There was a sick nostalgia, seeing the unwavering attention of Bain's peerage. The handful of devils staring at him without thoughts of their own. Waiting for his instructions. Given what they had planned to do, to murder a child for power, there was only so much guilt Lelouch was capable of feeling.

He was surprised, perhaps disheartened, to find that the amount of guilt was none. He remembered during the early days of the first Black Rebellion. He didn't carefully consider every use of Geass. He used it when and where he deemed it a worthwhile expediting measure to cut out problematic logistical issues. Like sourcing his Zero garb without leaving any kind of trail or witnesses. The moral implications were minimal. He would use it for short term commands, use people and their expertise for at most a week and then leave them to live their lives none the wiser.

But then, the second rebellion. He was far less careful, far less considered when it came to using his power. Especially toward the end. The Britannian court were a pit of vipers. He stole their free will, one and all. Schneizel. He had become Zero's slave in all but name. Lelouch had needed to become a monster, and so he acted the part of a monster. Abused Geass to its limits. Subverted wills when it was convenient. He was a monster. That was the point. And he believed it would all be worth it for the sake of a peaceful world. But the guilt had persisted. It was a cold comfort to have that reminder that he wasn't really a monster. Or perhaps he had become a monster, for wasn't it worse to know the horror of his actions and commit them regardless?

And here he was. In a basement laboratory belonging to a devil. Doing the same thing he had done in the darkest days of his past life. Feeling no remorse. They... Bain. Bain wanted to complete his research. To have something to show his superiors. To prove, to validate his worth as a scientist. Lelouch could ask the man his motivations but he didn't need to. He had the man pegged from the start. Bain didn't care about becoming a Super Devil. The power he would have gained from stealing Shirone's life force would have meant nothing compared to proving it was possible. His actions weren't driven by a lust for power, but by vanity. To Bain's view, murdering children was justified for the sake of proving himself. No. Not only did Lelouch not feel guilt, he could understand why he felt no guilt.

His gaze drifted to the others. Them though... He stared one in the eye. "Who are you?" The man just stared. Right. Questions weren't orders. "Answer my questions. Who are you?"

"Luvall Gretz, Low-Class Devil, Pawn of Bain Naberius," he answered mechanically.

"Who were you before that?"

"Luvall Gretz, Low-Class Devil."

So an ordinary underworld citizen. "And do you enjoy the work you do here?"

"No."

"Why is that?"

"Master Bain doesn't take failure or success well. He is never satisfied and takes that dissatisfaction out on us."

"Did you have any misgivings about what you would be doing today? Taking the child nekoshou and taking her life for Bain's experiment?"

"No."

Surprise was written across Lelouch's face. And here he was expecting his second-guessing conscience had found the source of guilt he was looking for. "No? Why is that?"

"The nekoshou are irritating. They are research subjects and yet they are treated better than we servants. Living in comfort upstairs while we toil down here. Their survival was never an expectation or desired outcome of these experiments. The sacrifice of one or both was a predicted end result."

Dispassionate man with a chip on his shoulder. Lelouch supposed it was understandable that Bain would seek out a peerage of servants who were like-minded if he had no interest in power. And breeding resentment against the nekoshou meant even if they did have some niggling of conscience, it would be suppressed. Did Bain plan that? It wasn't impossible. Well, given the circumstances the Bael heir could easily ask to assuage his curiosity.

No, such things didn't matter. Bain had played his part. Capable manipulator or not, his ambitions ended here. "Bain Naberius."

"Yes, my lord."

"Who were– Answer my questions. Who were the sponsors of your research?"

"My uncle Radom Naberius and Tsirita Nebiros."

Wonderful. Confirmation. Geass had the ability to push past the limitations of a person to fulfil commands. Bain may not have cared overmuch for the names of his benefactors but the knowledge was still there in his mind. "Do you have correspondence from Tsirita Nebiros?"

"Probably."

Lelouch frowned. An unusual answer under Geass. "Probably?"

"I don't care to read correspondence. If they need to speak with me badly enough they'll come in person."

Ugh. Of course. "Trade Kuroka to me."

The Geassed devil twitched. "I cannot do that. You already have a Bishop."

... Bain had to use both Bishops to reincarnate Kuroka. He acquired her when she was a child, and he had to use both bishops. Nekoshou had powerful capabilities and great potential but still! He was a High-Class devil from a pillar family! Surely–! No, no. That didn't matter. Bain's inadequacy was immaterial. The bottom line was Lelouch couldn't take Kuroka from him that way like he had planned. All that patience, waiting for this situation to boil over so he could swoop in to save the feline damsel and earn her loyalty was a complete waste. Fine. Maybe Sai would want her? He had started building his own peerage, beginning from the top. Lelouch was actually rather jealous Sairaorg had already found his Queen. "You will remand the two nekoshou to my custody."

The devil's fists clenched. "Of course, my lord."

"You will find every bit of correspondence sent to you by Tsirita Nebiros or anyone else from the House of Nebiros. You will hand it all over, along with any record of your breakthrough on using sage arts to steal life force, then forget every bit of it, treating that line of research as a dead end."

The light in Bain's eyes flickered, life coming into his expression. Desperation. Horror. "No!" His exclamation didn't come out as a denial, much as the devil might have wanted it to. Instead, it was pleading. Begging. He was being controlled, ordered to erase all trace of his life's work. The one thing he believed gave his life meaning. It was no surprise his consciousness would rebel. "Please, Lord Bael, don't do this! Please! I beg you! My life's work!"

"You will hand over," Lelouch repeated firmly, mercilessly, "Every record of your breakthrough on using sage arts to steal life force, then forget all of it, treating it as a dead end."

"I–" Euphemia li Britannia had a strong will and she couldn't fight the compulsion for long. Bain did not have a strong will. "Yes, my lord."

"Over the next few months, you will kill each member of your staff, appearing to any who might care as if you blamed them for your failure to achieve results. Five months from now you will take your own life in shame for your worthless existence."

Tears of frustration and despair ran down the broken man's cheeks as he felt his resistance collapse. Knowing his end was coming for him. An end to his life that would forever turn his legacy to ash, leaving him as a worthless failure who achieved nothing.

Lelouch smiled. For what Bain had been trying to do, he deserved nothing less.

-(-)-

Lelouch had spent the next short while cementing the orders for the others, making sure they would play their roles to the letter. And of course making sure none of them would speak of his involvement in their affairs beyond a visit for an unrelated matter and a convenient way for a maddened Bain to get rid of useless test subjects. Once their orders were complete, the Bael heir returned upstairs, 'politely' requesting everyone convene in the sitting room. Shirone woke up briefly as they sat down, quickly squirming out of Kuroka's arms to curl up in Lelouch's lap and fall asleep again.

"So we're supposed to just go with you?" Kuroka asked archly after the situation was explained. Or at least a sanitised version of it. "Trade one master for another and hope you turn out better?"

"He is!" Ana insisted. Feeling shocked that Kuroka would even compare Bain and Lelouch as masters even only knowing Lelouch for a short time.

Lelouch raised a hand, the pale Bishop frowned and looked away. "You have very few options, I'm afraid. As a reincarnated devil you can't go off on your own without your master's permission. Bain has 'very kindly' offered to trade you to my brother Sairaorg." He ignored the growling snarl she let out. She knew as well as he that Bain didn't do anything kindly, correctly surmising that pressure was applied to get him to agree. "You can accept this. Serve under a King who wouldn't seek to use you or your sister as research subjects." He snorted at the very idea of it. "Sai doesn't have a scientific bone in his body. Or," he shrugged, "You could go stray. That is always a terrible but present option. As I said before, you would be hunted. Not a life I would wish on a child. And if you left Shirone behind, best case scenario she gets reincarnated too, by someone pleasant. Even in that best case, she would likely be used in an effort to hunt you down."

"You won't just let me leave?"

The Bael heir's lips curled slightly. A not-quite-smile. "I can be kind but not that kind. That would be an act of self-sacrifice on my part that would be untenable." Zekram would tear him to shreds for being that much of a bleeding heart. Letting a resource like two nekoshou go would be inexcusable. Both politically and personally.

"Nya, are you sure?" Kuroka asked with a coy smirk. "I'd be more convinced if you weren't treating Shirone so gently." Lelouch gave no reaction to her comment. Just continued to gently stroke the young girl's hair soothingly. "I want her to stay with me."

"Of course," he agreed to such a thing without hesitation. "Though I'll remind you the dangers of a rare species such as a nekoshou living in the underworld. Grotesque as he was, the one thing he did protect you from was poachers. You wouldn't be unprotected at Bael Castle of course, but the danger of someone else taking her into their peerage would still exist. She could be reincarnated as a devil in Sai's peerage alongside you. It would give her a measure of protection from outside factors and, should you still wish to go stray," he said with utmost confidence that they wouldn't, "You could do so together. So far as I can tell, there would be no downside."

The black cat didn't look entirely convinced. "I need to think."

He nodded. "That's perfectly fine. These are big decisions, of course. I've contacted my Rooks. Sairaorg should arrive some time tomorrow. You can make your choice then." He paused, before adding, "I would recommend staying away from Bain and his assistants for the time being."

She sniffed in disdain. As if she would do anything else.

Later that night, she held Shirone from behind as they sat on her bed, the black cat's long nails scritching at the white kitten's ears, earning a happy little purr.

"Are we going away?" Shirone asked without warning.

"You weren't asleep?" her sister asked, her fingers stopping for only an instant before Shirone's head was already pressing insistently against them, begging her to keep going.

"Nyaaaa..." she mewled as the scritching resumed. "I heard little bits. Did Mister Bain do something bad?"

"He..." Kuroka's face creased in worry. She hadn't wanted to tell Shirone what had happened. Or why. She still didn't. "He was going to do something very bad. I wasn't going to let him. Then Lelouch intervened and got him to stop. So now I'm going to be traded to someone else and we can go away where Bain can't," hurt you, "Do anything bad."

Shirone nodded seriously. Or as seriously as she could while getting ear scratchies. "I like Lelouch. He's nice. And Anya. She was scary but now she's nice."

"Nya, I still think she's scary," Kuroka admitted, "Guess you're braver than me, Shirone." The younger nekoushou let out a smug little 'nya' at the compliment. "Shirone... Would you want to become a devil?"

The girl seemed to give the question serious thought. "Sure! I already like sleeping in the daytime, nya!" Well. 'Seemed.'

"Isn't there anything else you worry about losing?" Kuroka pressed, trying to convey how serious the question was. "Being a devil is different, you know?"

"What would I lose?"

It was an innocent, honest question. And yet it brought Kuroka up short. It was a very good question. What would Shirone lose by becoming a devil? They were youkai, but that didn't mean much. Not to them. It wasn't like they had roots they could go back to, learn the culture of their people. They were born to a researcher who died, then got scooped up by another one. Neither cared overmuch for teaching them about their heritage. Where they came from was more like trivia than heritage they could connect to. Would she lose her freedom? She didn't have freedom anyway. Once again, test subjects almost since birth. And now they were in the underworld, there would be no end of people who would seek to put her under their control. Lelouch wasn't wrong. They were valuable. Powerful. And devils coveted power. Unless she could escape to the human world, there was no absolute freedom in her future. And even in that idealistic scenario, there would be others seeking to use her.

And Kuroka wouldn't be there to protect her.

"I'm going to be in Lelouch's brother's peerage after tomorrow," she said after a long silence. "We can... Talk to them about what you can do then too, okay?"

"Kay."

-(-)-

"Sara, Sai!" Lelouch greeted the other members of his peerage at the doorstep, going for a handshake and instead getting pulled into a hug by his younger brother, as tended to happen.

"Lulu! It's been a little while!" the beefy younger Bael cheered. "I was starting to worry, you know?"

"Yes," Sara agreed sternly, "I would very much appreciate if you wouldn't go off on your own like this without me- Us. Without us to watch your back."

"Ah, yes, sorry about that," the elder brother winced. "Though I did have Ana with me."

"Even so."

"Come on, Lulu! You said you've got some people for me to meet!"

"Right, of course," Lelouch nodded, leading the pair into the house. The two nekoshou stood, one anxious, the other cheerful and curious. "Kuroka, Shirone, this is my Rook, Sara Murgia. And my younger brother, Sairaorg Bael."

Kuroka more or less ignored the blonde woman to take in the appearance of the long-haired slab of beef she seemed just about ready to devour. "Nice to meet you, nya," she curtsied.

Shirone on the other hand, narrowed her eyes slightly, studying the new people, sniffing.

"Shall we sit?" Lelouch suggested, the group adjourning to the sitting room. Ana and Sara sat off to the sides as the sisters and brothers sat opposite each other... For about four seconds before Shirone got up, came to the Bael's side and sniffed Sairaorg once more. With a dismissive flick of her tail she turned her back on him, climbing into Lelouch's lap again.

For his part, Sairaorg not only took the dismissal in stride, he found it funny seeing Lulu's affect on girls in action once again. And funnier when his brother began petting the catgirl without a second thought. "So Kuroka, right?" he asked the black cat still sitting across from him with a winning smile. "It's nice to meet you. Lulu said you're a Bishop?"

"Lulu, nya?" Kuroka had to ask.

"Lelouch was hard to say when I was little."

Kuroka tittered a little. It was a good start. Sairaorg was clearly not as uptight as Bain, nor was Lelouch if he didn't raise a word of complaint about the nickname. "Yes. I'm actually two Bishops. But my ability with senjutsu, yojutsu and other magic I hope would make the cost worth it." It felt strange to have to sell herself like that.

"Well, Lulu spoke well of you so I wouldn't be here if I didn't trust his judgement. I hope we get along, okay?"

She felt herself flush as he sent her that same winning smile again. "Nya..." Though she quickly came to her senses, remembering what she needed to ask. "I, I spoke with Shirone. Would it be possible for you to reincarnate her?"

"Nyo!" Shirone, suddenly, unexpectedly shouted. "I wanna stay with Lulu and Anya– Hey, that is easier to say!" she finished with a smile, seeming to forget her ire between one moment and the next.

Kuroka meanwhile suddenly found herself in the unenviable position of having to explain something to a (possibly?) angry child. "Shirone, if you join Lulu's peerage instead, you and I would be separated."

The two brothers looked at one another, confused. "Why would you be separated?"

"Master Lelouch," Ana spoke quietly, "You only introduced him as your brother."

"Nyaha, Anya's funny! His name's Lulu now!"

As amused and embarrassed as he was that not only had that nickname stuck like glue in two lifetimes it was even beginning to spread beyond his family, he needed to clear the misconception. "I'm sorry. I should have been clearer. Sairaorg is my brother but also my other Rook. You two wouldn't be separated if she joined my peerage instead. At least, not until you're both at the age you might want to be."

"That won't happen," Kuroka swiftly denied.

The Bael heir could believe it based on his own experience. "In any case I have a..." He looked closer at Shirone, checked her value relative to him. "A spare bishop piece if that would be acceptable."

"Shirone? Would you like to be a Bishop?" Kuroka asked kindly. "Like me and Anya?"

"Yeah!"

The elder nekoshou's eyes returned to the boy's who had saved both she and her sister from potentially dire fates. Even so, she needed to make sure. "You'll protect her? You won't hurt her?"

"You have my word."

"... Alright."

"Then if you'll excuse me for a moment, I'll go fetch Bain so we can get the trade ritual underway."

Bain, as per his role, continued to be an irritable prick who treated the entire affair as a waste of his valuable time. More than once he tried to hurry things along in hopes of getting back to his ever so valuable work. Even the two new evil pieces he received once the ritual was over were treated with disdain. All above suspicion.

The moment the ritual was complete, Kuroka had decided to snuggle herself against Sairaorg's arm, a purr reverberating in her throat.

"Are you ready, Shirone?" Lelouch asked as the white cat lay flat on the table.

She nodded sharply, trying to meet the solemnity of the moment. Failing thanks to the cute pout of severity, but an effort was made. Lelouch retrieved his second Bishop piece, placing it atop the girl's chest, his hand hovering above as the piece sank beneath her skin. Once it was over she yawned, murmuring quietly, "Nyaa... Sleeeeeepy..."

"Come on, kitten," Lelouch called to her, carefully picking her up and carrying her with one arm. "You can sleep in the car." He looked to Kuroka. "Are all of your things packed?"

She nodded. Lelouch quickly sent Sara to fetch their bags and bring them to the car, the six of them bundling into the luxury vehicle for the somewhat long drive home. Shirone slept the entire way sat on her new King's knee, drooling on his coat. She was not eager to wake once the car stopped, having to be carefully walked into the castle as she slowly came back to full wakefulness.

"Welcome home, young masters," Rudolf greeted the Bael sons on their return.

Sleepy Shirone rubbed at her eyes, looked up, and up, and up at the large man talking to them. He smelled sour. He looked sour. He wasn't interesting. She continued to sniff as she looked around. As she took in the spacious foyer, the many doors leading to other parts of the castle, her eyes widened.

"NEW HOUSE!" she shouted with glee, cackling, "Nyahahaha!" as she ran off through a randomly chosen doorway, eager to explore her new domain.