Disclaimer: I do not own nor make any profit off of Code Geass.

A/N: Welcome to Zero Exposé, a collection of unrelated oneshots revolving around one or more of the Black Knights discovering one or more of their leader's many secrets. This includes but may not necessarily mean Zero's identity or Zero actually being unmasked. Some ficlets will branch off canon while others will be completely AU. Some will be serious and others more crack-ish. That said, beware OOC-ness. Also beware spoilers, language, violence, adult implications – it's Code Geass. Honestly, anything goes. These will be Gen fics, so no outright pairings. I have several ideas but feel free to request if you wish through a PM. Above all, I hope you enjoy.

Triggered Reaction: Tamaki levels his gun at Nunnally. Zero overreacts.

Zero Exposé

Oneshot 1: Triggered Reaction

It was all so thrilling.

Especially for one badass Shinichiro Tamaki.

The ultimate battle for Japan was underway, and the passionate Black Knight felt a rush of adrenaline as he kicked open a door and leveled his gun at a small group of assembled Britannians. Students. Whatever. They were still the enemy.

"Hands up and turn around! The Black Knights control this school. All of you are now our hostages!" Tamaki yelled, flexing his finger on the trigger. Heh, this was fun. It was always satisfying to throw his power around. A couple lower-ranking Black Knights filed in after him, following his lead and pointing their own guns at the defenseless teenagers.

A blue-haired high school boy stepped up and spread his arms protectively in front of the others. "Lower your guns!" the boy ordered, though Tamaki could hear a tremor of fear lacing his words. That's right. He should be scared.

Tamaki snarled and took a menacing step closer, brandishing his weapon. "That's a hell of a thing to say in this situation!" he returned, ignoring the hiss of a cat behind him. They were the Black Knights. How dare these stupid Brit kids challenge them?

After some whispered back-and-forth between the students, the blue-haired boy stretched his arms out even further and raised his voice to proclaim, "I'll protect everyone."

Tamaki sneered at the boy's audacity as he taunted him. "Is that a fact?!" He raised his gun again, causing the students to flinch and gasp. High on power, he still showed mercy by hitting the boy over the head instead of outright shooting. Insolent or not, these were just high school kids. They were Kallen's age, which hit somewhere a little too close to home – and Tamaki wasn't even the sentimental type.

The blue-haired boy crumpled to the floor amidst calls of his name. Something weirdly Britannian; who cared? Tamaki didn't really pay much attention.

Shaking his head, the belligerent Black Knight took another step closer and lorded himself over the fallen Brit boy. "Anyone else wanna mess with me?" he demanded, glaring at each of the school girls in turn. To make his point, he clicked off the safety on his gun as he slowly lowered it. He meant business, and playtime was over. His gun ended up pointing at the girl in the wheelchair.

All the students froze at the purpose behind his movements. Even the blind and crippled girl seemed to realize what was at stake.

After a few moments of tense silence, the door banged open and Ohgi ran in. "Zero, it's the – wait, where's Zero?"

Tamaki shrugged. "Kicking Britannian ass," he answered confidently. "He's got bigger problems than cleaning out the Brit trash from our command center."

"Your command center?!" spluttered the blonde girl from where she'd frozen, kneeling beside her unconscious friend.

Ohgi winced, and Tamaki could have hit him for showing such weakness in front of the enemy – even if they were just students.

Rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously, Ohgi explained, "Yeah, see. Zero thought Ashford Academy would be a useful place for our command center."

"So we're taking it for our own," Tamaki jumped in before Ohgi could do something stupid, like apologize for the inconvenience. The redhead waved his initial back-up lackeys away; after all, he had the deputy commander now. Take that, bitches. "And there's nothing you can do to stop us," Tamaki finished with a sneer towards the teens. To do damage control and – well, really, he just wanted to scare the piss out of them, Tamaki took measured steps over to the hostages and purposefully pressed his gun against the disabled girl's forehead. Heh. That oughta teach 'em.

Ohgi's eyes widened along with the students' at his actions. "Tamaki," he pleaded. "I know this is war, but they're just kids."

"They're Britannians," Tamaki stressed, keeping his gun in place with a hard look at the terrified students. It wasn't like he was actually going to shoot, but what was wrong with scaring them? The brats would be more cooperative in the end, which was the whole point. Kids these days.

Ohgi swallowed. "Besides, didn't Zero say—"

"NUNNALLY!"

Zero's synthesized voice echoed from the mask in a roar as he entered the room, flanked by Kallen.

All faces, students and Black Knights alike, snapped towards Zero with quizzical looks.

The masked leader's attention, however, seemed to be only on the girl in the wheelchair. He started to hurry to her side – Tamaki had never seen the guy move so fast – before glancing at Tamaki's gun and freezing in place, hand stretched towards the blind girl. "Tamaki," he hissed, voice low and dangerous and Tamaki had never heard Zero sound that outraged and threatening, not even at Britannia—

"Lower. Your. Gun," Zero growled, emphasizing each word clearly and with meaning. Then, before Tamaki could even move to follow the order, he impatiently snapped again: "Lower your damn gun!"

Wordlessly, for once, Tamaki complied and stepped away from the girl, eyes wide and mouth open. The students' murmuring was white noise in the background. There was something like angry panic in Zero's order, identifiable even with the mask and voice synthesizer. Tamaki knew angry panic – uh, not that he experienced it almost daily or anything. He was too cool for that. Zero, though, Zero had never sounded so shaken, not even in the face of imminent death. Tamaki remembered Narita very vividly, not to mention all those other close calls.

Ohgi stepped forward to take Tamaki's weapon, somehow sensing this would put their masked leader at ease, and the redhead mindlessly handed it over. His head was absolutely reeling from Zero's strange behavior. What the hell was this all about? Most of the time Zero confused him to no end anyway, but this was taking the cake.

With the threat neutralized, Zero seemed to allow himself to rush to the girl's side. He pushed past the students and slipped into a – practiced? – graceful crouch by the girl's wheelchair, his cape fluttering behind him. His gloved hands immediately reached out to clasp one of the girl's hands – Tamaki had never seen Zero act so tenderly – and his masked face tilted up at the wheelchair-bound girl from his spot on the floor.

Zero. Kneeling on the floor.

For a Britannian.

Welp, that confirmed it. Zero was completely off his rocker. To be fair, Tamaki had always thought Zero was crazy.

"Oh my god," gasped the blonde girl, staring at Zero with her eyes bugging out. "Oh my god. Oh my god." Under her hands, the blue-haired boy was starting to stir. The orange-haired girl standing behind the wheelchair looked the least confused, but her gaze was still questioning as she looked upon the infamous leader of the Black Knights.

Tamaki rolled his eyes. Ungrateful brats. They really didn't deserve to see Zero up close and personal. It wasn't like they were his friends.

Minami chose that moment to poke his head in – probably looking for Ohgi because he'd been gone so long – and grew very still at the scene. Slowly, as if in a trance, he walked over to his comrades, never taking his eyes off of Zero in the middle of the group.

Kallen joined them for uniformity, and Tamaki wondered whether she was as struck speechless as the rest of them or if she just didn't want to say anything in case her voice gave her away to her schoolmates. She'd always been close to Zero, so maybe his current behavior wasn't as bizarre to her as it was to the rest of them. There was no way to ask her now.

Tamaki wondered what each of his fellow Knights thought of this weird turn of events, but there was no time to linger on that as the blind girl tentatively reached up with her free hand and traced Zero's mask with questing fingertips.

Zero immediately leaned into her touch. "Nu-nnally," he breathed, voice hitching but booming from the technology inside his mask, and scooted a little closer. "Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

"I'm…fine," the disabled girl answered, her brow furrowing. "Who is this? Are you Zero? The Zero?"

For a long moment, Zero seemed unable to talk. Tamaki had never known Zero to go silent. Wasn't this the man who had words for anything? Instead, the masked leader just squeezed the blind girl's hand harder.

"Then, how?" asked the girl, moving her free hand to clutch Zero's shoulder. "Why did you…?"

The blue-haired boy lifted his head, waking up fully at long last to this news-worthy event, and his jaw dropped. "What the hell?!" he exclaimed. The blonde girl hurriedly shushed him with a hand over his mouth. Tamaki aimed a light kick at them for daring to interrupt his leader.

A full-body shudder went through Zero before he spoke, seeming to choose his words as carefully as ever. His attention was obviously still laser-focused on the blind girl in the wheelchair. "For your peaceful world. So you can live happily. I couldn't let anything happen to you," he explained raggedly. Just like always, the words were powerful and moving because they came straight from his heart. Unlike always, there was raw and honest truth, with no ulterior motives detected in his voice.

Ohgi let out a soft breath of relief and smiled. Tamaki remembered that the deputy commander had been worried before that maybe Zero had lost his humanity somewhere along the way; seeing the masked leader with this frail girl proved that he did, indeed, still have a heart. Minami moved to wipe away a stray tear. Kallen's jaw clenched and unclenched, as if she was dying to say something but was keeping herself in check. Tamaki couldn't bring himself to do anything other than gape like an idiot.

"I see," the girl – Nunnally – finally said. She lowered her face, tears falling from behind her eyes for the first time that night, and struggled to free her hand from Zero's tight grip.

A choked sound emitted from behind the mask, startling all of the room's occupants once again.

Ohgi moved forward, probably intending to help their clearly upset leader, but Kallen stopped him with a hand on his elbow and a nod to the blind girl. Tamaki barely noticed them because he was too busy staring at the Britannian girl as she, once free, all but flung herself out of her wheelchair and into Zero's arms, throwing her own arms around his shoulders and burying her sobbing face into his chest.

Zero moved to automatically enfold her in a loving embrace, murmuring, "Nunnally, Nunnally." He comfortingly smoothed a gloved hand over her hair as he shushed her and started rocking her. "It's all right, Nunnally. It's going to be okay. I've got you."

Tamaki still couldn't tear his eyes away, but he was positive that he wasn't the only one gawking.

Nunnally burrowed closer but finally lifted her head away enough to accuse, "You did all this for my sake, didn't you, big brother?"

"Holy hell," the blue-haired boy breathed.

"Holy hell," Tamaki echoed.

Ohgi startled at the declaration, his eyes widening to the biggest they'd been all night – which was saying something. Tamaki would have laughed at his old friend had he not been sure that his own eyes were even wider. Minami gasped and covered his mouth with his hand, while Kallen stepped forward towards the Ashford students and then back towards the Black Knights, seemingly torn between whom to stand with for support.

Of course the Black Knights had speculated about who Zero really was behind that mask. They'd wondered about who he was, why he was fighting Britannia, how he operated…

Despite the Black Knights' attempts to probe into his personal life, Zero had always been so careful to portray himself as a symbol. He, himself, was nothing – hence "Zero" – but now he was revealed as something to this weak and disabled Britannian girl, to Nunnally, to his little sister.

Zero had human ties after all.

Zero had motivation for opposing Britannia's "strong dominates weak" mentality.

Tamaki wondered briefly, in an extremely rare flash of insight, at the absurdity that they'd discovered Zero's humanity still without seeing his face.

"You didn't have to go this far!" Nunnally continued, still shaken. "I would've been happy just living with you. That's all I wanted," she cried.

"And you will live with me," Zero reassured her, his response confirming his identity. "In the new and better world that I'll build from the ashes of this one." The promise sounded a bit menacing spoken through the mask's voice distorter and amplifier.

Tamaki blinked and looked to Ohgi for guidance. This had to be the freaking twilight zone. Zero did not go around acting comforting and…and…having little sisters for crying out loud! Zero was supposed to be nothing more than a merciless revolutionary who would free Japan. That was it. Anything more at this stage in the game would blow Tamaki's simple little mind.

The blue-haired boy laughed weakly in response to Zero's words. "Hold on a minute. You said you didn't want to run a corporation 'cause it would ruin your health…but building a new world is somehow less stressful?" he demanded. He paused, then tacked on a bit uncertainly, "Lelouch?"

Okay, now Tamaki's mind was blown. Now Zero had a name. A Britannian name. Which fit, because he had a Britannian little sister. Because they were Britannian. Zero was Britannian.

Somehow, it hadn't clicked until then.

Tamaki didn't have long to process this information before the orange-haired schoolgirl said simply, as if it couldn't be more obvious, "Of course it's Lelouch."

Everyone turned to look at her in question. Even Zero jerked around at that, and his arm flailed; his movements seemed startled, as if he'd forgotten he had an audience. That was odd in itself, too, because Zero was always performing; he acted like he had an invisible camera following him around. (This was even before Diethard followed him around with an actual camera, which just seemed to make Zero's dramatic theatrics even worse…or better, depending on how one looked at it.) The Black Knights had just come to expect their leader's quirky acts. It was a part of him. Tamaki totally respected that.

The masked leader shifted uneasily on the ground, but still kept a tight hold on his sister with one arm. "You knew?" he demanded. Now he'd really confirmed his identity. (You know, in case Tamaki needed a good reminder. Well damn.)

"You knew, Shirley?" echoed the blonde girl, giving the Black Knights the schoolgirl's name in the process. Not that Tamaki really cared about the girl's name, but she had a nice rack and he was always after names of girls with nice racks. The speaking blonde chick had an even nicer rack. "Is that why you two had that big fight…?"

"Is that why you don't call him 'Lelou' anymore?" input the blue-haired boy hurriedly.

Tamaki revered Zero. He thought higher of no one else on the planet. He respected Zero for all the amazing miracles he'd pulled off in the name of Japan's freedom, and he'd bust anyone's ass who didn't agree with his opinion of the man. No one made light of Zero while Tamaki was around. However, all that being said, he couldn't help but snort at the nickname.

Zero very slowly turned his head in the loudmouth Knight's direction. "Is something funny, Tamaki?" he demanded stiffly.

"Uh…" Tamaki said, shuffling his feet awkwardly. "It's just…I didn't expect the great and powerful Zero to be a Lulu." The redhead Knight didn't mean to be disrespectful, but a part of his brain wondered if Zero even had a dick. He didn't say it, even he wasn't that stupid, but Zero sometimes seemed to have creepy weird powers with all the shit he knew and was able to pull off and, okay, maybe Tamaki was a bit scared of the dude sometimes. Like now. Zero probably knew what Tamaki was thinking anyway. He was just that good.

Ohgi promptly jumped in with, "Not that it's anything to be ashamed of, Zero. It's a lovely name."

"Freaking suck up!" Tamaki accused.

"You insulted him," Minami pointed out, "which is worse."

Zero hugged Nunnally to him even closer and calmly said, "Oh, don't worry. Tamaki already sealed his fate when he pointed a gun at my little sister." He simply ignored any discussion about his name, probably deeming it irrelevant. Zero tended to do that a lot – discount things he deemed beneath his attention. At least that hadn't changed.

Tamaki blanched. "I didn't know it was your little sister!" Ignorance had saved him before. Sweet, sweet ignorance—

"I expressly said no violence!" Zero snapped.

"That's what I was trying to tell you before!" Ohgi crowed triumphantly.

"So it shouldn't have mattered!" Zero finished. "My orders were clear. You disobeyed them."

Well, ignorance had failed him that time. Tamaki frowned and whined, "I didn't actually shoot her, ya know."

Zero shrugged. "You aimed at her, which is more than enough. Besides that, you still hurt Rivalz."

The redhead Knight's face scrunched up in confusion. "Who the hell is Rivalz?"

The blue-haired boy raised his hand.

"Oh, that punk," Tamaki realized. He really hadn't been paying attention before. "The brat challenged me."

Rivalz grimaced and massaged the bump on his head. "I was trying to protect everyone from the invading terrorists!"

Ignoring Rivalz, Zero waved his free arm again in his usual elaborate fashion. "I said: no violence."

Before the loudmouth Knight could argue, Nunnally piped up with a sweet, "Lelouch, could you please follow your own rules and spare this man? He didn't actually hurt me, and I don't want him to suffer over this."

Tamaki was stunned into silence yet again. Why did this girl have his back after he'd pointed a flipping gun at her head? Wasn't she Britannian? (Like Zero, supplied Tamaki's ever-helpful brain. Shut up, he told himself.) Britannians were godawful bastards who didn't give a crap about anybody they hurt. Tamaki knew all about that.

"Nunnally…" Zero said wonderingly, his voice trailing off. Finally, he sighed, shoulders hunching inwards as he acquiesced to his forgiving little sister's request. "Very well," he said. "If that's what you want, Nunnally, then I'll do it for you." He turned his mask towards Tamaki. "However, I don't trust you around her."

Swallowing audibly, Tamaki nodded his head. He understood – for once.

Out of nowhere, the blonde girl said, "Great, now that that's taken care of, has everyone forgotten that Shirley knew Lelouch was Zero? Geez, and Suzaku's also part of this whole mess. Half the Student Council seems to be involved." Sarcastically, she continued, "At this rate, it wouldn't surprise me if we found out Kallen was tangled up in all this, too." At that, she started laughing hysterically, obviously having a hard time processing the night's revelations.

Tamaki couldn't blame her. He was having a hard time, too – oh wait, he didn't really feel bad for her. Even though she had a nice rack, she was still Britannian. Freaking Britannians.

Zero turned towards the group of Black Knights and nodded his permission. "Go ahead, Q-1," he said, and waited for Kallen to slip off her concealing visor.

"Holy hell," Rivalz breathed again. Tamaki was beginning to think this boy was some kind of miniature Britannian version of him, which somehow made him a little cooler.

The blonde stopped mid-laugh, blue eyes wide again. "I was just messing around!" she protested. Gathering herself, she wiped her eyes and said in a more serious tone, "There's just a surprise behind every corner tonight, isn't there?"

Tamaki cocked his head at his school-aged comrade. He remembered Kallen had a cover life with these kids outside the rebellion – like Zero, what the hell – and it was a big deal for her to put it all out there. Trying to show some good old-fashioned support for his younger friend, Tamaki stepped up and placed a hand on her shoulder.

Kallen instinctively shrugged him off. She let Ohgi put his hand on her other shoulder, though, and Tamaki narrowed his eyes. The nerve!

Eyes flickering between uncertain and steely, Kallen stepped forward slightly. "Lelouch?" she questioned, ignoring her fellow students' reactions to her for the moment. "You've been Zero…this whole time?" The betrayal on her face washed away as she again noticed Nunnally in Zero's arms. He may not have been Japanese, but he did have reason to fight. Even Tamaki could see that.

"You didn't know?" Shirley asked. "You were his Black Knight and you didn't know?"

"How did you know?" Kallen demanded, turning on the orange-haired girl.

Tamaki wondered the same thing. How could a simple girl discover one of the greatest secrets of their time? How did she figure it out when even Tamaki himself couldn't?

Shirley-of-the-nice-rack looked down. "I don't understand it myself," she admitted. She sneaked a peek at the masked man still on the floor. Giving herself a little shake, she went on, "One day I found a crumpled up letter under my desk. It was my own writing, even though I don't remember doing it. In my letter, I wrote about how confused I was that the guy I liked – Lelouch – turned out to be my father's murderer…Zero."

Listening intently, Zero flinched. Ohgi gasped in empathy. Minami was seriously crying now. Kallen and the other teens seemed to be holding their breath. It was such an intense moment.

Tamaki's jaw just dropped in awe. Zero was such a babe magnet. He had C.C., Kallen, and now this Shirley chick digging him. The part where Zero killed her father? Totally not as important as the fact that Zero's harem just seemed to grow. Tamaki had to respect the dude for that. Bro code and all.

"I don't remember how I found out the first time," Shirley continued, drawing Tamaki's attention back to her chest – er, that is, her face. Her very distraught face. Yeah, that. "I swear I don't remember even knowing Lelouch, let alone liking him!" She rounded on Zero and pointed a finger at him. "But I know you did something to me! Something to make me forget! I've been so terrified that things aren't lining up!"

Zero hunched over a little and said the unthinkable. "…I'm sorry."

Tamaki gaped again. He'd never known Zero to apologize. Seriously, who was this man tonight? And, like, Zero having creepy weird powers? Tamaki totally called that. Or else the guy was just crazy. Tamaki totally called that, too.

"Big brother, what did you do to Shirley?" Nunnally asked ruefully.

Zero very lovingly wiped the tears from his little sister's face. "It's as she said," he answered. "I just…helped her forget."

"Oho," trilled the blonde chick with a devilish smirk. Tamaki leered automatically at the suggestive tone. Ohgi blinked, waited for the implication to settle, and then blushed profusely. The response seemed out-of-place considering the circumstances, but the blonde simply seemed to be acting on instinct; Tamaki could totally relate to the embarrassed foot-in-mouth look on the girl's face after her rather inappropriate comment.

"Not like that!" Zero growled while waving an arm about haphazardly. The limb was flailing faster than ever.

Rivalz-the-cool-punk sighed. He really didn't seem to understand that this wasn't the direction the conversation should go because he kept it up with, "Man, he upgrades his status from Vice President of the Student Council to a dark and mysterious head of the biggest terrorist organization in Area 11 and he's still a virgin."

Tamaki blinked again. That couldn't be right. Zero was a freaking badass and so many girls were looking to jump him. Harem, remember? Even that young Kyoto Group girl, Kaguya, wanted in Zero's pants. There was no way the dude still had his V-card with all the interest he received, right? And wasn't that C.C. bitch Zero's mistress? Yeah, Tamaki was pretty sure that mistresses were there for sex stuff. Which Zero had. Because he had a mistress. That was Logic 101, obviously Tamaki's strong suit.

Zero protectively covered his little sister's ears from the topic of conversation, but otherwise made no move to show he'd heard.

Ohgi was still blushing; he was doing a wonderful fish-out-of-water impression. Minami cleared his throat awkwardly, and Kallen just looked to the side, also blushing. Shirley was the reddest of all, her hands twisting in her skirt – which honestly just drew Tamaki's attention there instead. Zero was a damn lucky bastard.

"GUTS!" screamed the blond chick, interrupting Tamaki's one-track mind. She was clearly trying to make up for derailing the discussion, which Tamaki couldn't relate to at all because he totally did nothing wrong in the first place. Ever. "Focus, people!"

"This isn't a Student Council meeting, Milly!" Zero shot back, effectively steering the conversation back towards serious matters. "Your 'magic spells' aren't going to work. This is war. In fact, I have a battle to lead. As educational as this must have been for you all, it doesn't change the reality of what's going on." He paused, then turned his masked face to each of the room's occupants.

Tamaki wondered why the guy still hadn't taken the damn thing off. It wasn't as if they didn't know now that he was a Britannian teenager. Seriously, like, what?

Zero took a deep breath. "I'm needed elsewhere. Time is of the essence, and I need to command my troops. Meanwhile," he explained, pausing and looking directly at Tamaki, "the Black Knights stationed here at the command center will protect the innocent."

Ohgi swelled with understanding and purpose at the order.

"Geez, I heard you!" Tamaki groaned. Why didn't Zero ever give him a break?

Rivalz-the-blue-haired-cool-punk bit his lip. "Lelouch," he ventured, still hesitating a bit. Finally he seemed to muster up his courage. "What about Suzaku?"

Tamaki scowled at the question. The topic of Suzaku Kururugi always made him so damn angry. The traitor was going down! The vengeful Black Knight's ears were buzzing with fury so much that he almost missed his leader's answer.

"…Suzaku had his chance," Zero murmured. "He made his choice." His arms clutched Nunnally tightly, her face frozen in shock at his answer.

Tamaki came to his senses a bit, raised an eyebrow, and shared a bewildered glance with Ohgi and Minami. Zero sounded regretful. Resigned, determined, but still somehow sad at the outcome with their enemy. Kallen seemed to deflate with understanding.

Milly-the-blonde-with-the-nice-rack only sighed, her eyes tearing up. "Oh, Lelouch," she sniffled. "Can't you find a different way? He's your best friend."

Immediately, Tamaki's blood boiled. He held the title of Zero's Best Friend! How dare that Kururugi! Trying to steal Zero's friendship! And what did that blonde chick think anyway? She must be stupid. Yeah. Kururugi was Zero's enemy. There was no way they were friends.

Ohgi was staring at Zero with something like pity in his eyes, or maybe it was just sympathy. Tamaki was never really good at figuring that stuff out. But it didn't matter because there was no reason to feel bad for Zero for having to fight his best friend because Kururugi couldn't be his friend anyway. Right? Right.

"Of course I'll do what I can," Zero assured the blonde, smoothing a hand over Nunnally's hair again. "On that note, I really do need to get back to things. I've been away from my duties for too long." He glanced at everyone in the room again before saying in a low voice, "It goes without saying that it's in your best interest to keep quiet about everything you've learned." That totally didn't sound like a threat; Tamaki knew Zero's threats. The masked teenage rebellion leader sighed and added, "I promise to explain more after we win back Japan from Britannia."

Tamaki's heart swelled at the confident prediction of victory. There was the Zero he knew! Finally back to normal. Tamaki could relax now.

Kallen, Minami, and Ohgi all nodded, used to following Zero's orders. The night's revelations didn't change the facts that they had a battle to win and, Britannian student or not, Zero was still the most capable leader they'd ever had. He'd proven himself worthy of his Black Knights' loyalty. Tamaki knew none of his comrades would spill the beans about Zero, especially with a battle going on and with Zero's promise to explain more later. He'd only explain if they kept up their end of the unspoken agreement and kept their lips sealed. Which Tamaki would, because he totally didn't have a big mouth.

The students glanced uncertainly at each other. Shirley's face set into a determined scowl and she opened her mouth, most likely to protest.

Before she could speak, Zero addressed her specifically. "Shirley, I already promised to explain. I just can't right now." He waved a hand at the window, reminding everyone of the battle going on in the Tokyo Settlement.

Tamaki rolled his eyes. Again. Babes could be so clingy. He definitely understood his best buddy's pain. (Because again, he was Zero's best friend, not that godawful Kururugi. Freaking Kururugi.)

The students finally seemed to back down and agree to Zero's words, nodding amongst themselves. It wasn't like they had much choice in the matter anyway.

Zero turned to his Knights. "Ohgi, I need you to stay here and guard them." He hugged his sister before gently placing her back in her wheelchair. "Especially Nunnally," he said softly. The girl in question smiled hesitantly through her tears.

"Yes, Zero," Ohgi answered reverently. He sent a warm look at the students, even though the most important of them couldn't see it.

Tamaki scowled. Even though they'd already gone over why, it was still annoying that Zero just gave his job to Ohgi. Oh well. Ohgi was so soft-hearted, he'd probably be a better fit posted here. That just meant Tamaki had more opportunity to get out there and bust some Britannian ass—

"Minami, take over Ohgi's original duties and man the communications."

The bespectacled purple-haired Knight nodded. "Of course, Zero."

"Tamaki…" Zero hesitated. "Get out."

Tamaki blinked. "Huh?"

"Stay away from my sister. Those are your orders."

Tamaki leaned forward, befuddled. "Yeah, but—what else?" Why didn't Zero ever trust him with the important jobs?

Zero seemed to think on it, looking back and forth between Nunnally and Tamaki. Finally, he concluded, "You can go with Kallen to join Tohdoh on the front lines by the Britannian Government Bureau."

Yeah! The front lines! The volatile Black Knight jumped up and pumped his fist in the air. Zero was giving him a chance to show the Britannian bastards what he was made of! Zero was the man! Tamaki suddenly remembered why he loved the guy.

Still, before he went out to rain havoc on the enemy – and maybe win this war single-handedly for Zero and Japan – there was something Tamaki wanted to see. He turned to his leader and asked, "Hey, can't you, I dunno…maybe take off your mask now that we know you're some Brit boy named Lulu?"

"Tamaki, get out!"

Zero was still insanely scary when he was furious. Tamaki totally called it.

A/N: Ah, Tamaki's such a fun character. Other Black Knights, other circumstances, and other secrets will be upcoming as inspiration strikes.