"'IF I'M LUCKY'?! THE FUCK'S WRONG WITH YOU?!"

Anyone with more than a moment's familiarity with Suzaku would think him beyond capable of ducking the straight right hook racing for his jaw at that moment, and they would be correct.

Just because he could evade it, however, didn't mean that he rated doing so as a higher priority in context than contemplating the question that came with it – and that's why Suzaku had a knuckle sandwich to nibble on during his first-class trip into and then through a mental brick wall.

"...don't answer that," a long-familiar and frustrated voice called out from behind the still-extended fist. "We'll be here all week."

"...I completely deserved that," Suzaku admitted, rubbing his cheek where he'd been hit. "On the day we met, I said it would be wrong to let you die for my sins… and yet when I saw a chance to let it end, I almost went back on that."

As the shadow of his attacker and conversation partner emerged from the dust, Suzaku muttered, "Although I have to admit… you look a lot more like me now, instead of like yourself. It's a little… strange."

We haven't actually met face-to-face like this since that day in Shinjuku – but instead of some stranger from another land, it's like staring into a funhouse mirror. A reflection of myself if, perhaps, I'd been born part-Britannian…

One scoffed. "A little strange? Boyo, we're so far past that bridge that it's not even in the rear-view mirror."

I can't really argue with that, either.

"And for the record, yeah, I've got some mixed feelings about it too – on the one hand ther's damn sure no question that I'm a lot prettier than I used to be, but at the same time it's a little annoying that you don't look like you've changed at all."

"...that's not true," Suzaku replied. "Ever since my past memories were pulled back to the surface, I've been so full of shit that my eyes turned brown."

When One paused and then leaned in to see for himself if Suzaku's mental eye color had in fact changed or not, the latter broke out into laughter amidst the rubble of their shared mindscape, not bothering to pick himself up.

Grumbling, the mental ersatz picked up a small rock and threw it at Suzaku – and succeeded in only making him laugh harder. "Quit trying to make me laugh, I've got the right to be beyond pissed off with you and I'm trying to exercise it!"

"Oh please," Suzaku wheezed at the grin One was painfully trying to suppress, "you don't even have any ideas for what to do about it other than guilt-trip me into thinking how Euphemia and the others would feel if I died like that."

Which, now that he'd said it aloud, instantly killed Suzaku's near-delirious humor. "...which in the short term would work pretty well," he admitted.

Arms crossed over his chest, One shook his head with a curse before leaning down to pull Suzaku onto his feet. "But it's also not healthy, either. And that means it's not an acceptable state to keep us in, compared to finding a positive incentive to stay alive."

"Like what, a peaceful life in a woman's arms?" Even if sharing a mind with One meant Suzaku couldn't not see the appeal, he hadn't entirely come to terms with the idea of having people involved in his life on such an intimate level again. Even if, intellectually, he didn't expect that Euphemia or Cecile would use and dispose of him like others had done in the past, accepting it emotionally wasn't the easiest thing to do either…

"That's a longer-term goal than I was really thinking of," a former stranger replied with his own face and voice, "but in a more immediate sense I was thinking about revenge."

Suzaku blinks at my suggestion, afraid of his own mixed emotions. Emotions that, because of our shared mind, I can feel for myself secondhand whether he wants to voice them or not.

The knee-jerk moral indignation is expected, and so is the exasperated disappointment in and discomfort with my treating the matter so bluntly. How could they not be, when they're such an integral part of the public face he wants the world to see?

But even if that's all the world knows, I can feel what's underneath.

The shame and disappointment that aren't aimed at me, but at Suzaku himself.

Shame… at being excited.

"No," he says with an almost panicked shake of his head. "We shouldn't…! Before the invasion, it was often said that holding onto hatred is like drinking a poison and then hoping it kills your enemies. That's the last thing I or anyone around me needs…!"

Suzaku, Suzaku, Suzaku… I guess I need to try a little harder. To help you understand that acting correctly isn't healthy when it comes wrapped in such deep denial.

"But that's what you've been doing all along, though, isn't it? You bottle up your anger, your hatred, and try to force it down somewhere you don't have to see it. But like water in a heated kettle, all it's been doing is accumulate pressure. And whenever Lelouch comes back into our lives with his brand of bullshit, it's been spiking that pressure so much that you can't handle it anymore and we start to break down."

Suzaku tries to step back and walk away, like he knows what I'm going to say next and is afraid he won't be able to unhear it.

As I clap a hand on his shoulder to make him stay put, a part of me wonders if maybe we both have bad luck when we're right.

"I'm not talking about carrying an impotent grudge for years on end; you've already been doing that for almost half your life whether you admit it or not, and it's left you a mess. What I'm talking about, Suzaku, is taking action and getting closure. I'm talking about closing the damn book on the darkest chapters of your life once and for all, even by force if we have to."

"I… I can't just go berserk on an entire society," he whispers. "I'd be no better than Clovis was, when he ordered that massacre in Shinjuku–"

Oh, such an utter lack of imagination on this boy… I just can't help but shake my head at it. "Of course not," I agree with as much patience as I can manage, "and even if we wanted to go after every single Japanese – which we don't – it just wouldn't be practical. That's the kind of senseless grudge that eats away at someone's entire life and can never go fulfilled. …but rather than a society, what we can go after are its symbols. Martyrs, if you want, who personify enough of the grievance that getting even with them settles the debt in a subjective sense if not an objective one."

"...like how I was made a scapegoat eight years ago," Suzaku whispers, falling into a thousand-yard stare.

"My first suggestion… would be to go after the KKK."

If Suzaku had been drinking anything when I said that, he would've sprayed it all over me.

"E-excuse me?!"

But it broke that little trance he was falling into, and that's what I was going for. "Kirihara, who betrayed your trust and sold out your future to give the Japanese people a more palatable lie. Kyoshiro Tohdoh, who let the old man do that to his own student and abandoned you to go play revolutionary with his war buddies."

Suzaku twitches a little at my use of the r-word, gears turning in his mind as he assesses the new frame of reference.

"And Kaguya," I conclude, "who for all her vast influence and connections, decided that you weren't worth saving and went along with the old man's wishes."

Suzaku doesn't say much at first, seemingly content for a few minutes to just mull over what I've said.

As for me, I roll some tension out of my neck and take a good long look at the shared mental world around us.

Last time Suzaku and I met face-to-face, it wasn't anything more than a replica of the bombarded Shinjuku ghetto around us.

This time, though, it looks like we're standing amidst that famous crossing in Shibuya. The left and right sides are as different as night and day, just like in the Tokyo that Suzaku lives in now – but instead of the ghetto and the settlement, it's a bleeding-edge Britannian cityscape standing opposite pre-invasion traditional Japanese architecture.

The future and the past, with Suzaku caught in the middle.

I wonder – was it actually always like this, and I just didn't notice earlier? Or is this a new manifestation of Suzaku treating his internal conflict with greater admitted relevance?

"I'm a little surprised you never mentioned Lelouch in all of that," Suzaku says from behind me. "Given that, as you pointed out, his actions have been one of the leading causes of my occasional… fits."

"There's no shame in calling a breakdown what it is, Suzaku. They're just like earthquakes, in that their severity can vary across a wide range."

"Be that as it may, you're ignoring my question."

What a rude accusation. "I'm not ignoring it," I explain as I exasperatedly turn back to face him. "I had something else to say that I judged as having slightly greater priority and got it out of the way first."

Suzaku's mouth sets in a thin line at that, but this time he sees my dramatic pause for what it is and lets me indulge instead of interrupting.

"As far as Lelouch goes," I continue, "let me explain how I learned this tactic from Goblin Slayer."

The massive TV screens all across the square flicker to life with stills and short sequences of my memories of the series in question, sparing me from having to share further context by allowing Suzaku to observe for himself.

"You and I, Suzaku? We're in a position where we can ambush the metaphorical goblin den of your worst psychological stressors with initiative, with the element of surprise. The KKK are represented by regular knee-high goblins, who will absolutely kill you if they get a chance and mustn't be underestimated, but are also much weaker and easier to deal with on an individual basis. Lelouch, meanwhile, is like a bear-sized hobgoblin – of course he's the most dangerous single threat, moreso even than the three little ones working together as a group – but he's also that much harder to reliably dispose of in one shot, and should we fail to do so then we run the risk of having to face the entire enemy group without having dented their numbers at all. But instead, by taking out the little goblins one at a time, even once we're inevitably discovered we've still removed some threats from the equation and have given ourselves more favorable… more survivable odds."

Suzaku watches and reads the impromptu teaching material I've provided, his gaze on the televised anime shots and manga pages. "I understand what you're saying," he eventually replies. "But I feel like I should be deeply concerned that you're explaining your therapy plan in a way that explicitly dehumanizes the people we're blaming for my trauma."

"Ah, but the goblins in this scenario aren't standing in for the literal people themselves," I remind him. "They represent your grievances with said people. And since the only good goblin is a dead goblin, the way for us to make these goblins good would be…"

"...to confront those people myself and make them answer for what they did to me, one way or another."

Sakes alive, he CAN be taught!

I wrap Suzaku up with a quick hug and a laugh. "Glad to hear we're on the same page! Now let's figure out how we're getting out of here–"

No sooner did I say it, than a massive fireball swelled up and the world around us became nothing more than heat and light and pain.

Nagisa Chiba came to with the taste of iron in her mouth, and promptly coughed out a gob of blood before she could run any further risk of choking on it.

Damn it… we'd been doing so well up to this point…

Between their eventual disguises, some well-exploited connections, and a lucky break or two, she and Asahina had successfully been able to infiltrate the Britannian medical system and track down Suzaku Kururugi.

When he'd continued to remain in his coma, it seemed at once like a blessing and a threat – as if Heaven itself had granted them a perfect opportunity, so long as they took it quickly enough to have a chance of disarming the time bomb.

From there, it had been child's play to convince some of the local smaller-scale resistance groups to launch a diversionary attack and create an opening to carry out the mission in full.

Gritting her teeth, Chiba forced herself to her knees. "It must have been that woman, Viletta Nu… paranoid enough to keep insisting that nobody get close to Kururugi but her own subordinates, even in what everyone else saw as a crisis situation…!"

The Knightmare Frame that had broken off from combat with the resistance cell to chase after them must have been acting on Nu's orders… though perhaps not for very long, given the pilot's attempt to steer them into a crash with warning shots hadn't only almost killed everyone involved but ultimately collapsed a subway entrance behind them with seconds to spare, blocking off further pursuit.

She's one hell of an officer, Chiba quietly admitted as she got back to her feet. If I were the sentimental type, I'd call it a shame we have to be enemies. "Asahina!" she called out. "Sound off if you're alive!"

A desperate yell from behind her caught her attention, and Chiba turned to find the engine of their stolen ambulance had combusted – with Asahina yelling from inside, his voice carrying through the open rear doors. "Get Kururugi and get moving!"

Typical man, Chiba grumped as she started running towards him instead. Can't stand to admit he's pinned and needs help when a woman's around. "Like hell am I explaining to the Colonel why you didn't come back!"

Sparing only a glance to confirm that Suzaku Kururugi was both still breathing, and still strapped tight to a now-overturned gurney, Chiba darted into the back of the ambulance while drawing her sidearm.

"Damn it Chiba, that was an order!"

Leaning into the cab, the first thing Chiba looked for and then noticed was that the seat belt had apparently jammed. A split-second later, her tunnel vision opened up and she saw that the steering wheel itself was pinning Asahina to his seat after the engine compartment had crumpled and been shoved up into the cab.

"Fuck your orders," Chiba snapped as she turned off her service pistol's safety. "Can you still feel everything?!"

"Yeah for all the good it – SHIT!"

A deafening series of gunshots rang out as Chiba put one hole after another in the steering column, before capping off the damage done with a sharp stomp that broke it off entirely. After giving the seat belt's anchor at the floor the same treatment, no further time was wasted in dragging Asahina out of the ambulance as the blaze continued to spread.

As the pair dove into the unforgivingly rough but cold concrete and gravel of the abandoned underground rail system, Asahina rolled through the dirt and dust in a panic to put out the fire that had caught on his pants. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! Chiba you crazy bitch, what if we'd both died?! What about the mission?!"

Chiba, trying to kill the memory of searing heat by pressing her face and arms to the chilled floor beneath her, couldn't have cared less at that moment. "If we'd both died then at least we wouldn't have to live with each other's bitching about it!"

As seconds passed and the pair found relief from their worst respective pains, a desperate… almost mad cackling bubbled up and echoed through the tunnels.

Neither of the pair knew who'd cracked first.

Neither cared, until they realized that someone was still laughing even after the two of them had stopped.

As a sinister chill crept up her spine, Chiba quickly scrambled to her feet and took aim at the overturned gurney – only to find it had now become an empty target.

"...after all this time," said a hoarse whisper from her left. "Master finally saw fit to tie up his loose end."

Turning to face the voice, Chiba's heart sank at the sight of Suzaku Kururugi on his feet – battered, bruised, and trembling, but very much awake and livid.

"It's not like you're thinking," she tried to explain even though she and Asahina had very much been planning along those lines, though from Kururugi's dazed stagger she had doubts that he could fully hear her.

"Eight… damned… years… just for this insult."

If he still holds the Colonel in such regard, Chiba thought, then there might be a chance to complete the mission as originally ordered without making a whore of myself.

"You have it all wrong, Tohdoh sent us to rescue you because we're his most elite and trusted subordinates–"

Wrapped in darkness and lit only by the flickering orange and red light of the burning ambulance, Suzaku met her platitude with a deep, shaky breath and a drawn knife. "I wonder which one of you is my replacement."

Asahina drew his sword in preparation to defend himself, even as he tried to help defuse the situation. "If you're talking about the Four Holy Swords," he explained, "then that's just a name that General Katase came up with to use for propaganda and unit morale! Colonel Tohdoh never wanted anything to do with it – there's no such thing as some 'new Suzaku' that took your place in his eyes!"

Both soldiers held little hope it would help, though; not after hearing the first words that Kururugi had said aloud, and through them gaining a small amount of understanding of him.

After all this time, the Colonel still holds an important place in his mind… but it's become soured and rotten. If I'd been stranded under enemy control for half my life, Chiba wondered, could my heart stay unchanged?

Loathe as she might be to admit it, deep down she knew better than to think so.

"Like I'd believe that," Kururugi whispered with a wry grin. "I can't imagine something you wouldn't say if it was to mess with my head."

The young soldier widened his footing and brought the knife up even with his head, holding it in a reverse grip. "I know I must look stupid beyond words to you two, but I'm not that far gone."

In the time it took Chiba to blink, he'd crossed what must have been half a dozen meters and had a slash ready to slit her throat – which the well-honed experience of eight years in armed insurrection allowed her to duck away from quickly enough to avoid injury.

Even in that condition, he's so fast!

"If you look stupid," Asahina spat, "it's because you lick the boot of invading tyrants; because you sold out your own people for personal comfort in Britannia's lap!"

Kururugi spared the samurai but a second's glance, one eye gleaming red in the firelight, before proceeding to parry the Japanese steel rushing to meet him with seemingly no effort involved.

Rather, judging by his frown, it was his words that seemed to catch the traitor's attention a bit more. "First: don't lump me in with the housewives who gossip behind my back that the wrong Kururugi died, the oblivious children taught by their parents to mock a leech too foolish to die with honor."

Soft and level speech be damned, Asahina recognized the malice in Kururugi's body from over the horizon and immediately leapt away – quick enough that when the Honorary Britannian snapped up a kick to his gut, it only sent Asahina skidding along the dirt.

"Second," Kururugi continued, "if you think my life up until recently was a bed of roses, then you're even more delusional than you think I am."

Such casual disregard… is he just toying with us?!

Gritting her teeth, Chiba drew her own sword and stepped into the Seigan stance, centering herself against the primitive human instinct to run like hell.

Just remember what Kenshin Uesugi said: If you fight willing to die, you'll survive; if you fight trying to survive, you'll die. If you think you'll never go home again, you will; if you hope to make it back, you won't.

"So a few ignorant people on the street say mean things to you," she scoffed. "You think that means you can deny us our freedom?! The right to be Japanese?!"

She'd hoped her words might prompt a moment of reflection, some small opening that could be leveraged in her favor.

Instead she got a contemptuous laugh.

"You're upset that you don't have the right to be Japanese?" he asked.

Kururugi shook his head in exasperation – a brief moment of theater that might have distracted a lesser warrior from how the rest of his body tensed up and broadcast his true intentions.

But Nagisa Chiba was considered elite for a reason, as proved when she quickly and repeatedly parried a vicious onslaught of stabs and slashes.

"IF YOU WANT TO BE JAPANESE THEN ACT JAPANESE! Read the room and use your tatamae instead of being such a goddamn disruption for the rest of us!"

Nearly each furious word was punctuated by another attack as Chiba desperately lost ground with each dodge and deflection.

"An education system built to crush children's individuality and reformat them into passive cogs for a machine that gleefully works good men and women to their deaths! A rape culture and legal system that make it almost impossible to prosecute offenders while shaming victims! A suicide every fifteen minutes! A society that destroys human lives for as stupid a reason as how their centuries-old ancestors put food on the table!"

Chiba finally flinched before the relentless verbal and physical assault, and was rewarded for her split-second of inattention when Kururugi single-handedly picked her up by her nurse's scrub collar and tossed her across the tunnel for several meters until she hit the unforgiving concrete wall with a cry of agony.

"You people have the gall to call yourself Liberators," Kururugi spat. "If you think that's a freedom worth fighting for… if you think that's a way of life that should be brought back because it's good and right and just, then you're the kind of evil I have every right to enjoy obliterating!"

Before Kururugi could take more than a few steps toward his opponent, however, he abruptly leaned back – just as the very tip of Asahina's sword nicked his forehead and cut his bangs on one side. "Shut the fuck up, you honorless animal!"

Kururugi's sinister grin only widened at the scolding, heedless of the thin line of blood running down his face. "An animal, am I? You think you're so much better than Britannia, but you're just as happy to deny my humanity as they are…"

He overcame Chiba because he got the drop on her and snuck inside her reach, a sweating Asahina swore to himself. As long as I can press the offensive, he won't be able to do the same to me! "I don't call you an animal because you're my enemy, but because you're so full of hatred that it's all you have! Because you've let Britannia brainwash you so completely that you can't even remember Japan's beauty; that Japan's more than just the sum of its flaws!"

Kururugi continued to duck and weave away from each successive slash Asahina made, not even seeming to dignify his words with enough respect to fully hear them.

"You wonder why the people look down on you so?!" Asahina pressed. "It's because you're a sell-out and a coward! Because you refuse to take responsibility as the son of the Prime Minister! As a descendant of samurai! All you do is complain about misfortunes you've brought on yourself while looking for others to blame for it!"

Kururugi's eyes widened, and for an instant Asahina believed he'd created an opening.

The instant after, his dominant arm had been caught mid-swing by a grip like a steel trap.

"If I were shirking my responsibilities," Kururugi replied with the precision of a machine, "I'd have eloped to some uninhabited nowhere with one of the women trying to help me recover from the damage you people caused."

Asahina tried to wrench his arm free, and failed to budge it an inch. A follow-up attempt to disable Kururugi's hold on him with a knee to the groin was immediately foiled with a knee to his own gut.

"When I caught Genbu Kururugi selling Japan to the Emperor for a noble title, I took responsibility for his sins by killing him with my own hands!"

"Wha–?!"

"Are you–?!"

Before either of the Holy Swords could fully process the declaration, much less respond to it, Kururugi picked up Asahina by his captured arm and swung him like a flail into a concrete pillar with a savage crack.

"When Taizo Kirihara told me as a boy that the people would lose all reason to live if they ever knew the truth, I took responsibility for the blood on my hands by going to Britannia where I would spend the rest of my life being hated and abused just like them!"

Even with his entire body wracked by agony, even with bones broken and his hand starting to lose its flow of oxygen, Asahina still didn't drop his sword.

Nor when Kururugi began to repeatedly and methodically stomp him into the ground.

"When I started to remember that it might be possible to change this broken, evil world for the better, I took responsibility by joining the military to try and give others a positive example!"

Coughing up blood onto the cracked concrete, only one thought could keep hold in Asahina's agonized mind.

As a samurai, I swore… I swore to the Colonel, and my comrades… that I wouldn't die without a sword in my hand… at the very least, I refuse to be a source of shame for them all...!

"And ever since destiny finally forced me to recognize that I'm not as weak or worthless as I wanted to believe, but that I have the power to actually uplift the world, I've been taking responsibility by accumulating enough influence to make it happen! To make Britannia's people hear me with a show of strength, and then to lead them and the rest of the world out of this backward social darwinism… to make a better world for everyone, unshackled by these pathetic borders that pit us against each other!"

Before he could finish Asahina off, Kururugi had to break off to dodge a desperate slash from Chiba… only to back away even further in alarm when she threw her sword away and knocked Asahina out with a light kick in the head.

Standing protectively over her now-downed comrade, a sweating and exhausted Chiba turned to face a confused Kururugi with her palms open and facing outward.

Raising his knife in, for the first time, a defensive posture, Kururugi took another step away. "Pick up your sword," he told her.

Chiba gave her opponent a small smile, as much to try and further calm things down as because she was successfully figuring him out. I knew it…! Someone who learned from the Colonel would never harm a passive and unarmed foe… He can rage and try to deny it – but deep down, he is still a samurai at heart. "No thanks," she politely replied. "I'd rather talk."

Frowning, Kururugi pointed his knife at her but didn't make any effort to approach. "Why did you disarm? What makes you different from him?"

For a long moment, Chiba didn't want to answer that question. She'd never told anyone but the Colonel, and it was a shame to admit… but after everything she'd heard in the last few minutes, there wasn't any other choice.

"...because one of my ancestors in the Meiji era was an undertaker," she admitted with a sigh. "I'm one of those people you were talking about earlier, whose path in life would have been heavily restricted if not for Britannia's invasion disrupting our society… if not for the Colonel protecting my secret and keeping me under his wing, the JLF would have been loathe to even take me on at all. Nevermind the fact that I'm a woman… Unlike Asahina, who was born and raised into relative privilege as the scion of a distinguished samurai lineage, I've been on the receiving end of Japan's own oppressive culture enough that I can understand your point of view. I don't even have many arguments against it."

Kururugi's gaze softened for a moment at the admission as he lowered his knife. "Then why bother with the JLF at all?! Even if their fight wasn't hopeless – which it is – you can't be so stupid as to think that they'd remember your sacrifices and honor you when they bring back the old system!"

It was so tempting to clench her fists, to let the adrenaline take hold. To express her will physically as well as verbally.

"Because even if I hated Japanese society to its core… even if I were so bitter and vengeful as to want everyone in charge of it dead and disgraced… that doesn't mean the people on the ground deserve to have their identity stolen from them, to be reduced to nothing more than another nation's garbage! I fight to restore Japan's independence and sovereignty because it's the right thing to do, and if you honestly believe even a single word that you said about changing Britannia then deep down you know I'm right!"

Kururugi broke eye contact with her, and in that moment Chiba knew the fighting was over.

"...they made your name equal to a God," Kururugi muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "And here you are, doing who-knows-what in secret with basically almost no backup. You deserve better than this."

Though Chiba knew it was meant as a compliment, she couldn't help but scoff. "What, you mean like you?"

Her question wasn't immediately answered, and it was a long second before she realized the younger soldier seemed to be seriously considering it. "I was kidding, you can't seriously–"

"Think that I need someone like you in my circle, who can maintain a Japanese perspective and remind me to keep their interests in mind rather than just unilaterally forcing my will on this wretched island?"

He started walking towards her, then, with a determined look that reminded Chiba ever so slightly of the Colonel they'd both studied under.

"Nevermind that you're a skilled pilot with more practical combat experience than almost anyone else I'll ever likely have access to," he continued. "Nor that the high-profile defection of a JLF propaganda hero could do a lot of damage to rebel forces' morale, while reinforcing my example to all parties involved that local natives can and should be integrated into Britannia's system."

Chiba could more than understand his reasoning, and was already opening her mouth to scold him for even thinking of asking her to betray her comrades when he said: "If things go how I want, Euphemia and I can open a diplomatic path for Japanese independence inside of three years without any more of your people needing to die for it; potentially much sooner than that, depending on how long it takes to stabilize the Area. I'm not asking you to divulge sensitive information about the JLF; just to join my side to remind me that my justice has to go further than just the people who agree with me."

"Who the hell do you think you are to let a known enemy into your home without even making them prove they won't betray you?!"

"The possibility of your sword in my back is the exact kind of deterrence I have in mind," Kururugi… no, Suzaku explained to her horror. Even worse, he chuckled about it.

He said he killed his own father for treason, Chiba recalled, then voluntarily went into exile to facilitate a cover-up, and he's been trying to fight an uphill battle against both sides of this war and all of their self-centered interests…

If even just the first half of that was true, then… then she really couldn't blame the young man for his hatred. Not when she could see herself falling into the same bitter pit if her own circumstances had been a little different.

A hand fell on her shoulder, and Chiba almost jumped in alarm at the unexpected touch. But it wasn't trapping her in place like an implacable machine as she might have expected; rather, it was the warm touch of someone trying to understand, someone trying to comfort.

"You said you only made it as far as you did because you kept your history a secret… and even then, I'm sure they treat you like shit just for being a woman, right?"

That's certainly true, but–

"For all their faults, Britannians don't care about things like that – and once they realize how strong you really are, most of them will ignore pretty much any other factors they'd otherwise complain about."

"...you're asking me to abandon my country, my comrades–!"

"No," Suzaku replied with a level tone. "I'm giving you an option to try and make the lives and futures of the Japanese easier. To try and spare them unnecessary pain."

"Britannians, as a culture, they're used to changing," he insisted. "They dream of it! All we have to do is guide them to do so in the direction we want. But you know the Japanese aren't the same; they don't have the will to demand a better world than what they used to have from their leaders, they'll be more than ready to accept the same status quo that had been choking them out for generations even before they provoked Britannia's invasion; if you really want a better life for the Japanese than what they had, then right now the best likelihood of making that happen is if Britannia maintains enough leverage and influence to make them accept certain reforms instead of just giving Japan's leaders a blank check."

Chiba wanted to argue, to tell Suzaku that he was full of shit.

She hated that, even as a soldier with only minimal care for politics, she knew he wasn't.

"You're still telling me to give up being Japanese and conform with Britannia's ways," she scowled.

Rationally, she knew it wasn't the best justification for being stubborn, but damn it anything was better than nothing.

"Pff, I never said that."

A deafening rumble at the head of the tunnel cut off whatever she might have said next, before a searing light tore through and blinded Suzaku just as he'd turned to face the sound. More crashing noises quickly followed, before the unmistakable sound of Knightmare Frame hydraulics began to emerge from the din.

"Forced entry complete," a pilot announced over their loudspeaker. "The target's been sighted!"

Suzaku started to brace to run, only for a comforting shadow to fall on him as the Knightmare stepped between him and the raging sunlight outside. Blinking away the spots in his vision, he opened his eyes to see a tall and faintly familiar female form descending from the cockpit.

"Kururugi," the pilot called out, "how bad are your injuries?! Do you know what happened to your abductors?!"

"Not that bad and I'm not entirely sure," Suzaku replied as our mind suddenly began to register the intense discomfort of fighting samurai in a dark cold subway tunnel in our bare feet and wearing nothing but a hospital gown.

I guess that means Chiba must have run off with her teammate while we were distracted.

Given how head-over-heels for Tohdoh she is, it's not like we should've expected any differently.

Rather than dwell on it, Suzaku found more important matters to prioritize as he saluted. "Is that you, Viletta?"

Stepping close enough that Suzaku could see for himself that his guess was correct, Viletta promptly started poking and prodding at parts of Suzaku's body to assess him for any injuries he might be less than honest about. "That's right, I've taken acting command of Celestial Being to keep it alive while you were unconscious. Now come on, let's RTB so you can get a more thorough examination. The Viceroy and Camelot have been worried sick about you."

While I fumbled around trying to tie up the goddamn gown strings on our back tighter for a half second's decency, Suzaku was free to put a bigger share of his attention on processing the situation we now found ourselves in. "You… had to take command? How long have I been out? How much have I missed?!"

Viletta, who'd already begun dragging us towards our Knightmare, flinched at the question before turning to look at us over her shoulder with the biggest wince either of us had ever seen.

August 25th, 2018. Unknown time and place.