Chapter Forty Six: Götterdämmerung

Arc Twelve: Downfall

Opening: "World End" - Flow

"I see Guilford… Yes I understand. I know-"

Ohgi sighed as the Minister for Defence exasperatedly continued, sounding increasingly desperate and hollow, as if his heart was fading away to air as he aired his many grievances.

"I'm sorry, I can't do this anymore. This is too much, even for me. He has crossed a line."

"I'm aware. I tried to warn you, remember?"

Guilford sighed, before replying "Yes, you did. I hoped… I hoped that he was earnest, that he would be satisfied."

"His problem is not a lack of earnesty, I would argue he's far too earnest." Ohgi replied, a harsh snarl coming back into his voice. He was in no mood for apologetics on behalf of the President, who was himself a major source of anger for Ohgi. He wondered if this, an anger at the reckless disregard for death caused by someone he knew, was the same anger Lelouch himself claimed to have felt back when Britannia first invaded Japan.

"But he will never be satisfied."

Guilford's voice carried a weight with it over the line, which was borne out by the events that had transpired that day, that Ohgi had just learned before Guilford's calling.

Apparently, in the early hours of the morning, three days after the bomb had been dropped, Cornelia had staged a military coup of Schneizel's Government, which Ohgi had just seen on online news before Guilford called to give him more specific information than the press was allowed to reveal. Guilford claimed he had no idea why Cornelia had done this, but Ohgi has his suspicions, which he dutifully kept to himself.

Guilford had relayed preliminary reports of fighting in Pendragon as well as the official statement by Cornelia's Junta that they had killed Schneizel and held the loyalty of a majority of the officer corps. At first, Ohgi was ambivalent, but then the second half of the story had sent his silent rage boiling, like an acidic puddle demanding tribute.

"After the fighting had mostly subsided, Cornelia sent a message to me, which I relayed to the President." Guilford had explained. "She said that in the face of all the death and destruction, she would be willing to sign a white peace, ending hostilities and restoring the diplomats that Schneizel had exiled."

Ohgi had had a brief flash of hope, a moment of naïveté before the horror set in. This was Lelouch Lamperouge, who was vindictive and single minded.

"He didn't take the offer, did he?"

Lelouch's selfish perseverance and bloodlust were depressing realities, but for them to be prefaced by an offer of peace made the whole affair more despicably gut wrenching.

Guilford had confirmed his sad realisation by elaborating "He claimed there could be no long term peace while Britannia was an imperialist force in the world that could threaten Japan. Apparently, Britannia by virtue of its own existence manifested a threat to us. The bombs have only seemed to set him firmer in his ways."

Ohgi recalled hearing Guilford recounting Lelouch's reply to Cornelia's offering of peace and shivered. He sighed, and finally answered the waiting Guilford in the present.

"No, he will never be satisfied. It's not in his nature."

The two men sat together in silence miles apart, the quiet buzz of the phone line drowning out the noise of the cleanup outside, bodies still being dragged out of the rubble a week after the FLEIJA had been dropped.

News of Cornelia's coup had reached the online news sites shortly before Guilford had called him, though it was too late in the day for the print press to catch it, but Ohgi had not had enough time to read very much in depth before Guilford had explained everything. News of Cornelia's offer of peace had certainly not made the press, as it would have been on the headlines. Instead, reports and speculation seemed to centre around the coup itself. A hot topic of speculation, from what little Ohgi had actually seen, revolved around why Cornelia had done this.

Of course, the initial and prevailing school of thought was that Cornelia simply desired the throne and that this seemed as good a time as any to take it. Some others claimed that Cornelia's Junta were worried about public backlash to the FLEIJA, or that Cornelia had a heart and didn't want to see Japan wiped off the face of the planet.

Ohgi, having conversed with Cornelia for far longer than he would have ever cared to, knew this was all nonsense. Perhaps the second hypothesis could have weight, but emotionally, Cornelia did not give a damn about Japan. There was only one small, pink haired force on Earth and Heaven that moved Cornelia Li Britannia emotionally, and Ohgi suspected that on some level, Guilford knew this as well.

"So what are you going to do now?"

The silence was broken by Guilford, evidently looking to Ohgi for a solution, seeing him as a leader, a ludicrous proposition at its face. In truth, Ohgi wasn't sure what to do. He still felt the shame of sitting when the Chairman had told him to. Even in his moment of taking a stand, his moment where he promised himself that he would stop Lelouch, he buckled, and hundreds of thousands of people had died. The decision had had a solid rationale, but that didn't stop him from feeling terrible inside about it. He felt he didn't deserve the role after such a failure.

However, he knew that he was as Prime Minister as powerful as he ever would be, and if he believed that Lelouch was wrong, which he did, leaving the stage now would be in itself selfish. He had to do all he could while he was here.

And then he would immediately resign. He was not going to continue the cycle. But first, he had work to do. He may as well exercise his power while he had it.

"Guilford, I need you to help me gather as many Representatives as you can grab a hold of and get them to Hall 1B as soon as we finish here. Keep it quiet."

"I assume you have a plan."

Ohgi did not have a plan. He had a lot of guilt, a desire to set things right, and a vague understanding of how Lelouch operated, which he hoped to combat with a bit of group therapy. In spite of this, he simply replied with a reassuring "Yeah."

"One more thing Ohgi."

"Go on?"

Guilford paused, before continuing "Have you spoken to Suzaku recently? I was just off the phone with Euphemia yesterday, and apparently he's become quite depressed, reclusive. I don't think watching what Lamperouge has been doing on telly is helping him one bit."

Ohgi frowned. He had not been expecting this turn in the conversation at all. He answered honestly, if somewhat bluntly with "In truth, I really have bigger things to worry about than my old colleagues mental state. He's an adult, he can find a doctor if he's having trouble I'm sure. He'll get over it."

Guilford sounded unconvinced, but didn't protest when Ohgi asked him to go about the task he had set him. Ohgi felt bad for Suzaku to be going through rough times, but the sour memories of their departure combined with a full plate of things to deal with rendered his empathy remote at best.

Still, the tangent was not redundant, as Guilford had said more than he'd meant to. In particular, he had mentioned, likely not thinking, that he had in fact been on the phone with Euphemia, which was significant, at least in Ohgi's eyes. Up until this point, Guilford had been very silent on the war, instead just dutifully fulfilling his tasks, however a call from Euphemia later and he was expressing grave concern. How much had his former charge influenced him? Ohgi could guess.

Still, just as was the case with Suzaku's health, he had more important things to think about.

To that end, he immediately retrieved his coat and began to type.

"Meet me in Room 1B immediately."

Sent out as a mass text to all the Representatives who he had in his contacts, which was regrettably not all of them, Ohgi hoped that this combined with Guilford asking around would get him a quorum of his own.

In the end, Ohgi ended up with more than he expected, with the room designed to host caucus and committee meetings ending up nearly full. He had to drag in a podium in order for the meeting to proceed properly.

"Okay everyone, first of all thank you for coming on such short notice, I promise this is important."

Unfortunately, Ohgi's opening statement was lost to the general noise of the crowd, inattentive and preoccupied with gossip, and so he was forced to speak up and, while retaining a measured tone, shout forcefully to have himself heard with an announcement of "If I could just have your attention for ten minutes I promise I'll make it worth your time."

The room reluctantly quietened, and Ohgi stood a little taller, pleased to have its attention.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ohgi saw Guilford come in through the side door and nod at Ohgi before closing it behind him. Everyone was here.

"So… so as I was saying, I want to thank you all for coming. Unfortunately, I cannot say I am here to discuss a pleasant matter. I just got off the phone with Minister for Defence Gilbert Guilford, who had some tragic news for me that I feel you all ought to know."

Guilford looked down as about a hundred Japanese politicians turned to stare at him, which couldn't have been pleasant. Hoping to take a bit of the pressure off the Britannian, Ohgi continued "I am sure you are all aware by this point of the military coup of the Britannian Government by Cornelia Li Britannia, who has implemented martial law in an attempt to oust her brother permanently. What has been kept a secret is that she sent us a missive offering a white peace, which Lelouch rejected this morning, saying he desires to continue the conflict."

The crowd took the news in a subdued fashion, with bleak sighs and eyes set firmly down at shoes being the order of the day. Ohgi took a moment to allow the news to sink in, before continuing "He needs to be stopped."

This statement may have come across as banal if delivered badly, but it instead filled the room with a quiet acknowledgement of the truth, even if they remained reluctant to address it. Unfortunately, Ohgi had to spoil his good will, but no matter how much he did so he was pretty confident he would have plenty more to cash in than Lelouch ever had, such were the advantages of not being a universally disliked, blackmailing schemer.

In the Britannians twisted words, it was not pragmatic to be cruel, it was pragmatic to be kind.

"The truth is, we had an opportunity to put his ambitions for war, which has been proven by today's refusal to end the conflict in the Pacific, but we all know that, and must live with that in our own ways. I'm not going to dwell on it here, but we would all do well not to forget it."

Ohgi was now earning a few glares, which certainly concerned him. He hadn't even gotten to the hard part yet.

"That said, we do have an opportunity. During the next time Parliament is in session, a majority of the Cabinet can summon the President, and following a hearing, we can vote to remove war powers, but with all the missing Representatives we're going to have to be nearly unanimous in opposing him."

Ohgi could only watch as the crowds faces continued to droop, refusing to air them as if the lights on the ceiling would burn them.

This was the Lamperouge effect at work. Each person was so individually afraid to oppose the man with the vast filing cabinet of secrets that any opposition was pointless. This was what needed to be settled before they made any attempt to challenge Lelouch's hegemony over Japan.

"To this end…" Ohgi continued, raising his voice slightly to restore the attention of the room, "...I feel that we need to acknowledge and work past the subterfuge that President Lamperouge has engaged in to try and intimidate us. His closet full of skeletons doesn't work if the closet is empty. If we can all move past them together, owning up to our secrets for the good of the country, his threats will be empty, because we will not be moved by the guilt and the shame."

"That's easy for you to say."

The protest came from Naomi Inoue, the skulking head of the Revanchists who had come out from behind the crowd to sourly question Ohgi. He rubbed the back of his head, feeling his fuzzy mane bristle under his harsh, rough fingers, and commented "I don't know what you could possibly mean."

Naomi gave him a sceptical look, scoffing "You're going to have to do better than that. Try as you might to ditch your President, you'll not pull your games on us. You just want us to incriminate ourselves to position yourself for after he's gone and you need to scrape back any hope of beating us."

Ohgi looked down at the suspicious woman with disappointment. People tended to judge others by their own standards. Lelouch, who was suspicious of his own shadow, believed everyone else was as ruthless as he himself was, and in that same vein, Naomi assumed that every issue raised by others was about politics over policy, because that was how she would act. She would only be convinced by something pretty extreme that he was being earnest.

He sighed deeply, stood a little taller, and with eyes fixed on Naomi, began to speak more broadly.

"Before the invasion, I think most of you know, I was a secondary school teacher. I wasn't the most outgoing person, but I did alright enough. My only real close friend in the world was Naoto Kozūki."

Naomi's eyes widened in realisation as he continued "We were close enough, but after the invasion, I lost my job and was forced into the ghetto, where we became very close. Eventually, we grew frustrated, and agreed to fight back. With his younger sister we began to attack Britannian military fortifications and kill soldiers, though we were dealt a major blow when Naoto was killed. We carried on for some time, however we lost our only Knightmare after the Shinjuku Incident, which we were involved in. However, it was then that we met Yuaikai, which was just Suzaku and Lelouch at the time. I went with them, leaving behind my only friends."

By this point, Naomi and the other Revanchists were looking at him in a new light, as he took a brief pause, before continuing.

"Time went on. I think you are all aware of what happened to Naoto's sister Kallen, who I enabled. That's a skeleton for you. In addition, I removed Lelouch from the Finance Ministry to hamstring his political power and restrain him, subverting the will of the voting public. I have killed, stole, deceived, and worked with terrorists."

His point of explaining how Naomi was not the only one with secrets was quickly turning into a public confessional. He felt that if he could just convince everyone of his intentions and convince them to move past the secrets Lelouch held over them, then the embarrassment of his foolish past would be nothing in comparison to that victory for Japan.

He ran quiet as his breath ran short. The room was even quieter, as his audience digested what they had just seen, certainly not what they likely expected.

"I would just ask you, to please consider the bigger issues." Ohgi pleaded, hoping he had done enough, for once in his life.

For the first few moments, Ohgi feared that he had not, as the rooms population seemed to be far more invested in awkwardly examining their shoelaces than volunteering any similar stories, or even acknowledging what Ohgi had said, and he began to silently despair, his head dipping down.

"I…"

Ohgi's head jumped up, as he heard the hesitant beginnings of a sentence, and his heart jumped pridefully in tandem as he saw the man who was beginning it.

"I… I don't exactly have a brilliant record myself, and the President knows it."

Saburo Okawachi had stepped forward in a heartwarming display of bravery as far as Ohgi was concerned. Now that he had some verbal momentum, Saburo continued on, with all eyes on him.

"I finished my degree in Literature in Igusa University in the same month of the invasion. I was already a… more right leaning sort of guy, but I had been looking forward to a good, well paid career and a nice stable life, and then to be thrown down into the ghetto with no job at anything else, I was furious. Over time, my hatred grew and grew, until I became one of the most spiteful of my circle of friends, a bitter racist."

This fit right in with Yuaikai theory, Ohgi silently noted. People who had not fallen on hard times were far less likely to become radicalised towards nationalism, and the reverse was true as well. He was only glad Saburo had had the chance to salvage his life.

"Of course, when Zero, or Kallen Kozūki, rose to prominence I leapt at the chance it offered. I was ready to kill the Britannians that I believed were putting us down. That, to me, meant all of them."

Ohgi slid an eye over to the Unionists who were still left after an abysmal election showing for the late Claudio Darltons party, who collectively tugged at their collars awkwardly.

Saburo evidently saw them too, and managed a hoarse chuckle "Don't worry, I've calmed over the years. As much as I wanted to just pick up a shiv, they turned me down, probably for that reason, and rejection like that really caused me to rethink a few things. It wasn't long before the Commonwealth Bill passed, and I could use my degree after eight years. Suddenly, all the facilities I could have wanted were available, and I sorta mellowed. Initially I voted Revanchist, but after getting a job in a library with government support I began to have a change of heart, and decided to try run for my local seat to help out others like I had been helped. It was a bit of an ugly journey, and one Lamperouge tried to use against me during the last hearing, but I am now who I am now, not who I was then."

Ohgi couldn't have been prouder, and it turned out Saburo's solidarity had loosened a fair few lips. While there wasn't really the option for the hundred plus Representatives to all air that which Lelouch used against them, enough could that the message was clear; Parliament would form a united front against Lamperouge.

Ohgi felt nothing if not satisfied as he returned to his office to begin the legal end of ending Lamperouge's reign as Emperor of Japan, when he realised Saburo was walking in the same direction, his own office being close by. Ohgi turned and beckoned the younger man aside to a side hall to thank him.

Saburo waved it off. "Don't you bother yourself thanking me, I owed you that much."

Ohgi frowned. "After the last hearing? You were hardly the only one affected by him-"

Saburo's hand raised in a flat, open palm to silence the Prime Minister, before the junior Representative explained "No, not that, though I certainly shouldn't have buckled there. No, I owed you for getting me a job back after signing the deal. I don't want to think about what I'd have done had things gone differently."

I must admit, while I like to think I plan with great detail, all the best parts of this fic seem to happen by accident. The Tosa Incident was initially a proxy war in Indonesia a la the Spanish Civil War until I had a change of heart the moment I put my fingers to the keyboard, and another example of this is Saburo. He was initially a passing gag about Lelouch almost accidentally putting a reformed Black Knight in his Cabinet, but I came back to him again and again until he grew into his own established character out of a single frame of canon. Much like Ohgi, I do love to write him.

This Chapter was just very nice to write in general. Perhaps it wasn't as mechanically fun to put together as Hatred or Tora! Tora! Tora!, but the mood shift towards the more wholesome certainly made for a welcome change, and a welcome reminder that being mean will have consequences.

Who says I can't write for kids?

Well unfortunately, that indictment, if it hasn't been proven already, will surely come in the next Chapter, Wolf In Wolfs Clothing, the 47th of 48, which the little kiddies may not enjoy quite so much.

Of course, you yourself will be able to enjoy it very soon, but in the meantime, be nice to your coworkers and stay safe. I'll see you next time, and please rate and review.

~Eth0