Lulu's Bizarre Rebellion

by Ezit Meti

Lelouch Lamperouge was a boy with an ambition; To one day bring down the corrupt nation of Britannia and create a peaceful world for his sister. However, a single arrow gifted him a power that will help him reach his ambition. Stands... Ripple... A feud between two bloodlines that transcends time... And that's only the beginning of this bizarre rebellion!

90. The World of Lies

Imagine you are aboard a trolley travelling at high speed. The brakes are broken in a manner that will take at least ten minutes to bring the trolley to a full stop. Trapped on the track ahead of you are five people, unable to free themselves in time before the trolley you are on runs them down. You all see it coming. None of you can do anything to prevent this from happening. Would the knowledge that you were powerless to stop this tragedy make you feel better? Would it assuage your guilt? No. Even though it was 'fated', the weight of their deaths would still rest upon your shoulders.

Now let us modify the scenario somewhat:

Instead of a straight track there is a junction up ahead. You have a control box in the trolley that will allow you to switch the junction the trolley travels down. There are five people on one track. There are three on the other. What do you do? The answer is simple - you go down the track where three people are trapped, ensuring that five survive. That is the numerically moral choice. Kill the fewest to save the most. Logically, mathematically, that is the sound decision to make in the midst of an awful situation.

But then, the track turns a corner. You pass by a blind spot and learn there were three more people on the track that you didn't know were there. Your decision has killed six people and saved five.

This time you were given a choice, and due to the available information you made one that got more people killed. But... What if you did know about the people around the blind spot? What if you knew for a fact there was nobody else on the other route but the three you can see? Then that is the path you would take. you would kill three to save five. Almost anyone would, don't you think?

Then let's consider another scenario. Now let us say that you were one of those trapped on the tracks, watching the trolley making its choice. Picture it in your mind. Feel the dread, feel the anticipation. Then feel the relief when the trolley travels the other way.

What a horrible burden it must be, then. Knowing all the branching junctions that lie ahead, knowing all the people your trolley might mow down before you can bring it under control. Having to choose. Who lives? Who dies? Or being utterly powerless to prevent it from coming along, or to stop yourself from committing a great sin.

When you understand this truth, that knowledge of the unwritten future is a curse and not a blessing, then you will know what it means to have sympathy for the devil.

Chapter 88: World of Lies

=Lelouch=

Back when he was very young Lelouch would often flee from Cornelia down the halls of Ares Villa. Usually because he'd accidentally upset Euphemia, or perhaps he had pulled some form of practical joke on her. Those chases were not what you would imagine, however - there was no running. The two of them would engage in pursuit at a brisk pace, but never actually break out into a run. The very instant that they did his mother's hand would clasp down upon their collar, without fail, and then... He could not quite recall what happened next, for reasons that he could only assume were a form of psychological protection.

It had taken him surprisingly little time to overcome the psychological reinforcement to not run in this building. Perhaps because it was impossible for him to believe it was the real building owing to the entirely black and white nature of it. Still, he could hardly believe that it had happened again. First Hey Jude had sent him here, and now this!

"It's pointless to run," Corrnelia said. "This is a pocket dimension. The only way you can escape is to go through me."

He knew that well enough, but she should also know that a fist fight was not his style. He threw open a door and dashed inside, then slouched to the ground taking sharp ragged breaths. No time for that. He grabbed a piece of furniture by the door and jammed it underneath the handle.

With that done Lelouch took the chance to take stock of his situation. What weapons did he have? The gun he had taken aboard Siege Perilous. His Stand. His wits. Whatever was in this room. The location? The gallery Yes, he remembered the gallery well from childhood. He had little time or patience for art, though his mother had insisted on occupying it only with pieces created by the Royal family. Some sculptures by her, a few of Clovis' early works, a smattering from Cornelia and Euphemia's mother - all works of art, placed around the room, though the centrepiece, adorned with a golden frame was a fingerpainting Nunnally made when she was five.

Alas, due to the grayscale nature of this artificial world he could appreciate the art even less than normal. All he could see were the lines, the shapes and not the colours.

The door handle rattled behind him, prompting Lelouch to step further into the room. He stood within the quite obvious shadow being cast by a statue of his mother and turned himself invisible. There were enough places within the room where shadows were being cast that he could be in any of them.

For now, he would contend himself with sending out Painted Black to lurk within the middle of the room. The door was sticking against the table he had jammed underneath it, but Cornelia shouldn't need long to break through. After a moment, a piece of hair poked through the gap in the door. Small metal layers appeared around the hair. Right after that there was a snapping sound, and the door was kicked in.

So this was her Stand in action, was it? Very well then.

As Cornelia stepped into the room, he spoke through Painted Black.

"You've gone to a lot of trouble for a private chat, dear sister," Lelouch began. Motive. Start with what she is aiming for. All else will follow after that. "Is this an assassination? Or is it merely disciplining?"

Cornelia scanned the room from top to bottom expertly. He could see the hair on her skin bristling. Goosebumps. Anticipation. Calculation. Then she slowly started to stride around the room without a seeming care in the world.

"Tell me Lelouch. Would you like to guess at something?" Cornelia asked. If someone were to come in now and see her they might believe, at first, that she was perusing the exhibits. In truth, she was not looking at them for artistic merit, nor taking the time to study their aesthetic. She was watching for places he could be hiding. "When the report came in following the invasion. That there was no sign of you or Nunnally. How many hours do you think Euphemia cried?"

He was left confused about which was more strange. Her question, or the fact that she was leaving her back turned to wide open spaces where he could easily be hiding. That wasn't like her. Even in a rage she wouldn't leave her back turned like that - unless it was a ploy of some kind.

Then turn to the question. What was she aiming for?

"Something like that would not drive you to such rage," Lelouch said.

She bristled. Within this room of black and white, the bright colour of Cornelia's hair and clothes is all the more vibrant, yet cast against her anger - She rounds on the room, turning us if trying to face all corners at once. "That's what you say in response? A cold and clinical analysis? You truly do not comprehend the feelings of others, do you?" She says that, but he can tell from how even and controlled her tone is that this is not what is making her angry. A mere precursor. Setup. A foundation for what is still to come.

"As if you are any better," he retorts.

"Oh, but I am!" Cornelia says, continuing her pace, almost like a slow march. "I believed that ensuring Imperial global dominance would put an end to pointless conflict the world over. Then, when I was shown irrefutable evidence that this would not work, I changed my approach. You, though? You change only by circumstance. Your goals, your ends, your means, they stay the same even when everything tells you that you are on the wrong course."

Her fist slams against the wall, knocking a painting off its hook.

"You are a hypocrite, Lelouch." Still not showing the depths of her anger. Still not raising her voice. "You manipulate others. You lie to them. You transform them into something they are not. But it's all perfectly fine so long as you are the one taking all the risks. So long as you put your baleful life on the line, it's perfectly fine to do what you want. I believe that a leader should lead by example, but you? You follow a twisted version of that idea."

"The only ones who should kill are those prepared to be killed."

Keep her talking. Keep her guessing where he was. Rile her up. Get her to unleash that anger. Though, first he had to reach the core of it.

"You cite a justification for extremists the world over," Cornelia said. "Suicide bombers. Terrorists. Death by cop. Under your system, these things are moral."

"Under yours, Nunnally would have died back then. Cast aside as useless trash, and never allowed to reach her potential. Therein lies Britannia's greatest hypocrisy. It worships power and victory over all other things, and yet many of those at the top are only strong in their waistline. Face the facts Cornelia. Britannia's obsession with victory and power has left it empty inside. A rotten, bitter core surrounded by glamour and propaganda."

"The only reason that you are the monster you are is because you have the power to win," Cornelia said. "Without victory, having the moral high ground means less than nothing."

This was his best chance. Lelouch grabbed a vase and threw it at the back of Cornelia's head as hard as he could. Was this a trap? Almost certainly. Did it matter all that much? No. Under the circumstances he had to progress this fight if he was to have a chance to win - especially since he could now perceive a way to finish this.

The vase sailed across the room with accuracy that surprised Lelouch. It had been a little heavier than he had been expecting, but he'd calculated the arc it travelled perfectly. He'd even managed to account for the lighting, ensuring that it would cast no shadow as it went directly for the back of Cornelia's head.

But then, the moment before impact the vase shattered, split apart into countless pieces - and reformed on the other side of her head. Cornelia's arm shot out and snatched the vase out of the air before it fell to the ground. Then, just as fast as that had been she turned around and threw the vase right back the way it had come.

Honourable combat.

That's right. The rules had been put into his head already, when he'd come here. Lelouch hadn't forgotten. While within this realm dishonourable actions were not permitted. This was something he had understood the moment the information had been dropped into his head. He had wanted to test that out. Was that a genuine rule? How would it be enforced?

"Oof!" Lelouch grunted as he collapsed to the floor. He'd dropped the instant after the vase had been thrown, as a vase itself went by so close to his back that he could feel the breeze from the air being displaced. So he'd gained some information at least - Hiding from Cornelia was fine. Attacking her from a blind spot was not. Presumably if she deliberately turned her back to him in the middle of a fight it would be one thing, but a sneaky ambush like this wouldn't work.

Which eliminated a decent chunk of the tricks he could try under normal circumstances.

There wasn't much else for it. Corenlia had a bead on his position, so he turned visible, drew his gun and opened fire. The bullet struck her neck - or more precisely the metal plate that suddenly appeared out of her skin.

"Feeling desperate?" Cornelia asked, looking down on him with disgust. Lelouch emptied the clip into her, but it all bounced off harmlessly. "I'll make you bleed out the way you would have made her bleed out. You –"

An ominous creak caught her attention, and Lelouch rolled up to his feet and went for the door. As for Cornelia, her attention had been rather caught up by the statue toppling over on top of her. Interesting. That kind of environmental attack was fine, because Cornelia reacted to defend herself against it while Lelouch retreated and made no aggressive moves.

Out of curiosity he watched what she did. Not through his own eyes. He was too preoccupied opening the door to do something foolish like look back. Through Painted Black. On seeing the statue topple over Cornelia seemed to catch it in her arms in an attempt to bear hug it - and then that portion of the statue was seemingly crushed by the metal plates that must make up her Stand. Seemingly, because it was actually shrunk down and then that portion collapsed completely due to the sudden weight difference.

At best it saved him ten, fifteen seconds. Against Cornelia that wasn't much of a head start. Where would be the best place to continue this? He still needed some time before he put an end to this farce, but if Cornelia got her hands on him first then he might not get the chance -

Without thinking, he threw open a door and staggered out into a room that was far, far too familiar. This was where they'd started! But, no, that wasn't right. Was it? If he recalled the layout correctly, that should be back the other way?

No matter. He continued down the stairs, and made for the dining hall. The kitchen. Where was the kitchen? The food always came from - There! It must be over here! If he could get to the kitchen he could better arm himself, and would have better options to -

"What? Back here?"

What was happening? This same flight of stairs! He was back here again! But this time - It was different. There were additions made to this version of this accursed room. He could see himself, as a child staring down in horror at the scene below. He could see his mother's body as she lay lifelessly on the stairs. He could see the other witnesses, the shattered glass, the outlines of blood pooling down to the ground floor. All cast in horrible black and white, lending it a bitter noir feeling. Not that it mattered. His imagination filled in the colour for him.

And, as if to make the scene all that more visceral for him, the only sign of movement was Nunnaly's body as she twitched in shock and horror and trauma from what had happened to her.

"Why am I back here?" Lelouch yelled. "Why can't I get away from this - this?!"

"If you ever find the answer, pass it on."

A hand whirled him around, then a solid punch to the face sent Lelouch toppling down the stairs, only being stopped by the solid image of his mother's dead body. He tasted blood. Probably from the simulacrum, possibly his own. He pushed himself to his feet and staggered back to see Cornelia towering over him at the top of the stairs, though slowly pacing downwards.

"It's because you're stuck here Lelouch," Cornelia said. "How many times have you relived this memory? Daily? Hourly? By the minute? Even when you were exiled, you were still here. This isn't your home anymore, but you still live here."

"Did you have a point?" Lelouch demanded. "Your anger, Cornelia. At least explain it to me. You won't have any satisfaction in this if you don't!"

"This moment defined our lives," Cornelia said. "For me, it drove me to become a battle hardened general. Britannia's Goddess of Victory. While you? You hurt so much that you decided to spread it around."

"Moral indignation from a woman who has committed war crimes?" Lelouch almost wanted to laugh at that. Any other time, any other place he might have. But not here. "No, you're setting up the foundation of your argument. That is it, is it not?"

"You killed Clovis, for one thing," Cornelia said. "Did you know that he called in every favour he had for the chance to be Viceroy of Area Eleven? He wanted to see the place that 'killed' you."

"Is that all?" How ridiculous. "I killed him in self defence –"

"You would have killed him anyway! Even if you'd learned he had nothing to do with –" she gestured around the room. "You would have executed him! Don't deny it! I've seen the world where you did just that!"

And there it is. The 'other world'. Some other version of events had played out, and so scarred Cornelia, his sister, Milly, Sayoko, Jonathan Joestar and others besides that it had warped their thinking and sent them on a path they would have otherwise found detestable. What could it be, he wondered? What might have happened that would be so awful that they would do something like that?

"So this is what makes you so irate?" Lelouch asked.

"Then there was Anubis!" Cornelia barrelled on, ignoring him. "Euphemia was always its target. They wanted to ensure she died the same way she did in that other world. Her reputation in tatters. Everything she believed in, betrayed. All to replicate your stupid thoughtless carelessness."

Cornelia had apparently lectured him enough, and started to stride down the stairs after him. For his part, Lelouch backed away while watching her carefully.

"You condemn me for sins that I've not committed?" he asked."No, that's not it. You can't strike the sinner, so you'll strike the next best thing. Take out your frustrations on the one you can reach? How petty. I'm disappointed, Cornelia."

The anger in her was framed by the white and black world they were occupying, made up entirely of stencilled in lines. Or rather, the outlines of objects. That would be the best way to think of it. You can't see the colour of the object, only the outline and the shading. So ask yourself: What happens if you make part of the outline of an object within such a world invisible? Might it not blend in against other things?

Let us say for example, that in the midst of the assassination and the hail of bullets that poured through the window like rain, they caused damage to the bannister and caused a chunk of it to fall on the stairs? Then, let us say that a Prince was standing at the top of those stairs, and was rudely knocked down. What if he moved that piece of the bannister as he tumbled clumsily down?

Then, what if Cornelia strode confidently down those stairs, feeling confident in her approach because the stairs were well lit enough that she should not have issues noticing if Lelouch had made something invisible? What if enough of the outline to that bannister was within shadow that Lelouch could make that part of its outline invisible? What might happen if Cornelia stepped upon it?

The answer, apparently, was that her face would drop its anger for momentary shock. She would tumble forward with her hands outstretched. This would make a fine test for him. How much defensive ability did this Stand offer her? It could deflect bullets, but she was concerned enough about that statue to keep it from toppling onto her. More crucially, it would rattle her. Leave her potentially vulnerable. Provide him with further data points that he could use later.

"I see" Cornelia said. "You're searching for a silver bullet where none exists."

While tumbling forward Cornelia had her right hand out flat, and a chunk of that statue from before appeared at its full size. She slammed it into the step beneath her like a walking stick, and pushed back on it, righting herself. Keeping herself steady. Her eyes resumed their spark of fury and focused on him. "A single point that made me angry, so you can move me into checkmate."

Damn her! There was nothing else for it but to turn tail and flee yet again! With a little more distance, he could turn himself invisible in the next room and then -

"This is your biggest failing, Lelouch. You do not understand the feelings of others. You want to know what has angered me?"

He heard something come at him from behind, and didn't feel too concerned. Cornelia was attacking an enemy in the midst of retreat, with his back turned. Surely this place would consider such things as dishonourable as well? Unless it was reading his mind to predict his intentions? Apparently not. Whatever it was Cornelia had thrown at him disassembled the same way the vase had earlier.

Although, he had to admit that he had not expected to find his mother's lifeless face in front of him, as her body reassembled and tumbled to the floor of the hall ahead of him.

"You being you has angered me."

She didn't. She didn't do that. She didn't do that. Lelouch's fist balled up into a fist, and he turned around knowing full well that Cornelia was playing him. It wasn't his mother's actual corpse, but -

"How dare you?!" Lelouch yelled. And for his trouble ate a hard kick to the head that sent him stumbling back over his mother's - over the image of his mother's body while Cornelia continued her approach.

"You think yourself morally superior to me while casting that high ground aside when it suits you," she said. Lelouch pulled himself up, dove over his mother's body and went for the shadows to the side of the hallway, lining the walls.

Cornelia continued her rant. With the image of Nunnaly's twitching body tucked under one arm. "Your subordinates are chess pieces to be moved around. Lied to. Misled. Manipulated. You betray their trust so easily, it's no wonder they'd think you a power mad tyrant rather than a sad, broken child."

She lifted Nunnaly's image up and don't don't don't don't don't - She threw it across the room in a way that, he had to remind himself, she would not do to the real Nunnally. Like trash. Like garbage. Like - Like father had discarded them. The image of Nunnally bounced off the floor and lay there face down, still twitching, in between the two suits of armour standing in the hallway as decoration.

"Did you ever ask Nunnally what she wanted?" Cornelia asked. "Or were you content to hide your true motives from her?"

Tsk! Bringing her into this in such a manner! This is beneath you, Cornelia! She should have been penalised for fighting dirty by this accursed Stand for such a tactic! He made as much of the room invisible as he could, and used that chance to hide his actions for a little while, hiding at a point halfway through the room. There, he waited until Cornelia was walking by - and grabbed a sword attached to a suit of armour decorating the hall, swinging it at Cornelia with seeming reckless abandon.

Now, you might be thinking, why would Lelouch bother trying to do this again when he knows it will not work? Will the sword not simply come apart and reform on the other side of her? Yes. It will. That is precisely what happened, though this time Cornelia did not have enough space to grab it before it struck its true target when it reformed - the banner on the wall behind her. It fell off the wall on top of her, a minor inconvenience - but one that would hold her long enough for him to create still further distance.

"And did you ever once listen to Euphemia's objections?" Lelouch asked before retreating. "Or did you, perhaps, enjoy the act of killing a little too much?"

By the time she tore through the banner he was through the door on the other side of the hall. Finding himself yet again standing at the top of a certain set of stairs - though this time was markedly different from the last. Though - hard it might be to believe - this time his heart might have stopped even more severely than the last time.

There was no sign of Nunnally. He was not present either. There were a few servants. His mother. A boy he did not recognise - and tucked away in the corner, in the shadows, was a very young girl he supposed must be Anya Allstream.

Such details were inconsequential. What mattered was the events in question. His mother was turned up the stairs, apparently addressing the servants, but her face was a mask of pain. And no wonder. How could anyone take being shot in the back and not feel pain?

It felt like... the most important question of his life had been given an answer out of the blue, yet it raised still further questions. Who was that boy? Why was Nunnally not here? No... based on these shadows being cast, the time of day was wrong as well. Why was Anya there? So many others as well that needed an answer, but they had to wait, for he had to hide alongside the future Knight of Six in the shadows, biding his time and waiting for the right moment to push for his ultimate, foolproof victory.

He didn't have to wait long before Cornelia appeared. He could hear her footsteps above. But also, something strange happened when she entered the room. The images in front of him flickered and transformed before his eyes. His mother's image was replaced in turn by Clovis and Euphemia. While the unnamed boy was replaced by... Lelouch himself.

In this moment, taking into account how active he'd been and the hits he'd taken from Cornelia so far, controlling his breathing to keep himself hidden was one of the hardest things Lelouch had ever done.

"Your philosophy. Your actions. Your words. Your deeds. I judge you by these and I find you wanting. You are the devil made flesh, Lelouch vi Britannia. That is what has made me angry with you! The person you are is the antithesis of every ideal I have ever held. You are sloppy. You are blinkered. You're not nearly as clever as you think you are."

While she spoke, Cornelia stood in the middle of the room by the window holding her hand aloft. Lelouch didn't understand why at first - until he had to blink from light hitting his eyes. She was reflecting light off the robotic hand!

Before he could do anything Cornelia tossed something in his direction. At first it was too small to see, but it quickly grew into the helmet and its impact into his leg made him topple over, hard. Though fortunately Cornelia was there to haul him up to his feet again with a firm grasp of his collar and murder in her eyes.

"The most damning thing of all is that if this had happened to Euphemia, I might have wound up just like you."

This was it, then. Nothing else for it. He had played his ground strategy out after being given the worst possible scenario for him to play in. The game was over and Cornelia was likely going to either kill him or maim him. It was time for him to win the only way he realistically could under these conditions.

"I yield," Lelouch said.

He would win... by losing.

"What?" Cornelia stopped in her tracks, and her grip loosened from the surprise. "What did you say?"

"I said, I yield!" Lelouch repeated. "Is it not clear, Cornelia? My abilities are not suited for this battle. You have years of military training and a Stand that protects you from attack, while mine is best used strategically and 'dishonourably'. Your victory was never in any doubt."

"You - You can't give up!" Cornelia yelled. She reached for him again, but the floor shifted to keep them separated. It would, after all, be quite dishonourable to further battle an opponent who was genuinely surrendering. The frame appeared behind her, growing larger and larger. "Your pride shouldn't allow it!"

"Perhaps once. When I stepped onto this rebellious path, that might have been true," Lelouch said. "Since then I have learned more of the world of strategy that lies beyond a chess board. Sometimes you win more by losing. I have changed as well, Cornelia."

"You won't be able to escape by yourself anymore!" Cornelia yelled. The frame behind her was getting bigger. She held onto the sides to prevent herself from being sucked out into the real world once again. "The only way out for you is if someone else lets you out!"

"Nunnally or Suzaku will let me out, or perhaps Sir Gottwald.." Yes... that was true. They would not leave him to rot in here. "Perhaps I have changed in that way as well - once, I would not have let my fate rest in the hands of others."

"Then why didn't you do this sooner?!" Cornelia screamed. Her body started being pulled back into the frame. Up to her waist by now, and inching in a little more each second.

"Information," Lelouch said. "You made a few small slips, Cornelia. You have confirmed a few hypotheses without meaning to, and brought light to a few concerns I had."

Ah, now she really did want to kill him. Oh well. There wasn't much else he could do now. She was barely hanging on at this point. By her fingertips. Only those and her head were still in this realm.

"By the way, just in case you see him before I?" Lelouch said. He reached out a finger and gently lay it on Cornelia's forehead. "Tell his Majesty that involving Nunnally in this scheme of his was the worst mistake he has ever made."

"You're a devil, Lelouch! A reckless devil, who leaves destruction in his wake! You should have let me kill you, it would have been better for everyone!"

To that he could but shrug, and push forward just a little. It was not much strength, but it was enough to push her through at last. Leaving him alone in this pocket dimension with his thoughts, his plans, his schemes... And the image of his mother's killer, the one who crippled and traumatised his sister, to keep him company.

=Kallen=

Get out of my head.

Sorry, I can't do that.

Get out of my head.

I would love to, really.

Then why don't you?

I made a mess. I need to clean it up.

In my body?

Yes. Sorry about this.

I didn't give you permission to use my body.

I know. That was wrong of me to do.

You were making me do things against my will

Can you please stop fighting me?

Give me one good reason I should listen.

Your friends are in danger.

I don't negotiate with hostage takers.

I'm trying to help them!

Really? Fat lot of good you've done so far.

This is pretty complicated.

Yeah, I'm sure.

My name is Nemo.

Nemo? What kind of name is that?

Strictly speaking, my full name is Magical Device Nemo.

...

Alright, fine. We should have a few minutes before crunch time.

Huh? What's that supposed to mean?

It means, I'm going to show you who I am.

Can it, you're wasting my time.

Not nearly as well as Made in Heaven.

I'm not letting you have my body!

Alright, step one. Establish trust.

Kind of hard to trust someone who hijacked my body!

That's why I'm showing my history.

I don't have time for this!

Too bad. Here we go.

Not exactly endearing yourself right now.

That's something I learned from my brother.

Your brother?

You don't save the world by being nice.

=Schneizel=

Normal people watch television. Schneizel studied it. Such a useful tool, the perfect means to gauge a society's thoughts. You could see political schisms and tendencies bared, even if you didn't know what to look for.

If you did know what to look for? You could learn a whole encyclopaedia worth of knowledge from a mere two hours of channel hopping. The news they reported, the comedy they laughed at, the drama they produced all told little snippets of something that ate away at the subconscious mind of the society. While there were, indeed, outliers it was worth recalling that such outliers also exist within society at large - and their voices can very quickly become new trends.

For now Schneizel had been watching programming produced within the United Federation of Nations. Not for entertainment, but to determine what they were entertained by. What he found was more or less what he expected. No singular culture. No singular concern... Save one.

"What if he loses control of his Stand? What then? How are we supposed to cope if he -"

"Up next on the comedy channel: My neighbour's Stand is my romantic partner!"

You can't really form much of an opinion from two data points, but those two data points did provide a good place to start. Schneizel nodded and grinned. Yes, this might well proceed exactly as he thought it would. All they'd need was a bit more of a push and -

There was a sudden clatter of dishes in the next room, where Kanon was brewing tea for the two of them. A whim took him. Normally he would ignore that kind of clatter, but it was unusual enough for Kanon to allow such a noise to be made that he felt compelled to investigate.

He found his assistant on his hands and knees mopping up water. Next to the sink was a kettle, and a cup of water that was full to the brim.

"Is everything alright?" Schneizel asked.

"Forgive my carelessness, your highness," Kanon said. He looked at the kettle and the cup. "It was quite strange. I was pouring the hot water into the cup, when it overflowed. I'm not sure how that happened."

"Quite alright. These things happen," Schneizel said.

"But your highness, that's not even the strangest part," Kanon said. "When I spilled it, this water was boiling hot. When I was mopping it up just now... It was already stone cold."

That was strange. Yet stranger still awaited Schneizel when he returned to his seat, leaving Kanon to clean up the mess that he'd made.

"Coming up next on the comedy channel is the season premiere of Domino Race –"

How peculiar. He'd only stepped away for a minute, and now they were broadcasting something else? Had he changed the channel by accident when he'd stood up? He changed the channel again.

"Reports are coming in that the sun is moving faster than usual across the sky - And it's time for a word from our sponsor. Wait, again? Are you sure?"

Click.

"Fault! What do you mean by fault?! The ball is bouncing too fast, how can anyone serve it like this?!"

Click.

"N-Now we're back from our commercial break, and... it's time to go on another commercial break! How am I supposed to report the weather like this?"

Schneizel leaned back in his seat. Interesting. And concerning... Especially since the effect seemed to be global. On the other hand, if it did manage to resolve itself? A wicked grin came to his face. A more perfect opportunity to make his pitch couldn't have arrived.

=Pucci=

Finally. A familiar power coursed through his body once again. Enciro Pucci had heard it said that power was like a drug, and he could certainly understand that. Part of him felt... shaken when he had lost it. Yes, that was the word. Losing Made in Heaven was the same as losing a limb. Now with that limb restored he felt a rush of adrenaline. Dopamine. The same sort of rush that a junkie would feel on injecting some nasty concoction into their veins.

Yet that rush was not the reason he had reached for this power. It was a selfless act, in spite of his Majesty's taunts and barbs. It was not power for its own sake that he desired. He sought power because it was what fate had selected for him. The path that had opened up in front of him. To lead humanity into salvation! To lead this world, more rotten and corrupt than his own, to a better tomorrow!

The escape pod landed somewhere in Pendragon. Overhead, he could see Galahad and the Guren and many other Knightmares descending on his position. The fools, they - No? The Guren was not pursuing? It was hanging in the air?

The nearest Knightmare opened fire on him, but this - this was what made Made in Heaven so dangerous. Normally a bullet will travel faster than the speed of sound. A human has no chance to dodge such a thing. You would have to use a Stand to protect yourself - but those bullets were probably charged with that Gleipnir energy they were so proud of.

However. So far as Pucci was concerned those bullets might as well not have been fired at all when those aiming them were so much slower than he. Pucci deftly stepped aside, and let them strike the ground at his feet - then rushed to hide behind a tree.

"Where did he - " Bismark began. "All units! Land immediately!"

Galahad heeded its own warning, or rather tried to. Pucci would admit to himself that there was a measure of satisfaction to be had here. The mighty Galahad crashed onto the ground, for it was moving faster than even Bismarck could anticipate. The inanimate object was now moving faster than he was. Impossible to control, and besides which...

"All energy is drained?" the Knight of One observed. "Then it's already started. Enrico Pucci! We will not permit you to use this Stand to do whatever you want!"

Left with nothing else to do he climbed out of his Knightmare. An imposing figure indeed. Sword at the ready, he hopped down and scowled while searching around himself. Against any other opponent he would surely win. Against Made in Heaven... his Geass would be rendered useless. The future he would be seeing would begin to catch up with him far too quickly.

The safest thing to do would be to remove such a dangerous man now. Let a new man be reborn in the new world to take his place. The dead would not carry over there. Even if the person in the new world would be named Bismarck, they would not be the same person. There would be changes in personality and appearance. A different soul would take his place. A soul that would be less inclined to fight against Heaven.

As such, he ran out with the intention of distracting him while Made in Heaven cut him down - only for the sword to swing true, and slice through Made in Heaven with terrifying precision.

"That look of shock is good on you," Bismarck said. That sword is Gleipnir charged?! "My Geass lets me see Stands. Did you know that?"

It was alright. It was fine. The image of the Stand was merely distorted. Before the man could lunge forward to strike Pucci with it, the priest reversed direction. Overconfident! He had been so certain of his advantage that he had not considered how dangerous that power might be. Geass! That accursed power! It had plagued him far too often, ever since he encountered her.

No, that was the wrong kind of thinking. This could not only be blamed on overconfidence or Bismarck's Geass. It was talent. The sheer ability he had to fight was truly breathtaking. Even so. Time was on Pucci's side. He could keep his distance, wait for time to reach a point where no amount of skill or perception of the future could hope to aid him - then he would strike from a distance.

"Ora!"

Suddenly he was pulled in and struck hard in the side of the head, sending him flying through the air. After tumbling on the ground, with blood pouring out the side of his head, Pucci came to a stop and looked up.

"You," he said. No malice. No snarl. No emotion other than understanding. In front of him was that Fenette girl. And her Stand, its mighty fist retracting slowly. Perhaps the only reason he was still alive. Inanimate objects like bullets were still travelling at their normal pace, relative to him - but a Stand was an extension of a living being, and so it would be slower than normal. "I will give you this much credit, girl. Even Jotaro could not lay a hand on me, when I had obtained Made in Heaven."

If that punch had been moving at its normal speed, it would have likely taken Pucci's head clean from his shoulders. She would not get that chance again. Out of the corner of his eye Pucci watched Bismarck as well. Two annoying enemies were approaching him. Two tests that he must overcome. If the girl tried to pull him in close again, Made in Heaven would deliver a killing blow first.

Of course, she changed tactics as she must have realised this herself. Instead of summoning Pucci to him, she summoned a grenade launcher into her hands and fired upon Pucci in agonising slow motion. Much as before, once the grenade was launched it would travel at a normal pace but the girl herself doing the aiming was moving in slow motion to him. For that reason it was no obstacle to him at all. Still, Pucci moved in a zigzag pattern to draw closer to his target while the explosion struck nothing but the garden around them, exploding amidst a patch of flowers.

"The Dio you conquered was a false Dio!" Pucci said. "His thinking was limited to the realm of man! The true Dio reached for the heavens themselves!"

As he approached Pucci weighed the best course of action to take. Eliminate her quickly? Wait until the rate of time is so far in his favour that she can do nothing to defend? This is one aspect of Made in Heaven among many that make it mighty, the breadth of his options far outweighed his opponents. His feet splashed in water that was quickly covering the ground, soaking into the earth. This was a minor example based on that - Pucci could see it as plain as day, but the others could not. Their environment would change around them before they knew what was happening, limiting their ability to plan ahead.

Or so he thought before coming to a cold hard stop right in his tracks. It was as though someone had stuck him in place with superglue.

"Th-this is...!" Pucci gasped in disbelief. He looked back over his shoulder to the flower bed that the girl had blown up. "Her shot hadn't missed! She was aiming for that! The sprinkler in the flowerbed!"

That was where the water was coming from. The hose feeding that sprinkler was now relentlessly pouring water out over the ground - and further back, grabbing onto another portion of the hose was a hand sticking out of a bush. It was another Joestar! Joseph Joestar!

To his right Pucci saw Bismarck leaping into the air over the water with his sword drawn. How frustrating! No, there was a better word. How mysterious. That both Shirley and Joseph would be here as well, with a plan fully made to combat Made in Heaven when the battle had only just started?

"There are only two strategies that will work against someone too fast for you to catch," Pucci said, twisting his body around while his hands slipped inside his coat. "The first is to slow him down so that you can catch him."

He extracted a knife, razor sharp and gleaming menacingly. Like a tooth from a great and terrible beast, ready to slice into the flesh of freshly caught prey. His target - the bush where Joseph Joestar was hiding. With expert precision he threw the knife at that target, aiming squarely for Joestar's throat, which he could plainly see in between the branches. His aim was just. His aim was true. Gravity had led him to eliminate this clown, this oaf, this -

The knife stuck in the branches. Or more precisely, it pushed them back. The knife, though... its tip barely grazed Joseph's neck. The gleaming tip sparkled with energy, and Pucci reflexively started to count off prime numbers. "31, 37, 41, 43..." Ripple, in the bushes? To protect Joseph? His mind raced. If his assumption before was correct, if they had somehow created a strategy to fight him in advance, then it couldn't just be a barrier. At the corner of his vision something creaked backwards, and then -

He jumped out of the water. How so, when his feet should be stuck in place thanks to Ripple? Because Ripple is dependent on breathing, yes... but also on your timing. While it would occasionally function well under these conditions Joseph's timing wasn't anything remotely appropriate to ensure Enciro Pucci was trapped in place! While grabbing on to the branch overhead he looked down in time to see a pair of steel spinning balls fly by, right where he had been standing before. One would have struck his head, the other his body. At the arc they were moving it would have been impossible to dodge - if he had been trapped there.

Spinning steel balls? Like Gyro used? He looked down into the bush where Joseph was hiding, and gained a measure of understanding: The Knight of Six was there, behind him. In the young body of Anya Allstream resides a wicked, malevolent spirit by the name of Marianne. He had been warned of her cunning and charisma - and could it be any wonder, for this was a daughter of the false Dio.

"The daughter of this world's Dio collaborating with the offspring of this world's Jonathan..." Pucci said. Between Joseph and Marianne, they could surely concoct a trap like this. Bismarck had apparently known of his plan, the Emperor as well, so it stood to reason that so would Marianne. She must have gathered these forces while the battle had raged in the sky, to prepare for the very worst. Then they subtly guided him here using the army to guide his path. Quite brilliant, he hadn't even noticed until now. Two masters of strategy collaborating to achieve this result.

That being the case he had to move carefully, and so he slipped behind the tree for protection. It was likely they had anticipated his escape and set another trap. For that was the second way that you fought against a speedster - you used their own speed as a trap against them. Looking closely, he could see that there were another pair of spinning balls resting atop a bed of flowers, somehow making the petals spin around without damaging the stem at all. Then the flowers suddenly shot upwards like deadly shuriken, peppering the upper branches of the trees as fast as bullets.

An understanding took him: Gyro had once remarked that steel balls 'created their own gravity'. That was why spinning attacks even worked within frozen time. Apply spin to a living being under the effects of Made in Heaven, and it will still be able to move at a normal rate - though only through spinning, and in no other way. He did not know how Marianne had set that off, but it didn't matter much. The tree bark was already warping where it had been struck. That was fine. Because Pucci could also take advantage of the local plantlife to make his attack!

"Timber!" he called, and Made in Heaven chopped through the base of the trunk, while Pucci himself leaped to the ground below and leaned back against the tree. "The instant I cut through this trunk the tree began to die," Pucci said. "Within a few seconds, this portion of the tree will be completely deceased! For now it is falling slowly, because it is a living being. But at the moment it dies, it will not be a living being anymore and will instead become –"

The tree toppled down at the rate that it should have. Fast. Far faster than either Joseph or Marianne could hope to have noticed it. However hardy they might be, however strong they might be it did not matter when a whole tree was dropped upon your head! Perhaps if they had the time to shield themselves in some way they would be safe, but as it was? Impossible!

Now for the Fenette girl, before she makes another attempt to cave his head in-

"Your... next... Line... will... be... 'impossible! How... did... you...escape?' f..e...h..."

"Impossible!" Pucci yelled, staring across the garden in total disbelief. "How did you escape?!"

It wasn't possible. It shouldn't be possible. Yet there they were. Marianne, in Anya's body standing back to back against the Fenette girl. Joseph Joestar with his hand raised, and Hermit Purple wrapping around them. How? How had that happened? It wasn't possible for them to move that quickly under the effects of Made in -

Suddenly Bismarck appeared as if out of thin air directly in front of the other three. Schizoid Man's hand upon his shoulder, while the Knight of One was leaning forward with a cocky grin and his sword drawn. That was it, then? The girl had summoned them together using Schizoid Man?

"I see," Pucci said. He straightened his back, standing tall with dignity. Even though he was moving too quickly for his opponents to properly see them, he should at least maintain decorum. "I believed this fight would be easy, for you do not have the powers of The World on your side. However... It seems as though you have brought the world to fight me anyway."

Let them try. Let them struggle. They oppose gravity itself. The will of God shall be followed whether one intends to or not. To struggle against it is not admirable, it is folly. They played their hand while Made in Heaven was only getting warmed up. Now they must fight defensively with no ready means of counter attack.

No matter what they did there would soon be heaven on earth.

=Kallen=

The room is instantly familiar: Ashford Academy, the living room for the 'Lamperouge' siblings in the student council building. Kallen floats through the air and tries to touch a wall. Her hand passes through it.

"An illusion?" she asks. "What the hell is this –"

She stops. There's only one other person in the room with her. A girl sitting in a wheelchair in front of the television. Her eyes are closed. Nunnally? Kallen tried moving towards her and met no resistance. She tries to touch the girl's hair, but her hand phases through it, too.

What was going on? Why here?

"I hope big brother comes back soon," Nunnally said, apparently to herself. "It's his birthday soon. I need his help to pick out his present."

"Yeah, not like you'd be able to surprise him anyway," Kallen quipped, but then felt her own moment of surprise. "Wait a minute, something's wrong here." She floated down closer, in front of the girl and looked. Really looked. "You're not Nunnally."

"Not the one you know," that cheeky voice said. Kallen whirled around, but - no sign of anyone speaking. "The face is different, right? The shape of her head, the position of her facial features... Subtle differences - but they add up quickly."

"We bring you breaking news," the television said. "It is confirmed that terrorists hiding in Shinjuku ghetto have caused grievous destruction to the area. Military forces are moving in now to clean up."

"Shinjuku...?" Nunnally repeated. "Lelouch was taking a shortcut through Shinjuku, wasn't he?"

A moment of dread hit Kallen like a truck. The atmosphere in the room had changed, somehow. Looking at her, Nunnally was clenching her fists and biting on her bottom lip. Nervous, apprehensive. Well, who wouldn't be if they heard news like that about a place someone they knew and cared for was in recently.

"My brother is calling to me," she said, and suddenly wheeled out of the room. "I have to go to him."

"Hey, wait a minute!" Kallen yelled, reaching for the wheelchair - and to no effect. "Wait, what am I doing? Let me out of here! I don't have time for this melodrama!"

"Follow her."

"The hell I - Oh, come on! That's cheating!" Kallen yelled, suddenly finding herself dragged along after the retreating girl. Fortunately it wasn't a pursuit the entire way there. It was sort of like living through a scene transition, everything went black and quiet, and the next thing she knew they were at what was left of Shinjuku.

It was a mess. Way worse than how it had been from the battle she'd been at. Looking around, the only sign of life was the sobbing girl in the wheelchair.

"My big brother isn't caught in this," Nunnally said to herself. "It can't happen."

It was a miracle she even made it here, but now the uneven ground, coupled with her blindness, made it inevitable she would stumble out. Kallen instinctively reached out to her, in spite of her frustration with being forced to view this - but held herself back rather than put her hand through the girl yet again.

Nunnally lies there helplessly on the ground, tears streaming down her face. "I'm such an idiot!" she yelled, her own frustration bursting out of her. "Coming here! With these legs! When there's nothing I can do! When I can't do anything to help my big brother!"

She manages to push herself up into something approximating a sitting position, and turns her head to the heavens. "You took away my mother and my freedom! Is that not enough?! Do you have to take even my brother away from me? Give him back!"

It's tragic. It's bitter. It's something she had seen before. The number of Japanese families left in this state, at their absolute lowest point, was atrocious. The Empire had a lot to answer for, and yet... This isn't anything like what Kallen remembered.

"Are you familiar with multiversal theory?"

"I've heard a little about it,"

"Well, you could say I'm an expert."

Oh, was she now? Was this some alternative take on events? Nunnally losing Lelouch... Yeah, that would change things. It would change a hell of a lot. Without him around, who knows how things might have gone. All sorts of lunatics would still be running amok - or they would have been way harder to put down.

"I have been waiting," another familiar voice said. C.C.? No, once again it looked like her, but there were a lot of subtle differences in her face. The voice sounded the same, but the face looked just different enough that she'd think it was another person, usually. "I can feel your wrath. Towards those who took your mother. Towards this senseless slaughter. Contract with me, and I shall give you power."

Under these conditions could anyone blame Nunnally for reaching out her hand? When a person is at their most desperate, they become backed into a corner. When any animal is in that position they do things they might not normally. So Nunnalyl reached out her hand, and the moment they touched there was a flash of brilliant light.

Then a Knightmare appeared out of nowhere. Right where Nunnally had been standing.

"Ahahaha!" a voice that sounded like - Wait a minute! "I'm free! I'm finally free of that wheelchair!"

"So, that's me. I got a little bit nuts right when I was born..."

"You're the unleashed subconscious frustration of an alternative version of Nunnally who lost her brother," Kallen said. "Well, I've heard of worse. Doesn't excuse you hopping into my body and taking it for a joyride. What's wrong, did you kill someone and tick her off?"

"Oh, no. She broke our contract for complicated reasons, so I decided to explore the multiverse and ..."

"You decided to explore the multiverse? Like taking a holiday?"

"There's no need to be -"

"Gosh, I'm feeling a bit stressed out at work lately, let's recuperate up in the universe of the friendly sofa people."

"Your sarcasm is not appreciated."

"Being possessed against my will isn't being appreciated either! You expect me to believe you can just hop across realities?"

As if answering Kallen's question, the voice of the Emperor himself boomed out like thunder. "The world you wish for exists beyond Heaven's Door!"

Now Kallen was seeing Nunnally on her knees before a dark stone door with the symbol for Geass emblazoned on it. Her trembling hands reached out to touch it - and at the instant of contact images poured out. Countless images - other worlds playing out before her eyes.

She saw a world where there were no Knightmare frames, yet Lelouch raised up the Black Knights anyway. She saw a world where Dio Brando was a vampire, and the Britannian Empire did not exist. She saw a world where there were no Stands, where Euphemia had truly committed a massacre, where Lelouch had been Zero, where Suzaku had killed him -

"Heaven's Door was a plan by that version of the Emperor. He sought to kill God with it - but only Nunnally could open it. In that brief touch she saw all those possibilities. Since my contract with her was coming to an end, I slipped out while nobody was paying attention to me."

"Huh. That's kind of amazing. Not one thing that you just said made even the slightest bit of sense."

"Come to think.. Maybe I should have focused on him instead? If you understand how desperate the situation is, maybe you'll cooperate?"

"You're not very good at this - " Kallen began, but the scene was already shifting away from this tragic site. Never mind. At least she had some idea of where this Nemo came from. A manifestation of the repressed frustration of an alternative version of Nunnally, given form via contract with an alternative C.C. who used a device intended to kill God to explore the multiverse.

The fact this wasn't even in the top five weirdest things she'd encountered this last year was starting to worry her more than the possession itself.

=Rakshata=

Honestly now, all this pointless running around was awful for one's anxiety. They really should take a lesson from Rakshata Chawla, who was reclining on a sofa taking a long drag from her pipe.

Believe it or not but she was currently working. Research and development is an ongoing process, after all. Especially when you might break out into war against a technologically advanced enemy with a habit towards military aggression. Or maybe she was doing it to try to rub Lloyd's nose in it. Either or!

"Are the new radiant wave shields set up," Rakshata asked. Her assistants gave her a thumbs up. "Alrighty! Then let's put them to the test!"

The test was rather simple. Sustained fire from a standard Knightmare mounted rifle. She lifted her hand into the air, then lowered her hand quickly to signal the start of the test -

Only for nothing at all to happen. She went again. Still nothing. She looked to her assistants for an explanation. Both seemed nervous and confused, which was something she actively discouraged. A researcher should always at least know where to look for the answer, but they seemed genuinely flummoxed.

"Ah? How strange, the battery ran dry instantly. Maybe it was faulty? There's no reason it should have."

"The bullets need to be refilled as well. They've all disappeared."

Now that was a mystery! However... Instead of confusion, Rakshata grinned. She went to take a drag of her pipe - but found it empty. Already? She was certain she had topped it up.

"Those seem to be shell casings underneath the gun," Rakshata said while filling up her pipe with fresh tobacco. "They weren't there before?" She lit the pipe, took a drag and - empty again? All burned through? That wasn't possible. "Yet we didn't so much as hear them fire, or hear the casings hit the ground."

Tilting her head, she leaned back over her couch and used the tip of her pipe to pull back the curtain. Call it testing a hypothesis. It was a little bit crazy but in these times one could never be too cra-

Rakshata had a bit of a reputation for being a little bit easygoing. Too easygoing. Too relaxed, takes everything too much in her stride. Nonetheless, on seeing what was going on outside her mouth hung open, her eyes went as wide as they could go - but most crucially, most damningly of all, her pipe slipped out of her fingers.

"What's happening to the sun?" Rakshata asked. A question had been asked. A vitally important question with heavy implications for the entire planet. For a researcher like her questions like this were like the ambrosia of the gods. She was on her feet immediately, turning to her confused assistants, ready to give them the direction they so desperately needed.

"Look at your instrumentation! We must study this unheard of phenomenon! Even if nobody else ever sees the results, it is our duty as scientists to study it until the very last moment!"

Because that's what scientists did. Their duty was to the truth. To refine their understanding of the planet, the universe, the way things worked. Even in the face of armageddon, that pursuit was what they lived for!

=Shirley=

When she said she wanted to visit Lelouch's childhood home this was not what she had in mind! Indeed, there it was. The Ares Villa. A stone's throw away. Yet here she was in yet another fight to the death with another extremely dangerous psychopath with a remarkably powerful Stand.

"As far as I can tell, he's biding his time," said the Knight of One(!) Bismarck Waldstein. "Based on the sun's movements his ability is picking up the pace a little. I'd say about two days have passed in real time."

"What do you suppose is up with Kozuki?" Anya Allstream said. She nodded up in the sky. The Guren was still hovering there. Completely immobile. Despite all the other Knightmares being out of power. What the hell? "Should I throw a ball up there to wake her up?"

All of a sudden Shirley was flat on her back with leaves in her mouth. The reason became clear when she turned around. A branch had been tossed at them. Luckily, they were already down on the ground.

For a fleeting moment Schizoid Man caught sight of Pucci's face. Surprise. Shock. Questioning how the hell they pulled that trick off. Keep guessing, mister priest! Back then she'd known he was evil when he tried to take the whole world hostage. She hadn't thought he could get much lower than that, but this -

"Ora!" she yelled, and summoned the priest directly to her via Schizoid Man. A foolish move given their difference in speed? Wouldn't he be able to attack her before she - before any of them - could hit him? One would think that! But he still took a steel ball to the cheek courtesy of the Knight of Six, and still got punched in the guts by her uncle Joseph.

It was working. The plan they'd come up with was working perfectly. All she had to do was pull that off a couple more times, knock him out cold with some cleaner hits and then they could put an end to this. Preferably before he ended the world!

"67, 71, 73... You should not be able to hit me," Pucci said. From somewhere close by. Though not close enough to get caught out by her Uncle's Hermit Purple. "Your reaction time should be far too slow now."

A knife sailed by, missing her neck by inches before impaling itself into a tree. It vanished almost immediately.

"That throw was perfect," Pucci continued. "Your head moved a little at the last possible moment."

"Ora!" Shirley yelled, summoning him yet again into her reach. Except... He didn't arrive this time.

"I see," Pucci said. "Your Stand does have a limit. It cannot summon me if I am too far away. Yet, why are you yelling? It tips your hand a little too neatly. Unless, of course, that is the idea?"

"He's seen through your plan," Anya said. "Don't feel bad about that. It was a good plan."

"It wasn't mine to start with," Shirley said through her teeth. She looked around nervously, desperately trying to find him. Where was he? Where was that priest hiding now?!

=Kallen=

From the ruins of Shinjuku to a church. There was something symbolic to that, but Kallen didn't especially want to dwell on it.

"We don't have time for the full thing, so this is just the abridged version."

Before she could ask any questions Kallen noticed a familiar figure cleaning a confessional booth. He was quite a bit younger, but there was no mistaking him. That hairstyle was far too dumb and distinct to be anyone else. He was probably about Kallen's age, maybe younger.

While he was inside the booth, a woman on the verge of tears burst in, and entered the other side of it. "Forgive me father, for I have sinned," the woman began. "I am terminally ill, and wish to confess to a terrible crime I committed many years ago."

Kallen didn't want to be here for this. For more reasons than one. Among them, the idea of hearing this woman pour her heart out - she had no business hearing it. Unfortunately, her attempts to move further away were hindered by the fact that this was an illusory world, so there wasn't anywhere else for her to go.

"Sixteen years ago, on June 5th, I swapped my dead newborn with one of a pair of fraternal twins."

That feeling of not wanting to be here was getting more intense by the second.

"Should I tell him he has a brother? I raised him to the best of my ability!"

What was the point of this? So a young Pucci heard a confession while cleaning the booth. While it was a pretty horrible thing she'd done, Kallen didn't get why this was so -

"Do you know the name of that family?" Pucci asked.

"Yes! Their name was... Pucci!"

"No way," Kallen said. "Really? What kind of crazy coincidence is that?" The scene changed around her, the church vanishing only to be replaced with the inside of a sleazy office. "Hearing that kind of thing at random...?"

"There are two things I need you to do," Pucci said, to a disgusting overweight man with a creepy moustache. "Don't ask questions. Make these two break up."

He handed over a picture of two people. One... sorta looked a bit like Pucci, if you squint. The other was a young girl.

"His sister, and the brother that was switched at birth. They met, and started to date."

Right. So Pucci found out and was trying to split them - Wait, why did she give a damn about any of this? Yet more melodrama? It was unfortunate, but it didn't forgive Nemo hijacking -

"That guy looks white," the detective spoke into a bulky, old fashioned mobile phone, later, while spying on the brother and sister, apparently on a date. "But I investigated him further! His father is a black man!"

What followed was a lynching as that detective called in his friends. Kallen couldn't bear to watch, as men in white hoods surrounded Pucci's brother with violence in their hearts and alcohol in their breath. It was the kind of attitude she was well familiar with, though the target was a bit different. This might be a different world as well, but people like that exist there too, huh?

"Why?" Pucci wailed. His despair was - it was equal to Nunnally's from the other world. "When we were infants, why take my brother and not me? Why did I listen to that woman's confession? Why did I want to become a priest?!" He was wading into a river, where men in boats were fishing out the body of his sister. "Why do two people meet? If they didn't meet, none of this would have happened!"

He bundled her unmoving body into his arms and yelled to the heavens. A broken man, desperate to understand why this terrible thing had happened, finding only blame in his own actions.

"No! Don't take Pearla's life away! It wasn't her fault! All she did was love! I should be the one that's damned!"

"From these coincidences, he became obsessed with the notion of 'gravity'. From there... I'll show you how things wound up from there, now. Then you'll understand what we have to do."

=Tohdoh=

A warrior lives on their stomach. There are many reasons for this, and Tohdoh held them all in great importance. A warrior's strength is diminished when he is hungry, for his body is lacking in the energy it will need to move. A warrior's intelligence is diminished when he is hungry, for he is distracted by the desire to feed. A warrior's spirit is diminished when he is hungry, for he worries about his next meal instead of the foe in front of him.

The reason such thoughts were at the front of his mind were obvious. Tohdoh was hungry. He had been hurrying back to base to assist in dealing with the Siege Perilous - only for the crisis to apparently resolve itself before he was even half way back. As such, he took his time. Assisted a few of the injured. Then his stomach made a most undignified sound, and so he turned his attention to one of the many cafes in Paris, soon finding a seat tucked in at the back, where he could think in silence on what to do next.

"An apple will do," he said, for Tohdoh's preferences were simple and mundane. The waitress tilted her head, but shrugged it off and went to retrieve an apple for him - only for her face to turn aghast.

"Wh-what's this?" she said. "All the apples - they arrived today! Why are they rotten?"

Oh. So that was the smell? He closed his eyes and nodded. Yes, this did make him think of his conversation with Gino earlier: A bad apple in the barrel can spoil the bunch. It will release Ethylene gas, which causes fruit to ripen, which will in turn hasten the spoiling process of other apples around it, setting off a chain reaction that leaves the whole lot rotten, and giving the mould more places to spread to.

For that reason he must be wary, he must be alert, he must be cautious. And the best way for him to be those things would be... To not be hungry anymore!

"Then some bread and some butter will do instead," he said. The waitress hurried off. He could see her retrieve both from a fridge just inside the kitchen. She hurried along to him, stopping only to grab a spreading knife.

But when Tohdoh tried to spread the butter it had congealed and became nasty. Further, the bread was as hard as a brick. He took a deep breath. The cafe staff were likely stressed due to what had been happening recently, it's probably not their fault. Those who work in customer service have a hard enough time as it is, he should be patient and respectful.

Tohdoh's stomach made a quite embarrassing noise. Obviously, it did not agree with his mindful nature.

"I'm terribly sorry sir, I don't know what is happening," the waitress said. "We do have some rice, would that do?"

Tohdoh gave a curt nod, and tried to turn his attention to the matter at hand. If Gino was correct, then -

The waitress returned to the table looking a little confused. She was carrying a plate of rice that, to his discerning eye, looked like it had been cooked, but then left out on the counter for at least a few hours.

"I don't understand," she muttered to herself. "I put the rice cooker on, set the timer - and then it went off immediately!"

Tohdoh stared at the rice. It was cold. Stone cold. Anyone could tell at a glance. Nonetheless, he took the bowl, did not question it, and began to eat anyway. Whatever was going on, grain was not a food that spoiled easily, so he would take this and be grateful for it.

... Cold rice is quite disgusting. That is to say, once it has been properly cooked and you then let it cool down, it becomes very difficult to enjoy. Still, Tohdoh was hungry enough that he would force this down. While his palette would complain, his stomach would not!

"Ah!" he said after a few mouthfuls. Now that his hunger was abated a little, he could think a little more clearly. "Time is accelerating. This must be the work of an enemy Stand user."

He summoned Beast of Burden to check if she, or any of the other patrons, would react to it - but none of them flinched or even looked in its direction. Which meant the Stand wasn't here... Which meant that they were probably quite a distance away. Which, in turn, meant that he could satisfy the needs of his stomach knowing that he could do nothing to resolve the issue.

"I would strongly suggest closing up for the day," Tohdoh said upon finishing. "Today alone, you might give a customer food poisoning no matter how careful you are."

=Rolo=

Have you ever tried living when you're only good at killing? That is the path an assassin must take. To take the lives of others without compassion or remorse as a means of surviving you must first end your own life. That's what he believed all this time.

In a sense, he still believed it. The difference was that he didn't want to go back anymore.

Heavy breaths left his lungs. One more. If he could do it even one more time. Princess Euphemia mopped at his brow with a damp cloth while Milly and Nina stared out the window. Though, honestly, Nina wasn't in any condition to do much right now. The room was dimly lit, sunlight filtering through the tall, arched windows that lined one side of the room. Outside, the sprawling gardens of Ares Villa stretched out, neatly manicured, but eerily still in the tense atmosphere. The intricate moulding on the high ceilings, the old, polished wood floors, and the heavy drapes gave the space an air of faded grandeur, as if it was a relic of a time when this villa had known only peace.

"He's like a walking black hole," Nina whispered.

"Maybe not the time for mad science," Milly said. She looked back to Rolo. Though she had the sense not to say it, her eyes were putting her thoughts to words anyway. 'Don't think this makes up for anything,' they said. That was fine. He didn't expect Milly to put it behind her. Who he was. What he'd done. It was still amazing to him that Shirley had -

"Ora!"

The signal. He used it on reflex, spreading it out over the building and the surrounding area, completely freezing everyone in place. The priest, the people fighting out there, everyone but Rolo... And the green haired woman taking deep breaths, channelling Ripple into his body while looking out the window, onto a small part of the garden of Ares Villa.

Ares Villa... There was something poetic in that, yes? The Roman God of War was the namesake for the battleground to determine humanity's future.

"W-Will Ripple really keep me alive?" he asked. "Is it doing anything to stop the damage to my heart?"

C.C. tugged on a thread leading outside. It trailed along the ground and went to the back of one of those fighting out there against Pucci. There was a sound of some kind of impact. He couldn't hold it any longer than that. His back arched from the pain, and he had to put his hand over his mouth to contain it. Too much. He'd used it far too much today.

The immortal witch looked at him with something like a mix of pity and envy, then shook her head. That was fine. If they were able to finish off the priest like this, then it would be fine. This was his plan, after all. When the Knight of Six had picked them up from Siege Perilous and filled them in, it was only natural they went with this route. Lure him here. Freeze him in place. Then hit him while he was frozen.

In principle it should have worked. Except there were a couple of problems. The first one was that if Pucci saw C.C. was here, he'd figure out what was going on and behave accordingly. The second was that they would only have a few seconds to determine the relative positions of everyone out there, which made landing a clean kill shot very difficult. Not impossible, but difficult.

But it was fine. No matter what happened here, he was not going to die. They were going to kill Enrico Pucci. And they were going to save the world.

"Ora!"

The signal yet again. He couldn't even brace himself for it, he activated his power again, stopping his heart in his chest to give them another chance to put him down. Through the searing pain and the tingling in his left arm, he turned to look at Milly once again.

Was he trying to kill himself out of guilt? From having a hand in Rivalz' death? Was it an ill fated attempt to make it up to her? She hated him for the sin another version of him had committed, so perhaps his death would make her feel better?

Needless to say but this is how twisted Rolo's thinking process was, and how little he truly understood Milly Ashford. No matter how much she hated someone she would never wish death upon them. She was the kind of person who could not enjoy the physical suffering of others. Psychological... to a point, she could enjoy that. But never physical.

"Where is he?" C.C. asked aloud. "Shirley should have grabbed him, but there's no sign of him out there."

No sign of him...? Rolo couldn't hold it any longer, but his instincts as an assassin led him to examine his surroundings much more closely.

The hallway stretched long and narrow, with a high, vaulted ceiling that seemed to close in on itself, casting deep shadows where the flickering candlelight couldn't reach. The walls, panelled in dark, polished wood, gleamed faintly, reflecting the sparse light from a series of tall, narrow windows on one side. Each window was divided into small, diamond-shaped panes, framed by thick, aged stone that gave them the appearance of fortress slits. They stretched almost from floor to ceiling, easily over ten feet high, allowing just enough room between them for niches where statues of long-forgotten figures stood guard, their faces obscured by dust and neglect.

To Rolo's trained eyes, every inch of the space was a potential hiding spot, each shadow a possible threat. The curtains beside the windows were heavy, thick with fabric, and hung floor-length. If pulled just right, they could conceal a standing figure entirely. The corridor's stone columns created alcoves deep enough for someone to press into and remain unseen in the murky light, and the various tapestries lining the opposite wall, faded and moth-eaten, hung loose enough to conceal slight movements behind them.

Further down the hallway, the darkness grew thicker, almost palpable, the shadows merging into one another, obscuring the line of sight. The faint creak of wood underfoot betrayed areas of the floor that might groan under weight, a detail that Pucci, like Rolo, might use to his advantage. Here, the air was cooler, carrying the faint scent of old stone, dust, and something metallic—blood, perhaps, or gunpowder.

Rolo's gaze darted between the hiding places: behind the drapes, around the corner where a suit of armour stood immobile and gleaming in the half-light, and in the deep recess between two columns that flanked an unused doorway. Any of these could serve as a sniper's nest or an ambush point. He counted each as he scanned, instinctively measuring distances, estimating the time it would take to reach each spot, to check for signs of movement.

And there, barely perceptible against the darkness, a deeper shadow. A shape. Tall and still lurking just beyond the faint edge of light where the candles didn't quite reach, halfway down the corridor. He watched the shadows with breath held shallow, every muscle tensed - and then he could hold his Geass no more. The instant it dropped, the figure lurking in the shadows vanished outright.

"Such an interesting power," Pucci's voice said, making them all jump. "If only that girl hadn't stolen the disc back at the end of our fight. It would have made matters so much simpler."

"Were you always this cruel?" Milly demanded. "Enrico Pucci! I thought you were a good man! Why are you trying to destroy the world?"

"To save humanity," Pucci answered. "To lead all of mankind into salvation. Oh, child. I know you do not understand. You indulge too much in earthly wants, yet soon shall you have a higher calling, alongside the rest of the human race."

"You sound like a cult leader," Euphemia said. "No, I'll correct that. A cult leader would try to sell it to us more. You're the person who believes in it until the bitter end."

"It will be a peaceful world," Pucci continued. "Is that not what you want, Princess? No more meaningless conflict. If humanity already knows the pain it would feel in advance, they would not fight. Conflicts could be resolved amicably well in advance."

"You deny humanity a future!" Euphemia continued. "What you offer is not living, it's merely... It's just –"

"Accumulated experience," C.C. finished.

Through this, Rolo stayed silent. Not least because he was taking big lungfuls of air, he couldn't quite reserve the ability to talk right now. What they were doing was provoking him. Now that Pucci knew Rolo was here, he'd be unable to leave him be. Not if he wanted to eliminate the others. It would be too risky. There was a chance Rolo could freeze him at a time when he would be extremely vulnerable, and then it would be all over.

"The power to accelerate time for inanimate objects," Pucci said. "The power to freeze humans. Don't you find that interesting? It's a fascinating juxtaposition. Assassin. Priest. The boy who squashes his own loneliness, while yearning for companionship. The man who yields to destiny. Gravity has led us together, Rolo, so that I can see this juxtaposition and overcome it."

Rolo reached into his pocket and pulled out his gun. Come on. It must have been hours for him by this point. Why hadn't he done anything yet? He pointed it into the darkness and scanned the surroundings. Not saying anything. Simply aiming as if trying to get a good shot.

"I wondered for a while, why would those girls be gathered around you at a time like this when they could be hiding," Pucci said. "They have no role on this battlefield. They should be in a shelter elsewhere. Then it struck me. It is because that is a shelter. A shelter made to fight a fast enemy in the second way that you fight someone with superhuman speed: You set a trap for them."

Damn! Their trap had failed! He'd seen through it just like that! This priest was being way too cautious. It would have been one thing if he had rushed in to attack them. If he had, he'd have run into the thin, almost invisible glass threads Nina had laid around them in a nigh invisible network. If Pucci had approached he'd have been cut to ribbons.

Instead piles of wood began to appear further down the hallway. Leaves, twigs, branches, bark all piled up like a - Like a bonfire! Pucci was going to set the house on fire! While fire did have many things in common with living things - the capacity to grow, needing oxygen, something to fuel it and so forth - it was clearly not alive. If a fire was set inside this building then it would grow and consume the room before they even knew it and kill them before they could escape even though they were already beside a window!

Left with no choice, Rolo froze time yet again so he could catch his bearings. What else could he do under these conditions? There was no doubt about it. Pucci would launch his attack any moment now. He had to kill Rolo if he wanted to continue the battle.

C.C. smashed her fist into the window. "That priest is quite annoying." She grabbed Euphemia and Milly, then jumped out the window. "I'll need a few seconds to get them by the others. How long can you hold it?"

Sorry Rivalz. You'd wanted him to live his own life, but that wasn't something he could do. It wasn't something he knew how to do from the start. Better him than Milly, right? At the very least she knew how to handle herself.

"How long can I hold it?" Rolo asked, rising to his feet. His legs buckled, but he forced himself to stay upright. Using his gun, he broke through the threads of glass, then stumbled forward. "That's the wrong question to ask at a time like this. The question you should ask is 'how long will it take me to find him?'"

That's right. He could hold it as long as he had to. His body might complain. His chest might burst open. His vision might blur. His fingertips might start to turn blue, but... But he wasn't going to let that trust down.

"How interesting. You're even crazier than I thought you'd be," C.C. said, and then she was gone. All three girls were taken with her. Now it was just him and Pucci.

Where was he? Out gathering more firewood? He kicked the door open, and noticed that its movement was back to normal speed. It wasn't just instantly wide open, or bounced back in his face the way it should have if time was accelerating.

"So when I froze your time, I froze the acceleration as well...?" Rolo said. That meant he was in range. That meant he was where was he? Ahead, there were signs of the felled tree that had been used to gather the firewood, but Pucci himself...? No sign of him.

What he could see was C.C. moving Euphemia, Nina and Milly into the defensive perimeter set up by the others. She looked over to him with an expression he did not recognise. He supposed, it was probably... motherly affection? He tried to turn around and -

Ah. When had he dropped to his knees? Rolo hadn't even noticed. All he could do was throw out a silent apology to Rivalz. It looked like they would be meeting up again far sooner than either of them expected.

=Kallen=

"You are a bad man."

It was a little surreal seeing the two of them looking at each other like this. Enrico Pucci. Nunnally vi Britannia. Around Pucci was that Stand from before, hovering threateningly in the air. It pulled on its reins, and the priest smiled down at her.

"Young lady, how did you get here?" Pucci asked. "When you say I am a bad man, what do you mean by that?"

"I mean... That you are a bad man," Nunnally said. She wheeled forward, just an inch. "I know that, because we feel the 'same pain'. The difference is that you gave in to the temptation to seize ultimate power - while I rejected it."

A Knightmare appeared around her, catching Pucci flat footed. It was obvious. He had never seen one before. Why would he? Such things didn't exist in the world he came from. Even Kallen was surprised though, seeing a Knightmare appear out of nowhere... the very idea would have given her nightmares, once upon a time.

"So you have come to fight me?" Pucci asked. "So be it. I have overcome the Joestars. What is one final challenge before humanity ascends?"

He closed his eyes and stepped aside moments before a knife flew into the ground where he had been standing. If you could call it ground. It was more like they were standing on nothing at all. A space between spaces.

As for the fight itself, there was something very strange about it. From the way Pucci was moving it was as if he knew every move that the Knightmare would make long before it actually made it.

"The future is not written in stone," Nunnally - No, best to think of her as Nemo - said. "That's what makes it wonderful! The possibilities! The potential! If you steal that away –"

"Then humanity will no longer cling to false hope," Pucci interrupted. The Stand rushed in directly for the cockpit, kicking away one of the knives in the process. "They will accept the future they have, for they will have no choice!"

"And it's because they have no choice that you're in the wrong!" Nemo countered, and by that Kallen meant that she countered physically. The knife swung around like a pendulum, and its cable sent Pucci sprawling to the dirt. "When you constrain a person, take away their freedom, they become miserable! Believe me, I know this very well."

Of course. The joy she'd expressed when she was 'free of that wheelchair'. She'd said that word with such derision, disdain and disgust. Wheelchair. As though it was a four letter word.

"How did you...?" Pucci gasped. "I can read the future, you should not have been able to strike me!"

"Well, two can play at that game," Nemo said. "I can read all the lines of the future! That's why you're going to lose!"

"If he has his way, then what the Emperor said will come to pass. No rebellion can succeed against this tyrant. Humanity will be left to rot, spiritually, culturally and mentally."

The battle raged on before her, and Kallen had to remind herself to draw breath. Pucci was growing more and more nervous as time passed, trying to keep his distance from an enemy that was his equal. The ultimate Stand was taking on the ultimate Knightmare. The knives were swinging around so precisely that she could almost see it herself, the pattern, the way it was playing against him. They dug into the 'ground' that the pair were fighting on and turned up the earth, opening up chances for Pucci to use it to strike - only for those very attacks to be turned against him in unexpected ways, like causing the 'ground' to collapse beneath him, or a chunk of 'rock' to bounce back to strike him.

"I'm the only one that can beat him, Kallen. Because I am the only one that understands him"

It was unorthodox, it was fast paced, it was breathtaking.

"I alone have the will to stand at the top of the world!" Pucci yelled, pressing his hand to his head to stem the bleeding. "I shall guide humanity into heaven!"

"And I will free mankind from you," Nemo said. "No matter what. You don't even comprehend how evil you really are."

"I'm sorry I had to hide in your body. I really am. But... I saw them all. The lines of the future. I considered using this world's Nunnally, but Pucci was too cautious. I considered Cornelia, but she wouldn't get here in time. I thought about Rolo - but Pucci knows about his Geass, and is too used to fighting against time freeze. Made in Heaven is just too strong. You're the only one that could set this up the way it had to be played out."

"You should have asked me first."

"Yes. I should have."

"You should have asked for help."

"That's right."

"But you know something? You can change the future. You can't change the past."

=Villetta=

Well, this wasn't exactly how she was expecting her day to go. Sitting on a chair. Arms bound behind her back, a visor over her eyes, feet strapped together and tied to a chain on the floor. About five feet away, the Knight of Nine was in a similar position, both of them in front of a long table with a chair on the other end of it. Over the top of the door there was a clock tick, tick, ticking away.

The two of them sat in silence. It was an old trick - put the prisoners together, let them think they're alone, and let them converse among themselves. What they talked about - what they avoided talking about - would form the basis of the interrogation. The next step would be to split them up. Play up the idea that the other was spilling their guts, or on the verge of doing so.

Finally, the door opened and the last person she wanted to see walked in. This man. This ordinary, plain, Japanese man by the name of Kaname Ohgi was supposed to interrogate them. He silently looked them over, then took a seat. Then she took out a pen, and a notepad, and started to write on it. From following his pen movements, he was writing his own name in kanji. Which she only knew because of Chigusa, who, in the back of her mind, was sizing him up as a potential husband. Which was annoying. Really, really annoying.

To her surprise, he sat there in silence staring at them for a few minutes. No effort was made to separate them. If he was trying to unnerve them, it wouldn't work. The two of them were made of much sterner stuff than -

"Nonette Enneagram. Villetta Nu," he said at last, and a strange feeling of uncertainty passed through her. "That was an extremely brazen breakin attempt. You made no effort at assassination or sabotage. Your only goal seemed to be espionage. That sort of task should be beneath a Knight of the Round. What was your real objective?"

Her real objective? She had been quite certain of that before, but now that he was questioning it, what were they trying to accomplish here?This uncertainty, this lack of confidence, seeped into her pores and made her feel heady. Suddenly she wasn't so sure if she could last this interrogation.

Deep breath. This was his ability affecting you. Villetta swallowed nervously. It did nothing to help. Maybe it wasn't his ability? There was too much doubt here, she couldn't hold onto that thought no matter how she tried. The words tripped out of her before she knew what she was saying, if only to reassure herself.

"How do you feel about the way things are now?" she asked. "Supernatural powers all over the world. Cropping up at random. Causing chaos and then vanishing."

"Or getting their butts whooped into next week," Nonette added. "It's stressful, right? Now throw in something like F.L.E.I.J.A. on top of that. It's like a matchstick tower getting higher and higher, how long can you keep on building until the whole thing collapses?"

Nonette leaned forward on the table as far as she could manage. This was still nowhere close to their apparent interrogator.

"We're reaching a breaking point," Nonette said. "Soon. Very soon. It'll hit the fan, and everyone will look to those in charge for support, and they'll say 'what about those other guys? If we get rid of them we can sort this out.' Frankly, I'd rather we didn't accidentally shatter the planet before we realised how stupid that was."

Put that way, she could easily see the point. The casual ease with which a small group of Stand users terrorised Area Eleven. That one Stand that threatened to overwhelm the population with delusion. A Stand taking hold of a Princess to make her commit atrocities, Villetta herself being turned into a different race, the undead, mind altering powers, technology that could create a gestalt from those connected to it, and - of course - F.L.E.I.J.A...

"Is that what you were trying to do?" Ohgi asked. "Avert a war? That seems like a backwards way of going about it. Besides, I think we have a good chance of getting on top of everything."

Villetta didn't quite feel so sure about that, and this time it wasn't just because of his Geass influencing her thinking. It was because she'd noticed something behind Ohgi. Over his head. The clock on the wall was -

"I think your clock is broken," Villetta said.

But he ignored it. Of course he would - only an absolute idiot would turn their back on two dangerous prisoners in the middle of an interrogation.

"For the time being, I'm more concerned with a passing comment you made about another world," Ohgi said. Ugh! Not that topic! "We have some evidence about –"

Suddenly, Nonette used her knee to knock against the table. It was securely affixed to the floor, as were their chairs - but it had the desired effect nonetheless. She had timed it so that the table had been struck when the pen was loosely held in Ohgi's hand, the loud noise startled Ohgi, and this caused him to drop his pen.

In the blink of an eye the pen had rolled to the other side of the room. No, that gave the wrong impression. From the moment between the pen slipping from Ohgi's fingers to it being on the other side of the room, no time at all seemed to have passed. Not one of them saw the pen actually travel from hand to floor.

"How did that...?" Ohgi asked. "Did you?"

"If we could do that, we'd be out already," Villetta said. She nodded at the clock on the wall. Its hands were spinning like the blades on a helicopter. "What was it you were saying, Nonette? We were going to reach a breaking point soon?"

"I'd say we're already there," Nonette grimly said. "Welcome to the other side."

=Pucci=

Within the hall of Ares Villa, Enrico Pucci exited a wardrobe. He wiped at his arm, which had a cut running down the back of it. His knee was stained with blood that had dripped from it. For a moment, a single moment from his perspective, the amount of blood on his trousers had increased dramatically without him even noticing.

Which could only mean that Rolo had used his ability to freeze his perception of time. Exactly as planned. Now. He could have set a fire. He could have let it rage and burn those meddlers - but that was too much of a risk. Far too much a gamble. Far better to let the assassin come out of the trap himself in search of Pucci.

He strolled over towards the front door, out into the garden, where the boy was lying face down. Apparently dead. Good. Then it would be for the best if he made sure. After that he could eliminate those other troublesome people. Prevent them from being reborn in his new world, for it had no place for them within it.

He pulled out a knife and threw it at the boy's unmoving body, unwilling to get close just in case it was an attempt to lure him out - Only for a slash harken to appear out of nowhere, and strike it into the ground.

Breath hitched in his throat. Time was moving at an accelerated pace. The rate the sun was progressing across the sky made such a feat impossible. He pulled out another knife, and threw it into the group of fools trying to defy him - Yet then even more slash harkens appeared, knocking the blades aside while digging into the very earth itself, kicking it up and digging in a large circle around them.

"89, 97, 101, 103..." Pucci said loudly, as he followed the cables up and up, recognising the strange design of that second set of harkens. It was impossible. Surely, such a thing could not be possible! Those harkens - they had looked like - His breathing caught, sweat poured down his forehead. They looked like large knives!

"Hello Pucci," said a voice. It was like two people talking at once. Kallen Kozuki and - And her! "It's been a long time!"

"That Knightmare!" Pucci yelled, pointing an accusing finger at it. "That - It looks like the Guren, but also!"

The knife harkens retracted, having finished their business. Namely the construction of a moat around the group. While he could throw projectiles at it freely, crossing it to attack directly would be extremely disadvantageous to him. He began to bite his nails, nearly pulling them off from the cuticle in despair.

Again. He'd have to fight this Knightmare again! It was the same as before yet also... different. The same six knives protruding from the neck. The same katana, the same strange shield at the shoulders... Yet the colour scheme was different. Bright crimson, and it still had the Guren's silver claw.

"I see how it is!" Pucci yelled accusingly at her. "You possessed the body of Kallen Kozuki! The ghost of Nunnally from another world who called herself Nemo!" Then he pointed across towards the Knight of Six. "You take more after your mother than I believed!"

"Be that as it may, Enrico Pucci. One thing is clear."

The knives retracted, and the radiant wave surger took aim directly at him.

"You are still a very bad man!"

Knightmare Stats

Guren Mark Nemo

Pilot: Kallen/Nemo

Attack Strength: B

Attack Range: B

Defense: C

Speed: C

Terrain-Handling: C

Required Pilot Skill: C

Equipment:

Radiant Wave Surger(currently discharged) Radiant Wave Missiles

Six Blonde Knives: Remote wired rocket anchors capable of churning the earth, and slicing through Knightmares. As they are equipped with rockets, their direction may change after being fired.

Future Vision: The pilot may see all possible lines of the future.

=Nemo=

This would be where she says that her heart was pounding in her ears, but that would not be true. It was Kallen's heart. She was borrowing it for a while, that's all. This was it. The moment of truth. She was going to save the world.

It had been an impulsive action. Splitting off from... herself to travel the multiverse. While her greater personality had rejected it, there had been a touch of doubt. Temptation. So off she went to see them, to behold the myriad possibilities that lay beyond. To worlds far stranger than the one she knew, where none of the people she had known ever existed.

Then, she encountered him.

"You are a bad man."

She could tell right away. His demeanour, his body language. At the moment of his victory where he let his true self come out, she caught a glimpse of his soul and it was rotten. Absolutely rotten. She had summoned the Knightmare frame bearing the name Nemo, and the two had clashed.

In a way you could call the two of them the absolute worst opponents for each other to face. Super speed was difficult to fight, if not outright impossible, without prior preparations. In addition to this he could see the future actions of all people. That made him an almost impossible opponent to defeat.

As for her ability? She could perceive all possible lines of the future. What does that mean? Well, people make decisions every moment of every day. Go left, go right? An apple or an orange? That sort of thing. She could see the consequences of every decision. Most of the time they wind up converging. A lot of the time, they split off in unexpected ways. Though she could only see the possible futures - for example, her big brother wouldn't do something crazy like - like put a gun to her head and pull the trigger. Therefore she could not see futures where he did that of his own volition.

On that basis, Enrico Pucci should have had the advantage. He could see every action she was going to take during that fight. True. Except that she could see every future that resulted from every possible action that he could have taken. This provided her with a greater scope, superior understanding of what was happening around her and what would happen in the future - and she used that to win.

Well... If you could call this winning. It was more like a draw. The situation was different this time. He couldn't see the single line of the future yet, which was a massive advantage to her. On the other hand Made in Heaven had been active longer than their entire previous confrontation. Which meant he was faster, much faster than before. Not that it especially mattered. She'd seen the lines of the future already. She knew how this confrontation would play out. She'd scoured every single timeline. Hundreds of thousands if not millions - she'd not kept count but there had been so, so many.

In not one of them did she win. Either she lost the fight, or the fight didn't even happen because Pucci died first... and in the futures where Pucci died before forming Made in Heaven, this universe tore itself apart and reformed into a new one. In every single timeline, those were the only two outcomes.

But! There was one where Pucci lost after forming Made in Heaven. It required precision. Perfect place, perfect time, and his mindset had to be in the right place. That's why she needed the Guren. More crucially, it's why she needed the pilot: Kallen Kozuki! Her skill, her instincts as a pilot was what would take them through this battle!

So far Pucci's attacks had depended upon him attacking a person. Knightmares or other vehicles would run out of fuel so quickly they might as well be useless while time is being accelerated. This Knightmare was an exception. The Guren was - well, in this world you could call it a kind of Stand so long as she was possessing it.

"You'd better know what you're doing," Kallen said. "After everything you've been doing to set this up."

"Please, focus on trying to make the future match the way we need it," Nemo said. That was the key to this. Make the future match up. Fire out the knives into the ground, dig it up, force Pucci to move into the right position at the right time. Only then could they ensure victory.

"Foul spirit from another world!" Pucci said from somewhere. He was moving around so quickly, through so many different possibilities, that all she could do was try to narrow them down using the knives. "First, you possess an innocent girl and turn her into a war machine. Then you arrive to oppose mankind's ascension to heaven! Now you seek to pervert mankind's rise yet again! Do you have no shame?"

She did when she'd started. She'd explored every avenue, looked through every possibility, studied every outcome to the best of her power. Such a thing was only natural. Nemo was the subconscious manifestation of Nunnally's frustrations, bubbling over, pouring out. About her inability to do anything but rely on others. About her inability to affect the world around her.

This power had been born within a world where there was no such thing as Stands, although their use of Geass was somewhat closer to being like Stands than the Geass abilities of this world. The C.C. of that world had given her this power at the height of her grief, when she believed that her brother Lelouch had died a pointless tragic death in Shinjuku ghetto, while taking a shortcut home. This aspect of her had taken over. Lashed out. Struggled to make a difference. Confronted her own parents in the World of C - and though Nunnally had rejected their plan, Nemo had slipped off to see the multiverse.

The things she had seen! The wonders, the horrors, the people, the places. So many worlds, so much trouble, so much strife. Where she could, she gave little nudges to help them help themselves - And then, she met Enrico Pucci. The destroyer of his own universe.

"The worst thing about you is that you cannot see how evil you are," Nemo said through Kallen's mouth. "It goes beyond delusion. You're too sane for that. This is simply fanaticism!"

Had he any retort, she didn't hear it. Based on the lines she had seen, there were a few possibilities for why that might be. From those countless numbers it was down to perhaps a hundred, and dwindling moment by moment. The likeliest was - Nemo dodged hard to the left. A risky move, all things considered, but Kallen's skill as a pilot was so good that she didn't send them flying for miles when a rocket screamed past and exploded so quickly that it took the shockwave and debris to tell her it had even happened.

Where had the rocket come from? The answer was simple enough. Pucci had run away to find a store of weapons from a cache within the villa grounds. His knives would not penetrate or damage the Knightmare as they were 'moving at the same rate', and it turned out mother dearest liked having weapons nearby. Including Anti-Knightmare rounds that Pucci could fire at them!

She estimated about fifty timelines left after that.

But that was only the start of Pucci's attack. Considering how fast these rockets were moving, and how quickly they were exploding, even with future vision you would have a better time avoiding raindrops in a thunderstorm.

"Oh, hell!" Kallen yelled, glimpsing the likeliest future at the same time Nemo did. She swerved the Knightmare down hard into the ground blocking a missile from being fired at the others gathered in the centre of her moat. The rocket hit their flight enabler - staying airborne was no longer an option. This took away their biggest advantage. There were enough timelines that she could quickly count them - twenty seven in total left.

Which meant it was now or never. The one line of future that led to neither possible 'end of the world' due to Made in Heaven. The mere fact that they had lasted this long at all could only be called a miracle, when their enemy was this fast, this cunning, this cautious and this ruthless.

Although it struck Nemo that their enemy would not call it a miracle, but yet another challenge by God's will for him to overcome. Maybe he was partly right in that? Maybe it was Nemo's will that was being determined here? She was the part of Nunnally that wanted to change the world with her own power, and so...?

"Fire everything!"

This was the moment she'd been waiting for all this time. During the battle against the Siege Perilous, the fight against Dorothea, the duel with Bismarck and the struggle against C-Moon, these weapons had been held back in reserve, until this moment where they would be needed the most. The Guren's radiant wave missiles would answer Pucci's with a scattershot attack, firing in seemingly random directions!

"I see, so that was your plan?" Pucci's voice said. In the same moment that the rockets flew out, an explosion rocked the Guren. Somewhere nearby, Kallen thought she heard Shirley's voice scream her name, but her ears were still ringing from the impact. The machine lurched forward, and Kallen - still disoriented - fell from the hole out onto the ground. "Since a singular attack would not hit me, you aimed to perform an area of effect attack, striking the ground beneath me - and igniting the water drenched into the soil with your radiant waves! Just like on Narita mountain in that other world!"

Fifteen possible timelines left.

Kallen looked around, but Nemo knew what had happened already. Pucci had seen the attacks being launched, and struck two of the missiles, sending them into the building. A little to her left was a missile already pushing radiant wave energy into the ground. If time had been at its normal rate she would have been able to move maybe a foot or so to escape - but as it was, the next thing either Kallen or Nemo knew they were flying through the air, toppling down and rolling hard on the soft soil. If not for the knives digging into the dirt they would have been hurt even worse.

In other words... Everything was going according to plan. They were almost there. Because she had torn up the ground with the Blonde knife and fired the radiant wave missiles into the ground, there were perhaps three timelines that they could be travelling down. If she knew which one it was she could put an end to this right now, but Pucci was moving a little too quickly for her to do anything. Depending on what position he was in at this moment, she should do one of three things to get him where he needed to be, but all three were equally likely.

Which is why something painful had to happen so they could narrow it down just a little bit more.

"Live..."

Lying still on the ground, his arm outstretched, was a young boy. In her own world the Rolo that Nemo had known was a complete monster. Irredeemable, evil beyond measure. The very worst aspects of her brother magnified, tenfold, without any trace of the good in his heart. This was not that Rolo. This Rolo was barely conscious. This Rolo had noticed Kallen tumbling to the ground and realised she was about to be killed by Pucci.

So he decided to sacrifice himself without knowing how vital this was to her success. A truly noble sacrifice from a person who had devoted his life to the least noble profession. Knowing he was already dead, he ended his life a fraction faster to give Kallen a chance for a counterattack. She could see the position that Pucci was in. She could see which of the timelines he had chosen to step down. But... Rolo would not be able to hold him in place long enough for Kallen to counterattack by drawing a gun, aiming, and firing.

However, he had still ensured their victory with his last breath taken. Because of him, she knew exactly where to stand to ensure that Pucci lost. The shape of the future that led to Made in Heaven's defeat had been cast in stone. His world of ultimate truth would be squashed by the world of lies. All she had to do was take two big steps to the left while drawing her firearm, knowing full well she wouldn't get the chance to fire it.

That split second was enough to determine the fate of the universe. This is what it means to be able to determine the shape of the future. You must make small and personal sacrifices for the sake of the greater good. Knowledge of the future is a curse. Not a blessing. No matter what way it is that the future is written, it can only be a curse.

"Forget something?" Kallen asked. And then, at that instant, the battle came to an end.

=Pucci=

This fight was over. The girl tried to lift her gun, but she might as well have been moving in slow motion. Pucci tossed a gun into her arm, and she toppled back. Behind her, the rocket had discharged its load into the wall, filling it with radiant wave energy. If it had been her intention to use the debris from an explosion to harm him - then she would be sorely disappointed. He had positioned himself so that she alone would take the brunt of any blast, and he should be far enough back that such a thing should not affect him.

Pucci was almost disappointed when the wall merely collapsed behind her instead, kicking up a cloud of dust. Still, for some reason he did not understand she was smiling even as she wobbled on her feet.

"Forget something?" she asked. Then toppled backwards to the ground.

"Your vision of the future is flawed, and is the cause of humanity's suffering," Pucci said. "Take solace in this, 'Nemo'. And you as well, Kallen. Humanity will be in good hands once I –" bzt - "Once I slow down time and make myself..."

Something caught his attention within the cloud of dust. It was only obvious now that he'd noticed it, but there was something strange and ominous within. He stared at it intensely, trying to make it out. Was this her intended attack? What form might it take? A pair of twin red lights, tiny yet unnatural, about 190 cm off the ground.

His musings on the meaning behind them were interrupted by the girl speaking up one last time. Two simple words that told him what they were, and the nature of her true attack. "You... Will!"

Geass Stats

The World of Lies

The realisation weighed down on him like the full mass of the moon. Those red lights were the Power of the Kings! The dust settled, the figure beyond became distinct and clear. Imposing, tall, fearsome, a mountain of a man with a stern expression bordering on fury all bearing down on him.

User: Charles zi Britannia

Stats

Range: B (limited to eye contact)

Control: A

Duration: B

Stability: D

"So I hear you wish to become a God," the Emperor said, striding out through the wreckage. This was fine. All Pucci had to do was slow down time until it came to a complete stop. That was how his ability worked. That was how he remembered his Stand working. "When I was very young, I swore to kill God."

He stepped past Kallen and approached without fear, even though Made in Heaven could cut him down instantly. He had no means of seeing the Stand, the only thing Pucci had to fear was - bzt - looking away from the Emperor for even a moment, lest he lose all trace of his memories.

Ability

To Thine Own Self: While making eye contact, the user may rewrite the memories of the victim at their discretion. This includes erasing particular aspects of a person's memory with scalpel-like precision, or replacing the memory and memory of a relationship with one person with another person. However, the more in depth a victim's memory is changed, the likelier it is they will be able to break free of their own will - though this will take time.

Sealed Ability: Special abilities(Stand or Geass) used by the victim may be temporarily sealed away by making them forget those powers exist at all. Evden a runaway Geass may be sealed in this manner.

Code Undone: The abilities of this Geass may be undone by a Code Bearer - assuming they know the person is a victim.

"I never thought I'd meet a man I hated so much as you," the Emperor said. "You hypocrite. Did you not realise? In your mad rush to enforce an unchanging future upon all mankind, did you not consider for one moment?"

It was this time and this place that made it important. If Pucci had known the Emperor was attempting to make eye contact with him, he would have turned away within accelerated time before it could affect him. With this method Nemo had manipulated Pucci into making eye contact for long enough - and long enough was all that mattered, even for him. From there, you might wonder what exactly Charles did to Pucci's mind. Did he utterly erase his memory? Make him believe that he was a devoted undercover agent? Erase his memories of Dio? Of what happened to his sister? Did he make him forget Made in Heaven completely?

Or did he start doing one of those and change his mind? Did he try something else? Did he instill within Pucci a taste of absolute torment, fill his memories with nothing but torment and pain and trauma until all he could do was scream? Did he do more than one of the above at once, or maybe none of them?

The ultimate answer is simple when you look at that list and realise it is far from being comprehensive: It doesn't matter what he did to Pucci's memories. Not in the least. Any of those would be enough to debilitate anyone. Pucci would sink to his knees staring up at the approaching mountain of a man under any of those conditions and an infinite number more besides.

If we explain it in Nemo's terms, then it would look like this: Think of all the countless possibilities that she had gone through searching for a way to ensure that Pucci was defeated within this limited time frame. All the failures due to his premature death, or his victory due to the sheer power of this Stand.

If Nemo had looked into the future possibilities of what Charles would have done, she would have seen an even greater uncountable number of possibilities from the sheer variety of what Charles could and might do to Pucci. Yet each of those timelines would come to the same point. You might say it is a victory for both of their philosophies on the nature of the future, if you put it like that.

So you can now comprehend what was meant before: It simply does not matter what Charles actually did to Pucci's mind. Only that it left him incapable of defending himself.

"Did your unwavering faith in 'gravity' ever once give you 'peace of mind'?"

Can you appreciate the irony? The man who wanted to make the future a known factor for all mankind was having his own past changed from under him, leaving him helpless to defend himself as Charles drew his own firearm, placed it against Pucci's head and stained the grass with his brains.

=Charles=

Charles had taken the lives of others before, both by deed and by word. This might have been the first time he'd enjoyed it. Such a vile little man. So petty and mundane, unworthy of the supposed grand aspirations he had. On the other hand, the girl lying in the grass at his feet was worth far more respect.

"Congratulations, Kallen Kozuki," Charles said. "You have saved the world."

In response to that, Kallen lifted her hand and extended her middle finger. Charles though, he laughed. "Defiant even now. We'll have to find you a comfortable cell for the duration of your stay in our capital."

Kallen tried to raise her other hand, but winced in pain from the effort, so instead she resorted to verbal abuse that is unfit to be printed here. Once again, the Emperor merely laughed.

"Yes, yes. That spirit of yours is quite admirable. You cannot bear injustice happening before you. That is admirable. In fact, I have admired it for quite a long time."

"Your Majesty," Bismarck said, kneeling in front of him. "I shall have Kozuki taken to a cell immediately." He looked over at Pucci's body with the greatest disdain he had ever seen from the man, and Charles had known him for a very long time. "Kallen. Please do not use your –"

"Have no fear of that, Knight of One," Charles interrupted. "I have already sealed it away."

Ah, and here came the others. Friends of his son. Nervous. Understandably. While they were long aware that Lelouch was Royalty, they had known him first as a person. Now, they stood before an Emperor and felt humbled.

"Hello, your Majesty!" Joseph Joestar said. "Hrm, to be honest I thought you'd be taller."

"Uncle!" the Fenette girl hissed, elbowing him. "Ahem! You won't be hurting Kallen, will you? She put her neck on the line for all of us!"

"Have no fear, she will be well taken care of," Charles replied. "You as well. For your bravery and service to the Empire - if not humanity itself - you shall be given full commendations. Mister Joestar, if you would assist C.C. in treating Kozuki's injuries?"

"Eh? Ri-Right away, your Majesty!"

Then that would do for now. The Fenette girl was not stupid enough to pick a fight under these conditions. "Sir Bismarck, keep them company for the time being, and arrange for their temporary accommodations. Knight of Six, there is a separate matter we must discuss."

"Yes, your Majesty," Anya said, and the two of them walked away. Once they were out of earshot she let Marianne's personality slip out. "Temporary accommodations, Charles? By which you mean 'silk cages while we hold you as hostages to use against Lelouch'?"

He didn't answer that. There was no need. His intentions were obvious enough that they might have already guessed it - but there was nothing they could do now. They were in the middle of the capital city, and none of them had the same kind of power as Enrico Pucci. Through sheer numbers alone they would be crushed before they did any kind of damage. Better to play along and make the best of their situation. That was human nature.

"So? What did you think of Kozuki, then?" Marianne said through Anya's body. "It was quite something seeing her in action, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it is as you say. I have long admired that fighting spirit," Charles continued, partly to himself but mostly to the spirit of his favourite wife. "I have admired it longer than she has been alive."

Rolo: Deceased

Enrico Pucci: Deceased