You're Past, My Future
Chapter Five
a/n I own nothing. Even the computer I'm using belongs to the library. Sorry, I guess I'm just cheap like that.
It never ceases to amaze me how easily the masses are fooled. As one mind the faceless millions laugh, weep, and die like sheep.
"Were people such fools in your day, C.C.?"
"My day was a long time ago," she replied. "But they weren't called the Dark Ages for their shining intellect."
"Or their witch trials."
"So now that you're dead, aren't you worried that people will lose faith in you?"
"Faith is like a bone," he replied. "When broken, it heals stronger. In the zenith of my power before, there were some who looked to me like a savior and a god. My resurrection will only speed up the process."
"Just as long as you don't die for real, do whatever you like."
Zero laughed. "I have been dead for most of my life. Before you gave me the Geass, I existed in a world I was powerless to change. But you saved me from that, and when my Geass was sealed, you brought me back. And for my third time, I was a powerless, animated corpse, and you gave me life. I will die as many times as I need to, just as long as I accomplish my goal."
C.C. gazed distantly out the window. If that's what life is, she thought, to have power to change the world, then I've been dead for…
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Zero spent the next few days furnishing the future headquarters of the Black Knights. The first time, he had his resistance members unpack the necessities, but right now, they thought he was dead. And if he told them, they would tell their friends, who would tell their friends, who would tell Britannian informants, who would tell Princess Cornelia. And Zero didn't want her to find out, not until he told her himself.
The Britannians that he had obtained by the Geass finished setting up the equipment before returning home and forgetting they had ever seen him. That was one of the most useful aspects of his power, that his Geass automatically covered its own tracks.
Lelouch's phone rang. Rivalz. "Hello?"
"Lelouch!" his friend exclaimed. "Did you hear? This is terrible!"
"Terrible?" Lelouch asked. "Something terrible…involving something a bet you made?"
"No, worse! You mean, you really haven't heard?"
"Let's assume that I haven't," Lelouch replied with slight annoyance. "Please, enlighten me."
"Well, are you watching the news?"
"No. Why?"
"Uh, do you remember how the girls from the student council went on a trip to Kawaguchi Lake?"
"Hold on." Lelouch turned on the TV. "They've been taken hostage by the Japan Liberation front," he noted.
"I know!" Rivalz exclaimed. "They might get killed! What are we going to do?"
"Relax, Rivalz."
"Relax? How can I relax at a time like this? What, do you think that if I just sit back and twiddle my thumbs, some miracle will occur and everyone will get out safely?"
"Relax, Rivalz," he said again. "Because there is nothing you can do. But I have to go now. I'll call you back later." He hung up the phone.
Zero looked at the television screen. This was how he made the debut of the Order of the Black Knights the first time, by freeing the hostages. He wasn't sure that the JLF would act the same way, but apparently they had. It was just like it was the first time.
Only it wasn't. Looking at the footage of the hostages, he saw something there that shouldn't have been, and something was missing that should have been there.
Princess Euphemia was not among the hostages. Kallen was.
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Kallen had been feeling down since Saitama. What Zero had done in Shinjuku was strategic brilliance on the verge of being a miracle. And then when the masked them had them rescue Kururugi, it had been impossible, but they did it. He did it. All of reason said that they should have died that night, but somehow, he pulled through.
And now he was dead.
It shouldn't have ended like that. Saitama was a trap to lure him out, an obvious trap, and he walked right into it. It was almost as if he gave himself up so Princess Cornelia would stop slaughtering the Japanese to find him.
That man seemed too egoistical to sacrifice himself, but he wore a proud mask. And—to sacrifice himself for those around him—that seemed like something her brother would do, something that her brother did. And just like her brother, he was gone.
It was like a terrible, relentless, crushing weight. It was enough to make her want to give up, but if she backed down, if she stopped fighting, her brother would have died for nothing.
"Kallen? Are you okay?"
Kallen's head jerked up. "Oh, yeah, Shirley. I just…zoned out a bit."
Shirley looked intently at her. There was something intensely sincere and caring about her gaze that made Kallen feel uncomfortable.
"I'm fine, I mean it."
"Oh." Her face burst into a hopeful smile. "Are you coming with us to Kawaguchi Lake this weekend?"
"I don't think so."
"Oh, come on! It will be fun! We'll be able to just relax and take a break from life for a while and go somewhere new."
Kallen felt herself yielding under Shirley's vicious onslaught of sweetness and kindhearted sincerity. She didn't, after all, have any reason to say no. "Sure."
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When Kallen had first joined the student council, she had no idea what she was getting into. Now, more than a week later, she still had no idea.
"So we're going to have the whole weekend together," Milly said. "Just us girls. We'll be able to talk about…" She grinned mischievously. "…stuff."
"Stuff?" Kallen asked. "What sort of stuff?"
"Oh, you know," Milly purred. "Personal hobbies, hidden kirks, secret love interests."
Out of the corner of her eye, Kallen saw Shirley give her an oddly hurt look. Then she forced a smile.
"Hey, Kallen?" she said. "Do you want me to help you with your suitcase?"
"No, I'm fine."
"No really," Shirley said. "I insist. I know how you're always sick all the time."
"Uh, okay." Kallen hated milking her fake sickness for pity favors, but it would be suspicious to refuse.
Shirley picked up Kallen's luggage along with hers and bolted up the stairs as Milly and Nina occupied themselves with registration.
"Is there a reason you're going so fast?" Kallen asked.
"What? No, I just, uh, like running," she said brightly.
Fine, tell me later.
"It was number 317 that we're staying in, right?"
Kallen took out her key. "Right."
They went into the room and Shirley set the suitcases on the floor. Kallen looked out the window. "We have a great view of the lake from here," she said. "You should see this."
Shirley didn't say anything for a while. "Kallen," she said finally. "You're hiding something from us, aren't you?"
Kallen stiffened but struggled to keep her expression neutral. "What do you mean?"
"Just quit playing dumb! I know what it is!" Shirley said. Kallen reached for her knife. "You're dating Lulu, aren't you?"
"…what? But—that's ridiculous! I barely know him!"
"I saw you!" Shirley said accusingly. "I saw you two together on the grounds yesterday!"
"Hold on, that day he just—"
"You mean it was him?"
"No, well, I—"
"And there's the look in his eyes when you're with him—"
"What? Listen, Shirley—"
"And then there's the way he talks to you—"
"Would you just stop talking for—"
"And then there's—Kallen, why are you holding a knife?"
"Kallen looked at the knife in her hand and dropped it like a scorpion. "Uh, how'd that get there?" she said lamely. Shirley looked at her unconvinced. What I wouldn't do for a decent distraction right now. "Well, you see Shirley, I—"
A deafening explosion shook the hotel and Kallen heard the sound of gunfire.
That could work.
"What was that?" Shirley asked.
"Something bad," Kallen suggested. She glanced out the window, wondering if they could survive the jump. It didn't look good.
"Do you think Milly and Nina are okay?" Shirley asked fearfully.
If we tie the sheets together to make a rope—"Crap! They have the hotel surrounded!"
"Who?"
"Can't tell. Terrorists, I hope."
"Why do you hope for terrorists?"
"Because it's either terrorists or psychopaths," Kallen said. "And psychopaths are worse."
A member of the Japan Liberation Front with a very big gun kicked open the door to their room. "I want your hands where I can see them, Brits!"
Brits? If there was one thing Kallen hated being called more than Eleven, it was Brit, but she bit back her retort. There was something about the way the man held his gun that screamed, "Trigger happy."
"Alright, you win," Kallen said. "We surrender." Shirley looked at her and nodded at the man.
"Go down the hall and up the stairs to the eighth floor," he ordered. His eyes narrowed dangerously at the two of them. "And just try to pull something clever. I would love the excuse to paint the walls with your blood."
They started down the hallway submissively with the others who were herded by the JLF. "Well, at least their terrorists," Shirley said meekly. "I mean, it could be worse, right?"
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The hours passed as Kallen sat in a crowded room with the other hostages from the hotel. They were surrounded by men with guns guarding them so they wouldn't escape. The room stank of fear and desperation, and not only from the hostages. The men from the Japan Liberation Front were led by a man named Kusakabe, and to use a tactic like taking civilian hostages to release political prisoners would probably accomplish nothing more than get someone killed.
And by someone Kallen meant everyone. The person on the Britannian's side in charge of the negations was Princess Cornelia, and she had a "no negotiations" approach to terrorism. If what Kallen knew about the princess was true, then if things got dicey, she would just blow the hotel to smithereens and blame it on the terrorists.
On the other hand, Kusakabe was a man of no small reputation either, and according to that reputation, if things got dicey, he would kill all the hostages before allowing himself to be captured. For Kallen and the rest of the hostages, the question was not if they would die, but how, and that wasn't a pleasant question to think about, but Kallen found herself thinking about it a great deal.
If I tell the JLF I'm a resistance member, maybe they'll let me go—or they'll make her prove it and recruit her—but if I get them to let me guard the entrance and then make a break for it—they'd gun her down before she got fifty meters, and then there was the Britannian military to worry about.
"You!" barked a guard to a random hostage. "Come with us!"
The hostage followed the guards out of the room meekly. A few minutes later, a frantic scream fell past the window. From the roof, Kusakabe spoke through a megaphone.
"Princess Cornelia of Britannia!" he bellowed. "You have ignored our demands at the expense of the lives of Britannian civilians. If you continue to resist us, a hostage will die every thirty minutes until our demands are met."
"This is bad," Nina whispered. "The Elevens are going to kill us!"
"Don't say that," Milly told her. "Nothing's going to happen to you, I promise."
"But they just threw someone off the roof! For no reason!"
"Yeah, but pretty soon Princess Cornelia is going to break through," Shirley promised. "And then we'll all go home and forget this ever happened."
Kallen wished she could say something comforting too, but it didn't come. In all likelihood, they were all going to die. Well, almost everyone. Kallen might be able to save herself, but that was it. Survival of the fittest. She was fitter than the rest of the student council, she was a fighter, a survivor.
She could get out alive, but could she save anyone? She knew of a few people who could manage to sacrifice themselves to save those close to them; they were all dead. Kallen was a fighter, a survivor, but no one's hero.
Then someone called her. She set her cell phone so it would vibrate twice before ringing. She moved to turn it off before the terrorists noticed. Then she saw who it was.
Zero.
She stared blankly at the name on her phone. Impossible! He was dead, he died in Saitama, his mask hung on Cornelia's wall as a trophy.
Her phone vibrated again.
A dead man's calling me, she thought. But it can't be. Someone else just has Zero's phone. That made more sense. But why would—
Her phone started to ring and she answered it before anyone could hear. "H-hello?"
"Hello, Q-1."
"It's—" She lowered her voice. "It's really you! But, you're dead. They said so on the news."
"Do you believe everything you see on the news?" he asked with a patronizing tone. "The news is controlled by Britannia, and veracity is not something they're known for."
Kallen took a breath to calm herself. None of the guards seemed to notice her. "Right. What do you want me to do? I'm not really free to move around."
"I want you to tell General Kusakabe that I'd like to speak with him."
"Is that all?" Kallen asked. "Sure, no problem, I think I can handle that." She glanced at all the men holding guns. "Uh, what is it that you're going to do about him?"
"The war against Britannia is not a war that can be won through acts of terrorism," he replied. "If I cannot persuade Kusakabe to understand that, then he is needlessly taking innocent lives, and is no different from Britannia."
Kallen thought about how many people Zero had in their resistance unit, and then about the members of the JLF and the Britannian military surrounding the hotel. "I hope you have one heck of a plan."
"I always do," Zero replied and hung up.
Kallen racked her mind for an idea to get her in contact with the general. "Zero came back to life and told me he wants to talk with your leader," was the simplest solution, but all the members of the student council would know she was a terrorist. And yet if she didn't, her friends would die, and she'd let Zero down.
That's what it came down to. She tried to stand up to announce herself, but…when had her identity as Kallen Stadtfeld become so important to her? It was just a lie, an illusion, a—
"Take that back!"
Kallen jumped and saw a member of the JLF pointing a gun at Nina and yelling.
"We are Japanese! Eleven is an insult that your people gave us!"
Nina trembled violently and looked like she might turn into water any minute. "She takes it back already!" Milly said protectively.
"Please, calm down," Shirley begged. "You're scaring her!"
"You have no right to speak to me like that!" the guard roared. He yanked Nina to her feet by her arm. "Come with me! I'll teach you a lesson you won't forget!"
"Leave her alone!" Kallen found herself on her feet with every eye in the room looking at her. "You talk about liberating your country from Britannia, but when you kill people just because of their heritage, you're no different from the soldiers who massacred your people in Shinjuku! If you're going to throw anyone off the roof, throw me!"
That was it. The soldiers would drag her to another room, and she would tell them who she was and how Zero called her, and—
The guard slammed the handle of this weapon into the side of her face, knocking her to the ground. Kallen looked up and found herself peering down the gun barrel.
"Maybe," the man growled, "I'd rather kill you right now."
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Hostage situations aren't all they're cracked up to be, Deithard decided as he sat in front of the lake, gazing at the hotel. They were portrayed as high tension events, but the truth was that they were just tedious. The two sides quickly fell into a stalemate as neither was willing to concede to the wishes of the other. This was a battle of attrition, nothing more.
Then his phone rang.
"Hello, Deithard speaking."
"Hello, Deithard," said the voice. "I understand you are covering the hotel jacking of Kawaguchi Lake, correct?
"I am."
"Tell me, do you ever tire of reporting the same old story of Britannia's sustained supremacy?"
Deithard paused. That voice…it sounded familiar, but… "Who is this?"
"I'll be sending you a file in exactly eight minutes," he replied, not answering. "I want it aired immediately."
"Wait, what is this about?" Deithard asked. "What kind of file are you talking about?"
"My…resurrection."
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Kallen looked into the man's gun and wondered where her plan went screwy like that. Oh well. I'll improvise. She grabbed the gun pointed at her and pushed it away from her as he fired. She swept her feet under him, tripping him and slammed the gun handle into the face of another man before running for the door. She slammed the door behind her and saw—
Several more men with guns pointed at her.
"I surrender," she said quickly. "I'm a member of the resistance unit led by Zero. He has a message for your leader."
The members of the JLF blinked. "You're a Britannian," one noted. "And Zero's dead."
"No he's not," Kallen replied. "He just called me. Or do you believe everything the Britannian news tells you?"
They looked at her uneasily. "And you expect us to believe that the man who killed Clovis and supposedly isn't dead employs Britannians."
"I am no Britannian," Kallen growled. "My name is Kallen Kouzuki. I'm Japanese."
The men looked at her and at each other. "Unless she's an assassin, we aren't risking anything by letting her speak with the general. But you're handing over that gun. Right now."
Kallen gave them the gun she had taken without argument. She had no intention of using it. She was trying to reason with them, and people seldom thought rationally when they were shot at. She never did.
The guards led her to General Kusakabe. He was the man in charge of the entire operation, and a member of the Japanese military before Britannia came.
"So," he said slowly. "You claim to work for Zero. But Zero died in Saitama, and there aren't many Japanese who frequent this hotel."
"I live a double life as a Britannian student," she explained. "Usually it comes in handy, at other times it just gets me into trouble. I do not know exactly what happened in Saitama, but Zero is alive. He contacted me just now, and I recognize his voice and speech patterns."
"And what did Zero want?"
"He wanted to speak with you," Kallen replied, pulling out her phone. "Shall I call him for you?"
"I chance to speak with Zero…or perhaps just an imposter," he mused. "If nothing else, it should be interesting."
Kallen called Zero and handed Kusakabe her phone.
"So tell me," the general said. "Are you really Zero?"
"Yes. I am."
"I was told that you died in Saitama. Or was that just a dramatized fake?"
"Britannian nobles are wretchedly confident of their victory, regardless of the circumstances," Zero replied. "Royalty even more so. Cornelia would not give up until she killed me, so I let her."
Kusukabe thought about that for a moment and laughed. "Indeed. So what is it that you wish to speak with me about?"
"You do not seem to be in a flexible situation," Zero noted. "I would like to meet with you in person. I believe I can help."
"Very well. When will you be arriving?"
"I'm already on my way," Zero replied. "My helicopter will be landing on the roof of the hotel shortly. It would be greatly appreciated if your men would not shoot it out of the sky."
General Kusakabe considered the situation. "Tell me, Zero," he said. "Did you really kill Prince Clovis?"
"He begged for his life with his dying breath."
The general laughed out loud. "I'll tell my men to let you pass."
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Kallen was waiting on the roof when the helicopter landed. Not too long ago, it was more than she thought possible to have an old Glasgow, but since Zero appeared, they suddenly started having actual equipment.
Zero stepped out of the helicopter, and behind him Kallen saw Ohgi and some of the other members. Zero…he looked the same that he always had. Kallen had seen the footage of how a pilot with Zero's mask was peeled out of the wreckage of a knightmare, she saw the mask torn from the charred flesh.
And yet here he was, same cape, same mask, same confidence and surety. It was like Saitama never happened. And then there was Ohgi and the others. They were…wearing uniforms. Really nice uniforms.
"I take it you are here to escort me to the general," Zero surmised to the members of the JLF. "Q-1, you will stay here."
"What? But—"
"That is all," he said. He walked away with the general's men.
"So," Kallen said to Ohgi. "Nice uniform."
Ohgi grinned beneath his visor. "I know. As soon as they put it on the news about the hotel jacking, Zero called. All of a sudden, we have uniforms, better weapons, and a new hideout you wouldn't believe. I'll take you there afterwards, but right now we have work to do. We have to get the hostages to the rafts so when we set off the explosives, they can make it to the yacht."
"We have a yacht?"
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Kusakabe looked at the masked man in front of him as he sat with his men. "You indeed are a curiosity," he said. "You fight against Britannia, but you keep secrets from the Japanese. Before we discuss anything, I would have you show your face. If you are, as you say, among friends, you have nothing to hide."
"Of course," Zero replied. "I have nothing to hide at all." He took the mask off his face.
"What—what is this?" the general gasped. "You're not Japanese; you're Britannian!"
"Tell me, Kusakabe," Zero said slowly. "What are the Japanese? What makes them different from the Britannians? Is it their heritage, their ancestry? Or is it their heart? I believe that the defining attribute of the Japanese is their courage, their determination, their honor."
Kusakabe calmed down visibly, but he still looked distrustfully at Zero. "That's an exceptionally philosophical viewpoint."
"The same thing can be said of the Britannians," Zero continued. "They hide behind their wealth, their status, the sacrifices of others. They are defined by their arrogance, cruelty, and rot. When I look at you, General Kusakabe, I see a Britannian."
Kusakabe shouted as he drew his sword and jumped toward Zero, but Zero was faster.
"Die."
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The Lancelot burst through the underground tunnel, firing his gun into the hotel's major support beam. As the entire structure began to sink, several explosives detonated. Every person in the vicinity watched earnestly, with one exception.
Deithard sat in his van, watching the recording of Zero's first public appearance. Every time he heard that man speak, Deithard was more and more convinced that it was the same man who called him. There was something about his voice, a more than human quality in the way he talked, that made Deithard sure of it.
He heard a number of screams and explosions from outside, but Deithard paid them no heed. He glanced at his watch impatiently. Eight minutes. It's been eight minutes since you last called. Then he received the file, a live feed to another camera. He quickly aired it on every broadcasting frequency he controlled.
It's you, he thought. It's really you.
Zero's visage came to life on screen as he spoke to the world.
"Brittanians," he called. "Fear not. I have rescued all the hostages, and will be returning them to you shortly. People of the world, fear us, seek us. We are the Order of the Black Knights. We are allies to the innocent and defenseless. The Japan Liberation Front hid behind unarmed hostages as cowards, and so I have paid them a coward's salary. The former Vicereine, Clovis, oppressed the weak and murdered the innocent, and received the same fate by my hand."
"I walk the path of carnage, but I will not allow the weak to die at the hands of the strong. When the powerful attack the powerless, we, the Black Knights, shall return, time and time again to judge them, regardless of the strength of our foe. You, without power, seek us, take shelter behind us. You, with power, you tyrants, you oppressors, you, the Britannian Empire as a whole, hunt us, fear us, flee before us. For I am justice!"
"And justice never dies."
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a/n You know, it always surprises me how easy it is to write this story. With my first story, I got writer's block five times a chapter, but that's not happening here. Maybe it has something to do with the fifty plus reviews I've gotten so far. So yeah, Zero's back from the dead with a god-complex, and the Black Knights are formed. I couldn't do the hotel thing the same way it was in the canon, because one, that would be boring, and two, because Euphemia wasn't in the hotel, Zero couldn't use that to get Cornelia to cooperate. Also, Zero wouldn't want to reveal himself until he got on the big screen. It's just more dramatic that way.