Author's Note: It's been a while, isn't it? I suppose that's college. A combination of papers, tests, oh-please-God-let-me-not-fail, and being sort of tired all the way through, bumming around your vacations when you get them... This is my second year, you'd think I'd be used to it. Oh well. So, anyhow. Last time, I believe I said that I'd get around to Milly's backstory. It's right here, I hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the series mentioned here. And that's good.

Anime

It Solves Your Problems

Ashford Academy, it turned out, was Big.

Not big as, say, an entire city, or something of similar size. But it definitely dwarfed Sina—maybe even Beacon—dorms, study halls, libraries, and faculty buildings sprawling across an area that if you'd asked Adam was a little too much for just a school. He asked Misaka about it, and her eyes glazed over for a moment.

"'Misaka is not allowed to ask questions anymore,' Misaka pouts dejectedly," she replied. Well okay then.

"WHY IS THERE NO PARKING!" Lancer screamed. That was another problem—some kind of Inverse Law of Parking Spaces, the more you needed them, the fewer there were. Misaka had actually postulated such a theory, earning her several odd looks and then grudging agreements that such a thing was not altogether impossible.

"Don't worry," Milly replied, "Lelouch will have left a space reserved for us. He's not completely heartless." She looked out her window suspiciously, as if she still wasn't quite sure she was safe. Adam could understand the feeling—after the incident on the ferry, there was no way any of them wouldn't be feeling on edge. Milly, though, seemed to have it especially badly.

"'Would that be Lelouch as in Lelouch Lamperouge?' asks Misaka in an attempt to distract Milly from whatever is bothering her," Misaka said, cocking her head slightly to one side.

"Oh, you've heard of him?" Milly asked. "I'll have to introduce you."

"'Misaka 17900 has watched Code Geass,' Misaka contemplates," Misaka said. "'Lelouch died at the end of the second season,' she adds to clarify her point of confusion."

"Ah, you did watch it, didn't you," Milly replied. A smirk began to play across her mouth, as if some small part of her former self were reawakening. "So did Lelouch."

"I don't follow," Adam said.

"PARKING!" Lancer shouted, cutting off any response that Milly might have made. He craned his neck out the window and saw that, yes, there was a solitary empty parking space sandwiched between a tree and what looked like some kind of luxury car.

"Gah! Hey! I'm still halfway out the window!"

"Sorry!"

"YOU WILL BE—"

"KNOCK IT OFF!"

Lancer and Adam turned to look at Milly. Her face was flushed and her hands clenched in anger, Adam wasn't sure whether she was angry at their childishness in the face of danger, or at an event that was going to hold great personal meaning to her. He breathed in deeply, almost trying to exhale the frustration he had been feeling just a moment earlier. Not that he was going to apologize—

"Sorry," said Lancer gruffly.

—he… didn't… care… Oh, forget it.

"'Will there be food?' asks Misaka, as the fridge is empty and Misaka requires nutrition to function properly—"

"Probably, yes," Milly replied flatly. The spark of life was completely gone from her face, subsumed by whatever problems she was returning to—thud

"Ow," a new voice grumbled. Everyone turned to see a young man with black hair and deep violet eyes sprawled on his back across the floor. "Ah, hello everyone," he added as if it were an afterthought.

"So you're a ninja now, Lelouch?" Milly asked dryly, offering him her hand. "Things must have really changed while I was away."

"Sayoko and Jeremiah have been teaching me a few tricks lately," Lelouch Lamperouge acknowledged, pulling himself upright. "It's not nearly as easy as they make it look."

"'You are not dead,' Misaka notes, examining Lelouch," Misaka said observantly. Adam grit his teeth and willed himself not to laugh.

"Yes, I'd like to suppose that's a given," Lelouch replied. "You'd be Misaka, then?" There was a moment of silence as Adam gave Lelouch what was likely a pointed look. No one could be certain because of his visor. "I did a little research when Milly called to say she was coming back. You four… tend to leave a mark."

"Fair enough," Adam replied.

Lelouch turned to Milly. "I've taken the liberty of having Sayoko set your old room up for you and Misaka. I also have a place in the mens' dorms for Adam and Lancer, if they're willing to take it." He opened the door and thrust his head out, looking both ways. "I would love to talk more, but if I don't head back soon, Jeremiah will realize that I'm gone. The funeral is in two days, so you'll be able to do whatever you want until then." He jumped out and walked away.

The four of them sat in silence again for a few seconds. Then the other three turned to Milly.

"Fine," she sighed. "My room."

"So. You want to know what this is about."

"Well, let's start at the beginning. See, we found Code Geass for sale a year or two before the events of the show were supposed to happen. Once Lelouch found out it was about him, he shut himself in his room with it for a week. Planning, I suppose. But whatever he did, he took the Britannian Empire down without even trying. And so we came to the events after the war."

"'Misaka doesn't understand,' Misaka complains," Misaka said. She, Adam, and Lancer had taken various positions around the room—Misaka was sitting at a desk, Lancer was sitting on the desk for some reason, and Adam was leaning at the doorframe. Milly was sitting on her bed, hands clasped in her lap.

"You get a bunch of dedicated fighters and take away anything for them to fight," Lancer replied, "They end up going a little stir crazy." Adam was conspicuously silent.

"Yeah, something like that," Milly agreed. Misaka nodded and filed away this information.

Going by what Misaka knew of Milly, the room was fairly unusual for her. It was much more extravagant, with posters decorating the walls and a big fluffy comforter on the bed. Milly tended to prefer somewhat more Spartan surroundings, as if she would have to leave sometime soon. Not something this… floofy.

/19090/ NO ONE IS GOING TO CHECK AND SEE IF THAT'S A WORD, seethes Misaka.

/10033/ Misaka didn't say anything, Misaka says.

/14044/ You were going to, Misaka points out.

/10033/ Misaka wasn't!

/15305/ Why don't you use first person pronouns anymore? Misaka asks.

…

/10032/ Oh great, you made her cry, Misaka sighs in exasperation.

/10033/ Misaka isn't crying, Misaka protests.

"Lelouch and I decided to let everyone who had been a member of the Black Knights stay on campus while the government was getting set back up, and, well… what Lancer said. The war had been such a big part of their lives, and now it was gone. They had nothing to do with themselves."

"Kallen took it worse than most of the others. To look at her, she had nothing to live for. And Lelouch was trying to help her with that, and Shirley has her crazy huge crush on Lelouch, so you know how that was going to go."

"Why do I get the feeling that you did something undeniably stupid?" Adam demanded curtly.

"It wasn't stupid. I decided to set Lelouch up with both Kallen and Shirley at the same time," Milly replied in the same tone.

For several seconds, the room was silent.

"'Maybe it's a cultural thing?' Milly suggests," Milly said in a quiet tone that was probably meant to be a whisper.

"Hey!"

"So what happened," Lancer asked, holding up a hand for silence.

"… Let's just say I owe Yang Xiao Long two-thousand Lien," Milly replied ruefully. "Lelouch was pretty ticked."

"So, he decided that for punishment I needed to get a taste of my own medicine. He makes me go on a date with Rivalz and sends Cornelia along as a chaperone for some reason…"

"Oh, my fair and beautiful lady," Rivalz said to the paragon of womanhood—

"KNOCK IT OFF!"

"… says Misaka, slightly put out."

"So, how was school today Milly?" Rivalz asked, attempting to break the awkward silence that surrounded the three's table.

"Nothing to report," Milly Ashford replied miserably. She scooped up a spoonful of soup, and let it pour back into the bowl.

"H-how about you, Princess—what are you looking at?" Rivalz turned to Cornelia, who was staring at a table a little further away. Her brow was furrowed as if she recognized them.

"Hum? Oh, nothing. I have something I need to take care of, I'll be right back," Cornelia replied, standing and walking away. Rivalz shrugged and turned back to Milly.

"Wonder what that's about," he said contemplatively.

"Who knows? Probably some plan of Lelouch's to get us alone and humiliate me," Milly grumbled.

"Wow, Milly, you're just a bundle of joy today. I know Lelouch is trying to get back at you for your whole… antic thing… but you could try and enjoy it a little! You know, turn it back on him," Rivalz suggested. Milly gave him a look that suggested he needed to be medicated.

"That's what he wants!" Milly exclaimed, scandalized. Rivalz raised his hands in a fashion that Milly was pretty sure was the fashion you used when convincing the crazy person to put the gun down.

"Alright, alright," he said in a placating tone. "Let's just… What in heck is Cornelia doing?"

Milly turned in her seat to see Cornelia arguing with four men who were sitting four tables away. The restaurant was loud enough that whatever was being said couldn't reach them, but it looked like things might turn ugly.

Then they did turn ugly, as Cornelia went for her gun… sword… What was it called, anyways?

"Focus."

"I wasn't going on a tangent!

Whatever it was, Cornelia placed it squarely between the eyes of one man. Reactions were immediate, two of the others breaking away and running, the last taking a swing at Cornelia which ended fairly predictably. Milly and Rivalz gave each other a quick glance as realization dawned—with nothing better to do with their time, Cornelia and Guilford had taken to moonlighting as vigilantes, and then there was the fact that oh crap he's headed this way—

The two of them jumped out of their seats, somewhere in the process of deciding whether to flee or do what they could to help, but then the man crashed into Rivalz and the decision was out of their hands, the man grabbed Rivalz by the collar and began to rise to his feet again, only to fall again when Milly brought her chair down on his head.

The restaurant was deathly quiet now, with the exception of the radio that was playing some comically peppy tune about falling in love.

"Good work, Ashford!" Cornelia congratulated the two of them, dragging her own opponents behind her. "I was worried there for a moment, but you did yourself proud."

The man stirred, and Milly shrieked and hit him again.

"And not just anyone…" Cornelia continued, turning the unconscious man onto his back. "I do believe this is the old man's son himself."

"Ah," Adam said. "That's a bad business strategy."

Milly nodded grudgingly. "The first attack was some kind of ninja guy while I was asleep. If Arthur hadn't been in the room, I wouldn't be here. Then there was the sniper, and a staged terrorist attack just to track me down—"

"Yippie-ki-yay?" Lancer asked with a chuckle.

"Tamaki was so happy to say that, I've never understood why," Milly replied. "Anyway, it kept getting worse and worse, so I…"

"So you ran," Adam finished for her, folding his arms and standing up straight. "How noble of you." Milly rounded on him.

"Do you know how many people attend this school?" she demanded.

"Did you forget that you have some of the most elite soldiers in the world attending this school?" Adam replied in a measured tone. "All that would have happened is that your life would have been a little more involved for a while."

"And you probably would have fallen in love somewhere along the line, that tends to happen," Lancer agreed. "It would probably be your initially-standoffish bodyguard, or maybe a guy who happens to work for this… old man, whoever he is, and shares his desire for revenge—"

"'Lancer, do you read a lot of shoujo manga?' asks Misaka, as that is what this conversation is starting to remind Misaka of."

"I read anything if it has a good plot," Lancer replied.

"We're getting off topic," Adam replied. Milly glared at him.

"It doesn't matter what I should have or could have done," she said, clasping her hands in her lap as if trying to squeeze her frustration down. "That's what happened. And now that I'm here again, it's going to start happening again."

"And we'll be waiting," Lancer added.

"We will?" Adam muttered under his breath.

"Of course we will!" Lancer replied, "It's not my style to leave a pretty girl hanging!"

"I can't ask this of you," Milly said.

"'It's a little late for that,' Misaka points out," Misaka said.

There was a knock at the door. Adam glanced at Misaka, turned, and slowly opened it.

The man standing outside had long red hair, a patch over his right eye, and a cigarette in his mouth that Adam was fairly sure was against the rules. He wore a long, green olive coat over a slightly ratty t-shirt and khakis.

"… swear those two will be the death of me," he grumbled under his breath. Then, pushing the door open further, he said "Any of you know where you'd go around here to get something to eat?" Everyone paused.

"Actually," Milly said, "That sounds like a pretty good idea. Let's get something to eat.

Author's Note: I'm a little worried that Misaka is going to turn into some kind of Creator's Pet-I just have so much fun writing her! However, she has stuff to do with Adam's character arc, so removing and replacing her would be all kinds of awkward. In any case, I am going to try to be as detached from her as possible while I write this story.

Also, joining the cast temporarily are a few characters from the phenomenal Dogs: Bullets & Carnage by Shirow Miwa. If you haven't heard of this guy, he's the man writing the OFFICIAL RWBY MANGA.

Next Chapter: Two days til the funeral and nothing to do. And people out there who want to kill you. WhatEVER could happen next?