasses, and turned to look at the bottle she was holding. "Glghk!" she exclaimed as the implications occurred to her. "President!" she called out, and tossed the bottle in Milly's direction.

Milly caught it off-handedly. "Really, my dears, you are making a mountain out of a molehill. I bet this stuff isn't even actually acoholooohhhh when I get it wrong I really get it wrong," she said, examining the label. "This isn't drinking wine, Rivalz, this is lock in your wine cellar and use as collateral for loans wine."

"Oh, come on, how much could it possibly be worth?" Rivalz said dismissively.

Milly told him. The exact number faded from Kallen's mind almost immediately after it was said, since sums like that could not possibly exist in the same world that she did.

"Glghk!" said Nina as she considered what she'd just thrown around.

"Well, maybe I'm getting it wrong again," Milly admitted. "The label could be a forgery. The only real way to tell," she explained as she started working the cork, "is by the bouquet."

The cork came out. So, in a glorious golden shower, did much of the wine, shaken into volatility by all that motion. And the shower came down squarely in the face of Kallen.

Of course it did, thought Kallen. I hate the Brittanians soooo much.

---

A few moments later, Kallen was standing in a shower, scrubbing the wine off of herself and trying not to think about the fact that the liquid running off her body was worth more than it cost to feed and clothe a small family here Shanghai. If she did think about that, she'd start punching the walls, which was not at all in character.

Her hands stilled when she heard the door to the laundry room containing the shower open. "Kallen?" asked Nunnally's voice. "I brought you a change of clothes."

"Thank you," Kallen said, then frowned. "How'd you manage to get them here from the dorms so quickly?"

"I didn't. My brother and I live in this building, not in the dorms," the girl answered. "The dorms ... aren't really set up for people with my brother's challenges."

"Oh, yes, I see."

"Anyway, these are actually Miss Ku's clothes, I hope they'll fit you."

"Well, thank you again." Impulsively, Kallen pulled the curtain back enough to stick her face out. "Hey, Nunnally? I'm really sorry about your brother." And she actually was. Whatever she might think about Brittanians in general, nobody deserved to suffer like that young man clearly was.

"Thank you, Kallen," the girl said. It was fairly clear that she was used to hearing stuff like that. "So, while we're on the subject of regrets -" And the girl's sweet voice turned very deep all of a sudden. "- did any of your people suffer casualties in Huangpu?"

Kallen's heart skipped a beat and all she could do was stare.

"I don't like repeating myself," Nunnally said in that same deep voice.

"Yahbuhwhahuh?" Kallen asked. "You?"

"What am I supposed to say to that?" she asked huskily. "No, it's not me? I'm demonstrating knowledge that only a few people could possess, and using the same damn voice someone did two days ago, but it's a complete coincidence?"

"How?"

"How what?" the girl demanded.

"How are you doing that voice?" Kallen asked, focusing for the moment on one of the more blatantly bewildering aspects of the situation.

"Practice," she said deeply, then spoke in an almost tinny voice. "That one's a lot easier to do than this." Then a seductive alto. "I can keep this one up all day lonnnng." Then she went back to the speaking voice she'd been using when she arrived in the laundry room. "I'm in the Radio Club. So about the question I asked?"

"The que- oh. Um. No, nobody was hurt, and everyone was able to walk out of there when the ceasefire came down - did you do that?" she abruptly asked.

"I do not choose to have that discussion at this time," Nunnally answered. "Okay, second question - tell me why a group of Japanese operatives are posing as Chinese freedom fighters."

Kallen blinked. Well, the girl knew everything else, so there couldn't be any harm in telling her the whole story. "We're a private military corporation that was established by my older brother to keep our family fed after Second Impact. This job was almost certainly contracted by the Japanese Secret Service in order to destabilize Area Eleven so that the Brittanians have to spend forces here and can't use them to invade Japan. I joined the family business when I was sixteen as I have a personal hatred for Brittanians and the Brittanic Empire."

"... all right," said the girl. "I'm guessing you don't know where your colleagues are presently holed up, but that you do have a way to get in touch with them.

She nodded sharply, and the gesture seemed to dissolve a bit of the fog in her head. The last few moments seemed very strange, for some reason, but there wasn't time to reflect on it right at the moment. "Yes, I can do that. Do you want to arrange a meeting to work with us further?"

Nunnally made a face. "No, no - not yet," she amended. "It's one thing for you to trust me, but they'd have no reason to immediately accept me. Fourteen year old girls do not normally join forces with mercenaries."

"Private military corporation," Kallen corrected. And why shouldn't she trust Nunnally? As the voice, she'd saved Kallen's life, and the favor had been returned. They were comrades now. "And I would've if they'd let me when I was fourteen."

"That's ... nice," the younger girl said after a moment. "I'm going to need to come up with some way to disguise myself, but that's my problem, not yours. I'll be in touch, Ms. Stadtfeld." She turned to go.

"Kozuki," Kallen corrected.

Nunnally paused, turned, and offered a genuine smile. "Hajimemashite, Kozuki Kallen," she said.

"Douzo," she answered. "But - uh - why are you trying to fight the Britannians?"

The face, which had been so open a moment or so ago, closed in an instant. "So many reasons," she said, very quietly. "Let's start with a simple one - what happened to Lelouch was not an accident." Before Kallen could say anything else, Nunnally was out the door and out of sight

---

Day One - Japan

"'- and so, despite the admittedly eerie aspects of her arrival and early days here at Mahora, it is clear that Princess Mina is, at heart, a student like any other; a young soul, seeking to find her way in this strange world that keeps getting a little bit stranger every day. Welcome to our academy, Princess Mina; enter freely, go safely, and leave some of the happiness you bring.'" The editor laid down the pages of the article on his desk, removed his pince-nez from his face, and stared at Asakura, sitting in front of the desk.

"I thought that last bit was really clever," Asakura supplied, grinning broadly.

"What happened to you?" the editor asked heavily.

"Hah?" said Asakura, blinking.

"This is a puff piece," he told her. "You completely let Tepes control the interview, didn't ask her any probing questions, and act like we should all be really happy that a vampire is running around on campus! Have you even remotely paid attention to the way people are talking about that girl?"

"Yes, actually, I have," she told him, getting angry. "And I'm trying to offer a more balanced response to all that fearmongering, by saying that there isn't anything to be afraid of - she's a nice person!"

"That's not balance, Asakura, that's refusing to engage with the issue. We are the indifferent servants of the truth - we don't let the fact that we think someone is nice stop us from confronting and admitting the fact that other people are terrified of her and everything that her presence implies."

"So you're not going to print it," she grumbled, sitting back in the chair.

"Not without some serious rewrite, no."

"You never used to rewrite my stuff!"

He slapped the pages of the article with his hand. "You never used to give me puff pieces! Actually, you know when this all started? The thing you gave me about your new teacher, right after he showed up. Oh, how wonderful he is, it read, with nary a skeptical inquiry about why the heck a ten year old boy is teaching high school English!"

"That's not fair!" Asakura objected, coming to her feet. "I researched that thing, dammit! I went online and confirmed that, yes, he really did graduate with college degrees from Albish schools, I spoke to other members of the faculty, I made sure of my facts!"

"And did you do anywhere nearly that much work about this?" the editor demanded, pointing to the pages on his desk. "Did you look up the agreements that led to the creation of the bund, did you even watch some of the press conferences Tepes has given?"

Asakura's mouth opened. Nothing came out, and a moment later she dropped back into the chair, arms folded in front of her healthy bosom, and a terrible pout on her face.

"Didn't think so. Okay, maybe it wasn't the bit about Springfield-sensei that did it, maybe it was that non-starter you tried to pitch about that failed execution at Honnoji. That was the sort of risky journalism I expect of you, Kazumi. But you dropped it when what happened?"

"You know what happened," she growled, unsettled at both the reminder and having her personal name used like that. But mostly at the memories of being confronted by that Hollywood muscleman who 'politely' 'asked' her to stop poking around in matters like that.

"You got scared off, and now I'm just getting puff pieces out of you. You've fallen down, Asakura. Get back up. All right, rant's over. Get out of here, I've got to get to work on fixing this thing," he said, focusing his attention on the pages in front of him.

After a long while spent glaring at him and being soundly ignored, Asakura left.

---

Day Two - Japan

What the hell does he know anyway? Acting like some kind of grizzled veteran. He's just three years older than I am! Asakura thought as she sat through English class. I have not lost my touch. I am still the gossip queen extraordinaire, I hear all the rumors. I just ... choose not to repeat certain rumors that I may have heard. She glanced across the school room at Akira. Because not everyone is as gloriously enlightened as I am.

"Okay, then, that'll be the end of today's readings," Negi said at the head of the class, gesturing for a relieved looking Madoka to sit down. "And now, here are the tests that I had everyone take on Friday. Everyone did rather well - with the exception of Sayo, of course - if not quite as well as they did on the big exams." The papers were being handed back and people were either smiling or flinching at the numbers on them, and taking a look at the notes on them.

Asakura blinked. Notes?

And then she blinked again. Sayo?

Yes, now that she thought about it, when Negi-sensei handed out his test papers, he always did put one on the always empty desk beside her own, the one that was reserved for 'Aisaka Sayo', the mysterious girl on the class register who was never supposed to have her seat reassigned, who wore an student uniform decades out of fashion, and whom she had never seen in class on any day of the three years she'd been in this classroom. She wondered if he just did it because she was on the register, or because -

Vampires are real.

Werewolves are real.

Slowly, Asakura turned to look at the empty seat beside her.

Ghosts are real?

A few minutes later, Asakura was ensconced in one of the toilet stalls, trying not to panic. This could be it. If she was right, this would show that overbearing out of touch sempai just how utterly not 'fallen' she was. If she was right, and could show that she was right, that there were ghosts attending classes in the school, and that the school had always known about them - it was both a thrilling story and a topical one.

A rapping noise came from the door.

"Still occupied, sorry," she said.

"I know it's occupied," said Haruna's voice.

"Well then why did you -" Asakura started to ask, annoyed.

"The field behind the old high school building, today after school," Haruna interrupted. "Find a good place to watch from hiding, and you might see something that will be of considerable interest."

Asakura stared at the door as she heard Haruna quickly walking away.

Yes, now that she thought about it, one of the notes that she'd glimpsed had been attached to Haruna's test paper. And Haruna had, until rather recently, been one of Asakura's best gossip buddies.

Rains might not come very often, she thought, but when they do, they come all at once.

---

"And so that's why I called you all here," Negi said to the assembled members of his collective - with the exceptions of Shanna, who'd made it very clear to him that she did not come when he called her, and Shizuru, whom he was planning to talk to privately, later. "I'm going to give all of you who want one a Pactio. In the interests of moving things along quickly, is there anyone here who isn't sure about getting one?"

Risa and Mio exchanged glances, then raised their hands in unison. "This is a fighting thing, right? To help us be better fighters?" Risa asked. "Sorry, Negi, but I'm a lover, not a fighter."

"That's a simplification, but -" Negi started to reply.

"The power of the alliance can be used in escaping from trouble, as well as dealing with it," Sakura interjected. "That's certainly how Misora and I have always used ours."

"Escaping and getting reinforcements, she means," Misora added hastily. "Not running off and hiding."

"Misora, no one thinks you're a coward," Sakura told her ... then noticed that a substantial number of the members of 3A were looking off in directions that didn't involve looking at her and Misora. "Ahem," she coughed loudly. "You're not a coward, I mean."

"And if nothing else, it also allows for instantaneous communication that doesn't depend on cell phone coverage, and that I can use to summon the Ministra to my side - or possibly transport myself to their side, actually," Negi added, as the thought abruptly came to him. "Can it work like that?" he asked Sakura.

She frowned. "I've never heard of that being done. But on the other hand, I can't think of any reason that it wouldn't work, it's demonstrably true that the cards and the pactio serve as a medium for translocation, and the only difference would be the direction of the energy flow. But if that's the case, why wouldn't it be done more frequently?"

"We may have to investigate this, later," Negi mused. "Anyway!" he said a bit more loudly. "If you are both sure that this isn't something you want to do, that's fine. I'm honestly not sure how many pactios I can sustain at any one time anyway -"

"One hundred and eight," said Chamo from where he was drawing the circle.

Negi froze, his jaw open.

"How many?" Yuna asked from where she was standing with Makie. Most of the girls had gone blank-eyed at that revelation - even Sakura, though she'd recovered momentarily and was staring at Negi in a more normal sort of shock.

Chamo dusted off his paws and examined his work with pleasure. "One hundred -" he started to repeat.

"And how do you know that, weasel?" she snapped, walking over and snatching him up off the ground in her hand.

"Now, Sis, you knew already that I've been hanging around with Bro for a while now," Chamo replied, very calmly for someone being held firmly in an angry young woman's grip. "The first time I suggested that he should start making pactios, Bro's moms had me do a really deep examination of his spiritual energy, and I worked out that he could sustain one hundred and eight probationary pactios. I can be fairly precise here, because his nibnoz is trilaquiteral, and -"

"Okay, stop, stop, stop!" Yuna demanded. "Five seconds in, and I can tell this is something I'm not going to get. But you're sure about this?"

"Yes," the ermine replied, sounding very serious. "I can't predict how many pactios will grant artifacts, but I can state with certainty that he can sustain that many at any one time. Over the course of his whole life? He could be a literal Thousand Master, like his dad!"

"That's not where that name comes from," Negi said weakly. "Supposedly Father managed to produce a thousand magic arrows at one point." He shook his head a bit angrily. "I keep getting distracted. The point is, if you don't want a pactio, you don't have to get one, it will not change our relationship," he assured Risa and Mio.

Risa took a long look at the assembly of girls who hadn't passed up on this. She gave Mio an inquiring look. Mio just shrugged. "Okay, how about this," Risa said after a moment of consideration. "I'll take one for both of us, and then if it works out well, Mio can do one when she feels better about the idea."

"All right, and if you find that it isn't working out well, you can always have it cancelled," he explained.

"Wait, what?" Risa and Mio chorused.

"I thought this was a 'for life' type thing?" Mio asked.

"Oh no," Negi assured her. "No no no. That's the permanent pactio. I'm not sure -" He broke off, and turned to look at Chamo, who was still in Yuna's grip. "Um, Chamo, dear sworn brother, did your studies reveal how many permanent pactios I'll be able to make?"

"Thirty-six," Chamo answered helpfully.

"... okay, then," the boy said, sounding a bit more weakly than he had a little while before.

"Well, then, forget waiting," said Mio. "Let's do this now! I'm hyped, all of a sudden!"

"You are more willing to have a baby with him than you would be to make a permanent magical alliance with him," said Sakura, gazing suspiciously at Mio. "You do realize how that sounds?"

"I figured it would be like a tattoo or something," Mio replied defensively.

"So, who would like to go first?" said Negi to cut off Sakura's response to that.

"Yuna should go first!" Makie called out.

"Eh?" said Yuna.

"Indeed, as she was first in other respects," agreed Kaede.

"Look, I'm not -"

"Yeah, it should be Yuna," said Haruna, nodding soberly - and covertly flashing two fingers in Nodoka's direction. The latter, who'd been about to voice an objection, subsided and offered a quiet nod.

Yuna visibly gave up. "All right, all right, let's do this thing," she said, and marched over to stand inside the circle with Negi, who joined her immediately.

---

Asakura, who was watching through binoculars on the roof of the abandoned high school building, nearly dropped the expensive pair of field glasses when she saw Yuna, standing in the circle that the strange little creature had drawn, kiss Negi ... which was good, as an intense flash of light burst around them immediately afterwards, and looking at it too closely would have been dangerous for her eyes.

"Vampires are real. Werewolves are real. Ghosts are real. Elves and centaurs and cat people and snake people and ... so of course wizards are real, too," she gasped to herself.

The question now was, what to do about all of this? And why had Negi chosen those specific girls, including some from the high school, to into this world with him?

---

"Okay," said Yuna, staring at the card that Negi had handed her after the little ceremony was done. It depicted herself, dressed in a rather badass looking longcoat over a pair of shorts, a bustier, and a pair of thigh-high boots, and holding ... um. "Sooo, this apparently has something to do with guns."

"Yes, it would seem that way," Negi agreed. "Is that not all right?"

"Well, I mean ... okay, so I like westerns, and action flicks, and heist pictures, and - but I've never used a gun in my life!" she protested. "I was expecting a magical basketball of smiting, or something!"

"Well, we don't always get what we expect," he told her. "And, also - and this applies to everyone - you shouldn't assume that your artifact will be obviously or immediately useful. You'll probably have to practice quite a bit with it in order to learn its limits and your own."

"Okay," said Yuna, still looking a bit dubious. "So I get started doing that by -"

"Saying 'adeat'."

Yuna took a deep breath and gazed at the card. If this is who I can be, then this is who I want to be, she thought, and pronounced the word just like Negi had. The light of the pactio's activation was almost as blinding as the light of its formation had been, but when the colors stopped dancing in front of Yuna's eyes, she was indeed dressed in the outfit she wore on the cards and holding the two pistols in either hand.

They felt warm to the touch, and for just the slightest second Yuna had the strangest sensation of her whole body being wrapped in warmth, as though she were being embraced. Then it was gone, and she was left examining these strange new additions to her bag of tricks. "Right," she said.

"Well, let's move on, then. Ah, well, Haruna was next, so -"

"I'm swapping with Nodoka," Haruna interrupted, giving her shorter friend an ever so slight shove in Negi's direction. Yue proceeded to give Haruna a death glare which she affected not to notice.

"Oh," said Negi, surprised at this. "Well, if that's all right with Nodoka -"

"Yes," said Nodoka, nodding very rapidly, to the point where he found himself a bit concerned for her neck. But she straightened quickly once she came forward to take a step into the pactio circle with him.

"Geez," grumbled Makie, pouting a bit. "If I'd known we could do that, I'd have gotten Yuna-chan to swap with me. Say, Misora-chan, did you get one of those artifact things when you kissed Sakura-sempai?"

"We didn't kiss," Misora said very quickly. Misora-chan? she thought.

Sakura coughed, as Nodoka and Negi had their big moment.

"Then," Misora supplemented. "Um, there are other ways of doing this and we ... but well, no. I didn't get an artifact. They're very rare, and I'd be very surprised if more than one of us got one."

---

"What the actual hell," said Misora, as she stared at Nodoka, Yue and Haruna with their books, Kaede with her cloak, Fei with her staff, Fuka and Fumika with their dagger and scroll, and Makie with her set of rhythmic gymnastics implements.

"Language," said Sakura, since Negi was too busy kissing Ryoko to do so, and even though she herself was staring somewhat confusedly at the panoply Makie had somehow acquired. "This is kind of unprecedented, though."

"Yeah, it's so much cooler than I thought it was going to be," Risa agreed, eyes sparkling a bit. "I thought it'd be all weapons and armor and that kind of thing, but this? This is awesome! Are you going to go for it, too?" she asked.

"Thaaat would not be such a good idea," Sakura said as Ryoko and Negi stepped apart, and the doctor called up her pactio - which, by now not all that surprisingly, included an artifact, as well as a blue short-sleeved shirt, black skirt and matching boots. The artifact took the form of another book.

"I wonder what this one does," Mikado said aloud, and opened it. "It seems to be a guide to anatomy, which I didn't really - oh!" she gasped as a pair of goggles materialized on her face. Blinking, she looked around. "X-ray vision," she declared. "Oh. Oh! Not just x-ray vision, heads-up display diagnostic vision! This, this is immensely useful in my work, Negi."

"Well, you'd need to hide it from your patients, so I don't think -"

"Not my alien ones," she reminded him. "To them, it'll just be some new gadget. Even for the humans who call on me at home ... if I sedate them before using it ..." She trailed off in a somewhat ominous manner, and smiled worryingly.

"Misora, I think you should take this chance," Sakura said to her partner.

"Can I, though?" the young acolyte asked.

"Yes, there are several instances of people being the Ministra to more than one Magister," she reassured her. "I do think that this would be a good idea."

Misora nodded, and headed over to where Negi was standing in the circle, with Sakura watching as she went.

"Why don't you want to do it yourself?" asked Mio, quietly.

"The pactio is normally between a mage and a supporter who's not a mage. More rarely, an experienced mage and an untrained one. When two established mages try to establish one, there's usually a ... tug-of-war, sort of, between them to determine who's the Ministra and who's the Magister. It can get a bit painful, for both of them."

"Ah, that's not something to worry about, Cherry-sis!" said Chamo. As the circle he'd created was designed for multiple uses, he didn't have to supervise these pactios, and was able to take a step back and converse with his Bro's new partners.

"Ah ... and why not?" Sakura asked the ermine. She was still not sure whether she believed that this creature was really a fairy from Wales, rather than some mage from more innocent times when they really had punished rebels by turning them into funny creatures, and treated him accordingly.

"Bro's way more powerful than you are, the contest would be over like that!" Impossibly, he made a finger snapping noise.

"Indeed," Sakura said icily. "Since, of course, only raw power matters, and not experience in using it."

"Yep, pretty much."

She was about to step on him when Misora let out a cry. "Seriously?" she said, examining her abruptly miniskirted nun outfit, which now included a pair of rather snazzy looking running shoes.

"I think the weasel might have a point, here," said Mio, as Risa went eagerly forward to take her turn.

"Perhaps," Sakura said shortly.

Or perhaps not, because as it turned out, neither Risa nor Mio manifested any artifacts, with their respective cards just displaying themselves in the outfits that they were presently wearing.

"So, if I do that audio thing, I'm just going to look like this?" Mio said dubiously as she examined her card. "No matter what I was wearing before that?"

"Yes, that's how it works," Negi confirmed. "There are some tools that I can use to change the image on the card to something else, if you'd rather, but it will still change your appearance to whatever the image on the card shows."

"Meh," she said, examining everyone else's rather cute costumes, particularly Makie's leotard. "I think I might take you up on that. My maid outfit from work might help me fit in better."

"Great idea," growled Risa, who was holding onto Chamo much like Yuna had, sometime before. "Now I want an explanation as to why it was just us two who didn't get a cool toy!"

"It's just the way the cookie crumbles, Slutty-Sis," Chamo told her sadly. "I mean, I could take about a week and figure out how the twenty-four different variables that influence how a Pactio works out for a person are active in you, but you'd still be in the same position you were at the start."

"Well, I guess that does make wait a frickin' minute why am I Slutty-Sis out of everybody here?!" she demanded, tightening her grip.

"Urk," explained Chamo.

"Chamo-kun, start learning people's names already!" Negi told him. "Good grief!"

Eventually, Risa was persuaded not to murder Chamo, and the company parted ways with a promise to meet again tomorrow, in Mikado's house, for some serious practice in using their new talents. ("And an orgy," chorused Risa and Mio, not wanting to be left out.) Haruna, who'd already started experimenting with her new sketchpad, was the last to get going ... and not before offering a jaunty wave in the direction of the rooftop of the abandoned high school.

"... why did you do that?" asked Yue, who was waiting for her.

"No reason in particular," Haruna answered airily as she walked past where Yue was standing.

"Haruna, you never do anything for 'no reason in particular'," Yue said, getting irritated and hurrying to catch up. "What's going on?"

"Oh, Yue, Yue, Yue. When did you get so paranoid?"

"Exploring Library Island. With you."

"Good point," Haruna allowed. "Let's just say that I have a goal, which I believe will increase the happiness of everyone that I care about, and also some people I don't, and that I've taken some steps to achieve that goal. I don't get in the way of your goals, why should you get in the way of mine?"

"You don't even know what my goals -" Yue started to protest.

"You want to explore the new vistas of the world of magic that have opened up for you, satisfy your recently discovered sexual urges, and enjoy your slightly codependent relationship with Nodoka."

Yue closed her mouth and glared. Haruna, as always, answered that glare with a blissful smile.

---

Day Seven - Shanghai

So now I have a group of mercenaries HO-HO-HO, thought Nunnally as she walked back towards the main hall. What do I do with them, though?

Everything that had happened so far had been a freakish series of coincidental events that had been completely out of her control. Coming back from her latest etiquette consultation, Rivalz had chosen the route that put them both on the same highway being used by Kallen and her comrade, who'd stolen what they thought was a chemical weapon and was actually a strange, green-haired woman. Then the wild ride, then the flight through Huangpu, then death and madness and then, at the end, Geass. (And then more death, her conscience reminded her.)

With that strange power, she'd managed to take more charge of things that happened around her. But she had to admit, to herself if no one else, that she was largely just lashing out, taking advantage of the fact that she knew how Clovis made war from having watched him and her other brothers playing at the subject. When a factor that she hadn't anticipated, that damned new Frame, had arrived, she'd been back to relying on luck to survive, up until -

"It can't be," said Nina's voice from the hall. When she finally stepped through the doors and into it, she found the rest of the Student Council gathered around the big screen TV that took up one of its walls.

"Damn," said Rivalz, shaking his head. "This is gonna be ugly."

"What's happened?" she asked.

Milly turned to look back at her, that normally carefree face suddenly in shadow. "Nunnally ... the viceroy's dead."

"What?" she said, feigning disbelief as she came over to join them.

"It's true," said Alice, looking horrified. "He was apparently wounded in the terrorist attack two days ago, and he finally succumbed to his injuries this morning."

"At least they got the man who did it," said Nina, unsteadily.

What? Nunnally thought. "What?" Nunnally said.

"This is him, now," said Rivalz, pointing at the TV.

There, a man in chains, surrounded by guards, was being led through a crowd of furious faces. The display was helpfully identifying him as Ren Ku, a probationary Brittanian who'd been serving in the Royal Guard. He seemed more baffled than anything else, though it was a silent, almost stoic befuddlement.

No, thought Nunnally, almost numbly. They shot you. You're supposed to already be dead.

"E-excuse, please," said Miss Ku, pulling Lelouch's wheelchair away from the TV. "He should not watch this, this ..." She trailed off and just rolled him away.

"Ohhhh," said Rivalz, looking back at the retreating maid. To give him credit, he spoke quietly when next he spoke. "Ku ... do you think she's related to -"

"Yes," Nunnally interrupted. "That's her nephew. I've met him."

"Ohhhh."

How many times did you save my life? she thought. And I've doomed you.

---

The party to celebrate Kallen joining the Student Union broke up pretty quickly after the guest of honor returned from the washroom. Picking up on the mood, she announced that she was rather fatigued and should probably be heading back to the dormitory. Every one else left rather quickly, with Milly the last to depart, only leaving after she gave Nunnally a rather searching look. But then they were all gone, and Nunnally turned off the television and went back to the rooms she shared with Lelouch.

Miss Ku was waiting at the door. "He rest," she said, in her usual broken English. When next she spoke, it was in officially prohibited Cantonese. "Miss Nunnally, forgive me this impertinence, but he is as my son. If you went to them, and revealed yourself to be their lost princess, and asked for his life, would they spare him?"

"No," Nunnally answered quietly, in the same language, one of seven that she spoke. "What would happen, then, is that Lelouch and I, and anyone who has helped us, would disappear, and never be seen again. They might announce, much later, that the bodies of the lost prince and princess had been found and were being returned to the Homelands. But that would come long after Ren was dead."

"Forgive -"

"Yes, I forgive you," she said in English. "I am sorry that Nunnally Lamperouge, the Ashford Academy student, cannot save him. I am sorry that Nunnally vi Brittania, the Princess of the Empire, cannot save him. In order to save him, then, I must become someone else. I must become something else."

"Miss Nunnally?" Ku asked, bewildered.

She shook her head. "Never mind. Go home, your family needs you more than I do right now. Go home, and forget we ever had this conversation."

Miss Ku blinked, but nodded in obedience. Her eyes also glowed red, though from previous experience, Nunnally knew that this was something only she could see, a way of telling her who was under her Geas. The exact order of her words would be obeyed; Miss Ku would forget what they'd said as soon as she was home. She would not know the promise that she'd been given.

But Nunnally knew, even if she was still uncertain how she was going to bring it about.

One step at a time. For now, she needed to check on Lulu. She opened the door to his room and went in to find the lights out and him sitting up in bed, staring at the nearest window.

Slowly he turned to look at her. "Nunnally?" he asked. "How long since the last time?"

Her heart skipped a beat. "A bit more than a week," she told him, even though it had been closer to two. The times between his lucid episodes had been growing for almost as long as he'd been having them.

He nodded, and if he suspected that she was minimizing it, didn't address the subject. "It was something sad, this time. I remember being very, very sad, and then - I was back. What happened?" he asked.

"Clovis is dead," she told him.

"Old news, what of it."

"Lulu," she nearly shouted.

The faintest hint of a smile played on his lips. "I'm sorry," he said. "But all those people back there, they all sent a seven year old girl into exile and expected her to look after a helpless cripple. They can all die as far as I care."

"You're not a cripple, and you're not helpless," Nunnally said, still angry at him. "You're just hurt, and you're just healing in your own time, and your own way."

"All right. But that wasn't it, so what could have happened to -"

"They're saying Ren did it," she explained.

"Oh no," her brother said, violet eyes slamming shut. For a terrible moment she found herself thinking he'd slumped back into his typical stupor, but then his eyes opened again and he looked at her in obvious sorrow. "He didn't, though. The Ren we know would never do something like that."

"No," she agreed. "He didn't do it." Even if he's not the Ren we know anymore. Even if he was trying to live as one of them. He didn't do it. I did. "I want to help him," she told Lelouch.'

"Very noble, but you're just one person, Nunnally," he reminded her.

"I also know some other people who can help me."

"Unless you've somehow met some leftover American superheroes, I really doubt it."

She ignored that. "But I still need to think of a plan, something that can get us all into the right positions in order to do what needs doing."

"Slow down," Lelouch advised her. "How did you meet these people?"

"There was this, this thing where they thought they were stealing poison gas, and -" she broke off.

"Poison gas?" he repeated, sounding rather alarmed.

"Poison gas," Nunnally repeated.

"I'm not sure I approve of you making friends with people who steal weapons of mass destruction," he said.

"That's it. That's the key. As far as the army knows, it was poison gas, and it still hasn't been recovered. We still have it. That's our in. That's how it works."

"Nunnally, you're making me very, very frightened. What happened to my ... to my innocent ... toooooouhhhhhh ..." He trailed off as his eyes rolled up into his skull and his eyelids slammed back down again.

"Lulu?" she asked.

He looked at her, but only groaned.

Her face fell. Her brother's mind had once again dissolved into its components, and who could say how long it would be until he spoke to her again? "It's okay, Lulu," she told him. "Lie down, now." She pressed him back into his bed, kissing his forehead. She sang a bit, a lullaby from the Homelands that their mother had supposedly sung to both of them, until she was sure that Lelouch was asleep.

"Innocent, huh?" she murmured. Remembering Clovis pulling out his knife and pulling down his pants. Remembered men smiling as their pistols came up to their heads. Remembering ...

---

It had been slightly after the start of the current school year, months ago. (Like any sensible school, Ashford Academy began its year in the autumn and ended at the start of summer.) More specifically, it had been after the first time Rivalz had driven her to and then from one of her appointments. As thanks, she'd invited him up to her salon for a cup of tea, and he'd been pleased to accept. They'd been in the building alone together, as Miss Ku had taken Lelouch to a doctor's appointment.

So the only one to hear had been Rivalz, when Nunnally had asked him, "Rivalz, do you like me?"

"That's sort of a crazy question," he answered, looking at the girl sitting beside him on the couch. "I wouldn't sit through those boring lectures about court etiquette that you give those nouveau riche jerks if I didn't like you."

"Well, you did that because Milly strongarmed you into it, so you'll understand if I'm a bit insecure," she said. "Do you like me?"

"Yes, Nunnally, I like you a lot," he said. And had been about to ruin everything by saying something along the lines of 'you're the sort of little sister I wish I had'.

"Then why haven't you ever made a pass at me?"

"Ahhhh," he said, eyes wide.

"I mean you flirt with all sorts of girls, so I just don't understand what sets me off limits," Nunnally said.

"Well, uh, you're, I mean, you're -"

"Please don't say some variation of 'you're just a child', Rivalz. It will not go well for you. I'm well over legal age." Which was thirteen in the Empire.

"I wasn't going to say that," he protested - truthfully, even. "I just figured you weren't interested."

"Well, clearly I am. What will you do about this discovery?" she asked archly.

Rivalz set down his cup on its plate on the coffee table in front of them, took a deep breath, and leaned over to demonstrate what he would do about it. He was still engaged in such demonstrations, involving the careful manipulation of a pair of tongues, when Milly opened the door to the salon and walked in, saying, "Hey, Nunnally, I need to talk to you about OH MY GOD what is this!"

And then Rivalz was pushed back from Nunnally as the little girl cried out, "Oh, Milly, thank god you're here! He wouldn't stop, no matter how much I said no!"

"What," said Rivalz.

Nunnally got up and ran over to Milly, who caught her in an embrace. "Sweet summer child!" Milly cried. "What ever did the awful man do to you?"

"What," said Rivalz.

"He did this," Nunally declared breathily, and kissed Milly deeply ... who kissed her back with equal enthusiasm.

"... okay, what?" demanded Rivalz, pulled out of his dazed state.

They stopped kissing long enough to look at Rivalz with diabolical glee writ plainly on their faces. "Gotcha," they declared in chorus.

"Oh for God's sake!" he snapped. "How long has this been going on?"

"Ah, let me tell you, dear boy, of the beginning of our magnificent coupling," said Milly.

(Yes, it's a flashback in a flashback, and you gotta deal with it.)

"Hey, you wanna fool around?" asked Milly to Nunnally as they lounged about in damp swimsuits.

"Sure!" said Nunnally.

The swimsuits smacked wetly against the floor, prefiguring the wet smacking noises that began to come from the two girl's bodies as they rubbed against each other.

"So romantic," Milly sighed in reflection.

"The thing is, though," said Nunnally, smiling sweetly at Rivalz, "that Milly thinks that I should learn about sex with men, too."

"Particularly since Nunna has her heart set on a certain man," Milly elaborated. "A special man."

"Oh no," said Nunnally, smile gone.

"A dearest man."

"Milly, I told you that in confidence."

"Who means to share his heart with her alone."

"Awww," said Nunnally, covering up her head. "No morrrre!"

"I have no idea what the hell is going on here," Rivalz admitted, wide-eyed.

"Tell you some other time," Milly said, showing mercy on poor suffering Nunnally. "Basically, here's the deal, my dear. I'm aware that you have a bit of a crush on me, and I'm not so heartless as to deny you a bit of satisfaction. And what's mine is Nunnally's, so we can share you a bit. As long as you accept that, for one, Nunnally's maidenhead is off-limits, and, for two, this is not going to lead to anything permanent. Can you accept these terms, Rivalz?"

He stared at the two extraordinarily beautiful women standing before him. "Damn my easily led nature!" he finally said. "Yes!"

"Oh goody," they chorused, and jumped him, pulling his pants off so that Milly could begin to demonstrate her talent for fellatio to Nunnally, who joined in on the practice and demonstrated her own talent for quickly mastering a subject, much to Rivalz's ecstasy.

Very shortly, Milly was rocking back and forth atop Rivalz's hips, with Nunnally seated atop the couch's board, hips spread behind their boyfriend's head as she bent forward to kiss her girlfriend's face and suckle at her huge breasts. Then Nunnally was lying on her back with Milly's face between her legs as Rivalz' plowed her from behind. They even tested the limits of his willingness to endure the conditions of their deal by having him rub his erection against their clitorises, essentially turning themselves into an onahole for him while they kissed frantically before him.

Quite a while later, as they were dozing on the salon floor, semen decorating Nunnally's face and Milly's spread hips, Rivalz jerked awake. "We didn't use protection," he gasped.

Milly let out an annoyed sigh. "Rivalz, I've been having sex at least once a day, every day for the last five years. If it was going to happen, it would have happened by now. Go back to sleep, you're disturbing Nunna."

He did so, conscious that an innocence had ended that day. His. To her credit, Nunnally realized it too, and felt a little bad about that ...

---

It would be nice to dwell on that, or the other encounters she'd had with Rivalz, Milly, or both over the last few months. It would be even nicer, Nunnally thought, to call Milly (not so much Rivalz) over and claim to be in need of comforting. That last look the President had given her before she left had clearly indicated that she expected to get such a call. But that would be just indulging herself, when she needed to start working on something that could do what she'd promised to do.

And do more than that, she decided. Before the Geas, she'd resigned herself to the idea that even if she somehow learned who was responsible for her mother's death and Lelouch's crippling, it wouldn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Whoever had pulled the triggers, whoever had ordered them to be pulled ... the origins of the crime lay with her father, who'd created the situation that made the crime inevitable. The system that made it inevitable.

The nation that made it inevitable. The Holy Brittanic Empire itself was her enemy.

She smiled a bit as she walked over to look out through the window. "What say you? 'Tis useless? Aye, I know/But who fights ever hoping for success?/I fought for lost cause, and for fruitless quest!" she quoted one of her favorite plays.

The clock was ticking down the seconds until Ren became the victim of judicially sanctioned murder. There was work to be done. But Lelouch, all unwitting, had given her both the keys to her plan.

After all, how many American superheroes had been nothing more than men - and women - with unusual powers, in masks?

---

Day Eight - Shanghai

"Are you sure this isn't a trap?" asked Tamaki as he and Kallen followed Ohgi through the junkyard that now comprised most of Xuhui district. It was just after midnight, and well past curfew, but there was no point in trying to keep his voice down. Nobody cared what happened here.

"Yes, Tamaki, I am completely and one hundred certain that it is not a trap," Ohgi answered without looking back.

Tamaki gaped. "How?" he asked after a moment.

"Magic," Ohgi answered. "I am secretly a wizard. That is why Naoto recruited his old teacher to join a private military corporation." Now he turned and looked at his subordinate, rather irritably. "Of course I'm not sure that it's a trap! But the voice on the other end of the call I got was definitely the voice on the radio from that time in Huangpu. Was that not the case for you?"

"Well, it sounded like him, yeah, but it's just a voice on the phone!" Tamaki pointed out. "It could be anybody!"

"Was it the same voice for you, Kallen?" Ohgi asked.

"It was," Kallen lied.

It hadn't been. It had been Nunnally's normal speaking voice, telling her that she was going to be calling two other members of the squad and arranging a meeting, and that she should act like she'd gotten a phone call from the same mysterious voice. It bothered her just a bit, deceiving Ohgi and ... well, deceiving Ohgi like this, but it was in his own interests in the long run. So she kept telling herself, anyway.

"And how did this crazy bastard get our numbers, anyway?" Tamaki demanded.

Ohgi let out a long sigh. "Tamaki, he knows our names from listening to our radio chatter during the battle. All cell phones in Area 11, including ours, are registered, and if you know the name of the person who owns the phone, you can find out their number. Which, along with the fact that he let us pick the location for this meeting, is a good argument that he's not working with the Brittanians right now, because none of us are in jail!"

"That you have the capacity to realize this is a key example of why I believe we can work together," came a voice from up ahead.

They turned their flashlights in that direction, illuminating a figure seated on some sort of throne, dressed in jet black armor and a matching helm that completely hid the figure's face, as well as a cloak presently wrapped around them, in a way that suggested their arms were folded against their chest.

"I am ... Zero," the figure declared in Japanese.

"... do you perhaps mean Zorro?" said Ohgi in English after a moment.

"No," said the figure, now speaking in English. "I do not. Ahem. Ohgi Kaname. You are in command of a group of highly trained soldiers who are looking for opportunities to hinder and damage the Britannian rulers of this region. I am aware of a number of such opportunities, one of which is very close at hand. It would seem that we are united by a common interest."

"I'm listening. What's this incipient opportunity?" Ohgi asked.

"Later today, a man named Ku Ren will be tried and executed for the murder of Clovis. Not only is he not guilty of this crime, but his rescue would embolden other resistance against the occupying forces. That is what I would have you do."

"Bossss," Tamaki hissed.

Ohgi held up a hand to quiet his subordinate. "That would indeed be a meritorious act, but I'm not convinced that it will have the effect you suggest. I believe that this Ren is viewed as a traitor by many of his fellow Chinese. It might be better for our cause, strictly speaking, to wait until he's been executed and circulate the proof of his innocence - which I assume you have - as well as insinuations that he had always been secretly loyal to China."

"I do indeed have such proof, but it is not in the form which can be easily circulated," 'Zero' replied. "And would not a live convert be better than an exploited martyr? Are you truly so callous, Ohgi Kaname?"

Ohgi wasn't exactly sure how he found himself in a staring match with someone who had no visible eyes, but it wasn't quite the strangest thing he'd ever done. It was, however, one of the briefer staredowns he'd ever engaged in, and he looked away first. "No," he admitted. "But I'm not willing to risk all of my people on this, either."

"Two," said Zero.

"Two what?"

"Two of your people. Kozuki and yourself should suffice. And I shall be facing all the same risks as both of you. Only those willing to be fired upon should take up the gun."

"That's ... acceptable," Ohgi said at last. "What are the details of this mission?"

"I will contact with the details of your part in it within hours," Zero stated. "For now, I will discuss the details of her part in it with Kozuki. Operational security."

"Are you okay with this?" Ohgi quietly asked Kallen, who quickly nodded.

"I'm not," said Tamaki angrily, and not at all quietly.

"You don't have to be, isn't that wonderful," Ohgi told him, and began to steer them both out of the area. "I'll be waiting for your call ... Zero," he directed towards his mysterious new ally.

Kallen waited until she was absolutely sure that her two comrades were out of earshot before she approached Zero, who hadn't stirred from the throne. "Is that really you underneath all that?" she asked.

"Yes," Nunnally answered, very quietly. "I'm glad nothing required me to stand up, because I'm just dangling my toes against the soles of these boots. I'm going to get stilts installed, and then maybe some hand extensions -"

"Can you really fight in those?" Kallen asked.

The helm tilted slightly. "If it comes to the point where I'm fighting hand to hand battles, we've already lost."

---

Day Three - Japan

Another day, another series of classes, another quicky with Makie in an unused classroom. After class, he stopped in at the SOS Brigade just long enough to see that Tokiha had privately submitted her application to leave the club to Haruhi, the previous day.

"Of course I refused," Haruhi informed him. "The only way anyone leaves the Brigade is in a body bag, and maybe not even then, in these crazy days. She is therefore absent without leave, and I do hope that you're going to do something about this, sensei."

He indicated that he was (even though he wasn't entirely sure what he ought to do, under the circumstances) and took the fact that Haruhi was saying things like that to be evidence that she was starting to accept the world and moving past her manias.

'He wasn't sure what he ought to do', he silently repeated as he walked away from the meeting. That was facile of him. What he ought to do was report Tokiha's condition to his superiors and let them decide what should be done. It was a matter that affected the whole school, possibly even the whole city. And just like Evangeline had told him, then, he shouldn't act as though it was all about him.

But he'd had plenty of time to do that already, and the fact that he was still hesitating meant that he didn't really want to do it, whatever he ought to do. Negi had the distinct feeling that he'd made a serious mistake by acting as though Tokiha was possessed and in need of exorcism. He had set the tone for the relationship between her and the administration, and whoever was sent after her next would have to live with that ... and that made it his mess to clean up.

One thing at a time, though. Right now, he had a different Valkyrie to deal with.

He rapped on the door of the Vice President's office.

"Enter," she said, and he did, finding her at her desk, taking in the aroma of a pleasant smelling cup of tea. A green tea, he thought, and wondered what brand she favored.

"Ah. Negi-kun," said Shizuru, setting down the cup. "I thought I should expect a visit from you soon." Nothing about her voice or manner indicated what she'd thought about that expectation.

"Vice President Fujino," he greeted her in return.

"Not 'Shizuru'?" she asked, just a bit archly.

He coughed. "I expected you would prefer a bit of formality in our public relations."

"I suppose that I would, actually," she admitted. "But we're not in public, and I think that if we were, I would have to call you Negi-sensei. So. Negi-kun and Shizuru, then?"

"Very well. As I'm sure you've guessed, Shizuru, I've come to continue the discussion we ... began ... a few nights ago. Hopefully, we won't be interrupted this time."

"I certainly hope not, as there are in fact other occupied offices on this floor," she said mildly. "And the walls are not that thick."

He coughed uncomfortably. "Yes, well. I suppose I should move on to the main question - are you interested in being part of my collective?"

Shizuru regarded him in silence for a moment. "I would like to ask a question of you, before I give you my answer to that," she said at length. "Possibly a few questions."

"You can ask me anything, and I will certainly try to answer," he promised.

She nodded in appreciation. "Very well. My first question is, do you believe that you can change someone's sexual orientation?"

"Of course not," Negi answered immediately. "I don't believe anything can do that, except possibly some very dubious magic, which I would never seek to learn or employ. And even then, it would only be a temporary effect."

"That's surprisingly humble of you, Negi-kun," she said.

Again, he wasn't entirely sure whether that was praise or criticism. "I hope I have not given you the impression that I'm embarked on my present course out of vainglory," he said, deciding to treat it as the latter.

"No, I wouldn't associate that with you at all," Shizuru admitted. "It's just that, since last we met, I have become more intimate with the person whose affections I most desired. And I must confess that our times together have been ... lacking, in comparison with our time together."

"Ohhh," said Negi, nodding slowly. "You might want to consider that it's just the novelty of our relationship that is causing this confusion."

"That doesn't seem likely," she said. "I've never found novelty all that appealing."

"Then I admit that I have no answer for you," he said.

"Hm. I appreciate your honesty. This is something I will have to work out for myself -"

"- and with your partner, whoever she might be," Negi interjected.

She nodded to concede the point. "My next question would be whether or not you can tell whether I am a ... potential member of your collective, already?"

He took a minute to work out what she was asking. "Ah. No, I personally cannot. However, Ryoko - Mikado-sensei has technology that would be able to do so, even at this very early stage."

"Good, good. That leads to my next, possibly my last question. If I should choose not to be part of your collective, and not to be a potential member of your collective, either, and ask for Mikado-sensei's help in the matter, what will you do?"

He looked away. "I would respect your decision, even though it horrifies me," he answered. "I really hope this is just a test of my character."

"Then perhaps it is," Shizuru said. "I would have one condition for joining your collective. Natsuki and I ... come as a pair," she said rapidly.

"All right," Negi said, recovering instantly.

"Just like that?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "You don't even know her."

"I'm sure that no one you choose to love would be a person I would not respect and admire, Shizuru," he told her.

That got her to blush ... quite a bit, actually. "I see," she said, managing to keep her voice steady. "Well, then, I -"

At that moment, the door to the office was flung open. It was Suzushiro Haruka, wearing an ordinary high school uniform and a rather frantic expression. "Your uniform," she snapped. "Take it off!"

Shizuru stared at her. "Hello to you, too."

"No time for that - take the damn suit o-" And it was then that Haruka noticed the ten year old boy standing before Shizuru's desk and regarding Haruka with an expression of confused delight. "Oh, uh, ah - wait, what are you doing here?" she demanded.

"We were having a discussion about -" Negi started to explain.

"Never mind!" she interrupted. "I don't even know why I asked! Fujino - it's been four days since they took my goku away and I haven't had any -" She broke off and nodded twice.

Shizuru frowned. She had been managing to cope with her urges with Natsuki's enthusiastic help. "It hasn't happened even once?" she asked.

"No, not at all! It's the goku! That's the only thing that can explain it - as far as I know, we're the only two HiME who've worn one! Somehow, the special fivers that the uniforms are made out of interex with whatever makes us into HiME in a way that makes us go into feat."

Turning to look at Negi, Shizuru asked, "Is this possible?"

He shook his head quickly. "I know almost nothing about the HiME, and even less than that about these strange uniforms. I can't say what is or isn't possible. I would welcome the opportunity to study one of the goku, though ... and I find it completely plausible."

"Wait," said Haruka, looking disturbed. "Why aren't you reacting to the idea of us going into feat?"

"Ah ... would you believe I'm not sure what you mean by that?" Negi asked hopefully.

"No," Haruka snapped. "What do you know, why do you know it and -" Abruptly, her eyes turned into large black circles. "No," she gasped, turning to stare at Shizuru. "You didn't. I know that you're a degenerate, but I thought you had some limits!"

She realized what was being suggested, and, to her credit, actually considered the worth of honesty and forthrightness. Years of student politics put paid to all such notions, however, and she finally exclaimed, "No, of course I didn't. When we went into heat that night, I managed to slake my lust with the help of one of his female colleagues. How did you manage?"

"Well, Mina-sama, I mean, the Princess, I mean -" Haruka actually hemmed and hawed for a few moments, before concluding, "It's complicated, all right?!"

"Well, then, let us agree never to speak of it again," Shizuru proposed.

"Fine!" Haruka agreed. "Now take off your damned clothes!"

Negi saw Shizuru open her mouth, then close it tightly, as if trying desperately to hold back certain words which would forever destroy her cool, calm image. "Ahem," she said at last. "You'll understand why I'm forebearing from doing so, given who else is in the room with us?"

"He can leave," Haruka said. She waved at Negi. "Leave," she told him in what she probably thought was a friendly manner.

"All right, I'll be on my way -" Negi started to say.

"Stay," said Shizuru in what was not even a remotely friendly manner.

"Or I could stay," Negi concluded.

"I am not finished with the conversation he and I were having," she told Haruka. "Furthermore, I do not have a more conventional uniform here with me. And even if I did, has it occurred to you, Suzushiro, that if I were to stop wearing a goku, I would be announcing to Kiryuuin that I'm no longer with her? And what category that would put me into, in her Manichean view of the world?"

"Oh," Haruka said, brought up short.

"I do appreciate you taking the time to bring this to my attention," Shizuru added, more to massage Haruka's ego than for genuine gratitude. "Have they decided who is replacing you as head of the Student Executive?"

"Yukino, of course," Haruka answered, frowning at her rival's failure to perceive the obvious. "She took delivery of the goku yesterday."

Shizuru hmphed. "I thought she might be too associated with you for Kiryuuin's liking. All right, do we bring her in on this thing of ours?"

"'This thing of ours'?" Negi asked, and received dual glares from the two high school seniors.

"This, you don't need to know about yet," said Shizuru, flatly.

"No, you don't," agreed Haruka. "And yes, you should. They're watching my interhacktions with her."

"All right, then. I'll look into that, and this other matter, as well. Good day, Suzushiro."

Haruka looked like she had more that she wanted to say, but nodded and headed out of the office, closing the door behind her. Once she was gone, Shizuru bent down over and rested her head on her desk.

"Don't you feel a little bad, lying to your friend like that?" Negi asked, hesitantly.

"She's not my friend," Shizuru answered without looking up. "At best, she is an ally, and not much of one, under the circumstances. Please check to see if she is gone."

Bewildered, Negi headed over to the door, and peeked out to confirm that Haruka was nowhere to be seen. Closing the door again, he turned and reported the same to her.

"Thank you," the Vice President said heavily. Then stood up on top of her desk and began pulling at her uniform. "Get off of me, get off of me, get off of meee!" she faintly shrieked.

---

In the office of the Director of the Student Executive, a young man with an unbuttoned shirt and a loose pair of pants slowly crawled up onto the much larger desk to be found there. "Wow," he gasped. "I mean, they say it's always the quiet ones, but still -"

And then he was dragged down behind the desk again, as Kikukawa Yukino glared death into his eyes. "You will never speak of this to anyone," she said. "If you do, your body may be eventually be found, but it will never be identified. Do you understand?"

---

Generally, when Asakura wanted to do some heavy thinking, she retreated to the nearest bathroom. It was, in her view, the best way to get the privacy that was all too rare here at Mahora. She was aware that she tended to talk to herself out loud while she was in the bathroom, leading to her being overheard, but took some comfort in the fact that no one ever seemed to pay her occasional monologues much attention. Which was nice.

Right at the moment, though, she was not doing that. She had retreated, instead, to her other comfort zone, in her desk at the head of the classroom where sat all day, beside an empty spot that was, she now suspected, not actually empty. That should be creepy. She should probably contact an exorcist. (Didn't Tatsumiya have some sort of connection to that shrine in the hills?) But she didn't feel that way at all, and her mind was elsewhere, anyway.

She'd tried to approach Haruna to ask the artist why she'd arranged for her to see all that. But Haruna had kept giving her the slip. Her! The Mahora Papparazzi! She'd even followed the other girl into the bathroom and stood outside the stall she was using, talking at her until she got fed up with the silence and, as anyone would do, climbing the stall's wall to discover that she had somehow disappeared without a trace. Which, given that Haruna had recently acquired supernatural powers, was perhaps not that surprising in hindsight.

It had been frustrating enough that she actually considered going up to Nodoka or Makie or one of the other more innocent members of Negi's ... coven, or whatever it was, and leading with a question like, "I hear you're having sex with Negi-sensei." And, when they frantically denied that, bringing the conversation around to what they were actually up to. But that was a tactic for silly stuff, not for affairs of world-shaking importance.

Asakura leaned back in her seat, tilting her head until she gazed up at the ceiling. World-shaking importance. Thinking of it like that put some things in perspective. It had been admitted, by a few members of the government, that they'd been aware of the existence of the vampires and other liminal beings long before they were revealed to the public. It stood to reason then, that there were people in the government who were completely aware of the existence of magic and magicians.

"And who forms the government of Academy City?" she asked herself aloud. "Not the Joint Student Council, that changes from year to year. Who forms the deep state? The faculty. And who hired Negi-kun? Who would have to have been aware of what he was, of what he could do? Same answer."

They were completely aware of the existence of magic ... and had to be conspiring to keep it a secret. That was a little concerning.

Two days ago, she'd been accused of getting scared off of serious stories after being told to back off by that creep from Honnoji. And yet here she was, contemplating telling an even more serious story, knowing as she did that she'd be attracting very unwelcome attention from the faculty and maybe even the government. That should show everybody that she wasn't scared. One itsy-bitsy problem, though.

"I am scared!" Asakura admitted, bending forward over her desk and covering her head with her hands.

Finding things out was fun. Finding things out and telling other people about them was even more fun. Finding things out and telling other people about them and then having still other people show up and take you away, never to be seen nor heard from again? That was not really a very fun thought, even if it would make her a martyr to truth.

At least half of the fear was excitement, though. How much of the excitement was an overreaction to the idea of being scared was something she chose not to examine at the moment.

"What do I do, and why do I do it?" she asked herself. If only there was someone she could talk to about this! Whether out of a desire to maintain a level of objectivity about her discoveries, or simply because she had always been a little distant from others, Asakura had never had any very close friends, only superficial acquaintances and the occasional gossip buddy. Her best gossip buddy was part of the story, now, and -

She suddenly tensed up as it came to her that she might have someone to talk to after all.

"Um," she said aloud. "Oh, I don't even know where to start with this. Aisaka? Aisaka Sayo? Are you here?"

She paused, and waited for something to happen. A desk shifting, a book falling, something. But as far as her senses could tell her, there was absolutely nothing happening.

She swallowed. "Right. I don't even know if you're here, do I? But where do ghosts go when they're not haunting something? The mall, maybe? This is crazy. I'm not even sure what I'd say to you if you were here. I mean, we've been sitting together for more than two years, and I've never even tried to talk to you. You probably think I'm kind of a jerk.

"Well, you'd be right. But ... but if you've really been here since 1940, and nobody's ever tried to talk to you, then I bet you're probably lonely. So maybe you'd be willing to listen to the ramblings of even a jerk like me. I guess it's probably too much to ask you to give me some sort of sign, though, and ..."

She trailed off as she turned to look at the blackboard at the head of the room, where something was happening. Something was slowly drawing a jagged curve there, angling downward then up again. Looking closely, Asakura could see that there was a collection of chalk dust pressed against the board, as though held by an invisible finger. Eventually, the big curve was done, and two smaller ones gradually materialized above it, curving in the opposite direction.

Asakura stared. "That's ... that's a smiley face, isn't it? It looks more like a scary face, but the smiley was what you wanted to convey."

For just a moment, she found herself feeling a warmth around herself, as though she was being embraced by someone. It went away almost immediately.

"Okay, then," Asakura said. "Okay."

That made her course clear. She was going to confront Negi-sensei, now. Not for the sake of some story, but for the sake of this sad, lonely girl who'd reached out to her under impossible circumstances. A magician had to have some way of dealing with ghosts, right? It just stood to reason!

Standing outside the school building in the early evening, a dark-haired western woman stared up at the window of Class 3A.

This, she thought, will be trouble.

---

Day Eight - Shanghai

"So are you even a little bit sure about any of this?" Inoue Naomi asked her commander as he prepared to sortie.

Making sure that no one else was in hearing range, Ohgi let out a sigh before answering. "No. Not even remotely. And this is definitely not what Naoto would have done. But if this Zero maniac can actually pull it off - we have a narrow window of opportunity to do damage to the Brittanians before the replacement viceroy arrives," he said, changing direction abruptly.

"And you think this could have them starting out on their back foot," she guessed.

Ohgi nodded. "And given who it's likely to be, we're going to need every advantage we can get. I wish Zero hadn't asked Kallen to be part of this, but ... if I don't make it back, take command. Why didn't Naoto put you in command instead of me in the first place?" he asked.

"Because he knew that the rest of the unit wouldn't accept a female commander, being the chauvinistic idiots that they are. He was smart that way."

"Ahem. Oh. Well, pick whichever one of them you want to be your kagemusha, then. But as long as we're being honest, what is your name, anyway?" he asked.

She opened her mouth, perhaps to deny that implied accusation, but then shrugged. "Shirika Stengovitch," she answered.

"Stengovitch?" Ohgi asked, wide-eyed.

"My husband was Latverian. 'Is' Latverian, I suppose, assuming the jerk is still alive. Now, unless you want to start telling me about your mysterious past, I suggest you get going."

---

Kallen had hated Prince Clovis, as both a symbol of Brittanic arrogance and cruelty and as a person who was apparently involved in a great deal of dodgy business besides that. She had recently discovered another reason to hate the now deceased prince - the fact that his chauffeurs had all been women who wore a specific set of livery (which, oddly, included a domino mask.) This meant that, while Ohgi was waiting in a nice secure train car underneath the bridge where they were going to have this little confrontation, Kallen was in the entirely unarmored driver's seat of a badly damaged car, driving towards a quartet of Knightmare Frames.

Why did she trust Nunnally again? It was getting a little hard to remember why she'd decided to do that.

"Stop in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1," came Zero's voice from behind her, and she promptly brought the slow-moving car to a halt perhaps ten meters or less from the Brittanic vehicles. She could dimly make out Ku Ren, wrapped up in a straitjacket and chains, on one of the transports.

"Get out of that vehicle, you desecrators of the Prince's legacy," came an augmented voice from the foremost Frame.

Behind Kallen, the paper mache facade emblazoned with Clovis' coat of arms abruptly caught fire and burned away, revealing Zero in all their glory. She could hear the confused gasps from the crowd at the sight of the masked figure.

"I am ... Zero!"

"... Zorro?" said the voice from ahead.

"No, Zero!"

"Well, regardless, I think we've given you enough time this evening. Drop," said the voice. And with a terribly loud impact, four more Knightmare Frames dropped from helicopter carriers which had been hovering over the parade route, surrounding the car. Interestingly, the sound of their impact was enough to send Zero's cape billowing around them - in a way that seemed planned. Equally planned was the way Zero raised one arm and made a sweeping gesture, which somehow triggered an explosive mechanism that sent the upper rear compartment of the car apart, to reveal a gas canister within.

"You ... bastard," said the voice, which by now Kallen had guessed must belong to Jeremiah Gottwald, who'd been under the impression that he was the master of this evening's ceremonies until now.

"I suggest you lower that pistol," said Zero. "You know what will happen if you shoot me."

"Very well. I suppose that you have some demands?"

"Indeed. I will exchange this little plaything of yours in exchange for Ku Ren," Zero answered.

"You are completely insane!" Gottwald snapped. "To think that we would surrender the Prince's murderer -"

"Ku Ren is not the assassin of Clovis la Brittania. That was my doing."

We're doomed, thought Kallen, rather calmly all told. After all, she probably wouldn't even feel the first of the many thousands of bullets that were about to be sent through her.

"Madman!" accused Gottwald. "Why should I believe such a ridiculous claim, considering the mountains of evidence we have to identify -"

"Do you think Clovis enjoyed his last meal?" asked Zero.

Gottwald's voice cut off in a strangled noise.

"In exchange for a single Eleven, no longer of any use to you as a scapegoat, you will save the lives of all these loyal Brittanians," Zero continued. "You have nothing to lose in this arrangement. And let me further sweeten the pot - you will also ensure that no one ever learns of ... Vermillion."

Vermillion? thought Kallen.

Vermillion? thought Gottwald.

Vermillion? thought Ku Ren.

Vermillion? thought everyone else in hearing range.

Should I have gone with Viridian instead? thought Nunnally, just a tiny bit frantically. That is the color I dyed the gas after all! No, no time to worry, can't give them a chance to think! She tapped her heel on the plate where she was standing.

Seriously? Seriously? thought Kallen, but nonetheless took her foot off the brake so that the car began to idle forward a bit.

"Should I die, all of will be revealed," Zero declared, all composure, as a tiny slit in their mask slid open. "You don't want that! Let us all go, and give us Ren!" Am I close enough? Am I close enough?!

"Release Ku Ren from his chains, and send him over to join them," said Gottwald, still angry, but clearly persuaded of the rightness of this act.

I guess I am!

Of course, it wasn't that simple.

The sheer shock that those orders provoked did keep Gottwald's subordinates from doing anything as the two soldiers guarding Ren, obedient to their superior's orders, unlocked his chains and shoved the confused-looking man off the platform where they were all standing. To his credit, Ren was non-confused enough to land on his feet, and promptly started walking towards the car. Zero stepped down from his platform and exited the vehicle to meet him half-way, with Kallen following along a bit behind.

"Who are y-" Ren uttered his first words of the night before the punishment gear he was wearing electrocuted him into silence.

Nunnally resisted the temptation to say 'Someone who loves you'. It would have given entirely too much away, and she was still mad at Ren for joining the enemy. Instead, Zero announced, "I believe that our business here is complete."

"So are we leaving, then?" asked Kallen through gritted teeth.

"Indeed." And with that word, Zero lifted up a remote detonator and pushed down on its tiny button. The gas container mounted on the car began to vent a thick, green gas, prompting immediate panic from the civilians lining the streets and momentarily enshrouding the three of them. Zero used that moment to shove Ren in Kallen's direction, and she proceeded to guide him towards the side of the bridge while Zero ran behind them as quickly as possible - which was not as quickly as someone who was really experienced in running while on stilts can manage, but still a quite brisk pace.

They jumped over the side of the bridge and began to plummet to their doom, but were interrupted by an almost invisible netting that had been attached to this section of the bridge earlier that day, just after the crowds had started to gather - too late for the security forces to be paying attention to what was going on beneath the bridge. The netting gave under their weight, but slowed their fall so that their landing on the roof of the train below was relatively pain-free.

Above them, one of the Knightmare Frames had arrived at the edge of the bridge and was lining up a shot at the figures below. Before it could fire, though, Gottwald's own Frame crashed into it. "What are you doing, fool?!" they distantly heard Gottwald shrieking. "Focus on evacuating the civilians before that gas can ... can ... why isn't anyone falling over and dying?"

And that's when the train pulled away.

---

"They actually pulled it off."

"I'm more impressed by the way they got out of it alive, forget the actual rescue."

"I still say it was all just a coincidence, you know," insisted Tamaki. "It would never work more than once. And hell, that Vermillion crap is probably something he pulled out of his ass."

"You do that," said Kallen, who was crouched up in a small ball on their hideout's floor, and rocking back and forth. "You just do that." I am never ever ever going into action without a Knightmare Frame ever again, she promised herself.

"Coincidence or bluff, it doesn't matter," said Ohgi wearily. "Whoever this Zero is, he's got balls. Great, big, brass balls."

Both the female members of his team gave him a very dirty look.

All right, so we are a bunch of chauvinists, he admitted privately. "And that, I think, is what it is going to take to actually win this war." He'd never admitted to himself that this was a war, before. It was 'the job', or 'the agenda'. They were operating well outside the parameters of any assignment their patron had ever given them, and Ohgi had no idea how they were going to get paid for any of this ... but they were definitely at war, now.

Win, thought Kallen. What a beautiful word.

Further back in the hideout, Zero had gotten the punishment gear and the straitjacket unfastened so that Ren could get out of it, and he was standing before the masked figure in just his undershirt and trousers and bruises. "I hope that you see now, Private Ku, that the Brittanians are rotten to the core -" Zero began to orate.

"Stop it," the newly freed man demanded. "It's even rottener to judge all Brittanians by the standard of the people who did this to me. Did you seriously kill Prince Clovis?"

"Technically, no," Zero answered. "It was a suicide."

"In the sense that messing with you is suicidal?" Ren asked, frowning even deeper.

"No, in the sense that he himself made the cuts which ended his life."

"Cuts?" Now he was back to looking bewildered. "I thought he was shot. They said they had my prints on the gun and -"

"Goodness gracious, the people who tortured you also lied to you," sneered Zero.

"Huh," Ren said. "And what about that poison gas?"

"Where would I get poison gas?"

"Japan," Ren answered flatly. "Don't think I haven't noticed that you're working with Japanese operatives."

Was it his imagination, or did the mask actually flinch a bit? "What I meant was that it was not poison gas, simply a colored compound that played on the fear and ignorance of the Brittanians," Zero finally answered.

"Okay, and how many people died or were hurt in the panic you caused on the bridge?" he asked angrily.

"May I remind you that I was doing this to save your life?"

"Well, domo arigato, Misuta Zero," Ren said in mock-Japanese. "And now that you have saved it, what were you planning on doing about the rest of my family, who will be taken into custody to prevent me from contacting them for help? What are you going to do about other people whom the army will conclude I might contact for assistance, who will also be arrested and possibly brutalized. Planning on pulling many more of these thrilling heroics?"

He turned away. "You know what, never mind. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go turn myself in so I can possibly prevent some of that. My court martial is in a few hours, and I might be able to make it."

"Are you insane?" Zero snapped. "You do understand that it won't be an actual trial?"

"I understand that very well. But who knows, new evidence might just result in my acquittal."

"Or your death as an embarrassment!"

"Shou ga nai."

"You are a complete idiot!" Zero shouted in Cantonese.

"It's funny, I had a friend who used to tell me that all the time. Even the same ... sort ... of accent ..." Ever so slowly, Ren turned to look at Zero.

Who pulled her helmet off and glared daggers at him. "Dumbass!" Nunnally cried.

---

Day Three - Japan

"Are you sure about this?" Makoto asked her partner skeptically as their car pulled into the sanitarium's parking lot.

"Very sure," Imari assured her. "Before she went away, seven years ago, my contact here was probably the best informed person in all of Japan about new religious organizations. If this Light of the Divine group has roots that go back that far, she'll know more about them than the whole Department of Theology at Shin Teito."

"If," repeated Makoto as she parked the car.

Imari shrugged. "And I haven't seen her in about two months, and she doesn't get a lot of visitors, so I thought I'd be nice."

Three years working with the creature beside her, plus a number of other unpleasant undercover assignments before that, meant that Makoto didn't roll her eyes at that remark, even though she could have. "Okay. Let me guess, more than one visitor will put her on edge, so you should go alone?"

Imari blinked. "Yes, that's exactly what I was going to say," she said. "Have we reached the point where we think alike and start finishing each other's -"

"- sandwiches?"

"Funny," replied Imari, rolling her own eyes. She undid her seat belt, then reached around the back of her jacket to unhook her holster and put it in the car's glove compartment. "They won't let me bring that in anyway, and I don't trust the staff here not to 'lose' it," she explained. "Back in a bit." With that, she opened the car door and stepped out.

Makoto waved as she watched Imari walk towards the doors of the Fukunishi Institute for the Criminally Insane. "At least it's not an innocent," she told herself. "It's not an innocent. It's not an ... shit, shit, shit," she concluded, banging her head against the steering wheel.

Imari arrived at reception, received her visitor's pass and identified the patient she needed to see. A few moments later, she walked into the elevator going up to the facility's third floor.

When the elevator doors opened again, on that third floor, someone else walked out of the elevator, approached the male security guard on duty and showed the pass she was wearing. He half-way examined it, and buzzed her through the door of the main pod, lazily directing her to the room where the patient was waiting to be interviewed. She favored him with a transparently false smile, and went on her way.

Saeki Kaori, her faded blonde hair cropped short in a rather flattering way, was staring dully down at the table when she arrived at that room, but looked up as the door opened. A rather delicious expression of horror spread across the prisoner's face. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no," she half-whispered.

"Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes," replied her visitor as she settled down in the chair opposite her. "How've you been keeping, Saeki-chan?"

"I've been good," Saeki whined.

"Now, now," she cautioned her. "We both that there is no good or evil, Saeki, just the will to use one's power or the refusal to do so. Don't try and play the victim card, it does not suit you. Especially not considering what I want to talk to you about."

Saeki didn't rise to the obvious bait, just staring across the table.

"Okay, no small talk, then," the visitor said with a shrug. "Up until fairly recently, I've been operating under the assumption that someone other than you was responsible for Minase's little accident. That person has since indicated that she thought it was me who did it. Once you eliminate her and myself, the number of people with motive, means and opportunity is very, very short. So. Did you kill Minase?"

"No," the prisoner said shortly. "Why would I do that? I didn't hate him. I just wanted him to go away so ... so he wouldn't fall like I did."

"Don't play the victim card, I said," the person wearing Imari's face said, no longer speaking lightly or cheerfully. "We both know that if you wanted him to go away, it was because you didn't feel like sharing the benefits of our association with anyone you couldn't thoroughly dominate. Like, I said, motive. Did you kill him, do not lie."

"I told you, no!"

After a moment, her interrogator leaned back, a discontent expression on her face. "Well, then, who the fuck did? This is starting to actually disturb me a bit."

"Why?" Saeki asked. "You hated him."

"Don't confuse hatred for contempt, dear. If anything ..." she trailed off, and someone who knew Imari might have thought the actual owner of the body was starting to reclaim it when she spoke next. "If anything, I was sort of fond of the little pervert. He reminded me of -" She shook her head, and returned to her usual chilling indifference. "Ah, what am I saying, to you of all people? Well, I'm going to just have to solve this little mystery on my own time." She stood up, then.

"What?" said Saeki, blinking.

"Oh, yeah, the other thing. Do you know anything about a cult called the Light of the Divine?"

"... I think that's what one of the splinter groups of the Kira cult called itself, back before Second Impact," she said after a moment. "Referred to him as the First Angel, out of - thirteen that were to come, maybe?"

The visitor froze. "Hah. Thaaaat complicates things, we're specifically enjoined from investigating anything to do with Kira. I'd say I appreciate your help, but I don't, so, I guess we're done here."

"Really?" Saeki asked. "You're not going to -" She broke off as she realized what she was saying.

A terrible smile spread across Imari Kurumi's face. "Why, Saeki-chan!" she cooed. "You used to always get so upset when I showed you how much you meant to me. Are you lonely, here? Do you yearn for comfort?"

"Please," the girl asked, eyes closed, tears starting to fall. "Do it or don't do it, please just don't taunt me."

"Did you know that I've been practicing with my little trick?" the other person in the room asked as she started to slowly walk around the table, ignoring some rather stringent rules about approaching the prisoner in the process. "Did you know that I don't just ejaculate vaginal fluid disguised as semen, but actual sperm, now? Did you want a sweet little memory of me?"

"I want to go home," Saeki replied through sobs.

"This is your home," the devil replied. "Stand up and bend over the table, Saeki. It turns out that I have some other needs, too."

Fifteen minutes later, she walked out of the room with a slight swagger in her step, humming a bit as she walked back towards the security door and pushed it, expecting it to open. It didn't, and she stared, then turned at the sound of a cough to look at the open door to the security station.

"Ever hear the saying, fly lands on me, it pays rent?" asked the guard. "Nobody messes with the patients on my floor without paying me for the privilege. How much you carrying, futa?"

"Oh my," she asked, genuinely surprised. "Are you trying to blackmail me?"

"What? No. This is extortion with threats of violence!" He punched his hand to emphasize that.

"Even better! I think in the future, rather than prostituting the patients on this floor to visitors, you should offer money in exchange for performing sexual favors for the visitors," she told him.

"Oh," he said, blinking. "Well, um, I got a few Sosekis in my wallet -"

"Not interested," she said. "Now open the fucking door." Away she walked with the satisfaction of a good deed done.

---

Negi Springfield did not, in fact, hate baths. He was actually more or less indifferent to them. His pose of hating baths had developed during the early stages of his education, when he had realized that if he delayed taking a bath long enough, one of the rather gorgeous older women with whom he lived would generally become frustrated enough to take matters into her own hands and bathe him by force, which afforded many opportunities for pleasant physical contact with them. Whether his mothers or sister had gotten wise to his little game was not clear, but they had never stopped.

He had had hopes that this situation would endure when he started to establish relationships with the young ladies in this dormitory, and he'd been right ... up until now, at least. Tonight, he'd been told that he was to go to the baths, alone, and not come back until he was well cleaned. He accepted this with good grace and walked solemnly to the bathhouse with his supplies in one hand.

Tempting though he found the thought of just jumping into the otherwise deserted big pool, splashing around to his heart's content and then, maybe, sitting down to soak, the importance of cleaning before soaking had been impressed upon him. So he sat down and did the bare minimum of soaping himself up before showering it all off, and then hopped in the bath to splash around. It was jolly good fun, casting aside all his responsibilities and doubts for a few moments.

Eventually, though, the heat got to him, and he settled down to rest a bit, thinking about the next steps he should take along the several paths he was exploring - the business with Tokiha, building his collective, training with Fei, studying that book he'd picked up in the depths of the library. So many options, so many possibilities.

"Hello there, Negi-kun," came a voice from not far away.

He blinked, and turned to face the voice. "Well, my goodness, Shanna-san," said Negi, as he looked at the tall, voluptuous red-blonde woman wrapped in a leopard-print towel and standing hip-deep in the water not far away from him. "What are you doing here?" he asked of the woman who never used honorifics on him nor expected him to use them on her.

"Well, the baths in my building are undergoing repairs at the moment," she told him, using many more words than Shanna would normally use. "Since I was in the area anyway, I thought I might drop in here and take advantage of the girls' bath. And here I find you."

"Yes, here I am," he agreed pleasantly.

"You know, Negi-kun," she said, drawing a bit closer. "It occurs to me that I've never actually seen you use magic. It's just fascinating to me, you know?"

"Oh, really?" said Negi, who remembered her being there when he'd used a magical arrow to save Itoshiki-sensei's life, or so he'd thought.

"So, I would really, really like it if you'd please show me some magic," she said, leaning over in front of him in a way that threatened to spill her breasts out of the towel. "It would be soooo nice of you."

"Well, I'd be happy to do that," said Negi, quite politely. "But there's one little question I'd hope you'd be willing to answer before I did."

"Anything for you, Negi-kun," Shanna cooed in a way that Shanna would never ever coo.

"How did you make your breasts grow so much in such a short period of time?" he asked. "I'm sure they weren't so big when we were having sex."

"I-I-hwaaaaaaaa?" Shanna shrieked, backing away a step. She reached up to her face and tore a complicated mask off of it, revealing the startled face of Asakura Kazumi behind it. "What the heck?" she cried.

"Oh nooooooo!" Negi shouted, clapping both his hands to the sides of his face in horror. "What have I done! I have exposed my deepest secrets to Asakura-san, who will doubtless reveal them to the world in pursuit of her personal ambitions! How can I ever persuade her to keep my secrets! What shall I do? What shall I doooooooo?!"

Asakura stared down at him. "... was I seriously as unconvincing as that?" she asked.

"Yes, rather," he answered quite calmly, and snapped his fingers.

To one side of Asakura, a towel-clad Kaede appeared, as though from thin air, and grabbed her classmate's right arm. To the other side, Sakura appeared, in a one piece swimsuit, and grabbed hold of Asakura's left arm, her own arms glowing a bit with physical reinforcement. On the pool's deck, one of the palm trees abruptly vanished, revealing Haruna wearing nothing but a manical grin and holding her new notebook in one hand. "Busted!" Haruna declared.

"I don't believe it!" Asakura snapped, glaring at Haruna. "If you were - what was the point of - I oughta declare vendetta on you!"

"Now, now," said Negi, holding up a hand. "Let's all calm down and discuss this like rational people. Asakura - actually, would you mind if I called you Kazumi?"

"Am I really in any position to argue the point?" she replied, looking at the people holding her in place.

"I'll just take that as a no. Kazumi, you have, thanks to Haruna's scheming, discovered that magic is real. While I don't want you to advertise that to the rest of the world, I think events are finally are moving into position where that revelation is going to happen whether I like it or not, and I'd like to have some influence over how it happens. Would you be interested in a very exclusive story?"

Asakura swallowed. "Yes," she said, shortly. "But I wasn't actually looking for a story when I was trying to get the truth out of you. There's something else."

He frowned. "Well, you've heard me out, so I'm perfectly willing to hear you out."

"Before that, though, the bit about you having sex with Shanna-sensei. That's crap, right? You made that up to throw me off my game?"

"Nnnno," Negi admitted. "You didn't know about that part? Haruna, you told me that you'd dropped hints about that, as well," he said to the smiling artist.

"I thought it would be better coming from the horse's mouth," Haruna admitted.

"I see."

"Wait," Asakura said. "OMG. Don't tell me - not just with her, but with all those girls you were kissing yesterday?" she gasped.

"And then some," Haruna confirmed.

"Holy fuck," Asakura said.

"Language, please."

---

"So you've never actually seen her, either?" Asakura asked as she and Negi arrived at the classroom door.

Negi shook his head. "Nor ever detected any spiritual phenomena from your corner of the class. Admittedly I was somewhat distracted by what I was detecting from the back row of the class."

"Back row?" she asked, looking back at him.

He blew out a breath. "If Haruna's plan continues as it has been, I imagine you'll find out about them soon enough, so I'd prefer not to tell tales," he said. "Anyway, I've been looking very closely, and there's no ghost here at the moment, either."

Asakura made a face. Had Sayo actually gone to the mall? Well, never mind that now. "Haruna's plan, huh?" she asked, leaning back against the front row of tables. "You're really going to try to do it with all the girls in our class, then?"

"All of those who are inclined, or not already in relationships with someone else," he clarified. "From the way that you've been acting, would I be correct that you don't fall into that first category?"

"Um," said Asakura, blushing about as brightly as her hair. "Yeah, I'm pretty much, um -"

"Lesbian?" he guessed.

"Sort of," she said, remembering a certain senpai in the newspaper club, two years before.

"Well, I won't ask anymore questions, but I hope whoever you've been with was someone you loved and respected," he told her very seriously.

"Ehhhh. Respect was there, but love?" She shrugged and shook her head. "Love is for poets."

"That's a horribly cynical attitude for someone so young," Negi said with a shake of his own head.

"Think about what you just said, you little Casanova!" Asakura protested, laughing just a bit as she did. "So you're saying you love all those girls?"

"I care very deeply about all of them, yes. And before you ask if there's a particular, special person ... I don't think love has to be exclusive."

"Some of those poets would give you a hard time on that score, Negi-kun," she told him.

"If that was their experience, good for them. It hasn't been mine, nor that of my parents."

"Really," she said, straightening up a bit. "So, does that go for the girls in your harem, too?" She saw him open his mouth to offer a correction on her terminology, and pressed on quite quickly. "If, hypothetically, I were to want a relationship with one of them - say, Kaede - while not having one with you, you'd be okay with that?"

"Yes," he said, definitely. "Already, several of the girls in my collective have relationships with people I've never even met, much less become intimate with, and I'm okay with that." He chose not to mention that in some cases, it would be only a matter of time before he did meet them, and that he was expected, in some cases, to become intimate with them.

Asakura let out a long, low whistle. "You are really that confident." A smile slowly spread across her fate. "And confidence," she said softly, "is a very attractive quality. Come here, Negi-kun."

Negi blinked. "Really?" he asked. "Shouldn't I be keeping an eye out for Aisaka?"

"She's a ghost, she's been around here for seventy years, I'm sure she's seen all kinds of stuff," Asakura said, starting to unbutton her blouse. "Come here, Negi-kun."

---

As it happened, regardless of how much stuff she'd seen, the entity known as Aisaka Sayo was ill-prepared for the sight of the first person who'd reached out to her, bent backwards over their shared desk while their pre-pubescent teacher pumped away between her spread legs, to her audible delight. On seeing this, as she passed through the closed doorway while returning from a brief excursion to examine certain interesting sights elsewhere in Academy City, Aisaka first stood in shock, then felt genuine heat for the first time in her existence, then fled in confused panic.

On recovering from her panic, she found herself curled up in one of the pews of the cathedral. It was somewhat familiar territory to her; she'd come here to listen to the choir many times, taking some comfort in their faith and in the beauty of their music. But it was cold and dark and empty at the moment, but at least it wasn't confusing.

Or so she thought until a quiet voice from behind her said, "Good evening."

Slowly, she turned to look at her. It was a rather petite woman, a foreigner, with short-cropped black hair, a white suit, and the same pallid look that Sayo herself possessed. The look she'd never seen in anyone else.

"Are you a ghost?" she asked.

"Sort of," the woman answered. "As much as you are."

"Oh," she said, looking down. "I don't know what I am, really. It just sort of ... happened."

"I understand that," the woman said with a nod. "Things just sort of ... happened ... a lot when I was alive. I'm not sure if I should ask this, but what do you want?"

"... friends," said Sayo, looking down. "I know that doesn't make sense, but ... I want people who can see me and not be afraid. Not need to be afraid."

"I think I can do that," said the other ghost. "There's just thing that I need from you."

"Anyth-"

"Your Death Note."

Sayo flinched deeply, but silently reached into her chest and pulled out a notebook. "I've never used it," she said. "Not since this began."

"But you did before." It wasn't a question.

"I don't really remember before," she said, conscious that this wasn't much of a defense. With great, obvious reluctance, she extended the hand holding the artifact to the woman behind her - who took it into her own hand, whereupon it burst into a very brief flame. Despite having suspected it was going to happen, Sayo still let out a groan of pain at that sight.

"Those you wish to see you, will. Those you do not ... will not," the woman said. "I hope you make friends. I hope you don't doom your friends by your presence, shinigami." The woman stood, and began to walk away.

"Who are you?" Sayo asked.

The woman halted, but didn't look back. "My name was Sue Dibny. But that won't mean anything to you." Now she turned to look at Sayo, and a great green cloak descended on her, concealing her face. "This is who I am," said the Spectre as she rose up from the floor, gazing down at Sayo, who quailed beneath the stress of her regard.

A moment later, the figure in green was gone.

---

"Ahhhh!" cried Asakura as she came to one last orgasm, feeling Negi's spunk dripping inside her. "Well, so much for being lesbian," she half-sighed, half-laughed.

"And the ghost never showed up," said Negi, pulling back and starting to clean himself up a bit. "Maybe she doesn't like it here after dark."

"A ghost who's scared of the dark?" Asakura asked wearily. "That's kind of -"

"- accurate," said a tiny voice from the door.

As one, they turned to look.

"Um, hi," Sayo said, waving a hand. "This is a little awkward, isn't it? I'm sorry. I don't get to meet people very often."

---

Day Eight - Shanghai

"So how did you survive that, anyway?"

"My wallet blocked the bullet."

"Bullshit. A bit of fabric, some plastic cards and a few notes that aren't worth the paper they're printed on are not going to do that. What really happened?"

"That's what happened, I have no better explanation than you do. Anyway, about this ... thing you can do," said Ren, now sitting beside Nunnally on the platform where Zero had been orating at him. "It made Clovis kill himself. Your brother, Nunnally."

"I have two brothers, and I'm talking to one of them right now," she angrily responded. "I stopped being related to those people when they sent me into exile, Ren. And he'd ordered a massacre to cover up whatever bizarre experiments he was doing that resulted in this ... thing, as you put it. It was one life versus all the people in that ghetto. What was I supposed to do?"

The young man let out a long breath. "Okay," he said, just a bit wearily. "I don't agree with your reasoning, but I can see why you made the choice you did. But you can't just go on being a terrorist."

"I'm not. I'm a revolutionary. For pity's sake, Ren, don't tell me you think you can transform the Empire into a more just society by rising up within it."

"Of course not. What sort of madman do you think I am?" he asked, affronted. "And for not being a terrorist, you certainly succeeded in terrorizing those people on the bridge."

"Again, it was the best strategy I could come up with on short notice. If a certain someone would agree to work with me instead of going off to drink the poison that he's going to be offered, he might be able to suggest better ones in the future."

"You seriously want me to work with you and your Japanese mercenaries?" Ren asked.

"Would you please stop using that tone every time you talk about them being Japanese?" Nunnally demanded.

"You do remember that I told you that I'd lived in Japan, right?" he asked. "And that I hated it so much that I talked my parents into sending me to live with my aunt and uncle, which is where I met you?"

"Do you remember a certain lecture that someone gave not terribly long ago about not judging an entire nation based on the actions of some of its worst citizens?" she asked icily.

"It's not about -" He broke off, brought a hand to his face, and shook his head before lowering the hand. "Okay, fine, it is about that. But it's also about how Japan sending covert operatives into China in order to create chaos that they can exploit is pretty much how the Pacific War started. They didn't come here to help us overthrow the Brittanians, they came to make sure that the Brittanians are too busy to invade Japan."

"You're not wrong," she admitted. "But now that I'm in charge -"

"Nunnally!" he interrupted. "If the occupation is going to be ended, it has to be ended by the Chinese. Not by Japanese people, and not by a renegade Britannian. You are not the hero we need."

"I know that I'm not," she said. "That's. Why. I. Need. You."

Ren stared at her, closed his eyes, then muttered, in a language she'd helped to teach him, "Unglücklich das Land, das Helden nötig hat." He opened his eyes. "All right, I'll help you. But nothing has changed about my need to report in for my court martial. If I slide through that, somehow, I'll get in touch with you and we'll start working things out."

"They'll kill you!" she nearly sobbed.

"Maybe," he agreed, standing off and dusting off his pants, and regarding her calmly. "Nunnally, whatever powers you have, no matter how strong or how smart, none of us are gods. We cannot always decide the course of the events in which we find ourselves." He smiled, then. "It occurs to me that you could order me not to go, though, and make it stick."

"What sort of monster would do that to someone they love?" she asked miserably.

"細妹," he called her, and walked out of the hideout through its rear exit.

---

She'd explained to Ohgi and the others that Ren had departed on a mission they'd worked out - a very dangerous mission that could result in him losing his life - and then worked on some plans for other operations, with Zero always suggesting ways to minimize the risk and maximize the potential damage to the dignity of the Brittanian targets. "They care vastly more about their dignity than they ever will about money," she told them, and watched Kallen nod in agreement. "Don't aim for their hearts or their pocketbooks."

Eventually, she'd made her escape, put the Zero costume away in a concealed, off-campus location, then made her way back to Ashford Academy.

"I'm home," she announced once she'd arrived in the building, not really expecting an answer.

"Welcome back," said a familiar voice.

She blinked. "Alice?" she asked, frowning as she walked towards their living room "How'd you get in? The door was locked."

Alice pointed at the person sitting on the couch with her and Lelouch, watching television. "She let me in."

"Hello," said the green-haired golden eyed woman whom Nunnally had last seen being shot in the head.

Nunnally stared.

"So how exactly do you know C2?" asked Alice, with fairly obvious curiosity.

"C2," Nunnally repeated.

"That's what she said her name was," replied Alice. "I told her it sounded like half the name of a Star Wars droid, and she said that she got that a lot."

"It's true," said the self-proclaimed C2, nodding. "I do."

Clearly, the world had gone nuts without her noticing, Nunnally decided.

"Tenka Fubu!" shouted Lelouch in response to a similar declaration from the main character of the Japanese show they were watching. Having done so, he gigglingly reverted to his usual non-verbal state.

"I'm not sure this show is good for him," confided Alice.

---

Day Nine - Japan

In a certain building in Tokyo-2's waterfront, a certain individual watched the GBS news report on the strange events in Area 11 with particular interest, sitting up very straight as the first images of Zero that the world had ever seen were displayed.

Darling? he thought.

Day Nine - Shanghai

Immediately after the arrival of the replacement viceroy from the front, she had ordered the expert crime scene analysts attached to her army's CID to go over the scene of the crime with tools that made fine-toothed combs look like the blunt instruments that they were, so as to find anything that previous investigators had missed. It was taken for granted that something had been missed; such was her opinion of the abilities of those who had been in charge in the interval between Clovis' death and her arrival. (And, really, before Clovis' death.)

Now they were reporting something had been discovered, and so she walked into the control room of the vessel and awaited an explanation.

"Sir," said a tech examining the computer. To her people, she was 'sir'. No other title was needed or given. "We found a file labeled with your name. We haven't played it yet."

"Do so," she said.

She did not flinch at the sight of Clovis' hologram, his mouth stained with blood. She'd already been briefed on what had happened to her brother, and was not of a squeamish persuasion. "Cornelia," said the hologram's soundtrack. "By the time you see this, I will be dead by my own hand." That made her eyebrow twitch. "That's not important." Good of him to decide that for her. "What is important is that Nunnally is alive, and here in Area 11!" Now her eyes widened. "You have to rescue her from this den of deceit and treachhhhhhhhhh ..."

And with that, the holographic image collapsed from view. The recording continued, and she was treated to the sounds of her brother's death rattle before the file ended.

"Everything you have just seen and heard is classified Majestic," she said. There was no point in raising her voice. These were her people. They understood things like classification and confidentiality and need to know, which no one else on Earth possessed.

One of your children is alive, she thought. By any higher power there may be, I swear that I'll rescue her.

There was the sound of some disturbance at the entrance to the doorway. She turned and regarded it with interest as a man in uniform fought his way in, and raised a hand to stop those trying to hold him back. "It's Gottwald, I believe," she said.

"Yes, Your Highness," he said, breathlessly. "I came to explain my actions."

"Did you."

"Yes. I sincerely believe that allowing the individual calling himself Zero to escape was the right course of action under the circumstances, and I'm sure that you'll understand why -"

"The individual calling himself Zero claimed responsibility for the death of Clovis, correct?"

"Yes, but it was nonetheless the right course of action to allow him to go free, because -"

"Marquis Jeremiah Gottwald, the Holy Brittanic Empire thanks you for your many years of service, and may God bless you," she said, and with one smooth motion drew her sidearm, pulled its trigger, and ventilated Gottwald's skull. Bits of his brain matter decorated the two individuals of either sex who'd been following him. The female - Nu, or something, she thought - looked rather shocked.

"Bring. Me. Zero," said Cornelia li Brittania, Viceroy of Area 11.

(The 'li' stands for ... oh, never mind. You don't care.)

Next: Akane.