Chapter One: Caught in the Act

Kallen Kozuki was not happy, especially since she was Kallen Stadtfeld right now.

She'd have much rather been hanging out with her big brother Naoto with the resistance. But he'd insisted being in the ruins of the old Japanese settlement was too dangerous. And so she'd been forced to go to school instead and pretend half of her didn't exist. Her red hair was let down around her, instead of tied up with spikes as she preferred.

And now she was trying to look meek while sitting in front of her teacher. He was a mustached man whose name she couldn't remember. He was fine teacher material by Britannian standards. Which meant he did a good job spouting racial propaganda and little else.

"I want both of you to do a project on the reconstruction of Area 11," said the teacher.

"I'm sorry, what?" said Lelouch, saying what Kallen wanted to.

Not that Lelouch Lamperouge was anything like Kallen. He was one of those spoiled noble brats who spent all his time angsting. He hardly did any work, but he got great grades anyway, and Kallen had heard other girls whispering about him. Kallen didn't see the appeal; he was incredibly scrawny.

"I think you heard me the last time, Lelouch," said the teacher. "You and Kallen are going to be working together on this assignment."

"Yes, but..." Lelouch paused.

"Why would you have us do an assignment on the Britannian occupation?" asked Kallen. "I mean, aren't we supposed to focus on things that are good about Britannia?"

"That is what's good about Britannia, Kallen," said the teacher. "We've come to open the eyes of this unenlightened race to reality wash away their evil culture." And he firmly believed this why?

"So what precisely do you want us to go after?" asked Lelouch.

"Construction work on the Tokyo Settlement," said the teacher. "The education of unenlightened people, how we've brought industry and modernized their technology. Perhaps the superiority of Britannian culture if you want.

"I'll leave the details up to you.

"It is your project, after all."

"Why are we being assigned this assignment?" asked Kallen.

"Well, you both seem to dislike history class so much," said the teacher. "I thought some first-hand experience might liven you up. We'll be presenting the results of this project at the fair, like everyone else's. So you've got a week."

How long had Kallen been in this Britannian's class again?

Later, Kallen and Lelouch were in the school library. Ashford Academy had an extensive library, and some of the books were actually from Japan, which made it a slight step up, not that anyone read them. They'd probably only been put there so they could pretend to be progressive.

"...So, I guess we'll be working together in this," said Lelouch, checking the shelves. What was he looking for? Was he actually going to put some work in here?

"Yeah, it looks like it. I'm uh... sick a lot, so..." Kallen shifted.

"I'm sure I can handle it myself if you want," said Lelouch flatly. "No sense in dragging the project down."

"Hey, what is that supposed to mean?" asked Kallen, breaking character.

"What?" said Lelouch. "You were the one looking for an excuse to walk out of it."

"Well, I... I guess I'd better help out if I can," said Kallen. "So, where do you want to go first?"

"I'm not going to any of these places," said Lelouch, drawing out a standard history textbook. "The museum is only going to show the official story, and that isn't interesting at all."

"So what do we do?" asked Kallen. She was surprised he knew that much, he'd always struck her as a slacker.

Lelouch put the textbook down on the table and started flipping through it. "We'll just take everything we see here about the conquest of Japan, then rephrase it in our own words. Then I'll surf the net a bit, find some dramatic looking pictures and slap them on it.

"It'll get us an A+."

"Now hang on, we're supposed to research this!" said Kallen, feeling offended.

"They don't want us to research it. They want us to recite the glorious conquests of Britannia," said Lelouch. "Schools don't want their students to think. They want us to become cogs in the machine.

"As long as we make it look nice and recite the party line, we'll get an A+. If we try to actually make a statement or reach a conclusion of our own, it'll be a bad grade."

"So what?" said Kallen, feeling angry now. "You're just going to half-ass it and do the bare minimum?"

"Do you have a better plan?" asked Lelouch, looking at her flatly with violet eyes.

"Well, um..." Kallen remembered she was supposed to be a fifteen-year-old ill girl. "Why don't we go out into the ruins of the old Tokyo Settlement and take pictures?" She'd said it before she could think.

Lelouch blinked. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah, why not?" asked Kallen. "I mean if we're um... careful..."

"We'd get eaten alive," said Lelouch flatly, voice hard. "Law and order haven't even been fully established in those places. I don't plan on leaving my little sister alone in the world.

"Even if we did an award-winning piece that showed what it's like out there, they'd never let it be displayed at the fair. Ashford Academy is a school for nobles, and nobles benefit more than anyone else from the status quo.

"Renberry would shut us down in the first minute."

Renberry? Was that their teacher's name? "Oh yeah, so you'll just sit here in the Ivory tower and recite whatever you're told to recite! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! What are you going to do, say what they want you to say for the rest of your life?"

"That's rich coming from you, Ms. Ill Girl," mused Lelouch. "You don't even show up for class half the time."

"Well, I'm trying to do the work assigned to me!" replied Kallen hotly. "All you're trying to do is copy the textbook so you can feel smug for beating the system!"

Lelouch seemed to consider that, much to Kallen's surprise. Finally, he sighed. "...Fine, you win. We'll really do the assignment."

"Wait, what?" said Kallen. Had she just succeeded in getting through to a Britannian? That had never happened before. Then again, Kallen had never tried.

"But we're not going into the ruins," said Lelouch. "There's probably a bus station that overlooks somewhere with good shots. We can get a look at how people are living. Britannians facilities tend to be separate from Eleven ones, so we could do some research.

"We'd also better pull up some Japanese history textbooks. We want to get a clear picture of how everyone was living before, so we can make it clear how it was after. Then we can focus on the masonry, crime rates, and such."

"But those will all be official statistics," said Kallen, not sure how to approach this. "You can't trust those."

"Actually, you can," said Lelouch. "Britannia hasn't conquered half the world by being inefficient. They do fudge the numbers sometimes, and they love to cover things up. But you can still make use of their records, somewhat. You simply need to know what they want people to perceive. Then you can compare their records to alternate data sources you can rely on.

"Then you can get a general idea of how things are though it's still guesswork.

"They might make for a good effect if we put their numbers next to reality."

"Now hang on, shouldn't we be focusing on the pictures?" asked Kallen.

"I will be focusing on the pictures, obviously," said Lelouch. "I've got a friend who has a bike, and I'm the more physically fit between us. I'm relying on you to get the hard data and such."

"Now wait a minute, I know-" began Kallen. She shifted as she realized she'd almost blurted out her identity.

"Yes?" asked Lelouch.

"I um, I've heard of some places that it might be good to take pictures of," said Kallen. "I sort of got lost several times and saw them."

"You get out a lot for a girl whose never in a class, don't you?" asked Lelouch with a smirk.

Kallen resisted the urge to sock him. "Knock it off."

"Fine, we'll do things your way," said Lelouch. "But we really should vary where we take the pictures.

"Still, we'd better hit the books in the library first. There are actually some worthwhile translated sources of the Japanese side of things. The Ashford Family are moderates. Nobody minds having the books, even if no one would be caught dead reading them."

How did he know that?

They met at the bus stop the next day. Lelouch arrived literally seconds before the bus pulled in, wearing a leather jacket. His dark hair was neatly combed, and he was wearing sunglasses. Around his neck was a camera.

"You're here, finally," said Kallen, as she inserted her ticket into the bus.

"Sorry about that," said Lelouch, taking his turn to pay. "I had to help my sister with something. She spilled tea over herself." He glanced at the driver and Honorary Britannian. "Thank you."

"Your sister, um, she's uh..." Kallen knew she'd heard something about her.

"Her name is Nunnally," said Lelouch, as they sat down. "We're orphans and live on campass."

Lelouch ended up picking a seat on top of the bus, where the open-air was running through their faces. Kallen had to admit; she liked this better. Lelouch, however, was peering and taking shots. Then he paused. "Look over there."

"What?" said Kallen, looking at the skyline.

"What do you see?" asked Lelouch.

"The Tokyo Settlement," said Kallen, looking at the towering skyscrapers and gleaming windows though it was still under construction. "We're building it here after subjugating the elevens."

"And on the other side?" asked Lelouch.

Kallen looked over to the broken forest of shattered buildings and decaying skyscrapers. She remembered how it had once been, beautiful and bustling with life. Now people moved in fear. "The ruins of the Japanese culture. We beat them in the war."

"Thank you," said Lelouch, standing up and training his camera. "Now, let's see. Yes, this shot should do it." He took a shot, then another.

"What are you doing?" asked Kallen.

"I'm trying to get a shot where I catch both the ruins and the Tokyo Settlement," said Lelouch. "I think it would have a pretty good effect. Sort of an opening title card."

"They're on opposite sides, and this thing is always moving," said Kallen.

"Wait for it..." said Lelouch. Then he took another shot. "Got it.

"That should get the necessary effect. We want to establish a sense of contrast before-" And then the bus hit a bump and he lost his grip on his camera. As he fell, Kallen surged forward and snatched it before it fell onto the highway.

"Lelouch!" said Kallen. "Watch what you're doing, you idiot! You almost dropped the camera!"

"Sorry, I've never exactly been athletic," said Lelouch, smiling sheepishly as he took it back.

"No, I've never been athletic," said Kallen. "You have been slacking off in PE for years."

"Guilty as charged," laughed Lelouch, taking his seat again.

Kallen tried not to like him.

When they finally arrived at the station, they stepped out and saw a perfect view of one of the markets. Kallen had met Naoto here several times. She knew just how bad things were here, especially since this place was a prosperous area.

"This is pretty terrible," said Lelouch. He was looking down at a merchant selling scavenged wares to thin, hungry-looking people. "Worse than I expected."

His voice was odd, not what she expected. "What were you expecting?"

"It doesn't really matter," said Lelouch, raising his camera. "Let's get this camera set up here. Then we'll start taking shots. You train your shots over there on the Britannian side of the settlement; I'll take the ruins."

Kallen glanced back to the metropolis. "Hang on; I can't get any shots of people from here. Do you want me to cross the highway?"

"We can get pictures of the Britannian settlement any time," said Lelouch. "I want you to take shots of the place as a whole. We've got a good angle here."

"Are you a photographer?" asked Kallen.

"Not really," said Lelouch. "This just seems the proper way."

"Well, why are you taking shots of the ruins, then?" asked Kallen.

"We can switch later if you want," said Lelouch. "But we have to stay focused on one thing at a time."

And so it began. Kallen took shots with her phone of the Britannian settlement and found it boring. Meanwhile, Lelouch got the interesting job of taking shots of the squalor and horrors. Even so, Kallen tried to take things seriously. She got a shot of a Britannian attack ornithopter as it flew along the walls.

Still, hours went on, and it wasn't long before it all got a bit dull.

Kallen rapidly found herself running out of shots to take. She tried moving her location a bit but finally decided to call it quits. It was about twelve o'clock now anyway, so she moved up to a hotdog stand vendor. He was another Honorary Britannian, of course. They'd sold out their pride and racial identity so they could do the worst jobs Britannia had to offer.

"Excuse me, can I get two hotdogs?" asked Kallen.

"Of course, ma'am," said the man.

"And two sodas, please?" asked Kallen.

Getting her food, Kallen couldn't bring herself to thank him. Instead, she moved up to Lelouch, who was taking pictures with a focused look. "Hey, I got some lunch."

Lelouch stood up. "Oh, thanks. I've been focusing on this."

The two of them sat down to eat on a bench. As they did, Kallen munched on her hotdog. "Funny, I never thought you'd ever focused on anything."

"How many conversations have you had with me before this?" asked Lelouch.

"Fair enough, I guess," said Kallen.

And then there was a cry of pain. They looked up and saw several teenagers in Ashford Academy uniforms. The hotdog vendor was on his knees, and they were kicking him. "Hey, you filthy eleven! What do you think you're doing selling here in this place! You've got no right!"

Actually, he did according to Britannian laws. And now they were beating him senseless just so they could feel tough.

"Please, sir, I'm just trying to make a living!" said the vendor.

Kallen stood up, but then Lelouch caught her by the shoulder. "Wait."

"What?" said Kallen. "Let go!"

"If you go to help him, nobody around here will buy anything from him afterward," said Lelouch.

"What are you talking about?" asked Kallen.

"The people who pity him will think justice is served and go on pretending he doesn't exist," said Lelouch. "They'd rather not buy from an eleven in the first place.

"Meanwhile, the people who hold him in contempt will refuse to buy out of principle. On the other hand, if you let him take the beating, the people who pity him will buy later to appease their conscience. And those who hold him in contempt might take pleasure from him serving them.

"This could help his business."

"But he could get killed!" said Kallen.

"Would you rather he lose everything and go back to the ghetto over there?" asked Lelouch.

Presently, the bullies got sick of beating on a defenseless man and walked off scot-free. The vendor stood back up and started selling food again, bruises and all.

"It's all about self-satisfaction." His voice went silent. "It doesn't matter how hard you try. You can't do it. You can't change the world." Then he raised his phone. "On a brighter note, I've got some wonderful new pictures to display for our class project."

"You got shots of that?" asked Kallen, eyes going wide. Inwardly, she was smirking in sadistic glee.

"Yes, I used my phone," said Lelouch. "They won't be as high quality, but I was afraid they'd smash my camera."

"You're a lot cleverer than you look," said Kallen.

"Better than looking cleverer than you are, I guess," said Lelouch, standing up.

"What is that supposed to mean?" asked Kallen.

"Nothing, let's keep focused on our job," said Lelouch.

They moved over to the side of the street and looked back down at the market. Before their eyes were the police, strutting around like thugs. Kallen remembered what Naoto had told her about them.

"Are those police?" asked Lelouch.

"Oh no," said Kallen.

"Hey, you eleven, I don't like the way you're looking at me," said the policeman, drawing a gun. "How about you bow before me or else."

The man immediately got to his knees and bowed. Lelouch started taking photos. "No, please, don't-"

"Stand on your feet, you goddamn coward!" said another man. "We're Japanese!"

"Heh, well, it looks like we've got some rebels, don't we," said the policeman. "Grab him."

Kallen watched as the men were grabbed and thrown on the ground. Just like the students, the police began to kick and beat him. Someone cried out, and a woman ran to beg the policemen. The police officer smashed her across the face and began kicking her instead with a smirk on his face.

Kallen stared in horror.

She'd known the police were jackbooted thugs but...

She'd never seen it like this. Behind them, the various passerbys were quickly moving on. So was the vendor.

And then the worst happened.

Someone threw a stone. It hurtled through the air and bounced off the police officers' shoulder. In a rage, the man turned around and fired into the crowd. Someone screamed and fell dead. The others scattered. The policeman prepared to fire another shot. But the woman reached up and grabbed the hand, pulling it down.

The policeman pistol-whipped her, smearing blood across her face and shot her twice. Someone screamed in rage and threw a stone. Then the police started shooting everyone. Soon blood was being spattered all over the market. The police kicked over stands, and when they found someone hiding, shot them dead.

And Lelouch was not panicking. He was just taking pictures of it.

"Lelouch!" said Kallen. "We have to go now! If they see us, they'll kill us!"

Lelouch looked up, nodded, and then they walked away. He did not run, not until they'd gotten to the sidewalk. Then they made a run for it, sprinting down the street as fast as their legs could carry them. They heard the sound of sirens, and it sent chills down Kallen's spine.

But the sirens weren't for them.

Coming to another bus stop, they waited and kept an eye on the street. It was so unreal; all those people had been massacred. And nothing was around them to show it. The news would make up something about urban renewals. No one would question it because their paycheck relied on it.

"We're not going to be able to use any of this for our school project, our we?" asked Kallen.

"Of course not," said Lelouch, checking pictures. "The first shot would disqualify us. It's why I suggested we copy our history textbook." He stopped on a picture. It showed the woman's brains being splattered all over the ground. Over here was a smirking policeman. Others showed the massacre.

"So it's all for nothing?" said Kallen. This was why they had to fight.

"...Not necessarily," said Lelouch. "I have an idea which might just let us get the message out, without our names being attached to it. We'll have to wait for tonight, and we'll need to develop some of these very quickly and laminate them.

"But I think we can make this work.

"You'd better give your parents a call, tell them that you'll be staying over at my place tonight. It'll give you an alibi."

"What?" said Kallen. "But we aren't-"

"It's an alibi," said Lelouch.

How was he so controlled? Kallen had seen this kind of thing when the Britannians invaded. Had... had Lelouch seen this stuff before? It was the only way he could be so cool about this. It all fits in place now, that was why he held the history classes in such contempt.

"Right, sorry," said Kallen.

They said nothing as they got on the bus and made their way home. The waning sunlight was surreal as if all those people weren't dead. Kallen guessed that the resistance groups would make an attack in response to this. That would kill even more people, and if it was really bad, Britannia would send in the police.

They got to Ashford Academy and made their way to a mansion that was on campus. Lelouch opened the door and slipped in. They made their way through the house, a very nice mansion with real luxury. Eventually, they ran into a huge dining hall. But the only people within was an Honorary Britannian maid. With her was a long-haired blonde girl in a wheelchair. Her eyes were closed.

"Lelouch, who is this?" asked the girl.

"Nunnally, this is Kallen Stadtfield, a friend of mine from school," said Lelouch. He fell into his seat. "We're working together on a school project, and she'll be staying overnight."

"It's really nice to meet you, Kallen," said Nunnally, offering a hand.

Kallen took it. "Nice to meet you too, Nunnally."

Lelouch stood still for a moment before he finally stood up. "Well, I guess I'd better start dinner. Sayoko, Nunnally, could you amuse our guest. Kallen, once we've eaten, we'll start work."

"Right," said Kallen.

As soon as Lelouch left, Nunnally looked at her. "So, um, are you Lelouch's girlfriend or something?"

"What?" said Kallen. "No! I'm uh... well, the truth is that we've got so much stuff to get through in such a short time. We'll have to work overtime to get it all done." She'd just seen like a hundred people murdered for nothing. All so some policemen could feel like badasses.

Dinner passed in a blur.

Kallen was, on some level, aware that the food was very good. But she hardly tasted it. Nunnally was very nice, but Lelouch was a total mask. He was acting like a nice big brother; nothing in his expression showed any difference.

They finished, made their excuses, and then they set to work.

It took a lot of scrambling to finish things in one day. Lelouch ended up having equipment for lamination in his house, for some reason. Developing the pictures, they printed them out. Then they had to scramble to put together a brief history of the Fall of Japan. There was a timeline and a lot of other things, and Lelouch took meticulous notes.

By the time they finished, it was midnight.

And they headed out to the school, with tape, postcards and a lot of pictures. Lelouch sighed. "We've got to set this thing up properly, so people see them. We'll have the pictures be posted in chronological order. The cards will go underneath them.

"They'll start inside the school premises and then wind through the halls.

"We'll put some in every class."

"Hang on, shouldn't we have them stick to public places so everyone can see them?" asked Kallen.

"It's not necessary," said Lelouch. "People love a good mystery, so we'll make this into a scavenger hunt. It also means that if anyone comes up with the idea of ripping them down, they might miss some.

"Now, let's get to work." He got to the doors of the academy, drew out his keys, and opened the door.

"How do you have access to this academy, anyway?" asked Kallen.

"Oh, I'm friends with Milly Ashford, and I asked her for the key," said Lelouch. "She told the janitor and security to take the night off. Sometimes it pays to have friends in high places."

"What did you tell her?" asked Kallen.

"I told her I was planning a prank," said Lelouch.

"Some prank," said Kallen. "If anyone finds out we did this-"

"They won't if we're fast," said Lelouch. "Now, let's get to work."

Kallen paused as they worked. "Hey, Lelouch, what about that other picture?"

"Hmm?" asked Lelouch.

"The ones that you took of those students from Ashford beating that poor guy senseless?" asked Kallen.

"We're not posting it," said Lelouch.

"What, but we should-" began Kallen.

"Think about what effect that would have," said Lelouch. "The Ashford Family relies on nobles sending their children here. If we reveal that some of their children were acting this way, it could cause them serious problems.

"I'm not ungrateful enough to hurt Milly like that."

"Oh, right," said Kallen, realizing there were a lot of things she didn't think about.

"So I'll just post it anonymously on the internet under a separate account," said Lelouch. "Though I'll wait a week or two for the memory to die down. I don't want those thugs going after the guy who sold the hot dogs."

"Well, we'll throw down with the police, but not a couple of spoiled brats," mused Kallen.

"Police are, like you say, just thugs," said Lelouch. "Nobles join the military.

"They'll be looking for a scapegoat for all this, so we'll give them one. Since the police are a commoner run organization, they'll be first on the chopping block."

"You really thought this through," mused Kallen.

"I've been waiting to do something like this for a long time," said Lelouch.

When he smiled, Kallen wondered if he wasn't a demon in human form.

The next morning, the students of Ashford Academy returned to class. They found pictures of on every wall of the school, many of them repeating. A timeline had been set up beneath them in print. They showed the devastation left by the invasion, transposed against their own settlement. Then they demonstrated the horrific conditions of the Elevens.

Last of all, they showed a gruesome massacre perpetrated by the police. Someone checked the news and found location reported to have undergone urban renewal.

There was a note at the bottom of each one:

Britannia, your actions are not just.

Signed, Zero.

The teachers quickly ordered them taken down. But it was too late. Before even one had been removed, a dozen people had snapped pictures of the exhibits. Soon they had been posted, and before the lunch bell rang, they had all gone viral.

And so a new demon was born.