A school bell chimed for the eighth time in a day. A signal for the end of the day's classes. A great relief to most. At the front of the class, Miss Ono desperately rattled out the assignment due the next week, knowing her students would be barely listening and desperate to leave. The sound of rattling pens and thud of closing textbooks declared as much.

And among those students, sat a mildly buxom girl with pink hair, her eyes hidden behind glasses as she wore the uniform for Kuoh Academy. The girl dutifully listening to the teacher's reminder while putting her things away much more quietly than her peers.

Mash ab-Galahad. Or Mash Abigail here in Japan. Both for a much less odd and conspicuous name, and because what would effectively be a six syllable foreign surname was just cruel in a culture that almost exclusively used surnames.

"Captain!"

She heard the call from behind her, spinning around with her bag on her shoulder, uncaring of how her skirt lifted with the movement. "Katase!"

"Want to walk to club together?" the smaller girl asked, her hair a few shades more orange than Mash's own, held back by a headband. She smiled widely after making the request that would obviously be accepted.

But, Katase was a second year. The third year classes were on the top floor. "Did you come up here just to walk with me?"

"Ah, haha," her teammate laughed nervously, rubbing her neck and blushing. "Maybe. That's not a problem, is it?"

"I don't think so," the Knight answered with a small smile. "No, I appreciate the company."

Katase's smile returned to full brightness. "Great! I mean, I'm glad!" she said quickly, moving to walk side by side with her team captain. They picked up the vice captain Murayama on the way to Katase's confusing displeasure. Mash didn't understand why the two didn't get along, or at least Katase didn't get along with Murayama. They were comrades, teammates. It just didn't make sense to Mash. People who were so alike in purpose should get along, shouldn't they? It made her sad, but whenever she raised the matter with Katase she could only get mumbled apologies, promises to try to get along that would never bear fruit.

The Knight put the discontent with that situation out of her mind as they arrived at the locker room. Soon beginning to get changed for club practice. She tried not to pay too much attention to Katase's surreptitious glances. Her worship made Mash a little uncomfortable sometimes, but it felt good to be someone's role model. She hoped her example would be good! She tried her best!

She dropped her skirt, unfastened her bra and began rolling down her stockings when a sound pricked her hearing. An unwelcome sound.

"What a feast! My eyes are being blessed today! Dude, look, Murayama! Those curves!"

"84-70-81."

"Oh, but Katase! So cute and petite!"

"78.5-65-79."

"Oh shit dude! Abigail's just in her panties! The heavens bless us today with their finest delights!"

"86-56-87."

"She's so sweet and kind I almost feel bad! But this is such a magical experience the hounds of hell themselves would have to drag me away!"

Mash tried not to shudder, feeling lecherous eyes on her body. Unwanted eyes. There was only one person she wanted to look at her like that. "Master," she said via telepathy. "There are some boys peeping on us in the girl's locker room."

"What?" two voices answered at the same time. One male, one female.

"I think it might be those two," she elaborated.

"I'll be right down."

"Me too."

She dressed much faster, donning her sports bra and kendo uniform before grabbing her shinai and leaving the locker room. Not to go to the gym but to exit the building and come around the outside. Using her Knightly speed, she stood behind the two boys as they struggled to look through a small hole in the wall. Was it right to stop them to protect her team's modesty that had already been violated? Or wait for a teacher to make sure the boys would be caught and punished properly?

Well... She hadn't come out here for nothing. Someone was doing something unchivalrous to her comrades right in front of her. She couldn't let that stand, no matter how practical it might have been. "Could you please stop?" she requested loudly. Loud enough she'd easily be heard inside the locker room, especially with the hole in the wall.

"Ah!" The bald one yelped, turning around. "Ah, ah, Miss Abigail! I–!" He glanced back at the hole as the other boy in glasses turned around with similar levels of fear. Then his eyes tracked the path around the building, clearly wondering how she got behind them so fast. He then stared at the end of the shinai levelled in their direction.

At that moment, shrieks could be heard from inside the changing room. The rest of the team had realised what was happening.

"Crap...!" the boy in glasses whimpered, swallowing.

The bald boy, his confusion rapidly making way for entirely understandable fear of consequences he should have had before doing something like this, made a break for it. "Every man for himself!" Leapt to his feet and dashed along the wall, hoping to escape on his own.

Only to run headlong into a man blocking his path and bouncing back onto his backside. Staring up at the unsettlingly lanky man in a black suit as the man stared back with amethyst eyes. "How many times, Matsuda?"

"Mas– Mister Lamperouge!" Mash said with warmth in her voice as she stared at her King.

"Shiiiit!" the other boy cursed in a whine, seeing his buddy get cornered by a teacher. He turned the other way, attempting to crawl away unnoticed. Only to end up kneeling before a powerful pair of legs. He knew those legs. He didn't need to look up to know who they belonged to. "Uh, 88-58-85," he mumbled in terror.

"Stay just like that, Motohama," Miss Stadtfeld demanded. "Kneel. Grovel. Beg. For all the good it'll do you."

Mash smiled with less warmth at the arrival of the PE teacher. Former British Army Lieutenant Kallen Stadtfeld. War hero. Twenty-two years old. And well understood to be the most terrifying woman of Kuoh Academy.

Lelouch's Queen. And lover. Mash felt a twinge at that acknowledgement of the woman's status. But she ignored it.

Behind the PE teacher, the rest of the kendo club appeared, all of them carrying their training swords. "These scum!" Katase hissed. "Staring at us while we're changing! Staring at Mash!"

Mash quickly moved toward Lelouch, pointing her shinai away from him. "Um, I thought I heard something, so I came out to investigate and found them peeping through that hole in the wall, Mister Lamperouge."

He sighed. Glaring down at the boy at his feet. "Of course they were."

"I'll take care of it, Lelouch," the redheaded PE teacher offered, holding the struggling and wailing Motohama by the collar as she dragged him behind her. Grabbing Matsuda the same way.

"Thank you."

"You girls finish getting ready and get to practicing," Kallen ordered as she looked over her shoulder. "Mash is in charge while I'm gone."

"Yes, ma'am!" the girls answered, watching as the woman dragged the two boys away to whatever fate awaited them. Both of them crying in a blend of fear and despair, but also while wearing lecherous grins for what they managed to see before they were caught.

Lelouch smiled at the gathered girls, earning a smile from many of them in turn. "I'll let you get back to your practice. Sorry for the disturbance."

"Thank you for coming so quickly, Mister Lamperouge!" Mash said, bowing a little with a mild blush to her cheeks.

"Of course," he replied, sharing with her a secret smile. "Have a good evening, Miss Abigail."

"Y-You as well!"

She stayed right there, watching him go for far too long. Long enough for some of her team to link up with her. "You're staring, Mash," Murayama teased.

"Ah, right, I'm sorry."

"No, I get it," the dark haired girl shook her head. "He's stupidly pretty, isn't he? Way too pretty to be a teacher. It's weird he's not an idol or anything."

"He's like, French or something," Katase murmured irritably. "They don't have idols over there."

The vice-captain shrugged. "Still, you know what I mean. I can totally get why our adorable captain has a crush on our social studies teacher."

"Ah, she does not!" Katase denied before Mash could do it herself. Even if such an effort would've been a failure with her vibrant blush. "B-Besides, he's totally got a thing going with Miss Stadtfeld! You guys see the way he looks at her, right?! Plus they're both foreigners so they've probably got tons in common."

"Katase, that's rude," Mash admonished her.

"I'm just saying," Murayama continued in her teasing tone. "I've seen how you light up whenever he's around. How you're so quick to go talk to him whenever you see him. Either you're a teacher's pet... Or you'd like to be!"

Trying to salvage her dignity after such lewd innuendo, Mash turned, hiding her blush under her hair as she looked at her feet. "W-We need to go practice!"

The team followed her, but that only meant she couldn't escape the giggles at her expense.

Training was only awkward for a short while. The quiet giggles at the Knight's embarrassment couldn't continue once she felt she needed to regain discipline. It was always worrying for the kendo club when Mash felt the need to prove a point. Her eyes shadowed, her wooden weapon moving with a speed and skill that boggled the mind. Just a hint of her true abilities. That wasn't to say her true abilities as a Knight, but her fundamental skill with a blade, in combat. Expected to fight in the methods of kendo, sport swordfighting of an exclusively Japanese doctrine. Using a wooden weapon. None of that mattered. She didn't know how many lived who could be her superior in the way of the sword but she could say with confidence, few if any of them were human.

But in fairness in such matters... She was never human herself. Before she was a devil, she was a creation meant to be the new Knight of Chastity. A homunculus. A peerless artificial body, with a sculpted soul made from aspects of Galahad sheared from the souls of his unwitting descendants.

Even so... As she let herself show that little bit of uncanny ability, Katase and Murayama both tried to match her all the same. Even seeing something they may never overcome, they still tried. Their passion for the art was real and rare in this modern day. Even as the rest of the club scurried a little further away, those two continued to give all they had.

Mash was grateful for that. She didn't want to imagine what her time at Kuoh would have been like if she didn't have someone with whom she could share her passion. It would have been... Lonely.

She sighed in satisfaction as she enjoyed her shower after practice, secure knowing those boys were undoubtedly being dealt with quite harshly. Though not permanently. Kallen wouldn't pull punches with such behaviour. But, despite how many times something like this had happened, the two boys wouldn't be going anywhere.

"Wanna walk home together?" Katase asked as soon as Mash emerged from the gym building.

"Oh, that sounds–"

"Mash!" Yet again, someone called her name. Another familiar voice. Familiarly breathless as she appeared, resting her hands on her knees as the blonde girl caught her breath. "S-Souna, wanted to talk to you, before you go home!"

"She still has you running around the school delivering messages?" Mash asked.

"Yeah," Reika answered with a wince. "She's a harsh taskmistress compared to what I'm used to, but I'm happy to help!"

It was good to know she was doing well since Lelouch traded her to Sona. Lelouch had always treated her with some amount of caution for as long as Mash had been a part of the peerage. It had eased a little once he traded that other girl, Hiroko, to another devil Mash didn't know. But the gentle-hearted girl had never seemed to fit. Something Lelouch came to realise. That she needed much more of a guiding hand than he was willing or able to give her. So giving her to someone who not only had more of a mind to do that, as well as someone who had an ambition that revolved almost entirely around educating reincarnated devils. It was a perfect fit.

She had worried for a time. What that meant. That he had given away two of his pieces. Did that mean that he saw them as expendable? But... That worry faded quickly. She understood the decisions he had made. Reika was better off now. And Hiroko... Lelouch had always quietly hated her. Giving her away was far kinder than keeping her close to endure that hatred, or whatever else might have resulted if she was still around. And besides, he had promised she wasn't as discarded as she seemed.

"I'll be there soon," Mash promised, Reika nodding and running off, presumably to run another errand as Sona's newest Pawn. She turned to look at Katase, smiling in apology. "Some other time."

"Y-Yeah, that's cool! No worries! Goodnight!" With that string of cheerful exclamations, the petite girl turned and walked out through the school gates with her shoulders hunched in.

It was disappointing in a way. Katase was her friend and yet she still had to maintain a certain distance. There was only so close they could be when one of them had to pretend to even be the same species. This was a thought she carried as she entered the main school building again, up to the second floor and toward the student council room. Her steps stopped as she heard voices.

"I'm not going to pretend I'm horribly offended on their behalf." Lelouch. "But those two shouldn't be allowed to get away with such behaviour in perpetuity."

"It's just a little peeking on naked girls. It's nothing to lose one's mind over." Sona.

"You made that clear when you shortened the skirt length of the uniforms. I know you don't care. Humans do."

And there was the reason those two serial voyeurs were never expelled. Were it a human-run school, they would have had multiple suspensions by now. Even if they wouldn't have been expelled, a significant 'if', they would have been in danger of it. But Kuoh wasn't a human-run school. Rias controlled it at night, Sona controlled it during the day, as per their agreement. Giving Sona control of the school during class and after school activities. She controlled the rules, the curriculum to an extent, and punishments. In essence, the school full of human students worked by the moral compass of a devil. Unwanted voyeurism, barely worthy of notice. Fights? Only discouraged because Sona in particular preferred solving disputes intellectually rather than physically. And even then, physical altercations weren't anywhere near as harshly punished as they would be in other schools.

"Are you telling me how to run this school?"

A mildly frustrated sigh. "No. I'm giving my best advice on something worth keeping in mind. Maybe the most important lesson you can take from running a human school. They don't think like we do. And when you open your school, neither will the reincarnated devils who attend it. Sure, maybe they will eventually, but your students will mostly be newly reincarnated. Understanding the differences between devils and humans, yokai, giants, fey, and so on. How they think differently. How they feel differently. That's going to be important to keep things running smoothly."

Mash smiled as she hid behind a corner, listening in on the conversation. Her Master was so considerate. Sona was calculating but practical, Rias was kind but aloof, but Lelouch really did care about people as people. He was maybe the only pureblood devil she knew who did.

"I suppose that isn't untrue," Sona admitted grudgingly, and Mash could practically hear the adjustment and shine of her glasses. "Even so, I intend to run a school for devils, reincarnated or not. They will be expected to abide by devil standards."

"And that will be entirely fair then, but that isn't this school. This is a human school. It's an opportunity to work on a little empathy for non-devils. Have you asked the formerly human members of your peerage about this sort of thing? Answers like 'I trust you to know best, President' don't count."

Another, more feminine sigh. "I will do so. And... I suppose I can speak to those boys personally and give them a more formal warning." Sona's voice suddenly grew warmer. "You make so much more work for me, do you know that? This suddenly chivalrous view wouldn't be because it was your Knight they were peeping on? I know you can be possessive."

"Is that a problem?" Lelouch asked with a smile in his voice.

"I'm looking forward to our date tomorrow night," the devil heiress said in an unsubtle change of subject. "Rias is still coming, right?"

"Yes. She told me to tell you she won't come unless you repeal the ban on manga on campus. Which means she'll absolutely come, if only to plead her case again."

Mash's lips pursed. She didn't like listening to this part. Thus, she walked quietly the last few steps to round the corner and interrupt them. "Reika said you wanted to speak to me?" Mash asked.

"Oh, Mash!" Sona said in mild surprise wearing a slight flush, yet continuing as unflappable as ever. "Yes. Do you have the updated kendo club registry completed? It seems we need it more urgently than I was aware, for the sake of the competition in August."

"Yes, I do! One moment!" Reaching into her bag, she rifled through it for a few seconds before drawing a handful of completed forms. "Here you are!"

"Thank you. That was all we needed. We'll make sure everything is squared away for you." And then... Sona effectively declared the conversation over, her head turning in clear dismissal as she looked at her fiance.

"I'll just... Be going then."

"Oh, Mash," Lelouch said suddenly, "If you like, we can teleport home together if you'll give me a few minutes."

"No thank you." She would have preferred it. But she knew Sona wouldn't want her to rush him. And... They were having a private moment that she had intruded on. It wasn't fair or right to steal his attention for herself. "I think... I'd like to walk home. To take some time for myself, if that's alright?"

"If that's what you'd prefer, of course."

It was. It was what she felt she needed. Time to be alone. Time to think.

Time to wonder why she felt such jealousy.

She had no right to feel this way. She knew that. She didn't have a crush like her teammates said. Not on Lelouch. She couldn't. She was his servant and he was her master. They didn't have that kind of relationship.

Even if Kallen had that.

Even if Ana had that.

The Knight walked, perhaps trudged, through the streets of Kuoh. Trying to forcefully expel her unpleasant thoughts. What was the point of them if they only made her hurt? She didn't hurry home. Instead, she ate out at a fast food restaurant, sitting in her booth seat and people watching. Imagining their daily lives from the little she could observe of them in this snapshot moment of their day. So many came in, ate at a rapid pace, then left just as quickly. Like they had somewhere to be. Like they had a purpose. Like every moment was their most precious possession.

It was late when she returned home to their modest house (by devil standards). Later than it should have been. It was a school night. Making sure to not make too much noise, Mash crept through the house, looked down at Shirone sleeping on the couch under a blanket. She had fallen asleep after a sugar crash, most likely. Carefully, the Knight pulled the blanket up to more fully cover the nekoshou, followed by a gentle pet of her head that set the girl's ears twitching as she let out a soft 'nya'.

Into the kitchen to find a note.

'We missed you at dinner. I made sure Shirone didn't get the last piece of cake! =D
-Ana'

A mild reprimand and a kind gesture that brought a smile to Mash's face again. She opened the fridge–

'Sorry. I ate the last piece of cake nya.
-Shirone'

... It was hard to be disappointed or mad when it was that funny. Mash had to work hard not to giggle as she closed the fridge again, heading upstairs to her bedroom. Passing by Lelouch's room where–

... Sara too. Sara had that.

She could hear it. And only a moment later as she passed out her own bedroom window to loom outside of his, she could see it. The muscular woman bouncing aggressively atop him. Grunting in time with the creaks of the bed frame.

It wasn't the same. Mash needed no discussion with the woman to understand that. There was no romantic inclination between her and Lelouch. Not like there was with Rias, Sona, Ana, Kallen, both Kallens. They all held feelings for him. But Sara... Mash hadn't been expecting it. Hadn't seen any indication this might happen. And so she could only conclude that it was casual. 'Scratching an itch' as she had heard Kallen put it once.

... Would that be alright? If... If she approached asking him to scratch her itch? No, he'd never believe that. He was her master. He knew her well enough to know she didn't think like that.

She was being silly. She was a servant. Her master's Knight. She would protect and serve him. That was her role. Her purpose.

She crept back to her room, saw her pet guinea pig scratching at his cage. A welcome distraction from the ongoing creaking. "Hey, Winston," she whispered, topping up his food. A gift from Lelouch when they first moved into the house. A chubby little thing. Skittish, but he calmed right down when she held him in her hand that first time. "Don't be too greedy, Winston. You're putting on weight!"

The tiny animal ignored her advice, continuing to nibble away.

She sighed. She could relate. She couldn't get away from wanting things she shouldn't want either. "Maybe... Maybe if that's how I try?" she thought aloud, continuing to whisper as she flopped into bed. Her inner turmoil prevented any enjoyment or comfort from her favourite fluffy pyjamas. "Offer to.. .To serve him? In bed? Mm, but that makes me sound like a... Hnnn..." That was more or less what Sara was doing right that moment, wasn't it? Was she judging one of her comrades for following her desires? For following a desire they shared?

That was it. She was understanding it wrong. The answer became clear as her eyes landed on the sword hanging on her wall. Enchanted to come to her hand no matter where she was when she would call it to her. The crux of her dilemma lay not in what she wanted, but in what she was.

"Father." Was she speaking to Lancelot? Or to Galahad? Even she didn't know. "Is it wrong for me to think this way? Would you be disappointed to know I have these desires? Galahad... Galahad was supposed to be pure. Chaste. Am I wrong? Was I made wrong?"

A homunculus. An artificial human-turned-devil. A soul sculpted from more than a hundred others. Mash ab Galahad. The one made from Galahad to be Galahad.

But she wasn't.

"I am who I am. I'm one made of many. A mash." She wasn't Galahad no matter how much everyone who made her wanted her to be. A failure in creation. Would Lancelot have fought so hard for her if he knew she was such a failure? If, even if allowed to live beyond her incredibly brief human lifespan, she would still fail to measure up to the one she was made to imitate?

But more importantly... Would it matter?

"I... I want to live for everyone I am." For all the people who didn't get to. For all the lives sacrificed so she could exist. "Experience everything, the good and the bad. Is it so bad that it includes... That? Even if it goes against what I was made to be, is it wrong to just be me?"

-(-)-

A/N This chapter seen very early by my generous supporters on THE GREAT FORBIDDEN P! FEAR THE P! LOVE THE P!