Your Past, My Future
Chapter Six
a/n Are disclaimers necessary? If so, pretend I put one here.
Kallen wandered around the yacht, looking for her friends. Ohgi told her that the others had a way out before Cornelia's troops rescued the hostages, and for her cover's sake, Kallen had to pretend to be one of them. For the life of her, she couldn't understand why she had to live a double life, why she couldn't dedicate herself completely to the resistance like the others, but she had a position to maintain.
"Kallen!" Milly screamed. "Look, there's Kallen! She's alive?"
Kallen turned around to see Milly, Shirley, and Nina as they buried her in a group hug. "Oh, hello," she said awkwardly. "Um, you can let go of me now."
"Kallen, what happened to you?" Shirley asked. "I thought you were killed by terrorists."
"Oh. Well, about that," Kallen said. "They were going to throw me off the building, but it wasn't half an hour since the last time, so they decided to wait, and then they got involved with the whole Zero thing."
"Well, that was pretty lucky," Milly remarked. "But what were you thinking when you took on that terrorist? I thought you were sick."
"I started a new treatment recently," Kallen explained. "I guess it's working." It seemed like a reasonable excuse. No one could expect her to be seriously ill for years on end.
"And that's why you decided to pick a fight with a madman with a machine gun," Milly surmised.
"So I panicked," she said defensively.
"Most people panic the other way," Milly remarked.
"But…thank you," Nina whispered. "For…what you did back there."
"Don't mention it," she said dismissively. "I mean it, seriously, all of you, don't. I don't think people would understand, and this sort of thing can get out of hand really easily."
"I understand," Milly said. "We won't tell anyone. You can trust us."
It would have been a lot more convincing if she didn't wink.
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Princess Cornelia looked at the Black Knights' announcement with controlled fury. "Get the hostages out safely," she ordered. "That is our top priority." It would be so easy to blow up the ship itself, but their recent rescue left the "Black Knights" with the moral high ground as it was, and to kill them with the hostages now would only help their cause.
"But I want everyone who comes off that boat to have his ID taken," she added. "I want anyone who shouldn't have been in the hotel arrested." That would be the easiest exit for Zero, to disguise themselves as civilians and leave with the hostages. But no…that would be too simple for someone like Zero.
Of course, she couldn't be sure that this was in fact the real Zero. Any terrorist would love to take the credit for regicide, and anyone could wear a mask. All it took was a big enough head.
Princess Cornelia thought about the events in Saitama. Whoever was controlling the resistance was a man of strategic brilliance, someone who managed to stay one step ahead of her the entire battle, as though he could read her mind. And yet, she was convinced that she had him cornered when the knightmare opened fire on the others and was immediately destroyed.
Was that you who died in Saitama, Zero? Or did you plan that from the beginning? Am I being played? If the real Zero was here before her now, he would have another way out, just like before, just like always. But how?
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Kallen and her friends were shepherded off the boat by the Britannian soldiers. She looked over shoulder and wondered how Zero and the others were going to escape. She knew Zero had a plan. He always did, apparently, but would it kill him to let someone else know ahead of time?
"Right this way, please," a soldier said as they reached the shore. He directed them to a line of the other hostages who were being screened for their identification.
"But I don't have any ID!" a woman in front of them protested. "I left it my room with all my luggage! I didn't have time to take it with me when the terrorists attack! But you can just take my name, can't you? It should be on the hotel's guest list."
"The hotel is destroyed, along with its records," the man explained. "But if you could write down your information here and hold it in front of you, I could take your picture."
Mug shots? Kallen wondered. That's it? They're going to take our mug shots? Yes, it was thorough, but not creative. Zero definitely would have seen though something this predictable. She took out her ID as the line moved forward when, behind her, the yacht exploded.
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"So you had a hidden, miniature, escape sub the whole time, and then you had to blow up the yacht for, what?" Kallen asked Tamaki as they walked toward the hideout for her first time. "Was it just for the dramatic exit?"
"I know!" Tamaki explained. "This Zero guy's pretty awesome, but this is money we're talking about! If he's so smart, why can't he win without making a fortune go up in smoke every five minutes?"
Tamaki led her into the new hideout—and her eyes widened in surprise. It had two stories, a kitchen, a storage room full of firearms and explosives, a big screen television, and even a few prison cells. "No way! This…this is incredible! Zero must be loaded! How'd he afford a place like this?"
"I asked a corrupt Britannian noble," Zero said from behind her, sitting on a couch. "And he gave it to me."
"Kallen blinked. "That's it? You just asked him, and he gave it to you?"
Zero nodded. "It can't be traced," he assured her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tamaki mouth the word, blackmail.
"And he gave you the yacht and the helicopter too? Kallen asked.
"Those certainly can't be traced." The helicopter blew up with the yacht. Helicopter, yacht, hotel, Zero liked to blow stuff up.
That made sense, but there was something else that was bothering her. "So, what exactly happened in Saitama? The whole world thought you were dead. How'd you do it?"
"That hardly matters," Zero replied. "At the hotel, I thought of seventeen different ways to rescue the hostages, but the only thing that matters is the results. And just like at the hotel, the results in Saitama were very, very good."
Kallen thought about it. His words had a cold, ruthless logic to them, even if he didn't bother to explain himself. "So what happens now?"
"Now," Zero said. "Now we, the Order of the Black Knights judge the world."
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Lelouch glanced at Kallen as she sat, dead asleep, with her head on her desk. It had been more than a week since they had become the famous Heroes of Justice, but Lelouch seemed to be handling the sleepless nights better than she. Of course, if he hadn't slept during a history lecture in first period and hadn't taken a nap on the roof during gym, he'd be in the same position.
"Kallen, wake up," he said, shaking her slightly after the bell rang. She didn't budge. Lelouch noticed that the test they had taken lay almost completely blank on her desk. He sighed and filled out the appropriate bubbles when the teacher wasn't looking. "Wake up, Q-1," he said quietly.
"Yes, Zero!" she said, sitting up abruptly. She looked around, realizing where she was. "Wha…what happened?"
"You fell asleep during class," Lelouch explained.
"Uh, did I…say anything? she asked nervously.
"You sort of mumbled something when you woke up, but nothing coherent."
Lelouch left Kallen staring at her test with a confused expression on her face. Before the Black Knights had been a military force to rival Britannia, they had been defenders of the weak, the compilation of Zero's ideals and honor incarnate. At the time, it seemed like the perfect way to obtain the most support from the masses while attracting the least antagonism. And yet, as Zero looked back on it, he wasn't sure how much of it was true, and how much was a lie.
Zero wanted to clean up the mess that was the world's corruption, that was true. But he was, as always, concerned with the results. It was the end that mattered, and the persona of the Heroes of Justice was useful to that end. However, every time he told his knights that they were made for justice and not revenge, when he told them that they're purpose was for Japan's redemption and not Britannia's destruction, that was a lie.
And yet…
That was the whole point, wasn't it? Before he could create, he had to destroy. If he wanted to recreate the world, he would have to first destroy it, along with everything else. The first thing to go was himself, his conscience, his soul, everything that would make him fit for the perfect world he sought to create, everything that made him akin to the one he sought to destroy.
But was that really what he wanted? He never understood what he had sacrificed to achieve his ambitions until he had the chance to undo everything. And then, the last time he spoke with Suzaku at the Kururugi shrine, his friend told him, the only way to atone for your lies is to make them become the truth.
That seemed rather hypocritical for Suzaku to say, considering that their meeting was a trap and he was just stalling for backup to arrive, but he seemed sincere when he said it, and although Suzaku was a superb pilot, he was a terrible liar.
It was an idea, an idea that only Suzaku's hopeless idealism could come up with. It wouldn't work, of course, because Zero needed those lies. And yet…until those lies became false, he could make them real. The Black Knights was just one of those lies. The other was his friendship with Suzaku.
"Milly," he said when he approached her in the hallway. "I was wondering if you could do a favor for me."
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Two men walked into a bar. Jeremiah didn't pay attention to either. He sat with his shoulders slumped, staring through whatever toxic concoction his irrational mind had ordered. In ruin and disgrace, the former Britannian lord tried and failed to think about how far he had fallen.
"Jerimiah!" a familiar voice gasped. Villeta. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm trying to get stone dead drunk," he growled. "What does it look like?"
"Oh, it's just that I was looking for you somewhere else, and…never mind." Villetta sat down beside him. "I wanted to ask you a few questions about the Orange—" Jeremiah flinched visibly. "About the Kururugi incident. You said that you have no memory about what happened, right?"
Jeremiah downed what was possibly the most horrible thing the bartender had in one gulp. "Call me crazy if you want," he muttered. "Or call me a liar. It doesn't matter, but that's the truth."
"Actually, I do believe you," she said. "I didn't bother mentioning this earlier because I thought Zero was dead, but I suspect that he has a…a personal interest in Kururugi."
Jeremiah looked up from his drink. Kururugi. An honorary Britannian of unusual status for an Eleven. And yet…the boy was like no one he had ever met. Jeremiah tried to use him as a scapegoat, but the next time they met after he was released, Kururugi saved his life. There was no self righteousness, no revenge, no malice in him, just a value for human life.
"What makes you say that?"
"In his first public appearance, Zero tried to rescue him," Villetta explained. "Of course, that could just have been for the chance for him to insult Britannia and gain the trust of the Elevens, but something else happened to me earlier in Shinjuku. Just like you have no memory of what happened when you faced Zero, just like Bradley's men had no memory of what happened when Clovis was assassinated, I found myself in the middle of nowhere with my knightmare missing. My only clue of what happened was an ambulance worker, who thanked me profusely for stopping to give first aid to a lowly private."
"Do you know what that private's name was?" she asked in a low whisper. "Kururugi Suzaku."
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"Hey, new guy!" Milly called. "I mean, Suzaku!"
Suzaku turned and gave the girl addressing him a friendly smile. There were plenty of people in Ashford who habitually talked about him behind his back, but so far she was the first person after Lelouch who spoke to him directly. "Hello," he said. "How are you?"
"I'm great," she said. "I'm Milly, by the way, if you don't already know. Milly Ashford, president of the student council. Hey, is it true that you and Lelouch are friends?"
"Uh, what makes you say that?" he asked evasively.
"Oh, Lelouch mentioned something about you two being old friends and that I should make you a member of the student council."
He what? "Well, if Lelouch said so, it must be true."
"So you two have known each other for a long time?"
"For years," he said affirmatively.
"And you know all sorts of embarrassing stories about him that he won't tell us?"
"Countless."
"Then welcome aboard the student council."
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"So, what did you think?"
"About what?" Suzaku asked. "The student council meeting?" It was Suzku's first meeting as part of the council, and it was just over. "Well, Lelouch, I have to say it was…awkward. Not the most awkward meeting I've ever been in, but still really, really awkward. Who was that girl who looked like the was about to bolt out the window when I walked in?"
"Nina," Lelouch replied. "But she's like that with everyone."
"But that other girl accepted me right off the bat," Suzaku mused.
"That was Shirley," he explained. "She's just generally friendly."
Suzaku lost himself in thought before saying anything else. "So, whatever happened to our plan of pretending not to know each other here?"
"Our plan?" Lelouch snorted. "That was your plan, if I remember. When you told me your plan, I told you that you were an idiot, but that was your problem not mine. I guess what happened was that I realized that it is my problem. But if you want to quit the student council, deny knowing me, and go through school as a persecuted recluse, then I suppose I can't really stop you, now can I?"
Suzaku let that sink in and laughed. "Lelouch? You're a good friend."
We'll see how long that lasts. "Don't mention it."
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Suzaku was an enigma. Before he died, his father, the prime minister of Japan, had a freedom or death approach to Britannia, and as his only son, it would make sense for Suzaku to feel honor bound to do the same. That's what Kallen would have done, anyway.
But Suzaku wasn't vengeful, he wasn't bitter against Britannia. He was just…helpful.
"Uh, Suzaku?" she asked in the student council meeting room. "What are you doing?"
"Dusting," he replied simply. "Why? Am I doing it wrong?"
"No, I mean…never mind."
Come to think of it, Lelouch was something of an enigma himself, and the two were apparently friends. Kallen heard the two of them talking together some time earlier, and the young Britannian had little love for Britannia. When she questioned him about it, he told her some horrible story about how his father shielded his mother's murderer by crippling his sister, but in retrospect, Kallen had no idea if she could trust him.
There was something false about Lelouch, and he said so himself that he'd rather have lies told about him than the truth. That he hated Britannia seemed real enough, but she had no excuse to pry into his motivation, and he had no reason to tell her the truth.
"Hey, Suzaku? You and Lelouch are old friends, right?"
"Oh yeah. We go way back."
"So is it true what he said about how his sister ended up in a wheelchair and his mother in a, uh, coffin?"
Suzaku froze. "He told you about that?" he said softly. "Wow. He doesn't tell anyone about that. You must mean a lot to him."
Could you not put it like that? "But it's true? His mother was killed and his father framed terrorists just so he wouldn't have to deal with it?"
Suzaku's eyes widened. "He's blaming his father for it now? That's basically true, but I think his father's involvement is only speculation. Well, I hope it is. I've barely seen him since the end of the war seven years ago, so he might have figured something out since."
"Wait, Lelouch's been here before the war?" Kallen asked. "But why? I thought that—"
"You know what?" Suzaku asked suddenly. "I shouldn't be talking about this. This is something that you should probably be asking him."
"Fine, fine, forget I said anything," Kallen said dismissively. "But I have one more question."
"What?"
"You," she said. "You were born Japanese, you're legally an Eleven, and you've become an Honorary Britannian. So what do you call yourself?"
"Well, I figure it doesn't really matter," Suzaku said thoughtfully. "Some people call me an Eleven because to them that's what I am, and there's not much point to get offended by them. Other people call me that as an insult and are trying to offend me, so then there's even less reason to be offended by them."
"But what do you call yourself?"
"I call myself Suzaku."
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Kallen would never forget the night she fell in love.
The Order of the Black Knights was growing exponentially. There was something awesomely sublime about being a defender of justice, a sort of super human heroism that drew people to their cause. Their growth wasn't just in numbers, either. They started getting support from the Kyoto group, and that meant a lot more than funds.
It meant weapons.
Kallen walked down the row of Burai knightmare frames. They seemed a lot like her old, second hand Glasgow, but there was nothing second hand or old about these Burai. They were brand new and outmatched what she was used to by a considerable amount.
Then she saw what was possibly the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. It was a knightmare like the Burai, but the comparison alone was a joke, like saying that a diamond was like a piece of coal. The frame was painted dark red, but Kallen's eyes were drawn to its silver claw. Looking at its lopsided form, she knew that this knightmare wasn't made as a decoration or a parade piece, it wasn't designed for elegance, it was designed for destruction, for fear.
"That's the Guren Mk-II," said a voice behind her.
"Oh, Zero," she said, startled. "It's pretty incredible. I've never seen anything like it."
"You'll be seeing a lot of it in the future," he said, tossing her something.
She looked at what he gave her. It was a key, shaped like a red and white feather. "W-what is this?"
"It's yours," Zero replied.
"Wha-mine?" she asked, looking at the Guren in a new light. "But shouldn't you be the one who…"
"Tell me," Zero said. "Have you ever faced one of the Knights of the Rounds?"
"The emperor's personal knights?" she asked. "No, of course not."
"The main difference between them and you is not skill, but equipment. In a decent knightmare frame, you could hold your own against almost any of them. I am the commander, but you are our best pilot. That's why the Guren is yours."
Kallen's eyes widened. He didn't say it like a compliment, he said it like a fact. "Have you ever faced the Knights of the Rounds?"
"I expect you to familiarize yourself with the manual," Zero said before leaving. "You'll need it."
Zero left her alone with the Guren, her Guren, because her skills as a pilot were on par with the best in the world. She looked at the knightmare and the key Zero had given her.
I think I'm in love.
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"Zero!" Ohgi called. "I need to speak with you."
Zero saw Ohgi running up to him holding small file. "What is it?"
"I've received some…interesting information, from someone who claims to be interested in joining the Order," he said, handing Zero the file. "I don't personally trust him, but that's your decision."
Zero looked at the file. Deithard? He was, besides Lelouch, the only Britannian to join the Black Knights, but he was…not technically trustworthy, but loyal. True, Deithard had, in the end, betrayed him, but so had all the Black Knights. The information Deithard gave them talked about an attack Britannia was planning on the JLF in Narita.
Narita.
Narita had given Zero the reputation as a man of miracles, it had been his first victory, not just as defenders of the weak, but in a war. And…Cornelia. He had come so close to capturing the Second Princess of Britannia that time, but one thing had gotten in his way.
Or, rather, one person.
"Ohgi, these are some supplies we'll be needing," he said, scribbling a list down on a piece of paper. "We'll be leaving at this time tomorrow." And right now, I need to sabotage someone.
Zero left the hideout and called an old friend. "Hey, Suzaku!" he said friendlily, treacherously. "I was wondering if you would mind having tea with Nunnally and me tomorrow."
Throughout this entire war, you have always been in my way, Zero thought. But this time, I think it's better if you stayed home sick.
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a/n Some people have been asking me why Cornelia didn't blow the hotel to smithereens when she had the chance. Without Euphie there, she would be willing, but that was still a last resort thing, and she tried to get everyone out safely first. That's the same reason she didn't blow up Zero's boat afterwards, besides, she had the boat surrounded, so she wouldn't have had to make a move of desperation.
You know, I used to think that Suzaku was hopelessly idealistic, that it was, although admirable, foolish to try to change the world the way he was trying to do it. Then I saw a movie about Gandhi. He managed to change the world, and he did it without high tech weaponry, which is pretty awesome.
And now that I've got nothing left to say, there's something I want to rant about. In the anime, remember how they found out about the hotel jacking? On a whim, someone turned on the TV, which just happened to be on the right channel, at the right time, to tell them something poignant to their lives. I've been known to watch TV for hours on end, and do you know how often I've actually seen something important? I honestly don't think it's happened yet. Sorry, that's just something that's been bothering me.