Oh my gosh, I can hardly believe it myself that I've updated this quickly! Think of it as me trying to make up for the ridiculously long wait last time?

And thank you to the following (agh! There's so many of you wonderful, wonderful readers!): SakuraCa, SlvrSoleAlchmst1 (hope you've finished your essay *stare*), Ashbender, ???, Hyrulehalfbreed, Ireina Kurotsuki, deathnoteno1fan-codegeasslover, Candelabra, Tetsukon, Anime-StarWars-fan-zach, Firemasterofkaos, Peanuckle, Serena the Hikari of Love, hi (to you too), Esmenet, Arai Yuudai, Bligy, shiai10, EmiTsukiko, lelouche v. britannia, Kirikomi (I can rave about your art if I want :D), 2stupid (I don't think you are), Latinagal, KuroAngelique, Superior Shortness, ClarieNii, and Dei Ryuu.

Special thanks to: beta Bolinoak and helper Tobi Tortue.

And... a cookie or something... to: The Blizzard Alchemist. You know why. But I think the first half of this may still surprise you. XD

The Chess Match

6

--L/L—

"Yes," the man replied, his eyes geassed and glazed over. He handed Lelouch a USB drive. "And then I'll just forget I ever saw you."

Lelouch smiled grimly, taking the small device, before turning away and striding off down the empty hallway. He slipped by, noticed, but then quickly forgot by the military police. He had already used his Geass on them when he first arrived so that they would be be unable to recognize his presence as foreign or even memorable.

With the plan of the execution in Lelouch's mind and the security details in hand, L certainly wasn't going to get away with sullying Zero's name. Lelouch left the building, and began walking back towards Ashford. Checking his watch, Lelouch figured he might be able to make it back in time before clubs began which would prevent facing down Milly for being late. He quickened his pace a little, rolling around ideas for the Black Knights as he walked.

Deciding there was no point in waiting, he pulled out his phone, snapping the voice modifier into place and dialed Ougi's number. It rang once before the man answered it.

"Zero," the man began, sounding a bit surprised, but then began speaking a bit hesitantly without waiting for Zero to acknowledge him. "Kallen said you spoke with her—"

"And I did, Ougi," Lelouch replied, knowing what Ougi was going to ask already. "I'll tell you, like I told her, that I'm not Kira."

"Oh." His second-in-command seemed to realize the foolishness of doubting the leader. "I guess I just needed to hear it for myself."

"That's alright, Ougi, but we have more pressing matters at the moment."

Ougi seemed to sober up immediately. "Of course. What will we do about the hostages?"

"We're going to rescue them, of course," Lelouch told him confidently. "Because I am the man of miracles and this will certainly require at least one."

--L/L--

"Oh," Kallen said with a kind of demure surprise as she entered the student council room, "Lelouch. No one else is here yet?"

Lelouch smiled up from the table. "It appears that way, doesn't it."

He almost missed how her eyes narrowed slightly, even though her voice was still calm and simple. Kallen still hated him for being intelligent and yet not caring about the fate of the world, of course. "Probably because you didn't bother coming to class this afternoon."

Maybe it was because of Light's recent influence, or maybe the memory of how she had slapped him and that her dislike of him was a good thing for his secret, but Lelouch couldn't resist poking back at her. "I'm sorry I missed one of the days you were actually healthy enough to—"

"Mmmnnnphfffffff!" Milly tried to say as the door was suddenly flung open. Shirley was being clumsily dragged behind the president, her hands over the blonde's mouth to prevent comprehendible speech.

"Milly! Don't!" she whined, before losing her balance completely and falling to the ground in a sprawling heap, her fiery hair spreading out onto the carpet. Lelouch tried not to look at her thighs where her black skirt had ridden up a little, keeping his eyes focused on her bewildered green eyes as her struggle against gravity ended.

For a moment, everything was perfectly quiet. Then, quite unable to help himself, Lelouch began chuckling. Kallen's true laughter—quite a bit more full throated than her demure school voice—and Milly's cackling giggle soon joined his. Shirley began turning redder than she already was, muttering excuses in which Milly's name came up frequently, but she still couldn't quite keep an embarrassed smile off her own face. The atmosphere lightened with their joined laughter, and Lelouch felt the cares of the last few days fall off his shoulders. Zero, Light, Kira, L, and the Black Knights were all forgotten for the moment, and he was simply Lelouch among his friends again.

"That's right, that's right!" Milly announced suddenly, cutting over the last remnants of chuckles. She held out her hand to help the fallen Shirley to her feet. "Today's a paper day!"

A groan came from just outside the door that everyone could easily identify as Rivalz. "But President," he said as he entered the room, "That's not due for another week!"

"If we work on it now, we won't have to do it later!" Milly replied energetically. She, however, seemed to be the only one.

"We should wait for some time when Suzaku is here to help as well," Lelouch suggested. He didn't want to do the paperwork anymore than Rivalz and he couldn't really afford to spend the whole day there.

Milly rounded on him, a finger raised in explanation. "But we don't know when Suzaku will be free. That depends on the army, doesn't it?" Her face turned pensive, a full lower lip pushed out in though. "And seeing as how L is expecting Zero to turn up today, they probably won't let him go so easily...."

Lelouch smiled back sweetly to the female president. "So the next time he does come to school this week can be paper day."

Shirley suddenly broke into the conversation, a little miffed. "And you'll take that day to skip classes again, Lulu!"

"Ooooh, you've got a point there, Shirley," Milly said, nodding. "What a smart girl!"

"Thank you, President!" Shirley chirped back, welcoming the cooing praise like always. She sat in one of the chairs at the table, the blush mostly gone from her cheeks.

"So it's settled, we'll do it today," Milly continued, striding to the front of the room. Rivalz groaned and slumped into the chair opposite from Lelouch. The look he gave Lelouch was clearly one not intended for Milly to see.

Lelouch sighed; he didn't have much choice. "The truth is that I'm busy later tonight, so I can't stay very late today."

Shirley stiffened in her seat, Rivalz gave him a dirty look, and Milly looked at him suspiciously. The President spoke, her voice low and teasing in a way she used often with her favorite male cousin. "You don't have a date do you, Lelouch?"

Lelouch blinked. The idea had never crossed his mind. Of course he didn't have a date, but it might work to simply let them believe that he did. It was the most believable option—Milly had even thought up the idea herself—considering there was obviously no way he could tell them the truth. Then again, that would only make Milly more interested in what he was actually doing. He didn't need to stretch his imagination very far to realize that Milly would investigate his actions all the more thoroughly if she believed he was seeing someone. Better say no, then.

"Of course not," Lelouch said, but Milly didn't quite look satisfied with his answer. He had probably waited too long. He cleared his throat, realizing he needed to clarify more or else he'd be stalked off the school grounds. "Really, Milly, I don't have a date. With the way you run this school, you'd probably hear about it before I would anyway."

Milly smiled broadly, nearly cooing at him. "Ooooh, you're actually pretty clever, Lelouch."

Lelouch brushed off her comment, straightening up for business and giving one last stab at hope. "So, are we waiting for Suzaku or not?"

"He works enough with the military, I'm sure he can miss paper day once in a while," Milly replied matter-of-factly before pulling another one-eighty with her mood, and making a dramatic fist. "So let's get to work!"

"Um, excuse me, President," Kallen began, "But what exactly should I be doing?"

"That's right," Rivalz said, giving the red-haired girl an appraising look, "This is the first time you've been well enough to be at school during paper day."

Milly smiled cat-like, one that Lelouch recognized to mean the young woman had some kind of dangerous idea or plan. "You can work with me and Rivalz. Kallen, I'll show you exactly what needs to be done."

"I'll go do the filing in the back room, President!" Shirley volunteered, getting into the spirit and pretending to flex an arm to show her strong will for the project.

"What a good girl you are, Shirley," Milly purred, petting Shirley on the arm. Her blue eyes then fell on Lelouch. "Why don't you help her with that, Lelouch?"

"Right," Lelouch responded automatically. He stood, smiling at Shirley and walked with her to the storage room filled with all the paperwork required for a student council to function. The voices of the other three faded off into a muffled white noise as Lelouch struggled with a box full of paper. Shirley twirled some hair around her finger, and Lelouch was glad she wasn't commenting on his lack of physical strength. She probably wasn't even paying attention to him and the heavy box anyway.

He set it down in the center of the room, and kneeled down. Shirley sat on the other side of the box, biting her lip in a way Lelouch recognized meant she was completely absorbed in her own thoughts. And a little cute, he thought, before quickly averting his eyes to the business before him.

"Hey, Lulu..." she began, a little absentmindedly as soon as Lelouch had taken the lid off the box and pulled out the first folder of receipts. He had already begun with the expenses from the last month.

"Yes?" He didn't look up, his eyes glancing along the totals, adding them up mentally. Two hundred and five plus sixty-seven is two-hundred and seventy-two plus forty-one—

"There isn't someone like that for you, is there?" she continued, suddenly looking up at him with her green eyes full of worry.

"Like what?" Lelouch looked up with some bewilderment, the numbers driven from his head by the sincerity of her voice. Her eyes caught at him, but he didn't feel trapped by them in the same way Light could hold him. It was refreshing, and yet he didn't really know what she was talking about.

Shirley seemed to realize it had been an outburst with absolutely no context and blushed a faint pink, looking down and off to her left. Her lips pouted into a tiny frown as she continued, "I mean, like, there isn't anyone you've been thinking about a lot, is there?"

Lelouch considered for a moment. Someone he'd been thinking about? What kind of question was that? He thought about lots of people all the time. "I'm not sure if I understand what you mean, Shirley."

"Like someone that you notice every time they enter a room, and when you look into their eyes you can't think of anything else—"

"Oh!" Lelouch replied. Had Shirley been able to pick up on the game between him and Light? While on one hand it seemed very unlikely for Shirley to notice, on the other hand, she had always been strangely perceptive of people and their characters.

Right now, she blinked, sitting up straighter. "...Oh?"

"I didn't think anyone else had noticed," Lelouch began, still not sure where exactly he was beginning or whether he intended on talking. Shirley nodded fervently. So she had noticed?

There was a small pause. There really wasn't much else for him to say, but Shirley was still staring at him intently as if she would be able to read his mind the more she stared. He blinked at her and then looked down to the paperwork again.

"Lulu!" she started, her face in an exasperated frown, although the intensity of her green eyes hadn't diminished at all. "Who is it?"

So she hadn't noticed? Then what exactly was Shirley referring to? Had he been acting differently? Sometimes she seemed to know more about him than anyone else and she had always been able to read him with uncanny accuracy. He scrambled to come up with some kind of answer. He didn't really want to reveal that his game was with Light.

"Lulu," Shirley said again, her frustration wearing away. "Just answer me, okay?"

"I'm still a little confused by what—"

"It's the feeling that you get when that person is around, and you can't breath and can't stop thinking about them, and you always know when they're around, and when they're not there, you're still thinking about them, and you just want to see them more and more and learn everything there is to know about them—" Shirley suddenly stopped her frantic run-on speech full of wild gesticulations, and peered at Lelouch carefully. Her pale cheeks faded a little pink. "Sorry...."

He was deep in thought. Was that how he thought of Light? There were certainly times when Lelouch couldn't breathe or think around Light. He seemed to have this uncanny sense of where Light was in a room as well. It was galling to think that Shirley, of all people, had noticed the effect Light had on his system. Not only that, but the last thing Shirley had said rang truer than the Ashford's school bells: Lelouch really did want to know everything about his rival. With Shirley this perceptive of the relationship that he had with someone, he knew it wouldn't take her long to figure out whom. There was no point in lying; she'd only get more upset later when she figured it out.

"Lu...lu?" Her voice was quiet, almost trembling, and Lelouch had realized she must have been waiting for some kind of answer while his thoughts were running away with him.

"I always knew you were perceptive Shirley, but I didn't think you'd pick up on this anyway," he said, realizing that telling her was in a way refreshing. He let his shoulders relax from the tension he hadn't been aware he was holding in and smiled. Shirley smiled back tentatively.

"So...?"

"You'd figure it out anyway, I'm sure," Lelouch answered confidently, "It's Light."

Shirley's expression changed completely, her smile gone and replaced with a stunned and uncomprehending look. She blinked several times, her face frozen. Lelouch began to get a sinking feeling. She shouldn't be this shocked. Why was she so surprised? Was it because he and Light always pretended to have a friendly relationship when the truth was something else entirely?

Shirley bowed her head, her hair falling over her face like a curtain at the end of an act, making her expression invisible.

"Shirley?" he questioned, wondering what on earth he had just done.

She didn't look up. "Lulu, you're... gay?"

For the first time in his life, Lelouch's mind failed him completely. It was going to take more than a miracle to get out of this one.

--L/L--

"This is no rescue of Suzaku Kururugi," Kallen retorted angrily over the airwaves from inside the Guren. "There're twenty of them!"

"Zero's done more than that for us already!" Tamaki argued back. "We just need to follow orders like always."

"Then why are we still hiding here?!" Kallen shouted, clearly upset by the proceedings and the setting sun.

"Be quiet," Toudou commanded firmly from his own Knightmare Frame. "Zero has a plan."

Silence reigned among the Black Knights, the sound of many breaths held as they waited for their miracle to come.

The twenty hostages were still strapped to vertical beams hoisted up from the flatbed of a trailer, and their heads hung with the weight of their impending executions. Princess Cornelia's own custom Gloucester and her Glaston Knights with a few supplementary Sutherlands surrounded the vehicle in a tight ring. The sun touched the horizon, the day beginning to turn to night.

The cockpit of Cornelia's caped Gloucester opened, and the proud princess stepped out.

"It looks like Zero isn't going show," she announced caustically. She turned to the hostages imperiously. "Your leader is nothing more than a egotistic murderer and you have committed crimes against the Empire of Britannia."

A few plaintive cries echoed up from the bound men and women. "We're not Black Knights!"

"Silence!" Cornelia commanded, her face a mask of nobility. She thrust out a hand towards a small squadron of foot soldiers. "Executioner! Prepare the firing squad!"

"You will do no such thing, Cornelia!" A familiar voice echoed, bouncing off the stone walls of the prison facility. The voice deepened, somewhere between a threat and a low laugh. "I have come here as promised."

The crowd of mixed heritage—Britannians hoping for the victory of their Empire and Elevens secretly imagining Zero's triumph—gave a collective gasp.

Just as planned, Lelouch smirked from under his mask as he opened the cockpit to his Knightmare Frame. He stood directly across from Cornelia, and could see the twisted hatred on her face. Suppressing his urge to laugh at her surprise—how had he managed to sneak into one of her own units?—he turned his attention to the waiting crowd.

"Citizens!" he called broadly, spreading his arms. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Diethard and his camera team hard at work among the crowd. "I will repeat again the mission of the Order of the Black Knights!"

"Zero...." Cornelia growled, her fury unabated. Lelouch ignored her, and continued, knowing he still held his audience completely captive.

"We exist to protect those without power from those with power who would abuse it!" Lelouch could feel the blood rushing through his veins. There was nothing quite as exhilarating as leading a rebellion, his masked visage the most intriguing secret, his power acknowledged and words heard. "You," he shouted, thrusting an accusing finger at the Second Princess, "Cornelia, along with the detective L, have been abusing your power! You claim to be aiding those you term Elevens, forcing them into some Britannian mold of slavery, and yet these are the very people you have now abducted and sentenced to death.

"Now, I shall speak the truth: those Japanese men and women you have wrongly captured are not members of the Black Knights."

Cornelia's blue eyes widened with the shadow of doubt Zero had just delivered and Lelouch knew that she had blindly believed her subordinates. L's plan to lure out Zero with fake Black Knights would certainly come back and haunt her. Certainly, Zero had arrived, but Lelouch was prepared: he would never let himself be caught. He doubted she would want to work with the mysterious detective again. Her eyes narrowed in sudden vindictive and uncontrollable anger. "You have no proof of this, Zero!"

"And what proof do you have Cornelia?" He retorted condescendingly, gesticulating with grand movements of his arms and exaggerated tilts of his masked head. "Your Empire is built on a field of lies! Do you believe you can get away with saying anything you want? You would even go as far as to accuse me of being Kira, and yet, not even L has declared knowledge of either Kira's identity or my own. ...If he has the intelligence required to say we are the same person, then who is that person? Until L can prove that, I shall not accept his lies!"

A small cheer erupted from various sections of the crowd before quelling almost as quickly in the presence of Britannian soldiers. With a final dramatic fling of his arms he silenced the crowd and gave them his finishing blow. "As the Black Knights, we still have a duty to protect people in need! We are... allies of Justice!"

Lelouch raised his right hand straight into the air, paused a second for dramatic effect and then snapped his fingers.

Smoke poured out of every sewer drain, clouding up the prison courtyard. From three sides, simultaneous explosions blew a chuck out of the high grey walls, and the Order of the Black Knights rushed inside, swarming over the asphalt like locusts. The last glimpse Lelouch had before he closed the cockpit of his own Knightmare was of Cornelia angrily issuing orders among the growing fog.

Taking off his helmet before he overheated in the stuffy pilot's seat, Lelouch looked down at the blinking screen before him. Cornelia's troops were not as scattered or confused as he hoped they would be, proof that he was dealing with competent professionals. "Q-1, move to point F6 and engage Cornelia. Toudou and the Holy Blades will provide backup against the Glaston Knights. Keep them on the west side of the courtyard."

"Yes, Zero!" Kallen answered with determination and decisiveness apparent. Lelouch piloted his own Knightmare forward, relying on his memory to bring him to the flatbed trailer with the imitation Black Knights through the smokescreen.

"P1 through 3, go to point E5 and guard the hostages. We'll be moving eastwards with them." Three Knightmare Frames emerged from the grayness with screeching wheels, two flanking his machine, a third keeping the hostages between himself and Zero.

"Ougi, bring in the van and begin loading the hostages at point D3." Lelouch took a hold of the trailer and began dragging it behind him. His escorts kept in a tight formation around him and his cargo. One of Cornelia's forces suddenly appeared out of the mist in front of him and charged, only to be caught by fire from Lelouch's left. The two Knightmare Frames grappled with each other for a moment, before Lelouch and his two remaining escorts left them behind in the smoke.

"You won't get me yet!" Kallen's taunt reverberated over the Black Knight's frequency. Lelouch held back a sigh. No matter how many times he told her to not make unnecessary chatter, his ace always seemed to forget. He almost smiled.

The wall appeared before him and Lelouch headed east along it until he reached a newly torn exit in the wall. He stopped just as a van pulled up from the outside. Ougi and four others leapt out and mounted the trailer, cutting away the prisoners and ushering them to the getaway vehicle.

"How do you think you're going to defeat me with a worthless heap like that?!" Kallen's roar was followed by some answering calls of encouragement by various other pilots, Tamaki's "Go get 'em!" the most recognizable. At least she provided high morale with her continued battle cries, Lelouch thought, as the girl let out another cocky bellow. "You're not worth my time!"

The sound of rending metal was deafening for a moment and Lelouch imagined with some satisfaction that the Guren had managed to disable some part of Cornelia's Gloucester. All was going according to his plan, he thought, but suddenly couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. Of course Kallen was engaged in a life and death battle on the other side of the courtyard, but still...

...if he were fighting L, shouldn't the legendary detective's scheme be a little harder to break through? Shouldn't L have predicted some of Zero's moves and been ready for them with some kind of response? Surely L wouldn't have given up all the control to the Second Princess if he truly wanted to capture Zero in his mistaken belief that he was also Kira. A puzzle piece was still missing, he felt, unless it was Cornelia that had forced her way into being in control of the situation once Zero arrived. Lelouch considered; Cornelia was certainly a brilliant real-time strategist, but she had so far been unable to predict his moves outside fair fights. Could he attribute the ease of this victory to Cornelia's mistakes?

"Zero!" Ougi called up to him. "We've got the hostages secured!"

Lelouch snapped out of his thoughts; why should he waste time thinking about how terrible his opponent really was? "Good. Take them via route 2 to the meet-up point."

"Aaaaaah!" Kallen's shreik echoed as the van disappeared down the road. One of the Black Knights' Burai winked out into the red light of lost without successful ejection on the chessboard in front of him. There hadn't been a Britannian unit near it.

"Q-1! What's your status?" Lelouch called immediately, without letting the panic that had suddenly flooded into him leak into his voice. Her unit still showed as a green pulsing dot on his coordinate map but she still needed to hold up for several more minutes.

"I'm okay, just—damn you, you fucking bastard!" Kallen shouted and her report turned back into a battle cry, her concentration focused on whatever foe was in front of her that Lelouch couldn't see.

"Zero," Toudou's reserved response came next, but there was a definite fire under his words, "That white-headed unit has arrived."

Lelouch felt his mouth twist into a snarl and he slammed a fist into the console of his machine. That Frame was scheduled to be in maintenance! Lelouch had used Geass to obtain that information and base his plan on it. Was this L's trump card then? Or a simple miscalculation?

"Toudou, the Holy Blades are now responsible for Cornelia. Q-1, focus on the white-head. Don't let him out of your sight." Lelouch leaned back and clenched his fists. He'd have to judge the white-head's position based on the flashing beacon of Kallen's Guren. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. He didn't make mistakes. L must have leaked false information, know that somehow Zero would get his hands on it and kept the truth secret. This was the sort of thing Lelouch had been expecting, although certainly the cursed white and gold Knightmare had not been involved. Somehow, that machine always managed to thwart him. He could not let it do so now.

"Get out of my way!" Kallen shouted angrily. "Agh!"

He needed to pull out as soon as possible, and leave something for the Britannians to waste time cleaning up. He gritted his teeth, not wanting to resort to his final plan.

He opened up a new frequency. "Lakshata!"

"Oh? You need something from me?" Her voice was bemused like always, despite the desperate straights the Black Knights were in.

"Detonate," he replied succinctly, before switching frequencies back to the main channel with his terrorist forces. "All units stay clear of the south wall and prepare to retreat via the closest exits from the north, east and west to your position. Follow the designated routes to the rendezvous point."

"We're leaving already?!" Tamaki growled, obviously upset by Zero's tactics of not fighting to the death.

"We came to rescue hostages. Once that is accomplished, there is no further need for warfare," Lelouch replied sharply. Although if Tamaki didn't change his attitude, Lelouch amended darkly, he wouldn't mind leaving the hot-blooded soldier behind.

A low boom echoed through the courtyard, followed quickly by a wave of dense air. Lelouch began to laugh, knowing that the south wall, the one adjacent to the prison's exercise yard, had just collapsed. And what criminal wouldn't leap at the opportunity to escape that had just presented itself? There certainly was no way L could still believe Zero was Kira if he let a few hundred convicted felons run free into the Tokyo Settlement.

"Begin retreat!" he ordered, fleeing through the east wall with several other units.

"Shit!" Tamaki cussed loudly before the green blinking point of his Burai vanished into the yellow of lost, but ejected.

"P-2, pass point G4 and pick up the escape capsule there on your way out," Lelouch followed quickly.

"Yes, sir!"

Lelouch sighed, heavily. Judging from his screen, it looked as if they were going to make it out. A few of the Britannian Gloucesters and Sutherlands looked as if they had noticed the downed wall, the green of their units blinking along the southern perimeter. Cornelia's frame was moving at half its normal speed, and Kallen had broken free through the west exit. Judging from her lack of taunts and battle cries, he could only assume she had left the white-headed Knightmare Frame behind.

"All units are to take their secondary routes through the subways. We will rejoin at point Delta. Good work, Knights."

Lelouch flipped off the communications into blessed silence and entered into the darkness of the subway system. The operation had been a narrow success, and now he only had to deal with the release of the hostages. Of course, a little visit from Zero would be required to ensure word would reach the ghettoes, across Japan, and eventually throughout the entire world.

Zero was a leader of free people, and upheld the ideals he spoke of in direct contrast to the lies of the Britannian Empire.

--L/L--

Several hours later, the warehouse that was Point Delta was crowded with cocky Black Knights, drunk on their victory and sake. Most of the former hostages were still present, having more reason than ever to support the Black Knights after the ordeal Britannia had put them through. Tamaki seemed to be enjoying himself, telling anyone who would listen how he had traded blows with Cornelia's esteemed personal Knight, Guilford, although of course Lelouch noticed he didn't explain that he had been forced to abandon his unit because of it.

As Zero, he had spoken to the mass of people about the ever increasing importance of ridding Japan of Britannia's malignant influence as soon as everyone had gathered. He had then returned to their mobile headquarters to discuss further strategies with his inner circle and review the film Diethard had broadcasted. However, it was starting to get quite late, nearing eleven o'clock and he needed to get home. While Nunnally had probably already been put to bed, she was likely still awake, waiting for the sound of Lelouch's footsteps on their shared hallway.

He was also immensely tired, the events of the day finally catching up to him. Had it really been just that afternoon when he'd had to convince Shirley, Milly, Kallen, and Rivalz that he wasn't gay? Wishing he could take of his mask and rub his face, Lelouch signaled to Ougi from across the room that he was leaving. He received an answering nod and sincere smile of thanks, before turning away and exiting the headquarters.

He had only just made it to the pavement when someone accosted him.

"Please let me join the Black Knights!"

Resisting the urge to ignore him, Lelouch turned and recognized the speaker as one of the hostages, mostly by lack of a uniform. The Black Knights were getting so large there was no way he'd ever recognize everyone anymore. He looked the skinny man up and down, not really seeing any desirable surface traits. From the dark bags under his eyes, it looked like he'd been sleep-deprived and possibly tortured. He looked nothing like soldier material.

"What's your name?" Lelouch asked at last, deciding that the man would probably look better after a good night's sleep and a shower.

"Rue Ryuuzaki."

----L/L----


*gasp* Oh yes I did. Anyway, like always, faithful readers (and newbies to the story as well), please leave a comment about how you think this is going, etc. I actually take the time to go through and reply to what I call my 'fan mail' *snorts at my own arrogance*, but this means that you guys get questions answered! Or, what happens in most cases, someone writes something that I haven't even thought about and I scramble around trying to figure out where such and such a character went (fyi, Misa's in the Chinese Federation after Japan was invaded). So, your comments and questions and criticisms all go into making this story better (that's the point of , right?), so... hopefully that's incentive to review.


Thanks for reading! And until next chapter.