Episode Five – Rebirth of a Hero

The Knightmares drifted silently, but for the slapping of waves against their thick metallic hulls. Seated within them, no Knight dared to speak, lest the sounds be picked up by a passing enemy. They moved without light, following only the splashing sounds of each other's vessels and the written orders on the screens within their Knightmares.

Kallen sat within her own Knightmare, listening to the whispered instructions of a man she knew was dead, transmitted over the cell-line she had never though to deactivate. After all, that dead man had been the only one who knew the code for the line.

She hadn't really expected the dead man to call her.

'Lelouch…' His name echoed over and over again in the back of her mind. She wasn't really listening to what he was saying to her, anymore. She was preoccupied with trying to imagine how he could possibly be alive. She had been there that day; granted, she had been chained to a float at the other end of the procession, but she had been there nonetheless. She had seen Zero run, attack, stab Lelouch. Kill him.

But that was the answer, wasn't it? From day one, Lelouch had acted with brains, not brawn. Strategy, not force. In these last few years… had she seen a single brilliant plan? A single miracle created from a situation where they had nothing?

Had she ever seen the man beneath the mask that she had called Zero?

"Are you listening to me, Kallen?" Lelouch's voice asked coolly. Kallen jumped, hand flying up to the clip on her ear.

"W-what?" She whispered, "Sorry…"

Lelouch's deep laugh shocked her again with its familiarity. When had he ever laughed around her? Really, truly laughed? Why was it so completely familiar?

Why did it matter so much…?

"You may encounter resistance on the way up to the island," Lelouch repeated calmly, "The Federation will attack on sight, if they see you at all. Try to stay hidden. When the fighting starts, draw the battle out as long as you can—"

"When?" Kallen whispered.

Lelouch was silent for a moment. Or perhaps not. She could hear whispers in the background, as though he were conversing with someone.

"Yes," He agreed, "When. The Federation stands directly between you and your Empress."

"What do you think we're going to do about it?" Kallen whispered, "We're riding Knightmares that are three generations behind the current Chinese model."

"As I said, draw the fight out as long as you can." Lelouch answered with the same degree of calm as always, "I will take care of the rest."

Kallen was silent for a moment, but Lelouch did not continue. He did not seem about to elaborate. She got the sense that he was waiting for her to speak, first. It took a while for her to figure out what she wanted to say.

"Is this really wise…?" Kallen whispered doubtfully, "We could wait… gather our forces—"

"We must move quickly, Q-1." Lelouch disagreed forcefully, "If we wait until our strength returns, the Chinese Federation will already own the world. We don't need another Britannia."

"But what can we do?" Kallen demanded.

"You can dodge." Lelouch answered quietly, "Lie. Bluff. Make them think you are stronger than you are. You will only need as long as it takes to find your Zero and the Empress."

Kallen nodded silently, forgetting that he couldn't see. Her lack of reply didn't seem to bother him. Not that much had ever seemed to bother him; he had always been calm, composed and intelligent.

At least…

He had whenever he stood behind the mask.

Wait… hadn't he been the false Zero? Kallen sighed in frustration. She couldn't keep it straight, couldn't figure out what her mind was trying to tell her. Why was she supporting him, anyways? What proof did she have that this really was Lelouch, and not some sort of crazy imposter. A Chinese spy, even? She had learned many years ago never to trust a man without a face.

So why did she trust the man at the other end of the line?

"Beware, Kallen." Lelouch interrupted her thoughts without warning.

"Commander," An officer's voice crackled over the communication lines between the Knightmares, "There's movement ahead."

Kallen looked up, scanning the horizon. Her eyes widened.

"Damn…"

~v~

Anastasia's cloak whipped out in the sea-breeze which surrounded her. She stood at the ship's prow, staring out into the deep black of night. The sky was indistinguishable from the seething ocean, and the ship rocked with the destructive, unstoppable strength of water. The power of it impressed her; no matter what struck it, the water molded around the blow and kept on moving. Nothing could fight it. Even the strongest of swimmers would tire and drown…

That was the strength she needed. Strength which could stretch and evolve, but never weaken. The strength of the sea.

"Are you ready to begin?" C.C. spoke from behind her. Anastasia made no move to respond. She did not need to respond yet; they were still several hours away, "This will be dangerous. You aren't invincible just because you're wearing that costume."

Anastasia knew that. She wasn't a fool. She had never thought of herself as invulnerable, immortal. She knew she was human; she knew she could die. Hiding behind the mask of Zero did not change any of that.

But she also knew that she was ready. She always had been.

The slap of water on the ship sides filled the silence between them. Anastasia chose not to speak, because there was nothing she could say. Either it would work out, or it would not. And there was nothing that either of them could do about it, no matter the result.

"Are your plans prepared?" C.C. asked. Her tone was dubious; it brought a small smirk to Anastasia's lips, beneath the mask. C.C. had not liked the idea of letting Anastasia; a rookie; plan the battle. She said Lelouch should have planned it; after all, he knew what he was doing.

It made Anastasia glow with pride to remember how Lelouch had responded to that. 'She will be fine.' He had said. 'Today, she is Zero.'

And she felt like Zero, stupid as she knew it was. She felt strong and clever, though not quite immortal. No, immortality did not come with the cloak and mask of Zero. But mystery did; mystery and power. And that was all Anastasia needed, to destroy her enemies.

Living forever… she would worry about later.

"How has your testing gone?" C.C. tried again, rather annoyed that Anastasia had ignored her questions.

Anastasia gave a soft laugh, which echoed oddly within the mask, reverberating through her heads for a full second after the original sound had faded.

"Very well." She answered.

"Have you learned your limitations?" C.C. prompted.

"I have learned enough, for now," Anastasia whispered, almost too quietly for C.C. to hear. And she had learned enough; more than she needed, certainly, to complete this mission. There was no need for her Geass here; not yet. Only for her drive, for her physical body, for the mind which could house the voice of the man once called Zero. Their enemies were not powerful yet. There was no reason to bring Geass into the open so early into the war.

This answer seemed to displease C.C., however. Her lips bent into her frown, and Ana thought she caught a flash of disdain in her golden eyes. Clearly, she disapproved of the way Anastasia treated her Geass; a simple tool, something dangerous and unnecessary in most circumstances. C.C. placed a great deal of value in Geass, but Anastasia knew better. Lelouch had warned her, had showed her his mistakes. She would not fall into the same trap; she would not allow Geass to control her. At the end of this new revolution, she intended to be alive.

"How far are we?" Anastasia whispered, before C.C. could speak again. She did not have time now for an argument about the principles of the use of Geass. Her first priority was protecting the lives of those few Black Knights who were still willing to fight.

"A couple of miles, at most," C.C. answered begrudgingly. "The fighting will begin soon."

Anastasia nodded pensively. Her emerald eyes narrowed slightly, watching the moonlight glitter off of the waves; the only source of light on this vast black ocean. Absently, she fingered the edge of the mask she held tucked under her arm. She would put it on when the time came. For now, it was unnecessary; they rode without lights. No one could see her face.

"How long can the Black Knights hold?" Ana asked.

"Not long," C.C. replied, her tone just as reluctant. She did not enjoy bowing to the authority of an inexperienced high-school girl; more than that, she hated bowing to the authority of someone she had not chosen. It had been different with Lelouch; she had picked him. She made no secret that she did not believe Lelouch had made the right choice in Anastasia.

But Ana did not care. So long as Lelouch needed her, she would fight for this revolution. And perhaps even when he no longer needed her. Perhaps she would always fight. Now that he had given her the power, she could not imagine a world without it.

"Will we make it in time?"

C.C. was shaking her head almost before Anastasia spoke.

"There is little chance."

"Then we'd better speed up," Anastasia murmured, turning from the bow to face back across the ship. She gripped the mask tightly in both hands, raising it and slipping it over her head. The hissing click as it locked into place was at once ominous and thrilling. "Tell the Captain to pick up the pace."

C.C. nodded stiffly, but did as she was told, turning and vanishing back into the darkness of the ship. Anastasia stood for a time, watching the spot where she had vanished, her expression empty behind the mask. It did not feel odd to wear the mask of Zero, as perhaps it should have. She had been wearing a mask for years; an immaterial mask, hiding any and all feeling from the world. Her own face had been a mask in itself.

This mask was nothing new.

~v~

The waves rushed softly up against the sand, lapping at Nunnally's toes. The water was cold; colder than she would have liked, certainly. That had always been the problem with beaches. She loved them; she had always enjoyed taking trips to the beach with her many siblings. But the water had always been just a little bit too cold…

Trailing her finger through the sand, Nunnally scribbled out a pattern. At first she thought that it was just some silly, senseless design; an abstract creation of a little girl's mind. But after a while she began to see something there, in the lines her finger left behind. A cloak… a mask…

Sighing softly, she swiped her hand over the drawing, washing it away in one broad stroke. No matter what she did, even now, ten long years after Lelouch's death, her thoughts always seemed to turn to her beloved older brother.

Desperate for some sort of distraction, Nunnally raised her eyes from the sand to the glistening, moonlit waves beyond. But there was little there to see; everything was rippling and black. The sky and the sea merged together perfectly, like some great black wall, boxing Nunnally in on that forsaken island. Alone...

No, not completely alone. Suzaku was still with her.

She twisted around, searching him out. He sat on a boulder, a little ways back up the beach, where the water could not touch him. She could not blame him; she could not imagine how heavy that cloak must become when it got wet.

That cloak… that cloak had been the source of all of her misery in life. That cloak, and the mask that came with it. Suzaku sat with the mask in his lap, and though his eyes were fixed on the horizon, his hands never ceased to stroke its curved surface. His fingers followed the graceful lines of the mask without thought, tracing by instinct. By memory. No matter what he did, Nunnally had seen, he always seemed to be touching that mask. She could hardly bear to think the sort of memories, the sort of pain, that mask held for him. Her brother, his best friend… Lelouch had worn that mask.

Lelouch had touched that mask as he died…

Nunnally gave herself a sharp shake. Desperate for a distraction from her memories, she called out to Suzaku.

"When do you think they'll come?" she asked. Suzaku jumped when she spoke, looking up as though he had forgotten she was there. She knew that wasn't likely. Suzaku had thought of almost no one else for ten years. One of her brother's final commands, she supposed… protect her. From what Suzaku had told her, that had always been Lelouch's goal. It made her cold inside to think that her brother had died for something as silly as that.

Suzaku's lips tilted down slightly as he considered her question. His lips were always like that now; curved into a stiff, unhappy frown. She had not seen him smile since… but she had never seen him smile. She had not met him before she was blind… and he had never smiled after her eyes had opened again.

"I don't think they'll come at all," Suzaku told her, his voice plain and honest. He never lied to her; Nunnally was fairly sure that he wasn't capable of it. Not just her, so far as she knew he had never lied to anyone. Lying seemed to be the worst of sins, to Suzaku. She could not imagine how he had gotten along with her brother. No matter how much she hated to admit it, he had lied. Constantly.

Slowly, Nunnally turned back to the waves. She rolled his words over in her mind, considering them.

"Why would C.C. say they were coming if they weren't?" she whispered. Behind her, Suzaku shifted, sliding down off of the boulder to land in the sand at its base. She heard his feet shifting across the beach as he came to sit beside her.

"C.C. isn't really the sort of person you can trust, Nunnally…" Suzaku replied. Nunnally frowned, but he did not see, continuing without looking at her. "She does things her own way… and not always for the good of others."

"I've never seen her hurt anyone," Nunnally told him. It had always confused her, Suzaku's odd dislike for C.C. The girl had been perfectly pleasant when Nunnally had met her. Though she had to admit, C.C. had lied a great deal… everything she had said when they first met had been a lie.

And Lelouch had gone along with it…

"She hides it very well," Suzaku growled, distracting her. Nunnally swallowed painfully, a bit frightened by his tone. This was not the Suzaku she remembered, not the Suzaku that Euphemia had fallen in love with. This was the broken shell that her brother had left in his wake, left behind to guard her. She had never felt entirely comfortable with him; not since Lelouch had died.

Nunnally licked her lips lightly and forged on, still watching Suzaku's dark, joyless face.

"How long do you think it will be?" she demanded. Suzaku sighed quietly, raising one gloved hand to rub at his temples. Nunnally could not help a little shiver of concern that ran down her spine. He must still be in pain… even he could not heal that sort of wound over night.

"C.C. said they would be here within the hour," Suzaku whispered. He turned to her then, fixing her blue eyes with his. "Get some sleep, Nunnally. You look tired."

"So do you," Nunnally returned without thinking. Suzaku shook his head slightly, turning back to the sea.

"Sleep," he murmured. "I'll wake you if I see anything."

Nunnally started to object, but Suzaku was not listening anymore. She could tell by the far-away look in his eyes that his thoughts were with Euphie once more. There was no way to talk to him when he was this way.

"Good night…" she whispered, lying back across the sand and closing her eyes. He offered no acknowledgement as she forced herself to relax, giving herself in to her exhaustion. She fell asleep with the sea rushing against her feet.

~v~

The first explosion was like a wake-up call to Kallen. The world seemed to rock around her as her Knightmare was thrown off coarse, sea and sky exploding in color around her. Not for the first time, she was grateful for the shields Rakshata had developed so many years ago. She could not count the number of times they had kept her alive.

All around, she could hear people mobilizing. Voices sang over the intercom, but Kallen ignored them as adrenaline sang through her veins. It seemed and eternity since she had felt this way; wide awake and full of life, eager to destroy and protect, to shed the blood of her enemies. It seemed like forever, and yet she felt like it had been only yesterday that the war had ended.

More explosions followed the first, one after another, shattering the quiet night in rapid succession. It was disorienting, the way the air around her seemed to burst with color, illuminating that which they had not seen.

Chinese Federation ships. Dozens of them; almost a hundred, perhaps. Bearing down on the same little island as the Black Knights. But they were turning now, diverting their forces.

Unfortunately, it had been the Black Knights who were spotted first.

Kallen leaned forwards, seizing her controls. Her body moved fluidly, without and direction from her mind. She reacted to the blasts without any thought at all, riding them out like a surfer on a wave. Most of the new recruits were not so skilled. Several went tumbling into the sea, and Kallen could only pray that they would ever be seen again.

"Don't fight them!" she shouted over the intercom, though she doubted that anyone heard her over the babble and screaming of the less experienced recruits. "Just stay alive! We have to find an opening!"

"We're not going to make it!"

The voice was Tamaki's, as Kallen had expected. He was always the firs to speak, whether in battle or at a drinking party. It was harsh with fear and anger. He wanted to be able to fight, she could tell. He was craving, as she was, the days when the Black Knights had been strong.

This sort of conflict would never have bothered them before.

"We must retreat," Tohdoh's words interrupted Tamaki. Kallen hissed quietly at that. Retreating was one thing that she had never liked. She was a stubborn person, rash. She liked to plow straight through to her destination, to get what she wanted no matter what it took. But she could see that the others were right. Though the noise of the constant fire was cut off by the hull of her Knightmare, she could see that things were not going well. Under the perpetual rain of attacks, in a matter of minutes there would be no one left.

Kallen gritted her teeth angrily, her hands tightening on her controls. The Knightmare seemed to shudder around her. It was a weak machine, several generations too old. She was used to the Guren… with the Guren they could have won.

She shook her head sharply. The Guren was lying in pieces underneath a pile of rubble at the Imperial Palace. She had to work with what she had, and that wasn't much. She had to keep what she had alive…

Kallen opened her mouth to give the order, but with a crackling of static the lines were cut. She swore bitterly, slamming her fist against the controls, determined that they should work. But something had changed; her Knightmare had been too badly damaged, or the enemy had put out a screen. There was no way to reach her army now…

If she could not reach them, they were all going to die.

Desperately, Kallen began pounding on buttons, struggling to forge a connection with someone's Knightmare. Anyone's Knightmare. On another day she might have been able to do it; she was good with Knightmares, no matter what the function. But on this night, she did not get the chance.

The speakers hummed to life once more. Kallen opened her mouth again, ready to give the order to retreat. But once again, she was interrupted.

"Head for the island," Lelouch's voice commanded, without the slightest hint of hesitation. He spoke with the same cold composure that he had always possessed; some sense of authority that made him entirely impossible to resist. Kallen began to wonder how she could ever have doubted him. "Find the Empress and your Zero."

"The Federation—" Kallen started, but Lelouch cut her off again.

"I will take care of it."

And with a soft click, the line went dead, and the terrified shouts of her dying soldiers assaulted her ears once more.

~v~

At first, through the fog of sleep, Nunnally thought that a storm had hit. That she was lying back in her warm bed at the palace, listening to thunder crash outside. But no thunder she had ever heard sounded so frequently…

"Nunnally," Suzaku's voice cracked close to her ear. She felt his hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently. "Nunnally, we have to move."

Dazed, Nunnally started to sit up. Suzaku did not give her time, pulling her upright with unusual force. He sounded frightened, but Nunnally couldn't quite figure out why. Through her half-lidded eyes she could see the colors of fireworks. What was there to be frightened of at such a beautiful festival?

She felt Suzaku's arms slide under her, lifting her up off of the sand…

Sand?

It all rushed back at once. The attack. The chaos, the pain, the blood… the island.

They were on and island. The Chinese Federation had invaded.

Was that who was causing those explosions? Then those weren't fireworks…

"Bombs," she whispered, and her eyes flew open the rest of the way. Suzaku nearly dropped her as she came suddenly to life in his arms. "What's going on?"

"Fighting offshore," Suzaku answered tensely. He was jogging now, back towards the caves where they had first taken shelter. She could see his face, very close to hers; twisted with pain and fear. She could only imagine what carrying her was doing to his healing wounds. "Got to get to safety…"

Nunnally frowned.

"What if it's the Black Knights?" she demanded. "How will they find us?"

"We have to get somewhere safe," Suzaku repeated firmly, ducking into the cave. Before Nunnally could protest he had swept her on towards the back of the caverns, heading to the deeper tunnels they had yet to explore. Her arms tightened around his neck as they descended past the curtain of darkness, into a realm far too much like blindness.