Hey guys and welcome to the fifth chapter of Complete Immersion. Thanks for all the support you guys gave me on the last chapter, it's really appreciated.

Sorry again for the cliffhanger last chapter, but I once again say that it's necessary. Anyways I'm going to resolve any lingering questions you have on the last chapter with this one.

So after I would normally respond to the reviews, but to save space for actual content on this story I'm going to respond to any reviews over PM now, which is overall a good thing since you won't have to wait a couple months for an answer to your question.

Also, I'm going to be referring to a character named Lux a lot during this chapter. Some newcomers to SAO may think I made the character, but that's not the case unfortunately. She's a character from the Girl Ops series of manga. Simply click on the link provided below to just go straight there or simply look her name up on SAO wiki to find out more about her if you don't trust me enough to not send you somewhere that'll give your computer more viruses than standing next to a dog carrying rabies.

wiki/Lux

Unfortunately there isn't one for Rossa so I'm pretty much going to have to make my own information up for her.

A quick thank you to GUNMAN666 for being the THREE-HUNDREDTH follower of this story and to Altar312 for being the THREE-HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH follower. Can't thank you guys enough for supporting this story, definitely been a dream come true to have a story be this popular.

Not much more to say so after this mandatory disclaimer, we shall start.

-Mandatory Disclaimer-

I don't own either Code Geass or Sword Art Online.

-Chapter 5: Walking the Path-

'Looks like the seeds of destruction I've planted have finally bloomed,' Lelouch thought with a familiar dark smirk spread across his face, which was soon replaced by a neutral expression as he shifted back to his usual business-like tone, 'But before that game starts, I need to confirm something.'

"Tell me Rossa, how much do you know about what she and I are planning to do?" Lelouch asked the girl bluntly, not seeing any other way to bring the subject up subtly.

The girl in question blinked at him owlishly, before taking a moment to collect herself from her previous stupor before replying with, "Everything."

"Then why are you helping her?" Lelouch asked her skeptically, "If everything goes to plan, there will be nothing will be left of the guild you belong to."

"Please, I hardly see myself as one of those blood-thirsty thugs," Rossa retorted disdainfully, "My loyalty belongs to one and only one person, and that's Lux."

The raven-haired teen arched an eyebrow at the statement, he could detect a small hint of sadness in her voice as she said her friend's name. Making him wonder if something had happened between them and he was tempted to ask, but he immediately thought better of the idea.

'It's none of your business,' Lelouch told himself, 'The best thing for me to do is to stay out of it and let them iron out their own problems on the side.'

"So is it safe to assume that you're with us on our little crusade?" Lelouch asked in an attempt to change the subject onto something a bit more important.

Rossa blinked and flashed him an amused smile as she countered, "Isn't the answer to that question rather obvious?"

The smile she had on proved to be infectious as the violet-clad swordsman soon found himself smiling in a similar fashion.

"I guess it is," Lelouch stated as he absentmindedly ran his hand through his hair, "Tell Lux I'll contact her when the preparations are complete, but until then you two should keep a low profile."

"Until next time then," the dark-haired girl replied before twirling around on the heel of her shoe and began walking away from him and his companions.

The former emperor watched as she did this, waiting until she was no longer within earshot to turn to his two companions and say, "I know you two have questions you want to ask me, but I suggest you save them for when we return to my apartment. I swear that I will explain everything to you two there, but I can't risk speaking this information out here in the open."

The two looked at him with bewildered expressions, clearly taken off-guard by the words he so suddenly uttered.

Surprisingly, Asuna was the first one out of the two to respond, "Fine, but you better explain everything once get there."

His brother opened his mouth to say something, but stopped when he noticed that he was outnumbered two-to-one.

"Fine," Kazuto grunted before letting out a frustrated sigh, "Lead the way."

To say that the walk back to his apartment was awkward, would have been a major understatement.

Not a single word was spoken the entire trip back.

It wasn't like Lelouch minded the silence, it provided him with a perfect opportunity to go over his plan one more time before he put it into action.

No, what really got to him was the attention they were getting from the other players walking the street. For whatever reason, a group of players not trying to get noticed, always got the most attention; and the last thing he needed right now was outside attention.

The sigh Lelouch let out when he walked into his apartment barely expressed the actual relief he felt to be away from the prying eyes of the general public. He often found himself comparing the feeling to having a piece of raw, bleeding meat strapped to your stomach while running through the savannahs of Africa.

Most of the animals would simply ignore the meat and go on with their business, but there was always that one animal that would follow every move the meat made, lying in wait until an opportunity to strike presented itself and then attack.

Lelouch had developed the mindset when he was younger, right after his mother's alleged murder. The moment he had seen his mother's bleeding corpse lying there on the stairway, something had changed inside of him. He could no longer trust people simply on face value anymore.

To him, everyone and everything became a threat.

C.C. had called it his biggest flaw as a person and he would be hard-pressed to find a way to prove her wrong. Lelouch could easily count the times where simply not trusting the people around him had come back to bite him in the ass.

Unfortunately, this wasn't something about himself that Lelouch could fix easily, or at all. It was something that was drilled into his very psyche.

"Okay, we're back in your apartment," Kazuto began, tone dripping with frustration as he continued, "Now can you tell me what the hell just happened back there?"

The former emperor let out a loud sigh and began his explanation, "We went out there to lure out somebody who had been following me for a week, those people turned out to be members of LC and one of those two turned out to be good friends with a girl I had met during one of my investigations a couple weeks back."

Lelouch took in a deep breath before continuing…

-Three Weeks Ago-

(Note: Lelouch is NOT saying everything that happens in this flashback. He is simply giving a brief summary. This is simply so the reader will know what happened.)

The former emperor let out a silent sigh.

'How do I always manage to get myself into these situations?' Lelouch asked himself rhetorically, 'And why do I keep asking that question? It's not like some mightier power's going to answer me any time soon.'

The day had already started out quite poorly for him. He had spent the first hour of his day speaking to Argo, which wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't seen fit to swindle him out of every ounce of col he had.

Lelouch liked the girl. She was one of the only people in SAO he could consider a friend, but there were times he absolutely loathed her very existence.

He knew that it sounded harsh, but having all of his money getting taken away from him every time he needed reliable information was getting really annoying.

The next few hours hadn't gone any better for him either. He had just spent all of that time waiting in his current position for the contact Argo had pointed him towards to show up.

There was only one problem with that plan, Argo decided not to tell him much about this person. All she had really told him was that this person was a girl; had long, curly blonde hair; and that he could trust her.

It definitely wasn't the amount of information he would've liked to have before going out to meet a stranger out in the woods, but he really didn't have many other options outside of this contact, so he decided that he would just have to deal with it for now.

Upon agreeing to meet this person, Argo had told him that her contact would be meeting with him in a few hours in 'Sunshine Forest', which made him let loose a relieved sigh. The time between now and the allotted time gave him ample time to set a few things up before she arrived. Nothing special really, just a few smoke bombs buried in the dirt around the meeting spot.

Each of the bombs were filled with a special type of airborne poison he had stumbled upon while doing a quest for a NPC Potion Maker on the 47th floor. The poison was specifically designed to do no damage to the victim, instead it would render them completely immobile for a full ten minutes.

Which made it ideal for a situation like this. If Argo's contact proved herself to be a threat, all he had to do was paralyze her and any reinforcements she decided to bring, and teleport away so he could bash Argo across the head for almost him getting him killed. AGAIN.

Once the preparations were complete he waited for the contact's arrival… and waited… and waited… and waited for someone to show up. And eventually someone did.

Was it a girl? Yes.

Did she have long, curly blonde hair? Indeed.

Did he trust her? Nope, not a chance.

"So you must be Argo's contact," Lelouch had said upon her arrival, "I have to admit, it's nice to finally meet someone who shares my view about this whole 'Laughing Coffin' situation."

"Likewise, but I would've never thought that person would be the Ghost of Aincrad himself," the contact replied in a half-joking and half-serious tone.

"So you know of me?" Lelouch asked her with a half-fake curiosity.

"Do you seriously think you can almost beat the strongest player in game in one-on-one combat and not be noticed?" the girl countered rhetorically.

"Well I was hoping that the hundreds of people we were fighting in front of wouldn't notice," the raven-haired teen joked dryly, "So a little rat tells me you have information for me?"

"Right to the point then?" the contact asked, sounding a little surprised by the statement, "I have to admit I'm a little surprised."

Lelouch raised a confused eyebrow at the girl's statement, countering with, "My apologies did you expect a conversation filled with innuendo and double entendre?"

"No, of course not," the girl replied in a calmer tone than he had expected, which disappointed him slightly, but that disappointment completely disappeared when he noticed that her cheeks had gotten a little pinker, "I was just expecting you to be a little more… cautious around me."

"What gave you that impression?" Asked Lelouch, who was genuinely confused at how she had gotten that impression of him already, no matter how accurate it was.

"I asked Argo to tell me a little about you," the blonde-haired girl replied in a slightly embarrassed tone.

"Did she now?" Lelouch asked as his eyebrow twitched, his voice now dripping with irritation, "Looks like she and I are going to need to have a little chat about the meaning of the phrase 'double-standard'."

Argo's contact let out an awkward chuckle at his words.

"I'm sorry," the contact replied, "When I had asked, I had expected her to give you at least some information on me before coming here."

"No need to apologize," the former emperor waved off the apology, but was still obviously annoyed by the fact, "That girl has a strange penchant for making my life harder."

The girl had raised an eyebrow at that, before asking, "Really now? From the way she described you, it sounded like you two were really good friends."

"Friends?" Lelouch repeated uncertainly.

'Are we friends?' He asked himself curiously, 'We're on each others' friends list, but that was only so we could contact each other easier… Right?

But then again, we do spend a lot of our free time with each other and we do a lot of the things only friends seem to do, but is that enough to really make us friends if she's so willing to give my personal information away?'

"Yeah, I guess you could call us friends," the raven-haired teen admitted after a few more seconds of contemplation, though he really didn't sound all too certain about the words that just came out of his mouth.

Argo's contact opened her mouth to respond, but was suddenly cut-off by an unknown man's voice, "Well, well, well what do we have here?"

The two turned their heads towards where the voice had come from and found a rather burly-looking man leaning on one of the trees surrounding the clearing.

Unfortunately, a good portion of the man's body was covered in steel-body armor, making it almost impossible to spot anything distinct about the man, though his choice of facial hair was rather unique since most people didn't walk around with handlebar mustache anymore.

"What are you two doing out in a place like this?" the man asked curiously as he stroked the tails of his mustache, "Don't you know its dangerous to go to such a place so close to nightfall?"

"I could ask you the same thing, couldn't I?" Lelouch countered as he began listening for anymore noise that could indicate another person's presence.

"I was just about to head back myself," the man admitted with a nonchalant shrug, "But I couldn't go back without warning you two first."

The former emperor narrowed his eyes at the man suspiciously, but decided to not call out the man for how disingenuine he had sounded just then.

If the man was trying to lure them into a trap, Lelouch definitely didn't want to give away the fact he was aware of it until they had sprung it. That way, he could reverse the situation right back onto them before they could even react.

"Well thank you for your concern," Argo's contact was the first to respond, "but believe me when I say that we're some of the last people you should worrying about."

The man raised an eyebrow at the statement, as he asked, "Really? Then I guess I have no reason to be here then."

Lelouch blinked dumbfoundedly as the man turned around and began walking back into the brush he had emerged from.

Barely even registering what the man had said when he turned around and waved to them, "I hope you two enjoy your evening."

When the man was gone from sight, Argo's contact let out a relieved sigh, turned to him, and asked, "Now that he's gone, shall we get back to business?"

"Y-yeah," the raven-haired teen replied, stuttering a little since he was still a little dumbfounded by the lack of blades at his throat, "Let's do that."

The blonde-haired girl giggled at that, "You know most people are like that when they're lured into a trap by a friendly stranger they met in the woods, not when it doesn't happen."

"Well I'm not most people," Lelouch grumbled under his breath before saying in a much louder voice, "So what information do you have for me?"

"Anything you want to know," the girl replied promptly.

"Good, well then…"

Lelouch then began asking her question after question; asking questions about LC's current base of operations, the amount of members they had, the name of their leader, etc.

And Argo's contact simply answered each and every one, all of which being far too detailed to have been simply fabricated on the spot.

But the flow of answers came to an abrupt end when he asked, "How exactly do you know all of this?"

The girl didn't just look adamant to answer the question, she looked absolutely horrified. Clearly, something about the subject made her uneasy, which was more than enough information for Lelouch to piece together his own answer in his head.

"You're a member of Laughing Coffin, aren't you?" He asked her, actively trying to keep the amount of suspicion in his voice to a minimum so he wouldn't spook her away just in case she had a tendency to be jumpy.

To which, she simply nodded her head and begrudgingly answered with, "Unfortunately."

Lelouch stood there and stared at the downcast girl with a certain curiosity that could only be found in opportunists like him. Instead of seeing this as some sort of damning evidence against her, he saw this rather surprising revelation as an opportunity to further his own plans.

The former emperor knew that it wasn't the most honorable way to view anybody, much less somebody who was willing to risk life and limb to give him free information, but doing the honorable thing has NEVER worked out well for him in the past and he greatly doubted that trend would end anytime soon.

With a moderately heavy heart, he asked the question that would act as the bait to lure her into his plan, "Tell me, what would you say if I told you I had a plan to bring down LC."

Argo's contact looked up at him with a disbelieving expression and retorted with, "I would call you crazy."

"But would you still be willing to hear me out?"

The girl nodded after a moment of silent contemplation.

"Good because the plan depends greatly on how you answer this next question," the raven-haired teen paused for dramatic effect and then continued with, "Why exactly did you join Laughing Coffin?"

She blinked at him and opened her mouth to answer, but no words came out of her mouth, forcing her into yet another stint of silent contemplation.

She stood there, simply thinking, for almost five minutes before finally coming up with her answer, "A friend of mine joined up with LC back when it first began and I joined so I could keep an eye on her.

Back then, the guild would only extort money from unsuspecting players and I didn't think much of it since no one was really getting hurt, but then…"

Lelouch opened his mouth to ask why she had stopped in the middle of her explanation, but immediately stopped when he set eyes upon her.

She was staring down at the ground, her whole body was shaking and it seemed like she would break into tears at any moment.

The violet-clad swordsman let out a soft sigh and walked up to the blonde-haired girl so that they were standing standing a few feet apart.

He gently placed a hand onto her shoulder and told her in the most comforting tone he could muster, "You don't have to say it if you don't want to."

She looked up at him and flashed him a small, grateful smile before quietly uttering the words, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," Lelouch replied as he took his hand off the girl's shoulder, "There's no need to force yourself to say something so personal to me, I mean we did just meet a couple minutes ago."

Argo's contact blinked at him and let out a rather awkward sounding laugh at the statement.

Lelouch blinked at the girl in confusion, silently wondering why the girl had started laughing, but shrugged it off since it wasn't important enough to actually bring up.

"So do you have any more questions you wanted to ask me?" Argo's contact asked once she finally did stop laughing.

"Yes only one," began the former emperor, "Would you like to hear the plan I told you about earlier?"

She merely blinked at him and replied with, "But, I never finished answering your question."

"Yes you did, but in all actuality you answered the question perfectly," Lelouch replied, now using the same voice he had used whenever he spoke to the Black Knights as Zero back, "I asked you the question to gauge whether or not I could trust you with the information and you passed with flying colors."

The girl mouthed the word 'oh' and jokingly said, "I didn't know it was that easy to gain your trust."

"Just because I'm willing to tell you my plan doesn't mean that I trust you," the raven-haired teen retorted, "It's simply a risk that I'm taking to up my advantage in the future, nothing more and nothing less."

She once again mouthed the word 'oh' and mumbled something under her breath, just low enough for him to miss what she had said, but loud enough to know she had said anything at all. He guessed that it was most likely something that he would take offense to so he decided that it was best not to call her out on it.

"Nonetheless the offer still stands," Lelouch added as he cupped his cheek with gloved-hand, placing his other arm directly underneath the elbow of the preoccupied one, "So what's your answer?"

The girl opened her mouth but no response came out from it, making the answer rather obvious to him.

"So that's your answer?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, "I can't say that I'm surprised."

"W-what are you talking about? I didn't even say anything!" the contact retorted indignantly.

Lelouch simply let out an amused snort before explaining himself, "You didn't need to, your lack of answer told me everything I needed to know."

"Really? So, pray tell, what exactly does my silence tell you?" she asked, making it clear to him that she didn't like the fact that he could read her so easily.

"That you have no answer to give me," Lelouch answered, voice very matter-of-fact, "That you want more time to think about it because you know that the moment you hear the plan is the moment you invest yourself completely into it."

The girl's eyes simply widened in response, but unfortunately for her; he was the farthest thing from being done with explaining her own thought processes to her, "And you're reluctant to do so because both options will gain something you desire, but may make you give up something you hold dear."

"It's a rather common affliction with those in positions of power and importance," Lelouch prattled on absentmindedly, "Believe it or not, I too have been in situations where I had to choose between two things I cared about."

"Really?" the girl asked, her shock suddenly turning into...

Curiosity? Or was that skepticism? Maybe a mix of the two?

Lelouch quickly shook the thoughts from his mind, knowing that it really wasn't important at the moment.

What was important was the fact that she was taking the bait he had cast out towards her and if everything went to plan, he would have the one thing he had been looking for ever since he began this fight against Laughing Coffin: a mole.

"Unfortunately," Lelouch admitted, parroting the same tone she had used when she said the same exact words earlier.

Of course this had caused some less than pleasant memories to the front of his mind, but Lelouch knew that the emotions they would give him would help him as he proceeded with his plan.

"What did you end up choosing?" she asked, clearly wondering if she should be asking him this in the first place.

The raven-haired teen simply let out a drawn out sigh and replied with, "Truth be told, I never really had a choice in the matter."

"What do you mean?"

"In my experience, I found that when life gives you a difficult decision, it tends to make it for you," Lelouch explained with a tinge of bitterness to his voice, adding after a moment of silence, "If you like it or not."

"So what do you think I should do?" the contact asked, ditching her earlier uncertain tone with a much more frustrated one.

"Nothing," he replied in a deadpan manner.

"Eh?" the girl nearly gagged out in response.

Lelouch simply smiled at the rather comical response before explaining what he had said, "Like I said earlier, life will end up making the hard decisions for you, so I suggest that you don't choose and simply allow the pieces to fall where they may. Eventually, the answer will make itself clear to you."

The blonde-haired girl standing in front of him seemed to be confused by the statement at first, which was understandable considering what he had just said really didn't sound like very helpful advice, but she seemed to get a grasp on what he had meant after a few moments.

"I think I understand what you're trying to tell me," she replied, "Thanks… I guess."

-Present Time-

"What happened then?" Asuna asked from her seat on the couch.

"I asked her if she still wanted to hear my plan-" Lelouch began before he was cut off by the same girl who asked the question in the first place.

"Isn't that kind of defeating the purpose of telling her not to choose in the first place?"

The raven-haired teen absentmindedly glanced up towards the clock up on his HUD and let out a tired sigh upon seeing he had spent a whole half hour explaining this rather benign happening in his life. A part of him blamed the orange-haired girl sitting directly across from him for asking a question every couple of seconds, but then again, it's not like it mattered much in the long run.

"Not really, considering I only told her that to get her to make her choice faster," he replied in a tone that emphasized how tedious he felt the whole thing was.

"You know that literally makes no sense whatsoever, right?" Kazuto chimed in from his seat next to Asuna.

Lelouch let out an amused snort as he countered with, "I'm well aware of how nonsensical it sounds, but nonetheless it got me the results I was looking for."

"Does mean that she said yes?" asked a slightly more curious Asuna.

To both of his companions' surprise, the former emperor responded with, "Yes and no."

"She agreed on hearing out what I had planned, but before I began explaining it to her she asked me to give her time to decide whether or not she wanted to help me with it," he added before either of them could ask what he meant, "Seeing that she was already risking her own safety to give me the information on LC, I obliged and told her my plan."

"You just told her your whole plan?" Kazuto asked, extremely surprised by the sound of it.

"Of course," the raven-haired teen replied nonchalantly, "Like I said, she was already risking a good deal by coming out to meet with me, I had to repay her somehow."

"And besides," the raven-haired teen began as a wryly smirk spread across his features, "It's not like the plan absolutely depended on the role I had planned for her, it would've just made what's to come easier on everyone."

"What exactly does that mean?" Asuna asked him curiously.

Lelouch let a soft chuckle before answering her question with a question of his own, "Tell me, what do you think our plan to deal with LC should be?"

At first, she seemed to be confused as to why he was asking her the question, but then seemed to realize that it was because she was the second-in-command of the most powerful guild in Aincrad, which gave her actual authority on the subject.

"Well the most obvious solution would be to try and negotiate with them for their surrender since it would require the least amount of bloodshed from both sides, but I highly doubt that LC would even consider surrendering to us even under the threat of death given their track record," Asuna began as she cupped her chin between her index finger and thumb in contemplation, "And then there's the option of staging a full-on assault on their base of operations, which would be the most direct and most effective way of ensuring their surrender, but could also end up with more than a few lives lost on both sides if LC somehow managed to catch wind of the attack."

"Are those really our only options?" Kazuto asked, sounding more than a little bummed by the revelation that the only two options they had could very well end in failure.

"Of course not, but to make such a move against LC we would need the cooperation of all of the major guilds to prevent any backlash from the public on any one guild if things are to go awry," Lelouch explained, "And trying to coordinate such a large group of people would be difficult since there's no direct way to relay messages to one another and the overall lack of experience working with one another is going to make things even harder, so it's best to keep any strategies as straight-forward as possible to prevent any communication mishaps."

"I guess that makes sense," the messy-haired teen replied as he leaned deeper into his seat on the couch, "But that doesn't make it any less depressing though."

Lelouch couldn't stop himself from smiling at his brother's words.

There was a certain naivete to it that reminded him of Suzaku. The one he knew before Euphemia's death.

Somebody who would always try to keep casualty numbers on both sides at zero if he could and would do everything in his power to make sure it would.

Someone who always put their morality and honor over logic.

Something Lelouch had always wanted to be… A good person.

But a good person wasn't going to bring down a group like LC.

No it would take somebody who wasn't afraid to forsake the lives of innocent people to get what they wanted.

Someone who put the goal over everything else.

Something Lelouch had always been… a bad person.

"So what exactly does this have to do with the plan you were about to tell me?" Asuna asked, pulling the raven-haired teen out of his thoughts and back into reality.

Still a little dazed by being so suddenly pulled out of his thoughts, it took him a moment to regain his train of thought.

"As Kazuto so eloquently put it, both of our options could end rather… badly to say the least," Lelouch said as he suddenly stood up from his seat and opened his inventory to fetch something that would help with the explanation.

Upon finding it, he selected it and placed it onto the standard wooden coffee table that had came with the apartment when he first rented it.

"A Record-Crystal?" his two companions asked in almost complete unison.

Lelouch glanced at the two and gave them a quick nod in response before activating said crystal.

An instant later, a holographic-blue screen emerged from the box, displaying a set of pictures that had been given to him by Lux a few days prior.

"So to minimize the chance of that happening, I took it upon myself to secure us an ace-in-the-hole," Lelouch explained dramatically as he turned the crystal so that the screen was facing his two companions, "Asuna and Kirito, I give to you something I like to call 'The Lancelot Initiative'..."

-Lux POV-

(A Few Hours Later)

"So what did you end up telling the boss?" she asked her friend, Rossa, the moment she felt like they were far enough away from their encampment that no one would overhear their conversation, unless they were followed of course, but she highly doubted that someone would be able to sneak up on them with her hearing skills.

"I told him that my cover had been blown and my target lead me into an ambush made of him and two of his friends; however he didn't know that I was only acting as bait for Ezra who quickly came in and hit them all with paralysis darts, which quickly turned the tide towards our favor.

Unfortunately we didn't know that his friends had hid antidote crystals under their cloak and they immediately got the beat on Ezra when he revealed himself, I escaped when they were all busy dealing with him, but he ended up getting teleported to somewhere, most likely Black Iron Palace due to his orange-player status," Rossa explained with a shrug, "You know a loose form of the truth."

"Good thinking," she complimented her friend, which elicited a slight blush to grow on Rossa's cheeks, "So how did Lerouge react when you told him what you were really doing?"

For a moment, Lux thought she saw a hint of annoyance in her friend's eyes the moment she asked her the question, but it came came and went so fast that it was hard to tell if it had happened at all.

"He seemed pleasantly surprised," the black-haired teen replied simply, "And by that I mean, he started grinning like a mad man."

Lux couldn't help but smile at the statement, "That sounds like something he would do."

"He also told me to tell you that he would contact you once he was done with the preparations and that we should lie low until he does," Rossa added last second.

"Good, because I don't know how much more of this I can take," Lux grumbled tiredly.

"Hey, consider yourself lucky that you don't have to deal with that bastard on a daily basis," Rossa replied with a hint of disgust in her voice when she said this.

"Johnny still giving you trouble?" Lux asked curiously.

"Yeah, I'm sure he's still pissed about me turning him down a few months ago," her best friend letting out a sigh before continuing, "Seriously, you'd think he would have gotten over it by now…"

Lux let out a small giggle at her friend's relatively normal plight, "Maybe you should go out with him just to get him off your back, it's not like you're going to be seeing much of each other after everything goes down."

"Ha, like I would give the bag-wearing creep the satisfaction," the black-haired teen scoffed, "If he wants to try and make my life a living hell for it, I say bring it on because I take anything he can dish out and then some!"

She couldn't stop herself from laughing at the sheer determination in her friend's voice. It was like going out with Johnny one time would've been worse than giving your soul to the devil to her.

"You laugh now, but just wait until he starts trying to ask you out and then you'll know how I feel," Rossa grumbled under her breath softly, but not soft enough for Lux to miss it, which only made her laugh harder.

Her friend grumbled something else, but this time she said it at a volume that was inaudible to her, which was probably for the best in her opinion.

"So what happens to us once everything's finished?" Rossa asked suddenly, causing Lux to cease her laughing almost immediately, something that her friend seemed to pick up on which caused her to start rambling on in an attempt to get things back to the light-hearted conversation they were just having a few moments ago like she always did.

"I just noticed that you forgot to tell me when you were explaining it to me, is all. That or you did tell me and I just forgot, which is most likely the case since I do-"

Seeing that Rossa was going to ramble on until she stopped her, Lux did so with a simple, "I don't know."

Damn, that came out a lot weaker than she had hoped.

"What?"

"I don't know," she repeated, "The only thing Lerouge told me about what happened afterwards was that the people who join with us won't be imprisoned or killed like the others."

"That's good, I thought he was just going to use us up and leave us to die the moment we proved to unnecessary," Rossa stated, the relief in her voice being overpowered the awkward tone she had.

Why was that?

Maybe she was having second doubts, Lux wouldn't have blamed her if she did.

What they were planning would change things for them drastically. There was no telling what would happen.

Hell, they might even end up worse than they started off.

So that's why she had to tell her friend of the risk.

If things didn't go as planned and everything went to shit around them, she at least wanted Rossa as far away from it as possible.

But the moment she opened her mouth, something flashing in the corner of her HUD caught her attention.

It was a message alert and she automatically knew who the message was from.

-Lelouch POV-

(A Week Later)

"I still can't believe you managed to get leaders from all of the major clearing guilds to come for this," Kazuto stated as they walked towards the room he was holding the meeting.

"Truth be told, getting an audiences with them was surprisingly easy," Lelouch replied with a wry smirk on his lips, "All I had to do was do some favors for some of the higher ranked members of the guilds and I eventually managed to get in good enough graces with them to earn myself an audience with their leaders.

When I met with all of them individually I told them that I wanted to talk to the leaders of all the frontline guilds about the current status of the situation with LC and unsurprisingly they were more than a little hesitant to agree to come."

"So what'd you do to convince them otherwise?"

The smirk the raven-haired teen wore suddenly shifted into something akin to a small frown as he spoke, subconsciously knowing that his brother wouldn't like the answer he was about to give, "I told them what could happen if they were to not help with the effort and they eventually agreed."

"..."

The former emperor had expected a lot of different responses to come from his brother after that statement, but silence hadn't been one of them.

"Do you have a problem with the way I'm handling this situation?" he asked his brother in a tone that was similar to the one he would use during the Black Rebellion, "If you do, voice your opinion now when it can still change things."

"No," Kazuto answered in a tone that made it clear that there was no room to argue.

The raven-haired teen frowned at the sudden answer, but made no attempt at questioning it further.

As much as he wanted to know what his brother thought about the whole situation, Lelouch knew that he had much more important things to focus on at the moment.

"Hey Lelouch," his brother spoke as they neared the door leading to the hall he had set up for the meeting.

The raven-haired teen glanced over at his brother and asked, "What is it?"

The black-clad swordsman didn't respond at first, keeping silent for a few seconds before finally responding with, "Good luck in there."

He was half-tempted to respond with his usual answer of: "there's no such thing as luck", but decided against it when he saw that his brother hesitated before giving his response and simply nodded in response.

With that, his brother left him to stand in front of the door that would begin the downfall of Laughing Coffin.

But before entering, Lelouch opened his inventory and scrolled down until he finally found he was looking for.

He selected it, smiling darkly as the familiar-looking object materialized into his fully-gloved hand before hiding it under his cloak so that he could bring it out at the right time.

Placing his hand on the large wooden door in front of him, he gave a single firm push and smiled as it opened.

'Now…' he smiled, 'Let the games begin.'

-End-

Well that's a wrap folks.

Sorry for such a short and boring chapter after such a long wait, but I simply felt like it was best to end it there so it wouldn't drag on for much longer as I felt like it was getting too long for what it actually was and that's a chapter to build up to next chapter.

Yes, this was a chapter to build up to the upcoming chapter.

And as to why it took so long to update, it's pretty much because of a combination of my own laziness and the fact I had other stories to work on. That and I pretty much went into this chapter not knowing what I was going to do.

I didn't know if I wanted to build-up to the fight with LC or simply have it this chapter, nor did I know what was going to happen in this chapter other than the explanation to what happened last chapter so that definitely didn't help.

But don't worry, I have a pretty good idea what I wanted to do next chapter and that includes the end of the "Lelouch v. Laughing Coffin" arc that I started two chapters ago.

It's going to be the exact opposite of this one. Long and action-packed.

So until next time… PEACE!