I didn't sleep well that night, too much running through my head, all the questions I could ask, all the answers I could get. I was like a child awaiting my birthday gifts but I had to get through the day first before I could open them.

So instead I simply chose to stand on my balcony, nursing a bottle bottle of Britannian ale as I watched the city glow in the night. I didn't know when I finally fell asleep, but I found myself waking up in my chair, bottle of beer three-quarters consumed. I knew I should be angry wasting money like that but I really didn't care at this point, I was sitting on a story that would change the world, I could afford a few lapses. I could almost hear my mother screaming at me for that.

After I took my shower and shave I looked over my tools of the trade and wondered exactly what I would need. I was a thorough kind of guy, the first couple war zones taught me to always have as many contingencies as humanly possible.

Deciding that I needed my laptop if I was going to type what was said but also video record this interview. Still, even with that I geabbed my trusty old recorder, it was something that had been with me since my first job, always dependable and overlooked, it was an 'ancient' thing in comparison of all of the tech out there available to reporters.

Satisfied with my selection, I grabbed a clutch of memory sticks and my backpack, also a relic of my first days in the job and carefully packed it up and then locked up my pad and left.

It took a half an hour to reach Kallen's apartment, even with it being a weekend and the day after the largest celebratory day in mankind's history, it was just like Tokyo, thrumming with the life and vibrancy of a major metropolitarian area, Britannians, Japanese, and so many other people casually went through their daily routines like nothing had changed.

I wonder how many of them remember how not even a generation ago this place had the largest ghetto in Britannian and had been destroyed by FLEIJA. I doubted many of them remembered, or even cared. War was over in Japan, it was peace, peace, peace.

I came to my objective, glancing at my watch and noted it was almost ten in the morning, plenty of time to wake up and get ready.

I reached to knock on the door only for it to open, staying my hand.

She looked like she had slept about as well as I had as she motioned me inside. It took me a few moments as I followed to settle the clash of imagery before me.

Ever since her acceptance of the status of Britannia's Knight of One eight years ago there had never really been a time in which she was outside of her uniform. So to see her in faded jeans and a t-shirt was truly a spectacle. Though she was wearing her sidearm in an underarm holster, her trusty Nanbu that she had used during the Rebellions. I found it slightly curious that she had it on her, but then again, she had made a lot of enemies over the years, rather appropriate for someone who almost everyone referred to as Britannia's Red Flash.

I wondered if my colleagues realized the irony of that title.

She didn't offer me a seat as she sat down on a couch, I instead took one and noticed an open box laying on the table.

"Sato. It took me a bit of time to figure out where I heard your name," she said, "you were at Badr."

I nodded, Badr really didn't need any further discussion, it would have been nice if it never had happened.

"Usually when you deal with press you have to coddle them, not often you see them actually reporting on the battlefield and fighting at the same time. You won an erikson for that, didn't you?"

"Yes," I simply replied, one of two over the years. The Erikson was an award given to members of the media for reporting that was considered particurly huge or well-reported. The Badr Uprising had made me a bit of a minor celebrity on the net and among my peers.

But I knew what she was trying to do, I had seen it innumerable times, the attempt to personalize someone so you could talk about something that might be complicated or difficult.

"Since you are a journalist, you understand that there will need to be some ground rules here, right?"

I gave a reassuring smile, "of course."

"Good, then I want all of your wireless connecting devices in that box."

I hesitated. She wanted my laptop and my phone in that box? What was she getting at it. I was going to protest but then I saw in her eyes that no discussion would be allowed.

Thankful I had brought my recorder I opened my backpack and placed my laptop into it, then retrieved my phone and placed it in.

"What's that," she demanded and my eyes eyes followed her to my recorder.

"It's a voice recorder, no it doesn't have any wireless capabilities," she seemed to relax before she put a lid over the box and tapped a few buttons, causing it to beep.

"Now that that is out of the way, here are the rules..."

"Excuse me," I asked, I really wanted to know why she was paranoid about wireless devices, "but could you explain to me all of that?"

A set jaw and a flash of anger in her features was a warning that I was hazarding into dangerous territory.

"Is that thing off," she asked, more like growled.

"Yea."

"Then this is off the record, got it?"

I could only nod.

"There's a reason Japan has been problem free the last decade," the Knight of One started, "and it's not because of any glorious Japanese superiority," she spat that last part like a bitter fruit, "the Prime Minister has a digital surveillance program in place that taps into all commercial wireless devices. It wss actually an old OSI project called Stellar Wind before the Empress shut it down. The Prime Minister's wife took a copy of it before it was shut down and now Cabinet Intelligence runs it here under the program name Minekaze."

I was floored by this, it was unbelievable, Prime Minister Kaname Ohgi was actually spying on us, his own people?! But even as trued to grapple with this information, I noted how bitter and angry her tone was in regards to the Prime Minister, as far as I was aware, the two had an amicable relationship...

"You won't talk about this with anyone, you understand," she continued, "we hope to get the program decommissioned after this election.

Ahh, Kaguya Sumeragi's debut political run, though really it wasn't a debut if you knew her history, she was right now in a one-sided battle with Ohgi for the office, with Ohgi on the receiving end of a likely landslide.

"I'll keep it to myself then. I am doing this interview under one condition and I'm going to make this quite clear with you, if you want to know the truth about Zero Requiem, then you need to understand Lelouch. This isn't going to be an interview you can take some snippets from and write a story, this is a testament. I am going to tell you everything I know of him and experienced with him. If we are going to do this interview, Isamu Sato, I want you to write everything, which means you will also interview everyone involved with Lelouch. If you can agree with that, then we can go over the rules."

I nodded, there was no going back, not after last night, I wanted to know, the world had to know.

"Right then, you will sit, write and record, in between my stories you can ask questions, no in between. If I choose not to answer some of your questions, then that is final, if I want a break, we take a break. Do I make myself clear?"

Again, I nodded, what else was there to do.

She then settled back, adjusting herself for the pistol's presence, a far off look now replacing the severe expression she had before.

I took that moment to reach over and activated my recorder, before pulling out a small pad and pen, leaning back in my own chair.

"Let me begin I guess with the first time I met him…"

A/N: And there we have it. One of those moments when I got a surge of inspiration and push a new chapter out. Now we get into the meat of the story.

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