A/N: Details on the plans for this fic at the bottom, I'd like for everyone to read what's here first before coming to conclusions on what they'd like to see.

- Takes place after the battle for Damocles station

A month.

That was how long she had been here, how long they had all been here.

She hated it, being cooped up, being unable to fight, unable to run, a prisoner.

Her treatment was... surprisingly humane, as was everyone's in the cell block. They where allowed to talk to eachother, they had visitation rights, the food they ate was- quite frankly, delicious, their beds where warm, their prisoner outfits consistently washed.

Was it pity? Was it remorse? Was it a sick joke?

She didn't know. She didn't know anything anymore.

He told her to live.

So why was she slated for execution?

If she was slated for execution why was she being all but pampered as a prisoner of war?

Her shock and astonishment grew when her mother visited her. They talked a little. The elder Kozuki was still obviously feeling the effects of the refrain withdrawal, from the damage the drug had done to her.

Looking back at the conversation, how her mom acted... it was so surreal. She seemed to be unconcerned with the fact her daughter that she loved was to be executed. Was it the drugs? Was it geass?

Or did she simply know something that Kallen didn't?

Kallen paced her cell, the slippers she wore lightly padding across the cool metal flooring, her arms crossed as she wracked her brain, desperate to understand.

Today was the day she was meant to be executed, and yet there was nothing happening, she wasn't being dragged away in chains, she wasn't being tied down and paraded through the capital to her death, it was business as usual. Was there a problem? Bad weather? Was Lelouch ill? Had there been an attack?

She was pulled out of her musings as she heard the sound of the security door for the cellblock opening. Jeramiah walked inside, followed by a number of Lelouch's royal guard.

Ah, so her execution had merely been delayed.

"Countess Kozuki, come with me please." The Knight of orange requested, and Kallen narrowed her eyes, her hands balling into fists at her side.

"Can I at least say my last goodbyes?"

Jeramiah smiled

"That won't be necessary my lady, there's- been a change of plans."

Kallen blinked, owlishly

"... Beg your pardon?"

"Nobody is dying today." Jeramiah said firmly. "There was only one person slated for execution but... well let's just say the executioner got himself blown up a while ago so a few alterations had to be made."

Kallen's rigid body relaxed as the words hit her, and again she was left confused... but ultimately relieved, until a question hit her.

"Wait, only one person, who?" She asked, and more importantly, why had the 'Demon Emperor' decided to spare them?

Jeramiah lost a bit of his mirth at the question. "It is not my place to answer, he will give you the information you seek soon. For now, let's get you and the others out of here."

Jeramiah opened the door to her cell while the royal guards fanned out and opened the other cell doors.

She tepidly stepped out and Jeramiah beckoned for her to follow as all of her friends reluctantly did as the guards instructed.

The walk was rather quiet, and they arrived in short order to their destination. The prisoners walked into a large parlor room that had been set up. It was a nice room to be fair, the floor was carpeted, the furniture appeared to be all hand crafted from dark wood, a chandelier hung above the table in the center of the room. There where cushioned wood chairs at the table, and to the side a plush sofa and reclining chairs. There was food set up on the table, freshly prepared.

A well seasoned roasted turkey took center stage, surrounded by all matter of accoutrement. Charcuterie cheeses, grapes, dips, and breads, as well as a number of multi-ethnic foods. Chinese, Indian, and Japanese affair could all be seen, set up as a tasteful banquet.

Why? WHY where they being treated with such hospitality!? It's driving her mad!

It had to be a trick, it HAD to be! There was no other explanation! The food must've been poisoned, or drugged!

She was pulled out of her musings as Tamaki played the unwitting guineapig and bit into an onigiri. His eyes went wide, and at first she thought it must have been a fast acting poison causing him to panic, only to then see the man scarf down the rest of the thing, pretty much without even chewing like it was the most delicious thing he ever ate.

Xingke cautiously tasted a stir fry and waited a moment, tasting it to see if it was indeed poisoned, but after swallowing and absolutely nothing happening, he cautiously made a plate for the Tianzi. Tohdoh then got himself some sushi, alongside Chiba.

It was at that point that Kallen noticed authentic cutlery had been left out for them, actual forks and knives made of metal rather than plastic. As she did, she heard the door open and turned to see Sayoko walk in with a smile on her face, wheeling in a cart that had an ice bucket full of various liquors and spirits, ranging from whiskey to wine and sake.

Kallen, utterly befuddled at this point, forgot how to use her legs and plopped down on the couch, shortly joined by Rakshata who had taken a healthy helping of curry and naan bread, the smell of delicious food was intoxicating, and the sound of light- if awkward conversation and the clattering of plates and clinking of glasses filled the air.

What. The. Fuck.

Kallen was only taken out of her daze of utter confusion as Sayoko stepped up to her, and handed her a manila envelope with documents inside. Her eyes flicked down to see the label.

"Zero Requiem?" She mumbled, and on instinct took the file offered to her.

And she began to read.

And as she read through it, she deflated, each question that came to mind slowly, deliberately and meticulously answered... until she came upon the planned execution for the day, the one person that was supposed to die, who should have died.

Her eyes watered as she glared at the paper.

Shock, denial, bargaining, acceptance.

She smiled, her hands letting the file drop to the floor, partially spilling its contents and she began to laugh, catching everyone's attention.

She laughed, leaning back into the couch, before pulling her hands up to her face, and her smile turned into a grimace as she began to cry, sobbing loudly.

"Kallen!" Ohgi yelled, running from his side of the room, he closed the distance to the redhead, only to suddenly find himself dazed and laying on the floor, a loud clapping sound echoing through the room as his face stung from the back-handed slap he had been met with.

"YOU FUCKING IDIOT OHGI! YOU MORONIC ABSOLUTE FUCKING MISTAKE!" She snapped. "Bakka! All of you! You trusted the word of the prime Minister over our leader and look where it got us! Fuck you Ohgi! Naoto would be ashamed!"

"But- but his Geass!" Ohgi began to protest, only for Kallen to ruthlessly kick his shin.

"Geass this! Geass that! Did you ever bother to consider that you where being played! That he was capitalizing on your fears to convince you to turn on Zero!?" Kallen questioned, looking down at the man who had become her surrogate brother after Naoto's passing.

"Zero was Lelouch! A britannian prince!" Ohgi countered.

"What of it!? He's still Zero! He's still the greatest enemy Britannia ever faced! Schneizel knew he was on the backfoot and knew the only way he could beat Lelouch was to have his troops betray him. You played right into the hands of that genocidal lunatic!"

"I- I just wanted Japan to be free!"

"At the cost of the entire world?" The voice of Lelouch cut through the room as he stood in the doorway. He was not wearing his white imperial robes but instead a plain white T-shirt and black jeans as he walked into the room, a pair of guards taking up positions nearby.

Everyone stopped to look at him, even Nunnally who had been strictly silent the entire time as she sat in a new wheelchair that Jeramiah had gotten for her.

Kallen dropped all pretense and ran to Lelouch, throwing her arms around him in a hug as she cried freely. She wore a mask for too damn long and she refused to put it on now. The half-breed wore her heart on her sleeve as she bawled her eyes out and held on to Lelouch with nigh bone-crushing levels of strength, like if she let go he would vanish.

Lelouch opted to return the hug, his eyes closed.

"What you all seem to have not understood, is that Schneizel was never in a position to follow through on his end of the bargain. Only the Emperor has the authority to relinquish conquered territory, he went to you without consulting Charles, just like you met him without consulting me." He drawled.

All of the Black Knights paled.

"Y-you mean..." Chiba began.

"That you betrayed me on a whim to your greatest enemy when he planned to go behind your back and hold the entire world hostage with WMD's? Yes." Lelouch answered blandly.

Kallen, for her part, felt like she was lower than dirt at this point, she pulled herself away from him, gazing at the floor.

"I'm sorry." Kallen said quietly, only for Lelouch to place a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't apologize Kallen, you didn't do anything wrong."

"But-!"

She was stopped from speaking as Lelouch used a hand to tilt her chin up, making her look at him.

"I forgive you, Q-1." The tone of voice he used, and his use of her callsign made her shiver with delight as his forgiveness made her heart flutter. "I order you to forgive yourself, can you do that for me?"

Not trusting her voice, she gave a small nod, her eyes staring deeply into his even as they still welled up with tears.

He hugged her this time, much more gently than she had to him, and she reciprocated.

The hug lasted significantly longer as they simply enjoyed each other's embrace. But the whirring of a small motor caused them both to look down at Nunnally, who sat beside them, looking up at Lelouch. A whirlpool of mixed emotions where visible as she silently stared.

Lelouch, unable to stop himself from surrendering to his big brother instinct, let go of Kallen and knelt in front of Nunnally.

"Your hand." Nunnally murmured, she had to see for herself, she had to know.

Lelouch silently offered his appendage to her, and she reached out to take his hand.

The reaction was immediate, as soon as her fingers touched him she recoiled as if struck. Her eyes welled up with tears and she choked.

"Big brother... you did all of this for-"

"Yes."

Nunnally lunged out of her chair, nearly tackling the 99th Emperor as he quietly allowed himself to show his weakness and embraced his sister, who sobbed openly, wetting his shirt with her tears as she held onto him.

Cecile, Lloyd and Rakshata all smiled at the interaction, as did Jeramiah, while the black knights looked uncomfortable as the reality of their actions finally started to catch up with them.

"I'm so sorry Nunnally... I know it didn't happen the way you wanted it to." He cooed softly.

"All I wanted was to be with you, big brother."

"I know... but you also know why doing that in the world our father made was impossible."

She sniffed. "Yeah..."

"I don't regret that I did it, but I am sorry that it had to happen, and I am sorry about the mistakes that I made, the people that got hurt because of my anger, and my lack of foresight..."

He sighed, turning to look up at the Black Knights.

"Jeramiah."

"Yes milord."

Jeramiah's cybernetic eye flashed as a reverse geass symbol appeared and a wave of energy passed over the room. Kallen blinked as some memories came back to her.

"There you have it, your proof." Lelouch offered. "My loyal knight of orange has what is known as a Geass Canceller, a tool he came to possess after he was experimented on by code R. You remember the facility in China that we attacked? That was the main base of operations for that R&D group."

"They gave him a geass canceller to help him fight me. He just used it on the entire room, meaning that anyone here that was ever hit by my Geass should regain there memories of the time I used it. There should only be 2 instances of this. The first being Sayoko, the second being Kallen."

"So you did use it on her! You monster!"

Lelouch didn't even bother looking at Ohgi as he watched the other Black Knights.

"Well? Do any of you feel different? I'm going to guess no because the lot of you where never geassed. Twats." He grumbled the last bit under his breath. "For Sayoko, I needed a clandestine way of making a phone call to put Kallen off the trail of who was Zero, you remember me giving you that order now, right Sayoko?"

The maid smiled and nodded. "Just a phone call."

"And what did I do to you Kallen? What was my heinous all-encompassing order of debauchery that I placed on you?" He asked this now staring Ohgi down.

"You... asked me some questions." She said numbly. "So that means..."

"That I never ordered anyone here to be loyal to me, you all decided to follow me, and you all decided to stop following me of your own free will, glad we could clear that up." He drawled while Ohgi visibly deflated.

Lelouch took a deep breath.

"As it stands, my plans are ruined. I was going to have Suzaku kill me today. I planned to turn myself into the enemy of the world and break the cycle of hatred. In reality I was just depressingly suicidal and I knew I couldn't beat Schneizel without Suzaku's help." He shrugged.

"So I agreed to let him kill me. As it turns out not even magical eye powers can stop someone from being atomized by a Yggdrasil drive having a meltdown right next to you. I'll keep a note of that."

"Anyway, that now leads to what I'm gonna do with the lot of you. And given the circumstances, I know just what to do, and that-"

Everyone paled, wondering what punishments their leader was going to do to them.

"-Is to let you go. Enjoy your meal, call a cab, go wherever you want, I don't care just so long as you promise not to attack Britannia. Funny coming from me I know but since I'm stuck as Emperor I don't really have a choice other than to just suck it up and accept that I'm responsible for these people now."

Everyone had a shocked expression on their face. "Y-you're letting us go?" Tamaki stuttered. "Just like that?"

"Would you prefer your execution went on as scheduled?" Lelouch asked blandly

"No! No I just... I guess I expected retribution or something."

"I would have betrayed me too if I'm being honest and I won't hold anyone to a higher standard than I can hold for myself." He said cynically. "Anyways as thanks for your contributions I have given you a severance pay that has been set aside in a private bank account, the details of which have been left in an email you can open on your phones, it's enough to retire on probably so long as you don't try to buy out pizza hut. Any questions?" He asked, and was left with only stunned silence.

"You said you're suicidal." Xingke pressed. "What's to stop you from... going through with that and causing turmoil in the wake of your death?"

Lelouch gave a wry grin.

"Well, I suppose I might as well come clean. The reason I came here dressed casual instead of my imperial robes is because it's at the dry cleaners. Getting blood and greymatter out of prestine white silk is a bitch as it turns out."

Kallen stared at her Emperor, extremely concerned. "Lelouch, what do you mean by that?"

"I mean that yesterday I had a breakdown, stuck the barrel of a .44 in my mouth and pulled the trigger. I woke up about 10 minutes later with a headache and my outfit was ruined. I'm like C.C. now."

Kallen hugged Lelouch again, who again, accepted and hugged her back.

"How?" She whispered.

"A code. I took it from Charles who took it from Victor, my uncle. When they died it latched on to me and then when I killed myself it activated."

Kallen closed her eyes and just hugged Lelouch, for once she was thankful for something Charles Zi Britannia had done. Because he had inadvertently saved the life of the man she loved. She didn't want to let go, she couldn't, not after hearing that, her Emperor needed a hug and she'd keep hugging him as long as they needed.

Lelouch sighed.

"Kallen... look, I want you to live your life and be happy... everyone that has ever touched refrain has had their sentences nullified and they're getting free rehab. You should go see your mother, she needs you."

"You need me more." She pointed out.

"Kallen, you deserve someone better-"

"And who are you to decide what's best for me?" She asked opening her eyes to look up at him, a glare of determination meeting his solemn gaze. "Who are you to decide how I should live my life and what makes me happy?"

"I just... feel like I'm not worthy." He admitted quietly. "And besides, I'm immortal, you're not Kallen. I would be forced to watch you grow old and die while I remain stagnant."

Kallen shook her head, she was desperately searching for a reason to stay by his side, to make him see things her way.

"You can help with that." The voice of a green haired witch interceded, causing everyone to turn and look at her as she leaned in the doorway.

"What do you mean?" Lelouch inquired, while a spark of hope lit inside Kallen.

"Since you are my only remaining active contract, I will tell you something. There are many different forms of geass, and depending on the circumstances, they can have special properties."

"Meaning?" Lelouch inquired.

"As cheesy as it may sound-" C.C. began. "If there is a bond of genuine love between the contractor and the contractee, then the Geass they recieve obtains a unique 4th stage of evolution."

"A 4th stage?" Kallen parroted, now interested.

C.C. held up 1 finger. "Stage 1, infancy. The birth of your Geass as the contract takes hold and your power Unlocks." A second finger. "Rampancy, when a Geass increases in strength beyond the will of the user, a permanent state of activation also coined as Geass Intoxication." A third finger. "Metastability, in which the Geass reaches full maturity and progresses to the right eye, with the user able to activate and deactivate their geass at will, it also occasionally removes or reduces restrictions."

"And what is stage 4?" Kallen asked impatiently.

"Genesis. If the Geass user holds a contract with a loved one, their geass will crystallize into a code-geass in which they maintain full control over a metastable geass and obtain a newborn code of immortality. A code-geass can also be obtained by taking a code from someone other than your contractor which is how Lelouch maintains both a code and a geass, because my contract with him is still active since I am still alive to maintain the link."

C.C. shrugged. "Stage 2 is where most people get stuck. In order to progress to stage 3 they must have an incredibly strong will to wrestle control back and achieve metastability with their geass. Lelouch and Charles are the only two in my memory to ever get to that point."

"So... you're saying that if I form a contract with her, I will maintain my code and she will form one on her own?"

"Yes, that is- if you love her." C.C. pointed out with a grin.

Lelouch huffed, closing his eyes.

"Kallen-"

"My answer is yes, you selfish ass."

The 99th Emperor grinned, and tilted Kallen's head up to lock lips with her.

Lelouch and Kallen stood in front of one another, in a pocket dimension of C's world as they saw eachother's silhouettes outlined in black and white.

"Kallen Kozuki-Stadtfeld, I offer you a contract. The terms are thus- never stop fighting to protect and cherish that which you love."

There was only one answer Kallen could give, she smiled.

"I accept the terms of our contract."

As soon as she said it, the world faded back into normalcy, and Kallen pondered what her Geass could be.

"Just so you are aware Kallen, your Geass is based out of your deepest desire. My desire was control because I felt like I lost control of my life, and it gave me absolute obedience." Lelouch informed her.

Kallen nodded. "I'm not sure I know what my deepest desire is. I mean, I know I probably have one but i may not be concisely aware of it."

"It may be best to go off of your instincts to figure out what your geass does." Lelouch offered.

Kallen nodded, and took a deep breath, closing her eyes and meditating before suddenly turning to face Ohgi.

"Did you betray Zero for Japan or because Villetta told you to."

"Both, I held a personal grudge against Zero and Villetta enforced it, and I also felt like it was safer to take the Diplomatic route rather than risk a continued war."

Ohgi blinked. "Uhh..."

"Hah! Absolute honesty, haven't seen that one for a while. Born out of a desire to see the true self behind the masks people wear." C.C. tutted.

Kallen meanwhile just glared at Ohgi, her Geass remaining active.

"Where you already planning to betray Zero?"

"Yes."

Ohgi slapped his hands over his mouth.

"Well it doesn't have a one use limit, that's good." Lelouch quipped, seemingly unconcerned with what Ohgi is saying. "Hey, former deputy commander, cover your eyes, see if it requires line of sight."

Ohgi did as requested, though more for himself than anything.

"Do you still plan to go against him?" She asked between clenched teeth.

"I don't know, it depends on how things progress."

"Welp." Lelouch muttered. "No line of sight needed, and multi-use. Excellent." He placed a hand on Kallen's shoulder to stop her from beating the shit out of Ohgi.

"Well, now that the drama fest is over let's get to the fun stuff."

"Huh?" Kallen and Leluch both asked.

C.C. had a Cheshire grin. "You two, with me, we're gonna test how durable our shared bed is since we've definetly got room for 3, possibly more."

Kallen gawked at C.C. while Lelouch looked up at the ceiling.

'I take it back god, kill me now.' He begged internally as Kallen and C.C. got into a catfight.

5 years later...

Things smoothed over eventually, the Black Knights where released, and went home.

As the Holy Britannian Empire had technically conquered the world with the Damocles station, and while part of Lelouch and Kallen both wanted to simply take that event back, the results of stopping the integration would do more harm than good.

So, a tenuous proposal was made to turn all of Britannia's conquered territory outside of the homeland into semi-autonomous principalities wherein governors where elected, or appointed depending on the stability of the principality.

Area-11 was rechristened Japan, flew Japanese flags alongside Britannian ones, and legislature was completely overhauled with Kaguya acting as the Viceroy. Once this had proven a popular and successful move, it was copied across the former areas.

Living standards of former numbers quickly began to skyrocket as Britannia built a new army, not of soldiers but of laborers. Contractors, alongside construction workers and vehicles went to every part of the globe en-masse and the housing market boomed.

Much of the funding for these efforts came out of pocket from the former nobility. Since Nunnally had nuked Pendragon the assets of every dead royal family member and noble went to Lelouch, leaving a gigantic fortune in private equity.

So Lelouch paid for it, that, combined with a reduction in military spending, put over a trillion imperial pounds into the reconstruction effort, and the results spoke for themselves.

After the orders for an actual mass urban renewal went through, Lelouch capitalized on other concerns, a counter-propaganda effort to dispel any lingering notions of social darwinism, a new constitution drawn up by him to protect human rights and liberties, worldwide crack-downs on crime.

With the Britannian Military shifting from a conquering army to a protective one that served the people and ruthlessly hunted down local crime syndicates at the behest of local governance and ordinance, the union jack of Lion and Snake that had once brought terror to the world now stood as a symbol of strength, unity, and multicultural, multiethnic cooperation.

It wasn't perfect, of course. Every other day there was always some big-shot that thought he could 'save' his people from being uplifted. A quick counter-terror op with good intelligence and a bit of geass was all it took to quell an insurgency, and dozens of would-be 'resistance' and 'terror' cells where nipped in the bud.

Britannian law was also completely erased and re-drawn from scratch to match its new constitution, and exemplified its new focus on humane treatment and rehabilitation of criminals.

Lelouch knew crime was a result of bad circumstances. People don't turn to crime unless they're desperate or stupid. So alongside a mass overhaul of public education, Healthcare and transportation, limits where imposed to price-cap goods and services so common people could always have at least their most basic needs met. So as the poor/poverty line shrank, so did crime.

It wasn't utopia, of course, but things where so much better than they where before.

Right now Lelouch and his two beautiful Immortal wives, Kallen and C.C., where attending a senate hearing. The Imperial Senate was made up of representatives from every principality in the empire, with either the viceroy of that principality, or an approved emissary/ambassador of that viceroy.

This of course meant that there where hundreds of representatives in attendance. The chamber in question was a massive dome-like structure with seating inside the main senate chamber arranged in an overlapping semi-circle.

At the center of the semi-circle sat the reigning monarch, the 99th Emperor Lelouch Vi Britannia, now very publicly recognized as Zero after Milly decided she had enough of people bad-mouthing her childhood friend about 2 years into his reign.

Once he was publicly recognized as the legendary revolutionary, things got much more interesting with the common people across the world avidly supporting him, but with the last dregs from the upper echelon of the old world coming to loath him.

There where a few assassination attempts every year but they never worked, for obvious reasons.

Lelouch internally groaned. He had been sitting in his seat wearing a cape-less, modified version of his Zero suit which was now a darker shade of purple to the point of being near-black. Kallen and C.C. where both wearing nice dresses, with the witch having her long green hair done up in ringlets while Kallen's own head of red hair had grown out- a result of jealously watching Lelouch pet C.C.'s silky green locks no doubt- and it had been tastefully braided into a long ponytail that stretched down her back.

Kallen heard her Emperor's poorly concealed irritation and subtly shifted a hand over to hold one of his, earning her a smile that always managed to make her heart flutter.

C.C. of course, just looked bored as usual, staring off into space and probably thinking about pizza and sex, as those where the only things that ever seemed to get any emotion at all out of the green-haired vixen.

"-the point, Senator Latushe, is that while we understand your personal preferences towards continued de-militarization, we cannot simply disband the army. The Britannian military has only 50% of the budget it once had just a few short years ago whilst simultaneously being required to garrison 77% more territory than it once held. You ask for too much." Senator Kaguya said firmly to the French colleague sat across from her as she spoke into her microphone.

"Garrison against what? Britannia has what it always wanted, complete world domination. It has no enemies left to fight and any terrorist cell or crime syndicate can be handled by counter-terror SWAT units. They do not require military hardware to put down." The French Senator countered, making Kaguya roll her eyes.

"It needs a military peacekeeping force just in case someone gets the bright idea to rebel. It is an empire after all and the state needs to be able to apply force if a region becomes destabilized."

"If the people rebel-" The French Senator began tersely. "It is because they see this for what it is! A frace of false librte!" Her declaration caused whispers and gasps to be heard across the floor, and the speaker of the house, Nunnally, banged her gavel as she sat across from the Emperor and Empress'.

"Your words are dangerously close to sedition Senator." Nunnally warned. "You must realize that my brother has done the best possible thing for everyone. The world finally has peace, living standards have been on the rise for years. Crime and unemployment are at an all-time low, intelligence has gone up across the board as measured by current GPA standards, humanitarian crisis are nigh unheard of and those that occur get an immediate and appropriate response."

She continued. "Your people, just like all others, have maintained their cultural identity. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, right to a trial by jury, habeas corpus, you have all these things still. You still have your language, the right to create your own bi-laws, local governance. The only thing that changed is where your tax money goes and what it's used for since that's up to the Imperial senate."

"But we do not have self determination!" The French representative all but snarled as they stood up and gripped their desk. "We live under the yoke of the Britannian Empire! Our sworn enemy! How do you expect us to be content with that!"

"That-" Lelouch finally spoke up. "Sounds like an argument made by a child who's pride was hurt." He drawled.

"How dare-!?"

"No madame senator how dare you?" He cut her off firmly. "Britannia as you know it has been destroyed in all but name, I destroyed it. You like to forget that I myself am half-french due to my mother. Is this not a victory for the French? To see their former enemy brought to its knees and rebuilt from the ground up as a beacon of unity by someone of partial French blood?" He asked, as the representative began to simmer down.

"Britannia is no longer your enemy, Britannia exists as a unifying entity that stopped the cycle of hatred and brought an unprecedented era of peace and stability across the globe, do you argue against such facts? Because those are the facts."

She eventually closed her eyes and sat down in her chair, covering her face with her hands in exasperation as she gave up on her arguments, for now.

It was at this moment that Tianzi raised her hand. "Permission to speak?"

"Permission granted." Nunnally agreed.

She stood up from her seat and placed a hand over her heart.

"Friends and colleagues, many of you know that I was once a puppet of the high eunuchs, that I was used, and seen, as nothing more than a figurehead. I had no way to help my people, no way to fulfill my duty, my mandate of heaven as passed down to me by the Chinese Emperors that came before me. It was Zero who rescued me, with the help of my fear friend Kaguya."

"It was he who showed me my potential, who opened my eyes to the responsibility that I held. Zero, Lelouch Vi Britannia, is my friend, he is my friend because he helped me when nobody else would, or could. He did not shield me from the horrors of reality, he did not lie to me, he may have used me, yes, but at the same time I was using him. We needed eachother. But when he needed me most, I abandoned him like most of us in the UFN charter did. We believed that Zero had been a monster in human skin."

"We stopped believing in him, and because of that, Schneizel the Demon Prince nearly won, he came to the cusp of world annihilation and threatened to use FLEIJA warheads to ruthlessly murder millions- nay, billions of people to enforce his false peace. Lelouch destroyed the Damocles station 3 years ago, we all watched it fly into our mother sun. He doesn't hold a gun to our heads, he doesn't make demands of us, he doesn't ask us to do anything he would not do himself. The fact that this senate exists is proof that he doesn't seek absolute power."

"He asks us to remember our duty to the safety, security, and happiness of our people. THAT, should be reason enough to forgive him for his mistakes. It was he that even informed us that the previous Emperor, Charles, used a subliminal weapon on Euphemia to cause the SAZ massacre, he suffered watching her do something against her very nature, unable to stop her without killing her. We know that still weighs on him to this day."

That last part made Lelouch shift uncomfortably in his seat... he didn't really want to say anything about the SAZ massacre at first, but Euphie... she didn't deserve to be remembered as a monster, if anything she was a victim, and he made sure she was known as such with the false cover story he put out.

He sighed.

"That reminds me." He said softly. "I want to go to the SAZ memorial, to see Euphie."

This time C.C. moved a hand over to lay atop one of his, and both his wives comfortingly squeezed his hands. The witch's stone-faced expression didn't change even a little, but her touch meant much more than what she outwardly expressed.

Tianzi took a deep breath as she sat down, seeming to be relieved at she got all that out of her system, and got smiles of gratitude from the present members of the royal family, alongside Kaguya. Many of the other senators began to clap in approval of her speech.

"I believe we should call this session to a close." Nunnally offered. "We have been at this for quite some time now, tensions are beginning to run high as patience wares thin. I recommend a temporary dismissal so that we may reconvene at a later date."

The general consensus around the room seemed to approve the proposal, and Lelouch nodded in agreement.

"Motion carried then." Nunnally announced. "We will reconvene another time, you will get an automated email notifying you of the next hearing, I hope you all have a good evening, dismissed."

The senate hearing room got much louder as people turned off their microphones and stood up to speak freely with other representatives. Nunnally stood up from her seat and walked over to her brother with a smile on her face, and he smiled back while he got up alongside Kallen and C.C.

An idle conversation was carried as they all left to get some well deserved dinner before retiring for the night. Lelouch would fall asleep with his wives, and with their help, his dreams would be peaceful, rather than a nightmare.

A/N: Ok so, this is gonna be a crossover, and I'm gonna let you guys decide what that crossover will be. I have a poll that's gonna be up by the time anyone reads this. That poll will decide the trajectory this story takes. The nature of the crossover and how it works will depend entirely on what you guys pick.

I will leave the poll up for a while and see what the consensus is, and once there seems to be a majority in favor of an option, or if there is a slight lead after a long period of time, I will pick what the people want and work with it.

Pairings may change depending on the selection, as a waifu(s) from the other Fandom will likely be enamored with the pretty-boy black prince.

Keep in mind that as soon as the crossover is decided, this will be moved to the appropriate section so that people dont yell at me like they do with Code Wars V2 so if you want to follow this story check the appropriate crossover section once the winner is announced in the note coming for the next chapter.