Disclaimer : All characters and places belong to Sunrise Inc., ©2007-2008.

A/N: Dedicated to Lady, my dog (December 28, 1994 - June 1, 2008). You'll always be in my heart.


"The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep."

-- Robert Frost, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

"As for me, to love you alone, to make you happy, to do nothing which would contradict your wishes, this is my destiny and the meaning of my life."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte


"How do you expect me to let go, C.C.? How do you expect me to do that when everything and everyone I cared for was taken away from me?! My brother dies in the war, my bastard of a father walks out on us, and my mother goes to jail for possession of drugs! How can I keep going?!"

"You can still fight. You can make the impossible happen."

"Fight . . . Fight for what? My name? My rights? My damned blood? You don't know how many times I've been close to giving up, C.C. So close have I been to taking that one step over the knife's edge. So close have I been to the ocean shore and barely avoided the tide. I wanted to take it all away. I wanted to lay back, close my eyes, and wish for it to disappear."

"But you can, Kallen. You can end it anytime."

"I can't do it. I can't do it no matter how many times I tell myself to make it quick. And when I think about it, I can imagine opening my eyes to a light so holy and a face so kind and gentle. I would place my hand in his and drift forever among the stars. But when it comes down to it, I know it's not the answer. He wouldn't approve of it, not in the least bit."

"Is that so? Then what do you think he would say about you? Or better yet, what would Kaname say? That the apple of their eye has spoiled to such selfish extents . . ."

"Selfish?"

"Were you not listening to me? I said selfish. Selfish. That is what you are. A selfish, two-faced half-breed."

"Now you hear me out, witch! I am Nippon! I am a Child of Japan! No matter who or what I am, I will always be Japanese!"

"But you can't deny it. You can say all you want, but you can't hide from the truth. You may hate Britannia for their wrongdoings. You may hate Britannia for stealing away your family, but you are Britannia nonetheless."

"You think I don't know that? You think I can just take it in stride and fight the good fight like that snake Lelouch? Sooner or later people are going to find out I'm a Quisling(1), and when they do they will . . ."

"Reject you? Abandon you? Look around you, Kallen. Traitors and conspirators are everywhere. Don't tell me you're not one of them."

"I'm not!"

"So are you willing to abandon the blood of your kinsmen? Are you so cruel as to betray the country that lent you a piece of their heart and soul?"

"We have our reasons, C.C.! We fight to bring down Britannia! To relinquish our kin of their taint and show them the Light of A New World! That is the meaning of our battle!"

"But Lelouch has a right to contest the might of the Holy Empire. You, on the other hand, contend to a cause lost amidst the fires of the Second Pacific War. How can you change the World when you can't even change yourself?"

"I did change, C.C. You weren't there that day, but when my mother held my hand and looked into my eyes I felt something change inside of me. Yes I'll admit it was a small change, not the sort of change Zero would make or Britannia would force upon, but it was change nonetheless!"

"Then prove it. Prove to me you are this just, noble warrior. Prove to me you have never sinned and I shall take back what I said."


(But the night was still young, and the air still cold. The city was quiet save for the wind's roaming sighs.

(Kallen looked up at the sky, at stars so bright and far, so few and many. Up in their Heaven they lay, shining and twinkling without a care, and suddenly she felt small. So very, very small.

(All was right with their world.

("Well?" came the voice at her front. Kallen turned and saw her, an imposing statue unlike any other wrought by human hands. Lithe, strong, and so terrifyingly beautiful. Her portals were of polished topaz, her face white as marble, and her stance -- oh her stance! -- Auguste Rodin(2) would be astound!

(Kallen felt even smaller.

("R-Right." And she spoke her tale under a cloak of stars and the late August moon).


II.

For the Sake of Love


Kallen . . .

Kallen . . .

Kallen . . .

". . . Mother?"

Kallen.

Warm hands cupped the small, round face. Her eyes, wide and blue and innocent, tilted and met an equally seraphic sea.

The woman smile. My little girl, I'll always be with you.

'Mother . . .'


Kallen awoke with a gasp. She panted, feeling the heat encase her like a wool blanket. Her eyes searched left and right, to and fro, startled by the unfamiliar surroundings.

"Where am I?"

A soft groan. "Kallen . . ."

Who was what? The girl turned to the sound of the voice, and immediately her sight fell upon the slumbering figure of her mother. Propped up by pillows she lay on the bed, clad in a hospital gown and hooked up to a machine. The heart monitor beeped, slow and rhythmic, a steady metronome reminding the sole occupant of her mother's continuing existence.

Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep . . .

It brought to mind the image of a grandfather clock. It stood tall and imposing, its face an archaic design that, if given the time to observe, wrought mysteries and stories of old. Each click from the second hand lulled her to a platonic state, each ripple of time showing her a heaven she would never see. The shivers it sent down her spine placed her in a pool of memories both past and present. There would be could haves and would haves, even might have beens and had beens. Whichever path she saw she looked, and was amazed.

(And she saw his face, pale and blank. She touched him, expecting a wide smile and soft brown eyes. But there were none. He was cold, plastic . . .)

(He stared at her, long and hard, taking in the mop of red hair and cerulean orbs. She watched, frozen and apprehensive, waiting for judgment to be passed. But he glared, dissatisfied. He huffed, turned his back on her and walked away . . .)

(They knocked her to the ground and they pounced her. Fists slammed into both cheeks and feet kicked at a battered ribcage. She yelled, she screamed, she cried, to STOP! STOP! STOP! but they did not stop . . .)

(Eyes clenched shut, the knife to her wrist. Waiting, waiting, for nirvana to come . . .)

(Look at them! Look at how they reduce you! Suffer the children, you hapless hounds! Bathe in their blood and be merry! She shakes her fist at the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, all that tower over Britannia . . .)

("I will take back what is lost," he said. His hand swept through the air. Behind him was a grim city basked in overcast sunlight. "and I assure you, Kallen of Nippon, we shall ache no more.")

("I don't need you!" she cried over the roar of gunfire and warning klaxons. She held her mother's form above the Glasgow's head. "I DON'T NEED YOU!")

The silence was utterly damning.

Kallen averted her gaze, prefering to stare down at her hands.

They were shaking.

'By the Gods . . . What sort of person are you?'

The scar burned, reeked of copper and oppression.

'What the HELL are YOU?'

She shut her eyes.

("Look at the sky, Kallen," said she. Her long dark hair drifted in the breeze. "Look at how wide and free it is, how clear and blue it is. It's beautiful, don't you think?"

(The child nestled closer, her head laying comfortably in her lap. "It is. But you are beautiful, too, Mother."

(Her mother blushed and smile. She stroked the young'in's fiery mane, slowly and tenderly. "Thank you, Kallen. It does my heart well to know I have a wonderful daughter.")

'No.'

She opened her eyes.

'No. I'm not a wonderful daughter.'

Her scar stopped throbbing.

"I'm a fool," she whispered. "A self-conceited fool."

She gave a tire sigh and ran her hands down her face. What had happened? Where did it all go? The time before war, an age before blood and death, an era of mobilized Knightmare Frames and uniformed soldiers; they were a distant memory. Before the Great Divide, the Britannian-Japanese name meant being a creature of both sides of the racial spectrum. Before the Second Pacific War, families lived and cities prospered.

Before hell came on a black stallion, Kallen was normal.

'Normal . . . Does such a word exist anymore? What does normal constitute today? What defines normality?'

She remembered the scene where those four Britannian punks attacked the Eleven hotdog vendor outside the Ashford Academy campus. How he cowered beneath them, how he shook and whimpered with each hit that landed on his body, how no one stood to take his pain for himself. Pride and prejudice urged her to defend her kinsman, but his hand stayed her in place.

("What do you think would happen if you helped him and won?" he had said. "He wouldn't be able to do business here tomorrow. He chose to be a Britannian slave. That's what it means to live in the Settlement.")

And those words . . . How could she not forget them?

("That's why I don't do anything. That man understood as well. He could live better off if he bowed before Britannia.")

Her brow furrowed.

'How can you be so callous? How can you just stand there and watch my people get hurt and killed? For God's sake, your best friend is an Eleven! And you say you want nothing to do with this?'

She scoffed. At least Zero had a mind to enact change! He cared for the nature and well-being of Elevens. He rebeled against Britannian supremacy and challenged the might of their authority.

'But what have you done?' asked her conscience. 'What have you done to make a difference?'

"I fight," said Kallen, flexing her fingers. "I fight to protect my precious people. I fight to free them from their mathematical prisons."

And then, a thought. 'You fight for Elevens but not for your mother?'

A chill went through her body. Kallen looked at the woman with a vague expression of scrutiny. There was hardly any sign of breathing, and her eyes did not twitch or roam. If if were not for the heart monitor the girl would have thought her blood-kin had died in her sleep.

(What have you done to make a difference? What did you do to change the World?)

That did not stop her heart from skipping a beat.

("Even if you can stand every little thing, eventually it'll wear you out.")

Her throat clenched.

'Dammit, Milly, why'd you have to say that? Why did your father have to find out I'm a half-ling? Why couldn't you keep your damn mouth shut?'

She swallowed nervously, and the scar once again began to burn.

("Staying out all night, skipping school. I even hear you're going in and out of the ghettos. And all because your father is in our homeland." The mistress turned a narrowed eye on the older Stadtfeld. "You really are like your mother.")

("But I'm nothing like her!" she exclaimed, fists curling on the window sill. "I'm not weak or defenseless! I don't cling to the past! I am nothing like her and I never will!")

"But you are like her," said a world-weary Kallen. "You are like her . . . no matter how much you deny it. You have the same blood, the same eyes, the same hair, the same smile. She's always there . . . inside me."

The young'in sighed. Her hands ceased their tremble and fell into her lap.

"And to think . . . that part of me will disappear."

Sobriety settled save for the irritant buzz of the lights. Then, without warning, her chest swelled unlike anything she ever felt consume her being. It was cold, lifeless, blotted with morgues of dread and -- could it be? -- sorrow.

"--Kallen."

She perked at her name. Turning around she saw, to her amazement, the Stadtfeld matriarch stir from the confines of deep sleep. Kallen, however, did not notice her movement was slow and her irises dazed.

"Mother . . . Oh Mother, I'm so . . . so . . ." Glad? Relieved? Why did this emptiness still exist? She decided on another approach. "How are you feeling?"

The woman did not answer nor did she look to see her daughter's face.

"Mother?" inquired the half-ling. She reached over and placed a hand on her shoulder (nothing like that detached hand!). "Are you okay? Are you still tired?"

Still no answer.

". . . Mother?"

Nothing.

The swelling came at full force. Painful, unforgiving, merciless, she couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand it at all! Her breath quickened -- faster faster faster! What was wrong? What went wrong?

'Calm down, calm down!' her conscience cried.

'I can't! Something's not right!' she cried back. Her eyes stung. The scar pulsed. 'Why isn't she speaking? Why isn't she LOOKING AT ME?'

But it continued. 'Calm down, calm down! Calm down, calm down!' A dissonant chant.

The heart monitor followed the same beat.

Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep . . .

"It's an after-effect of the drug."

Kallen did not move to see who it was, but she knew from the tone of voice it was the nurse who came in earlier to perform diagnostics. How long she had been standing there she didn't know. Either way the young'in had her eyes fixed on her blood-kin.

When she saw the tiny hole on the woman's left wrist, Kallen could not will herself to look away. She knew, in a world not-so-long ago, she tried to do the same in a similar manner. (She remembered the knife and the choking silence, waiting for a nirvana which never came).

"What do you mean?" she asked the nurse.

"Well, for one, she can barely speak," she said with a sigh. "Assuming she does recover, it will take time before the drug is out of her system."

But how long a time? she wondered. How long would it be before she snapped from her stupor? Even then, how long would it be before she ever saw the light of day?

The truth hurt. However, it hurt even more to hear it from her own mouth. (But why! Oh, why did things have to be this way? What happened to the good old days when there was no fighting save amongst economic competition?)

'She has to know. She may not hear it. She may not know it's me who's telling her, but this is my last chance. If I don't tell her, then . . .'

Then . . .

"Your sentence came," she croaked out, a forced revelation. "It's twenty years." She bowed her head. Say it! she told her mind. Get it off your chest! For they say absence makes the heart grow fonder (oh, but how it is a double-edged sword! How it hurts to look over the other side!).

'I must! I must!' A catharthic mantra. And then, "Wait for me, Mother. By the time you get out, I'll have changed the World where you and I can live peacefully." 'Where we don't have suffer, where we don't have to ache anymore. We'll get everything back. The Sun, the Earth, the Moon, the Sky . . .'

She saw that memory again, a piece of dream where they lay together in the tall stalks of grass. The wind was cool, open and loving and borne with the scent of white carnation. The sky was wide and clear and blue and free . . . and they lay in lazy throes, and her hair was stroked by long, sun-tanned fingers . . .

"That way . . . That way we can--"

"Do your best."

Warmth flowed, and Kallen let her gaze fall to a hand clapsed atop her own.

"I will wait for you." murmured the woman. "Do your best, Kallen, my daughter."

The walls came crashing down, but Kallen did not care. In the end it was elation which overcame grief, and it showed, showed upon her face (that same face).

"I will!" she declared. Tears spilled forth and a smile broke, happy and painful. Her free hand graced unto her blood-kin's, and she squeezed, tightly, warmly, lovingly. "I will!"

The scar throbbed no more that night.


I see. This is the reason of your fight, the sole purpose of your existence. For that which is saved cannot be spared, but that which is spared can be saved.

You may not believe me, but I say so that the impossible can be possible. Is this not the founding ideal of resistances and organizations? Is this not why Naoto and Kaname and every civil-minded Eleven wish to challenge the fate bestowed upon them?

Such ways of war can drive them to reckless, foolish means. Even if it were so, is that not why they wish to enact change?

. . . Come, Kallen. Come to me. Come here. I won't hurt you.

Come now, Kallen. There now. Good girl, good girl. Let it out, young'un. Let it all out. I see no shame in your remorse. Let it all out.

I'll let you know, Kallen, that I did not mean to call you selfish. I dared you to challenge your beliefs, so thus did you dare me to revolt. I wanted you to realize your desire, to claim and stake your commandment. But I know better now that you have told me.

Remember, Kallen, and remember well: though the darkness may creep close and none so near, there is a light shining far away. The darkness may be all-consuming, but do not fear it! Go toward the light. Your efforts may just pay off.

There now, there now. Dry your tears. It is done, but there is a long way to go before it is over. You know what you must do.

. . . There is no need to be sorry. You have done nothing wrong.

Here now, why don't you tell me the time you became Zero's Sword? Lelouch may not give you much, but this he gave you Guren, your Crimson Lotus. Though you no longer see him in such a light, that is something to be proud of, is it not?

Take your time, child. Take as much as you need. We have a long night ahead of us.


(1) A Quisling is a British term that is equivalent to the American Benedict. In other words, someone who betrays his or her own country in favor of the invading country. This term is named after Vidkun Quisling, a pro-Nazi Norwegian leader who lead Norway's government during Germany's occupation in World War II.

(2) Auguste Rodin was a French sculptor and one of the most widely known of his profession in the world. He did many sculptures, one of which was his most famous, The Thinker. The way C.C. sits at the end of Scene Two reflects the posture of this sculpture.