7Mewsy: A nice reviewer let us know we were skipping ahead with the Flight System developments, so we decided to edit the previous chapter. Mainly we said that Nunnally's involvement with Schneizel helped speed up the project. Instead of Knightmares flying in the end of Season 1, they are now flying from the start of it. Thank you, kind reviewer.
Phase 6
Suzaku was not alone. Suzaku was also not dead. What Suzaku was was stuck — and in an unreasonable amount of pain.
The first time he'd awoken on Ohgi's couch, Suzaku was accosted by arguing. This time, the room was silent save for the pounding in his head.
Water. Suzaku's throat was parched and raw. On top of him was that same blanket tossed over his injured body, but it seemed someone had moved him into a more comfortable position on the floor.
At first, Suzaku looked around, wondering whether the Elevens (Japanese, his mind whispered) had left him a glass of water, but found none. Wonderful.
He was less than enthused about doing so, but, biting his cheek against the pain, Suzaku pushed himself up. From there, he carefully stood and took a wobbly first step.
When he didn't fall flat on his face, he took another, and another, mindful of his breathing. Belatedly, he remembered he had no idea where the bathroom or kitchen might be … Oh well. He'd find one or the other eventually, right?
Suzaku moved along, leaning on the walls for support. Eventually, he found a door slightly ajar. He pushed it open and was blinded by steam and a gut feeling that quickly caused him to regret his life choices. Particularly when his eardrums suffered for it.
"GYAAAAAAAAH!"
"AH!" Ohgi screamed back.
The steam was just now clearing, a pressure cooker open and spewing clouds into the air. Ohgi's face — and his pink apron — were covered in splattered dough. One hand clutched a dripping spatula and the other hand twitched aimlessly in the air above the pressure cooker.
Ohgi coughed awkwardly and waved, his hand looking … very red. "Er, hi. I stopped the thing before it could explode, but, uh, oh, how are you feeling?"
The only response that came out was a dry, hacking coughing fit. Suzaku wasn't terribly sure he wanted to know what he walked in on, but it was far better than what he was expecting under all that steam. He would give a proper response, perhaps a snarky one, but he really needed that water, unfortunately.
Ohgi noticed his discomfort. "Let me — hold on, let me —" Ohgi put down the spatula and turned off the stove before whatever he was cooking could bubble over. He fanned more steam into the vent. "Hold on!"
Suzaku didn't have to wait much longer, because the next time he looked up, Ohgi was holding out a cup of water.
"Here," Ohgi said. "You're thirsty, aren't you?"
Gratefully, Suzaku sipped at it, knowing that glugging it all down wasn't the best idea. When he'd hydrated enough to speak, he bit out sourly, "This doesn't change anything. I'm still your enemy for as long as what you do endangers my people."
"Very well." Ohgi dusted a few sticky pieces of rice from his apron. He pulled the apron off and placed it on a hook on the wall. The rebel leader turned back to Suzaku with a smile. He still had rice in his poofy hair. "You probably don't plan on staying, but I would like to offer you a meal before you go. And … one more thing. Kallen woke up earlier. She would like to talk to you."
The Britannian? Suzaku supposed it couldn't hurt … He wanted to know why a Britannian was so important to these two. He wanted to know how she was doing after being shot at — no, shot by someone she should have been able to trust with her safety, because that had been the man's entire job.
Grudgingly, Suzaku nodded.
Ohgi gestured for Suzaku to move out of the doorway. Ohgi led him across the living room, past Suzaku's bed on the couch, and into the neighboring bedroom. "Kallen?" Ohgi called.
The red-haired Ashford Academy student was sitting up in bed, her blue eyes much sharper than Suzaku remembered. Kallen's shoulders were bare, but her chest was dressed with bandages similar to Suzaku's. She didn't try to pull the covers over herself.
"You can come in," Kallen said.
Suzaku took the invitation and hobbled to the bed, gingerly sitting on the edge. He met her gaze with confidence of his own and a good deal of concern. She'd been shot in the chest, after all … For one horrifying moment, Suzaku had thought Bartley had murdered her in cold blood. And now she's here, alive. "Hey. Kallen, right? How are you doing?"
Kallen didn't relax at his friendly tone. She stayed steady. "I'm fine. You're a Britannian soldier, right," she asked, although it wasn't voiced as a question. Her hand shifted under the covers as she sat up straighter. "Why did you let us go?"
Suzaku raised an eyebrow in response, but he swore he felt his heart stop.
The truth of the matter was: Suzaku had no idea.
He could give any number of excuses after the fact, sure, but at the time … At the time, he remembered only one thing going through his mind, and his body deciding to do the exact opposite.
Smothering his inner turmoil, Suzaku enunciated, "You're Britannian, aren't you?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Friend of rebellious Elevens or not, I couldn't just let you die. If this guy was going to get help for you, I wasn't going to stop him. And it's not like I could have helped you myself," he added, gesturing pointedly at his bandages.
"Your so-called holy people were prepared to let you die, too," Kallen said. She kept her gaze fixed on Suzaku's eyes, trying to read him. "You have a Japanese accent. You've followed their orders to the very end, and yet you wish to go back to them? You hold their rule in such high esteem? Even though a soldier should be prepared to die, you're fighting for Britannia over Japan?"
"I don't," spilled the words from his lips, and Suzaku hadn't the slightest idea where they came from. But they just kept coming, welling from somewhere deep within him where he'd suppressed them, shoved them out of sight in a desperate bid to believe what he was doing was right.
(It wasn't.)
"I don't believe in Britannia. Their cause is built on lies. Their pride is made from excuses. The only thing they care about is stepping on others, no matter if it's Britannians imposing on a colony's native people or the wealthy crushing the poor," Suzaku said. "They promised us rights. They promised us the chance to be human beings if we renounced our former ties to our respective homelands and served them wholeheartedly instead, and it was all a joke to them."
His hands trembled with rage, so he curled his fingers around his knees and squeezed. Suzaku faced Kallen, a wild, broken look in his eyes. "You're Britannian. General Bartley was supposed to PROTECT you!"
He didn't mean to shout; he really didn't. His hands, still shaking, rose to tear at the sides of his head, fingers tangling in his hair and digging into his skull. "I hate them!" Suzaku shouted. "The only thing they care to do is crush everyone under their heels, and I'm sick of following their orders."
Suzaku sucked in a breath, then slowly hissed it back out, fighting to calm down. "And I'm sick of dealing with the Japanese, too," he added. "I didn't kill my father just to watch my people throw themselves to the gallows."
Ohgi took a step forward, lips pressed thin, but he said nothing.
Kallen watched Suzaku without comment, but her face twitched in pain. Her eyes watered, eyebrows furrowed, a frown forming … then lifting. "Kill your father?" she repeated in a soft voice. "You don't sound like a regular soldier. Who are you?"
Frick.
That had come out of his mouth, along with the rest of the words he didn't mean. He hadn't meant to say it, hadn't meant to say any of it, but bully if he wasn't pissed. Who was this girl to question him? She was Britannian. What right did she have to even be saying any of this to him? To be questioning him like this?
Seething, he lifted his head. "That's my question. Who are you to be asking any of that? Are you even a Britannian? Denouncing everything about them to my face, when I've worked so hard just to be living proof that the new system can work?"
Suzaku waited, a loaded pause. They were silent.
"Go on, say it. Say the word," Suzaku egged. "Admit you're just another filthy Eleven trying to provoke me so I say stuff like — like that. Because I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't have just shot you both when I had the chance. General Bartley was right to shoot you if you're just going to support mutiny the minute you wake up."
Kallen leaned forward, her hands tightening to fists beneath the covers. A wrathful fire blazed in her eyes. Ohgi almost spoke up, but Kallen shot him an unforgiving glare and returned her attention to Suzaku.
"I am Japanese. But I'm also Britannian, no matter how much I want to rip that label off myself," she spat. Kallen's breath shook, her shoulders trembling. "Bartley killed my brother while he was walking to the store to get medicine for my mother. He got in the way of Bartley harassing a Japanese family. Apparently, that justified shooting my brother. Naoto bled out on the street."
Kallen hissed in a breath, fighting tears.
"My brother died. And those 'Elevens'? The unlucky family? Their things were destroyed, their children scarred, the parents beat. My mother was on death's door, and I found Naoto's body at midnight when I went looking for him. All in the name of Britannia. No one cared that he had Britannian blood," she said. "Ever since then, I couldn't bear to forgive Bartley or this country."
Something hot and destructive flooded Suzaku as he heard her story, and he ruthlessly shoved it down like every similar feeling he'd had before it. And look where it got you, came the unbidden thought, but that too was shoved in the box.
"Yeah. That's … that's definitely something that would get him killed, Britannian or not," he muttered, a touch of bitterness in his tone. "General Bartley wasn't very merciful. He and Prince Clovis … I don't think those two cared much about the natives." If their refusal to look beyond his blood and see his flag was any indication. But, then again, most Britannians don't care for the "honorary" status.
Once again, the thought was ruthlessly shoved in a box.
"And yet, you —" Kallen cut off, a notification lighting up a cellphone on the desk in the corner of the room. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Ohgi? Can you —"
"Got it." Ohgi brought the phone to her.
Kallen's other hand snaked free from the covers, taking the device. The second she saw what was on the screen, her jaw dropped. "What?"
Ohgi bent over the bed to take a look. His jaw dropped too. "Well."
"Not only did they replace me, but —" she choked out, disbelief transforming her features. "How could — of all people …"
"You did miss the festival Clovis was supposed to attend …"
"Clovis is dead, isn't he! These Britannians just don't care!" Kallen threw the phone down on the bed.
Suzaku could see the video on the screen. A strange Knightmare standing tall in a busy school festival … and Eleventh Prince Lelouch at the head of it, waving at the camera from the open cockpit.
Huh, he mused to himself, only a little surprised to see the prince. Suzaku was fairly certain Prince Lelouch was the same person he'd locked eyes with when he saw Clovis fall.
He chose not to reveal the fact that Clovis was actually alive. Instead, Suzaku said, "Festivals are good for morale. Whenever someone important dies, we charge right back in, full-force, like nothing happened. It shows the opposition that they can't hurt us." In this case, the show was probably more to reassure the public over General Bartley more than Prince Clovis, but the rebels didn't need to know that.
As a soldier, Suzaku appreciated the finesse Prince Lelouch had behind the wheel of the Ganymede. It was … amazing, truthfully. He didn't want to be this man's enemy; Suzaku only had so much experience and so much training with the Knightmares, after all. He surely couldn't make them move so seamlessly, so effortlessly; they always lagged under his touch. It was a wonder they'd let Suzaku serve at all, with his lack of affinity for even the most basic of frames.
"He's good," Suzaku found himself muttering, then blushed as he realized he'd said that aloud.
Kallen and Ohgi were looking at him strangely.
"Yeah," Ohgi said finally. "Too good if you ask me. You ever wonder why 'honorary Britannians' never get this good at piloting Knightmares? They aren't given the chance."
"I can bet you my flying is better than this trash," Kallen retorted. She snatched up the phone and turned it off. "The second we get Knightmares for the Japanese, everything will change. We'll show them."
"Kallen —" Ohgi was interrupted by someone knocking on the front door.
Kallen glanced fearfully at Suzaku. Ohgi pursed his lips.
"I'll see what they want. Stay here," Ohgi said, especially to Suzaku, and left the room.
Though it left a bad taste in his mouth to wait as he was told, Suzaku knew better than to do anything else. He was but an honorary Britannian; if he were caught fraternizing with the Elevens, he'd be arrested (or worse) for treason.
Not wanting Kallen to get the wrong idea, he rebutted just loud enough for her to hear, "Oh, we get a chance, alright. We become the cannon fodder and the lab rats for the higher-ups. It's not our fault, we just suck at adapting. Knightmares are unwieldy and unresponsive half the time; it's a wonder anyone's learned to pilot them in the first place."
Kallen huffed a laugh at that, but it was quiet and seemed to hurt her chest.
There were hushed voices at the entrance, the stamp of shoes against the floor. Someone raised their voice.
"What do you mean, Kozuki's been hurt?" It wasn't Tamaki. This man's voice was smoother.
Ohgi tried to hush him, another man's voice carrying into the house.
"We don't have time. Two days! How are we supposed to manage this without her?"
"Sugiyama, calm down. We — we'll figure something out," Ohgi said. He also said some other things that Suzaku couldn't catch.
A pair of footsteps started in the hall. "I'm going to see her."
"I just said —"
Kallen leaned into her pillow, pretending to be asleep. If she wanted to, she could have spoken to bring the men in to bust Suzaku. But she didn't.
The approaching man was decidedly shoved into the wall.
"What gives!"
"I said don't see her right now," Ohgi hissed. "That's an order."
More hushed voices, then the footsteps faded away. The sound of a trashcan being kicked over carried into the room. Kallen still didn't move.
Another long moment passed, and the door shut, a single pair of footsteps entering the bedroom.
Ohgi ran his fingers through his hair, which had bits of paper in it along with the rice. "Well. Bad news."
Kallen peeked her eyes open.
"If we don't find a pilot in two days, people are going to die."
Suzaku's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
A moment of silence passed. Kallen waited, Ohgi hesitating by the door.
"Nagata and Sugiyama got back from their scout," Ohgi said. "As it turns out, the project that Bartley has been overseeing hasn't been canceled. We've overheard plans that Britannia has been developing poison gas to use against the Japanese and that a shipment will be coming through Tokyo in two days. As you both know, it isn't beyond Britannia to use this gas where innocents live."
Kallen was watching Suzaku's reaction. "You'd think by now, people would get fed up with letting Britannia trample all over us," she said.
Ohgi grimaced. "There should be a way for us to get rid of the poison gas before they get a chance to use it, but we'll need a skilled pilot since our group is compromised," he said. "In the case of emergency, we can't just rely on fighters on foot. We're outgunned and outnumbered."
"Ugh!" Kallen threw a pillow onto the floor. It tumbled into the wall. "This is my fault. If only I hadn't gotten reckless … moved faster …"
"It's not your fault," Ohgi said firmly. "We all knew this would be dangerous."
"But now people are going to die."
All's fair in love and war. This happens to be war. Of course people are going to die, why can't you just understand that and give up already so you don't have to go through this anymore? was what Suzaku meant to say.
"I'll do it," was what he said out loud, and he wasn't terribly sure why he tried anymore. Clearly, his mouth wasn't cooperating. But he had to follow through with his decisions, even if he hadn't meant to make them. So he soldiered on. "If there are innocents there, I don't want them getting caught in the crossfire. But keep your mouths shut about it. I'm going straight back to Britannia afterwards, got it? I didn't help you, you held me hostage, and I escaped when you took me with you."
"Understood," Ohgi said, sharing a quick glance with Kallen. Both of them looked relieved, but Kallen had an almost smug expression on her face. "I'll give you more details over lunch. The food is getting cold."
The rebel leader left them alone again.
Kallen seemed to have mellowed, the slight pinch of her features reminding him that she was badly injured. A girl who'd been caught in something much bigger than she could handle.
"Thanks, by the way," she said, gazing out the window. "I was planning to bust you for helping us if you ended up backing Britannia, but it seems like you have a good heart. I won't say anything if people ask."
Suzaku just bent over, curling up and hiding his face between his knees, and groaned. Days like this, he wished he had someone smart around telling him off for his stupidity growing up. Maybe he'd have learned to control his big mouth better.
"My name is Kallen Kozuki, but I'm known as Kallen Stadtfeld at school. I got rid of my birth name when Naoto was killed," she said. Suzaku didn't ask to hear it, but there was a tenderness in her tone that wasn't there before. "You don't have to tell me your name if you don't want to. But if you really believe in helping the Japanese, I don't think this is the last time we'll see each other."
Suzaku peeked at her from his spot between his knees. Kallen Kozuki, Kallen Stadtfeld … he was fairly certain he'd heard the name Stadtfeld before. They were big names in Area 11. It made sense, seeing as Kallen apparently was also a student at Ashford Academy. He was pretty sure only Britannian nobility made it in there.
He considered it briefly. Should I tell her my real name? Is it worth it? He hadn't told any of the rebels his real name yet. He still had plausible deniability. Mousy brown hair was common among the Britannians. Green eyes less so, but he'd seen the combination enough times in the mess hall or around barracks to be certain he couldn't be identified by those features alone.
And he knew the rebels would never claim him as a Japanese, even if just aesthetically. It would hurt their cause too much.
No, he decided. He'd rather not give them his name. His name was the only identifier that could truly get him caught, after all.
Instead, he pondered what he could use as a nickname. Nothing in English, of course. It would be better to distance himself from Britannians in every possible way. And he wanted it to be easy to remember. Bonus points if it was related to his real name.
Kururugi, a sliding wooden bolt that kept a door shut. Suzaku, the Vermilion Bird of the south. Bolt? Lock? Phoenix? Hmm, maybe he was onto something with that last one.
Phoenixes were curious things, always starting from zero after death and resurrecting an infinite number of times, carrying what they learned with each life for all eternity …
Suzaku lifted his head, liking the sound of that.
"Call me Eien."
Eternity.
If Lelouch thought he would get good sleep that night, he was sorely mistaken. It was not the exhilaration of flying, nor the jet lag, nor the culture shock of touring Area 11.
It was Lloyd, something he'd said to Lelouch, something Clovis didn't even have wind of, that kept Lelouch awake.
Okay. So he slept a little over the course of two days. Mostly in the form of dozing and napping, as he could pass it off easily and still take part in the day's activities.
Yet his mind was busy trying to solve the puzzle of what to do. As far as Lelouch could tell, Lloyd wasn't stupid. The information Lloyd teased Lelouch with after he flew the Ganymede was bait, not a slip-up.
But no matter which direction Lelouch looked at it, it was too enticing, too perfect a lure to catch a desperate young prince. And more than that — more than the meaning it held for Britannia, what it could mean for the world — it was Lelouch's upper-hand against Clovis. He had no intention of getting in the way of his half-brother or meddling in his affairs, but this affair in particular was Lelouch's best opportunity to climb the ladder in his father's eyes.
This was his chance to get involved and prove himself. Lelouch could not afford to lose it.
Since the festival, Clovis had been busy, only coming to see them at night. They played slumber party games per Nunnally and Euphemia's ingenious bonding ideas, but Lelouch was about as good faking his engagement as Clovis was at enjoying it.
All I need is a shred of proof that Lloyd was telling the truth.
And Clovis gave that proof. It was something so slight, perhaps the result of the lasting effects of a drink or whatever Clovis did for fun.
So slight that if Lelouch had not been grasping for answers, he might have missed it.
"Tonight, I've got business to attend to," Clovis had said, "in General Bartley's absence. I'm rather exhausted, and I'll have to deal with Asplund the Freak again. What a pain."
Lloyd had told Lelouch about a certain project. Important things were said to happen involving a fleet of Knightmares. A project that would happen on the 15th of August and pass through Tokyo's underground system before taking to the skies.
Nunnally noticing Lelouch's interest in Clovis had been his primary concern. But she told Clovis goodnight, and Lelouch went unnoticed. Yes. Lelouch would get his chance.
He'd prepared himself for the very occasion in two ways. One: Lelouch had used his lack of sleep to justify buying sleeping medication, actually at Euphemia's suggestion. Two: he told Jeremiah to guard the door once Clovis left.
Lelouch had hoped he wouldn't have to — okay, maybe he wasn't that concerned about his sisters.
The sad thing was, Lelouch cared for them but not enough to let them take away his shot at a brighter future. It was a simple trick. He would convince them to take the medicine with him (and pretend to take it himself), wait until they passed out, and take his chances and follow Clovis.
If they suspected Lelouch, he would simply have Jeremiah step in for him.
Nunnally could question him in the morning, yell at him for all he cared. As long as Lelouch didn't miss this, he could endure their griping.
But he planned on being back before then.