14 January, a.t.b. 2018

Prince Lelouch vi Britannia smirked to himself beneath his mask as the commander of the Avalon, a minor noblewoman named Captain Annerose Kircheis, Ninth Baroness of Sacramento, announced the airborne vessel's escalating proximity to Luoyang and the Vermillion Forbidden City, the capital of the Chinese Federation, such as it was. Schneizel's and Cornelia's forces were being held up by their own battles, which, in the ordinary course, would cause him to try to be imaginative in how he was going to make his stratagem survive. But as he had the First Airborne Fleet to field with impunity, not to mention the Siegfried and the Scáthach, as well as the personnel upgrade he had gotten just prior to the commencement of Operation Kaleidoscope, he had no issue with how he was going to deploy his forces and single-handedly win Luoyang; not that he was much of a glory hound, granted, but rather that it was the only way in which they could avoid wasting the advantage they had gained in this theatre by waiting for Cornelia and Schneizel to kick their forces into high gear and get into their pre-appointed positions for the siege of the city.

'Tell von Müsel and Li to take their detachments and surround Luoyang,' Lelouch instructed. 'They are to bombard the city, destroying their defences and disrupting any organised attempt to repel us. They are to deploy their Knightmare complements thereafter. Then, put me on a video feed with the whole fleet.' The communications officer did so, and looked at him, nodding her head. Lelouch nodded his head in response, and stood to his full, quite substantial height. 'My comrades, we are about to partake of a great battle! Luoyang stands before us, open and all but defenceless. Together, we shall crush them under our landspinners! The High Eunuchs have seen their last sunrise! Today is the day that the Chinese Federation shall fall!' He cast his arm out to punctuate, and cheers resounded throughout the fleet at this reassertion of the Chief Strategist's famous resolve. 'The enemy is no match for us! They are brave men, all; let us go now and give their tales a glorious end! All hail Britannia!' The chorus of 'All hail Britannia!' was a sentiment repeated throughout the fleet, and then he cried, 'Prince Lelouch vi Britannia commands you―now all of you―commence the operation!'

'Yes, your highness!' resounded his soldiers throughout the fleet.

As he commanded, the flanks of his formation broke off and came within firing range of Luoyang, surrounding it and boxing it in, before letting loose with missiles and HV rounds, ripping through the city's defences. Admiral von Müsel's ships encroached on the city's centre, dealing significant damage to the city's immensely outdated defence infrastructures, and Li's forces tightened up the formation in time for the centre of the fleet to punch through and begin launching Knightmares from their catapults. Gareths and Vincents painted in the same black-and-gold colour scheme shot out of their ships and took to the skies with their Float Systems engaged, the Vincents drawing their MVSs as they sped forth, picking their targets and closing to engage swiftly, while the Gareths, being not as well-trained as the main core of the Black Knights who now piloted the mass-produced eighth-generation Frames, stayed back a ways and elected to provide fire support for the Vincents with their built-in hadron cannons. Lelouch looked on as vast swaths of the crimson Gun Rus of the Chinese Federation were wiped out in a mere instant by superior Britannian pilots and materiel, and smiled. His smile widened into a grin as he spotted Liliana Vergamon's and Marika Soresi's custom pre-production Vincents, both taking command of their forces and racking up their own substantial kill counts. The pair of friends were amongst the most bloodthirsty devicers he had ever commanded, matching that of Luciano Bradley, whose lust for bloodshed gained him the title of Knight of Ten and of the Vampire of Britannia, not to mention the Genius of Homicide, though granted, Lelouch, Kallen, Jeremiah and others besides were more skilled devicers, and oftentimes much more skilled as combatants, but Bradley was also a master of dishonourable tactics and sneak attacks, as Kallen had found out when she first faced off against him, kicking off a long and bitter rivalry that even now continued to persist, much to the displeasure of both Jeremiah and the Knight of One, though it only amused Lelouch, who had no great love for the arrogant, borderline psychotic and in truth all-around insufferable man, but then, he was a bit of a blood knight himself, and so he could relate, making the only one of his generals with whom he did not get along very well Li Xingke. But Lelouch hoped that once the Vermillion Forbidden City was in the hands of the Holy Britannian Empire―which was neither holy, nor Britannian, nor truly an empire―that the Chinese devicer would be able to refocus himself upon upholding his end of the bargain they had struck oh-so-long ago, when he had been captured and held as a P.O.W., a fate from which Lelouch was happy to save him, that bargain being the turning over of Empress Lihua Jiang, better known as Tianzi, the Child of Heaven, into his custody, in return for aiding Lelouch in establishing that which he called Pax Britannia, and helping him ascend to the Imperial Throne in Pendragon, all for the sake of the girl he wished to protect. Regardless, in order to accomplish this, the eight High Eunuchs had to die, which was a task he was all too happy to give Li, given how odious those men were. They were a cancer, a corruption that need be excised lest it metastasise and eliminate the Britannian efforts to raise the standard of living in the newly-christened Area, which would benefit the common people as well, at the cost of their own battered and beaten national pride. Given that, it seemed to Lelouch that the Chinese Federation's conquest―annexation, he corrected himself―might well result in some of the most peaceful Areas the Holy Britannian Empire had ever had within its borders.

The central force came within range of the Vermillion Forbidden City, and with a few cruise missiles and a couple of H.V. rounds, Lelouch ordered, 'Tell General Li that the target is open. He is free to sortie and engage.'

'Understood, sir,' said the communications officer.

Seven minutes later, the Shen Hu's IFF came online, followed by an escort of Vincents and a supporting force of Gareths. At this point, the Britannian Knightmares were so numerous that, had the sun been up, they might well have blocked it out through sheer volume. But now, the majority of the Vincents were on the ground, the Gareths in the sky to achieve further air superiority, and the suppression and acquisition of the city of Luoyang was nearly complete. Seeing this, Lelouch took immediate action, standing from his throne.

'All ships, cease fire. All Knightmares are to converge upon the Vermillion Forbidden City at once. Annihilate any who dare stand in your way. I shall take direct command on the ground. Captain Kircheis, you have the bridge until I return.' With that and a swirl of his cloak, he left the bridge, not pausing to acknowledge his subordinate's bow of obedience. He had barely entered the stables when Jeremiah fell into step beside him. The pair continued towards their destinations in silence, parting and climbing into their steeds when the time came, the prince eschewing his cloak as he drew close, which was then retrieved by a nearby aide before it touched the ground.

Jeremiah sat in the Sutherland cockpit of the Siegfried, and as the columns in his spine connected to the control system of the Knight Giga Fortress, the hatch closed above him. He closed his eyes as the interface uploaded itself into his brain, and waited as the Siegfried was taken over to the catapults. Lelouch situated himself comfortably in the leather seat of the Scáthach, and when he was positioned to his satisfaction, he palmed the key to the Knightmare and slid it into its slot as soon as he was secured within the cockpit block, entering in the activation code―MSN04―and watching as the screen came to life. The Britannian cross was shown, and upon the screen read 'Custom High-Performance Commander Type 9th Generation Knightmare Frame "Scáthach"', the full name of the Knightmare, and beneath it the motto 'Aut Vincere Aut Mori,' which, he felt, fit quite well, all things considered. He toyed with the control yokes as he was brought over to and set into the central catapult, and when he was ready, he closed his eyes and waited.

'K-1, you are cleared to launch. Good hunting, sir.'

His eyes snapped open, and he charged the Knightmare at such a high acceleration that for a moment, the tires of his landspinners squealed against the rails of the catapult. Then, it shot forward as a bullet out of a gun, flying out of the catapult; at the last possible second, the prince engaged his energy wings, and, accompanied by the Siegfried and the rest of the Zero Squadron, he soared through the air, quickly outpacing his fellows.

As he was the first out, Prince Lelouch was the first on the ground. His landspinners deployed and he sped through the breach at the head of the Vincents of the Zero Squadron, marked such by Lelouch's personal insignia of a king chess piece. Sighting his first target, he positioned and launched the harken boosters on his shoulders, then firing off the ones on his wrists at other targets, each harken destroying a few of the Chinese Knightmares in one hit. Moving to support Li Xingke, he followed him into the Vermillion Palace. At this point, the Chinese devicer removed himself from the Shen Hu, dropped to the ground, drew his jian and ran through the corridors of the palace. However, before he could do so, Lelouch's intuition caught something strange.

Drawing the polearm on his back, the grey arrowhead-shaped oversized spearhead clasping together and turning violet, he manoeuvred his Knightmare between himself and the large humanoid Knightmare that broke through the rear wall of the entrance hall and made to kill Li, catching its sword strikes expertly on the shaft of the spear. A pause, and then he twirled the spear, turning the swords away. 'General Li! Go on ahead! I'll deal with this one!' Lelouch called through his loudspeakers. The man nodded sharply and continued running. 'Now, what precisely are you?'

The Chinese Knightmare seemed to be a natural progression, albeit a very large leap, from the Gun Ru. It was about as large as the Scáthach, and strangely bulky, but he could see from the way it moved at first that it was surprisingly agile for its size. Thus, he could conclude that either 1) the Knightmare was made from strong, but low-mass, materials, or 2) the Knightmare was very lightly armoured and not all that survivable; Lelouch found the latter to be much more likely, in his own estimation. It wielded a pair of swords which, to the prince, seemed to be their attempt at creating something to rival Britannian MVS technology. It was coloured the vermillion of the Guard's Gun Rus, and was about as ugly, if more advanced and roughly humanoid. From the devicer's lack of response, Lelouch could only suppose that he either didn't understand Britannian, which was quite unlikely, or that he had been told to remain silent; or he had been silenced. As Lelouch flipped his spear around into a ready position and the mysterious Chinese Knightmare moved to assume an attack stance, he swore that he would find out which it was, if only to sate his own curiosity on the matter.

The Chinese Knightmare attacked first, slashing wildly and unpredictably in an attempt to catch the Black Prince off-guard. Said Black Prince, however, was far too coolheaded for that to even come close to working. So, instead, he parried and he dodged with his spear whirling, and when he saw the slightest opening, he jabbed it forth, and it shattered the Chinese Knightmare's hand; a Knightmare's flip and a descent of the spear it carried cut the arm clean off. Obviously surprised and shaken, the Chinese Knightmare attempted to gain distance, firing off 60mm rounds from guns in its head, which Lelouch deftly avoided as he closed the distance. 'Do you see, dog of the High Eunuchs?! This is the power of Rhongomyniad! How dare you make me waste its first use upon such a shoddy piece of rubbish! Such an indignity can only be repaid with death!' he cried, punctuating his pronouncement by batting wide the Chinese Knightmare's attack, twirling the spear, and thrusting the MVS spear through the cockpit block of the Knightmare Frame. There was a gush of blood as the Chinese devicer was bisected at the waist, and then the Knightmare went silent and slumped to the ground. Lelouch retreated, and the Chinese Knightmare exploded as its energy filler ruptured, and twirled his spear again to splash the blood off of it before it had a chance to congeal.

'Li, where are you?' Lelouch called into his communicator.

'The High Eunuchs are dead. Tianzi has been secured,' replied Xingke.

'Excellent,' said Lelouch. He then switched to the channel that would speak to the entire military, as well as his loudspeakers. 'Soldiers and knights of Britannia! Luoyang has fallen and is in our grasp! Operation Kaleidoscope was a success due to your efforts! Here do we plant our flag, and claim this land as an Area, a subject nation to our glorious Empire! All hail Britannia!'

The chorus was taken up as the Britannian Knightmares hunted down and exterminated what was left of the C.L.A., making their victory complete. Throughout the streets of Luoyang could be heard chants of 'All hail Britannia! All hail Britannia!', but then, halfway through, someone started chanting something…different.

'All hail Lelouch!'

'All hail Lelouch!'

'All hail Lelouch!'

The chant gained traction, and afore long, all who had been crying 'All hail Britannia!' now cried 'All hail Lelouch!'

And at this, an evil smile bloomed on the beautiful countenance of Lelouch vi Britannia.

Kallen looked on in horror at her comm screen. In video, no more than a quarter metre from her face, was the face of none other than Kōzuki Naoto, her confirmed dead brother.

Well, apparently the reports were a little nebulous on that score, it seemed…

'Hey, Kallen. Long time, no see,' he said tenderly.

'N…Naoto?! Y…you're alive?!' she cried.

'In the flesh,' he responded. 'Thanks to the JLF…'

Kallen's heart hardened. 'As I suspected. You're with them…'

'Kallen, why don't you come over to our side? You don't belong here. You're not one of them; you're Japanese,' Naoto pleaded. 'I don't want to fight you.'

'So, I should, what, stand aside and let you take Princess Nunnally? I don't think so.' She chuckled bitterly, closing her eyes and shaking her head ruefully. 'No; you may be my brother, but I have my post to keep.'

'Why do you serve the Britannians? Why are you wearing their uniform? Why become a Knight of the Round?' asked Naoto.

'Because it allowed me to better serve Le…his highness,' she replied.

'So, the rumours were true. You are his knight, aren't you?'

'I am.'

'But why, Kallen? Why serve that…that monster?'

Kallen barked a harsh laugh. '"Monster", is he? You understand nothing, Naoto. But enough talk; have at you!' she cried, charging the Guren into the Knightmare her IFF told her was called Shinkirō's shield of interlocking hexagons and making to grab at the Knightmare itself. The shield deflected her attack, and she danced away as the Shinkirō slashed with its katen yaibatō. It slashed once, and then again, and on the third time, she caught it with her fork knife and dashed forth to grab at the arm that held it. It began to boil, but she was forced to disengage to avoid the hadron blasters it had mounted beneath its wrists. It tried to knee her, and when that didn't work, what should come out of the knee but a slash harken? Kallen had heard of some strange places to put one's weapons, most of them from Luciano Bradley, but she had never heard of slash harkens concealed in the knee. Such a specialised requirement for use rendered it almost unusable in combat! And yet, despite all these questionable design decisions, I can't seem to pierce its…shield… Damn, I'm slow on the uptake sometimes… 'I see Doctor Chawla finally managed to perfect the Absolute Defence Field Territory. Interesting,' Kallen observed dismissively. 'But one thing it doesn't do too well is diffuse force!' With that, she executed a spinning butterfly kick that struck the damaged arm of the Shinkirō, which was crushed beneath the strain, becoming unusable. It was ejected in short order, and the Japanese Knightmare took to a Fortress Mode similar to that of the Tristan, becoming akin to a fighter jet so as to manoeuvre more effectively in airborne situations such as this one, given how finicky Rakshata's Air Glide System could sometimes be.

Once he had the higher ground, which she gave him, considering that with her superior flight capability, she could close the distance before he did anything too damaging, he called out, 'The Absolute Defence Field isn't the only thing she managed to perfect!' And with that, a cavity opened up in its chest, and a prism came streaking out of it, followed by a beam of light that the prism refracted, which wrought devastation upon the settlement below. She nimbly avoided the beams, and jeered, 'What a cheap trick! It can't damage me!' With that, she grabbed the Shinkirō's chest, saying, 'Sayonara, Aniki' with tears in her eyes before charging the Radiant Wave Surger into the Knightmare.

Nothing happened.

A software error at a time like this…?! cried Kallen within the confines of her own head as she tried again and again to trigger the Radiant Wave Surger and destroy the Shinkirō. She looked ahead, and noticed the centre of the chest of the Shinkirō beginning to glow ominously, looking on in horror. Oh, fuck me…

'I wish I could have convinced you, Kallen. I wish I could get to know the man you love so much that you would try to kill your own brother for his sake. But as you have your duties, so, too, do I have mine. Sayonara, imōto.' With that, he fired off the Shinkirō's chest cannon…

…Directly into and through the Guren.

Lelouch…

15 January, a.t.b. 2018

It was early morning by the time that Cornelia and the rest of Army Group li Britannia arrived in Luoyang. Cornelia drove her new custom Vincent into the city, painted the deep purple of her Gloucester, and flanked by Dalton and Guilford, both of whose Knightmares bore a similar, albeit more muted, shade of the colour. As her guard, she brought with her the elite Gladstone Knights, a vanguard of sorts before the occupation force would arrive, serving only the purpose of relieving Lelouch so that he might return his forces to their base on Shikine Island. She entered the Vermillion Forbidden City unchallenged by any of Lelouch's devicers, and came to dismount her Knightmare before the temporary new government bureau.

She made it as far as the door before the main office before she heard it.

'NO!' shouted Lelouch's voice, overtaken with rancour. 'I swear, Clovis, for your sake, Kallen had better pull through, Nunnally had better be found, and you had better have some usable intelligence on who hit us and where they went. If any of those three conditions are not met, you will regret the day you put my knight and my little sister at risk!'

Cornelia stepped rather gingerly into the office, her two adjutants doing their best to remain inconspicuous. 'Did something…happen?' she asked hesitantly.

Lelouch was hunched over the table, his shoulders quaking with anger. 'You…could say that,' he hissed. He straightened with visible effort, running his gloved fingers through his hair with a shaking hand. 'The Tokyo Settlement was attacked last night by the JLF. Their sole objective was Nunnally's capture. My knight, Lady Stadtfeld, nearly died defending her, and now Nunnally's gone missing herself, as has the Gawain.'

'If they have the Gawain…' Cornelia began, shocked, concerned and a tad horrified.

'Yes, that means that they have the Druid System, the hadron cannon… The Gawain is hardly cutting edge, of course, but that doesn't mean they can't learn anything from it. Of course, that's assuming they didn't already have those technologies before they attacked,' he said absently, as if he wasn't really concerned about the state of events surrounding the Gawain in the slightest. 'Cornelia, you and your forces secure Luoyang. The CLA's military power has been effectively broken, so it should be child's play to mop up the rest of the opposition. As for me, I'm returning to Area Eleven immediately. My knight needs me, and Nunnally's out there. That, and I'm itching to show these IJA bastards just what happens when you earn my ire…' Such malice went into his words that Cornelia became at last concerned for what had happened to her determined but kind younger brother since he had embarked on this path of blood for him to end up this way, so violent and bloodthirsty and vengeful… He was becoming, slowly but surely, a monster.

'Lelouch, let me handle it,' she pleaded. 'It should only take a few days…'

'No,' Lelouch replied immediately. 'It's my responsibility. And besides…' He began to chuckle bitterly. '…Lloyd must be salivating over combat data from my new Knightmare. I ought not disappoint him, don't you agree?'

'I don't want you destroying yourself over this!' she cried.

'That's none of your concern!' Lelouch shouted back.

Cornelia flinched, and then her gaze hardened. 'Very well. Go ahead. Become a demon. Embrace your epitaph. But know that once you do…' she said, pointing her sidearm at him. 'Once you do, little brother or not, I will hunt you down and destroy you utterly.'

Lelouch came up to her, grabbed the barrel of her pistol, and aimed it directly over his heart. 'Then shoot here. Shoot here, and head it off. Be done with it. It's only noble, isn't it, Cornelia?' he challenged. 'If you think you can, kill me, right here, right now. But if you can't, then do us both a favour and stay out of my way.'

Cornelia tried; through massive force of will, she tried to pull the trigger.

But she couldn't.

Not on him.

And he knew it.

Sensing that he had won, Lelouch turned and brushed past her, storming out of the room and down the corridors, while Cornelia stood, frozen. 'Your highness, why don't you sit down? I think you need it,' said Guilford, his voice thick and soft with concern of his own. 'Lelouch is likely just frightened. I doubt he meant what he said.'

'He's no child, Guilford. He's a soldier. One with a taste for blood,' she said gravely as she sat down in a nearby armchair, as her knight had suggested. 'I never approved of him beginning his military career at such a young age. I wanted him to learn compassion before he learned ruthlessness; else, I feared that our lives of constant battle might destroy the motherless child that I took in and raised alongside Euphemia. But Schneizel took that decision out of my hands, and now here we are.'

'I'm certain he'll pull through more or less intact, your highness. We just need to have faith in him,' said Dalton.

'I hope you're right, Dalton,' she said, throwing her head back and closing her eyes in a most unladylike fashion, suddenly very much exhausted. 'I hope you're right…'

20 January, a.t.b. 2018

The Avalon landed in the government bureau, and off of its gangplank with a veritable storm upon his brow came Prince Lelouch, followed by Margrave Jeremiah, whose expression was more determined than furious, unlike that of his lord. In their scabbards at his sides were a rapier and a stiletto, which announced his martial intent, and he came in full uniform, mask up to hide his face. Prince Clovis la Britannia was there to meet him in person, as would only be appropriate for a viceroy receiving the Chief Strategist of the Imperial military, regardless of familial relations or seniority in the line of succession. That meant little; the fact that Lelouch came fully prepared to duel him, however―Lelouch, who was, behind Lady Stadtfeld, none other than the second-best swordsman in the empire, no less―meant a great deal…namely, his imminent death if he didn't find some way to quell the icy fire raging in Lelouch's violet eyes, and quickly.

That in mind, he eschewed the pleasantries he knew were lost on a soldier like Lelouch, and instead said to him, 'We've located the new base of operations for the JLF…'

'IJA,' corrected Lelouch, his voice dead.

'And we have reason to believe it's in Hokkaido…'

'I was already aware of that. Give me something I can use, dearest brother, unless you like seeing your blood on the walls, of course.'

'Mount Yōtei,' Clovis pronounced, getting to the point. 'We have reason to believe that they're holed up in Mount Yōtei.'

Lelouch stopped for a moment, his eyes going wide in shock.

'Ha…ha…'

Then he threw his head back in full-blown, maniacal laughter.

Clovis's men flinched, but the Black Knight guards that had exited the Avalon stood as stock-still as prior; clearly, such outbursts were not enough to shake their faith in him. That kind of loyalty from highly-trained, elite veteran devicers demanded respect from the one who commanded it, he supposed. 'Mount Yōtei, eh?! Another volcano! How auspicious!' hissed Lelouch. 'Hear me, Clovis la Britannia, Third Prince of the Empire. You will be spared for now. Take this opportunity to get your house in order, as it were, because when I return from battle, I shall have my pound of flesh.' With that and a whorl of his cloak, he left Clovis behind and went down into the government bureau to see to his injured, valiant Crimson Dragon. He went flanked by the Orange Knight and followed by his appointed bodyguard.

Clovis watched and greeted the Squad Captains, some of the greatest generals in the Britannian military, and some of the greatest devicers outside of the Knights of the Round. There was General Liliana Vergamon, Captain of the Second Squadron; there was General Marika Soresi, Captain of the Third Squadron; there was General Li Xingke, Captain of the First Squadron, who had the hand of an eleven-year-old albino girl in uniform; and then there was the elite Zero Squad, who was headed by whichever knight Lelouch took into battle with him at that point. Of course, only the Zero Squad actually qualified as a squad, being made up of twenty of his most experienced devicers, while the others were much more akin to corps in both their numbers and organisation. Truly, Lelouch's forces' organisation was strange in the extreme, but they were undoubtedly effective, as shown by their record of triple-digit sorties and zero defeats. Whenever the Black Knights were deployed, soldiers rejoiced at their assured victory's oncoming, as Lelouch suffered no commander to deploy his forces other than him. Hence, the more prideful and inept commanders held off on his use until their defeat was assured, in hopes of bringing the prince down with him, and inevitably, the Black Knights would turn the tables, and the better commanders used them to break an enemy that was unexpected or would cost them too many losses to take on, and again, the Black Knights would assuredly prevail. The colour scheme of black-and-gold had become synonymous with victory since Orléans, and Lelouch had become the deity and purveyor thereof, being spoken of as akin to, and eventually superior to, Cornelia li Britannia herself. Clovis had no such hope of being spoken of with such respect and reverence―and also fear, given how thoroughly Lelouch had cleaned house ever since coming under the dual protection of both Schneizel and Cornelia, going from Eleventh Prince of the Empire all the way up to Fourth in the span of one year; the rapid ascension, in fact, had been referred to by the Black Prince's enemies as the 'One Year War,' and secured Lelouch vi Britannia, the Commoner Prince, as a force to be reckoned with, and gained him his modern epitaph―and so tended to give way before superior talent, gaining him much the same reputation as Odysseus, albeit a much more hedonistic and foppish version of the same.

Sighing, his crisis averted for the moment, at least, Clovis elected to take his younger brother's advice and see if he couldn't find the whereabouts of Nunnally vi Britannia before her brother came back from the warpath he was currently on. Time to boot up the local chapter of the Office of Secret Intelligence, thought he. I only hope I can make it out of this mess alive and intact.

27 January, a.t.b. 2018

Pain. That was the first thing Lady Kallen Stadtfeld was aware of upon awakening.

Her ribs were broken and casted; of that she was aware. Her arms were broken, her right leg with a compound fracture, based on the screws she felt, and her L-5 vertebra had come out of alignment and recently been readjusted into place. She felt the intravenous cord inserted into an artery in her elbow, pumping nutrients and enough morphine to keep her from crying out as soon as she awoke. She opened her eyes and gazed upon the world for the first time in a while; her mouth was dry and felt as if it had mothballs inside of it, or, like Marlon Brando, she had balls of cotton in her cheeks, which meant she had been out of commission for at least a week. She turned her head, and on her nightstand table, there was a bouquet of roses, red as blood, and in the chair at the foot of her bed was sat Jeremiah, asleep. She coughed, and he bolted awake at once, striding purposefully over to her bedside and giving her water to wet her throat so that she could speak. 'Jeremiah? Why are you not with his highness?'

'His highness has…business to attend to. He ordered me to stay here and guard you with my life. He thinks very highly of you. You should be pleased.' Jeremiah delivered this in a very matter-of-fact tone of voice; evidently, he had been worried for her. 'He left you this,' he said, placing the flowers on her chest and then opening the note for her to read. By way of explanation, he said, 'His highness forbade me from reading it, saying it was for your eyes only.' The note read, in an exquisite, elegant and calligraphic hand that could only belong to her beloved prince, thusly:

Lady Stadtfeld: (struck through)

Kallen:

As my hands are shaking as I write this, I shall be brief. I would like to apologise, as I will, more than likely, not be there when your eyes finally open. We got a tip on where the IJA is located, you see, and I decided to check it out and deliver bloody vengeance upon those insolent enough to harm you and kidnap Nunnally. I will recover her, and do not worry: I know you did your utmost to protect her; I do not hold you responsible for her current status. I hope to see you up and about when I return from battle victorious.

Get well, my love.

Sincerely, (struck through)

Lelouch vi Britannia

A little, densely-packed ball of warmth lodged itself in the pit of her stomach at that point, spreading throughout her like sunlight from the celestial orb, like sunlight heating her every extremity, the endorphins further numbing the pain. Those two little words, 'my love,' gave her hope for the future and filled her mind with light, and with resolve and further loyalty. She would stay with him until the end, and be his sword and shield for all that came to pass in the future.

After all, Jeremiah might be his adjutant, but she was his knight.

28 January, a.t.b. 2018

The Imperial Japanese Army had been Kōzuki Naoto's home ever since the day Kallen, his beloved little sister, had gone to the Britannian side with their father, after he had taken them in after their mother died. Kallen was young at the time, so he couldn't blame her, but Naoto had never been able to forgive how Roland Stadtfeld had neglected to save their mother, and never been able to forget how he had been the first to see their mother's body, raped and murdered, on the floor of their house.

This had caused problems, such as delinquency and early terrorism, in him, as he had never felt that he could fit into the society the Britannians had built for themselves out of the ashes of the once-great Empire of Japan. When his sister decided to accept their father's charity, he and his best friend, Ōgi Kaname, had decided to make their way north into what remained of Imperial Japan, and join up with the IJA. Of course, Naoto, being the only one with loose ends, and so as to not make trouble for his sister as she integrated into Britannian society, had, with Ōgi's help, faked his own death and enlisted into the Imperial Japanese Army under the command of then-Colonel Tōdō Kyōshiro. He had been with him since that time, training in the operation of Knightmare Frames as part of their devicer corps, and had been gifted the specialised Knightmare Frame 'Shinkirō' as a test of his skills. Now, Naoto had the Shinkirō Nishiki to pilot, which he was doing as the klaxons reverberated throughout the compound. A single Knightmare had been spotted launching from one of the Britannians' blasted airships; a Knightmare that no-one recognised, and so assumed was the newest model they could field. Of course, that left two very likely options, one significantly more likely than the other: that it had been fielded by order of Prince Clovis, or by order of Prince Lelouch. Like at Narita, high artillery had blasted through the door into the compound after this single unknown Knightmare had single-handedly taken down eighty-four of their new mass-production Akatsuki Frames before they even had the time to react. The Knightmare was airborne, and far too fast to engage with the Air Glide Systems provided to anyone but the most elite of pilots, which was him. With the Holy Swords long dead, he had no choice but to pick up the slack and acquit himself well on the field of battle.

He sealed the cockpit and rapidly went through his pre-launch checks. Once he was cleared, he shot out of the hangar in Fortress Mode, peeling around the mountain at speeds that would have sheared him in half if he had had more mass, and firing a warning hadron blast at the enemy Knightmare. 'Britannian Knightmare, hear me! You are trespassing on Imperial Japanese territory! You must withdraw, or this shall be considered an act of Britannian aggression, and under international law, we will have concessions made!' he cried over his own Knightmare's loudspeaker.

The black-and-gold Knightmare's pilot laughed bitterly. 'International law? Ha! The Holy Britannian Empire is international law, devicer!'

Naoto knew that colour scheme, knew those red eyes.

Their opponent was none other than the Black Prince, come to exact his bloody fee upon all of them for their transgression into Britannian territory.

Kōzuki Naoto converted from Fortress Mode and hovered in the air, prepared for a fight of epic proportions to ensue.

'…! The Shinkirō?!' cried Lelouch vi Britannia with surprise and growing rage. A communication window opened in Naoto's Knightmare, and he allowed it. The Black Prince was as terribly beautiful as the pictures had shown, even now that his hair was dishevelled, his eyes were wide and his pupils contracted, as leanly muscular as they had predicted beneath his command uniform. 'You're…you can't be…Kōzuki Naoto?!'

Naoto nodded. 'If you must have your revenge on anyone, exact your pound of flesh from me and no-one else, Black Prince Lelouch.' He drew his katen yaibatō in preparation for the fight.

'You…your own sister… How could you…?!' the prince sputtered, still reeling. 'SHE WAS YOUR SISTER!'

'She was an enemy. I did my duty, Black Prince, nothing more.' Naoto fired the Diffusion Structure Phase Transition Cannon at full force without using the prism at the Black Prince's new Knightmare to punctuate his point, which the royal ace dodged purely by instinct.

His eyes narrowed in icy fury, and he said, 'I see…' He drew a polearm from his back and extended the shaft to its full length, the split grey head coming together to form a purple MVS spearhead. 'Then I shall show you no mercy! En garde!'