The sun shone hot and fierce, and the citizens of the Tokyo settlement strived to stay in the shadows. Towering buildings provided some of it, but most of it was thanks to aircraft.
If you were lucky, and if one of them was drifting just the right way, you could walk in the shade the whole way home. Looking up, Lelouch could trace the long, organic lines of HMS Victory, hanging over Tokyo like some ghastly specter. Pale gray and sickly white, a broad belly just barely above needlepoint towers.
Lelouch thought he could smell it from the ground, but that might have been the general smell of Tokyo. It was like this in urban Pendragon, in New York, in Savannah… the constant reek: of sweat, of feces, of lumbering animal.
An aurochs lumbered around a corner, heavy horns swinging above pedestrian's heads. What few Japanese still walked the streets flinched away, not yet adjusted to their overlord's particular beasts of burden. A woman yelped as heavy hooves crashed onto the cobbles. Overhead, creatures drifted on sacs filled with hydrogen or sped across the sides of buildings with sticky feet.
The streets were a labyrinth, but for students of Ashford Academy, there was a guide to follow: a brilliantly colored training airship hovered over the academy constantly, a place for officers in training to learn the ropes. To the eternal credit of the students, it hadn't exploded once. It had, however, emptied its bowels over the grounds several times.
A remarkably pitiable creature, Lelouch couldn't help but think. That garish air-safety red assaulted the eye, but it suffered from more than poor fashion. All it had ever known, would ever know, was the patch of air above the academy grounds. You could argue, quite fairly, that modified creatures such as the airship-beast were tragic, modified genetically and born for war. And this poor thing wouldn't even get the chance to fly around the world as its bigger cousins did.
Looking down, he could see the gates of Ashford Academy, the walls covered in thick-growing, thorn-covered vines. It was more fashionable, by far than using wire to keep the riff-raff out. Of course, that wasn't the only method used to keep Britannia's finest safe.
Just before the gates, he stopped. Looked up at the heavy column to the left, where… something sat inside. There was a faint sound of snuffling, before the gate slid open, folding with all the grace of a wing.
Lelouch felt pity yet again, and just the smallest bit of revulsion. This creature, misbegotten as it was, knew his scent, under colognes and soaps and perfumes. It didn't fall for simple tricks humans did: names, haircuts, backstories.
He left it behind as he walked into the campus proper, a land of wide lawns and impossibly vivid flowers. With a keen eye, you could see modified creatures skitter in the bushes- or you could just look up and see the equestrian club riding creatures quite like unicorns.
(Wartime equestrianism had long since evolved past such wastefulness. A broken leg on a horse was reason enough to turn it into glue, but a properly bred warbeast with lizard characteristics could regrow a limb.)
Lelouch waved and smiled at the students as he made his way home, a thick hedge providing some isolation from the rest of campus. Snatching a strawberry from the garden, he headed inside.
"Good evening, Sayoko."
"Good evening, sir. Nunnally is in the salon."
Lelouch nodded and went to see his sister.
The salon was perhaps a bit outdated- the heavy wood carved into animalesques was the death screech of a decade long since past- but neither of them entertained visitors that cared. His sister heard him enter, of course, turning her wheelchair to 'look' at him. She wasn't the only one to notice him, though.
Around Nunnally's shoulders, a creature almost like a stoat curled, staring with massive, dark eyes. It took more from monkeys, mentally, but a stoat seemed more noble. Anyone rich enough to afford a creature that narrated to them wouldn't settle for some lesser ape.
"Lelouch!" It chirped.
Nunnally smiled, not needing the creature's reminders to know it was him. "Lelouch."
"Nunnally. Have you decided on a name for the creature?"
"I was thinking Clovis."
Lelouch met those massive black eyes and thought of Clovis' long evenings spent overlooking the pools on the palace grounds with equally wide eyes. "...Fitting."
Nunnally reached up to scratch under its chin, and it cooed appreciatively. While Lelouch wouldn't go as far as calling it cuddly, it was one of the more tolerable genetic fabrications.
Carefully, Lelouch slotted his finds from the day into the bookshelves. He imagined that the Kyoto houses probably had collections better than his, but he rather liked collecting Japanese literature. The Japanese needed money for necessities, Lelouch needed a better understanding of them as a people…
It all worked out very tidily. While not as valuable as actual testimony from a living, breathing Japanese person, it gave a glimpse into pre-invasion culture.
He didn't just limit himself to text, either. A woodcut hung from one wall, depicting one of the black ships arriving at Japan, ready to snap the isles out of feudal isolation. The image was exaggerated, the ship given a monstrous form with a gaping jaw.
Oh, if only they had known what would storm and slither onto their shores only a few decades later. Batting Britannia away then would have only led to an earlier invasion, but perhaps that was preferable to the wait. Rifles and cannon were cruel only in their operation as weapons; they couldn't be bred for viciousness.
(Japanese bodies reddening mouthfuls of razor teeth, airships surrounded by clouds of carrion birds.)
Opposite the woodcut was something thoroughly, violently Britannian, so Britannian that Lelouch had contemplated removing it several times. But it hung there still, a reminder of the enemy.
In a gold-lined frame, there was the face of Saint Darwin, surrounded by his finches. He was the man you could blame, in part, for modern Britannia. For their perversion of nature and their wanton cruelty, the viciousness born of an ironclad certainty that Britannians were more 'fit'.
A world concrete and unchanging almost seemed preferable to the changes that man had wrought, whether he meant it or not.
Still, Lelouch kept the icon there, let those finches stare out with gilded eyes. That was the enemy, right there.
Britannia modified everything they could get their hands on. Why wouldn't they, after all? Better wheat, better beasts of burden, better wood and fabric. America was all they had, so they made to reshape it.
Despite the Empire's jealousy- and despite the Europeans decrying the corruption of nature by the forces of monarchist imperialism- some of Britannia's crops spread across the ocean. Europe would never adopt Britannia's more radical genetic modifications, but they would eat and process Britannian crops gladly.
It was a lesson, certainly, and Britannia made to protect their crops and livestock like the national secrets they were. The living, breathing airships were certainly terrible, but dwarf cereals had them beat, strategically.
(That was one of the stories he heard frequently in his childhood. Nobles who focused unduly on factors that didn't impact fitness- like several feet of largely useless stalk that made the wheat stand taller- failed. The fit and the frugal survived while the rest died in ignominy.)
The means of genetic modification had spread, though. Lelouch remembered fields flush with modified rice during the invasion, gold-colored grains that rotted for want of harvesters. It wasn't much compared to Britannian mastery of the technology, but it was a seed.
And where that seed took root…?
Lelouch had kept a correspondence with the Kyoto houses as he worked to make his rebellion a reality. Gambling and betting on games was chump change, compared to the sums the houses could move.
Of course, he was determined to be more valuable to them- more instrumental in Britannia's destruction- than a simple spy might be.
The lady Kaguya was almost doll-like in appearance, although the pallor and frailness were the result of chronic illness. Rumors said it was the result of Britannian meddling in biological warfare. Was it true? Well, Britannia said no, and firmly rejected any investigators who looked to prove otherwise.
"You really think the airship doomed?" She asked, looking up from her reports with a frown. "They rained hell on Japan, Lelouch. You remember."
"I do. However, the aeroplane has it beaten in regards to maneuver."
"Certainly cheaper." Kaguya remarked, "But do you really think anti-air and planes will be sufficient? And this… carrier?"
"We lose out on the airship's maneuverability, but make up for it by not having to skimp and save with payloads as much." His math seemed to indicate conversions from cargo ships could work… and if it didn't, the Chinese could work something out. Their manufacturing wasn't quite European, but it was faster than Britannia growing her warships.
Kaguya nodded, reaching down to take a pill from a porcelain bowl. She washed it down with tea. "Your outfit is almost done."
"With all the features I asked for?"
"Yes, ready for all your dramatics."
"Dramatics?"
Kaguya laughed before her expression turned serious. "Remember what we talked about."
Ohgi's first thought about the representative from Kyoto was that they were remarkably lanky. When he heard military expert, he thought someone bulkier. Also, he had expected that the man would show his face.
"Has your group done much work with explosives, Ohgi?" The man- whose nom de guerre was Zero- quirked his head slightly, lending some emotion to that stoic mask.
"Kyoto has sent us some for bombing bridges and the like."
"That's… workable." Zero said. "Have you ever cooperated with other rebel groups in these… endeavors?"
"No."
"We'll have to rectify that, then."
It was an unnerving feeling, having a large gathering of rebels in one place. Made Ohgi worry about discovery, even if they were in the most remote stretch of wilderness they could find.
And there they fired off rockets and ignited explosive charges on rock faces. A large part of it was climbing and clambering, getting to remote vantage points or hauling long spools of wire to the most remote areas imaginable.
Then there was marksmanship- expected- and anti-warbeast measures, which covered a particularly broad range. Zero had lifted something that looked almost like a plunger and explained that it was their last resort measure.
"Imagine sticking one of these in a lion the size of a house. Sound pleasant?"
A few quiet nos.
"Precisely. If you're close enough to use one of these, it's your last resort. Killing at range is good, killing it before the battle is even better."
What followed was a lecture. An introduction to rocket-propelled armor-piercing weapons and several delightful ways of delivering poisons. They were issued gas masks as well, which was concerning.
Whatever they were planning for was probably more concerning. It was going to be big.
A large portion of the fleet in Japan- both aquatic and airborne- was kept near Kyushu. The southerly clime helped with the creature's homeostasis, and the proximity to areas of interest like Formosa and the fortified legations helped as well. It was a bastion of Britannian power in Asia, and its destruction would be good for Japan… before more ships were pulled in from other theaters to protect the Sakuradite mines.
It would be the obvious target when the true war for Japan began, and while Lelouch wanted to save some special tactics for that particular attack, the rebels needed some experience first. If they could barely operate a rocket in a stressful situation, how could they knock airships out of the sky?
The port near Fuji was another tempting target, but it was nearly as hard as the Kyushu naval base. It was the beating heart of Britannia's war industry, and the corridor from the mountain to the sea had defenses to rival the imperial palace. There were already plots to subvert those plans- machinery for mining had to get in, after all- but for now, Lelouch's target was very public.
HMS Victory still sat above Tokyo, a constant reminder of the threat of force that hung over all Japan, the pride of the navy in the air.
The teams crept into Tokyo using disguises. Thousands of Japanese people made their living as domestic servants to Britannian households in the city, so seeing them running errands wasn't strange, even if it was a bit stranger at such late hours. Moving around heavy boxes and crates could be explained away: charcoal, feedstock for modified animals, or human foodstuffs…
About fifteen minutes before midnight, on a minor side street, Naomi Inoue 'accidentally' bumped into Kento Sugiyama, sending a can of petrol and a bag of flour flying. In 'shock', the latter dropped his cigarette, starting a fire. The culprits fled as the fire grew, swiftly distracting the authorities. (Later, investigators would wonder why so much flammable material was left out in the area. Nothing came of it. Sayoko covered her trail.)
While those two gave them an excuse to run around in a panic while they made their escape, Zero and Ohgi moved. Getting a clear line of fire was tricky, with the tall buildings and the swarms of smaller beasts floating around the Victory proper, but they found a park and began setting up.
Really, 'setting up' was probably a bit much. It was a disposable rocket launcher, practically a tube that they pointed upwards after checking wind speeds. The Victory was a massive target, hundreds of square meters of mottled belly lit up by the city's lights. Practically impossible to miss. A trigger, a shriek, and then running.
The Victory did not cry out as it went- the warships screaming made the poor civilians upset- but the explosion and the light were impossible to miss. Ohgi looked back, gaping at the ball of fire hanging above Tokyo like some dread cloud before Zero tugged him forward.
Splitting up, Ohgi plunged into the back alleys that domestic servants and the like used for their own business. Meanwhile, Lelouch had the luxury of staying inside Tokyo… he just had to hide his outfit. Hopefully, no one had seen him in it, but still. Being associated with it would ruin a lot of hard work.
Although they hadn't quite reached the mastery of the technology Britannia had, the Japanese had managed to get their hands on the tools used for genetic manipulation. They were finicky, delicate, and expensive to maintain… but the Kyoto houses had money for both maintenance and training.
(Britannia, for all her talk of constant evolution and innovation, could fall into bad patterns, the military equivalent to evolutionary dead ends. Heavy investment in battleship-beast hybrids, even when the animals grew horribly bony and inefficient to support those massive guns… There were some 'unorthodox scientists' who lacked funding and support for disagreeing with the status quo. Some were fools, some were onto something.)
Walking through the quiet halls of a Kyoto base, Lelouch could recognize the equipment needed to tend to a growing warbeast. The food stuffed into every spare nook and cranny, the massive surgical tools needed to tend to health, the solvents and chemicals needed to keep it relatively hygienic. The Kyoto houses had something big.
"How long have you been working on this, Kaguya?"
Kaguya smirked from her palanquin- carried by a big cat of some indeterminate breed. "Initial plans were being made when the Invasion."
Since the invasion of Japan, then. Years. Long enough to make something… something large enough to rival the great beasts that Britannia made, perhaps something even larger. Lelouch gulped and followed Kaguya through the labyrinthine passageways, slowly realizing the scale of this complex and whatever beast it contained.
Eventually, they reached a window, and Kaguya looked out of it with pride. "I still like your carrier idea, Lelouch, but we've invested quite a lot in this."
He looked out and saw a massive flank under shallow, choppy water. It stretched on and on, heavy with muscle. The eyes were out of scale, but the whiskers were still massive, enough that Lelouch could recognize the form of a catfish, even if it was the size of a large warship. He thought of an old Japanese painting, the broad grin of a catfish under a city in flames.
Namazu. The great subterranean catfish of Japanese myth, whose writhing caused earthquakes despite its captor's best efforts to control it. However, unlike the mythical creature that even a god could not control, this was shackled by iron, by the ingenious works of man.
Now, genetic modification for the sake of playing into national myths was a very real thing: see Britannia's unicorns and modified lions or the dragon that ambled through the courtyards of the Chinese imperial palace, but this was more than the three-legged crows the Lady Kaguya kept in her gardens. Far more.
"What is it?"
"A warship killer." Kaguya grinned, her smile as vicious as the beast she sat upon.
Omake:
Clearing out the Britannians was a slow, gradual process. The Tokyo settlement was filled with defensive works, tunnels that doubled back on themselves and nefarious poisons.
Despite rumors, there was no living, breathing organism that composed the defenses of Tokyo- maintaining the homeostasis of an animal that size would have been difficult, to say the least. But the idea wasn't completely wrong. People just tended to ignore fungi, even if the network of mycelia under their feet covered the city's area and then some.
In addition to helping handle the waste problems of a city that large, the fungi helped communications, produced poisons, and even reinforced some areas of the city. Zero was called down after a particularly bad patch of the stuff was found, so thick that the excavators had to go at it with saws and torches.
After much cutting and burning and avoiding getting poisoned, they broke into a room. A laboratory, buried deep underground and almost completely wrapped in mycelia. In fact, it seemed to tap into the network, getting some of its energy from the digestion of the city's waste.
Lighting was dim and quarters were cramped, but something was clearly afoot in that chamber. There were the sorts of tools used for the manipulation of living beings, samples in bottles and slides under microscopes… the concern was that the samples seemed human. Zero had the lab locked down and searched through for notes, anything that could explain the reasoning behind the place.
Unfortunately, he found it, written in a leatherbound journal in the shaky calligraphy of a madman:
Why must we settle for condescension? For an almighty that lowers himself in his so called generosity?
Instead, we shall rise. We shall make a Babel on sound foundations without falling into petty struggles.
We shall birth a man-god, the magnificent produce of our creative forces. The Holy shall spring from the profane, and mankind will bless itself.
Inside one of the vats, there was a woman. Her hair was green.
Code Geass and Leviathan both with Saint Darwin.