Episode Four – Zero Resignations

"It's good to hear your voice again, Q-1." The resonating voice was impossible to mistake, and it was absolutely impossible for her to be hearing it. She would never have mistaken this voice; the voice which she had first heard on this very cell-phone, and then later on, when she had learned what she had thought for so long to be Zero's true identity.

"L-lelouch…?" She whispered, unaware of what she was saying. At the other end of the line, she could hear his laughter; familiar, despite the fact that she had so rarely heard it.

"Zero," The voice corrected, "Just Zero."

"But… Zero… Zero is…"

"Not who you think he is." The voice corrected quietly, "And not where you think he is."

"What do you mean?" Kallen whispered.

Why did this feel so natural? To stand here, beside Lelouch's grave, while she spoke over the phone to someone who could only be, and yet could not be, Lelouch himself? Why did it feel so normal to simply hear his orders, and question further into what he needed? To simply accept his words as they came?

Why did this feel more like Zero than the man she had been following for years?

"You can not look for your Zero where you expect him to be, Q-1." Lelouch's voice reminded her gently, "That is the surest way never to find a man with the name of Zero."

"You know where he is…" Kallen's voice came dazed, quiet. She couldn't believe what was happening to her. It was impossible… impossible…

Why did she keep repeating that? Wasn't it the very man she now spoke to, or thought she spoke to, who had taught her that nothing was impossible?

"I know where he is." Lelouch agreed calmly.

"Then where is he?" Kallen even managed to startle herself with her outburst. The birds in the tree overhead scattered into the sky as her old fire returned, "Tell me! Where is Zero?"

"Your Zero is hidden from the Federation, on an island in the Pacific Ocean. I am sure you remember it well."

Kallen stiffened, staring straight ahead. Yes, she remembered that island. There had been four of them there, lost on it. She with Suzaku, Lelouch with Euphemia. The four of them, stuck together, trapped there by a force that none of them understood.

Did Lelouch understand it, now? Had he gained that knowledge?

'No,' she thought, 'Lelouch is dead.'

"Who are you?" Kallen hissed, "Tell me, right now."

On the other end of the line, the man who sounded just like Lelouch laughed again.

"I am Zero," He repeated quietly, "Gather the Knights. Take them to sea. Sail to the island, Kallen. That is where you will find your Empress and her Knight."

And then, with a soft click, Lelouch was gone.

~v~

For a moment, they were all frozen. Suzaku staring at C.C. Nunnally staring at both of them.

C.C. staring at the wall.

"What are you doing here?" Suzaku finally found his voice, though it came out in a strangled tone. His eyes were huge. He was looking at the girl as though she were something inhuman, disgusting.

Well, he was right on the first count.

"I came to see the Empress, of course," C.C. answered, lowering her eyes to gaze at him with shocking steadiness. It seemed that she did not need to blink, "I assume, as you are unmasked, that you have disobeyed your orders."

Suzaku turned bright red.

"I-it's Nunnally!" He objected.

C.C. laughed, shaking her head, "And you're Zero." She observed, "And that means that no one is supposed to know your secrets."

Suzaku flinched as though she had slapped him. She was right, of course. The command to hide his identity had been absolute, and Lelouch's last. That he had told Nunnally the truth would always feel a bit like a betrayal.

But then, it had felt like a betrayal when he was keeping the secret from her, anyways.

"Why are you here?" Nunnally spoke, her voice a nervous whisper. C.C. and Suzaku both turned to gaze at her.

"I'm supposed to warn you not to leave the cave." C.C. responded, "They're coming to find you."

"How do they know where we are?" Suzaku demanded. If the Knights could find them, the Federation could find them faster.

"The Federation won't find you here," C.C. reassured him, "At least, not until your Knights start to circle."

"But… it's impossible." Suzaku objected, "No one can find this island. That's why we were stuck here the first time."

C.C.'s lip flicked.

"Stay hidden, and everything will be alright."

~v~

She had fled the graveyard in a virtual panic. She had run through the city, blind to the citizens that bolted out of her path. She had run down the street to the place where the Knights hid.

And she had run through the base to reach the meeting hall.

Only now did Kallen stop running. She stood gasping before the rest of the senior Knights, and they stared at her as they might have stared if they knew Lelouch was alive.

She knew she couldn't tell them that. They wouldn't believe her, for one. And they were not likely to support her cause, if they knew she thought Lelouch was, somehow, behind it. She couldn't tell them that Zero had called her, either, because if his phone was in range, they would already have found him.

This was going to be more difficult than she had anticipated.

"Kallen?" Ohgi whispered, shocked by her sudden, high-speed appearance, "Did… you find something?"

Straightening up slowly, Kallen drew a deep breath and ran a hand through her wind-tousled hair. She forced herself to appear calm, though on the inside she was screaming.

None of this was possible. She couldn't believe that any of this was true.

So what the hell was going on?

"An anonymous tip," Kallen told them, and she was shocked by how composed her voice sounded. She had fully expected it to come out as nothing more than a whisper, "Zero and the Empress are on an island in the Pacific Ocean."

They stared at her. All of them stared at her. Ohgi, Tamaki, Tohdoh, Villetta, Chiba, Rakshata, and Jeremiah. Even the newest member of the senior Knights; Cornelia li Britannia; was watching her as if she might explode.

"Well?" Kallen whispered, glancing around at them. Surely they couldn't pass this opportunity up…?

"We have no idea who might have called?" Tohdoh asked, opening his eyes to gaze at her. His expression was disbelieving. Kallen knew what he must be thinking. The last time they had started a war by accepting advise from an anonymous caller, they had ended up with Zero. That had started out well, but…

It had been the policy among the Knights since the end of the war not to take unidentified calls. But this one had been identified. Kallen had known the caller the instant he spoke to her.

She just wished she could tell them that.

"And island in the Pacific Ocean…" Ohgi murmured, "That's sort of broad, Kallen. I mean… Japan is an island in the Pacific Ocean."

Kallen shook her head.

"They told me which island it was." She murmured, "I've been there before."

There was another extended, tense moment of silence. The senior Knights glanced amongst themselves, exchanging opinions without saying a word. Many of them were of the same opinion. She could see it in the eyes of Ohgi. Of Villetta, Cornelia, and Gilford and Jeremiah. They were not going to go along with this. They would not accept a tip from an anonymous source.

Kallen wondered, if they knew who she knew the caller must have been, if their opinions would change.

And it was Rakshata who asked the question in all of their minds.

"So what are we going to do?"

~v~

"It was successful."

Anastasia glanced around. There was elation in Lelouch's voice. His eyes were bright with excitement. Anastasia had never thought that the Demon Emperor could look so completely… human.

"They took it?" She murmured. Her lips twitched, in spite of her attempt at emotionless-ness. When Lelouch had told her to call Kallen's line, she hadn't thought that this plan could possibly work. She was a woman; how was she supposed to make her voice sound like Lelouch's.

But she should have known. If the stories she had heard of Zero, and of the Demon Emperor, were true, then Lelouch was a genius to rival the gods.

Speaking to Kallen, giving her the orders that Lelouch whispered in her mind, she had marveled at the way his voice seemed to come through her lips. She wasn't sure what it was; the mask, or something more sinister that he was doing to her mind. But whenever she spoke from behind the mask of Zero, she sounded just like Lelouch.

"Yes," Lelouch answered, "They took it. They will be at the island when we need them there."

Anastasia nodded, still smiling slightly. Energy, the thrill of battle, was coursing through her. So this was what it felt like? To be the mastermind? To have a true effect on events?

"You must remember to be careful with your Geass." Lelouch observed, and Anastasia focused on him again. The time had come to prepare for the fight ahead, "You can not use it too often. Be more reserved than I was. Or you will lose control of it."

"I understand," Anastasia agreed quietly, "Do you really think it will be of much use?"

Slowly, Lelouch came to his feet, turning and walking gracefully towards the edge of the gray marble platform on which they perched. He paused at the edge, staring down among the glistening golden clouds, examining the way they shifted and played against the divine wind of his home. The whole place made Anastasia shiver; the power of it was overwhelming.

But Lelouch… Lelouch was a part of that power.

"You have yet to discover the full extent of your Geass, Akemi." Lelouch answered quietly, and yet his voice carried easily on the tense power of the air, to Anastasia's ears, "You will learn, over time. How it can be used, how it can not." He turned again, gazing at her, "But yes. I believe that your power, even now, will be a great help to us."

"Is that why you chose me?" Anastasia asked, even as she came to her feet and followed him to the edge. She left her mask behind, lying on the marble floor, glistening just as brightly as the realm in which Lelouch had come to live. Glistening with blood, with lies, and with justice.

Lelouch seemed to consider her question for a moment, gazing at her with his piercing violet eyes. And Anastasia shivered at his gaze. It was too intense; much to brilliant. It took her breath away.

"It is one of the reasons." Lelouch finally answered her, "You had a unique power, even before I gave you Geass. A photographic memory can be of great value in a war-zone."

"But it wasn't the only reason." Anastasia observed, still caught by his gaze.

"No," He agreed, but he left it at that, turning back to the golden clouds. Anastasia sighed quietly. She was not such a fool as to think she could get him to speak if he did not want to.

"How are we going to win this war, Lelouch?" She asked in a voice much gentler than her usual voice. A thoughtful voice. Perhaps… a little bit of a frightened voice?

"With cunning." Lelouch answered just as quietly, "With cunning, and instinct, and with a power that the other side does not possess."

"I only hope it will be enough…"

~v~

Kallen glanced around anxiously, passing her gaze once more over the massed forces of the Black Knights. Such a sudden call had not been able to bring in all of their forces; only about two thirds of the Knights had received the message, and only about half had reported for duty. But that was more than she had expected, after the others' reactions to her decisions.

As Zero's most trusted Knight, she had been the natural choice for leader of the Knights, despite her still being a student at the time. And as leader, it had been her word which was final at the meeting the previous day. She had chosen to take the advice of the "anonymous caller". She had chosen to investigate the island in the Pacific ocean.

That choice had been quickly followed with the resignation of five of the senior Knights.

Cornelia had refused to go, because she did not trust anyone she did not know. And if she was gone, so was Gilford. Jeremiah had gone because he refused to serve anyone but those who Lelouch had ordered him to serve. Ohgi and Villetta had gone because Ohgi had been there, at the beginning. He had been one of the terrorists of whom Zero had taken command; the one who made the decision to follow Zero's orders in that first battle. He had learned his lesson the first time, as he put it.

And so there was little left of the senior Knights for Kallen to take into battle. She would have to survive on an army of basic recruits who barely passed as Knightmare pilots, and a few experienced warriors to stand at her back. Even worse, she would have to survive on the word of a man who had been dead for ten years.

"It will work out." She almost jumped when Tohdoh spoke behind her. She turned to find him standing, calm and stiff as ever, with Chiba close at his side, "As soon as we have Zero, we will win."

"You're assuming that we will have to fight." Kallen observed nervously, glancing around once more at her small, incompetent army. What she wouldn't have given to have Suzaku around…

No. Suzaku was dead. By her hand. She could not start regretting that. Not now.

"When have the Black Knights ever made it through without a fight?" Was Tohdoh's only form of response. Before Kallen could say anything else, he and Chiba had moved away, towards their specialized Knightmares.

Kallen sighed quietly, staring around at her amassed forces. It felt inadequate, when she remembered the incredible armies that Lelouch had built during his reign as Zero. Hundreds of incredibly skilled pilots, fighting side by side, for the same cause. Most of them had abandoned the Knights when Lelouch was gone.

Only he could have held such a diverse force together.

Nearby, she could see Tamaki shouting at some of the disorganized troops. She sighed softly, watching him as he practically chased the newcomers around the hangar. There was no way he was going to get the troops into their Knightmares that way. Not that it mattered; most of them hardly knew how to pilot the damned things. What she really needed was her old force. Her old friends, the veteran pilots. If this came to battle with the Federation, she would need the senior Knights at her side.

But there were only five senior Knights left to go into this battle.

She could only hope that they would be among the Knights who came back out of it.

~v~

She had done it so many times, it hardly took any thought anymore. Hand-over-hand, one at a time, Anastasia drew herself up the thick vines on the side of the building, towards her bedroom window. It was easy to find the dips in the plants, where her hands had warn away at them over the many years of secret escapes and returns.

Of course, she had never returned in quite this fashion before.

The dark cloak swung around her neck, but it hardly added any weight to her climb. It was the mask, more than anything, which gave her a bit of trouble. It continuously caught on the various leaves and tendrils of the graceful vines. It was an inconvenience, even if it did hide her face.

In spite of the irritation, she managed eventually to clamber up and slip through the smooth curtains of her open window.

The room was dark and silent. Moving silently, she crept across the wooden floor to the door and crouched before the door, examining its corner. She smiled gently. The hair that she kept stuck between the door and the wall was still there, unbroken. No one had been inside since she'd left.

Coming to her feet once more, she turned and headed towards the farthest corner of the room. There, a deep chest stood, full of books and toys from when the Holcombs had first adopted her, and had bought her everything they thought her little heart desired. They had given up on that long ago, finally realizing that it was a hopeless cause. No matter what they did, their little Japanese daughter was never going to look at them with love.

Still moving with caution, to avoid waking her brother, who slept across the hall from her, she began to lift the toys from the chest, laying them gently on the floor beside her. It was a long way to dig; they had wasted lots of money on her, in those earliest of lost days. It seemed to take an eternity for her to reach the bottom of the chest.

A smile flicked across her lips as she ran her hand along the edge of the chest's bottom, until she found that tiny lever, practically invisible to the naked eye. Her gloved hand rasped softly against the rough wood, masking the tiny click as she undid the latch. The bottom of the chest popped open, and she lifted it up, to reveal the true treasures of the chest, hidden in the compartment below.

There, a cloth bundle sat. It was large, bulky, and oddly shaped, as though packed with long, thin objects. There was a bundle of envelopes tied across the top of the heavy linen sack. It looked shabby and worn; something an orphan would carry with them.

But to her, it was the center of the world. The meaning of life.

Wordlessly, she stroked the dark scrawl across the front of the top envelope. It was easy to recognize the untidy scribbling of her father. Sato Yukimi had never put much stock in things that were pretty; he said that beauty was just another way to hide weakness.

Except, of course, in the case of his family. His wife, Tsubako, had been the object of envy in their neighborhood through her entire life. And as Yukimi himself had cut a rather attractive figure, the daughter they had given life to; the lovely Akemi; had been the prize of their home town.

Until that home town had been utterly destroyed…

It was strange, to her. Hadn't it been in an attack by Zero; by Lelouch; that her home had ceased to exist? Still, she could not bring herself to hate him. She was like a little lost lamb, who had run to the wolf for protection. And it had been given to her. After so many years, finally, the wolf had given her a purpose.

Anastasia seized the bundle, heaving it out of the depths of the chest and placing it on her bed. Silently, she latched the bottom of the chest back down and piled the toys in on top of it.

She would be back, of course. It would spike suspicions if Anastasia Holcomb were to suddenly vanish, on the same day as "the true Zero" began working miracles once more. It would lead to the deaths of her innocent family, if they were suspected of fraternizing with the new terrorist. And so she would continue to move about her pointless existence here, in the Holcomb household. Some days she would go to school, others she would skip. Some days she would attend dinner, others she would not. She would live just as she had for years, moving through the house, an empty shell of herself.

Only now, in the shadows, she had something to live for.

And what mattered most in the world to her was that right then, where she knelt beside her bed, staring down at the bundles of letters which were all she had left of the place she had once called home, she had zero resignations.