Chapter Text
Kaiju – Word origin: Japanese. Meaning – Strange Beast. Definition: the name humanity would give to a race of colossal amphibious creatures that emerged from what would later be called the Breach. Appearance varied from specimen to specimen, but all confirmed Kaiju possessed two brains, impossible biology, and blood that turned their very flesh into a weapon against life itself. Home-world unknown. Purpose unknown. Instinct, however, was undeniable: reach land, seek settlements, and leave only ruin behind.
Riesenritter – Word origin: German. Meaning – Giant Knight. Definition: a special type of Knightmare Frame born from the Jaeger Program after conventional armies proved too small for the new age. Walking fortresses, they were designed to meet Kaiju on equal terms, armed with weapons built for alien physiology and scaled beyond anything humanity had ever dared to call a machine. They were hunters, defenders, and heroes.
Or so the world would one day call them.
It was times like this, lying in the grass and looking up to the heavens above, that Lelouch could relax. Here, he could just be a child with his family, a family he did not need to remember was far more complicated than anything he read about in novels.
“Brother,” Nunnally said. Normally so energetic and eager to move, for once she was quietly lying in the grass beside him, neither sibling caring much about getting dirty.
“Are you referring to me, Nunnally?” another voice spoke up, older and refined. To the side, seated on a blanket, was their second eldest half-brother, Schneizel, who had somehow managed to carve out time for them.
Nunnally rolled over to look at him as Lelouch snickered. “No, I meant Lelouch.”
Lelouch made a show of pondering that. “Well, how could I know? Schneizel is your brother as well.”
“And like Lelouch, I am older than you, so you cannot simply call me older brother either. It would be quite confusing.” Schneizel chuckled, playing along with the moment and, as one could expect, riling up the five-year-old whose face grew flustered under her elder brothers’ teasing.
“You know what I mean!”
“Do you?” Lelouch, only nine years old, kept pushing, only for someone to push him.
That someone was a girl his age, with short pink hair and a displeased look aimed at both him and Schneizel.
“Stop messing with her, you two. That’s mean.” Euphemia, their half-sister, scolded them both, while Nunnally turned away, still pouting.
“Sorry.” Lelouch obeyed without fighting.
“Apologies.” Schneizel tipped his head, though he could not hide the small mischievous grin he still wore, the same as Lelouch.
“Now, if you two are done acting like children, and yes, I am aware one of you actually is one,” Cornelia said, her voice carrying the practiced authority of an elder sister and a princess both. She sat close to Euphemia, her full-blooded sister, and gave Lelouch a mildly heated look before turning to Nunnally, her expression softening almost at once. “Would you like to ask your question now, Nunnally?”
“Don’t wanna.” Nunnally turned her face away, still upset, but it was a place Euphemia was more than happy to fill.
“I have one!” The pink-haired princess called out, pointing up at the heavens above, where all manner of lights shone clear enough that even Pendragon’s glow could not blot them out. “Are all those lights stars?”
Lelouch shook his head. “No, my tutor said many of them are other suns, and some are from super far galaxies.”
“Really? Do they have sweets there? In those faraway places?” Nunnally was back in the conversation at once, her earlier anger forgotten in favour of wonder.
Lelouch considered it with all the seriousness a nine-year-old prince could offer. It was not impossible. The universe was far too large to contain only humans, and besides, how many books had been written about strange worlds and stranger people? “Well, they would need people there to farm crops, harvest them, and turn them into sweets. Chocolate does not simply appear, sadly.”
“Do you think we can visit them?” Euphemia asked, almost bouncing where she sat. The two older siblings laughed quietly, enjoying this small peace stolen from court politics.
“Afraid not, Euphemia. We do not have ships that can fly that far yet, and those we do have would be terribly slow.” Schneizel broke the bad news gently, leaving out the part where even the E.U., which led the world in anything related to space, could not truly imagine sending people beyond the solar system.
“But why?” Nunnally asked, accepting a slice of cake from Cornelia before the elder princess answered.
“Because those stars, and whatever may be waiting around them, are very far away. It would take longer than you can imagine with current means. You would sooner arrive in Africa if you started walking now.”
“But that’ll take forever!” Nunnally said, wide-eyed. She did not know the distance exactly, but she had seen a map before, and Africa was impossibly far. No one could walk that long. They would never make it before bedtime.
“Well, that is the issue,” Lelouch said, partly because he believed it and partly because he still wished to make amends. “Who knows? Perhaps you will be the one who solves it and creates the next great step in space travel.”
“So…we can’t go to them?” Euphemia sat down, pouting, only to brighten again when Cornelia handed her a second plate with strawberry cake.
“Maybe they’ll come to us.” Lelouch looked back to the stars. “Up from the heavens. Britannia would love that, right Cornelia?”
Cornelia paused, just long enough to remember that such a thing would be wonder, politics, and danger all at once.
“It would certainly be new,” she said at last, choosing simplicity while they were still young enough to be given it.
They continued looking up, as millions… maybe billions… had before them. Because up was the heavens. Up was the unknown. Up was the part of reality humanity could barely comprehend, filled with a potential so vast that even princes, princesses, and future monsters of politics could only stare at it like children.
And in that moment, up was where they believed alien life would be found.
None of them could have guessed how much things would change, nor that this would be one of the last nights of peace they would ever be given.
That lost day had been in the spring of 2009, two weeks before Lelouch’s world crumbled with his mother’s assassination in her own home. It had not happened that night, no, but a now ten-year-old Lelouch could say, with bitter hindsight, that his time in Pendragon had already begun living on borrowed time.
Now he was no longer a prince, having cast aside such titles and privileges. He was no longer in Britannia, exiled by his father, the Emperor, for daring to challenge him. He and Nunnally, who had been sent with him, sat in a reinforced Japanese government building, a far cry from the Kururugi shrine they had stayed at for over a year as hostages in his father’s grand game of politics and bid for global dominance.
They were meant to act as assurance that Britannia would not attack, that negotiations remained open, but that had been a farce from the start. Lelouch had possessed the foresight, and the lack of patriotic love, to warn Prime Minister Kururugi in advance.
He was not sure if that had helped. The Kururugi shrine itself had nearly been demolished; the children would have died there if Lelouch and Suzaku had not spotted the bombers and rushed back for Nunnally in time.
Britannia had come, and with it came a massive invasion force, one spearheaded by Britannia’s newest weapon of war: the Knightmare Frame. Lelouch knew enough of its development to understand what it should have become. A game-changer. A symbol of Britannian supremacy made steel and Sakuradite.
Or at least, it would have been, in another world, another time.
But not this one.
In their small quarters, the same ones they now shared with Suzaku, Lelouch sat at his sister’s side, her eyes closed but ears attentive. Suzaku sat to Lelouch’s other side, still shaken by what they had seen in only two days of fighting. Two days of Britannia bringing its wrath upon Japan, bombing, shelling, and massacring its way through the country.
Yet now, those troops were gone. Pulled out almost as soon as they came, all because of the event dominating every news broadcast in the world. Something so large that not even imperial censors could bury it.
Watching the screen, Lelouch thought back to that last night with Euphemia, Cornelia, and Schneizel. They had been wrong to look above for alien life.
It had not come from the stars.
It had risen from the sea, and like Britannia descending upon Japan, it had brought only death and carnage.
“It has been six days since an unknown creature of gigantic proportions emerged from the Pacific Ocean and made landfall here in San Francisco. It remains unclear where the creature came from, how such a thing escaped every scientific record, or whether more may exist. What is clear, however, is the destruction left in its wake.”
The woman on screen was a news anchor for a Japanese agency, though not broadcasting from their usual studio. That building had been damaged in the first Britannian raids, forcing them into a secondary location, one whose cramped nature could be heard in the faint echo behind her voice.
Lelouch noticed that, just as he noticed what she tried to hide.
Both children were young, but neither was deaf. Beneath the practiced sorrow of the report sat a concealed glee, the sort whispered into being by officials calling this tragedy a gift from the heavens. A second divine wind, some had said, as though thousands of dead Britannians made the monster holy.
The feed changed from the temporary studio to aerial footage of the city. Despite his hatred for the Emperor who had exiled him, the Homeland that had tried to kill him, and a people who had refused to honour his mother, Lelouch was glad Nunnally could not see what filled the screen.
“What you are seeing are the still-smoking remains of what was once Britannia’s largest city on its northern Pacific coastline, now little more than rubble. From this view, you can clearly see the path the creature, which many have begun calling a Kaiju, carved through the city.”
Lelouch almost winced. He had seen images of San Francisco before exile, enough to know it had been one of the finest cities in the Empire. A gateway to the Pacific, a jewel of commerce and prestige, a city that had regularly competed with Pendragon itself in pride if not in power.
Now that pride was ash.
In its place were demolished buildings, smoking husks, powerless districts and streets turned into scars. Dozens of fighters and aircraft lay broken across the ruins, all that remained of pilots who had engaged and gotten too close. Tanks, armoured vehicles, and Knightmares littered the same path.
The Knightmares were the minority, likely because most had been shipped with the invasion force and had yet to return.
Even the southern outskirts bore signs of the battle. The Kaiju’s broken body lay nearby, still so massive that it covered several blocks, burying anything and anyone unlucky enough to be beneath it. From the wounds came thick blue blood, visible even from the air where it spread across red ruin.
“From eyewitness reports and statements given by local leaders, it took approximately forty-nine hours after landfall for Britannian forces to bring down the monster, though some question whether this could have been done sooner had Britannia not been engaged in its ongoing invasion of our country.”
The reporter on scene was not Japanese, but from the E.U. Their camera crew captured not only what looked like karmic retribution against the Empire, but also the human cost. Across the street, bodies lay beneath white tarps, blankets, curtains, anything that could be used.
To the side, people were being treated by medics and doctors, the local hospitals either destroyed or overwhelmed. Aircraft came and went, carrying the wealthy, the noble, and anyone important enough to be moved to hospitals functioning in other cities.
The E.U. news crew was careful to show who was being saved first.
“As you can see, crews are still working around the clock to assess damages.”
“Assess? Not repair?” The voice asking was not the Japanese reporter’s, so this was likely another clip from a foreign agency, but the children did not look away.
“That is correct. While officials remain tight-lipped, several sources claim the creature’s blood has shown signs of being highly corrosive and toxic. Every location where it fell during the military’s attempts to kill the creature must be located, isolated, and cleaned before repair crews can safely enter.”
“Do they have any explanation for why they could not track the Kaiju before landfall?” the anchor asked. “Or why the supposed greatest military in the world needed over two days to kill it?”
Nunnally whimpered at that, and Lelouch wrapped an arm around her before he even thought to do so.
The field reporter’s response was grim. “No official word. However, when we interviewed locals, some suggested the answer is the lack of available forces. It is now well known that on August 10th, a mere two days before this creature made landfall, Britannia attacked Japan after weeks of increased tensions and unproven claims of Japanese aggression from Pendragon.”
Suzaku shook more than Lelouch did.
The boy had never paid much attention to politics or the news. Not really. He had believed things would end without a fight, that Britannia would not simply invade when Japan had people like his father leading it, and soldiers like Tohdoh defending it. He had thought there were lines even empires would not cross.
He had been wrong.
So very wrong.
“And the Knights of Round?” the European news anchor asked.
Lelouch hated that the question mattered. He hated more that Britannia was not lying when it claimed a Knight of Round was a superior breed of soldier. One alone could change a battlefield.
“All, including the Knight of One, had been deployed to Britannia’s holdings in Africa and the South Pacific.”
Of course, that was the answer. In hindsight, the Emperor had been clever. Send his greatest warriors far from Japan, scatter his most visible symbols of imperial might, and leave no one obvious to witness what his invasion force did. Even the flagship and First Imperial Navy had been sent toward the Indian Ocean, away from the stage where Japan was meant to fall.
Yet this time, Lelouch could take a dark joy in seeing his father’s ploy turn against him.
Yes, it meant fewer eyes had watched Britannia’s invasion. It also meant the Empire’s best forces had been nowhere near the Homeland when the Kaiju arrived. Even now, the Japanese invasion force was likely somewhere in the Pacific, rushing home as fast as it could to a fight already over.
There was always the chance his father would order them back toward Japan. But as much of a monster and bastard as Charles zi Britannia was, he was not an idiot. If he could act without consequence, the invasion force would never have retreated, especially now that everyone knew what his claims of Japanese aggression had truly been worth.
No, Charles needed to focus on this crisis before he could think about another invasion.
“So, only the forces in the immediate area were able to respond?” the news anchor asked, and Lelouch hated how much he enjoyed hearing the Euro-produced media embarrass his father without ever saying his name. “Surely that should have been enough.”
Those were good questions. The sort Schneizel had once told him were most useful in moments like this, because they sounded innocent while forcing others to explain their failures.
“People here would disagree,” the field reporter replied. “While the casualty count continues to be updated, current estimates suggest over eighty thousand dead, more than two hundred and eleven thousand wounded, and another three hundred and twenty thousand missing or otherwise unaccounted for. We—”
The reporter was cut off when a group of soldiers stepped into frame, their expressions already dark at finding foreign, non-state-controlled media documenting this humiliation. It grew worse when one of them seemed to realize the report was live, not recorded. “You, stop that broadcast immediately, or you will be arrested!”
The reporters fought back verbally, several voices rising at once in Spanish. Lelouch could not follow most of it. He did not speak the language, but he caught something that sounded like free press before the feed was cut.
The broadcast returned to the Japanese studio, where the woman picked up smoothly, if not comfortably. “As of now, this is all that is known about events in San Francisco. With Britannia’s embassy closed and its delegation forced out of the country, it may be some time before further news can be obtained through official channels.”
That, Lelouch knew, hardly told the full story. Britannia had not recalled its delegation before the invasion. Instead, special forces had been sent in the opening wave to secure the embassy. In the messy withdrawal, completed only three days prior, the building had been surrounded by a resurgent Japanese force and taken.
From what officials had let slip, they had recovered documents, communications, and other records the Britannians had failed to destroy. Enough to prove how long Pendragon had planned to use negotiations as a curtain behind which to ready an invasion.
“Domestically, the news of the San Francisco incident, as it is currently being called, has been met with delight and celebration in the streets. Government officials have called this a gift from the heavens, a second divine wind which swept a hostile force from our shores.”
As she spoke, the feed shifted to ruined Japanese coastal cities and towns, including Tokyo, which had suffered three major bombing raids and missile strikes. People still cleared rubble and searched for loved ones, while the military reinforced local police, firefighters, and EMTs.
Yet, despite how similar the scene looked to what was happening across the Pacific, there was joy here. Patriotic, exhausted, furious joy. Clips showed people standing proud amid wreckage, relieved their country had survived. Others showed soldiers and armed civilians standing beside or over captured Britannian equipment left behind in the hurried withdrawal.
That included Knightmares, likely drained of power or lacking time to be retrieved or refuelled, leaving their pilots to sabotage them and retreat on foot…
If they were lucky. There were already reports of isolated units being captured, and many had discovered that the Japanese were in no merciful mood. There were whispers of lynchings, executions, and soldiers who vanished before anyone official could ask questions.
“Earlier today, Prime Minister Kururugi Genbu addressed the nation.”
At that, Suzaku leaned forward, his attention fixed entirely on the television. He had barely seen his father these past few days, not since the invasion began and every hour of running the country, surviving the attack, and explaining the aftermath had been taken by the office of Prime Minister.
On the screen, Genbu sat before the National Diet, the building behind him showing the same scars as much of Tokyo. Bomb damage, scorch marks, boarded windows, and repairs that looked more symbolic than useful. It would have been safer to meet somewhere else, but Genbu, or someone in his cabinet, had clearly refused.
Lelouch could see why. Quite the image.
The broad-shouldered wall of a man rose to the podium, and when he spoke, his deep baritone carried resolve, grief, and controlled fury through the microphones.
“Japan is a proud nation, made of strong people, and yet we pursued peace with Britannia until the last possible moment. What did we receive in return? An unprovoked invasion, one that has claimed over twelve thousand lives, many of them civilians, whose homes and livelihoods were destroyed by those who called themselves our negotiating partners.”
Suzaku seemed to shrink at that, no doubt remembering what the two boys had seen while trekking toward the Kururugi safe house. Nunnally looked worse. She did not carry Lelouch’s hatred for Britannia, and he could only imagine the shame she felt for the crimes of the nation that had birthed her against the country that had become her second home.
Genbu paused, allowing the outrage to rise and then settle, just enough that his audience could listen again. “In this tragedy, we will show the world what Japan can endure. We will show that the Japanese spirit will not be cowed, broken, or bought. However…”
His hands tightened around the podium, his gaze turning hard enough that even through a screen Lelouch understood what came next. He had heard pieces of these plans in advance, a courtesy granted to the former prince who had once traded information to protect his sister.
“As Britannia has proven itself deceitful, brutal, and without honour or respect for human life, emergency measures will be implemented for the safety and well-being of our people.”
Afterwards, Genbu made the details clear. Britannian prisoners of war would only be exchanged for millions of yen per person, a price Lelouch knew his father would never pay. Genbu knew that too. Lelouch had advised as much, which meant the prisoners were not hostages for ransom so much as living war trophies. Archaic, yes, but effective.
Britannian citizens would be placed under strict supervision, moved to districts where that supervision could be enforced, and all papers and reasons for remaining would be reviewed. Many would be deported under pretence of espionage.
Lelouch hoped the Ashfords would avoid the worst of it. Like him, they had nothing in the Homeland worth returning to.
And just like him, they had reason to despise Charles for what had befallen them after his mother’s death, and after the fall of their benefactor, the late Empress Marianne. Lelouch would need to meet with them soon. Hopefully, the Ashfords’ loyalty to the vi Britannia bloodline had not died with his title, and he could convince them to offer their skills to the Japanese government.
More was spoken, but Lelouch lost track of it when Nunnally pulled on his sleeve.
“Lelouch,” she said, and he hated how scared she sounded, how unsure she was of what came next. “What does that mean for us?”
Lelouch pulled her closer and kissed her forehead. “We’re safe right now, Nunnally. We aren’t a threat to them.”
Not yet, a colder part of him thought.
“Go to hell.”
The words were not spoken with an angry shout, or with the untested confidence of youth, but with a solid tone built on resolve and quiet, visible fury.
It had been two weeks since Genbu’s address to the nation, bringing them close to the end of August. Since then, the children had been moved to the Kururugis’ third home in Kanuma, the city being small, inland, and fortunate enough to have escaped the worst of the invasion.
There had been some good developments.
One was that the Prime Minister had been willing to give the Ashfords a chance. After Lelouch spoke with Lord… no, Mr. Ashford now, the old former noble confirmed that his family’s loyalty had always been to Lady Marianne, and now to her eldest child. Prince or not, Lelouch remained her son. As they had served Marianne before she had ever become a Knight of Round, they were willing to begin working for the Japanese government on Japan’s own Knightmare program. It served Mr. Ashford as well, giving his ruined family purpose, protection, and a future far from Charles’ reach.
Another development had been Gottwald.
Through what must have been an act of God, the Britannian soldier had found a way to contact him after learning where they had been moved. Lelouch had been sceptical, as anyone with sense would be. Still, Jeremiah seemed sincere in his desire to continue serving the vi Britannia household, and in his guilt over his failures. More than that, he offered valuable information about the night Marianne died.
Why had not a single guard gone missing, been killed, or reported anything strange?
Because they had been pulled back to a skeleton crew under his mother’s orders.
Lelouch did not know why. Neither did Jeremiah. Still, the man was an old-school noble who held honour in high regard, so even after Lelouch made clear he was no prince, Jeremiah insisted. Now he was flying to Japan, leaving his own family behind to carry out his duty as part of Lelouch’s pathetic little household.
Gottwald would not be trusted. Not yet. But that could change in time, provided the man was genuine.
If not, his life would be forfeit.
By then, days like this had begun to feel normal for the children. In a rare quiet moment, Lelouch had been in the library reading, while Suzaku had taken Nunnally for a walk. Jeremiah stood guard outside with a member of the Kururugi security detail when one of the servants came to fetch him.
He had a guest.
The moment Lelouch entered the room and saw a Britannian nobleman waiting there, his good mood died. The man’s posture, his polished clothes, even the careful way he bowed, told Lelouch what this was before a word was spoken.
“Your Highness, please be reasonable,” the official said, a Britannian nobleman dressed in the skin of a diplomat.
“Reasonable? Reasonable?” Lelouch snapped. “This is me being reasonable. Otherwise, I would have demanded a gun and sent you back to the Emperor in a casket.”
For one bitter moment, he wished it was Charles himself standing there, so he could call him every insult he knew, in English and Japanese both.
“Prince Lelouch—”
“I am not a prince.” Lelouch cut him off. “I renounced that damned title, and all the lies, fighting, scheming, and cruelty that came with it. Or did the Emperor forget to inform you? My name is Lelouch d’Aubigny.”
His mother’s maiden name.
The name she had been buried with after being denied the funeral a former Knight of Round and Consort deserved. Denied even the dignity of being buried as an Empress, reduced instead to the commoner the court had always pretended she was.
She had once confessed she disliked the name, for it had been a source of ridicule among nobles who had never earned anything they possessed. Still, Lelouch would wear it with pride, just as she had. Let it be a reminder that he rejected everything the imperial court was.
“Please, Prin—” The man stopped himself, perhaps realizing that the boy before him might demand that firearm. “The situation has changed. Even you must concede that. The Emperor has been petitioned by Princes Schneizel and Clovis, along with Princess Cornelia. On this, I swear by my name and life, there is a place for the two of you back home.”
Lelouch paused.
Tohdoh, Genbu, Gottwald, and the three servants present remained silent, watching. The diplomat’s sudden arrival had surprised them, especially with tensions between Japan and Britannia still sharp enough to draw blood. Still, soldier and politician alike could guess what Lelouch would say.
They allowed him to say it anyway.
“…I appreciate what they are doing. Truly, I do. If nothing else, tell them that I would want to return.”
He hated admitting it. Since exile, there had been no contact with anyone back home, and part of him did want to go back. Back to Euphemia’s smile, Cornelia’s stern protection, even Schneizel’s impossible calm. Back to simpler days that had probably never been simple at all.
But nothing could bring back the dead.
His gaze hardened. “I would sooner carve open my own stomach with a rusty dagger than allow the Emperor and his schemes near Nunnally or my life ever again.”
The official pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed sweat from his brow. “His Majesty will not be pleased. Will you not reconsider?”
Lelouch’s gaze narrowed.
“I am dead to him. I was dead from the moment I was born, because I achieved nothing and gained nothing. That was what the Emperor told me.” His voice did not rise, but something in it went colder. “And even if I am nothing but a corpse to him, I am not dead. He has no say in what happens to my body, my name, or my sister. If I were to die tomorrow, I would rather be laid to rest here than be dragged back to Pendragon.”
“Be that as it may,” the official said, trying another angle, “while you may be considered an orphan by imperial law, you are still a Britannian citizen. The situation in Japan remains fraught for our people. Would it not be best to return home before something dangerous happens?”
“The master has made his point clear, has he not?” Gottwald stepped in, deliberately using neither Highness nor Lord, because Lelouch was neither now.
The diplomat could not even respond, still caught by the sight of a Margrave’s son standing there of all places, before Genbu decided the meeting had lasted long enough.
“As for his safety, he and his sister remain under our protection.”
Lelouch remembered how that protection had begun, but now was not the time to be petulant with one of the only men who would not sell him for cheap.
“I have already done far more than required by allowing you into my home, my third home,” Genbu said, making sure to emphasize it. Both his primary and secondary residences had been bombed by the same man who now had the gall to send someone asking favours. “You were allowed to make your case. It has failed. You will be escorted to your hotel and placed on a plane first thing tomorrow.”
Nothing more was said as guards escorted the defeated official out, no doubt already fearing how he would report this failure to His Majesty.
But that was simply how things were now.
Perhaps, if Britannia had not attacked, Genbu would have returned the children once their use had ended.
Perhaps, if Britannia had not faced a monster from hell, it would still have the strength and will to make Japan obey.
Neither was true.
Now it served Prime Minister Kururugi’s interests to keep the children under his protection, both as a shield and as a snub to Emperor Charles. And despite Britannia’s invasion force remaining largely intact, its sudden withdrawal had given the Chinese and Euros time to move. Chinese naval assets now patrolled where the damaged Japanese Navy could not, while Euro troops had been flown in by the thousands.
Could the Emperor declare war again and order a second invasion? Of course.
Could he perhaps win? Likely.
But would Charles risk a war with the Federation and the E.U. while San Francisco still smoked?
No. He was many things, but he was not an idiot.
“Lelouch, you meant that?” Lelouch had almost forgotten Suzaku and Nunnally were present, both having been called to witness this as well.
“…Shouldn’t you get used to calling me d’Aubigny?” Lelouch avoided the question, his mind still elsewhere.
“He’s not wrong, Suzaku. We do not have any royals living under our protection, after all.” Tohdoh spoke up, his tone dry but not unkind. “But onto your plans, d’Aubigny. I assume you have something moving in that head of yours?”
“Outside my… conversations with the Prime Minister,” Lelouch began, careful with the words because it would not do for too many people to know how often Genbu asked for his opinion, “I was thinking I could train to become an official within the military. My mother proved her worth in combat. It would only be fitting that I do the same.”
Gottwald looked pleased, which told Lelouch the man had no idea how poor his young master was when it came to anything physical.
Tohdoh, on the other hand, knew exactly how poor he was, and seemed far too excited by the idea. “That would take time. In the meantime, you could gain something by not skipping out on my physical training.”
Right. He had never liked how Lelouch vanished whenever training with Suzaku became too demanding. This was, in a small way, a chance for the man to make him pay for every successful escape.
“I… suppose you are not wrong. It would be foolish to disregard training from an active soldier of your skill and renown.” Lelouch said it properly, but reluctance still bled through every word.
Suzaku either did not hear it, or, more likely, did not care as he wrapped an arm around him. “Don’t worry, I can help you with the basics, Lelouch—wait, I mean d’Aubigny.”
“Guys!” Suzaku yelled, running toward Lelouch and Nunnally as the former pushed the latter out of a room Suzaku knew his father used for business. Which raised the obvious question of why they had been in there when Genbu was still working in Tokyo. “What was that all about?”
As he got closer, he noticed how tense they looked. Nunnally was quiet, her hands folded too neatly in her lap. Lelouch was worse, his grip on her wheelchair so tight his knuckles had gone white. Gottwald, who had taken to acting as their personal bodyguard, looked similarly displeased.
“We… we’re being adopted,” Lelouch ground out, glaring back at the door as though it had personally betrayed him.
“Wait, what?” Suzaku stopped short.
“My… the Emperor never officially accepted the renouncement of my claim, my title, or my name. Even if he had, Nunnally never had the chance to do the same. Legally, we were still royals. Still his children.” Lelouch spoke each word like it had to be dragged out with hooks, but Suzaku could tell that was not the part truly enraging him.
“Wait, but there’s no way Father would just send you back. You made that clear two weeks ago!” Suzaku said. “Did the Emperor send another official?”
Lelouch drew in a slow breath, visibly forcing the anger down. “No. He tried, but there was a way around it.”
Gottwald answered before his young master had to. “Word came down from the Japanese Supreme Court. As of this morning, Mr. and Miss d’Aubigny are no longer the legal children or dependents of Emperor Charles.” He paused, displeasure sharpening his voice. “However, they cannot remain without a legal guardian. They are to be placed into the household of Mr. Kirihara.”
Nunnally, who had been quiet since one particular part of the meeting struck her harder than the rest, continued before Lelouch could force the words out himself.
“He just finished explaining it to us,” she said, fingers tightening around her brother’s hand. “And Brother is going to get married when he’s older.”
“Correct,” an older, smoother, and undeniably alluring voice said.
Suzaku looked up as the door opened, revealing a woman with dark hair and amber eyes that burned like the setting sun. She was dressed traditionally, in a fine white, blue, and purple kimono that captured her figure without showing much skin.
It was a woman Suzaku had met before, and one he knew to be among the most powerful people in Japan.
“Mrs. Sumeragi? Welcome. I didn’t know you were visiting.” Mito Sumeragi, matriarch of the Sumeragi family, CEO and largest shareholder of the Sumeragi conglomerate…and his aunt.
Those amber eyes always made him feel like she was studying him, piercing deep enough to uncover secrets he did not know. Even when she smiled like a mother, it never felt entirely safe.
“It is quite all right. I came with less pomp than normal,” Mito said, glancing toward Lelouch and Nunnally, neither of whom looked pleased. “But I was involved in the discussion these little ones just had.”
“…Are you going to marry Lelouch?” Suzaku asked, because she had been single ever since his uncle passed, and his mind, unfortunately, chose the most direct path.
The question threw the entire group into chaos.
“What?!” Lelouch and Nunnally both yelled, the latter going noticeably red in the face, while even Gottwald looked as if the battlefield had shifted beneath his feet.
Mito could barely contain her laughter. The boy was so much like his father, back when that sourpuss of a Prime Minister had been capable of being fun.
“Oh my, you have quite the imagination. But I fear I will be an old maid before he is mature enough.” She let the joke linger before continuing. “No, he is to marry my daughter. Which, as you can guess, means your engagement to her has been broken.”
Suzaku was not upset by that. He did not love Kaguya, and she did not love him. He liked her, and could imagine them getting along, but that was all. Still, something about this felt strange.
“Wasn’t that for political reasons?”
His aunt was more fun than her older brother, his father, but she was just as shrewd and stubborn. She would not suggest this without purpose. And if his father agreed, then the benefit had to be important.
“It was,” Lelouch muttered, expression still stormy. “The same as my new engagement. We are Kirihara’s legal children now, but the government wants to ensure we are tied to Japan over Britannia. Blood, law, marriage. All of it.”
“As for you, Suzaku…” Nunnally said, unable to keep it inside any longer. “You’ll be marrying me.”
Suzaku looked like he had been struck, staring between her, Lelouch, and his aunt, who remained entirely unfazed.
Nunnally reached for her brother’s hand again. “Brother is the head of our family now, and they think this will help keep things from getting violent again.” She hesitated, then added more softly, “But it’s not bad. You’re a nice person, and I wouldn’t mind if we got married one day.”
“Were…?” Suzaku tried to ask, but Kirihara stepped out of the room, the elder supporting himself on his cane. Yet despite his age, his gaze remained sharp enough to cut.
“He was not,” Kirihara answered for Lelouch. “This decision has been discussed for the better part of a month. It predates the invasion, though recent events forced revisions. Originally, Lelouch was to be married to Kubouin’s granddaughter, but someone of higher rank was selected.”
“Which was Kaguya,” Suzaku guessed.
Kirihara and Sumeragi both nodded.
“For what it is worth, it is not because I believe you would be a poor match for my daughter,” Mito said gently. “But I can trust Lelouch to become a good husband as well.”
It was meant as comfort. Lelouch did not take it that way. His expression remained fixed on the fact that his opinion, Nunnally’s opinion, and Suzaku’s had carried no real weight. They were useful children, but children still.
Mito understood that, but she also knew the boy would be calm enough to accept reality in time, even if he hated every piece of it.
“Now, I must be off. Next time I visit, I will bring your fiancée along so you can meet properly without scaring her.”
With that latest shake-up, their lives continued, as everyone’s did, because the world moved on before anyone was ready.
Japan and Britannia rebuilt. Lelouch found himself spending more time in the dojo training, or more accurately, being run ragged and thrown around like a doll by people who insisted this was for his own good.
Japan formed closer ties with the E.U. and the Federation, with Genbu hosting officials from both. Treaties were discussed. Military exchanges were arranged. Quietly, Japan’s Knightmare program gained new urgency.
Still, there was one thing everyone seemed to forget, or perhaps chose not to think about.
San Francisco.
Britannia kept quiet about the attack, choking information behind imperial censorship, while other nations argued over what the creature had been, where it had come from, and whether the Pacific might produce another. No one had answers. More importantly, no one had proof there would be more.
So as weeks became months, and mourning gave way to rebuilding, humanity did what humanity often did.
It decided to believe the horror was finished.
October 25th passed, and Nunnally was given a warmer seventh birthday than Lelouch had feared possible. December 5th followed, and Lelouch turned eleven.
Then came February 5th of the new year.
A second Kaiju emerged from the Pacific, striking Manila, a city and country recently freed from Britannian control and accepted into the Chinese Federation. It held a massive garrison, but not one nearly as organized or prepared as the Britannians had been in San Francisco.
The result was a week of slaughter. A destroyed city. Over nine hundred thousand casualties, with more than three hundred and forty thousand declared dead by the time the monster fell.
It was in Manila that the truth became impossible to bury. Thanks to leaks and on-the-ground reporting, the world learned what Kaiju remains, especially their blood, truly did.
But there was something different, something visceral, about seeing what the blood did to people who touched it without proper safety gear. It was one thing to hear that Kaiju remains were toxic; it was another to see workers dragged away screaming, skin burned, lungs failing, while birds, pets, and fish died by the thousands around them. Those bodies then had to be cleared before they could become yet another disaster, rotting into breeding grounds for disease.
Currents carried tens of thousands of litres of that poison into Manila Bay, spreading it through the waters and along the coastline. Dozens more died after the beast itself had fallen, while thousands of sea birds and fish washed ashore. The Federation was forced to send resources south or risk panic becoming revolt.
In fear for the region’s fishing and food supply, the entire area was closed off. Much like Britannia after San Francisco, official news became scarce. What escaped instead were rumours, smuggled footage, and desperate stories of thousands trying to flee.
July 8th brought the third attack, this time against Britannian possessions in the Solomon Islands. Their distance from anything the Empire considered important, combined with a small garrison and limited naval force, left them almost defenceless. Australia sent naval assistance, but even that only slowed the Kaiju’s four-day rampage. By the end, the islands were all but destroyed.
Of the roughly seven hundred thousand inhabitants, almost five hundred thousand were dead or wounded, no small number of them victims of what the world had begun calling Kaiju Blue. The ruin was so complete that Britannia made an unprecedented request for Australia to take in the refugees while the Empire prepared to resettle survivors in South America.
Three attacks. Three locations. Three reminders that humanity had no answer.
It became impossible to pretend this was a fluke that would resolve itself. Across the Pacific, confusion gave way to fear, and fear gave way to anger. Protests erupted, even in Japan. People demanded to know what their governments were doing, while others tried to abandon coastal cities for the supposed safety of the inland.
Genbu worked to prevent Japan’s coast from becoming one long, panicked march toward the interior. The inland could not support millions arriving at once. He promised steps were being taken, and they were.
September 2nd rendered those plans useless.
Taiwan was next. Despite the Federation’s best efforts, or perhaps because of its many flaws, the Kaiju later named Fright took five days to kill. It seemed especially vicious, leaving Loudong in ruins before tearing through Yilan City and Jiaoxi.
Casualties were lower than Manila, around two hundred and seventy thousand casualties and one hundred and fifty-eight thousand dead, but the destruction of three cities, all but depopulated as survivors fled, became the straw that broke the Federation’s back. Its many old ills finally tore open, plunging it into a short but incredibly bloody civil war.
From the ashes, the Federation’s member states became independent nations once more. Prime Minister Kururugi announced a new partnership between Japan, Korea, China, and Vietnam against the Kaiju threat. To many, the surprise was not that the struggling Philippines was admitted as well, but that Euro Britannia stood beside them.
January 27th, 2011, brought the first thing that could be called good news.
The Imperial Navy, like other fleets in the region, was on high alert when another Kaiju emerged from what would later be called the Breach. This time, they tracked it early enough to estimate its target: San Diego.
Their attempts to distract it, slow it, or lure it toward deserted coastline failed. Ships were lost to the Kaiju’s wrath, but they bought time.
Time enough for the largest evacuation in Britannian history. Most of San Diego was emptied before the monster made landfall, streets abandoned, homes left open, highways turned into rivers fleeing inland.
It still was not enough.
The Kaiju proved just as difficult to kill as the others, and worse, it seemed to notice the city lacked what it had come for. Instead of continuing south toward the much closer Tijuana, it turned north, toward Los Angeles and every population centre between them.
It was killed in a record-setting thirty-eight hours, but only after more than thirty thousand troops were committed and over twenty thousand lives were lost.
With early warning, evacuation plans, naval interception, and every prepared measure made to look inadequate, the conclusion was impossible to avoid. Humanity was not simply failing because it was surprised.
It was failing because the enemy was learning.
Or perhaps it had always known.
Why had the Kaiju turned north instead of south? Had it chosen the path with more people? Were these walking disasters from another world seeking population centres, not by accident, but by instinct or design?
If so, then this was not a series of disasters. It was a war.
So something had to change.
In a move impossible only months earlier, the nations of the Pacific, backed by powers beyond it, gathered in Sydney to develop a collective response. There, Mr. Ashford proposed the solution that would define the new age.
And from that proposal came the Riesenritter program.