After the storm that was the last few days, Leila thought the comparatively boring week was a welcome change of pace.

Sure, many of Leila's comrades found it boring, what with there being minimal fighting to be done; Ryo was especially despondent, she knew, but personally, she couldn't relate to such problems.

Leila did not like violence as a rule, granted; she did not shy away from it by any means, but she still found it distasteful overall.

Privately, Leila was also somewhat disturbed by the glee that Ryo and Akito seemed to show when taking human life, but she would not admit that out loud; Ryo would be offended if she raised such concerns to him and as for Akito?

Leila was not entirely sure how Akito would react.

She had known Akito since her first day at the Wyvern Squadron. They had only gotten closer since Leila was made commander of the unit, and Akito was assigned as her bodyguard. Yet, even after a year of building up the unit from scratch and fighting alongside one another, she could not say she was any closer to understanding him.

She could say that he most likely had clinical depression, Leila supposed, though anyone who talked with Akito for more than two minutes would quickly come to understand that much. She certainly understood his tendency towards violence, though Akito did absolutely nothing to conceal that.

Aside from that, Leila understood his basic personality traits and hobbies (or lack thereof), and she knew the barest details of his background, like that he came from a family of political exiles from Japan that had all been mysteriously massacred one day with Akito being the only survivor.

Leila still did not know why he took such glee from massacring the enemy, or why he sometimes screamed 'die' at the tops of his lungs like it was a comforting prayer in battle, or why Akito, during his more introspective moments, sometimes talked about 'joining' his deceased family after a final 'confrontation' with 'him.' As if his family, who he shouldn't even have any clear memories of on account of being three years old when they died, were somehow a strong and present influence on his life.

She would have normally chalked the latter up to a simple expression of suicide ideation. Still, while Leila was confident Akito was suicidal, the way he talked about the ghosts of his family made it seem like much more than that, like he was actually talking to the ghosts of his dead family members.

At one point, it had gotten so bad that Leila had insisted on forcing Akito to see a psychiatrist to get him diagnosed with schizophrenia, as she was sure that he had it, but to her bewilderment, the psychiatrist had insisted that, aside from his preexisting issues, Akito's perception of reality was perfectly normal.

It still befuddled her to this day. While Leila would usually have chalked the diagnosis up to racial bias, the psychiatrist had been recommended to her by Doctor Randle, so she doubted that was the cause of the puzzling outcome of the visit.

Leila was drawn out of her thoughts by the man himself. "Commander, are you awake? Please wake up if you aren't; it would not reflect well on us if we were late to our mission briefing."

There really was no rest for the wicked, Leila reflected. As she opened her eyes and stood up straight at the mess hall table, she gave Akito a bleary-eyed look. "No need to worry, Lieutenant Hyuuga. I'm awake. I was simply resting my eyes for a moment." She took a moment to stand up and straighten out her uniform. "But you're right. We shouldn't keep Zero waiting. Lead the way, Lieutenant Hyuuga."

Akito nodded at her before turning around and departing for the mission briefing without another word, not even bothering to look to see if she was following.

Though Akito needn't have worried anyway, as Leila scrambled to follow him.

It did not take them long to reach their destination at the far back end of the Submarine, the room where Zero gave his mission briefings.

Zero and C.C. were waiting for them when they arrived, but no one else. That was unsurprising; this was to be a mission that the Wyvern Squadron would take on themselves.

Zero nodded slightly at Leila as if to greet her. When she and Akito took their places, Zero cleared his throat. "Commander Malcal, Lieutenant Hyuuga, welcome."

Leila nodded back at Zero, returning his greeting. "Zero, C.C., reporting for duty."

Zero tilted his masked head in recognition. "As you are likely well aware, the Black Knights rely on a network of arms dealers to procure the lion's share of our weaponry; it would be a massive blow if this network were to be disrupted."

Zero paused for a moment as if to allow his words to sink in for them; Leila wanted him to just get on with it.

Eventually, Zero resumed his explanation. "Our largest supplier has hit something of a snag in his operations; I would like you and your Wyvern Squadron to investigate the matter."

Leila nodded at the explanation, seeing little wrong with it. "Very well, what is this supplier's name?"

Zero's faceless helmet stared back at her. "Alessandro Giordano."

What?

Leila scowled at Zero. "Alessandro Giordano is a terrorist who bombed the Italian Parliament in Rome! The EU has been trying to apprehend him for years; surely you can't expect us to work with him?"

Zero shook his head. "That is precisely what I intend, Commander Malcal. If you and your Wyvern Squadron can put aside your own biases as European soldiers to work with Alessandro, then I shall consider this proof that the EU's intentions in Japan are pure. Do you understand?"

Leila bit back an angry retort, holding her tongue. "Yes, Zero, I understand."

Zero nodded at her answer. "Very good. You are dismissed. You'd best prepare yourselves for the journey ahead of you. Alessandro operates out of Kyushu, which is rather far away from here."

Leila nodded back at him and promptly left the room, Akito following closely behind her.

What a fucking prick, forcing her into a mission like this.

Leila was also confident that this was Zero's way of getting her far away while he sent his men out to accomplish things that he knew she would disapprove of and loudly object to, but she couldn't exactly do anything about that now.

Like it or not, Leila was, officially speaking, here to help Zero in any way that she possibly could, so if the man ordered her to act against the EU's interests, then she had no choice but to listen to him, as long as what he was asking her to do wasn't so detrimental to the EU as to be cartoonishly unreasonable.

Of course, if Zero asked her and her unit to do something like instigate a war between the EU and China or assassinate a Senator, then naturally she would have Carte Blanche to betray the Black Knights. Not even Smilas would object to such an action, but Zero, for all his many faults, was not stupid enough to ask that of her.

A pity, really. Pummeling Zero and his Black Knights in a Knightmare seemed like it would be downright therapeutic right about now, Leila thought, sourly.

If nothing else, Leila supposed that the mission would be a good opportunity to prove their trustworthiness to Zero, which would be helpful in the future.

And if the EU got valuable intelligence about Alessandro, his whereabouts, and his current activities and assets, then that would be great as well.

Once again, Akito drew her out of her thoughts. "Commander, do you have a minute?"

Leila looked back at him. "What is it, Lieutenant Hyuuga?"

Akito looked around as if looking to see if they were truly alone in the hallway. "Oghi Kaname, what do you think of him?"

Leila looked at him confusedly. "He seems reliable enough, I suppose."

Akito scratched his hand. "I can't help but be suspicious of him. He's hiding something. Do I have permission to investigate him once we return from our Kyushu assignment?"

Leila nodded reluctantly. "As long as you don't do anything drastic without my leave, then yes, you have my permission, Lieutenant Hyuuga."

Akito nodded back at her as if in thanks. "Thank you, Commander, I promise that you shall not regret trusting me."

After that, they exchanged no more words as they traveled back to their barracks at the far left side of the Submarine. Once they arrived, Leila wasted no time in informing her subordinates of the details of their upcoming assignment before heading back to her personal quarters to get a much-needed nap.

As she drifted off to sleep, Leila dearly hoped she would have a sweet dream about stabbing Zero.

The last few days had been completely and utterly unbearable for Lelouch.

It wasn't as if anything catastrophic had happened, aside from having to watch Suzaku swear himself to Euphemia. His issue was more that there was a lack of problems to deal with.

It was maddening, after the earth-shattering revelations of the last operation, Lelouch had desperately wanted some fresh new crisis to distract himself or an immediate follow-up to the Suzaku problem to bring him some catharsis.

But the catharsis he had been craving had so far been denied from him and now Lelouch had to suffer through being completely and utterly bored out of his skull.

He knew that he should be happy that his Black Knights did not have anything threatening to contend with and that they could take this time to breathe and regroup, but honestly, Lelouch simply could not bring himself to give a damn about that.

Lelouch had just learned that his best friend, whom he practically considered to be his brother, a truer brother than any of his half brothers, that was for sure, was actually the pilot of the Lancelot, the damnable machine that had been the most persistently annoying thorn in his side since the beginning of his rebellion.

How many times had he almost killed Suzaku? Whether by his own hands or by his orders. How many times had Suzaku almost killed Lelouch?

If they had killed the other, would they have even known? Or would they have gone through life wondering why the other disappeared all those years ago?

Lelouch honestly did not know, and that was the problem.

He wanted a confrontation, catharsis, a conclusion to this confusing storm of feelings that existed within him; Lelouch wouldn't be able to focus without something that could allow him to come to terms with him and Suzaku being enemies now.

But so far, these days of relative peace had denied him that wish, which was infuriating.

The fact that the most notable occurrence this week was receiving a request from Alessandro was rather depressing.

Lelouch couldn't even take pleasure in forcing Leila into a mission she disapproved of; he was so bored.

Didn't Cornelia promise to end all terrorism within Area 11? Whatever happened to that? Couldn't she just hurry up and launch an attack on one of the Ghettos under his influence, at the very least?

Surely, that man must be getting impatient with Cornelia, right? It had been three months, and she and her forces hadn't done much to hinder his efforts. Honestly, her presence had actually done more to accelerate Zero's rise to power than anything else, so surely she must be under a lot of pressure to crush the Black Knights sooner rather than later, right?

Well, Lelouch had hoped that would be the case, but for some odd reason, everything seemed to indicate that Cornelia had no intention of striking out against him anytime soon.

Lelouch shook his head as if to dispel his thoughts, focusing back on the other occupants of the meeting room as Deithard finally arrived at their meeting.

Rakshata looked up at Deithard with own of her customary lazy smiles. "Deithard! Good on you for finally joining us at long last."

Deithard returned Rakshata's greeting with an obviously strained smile of his own—it was all teeth. "I apologize for my tardiness. I had an important matter to attend to, and I could not afford to delay it in favor of this meeting."

With his explanation out of the way, Deithard took his customary seat across from Tohdoh at the table.

With Leila gone, having departed for Kyushu the day before, and unable to come up with a concrete plan of action to handle the Suzaku issue, the only thing they had actually decided on the last meeting was that they could not utilize assassination as a solution to the problem, Lelouch decided that they would need to hold another meeting to discuss what they would actually do about Suzaku.

So Zero had called another meeting, this time without interfering European agents being present, which was also a plus.

So they had all gathered in the meeting room that they used for all officer meetings in the Submarine.

Lelouch glanced over all his officers before clearing his throat as if signaling the beginning of the meeting. "Now that we are all here, we can begin our discussion on what we should do about the outstanding issue of Kururugi and the threat that he poses to our cause."

Deithard was the first to speak up. "I understand that you rejected the plan, Zero, and I do respect your decision." He doubted that very much. Deithard had been subtly complaining about the decision for days now. "But I would like to once again ask that we please consider just assassinating Kururugi? It's the simplest and most effective solution on every objective level."

So he was still insistent on that idea, huh?

Rakshata blew a puff of smoke with her pipe. "I hate to agree with Deithard, but I'm not sure what other choice we have? We'd take a hit to our PR, and it's obviously horrible that we need to consider killing a child, but the only other alternative is allowing Kururugi to slowly siphon off our support with his mere existence."

As always, Rakshata was anything if not pragmatic.

Tohdoh shook his head rather insistently. "And once again, Britannian, what you fail to realize is that the Japanese would never accept such a cowardly tactic. It goes against everything we believe in as a people." Well, that was bullshit, Genbu's government had never been above assassinating its enemies when it called for it. "As soon as it came to light, we would lose most of our support from everyone who isn't already a radical."

Oghi clasped his hand into a fist, clenching it in anger. "Not to mention that killing a child like that is despicable, no matter how strategically necessary it might be!"

Deithard gave Oghi a condescending look. "You say that even as you allow Kozuki to go charging into battle at the same age as Kururugi? Face it, Oghi, children have always been a part of war, especially this one." Before Oghi could respond with his own retort, Deithard turned on Tohdoh. "And why are you so certain that the public will find out? It isn't as though we will be shouting that we were responsible for the boy's demise from the rooftops for all to hear, really; I understand that the boy is like a son to you, but try to be honest in the advice you give, Tohdoh."

Lelouch decided that it would be best for Zero to interject before Tohdoh leapt over the table to behead Deithard. "The Britannians would instantly trace the murder back to us; either our assassin would leave some evidence behind, or the Britannians would invent some evidence of their own; either way, we would damn ourselves as murderers in the eyes of the public."

Diethard sighed, frustration evident in his voice. "Very well, I will take your word on that, Zero, but still, what can we do now? It is not as if we can simply get Kururugi to defect; Tohdoh's report made that clear enough."

That… that was a good idea, actually.

Oghi hummed thoughtfully. "Is it possible that we could reach out to the Six Houses of Kyoto to see if they could denounce Kururugi as a traitor?"

Tohdoh shook his head. "The Six Houses of Kyoto are, legally speaking, a Britannian institution. If they denounce Suzaku publically, then that's as good as signing their own death warrant."

Lelouch used that moment to speak up once again. "We should convince Kururugi to join our cause."

Silence reigned over the room for a long moment before Diethard spoke up. "I will hardly deny that such an outcome would be ideal, Zero, in fact, it would cause our popularity to soar higher than ever before, but how is it possible? By all accounts the boy is as loyal to Britannia as any of Cornelia's royal guard."

Lelouch clasped his hands together. "Two weeks from now, Princess Euphemia shall travel to Shikine Island to inspect a naval base. That would make for an ideal opportunity to capture the Princess and her Knight, wouldn't you agree?"

Deithard considered his idea for a moment before speaking up again. "It would, but kidnapping Kururrugi is hardly much better than killing him. Do you have a plan to get him to join us?"

Lelouch nodded. "I do."

With what he knew, Lelouch was confident that he could force Suzaku's hand on the matter.

Author's Note:
I'm sort of nervous that Lelouch repeatedly focusing on Suzaku will feel repetitive to some readers, though personally, I think it's perfectly in character and makes sense for where we are in R1's timeline, where in-universe Suzaku is super important.