A Young Girl's Guerilla War Chapter 36: Rising of the Sun, Plots, a Code Geass + Youjo Senki: Saga of Tanya the Evil Crossover fanfic

(As a birthday gift to myself, I finally wrote a chapter. A big thank you to Sunny and MetalDragon for their editing and encouragement. Thank you also to 0th Law, Aminta Defender, and KoreanWriter.)

AUGUST 15, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
0430

Before my eyes had snapped fully open in the early morning darkness, I was already on my feet, pistol in hand and my thumb on the safety.

From across the narrow studio room, one of the three cheap cell phones lined up on Ohgi's old cot buzzed again. Its diode flashed a bright red.

Relaxing marginally, thumb creeping away from the safety, I crawled to the bed, looked down, and resisted the urge to spin up my enhancement suite. I did not need magic for everything, certainly not for just examining the contents of my own room.

Besides, just the thought of using magic made something deep in my chest ache with fatigue.

Let's see… It's not Diethard's phone… Not Naoto and Ohgi's phone…

I swallowed hard as the third phone lit up once again.

I had only given one person the number for that particular burner phone.

Kaguya.

"What cookies did I serve when we first met?" I demanded of the faintly buzzing line, phone tucked up against my ear.

My pistol was still firmly in hand, just in case.

"Chocolate chip cookies!" the voice on the other end replied in a familiar Kyoto-ben. "The cheap good kind!"

Relaxing, I put the pistol down on Ohgi's cot and sank back down onto Naoto's. Chocolate chip could have been anybody's guess, but only somebody with the atrocious sense of taste that appeared to characterize the nobility of all societies would have deemed the cookies I had served at that meeting "good".

"Hello, Lady Kaguya," I greeted in Japanese, putting some warmth into my voice, trying not to sound like I had just been forced awake by the call. "How may I help you this morning?"

"Ah…" Kaguya breathed, the line going silent for a minute. I heard slow, breezy sounds; inhales and exhales.

Trying to calm herself down, I guessed. She's nervous.

Brace for the worst.

"So…" Kaguya began again, speaking at last, just as I was starting to wonder if she had gone to sleep, "remember how, when you said 'revere the Emperor' at our first meeting, I said that was probably me…?"

"Yes," I replied without hesitation, remembering exactly how that flippant response had provoked immediate consternation. "I do remember you saying something along those lines."

"Well…" More breathing. "Well… That's changed."

Two can play this game, I thought, hands clenching on each other as I took in a deep breath. I need to be awake for this.

"Tanya?" Kaguya asked, her voice worried. "Did you just… groan? Are you alright?"

"Fine, Lady Kaguya. Just fine," I replied shortly, unclenching my teeth as directed mana flowed through my brain, stimulating me to full, forced wakefulness. "What has changed, if I may be so bold as to inquire?"

"...My coronation was two days ago," she replied unhappily. "So… 'probably' doesn't really apply anymore."

"I… see," I said, speaking slowly as my mind blurred.

We have an empress now? What does that matter? We aren't even a sovereign country anymore!

No, I told myself, taking hold of my racing thoughts and pushing away the clamor. Think. Why does it matter? Are you Japanese, or are you Eleven?

Deep breaths. One, two, three.

Why did it matter? Think, we don't just need men and material to win this war, we need morale. We need symbols to rally our spirit behind. Symbols like the old office of the Emperor. An office abolished by the old oligarchs who founded the defunct Republic. The oligarchs who failed us.

The oligarchs are gone now, or will be soon. And now we have a monarch once again.

"Your Imperial Majesty," I said, scrambling to remember lessons long, long ago, in the childhood of a life two deaths removed from the present. "May your rule last forever."

"Please don't," came the unhappy reply. "Not from you… And not before you hear why I called."

And now the hammer falls, I thought, absurdly calm as something under my breastbone screamed in panic and pain. We have an emperor… No, an empress. The sun is truly rising.

Rising far too early.

"I take it that this is not a social call, then," I replied, striving for equanimity. "I can't say I thought it was."

"It is not," Kaguya confirmed, and took another breath. When she spoke again, her voice was resolute. "I call upon you to fulfill the deal we struck. Loyal service for loyal support."

"Our deal stands," I affirmed, my tongue heavy in my mouth. Around me, I could feel Shinjuku like a smothering blanket, enfolding me in the arms of hundreds and thousands. "Your food has fed thousands, your weapons have armed hundreds, your medicine has kept us healthy. What are you asking for, Your Majesty?"

There is no escape.

"To steal a line, the pebbles have voted for an attack on Britannia," Kaguya said, her own voice rich with stress and, behind its superficial brightness, clotted with despair. "They even voted for their own figurehead in yours truly. I tried to discourage them, believe me… I tried to convince them that it was all too rash, but…" she sighed again. "But, in the end, I guess I was just a girl before I was an empress."

"I had that problem too," I replied, and winced as I heard the snap in my own voice. "But," I continued, more conciliatory, "I suppose having a line of rifles pointed at their heads will make even the most thick-skulled old greybeard change their mind."

"I suppose so," Kaguya husked a laugh. "I could have perhaps used a few of those… But that water has gone well past the bridge now."

"...You have called in your marker to demand that I join in this mass suicide." It was a statement, not a question.

Already, I could see the howitzers lifting their long black arms up into the sky.

"Yes…" Kaguya admitted, "and no…"

"And no?" Suddenly, my heart was in my mouth. Had she found some way out of this trap, this country-wide trap?

Damn you, I cursed the girl, remembering dancing green eyes flecked with gold. How dare you inflict hope upon me, you vicious bitch?

"It turns out that becoming an empress, even a puppet empress, comes with some benefits. 'Rank has its privileges,' as you might say," Kaguya said with a dry little chuckle. "Not very many, certainly not as many as I might claim were I to have an actual crown or control over even a single plot of truly sovereign land, but a bit. Enough to make some alterations to the original plan. Alterations that will require some of those rifles you mentioned earlier, and trustworthy soldiers to wield them."

"Tell me what you need," I demanded, trying to keep the desperation from my voice. And doing my best to ignore the suspicion that the meat I was biting at concealed a truly massive barb. "What is the plan? What are your orders?"

"The Rising will happen," Kaguya affirmed, "a coordinated strike at Settlements, military bases, and Britannian enclaves great and small across the country. That much is out of my hands to stop. But in the first hours of the Rising, before anybody in the Administration truly understands the scope and the organization involved in our effort, a special unit will enter the Fuji Mining Complex, concealed within trucks with Sumeragi Industries livery. This unit will consist of a squad picked from the JLF's Knightmare Corps, along with as many of your best as you can give me.

"This unit," Kaguya bleakly continued, no enthusiasm in her voice, "will first take control of the Mining Complex, allowing the remainder of Colonel Tohdoh's command to enter the Complex. Next, they will plant explosive charges at a number of key locations throughout the mine according to the direction of my experts. Finally, they will hold the Complex against any attempt by Britannian forces to retake the mines.

"And should all else fail, every officer and sergeant of the unit will have the detonation codes for the charges. The detonation of even one will be sufficient to initiate a chain of sympathetic explosions throughout the length and breadth of the Sakuradite veins that make up the Fuji Lode."

And here we are again, staring into the jaws of a suicide pact, just like the old men. I could see the bleak humor in it, though I wouldn't be laughing. Only three days ago, I had made myself a dictator out of the sincere desire to maintain all that I had built, despite efforts from within to overturn all that I had labored towards on a single throw of the dice. But unlike Nishizumi, Kaguya has proven herself a reliable partner. Which means diplomacy might have a chance.

"...And then what?" I asked, breaking the pause that had grown tumorlike across the line's dead air. "If all goes according to plan, you will have put, at the very least, the entirety of the Home Islands into a massive hostage situation. I assume you have some ideas for the negotiations to follow?"

"I have a few," Kaguya acknowledged, with a sort of giggling snort utterly lacking in humor. "While I'd love to just insist that the Britannians leave, I don't think that will happen for a whole range of options. Instead, I think the best achievable solution would be a sort of return to the pre-war arrangement, where we pay Britannia to stay away with our Sakuradite."

"It has merit," I grudgingly admitted. "Leaving aside the Britannian hunger for conquest, the only thing they really need from us is our Sakuradite."

But what is it that we really need? We would effectively be purchasing protectorate status from the Britannians in place of direct rule; we still would not be free, as we would forever labor under the hanging sword of Britannia, always keenly aware that, should the exports stop, the Britannians would return. And when the rest of the world languishes under the Britannian heel, conquered by war machines powered by Japanese Sakuradite, what then?

And besides, a darker, less reasoning voice added up, what about the shattered cities and squandered lives? The destruction and theft of cultural treasures, the devastation of infrastructure, and the enslavement and export of tens of thousands? What about the callous cruelty, all of our dead sent to landfills with the trash?

Where in a peace purchased with our scarce remaining natural resources can we find our revenge?

And… and even that fragile bridge towards peace was founded on the assumption that the Brittanians would allow such an affront as an Area overthrowing its overlords. Would their pride let them give up the mines? Even if they still exact their tribute, the loss would doubtless stick in their craws. Their supreme yet glass-jawed superiority could force their hands and prompt another attack, an effort to call the "Craven Eleven Bluff," and then we'd be forced in turn to make good on our threat.

And let the world burn.

"I have a suggestion," I said, breaking the renewed conversational pause. "Will you hear me out?"

"Absolutely," Kaguya immediately replied. "You're the one who knows about this kind of thing, after all."

I am? Whatever gave her that impression?

"A threat only has teeth so long as the willingness to execute exists," I began, laying the first bricks of my argument on a bed of conventional wisdom. "I am not convinced that men and women fighting for the safety of their families and the freedom of their home would be willing to push the button destroying everything that they love when the moment comes. I am not questioning their bravery nor their dedication, mind; I am simply stating that, when the cost of something you love is everything else that you hold dear, hesitation is only to be expected."

All of which can just as well be applied to you or, indeed, to me, I reflected, alone in my dark room save for the phone's weak light. If push comes to shove, Kaguya, would you be willing to kill our entire nation in a final act of spite?

Would I?

But if she'll listen…

"We can find somebody," Kaguya said, grimly certain. "There is no shortage of people without any families left, after all…"

"Certainly," I agreed, "and do you want any of those people to wield life and death over your head?" The answer was obvious, so I didn't bother waiting for it. "Instead, consider this: We do not need to destroy the Sakuradite, we simply need to render it unusable for the Britannians."

"...True," Kaguya admitted, mulling the idea over. "But anything short of destroying the Sakuradite veins only means that the Britannians lose access to the lode for a limited period. Assuming we lose, of course."

"Which we would, given unlimited time and no other constraints on the Britannians' freedom of action," I conceded, "but that is very much not the case. Consider the current state of affairs beyond our borders, Kaguya: Cornelia, the Witch of Britannia, is deeply enmeshed in a campaign intended to conquer a territory stretching from the Nile to Anatolia to the Caspian Sea; the campaign to complete the conquest of Malaya is stretching into its second year; Indochina, a secondary theater, has roared back to life with the annihilation of a Britannian field army, and every single one of the New Areas is awash with rebellion.

"In short," I concluded, "Britannia is fighting a multi-front war of global proportions."

And I know from personal experience just how even the strongest of Empires can crack under the grinding stress of maintaining armies on multiple fronts. More importantly, I know exactly how ruinously expensive it is to fight a war on every front, and how thin the operational margins can be.

While Kayuga was the princess-in-waiting of Kyoto House and has become the first Empress of Japan in centuries, I learned the art of logistics from a civilization of masters. It wouldn't take a Lergen to note how many steps it takes to convert raw ore into military materiel, nor to realize that each step represented a vulnerability in the great and hungry machine that is an imperial war apparatus.

"Moreover," I continued, emboldened by the thoughtful silence on the other end of the phone line, "the Britannians are also trying to maintain a hold over two continents' worth of people while patrolling the breadth of two oceans. All of this, only a few decades after a three decade long succession war between claimants to the throne. So far, the Britannians have managed to exploit their technological prowess to manage these almost impossible achievements, most especially in their rapid development and deployment of the Knightmare Frame.

"And that is where their weakness lies. They need the Knightmares now – who can imagine a Britannia without them? But Knightmares need Sakuradite, lots of it in a constant flow. Without it, new Knightmares cannot be constructed nor can existing Knightmares or a dozen-dozen other technological wonders be powered.

"And you, my Empress, are set to control the flow of Sakuradite," I said, increasingly certain that I had stumbled onto something that could answer at least one of my private questions, "If we play our cards well, their entire Empire will be dealt a body blow.

"I asked you how long we need to hold the hostage earlier, but that was the wrong question, Lady Kaguya.

"The real question is, how long can the addict, or an empire of addicts, endure without their fix?"

AUGUST 16, 2016 ATB
"THE SCHOOL" TRAINING FACILITY, GUNMA PREFECTURE
1700

The circle of seated officers and instructors remained silent as Masayoshi, a pale man who Ohgi recalled hailed from somewhere up north near Akita, poured out the sake. Masayoshi had been elected by his fellow trainees as the commander of their training cohort, the man charged with maintaining the discipline and health of his fellows throughout the course of their training, mediating between instructors and trainees when necessary and advocating for his cohort's interests if and when conflicts arose.

The post of cohort commander had been Ohgi's idea, and he was quite proud of it. It wasn't exactly innovative, just a reinterpretation of the class representative concept so familiar from his pre-Conquest days as a teacher. What was important to him was that it had been his idea to implement it for the incoming cohorts. It was a small contribution, but it was his contribution as a teacher to the Cause. It was another opportunity to resurrect the man he had once been, and Ohgi always treasured such chances.

Giving the trainees some say in who led them certainly wasn't standard for an official military, but for an organization that operated just as much on force of personality as it did organizational structure…

In such situations, I know I would certainly want a say in who I followed, Ohgi thought, and glanced wistfully over at his old buddy, his friend since high school. Hell, I guess I had my say, back when this all began.

The tray of tiny ceramic cups, barely large enough to contain a mouthful each, went round the circle, and each man or woman present took one, even the non-drinkers.

Then, as Masayoshi took his place in the circle, joining his fellow officers on the ring of pillows, Naoto rose to his feet.

"Thank you all for coming."

The half-Britannian's voice was pitched low and still, almost quiet in the room's thick air; Ohgi felt it pass over him like a wave as Naoto glanced around the circle, seemingly catching everybody's eyes with his own in a silent acknowledgment, his easy charisma pulling his audience under his sway.

Kozuki Naoto drew their attention as naturally as a lodestone drew fillings, and held it just as firmly.

"I will not take much time," Naoto continued, injecting his seriousness with just enough humor to be personable without entering into overfamiliarity. "I know that you all are very busy training our fellow soldiers in the skills our struggle requires. I have heard much about your efforts from Commander Kaname and Major Onoda: Thank you, all of you, for your hard work."

Each looked down into their cups. Something about his tone, something about his inflection… It was enough to send anticipation rippling through the stuffy room. Even Ohgi couldn't resist leaning in just a bit, eager to hear what he already knew Naoto had to say.

"The time has come."

A simple announcement. Nobody needed to ask "for what?"

They all knew.

"Word has come down to us," Naoto explained, somehow managing that same inexplicable orator's trick again, where every person in attendance felt like he was the only one in the room, "from the High Command of the Japan Liberation Front, through Major Onoda, from communications with our allies stretched all across Honshu, and from the mouth of Her Imperial Majesty herself, as relayed to us by Commander Hajime."

An empress, crowned again…

Ohgi felt his heart quicken despite himself. He placed no stock in the old stories of blessed bloodlines descended from the gods, nor did he particularly care for monarchy in general. He was old enough to remember hearing about the last gasps of the Emblem of Blood in the nightly news, and his professors at university had drawn from the plentiful examples provided by the Britannians of the dangers of hereditary rule in their lessons, usually in the service of supporting the Republic of Japan's own government.

And yet, to have a member of the House of Yamato enthroned once again…

"What lies before us will be neither easy nor painless," Naoto said, relentlessly pressing on, but his grim words somehow did nothing to dent the anticipation Ohgi could see on every face in the room, even on the typically blank visage of Major Onoda. "Our enemy is technologically superior, backed by the largest empire on the face of the planet, and incomparably ruthless.

"Many of us will die before Britannia is driven from our shores."

Even that did nothing to suppress the quietly mounting enthusiasm. With a pang, Ohgi realized that, except for Major Onoda, he and Naoto were the oldest people in the room. Everybody else, the training cadre he and Onoda had assembled from by picking out the best from the previous training cohorts as well as the junior officers representing the cohorts currently passing through The School in this meeting, ranged from their late teens to their mid-twenties.

When did we become the old men in the room?

"I tell you this not to frighten you," Naoto continued, "but to reassure you: By the time Britannia is forced from our blessed land, you could be dead, your friends could be dead. I could be dead. And so, I say to you all… consider yourselves already dead.

"Lay down your life now, not in the hopes that you shall one day pick it back up, but certain in the knowledge that your sacrifice will buy our nation the peace and harmony under Her Imperial Majesty's benevolent hand to mend the scars of the last six years. Fight now, that your children will know freedom and your grandchildren will live to enjoy the peace we purchase with our blood!

"Soldiers, not more than a month from now, I shall not ask you to fight, but rather to die! To die, and to drag Britannians and the lackeys of Britannians with you to the afterlife! With the blessings of the Gods, we will have our homes again!"

And so, Ohgi thought, freeing himself from the spell of his old friend's words just enough to glance around the circle of awestruck listeners, we mortgage our future in the hope of purchasing a present to amend the evils of the past. These young men and women… these children… are our best and our brightest, the minds and the hearts we will need to build a new Japan… And yet, we call upon them to be the kindling for the blaze.

Recriminations later, he told himself firmly, hardening his heart. For you have a part to play in this needful monstrosity still; after all, who better than a teacher to seal the students' sacrifice?

On cue, Ohgi rose to his feet, his tiny cup of saki lifted high in his outstretched arm. His students eagerly rose up with him, radiant faces turning to follow his motions still bright with the fire Naoto had stoked in their hearts. Swiveling on his heels, his own heart heavy, Ohgi guided them in facing the Japanese flag hanging on the wall, the old Rising Sun. "To Japan!" Then, turning back to his oldest and best friend, he cheered, "To Commander Kozuki and the Kozuki Organization! Victory or death!"

"Victory or death!" chorused the young men and women, zealotry burning in their eyes under Onoda's approving glow, the hierophant overseeing this voluntary burnt offering.

"Banzai!"

Half an hour later, Ohgi, Naoto, and Onoda reconvened in Ohgi's private study, off-limits to all but the room's occupants and a chosen few of the training cadre, leaving all of the trainees not currently on sentry duty to enjoy an evening of freedom and carousing as news of the meeting rippled out from the attendees across the cohorts.

Behind the closed door, the earlier fervent cheering was entirely absent, although the saki was still very much in attendance.

"Gentlemen," Onoda Hiroo drawled, his normal formality all but absent as a ruddy glow suffused his cheeks, "I could not have said this honestly when first we met…" his gaze flickered briefly to Naoto's crimson hair, "but it has been a pleasure to work with you. After so many solo assignments, I had…"

He trailed off awkwardly, clearly uncomfortable with that level of emotional honesty even in the depths of his cups. Ever the diplomat, Naoto sprang forwards to relieve the JLF officer from his embarrassment.

"It has been an honor working with you as well, Hiroo," the half-Britannian said with a cheery sincerity that Ohgi would have believed, had he not known from numerous private conversations exactly how Naoto felt about the man who had so grievously insulted Tanya in their first meeting and who had done so much to complicate the process of acquiring material support from the JLF. "You've already finished your packing, I take it? No need to hunt down loose socks come the morning, eh?"

"There was very little to pack," Onoda observed, nodding to himself with absurd solemnity. "Never own enough to require more than a backpack to carry your life away."

"Some more?" Ohgi offered, gesturing with the bottle and allowing the drunken mumblings to pass without comment. Come this time tomorrow, Major Onoda would be hours away, much to Ohgi's relief.

While he had come to form a strong working relationship with the seasoned commando, he had never warmed to the bastard. His insistence on iron-handed strictness and his preference for corporal discipline were both contrary to Ohgi's beliefs as an educator and his understanding of his role in an army comprised solely of volunteers.

And, Ohgi added, gazing with near-unconcealed contempt at the alcohol-befuddled Major for a moment before bending over to pour, I will never extend more than the degree of respect absolutely necessary to any man who refuses to extend so much as that bare courtesy to Tanya.

"Thank you, but no," Onoda declined, not without clear regret. "My head will be fat enough in the morning…"

"Drink some water and curse Colonel Kusakabe for the emergency recall," Naoto advised, and it was a mark of how far Onoda had unbent over the course of their working relationship, or perhaps a sign of how drunk the JLF officer currently was, that he smiled at the slight towards his commander.

"I have plenty of reasons to be unhappy with Colonel Kusakabe," Major Onoda admitted, and Ohgi had to scramble to keep the easy-going smile locked on his face as Onoda casually ejected a months-long habit of only mentioning his commander in the most glowing terms.

"Oh yes," Onoda continued, apparently without noticing the slip, "many reasons indeed. I think he fears me, the fool…" he snorted, and then hiccuped, swaying slightly on his chair.

Naoto and Ohgi exchanged a glance over the desk.

"Major," Naoto began, personable smile almost glowing with friendly interest. "We've heard quite a bit about Colonel Kusakabe from you, but… honestly, it sounds almost like you and the rest of his officers are the ones really doing the hard work of advancing the Day of Liberation. I mean," Naoto spread his hands wide, miming shock, "we all hear so much about how his 3rd Division is the only active unit of the JLF, but outside of the mountains, we've only ever seen you."

"Heh!" Onoda shook his head, a pleased smirk crinkling cheeks red with drink. "Halfbreed or not, you're damned smart, Kozuki. Although, no particular intelligence is necessary to see the obvious, I suppose. Why do you think Kusakabe fears me, like I said? It's because he knows he owes me, and the likes of me, all of the credit he's hogged for himself and he's terrified we'll take it out of his hide. Why do you think I've been assigned one long-term away assignment after another?"

"Ah, well," Naoto feigned embarrassed surprise, scratching the back of his head in a deliberately artless gesture calculated to evoke boyish charm. "I figured it was mostly a matter of your training at the Nakano School, not to mention your time in Hanoi…"

"Yes, well," Onoda preened for a moment, "that was the on-the-books reasoning. Kusakabe would have been an even bigger fool than he already is to not put my skills to use! But after a certain point…"

The major shrugged. "Well, what does an incompetent braggart of a boss fear more than gekokujo? And you know the saying, 'the guilty man suspects everybody of his crime?' Well…" he tapped his nose meaningfully. "I will just say that General Katase had better be keeping an eye open when he sleeps, if he knows what's good for him. He is a very old man, though… He should have retired years ago."

Well now, Ohgi thought as he casually refilled his and Naoto's sake cups with water, and then unobtrusively filled Onoda's cup with more rice wine. Doesn't that just inspire confidence in our allies? An ambitious bastard or a doddering old man, what a wonderful range of options we are blessed with.

"Hiroo…" Naoto bent over his desk, resting on his elbows as he met Onoda's bleary eyes with his own clear gaze, and Ohgi allowed himself to fade back into the furniture as Naoto worked his charismatic magic again. "I deeply appreciate your sincere thoughts on this matter, which is why I would like to be straight with you, just for a moment."

Naoto paused just long enough for Onoda to jerkily nod, responding instinctually to the flattery and the subtle authority he was projecting, before continuing. "What is Colonel Kusakabe playing at? We are all on the same page here, Hiroo, all preparing for the Day of Liberation, so why is the colonel taking away one of our best officers and our finest instructor just as we need your services the most? Please, as a comrade, tell us what is going on."

Surely it cannot be this easy, Ohgi worried, almost on his seat with the anxiety of the moment as the other two men locked eyes. Bastard or not, Onoda is a trained commando, a skilled operator. Surely he won't succumb to this, even in his currently soused state.

"...I really shouldn't say," Onoda began, for a moment proving Ohgi's fears. "But," he added almost immediately, "the Day of Liberation is upon us. We have an emperor again! Or at least an empress, which is the next best thing.

"Besides," he added, somewhat grudgingly, "you and your fellow commander… Hajime… Have been quite active. Much as I hate to say it, your soldiers are at least as well motivated and perhaps better trained than the bulk of the JLF is now.

"So in the spirit of comradeship… I will tell you."

Half an hour later, Major Onoda had at last tottered off to bed, leaving the office to Ohgi and Naoto.

Running a finger over the rim of a bottle that tempted him with oblivion, Naoto was the first to speak.

"It's been a while, Ohgi." A beat, and then, "since we were last together and alone, I mean. Face to face and all that."

"Calls from burner phones and coded radio transmissions really aren't the same," Ohgi agreed, settling back into the comforting embrace of his office chair to regard his friend.

Naoto, he noted, looked so much better than he had when he and Tanya had returned to Tokyo some four months ago. The excess decades that had settled on his friend like snow had melted away once he had left the city and had instead begun his new career as the central coordinator and lynchpin of the entire Rising Sun movement.

Shocking that somehow coordinating relations between multiple insurgent groups, managing the hidden village project, and distributing supplies and soldiers to quasi-independent bands ranging from Fukui to Miyagi is somehow less stressful than being the de facto king of a single city.

Which, Ohgi didn't bother suppressing a grimace, only underlines just how stressed Tanya must be. Competent or not, equal or not, she's still a child. A child in charge of a city.

No wonder things have gotten so far out of hand.

"Well…" Ohgi sucked at his teeth, mood already ruined. "We don't have much time. Shall we get to it?"

"Might as well," Naoto gloomily replied, setting his water glass down and leaning forward, elbows on his knees. His characteristic "getting to business" pose. "So, which catastrophe shall we discuss first, old friend? The ratline issue and the general clusterfuck that is the evacuation? All of the reports saying that Tanya is halfway to an outright mental collapse and the fact that she's antagonized a good portion of Shinjuku by declaring herself a dictator? The fact that we're so hideously unprepared for an all-out war against the Britannians for control over the Home Islands that it isn't remotely funny? Or perhaps how we're suddenly a monarchy again?"

"When you put it like that…" Ohgi sighed, and rubbed his forehead. "How the hell did we even end up like this, Stadtfeld? If you'd told me two years ago that I'd be in charge of perhaps the fifth or sixth most powerful resistance organization in Japan, or at least a third of that organization, I'd have thought you'd gotten a head start on the night's drinking without me."

"If you'd have told me that you were adopting a daughter in that same time frame," Naoto grinned, gloom dissipating for a moment, "I'd have laughed in your face! Kaname Ohgi, a father? Hah!"

I think I'd better ignore that for both of our sakes, Ohgi grumbled, tamping down on the pang the word evoked. Father… Inoue must be laughing herself silly. Then again… Probably not.

"Let's start with Tanya," Ohgi solemnly replied, not bothering to rise to the bait. "She's clearly not in a good place, Naoto. Inoue's worried about her and so is Nagata. So is everybody on her Leadership Commission, especially that teacher, Tsuchiya."

"Everybody but Asahara and that damned Lieutenant Koichi," Naoto muttered darkly, all traces of humor gone. "Mister Asahara, I can understand; he was always a cold fish, and considering how much he loves to watch things explode, perhaps he's getting some sort of professional pleasure out of watching the fireworks. Koichi though…" The leader of the Kozuki Organization shook his head, clearly displeased. "I don't like him. He's bad news."

"Tanya appointed him on the basis of personal loyalty," Ohgi commented, not disagreeing with Naoto's impressions. "So far, it seems like he has indeed displayed the qualities she desired."

"Not the ones she needs, though," Naoto shot back. "C'mon, Ohgi, you and I both understand the value of a hatchetman, but don't pretend that you're happy about a clear sociopath wielding influence over your daughter. It's just you and me here," he added, his tone softening, "no need to keep it proper."

Well then…

"Of course I'm not happy that Tanya's found a willing enabler, necessary or otherwise," Ohgi replied tersely, "but that doesn't mean I'm going to afford myself the luxury of putting all the blame on Lieutenant Koichi. This is our burden, and Tanya's."

When Naoto didn't immediately reply, Ohgi went on.

"First," he said, "we fucked up with our assignments. Or…" Ohgi blinked again, trying to sort his jumbled thoughts out. "Alright, that's a bit much. You and I have both accomplished a great deal, and I am not sure that Tanya could have done as well at establishing friendly relations with other groups as you have or could have done so well with setting up multiple small towns–"

"Don't praise me too much about that second one," Naoto broke in. "We still need to talk about that."

"And we will," Ohgi agreed, "but I don't think that task would have suited Tanya's abilities very well. I'll flatter myself in saying that I doubt she would have done as well at running an improvised military academy or coordinating with Major Onoda as I have as well. But," Oghi held up a finger, "I think that, with the benefit of hindsight, it has become abundantly clear that agreeing to leave Tanya solely in control of Shinjuku was a bad move on your part."

An understandable decision, I'll admit, considering Tanya's fears that the Britannians were onto Kallen, and through her, onto you and your mother. But if you had pushed back against her panic and gone to ground in Shinjuku instead of heading out into the countryside with Missus Hitomi in tow…

Done is done.

"We left Inoue in place," Naoto pointed out, not disagreeing with Ohgi. "She's done a good job organizing the logistics of feeding an entire city, not to mention keeping the machinery working."

The machinery, in this case, meaning things like duty rotas and work assignments, transportation of dry goods from newly arrived shipments to central warehouses and onto distribution hubs. Most importantly, keeping the ratlines providing routes for the evacuating citizens of Shinjuku out into the countryside open and anchored through the strenuous urban-bound first leg of the trip.

"Still, though," Ohgi replied unhappily. "Perhaps we should have kept the three of us together in Shinjuku and created a group of sub-commanders to manage everything out here."

"All the eggs in one basket," Naoto disagreed, shaking his head. "Look, no need to beat ourselves up about the past. As for sub-commanders, training people to fill those boots is a problem we have here at a training camp; it'd be even more acute in Shinjuku. Yes, I should have done a better job preparing Tanya for managing a city. Perhaps both of us shouldn't have agreed to place the responsibility for thousands of lives on the back of a twelve year old girl."

"Still better than leaving her on the frontlines, as she would undoubtedly have preferred," Ohgi sighed, and Naoto nodded in unhappy agreement. "At least we did that one right."

"Did we?" Naoto's shoulders shuddered in a half-hearted shrug, barely lifting before slumping back down. "It seems that the line has come to her, then. Strange how these things happen… But perhaps, considering who she is… Perhaps that much was inevitable."

The following silence was uneven. Lapsing into pensiveness, Naoto gazed out into the middle distance, perhaps finding himself walking the paths of his faith once again, a refuge Ohgi knew his friend increasingly relied upon for support. Ohgi, for his part, could hardly find it in himself to wonder; he could think of nothing but how the preservation of even a single young life had somehow become impossible, somewhere along the line.

If he couldn't even protect a single child, how could any of them expect to save anything from the calamity soon to come?

"Alright," Ohgi roused himself from the moment of troubled melancholy, "where was I… Oh, yes. Second… We trusted Tanya to be an equal member in the leadership of our group. In large part, this was recognizing what had already become self-evident, but that doesn't change the fact that we decided to say that her word carried the same weight ours does. This was… not a mistake, at least not a total one, much as I would like to say it was. Without her leadership, we would not be where we are today, nor would we have the unreserved backing of the newly declared Imperial House."

"Do you think it would be easier if we could just say that we made an out-and-out mistake when we agreed to use a child as a soldier?" Naoto's question was almost plaintive. "If that had been a mistake, it would be easier to… I dunno, to turf her out now? Come back in and reassert control?"

Oh, if only we could… Hell, what father wouldn't want to save his child from the consequences of her actions? Let alone his actions.

"We said that she was adult enough to die for the cause," Ohgi replied simply. "Who are we to say that she isn't adult enough to command others to die for the cause?"

"In that case," Naoto pointed out reasonably, "we have to say that one of our comrades is showing signs of increasing unreliability, and that she's in command of the only major city under our control. We also have to pretend that her being a child has nothing to do with this instability."

"We live in a farcical world," Ohgi agreed. "After all, Her Imperial Majesty is… What, two years older than Tanya?"

"Can't be more than three," Naoto sighed. "Alright, enough of this self-flagellation. Tanya's become a dictator, she's barely sleeping, and apparently needs a dedicated minder to even feed herself. And that's not even getting into the real matter concerning her new plan, which I can't help but notice we've both been dancing around without addressing directly. What do we do?"

"What can we do?" Ohgi asked helplessly. "Demand that she leave Shinjuku? Who do we put in her place? You? As for the plan…"

"It could work," Naoto said, turning the idea over. "I could probably salvage the Notables… At the very least, I could calm the situation down."

"Just in time for the hammer to drop, when we'll need you coordinating with the other groups and leading our own efforts out in the countryside the most," Ohgi replied, and tried not to feel bitter about how the task of arguing in favor of his daughter staying in the death trap had somehow fallen to him.

"Not to mention that, that…" he swallowed. "Not to mention that should conducting an actual battle in Shinjuku truly prove necessary, she can almost certainly do the job of conducting the defense at least as well as you or I ever could."

And now I feel like a kinslayer and a traitor for saying as much. Damn it all.

"...What are your thoughts about Tanya's plan," Naoto asked, his voice gentle. "Call this a move to the topic of the Day of Liberation in general, and for a moment forget who will be in Shinjuku when the ball goes up. What are your thoughts?"

"It is…"

Suicidal.

"Audacious," Ohgi said instead, screwing his eyes closed and leaning back into his chair. "If we succeed, then the doomed dream of a Japan reborn will no longer be doomed to inevitable failure. Full independence might even be in the cards, or at least independence to the same degree the Republic enjoyed. If we somehow survive all of this to boot, or at least if Tanya does, we will also be ideally placed at the hand of the Empress."

"High reward," Naoto agreed, nodding along. "But equally high risks."

"No chance the Kozuki Organization fades away into the countryside or the slums to fight another day," Ohgi concurred. "Anybody who knows us will pay the price, and not only Britannians will be wielding the knives."

That point had been underlined by the secrecy with which Tanya had passed her plan on to her fellow triumvirs. One plan meant for dissemination among the ranks and for Onoda, and one for their private action. That Onoda had revealed so much about his own leader's intentions and attitude after just a touch of smooth words and smoother liquor showed Tanya's wisdom in playing her cards so close to the vest. "We will be choosing a side in a factional war, and neither Kirihara nor Kusakabe strike me as particularly indulgent men. And that's not even getting into the role that Shinjuku will play."

Shinjuku. Shinjuku, his city. The ghetto he had been herded into at gunpoint, when the Britannians emptied the rest of Tokyo. Where he had educated the children of his apartment building as best as he was capable, sneaking in lessons between his charges' working hours, receiving thin payment from their parents in food and bottled water, occasionally a new shirt. Where he and Naoto had reunited and called their old friends and coworkers together to found an insurgent cell. Where he had brought word of a mother's death to a freshly-minted orphan, and where he had found a daughter.

Shinjuku, squatting almost at the foot of the Viceregal-Governor's gate, the ultimate distraction and, thanks to Tanya, a thicket prepared to entangle the troops that the Administration would urgently require elsewhere.

"...Threats to us aside, all of that would happen either way now, wouldn't it?" Naoto observed after a half minute of silence. "As for any threats against ourselves and our people, well…"

"They only matter if we win," Ohgi finished as Naoto trailed off. "I agree." He opened his eyes again and met his best friend's gaze, feeling like absolute scum as he said, "It seems like we're on the same page regarding Her Majesty's plan. Both parts of her plan."

"We are," Naoto agreed, and Ohgi saw his own thoughts played out across his friend's sudden fatigue. "I will begin sending word out to the detached units to send their best to rendezvous here. We will be ready to do our part; hopefully everybody else will be ready to do theirs."

AUGUST 17, 2016 ATB
ASHFORD ACADEMY
1230

"–reaking news! At 1157 this morning, a fire broke out within Saint Edmund the Martyr's on 32nd Street. Though first responders arrived quickly on scene, the building has since become fully engulfed. The Tokyo Fire Brigade has issued a statement that arson is suspected in this case, pending a full investigation. This will be the third church within the Tokyo Settlement to suffer an unexplained fire in the last two days. Diethard Reid is live on the scene. Diethard, w–"

With a sigh, Lelouch turned the television off.

Three churches and no results.

No, he corrected himself, mouth thinning, no positive results. The general mood of the public is decidedly against whoever is burning down local parish churches, and Clovis has already made a grand statement announcing the diversion of funds from his infantile Clovisland 2 project towards reconstruction.

At least the True Anglicans seem pleased.

"Pleased" was a decided understatement. The mood at last night's basement gathering had been outright jubilant. The young people of the hidden church had raised their glasses in toasts to the cleansing flames charring corrupted pulpits, with Sergeant Coffin lifting a bottle of grape juice in solidarity. The handful of children in attendance had laughed and cheered with their parents, eyes fixed on the dancing colors of the old television screen.

Standing right alongside those children with noses almost pressed against the screen were, to the surprise of "Brother Alexander", the elderly pensioners of the hidden church. Grandmothers with arthritic hands clasped tightly around crucifixes and prayer medallions watched the broadcast of the two churches set ablaze yesterday with tight-lipped intensity, the heat of the fire glowing in their eyes.

Perhaps not so surprising at all, Lelouch mused, putting the remote to the AV Club's television back into its proper place and packing up the remnants of his hasty lunch. After all, they are old enough to remember a Britannic Church far different from its current incarnation. And besides, the front rows at every execution are always packed with young boys and old women – why should a church-burning be any different?

But, whether or not the flames pleased his parishioners almost didn't matter. They were, after all, already his: They had committed themselves to a new vision of their religion and lacked any other priestly figure to fill his shoes. More important was the tepid and unhappy reaction of those who had not yet joined the ranks of the True Anglicans, and yet more important was the fact, obvious with the benefit of hindsight, that the State Church would be in no serious threat until the Administration itself was broken.

And that means dealing with Clovis. As both the leader of the Administration and the source of its legitimacy in the structure of the Empire, he represents a keystone. Remove him, and the entire heap will tumble into a sea of personal squabbles. At least until a new governor is appointed, and likely until said new governor shows up with their own private armies of soldiers and bureaucrats.

It was easy enough to make the logical connection, to see the smooth path from Point A to Point B. The practicalities, Lelouch knew, would be more difficult.

And that's not even touching on the matter of kinslaying.

Grimacing at that, Lelouch sauntered out of the clubroom and made his way through the halls of Ashford Academy, smiling and nodding with recognition as he went, moving almost on autopilot.

Biologically speaking Clovis is mine and Nunnally's half-brother. But, biologically speaking, That Man is my father, and that is simply not the case. Indeed, it is only through That Man that Clovis is my brother, so if That Man is not my father, then Clovis is not my brother.

Again, easy to say.

Clovis had been a friend, once upon a time. Or, at least, as much of a friend as any prince of Britannia could be with a potential rival. In retrospect, Lelouch found himself wondering how much of Clovis's amiable air and gentle words had been sincere, and how much had been a facade just as pretty as his pedestrian paintings with an equal depth. He had been seven years' Lelouch's senior and a full decade older than Nunnally, and yet he had made time for them, even though Marianne's children were generally despised by the majority of the court.

Why?

He made time for Alexander as well.

Alexander, who was dead. Lips blistered and buried with the skins of the guards who had failed to protect him.

Clovis never tried to inquire further into Alexander's death, just as he stood back when That Man threw Nunnally and I away like garbage, hurling us to certain death.

Can such a man truly be called family?

Lelouch had a sneaking suspicion that he knew how Nunnally would answer that question, should he pose it to her.

That knowledge did not make him any happier.

He worried about his sister.

He was also worried about the practicalities of assassinating the Viceregal-Governor of Area 11.

Trying to kill him in the middle of his palace is a fool's errand. By now he will be paranoid and defensive. Any abnormality he sees could set him off, but so could some random terror or a stupid mistake.

But, once Clovis is out and away from the areas most familiar to him, when he is surrounded by abnormalities… How will he identify a true threat in a sea of menacing swells?

Only fear will move Clovis from his throne, Lelouch knew. It was the only thing that had ever truly moved Clovis from his self-indulgent path. Fear for himself, and fear of what That Man will do to him if he fails in the duties entrusted to him will be the goads to drive him forwards, to put him off his balance. So, the blow must come when he is already distracted by a mortal threat. He will want to be close to his armies, to as many armed men loyal to him as possible.

If the Japanese rise up, not just in penny-packets but in a wholesale popular uprising, that will drive Clovis to utter distraction. He will be beside himself.

But when will that uprising come? It has been years since the Republic fell, and months since the last outburst of violence in Niigata and Toyama.

This was beyond Lelouch's contacts in the lower classes of Britannian society and the lower ranks of the Army. It was beyond Milly's network of gossips in the classrooms and salons of Ashford and of the noble estates surrounding the Tokyo Settlement.

Fortunately, I know two someones who almost assuredly have contact with the people who would know if and when a general Number Rebellion would be in the offing. And only one of those people will stab me if I so much as ask.

Lelouch's lips twitched up into a half-humored grin. Well, Milly was quite insistent on our reconnection. It seems that her wish will be granted.

The Automotive Club Garage was on the outskirts of Ashford Academy, near one of the service entrances. When Lelouch arrived, he found Rivalz Cardemonde bent over the open engine panel of his motorbike, sleeves rolled up past the elbows and hands black with grease.

"Have you tried adjusting the sprockets?" Lelouch called out, having absolutely no understanding of or interest in the workings of the machine.

Rivalz cursed as he dropped something and turned on his heel, no doubt ready to express his irritation with whoever had crept up behind him as he worked on the guts of his splayed-open motorcycle.

But when Rivalz saw who it was that had startled him, his anger abated, replaced by a sort of wary happiness. Happy to see his friend, but clearly suspicious about his motives.

With long practice, Lelouch ignored the pang in his chest and smiled just as easily as he had when the two of them skipped class to attend an illicit poker game.

"Lelouch?" Rivalz reached for a rag to wipe his greasy fingers off, moving automatically through the motions, his eyes still fixed on his long-absent friend. "What are you doing here? Milly's gonna be pissed if she finds out you're skipping lunch."

"I doubt that," Lelouch snorted, content for a moment to play the familiar and, relatively, relaxing role of friend and Student Council Vice-President. It was nostalgic, comfortable… Simple. A relic of a different time. Has it been that long?

"You know how she gets when she thinks you're not eating enough," Rivalz sighed, leaning back against a toolbox. "Just you wait, she's gonna pull Nunna in this time too, and then you'll be sorry."

"Ordinarily, I would agree," Lelouch lightly replied, and looked up from the incomprehensible interior of Rivalz's bike. "But not this time. After all," his smile hardened as business neared, "she is the one who sent me here to have this conversation."

Admittedly, he privately noted, it was almost a week ago that she asked me to talk to you, but needs must when the devil drives.

"She did?" Blinking with surprise, Rivalz crossed his arms over his chest, either ignoring or not noticing the black smudges they left across his white undershirt. "Huh. So… What's the Prez up to this time?"

Setting herself up as the madonna of a heretical cult, for one. Conspiracy to commit murder, for another. All to advance a programme of sedition and treason.

"...Have you heard anything from that charity you're the paper president for?" Lelouch asked, declining to answer his friend's question immediately. "I haven't heard you mention it for some time."

"The Rising Sun Benevolent Association?" Rivalz shook his head. "No, it's… kind of alarming, actually. I know that they're still active within Shinjuku, helping out the Elevens, but…" He shrugged. "Nobody tells me anything. I honestly don't even know how they're still operating at all, to be honest."

"Hmm…" Lelouch nodded understandingly. "You were helping them with collecting donations, weren't you? That and providing a noble Britannian name for the paperwork."

"Mostly that second thing," Rivalz corrected, "but I also filled out paperwork they needed to renew the passes they needed to get trucks through the gates into the ghetto. Not to mention paperwork necessary to set up those mobile kitchen things. And signing off on expense sheets, sometimes. Aside from that, I didn't do much."

Just enough paperwork to get you a spot on a rack.

"It sounds like you did quite a bit," Lelouch replied, allowing his hand to drift down to the saddle of Rivalz's slightly disassembled motorcycle. "Are you feeling at all at loose ends, now that it's over?"

"Is it over?" The question didn't sound rhetorical in Lelouch's ears. "What makes you think things are over, Lelouch?"

Lelouch paused, weighing the curious inflection his friend and onetime co-conspirator had placed on the word "think."

It seems we are both taking advantage of this conversation to sniff the other out, eh, Cardemonde? So what is it that you are probing for?

"Truth be told, I have my own doubts about the current calm lasting for very much longer," Lelouch admitted, stepping away from the bike to lean against the wall, pointedly gazing down at his fingernails, as if checking to make sure no spec of grease or motor oil had jumped ship from the machine under repair. "Simply put, I'm trying to find a… weatherman, of sorts, who could venture a forecast for when the storms might come."

Rivalz seemed to consider that for a moment, and then lifted a finger, gesturing for patience. Walking over to the corner of the garage, he wheeled an air compressor out into the center of the shop, and, beckoning Lelouch over, flipped the compressor's switch.

Immediately the garage was full of the earsplitting racket of a compressor at work. Standing only feet away, Lelouch had to strain to hear what Rivalz was saying.

"There!" the young noble yelled out. "Some privacy! Even if this place is bugged, nobody's going to hear anything we say!"

A commendable degree of paranoia. Seems like Kallen really left a mark on him. They did spend quite some time together, back in spring. She was always talking with him during their private lunches…

"Well done!" Lelouch praised, trying to pitch his voice over the din without quite yelling. "Have you found any sign that someone's bugging you?"

"Nope!" Rivalz called back with a cheer Lelouch felt was slightly inappropriate, considering the subject. "But hey, if anybody starts, well…"

His grinning shrug conveyed an entire range of emotions.

"Anyway," Rivalz said, dropping his arms and refocusing, "you were saying, Lelouch? Something about the weather?"

"Yes…" Lelouch paused again, searching for the correct angle.

You are overcomplicating your approach; this is Rivalz. You have worked with him in the past. He is motivated by the need to be needed above all else, and by the need to be included.

"I know you are still in contact with the Rising Sun."

It was halfway a lie, as Lelouch knew no such thing, but considering how close Kallen had gotten with Rivalz and how proud he still was of his association with the alleged charity group, Lelouch had no qualms about his bold statement.

"I already said that nobody's talking to me anymore," Rivalz deflected, "in fact-"

"Spare me," Lelouch interrupted over the racket, holding up a hand. "How many underground casinos did we find our way into? How often did you tell me that your bike and your background made you an ideal driver and messenger? You were absolutely correct on that point, Rivalz, and I don't think for an instant that a Japanese insurgent organization would let such an asset slip through their fingers."

And now it's out in the air. That sound is all of the dice rolling as I cross the Rubicon and mix my metaphors.

Rivalz had gone pale, as Lelouch had anticipated, but shock soon transitioned to something harder. His friend's jaw set and his gray eyes turned flinty and bleak.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The denial was pro forma and flat, empty of inflection or emphasis.

"Perhaps you don't," Lelouch allowed, mirroring Rivalz's previous shrug. "On the other hand, Kallen certainly does. And as she had time before her departure, I am certain that Miss Stadtfeld took steps to ensure that whatever portion of the Rising Sun's web routed through her would remain intact in her absence. And who better to serve as a courier than you, Rivalz?"

"...I won't say anything about any of that," Rivalz said, pokerfaced like Lelouch had never seen him before. It was impressive how much his friend had grown while Lelouch had looked the other way. "I can't, because I don't know anything about it."

"Good," Lelouch nodded respectfully. It was heartening for his own reasons to see that Rivalz was taking things seriously.

It also meant that his friend actually had some chance of surviving the typhoon that would soon fall upon all of their heads.

"I have no need to know what Kallen told you to do, or even what the Rising Sun is doing," Lelouch said, keeping his voice calm and reasonable above the howling of the pump. "All I need is word of when your people expect the situation to become… dire, let's say."

"Why do you care about any of that?" Rivalz's face was painted in colors of honest confusion, but to Lelouch's jaundiced eye, the sudden emoting was patently false. "Are you planning on heading back to the Homeland, Lelouch? It might be safer for you and Nunnally…"

Well, at least that secret's still safe, probably.

"Not quite," Lelouch said aloud, and spread his arms again in a conciliatory gesture. "In a spirit of quid pro quo, I'll just say that I have of late become… involved with a group that has some parallel interests with your friends in the Rising Sun. Not fellow travelers, mind, but we recognize the potential a mass uprising represents. That's why we need to know when we should expect said uprising to come."

Silence unbroken save by the hammering compressor filled the garage, the conversation brought to a sudden cleave by the insurmountable presence of the ask. Towering and arrogant, it sat between the two young men like a brick wall.

One second ticked past, then another.

Perhaps I overplayed my hand, Lelouch thought, starting to second-guess himself. Perhaps he will decline to respond… But I doubt that. Despite his recent changes, I know Rivalz Cardemonde. He will do anything for a friend.

"...You know, I really should have known." At last, Rivalz shook his head, smiling, and this time the expression was sincere and unforced. Exhaustion, knowing amusement, and sadness, each in equal measure. "All of that apathy… Should've known that was just as much of a mask as the perfect vice president bit. Not gonna lie… I'm kinda hurt you didn't bring me in, Lulu. I thought we were friends."

…Well played, Cardemonde, Lelouch thought. Kallen taught you how to cut so well that you don't even need a knife to wound.

"This is a relatively new development," Lelouch said conciliatorily, "and… Well, I would have brought you in, except that your public profile was already too high to be safe. You appeared in the Ashford Gazette, both as a quoted figure with that picture of you as the perfect paternalist scion. You have been mentioned in several of the articles Kallen wrote, a decision I'm sure she's kicking herself for now. Most importantly, your name is attached to the Rising Sun on the charter paperwork. If at least one of the intelligence services doesn't already have eyes on you, I'll be shocked."

From the way Rivalz's mouth set, Lelouch guessed that his friend had thought along much the same lines himself, perhaps on some sleepless night.

"It had to be done." The statement emerged uninflected but brimming with absolute conviction. "It was the only way I could live with myself after what I saw."

"What did you see?" Lelouch asked, with honest curiosity. He had never gotten the full story out of Rivalz, and hadn't felt the need to dance with death by asking Kallen. Whatever they had seen last Christmas, it had clearly impacted his friend.

Milly was right. I should have talked with him more, and actually listened too.

"I…" Rivalz paused, and then slashed his hand through the air, uncharacteristically angry. "I don't want to talk about it. So, you didn't want to involve me because I was too high profile, but now you want my help, yeah?"

"...Correct," Lelouch agreed, moving on as his friend clearly wished and allowing the matter to drop. "In a similar spirit to yourself, I will remain quiet on the further details, but if you could see your way clear towards approaching whatever contact you might happen to retain among the Japanese on my behalf, I would… appreciate it. Greatly."

"Well, when you put it like that…" Rivalz grinned, and after a moment, Lelouch grinned back, taken by the wave of nostalgia for afternoons spent together in smoky casinos and for darting trips down the highways of the Tokyo Settlement, "how could I say no?

"After all, anything for a friend… Right, Lulu?"

AUGUST 19, 2016 ATB
ITSUKUSHIMA ISLAND, HIROSHIMA SETTLEMENT

The summer sun shone down upon the Island of the Gods.

Standing next to her father on the slope of Mount Misen, Kallen gazed out over the channel where a brigade of Britannian soldiers, most still aboard their transports, had met their watery end. She could almost smell miracles on the breeze.

"Quite the view, eh, Kallie?" Alvin, her dad for the moment and not the Baron of New Leicester, chuckled as he raised a pair of lightweight binoculars to eyes just as blue as her own. "What a splendid day for a hike!"

Kallen tried and failed not to feel a pleasant warmth in her chest at the sound of her old childhood nickname.

Oh, c'mon! It was the Journalist, shrewd but passionate, scolding her this time. Yeah, it's been a great month, whatever. That doesn't make up for years of him not being here! That doesn't make up for him leaving you and Naoto behind in Japan, or for him just swooping back into your life when he remembered he needed an heir!

I know that! Kallen yelled back at herself, irritated with her self, and with herself. I know he's calling me that because he knows I react to it! I know! Just… Just stop. Let me enjoy it.

Dad's home. For now.

But, the Revolutionary quietly noted, he's still an enemy.

Kallen shuddered, rubbing her arms. Suddenly, the sun's warmth momentarily chilled as the sea breeze cooled her bare skin uncomfortably.

"So, Kallen," her father said, still looking out across Hiroshima Bay through the binoculars, seemingly without a care in the world. "As a pilot in training, what are your thoughts about this battlefield? Quite the monumental location for your profession, eh?"

"A tombstone is a monument," she agreed, gazing out at the steep, heavily forested slopes that stooped to the shore. It was high tide at the moment, but Kallen could easily imagine the mud flats that would be exposed when the tide ebbed.

She wondered if rusty Knightmare fragments could still be seen when the tide went out, bones protruding from the sucking mud.

"Honestly," Kallen continued, turning her head to take in the whole panoramic view, of the Bay and Osanabi Island, stopping as her eyes found the still blackened stones that marked the remains of the other Japanese battery on Etajima Island, where Japanese soldiers had immolated themselves in a suicidal explosion as the Britannians overran their position, "I'm having trouble imagining a worse battlefield for a Knightmare force. Especially one made up of those old Portmans. Even with naval support… Well, naval artillery can't do much against slopes. Or, apparently, against ground-based artillery."

"Now now, Kallie, don't twist the truth just because it spins a good yarn," Alvin admonished, lowering his binoculars to playfully frown at her. "Naval artillery is perfectly capable of demolishing land defenses… provided, of course, that the commodore in command isn't just some jumped up prize boob too drunk with power to use the eyes the Lord gave him."

"Or so long as he doesn't march off down some jungle roads," Kallen sniped, immediately jumping on the opportunity to point at Britannian weakness her father had just offered. Over the course of their month together, he had made it clear that he would entertain such comments only in moments like this, when they were alone. "And that idiot only did that because an even bigger idiot told him to, and the general was too much of a coward to say no! Seriously, Dad, you're smart – why the hell do you listen to these idiots?"

"Sadly, leadership is a rare quality among the higher forms of the Empire, I must admit," Alvin acknowledged, his mustache twitching up as his lip curled into a wry smile. "Indeed, even at the highest forms, common sense is quite uncommon. The Chancellor, as you so aptly pointed out, demands that something be so. He has plans, plans that cannot wait, and so he cannot wait. The order passes down to the governor, who also has plans, plans which cannot come to fruition under the pressure of royal displeasure… And on and on it goes."

"But you still serve them." As soon as she uttered the words, Kallen wished she could take them back. Not for their content, but because of how sulky they sounded in her own ears.

The unspoken "you chose them over me" was not lost on either Stadtfeld.

"I do," Alvin agreed. "I have the unfortunate distinction of serving two masters, Kallie – never a wise decision. The Empire is one. My family is the other. Now," he raised a finger, "I am sure that you are thinking that ultimately, I will always choose one, and for that you will damn me.

"Perhaps in that much, you are correct." Alvin's shrug suggested not so much disinterest in her feelings on the matter as an utter confidence that he had chosen his path correctly. "I will not try to dissuade you from your path, Kallie, but I will ask you to consider this: where else save Britannia would the daughter of a Britannian aristocrat prosper?"

Her father's smile was kindly. Even his eyes were warm, though they remained as watchful as ever. "I'm not the only one serving two masters, Honey Bun. Just as much as you are a part of Japan, you're a part of the Empire. This twisted thorny bramble of loyalty… it's in our blood, Kallie. Ain't no hide'n from it."

The wink that accompanied that last comment filled Kallen's stomach with gall. Her fists tightened again.

"I don't believe that," Kallen growled, "that rot about blood. I've seen enough of it to know that we all bleed red. It's all about our choices; nothing that matters is hereditary."

"We make our choices and our choices make us," Alvin agreed, nodding companionably along. "But the choices we make reflect the opportunities presented to us. His Imperial Majesty is not incorrect when he states that not all men are created equal. Some are born blind, some lame… Some are born to the nobility and benefit from an opportunity for education.

"We make our choices, but the choices we can afford to make are informed by our circumstances. Often, the circumstances of our birth. Can you truly say a penniless pauper in a Baltimore slum has the same opportunities as a noble heir raised with a silver spoon stuck between their gums? How can two such children be considered equal, hmm?"

This is going nowhere, the Revolutionary sighed with disgust. Arguing in circles is wasted breath.

But, the Journalist noted, he isn't upset yet. He's eager to talk… And he didn't really answer the last question now, did he?

"Why do you serve Britannia, Dad?" Kallen was proud of herself; the question had come out as level as any innocuous comment ever could, with just the right amount of curiosity to pitch the whole matter into the realm of the philosophical.

Just as her father had instructed her, when it came to interrogation.

"Oh, Kallie," Alvin chuckled fondly, "what else could I serve, save the Empire? Myself as a baron? Small change. Petty! Beneath me. The interests of some faction, aiming to position themselves as the new imperial favorite? Uselessly shortsighted; the Emblem of Blood proved that much.

"No, no, Kallie; only the Holy Empire of Britannia is worthy of me. Despite ourselves, we are the greatest power to stride the earth, in this era or any other. What could be a greater goal, than the care and preservation of that great behemoth?"

Retorts teemed on Kallen's tongue. After a moment, the Journalist chose one for her, pushing aside useless defiance for something more interesting. "You mentioned yourself and you mentioned factions; you didn't mention the Emperor."

"L'etat, c'est moi," Alvin quoted, the language of the Old Enemy flawless on his tongue. "For emperors and kings, that is the ideal: A functional unity with the state, where the state's interests are inextricable with the interests of the king.

"Sadly, we are all only humans, even if the State Church sometimes claims otherwise. The ideal is seldom within our reach."

"...That's a fine distinction," Kallen noted, her heart suddenly pounding in her ears. What her father, the arch-servant of Britannia and almost certainly a highly placed member of the Directorate of Imperial Security, had just said was tantamount to treason. Was treason, if he truly was of the secret services, as she suspected.

Perhaps some things truly do run in the blood? Kallen squeezed her fists shut, fighting down the urge to laugh at that manic thought. But… What was it he said, about Naoto…? "In Area 11, the Japanese are the least of the Empire's concerns." So, what is the greatest of the Empire's concerns in Area 11, then?

Himself, perhaps?

"What do you do when those two interests diverge? When the emperor falls short of that ideal?"

Who are you?

"I serve two masters," Alvin replied imperturbably. "I do whatever I must to advance their interests, according to my own best instincts. I know that you resent my taking you on this trip and preventing you from charging off into danger, chasing after your brother's footsteps. I know that too many among the peers and princes of Britannia mistake service for and to themselves as service to the Empire and bitterly resent being brought to heel. In either case, I am content with my choices, for I know that I am true in my service."

"Arrogant," Kallen muttered. It was the word that best described Alvin when he was like this, when he was the Baron of New Leicester. When he was Dad, "affectionate" fit better, but this was unquestionably the Noble, not the Father.

"And proud as a cat," Alvin agreed with a smiling wink, "but consider this, Kallen: I saw the Emblem of Blood with my own eyes. My hands played a small part in bringing it to a close. I saw how the Empire suffered then, for lack of a strong leader.

"What do you think I see now, when I look to the work of the last decade?" Her father's mouth twisted, the amiable smile beneath his bristling mustache souring with a disgust so genuine that Kallen could only read it as perfectly sincere. "Unsettled Areas, quickly conquered but only half-digested. Settlements half-built, but full of idle hands and unemployed bodies. Our Empire, masters of the world, but still unable to master itself! Every faction that mattered was broken and brought to heel, so why now does my Empire suffer?

"And, what should a true servant of the Empire do, in the face of this drunken, gluttonous fever? What, pray tell, do you think I am attempting, Kallen?"

In the blood indeed, Kallen thought, impressed despite herself as she turned away. And here I was, thinking I was playing a dangerous game infiltrating the ROTC and sparring with Lelouch.

Clearly, she had been thinking on too small a scale.

Following her father back down the ridgeline trail towards where Errol, her father's sardonic chauffeur waited with the car, Kallen couldn't help but wonder if, buried under all the court politics and parlor tricks, there might be a thing or two worthy of her time her father could teach her after all.

AUGUST 19, 2016 ATB
IBI FIELD OFFICE, HIROSHIMA SETTLEMENT

It was Alvin Stadtfeld's firm opinion that service was a way of life, and that the only true demonstration of faith came from the fulfillment of one's duty.

Those had been the articles that his father, the previous Baron of New Leicester, had carved into his conscience as a young boy growing up on the banks of the mighty Ohio.

"Our seat is high and proud, though our fief be small and lowly," the old man was fond of saying, the clipped Pendragoner accent he used at court softening into the melodious tones of their native interior Homeland. "We come from a long line, an old line, of nobility. We once held fief in the Lost Lands, and when we lost those estates to the Vampire of Europe, we were given new lands to hold in trust.

"Why were we given fresh estates, when so many other ancient families slipped down the rungs from the Greater to the Lesser Nobilities?

"Because, my boy, we Stadtfelds understood that privilege comes with obligation, and that those obligations run both up and down. Loyalty above all, my boy, and to the Empire above all other allegiances."

Even then, Alvin had wondered who his father was trying to convince.

Alvin himself had been born in 1956, a year after the birth of Charles zi Britannia and two years after the commencement of what had even then been called the "Emblem of Blood"; imperial unity was already a faded dream by 1972, when the old man's sense of duty at last broke, along with his neck as he hung himself in the yew copse just behind the family chapel.

Already recognized by his tutors and his peers as a leader, Alvin had stepped into his father's still cooling shoes without pause or much in the way of feeling. A sign of the times, that; despair was an unaffordable luxury and any perception of weakness invited attack by the circling vultures at the rump Imperial court. New Leicester was too insignificant of a fief to merit the attentions of any of the aspirants to the teetering imperial throne, but that same insignificance meant that none of the self-proclaimed monarchs would be inclined to offer protection.

Besides, for all the old man had lectured on about duty to the Empire, the thought of the duty he owed to his family, to his sons and daughters, to Alvin, had clearly fled his mind at some point.

Alvin had resolved to never make his father's mistake.

He had walked many miles since, in many shoes and under many names, but the two lessons his father had taught him had never left Alvin's mind.

Loyalty to the Empire.

Loyalty to Family.

One taught in contraveyance to the obvious failings of the time, one taught by the failings of the teacher and the scars his passage had left.

To each, Alvin applied his own twist, a refinement upon the lessons his father had passed down that paired nicely with the developments he made to the fief he had inherited.

Emperors and Empresses came and went, striving to fill the shoes left empty by the ancient Ferdinand van Britannia, whose advancing senility had seen more and more of his authority slip away in the twilight years of his reign; while they fought, Alvin ordered factories built and roads maintained, his castellans churning out munitions even as Alvin served in first the Royal Fusiliers, and then in units whose names and existences were a state secret. Alvin served each sovereign in turn as they seized Pendragon, their predecessors drowning in blood or choking in poison, but always his eyes were fixed upon the realm itself, his own true king.

Monarchs came and went in their ostentatious colors, but the institutions that kept the fires burning and the navy guarding the seas against foreign incursion remained.

Years dragged on and Alvin matured into subtlety. What was the knife compared to the hand that brandished the blade, yes, but what use could the hand be if the mind that guided it was held captive?

He did not forget his blood. Aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces and cousins twice removed all found choice job offers falling in their laps, unexpected windfalls from unlikely investments paying out.

Alvin did not advertise these achievements, nor did he claim credit.

Duty was its own reward, at least when it came to family.

From the ranks of the commandos, Alvin proceeded further into the dim labyrinth of the security state, where the passage of emperors and archdukes, princes and magnates was almost unremarked. Those "men of note" were like strider bugs, skimming across the surface of a pond, leaving ripples that never penetrated the cool depths.

Down in the depths, quiet wars were waged in whispers and slips of paper blackened with tiny rows of immaculately neat code. The ripples of those wars seldom disturbed the surface of the pond, where the striding insects vyed for dominion, but every now and again, something would emerge in a heaving rush, surging through the water like a hungry carp… and one of those striders would disappear forever, forgotten completely.

It had been there, down in the cold muck, that Alvin had truly made his bones. Among the carp, bottomfeeders all, he had become a pike. Unlike the relentless cynicism of his fellow gray men, Alvin had believed, believed with the purity of a child and the fervency of a prophet.

He had believed in Britannia. He had believed in a people who, properly led and properly guided, could face down the entire world in the full expectation of triumph.

Sometimes, Alvin thought, it had only been that belief that had kept him sane, kept him himself, as so many of his fellows spiraled into paranoia and into greed. Had whored their talents and connections out to one pretender or another, or worse still, to foreigners. Had begun lining their pockets instead of greasing the wheels. Had succumbed to despair, like his father, succumbed to wanton lust for power and flesh, or succumbed to arrogance and betrayed the Empire itself

When Alvin at last cleaned house, the few ripples that percolated up to the surface did not go entirely unnoticed. An invitation was issued; words and an assurance were exchanged.

Alvin had found a different service to call home, a new set of hidden masters to issue the quiet, neatly typed lists of names and sentences.

His allegiance had not changed.

What was the role of an emperor, save to lead the people? What was the role of an aristocrat, save to guide his people in service to the emperor, and thus, service to themselves?

In Japan, Alvin had found love. Kozuki Hitomi was an intelligent and determined rising star in the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, deeply embedded in the Sakuradite concerns of the Kiriharas and the Sumeragis but stymied by her low birth, important even in Republican Japan, and especially by her gender.

Posing as a factor for a private consortium of importers, Alvin had first cultivated Hitomi as a contact, an agent embedded within the bowels of a nation already on the chopping block a full two decades before the first Knightmares made landfall on Honshu. Reuben Ashford's insane invention, put to deadly effect in the hands of Marianne the Flash, later Empress Marianne, had seen to that.

He had been astonished that his new paramore, freshly seduced into his bed, actually believed in Republicanism, in the same way that he believed in Britannia. Alvin had been certain that nobody so thoroughly mistreated by their own could retain such loyalty; that, after all, had been why he always took care to see to the bondsmen and freemen of his own fief, so that the commons would always know who their benefactor was in lean times.

But still, Hitomi had believed. Believed with sufficient conviction that Alvin had found his own beliefs shifting, ever so slightly, to more closely align with hers.

After all, Britannia had managed with only the most nominal of emperors for four-and-forty tortuous years, had it not? Properly guided and properly led, who knew what the Britannian nation could be capable of?

Alvin loved Hitomi. He loved her for her wit, for her strength, for the sincerity of her belief. He loved her for the way she had opened his eyes, had given him cause to re-examine himself and the world he would leave to his heirs.

Above all else, he loved her for the children she had given him.

Nathan – Naoto – had come into the world screaming his lungs out, hands balled into tiny fists as he screamed his healthy outrage.

His two stillborn siblings that had followed had emerged blue and cold, dead before Alvin could hold them.

When Kallen entered the world, she had been so small.

She had captured his heart along with her mother's, and along with her big brother's. Nathan had stood by Hitomi's hospital bed, at eight years old enough to be immediately protective of his new little sister.

Alvin had let go of his son's hand so his boy could reach out to take Kallen's own tiny hand between his own, even as her mother fed the infant her first meal.

Alvin had renewed his vow to himself then, as he had when Nathan had been born, that he would never be his father's son.

Nothing was ever easy. Since that moment by a hospital bed, Alvin had walked still further, the miles vanishing behind him as he strode in an ever older man's shoes. The Conquest, the invasion of Japan, had aged him greatly. He had not been there with his family when it truly mattered, called back to the Homeland for duties that could not rest.

Always torn between his two masters.

Kith and Kin had conspired against him, demanding that he marry. For years, Alvin had held firm in his denials, truthfully claiming that he was indeed already married and thus could not take the hands of the eligible young bachelorettes introduced to him. When Bishop Warren of Tucson became Archbishop Warren of Rochester and bigamy became the law of the land, pressure had increased.

Torn again between two masters.

Torn by the knowledge that his little girl could not, should not, be expected to hold her own in the bloodsoaked lands of Britannia, where the Emblem of Blood was only the freshest deluge of fratricide to feed a swamp already choked thick with the rotting dead..

Knowing that he had no choice in the matter, Alvin had done what he could. Alicia was a shrew, an intolerable presence in both his bed and his life, but she was a useful mask to conceal Kallen's heritage. Nathan's, sadly, was too clearly emblazoned across his face to maintain any such deception. Alvin had introduced Alicia to his life and installed her in the manor he ordered built on a plot of land near where the hotel that he and Hitomi had first consummated their love had stood. His money had purchased a polished past for Kallen and a place in Ashford Academy under the knowing eye of the Father of the Knightmare himself, Reuben Ashford.

He would, Alvin had decided, give his daughter a soft entrance to Britannian society. The watered-down circles of provincial nobles would give her the skills she would require while he kept the fires in the Homeland burning, both in a professional and a private capacity. Nathan, he would give his blessing and the support he would need to carve out a new life for himself in the same shadows Alvin had moved in for the majority of his adult life.

Words could not express Alvin's frustration when he had learned just how much Kallen and Naoto had proved themselves his and Hitomi's children. Assaults on the local Administration in papers too lowly or too niche to worry the censors, yet with exactly the circulation necessary for those who would matter to notice! Involvement with criminal organizations, with obvious shell organizations masquerading as charities, and with outright rebel insurgencies! And that wasn't even touching on Kallen's unexpected entrance into the Training Corps as a Knightmare Pilot of all possible specialties!

Any other aristocratic parent, Alvin was aware, would likely rejoice at that latter development.

He could only shake his head at how completely his daughter failed to hide her light under a bushel. Her feeble attempts to conceal her tracks by hacking the Ministry of Justice only underlined just how poorly Alvin had equipped his heiress when it came to the shadow games that came so naturally to him, after his long years of web-weaving.

When he learned that his son had given his insurgency Hitomi's name, it had been at last a bridge too far. Alvin had taken the first flight he could charter to Area 11, determined to save his children as best as he could from the consequences of their own stupidity.

In a way, he supposed he should be proud of them, of how they had apparently taught themselves the basic skills of his profession from first principles. He would have been proud, had they not demonstrated their mother's intelligence with only the meanest fragment of his guile, groping unknowingly forwards like toddlers unaware of the danger posed by a hot stovetop. Or a loaded gun.

It had been his efforts to smack at least one of his children's hands away from the danger that had, by a roundabout way, brought him to the newest outpost of the Imperial Bureau of Investigation, and to the office of one Inspector Nelson Garcia.

Having met the man, Alvin was very glad he had found a reason to pay the inspector a visit; like recognized like, and Alvin recognized Nelson for the quiet menace he was.

"Interesting group, these Yokohama Scouts of yours," Alvin mused aloud, sipping his tea. Seated next to him, Kallen likewise partook with a distinct lack of enthusiasm or appreciation for the delicate blend. While she had improved markedly since their jaunt began, she still resembled a compressed coil to his experienced eye, all but screaming with tension.

Nelson, Alvin was sure, was equally aware of his daughter's barely concealed energy. He could only hope that the Honorary assumed that the source of her tension was fear of the Bureau, rather than the murderous rage he was certain she harbored against the man arguably responsible for the punitive actions in Yokohama.

"Thank you, Baron Alvin," Nelson replied in his almost unaccented voice, each word perfectly shaped on his tongue and coolly respectful to Alvin's ears.

There was, after all, no love lost between their services. Or, at least, between Nelson's service and the one he obviously assumed employed Alvin.

"I find their enthusiasm and their dedication quite commendable," Nelson continued after Alvin failed to reply immediately. "They are young, but their understanding of their roles within the imperial hierarchy is impeccable, as is their belief that they have something to offer the Empire."

"Just as you believe," Alvin noted, taking care to inject a certain careless note into his voice. It was an old interrogator's trick, to convey an unspoken disbelief in what the subject had just said without deigning to voice that disbelief aloud.

Judging by how the Honorary's eyes narrowed, the barb had not been lost on him.

Struck right on that chip you carry on your shoulder, didn't I? Alvin thought with a certain grim satisfaction. It's the same chip that every Honorary with a position above the menial carries.

Truth be told, Alvin had little against Honoraries – despite his background, he retained sufficient self-awareness to recognize the staggering level of hypocrisy required to begrudge the potential of his true love's kin while elevating his own half-blooded children to the aristocracy. He most certainly had little to hold against third generation Honorary Britannians, such as Nelson Garcia. While the first and second generations might still harbor memories of previous national identities, by the time the third generation came around very little was holding them back from becoming valuable and doughty servants of the Empire.

Were Nelson any other dutiful Honorary servant of the Empire, Alvin would have been content to pat his head at a job well done. Such men were the cogs of a vast machine whose greater components men such as Alvin represented, the machine of the state and its institutions. It was the same reward for service a lord might give a dutiful bondsman.

But unlike the rest of the intelligence community in Area 11, inept or compromised as they were, Nelson Garcia posed a threat to Alvin's daughter.

Alvin had not known as much before he had seen the way Nelson's eyes had ever so briefly widened when he saw Kallen, a hasty reaction suppressed in an eyeblink as his daughter entered the inspector's office a pace behind him. The inspector had concealed it well, bending to kiss his daughter's hand in acknowledgment, thankfully without any hint of Latin passion or impropriety, and then focusing his attention wholly on Alvin for the duration of their conversation, but Alvin had known by that traitor shock that Nelson recognized Kallen.

He had also known that Nelson recognized her not by name, as might be expected of a man who had likely educated himself on every member of the Greater or Lesser Nobilities in his new Area of posting, but by description. Someone had described his little girl to the Bureau man under a name besides Kallen Stadtfeld, Heiress of House Stadtfeld.

And that meant that Nelson had to die.

Although not until Alvin figured out who was telling tales about his daughter to men from an apparatus of state security. The things a father did for his indiscrete children…

Though it is the duty of a parent to clean up after their children's first mistakes, I suppose, he mused, and to make a lesson out of the experience in the hopes of preventing repeat performances.

Errol, at least, will be thrilled to dispense with the chauffeur pretense for a while, Alvin reflected with private amusement. Why, to hear him moan, an uninformed listener could be forgiven for thinking I had put the man out to pasture instead of putting him in charge of keeping my daughter's foolish head attached to her shoulders!

But, such is the price of good help… And never let it be said that I am so distant from the Regiment to forget that it is a soldier's sacred right to endlessly bitch…

"Indeed, my lord," Nelson replied, dipping his head slightly. "I am a humble servant of His Imperial Majesty, as was my father, as will, God willing, my sons. After I am so blessed by children, of course."

"Of course," Alvin smiled back pleasantly, casually passing all thought of Errol and his multitude of useful little skills to the back of his mind as he met the inspector's eyes, "children are indeed such a blessing. Why, my own daughter has recently found her calling behind the control yoke of a Knightmare!

"Kallen," he added indulgently, turning to smile at her, tapping on the side of his teacup in a code he had taught her on the train ride to Hiroshima from Tokyo, "why don't you tell the inspector all about Major Pitt?"

The code, of course, had been a message to play nicely and to cooperate.

Kallen needed no further invitation to go off on a wave of invective about the despised Major Pitt, comparing the man against any number of other soldiers to the major's universal loss. Nelson made all the appropriate encouraging noises and gestures, as well as a few remarks agreeing with Kallen's assessment of the unfortunate officer's shortcomings.

As his daughter talked, Alvin carefully observed Nelson as he refreshed his teacup, searching for more tells.

Sadly, the man had clamped up behind his politely interested facade.

Grudgingly, Alvin gave the inspector a point for professionalism. It was enough to give him cause for regret as to what must be done. It was always a shame to waste competent servants of the Empire.

This is pointless, he decided. Best to just get what we came for and leave.

And once we're out of Hiroshima Settlement with a copy of everything the Bureau is willing to reveal about their interrogations of the Yokohama Sniper's companion, it will be time to ensure that Inspector Nelson and the rest of the Hiroshima Field Office meet with an unfortunate fate.

Another strider gone from the surface of the pond. Hopefully this one will not leave many ripples.