It had been a long two weeks, but thankfully, their mission was finally over.

They had crushed the Yakuza and returned to Alessandro after a four-day drive to his compound, where they showed him their findings.

After a brief, terse discussion of their implications, Leila and her unit quickly left and began their long drive back to the greater Tokyo area.

Like before, they had to stick to the off-road for long stretches of time, which was an annoyance. Thankfully, it wasn't pouring this time, so that was a mercy.

Leila sighed in the truck's passenger seat, looking out the window, bored beyond reason.

She knew it would not be long until they arrived, but Leila couldn't help but feel restless.

If there had been any silver lining at all to this damned mission, it was the fact that Leila was able to get a long break from having to directly interact with Zero.

Leila would again be under Zero's thumb, with no recourse but to put up with his acidic remarks about the EU's supposed hypocrisy and follow his increasingly dubious orders.

Leila would do her duty, of course, as she had always done since she convinced her adopted father to let her enlist in the military,

But that did not mean that Leila would like it, no more than she had enjoyed having to attend those damnable parties.

That was one thing that she did not miss about the EU, Leila thought with a wry chuckle.

Ryo, who was driving the truck, gave her an odd look, but Leila ignored him.

What they had found at the Yakuza's compound was troubling, Leila and Alessandro had agreed on that at least.

The manifest they had recovered from the Yakuza leader's computer was extensive; nearly a thousand weapon shipments were sent to the Chinese Federation in exchange for money and Refrain.

Of course, the Refuse trade was widespread in Area 11, and Leila had always known that the Chinese Federation was the largest provider of the foul substance. However, this was on a scale that even Alessandro, who had been staying in Area 11 for years, was unfamiliar with.

More than that, the transactions were distinct in that money and refrain were exchanged for Japanese weapons, which was rather odd for the Chinese Federation and its smugglers.

It had been concerning to both her and Alessandro, and Leila was confident it would be very concerning to Zero as well.

Leila was unsure of what it all meant, but even she could tell that it couldn't be anything good. Hopefully, Zero could use all his vaunted intellect to figure out what it meant.

She was not looking forward to speaking with him again. For all his insights, Leila could not stand his arrogance. He constantly acted like he was the smartest in the room.

Soon enough, they arrived at the Black Knights' compound, which was located in an abandoned harbor that hadn't been used since the invasion, so it made a convenient place to hide the submarine, which was their true headquarters.

As Leila dismounted from the truck, Inoue approached her. "Commander Malcal, Zero expects your report; please follow me."

Leila nodded at that. "Of course."

Akito joined her as they followed Inoue into and through the submarine, making their way to the meeting room as quickly as possible.

When they arrived, they found Zero and C.C. waiting for them.

Zero nodded at them as they walked into the room as if acknowledging their entrance. "Commander Malcal, I trust that you've solved our mutual friend's problem?'

Leila rolled her eyes at that. "I wouldn't call him a friend of mine, but yes, the Yakuza disrupting his supply shipments have been crushed."

Zero tilted his head towards her in acknowledgment. "Good, I'm glad to see that the EU is sincere." Zero paused for a moment before resuming the conversation. "Though Alessandro did tell me that you uncovered some concerning information from the Yakuza compound?"

Leila nodded at that, taking a copy of the shipping manifest out of her bag and handing it to Zero. "Yes, we've recovered evidence that the Chinese had been exchanging money and refrain in exchange for these stolen weapons shipments, for what purpose we do not know."

Zero took the manifest from her hand, quickly looking it over, Leila swore that she could practically hear him frowning beneath that ugly helmet of his. "This is rather concerning, I thank you for recovering this and bringing it to my attention, Commander Malcal."

Leila forced herself to ask the question she wanted to ask. "Do you have any idea what it could mean, Zero?"

Zero shook his head. "I could think of many different reasons as to why the Chinese Federation would switch from extracting money out of Japan to weapons. None are good, but I'll need to check with my overseas sources first."

Leila nodded at that, somewhat disappointed that he had not given her a straight answer to her question. So much for being a genius, like Tamaki always proclaimed him to be. "May I be dismissed, Zero?"

Zero waved her off. "Yes, you may leave now. Though we will have a mission briefing in an hour, so please come back in an hour from now."

Oh, joy of joys! She has more meetings to attend, during which she'll have to listen to him drone on and on about how he was a Knight of justice.

Seriously, where did he get that whole motif? A comic book? It was so childish, and yet it was the rallying cry of one of the most successful anti-Britannian uprisings in the world, all thanks to this man.

What's next? A vigilante in the Britannian mainland who styled himself as the new Robinhood?

She shouldn't think about such things; she might think them into existence.

Leila shook her head as if to dispel her thoughts and followed Akito out of the meeting room.

When they arrived at the barracks, Akito abruptly stopped and quickly looked around to see if anyone was there.

When he didn't find anyone who could overhear what he had to say, Akito finally turned around and addressed her. "Commander, now that we're back, do I have permission to investigate Oghi Kaname?"

Leila nodded. "As soon as you have an opportunity to do so, you can feel free. I would like to have a quick nap, Lieutenant Hyuuga, so please excuse me."

Akito nodded back at her. "Of course, Commander."

Akito and Leila parted ways, with her going back to her room, setting an alarm to wake her up in one hour, and taking a nap.

It was a good nap, but it was sadly cut short when Leila was woken up by her alarm, duty calling her once again.

With a sigh, Leila stretched her arms, rubbed her eyes, and got up from bed.

She made her way out of the barracks, joined by Akito, and through the submarine back to the meeting room where Leila had been only an hour ago.

When they arrived, they found Zero and the rest of his officers waiting for them.

Zero nodded at her. "Commander Malcal, welcome back; you've arrived precisely on time."

And now Leila was wishing that she had arrived late.

Leila shook her head as if to rid herself of her hostility and nodded at Zero. "We didn't want to keep you waiting for us, Zero."

Zero merely began drumming his fingers against the table. "Of course."

Without saying another word, Leila and Akito took their seats at the far end of the table.

After they took their places, Zero wasted no time. "In a week's time, Princess Euphemia and her Knight of Honor, Kururugi Suzaku, shall be inspecting a naval base in Shikine Island; today, we are here to discuss our operational plans to ambush the Princess and her Knight in order to capture Kururugi."

Leila raised an eyebrow at that. "So your solution to the Kururugi problem is to kidnap him?"

Zero nodded in response. "I've determined that capturing Kururugi and convincing him to join us is the best way forward."

Akito scoffed at that. "Why not just kill him? The issue with assassination is the dishonor of it, but killing him on the battlefield should be perfectly fine, right? He is an enemy combatant."

Tohdoh nodded. "While that is a fair argument, I do believe that Zero thinks that the benefits to our reputation at convincing the son of the Prime Minister of the righteousness of our cause far outweigh the convenience of that plan."

Akito stared back at the general. "Fair enough."

His tone indicated that he thought it was anything but.

Zero crossed his arms. "I have already determined that we will be carrying out this plan; the purpose of this meeting is to discuss the minutiae of the operation itself."

And so they did, though Leila could not shake the feeling she had that this plan was a bad one.

The past three weeks had been great, in Lelouch's opinion.

Sure, it started off poorly, with Suzaku's grief over his dead friends, but after that unfortunate event, things quickly got better from there.

The good had started when Lelouch came up with a suitable excuse to send Leila and her unit far away to Kyushu. This gave him breathing room to do things like purging resistance groups that refused to join the Black Knights, forcing various criminal groups to begin working for him and taking other measures that he knew Leila would disapprove of.

Things had gotten even better for him when Lelouch had been able to finally come up with a real plan of action to solve his Suzaku issue, which had done much to calm down the uncertainty that he and his Black Knights had been feeling regarding Suzaku and his status as a Knight of Honor.

Another good thing that had happened in the past three weeks had been Lelouch's success in reaching out to the Chinese Federation; while the Eunuchs remained ever skeptical of the viability of an independent Japan, they had acknowledged the "potential", as they called it, of the Black Knights and their ability to do damage to Britannian forces in Japan.

Another benefit of sending Leila away was that Lelouch had been able to begin communicating with the Forbidden City without the EU breathing down his neck.

Hopefully, the Black Knights would soon have ties to the European Union, the Chinese Federation, the Militarized Zone of India, and the various resistance groups of Indochina, providing a balanced range of foreign backers for Lelouch's organization.

After all, Lelouch had no intention of becoming a foreign-backed puppet, so playing the major powers against one another was a vital measure that he needed to employ.

One of his initial concerns regarding foreign backers was that the Wyvern Squadron's presence amongst his forces would make Zero look like a European puppet in the eyes of the regional powers in the Pacific, but luckily, if that had been an issue, Lelouch seemed to have overcome that through his actions.

Leila had also proven herself rather useful, her obvious dislike for Zero notwithstanding, despite the emotional anguish it had caused for Suzaku, the deaths of Lloyd Asplund and Cecile Croomy had been a significant blow to the Britannian military and its procurement, and the aid that they had provided to Alessandro, albeit reluctantly, had provided Lelouch with the leverage he had needed to get Alessandro to agree to exclusively sell his arms to the Black Knights, rather than all the resistance groups willing to do business with him, as Alessandro had done before these past few weeks.

Speaking of Alessandro, the operation in Kyushu hadn't resulted in purely good news. Lelouch hummed to himself as he inspected his Black King piece. "I'm worried about Leila's findings."

C.C. chuckled at that from her seat, that seat being the edge of his bed. "Oh? Zero, the man of miracles, nervous? Don't tell your worshippers that. They might fall into despair."

Lelouch rolled his eyes at her, frowning in annoyance. "I'm not in the mood for your jokes; what do you make of the manifest?"

C.C. twirled her hair between her fingers, sighing in response. "What is there to make sense of? That the Chinese Federation is flooding the Japanese black market with refrain? Even Tamaki could tell you that much."

Lelouch snorted at that. "Stop being so obtuse, I know you know that wasn't what I meant. It's not the selling of refrain that concerns me; it's what they are exchanging it for."

C.C. raised an eyebrow at that. "You mean the weapons? That could be for any number of reasons; Indonesia and India have been ramping up their own terrorist activities as of late; maybe the Federation is building up their own weapons reserves?"

Lelouch shook his head at that. "The resistance groups in Indonesia are too disunited to pose a threat, and I have it on good authority that the Maharajah has no intention of openly revolting against the Chinese Federation, at least for the foreseeable future. I agree that the Chinese Federation might be trying to supplement their supply of weapons with imported arms, but what kind of military action could they build up to? The Chinese Federation hasn't been having any outstanding issues with Britannia that I can recall, and the European Union is too far away to pose any real threat to them."

C.C. tapped her chin with a finger as if that would help her think of an answer faster. "Maybe they're getting ready to invade Zilkhstan? They've always had their eye on those lands, right?"

Lelouch shook his head at that. "That's true; the Chinese Federation has invaded Zilkhstan several times in the past decade; however, the Zilkhstan military has managed to repel them every single time; I don't think that they would risk it again given the intensification of Britannian military activity in the Pacific, I know that the High Eunuchs are not exactly bastions of competence, but I don't think that they would make a blunder that big, not without a good reason at least."

C.C. picked up a rook piece from the board on his desk and tossed it up and down in her hand; she pursed her lips as if concentrating. "Maybe they want to invade Japan?"

The thought was so absurd that Lelouch thought that she was trying to tell some sort of bad joke, but then he thought about it for a while.

Lelouch hummed thoughtfully. "Swazaki is still sheltering there; he's continuing to style himself as the Prime Minister of the Japanese government in exile. I should look into this when we get back to the mainland…"

C.C. chuckled; Lelouch looked back up at her, confused. "What do you find so funny?"

C.C. smirked up at him. "It looks like Leila is useful for something after all."

Lelouch rolled his eyes. "I suppose she is now if only she could stop treating me like the devil incarnate."

C.C. snorted. "She seems to like Lelouch Lamperouge well enough; it's only Zero that she actually dislikes."

Yes and that was something that Lelouch could not understand for the life of him.

He understood why she disliked Zero, but why would she like Lelouch Lamperouge? Lelouch Lamperouge was a lazy, rich commoner who coasted through life on gambling money. Surely, a soldier like her would have nothing but disdain for someone like that.

C.C. laughed at him, she probably knew what he was thinking. "You're such a tsundere."

Lelouch gave her a confused look. "What?" He shook his head. "Never mind, what are your thoughts on the upcoming operation in Skinine Island?"

C.C. looked at him, this time with a serious look on her face. "What? Do you mean your hare-brained scheme to force your boyfriend to join you and your Black Knights?

Lelouch glared at her. "He's not my—" he sighed, beyond annoyed. "That's beside the point. I fail to see how this is a hare-brained scheme, as you call it. I won't deny that it will be difficult to convince him, but I'm certain I can find a way."

It had to be this plan. Lelouch refused to kill Suzaku, who was his best friend and practically his brother in every way besides blood.

Besides, Nunnally would never forgive him if he killed Suzaku, and neither would Lelouch forgive himself.

C.C. sighed as if he was a hopeless child. "Your friend is never going to join the Black Knights, especially after his little engineer friends died on your orders unless you intend to use your geass on him?

Lelouch shook his head; that was almost worse than simply killing Suzaku; at least that way, Suzaku would die with his free will intact. "I have no intention of violating Suzaku's free will; no, I want him to willingly join me."

Especially because a part of Lelouch needed Suzaku to join the Black Knights of his own free will for the sake of his pride.

C.C. crossed her arms, looking at him with concern. "So, how are you going to get him to join you? I thought he made his thoughts on the Black Knights abundantly clear by now; I doubt you could sway him with a logical argument, not by leveraging your identity."

Lelouch smirked at her. "I have some information that I think I can use to sway him."

He really should thank Mao one of these days.

Author's Note: So, I have a confession to make, as I'm sure many of you have probably already guessed, these past seven chapters were all pre-written as a backlog, I finished writing Chapter 3 in the middle of November and finished chapter nine in either late December or early Janurary.

As such, due to having run out of backlog and my College starting up again, I probably won't be posting as frequently. Hopefully, it won't take another two years for the next chapter.
I'd also like to apologize for ending this batch of chapters on a filler chapter.