Chapter Text
Prologue
Up to a point, the course of human events flowed more or less uninterrupted, largely unforked and often convergent, essentially unchanged in general direction. A princess lived as idyllically as any prince, a child still lost their beloved mother and confronted an imposing father figure. Two sisters were exiled to Japan and, yes, the elder this time bartered her own way out of marriage, but that would-be husband still died behind closed doors and three children still trekked across his wartorn country only to be parted outside what remained of Tokyo.
Ruben K. Ashford proved no less sympathetic to Lucrezia and Nunnally than he would be to Nunnally and Lelouch. Perhaps more so, for the older girl resembled her deceased mother, another child that the chairman had already watched grow up and be eaten alive by courtly intrigue and who he missed dearly. But here in that moment of observation was also the whisper of doubt in the aging man’s deafening ear, louder than it would have been with the boy, though his sense of honor quickly shooed it away like a gnat. These co-conspirators would be no less reckless in this branch of destiny than they were in the other. Perhaps more so.
The same witch still lingered on the periphery, watching these events unfold.
***
a.t.b. October 4th, 2015 - 13h11m
Rivalz Cardemonde, in nine out of ten lifetimes, did not get along with his father. At all. To the point that he shed his father’s name in favor of his mother’s (a decision his best friend Lucrezia applauded despite Mr. and Mrs. Lamperouge, both equally dear and equally dead under circumstances no one wished to discuss, being the stuff of storybooks). It was just the cherry on top of the man’s just desserts for being such a crummy father.
In this lifetime as with the other, the oh-so-serious-and-important Major had been part of the first landing in Area 11 and stayed on the ground as the occupation took hold in Tokyo. By the time English-speaking schools were opening for the soldiers’ kids to attend, Rivalz and his mom hadn’t seen the guy in actual years. And he had the nerve to get mad when Rivalz didn’t turn out exactly like him! Gee, the things that happen when you aren’t around to raise your kid…
Rivalz wasn’t athletic enough. Rivalz wasn’t patriotic enough. Rivalz wasn’t macho enough.
Needless to say, it was a whole thing when Rivalz changed his surname halfway through middle school. And it was an even bigger deal when he got his under-the-table job at the gambling den to make up for the allowance the Major was no longer sending from his voluntary posting clear on the opposite end of the island. But by then there wasn’t really anything to hold over Rivalz or his mom’s heads except that whisper of a chance that things might ever be good again like they were when Rivalz was nine and his father was only a Captain. Everything’s simpler when you’re nine.
Rivalz didn’t often turn down Lucrezia when she asked about ditching class and gambling. It was good fun and good money with the added bonus of occasionally making fools of uppity nobles. Not to mention being seen around town with a pretty girl!
Don’t get him wrong! The Pres owned his heart outright and held a fair stake in his soul, and Rivalz knew that half the school thought he was being strung along by Lucrezia for free rides even as he proclaimed her “one of the guys” (Rivalz otherwise being left the singular “guy” on the Student Council). But it was still a nice ego boost to catch the bewildered looks as the likes of Lucrezia Lamperouge sank elegantly into the sidecar of his bike.
Rivalz had to forgo this pleasure among others that day, sadly. The Major was in the Tokyo Settlement. For work first and foremost, of course.
But his mom twisted Rivalz’s arm about keeping the peace with the old war hawk. To not go to lunch would be giving him the excuse he wanted to be a bastard and kick off a days-long war via text and email about his only son’s attitude and upbringing and that military school back in the homeland his colleagues sent all their sons to that would (no doubt literally) whip Rivalz into shape. Geez .
Lucrezia saw Rivalz off with a rare, heartfelt pat on the shoulder, the likes of which she usually reserved for Milly’s blind dates. And even then, Lucrezia was slowly and deliberately winging the lovesick fool off the pity. One day, Mrs. Ashford would scrounge up a noble either as crazy as her daughter or as desperate as herself. That day, however, Lucrezia imparted a full and hearty dose of sympathy upon her friend for having to see his father.
“I don’t envy you, my friend,” She told him simply.
Rivalz really, really wouldn’t have gone to the lunch if not for his mom asking. And he shouted so when he and the Major inevitably came to blows over Rivalz’ less-than-stellar attendance grade in the past marking period.
“The rest of my grades are just fine, so what does it matter anyway!”
“It matters because you’re out there disgracing yourself! A son of mine, working in a gambling den! Fixing drinks! You’re underaged; is there no law and order in the Settlement? What are you doing with your life? Chasing skirt?!”
“Dad!” Rivalz let out a dramatic groan and cradled his head in his hands. It all made terrible sense now. It was a trap. “Not you, too! Has Mom been saying junk to you now!?”
When he looked up and saw the Major’s stony face, Rivalz knew he had messed up. It was a whole nother back and forth as Rivalz first swore up and down that his question meant nothing, and then that Lucrezia was just a friend from Ashford who also liked to play chess with stakes, and then that honestly they had only ever hung out once or twice outside school. The Major hated every word of his excuses until he laid eyes on a picture Lucrezia on Rivalz’ phone.
It wasn’t even a great picture. Lucrezia rarely posed with the rest of the Student Council at events, often off to clean up some mess behind the scenes, and she never did yearbook pictures when it was the prime time to gamble without actually missing classwork. Most photos of Lucrezia were candid, snapped by Shirley or the Pres or occasionally Rivalz himself, like this one: Lucrezia leaned back regally in a chair in the background of the picture’s true focus, a vanquished noble hopping on one leg with his clothes inside-out while reciting Shakespeare, per the terms of his bet. Lucrezia cut a striking figure with her elegant good looks and her school uniform, sure, but Rivalz mostly chose the picture because he figured the Major would jump on his back for disrespecting the nobility and abandon this whole mortifying topic.
“So…you go out to these places with your girlfriend?” His dad asked Rivalz instead, scratching his beard thoughtfully.
And there were about a million things wrong with that. And Rivalz ought to have answered with a flat-out “NO”. But…for the first time in a long time, his dad looked almost proud of him -- if as bewildered as every onlooker who had ever seen Lucrezia in his sidecar…
***
a.t.b. October 4th, 2015 - 18h38m
Prince Clovis did not typically take meetings involving lower-ranked military personnel. He hardly took meetings with the high-ranked personnel. His focuses as Viceroy were largely social and his knowledge of military affairs came primarily from morning briefings wedged between when he finished dressing and when he sat down at his abundant breakfast table.
(Word of anything to do with Code R came directly from Bartley at evening briefings between the last crumbs of dessert and retirement to bed. Overlap between the research team with the military chain of command was deliberately limited so as it avoid info leaking its way back to the homeland -- most dangerously, to his brother Schneizel or their father.)
Clovis trusted his commanders to follow through with his directives regarding terrorists. They were simple and efficient; even his initial doubters, like Schneizel and Cornelia, could not fault his policy. He had followed their advice, after all. Viceroy Clovis had hardened his heart against pernicious insurgency to do what had to be done to secure peace for all who were willing to cooperate with Britannia. The whole military structure of Area 11 understood this policy and their strict adherence allowed their prince to focus on more personal projects: museum exhibits, amusement parks, arts funding, and urban development (and the cryptic).
Bartley insisted on this particular meeting, however, so Clovis bid adieu to any notion of touching up his latest painting that afternoon. He hoped, at least, that this low-level affair ended on schedule (or better yet, ahead!) so he could make it to the opera that evening.
Marvelously, it did! The meeting was primarily a presentation on the need for security optimization on a small mountain military base. (It also quickly became clear why Bartley had slipped this into his schedule last minute. The base was within the network of Code R’s scattered research facilities, though the soldier obviously had no idea what he was truly guarding given his concern over potential nerve gas leaks.) All Clovis need do to close the meeting was magnanimously acquiesce to the Major’s requests, superseding any further probing by the other military officials present, and express gratitude for having such a conscientious and analytical mind among the empire’s ranks.
He may have overdone it…The prince was just too damn charming for his own good sometimes. When the stuffy meeting devolved into collegial chatter among old war buddies, Clovis found himself waylaid time and again by praise for his decision just then, inquiries about his goings-on, and invitations to meet dear sisters and lovely daughters.
If he kept it a few degrees cooler like his brother Schneizel, Clovis might not have this problem.
(But then, maybe Bartley would be his only companion the way Kanon was Schneizel’s, and wasn’t that just chilling?)
Clovis was almost out the door when he came across the major who had presented. He was speaking with his fellow officer near the door. These commonborn types always had to be the loudest in the room, so Clovis heard their exchange clearly upon his approach, never suspecting it might change his plans even more drastically.
“So how is that boy of yours, Meijers? Ryzal, was it?”
“Rivalz, sir…and he’s shaping up! Mostly high marks, save attendance. But who can blame him? He has a pretty girlfriend to entertain nowadays!”
“A girl? Really now…”
The man must have had something to prove. He immediately fished out his phone to show the other officer who sputtered.
Now that might just warrant keeping the Viceroy’s entourage in suspense at the opera house a moment longer. Amusement tugged at Clovis’ mouth. Instead of breezing past, he stopped and playfully inquired, “Oh my! Your son sounds like a lucky man, Major. May I sneak a peek as well?”
Major Meijers and his compatriot both went rigid as boards and then mechanically bent themselves in half in deference to their superior among superiors. A garble of words poured out of the formerly effective presenter’s mouth as he delayed obeying his prince’s request.
It actually started to annoy Clovis and, though he kept smiling in the soldier’s face, his son’s girlfriend’s picture became a matter of principle. Not only a prince , a viceroy , but how could this common soldier deny an accomplished artist’s eye a beauty worth sputtering over?
Eventually, the major’s cell phone was surrendered to Prince Clovis’ waiting hand.
Meijers watched the Viceroy’s narrowed gaze take in the tiny, damning screen as a cold sweat broke out across his brow. He’d been so focused on his son messing with a girl out of his league that he had lost sight of the noble he and his girlfriend were messing with in the photo! Meijers could see it already: him, in a few moments, his rank ripped clean off his uniform as he himself was made to hop on one leg before the prince and belt out the Holy Britannian national anthem.
Sure enough, the princely hand gripping his phone began to tremble.
***
a.t.b. October 10th, 2015 - 15h29m
Truth be told, the Viceroy and Margrave Jeremiah did not see eye to eye on all matters of policy.
In regard to counter-terrorism, certainly. Jeremiah appreciated how swift the prince was to dispatch fledgling threats and engage in disruptive measures amongst the Elevens. It was the domestic policy of Honorary Britannians that they decidedly disagreed upon. Prince Clovis was seemingly a true believer that Numbers, the most dissident culled and the rest exposed to enough superior Britannia culture, could be converted into leal Britannian citizens. Jeremiah could not fathom taking such a stance in light of the princesses’ deaths.
But Jeremiah Gottwald’s loyalty to the royal family simply could not be denied -- it would, in fact, take a supernatural act upon his will in order to make anyone doubt it in the slightest. Even in light of such stark differences in politics, there was no one in the entire Area who was as devoted to the same central cause as Viceroy Clovis. There was no other who he could have trusted with such a long-shot, half-deluded mission to comb the gambling dens and stalk the school campuses of Tokyo Settlement and treat it with sincerity.
“And you’re sure, Margave Jeremiah…that you have not let our hopes get the better of you?” Prince Clovis whispered, leaning heavily on his great mahogany desk. Never had the foppish prince appeared so sincerely grave before a subject, and never so afraid, as if his soft heart might not bear either answer the Margrave might deliver.
Jeremiah held the utmost sympathy; his own heart ached in his chest all the way back from Ashford Academy. “Yes, Your Highness,” He whispered fiercely.
Prince Clovis dropped his head in his hands. He trembled all over.
Jeremiah bowed in kind.
“With Your Highness’ leave, I will begin preparations for an extraction.”
Clovis, the gifted orator, could only nod and mumble gratitude amid dismissal.
It was not taken as a slight. Jeremiah had the distinct impression that the moment of the office door slid shut behind him, the Viceroy would begin to process the news privately. His own eyes were still swollen from the drive back to the Viceroy’s palace and began to sting anew as Jeremiah made his way several levels down to his own office.
Villetta had inquired about the private meetings Jeremiah had been taking with the Viceroy in the past few days. They coincided with an abrupt absence from his normal duties and an abundance of overtime that left Villetta seeking Kewell Soresi as a drinking buddy. She held her tongue with Kewell around but had begun to wonder privately about whatever assignment Prince Clovis had handed down and why she had been excluded. For so long, Jeremiah had been her steadfast ally and almost never allowed an avenue of potential advancement to be closed to her. Villetta’s commoner origins did not matter to Jeremiah, only her loyalty to Britannia.
The assignment had to be a matter of great importance and secrecy.
Villetta was mostly curious and only the slightest bit bitter. She did not fear for someone as skilled as Jeremiah until he entered the lounge area of their unit’s shared office space with tears streaming openly down his face. “Lord Jeremiah!” She called out in alarm.
“Are you okay? Did something happen on your mission?” She crossed the room in a few strides and scanned him head to toe for injuries. She stopped just short of touching his damp cheek.
Jeremiah came back to himself at Villetta’s voice. “Villetta…I’m perfectly fine, no need to fret.” He dried his face with the back of his hand. He almost laughed -- he was ten times better than fine! No, one hundred times! A thousand!
Villetta was not put at ease. In fact, realizing that Jeremiah had been smiling softly this whole time he’d been crying had the exact opposite effect. She could assume that something great had happened, like a deserved promotion, but Jeremiah would have readily proclaimed such a thing. This…it had to be huge. Perhaps something to shake up the whole hierarchy of the Area if Jeremiah was openly weeping tears of joy. Villetta burned with curiosity and no small measure of indignation.
She could no longer stand to be left out.
“Lord Jeremiah…” She began tentatively.
Jeremiah swept around her with wide, confident strides. Dare she say, pep in his step.
He made toward his office, more precisely his secure landline in order to begin making the arrangements he had promised Prince Clovis. “Nothing’s the matter, Villetta, far from,” He reassured his subordinate, feeling her dog his steps.
“Lord Jeremiah,” Villetta tried again, desperate to keep him from shutting the door on her. “This mission of yours-”
“Is completed,” Jeremiah spun around and finished her sentence with gusto. He was still smiling but his tears were dry and her superior looked ready to get down to business. “This next phase will be our mission. Come now, Villetta, did you think I’d leave you out of such a momentous occasion?”
Villetta’s eyes widened. Momentous.
Jeremiah smirked briefly at her reaction before continuing, Villetta hanging on his every word: “Naturally, I will need to brief you on the details up to this point, but be warned this is still a highly classified operation handed down by the Viceroy himself. You’re the only one I can trust in our unit to treat the task with its deserving care and discretion. Villetta Nu, you will go down in history as one of those who helped restore-”
“Margrave Jeremiah! Gottwald! ”
Both Jeremiah and Villetta jerked to attention at the sound of the Viceroy’s voice, so distressed and echoing from the hall just outside. The door to the lounge area slid open with the prince practically tumbling through, looking rumpled and out of breath. Neither thought they had ever seen the prince so exerted before. Villetta and Jeremiah immediately knelt in deference.
Prince Clovis did not acknowledge them per the usual protocol.
Nothing about this was protocol. There wasn’t a single guard or attendant escorting the Viceroy.
“Lord Jeremiah,” Prince Clovis gulped for air. “Before anything, before telling anyone , I need to confirm the ID myself. I need to see it with my own two eyes.” He would not be the one to break his family’s hearts a second time. Let him bear that burden alone if need be.
***
a.t.b. October 13th, 2015 - 22h32m
Following the Viceroy’s interruption, Jeremiah had gone radio silent again regarding the specifics of his mission. Villetta was still looped in on the next phase, but she only knew as much as Kewell about why they were staking out a high school of all places. It was to such a point that the true focus of their observation took a few days to zero in on thanks to Jeremiah and the Viceroy’s damned secrecy.
There were multiple targets that their assembled team began tailing and making notes of: the school headmaster, the former Viscount Ruben K. Ashford, his granddaughter the Student Council President, Millicent Ashford, and finally the four underlings that comprised the Student Council itself. The initial briefing turned up a handful of reasons old man Ashford may be someone to watch out for. Having been stripped of his title, he wouldn’t be the most unlikely traitor to the empire. It took only a matter of days to realize how bizarre the kids were, too.
Milly Ashford, for a start, was a tyrant the likes of which would turn even Villetta into a rebel had that girl been born Empress. Several times throughout the day, the intercoms of Ashford Academy blared to life with the President’s deranged decrees. Dear Vice President Lulu is skipping PE again! Whoever finds and deposits her in the school pool can stick around and watch the Student Council model our new swimsuits~! AHAHAHA! and Rememb'r, students, the present day is Speaketh Liketh Billy Shakespeare Day! Whether thee wanteth it to be or not to be! As it stood, Miss Ashford’s presidential term was no ringing endorsement for the EU’s exalted democracy.
The girls Shirley Fennett and Nina Einstein were fairly normal, put-upon fifteen-year-old girls by comparison, but the boy, Rivalz Meijers a.k.a. Rivalz Cardemonde, was employed at a gambling den where he almost assuredly acted as an underaged bartender. He was coasting by on a juvenile bike license but frequently breaking curfew both to attend shifts and to chauffeur his girlfriend, one Lucrezia Lamperouge.
The Vice President, though quieter than the Student Council President, was soon determined by Villetta to be the true subject of their investigation (a fact confirmed by that final evening’s orders). The girl had reportedly taken the highflyers of the Tokyo Settlement for an estimated excess of £750,000 in illegal gambling matches so far that year. And that was just what her humiliated opponents were willing to own to when questioned.
Villetta spent some hours cooped up in a windowless van with Kewell speculating on what Clovis wanted from the girl.
“I keep telling you, he doesn’t want to arrest her. He didn’t even mention the girl. He wanted to see ‘it’,” Villetta sniped at Kewell.
Kewell sneered back. “And I didn’t mention ‘arrest’. I proposed the Viceroy was after the girl for the girl’s sake. All the reports about this commoner girl are nigh mythical, and the Viceroy is nothing if not a romantic.”
Villetta found the notion distasteful and let Kewell know it. “She’s a schoolgirl…The Viceroy probably just…wants an art piece that she won while gambling.” That sounded plausible, right? Lord Jeremiah wouldn’t get excited about absconding with a little girl, would he? But then, he wouldn’t cry over retrieving a painting or sculpture either…Little of this made sense, even accounting for the students' crimes.
Kewell sneered harder.
“The Viceroy is not the least bit subtle. Our mission’s codename is Ganymede .”
Villetta felt a pit open in her stomach.
Jeremiah shared the story once in the past. It came up while discussing early knightmare models. Ganymede. The beautiful mortal kidnapped by the king of gods to be his cupbearer and lover. Lord Jeremiah had seemed unusually fond of the tale back then.
Kewell sat back in his seat and glared at the many monitors crowded in the van with them. The girl was beautiful, he begrudgingly admitted. Too pretty for that goofy-looking boy she rode around town and was now pulling back onto the school property with -- after what was likely another successful night of making a mockery of Kewell’s class. He crushed the button to signal Jeremiah under his finger. “ Commoner upstart… ”
Never feeling the sharp heat of Villetta’s glare, Kewell straightened up at the resonating beep of Jeremiah’s incoming call. He and the Viceroy had entered the clubhouse not an hour before after infrared and surveillance confirmed the presence of a single maid and another student. Kewell and Villetta prepared to quickly converge on that same point with the dozen rank-and-file crouched in the school landscaping.
Instead, Jeremiah issued orders to cut off the boyfriend’s exit from campus and detain Ruben Ashford in his office posthaste.
***
a.t.b. October 13th, 2015 - 22h36m
Lucrezia waved goodbye to Rivalz as he and his bike disappeared into the darkness. The walk back to the boys’ dorm from the parking garage is less than 10 minutes, she thought to herself. Rivalz hadn’t seemed nervous about it, but maybe that would just mean him walking around with his guard down. Lucrezia had thought she would feel better once they were back on campus but worry still nagged at the back of her mind, some animal instinct or perhaps well-trained paranoia whispering that something was simply wrong.
At first, Lucrezia chalked it up to Rivalz being weird the past few days. Weird in the way that told her that he had said something stupid and was afraid of it getting back to her. He was being extra chummy lately then turning beet red when anyone commented on it -- which naturally only encouraged Milly to keep her eyes peeled for it. Milly teased all in good fun, but Lucrezia had nonetheless braced herself for a fresh round of snide remarks behind her back in class and leery boys in the halls. Except, it never came and that made the dread worsen.
Lucrezia next blamed the strangers wandering around campus. There was something unmistakably off about the woman applying to be their new gym teacher. She looked too glamorous for the post (though certainly athletic enough) and didn’t bother with even the fake excitement most applicants showed a potential employer. She did appear interested in watching the students, however, which got Shirley and Nina whispering under their breath during stretches about their guest being a potential pervert. Lucrezia didn’t stick around to find out, slipping off to check on Nunnally during her sister’s lunch hour before completing even a single lap around the rugby field.
Shirley barrelled into the clubhouse the next day, fuming about a real pervert leering at female students as they exited campus. She cradled herself and shivered all over. “His eyes cut right into me! I mean, he was looking straight at me! And I swear he had a camera!” Shirley entreated Milly to go straight to the Headmaster about it, which Milly took fairly seriously before turning a comforting hug into an opportune grope.
Shirley seemed to forget all about the leering stranger after that (Milly was a more immediate threat), but Lucrezia did not. She nearly didn’t leave campus that evening, but it was bad business to cancel matches with the nobility and a reliable associate had called her in for a substitution moreover. She rationalized that if the issues were concentrated on campus then it was best to get some distance and investigate whether similar patterns were playing out at her other haunts. Lucrezia won all her matches, as usual, and nothing felt off at the gambling dens themselves, but coming home her anxiety had redoubled.
Locking the clubhouse door behind her brought no relief. It was quiet and still on campus at night. Without the bustle of the day, the distraction of chess, or the roar of a bike engine in her ears, Lucrezia was left to kick herself for not being more cautious in days past. Something was definitely off.
"Damn it," She cursed, knocking her fist hard against the locked door.
Rivalz… Had he betrayed her? She dismissed it almost immediately. Squirrelly as he had been acting, there was no reason to think he had uncovered her identity or turned her over to the authorities for her gambling. Besides that, she simply could never imagine him betraying a friend. No, he had probably just done something stupid completely independent of all this. Like telling an upperclassman she was his girlfriend.
Her mind flooded with other possibilities, each worse than its predecessor -- vindictive ex-opponents, law enforcement, the imperial family itself. Lucrezia climbed the stairs one step at a time. For each possible threat, a thousand possible strategies played out against her and she constructed defenses and counter-offensives in response. There were contingencies already in place, discussed with Ruben. Milly and Sayoko were aware of several. None of these contingencies accounted for Lucrezia stepping into the dining room to find her brother, Viceroy Clovis of Area 11 himself, kneeling next to Nunnally’s wheelchair, Sayoko pinned to the hardwood by a Britannian soldier just steps away.