Man, last week's issue really threw a wrench into all my plans as while I'm not the most organised dude, you kinda have to have some sort of plan when in university, or else you'll find yourself swamped with work and not knowing what the hell to do…something my dumb-ass has experience with. Anywho, with the issue at hand, I've found myself having to reorganise stuff around to make sure I can still keep up with my studies, and have actual free time. Still with the issue at hand, as I stated in the previous chapter, this will be part 3 of the story which means another phase of the story. Again, please leave a review as I appreciate the feedback, also add this to your favourites if you like it.

Chapter 17: Our Unrecognizable Home: Part 1

Kallen wondered to herself if she should have worn gloves as she rubbed her hands together, trying to warm them up on this unusually cold spring day but it wasn't so bad that she would have returned to her hideout, she had dealt with worse after all. Besides, as she walked down the streets of Kyoto, she had somewhere to be and didn't want to be late, a thought that brought her a brief if not welcomed giggle as when she become a resistance fighter, she had dreamed that they'll win before she was 20, that she'll still be able to experience what college life was life, see if it was really like how Ohgi and her brother described it-all before she would get a job, maybe as an engineer.

But, as she looked around to the crowd, and saw how so many avoided eye contact or just looked as stressed as she felt, she remembered just how far out of her reach that old dream was. Pulling her coat closer to herself to try and blend in better, and avoid being picked out of the crowd by cameras, she continued, suppressing her desire to stick out, to do something, to act like a sheep, but in Schneizel's world, being a sheep was the only way you lived long. Passing by an electronics store, she kept moving even as the broadcast talked about some new bill brought forward to the UFN, the reporter's voice grating on her already tense nerves, almost as much as hearing the news still pretend that the UFN was truly a free and independent body.

However, she couldn't walk away from the jumbo screen, one so similar to the ones that Tokyo Settlement…used to have, but even larger. On it, the reporter from before droned on about nothing news. A local interest story, celebrity drama, the opening of a few new rail lines, all things she wasn't too interested in, with perhaps an exception to the last one, but what made her blood boil was the addition of an announcement from him, from the man that took everything from them.

Seeing Schneizel, dressed to the nines with clothing that seemed like he told whatever spineless stylist he had working for him to go with an ancient Greek/Victorian combination made her want to pull her gun and put a few holes in the screen, even if she knew it was pointless. The man never left the safety of his damned orbital fortress, where, unseen by the naked eye, he could rain down death and oblivion on whoever and whatever drew his ire disguised as righteousness.

'People of Japan.' Before, while she would have avoided him out of principle, he was the Britannian Prime Minister and one of that bastard Charles' hellspawn, she would have admitted that his voice was calming, attractive even. But now, she didn't care how honeyed his words were, or how buttery his voice-it was as rancid as 3-month-old milk as far as she was concerned.

Not being able to see her contempt for him, or to be more accurate, not caring for how millions shared her view, the former prince turned tyrant continued. 'This is a time of celebration as we approach the 5th anniversary of our righteous victory over the remnants of the old war, over the tragedy that was discrimination, hatred and conflict.' Her fist tightened at that, at the memory of that crucial day. How they had fought with all they had, how she had blown through any and everything she could get her hands on, even the duel against Suzaku which like all the others, ended with another tie.

'For 5 years we have marched on, rid of such evils, and for 5 years we have achieved true peace.' Schneizel smiled, proud of himself, proud of the so-called peace he enforced on them all, proud of the millions he slaughtered to get it. No, Kallen knew in every fibre of her being, that there was no shame in Schneizel for his actions. None.

'He calls it peace.' Someone close to her in the crowd muttered, giving voice to the feeling that they all shared, yet didn't speak out loud. A fact made clear when the man next to them grabbed the woman by the arm, fear clear in his voice.

'Quiet, if the wrong person hears you.' Ever vigilant, Kallen had been keeping one eye out for just that, but she didn't see anyone outing out of the ordinary, and there were no white-cloaked officers around either.

'To make this auspicious milestone, celebrations across the world in all the regional capitals will be held then, with restrictions on travel being lifted so that all may gather for the event.' Capitals of countries that no longer existed he meant. Capitals that weren't wiped off the face of the earth by the madman that thought himself some sort of messiah. Once the broadcast shifted to something else, she made a retreat from the place, feeling disgusted at seeing that bastard's face but she had little power to do anything about it, even if her Guren wasn't 5 years back. Walking away from it, she spotted those same white cloaks she had been avoiding, the trio of officers from the infamous world police in the process of arresting someone, their name she didn't know but she did know that they sold clothing, and friendly, always ready to give a helping hand.

As she listened to the man pleading that he wasn't part of the resistance, she figured that he must have been too friendly, maybe he helped someone who was suspected of being a radical, maybe he was related to one, she didn't know. All that she did know was that the sight reminded her of a certain hotdog vendor from times long past, it made her wish to rush to his aide, she knew she could take down those white cloaks before they could draw their guns, much less radio for backup.

But just like with the hot-dog vendor, she knew it wasn't worth it, recalling the words of an old friend, how he would advise her to act, how she had acted for years now, even if her heart stung as she turned her back on someone in need and walked away.

She had other places to be.

She took her time making her way through town, it wouldn't do for her to look like she was rushing somewhere so she kept her pace moderate, and acted to all the world like a 20-something just walking about on a off day. Once she approached her destination, a small little family-owned diner, she paused at the entrance as in the reflection of the glass, she sparred herself a glance and was reminded of the fact she wasn't the same 18-year-old redhead she once was, though she could see that she wasn't as attractive as she thought she would be, her tired eyes and eye bags spoke of how little rest she had gotten. Her hair, which she had loved to spike up, was styled low like her days at Ashford, its shining red dyed blue which along with her brown contacts made her look like a different person, which she knew was the point, that she was acting like someone else to avoid detection, especially ever since that bastard Suzaku put a 20 million bounty on her head, but…

She was beginning to wonder if she was the same person anymore.

She entered the place and found herself seated close to the back, away from the windows and out of the view of anyone who walked in. As she waited for her meal to arrive, she looked around the place, keeping up appearances, and saw no white cloaks or white cloaks off the clock, good, she wished to be able to enjoy her drink in peace, and not have to worry about Suzaku's goons being near her. The idea that after all was said and done, Suzaku got what he wanted, but that was all it did as it was a bitter feeling she had unfortunately grown accustomed to whenever she was in Japan and saw that he ruled it as its governor, even if the traitor rarely was seen outside his palace.

Though, as her coffee arrived with a sandwich and she thanked the waiter, she noted to herself that good thing that he was rarely out these days, at least as far as she knew as often when he did, it was with the Lancelot. And that always meant blood spilt somewhere, all in the name of this false peace. Even if she could admit that the regime had done some good, namely working to eliminate poverty and food security, it was the method that she and so many others found fault as its one thing to convince people to work together towards a mutual goal, its quite another to grab people, ship them to work sites and force them to work under pain of being branded an enemy of peace if not shot right in front of the rest as an example.

She still recalls the time she spent undercover in a car factory up north with a shiver, 10-hour work days, 6 days a week with little time given to rest or eat. Even with her training and exceptional physical health, she found that she had to drag herself back to their hostels after her shift ended, too exhausted to do anything else but crash on her bed and pass out, waking up hours later for a bite and shower before she went back to bed. And after 2 months, all she had to show for it was strained muscles, back pains that lasted for weeks after the fact and a measly 16 recruits out of the over the 1,000-strong workforce. The only thing that came from the experience was that she got to slit the throat of one of the overseers that seemed to enjoy whipping them to work harder, even if it came with the consequence that she had to flee the city and make her here to avoid arrest.

As she took a sip of her coffee, the tv in the corner turned to the mandatory news, talking about how some radical down south had been arrested for instigating anti-peace protests and that no deaths occurred. She didn't believe any of it, Suzaku hadn't been gentle in his crackdown on any sort of political or social movement that could undermine him or his master. Any of the parties that existed in politics were shams, existing just to keep up the appearance of democracy and led by cronies picked by Schneizel so that they didn't get any ideas, Kaguya was lucky that she got out when she did, resigning from the seat of chairwoman before she could be arrested if not killed and fleeing into the countryside for a time.

She decided to stop lingering on such thoughts, they wouldn't help her as she finished her meal and got up, walking up to the counter. As she was paying for her meal, she flashed out a coin for the cashier to see, one that looked normal by all accounts, but had its date highlighted as she tapped the coin on the countertop 3 times. The cashier's eyes flashed in recognition but their body didn't move as he merely took the coin, along with the rest of her payment and rung her up.

'I'm still waiting for someone to arrive, there's no issue with me staying in the back for them, right?' Kallen asked the man.

'As long as you don't disturb the rest of the people here, there's no issue.' He gestured back towards her book with a raised brow, asking a question without words as she nodded at the man.

'There won't but, I'll have to use the restroom real quick.' The man nodded back at her as he reached for a button underneath his counter, one that looked identical to a panic button that any business had in case of robbery. Pressing it, it made no sound as he gestured her towards the restrooms, his part of this done. She gave him a quick thanks as she walked into the women's restroom. It wasn't big, housing a few stalls, two sinks and some boxes at the back, housing additional stuff like dispenser soap and toilet paper. She walked past the stalls, giving each a quick look to confirm they were empty before she reached the back where she moved the boxes out of the way. Once clear, she bent over and removed the floor tile, revealing a trap door, an open trap door with a ladder leading into the old subways.

With haste, she climbed down the ladder, pulling her phone out for light as the door closed behind her, the tile sliding back into place to mask it, leaving no trace of her ever being in there, or how she left.

'The place may have been disused for years, but it still smells.' Kallen noted to herself as she navigated through the smelly old brick-and-mortar tunnels, the flashlight app on her phone being the sole source of illumination in the tunnels which hadn't seen a train pass through them in well over 40 years. Still, their age and lack of use meant that Argus and the World Police rarely went down here, and with all the collapsed tunnels and other cleverly placed early warning systems, they added, they would detect them long before any of them lucked upon something they would rather they didn't see. In this case, a normal-looking door is rusted over and covered with old graffiti. It looked like every other door down here, making it all but impossible to distinguish it from others, but she had memorised the route and knew this was the one as she walked to it and banged on it a couple of times.

A small camera, carefully hidden in the shadows of the ceiling some ways away from her, turned to focus on her. She turned to it, letting it see her face before it turned back. with a groan of old, rusted metal on equally chipped brick, the door slowly opened, not enough for her to enter but rather, for the person on the other side to see who it was on, which got a groan from her as she saw who that was.

'Tamaki, I swear-' Kallen started before she stopped herself, taking a quick breath before she continued. 'Guard duty, really?' She would have thought he would be doing something else, yet here he was.

Like herself, the man had aged if not a little poorly, his skin a bit pale while his facial hair, once just a stubble was now a full beard. That, along with his hair was dyed dull white which made him look 20 years older. The man was frowning at her, wrinkling the large scar across his face just a little, that same scar that took his left eye from him when his luck finally run out when his Akatsuki blew up around him during the battle for Damocles and shrapnel pieced the cockpit block.

Reaching for his pack of cigarettes and lighter, he replied to her, his vice far more subdued than it once had been. 'I volunteered for guard duty, better than sitting around and doing nothing, that shit ain't good for you.' Tamaki's reply was course and cautious, a far cry from what he used to be as he lit his cigarette, taking a deep drag of it before puffing out its toxic smoke in a different direction than Kallen.

'Yet here you are, turning your lungs to black muss.' Kallen noted, crossing her arms as say what you will about their relationship, and how he seemed to make an art out of angering her over the years, he was still one of her closest friends, one of the few that she knew didn't wish to believe what went down on the Ikaruga that day, one of only 3 people she had talked to about her feelings relating to that day, to...Lelouch.

'Difference is that you can do stuff while smoking, besides it helps…' The man paused, knowing that the topic of drugs of any kind tended to lead to arguments between the two as he stepped aside and let her in, closing the door behind her. Entering the hideout, she saw that it was filled with crates, supplies and rebels, though while they called themselves the Black Knights, there wasn't a uniform in sight as marking oneself as a member of one of the most wanted groups on the planet was suicide, not just for them but for the cities that they were suspected to operate in. This was a lesson they learned the hard way.

Their European remnants had been spotted in Rome, it wasn't much, only a few dozen but it was enough as they were some of their best remaining on the continent. They had a few battles with the World Police, won most of them and through their efforts were galvanising the people, gaining more followers. In response to this uprising-to-be, Suzaku stopped sending in more of his goons.

Rather, he closed off the city and made sure that no one could get in, or out, anything that tried was ruthlessly destroyed, leaving the roads filled with wrecks, the rail lines leading into the city being torn, its port closed down, and even the daring few that tried to fly in were shot down without warning or hesitation. It wasn't even 2 weeks before the people turned on them, turned on each other as the hunger and desperation drove them down into rage and madness. In the chaos and fires, hundreds were killed, including most of their members in the city while the rest were forced to flee. Suzaku only allowed the blockade to be lifted after the fires died down, having culled the rebellion before it could ever hope to threaten the status quo.

The worst part of it all was that it was hushed up, local news either stopped reporting what was happening in Rome before the blockade or just made stuff up. When the blockade was lifted, part of the so-called deal they were offered was that no citizen could ever speak of it, of those who perished, of the actions that Suzaku had taken to maintain Schneizel's twisted peace.

3 years had passed since then, and the message was clear. Not to stick out, not to gather in any meaningful numbers unless they were prepared for the long haul. And most importantly, never underestimate their foes and the lengths they'll go to for victory. It wasn't just for the sake of using cities as possible targets for the F.L.E.I.J.A.s that tens of millions were forced to live in urban settlements, but it also meant that one didn't need to use the F.L.E.I.J.A. to threaten entire populations into compliance, even the lucky that lived out in the countryside lived with the knowledge that a friend or relative forever remained hostage if they lived in a city.

Walking past all of them, getting a few greetings from some while others continued with whatever they were before she arrived, she entered the command centre of the place, one of the few kept clean to ensure that the dozens of computers and other equipment remained in tip-top shape. She didn't spare a glance at one of the many screens and rather focused on the person she had come to meet.

'Milly.' At the call of her name, the former blonde, now brown-haired woman turned around, despite looking just as tired as Kallen, she still managed to present a set of near-glowing red eyes to her.

'Kallen, you finally made it!' Milly greeted her as she came over and hugged her, displaying a little of the strength she had gained over the years as she squeezed the girl, with Kallen giving her a fond hug in return, happy to see her face to face for the first time in months. As the two separated, and were pulled deeper into the room, Kallen wondered where she got the energy from as she was reminded of their days at Ashford, when for a short time in between the fighting, all she would need to worry about was Shirley poorly hidden affections for the vice-president, Rivalz saying something dumb, Lelouch pissing her off, or Milly cooking up another one of her schemes.

Now…now everything had fallen apart. Shirley was gone-no, killed by someone she didn't even know, leaving the face of her killer hidden from her leaving her with no name to tie to her heart and loss, and the anger at knowing the rest of the world believed that someone like Shirley, someone so filled with love and life would end her own. Rivalz left, having left for England mere weeks after Schneizel's victory. They didn't want to see him go, but he was insistent, he didn't want to stay in Japan, he couldn't handle all the crazy, lies and death. Neither had heard from him since, which was to be expected considering their situation. Nina was also gone…whisked away before Schneizel could destroy all opposition against him, and neither Kallen nor Milly was sure which was worse-the idea that she was dead, or being forced to continually pump out more F.L.E.I.J.A.s-her greatest sin, against her will.

Suzaku…the only thing she felt when she thought about that hypocritical traitor was anger that he was still alive, and satisfaction at the fact she managed to ensure he'll continue to live in pain. Lelouch…he along with Sayoko, Jeremiah and C.C. dropped off the face of the earth, though Suzaku was sure he was still alive…somewhere as his bounty had been increased to 50 million just the previous year in an attempt to draw more eyes out for him. Milly, the woman chatting about her most recent trip to India, the former student council president that perved on the girls and hosted elaborate and insane events at the drop of the hat-she wasn't the same either. She left her job as a reporter shortly after Rivalz left them, she couldn't stand reporting lies and knew that if she stayed, she would have been jailed if not killed for it.

Though her brief time in the business, and her family's old connections did come in handy more times than she had counted as while she was far from a fighter, she was a great spy and informant, knowing who to talk to about what, allowing them to move and smuggle supplies and people without either the police, Argus or Suzaku's goons noticing anything.

Entering another room, one away from the rest of the command centre, Milly turned to her, her smile was still present and honest, but she held out her hand, prompting Kallen to place a small flash drive on it. 'It wasn't easy to get.' She told the woman who twirled on her heel and walked off to a single computer set up, one with a monitor the size of a flatscreen.

'And yet you managed to do it without tripping any alarms, and they saw you're only good for killing.' Milly hummed her way as Kallen rolled her eyes and followed her, leave it to Milly to act like this, but they both knew it was fake-how could it not after all they suffered? After what they learned about Charles, Lelouch and geass? It wasn't the most pleasant of conversation, but when she met up with her and Rivalz and heard their plight, she couldn't just not tell them what she knew. Shaking her head, she stepped closer to her to speak.

'Are the plans still the same? I'm heading for China?' Kallen had only a few more days before she was to head over to help train their recruits in the large areas of the wilderness.

'There's been a change to that.' Milly told her, her face losing its previous charm as she cut straight to business.

'What?' Kallen asked, curious as to what this change could mean as it took time and effort to organise these kinds of trips with the travel restrictions in place, and citizens needing to carry around IDs which tied them to a city or area, one couldn't just decide to go somewhere else, not if they didn't wish to get arrested.

The door opened again, allowing a third person to walk in, that person being an older Kaguya. 'We need you for…something else.' The 19-year-old wearing regular street clothes, having abandoned her old wardrobe when she went on the run, even choosing to dye her hair brown with red highlights and wear blue contacts to further mask her true identity.

Kallen, deciding to question the younger woman on how and why she was present for later, chose to focus on the current situation which was her change in assignment. 'Define something else? If this is another undercover job, I swear we have people that-' Kaguya rose her hand, silencing her.

'It's not that.' Kaguya told her, though she seemed to be perplexed by whatever she wished to say. 'It's much weirder.' Weirder? They've dealt with emperors, and magical cults, and are currently trying to dethrone and murder a madman with a God complex and a floating fortress filled with weapons capable of wiping out whole cities. Weird was their regular work pattern, what was so special about this?

Turning to Milly, Kaguya nodded as the former reporter-turned-spy started to explain. 'There have been reports of incidents across Japan,' As Kallen had spoken with Kaguya, she had taken the chance to boot up her computer, opening up some files on said incidents which while vague, all seemed to be clear cover-ups but what made them different was that to her knowledge, the towns and villages in question had no rebel activity, so why did Suzaku pay them so attention, and then cover things up after the fact? 'The most recent saw an entire farming village up in Hokkaido destroyed.'

'Destroyed? Was it the World Police?' She asked but got a shake of the head from Milly as she pulled up the file in question, this one was different from the rest as she had made sure to reach out to as many people as she could to gather information.

'Not according to the survivors. Not a single person claimed to have seen any knightmares, tanks or soldiers.' The town once had a population of around 3,000 but from what the survivors claimed, the ghost town would have only been home to around a third of that if they weren't all moved to the nearest town and ordered to remain silent on what had happened, frankly it was a miracle that her contacts managed to get 2 dozen people to talk with them at all.

'Then what was it, it couldn't have been bandits. Destroying a village wouldn't be worth the risk, and that's if they could form a large enough band without being slaughtered by the World Police.' She had heard the stories, in some parts of the world like eastern Europe, southern Africa, and ironically enough, Britannia's homeland that there had been bands of raiders and bandits that targeted small villages and transports routes. But she also knew none lasted long as they were often hunted down and slaughtered down to the last.

'That's where the weirdness. According. according to everyone that would talk, it was a giant skeleton that attacked them.' Kallen paused when she heard that, suspecting a joke but saw no humour on any of their faces.

'A giant…skeleton?' She asked, just to be sure she wasn't hearing things, or finally driven mad but neither moved.

'Yup, they claimed it attacked in the night, appeared seemingly out of nowhere and run rampant.' Milly read through the report she complied, just as stumped as Kallen at its contents to the point she was considering that all her contacts lied.

'Are we sure they can be trusted? A knightmare can look like a lot of things when you're woken at an ungodly hour and only see pieces of it tearing through your home town.' Trauma could do terrible things to the mind, she had seen it first-hand in both fighters and civilians.

'We thought the same thing but,' Kaguya started. 'If it was a knightmare, then it was a well-built one or it had an exceptionally skilled pilot as the World Police responded quickly to it, but the platoon they sent didn't last, it took them sending in 3 more to finally handle whatever it was.' This was news to Kallen as while they generally lacked the funds and resources to field nearly as many knightmares as they wished, the same wasn't true for the global police force which used 8th gen machines. It would truly take an exceptional pilot in another 8th gen to wipe out that many, a true ace if they were in a 7th gen.

'I didn't buy the giant skeleton claims, but the idea of there being a knightmare out there that can much up to new-gen Vincent Guardians isn't that better.' Kallen agreed with Kaguya's sentiment. If this was a new machine, then it was something that had to be investigated. At best, they could recruit it and its pilot, at worst they can agree to stay out of each other's way.

'There's more, out of curiosity, I looked into the other reports of damaged if not destroyed villages and settlements. I found similarly strange reports from locals, all claim it wasn't the World Police, that their homes gave them no reason to attack, and that it was all monsters that did it.' Milly reopened the older files, the ones that lacked context and filled in the gaps with newly acquired information which painted a truly disturbing picture as from Britannia to Australia, they had reports of monsters on the rampage. They ranged from hordes of vile creatures, giants sea creatures, cyclops and even one that painted it as a small dragon that burned down their town.

'How is any of this…' Kallen asked, she knew that the news would never report on this, not when it could reflect poorly on the regime but this wasn't something that could be written off. Once or twice could be written off as superstition but for it to happen in every report, there was a pattern here and she wasn't sure she liked what it implied.

'We don't know, but it would partly explain why the World Police have been so busy lately, they're dealing with all this and covering it after the fact.' Milly told her, but she was caught by her word choice.

'Partly?' Kallen asked her, what could be as important as reports of apparent beasts from myth running amok?

'Disappearances,' Kaguya told her, getting a nod from Milly to continue as the spy brought up the appropriate files, one of whom being a small news story about some town's entire population vanishing. 'It started small time as far as we can dig, with the first reports appearing around 5 years back, with the town of Rhayader and its surrounding villages, around 9300 people disappeared with no trace.'

'And leads since?' Kallen asked the two as she would imagine that Suzaku and Schneizel would be extremely interested in whatever occurred.

'They seemed to have investigated it for 6 months, but found no leads, only that it seemed that even the relatives of the missing were on that list.' Milly replied as she suspected this event was part of the reason that the regime implemented harsher restrictions on movement.

'So, either someone took out entire families, or they knew what was coming and prepared so that the whole family would vanish with them.' Kallen surmised, wondering if they all merely fled but if they did, to where? Such a large group would attract attention no matter what you did, yet there were no reports or clues that seemed to lead out of Wales. Yes, she could see why this was something that would draw attention.

'It happened again, 9 months after the first, further north, same kind of incident, the same amount of information, the only difference being that around 3000 people vanished this time around, a third of the previous amount.' Milly informed her, bringing up a World Police record from the time, how she managed to get her hands on it she didn't know, and gave it a quick look over, seeing that they seemed frustrated that they couldn't figure out what was happening.

'And it didn't stop, it only spread as another 9 months later, the next place to experience a similar event would be Ireland, 3900 missing and yet to be found.' Kaguya told her as Kallen looked through the information they had found, and saw three things in the data that were concerning. The first is that didn't seem to be tied to any geographic location as the reports spread out from Wales and Europe as far as Britannia and India. The second was that the time between, it was accelerating as who or whatever was behind this seemed to hone their craft and gained confidence, till 6th report, the time between these events shrunk to 2 months. Lastly, there was the number as it only increased as she went down the list, reaching a total of over two hundred thousand people missing. Seeing the latest place on the list, she turned to Milly.

'Is that why you went to India?' She asked that was the most recent one, being close to 2 months ago, and it had the highest single count yet as over fifty-six thousand vanished in that case.

'Yup, went to see if I couldn't find any leads,' Milly frowned as she recalled her time in the country. She had tried her best but alas, turned over every stone she could, but alas-her efforts were in vain. 'Eleventh verse, same as the first with this one as relatives were also gone, their belonging, at least what could be carried gone, but on my way back, I did receive this from a contact.' She started as she switched over the files to another, a video one which she played for the two to watch.