Episode Six – Water Burning

Malcolm grabbed at his controls as his Knightmare went reeling to the side, certain that he was going to topple out of the cockpit. That was ridiculous, he knew; the top was sealed and the only way for him to escape now would be to eject. But the sheer power of the Chinese weapons, the strength of the shockwaves, still made him shake with the idea of falling into them. Anyone standing out there now, unprotected by the shielding walls of a Knightmare, would have no chance at survival.

Desperately he fought with the controls, trying to make the Knightmare obey him, if only to retreat to safer ground. But the Chinese weapons were blasting on all sides, and they tossed his weapon back and forth as though it were made of nothing but air. All he could do was sit there and hover and wait for the blasts to stop so he could drop out of the sky. There was no way his flight device was still working in all of this.

Malcolm knew how he must look, and he was grateful that no one could see him; not his commanders or his enemies. He was shaking badly, and sweat dripped down his death-pale face. His hands had gone numb with the effort of holding on to his controls. He could have let them go, they were useless to him anyways, but Malcolm could not bring himself to release his grip.

There was a short surge of relief as the speakers crackled to life, but it quickly died. It was Kallen, their leader in Zero's absence. But there was no order to retreat, no brilliant plan to get them out.

"Everyone hang tight," she commanded, her voice cracking over the barely-maintained line. "Command, follow me."

Malcolm's stomach tightened again. He was sure he would be sick. He could see them now, moving on his radar screen. Drifting away from the main body, painfully slow as they were tossed in every direction by their enemies' blasts. Kallen, Tohdoh, Chiba, and Tamaki, all that was left of the leaders of the Black Knights, were leaving them. They were heading for the island, he knew. They would find Zero and Nunnally, and only then would they worry about the underlings they had left behind. Zero was more important, Malcolm knew that. He would always be more important. Without Zero, there was no war. Malcolm gave a cry of despair, finally releasing the controls to hide his face in his hands. They were all going to die.

~v~

Gravel ground quietly beneath Kallen as she landed, twisting the key and shutting her Knightmare down right there on the beach. This island, she knew, was too thickly wooded for a Knightmare to be of any use. She pushed out through the hatch, lowering herself onto the sand and walking towards the trees. She remembered this place very well.

She wondered if Lelouch remembered it the same way she did.

"Orders, Kallen?" Tohdoh's quiet voice sounded just behind her shoulder. She had to fight not to jump at that; he was always just a little bit too close, just a little bit too quiet.

"Spread out," Kallen answered, her voice carrying across the beach to where Chiba and Tamaki were still dismounting. "Search for any sign of them. Zero's Knightmare was pretty beaten up to begin with, he can't have landed well. Smoke, burning, crushed plants. Anything that could lead to a wreck."

"Yes, ma'am," Chiba answered shortly, saluting Kallen and striding away across the beach. Tamaki ran after her, looking pale and frightened. Kallen understood how he felt. It was wrong to leave their armies behind, even if it was Zero they were chasing after.

"Where are we going?" Tohdoh asked once Chiba and Tamaki had vanished down the beach.

"Into the forest," Kallen answered quietly. Tohdoh did not answer, but she had not expected him to. All she usually expected was a silent nod. In the end, it was surprising when he did speak. She struck out across the beach, leading him out into the underbrush. She watched the world carefully as she passed through it, hunting out any sort of signal she could find – a crushed leaf, a scrap of hair on a twig – but it would do her little good. How could she be sure they were signs of human activity, when there were likely animals all over the island?

Half an hour passed, and they continued walking, deeper and deeper into the dark forest. She was prepared to give up, admit that she had been wrong. That the phone call had been a farce. Lelouch was dead. She knew that. She had been there, watched it happen. How could he be calling her, giving her advice? It was ridiculous. Some prankster.

But how had they accessed that number…?

"Kallen!" Tohdoh snapped, and she jerked to a halt, eyes wide. Absorbed in her thought, she had nearly stepped into the massive, skidding track of something landing. Something large. Large enough that it had broken several of the trees it passed. The charred ground spoke of flames and destruction, but no smoldering wreck of a Knightmare lay in sight. Instead, a set of clean, brush-breaking tracks… Zero was alive. Kallen felt her heart hitch in her chest. Nunnally might be alive as well…

"Call the others," she commanded. She did not wait to see that her order was followed, stepping out into the burnt grass and following the patch cut by the dying Knightmare. She had to find them. She had to know…

~v~

The chill air cut through Suzaku's lung like nothing he had ever experienced before. He'd been shot, stabbed, punched… nothing felt like this. Cold, wet, as though he were trying to drown rather than breathing. Ever step made him shudder just that much more as he plunged deeper and deeper into the silence of the caverns. All was black now – only by luck and the curse of his immortal Geass had he managed not to plunge to his death, and Nunnally's. That assuming, of course, that there was somewhere to plunge to, and he was not walled in from all directions. A thought which, somehow, scared him even more.

He could feel Nunnally shaking in his arms. She had never been strong, and now the longer he ran the thinner she seemed to become. He could only imagine her fear – she had seen war, seen her brother become a monster, seen much more than either Suzaku or Lelouch had ever wished of her. Nevertheless, she would never see as much as Suzaku had. And this cavern frightened even him.

The sharp echo of his boots against the lumpy cave floor accompanied his breathless rasping in a sort of dystopian symphony. The world was ending. The Chinese Federation… why hadn't he seen it coming? Lelouch would have. Lelouch would have seen it years before it happened. Lelouch had probably seen it before he died…

No, he had definitely seen it. Nothing escaped Lelouch's Geassed eyes. He'd known then, at the very end…

"Suzaku!" Nunnally shrieked, and Suzaku realized too late that they were falling. He gasped, tried to catch himself, but the ground was gone from beneath his feet, and with Nunnally in his arms he was helpless. His heart flew up out of his mouth as they plummeted away through the sightless black.

~v~

The salt in the air burned all the doubts from Anastasia's mind as she stared across the dark waters to the blossoming of explosions which marked the ongoing battle. She was honestly surprised that the Black Knights had survived this long – undersupplied, untrained, she had expected to find nothing but wreckage waiting for her, floating amongst the triumphant Chinese vessels. Not so. Perhaps she should have given these new generation Black Knights more credit… even if they were not the soldiers Lelouch had lead so many years ago. They would be that again. Someday. She would make them strong once more.

"He is pleased with you," C.C.'s voice, irritating though Anastasia found it, was a comfort in these final moments. Anastasia's annoyingly human heart fluttered with nerves. He needed the sardonic words of the green-haired immortal… but no, there was no sarcasm here. The woman was sincere. Somehow that frightened Anastasia even more. "He is not easy to please. You will make a strong leader for the Dark Knights."

Anastasia's lips twitched of their own accord. The thought was ludicrous. She, the leader. No… she was no Zero. No matter how much she wished for that power to be hers, she bore a different Geass. No two Geasses were the same. She could never be what Lelouch had been, could never do more than fill in where he should be standing, until he found a way back to the mortal realm.

"I am just the spark," she whispered, listening as her voice came through as Lelouch's. Deep, round, certain… terrifying in so many ways. Not hers… better than hers. "I am nothing more than the spark which falls upon the fuel. It is the fire which shall overcome this world."

Anastasia could almost feel C.C.'s smirk, and knew that C.C. saw in Anastasia what the girl was seeing in herself. Lelouch had invaded her. Claimed her. She no longer belonged to herself…

Why did it not bother her?

In a whirl of cloak and a glint of mask, she turned on one heel and brushed past C.C. and strode back over the decks. She felt C.C. fall into step behind her, felt the eyes of the soldiers on her, and walked a little straighter. Their attention warmed her.

"Your word, Zero?" one of them whispered, and still somehow managed to sound like a soldier at attention. Anastasia turned to him, raised one thin brow beneath the mask.

"Let it burn," she answered.

The silence ended. With a skull-shattering rush, yellow flame licked up, spreading rapidly over the smooth surface of the sea. Outlined by the flames, the great black silhouettes of her fleet were painted across the night sky. Hot wind blew up around her, played with her cloak and stained Zero red.

Standing behind Anastasia, C.C. watched the chaos the girl's first performance brought to the Chinese fleet. The radios went wild, commands shouted in Chinese breaking up what few signals Anastasia's forces were attempting to transmit to the stranded Black Knights. It did not matter. The Black Knights were safe.

A god watched them from above.