Chapter Forty Four: The Long Minute

Arc Eleven: The Pacific

Opening: "Sarishinohara" - Rib

Rivalz repeatedly tapped his forefinger against the wheel of his coupe with great force and frequency, eyes locked dead ahead as the four cylinder engine ticked over, rocking the suspension from side to side in the hopes that such motion would keep him awake. He had long upgraded from the sidecar that had seen its day the moment it had driven out of the factory door in Italy. The car was much more comfortable, if uncomfortably large in the dense, impolite Tokyo traffic. He was exhausted, and could not wait to get back home to sleep.

A knocking on the window woke Rivalz from his self induced stupor, his absent-minded focus translating to a burst of shock that sent his whole body into a spasm as his heart rate caught up with his bodies quickly expelled pressure, built up like a spring. As he gathered his gulping breath, he turned back towards the passenger side window to see Milly, bending over to wave at her boyfriend, asking him to unlock the car with hand motions. With a few years off the end of his life, he reached over to unlock the side door, and the blonde newscaster hopped into the passenger seat, and shook her head.

"I thought you were going to leave me out here in the dark for a second." Milly teased.

"I'd never do such a thing. I'd be too terrified of the consequences. Anyway, how was he? Your father, I mean?" Rivalz asked, blushing somewhat.

Milly shrugged as she fastened her seatbelt and eventually responded "He's certainly glad to be retiring, but he's not a big fan of planes."

"Can't blame him, with the war going on. Mustn't be the safest time to fly, even if it's to the south."

Rivalz paused and narrowed his eyes as he slipped the two seater into first gear and gently released the clutch, rolling the car out of the airport parking space with great, uncharacteristic precision before he continued "Still, it can't be helped. Where do you want to head?"

"Back to the news station, I have a broadcast at twelve." Milly announced, which surprised Rivalz.

"That late?" he asked.

It was Milly's turn to shrug. "Can't be helped, mm? Besides, Lelouch is making a statement up in Kyoto, about the Company that was killed alongside Admiral Inafune in the Pacific. Have to cover that, see."

Rivalz nodded as he indicated to turn into the motorway into Tokyo city proper, adding grandly "Broadcast station it is." He pulled out of the one way city lanes and up onto the Motorway, hoping to cut across the city as he opened up the throttle. After reaching a sufficient speed, he relaxed, and, having heard his friends name, inquired further.

"Have you talked to Lelouch? I remember you did a few interviews before the war, but he's been so busy I've hardly seen him."

Rivalz had to keep his eyes on the road, but a brief silence concerned him greatly, even once Milly finally responded with a noncommittal "Yeah…"

To this, Rivalz asked "Yeah what?"

Milly sighed, and explained "I helped him win over some people on the war, but he's become more and more snowed under, putting himself under immense pressure. Last I saw of him was after Schneizel executed his sister Guinevere, and he was really really worried. He thinks Schneizel is impatient, and has drawn all the Japanese forces back to defensible positions in anticipation of a new offensive any day now. He's a little paranoid if I'm honest."

Rivalz nodded, and sighed. That would be typical of Lelouch to isolate himself and take on the entire workload when faced with a challenge, and while there was a legitimate concern for Lelouch's health, as ever Rivalz's overwhelming emotional response was the feeling of distance between himself and his friend. Lelouch had always been busy, running trade unions and strikers as Rivalz sat and wrote unreplied texts, or aspiring to political offices as Rivalz hankered for attention that had once been shared.

As selfish as it sounded in the wake of such a time, he just wanted to hang out again, but Lelouch had busied himself, and if Milly was right, crippled himself. In truth, he missed the entire gang. Nina had left to study particle physics, Shirley had returned to Britannia, Kallen was probably dead, and Suzaku had vanished off the face of the Earth. They were scattered to the wind, sweeping at Rivalz's feet. They had all had a place in the narrative, the same narrative that had left him behind.

And, at the same time, this sentiment came with some shame. It was, as Lelouch might say, selfish to waste the time of people so important with something so petty. He certainly wasn't important.

"Are you alright?"

Rivalz turned aside for a moment to match eyes with Milly briefly before he was drawn back aside. Everyone had been drawn apart by the events of the last decade, and while it had seen much individual success, their separation had resulted in them facing their demons alone, ranging from Lelouch's paranoia to Suzaku's open secret of depression. It was easy to imagine things being worse, such as a Britannian crackdown back in 2016, or the Black Knights beating Yuaikai in 2017, or the Tosa Incident resulted in a victory for the Reactionaries, but it was impossible to wonder what could have been if only they had tried that little bit harder to keep it together.

Still, it was never too late to start valuing what you had, as Rivalz knew he had one shard still in his life.

"I… I love you."

Milly paused, and scoffed incredulously as she looked across the car at the nervous driver "What's bringing that on? Is there something you need to tell me? Are you seeing someone else and having doubts?"

Rivalz choked on air as Milly began to roar with vicious laughter that shook the whole car.

"Christ you're easy to panic! Calm down, I was only messing. Seriously though, polygamy is not a problem if you-"

"Thank you Milly, but I'm fine, I wouldn't…"

His reply began with his mouth moving at motorway speeds in earnesty, but the tumbling words began to slow until he finally stopped, admittedly in mid sentence which was not an ideal place to stop, but Rivalz had more weighty issues than grammar on his mind.

As he thought, he looked aside briefly to see Milly wear a cruel smirk, prompting him to ask, throat dry "What?"

Chuckling, she explained "You're so easy to wind up. Don't worry about it."

It was Milly's way, Rivalz reflected, to joke and trivialise as a response to challenge. While she was good at defusing serious situations, some situations deserved weight, which Rivalz had to force onto it as best he could to explain himself.

Milly shook her head, and laughed "Seriously, sometimes I think you-"

"Can you please listen?"

Milly paused, and with unusual gravity asked "What is it?", realising something was wrong.

Rivalz took a breath, and tried to order his thoughts before speaking again, with slow, deliberate words and sentences.

"Listen… I'm just thinking, see… Remember everyone else, how we were all so close? I just worry, that you might go like they have. Everywhere, there seems to be suffering, and no reassurance, and I can never do anything. Even when I try to stay in contact, they become isolated in their affairs. I don't want to be isolated."

Milly didn't respond for a time, thinking hard as Rivalz pulled the sports car off the motorway and navigated towards the CBD, before the long wait was ended by Milly being genuine, something worth waiting for.

"Is that what you're worried about? Well don't. I understand what you're saying, completely. Sure, weren't you the only one not in the hotel when the terrorists held it hostage? The truth is, I do miss our group. We had great fun, doing mad stuff like crossdressing day or cat day."

Rivalz listened closely, nodding along as Milly continued her recounting of events. A sense of nostalgia washed over him as he recalled the time they had spent together, having fun with consequences no greater than embarrassment. Of course, embarrassment could be a pretty big consequence outside of a school environment; it had ruined Suzaku's career, to say nothing else.

"But it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Lelouch and Suzaku were already doing their things on the side, and Kallen was already halfway to a prison sentence. We played childish games with childish stakes, but we all have to grow up eventually."

Rivalz frowned as he thought about it. From that line of reasoning, the innocence of the fun days back in Ashford had never been real. They had always been marred by the dark activities of its members that clashed with the appearance of the bright student council room. Mulling over this, he did not respond, even as he pulled aside towards the Broadcast building, stopping in the parking spot reserved for Milly in collective silence, which Milly eventually broke.

"Besides, it's not necessarily a bad thing. You're going to find a bunch of people in editing who think like you do, and you'll make new friends, and keep old ones to boot. I know I have, and look at me; I'm still here with you."

"Promise?"

Milly paused again out of comedic incredulity, staring at her boyfriend with a look of bemused shock as he pulled off the main road down towards the car park, before she chuckled "I'm not that untrustworthy am I? There'd be no fun in that. Still, I'll be sure you're always in good shape. I can't have the last member of my council look so glum now can I?"

"I suppose not." Rivalz chuckled, as he waited for Milly to open the door and leave. She did not do this, seeming content to allow a grin grow across her face, as Rivalz heart sank to somewhere down in his pelvis in sudden realization.

"You didn't think I'd let you away that easy, did you?"

Rivalz felt inordinately small as Milly chuckled again, more softly and subtly than before, as if crafting a devious plot, an assumption that could be well within the mark, as she continued to speak.

"If I'm making a promise, you're sure as hell making one."

Rivalz sighed, and glumly asked "What do I have to wear? I-"

He stopped, as he saw Milly, though still smiling, shake her head. She took a moment, and explained "We're not children anymore."

Rivalz was now absorbed, having fully turned towards Milly who now had a hand on the car's door handle, in a position to head off, but not before she finished her thought.

"I'm not going anywhere, but that's no excuse for you to start slacking. I demand nothing but the utmost dedication from my comrades! You're so worried about losing others, I want to be sure you just don't lose yourself."

Rivalz smiled, and overdramatically replied "I promise!"

Milly nodded, and replied "There's a good lad. Don't wait up for me, I'll probably be awhile in here.", before opening the door and waving behind her as she dashed off, the door slewing shut behind her as she ran off, enthusiastic and ready to take on anything in her path, the world if necessary, and stood a good chance of winning.

Smirking, Rivalz slipped the car into gear and pulled out of the parking slot, riding the clutch up until he was up to speed, and re-entered the traffic leaving Tokyo. It was about an hour and a half's drive from Nerima to their mountainside home in the village of Kiyokawa, Aikō, just a few minutes outside the Tokyo Prefecture, and so settled down for the long haul. It was almost midnight, and had no intention of having an accident.

It took him until Yokohama, after forty five minutes of intense, single minded focus to the road, for Rivalz to finally relent and reach across the cabin to put on the radio to occupy his mind, exhausted after a day of work and a night of concentration. The radio waves were dominated by Lelouch's speech, and while it had ended, analysis of it went on ad nauseum. Apparently, it had been an unusually genuine speech where Lelouch had been anxious and twitchy, and expressed concern for a breach of war statutes. Typically, Rivalz would not hear Lelouch's voice.

However, the spirit of analysis put Rivalz into a thoughtful mood. Milly had mentioned Lelouch being worried about Schneizel's impatience, but he hadn't seen any evidence to this effect beyond the killing of a small group on an atoll. Furthermore, Lelouch had a bit of a reputation for being paranoid.

The only movement on the front over the last week had been a mass increase in Britannian Knightmare support over the Philippine Sea, weeks after the Kitakami's sinking of a prototype carrier near Hawaii. While there had been sparse aerial bombing, there had been no evidence it was going to escalate beyond that. However, even though Lelouch was paranoid, that did not erase his impressive track record on being right about this sort of thing. What could Schneizel escalate with?

Rivalz rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. He couldn't wait to finally sleep.

He finally pulled up at his house, on the side of a hill overlooking the Tokyo area, and relaxed as he looked out over the city, wondering further about what was being waited for.

The first clue was loud, and unseen as it passed at high speed through the dark sky. Bombers weren't rare, but this one streaked by with a high pitch and great speed that caused Rivalz to wince as it flew north, looking down which was what saved him.

Immediately after the noise had passed, a second noise blasted up towards Rivalz, bending him over with its volume and forcing him to screw his fists into his ears and look away. Its all consuming blast forced Rivalz to bury himself as it burned through his skull.

Then came the heat, blitzing his exposed nape as it roared across him, disappearing as suddenly as it arrived.

Even once it had passed, it took him a whole minute to peek back North to see what had happened, and what he saw puzzled him before shocking him.

In a bizarre, Daliesque display of visual absurdity, Rivalz looked over Tokyo with a perfect sphere, about a half mile in radius, carved into the city.

He blinked furiously to ensure it was real. With his states of alertness, it was entirely possible that it was a trick of his mind, however neither blinks or self inflicted slaps warded off the scoop taken out of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area.

Tokyo's Business District had been almost completely destroyed in a matter of moments. Rivalz's first instinct was to duck for cover, in case another detonation occurred, however after 10 minutes spent underneath the sump of his car, he realized there were no more coming. He stood again, and looked over the devastation with a new eye. He realised it must have been some manner of new weapon, wondering briefly if this was Lelouch's prophecy of Schneizel's supposed impatience, however a far more important thought surfaced.

What had happened to Milly?

Rivalz looked again to the blast radius. From his vantage point, he could see the Parliament building, narrowly missed, but not the Broadcast Centre two blocks to the North of it. Milly worked until 4 am, bless her, doing her very best, with the situation out of her control, with no way of knowing-

The blue haired editor bent over and retched, his throat attempting to clear an empty stomach out of horror at the thought. There was no way she had survived.

Rivalz collapsed to his knees as his chest constricted further. He felt so small, as if his mouth could not fit air into it to breathe, and he could not cry out, only wheeze in agony as he suffocated on his emotion.

Somewhere, he knew he had made promises, but they would be very hard to keep. Her absence made the whole exercise moot, as it did many other things. What was one to do? All Rivalz knew was that someone was screaming, and that it was him.

He would have to be strong, like he promised he would be, or else he would fall into despair.

That's it, I'm done. That's the last Chapter I will write of this story, by date. The next four Chapters, 45 through 48, were completed two whole months ago, before I began putting pen to paper on the War in the Pacific Arc, such was my dislike for it, and while you are the only ones who can make a judgement on quality, I for one am glad to have broken the back of the quantity.

And certainly, it's not a bad place to wrap up. This Chapter parallels nicely with a later one, does exposition, and rounds off an Arc I almost forgot about. Go me.

In any case, I will of course be editing, so don't be afraid to mention errors and such. Belated publishing doesn't exclude you from being able to roast my grammar! In any case, stick around for the last Arc, Downfall, beginning with Chapter 45, No Rest For The Wicked. Stay safe, rate, review, and don't make promises you can't keep.

Unless you actually can.

~Eth0