My eyes snapped to the sound of an explosion, my frame lowering its center of gravity, a reflex that I had honed over the years. A necessary skill for the job I had done up until this point. But I relaxed when I realized that the explosion was just a firework going off.

Sighing, I settled myself, resisting the urge to curse out the dumb ass kid that was overzealous with his bottle rocket, not that it would do me any good, everyone was celebrating and having a merry time.

After all, it was the tenth anniversary of the day that the Demon Emperor had been slain.

Reaching up to my pocket, I stopped myself, realizing that my favorite edge killer was no longer there, a compromise I had made after the really nasty events in the Middle East. Sometimes seeing the worst of people can make the best out of yourself, but the horrors of the Badr Uprising were really one of those that you could just never get out of your head. Not for a war correspondent like myself, though, I guess war correspondent was an anachronism, we were now called conflict correspondents, as silly as that sounded.

Instead, I reached down into my pants pocket and pulled out my replacement fix, slapping it on my forearm and feeling the cool release of the patch. Sometimes, when you saw things, you just needed something to keep that edge from consuming you. For myself, nicotine was my ambrosia, that thing that took the edge off and kept the really nasty things from cropping up, but provided a level of clarity.

It's pretty bad for a twenty-five year old such as myself to be such a mess. But then again, I was addicted to the drums of warfare, maybe that was what drew me to it, or maybe it was the baptism of fire I had when I was only fourteen that caused me to be addicted to it. Hell, not even my shrink knew, not that I liked sharing with that corporate owned pissant.

But that aside, the pay was good, the perks were awesome, and I got all the time I wanted to dick around when there wasn't a battlefield to run to. It wasn't until after the first couple of years I didn't realize how boring it really could be, and that got my mind drifting. Drifting back to things that had bothered me when I was younger, things that didn't make sense.

Things that I wanted to make sense.

That was why I was here now, instead of partying my ass off like the rest of the world I was looking for answers, looking to fill the gaps in my knowledge. Seeking that one answer that had nagged at me for almost the last decade on those cold lonely nights when I had time to think.

My eyes snapped up as the source of my answers slid into view. She was trying her best to blend in, clothing different and hair down, but when you had seen her several times both on and off the field, or even seen the eyes, you could never forget her. Everyone had always claimed that Princess Cornelia was the Goddess of Victory, but if anything could describe his subject, it was that she was the Goddess of War. Everything was calm and measured as she slowly slid through the various children and adults that were busy running around the monument showing exactly where the Demon had fallen, a giant monolith that was like a figurative middle finger transmitted into the afterlife to the very man who had fallen here.

I watched as she only spent a few moments to surreptitiously leave a small bouquet of flowers. I knew exactly the meaning of these flowers, I had seen them too many times in my years in the field. They were all about longing, love, and gratefulness. They were the kind of things left for a loved one who had fallen.

Making sure she hadn't made me, I slowly moved forward to follow her, my eyes noting that the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, which meant that the real festivities would begin soon. The fireworks would go on for hours soon, the drinking would be non-stop and hectic, and everyone would party over the death of one man. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so macabre, this one day was more popular in the world than any single holiday, it was as if everyone WANTED to remember how they somehow survived that man.

I followed her now, again making sure that she hadn't made me, the streets were getting more and more busy, as people came out of their homes to ready for the fireworks that were going to start firing off any minute, fireworks that would all but cause any veteran who had really been impacted by the wars to curl up into a ball and weep like a child.

She slipped into a Pizza Hut now, why, I had no fucking idea, but I wasn't going to lose her, so I waited, keeping my eyes on her as she seemed to wait at the counter for only a few moments before she was given a box with whatever it was, more than likely pizza. Then she was out of the store again and the hunt was back on.

That's when the fireworks started.

It took every effort of mine to tune out the cacophony of explosions that began to just reverberate among the buildings as it seemed every single firework known to man exploded in an orgy of gunpowder, magnesium, and whatever the hell was packed into the deadly concoctions to make them colorful and explosive.

That was when I realized I lost her, that moment of hesitation as they started, that moment when I had to have a fight with my brain over the fact that we weren't in a war zone was all that my target needed to disappear.

I knew I should stop, but I knew where she was going next, so I immediately began peeling for where her apartment was, at least, it was an apartment listed under an alias, I had done enough homework on my target to know how she acted and how she worked, I wouldn't be a good journalist if I didn't.

So I quickly moved through the crowds and headed for a quieter part of the city, an upper-scale part that was walled off, I knew she stayed her, I knew-

That was when I felt it more than I FELT it, my senses on overdrive as I whirled around to see my target behind me, pizza box in hand, but those eyes, those eyes like a pair of oceans scanning me with their guard up, she knew I had been following her, there was no doubt about it.

"Who are you," she demanded, or more like commanded, she knew exactly what it was to do that.

My throat parched, suddenly I really didn't know what I was doing, it was my intention to be the ambusher, not the ambushee, or maybe it was the damn smoke that was cloying in the air, ugh, someone needed to have their head examined, did they even know the kind of respiratory shit that could result-

"I asked, who are you," she demanded, this time any source of warmth was gone, instead it was replaced by the cold steel of a solder deliberating the threat before them….and deciding exactly how to end it.

I saw it now, the glint of battle-steel, shit, she was actually armed with her ceremonial sword underneath, how the hell she managed it was any guess, but then again, I hadn't been scanning for that, I had been more focused on keeping a bead on her and making sure everything jived with my analysis of her. Still, the lady had asked a question, I would be in remiss if I didn't answer.

"Isamu Sato, Tokyo Sun," I said firmly, knowing that going in strong was the only way to avoid meeting a messy end with my subject.

"And why have you been stalking me the last half an hour?"

Shit, she had made me, I could only guess at how she did it, I had done everything right, I hadn't gotten to where I was by being sloppy, how had she noticed me?

Now everything was changing, nothing was working as I had planned it, which meant I was running closer and closer to the razor's edge, my mind groaned as it realized that inadvertently shitty pun.

"I wanted to ask you a few questions about the Emperor," I decided to forge ahead, I needed to keep her from doing anything stupid until I was ready, the conditions needed to be met.

"You and about the rest of the world," she muttered irritably, hand now settled on the hilt of the sword, a katana I realized, "I have told all of you time and again, I'm not interested in an interview."

Better just get straight to the point, this was my only opportunity. I glanced around a few times just to make sure no one was around.

"I'm not interested in the Demon Emperor per se," I finally said, here was what I was waiting for, the culmination of the last decade of my life, the questioned that haunted me since that random thought had rattled in my mind so long ago, "I'm interested in the truth, the truth of the plan that the Emperor conspired with the current Zero, Suzaku Kururugi, to execute. I want to know the truth of this manufactured peace."

A/N: And there we have it, the beginning of a new idea that I got inspired by anonymous moose's "Reminiscence", it's a good Mass Effect fic that I have really enjoyed so far and felt that maybe its theme deserved a treatment for the Code Geass world.

Thanks to Magery for the assist.

Just for future reference, this fic will be a tertiary fic, which means I will update it when I update it, as my current focus are on my two primary fics, but that doesn't mean this won't get updated hopefully every month or two. Until then, enjoy the fruits.