Area 11
Tokyo settlement port
Warehouse District
It was a little after midnight, and most of the people in area eleven were either home or asleep.
But in the Tokyo settlement, near the docks, at a certain warehouse, an all too common scene was playing out.
Men were prepping food, medical supplies, and other forms of aid to be shipped.
However, the welfare aid that was meant for the poorest people in the country was being stolen by the richest, to line their own pockets.
"I wanted to thank you for your continued business, not a lot people nowadays have the guts to do this." A short corrupt businessman said to his contact in the ministry of welfare.
"I know it's for the elevens, but I think the eleven population needs some thinning out don't you." Said the taller of the two who wore a cleaner suit to his business partner.
"I agree, but with the crackdown on corruption Charlemagne is heading, a lot of my old partners seem to be either dying or ending up in prison."
The taller one's face went from a smirk to a scowl. "That dam royal bastard thinking he can just waltz in and take away our business." He went on grumbling for a few minutes until returning to a calmer state.
"Well, shall I deposit the payment in your wife's account as usual?" The short one asked.
"No, I'm likely to face an audit soon, courtesy of that bastard prince, so put it in the offshore account for now."
Before the short one could reply the lights went out for the warehouse.
Gunfire rang out immediately after the power was cut.
"Get the lights back on dammit!" The tall one yelled from his place cowering behind a shipping crate along with his shorter partner in crime.
As the short one crawled his way across the floor, he fiddled with the breaker until he flipped the right one.
However, the lights did not ease their distress.
Standing above them on the walkway were half a dozen black-garbed figures with machine guns.
In the middle of them was the infamous terrorist Zero.
"Your, you're the- Aaaaaah!" The tall one never got to finish his sentence as the black knights opened fire.
And so another night passed with the corrupt being brought to justice courteous of…
"The Black Knights!" Yelled Kallen as she shot up from her desk after suddenly waking up in class, with a red mark on her forehead from resting it on the desk.
The surprise outburst from the frail Kallen Stadtfeld surprised her classmates, but they took it as a joke and laughed at their classmate's unexpected outburst.
Kallen on the other hand after regaining her senses just blushed red in embarrassment matching the color of her forehead.
Later after class, her fellow members of the student council came to ask what was up with her.
"That's not like you dosing off like that," Shirley said concerned over her sickly friend.
Unable to come up with a valid excuse, Kallen merely mumbled a response, as she couldn't tell them she was a student by day and black knight during the night.
"You should learn a thing or two from Lelouch, he's an expert in sleeping in class," Rivalz added pointing out the vice president of the student council, who had his back to them resting his head in his hand.
"He's not sleeping right now is he?" Kallen asked as she looked back at the sleeping Lelouch Lamperouge.
"I don't know what he's up to night after night, but he sleeps through about half of them these days."
Kallen and the others looked on at their classmate caught up on sleep, unknown to them, he was losing sleep over building his own rebellion against the empire.
Britannian Military base
Euphemia p.o.v.
I was seeing my sister Cornelia off, as she prepared to go on another one of her military operations.
"The EU is starting an offensive along the El-Alamein front we can't go dragging our feet around here, I want to solidify domestic affairs, its high time Area 11 become a satellite nation." My sister said as she watched transport trains load Knightmares and other supplies.
"For that to happen we need to stamp out terrorism, of course, but another problem is the rampant use of Refrain amongst the elevens, productivity has plummeted, it's coming in through the Chinese Federation's Kyushu route. We have to put an end to it," My sister said firmly
"Claudius will stay in the settlement as well, no doubt continuing his crusade against corruption and waste but feel free to differ to him in case anything happens," Cornelia added.
"Yes I will, but be careful," I said, concerned as my sister was charging off into another battle.
"You as well, I don't want you leaving the settlement," Said my sister concerned for my safety even more so after the events of the hotel jacking.
"Cornelia, what about the Black Knights and Zero?" I asked wondering what my sister had planned to do about the enigmatic terrorist and his group of followers.
"I'll let them roam free a bit longer, I owe them that for saving your life, however upon my return…" Cornelia stopped and raised her right hand and cuffed my cheek with a caring touch.
"Once I've cleaned up this area, I'll be entrusting it to you. So try to stay out of harm's way from now on, alright Euphie?"
I was comforted by my sister's kind words, but my mind was treated to memories of Zero and his feigned threat against me for being a child of the emperor.
When he spoke to me what was he alluding to?
I wondered what Suzaku would make of all this and what does he think of me?
I can't do anything with except do what my older brother and sister tell me to do.
I'm not strong like them, but I have to try and make a difference.
Maybe if I knew what they went through fighting, I would be a better leader, but for me, there's no way I could become half as skilled as my older siblings who were among the most skilled and respected in the entire army.
All I could do is stand by and look pretty as they fight to change things in their own way.
Kallen p.o.v.
I let out a yawn as I leaned against a wall. "Man, this double life is a killer," I said just outside of the student council room.
"Come on Suzaku hold him down!"
"Dammit Suzaku cut it out!" The voices of the president and vice-president of the student council penetrated the door.
Walking into the student council room I saw that Lelouch was tied to a chair and being forced to dress like a cat?
"Good Meowning." Milly greeted me with a wave of her paw. The entire student council was all dressed up in various cat costumes for some reason.
"Good morning I guess," I said a bit bewildered over this bizarre situation.
"What is all this?" The others who were holding Lelouch down turned towards me revealing Lelouch with purple whiskers and eyeliner.
"What do you mean? Didn't we tell you, it's our welcoming party for Arthur?" Rivalz asked as he kept a pair of cat ears on Lelouch.
"Sounds like fun," I said as I was still getting used to all the crazy activities the student council did all the time.
"Well classes are postponed, so we might as well have some fun right?" Milly rhetorically asked as she was clearly enjoying tormenting her vice president.
"I put some stuff aside for you over there, to make up for what I said earlier," Said Shirley trying to make up for our little fight over if I liked Lelouch or not.
"She doesn't need a costume," Lelouch said from his immobile position.
"What?" I asked wondering what he was getting at.
"You're already wearing a mask right?" He said in a smug knowing tone.
It was then I was reminded that Lelouch not only saw me break my fake sick girl persona, he even saw me naked in the shower.
"You really are a riot you know that," I said trying to hide my annoyance.
Before Lelouch could respond, Rivalz interrupted. "Speaking of jokes, I heard you guys got to go to a five-star resort and hot spring for the student council trip."
"Yeah, what of it?" Milly asked feigning indifference.
"What of it!? How the hell did you get into a private resort with a five-month wait list?" Rivalz had a point, how did the president get into such an exclusive resort just for a student council trip?
"I won it in the ticket in the lottery ," Milly said like it was no big deal.
Both Lelouch and Rivalz were surprised but rivalz still argued "Well you could have let us guys know so we could have cleared our schedules for the school trip of a lifetime," Rivalz said in a pleading voice still upset he didn't get to go on the trip.
While I was saving the lives of hostages at Lake Kawaguchi, the rest of the student council was getting massages and spa treatments. It felt good that I was fighting to change things with the Black Knights, but part of me was jealous of my fellow student council members for getting pampered all weekend.
"What, so you and the rest of the boys could peek on us?" Milly's casual remark shut Rivalz up, as he stuttered obviously caught up in some kind of fantasy involving the president and a steamy hot spring.
After a few seconds off in his own little world, Rivalz calmed down and turned to his fellow male members to appeal to them. "Come on Lelouch! Suzaku say something will you?"
However, Suzaku was looking away, scratching the back of his head, and whistling to himself.
When it was time to back home, I took a long way, trying to avoid that place for as long as possible.
While walking through the settlement, I thought back to all we the Black Knights have done in the past few weeks. Ever since our reveal and actions at the hotel, we have taken the world by storm. We were on everyone's mind as we took on terrorists who involved civilians; overbearing military, criminal syndicates, corrupt politicians, and profiteers.
If the law would not punish them, then we would.
In the blink of an eye, we had become heroes, support for us has swelled, and we even got some Knightmares again. Course we couldn't show any of that in public, because our leader Zero had killed Prince Clovis.
Many among our ranks wish to know his true identity, myself included.
However, I fear if we push too hard he will vanish, and we would be lost without him.
So I made my way back home. To my father's house and my overbearing stepmother, while I tried not to think about my depressing servant of a mother.
Claudius p.o.v
The week following the reveal of the Black Knights was quite busy for me.
After the events of Lake Kawaguchi and the never to be mentioned hot spring incident, I started to clean up the country's rampant corruption problem.
I was doing this because criminals, corrupt nobles, and officials had the gall to try and steal from my relief efforts. It was foolhardy to even think of stealing from me, but they were like gluttons eager to devour and consume more, especially easy targets such as welfare and charity.
Truly greed and corruption ran deep in this country and I doubt I'll be able to rout out all of it.
Thankfully, the Black Knights have been doing half of my job for me. I even leaked information sometimes to let the Black Knights take down a target that I wanted to get rid of. And like the Knights for justice they were, they jumped at the opportunity to play Robin Hood.
Of course, I couldn't use the Black Knights as my personal hit squad, as they didn't always pick my targets, but pointing them in the right direction has made my job easier. Even though their efforts were winning them some support from the Japanese people, I got all the official credit.
As a result of my efforts, I was being called a White Knight for Justice by my supporters, a notion I had to begrudgingly accept at this point, even though I preferred the color red to white in most circumstances.
Refocusing on the papers in front of me I looked over my current assignment, given to me as a joint venture between Cornelia and me.
Along with wiping out terrorism, Cornelia has taken it upon herself to break the supply of the drug Refrain into Area 11.
With Japan's proximity to the drug routes out of Asia and the dismal state of social affairs, the drug was extremely popular; it was the choice of drug for many Japanese young and old.
So while my sister goes off crushing drug runners from the Federation, I was to continue to clean up the settlement while our little sister Euphie continued to be the public relations figurehead.
Closing the file, I sat back in the expensive office chair that was a part of my office in the government building.
Really all this is a pain.
While it felt good to help people, I knew that all my efforts would be for not if I didn't defeat my father and the Directorate.
But in the end, the goodwill I earn now will come in handy further down the line.
If my memory serves me right then, it's around this time that Zero should be focusing on breaking up that Refrain distribution warehouse down by the docks.
Getting up from my chair I decided that I had enough of doing paperwork for today and went to go get Mary and Naoto to go on a little trip.
Lelouch p.o.v
After the cat party fiasco, the next day was more subdued as I sat in the student council room during my free period with Suzaku, who was looking through cat toys for Arthur, probably to stop the cat from biting him so often.
"So what's your take on the Black Knights and Zero?" I asked wanting to see where my friend stands now.
"If they wanted to catch criminals they could have joined the police force."
Typical answer, just what you'd suspect Suzaku would say.
"Maybe they think the police aren't up to it, or they feel the police don't protect the numbers."
My retort seemed to leave Suzaku tongue-tied as he pried off Arthur, who had bit him yet again.
"That may be true now, but going around attacking and killing people won't change that, in fact, it will only marginalize the people further."
Huh, he did have a point there.
But I was counting on the Japanese continuing to be marginalized by the Britannians to gather more support through our actions. Eventually, this escalation would leave me as the only one to give them hope for the future. However, I was facing an unexpected obstacle.
"Just look at what Prince Claudius is doing, he's cleaning up corruption and helping the people at the same time. If the Black Knights wanted to actually help the people, then they should be helping others instead of this pointless crusade of theirs."
"Pointless?" I asked Suzaku surprised that he held my brother in such high regard.
"The Black Knights talk of justice but what standards are they using, all this violence only serves to help them. Terrorism will only cause an escalation on the part of Britannia, which in turn that only legitimizes their actions," Suzaku said turning around to face me while I only spared a glance from the magazine I was pretending to read.
It was true that the obstacle in my way was not Cornelia at the moment, but Claudius.
While Cornelia was a fearsome foe on the battlefield, she cared little for municipal matters.
Claudius, however, saw the value of controlling the settlement as well as the people and has quickly been cleaning up government corruption and other domestic issues.
While the Black Knights were successful in taking down many corrupt groups, we didn't have the power or numbers my brother had. Even worse he was receiving all the official credit for the cities cleanup, effectively undermining the Black Knights.
It didn't help that he was providing welfare, medical attention, rebuilding efforts, and other forms of aid to the Japanese.
Which divided support for the black knights and Zero.
I had to admit my older brother's altruistic charity efforts were more of a threat to the Black Knights than Cornelia's forces right now.
And I can't move against him least I betray the ideals of the Black Knights and lose what support we have fought for.
I was about to respond, but then Shirley walked into the club room.
"Anyway, I guess I got to get back to the base pretty soon, see you around Shirley," Said Suzaku. He then got up and left the room, leaving just Shirley and me.
Go back huh, so he sees his job in the military as where he belongs. I wonder if he is like many people in the empire who feel inspired by my brother Claudjus, Britannia's own champion of the people.
Stadtfeld estate
Kallen p.o.v.
"Mistress Kallen, Mistress Kallen, you have a guest," the failure of a maid that was my mother announced from the door as I made my way down the stairs to see to my surprise the student council president at the door.
"President, what are you doing here?" I asked surprised over why Milly would come to my house.
"I just wanted to drop something off for my grandfather," she said being as friendly as ever.
"Where should I show your friend too, the parlor perhaps?" My mother asked falling into her maid routine, which made me angry at my submissive and weak excuse of a parent.
"We'll be in my room!" I said not trying to hide my disdain for my mother.
As I was going to turn to go upstairs the only person I disliked more than my mother just happened to appear on the stairs.
"Oh, I heard you had a friend over, but I expected it to be a boy. What with you staying out late, missing school, not to mention all those trips to the ghetto, you're lucky your father is back in the homeland." my stepmother said announcing her presence.
"No use fighting one's blood is there," my stepmother added glancing at my mother who began to back away and shrinks under her gaze.
While my father was away in the homeland, I knew things weren't easy for my mother what with my stepmother and all the other maids who made her life difficult.
"Hey, you're the one enjoying dad not being around so shut it!" My insult put off my stepmother as getting into a shouting match in front of someone from my school would reflect poorly on the family.
The sound of vase smashing against the floor broke up our stare down as my mother had knocked one over when she was backing up.
"I'm so sorry, I'll clean it up right away," My mother said as bent down to pick up the pieces of the vase.
"Can't you do anything right you worthless excuse of a maid!" My stepmother berated my mother.
I then gestured Milly to follow me upstairs where we both went to my room to escape my drama filled life.
"Quite the complicated home life you have," Milly said trying to ease the tension of the events from moments ago.
"So what is it you wanted to give me that prompted a home visit?" I asked, curious to why the student council president would come to my house to deliver something instead of just mailing it.
"My grandfather wanted to give you this off of school grounds, it's your transcripts from middle school," Milly said as she laid the small envelope on the table.
"So my secrets out, I suppose, that I'm actually a Britannian and Eleven half-breed."
A few seconds had passed before I answered Milly's unasked question. "My real mother is that klutz of a maid, the blonde woman is my stepmother," I said neutrally, trying to act civil in front of Milly.
"And your father, is he the head of the Stadtfeld family?" She asked for clarities sake.
"My mother is such a fool, in the end, to cling on to her old lover, she became a servant in his house," I said, with venom dripping from every word.
"You really hate your mother don't you?" Milly asked, adopting a concerned look on her face.
"I just find her depressing that's all," I said as I poured the both of us a cup of tea.
"I can't imagine, the wife, the daughter, and the other women all living under the same roof," Milly said, looking out the window to distract herself from my troubles.
"It's bearable. Three square meals and a roof over your head makes it worth it," I said, resigned that this was a much safer place to live than in the ghettos.
"Still, some things in life we can bear on our own, but if you add them all up, they eventually break you."
I was surprised that Milly, the carefree and free-spirited student council president, could say something so wise.
"Oh, don't worry I won't lie, I'm always hungry for secrets, but I would never talk about this," Milly said placating my worries before she took a sip of her tea.
I joined her by drinking some of my own tea until there was a knock at the door.
"What is it?" I asked from my position at the table.
The door opened revealing a different maid other than my mother who looked flustered trying to compose herself.
"Mistress Kallen, a very important guest, has arrived and you are requested to meet the lady of the house down in the parlor. I apologize, but I must tell the other staff, so please hurry," the maid then left in a hurry looking to alert the staff of this very important guest.
"Huh weird, so who do you think is downstairs?" Milly asked as she looked to me in this situation.
"No idea, but I've never seen anyone on the staff every that worked up over some guest," I said equally unsure who this guest could be.
I normally wouldn't be interested in any noble guests, but I was curious as to who it could be.
"Well anyway, I guess I'll see who it is," I said as I went to grab my student uniform, not bothering to dress up any more than that.
"I guess I'll be on my way then," Milly said as she prepared to leave.
"I'll let you out then," I said as we got up and made our way towards the front door.
As we approached the stairs, I heard someone crying.
When we reach the head of the stairs, I saw that my mother was sobbing desperately hugging someone with his back to me at the base of the stairs.
When I looked closer at the stranger, everything stopped.
I was frozen in place.
Paralyzed with shock.
How, could it really be?
No, it can't be him.
The stranger in the Britannian military uniform couldn't be him.
But as the stranger noticed our presence at the head of the stairs a familiar face turned to look at me.
He had the same red hair, the same blue eyes, and the same smile, which always seemed to brighten the room, even if he had a few tears of his own marring his face.
"Naoto!"
I shouted my brother's name as I lunged at my older brother.
He caught me while letting go of my mother.
My words failed me as I just embraced my brother, scared that, if I spoke up, he would disappear.
While I buried myself in my brother's uniform, he merely returned the hug.
"It's good to see you to Kallen," my brother spoke to me as I burst into tears of joy having been able to hear his voice again.
After a few minutes of clinging to my older brother, I let go wiping away the tears as I got a better look at him.
He was just like I remembered him from before he went missing during a scouting mission.
However instead of his usual clothes he was wearing a Britannian military uniform that was blue and gold with white pants. Also, his trademark headband that was the symbol of his resistance group was attached to his left shoulder instead.
"What happened to you, where have you been?" I asked wondering where my brother has been all this time.
"Well, it's kind of a long story," my brother said as he scratched his head looking off on the ground.
Before either of us could speak a group of people walked into the entrance area from another part of the house.
"You do have a lovely home Mrs. Stadtfelt, it almost feels like I'm back home in the homeland." A blonde man said as he entered walking with my mother, along with presumably a group of his bodyguards judging from their uniforms, which seemed to match my brother's.
"Thank you for your kind words your highness, I'm glad you like my humble home," my stepmother said to the man.
Again I was shocked.
"Oh, I hope we haven't interrupted your family reunion, Lieutenant."
"No my lord you haven't interrupted anything." My brother responded to the prince in a courteous and disciplined manner.
Questions raced through my head over why the prince of all people was in my house, why my brother seemed to be working for him, and why was he looking at me right now.
"So this is the sister I've heard so much about then? She really looks prettier when meeting in person,"
What's going on? Since when did my brother, a Japanese resistance fighter, ever work for a prince of Britannia?
The prince then walked up to me and took my hand and greeted me with a kiss on my hand.
"Allow me to introduce myself, I am Prince Claudius el Britannia. It's an honor to finally meet you Kallen Stadtfelt."