Two men walked across damp grass on an early September morning, their shadows lost among those cast by headstones from the rising sun. Tall buildings of glass and steel loomed a road's width away. They shined a bright orange, forcing the younger of the two men to avert his eyes.

"Ugh," he groaned. "It's too early…" The young man looked to the older man in search of sympathy, and found nothing in his flint grey eyes. There was no waiting for a response. Instead, there was a dejected sigh as the young man put his hands in his pockets and fixed his gaze ahead on the stone path. "So… what're we gonna clean up this year?"

The older man sighed. "Beer cans." He replied, his voice gravelly. "Maybe a few bottles. Damn drunks."

"We're leaving the caps and cigarettes, yeah?"

"We can leave a few. It'd be unreasonable otherwise. But keep it presentable."

"For that tomb?"

"We're all equal in death."

"Amen."

There was a pause.

Then, the older man took a moment to slap his companion upside the head.

"Ow!" The younger man snapped, "The hell was that for?"

"This ain't church, boy, and I ain't running a sermon." He glared at the younger man. "You keep that sass under control."

And the younger man's similarly grey eyes stared back. "Yeah, yeah…" he waved a hand. The older man lifted his arm, and the younger flinched. "Alright, already…! I get it."

The older man chuckled, "I'd hope so." His hand went back down to his side. Stepping ahead of the younger man, he raised his voice as if to start a tirade. "You know, when I was your age…" and he stopped. He stared ahead towards the center of the cemetery.

"Yeah? When you were my age, what?" The younger man asked, coming up from behind the older man. Before he too, stopped and stared.

In the center of the cemetery, an old, cracked mausoleum stood. Where once it was white marble, years of aging and abuse had taken its toll on the structure… but though the metal gate that sat in front had rusted and worn, there was precious little explanation for their warped and decimated state.

Pieces of concrete and marble clung to the bent hinges of gates that were left scattered on the ground. Dirt was upturned, as if torn through by a car's wheels. The destruction continued along the path away from the center of the cemetery, towards one of the outermost walls, and through the uppermost par. A scattering of bricks was left behind to dampen in the morning dew.

And still, the two men stood and stared.

"Damn drunks."

-x-

It was a wide, open, well-lit auditorium. A middle-aged man of Asiatic descent stood front and center of the stage, a clicker in one hand as the other rested on the podium. His attention was shared between the images behind him, and the audience in front.

"…This system inspired a great deal of loyalty among new recruits – that promise of being a part of something greater and higher than one's self. But the system encouraged discrimination, division, and a lack of coordination combined with an adherence to borderline suicidal tactics and training. Taken together, it brought a great deal of citizens into the military… only to have them killed in human wave tactics that assumed numbers that were not present."

The man's voice was crisp and clear, leaving no room for argument. His thumb came down, and with the audible push of a button, the screen behind him changed to a set of graphs. The man grimaced as if pained, and looked away.

"Eighty-thousand, sixty-eight thousand, one hundred-thousand… –You'll notice these are all estimates. Britannian records of Numbers and Honorary Britannians lost in combat would only count casualties of non-homelanders as a means of propaganda. But in more open conflicts, especially with the Black Knights, official numbers of casualties were always lowered."

Another click – a picture of a man cradling a cracked helmet and staring at nothing in particular took up the screen. He was covered in ashes and surrounded in destroyed buildings. "But it gets worse than that. The ideal Honorary Britanian soldier required the mentality to march to his own execution without complaint, and to perform crimes of war on the part of the Britanian government without compunction. This–" the man gestured emphatically "–is Hanagima Shu. An Eleven at the time, he was convicted of a crime he did not commit after being ordered to bomb the Shinjuku Ghetto. He walked to a mock trial less than a week after the fact, and was executed alongside dozens of other men and women just like him."

His thumb pressed down once more. "This system," the man continued, "Was a disaster. It encouraged mass civilian death as a means of psychological pressure on enemies made by the state, often to the state's benefit. Whatever good the early days of the system brought, they were far outweighed by the negatives." Another graph stood tall, showing in various colored bars the total losses of life. "Are there any questions?"

Someone raised their hand.

"Yes?"

The person stood, "Sir Kururugi–"

"Suzaku." The man interrupted. "Please. No titles."

"…Suzaku, ah…" the person, a young woman, shuffled through her notes. "You were one of those men, yes? Someone falsely accused and sentenced to death? When you were saved by Zero's actions, you continued walking towards what was surely your own execution. Why?"

The man on the stage took a deep breath, and he sighed.

"I wanted to die."

-x-

"You can't keep telling people that, Sir Kururugi!" a young woman with bright blue hair insisted.

"I can't?" The older man feigned confusion, "But I could have sworn I told that whole room…"

The young woman growled, stepping closer towards him. Her pumps clacked against the tiled floor, "Don't you get cute with me! I know what you're doing, and I won't let you just sabotage your legacy like this!"

Suzaku's stare was flat and unbothered, "My legacy consists of lies and murder."

"But you freed Japan, and the rest of the world! You revolutionized our society! You–"

"Murdered my closest friend after betraying him multiple times, stole his alter ego for myself, and abandoned my former identity for twenty years." Suzaku put his hand on the young woman's shoulder, "Boudicca. I do not have a legacy to be proud of."

"…But still… You're the Knight of One! And you're the Knight of Zero! And… and…" Her retort, once full of fire, seemed to die in the face of Suzaku's visible inability to care. He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to list off another title. "And… you're retired."

"Discharged."

Boudicca flinched. "I… I mean, I wouldn't put it like that…"

"Call it what it is," Suzaku said. "I represented a problematic era of Britannian politics, and if they didn't discharge me then I wasn't going to retire." Even after decades of speaking the standard Britannian English dialect, there was no removing the slight accent in his words. "If the monarchy was still in power, we both know I'd have been shot instead."

"And I'm sure you'd have preferred that." The words left her mouth before she could stop herself. Boudicca's eyes widened, as if she'd been caught with her hand in a cookie jar, and she averted her gaze. "Sir Kururugi, I… I'm so sorry. That was inappropriate of me. I–"

"Just a moment," he interrupted her, paying Boudicca no mind as he fished a vibrating phone out of his pocket. "Aron…? I take it this isn't a friendly call." He paused. "…I see. What time should I be over?" Another pause, "…I have another two lectures today, but I can reschedule…" There was one last pause. "I see. Two o' clock, then? …Alright. Ah, and tell your mother I said hello–?" Suzaku frowned, and exhaled. "He really has to stop hanging up on me like that." He grumbled, staring at his phone's screen.

Boudicca raised an eyebrow, "Aron… Kozuki? What would the chief of police want with you at this time of day?"

"I suppose we'll find out together. In the meantime, I suppose I have some lectures to reschedule…"

Boudicca frowned, "Oi – you don't get to sound so put upon, Sir Kururugi! I'm the one who's going to be doing the work, and… stop laughing, damn it!"

-x-

Aron Kozuki ran a hand through bright red hair as he examined a set of tracks left in the torn up cemetery grounds. He'd taken a knee, and felt the individual grooves and indentations left behind by a set of tire tracks. "They found it like this a few hours ago." He explained, "I thought you'd want to come and take a look."

"I understood that much from our conversation over the phone, Aron–"

"Chief."

"–I'm not calling you that." Suzaku replied, bored. "But I don't understand why I'm the one you called before anybody else."

"…Don't play me for a fool, Kururugi." Aron growled, "This has your ilk written all over it."

"Ilk?"

"Black Knight bullshit. You know what I mean, and you know whose tomb this is. I want to know, right here and right now, does this have anything to do with that garbage plan you and your buddy cooked up fifty years ago?"

Suzaku's hand clenched. "First of all, it wasn't a garbage plan."

"Uh huh."

"And secondly, how would I, or Lelouch, have gone about doing this?"

"…" Aron stared, his bright blue eyes almost glowing as he crouched in the afternoon shadow of the mausoleum. "See, that's what I want to know. Because those gates weren't blown in from some car hopping the wall… they were blown out. So how'd you do it, Kururugi? How'd you bury that demon in a car instead of a coffin, and who drove his body away?"

"You're being facetious."

"I'm grasping at straws because there's nothing else to grasp. I need something, Kururugi! I can't just turn around and tell everyone that the Demon Emperor's corpse fucking drove away. You're the most likely person I can think of who'd have an idea of what this means, and if you're telling me you've got nothing, then there's someone running around with a corpse of Britannian royalty and we don't know who."

"So what?" Suzaku shrugged, "Last time I checked, Lelouch wasn't a very popular man. Most of this seems like it was going to happen inevitably, so all you really need to do is just find the body and the people who stole it. How they did it shouldn't matter."

"…You know it's not that easy." Aron's teeth were clenched, "If it was just a bunch of kids, that'd be one thing. But this isn't that. This is something that – just… Just look, who else am I going to blame for this? Who else can I point to and say "That man did it"? Even if I take you at your word, your association with this man still makes you the prime suspect."

Boudicca stood off to the side, a worried expression on her face as she approached parts of the scene. An officer would step in, and she would be forced to distance herself from whatever caught her interest.

Even so, nothing was stopping her from looking, and nothing prevented her from watching as water trickled out the opening of the mausoleum. "...that's odd." She murmured, "Hey, what's this? The water, I mean. These things are supposed to be air-tight, right?"

One of the officers followed her pointing finger, "That? It's a little weird… the whole inside of the mausoleum was soaking wet. It was cold this morning, so it was mostly ice… but…" The officer paused, "Who did you say you were again?"

"Ah, well, I'm just… uh… Sir Kururugi? Assistance, please?" She looked towards Suzaku, waving her hand.

Suzaku offered an easy smile and a shrug to Aron, and the other man sighed. "She's fine, just let her be." The police chief said. "But no touching – this is a crime scene, first and foremost."

"…She did raise an interesting point about the water. Maybe some piping broke?" Suzaku proposed.

Aron shook his head. "First thing we thought of. No sewage lines, nothing from the main and secondary water lines, no wiring… there's nothing under the ground except a couple hundred stiffs and the coffins they call home." He took a moment to survey the area again, "A few hundred minus one, at least."

"Then where did the water come from?" Suzaku asked, a hand to his chin.

"It couldn't have been rain," Boudicca announced. "All this water is localized to the tomb."

"So how many mysteries does that leave us with…?" Suzaku mused aloud, "I count three so far."

Aron pinched his brow and sighed. "I didn't need this shit."

"Look at the bright side," Boudicca offered, "The water, the tread marks, the way the gate was forced open," She listed with one hand, "However this happened there is certainly a logical explanation for it!"

"…Yeah," Suzaku replied. "Almost certainly."

A logical explanation – sure, that was a possibility. But logic just required premises and conclusions. It just required having a starting point and an ending point. There was no rule that logic couldn't involve something not so easily explained, or that logic couldn't refer to something that always seemed difficult to nail down.

Suzaku looked at Aron, respect radiating off him in waves. The other man had the right idea coming to him – and it wasn't like Suzaku could blame him for not knowing the full story of the Demon Emperor.

And as a matter of fact, Aron had a good idea coming to Suzaku. The person who was closest to Lelouch would know if something like this was planned.

…That person wasn't Suzaku. He was unashamed to admit that much. But he had a feeling he knew who it was.

So as the men searched, Suzaku offered his comments and remarks. And when all was said and done, when nothing of significance was found, Suzaku resolved himself to finding a certain green-haired witch.

-x-

Stars clashed.

Suns detonated.

The void between the light grew smaller as more lights formed, and others dimmed to make room for a vacuum built to be filled with explosions of unheard noises and unseen flashes. Another detonation – serpents the length of the unknown roared and clashed.

Red and blue, with white always in the middle – it was hardly a tempering force as fragments of metal flew and twirled in majestic patterns before coming to a stop. They folded, splitting and curling away towards the surfaces of planets millions of lightyears away, and when they reformed… something was holding them.

Dolls stuffed with what was supposed to be cotton rested in their corners, their hosts to be literally shackled to an artificial destiny. Others stalked their targets for days. And others still sat waiting behind glass windows as little price tags grew from polyester skin.

And one more fell through folding space, leaving behind the infinity of stars before coming to a rest on a glass case.

The doll was morbid in design – a cartoonish emperor penguin covered in electrical burns, its intestines dangling free. With either flipper, it pressed the metal band it held through the casket resting on a pedestal.

Light cast from the material faded, plunging the inside of the crypt into pitch blackness.

There was a long, deep gasp. The coffin's lid shook. There was thumping, audible shouts of panic as the lid shook twice, then a third time. Finally, there was a detonation of ice. The lid was forced away, falling to the opposite side of the small room at the bottom of the stairway, and a young woman crawled free from her confines.

She took deep breaths of what little air she could, her chest ached from underuse as it strained against an overly ornate shirt not meant for her form. Her purple eyes were wide and wild in search of something. On her wrist, a black manacle hummed.

The woman tried speaking, and only managed to cough before she stumbled to her knees. Suddenly and violently ill, she vomited hissing plastics and methanol. Formaldehyde froze over, and the woman sobbed as years of embalming substances expelled themselves from her shaking, quivering form.

Then and only then, in the dead silence of the tomb, dressed in the clothes of a dead man and surrounded in ice and vomit, did the emperor penguin choose to speak.

"Yo!" Its voice was coy. "Welcome back to the world of the living!"

The woman on the stone floor continued gasping. She shook, and shivered, "W… What…?" Her voice was hoarse from years of disuse. Time and emaciation melted from her form as she looked towards the doll, "What is this…?" Her head felt foggy, her mind was playing tricks on her.

She was… alive…? She held her hands out in front of her, but saw nothing. There was no light this deep into the tomb… and she knew she was in a tomb. Everything stank of rot, rock, and old chemicals. Though, in all fairness, the latter was mostly her fault.

"That arm shows proof of the contract, the Bracelet of Oaths!" recited the doll, "That is what we say."

"Arm?" The woman asked aloud, grasping at herself in search of this bracelet – there it was, wrapped around her right wrist. She looked at it, focused on it, and… it glowed. A soft, purple light radiated from the thing on her arm. For a flicker of a second, she thought she saw a familiar set of wings engraved onto it.

But no, it was a solid black shape as if carved from some kind of metallic granite. There were no cuts or grooves to indicate it was made in a factory, or by hand. Was it welded? Or– "My, you're a real thinker… aren't you?"

"Who are you?"

"I say, point your light at me and let me see you, oh champion!" The doll giggled, its voice carrying through the tomb.

The woman frowned, doing as instructed, and a light was cast upon the emperor penguin. She stared at it, then began turning her arm away in search of the person who unquestionably was toying with her. "No, no, the other way!" Came the doll's voice, "You know it to be true, and that's what I'm saying!"

…With great reluctance, the woman pointed her bracelet at the stuffed animal. "There you go, says I. Lemme try again… Yo!" It waved a flipper, "You have been chosen for a battle unlike any other! Congratulations~!"

"I refuse."

"…Eh?"

"I can accept returning from the dead. I can accept my body being changed," she gestured to her form with her left hand, keeping her right pointed towards the doll. "I can even accept that you can talk. But… I will not fight your battle, whoever you are." Her voice was firm and clear in its tone, leaving no room for argument. She glared at the doll where it rested, and dared it to defy her.

"…I see, says I. I truly, truly see." The doll sighed, "But it is not for me to decide what you will do, only to announce that you shall do it, and that is what we say."

"Who?" The woman asked, "Who is telling you this? I demand to know…" She paused, "I demand it… I order you…" She frowned, one hand coming up to her aching temple. "…It's not working…?"

"Why would it? That Power of Kings… you were dead, yes?" asked the doll, "Dead as dead could be, sees I and so I say. A sword through the chest is not something you humans can survive. Not even kings can survive it! So… don't be surprised that you can do so little."

The woman eyed the doll, but still there was no trepidation. Just a cool, collected acceptance of the strange world around her, all fitted around a gaze harboring steel. "You know about the Geass."

"It is one of many systems we know of, says I." The penguin nodded, "Is that such a wonder? Is it truly a marvel?"

"…No. I suppose it isn't."

"You've got moxie, and spunk. One or both, I say! Trying to use the Power of Kings on a Messenger… how brave of you…! But it is fitting. You are one of the elite fighters of the galaxy! You… are a Kampfer!"

The woman flinched at the word. There was something wrong about it. It was… German? But it also wasn't. Other syllables seemed to be spoken beneath the phrase, and trying to recall them left her with a splitting headache. She grit her teeth and tried anyway, to try and hear what that was–

K̙̰͉̀A̶̪̜͔̺̘M͓̳͎̱̟̻PF̮̝E̹̰̪R

The light flickered out, and she found herself dry heaving once again. Something trickled out of her nose – was that blood? It felt like blood.

In the dark of the tomb, the doll continued watching her. She looked up, expecting its eyes to shine, expecting something, anything – but there was nothing to be seen. Cold, creeping terror wrapped its hand around her heart. But once more she stood, and once more she focused on the doll.

…It was gone.

"Wow, they buried you with it~!"

She spun on her heel, pointing the bracelet towards the coffin filled with ice. And there the doll sat, focused on a sword. It still had some of her blood stained on it, and it stood encased in ice. The doll looked at the blade, as if marveling at its design.

"That's pretty dark, huh?" The doll stared at her, unblinking and unfeeling. Its voice carried a light quality to it. The woman realized then that this thing did not view her as a threat. A cold sweat broke out on her neck, but she did not step away. She did not run.

Because… where could she go? She was trapped here with this thing.

"…You're eyeing it." The doll spoke. "I can tell. You're planning on getting out of this by finishing the job, right? That's how I say it." It stared at her, and it was almost comical the way its intestines swung as it turned its head. "You don't want to do that. I promise you don't."

"If you know what Geass is and if you came here… then you probably know who I am."

"Yes to both, says I."

"Then tell me. Why shouldn't I kill myself? This tomb…" She gestured around her, "Was filled with cobwebs. Nobody has come in here for years. Decades, I'd bet. If I killed myself, that would be the end of it. Nobody would know, and there would be nothing you or whatever sent you could do."

"You could do that, but then the world would forget all about you."

"People forget former emperors all the time. I'm hardly exempt – I don't remember every single Emperor. Of course I'll be forgotten one day!"

"You don't understand? That's fine, so if that stick won't work… have another, so we say. If you do not participate in this fight, your world will be designated as aberrant, its citizens will be eliminated, and the proxy war will claim another planet~! How's that?"

"…Excuse you?"

"Three times!" The penguin held up a flipper, "Three times you've asked me to repeat myself! I keep saying it, and you just won't listen to me. You have been chosen to fight a battle. You are a Kampfer now. And if you refuse to fight, your world will be forfeit, so we say. Is that concise? I say, does that help? Hmm? Hmm?"

"You're threatening all the people outside this tomb because I won't play your game?"

"Threatening…? Hmm, no. Not really. Just stating facts." The penguin tilted its head, "You are the Demon Emperor, Lelouch vi Britannia. No matter your changes, no matter your shape or power… that is what this world needs to survive. I am not here to threaten, I say. I am here to warn you of the stakes, and offer you what is needed to save the day~!"

"You took my Geass, threw me into a world I know nothing about, and you're expecting me to work from absolutely nothing." The woman summarized, "As I am now, I don't even resemble who I used to be. I…" She paused, moving the bracelet towards one of the pillars of ice formed from her escape from the coffin. The woman checked her reflection. "…I look like my mother."

"A woman long dead, remembered by people long dead – consider it as another charge into Hell, Lelouch vi Britannia. A fresh start at throwing yourself into a meat grinder~! This should feel nostalgic to you, I say!"

"Shut up."

"Did I touch a nerve? I know you, Lelouch vi Britannia. I know you as every Messenger knows their Kampfer. I know your strengths, your weaknesses, the things you hate, and the things you love. And I know you will say yes to me, I say." The penguin's tone became smug, "You will leave this place as a Kampfer. You will fight."

"Never."

"Then Nunnally will die."

Her breath hitched. She swallowed. "You…"

"I wasn't bluffing, I say. I know you better than anyone else has ever known you. This is not a bargain. This is not a deal. This isn't even an order. This is an ultimatum. Save this world, or watch it and everything you've worked towards be turned to ash."

She stood there, waiting and deliberating on her decision. She was still dressed in the outfit they buried her in – all whites and golds, far too prim and proper for a mass murderer and a monster. She could feel the melted embalming fluids through her shoes, but they did not sting or hurt her.

The woman flexed her hands – she felt… strong. Stronger than she'd ever had any right to feel, like she could run the marathon track at Ashford Academy a dozen times without stopping, without being winded. Each breath she took, she could feel her strange new body press against the tailor-made outfit, and there was no avoiding the thoughts she entertained as she stared into the ice.

Lelouch vi Britannia had been revived as something else, and he – she – didn't know what any of it meant. But she had destroyed continents for the sake of her sister. What was this in comparison except more of the same? Nothing new, to be sure… nothing she wasn't used to.

"…Say I agree to this," she looked at the doll. "What happens then?"

"We bust out of this tomb and go hunting."

"…Hunting for what?"

"Miscreants. Threats. Dangers. We search for the Kampfer that threaten your world, and then we kill them. That ought to be right up your alley… isn't it?"

"It isn't. And I will never hold that position again, not as long as I live. But… what point is there in saving a world only to have it doomed a few years later?"

And in the darkness of that tomb, though she could not see the doll, Lelouch was certain it was smiling.

-x-

End Eisritter Ch.001