Old Tokyo Tower, The Day Before, 15:00 hours.

"Hmm, what is going on here? Naoya hasn't gotten here yet and it's already 15:00 hours." Shirley complained as she, Lelouch, Nunnally, Milly, Nina, and Rivalz waited on the observation deck.

Someone then called out, "Hey, Lelouch! Over here!" Shirley turned to the right and saw a boy carrying a laptop computer running towards Lelouch.

"Sorry, Lelouch. Naoya had something come up at the last minute and wanted me to hang out with you and your friends instead. Oh, I've been so caught up that I forgot to properly introduce myself. My name is Atsuro Kihara. I'm a friend of Naoya." the boy said.

After Milly and the others introduced themselves to Atsuro, he said, "Anyways, Naoya asked me to give these to you all. Honestly, it would be useless for Miss Nunnally because of her disabilites." Atsuro said as he gave out devices that looked like Nintendo 3DS systems to Lelouch, Shirley, Rivalz, Nina, and Milly.

Lelouch took a look at them and then asked, "Wait a minute, aren't these those Communication Player systems?"

"I've seen commericals for them on TV before. They're like, 'Play with people around the world!' or something like that." Shirley remarked.

"Oh, you know about them Shirley? That's exactly what these are. The name 'Communication Player' is a real mouthful, so people just call them COMPs. They have email and a web browser, so they're more like cellphones than game systems." Atsuro replied.

"Huh. . . Is that so?" Nina asked.

"Naoya also said that we'll all need these and to not let go of them. Still, why would we need these? I' mean, I've got a COMP back at my. . . huh?"

Atsuro opens one of the COMPs and stares at it in wonder. "What the. . . I've never seen this menu. Did he homebrew this?" he said.

"What? Do you mean he made this himself? Is that even possible?" Nina asked.

"Huh? Don't you know, Nina? Naoya's famous among us computer programmers. He's a genius! Something lke this would be no problem for him."

"Huh. . . I had no idea. Is he really that good?"

"Hmm, I can't open this folder. Looks like it's protected. . ."

"Protected? You mean, it's set so other people can't mess with it? We can't look inside, then." Shirley said remorsely.

"Atsuro can crack it." Lelouch said in a rather deadpan manner.

"Heh heh, that's right! Good thing I brought my laptop along." Atsuro said as he connected the COMP to his laptop and began typing furiously.

"Huh!? H-Hey Atsuro! What are you doing!?" Milly asked.

"Heh heh! What does it look like? I'm gonna hack this folder wide open. Naoya explicitly told me that it was okay to hack into these if it was necessary and I say that it needs to happen."

"Even so, I still think that it's a bad idea." Shirley said to Atsuro.

"Meh, details. You can at least check your mail for now." Atsuro said as Lelouch and his other friends opened their COMPS and saw that the email function was indeed unlocked. There was a single mail inside at the moment.

[Good Morning. Here is today's NEWS.]

[1: At around 16:00, a man will be killed in a Queen's Secret jewelry store. The wounds on the corpse are consistent with an attack by a large carnivorous beast.]

[2: A large explosion will occur on the Ashford Academy Campus at 19:00. The cause is unknown and no deaths will occur.]

[3: At 21:00, a blackout will affect the entire Tokyo Settlement area.]

[Have a nice day.]

"At around 16:00 in a Queen's Secret store, a man. . . will be killed!? He'll be attacked by some carnivorous beast. . .!? What kind of news is this!? That's so creepy!" Shirley remarked.

"The text is strange." Lelouch said in a deadpan manner.

"LULU! That's not the point!" Shirley complained.

"It also said there will be a blackout in Tokyo today. . . what is this? It says it's today's news, but none of this has happened today. Why would Naoya put a lock on this?" Atsuro muttered.

A/N: Cornelia is probably going to appear in the next chapter. Also, I now have Devil Survivor Overclocked since I bought on sale on the Nintendo 3DS.