A Young Girl's Guerilla War

[Scopas]

(In light of the recent threadlock on SB, I figured I'd take the opportunity to cross-post this story here as well. It is also on FF and AO3.)


Chapter 1: An Inauspicious Beginning


(AN: I am very much looking for a beta reader, or at least an editor. I had this idea and I wanted to write down what I had before it left, but I haven't had the opportunity or energy to write for fun for quite a while, so I'm probably rusty.)


The shrill whistle of incoming shells startled me awake, but before my mind had fully engaged I was already in motion. Rolling out of my cot, I began to reach for the computation orb hanging from my jacket even as my sleepy brain tried desperately to come to terms with the situation. Time seemed to slow as the incoming scream crescendo'ed, and I lunged forward, heaving myself across the dark confines of the flimsy canvas tent, scrabbling for my one shield against the shrapnel and concussive power of high-explosive 105 shells.


How is the artillery reaching us?! We're miles behind the li-


Even as my reaching fingers closed around the Type 97, the endless second of noise and confused panic ended abruptly in an incandescence of white light and overwhelming noise. There was no way to describe the moments that came immediately after, but as the light faded and the sound of the explosion was drowned out by the fresh bursts of following shells, the pain slammed through my shredded nerves and crashed my train of thought. The shock of being shelled, and the shock of... something... happening to me had left me numb, but my rational and well-trained mind recovered in seconds. I knew that the darkness surrounding me was not caused by the tent's canopy blocking out all light, as the cheap material barely kept out the glare of the constant star shells at the best of times, and besides, I couldn't blink. In fact...


Experimentation and empirical evidence are important, I argued with myself, trying to convince my unwilling body to move. I must take stock of any damage so I can plan accordingly.


Despite these sound arguments, I felt a quiver of fear deep inside me at the prospect of what I might discover, but I quashed that emotion as unworthy of a professional soldier and a rational individual, and so forced myself to move, to touch my face with my left hand to see what was covering my eyes... Or I tried to. For one reason or another, my left arm didn't seem to be obeying my orders. In fact, I couldn't feel it at all beneath the shoulder. How peculiar. I tried to lift my right arm instead, but found a similarly strange result when only the upper part of my arm twitched into motion.


That shell must have detonated very close to my tent. My internal voice was absurdly calm. I had always tried to remain calm about issues and problems I could do little about, considering raging against things beyond my control a childish reaction at best, but... I can't feel my arms. I can't move my eyes. I can feel my body, but... The numbness from the explosion was fading fast, and every scrap of rationality and emotional control I'd built up over two lives struggled to maintain my internal calm and deny the obvious implications.


And all of a sudden, I couldn't deny the obvious any longer. I had spent almost a year on the Rhine Front, months of intense combat in the trenches and the skies over the torn and blasted land, and I had seen many men die from the relentless and impersonal explosions of the artillery. Almost universally, soldiers agreed that death by artillery was the worst – it shredded the body, leaving horrible injuries on the living and reducing the dead to mince. At least getting shot left a mostly-clean corpse behind, something that could be buried in a casket instead of a coffee can. The worst part of shelling was how inescapable it was, and how you could never be sure you were safe...


Aerial mages, of course, didn't feel the same existential horror that the mundane infantry felt about artillery. Very rarely were mages killed by artillery strikes, as most of our time at the front was spent airborne, and even a weak magic shield could protect against most shrapnel and blast waves. Aerial mages tended to fear other aerial mages, aces like myself, rather than the impersonal grinding horror of drumfire or the sudden hurricane bursts of shells that heralded another enemy attack across No Man's Land.


But... I hadn't been airborne. I hadn't been awake enough to spin up a shield, or to fly away from the impact. I had been asleep in a tent after a twenty-eight hour patrol with the rest of the 203rd, preparing for Operation Revolving Door and keeping the Republic's mages away from our lines...


Is this what you wanted, Being X? I snarled inside my mind, my mouth unaccountably unresponsive. Did you think this would make me pray, hmm? Foolishness! I channeled my rising panic into anger at the alleged divinity, yelling at him and stridently ignoring the painful tingling beginning to fill my body as the numbness continued to dwindle away. How is this supposed to encourage faith?! Death by artillery is purely bad luck, and if anything proves your lack of omnipotence! If you were a god, you wouldn't let something as uncaring and random as artillery simply kill your flock! What terrible human resource management!


To my surprise, I found the lack of any response horrifying. While I had never been happy to hear from that obnoxious false god before, hearing from anybody, anything would have been a welcome distraction from my current situation. Worse, if he wasn't responding... Being X? Are... Are you there...?


Only silence. I was alone. And I had no mouth, no eyes, no hands. No magic. I was alone, and I was dying, and I was so scared, and so tired, and I just wanted some of Visha's coffee and a bar of chocolate and Please, please, please! Help me! Did you want prayer? That's what you wanted, right?! I'll pray to you! I'll use the Type 95! Just please! Help me! Not like this! I don't want to die like this!


A few minutes after the shell had exploded fifty meters from her tent, Tanya von Degurchaff died from exsanguination caused by her injuries sustained from the shrapnel.


A minute after that, Being X returned from his celestial coffee break to check in on his pet nonbeliever, and rolling thunder momentarily blotted out the sounds of war as he cursed his bad luck. Acting quickly, he was able to grab the nonbeliever's soul from the processing queue – quite full today, and managed to divert it to himself instead. He still had a point to make, a soul to redeem... and no damned random frankish cannon was going to end his game prematurely!


And so, for the second time, Tanya found herself in the body of a newborn. Big blue eyes blinked once, twice, and then immediately began tearing up as the tiny frame of the infant released an astonishingly loud howl of outrage.


The world paused. The nurse, thankfully not a nun this time and dressed in a uniform identical to those from my memories of hospital trips in my first life, stopped jotting down notes on her clipboard and looked up at me. I was struck by the memory of eyes and faces moving in another frozen moment, and was struck with a deep sense of anger and shame. I knew that Being X wouldn't let me escape so easily, and had clearly decided to force another life on me once more to continue his ridiculous attempt to prove his divine nature. That explained the anger. The shame came from knowing that, in the end, I had broken down and asked for his help. I had given up the fight and, like a drowning man, reached for even the flimsiest of life-ropes to save me. I was certain that he'd gloat about that, about how he'd always known I'd pray in the end...


HELLO AGAIN, MY CHILD. IT SEEMS AS IF YOUR PREVIOUS TEST WAS CUT SHORT.


Quit playing around, you incompetent! I snarled back. If you're here to gloat, you should spend your time doing your job instead! If you were my employee, I would reprimand you for misuse of company time!


Somehow, the puppeted nurse's face looked... embarrassed? Chagrined, maybe?


DUE TO UNFORESEEN ISSUES, YOUR LAST LIFE ENDED BEFORE I HAD ORDAINED IT TO DO SO. AS A RESULT, I HAVE DECIDED TO GENEROUSLY GRANT YOU ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT TRUE GRACE.


Wait, he... It hadn't intended for me to die? That wasn't a gambit by Being X to make me pray? My mind reeled at the thought. On one hand, I had been proven unambiguously correct – this creature was no god. It hadn't intended for me to die, yet I had, proving that it was not omnipotent. And seeing how it hadn't mentioned my last futile prayer, the only truly sincere prayer I had ever made, it clearly wasn't omniscient either. On the other hand, it meant that the only time I had sincerely prayed, nobody had heard it, and this new life wasn't the result of any faith or such nonsense, but the pure pettiness of a bully who couldn't stand to let his victim escape, even through death.


Oh, spare me your lies – you and I both know you're no god. That artillery shell was more a god than you are, and did a far better job inspiring faith than any amount of petty bureaucrats ever will!


YOUR CONTINUED LACK OF FAITH SADDENS ME, BUT YOUR ADMITTENCE OF ANY DEGREE OF FAITH GIVES ME HOPE FOR THE SALVATION OF YOUR SOUL. I SHALL GIVE YOU ANOTHER LIFE OF WAR AND STRUGGLE, THAT YOU MIGHT COME TO KNOW ME ONCE AND FOR ALL. GO FORTH AND PREACH MY EVANGEL.


And just like that, time resumed. The false god vanished, the nurse returned to her notations, and free of any social expectation or need for emotional constraint, my new body screamed its wrath at this latest injustice until I was gagged with a bottle of formula.


Another life... Years as an infant, learning to walk and talk again... And then puberty... I'd barely started it last time around, damn the lack of nutrition in Imperial Army rations... Damn you, Being X! I hope this whole affair stands as a black mark upon whatever record your supervisors maintain!


---------


And so, my third life began. This one was something of a mixed bag from the word go, as I had been reborn in my native land of Japan, yet retained my female body from my second life. Shockingly, for a Japanese child, I seemed to have retained more than just my gender from my previously life – a look at my reflection in the window into the maternity ward showed that I had the same bright blue eyes as before, and I could see a hint of blonde fuzz beneath the warm knitted cap on my head.


I was happy that I had been reborn in such a reasonable time. Judging by the garb of adults – parents, doctors, and nurses – that passed through the ward, I had been reborn around the same time my first life had ended. That meant I was born in a country and time where logic, rationality, and hierarchy were prioritized, and where my skills from my first life could smoothly transfer over. In a way, I supposed that Being X had done me a favor by reincarnating me in such an ideal and peaceful time, presumably by accident. I decided that I would capitalize upon its mistake, and live my life to the fullest here, far from the shells and mud and blood of my previous life.


And so, I grew.


Years passed. I was walking and talking once more within a year or so, and had finally managed to strengthen my new mouth and tongue to the point where I could speak in full sentences by the time I was two. My life was fairly easy as a non-orphaned child, even if only my mother seemed to be in the picture, and even though she had to frequently leave me with a neighbor woman after I was fully weaned. My mother seemed to work nights, presumably at some sort of hostess club considering her work outfits, and never seemed to be around much as she slept during most of the day. The neighbor woman she left me with made sure that I was fed adequately, and otherwise thankfully left me alone in a cradle for the first year, and then a pen for the second and third. I taught myself to use the toilet as soon as I had the leg strength to do so, freeing myself from the indignation of diapers and further reducing the number of times she had to interact with me.


Unfortunately, this left me with long periods of time on my hands with little I could do as far as professional development or education went. I began to keep myself occupied by reading whatever scrap of paper I could find, and by jolting down and solving various geometric proofs and algebraic equations to keep my math skills somewhat fresh. This seemed to spook the woman, as she reacted poorly the first time she found one of my proofs. I know that my handwriting is poor, especially considering the weak hands I'm working with, but I don't think it merited wide eyes or such a sudden and startling intake of breath.


Thankfully, this fright on her part yielded a solution to my boredom. My mother opted to enroll me in kindergarten earlier than normal, giving me something to do with myself other than scribble on loose envelopes and the like. The program she enrolled me in was highly-structured, with all activities geared towards admittance into a private elementary school. While this would undeniably tax my mother's income, I made sure to focus on my studies, hoping I could do well enough to earn some form of scholarship for admittance. Failing that, if I had to attend public school, perhaps good exam scores could earn me advanced placement or whatnot. This would be my first path on the road to success, so I couldn't do anything but my best.


And in the end, my best proved good enough. I somehow managed to be awarded a full-tuition scholarship to an elementary school at age four, which clearly must have been desperate to increase enrollment if they were willing to hand out free rides to kindergarteners. My mother was deeply relieved by the news, as it certainly meant that she could save more money from her hostess job. Hopefully this would go into continuing to pay our rent and bills, and she would be relieved enough to stop spending so much of her income on cheap beer and terrible sake.


My first year of elementary school went tolerably well. Math and Japanese were, of course, no issue for me, and I was even able to impress a foreign language instructor with my rusty English. History class was a bit more interesting, because while Japan's history was much as I remembered it, there were a handful of references to peculiar differences. Some mineral called 'Sakuradite' was apparently a major export of Japan, and Perry's ships had had electric motors. Clearly, my impressions of my new world over the last four years had been at least partially in error – this was not my original Japan, but one quite similar to the Japan I remembered. I decided to investigate a bit further, and requested a world history primer from my history teacher. The middle-aged man was kind, and gave me a 3rd grade textbook to read after I finished my homework. He seemed gratified by my interest in his subject, particularly as I recited the old saw about "those who do not learn from history".


Returning to my desk, I found that world history outside of Japan was strikingly different from what I remembered from my past two lives. For one thing, the bulk of the Americas appeared to be united under a British empire. Given that the name of this superstate was the "Holy Britannian Empire", I could only assume that was Being X's favored player in this world's geopolitics. All of Europe and Russia, as well as most of Africa, appeared to have also been united under a single flag as well, called Europa United. Interestingly, despite the "Britannian" empire, the British Isles were part of the EU. A third superpower united most of mainland Asia, including China and India, and was called the Chinese Federation. Apart from the three major players, apparently the fractious Middle East had united into a federation of its own as well, with an independent Kingdom of Zilkhstan to its east. Strangely enough, Australia appeared to be entirely independent and went almost entirely unmentioned throughout the textbook. It was as if the entire world had decided to ignore the continent.


Despite my relative academic success, my school life was considerably less than ideal. With my decidedly non-Japanese blonde hair and blue eyes, I was immediately marked out as different, a hafu or the like. Fortunately, once most of the other children realized that petty taunts about my appearance rolled off my back, they began to simply ignore and exclude me from their socializing, which was fine with me. The few who tried to shove me were dealt with as gently as I could manage before bringing over a teacher. To my joy, I discovered that Being X had slipped up once more, and I retained the magic I'd been born with in my second life. Like riding a bicycle, the years of disuse hadn't dulled my memories of casting body and reflex enhancements more or less continuously for years of combat, but I lacked any sort of orb to effectively use my power. The most I could do was minor physical enhancements, but those proved more than adequate for dealing with fellow children. Fortunately, as I was a small girl two years younger than my assailants, I was never blamed for any of these altercations, and my record remained free of any reprimands.


Petty schoolyard squabbles aside, another source of anxiety had begun to intrude upon my life. Every day on my walk home, I passed a convenience store that had a television tuned to the NHK news channel. Each day, the news reported increased aggression by the Britannians in across the world. As 2008 ATB drew to a close, the Britannians began an invasion in Indochina, nominally part of the Chinese Federation. While Japan was not directly targeted, the Britannian Empire had begun to assert heavy economic pressure on Japan, despite the government's statements of protest. Knowing Being X, and having experienced first-hand the march to war back in the Empire in my previous life, I was certain that things would go from bad to worse. This concern fueled my resolve to succeed as a student – after all, if I was a diligent student, the likelihood of being put on some sort of labor rota or last ditch militia in the worst case scenario would naturally decrease.


I tried to inquire with my mother about the scraps of news I'd managed to compile, as I knew from my first life that drunken men often revealed an unwise amount of information to attractive ladies, and I hoped she might have some sort of insight about the spiraling national crisis. Unfortunately, after my first mention of the Britannians, she interrupted with a rant about my heretofore unknown father, completely derailing the conversation. Apparently, he had been a Britannian merchant seaman who had engaged her services one night before leaving port. He had claimed to have a vasectomy, and used his own condom which had apparently been past its use-by date, as it had torn and she had not noticed. Beyond that point, her drunken ranting had grown ever more indecipherable, and I did my best to tune it out as I mulled over the newly discovered information. Apparently, my mother didn't work as a hostess as I'd thought, and I was half-Britannian by blood and a spitting female image of my father. This failed to explain why I'd ended up with the name "Tanya" again, but perhaps it did partially explain my mother's seeming unwillingness to interact with me, even if did betray her lackluster parental skills.


And so, another two years went by. I skipped another grade, at the recommendations of the History and English teachers, who were both overly impressed with my paltry skills. But, being a rational and socially conscious individual, I kindly thanked them both for their recommendations and moved on. I enrolled as a 4th grader at age 6, and continued to study diligently knowing that in a mere two years I would have to be ready for middle school entrance exams.


---------


The inevitable war, when it finally came, began after a masterful fakeout by the Britannian empire. The government of Japan had managed to walk a diplomatic tightrope for years, leveraging its supply of Sakuradite to make any attack on it by one of the three superpowers unthinkable, as the other two would counter to prevent the Sakuradite mines falling into enemy hands. As such, Prime Minister Kururugi had been apparently gotten overly comfortable, and had clearly let the military slide when it came to drawing up adequate plans for the defense of the islands. He'd clearly underpaid whatever intelligence services he'd had at his disposal as well, as nobody had realized the Britannian fleet movements in the Indian Ocean had been a feint until it was far too late.


The war had been brutal and one-sided. The Britannians used combined arms tactics with incredible success, complete with airstrikes, naval bombardments, and operations conducted by infantry formations supported by armored units. The deciding factor, though, was obviously the "Knightmare Frames" that had blitzed through Japanese coastal defenses and effortlessly destroyed any Japanese tank or APC unlucky enough to encounter them. These Knightmares, torn straight from any mecha anime you could name, looked patently absurd to me, skating through the narrow streets of Tokyo and wrecking incredible damage on every piece of infrastructure in their path. I suppose I couldn't be overly critical, considering how silly I'd no doubt looked swooping around like a magical girl in my previous life, but they looked... clunky, somehow, to me.


Clunky though they might be, their effectiveness was undeniable. Within a day, the war was effectively decided. Some lucky fool managed to win a victory over the Britannians at Itsukushima, and even more impressively managed to retreat into the mountainous interior of central Honshu without being run down by the Britannians, but ultimately his victory was futile. The government surrendered unconditionally a month after hostilities began, and Japan became Area 11. Apparently, there was talk about the army attempting to establish a redoubt in Hokkaido, but all such whispers abruptly ended after the news of Prime Minister Kururugi's ritual suicide was broadcast.


For my part, I was, of course, less than thrilled about Japan's unceremonious and thorough defeat, and I couldn't help compare the defense efforts here to the Empire's ceaseless watch on the Rhine. Still, at first I assumed that the swift conquest of such a modern nation would decrease the amount and degree of social dislocation suffered by the defeated population. After all, the government had surrendered practically intact, and only some areas of the cities had seen intense enough fighting to completely level the local structures and roads. Most of the infrastructure remained intact, so surely life could proceed on as it generally had before we'd lost our independence. I was soon disabused of such enlightened thoughts as the true face of Britannian occupation became known.


First, we were not citizens of Britannia, rather we were Numbers, non-Britannian residents of conquered lands. As Numbers, we had no political rights and few social rights, and apparently Britannia did not recognize any concept of universal human rights either. Functionally, being a Number meant being a member of a slave population from birth, even though we could work and own money and property. If a Britannian claimed such property as their own, claims would apparently go through Britannian courts, who apparently routinely sided with the Britannian plaintiffs even when they entirely lacked evidence. Further, if any Number was believed to be a member of a resistance organization, they could be executed immediately by any member of the Britannian police or armed forces who apprehended them.


Second, the Britannians immediately made their presence known by removing all Japanese from significant parts of Tokyo and other large cities, designating entire districts as part of the Britannian Concession. The only time Japanese, or Elevens as we were now, could enter the Concession was if we were employed there, and we were required to leave as soon as our shift ended. These Britannian-only areas were the only places rebuilt after the end of the war, with Eleven districts being left in states ranging from disrepair to outright ruin.


This was unacceptable, for me. While I had never particularly considered myself a nationalist – after all, enlightened self-interest was the principle motivator of an ideal capitalist system – the almost contemptuous way the Britannians had slapped us down rankled my Japanese heart. Further, this degradation of my personal circumstances was nothing short of a slap in the face. I had done nothing to wrong the Britannian Empire or any of its agents! I had wanted nothing but a comfortable life, and I had spent years of mostly solitary hard work towards that goal! I had done my best to be a good student, and to respect my mother – the little I saw of her – but suddenly all of that work was wasted. And for what? For a government that had believed that we could stand against an empire that stretched across continents? For an empire that was so hungry for Sakuradite that they couldn't simply buy it like civilized men, but had to wrest it away by force?


Going from a tolerable position as a precocious student working her way up the social and educational ladder into respectability to a position as a second-class citizen in my own homeland severely hurt my belief in the system. Both my previous lives had taught me that, given hard work and time, any sane society would let a dedicated individual climb the ladder to safe and comfortable respectability. Even the war-mad lunatics in my second life's government had given me a shiny medal and a promotion after I demonstrated my loyalty and utility for them over Norden. But this time around... This time I hadn't been able to do anything to either help my countrymen or help the invaders. I was a non-entity, a powerless child who at worst was just another piece of collateral damage waiting to happen. I was lucky I hadn't been blown up again in the invasion, or been attacked by angry Japanese wanting to hurt someone they saw as Britannian.


Matters failed to improve for either myself or Tokyo. The Britannian Concession seemed to grow daily, and soon my district was designated as Britannian-only. My mother and I were moved to Shinjuku Ghetto, a region that had seen particularly harsh fighting between the retreating Japanese Army and the invading Britannians. Available housing was minimal, to say the least, and to make matters worse we had only been permitted to take a single bag of possessions each when we were evicted from our apartment. My schoolbag was crammed full of clothes, while my mother's suitcase contained whatever household goods would fit as well as our identification papers. We hadn't bothered taking my mother's meager supply of Japanese currency, as it had been declared invalid, and so we arrived in Shinjuku penniless with barely more than the clothes on our backs. There was barely any housing available, and no schools or hospitals to speak of. Fortunately, my mother found a room in an apartment that the owner was willing to rent to us, and she began working again. She managed to secure employment in the Britannian Concession for a frightfully poor wage, and I didn't ask about the bruises she frequently returned home with, nor how she managed to pay the rent and keep us fed.


For my part, as formal education was no longer an option, I entered the workforce as well, helping a neighborhood association that had formed from the local evacuees remove rubble from the street. The work was hard, especially for my six year old frame, but the minor strength enhancement I could reliably cast made it doable. I still carried far fewer bricks and chunks of rubble to the wheelbarrow than the other workers, but I doubted anybody would judge a kid too harshly for being unproductive compared to adults. The payment was equally lousy – a bowl of watery miso with vague shapes floating in it for breakfast, and a bowl of whatever was cooking in the communal pot at dinnertime – but it was enough to ward off starvation.


While I tried my best to simply carry on with my life as best I could and not make trouble for myself or my neighbors, not all the newly minted Elevens around me were equally thoughtful. Even before the first Britannian colonists arrived, the first resistance groups had begun to coalesce. Groups of soldiers who had thrown off their uniforms but kept their rifles, sons and daughters of the civilians killed during the fighting, various criminal organizations, and random groups of angry young men all mixed and blurred in a disreputable soup in the corners of Shinjuku Ghetto, and soon graffiti from various organizations began appearing everywhere. Daubed on walls of crumbling apartment blocks and subway tunnels crammed full of homeless refugees from the new Concession, the tags proclaimed that Japan still lived, and that the Yamato Spirit was in the hands of groups like "The Blood of the Samurai" and "The Black Sea Society". Fanciful names and unfounded boasting, in my opinion. So far, none of these groups had done much more than throw stones at Britannian patrols, probably because the soldiers tended to respond with uncontrolled bursts of indiscriminate gunfire.


I respected their desire to continue to fight, but I couldn't help but resent the new rebel groups almost as much as I resented the Britannians. Their feeble attempts to resist the grinding wheels of oppression did nothing to actually help anybody in the ghetto, as far as I could tell, and every time they actually did something that irritated the Britannians, the reprisals were both brutal and inevitable. I'd read about the Irish Troubles as a child, back in my first life during Contemporary History classes, but my years in the Shinjuku Ghetto showed that even the most iron-handed of the British had been as respectful of the laws of war as I had ever been, compared to the conduct of the Britannians. The first time a drunken Britannian soldier, staggering back to the Concession from some dive bar near the border of the ghetto, had been knifed in the kidney and left to die on the street, I'd been somewhat gleeful. The surge of knowing that the Japanese had gotten some of their own back was intoxicating, and reminded me of the pleasure of raining artillery spells down on Entente fortifications. That joyous feeling turned to choking ash when I heard about the British response the next day. One hundred random Elevens had been grabbed off the streets, lined up against the wall, and unceremoniously shot. One didn't need my mastery of signaling theory to understand the message the Britannians were sending. The price of a single Britannian life was a hundred Eleven lives. My enthusiasm for the resistance dimmed after that particular incident, and I resolved to keep my head down as best I could.


And so, time ground on. I continued to haul rubble for my daily meals as my mother continued to work at night. While we eventually got the streets mostly cleared of rubble and debris, the overcrowded tenements of Shinjuku continued to fall apart, even as the incredibly gaudy architecture of the new Britannian Concession rose ever higher, dominating the skyline with spires and towers, all built upon the conquered ruins of Tokyo. The never ending construction of the Concession, as well as the numerous suburban housing projects for Britannian families and the construction of manors for the nobles who had come to live and administer Area 11, had the side benefit of pumping some Britannian money into the Japanese sector, and gradually conditions improved. Few people were outright starving anymore, and jobs other than street cleaning began to open up. It did my heart proud to see the flower of the free market beginning to spring anew from the cracked cement of Shinjuku.


Of course, the free market was no longer constrained to respectable public actors. The policing of the slum had degenerated as the Britannians grew more confident in their conquest, and the only time armed incursions of Britannian police intruded into Shinjuku was when one of the resistance groups or another did something to aggravate the Britannians. In those cases, APCs full of soldiers backed by Knight Police – demilitarized Knightmare Frames armed with "non-lethal" weapons – would storm whatever building or tunnel had been identified as a rebel hideout. They'd drag away anybody who wasn't killed in the course of these stormings, and sometimes the lucky ones would even return to the Ghetto. The unlucky either disappeared entirely, or ended up on one of the chain gangs building the new mag-lev high-speed rail for the Britannians. Admittedly, this was a large step up from the mass executions of the first year after the Conquest, but it was still collective punishment. Arguably worse, this lack of any sort of policing meant that gangs more or less operated at will in the ghetto. Drug use and alcoholism skyrocketed, and any feeble business the Britannians allowed to grow in the slums was inevitably crushed under demands for protection money. Honestly, I had hoped that the omnipresent poverty of the ghetto would improve things, as nobody here had anything left to steal. Unfortunately, my understanding of the criminal mind was clearly lacking, as the gangs continued to fight for whatever scraps fell from the Britannian table instead of trying to actually grow their capital through gainful employment.



Eventually, years had passed between the humiliation of our one day defeat and the present. Things had improved in some areas, and not so much in others. The Britannians had finally reopened schools for Elevens, and had begun to institute some public health measures after a nasty cholera outbreak in Osaka.


The schools were unfortunately subpar, and mostly focused on pushing Britannian propaganda. I learned much about the Social Darwinism beloved by our emperor, Charles zi Britannia, and much about the glories of the Britannian Empire, but very little of any real importance or use. For the first time, however, my mixed heritage broke my way, at least for a while. The Britannian instructors at the Shinjuku School for Elevens were very surprised and apparently confused at finding a blue-eyed blonde with the name "Hajime Tanya" in their classes, but soon decided that my last name indicated I was Eleven, phenotype be damned.


At first, I had tried to stick to my guns and keep soldiering along on the path to a safe desk job, swallowing all the propaganda for my teachers and repeating it back, but my hopes were soon dashed once more. I asked one of the Britannian teachers what potential employment this coursework was preparing us for, and the man could barely suppress a laugh. I was told that the only work for Elevens was menial labor, unless I got lucky enough to catch the eye of a noble and be employed by his household. The way he phrased that option made me uncomfortable, and so I attempted to hurry up and ask about joining the army, only to be once more disappointed. Apparently, Numbers weren't allowed to join the armed forces, lest we end up shooting ourselves in the foot, according to the instructor. As such, after only a month at the Shinjuku School for Elevens, I left and returned to work. The school administration didn't even have the courtesy to provide us with a free lunch to help the propaganda go down – even the nuns back at the orphanage had fed us.


While the need for strong arms to haul rubble had decreased, there was still plenty of work to do, and I could always find someone who would spare a meal or two for ten or twelve hours of manual labor. As a result, I had begun to put on some muscle from all the work, but the lack of food was probably badly stunting my future growth. I sometimes despaired that I would be even shorter in this life than I had been back in the Empire, particularly since the Britannians didn't seem interested in employing all these willing and hungry hands in any capacity above day labor. Even more disheartening, it seemed like the closest thing to a cushy job I could ever hope for by playing by their rules was an appointment as a janitor, or if I got profoundly lucky, a lowly office menial. The Britannians were even worse than the communists when it came to managing their human resources, I decided, probably as a result of their hereditary political elite who approved of assassination as a method of succession. Merit and hardwork didn't matter, only the ability to have the right connections and the right blood.


Worse than their lack of upwards mobility and reliance upon inheritance for political legitimacy, the Britannian system was deeply and profoundly racist. I looked just like them, but my surname and status as an Eleven made me practically sub-human. If an Eleven was publically beaten by Britannians, nothing would come of it, unless the Eleven tried to resist, in which case he'd be arrested for assault. This angered me on a number of levels. As an experienced manager, this acceptance of bias into the talent acquisition and management process galled me with its inherent inefficiency. As a rational person, this categorical judgement and abuse irritated me as an assault upon the rational basis of a just and equitable society. And as an individual, an Eleven, knowing that my place in the world was fixed, and that nothing I could ever do would make me a full human in the eyes of the invaders occupying my once and again homeland... I'm embarrassed to admit how the passionate emotions made my stomach churn with acid. I hadn't been this furious in years, not since I woke up for a second time as an infant. Once again, a power that I had done nothing to and which was far too strong for me to resist had forced me into a horrible and degrading situation.


I tried to press that train of thought down and continue my life of work, but it wouldn't leave my mind. In both the corporate culture of my first life and the military culture of my second life, schmoozing and connections were important, but they weren't the end-all, be-all. If you worked hard and showed results and promise, you could make a living for yourself. I had managed it as an orphan in my second life, after all. But here in my third life, Being X had really gotten me up against the wall. I wasn't a Britannian, much less a noble, so comfortable government employment wasn't even a dream for me this time around. No matter how I looked at it, there was no way for me to reach prosperity through the system as it existed.


Which only left me two options, which I thought about as I scrubbed floors, picked vegetables, swept streets, delivered packages, and tried to block out the sounds of my mother at night in the next room over with the owner of the apartment we sublet our room from. I could either try to reform the system from the inside, or I could try to tear it down. Frankly, neither appealed to me. Reform was impossible without leverage and connections, of which I had neither. Plus, considering how the government was a hereditary absolute monarchy with a hereditary aristocracy, any reforms I managed to get implemented could simply be overturned by whichever corrupt, inbred imbecile lucked into the throne next. Fighting the system seemed equally futile from where I was sitting. The combined military-industrial complex of my nation had been squashed in hours, and the only halfway effective resistance I'd ever heard of were the dead enders from that same army hiding up in the mountains. The local resistance cells were lucky if they had access to small arms and a handful of ammunition, and it seemed like any attempt to fight back they made simply made life worse for all the rest of us.


On my eleventh birthday, my dithering over two unpalatable options was brought to a temporary end by an unforeseen change in my life circumstances. My relationship with my mother had never been... well, it had never really existed, to be honest. We had occupied the same space, and she's paid the rent, but I had worked all day and she worked all night. She had never expressed any sort of emotional attachment to me, even before the invasion, and I had returned her lack of interest with a pleasantly professional and detached face. Perhaps we could have been more than that, but I was never good at getting close to people, and she never seemed to get past my father's Britannian blonde hair and blue eyes.


She'd been found in one of the streets running from the checkpoints where Elevens could enter the Concession towards Shinjuku. I don't know the details of her death, but the young man, a Kanami Ohgi, who came and told me about her passing gently told me that she'd likely never seen it coming, whatever "it" was. I wasn't sure if I cared what had happened to her, but the impact of her sudden death on me was immediate, as our erstwhile landlord immediately kicked me out before Ohgi had even left. In a matter of minutes, I found myself back where I was after the invasion: on the street with an old schoolbag full of clothes without any money to my name or a place to go.


Fortunately, Ohgi, who it turned out was a former teacher, felt sorry for a newly orphaned girl thrust out onto the dilapidated Shinjuku streets, and offered to let me sleep on the floor of the room he shared with his best friend for a few days until I could figure something out. I was wary of his offer, considering I had only known the man for ten minutes, but I wasn't particularly spoiled for choice, and so I ended up accepting his kind gesture.


I followed the heavily quiffed man through Shinjuku to a slightly less rundown apartment building than my former residence, and walked up the urine-scented stairs to the seventh floor. Calling the somewhat dingy studio an apartment was generous, but beggars couldn't be choosers. Ohgi seemed somewhat anxious when speaking with me, and treated me with a peculiar degree of care, as if he thought I would crumble at any given moment. I could only assume that his background as a teacher made him particularly knowledgeable about the moodiness of children, and he was just trying to make me comfortable and not set me off over some small inconvenience or whatnot. The first few minutes passed quickly enough, as he lay out a spare blanket and pillow on the floor by the foot of one of the two beds occupying much of the dingy room and showed me where I could stash my bag of clothes, but after the initial flurry of activity ended an uncomfortable silence filled the room. Presumably, Ohgi had nothing further to say to me, and I certainly didn't feel any need to ask the man giving me free room any questions, lest he reconsider his generous offer.


Fortunately, the awkward atmosphere was broken only a half hour later, when Ohgi's roommate arrived. Kozuki Naoto instantly dominated the room as soon as he entered, a friendly smile on his face and a bulging bag dangling in one hand. He had the sort of easy charisma that any good recruiter would kill for, coupled with a handsome build. Interestingly, he was very clearly a half-breed like me – his eyes were too wide, his hair was a dark red, and he was tall for a Japanese man.


Ohgi exhaled an audible sigh of relief as Naoto locked the door behind him before getting to his feet. The two men greeted each other with an intensity I hadn't expected, half-hugging each other with a degree of emotion I didn't expect from my countrymen. I began to wonder about the true nature of their relationship, best friends sharing a room or something beyond, but quickly pushed it out of my head. No good HR manager lets biases or assumptions inform them about new hires, and I was proud of my ability to treat people without any of the biases I had grown up with in either my previous life in Japan, or my upbringing in a church orphanage. That said, I did feel a bit more secure in my new housing arrangement if what I suspected was true.


My thoughts about the possible nature of their relationship screeched to a sudden halt as Naoto opened the bag he'd brought on the table, revealing the numerous spherical objects haphazardly crammed into the old bowling bag. Even from across the room, I could recognize the distinctive 'pineapple' shape of modern hand grenades.


"The boys from the Yamato Faction over in Kasumigaseki got 'em from a supply truck they'd hijacked two months ago," Naoto was explaining to Ohgi "and they said they've got a line on a warehouse that's supposed to be full of landmines! Apparently, they're slated for some noble manor's outer security, but we can probably take a crate or three before they ship them out if we move before next weekend."


My eyes widened with disbelief as Ohgi chuckled at that alarming bit of news. "Tamaki's going to love them. I swear he's gonna blow his hands off one of these days, the way he clowns around with anything that goes 'Boom'!" He stepped away from the table, and gestured over towards me. "Hey, Naoto, enough about business for now – meet Hajime Tanya."

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 2: An Accidental Recruitment

(AN: Thank you to Siatru for beta reading this chapter. I greatly appreciate it. And thank you for all of the comments, and for reading.)


For a brief moment, Naoto stared blankly at Ohgi, slightly frowning with confusion, before following his companion's gesture towards my bundle of blankets, where I was sitting. The blank look of confusion sublimated into an expression of chagrined shock, presumably at having not noticed a stranger in his room in his excitement to show off his cargo of grenades. Already he reminded me of my crew of pet maniacs – if you'd given any random member of the 203rd non-Kbrot food or a shiny new weapon, I'm sure they'd be equally blasé about operational security.


The shock quickly cycled through an expression of acute disbelief, before igniting into a brief flare of panic. The redheaded man lurched forward, interposing himself between the open sack of explosives on the table and myself like a guilty child trying to hide a purloined cookie jar from an unexpected intruder, before he visibly wrestled his emotions back under control and took a deep breath.


"Ohgi. Why is there a Britannian child in our apartment?" While he was speaking to Ohgi, his eyes never left me, and his hand had begun to slide behind his back, no doubt to retrieve some kind of weapon. This was bad!


He's mistaken me for a Britannian, and child or not, I'm a witness to... whatever it is he's up to! My thoughts blurred together as my adrenaline began to surge, fight or flight instincts coming to the fore just like so many times before, a world away. He and Ohgi must be in the Resistance! I've fallen into a nest of rebels and criminals! Worse yet, this Naoto was clearly the dominant personality, likely the leader of their little terrorist cell. Ohgi might not want to cross his boss and put his own skin on the line even further by speaking up for me! My palms began to sweat as I spun up my pathetic orbless reflex enhancement, desperately trying to figure out what I could say to soothe this no-doubt bloodthirsty killer's temper.


"I'm no Britannian! In fact, I'm here to join the Resistance. I want to fight the Britannians and free Glorious Japan from her oppressor!"


Dammit, dammit, dammit! Too much, way too much! I cursed the childish impulses of my untempered body and my treacherously loose lips. I'd just wanted to say the first sentence, denying my Britannian heritage – a complete truth! I was an Eleven, it said so on the school record! The next two sentences just came out all on their own! Now he'll think that I'm some sort of spy or infiltrator! He'll kill me for sure now!


Whatever it was that Naoto had expected to hear, it hadn't been an emotional outburst nor a passionate declaration of Japanese stubbornness. Fortunately, his hand had stopped moving towards his concealed weapon, so I decided to count it as a minor victory, another step on the long road to not getting shot in a mildewed studio apartment.


"Calm down, Naoto!" Ohgi finally decided to insert himself into our little standoff, a bit late but definitely welcome. "This is Tanya. She's a good girl, and her mother... Passed away earlier today." His volume decreased, and he started speaking very gently, as if he was afraid of startling one or the other of us. Quite a wise move on his part, I decided. Clearly, Ohgi was the good cop and probably the one who helped maintain group cohesion in their organization. "That bastard Kentaro was renting a room to her and her mother, and he kicked her out as soon as I broke the news. What was I going to do, leave her alone in the middle of Shinjuku?"


As Ohgi continued to speak sweet reason, I slowly climbed to my feet, careful to keep my eyes on Naoto's hands but slightly downcast as well. The last thing I wanted to do is make Naoto think I was questioning his dominance – that could lead to a need to reassert his authority over the situation, and I didn't feel like being an object lesson. Once I was on my feet, I'd be at least somewhat taller, which according to signal theory would make it easier for him to take me seriously, as well as making it far easier for me to dodge if he did lose his temper.


Fortunately, it seemed like those calculations wouldn't be necessary after all. Naoto exhaled, and thankfully let his hands fall to his side in a relaxed slump, before turning away from me and giving Ohgi a look of mild annoyance. "Always the teacher, eh, Mister Kaname?"


The terrorist leader turned back to me, and plastered the wide, fake smile that those unaccustomed to children always used when speaking to me, and squatted down until his face was roughly at my level. "Hey there, Tanya. Sorry about all that – I was just surprised we had company." He thankfully dropped the plastic smile in favor of a more sincere expression of condolence. "I'm sorry to hear about your mom. I'm sure she's in a better place now, though."


I very much doubted that, as nothing I'd ever heard from Being X indicated any kind of sympathy for the deceased, no matter how miserable their circumstances or passing had been. I also doubted the sincerity of this stranger's sympathy – while the pity in his eyes looked authentic, I couldn't help but suspect this to be another mask. No man waging war on a global empire would be so expressive with a potential threat. As an experienced commander myself, I knew how important it was to maintain a degree of emotional isolation in front of the men I lead. I'd never have earned their respect if I'd poured out my sincere emotions at the drop of a hat, as this Naoto seemingly was in front of Ohgi.


I wondered again about the nature of their relationship. Perhaps, if I had been more forthright about my emotions with Visha, we could have been close too, someday? It didn't matter now, and it hadn't mattered then either – she had been a professional, and I doubt she would have appreciated any sort of inappropriate loose chatter from me. I'd dealt with many overly friendly bosses back in my first life, and I'd held them all in contempt. It was impossible to respect any of them, given how they seemed dependent on their subordinates for emotional fulfillment.


But... What happened, after the shelling? Did the rest of the 203rd get hit in their tents too? I hoped Visha hadn't, at the very least. She was a professional, and would have done an admirable job keeping the men together, I'm sure. Ultimately, I was just a cog in the machine, just another component, but I'd done my job and trained an adequate successor before I'd... left. But what if she didn't hear the shells either? What if she was just as helpless in the face of the artillery as I was? The pain and heat of the thought tore through my chest like a bayonet, and for the first time in the eleven years of this life I found myself imaging the aftermath of that attack beyond my own death. While I of course only saw Visha as a commendable subordinate with a divine gift for coffee, the mental image of her bleeding in the mud made my eyes prick uncomfortably and my stomach twist. The other men and women of the 203rd too, who I'd carefully trained and raised up to be the lords of the sky... what had happened to them? Had any of them survived the war? Gone home to families, loved ones, comfortable peacetime careers? ...Did any of them remember me?


The damned prickling in my eyes was getting worse, and my eyesight was swimming. I tried to scrub at my face with my sleeve for a moment, cursing this sudden and unwarranted onslaught of emotions and the attendant involuntary physical reactions. Annoyingly, the more I rubbed at my face and eyes, the more the tears flowed. Why was this happening to me?! I hadn't been this upset by my mother's early rejections, by the Conquest, by being forced to move into the ghetto and drop out of school... This certainly wasn't caused by my mother's death, she'd been practically a stranger to me... So why did I feel so hot, and hollow, and prickly inside?


I jerked with shock and panic as a pair of strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me into a worn leather jacket. For a moment I struggled and fought, certain that Naoto had taken advantage of my ill-timed emotional display to break my neck and save himself a bullet, before realizing that the arms were wrapped around my shoulders and not my neck. I stayed tense and alert, still not entirely certain what was happening or why. Naoto was... hugging me? Why? He was about to kill me, right? And even if he wasn't, he was a rebel leader, not one of the nuns from that long ago orphanage! Although... even they'd barely touched me more than they'd had to, back in my previous life... There were just too many children for them to spare much time, and I'd been happy about that, since I still had the mind of an adult...

"It's okay to cry, Tanya. It's okay. Just let it out." Naoto's voice was pleasantly deep, and I could feel the rumble of his chest against my forehead. I tried to reply, to express a polite thankfulness for his care but to also make it clear that I just needed a moment, but it all just came out as a thick sobbing burble, completely incoherent. I felt so ashamed of my complete inability to communicate, on top of my inability to control these sudden emotions.

Wait, that's it! Puberty could start at age eleven, right? I know that teenagers are more frequently associated with moodiness and overly emotional outbursts, but perhaps I was simply an early bloomer this time? That would explain these unwarranted reactions, as well as the soppy, maudlin turn my thoughts had taken when I remembered Visha. Just the early signs of puberty, nothing to worry about.


Now that I had figured out what the cause of this outburst must be, it was simplicity itself to calm myself back down from the near hysterics I'd indulged in. A few deep, calming, cleansing breathes, and I managed to get my trembling body back under control, although my cheeks were still unpleasantly damp. Scraping together the tattered shreds of my dignity, I managed to force out a muttered "Thank you. I'm fine now."


Gingerly, Naoto let go of me and stepped back. He'd apparently either forgotten about the incriminating sack of grenades or no longer cared, since he didn't resume his position between me and them, instead moving to stand beside Ohgi. For some reason, Ohgi looked far more comfortable than he had before I'd started crying uncontrollably – had I misjudged him, and he was one of those men who relished suffering in others? If that was the case, it was quite concerning, as I doubted any sadist would take particular care to preserve his human resources.


The way forward became clear to me. Naoto was clearly a trigger-happy and manipulative rising warlord, and Ohgi was a closeted sadist who'd let his mask slip. I was locked in a room with battle maniacs. In some strange way, I felt like I'd finally come home.


"I said I'm here to join you! I want to fight Britannia, and avenge our home!" My delivery was crippled by a damnable waver in my voice, but bolstered by the very real anger channeled through my words. Anger at myself for my weakness, anger at Ohgi for putting me in a position where I once more had to volunteer to fight to save my skin, anger at the Britannians for ruining my attempt to return to the safe and cushy life... Anger at Being X for letting me die alone and maimed, anger at Visha for not being there when I was scared and alone and hurt... Deep breaths. Don't lose your cool in front of the battle maniacs.


"Umm... Tanya, look..." Naoto began, before Ohgi burst in. "Absolutely not! You're a child – we're not going to put you in danger like that!" Now it was Ohgi's turn to pause and take a breath, before continuing on in a calmer tone. "Besides, you don't' know anything about fighting, do you, Tanya? You were just a kid when the Brits invaded." He smiled sympathetically at me. "I know you're upset about your mother, but I can't just let you throw your life away."


Inside, I started to panic. Ohgi had shown his true colors earlier, so that smile of his must be at my expense somehow... What was I missing...? I've already seen the grenades and heard them planning! I realized. They can't let me leave unless they're confident in my loyalty. This is a test! They were trying to see if I'd back down in the face of opposition, or if I really was just some sort of emotional child! Truly, this cell must be hardened professionals, to have such an insidious testing mechanism for prospective recruits! That must be why they'd survived the five years since the invasion. I idly wondered how many failed infiltrators had been unmasked by their tests, and how many sincere recruits who didn't have my appreciation for interview strategy had ended up garroted in an alley somewhere.


"This isn't about my mother." I began. Happily, my voice had finally firmed up, and I began to carefully inject the cadence I remembered from giving speeches to my men before training or battle. Not too much emotion, but enough bombast to tug on the heartstrings, that Achilles' heel seemingly shared by all but the most emotionally dead.


"This is not about my mother. This is about all of us. What opportunities are there for us Japanese? None! There is nothing for us, here in our own homeland! Everything the Britannians could take, they've stolen already. Every petty cruelty they could dream up, they've inflicted on us. They've razed our shrines, executed our leaders, even stolen our identity as Japanese! And what about our dreams, our hopes?! They're crushed! We're forced to sweep streets and accept their beatings and thank them for their fists!"


I realized I'd lost control of my mouth again, but I just couldn't stop the torrent of vitriol rushing out. Memories of years of carrying rubble, of finding smashed bodies between the cement slabs, of seeing bullet holes in stained walls... Memories of hunger, of going to bed so empty I felt like my belly would implode, of watching strong men and women give up and crawl into bottles...


"No more! I can't stand by and watch helplessly anymore! I can't see any more mass executions, any more kidnappings, any more death! Not without doing something! Anything!" I turned toward Ohgi, whose mouth hung ajar like he was trying to prevent his eardrums from rupturing from the concussive waves of explosions. "You say I'm too young to fight, just a child? I'm not too young to be put up against a wall and shot! I'm not too young to be beaten to death in the street for some young thug's fun and games! I'm not too young to die in the damned crossfire between you rebels and the Britannians! So why am I too young to actually do something about it, instead of simply waiting to be victimized once more?!"


I turned back to Naoto. "If you don't think I can fight, teach me! Or let me be a messenger, a lookout, a distraction! Just let me help you help our people!" As I spouted belligerent oratory, I tried to think of a clincher, some personal hook to land my pitch... Ah, there we go. "Naoto, sir, you and I are alike in one way – we're both half-breeds, Britannian bastards! But our last names say that we've made our choice, don't they? Sir, Hajime isn't a Britannian name! You and I both know we might not look as Japanese as Ohgi, but you're willing to put your life on the line for Japan! Let me prove myself Japanese too!"


Abruptly, I ran out of steam. As I stood there, gasping for breath in that small apartment, looking at the terrorist across from me, I hoped he'd bought my pitch. I'd done my best to follow the same strategy that had endeared me to my superiors back in the Empire – rephrasing the propaganda and spouting it back with as much vigor as I could muster. The closer was a product of my corporate experience – whenever you're trying to sell an idea, you must localize it to the buyer's interests. Hopefully, two lives worth of experience of social manipulation would preserve my third life.


I was gratified to see that Naoto looked quite thoughtful, and was presumably mulling over my jingoistic pitch, though Ohgi was giving me a strange look, like he hadn't seen me before. Hopefully this meant I'd been moved off his potential victim's list and into the category of helpful allies instead.


Naoto sighed, and my eyes snapped back to him. "You're younger than my little sister, Tanya. I can't let you join us. I'm not going to risk your life." My stomach dropped , and it felt like I was standing on the edge of a precipice once more. If I wasn't useful to him... "But, you've made your point, and you're really passionate. And you're quite the talker, too!" He flashed a casual wink and a smile at this. "Tell you what, how would you like to help us out in other ways? We could always use a lookout, and I bet you'd make a good recruiter too!" He chuckled, and leaned back against the table, clearly pleased with himself. "After all, if a little girl can be this fiery, how can any true son of Japan avoid the blaze, huh?"


---------


And so, just like that, I joined the Kozuki Cell of the Japanese Resistance. Apparently, joining a band of bloodthirsty terrorists is easier than I'd expected. Naoto and Ohgi hadn't made me kill a bound captive as an initiation, like in action films I could dimly remember from my first life, but they also hadn't given me any sort of weapon I could potentially turn against them either. Probably a wise move on their part, but it made me acutely aware that I was still a probationary member at best, cannon fodder at worst. Hopefully they weren't going to demand that I bomb a checkpoint or try to embrace a Britannian soldier with a grenade in my hand or something.


Fortunately, the remainder of the day and the night passed without any further life or death situations. Ohgi and Naoto prepared a simple dinner for us on their ancient electric hotplate, which presented me with yet another test of will. The day's events had kept me from work, so I hadn't eaten all day, and even the simple scents of boiling onions and carrots were enough to make my mouth water. Somehow, they'd even managed to get their hands on real chicken's eggs – an extremely rare ingredient in Shinjuku. I assumed they must have some sort of black market connections, being resistance fighters and the like, but Ohgi revealed they'd actually been part of the take from a burglary of a noble's apartment in the Concession. On one hand, their willingness to take valuable resources where they could appealed to my rational sensibilities, on the other hand prioritizing something as fragile and simple as eggs while robbing a house made me start to question their priorities and planning. Ultimately, I decided this must be a simple and easy way to keep morale up, which was a worthwhile objective.


My desire to simply enjoy the protein rich soup had nothing to do with my willingness to see the silver lining of their operations, before you ask. My growling belly had no input into my sober analysis of the machinations of my new supposed comrades.


The next day, Naoto and Ohgi took me to the cell's "headquarters", a grandiose way to describe the leaky sub-basement of an apartment building that looked decayed even by Shinjuku standards. The cement walls and floor were illuminated by a handful of lamps with bare bulbs, powered by an ancient gas powered generator. The remainder of the basement not occupied by the generator was broadly divided into two small sections and a third larger section. The first section was dominated by a series of mostly bare shelving units, and appeared to pass as the group's armory. Naoto swung the old gym bag containing the grenades up and onto one of the shelves with an alarming degree of nonchalance, and I winced as the sack landed on the metal shelf with a muffled clank. Clearly, nobody had given them instructions in the safe handling of explosive ordinance. The second section appeared to be a primitive living area, with a pair of disreputable bunks that looked like they'd seen service on the Rhine Front a century earlier, as well as two badly abused couches and a coffee table. The third section appeared to have been set up as a primitive firing range, with crude paper targets nailed to the east wall and a table with an open ammunition box near the west.


The entire setup was amateurish, to put it politely, and the two men displayed a worrying lack of concern about the secrecy of their allegedly hidden base. The echoing chug of the mechanical beast of a generator was clearly audible from the lobby of the decrepit building as we'd entered, and I marveled that neither seemed to care about any possibility of detection from that clamor alone. Mix in the sounds of pistol fire echoing in a room mostly comprised of bare concrete, and I was shocked that the Britannians hadn't torn this place down around our ears yet.


Perhaps this is all a trap? I wondered, casting a sceptical eye over the handful of rifles and pistols, pair of RPGs, and disorganized boxes of ammunition randomly stashed on the shelving units. Maybe the Britannians already know about this place, and are just keeping tabs on who comes and goes? It's what I'd do, if I were trying to weed out committed insurgents from an uncooperative population. That said, it wasn't really the Britannians style – in my experience, their arrogance prevented them from ever believing that any of the Elevens would actually strike them, until it happened. At which point they'd take their anger out on whatever unlucky bastards happened to be nearby. A wall, a bullet, and not even a pretense of military justice, and they'd call the situation pacified.


What sloppy work on the Britannians part. Even the Republic Army wasn't so... half-hearted when it came to carrying out their duties. Which, now that I considered it, standing in this basement, begged an interesting question: How did the Britannians conquer a third of the world if their men are so disinterested in working, and their officers too unimaginative or incompetent to actively pursue counter-guerrilla operations? I could only conclude that the Britannians here in Area 11 were garrison troops, possibly even reservists, and thus the bottom of the barrel. Presumably any elite units stationed here were guarding the Sakuradite mines instead of patrolling the Number ghettos.


Naoto and Ohgi sat on one of the couches, and called for me to join them, distracting me from following that train of thought any further. Apparently, the other three members of their cell – Nagata, Inoue, and Tamaki – were on their way and would join us shortly. As we waited, Naoto filled me in with some more information about the cell. Apparently, contrary to my previous assumptions, they'd only been operating for a few months, and weren't part of the older, more established networks that had sprung up in the wake of the Conquest. Indeed, Naoto's cell wasn't affiliated with any network at all, and were instead a merry band of independent freedom fighters, in his own words.


Apparently, he and Ohgi had been friends since high school, while the other three members of their group had been friends from university or the jobs they'd had before the Conquest. Naoto had established the cell with Ohgi after returning "from a trip abroad", and they'd subsequently reached out to their old network of friends. Apparently, this time overseas had also been when Naoto had gotten the seed money together to buy the first batch of Britannian military surplus small arms and ammunition through his father's connections back in Britannia proper, where apparently such things were possible. Which led to the further revelation that Naoto was not, in fact, the half-breed son of a lowly soldier, or a sailor like myself. No, Naoto was in fact the half-breed bastard son of a noble, a Lord Stadtfeld. Curiously, unlike most such fathers, Stadtfeld apparently cared for his son, as well as his Japanese mistress, and was sympathetic enough to their plight to help sponsor his son's insurgency. Or at least, that was Naoto's story.


I immediately smelled a rat. It was one thing for a noble to be fond of a bastard son, particularly if the bastard in question was skilled and not interested in usurping the place of his legal offspring. Such noble bastards had frequently found commissions in the Imperial Army in my previous life, and plenty of them even earned those epaulets honestly, admittedly with their father's connections greasing the wheels. Caring for a bastard to the point of sponsoring his armed treason against the state, however...


That was simply unbelievable. So why would a Britannian noble pay to arm and equip a Japanese terrorist cell, and why would he use his own deniable asset, a bastard son, as the head of such an organization? My eyes widened as I considered the possibilities.


Perhaps any Britannian targets we attack would simply be his business rivals? I mused, but it didn't seem like the kind of objective that would involve setting up a whole guerrilla operation. Simply putting any of the violent gangs in Shinjuku on his payroll would presumably have the same benefits with less risk. Maybe he wants the credit for exposing and arresting all of us, to expand his own political base in the Concession administration? Setting up an enemy for you to knock down when convenient would be a very appealing strategy for a savvy and amoral operator, like any Britannian noble who'd survived this long must be. Perhaps he wants to carve out his own shadow kingdom, using the combat strength of the Japanese Resistance to become the defacto ruler of Area 11? It would be an ambitious plan, one with great risk but potentially incredible reward. It would also conform to the Social Darwinism I'd been instructed on back in the Shinjuku School for Elevens, which might even mean that the nobility and monarchy would consider such actions moral and legitimate.


This opened up a whole new vista of opportunities, as well as introduced a very dangerous rival into the equation. If this mysterious 'Lord Stadtfeld' really was trying to set himself up as the shadow ruler of Area 11, using his hafu son as a cipher, I could be in very real danger if he decided that I was a risk. There was no running from such a man, not with the resources I had on hand. That said, if I was correct about his plan... Perhaps this could be a route to that legendary, ever evasive, rear echelon position? If I could impress the son, and through the son the new shadow governor, the sky was the limit!


But how do I impress Kozuki Naoto...?


I mulled the thought over as the other three members of the guerrilla cell shuffled in, closing the sub-basement door as they entered. Or, more accurately, two members shuffled in, while the third strutted through the entrance loud and proud, self-confident bravado practically dripping as he swaggered into the hideout. I examined the trio of newcomers as they made their way over to the couches. Two males and one female, with the shorter of the two men being the loudmouth leading the way. Already his boisterous personality was on full display, greeting the two leaders of the cell with a loud "Yo!" and an overly dramatic and sloppy salute. As he touched his brow, his jacket pulled upward, revealing the handgrip of an automatic casually crammed into the waistband of his trousers, ideally placed to put a bullet in his thigh if the safety was off.

The other two were both older and quieter then their colleague. Both had long dark hair, in marked contrast to the loudmouth's short dyed red hair, and both were expressionless. And unlike their comrade, both had clearly noticed my presence, and were clearly uneasy with it. I'd have to win them over too – in such a close knit organization, being on the good side of every member was key to maintaining a strong espirit de corps. If they thought I wasn't willing to be a team player, they'd undercut any effort I made to get into Naoto's good books, derailing my only current path to a prosperous life.

Of course, all that was predicated on not being shot this moment by the fool waving a gun in my face.


"You Britannian scum! How did you get into our secret base?!" The fool blathered on, ranting incoherently about the generally untrustworthy nature of Britannians in general and me in particular. While irritating, I wasn't paying attention to any of it, keeping all my attention on the barrel of the gun wobbling uncertainly in my face. Somehow, I doubted agreeing with him about the perfidious nature of Albion would get him to reconsider his snap judgment. When he'd turned from Naoto and Ohgi to throw himself down onto the second couch, he'd finally noticed me, and had immediately gone for his gun.


I'd immediately spun up my pitiful reflex and strength enhancements, but paused as the pistol trained on my face. I was fairly confident in my ability to slap his hand aside and launch myself at him before he could take the shot, but I wasn't positive – I'd never fought before in this body, and I didn't know if my rusty old skills and muscle memory would make up for my physical inexperience. Furthermore, this man was supposedly a friendly, a fellow member of this cell. I couldn't hurt him too badly, otherwise I would never be accepted by the rest of the old guard. So, I had waited for our leader to take him in hand, figuring that respect for the chain of command was integral to the function of any military organization.


But, instead of immediately slapping this fool – Tamaki, apparently – down, Naoto instead tried sweet reason. "Put the gun down, Tamaki! I invited her here!", supported by Ohgi's similar appeals to his better nature "She's Japanese, and a child! Are you going to shoot a kid, Tamaki? What the hell is wrong with you?!" Unfortunately, neither of these attempts to throw water on the situation made much of an impact, and I felt my back breaking out into a cold sweat. This man was a fool, and like many fools, stubborn. Once such a man was committed to a course of action, it was difficult to dissuade them, especially if they felt like they'd lose face as a result.


Unless... Is this another test?


Perhaps all wasn't what it seemed here. If I was a leader of a band of battle maniacs without a firm hierarchy and supporting infrastructure, perhaps I'd want a cipher to distance myself from any punishments or skullduggery. Perhaps Naoto was concerned that testing my combat skills personally would build animosity between us, and had delegated to his designated 'Bad Cop'? I'd thought that Ohgi, with his evident sadistic tendencies and background as an authority figure, would be the natural fit for such a location, but perhaps he didn't want his second in command and chosen successor to be tarred by the brush of personal animus either?


If that was the case, then I wasn't really in any danger here. Naoto just wanted to see what I could do, and if I actually had the spine to stand up for myself when push came to shove. The interview isn't over yet! I realized, and felt myself calm. I was on familiar ground here. I'd passed the first round interview by proving my sincere interest in the cause of Japanese liberation; now, I had to pass the second round interview to prove my utility to the organization to cement my hiring!


As soon as Tamaki looked away for a moment, turning to yell something back at the two rebels who'd entered the room with him, I moved. My left hand swept up, slamming into the underside of the pistol's barrel and forcing it up and out, rotating my hand towards me as the gun moved away from my head and jamming my thumb into the trigger guard, between the trigger and the interior of the guard. I rose to my feet in a burst, following my left arm up and propelling myself forwards, head first. Tamaki turned back towards me, away from his comrades and straight into the crown of my head. My teeth clacked together as I ran into his face, and I felt something soft give way under the impact. He began to stagger backwards, making some kind of burbling noise, but I ignored that in favor of grabbing the bicep of his gun-arm and bobbing downwards, under his right arm, and rising back up as I pivoted on my heel, coming up behind him.


As I moved, I maintained my grip on his upper arm and on the gun, pinning his right hand in place between the firearm and my own left hand. As a consequence, as I dipped below him, his arm was forced to rotate forward from the shoulder and down, following my own trajectory, and as I turned left on my heel the arm was forced to continue forwards and down, rotating 180 degrees in its socket. At the same time, I pulled the gun hand down and to the left as I turned, ending with the pistol behind his upper back, with the barrel crudely shoved into the meat below his left shoulder blade. I was fairly certain his right shoulder was dislocated as a result of the downwards rotation, but I reasoned that it was a decidedly non-fatal injury, and not even an uncommon injury in friendly spars and training sessions.


I considered letting go of him at this point, as I felt I'd adequately demonstrated my willingness to stand up to potential threats, but then I reconsidered the likely nature of this test. We were a rebel group, either fighting a war for the soul of our nation against a foreign invader, or fighting to install our own secret leader into a position of dominance over Area 11. Either way, we couldn't afford to be squeamish, or really take prisoners. Any threats to our operations or objectives would have to be disposed of swiftly and ruthlessly, and as far as I knew, as irregular combatants, we were under no obligation to conform to the requirements of this universe's equivalent of the Laws of War. If I let him go now, while he was still on his feet and in possession of a firearm, I'd be demonstrating an unforgivable degree of squeamishness, as well as an unwillingness to clean up my own mess. If I were hiring for a campaign of insurgency, that would be an automatic disqualification! So, I decided to take my time and be thorough about this.


I slammed a strength-enhanced foot into the crook of his right knee, forcing the joint to fold and driving him down to a half-kneeling position. As his ear came down to roughly the level of my mouth, I leaned in and growled "Let go of the gun." in my best 'Officer's Voice'. Regrettably, I wasn't able to get the same coarse rumble I'd managed from my previous body, as these vocal cords hadn't been roughened by years of yelling orders over the sounds of wind, gunfire, and explosions, so I sounded closer to an irate schoolgirl than a hardened revolutionary. Apparently, this childish voice wasn't intimidating enough to show that I meant business, as Tamaki just blubbered something about "You crazy Brit bitch!" instead of releasing his grip on the pistol.


So, I let go of my right-hand hold on his bicep, reasoning that the gun was still under the control of my left hand, and used my now free hand to jab at the soft spot below his wrist, between his ulna and radius. This involuntarily forced his fingers to flex, and then relax as I lifted my thumb from the peripheral nerve. As his fingers briefly relaxed, I seized the pistol in both hands, tore it out of his fingers, and took three quick steps back and away in case he tried to lash back with his left arm to contest my possession of the firearm. As I stepped back, I lifted the gun in a two arm hold and pointed it at the base of Tamaki's skull, where the spinal cord and brain stem meet. No more than five or ten seconds had gone by from my first movement to now.


I hoped this had proven my utility to Naoto and his little band of psychopaths once and for all. I was getting tired of all these tests, and wanted to move on to something a bit more productive.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 3: A Fortuitous Meeting

(AN: Thank you to Siatru for beta reading this chapter, and massively improving the quality as a result. And thank you for all of the comments, and for reading.)

Fortunately, my introductions to the other two members of the organization were significantly calmer. Nagata and Inoue were both relatively quiet, and seemed haunted by some sort of horrible past experience, judging by the fear in their eyes and how they twitched slightly whenever I moved. I could sympathize – I too had been a peaceful person driven by circumstances far beyond my control to take up a gun and fight. If this pair of obviously sane people had been forced by their experiences under the Britannian occupation to sign their own death warrants by joining the Resistance, their suffering must have been truly unbearable.


As I did my best to soothe them with light conversation about their time with the Kozuki cell of the Resistance, Ohgi attempted to get a cursing Tamaki's shoulder back into its socket. Clearly, the sadist was taking his time with it, drawing a relatively simple if painful procedure out to maximize the suffering of his patient. I was tempted to interfere and simply pop the joint back into position myself, as I'd done many a time on the front or during training, but I didn't want my well-meaning actions to come off as an attempt to undermine the leadership. Plus, I knew how proud and stubborn diehards like Tamaki could be, and I didn't want to appear condescending towards him. It had been very kind of him to help Naoto in his interview process, and I didn't want to compound the injury with inadvertent insult.


In fact, now that I thought about it, I hadn't thanked Tamaki for being my sparring partner yet. That was rude on my part, and might unnecessarily complicate our future relationship. As I chattered on, trying to encourage Nagata and Inoue to open up with me and share more about themselves, I mentally cast around for a good way to thank him. It was too late to openly thank him, as the conversation had clearly moved on, but maybe I could do some small task or errand for him?


I looked down at the pistol I was still holding. I'd checked the safety as soon as the match was over, planning to re-engage it, but I discovered that Tamaki had never actually switched it off before putting it in my face. Of course he hadn't, it was all just a test, but I was glad to see I'd never been in any real danger. I intended to return it to Tamaki, of course, as soon as Ohgi stopped toying with him, but perhaps I could show my appreciation by doing a bit of maintenance and cleaning? In my experience, even the most dutiful of soldiers disliked the constant cleaning and maintenance that are part and parcel with the military life, and exchanging small favors like boot polishing were common forms of social currency in the barracks.


So, as the conversation with Nagata and Inoue gradually petered out, I made my way over to the armory once more, and began searching for a gun cleaning kit and the requisite supplies. To my shock, I didn't find anything of the sort – no brushes, or cleaning rods, or wiping clothes, not even a single bottle of lubricant was available anywhere on the shelves. I eyed the higher shelves, wondering if perhaps the cleaning supplies were stored beyond my reach or sight, but that seemed unlikely. With a growing sense of consternation, I returned to the lounge area and knelt by the coffee table, and began disassembling the pistol.


I noticed Naoto and Ohgi were off in a corner of the target range, apparently arguing about something, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. Apart from the vague hissing sounds of suppressed yet still clearly angry tones, the basement was generally calm. Tamaki, Inoue, and Nagata were seated on the couches around the coffee table, but none of them were saying anything. Tamaki, for his part, appeared to be sulking. I wondered if he was upset by Ohgi's complete lack of professionalism when it came to first aid, or if Naoto had put a bee in his ear about being too easy on me. Looking back, it should have been impossible for a young girl to disarm an armed guerrilla like that, even with magically enhanced reflexes and strength. I could only assume that he hadn't wanted to push too hard on such a young recruit, or perhaps Naoto had told him about my unfortunate emotional outburst back in the apartment and he considered me mentally fragile. Either way, he didn't look happy, and possibly Naoto and Ohgi were equally unhappy as well, considering their ongoing dispute, which had evolved to arm-waving gesticulations on the latter's part.


I'd screwed up somehow, that was clear, but I couldn't see how. I had thought my actions would impress Ohgi with their ruthlessness and decisiveness, and I'd hoped to prove to Naoto that I was a valuable asset to him and his father in their quest to gain power in Japan at the expense of the Britannian establishment. Instead, I'd managed to introduce disharmony into the group, potentially upsetting the working relationships between the various members of the cell and reducing the operational efficiency of the organization as a whole. Sighing with irritation, I reminisced fondly on the smooth machinery of Imperial bureaucracy, and how such personal drama was replaced by the impersonal wheels of cold logic and resource allocation.


Turning my thoughts back to the present, I began to examine the pistol in my hands. To my surprise, it was nothing like any pistol I'd ever handled before. Instead of the familiar breech mechanism I was familiar with, there was a round cylinder attached to the butt of the gun, behind the slide. Ejecting the magazine proved similarly surprising – instead of the cylinders of chemical propellant capped with the rounded projectile cones I'd expected, the bullets appeared to have been reduced to only the projectiles themselves. Upon closer examination, I noticed that the bullet container in the magazine didn't extend all the way to the base. The bottom third of the magazine appeared to be a large rectangular block of unpainted steel. I carefully emptied out the shells, and peered into the empty compartment. I couldn't clearly see what was at the base, but it appeared to be some form of electrical assembly. Perhaps the block is some form of battery? Wait... are all the firearms in this world electrical? The idea seemed absurd, but it was the only thing that made sense. Perhaps this is a result of the existence of Sakuradite? An abundant natural superconductor could make all kinds of peculiar technologies feasible... Honestly, I should have realized that point long ago, if only because of how quiet the Knightmare Frames had been during the Conquest. Admittedly, I'd had other things on my mind, but compared to the ear shattering sounds of heavy construction machinery I'd heard in my first life, they'd been remarkably low-key. Until they started shooting, at least.


I couldn't clean it as I'd originally planned to do, not without the requisite supplies and a greater degree of familiarity with this universe's weapons systems, but I could at least refresh my familiarity with the tools of the trade, and perhaps assess the quality of equipment I'd be working with.


I looked up at Tamaki, who was still sitting in sullen silence across the table. I could sympathize, I supposed. I'd had a hard time losing, even if it was for training missions, and nobody liked being taken advantage of. While I supposed it was below Naoto's dignity as the leader to be manhandled, the lack of positive reinforcement and incentivization for Tamaki after our test was a disappointing misstep as a leader. After all, having your shoulder forcibly dislocated was never a pleasant experience, and nor was suffering at the hands of a sadist allegedly providing first aid.


Well, if Naoto wasn't willing to smooth over this potential source of intra-organizational discord, I'd have to step up instead. I quickly reloaded the magazine and reinserted it, before seeking out Tamaki's gaze and making deliberate eye contact. Smiling, I slid the pistol back across the table towards him and stood up and jerked my head towards the firing range, where the dispute between Naoto and Ohgi had apparently subsided. "Want to show me what you can do with that thing?"


---------


Tamaki was gracious enough to accept the gesture of reconciliation, and was soon introducing me to the finer points of using motorized guns. Apparently, modern small arms were generally motor-powered coilguns, with chemical propellant guns phased out to the realm of antiquarians and hobbyists. I had been partially correct about the design being the result of Sakuradite, but not correct in regards to the battery using the stuff. No, apparently a small amount of Sakuradite lined the barrel of the gun, electromagnetically accelerating the bullet as it passed, while a more mundane battery powered the motor that provided the initial kinetic energy for the round.


These motor guns were both significantly easier to use as a result of the sharp reduction of the kickback force, and both much lighter and quieter than the firearms of my previous life. The sound they made was louder than an airsoft compressed air rifle, but still significantly quieter than my memories led me to expect. The basement firing range made much more sense in the light of this new discovery, and now didn't seem like quite the blatant security hazard it had before.


Despite the lightness of the firearm, Tamaki still wasn't going to be able to shoot today. Dislocated joints were no joke, and my overeager take down had more or less rendered him unable to fight for the next three months, unless he was willing to risk permanent injury. Still, he seemed pleased by my clear interest in listening to him explain how the gun worked, and he carefully walked me through how to disassemble and reassemble his pistol. Another fortunate byproduct of the alternative technology was that firearms required far less cleaning. No chemical propellant meant no risk of unsafe accumulations of unburnt propellant in the mechanisms, which explained the complete lack of gun cleaning supplies in the armory. Apparently, it was important to regularly check that the rail was still completely straight and fully intact, lest a magnetically accelerated bullet rip itself out through the side of the barrel. Plus, the motor, while designed to be as rugged as possible, was just as vulnerable as any mechanism with small moving parts, and could easily be damaged by rough treatment.


I idly wondered if there were any communists in this world to design a coilgun Kalashnikov. As far as I could tell, the radical departures from world history as I'd previously known it had stifled much of the development of modern political and social theory. While I wasn't particularly familiar with the specific ideology of the Europeans, the Chinese appeared to retain an emperor complete with a court of eunuch ministers, while Britannia obviously ran on the same principles of absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings propounded by the Sun King in Versailles. No socialism meant no communism, which in my mind was a strong point in this world's favor, but that also meant no rugged assault rifles that could survive even the roughest treatment a peasant could met out.

After our little bonding session over the finer points of firearm maintenance, I felt like I'd established a good working relationship with Tamaki. Admittedly, our rapport was somewhat stifled by his clear discomfort in working with me. Initially, I figured this was due to his clear hatred for Britannians, but he seemed to follow Naoto without any complaint, so it must be my age that was putting him off. Hopefully I could find some way to overcome his unwillingness to work with an apparent child, but there was no sense rushing it.


---------


A week later, and I was back in the basement. After Tamaki had introduced me to the details of motorized guns, I'd begun a strategic campaign of coercion using available assets to secure a weapon of my own.


More specifically, I had turned up every "cute little girl" trick I'd been taught by the Imperial Bureau for Propaganda and wheedled a pistol out of Ohgi. I had considered focusing on Naoto, but I remembered that he had a younger sister and thus was likely more inured to the impact of strategically deployed cuteness than the single child Ohgi. So, for days, I'd dimple-smiled for all I was worth and "teehee"d every other sentence. I wasn't sure if my charm offensive had worked or the simple irritation had become unbearable, but by the fourth day Ohgi had surrendered a pistol carrying case into my custody. I had, of course, immediately wanted to familiarize myself with it, but I bided my time until Naoto announced we'd be meeting back up with rest of the cell again. I didn't want to burn too much social capital by being any more pushy than I had to be, so I focused my energies on my old daily routine once more, sniffing out random day jobs that paid in food to reduce my impact on my new roommates' resources.


But now, I finally had the opportunity to get some range time with my pistol. I remembered the long hours from my past life on Imperial ranges of all types, from the standard arrangement of a line of targets at the same distance in Basic, to the variable location targets from the Advanced Marksmanship course, to the pistol range from OCS, to the miles wide training areas from my mage training. In some small way, standing on the line facing a row of targets felt like a homecoming. Never thought I'd be so nostalgic for a simple training exercise. I mused as I vaguely listened to Naoto lecture about range safety.


After an interminable lecture, where Naoto seemed to be really going into detail about the importance of treating every gun as if were loaded at all times, it was finally time to see what I could do. It had been years since I'd shot a gun, in a totally different body, so I was fairly anxious about my skill level. It would be embarrassing if my skill level was at the level of a true eleven year old girl, but I hoped at least some small part of my skill had carried over from my past life. Fortunately, since the motorized guns were so much quieter than the firearms of the 1900's, I didn't need to bother with clunky hearing protection, and so I simply assumed the old familiar shooter's posture and announced "Range is hot!" in my annoyingly piping and high-pitched voice.


I looked down the notches on top of the barrel, and slid the safety switch off with my thumb. I centered my sight on the center of the target in front of me, braced myself, and carefully squeezed down on the trigger. My first shot of my new life crack'ed out across the range, and the flutter of the paper target and puff of concrete dust heralded its impact. The gun had gratifyingly barely jerked in my hands, and I hadn't even required the strength enhancement to control it. I waited a moment for the air to clear, and refocused my sight down the notches at the target. To my slight annoyance, the hole was below the center of the target – I'd over-corrected for the anticipated kickback, and undershot the center ring. I must break myself of that habit soon.


To my pleasure, the next round punched straight through the center of the target, as did the subsequent eleven bullets of the thirteen bullet magazine. It's like riding a bike, I mused to myself as I re-engaged the safety and declared "Range is clear!" you never really forget the basics.


My detached calm was suddenly disrupted by a burst of cheering and applause from the sidelines of the range. I blinked and looked over to the couches, where my comrades were all sitting or leaning and watching me. I'd momentarily forgotten about them as I'd focused all my attention on the gun in my hands and the target on the wall, but they'd all been keenly watching as I tested out my new gun. I was gratified by the bonhomie they were displaying, but I didn't take it too seriously. Shooting a stationary target from twenty feet away was no great feat, and they were just being supportive of a new recruit coming to terms with the tools of the trade. Still, I smiled back at them in thanks and bit my tongue as Tamaki began bragging about "teaching her everything she knows". No need to take his joking too seriously, I decided as I walked down-range to retrieve my target, especially when my results were likely nothing to write home about.


And I was indeed correct, my shooting was barely acceptable at best. The first shot was, of course, entirely outside of the center ring, and the grouping of the remainder of my shots was sloppy at best. Considering that the target had only been twenty feet away and completely stationary, I had a lot of lost ground to make up. Hopefully my comrades didn't rib me too much about my results – I was, after all, just eleven and a complete newbie.


"Let's see how you did, Tanya!" Naoto's jovial voice broke on my ears and forced me to turn and return to the group. Despite my signature cutesy smile, internally I cursed my rotten luck. I'd hoped I could just show this to Tamaki to reinforce my bond as a comrade in arms without embarrassing myself in front of our leader, but no dice. I supposed having an actively involved and hands on leader was an asset, but I wished he'd just let me slink back to the couches without making a production out of all this.


I handed over my target, and did my best to prepare myself for the inevitable criticism. It's not fair! This is my first time using a motor pistol! How was I to know the kickback would be so minuscule?! I kicked myself and stopped my whining inner voice. Fairness had nothing to do with war, and I needed to shape up in a hurry before the leadership decided I needed to ship out.


The criticism I had expected didn't come. Instead, Naoto practically gushed with compliments about my shooting, even complimenting my grouping. I kicked myself again, this time out of shame at how badly I'd underestimated Naoto's managerial skills. I figured a warlord in the making like himself would be quick with the rod and sparing with praise, but clearly he had mastered the art of the barbed compliment. His comments on the grouping were clearly a veiled reference to my sloppiness, but at least he did me the courtesy of sugarcoating it so the strip he tore off my back wouldn't be so visible to the other members of the cell. I wondered if he usually practiced such social manipulation, or if my young appearance had tugged on his big brother instinct, so he was giving me a bit of grace. Either way, I understood the unspoken message here: My work was barely acceptable, and if I wanted to continue being a member of his cell I needed to improve in a hurry.


Message received. I'd have to badger Ohgi into letting me come to the basement on my own, so I could practice my shooting as much as possible before the next meeting. I couldn't fall behind – I had nowhere else to go, and I was in too deep to turn back now.


---------


By the next week, I was fairly confident in my skills with the pistol. I'd managed to hit the inside of the ring with every shot I'd fired for the last two days, even if I wasn't able to hit the same hole with all of my shots each time, which meant I'd finally mastered basic proficiency with my first weapon. The stationary nature of the targets significantly lowered the difficultly level, however, so I'd likely have to find something else to shoot at to further improve my skill level.


Tamaki was apparently feeling good enough to shoot again, and had started off our little meeting with a cheerful challenge of "Lemme show you what some real shooting looks like!"


Tamaki began to blaze away at the row of paper targets nailed into the far wall. This was the first time one of the rebels had practiced their shooting while I was present and not focused on my own practice, and as I saw the concrete chips fly from the designated target wall, I grew increasingly surprised that nobody that practiced their marksmanship in this hole had hurt themselves. Between the flying shards of concrete and the possibility of ricochets, this range suddenly seemed unsafe and shabby. Why they hadn't nailed some lumber to the wall, and then nailed the targets to the wood to provide some form of primitive backstop was beyond me.


The others were sitting on the couches, eating something out of a pot that Ohgi had brought back, some kind of savory stew by the scent of it. My stomach was growling with discontentment, and every time I heard the sounds of spoons hitting bowls I felt myself get a bit hungrier.


Lucky bastards.


Eventually, Tamaki emptied his magazine, and engaged the safety. As I tore my thoughts away from lunch and back to the matter at hand, Tamaki dramatically blew away an imaginary wisp of smoke from the barrel of the gun, and looked down at me with a confident smirk.


"Pretty cool, huh? Wanna see me do it double-gun style?"


Visha, why couldn't you come with me? I wish you were here, so I could pass the burden of training basic aiming into his thick skull. I considered pointing out that only movie cowboys fired from the hip and hit anything, or that the sights on top of the gun were there for a reason, but I bit back those responses and focused on improving resource efficiency instead. "That doesn't sound very accurate."


He rolled his eyes at me. "You've got no sense of what looks cool, none at all. Now, lemme show you what quality shooting looks like, kid." And with that, he turned his back and headed down-range to retrieve his target, leaving me standing at the table. How rude. Naoto seemed to have been inspired by watching Tamaki shoot, and got up and headed to the armory, presumably to get his own gun. Figures. No true battle maniac is going to miss an opportunity to flaunt his skill with a weapon. I only hoped he also chose a pistol, and didn't decide to try asserting his dominance by firing off an RPG or something in the closed confines of the basement.


Tamaki came trotting back, waving a perforated target in one hand. He slowed to a walk as he got close, and slammed the target down on the range table, crowing "Check it out, Brit! Not bad shooting, eh?" as he did.


For a moment, I couldn't move, exerting every ounce of my self-control to hold my rage in check. Brit?! Brit?! I live in a Being X damned slum! I've got a Japanese name! How dare this incompetent waste of oxygen slander me in such a manner? I felt like I was suddenly back in that damned indoctrination facility masquerading as a Britannian sponsored school, being told that I would never hold a job above a menial level on account of my dirty blood and mixed heritage. A Britannian to the Japanese, and a Number to the Britannians. Somewhere, Being X must be laughing to himself. I couldn't believe he'd find a worse moment to reincarnate me into a world than Germany immediately before the Great War, but somehow he'd managed to prove me a fool once again. I was stuck in the middle of a brutal war, where both sides believed I was intrinsically part of the other side. Time to nip this in the bud.


I turned towards Tamaki, Imperial discipline tempering icy anger into bleak clarity. I would treat this as calmly and professionally as possible, using my HR experience to communicate that this behavior was both uncalled for and unproductive in a working relationship.


"My name is Hajime Tanya. I am not a Britannian. I am as Japanese as you are." I chose my words with as much care as I could, remembering that we had an audience, and the long-term goals of our organization. "But that's beside the point. What are you doing here, Tamaki? Why are you fighting Britannia?"


He looked surprised for a moment, then drew himself to his full height, a foot and a half taller than me, and smirked down at me. "I'm here to bust some Brit heads in and make a name for myself! I'm gonna free Japan, and nobody's ever gonna forget me!"


I smiled back up at him, a thin and joyless expression that any good personnel manager cultivates to deploy against excuses for tardiness and poor performance. "To rephrase that, you're a selfish blowhard who just wants to hurt people to try and prove everybody who said you'd never amount to anything wrong." I felt my lips twitch, a quick flash of teeth quickly hidden under icy professionalism once more. "Is that all? Nothing about liberating our people from their chains? Nothing about bringing peace to our shores, so nobody else loses their families or friends? Not interested in feeding our hungry people or rebuilding our broken cities?" I waited a beat – letting my criticism sink in and baiting him to react to it.


He promptly gave in to his hot-blooded impulses. "Now listen here, you lit-"


"Enough!" I barked, using the strength enhancement to force the word out just a bit louder than an adolescent girl should manage. "You can't even defend yourself – you just fall back onto bluster and intimidation! What happens if we do free Japan from the Britannians? Would you respect our people's wishes, and let them decide who should rule? Or would you simply become the new Britannians, another uncaring foot on the broken backs of our suffering neighbors?"


I stormed out of the basement, doing my best to keep my detached mask of expressionlessness as I left. I'd just shot myself in the foot, and I didn't fully understand why. Tamaki likely hadn't meant anything by the initial comment, minor slur though it was, but I had wildly over-reacted to it. And then, instead of displaying any degree of good sense, I'd doubled down and personally attacked him about his motivations and personality. I was a fool, and I'd forgotten that I was the new hire at a closely-knit organization formed from personal ties to a leader I'd just meant two weeks previous. Plus, Tamaki's motivations weren't even that bad – many soldiers had fought for worse reasons, and there was nothing inherently bad about wanting to make your mark on the world. I'd flown wildly off the handle and gone holier-than-thou at the drop of a hat.


I almost checked my neck to see if the Type 95 had emerged from the ether and fastened itself around my neck. Of course, there were no computation gems in this world, much less the cursed 95, so I didn't have the luxury of blaming this particular bad decision on Being X. What a shame.


I made my way out of the decrepit apartment block concealing our hideout and started aimlessly walking through the streets. I needed to wait for tempers to cool a bit before returning and apologizing. I'd need to couch the apology carefully – I wasn't going to apologize for objecting to racial slurs, but I truly had gone overboard. I hoped I wouldn't need to start back from square one when it came to rebuilding my working relationships with the rest of the cell. I didn't have any money to buy forgiveness presents or whatnot, for one thing. Plus, if Naoto and Ohgi thought I was a basket case, a psychological loose cannon, the likelihood of them including me in field operations plummeted. I'd be stuck back minding the base in the best case scenario, relegated to logistical support if I was lucky, simple maintenance and cleaning if I wasn't... Wait, wasn't that exactly the kind of safe, rear-echelon job I wanted? I would be well out of the line of fire while still providing a vitally important service which would play well to my past-life experiences with both Imperial logistical proposals and corporate resource management.


At the same time, I couldn't let myself just take a backseat logistical support role like that. First, there wasn't much promotion potential in such a role – I wasn't anymore interested in being stuck in a dead-end career track under Japanese management than I was in a dead-end job under Britannian management. Second, if I was really getting in on the ground floor of a hostile takeover of the Britannian administration, I needed to carve out a leadership position as quickly as possible. As more new employees were on-boarded, remaining stationary ran the risk of reducing me to just another face in the crowd. Another expendable face in the crowd, that is. Being an early investor who had maintained an active relationship with the middle and upper management would provide far greater security in the long-term.


As I weighed my options, I continued to wander in a vaguely circular pattern, slowly spiraling away from the hideout building. It was easy to see why Naoto had set up shop in this corner of Shinjuku, and why we were meeting in the late afternoon instead of under the cover of night; the area was desolate, even by Shinjuku standards. Crumbling warehouses and shelled apartment blocks bore witness to heavy combat, either during the Conquest or after, and gang tags were plastered on every flat surface available. Considering the lack of even the rudimentary economy that had sprung up in the more livable sections of the ghetto, the only people likely to come here were the desperate or the criminal, and both would likely be more active after the sun went down. Meeting during the day cleverly reduced our exposure to potential informants or violent gangs.


Quite the clever move on Naoto's part. I wondered if his father had arranged for him to be educated in urban tactics, or if this was simply inborn talent.


My thoughts were disturbed by the sounds of coarse laughter and slurred shouting, instantly recognizable as the hallmarks of belligerent drunks in any of my lives. I abruptly realized that I had wandered quite a distance away from the basement hideout, and consequentially placed myself far from my only source of backup. I immediately turned on my heel and began walking back the way I'd come. It was past time to stop pouting and return to the hideout to make my apologies. I hated the taste of humble pie, but I'd count myself lucky if a bit of groveling was all it took to get me off the hook.


I'd taken three steps before I heard feminine shouting coming from the same direction as the drunken laughter. I paused and focused on the sound, just in case I had to step in. Formalized policing in the ghetto was non-existent, and justice, or what passed for it, was generally inflicted by mobs of irate family members and neighbors on the accused. I had, of course, been too young to be obligated to take part in such impromptu exercises in social correction myself, but something of the ethos had rubbed off on me. Much as I respected authority and the rule of law as the bedrock of civilized society, I had been forced to admit that civilized society had been essentially destroyed via the Britannian policies regarding Elevens. When authority itself turned the law into an implement that was not only unjust but also inefficient, and when such law was only capriciously enforced when it benefited wealthy Britannian interests... Frontier justice began to make a lot more sense.


And since I'd only noticed a handful of derelicts up to this point in the area, that meant it was incumbent upon me to enforce justice as I saw it. It's only right, I reasoned with myself even as I drew the motorized pistol from the holster concealed under my baggy shirt, a castoff of Ohgi's I'd commandeered for my own use after my previous garment had crossed the threshold into being more patches than original fabric. I'm trying to improve the lot of everybody stuck in this damned ghetto. Letting drunken hooligans terrorize women is counter-intuitive to that goal.


Safety off, I began to carefully walk towards the intersection ahead, listening to the incoherent confrontation and trying to avoid making any noise that might betray my advance. Suddenly, a clear shout of female anger cut through the hubbub. "I'm no damned Britannian! I'm Japanese! Kozuki Naoto's my big bro, so don't you mess with me!" And just like that, the whole strategic situation changed.


I started moving before I'd clearly thought through what I was about to do. I'd spent two weeks living with Naoto, and every other sentence referenced his little sister, Kozuki Kallen. I knew the man adored his sibling, and cited her as his motivation for fighting against the domination of the Britannians. Even violent men loved their families, I supposed, even if I doubted she was really his sole reason for fighting. I'm sure serving as his father's red right hand when they came into their kingdom was a hefty incentive as well. That said, he was clearly attached to the girl, making her of strategic value to me. If she was hurt or killed, he'd be devastated and might become emotionally unstable, which would impact his ability to calmly plan out operations. Worse, if he ever learned I'd been in a position to help her but had remained aloof, nobody would ever find my body.


Plus, I thought as I broke into a sprint, dropping my attempt at stealth in my urgency, if I make friends with her, my past screw-up will surely be forgiven entirely, and my future as a trusted associate of the Stadtfeld family will be assured! My steps became faster and surer as my enhancements spun up fully, every scrap of mana I had fed into the inefficient mental calculations I was tethered to for lack of a gem.


As I turned the corner, I rapidly assessed the tactical situation. Kallen was easily distinguishable by her bright red hair, so bright I would have thought it was dyed if I didn't know her brother. She was up against a wall, surrounded by four men dressed in shabby clothes but with matching blue rags tied around their right biceps. She was brandishing a knife at the four, and clearly had every ounce of her brother's bloodthirsty personality and fearlessness, as she didn't appear the least bit cowed by the thugs slowly approaching her. I noted that all the targets were equipped with melee weaponry, indicating that the optimal tactic would be engaging them from a distance. As they were threatening a high-value target, I decided that deadly force was acceptable, so long as the target was not harmed.


Finally, an opportunity to use moving targets.


My first shot took the target nearest to me in the small of his back, hopefully damaging his spinal cord and rendering him combat ineffective, but in case I had missed anything important I fired a second shot as he began to fall, catching him in the left side of his back, just below the scapula. The first target serviced, I re-targeted the notches of my motorized pistol on the second target.


The three upright hostiles noticed my presence after the first shot, and had already begun charging towards me as I fired my second shot. Gratifyingly, as the last man in the group rushed past her, Kallen lunged forward and tangled her leading leg in his, tripping him up and knocking him off balance. I hoped she knew how to use that knife of hers to fight as well as to threaten, because I wouldn't be able to help her until I dealt with the other two targets fast approaching me.


Realizing that I would likely be unable to shoot both before they arrived, I adjusted my aim away from the center mass of the leading target and shot his kneecap instead. His leg immediately buckled, and with a howl he collapsed, right into the path of the following target. Disappointingly, instead of doing me a favor and tripping over his disabled comrade, the second target leapt over the fallen target and kept running without missing a step. As he was now within ten feet of me, I dropped my pistol as a hindrance in close quarters combat and charged to meet him.


Seeing me run towards him, he began running even faster, presumably attempting to use his greater mass to bowl me over and then kick me to death once I was on the ground. Instead of meeting him head on and likely being crushed, I waited for the moment right before our impact and with my enhanced reflexes jumped to the side, ducking as I moved, and passed directly under his right arm as I had during Naoto's test. Unlike with Tamaki, I wasn't facing an ally in a friendly spar, but an enemy combatant intent on doing me potentially fatal harm, so I didn't bother with anything fancy like dislocating his shoulder, opting instead for a rapid punch into his back, right below his ribs, smashing his right kidney.


The target bellowed with pain but kept moving forward, presumably more because of his own momentum rather than any particular plan, but either way he was now between me and my dropped pistol, meaning I was now on the clock. So I pursued him with ruthless efficiency, firing a follow-up punch into the other side of his back, targeting his other kidney. Judging by his scream, I'd correctly judged the location of the second kidney, and he began to tip forwards. I followed him to the ground, controlling my descent so I landed with my full weight on my knee, digging into his lumbar spine, ideally pressurizing the cord and inhibiting his ability to use his legs to kick me off. Continuing the forward and down motion, I let my upper body continue along its trajectory, arresting my forward motion by grabbing either side of his head.


I had intended to try breaking his neck by twisting his head, but now that I was on top of him I realized his neck was broad and strong, corded with muscle, and breaking it would be a tricky proposition even with my enhanced strength, so I opted for my second choice tactic. I slid my hands down from his temples to his ears, pulled his head back using my newfound handholds, and slammed it back down into the cracked asphalt. I heard something crack, but it sounded too soft and wet to be his skull, so I assumed it was just his nose, and so continued bouncing his head off the pavement several more times until a deeper-sounding crack indicated I'd made a degree of progress.


Calling it an adequate job, I pushed off the target's back and turned to check on the status of the high-value target. Happily, she appeared to be winning her fight, judging by the blood running down her opponent's face and leaking through his shirt. Good thing someone taught her basic knife skills. As I watched, she stabbed the target right below the sternum and twisted the knife. That's definitely going to collapse at least one lung, I thought, as I turned back to my own affairs and retrieved my pistol. It was a good thing I'd managed to get on the Kozuki's good side – the brother and sister were both born battle maniacs, and such people made far better allies than enemies.


I quickly checked my motor pistol to see if dropping it on the street had caused any visible damage, but it seemed to be in good working order. Satisfied, I approached the target I'd kneecapped, who hadn't managed to get far in his efforts to crawl away. I considered taking him prisoner, but realized that the hideout lacked any facilities to hold prisoners – plus, he wasn't a uniformed combatant, which made him a brigand who could be executed if apprehended, according to the Imperial code of military justice. Further, he had tried to attack a family member of an ally, which meant that by the rules of the ghetto mobs I was well within my rights to dispense justice upon him. Finally, leaving him alive did not benefit operational security in any way I could tell, and might present an active detriment to the objectives of the Resistance.


I still felt somewhat bad about executing him, as killing the wounded was against the laws of war, but that didn't stop me. Feeling bad hadn't stopped me from doing what I had to do before, in Dacia or in Arene, and it didn't stop me now. I was at war once more, and I had no doubt that fighting in an insurgency would require me to do far worse than I'd ever done at the front while in uniform.


I shot him in the head twice, and the chest once. I didn't want him to suffer. After all, I'm not Ohgi. I don't enjoy hurting other people.


---------


[Point of view: Kallen Stadtfeld/Kozuki Kallen]
I looked down at my bloody hands, and felt like I was going to throw up. The red seemed impossibly bright, shining on my hands in the waning sunlight like a beacon, as if the blood was proclaiming my guilt to the world.


I'd never killed before. I'd never even pulled my knife in anger on someone else before today, and now... the knife my brother had given me was buried to the hilt in his... his neck...


I just wanted to visit my brother at the address Ohgi had given me. I knew I could get Naoto to reconsider, to let me help him out, if I just tried one more time, but he'd stopped coming around to Stadtfeld Manor. I hadn't seen him in weeks, and I just wanted him to let me stay with him. I hated that cold house – Father was never around, always off in far away Pendragon, and my bitch of a stepmother dogged my every footstep, and better her than the weak-willed whore who pretended to just be a simple maid...


"Kozuki Kallen?" Hearing my name in a stranger's voice shocked me out of my building panic attack, and I managed to tear my eyes away from the horrified expression of man I'd just killed. Somehow, I doubted getting that expression out of my head would be as easily as just looking away.


For a moment, I wondered if I'd gone crazy when I'd started stabbing that man again and again and again and... I wondered if I'd gone crazy. A doll-like Britannian girl was in front of me, long blonde hair hanging over bright crystal blue eyes, the only imperfection the pattern of red droplets over the left side of her face and hair. She was small, a good head and a half shorter than me, but her thin frame had long, lean muscle. She was wearing a baggy white collarless button-up shirt that looked just like the ones Ohgi sometimes wore. All of this faded into irrelevance, except maybe for the blood splatter, in the light of two key facts: She'd just addressed me with my Japanese name in the correct order, and she was holding a gun in one hand.


I already regretted leaving my knife in that guy's throat. "Who wants to know?" I tried to sound as strong and in control as I could, but I wasn't feeling strong inside. I just couldn't get that man's eyes out of my head, the way he'd looked when he'd tried to scream but only gurgled as blood filled his windpipe...


The doll girl responded promptly in fluent and Tokyo-accented Japanese. "Hajime Tanya. I'm part of your brother's organization." She casually looked around, and I followed her gaze, noting with a dim sense of shock the other three bodies laying around the street. I remembered seeing the first guy falling, but I'd forgotten all about him or the other two as I'd... Anyway, I'd forgotten them. I turned back to the girl, who was staring down at the thing at my feet without any visible emotion. Had she killed all three of them by herself? I looked back up and around the street. It was deserted except for the two of us, and the four bodies scattered around us.


"Not bad work." The bland comment jarred me, and I looked back at Tanya. She was nodding approvingly at me, and smiling. It was actually kind of a cute look, if you ignored the blood, but it was really unnerving considering the situation. "You're really good at the whole close quarters combat thing, huh?" She paused for a moment, like she was giving me time to respond, but I had no idea what to say. Didn't she care that we'd just killed four men? They weren't Britannians either, just other Japanese, but we'd still killed them all the same. I mean, they were probably gonna do something horrible to me, and they weren't exactly helping the Resistance or anything, but... Still, it felt wrong...


After another beat of awkward silence, Tanya apparently realized I wasn't going to say anything and continued. "We should probably get these guys off the street somewhere. The Brits aren't going to care about a few dead Numbers, but it'll draw unnecessary attention to the district." Numbly, I nodded along. Any other time I'd be enraged by the use of that term for my people, particularly from a blonde girl who looked as Britannian as... Well, as Britannian as I did, but that just didn't seem to matter to me right now. Plus, she was right. I didn't want draw any attention to Big Bro's base...


Soon, Tanya and I were hauling the bodies one by one into a nearby alley and dumping them behind a pile of trash. It wasn't a very good hiding spot, but at least it got them out of sight. She'd even pulled my knife out of the first body when I'd forgotten to retrieve it in my haste to get away from the thing. It had made a horribly wet squelch'ing sound as it came out, but she'd casually wiped it off and handed it back to me like she'd just borrowed it to use in the kitchen. I returned the damned thing to my pocket and tried to ignore the impulse to hurl it as far away from me as I could. Much as I hated even touching it now, Shinjuku Ghetto had just been proven how dangerous it could be for a lone woman, and I didn't have any other weapon available.


After we'd concealed the last corpse and wiped the blood off ourselves though I don't think I'll ever be able to get all that wet, shiny blood off my hands, Tanya led the way to Naoto's hideout. I don't think I said a thing on the way back, I just wanted to see Big Bro and hug him and feel safe and clean and innocent again.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 4: A Stressful Conversation

(AN: A bit of a shorter chapter this time around, but very dialogue heavy. I had to push my comfort zone a bit with this one, so I hope you guys like it. This chapter is supposed to be the end point for our first mini-arc, revolving around Tanya joining the Kozuki Cell. After this I'm gonna have to start generating some suspicious internet history to research modern guerrilla tactics, I think. Anyway, thank you all very much for your comments and criticism. The comments make me want to write, and the criticism helps me improve my writing. And a big thank you to Siatru for beta reading this chapter.)


As we began to trudge back to the hideout, I felt the usual tremors as the adrenaline released by the fight slowly worked its way out of my body. Looking over at Kallen from the corner of my eye, she seemed similarly shaky on her feet, and with an oddly blank expression on her face. I hadn't known the girl for very long, but everything I'd seen personally or heard from Naoto and Ohgi about her told me this was very unlike her. I turned my attention back to the street ahead and pondered why she'd look so hollow, considering we'd won a nearly flawless victory – neither of us had been injured, after all, and no hostiles had escaped to tattle to the Britannians or to gangsters about us.


Suddenly, I realized that she'd probably been treated like a princess her entire life, considering how she had been formally adopted by Lord Statdfeld as his legitimate heir, unlike Naoto, and how her older brother apparently doted on her. She'd probably never been in the ghetto before, nor been accosted on the streets by thugs. Such an experience was probably disconcerting for a well-bred young noble who'd never fought before... Although, that didn't fully explain her hollow-eyed gaze. Honestly, it's like she just stood watch on the Rhine or something! Finally, that clicked the last piece of the puzzle into place.


She's never fought before, I realized, which means she's almost certainly never killed before either. I considered that she might have killed before, as political assassination seemed a natural extension of the state ideology of Social Darwinism, but I discarded that thought. Disappearing rivals seemed like adult work instead of a task for the young heir to a noble house, if only because most of my age peers couldn't keep a purloined candy bar secret, much less a body. Which meant that she had just stood her own personal watch, and it also meant that she was in a similar position to I had been after Norden: the social rules of her society prohibited any display of emotional weakness or vulnerability resulting from combat. If I'd let anyone know how it had felt, coming so close to death and knowing that I'd sent others into the hands of Being X... Well, I'd probably have been court-martialed for cowardice, or discharged from the military and left bereft of my pension and rank.


This put me in a tricky position, as I wanted to both reassure her about her actions and to press my advantage and network with her, while not making her think I saw her as a weakling or vulnerable by acknowledging the stress she was under.


So, I decided to start warming her up through small-talk. Gotta build a bridge to cross the river.


"We should probably hurry back – Ohgi brought a fine pot of stew in to share today, but I don't trust that lot to save any for us." Food was a safe topic and a great icebreaker. After all, everybody gets hungry just the same, and nobody can ever be sure where their next meal's coming from. "I don't know where he got it, but he usually brings the food to these meetings even though I never see him cooking."


Kallen didn't appear to have heard me, as she gave no reaction and just continued walking straight ahead. Guess food isn't as interesting if you're a noble, huh? Time for the second arrow in my social quiver.


"Have you ever been to Shinjuku before? It's not exactly a great place to visit, at least these days, but it was quite an industrious area before the Conquest." Ugh, dammit, that was terrible! My social quiver wasn't as deep as I would like, apparently. What do children talk about? More to the point, what do noble children talk about? At least this time Kallen had grunted a response, decidedly unladylike but at least an acknowledgment that she'd heard me.


Well, I knew at least one topic she'd certainly be passionate about, and hopefully would be eager to brag about.


"That's quite a lovely knife you've got! Good steel, and it looks eminently concealable. Where did you get it? I want one just like it!" I'd gotten a good look at her clasp knife when I'd handed it back to her, and it was a fine piece. Interestingly, instead of a typical hilt, it was attached to a miniature makeup bag, and apparently when folded away was visually undetectable. Perhaps she really does have some experience disappearing enemies of her house after all...


That my last conversational gambit had struck home was immediately apparent, as Kallen whipped around on her heel, turning to face me. However, instead of the happy smile of a kid with a toy to show off or the joy of an enthusiast given license to spout off about their pet obsession I'd expected, her flaring nostrils and furrowed brow indicated a wildly different reaction than anticipated.


"What the hell is wrong with you?! You're just chatting on and on about food and the damned scenery! Don't you care that we just killed four men?!" I immediately began backpedaling from the image of feminine fury before me, but Kallen pursued relentlessly, taking a step forward for each pace I reeled back. "They're dead! I killed one of them myself, and I don't think I'll ever fucking feel clean again!"


Clearly, I'd touched a nerve.


Time to re-contextualize our conversation before she either pulled her knife back out again, or I tripped over something and broke my skull open on the curb.


"You think I don't know they're dead?!" I snapped back, trying to seize some part of the initiative back. "I've spent years in Shinjuku Ghetto! I lived through the Conquest! I've seen more mass executions with my own eyes than I've had birthdays! I know what death looks like!"


I remembered how, four months after my mother and I had been moved to Shinjuku, a hundred random Elevens, rounded up from the tenements we lived in, had been lined up against a wall and shot after a Britannian with a broken neck was found in an alleyway. Nobody even knew if he'd been murdered, he could have just fallen over and broken his own neck by accident. He probably had been murdered, but that was immaterial. Under armed guard, I along with everyone else in the building at the time had been forced to walk past the heap of corpses piled three or four deep in bloody heaps in front of the wall. That had been the first time I'd seen Britannian justice in action.


"Trust me, spend enough time down here in the dirt, and you'll see plenty of death too!" I took a deep breath, and continued more calmly. "Besides, they deserved what they got. What did you think they were gonna do to you?"


That question seemed to take some of the wind out of her sails, as Kallen stopped walking towards me. "I... I know they weren't gonna do anything good!" She snapped, her voice still waspish. "I'm not an idiot! But..." Her voice tapered off into silence, and she wrapped her arms protectively around her waist.


I shrugged. I understood that she was still feeling shaken after her blooding, but I wasn't sure what else we could have done, once things escalated to violence. "You'd already pulled a knife on them before I arrived." I pointed out reasonably, "What did you think you were going to do with it? A threat only works if you're willing to back it up, after all."


"Dammit, I know! I hadn't thought that far ahead!" Kallen was still emotional, but it felt like her anger was flagging, like she was running out of steam. "I just wanted them to go away and leave me alone." Her arms tightened around her waist, and she suddenly sat down on the curb, like her legs couldn't support her.


She's not wounded, is she? Panic flared through me at the prospect. Naoto would gut me like a fish if his sister had a scratch on her, and collapsing like that made me suspect significant blood loss. But, I couldn't see any blood, and when we'd been moving the bodies earlier, she hadn't looked in pain... Worried, I sat down next to her – if I remained on my feet, I'd loom over her like an authority figure, even with my sadly diminutive height.


"I just wanted them to leave me alone..." Kallen sighed and rested her forehead against her knees. "I know they were bad people, but I just can't stop seeing his face!" The last bit came out in a distinctly wet, keening tone. "I just kept stabbing him over and over and there was so much blood all over my hands!"


I gingerly patted her back, trying to figure out how to deal with all this... emoting. She was about the same age Visha had been when I'd met her, and older than I'd been when I'd first killed, but Visha had already completed basic training by that point and I was a special case. I'd never had to deal with this guilt in other people before, and the most similar experience I could remember was when Grantz had lost perspective during the Battle for Arene. I didn't know how to fix this. Even back when I was working in HR, I'd had difficulty dealing with the raw emotional outbursts that grief and trauma inspired, and I'd usually managed to delegate those particular cases to my coworkers.


"I don't think you've done anything wrong." I offered, my voice more tentative than I'd intended. "I mean, they were going to hurt you. They just were unlucky when they chose you as their victim." I continued absentmindedly patting her back as I rambled on. "I don't think you're a bad person for defending yourself."


Suddenly, inspiration crossed my mind – if she was Naoto's sister, perhaps his decision to fight for his people was matched by her own actions? "Besides, what if you hadn't helped me stop them? What if they found some other poor girl on her own, who didn't have a gun or a knife to defend herself with?" I stopped patting her back, as it didn't seem to be doing much, and instead focused on putting all my energy into my reassurance. "You know they've probably done that in the past, and they probably would've done it again. But they won't, Kallen. We stopped them, and made it so they'd never hurt anyone else again. So don't feel bad about it, okay? It was a shock – the first time is always hard – but you're doing the same thing your brother is. You're taking the fight to the vultures feasting on our people in their darkest hour."


I looked away from Kallen, and let my eyes drift up into the sky. I wondered how many people in Shinjuku, or in all of Area 11, just needed this kind of justification to inflict the same level of violence as Kallen had displayed? Hopefully quite a few. We're going to need to start recruiting if we want to make real progress.


"I'll tell you a secret," I began to speak again, heart in my mouth. I could feel this was my chance to get in with Kallen, but to forge a truly strong relationship I would need to expose a degree of vulnerability to level the playing field, since I'd seen her lose control. If I didn't equal out the power balance, it would taint our future relationship, which would both inhibit my long-term goal of security and might isolate the one person of a similar age I could be anything close to open with. After all, if Kallen betrayed me to an outsider, she'd be compromising the security of her brother's cell. And if I gave her a bit of power over me, then perhaps she'd be willing to reciprocate in the future?


"I don't like fighting. I hate the waste of lives, of material, of energy, and of potential." I closed my eyes and wondered what this street had looked like before the Conquest. Prosperous and busy, no doubt. "I hate it all. If I had my way, I'd never pick up a gun again in my life." There, it was out. A sincere expression of vulnerability. Hopefully she wouldn't tell Naoto about it – such sentiments were probably grounds for immediate dismissal from both the cell and life.


"But," I continued, looking back at Kallen again, "it's worth it for the prospect of victory. Fighting like this, for me, is a sacrifice, one I'm willing to make for my goals." I tried to catch her eye, but she was still burying her face against her knees. "That feeling you've got, that guilt... It's a sacrifice too, I think. It's the price you paid to make life for the people in the Ghetto just a bit better, and maybe to save the lives of some future victims."


Kallen didn't respond, but at least she didn't look like she was crying any longer. It sounded like her breathing had stabilized and deepened too, so hopefully she'd taken the time as I rambled on to calm down a bit.


"You want to join your brother's cell, right? The way Ohgi tells it, that's all you ever talk about."


That got a weak chuckle out of Kallen. "Yeah, but he always says crap like I'm too young to fight and such." She looked up from her knees and gave me a searching look, like she was looking for something I was concealing. "How'd you get him to let you in? No way you're older then me."


I shrugged, unsure exactly what I'd said that had won him over anyway. "The Britannians killed my mother, and I never knew my father. Ohgi was good enough to give me a place to sleep." I wondered if I should mention the sack of grenades before deciding that talking about our arms cache in public was a bad idea. "One thing just led to another after that point, I suppose."


She seemed interested and engaged, so I decided to throw a conversational ball back to see if I could keep her moving in the right direction. "Why do you want to join up so badly? Why do you want to fight, Kallen?"


Kallen froze, and for a moment I wondered if I'd screwed up again, but she shook herself and started speaking only a moment later. "Well... why do any Japanese wanna fight, huh? Nobody likes being forced to eat dirt... And I remember what life was like before the Britannians showed up." She sighed again and looked back down at her knees. "It was nice, we were like a family... Dad was always around, and that made Mom happy... And this was before she lost her spine and sold out..." The hint of anger when she mentioned her father, and borderline snarl when mentioning her mother indicated Kallen's past wasn't as happy as she described it, but I kept quiet and let her talk. "Naoto would help me with my homework, and we'd go on family trips to Mount Fuji and stuff..."


She paused for a moment, and then turned back to face me again. "I want that happiness back, and I want that happiness for everyone else too. I want to see a free and peaceful Japan where we can live our lives without being afraid, without having to hide who we are or face their hate." And then a steel familiar from interacting with Naoto entered her eyes, and her expression firmed. "And I want revenge on all the bastards who take advantage of suffering people to get rich or whatever. We didn't do anything to deserve any of this, and those bastards just do whatever they want and say it's just and right. Bastards!"


That last bit seemed even more passionate than her opinions about her parents, so I remained quiet and gestured for her to continue talking. I don't think she needed that invitation, as she continued to vomit accumulated thoughts and feelings that I sensed had been building for some time. "My father enrolled me in a private school, Ashford Academy. It's full of some of the snootiest noble brats you'll ever see, Tanya! They're all so spoiled and self-absorbed – they don't care what they're wealth's based on! They don't care whose bones their houses are built on top of! They just care about who's seeing who, or which team's gonna win some stupid game! Whenever they remember us Japanese exist, they say the worst things, and tell awful, nasty jokes! I hate them all! And worst of all, I've gotta pretend I'm just like them! Just as stupid and self-involved as they are!"


Well, it seemed like my suspicions about Lord Stadfeld were absolutely correct. He was clearly setting Kallen up to be his conduit into the ranks of the local nobility; the sons and daughters of local power players were her classmates, and through them she'd have access to all kinds of information and gossip, and would be able to distribute her own carefully selected bits of misdirection and propaganda once established as part of the scene. Truly, this shadowy noble was a masterful strategist, content to play the long game.


Unfortunately, like all great plans, the actual implementation required the participation of people who either didn't know or didn't see the full extent of the operation. Clearly, Kallen hadn't been briefed on her father's plan, or she wouldn't be so determined to join the Resistance's combat operations. Her potential value of a spy greatly outweighed the value of the Kozuki Cell, but she couldn't see it. This required a deft touch, but I couldn't let the opportunity slip by! Such a slip-up could throw the whole plan, as well as my own long-term survival, into jeopardy!


"Kallen, I understand what you're saying." I began, trying to sound as calm as possible. Didn't she know what was at stake? No, she doesn't. Why didn't Stadtfeld brief her himself?! "It's clear that you're putting up with a lot. But... it's part of your sacrifice for Japan too, isn't it?" Her look of befuddlement indicated she didn't understand what I was getting at. I sighed internally, and started again.


"Kallen, you are ideally placed to help the Resistance in incalculable ways right now." That got her attention.
"What do you mean?! How does sitting around pretending to be some worthless noble do anything for Japan?!"


The hook was set. Time to once again pick up the slack and do someone else's job for them. "You just said it yourself, Kallen – your father put you in a school with the offspring of the local nobility. You're right next to people who live in the same houses as the local powerbrokers, and who will one day grow up to inherit their family's wealth and power. Who knows what secrets they'll let slip in conversation? The son of an officer might talk about his father's deployments, or the daughter of a magnate might mention where her father's going to go for a business trip! You're sitting on a gold mine of information that could help the Resistance in so many ways!"


Her eyes widened with amazement, but I continued on, hammering the point home. "And it's not just information you could help the Resistance with from your position, Kallen! Say you drop a word here or a whisper there about some piece of propaganda we want the nobility to hear, they'll never thing twice about it because it's coming from someone they see as one of their own! And," I wasn't sure about this part, but I figured Naoto's sister would appreciate a sop thrown to her violent nature, "if we need to get some leverage on a particular noble, well... You know where their kids are. You know their schedules. If the Resistance needs to a handle on a noble, you'll be crucial to the success of a very important mission."


Alright, I'd made my point about her importance to the Resistance. Now, I had to seal the deal by making her position not only important, but enviable. Deep breaths. "You know, I'm kind of jealous of your position, Kallen."


"What?! Why?" Her eyes narrowed... did she suddenly decide that I'm a rival? "Do you want to be important to the Resistance or something?" Dammit!


"Not like that." I truthfully replied. Human intelligence had never been a specialty of mine, and I didn't think my skills lay in that direction. "Just... I miss going to school. I couldn't go after the Conquest – the schools all got shut down – and the Britannian one in the Ghetto isn't worth a damn." I turned away from Kallen and blinked, trying to get rid of the dust in my eyes. These streets are filthy. "I was pretty good at math, and not too bad at English either. But after the Conquest... Well, if I didn't work, I didn't get to eat, so school wasn't really an option. I've always wondered what I would've done in middle school and high school if the Conquest hadn't happened." The stupid dust wasn't going anywhere, and I found myself growing annoyed. I'd been building to a good point to encourage Kallen to stay in school instead of sneaking out to the slums and jeopardizing the plan, but here I was rambling on about my stupid discarded plans. It's not like I needed schooling, after all, but it had represented a path to success that I knew well and understood.


I nearly jumped out of my skin as a pair of arms snaked around my shoulders and pulled me in. Thankfully, I realized it was Kallen and stopped scrambling for my pistol – I hadn't needed Naoto's lecture to remind me pulling a gun on ally's was never a good idea. Unfortunately, once deadly force was off the table, I was at a loss for what the correct response should be to a sudden hug. When I'd received just such a hug from her brother, I'd just started crying, and I resolved to not repeat that particular performance. She'd pulled me against her chest and apparently rested her forehead on top of my skull. I suddenly understood what it felt like to be a teddy bear, and I wasn't sure I liked the experience or not.


"I'm sorry, Tanya." She'd started crying again, I dimly noticed as I felt something wet trickle onto my scalp. "I've been complaining about the kids at school and feelin' left out and all that, and you've got it so much worse." Kallen sniffled, "I guess I am just like those spoiled bastards after all – I'm so worried about my own crap, I didn't realize how good I had it."


I honestly didn't know if this was a success or a failure. On one hand, Kallen clearly wasn't angry with me and hadn't pushed back on any of the points I'd made about the value of her position. On the other hand, I didn't know how making her cry again would impact the situation and this damned dust is still making my eyes water!


I tried to thing of how to smooth this latest apparent misstep over, and found myself at a loss once more. I'd somehow made her feel guilty or ashamed, to the point where she felt the need to hug me, presumably to try and comfort me because I didn't see how this would make her feel any better. Worse still, even with my relative lack of social interaction over the last eleven years, I knew that stiffly sitting here like a statue wouldn't improve the situation.


What would Visha do in this situation? I wondered, casting my mind back to the only significant female acquaintance I'd had in my past lives. An image of the Slavic girl came to mind, complete with her typically bright and enthusiastic smile, standing in a street in Berun waving at me and jogging over. The prickling in my eye got much worse, despite the lack of any breeze.


Moving on a vague instinct, I turned into the hug, and wrapped my arms around Kallen's waist. She didn't feel like Visha – she didn't have the hard muscle that years of harsh training and combat had put on my second, and she didn't have the smell of coffee and gunpowder that I remembered from all the times Visha had pressed a hot beverage into my hand after a patrol, but she was there, and that was good enough. Coffee! That's it! It had always been an absolute relief when Visha had handed me a cup of her specially prepared brew. But, no, I couldn't do that! I didn't have access to the beans, much less Visha's preternatural skill when it came to brewing it just right! What else did she do...? Ah, yes!


"I'll... I'll cook something for you!" My voice was disgustingly wet again, dammit, but the inner Visha in my head cheered and waved something that looked suspiciously like K-Brot at me. I chuckled at the memory of her chowing down on that awful stuff, ending in a hiccuping hitching breath. I'd eat a plate of K-Brot if I could see the 203rd again...


Then I remembered that I didn't have any money for groceries or ingredients, and that my cooking ability more or less began and ended with brick noodles and fried eggs, and tried to recant my offer. "O-on second thought, I'll make Ohgi cook you something!" Wait, that wasn't good either! Ohgi was my superior officer, I couldn't make him do anything! "I mean, I'll ask Ohgi to cook something for you!" Could Ohgi cook any better than I could? I don't think he actually made the food he brought around for dinner during meetings...


For some reason, this made Kallen laugh. I hadn't been trying to make a joke, but I didn't think she was laughing at me. That seemed out of character for her – she seemed more likely to stab me face to face than trying to slip a knife between my ribs from behind.


"Don't worry about all that!" She let go of me and I hastily followed suit, scrambling to my feet as she stood up, wiping at her face. "I know where Ohgi's secret snack stash is – Naoto told me! We don't need to bother to ask him for anything!"


Normally, I considered theft to be a decidedly antisocial action, usually reserved for the shiftless or the communist, but I had probably missed my chance at that stew... And it had been an awfully long time since I'd had any candy... And Kallen was smiling, with only a trace of the haunted expression she'd had before we'd sat down, and I felt like I couldn't deny her anything. She had every bit of her brother's charisma, effortless cheerful and deadly infective. I found myself smiling back at her, already salivating at the prospect of sweets.


"Well, what are we waiting for?!" I demanded, and began heading back to the hideout at a much faster pace than before. "C'mon, it's this way!" She easily caught up to me with her longer legs, and together we left that intolerably dusty street behind.


---------


Unfortunately, all candy acquisitions were put on the back burner by the reception we received back at the hideout.


I'd temporarily forgotten all about my confrontation with Tamaki as I'd talked with Kallen, and only remembered when we turned the corner onto the block where the apartment building stood. Still, I wasn't actually a child so I didn't have the freedom to simply run away again, and so I'd led Kallen through the trash-strewn lobby and down the stairs to the sub-basement entrance.


As soon as we entered, the chugging sounds of the generator were overwhelmed by seemingly everyone in the hideout yelling or shouting. Naoto was shouting something at Kallen, and judging by his expression he wasn't pleased to see her here. Ohgi was yelling at me, demanding to know where I'd run off to. Inoue was shouting at Tamaki, who had a look of harried desperation on his face and was walking towards me. The only island of calm was Nagata, who presumably only wasn't yelling because the soft-spoken man didn't want to contend with everyone else, and was willing to wait his turn to make a scene.


"Yes, fine, okay, but she saved my life, Naoto!" That exclamation from Kallen cut through the din, and successfully re-oriented everyone's attention away from me and towards her. She blushed slightly as every eye in the basement turned towards her, but gamely continued speaking. "There were four of them, all armed! No way I could've beaten them or gotten away before they grabbed me, but then Tanya showed up and blew three of 'em away!" And then those eyes turned my way instead. Thanks Kallen, I thought as I tried to ignore the rising heat high on my cheekbones and Being X damn these damned pubescent hormones!


"What about the fourth one?" Naoto, at least, was on the ball. "Did he get away?" He sounded very serious, and I wondered if he was more concerned about news of two Britannian looking girls wandering Shinjuku getting out, or about a man who had threatened his sister getting to live.


"I dealt with him." Kallen's voice was flat and curt, but happily she didn't seem as distraught as she had when we'd stopped up in the streets. Naoto looked at her for a moment longer, nodded, and then briefly embraced his sister.


Then, he came over to me and did the same thing. What is it with Kozukis and hugging me? I wondered if their whole family was equally touchy. It seemed wildly out of character for what I knew of Britannians, which admittedly wasn't much beyond their murderous policies and propaganda. Either way, I endured the embrace stolidly, sensing there would be no benefit in trying to squirm free of his arms.


"Thank you for protecting my sister." Naoto's breath was hot against my ear, and I could smell the onions from the soup on his breath. Nevertheless, such a direct expression of approval and praise made me feel like my hard work had been recognized. Further, such a commendation, a deliberate statement of the service rendered, likely meant a permanent step up in his estimations. Another step on the road to victory.


As Naoto pulled away from me, presumably to go fuss over his sister and make sure she was unscathed from her first kill, Tamaki made his way over. Every line of his face above the stiff grin he sported spoke of stress, and neither his casual slouch nor the hand resting easily on his neck distracted from the uneasy way he shifted back and forth on his feet.


He looked so uncomfortable that I decided to be the figuratively bigger man, and say my piece first.


"Tamaki, I'm sor-" "Ah, can it." I blinked in surprise as Tamaki interrupted my attempt to apologize. "I screwed up, and I'm sorry." He shuffled in place and looked down at his feet as I blinked again. "I shoulda known better than to call you that. I know you live in Shinjuku, and no Brits live in Shinjuku. And... And I probably shoulda been more serious when you asked me all that stuff." He grimaced, but managed to force the words out. "Ohgi told me about your mom. I'm sorry she's gone, kid. My old man got hit by a stray round back during the Conquest." He gulped nervously. "So, there. I'm sorry. I'll try not to mouth off at you again, okay?"


I realized my jaw was slack with amazement and hurriedly closed my mouth. I'd never expected Tamaki to apologize to me for anything, since I was lower on the seniority totem pole than him, but the really surprising part was how sincere and accurate his apology had been. He'd managed to correctly identify what had angered me, had apologized for it, and had managed to express his sincerity through personal anecdotes.


Overall, an ideal apology.


"Tamaki, I'm sorry. I over-reacted, and made things personal." I was annoyed by how wide his eyes had suddenly gotten. Was the idea of me recognizing and admitting my failures so inconceivable? I wasn't anything too special, not in this world of mechanical monsters driven by monstrous men. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to make your mark on the world. Just remember that everybody else has a right to live in this world before you mark it, alright?"


He smiled and laughed, and swaggered back off towards the firing range, the stress melting off leaving only the same obnoxious braggadocio as usual behind. Despite his insolent attitude, I couldn't help but bask in the glow of camaraderie. They were no 203rd, no living machine that could single-handedly turn a war around... But I'd built the 203rd from the ground up, which meant that I knew how to organize and train an independent, highly-mobile, and aggressive military command.


Just a pity I don't have any artillery.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 5: A Productive Expedition

(AN: Thank you to Siatru for beta reading this chapter, and thank you to everybody for the fascinating conversations.)


Four days later, I was back in the basement with the rest of the Kozuki cell, minus Kallen. Despite her continued protestations, Naoto wouldn't be budged and told her to keep attending classes at Ashford Academy. I hoped she remembered the points I had made about the many opportunities presented by her enrollment, but that was out of my hands for now.


Naoto had called another meeting three days earlier than our usual scheduled weekly get-together because of a bit of news he'd heard through the Resistance grapevine from a group in Arakawa. This particular bit of intelligence was specifically interesting because it revealed the fates of about three hundred unlucky Numbers who had been rounded up and taken to parts unknown a week earlier.


"...They're working on the new maglev bridge over the Sumida River. It seems like the Britannians want to expand the Taito line into the new Concessions in Sumida." Naoto rambled on, gesturing at the crumpled and heavily annotated road map of pre-Conquest Tokyo on the table in front of him. Judging by the enthusiasm in his voice, the budding warlord was happy to finally have a target in his sights, and I could see why. The maglev system was one of the crowning engineering achievements of the Britannian occupation, replacing the ruined Tokyo subway and rail system with a new ultra-modern transportation network. Apparently, the trains were somehow powered or moved by Sakuradite, although the exact mechanism was beyond my understanding. I could only assume that the vast quantities of Sakuradite being mined in Area 11 made such a resource-heavy project plausible.


More to the point, while crippling or slowing down the construction of the maglev system would be a black eye for the current Britannian administration, freeing the now enslaved Shinjuku residents would give us a significant PR boost, as well as a pool of possible recruits. It was certainly an enticing target.


However, I strongly suspected it would be a bad move for a group such as ours to aim that high. It was a virtual guarantee that the worksite of such an important and highly visible project would be heavily guarded by Britannian soldiers, likely backed up by Knight Police, civilianized Knightmare Frames used for crowd control, at the very least. Considering how important the project was, as well as how close it was to the central Tokyo Settlement of the Britannian Concession, I'd be very surprised if there weren't Glasgows deployed at the site as well. There was also the consideration that, if any Britannian soldiers did die during our strike on the work site, a hundred times that number of Numbers would pay the price, which would both be counter to our organization's long-term objective, and likely to turn the local population against the Resistance, or at least make them less likely to pass on information.


I need to talk Naoto out of this, somehow. I thought, otherwise this battle maniac is going to shoot us all in the foot! Fortunately, I had an enticing alternative target already lined up, thanks to some gossip of my own I'd collected two days ago while helping out at a courier service.


"I have a suggestion, sir." I began, when Naoto finally paused to take a breath. All eyes turned to me, and I took a moment to make eye contact with each of the other people around the table. I was pleasantly surprised to see that everyone was paying attention to me and nobody looked indignant that the new recruit was speaking up during a planning meeting, so I took the cue to carry on.


"At the moment, I don't think it's wise for us to attack the worksite." I began, making my first point as diplomatically as possible. "Currently, there's only six people in our organization, and the only weapons we have are small arms and light anti-vehicle missiles." That was a generous, though accurate, way to describe the forlorn pair of RPGs leaning against a wall in the armory. "The maglev line is a major Britannian project, right? There will be Knightmares guarding the job site, and we don't have anything that can take down a Glasgow." And that was the rational argument for not attacking the job site, but I didn't think that alone would dissuade Naoto. Fanatics of any stripe are notoriously resistant to reason, after all.


"Furthermore, if we kill Britannian soldiers, we all know who will pay the price." And now for the ideological argument. "The prime objective of our organization is to improve the lives of the Japanese and safe-guard their wellbeing, right?" A silent chorus of nods, ranging from Nagata's enthusiastic nodding to the single curt nod from Ohgi. Naoto gestured fro me to continue, and so I duly resumed my pitch. "Well, in the light of that objective, I suggest that we avoid striking at Britannian targets for now, and instead focus on closer targets in the Shinjuku Ghetto. I think we should begin striking back at the criminal gangs that are terrorizing our people."


"Wait, what?!" Tamaki was, of course, the first and loudest to make his concerns known. "Why the hell should we attack other Japanese? We're here to fight the damned Brits, not each other!"


I nodded at him, acknowledging his issue. I was proposing a realignment of the operational strategy to a less obvious target and apparently abandoning a key ideological plank of our platform. It was natural that the old guard would have concerns about such an abrupt departure.


"There are two broad arguments supporting this course of action, the first ideological and the second practical." I moved my eyes away from Tamaki and back to Naoto, who raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "First, the ideological: Everything we do, we do on behalf of the Japanese nation and its people. We've all agreed on that point. And of course attacking the target in Sumida would serve the Japanese nation by freeing its enslaved citizens from their capture, and by slowing the grinding advance of the Concession into another Tokyo district." I paused for effect, and to take a deep breath. This bit was important, but possibly a deal-breaker with hardliners like Naoto and Ohgi. "At present, every time we kill a Britannian soldier, a hundred Japanese die. I don't think that exchange serves the Japanese nation very well. If we free all three hundred workers allegedly at the job site, but a thousand civilians are murdered as a result, haven't we just spent seven hundred lives without any gain?"


A thoughtful silence fell over the table, and I smiled internally to see my new comrades thinking the issue over. Ever since the Conquest, one of the biggest gripes I'd had with the many insurgents in the Ghetto was how thoughtless they seemed, as if they could never draw the connection between their actions and the mass reprisals, nor how these reprisals would impact everybody touched by them. Inserting that concern into the decision matrix of even a small terrorist cell already made undergoing all those tests completely worth it.


"Instead, I think we should try to serve the interests of the Japanese nation in a more oblique way, at least for now." I continued my pitch, moderating my tone to be more calm and reconciling, instead of confrontational or assertive. "Britannians aside, I think the greatest collective cause of misery in the slums is the various gangs. They make a bad situation worse, beating and stealing and selling addictive drugs to anyone with coin to spend." I smiled at the mutter of agreement at that point. Nobody liked the vulture-like criminal groups that had descended on Shinjuku after the breakdown in law and order, but they were too deeply entrenched to be easily removed at this point. "If we can break the power of the gangs in Shinjuku, we will improve the lives of everybody else living here, doing an enormous service to the Japanese nation. Even better, the Britannians won't care about Elevens killing Elevens, so there won't be any reprisals either, so any gains we make won't be tainted with mass executions."


Naoto nodded and smiled at me. "Very true! Honestly, that would be a major upside – it'd probably make it way easier to sleep afterwards, eh?" As quick as it came, the cheerful enthusiasm disappeared, replaced by a more serious expression. Ah, time to get down to brass tacks, eh? "I'm assuming that was the ideological argument for targeting the criminal element in Shinjuku – but what's your 'practical' argument, Tanya?"


I smiled back in gratitude, happy for the smooth transition he'd provided as well as the implicit acceptance of my first point. "Well, sir, there's a variety of practical benefits to striking the gangs." I resisted the urge to get up and start pacing. It would have been more visually attractive, forcing my audience to actively follow my movements, not to mention working out some of the nervous tension that making my first big pitch as a member of the Kozuki Cell was building in my system. But, doing so would break the personal connection eye contact inspires, not to mention signaling my distance from the group, which would be counter-intuitive.


"First, the material benefits: If we start striking gang armories, stash houses, and drug labs, we'll likely get our hands on all kinds of useful material, including weapons, ammunition, medical supplies, money, and explosives. This will both increase our own organizational strength and weaken the enemy." The material benefits were simple and clear-cut, an ideal sweetener to entice the audience's interest. Judging by how everybody had started unconsciously leaning in towards the table, it had worked.


"That'd be huge!" Inoue burst in excitedly, and I shut my mouth and looked over at her, implicitly ceding the floor to her. I'd learned that she was actually the logistics officer for the cell, such as one member in a now-six man organization could be. "You know things have been pretty tight lately, since the latest Concession expansion pushed so many people into Shinjuku. Prices were already high, but now everyone's hoarding whatever they can get their hands on. Especially medicine."


I nodded at that, as did everyone else. The latest expansion had caused the population of Shinjuku to swell by at least 20,000. The livable parts of the district had already been densely over-crowded and food had been expensive; with the latest population increase the winter would be very hard. Any structure that offered a hint of shelter and warmth from the elements was already spoken for, so inevitably some people wouldn't find any refuge from the cold. Potable water and food were already in critically short supply, and as the cold came and small individual or community plots stopped producing, things would get even worse.


Even worse, while the Britannians had stepped up their investment in public health after the Osaka Outbreak, disease was still a constant concern. Tuberculosis, diptheria, cholera, and influenza were all common in the Ghetto, and potential death sentences, particularly since so few people were getting their full daily caloric requirements met, to say nothing of adequate vitamins. In the entertainment districts, untreated syphilis had been the bane of my mother's old co-workers in the years since the end of the invasion and the collapse of the health care system, and of course the Britannians refused to provide life-saving antibacterial medication to prostitutes.


In short, the situation was dire. Medical supplies, food, clean water, and shelter were all in critically short supply in the Ghetto, and prices were going up.


Naoto grimaced and nodded at that. "For sure. Wonder if the gangs are waiting for prices to get even higher before they start selling their stockpiles, or if they're going to hoard them for themselves?" He shrugged and turned back to me. "You were saying?"


Right, onto the next point! "Yes sir. Putting it very bluntly, we need to recruit. The entirety of the Kozuki Organization is sitting at this table, and six people aren't enough to do meaningful damage to the Britannians." Naoto looked like he was going to say something, but swallowed his words and nodded for me to continue. "Now, a large part of why recruiting from the slums is difficult is because of the gangs. The gangs are both a competing organization vying for the allegiance of young people willing to do violence, and as an inhibiting factor for recruiting more seasoned people who have more to lose. After all, it's hard to sign up for the Resistance if it means your family might be left alone in a crime invested district. People who are honorable and want to build a better life for their children are unlikely to leave those children to the tender mercies of gangsters."


Surprisingly, Nagata broke in to the conversation this time. "You're damned right about that." For the first time since I'd met him, he looked visibly angry, his brow creased furiously and his usually placid eyes all but bursting with emotion. "Every time I leave my wife and daughter for one of these meetings or an operation, I wonder if I'll come home to find out they've been kidnapped, or attacked, or killed. And..." He closed his eyes and took a breath before continuing. "And the idea that I'll die one day, and they'll be left in Shinjuku without help or protection... It bothers me."


After a moment of silence, I continued. "Finally, some of the gangs are in the pocket of Britannians. Probably not the Administration itself, but certainly some nobles hire slum gangs as legbreakers, or go into business with them. This is bad enough already, as it means the Britannians are able to pit us against ourselves with their filthy money, but the implications are even worse. If the gangs are willing to sell violence on demand to the Britannians, what about intelligence?" Ohgi and Naoto both cursed under their breath, and I knew they immediately understood what I was getting at. "Yes, the gangs are likely Britannia's best resource when it comes to identifying and locating insurgent cells in the Ghetto. They have purchasable local knowledge and a complete lack of scruples. As long as the gangs remain in operation, we will never be safe and secure."


Ohgi gave a short, jerky nod to this. "Much as I hate to admit that our fellow Japanese could do such a thing... I believe your assessment is correct, Tanya." He grimaced, as if he'd bitten into something sour, but I thought I caught a hint of enthusiasm around his eyes. "We're going to have to do something about them before they do something about us, particularly whichever gang it was those men who were going after Kallen belonged to. They've already got a grievance against us, even if they don't know about it yet. If they ever figure out what happened, they'd definitely sell us out."


He could feign reluctance all he wanted, but I knew that Ohgi must have been disappointed to miss that little scrape. He hadn't gotten the opportunity to commit some easily justifiable violence, and now he was getting frustrated. I can't say I particularly liked working with such an unsavory individual, but he was both an intelligent man and the second in command. I'd welcome his support for my strategy, and be certain in his willingness to show no mercy to our fellow Elevens.


Tamaki grunted, and crossed his arms belligerently over his chest. "I get what you're sayin', Tanya, and it sounds pretty good, but... I dunno about giving the damned Brits a chance to breathe while we fight criminals, y'know?"


While his zeal for the fight was commendable, the problem with stubborn battle maniacs was always getting them to drop whichever bone they were gnawing when the situation changed. I tried to figure out how to cater to his specific emotional needs, but Naoto got the drop on me.


"Tamaki, do you remember the questions Tanya asked us last time we were here together?" His voice was quiet, but there was a steel to Naoto's tone. "She asked us if we were really trying to help the Japanese, or if we just wanted to build a new empire on top of them." Had I asked that? I didn't remember saying any such thing, but I didn't contradict Naoto. Publicly correcting your superiors was a fast way to never get promoted, and I was content being his cipher, if he wanted to put his words in my mouth. "You told us your answer then, but I think this is an opportunity to back up your words with deeds." He looked away from Tamaki, and at the rest of us. "Are we fighting for ourselves, or for others? Are we willing to sacrifice our own well-being and personal desires for the greater good of the Japanese people?"


"Fuck it, fine!" Tamaki slammed his fist on the table, drawing the focus of the attention back to himself. "I'd much rather curb-stomp some damned Brit bitch, but..." He heaved a sigh, and the flaring temper shrank back into a more controlled anger. "I want to help. I want to make things better for everybody, not just us." And then the cocky grin I remembered from our first meeting was back. "And hey, if I can show off how cool I am by beating up some thugs, maybe I'll impress a chick or three!"


While Inoue put Tamaki in a headlock and Nagata tried to convince her to let go of the grinning redhead, Naoto turned back to me and smiled. "Well, I think you've convinced us to change our game plan." His smile turned conspiratorial as he leaned in towards me. "Now, Tanya, that you've convinced us all that we should do what you want... Where do you think we should attack?"


Two days earlier, as I'd been working for a courier service in exchange for a bowl of nameless soup for dinner, I'd heard an interesting bit of gossip from a few men malingering around the entrance to a delivery location. While dickering over ersatz cigarettes, one of the men squatting outside the door where I'd stood waiting for the recipient had mentioned a particular address as the new location of his dealer's supplier. I'd made sure to take a route nearby the address the next day, and found that it was an abandoned restaurant with a suspicious amount of foot traffic. Even more suspicious was the bulky man with the squashed nose who'd been leaning against the wall of the next building over when I'd passed by in the morning, and who was still there when I went by again five hours later.


I proceeded to explain all this to Naoto, who beamed with approval. "Great job, Tanya! That sounds incredibly suspicious – definitely worth a look!" His boyish enthusiasm sent a spike of panic through me – I was still new, and I'd never seen Naoto lead in battle before; what if he thought he was an Alexander, and led from the front or some foolishness?! I hadn't thoroughly scouted the location out – what if he just decided to lead us all in some sort of heroic charge through their front door?


"Ah, sir, can I make another suggestion?" I ventured delicately, not wanting to puncture his good mood. Thankfully, it seemed like his expansive attitude was lingering for now. "Sure thing, Tanya! Whatcha got?" Perfect! This way, I could display my zealousness by volunteering for the scouting mission, which would both give me an opportunity to gather more information and give me the respect I needed to take a rear position during our attack without being thought a coward! "I'd like to take the opportunity to scout out the target location tonight." I smiled at him, making sure to display the dimples since that had worked so well on Ohgi. "'They wouldn't suspect a girl of being a scout, and I'm smaller and lighter. I'll poke around, find out how many guards there are and their locations, and report back to you."


Naoto looked like he was turning the idea over in his head, but before he could come to a decision Ohgi burst in. "Absolutely not!" I jerked back from the table, smile sliding off my face, completely nonplussed by the typically calm Ohgi acting so aggressively. "You are not sending a child alone into danger, Naoto. Bad enough that I gave her a gun, but sending her poking around a yakuza house without backup? Absolutely not." Ah, so that's his problem. He's feeling frustrated and left out! No doubt the prospect of drawing blood for the first time in days was driving Ohgi through the roof with frustration.


That was... suboptimal. Information gathering required a calm mind and a dispassionate willingness to remain detached and aloof, in order to bring back accurate and useful observations. A frothing axe maniac was a liability in such an operation. Still, though, bringing him with me had the benefit of giving me backup if the guards were actually competent, as well as currying favor with my superiors. I'd just have to suck it up and do my best fulfill the mission despite his presence.


"You can come too, Ohgi!" I took the initiative, figuring that a friendly invitation from me would interrupt any building hostility between Ohgi and Naoto resulting from their butting heads, not to mention aligning myself with Ohgi in the ongoing negotiations. "It's always wise to have someone watching your back when entering potentially dangerous situations, after all!"


For some reason, he didn't look any happier. Ohgi stalked out of the hideout when Naoto agreed to let both of us go scout the location before rushing out to track down the irate man. I hoped he'd find a way to get control of his blood lust before we had to go to work.


---------


Several hours later, Ohgi and I were ensconced in an abandoned office building across the street from the restaurant turned stash house and two floors up. I had found a pair of binoculars in the armory before we'd left, and I'd been using them to carefully examine every inch of the building's front face and the street outside. So far I'd found the same guard from a few days ago in the same position, although he'd found a different wall to slouch against. I'd also discovered that there were two guards immediately inside the building, lurking in what had once been the reception area, no doubt there to slow down any intruders while the serious muscle in the back rooms got ready.


Unfortunately, that was about all of use I'd determined about the target location after an hour of observation. Ohgi was getting restless, and if I was being honest, I was too. I lifted my face from the binoculars, and checked again that my telltale blonde hair was entirely tucked back under the scarf I'd tied around my head, which was in turn hidden under the hood of an over-sized sweatshirt. Finding it satisfactorily concealed, I carefully moved out of the window's sight profile, stood up and stretched, handing the binoculars to Ohgi. He nearly fumbled them, and I sighed internally. He must be tired if he's already sleeping on his feet.


"I'm going to take a quick walk around the block." I casually said as I checked my pistol, holstered under my sweatshirt, and my knife, a four inch long single sided affair which was tucked into the voluminous frontal pocket of the sweatshirt. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes."


Ohgi grunted with discontentment, but waved me out. I figured he just wanted the mission over with as quickly as possible, a desire I sympathized with, but neither of us could leave until we'd gotten a thorough look at the target.


I quickly scampered downstairs, moving as quietly as I could and dodging the dilapidated office furniture strewn about the place, abandoned for years and worthless as scrap or burnable fuel. We'd come in through a busted back door overlooking an old loading dock area that let out into an alley that had provided vehicle access to the office block in better days, and I was relatively sure that I'd seen a similar alley passing through the block where the stash house sat. I figured a single pass through that alley would be enough to get the bones of the situation, then I could report back to Ohgi and we could go home for the night. I'd just pretend to scrounge for edible garbage as I went down the alley, and nobody would so much as notice – after all, nobody had noticed me doing it before, and my obviously non-Japanese blonde hair had been fully visible then.


As I approached the mouth of the alley, I adjusted my gait and posture, stooping my back, hunching my shoulders, and taking only small cursory steps, doing my best to look as harmless and pitiful as possible. I did a bad job preparing for this mission. I berated myself internally as I scuttled into the shadows. I should've brought a sack of some sort to carry anything I find... Oh, and radios would have been wonderful too. To my annoyance, when I'd searched the armory before leaving the basement, I'd found the binoculars but I hadn't found any handheld radios, which meant I had no way of communicating with Ohgi. Hopefully, we could buy some better gear with whatever money we would steal when we hit this target, or we'd find some to appropriate ourselves.


While the alley proved empty of anything edible, I did discover a cluster of three men standing around what must have been the service entrance for the restaurant. Two appeared to be standard issue guards, as much as that was such a thing, wearing a variety of tattered layers and colored scarves tied around their upper arms. The third man, however, carried himself with authority and wore clothing that looked significantly better than the cast off wardrobes the other two had. They were talking about something... no, the authoritative man was rambling on about something and the other two were dutifully listening and chuckling where appropriate. I hunched down, doing my best to disappear into a small lump of nothing, and hoped that the light from the dim light fixture hanging above their heads had dampened their night vision as I listened in.


"...and that was the third time I tried crystal meth!" The apparent officer guffawed, and after a beat his subordinates dutifully chuckled. Minus the context, I felt like I was back in some bar after work once more, listening to the same tedious anecdotes from the old men at the top, and had to quash the impulse to chuckle in chorus with the two guards. Shaking off the odd flash of something almost like muscle memory, I continued listening to the more richly dressed man regal his captive audience with another two anecdotes before finally saying something interesting. "Anyway, old man Ryuji thinks that the boys from Kokuryu-kai have learned about this location, somehow. It's a pain in the ass since we just finished setting up here, I know, but we gotta get everything packed back up again. The truck's gonna be here in..." He checked his watch, and visibly winced. "Ten minutes! So tell Kohta to get his shit together to move!"


One of the guards hastily ran inside, followed by the officer himself, leaving the last man alone outside in the cold. Once the door closed, he murmured a curse, but dutifully took up his guard position by the door again. For my part, I did my best to make myself invisible, lying down in a slight dip in the ground by the side of the pavement that might have been a gutter and trying to press myself into the pavement. I knew the fifteen minutes I'd told Ohgi I'd be out for were likely already gone, but I didn't think I could make it back to the office building to let him know what I'd found out and back in the ten minutes the officer had allotted. If I started running around the chances one of these idiots would notice me would also increase, which would lead to either them trying to kill me, or an even faster evacuation of everything worth taking.


Either way, that would be a failed mission, and I wasn't willing to let my first mission in my new job fail so unceremoniously. The taint of screwing up like that, of being so unsure of my partner and of my own judgment that I blew the mission checking up on him, would be absolute poison to my chances at a managerial role in the new Stadtfeld regime.


Five minutes later, and a dingy panel truck pulled up. The battered vehicle proclaimed it as a delivery vehicle for the "Happy Clam Fishmonger", but the men who stepped out looked entirely too well-dressed to be fishmongers. Both of the newcomers walked over to the guard, and then all three entered the restaurant, leaving the truck unattended. Apparently, they had decided that either nobody was here in this particular corner of Shinjuku at two in the morning, or that nobody here would be willing to steal a truck from a clear criminal operation. They were partially correct in their assessment.


Thirty seconds later, I was climbing through the unlocked driver's side door. The men had taken the keys when they'd left, but had left the truck unlocked and the lights on, presumably to aid in the rapid evacuation of the contents of the building. I was fine with that – I had no interest in stealing an empty truck, after all. Thanks to their sloppy discipline, I didn't have to try hanging onto the roof of the vehicle or anything fancy like that – instead, I folded myself down into the narrow gap behind the passenger-side seat and the rear of the cab. I doubt many other people could manage the fit, and even I had to take off my bulky sweatshirt and pistol and stash them behind the driver's side. Only my four foot three inch, forty-eight pound frame let me slide myself into the narrow gap, my knife tightly clasped in my left hand.


Now, there was nothing to do but wait and see...


A bare two minutes after I'd finished concealing myself behind the seat, I heard the sounds of movement outside, followed by twenty minutes of what sounded like very hard work. Idly, I wondered what sort of benefits gang membership had in this fallen Japan – was it just three squares and a bed, or did they get a cut of the proceeds? – before two men climbed back into the truck. Two tries at ignition later, we were on our way to some other no-doubt desolate corner of the Ghetto.


I waited until five minutes of movement had passed before I made my move, to give time for the truck to move out of sight of whichever gangsters had stayed behind. Carefully, I spun up my reflex and strength enhancement suite, taking care not to so much as twitch as the familiar rush of magic rushed through my body. As soon as I was sure my enhancements were working, I began to carefully snake my left arm out and around the side of the passenger chair, knife in hand. Thankfully, the lack of interior cabin lighting or much in the way of functional streetlights meant that the driver didn't see my arm in the left side mirror, and neither did the passenger notice reflected movement in his door window.


As soon as my forearm was free of the crack and my hand was angled upwards, I flexed my magically-enhanced strength and thrust. I'd carefully judged the angle, and the knife entered through the side of his neck towards the back, stabbing in and through his trachea. I continued the arc of the blade by slashing out and to the left, slicing through the left side of his neck and severing the left jugular vein and carotid artery as it did so.


Not wasting a moment, as soon as the knife was clear of his neck, I whipped my now bloodied left arm back through the crack into the space behind the chair, quickly passing the knife off to my other hand.


The punctured windpipe prevented the passenger from communicating anything to his compatriot, but the desperate, panicked thrashing coupled with the arterial spurt clued the driver in that something was amiss. "Junji?! Junji, man, what's wrong? Junji?" Fortunately, the driver parked the truck before reaching over to grab his friend in the time honored practices of shaking the injured on the off-chance that it improves their condition.


Before he'd even managed to grasp his friend's shoulder, though, I lunged out from behind the seat, pouring every iota of magical strength into a single thrust. The blade, guided by training and enhanced reflexes, slammed home just below his left armpit, buried to the hilt in his side. To my embarrassment, instead of going between the ribs as I had intended, the blade had actually slammed through his rib, my strength somehow sufficient to fracture the bone. Fortunately, this meant that instead of a single blade probing for his heart and lung, I had managed to drive three into his thoracic cavity.


As soon as the last spasms faded from the former driver's hand, I hauled myself out from my hiding place and into the gap between the two chairs. With a significant amount of effort, I managed to maneuver and brute force the driver's body onto the unfortunate Junji, before shoving him down into the feet area to prevent him from slouching over onto the clutch. Then, I retrieved my sweatshirt and gun from the gap behind the driver's seat, and pulled my layer back on – it was cold outside, and both of my arms were now completely soaked. Finally, I took a deep breath, and allowed myself a smile – by dint of much patience and effort, I was now the undisputed master of this truck.


My smile faded quickly as I realized that I had no idea how to drive the vehicle. I'd had a driver's license in my first life, but I'd almost exclusively used the rail in my adult life and the vehicle I'd learned how to drive so long ago had been a mere sedan. I was the master of this truck, but I had no idea how to move the damned thing.


Fortunately, the driver hadn't been moving too quickly, so I wasn't too far away from where I'd left Ohgi. I'd been sure to turn off the truck's lights and take the keys with me, but I wanted to hurry back as quickly as possible. I doubted anybody would be foolish enough to steal a truck with two dead bodies in the cab, but the contents of the cargo compartment were another story. Happily, when I found him pacing anxiously outside the office building, Ohgi was too anxious to see what we'd found to require much convincing to follow me.


Admittedly, he did delay us somewhat by exclaiming his relief that I'd returned unharmed, and asking where I'd been and whose blood I was covered in, but after I explained the urgency of our situation he came along quickly enough.


It turned out that Ohgi had a basic understanding of how to operate trucks, and so after he helped me shove the bodies out of the vehicle and carry them into a nearby alley, we managed to slowly drive the vehicle back to our hideout.


By the time we finally reached the area where our little sub-basement headquarters was located, the first light of dawn was already reaching across the horizon. On the way over, Ohgi and I had briefly tried to figure out whether or not to keep the truck, and where to stash it if so. Eventually, we concluded that we did indeed need to keep the truck, at least until we'd offloaded the cargo. Apparently, there was a small parking lot attached to the crumbling apartment block, which had a few spots which were not filled with derelicts or rubble, but it offered no real cover to hide the truck away under. So, after Ohgi parked the truck, I volunteered to stay with it as he ran down to the hideout to grab a pair of bolt cutters and whoever was there, and get them to haul the contents of the cargo compartment down into the basement.


A few minutes and some muttered curses as the lock stubbornly resisted the shearing force of the instrument later, and the truck's cargo hold was open. Unfortunately for the eager Tamaki, we didn't get the opportunity to immediately learn what we'd managed to plunder from the yakuza, as everything was surprisingly neatly packed in a variety of cardboard and wooden boxes. Happily this made the process of hauling them down two flights of stairs far more efficient than hauling armfuls of miscellaneous goods would have been, and in an hour Tamaki, Naoto, and Ohgi had managed to haul our liberated cartons away into the hideout. I'd offered to help, but Ohgi had strenuously and repeatedly denied my efforts, pointing out that I'd done the vast majority of the work during the scouting mission turned impromptu raid. I graciously conceded the point, as my enhancements had begun to flag from physical exhaustion.


I wasn't too exhausted to follow Tamaki and Naoto back downstairs to the hideout, though. I knew there would be no chance of sleep until I'd managed to sooth my curiosity about what we'd accomplished. Ohgi had volunteered to take care of the vehicle, and had left with a pair of Naoto's black market hand grenades and the truck. I hoped that would be adequate to erase whatever forensic evidence we'd left behind, but ultimately decided to not worry about it and trust my comrade. I was certain that a battle maniac denied the ability to slake his bloodlust but given the freedom to demolish a valuable piece of equipment would have no difficulty converting a perfectly usable truck into a burnt out husk.


As I stood in the sub-basement, swaying on my feet, Naoto and Tamaki opened box after box, using a crowbar to pry open wooden slats where necessary. The first few boxes contained an abundance of large unlabeled brown bottles that clearly contained homebrewed liquor. Two of the wooden boxes contained a variety of laboratory equipment as well as a number of sealed jars, phials, and bottles, all unlabeled except for a number written somewhere on them – a sequential order, perhaps? The smallest cardboard box, lined with plastic, indicated the likely use of the lab equipment, as it contained 45 kilograms of what Tamaki identified as crystal methamphetamine. The final cardboard box was just full of Britannian cash, an entire box of bundles of various denominations of bills, all grubby and showing signs of heavy use. The final wooden box, the largest of the entire haul, contained five brand new Britannian assault rifles, still in their packing materials. No ammunition, though.


Well, it was a decidedly mixed haul, but I could already see all kinds of potential uses for everything we'd found. The cash would be the most helpful, I decided, and the lab equipment had potential if we found someone with the requisite expertise to use it. The meth, however...


"Naoto," I began, "how do you feel about selling amphetamines to the Britannians?"

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 6: A Living Tragedy (Kozuki Sibling Interlude)

(AN: For people only reading the threadmarks and not the thread, when I initially posted Chapter 5 I left off the last page of content. I've since edited it back in, and put an apostrophe to mark where the new content begins. Thank you to Siatru for beta reading this chapter.)


Kozuki Naoto took a long pull from the unlabeled bottle in his hand, and winced at the liquid fire running down the back of his throat. His eyes watered from the pain and the fumes, but his long experience made ignoring the burn trivial. Wish everything else was that easy to tune out. He carefully wiped the mouth of the bottle off on his sleeve and handed to his best friend, Kaname Ohgi. Both men were squatting on their haunches on the roof of their crumbling apartment building, cigarette in one hand and passing one of the many bottles of homebrew liquor their little band of terrorists had acquired earlier that night back and forth with the other. Naoto had known Ohgi for years, ever since their first year of senior high school, and he'd always known the other man to be a sober, dependably straight-laced individual, given to introspection and quiet humor.


Which would have made the long, long slug Ohgi took from the bottle disturbing to Naoto almost any other night. Such an uninhibited and downright greedy chug of hard liquor straight from the bottle would normally indicate some sort of deep concern or anxiety on his friend's part, and ordinarily Naoto would have done his best to suss out what was troubling his best friend.


Not tonight. He knew exactly what was troubling Ohgi. Naoto shuddered as he remembered what he'd seen, and took a long drag from the roll-up. Yes, he knew what was bothering Ohgi, and he wouldn't begrudge him a single drop of liquid comfort tonight.


About five hours after he and Tanya, their newest, most disturbing recruit, had left to scout out the possible stash-house, Ohgi had burst through the door of their sub-basement hideout, startling Naoto and Tamaki to instant wakefulness from their snoozing on the couches. As quickly as he could, Ohgi had briefed the two of them about the night's events, from their unproductive stakeout to Tanya's sudden return to their observation point an hour after she'd left on a fifteen minute walk, dripping with blood and utterly nonchalant. He'd concluded by saying he'd left Tanya outside guarding a truck full of unknown goods, a truck that she had brutally slain two men to hijack.


Naoto had been, to say the least, very confused. Tanya and Ohgi had left on a simple scouting and information gathering mission, but apparently the mission had rapidly evolved while they'd been out. Ohgi had grabbed a pair of bolt cutters and led him and Tamaki out to the rubble-strewn parking lot of the ruined apartment block they hid under, and sure enough, a battered truck was waiting for them. Beside that truck...


Naoto shuddered again at the memory, and gestured at Ohgi to hand the bottle back. His friend wiped the bottle clean and duly obliged, and Naoto took another hit from the horrible moonshine. He knew he'd regret it come the morning, but he wanted the memory of the tiny figure softened into a comfortable blur as quickly as possible.


Tanya had stood beside the truck, practically swimming in an oversized black sweatshirt and a battered and cut-down pair of men's work pants. The scarf she'd wrapped around her head to conceal her sunny blonde hair had loosened during her busy night, and a thick lock of hair hung freely over her eyes, as if to emphasize her youth. Below that errant lock were a wide smile of satisfaction, pride at a job well and skillfully done clear in every line of her face, and a pair of haunting blue eyes. Naoto had seen lots of empty-eye'd gazes after the Conquest, people broken from shock and trauma, hollowed out inside and mere shells of the passionate men and women and children they'd once been. Tanya's eyes were not hollow, nor empty, nor flat. Instead, there was a sort of mixture of childish and adult characteristics he found very hard to pin down, as if those eyes were some sort of estuary between the innocent, bright emotions of a child and the ancient wisdom of someone who had lived too long and seen too much.


Naoto drank, and counted himself lucky he had never seen a pair of eyes like that before. He knew that he came from a position of rare privilege for a Japanese man in this Britannian-dominated world, the bastard son of one of the few nobles who was a legitimately good man, who loved his children and cared for their mother despite her current state. Even before Lord Stadtfeld had welcomed his daughter and her mother back into the fold by adopting the former as his legitimate heir and employing the later as his maid, his father had sent enough money to let them live in one of the lower rent areas of the Britannian Concession, designated for common Britannians. True, Naoto had had to fist-fight virtually every young or middle-aged Brit man in the neighborhood, and some of the women, to live there without trouble, and he'd had to fight whole gangs of Brits who tried to attack his little sister on two notable occasions, but he was still very aware that he'd been lucky.


He'd never had to live in the Ghetto. He'd come here by choice, reconnecting with his college friends, meeting Ohgi's former co-workers, and bringing weapons and ammunition purchased in the Britannian homeland along with his eager desire to see Britannia brought down. His first month in the Ghetto had been an education, to say the least. He knew, of course, about the broad strokes of the Britannian occupation, of the brutal policies of the Area administration, but... He hadn't known, not on the level that only first-hand experience could teach.


And even then, he'd still been lucky. He had come to the Ghetto as a man, young and strong, with a gun at his belt and thick muscles on his body. He hadn't been forced into the Ghetto as a child, marked out as different and alien by her hair and eyes, forced to work long hours for years to keep herself fed, and hadn't grown up with the humiliations and violations of the occupation a daily reality. He thanked his lucky stars, his father, and any gods who existed that he hadn't lived like that every time he saw Tanya.


She'd been literally dripping with blood, her arms up to the shoulder wet with the stuff, and clearly exhausted, but Tanya still smiled. Her frail body, sharp cheek bones and too thin arms, trembled with exhaustion, but she'd still been energetic enough to offer to help carry the multitude of heavy boxes from the truck down the two flights of stairs to the basement. Still groggy with sleep, Naoto hadn't been able to say a word to the vision of murdered innocence before him, but Ohgi, with a surprisingly gentle voice after his near panic in the basement, had gratefully but firmly turned down her kind offer. He'd said she'd done enough that night, that he hadn't done his fair share of the work on their mission, so she could take a break while they carried the spoils down into the basement. Apparently, Ohgi's instincts as a teacher had served him well, as she'd accepted this line of logic and stood aside as they carried box after box down to the hideout.


After they'd unloaded the truck, Ohgi had volunteered to dispose of it, taking two grenades with him and advising Naoto to keep a careful eye on Tanya. He'd followed his friend's advise as he and Ohgi opened the various boxes, noting the girl's reaction out of the corner of his eye to see what she thought of the spoils of war. She'd been ambivalent towards the moonshine, interested in the lab equipment and materials, calculating when Tamaki had identified the meth, and at first very interested and then dismissive of the rifles. Naoto hadn't been surprised by the first and last reactions, considering how new firearms generally didn't come with ammunition to make them a complete weapon system, but her interest in the lab equipment caught him by surprise. As far as he knew, she was an essentially uneducated street urchin. He didn't know if she even knew what the various flasks and beakers were for, but something about them had clearly caught her interest.


Her immediate question, "Naoto, how do you feel about selling amphetamines to the Britannians?" had come as a shock. He'd already abandoned any attempt to try and predict what fresh, brilliant insanity would emerge from Tanya's mouth, but her suggestion of trying to hook their overlords on hard drugs was inspired and unexpected, as most of her suggestions were. He'd fobbed her off by saying he'd have to think about it, and she'd nodded and muttered something about logistics to his great relief. Naoto was determined to free Japan from the leprous hand of Britannia, but he didn't know if he could endorse selling hard drugs to their enemies for that cause. Setting aside questions of efficacy – smuggling amphetamines into the Concession was no small task, nor was finding buyers or figuring out how to convert their looted supply into a more permanent operation – Naoto was having a hard time convincing himself that the world would be a better place for their actions if they stooped to that level. As far as he was concerned, all 45 kilograms of crystal could catch fire, and he'd be happy.


Of course, he hadn't shared these thoughts with Tanya, and thankfully she hadn't asked. Instead, she'd simply made her way over to the couches, laid down in an uncharacteristically casual display, and immediately fallen asleep. Tamaki and he had quietly laughed to each other about the "lion sleeping off a meal", but he'd known Tamaki long enough to hear the hollow joy for what it was. They'd continued to work in as much quiet as possible, finding places to store their new rifles, the box of cash, and the lab equipment in the armory/storage area of the hideout.


Two hours later, Ohgi had returned from his errand. He'd apparently driven the truck west, towards the edge of the Shinjuku Ghetto and Nakano, before parking it on a sufficiently abandoned street, rolling the two grenades under the cab, and running like hell. He'd looked back to see the truck on its side and smoking, and had kept running for another mile before walking the rest of the way back to Shinjuku and the hideout. Naoto vaguely hoped that nobody had been hurt by the grenade's shrapnel, but he was just honestly glad to have seen the last of that blood-drenched truck cab. He couldn't imagine how awful it must have been for Ohgi, perched awkwardly on a seat practically saturated with drying blood, doing his best to ignore the scent of shit that had lingered even after the corpses Tanya had produced had been dumped unceremoniously in an alley.


Wordlessly, Naoto passed the bottle back to Ohgi. He'd forgotten to wipe the bottle off this time, but his friend apparently didn't care.


Tanya was still asleep when they decided to call it a night, and neither he nor Ohgi had the heart to wake her up. When she slept, she looked so... different, so innocent and vulnerable. When awake, Tanya was an enthusiastic ball of energy and suggestions one moment, a haunting vision of the human cost of war in another, a paranoid and twitchy ball of nerves in a third, and a terrifyingly efficient fighting machine in the next. But asleep, she just looked... like a kid, and a good one at that. Her face relaxed into a peaceful smile, which almost made you overlook the hollows of her cheeks and how each bone in her hands stood out against the skin. Naoto was happy to see that the hollows were a bit less deep than when Ohgi had first brought her back to their apartment, but she still looked so fragile.


After waiting a bit to see if she'd wake back up, they'd had a short discussion, and they decided it would be bad if she woke up alone in a strange place after such a violent and potentially traumatic experience. Ohgi had carefully scooped the girl up and begun carrying her up the stairs. She'd sleepily protested for a moment, before drifting back off again. She hadn't woken back up during the long walk back home, even after being passed back and forth three times, and hadn't woken when they'd put her down in the nest of blankets she'd assembled in the corner of their studio, head on the single ratty pillow Ohgi had managed to barter from Mrs. Maki two doors down. Tanya still wore her mission clothes, now crusted with dried blood, but neither man had wanted to try washing or changing her, so they'd simply left her on her nest of blankets before heading up to the roof to try and drink away the stress of another night in Shinjuku.


Ohgi put the bottle down on the roof between them, and turned towards Naoto. Shit, here it comes. Naoto had hoped they could just drink themselves silly in silence, but he'd know this was coming.


"There's something very wrong with that girl, Naoto." The former teacher's voice was quiet but firm in the morning light, and Naoto groaned aloud.


"What else is new?" Naoto sighed and took another drag on the coffin nail. "We've already been over this, Ohgi. You're right, she's all kinds of fucked up. I'm not disagreeing with you here." He ground the stub of the roll-up out on the roof, and flicked the butt away. "Problem is, you and I both know she's way too dangerous to let wander around on her own. When we took her in, we took responsibility for her – and that means we can't just kick her out because she's..." Ugh, how the hell do I sum up Hajime Tanya in a single adjective? "...Because she's her." Naoto finished lamely, blaming drinking moonshine on an empty stomach for the sudden lack of eloquence.


"I know that, dammit!" Ohgi's voice lacked anger, but was full of pent-up frustration and shame. "I know that it's not her fault she is the way she is. It's not her fault she's so scary I almost piss myself every time she looks at me. I know, god dammit, but Naoto... We can't let her just... just..."


Naoto suddenly felt much older than his twenty six, almost twenty seven years. "She saved Kallen's life, Ohgi. I can't ignore that. Who knows what the hell would've happened to her, if Tanya hadn't been armed and found her in time?" He shivered, and thrust the horrible images his mind produced away as hard as he could. "Plus, she's finally managed to get Tamaki to stop goofing around for five minutes and take things seriously."


"She's still a child soldier, Naoto. I can't ignore that" Ohgi looked up, away from Naoto and into the sky. "I know she saved your sister. I know she's an absolutely terrifying fighter. I know she even slapped some sense into Tamaki." He looked back down, and met Naoto's eyes again. "She's still a child, and children shouldn't be sent into war. I'm sorry, but it's wrong. She's eleven, Naoto! Eleven!" Ohgi took a deep breath, and looked away again, trying to calm down.


Naoto took a deep breath too, and tried his best to keep his cool. "I don't like it any more than you do, Ohgi. But, what do you think I should do?" Naoto shook his head with irritation, his words sounding weak even to him. "I mean, we've tried to get her to act more her age. We've tried to keep her out of harm's way. It hasn't really been working out so far, has it, Ohgi?"


After Ohgi had first brought Tanya back to their apartment after she'd been kicked out of her deceased mother's apartment, she'd immediately begun acting paranoid. She'd almost attacked Naoto when he'd first arrived for no reason he could determine, and when Ohgi had tried to feed her, despite their assurances that she could eat as much as she wanted, she'd barely taken a few bites. After that rocky start, she'd taken to disappearing during most of the daylight hours, saying something about earning her keep, and none of Ohgi's attempts to convince her that she was welcome to their food seemed to sink in.


Naoto had been convinced by Tanya's passionate argument to bring her into the cell, unable to argue with her point that she was "old enough to be put up against a wall and shot" and thus old enough to try and fight back. He'd intended for her to help out in a non-combat role, perhaps helping Inoue secure supplies, or helping apply basic first-aid and running messages. Essentially, Naoto had figured that she could be given some necessary but not dangerous tasks, and could be the mascot and morale officer for the fledgling guerrilla organization. That idea hadn't survived the near disaster of Tanya's first meeting with the other members of the cell, when Tamaki had flown off the handle and pulled a gun on the girl. Worse yet, Naoto and Ohgi had been completely helpless, unable to deescalate the situation and too far from Tamaki to take the gun away from him before he could pull the trigger. To their mixed thankfulness and horror, their intervention had proven unnecessary, as the half-blooded waif they'd inadvertently put in a near-death situation had first forced Tamaki into submission and then taken away his gun without any discernible effort. It was an outright miracle that things had ended without at least one death, but her abilities had been as frighteningly mysterious as they'd been baffling.


Ohgi had succumbed to guilt within a week after the disastrous meeting, unable to withstand both his own shame at almost getting a child killed by an unpredictable and violent friend of his and the brutally effective guilt-trip the child in question had deployed. Very much against his better judgment, Ohgi had armed Tanya with a standard Britannian sidearm and taken time out of his days to walk with her to the hideout so she could practice with it once she'd demonstrated her clear proficiency with the damned thing. Each time they'd returned from the hideout, Ohgi had come up to the roof, beer in hand, and talked endlessly about how horribly unnatural it was to see a school-aged child coolly and professionally servicing targets with her pistol, never missing the bullseye. Within a week, she'd been a better shot than any other member of the cell, at least when it came to paper targets.


Tanya had proven that she could shoot at other targets without qualm soon after, when she'd saved his baby sister's life. Naoto had been twelve when Kallen was born, and after their father had left Japan to return to the homeland after the Conquest, he'd taken over many parental duties as their mother increasingly fell to pieces. Kallen's private description of the encounter had been somewhat vague, and lacked many of the specific details Tanya had included in her verbal report, but his sister had clearly remembered how calm and unemotional Tanya had been after the fight and during the process of hiding the bodies in an alley. The image of his sister hauling bodies made Naoto sick to his stomach, and the idea of a girl four years her junior helping her with the other end of the corpses made it even worse. He took heart from the details that Kallen had shared about their conversation afterwards, including Tanya's dream of going back to school, and that she'd tried to make Kallen feel better when his sister had begun to feel the full impact of taking a human life, but the whole incident still made him sick with worry and grief.


"You're right." Ohgi bitterly sighed out the admission. "We can't keep her from fighting. She's made that abundantly clear yesterday and tonight." The former teacher cocked his head, and looked quizzically at Naoto. "Do you realize that she nearly usurped leadership of the cell from you yesterday? In ten minutes, she totally reoriented our cell's strategic focus for the foreseeable future, and gave everybody there a stake in the idea she's selling."


Naoto grimaced. "Of course I realize that. And yes, it does feel galling to have an eleven-year old prove she's a far better planner then you are." He took a moment and ruthlessly squashed the rising sense of irritation down again. "I'm not proud enough to hold on to a bad plan just because I made it, Ohgi. If she's got good ideas, I'm going to use them. I'd have to be completely stupid to just make her shut up, and I don't think she would if I tried to order her to do so." He groaned and rubbed at his forehead at the memory of Tanya, bright-eyed and enthusiastic, cheerfully burbling out all the various short and long term benefits of her new grand plan. In that moment, she'd reminded him so much of a much younger Kallen from before the Conquest, showing off a picture she'd drawn to their mother.


Ohgi patted him on the back sympathetically. "That's the hell of it, isn't it?" Ohgi said philosophically, "She's so good at everything she's tried so far, and so determined to fight the good fight that it would be practically criminal not to use her. But she's still a child soldier, and sending a child to war is evil, Naoto. It's evil, and we both know it's evil." Ohgi picked the bottle back up and took another swig. "Tanya is a better shot than I am, and I bet she's a better killer too. I mean, before she came, our cell had maybe three deaths on its hands, right?"


"Four," corrected Naoto. "after that guy saw Tamaki trying to break into that warehouse. I heard in the news he actually died in the hospital a few hours after we legged it."


Ohgi nodded. "Four then. And that's in three months of operations. Tanya has killed at least five people that we know of in just the last week." Both men fell silent for a moment at the implication before Ohgi continued more softly. "I know she's an asset, but she's just a kid. I don't want to have to bury her someday. I understand her point about being old enough to die, but... Well, what are we fighting for, if not to stop having kids get shot at all?"


Naoto shrugged. He was tired and drunk, and it was hard to be particularly philosophical. "I just know that she saved Kallen's life, Ohgi. I don't like letting her fight any more than you do, but I'm not going to try to make her stop now. She's earned the right to stand with us, even if it does leave a bad taste in my mouth." Naoto smiled and chuckled to himself. "At least they each made a friend, judging by the way Kallen was talking about Tanya. It's good to hear her being so happy and enthusiastic after..."


Ohgi wordlessly passed the bottle back, and Naoto drank. "Plus, she's finally stopped badgering me to let her go on missions with us." Ohgi let out a bark of laughter at that. "You don't seriously think that's going to last, do you?" Naoto laughed too, before sighing wistfully. "Well... No, but I'm glad that Tanya gave her something else to focus on instead."


A minute of silence passed, until Naoto stood from his squat and began to walk around the roof, trying to get the blood to flow back into his legs. After a moment, Ohgi stood up and joined him. "Naoto, what are we going to do? She's literally got blood on her hands at this very moment, and you can't think that's the last of it. Are we really going to use a little girl as a soldier in our war to free Japan?"


Naoto sighed, and turned back to his best friend. "Yes, Ohgi, yes we are. I don't think we have much of a choice in the matter – we're not going to convince her to stop fighting, and we're not exactly swimming in highly-skilled recruits to replace her with." Naoto felt shame at the admission wash over him, and had a hard time maintaining eye contact with Ohgi. "I suppose this is part of the sacrifice she talked about, isn't it? Whether we could put the good of all over personal desires and all that? Neither of us want her to fight, but she's clearly dedicated to the cause."


Ohgi grimaced again, and Naoto saw the same guilt and horror in Ohgi's expression that he was sure his friend saw on his. "You're right, she's going to fight no matter what we say or do. Last night she basically just abandoned me for an hour, and came back asking if I could drive a truck. She was just covered in blood, but didn't appear to notice or care. And this time, she'd killed those poor bastards with a knife, not even with her gun." He shivered, and continued. "I've already been having nightmares about her, you know. This isn't going to help them... I don't even know if I'm afraid of her, or just what she represents."


Naoto nodded in understanding. "Tanya's definitely a loose cannon. I think she just tolerates any orders I give to her, but... Well, at least she's humoring me so far and being a good girl. And... I get it, I think. She's been a victim for years since the Conquest, right? Based on what she's seen, she's seen some really fucked up stuff, and she couldn't do anything about it. And now, she's finally got the opportunity to do something, to be the one hurting other people rather than being hurt."


Ohgi agreed. "Yeah, that definitely sounds right. It sounds exactly like why kids bully each other – they feel weak and powerless, and they want to fix that by proving they aren't." Ohgi sighed, and idly kicked at the roof. "But to her credit, she could be targeting other Japanese if she wanted that. I'm glad she's decided to target the people actually responsible for what she's endured."


"You know, I always wanted to work as a teacher. I enjoyed working with kids, and it felt great to see them understand what I was explaining to them. It felt like I was helping to build a better world, y'know?" Naoto nodded silently, remembering how enthusiastic Ohgi had been when he'd graduated from university and become an assistant math teacher at a junior high school. "It's been really hard to even help tutor little Kyoko and littler Takahiro since she showed up. I keep wondering if when I look up from the textbook, if they'll have the same eyes as Tanya... I've never been scared of kids before Naoto, but I keep getting twitchy just being around them now."


Naoto clapped his friend on the back companionably. "C'mon, snap out of it Ohgi. You're getting too far into your head about this. Kyoko and Takahiro have both their parents, enough food, and are both full Japanese. They're nothing like Tanya."


Ohgi sighed and hung his head. "I know, I know, it's just... Tanya doesn't even look or act like Tanya sometimes, y'know? Like when Tamaki was showing her how the pistol worked, she looked just like one of my favorite students from back then. Same eager expression, same thirst for knowledge... Only Chihiro thought geometry was really cool, while Tanya fell in love with a damned weapon... It just makes me wonder how many other kids are going to pick up a gun too before this is over, you know? Tanya is one thing, but what if something happens to Mrs. Maki, and Takahiro asks to join us because he wants revenge? How many children is too much of a sacrifice for a free Japan, Naoto?"


Naoto found to his shame that he couldn't immediately answer the question, and wondered himself what the end of the war, if it ever came, would look like.


---------


Kallen quietly sat in her third-period Algebra class, dutifully taking notes on polynomial functions from the second row. Unlike her usual behavior at the start of the year, she no longer sat in the back of the classroom, and no longer hunched down over her papers, trying to be as invisible as possible. Instead, she sat with her back straight and shoulders back, posture as picture perfect as any etiquette instructor might hope to see. The changes in her school life didn't stop with a new seat and a straight back, though. The day after her encounter in the slums, she had informed the Ashford Academy administration that she was feeling much better, and her doctor was enthusiastic about her condition, meaning she wouldn't be missing as much school as they'd feared.


She still hated the shallow, self-absorbed noble brats that surrounded her, but Kallen's whole understanding of her hatred had radically shifted overnight. Instead of being a reason to avoid the inbred bastards and to skip out on school as often as possible, her hatred was her burden to carry. Being pleasant and sociable with those she held in contempt was the sacrifice she was making for Japan. It wasn't a particularly weighty sacrifice, Kallen knew, not compared to the men and women dying in the Ghetto as her teacher droned on and on, but it was one that she was uniquely placed to make.


Kallen wouldn't let an opportunity to strike a blow against the hated Britannians slip past her. Pointing out the amount of damage she could do to the rich bastards who bought and sold her people's future was the second great gift her newest and only friend had given her, the first being her continued existence. Tanya had been there when Kallen had needed her, both when she was against that wall and when the image of a gaping mouth with a throat full of blood, desperate eyes bugging out as he tried to breathe through a ruined windpipe had become too much to bear. Instead of mocking her weakness, Tanya had reassured her, told her that she was strong, and had revealed her own personal trauma and weakness to set them back on equal footing. And Tanya had given her a purpose, a way to fight back that her brother wouldn't hold her back from.


Ever since that day in Shinjuku, Kallen had begun to integrate herself into the school's social scene, joining a conversation here or there, agreeing to a minor social engagement now and then. A tea party on Thursday, tennis on Saturday, and so on and so forth. Her earlier unsociable behavior was quickly excused as the result of her never specified illness, and she'd effortlessly slipped into a role as an outer member in several cliques and groups, rarely finding herself alone at the Academy. Kallen generally said little, only offering expressions of interest in the latest gossip and goings-on and ruthlessly keeping her seething anger and contempt hidden.


Kallen had begun to memorize any gossip she heard in the halls, and would write it down into her class notes as the lectures rambled on. After school, she'd review her notes and copy the gossip items out into a special notebook she'd begun to compile. She hadn't heard anything particularly useful yet – no troop movements or schemes to start harvesting the organs of Japanese prisoners had been bandied about in her hearing, not yet – but she had begun to create profiles of her classmates, adding details about their backgrounds and social connections from the gossip she collected. Slowly, Kallen had begun to understand the complex social network that spanned the student body, and the many ties major and minor between the disparate members. At first she had focused her information gathering efforts on the obvious targets – children of titled nobility, ranking military and government officials, and of important corporate figures – but gradually she'd begun to focus instead on the people that they talked to, their friends and acquaintances, the second tier of the social hierarchy. These students, Kallen had reasoned, would be less invested in hiding whatever secrets they had learned from or about their social superiors, and so would be more likely to spill the beans.


The Algebra class finally came to a merciful end, and Kallen efficiently packed away her school things, making sure to keep her ears open as the class's forced silence exploded in a pent-up burst of conversation and chatter. Kallen didn't linger too long, not wanting her eavesdropping to be too obvious, and slowly made her way out of the classroom, joining the ebb and flow of students in the sumptuous halls of Ashford Academy. The place was richly decorated to the point of rococo gaudiness, but Kallen ignored the furnishings, even as she raged internally at the resources invested in gilding alone that could have been used to feed her people. As a daughter and heir of a noble house, however minor, Kallen was expected to be accustomed to the omnipresent decadent luxury surrounding her, and so she sank into her role.


As she made her way through the hallway, Kallen let a light smile touch her face, making a point to meet the eyes of everybody she could, doing her best to look as approachable as possible. She responded to the greetings of a knot of girls here, a handsome boy there, smiling and listening to what each had to say, complimenting each on their insight and intelligence as she drifted towards her next class.


Suddenly, an arm snaked around her shoulder and pulled her into a casual hug as an enthusiastic greeting was practically shouted into her ear. Kallen practically jumped out of her skin at the shock at the sudden, unexpected touch, and her hand was halfway to the concealed knife in her uniform jacket pocket before she realized she wasn't under attack. Instead of the red blood staining an already filthy white t-shirt, blankly staring eyes looking into hers until Tanya kicked trash over them attackers she half-expected, Kallen found the broadly grinning face of Milly Ashford three inches from her own, and belatedly summoned her "socialite smile" as quickly as she could.


"Kallen! It's so good to finally meet you in person!" The granddaughter of the Academy's principal and director had a broad, vulpine smile across her face, and her eyes glittered with enthusiasm and humor. "I'm Milly, but you probably know that already, huh? Welcome to Ashford Academy!"


"Oh, thank you! It's so good to finally meet you!" Kallen artlessly babbled back, doing her best to look as wide-eyed and innocent as possible. "Cafe Day was really fun! I wish I'd been feeling good enough to participate..."


Cafe Day had been the first of the infamous Milly events that periodically swept the school that Kallen had witnessed. Milly had abruptly declared the cafeteria the "Cafe Ashford" and forced her puppets on the School Council and whoever else had the misfortune to draw her attention to be the waitstaff and baristas at this cafe. Allegedly, the funds raised had been gone to an unspecified "good cause", but based on everything Kallen knew about the smirking blonde, she had her doubts about that.


"I'm happy to hear about your recovery, Lady Stadtfeld." Somehow, Milly's smile grew even more impish. "It'd be such a waste of a pretty young girl to be stuck at home in bed all day long."


Kallen shuddered internally at the lecherous glint in the older girl's eyes, but pressed on with her wide-eyed innocent act. "Absolutely! It's so good to finally feel like my old self again!" Suddenly, Kallen remembered that she hadn't told Milly about her illness or her alleged recovery. "But, how did you know that I was on the road to recovery?"


The lecherous smile dissolved into a smirk of self-satisfaction as Milly beamed. "My grandpa's the principal of the school, so I get to look through the records whenever I want! And lemme tell you, there's some interesting reading hidden between all the boring parts!" The blonde dropped an exaggerated wink as Kallen's eyes widened at the revelation. "Nobody in Ashford Academy has any secrets from me – not for long, at least!"


For a brief moment, Kallen suddenly felt like she was standing on the edge of a cliff, about to overbalance and fall. Does she know about Naoto and the Resistance? Is that what she's saying?! Her palm itched for her knife, but Kallen smashed her spiking fear of discovery back down. If she knew I was a killer and a rebel, she wouldn't have confronted me about it by herself in the middle of a school. Kallen reassured herself, She would have told the authorities, and I would've been arrested before I could run. Which brought up the interesting question about what secrets the blonde was alluding to, assuming she wasn't just bragging or fishing for information.


The only way out is through. Kallen thought, realizing that not showing any reaction or interest in such a statement would be a blatant sign that she had some sort of secret to hide. And if I can get in close with her, maybe I'll be able to get access to those records too! 'Audacity, more audacity, and always audacity', as the line goes. And so, instead of recoiling back from the smug Milly, Kallen summoned up her bravery and pulled Milly closer, letting her own smile broaden and sharpen to match the other girl's expression. "That so? Got any juicy morsels you'd like to share with me?" Doing her best not to gag at her own actions, Kallen leaned in closer, almost touching the other girl's nose with her own. "Cmon, you know you wanna. What's the point of having secrets if you don't tell anybody?"


For a moment, Milly Ashford looked absolutely poleaxed at the sudden reversal of the social momentum, but she quickly recovered her poise. She slid her arm down Kallen's shoulder and happily hooked her arm around Kallen's, and then half-walked, half-dragged the redhead down the hall, merrily and loudly talking about the myriad minor scandals and screw-ups that had occurred at the Academy recently, taking care to blatantly point out anyone who was both involved in the latest gossip and unfortunate to be out in the hall at that moment.


As they approached the location of Kallen's next class, she tried to subtly escape the blonde's surprisingly tight hold on her arm without success. Just as Kallen was about to give in to her impulse to force Milly to let go, the older girl turned on her heel and wrapped her in an overly fond farewell embrace, prattling on about how much she'd enjoyed speaking with Kallen and what a great listener she was. To Kallen's hidden rage, the blonde took the opportunity to let her hands roam up and down her back, and she only barely resisted the urge to forcibly shove the blonde against a wall and see how she liked being threatened with a knife and feeling the terror as the four men surrounded and her palms were so sweaty and the knife was trembling and oh god where was Naoto and...


Finally, Milly let go and bounced away, finding some fresh target to harass, and Kallen took a moment to close her eyes and take a deep breath. Holding back her anger suddenly seemed like an impossible task to Kallen, and she wanted nothing more than to flee this damned fancy piece of shit school and the scum who infested it. All for Japan. She thought, remembering Tanya's words as they sat together on some desolate street. I can endure this. It's all for the cause. Nothing's too big to sacrifice for a free Japan. As she entered her class, Kallen imagined introducing Milly to another blue-eyed blonde, and smiled dreamily imagining the likely result of that meeting. Someday, Milly, everything you love will burn. I promise you, by the time we're done, this whole wretched building will be ash.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 7: A Strategic Reorientation

(AN: Okay, welcome to what is basically Arc 2 of this story. This chapter fought me tooth and nail to get written, and I hope you like the result. Thank you to Siatru for beta reading this chapter.)


I woke up feeling exhausted, never an ideal start to the day. Every muscle in my arms, shoulders, and chest felt strained, like I had tried repeatedly to lift an overly heavy object, and my eyes felt as if they'd been glued shut. I recognized the feeling from my long-ago days of suffering through the Imperial aerial mage training program, where each day we were compelled to exert our magical abilities to the very knife's edge of collapse, day after day. The feeling of complete mana depletion also reminded me of that insane zealot of an orb development researcher, Dr. Schugel. The anger at the memory of that man's crazed eyes and scorn for safety features proved adequate fuel to pry my eyes open in the desperate attempt to escape. You're safe, I tried to reassure myself, you're not in the testing division anymore. You're... huh?


I could be wrong, but I was fairly certain I'd fallen asleep on one of the couches in the basement hideout, an admittedly uncomfortable place to sleep but far better than many other places I'd slept. But, judging by the sunlight flooding through a grimy window above me, I wasn't in a sub-basement any more. No... No, no, no! I remembered the last time I'd gone to sleep and awoken elsewhere – had I somehow died again in my sleep? Had I somehow been injured during the struggle and not noticed due to shock, or had artillery once again rained down and destroyed my world? Had Being X stolen my soul and forced it into yet another horrible situation just as my life in Shinjuku started to improve?


Fortunately, as the sudden adrenaline rush of pure horror filled my limbs with new energy, I recognized the room as Naoto and Ohgi's studio apartment, and indeed saw Naoto himself sitting at the table, munching on crackers. He had been staring off into space, no doubt weighing the options ahead for our group, but as I began to stir he blinked and looked over at me.


"Ah, Tanya. Good to see that you're finally up – I was beginning to wonder if you'd sleep all day!" Naoto's usually genial charm was present, but in a much lesser degree, and none of his usual energy was evident in his voice. He sounded worn out and dry, and from across the room I could smell the pungent reek of cigarette smoke. "How about you wash yourself and join me for a snack? I've got some things I'd like to go over with you."


I looked down at myself, and winced. My hands and wrists were reddish brown with blood from last night's mission, and I could feel the material of my sweatshirt tugging against my skin where the crusting dried blood had glued it to my forearm. Altogether, an unprofessional state to be seen in by a superior, particularly without the excuse of being at the front lines to mitigate the awkward situation. Idly, I wondered if this request for a sudden meeting with an undefined agenda was some sideways punishment for my slovenly behavior, but that seemed out of character for the slick managerial style of Kozuki Naoto's leadership. More likely he was giving me time to fully wake up before getting down to whichever brass tacks needed handling at the present, and had graciously suggested washing myself so I would have something to do as I shook off the cobwebs.


I nodded and responded with a chipper "Absolutely!" and sprang to my feet, or at least attempted to do so. My affirmation came out as more of a croak then a chirp, and I had to lean on the floor as I hauled myself up. I feel weak... What's happening to me? Instinctively, I ran through the usual equations for my enhancement package, but nothing happened. No familiar strength returned to my arms, and the absence of my typically enhanced reflexes was so unexpected I nearly tripped over my own feet as I made my unsteady way towards the kitchen sink.


I overdid it last night, that's the only explanation. I thought as I pushed the footstool Ohgi had brought home after my first week in the apartment in front of the sink. And then I didn't eat when I returned... I must be completely out of energy. I'd experienced something like this before, after the first time I'd activated the Type-95 and had nearly died from the sudden and uncontrolled elevation gain. My initial reasoning for trying to throttle that cursed orb in the crib had been my near-death experience on the testing field, coupled with my near total mana depletion after I'd managed to land safely back on earth. Only the intervention of Being X himself, his alleged "blessing", and his catspaw Schugel had forced that damned orb into existence despite the funding cuts to the development project my report had prompted. Another example of that bastard thinking that social laws and values don't apply to him. He had the power, so he did what he wanted. My legs quivered as I mounted the stool, but I gritted my teeth and forced them to steady as I turned on the sink. Thankfully, the water was working today, and after only a few halting spurts the ice cold water flowed freely from the tap. I wonder if the "Holy Britannian Empire" really was founded with his approval? They seem to have the same value system, after all. Do what you want, who cares what it costs everybody else.


The cold water was like a balm to my increasingly itchy skin, and the dried blood sluiced away down the drain. The rough soap stung the myriad irritations and sores left on my hands after hours of exposure to rotting blood, but the sting helped me ground myself in the moment almost as much as the bone-deep chill of the water. All too soon, my hands were clean, leaving me with no further excuses to dawdle, and so I turned off the water, hopped down from the stool, and joined Naoto at the table. He looked rather uncomfortable, for some reason, and didn't seem eager to start our conversation. Instead of saying anything, he just pushed the sleeve of crackers over to my side of the table. Out of courtesy, I took one and nibbled politely at it. Like a switch had been thrown, my belly made itself known and suddenly I could only think about how hungry I was, and how I had missed breakfast. Worse still, my stomach growled so loudly I was certain it was audible to Naoto, who thankfully merely raised an eyebrow and gestured at the crackers. Thankful, I took another, and another, mindlessly eating until I suddenly realized that half the sleeve was gone, there were crumbs all down my front, and that my enhancements had begun to work once again.


As I bit down into yet another cracker, Naoto chose that as his moment to speak up. "Tanya, I want to start off by saying you've been a huge help. I'm glad Ohgi found you and brought you here. I hope that you understand that we're all very impressed with what you've achieved these last few weeks -"


I nearly spewed crumbs across the table as his reserved tone sank in. I know this pattern! I was accustomed to sitting on the other side of the table, but I could recognize a disciplinary meeting when I was on the receiving end too. The vague compliments, the professional assurances... It's the softening up start of an HR meeting before the inevitable "but..."! I tried to marshal a defense, but I couldn't think of what I'd done to require official counseling. Is this because I acted without orders last night, and left Ohgi by himself? I had to take the initiative! I didn't have any means of communicating the evolving situation!


" - But I'd like to know where you want to go from here." Naoto continued, and my train of thought ground to a screeching halt. "As far as I can tell," he continued, seemingly unaware at how my panic sublimated into sudden confusion, "you're a great shot, and you've got a real knack for seeing opportunities and taking them." Wait, he's praising me for leaving Ohgi behind? That can't be right! "But yesterday, you also showed you could throw together a good plan, and get people on board with your ideas." Well, that's a relief... He's noticing that I have other competancies beyond just fighting! I'd known that Naoto was a good leader, but I'd been concerned that his warmongering tendencies would blind him to everything outside raw combat potential.


"And..." My heart sank in my chest. The way he'd enunciated that 'and', and the significant pause following it boded ill. "Ohgi and I have been talking, and we're worried that your abilities in the field might be impacted by how underweight you are." No! This isn't a disciplinary hearing! I'm going to get a medical discharge!


I began to muster a protest, flailing about for some way to convince him that I was fully capable despite my skin and bone appearance, but Naoto put up a hand, stopping my protest before it began. "I'm not saying you're doing a bad job or you're weak or whatever. I know your circumstances." He put his hand down and smiled at me. "I just want to point out that part of the haul you captured last night was a whole box of Britannian cash, so you can afford to buy plenty of food now from the black market." I had more or less forgotten about the money, as I had been certain it would be set aside for the operational needs of the cell. I hadn't realized that Naoto would let me use any of it for personal expenses. "So, here's my suggestion:" he continued. "I want you to take on more of the background work – talking with Inoue about supply questions, talking with Ohgi and I about potential strategies and targets, and all that kind of big picture stuff. At the same time, you can take the opportunity to eat as much as you'd like, and maybe work out with Tamaki and Nagata. Build up your muscle a bit, y'know? How does that sound?"


It sounded glorious. If I was reading this situation correctly, Naoto was offering me the managerial post I'd been dreaming of since I first joined this cell far earlier than I could have dreamed. If I started planning out operations with him and Ohgi to fulfill his father's strategic objectives, or if I began to help Inoue with expanding the cell's logistical base and reach, I'd be far too valuable to risk falling into enemy hands, and thus safe from front-line assignments. Plus, if I had enough money to buy my own food, I wouldn't need to work any more odd jobs to feed myself, so I would have enough time and energy to begin training this body back into something close to what I'd been like before a damned Republican shell had blown me back into Being X's hands. In fact, it sounded too good to be true.


Is this another test? I wondered, feeling unaccountably weary at the thought. Is he still doubting my commitment to the cause? Or is he seeing if I'm some kind of spy, who would jump at the idea of access to more information about what Lord Stadtfeld is planning? I was relieved I could, for once, easily discard my concerns. I'd given him no cause to doubt my reliability, and I'd proven my willingness to kill to further the cause of the cell. And the cell was currently far too small to justify inserting an agent to gather intelligence, so the whole idea that I was a planted spy would be laughable, especially considering the Britannian tendency of shooting any number that looked rebellious and only determining guilt after the fact.


I still felt myself waffling, though. Nothing this good came without major strings attached, in my experience, and I couldn't help but try and figure out what those strings were before I agreed. After all, when I'd thought I'd been assigned to a training squad, I discovered that the training squad also were the guinea pigs for prototype orbs. When command had picked up and implemented my rapid response mage battalion idea, I'd ended up stuck with the task of getting the whole concept to work. Even when I'd manage to knock Dacia out of the war in a month, my only reward had been deployment back to the Rhine Front, where I'd... where's my arm where's my face run out of luck.


Naoto interrupted my trip down memory lane with a deliberate cough. "Honestly, there's another way you could help the cell: if you gain a bit of weight, you'll look just like a Britannian. You're the only one of us who doesn't look obviously Japanese, but you're too skinny to pass as a Brit civilian right now." I don't know exactly what expression I made in response to that, but Naoto hastily began talking again, this time in a soothing tone, as if I'd pulled a gun on him. "Look, I know you hate Britannians, but just think about it, Tanya! You'll be able to infiltrate the Concession with ease! None of them would think a cute little girl is actually an agent of the Resistance! Remember your idea about selling drugs to the Britannians? Having an agent who can pass as Britannian and who looks so harmless would make that whole plan far simpler!"


At the "cute little girl" line, my hands had begun to ball into fists, but I took in a deep breath, relaxed them, and thought about the whole idea rationally. While my memories being dolled up for the Propaganda Bureau, with Visha enthusiastically cooing over me, were humiliating, they'd already proven useful when convincing Ohgi to give me a weapon. Ignoring the prickling in the corners of my eyes again as I started to cry again, dammit, why?! I looked back up at Naoto, nodded, and smiled.


"I'm eager to help the cell in whichever way you think is best." I began, but Naoto interrupted me for the second time. "No, that's not what I meant." He paused, seemingly going over his words, and began again. "I think you have the best understanding of what you are capable of, and you are intelligent enough to understand what we are trying to do. Hell, you basically made Tamaki reconsider why he's fighting Britannia in about three sentences. I want you to tell me where you think you'll do the most good, and I'll put you there." I had? When? When I'd insulted him? Wait, is he giving me the freedom to choose my own assignment?!


I had never had that kind of freedom before. In my corporate first life, I had been a cog in a machine, turning as I was directed to by those higher up. In my military second life, I had similarly been a small part of a far greater whole, my desires immaterial to the far away staff officers deciding where I was to go and what I was to do based on their own understanding of vast and intricate strategic plans. The only time I'd been given any degree of freedom to execute my orders as I'd seen fit had been with the creation of the 203rd, but it had been made clear to me from the beginning that my handling of that task would be under constant review. But now, I had found myself employed by what I was coming to understand was essentially a start-up operating in a hostile environment. That meant that there was no safety net in place, no appealing to higher authority or relying upon reserves of personnel or supplies, but that also meant that Naoto was free to operate his cell as he wished, as long as he carried out his backer's objectives. And so he'd decided to pass that freedom on to me...


I swallowed hard, trying to force the uncomfortable lump in the back of my throat down, and scrubbed vaguely at my eyes. I had begun to wonder if I had developed an allergy to dust or something, because recently I just kept tearing up during seemingly every conversation and it was because you were alone and hungry for so long that any kindness seems foreign very inconvenient and quite annoying.


"Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate your confidence in me." I was proud at how smoothly and professional that had come out, with only a minimum of the hoarse scratchyness of hay fever marring the delivery. I need to keep my cool! My mind whirred at the implications of what he was offering. I can't show too much enthusiasm or he'll doubt my ability to remain competent while self-directed! "If you don't mind, I would like to speak with Inoue and Ohgi first, so I can get a better understanding of how the cell operates, before I commit to any specific project or role."


Naoto smiled and nodded, the exhaustion I'd noticed stamped on his face seeming to fade into... relief? Was he worried I'd be offended by a promotion? That didn't make any sense – it was a rare employee who was opposed to climbing the totem pole, and I was certain I'd clearly signaled my desire to advance in the organization. Perhaps he was concerned that I might immediately let my new freedom go to my head and start issuing demands? I could understand that – some people always tried to take a mile for any inch given and felt no scruples about biting the hand that fed them. Fortunately, as an experienced corporate operator, I understood the importance of being loyal to patrons. He knew exactly the coin to buy my favor, I marveled at the savvy Naoto had just displayed. Certainly not an Alexander, perhaps more a Caesar on the rise? He's given me enough rope to hang myself, while also putting me deeply in his debt. He's giving me an opportunity to prove myself while keeping me firmly under his thumb. I had, of course, no ambitions of challenging Naoto for control of the group, as among other reasons I had no relationship to Lord Stadtfeld, but he didn't know that, and I could only admire the way he had dealt with a potential internal rival.


"Fine with me!" Naoto pushed off the table and stood, and I hastily made to drop the crackers and stand up as well, only for him to wave me back down. "No need. It's my mother's weekly day off today, and I'm meeting her for dinner." He walked towards the door, snagging his coat from the peg it hung by as went. "Ohgi will be back shortly, so he can take you over to the hideout if you want. Inoue should be coming in tonight to update our inventory, so you'll have an opportunity to talk with her as well if you'd like."


The implicit message was loud and clear. I wouldn't be allowed to sit on my laurels – Naoto had given me operational freedom, and he expected to see dividends quickly. "Understood! I'll get right on that." I chirped a reply, smiling coolly to try and express both my pleasure at my new assignment and my professional capacity. Naoto frowned slightly at that for some reason, but shook his head and left rather than raise whatever concern he had. Must be late for his dinner meeting.


---------


As I waited for Ohgi to show up, I sat and thought about what I could bring to the organization, and what the organization actually needed to further progress towards the goal, namely seizing de facto power over Area 11 by supporting Lord Statdfeld's political goals with Naoto's armed force. Truthfully, we were a long way away from fulfilling that lofty ambition, or my lesser personal ambition of holding a well compensated yet safe position in the Stadtfeld organization. As far as I knew, the total extent of the organization was six men and women in a bunker, seven if you counted Kallen, without any significant resources at our disposal to buy or bribe help.


A humble beginning to be sure, but we also had the advantage of being internally united, without any factions trying to challenge Naoto for leadership, and we were independent of any larger organization, meaning we were free to pursue our own goals. And since every other armed group in Shinjuku is hostile towards us already, we had an absolute abundance of targets


Our challenges could be broadly broken down into three mutually reinforcing issues: Lack of funding and supplies, lack of personnel, and lack of notoriety or public relations.


Without expanding our resource base and establishing more revenue streams, we would be unable to supply, arm, and train new recruits, conduct missions outside of Shinjuku, or pay bribes for information or assistance. I could help with this by negotiating with potential suppliers for better rates, scouting Shinjuku for opportunities to raid other organizations for their assets, or by attempting to find a way into the Concession.


However, our ability to establish new revenue sources would be dubious at best until we acquired more manpower. Our present numbers barely allowed for small hit and run missions, and the loss of even a single member would severely impact our organizational efficacy. In order for the Kozuki organization to survive, to say nothing of meeting our objectives, we needed to expand. I didn't think I'd be the best recruiter, considering my obvious mixed heritage and age, but if I encouraged other cell members to find likely candidates and bring them to me, I was sure that the personnel management skills I'd built up in my past two lives would help me sort the wheat from the chaff.


In order to recruit beyond the social circles of per-existing members, and in order to open up potential funding sources like donations from sympathizers, the Kozuki group needed more recognition, or at least notoriety. Our implicit goal was to serve as the red right hand and attack dogs for the Stadtfeld organization, improving the lives of the Japanese by usurping de facto power from the current Britannian administration, a goal that required us to be a feared element that the average Britannian knew existed. After some thought, I considered that the successful insurgencies of my first life had constructive elements as well as destructive tendencies – from religious extremists to fascist militias to dead-ender communist groups hiding in jungles and caves, all successful irregular forces offered something beyond the war to potential recruits. By contrast, the fools who had tried to take Arene from us had no goal, nothing to offer the people of their city, other than a momentary opportunity to take revenge on an occupying power. I remembered exactly how well that had ended for them.


As I began to consider how to deal with the Gordian knot these overlapping issues represented, Ohgi finally showed up, dripping with enough rain water to flatten his pompadour out completely. I desperately wanted to say it was a dramatic improvement, but it just made him look like a drowned man.


"Ah, good, you're finally here!" Before he'd even closed the door to the studio behind him, I was already up and moving. I didn't own a raincoat, but at least the rain would ideally wash the worst of the filth from my borrowed sweatshirt, and I had found a mostly intact umbrella while scavenging a weak ago. "Let's get over to the basement. I need to see what we've currently got stocked up, and what we need."


Ohgi looked unhappy at the prospect of going back out so soon, but after I pointed out that he was already soaked he gave in. Soon, we were heading through the rain-slicked streets of Shinjuku, carefully avoiding the many flooded areas and dodging around potholes.


The collapse of any kind of civic infrastructure in Shinjuku beyond impromptu repairs made by whoever cared enough to work had led to the effective destruction of the drain system in the Ghetto. Any storm drains that hadn't been destroyed during the combat or collapsed from neglect were jammed with accumulated rubble and trash, and flooded whenever any substantial quantity of rain fell. Worse yet were the old subway tunnels, many of which served as shelter for large numbers of Japanese refugees, particularly those newly forced into Shinjuku from areas annexed into the Concession. The broken tunnels were almost constantly wet, and some of the lower areas fully flooded during monsoon season, driving many out into the streets in search of alternative shelter and causing many of those who stuck it out below ground to catch pneumonia. Aside from the harsh winter months, the monsoon period was easily the worst time to be stuck in Shinjuku.


I considered this as Ohgi and I did our best to avoid the filthier puddles, where the corpses of drowned rats floated and the patinas of oil shimmered. I knew that some combat groups in the world I'd once lived in had conducted urban renewal programs and other civic improvements to buy the love of the local population and to burnish their credentials as the guardians of the common man, and I wondered if we could co-opt that strategy for our own purposes. Organizing whoever was willing to work would give us an excuse to talk to lots of people who were demonstrably interested in improving life in the Ghetto, and acquiring construction equipment would give us an excuse to haul large loads of materials around, which could make smuggling operations more practical as well. Further, if we could make contacts in the local construction firms, that could be a source of specialized labor, particularly people who have experience with demolitions and explosives, which might make it easier to produce material for bombs. Plus, we would actually be improving the lives of the people of Shinjuku, which would improve the group's PR and would reflect well on me.



I wondered idly if the group had ever considered that sort of public outreach as a recruiting tactic before. I wonder what recruiting tactics they've tried at all, considering how small the organization is. I looked up at the man stoically walking a pace ahead of me, doing his best to ignore the wind blowing the rain into our faces. Naoto said I should speak to Inoue and Ohgi, and referenced strategy and logistics when outlining potential ways I could assist the group. If Inoue is the logistics officer, is Ohgi in charge of planning? If so, he'd probably have a handle on recruitment efforts, if only in a supervisory role.


"Hey, Ohgi," I began, raising my voice slightly over the wind and taking a quick look around to see if there was anybody nearby to overhear. Fortunately, the rain had swept the people of Shinjuku from its streets as effortlessly as it had swept the garbage into the clogged gutters, and nobody else was foolish enough to be outside at the moment. "Can I ask you a question?"


Fortunately, Ohgi slowed down so I didn't have to try and keep up with him while holding a conversation. He looked miserable, but smiled encouragingly at me. "What do you want to know, Tanya?"


"How do we find people?" I tried to keep the question as general as possible, just in case the unmaintained streets had ears.


Ohgi sighed and shivered theatrically. "Well, Tanya, that's a pretty broad question, isn't it?" He muttered his response, stooping as a particularly strong gust threw the rain at us with renewed energy. "But considering what Naoto said he was going to talk to you about, I'm guessing you mean targets for your next attack, right?"


Figures that the sadist would immediately jump to the next battle. Honestly, if Ohgi was in charge of planning, it was miraculous the group hadn't been mired in constant running battles yet.


"I was actually thinking about recruiting." I decided to throw caution to the winds and stop beating around the bush. If Ohgi was willing to talk about my budding war on the yakuza in the open air, I could talk about recruitment. Plus, I was getting cold enough that I urgently wanted a distraction from the water running down my spine. "What recruitment operations are we currently running? I know you and Naoto go way back, but you can't recruit an army with social connections alone."


Ohgi grunted noncommittally, before sighing again. "We're not currently running any recruitment operations, Tanya. What you see is what we've got."


No way! Nobody's recruiting for this group at all? "But, what happens if someone dies? Or what happens if we need a mission that requires more than six people? Why aren't we recruiting?!" I tried to keep my tone politely professional, but a crack of anger came through on the last sentence. I just couldn't understand why the organization had neglected such a crucial function of any successful enterprise.


Ohgi winced. "Well, Tanya... None of us are professional rebels, you know? This cell just kind of... happened, once Naoto got back from Britannia. He had all kinds of ideas, and enough money and guns to get us started, but..." He winced again and swallowed. "Well, after we reached out to our old friends and acquaintances we thought would be interested, we didn't really have any idea where to go from there. You can't exactly publicly recruit for an anti-Britannian rebel group, you see?"


---------


I processed the information I'd gotten from Ohgi as we continued to make our way through Shinjuku. I had known the group was green when I'd first joined up, but I hadn't realized how inexperienced they really were. Looking back, I could see lots of things that should have clued me in to how new this cell was, including the way Naoto had carelessly revealed sensitive information and explosives in front of me, and how easy it had been to take down Tamaki.


I had fundamentally misunderstood a key aspect of my employment, and I was rapidly beginning to suspect that Naoto and Ohgi had also misunderstood the same thing I had. I hadn't really been on-boarded as an intern or an entry-level employee like I had suspected. Instead, I'd almost been hired on as something of an outside consultant, someone with valuable experience that could be used to improve the core experience of the group, given adequate time, resources, and freedom. I hadn't recognized that, because I was under the impression that the group was more established than it actually was. Naoto hadn't recognized that, because he hadn't expected someone of my physical age to contribute much to the group beyond another body to throw at problems.


Thankfully, in light of my recent achievements, Naoto had reconsidered my role and granted me the freedom I needed to really improve my new cell. I had earned sufficient respect from at the very least my supervisor and hopefully the rest of my comrades as well to propose alterations to the strategy of the group; now I would have to follow up by improving the operations necessary to make those strategies something other than idle dreams


---------


Inoue was already waiting for us in the thankfully dry sub-basement. Ohgi huddled near the generator, stretching his hands over the chugging machine in the hopes of warming them up just slightly, while I went to the lounge area to join Inoue, doing my best to ignore the wet chill of my clothes as I did so. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince her to start talking about the important matters of logistics until she had plopped a Britannian Army ration in front of me and acquiesced to her demand that I eat. I considered refusing, seeing how it would be difficult to maintain my professional poise with a mouthful of rehydrated spaghetti, but I remembered Naoto's exhortation to eat more so I would appear Britannian and gave in. The growling of my stomach had no impact on my decision making process, of course, but the chemically heated food did take the edge off the cold nicely.


"Naoto told me to tell you everything I can about how the cell's logistics work, so fell free to ask questions. Although, to be honest, there's lots of stuff I'm kind of unclear about myself... Most of our money comes from Naoto, who gets it from his father." Inoue had begun to brief me on the supply-side of our operations, starting with our revenue sources, of which we had essentially one. "I'm not exactly sure how that process works, but Naoto just hands me an envelope of money each month. Aside from that, we get some funding by selling goods we steal from Britannian owned warehouses and occasionally from the more isolated noble manors." As she went on, Ohgi joined me on the couch with his own packaged ration, but kept quiet as Inoue continued. "Most of these exchanges are cashless – we trade valuables or useful materials for weapons, ammunition, medical supplies, rations, so on and so forth."


I nodded. From my experience, most of the local Shinjuku economy was barter-based, and it made sense that the more pedestrian black market trades would follow suit. "What does the black market look like? Is it mostly independent sellers with informal connections to groups like yours? Or is it mostly gang representatives? Is there some kind of central venue, or is it more distributed."


"It's a pretty mixed bag." Inoue had begun to smile, and I wondered if she'd been eager for someone to talk shop with. "It really depends on what you're selling, and what you're trying to buy. Thanks to the Britannians," she grimaced, as did Ohgi, the default response to any mention of our hated conquerors, "even stuff you wouldn't think would be on the black market is, since they collect their 'taxes' as often as they send soldiers to patrol here. So, you've got lots of independents selling food, blankets, clothes, lightbulbs, hand tools, you name it, and they tend to sell out of their houses, or backrooms or whatever." She made a cutting gesture with one hand, as if setting that demographic aside.


"Then you've got slightly larger players who trade more specific, valuable items. Lots of them are around our size, less than ten people, and they tend to be dedicated to a specific type of item. Vehicle parts, medical supplies, medicine, computer parts, burner phones, that sort of thing. Usually valuable, usually portable, and something you'd probably get shot for if the Brits finding you selling it."


I nodded understandingly at that. Those were the bread and butter of groups like our own, and it was understandable that the Britannians heavily discouraged their sale to Elevens like ourselves. "And how do these small, independent operators sell their goods?"


"Well, that depends. Some of them have little hideouts like our basement." Inoue gestured at the bare cement walls, particularly the armory shelves. "There's a couple of loose groups that have banded together to hold periodic exchanges in a few of the more abandoned subway stations – the ones that are flooded half the year. They usually charge a small fee to enter, and usually apply a tax to sales made in their markets, which go towards bribing the Britannians to stay away from those areas. Oh yeah, those markets pretty much exclusively deal in Brit cash or valuables."


That raised an interesting point regarding the corruptibility of the local Britannian garrison, but Inoue was on a roll and I didn't want to divert her onto a tangent, so I just signaled for her to keep going.


The gray eyed woman nodded, and continued. "Above that, and you're getting into the lower end gangs, which is about as high as we've ever traded. They control the local weapons trade, and if you want to buy firearms and ammunition here in Shinjuku, you can't escape dealing with the gangs. Same goes for hard drugs, good medicine, explosives, and people."


That raised all kinds of questions, starting from 'can you be more specific about which gangs are involved in what?' to 'people?', and I decided to start with the most obvious one.


Inoue sighed. "Yes, people. The Britannians aren't the only slavers around in Shinjuku, I'm afraid. The gangs deal in kidnapping and ransom collection, and they sell people who they aren't paid for quickly enough to whoever wants to buy them, or put them to work in some of the more, ah... extreme entertainment areas catering to Britannians." She winced as she talked about the last bit, and I could understand why. Nobody wanted to talk to a child about human trafficking, after all.


That said, Naoto had clearly approached me as an adult capable of making my own choices, and if I backslid now when it would be convenient, he likely would lose faith in my ability to stand on my own two feet once Ohgi inevitably reported back to him. Time to nip this in the bud.


"Inoue, my mother was a prostitute." I began, choosing my words with care. "I know how she paid our rent and bought our food. I know what a brothel is. I'm fortunate that she cared enough about me to tell me which streets I should avoid at all costs, and the kind of men I should run from. You don't need to censor yourself around me."


Now Inoue and Ohgi both looked uncomfortable, which I regretted, but it had to be done. "Tanya..." Inoue began in a soft voice, "I wasn't just talking about prostitution. I don't know if it's still happening, but... Well, at least for a few years after the conquest, some of the Britannian nobles would pay to watch dogs sicced on Japanese. Apparently, they'd take bets on how many minutes it would take before the dogs would tear out their throats." She trailed off, and Ohgi chimed in with the caveat "At least according to the rumors."


Well, that was... interesting, in a way. It's utterly disgusting. It's a waste of human resources and displays a contempt for our common humanity. I supposed it wasn't too much of a stretch from the infamous Coliseum Games of the Romans, but the idea of being savaged by dogs before a crowd of watching Britannian nobles... I didn't need a new reason to hate the Britannians, and I didn't want to get overly emotional. I was here to do a job, and I could rage at the utter depravity of the barbarians who had conquered us later.


"Tell me more about the gangs. Do different gangs specialize in different goods? Do they have any sort of united governing organization, or do they compete against each other?"


Inoue shook herself, and continued, her voice returning to its previous, confident timbre. "The gangs are in no way united. They frequently go to war with each other, usually over territory, but sometimes over the right to sell at different markets." She took a breath, and continued in a lecturing tone. I wondered if Ohgi was the only former teacher in our ranks. "Basically, there are a few pieces of common ground throughout Shinjuku where weekly meets are held – they're pay to enter, but they tend to be pretty safe, since nobody wants business disrupted. The gangs tend to work out who will get to sell what or where either by negotiating or fighting during the week before the market."


Ohgi looked up from his ration again. "They're usually a pretty well attended affair. Lots of Japanese, but lots of Britannians there too – soldiers and nobles usually, but you get a few corporate types every now and again."


Which led neatly into another useful discussion topic. "How corrupt are the Britannians here?" I asked. "Clearly there's some on the take, but how do you know which ones won't just shoot you and take the cash?"


Inoue nodded briskly. "Great question. That's always a risk, especially as you go higher up in the food chain." She began tapping on the table, presumably burning of stress as she continued. "If you can, approach soldiers from the homeland, not the other areas. They're more confident in their supremacy, so they'll take the bribes as their due and leave you alone. The ones drawn from other Number populations feel the need to prove their loyalty, so they're less willing to take a bribe – or pricier if they do."


"Approach the common Britannian soldiers, and be prepared to spend a great deal." A simple rule. "Makes sense. Anything else?"


"Check their uniforms." Ohgi had finished his food, and leaned in to the discussion. "Their bodies and posture too. If their uniforms look shabby, or if they're overweight or slouching, they're probably not worried about looking good or working hard. They're usually the ones willing to take a bit to look the other way."


That seemed like a decidedly risky assumption to make, and I took it with a grain of salt, remembering that the cell was almost as new to all this as I was. But, they're still alive and free, so they might be onto something. It did mesh with what I remembered from my time in the Imperial Army – most of the time, the more slovenly a soldier was, the less concerned with they were. On the other hand, if they had just signed up for the opportunity to kill with impunity, they'd be equally unconcerned with the niceties of military life and perfectly willing to murder.


After that, the meeting gradually wound down, until Inoue announced she had to get home to make dinner for her aged parents. I thanked her for her time, and reassured her that Ohgi and I would shut down the generator and lock up before we left. I took the opportunity to convince Ohgi to join me for a bit of target practice, and spent the next hour improving his accuracy with great results. He seemed somewhat bemused at being instructed by a biological child, inverting the relationship he was accustomed to, but to his credit he dutifully corrected his grip when prompted and stopped jerking the pistol up when he pulled the trigger.


After another wet walk back home, I found myself back under my blanket with a mind brimming with ideas. It was clear that the gangs had to go, but if they had that much traffic with Britannians someone would have to at least temporarily step into the market gap to prevent the Britannians from doing so themselves. Except for the human trafficking market segment, which would have to be torn out root and branch. On the plus side, freed slaves have always been an excellent source of rebellious fighters with nothing to lose.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 8: A Look Outside

(AN: A big thank you to Siatru for beta reading this chapter.)


"-And so, I propose we focus on public improvement projects. Not only will this have an immediately positive impact on our neighborhood, but it will both endear our organization to the locals and differentiate us from the gangs as a source of constructive employment." I looked up from my page of notes, densely covered in a scrawl of mixed kanji and Germanian, and met Naoto's gaze from across the table. And now, to conclude. "As such, we should prioritize importing staple foods in bulk, multi-vitamins, and portable water purifiers. While this will have a less immediate impact then handing out weapons to anybody who can use them, it will likely produce more long-term support without attracting immediate retaliation from the gangs." Not to mention that untrained fools running around with guns would be more likely to shoot each other than the Britannians.


"Of course," I continued, "the question of funding presents a potential stumbling block." As always, the hardest part of any pitch was convincing the client to part with their cash. And unfortunately, there really was no way around it. "At the moment, we lack the necessary revenue streams to initiate a true revitalization project – not to mention that any sign of sudden prosperity in the Ghetto runs the risk of attracting interest from the Britannians or the gangs." Shifting the focus from the lack of organizational liquidity to other concerns would help the medicine go down. "However, I believe that a pilot program funded by the income from the raid two days ago will demonstrate the potential benefits this program has to offer."


The morning after I'd met with Ohgi and Inoue, I had woken even earlier than normal and begun to assemble a new strategic pitch based on what I'd learned and seen. I'd worked through the day, weighing ideas and trying to suss out all points of failure, and had ended up burning through several plans before settling on my current concept.


At present, the Kozuki cell in Shinjuku was weak, and wouldn't be able to attack either the gangs or the Britannians head-on. We'd only achieved our first minor victory through ambush, and I couldn't count on my luck holding, not with Being X no doubt still laughing at me from his timeless moments. After some war-gaming, I decided that attempting to subtly escalate hostilities between the gangs would be a bad move – even if we weren't caught in the inevitable crossfire, lots of ordinary civilians would be, which would go against the stated aim of the organization with minimal benefit. Besides, Japanese civilians wouldn't be the only ones potentially caught in the crossfire, considering the number of Britannians who attended various unsavory entertainments hosted by the gangs, and nothing would stir up official interest in Shinjuku faster than dead Britannian nobles.


My next thought was trying to take the fight to the Britannian Concession, specifically the newly dubbed "Tokyo Settlement". Unfortunately, the difficulty of smuggling things into the Concession, as well as our lack of the necessary expertise and material, forced me to shelve this plan for the foreseeable future.


Similarly, my plan to begin generating funding for the rebellion by smuggling amphetamines and other drugs into the Concession had to be shelved for the same reasons. We lacked the expertise and material to really establish a profitably large supply of drugs to distribute in the Britannian sectors, as well as the means to smuggle the product from Shinjuku to the Tokyo Settlement.


But while smuggling items from Shinjuku into the Tokyo Settlement was difficult, the inverse wasn't necessarily true. If Inoue and Ohgi were correct, large numbers of Britannian nobles, soldiers, and commoners were coming to the Shinjuku Ghetto on a routine basis, and were greasing the palms of the guards to take no official notice of them or their activities. This meant that not only were significant numbers of the local garrison willing to be bribed, they were also unconcerned about items being smuggled into Shinjuku.


Ultimately, the best plan I could come up with was to adopt a more constructive approach towards our dealings with the people of Shinjuku. The people here had virtually nothing beyond the clothes on their backs – starvation and disease were constant facts of life, and the squalid living conditions did nothing to improve either the health or the long-term prospects of the people. Giving them anything would help us secure both their loyalty and the bone fides as true defenders of the Japanese man in the street.


I figured that the best place to start would be addressing the ever mounting food shortage. Importing bulk amounts of staple grains into the Ghetto would at least keep bellies full, while bringing in multivitamins would hopefully offset the results of nutritional deficiencies, like scurvy and rickets. Water purifiers would help reduce the negative health factors of life in Shinjuku, and would hopefully reduce the high post-Conquest rate of child mortality as well, preserving the labor force of tomorrow.


Naoto looked thoughtful as I shuffled my notes. I hoped at least some of what I'd said had gotten through to him. I knew he was the hot-blooded sort, and this sort of non-confrontational strategy probably hadn't been what he'd been hoping for since he'd promoted me after my strike on the gang members, but I'd made sure to frame my plan as merely preparatory, building up our base of public support and personnel before we struck out against the parasitic gangs and the hated invaders.


Finally, he stirred. "Well, Tanya, this is certainly... ambitious. You've got some really great ideas here. But..." He paused, looking unsure of what to say next, and leaving me full of anxiety as the momentary pause stretched on. But? But what?! What's your objection? Just spit it out already.


Before Naoto could express his reservations, someone knocked on the apartment door. With an expression of clear relief, Naoto lept to his feet and looked into the peephole. I quickly spun up my enhancements, ready to hurl myself towards the pistol concealed behind a pot on the counter, but relaxed as Naoto let Kallen into the room.


The younger Kozuki looked incongruously out of place in the dingy apartment, sparkling clean in clothes that, while not flashy, were a significant step above the shabby hand-me-downs worn by practically everyone else in Shinjuku. In a peculiar way, her blatantly Britannian appearance probably kept her safer than any attempt at blending in would have, considering the typical punishment meted out for any Britannian death. I could only imagine that the standard one hundred punitive executions would likely be far more enthusiastic than normal if the Britannian in question was the pretty young daughter of a powerful lord, instead of some random worker or soldier.


"Kallen! Good to see you! How was school?" Naoto enthusiastically greeted his sister as she walked over to the table and took the seat he'd just occupied. I nodded at her, and she smiled and nodded back at me before turning back to her brother.


"It's got way too many Britannians in it – just like the rest of Japan." Kallen quipped, a sharp smile that didn't reach her eyes on her face. "That said, it's gotten pretty interesting lately." She turned back to me and dropped the smile. "So, I met someone who might be a useful source of info, but she keeps dropping hints that she knows something about me."


Behind her, I saw Naoto's eyes widen in alarm, and I did my best to avoid following suit. I can't lose my cool in front of the troops, but this could be bad – if Kallen's been found out, she could have just led the whole Britannian army to our door!


I took a deep, calming breath, and put aside my worry. If we were already doomed, we were doomed, and there was no use panicking about it. "Kallen, are you in danger? More to the point, are we about to get our door kicked down by the Britannians?"


She looked puzzled, then laughed. "No, no. I was thinking the same thing when I first met her, but she said she knew a secret of mine in the middle of a hallway at school, and has been hanging out with me ever since." Naoto and I relaxed, releasing our breaths in sync. "It's starting to piss me off," Kallen continued, looking increasingly frustrated. "That damned Milly Ashford just isn't leaving me alone – any time I'm outside of class, she's practically hanging off my shoulder! She even follows me into the bathroom!"


Now Naoto looked concerned for a different reason, but I set aside his brotherly worries and focused on the name Kallen had just dropped. "Milly Ashford? Any relation to the Ashford who started the academy?"


"Yeah, she's old Ruben Ashford's granddaughter. He's still running Ashford Academy, by the way." Kallen took back the notebook, and turned to a page near the back before pushing it back across the table. "Anyway, here's what I know about her so far."


Apparently, the Ashfords weren't actually nobility, at least not anymore. They'd backed the wrong horse during one of the royal family's internal squabbles, and been stripped of their titles as a result, but apparently not their wealth or much of their property. They had chosen to exile themselves in Area 11 after the Conquest, and had opened the doors of Ashford Academy a year after arriving. Why would a disgraced noble family move to Japan and start an educational institution? It made no sense, as far as a strategy to reclaim their standing as aristocrats went. No matter how valuable they are for the administration, nor how many contacts they make with the local movers and shakers, Area 11 is pretty provincial as far as Imperial Areas go. The only truly important thing about Area 11 is its strategic Sakuradite reserve, but that was almost certainly locked down under the personal supervision of the royal family.


I set my curiosity about the Ashford family's status aside for the moment, and quickly read the profile Kallen had drawn up for Milly. It sounded like the girl was every inch a noble, official status notwithstanding, a consummate socialite and completely unable to separate business and pleasure. She certainly wasn't a fool, though – based on Kallen's notes, Milly was frighteningly good at uncovering secrets and deploying them to devastating social effect, and had essentially unquestioned control over the student body beyond what the cachet of being the principal's granddaughter could explain. Combined with her apparent at-will access to student records, I could understand why Kallen was attempting to cultivate Milly as a source.


That said, a knife that sharp can cut both ways. "Be very careful with her, Kallen." I advised as I closed the notebook and handed it back. "She's a master of intrigue, and you're just a novice. Don't let her get in your head – remember your objective, and don't let her endanger you or the cause." Kallen gave a determined nod, and I smiled. She's so dutiful... And those were pretty thorough notes for an amateur, and very well organized... If she knows how to brew coffee, she might make a good adjunct...


I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and ignored the phantom scent of ersatz yet delicious coffee, mixed with cordite and mud. That was long ago, and far away.


Naoto and Kallen were both looking at me, and both looked worried about something. For lack of a better response, I gave my usual dimple smile and shrug combination, hoping the cutesy act would distract from whatever it was that had made them look at me with the same pity you show a crippled relative stuck in a hospital bed, the same contempt veiled in compassion that way.


"Oh, I've got an idea!" Naoto's blatantly fake cheeriness was as welcome as it was forced, moving the conversation along. "Kallen, Tanya wants to look into buying some good food outside of Shinjuku – why don't you help her with that?"


And suddenly I felt like I was back in the middle of that damned photoshoot, the photographer and... the photographer ooh'ing and aah'ing over me, and forcing me into the most ridiculous outfits. Kallen's eyes seemed to change, shifting from her typically intense glare to a more coldly analytical focus.


"We're going to have to get her in some better clothes first." Kallen's voice had changed too, and I felt my heart drop into my stomach at the note of eagerness under the detached tone. "I've got some old clothes that might just be a bit too big for her back at the Manor."


Naoto smiled with apparent sincerity at this idea, and I felt the jaws of inescapable fate close around me. I'm not some kind of doll, dammit! Why do people get so enthusiastic about dressing me up?! Apparently, my consternation was not as well hidden as I thought, as Naoto's smile slipped momentarily when he looked back at me, but he recovered immediately.


"C'mon, Tanya, it's a great idea! You'll get some new clothes, some good food... What's not to like?" Naoto's damned charisma made my initial objections about being subjected to this errand catch in my throat, and I felt myself beginning to slip down the path to meek acquiescence. Gah! No, I need to come up with something! The last thing I need is to show up looking even more Britannian than I already do! Tamaki will never take me seriously! I cast around, trying to find something to object about.


Fortunately, Kallen threw me a lifeline. "Well, she does look pretty Britannian with those blue eyes, but she doesn't speak English. It's going to be a problem getting through the checkpoint, especially if the damned guards actually feel like doing their jobs."


Naoto nodded at that, before adopting a thoughtful expression. "Maybe she could just pretend to be very shy and quiet? You can do the talking, and translate for Tanya once you reach the grocery store?"


And now I had a different problem. I did know some English from my first life and from the first years of schooling I'd had in this life, but I was certainly rusty at best; the problem was that my value as a potential infiltrator into Britannian society would drop like a stone if Naoto thought I couldn't speak the language.


And so, for the first time in over five years, I decided to take a stab at speaking the tongue of perfidious Albion. "I 'ave... zum English." My voice was slow and halting, the unfamiliar consonants catching in my mouth. "I vas... top student... in shool, before."


On one hand, I hated how childish I sounded. My clunky sentence structure, the halting gaps as I grasped for words, the way my already high voice piped at the end of sentences, all of it was embarrassing. On the other hand, the surprise on the Kozuki siblings' faces was delicious, particularly Kallen's open mouthed gape as I forced the sentences out.


"Ze teacher... said I vas... quick study." I continued, trying to remember how to make the th sound and trying to figure out why my enunciation was so clearly Germanian. I hadn't learned English from a German in my first life or a Germanian in the second, but clearly years of speaking one western language had impacted my accent in another. "But I only... remember... ze basic vocabulary... I fear."


Naoto was grinning like a fool, the bastard, and clapped me on the back. "You're already speaking better than half the hooligans in our old neighborhood!" He said in English, taking care to speak slowly and deliberately before switching back to Japanese. "Don't worry, you can just reply to everybody who asks you a question with 'whatever' – you're almost a teenager, they'll expect you to be a passive aggressive little brat at your age! Kallen sure was!"


As the ensuing sibling squabble played out in the background, I surrendered to the inevitable and began to pull on my shoes. My hand itched to snag my pistol, to not enter enemy territory unarmed, but I knew that a shabbily dressed apparent Britannian would be one thing for the soldiers manning the checkpoint to overlook – an armed vagrant would be something entirely different. And so, sadly unarmed, I followed Kallen out of the apartment and down into the street.


As we walked towards the checkpoint, the familiar anxiety of walking into a major meeting unprepared began to grow within me. There were so many points of failure in this little excursion alone, and I lacked information I needed to ensure my safe return to Shinjuku. Will anyone recognize my accent and think I'm a European spy? How am I going to carry my purchases back into Shinjuku without getting stopped? Will the soldiers manning the checkpoint ask for my papers?


Fortunately, that last concern proved almost completely unwarranted.


"Ah, Lady Stadtfeld! You're back already, huh?" All of the soldiers looked identical in their body armor and full-face helmets, but I saw a chevron on the shoulder of the one who greeted Kallen as she presented her ID. "I don't blame you for hurrying – the whole place is just full of the stench of Elevens, huh?"


I tensed slightly, remembering the fire in Kallen's eyes back on that lonely street. Fortunately, she demonstrated an admirable degree of professional detachment; somewhere between Naoto's apartment and here, Kallen's persona had changed completely. Instead of her typical intense stare, full of passion and vigor, her eyes were meek and soft, as was her voice as she replied. "Thank you for your concern, Sergeant. I managed to complete Mother's errand unexpectedly quickly today." She stepped through the checkpoint and waved at me, beckoning me to join her. I quickly reviewed how Kallen had she'd carried herself, squared my shoulders, and walked up to the checkpoint.


"And who's this?" The Sergeant was unsurprisingly unimpressed by my diminutive form, and I did my best to not shrink back. I'd killed men like him by the hundred over the Rhine Front, and I'd killed two more with just a knife and the element of surprise only days ago. I was unarmed, but I was far from helpless. "Where's your papers, girl?"


Kallen walked to my side, and put a hand on my shoulder. "Mother sent me to retrieve her. It's not something I'm at liberty to discuss, Sergeant. I thank you for you discretion in this matter." She reached out towards the soldier, and I saw a quick flash of a small bundle of bills changing hands. Surprisingly, he didn't even count it, just hastily made it disappear into a pouch on his belt.


"Well, far be it to get in the way of your mother's errands, Lady Stadtfeld." He stepped back, and waved us through. "But if you want my advice, you should probably give the poor girl a meal and a bath – she stinks almost as bad as one of those monkeys if I can smell her through this helmet!"


Kallen dutifully thanked the sergeant and bade him a good day, as I quietly stood slightly behind her, doing my best to ignore the squad of armed soldiers idling about the checkpoint. I didn't know if they would have been as willing to accept a bribe in the broad daylight if I had looked even the slightest bit like an Eleven, or if the person facilitating my exit from Shinjuku wasn't the heir of a noble house, but either way it had proved immaterial. Locating a source of ID cards, papers, and cover identities is going to be a priority.


After passing through the checkpoint, Kallen and I moved off down the road at an unhurried pace, doing our best to look as natural as possible. At least, I had to try to look natural and uninterested in the world around me – this was the first time I had left Shinjuku Ghetto since my mother and I had been forced into the district after the Conquest. For years, my world had been constrained by the Britannian checkpoints and the walls that cordoned off most of the Ghetto from the outside world. While the northwestern side of the Ghetto, the furthest area from the Tokyo Settlement, didn't have a wall, it was also far enough away by foot that I'd never ranged that far from my old apartment when looking for work.


It felt like I'd once again traveled to a different world. The handful of people out on the street around me reminded me of American television shows I'd occasionally watched in my first life, more than anything else. Predominantly Caucasian, the people around me dressed in a wide variety of clothes, and all of them seemed to practically glow with health and cleanliness. Thinking rationally, I knew they were just people, no different than the standard Japanese crowds that had occupied the Tokyo of my first life, and in some ways less remarkable than the magical Imperials of my second life's Berun, but... After so long in the slums, they looked almost like a different species. They even carried themselves differently – in the slums, most people carried the burdens of their life under occupation on their backs, but here all the Britannians walked upright with pride.


Suddenly, I realized just how out of place I looked. It had been easy to understand that intellectually back in Shinjuku, especially after meeting Kallen for the first time and being reminded what people with food security looked like, but the emotional weight hadn't quite hit. In Shinjuku, Kallen looked ridiculously out of place, and it was easy to dismiss my own qualms about my appearance due to both the sheer incongruity of her appearance in the slum and her family's excellent genes. Outside of the Ghetto, the novelty of her appearance had worn off, but the differences were just as profound. The weight of how wretched I looked sank into my bones as I thought about the heavily worn and mended clothes I was wearing, and how the bones stood out in my hands.


The momentary shame quickly sublimated into an internal rage, and I found myself sympathizing with Tamaki's reaction to an apparent 'Brit' in his safehouse. The simple knowledge of how wide the gulf was between how our two populations lived was infuriating, and I wanted nothing more than to see everything around me burn. These happy people weren't better than me; they'd had the freedom to go to school, the freedom to eat their fill, and the freedom to enjoy life and to pursue their enjoyments. For them, the prospect of a middle-management job at a good company or in the Administration's bureaucracy wasn't a grand ambition, but a solid career goal. I'm sure if any of them knew my secret ambition, they'd think it terribly small and pedestrian. One day, I swore as Kallen and I arrived at a bus stop, one day I'll collect every bit of backpay and every reimbursement the world, the Holy Britannian Empire, and Being X owe me.


The bus was on time, and as clean and pleasant as the streets it trundled down. The walls and seats were free of graffiti, no haunting smell of urine lingered, and the bus driver smiled and greeted us as Kallen swept her card through the reader twice, paying our fare. I noticed the driver was Eleven, and thus an Honorary Britannian, and I couldn't find it in me to hate him or his choice to collaborate. His eyes were downcast, but his cheeks were full and rounded – clearly, his decision to participate in the new order when given the choice had yielded a degree of material benefit. I can't say that I wouldn't have made the same choice, if it had ever been offered to me, and if I felt for an instant that all the propaganda about Honorary Britannians having a path to successful integration in the Empire was true. I doubted this man or his children would ever rise above being bus drivers or other menial jobs, but that also implied that he would live long enough to have children, a victory in itself.


Kallen and I found our way to seats, and sat quietly as the bus continued along its route. Kallen pulled out her phone, and appeared to be texting somebody, but I didn't want to ask her about it here – speaking in Japanese would have immediately revealed our personal loyalties, and my atrocious English would be almost equally suspicious. Instead, I looked out the window as the Tokyo Settlement went past, and discovered what our conquerors had built atop the land they had stolen from us.


I had never had much interest in architecture, beyond marveling at the sprawling heap that was the Imperial Army's General Headquarters, but even I could see that the entire Concession was full of new construction. Everything was very Western, of course, and I couldn't see any hint of Japanese accents or flavors in any of the immaculate structures. Strangely enough, it didn't look particularly American either, which I would have expected considering the geographic location of the Britannian Homeland. Instead, it felt more like the Gothic style of the Renaissance, crossed with some author's view of a 'city of tomorrow', all expressed in ultra-modern materials. Like most things Britannian, the city that they had built was gaudy, inefficient, and egotistical in the extreme. This was the full expression of the ancient tradition of absolute monarchism, unbridled by even a fig leaf of constitutional government and reliant upon the divine right of kings and naked force. Between the communists and the monarchists, it's hard to decide which is the more illogical and inefficient system of governance.


Eventually, we ended up at a stop in a very nice neighborhood, full of gigantic houses that practically dripped with ostentation. I noticed Kallen slip a bill into the small tip box hanging by the driver's station as we made our way off, which was interesting. I had pegged the Kozuki siblings as being driven into taking up arms against Britannia by a combination of ideological and mercenary factors. While they definitely had beefs against the Britannian racial caste system, they were also using the resistance to install a rival faction into power. Neither motivation explained Kallen's apparent sympathy for Honorary Britannians, though, and I was somewhat surprised by her tenderheartedness. Surely an anti-Britannian zealot would have held collaborators and traitors to the cause in contempt, and a mercenary fighting for their family's glory and power would not care about the well-being of a lowly, honest worker.


As I tried to decipher what Kallen was signalling with this small act, we began to walk down the spacious boulevard, past gated house after gated house. Although, 'house' didn't really encompass the mini-Versailles set back from the road by at least a few hundred meters, each surrounded with gardens and lawns. Pocket-sized or not, they were shockingly huge and luxuriously decadent for being only a half hour away from Shinjuku by public transport.


"Okay, so... Before we get to my family's manor, there's a few things you need to know." Kallen spoke in Japanese, low and fast, as we proceeded. Her face had begun to redden along her cheekbones, but her expression displayed angry resentment rather than any embarrassment. "After my father returned to Japan after the Conquest, he looked up his old family again. My mother," Kallen's usually attractive face twisted in disdain, "was of course all too happy to pick back up again with him. To be a family again."


The redhead sneered at the idea, and I kept silent, nodding along attentively to show I was listening. I knew that Naoto and Kallen had come into contact with their noble father again after a separation during the Conquest, and for some reason their father had picked Kallen to be his heir. Judging by the sheer vitriol in the girl's voice, she had strong, unresolved feelings about the matter.


"Anyway, Naoto was pretty happy to see him again too. They'd been really close, back before he left us, and he'd sent enough money to keep us housed and fed, so I could understand that." Kallen's face relaxed, the sneer falling away and leaving an expression of weary acceptance behind. "I mean, he wasn't as bad as he could've been. I know that he took care of us, gave us money and stuff, but..." She kicked at a trash can as we passed. "He wasn't there, dammit! Naoto had to constantly fight every damned Britannian piece of shit in the neighborhood after Father decided to start paying for our housing again, and somehow Naoto did a better job helping me and Mom out than he did!"


We walked a bit further as Kallen took some deep breaths and tried to calm down. I felt entirely at a loss about what to say to any of this. I'd felt the same way before, when Kallen had been trying to deal with the aftermath of her first kill, but that was something I understood, and something I could help with. At least my mother never left me. I had sometimes wondered, back at the orphanage, what it would have been like to meet my second life's biological parents, assuming Being X hadn't just created my body from thin air and stuffed my soul into it. Would I have had the same feelings of angry betrayal that Kallen had, if I'd ever met the woman who'd abandoned her baby with the nuns?


"I'm pretty sure he wanted to adopt Naoto as his legitimate heir and son, but I guess Naoto just looked too Japanese to pass as a full Britannian." It was interesting that Kallen and Naoto didn't exhibit any sibling rivalry. It sounded like Naoto had done the hard work of keeping Kallen and their mother alive during the initial post-Conquest years, but when the boss had come back, his little sister had gotten the job as official heir and the cushy lifestyle attached. Maybe he was just too interested in fighting, and didn't want the political and social burdens? "He basically gave Naoto whatever he wanted in terms of money and his blessing, and sent him on his way."


Was that when the plan for Lord Stadtfeld's gambit had begun? She didn't mention anything like the father and son working on a plan or a project... Did neither of them actually tell her the plan? That would explain why she didn't understand the implications of her schooling... Or is she just doing her job and maintaining information security? I felt like I was missing some key aspect to the whole plan, and it made me uneasy, but I decided I could consider that later and re-focused on Kallen's continuing briefing on her family.


"Of course, he didn't marry my mother – she's a common Eleven, and she started going a bit crazy after Father abandoned us for years. Definitely not marriage material for a noble. But, he did feel sorry for her, so he graciously gave her a job as a maid." Kallen's words dripped with a level of sarcasm reserved for teenagers, and she clearly didn't understand how thoroughly she'd misunderstood the situation. Her father had given her mother a job where he could easily carry on an affair with her at any given moment, where she had an excuse to be around her daughter all day, and where he could make sure nothing too consequential happened to her. My mother had been a common prostitute, and she'd slept with a bastard of a landlord in exchange for a single small room. It sounded like Kallen's mother had negotiated a far better deal from her client.


"But, being a noble, he had to marry someone, because otherwise he'd look weak. Thing was, nobody really wanted to marry their daughters to him, since he already had an heir, so they wouldn't have a chance to get their hands on the Stadtfeld estate." That made sense to me. The main point of aristocratic marriage was forming alliances, and if no heirs were expected out of the union, the prospect of a multi-generational alliance was unlikely. "So he found a barren old bitch to marry instead. She's sterile, so her family was happy to marry her off to him, which is good and all for him, but she absolutely hates me."


Not particularly surprising. It must be frustrating to be unable to do the sole task you were brought up and trained to perform. "Does she hate you because you're not her child, or does she hate you because of your heritage?" I wondered aloud, mostly to just keep the conversation moving as we walked. I doubted Kallen was interested in rapprochement, but I was somewhat curious about the source of the stepmother's dislike. Was she a simple racist, and thus likely not involved in Lord Stadtfeld's plan? Or was she resentful that the heir to the hidden kingdom he was setting up in the Area 11 Administration wouldn't be her child?


Kallen merely grunted and shrugged. "Dunno. Probably both. She's not exactly a fan of Japanese, but the only non-Britannian servant we've got is my mother. She might just hate her because, well..." She kind of waved at herself, before shrugging again. "It's not really important. What is important is that we get in, get you changed, and get out as fast as possible. I've never..." She started to blush, and sped up slightly for some reason, and I had to rely on my enhanced strength to keep up with her pace. "I've never brought a friend home before, and I don't want her asking who you are or anything like that."


Finally, we were moving back to something I could understand. Tactical objectives and planning were, of course, second nature to me after my acceptable performance at the Imperial War Academy. I was certain I'd be able to throw a plan together to get me to Kallen's room, secure the objective, and escape out the door without being detected.


However, my planning acumen went unused, as Kallen simply greeted the man at the front gate of her manor's property and strode in like she had every right to be there, which I suppose she did, sweeping me along in her wake. As we approached the house, she began to slow down, eventually coming to the door at a sedate and ladylike walk. The doorman bowed as she entered, and didn't so much as raise an eyebrow as I followed her inside. I tried to emulate the dainty, almost mincing gait Kallen adopted as we crossed the foyer, but after nearly tripping myself I simply resumed my typical walk instead, keeping behind her as we climbed up a sprawling flight of stairs and crept down a hallway. The floor was covered with a plush carpet with thick pile, which muffled the sounds of our feet, and we went some distance into the manor before we encountered anybody else.


She was dressed in a traditional Victorian maid's uniform, complete with white apron and long sweeping skirt, but her eyes and facial shape betrayed her Japanese ethnicity. As we approached, she turned and looked at us, and before she bowed I could tell she was Naoto's mother. She had the same nose and cheekbones as her son, and strangely for a Japanese woman, the same blue eyes as both of her children. Beyond her eyes, she looked nothing like her daughter. It's strange that both of her children are redheads when she's a brunette. Is the red hair allele not recessive in this world? Unlike her children, Ms. Kozuki's eyes looked almost blank in their placidity. Her expression reminded me of many of my neighbors in Shinjuku, and I internally revised my estimation of Lord Stadtfeld's actions in regards to his paramour. If he had tried to keep her close to protect her and his daughter, he'd clearly failed; she had the same despairing cast to her features that many Japanese had, the look of people caught in terrible situations without any hope of a better life.


"Oh, Mistress Kallen. Good morning to you. I see you've brought a friend home with you today."


Ms. Kozuki's voice was quiet and deferential, and she bobbed her head as she addressed her daughter. It was heartening to see that, for all the burden on the woman's shoulders, she was still able to act with professionalism, even when in private with only her daughter and her daughter's friend. It's such a pity that more people can't remain professional while on the clock when they've got friends or family hanging around. It was part of the reason I'd never pursued any work friendships in my first or second lives – it was too easy to get distracted from the job at hand if you focused on your social life instead.


Kallen's response was decidely less professional, and entirely unbecoming for a superior speaking to a valued employee, much less a family member.


"Shut up. It's none of your business. We're going to my room." Without any further explanation, Kallen swept on down the hall, leaving her mother behind. The maid didn't seem angry, or even offended – she simply let out a slight sigh, smiled briefly at me, and then returned to scrubbing the windowsill she'd been cleaning. I was tempted to offer a word of solidarity, as one Eleven to another, but instead I straightened my shoulders and followed Kallen. As far as Ms. Kozuki knew, I was a Britannian friend of Kallen's, if a shabbily dressed and unwashed one, and nothing worth particular note. Any expression of sympathy could endanger my cover, and so I moved on.


Plus, the last thing I wanted to do was insert myself into the Stadtfeld family's drama. Nobles walk the path of daggers, and the last thing I needed was to earn the personal displeasure of an aristocrat.


As soon as Kallen closed the door behind us, she returned to her normal speed and darted across the room to a walk in closet, directing me towards the ensuite bathroom with its shower before disappearing inside. Within minutes, I forced myself to step out of the luxuriously hot shower, using the ridiculously soft and plush towel to dry my hair. How long has it been, I wondered to myself, since I was last this clean? I'd occasionally had the opportunity to use one of the small shower cubicles in the communal bathroom in Naoto's apartment building, but if the water pressure high enough for the showers to function the spray was ice cold. Using quality soap was amazing too – the only soap available in Shinjuku was rough and homemade, and using it on my hair always made it feel rough and scratchy afterwards. Using scented shampoo and conditioner was... was a luxury I hadn't known I'd missed.


Leaving the bathroom in my underwear and holding my Shinjuku clothes and how had I not noticed how badly they smelled? Blood, and sweat, and filth... How long have I been wearing them? I found a small pile of clothing accumulating as Kallen shuttled back and forth from the closet, dropping off shorts, jeans, blouses, and t-shirts with each trip. Fortunately, her tastes apparently weren't towards the overly feminine, and the majority of her second hand clothes were free of the frills that most of the Britannian women I'd seen so far seemed to favor. Doubly fortunate, Kallen's appetite for dressing me up had clearly been ruined by her encounter with her mother, and so she helped me sort through her clothes with only a minimum of glee.


After a bit of work, we'd sorted out three outfits acceptable to both of us, and Kallen gave me an old backpack of hers to pack the two extra outfits, my Shinjuku clothes, a discarded jacket, and some of my future grocery purchases in. I managed to dodge all skirts and dresses, and wound up in a pair of grey capri pants and a loose white peasant-style blouse. These admittedly clashed badly with the battered and stained sneakers I wore, but Kallen hadn't retained any of the shoes she'd worn before her pubescent growth had begun. While my new clothes were decidedly baggy on me, hanging off my hips and shoulders, I now looked like a skinny anorexic Britannian adolescent, a step in the right direction.


We left Kallen's room and began retracing our footsteps, heading back towards the door and, assuming Being X didn't screw with me again, groceries, but as Kallen closed the door behind her I heard a raised voice coming from around the bend in the hallway ahead of us. Instantly, I was sure the lady of the house had learned that an intruder had infiltrated her family's home, and began to bitterly regret giving in to Naoto and Kallen when they'd stopped me from bringing my gun.


I crept forward, towards the junction, thanking Lord Stadtfeld for investing in such luxurious carpeting. As I approached the corner, I began to pick out words from the ongoing harangue. "-wrong with you?! Can't you do anything right?! I don't know why we bother to keep you around!"


Thankfully, my initial worst-case assumption was wrong this time. Instead of sounding the alarm about a thief or rebel here to murder her in her bed, the elder Lady Stadtfeld was simply berating a hapless servant. Hopefully, she'd leave the poor fool alone sooner rather than later. I felt Kallen move up behind me, and held up a hand to halt her. There was no need for Lady Stadtfeld to see her and start up a conversation, and if we just waited for her to go away, our objective would be complete.


I peeked out, just slightly to see if the aristocrat was heading our way, which would mean we'd likely have to climb out a second story window to avoid detection. Fortunately, the back of a richly dressed blonde whom I could only assume was Kallen's barren stepmother was turned towards me, alliviating that particular worry. As I started to pull my head back to bunker down and wait for the roving irritation to leave us, I tuned back into her ranting in time to catch "Well, you are just a filthy Eleven – I suppose the blood always outs, eh? The only thing you know how to do is sell your body, you wretched whore!"


Admittedly, I knew I should stay quiet and stick with my mission plan. I knew I should consider the situation rationally, and realize that nothing I did here would improve the situation. I knew that, but... A memory of Mother, wincing from the bruises on her arms and thighs, spoon feeding me broth. A memory of Mother weeping in the other room, the sound mixed with rhythmic grunting that my thin pillow couldn't quite keep out. A memory of Ohgi and Naoto talking when they thought I was asleep, "Just another Eleven whore, beaten to death in the slum. Nobody's going to care, Naoto, especially since she usually worked near the barracks. Probably ran into a crowd of drunk soldiers, you know how that story goes."


Before I knew it, I was halfway down the hall and picking up speed, my hands clasped and raised over my head. The blood hammered in my ears, and I could see the bitch starting to turn at the sound of rushing feet but by then I was already leaping through the air and bringing down a hammerblow at the base of her neck, slamming all fifty pounds of me into her spine and knocking her to the floor. She landed face down, head bouncing off the soft carpet, and before I could think about it I followed my training, and guaranteed that she was out of the fight by kicking her in the side of the head. I pulled it slightly, so I didn't break her neck, but I was confident that the target was down.


I looked up from the crumpled woman on the ground, and met the eyes of Ms. Kozuki, stock still with her cleaning rag still in her hands. Behind me, Kallen rushed up, and quietly cursed in Japanese at the sight of her stepmother. For a moment, time seemed to hang still, before I snapped out of... whatever idiocy I'd just experienced, and started trying to fix the situation.


"You two! Get her into her bed, get some ice on her neck to reduce the swelling and pour some of whatever she drinks on her. We need to get her out of sight before anyone else comes up. Move!" Kallen immediately grabbed her stepmother's legs, but Ms. Kozuki didn't move, although her eyes were wide with shock.


"You... You speak Japanese..." Her voice was just as quiet as before, but the deference had been replaced by shock.


With my luck, she'd faint and then Kallen and I would have two bodies to move. Best not to give her any time to think. "Yes, Ms Kozuki, I speak Japanese. I'll tell you more once we're not standing over a body."


Thankfully, the voice of authority worked its magic once more, and soon the Lady Statdfeld was ensconced in her bed, a shot's worth of vodka sprinkled over her discarded clothes. Ms Kozuki assured us that she'd get some ice "for the Mistress's neck" once we left, but was still hanging around, looking from me to Kallen with increasing concern. For a moment, I hoped Kallen would say something, before deciding that I should do the talking. It was my screw-up, and I need to take responsibility for it. What a stupid thing to do...


"Ms Kozuki, I am a friend of your son." A promising start – short, to the point, and establishing my credentials, as if coming in with Kallen hadn't been enough. "Don't worry about anything. You are doing good work – keep it up." Vague compliments aren't as effective as targeted remarks, but everybody likes a bit of flattery. "Keep serving Lord Stadtfeld, and watch Kallen's back. She could be in danger at any time, and you know what Britannians are like." Just keep doing what you're doing, and take care of your daughter in case your employer decided to blame her for this mess. "You too are serving Japan in your own way – listen to your son, and be ready to support him when the time comes. Long live Japan!" Nationalistic propaganda appeals to everybody specifically because it's general, but fosters a sense of exclusivity simultaneously. Plus, what mother doesn't like to hear praise about their children?


Something in my scattergun approach seemed to have hit the mark. Ms. Kozuki's mouth firmed into a determined line, and her eyes filled with resolve. She nodded, and disappeared down the hallway, and I breathed a sigh of relief, and turned to Kallen. She looked flabbergasted, but visibly bit down her first response, instead muttering "We gotta go." before grabbing my hand and pulling me down the hallway after her mother.


As we approached the stairs, Kallen released my hand and resumed her careful, mincing pace. Together, the two of us slowly made our way across the foyer, nodded to the Britannian butler who held the front door opened, and crossed the miniature manor's grounds. As soon as we crossed the threshold of the gate, Kallen hustled me a block down the road, back the way we'd come.


"What the fuck was that about?!" Kallen didn't yell, but instead let out an angry hiss of a whisper. "Are you crazy?!"


"You should have done something yourself." I replied, keeping my tone coolly professional. "It's one thing to maintain your cover, Kallen, but it's another thing to participate in oppression." I turned towards the road and kept walking, feeling Kallen fall into step with me this time. "I saw you give money to that bus driver on the way here – if your cover identity as a Britannian noblewoman doesn't care about Japanese, that was a mistake. Since I can only assume that is not a part of your cover, you must have treated your mother like an Eleven because of your personal animosity towards that woman."


I stopped, and looked at Kallen, catching her eyes. "Kallen, don't you realize she's your most valuable ally in that house? Your stepmother would be only too happy to steal your secrets and sell you and your brother out to the Britannian authorities. Besides, I'm sure she'd be happy to poison your tea someday as well, since you are, after all, just another Eleven in her eyes, correct? None of the other servants can be trusted, especially if your father's new wife had a hand in hiring them." I could tell from the stubbornness in her eyes that I wasn't getting through on that front, and changed tact. "How do you think your father is getting messages and supplies to your brother? Did you really think a man who can survive and thrive in the political waters of Britannia just kept his socially unacceptable former lover around out of the pity of his heart? There's always a reason. No skilled businessman makes an investment without a goal in mind."


That got through. Kallen's eyes widened in shock, just like her mother's, and she took a step back. "You... You think that Father is supporting Naoto's actions? And... And Mom's helping them?!" Either she'd already achieved a masterful level of espionage skills, or Lord Stadtfeld had never bothered to inform his daughter, a key agent, about his plan. What colossal foolishness.


"Clearly." I resumed walking back towards the bus stop, hitching my backpack up on my shoulders. "Did you think he just tripped and fell into a pile of guns and cash? Rebellions, like any endeavor, require seed money. Where else would Naoto get that money, or get military surplus transported across the Pacific? Besides..." I paused, wondering if this might be going a bit over the top, but then pressed on. "Besides, how is her infiltration of a noble's staff to watch over her daughter and assist her son in his actions different from your infiltration of Ashford Academy? We're all playing our roles in a greater plan, Kallen, and we're all making sacrifices for Japan."


After a few steps, I heard Kallen start walking after me, but she didn't say anything. We walked back to the bus stop in silence, and waited for the next bus. Ten quiet minutes later, the bus pulled up and we got on, Kallen absentmindedly swiping her card through the scanner twice to pay our way. After an uncomfortable twenty minute ride, we got off in front of a SamWay grocery store without speaking, though I noticed Kallen drop a sizable bill into the bus driver's tip box as we left.


"I'm sorry." The words were out of my mouth before I knew it, but I just couldn't take the oppressive silence any longer. It felt like a social sword of Damocles was dangling over my neck, and I didn't know how to gracefully resolve the matter. "I forgot about the plan, and I probably added unneeded complications to your home life. I apologize for my hasty overreaction."


Kallen inexplicably blushed, and stuttered out a "N-no...!" before taking a calming breath and continuing. "No, that's not it. I'm... Well, I am kinda upset that you hit that bitch before I got the chance to do it myself! But, I'm not angry... I'm just..." She looked at me, and squinted just a bit as if she were trying to peer through my eyes and into my skull. "Do you really think she's here to help me? She's not just trying to hang on to Father like an idiot?"


I felt my anxiety lift away. Excellent! She's not mad – I won't need to try and find my way back to Shinjuku by myself! "I can't guarantee anything; I'm not a mind reader, nor a liar." I tried to figure out how to phrase what I wanted to say as innocently as possible, considering we were standing on a public sidewalk with lots of people moving around. "Your mother doesn't seem like the kind of woman who'd let herself be pushed around unless it was for a greater cause. Just like you, Kallen – after all, she is your and your brother's mother – she's not helpless, and I doubt she's a fool." If she is your and your brother's mother, she's definitely a romantic, but not a total fool at least.


After that last bit of drama, we finally got to the highlight of my whole day, and my main reason for risking my life by leaving Shinjuku – shopping for groceries. Britannian currency liberated from drug traffickers in hand, I followed Kallen into the SamWay. It was, even more than the rest of my trip, a culture shock. Every shelf was filled with every kind of packaged food and ingredient imaginable, and I could smell delicious fresh bread from the store's bakery, and the rich, greasy scent of rotisserie roasted chicken wafted over me from the nearby lunch counter. Despite all of my scorn for Being X and its claims of godhood, for a moment I thought I had been whisked straight to heaven.


After a heroic exercise of will, I managed to escape the SamWay with my backpack and two sacks of groceries in hand, plus one of the whole chickens that had so tempted me. Chicken aside, I'd been strict with myself, and only purchased goods I knew to be dense in fats and proteins, and could be stored without a refrigerator. I had plenty of beans and nuts, two bags of oranges, several summer sausages, and as many onions and potatoes as I could cram into my backpack. I'd also purchased several large bottles of complex multivitamins, which would hopefully begin to offset some of the damages my earlier deprivation had done to my body. Of course, I'd also broken down and purchased several bars of chocolate and two small tins of coffee and a package of filters. Visha had once shown me how to make an impromptu coffee maker using only a standard Imperial mess kit and a helmet, and I was sure I could replicate the feat, though I doubted it would be half as delicious as her brew had been.


Am I doing the right thing, Visha? For once, thinking about my subordinate didn't make me hurt, and as we boarded the bus back to the stop near the Shinjuku checkpoint I let my mind wander back to her. I remembered how eager she'd been to help me with the paperwork I'd generated to try getting out of creating the 203rd, foiling my plans with an eager smile and helpful hands. I'm sure you'd want me to fight, battle maniac that you were, but should I have tried to cozy up to Lady Stadtfeld instead? Gotten into the Britannians good graces somehow? Idly, I wondered if she would have supported me in my sudden and unprovoked assault, or if she would have been as incredulous as Kallen. Guess I'll never know... Damn the war, damn Being X, and damn me.


Kallen waved goodbye as I passed through the checkpoint. The sergeant on duty had shook her hand again and let me pass through unimpeded, and I waved back as I juggled the grocery bags and the chicken. A few streets down, I found an out of the way corner and changed back into my Shinjuku clothes, hiding the fresh outfit Kallen had given me away in my backpack. It had only been a few hours since I'd last worn it, but somehow the filthy clothes made my skin crawl as I put them back on. Embarrassing! I scoffed at myself as I pulled Ohgi's hoodie back on. Just a few hours of luxury and you've gone soft. Still, it had been nice to see people who didn't look two meals from death at any time, even if they were murderous bastards who'd kill me given half a chance.


I wonder what it would have been like if Being X had left me with my father instead of my mother this time around? I'd never really thought much about my father – as best I knew, he'd been a sailor who's condom had torn one night long ago in Tokyo. I certainly had no clue about his status, his personality, or anything else about the man, except that he'd had blonde hair and blue eyes like me. Still, after getting a brief taste of what it was like to live as Britannian, or at least a half-breed pretending to be a full Britannian, I wondered what my life would have been like. Neither Kallen nor Naoto seemed particularly happy with the Britannian system, since both had taken up arms, but they were also nobles. Maybe the bias against half-breeds in the lower social orders wasn't as bad? That lazy bastard would never do me a favor. Peace was never really in the cards.


Chicken in hand, I left the dismal corner and my weak thoughts of what could have been, and returned to my temporary home. I hoped Naoto would enjoy hearing about how I'd protected his mother's honor more than Kallen had enjoyed watching it happen.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 9: A Benevolent Society

(AN: A big thank you to Siatru for beta reading this chapter, and for the input of the folks on the Tanya Writers Discord.)


Three days after my trip outside of Shinjuku, I was back in the sub-basement with the rest of the Kozuki cell. I'd taken the opportunity to hand out some of the bottles of multi-vitamins to my terrorist comrades as they'd entered, thrusting a bottle into the hands of each man or woman who entered and encouraging them to take at least one daily to offset the lack of key nutrients in the usual Shinjuku grub. They accepted the pill bottles with various degrees of confusion, except for Ohgi who just smiled tolerantly as I forced a large 500 count bottle into his hands and promised to share them with Mrs. Maki and her children down the hall.


That small exercise in benevolent care and building social cohesion complete, I turned towards the business of the day: Organizing a much larger example of benevolent care and building social cohesion between our small band and the greater Shinjuku population.


"At the moment, our people have nothing." I'd considered standing on top of a crate or something while conducting this meeting, but I decided it would indicate arrogance, or worse, insecurity. Instead, I sat on one of the couches, between Tamaki and Naoto. "That might make them seem more dangerous on first appearance, but it's a double edged sword." Ohgi, seated across the battered coffee table from me, tilted his head, begging the question, and I obliged. "If they have nothing, it means they are hopeless, and just lashing out at the world around them. As soon as their anger is spent, they'll lapse back into inert despondency – useless for any sort of prolonged effort, like removing the Britannians from our glorious land." A few tentative nods at that, but no indications of any buy-in quite yet. "On the other hand, if we give our people something to fight for, some indication that things are getting better..."


"They'll have something to defend, to protect. To fight for." Surprisingly, it was Nagata that finished my thought. He was a quiet man, and by far the one I'd had the least interaction with up to this point. It wasn't surprising that the only one at the table with a child would be the first to understand where I was going, thought.


"Exactly. And that should be where we make our first move." I reached down into my old, battered schoolbag, perched on my lap, and pulled out six half-used notebooks I'd managed to scavenge in the tenement over the last few days. That bag had been with me for years, longer than any other belonging to my name – my mother had bought it for me in my second year of elementary school, when I was five. I'd carried books in it for less than a year, then stuffed it with clothes and valuables when we'd been evicted from our home after the Conquest, and I'd crammed my clothes and scarce toiletries into it again when I'd left our apartment after my mother's death.


"The hell are those for, Tanya?" I jerked out of my brief reverie as Tamaki jostled me, knocking my bag onto the floor. I stooped down, thankful for the excuse to hide my embarrassed flush. This isn't the time to reminisce! I scolded myself as I collected the precious handful of pens that had cascaded out of the schoolbag. You're in a pitch meeting, even if it is with friends! Focus!


Friends? That wasn't right, surely. They were colleagues, useful tools to get me as far from Shinjuku as possible. But that was the word my internal monologue had chosen.


I straightened up, pens in hand, and thrust all the nonsense aside. I had a pitch to salvage from my unprofessional behavior.


"Ahem. As I was saying, giving our people a stake in the future should be our first broad move towards rebuilding our nation." I started pushing a notebook and pen towards each of the others present as I continued. "In order to connect with the local population, which will hopefully increase our reputation and get our name out as a force for good in Shinjuku, we first need to find out what they need." Handing the last notebook and pen to Naoto, I straightened back up, and started ticking possible topics off on my fingers. "Do they need holes patched in their walls or windows before it starts to get really cold? Do they need leaky pipes patched so their homes aren't always wet? Do they need specific medicines or prescriptions? Extra food? A new blanket or jacket?"

I put my hand down and looked around at the rest of the cell. "The best way to prove that we aren't another gang, that we're here for the people, is to address their needs in a concrete and immediate way. Let them know that they'll get something out of supporting us, and we're even willing to go out of our way to help them out first." This wasn't a new tactic by any means. In my own first life, the yakuza had done much the same, acting as 'benevolent associations' and the like to solve problems for whoever was willing to make a deal. In this world, however, the gangs in Shinjuku had long since dropped such civilized pretensions, instead revealing their own base nature by sucking up to the Britannians and brutalizing their fellow Japanese. I was just using their old tactics against the damned kapos.


"All of us are going to spend the next few days talking to people." I felt Naoto stir slightly, but pressed on. Hopefully he wouldn't be too offended by the liberties I was taking, but he had told me I could makes plans as I'd wished. Really, this was all on him – he was our leader after all. He'd just delegated authority to me. "Try to find people you don't ordinarily talk to, and ask them what they need. If they say they need something reasonable, tell them we'll get it for them. If they need help on a project, let them know we're willing to pitch in. If they've got a problem, tell them to come talk to me, and I'll see what we can do to help them out." I got a few more nods, and relaxed slightly. Nobody was pushing back, and it seemed like everybody understood the virtue of gathering intelligence. "Talk to people who have some kind of authority too – heads of families, landlords, so on and so forth. People other people respect. Tell them that we'll have food and clothes to distribute soon, and tell them to come to us if they need anything."


As the meeting started to break up, people coming to their feet and finding their coats, I added one last point to my list of instructions. "While you're out there asking questions about what people need, or what they want... Keep your ears open. If you find people who are angry, and who are ready to do something about it, let me know. We're going to need some help to see the Rising Sun again."


---------


Our expansion into the public sphere required a new location, since a secret base was only useful when it remained secret. Fortunately, Tamaki and I were able to locate a small three-story building roughly equidistant between the shattered tenement above our hideout and Ohgi and Naoto's apartment building. The structure had once been a small office building owned by an insurance company, judging by the remaining signage, but was now the home of just under one hundred souls. These unfortunates lived in the former open-plan office spaces, which been subdivided with crude walls of plywood and sheeting into crude apartments. While these "apartments" were more spacious than the typical tenement apartments in Shinjuku, the lack of any bathroom facilities beyond those built for the initial office workers, not to mention the lack of any sort of water mains sufficient to rig up showers or other cleaning stations, meant that the people living here were among the lowest on the Ghetto totem pole. They were squatters, and most had only recently been driven into Shinjuku as a result of the expansion of the Concession.


Fortunately, their newly-arrived and transitory status made it relatively easy for Tamaki, Naoto and I to "buy out" everybody present. We arrived with two of the boxes of bottles of moonshine lifted from the truck, and with our pistols visible on our hips, and within two hours the last of the vagrants had left to find other accommodations, unmarked brown bottles stowed in their meager belongings. I wished them all the best, as Shinjuku was already suffering from a high demand and low supply of housing, but we needed a location away from our hideout to further my plan for a better Shinjuku.


As soon as we secured our new location, Naoto called Kallen and set the next stage of our plan into action. The same day I'd met with the cell in the hideout, Kallen had filed paperwork with the Area 11 Administration to create the Rising Sun Benevolent Association, a non-religious charitable association dedicated to improving public health and fostering loyalty towards the Empire among the savage Elevens. The newly founded Rising Sun Benevolent Association had a PO Box headquarters address, located at the nearest post office to Ashford Academy, and was headed by a "Rivalz Cardemonde", apparently a classmate of Kallen's.


The inclusion of an Ashford Academy student in a charity focused on providing aid to Elevens was a surprise, to say the least, but Kallen had really come through for me on this. When researching the requirements for founding an officially recognized charitable organization, I had discovered that all charities must be sponsored by a noble of some rank, and must be headed by a noble as well. I assumed that this particular regulation was generally used to award positions to unwanted scions of noble houses, who would then abuse their unearned offices to embezzle funds. This discovery had practically led to me scrapping the whole idea for a charity, since the only noble connections we had were the Stadtfelds and connecting their name to a front organization for the Kozuki Organization was a tremendous risk. Fortunately, after I had complained over Naoto's phone about that self-serving bit of regulation, Kallen had asked for me to wait a day before scrapping the plan. The next day, she'd arrived at Naoto's apartment, half-completed paperwork in hand, and told me she'd found a noble who was willing to be our frontman.


I was curious about how she had recruited this "Rivalz" to our cause, but when I asked, she'd blushed furiously and left, to Naoto's great amusement. I hoped she wasn't doing anything too immoral, since that might endanger her placement at Ashford Academy, but I trusted her to know what she was doing.


Kallen was willing to fight and die for the cause. I would be willing to trust her judgment.


The long and short of it was that the newly official Rising Sun Benevolent Association was a recognized charity, with a pass to transport humanitarian aid into the Ghetto through the Eleven's only checkpoint. Kallen had taken a large quantity of the Britannian currency my truck job had netted and purchased a large amount of packed foodstuffs, multivitamins and basic over the counter medications, sanitary and hygiene goods, and used clothes. As soon as Naoto called to let her know that we had secured a location to store and distribute the goods from, Kallen had rented a small truck to haul the shipment of goods into Shinjuku. Of course, Nagata on a day work pass had to enter the Britannian Concession and drive the thing back, but with the protection of the charity's pass that hadn't been a difficult matter. The guards hadn't even required a large bribe, only taking a small "processing fee" to let the truck and its cargo proceed without trouble.


And so, four days after I had set my Shinjuku Revitalization plan into motion, Tamaki and Ohgi nailed a sign hand-painted by Naomi over the door of our "new" office, announcing the opening of the Rising Sun Benevolent Society.


---------


As soon as the sun rose over Shinjuku, a steady trickle of people began to come in through the open door of the Benevolent Society. Inoue, Ohgi, and I were inside waiting for them, standing in front of a series of tables.


"Welcome to the Rising Sun Benevolent Society." The early morning muttering cut out abruptly as I raised my voice over the din, hopping up on a table covered with neatly-folded secondhand clothing. "If you need food for yourselves or your family, please talk to Inoue."


The indigo-headed woman waved her hand, and moved to stand in front of a table heavily laden with packed boxes. Inoue and I had put them together last night, and each box contained enough food for a family of four to eat for a day, plus a small baggie of multivitamins, a few pieces of candy, and a box of matches and three tampons or sanitary napkins.


"If you need new clothes, take what you need from the tables." Kallen had found a discount location where unsold stocks of clothes from some of the cheaper chains were offloaded, as well as a number of thrift shops, and had managed to collect plenty of pants, shirts, and light jackets, with a small heap of shoes thrown in and a supply of underwear and socks. The stores had assured her that it had all been washed, and true or not, nobody here was in any condition to be choosy.


"And if you're here to work, come talk to me!" I continued. "Lunch will be provided, and there are a number of small luxury items available for those who work a full day." I held up a zippo lighter and a safety razor in one hand, and a chocolate bar and a pack of cigarettes in the other.


"Any questions?"


"Yeah, I got a question." The speaker, a shaggy-haired, bespectacled man pushed his way through the throng of Japanese milling about, and jabbed a finger at me. "Who the hell are you, and why should we listen to some Brit kid, huh?"

Can't say this comes as a surprise. Ohgi had been pretty sure someone would remark on my race, pointing out that while he knew I was Japanese, the random man off the street wouldn't take kindly to being bossed around by an apparent Britannian. I was somewhat miffed that he thought I'd just be bossing people around, instead of leading them to a mutually constructed better future, but I conceded his point. We'd then discussed possible responses to such race-based pushback, a discussion I had kicked off by demanding that he only resort to physical force as the last option, or in self-defense. Ohgi had looked somewhat confused, presumably because I'd preemptively muzzled his preferred first response, but thankfully his professionalism won out over his bloodlust.


"She's one of us." Ohgi replied, stepping forward until he was in front of the table I stood upon, and just within an arm's reach from the questioner. "She's a hafu and she grew up in Shinjuku. But if you don't want to listen to her because of her hair, then listen to me – we're here help out the people of Shinjuku, and it's all thanks to her." Ohgi's intervention was just as planned, putting an undeniably Japanese, not to mention adult and male, face on my endeavor.


And between Ohgi acting his role to perfection and Inoue's none too subtle positioning of her hand on the butt of her sidearm, that was the end of any objection. Soon, a queue had formed in front of Inoue's table, each person taking a box and getting a stamp on their left hand to show they'd received aid for the day, before moving down to the tables of clothing and taking what they needed.


Several of the younger men and women clustered around Ohgi, including the man who'd questioned my presence. After building up a sufficient number of able hands, Ohgi led them out onto the street and towards the first location on the list I'd given him, consisting of all the easily resolved issues the cell members had learned about in their first round of canvassing. The volunteers left with hand tools, scavenged plywood and lumber, a few bags of quick-dry cement in a wheelbarrow, caulk, and tarps, which they'd be putting to use sealing broken windows or holed walls in various apartments and structures in Shinjuku, preparing for the winter soon to be upon us.


I spent the remainder of the day distributing boxes and clothes with Inoue, encouraging all who came through to tell their friends and family about the Rising Sun Benevolent Society, and to come to us if they needed help with anything, anything at all. After the initial burst of visitors, the queue slowly petered out as the people who'd heard about us left with their free food and fresh clothes, which gave Inoue and I time to assemble more boxes for distribution the next day, although she, Tamaki, and Naoto would be in charge of Benevolent Society affairs tomorrow, as Ohgi, Nagata and I had other business to handle. I was sure that our quartermaster would be able to ride herd on Tamaki, and Naoto would do a fine job leading the repair crew, considering his charisma and leadership skills.


And so, as half our cell went about the benevolent activities that would build the Kozuki Organization's PR in Shinjuku, I met with the other fruit of my plan. For the first time since I had arrived, outsiders were present in our hideout. Two outsiders, to be exact, one male and one female. They sat on the couch across the table from Ohgi and I, as Nagata leaned against the wall behind them. Both were vouched for by at least one member of the cell, but hopefully knowing that they were surrounded would discourage any thoughts of betrayal.


Matsumoto Souichiro was a broad-shouldered middle-aged man, with the slightly rundown build of a muscular man gone underfed and under-worked. He'd tried to look professional for this meeting, wearing a stained white shirt and threadbare tie, but the stubble encrusting his face and the deepset dark eyes betrayed the shaky foundations under the firm exterior; this was a man desperate for a way out, a reason to keep on fighting, and a lifeline in a hopeless situation. I'd seen many eyes like that on the Rhine Front.


Mister Matsumoto had come to us with Tamaki's recommendation. Apparently, before his untimely death, Tamaki's father had been a local policeman in Shinjuku before the war. While the majority of his father's comrades had died during the brutal urban combat that had ravaged Shinjuku during the Conquest, Souichiro had been visiting family in Gunma Prefecture during the worst of it. Unfortunately for him, instead of capitalizing on his luck at being outside Shinjuku when the hammer had fallen, he had rushed back to try and find his wife and older son, who had remained in Shinjuku. Sadly, both had died in the fighting, and now Mister Matsumoto and his surviving son were stuck in Shinjuku as the Britannians began to tighten their hold on the region.


Reading between the lines of Tamaki's report, Matsumoto Souichiro was looking for some sign that his son would inherit a better world. The young man was old enough to make his own way in the world, and had managed to secure a position as an Honorary Britannian, so clearly Souichiro had done a fine job of raising him, but no doubt the empty nest had spurred him to accept Tamaki's invitation to meet with us today.


In contrast, the other prospective recruit was 19 year old Tanaka Chihiro, a former student of Ohgi's in better times. During his brief time as a teacher before the Conquest, she'd been the star student of his math class, but after the dislocating confusion of the Conquest and the closure of his school she'd disappeared into the vast refugee population. Recently, Chihiro and her surviving little sister had ended up in Shinjuku as another result of the ongoing Britannian landgrab, and she'd happened to run into Ohgi in the street.


When I'd asked my comrades to find people willing to fight, Ohgi had thought of his old student, and I could easily understand why. She was tall for a girl, just an inch shorter than Ohgi, and her somewhat mannish appearance was reinforced by her cropped hair and the male clothing she wore just as I did. It was clear that the last five years hadn't been any kinder to Chihiro than the rest of us, and her forearms and face were speckled with small burn scars from her time working in a factory to provide for her sister. She carried herself with the same guarded energy as most unaccompanied young women in Shinjuku, but Chihiro's eyes were like a furnace, full of scorching rage and hate.


Yes, I could understand why Ohgi, whose cruelty was like a fishhook hidden inside an innocuous candy, would choose to recruit this girl into our cell.


I decided to start our meeting with a thematically appropriate icebreaker. "Why are you here? Why do you want to fight Britannia and all our people's foes?"


Souichiro started to speak, stop, and badly concealed his false start with a cough. Chihiro took the initiative and plowed forward. "This world is garbage, and garbage must be burnt!" She locked eyes with me as she began her tirade, and I was struck by a memory of Arrene, of a young man looking up at me from a crowd of newly-minted refugees.


"The Britannians have taken everything from me but my sister – my parents, my friends, my boyfriend - everything! They took our home! They took everything we had! I want to take everything from them!" Chihiro continued, her words coming faster and faster in gush of verbal lava. "I want to see every single Britannian bastard who ever set foot on this damned island gutted in the street! I want to see the damned city they built on our graves burnt! I want them to suffer, just like we all have for the last five years!"


I nodded my understanding. I could very much understand that passion – if I ever got the chance, I'd love to splash about in Being X's entrails myself, as the first evil bastard to rip me away from my secure life of comfort and freedom. I could sympathize with Chihiro's wholehearted willingness to kill every Britannian who'd had a hand in the destruction of her old life.


That said, such a fire was dangerous. I remembered the fire in Schugel's eyes, his single-minded devotion to his goal despite all the losses... But for all I'd hated that bastard, in the end he'd merely been a tool in the hand of the one directing his passion. If I could do the same with Chihiro, and if I could temper her hunger for violence with discipline and control, she would be valuable indeed.


Of course, if she proved to simply be an attack dog, an uncontrolled blaze instead of a reliable controlled burn... Well, it would be a shame if it came to that. It would certainly make Ohgi sad, and I wouldn't want him as any enemy, but I wouldn't allow Chihiro's fire to burn our people, nor our secret master. Ultimately, the first provided me with power, and the later was my ticket to a better life, and I refused to be like the idiot rebels from the first years of the occupation who just increased the number of Japanese dead without any productive result.


Chihiro slowly wound down, her frantic babble gradually slowing as she began to repeat herself, and I held up a hand for silence.


"Thank you, Miss Tanaka." For all her lack of control, her passion was admirable. It reminded me of the feeling that had led me to carrying a firearm at all times, in the futile hope that I could shoot Being X whenever he next appeared. "I commend the depths of your ardor. I'm certain we can work together to once again see Japan breathe free."


I turned back to Souichiro. "And what about you, Mister Matsumoto? Why are you here?"


The former policeman shifted uncomfortably for a second, before looking up and meeting my eyes. "My son has betrayed us. I've come to avenge his shame."


As far as openings went, it was certainly dramatic. Beyond that, I suddenly realized that I had once again misunderstood the actions of those around me. I'd spent too long in Europe, and the hardcore Japanese national pride had faded somewhat in the world of my first life, but that old national pride was still strong here. In this world the Japanese Empire had never been crushed, only the republic that had followed it, and the Emperor had never had to forswear his divinity on radio in front of the nation. Worse, the Miracle of Itsukushima and the continued survival of the military hardliners in the mountains had preserved Japanese pride, despite the Conquest.


I should have known a proud Japanese man, raised in the time of Japan's greatest economic and cultural prosperity, wouldn't take pride in his son becoming an Honorary Britannian. Instead of appreciating his son's choice of a path towards some degree of security and comfort, Matsumoto Souichiro could only see a traitor. What a damned shame, I couldn't help but think, even as I sympathized with Souichiro's feelings. I didn't hold any particular grudge against the Honorary Britannians who helped keep the colonial system going, but I did resent how the choice had never really been in the cards for me.


"When... when his mother and brother died, I did my best to raise him to be a good Japanese man." Souichiro continued, every tense word laden with barely concealed pain. "I tried to teach him about the kami, about the traditions and the pride of his ancestors... But I don't think I ever really got through to him. He saw the occupation, saw the strength of the Britannians, and the death of his older brother..." Souichiro heaved a sigh, and suddenly looked even older then before, the tie hanging limply down from his neck, shoulders hunched. "He's not Japanese. He's Eleven. My only son... My Kenji... He's taken a Britannian name now, he goes by 'Keith' instead of the name his mother and I gave him... I've lost him. I've lost both my sons."


There was a moment of silence. I didn't know quite what to say to that. I'd never been a parent, thankfully, and when I'd been in the military questions of loyalty could be easily resolved, if push came to shove. But for a wayward child, a child who had seen the way the wind was blowing and made his choice... 'Sharper than a serpent's tooth' indeed...


Souichiro took a deep breath, and continued. The emotional tremble was gone from his voice, replaced with a cold, leaden weight. "I can't kill him myself. For all that he's become... I remember him as a little boy. I can't kill my own son. But... If I can't wipe away his shame by ending him, then this old man will do whatever else I can to avenge the man he would have been, if Britannia hadn't come. The Britannians killed Kenji's future when they killed his brother and mother. I want the opportunity to kill their future too."


"Thank you for telling me about your son." I began, stalling as I tried to marshal my thoughts. How do you respond to something like that? I was far from the most emotionally connected person, typically maintaining a degree of professional separation from my co-workers and comrades to preserve efficiency, but even I quailed at the calm way Souichiro discussed the possible execution of his son for... treachery, presumably? Being a product of the Japanese educational system, I understood in concept the fear of disappointing one's parents, though I'd never personally felt it in any of my lives. I'd never really feared either of my families, and no matter how desperate things had gotten after the Conquest, I never thought my mother might try to murder me.


But I'd never chosen to side with my oppressors either. Neither the Britannians nor Being X had given me any other choices than utter capitulation or resistance, and neither had successfully exploited my moments of weakness. Matsumoto Kenji, on the other hand, had joined the Britannian system willingly, and for Matsumoto Souichiro, that made him the enemy.


"For what it's worth..." I couldn't bring myself to push forward on his urge to avenge the son he'd never truly had. "For what it's worth, I believe you did your best. The time since the Conquest has been hard for us all. I don't blame you for what your son has chosen. I hope you will join us in our efforts to make a new Japan, where our sons and daughters will be able to be proud of being Japanese once again."


Souichiro simply nodded at that, and looked down at the floor. He still looked shaky, no doubt the typical Japanese attitude towards publicly expressing emotion biting hard. Chihiro, by contrast, sat stiffly on the couch, head high and fiery eyes locked onto me. It was quite disconcerting, the way she didn't blink.


I moved on from the icebreaker into the next stage of the interview process, introducing the company. "We here at the Kozuki Organization are trying to free and rebuild Japan. We are a relatively new organization and have yet to truly make an impression, but with your help, we can provide a better life to the people in Shinjuku. Our aims are to make concrete improvements in the quality of life of the Japanese, to remove the Britannian occupation from our homeland, and to re-declare the Republic of Japan once more, in that order."


Souichiro had looked back up, stern mask back in place. He and Chihiro were simply looking at me, presumably waiting for the rest of the pitch, so I continued.


"Unlike previous rebel groups in Shinjuku, we aim to take the longer view towards freeing our people. Instead of simply knifing lone soldiers in alleyways and provoking retaliation against the people of Shinjuku, we plan on building a firm powerbase in the Ghetto, from which to launch more significant actions. As it is still early-days for the Kozuki Organization, we are currently focused on removing the influence of the gangs that collaborate with the Britannians and poison our people, and providing material support for our people. We will not be immediately attacking the Britannians, you understand. I am not going to simply throw away Japanese lives without meaningful gains."


I met Souichiro's eyes, and waited for a nod of confirmation before looking to Chihiro. She looked a bit rebellious, smoldering with resentment at not immediately being unleashed on the Britannians no doubt, but she gave a reluctant nod of assent as well.


"Excellent. I'm happy to welcome you both to the Kozuki Organization. I'll introduce you to our leader, and to the rest of the cell tomorrow." I smiled the sunny smile of every HR manager and recruiter, blandly positive, and inwardly rejoiced. A small step, but our first successful recruitment is a big achievement. "Now, have either of you ever used a gun?"


Souichiro, as it turned out, had used a gun during his basic police training, but not since, as Japanese police were typically only equipped with batons. Chihiro had never touched a gun, but was incredibly eager to learn. I delegated Ohgi to start teaching them the in's and out's of firearm safety and maintenance, and left the new pair of recruits in his able hands.


Nagata and I headed out of the hideout, and began making our way towards his apartment building. He'd also found a potential recruit, but for a number of reasons this one would require a degree of special handling.


"He was an engineer, you see, before the war." As we walked, Nagata gave me a quick overview on the man we were going to see. "I'm not sure what his exact specialty was, but he was pretty highly paid. Respectable. Anyway, it must've been something to do with machinery, because he's earned his food and rent since then by repairing and maintaining stoves, hotplates, clocks... you name it, he can fix it."


"So, presumably a mechanical engineer of some type, huh?" I turned the thought over in my mind. Beyond the maintenance skills he could bring to the table, recruiting a man with an engineering skill set opened up all sorts of possible options for the organization, most specifically bomb making. Every insurgency worth its salt in the last two decades of my first life had deployed improvised explosives, and it seemed fitting to follow suit. "So why would a man with a nice safe job want to get wrapped up in our little adventure, hmm?"


"That's just it." Nagata sidestepped around a pothole, and carefully stepped over a downed power line. "He's not safe. About a year ago, he caught as stray round from a Britannian. They suspected that an apartment in the next building over was a safehouse for some group or another, and went in guns blazing. They smoked a couple of gangsters, which wasn't really what they were going for, but they also managed to hit lots of unlucky people. Including Mr. Asahara. The bullet went right through his wall and through his left shin, shattering the bone. Worse yet, it got infected – they had to amputate it below the knee."


We're recruiting a cripple? Well, I guess you don't need two legs to make bombs. "I see. That's a good reason to resent the Britannians."


Nagata nodded. "Yup. Plus, he was a bit... weird, even before that." He hesitated a bit, clearly looking for the right words. "He's a bit of a political guy, you see. He's very anti-monarchist, and whenever he gets drunk he starts ranting about the 'rights of the citizen' and so on and so forth."


"So, he's got a personal beef with Britannia for shooting his leg off, and a political beef since the Britannians rule by the divine right of kings?"


Nagata nodded. "You can see why I thought he'd be a good fit for our organization, right?"


"Absolutely." Nagata had struck gold. A political ideologue was useful, as they had a reason beyond the personal to fight, and the specialist skills this Asahara Hiyashi brought to the table were even more useful.


Now, all that was left was to make a pitch.


Asahara Hiyashi turned out to be a well-preserved man in his mid-fifties, spotted with oil and grease but with clear eyes, a well-maintained salt-and-pepper mustache and goatee, and silver wings in his otherwise still back hair. He also turned out to be an immensely infuriating person, full to the brim with an arrogance that losing his job, his property, and his leg had not diminished in the slightest. When Nagata knocked on his door, he opened it readily enough, supported on his weak side by a crutch, but refused to let us in until both Nagata and I had formally introduced ourselves and requested his permission to enter. I supposed losing a good deal of personal autonomy along with a limb probably warped his personality, but his behavior was already irritating.


The recruitment effort didn't go any better than the initial introduction had.


"Good afternoon, Mister Asahara. I came here today to ask y-"


"How's that tricky pressure cooker doing, Takeshi? Still working?" The old bastard hadn't bothered to acknowledge my introduction beyond a curt nod, and as soon as I began my pitch he cut me off and began talking to Nagata. "You know I warned you that the gasket would need replacement soon. I hope you aren't putting that off."


Nagata shot an apologetic look at me, before turning back to the engineer. "No, Mister Asahara. I still haven't found anyone willing to part with a new gasket for a reasonable price. You know how supply's getting short, with all the new guys pouring into Shinjuku."


Hiyashi snorted derisively. "You're just not looking hard enough. If you bring that damned thing back again without replacing the parts I told you to, I'm charging double."


And on and on it went. Nagata periodically tried to introduce me into the conversation, or bring up the reason why we'd come, but Hiyashi would simply bull forwards with his chosen topic, ignoring all attempts to be diverted. After forty five minutes of rambling small talk, I'd had enough.


"Are you content, tinkering with cookware and clocks, or do you want to do something to get revenge for your missing leg?"


Subtle it was not, but I'd gotten tired of waiting for this miserable old geezer to get to the point. Hopefully a bit of 'youthful impertinence' would move the conversation along before the Britannians finished exterminating us all.


Instead of the anger I'd expected from the prickly man, Hiyashi simply snorted with mild amusement and shook his head. The amusement didn't reach his eyes, though, which were just as serious and intense as they'd been since we entered his apartment.


"Save your breath. I'm not desperate enough to follow the whims of a child. Come back in ten years when you can drink, and if we're both still alive, make your pitch then." And then he simply returned to nagging Nagata about the proper way to strip copper wire from abandoned houses, an operation that Hiyashi had a surprising wealth of knowledge about.


I wasn't going to be so easily dissuaded. If an appeal to conviction would just be shot down out of hand, another tack was required. "Fine. You don't want to help the rest of us out of the goodness of your heart? How about commissions? I have Britannian cash available, or meth if you'd prefer payment in drugs instead."


At the sight of the wad of cash I brought out of my sweatshirt pocket, as well as the small baggy of crystals, the old vulture's eyes sharpened. That's the hook – self-interest. Hiyashi was a man after my own heart, in a way. Clearly, the cutthroat capitalism of pre-Conquest Japan had left a stamp on the man. And if that's the coin you need, I'm willing to pay.


After that, it was all over except for the dickering. Hiyashi readily admitted to knowing how to rig up any number of explosive devices, including remote cellphone activated devices, clockwork triggered devices, and chemical timebombs, where the ignition source was a chemical reaction delayed by a thin membrane that gradually broke down, mixing the solvents until a threshold was crossed.


We finally settled on a hefty payment, costing almost half of my remaining cash reserves and a twentieth of the amphetamines we'd secured, as well as supplying some components Hiyashi required. In exchange, the crippled engineer would provide us with five cellphone detonated pipebombs, each capable of producing an omnidirectional spray of shrapnel guaranteed to reduce anything in a twenty meter radius to chopped meat, and capable of rendering unarmored vehicles within a five meter radius inoperable.


As we shook on the deal, I looked up into Hiyashi's bespectacled eyes, and clamped down on hard on his hand with my own. "I appreciate doing business with you, Mister Asahara, and I hope we can continue to do so in the future." I kept calm, as I used my free hand to shift my sweatshirt up, revealing the pistol holstered under the baggy folds. "I hope we have a long and productive working relationship, which will be guaranteed if your devices are all that you have promised. If they aren't, however, be assured..." I felt the blood beginning to hammer in my ears as my grasp tightened. I was gratified to see a faint wince cross Hiyashi's face, quickly smoothed away. "I'll start by taking the leg the Britannians left you as payment for services rendered, and continue on until your account is paid in full."


To the old man's credit, he actually laughed at that. "I'm not an idiot, you crazy hafu. You think you're the first one to buy my work, hmm? I'm not stupid enough to try double-crossing people who buy bombs – it's bad business, and I frankly don't care what you and your pack of idiots blow up."


With a nod and a final, hard, shake, I released his hand, and dropped the down payment on the table. "Nagata will be by tomorrow to drop off the materials you requested, and we'll be back in a few days to pick up the devices and detonators, in exchange for the remainder of your pay."


As we left, I mulled over the results of the last two days. We were two recruits stronger, though both were admittedly unblooded and untrained, and had begun to buy the affections of the Shinjuku crowd. I'd also successfully negotiated five explosive devices with the possibility of further future purchases, which would undoubtedly come in handy in the near future.


Unfortunately, not only had we expended virtually all of the income and resources acquired from the truck hijacking, I had also resorted to strong-arm tactics with Mister Asahara. Not only did that leave a bad taste in my mouth, but it also potentially planted a seed that could flower into open resentment in due time. I'd need to find some way to both replenish the cell's depleted coffers, and nip any problems stemming from a disgruntled contractor with a dangerous skill set and an abrasive personality. Pity I can't simply cut off his funding, like I did with Schugel.


Fortunately, I already had a target in mind that would serve as both a source of income and a convenient testing ground for Asahara's products. Ideally, my next plan would both begin the process of removing the gangs from the Shinjuku Ghetto, and would give me a chance to thoroughly blood all members of the cell. The first kill is always the hardest, so it's kinder to them to ensure it happens in a reasonably straightforward situation, I reasoned. A minimum of danger, and a straightforward moral situation – it's the best of both worlds. Hopefully...

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 10: A Market Trip

(AN: A big thank you to Siatru for beta reading this chapter, and for the input of the folks on the Tanya Writers Discord. Also, it should go without saying, but I do not endorse or in any way support acts of terrorism or the execution of injured combatants.)


It was Tuesday, and for my next plan to work, the Kozuki Organization needed to be ready by Saturday. We had four days. Four days to get Souichiro and Chihiro up to scratch... To get the pipe bombs from Asahara... Four days until the market.


Inoue had been pulling double duty lately as both the organization's logistics officer and as something of an intelligence officer. I recognized it was outside of her core competencies, not to mention the scope of her role as quartermaster, but so far she'd managed to pull through while still doing most of the legwork to keep the Rising Sun Benevolent Association moving. I'd been very impressed by the depth of her knowledge when she and Ohgi had briefed me on the Shinjuku black market scene, so two days ago I had asked her to find out where the next weekly gang-hosted market would be hosted, and by whom. Only a single day later, she'd arrived at Ohgi and Naoto's apartment and briefed me. It's such a pleasure to have competent coworkers.


Apparently, the Kokuryu-kai, freshly victorious over a pair of smaller street gangs, were hosting the next market on the coming Saturday, in the ruins of the Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station. As per normal, the hosting gang would guarantee the safety of the attendees and provide security, and would get to charge a gate fee plus a tax on all business conducted during the market. Hosting these markets, according to Inoue, was of incredible importance to the gangs because it gave them both a source of funding and a chance to get first pick of the wares, as well as prestige with their competitors. It was also a way to show off to potential employers, as frequently representatives from out of town criminal syndicates and factors for various shady Britannian interests would attend.


Of particular interest to me was the fragility of the foundation of this new, rising gang. The Kokuryu-kai had just swallowed up a significant amount of territory, proving their strength, but were still in the process of fully consolidating their new conquests. The consolidation process had temporarily diluted their ability to project power or actively defend all of their territory. This combination of a bloated portfolio of holdings coupled with an apparent inability to vigorously fight off challengers had led other gangs to smell blood in the water, and small skirmishes had already been fought as rival gangs probed for openings. As a result, the Kokuryu-kai had volunteered to host this market as a display of strength and prestige, which meant that anything going wrong would confirm the impression of weakness and had the potential of kicking off a new round of gang warfare.


To sweeten the pot even further, the particular focus of this market would be arms and ammunition sales. Each week, the various gangs typically hosted markets that had particular focuses – that way, buyers could easily connect with vendors carrying the goods they were looking for, and could compare the various wares at hand. Having these focused markets also made things easier for the various gangs and independent players that were selling products; catering to specific markets would make it easier to tailor their inventories, and would give vendors the opportunity to gather intelligence on their competitors. While weapons wouldn't be the only wares available, there would be an abundance of arms and ammunition that could be seized and added to our growing arsenal, not to mention the Britannian currency and drugs that the gangs used as their preferred mediums of exchange.


I had honestly been surprised to learn how structured the Shinjuku underworld was, at least in this way, but I supposed it made business easier for everybody to have common, centralized exchanges with mutually understood rules. Fortunately for us, this underground infrastructure also made it possible to attack a medium-to-big street gang by essentially pinning them down in a vulnerable spot, at a defined location and time, giving us the opportunity to prepare the ground and tactical approach well in advance. While risky for a number of reasons, a successful attack on one of these markets could lead to all kinds of possible benefits for our organization. Besides the possible spoils, the market was an ideal target because it presented a potential mass casualty opportunity with a minimum of collateral damage. This wasn't a public market; it was invite-only, so the only people likely to be in attendance were gangsters or people who had gotten in bed with gangsters. It also was neither a slave market nor a brothel, so we wouldn't need to worry about hostages being caught in the crossfire.


Everyone who attended that market would be a fair and easily justifiable target, and everything we took would be a legitimate spoil of war. An ideal operation for a rebel organization that had yet to be truly blooded.


Of course, there would be repercussions for an attack like the one I was planning, and I had no intention of letting any of the fallout touch the Kozuki Organization. We were too small in number to truly fight the gangs, so I'd have to find a scapegoat to pin the responsibility for this attack on. Done correctly, the infuriated gangs would blame whoever I chose as our fall guy, and our cell would remain unknown and unconnected to the attack. Ideally, the gangs would blame and attack each other, causing further chaos to ripple out into the ranks of my enemies and sowing the seeds for future false-flag attacks.


---------


And so, four days of intense preparation began. Or, at least, intense preparation for some - Naoto, along with Inoue and Tamaki, took over the task of operating the Rising Sun Benevolent Association's day to day work. Those lucky bastards spent the four days engaged in productive and constructive work, handing out food and filling in potholes.


After I'd filled her in, Kallen had agreed to keep an ear open at Ashford, and had found a potential scapegoat to offload responsibility onto in the form of a Lord Kewell Soresi. A captain in the Britannian Knightmare Corps, Lord Kewell was freshly transferred from the Britannian Homeland to Area 11 and had already gained a prickly reputation, according to the daughter of a Britannian officer who enjoyed playing tennis and had a habit of blabbering whenever she was on the court.


Apparently, Lord Kewell was a minor unlanded and untitled noble, a member of a small cadet branch of a dynasty that controlled the area around what had been Quebec in my first life. More importantly, Kewell was a member of a faction of the Britannian military known as the 'Purists', who apparently were dogmatically racist even by the standards of Britannains. Their central plank seemed to be a general disdain for Numbers, and they supported efforts to drive Honorary Britannians and Britannians of mixed heritage out of the military. The faction the man represented was known for casual violence, ham handed tactics, and for going off the reservation on independent missions without bothering to seek approval from the official chain of command. Combined with the man's rumored haughty personality and penchant for explosive violence, Kewell would be an ideal scapegoat.


As soon as Kallen let me know about him, I had her start typing up an 'official notice' from the Purist Faction claiming responsibility for the 'attack upon the subhuman criminal gathering', and claiming that the attack was retaliation for the robbery of a Britannian military storage facility. The notice ended with Lord Kewell Soresi's name, printed at the bottom and identifying him as the local head and spokesman for the Purist Faction. Kallen had even managed to find a copy of a press release the Purists had published a few years ago denouncing the appointment of an officer of mixed heritage to command the Buenos Aires garrison, and had managed to edit her fraudulent notice to have the same style and appearance as the press notice. While it still wouldn't look like the real deal to anybody with much first-hand experience with military or legal documentation, I was positive it would dupe at least some of the dumber gangsters.


Between coordinating all the other efforts, Ohgi and I trained Chihiro and Souichiro as best we could. Personally, I wasn't expecting much from them this time around – not because either lacked the passion or desire to fight, they were both hateful battle maniacs lusting for violence – but because a few days of training just wasn't enough to develop even a minimal degree of skill. Still, everybody has to start somewhere, and having two extra guns backing us when the plan inevitably went wrong could be useful. Ohgi and I did our best to improve their accuracy and speed with the military surplus coilgun pistols, switching to the basics of knife fighting when the recruits began to flag and their shots started going wild, and leading them on short jogs when the CQC drills grew stale.


Ultimately, while neither were up to the admittedly high standards of the 203rd, both made solid gains in the three and a half days of training I was able to give them. Chihiro had already begun to pick up the rapid speed necessary for urban combat, and could draw, aim, and shoot her pistol in an acceptably short time; unfortunately, her accuracy was entirely unacceptable. She tended to blaze through her ammunition, rapidly pumping rounds downrange but only managing three or four hits from each thirteen round magazine on a stationary target before having to stop and reload. Souichiro, by contrast, could reliably get at least ten hits on his target before reloading, but moved and aimed painfully slowly, far too slowly to be useful or responsive in real combat. Both were better at close quarters combat, Souichiro benefiting from his police training and Chihiro drawing strength from her harnessed rage, but CQC tended to be of limited utility when your opponents were more than a foot or so away.


"They've got some good potential – especially your prized pupil." I remarked to Ohgi, as we made our way back to the apartment after another long evening of watching our two trainees practice with their newly issued pistols. "It's a pity we're having to shortchange them with this crash-course, instead of some proper training."


Ohgi had looked contemplative at that, before asking me what I'd meant by 'proper training'. What followed was a remarkably pleasant conversation about educational methods, as I drew on my memories of training the 203rd and floated ideas past him, and he proposed various changes or alterations inspired by his teaching skills and experience. He seemed to tend towards coddling his students more often than I'd have thought, considering both his personal inclinations and my vague memories of my primary schooling back in my first life, but we could both agree that the teachers from the Shinjuku School for Elevens were absolute incompetents lacking any proper teaching methods. It was a nice break from planning bombings and the like, and I hoped I'd be able to focus on such constructive questions at some point in the future.


"You do?" The shocked tone of the reply jolted me back to awareness, and I cursed internally as I turned and looked up at Ohgi. I got too comfortable talking shop! I forgot who I was talking to! Of course a battle maniac with a taste for inflicting pain would be shocked by my desire to add value to society instead of destroying it!


"I'm glad to hear that. I think you might make a good teacher someday, Tanya." My breath caught in my throat, and I realized Ohgi was smiling down at me, without any obvious hint of recrimination. In fact, he looked... proud? Of course, he was a teacher before he was a fighter – he has an eye for the future. That type of man is always happy to see people following in their footsteps. I wondered if he'd be equally enthusiastic about imparting every bit of his sadistic edge to his students as well, and considered bringing in someone else to help me train the new recruits – the last thing I needed was more sadists in our organization who would love nothing more than to maximize the number of war crimes we committed. No, he's too good of a teacher. Instructing the recruits is the best use of his skill set. Of course, then he patted my head as we continued on our way, and I lost my train of thought as I forced his hand away from my already unruly hair. The bastard just laughed at my outrage, and I longed for an easily-shelled pillbox to force him into.


Nagata helped out at the Benevolent Association for the first day, before vanishing into Mister Asahara's apartment building until Friday afternoon, returning to the hideout with a knapsack full of very well-padded and carefully packed homemade explosives. They were things of beauty – each about a foot in length, fashioned from steel water pipes whose exteriors had been deliberately roughened to reduce reflection and improve grip. Each had steel caps at each end, which had been carefully fixed into place with waterproof caulk, sealing the explosives into the pipe and waterproofing the device. Each device also had a number stenciled onto it in black paint, from one to five. Curiously, there weren't any obvious exterior detonators, which I asked Nagata about.


"First of all, here, take this." Nagata handed over a folded piece of paper. "It's the numbers that will activate each of the bombs in order. Hopefully no telemarketer tries them – they'll detonate as soon as the call connects." He chuckled weakly at the thought, and shivered slightly. I couldn't really blame him – I could only assume that carrying a backpack full of bombs across Shinjuku that could detonate at any moment would be quite nerve-wracking. "Anyway, there's about half of a disassembled phone inside each of these things, along with three hundred steel flechettes. Mister Asahara guarantees that anybody within fifty meters will die, unless they're behind cover, and anybody within a hundred and fifty meters is probably going to die too."


Hmm... The Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station's two platforms are about two hundred meters long... "Well, I guess that's about as good as we can reasonably ask for." I replied, opening up the paper and checking that all five phone numbers were clearly legible. "I suppose we'll just have to make sure they overlap." I looked up from the paper and smiled at Nagata. "Good work putting us in contact with Mister Asahara, Nagata. This plan wouldn't be possible without you." He smiled back at me, although he seemed unaccountably nervous. Of course he is! I internally scolded myself as I carefully tucked the backpack full of bombs on a shelf in the armory, He just carried enough anti-personnel explosives across a city to turn everybody in a block around him into well-done hamburger! I hoped his nerve wouldn't fail him when it came time for the actual mission, but I'd give him a break and not make him handle bombs again. At least, not for the duration of the mission. There's always tomorrow...


---------


And soon, it was Friday night, and time for the first active step in the execution stage of our mission. Ohgi, Naoto and I had crept our way up to the top remaining floor of a heavily damaged office building near the station earlier that afternoon, and waited there as a handful of gang members had gone down into the station and rousted the colony of squatters sheltering from the bitterly cold winds in the comparative warmth of the tunnels. We watched for about an hour as the men four stories below went into and came out of the station, hauling garbage away and carrying a variety of collapsible tables and chairs down into the station. Eventually, the activity slowed to a crawl and the majority of the gangsters headed off down the street, presumably to find the nearest warm room to den up in with a bottle of rotgut or three. The lone remaining gang member took up a position in front of the tag plastered on the wall of the above-ground station entrance, the black circle and white claw of the Kokuryu-kai warning passersby to steer clear of the otherwise inviting shelter from the wind. The guard looked like he wanted to take advantage of that shelter himself, as he huddled into himself, shivering as another wintry gust swept down. Presumably, his job was to ward off any wandering vagrants rather than keeping a serious guard on the station itself, as the eastern secondary staircase was left entirely unguarded. He was too busy shivering to notice a trio of bundled up figures carrying backpacks cross the road a block down from his location, and so the first stage of the night's skulduggery was complete.


It rapidly became clear why the eastern staircase had been left unguarded. As we crept down the filthy and rubble-choked stairs of the secondary entrance, I realized that the station was already structurally unsound. The ceiling had collapsed in several parts of the staircase, and we had to clamber over piles of rubble in several spots just to get down the stairs and into the station. When we finally reached the platforms themselves, we discovered that most of the southern side of the station, the old Platform 2, had collapsed at some point in the past as well. The office building that had stood directly on top of Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station had taken a major hit at some point, and during its collapse the southern and western parts of the station had been filled with rubble from the half-destroyed structure. The west end of the tunnel was equally choked with rubble, reducing the five original ways of egress from the station down to three, two if you discounted the mostly blocked staircase.


Fortunately for us, the tables and chairs we'd watched the gangsters diligently haul down into the station earlier were arranged around the center of the platform, just past the lobby where the shattered remains of ticket machines were still bolted to the wall. Even more fortunately, despite the many loads of assorted trash we'd watched the gang members haul away, the subway station was still fairly messy. It looked like every Japanese who'd sheltered here in the last five years had left something behind, and the reek of feces and rotting garbage hung heavily in the fetid air of the station. I could hear rats scuttling down over the old tracks and on the darkened platform, and smiled slightly. How nostalgic! It's just like the Rhine Front, minus the artillery.


Neither Naoto nor Ohgi appeared any more bothered by the mess than I was. Naoto might be of noble stock, but he'd lived in the Ghetto for quite a while now, while Ohgi was just as much of a creature of the Ghetto as I was, in his own way. Instead of commenting on the filth, the two men opened Ohgi's backpack and began to unfold a collapsible ladder purchased by Rising Sun Benevolent Association. I'd never encountered that particular gadget during my first life, but as soon as I'd seen it in a catalog of construction supplies I'd immediately added it to the purchase list. Sturdy and lightweight, the ladder would be invaluable for planting explosives in the one direction that I as a former aerial mage knew people always forget to look – up.


The ceiling had once been metal panels, lined with lights and padded with acoustic muffling. Now, the previously hidden utility space gaped open for the most part, with isolated panels clinging on at various locations. Everything was coated in soot from campfires, torches, improvised ovens, and lamps. Much of the old lighting wiring had been stripped away at some point, as had some of the old fire suppression water distribution pipes, but plenty still remained to provide camouflage for Mister Asahara's products. Using rough twine, we carefully hung two of the pipe bombs from the old pipes over the area where the majority of the tables were set up, roughly thirty meters apart. As soon as the two men had a pipe tied in place, I climbed up and carefully rubbed some of the same soot that coated the exposed plumbing over the twine and the pipes until they blended in with the rest of the ancient plumbing.


After securing the first two bombs to the ceiling, we repeated the process in the antechamber room at the base of the main staircase, where the station office and turnstiles had once been. This area had plenty of heavily rotted acoustic tiles still in place, which made concealing the bomb itself easier but hiding evidence of our activities harder. After Naoto barely managed to catch a tile that unexpectedly crumbled at a touch, causing the damned thing to disintegrate even further, we had to spend a frustratingly long time policing up all the acoustic tile crumbs and rearranging garbage to hide the scuff marks where we'd been forced to use our hands to sweep up all the fragments.


The final two bombs would be placed at ground level, concealed in garbage at either end of the platform area. Due to the rubble covering the northwestern region of the station, in practice the western floor-level bomb would be about forty meters away from western hanging bomb, while the eastern floor-level bomb would be roughly fifty meters east-southeast from the eastern hanging bomb. The abundant garbage made it easy to conceal the pipe bombs, and at my direction Ohgi and Naoto carefully used rubble to angle the devices towards the prospective center of the market. I added a further layer of rubble behind and slight above the bombs as well before we artfully draped garbage over them, hoping to produce something of a claymore effect and channel the majority of the blast towards the most likely enemy location rather than the ruined Platform 2.


If Mister Asahara had been good to his word, and his estimations of the effective range of the devices were accurate, the market should be hit simultaneously by two vertical and two horizontal bursts of flechettes and shrapnel, with the guaranteed kill ranges of the two vertical spheres overlapping by twenty meters over the most densely populated area and the the horizontal spheres overlapping with the edges of the vertical spheres. A few seconds later, the pipe bomb concealed in the much smaller antechamber should pulp anybody unfortunate enough to be inside when the detonator is activated, hopefully killing any guards drawn inside by the initial blasts, or any survivors fleeing from the main platform area.


Of course, all of this relied on the Kokuryu-kai being either incompetent or arrogant enough to not sweep for bombs again tomorrow morning, but I was reasonably confident that we'd hidden the bombs well enough to evade the disinterested and unprofessional gaze of whatever low-level gangster got stuck with the scut work. And so, Ohgi, Naoto and I carefully policed up all of our gear and snuck back out the eastern stairway, taking care to leave the rubble as undisturbed as possible, and vanished into the night.


---------


The next morning, Kallen knocked on the apartment door bright and early, come to drop off the 'claim' she'd faked up. Naoto quickly ushered her inside, giving her a brief one armed hug as she passed. After tolerating this for a moment, Kallen squirmed free of her brother and made a beeline towards me. The radiant smile on her face was somewhat inappropriate, considering the bloody work ahead for us today, as was her vest, short-shorts, and leg warmer ensemble, but I couldn't resist returning her smile. This damned girl has enough charisma to raise an army – she and her brother both do. I idly wondered if the propaganda about the natural superiority of nobles didn't have a grain of truth. Perhaps the state Social Darwinism is backed up with eugenics?


I quickly shook that tangent away and returned to the task at hand, quickly reviewing the document Kallen handed over. It looked just as good as the pictures she'd sent during the editing process, and far more authentic than I'd expected. This sort of above-expectations work by an employee requires praise and incentivization.


"This is some good work, Kallen." I began, warmly smiling at the older girl. Alright, that's the praise handled... but how to incentivize her? What are her levers? Money was out of the question – I didn't have any funds of my own, and as a noble Kallen already had plenty of money. Suddenly, the answer dawned on me. Respect and inclusion. She wants to be part of the cell, and not just as an intelligence asset. She's her brother's sister – she wants to kill and to conquer just as much as he does.


I hastily considered her skills, aware of the precious seconds passing as my smile became steadily more fixed. She's good with her knife, and she's an accurate and quick shooter. She's athletic, and probably faster than me unless I pour all my energy into my enhancement suite. Overall, more qualified to help out today than either Chihiro or Souichiro – or Inoue for that matter.


"Kallen, you'll be coming with us on today's mission." Incentive delivered. Now I just had to fast-talk my way through the reasons why a teenager should come along with us into battle. "We'll need all hands on deck today, and you're a better shot than either of our two new recruits." Good start, but not enough. Naoto's not going to be happy about this. "We're going to need as many people as possible to carry off whatever we can salvage from the market. I'll get another go-pack together."


The go-packs were a number of canvas backpacks Kallen had found in some warehouse, and thrown into the donated clothing for Rising Sun Benevolent Association. While prepping for this mission, I'd retrieved them and stocked each with the costume for the day: a knit cap, a pair of latex gloves, swimming goggles, a surgical mask, and the top of a set of hospital scrubs. The medical supplies had been smuggled into Shinjuku as part of the humanitarian aid, and would help hide our identities while being instantly disposable. We would change into our gear in the same ruin Ohgi, Naoto and I had used as an observation post last night, and the empty backpacks would serve as containers for whatever spoils we could pillage.


"Absolutely not!" Naoto yelled, before quickly getting control of himself and continuing in a quieter if no less fervent tone. "Kallen doesn't need to come with us on this mission, Tanya." He paused for a moment, clearly doing the same quick thinking I'd done to come up with reasons for my course of action. "You said it yourself – she's a valuable asset at Ashford, and there's no reason to risk her safety here in Shinjuku."


I began to reply to Naoto, but stopped. Do I really want to argue with my boss? As much as he might trust me, that's probably a step too far. Especially in front of other people... Ohgi looked acutely uncomfortable, his lips pressed together tightly enough to start going white, and Kallen looked... furious. Perhaps I don't have to...


"You're not gonna hold me back, Big Bro!" Fortunately, the younger Kozuki didn't yell, so the neighbors probably weren't aware of the brewing spat, instead hissing her words like a cobra. "I have the right to fight for my country too! It's all for a free Japan – everything we do!"


"I'm not going to let you throw your life away for nothing, Kallen!"


"You're not Dad! Tanya said I was a good fighter, and she'd know – she was there when I had to fight, Big Bro!"


Realizing that this family argument was about to get ugly, I decided to try sweet reason. "Kallen, Naoto has every right to be concerned about you – he's family, and has at the very least an emotional investment in your well-being. He also has a good point about your value as an intelligence asset."


Kallen wheeled on me with an expression of betrayal, but I was already turning towards Naoto, letting my perspective drop into the emotional detachment I'd always tried to maintain during combat. "Naoto, Kallen has to come with us. Every other member of the cell is going to be risking their lives today – if you protect her, you'll mark her out as different. She will never truly be one of us unless she shares the same risks."


Based on my three lives' worth of experience, I knew that people tend to prefer emotion to logic. Unfortunately for everybody, when push came to shove most people would follow an emotionally fulfilling argument over a logically superior argument. However, I had first-hand experience with Naoto taking the logical path when it was offered to him, and he had a knack for surprising me by not taking the angry, emotional path that I'd expect from a terrorist leader. I hoped my calm tone and reasonable appeal would convince him to put aside his familial concerns.


Naoto began to retort, looked from Kallen to me and back again, and visibly swallowed his words with a sigh before trying again. "Look, I get that, Tanya, but..."


"Big Bro..." The anger had left Kallen's voice, and she walked across the room to her brother, putting a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay. You did a great job looking after Mom and I when I was a kid, but... I'm grown up now, y'know?"


Naoto let out a wet sound that was half-chuckle, half-sob, and hugged his sister close to him. "All grown up, huh? Kallen... you're fifteen. You should go back to your school. Have fun with your friends. Enjoy your life, just for a bit." He let out another sob, and rested his forehead on top of Kallen's head. "You've got a chance. You don't need to be here."


I wanted to look away from the emotional display, but I found that I couldn't. The prickling in my eyes and the sick feeling roiling in my gut told me that I'd caused this, and I supposed I had, but it was too late to take back now. Besides, I told myself, I was right. Kallen is a good fighter, and keeping her safe on a shelf would mark her out as different. I might have been right about that, but I still felt like scum. In some small way, I'd just helped bring another child into a battle, just like the Empire had once done to me. Am I really so lonely that I'm willing to drag another child with me into the mess?


Finally, the moment passed as Naoto spoke again, this time his voice was somewhat clearer. "Alright. I can see you've made your mind up. If I can't convince you to just keep being a spy, then I guess you can come with us." He put his hands on Kallen's shoulders, and gently pushed her away. "You'd better come home safe, Kallen. If anything happens to you, Mom's never gonna forgive me."


Sensing the touching moment was finally ending, Ohgi and I quickly took the opportunity to grab our packs and start heading out the door, leaving the Kozukis to catch up. We'd all be meeting at the hideout anyway, and I needed to get gear for Kallen and a pistol together before we could head out anyway.


---------


The Kozukis caught up quickly, and a short time later we met the rest of the cell at the hideout. Soon, Kallen had an identical backpack as the rest of us, and we began moving in a loose strung-out group to our jump off point. Everybody walked along quietly, trying to look generally unassuming as we passed through the crowded Shinjuku streets. I was pleased to see that nobody looked overly troubled by the prospect of what we were about to do, and refocused on the road ahead. It'd be bad to trip over a random cinder block and twist an ankle on the way to a mission. The hand that suddenly landed on my shoulder was a complete shock, and I was halfway through firing up my enhancement suite before I realized it was Naoto standing beside me. Before I could get a word out, he'd already begun dragging me to the side of the road, and after a quick moment of indecision I decided to follow him. No need to buck the chain of command immediately before we get to work.


The "conversation" was as short and unpleasant as I'd feared.


"Tanya, my sister's going to risk her life today, and it's partially my responsibility and partially yours." Well, I'm glad he didn't blame me for everything. He's still the leader, after all. It's his call, even if I did open the door. "You think in terms of missions, right? In terms of objectives, and goals, and all that? I know you do. Well, here's an objective just for you: Kallen gets home alive, safe and sound. Hopefully in one piece. Got it?" Just like every boss, the unreasonable demands always come. I'm not trying to get her killed – she's a valuable colleague! I'm not just playing around here. "Look, you're a smart girl – scary smart, in fact. I've got no idea how you know everything you know, or do everything you do, but I don't care. You clearly care about other people, and you've already shown that you can be responsible – take responsibility again, okay? This is your plan, and knowing you I'm sure it'll be effective. Just remember that a leader is responsible for the well-being of his, or her, followers. Got it?" Of course I understand the importance of maintaining human resources. I'm not Being X, just throwing people into jobs well outside their core competencies without consent ! "You're responsible for Kallen today, okay? Get her home safe. I don't know what I'll do if... something happens to her."


I'd hoped he wouldn't feel the need to threaten me. I was doing my best to make sure everybody came home alive at the end of the day already, and I'd done everything in my power to advance his and his father's plans... Except I'd just potentially endangered their heir, the queen in waiting if Lord Stadtfeld managed to usurp the real power of the Britannian Administration of Area 11. In light of that, not to mention the stress all big brothers are stereotypically saddled with in regards to their younger siblings, I could easily forgive a threat or two. Dammit, why the hell did I shoot myself in the foot?! I raged at myself, suddenly appalled at my poor decision making. I'd impulsively invited Kallen to join our murderous little adventure, and in doing so had squandered all the hard-won trust I'd built up. I should've just left well enough alone. Why the hell did I do something so stupid?


For the first time in a while, I truly did feel my physical age. For my own stupid emotional needs, my desire to impress a girl I wanted to be friends with, I'd pissed away all of my credibility. All I could do is nod numbly to Naoto and slump back off into the crowd of humanity, no longer needing to mimic the typically dejected stance of the typical Shinjuku Ghetto dweller. It wasn't until I was in sight of the building we'd be using as our jump-off point that I managed to get my head back into the game. I had a major act of terrorism to pull off and a market to raid. I could beat myself up over my stupid, hormonal, juvenile choices later.


---------


"Alright, once more from the top:" I surveyed the crowd of masked figures before me, nodding in satisfaction at how completely their features were obscured. Between the masks, the goggles, and the caps, even the incredibly distinctive Kozuki red hair was out of sight. Hopefully it'll be enough. "Kallen, Tamaki, and I will be Unit 1. Naoto, Nagata, and Inoue are Unit 2. Ohgi, Souichiro, and Chihiro are Unit 3. As soon as the bombs go off, Unit 1 will sprint ahead and hit the outside guards while they're still surprised by the explosion. We'll incapacitate them as quickly as possible and head down the stairs. Unit 2 will follow, and Unit 3 will ensure all guards are dead and communication devices smashed before following us. Once we hit the platform, Unit 1 will go left, Unit 2 will go right, and Unit 3 will give back up to whoever needs it."


I paused for a moment, looking around to see if anybody's body language looked confused. Chihiro looked so fired up she was practically trembling with excess energy, and I decided to speed up the rest of my last-minute prep session. Wouldn't want her to go off to early. "Hit anyone still standing first, and then make sure everyone on the ground is really dead. We don't want any survivors who can identify us or call for help. We take as much as we can carry, starting with Britannian currency and other money makers, then ammunition for the assault rifles, ammunition for the pistols, and finally any intact weapons you can stow in your backpack. We'll head up the east stairwell if it's still clear, or down the tunnel if not. As soon as we get away from the station, ditch the costume and split up. We'll all meet back up at the hideout."


Another chorus of grim nods were the only response, any expressions of disgust or horror hidden away from view by the masks and goggles. Everyone barring Kallen had known this plan for the last four days, but I was both pleased and appalled that nobody had questioned my plan. This was terrorism, and the execution of the wounded by itself was a war crime in the eyes of any civilized country. But this isn't a civilized country. This is Area 11, and Britannia killed civilization here 5 years ago.


"Alright, everybody pair up with a buddy and check your buddy's equipment. Take a minute and make sure everything's ready to go." Each of my urban insurgents was equipped with a small arsenal – each had a 7mm coilgun pistol, three extra magazines, a knife, a flashlight, and two fragmentation grenades from that stash Naoto had stolen so long ago. Inoue, Ohgi and I all carried small first aid kits in our packs as well – not enough to save a life, but enough to stem the bleeding, hopefully.


As the flurry of activity slowed to a halt, I moved into my final motivational speech, doing my best to summon my inner battle maniac persona to give a hint of sincerity to the presentation. "Comrades," the word felt wrong in my mouth, but it seemed like the most accurate term for the other members of the cell. "This is not the end for us or for our war, this is the beginning. We are taking our first major step against the vermin that gnaw at the vulnerable bellies and tender wounds of our families and friends, and who help the Britannian invaders in a myriad of small ways at the expense of our own."


A pause to let them remember why we were about to kill these men and women. Everybody nodded, clearly on board with killing. Considering how much I'd hammered home that the gangs were parasites sucking the life out of Shinjuku in the last few days, that was hardly a surprise.


"I'm not asking you to enjoy this, but I am asking you to follow me. Do not feel sorry for these people – show them no mercy, for I promise that they will show none to any of us if this doesn't work. Every one of those criminals could have found a way to help our people, just as we have, but they chose to grow fat off the suffering of others. By removing the gangs from Shinjuku, we improve the lives of every single innocent trapped in this cauldron of misery by the Britannians."


Ignore the fact that many of those gangsters had joined up just to get a stable source of food, and ignore the fact that so many of them were addicted to the same drugs they peddled to the rest of us. They'd made their choice.


Looking at the eight other men and women in the room, I considered giving them an out, a chance to back out with honor, perhaps an opportunity for some flicker of respect for the common humanity of all to come to the fore, but quickly decided against it. Just like our victims, they'd made their choice to be here. I hadn't forced anyone to be here – there were no draftees in this particular trench, only volunteers. I'd only be insulting them and their Japanese honor by saying they could leave and I'd be happy to let them walk.


I could feel Naoto's eyes on me as I continued. Don't worry, I don't want any of you to die either. "Be careful out there – watch out for yourselves, and for your comrades. We walk the path of righteousness – and I hope to have the privilege of congratulating each of you back at the hideout in a few hours for a job well done." I took a moment to look around, and meet each pair of goggles looking back at me, nodding at each of them.


Internally, I mostly just felt numb. I was back in the company of battle maniacs again, well and truly. None of them had spoken out, none of them had so much as flinched. And just like them, I too had no choice at this point. I was committed, and there was no going back. The only way to my cushy position in the rear was to slog through everything the world threw at me until I could finally collapse onto a generously upholstered office chair. Under my sense of numbness, I felt a pulse of seething emotion, one I couldn't quite identify. But the thought of the flechettes that were about to scythe through the crowded station below us made that roiling pool of emotion shudder with bestial satisfaction. Finally... I'm not going to be the victim. Never again – you hear me, Being X? - Never again.


Naoto stepped forward, and I stepped back, conceding the emotional center of the group to him. He looked from face to face, goggles to goggles, and lifted his up to reveal his own eyes. He looked vaguely ridiculous, holding the swim goggles away from his face, but his gaze was serious, and I could feel the pull of his charisma just as much as every other person in the room, all unconsciously leaning inwards, waiting for what our leader had to say.


"First, let me say that I am very proud of each and every one of you. We've all worked hard to make Tanya's plan work, and it's thanks to each of your efforts that we're about to take a great leap forward. This is far and away the most important mission we've had to date, and it's going to change everything for us if we pull it off." I thought that was a bit much, but I could understand why such claims would pump up the members of our little guerrilla band. Everybody likes feeling important, after all, even though this small act of mass terrorism was small potatoes to actually fighting the Britannians. As far as pre-battle speeches went, I'd heard far worse. Weiss's comment before the Legadonian invasion, 'well, hopefully we won't all die.' holding a special place of shame in my heart.


Unfortunately, Naoto kept talking and my satisfaction with his oratory vanished. "We walk a righteous path, the path of the gods, the path of kami." My stomach began to sink at the words, and a terrible premonition swept over me. Did that bastard reach out in Naoto's dreams, like what happened to Schugel? I crainned my head, trying to get a clear sight of his face and cursing myself for the idea of masking up. Fortunately, Naoto's expression didn't appear twisted in religious ecstasy; he looked calm and collected as he continued his speech. "Bishamon and Amaterasu are with us today, as we unleash fire and suffering on the running dogs of Britannia. We will bring a small piece of the cleansing fire of her Sun down into Shinjuku today, and burn away the rot that bites deep into the bones of our people." This... this is a sermon! A sermon declaring holy war!


Honestly, I should have expected something like this. People need an excuse to give in to their savagery, and while petty gain and personal beefs were enough for an odd murder or robbery a bombing campaign presumably required something a bit more substantial. Dammit! I knew I should have introduced an ideological program! I'd hoped the outline of objectives I'd given our new recruits, coupled with the focus on providing for the people here and now would have headed this off at the pass, but somehow religion had wriggled its way even into the agnostic minds of my countrymen. Gods are even harder to keep out than cats… But if this is what it takes to get them fired up… As long as nobody started proclaiming the glories of Being X personally, I supposed I could swallow it as a means to an end. At least both sides won't be claiming the same god is siding with them, I suppose.


After about a minute of further exhortations, Naoto wound down with a final message I could get behind. "...And now, let's make sure we can all go home tonight, and none of them can. For Japan!"


"For Japan!" We murmured back, no less fervent for how quiet we were. Finally, it's time.


---------


We left the building at speed, walking with a purpose as a group, moving straight down the street past the crumbling shells of buildings. Civilians took one look at us, at our hidden faces and clearly visible guns, and bolted. As the waves of people turning, looking, and fleeing began to ripple out, I raised my hand, the sign for Ohgi, Naoto, Nagata, and Inoue to press the 'dial' button on their burner phones, calling the numbers they'd carefully entered into their phones as we left the building.


Even from a block away, the sound was unmistakable, and immediately whisked me back to the Rhine. The sound was higher pitched than the detonations of artillery shells, but an explosion is an explosion. And 3... 2... 1... My thumb jabbed down on my own disposable cell phone, and the echo of a secondary explosion burst into the street as I shoved the phone into a pocket.


As planned, Unit 1 – Kallen, Tamaki, and I – immediately drew our pistols and began sprinting. There'd be a limited window of opportunity to get in close before the surviving guards figured out what had happened, and we needed to get as close as possible before we opened fire. It's going to be all about keeping the momentum up.


My heart thundered in my ears as my magic strengthened my legs, barely letting me keep up with Kallen and Tamaki's longer strides. Up ahead, I could see two men with the typical scarves marking gang affiliation wound around their arms, both staggering around and holding their ears. The blast wave must have been channeled straight up the stairs, I realized, I wonder if they've been deafened? If so it made my job just that bit easier.


My first shot caught the further gangster in his right side, just below his floating ribs. Already unbalanced, he turned with the shot, pulled by the momentum of the impact, and teetered on the cusp of falling to the filthy street. Still running, I helped him along with a second shot that looked like it hit his sternum, but by that point my attention had already moved on to his comrade. Fortunately, my competent subordinates had skidded to a halt and opened fire a second after I had, and at least three rounds had hit the man. Within four seconds of the first shot, the three of us were already pelting down the main staircase into Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station, Unit 2 hard on our heels. I could hear gunfire behind me, which I truly hoped was just Unit 3 was just putting a bullet into each of the guards' heads and taking their phones if they had any. Getting trapped in the station by gang reinforcements would be a hell of a complication. As we ran down the stairs, I fumbled with my flashlight but managed to switch it on, remembering the subterranean darkness of the station the night before.


As soon as we reached the foot of the stairs, any doubts I had about Mister Asahara's guaranteed quality were dispelled. It was hard to get an exact count of how many people had been in this room when I'd detonated the secondary explosion, as the flechettes had ripped through the close confines of the antechamber and shredded everybody inside. The reek of blood and feces from the ruptured entrails blended with the scent of explosives, and hung heavily in the air along with a thick cloud of concrete dust. Water pipes and bent girders swayed and hung down from the ceiling at odd angles, and above us the abused ceiling groaned and creaked. Clearly, the detonations of five pipe bombs were the final straw for Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station.


My concerns about the structural integrity of the death trap we were hurtling into aside, we weren't alone in the ticket room. Two gangsters, probably part of the guard detail from the entrance above, had their backs to us as we entered, one on his knees and vomiting, the other looking around wildly at the viscera splashed against the walls.


Kallen and Tamaki with their longer legs had reached the room just before I had, but hadn't delayed waiting for orders. Kallen had immediately thrown herself forwards, knife flashing in her hand, and had already stabbed the kneeling man twice in the back of his neck by the time I jumped down the last two stairs. Tamaki had opted for the less flashy option of simply pistol whipping the standing man, who had turned at the last minute and caught the barrel of the pistol along his temple. Stumbling back and bleeding from a head wound, he tripped over the bottom half of one of the unfortunates who had been in the room when the pipe bomb had gone off, and landed badly on his right arm.


I pumped more energy into my enhancement suite and sprinted through the room, heading out onto the platform, yelling "Leave them! Hurry!" to Kallen and Tamaki as I passed them. Behind me, I heard Unit 2 reach the bottom of the stairs, guaranteeing that our backs were protected. And so, riding the moment, I led Unit 1 out onto the platform of Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station and made a hard left turn, into what had been the center of the Kokuryu-kai weapons market less than two minutes before.


One unlucky day on the Rhine Front, the Francois mages had obtained a rare moment of aerial supremacy in a sector adjacent to my own. By the time the sector commander had called for reinforcements, the Francois had already had the opportunity to blast away at the recovery area a half mile behind the secondary trenches for a full five minutes, raining artillery spells down all over the cowering infantry below. Making the situation even worse, the Francois unit had been commanded by an officer wise enough to quit while he was ahead, and by the time I'd arrived the Frankish mages had already retreated back across the lines.


My unit was detailed to survey the damage and report back to the sector command, and I could still vividly remember the sight. It had been the first time I got an up-close view of what the aftermath of a mage raid on infantry positions unsupported by anti-air weaponry looked like. I particularly remembered the sight of a broad, shallow shell crater that had been used as an open-air mess hall by the units rotated back from the front; the Francois had detonated their artillery rounds about twenty feet over the heads of the surprised and trapped soldiers, and the explosions had essentially liquefied the three hundred or so soldiers who had been eating lunch at the time.


That was the only experience that even compared to what I saw on the platform. The overlapping cones of shrapnel and flechettes had done everything Asahara Hiyashi had promised and more. Shreds of men dripped from the walls, and the few men unlucky enough to not have been killed immediately screamed and screamed, blood gurgling in ruptured chests and torn throats. The things writhing on the ground were all mangled and pulped, less men then horrible worms, studded with shards of bone and glimmering steel needles. How many had been down here, when the bombs went off? A hundred? A hundred and fifty?


For a moment, I couldn't move, the sight of what I had wrought like a window into some hell; if it wasn't for the lack of half-animal, half-human demons, I'd think that I was looking into the mind of Hieronymous Bosch. There a man had wriggled up against a wall, and was holding his own spilled intestines, looking at them with a detached marvel and seemingly ignorant of his missing legs. Over there, half fallen off the platform onto the old subway tracks, was an old man, his skin spotted with liver marks and his back shredded, as if someone had flogged him to death. At the center of the market itself, no bodies had survived intact. All that the steel rain of the flechettes had left behind was a pulped mass of bone, sinew, and meat, steaming and bloody.


And then the stench hit. The blood and bowel smell of the smaller office was matched and exceeded ten times over, and the reek of burning garbage and the preexisting rot of the decrepit subway station blended with the heavy stench of spent explosives and terrified people. It was an overwhelming assault on the sensorium, and only my own long experience with death stopped me from dropping to my knees and vomiting just as the guard Kallen had knifed had done.


Enough! You've got a job to do. I slammed my eyes shut, and shook my head, desperately trying to reclaim my equanimity and detachment. Don't think about it – they were the enemy, and they'd kill you too. That's right. 'No mercy', that's what I'd said, right? Well, maybe I can give them a bit of mercy.


I walked over to the man staring at his own guts, doing my best to ignore how my stomach turned as he fiddled with the loops of intestine hanging from his ruptured abdomen. It's almost like he's playing with them... He couldn't have been much older than Kallen, and I could see his ribs, both through the skin of his exposed chest and protruding out from the deep gut wound that had disemboweled him.


I shot him twice through the chest, and felt only relief as he twitched and gasped.


Turning back to Kallen and Tamaki, I saw that both were standing still, as was Unit 2. Kallen had begun to shake, and Naoto had wrapped her in a hug. Gotta get them moving again. If they start thinking too much, they'll shut down.


"Hey! No slacking!" I winced internally at my own harsh tone, but I couldn't take it back, nor could I find the emotional energy to control myself. "Unit 1, we'll put the wounded down. Unit 2, start looking for anything usable! Hurry up, people – we need to be out of here in five minutes."


As one, the group seemed to jolt back into the present, and slowly the cell members began to move. Their previous speed and precision was replaced with jerky motions, but hopefully that would start to smooth out as they got absorbed in their tasks. I wonder if there's any psychologists in Shinjuku? Considering what I remembered about the Japanese attitude towards mental health, probably not, but it was worth a look. It'd be a shame to lose anybody to untreated shell shock, after all. Myself included. After all, back on the Rhine Front it was... easy to rain shells down. I was just a tool in the Empire's hand. This, on the other hand, was all me. None of this would have been possible without my planning and coordination. Shut up and stop wallowing! They need a leader, not a little girl who can't fucking cope! You're the veteran here – act like it and stop being a damned victim!


When did I start talking to myself like that? I idly wondered as I walked over to the next skinless half-man quivering on the grimy platform, the gang scarf still tightly wound around his left bicep despite the limb below the elbow being nowhere in sight. I don't remember when my internal monologue became a dialogue... almost just a harangue. Is this some kind of lasting effect from the Type-95? That seemed unlikely, considering how I hadn't felt less interested in praising Being X since the day I'd been born yet again.


"H-Hey! Tanya! C'mere!" Tamaki's shout from the far end of the platform startled me out of my stupid fucking idiotic self-reflection, and I hurriedly shot the wounded gangster twice in the chest before holstering my pistol and hurrying down the path, doing my best to avoid stepping on any pieces as I went.


Tamaki stood at the end of the platform, staring at what looked like a gigantic statue of a man in the dim light of his flashlight. As I got closer and added the illumination of my own flashlight to his, I realized that the casus belli Kallen had put in Lord Kewell's mouth in the faked message in my pocket amazingly contained a grain of truth. A Glasgow, a 4th Generation Knightmare Frame, the rapid action units six-year old me had marveled at during the Conquest, stood in Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station. It was clearly Britannian surplus, with fading unit markings and a serial number still painted in white across its slate-gray frame. The cockpit, or pilot block, was open, the seat protruded, just waiting for a pilot to step up and twist the key visibly protruding from the ignition. Looking under the block as I approached, I saw the blinking orange light of a partially charged Sakuradite energy cartridge, indicating the vehicle was gassed up and ready to go.


I wonder which gang was trying to sell the equivalent of a light tank? The east-most floor-level bomb had clearly ended whoever had been standing nearby the Knightmare, but equally clearly hadn't done a thing to damage the mechanical beast itself. I could see several scuff marks where flechettes had ricocheted away, doing nothing but marring the paint. Note to self, don't use anti-personnel weaponry against Knightmares.


"We're totally gonna take it, aren't we?" Tamaki chattered enthusiastically. "Man, this is gonna be so awesome! I've wanted to ride one of these things for years!" I was happy, if a bit disturbed, to see that any sort of stress he might be feeling as a result of the hundred or so dead bodies scattered around us was no match for his enthusiasm. I never would have pegged Tamaki for a mecha otaku – just goes to show how important it is to keep an open mind.


Unfortunately for Tamaki, I was fairly certain this thing was a poisoned chalice. No need to crush his hopes and dreams, though, so I'd walk him through the cons to try and temper his giddy joy. "Well, I'm not sure, Tamaki; got any ideas where we'd store the thing?"


"Umm..." He reluctantly turned away from the Knightmare and towards me, brow furrowed with thought. "In the subway tunnels? Pretty sure there's one near the hideout."


"The same tunnels we'd be using to steal the thing from the gang, and the way they presumably smuggled it into Shinjuku?" The question was rhetorical, and we both knew it. "Wouldn't that be the first place you'd look if you knew somebody had stolen the war machine you were trying to sell?"


Tamaki had no response to that one, but I could tell he still hadn't quite let go of the idea entirely yet, so I continued. "How would we keep it operational? We'd need a supply of spare parts, energy cartridges, and ammunition. We'd also need to find someone who knows how to maintain and repair Knightmares. The Britannians are incompetent, but surely they'd pay attention to anyone asking about Knightmare parts." Tamaki began to droop, and I reached as high on his back as I could reach to administer a friendly pat in consolation.


"Oh, a Knightmare! What the hell's that doing here?" I turned, hand still raised, and nearly ran into Kallen, who had apparently followed Tamaki's shouting too. Her goggles were up on her forehead, and her eyes were wide and fascinated, glued to the contours of the Knightmare's frame. The beam of her flashlight followed her gaze, tracing over the elongated "head" of the machine before following the bulging "chest" of the pilot block down past the blinking diode of the energy cartridge. Internally, I groaned. Great, another mecha otaku. Damn my luck, two in the same terrorist cell!


"Yes, a Knightmare. Seems like one of the gangs actually was stealing Britannian surplus." I realized my arm was still up, and lamely let it fall to my side. "I was just asking Tamaki if there was a place he knew about where we could store it. Got any ideas, Kallen?"


The half-Britannian hmm'ed for a moment, turning the idea over in her head, before letting out an exasperated growl and shaking her head. "Dad's got a boat shed down in the holiday colony on Enoshima, but there's no way we can get this thing all the way there without someone seeing it."


"That's more or less what I'd figured myself." I looked over at Tamaki, who was still staring at the Glasgow with a heartbroken expression, and felt a stirring of sympathy. He didn't need to be here for the next part. Plus, we're running out of time. "Tamaki," I began, speaking kindly and gently as if to a child, "why don't you go help Units 2 and 3 grab everything of value that we can, okay? Kallen and I will handle this."


"But... The chicks would really dig me if I was a Knightmare Pilot..." Tamaki whined, although he obligingly turned and started heading back up the platform, cursing as he nearly slipped on a pool of mingled blood and shit as he left. I rolled my eyes and smiled. It's good for morale to have jokers in the unit, I supposed. I should talk to him about time and place, though – he's good at slapstick, but this isn't really the place for it.


As he left, I turned back to Kallen and let the levity drop from my face and voice. Back to work, huh? Guess the team leader can't slack off on projects. "We're gonna need to disable this thing beyond all repair before we leave. If the gangs start rocketing around in Knightmares, no telling what the Britannians will do to re-establish their monopoly on the technology."


Kallen took the sudden change in topic in stride, and just nodded along. "I'm not sure how we're going to do that," she admitted, as she pulled a grenade out of her pack, "but I bet a few of these in the cockpit will handle it."


A girl after Koenig's heart. "Absolutely. One wedged right above the energy cartridge too." But how to secure and remotely detonate them? "Stay here, I'll be right back."


Fortunately, it turned out that Ohgi still had the leftover bundle of twine from last night tucked away in his backpack. As he dug it out, he let me know that all the Britannian currency, drugs, and ammunition that had survived the blast intact was more or less all packed up, and Inoue had taken it upon herself to task the idle members of Units 2 and 3, and Tamaki, with policing up all the cellphones from the various gangsters on the off chance that any were usable and unlocked. I thanked him for the update and told him to pass the word to Naoto to start the withdrawal up the east stairway.


"...I'll see you back at the hideout." I finished as I pinned the fraudulent notice from the Purists claiming responsibility for the attack to the broken half of a table using a knife requisitioned from a nearby torso. "Remember to ditch the costume before you get too far. No need to create a string of witnesses across Shinjuku."


"Yeah, yeah, we know. We're not old enough to get dementia, Tanya." Figures that Ohgi the Sadist would have no problem cracking jokes at a time like this.


As the rest of the cell streamed past us and up the rubble-choked staircase, Kallen and I carefully wedged the four grenades we had between ourselves into the central joints of the Glasgow and into the cockpit. Before we put the grenades in place, we tied a length of twine to the pins, and tied those lengths of twine to a second, much longer piece. Ideally, we could get to the stairs, pull the string from there, and run as far up behind them as possible before the explosion, avoiding the embarrassing possibility of taking the only injuries sustained on this mission from our own shrapnel. I doubted that fragmentation grenades would be adequate to permanently incapacitate a Knightmare, but I hoped that the Sakuradite core powering the vehicle's Yggdrasil Drive and the Sakuradite in the energy cartridge would be detonated by the grenades' detonations.


And so, two minutes past my five minute deadline, I pulled the sting and sprinted up the stairway, heavy backpack thumping at my ground as I leapt over the chunks of cement and the crooked shafts of rebar that seemed to reach out to trip me, Kallen hot on my heels. Behind me, I heard the sound of something falling and cursed. One of the grenades got pulled out of the Knightmare! Too late now. I wasn't heading back to see if the other three pins had come free or not.


As it turned out, at least one had clearly detonated, and equally clearly it was the one wedged between the pilot block and the energy cartridge. The initial crackling explosion of the grenade was soon followed by a deeper bellow, prompting me to dump all my reserved energy into my enhancement suite, relying on my supercharged reflexes to dive through gaps in the rubble and to leap over the many impediments. Kallen somehow kept up, and I drove the bitter envy from my mind as the athletic noble easily kept up with me. Damn the Kozukis and their superior breeding! Truly, there was something to be said for hybrid vigor. Pity I didn't seem to have any of it.


By the time we hurtled out into the cold outside air, it was clear that the explosion of the Knightmare's Sakuradite, coupled with the pipe bombs, had been the final straw. As we ran down the street, away from the visibly teetering skeleton of an office building that stood atop the old Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station, I could only be thankful that no civilians seemed to be out and about. Presumably the two bloody corpses lying out on the street, coupled with the sounds of gunshots and explosions, had been enough of a hint that the area was dangerous. Admittedly, I hadn't expected the dangers of the area to include the final collapse of one of Shinjuku's many cadaverous buildings, but it was hardly the first building I'd brought crumbling to the ground.


I'm sure, given time, the other inhabitants of Shinjuku would grow equally accustomed to the sight.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 11: A Victory Stew


(A big thank you to Siatru, and to Daemon and Shade on the Tanya Writers Discord for beta reading this chapter. Hopefully the writer's block won't persist into the new year, and I'll deliver more AYGGW with Germanian efficiency!)


Two blocks away from the ruins of Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station, I ducked into an alleyway, Kallen hot on my heels. Resisting the urge to surrender to my aching limbs and collapse against the wall, I quickly started stripping away my disguise - the last thing I wanted was for any survivors to hear reports of people in bloodstained medical scrubs heading to a certain basement. The gloves came off in two efficient tugs, and were balled up with the goggles and the mask inside the knit cap a moment later. Bending down, I tucked the bundle of fabric into a pile of bricks fallen from a nearby building and swiftly pulled my scrub top off over my head, cramming it into the rubble pile after the hat.


Turning to check on my comrade, I saw Kallen doing much the same thing as I had, quickly stripping her disguise off. In the alley, dingy even in the faint light of the joyless November sun, her incredibly vivid hair was an eye-catching explosion of red as she shook it free from her cap. As Kallen pulled the scrub top off, leaning back to try and wiggle a shoulder free of the medical garment, I saw a flash of skin as the vest she wore underneath tried to follow the disposable layer and exposed her belly.


For some reason, I didn't immediately turn away. The adrenaline spike of going into danger had already begun to fade, and after days of planning and the intensity of the last fifteen minutes, my mind felt dull and heavy. My eyes locked on Kallen' smooth skin, and while I dimly knew I should look away I remained transfixed. I knew that it would be awkward if she turned around and saw me blankly staring at her, but that concern felt unimportant compared to the exhaustion that seemed to swallow me up.


I suddenly realized I was swaying on my feet, and about to fall over. The tilting sensation grounded me back in the present, and I realized I'd spent at least a few seconds blankly staring at Kallen's back. Immediately, I spun around and vigorously shook my head. This is no time to be zoning out! You're in enemy territory! The mission's not over yet!


Remembering the possibility that irate gangsters might already be out hunting for whoever attacked the market, I kept my eyes fixed on the entrance to the alley, checking to make sure nobody had seen us dart inside and followed us. Unfortunately, the street outside appeared entirely deserted, presumably as the wise had fled the sound of nearby explosions and the foolish had gone to the station to take a look, so I had nothing to focus on to distract myself from the grunting noises Kallen made as she fought to free herself from her shirt. If I wasn't so hungry and tired, I'm sure a few joking remarks would have lept to mind about how Kallen could effortlessly gun down a man but couldn't change her clothes without the help of a maid, but all I could think of at the moment was how badly I wanted a cup of the rare, watery coffee I sometimes allowed myself. Besides, I doubted that Kallen would appreciate attempts at levity while we were out on a mission, especially not about the man she'd shot minutes before. Her second kill, now that I think about it. The first with a gun... Wonder how it felt, compared to the knife?


Kallen soon managed to shuck off the scrubs, and after taking a moment to straighten her clothes out, joined me in the mouth of the alley. Free of our disguises, we took the "scenic" route back to the hideout, going far out of our way and taking a circuitous route through the tangled streets and alleys of Shinjuku. I did my best to move the same way I had during my long years of searching out day labor for my daily bowl of watery soup: head down, shoulders slumped, steps small and shuffling. Ohgi's hoodie, once again stained with blood and cement dust, was bulky enough to hide in and the hood deep enough to completely hide my unfortunately distinctive hair. Kallen, by contrast, made no effort to conceal her Britannian heritage, instead focusing on concealing her reason for being in Shinjuku Ghetto on the day of a major terrorist attack. Putting her cellphone to her ear, she immediately began to babble excitedly into the phone as we headed west, away from both the ruins of Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station and from the hideout. Even as she chatted with an imaginary conversation partner, Kallen still managed an impressive degree of mobility, somehow sliding in, out, and around the increasingly dense pedestrians, forcing me to speed up to keep pace with her longer strides.


When she'd first begun walking down the road as we'd left the alley, phone glued to her ear and a stream of almost stereotypical teenage babble filling the air, I'd nearly pulled Kallen right back into the shadows to give her a quick lesson on how to not draw every eye in the ghetto, but now I was thankful I had mastered that impulse; nobody would link the young woman prancing through the ghetto in short-shorts and leg warmers to a terrorist attack. While people certainly saw her, nobody particularly cared about a Britannian teenager on a thrill trip to the Eleven ghetto, especially not when the rising plume of dust in the distance and the already spreading rumors let everybody know something big was happening nearby. A few people frowned at her apparent insensitivity when Kallen commented on the smell of the ghetto or how lucky she'd been to be in Shinjuku when something interesting happened, but aside from muttering about 'damned Brits', nobody seemed particularly interested in what she was doing or where she was going. I was right to trust her as an intelligence agent, if her tradecraft has developed so rapidly!


It was an impressive performance, so much so that I started to doubt my decision to go as low-profile as possible. While everybody saw Kallen, nobody was suspicious of her – irritated, yes, scornful, maybe, but suspicious, no; on the other hand, with my features hidden by the oversized hoodie and the way I instinctively shied away from touching anybody else while still keeping as close to Kallen as possible, I suddenly realized that I probably looked exactly like a fugitive desperate to escape the scene of a crime undetected.


I thought of myself as being fairly decent at reconnaissance, my eye for terrain details sharpened by my time as first an artillery spotter and then as the head of an independent command of aerial mages, but I couldn't pretend to be similarly experienced with human intelligence. I had been, after all, a combat asset, not a spook.


There were only so many problems you could solve via signaling, after all, and a savage beating wasn't the end-all, be-all when it came to interrogation.


As a result of my magical abilities and talents as a soldier, I'd never been trained for this sort of subterfuge in my past life. The extent of infiltration planning had been a brief seminar on planning and executing ambushes, the lessons of which had already paid off in this third life, when I'd gotten the drop on those unlucky gangsters in the truck. Fortunately, I now had comrades who understood human intelligence, and who were clearly cold-blooded enough to push every advantage at their disposal to advance the mission. I looked admiringly at Kallen as she made her way down yet another Shinjuku street, seeming to dodge around elderly pedestrians, street vendors, and the heaps of stinking garbage without noticing anything around her, absorbed in her noisy, faked conversation. What audacity, to hide in plain sight and make not the slightest effort to conceal your presence! She'd clearly grown from her previous encounter with violence – last time she'd barely walked a block before bursting into unconcealed anger and pain, and now it was as if nothing she'd seen in the subway station had touched her. Or maybe her mask has just gotten better...


Eventually, the crowds thinned out, and we finally made it back to our basement hideout. The sun had begun to set as we came down the stairs, which were thankfully free of any signs of a struggle, much less a force of irate gangsters waiting for us in our little hole in the ground sanctuary with murder on their minds. Apparently, the Kozuki Organization had gotten away undetected, at least for today. Safe for today, sure... How long do you think that's going to last? With a vigorous shake of the head, I muted that particular internal voice. I couldn't even truly say we were safe for the day yet, not until I'd checked in and made sure that all the other scattered guerrillas had all made it back safely. I'm sure they did, I told myself as I followed Kallen down the last flight of stairs, the sound of the 'secret' generator throbbing through the uninsulated wall of the sub-basement, they probably didn't even wait for us to start celebrating their victory.


As it turned out, we had been the last to return, but contrary to my expectations we did not walk in on a party in full swing. Instead, as Kallen opened the door to the hideout and stepped inside, I caught a brief glance of a room full of anxious, silent people sitting on the couches or pacing around the firing range before everybody noticed us and chaos descended.


"Kallen!" Naoto practically hurled himself to his feet and almost tackled his sister in a hug, rushing from the couch to the doorway in a red and brown blur. Kallen mumbled a greeting into his jacketed shoulder as she wrapped her arms around him, returning the hug even as she took a step back to compensate for his momentum, nearly stepping on my foot. I could hear what sounded like her cursing at him through the leather of his coat, probably some sort of endearing sibling spat about how she wasn't a kid and he was embarrassing her, but I noticed that she made no effort to let go of her big brother, and indeed clung on to him just as hard as he did her.


Dodging Kallen's foot, I tried to take a step around the siblings into the room, intending to give them some space. I was sure that Naoto was probably still at least somewhat upset with me for getting Kallen involved in the first place, and I'm sure stewing in his own juices for a few hours as we'd taken a pedestrian tour of Shinjuku probably hadn't done anything to soothe his aristocratic temper. Furthermore, now that the adrenaline of the situation had gone down, I was sure he'd be upset that I'd taken his baby sister to a mass casualty incident. I suddenly remembered seeing Kallen stumbling to a halt and shaking in her boots, eyes wide and pupils dilated in the dark subway station, and winced. Even if Naoto wasn't upset with me about instigating that particular traumatic episode, my lack of sympathy in the immediate aftermath would guarantee his anger. I'd hoped that, between his logical intelligence and leadership experience, he'd realize that I was just trying to keep things moving and would understand why I'd been so callous, but considering how fervently he was hugging Kallen it was clear that Big Brother Naoto was in charge at the moment, not Revolutionary Leader Naoto.


Which made it all the more surprising when, as I stepped around the siblings, Naoto abruptly released Kallen and grabbed me, pulling me close. For an instant, I tried to resist the pull, impulses to flee from the sudden onslaught or launch an attack warring within my exhausted mind, but between the surprise and the fatigue I was too tired and surprised to fight back. The moment passed, and I realized that I wasn't under attack – instead, for the second time, Naoto was hugging me. I grimaced, discomforted by both the public display of... emotion? Affection? Either way, it made me embarrassed to be casually manhandled in front of everybody, and the unaccountable warmth inside me at the feeling of being held tight to another person who wasn't trying to hurt me did nothing to soothe my mounting embarrassment at this latest humiliation. Kallen smiled happily down at us until she met my eyes, saw my displeased expression... and her smile curved wickedly before she burst out laughing, the treacherous wench.


Before I could extract myself from the hug to take revenge on my traitor of a subordinate and didn't that word seem just a bit forced, Naoto loosened his grip, backing off a step and making eye contact. His blue eyes, a slightly darker shade than his sister's, were as intense as they were watery, and I felt the same treacherous acceleration of my heart I'd experienced a few hours earlier at the sight of his sister's smooth skin. His ancestors surely must have engaged in some form of eugenics program – it's the only reasonable explanation. Genetic inheritance surely wouldn't be so cruel as to randomly give a single already wealthy and powerful family beauty, strength, and intelligence on top of social standing and financial power, would it? Nature might not, but like all things Britannian and noble, the Kozuki siblings were clearly the products of unfair competition. Definitely not interesting for anything beyond their connections and abilities, not at all. Just part of my path to a cushy job administering their father's demesne. That's all, damn those blue eyes... This was ridiculous. He was showing just a slight amount of affection to me, and I was obsessing over his eyes. Is this some sort of insidious Britannian love-bombing? Am I being influenced? ...No, that's ridiculous.


"Thank you, Tanya, for everything you've done." I felt myself sway slightly, suddenly pulled out of my thoughts by Naoto's thankful babble, hating how my paranoid, interaction-starved mind and weak knees betrayed me. That, or the cost of tapping my energy reserves during the rush out of the station was finally making itself known, and I was about to pass out from exhaustion and hunger. Perhaps that explains why I can't stay focused – I'm dead on my feet. I really needed to ask Kallen to get me more fat- and protein-heavy food if I intended to keep using my limited magic, especially if it left me this mentally fatigued whenever I pushed a bit too far, and Naoto was still talking. I probably didn't miss much... I wonder if he's got any snacks...


"Your plan was everything I could have ever hoped for and more. And thank you, thank you, for keeping Kallen safe. You were true to your word. The Goddess Amaterasu herself couldn't have done a better job smiting those monsters." Naoto chuckled at his joke, before clapping me on the shoulder, rising back to his full height, and leading his sister over to a table creaking under the weight of a heavy pot full of what looked like a thick stew, perched precariously on an ancient cooking stove. As soon as I saw the pot, which Souichiro was carefully stirring, a sudden awareness of the heady smell of cooked food burst upon me, and I felt my mouth flood with saliva as my nose suddenly registered the scents of grease, salt, and broth. I was sure the visibly greasy stew swirling in the pot would have turned my stomach in my past life, when I'd grown passionately sick of endless wurst, but I was so hungry that I'd even be willing to pull of Vi... Visha's old stunt and eat a plate of K-brot.


Before I could take two steps to follow the Kozuki's and snag a bowl for myself, another hand landed on my shoulder. Wearily, irrationally fearing that taking my eyes off the soup would guarantee I'd never get fed, I looked up at Ohgi. He seemed about to say something weighty, judging by his expression, something that he had to get off his chest, but something he saw made him take pity on me; instead of the lecture I was certain the sadistic former teacher would deploy to devastating effect, he simply smiled and patted me on the shoulder. "Go on and get something to eat – we can talk later."


Almost before his hand had lifted away, I capitalized on my advantage and surged away from the second in command, blazing a line straight towards the soup. Nagata, sitting beside Naoto on the couch, pressed a bowl into my hands as I passed, and Souchiro filled it with a generous ladle. Cradling my bowl like the precious thing it was and slowing only to grab a spoon from heap of loose cutlery at the end of the table, I sat down on the other couch between a Tamaki and Chihiro, who were both chasing after intoxication as quickly as they could drink. Tamaki had a bottle of some sort of homemade rotgut in his hand, while Chihiro had a water glass a third full of some evil-smelling clear spirit. As soon as I sat down, Chihiro lifted the glass over my head and with a loud "Kampai!" Tamaki filled it from his bottle. I didn't care – I was in a slice of culinary heaven. The broth was almost painfully salty, the few scraps of meat were either gristly or greasy, and the vegetables had been over-boiled almost to the point of dissolution and well past the point of tastelessness, but the fine spice of hunger made it a meal fit for the Kaiser in his palace, free from any rationing or shortage.


As I inhaled my soup, I took the opportunity to look around at the rest of the Kozuki Cell, covertly observing my comrades over the rim of the rapidly emptying bowl. On first glance, all appeared to be well. Souchiro and Ohgi stood by the door, bowls in hand and talking about something I couldn't quite make out, presumably the good old days as old men are wont to do. Inoue sat over at the firing range's loading table, going through one of the packs deposited in a heap by her feet, clearly taking the initiative and starting an inventory of what loot we'd managed to get away with, a bowl of cooling stew near her hand. Nagata and Naoto were swapping jokes back and forth, laughing at each other, Kallen laughing along from her seat between them, across the table from me. Chihiro and Tamaki continued to drink, Tamaki loudly bragging about something mostly indecipherable and Chihiro nodding along, every so often extending her glass towards him in a silent request for a refill of the pungent homemade liquor.


While I was happy to see my comrades enjoying a well earned moment of relaxation, the longer I looked at them the more superficial all the celebration seemed. Tamaki might be a drunk, but I'd never seen him pound away at a bottle of hard liquor with the same aggressive pace he was setting beside me. Chihiro, in my experience, was typically a hairsbreadth from an explosion of rage at the best of time, periodically flying off the handle at seemingly minor setbacks during training – her uncommunicative, subdued state seemed wildly out of character, as did the amount of liquor she was downing. Inoue was always a hard worker, but she usually socialized with the rest of the cell when we all happened to be at the hideout at the same time – burying herself in work was something she typically did while alone, or when it was only the two of us working on keeping the Benevolent Association's books straight. Nagata and the Kozukis might be laughing and joking, but the laughter from all three sounded hollow, and Kallen in particular looked worryingly bleak, chuckling half-heartedly while staring into the bowl of congealing stew sitting on the table in front of her. While I couldn't hear what Ohgi and Souchiro were saying over Tamaki, I could see how Ohgi's eyes darted from person to person, keeping tabs on his class and making sure nobody had wandered off.


In short, the party was a sham and nobody was happy to be here. Completely understandable, considering what we'd all seen just hours before. My stomach twisted, and I cursed under my breath. I known I would pay for wolfing down that disgusting meal so quickly, but I hadn't expected indigestion so soon.


Setting the horrible feeling and my empty bowl aside, I tried to think of what I should do to address this new problem. My experience managing human resources in both my previous lives told me that letting my organization stew would likely decrease both individual and organizational efficiency, and could severely impact intra-organizational relationships, particularly with myself as the instigator of the whole event. Even beyond the concern that I might become the whipping girl for any misplaced anger or stress, letting fresh employees or soldiers go without support after major milestones was an excellent way to impact their ability to develop and grow from their experience – if I didn't intervene somehow, and just let the cell self-medicate their problems away, didn't that make me a negligent manager?


At the same time, I had no qualms admitting that I was not, in fact, a qualified therapist, and I doubted that my experience performing performance reviews and career advancement meetings would carry over to dealing with this kind of issue. It certainly hadn't the last time around, now that I looked back on my second life. I'd periodically invested my efforts in improving the abilities of my subordinates, both before and after the formation of the 203rd, but that had mostly been performative in nature and technical in scope. I might have improved the skills of the soldiers I'd worked with, but I had never thought it necessary to give any psychological support to my subordinates. I had maintained the distance of command, concerned that any laxness or casual interactions would undermine my authority, always a concern when one is three heads shorter and a hundred pounds lighter then everybody around them.


The only time I had ever so much as tried to help my subordinates with their qualms regarding the War and what we were doing had been coercing Grantz into engaging with the Francois partisans during the Arrene operation. That whole operation, including my advice to Lieutenant Grantz, now felt bitterly ironic, now that I myself was a partisan conducting terrorist acts. I remembered the callous way I had stood by and recorded the summary executions of captured Germanians by the partisans, and the equally callous way I'd rained fire down on suspected partisan positions, uncaring of potential civilian deaths. I hadn't been wrong, when I'd told Grantz that "those who survive always come back for vengeance," and the Britannians would certainly learn the truth of those words from long ago and far away too. At the same time... I could have handled that whole situation better, both the tactical problem of Arrene and the managerial problem of Lieutenant Grantz. Grantz clearly needed a reach out, a reassurance, something constructive to build his loyalty and faith in the righteousness of our cause – and I'd bungled the situation and resorted to threats instead. It was fortunate that the whole experience hadn't burnt Grantz out entirely, and that he'd continued to serve as part of the 203rd.


That had been far from my first managerial error when it came to my first independent command. With the benefit of hindsight and free from the mind-altering influence of the Type-95, I could admit to myself that I had gone overboard in both my initial training of the 203rd. The only saving grace had been that my training hadn't actually killed anybody, and that my pool of recruits had been selected from the crème of the Imperial Army's mage corps, and thus already had some training and superhuman toughness. Even with those advantages, if I didn't have the military hierarchy and the desperation of the war to hide behind, I likely would have been court martialed for my abusive conduct.


And now, stripped of those advantages, I found myself once more outside of my core competencies for the second time in a day. Earlier today, Kallen had proven her grasp of human intelligence and infiltration had, in some ways, far exceeded my own. In a moment I had neither prompted nor planned for, she had immediately understood the best way to guarantee her safe passage back to the hideout unconnected to the attack we had perpetrated minutes before. I had not understood what Kallen had been aiming for until I examined her actions and the responses they prompted minutes later – in fact, I had nearly stopped her and forced her to do things my way, which ultimately might have led the vengeful survivors of the Kokuryu-kai straight to our front door. Although...


Perhaps that was the lesson I should have learned; I might be somewhat skilled, especially when it came to combat, but I wasn't the only member of the organization who brought specialized experience to the table. I was a member of a team now, not a lone child fending for herself on the streets, and I should act accordingly. Trying to take all responsibility on myself was a sure way to crash and burn, or at the very least make everybody resent me more than they already do, the murderous little half-Brit whorechild. Yes, delegation was important. Someone needed to talk to the members of the cell, to get their grievances aired so they could be addressed, before the trauma and resulting dissatisfaction tore us apart or undermined my comrades' mental health. And that someone wasn't going to be me, because I'd probably definitely screw it up just as much as I had when I'd tried to talk to Lieutenant Grantz.


I found myself looking at Ohgi, still deep in conversation with Souichiro. As the second in command of the Kozuki Cell, not to mention as a former teacher, he definitely had the skills necessary to coax honest answers from our fellow terrorists about what they were feeling in the wake of our first major operation. His role as an officer was a double-edged sword, since while he had the power to take immediate action on any lessons learned or suggestions for improvement, that same authority might bias answers towards the party line and assurances that everybody was feeling fine, especially considering what I remembered from my first life. Complaining to superior was frowned upon in most cases, but especially if your complaints touched on about personal problems or concerns about mental stability. Considering the impact the Conquest had on the traditional forms of Japanese life, that might not be as big of a concern now, but there was still the hint of sadism I'd noticed in Ohgi before to worry about. If I asked him to start probing into our comrades, would he take advantage of them and use whatever he discovered to needle them, gratifying his sick impulses? Would he take advantage of me, blackmailing me with the weakness I'd revealed, the implied mistrust of my fellow cell-members? If Ohgi or Naoto ever decided that I was threatening their status as the unquestioned leaders of the cell, revealing that I'd wanted my comrades interrogated would lead everybody to turn on me, and I'd be found in an alley somewhere in Shinjuku with my tongue cut out and my eyes gouged.


I took another bite of soup, and closed my eyes. I was letting my fear get to me. Ohgi wasn't going to betray me, and he wasn't going to abuse our fellows. No matter what his personal predilections were, the man was a professional, loyal to both Naoto and the cause. It was wrong to judge him for enjoying the infliction of pain – such a trait could be useful in a soldier, doubly so in an irregular fighter. He had never been anything less than personally kind to me, and I doubted that Kallen, Tamaki, Nagata, or Inoue would simply sit by and let Naoto and Ohgi administer the traditional punishment for snitches, if push came to shove. I prided myself on my logic, on thinking things through clearly, and on utilizing resources to their fullest potential. I hadn't let fear immobilize me when Naoto had used Tamaki to test my abilities and loyalty to the cause, and I wouldn't let fear stop me from doing what I had to do to make sure everybody in this room stayed as healthy as could be, mentally and physically. We had a long road ahead of us, and I'd need everybody's help to finally get my rear into an executive-level cushioned office seat.


Well, no time like the present. Plus, I was out of soup, and Tamaki and Chihiro were only getting louder with each swig. With a grunt of effort, I forced myself to my feet and dropped my empty bowl onto the table next to the still half-full pot. The thick, rich scent of simmering broth was intoxicating, and I nearly halted in my tracks to serve myself seconds, but forced myself to keep moving. There would hopefully be time for more soup later, and if not, I'd had enough to tamp down the hunger pangs to a manageable level – I hoped that bowl would be enough to restore my mind to its typical efficiency at the very least.


Ohgi apparently saw me coming, as he clapped Souichiro on the shoulder and came over to meet me by the table. "Feeling a bit better now, Tanya? You can have more if you'd like." The man's smile was kind, and I nearly succumbed to temptation once again, but I persevered. The attack on the market had been my first mission as a strategist and junior officer of the organization – I couldn't rest until my mission was complete, including dealing with the aftermath and accounting for our gains and losses. Which reminded me that after I talked with Ohgi about meeting with the other members of the cell individually, I needed to meet up with Inoue to see if we'd managed to at least break even on our mission; apparently, my schedule wouldn't allow me back for seconds. Maybe I'll see if I can raid Ohgi's snack stash again later... If he didn't move it after Kallen broke in the last time...


"Thank you, but I'm alright for now." For some reason, Ohgi didn't look pleased at my professional response, his smile seeming to shrink by a few teeth. Perhaps the cool response was puncturing the party atmosphere? It would be unfortunate to be seen as aloof, but more so to be seen as unreliable, so I soldiered on. "Can I speak to you privately, for a moment? I have something I need your help with."


Ohgi's eyes widened slightly, but his only outward response was an easy nod. "That's fine with me, Tanya. I actually wanted to talk with you about something myself." He jerked his head towards the door of the hideout, and continued, "Want to go up and get some fresh air? It's getting a bit too loud in here for me."


I nodded, even as I tried to puzzle out what it was he wanted to talk about. Now that I thought about it, Ohgi had tried to take me aside before I'd eaten, practically as soon as I'd returned from the mission trailing behind Kallen. Presumably, whatever it was the second in command had to share was time sensitive, and I cursed my short-sightedness that I had opted to satisfy my hunger before listening to whatever it was he wanted to say. He had told me it could wait until after I'd eaten though, presumably because he'd realized that I wouldn't be able to think straight with the tantalizing scent of dinner in my nose. Sadist or not, I've worked under far worse bosses before. I really should be more thankful to Naoto and Ohgi for the amount of trust and support they had extended to me, as well as the opportunity to prove myself worthy to the game Lord Stadtfeld was playing with us all.


Outside in the ruins of the old tenement, the day's small heat was already a thing of the past, and the wind coming off Tokyo Bay kilometers away cut effortlessly through my hoodie. Shivering, I took shelter behind a wall that blocked the worst of the windchill and hoped this conversation wouldn't take too long. Already, the warmth and food of the sub-basement seemed like a dream in the brutally cold November night. Thankfully, Ohgi opted to stand between me and the shattered window letting the wet breeze inside, further blocking the wind, and didn't waste any time.


"You did a really good job, Tanya, getting everything planned out and working. It was... Impressive, seeing you plan out the attack in such detail, and then getting all the parts together. Solid work. I don't think Naoto or I could do something like that." Well, at least I don't feel cold anymore. It was nice having management that could appreciate my work, and was willing to offer positive feedback as appropriate. "That said..." Oh shit, oh shit! What did I do wrong?


True to his sadistic nature, Ohgi left me on the hook for what felt like a small eternity, the seconds-long gap slowly stretching out to a minute before he continued. "That said... I'm not comfortable with killing injured people. I know, I know, there were lots of good reasons that you'd be happy to share."


I hadn't realized my mouth was already open, ready to spout justifications and explanations until Ohgi gestured for me to stay quiet. Reluctantly, I closed my mouth, feeling fit to burst like an over-pressurized pipe. Did he think that I liked it? I didn't! I hated it! But what was I supposed to do – let them live and tell everybody what we look like? Even in costume, if they picked out enough details, everybody would be in danger! And the ones down in the station weren't going to live – should I have just let them suffer, Ohgi?! The last thought clotted the panicked babble into a sensation of solid mass in the back of my throat. He said he just didn't feel comfortable killing the injured, which made sense given his personality – a corpse, after all, cannot scream.


"I'm not asking you to justify anything – I don't have the right to do so." Ohgi had continued to talk after a brief pause, and I forced my attention back to what he was saying, doing my best to ignore the wet gurgles that the disemboweled man down in the station had made until I had silenced him. Ultimately, even though he still lived, he hadn't screamed either. "Naoto and I agreed to your plan, and helped you out – we even helped you plant the bombs ourselves. It's just that... well, it made me feel like a Britannian, I guess. They couldn't fight back, and we killed them. I guess that's just part of being a terrorist, though." Silently, I agreed with him. This wasn't going to be a clean war, and lots of people, including civilians, were going to die. The way he phrased that concern still felt like a gut punch though, even if I'm sure he hadn't intended it to be.


I remembered watching a Britannian officer pick his way through the pile of corpses strewn at the foot of a wall, carefully prodding each body and shooting any that groaned in the head with his pistol. He had been just as externally calm and collected as I had been, moving down the blood-slick platform. I suddenly felt nauseated and shamed by the praise Ohgi had given me just seconds before. I didn't regret what I had made possible, but the idea that I had acted like a Britannian, that the plans inspired by my past lives made being a Britannian in mind a possibility, a state of mind that came naturally to me and to my planning process... It was shameful. Once again, I remembered being on the side with dominance of arms and technology, and felt ashamed of my actions. Killing the Dacian army and taking only the commander alive had been effortless, knocking their country out of the war had been as easily achieved as the Britannian Conquest of my youth – even easier, since we didn't even suffer a minor defeat like the Britannians had at Itsukushima. At Arrene, while I hadn't had the authority to attack the city I had been the one to draw up the plan unbinding the Army's hands, and I had used my tactical authority to insure that plan was carried out as close to perfection as could be.


Perhaps Being X had been crueler than I'd thought, when he'd reincarnated me for the second time. I thought the hair, eyes, and face, the same as my second life, had just been his attempt at a joke; when I'd learned about the circumstances of my new life, I had thought it was a simple way to increase the difficulty of my new life, a cursed gift by a wannabe deity. Now, I wondered if his decision to encumber me with Britannian heritage had been a damning indictment of my moral character in his eyes. True, god or not Being X was in no way my moral superior, but I couldn't help but think his decision to make my sire in this life a member of the greatest race of callous murderers around was a hint about how the alleged deity saw me. If so, I couldn't honestly say that he was entirely wrong – my works proved him at least partially right.


"I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't have put that on you." I could still hear Ohgi talking, but he felt some distance away, as I pondered the mysterious ways in which Being X worked. "I'm sure you're beating yourself up now, but you really shouldn't. I was trying to say that I'm sure other members of our group are going to feel the same way, so I will talk to them to make sure they understand that Naoto and I fully backed your plan, and they should come to us if they have concerns... Tanya? Tanya?"


I snapped back into the present as Ohgi gently shook me, forcing my mind away from contemplating that evil unknowable bastard and trying to rewind what Ohgi had been saying as I spaced out. He was crouched low now, eyes level with my own, and he looked quite concerned. I tried to force a smile, to try and show that I was aware and listening, so he didn't need to look at me like I'm some weak girl who can't hack it. I'm not! I'm strong! I'm strong! I'm not weak, I'm not broken, so pleasepleaseplease don't look at me with pity! I was injured.


"Thank you, Ohgi." I forced the words out, and to my relief they came out smoothly, my voice cool and unwavering, untouched by my internal whining. "I actually wanted to ask you to talk to the other members of the cell. I realize that most of them haven't seen anything like... that, before, and I don't think I'd be able to... I don't think most of our comrades would be willing to truthfully tell me what they think." Now that I was acting again, moving forward on an issue I had identified, I felt a bit more in control. I just need to keep moving forwards, I realized, every time I look back I let myself get distracted, so I just need to stay active, not reactive. "If possible, I would like for you to meet with each of them individually, to give them an opportunity to freely express their views and concerns – the sooner the better. If we let them bottle it up for too long, their mental stability might be... undermined, reducing their efficacy."


"The same goes for you, Tanya." His immediate response was like a slap across my face, and if Ohgi hadn't had his hand on my shoulder I might have actually rocked back. Does... does he see me as mentally unstable? No! Nonono! I don't have anywhere to go! I can't leave the group! I don't want to be alone again! Please, no! I'm good! I'm good! I realized I'd started to hyperventilate, and fought to get my breath under control again. Passing out would do nothing to improve Ohgi's apparently low opinion of me, and it would guarantee I'd never have a hand in planning anything again, endangering my planned path to a safe management position far from the front lines.


Ohgi sighed, and patted me on the head with his other hand. I focused on the sensation of the hand on my shoulder and the hand on my head, drawing stability from the feeling of the pressure and hating myself for the weakness I was clearly showing to my superior. You're acting like an upset child, having a tantrum and needing her daddy to pamper her to calm her down. I cringed at the mental image and tried to force it away. Ohgi wasn't my father, he was my boss. I didn't have a father. I didn't have a mother. I just had a job, a cause, and coworkers. That's all. Feeling good from human touch may be instinctual, but it was also a weakness. This was a dangerous life, and it was impossible to know who Being X or the Britannians might tear from me next. I couldn't let myself get attached to Ohgi, to Naoto, or even to Kallen – I hadn't been hurt when my mother had died because I hadn't let myself get attached to her. One of the few times you've shown wisdom so far.


After a minute or three, once my breathing calmed, I stepped back, and Ohgi let me go, moving his hands away and standing up again. Even though I had resented being comforted, I still felt shockingly cold once I was alone out of his reach again. "You might have a point, but I request you speak with the others first. I've... seen something like this before – as best I know, none of them have. It will be harder on them, since it's their first time, so..."


Ohgi frowned slightly, but nodded, and started moving back towards the hidden staircase. "Alright, Tanya, I'll talk to them. You're right, everybody should have an opportunity to talk about... the station in private with someone. But..." He turned back around and looked squarely at me with the mien of a suddenly stern teacher gazing at a disappointing student trying to explain why her homework was missing for the fifth time in a row. "You and I are going to have a talk too – you're not getting out of it this time. You were right, people need a chance to talk, and that includes you, that includes me, and that includes Naoto. Just... please, trust us. You're one of us, so let me help you." As he made the last point, Ohgi's voice had grown increasingly intense. Seeming to notice this, he paused and took a deep breath, before saying "We're not going to think less of you because you need to talk, okay? So don't just beat yourself up."


And with that, he was gone, descending back down the stairs. And with that, I was alone again in the cold of nighttime Shinjuku, contemplating what I should do next.


---------


Over the next several days, I buried myself in managing the Rising Sun Benevolent Association. Thankfully, at least one of the objectives I'd had in mind when planning the attack on the gang market had been accomplished – not only had the Kozuki Organization managed to recoup the costs of the operation, we had managed to turn a sizable profit. Between the clean and only moderately bloodstained cash the cell's members had managed to grab, the various narcotics scavenged from both a few of the stalls and fallen gangsters' personal effects, and the jewelry looted from those same dead gangsters, Inoue estimated that we were far enough in the black to keep the Benevolent Association running for quite some time.


Admittedly, the net profit of the mission was reduced by the need to keep greasing the palms of the checkpoint guards, and would further be reduced by the costs associated with the creative accounting we'd need to do to explain where the Association was getting its funding from come tax time, but such was the cost of doing business. While the need to contribute to societal corruption was galling, it was easy to rationalize; without participating in Britannian graft, it would be impossible to feed and clothe the people of the ghetto and all of our efforts would be for naught. Of course, the Rising Sun would hardly be seeing all the money we'd earned from our strike against the Shinjuku underworld – a significant piece of our income would be going to Mister Asahara in exchange for more of his devices.


Which brought me to the other objective I'd had in mind for my plan. I'd wanted to blood my new organization in a safe, morally unambiguous manner that would guarantee that everybody would kill at least once. Ideally, this would bind everybody together, increasing organizational loyalty through the shared experience of combat, and would also ensure that everybody was truly committed to the goal of improving the lot of our people, through violence if necessary. Whether or not I'd managed to fulfill this objective was still ambiguous, to say the least.


On the good side, we hadn't lost anybody. Thanks to my careful planning and our cooperative preparation, every member of the Kozuki Cell had returned alive and physically unharmed, while our enemies had suffered virtually total losses. None of the cell's members had lost their nerve when push came to shove, and I was fairly sure that everybody had killed at least once during the cleanup down in the station. There certainly hadn't been any shortage of targets. Thus far, nobody had confronted me about the plan, and as far as I knew nobody had challenged Ohgi or Naoto in regards to their support and agreement either.


The 'morally unambiguous' aspect, however, was rapidly turning into a botched mistake in my eyes. The aftermath of the shrapnel bombs had been traumatic, and the requirement that the enemy injured had to be executed had deepened the trauma. I had overestimated both the callousness and emotional capacities of myself and my team. I'd expected shock, of course, but I had hoped that between my emphasis on the gang's nature as Britannian collaborators and Naoto's pep-talk assuring everybody that our cause was righteous, the initial shock would be the worst of it. Nobody had frozen during the brief period of active combat, and the cell was only briefly stunned by what they saw as they entered the station, but what they had seen and done were proving harder to cope with in the aftermath.


I could sympathize. Looking back, I hadn't even considered how I would feel after the operation, and if I had, I likely would have just shrugged it off and considered it unlikely that I would be overly concerned. After all, I am a combat veteran, hardened by years of combat and command, and I had been further hardened by the trauma of the Conquest and growing up in a ghetto under iron-fisted occupation. But, somewhere along the way, I had... gone soft, I suppose. I was... feeling things about this last operation, and about the impact it had had on my comrades.


I didn't feel bad in the slightest about killing my enemies, whether they be Japanese or Britannian, singularly or in batches. I felt no need to engage in a "fair fight" or warn the enemy before I attacked. I felt no regret about killing the wounded in the subway station either; none of those men would have survived for long, and letting them bleed out and suffer would have been far worse than giving them a quick death. I had been initially appalled by what I had so carefully planned out, and the sheer amount of blood and pulped flesh had been shocking as well – after all, it had been years since I'd last stood watch on the Rhine. As time went by, that initial shock from the scent of blood and shit leaking from perforated bowels faded, but I still couldn't bring myself to feel happy about the mission I had so carefully conducted.


As I tried to pin down exactly what it was about the plan that was making me feel somehow off, I kept my eyes open and an ear to the ground, carefully trying to gather up every hint of the reaction to the "Shinjuku Bombing", as it had already come to be called.


As I'd expected, the other gangs had smelled the blood in the water and set upon the remnants of the Kokuryu-kai mercilessly, avenging past defeats on the formerly rising gang and seizing as much territory and assets as they could. In doing so, a half dozen gang wars broke out between the new neighbors, with alliances and counter-alliances forming and dissolving every day. As November drew to a close and December dawned, the gang violence showed no signs of stopping or slowing down.


Despite the building's collapse, someone had managed to find the notice I'd left in the ruins of Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station – that, or someone had found one of the half-dozen other copies I'd distributed in the vicinity the next day, in case the original had been buried under tons of brick and concrete. While the initial bombing had gone almost unnoticed by the Britannians for hours, one of the notices had made its way into the hands of a reporter by the name of Diethard Reid, who had managed to blow up the story to the point where it was on the front page of the main Tokyo Settlement newspaper the next day. Lord Kewell had been compelled by his superiors, public opinion, his own pride, or some combination of the three to organize a press conference on the Bombing. While I didn't have the opportunity to watch it myself, based on the newspapers Kallen brought me after Ashford let out each day, he had done a masterful job avoiding taking responsibility for the attack while heavily hinting that the attack had been carried out by the Purist Faction. According to the editorials, the whole affair was surprisingly controversial among the movers and shakers of Area 11's government. The military leadership was decrying the rogue Purist operation, while the hardliners associated with Prince Clovis's retinue were praising Kewell as a man who clearly could get things done. The overall verdict was that the Purists had gained the affection of Prince Clovis for their "efforts to combat the criminals plaguing his fair fief", but had burnt their bridges with the rest of the Britannian military in Area 11.


As for the regular Japanese of Shinjuku... there didn't seem to be much of an opinion at all about the Bombing either way. Since as far as anybody seemed to know, no civilians had died in the blast, there wasn't the same seething current of grief and rage that Britannian collective punishments inspired. The few people who seemed to have an opinion were generally saying things like "good riddance", at least when they were sure no gang members were close enough to hear them talking. Of greater concern to the majority of the people of Shinjuku was the ever mounting food crisis. While the spiraling gang warfare was concerning, the desperate shortage of food was terrifying. The caloric income of virtually everybody living in Shinjuku was plummeting just as the teeth of winter bit, compounding the physical toll and further weakening immune systems. The winter, everybody knew, would be hard, and many would die of starvation, sickness, or exposure. More than gang fighting, more than the prospect of genocidal Britannians, the Japanese of Shinjuku feared the slow suffocating death by deprivation the Brittanians had arranged for them.


Perhaps that's my solution. How better to soothe the troubled minds of my comrades than a mission of mercy? The Britannians certainly weren't lacking in food or medicine – the ease with which the Rising Sun was able to import expired or rejected food from grocery stores proved that well enough. Still, that trickle wouldn't be enough to ward off the specter of starvation – but perhaps ramping the supply up would keep at least some of the population alive and healthy. Healthy enough to take up arms when the time comes.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 12: A Mixed Bag (Ohgi and Kallen Interlude)


(A big thank you to Siatru, and to Daemon and Grig9700 on the Tanya Writers Discord for beta reading this chapter. Happy first chapter of 2022, everybody.)


The winter sun burned bright over Tokyo on the first day of December, but without warming the Shinjuku Ghetto in the slightest. The cold winds blowing from the west the night before had brought a wet slush to the Tokyo Settlement, and now the cracked asphalt of the streets of Shinjuku was covered in a rime of filthy ice. Kaname Ohgi cursed as he nearly slid on a patch of the black ice, only maintaining his balance at the cost of pulling his hands from the warm pockets of his jacket and windmilling frantically. Grumbling with irritation, Ohgi shoved his hands back into the meager warmth of his jacket, set his shoulders against the cruel breeze that had begun whipping itself back up again, and continued on his way down the nearly empty street. The near total lack of any other pedestrians did nothing to improve the former teacher's mood, not when he knew the weather didn't explain the empty streets, nor did the presence of the sole vehicle out this morning, slowly plodding its way over the ice.


Death in Shinjuku was common, easy to come by, and generally unaccompanied by any sort of celebration or commemoration of the deceased. Children and adults alike died of disease, of hunger, of accidental injuries turning infected for lack of the antibiotics readily available outside of the walls, and by bad luck every day in Shinjuku. It was impossible to truly mourn each dead family member, every dead friend, every neighborhood face that just seemingly vanished overnight, never to be seen again. As years had dragged on and the situation had gone from bad to worse for the once-citizens of Tokyo, Ohgi had seen more men and women than he'd care to remember dying from overdoses, from self-neglect, and from violence of all types. Worst of all were the ones who died by their own hands, intentional or otherwise.


A particularly haunting memory was of a family who had lived in an apartment in the same building as him during the first winter after the Conquest, before most people had the opportunity to learn about things like heating your room in the absence of central heating or a reliable electrical supply. The father of the family had found a charcoal burning heater somewhere, possibly a sports store, and had lit it in his enclosed apartment without opening a window or door. Ohgi had helped the other young men move the bodies down four flights of stairs to the curb outside the building once they began to stink, the warmth of the heater adequate to stave off the cold that might have kept putrefaction at bay.


Hauling the bodies to the curb was more or less the extent of the funerary service in Shinjuku. Wood and other useful burnable materials were in far too high a demand to be used for pyres, not when every scrap of lumber was earmarked for desperately needed repairs and patches in crumbling Shinjuku. Being part of the urban core, non-developed land was also at a premium, and virtually every inch of land not covered in pavement was needed to grow supplemental produce, and thus was guarded jealously. No room for the dead in the ground of Shinjuku. And so, deprived of the options of honorable burial or respectful burning, the people of Shinjuku had turned to dumping their dead at the roadside. After a few sheet-wrapped bundles had begun to accrue, the surviving families or their neighbors, or in the more well-managed parts of Shinjuku the locally organized Public Committee, would club together to hire one of the few trucks available in Shinjuku and haul the dead away for dumping.


Recognizing that a complete collapse of sanitation in Shinjuku would reduce the public health of their own people sooner or later, the Britannians had designated a dumping area in the southern end of the Shinjuku Ghetto, near a heavily defended checkpoint with an entrance gate large enough to permit the passage of garbage trucks. The dumping area, cleared via bulldozer of all old structures or roads, was studded with large dumpsters, which would be regularly emptied out by the garbage trucks. These dumpsters were the only way to remove non-recyclable, non-burnable garbage from the ghetto, and were the penultimate resting places for all who died in Shinjuku, before they were carted off to a landfill who knew where by the Britannian sanitation authorities.


One such truck was slowly making its way down the street ahead of Ohgi, stopping by each ice-frosted parcel, the sheets or rags serving as shrouds wet from the cold rain and snowmelt. At each stop, two men riding on the tailgate jumped down and began tossing the bodies up onto the open bed of the truck as quickly as possible, showing as much regard for the dead as they would for any other trash. Dimly, Ohgi noted that the truck bed was already nearly covered in a layer of wrapped bodies, and the back of the bed near the cab was double-stacked already. Busy day for the haulers.


Lately, the haulers had been doing a very brisk business. Between the ongoing spat of gang wars, the cold wet air that leeched heat from frail bodies, and the already abandoned effort to retrieve the bodies from the collapsed portions of Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station before they began to stink, the going rate for their services had climbed rapidly. While the necessity of the haulers' services was obvious, it was galling for Ohgi to think about anybody profiting off the misery of his people, and the fact that at least some of the hauling crews were affiliated to various gangs rubbed salt in the wound. It made a kind of sense – after all, getting fuel and spare parts in the ghetto practically required gang connections – but the idea that the gangs were getting paid to clean up the unfortunates caught up in their war...


Reaching the next intersection, Ohgi thankfully turned his back on the truck and its grim burden, doing his best to shift his mind away from yet another horrible aspect of life in Shinjuku he could do nothing about. Instead, the teacher-and-rebel leader turned his mind towards a task he had, if he were being honest, been putting off for the last two days. Today's going to be the day, though, Ohgi resolved as he turned his wandering feet back towards the apartment he shared with Naoto and Tanya. Further delay's not going to help anybody, and Tanya's out of the house today.


Apparently, Kallen had taken the initiative and had invited Tanya on another trip through the Tokyo Settlement. Ostensibly, it was to get a second opinion on various food and second-hand clothing purchases the Rising Sun was planning, as well as to get the younger girl's feedback in regards to an idea Souichiro of all people had come up with.


The former police officer, from a family native to the rural province of Gunma, had proposed that Rising Sun purchase laying chickens and the materials to create a number of coops around the Shinjuku Ghetto, to provide a steady source of eggs, meat, and employment to the locals. The birds could be fed in part with plant material inedible to humans, Souichiro had claimed, and partly with cheap grains purchased in bulk, and would help provide greater self-sufficiency to the Ghetto. Ohgi personally wasn't entirely on board with the idea, since any potential yield from the coops would be months in coming, months when the cheap grain fed to the birds could be used to feed the people instead, but he was content to follow Tanya's lead on the proposal.


More importantly from Ohgi's point of view was that Tanya's outing with Kallen was clearly an excuse for Kallen to hang out and socialize with her nominal junior, with a work topic acting as justification to convince the overly-diligent Tanya to quit working and enjoy a day of walking around the Britannian Concession. Ohgi wished the redheaded girl good luck with her endeavor, and hoped she took the opportunity to feed Tanya a large meal in the process; he knew that getting Tanya to quit focusing on work long enough to eat, much less have any sort of fun, was a herculean task. Kallen's annoyingly stubborn too, so she's got a chance. Ohgi smirked slightly as he leaned into the chilly wind at the idea of the battle of wills no doubt unfolding, amusing himself with the image of Kallen dragging a recalcitrant Tanya away from a rack of canned goods and towards a restaurant. And while Tanya's out and about, I've got a chance to sit down and talk to Naoto without worrying about being overheard by a certain blonde menace. While the tone of his internal monologue was full of affectionate amusement, Ohgi was quietly thankful for the chance to sit down with his old friend and speak freely. Tanya's a good kid, but the way she takes things sometimes...


That last thought was accompanied by a guilty wince, as Ohgi remembered how the girl's Britannian blue eyes had widened in shock and undeniable pain at his poorly considered choice of words. Ohgi had somewhat forgotten, in light of her intelligence and successes, that Tanya was still a child, and still undeniably scarred by her experiences at the hands of the Britannians as a result of growing up in Shinjuku. While he doubted that she knew the exact details of her mother's death, a child as smart as Hajime Tanya would certainly have realized that her mother had been killed by Britannians, and that would have made the idea of being "Britannian" even more unpalatable. The way she'd reeled back when he'd carelessly said that he'd felt like a Britannian while executing her plan had been painful, and the way she'd begun to panic when he said she needed help even moreso. The former had been a lapse of judgment, but the latter had been a genuine offer of assistance, and seeing her react so poorly to his desire to help her stung.


I'll have to make the Brit comment up to her somehow, but I wasn't wrong about her needing help, dammit! It was weird seeing a blonde-haired blue-eyed child dying of karoshi, but the symptoms were clear to Ohgi. In a very peculiar way, he reflected, her willingness to obsessively work her way into the grave truly made her Japanese at a level where neither hair nor eye color mattered. Not that they ever did, not to anybody willing to think straight. Anyone who helps our people is Japanese to me.


A few thankfully short minutes later, and Ohgi was back in the relative warmth of the shared apartment. While by no means toasty, the intact walls and ceiling at the very least kept out the worst of the cold. Naoto was seated at the table, scribbling away at something, but looked up and waved as Ohgi entered and pulled his boots off.


"How was your walk? Did it start sleeting again?" Naoto's typically friendly smile, while undoubtedly sincere, looked a tad forced, and Ohgi noted that the bottle of cheap homemade sake his friend had cracked open shortly before he'd left was nearly empty already.


"Thankfully not – there's ice all over everything, though. Hopefully it'll thaw before it rains again." Ohgi collapsed into a chair at the table, groaning with satisfaction and relief as his weary feet rejoiced in the break. "The haulers are out in force today, though. Looks like they've finally stopped digging around in the old station."


Naoto grimaced at that, and shoved the paper and pen away. Ohgi caught the pen as it tried to roll off the edge of the table, and out of curiosity stole a quick look at the paper. Naoto's usual fine handwriting, a product of remedial etiquette lessons imparted on a noble black sheep welcomed back to the fold, was sloppy and dense on the page, but it appeared to be a letter to his mother. No wonder he was drinking, he's trying to explain why he let Kallen fight. Best of luck with that, buddy.


Naoto smiled wanly at Ohgi's sympathetic look. "She's pissed, bro. If I wasn't already a bastard, I think she'd be demanding my father disinherit me for letting her baby girl get involved."


Ohgi chuckled weakly, remembering times his high-school aged self had visited the Kozuki residence. Kallen hadn't inherited her fiery temper solely from her redheaded father – back before the Conquest, and before her mental decline had set in earnest, Miss Kozuki had never concealed the sharper side of her tongue as she chided her rogue of a son and his slacker of a best friend. While he doubted that fearsome temper had survived intact the traumas and degradations of the last half-decade, Ohgi was sure that Mama Kozuki had strong words for anybody who led her baby girl into danger.


Remembering the danger said baby girl had been led into, Ohgi's laughter trailed off, and he let the amusement fall away. Seeing his change in mood, Naoto likewise let his smile drop, and the vague, alcohol-fueled mistiness of his eyes faded slightly as the leader of their cell pulled on his business persona. "What do you want to talk about, Ohgi? I know that look – spit it out."


No time like the present. "It's been two days since we carried out Tanya's plan. How are you feeling, now that some time's passed?"


Naoto drummed his fingers on the scarred wood of the table for a second, then again, not a nervous gesture but an old tick he'd had since high-school that always returned when he was presented with a tricky question. After a moment, the hand smacked lightly against the table, the fingers' frenetic movements stilled against the surface.


"Frankly, I'm absolutely astonished that everything worked out so well." Naoto's tone was straightforward, but an undeniable hint of wonder touched his voice as he began. "I mean, we both knew Tanya's plenty smart and all that, but when she came up with that plan... I almost laughed at the audacity, Ohgi! Decapitating an entire gang through the use of synchronized bombs, and then just running in and shooting everybody who'd somehow survived, all as a means of raising funds for that front charity she set up?"


Naoto barked a laugh, sharp-edged but appreciative. "But then she actually pulled it off! I never would've believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes!" A broad smile pulled its way across Naoto's face as Ohgi fervently nodded. It really had been a time when "seeing is believing". For better or worse, Tanya had proven that her first time returning to her comrades slick with blood and a truck full of captured supplies hadn't been a fluke.


"She delivered everything she promised and more, Ohgi. Enough ammunition to put at least two of those rifles we captured to use, at least for a bit. Enough speed, horse, oxy, and hash, and enough currency to keep the cell supplied for a year, with plenty left over for Rising Sun to keep feeding our people for at least a few more months, and maybe enough to expand past soup kitchens and clothes distribution. Not to mention the absolute destruction of one of the largest gangs in Shinjuku as a fighting force!" Naoto's eyes almost seemed to glow with combined wonder and glee, sharpening with satisfaction at the mention of the Kokuryu-kai's fate. "I don't even know if the whole gang war that's erupted since then was intentional or not, but with all the gangs at each other's throats, nobody's looking for us, especially not after that Purist bastard Kewell all but publicly claimed responsibility. We got everything we wanted, and still nobody knows we even exist."


Ohgi waited a moment as Naoto paused, waiting to see if the enthusiastic burst would continue, before asking his next question. "Do you have any... reservations, regrets, about the mission, or about the plan?"


Naoto smiled again at that, the earlier broad smile narrowing into a sharper, toothier expression. "Nope. At first, I was kinda shocked – never seen something like that before, y'know – and it definitely took an extra drink or three to get to sleep that night. That said..." He paused, seemingly considering what he wanted to say, before continuing. "That said, Tanya was absolutely correct about those gangsters. Whatever else they were, they were predators and scavengers, and were helping the Britannians pluck meat from our bones. Maybe that wasn't their intention, maybe they just wanted to make their own lives less miserable, but that's what they were all doing. Fuck 'em."


Naoto seemed to realize he'd started leaning in as he'd talked, and pushed back against the table, tipping back slightly on his chair's rear legs, before slamming back forwards with a wry laugh. "The only regret I've got is letting Kallen go along, but... I don't think I'm going to win that fight. Tanya was right about that too – she's part of this, and trying to hold her back isn't going to do her or anybody else any good. I was kinda hoping that seeing all that would... I dunno, make her more interested in being a schoolgirl, but I doubt that's gonna happen. Kallen was kinda shocked too, y'know, but she's even more of a fighter than I am – and now that she's killed again, and tasted a real victory again, not just winning a street fight... She's not gonna stop, no matter how angry Mom gets."


Ohgi nodded along, in full agreement with his old friend. The teacher in him quailed at the thought, but the survivor and the rebel nodded their agreement. Making a fifteen year old, a girl he remembered as a bubbly elementary and middle school student who'd loved drawing pictures for her mother, carry a gun and kill in the name of a free Japan was evil, but what was done was done. The teacher was in agreement with the rest of him about the cruelty of children, and the addictive nature of power – and what power was greater than that of holding life or death over the heads of others? When Kallen had stabbed that man to death after he'd tried to attack her and Tanya, perhaps there was still a chance for her to walk away from the savage joy of victory, and of killing, but now Ohgi was sure that opportunity had passed. The first time's the hardest... But it gets easier.


Ohgi remembered his own first kill, a desperate business months after the collapse of the Japanese government and all social order, when the Britannians had yet to implement even the scant handful of public health and humanitarian policies they'd later adopt. It had been a fight over the last few cans of food in an emergency shelter, originally designed to shelter survivors in the event of severe earthquakes or typhoons. Ohgi had remembered seeing the 'designated shelter' sign over a locked door in a shop in Asakusa in happier days. Half-starved and lacking for any better ideas, Ohgi had limped his way there, finding the lock already broken and the door ajar. The confrontation with the man, older and weaker than even his starving body, had been brutal. The only light in that shelter had been the other man's flashlight, swinging crazily and reflecting off the dull steel of Ohgi's pipe as he'd brought it down again and again and again, driven by desperate hunger and rage that the old bastard hadn't even been willing to give him a single can of ancient rations to stave off the overwhelming hunger.


After that horrible ten minutes of violence, and after he'd glutted himself on one of the three cans of survival rations still left in the shelter, Ohgi had curled up a meter away from the corpse and cried himself to sleep. He'd taken what he could carry and left hours later, desperate to get away from the horror he'd perpetrated in that basement shelter, weeping for what he had done and for all that he had lost.


The second kill had been far easier, both in execution and justification. Sorry Naoto, but if she hasn't turned back now, she's not going to.


"I think you're right about that, Naoto." Ohgi returned to the topic at hand, externalizing his agreement with his leader's conclusions. "Do you resent Tanya for helping Kallen down that path?"


"Nope." Naoto's reply was surprisingly fast, nearly overlapping with the end of Ohgi's question. Clearly, Ohgi thought, he'd been expecting that line of inquiry. "Much as I'd like to give in to temptation and shoot the messenger, I'm in charge and I made the call." A moment of drumming, before "I can't let myself treat Kallen any differently than the rest of the cell, and Tanya was right to back her up. I still think she's way too young for this, but, hey, Tanya said it herself, she's not too young for the Britannians to kill her if they ever learn about just my crimes alone." That somewhat fatalistic assessment left a heavy silent moment behind, before Naoto broke the silence once again. "Plus, it's really hard to be angry with Tanya when she's working so hard and still not eating. We've gotta figure out a way to get that girl to chill out, Ohgi, before shit gets worse."


And on that happy, mutually agreed note, their little conference broke up. Naoto returned to his letter, vainly trying to dodge maternal disapproval, as Ohgi pulled his boots back on. If he remembered the schedule Tanya had drawn up correctly, Tamaki and Inoue should both be at the Rising Sun's building today. They'd certainly welcome an extra hand, and there'd be plenty of opportunities for him to talk to each of them on their own during the day. Might even make packing those food packages a bit less tedious.


Both of his cell-mates lived up to his expectations, both very busy handling the crowd of desperate Japanese looking for extra layers, for extra food, and for able hands that could help patch shattered windows or holed walls. Inoue was busy helping people find clothes that would fit various family members, while Tamaki was burning through the prepared stack of food packages, pressing box after box into the arms of gratefully bowing ghetto dwellers. Both were clearly busy, so Ohgi put off his intended conversations for the moment and hastily began packing more boxes with food, multivitamins, and chocolate bars for four for a day.


After hours of fulfilling labor, with aching arms and a sore back, the stream of the desperate and the dispossessed slowly shrank to a more manageable level. The bitter cold of the early winter winds kept all but the most determined huddled around whatever heaters they could fuel or fires they could start, giving Ohgi the opportunity to take Tamaki aside for a quick smoke break. The younger man eagerly accepted, jumping on the excuse to get away from the distribution line for a moment, and even more eager to bum a cigarette from Ohgi – a Britannian import, not one of the so-called "hafu" hand-rolled smokes common in Shinjuku, so called because they were half trash and half tobacco, or at least half the alleged tobacco smuggled into the ghetto by the various gangs. Ohgi obliged, and after giving Tamaki a moment to get his coffin nail lit and going, took the opportunity to ask how his comrade was doing.


"Shit's going great, man. Did I tell you about the gym me and a couple of my bros got set up?" Tamaki's free hand gestured enthusiastically as babbled on. "I mean, it's not really a gym, I guess, not any real equipment or nothin', but it's not too hard to find heavy shit, y'know? Chizuo found these pipes, y'see, and welded the bottom of each shut, and then we filled each with some sand and welded the other end shut – homemade weights, y'see? Perfect for benching and blasting my pecs a bit!"


"Sounds like fun. I'm glad you and your friends managed to get something like that set up." Tamaki's enthusiasm appeared to be just as purely felt as any other emotion the hothead ever felt. I'm glad there's at least one person who doesn't try to hide their emotions. It's refreshing.


Soon, Tamaki's chatter about the improvised gym wound down, and as he took a long puff, Ohgi discarded subtlety. Taking a quick look around to check for evesdroppers and finding none, Ohgi leaned in close and asked "It's been two days since our little... job. Now that the celebration's over, what do you think about what we did?"


Tamaki exhaled a long plume of smoke, quickly snatched away by the damp wind, and smiled at his superior. "It was fuckin' incredible, wasn't it? I mean, don't get me wrong now, I wish those had all been Brits – would've been a hell of a lot more satisfyin' to put bullets in Brit heads, I'll tell you that for sure."


The younger man paused for another puff, and another long exhale, the fierce joy slowly transmuting into a more pensive mien as the wind snatched away the smoke issuing from his lips. "I think my pops would be proud of us, y'know? He was a cop, died back during the Conquest. They say he was trying to help get people outta Shinjuku once the Brits started shellin' the place, but I dunno about that. Doesn't really matter, I guess. I dunno if he'd be happy about us killin' folks, even if they are gangster scum, but I bet he'd be happy we're doin' what we can to look out for the good people here in Shinjuku."


Ohgi nodded along, content to stay quiet and listen. He kept a wary eye open, making sure that none of the men and women walking past their location huddled in the alley beside the Rising Sun building towards the door and the promise of food and warmth inside looked too interested in them, but nobody seemed interested in two men stealing a quick smoke out in the cold.


"Y'know, at first I was kinda unhappy that we were gonna sneak-attack the place. I mean, if nobody knows we did it, there's not really any glory, is there? And no glory means no rep, no babes hangin' off me and all that..." Tamaki chuckled at that, grinding out his butt against the wall before pulling a baggy out his pocket and carefully peeling the paper away, dumping the leftover shreds of tobacco into the bag. "But, well... That was a stupid thought, just a drunk thought. I mean, babes are nice and all that, but...This is the real deal now, ain't it? We're not screwin' around and robbing shit anymore, this is serious. This is how we're gonna free Japan, Ohgi, or at least make the Brit bastards hurt for once. One bloodbath after another."


Ohgi handed his cigarette butt over to Tamaki, who quickly stripped the surviving tabacco out before flicking the filter away into the alley. "I dunno how many more bloodbaths we're gonna see, Ohgi, but I ain't gonna regret a single one, not until the Brits are all gone away." Tamaki tucked the bag away back in his coat, and the two men began making their way back into the warmth of the Benevolent Association's building. "I just hope I live long enough to brag to everybody about how many of the bastards I killed along the way! The honeys won't be able to keep their hands away, you'll see!"


Thankfully, Ohgi didn't have to brave the cold of the evening again to buttonhole Inoue. As soon as he and Tamaki returned to the open room that made up most of the first floor of the Rising Sun's building, Inoue immediately grabbed Tamaki and put him back to work before he had the chance to wander off again, chiding him for taking a break without telling her and Ohgi for enabling his escape from work. Soon, both men found themselves once more distributing boxes of food to the hungry residents of Shinjuku. A few minutes of ignoring Tamaki moaning about his tragic fate to suffer under such harsh discipline later, Ohgi demonstrated his leadership skill by delegating the remaining work to his subordinate's capable hands.


Inoue was seated at a small, rickety desk in the semi-separate room at the rear of the first floor. Back when the building had been home to an insurance agency, the small room had been some sort of conference room or office, separated from the main room by a glass wall and sliding door. The frame of the first remained, but all the glass was long since shattered, leaving an illusion of separation rather than a truly separate room. This small area housed what could be called the office area of the Rising Sun, including the ledgers describing both donations and "donations" made to the Benevolent Association, as well as other books tracking purchases made with that money and records tracking how much aid had been distributed to the people of Shinjuku per day, and of what variety. The books were, as Ohgi knew, best characterized as creative fiction, reasonably close to the truth but full of holes and unexplained transactions that obfuscated both the source of much of the money and expenditures like how much fuel had been purchased for the Rising Sun's rented trucks.


As Ohgi approached, Inoue looked up from the ledger she was transcribing the day's distributions into, and waved Ohgi over to a stool on the opposite side of her desk. She looked as put together as always, indigo hair neatly combed and pinned back, a faint furrow on her brow from glaring at ledgers in dim light all day, and grey eyes brimming with a fierce intelligence. While Naoto's leadership had bound the group together and Ohgi's social skills had kept the members of the cell on the same page, Naomi Inoue's negotiating ability and connections with the various factions and blackmarket operations had kept the cell armed and supplied, albeit with Naoto's money. Tired from hauling boxes and reasoning that any attempt at subtlety would immediately be seen through by the cell's logistics officer, Ohgi didn't bother beating around the bush. "Hey, Inoue, it's been two days. How are you holding up?"


"It was very profitable, our mission, and for that I'm glad." Inoue leaned back in her chair, ignoring the ominous creaking, and smiled at Ohgi. "I'm sure Tanya put you up to this, right? 'Hey, Ohgi, make sure everybody's doing okay and still likes me.' That sounds like her."


Ohgi laughed at that. Apart from him and Naoto, and perhaps of late Kallen, of the cell members Inoue had spent the most time with the youngest member of the Kozuki Organization. Between familiarizing herself with how business was done in Shinjuku, keeping the Rising Sun operating, and planning out the cell's future expenditures as Tanya had planned out her latest and greatest operation, the two had spent quite a bit of time together. Unlike any other member of the cell, the blonde had taken to Inoue's world like a duck to water, seeming to understand all the lessons the older woman had to teach almost instinctively. While Ohgi saw the girl as a promising student, with – if he were being honest with himself – the slightest dash of paternal affection, he was fairly sure that Inoue saw her as a protege who would one day surpass her master. As such, it was unsurprising that she'd recognize Tanya's hand behind his movements, although he'd been planning on speaking with the various cell members even before his post-celebration conversation with Tanya.


"Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was going to do it anyway, but when a spooky little girl tells you to check up on everybody, you'd be a fool to ignore the warning." The words were light, but Ohgi meant them nonetheless. Perhaps by dint of surviving in the ghetto as an obvious and malnourished outsider, Tanya had cultivated an extraordinary degree of empathy, although one that manifested itself in strange ways. At times her behavior was almost overly-solicitous about the health and well-being of her fellow comrades, while at others she flinched away from even the most casual touch, eyes wide like a hunted animal.


That said, even if Tanya's perceptiveness was born of paranoia and thus tainted, Ohgi couldn't blame her for it and wouldn't ignore her recommendations. Anybody who had survived five years of nigh-solitary life in Shinjuku, and anybody who could unleash the frighteningly effective violence that always seemed to bubble just beneath that porcelain skin, was well worth listening to. Especially if they were none-too-subtly warning that your fellows might be on the edge of a post-traumatic psychological break.


Inoue laughed and nodded. "I get that. Well, you can tell her that I'm fine, whenever you next see her. Those gangsters were a pack of thieving, raping murderers, and I don't regret killing a single one of them. Plus, thanks to everything we took from that pit, the Rising Sun and our own organization will be adequately funded for some time, so it was absolutely worth a few sleepless nights."


The chair's front legs landed back on the floor with a loud thump as Inoue straightened back up, ticking points off her fingers. "Yeah, I had a few nights of bad sleep. I've never seen something like that before, and seeing that much raw, shredded meat would make me a vegetarian if we had that sort of luxury. Yes, I'm concerned about the civilians who are undoubtedly getting caught in the crossfire of the gang war even now as I'm talking with you, but nobody thought the gangs would just go away peacefully." The logistics officer paused for a moment, before shaking her head with irritation. "Honestly, the only things that truly concern me are the impact on the Shinjuku market scene, and Tanya's garbage excuse for a diet."


Ohgi hummed in agreement. "I think I know where you're coming from on the later, but I'm not as sure that I fully understand the former concern. What sort of impact are you expecting our actions are gonna have on the blackmarket?"


"We're going to see the death of the middle level of the market, at least for a while." Inoue replied bluntly. "The family and individual level barterers aren't going anywhere, and the big fish that cater to the Britannians'... appetites," Her lip curled with disgust and scorn, "aren't going anywhere, they're just going to beef up their security. But the weekly meets? Those are done. They're not coming back. Even if the gangs decide a week from now to stop ripping out each other's throats, the stability and organization of the whole structure's been toppled."


Inoue tapped her cheek with the pen she'd been using before Ohgi had walked in, her expression pensive as Ohgi carefully listened. "This is going to have significant knock-on effects, Ohgi, both positive and negative for us. On the negative side for everybody but the Brits, it's gonna sharply reduce any sort of economic activity in the ghetto. The low level barter economy can't keep up, and once the gangs start smuggling goods back into Shinjuku, they're probably going to pursue more of an individual retail approach, rather than selling things to smaller groups at weekly meets, who'd turn around and sell the goods to everybody else. Nobody's got the infrastructure to fill that void right now, so everybody's gonna go short-handed. On the plus side for us, that's going to break the gangster's stranglehold over the market in Shinjuku in the long run, as people find alternative sources for staples and learn to do without everything they can't find. On the negative side specifically for us, it's gonna be a lot harder to buy weapons since somebody blew up a weapon's market and killed everybody in attendance. I could go on, but I think you've got the idea."


Ohgi nodded thoughtfully. Everything Inoue said made sense, and in retrospect seemed like the obvious results of a major bombing attack. He wondered why none of these possible effects had occurred to him when he and Naoto had signed off on Tanya's plan. Probably just tunnel vision – we got too focused on if we could do it to wonder "what next?"


"Thanks. I'll have to go over all that with Naoto. I know Tanya was talking about trying to increase the quantity of food shipped into Shinjuku, and Souichiro had that chicken idea, but if you're sure that the availability of other goods is going to take a nosedive too... We should see if we can expand our inventory range a bit." Ohgi found a dogearred scrap of notebook paper that didn't look like it had anything important written on it and started jotting down notes. "I'm assuming that medicines are going to be at the top of the list, right? That could be tricky – buying generics in bulk is probably gonna require some sort of contact, and we won't be able to bring in insulin or anything else that requires special care... Gotta find out who needs what, and how to get people what they need..."


"I've already got something started on that score." Inoue reached down into one of the desk drawers and hauled out a folder stuffed full of pages of notes. "I've been talking to the people who've been coming in to get food and clothes, and asking them if any of their family members or neighbors have any conditions they need medicine for. Thankfully," Inoue's face tightened at the word, but she pressed on. "Thankfully, very few people with chronic conditions live long in Shinjuku, so we won't be needing to worry about insulin. While I would like to find some way to get these people the medicines they've been relying on gang imports for, I think we should focus on ramping up the multivitamin supply and increase the amount of antibiotics Rising Sun has in stock, as well as building up a supply of pain killers, although we'll have to be careful about that last one. Anti-inflammatory pills would help relieve some chronic pain, which might increase the number of people who can work, which makes them a priority. And, birth control pills, for both reducing period pain and also as contraceptives."


Ohgi quickly jotted down the list of suggestions as Inoue continued. "Alright, leaving the medication question aside until we find some way to source generics without bankrupting Rising Sun... We've begun buying up some water filtration kits for people to use in their apartments, but we should try to expand that effort... We need to find a way to get more cooking fuel in, since supplies from the gangs are going to be scarcer and more expensive... Coats and blankets, and waterproofing materials..."


Tearing his mind away from the rabbit hole of all the many, many needs of the Shinjuku Ghetto, Ohgi remembered that Inoue had expressed a concern beyond the market supply question. "Oh, before we get too distracted, wasn't there something else you wanted to talk about?"


Inoue snorted, and shoved the multiple folders of notes she'd begun to pour over back into the desk. "Yes, Ohgi, there was. Namely how Tanya's apparently trying to work herself into the grave, and how she only eats when prompted to do so." Inoue shook her head with annoyance, before glaring at Ohgi, who resisted the urge to quail away from the look of righteous fury that pinned him to his stool. "You're her fucking adoptive father, Ohgi – why the hell aren't you making her eat and sleep? She already looks half-dead, and I swear the only time she eats is when I hand her a sandwich while she's working and she just starts instinctively munching on it!"


"Hey, I'm not her father!" Ohgi waved his hands frantically in a fruitless attempt to deflect responsibility. "And how do you think she's responded to me and Naoto trying to convince her to eat, eh?! When Naoto suggested she fatten herself up to look like a Britannian, she stopped considering infiltration work and started planning instead! When I told her she needed to eat to be effective, she looked terrified, like I'd said I was going to kick her out on the street!" Aware that his frustration on the issue had begun to spill out into a long suppressed rant, Ohgi forced himself to calm down and take a deep breath. He'd been incredibly uncomfortable about embracing Tanya's role as a combat-capable member of the cell to begin with, and watching her stress herself out and skip meals since she'd been "promoted" hadn't helped his internal sense of guilt in the slightest. It's not Inoue's fault, he firmly reminded himself, she's just as concerned as I am, and yelling at her is unfair and stupid.


A second later, Ohgi began to speak again, more calmly this time if not the slightest bit less emphatic. "We can't order Tanya around like a kid when she's killed more people than everybody else in the cell combined, especially not since she just planned and executed the biggest and most successful operation we've ever attempted. Every attempt Naoto and I have made to convince her through logic has failed. Whenever I seem to express any concern for her in the slightest, she looks like she expects me to hit her. I don't know what to do here, Inoue."


His comrade sighed, reached across the desk, and patted Ohgi on the shoulder. "It sounds frustrating, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have acted like you were just ignoring her." Inoue leaned back in her chair again, letting the front legs lift off the floor once more. "Maybe you're overthinking it a bit? I mean, I get what you're saying about not being able to order her around like a kid, and you're right to a degree, but... maybe you should, in this case?"


Ohgi opened his mouth, before closing it again as Inoue gestured for quiet. "No, really, I think you guys were absolutely right to take her seriously and treat her as an equal – when it comes to working for the cell. Outside of that sort of work environment, though? I hate to break it to you Ohgi, but she's still a kid. Her mom only died... what, four months ago? She'll be twelve soon, right? She needs some support, even if she'd definitely disagree about that. Sit down with her and tell her, in as unambiguous a way as possible, that you're worried for her and that she needs to eat. And then, follow that up by making sure there's always food around her. Whenever I'm working with her, I just leave some food by her, a sandwich or a bowl of soup or whatever, and she'll eat it while she's working."


Ohgi had spent a fair amount of time deliberately trying to not see Tanya as a child, someone who in another world might have been in his middle school math class. He had partially done this so he'd have less trouble taking her seriously as a comrade, but mostly it had been an effort to ignore the whole child soldier angle. As a result, while he could see the practicality of accepting Inoue's advice, he found himself loath to do so.


It's a bit late to have scruples now. You're willing to overlook Tanya's age, not to mention Kallen's, when it's beneficial to your goals, but you're not willing to cope with your bullshit enough to make sure they're as healthy and safe as they can be? And you call yourself a responsible adult...


Ohgi shivered slightly at that thought. No, I don't call myself a responsible adult. I can't. I'm just as fucked up as anyone else. I'm a murderer. I... I just want to hold onto some degree of sanity, some degree of civilization... But, anything for the cause, right? That's what Tanya said to Kallen, according to Naoto, and that's what Kallen's taken to saying too... Anything for the cause...


"You're right." The words were like chalk, and forcing them out felt like it took every ounce of will Ohgi possessed. "You're right, she is a kid. And she's not eating, and someone needs to step in."


Ohgi rose to his feet, the exhaustion of physical labor nothing compared to the spiritual exhaustion this conversation had produced. "I'll let Naoto know about your suggestions for the Rising Sun's next inventory purchase, and... And I'll sit down with Tanya over a nice big meal once she gets back from doing whatever she's up to with Kallen." Picking up the note he'd taken of their conversation, Ohgi carefully tucked it into an inner pocket of his jacket, away from any possible infiltrating sleet. "Thanks, Inoue. I think that I needed to hear that as much as anything else. Have a good evening now."


Waving goodbye to Tamaki as he left, Ohgi ventured once more out into the cold. The sun had now almost disappeared behind the skyline, and the day's icy rain was quickly becoming just ice once more on the streets of Shinjuku. Carefully picking his way down the pavement, Ohgi made his way back home, trying to marshal his thoughts for the battle of wills to come.


---------


"Look, I know you're incredibly busy, but you've got to eat." Thus far, the talk had proceeded about as badly as Ohgi had feared. He'd returned to the apartment shortly after Tanya had, and found the girl already buried in her work. Ohgi had almost given in to the temptation to put off the confrontation in favor of joining her in planning out the cell's next move, and indeed had pulled the notes from his conversation with Inoue out with the intention of adding it to the pile of scrawled notes sitting in front of Tanya. Thinking about that note had reminded him of the end of their conversation, and Ohgi had felt the iron jaws of responsibility close around his legs. He knew he wouldn't be able to outrun the stressful social situation no matter what he tried, and so decided to take the direct approach.


From across the table, big blue eyes narrowed at him as Tanya looked up from her papers. "Naoto said he'd be back soon. I thought it would be prudent to wait until he'd returned to have dinner."


Resisting the urge to take the out she'd offered, Ohgi firmed his resolve and leaned forward. "I'm not talking about dinner specifically, I'm talking about in general. You've been skipping meals, and you only eat when someone else prompts you. Don't think I haven't noticed how you've been waking up with the sun to start working early too."


The curiosity in Tanya's eyes hardened into defensiveness, and Ohgi internally kicked himself. Dammit, too aggressive. Now she's going to start justifying herself. "It's important to work hard, not only for ourselves but for everybody in Shinjuku." Tanya's tone was cool, and at one point Ohgi would have said detached as well. Months of familiarity, coupled with his own experience dealing with recalcitrant children, let Ohgi recognize the shaky tone of fear concealed by the cold tone. She's desperate to prove herself, to be the most diligent and committed... Why? Does she think we'll look down on her otherwise? It was a silly assumption, if true, but one that made a degree of sense. The poor girl didn't get much support from her mother, from what she's let slip. She probably feels the need to prove herself so we don't ignore her too. She... wants attention? No, that's not it...


"You're right." Ohgi was slightly gratified to see her eyes widen, momentary surprise at his agreement shaking her defensiveness. Attacking her certainties isn't the right way to go. I'm not trying to tear her down, I'm trying to help her.


"The people of Shinjuku, and the rest of Japan, do need our help. And you're doing lots of very important, very impressive things to help them. You're a big help." Ladle on the encouragement, let her know that her efforts have been noticed and appreciated. "And if you want to keep helping people, you need to help yourself." Don't tell her that she's been doing anything wrong, just give her help to grow in the right direction.


"I know Naoto told you about the potential benefits of looking more Britannian, but I know that idea's got some... baggage... associated with it. In that case, let me put it this way – if you eat more, your muscles will develop better and your bones will be stronger, which will reduce the likelihood of injury and will improve your level of energy. Being more energetic will keep your genius brain working as best as it can, and it'll reduce the chance of you overlooking something or making a mistake." Her abilities and intelligence are important to her, clearly. Confirm her own self-image, but indicate a path to further achievement.


"Plus, you want to hang out with Kallen in the Britannian Concession sometimes, right?" Ohgi smiled, letting his firm 'teacher face' mellow, and winked at the impassive Tanya. Increased growth potential and stability in her own image are both carrots, but she's also a social animal, and an extra incentive never hurts anything. "If you want to go and 'reconnoiter' the Tokyo Settlement, that's perfectly fine – you don't need to be on duty all the time, and the Britannians would never expect two pretty young girls having fun at Clovisland to be terrorists. But if you look like you're about to keel over, that's gonna attract some notice, right? Plus, people might assume you're Kallen's servant, and she's been mistreating you, and you don't want to draw attention to her, yeah?"


A cautious nod was the only immediate external response Ohgi got, but he thought he saw her eyes turn thoughtful. I know you, Tanya. You overthink everything, and it's incredibly frustrating. Well, two can play that game. But now that she's thinking about it, time to give her a route forward before she gets creative and proposes her own.


"Look, you're a smart girl, so I'm sure I don't need to tell you all of this." Ohgi paused for a moment to let the praise settle, before continuing. "But we all need help sometimes, and as your superior in the cell and as your friend, I'm going to help you too. You and I are going to eat together for the next two weeks – at least two meals a day, hopefully three. You can keep working while we eat, if you want, but we're going to get you back into the habit of regular meals. After that, I'll stop nagging you to eat if you keep it up, okay?"


For a moment, Ohgi was sure that Tanya was about to either hit him or attempt an escape. Her fists tightened around her pen and her jaw worked furiously, chewing away at nothing as her eyes darted around the room. Finally, with a grudging sigh, her hands loosened and her shoulders slumped. Her eyes seemed to suddenly flatten, and she looked down at the table. "As you command, sir."


Ohgi felt his own hand twitch with sudden anger at both himself and Tanya's seemingly almost deliberate attempt to misunderstand what he was trying to say and do. Dammit, Tanya, I'm trying to help you! Can't you see that? I'm not trying to control you, I'm not trying to put you in your place! I just want you to take care of yourself!


Keeping his own jaw firmly locked, Ohgi took in one long, deep, soothing breath through his nose, and then another. "Tanya, I just don't want to see you work yourself to death. I respect you, Tanya – you're far more intelligent than I am, and you've already survived so much. You're already an incredible fighter, and you're well on your way to being an awesome leader. Please believe me when I tell you that I am not trying to humiliate you or make you submit or whatever. I'm concerned about you, and I want you to take care of yourself."


Ohgi suddenly felt like he had plunged through some hole in the floor, and was now free-falling. Being this open about his emotions, especially with a child, felt uncomfortable, especially since he'd put his foot in his mouth the last time he'd attempted sincerity. That said, Kaname Ohgi couldn't see any other option other than sincerity to convince Tanya that he said what he meant. Her fiendish mind would see through any subterfuge, and any attempt at coercion would be beyond useless.


"You'll go far, if the Britannians don't get you or you don't burn yourself out. Japan will need people like you, people with intelligence, vision, and experience, to lead us all in rebuilding ourselves when we are finally free once more. Japan needs you alive far more than she needs a martyr – and we need you, Hajime Tanya, alive too. Not just because of your raw ability, we need you for you. You've earned your position as one of us many times over – so let us help you too, just like you've helped us, okay? It's not a crime to need help. Everybody needs some help sometimes, and I want to help you when you need it."


Tanya neither moved nor visibly reacted, and Ohgi sighed once again. Another fuck-up. I screwed up somewhere along the way. Dammit.


Ohgi started to get up from his seat. He knew a lost cause when he saw one, and at least he could get dinner started for the first of their enforced shared meals. Before he could do more than shift in his seat, he faintly heard a whisper, and immediately stopped. "Sorry, Tanya, I didn't hear you."


"Thank you, Ohgi." Her voice was louder, but Tanya's tone still sounded wispy, insubstantial, quite different from her usually assured and confident presentation. Acknowledgment, even tenuous, even perhaps forced. Time to stop while I'm ahead so I don't look like I'm rubbing her nose in this "defeat".


"You're welcome, Tanya."


By the time Naoto returned with a sack full of canned sardines and three fresh oranges of mysterious providence, the latter a luxury in early winter, the pot on the hot plate was bubbling merrily, and the aromatic smell of canned beef stew had filled the apartment. Tanya was already deep into her first bowl, and Ohgi was content with a minor victory that banished the memory of the haulers and their grim cargo away – for the first time in weeks, he was sure he'd actually gotten Tanya to understand something he had said completely unambiguously. A minor victory, but hopefully the path to something far more substantial in the future.


---------


The clock was striking thirteen as Kallen Stadtfeld neatly settled into her assigned seat during her study hall period. Every move as she folded herself down onto the cushioned chair was done just so, skirt neatly arranged over properly positioned legs, hands carefully folded demurely in her lap in perfect accordance with the etiquette lessons pounded into her head after her father had officially adopted her as his heir. The room was warm and airy, the overhead lights perfectly moderated to maintain a gentle luminescent glow ideal for contemplating one's homework; the entire artifice of the classroom was a world apart from the coldly gusting wind driving fat droplets of rain into the windows.


Kallen also felt a world apart from the introduction to physics textbook open on the desk in front of her, a diagram of a spring-scale with carefully drawn vectors ignored completely. Around her, the other young lords and ladies of the student body gossiped, chatted, and flirted with abandon, textbooks and homework alike lying ignored on their desks as well, but even that superficial similarity seemed to separate her from her peers; none of them, the youngest Kozuki was sure, had walked through an abattoir of humanity, had heard half-flayed and disemboweled men whimper for water, for their mothers, or simply moan in unfathomable pain.


The memory of those staring eyes, pupils contracted to pinpoints even in the near-darkness of the decaying train station, nearly made Kallen flinch from the memory, but grimly she pursued the images of that slaughter, refusing to let even a single detail slip away into the darkness of the tunnels. She threw the memory of pointing the pistol her friend Tanya had handed her earlier that day at supine figures at herself again and again. The first one she'd killed had been little more than hamburger, missing his right arm completely and his legs from the knees down. In all likelihood, he'd only been a bit older than herself, probably younger than Tamaki, the youngest of her brother's friends.


Kallen desperately wanted to recoil from the memory, to cram every second of the fifteen minutes or so that it had taken to end over a hundred human lives deep into her memory to never be thought of again. She'd tried to do just that with her first kill, with the sensation of driving a knife into his neck as hard as she could. Ultimately, not only had that attempt to simply run from the memory failed, Kallen had realized it was a weakness that would come back to haunt her. When she'd smelled the blood and seen the bodies on that platform, that memory and all the emotions connected to it had flooded back in, the sensory cues and the adrenaline from running and gunning her way down into the station blowing away every attempt at suppression and leaving her pale and shaking. Her Big Bro's embrace had reassured her, cradled her in a warmth she had desperately needed in that moment, but it hadn't drawn her out of that stunned state. Only Tanya's voice, as stable and as compelling as it had been on that filthy side street, had anchored her to the present and forced her to keep moving.


And moved Kallen had, joining her comrades in executing the wounded and cramming her pack with anything of value she could find. That day, in the darkness and dust of that platform, she had truly been sealed to her new comrades, and had drawn strength from the new bond she had formed with everybody there, even the two newcomers she'd only met that day. All of them had come out of that station with hands red and dripping, if only metaphorically – all of them had dipped their daggers, and been sealed together by a shared experience intimate in a way she was only beginning to grasp. The guilt had faded quickly as she drew on both her brother's and her friend's words: Their actions were unquestionably righteous, blessed by the gods of their ancestors and by the glorious cause they fought for; all whom they had killed had been scavengers and parasites, rapists and thieves, and all were willing to trade weapons for any who offered the coin, even if the hand offering that coin was sworn to the throne in Pendragon.


What had haunted Kallen after the attack had been how... easy, it had all seemed, and how good it had felt. She knew intellectually that the ease of the attack was due to the careful plans Tanya had drawn up and all the legwork and preparations her cell-mates had carried out, and that they'd had the element of surprise on their hands. Coupled with Tanya's insane levels of skill with her pistol, Tamaki and her barely keeping up with the tiny blonde, it perhaps wasn't a surprise that the stunned and disorganized survivors of the pipe bomb blasts hadn't had a chance. It had still felt too easy, though, and killing those survivors had felt almost intoxicating. The knowledge that a simple squeeze of her finger, a slight push against her palm, and a life was snuffed out... The powerful sensation as she had pointed her gun at the young triple amputee weeping on the platform... It had felt nearly godlike.


If that's what it feels like... So different from my first time... I can see why the Britannians are always so eager to murder more Japanese.


That had been what had disturbed Kallen, why she'd had difficulty sleeping of late and trouble keeping her mind on her classes or on her task of gathering intelligence. The knowledge of that high, that drug... since she had tasted that forbidden fruit, Kallen had flogged herself with the memory, the sensation, over and over again, chastising herself with the knowledge that it was wrong to feel like that, that it was one thing to kill but another entirely to enjoy it.


Cursed blood... That has to be it. My mother's Japanese, but my father's Britannian... Now that my hands are as red as our hair, I wonder if he'd still love me? It was his blood, after all, that made me like this, I'm sure...


Her outing with Tanya two days ago had helped settle Kallen's troubled mind down just a bit. Going out together for a nice day in the Britannian Concession and just doing normal things together had helped settle her frenzied mind, and had helped her remember just what normality was. Sure, they were checking the prices of water filtration devices and warm sleeping bags, of bulk bottles of aspirin and of cheap yet serviceable shoes, all for the Rising Sun's future purchases, but they'd done normal stuff too. She'd managed to haul Tanya into a department store to try on some new clothes, but Tanya had only let her buy her a pair of gray canvas pants and a black down jacket, plus some fresh socks and underwear. Decidedly not cute, but Kallen could concede their practicality for walking around in Shinjuku without drawing unwanted attention.


After their brief clothes shopping trip, Kallen had bribed Tanya out of her sulk with a quick trip to a crepes store she'd discovered a few weeks earlier on her way back home from Ashford. After promising to pay for everything, Kallen had pressed her advantage as the sponsor of the trip and had bullied Tanya into ordering a particularly large crepe, full of fruit and whipped cream, with hazelnut spread on the interior of the pastry and chocolate syrup drizzled over the cream. It had taken some doing to get the damned waif to accept the crepe, but once she'd started to dig in it had been remarkable how fast Tanya had destroyed the crepe. The look of pure blissful satisfaction as she'd reclined in her chair like a sated lion had made the expenditure and the effort entirely worthwhile, in Kallen's book.


Smiling faintly from the memory of a sleepy Tanya, face smeared with whipped cream, Kallen pulled herself back into the present. Her information gathering efforts had already yielded fruit when she'd dug up Kewell Soresi's name and connections with the Purist Faction. That tidbit had been seamlessly incorporated into Tanya's plan to sow chaos and disorder between the gangs and the Britannians, and between the competing factions in the Area Eleven Administration, and the squabbles that Lord Kewell's press conference had kicked off continued, with statements from both sides of the dispute mysteriously "leaking" to the press, who published the potshots with barely concealed glee. The Shinjuku Bombing had become a minor scandal to one side and a symbol of victory to the other, and as the Britannians sniped at each other nobody seemed to notice or care about anything actually happening in the Ghetto.


Just as planned.


Now that Kallen had a definite victory under her belt, a sign that her efforts to gather intelligence from the careless lips of the Ashford student body were worthwhile, it was time to expand her operation. Up until now, she'd simply wandered the halls of Ashford, flitting like a proper social butterfly from engagement to engagement. This was all well and good, as it made her a known and welcome quantity at any number of social engagements with any number of social groups among the students, but it also made it difficult to dig or to show interest without tipping her hand. As a social butterfly she was innocuous, but it also only gave her a cursory amount of information about any one topic before the flow of conversation moved on. Such surface level intelligence was useful for garnishes like pinning the responsibility for the bombing on Kewell, Kallen thought, but very little beyond that.


The question, then, wasn't whether or not Kallen should plunge herself deeper into the social scene of Ashford Academy, but how she should do so.


Milly Ashford, granddaughter of the principal and pain in Kallen's ass, had casually mentioned months ago how she had free access to the school administration's records, a freedom that she freely abused to discover the personal details of students that caught her eye. Unfortunately, attempts to get said details out of the infuriating girl had proven fruitless; Kallen didn't know what game they were playing, nor the rules, but she was certain that Milly held the high score and was simply toying with her. It was an infuriating situation for a number of reasons, but Kallen couldn't figure out any way to lever the former heiress's secrets out. She had considered simply abandoning the social game, cease trying to win Milly's friendship, and simply breaking into the school office and going through the records herself, but Kallen had regretfully abandoned that idea almost immediately. Who knew what kind of surveillance was operating in Ashford, or what kind of security forces would respond to a potential burglar? If she was caught in the act, her life as Kallen Stadtfeld would be over, and her background would be carefully examined – Naoto would surely be brought in, and it was all downhill from there after that.


Another potential strategy would be cozying up with the other notable gossips around the school. Like any high school, and doubly so for a place crammed with the cream of the local good and great, there was no shortage of gossip-mongers, and some were so well informed and sought after to be practical queens of the school – or at the very least duchesses, as none contested Milly's dominance over the student body. Kallen had considered attempting to ingratiate herself with one of these social power-brokers, but had quickly discarded that idea as well. Such a strategy had all the same drawbacks as dealing with Milly. Furthermore, the only way to buy her way into such social circles was if Kallen had particularly choice morsels of gossip to offer. Since all of the morsels she had that might be considered interesting were in some way tied to her rebel cell's interests, Kallen thought it would be a very bad idea to let anybody know exactly what information she had been collecting. Besides, people as socially savvy as those gossips certainly would realize what sort of information Kallen was looking for, which was another way her secret life could end up exposed. And so, just like her fantasy of burglarizing the school office, Kallen dismissed that idea as well.


After dismissing her first two ideas, Kallen was left with her third idea, the safest by far of the three. So far, she hadn't committed to any particular extracurricular activities, despite Milly's chiding to "get engaged and meet some cute boys – or girls!" Reluctant as Kallen was to go along with any suggestions from that particular blonde, joining an extracurricular organization would give her an excuse to snoop and probe, if she could hide behind the purposes of her chosen club. In that light, either the yearbook club or the student newspaper would serve her purposes – the yearbook club was constantly watching the student body, constantly snapping pictures, while the student newspaper under Milly's reign had a practically free hand to interrogate any student they desired, so long as they wrote sufficiently entertaining stories. Of the two options, the student newspaper was definitely the preferable choice; in between investigating whatever inane stories she was tasked with, Kallen would have plenty of options to follow up on any tasty morsels some fool let slip, all in the name of "journalistic rigor".


Soon, the bell indicating the end of Kallen's study hall period rang, heralding the start of her brief window of lunchtime freedom. Sandwich in hand, Kallen made a beeline to the office of the faculty advisor in charge of the newspaper, and caught the man before he'd left his office for his own lunch. It was the work of three minutes to sign up for the newspaper club, complete with a handshake from the amused teacher as he ushered her back out of his office so he could lock up. To Kallen's mingled surprise and annoyance, Milly Ashford was waiting for her outside the teacher's office, her smirking smile as broad as ever as she casually leaned against the far wall.


"How'd you find me here?" Kallen couldn't help herself, the surprise loosening her tongue just long enough for her annoyance to take control. Immediately, she snapped her mouth shut, blushing at the momentary lapse as that infuriating bitch Milly chuckled, a demure hand to her mouth somehow making her laughing face even more intensely irritating than her typical smirk.


"Oh, a little bird told me a certain redhead was sneaking into a teacher's office for a lunchtime rendezvous." To Kallen's disbelief, one of Milly's eyes closed in a lascivious wink, and that awful smile seemed to grow somehow more eminently punchable. Kallen quickly looked around for the teacher, hoping he'd been close enough to hear that comment and take the other girl to task for her insinuation, but the educator had clearly known what was good for him and was power-walking away down the hall.


The useless bastard!


"Congrats on finally signing up for some extracurriculars! It's good for us girls to get used to taking on a hefty, meaty schedule – don't you agree?" Cursing her blushing cheeks, Kallen resigned herself to enduring another conversation with Milly, and fervently hoped for an opportunity to escape. Milly, for her part, looked like she was enjoying every drop of Kallen's embarrassment, an inquisitive eyebrow raised over a nakedly amorous grin. "I know you've been toying around with the possibility for a while, Kallen, but as your friend, I'm happy to see you stretch yourself out a bit!"


Kallen felt helplessly at sea, totally out of control of the conversation. The embarrassment at Milly's crass sayings fed her desire to once again taste that power of being the one dishing out the pain, which slammed up against the need for self-control. Why is she messing with me like this, dammit?! Doesn't she know how furious it makes me?!


The internal whining was surprisingly helpful. As Kallen attempted to answer her own question and ignore the increasingly explicit teasing, she realized that this whole encounter was by no means accidental. Milly had somehow known where Kallen was going quickly enough to position herself outside the office, and hadn't shown any signs of being out of breath. Either she followed me here, or somehow she's keeping close enough tabs on my movements to know where I am at all times. She's trying to keep me distracted and off-balance so I don't think about that! The embarrassment remained, at least on the surface level, but the heated rage brewing in Kallen's belly disappeared as the ice water realization swept through her. I don't even know why she wanted me off-balance, or why she bothered to show herself at all. Is this some kind of weird dominance play?


Kallen found that she really was beginning to hate Milly Ashford personally, not just as a symbol of the youth of the Britannian ruling class. The way Milly ground her overwhelming social dominance in Kallen's face, the way she not only effortlessly ran rings around her but also made sure Kallen knew she was toying with her, the constant sexual harassment, the way she kept dropping hints that she knew more about Kallen than Kallen wanted her to know... Every interaction she had with the fallen noble made Kallen hate her slightly more. In a small, petty way, she felt like Milly represented every bit of Britannia's self-proclaimed supremacy, and couldn't help but feel like one of the tanks of the long-dead Japanese Army, helplessly trying to keep up with the Knightmare that danced around her, always just barely ahead of her tracking cannon.


She's got to go. The thought bubbled up from somewhere deep in Kallen's mind, deliciously seductive and poisonous. The idea of shutting up that constantly mocking face once and for all with a knife up through the soft meat behind the chin, up through the soft palate at the back of the mouth... She knows too much about you, probably. She's going to hand you over to the authorities, and once you break, they'll haul Naoto, Mom, Dad, Ohgi, and Tanya in too... Being honest, Kallen had no idea what Milly knew, but she definitely knew that giving in to the urge to murder would certainly end up with her behind bars or, if she was lucky, dead herself. Not now... Not now... She'd take the bullying and taunting a while longer, Kallen decided. Anything for the cause... "It's part of your sacrifice for Japan too, isn't it?"


Kallen stuttered out some excuse, turned on her heel, and fled, running away from temptation and from the mocking laughter that echoed after her. She so desperately wanted to do to Milly what she had to the last person who had held her down and tried to force themselves on her, but she couldn't, not here and not now. She knew she was making a mistake, running away like this – running from bullies always made them more hungry to hunt you down, like the predators they were. Despite Naoto's best efforts, Kallen had learned that lesson in the dark years between the Conquest and when their father had reclaimed them. That must be what Milly knows... Just like all those other Brit bastards, the half-breed is a fun target... "Almost better than an Eleven, since Elevens are just animals, but half-breeds are close enough to human to be fun..."


After school, Kallen had her first meeting with the student paper's staff. It was a fairly informal group, and after her introduction she practically vanished into the woodwork as the other members fought over potential stories and assignments. The editor, the head of the club, handed out assignments with the same air as a queen on her throne bestowing favors to favorites, and hurling the scraps to the rest.


Eventually, as the feeding frenzy died down, Kallen found herself tasked with investigating a potential haunting, of all things. Apparently, a ghost had been seen darting in and out of the Student Council's clubhouse at night, and that qualified as a news story worth investigating. Who had reported this apparition was a mystery, as was the reason why they were out and about on the campus and outside the dorms some students live in, but nobody else had been interested in pursuing this story. Some had said they didn't want to waste their time on silly fantasies, others said it was too creepy for them. Kallen personally believed that nobody wanted to have to come back to school in the middle of the night, and so she as the new girl had been stuck with the unenviable ghost hunt.


Kallen saw the assignment in a different light, of course. Not only would it give her a night guaranteed to be free of her step-mother, but Milly was part of the Student Council – the president, as a matter of fact. Anything that Milly was involved in almost certainly had access to private information regarding the student body, and the fact that the Student Council apparently had an entire building all to themselves virtually guaranteed that there'd be something worth her time in that building. The whole ghost story gave her an excuse to linger around the place late at night, when nobody else would be around, not to mention a reason to poke her nose anywhere she wanted because she "saw something over there!"


Since the Student Council clubhouse was locked at night to prevent any skullduggery not explicitly authorized by Milly Ashford herself, the first step in Kallen's assignment was hunting down a Student Council member to give her the key. Fortunately, the secretary of the Student Council was an avid member of the swim club, and thus easily found.


Shirley Fenette proved to be a gregarious, easy-going girl who was happy to meet the newest member of the student paper's staff. She had also proven to be a remarkably easily spooked person who went white as a sheet at the first mention of a ghost haunting the clubhouse, and who had practically torn her locker open in her haste to throw her key to the building at Kallen. After a polite thank you and a personal promise to get to the bottom of the alleged haunting, which she was sure was nothing but silliness, Kallen found herself in the possession of both a key to the Student Council clubhouse and a surprisingly stern admonition to stay on the first floor and not try to access the second floor. Apparently, it was "totes off-limits! Don't even think about going up there, kay?" A second personal promise later, and Kallen had both the means to access the Student Council clubhouse and an excellent idea of the first place she should check for her "ghost".


By ten o'clock that night, Kallen was inside the opulent interior of the Student Council's pocket kingdom. Even by the standards of a noble girl, accustomed to the rococo of Stadtfeld Manor, the first floor of the Council building was richly appointed. Kallen even felt vaguely guilty about dripping rain on the deep plush carpet, ludicrous though the feeling was. Why the hell does the Student Council need a goddamned mini-mansion!? Her recent excursion with Tanya had given Kallen a keen understanding of how much money it took to keep people alive at a subsistence level, which made the ridiculous finery even more aggravating. The fucking carpet alone could probably feed a hundred Japanese for days!


Forcing the thoughts of starving Japanese families out of her mind with almost practiced ease, Kallen began dutifully snapping pictures of the admittedly gorgeous interior on her student paper-issued camera, doing her best to capture anything that looked remotely spooky under the automatically activated lights. Unfortunately, the true horror of the place couldn't exactly be captured on film, so Kallen simply contented herself with taking pictures of the more unusual decorations, including a remarkably badly taxidermied peacock that had apparently been mounted by Ruben Ashford himself, explaining its presence in the formal receiving room. What she didn't find were any computers or suspicious file cabinets crammed to the brim with blackmail material, much to Kallen's dismay.


As she meandered about the first floor snapping the occasional picture, Kallen noted any visible security cameras as well as any way up to the second floor. She discovered a total of four ways to access the upstairs: the broad, formal staircase up to the second-floor foyer, a pair of elevators at either end of the building, and a locked door at the rear of the building with a small unobtrusive stairway icon. Kallen also noticed that there were plenty of visible security cameras in virtually every room in the clubhouse, but oddly enough none were around either of the elevators or the mysterious back staircase. So whoever set up the security system here decided to actually conceal the cameras in those areas, meaning they're the only important part of this whole heap...


Kallen mulled her options over as she continued to snap pictures of any shadow that crossed her rangefinder, before deciding that her new role as a rookie journalist would be plenty to explain away a bit of ill-mannered nosiness. Keeping up her meandering path, she slowly made her way back to the mysterious locked door with the stairway icon, finally coming to a halt and snapping a final picture of the pale wood door. Audacity, always audacity – and journalistic privilege! Kallen pulled a hairpin and a nail clipper from the pocket of her uniform blazer, and started fiddling with the door lock, completely aware that the unseen cameras and whoever was behind them were watching her. I'll just tell them I saw the ghost phase through the door – what're they going to do, expel me?


The dimly remembered lessons from her Big Bro proved more than enough to beat the flimsy single-tumbler door lock, and soon a distinctive click echoed through the empty hall. With a sigh of relief, Kallen returned her tools to her pocket and tried the door. The handle turned easily, but the door remained stubbornly closed. Examining it more carefully, Kallen realized that the lock built into the door's handle was nothing compared to the solid three-inch bar of waist-height steel she could barely make out in the narrow gap between the door and the frame. There was no obvious opening mechanism on this side of the door, and Kallen suspected that it was a maglock, which would require the precise movements of a magnet over a specific patch of the door to unlock – her father had a similar mechanism installed on the door to his study, although certainly not such a substantial model. The door itself was on close examination only paneled with wood – the echo and weight of the thing indicated that something substantially stronger was under the tasteful facade. Whatever's up on the second floor, someone's really serious about keeping it under wraps... Presumably the Ashfords... Fuck, another secret I need to get out of Milly, somehow...


Stowing her camera, Kallen decided to call the night a bust and headed back out into the rain, uninterested in meeting whoever might be keeping an eye on the cameras. If someone was protecting something that seriously, she doubted they'd be interested in her claims of journalistic freedom. But that means that whatever's behind there is definitely worth further investigation... If they're willing to let all this wealth be guarded by a single lock... whatever's up on the second floor would definitely interest Tanya.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 13: A Communal Dinner


(A big thank you to Siatru, and to Daemon, BlueBezerk, and Grig9700 on the Tanya Writers Discord for beta reading this chapter.)


The first Friday of December started pleasantly enough; though it was wet and cold outside, in the small studio I shared with Ohgi and Naoto it was warm and dry. Yesterday's rice, combined with a can of condensed milk purchased during an excursion to the grocery stores of the Tokyo Settlement, sat cooling on the now deactivated hotplate as I dug into my bowl of rice pudding. I'd dimly remembered it from the childhood of my long-ago first life, when my grandmother had made it as a special treat whenever her only grandson came to visit her. Thanks to Kallen's access to the Britannian equivalent of the internet, it hadn't been too hard to find a one-pot recipe for rice pudding, and now that I had the money to buy some good ingredients and the time to enjoy my food, I saw no reason to not indulge myself just a bit. It wasn't the same, of course, as some old family recipe lovingly perfected over the generations, but still tasted like a return to childhood.


After eagerly spooning another bite into my mouth, I grabbed the orange sitting by my bowl and started peeling it. After watching me burn through the oranges I'd brought back from my first trip with Kallen to a Britannian grocery store, Naoto had ensured that there were always oranges waiting for me in the apartment. At first, I'd been a bit hesitant to take advantage of my sudden access to citrus fruit – after years of hard living and watery miso, it seemed like an unimaginable luxury to have fresh fruit on demand. Coupled with the coffee I'd purchased during that same trip to the grocery store, it felt like an almost decadent level of comfort, a degree of indulgence that would isolate us from our neighbors. Fortunately, nobody had tried to rob us, and the other denizens of the apartment building were just as alternatively friendly or standoffish as ever, depending on the neighbor in question. I suspected Ohgi's generally well-liked persona as a kindly teacher had done a great deal to soften any resentment.


After all, that persona's not entirely fabricated. Maybe they're hoping he'll share with them?


The teacher in question sat across the table from me, a summer sausage on a cutting board in front of him, slicing thin medallions from the sausage and popping them into his mouth sandwiched between crackers. I'd given him both items after returning from my most recent trip outside Shinjuku as a small token of thanks, as well as to give him something to eat during our shared meals that wasn't soup. Whatever other virtues the man had, I couldn't abide the way he loudly slurped soup, and if we were going to share meals I was determined that as few of those meals as possible would involve soups, stews, or other broth-based foods.


It was quickly becoming clear that I'd been at least somewhat off base in my initial estimation of Ohgi's character, particularly in light of the heart-to-heart conversation we'd had about my dietary habits. To my shame, he had seen far more clearly than I had that my previous work-life balance was wildly unbalanced, and that I had been letting myself go. It had been a shock when he'd bluntly informed me that he'd be enforcing a more balanced daily routine, and for a brief moment I'd been resentful of the encroachment onto my personal autonomy, but that had only been the immediate knee-jerk reaction. Before I could even fully sort out the logic behind his sudden intervention, he'd uncharacteristically just... opened up.


The emotional deluge that followed had been stunning in the extreme, but also deeply affirmational. My work had been noticed, and my worth had been seen and appreciated; even better, Ohgi didn't see me as a charity case or as the abnormality and near-basket case I knew myself to be, as I had feared when he'd told me I needed help – he saw me as a comrade who needed assistance. How could I deny that I needed help, when I'd let myself waste away as I'd stressed endlessly over the operations of the Kozuki Organization and the Rising Sun Association? How could I deny his help, when I'd made it a point in the past to help out my comrades when and where I could?


If I wasn't willing to accept help, could I really call myself part of the organization? I'd told Naoto that Kallen would only be fully accepted as one of us if she shared the risks – and in the sharing of those risks, in running onto that dark subway platform with us, gun in hand, I'd been proven correct. Sitting at the table with Ohgi, listening to his impassioned plea to let him help me, I'd realized that this was a risk too that I had to share with the people I depended on to get me into a cushy job after the war. Letting Ohgi tell me when I was wrong, when I was hurting myself without helping our people, and accepting help from my fellow terrorists... That was part of being a member of a tightly-knit organization. It wasn't a weakness to accept help when one needed it – after all, the Japanese weren't weak when they accepted my help, they were hungry. And I was hungry too.


And so, as I peeled my orange and watched Ohgi carve slices off the preserved meat, I continued to work on reconstructing my mental model of the man. He was intelligent, but not shockingly so. He was charismatic, but not in the same captivating way Naoto was. He was essentially a leader of the everyman, more approachable and personable than Naoto, and usually entirely able to deal with any minor problem or concern. He was a capable killer who had no qualms nor concerns when I'd laid out my plan for depopulating a train station, but he'd also been entirely willing, eager, even, to help out the other members of the organization deal with their own concerns after the battle. Overall, while he was many things, it seemed increasingly unlikely that a sadist was one of them.


I recognized that this could be some sort of elaborate deception that Ohgi was playing on me, that he was indeed just as monstrous as I'd suspected, simply with a far better mask than I'd ever anticipated. I also recognized that train of thought led to insanity, and that being overly paranoid was at least as dangerous to my continued survival and membership in the organization as being overly secure in my current sense of success.


Ohgi's insistence that I actually sit down with him and eat a minimum of two meals per day had proven to be an unexpected masterstroke. Being mandated to carve out time in my schedule for said meals had been a bit of an inconvenience, until I realized that I could take as long as I wanted to sit and eat and unwind and not be accused of shirking. After all, since the breaks were the product of my direct superior and roommate, nobody was going to chide me for simply relaxing for a few precious minutes instead of working through my lunch hour. Beyond the sudden freedom to eat in peace, spending the required time with Ohgi had forced me to get over the initial awkwardness I had felt after that conversation. Sitting in chilly silence would have been decidedly uncomfortable, after all, and probably wouldn't have reassured him that I would continue to eat regularly into the future after my period of supervision ended; plus, it would have gone against the clear spirit of the order, namely to work on actually forming mutual relationships with my comrades instead of just bossing them around all the time.


Looking back on it, between the large, regular, relaxing meals, the casual chatter that usually accompanied said meals, and the multiple trips I'd taken with Kallen into the Britannian Concession, the last week had been unexpectedly pleasant. Now that Kallen was well and truly a full-blooded member of the organization, she was proving to be an incredibly diligent worker; only a day after my uncomfortably emotional conversation with Ohgi, I'd found myself in a camping goods store, comparing the price and quality of a wide range of potentially useful gadgets. We'd gone down a wishlist of goods provided by Inoue, investigating thermal underwear and warm sleeping bags before making our way to the display of water filtration devices. Down the list we'd gone, debating the relative thicknesses of fabric and the price per replacement filter in quiet Britannian, Kallen correcting my pronunciation as we went. We'd ended up leaving the store without making any purchases, but with a wealth of information to direct future purchases by the Rising Sun, and with my Britannian ever so slightly improved.


Looking for new opportunities to practice my rusty Britannian and to shake the lingering traces of the Empire from my words, I followed Kallen into the department store, even permitting her to hold my hand as we made our way through the lobby and up the stairs so we wouldn't be parted in the throng of eager consumers, chatting about trivial things as we went. I'd found myself so engaged in our conversation about the latest Ashford Academy gossip that I hadn't even noticed our destination until we'd arrived at the "Junior Miss" section, and it was only then that I realized how the school chatter had begun to bend towards the current winter-time trends over the last few minutes. I saw the eager gleam in Kallen's eyes and resigned myself to my fate, deciding that if being dolled up for the older girl's amusement was the price of the language practice, I'd pay that price.


Fortunately, Kallen might have been a noble, but she had no more love for frills and fancy dresses than I had, and all of the outfits she proposed were at least free of skirts, thought I had to put my foot down when she'd offered me a pair of short-shorts that didn't go further than my mid-thigh. I'd known from seeing Kallen's outfits, including her school uniform, that the Britannians were decidedly more... liberal... when it came to coverage than either the Imperials of my past life or the Japanese of my current time, but I wasn't so impressed by Kallen's fashion sense to let her bully me into tiny shorts and leg warmers. Fortunately, pleading the necessity of blending in to the Shinjuku crowd had convinced her where concerns about the cold had failed, and the ridiculous shorts were returned to their rack in peace. In the end, I'd ended up richer by a pair of nice hard-wearing pants and a warm jacket in comfortingly bland colors. Remembering the hard-earned lessons of my past, I also took the opportunity to pick up new socks and underwear – dry socks were more valuable than gold on the front. I'd seen multiple men succumb to heinous cases of trenchfoot and other fungal infections after prolonged wear of filthy underwear and socks; I had no desire to feel the skin rot off my body, not when perfectly acceptable cotton replacements were available for a competitive price, all paid for by the House of Stadtfeld.


Apparently, Ohgi had gotten Kallen in on his plan to make me eat whenever my stomach had the slightest available capacity, as no sooner were we back out in the cold of the mid-afternoon than I found myself being gently but firmly led to "The Crepes of Britanny", an unexpectedly Francois cafe for a Britannian colony, but apparently nonetheless popular. It was standing room only as we waited in the line, and Kallen took advantage of our wait time to "encourage" me to "consider" ordering the largest crepe on the menu, a monstrous pastry full of fruit, crème, and hazelnut spread. Realizing that the long arm of Ohgi had already forbade all resistance, I limited my token resistance to a minor sulk, which conveniently gave me an excuse to remain silent as Kallen ordered for both of us. The sulk disappeared as soon as the food arrived, and soon I found myself fearing diabetes as I crammed my mouth full, yet found myself helpless to resist the insane sweetness of the delicacy. The chocolate syrup worked into the crème filling was enough to even allow a degree of forgiveness for the Francois to enter my heart. They may have killed me the last time around, I mused, but at least they can make an excellent pastry. The fact they pulled one over Being X to boot was pretty impressive too.


Overall, it had been a thoroughly enjoyable trip, from a personal point of view, and another mark of Kallen's development as a skilled agent from a more professional perspective. The important information gathering process had been cloaked under the wider blanket of a "girls' day out", the stop at the camping store just one of many stops at many different stores and attractions, including an amusement park. If I hadn't known that Kallen had invited me to the Tokyo Settlement expressly so she could get my input on potential Rising Sun purchases, I never would have realized that had been the point of the trip, especially since it had been such a brief part of that long, lazy afternoon.


Two days after that first trip, she'd invited me out for a second trip to the Concession, later at night, and while she'd passed on word of the peculiar security measures around the Student Council Clubhouse, it had been over mocktails and gourmet sandwiches at a trendy bistro, as a violinist played Vivaldi in the background. I wasn't exactly sure why she hadn't simply passed that information on to me via text, but I appreciated her superb taste in restaurants nonetheless. Honestly, between the near-constant pace of our text conversation, when she was out of school, and these recent meetings in the Concession, I was starting to worry that I'd somehow imparted my overzealous work ethic on Kallen – it would be bitterly ironic if in my attempt to reduce my own stress I'd managed to accidentally overwork the heiress of the Stadtfeld Family, a far more important and connected player in the broader Kozuki Organization than myself. I had considered sitting down with Kallen as Ohgi had with me, but so far the younger Kozuki had shown no sign of burnout, and since I frankly found myself greatly enjoying the restaurants she'd introduced me to, I decided to hold off on the meeting until signs of overwork actually presented themselves.


Yes, overall, it had been a wonderfully relaxing week of relaxation and recuperation. That said, it was about time to bring my informal vacation to an end; pleasant as it was to worry about nothing more than filling my face and gathering information with Kallen, winter was already biting at the people of Shinjuku, and I couldn't in good conscious stay in this apartment feasting on oranges and pudding any longer.


"Ohgi," I mumbled around an orange slice, "We've got a problem."


It truly was impressive how quickly Ohgi had his sidearm drawn and pointed at the door. Within three seconds, he'd dropped the knife, hurled himself to his feet, and pulled his gun. Equally impressive was how vibrant the blush that crawled up his neck was as he realized that I hadn't moved nor shown any sign of concern. I decided not to say anything about it as he picked his chair up from the floor and sat back down – no need to rub his nose in his jumpy reaction, especially considering our line of work.


"The Ghetto's still starving, and we're only reaching a small slice of the population with our daily food boxes." I didn't have anything approaching a census of Shinjuku, but I knew that it was unlikely that more than three percent of the population at most had managed to get food aid from the Rising Sun. "We need to figure out some way to expand distribution, maybe by setting up multiple other offices around Shinjuku, but I don't know where we're going to get the funding necessary for additional sites."


Ohgi gravely nodded, the familiar furrow indicating concern wrinkling his forehead below his pompadour. "Yeah, Inoue estimated that we've got enough money from the last mission to keep the Rising Sun running for about seven months if we stick to food distribution, but only about three months at most if we want to keep providing clothes and construction materials."



"Which, I think, we very much do. Canned food only goes so far – we need to keep up with the other projects too." Of that I was certain. The food, more varied than the typical ghetto diet, was an important step, but without adequate shelter and warmth, not to mention access to common medication, diseases would still run rampant through Shinjuku. "All of that requires money, but we're still lacking reliable income streams."


Ohgi chuckled grimly. "Yeah, I guess raiding the gangs doesn't really constitute a regular income stream." The furrow in his brow deepened as he glared down at the smoked sausage on his plate. "Inoue thinks that we more or less kneecapped the economy when we blew up those arms-dealing bastards. It... concerns me that we potentially damaged far more of Shinjuku than we expected..."


"She's right." I'd talked with Inoue over the last week too, and I agreed with her conclusions. It had already been difficult doing business in Shinjuku before a hundred odd merchants and their gangster bodyguards had ended up entombed beneath half an office building. "That said, pulling the gangs out by the roots was always going to hurt, considering how deeply embedded they are here in Shinjuku. The longer we put it off, the worse it was going to get. Besides..."


I took a deep breath before I continued. I no longer feared that Ohgi would throw me out of the group for speaking my mind, but this would be a tough pill to swallow for the former teacher – it was difficult for me to even admit it to myself, but the writing was on the wall. "We're not going to be able to help everybody, Ohgi, not this winter and not in the foreseeable future. There's just not enough resources in Shinjuku to keep everybody alive, much less healthy. There's, what? Two hundred thousand? Two hundred fifty thousand people? All crammed into twelve and a half square kilometers of developed land, with incredibly limited imports. The only economic export we've got is bodies, who either get unskilled work and poor pay or are exploited by criminals and foreign aristocrats." I closed my eyes and rubbed at my brow with frustration. "As far as food or social support goes in the Ghetto, we're it. Nobody else is going to step in to help out the Japanese. And we're only able to support a hundred, a hundred fifty households, at best."


"Are you only just realizing this, Tanya?" My eyes snapped open at the unexpected response, but Ohgi's tone had been gentle, and there was no hint of mockery on his face. "Do you remember what subject I used to teach, back before the Conquest, Tanya?"


"Math." The word fell from my lips. Of course he'd run the numbers before – so why wasn't he feeling overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the task I'd set for us? "You used to be a math teacher."


Ohgi nodded and smiled slightly from across the table. "That's right, and I sat down and worked out a rough estimate of Shinjuku's food requirements years ago, and I felt the same way you did. There's no way we'll ever be able to keep everybody alive. The only reason Shinjuku's still as densely populated now as it was then is because the Britannians keep pushing more people inside the walls as the Settlement expands." He shrugged, smiling at the futility. "But since you came up with the Rising Sun idea, we've done everything we could to help. We've poured time, money, and effort into getting the people of Shinjuku what they needed. I don't see anything we could have done better, in terms of building a charitable organization from the ground up while simultaneously gearing up for a war with the gangs."


I don't know what expression I had on my face, but whatever he saw clearly amused Ohgi, whose reassuring smile stretched and grew into an amused grin. He leaned forward and stretched across the table, reaching out just far enough to tousle my hair, before I reared back in my chair out of his reach, to his amusement. "C'mon, don't beat yourself up about this, Tanya! You're not perfect, and nobody expects you to deliver perfection." Ohgi straightened back up in his chair, and regained his businesslike expression. "Besides, there's a potential source of funding available, if we're willing to reach out and grab it."


I ran my fingers through my hair, straightening it back out as I frowned at Ohgi. "I understand that selling amphetamine in the Settlement would be a significant moneymaker if we could the operation off the ground, but I still think it's far too much risk for the sort of penny-ante gains we'd make until we found a way to make and ship the product on an industrial scale."


Ohgi was already shaking his head by the time I was halfway through my sentence. "I'm not talking about dealing drugs, I'm talking about potential patronage."


"Potential patronage?" The idea stopped me in my tracks. While I knew we were only a deniable asset to Lord Stadtfeld, I'd just assumed that seeking out any other financial backers would be seen as a sign of treachery by Naoto's aristocratic father. But, if Ohgi was suggesting it... "Who do you know with money, Ohgi? Have you been holding out on us, and you're secretly the bastard of some old Japanese noble clan or something?" While I was mostly joking, I was being somewhat serious. If Ohgi really had been sitting on a connection powerful enough to be called a backer, that was incredibly suspicious.


"No, no, nothing that dramatic." Ohgi smiled, but shook his head. Figures. Two noble bastards is one thing, three would be overdoing it... "And I don't actually know the moneybags in question, to tell you the truth. But, I do know of them. They're called the 'Six Houses of Kyoto', and they're either the biggest traitors in Japanese history or the backbone of the resistance to Britannia, depending on your point of view."


I'd long wondered how Britannia managed the all-important Sakuradite mines, not to mention the transportation networks, refining facilities, and other attendant infrastructure. It had been the main casus belli of the Conquest, almost six years ago, and by all accounts the bulk of Britannian military strength in Area 11 was concentrated around the mining complex at Mount Fuji. According to Ohgi, when the Britannians had effectively conquered Japan in a day, they'd captured the Sakuradite industrial apparatus completely intact. After consolidating their hold on the newly dubbed Area 11, the Britannians had opted to keep not only the old facilities, but also the families that had owned, operated, and managed those facilities as well. The industrialists had turned their coats and had cheerfully provided the Britannians as much Sakuradite as they wished, and as far as the public knew that state of affairs continued through to the present.


However, in the underground network of resistance organizations large and small, word had gotten out that the reviled collaborating plutocrats were also in the business of sponsoring rebellion against Britannia, providing arms, funds, and connections to any group that caught their eye and delivered results in the war against the occupiers. Somehow, the Britannians supervising the Six Houses had completely failed to notice the illicit activities of the allegedly loyal Honorary Britannians who controlled their strategic resource extraction industry.


This answered many questions for me, including why the few Japanese I'd heard mention Kyoto always spat. Apparently, the wealthy aristocrats and plutocrats of the Six Houses hadn't been the only ones to embrace Britannian subjugation within the first year of the Conquest; the entire Kyoto prefecture had mostly gone over to the Britannians as part of a deal to avoid any fighting in the ancient capitol, and since then many Honorary Britannians who had found favor in the eyes of the Area Administration had moved to Kyoto. It was impossible to tell how many of those new Kyoto inhabitants were like Souichiro's son "Keith", and how many were part of the same secret operation as the Six Houses.


Frankly, I was deeply suspicious of this faction of well-heeled aristocrats. It was impossible to tell what role, if any, their convictions and loyalty to their homeland played in their decision making; what was very clear was that this group was extremely good at playing both sides to guarantee their survival. It hadn't escaped my attention either that one of the many services the Kyoto group provided, according to Ohgi, was the delivery of advanced weaponry for free or for a reduced price, meaning that they likely were the ones manufacturing said weaponry. Nothing is better for an arms dealer than an endless war, and I darkly wondered how many arms contracts the Six Houses had filled for Clovis la Britannia in his efforts to put down the rebellion they themselves had fostered.


I wonder if they've got any publically traded stock available – that sounds like an incredibly safe investment.


" – Anyway, Nagata says that Asahara Hiyashi has a line of contact to one of the Six Houses, and thinks that Mister Asahara would be happy to bring us to Kyoto House's attention. For a suitable price, of course." Ohgi finished his explanation and popped another sausage and cracker mini-sandwich into his mouth. "I don't trust 'em, but money's money. Plus, if they donate to Rising Sun, that might help their public relations problem too, and it would help us pump more food into Shinjuku in no time."


I thought about it for a long minute, and then another. If we could establish a connection between a rich bloc and Rising Sun, the Kozuki Organization, or both, all kinds of possibilities would open up. We'd have enough money to invest in long-term projects, like Souichiro's idea of building chicken coops throughout Shinjuku for meat and eggs, or Inoue's idea of setting up fungus farms down in some of the deeper, wetter parts of the subway tunnels. We'd perhaps have enough funds to secure a supply of TDAP vaccines to start vaccine clinics for the children of Shinjuku, reducing childhood mortality and preserving the workforce of tomorrow. We might even have enough money to implement Ohgi's idea of a school for the Japanese, one that would actually teach something useful, unlike the Shinjuku School for Elevens. If the Six Houses could get weapons into Shinjuku, it would also make it much easier to break the gangs once and forever, and perhaps then we could turn our attention towards the Britannians... On the other hand, these men were clearly not to be trusted. Any help they gave would doubtless come with many attached strings. Not to mention the fact that, if they ever actually got found out after they publicly donated to Rising Sun, I doubted Inoue's fraudulent bookkeeping would fool the Britannians for long.


An army can't run without 'beans, bandages, and bullets'... And 'gold is the sinew of war'...


"Please ask Nagata to visit Mister Asahara at his earliest convenience to inquire about the price of arranging a meeting." Best to kick the can down the road a bit. No need to jump into a piranha pool at the drop of a hat, but no need to reject the potential benefits either. Plus, if Asahara's middleman's cut was too steep, I could always wait until the Six Houses contacted us themselves. They'll notice us sooner rather than later; if Ohgi's right about their reach, they've definitely got spies in Shinjuku.


After a quick wash-up, I made my way out of the apartment, bundled up against the December cold with my new jacket hidden under Ohgi's battered old black sweatshirt. Despite the cold and the ice coating the pavement, I smiled as I stepped outside onto the bleak Shinjuku street. Across the street from the apartment building's entrance, a bright yellow flier topped by a radiant red half-sun peaking over the black line of the horizon desultorily flapped in the breeze, pulling at the nail that anchored it firmly in place. I knew that there were at least fifty of these posters nailed up around my area of Shinjuku – after all, I'd hammered that nail into place late last night.


Regularly eating with Ohgi had reminded me of other shared meals, long ago and far away. Those meals, taken in bunkers, trenches, snowy forests, or all-too-rarely in actual mess halls, had frequently tasted awful and had completely failed to fill the stomachs of my soldiers and even left my tiny body quite peckish. All too often, the shared meat ration had to be cooked over a campfire, resulting in burnt outsides and bloody raw interiors, the potatoes had been soft and putrid, and the bread had been full of sawdust; despite all of those drawbacks, and despite my carping at the time, I wouldn't have traded those horrible dinners for the finest restaurant in Berun. The shared misery, coupled with the occasional bottle of illicit liquor shared between everybody but me, had built a strong bond between the men and women of the 203rd, myself included. And when it had been Vi... Visha's night to cook, the army rations had been edible, even something close to enjoyable... Hunger might be the best spice, but a shared meal fulfilled the fighting soldier spiritually as well as physically.


"Why not bring all of Shinjuku in on this?" I'd asked Ohgi, after making sure that a communal meal would also meet my mandated shared meal requirement as well. "Are you more likely to help a friend you've shared a meal and conversation with, or some neighbor you've only ever met once or twice a year?" And so, I'd changed up the Rising Sun's program for today – instead of providing our usual food packages to go, we'd be serving a communal meal of rice and beans, along with boiled cabbage and carrots. It wouldn't be fancy, but hopefully it would be filling, and it would give the attendees an opportunity to sit down in a warm room with food and water and get to know each other. Ideally, this sort of communal activity would inspire mutualistic relationships between both the members of the community, and the community and the Rising Sun Benevolent Association. We'd need all the help we could get before things in Shinjuku were settled, after all.


Tamaki, Nagata, and Naoto were already waiting for me outside the Rising Sun building by the time I'd managed to pick my way through Shinjuku's icy streets. All three were bundled up, but they still seemed to be in good spirits, despite the chill.


"Morning!" Naoto noticed me first and loudly greeted me, waving both arms over his head as if he was concerned I'd somehow fail to notice him among the sparse crowd of pedestrians. "Glad you're finally up and moving, sleepyhead!"


My scowl did nothing to dent his irritatingly high spirits, but it did make Tamaki laugh. Truly, I am beset by treachery on all sides! No, wait, one of my so-called comrades remains true!


Doing my best to suppress the smirk that threatened to ruin my stoic demeanor as Tamaki nearly fell on his ass after stepping on a patch of ice, proving that there was some justice in the universe after all, I turned to Nagata and handed over the folder I'd brought with me from the apartment. "Since you're the only adult I see here, Nagata, you get the paperwork. Congratulations."


Nagata accepted the folder with a wry smile, turning and waving it at Naoto. "Better watch your back, Naoto – Tanya's put me in charge for the day."


"A coup, is it?!" Naoto took a dramatic pose, setting a foot on the first step of the approach up to the Rising Sun's entrance, pointing dramatically at Nagata. "Tamaki, defend my rule!"


Before Tamaki managed to take a step towards Nagata, presumably to try grappling the lanky man into submission, I decided that this was more than enough fun and games. "Fight on your own time! You've got beans and cabbage to pick up!"


The folder I'd handed to Nagata contained several manifests and order forms, all bearing the signature of Rivalz Cardemone authorizing the purchases. I hadn't felt the need to ask Kallen to bother the boy for approval, of course, since I'd long since made a rubber stamp of his signature. Nagata and Naoto would be spending the day in the Concession, renting a truck as per usual and hauling in a shipment of bulk-bought rice and beans, as well as a supply of cabbages and carrots purchased from an Honorary Britannian operated farm outside of Tokyo, plus a shipment of cooking oil, gasoline, and vitamin pills. To cap it off, they would also be hauling in several large portable electric ranges I'd ordered at the camping supply store during my trip with Kallen. Most of the food was earmarked for tonight's meal, and as such the schedule was tight. Who knew how bad traffic in Tokyo would be, after all, or if some guard decided to shake Nagata down for an extra large bribe?


After I explained my reasoning at length, at a very reasonable volume and with a minimum of chastisement, Nagata and Naoto were soon on their way, and a cowed Tamaki followed me into the Rising Sun. We had a busy day ahead of us too, getting the main hall of the Rising Sun building set up with as many tables and chairs as we could fit into the former office space. Besides, we also had to filter and boil a large amount of water, both in preparation for cooking tonight's food and so our hungry attendees had something to wash down the bland yet cheap food we'd be providing.


Thankfully, separated from his fellow miscreants, Tamaki buckled down and helped me haul the collapsible tables and folding chairs the Rising Sun had acquired back during our initial setup. As he got the table legs straightened out, with much cursing and anger as the abused furniture kept trying to close on his fingers, I began the process of filtering and boiling the water we'd need. The process was hampered by the slow spluttering pace of the tap, and I mentally added "refurbish the water mains" to my growing wishlist for Shinjuku. Honestly, it's a shock the Britannians haven't cut off the utilities entirely yet. Sure, the sewers frequently leaked and the storm water drain system was completely busted, but somehow most of the ghetto still had access to at least some clean water. No guarantee that'll last, though.


It was somewhat of a dull day, but I enjoyed the simple yet fruitful work. Naoto and Nagata returned in plenty of time, and soon the ranges were connected to the generator installed in the basement of the Rising Sun building. The sounds of peeling and chopping filled the air as several large pots of rice simmered and the beans began to boil, warming the dining hall. The other members of the Kozuki cell slowly filtered in and started helping out with the food prep, or in Souichiro's case, unpacking the boxes of disposable bowls, cups, and cutlery from the back of the truck. Nagata briefly disappeared, but returned soon with his wife Ami in tow. I'd never met her, nor their child, who had been left with a local grandmother for the night in exchange for a to-go bowl of beans and rice, but I could see that Nagata hadn't been fantasizing when he'd spoken fondly about his wife. The couple were obviously affectionate with each other, and judging by Ami's rough and calloused hands, both were working hard to provide their little family with a better future.


As the sun began it's early winter-time retreat from the sky over Shinjuku, our first guests for the night began to arrive. I recognized most of them as frequent recipients of aid from Rising Sun, men and women who had accepted our help before, and in lots of cases had turned around and contributed towards helping their community. I greeted the few I had met during the handful of times I'd helped distribute food or clothes, and pointed them towards the start of the food line. Since food preparation had more or less been accomplished, I left Tamaki to keep stirring the still-simmering pots of rice and beans while directing Naoto and Chihiro towards the food line to serve up the boiled vegetables and the entree. I tasked Souichiro, who had come with his pistol under his jacket and a baton hanging from his belt, to man the door and keep an eye out for trouble, and had Inoue and Ohgi, as the two most frequent helpers at the Rising Sun, circulate through the growing crowd. Nominally, they were supposed to bus cutlery and cups that could be reused to Nagata and Ami, who had set up a washing station behind the food line, but I wanted them to primarily start up conversation with the people who came to eat. The point of this event was, after all, to help build a community, which might require a little ice breaking. I took up a ladle and stationed myself by the large steel pot full of boiled water, ready to fill cups. We'd left it, along with the two other pots full of filtered and boiled water, in the back alley under cover for a few hours, so it was nice and icy cold.


As I scooped water into waiting cups for thirsty diners, I kept an eye on the increasingly packed room. The fliers had done the trick, and lured by the prospect of a free meal in a nice warm room, the citizens of Shinjuku had come. Children clustered around parents, but every child had their own bowl – nobody would have to share a single serving tonight. Entire family's took up the ends of tables, elderly matriarchs surrounded by family. Groups of young men and women formed their own clusters, and of course the omnipresent bottles of cheap sake and homemade rotgut soon made their appearance, passing from hand to hand. The sounds of laughter and chatter filled the hall, and through the growing crowd Ohgi and Inoue shuttled, making a joke here, dipping into a quick conversation there, introducing this person to that group and so on, coming back to the rear of the room every now and then to drop piles of plastic cutlery into the basin of soapy water or sodden paper bowls into the trash can. It was hard to tell how many people had come through the line, as some people came through to get second servings, or to ask for covered bowls to take back to bedridden relatives or to neighbors staying to look after children, but I estimated that we had fed at least three hundred and fifty people a nice filling dinner by the time five hours had passed. Nobody seemed particularly eager to leave the warmth of the Rising Sun's building, and I wasn't eager to kick them out – I had nothing planned for tonight, and after dinner conversation is great for networking.


Of course, it was just as the warm self-satisfaction at a job well-done filled me that the doors to the Rising Sun banged open once again, letting in both the cold wind of the December night and a group of seven young men and women. These new arrivals were clearly not like the rest of the Japanese filling the hall, and neither were they here for a bowl of beans and rice. All seven had bright canary yellow scarves tied around their right biceps in the typical gangster style, though I didn't know what gang had bright yellow as their specific color. Interestingly, despite all seven having identical scarves tied around their arms, that was where the uniform look ended.


The leading three gangsters of the group were clearly aping Britannian styles, with the two men sporting brightly and badly dyed blonde hair, while the woman had opted for a bright bubblegum pink. At least her roots aren't showing across the room. All three wore garish outfits that were clearly of Britannian manufacture, and clearly meant to look like the typical outfits worn by nobles. Having actually seen what real nobles wore, thanks to my trip to the Stadtfeld Manor, I was distinctly unimpressed. The Britannians as a whole were far more comfortable showing skin than the Japanese, but the "Britannian-style" dress the woman was wearing was skimpy even by foreign standards. Hell of a thing to be wearing outside at ten o'clock at night in December. The men's suits were ill-fitting and stained, and the golden epaulets glittering on their shoulders looked as if they'd been badly sewn on by hands unaccustomed to such work. Despite this, the pistols all three carried were as Britannian as they come, and looked like the same military model that Naoto had provided us with.


By contrast, the four gangsters hanging back wore similar clothing to the bulk of the people in the hall – that is to say, typical Shinjuku clothing. Threadbare shirts and thin jackets, work pants with patched knees and belts cinched tight to waistlines shrunken with hunger. The three men and one woman of the group had no pretensions to the Britannian stylings of their apparent superiors, and all four had closely-cropped hair, likely as an anti-lice measure. Their features were worn and gaunt, their frames only slightly less wasted than the typical Shinjuku dweller, and none of them looked particularly eager to fight. Still, each of them was armed with a weapon of some kind, though unlike the three leaders none of the four had a pistol. Instead, two held knives, one rested a battered baseball bat on his shoulder, and the woman carried a humble claw hammer.


From the corner of my eye, I saw Souichiro looking to me for direction, his hand already wrapped around the heft of his baton. Off to the side of the door, the gangsters hadn't noticed him yet. I shook my head and he nodded, taking his hand off the baton and stepping back into the mass of citizenry – if he tried to attack the gangsters now, he'd be unsupported, on the other end of the densely packed hall from the rest of us, except for Ohgi and Inoue, who were stuck somewhere in the middle of the crowd. As the gangsters began to approach through the middle of the room, the three leaders swaggering as people desperately made a path, pulling children out of the way, I cursed internally. Ohgi had a gun, and Souichiro had a gun, but nobody else did as far as I knew. I hadn't expected such a brazen attack in front of so many people. That said... if a gang was going to attack the Rising Sun Benevolent Association for whatever reason... why would they send so few people? It made no sense.


Unless... This isn't an attack at all! This is a shakedown! Dammit, how could I have been so stupid?!


The Rising Sun had been throwing around a lot of resources lately. Renting a truck to import shipments of goods from the outside world into Shinjuku had been a necessity for our operation, but the costs necessary for that truck alone – the rental fees, the fuel, the bribery – must have thrown up a huge signal that we were a cash-rich organization, or at least that we had something worth stealing. And that doesn't even touch the value of whatever they think we were importing! The gangs probably assumed that the Rising Sun was a front for some sort of drug smuggling business or the like! They were wrong on that count – it was a front and a public relations organ for an armed combat organization dedicated to political terrorism – but I could forgive that error, seeing how they were absolutely correct that we had things worth stealing. Unfortunately, all of the valuables, including our cash reserves and our pilfered drugs and weapons, were all at the hideout, not here on site where we could freely hand them over to buy "protection".


There's no way they're going to believe that we don't have any money on-site. And if they refuse to believe that, things are going to get nasty.


As I'd furiously worked out how badly I'd screwed our entire operation over, the little knot of gangsters had continued to advance. It was telling how badly beaten the people of Shinjuku were, collectively; Only seven gangsters, only three with guns, were enough to intimidate the several hundred civilians present. Nobody was meeting the smirking eyes of the three leaders, and nobody looked the least bit interested in challenging them. Thankfully, that included Ohgi and Inoue as well, who I noticed were carefully mimicking the reactions of those around them, keeping their eyes downcast even as I noticed Inoue slowly drawing a knife as the last of the ragged gangsters passed her by. I've got to take control of the situation before someone makes a stupid move and starts a bloodbath.


Dropping my ladle as I engaged my strengthening and reflex enhancing suite, I swung myself over the serving table, feet easily clearing the pot of cabbage and carrots, and dropped down on the other side of the food line, right in front of the approaching gangsters. To my surprise, my enhanced strength felt... even more enhanced than usual, somehow, approaching what I had been able to manage with a mere thought in my old life, though still nowhere close to what I'd been able to do with a computation jewel. I'll worry about it later. Similarly, my reflexes felt like they'd somehow been kicked into overdrive; I'd swung myself over the table so quickly that I'd nearly stumbled when I'd landed, and it seemed like the world was somehow moving slower than it should. In the seemingly stretched seconds, I noticed Naoto was peeling off his serving gloves and trying to hurry around the serving tables too, but the throng of people and the cramped space we'd been forced to set the food line up in to make room for all the tables made it hard for him to extricate himself. Looks like it's up to me to make the first impression.


Folding my arms, I drew myself up to my full, admittedly unimpressive, height, and cocked an eyebrow at the still advancing gang. The three leaders' only reactions were sneers from the men and a condescending laugh from the woman, clearly affected after the all-too-familiar haughty laugh so beloved by wealthy Britannian ladies, and they continued to swagger towards me, the central gangster only halting a meter away while the other two moved a step or two closer, almost flanking me. I noticed the four grunts forming a vague semicircle a few steps behind the central gangster, but they still looked generally unenthusiastic, and seemed to be paying more attention to the large pots of food on the tables behind me.


The center gangster, still with a shit-eating grin on his face, started to open his mouth, which was my cue to start my pitch. "You're welcome to join us for dinner. The line starts over there – the food's free, so is the water." They were, after all, residents of Shinjuku – the poster had clearly stated that every resident of Shinjuku was welcome to join us for dinner. "No pushing, no shoving. There's plenty to go around for everybody." I spoke clearly and loudly, making sure to account for my current enhanced state so I wouldn't speak too rapidly, doing my best to emphasize in front of the murmuring audience that if anything was going to happen, it'd be these guys who'd start it.


The gangster directly ahead of me laughed, a short, ugly thing. I'd heard that laugh before, from the mouths of other men who intended on making themselves a problem. "We didn't come here for fucking dinner! Fuck off with your rice and beans, you little Brit bitch, and point us towards the cash!" He leaned in closer, until his face was barely five inches from my own. "If you're a good little girl and tell us where the money's hidden, maybe we won't take you with us when we leave. Then again..." And then the bastard actually sniffed at me, and his lips rolled back, exposing his visibly rotten teeth. "Then again, some of those rich creeps like 'em skinny... And they might pay good for a blonde."


For a moment, the rage was so intense I felt like I was choking, trying to hold it back. Only the mental discipline that years of waiting and watching for any opportunity to break my way and get me away from the war, out of the ghetto, had instilled in me gave me the strength to not murder the son of a bitch where he stood. Gotta make them throw the first punch... C'mon... C'mon... I had to get them angrier while still being eminently reasonable. That way, when I took them apart, I'd be unquestionably in the right, and nobody would think to connect me to any sort of premeditated attack, like a certain recent bombing.


"What do you think you're doing here?" I let a thin dribble of emotion into my voice, not rage but righteous indignation. Cold and controlled wouldn't play well – they liked their prey to be upset, off-balance. "We're just here trying to make life in Shinjuku slightly less awful – why are you trying to mess with us, huh?"


The pinkette laughed that horribly fake laugh again, nearly falling out of her tiny dress as a result. "You stupid little bitch, don't you get it?" She let her hand drop to the pistol, holstered in an incongruously sturdy belt. Judging by the rest of her sartorial dresses, she must have taken it from someone else. "The weak are just meat for the strong to eat – and we're the strongest people in Shinjuku!" I ignored her laugh and watched her eyes. They were full of mingled anger, fear, and exaltation. "So you'd better get out of our way, little girl, otherwise we'll eat you all up."


I snorted. It was hard enough to control my anger with these blowhards, and impossible to keep my amusement hidden as well too. "Sorry, are you saying you're strong, then? You're not even strong enough to be proud of being Japanese – and no matter how much you dye your hair and dress like them, you're never going to be Britannians. Since you're stuck in Shinjuku like the rest of us, you couldn't even be Honorary Britannians, could you?" I realized I was smiling, grinning really, teeth bared at the trio of gangsters who loomed over me. I knew they were dangerous, knew that by questioning their strength I'd just crossed their red line, but I couldn't help but laugh at them. "Clothes might make the man, but to the Britannians you're still just dirty Elevens. If a Britannian actually saw the way you dressed, they'd laugh in your faces at your silly costumes. Now get in line for your meal or get out of my way."


The gangster directly ahead of me lost his cool first. With an animalistic bellow of "Shut the fuck up, you little hafu whore!", he began to swing for me, a clearly telegraphed right-handed haymaker. Finally, took him long enough.


To my enhanced eyes, it was almost like we were sparring, and the target was a partner giving me a nice easy opportunity to set up an arm lock. Unfortunately for him, we weren't sparring, and so instead of blocking his punch I ducked low, below the arc of his fist, and took two rapid steps forward, putting me inside his guard at the cost of letting the three gangsters surround me. As the fist swung over and past my head, I retaliated, channeling every bit of anger that had accrued at their disgusting insults and ramming the base of my palm straight into his solar plexus. The close quarters didn't let me fully extend my arm, which would have maximized the impact, but the enhanced strength made that a moot issue as I could clearly feel the crunching of breaking cartilage under my hand. Ruthlessly, I poured more hoarded magic into the blow, sinking into a lunging position as I hurled all sixty-seven pounds I had to my name against him. I exulted as I felt as much as heard the air being driven from his lungs as my palm forcibly compressed his diaphragm, driving broken shards of cartilage deep into the soft tissues inside his rib cage as I did so. To guarantee that my first target was incapacitated, I whipped my trailing right leg forwards and up, rising from my lunge as I rammed my knee into his groin before taking a step back as he began to fall forwards, contracting around both his injured genitals and the crushing wound to his torso. It probably wasn't strictly necessary, but I couldn't deny that seeing the bastard blanch with pain was viscerally satisfying.


As I took my step back, a hand slammed into my neck from the right, grasping for my throat. Fortunately, my adversary had missed his chance to grab my trachea and instead of trying to resist the impact I moved with the momentum, taking a step to my left and pivoting on my left heel, ending up on my female enemy's left flank. As I turned, I took a quick look at the other four gangsters, and, absent any orders from their superiors, they were all still hanging back, keeping well clear of the fight. Very wise. The pink-haired gangster tried to keep me in front of her, starting to turn as I came up behind her, but in the face of my enhancements she might as well have been standing still for how slowly she moved. I threw a right jab straight into her left kidney, her skimpy dress doing nothing to cushion the blow, and as she started to topple forwards, crying out in pain, I kicked her behind her left knee, forcing it to fold and sending her hurtling to the ground at speed.


I was about to kick my opponent in the head now that she was down, just to make sure she wouldn't get back up while I handled my third target, when I heard the tell-tale muted crackle of an electromagnetically accelerated weapon. Despite the comparatively innocuous noise compared to the sounds of explosive propellant from my previous life, my heart immediately skipped a beat at the noise. A bullet whizzed past my ear, presumably the sound of the second shot drowned out by the blood suddenly rushing in my ears, and I realized that the last man had escalated before I could get to him. He had managed to draw his pistol before I could send him to the floor with his friends, and I was about to be shot if I didn't move now!


A moment later, I was diving forwards, hurling myself towards the last man and the Britannian pistol clutched in his shaking hand. I saw his finger twitch, and suddenly it felt like a strand of white-hot wire had been dragged across my right forearm. As if by magic, a red groove suddenly appeared, crossing the top of my right forearm in a long diagonal from the middle of the wrist to a point halfway to my elbow, and I dimly felt the heated wire brush past the side of my ribs, almost right below my armpit. The groove was only visible for a split second to my enhanced eyes before the welling blood obscured the outline, but more importantly I saw the gangster minutely shift his aim, redirecting the barrel right at my face, and I saw his finger start to tighten for a fourth time.


And then I saw a look of profound surprise and rage on the gangster's face as his gun arm was abruptly forced up just as he squeezed the trigger, sending the bullet with my name on it up into the first floor ceiling of the Rising Sun building. The gangster immediately got over his surprise and attempted to wrestle his gun and the arm holding it free, but by that time I was inside his arms, and it was too late for him. I slammed both of my fists into his belly with all the magically enhanced strength I could muster, punching once, twice, and then grabbing his head and forcing it down into my rising knee. I felt his jaw break and the teeth give way under my knee, but I grimly held onto his temples and slammed my knee up again, feeling the nose give way and smear against my patella. He was obviously unconscious before he hit the ground, and his face was a pulp of bloody flesh and splintered bone and cartilage, his mouth a ragged red hole.


I turned to the man who had just, in all probability, saved my life by grabbing my last target's gun-arm, and nearly attacked him when I saw a yellow scarf wrapped around his right arm. Seeing my sudden start towards him, the man quickly dropped the knife dangling in his left hand and put both hands over his head. I forced myself to stop, muscles quivering with adrenaline and the urge to break all too fragile limbs, and took a quick look around. The other three ragged gangsters hadn't moved from their positions in the loose semicircle around the miniature battle ground, but all of them followed their comrade's lead and dropped their weapons, hands shooting into the sky. I took a deep breath, held it for a second, and let it all out in a rush, venting the rage and blood-lust with the carbon dioxide.


The man who had saved my life looked about as wary, weary, and ragged as most Japanese in Area 11, and looked like he was about a second away from trying to run. Again, very wise. For a moment, I considered just letting him go, along with his fellow ragged footsoldiers, before I realized the folly of the thought. These were fighting aged Japanese who clearly had at least some familiarity with violence, and if what I thought I knew about gangs was anything close to accurate, they probably got next to nothing in exchange for their loyalty. Since they'd just stood back and let their probable bosses get beaten into the ground without lifting a finger to help, that minimal payment clearly hadn't been enough. The gangs had fallen into a classic human resources management trap, and had mistaken the minimum income as adequate to purchase 100% of their employee's effort, rather than just being adequate to purchase their attendance. Besides, I doubted the gang's leadership showed much respect or care for their lowest ranked followers. Also, since they left with those three idiots, I doubt whoever's running their group will be happy if they show back up without them.


Overall, the four ragged, terrified gangsters were ready for an alternative job offer.


Moving slowly, I raised my right arm and offered my hand towards the gangster who had broken ranks to save my life. To my sudden annoyance, I realized I'd offered my injured limb to him, and the blood from the groove left by the grazing bullet had already begun to dribble down my hand. Unfortunately, rapidly pulling back the extended hand would have signaled the wrong message entirely, and so I ignored the dripping redness as I met the man's eyes.


"You must be hungry – please, stay for a meal in the warmth, don't just go back out into the cold. The food's not great, but it tastes far better shared than eaten alone." Without breaking eye contact, I extended my other hand towards the other three gangsters, barely visible in my peripheral vision. "All are welcome under the light of the Rising Sun, and this meal is for all of Shinjuku. That includes you."


Hesitantly, skittishly, moving slowly and deliberately, the first gangster lowered his arms, raised his left hand to the yellow scarf on his right bicep, and untied the knot, letting the scarf fall to the ground. Then, he stepped over the scarf, and took my outstretched hand, and gave it a soft, overly gentle shake. Tch! Treating me like a child when he just saw me beat down three adults! I'm not a damned doll! And then he froze, still holding my hand and clearly not sure what to do next.


"The line starts over there." We both jumped as a masculine tenor suddenly made itself known over my shoulder. Pulling my hand free, I started to turn towards the voice, but nearly staggered; as I'd been making my recruitment pitch, I'd taken my mind off my enhancement suite, and it had begun to wind down, leaving me suddenly aware of the hot stinging pain coming from my arm and my side. I also realized I was feeling woozy, as if the world was starting to spin under my feet. Before I could fall down and make a fool of myself, strong hands braced my shoulders. The gangster, or perhaps former gangster now, nodded frantically and scuttled off towards the food line, closely followed by his three comrades.


Looking up, I saw Naoto glaring down at me. He looked extremely worried, very angry, and profoundly relieved, a combination I'd only seen once before, when Kallen had returned fully intact after the mission to the train station. I couldn't blame him in the slightest; I was angry too, that our simple attempt to build community among the people of Shinjuku had been targeted by a gang, and I was very worried about the shots that had flown past me a minute ago – I hoped nobody else had been hurt. And I was extremely, horribly relieved that I was still alive. I thought... I thought I was about to die. I almost died. I... I should be dead... Just standing suddenly felt like far too much to ask, and I sagged back into Naoto's hands, my head swimming more than ever. I heard a rising clamor, and somewhere nearby Ohgi was yelling that "It's fine, it's fine! She'll be okay!"


A few minutes later, I was seated on a folding chair at a table, minus my jacket and overshirt, a bowl of beans and rice in front of me and bandages wrapped around my arm and my chest. Ohgi stood next to me, glowering at the three men and one woman staring straight down at the food in front of them, not making eye contact as they wolfed down their helpings. Behind me, I heard Inoue chatting on a burner phone, trying to get in contact with a former paramedic who ran a small unlicensed clinic. Apparently, Inoue thought I'd need stitches, and considering how blood was already starting to ooze through my bandages, she was probably correct about that. Nagata and Naoto were busy tying up the three Britannian wannabes, and were being none-too-gentle about the process. Soon, all three vanished into the back room of the Rising Sun, presumably to be shoved into a supply closet or something until we figured out what to do with them. Some of the Shinjuku residents had left as soon as the fight had ended, displaying an admirable degree of sense, but most had remained, and were talking in a low mutter that filled the hall with a dull roar. Annoyingly, most of them kept looking at me, which wouldn't have been such an issue if I was able to stand on my own two feet and hadn't nearly gotten myself killed like an overconfident idiot.


"So," I began, desperate for distraction from the hundreds of eyes I felt. "How'd you end up in a gang?" It was admittedly not my finest conversational maneuver, but I was perfectly content with blaming my bluntness on the blood loss and the fact I'd been shot less than twenty minutes earlier. Admittedly, it was a grazing wound, but it had been the first time I'd been shot, at least in this body. "Was it for protection? For food and supplies? Did you have habits that needed to be satisfied?" I paused, and realized my barrage of questions had sounded needlessly interrogative. "Look," I tried, aiming for a gentler tone. "If we're going to be working together, I need to know you. You do want to work with me, right?"


Apparently, honey still catches more flies than vinegar. I soon learned that three of my new recruits had joined the gang for food and protection – although one had apparently briefly been a part of the Kokuryu-kai before that organization's untimely dissolution. Hojo, as the ex-gangster who still had my blood on his hand named himself, confessed to an opiate habit; he claimed that he'd sustained a badly broken leg when the floor of the poorly maintained building he'd been squatting at the time gave out. He even pulled up the leg of his much-mended and badly stained trousers, revealing a nasty twisting scar that looped around a visibly malformed shin. Apparently, he'd had to splint it himself, and had relied on mooching off his family for months as it had slowly healed. Somewhere along the way, someone had given him a bottle of Oxy, either out of an attempt to ease his pain or just to stop the moaning, but either way that help had proven misguided, and he'd been ridden by that monkey for the last three years. Being a member of a gang had given him the "membership price" when it came to feeding his habit, and it had given him the opportunity to collect enough valuables from his victims to pay that price.


I wasn't sure what the best course of action for dealing with that particular wrinkle would be, so I simply nodded and thanked him for his forthrightness. I owed him one, and simply recruiting him into an organization that prided itself on supporting its members wouldn't be enough to settle the score. We had at least some pain pills we'd looted from the station market, but simply enabling the addiction would just kick the can down the road – plus, those pills were valuable bartering chips, not to mention that when they ran out Hojo's loyalty would suddenly become suspect.


After a while, the introductions and anecdotes tapered off, and I decided it was time to turn the conversation towards business. "You've got two choices – three, maybe. You can enjoy your meal, and leave when you're done, and do your best to get out of Shinjuku as fast as possible – or, you can stay here, help us clean up, and help us with our... other activities." I smiled at the four, who'd finally grown comfortable enough to actually meet my eyes. Ohgi grumbled beside me as he wound a fresh bandage around my arm, but I ignored him – if he had objections, he could ask for a moment of my time or simply express them in an understandable manner. "Of course, you could try going back to your old gang, but it doesn't sound like any of you were particularly happy there, and as soon as word of tonight's events gets out, I can't guarantee you'll be welcomed back with open arms." Nobody looked surprised at that, thankfully. Dealing with idiots was always tiresome, especially when I was already a bit tired out.


"If you'll be joining us, I expect you to follow orders, and to complete our training program. Naoto – the redhead over by the food – is our leader, and Ohgi here is our second in command, so you'd better listen to them, got it?" Four nodding heads showed me that they did understand, although the woman and one of the men – not Hojo – looked startled at the announcement of Ohgi's rank. Strangely enough, they both suddenly looked quite scared, and I could only assume that they'd suffered under the hands of their previous employer's leadership. No matter – I'm sure they'll warm up to him soon enough... I winced, remembering my own flawed first impression of the man. Or not. So long as they listen, it doesn't matter. "I can't guarantee that the training will be easy, but I can promise you plenty to eat, and that we don't beat our subordinates for being less than perfect here."


Noticing the none-too-subtle gestures Ohgi and Inoue had started making, I made my goodbyes and directed the four to either be out of Shinjuku by the time the rising sun touched the sky tomorrow, or to go and talk with Naoto. All four made a beeline towards the rear of the building, to my pleasure, and I followed Ohgi into a side-room, Inoue taking up a position outside the door to guarantee us a bit of privacy.


"Okay, we've got a price negotiated to get your arm and your side stitched up. Since we're providing our own antiseptic and anesthesia, it's pretty generous." Ohgi started talking almost as soon as the door closed, ushering me into the sole chair in the room before slouching against the desk. "We'll get moving in a second, but before we go – are you sure about recruiting those guys? Nobody in the cell knows any of them, and one of them freely admitted to being a junkie."


"We can't keep recruiting friends and family alone, Ohgi." I squirmed a bit in my seat, guiltily but not nervously. I had no doubts that Ohgi and Naoto would back my decision to the hilt, but I had somewhat superseded my authority by offering the four former gangsters a place in our organization without running the idea by either of them. "If we do that, it'll make things much worse once the fight with the Britannians begins in earnest, and we start losing people. Plus, there's a finite number of people who people already in our group can personally vouch for – we're going to need more hands than that, for both the Rising Sun and for the Cell." This was all reasonable, but I certainly understood why Ohgi was questioning my logic here. "Besides, they're going to be in training for a while, so I'll have plenty of time to get to know them and to test their reliability. If one or all of them don't make it..." I shrugged. "Not like there's any shortage of alleys in Shinjuku. Maybe I'll even take them to the dumpsters myself and cheat the Haulers."


Ohgi nodded at that, a bleak smile crossing his face for a moment, before the determined frown he'd worn during our conversation a few days ago came forward instead. I'd grown familiar with the large variety of frowns Ohgi had, ranging from the thoughtful to the mildly concerned to the look of grim resolve he now bore. There was, it seemed, no arguing with that particular frown. "Fine – but you're not going to be training them." Before I could acknowledge this, he continued on, his words as implacable in their advance as the slow strangulation of the Albish Starvation Blockade. "You have just been injured, and you will rest adequately to ensure a full and complete recovery if I have to tie you to a cot myself. There is plenty of work to be done helping Inoue, Kallen, and Naoto without a bit of heavy lifting, and that is what you'll be doing at least until the stitches come out. I know you're eager to train your new recruits, but someone else can handle that. Don't fight me on this."


"I'm not going to." I took advantage of the punctuating pause to finally slip a word in edgewise. The way his firm expression cracked with fissures of surprise and suspicion was amusing, but I pressed on instead of savoring the expression. "I'm not an idiot, Ohgi – of course I'm going to take a break from physical activity while I'm recovering." That was the easy, sensible part. Time for the still-sensible yet oddly difficult to actually say part. "And... You made your point earlier. We're a group, an organization, and I can't do everything myself. So, I trust you and Naoto to know what to do. I recommend that you let Tamaki handle the day to day training for the men – he knows his guns, and he's clearly very interested in workout routines; more to the point, he's knowledgeable and loves proving it. If you put him in charge of sharing his skills, that will give him an opportunity to prove himself as he so desperately wants in a constructive way." I smirked at Ohgi. He still looked slightly gobsmacked, but he'd re-engaged his brain enough to nod along. Still got it! "While Naoto and Tamaki handle those greenhorns, I want you to help Inoue keep Rising Sun moving – I'll be borrowing Nagata for a bit, at least for long enough to meet with Mister Asahara. After all, I probably won't need to fight anybody to open negotiations with Kyoto House."


---------


After several long hours, to Kozuki Naoto's relief, the communal dinner Tanya had dropped in everybody's laps the day before finally came to an end. Tanya herself had left over an hour ago, hustled out the door by Ohgi, Nagata, and Nagata's wife Ami, who were intent on getting her to the nearest thing approaching an urgent care facility Shinjuku could offer, leaving the clean up to the remaining members of the Rising Sun, as well as a handful of volunteers who'd helped Tamaki and Chihiro wrestle the tables and chairs back into the storage room before departing. The clean-up was almost done now, the trash put in a sealed can in the alley to avoid attracting rats, and all the pots had been thoroughly scrubbed. Which meant there was only one last bit of filth to deal with before Naoto could call it a job done.


Naoto stood with the rest of the members of the Rising Sun in attendance in a wide semicircle facing the four recruits. To his left stood Tamaki and Souichiro, while Inoue and Chihiro flanked him on the right. The recruits stood in a line facing them, the man who'd introduced himself as Hojo in the center. Time to lay down the law.


"Hajime Tanya has invited you to join us, and has asked for permission to train you up enough that you'll be mildly helpful. Due to her injuries, I had to deny her second request, but she begged for us to offer you the opportunity to serve the cause despite her injury. Be thankful to her – it's by her grace alone that you're here." Naoto remembered the speeches his father had given to crowds of retainers, vassals, and allies at parties, and tried to adopt the confident cadence. It came back to him easily, and it felt natural and right.


"Tanya's grace only goes so far, though. You will be trained, and you will work hard. You will be broken down and rebuilt into something better and stronger. You will hate it, you might hate us, but you will learn to love the cause, and you will learn to love yourselves for what you can do for the cause. Tamaki," Naoto gestured, and Tamaki stepped forward, "will be your principal trainer and your immediate superior. You will do as he tells you – he's an experienced fighter for the cause, and has done much to help us. That said, he will also be your advocate. If you think anything we do is wrong, or dangerous to you or to a civilian, let him know, and he'll tell me or Ohgi. If you think I am being unfair to you, explain your complaint to Tamaki, and he will make your case to me." Naoto gestured again, and Tamaki stepped over and stood beside the line of recruits. "He will also be taking care of your quarters and provisions tonight, so stick close to him.


"And now, before we finish our business up for the night," Naoto dropped his father's cadence, and let a genuine smile cross his face as he looked at his new prospective brothers and sister in arms, "Let me welcome you to the Rising Sun. It's great to have you here, and I hope to share a drink with all of you once your training's over. Work hard, so you can join us in building a better world for all Japanese."


Naoto let the sense of blossoming camaraderie remain for a moment longer, before moving on. "Before we go, though, there's one last thing we need to handle tonight." At a nod, Tamaki, Souichiro, and Chihiro disappeared into a back room, while Inoue stepped into her side office for a moment, returning with three folding chairs and a handful of zip ties. Soon, the three Rising Sun members returned from the storage room, each with a moaning burden. Tamaki and Souichiro each had a man dressed in a cheap imitation of a Britannian noble's suit slung over their shoulder, while Chihiro dragged a pink-haired woman out into the hall. All three were unceremoniously forced onto the chairs lined up against a wall and zip-tied to the tube frames. To Naoto's mild annoyance, the man with the shattered jaw was still unconscious, although a quick check of his pulse confirmed he was still alive. The other two were very much aware, though, and two pairs of frightened eyes over gagged mouths tracked him around the room.


Turning to the four new recruits, the former comrades of the bound men and woman, Naoto offered them a chance to save their lives, if the four so wished. "Do any of you know of any time that any of these three showed any concern for the average Japanese man or woman, or did any of them ever help the people around them?" None of the four spoke, shifting uneasily from one foot to another, before the lone female in their ranks quickly shook her head side to side, almost like she was trying to shake away an annoying fly. Still a condemnation, though. None of them are willing to vouch for these guys. "Did any of these three ever display implacable hatred for the Britannians, or a desire to fight the Britannians?" Hojo snorted, then coughed, before shaking his head in a firm negation.


"So be it."


In the last month, since Naoto had first given Tanya the authorization to start drawing up plans for the cell and to choose her own assignments, essentially promoting her to a de facto officer rank, he had not failed to notice how the girl's influence and authority had blossomed. Naoto thought of himself as a fairly decent leader, not great, but not a slouch either. He was the son of a minor lord, and had done his best to carve his own path in the world at the expense of the people who had done so much to hurt his mother, his sister, and his people. Naoto knew he hadn't achieved much, but he'd done what he could to make the world a better place the only way he had known how – through beating down the people who had deserved it, and protecting the people who had been beaten down by the world already. And then Tanya had come, and had essentially co-opted his merry band of rebels out from under his feet. For all that she still proclaimed him their leader, Naoto was fairly certain how the chips would fall, if push ever came to shove.


And so, in light of the undeniable triumph that had been the station mission, Naoto had briefly considered stepping down and conceding leadership of the group to Tanya. He had, in fact, gone as far as sounding out Ohgi about the idea. Ohgi had greatly surprised Naoto by telling him that was a stupid idea. Tanya, Ohgi had pointed out, was a good leader and would likely improve with the passage of time, but she was also a child. Moreover, she was a child in desperate need of support; handing her the full burden of leadership, of being the one ultimately responsible for everything that happened, every civilian caught in the crossfire, every empty bed and filled grave, would have been cowardly, a temper tantrum by a man so afraid of being surpassed by a child that he sought to punish her for her success. Naoto knew he was a flawed man, but he'd be damned if he dropped that kind of responsibility onto a child.


And so, Naoto had instead thought about how to improve himself and his group to reflect the reality of the situation. Finally, after the events of the night, Naoto finally felt like he understood how the group should be run. The triumvirate that already existed would continue to exist, but duties would be more directly parceled up. Ohgi had demonstrated the depths of his empathy and his connections to their comrades, and had proven more than capable of identifying and tackling problems – and so he would be in charge of keeping the group running harmoniously. Tanya was a propagandist's dream, an adorable child with a sad edge coming from a legitimately horrifying personal history, and she had proven her instinctual grasp of theatrics tonight by extending her bloody hand to the gangsters, and pulling them to her side – coupled with her obvious genius and her incredibly ruthless plans and stunning combat skills, she would both direct strategy and be the face of the movement, as well as continuing to be the Organization's trump card. Naoto, meanwhile, would shoulder the nasty parts of leadership – someone had to make sure problematic elements didn't trouble the leader, someone had to pull the trigger on a potential traitor where the evidence wasn't clear cut, and someone would have to ensure that the smiling face and open hand were backed with a mailed fist and a knife in the back.


After all, it might be evil but necessary to ask a child to fight a war... But asking a child to murder in cold blood is just too much. Too much. And so...


Naoto's mouth twitched in a brief, humorless smile. I suppose blood truly will out, in the end. After all, murdering helpless Numbers was a long held Britannian tradition, dating back to the Conquest of the Homeland itself. He supposed it was time he embraced both sides of his heritage, at least as it was useful to the service of the cause.


Nathan Stadtfelt pulled his pistol, turned from the four recruits, raised his weapon, aimed, and fired. He moved his hand in arc, and fired again, and then once more. Three dead Japanese slumped against a wall, holed heads slumped low, cranial matter and blood fanned out behind them over peeling white paint. He did not say anything, did not make any pithy statement or joke at the expense of the dead. This was business, and besides, dead traitors to Japan didn't deserve any epigraph.


Kozuki Naoto holstered his pistol, and exhaled the breath he'd been holding. He wanted to feel bad about this, about having taken three human lives, but if they wanted to dress like Britannians and act like Britannians, then they could die like Britannians. He turned back to his comrades, and was unsurprised by what he saw. Tamaki looked almost bored, Souichiro looked saddened but stern, Inoue looked like she was already thinking about some other task, and Chihiro practically glowed with an ugly self-righteous satisfaction and perverse delight. All present and accounted for then. The four new recruits were, as a group, fairly stoic. One of the men seemed like he was breathing a bit fast, but the other three seemed unaffected. Doubt these were the first corpses they've seen.


"Tamaki, get the blood cleaned up, then get the new guys squared away in Stash Room Three. Grab the sleeping bags Tanya bought before you go. Souichiro and Inoue, help them with the clean up, and then you're free for the night." Naoto turned to Chihiro, and nodded at her. "Chihiro, help me get the bodies out back."


Gratifyingly soon, Naoto found himself with Chihiro, three bodies, a steel can full of gasoline, and a variety of saws and knives. As the dinner had wound down, Naoto had considered how he'd guarantee that the fate of the gangsters who had messed with the Rising Sun would remain a mystery long enough for him to make the gang who had sent them a moot factor. Ultimately, he had decided to take the typical Shinjuku approach of "leave them in an alley somewhere" up to the next level, on the off-chance that someone bothered to look for them. It was a simple plan that required only the tools Naoto already had access to, and didn't require the waste of the gratuitous amounts of fuel that true cremation required. He had specifically earmarked Chihiro for this task, certain that she'd have the fewest qualms about helping him out with his body disposal idea.


Implementing the idea was grisly work, conducted under the harsh light of an electric lantern in the midnight cold of the alleyway behind the Rising Sun, and Naoto found it surprisingly exhausting. The noble bastard was by no means a stranger to manual labor, picking up work whenever he could to help support his mother and sister, before his father had returned for the pair, and had continued to work odd jobs once he'd moved into the apartment in Shinjuku with Ohgi. Yet, the task of turning the bodies of the men and the woman he had killed into anonymous, unrecognizable meat... wore at him, somehow. He didn't feel physically tired, as he continued his necessary, self-appointed task, but instead felt as if his internal self had succumbed to numb exhaustion as the hours plodded on.


Naoto looked over at Chihiro, who had displayed no sign of flagging enthusiasm, even as she'd slowed down as they continued to work late into the night. Her initial joy when he'd explained his intentions for the cadavers had been revolting, and the zeal with which she had worked had been equally appalling. As the work had dragged on and the novelty had slowly worn off, her enthusiasm had gradually waned and eventually she had looked just as tired and hollow-eyed as Naoto had felt – at least, as much as he could tell such things by the dimming lantern light, as the batteries expended the last of their charge.


An hour later, after the last of the work had been accomplished and the majority of the result had been distributed over several acres of Shinjuku, Naoto stood alone in the alley, carefully pouring gasoline over the more recognizable pieces of evidence. He felt empty, his physical exhaustion combining with spiritual weariness. Here, alone, away from the eyes of anyone else, he let himself process the memory of murdering three helpless victims, one already half dead. He vomited, remembering the look in the woman's eyes specifically as the gun had tracked her way, the last of the three to go. Compared to that, the memories of the rest of the night were merely disgusting, not soul-wrenching. After all, who cared how he disrespected the corpse, when he'd already offered the greatest disrespect imaginable by cutting short the life that had animated it, ending something irreplaceable, something that would never come back again unless the chain of Samsara was real and suffering truly was endless, this side of the Pure Land.


And yet, Naoto couldn't say that he regretted what he had done last night, as it was well into the early hours of the morning. This is my job, my task. I make problems go away. All for the cause. All for Japan. He thought about how close Tanya had come to death yesterday, and felt strong in his resolve. Those gangsters had been people, but they had also been enemies to those who he held close, and to the nation that he loved. When he had been a young man, first brought back into the Stadtfeld fold after his father's return to Japan, Naoto had spent a great deal of time in the library, reading the biographies of the great men who had changed the world. One of those men had long ago issued a proclamation, the ultimatum of which Naoto murmured to himself as he carefully closed the can of gasoline, set it aside, and struck a match.


What will happen to the enemies of the Rising Sun? "...They will suffer the same fate as a stone dropped into deep water, they will simply disappear."


Kozuki Naoto dropped the match, and watched as the last remains of those who would stand against the light of the Rising Sun disappeared into flame.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 14: A Lingering Ache


(A big thank you to Siatru, and to Daemon, BlueBezerk, and Grig9700 on the Tanya Writers Discord for beta reading this chapter.)


Two weeks of forced inactivity left me considerably more agitated than I had been expecting. The old medic who'd patched me up in his basement 'clinic' after my confrontation with the gangsters at the Rising Sun's building had said I was welcome to come back in three weeks time to pay him to take the stitches out, provided I kept the wound clean and babied my arm and my side until then. At the time, I had been eager for the opportunities presented by almost a month of medically required downtime. Now, I could only blame the blood loss for my foolish thoughts at the time – the silver lining of sustaining a grazing bullet wound had proven remarkably transient.


The initial joy at escaping death and shock at having avoided major injury, customary after many near death experiences, faded before the medic had even finished stitching up my arm. After so many brushes with death in both this life and the last, the emotional reaction to survival felt somewhat muted. The secondary joy at having a cast-iron reason to excuse myself from active operations in favor of more managerial tasks, which would not only benefit the Kozuki Organization and Rising Sun, but would also further showcase my talents as a non-combat asset, took longer to fade. Indeed, it hadn't faded, in that I was still happy for the time and opportunities presented by my injury, but that the joy at the opening on my schedule had been eclipsed by two sources of unexpected frustration: My need for physical activity, and Ohgi's inspired impression of a mother hen.


Years of constant hard work on the streets of Shinjuku, and months of training to try and prepare my scrawny body for the fighting sure to come, had accustomed me to near constant physical activity. Admittedly, it had also accustomed me to hanging on the ragged edge of starved exhaustion as well, but the point stood. Between the increased caloric intake of my shared meals with Ohgi, plus the snacks that everybody just seemed to happen to have on hand whenever they visited me in the apartment, and the enforced rest so I could recuperate, I felt energized to the point of bursting. My hands twitched, and I found myself taking every excuse that came my way to stand up and pace around the studio's single room. I could feel Ohgi's smirk as I paced, and my cheeks burnt as I imagined the easy comparisons he was making between my current behavior and that of a lazy student trying to evade her homework, but at least he was kind enough to not twist the knife by vocalizing such comparisons. Instead, he confined himself to constantly asking if I was hungry, if my wounds were itching, or if I needed anything.


The overly-solicitous behavior was a bit much, but in line with what I had come to expect from the man. Irritating as it was, I found I couldn't quite get angry with Ohgi about his concern. It was... touching, I suppose, that he was so obviously worried about me. That said, I'd been injured far worse in my previous life multiple times, most notably in the skies over Norden, and while I lacked the magical advantages that had made it so easy to block out pain before, a grazing wound was nothing compared to the injuries sustained in that little dust-up. I couldn't exactly convey that to him, however, not without either telling him about my past life or lying about some fictitious injury sustained before I'd met him. In the end I resolved to simply enjoy the novel experience of being fussed over. After all, trust was difficult to build and easy to lose, and Ohgi had quite clearly decided to trust in me – it would have been a remarkably unfair trade if I'd decided to repay that trust with lies, especially over something so petty.


Plus, I lacked any scars to back up a story of a past injury.


Fortunately, the minor inconveniences of my injuries aside, the last two weeks had brought nothing but good news for the Rising Sun, and for the Kozuki Organization. Apparently, the way I had handled the gangster incursion had overly impressed the Shinjuku citizens attending the dinner. I suppose I could understand; I had managed to deal with the gangsters relatively easily, and displays of strength, no matter how minor, always drew the desperate like moths to the flame. To my pleasant surprise, my attempt to salvage and preserve perfectly usable human resources from the situation appeared to have been equally if not more impressive – although, it had been at least partially misunderstood.


The Rising Sun Benevolent Association was suddenly awash with volunteers, old and young, all eager to help the Shinjuku community while happily spouting off about my mercy and compassion for all suffering Japanese. It was somewhat alarming how quickly my hasty words, "All are welcome under the light of the Rising Sun", had taken on something of a life of their own. According to gossip passed on by Naoto and Ohgi, red circles with the kanji for "light" superimposed had begun to appear on walls across Shinjuku the night after the community dinner.


While I was not a fan of graffiti personally, only a fool ignored it in Shinjuku. From gang tags splashed across walls to calls to murder Britannians to more earthy expressions, graffiti was the anonymous expression of sentiment in the meager public spaces. In a very real way, graffiti truly was the "heartbeat of the city", and provided an insight into the minds of the inhabitants of the ghetto. If Naoto and Ohgi were correct about how widespread and spontaneous the signs of support were, the spectacle must have been far more impressive than I had imagined.


Beyond rising suns sprayed on concrete and the sudden willingness of Shinjuku citizens to help each other, the Rising Sun had also received a slightly more official vote of confidence in the form of recognition from what passed for local government.


The functional anarchy of Shinjuku was a product of grassroots organizations that had sprung up in the post-Conquest chaos to try and provide a basic level of social organization and services. Some of those organizations were, admittedly, gangs trying to exert their dominance over the territory they controlled and clamping down on any crime not committed by themselves, but the majority were ad hoc 'Public Safety Committees'. These groups of self-organized citizens generally held sway over a block, a street, or a tenement, and organized things such as child care and rubble and trash clearing in their area. These committees had been my primary employers during my years of working for my dinner, and ranged from petty tyrannies to remarkably well-organized attempts at self-governance.


Now, in the wake of the events at the Rising Sun building two weeks ago, several of the Safety Committees had sent representatives to meet with Ohgi and myself, asking for alliances to share resources and to provide mutual aid. Typically, these appeals were dressed up in language about helping the collective good of Shinjuku and the like, and in some cases the representatives actually seemed sincere about seeking the best for their constituents, but I could easily read between the lines of their requests for alliance.


The Committees had seen the rising threat of the spiraling gang war, and had recognized the need to reassert order on the ghetto. When I had publicly defied the attempt by a gang to usurp control over the Rising Sun's resources, I had unintentionally thrown down a public gauntlet, something that the Committees had been waiting for someone to do. Now they were rallying behind the Rising Sun as silent partners – if the gangs decided to respond in force, the Committees would undoubtedly hastily disassociate from our efforts, but if we could take the initiative, they would provide us with resources and manpower.


Fortunately for the forces of order in Shinjuku, Naoto had already begun to move against the gangs before the first Committee had sent a representative to ask for a meeting with me. Correctly deducing that no gang would allow such a public slap in the face to go unanswered, Naoto had masterfully utilized newly acquired human resources and milked the new recruits for every detail he could about the operations of their former gang. Apparently, it had been a fairly small operation, centered around a core of former Kokuryu-kai members and an under-boss from the now-defunct gang, and only in control of a small amount of territory close to the Rising Sun building. This splinter gang operated a minor amphetamine production and distribution operation, as well as a pair of decidedly low-class brothels, and Hojo in particular had been happy to give Naoto the locations of every gang asset he'd known about.


As a result of this wealth of intelligence, Naoto's opening salvo had been remarkably effective. Leaving Tamaki in charge of handling the recruits' training, Naoto had taken Chihiro and Souichiro and had begun a decapitating assassination campaign. With Hojo's information about the locations of all of the gang's safe houses and operational facilities in hand, hunting down the gang's leadership had been relatively easy. Naoto took the opportunity to finally put those Britannian assault rifles I'd acquired during my truck hijacking months ago to use, and had successfully ambushed the gang's boss and three of his inner circle as they'd left the gang's hidden meth lab the afternoon following the incident at the Rising Sun. The resulting hail of gunfire had wiped out all four of the targets present, plus their bodyguards, and Naoto had personally confirmed their deaths by shooting each corpse in the head afterwards.


After that, Naoto had led Souichiro and Chihiro to the gang's brothels and freed the captive women inside, and had let Chihiro and the newly freed slaves handle whichever guards had survived the initial assaults. Apparently, the resulting reprisal of the knife- and hammer-wielding women had been extremely passionate, and Naoto had still been splattered with blood when he'd returned to the apartment to update Ohgi and I on his progress. While the execution of captives was deplorable, as was the waste of human resources, I could only applaud Naoto's decision to hand vengeance over to those most brutally oppressed by the gang. It had been an excellent decision, from the point of view of realpolitick. Unless Naoto had planned to defend his prisoners' lives by force, after what Chihiro at the very least had seen inside the squalid rooms of the brothel, those men were already dead. By deliberately handing them over to Chihiro and the formerly enslaved women, he had successfully changed the narrative from 'uncontrollable soldiers mutiny against their officer to lynch prisoners' to 'outraged officer gives victims a chance for justice against their rapists', making himself appear to be the gracious and caring leader the Japanese hungered for.


Besides, if I'd been there myself, I'd have made sure they'd died slowly.


As a result of Naoto's aggressive campaign, the gang that had first menaced the Rising Sun was dispersed, their assets and territory now ours by the right of conquest, and our pool of recruits and supplies expanded. I didn't delude myself into thinking that this early success indicated that rolling over the rest of the gangs that riddled Shinjuku would be equally easy. We'd had the advantage of insider intelligence on our side, and thanks to Naoto's efforts to ensure the first trio of gangsters had completely disappeared, the element of surprise as well. Either would have been a luxury, but both had practically paved the road to victory for Naoto. Still, it had been an early and obvious success, and probably more than my minor victory in the Rising Sun building proved our strength to the Committees. When they came to build alliances with us, they did so both because of our sudden public appeal and because of the row of bloodied yellow scarfs Naoto had nailed to the wall of one of the former brothels. While we had not, of course, publicly claimed responsibility for the sudden disintegration of the gang, since no simple charity and community building organization would involve itself in such violence, the affiliation of the masked gunmen who had assassinated the gang's leader was obvious to everybody in our corner of Shinjuku.


Naoto hadn't stopped to rest on his laurels after the initial wave of success. Gangsters affiliated with multiple other gangs had vanished at night while out singly or in pairs, and no identifiable corpses had been found, though the alleys of Shinjuku contained slightly more grisly bundles than normal. Several of the more obvious gang hideouts in areas of Shinjuku further away from the Rising Sun had been molotov'ed, and in the one operation Tamaki had been allowed to participate in, one of the rocket-propelled grenades Naoto had somehow gotten his hands on had been fired through the door of a garage-turned-meth lab. The resulting fireball had immolated the entire structure and everybody inside, but fortunately had represented such an escalation in violence that nobody had blamed us for it, and instead the gangs had doubled down on their internecine conflict.


Overall, I couldn't have been more proud of Naoto. When I had first realized how green the Kozuki Organization was, I had been afraid that I'd hooked my wagon to a doomed star, and that Naoto's lack of real-world leadership experience would doom us all. Fortunately, when push had come to shove, he'd rapidly proven to have the intelligence, insight, and ruthless streak necessary to lead.


Ohgi had really stepped up his leadership ability too, in the recent weeks. His efforts to reach out to every member of the Organization after the station mission had begun to crystallize his role as the human resources chief in the organization, and he'd continued to operate splendidly in that role as more recruits had filtered in. After Naoto had freed the captives of the gang brothels, several of the newly freed women had asked to join the Organization for one reason or another, and of course thanks to the "all are welcome under the light of the Rising Sun" motto, they'd been welcomed with open arms. That had almost led to an unfortunate incident when they'd been introduced to our other new recruits, but happily none of the four had been directly involved in the brothel operations, and so Ohgi had managed to talk everybody down. Once the knives had been put away and the guns holstered, Ohgi had managed to work out an understanding between the former gangsters, and the former victims. One of the former slaves had been unable to continence working alongside the former gangsters, and so Ohgi had shifted her to the Rising Sun side of the operation, tasking her with helping Inoue keep things running.


I couldn't have handled that whole situation any better myself, and I'd told Ohgi so after he'd returned. He'd looked pleasantly surprised by that, which was gratifying – it was always important to reinforce success with encouragement, and the fact that he looked so pleased emphasized that he considered my judgment important. Quite a difference from so many superiors I'd had in my first two lives.


It had been mildly discouraging when I realized that I was perhaps not as necessary to the Kozuki Organization as I had been before the attack on the weapon's market in the subway station. Naoto was doing a splendid job directing combat operations, and Ohgi was managing complex and touchy personnel issues with aplomb. It felt good to see them start to grow into their potential – after all, the goal of any good human resources manager was always to develop and nurture talent – but I had begun to worry that my value to the group was diminishing. I'd tried to assist Tamaki with the training program, reasoning that a larger pool of recruits necessitated more instructors to maximize the efficacy of the training, but I'd been roundly rebuffed by both Tamaki and Ohgi and all but ordered by Naoto to continue resting. So, I'd instead turned to Inoue, and helped her efforts to both coordinate the many humanitarian projects of the Rising Sun and to determine targets for Naoto to strike. It wasn't as direct of a way of demonstrating my continuing worth as joining Naoto on the nighttime streets in a balaclava, but sifting through intelligence and planning out attack strategies was unarguably a greater service to the cause than just being another soldier. Safer, too.


Just a pity that sitting down and calmly planning out the next move didn't do anything to reduce my restlessness.


A week after the dinner at the Rising Sun, Nagata and Ohgi successfully negotiated an introduction to the Six Houses of Kyoto from Mister Asahara. The shrewd old bastard had negotiated a generous "administrative fee" for his services as a middleman, but had allegedly given a "virtuous customer" discount to us in light of the events at the Rising Sun, which he had of course heard about from someone or another. He'd also, apparently, been very impressed with the use we'd put his products to in the station mission, and had extended both his compliments and a discount on the purchase of future explosive devices, contingent on the continued use of his work for "virtuous purposes". I had my doubts about his sincerity, since to my eyes Mister Asahara appeared to be a consummate survivor and a professional at being on the winning side, but if he was willing to give us a discount on future bomb purchases that in itself was another vote of confidence. If the wily old engineer thought we were on the right path, I'd hoped that he would pass that impression on to the Six Houses.


Finally, after a week of anxiously waiting on word from the enigmatic cabal of plutocrats, a meeting had been scheduled with a representative from Kyoto. The representative had opted to meet with us well outside of our territory in Shinjuku, and had given an address of a restaurant in one of the Honorary Britannian districts as the meeting location. I couldn't fault the abundance of caution displayed by the group – in their line of business, discretion was undoubtedly the better part of valour – and so soon Ohgi and I found ourselves in one of the seedier parts of the Concession, not too far from Shinjuku itself. I wonder if the zoning is purely to remind the Honorary Britannians of their place, or if it's just that the proximity to the ghetto brings down property values enough to be affordable to Honorary Britannians?


Ohgi was dressed as a servant, in a moderately nice suit with his usual pompadour combed flat, while I wore a nice blouse and jacket combination I'd allowed Kallen to bully me into letting her buy for me once she'd gotten wind of this meeting. Together, we hopefully looked like a precocious middle-class Britannian girl having a bit of an adventure by visiting the Honorary Britannian district, with a long-suffering Honorary Britannian servant forced into acting as my minder. Unfortunately, Ohgi spoke almost no Britannian, which would have made the whole charade untenable, but thanks to the many trips to the Tokyo Settlement I'd taken with Kallen over the last month, my Britannian had significantly improved. While traces of my Germanian accent still lingered, they weren't enough to immediately make me sound like a foreigner. In addition, my insistence that Kallen only speak to me in Britannian during our trips through the Settlement had considerably expanded my vocabulary, not only in terms of the proper expressions but also in the all-important field of slang. If anybody tried to talk to Ohgi, I could just play the part of the pain in the ass Britannian kid and force my way into the conversation.


The restaurant was an example of "Britannian style dining", according to the sign on the door, and to my eyes appeared like a cross between the family-style restaurants of the Japan of my first life, and an English pub I had visited once at the insistence of my boss. The Britannian flag and the imperial coat of arms were everywhere, from the flags draped over the counter to the numerous framed photographs of Britannian and Honorary Britannian soldiers in triumphant poses. Apparently, this establishment catered to soldiers, as a small sign by the register promised a 20% discount to any uniformed service personnel. Fortunately, the restaurant was nearly empty at two in the afternoon, a group of street cleaners in overalls clustered in a booth being the only customers aside from a tired looking young man in a worn yet clean and neatly pressed suit.


As we entered the restaurant, the tired man slowly looked up from his plate of fried fish and potatoes and nodded at us, before returning his attention to his cod. I gestured for Ohgi to join the man at the table before making my way to the counter and ordering for both of us. I was disheartened but not surprised that the menu completely lacked any sort of Japanese cuisine, and resigned myself to another temporary return to the Western-style food of my second life. After ordering a meat pie for Ohgi and a serving of 'bangers and mash' for myself, purposefully ignoring the host's offer of a children's menu, I made my way over to the table where Ohgi and the representative sat in uneasy silence.


As I dropped down into my seat, I weighed my options. I could follow in Ohgi's steps and simply sit silently until the representative spoke first, making him start the conversation and thus take the position of the supplicant. Alternatively, since Ohgi showed no signs of speaking and since the conversation would probably have to be carried out in Britannian lest we draw attention for speaking in a taboo language in an Honorary Britannian establishment, I could start the conversation, thus seizing the initiative.


I'd played chess occasionally, never enough to be particularly good at it, but enough to understand the basics of the game. It was, after all, one of the most commonly used visual metaphors when it came to negotiation or strategy of any kind, so it would have been foolish to attend the War College of a major European power without at least basic familiarity with the game. I understood the argument that black has an inherent advantage by dint of conceding the first move to white, and thus having the luxury of reacting instead of acting. That said, one of the many lessons I'd learned both climbing the corporate ladder and trying to survive the largest war to ever blemish the face of that world was that taking the initiative was the key to success. If I hadn't taken the initiative to enlist in the Army and had instead waited to be drafted, I doubted I would have enjoyed such a rapid trip up the table of ranks. If I hadn't taken the initiative and pushed Ugar towards the Logistics Corps, he might have proven to be serious competition for my advancement – instead, we'd both profited, as I'd gained a valuable ally and he'd gained a respectable career in a safe detachment. If I hadn't taken the initiative and presented myself as a serious and intelligent recruit to Ohgi and Naoto within the first day of knowing them, I would have had a hard time convincing them to take me seriously later on.


I always played white.


"How was the trip in from Kyoto? I've heard plenty of wonderful things about the new maglev line – such an example of the many improvements brought to Area 11, hmm?" It was always tricky, initiating a new business relationship, especially when the person on the other side of the table is a complete stranger. A little small talk to break the ice and get the conversation rolling seemed like the safest option.


To his credit, the man from Kyoto seemed entirely unsurprised for the younger of his conversational partners to be taking the lead on the conversation. Not even a momentary flicker of surprise was evident on his face as he carefully nodded, daubing a bit of grease from his fish away from his mouth. Either he's naturally phlegmatic, or somebody briefed him in advance. "Yes, quite. I'm sure it will make the transportation of merchandise to the Kanto region far simpler in the coming months." He gave me a bland, empty smile that meant nothing at all. "You come quite highly recommended, Miss Hawthorne. According to our contact, you have proven yourself to be quite the dynamo of late. I'm happy you were able to take time out of your busy schedule to meet with me."


"Hawthorne"? ...I suppose using 'Hajime' would be a bad move here. Wonder if he came up with it himself, or was it Mister Asahara's doing?


"It's no problem." I smiled back, equally blandly, and idly gestured at Ohgi. "I'm lucky to have quite a few well-trained and intelligent subordinates – and you know how hard it is to find good help these days." It's always important to share credit where it's due, even if the recipient can't understand what you're currently saying. Plus, no need to come off as some kind of primadonna. I needed to appear to be a good and reliable partner. "Besides, I would hate to make you or your home office feel slighted. I'm quite eager to expand our operations, and your help would be instrumental in accelerating that process."


The meaningless smile returned, just as empty as ever. "Regrettably, there is a slight... issue, with your application. While your ability to inspire confidence and handle domestic competition has been superb thus far, your organization has shown a distinctly lackluster degree of... enthusiasm, when it comes to reaching out into foreign markets." The professional smile beneath the representative's weary eyes appeared to gain a degree of smugness, but it was impossible to nail down the exact micro-expression that conveyed the implied message of superiority and thus take offense; nonetheless, it was clear this smug collaborator was looking down at me. "Until you manage to shore up that portion of your portfolio and display concrete achievements when it comes to the Britannian market, I'm afraid we cannot provide material support, much less investment."


Fucking damn it! In an instant, the meeting had gone from promising to horrible. I should've known just focusing on the gangs would come back to bite me! It was suddenly clear to me: The Six Houses backed anti-Britannian groups, not just armed groups in general! By focusing my initial efforts on cleaning up Shinjuku, I'd inadvertently signaled that our group was purely focused on internal matters! Damn it, don't these old men understand how important it is to build up a power base before picking a fight with a global empire?! Even as I fumed, I knew it didn't matter. The oligarchs in Kyoto had all the power in this exchange, and the price for access to their resources and support was dead Britannians, and I didn't even bring a single Britannian casualty to the table. Fuck, Mister Asahara must have really talked me up for them to have met with me at all.


Even as I internally panicked, I maintained my calm exterior, smile and all. When negotiating, no matter how dire your situation, you must never show weakness, after all. "I understand your organization's concern, though I am very sorry to hear it. Are there any specific export quotas we must meet, or priority targets you wish us to achieve, before I can convince you to reconsider your stance on my group?" I was foolish – I didn't ask Asahara what the Six Houses would specifically want before asking him to contact them! Best to just get their demands straight from the horse's mouth while the representative is here.


To my irritation, the tired man seated across the cheap Formica table simply shrugged, that galling smile still smeared across his baggy face. "Nothing in particular comes to mind. Just... show some results, make it nice and public, and make sure it's in the... foreign sector. Use your imagination – according to our contact, you've got plenty of that, Miss Hawthorne. If you actually manage to achieve anything, well..." That damned smile seemed to grow another inch, and the lips rotated in slightly, baring his teeth at me in a condescending gesture of amusement. "Don't call us, we'll call you. Maybe we'll decide to invest in your little... company after all."


And with that, he popped the last bite of his fried fish in his mouth, stood up, dropped his napkin on the plate, and left. The entire meeting had been, start to finish, just under five minutes.


Ohgi and I hadn't even gotten our meals yet.


Ohgi watched the man from Kyoto leave, and then turned to me and summed up the entire situation in one of the few Britannian phrases he'd picked up from Naoto.


"Well, fuck."


---------


Naoto was irritated, but unsurprised, to hear the outcome of our meeting with the Kyoto House representative. "They're supposed to be pretty choosy." He shrugged as he took the kettle off the hotplate and poured hot water into three cups, drowning the teabags contained within. "It's annoying, but it's their money, so... guess it's up to us to meet their demands."


"I suppose you are correct," I sighed, and accepted a cup from Naoto. "I guess the armed insurrectionist market is just like every other part of a free economy, in that the customer is always right." It was galling to admit, but there was no point in trying to deny the obvious. We lacked any leverage over the Six Houses to compel them to commit resources to our organization, which meant we'd have to concede a degree of autonomy and give them a stake in our decision making process to secure backing. "That said, I think all of us were expecting something along these lines. Rich men, after all, don't stay rich by just giving money away without getting something in exchange."


Ohgi nodded, his acceptance laced with frustration. "True enough. Wish they'd just told us that this would be an issue before wasting our time with that meeting, though." Completely understandable. Beyond wasting our time, the restaurant the Kyoto representative had met us in had been appalling. The sausage, an unwanted but very tangible memory of my previous life, swam uneasily in my stomach, and judging by Ohgi's slight hunch, the meat pie was resisting all digestive efforts with equal vigor.


While it was tempting to continue the gripe session, our time would be better spent planning for the future instead of bemoaning the past. "The meeting wasn't entirely fruitless; at least we know what the Six Houses want in exchange for their support – namely, dead Britannians." I looked down at my tea, and pulled the teabag out before it began to over-steep. "This is not an... unreasonable demand, especially not from where they're sitting in Kyoto, but it's a thorny issue here in Shinjuku."


I didn't need to say why that was the case – both Naoto and Ohgi were already nodding. Ohgi probably remembered the collective punishments from years past just as well as I did – a hundred Elevens for every Britannian knifed in a back alley or hit by a lucky potshot – and Naoto had been in Shinjuku long enough to hear the stories, to see the walls with the neat lines of bullet holes. The Britannian counter-insurgency methods had been brutally effective in the years immediately following the Conquest, and I had little doubt that our occupiers would return to the same bag of tricks if they learned rebellion was blooming in Shinjuku.


"As far as I can tell," Ohgi began, speaking slowly, deliberately, "and correct me if I'm wrong, but the Kyoto man only said that the Britannians had to die publicly, right? There was no requirement that we specifically had to publicly claim credit for their deaths, yeah?"


I carefully replayed the representative's words in my head. Show some results, make it nice and public... "No, he never said we had to claim the attacks. He seemed certain that they'd know if we were responsible." I thought about where Ohgi was going with this, and thought I saw what he was implying.


When I had reoriented the Kozuki Cell, I had framed the decision to target the criminal gangs of Shinjuku in lieu of Britannians as a way of building a power base in Shinjuku and securing a monopoly on potential recruits, but if I was being honest, that decision had also been informed by my experiences as a child. I'd come within a hair's breadth of being part of the hundred put up against a wall once, and I remembered the helpless terror at the prospect, the sick relief when the apartment my mother and I were living in wasn't chosen, and the disgust as I'd been forced to walk past the bloody wall and the heaped bodies of the unlucky hundred. I hadn't wanted to inflict that kind of suffering on others in my former situation, not without a significant and definable gain at least. I also didn't want to be hated by the people of Shinjuku for getting their family slaughtered by vengeful Britannians, the way I had despised the rebel groups of yesteryear for endangering my life.


At the same time, I had always known that at some point, I wouldn't be able to put off directly striking at the Britannians any longer. People were going to die, Japanese that I wanted to preserve for the future prosperity of Area 11 included. That was unfortunately the price tag of a better life; that said, I would do everything in my power to drive the number of Japanese that had to die for the future of people down as low as I could manage. If the men from Kyoto, comfortably warm in mid-December and absolutely sure of their next meals, wanted to force my hand on the issue and move the time table up, I couldn't stop them – but I could mitigate the risk to my people, to the people who would rebuild Area 11 into a prosperous province once again.


"We need to get Kyoto on our side. We need the weapons they can provide, and the money they can funnel into our accounts. Agreed? " When pitching a plan, start on common ground, and get the buy-in of stakeholders.


Naoto and Ohgi nodded in agreement, eyes fixed on mine. Effortlessly, I quashed the first stirrings of mild anxiety. There's no need to fear – we're comrades in this endeavor.


"So we need to kill Britannians. But as Ohgi just pointed out, we don't need to kill Britannians as a rebel group, or even as Japanese. Naoto," I turned my attention fully on the redheaded half-noble as I took a quick sip from my cup. "you've already got your merry little band of assassins in training – what if we smuggled them into the Britannian Concession, and simply had them waylay and knife random Britannians out late at night? If we do it right, perhaps we can dupe the authorities into thinking there's a serial murderer on the loose?"


Naoto looked thoughtful, but Ohgi was shaking his head. "I like the idea, Tanya, but the idea of just murdering random people in the street... I mean, they're Britannians, but how does that help us?" Ohgi had a point there – knifing random civilians wouldn't do much to advance our goals, beyond fulfilling the minimum requirement imposed by Kyoto House.


"That's a fair point, Ohgi." Always acknowledge useful input. "We still need some Britannian blood on our hands to attract outside investment from Kyoto, though. Do you have any suggestions?"


Ohgi leaned forward slightly. "Instead of knifing random Britannian civilians, how about we target someone who actually deserves it? The Purists, for example?" I winced at the overconfidence on display. We just managed to take down one piddly gang, and you think we're ready for political assassinations, Ohgi? Dammit, man!


I tried to think of a way to let Ohgi down gently, to try and find a way to phrase my opinion of his... ambitious idea in a polite and inoffensive way, but before I could say anything, Naoto was already shaking his head at Ohgi. "Ohgi, bro, look... All of the big time Purists are nobles, so they're gonna have security. We're not ready to try and kill nobles in their manors, not while getting away with it."


Then it was Ohgi's turn to furiously shake his head in negation. "No, I don't mean the officers – I mean just the normal soldiers! I already said that I liked Tanya's idea of bringing your unit into the Tokyo Settlement, Naoto, I just objected to killing random civilians!" Ohgi turned towards me, teased pompadour bobbing slightly as he enthusiastically gesticulated. "Remember what Kallen said, about the divide between the Purists and the rest of the military in the Area? What if there's a street fight outside one of the bars where the soldiers go to drink, and a few Purists happen to get stabbed by men in Britannian uniform, eh? That's going to drive that rift wide open!"


Ohgi turned back to Naoto, eyes shining as he elaborated on his idea. "Plus, if we steal the right uniforms, the men will be able to blend in as Honorary Britannians. If Purists suddenly start dying at the hands of Honorary Britannian soldiers, that will definitely enrage the Purists!"


"Ohgi, that's an excellent idea!" I'd been infected by Ohgi's enthusiasm, but the idea was too brilliant to resist. "The Britannians already have a tradition of government by assassination, don't they? So this wouldn't even be too far out of character!" But what about the Honorary Britannians? I didn't want to start a pogrom against the Honorary Britannians – after all, given the opportunity I would have happily accepted the offer of second-class citizenship if it had actually been a path to a better life, or to some measure of safety. They might be collaborators, especially the Honorary Britannians who had chosen to serve in the Britannian army, but they were still Japanese human resources that could potentially be won back. Plus, Kallen might call me out for my hypocrisy if I suddenly announced that Honorary Britannians were the enemy. Hmm... How to redirect the anger away from the obvious target...?


"We need a Britannian to lead the hit squad." I saw Naoto and Ohgi's puzzled expressions, and hastily explained. "The Britannians would never believe that their pet Elevens decided to get up to the business of murdering Purists themselves – they'd think it was some rebel movement infiltrating the Honorary Britannian ranks, and start an investigation. But, if the 'Honorary Britannians' were directed by a Britannian..." I let the idea hang in the air for a moment, before continuing. "Plus, Honorary Britannian units are usually led by Britannians anyway, and usually nobles at that. Fortunately, we've got a noble of military age and build right here at this table." I nodded at Naoto. "If a group of Honorary Britannians tasked with following a young drunk junior officer around for a night on the town to keep him out of trouble happen to bump into some Purists, well... who knows what sparks might fly between a loudmouth and a group of arrogant idiots?"


Judging by the eager smile spreading over Naoto's face, the prospect of getting his hands dirty didn't trouble him in the least.


After that, the rest of the plan fell in line.


The best way to get uniforms, we decided, would be to steal a load of laundry from one of the Honorary Britannian barracks. We would need to find out when they sent the laundry out to be washed, and how the workers who collected the laundry dressed, and Naoto brought up Kallen's new role as a student reporter as a potential information gathering source. If a young noble lady pitched the idea of a patriotic article about barracks life to the commander of an Honorary Britannian unit, who likely would be desperate for recognition so he'd be promoted to command of a Britannian unit instead, getting an authorized tour of the barracks was entirely possible. We wouldn't be able to secure helmets or armor, but full battle rattle wouldn't be necessary if the unit of "soldiers" was just keeping an eye on an officer deep into his cups. We'd need at least one uniform from a junior officer, and ideally at least one soldier's uniform with a NCO's rank tabs to really pull off the idea of a nursemaiding detachment complete with an orderly.


Once we had the uniforms secured, the infiltrating party could wear them under the overalls typically worn by Eleven workers in the Settlement. Securing work permits would require a few bribes, but would be eminently doable, and once in the Settlement the team could hang around pretending to sweep streets or something similar until nightfall, when they could pull off the overalls and put on whatever bits of the Britannian uniforms that they hadn't been able to openly wear earlier.


In terms of scoping out potential locations, the districts catering to entertaining soldiers were already well-known to us, since those districts employed plenty of Eleven labor for a variety of tasks. Still, Kallen and I could visit one or more of those areas in the next few days to survey the lay of the land and identify bars and brothels that looked like they catered to the Purists' sensibilities – hiring low-class Britannians as entertainers, for example, instead of the cheaper Elevens. Perhaps we'd even be able to pitch that as another potential article for Kallen's budding career as a reporter, though that might draw a bit too much suspicion to her. Ohgi had winked and suggested that nobody would disturb a pair of cute girls out on a nice dinner date before Naoto smacked him, but I had to conclude that his joking idea had some merit, much to Naoto's visible irritation.


Once Naoto and his group found potential targets, they would do everything they could to start a fight, ideally dragging in other soldiers in the area into the fight as well. Considering how public the divide between the main officer corps and the Purist leadership under Lord Kewell was, it was highly probable the feelings of animosity had filtered down to the lower ranks, so hopefully provoking a brawl between the Britannian factions would be fairly easy. Either way, as soon as the fighting began in earnest, the "Honorary Britannians" backing Naoto would move in on the Purists, ideally with at least one man to pin the target's limbs and another to wield the knife. As soon as the blood hit the street, Naoto's unit would break contact and disappear into the night, discarding any clothing with visible splatter marks and pulling their overalls back on. They'd find a place to lay low throughout the rest of the night, and join the ranks of weary Elevens slouching back into the ghetto early the next morning.


Ohgi was somewhat dissatisfied with the plan, citing both the number of moving parts involved and the amount of luck we were relying on, particularly when it came to the assassins escaping pursuit and returning to Shinjuku without being detected. He also pointed out that, even if everything went off as planned, there was no guarantee that Kyoto would recognize the deaths of a handful of Purist soldiers presumably at the hands of their erstwhile comrades as our work. I had to concede his last point, but I pointed out that the strike on the station market had a similar number of variables, and that every plan relied on good luck to a degree. "The Kyoto representative said they'd contact us if they changed their mind," I pointed out. "If that's the case, let them gather their own intelligence – either they'll recognize our worth and they'll help us out, or they won't. Either way, the chance to turn the Britannians against each other is far too good to pass up. If they're busy fighting each other, they likely won't notice their pet gangs being rolled up in Shinjuku until it's too late." Besides, if the Britannians really do decide to take their anger out on their collaborators, that will surely undermine faith in the Honorary Britannian system. Who knows, perhaps the Britannians will do our work for us, and provoke an outright mutiny among their slave soldiers?


And so, the plan to dip our daggers into the Britannian back was tentatively agreed upon, and I texted Kallen to arrange our next trip into the Settlement.


---------


A week before Christmas, the streets of the Tokyo Settlement thrummed with the frantic energy of consumerism as consumers darted their way from store to store, engaging in an orgy of purchasing. Bundled in my still-new black jacket and a purple knit cap topped with a large bobble purchased on my behalf by Kallen, I wondered at the existence of Christmas in this universe, and at its enthusiastic if capitalistic celebration by the Britannians. It was frankly baffling that Christianity, much less the Christmas holiday, had survived in this universe, which had departed from the history of my original world in the days of Julius Caesar, if not earlier. I had known that Britannia was officially a Holy Empire, and I vaguely remembered from my lessons at the Shinjuku School for Elevens that the imperial family lived on Saint Darwin's Street, but I hadn't thought about the implications of those bits of trivia before – I'd been more concerned with making it through the day. Now, though, as I walked and talked with my friend through the streets of the Tokyo Settlement, I could only shake my head at the number of Santa caps I could see bobbing through the crowd.


"-so it shouldn't be too difficult." I forced my attention away from the bizarre commonalities across the multiverse, and focused back on Kallen's observations about the Honorary Britannian barracks. "I mean, based on what I saw, the staff at the barracks all just wear blue boiler suits, and I know that Nagata's got a whole pile of those things stashed away somewhere for plumbing work and the like. Anyway, as long as the team's out of the complex by thirteen-hundred, before the normal crew shows up, nobody's going to know the difference."


"We're going to need to rent a truck." I noted as I squeezed through a gap between two groups of slow-moving pedestrians, Kallen close behind. "If the team is just hauling big sacks of laundry through the Concession, it's going to draw attention."


"And one without the usual rental markers." Kallen agreed, capturing my hand in hers and gently but firmly tugging me onto a municipal bus, swiping her card twice over the reader. "The usual group just used a white panel one, I think. They were pulling around the back just as I was leaving. We're getting off in five stops, by the way."


I nodded in response and stopped looking for a seat, grabbing one of the support poles instead as the bus lurched into motion. Beside me, Kallen easily swayed with the motion, ignoring the jostling crowd around us as she looked down at the writing scrawled across her miniature notepad. She truly looked the part of the young reporter, diligently hunting the next scoop under her black and gray checked billed cap, the soft brown leather of her fitted jacket contrasting nicely with both her shoulder length red hair and the green silk blouse she wore underneath the jacket and a tailored black vest. The black slacks and low-heeled boots completed the look, and I felt a familiar surge of envy at how easily Kallen moved and balanced in heels. I had no desire to wear the silly things, of course, but I was almost certain that I'd have fallen over when the bus started moving if I'd been wearing those shoes, support pole or not.


Focus, dammit! I shook my head, trying to clear my mind and get back on track. "So, how was it visiting an Honorary Britannian unit's base? Was it frightening?" I carefully pitched my Britannian to have the right notes of curiosity, awe, and concern. Now that I'd become fully conversational in the language of the invader, I had been working with Kallen to refine my delivery to fit my apparent age and appearance. A middle-class Britannian girl still two months shy of her twelfth birthday was going to be sheltered, I decided, and amazed at the daring of her older friend to brave the den of the barbarian horde of mildly-civilized Elevens. Never mind that they aren't even trusted to carry weapons, I sneered internally at the thought, and never mind that they've accepted that insult with just as much resistance as they have the thousand that came before it either.


Kallen looked up from her notebook and smirked down at me, eyes dancing with amusement at my piping and worshipful tones, and I cursed her roundly from the safety of my head. "It wasn't scary at all, Tanya! They're just infantry, you know, not Knightmare devicers or anything like that. Plus, there was a whole battalion of Britannians keeping me busy, so it's not like I was lacking for chaperones!" Her smirk transmuted into a mocking smile. "Just had to fawn over their uniforms and say how brave and strong they all were, and they couldn't wait to tell me anything I wanted to know!" Kallen flipped to another page in her notepad before handing it over. "Including all the locations where they and other soldiers drink, and where the Purists usually make nuisances of themselves. Apparently, there's already been several fights – one of the lieutenants even spent a few nights in the brig until the major had him let out."


I nodded appreciatively as I ran my eyes down the list of names and addresses of entertainment facilities patronized by soldiers, all jolted down in lilac ink in Kallen's fine handwriting. I noticed about a third of the addresses had hearts beside them, and asked about that as I handed the notepad over.


"Brothels." Kallen replied, as she flipped the pad closed and tucked it back into her purse.


"Ah, brothels." I'd never patronized sex workers when I'd been a man, I'd died before I'd ever had the first inclination to engage one of the camp followers that always seemed to lurk around the back lines, and of course in this life I'd never had any interest to go anywhere near the "entertainment districts" near the checkpoints into Shinjuku closest to the Britannian barracks. That said, I doubted any man, Purist or otherwise, could be more vulnerable than when they were freshly... spent, and in all probability drunk to boot. "I'm surprised they mentioned them to you."


Kallen shook her head with an expression of mingled disgust and pity. "One of the Britannnian privates I spoke to while waiting for the Captain to be available for an interview was seventeen, and very eager to let me know how worldly he was." I'd rarely felt so in tune with the feminine as I did in that moment as I exchanged a scornful look with Kallen that just said Boys! loud enough to nearly be audible.


We continued to chat as the bus slowly rolled its way down the packed streets of the Britannian Concession. This was the third time Kallen had invited me to accompany her into the Settlement since the memorable night of the first communal dinner, and each time I'd left the ghetto the streets had grown increasingly congested. By the time Kallen had rescued me from the apartment after a week of enforced bed rest and light chores, the Christmas lights had been up for days and the commercial feeding frenzy had well and truly begun. I'd mulled over the possibility of smuggling one of Mister Asahara's finest toys out of the ghetto and into one of the many crowded stores, the results of which would have no doubt fulfilled Kyoto House's stipulation, but ultimately I had decided against taking advantage of the dense throngs of shoppers. The deaths of any Britannian shoppers would undoubtedly be hung around the necks of the Honorary Britannians and the Elevens that worked menial jobs in the glittering shopping centers.


Which brought me back to the night's itinerary. Kallen had found a small bistro in the nearby entertainment district located only two streets away from a brothel that specialized in Britannian working girls, imported straight from the homeland for Britannia's native sons in far off Area 11.


The brothel, the 'Lacy Garter', was apparently owned through a holding company, to preserve respectability, by a Sir George Carew, whose son was a member of the Purist branch in the area of the world I had known as Argentina. I had found it fascinating that apparently Britannian brothel culture was just as strictly stratified as the rest of Britannian society, with the institutions run in the ghetto itself reserved for Honorary Britannians, Britannians engaged in "manual trades", or soldiers under the rank of Corporal. So Ohgi probably was right about what happened to her. A crowd of drunken soldiers, having fun raising hell in the ghetto because they weren't good enough to visit a bordello in the Settlement... Interestingly, Kallen had found a whole guide about this very topic, which she had been kind enough to allow me to read off her phone as I pressed up against her side. I noted that there was no mention of the underground fleshpits that Inoue had told me about. Even the underworld has a sordid, undesirable side in Britannia...


Between the ethnicity of the prostitutes available at the 'Lacy Garter', and the fact that the owner was likely a Purist sympathizer at the very least, Naoto and Kallen believed that it was the most likely place to find obvious Purists after nightfall. So, under the guise of two friends enjoying a slightly risque trip to the seedier side of town, Kallen and I would use the excuse of dinner to keep an eye on the foot traffic in the area to see if the Kozuki siblings' guess had proven correct. If not, there were several other similar locations scattered around the Tokyo Settlement for us to survey, which would give me the excuse to enjoy more food that I didn't have to cook myself.


As we got off the bus, I noticed the general mood of the street had changed. The holiday decorations had thinned out, and the demographics of the crowd had shifted from mostly female and middle aged to predominantly male and young. Groups of out of uniform enlisted soldiers and sailors, still obviously military from their body language, milled in the cold air and drank openly from cans, bottles, and flasks. Interestingly, Britannian soldiers didn't appear to be under any requirement to keep their hair short, as soldiers had been in my first life. All of the obviously military young men around me had hair at least to ear level, and a few even had shoulder-length hair. The young women drinking and laughing with the men who were not dressed in skimpy dresses and tiny bolero jackets also had long hair, with one notable blonde sporting a nearly waist-length braid.


It was very strange, seeing the young soldiers of Britannia out of uniform for the first time. The soldiers manning the checkpoints of the ghetto wore helmets with face-plates and built-in gas masks; when the Britannians conducted raids and operations in the ghetto, the only men not wearing the standard full face concealing mask were officers, who foolishly wore uniform caps even in active combat zones. Guess they think they don't need to worry about snipers while lining people up against the nearest wall. Due to their role as the ground-level face of the occupation, not to mention their masks, it was easy to forget that the men and women inside those uniforms were just as human and varied as any other group of people. After spending so much time around Westerners in my second life, many of the faces I saw around me looked eerily familiar. That man downing a can of cheap light beer in a single long draft had the same hairstyle as Weiss, and the man next to him cheering his efforts could have been... Well, not Grantz's brother, but maybe a cousin. He's got the same nose.


It was strange, seeing the features of my long lost... subordinates... in the faces of my enemies. I almost wondered if I approached the now spluttering man and yelled "Weiss!" at his back if he would instinctively snap to attention, the way the man himself always had when surprised... I wonder if any of these men have beaten a whore before? The thought bubbled up from deep inside, like filthy bubbles of captured gas stirred up from the muck of a riverbed. Immediately, the vague warmness of nostalgia fled, and I remembered that murmured conversation I'd overheard between Ohgi and Naoto, both well into their cups, only a week after I'd moved into their apartment. "Just another Eleven whore, beaten to death in the slum. Nobody's going to care, Naoto, especially since she usually worked near the barracks. Probably ran into a crowd of drunk soldiers, you know how that story goes."


I didn't resist when Kallen took my hand and pulled me along into the crowd, following her phone's directions to the bistro she'd picked out for tonight's dinner, and I duly kept up my side of the inane chatter that was a key part of our "disguise". I carefully made sure to smile, to laugh, and to not look too long into the dark alleyways between the brick facades. I even ate my dinner, every last bite mechanically deposited into my mouth and chewed without an instant of taste. But for the rest of the evening, all I could picture were bruises upon bruises, gone yellow in the center and ringed with purple, and all I could hear was weeping, the dull sound of thrusting not quite muffled by a thin pillow.


I'll never be able to find the ones who killed her, but that just means that every single one of them could have been there... And a good worker never leaves a job half-finished. I laughed at Kallen's joke, sipping on my coffee as she jotted down her observations on the bistro for the other part of our cover, a review of the cafe for the Ashford student newspaper, and wondered what the woman who I'd barely known would have said if she knew what her daughter was planning. I hoped she would be pleased, as I had an unsettled debt I owed her, but unless Being X was feeling particularly cruel I would never really know. Fitting, since I never really knew her in life either.


---------


Several days later, Naoto and Nagata arrived at the hideout, hauling several bags of freshly stolen laundry down the two flights of stairs into the sub-basement. I sat idly at the table, munching on a baloney and lettuce sandwich as the two staggered over to the storage section of the hideout and dropped their heavy burdens at the foot of the shelves, secure in my excuse of not wanting to endanger my stitches to the point where I felt no need to hurl myself headfirst into any available work. The four recruits who had been blazing away at paper targets with Britannian Army-issue coilgun pistols, however, weren't so lucky.


"Cease fire! Safe your weapons! Are you tryin' tah kill me, you idiots?!" Tamaki's bellow effortlessly overwhelmed the sounds of electromagnetically accelerated firearms, and within seconds all four pistols were safe'd and on the range's table in a neat row. "You lot are getting sloppy! Take a five minute break from shooting - and help Naoto haul that fucking garbage inside! Go, go, go!"


It had been a surprise, watching Tamaki in action as a trainer. Despite the way he was swaggering around and barking at them, the recruits all grinned back at Tamaki as he bossed them around, and Hojo even gave him a mocking salute. I would have stepped in to discourage the disrespectful response, but all four immediately hustled over to Naoto and Nagata, helping them move the bags out of the way and following the pair back up stairs to haul down the next load. I'd initially encouraged Ohgi, and through him Naoto, to put Tamaki in charge of training at least partially to give Tamaki some experience with responsibility and with leadership, but I'd harbored admittedly mixed expectations of his performance. I'd hoped he'd be able to teach them the basics of obedience, of whatever physical training program he did to get so lean and muscular, and the basics of firearm use and maintenance, but I hadn't expected him to handle the first batch of recruits entrusted to him half as well as he had. Frankly, it wasn't the way I would have trained them, and it was certainly a far cry from either the methods or the philosophy I had used when training my beautiful 203rd, but the situation was far different as well. It had been made clear to me by events over the last eight months that an irregular group like our own ran not on obedience to a hierarchy, but influence from personal bonds and from the reputation garnered by one's actions and capabilities. Tamaki was well on his way to developing both with his trainees.


The former gangsters obviously had a familiarity with violence, but that was almost more of a hindrance than anything else, from what Tamaki told me. They had never been trained to fight, picking up everything as they went, and apparently they were full of bad habits. One of the men hadn't taken kindly to Tamaki saying as much during the first days of their training, and it hadn't been until Tamaki had slammed him to the ground and pinned him three times in a "best three of five" set of free-form brawls that he'd finally started listening. The ex-gangsters were clearly accustomed to taking orders from people they perceived as strong, which was a good thing both for their training and for the process of weaning Hojo off the painkiller addiction he'd confessed at the Rising Sun building. Despite the man's nausea, anxiety, and the pain radiating from his scarred limb, Hojo was still holding strong and listening to Tamaki's commands, with Naoto's occasional support. Tamaki had proven remarkably sympathetic, according to Naoto, and the two of them apparently were already friends despite Tamaki's status as Hojo's teacher and supervisor. Reputation and personal influence, both artless in their sincerity. Tamaki was indeed proving his worth as a training officer.


Unfortunately, in recovery or not, Hojo would not be accompanying Tamaki and Naoto into Tokyo. He and his fellow ex-gangster recruit, Hina, the sole female of the cohort, wouldn't fit the role of "Honorary Britannian soldiers", since as far as Kallen had discovered in her information gathering the only units of Honorary Britannian soldiers in the area were entirely male. That said, the other two male recruits were apparently coming along splendidly, according to Tamaki's reports. They would be more than capable of playing the silent Honorary Britannian muscle, following a slacking officer around and keeping the muggers away from his wallet, up until it came time to play the part of the sicarii.


As the recruits came back down the stairs with more bulging canvas sacks slung over their shoulders, I decided to be mildly productive and diverted two of the laundry bags over to my table, bolting down the last of my sandwich as Hojo staggered over, sweating from the exertion of rushing up and down stairs with a load and presumably, also from his ongoing withdrawal pains. I thanked him around a mouthful of lunch meat, earning a wan smile that was half a painful grimace, before he staggered off to rejoin his cohort over at the range. For a criminal, he has a commendable work ethic.


Doing my best to ignore the stench of sweat and filth, I dumped the first sack onto the table, and started going through the heap of clothing. Naoto soon joined me, and we sifted through the heap of unwashed fatigues, finally separating out three complete sets of fatigues, including the real prize, a uniform shirt and jacket with a first sergeant's rank tabs. We set those aside, along with three undershirts, to be washed and dried for the upcoming mission. Finding an officer's uniform took a surprisingly short time, since unlike the enlisted and NCOs whose individual laundry sacks were crammed into larger formation-level bags, the officers' laundry was bagged separately. The challenging part was finding a uniform that fit Naoto's tall frame and broad shoulders, since it seemed like the three lieutenants were all shorter and than he was. Ultimately, Naoto ended up with a captain's uniform with sewn-on lieutenant tabs. In the unlikely event that anybody noticed, hopefully they'd chalk the minor discrepancy up to a recent demotion, which might help to explain why he was drunkenly wandering around and picking fights.


"Whew! Glad that's over." Naoto stood up from the couch and stretched, before knuckling his back, sighing with satisfaction at something popped under the kneading motion. "Never thought I'd end up pawing through other men's dirty laundry for the cause – or at least, not this literally! Eh?" He smiled down at me, moving his eyebrows up and down like a stereotypical dirty old man.


I gave his weak attempt at humor the pity laugh obligated by the mores of society, and the fool dramatically groaned his misery at the response, palming his face and sinking back to the couch. "Misery! Oh misery! I have given so much, sacrificed so much for Japan, and yet I'm still mocked by the youth! What will become of us old folk, subject to the whims of evil children?"


"Cry the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end." I replied in Britannian, quoting a book I was certain had never been written in this universe, and certainly would not have been allowed to see the light of day if it were. "After all, you've still got to wash your laundry so you don't drive the Purists with your stench before you can put a knife between their ribs. Also, you should probably wash all the other uniforms too – we might need them later." I considered volunteering to take a few of the recruits and get started on the task, but then I remembered Naoto's pathetic joke and reconsidered. "I would, of course, help you out, oh Glorious Leader, but my wound sadly leaves me incapable of scrubbing clothes enough to get the stench of traitors out – so I guess it's up to you."


Naoto let out a second, more elaborate, groan of anguish and collapsed back onto the couch. I patted his knee with feigned sympathy and got to my feet, scooping up the backpack Kallen had given me months back and swinging it onto my back as I rose. "By the way," I began, dropping the mockingly obsequious tone, "Tomorrow's going to be Christmas Eve, and two weeks to the day from the meeting with Kyoto House. I'm sure they're impatiently waiting to see what we'll do to earn their good graces and support – and I'm also sure that there will be plenty of drunken soldiers wandering around." I turned back to Naoto, who'd straightened up on the couch, and smiled at him. "Why don't you and your boys join the festivities, and go get the old men in Kyoto a nice Christmas present tomorrow night?"


Naoto paused for a moment, turning the idea over in his head, and nodded. "I'll tell Kallen to get four work passes arranged for tomorrow." He stood up, and pulled out his phone, following me to the door of the hideout. Behind us Tamaki yelled something indistinct, and the sounds of coilguns began to echo through the subterranean concrete box once more. "There'll definitely be lots of need for street cleaners tomorrow, so I expect there will be more passes issued to handle all the holiday bullshit than normal. We've already got the overalls and such for each man, so once the uniforms are clean we'll be ready."


I nodded my satisfaction and almost turned to go when I saw a somewhat shifty expression cross the other half-Britannian's face. "Out with it."


Naoto coughed, and started to blush, visibly embarrassed. "I, uhh... I can't sew. I'm going to need some, umm... help to get the rank tabs onto the uniform." Being significantly taller than my four and a quarter feet, Naoto of course always looked down at me in the literal sense, but in that moment he somehow seemed shorter than I was. It's probably the puppy-dog eyes. "Could you help me get them on please, Tanya? I don't want to ask Kallen... The last time I got her to sew a patch onto my jeans, she said she'd start charging if I ever asked again."


I felt the desire to leave him to whatever market price Kallen could extort from his lazy body. Why the hell can't he just learn to sew himself? Unfortunately, as someone else had discovered in a different life, my tolerance to the "sad puppy look" was intolerably low. I felt an irritated groan rise in my throat, and stifled it only with determined effort. Why do I keep agreeing to help people? I'm supposed to be a ruthless guerrilla, a rebel fighting a shadow war, dammit! "Wash the fucking uniform first. I'm not going to let my nostrils be polluted with the stink of Britannia any longer!"


As Naoto boomed out an overly enthusiastic "Thank you!", I turned on my heel and stormed off, jealous that the redheaded louse would soon have the opportunity to blow off some steam in the Britannian Concession, complete with a work related excuse to stagger around the entertainment areas of town feigning public intoxication and the opportunity to engage in some highly unprofessional conduct. Meanwhile, I'm still benched at home thanks to my already all-but healed flesh wound, left to do the domestic work and helping out with the Rising Sun's paperwork while my leader gets to knife whoremongering Purists!


I suddenly realized what I had been thinking and came to a stop in the street outside the ruined tenement that cloaked the entrance to the hideout, replaying the last few points of my internal monologue. I'm... upset... that I have to stay back and do the rear echelon work... instead of going out and picking fights with Britannians...? That couldn't be right. I'd always wanted rear echelon work, and suddenly I'd had a perfect reason to stay safely away from combat dumped in my lap. My work was well respected, and everybody acknowledged my planning and support roles as valuable and necessary. I had a "salary" of food, funds and shelter, an outrageous degree of luxury in the slums, and I had a meaningful job with pleasant coworkers and the respect of my peers. By all logic, I had it made. So why am I so jealous of Naoto and the rest of his team? I paused, and then shook my head. It was just a foolish impulse, that's all.


But... The memory of laughing Britannians, drunk on cheap beer and the invincibility of youth, scantily clad women with mostly Japanese features with a few halfbreeds thrown in fawning over them in the street, trying not to shiver in the near-midwinter cold... "I wonder if any of these men have beaten a whore before?" Something still burned in me, as I imagined the bacchanalia of the entertainment district turning to horror as the sting of war intruded on the Britannian sector for a night, the way it always hung over Shinjuku like a choking shroud. I hoped lots of Britannians ended up blamed for the fight and the deaths sure to come, quixotic as the hope might be. It would be nice if the Britannians ended up beating each other to death in the streets for once, instead of some unlucky Eleven sister or daughter, wife or mother.


Forcing the fantasy away and the emotional lump in my throat back down, I ignored the feverish heat radiating from my belly and started walking again. I might not be on call to fight tomorrow night, but I could eat plenty and get lots of sleep before Naoto left for the Settlement. If any sign that something had gone wrong came through, I'd be ready to go with every bit of my pitiful magic available to bail them out. And hopefully leave a few empty places at the old Christmas dinner table myself.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 15: A Christmas Surprise


(A big thank you to Siatru, and to Grig9700 for beta reading this chapter.)


The liberated fatigue pants had not, to Tamaki's mild annoyance, come with a belt, and hung loose around his hips as a result. Since Naoto and Nagata had just robbed the contents of the laundry hampers, it wasn't surprising that things like belts and boots were missing, but scrounging around at the last minute to secure replacements had been kinda irritating. Fortunately, Tamaki had been able to pass it off to his little group of rookies as a training exercise improving their scrounging and improvisation skills. Fortunately, the ex-gangsters had retained every bit of their ability to requisition goods as necessary; The blackened work boots looked pretty much like combat boots, at least from a distance, and the clearly non-regulation buckle on his belt would be hidden under first the overalls, and then the uniform's jacket.


Tamaki snapped the buckle of said belt closed with a satisfying click and straightened up, taking a long look down at himself, making sure the pants hung straight and no bulge was evident on his left thigh where the Britannian-issue combat knife was strapped. Fortunately, the gray and black uniform trousers betrayed no obvious sign of the hidden knife, and any slight crease in the fabric would be hidden by his second layer. Satisfied with the first level of his disguise, Tamaki buttoned up his threadbare cotton work shirt and stepped into the pooled legs of his overalls, pulling the stinking, stained garment up over the uniform trousers and fastening the clips of the shoulder straps.


Finally, Tamaki pulled an equally worn and patched black winter coat over his shoulders to complete the appearance of a transitory Eleven worker, the outer layer heavy and warm thanks to the hidden contents of the lining. The interior lining of the coat had been carefully cut out, the uniform jacket sewn in with loose, fragile stitching as an intermediate layer along with the folded uniform cap, and the original lining sewn back into place. Unfortunately, once the active stage of the plan was done, the lining-less jackets would be more or less useless as warm layers during the extraction process, but Tamaki supposed that a few hours of cold was preferable to detection and detainment at the checkpoint back into Shinjuku.


Satisfied with his own disguise, Tamaki turned and looked over at Naoto, who was lounging against a wall and fiddling with an unlit "Quarter" handroll. The half-noble hadn't shaved in the last several days, giving him a look of general dishevelment, and his distinctive red hair had been dyed blonde and crammed away under a cap. In his own threadbare overalls and jacket, coupled with the total lack of any poise, no trace of Kozuki Naoto, the rising terror of Shinjuku, could be seen – all Tamaki saw was an exhausted worker, hungry for the meager relief provided by the low nicotine content of the ghetto smoke in his trembling fingers. Fuck, Naoto's going method with his acting!


At the sound of a muttered curse, Tamaki looked over at the two members of his unit he'd be leading into the Tokyo Settlement with Naoto. Gin, a rangy man in his mid-twenties, had just finished lacing up his boot and was fiddling with the pant's leg, carefully blousing the bottom into the top of his boot in the way that some Honorary Britannians did, following the example of the Britannians instead of the exact requirements of their manual. Inuyama already had his boots on and was muttering curses as he violently shoved a hand down his pants, trying to shift the location of the hidden knife. Inuyama was so involved in his work, half his right forearm in his uniform trousers, that he didn't even notice Tamaki approaching.


"Hey now! We're goin' intah the field, Inuyama! Save that kinda thing 'til we get back!" Tamaki laughed as he dropped his arm across his subordinate's shoulder, the other man leaping up and nearly biting his tongue as he tried to turn on his left heel, still with his arm down his pants. "The hell are yah tryin' to do anyway?"


As soon as Inuyama realized who'd accosted him, he stopped trying to simultaneously curse, turn, and stab Tamaki, and instead just chuckled with an unmistakable edge of smugness. "No need to do that now or after the mission, yah damned punk!" Inuyama looked up at Tamaki, a shit-eating grin on his face. "Hina's been takin' real good care of me – turns out your suggestion about that bottle of single-malt was right on the money!"


Tamaki let out a whoop of excitement. "Dude! Congrats, man! So that's where you two disappeared to last night! Fuck yeah!" He considered going for a high-five, but reconsidered when he realized that Inuyama was still nearly elbow deep in his own trousers, settling for a congratulatory pat on the back instead. "I hope that old bastard Jiroo didn't charge yah too much fer the bottle?"


Inuyama winced slightly, but smiled again. "It was totally worth it, man. Even if it is kinda hard to share a sleeping bag."


Tamaki smiled back at his subordinate, internally congratulating himself on his work so far. After Tanya, Ohgi, and Naoto had suddenly dropped responsibility for the recruits on his lap several weeks ago, Tamaki had decided to prioritize building loyalty in his new recruits right behind building obedience. Fortunately, between Tanya's victory over the gang – surprising only to the new recruits, as Tamaki's shoulder was still sore on cold nights from the one time he'd crossed the little goblin – and the utterly terrifying display of ruthlessness courtesy of Naoto, the whole issue of obedience had been more or less settled before it had even come up. Sure, Tamaki had been forced to prove his ability to lead by flooring Inuyama a couple of times back at the beginning, but that wasn't a big deal or anything. Plus, the man was a great drinking buddy and sparring partner, so Tamaki was fine with a little bit of lip.


So, since he didn't really need to worry much about disobedience, Tamaki had focused on building up loyalty to both himself and to the organization in his new trainees. Tamaki knew he wasn't exactly brilliant, but he wasn't stupid either, and he'd been keeping a close eye on Tanya after she'd effortlessly beaten him into the ground. He'd realized that the girl he'd once been foolish enough to call a Brit almost made it a point to not rule by fear or strength – instead, she'd made an effort to reach out to every member of the cell and get to know them, and to give them what they wanted.


Inoue had been stressed from carrying all the boring work on her shoulders, and had been feeling a bit isolated, being the only woman in the cell – Kallen didn't count – and Tanya had given her a female friend and an assistant who understood all that math crap.


Nagata loved his wife and kid deeply – that much was obvious from just a casual conversation with the man. Tamaki had known him for almost two years now, and knew he was torn between the fear of dying and not knowing his kid, and having his kid grow up in a slum. Tanya had given him a job that didn't involve any frontline combat, and had also made sure he had plenty of food to pay for a neighborhood granny to look after the kid.


Tamaki didn't like self-reflection or any of that crap, but after he'd realized what Tanya was doing, he started to wonder what she was giving to him to get his loyalty. He knew he respected the little squirt – she was a monster in hand to hand, an incredible shot, and absolutely cold as ice when it came time to kill – but he was surprised to find that he liked her too. For all her nagging, she was pretty good company, after you got over the initial reaction of "oh shit, a fucking Brit's in our base!" and all that. She had a subtle sense of humor, where jokes she told flew past his head until a second later when they slammed home, she was happy to chat with him about guns or knightmares and other crap, and she was a hard worker. She doesn't treat me like an idiot either. That was important – even Ohgi and Naoto looked at him sometimes like he was some kind of clown, but Tanya never did. She often looked irritated or disappointed, but she never looked down at him. Looking back on it, Tamaki thought it was that respect, more than anything else, that had earned her his loyalty.


Tamaki was sick of thinking by the time he'd gotten through all that, and so he'd rounded up all of his little crew for a trip to a private slice of heaven. A year or two ago, his buddy Chisao – who had welding equipment – and two or three other guys plus Tamaki had gotten together to make their own "gym" in a mostly abandoned basement. The homemade weights were crappy – just a variety of pipes with amounts of sand inside and caps welded over their ends – but they did the job, as did the creaky wooden bench Gendo, who knew a bit of carpentry, had nailed together and glued a cushion onto. This was his secret home away from home, where he came to maintain his toned physique, where he kept himself as shredded as any honest Japanese guy could on the thin food and low protein levels available in Shinjuku. The new recruits had taken the gesture for what it was – an expression of trust, and an offer for group communion. People join up to gangs for more than just a fully belly and protection – they join up for brotherhood, for friends.


Tamaki wondered if Tanya knew how good her idea to put him in charge of the former gangsters had been. After all, he'd come within a hairsbreadth of joining up with the gangs, before Naoto and Ohgi had returned to his life and pulled him into their anti-Britannian action group. The only reason he'd been free to join up with them was he could feel his father's ghost smack him over the head whenever he thought of joining up, but those slaps had been weakening in the months leading up to Ohgi's sudden arrival. Yeah, I know a thing or two about the kinda folks who join gangs, alright.


After he brought them to the basement gym and set them free on the weights, Tamaki had taken Hojo, Hina, Inuyama, and Gin aside one by one, talking with them and getting to know his new comrades.


Hojo's hook had been pretty easy to figure out, since he'd already owned up to the whole pain-pill addiction thing, but Tamaki had taken the time to ask about more than just "what's your T-level like?", and had found himself rewarded with a pent-up river of unspoken thoughts and smothered ambitions, which he frankly had no idea how to handle. Taking a page from Tanya's book, he'd nodded seriously, maintained eye contact, and thanked Hojo for his openness once the torrent of words had slowed to a relative trickle. When Tamaki handed over the pills set aside by Naoto to help wean Hojo off his dependency, he made sure to be as respectful as possible; when the shakes and nausea set in, he made a point to be on hand to chat with Hojo, to try and take his mind off things.


Gin, apparently, was both a smoker and a big music guy – and so Tamaki had made sure that he always had a pack or two of Britannian cigarettes with real tobacco around on the weekends to reward the man for his hard work, plus tips about which barterers had caches of CDs available in the trade goods.


Inuyama was practically a belly on legs, with a particular love for meat, a luxury good in Shinjuku. Tamaki had put in a special request with Inoue for an extra two rations of meat for the man, and soon Nagata had arrived with a whole box of cheap jerky in a variety of flavors. Apparently, whatever flavors Inuyama hadn't liked he'd turned around into trade goods to get the smuggled bottle to buy his lady's affections.


Hina's requests, once Tamaki had taken her aside, had been somewhat heartbreaking in their simplicity, yet eminently practical. Tampons, sanitary pads, a safety razor, aspirin, and if possible, birth control pills had been all she'd initially asked for. Tamaki, remembering how sunken the four's cheeks had been when they'd slunk into the Rising Sun's meeting hall, didn't rib her for asking for so little; instead, he simply told her that all but the last request were freely available from the Rising Sun's stocks, thanks to Tanya and Inoue, and that the last would be available as soon as a cheap and reliable supplier could be found. Hina hadn't responded to that information at the time beyond a simple "I see", but after verifying that Tamaki had told the truth, and after drawing a ration of female hygiene and relief products from Inoue, Hina had returned, thanked him, and put in a request for a warm coat, fresh vegetables, and for the Rising Sun to deliver a take-out box for a family of four to the apartment of a single mother and her three children slightly north of their usual area of operations. Inoue had assured him that none of the requests had been hard to meet, and soon green bell peppers and unripened tomatoes joined the inventory of regular shipments into Shinjuku.


Of course, all of the peppers and cigarettes in the world paled in comparison to the experience of risking your lives side by side, and coming out laughing and smiling on the other side. As Naoto had begun his shadowy campaign of violence against the gangs, Tamaki had begged his boss for the chance to bring his trainees along for their first operation as part of the Organization. After Tamaki agreed to take full responsibility for their actions, Naoto had gladly welcomed them into his systematic destruction of the gang that had tried to shake down the Rising Sun. Hojo, once a member of the Kokuryu-kai and thus privy to the locations of all the old safehouses being used by the splinter gang, had been particularly valuable, but all four had enthusiastically thrown themselves into the slaughter of their former comrades.


Starting from quiet knifings of unwary or isolated gangsters, the four had been led by Tamaki through a gauntlet of missions handed down from the leading trio, culminating in the glorious night Tamaki had fired a shoulder-mounted missile into a warehouse turned meth lab. The incredible explosion and the chemically fueled flames still burnt in his mind when he thought about the night – the knightmare in the station Tanya had blown up aside, Tamaki didn't know if he'd ever seen anything quite as beautiful as the roaring blaze he'd caused. It had been an intense three weeks of near constant activity, training with his new detachment as they waited for the next mission, occasionally helping out Inoue and Tanya at the Rising Sun to help keep the recruits (and Tamaki, if he was being honest) anchored with the cause, with why they were fighting.


The only major sticking point in that time had been after the liberation of the gang's slave brothels a week prior. That particular job had been carried out by Naoto personally, with Souichiro and Chihiro's help, and Tamaki hadn't envied them the job; when Naoto had returned, eyes empty and bleak, followed by a line of women wrapped in bloody blankets shepherded by a grinning Chihiro, Tamaki already knew celebrating wasn't going to be in the cards. He didn't know what the women Naoto had brought back from the raid had endured, and frankly he didn't want to know either – but he was fairly sure that none of them would welcome the offer of a beer.


Tamaki had expected weeping, he'd expected uncomfortably degrees of decidedly unmanly emotion, and he'd expected to be asked to take the male contingent of his unit elsewhere to sleep for the night. He hadn't expected one of the women to suddenly scream "YOU!", pull a knife, and lunge at Gin, who had backpedaled away from his knife-wielding assailant while fumbling for the pistol belted to his waist. Tamaki had managed to move fast enough to grab Gin's arm before he actually got a shot off, while Chihiro had wrestled the knife away from the screaming woman who had persisted in her attempts to claw out Gin's eyes, nearly overwhelming the younger and fitter Chihiro.


Fortunately, Ohgi had been only steps behind Naoto's group, and between Naoto's demands that everybody stop immediately and Ohgi's calming, conciliatory words, the worst was averted. Tamaki had been sorely tempted to beat the shit out of all three of his male subordinates when he'd learned that they all knew what had been happening in those brothels, but the fact that none of them had been directly involved with that side of their gang's operations had stayed his hand. They had, however, been forced through the most rigorous three day training program Tamaki could whip up, as had Hina, since Tamaki didn't want to play favorites and she'd known damn well what was happening too and hadn't bothered to do anything about it.


That was all in the past now, though. Tamaki was confident in the abilities of his trainees, and confident in their attachment to the Organization and the camaraderie it represented, if not the nebulous goals Tanya and Naoto periodically alluded to. Which puts 'em in the same boat with me, I guess.


Tamaki thumped Inuyama one last time on the shoulders in celebration, before disentangling himself from the taller man and turning to Naoto. The leader of the cell had put away his cigarette and had been watching the back and forth between Tamaki and his men with an almost cold expression of disinterested weariness, but he perked up when Tamaki looked back his way. Wonder how well he's sleeping these days? Tamaki had helped Naoto with some of his more sticky jobs, and was perfectly content to leave all that fucked up shit to Naoto, if only so he didn't have to drink himself to sleep every night. Better yet, leave that crap up tah Chihiro, that crazy bitch.


Out loud, Tamaki said "We're ready to rock and roll, Boss!" He didn't have to fake the confidence – this was a Tanya plan, so it was going to be solid, and he was confident in the men going into Brittown with him. They're never gonna know what hit 'em! "Say the word, and we can head to the checkpoint!"


Naoto lifted a single skeptical eyebrow, casting a look over Gin, who was shrugging into his coat, and Inuyama, who was screwing around with his goddamned knife again. "If you say so. Let's get gone."


---------


By the time Tamaki and the rest of the small team of infiltrators got to the checkpoint into the Britannian Concession, work passes and lunchboxes in hand, it was almost six at night and the sun had vanished beyond the horizon two hours earlier. The group joined the long queue of shivering Eleven workers waiting for their chance to pick up night shift work in the Tokyo Settlement, a nearly palpable miasma of depressed resignation thick in the air as the line slowly shuffled forwards. The guards appeared equally unhappy, from what Tamaki could make out through the darkness and the milling crowd. The few inspections they bothered with were almost perfunctory, and while they of course collected the usual "administration fees", none of the Britannians on duty appeared to have the energy to aggressively shake down any of the hapless Elevens. Wonder who they pissed off to get assigned to stand out in the cold on Christmas Eve?


Despite the complete lack of enthusiasm exhibited by the guards, Tamaki knew that the checkpoint represented the first major point of failure in the operation. If those bastards think we've got some extra cash somewhere, or just wanna screw with us... Best case scenario, they'd just be turned back and not allowed to enter the Concession, aborting the mission. Worst case, the guards would realize they were trying to smuggle weapons into the Settlement, and then they'd be arrested, interrogated, and shot. Wish I'd taken the time to make sure Inuyama could walk straight with the knife... Dammit... Tamaki exhaled, and forced himself to calm down. It was too late to do anything now, and getting all agitated would mark him out as suspicious. Deliberately, Tamaki let his shoulders slump and buried his hands in his pockets, and tried to think about anything but the night's work ahead.


A tense half an hour later, Tamaki dutifully handed over his work pass for stamping, a few crumpled bills pressed against the bottom just like always. The guard, faceless as always behind the rebreather and the mirrored visor of his helmet, barely glanced at either his face or his pass, apathetically thumping the barely inked stamp down on the card stock of the pass. With a muttered "thanks", Tamaki reclaimed the pass and shuffled his way into the Britannian Concession, joining Naoto on a street corner a block away.


Stamping their booted feet to keep the cold out, the two waited in silence as first Gin, and then Inuyama made their way through the checkpoint. To Tamaki's relief, Inuyama's slightly stiff gait apparently hadn't stood out as remarkable in a crowd of cold, malnourished laborers. Plus, the guards were probably wishin' they were comin' with us to the entertainment zone instead of hangin' around the ghetto. Hah! Tamaki smiled as Inuyama trudged his way over, and considered sharing his insight with Naoto. A look over at his boss's blank expression dissuaded him. Naoto's got his game face on – probably not in the mood for joshin' around. He's gotten pretty serious lately, ever since he and Chihiro had started hackin' people apart...


As soon as Inuyama joined them on the corner, Naoto turned and started walking, heading southeast along with most of the other Eleven men allowed into the Concession, Tamaki close on his heels and the other two men tagging along behind. The loose string of workers were headed for what had once been the Ginza District; though the area had been redeveloped and filled with the same ugly Britannian architecture as the rest of the Tokyo Settlement, the old Ginza had retained its mercantile character. At this fever pitch of the holiday season, it was a safe bet that the many shops and restaurants would need extra hands to deal with the horde of last minute shoppers – not in the front of house, of course, not for the Elevens, but in the stockrooms and the kitchens where their non-Britannian features wouldn't offend any paying customer. The small knot of Shinjuku fighters blended into the shambling crowd, hunkering down into their thin jackets as best they could against the heat-leeching wind, just like every other man present. The women, by and large, had taken a different turn after passing through the checkpoint, but it was far too early in the night to be seen anywhere near that side of town.


As Tamaki trudged down the street, he reflected on how strangely nostalgic it was to return to this particular corner of the Britannian Concession. During the first months of the Cell's existence, their piddling "missions" had more often than not been carried out in this general area. In fact, the warehouse where he'd offed that fat idiot of a security guard was only about half a kilometer away from his current location. First time I'd killed... Fucker shouldn't have surprised me like that. What kinda idiot decides to risk their life for someone else's inventory, huh?


The area south of the old Chuo Ward and west of the Ginza was a mixed-use area, where the warehouses holding stock for the glitzy shopping districts and refined outlets rubbed shoulders with the homes of middle-class Britannians and the scattered estates of minor nobility, with small strip malls and convenient grocery stores dotted throughout. The center of the area was the ruined husk of the Kasumigaseki Station, completely collapsed after the Britannian aerial bombardment that had left the nearby Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters a gutted shell. During the redevelopment of the area, the remnants of the old police headquarters had been unceremoniously shoveled into the open maw where the station's roof and the nearby tunnels had caved in, thereby avoiding the cost of hauling away the rubble or filling the gaping hole with gravel.


Tamaki vaguely remembered that there had been a resistance cell operating out of the area, living in the old tunnels and emerging by night to loot whatever they could and raise hell. That's where Naoto got that sack of hand grenades, right? Now that he thought about it, Tamaki realized he hadn't heard any mention of the Kasumigaseki Resistance Cell for months. Probably means they're okay. If the Brits had caught a legit group of rebels, they'd have been trumptin' about it all day every day. Hope they're still fighting the good fight somewhere. Of course, it was entirely possible that the tunnel they had laired up in had just collapsed from the lack of maintenance and entombed the whole lot in concrete and steel. Fuck, I hope not. That's a horrible way to go.


Forty minutes and a two mile walk later, Tamaki and his merry band found themselves in the desolate no man's land around the ruined Tokyo Tower. The colossal heap of twisted girders and gutted hopes was red with rust and creaked with each errant gust, moaning like a man dying from a gut wound. To Tamaki, Tokyo-born and bred, the Tower was an almost tangible symbol of all that had happened to the city of his birth and her people. Broken, pillaged, and left in squalor, the broken Tower screamed its agony to all that would hear. The fact that the Brits haven't paved it over like they did the Imperial Palace has gotta be intentional. Just another way of rubbin' everythin' in our faces. The bastards. It was fitting that the Tower, and the boarded up station below it, would shelter her sons before they set out on their Tanya-appointed task, and afterwards as they hid from vengeful eyes.


Even by the usual standards of the desolate grave of Tokyo's pride, the place was deserted. Far away, a maglev train traversed the elevated rail, but to Tamaki the faint whistling of the wind suddenly took on a selpulcral air. He shivered, the chill unrelated to the midwinter night. The aching heart of Tokyo was empty, without even the desperate bustle of Shinjuku to provide traces of life and light. This was a dead city, a place abandoned by the living, and yet Tamaki was certain that under every pile of shattered cement and broken brick were human bones. The four men, by unspoken consensus, picked up their pace, lightly jogging through the necropolis, looking for the faded signs directing long-gone foot traffic to the nearest subway station. A few minutes of searching later, and the group stood before the rotted plywood sheets screwed into place over an entrance to Kamiyacho Station.


Tamaki gestured at Inuyama, who nodded and drew his knife and started gradually easing the first screw free of the pulpy wood. Gin followed suit, working on the screw on the opposite side of the board, and a minute later Tamaki and Naoto filed into the exposed entrance to the tunnel, damp air rushing up into their faces until Inuyama carefully pulled the board over the hole after them, propping it back into its former position.


Once the board was back in place, sheltering the group from any spectacularly out of place Britannian who happened to be spending Christmas Eve in the most wretched part of Tokyo outside of the Ghetto, Tamaki let himself relax a bit. Stretching and yawning, he unclipped the miniature flashlight from the inside of his arm and clicked it on, letting the light trace over the textured yellow rubber strips at the edge of the steps leading downwards to a plug of rubble and soil blocking access to the station itself, or the tunnels even further down below the surface. A horrible way to go...


"Well," Naoto broke the silence as all four stared at the collapse, the still sharp edges of the concrete shards indicating that the stairway had been passable until recently. "It's not as luxurious as I'd hoped, but I guess this is where we're going to be changing, gentlemen. Get changed, and we'll start reviewing."


Soon, all four men were industriously tearing the stitches out of their coats, freeing the smuggled contraband. Tamaki vaguely regretted tearing out the stitches that he himself had carefully made the night before, but that regret wasn't what caused his shoulders to shake in the near dark of the collapsed staircase. No, it was all he could to do to keep up his professional, on the job facade, and suppress a laugh of mingled nervous anxiety and hilarity at the memory of Naoto prostrate on all fours, begging an eleven year old to help him after he'd somehow managed to sew the sleeves of his coat together. Fuckin' rich boy's probably always had maids fer that kinda work. Tamaki knew the internal mockery wasn't true in the slightest, but that didn't matter in the face of comedy, especially when he wasn't stupid enough or petty enough to share the joke with men who hadn't known Naoto for years. 'Sides, it's all in the name of keepin' my morale up. ...Fuck, did the roof just creek? I really hope not.


Soon, Tamaki found himself checking over Inuyama and Gin, making sure their Honorary Britannian uniforms were as straight and crisp as possible, before Gin returned the favor. The sergeant's chevrons sewn onto his shoulder and chest were the only difference between his uniform and theirs, and Tamaki had carefully slicked his sometimes uncontrollable hair down before leaving Shinjuku that evening so the side cap would sit squarely on his head. Gin and Inuyama's hair was still quite a bit on the short side for Britannian soldiers, but hopefully their carefully placed caps would draw attention away from that minor detail. After getting the nod from Gin, Tamaki turned to Naoto and carefully ran his penlight over his boss, and unsurprisingly found him in perfect order, looking alarmingly comfortable and at ease in the uniform of a Britannian officer. The illusion of Britannian perfection was somewhat weakened by the loose tie and open collar of his shirt, and further undermined by the wink Naoto shot his way. Tamaki couldn't help but smile at the exaggerated look of aristocratic disdain on his friend's face, before the pseudo-professional mask cracked entirely and the boyish smile so rare in past weeks flashed across Naoto's face.


"It's finally the time, eh, Tamaki? We're finally doing it! We're finally going after some Brit bastards ourselves – just like you always wanted!" The exuberant tone and the guileless blue eyes were a sharp contrast to the violence to come, but Tamaki couldn't help the answering grin creeping across his face. It's good to see the old Naoto back – gloomy Naoto's way too boring.


"Fuck yeah, bro! We're gonna show 'em we mean business! Wanna bet we each bag a Purist sonnuvabitch before the night's over?" Tamaki knew that he should be maintaining professional discipline in front of his men, but, fuck it. They'd be squatting in this stinking wet tunnel for an hour and a half practicing basic Britannian commands and waiting for the bastards enjoying themselves in the whorehouses to get nice and drunk, at least he could get a laugh or two before he subjected himself to language lessons!


Naoto laughed and patted Tamaki on the shoulder. "You've gotta raise your game, Tamaki – we just need to get the ball rolling, and the Purists will do way more damage to their own side than we would if we just spent the whole night shanking people."


Tamaki rolled his eyes in fond exasperation, and adopted a wheedling tone "But where's the fun in that? I wanna show those Brit bastards this Japanese boy's got guts, one on one, man on man!"


Naoto raised a skeptical eyebrow, nearly invisible in the dark of the tunnel. "The way you showed Tanya? She did nearly splatter your guts across the hideout – I suppose that would've proved the point once and for all!"


This time, Tamaki didn't have to feign a whine. "Ah, c'mon! That was an honest mistake! And that girl's terrifying – I bet she'd eat a Knightmare by herself, if her mouth was just a bit wider!"


"Wait, what?!" Inuyama burst into the conversation. A step behind him, Gin looked on at the conversation with interest. "You fought Tanya, bro? And you're still alive? How the fuck did that happen?!"


With rising horror, Tamaki turned towards the two wolves in the shape of men that lurked beyond the small circle of light, dreading the ribbing he was about to receive. He'd completely forgotten that they hadn't been there back in the day to watch him get totally schooled by a scrawny kid. Worse still, judging by the shit-eating grin on Naoto's face, he was completely willing to tell the story in full if Tamaki stepped away from the challenge. Biting the bullet, Tamaki sighed and beckoned the two over as he sat down, placing the work overall between his behind and the damp concrete step, desperately trying to find some way to spin the story so he didn't come off as quite such an idiot. If you're gonna collapse, roof, now would be a good time.


"Okay, so, no shit, there I was..."


---------


An hour and a half of careful coaching by Naoto later, and Tamaki felt more or less confident in his ability to to dutifully nod and say "yes sir" with only the faintest trace of a Japanese accent. Together with Gin and Inuyama, he had also gone over the command phrases for when it was time to run. It was of vital importance that every word uttered by the team during the actual engagement be in Britannian – any Japanese might direct suspicions back towards the Eleven population, and to Shinjuku.


As Tamaki checked the time on his cheap burner phone one last time, Naoto pulled out a flask of homebrew and carefully splashed it over the lapels of his jacket and on the front of his shirt, before wetting his palm with the liquor and rubbing it into the stubble on his cheeks and chin. Then, he took a small mouthful of the liquid and rinsed it through his teeth, wincing at the burn, before spitting it out in the direction of the cave in. Between the off-kilter hat on dyed blonde hair, the open collar, the loosened tie, and the reek of alcohol, Naoto looked every inch the part of a dissolute Britannian junior officer drinking away the shame of the recent demotion betrayed by his freshly stitched lieutenant's bar.


"Ready to go, everyone?" Naoto's voice was serious, as he looked from man to man. Tamaki mutely nodded, the anxiety and excitement starting to well back up in his gut now that the time had finally come. After a final round of nods all around, Tamaki carefully nudged the sheet of plywood aside and poked his head out of the station's mouth. After the hour and a half in the darkness of the station staircase, the outside world seemed bright under the illumination of the lights of the far away core of the Tokyo Settlement and the moon high above. Finding the broken pavement of the street just as deserted as it had been when they'd arrived, the group filed out of the station, Gin carefully propping the plywood sheet back into place. As soon as the sheet was back in place, Tamaki turned and followed Naoto, hearing Gin and Inuyama fall in behind him. The target was at least a half an hour away by foot, and they were now very much on the clock.


Unlike the graveside of the rotting Tokyo Tower, the entertainment zone positively thrummed with activity. The streets heaved with drunken soldiers, government functionaries, and other representatives of the Britannian occupation, all drunkenly yelling, bellowing, and pushing in a scrum of consumption fueled by lust. Mixed into the crowd of eager customers were the inevitable followers, drawn by money so eager to be spent it was practically burning its way out of pockets and purses: Sausage salesmen did a brisk business behind sizzling carts on every corner, bouncers loomed in doorways of bars and brothels, and plenty of women and a handful of men of varying degrees of attractiveness in their skimpy outfits flitted and fluttered between knots of drunks, offering their wares and attempting to draw eager takers back to whichever house they were working out of.


As the group entered the entertainment zone, Naoto's gait morphed from the firm and direct strides he'd taken on the walk to this little slice of soldier's heaven, instead rolling his steps and swaying side to side. The change was gradual, so it didn't jar any observant watcher, but by the time they'd made their way past the first block of late-night takeout joints and convenience stores, Naoto looked just as drunk as almost every other man on the street to Tamaki's eyes. Stopping at a sausage cart, Naoto ordered in slurred and near incomprehensible Britannian before shoving a wad of cash into the hapless Honorary Britannian salesman's hand in exchange for four sausages in buns. As Tamaki waited for his turn with the condiment tray, Naoto squeezed the mustard bottle hard enough for the top to pop off entirely, dumping most of the contents onto his sausage and spraying mustard over the front of his uniform coat. Another bout of loud, slurred Britannian later, this one an angry tirade full of words Tamaki could recognize as profanity, Naoto had a second free sausage in hand and was staggering away from the cart, still streaked with yellow mustard. Playing the role of the nurse-maiding orderly, Tamaki attempted to daub at the condiment stain whenever Naoto staggered his way and fought down the urge to grin at the sullen stream of Britannian curses coming from his friend. Bastard missed his calling as an actor! Well, at least he got us some dinner.


As the small group of disguised resistance fighters moved deeper into the entertainment zone, the quality of the facades facing onto the streets improved. Bar windows were lined in fine, dark wood, undoubtedly concealing steel shutters and armored doors, the brothels became gilded enough to earn the description of bordellos, and most importantly, the number of men and women in the crowd wearing expensive finery increased the further Naoto led them into the zone. Hell, even the prostitutes are wearin' nicer panties! That's straight-up lingerie now – and that's just what the ones workin' outside are wearin'!


The group turned a corner, and Tamaki saw an illuminated sign featuring a single stocking-clad leg, the smooth white garment held up by a very elaborate, extremely lacy garter. That must be the target! The building the sign was attached to was about a hundred yards down the block, and though the crowd was just as thick as ever, Tamaki could see a constant stream of well-dressed young men entering and exiting through the wide-open wooden doors; even better, no obvious bouncers were in sight, reducing the chance of anybody getting in the way of the imminent fight.


Naoto had clearly seen the sign too; lowering his shoulders and picking up speed, the young half-breed bulled his way into the crowd, spitting a constant stream of slurred curses as he shoulder-checked one bystander after another out of the way, Tamaki and his two men picking up speed to follow Naoto through the gap in the crowd he'd cleaved. Ahead, a pair of visibly inebriated young men staggered down the trio of short stairs leading to the Lacy Garter's front door, laughing and swaying as they supported each other with friendly arms cast around shoulders. Judging by the short, tight, heavily brocaded jackets with long tails they sported, plus the tight trousers and knee-high boots, they were unquestionably nobles – and since they'd just emerged from a bordello owned by a Purist family, Tamaki had no doubt that these two fit the target profile exactly.


Fuckin' finally! The blood began to pound in Tamaki's ears, and he had to remind himself to stay cool and collected. It wasn't his role to get the party started, and the night's events were going to be an exercise in control, the attack a precise strike followed by a near immediate disengagement. But.. I thought it'd never come... But today's the day to get some fuckin' revenge! Dad? I'm sendin' some company your way t'night!


Ahead, the two probable-Purists had reached the sidewalk. Tamaki could see they were talking, but over the noise of the street and the hammering pulse in his head, he couldn't make anything out. Fuckin' Brits are probably just braggin' about how good they think they were in bed... Hope yah enjoyed it while it lasted, you murderin' pieces of shit! The world tunneled around Tamaki as he picked up speed, trying to maintain Naoto's acceleration, cries of irritation and outrage dopplering out behind the group as Gin and Inuyama forced their way through the crowd behind him. The mood's already startin' to turn ugly... Perfect.


Naoto heaved his way down the street, and just as the Purists turned towards the oncoming apparent drunk, Naoto dropped his center of gravity and slammed into the nearest Purist, shoulder ramming into the center of the man's chest. The other noble cried out in pain as his right arm, still slung around his friend's shoulder, was painfully forced back in its socket as his inebriated friend staggered backwards, frantically trying to regain his balance.


Tamaki came to a stop a few feet away from the two Purists, and gestured for Inuyama and Gin to fan out to the left, into the crowded street and around the flank of the targets. As the two slipped off to the side, Naoto turned on his heel towards the staggering Purist and began yelling, stepping closer and getting into the slightly shorter man's space. The other Purist tried to stabilize the first, grabbing onto his shoulder as he leaned back, away from the spittle flying from Naoto's mouth and the overpowering stench of hard liquor wafting off Naoto's uniform.


Tamaki didn't have a great understanding of Britannian, but between all the planning sessions and the rehersals, he'd picked up enough vocabulary to understand when Naoto told the Purists to "Get the fuck outta the way! You Purist ducks already got your shrimp dicks milked, so make room for me and my boys!", gesturing towards Tamaki, who was doing his best to look as sober and stoic as possible and desperately hoping that Gin and Inuyama were doing the same.


While the Purists had at first looked stunned to suddenly be confronted by an irate drunkard they almost certainly outranked, the initial confusion had rapidly turned to barely suppressed anger. Fists clenched, they had admirably kept their anger under control, presumably because Naoto was clearly spoiling for a fight, and had tried to calm the situation down. Tamaki hadn't been able to understand the exact words, but he doubted the attempt at deescalation would have worked regardless – the contempt in their tone was obvious. But, as Naoto continued the barrage of insults, the two seemed like they were actually going to force Naoto to throw the first punch, which would have ruined the broader plan of riling up the crowd against the Purists.


Just as Tanya predicted, however, the implication that the intoxicated fool yelling at them was about to lead a unit of Honorary Britannians into a brothel specializing in Britannian prostitutes in particular was the one thing that the Purists couldn't stop themselves from reacting, and the man Naoto had shoved took the bait and started yelling back just as angrily and stepping almost chest-to-chest with Naoto.


"Oh, shut the fuck up, you noble twat! They're Honorary Britannians, so they're just as good as any other fucking Britannian here – better than some, since they can actually please a woman! Those girls won't have to fake their moans with my boys, y'hear?" Tamaki was impressed – between Naoto's assertion and the shit-faced grin he wore, the Purists looked nearly apoplectic, cheeks red and incoherent half-syllables choked out into the cold night air.


Taking a quick look around, Tamaki saw that the little confrontation, noisy even by the standards of the entertainment zone crowd, had not gone unnoticed. A ring of men and women, of whom maybe thirty percent looked wealthy enough to be nobles of some kind and thus Purists, had begun to form. The ring surrounded a small clearing in the crowd maybe ten feet wide, with the two Purists and Naoto near the center and Tamaki right near the edge. From the corner of his eye, Tamaki saw Gin standing in the ring, almost directly behind the Purists, while Inuyama was one row back and to their right. With Naoto in front of them and Tamaki to their left, the pair were surrounded, though they hadn't realized that quite yet.


The more belligerent of the two Purists once again took the bait, although it was hard to hear what he was saying over the rising murmur of the crowd as more and more people converged on the ring. The crowd, however, did understand whatever the drunken lord had spewed out in response, and the murmurs from the non-Purist soldiers was turning increasingly ugly, while the Purists were cheering on their comrade. Which means the idiot probably said somethin' about how the regulars can't do shit, or how they spend all their time with whores instead of doing anythin' useful. Fuck, it's just like Tanya said it'd be!


Before the Purist could finish whatever verbal riposte he'd attempted, Naoto started shouting. Tamaki knew the gist of the comeback. "Bullshit! You Purist bastards just run around doing whatever you want, stirring up shit, and then you swan off to your fancy clubs and stuff your piggy faces! And who the fuck cleans up your mess? We do! We do all the hard work, we do the dangerous stuff, and you bastards take all the credit!"


This time, the non-noble Britannians cheered, their drunken enthusiasm nearly drowning out the heckling from the equally drunken Purists. Across the ring, Tamaki saw Inuyama move, and suddenly the Purist in front of him in the Ring itself fell forward and to the side, running into a regular soldier and trying to grab onto him for balance. The drunken soldier turned with a snarl, but before Tamaki could see what happened next, the Purist pushing up against Naoto lost his temper and tried to shove him.


The taller, stronger, and secretly sober Naoto swayed back with the shove, before reciprocating, shoving the drunken and enraged Purist from the shoulders instead of the chest, sending the man sprawling. Tamaki distinctly heard the sound of the man's head bouncing off the curb, but by that point the chaos had already begun. The guy's friend swung at Naoto, who ducked the wild haymaker and shoved the man back as well. Unlike his friend, the second Purist stayed on his feet, staggering backwards into the ring of bodies behind him, Naoto close on his heels. As the second Purist fell back onto the arms of one of his comrades in arms, Gin stepped backwards, getting around behind the pair just as Naoto threw a straight right, missing his target but catching the other Purist in the nose.


Across the ring, the Purist Inuyama had shoved took a punch from the soldier he'd fallen on, who had apparently interpreted the fall as an attempt to shove him and had sunk his fist into the other Britannian's gut in retaliation. That Purist had friends too, though, and the soldier was ineffectually trying to push his way back into the crowd, away from the two Purists trying to grab him. One of the Purists suddenly twisted in pain as Inuyama slammed a punch into his kidney, giving one of the soldier's friends the opportunity to jump in and grab for the Purist's face as he turned.


At that point, the ring and the crowd both dissolved into a melee of overlapping brawls. Most of the fighting was between middle- to lower-class Britannians mostly in casual garb – though a few were still in uniform – and more richly dressed middle- to upper-class Britannians, but Tamaki could already see several scrums of men who all looked more or less the same to his Shinjuku eyes. Looks like lotsa scores are gonna be settled tonight. Tamaki caught Inuyama's eye and jerked his head towards Naoto, and Inuyama nodded and began cutting his way through the heaving, brawling mass.


Tamaki, for his part, rushed forwards towards the first Purist, who after a few seconds of apparent unconsciousness appeared to be coming back around, trying to push off the ground. Tamaki bent down and scooped the still-woozy man up into a firefighter carry, and started pushing his way towards the clear space between the wall of the Lacy Garter and the short staircase leading up to the door. "Make way! Wounded man coming through! Make way!" A small path through the fighters appeared and Tamaki hustled his way through to the open area.


"W-what happened...? My head hurts..." The man on his back moaned into Tamaki's ear, but Tamaki ignored him, and instead of responding carefully lowered him to the ground. As he bent down, he carefully put the man in the recovery position, kneeling beside him and rolling him onto his side, tuning out the slurred complaints. He's got a concussion at least, for sure.


Then, as he bent over the downed man, making a production of propping up his back, Tamaki lifted the Purist's jacket away from his back with one hand as he quickly rammed his hand down into his own pants and pulled out his knife, nearly cutting himself with the wickedly sharpened blade as the pressure from the belt turned the hilt in his hand. Before anyone could see what he was up to, Tamaki quickly stabbed the man twice in the back, aiming for the upper center of his back. The blade rasped against bone, and then as Tamaki pressed down firmly with as much weight as he could muster without tottering forwards in the second stab, he felt something give with a wet snap. Twisting the knife free of his "patient", Tamaki quickly wiped the blade on the interior of the man's jacket before pulling the tailored garment back down over the wound. Tamaki was sure that the gurgling would have made the man's already slurred speech nearly incomprehensible to someone who could actually speak Britannian, but he was content with the indication that he'd gotten at least one lung with his knife.


Tamaki manipulated the dying man's arms and legs so he would remain on his side, hopefully concealing the blood likely pooling under him until he and his comrades were well away, and got back up on his feet, tucking the knife against the inside of his forearm. As he turned, a momentary gap opened up in the crowd. Through the gap, Tamaki saw Naoto shove an apparent Purist backward into Inuyama and Gin's arms. Inuyama grabbed the man's left arm, Gin his right, and as Inuyama grabbed the man's shoulder length hair and pulled his head back, Gin's gloved hand flew across his throat, a wide red grin following in his wake. Below their feet, Tamaki thought he could make out another figure in bloodied brocade lying beneath their feet, before the crowd heaved again, closing the gap.


A moment later, screams of horror began to resound through the crowd as somebody suddenly noticed one of the bloody bodies, and the earlier violence abruptly escalated as many more knives suddenly appeared from hidden sheathes, along with hurriedly broken bottles. Over the press of the crowd, Tamaki could see Naoto's dyed blond hair, now minus the peaked officer's cap, moving with impressive speed through the crowd, followed by at least one head with a folding garrison cap. It's bugout time, for sure!


Tamaki started running, heading in the same southern direction Naoto had started to move. Since he was already near the edge of the mob, it was easy to break free and move. Naoto's longer legs had given him some advantage, and he broke free of the crowd a second later, Inuyama and Gin right behind him. Gin had already peeled off his bloody glove, though the right arm of his jacket was dripping and dark, and Naoto was furiously wiping away the splattered arterial blood from his face, not missing a pace as he continued to run. Tamaki fell into step, quickly shoving his knife through his belt, taking care not to stab himself in the thigh as he did so.


Behind them, the screams of terror had already turned to howls of rage intermingled with pained cries. To Tamaki's amusement, though some people (including the sausage salesman) were following their lead and hurriedly getting as far from the area as possible, the yells and screams seemed to be attracting every wannabe belligerent in the area. Men and women, drawn by voyeurism, their own desire to end a night of fun by breaking someone's teeth, or summoned by cries for reinforcements, streamed past and in true Britannian fashion hurled themselves into the fight, seemingly without caring what the fight was about or how it had started.


Tamaki wrenched his eyes away from a gang of seven or eight Britannians in the uniform of the Royal Marines, who were making a beeline back the way he had come with sleeves rolled up and an unmistakable expression of anticipatory relish. Forget about the damned Brits, you've got running to do! In a few minutes, he and his comrades would split up and make their separate ways back to the husk of Kamiyacho Station. Once they all got back, they'd have four hours or so to change back into their worker outfits, get cleaned up, and wait before heading back into Shinjuku. Tamaki would have liked to linger around the fight a bit longer – after all, it wasn't every day you got the pleasure of watching Brits beat the shit out of each other – but they'd done what they came for, and if he got caught after the job was done because he was rubbernecking, Tanya would never let him hear the end of it, if she didn't kill him herself.


Woulda been nice to see, though. But, hey, at least two of those Purist fucks were definitely dead, probably three – that's a hell of a nice Christmas gift, right? Tamaki grinned as he ran into traffic, dodging around a car screeching to a halt. This was what he'd signed up for, at long last! After the attitude adjustment from Tanya, the volunteer work didn't seem useless, but it was kinda boring. Bringing a little taste of hell to the Brits, though, especially the night before one of their big stupid holidays? Merry Christmas, Dad, wherever the hell yah are. Hope I made yeh proud, for once.


---------


Private First Class Suzaku Kururugi, lately of His Imperial Majesty's 32nd Honorary Britannian Legion, 1st Brigade, 3rd Regiment, 1st Battalion, 2nd Company, stared at the charred thing chained to the stop sign, and felt the world sway under his feet. The limbs had been mostly burnt away, but the thighs and upper arms remained; in fact, it was thanks to these remaining appendages that the corpse still hung from the chains padlocked to the stop sign, the cherry red paint blistered and peeled yet still visible between the spread stumps. Suzaku didn't know the man chained to the stop sign personally: He'd never met the fellow, didn't know his name or whether or not he had a family that would miss him. He did, however, know exactly what that man sounded like when he had screamed from the depths of horror and pain, pleading for mercy, for help, for someone to do something.


Nobody had, Suzaku included. Nobody had intervened in the slow torture and lynching of the man, nor of the other two Honorary Britannians who dangled from traffic signs outside the 2nd Chuo Ward Outpost, only half a mile from the checkpoint into the Shinjuku Ghetto. And now, at one o'clock in the afternoon on Christmas Day, the curfew on the barracks had finally been lifted for Suzaku and his fire team, so they could clean up the rubbish from the previous night's "incident", including the three bodies.


It had all come as a complete surprise to Suzaku and the other members of the 3rd Regiment billeted at the Outpost. When he had gone to sleep at around ten the previous night, everything had been calm and tranquil; most of his fellow Honorary Britannians had been enthusiastic about the day off they'd been promised the following day, although Suzaku had volunteered to remain on duty as part of the skeleton duty force. He didn't have any friends or family to spend the day with, and the extra pay seemed like the better option. Suzaku had slept as restlessly as always, the unquiet ghosts of his past tormenting him as they did most nights. When he'd woken up to the sounds of gunshots, angry yelling, and hundreds of pairs of feet converging on his location, Suzaku had at first thought he was still dreaming.


The scuttlebutt was that the instigating event that had led to everything else was a fight that had turned nasty in one of the entertainment zones scattered around Tokyo. At least a hundred men from various units had been arrested for a variety of crimes when the military police, supported by the Knight Police, had finally arrived on the scene to break up the growing brawl. Almost as soon as the police had arrived and begun to beat the crowd of unruly soldiers back into line, the Purists on hand – none of whom, Suzaku was sure, had been arrested – had immediately started yelling about their "fallen brothers".


One of the dead Purists had been killed by a bottle-wielding marine who had slammed a mostly-full bottle of bourbon into the man's temple with enough force to cause internal bleeding; the guilty party had been quickly found and was sitting in the cells under the Viceroy's Palace. The other three Purists, on the other hand, had been knifed to death, and the Purists had immediately pinned the blame on Honorary Britannian soldiers. Allegedly, some Honorary Britannian soldiers had been seen fleeing the scene, but Suzaku highly doubted that story. As far as he knew, all Honorary Britannian units had a strict curfew, and as tenuous as the Honorary Britannian status was, Suzaku doubted that any of his comrades would have chosen to flaunt the rules by going out for a night on the town.


Regardless, whether or not the Purists had been killed by Honorary Britannian soldiers, the reprisals had come almost immediately. Before the sun had even risen, disorganized mobs of Purists and other Britannians had swept through the Chiyo, Chuo, and Ginza Districts, grabbing every Honorary Britannian soldier unlucky or stupid enough to be outside their barracks, including men unfortunate enough to be assigned to guard duty outside the fortified walls of the various outposts or assigned to policing the Honorary Britannian neighborhoods. Nobody in Suzaku's unit had any clue how many had died last night, and the news was second or third hand at best, but Suzaku was inclined to believe the worst, considering what had happened next.


Once the mob had butchered their first batch of scapegoats, the Purists had turned on the barracks housing the various Honorary Britannian units distributed across the city. Here, at least, at the 2nd Chuo Outpost, the Britannian officers commanding Suzaku's unit had confronted the mob through barred gates, telling them that the unit was under lockdown and nobody was allowed onto or off the installation. The crowd had heeded the Britannian voice of authority, and hadn't entered the base's grounds, to Suzaku's fervent relief; the unlucky gate guards, stuck on the other side of the hastily shut gates, weren't so lucky. Unarmed as all Honorary Britannians were required to be, in uniform or not, the three men on duty too slow to escape back inside had been hauled out of the guard shack and into the street.


Suzaku had woken at five thirty when the mob had first arrived, and like the other four men of his fire team he'd watched at the window with growing apprehension as the gates slammed shut and as Major Humphrey, who commanded the outpost's two companies, yelled back at the mob through the steel slats. For a moment, when it seemed like reason and order had won, when it seemed like the system had ruled the day once more, and that peace would prevail over violence, Suzaku had relaxed. It's good to see that some Britannians really do believe in their duty – the system truly can be reformed from within with the help of good men like the Major!


That moment of contentment, of a renewed sense of surety and confidence in his life's choices, had been brief. The mob, denied the opportunity to destroy the entire garrison in an orgy of slaughter, had instead opted to vent their bloodlust on the three unfortunates they had seized. They had started with clubs and knives; they had soon moved on to blowtorches looted from a machine shop nearby. The major hadn't even stayed by the gate to watch. As soon as the mob had turned inwards on its captives and ceased attempting to breach the walls, he had turned his back and returned to his quarters.


Suzaku had to be physically restrained by his squadmates. As soon as the first screams had risen above the ugly din outside the gate, he had gone for the door. He had to do something – anything! – to help the poor men, his comrades, suffering outside. Before he had managed to even get out of his shared barracks room, much less out of the barracks, the corporal in charge of his fire team had grabbed him, and together with his squaddies had wrestled Suzaku down onto his bed and pinned his arms and legs. Suzaku had screamed at them to let go, pleaded for them to let him help, let him try to save the men suffering outside whose screams he could not shut out no matter how much he tried, but all was for naught. The corporal screamed back that the men were already dead, that there was nothing he could do for them, and that trying anything would just get them all killed.


And so, Suzaku had thrashed against his comrades and wept, unable to help, unable to escape the agonized screams coming through the closed window. The screaming had ended by seven o'clock, but Suzaku had seen the dancing light of flames reflected against the white ceiling of his barracks room, and remembered the scent of other burning Japanese. I joined up so I'd never have to smell that again! After the Conquest, after we surrendered, there was supposed to be peace, dammit! The Britannians won! We Honorary Britannians followed every rule they gave us! So... Why?! Why?! His comrades had finally let go of him, now that there was nothing Suzaku could possibly do, but he still lay on his bed, staring upwards at the reflected flames, asking himself why it was so hard for people to live together in peace.


By nine, a Knight Police Glasgow and a detachment of military police had come by and cleared off any remaining members of the mob with an admonition to "Return home to your families! It's Christmas Day, for God's sake – go home and enjoy your day!" The handful of Purists still present among the crowd of rubbernecking civilians had been told to return to their duty stations or their homes. Once the crowd had dispersed, the police had mostly left, leaving a token pair of military police behind to "maintain order" at the request of Major Humphrey. Not once during their stop had the police shown any signs of interest in the three dangling bodies, nor even remarked on the piles of charred garbage piled up around the base of each sign.


Hours later, the Honorary Britannians were still locked down, still huddling fearfully in their barracks. From his window, Suzaku had seen several groups of Britannian civilians taking pictures with the grotesque remains of three completely innocent Honorary Britannians sworn to the service of Emperor Charles and the Holy Britannian Empire. At least one group of children had even started trying to pull pieces off the dangling thighs of the man bound to the stop sign, but apparently that was where the police had decided to draw the line, and the children were sent away after one was smacked across the ear.


As the lunch hour had begun, Suzaku approached his platoon's lieutenant and requested permission to go out and take the bodies down. The lieutenant, a Britannian, had lost his usual sneer, and instead looked pale. His hands shook slightly, and at the mention of the bodies, he had looked physically ill. He had nodded vaguely, said something about running the request up to the Outpost's commander, and had left the cafeteria. Suzaku had joined his squad at their table, where they all sat in silence. Their lunches sat on their trays practically untouched; nobody felt much like eating. Nobody had opted for the meat option that day either.


Usually, Suzaku felt fairly isolated among his fellow Honorary Britannians; most of them had come from poor backgrounds, and had seen the Honorary Britannian option as a way to a better life, and his background as a member of an upper-class family before the Conquest marked him out as different. On top of that, most of his comrades were solely concerned with improving their own and their family's prospects, and cared little for the majority of their people, who were still considered mere Elevens by the Britannians. They hadn't taken his talk of reforming the system from the inside for the betterment of universal justice and their people when he'd first joined up well. Most days, any interaction Suzaku had with his comrades was professional at best, and always curt.


Today, Suzaku felt just as miserable as everybody else there. The corporal had even looked apologetic, once he'd waved the other members of the fire team off him. When he rejoined his squad at the table, instead of trying to find a spot somewhere to wedge himself into, two of the guys had moved out of his way, clearing a place for him. Suzaku couldn't find it in himself to wonder or care about the sudden level of newfound acceptance; all he could think about were three men screaming on pyres, a nearby airstrike shaking the plateau as he sat on a crate of MREs, the charred wood crumbling under the impact, "I swear... Suzaku, I swear! I'm going to obliterate Britannia!" was how little it all seemed to mean.


An hour later, Suzaku's fire team had finally been given permission to "tidy up" the street, and now here he was, staring into the blackened sockets of a man he had failed to save. Just another time I've been too late, done too little... What do I do? I just want to save my people... I want them to live in peace... We can't fight this... We'll all die... But... The visage, barely recognizable as human, was as inscrutable as any Buddha carved from stone. Suzaku knew he wouldn't find any answers printed across its flaking skin, no more than he would find answers in the dreams where his father came to visit him, but he just couldn't look away.


Behind him, Suzaku heard the sounds of brooms and shovels at work, as the other members of his fire team dumped the garbage from the burnpile around one of the other signs into a wheelbarrow. Suzaku had dimly noticed multiple empty cooking oil containers as he'd crossed the road from the barracks – likely, the mob had piled up anything even slightly combustible around each of the chained men, before raiding a local mini-mart and dumping every bit of oil they'd had in stock on the garbage and the men. The whole street reeked of an unholy mixture of burning garbage and overcooked pork. One of his squadmates suddenly lost an internal battle and started retching, dry heaving for lack of any lunch or breakfast to expel.


Suzaku felt cold and numb, as if the unmistakable twisted expression of excruciating agony had been a spiritual analgesic. His thoughts ran in circles, incredulity warring with indignation with resignation. Is this Britannian justice? Britannian honor? The system worked just fine when it came to breaking up that brawl last night, and when the police decided to scatter the mob, they were able to do that without a sweat. The system worked well enough for the Major to give an order and have it obeyed. So... why didn't the system work for these men? Where's the justice for them?


From the moment Suzaku had realized that an independent Japan was a lost cause, he had resigned himself to living under Britannia's rule. From that moment on, he had done everything he could to execute what he saw as his duty – to do whatever he could to make the occupation as light and easy for the Japanese as possible, no matter how lonely and heavy the burden. He had... He had done what he had to, so Japan would surrender quickly, before the cities were ground into rubble. He had done everything in his power as a civilian to try and make things better for his countrymen, what little that had turned out to be.


Finally, Suzaku had decided to enlist in the Honorary Britannian Legions as an example to his countrymen. He had hoped that the only son of the last Prime Minister of Japan enlisting in the Britannian Army would reconcile his proud people to the new order. Besides, the Army was the one place where an Honorary Britannian could plausibly gain respect and power. If he could accrue power and influence, he could start to change the system from the ground up.


At least, that had been the plan.


Is it even possible to reform the system in any meaningful way? It was far from the first time he had asked himself this question. If the law states that criminals have the right to a trial and to a sentence in line with the penal code, but this sort of thing happens anyway... Suzaku felt helpless, adrift in a dark sea. He had made his choices with the best of intentions, and at the time they had seemed like good decisions with solid reasoning backing them up. He had done everything the Britannians had told his people they needed to do to succeed in Area 11. I gave them everything I had to give, all for the prospect of being a loyal Britannian citizen and an example to my people... But if we give everything we can give, and this still happens... What's the point?


Suzaku forced himself to look away from the face of horror, sighed, and started going to work on the padlock securing the body to the stop sign with a pair of bolt cutters he'd grabbed from the motor pool on the way out. It was true, he had made his choice, but he had made those choices as part of an exchange. He would serve Britannia loyally and faithfully, and in exchange Britannia would be loyal and faithful in its promise that anybody sufficiently loyal and strong could be a Britannian. It was too late to go back, too late to change his past, but that didn't mean the future was already set in stone too. Suzaku had boundless faith in the system; anarchy and chaos fed upon itself, and left everybody poorer by the end. If the leaders who controlled the system were allowing and fostering anarchy and chaos, though... Then it's no longer the system; it's just another form of chaos, dressed up in order's clothes.


The thought was like a hammerblow, but Suzaku kept dutifully working as he mulled through the implications of it. Britannia was far too strong to fight; Japan would be under Britannia. Britannia as it was now was fundamentally unjust; the system needed to be co-opted and reformed. The system as it was now could not be reformed; we need a new system, with new leaders beholden to the rule of law.


Suzaku kept that conclusion to himself. That night, as he listened surreptitiously to one of his squadmate's contraband crank-powered radios, which he normally would have complained about as a breach of the rules, he didn't say a word, not about the radio, and not about the speech Prince Clovis gave on the previous night's "tragic incident". An investigation would be opened into the deaths of the three Purists, apparently, and Prince Clovis was certain that "disloyal rapscallions hiding in the uniforms of our dear little friends and brothers the Honorary Britannians" were responsible. Nowhere in his speech did the Prince mention the tragedy of Christmas morning, nor did the regular news announcer mention the mob lynchings outside of warnings about unsafe roads near Honorary Britannian neighborhoods and installations.


Later that night, lying awake, Suzaku reconsidered his conclusion, ran through the day's events, and found that his resolve had returned once more. He no longer felt numb; in fact, he practically burnt with a new purpose. The only way I can reform the system... Is if I install a new leader to change it from the top down.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 16: A Student Reporter


(A big thank you to Siatru, and to Grig9700 and to Sunny for beta reading this chapter. It's been a while, eh? Thank you for your patience.)


I woke up bright and early on Christmas morning, well rested and full of energy, to find Ohgi already up and stirring a pan full of eggs on the hotplate. As I untangled myself from my sleeping bag and clambered to my feet, I saw Naoto was still asleep, crashed out on his bed, still in his worker's overalls. Apparently, the team had gotten back safely the night before; I sincerely doubted that Ohgi and Naoto would have let me remain asleep if one of our comrades was in danger, and I couldn't imagine Naoto blissfully sleeping away the morning if something had gone wrong. It seems like they didn't need my help after all.


As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I tried to figure out why that prospect annoyed me so much. The plan had been inspired by Ohgi's idea, but I had been the one to actually work out the details; nobody, myself included, could reasonably say that I hadn't been involved in the operation, that I hadn't done my part. At the same time, I had gone out of my way to go to bed early and on a full stomach so I could use every scrap of my magic to bail out Naoto, Tamaki, and the others when the plan inevitably went off the rails – and yet, here I was, accepting a plate of eggs from Ohgi with a mumbled "Good morning", still wearing the oversized t-shirt and sweatpants I'd worn to bed the night before.


That's it – I'm all pent up! The answer, I realized as I took a bite of scrambled eggs, was obvious. I'd practically been bouncing off the walls the last few weeks as my arm and side recovered, and only Kallen's invitations to join her on trips to the Settlement, along with the promise of a return to my typical work at the end of this week, had kept me sane. I had gotten myself all worked up over the possibility of going out and getting some exercise after three weeks, and now that I had been denied that release, I was unreasonably irritated. That's all there is to it. I like peaceful work, but exercise is important for a stress-free life.


"So? How'd it go?" Ohgi looked up from his own plate and glared sternly back from across the table, refusing to answer until I'd swallowed the mouthful of breakfast and asked the question again.


"Well..." Ohgi drew out the last syllable as he pushed a forkful of egg around on his plate, considering his answer. "I think it's safe to call it a 'qualified success' overall." Seeing my inquisitively raised eyebrow, he hastily continued. "Everybody got home safe, and it doesn't look like the Brits tracked anything back to Shinjuku, which is the good thing. The other good thing is that Tamaki confirmed at least three Purists died last night – he got one, Gin got another, and Gin and Inuyama ganged up on the third. So, we got what we came for, and we got away clean." I nodded, and Ohgi popped a hasty bite into his mouth, and quickly chewed and swallowed before continuing.


"The bad part is what came after. It's still hard to tell what happened exactly, but some time after the team retreated, buildings suddenly started being lit on fire. I could see the glow from up on the roof – especially since it looked like all the fires were in the Honorary Britannian neighborhoods, so, y'know, close to Shinjuku." Ohgi put down his fork and leaned back in his chair, rubbing thoughtfully at his chin as he looked off into the middle distance. "I could hear the sounds of yelling and screaming from the roof too, not to mention the sounds of lots of angry people breaking a ton of stuff." He looked back at me, and winced sympathetically, no doubt at the expression on my face. "I can only assume that someone saw the uniforms the team was wearing, and decided mob justice was in order."


I scowled as I nodded my acknowledgment, my earlier concerns about the well-being of my comrades and my own annoyance swept away by the sudden flood of worry, anger, and... a little bit of guilt. I had known that it was all but inevitable that the Honorary Britannians would be at least partially blamed for the murders we had committed, but I'd hoped having the "Honorary Britannians" be led by an apparent Britannian would direct the blame more towards other Britannian factions, with the Honorary Britannians treated as the blunt instruments of their foreign officers. The worst I had expected was a handful of show trials of unlucky soldiers on trumped up charges, followed by executions. That would have further blackened the Purists' name, and undermined the loyalty of the Honorary Britannian troops, but it would have been limited in scope and the only Japanese to die would have been the ones who had sworn themselves to the armed service of our occupier. Instead, it looked like the Purists had taken the excuse I'd handed them and initiated a pogrom. It was impossible to tell the scope of the damage at this point, but unquestionably civilians had suffered – men and women doing their best to do as the system demanded in order to live the best lives they could. And I was partially to blame. I had followed in the footsteps of the rebel groups of my youth, only I'd been smart enough to attack outside the ghetto so the retaliatory scourge would fall on someone else's back for a change.


Before I let myself get too far down that train of thought, I paused, and re-examined the facts as I understood them: Agents under my direction and in disguise had murdered a handful of soldiers in a glorified street fight, and in response the Britannians had... organized a mob attack on their own loyal collaborators? None of this is your fault – if anybody's at fault for troops running wild in the streets, it's their idiot leaders who couldn't or wouldn't control their men. Besides, the Britannians were the ones who invaded us, and who have engaged in mass executions as a matter of policy; taking ownership for their fuckups is simple stupidity. The latter thought was probably more in keeping with the truth of the matter – the Britannians had proven themselves as vicious in their treatment of their "loyal subjects" as they always had been when handling the conquered population of Japan. Whatever had happened last night had little to do with my actions; three dead Purists and a flash of Honorary Britannian uniforms had proven to be the catalyst, but the hatred and contempt for the Honorary Britannians had clearly predated Christmas Eve.


All of this talk of fault was meaningless anyhow – the Britannians weren't going to back down and reform their corrupt system to something more equitable and efficient, and I wasn't going to stop fighting against their tyrannical, murderous, and exploitative system because they killed some of the millions of Japanese that lived as functional hostages under their cruelty. All too often, blood was the price for meaningful change, and changing Area 11 was always going to be expensive.


Besides, if the enemy wanted to butcher their loyal soldiers and their families in the street, who was I to disturb them in the midst of making a mistake?


"We need to find out what's going on in the Settlement." I set my fork down on the emptied plate, taking a moment to marvel how eggs had gone from the rare luxury item they had been when I'd met Ohgi and Naoto back to the common ingredient they had once been. "Clearly, something unexpected happened last night. If you're correct that the Settlement's been taken over by roving mobs, that could present an incredible opportunity to strike before the Administration regains control; on the other hand, if those mobs are heading towards Shinjuku after they finish off the Honorary Britannians, we need to know that too so we can prepare a welcome for them."


Ohgi nodded. "Inoue already knows something's up in the Settlement today, and she'll let Tamaki know once he gets up. Nagata's hanging out with the 5th Block Safety Committee right now, ready to pass on the word if it looks like that mess is coming our way. Souichiro and Chihiro are at the hideout, ready to break open our supplies if we give the word."


"What about the others?" It was still something I had to consciously remind myself of, but our small cell was growing by leaps and bounds. Besides Souichiro and Chihiro, the four former gangsters – Hojo, Hina, Gin, and Inuyama – were unquestionably part of our organization now, having gone on multiple combat missions with Naoto and conducted themselves well. Kasumi, one of the former slave prostitutes who had accepted Chihiro and Naoto's offer to join us, had taken on the role of Inoue's dedicated assistant, wanting little to do with violence in general and the former gangsters under Tamaki in particular, while four other freed slaves had begun combat training under Souichiro, Tamaki, and when she was free and in Shinjuku, Kallen.


"Aina and Misato are at the hideout with Chihiro and Souichiro, ready to help hand out weapons if the need comes – apparently, Chihiro's taking the opportunity to drill them on the range while they're waiting." Ohgi smiled at that, clearly proud that his one-time student had inherited his dedication to teaching. "Hojo and Makoto,"-one of the other former slave prostitutes-"are on a roof near the southeast checkpoint keeping an eye open to see if any troops start moving in." The southeast entrance into Shinjuku, along with the southern entrance, had the largest gates and were the most likely path into the ghetto for any armored elements. "Hina's keeping watch over the Rising Sun while Kasumi and Inori are helping Inoue hand out the daily food boxes."


I nodded my thanks at Ohgi. It's such a pleasure to have competent and proactive comrades. Ohgi completely lacked Weiss's professionalism, but he was starting to approach Vi... Visha's ability to preemptively handle the details before I'd thought to deal with them. "Thank you, Ohgi."


I darted over to the clothes I'd carefully laid out last night, in the event I needed to rush off to do battle at a moment's notice. Retrieving my current burner phone from a pant pocket, I punched in Kallen's number from memory as I made my way over to the furthest corner of the room from where Naoto was snoring. No need to distract Kallen with the background noise, and no need to wake up my sleeping leader.


Fortunately, Kallen was already up and answered on the first ring. "Something's happening in the Concession!" Her voice was breathless and stressed as she picked up the phone and immediately got down to business. "I can see at least three plumes of smoke just from my window!"

"Are you in danger right now?" I hadn't expected the rioting to get anywhere near any of the noble neighborhoods, since that's where the Purists lived, but perhaps someone had taken the opportunity to settle a score or two...


"Eh? Oh! No, they're all pretty far off. Do you know what's happening?"


I quickly filled her in on what Ohgi had told me: Our unit had successfully exfiltrated after leaving multiple Purists dead in the street, hopefully fulfilling the requirements of our backers, and now the Honorary Britannian neighborhoods near Shinjuku were on fire.


"Past that point, it's all speculation." I shrugged, hoping the gesture would carry through my voice. "Ohgi and I think it's likely that the Purists are the ones behind it all, but we don't have any concrete evidence of that."


There was a pause for a moment, but I could hear Kallen's heavy breathing on the other end of the line. After a few seconds, her voice came back in, taut with emotion. "W-why... Why do you think they're doing this? What's the point of killing the H-Honorary Britannians? They've done everything they were supposed to..."


The answer that immediately leapt to my mind was a trite "nobody likes a traitor", but didn't ring true – the Honorary Britannians forsaking family, culture, and tradition in favor of loyalty to Britannia fit what I understood Britannia's ideals to be perfectly. Besides being inaccurate, a flippant answer like that would have been cruel; it didn't take an experienced officer and manager to tell that Kallen was deeply worried by a potential Honorary Britannian purge, and thanks to my trip months ago to the Stadtfeld Manor, I knew exactly why she was so concerned, and so I chose to answer the question she hadn't asked first.


"I'm fairly certain your mother's safe, Kallen." The sharp intake of breath told me I'd read the situation correctly, but I pressed on before she could butt in. Kallen's worried and scared for her mother – once Naoto wakes up, I'm sure he'll be too. "She lives in a noble manor, and nobody's going to go house to house forcing nobles to hand over their domestics to the mob; more importantly, she's got the eye of a noble – two nobles, in fact, the Lord and Heir of House Stadtfeld. She's probably the safest Honorary Britannian in the city." I paused, letting those words sink in. Over the phone, I heard Kallen take a deep breath, slowly reigning her anxiety and fear back under control. "Besides, she's not a soldier, and I'm going to bet that the Honorary Britannian soldiers are probably the priority target for the mobs, if the Purists really are behind whatever's happening."


"Because our comrades wore Honorary Britannian uniforms." It wasn't a question. Kallen had, of course, been deeply involved with the information gathering process for the plan, and she'd known what the uniforms we'd stolen were for.


"That's definitely the bloody shirt they'll be waving, yes." I acknowledged, making my thoughts clear on the grounds for that excuse. "And if a few men dying in a brawl were enough to touch off a murderous assault on their fellow loyal subjects – including the soldiers most motivated to zealously carry out any order given – clearly there's more to it than just that. These sorts of things don't just happen, Kallen. Whatever happened last night's been coming for quite some time, and we just happened to hand the bastards an excuse. Don't let them paint our hands red with the blood they've shed – our hands are going to be bloody enough by the time this all ends as is."


Amazingly, Kallen laughed at that. It was a familiar laugh, a jeering laugh laden with a bleak humor, one that reminded me of the trenches, and of passing sandbags down a row of soldiers from where they were being filled in a relay trench to the forward-most line.


Back on the Rhine Front, enough men had been pulverized by artillery that loose body parts were far from uncommon. During the bad times, when the typical barrages had accelerated to constant drumfire for hours, if not days – when it was days, that always meant our sector had been chosen for Francois assault – only mages could leave the trenches without at least a fifty percent chance of death, and our time and energy were too valuable to spend on evacuating corpses. The fallen had been buried into the walls and floors of our dugouts and trenches, and as the men who had buried those unfortunates were themselves killed, the exact locations of all the bodies had been forgotten. When it came time to dig dirt out of the sides of the trench or the floor to fill new sandbags, however, those dead had returned to our awareness, and more often than not the sandbags we'd passed man to girl to man had rotting flesh mixed in with the sand and the loam. It had become a common joke for someone to call out what part of "Willy" was in each sandbag, along with an adjective. "Willy's dirty hands here" were passed down the line, followed by "Willy's shit-filled guts here". It had been hilarious, down in the dirt and the constant stench of death, covered in fleas. We had laughed, infantry and mages both, at the cruelty of the world and how small we were.


That was the laugh I heard from Kallen, and I knew that her worries, while not past, would not trouble her again. In the worst pits of that muddy hell, it was the men capable of cynical laughter in one moment, and breathtaking feats of heroism in the next, who could truly be counted on. I knew Kallen, and while she was still young, she had already proven herself to me. I knew I could count on her. Besides, she's not as young as I was when I went into the trenches near Kaiserslautern.


"Oh, I guess they will be, Tanya, I guess they will be." Kallen took a moment to clear her throat, coughing on what sounded like a vaguely manic giggle. "Anyway, how can I help? Should I head over to Shinjuku right away?"


I smiled fondly into the phone, watching Ohgi crawl onto his bunk and fall asleep after a night up keeping watch for our comrades returning from the belly of the beast. "Not quite, Kallen. Right now, our first priority is information – we need to find out what happened last night after Naoto and Tamaki retreated, and we need to find out what the Britannians think is going on. At the moment, you seem the best placed to get answers." I thought back to her notebook full of names and connections. "Do you think any of your school connections with loose lipped parents know anything?"


"No clue." Kallen's answer was depressingly quick. "Milly might, since she seems to know everything, but I don't want to ask her. She'd immediately ask why I'm interested, and she's already way too curious about me."


That was a disappointing, although not unexpected answer. Kallen's antipathy towards Milly had subsided into the background of her reports, but that didn't mean it had faded in the slightest. Considering the second-hand accounts of her behavior I'd read in Kallen's notes, lines like "Milly tried to grab my breasts", "Milly implied that I was trading sexual favors for grades", and "Milly commented on how tight my school swimsuit is" interspersed between gossip about military activity and overheard speculation on Clovis's growing affiliation with the Purist Faction, I could fully understand why Kallen was so angry with the other girl. Unfortunately, budding sexual offender or not, the same reports made it clear that Milly was a startlingly intelligent young woman who had a deep network of informants that supplemented her access to her grandfather's files. If she had heard anything of use through her connections, which included the children of Purist officers and of the noble families that sympathized with and backed those officers, I might have to order Kallen to bite the bullet and ask the walking HR headache for a favor...


I suddenly realized that Kallen was still talking, and hastily dragged my attention back to our conversation. "-be a bit risky, but I think it would be the best way to get some answers. Plus, it worked before, so it might work again."


"I'm sorry, Kallen." I apologized with a grimace at my own wandering thoughts. Always pay attention when your employees are speaking! Doing otherwise will make them feel undervalued! "I was distracted. What did you say?"


"Well, uhh..." Kallen coughed self-consciously through the phone, and I could practically imagine the stubborn blush spreading across her cheeks. "I was just saying that I could try the student reporter excuse again. Something's obviously happening, so I could just tell anyone who stops me that I just wanted to get a scoop for the student paper. And I know it might be a bit risky, but I don't think anyone is going to get super upset with an idiot schoolgirl sticking her nose into serious matters..."


"Excellent idea." My praise was sincere, but I made an effort to inject an extra dose of enthusiasm and relief into it to make up for inadvertently tuning her out earlier. "Be careful, bring your knife, and let me know if you need any help or backup – I'll be waiting with Nagata, and we'll be on our way as fast as possible if you need us."


---------


Several minutes of reassuring her friend and leader that yes, she did in fact know what she was doing when it came to dressing up as a student reporter later, Kallen finally managed to end the call, shaking her head with fond exasperation.


Tanya was frighteningly intense in all that she did, which was mostly an advantage when it came to waging war on a brutal, evil occupation while running a charity as a side gig, but her tendency to micromanage could be intensely annoying at times. Kallen had actually brought that up during one of her increasingly rare visits to her brother's apartment, and while Naoto had commiserated with her frustration, he had also pointed out that Tanya's controlling behavior shouldn't be seen as some sort of implicit criticism or a lack of faith. When Kallen had first met Tanya, she had already seemed extremely self-possessed and utterly confident, stopping short of arrogant only because of her incredible skill. And because of a moment of kindness and reassurance on a nameless Shinjuku street. Naoto, on the other hand, had first met Tanya when she still flinched whenever anybody moved near her, always anticipating an attack. The way he'd told it, even convincing her that she could eat their food had been a struggle, even though she was obviously hungry, and that hurdle had only been cleared once she'd been convinced she'd earned her meals. Her controlling behavior now, Naoto had pointed out, was definitely a reaction to growing up in a ghetto where life was cheap and food was scarce even for hard workers and strong backs.


"Besides," Naoto had said, draining the last of his cup of watered-down rotgut, "she couldn't do anything about her mom dying last summer. I bet you she's thinking that if she plans everything out just perfectly, none of us are gonna die. So far, she's been right about that."


That had been a sobering thought, and a bleak note to end their meeting on, but both Kozuki siblings had work to do for the Cause. That private moment of darkness, of the knowledge that "so far" could only go for so long, had been a reminder about how incredibly lucky they had been. Although he no longer openly, or even quietly, tried to convince her to back out, Kallen knew that her brother still wanted her as far from the front line as possible, and his enthusiasm about her intelligence gathering operations was very poorly concealed.


"But Big Bro, those operations are why I need to stay. It's something only I can do for the Cause," Kallen muttered to herself as she hastily dressed, pulling on the stylish outfit she'd worn during her trip into the Settlement earlier in the week. After a quick look in the mirror, she swapped out the blouse in favor of a white button-down, so she could wear her school tie for that extra "schoolgirl reporter" flair. As she carefully brushed her hair into the right amount of stylish dishevelment to complete the look, a knock came from the door.


"Enter!" Although Kallen kept looking into the mirror, her eyes were fixed on the reflection of the door rather than her face, and her hand crept close to the compact with its concealed knife. She had a standing order that the servants weren't to disturb her in the morning on weekends or holidays, and her stepmother never came to her room herself, preferring to summon her to the parlor on the rare occasions they were forced to speak. Who the hell could that be...?


The door opened slightly, and to Kallen's mild surprise her mother, her real mother, slipped inside, smoothly closing the door behind her. The facade of the perfect maid held for a second, before her mother's posture cracked as it only did when they were alone and in private and she rushed across the room, enfolding Kallen in a hug and pulling her to her chest. To Kallen's surprise, she could feel her mother shuddering against her, and felt a warm wetness in her hair where her mother had buried her face.


"M-mom? Are you okay?" Gingerly, Kallen wrapped her arms around her mother and returned the hug, desperately running through the list of possibilities for this uncharacteristically uncontrolled behavior. "Are the other servants messing with you again?" A tightly controlled knot of rage began to pulse in her chest, and Kallen strove to keep the traditional Stadtfeld temper under control. This isn't the time to fly off the handle. "Did that bitch hit you again?"


"Kallen, please, please..." Her mother's voice was deeply stressed, full of nearly uncontrollable fear and worry. "Please tell me Naoto's okay. I heard from Ohgi yesterday that he was going into the Concession for a job but... But I haven't heard from him since... Since... Kallen, please..."


Oh, Naoto, you idiot! "Don't worry Mom – I just got off the phone with Tanya. Everybody got home safely. He's sleeping in his apartment right now." Kallen winced as her mother's embrace tightened just a bit more, and immediately began making her brother's excuses. "He probably got in super early, Mom! He didn't want to wake you up! I bet you he was gonna call you as soon as he woke up!"


"That stupid inconsiderate idiot boy!" The hug suddenly turned vicelike. "Thinks that just because he's a big grown man I won't haul him over my knee? Make me stay up all night thinking he was dead or hurt while the whole damned Concession goes crazy? That no-good idiot boy! I raised him better, Kallen!"


Kallen soothingly rubbed her mother's back, trying to convey sympathy while she kept an eye on the door. Hope nobody's close enough to hear a bunch of angry Japanese... And I hope she remembers I'm not Naoto before she breaks my ribs. "Mom, Mom... You're right, Mom. He's an idiot. But he's alive, and he's safe... So, uh... Can you let go?"


Thankfully, her mother got the message, releasing Kallen to her relief. For a moment, her mother looked like she was about to continue her rant, before visibly taking a moment to calm down. Then, to Kallen's rising sense of dread, she took a moment to look her daughter up and down, from her school tie to her booted feet. "And where might you be headed this morning, Mistress Kallen?" The tone was asked in a sweet tone, as subservient as any maid's voice should be, but in Kallen's ears the words sounded as heavy and implacable as an oncoming sledgehammer.


"Well, uhh..." Kallen coughed nervously, damning the embarrassed heat she could feel on her cheeks. It was amazing how repairing her relationship with her mother had suddenly given her "maid" the power to make her feel like a child again. "Tanya asked me to find out what exactly happened last night, so... Ahh... I was going to go out and take a look...?"


For a second, Kallen was certain that her mother would, despite their status as maid and mistress, try to put her in time out and confine her to her room for the rest of the week, only allowing her to leave for school. She wouldn't have had the power to enforce any such edict, but Kallen doubted that would stop her mother, worked up as she was after a night wondering if her eldest child was dead.


After a moment, though, her mother sighed, shook her head, and wrapped her arms around Kallen again, not the crushing embrace of worry and anger but a light hug, reassuring herself that her daughter was still there, and reassuring her daughter that she wasn't about to be subjected to maternal fury. "You're just like your brother." Her mother's voice was warm in Kallen's ear. "Stubborn and stupid, and far too brave for your own good." With a last gentle squeeze, Kallen found herself released as her mother retreated back across the room, back towards the door. "Should I have the car brought around for you, Mistress Kallen?"


Kallen gulped down the dense wad of emotions blocking her throat and hastily rubbed the tears from her eyes. You were always there, Momma, looking out for me and Naoto... "N-no, that's fine. I don't want anyone to know where I'm going. I'll just catch a bus or something."


Her mother turned as she opened the door. "Mistress Kallen, haven't you heard that the public transportation system has been temporarily shut down in light of last night's... events?"


Dammit! No, Kallen had not realized that little wrinkle when she'd volunteered her services to be Tanya's eyes and ears. I can't call a driver -the bitch will know I'm out and about, and might start asking questions... I need a ride... Hey, wait a second... A few days earlier, Kallen had accompanied two of her fellow members of the Student Paper to do a story on the Motor Club, and to take pictures of the club members with their personal vehicles. To her surprise, one of the members of the Motor Club had been Rivalz Cardemonde, the same young man she'd convinced to sign the papers making him the nominal director of the Rising Sun Benevolent Association. Rivalz had posed with a motorcycle with a sidecar, smiling proudly under a pair of dorky goggles and a bicycle helmet Kallen doubted was rated for use on a motorcycle.


Kallen darted back to her desk and scooped up her phone, frantically paging through her contacts, and letting out a sigh of relief once she reached the "R's". She'd asked for Rivalz's number after she had convinced him to sign the papers, and he'd been all too eager to give it to her, nearly dropping her phone as he typed it into the new contact. She'd never had a reason to use it before, and thankfully he'd never tried to call or text her after the first exchange of confirmation texts, but now...


"Thank you, but the car won't be necessary." Kallen turned back to her mother and smiled. "I've got a guy." Immediately, her mother's eyes narrowed and Kallen felt her already red cheeks light up anew as she realized what her mother had just heard. "No! I mean, he's got a motorcycle!" As soon as the words were out, Kallen knew that she hadn't helped her case.


Her mother glared at her for a moment longer, before shaking her head. "I didn't say anything when Naoto went to live with Ohgi, so I won't say anything to you. Just... Be safe." And before Kallen could dig the hole she'd fallen into deeper by trying to correct her mother, the door closed, leaving Kallen gaping open-mouthed at the polished wood.


Rivalz picked up on the third ring. "Kallen? Is that you? I'd totally forgotten you had my number! Merry Christmas!"


Kallen smiled vapidly at nobody, staring at the distant plumes of rising smoke from her bedroom window. "Merry Christmas to you too, Rivalz! Have you finished unwrapping your presents yet?"


Rivalz chuckled. "Ah, you know it! I got a pretty good haul this year – how about you?"


"Oh, my family doesn't really do Christmas – especially since Daddy's still back in the Homeland." Kallen easily slipped into her role, letting her sentences end on a rising inflection, full of peppiness. "Anyway, my stepmother is still sleeping in, and since I didn't have anything to do today, I figured I'd try to get some work done for the school paper. Wanna help me?"


There was a pause, before Rivalz responded. "Umm... Sure, I guess? I don't really have anything going on for the next few hours, and then I need to meet up with a buddy..."


"Great!" Kallen chirped before he could try to back out or make excuses. "I'll text you my address! Bring your bike – I'm gonna need a ride!" She smiled at the sound of a hasty acceptance. And now to make sure he doesn't get cold feet. "Thanks, Rivalz! You're the best – I really need help, but I'm also really happy to go on a ride with you!" As he sputtered in her ear, Kallen disconnected the call and sent two texts, one to Rivalz with her address, the second to Naoto warning him that he'd better be ready to grovel for forgiveness from their mother.


Twenty minutes of waiting by the gate of Stadtfeld Manor later, Kallen climbed into Rivalz's side-car, swapping out her flat cap for a helmet. Wish I hadn't bothered to fix my hair up – it's all gonna be crushed flat by this thing.


As he revved his motor, Rivalz yelled a question over the noise, still managing to sound tentative about talking to a pretty girl while doing so. "So, uhh... Where are we going, Kallen? You didn't actually say what you were doing for the paper over the phone, you know..." And finally the penny drops.


Kallen lowered her own pair of goggles into place over her eyes, looked up at Rivalz from her lower position in the sidecar, and smiled up at him. "As a reporter, I want to figure out just what happened last night – and to do that, we need to go to the Honorary Britannian neighborhoods, over by the Shinjuku Ghetto."


As expected, Rivalz was less than thrilled. He immediately killed his engine and turned to her, eyes wide and incredulous behind his goggles. "Are you insane?! Kallen, that whole place is still on fire!"


"Then we'd better get there to take some pictures before someone decides to put out all the buildings they set on fire!" Kallen retorted, momentarily forgetting her mask. Seeing Rivalz's eyes widen in surprise, she immediately started backtracking. "Sorry, it's... Look, this is important, right? Something big happened last night, and nobody's talking about it yet – they're only saying people should avoid those areas. But that's where the news is happening! I need to get there and get the story before this all gets swept under the rug!"


Rivalz still looked conflicted. "But... It could be dangerous, you know..."


Sensing that he was wavering, Kallen moved in for the kill. Reaching out, she rested her hand on his outer thigh, currently at the rough height of her shoulder, and leaned in, ignoring his sudden blush. "Rivalz, we're both clearly Britannian – nobody's going to mess with us. Besides, don't you want to have a little... adventure?" Kallen felt dirty as she added the seductive twist to her last word, but stamped her qualms down. Anything for the Cause, for my mission. Tanya's counting on me.


Thankfully for Kallen's dignity, her last appeal seemed to have tilted the scales; Rivalz's gaze firmed, and he nodded, earlier reluctance seemingly forgotten. "You're right. It's important that the student body knows what's happening in the world around them!"


Kallen just nodded and smiled, concealing her embarrassment and rising impatience as best she could. "I'm glad we're on the same page. Let's get going – the news isn't going to write itself!"


As a far off church bell tolled nine, Rivalz took the nearest highway exit to Shinjuku and followed Kallen's directions as she guided them towards the outpost she had visited the previous week. She doubted that the Britannian officers in charge of the pocket installation would be as eager to offer her hospitality as before, to say nothing of indulging a cute student reporter and answering interview questions, but Kallen remembered how eager the younger soldiers were to talk to her and how they spilled everything they knew at the slightest hint of feminine interest. I'm sure they'll be falling over themselves to talk about how they beat up the uppity Elevens.


Kallen deliberately kept her thoughts on the process of preparing to fawn over bloody-handed butchers, doing her best to sink into her noble Britannian persona. It was easier to don the mask of the perfect aristocratic daughter, benignly interested in the affairs of those below her and so supportive of His Majesty's men in uniform, everything that Kozuki Kallen hated. Focusing on shaping the perfect simpering smile was easy, and staying focused on the possibility of information gathering made it easier to ignore the rising feeling of guilt as her sidecar rolled past shops with broken windows and a burnt out car. We're pretty far from the outpost... and that's where the unit we stole those uniforms are... With practiced effort, Kallen shoved that line of thought down into the dark and turned to examine her driver for the day.


Rivalz looked, unsurprisingly, shaken by the property damage all around them. As they passed a pharmacy that had clearly seen an attempt at arson, judging by the thick black smudging over its smashed in windows and broken door, he gulped hard enough for Kallen to see from her position in the sidecar. This is probably the first time he's ever seen anything like this. Kallen supposed she'd be equally disturbed if she hadn't seen the immediate aftermath of Mister Asahara's little surprises, or if she still didn't carry around foggy memories of the Conquest. She'd been out of the worst of it, but Naoto hadn't always been able to cover her eyes fast enough back in those chaotic months.


Kallen reached up and gently patted the side of Rivalz's leg. She didn't have any personal grudge against the boy, and he'd been quite helpful – unbeknownst to him – with the Rising Sun; she could spare him a bit of reassurance. "It's probably gonna be worse once we get closer to the outpost." It only seemed fair to warn him. Plus, it'd be a shame if he lost his lunch while driving the motorcycle. "If you want to drop me off here, I can go on alone."


Rivalz looked shocked at the idea, stealing an incredulous look at Kallen before turning his eyes back on the road. "Hell no! I'm not gonna dump you off by the side of the road in the middle of a war zone!" He shook his head. "Let's just get this over with, so I can get back home."


Kallen just nodded. Well, can't say I didn't try. She looked up at Rivalz, and approvingly noted that the boy's expression had firmed up. It's strange... He's my age, but for some reason it feels like he's way younger... Hell, Tanya feels older than him, especially when she zones out... Her age or not, innocent or not, so far Rivalz had risen to the occasion; Kallen hoped that he'd continue to prove reliable moving forwards – his name was on too many important documents, and a mental break would draw unwanted attention towards the charity he "sponsored".


Despite the handful of junked cars and the abundance of garbage strewn across the street, Rivalz skillfully navigated his mechanical steed, sidecar and all, down the cluttered roads of the Honorary Britannian neighborhood. To Kallen's vague discomfort, the streets were eerily deserted, without a single pedestrian in evidence as they cruised down the roads littered with evidence from the previous night. A few minutes, and many vandalized buildings, later the white-washed concrete of the outpost's walls emerged from the endless rows of shops and apartment high rises, coils of razor wire glinting in the winter morning sunlight over the top of the surrounding roofs.


Despite the bravado of the Britannian flag waving over the strong walls, the installation had an undeniably defensive air, like an injured boxer preparing to ward off incoming blows. Unlike the last time Kallen had visited, the steel bars of the gates were raised and the smaller pedestrian entrance had been chained shut. As Rivalz slowed to a stop on the frontage road in front of the garrison – the raised road spikes prevented them from actually approaching the sealed vehicle entrance – Kallen noted that the paint around the pedestrian entrance was blackened and peeling, and the concrete peeking out from under the institutional eggshell cover was chipped, as if someone had spent a considerable amount of time hammering away at the wall.


Kallen raised her cellphone and quickly snapped a picture of the chained gate surrounded by the halo of soot. So the mob definitely came here last night... Did they get in? Through the lens of her camera, Kallen noticed what looked like a deserted triage site on the parade ground between the two Honorary Britannian barracks, a row of cots with bloodstained linen surrounded by discarded fatigues and soiled bandages. She could vaguely make out several men sitting against one of the barracks walls flanked on either side by a pair of armed soldiers before her view of the interior was abruptly obscured by a Britannian uniform.


"Oy! What the hell are you lookin' at? Get the fuck outta here!" The approaching soldier who stepped out from behind the wall and into the frame of the pedestrian gate, voice thick with the accent of New Belfast, gesticulated from behind the steel bars, one hand waving the pair of teenagers off while the other rested on the rifle hanging from his shoulder. "Get outta here and get yerselves home, now!"


As soon as she saw the gun, Kallen felt the familiar rush of icy heat as her adrenaline spiked. The coal of fury at the Brit bastards who had come from beyond the sea to ravage her people that always smoldered in her belly flared to life at the possibility of a fight, while the cold water of discipline kept the inferno tightly controlled, leashed until it was time to make them the victims for a change. But that time isn't now – and you're not a Kozuki. Not right now.


Quickly hitting the 'Record' button on her phone, Kallen summoned up her memories of how confident and righteous Tanya had sounded in that ruined office a block from Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station before responding. "What happened here last night?" she yelled back, feeling Rivalz's rising anxiety like a palpable pressure on her back and ignoring it. "Who tried to break down the gate? Did anybody get hurt?"


Two more soldiers appeared behind the first. "Last chance," one of the new arrivals shouted back, a sergeant's chevron painted on the breastplate of his uniform, as he raised his rifle in their vague direction. "This is a restricted area. By Prince Clovis's order, we have the authority to open fire on all potential threats. Leave immediately."


As the barrel of the rifle swung their way, Kallen began to repeat her questions, but Rivalz apparently hit his tolerance for danger. The bike's engine roared back to life, and Kallen barely had time to stop the recording and shove the phone back into her pocket before they rocketed off down the street. Spurred by the threat from behind, which Kallen was almost certain had been a bluff, Rivalz sped off at breakneck speed, recklessly weaving around debris. Only a few blocks away, though, he was forced to slow to a more reasonable speed as the debris thickened, stopping entirely at a three way intersection jammed by the cadaver of a burnt out delivery truck. The wheels had melted and the interior of the cab was just a mass of blackened plastic, but the steel frame still completely blocked the roadbed.


As the engine sputtered and died, Rivalz stood up from the bike and staggered away, nearly collapsing to his knees before catching himself against a nearby streetlight. From the sidecar, Kallen could see his body shiver as the adrenaline flood of a near-death experience stimulated every muscle with the need to flee. She pulled the helmet and goggles off, unnoticed sweat instantly chilly on her face and scalp in the midwinter air, and took the opportunity to stand up from the cramped confines of the sidecar, booted feet crunching on shattered glass. Hope Rivalz paid for self-sealing tires or something.


Stretching her back, Kallen took a moment to look around. The area had been nice enough, once, with a barbershop, a liquor store, and interestingly enough, a tattoo parlor all in a strip mall sharing a parking lot, while two three story apartment buildings framed the third leg of the intersection. The tattoo parlor in particular was a sign that this was a neighborhood of people determined to adapt Britannian foibles, as tattoos still made most Japanese think immediately of the yakuza. All of those observations faded into irrelevance as she looked back at Rivalz, and at the streetlight he was leaning against.


The rope was short, incredibly so. Only a foot at most between the arch of the streetlight and the grisly burden dangling over Rivalz's head. Distantly, Kallen noticed that a pair of ladders presumably looted from a hardware store somewhere had been left in the parking lot, one buried in the shattered windshield of a minivan, and she wondered how the uniformed soldier had been forced to climb that rickety aluminum scaffold, particularly with his hands bound. She could only imagine what must have waited down below on the street to make him climb that ladder to the waiting self-appointed hangman and the noose, far too short for neckbreaking but the perfect length for an agonizing death by strangulation.


Moving carefully, as if too sudden an action would disturb the sepulchral tranquility of the scene, silent but for Rivalz's harsh breathing and the distant sounds of traffic, Kallen pulled her phone out of her pocket and snapped one, two, three pictures of the hanged man, taking care to capture the unit and rank badges still visible on his shoulder and chest. The face was mangled, cheekbones broken and eyes swollen shut, but the agony was clear on the gray features; member of His Majesty's Armed Forces or not, Kallen was grimly certain that nobody had pulled on the poor man's legs to speed his exit from the world.


Ever since she had realized that the rising smoke came not from the ghetto but from the homes and businesses of Honorary Britannians, Kallen had wrestled with her emotions, trying to figure out what she should feel about the sudden wave of fratricidal violence that her rebel band had helped unleash. A cruel voice, the same one that had once sneered at her mother's weakness, had savored every burnt building and smashed window, each piece of evidence that Britannia's bootlickers were getting kicked by their masters, that their debasement had been a futile attempt to escape the horrible situation they'd abandoned their countrymen to. Another voice, one that carried Naoto's assurance and Ohgi's caring tones, pointed out that Honorary Britannian or not, Eleven or not, these were people who were suffering, the majority of whom had probably only been doing the best they could to keep their families healthy and safe, and that nobody deserved to be murdered by a mob of the worst of Britannia.


A third voice, one that sounded eerily like Hajime Tanya, said that it didn't really matter how Kallen felt about the hanged man, nor about the family he left behind or the community that had been devastated in the same murderous wave that had swamped the Honorary Britannians of the Tokyo Settlement; all that mattered was that the image of an Honorary Britannian in the uniform of the Britannian Army hung from a streetlight by a Britannian mob was political dynamite, if used correctly.


The bastards gave us the rope to hang them when they hung you. Kallen found herself talking to the nameless soldier, already reduced to an object absent of life, and soon to be reduced to a mere propaganda point if she did her job correctly. I don't know who you were, or what you did in life, but I'll make sure you serve Japan in death. Anything for the cause. She inclined her head slightly, the closest she could let herself go to bowing her respect towards the deceased while in the company of a Britannian.


In the company of a Britannian... Suddenly, Kallen remembered that Rivalz was still leaning against the post, taking deep, calming breaths, completely unaware of the boots dangling ten feet over his head. Shit! I've gotta get him away from there before he realizes I just let him stand under a corpse!


"Rivalz," Kallen began, letting a little bit of Kozuki Kallen, insurgent, slip into the honeyed voice of Kallen Stadtfeld, socialite. "I need you to come over here. Right now." Rivalz started to turn towards her, an inquisitive look on his face, looking around for whatever it was that she'd seen. Dammit, just come! His eyes widened, and Kallen cursed internally as she realized she'd spoken that thought aloud. "Look, just... trust me. Get over here. Right now."


Rivalz shrugged, and trotted over to her, glass crunching under his sneakers. His face was still slightly ashen, but that typical puppylike smile so young, so innocent, had returned beneath his goggles. "What's up, Kallen? See something cool?"


Kallen felt her heart break slightly. I was such an idiot to ask you for a ride... I'm sorry, Rivalz. "Rivalz, we need to get back on your bike to leave, but when you turn around, you're going to see... something. Something really bad. I need you to understand that I didn't know, didn't expect this, and I need you to know that there's nothing we can do to help. Okay? You got it?"


Rivalz cocked his head, a look of confusion and uneasy amusement on his face. "Umm... Sure, I guess?" He chuckled. "Man, you sound pretty freaked out, Kallen! Last time I heard a warning like that, Nina was changing in the Council Room and Shirley was too embarrassed to just spit it out! I had no idea what she was talking about, so I just walked right in! Man, that Nina's tiny, but she slaps like a gorilla!" He laughed again, clearly expecting her to join in on his amusement.


Kallen had no idea what to say to that. It was like Rivalz had come from some totally different world, a far kinder and gentler world, one alien to her experience. She realized she had no idea what to say, how to couch the unspeakable in mere words. It dawned on Kallen that this was a window into "her" own culture, the culture of her father, the world of young nobles that she'd come to late and had always felt estranged from, unable to truly relate to her peers thanks to the memories of the Conquest and memories of Naoto coming home with bloody knuckles and torn clothes night after night. The Britannians were unquestionably monsters, but their children were, in a horrible way, innocent – not blameless, but innocent and thus ignorant – of the world around them.


And so, Kallen said nothing, unable to find the words to soften the blow, and merely watched as Rivalz turned from her, curious at what she had seen. She watched as he first looked side to side, before noticing the dangling boots and looking up.


For a moment, Rivalz just stood in place, before he staggered, rocking back on his heels and stumbling as his face twisted in revulsion in his attempt to get away from the grisly bundle of meat and cloth and nylon and vomiting into the gutter. The first effort was the most productive, but by the third and fourth retches the young man had fallen forward onto hands and knees, coughing and spitting and trying to expel the contents of an empty belly. He was heedless of the glass that carpeted the ground, and Kallen could only hope that he hadn't accidentally shoved too many shards into his hands when he'd fallen; she didn't know how to operate the motorcycle, after all. She didn't know why she suddenly felt so helpless, demoted to a mere spectator in a personal tragedy, mutely standing and watching the death of innocence. I... I don't know what to do here.


In a way, Kallen found she could relate to the young Britannian, who'd stopped vomiting but still knelt on all fours, trembling and twitching over the acrid bile; She'd been horribly naive when she'd followed Naoto into Shinjuku, demanding to join the fight for Japan's future. That blithe ignorance of the facts of life had vanished forever as she'd stared into the desperate eyes of the first man she killed, and it was only thanks to Tanya's intervention that she'd survived not only the desperate fight, but also the aftermath as sudden awareness of what she had done had come crashing down.


How had she done it back then? I got angry at her, she threw the anger back at me... Comforted me... Reassured me... and told me that it was all for the Cause...


Kallen felt the gears inside her mind shift back to life. She wasn't some genius planner, but she didn't have to be – she had a template to follow from someone who was, and enough intelligence to know how to mold it to fit the scenario now that the roles were reversed. Anything for the Cause... I know how to deal with anger, so the first thing to do is get him angry.


Kallen stooped down over Rivalz, hooked her arms under his armpits, and rose, dragging the surprisingly light boy back to his feet. He mumbled some vague protest before sagging in her arms; so she grabbed the collar of his shirt and briskly shook him, leaned him back against her side, and turned him back towards the hanging man. With her free hand, she tilted his head up towards the body, moving her own head beside his to look up with him at the unfortunate victim.


"Don't look away now, Rivalz!" Kozuki Kallen commanded, shaking the hapless Britannian again by his shirt as she spoke into his ear. "You've spent seventeen years looking away, but no more! This is Area Eleven – this is Japan – and this is what life is like! That man might be wearing a Britannian uniform, but he sure looked Eleven enough to the crowd!" She noticed that Rivalz had begun to stiffen up again, and slowly reduced the amount of his weight she was supporting. "That's what Britannia really looks like – so what're you going to do about it, Rivalz Cardemonde?"


Whether because of the shaking or the yelling in his ear, Rivalz seemed to have been shocked back into awareness; when Kallen took her hand off his head, he didn't slump forwards again. His eyes, overflowing with tears, were wide open and clear, and locked on the hanged man. Kallen looked down and saw his hands, which were thankfully only slightly cut up, had begun to curl into fists.


Good.


Kallen let go of Rivalz's collar and stepped back. "Well, what're you going to do about it, Rivalz? What are you going to do next?"


"What can I do?" Rivalz's voice was a husky shadow of what it had been only minutes earlier, devoid of the peppy enthusiasm and rough with raw emotion and lingering bile. "What can we even do? This... What the fuck, Kallen? We're just kids, this... this is way beyond us. What... What the hell happened here? Why the hell are we even out here?! Who did this to him?" As the questions kept coming his hands kept twitching and tightening, harder and harder, until he suddenly winced, the apparent stab of pain temporarily halting his spiraling thoughts. Shit, gotta take care of that. There might still be glass in there.


"That's what I'm trying to find out." Time for stage two. Kallen stepped up beside him and put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing firmly before pulling him into a one-armed hug of sorts, pulling him into her shoulder the way Naoto did to Ohgi when they drank. "I told you that the people needed to know what the Administration is keeping quiet, right?" She squeezed him again into her shoulder, before letting go and turning him around, forcing him away from the horrible sight.


"Now, lemme see your hands – let's see if you managed to get any glass sunk in there, eh?" Kallen tried to inject a bit of humor into the sentence, but it fell flat in the somehow dense December air. Wordlessly, Rivalz proffered his hands, palms up, and Kallen winced. There were a number of thankfully shallow cuts across his fingers and palms, but the base of his left hand was sporting a puncture wound of some sort, and twisting her head Kallen thought she saw a small shard glistening in the wound. Hope there's something left in the liquor store to rinse that out...


Rivalz was surprisingly stoic as Kallen carefully plucked the shard out of his hand, and only winced slightly and hissed between clenched teeth as she carefully poured a small plastic bottle of schnapps she'd rescued from where it had rolled under an overturned shelf. On the off chance that there were any particles of glass that she couldn't see in the cuts, she poured a bottle of water from the trashed convenience store over his hands too.


Surprisingly, Rivalz broke the uneasy silence first. "Well, Kallen... you asked me what I was gonna do now..." He sighed, looked up at the body and jerked his eyes away, hunkering his shoulders as he deliberately turned his back towards the streetlight. "I just don't know. What the hell am I supposed to do?"


Stage three. "What do you think about that, Rivalz?" Kallen gestured at the corpse, and while he didn't follow her hand, she knew by his flinch that Rivalz got the message. "What do you think about all of this? This is an Honorary Britannian neighborhood, Rivalz – these people are all Britannian subjects, sworn to the Emperor's service – but someone came through and destroyed this place. Who do you think did it?"


Rivalz grimaced. "Well... It could have been Numbers, I guess, jealous of their former countrymen who found a better life, but..." He shrugged. "That would've been all over the radio, and the police and the army would be all over the place." Good to see he's got a functional brain, when he chooses to use it. "If I'm being honest... I think it was probably the Britannian citizens – y'know, not the nobles, not the wealthy or the soldiers. Just all the lower-class guys that came over from Pendragon once the Concession opened up." Wait, what? Kallen's face must have reflected some of her confusion, because Rivalz quickly explained that his father, while a noble, was relatively low ranking and had to engage in business to support his household, instead of the classic noble occupation of collecting rents. As a result, he'd made sure Rivalz got a part-time job as a bartender in one of the clubs he owned. "...and I don't think anybody hates Honorary Britannians more than poor Britannians. They work twice as hard for half the wage, so lots of places would rather hire them than citizens."


"Really?" Kallen was fascinated. She knew, of course, that lower-class Britannians hated Elevens just as much as the nobility did – after all, Naoto hadn't been fistfighting aristocrats before her father had scooped them back up – but she'd always chalked that up to typical Britannian bigotry. From what Rivalz said, there could be more solid reasons for the surprisingly intense hatred their neighbors had always had for them – not to mention the hatred the Britannian maids at the Stadtfeld Manor had for her mother. "You think that would lead them to go on a rampage and start lynching people?"


Rivalz shrugged uncomfortably. "Not by itself, not... But if someone gave them permission, or got them all stirred up and led them here? Well... there's lots of angry Britannians who'd love to do this kind of thing."


"Very interesting..." Kallen looked at Rivalz with fresh eyes. At school he frequently acted like an idiot, obsessively following that bitch Milly around, begging like a puppy for scraps of attention, but here and now he seemed remarkably insightful. That said, Rivalz clearly didn't know anything substantial about the rioting that had broken out last night, nor had she expected him to. But I bet the soldiers know what happened – the outpost was definitely attacked last night, and judging by that triage site, they had casualties. Which means...


"Are you able to drive your motorcycle with your hands all cut up like that? We should get to the hospital to get your hands checked out." And while you're getting stitches, I'll bet there'll be lots of angry soldiers happy to tell a pretty girl about how strong and heroic they were last night.


"Yeah, I can still drive. I've hurt myself way worse when I was just learning." Rivalz smiled slightly at that, a hint of his usual cockiness returning along with the self-assurance. "But... I dunno about going to the hospital. I don't think my hands are that bad, honestly, and... I kinda just want to go home right now."


Kallen could understand that desire entirely. Tanya's support after her first kill and subsequent body disposal had been key, but she hadn't felt safe again until she was inside the comforting security of Naoto's embrace. That said... she needed to get to the hospital to try and talk to those soldiers as fast as possible, so she could get her report back to Tanya as quickly as possible. Sorry Rivalz... But anything for the Cause.


"What, you're just going to head home and bury your head back in the sand?" Kallen carefully modulated incredulity into her voice, with just a hint of disappointment. "You're free to go if you want, Rivalz, but you're not going to be able to escape from all this, not without leaving Area Eleven. You've seen the truth – good luck forgetting it now."


Satisfyingly, Rivalz's brow furrowed as he raised himself up to his full height. Yes, get angry! "I'm not running away, dammit! And that wasn't what I said I just... I can't do anything about that guy, just like you said, and I don't see how I can do jack shit for anybody else here!" He leaned forward, trying to use the height of his lanky frame to assert dominance, but Kallen was unmoved. It's the shorties you really need to watch out for. "And why the hell do you care, huh, Kallen? Why do you care what I'm gonna do? More importantly, how the hell are you being so calm about all this?!"


"This isn't my first time seeing a dead body, jackass!" Kallen shot back, practically nose to nose with Rivalz, glaring at him through his stupid goggles. "We need to get the story out! The people need to know what's happening here in Area Eleven! You just said you don't know what happened or why, and I sure don't know either – but remember the outpost? They were definitely attacked last night! They took casualties, and I bet the wounded went to the hospital! So that's where I'm going! Are you gonna help me or what?"


Rivalz glared back for a second, before clenching his teeth and nodding once. He stepped back and took a deep breath, and rubbed at his face. "You know that you're not gonna be able to publish any of this in the Ashford Gazette, right? Milly might have some weird tastes, but she's not gonna let you talk about"-He gestured vaguely at the vandalized shops and the hanging corpse silently observing their conversation-"in her school paper. Even if she doesn't stop you and you manage to bully the rest of the club along, the Principal is gonna shut you down."


Kallen let herself calm back down too. Time to be conciliatory. "I know, but... This is important to me, Rivalz. I want to make sure that this never happens again, and that means making sure everybody knows it happened this time, as well as finding out how it all started." She felt like she almost had him, just a bit more... "You want to know what you can do? Help me make sure this doesn't get swept under the rug by getting me to the hospital so I can get some interviews before someone tells the injured to keep their mouths shut."


"Fine." The word was curt, and Rivalz practically bit it off. "I'll get you to the hospital, but as soon as you're done there, I'm either taking you home or I'm out, got it?"


The trip to the hospital was thankfully uneventful, once Rivalz managed to carefully back his motorcycle away from the jammed intersection. Traffic was still light on Christmas morning, so shortly after the 10 o'clock chime, Rivalz turned onto the exit for the Princess Nunnally Memorial Hospital. The building was, even by Britannian standards, ostentatious, jutting out like a rococo tooth against the surrounding construction, ivory walls encrusted with architectural follies and statues of angels bearing swords and caduci. Despite the hospital's somehow frilly appearance, the building buzzed with activity; ambulances scooted past Knightmares emblazoned with the golden crown of the Royal Guard standing vigil at the entrances of the main lobby and the emergency room, while patrols of guards with the same emblem maintained a perimeter around the structure and got in the way of hustling doctors and medics.


Rivalz and Kallen were stopped halfway down the entrance road into the hospital's grounds, but between their obviously Britannian features and Rivalz's dripping red hands were quickly waved through. "I'd advise you to avoid the ER, sir." The guard said as he stepped back and waved them through. "It's currently swamped with casualties." The man, rebreather dangling around his neck, grimaced. "Disgraceful showing, that, and on Christmas Eve too! Anyway, if you go to the main lobby someone should be able to look at your hands fairly soon."


"Thank you, sir," Rivalz replied politely, while Kallen gave the royal guardsman her best vapid smile. "I appreciate it."


True to the guardsman's word, the lobby was nearly empty, with a receptionist keeping watch over twenty odd Britannians seated in the waiting area. To Kallen's delight, while most of the Britannians were civilians – some injured and waiting for discharge paperwork, others clearly waiting for family members – there were three soldiers scattered around the room as well. As Rivalz followed a nurse down a corridor, disappearing into the bowels of the hospital, Kallen made her way over the nearest soldier, a young man sporting both a private's single stripe and a neckbrace, plus a veritable turban of bandages securing a large pad to the left side of his head that completely covered his ear.


As Kallen approached the bandaged soldier, she realized with astonishment that she knew him; it was difficult to tell from a distance, thanks to the bandages, but the bandaged man was clearly the same young soldier who had bragged about his familiarity with the local brothels while Kallen had been waiting for an interview appointment with one of the outpost's officers. What the hell was his name? J-something, I think... Carefully, Kallen flipped open her phone and activated an audio recording app before sliding it back into her jacket pocket.


"Hey there," Kallen chirped as she dropped into the seat across from the bandaged man. "What happened to you?"


"Eh?" The soldier boy jerked back in surprise, before blinking and peering at her through bruised eyes. Kallen noticed one of his eyes didn't quite seem to be tracking her and kept drifting off over her shoulder. "Hey, you're that reporter chick! I remember you from last week, right? What're you doin' here?"


"My friend needed a few stitches – fell on some glass." Kallen smiled and shook her head. "It doesn't look too bad. What happened to you?"


"Shit, it's a long story." The boy tried for a smile, but winced as his left cheek tugged at the adhesive tape holding the pad in place. "Just a hell of an awful night. Why? You gonna write about it?"


"Well..." Kallen made a show of pulling a pocket pad and pen from her jacket's inner pocket and flipping the pad open. "I'm always down for a good story... And you look like you've got an incredible story to tell, tiger." As she spoke, Kallen drew on her memories of Milly Ashford and made a show of looking him up and down, letting her eyes slowly trace up his legs as she leaned forward slightly, somewhat regretting the buttoned up dress shirt she'd opted to wear today, topping the coquettish display off with a wink. "Looks like you've had it rough – but I should just look at the other guy, right?"


Predictably, the Ashford-like appeal, subtle as a sledgehammer, was more than enough to loosen the man's tongue. Guess the head injury didn't actually hit anything important – he clearly doesn't think with that head.


"So, one of my buddy's was out late, yeah? He had leave, so he went to have a good time. Anyway, sometime late last night there was a big punch-up between those Purist bastards and the rest of us, right? Well, some of those fuckwits got deep-sixed, but after the police broke it all up, they started goin' around yelling that they'd been attacked by Honorary Britannians – in uniform! - with knives, and that the Honorary Britannians had been there to rape Britannian girls, and that's why the fight had started! Stupid, right? But get this – the police totally bought it! None of the Purists got arrested last night, but I heard that, like... fifty or sixty of us regulars did! It's total bullshit!"


Kallen nodded appreciatively, jotting down notes as she listened. So the police sided with the Purists, huh? Well, they're definitely richer than rank and file soldiers... And if they were alleging it was in the defense of women, well... They've got the whole chivalry bullshit thing...


"Anyway, my buddy said that while the police were busy screwin' around, the Purists started saying that this was just the first step, and that the Honorary Britannians were gonna rise up and rape and kill all of us and set up their own Area Administration! Fuckin' stupidest shit I've ever heard!" The soldier had begun to lean forward, cheeks flushing red as he began to speed up, before wincing and leaning back.


"Anyway..." The soldier took a calming breath, and deliberately slowed himself down. "Anyway, all the idiot civvies that were also goin' to the bars and the brothels and stuff started rallying around the Purists and calling their friends over, and soon enough bad shit started happening. My buddy hauled ass back to our outpost, so we had some warning. The Old Man doubled the gate guard, and issued guns to the Honorary Britannians. I was out there with a few of my buddies, watching over the vehicle gate. Y'know why I know that whole Purist line is a crock of shit? Because I'm buddies with a few Honoraries, and Andrew and Keith didn't look like they were about to start murderin' us even when the Captain gave 'em guns and ammo."


Kallen nodded again, making approving sounds as she scribbled down notes as fast as she could, blazing through page after page of notebook paper.


"Anyway, a whole mob of the bastards showed up, waving torches and baseball bats and swords and shit. Y'know what the really stupid part of all of this was? We had guns, but we weren't allowed to use 'em or even load 'em until we got the order to do so! So we've got this mob of assholes comin' up the street and we're not allowed to fire any warning shots or even close the gate!" The soldier had begun to accelerate again, but stopped and took another deep breath. "Stupid, stupid, stupid. But they started off polite enough – they just asked permission to come on base. The lieutenant who was in charge of the gate wanted to let them on through, but the Captain came out himself and told 'em that the base was a restricted area, and none of 'em would be comin' in. One of the Purists said they'd heard that rebel Honorary Britannian troops were musterin' here, and the fact the Honoraries on guard had guns was proof of it. And that's when they stopped bein' polite."


The soldier lifted a hand and pointed at his head. "They grabbed Andrew and pulled him out into the street. I tried to haul him back, but one of 'em whacked me in the head with somethin'. I woke up in the middle of the quad with one of the medics shinin' a light in my eyes. I don't know what happened after that, but I heard gunfire a couple of times. Guess the Captain finally gave permission. Anyway..." He shrugged, and winced. "That's all I know. Hope that's helpful."


"It really is," Kallen fervently affirmed. "This is a huge help. It sounds like you were really brave... I'm sorry, I'm totally blanking on your name."


"Jacques. Jacques Helgelien." Jacques smiled with the right side of his mouth. "Pleased to meet you, Miss...?"


"Stadtfeld. Kallen Stadtfeld." Kallen quickly scribbled down Private Jacques Helgelien in the margin of her notes. Taking a quick look up, she saw Rivalz emerge from the hallway, a fresh bandage wound around his left hand. She turned back to notebook, and quickly wrote her "student" phone number down on an unused page and tore it out. "Here, this is my number – call me if you remember anything else." She leaned forward and pressed the page into his hand. "And, Jacques? I think it's really impressive that you stood up for your buddies like that – Honorary Britannian or not. You did good."


Jacques smiled again as Kallen got to her feet. "If I'd known standin' up to those Purists fuckmuppets would get me pretty girls' phone numbers, I'd've started doin' it way earlier. See ya around, maybe?"


The hopeful note was obvious, and Kallen gave him a smile that was halfway sincere. He did get hurt trying to help a Honorary Britannian – a Japanese. Guess not every Britannian can be a total bastard. "Maybe. Heal up fast first, though!"


Kallen turned and left Jacques behind on his waiting room chair, joining Rivalz as he waited by the door to the hospital. "How's the hand doing?" Kallen asked by way of greeting as she pushed the door open and held it for Rivalz.


"Not too bad – turns out, stitches aren't too bad once they've got you all numbed up." Rivalz followed Kallen outside, blinking in the sunlight. "Honestly, the worst part was the tugging sensation when they... Well, y'know."


Kallen nodded. "Yeah, I can see that feeling pretty weird." She paused. "Wait, they gave you an anesthetic?"


"Yeah, but just the local stuff." Rivalz blushed and looked away. "The nurse said she didn't want me to act like a baby while the doc was stitching me up..."


Kallen resisted the temptation to laugh. "Well, I'm glad they took good care of you. But, that probably means you shouldn't be driving, right?"


Rivalz fiddled with his helmet, which he carried in his less damaged hand. "Well, they did say something about waiting fifteen minutes or so, but I'm pretty sure I'm okay..."


I should probably get back home so I can make my report to Tanya as soon as possible... But today's gone bad enough already that driving with a numb hand feels like taunting fate. "Don't worry, I've got time," Kallen assured Rivalz, smiling reassuringly as she held up her notebook. "I'll just take some time to get my notes cleaned up while the medicine wears off."


Rivalz shrugged. "If you want. I think I saw a vending machine back in the lobby, so I'm gonna get myself something to drink – you want anything?"


As Rivalz wandered off in search of refreshments, Kallen made her way towards the currently deserted bus stop at the edge of the hospital's patient drop-off area. Thanks to the currently halted public transportation system, she found the kiosk deserted and the bench completely free of any nosy onlookers. Taking a seat and checking that she was out of sight from the hospital entrance, she pulled out her phone and terminated the recording, before starting the playback. Thankfully, despite the phone's concealed location in her pocket and the frequent interruptions of the hospital intercom, Jacques's responses were still clearly audible. I'll have to figure out some way to clip it up... I wonder if my laptop at home has any audio editing software?


Kallen was startled from her musings by the sound of raised voices coming from the parking lot. "I don't care what yer here tah do! Prince Clovis has given the order – no press!" Pocketing her phone again, Kallen peered out around the wall of the bus shelter, and saw a blond man standing in front of a truck marked with the logo of a local news channel arguing with one of the royal guards. "So you'd better get back in yer truck and go back out the way yah came before I come back here with the sergeant, got it?"


"And I keep telling you that I've got permission to enter!" The blond replied, volume just below a yell but clearly testy. "The studio cleared it with the Administration three days ago – it's just a human interest piece, it's got nothing to do with... whatever the Prince is worried about."


"No. Press." The guard was unmoved. "Not today. Come back tomorrow, I don't care. Just get yer damned truck out of my parking lot."


"Fine." Wisely, the man decided to capitulate. "I'll get the cameras loaded back up, and we'll be on our way."


"Good. You'd better be gone by the time the next patrol comes through in ten minutes." Satisfied, the guard continued on what Kallen supposed was his patrol route through the parking lot.


This is it! Between the pictures and the interview...! Sensing opportunity, Kallen grabbed her notebook and darted out of the bus stop, jogging over towards the news truck and slowing as she approached. The blond man had turned around and was apparently directing two considerably less well dressed Britannians as they loaded crush-proof plastic boxes that Kallen could only assume contained camera gear back into the truck. Not lifting a finger himself... And a ponytail, really? Ugh...


Kallen slowed to a walk as she came up behind him. "Excuse me? Mister? Why were you trying to get into the hospital?"


The man spun on his heel, long bangs and ponytail flapping, a flash of surprise and annoyance briefly visible before vanishing under a plastic expression and a vaguely condescending smile. "Hmm? Why do you think?" The smile slipped for a moment, and Kallen caught a glimpse of irritated anger before the mask returned, although the smile was decidedly sharper as the blond apparently decided she was nobody of consequence, and thus a perfect target to take out his frustration on."I'm trying to do my job as a reporter! Something happened last night, and nobody's talking about it. The Prince is trying to keep it all quiet, which means it must be interesting indeed. As a journalist and a producer, my job is to present history to the masses as it unfolds, but thanks to these damned guards I can't get anywhere close enough to anybody who knows anything to even ask for an interview!"


"Well, lucky for you, I just came from the hospital," Kallen replied, interrupting the ongoing rant, and held up her notebook. "And wouldn't you know it, I'm a student reporter with my school paper and I just got an interview with a soldier who was wounded during the action last night – I've got my notes, and I've got it all taped too."


The mask didn't slip this time and the oily smile remained firmly in place, but Kallen noticed the way the self-described journalist's eyes widened with poorly-hidden surprise. "A school paper, huh?" he scoffed incredulously. "And you conducted an interview with a soldier? Wonderful." He shook his head with disdain, the smile taking a turn for the patronizing. "Do you really think your little club newspaper is going to print any of it – or that your school's administration would allow it if you tried?"


Kallen, recognizing that the man was deliberately trying to get her angry, clamped down on her desire to pound the smug bastard's flawless teeth into his skull, and instead forced herself to smile back at him – and if that smile was a tad bit smug, which she was reasonably certain hurt worse than a fist to the mouth, well, smugness was the preserve of young nobles wherever the Britannian flag flew. "Probably not – but I couldn't just let the story go untold either. Plus"-Kallen dropped the smile-"as soon as I saw the smoke rising this morning, I just had to know more."


The man's expression had gradually smoothed out as Kallen spoke, and as she wound up he offered a nod of mild respect that didn't reach his calculating eyes. "And now you've got an interview you can't do anything with," he concluded, much to Kallen's relief. Thank God I didn't have to propose the idea myself. "Perhaps we could help each other out?"


Kallen gave a tentative nod, squashing down both the personal gratification and the budding nervousness. This guy's a total shark – I'd better count my fingers when I'm done with him – but if I can get the word of what happened last night out in the open like this... A little extra bait first. "Perhaps we can – and before I got here, I took a trip through the Honorary Britannian neighborhoods where the... events... last night happened. I've got some photos that might interest you too." And now, the offer. "Look, mister...?"


"Reid. Diethard Reid, with Hi-TV."


"Look, Mister Reid, I really want to develop my skills as a journalist, but I'm having problems." Kallen remembered the resentment Reid had shown at the restrictions put in place by the Administration. "I didn't do a good job playing the political game with the rest of the student paper's staff, especially the editor," she 'admitted' in a heavy, despondent voice. "So I've been stuck with all kinds of boring stories and puff pieces – nothing I can really sink my teeth into."


Diethard smiled at that. "Tragic!" he proclaimed, voice dripping with cynical pity. "Truly tragic to see an enterprising young reporter brought down like that. But!" He theatrically raised his eyebrows, as if he'd just been struck by a marvelous inspiration. "But I could see my way clear to giving you some tips, one journalist to another." He slid a hand into his jacket and Kallen tensed slightly, but he only pulled out a business card. "Here's my card – it's got my personal email on it. Send me a sample of your articles, and I'll see what I can do, along with your interview notes, the recording, and those pictures." He smiled as Kallen took the card. "Who knows, if those notes are good enough and the articles aren't too terrible, I'll maybe talk to a few people and see if I can't get you listed as a stringer for a few publications I know."


Asshole. "Sure – I'll shoot you an email as soon as I get home. Just - use the damned things, alright? Make sure everybody can see what happened. It'll get lots of interest, I promise."


Diethard smirked. "I'll be the judge of that, Miss...?"


"Cardemonde." Kallen replied immediately with the first name that came to mind. No need to let this piece of shit know anything about me. "Kallen Cardemonde."


"Uh huh. Sure. Well, I'll be waiting on your email." Diethard waved, before turning on his heel and walking back towards his truck. "Don't be a stranger now!"


Feeling in dire need of a thorough handwashing, Kallen shoved the card into her pocket, next to her phone, and retreated back to the hospital's entrance, walking past yet another patrolling soldier as she exited the parking lot. Rivalz was waiting for her near the entrance to the main lobby, soda can in hand, and as soon as he saw her coming he chugged down the remaining contents of the can and pitched it into a nearby garbage can.


"Where'd you wander off, Kallen?" Rivalz asked by way of greeting. "I leave for a second to get something to drink, and when I turn around, your ass is gone."


"Sorry." Kallen smiled apologetically at Rivalz, but surprisingly this tried and true tactic failed to soften the boy's frown. Guess the pain from the anesthetic wearing off makes it hard to be hormonal. "I saw someone who looked like they needed some help."


Rivalz shook his head with irritation. "Well, I hope they really needed help with... Whatever it was they needed, because I'm running late now."


"Running late?" Oh yeah, he said he had an appointment of some kind when he picked me up...


Rivalz scowled. "Yeah, running late. And as much as I'd like to just go home and try to forget about this whole fucking day, I'm not gonna leave my buddy hanging." Kallen tried to look as apologetic as possible, and Rivalz unbent slightly with an exasperated sigh. "Look... I'm meeting him at the front gates of Ashford. I heard from the TV in the lobby that they're startin' to reopen some of the trains in the outer neighborhoods, so you can catch a train home from there, right?"


Kallen hastily checked her mental map of the train routes. "Well... If the J train's running..."


"Great." Rivalz dropped the helmet onto his head and started walking towards the parking lot Kallen had just come from. "In that case, I'll drop you off at Ashford. Let's get outta here."


Kallen pursed her lips, almost swaying at the sudden spike of anger. Does he think he's the only one who had a bad day?! That I'm not upset about finding a brutally murdered man too? Dammit, I had to talk to a fucking journalist too! Rivalz's back was turned towards her, and he was unquestionably weaker than her... Kallen took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and let it go, taking the angry heat with it. Calm down – he's had a very bad day. He was traumatized. More importantly, you've got a job to do and he's got the motorcycle. Be a professional, and don't embarrass yourself. Calmly, Kallen followed Rivalz to the motorcycle, slipping into the sidecar and quietly donning her helmet.


The ride to Ashford Academy was, in fact, entirely quiet. Traffic had begun to pick up as Christmas morning masses let out and prosperous Britannian family's started heading out for brunches and lunches; the need for Rivalz to focus on the increased traffic volume gave both riders an excuse to ignore the other and brood over their own thoughts.


Kallen was glumly certain that, even now, teams of street sweepers, tow truck operators, and handymen of various descriptions were repairing the damage of last night, hiding black scorching under fresh white paint and towing twisted and broken cars off to the salvage yard. Soon, the only evidence of the events of last night would be in the memories of those who had perpetrated the violence and those who had survived it to bear witness. And in the pictures I'll be sending to Diethard. I hope he finds a way to get them on TV. The thought made Kallen smile just a bit. The Britannians were awfully fond of slapping a fresh coat of paint over their atrocities – or in the case of Old Tokyo, building a shining new city on the grave of the old – but it would be damned hard to wipe away the lynched Britannian soldier's face from the collective memory of the viewers.


Kallen smiled to herself, imagining the storm of panic and futile rage that would sweep through the Viceregal Palace in such an event. No amount of impassioned speeches and pretty words from the Prince would ever extinguish the embers of doubt that twisted face would kindle in the hearts of Britannians and Honorary Britannians alike. She closed her eyes and savored the image of an occupation turned against itself, as the servants suddenly realized that there truly could never be peace with the monsters from beyond the sea. And as soon as the Honorary Britannians realize that, no Britannian will be able to so much as drink a cup of tea without wondering if it's been poisoned! Kallen's lips twitched, and she daydreamed about her stepmother realizing only too late that the white powder she'd spooned into her tea hadn't been sugar after all. As soon as the old bitch dies, all those bastard Brit servants who hurt Mom are the next to go!


Soon enough, Rivalz slowed to a stop once again, turning his engine off and dismounting from the bike. Kallen forced her eyes open, surprised at how tired she already was when it wasn't quite noon, and pulled her borrowed helmet and goggles off, leaving them in the sidecar as she clambered to her feet. Rivalz hadn't waited around for her, and instead was animatedly talking to a boy Kallen vaguely recognized as Lelouch Lamperouge, Vice President of the Ashford Student Council and, according to the gossip, the premier heartthrob of the Academy.


Kallen had never spoken with Lelouch personally, even though they shared a few classes – even when she'd been working on establishing her network of gossips, she'd avoided speaking with him. He was silent and brooding, only speaking in class when called upon and never volunteering any answers, but somehow gave off an impression of incredible arrogance, and somehow seemed ignorant of how wherever he went in Ashford, a current of attention and hushed conversations followed. He was, in fact, part of the reason why Kallen had thankfully never had to deal with the Student Council as part of her club duties – all the male members of the club wanted to take the work so they could ogle Milly (for some reason), and all the other female members were equally desperate to take on the extra job so they could drool over Lelouch.


Frankly, Kallen couldn't understand the appeal. To her, he seemed mentally aloof and physically weak. The perfect young Britannian noble – honestly, he's a perfect match for Milly. They deserve each other.


However personally distasteful Kallen found the young noble, she found herself reluctantly impressed at how, with the rise of a single inquisitive brow on an otherwise emotionless face, he managed to reduce Rivalz to a self-justifying babble as the other boy attempted to explain away his tardiness – unnecessarily, in Kallen's opinion, since Rivalz was the one providing the service. Is he really that embarrassed? Still emotionally volatile from this morning? Or does Lelouch have some kind of hold on him? If so... What does he know, and why is he using it today...?


As Kallen mulled the possibilities over, trying her best to bring all of her intelligence gathering skills to bear as she smiled politely and dutifully waited to be introduced, Rivalz began to garble his way through an account of the last two hours.


"Look, it's not my fault I'm late, Lelouch - I didn't oversleep this time, promise!" Rivalz spoke so fast he tripped over his words, while Lelouch remained pointedly unexpressive, although the second eyebrow began to ascend to join its comrade. "See, I got a call this morning from this girl - Kallen, Kallen Stadtfeld, do you know her? - who had my number because I helped with her volunteer organization thingy and she needed a ride because the public transit was all shut down and I thought it would be short so I helped her out! B-but…" Rivalz's voice halted and slowed to a stop, and he made a choking noise deep in his throat. Kallen felt a flicker of worry, but he took a deep breath and continued a second later. "But… Oh man… Buddy, shit went bad in the Concession yesterday. You might wanna call your contact and make sure the game's still on… Oh man, there's… It's really bad, man." Rivalz's flow of words tapered to another three or four second halt, before he visibly forced himself to continue. "Anyway, as soon as I realized I was running late, I got here as soon as I could. And, uh… that's why I'm late."


To his credit, at some point during the semi-coherent explanation, Lelouch's impassive expression had thawed to a degree; as Rivalz finally spluttered his conclusion, Kallen realized Lelouch had an expression of acute concern, though whether for his friend's wellness or in regards to the news he brought she couldn't tell. Then, a moment later, a pair of startlingly violet eyes darted over to her and the look of honest concern vanished like it had never been, replaced by an amiable mask.


Kallen was somewhat surprised at how obviously false that welcoming smile was, how it entirely failed to reach those intense purple eyes... Those eyes, full of an utterly terrifying intelligence and a charisma that burned like a bonfire, compared to which her brother's magnetic draw seemed like a candle... Suddenly, Kallen found herself entranced by those eyes, as if the entire world, Rivalz and the Academy included, had fallen away, leaving only herself and Lelouch Lamperouge. They're the wrong color, but... somehow, he's got Tanya's eyes... But that was wrong too, because even Tanya at her most dazzling didn't have the supreme confidence that practically dripped from those eyes, and even Tanya at her angriest didn't have that blazing coal of complete and total insanity Kallen could see burning in the heart of those beautiful, soulful, mad eyes...


And then, Lelouch blinked, and the moment was gone. Kallen nearly staggered back, but threw herself into her noble persona, drowning Kozuki Kallen in the gossip-hound Kallen Stadtfeld. She smiled prettily as Lelouch approached her, and politely accepted his handshake, proffering the back of her hand for a kiss as she followed the memories of her etiquette training by rote, desperate to hide any crumb of individuality somewhere far away where this monster and his horrible eyes wouldn't see it. Why is someone like this bothering with school? What the hell is he going off with Rivalz to do, on today of all days?


Lelouch smiled knowingly at her, and for a moment Kallen's heart skipped a beat. What does he know?! What did Milly tell him? "Well, I can certainly understand being late when such a beautiful girl calls for assistance." He chuckled with amusement, and Kallen dutifully tittered along, wondering why speaking with a fellow student was making her feel more uncomfortable than looking at the hanging man earlier had. He knows... God, it's because he knows, he knows...! He's toying with me, just like Milly! "It's nice to meet you, Kallen. I've heard good things about you from Milly – she seems to find you quite... Interesting." Lelouch's lip rose in a sardonic smile as he emphasized the last word, and Kallen smiled back, ignoring the feeling of a phantom rope around her neck tightening.


"It's good to meet you too, Lelouch, at long last. You're the Vice-President of the Student Council, right?" Kallen let the small talk flow, doing her best to ask obvious questions and offer noncommittal answers and vague comments, desperate to survive without betraying any more of her secrets than she feared this stranger wearing the face of a boy already knew.


After a short yet excruciating eternity, Lelouch finally appeared to tire of toying with her, and "begged her pardon" so he could get to his "prior appointment". Without letting a shred of the sudden relief surging through her escape, Kallen bid him good luck and a good day, even curtseying as etiquette dictated, forgetting that she was wearing pants. Fortunately, instead of calling her out on her faux paus, Lelouch anticlimactically hopped in the sidecar and left, Rivalz speeding off down the road far above the posted limit.


Kallen let herself sag against the brick wall belting the Ashford Academy grounds, letting the tension flow out of her into the ground. A moment of relaxation and a deep breath later, and she was back on her feet, phone in hand as she began to trot towards the nearest maglev station. Tanya needs to know about the lynchings – that could change everything with the Honoraries! - and I need to get the pictures off to Diethard before the five o'clock news! ...And if I stay around here too long, that creepy bastard might come back... Kallen sped up, driving the urge to shiver with discomfort into her feet as she accelerated. All for the Cause, Kallen, all for the Cause... And, hey, at least he didn't try to grab me... Unlike Milly... Scowling, Kallen brought the phone to her ear, ready to deliver her initial verbal report.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 17: A Training Arc (Part 1)

(Removed to conform with Rule 8.


A big thank you to Siatru, and to Grig9700, Sunny, WrandmWaffles, and Daemon for beta reading this chapter.)


It took almost a week to hear back from Kyoto House, after the Christmas Debacle. Frankly, I was somewhat surprised to hear back from them at all, considering the disastrous outcome of our mission. It was tempting to pass the blame onto the Six Houses – after all, I had only decided to attempt the murder of Britannians because of their testing objective – but passing the buck is a sign of poor leadership and unprofessionalism, and so I had refrained from doing so, even internally. At least, as soon as the initial shock from Kallen's telephoned report had worn off.


I still had a hard time believing it. Not because I doubted Kallen's information, and certainly not because I doubted the Britannians would happily murder any Japanese, Honorary status be damned, given half a chance; I had just expected better from an empire that ruled nearly half of the entire world. I could only imagine what General Zettour would have said, if a mob of off-duty Germanian soldiers had run rampant over a friendly population – and just imagining what Colonel Lehgen would have done made me wince.


While the Britannians were unquestionably cruel in a way that far surpassed the cold ruthless calculus of the General Staff, I had honestly expected their apparent cultural emphasis on chivalry and "honorable" public conduct to prevent mass reprisals against the Honorary Britannians. I had known that reprisals were possible, and that legal reprisals against a handful of scapegoats were all but guaranteed, but I'd considered the prospect of full on mob violence the worst case scenario, an improbable outcome. And, while I had expected smashed windows and mass beatings as part of that worst case outcome... I hadn't expected the torture. When the Britannians had conducted their reprisals in the ghetto, it was a cold affair, for the most part. Sure, some soldiers laughed at the weeping and pleading relatives of the unlucky Numbers plucked from the crowd, and some of the self-appointed executioners smiled, clearly enjoying their work, but the killings themselves were quick – up against a wall, a bullet, and an imperious "Next!" Kallen's photography depicted an entirely different degree of horror, one that fell quantitatively short of the mass executions in the ghetto, but far exceeded those murders when judged on quality.


Moving beyond the sheer sadism unleashed by the Britannian horde, whipped into a frenzy and led by off-duty soldiers of the Purist Faction, the economic impact of the Christmas Incident had to have been vast. I lacked access to any economic data for the Area, or to any data that described the total losses, but from Kallen's first hand account and from reports the Rising Sun had received from Eleven streetcleaners, electricians, plumbers, and construction workers brought in to clean up after the mess and repair the salvageable structures, the damage was immense. Likely millions of pounds worth of property value had been wiped out in hours, not to mention the multitude of knock-on effects from shops primarily patronized by Honorary Britannians losing profits, lost wages... and considering the predatory nature of the Area's courts, and how deeply in bed they obviously were with moneyed nobles, I doubted that any Honorary Britannian who sunk into debt as a result of the pogrom would retain their land. The chances that any of the victims would win any civil claims against identified rioters were likewise slim.


This later point had brought my thoughts back to Kyoto as I tried to map out the likely impacts of the disaster. I had no idea how deep or far the tendrils of the organization had sunk into the society of Area 11, but as the most wealthy of the Honorary Britannians – as well as the core of the old elite of pre-war Japan – I was certain that the Six Houses of Kyoto had probably invested heavily into the Honorary Britannian neighborhoods of the Tokyo Settlement. If their investments had been lost and client businesses smashed up as a result of the riot my lack of forethought had inadvertently provoked, I could easily see them dropping any support for the Kozuki Organization. I had honestly expected that as rumor upon rumor of uncontrolled fires and looted shops had spread through the ghetto. My real fear had been that Kyoto, in a fit of pique, would leverage its resources against us, either taking direct revenge on us or handing us over to the Britannians as the true killers of three Purist soldiers.


So, I'd immediately started making amends. As the reports of families being driven from their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs – if they were lucky – began to drift in, I saw an opportunity to make a concrete apology to Kyoto House and to soothe my own guilt. I had tasked Nagata, Aina, Ohgi, and the newly arrived Kallen - still in her Britannian clothes – with driving the rented truck into the Tokyo Settlement with a full load for a change. They'd set up two of our portable kerosene fueled stoves in a park where several hundred of the newly homeless Honorary Britannians had fled for lack of anywhere else to go and had started conducting a typical Rising Sun dinner as best they could, considering the outdoor location. They'd taken a significant portion of the spare second-hand clothing we'd had available for distribution too, as well as all the pre-packed daily food boxes we had on hand. The reaction to my orders had been decidedly mixed; most of the group seemed at the very least willing to do as I said – Kallen and Naoto had both been happy, at least, and Ohgi had looked pleased, even after I'd asked him to stop ruffling my hair – but Chihiro had looked infuriated.


"They're our enemies, dammit!" I had just been thankful she'd chosen to explode while we were still in the Kozuki Organization's secret basement, instead of opting for a more public display. "They're traitors, Tanya! Just as bad as the fucking Brits themselves! Why the fuck are you giving them our damned supplies? We should be taking the chance to hit them while they're down!"


I had let the words hang in the air, face impassive as I met Chihiro's eyes. She had been panting, as if her shuddering breaths indicated the difficulty of merely keeping herself in check. Then, slowly and deliberately, I'd broken eye contact and looked around the room, evaluating the mood amongst those present. Nobody else had seemed particularly ready to stand up and support Chihiro – Souichiro in particular had looked incensed – but everybody had been staring at me, clearly waiting for my response. Shit! How do I justify this to terrorists? This is the wrong audience for altruism, but I can't tell them about Kyoto House – especially since we haven't made a deal yet!


"Is that really what you think we should be doing, Chihiro?" I had asked, buying time. I'd barely noticed her eager nod, as I'd been keeping my eyes on the broader audience just as much as on the zealot burning up with righteous fury in front of me. Fucking fanatics. I wish I could slap the stupid out of each and every one. "In that case, you are a fool." As she blanched with fury, I had continued, suddenly understanding exactly how I'd justify our need to soothe our secret backers. "The Honorary Britannians were bought and paid for by our enemies, that is true. But! The Britannians have just attacked them with, as the Honoraries are sure to see it, absolutely no provocation. They've just been kicked to the curb, Chihiro, which means that purchased loyalty is weak right now. Easy to undermine. The Britannians have done our work for us by driving off the Honorary Britannians – now, we need to put in our own bid for their loyalty."


"Loyalty?!" Chihiro had spat. "What the fuck do those bastards know about loyalty? They spit on Japan with everything they do, every breath they take! They have no loyalty except to their own skins!"


"Maybe," I allowed, "but the Britannians just tried to flay those skins away. They'll go back and lick their cruel master's hand eventually, like the beaten dogs that they are – but before they do that, if we can help them out under the guise of the Rising Sun while they're weak, while they're hurting from the kick in the ribs, well... Chihiro, who do you think we're fighting?"


"The Britannians!"


"Correct. The Britannians. Not the Honorary Britannians. And if we can make inroads on their loyalty now, well..." I had smiled at Chihiro, deliberately showing as many teeth as I could. To my pleasure, she'd taken a step back. Remember this, Chihiro. "How many knives in the dark can I buy now, at bargain basement prices? How many friendly fire accidents? How many cups of afternoon tea spiked with arsenic?" I had taken a step forward, and had reached up and given Chihiro a friendly clap on the shoulder. "This isn't charity, Chihiro, make no mistake – I'm buying us friends on the other side for cheap. I'm sure my investment will yield fruit soon enough."


That conversation six days ago had been off the cuff and speculative in nature. If I were being entirely frank, I had been trying to retroactively justify my humanitarian impulses, and had been more or less laying out the best case scenario. I knew that gratitude had a remarkably short shelf life, and I doubted that a few bowls of soup and some second-hand jackets would mean much to a group not locked into a hand-to-mouth existence like the residents of Shinjuku were. I had not expected much of a return on my investment, beyond the satisfaction in knowing that I had done what I could to make up for my mistakes.


In light of everything that had passed since my brief meeting with the man from Kyoto, the phone call was confusing, to say the least.


"Well done, Miss Hawthorne." A familiar voice greeted me from the tinny speakers of the burner phone. "My superiors have received your message; they had suspected you might have had a hand in inciting the unpleasantness on Christmas Eve, but claiming credit by passing information through a Britannian reporter was inspired. Personally, I'm shocked Hi-TV showed that photograph on the news, even with the face blurred out."


"Thank you. I hope this counts as a concrete achievement," I responded smoothly, smiling politely at the wall in front of me as my mind whirled. A reporter? I never contacted a reporter! ...Wait, are they talking about the guy Kallen handed her information off to? Is that how they learned of my involvement?!


The bastard chuckled, somehow almost as condescending over the phone as he had been in person. "It certainly counted for something. You truly don't do anything halfway, do you?"


"Any job worth doing is worth doing well." The banality slipped out easily as I tried to figure out what the man on the other end of the line was implying. Did Kyoto believe that the riot had been my intention all along? It was hard to figure out what else he could mean, since knifing three random men hardly counted as a masterful counterstroke. Time to layer in some propaganda to burnish my credentials further. "Especially when the end goal is the prosperity and liberty of all Japanese."


"Quite," the dry voice replied, making it clear what its owner thought about such war aims. "Regardless, in light of both your recent success and the actions you took in the follow-up, we have decided to extend limited support to your organization." There was a pause. "The key word is limited, though. Some of our membership is... dubious about taking you on as a new client, as we are already supporting a number of other groups."


"Understood." I truly did understand. The Kyoto Group were walking a thin line here, supporting Japanese insurgents while simultaneously mining Sakuradite and producing weaponry for the Britannians. I was certain that they were extremely careful doling out just enough resources to keep Area Eleven at a simmer without actually giving the various rebel groups enough oxygen to truly set the country on fire. Considering the outcome of the Christmas Incident and the conservative nature of the two-faced oligarchs sitting in Kyoto, I would just consider myself lucky that they hadn't already written off the Kozuki Organization, myself included, as too risky an investment. "In that case, I'm already prepared to request your organization's assistance."


"Oh?" The man sounded mildly surprised. Had he really expected me to be unprepared, even when he was calling me at four in the morning? I'm just glad the phone didn't wake up Ohgi – I'm tired of getting nagged about my sleep schedule. "Well, let's hear it. What do you want?"


"We need training space and material, preferably outside the Greater Tokyo Area." My request was somewhat blunt, but I figured it was time to get down to brass tacks. "We're experiencing something of a recruitment spike at the moment, but lack the training facilities and equipment to actually put all of the new recruits to work."


Honestly, I was understating the current scope of our difficulties. Only a few hours after the last of the fires in the trashed Honorary Britannian neighborhoods had guttered out, the clean up process had begun. Plenty of Elevens, hungry and cold in Shinjuku, had leapt at the suddenly available jobs – not to mention Concession Work Permits – that various Britannian companies had posted at the labor exchanges and at the checkpoints into the ghetto. I could only assume that the companies involved were either the holding companies that had acted as the Honorary Britannians' landlords, or were the lucky winners of whatever contract bidding process the Administration had conducted. Regardless, any Japanese with experience as a builder, a roofer, a plumber, or an electrician had been snapped up and put to work patching up damaged buildings, while lots of unskilled men and women had found work as street cleaners, toting and hauling rubble and salvage as the Britannians desired.


Besides pouring a bit of money, scant though the wages were, into the Shinjuku economy and thankfully feeding all the employed Elevens for at least a few days, the sudden employment spike had also given many of those in Shinjuku a first hand view of renewed Britannian savagery. While this reminder was scarcely needed, since most of us lived in structures that still bore the marks of the Conquest, it had badly scared plenty of Elevens. "If this could happen to the ones who played by Britannia's rules now, years after the Conquest, what would they do to us?" was the question on everybody's lips in the streets of Shinjuku – the dull complacency strengthened by slow starvation and exacerbated by the sheer hopelessness of our situation had been shaken by the prospect of a more immediately tortuous death.


And as scared people do, plenty of the Elevens who had gone into the Concession during the clean-up process had looked for answers, for reassurance. Many of those seekers had beaten a path to the Rising Sun's door as soon as they had gotten back to Shinjuku; from there, the more determined or angry Japanese were taken aside by Inoue, Chihiro or Tamaki. All said, in the last week the Kozuki Organization had abruptly gained a pool of almost three hundred eager recruits, an abundance of warm bodies that were currently useless to us without training and equipment.


This sudden embarrassment of recruits was already turning into something of a double-edged sword. Our previous training cohorts had been limited – the four former gangsters under Tamaki, and four of the formerly enslaved women under Chihiro. Even that small number had strained our capacity to arm and train; the idea of training almost fifty times that number in the cramped basement hideout was ludicrous.


The sound of the man from Kyoto sucking air through his teeth came down the line, which made me wince. I remembered enough from my first life to know that a salaryman making that noise was about to either consult with his manager, or give you bad news. Fortunately for me, it was the former. "I'll have to get back to you on that," he finally said. "That's... both considerably more and less than what we were anticipating from your first request."


This time, the wince wasn't just the twitching of half-forgotten reflexes – it was a full cringe, brought about by the knowledge that I had just made a mistake. Dammit! I overestimated our value in their eyes and asked for far too much! I've just conceded the initiative and made him think I'm a fool! Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to pay attention to the remainder of the ramblings coming down the line.


"I'll have to check with management about the details. That said..." The Kyoto man paused, hmm-ing into the phone for a moment. He's just toying with me at this point, the bastard! "That said, I think we should be able to fulfill your request, at least partially." What?! "One of our organization's other partners has a significant amount of hidden enclaves in the rural and alpine provinces. I'm sure that they could be convinced to allow you to use one such enclave as a training camp. That said..." Here comes the other shoe, dammit... "My organization is only going to provide limited logistical support and supplies for this training operation of yours. You will have to prove your continued worth in order to earn our continued support."


I should have known. The Six Houses of Kyoto had maintained their fortunes and their power by making themselves invaluable to the Britannian Administration and the insurgent factions alike. They would never give support without making sure plenty of strings were attached. Forcing me to negotiate with other groups competing for Kyoto's backing in order to actually make use of said support neatly demonstrated that tactical diplomacy. They'd fulfilled their end of the bargain, or at least they would claim they had, and forcing me to grovel for scraps from their "partners" just to keep day to day operations up meant it'd be unlikely that I'd be able to cut Kyoto's strings any time soon.


Unless they've been pulling this maneuver on all the groups they support... In which case, I just need them to see that we're not competing for a single suitor, but facing a common foe...


I kept that mutinous thought in mind as I ran through the proper thankful courtesies and expressed my urgent desire to hear back from Kyoto as soon as my interlocutor could consult his superiors. That part, at least, wasn't feigned; idle hands are, according to the nuns that had raised me in my previous life, the devil's playthings, and the last thing I wanted was for the several hundred hotheads who had rallied to our banner to have enough free time to think and reconsider their decision to join us.


Fortunately, Kyoto was apparently sincere in their willingness to extend their assistance, as only a few hours later I answered another call from the still-nameless man from Kyoto.


"36.66364390064412, 138.61372273644204." The man rattled off a string of numbers in lieu of any kind of a greeting. Fortunately, I had a notepad close at hand. "Just north of Kusatsu, in the Gunma Prefecture, there's an abandoned high school complex that used to serve the surrounding villages before the war. Now, well..." The man allowed himself a dry laugh. "Our partners have volunteered it for your use. Anything for the Cause, as you say."


I forced a smile, taking care not to grit my teeth at his condescending tone. Naoto, seated across the table, raised an inquisitive eyebrow, but I just shook my head. "Please convey our thanks and gratitude to your partners," I replied, as sweetly as I could manage. "We appreciate their willingness to assist with the liberation of our people."


Another dry chuckle. "Thank them yourself, Miss Hawthorne. A liaison is waiting at the site for you and your first batch of recruits. He will also be your point of contact with our partner organization for any follow-up negotiations. I'm sure you'll have no problems cooperating on advancing your shared cause." Something about the way the Kyoto representative had said that last sentence made me feel vaguely uneasy. He sounded too smug, too pleased with himself, like he had made some secret joke. That uneasy feeling was almost immediately justified by the Kyoto man's parting words. "Make sure you bring that servant of yours with you to do the talking – Major Onoda won't take kindly to dealing with a mixed-blood girl, no matter how many gutter rats she brings with her."


---------


After the bastard from Kyoto had abruptly hung up on me, I had immediately begun preparations. I knew we were on a timer – after all, who knew how long this Major Onoda would linger at the abandoned school – and so I'd ended up delegating a great deal of the work.


Thanks to all of his time spent renting trucks and other miscellaneous vehicles for Rising Sun operations, Nagata had been put in charge of finding transport. As anticipated, he'd come through admirably, and had secured an ancient bus, once the pride of some long forgotten charter tour company. Unlike the trucks we typically used, this had been a direct purchase, since Inoue had discovered that some vehicle purchases qualified as tax-deductible business investments. Thankfully, Nagata had quickly grown proficient with the rattling death-trap, leaving us in presumably safe hands.


Naoto, assisted by Tamaki, had combed through the lists of recruits and picked out the most promising and the most likely to leave if they got too bored. In the end, they had agreed on a final list of sixty men and women from Shinjuku. Most of this first cohort would be on the older side for Shinjuku – in their early to mid thirties – but the leavening of hot-headed teenagers would hopefully invigorate the group. If all went well, this cohort's members would be able to act in a similar capacity to Tamaki, training and leading small groups of fighters. In other words, if things went according to plan, these would be our non-commissioned officers and training cadre.


Ohgi had sat down with Inoue and put together an operational plan for the Rising Sun Association, with an eye towards both maintaining our ongoing charitable operations and finding construction work in the ghetto for the other two hundred odd recruits who wouldn't be accompanying the first cohort in the Gunma mountains. Unless negotiations with the mysterious partner organization broke down completely, Ohgi and I wouldn't be back in Shinjuku until late spring, if not early summer, which meant that Inoue would be stuck with my half of the administrative tasks as well as her own share. Fortunately, her new assistant, Kasumi, was already proving an asset, so hopefully Inoue wouldn't be too swamped. I'd encouraged her to pick out a handful of recruits from the remaining pool for logistics training, but Inoue had felt uncertain about her ability to teach while keeping standards up. I could only hope she would reconsider that stance – we would need more administrators to keep our growing organization functional, just as much as we would need more drivers, more mechanics, and always more soldiers.


While my comrades handled the logistics, I'd managed to carve out a few hours one evening to meet with Kallen. We'd met to discuss her continued information gathering activities at Ashford, as well as to devise a press strategy, now that Kallen was officially a member of the Fourth Estate. Surprisingly, Diethard had proven true to his word; hours after Kallen had sent her photos and her recorded interview, along with a sample article that she had rapidly typed up detailing her experience walking through the torched Honorary Britannian neighborhood, a reply had arrived in her burner account's inbox. That reply had included a piecework contract with Hi-TV as well as a decidedly slimy thank you note from the blond producer. Which had led me to discover a fly in the ointment Kallen hadn't felt the need to point out earlier.


"Miss Cardemonde?" I gave the blushing Kallen an unimpressed look, trying to ignore the rising anger and panic. "If you're going to be a journalist, Kallen, to say nothing of already being a spy, you need to learn how to lie convincingly."


"I know, dammit!" Kallen growled back, running her hand through her already disorderly hair in a manner very reminiscent of her brother. "I panicked, okay? It was the first thing I could think of!"


I took a moment to calm myself down. As much as I wanted to rip into Kallen over this screw-up, I knew that it would be unproductive. Kallen knew that she had made a mistake, and chastising her wouldn't help. A bad leader shames their subordinates, a good leader educates them. "Do you understand why I'm worried, Kallen?"


Kallen slumped in her chair and groaned. "Yeah, yeah... If that bastard looks into the name, he's gonna find Rivalz. Who's listed as the noble sponsor of the Rising Sun in the paperwork we filed with the Administration."


I nodded. "That's true – it is a potential security breach. That said, I'm actually not that concerned about that particular aspect."


Wide blue eyes flew open and looked incredulously at me from across the scarred table. "You're not worried?! I just gave a producer who might be the creepiest man I've ever met and not stabbed a link between me and the guy we need to keep our organization functional! I just handed over a huge link between myself and the Rising Sun to a male Milly who actually gets paid to pry into other people's business! If he finds out that my last name is Kozuki, and starts asking questions... I'm fucked!" As she'd railed against herself, Kallen had scooted forwards as if propelled by some internal spring, leaning forwards towards me as she'd hammered out her last point.


"You did hand him some clues, yes, but I don't think that matters in this context." I smiled back at her, taking care to keep my eyes on her face, and to not to look down her shirt. She is your friend, and she is upset. She is also the daughter of our beneficiary. No. "Kallen, you and Rivalz taking a trip to a recently pillaged Honorary Britannian neighborhood would be the easiest thing to write off." I pitched my voice low and dramatic, mimicking a narrator's voice as best as I could with my still annoyingly childish voice. "Boy takes girl on thrilling motorcycle trip, hoping to impress and charm her with his bravery and devil-may-care attitude towards danger." She smiled slightly at that, and I returned to my normal pitch. "Boy gets a bit more danger than he'd counted on, goes to a hospital, and the girl talks about her experience to a reporter." I shrugged. "Silly, but easy to explain away."


I leaned forward, which for some reason prompted her to lean back. Pity, th... No. "Your real mistake was blatantly lying about your name, especially after you told him about being a student reporter. There are only so many Kallens in Japan, and only so many schools with newspaper clubs. If you had simply introduced yourself as Kallen, or if you had given your real last name, he might have dug a bit, but would have just had it confirmed that Kallen Stadtfeld is, indeed, a student reporter. Lying at all was the mistake – it didn't give you anything, and it will make him think you are trying to hide something."


Kallen groaned again, and rubbed at the compact that concealed her knife. "Dammit, you're right – but what do I do about it?"


I shrugged. "Don't bring it up unless Diethard does. If he asks, tell him you didn't want to give out your name to a strange man, and act offended if he gets pushy about it. If he keeps pushing after that, well... We can consider other solutions at that point."


Lesson hopefully taught, I moved on to the intended reason for our meeting. Kallen, thankfully, didn't care that she was unlikely to get any credit for her work as a stringer – in fact, I was proud to learn that she'd already considered the advantages of being an uncredited writer, namely that she might be able to slip anti-Administration, or at least, pro-Japanese, content into the mouths of actual named reporters, who would then take the fall if the Administration came calling. From there, I went over strategies to foster as much resentment for the status quo as possible. I wasn't a master of journalism or marketing, of course, but I had some lingering memories of marketing meetings from back in my first life, as well as a great deal of familiarity with the propaganda produced by both sides in my second life. Kallen had already come up with her own series of ideas about how to shatter the "Clovisland" image the Administration was so desperate to push; I left our meeting knowing that at the very least she wouldn't be devoured by the camera toting vultures.


And so, two days later, I slipped away from Shinjuku, Ohgi in tow, content that I had left the Kozuki Organization and the Rising Sun in good hands. After all, Naoto would still be on hand to keep everything moving, and since he was the leader anyway I really shouldn't have felt such proprietary concern about making sure the organization that had adopted me would still be there when I got back. At least Ohgi and Nagata will be with me... Soon, Ohgi and I joined Nagata at the rendezvous point, and waited for our first cohort to trickle in by ones and twos.


---------


It had taken ingenuity, patience, and a significant amount of money, but we had managed it in the end. Ohgi, Nagata, myself, and a bus packed with sixty recruits fresh from the Shinjuku Ghetto bumped down the potholed surface of Prefectural Road 55, slowly picking our way over the icy surface. Every now and then, we'd had to get out of the bus and dig out the snow and sleet from under the tires, and once we'd even had to physically push the bus up and over a spot of black ice, but we'd managed it. Cold, tired, and hungry, we had arrived at our new home for the next few months.


As Nagata brought the bus to a shuddering stop outside the abandoned school, I scanned what little I could see of the huddled buildings. Even in the depths of January, the school was enfolded by the surrounding forest, the emerald green cedar boughs almost completely obscuring my view. The patches in the protective camouflage of the canopy by skeletal deciduous trees revealed that the school was in remarkably good shape, considering that it had likely stood abandoned for at least a few years.


The man from Kyoto hadn't specified when the villages from which the student body had been drawn had been wiped out, but a quick internet search conducted by Kallen indicated that the "Healing Hot Springs Resort" at nearby Kusatsu had opened under Britannian management three years ago. I could only assume that the surrounding villages, not to mention the townsfolk of the famous historic onsen town of Kusatsu, had ceased to trouble the Britannians shortly before that point.


"Any sign of the contact we're supposed to meet? What was his name... Onoda?" Ohgi asked, leaning over me from his seat by the aisle to peer out the window. "We should probably start getting all of our things unpacked and inside before we lose the daylight."


I nodded. We had only been able to bring a small amount of supplies with us on the bus, most of which was crammed into the storage compartment under our feet. Said compartment was full to the bursting with a week's rations for all sixty-three of us, the stoves and cooking fuel necessary to heat the water for the porridge and for cleaning, blankets and sleeping bags, first aid equipment, six assault rifles and the same number of pistols, as much ammunition as Naoto thought he could spare, and several jerry cans of fuel for the bus.


As impressive as that small mountain of supplies had looked neatly packed away in the compartment, and as heavy as it had all been whenever we'd had to help the bus up the unmaintained and snow-choked mountain roads, I knew that I had taken a major risk coming here. We had brought all the supplies we could spare, and there was no chance of resupply until Nagata returned to Shinjuku with the bus. More provisions, as well as all of the other materials we would need in the course of training, would have to come from the mysterious "partner organization". An organization whose representative had yet to present himself, despite the noisy and slow arrival of a tour bus crammed with the best Shinjuku had to offer.


That said, the mysterious aspect of the partner organization was paper thin. As far as I knew, there was only one resistance organization in Japan that both controlled enough territory to "lease" out land to another organization as training grounds and used military ranks.


The Japanese Liberation Front, or JLF, had spent almost six years sitting in their mountain bunkers, periodically raiding down from their strongholds and attacking isolated Britannian garrisons and patrols, as well as any locals accused of collaboration. They were the deadest of the dead enders, the last remnants of the Japanese Army that had so totally failed in its bid to defend Japan against the invading Britannians, that had indeed failed so badly that Prime Minister Kururugi had committed seppuku in response to their shameful display. Or, at least, so went the rumors.


Personally, I was in no great hurry to encounter the JLF, and indeed had vaguely hoped I would never have to personally deal with them in my bid to put Lord Stadtfeld in the Viceregal Palace. Not only had the JLF done nothing to actually help any of the enslaved Japanese or to substantively oppose the Britannian occupation, but based on what I remembered from my education before the Conquest, I suspected that the Japanese Army that had been crushed by the Britannians had looked and behaved very similarly to the unlamented Imperial Japanese Army from my first life.


They had, by all accounts, gone to their deaths with an all too familiar cry of "Nippon Banzai!"


Looking back on the Conquest, I was shocked that they hadn't attempted any Saipan-style forced mass suicides once it had become clear that Japan was lost – I could only assume that Prime Minister Kururugi's suicide had taken the wind from their sails. The Prime Minister's suicide had effectively marked the end of organized and open resistance to the Britannian invasion, which raised a number of interesting questions, including that of the Emperor. Or, rather, the question of why the Emperor seemed to be missing.


I didn't remember any mentions of the Imperial Family in my elementary school classes, and I didn't remember anybody bemoaning the deaths of the Imperial Family in the wake of the Conquest. I knew that we had had an empire at one point, since I remembered that Commodore Perry had opened Japan up in this universe just as before, but I couldn't remember learning any of our country's history past that point before the whole question of national history had abruptly become irrelevant.


Questions about what, exactly, was keeping the JLF fighting aside, I was now going to have to deal with a representative of that organization. I dimly remembered that units of the IJA from my first life had continued the war for years after the surrender, and that some holdouts had, well... held out until the Seventies.


And those had just been scattered individuals on jungle islands, cut off and alone. With their command and control intact, who knows how long they're ready to sit in their bunkers? The snow crunched under my boots as I waded forward, following in Ohgi's footsteps as he broke a trail for me. The school itself might have been protected from the heavy snowfall of mountainous central Japan, but drifts almost three feet deep were between us and the ancient wooden sign marking the entrance.


I had tried to take the lead when we had stepped up the bus, but before I could take a single step Ohgi had gently but insistently moved me aside and taken the lead. I felt somewhat guilty at using his larger bulk as an impromptu snow plow, but I wasn't going to fight for the right to exhaust myself in the snow. Plus, if that crazy antique bastard is lurking up ahead with a rifle, I'd rather he see an obviously Japanese face first.


Behind us, Nagata directed the recruits as they unloaded crates of supplies from the bus and joined me, a long chain of porters following in Ohgi's wake. Together, we slogged through the snow into the compound of buildings. To our left was a line of dilapidated two story buildings that bore the instantly recognizable hallmark of institutional housing the world over. To our right loomed an impressive neo-Classical structure, complete with Roman-style pillars in white. Time had not been kind to the once-alabaster facade; the presumably marble edifice was streaked with all kinds of stains, and the stairs were carpeted in a thick layer of rotting leaves under a crusting of wind-blown snow. Ahead of us and to the right, past the apparent receiving hall, a three story building with a high canted roof lurked. Presumably that had been the actual school building, where all the classes had been taught. Dimly, through the lengthening shadows, I could see a cluster of other, smaller buildings out past the main school building.


The only sign of life came from one of the probable classrooms. The third story window was dimly lit from inside, but anything other than the faint orange glow was impossible to make out through the smudged and dirty pane. It did not escape my attention that the window had a perfect view over the entrance to the school compound, perfect for an observer or a sniper. Good thing Ohgi was in front if Major Onoda really is set up in there. I doubted that he was – if so, he wouldn't have left that light on. Which means that's where he wants us to meet him.


I turned back to the line of bedraggled recruits following me, with Nagata bringing up the end of the line. "Welcome to your new home for the next three months!" I yelled, cupping both hands over my mouth to make sure everybody could hear me despite the wind. "I'd love to promise you a trip to the lovely Kusatsu hot springs, but sadly they are closed until we finish cleaning the Britannian filth out of them." I paused, allowing for the mandatory pity chuckle before continuing on, pointing at one of the nearby dorms. "Haul everything into that building for now and do what Nagata tells you – the sooner you unpack, the sooner you eat! Get to it!"


Trusting that Nagata would be able to handle the details, I turned around and caught Ohgi's eye, gesturing at the lit window. He nodded, mouth set in a grim line. "What's your plan for the meeting, Tanya?"


I started walking forwards, no longer forced to shuffle behind Ohgi now that we'd entered the comparatively protected confines of what passed for the school's quad. Ohgi fell into step as I passed him, and he was kind enough to confine his much longer legs to short paces. I appreciated not having to scramble to keep up, like I had to do with Naoto from time to time before he remembered who he was walking with. "Unfortunately, we need to do whatever it takes to get the JLF's–excuse me, the 'partner organization's'-cooperation and supplies. Without their supplies and equipment, we might as well pack the bus back up and head back to Shinjuku."


Ohgi hummed thoughtfully. "That's a bad negotiating position. What do we have that they want to buy supplies with?"


I shrugged. "That's what we'll have to find out from this Major Onoda. Hopefully he's still coherent after years of bunker life." I paused, considering how I should phrase my next point. "The man from Kyoto... indicated... that the good Major would not respond well if I took the lead so it might be beneficial if you handle the negotiations instead."


Ohgi stopped in his tracks and turned to look at me, a shocked expression on his face. "Absolutely not! Tanya, none of this would have been possible without you – all of these recruits got on a bus and came all the way out here into the mountains because of your reputation."


Coming from virtually anybody else, I would have taken Ohgi's statement as either brown-nosing or an attempt to dodge the responsibility for the unpleasant task of groveling for our dinners. Unfortunately, in Ohgi's case, I was afraid that he sincerely believed what he was saying, which would make it all the more difficult to talk some sense back into him.


Sighing with fond exasperation, I patted him on the elbow, doing my best to affirm my appreciation for his immediate support, unfounded though it was. "Ohgi, they signed up because they're terrified of the Britannians and the gangs, and because we promised to feed them. My only role was in facilitating their recruitment by advertising the opportunities membership in the Kozuki Organization presents. They joined us because we promised them an alternative other than a slow death by hunger or a speedy death by bullet." I chuckled, somewhat amused that anyone would believe that people would throw their lives away to sign up with a terrorist organization just because of me. "No, each of those recruits signed up for their own reasons, but I doubt any of them had much to do with me. Besides, we both know that Naoto is the charismatic leader around here."


As I spoke, Ohgi's look of shock slowly turned into an expression of confusion before settling on something that I couldn't fully pin down, but looked remarkably like indigestion. "Tanya... this isn't the time or the place for this conversation, but... for such a smart girl, you can be remarkably stupid at times." He shook his head, smiled at my indignant expression, and patted me on the head!


Before I could muster the words to express my fury at his condescending attitude – what the hell did he mean by "remarkably stupid" anyway?! - Ohgi turned and continued walking towards the class building, leaving me to scamper to catch up. "So," he continued in a more business-like tone, forcing me to set aside my irritation in favor of professionalism, "we're just playing this by ear, eh? I think the only things we can really trade against their support right now is the promise of future support and friendship. And that's pretty pitiful, as far as trade goes – plus, they don't know us, so they won't trust us."


"Mhm." I nodded, mentally inventorying our assets. "I think that we have two, potentially three, presently usable chips. Namely, access, information, and violence."


"Violence, huh?" Ohgi smiled at that, a somewhat wistful look crossing his features. In earlier times I would have assumed it was a gesture that he longed to return to the battlefield; now, I wasn't quite sure what that sad smile represented, but I doubted it was anything like blood lust. "I suppose that's always on the table for you, eh, Tanya? But... why would the JLF need our help for that? They've got an army, after all."


"Yes, they do," I agreed, nodding as I stated the obvious. "They've got an army that's spent years doing nothing in particular besides the occasional small scale raid. In other words, they've got an army that has forgotten how to fight."


"That makes sense–although I'd recommend finding a more diplomatic way to phrase that sentiment," Ohgi cautioned as we approached the door to the school, unsurprisingly finding it unlocked. "Access and information, though?"


I nodded, pitching my voice low and quiet in case the JLF representative was lurking around, trying to overhear our conversation. "How many spies do the JLF have in the Britannian Concession? How many connections to the Britannian and Honorary Britannian underclasses do they have? I'm betting very few if any. We have both. Access and information."


Ohgi nodded his understanding, looking a bit heartened that we wouldn't be meeting Major Onoda entirely cap in hand. I looked up at the shadowed staircase, where a trail in the dust and debris indicated recent traffic, and gritted my teeth. Well, no time like the present. This isn't going to get any more pleasant with time. Back straight and head held high, I followed Ohgi up the stairs to our presumably waiting interlocutor.


---------


JANUARY 9, 2016 ATB
"THE SCHOOL" TRAINING FACILITY BARRACKS
0430


Training began bright and early for everybody at The School, especially for myself, Ohgi, and Nagata. As it had been for the last week, I was the first to wake up, slipping from my blankets just before five. The old school dormitory was as frigid as always, and I changed clothes as fast as possible, standing on the blankets to keep my bare feet from the icy linoleum as I pulled on my socks one by one. As soon as I was presentable, I shook Nagata and Ohgi awake as gently as was possible under the circumstances.


Then, much less gently, I woke the recruits. One of the supplementary items Nagata had brought along in the name of morale boosting was a crank powered tape player, which I had promptly appropriated for the morning alarm, as I lacked a bugle. The recruits had five minutes to get up, get dressed, and get outside from when I passed their door, tape player in hand. Any of the five man squads with tardy or undressed recruits got the joy of doing push ups until their buddies joined them.


After everybody was awake and sorted, we all went outside into the snow for a brisk run around the compounds and between the young trees that had sprung up on the old football field during the years The School had sat empty. Ohgi or Nagata took the lead, while I brought up the rear, encouraging any stragglers to keep up with the pack. After thirty minutes or a mile run without anybody slowing to a walk, whichever came first, we all returned to the dorm for breakfast, shivering as we hastily boiled water over the camping stoves to prepare thin miso flavored with tiny bits of dried meat, porridge, and cabbage.


Breakfast was a generous thirty minutes, after which it was time for more cardio, followed by calisthenics. Next came the first class of the day.


Each "class" was led by myself or Ohgi, and consisted of a thirty minute lecture followed by having the class break up into smaller groups for more hands-on work, with Ohgi and I circulating between groups. Topics ranged from weapon care and maintenance to first aid, from learning useful Britannian words and phrases to learning how to speak about our organization to civilians potentially interested in joining – after all, this cohort in particular would ideally be the base for our noncom corps, and recruiting sergeants were a must for any army. Every now and then, Nagata would step up to teach skills like driving, vehicle repair, or basic mechanics.


One of the many bottlenecks we had identified in the training process during the hasty planning sessions prior to setting out for the Gunma hinterlands was the huge ratio of recruits to available instructors. Fortunately, Ohgi had drawn on his experience as a teacher and devised a mitigation measure of sorts, inspired by the class representatives of the high school he'd once taught at.


"Appoint one of them squad leader for a day," he'd said, "and have it rotate each day. The squad leader will keep their squad on task, and any questions they've got go through the squad leader to us. That way, we only need to talk to twelve people, and they can correct their squads for us."


Naoto and I had both agreed that this was an excellent idea; not only did it simplify the tenuous classroom situation, the strategy also gave every recruit a small taste of leadership. Ideally, it would help Ohgi and I handpick the next generation of small unit commanders from the talent pool as well, although that was a longer term concern.


After that first class period came a short pre-lunch workout, mostly running and body weight exercises. Lunch generally consisted of another helping of porridge and vegetables, supplemented with miso , followed by another class period. Typically, the afternoon class focused on slightly more cerebral topics than the morning class, and included topics such as basic tactics, simple human intelligence collection skills, soft and hard interrogation, and the ins and outs of operational security.


Unlike the morning class, where all twelve squads remained with Ohgi and I in the former reception hall of The School, during the afternoon half of the class would remain inside with me as I conducted the class, while the other half went outside with Nagata and Ohgi to get better acquainted with the firearms we had brought with us from Shinjuku, as well as other practical martial skills. Each day, the halves swapped back and forth between us, so both groups got a roughly equal amount of practice.


It had been both somewhat intimidating and nostalgic the afternoon of the first day, standing alone in front of thirty men and women, every one of them older than me. Ohgi had been beside me in every prior situation like this in my life to date, from the first distribution at the Rising Sun's hall to that morning's class session. While I obviously didn't need him to be present, it had been reassuring to have someone at my side I could count on. Now that he was gone, out in the forest with the other half of the recruits and Nagata, I had nothing but my own self-assurance to fall back on in the face of all of those inquisitive stares.


At the same time, the situation had been undeniably nostalgic in a very bittersweet way. I hadn't stood in front of a group of trainees and students like I had that first day of training since the founding of the 203rd; the shades of my old comrades hung thick about the room. As it always was when they crossed my mind, it had been hard to... keep myself in check. It had been easy to keep my eyes steely and focused on my recruits – making eye contact with strangers was far preferable to looking behind me and to my right, at the empty space where someone should be standing.


That first night, after the training session, had been particularly troubled. I had lain awake for hours, spending time I should have been sleeping tossing and turning, engrossed in sharp-edged memories. I'd finally drifted off to sleep, and been disappointed in myself when I'd woken up with tears frozen to my face. I had thought I was done with crying. I hadn't cried since that talk with Naoto in the aftermath of the truck hijacking, but it seemed like the change of scenery coupled with the memories of my last life had been enough. Thankfully, since I was always the first to rise, I'd had time to scrub my face clean as best as I could with my sleeve. Ohgi might have reassured me that it wasn't a sign of weakness to ask for help, but... I just wasn't ready to talk about anything touching on my previous life. Besides, I didn't have the time, not in the inaugural week of our training program.


I had been surprised to find myself enjoying the role of instructor over the course of this first week– I had never really thought of myself as a teacher, and much of the "training" I had subjected the 203rd to had been administered with the intention of driving them away and scuttling the rapid-reaction concept, not actual education. Yet, standing in front of my thirty trainees that first day, I had been eager to pass on my knowledge, hungry to pass on every trick I could to refine these fellow scrapings of the Shinjuku ghettos into thorns in the hand of Britannia. That craving to teach, to instruct, to build had swollen and grown with each passing day.


My hunger to teach was happily reciprocated by the recruits' eagerness to learn. I had, frankly, been shocked by the lack of any push back from my students. None of them had objected to being taught by an almost twelve year old, nor had any objected to being instructed by a blue eyed blonde. The latter was not particularly surprising – between the Rising Sun's work and the knowledge that I had lived in Shinjuku since the Conquest, nobody seemed willing or interested in making an issue of my mixed heritage. The fact that nobody objected to being taught by a child was more surprising, but I could only assume that Ohgi's willingness to back me up, coupled with the minor reputation boost I'd gained thanks to the brawl at the Rising Sun, had helped lay their worries to rest. Which meant I didn't have to waste time proving my credentials to my subordinates and could instead focus getting down to the business of education.


Seven days of hard training and instruction later, I stood in front of my class again. "Welcome back from lunch, comrades! I hope you enjoyed it thoroughly." Strictly speaking, I had been with them in the cafeteria, thoroughly cleaned and returned to its original function, and had eaten the same ration of porridge and greens that they had, but that was immaterial. "Today, I won't bother you with a lecture or ramble at you with anecdotes! Instead..." I let the deliberate pause hang in the air, and was gratified to see all but one of the attendees unconsciously leaning in towards me, eager for the next words. "Instead, I will be giving you several scenarios, and each squad will have to put together a list of objectives, a plan, and a list of required materials! After you finish, you will meet with another squad, exchange plans, and critique each other!" And now, for the incentive. "The squad with the best plan for each scenario gets this class period off tomorrow afternoon!" That should light a fire under them.


I had planned for today to be something approaching a test for my students, or perhaps a lesson in practical application, but it seemed like the lesson would be a test for me as well. Leaning against the back wall of the classroom, Major Onoda Hiroo of the Japanese Liberation Front glared at me, clearly itching to make a nuisance of himself.


The initial meeting had gone just about as badly as I had feared. The Six Houses had clearly informed Major Onoda and his superiors about my mixed heritage, which meant that while he was clearly unhappy about my presence he at least lacked any excuse to "accidentally" bayonet me as I walked through the door. Robbed of the opportunity for overt hostility, Onoda had simply done his best to pretend that I did not, in fact, exist; he did not acknowledge my presence in any way, nor did he respond to anything that I said.


While frustrating, the situation was not entirely beyond all repair. Onoda was willing to speak with and negotiate through Ohgi, who being both obviously "pure" Japanese and a man apparently met his standards. As a result, poor Ohgi ended up working as something like a translator – Onoda would say something, I would reply, Ohgi would parrot what I had just said, and Onoda would reply. It was an intensely irritating experience, especially considering that Major Onoda and the rest of his collection of Pre-Conquest fossils had spent the years safe and well-fed in their mountain bunkers, while the rest of us had been forced to struggle for food and for shelter under the feet of the Britannians. Still, the JLF were undoubtedly the stronger of the two of us, and Onoda fully knew it, knew that we needed him and his supplies more than he needed us.


After a tortuous hour, just before my fraying patience had snapped entirely, we had finally come to an accord. The JLF would provide my training group with food, ammunition, cooking oil, and other necessities including winter weight gear, for the next three months. In exchange, after the first cohort of recruits was combat ready, the Kozuki Organization would conduct two operations against the Britannian forces stationed outside the Greater Tokyo Area in accordance with the wishes of the JLF. Also, Major Onoda would have the right to observe and participate in any and all training sessions without interference.


I was, to say the least, unhappy with the agreement, but didn't see any alternative. Besides, while the initial contract was decidedly disadvantageous, as more recruits arrived the Kozuki Organization would be able to haul in more materials sourced from Shinjuku, reducing our reliance on the JLF for the basics. Plus, the current contract meant that I had three months to make a solid impression on the JLF and specifically on Major Onoda. If I could win him over, or at least reduce his overt hostility to the point where a professional relationship was possible, future negotiations would be far easier.


Just a pity the man's such an ass.


This was the first time the good Major had shown up to a class when Ohgi wasn't also present, and it was difficult to tell if this represented a step forward or not. His presence presumably indicated that Onoda had finally realized that he couldn't simply dismiss me entirely, but the fact that he'd boldly strode through the door just after the last of the recruits had returned from lunch and heading straight to the back wall boded ill. Is he trying to undermine my control over the recruits? I couldn't see how that would benefit him or his organization, since these were the people I would be using for the two missions I owed him.


No, more likely than not, he was simply an unpleasant and racist relic of the past that I would have to work around as best as I could. If he went beyond simple unpleasantness, though, or tried anything against me or my recruits? I wouldn't let a dreg who hadn't had the decency to commit seppuku with his leader as he'd presumably sworn that he would hold me back. His Japan was, like it or not, dead. Hopefully, with the cooperation of Lord Stadtfeld, I would bring a new Japan into existence.


Turning my attention away from the mustachioed pain in the ass, I started outlining the first scenario to my class. "You have received intelligence from a reliable source that a certain address contains a significant amount of sellable drugs and currency, as well as other valuables, and that said valuables are about to be moved to an unknown location via truck. The structure has guards visible outside the entrances, and an unknown number of potential hostiles are inside. Your organization is short on funds, which prompted this operation. You have twenty minutes to discuss the scenario before comparing your work with another squad. If you have any questions, squad leaders, don't hesitate to ask."


By the time class had ended, I had run the recruits through three scenarios drawn from my time with the Kozuki Organization. After the truck scenario had come the station, with details modified to describe attacking a fortified bunker full of unwary soldiers, before I'd finally concluded with Naoto's thankfully aborted idea of attacking the expansion of the Sakuradite-powered MagLev system. Major Onoda had seemed disinterested in the first scenario, had frowned as he'd listened to the squads nearest him discuss how best to ambush the bunker's occupants, and had looked quite upset for some reason when I had stated my opinion that the third scenario was a foolish thing to attempt at all and had given the squad that had opted for a tactical retreat the victory. By the time the last of the recruits had tromped out on their way to the parked bus, where Nagata would instruct them about the finer points of engine maintenance, Major Onoda had looked fit to burst.


I carefully ignored the fuming presence in the back of the room, taking time to straighten up the loose pages of notes on the desk I had commandeered. If Onoda had finally felt the need to interact directly with me, I was more than ready for him – relying on Ohgi to "translate" was a bad joke, and it wasted everybody's time. Just the same, a lot was riding on the continued cooperation of the JLF, and I couldn't afford to offend the Major to the point where he'd scuttle our whole partnership. It would be a foolish move, illogically motivated by personal rancor, but the same could be said for virtually everything he had done since we'd arrived.


I wondered why the remnants of the Japanese Army had seen fit to assign him as our liaison; my best guess was that some higher-up in the JLF did not want to work with us but did not want to risk offending Kyoto by refusing to help at all, and so had decided to task their most truculent officer with driving us off. It was the kind of stupid office politics I sadly could remember from both of my past lives, and it seemed all too unfortunately plausible.


Seeming to realize that if he wanted a conversation he'd have to be the initiator, Major Onoda peeled himself off the wall and made his way to the front of the classroom. I ceased shuffling the papers and turned my attention towards him as he came to a stop in front of my desk. I could immediately tell that this would not be a friendly conversation. He made no concession to my diminutive frame as he drew himself stiffly up to his full height, towering a foot and a half over me. Instead of angling his head down to look directly at me, only his eyes tracked downwards, leaving him glaring down his nose.


As far as attempts to assert dominance went, I judged his performance as distinctly unimpressive. Walking past a heap of corpses slumped against a wall, some of which had been my neighbors up until recently, had been fairly intimidating. The terror I had felt when I thought Naoto was going to tell me to leave had been intense, and had brought me to the brink of hysteria before I had realized I'd misread the situation. Comparatively, being looked down upon by this bastard was just a waste of my time. And I wasn't interested in wasting even a single minute that could be spent educating my recruits in a pointless staring match with this relic of the old order.


"Yes? Did you want something?" I spoke casually, pitching my tone towards the mildly inquisitive, doing my best to not offer any direct offense without kowtowing to the Major either. "If you've got any questions about the scenarios, I would be happy to explain further."


Breath hissed from Onoda's nostrils, but when he finally spoke, it was calmly, quietly. "Your tactics are cowardly and cheap. It is shameful that you are teaching your students to wage war in such a manner."


"And what would you propose, Major." I likewise kept my voice calm, but I didn't bother trying to warm up my icy tone. "Not all of us have a bunker to hide in for the next five years, nor do we have the weapons to face the foreign invaders toe to toe. What would you have us do? Shout 'Banzai!' and charge Knightmares with knives and pistols?"


Onoda's face tightened slightly, but to his credit he didn't rise to the bait. In fact, he suddenly seemed inexplicably looser, as if an unseen tension had just been removed. If this is a test... Did that mean I answered correctly? "True, directly confronting the Britannians is doomed to failure. But, from what I hear, you've never fought the Britannians, have you? You've only fought Japanese, in your slum..." He snorted slightly. "True Japanese, that is. You haven't even confronted the lapdogs of the Britannians. I even hear that you feed them, now that the puppies have been kicked by their master."


Keep calm. He's trying to piss you off... and he's doing a great job at it. "Unlike some people," I began, picking my words with care, "I plan for the future. After all, today's enemy is tomorrow's friend, especially after a demonstration of the cruelty and impotence of their current leadership." I smiled up at Onoda as my mind whirled, trying to find some way to deescalate the situation.


I needed Onoda and the resources he represented on my side – losing the JLF would not only kill the training camp concept, it would be a black mark against my capabilities as a leader in the eyes of my tentative backers in Kyoto House. On the other hand, I couldn't let him roll over me. The moment I showed my belly, Onoda would lose all respect for me, and would never accept me as anything close to an equal.


Suddenly, an idea struck me. If there was one thing that I remembered from my first life and my dealings with middle ranked managers in the corporate sphere, it was the overwhelming sense of pride this type had in their accomplishments and perceived abilities. My second life's experiences had indicated that the same held true for many middle-ranked military officers. Scoring conversational sparring points that would potentially bruise his ego did me no good – but perhaps flanking his defensiveness by appealing to that ego would. "Major Onoda, you were a member of the Republic of Japan's Army before the Conquest, correct?"


Major Onoda blinked, seemingly taken aback at my sudden change in tone and topic. "Yes, of course. I was assigned to the Komaki Garrison. Why? What do you care, girl?"


"Tanya. My name is Tanya." Showing interest was not a capitulation, and Onoda was a fool if he thought as much. "It is very impressive that you have survived so long. You must have learned a great deal during your time in uniform. You would be an excellent teacher for our recruits, most of whom know little about how to use a rifle or any number of other military skills." That's enough ego stroking... time to bait the hook. "Assuming, of course, that you haven't gotten too rusty. Five years is a long time to be out of the field, for a soldier."


Onoda snorted. "I might not have spent my years wading through the filth of Shinjuku, but I've hardly been out of the field for so long. Why do you think I was chosen to babysit you and your crowd of hoodlums, hmm?"


That was an interesting deflection, and raised several questions, but I wasn't interested in tangents at the moment. "Excellent. In that case, I am sure you have a great deal to teach my men, including how you were able to conduct honorable operations for the JLF. I am assuming that you were in uniform and only attacked military targets during these missions?"


Onoda had the grace to look moderately embarrassed for a moment, before rallying. "Irrelevant. Why should I waste my time teaching your gutter scrapings anything, hmm? Are you trying to cover up your own failings by farming out their education?"


"We are shorthanded, and you would make a quantitative difference in our instructive capacity." I replied calmly, refusing the bait. On the other hand... "But, I can understand your concerns. You have not yet had the opportunity to see any of us in action, and your information on our capabilities has come by way of third parties, not your own organization's observations." I didn't know for sure if Onoda knew anything about the Six Houses, as the name had not been mentioned even once in the first negotiating session. Best not to name-drop. Breaking OpSec would be terribly unprofessional... "If you would like, I would be happy to demonstrate my familiarity with the rifle, the pistol, the knife, or any similar skill. If such a demonstration would assist your decision on whether or not to share your skills, I believe Ohgi and the other half of the recruits are outside training with the rifles this very moment."


---------


FEBRUARY 2, 2016 ATB
OUTSIDE "THE SCHOOL" TRAINING FACILITY
1630


Three weeks after my little "demonstration", a month after the first cohort and I had arrived at The School, the bus wheezed its way back into the center of the compound and disgorged its load of thirty fresh recruits from Shinjuku. With them in the bus came a cornucopia of badly needed supplies, including more ammunition for the training weapons, many more blankets, an abundance of multivitamin tablets and decongestant medications, and plenty of other tools to improve the educational experience.


The new recruits found six of the twelve squads of the first cohort waiting for them as soon as they got off the bus, and each of the more experienced recruits stepped forward to take responsibility for one of the new recruits. This particular concept had been one of Ohgi's brainwaves. Instead of wasting valuable instructional time on the basics, many of the simpler lessons on easily taught and rote topics could be passed student to student, freeing the instructors up to focus on teaching more advanced topics to greenhorns and the more advanced students alike.


And if I'm being honest... The fact that it gives us some badly needed free time is a relief...


It had been a stressful month, to say the least. Stressful in a manner to which I was no longer truly accustomed, I was sorry to say and even sorrier to find out. In a somewhat perverse way, I had grown acclimated over the years of my most recent life to gnawing hunger, to aching muscles, to a profound level of fear and helplessness in the face of death by forces wildly beyond my control. After joining the Kozuki Organization, I had grown familiar with the stress of combat, with the burden of responsibility. And yet, the stress of teaching, of cultivating my relationship with my trainees without compromising my need to be an effective teacher and subordinate leader... Even the stress of coming up with new lesson plans and new ways to explain topics and concepts in an easy and useful manner had been surprisingly difficult to get used to.


At some points, I had almost grown nostalgic for the nerve-jangling adrenaline boost that came from a close brush with death. Almost.


Thankfully, while he had never really warmed up to me, my demonstration apparently impressed Major Onoda enough that he had seen the virtues of maintaining a working relationship. While I was, of course, happy to have his cooperation, and hopefully the cooperation of his organization as well, in the short term I was just relieved to have another experienced fighter willing to take on some of the burden of instruction.


At first, Onoda had only been willing to teach basic weapons skills and the like to the trainees, but after a week or so he appeared to have been infected by the same hunger to teach that had taken hold of me during my first week as an instructor. Perhaps it was just the experience of having so many eyes fixed on you, eager and willing to listen to whatever you say, or perhaps it was a simple desire to maintain his pride by demonstrating the variety of skills under his command, but by the third week of the first training session, I had learned a few very interesting things about Major Onoda Hiroo.


Surprisingly, Onoda's original operational specialty had been in signal intelligence, and he had a great deal of familiarity with a variety of communication technologies, as well as some experience with interception of enemy communications. During his time with the JLF, he had developed something of a secondary specialty as a scout as a result of several missions involving sneaking into various rural outposts and either stealing code books and radios or planting listening devices or phone taps. He'd cultivated keen observational instincts when it came to evaluating the field strength of enemy units, and had apparently mastered the art of staying still for hours at a time, lurking under cover until the moment to infiltrate came.


In retrospect, this made his complaints about my ambush tactics decidedly hypocritical, but compared to his blatant racism and sense of superiority over all of the recruits, that was really the least of my problems with the man.


The only real issue I had had with Major Onoda had been heading off a scheme he'd come up with to "blood" the recruits. It had taken Ohgi, Nagata, and myself to convince him that kidnapping a number of Britannian civilians from the hot spring resort at Kusatsu for use as human targets was a bad idea. Onoda had insisted that it was a long-time tradition in the Japanese Army to make sure that recruits had the killer instinct by making them kill prisoners during the course of their training; I had no doubt that he was telling the truth about that. On the other hand, as I had pointed out to the Major, not only was the Kozuki Organization not the Japanese Army, we were also not a state actor, and thus lacked a supply of prisoners. Even if we got away with kidnapping a group of random Britannians for the first cohort, it would be impossible to do so for all the subsequent training groups. More than anything else, the logistical infeasibility convinced him to drop it.


As the new recruits found billets and dinner, I slipped away from The School, across the street, and through the surrounding forest and towards the nearby Kanayamazawa River. The forest was quiet, and the dense evergreen canopy kept the snow at a navigable level, and so I had taken to roaming the surroundings whenever I had a free moment in my busy schedule at The School. Neither of my previous lives had really given me the opportunity to get out into nature, save for military operations during my second life, and I found it immensely relaxing to step away from all of the works of humankind, just for a few moments. Bundled in the coat that Kallen had bought me, shod with a pair of Japanese military surplus combat boots crammed full of wadded up newspaper, it was easy to feel like the last person in the world under the primeval embrace of the broad cedar bows.


Down at a slight bend in the frozen river, I had found a large granite boulder standing nearly at the river's edge during an earlier exploration. It stood like some monument, some forgotten menhir, and it had probably stood in just the same way since the end of the last ice age. I was sure that, come the spring thaw, the river would rise and lap away at the boulder, but it had clearly hidden many secrets before, come water and time; when I had found it, I had discovered snack wrappers and soda bottles wedged under it, dating back from before the Conquest. It had probably once served as a place for students to sneak away from the eyes of their proctors at the school and to enjoy a few snacks and cigarettes away from adult supervision.


Now, that boulder hid my secret as well. I had, in truth, concealed one of the reasons I had pushed for the establishment of a training camp far outside of the densely populated core of Shinjuku, and far away from the innumerable prying eyes, from everybody, Ohgi and Naoto included. Ever since I had started eating better, ever since I had enough of a calorie surplus to start building muscle, my magical powers had become increasingly strong. I had been able to maintain my mental and physical enhancements for a longer period of time, and the intense use of both produced increasingly notable effects. When I had brawled with the gangsters at the Rising Sun dinner, I had overclocked my mental enhancement to the point where my perception of time had slowed down, giving me the freedom to analyze how and where my opponents would move and to prepare counters. The physical enhancement suite had almost sent me sprawling on the floor when I'd jumped over the table with far too much force, as my calibrations had been tied to my earlier functional levels.


This lack of awareness and familiarity with my newly expanded capacity had the potential to be a double-edged sword. For example, if I really had fallen to the ground during the brawl, I would have both undermined my entire presentation and left myself in a vulnerable position. I had been lucky that the low quality of my opposition had prevented them from capitalizing on my mistake – I couldn't count on similar strokes of luck in the future. And so, whenever I had time to myself, I slipped out into the forest to this spot, and practiced my magic as best as I could.


The first couple of weeks had been dedicated to re-familiarizing myself with the bread and butter enhancements I had relied upon for so long. It had been like returning to the gym after a period of absence and gradually working back up to your old weights, feeling muscles that had grown slack and lazy tighten and surge with new life. I had stumbled back to my bed with every muscle worn from the exertion of pushing myself to the edge and with my brain throbbing after the merciless abuse of the overclocking enhancements, but it had been worth it. Finally, after I felt confident in my command of my enhancement suite once more, I embarked on a new project.


Without the help of a computation orb or a similar device, flight was unfortunately far beyond my reach. I couldn't hope to complete the necessary calculations in my mind while simultaneously attempting to maneuver, nor did I have the magical capacity for unaided flight, even now that I had a decent diet. While true flight was out of the question, though, acceleration and movement along a vector very much wasn't.


When I flew, I had to overcome gravity, compensate for wind resistance, and account for a half-dozen other factors. Vector acceleration, however, did not require anything like that level of complexity. Instead of canceling out the force of gravity, all I had to do was pick a percieved direction and add a force vector pointed in said direction; the force applied would then determine how fast I would go. As perception is the root of experience, I should be able to alter my direction by simply canceling the first vector and making a new one with my facing as the new direction. In effect, this would cause me to rapidly plummet in any direction I chose by simply turning my body whichever way I wanted to go, and given sufficient experience, I was relatively certain I would be able to change the chosen direction in mid-movement, allowing me to maneuver along unpredictable zig-zagging lines, reducing my target profile.


This was not, by any measure, an easy process. My first few attempts at altering applying the theory had left me with nothing more than a sensation of intense vertigo and nausea, forcing me to stay in bed for a whole day. Ohgi had been surprisingly understanding of my need for bed rest, and even left a bottle of aspirin by my bed when he left for the morning training. All the female recruits had looked similarly sympathetic, which had finally clued me in on the misunderstanding of why I had spent a day curled up around myself, hoping that my gut would settle down. Truthfully, I was just happy that this particular source of unpleasantness had yet to rear its ugly head, but now that I had been eating adequately for several months, I was gloomily certain that shadow of my second life would soon be returning to haunt me once again.


Eventually, my training began to pay off. After some perseverance and much chewing of raw ginger to help cope with the nausea, I had finally gotten to the point where I could jump in the air, apply a vector to myself, and zoom twenty feet across the river's icy surface before turning and then hurling myself back the way I came. It wasn't flying, but the rush of wind for that precious second or two almost made me feel like I was back up in the clouds once more.


The night that the second cohort arrived, I had been practicing my vector acceleration as per normal, forcing rapid changes in the direction as I whizzed around the standing boulder. Between the certain knowledge that everybody else in the area was fully occupied moving the new recruits into the dormitory barracks and that heady nostalgic flying feeling, I had let myself sink fully into the delicious sensation of movement. In short, I had grown complacent, and had let my guard down.


"T-Tanya?"


...Oh shit!


"Tanya! What... What's going on? What are you doing?!" It was all I could do to keep control of my magic and not plow face first into the unyielding granite. Smashing down the rising panicky impulse, I ended the current vector analysis calculation in my head and let the re-established gravitational normalcy claim me, absentmindedly flexing my knees as I landed back on the stony river bank. Then, full of a mixed sensation of childish guilt and dread, I slowly turned to meet Ohgi's eyes, where he stood between the cedars at the edge of the forest.


Guess the secret's out now...

 

[Scopas]

Kozuki Organization Member Roll:
-Hajime Tanya
-Kaname Ohgi
-Kozuki Naoto
-Kozuki Kallen
-Tamaki
-Inoue
-Nagata

The first recruits:
-Souichiro
-Chihiro (Ohgi's former student)

The former gangsters: (Under Tamaki's command)
-Hojo (saved Tanya's life, junkie)
-Hina (in a relationship with Inuyama)
-Gin
-Inuyama

The freed slaves:
-Kasumi (non-combatant, hates the former gangsters, Inoue's assistant)
-Aina (Under Chihiro's command)
-Misato (Under Chihiro's command)
-Makoto (Under Chihiro's command)
-Inori (Under Chihiro's command)

 

[Scopas]

Shinjuku Slum (to the tune of "Skibbereen")


Oh Mother dear, I oft times hear you speak of Old Japan,
Her flowering trees, her fresh sea breeze, her mountains holy and pure
You say it was a mighty land where you could stand tall,
Then what happened to that land, where we now live so small?


Oh son, I lived a life of peace, my future was so bright
Til cross the sea came the Brits, with all their cursed might.
We fought on beach and on the street, but could not overcome.
And that's the cruel reason why, we live in this old slum.


Oh, well do I remember, that steamy August day,
We had no hope, nor a chance, not even to flee away
The bombs and shells fell like rain, like sticks upon a drum
And with no house I had no choice but to dwell in this slum.


Your father too, gods rest his soul, fell gurgling to the ground
A splinter of steel found his lungs, in his own blood he drowned
He never rose, but passed away, from life to my bitter dream,
He lies in a mass grave, my son, somewhere outside this slum.


And you were only six years old but ancient were your eyes,
I could not join my husband then, not when I heard your cries.
I filled your randosel with clothes, empty-hearted and numb
And joined the sad procession into Shinjuku Slum.


It's well I do remember, the years of pain and grief.
The Brits butchered and starved us all, as we begged for some relief.
The bastards took a mounting toll, grinding us into chum.
And that's another reason why I'll never leave this slum.


Oh Mother dear, the day will come when vengeance we will call.
The Rising Sun will scorch the land, and burn them one and all.
And I will put the prince up to a wall, and even out the sum
And loud and high we'll raise the cry,
Avenge Shinjuku Slum!

 

[Scopas]

(I adapted another song. This time, "Guns of Brixton" by The Clash.)


"Beams of the Sun"


When they kick at you front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun?


When the Brits break in
Are you gonna kneel?
Will you die on your feet
Or broken on the wheel?


You can crush us
You can starve us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh, the Beams of the Sun.


The struggle is hard
and your life it feels so small.
But surely your time will come
Find your fire, or a wall.


Your folks, they look so hungry
Bones sharp under the waxy skin.
Can yah call this survivin'
When yer loved ones are so thin?


You know they have no mercy
But if you've got a gun.
You can take a Brit with you
So join the Rising Sun.


You can crush us
You can starve us
Yes, even shoot us
But oh- the Rising Sun.


When they kick at you front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun?


You can crush us
You can starve us
Yes, even shoot us
But oh- the Rising Sun.


Will you die on your feet
Or broken on the wheel?
Can yah call this survivin'
When yer loved ones are so thin?


You can crush us
You can starve us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh, the Beams of the Sun.

 

[Scopas]

Once to Every Man and Woman (To the tune of "Once to Every Man and Nation")


Once to every man and woman
Comes the moment to decide,
Will you join the fight for our home,
Or under the yoke abide?
The Sun's new dawn is coming soon,
Offering salvation from plight,
And the choice marks you forever
So join us now in that light.


Past the heaps of murdered brothers,
In the face of cruel attack,
For our sons and for our daughters,
We will never now turn back.
For our future and for vengeance,
And for all those made to kneel,
We will tear down every castle
And break the Prince with the wheel!


Though Britannia prospers still,
The Sun's people sing this song.
Though our best fate is a swift death,
Our faith in our cause is strong.
Every martyr inspires another,
And in some time yet unknown,
The Sun will Rise on a Japan
Blood-bought, and again our own.

 

[Scopas]

(Originally posted here: https://forums.spacebattles.com/thr...ya-the-evil-x-code-geass.971950/post-81654659 and reposted with Glacier's explicit permission.)

In which Being X, embarrassed at having to fetch Tanya's soul after she manages to somehow liberate Japan and subsequently take over the entire Britannian Empire, asks for help from a colleague in a dimension a hop, skip, and a jump sideways.

IF IT'S ONLY A QUICK COLLECTION THEN, FINE.

---

Tanya looked around at the gathered friends and family surrounding her on the hospital bed and smiled. It had been a good life, she reflected. Humble beginnings, to say the least; but she had done well with what she had been given, in her opinion.

There was no fanfare, no dramatic exit. In sharp contrast to the life of Hajime Tanya, nee Degurechaff, her death was rather… boring. One moment she was there, and in the next, she found herself in a bland, gloomy room. Black wallpaper, with slightly tasteless skull and crossbones insignia decorating every square millimeter it could get away with, without completely spitting in the face of people with even the slightest sense of style everywhere. If she squinted, she could almost see… different shades of black? At least her eyesight in death seemed to be better than it was towards the end of her life. One hundred and thirty years had been a long time, and while advancements in medicine had certainly increased her quality of life, she had missed the vision she held in her youth.

Tanya's observations about the room ceased after noticing the skeleton sitting in the tall black chair behind the black desk in front of her. Death seemed to have a bit of an obsession with the color black, she mused. With blue fire in place of the usual bit of water, jelly, and protein, and having several inches on her in height despite sitting down, Tanya was rather sure he should've been the first thing she noticed.

GREETINGS

Death's voice was certainly clear. Tanya had the feeling that even had she been in a vacuum, his voice would've been just as understandable.

'Have you ever considered the merits of hiring an interior decorator? Black has to get boring eventually.'

For a skeleton with no muscles, skin, or flesh of any sort, Death pulled off the mien of offended confusion quite well.

BLACK? BORING? HOW CAN BLACK EVER BE BORING? EQUAL AMOUNTS OF COLOR, THE VERY DEFINITION OF EQUITY, THERE IS NO GREATER —

'Well first off, color has a huge impact on the overall productivity, mood, and motivation of both employees and clients. Client meetings are done quicker, which reduces the waste of valuable company resources like time. In a business like afterlife services, you must have tons of interdepartmental meetings. Surely you aren't the only Death running around, there must be some measure of coordination between universal divisions! If there's anything I've learned about managing worldwide resources, good interdepartmental working relationships are crucial to the maintenance of overarching systems! Not to mention—'

And thus, Death finally found a competent employee.
And Tanya finally found her cushy desk job.

Edit:

---

In which Death starts looking to hire more employees:

'It's supposed to go the other way.'

REALLY?

'Yes, the cat is supposed to be underneath the rope. Then below that, you put the second poster that says "Hang in there". It's a metaphor for perseverance and pushing through or something. I'm not sure, I never understood the whole motivational poster thing. It works on some employees, though.'

HOW IS A CAT BARELY HOLDING ONTO A ROPE MOTIVATIONAL?

'Again, not sure. The cat is still holding on to the rope at the beginning and end of their shift, so maybe employees will find the strength of mind to continue? This kind of thing wasn't necessary in Japan; employees would just work themselves to death willingly. Took me a while before I knocked that habit too, societal conditioning is a hard habit to kick, I think.'

HMM. WHERE IS THIS 'JAPAN'?

---

In which Tanya questions why the only ounce of color in Death's domain is in the wheat fields:

'So, is the wheat field symbolic of the harvest of souls? Gold being the infinite, incalculable value of a human life?'

THEY ARE A LEGACY.

'Of what?'

THE FINAL TESTAMENT OF A MAN NAMED BILL DOOR.

'What kind of name is Bill Door?'

…HIS PARENTS WERE DOORMAKERS?

 

[Scopas]

(Originally posted here: https://forums.spacebattles.com/thr...ya-the-evil-x-code-geass.971950/post-82563699. Reposted with ApologeticCanadian's explicit permission.)

Kinda random, but this omake spawned from a throwaway line about Gin loving CD's in Chapter 15, the song omakes Readhead has been posting, and a desire to flesh out one of the more blankslate characters in the story so far.

Not sure where in the timeline this could be, but I hope you enjoy it regardless!

___________________​

Detentions and daydreams, that's the foundation of Gin's childhood before the invasion.

His exact transgressions have faded from his mind, but he still remembers the essence of those afternoons brooding under the watchful eye of a teacher as he fantasized about his future as a musician. Though maybe 'rock star' would be more accurate. After all, it was the glamour, freedom, and, admittedly, the women that lured his teenage self towards the profession.

It's surreal to look back to the ignorant angst of those evenings and compare them to the grasping hunger and ever-present violence that defined his life after the Brit's invasion.

That desire to sing, to make music, was buried during those harsh years, covered by the landslide of shit life decided to deal the Japanese people. Day by day he'd slipped, each desperate decision causing him to spiral further and further into a person his mother—whose cheerful songs still echoed in his ears—would never recognize as her son.

Even now, years past the tipping point, Gin lacks the hindsight to look back and capture that crucial moment he tipped forward off that portentous knife's edge. The point where his motivation shifted from survival to greed and self-satisfaction.

But somehow that seed, that childish dream, had been kept alive. Among the choking weeds of desperation inherent to surviving in the Shinjuku Ghetto it found scraps of tainted sunlight and meagre trickles of silted rainfall. It wasn't the same, of course, nothing could be the same after all he'd been through, but that the seed remained at all sparks an ember of hope within him.

Hope that a part of the old Gin, the younger, more innocent Gin, is still kicking around internally.

Heh, wishful thinking.

Wry smirk still clinging to his lips, Gin shakes away the cobwebs of reminiscence from the corners of his mind. If he loiters any longer someone will pass by and wonder why he's standing frozen outside the door to their pint-sized leader's office.

It's not like stalling further is going to make the upcoming meeting any easier to face.

And it's with this cheery thought that Gin musters up the courage to rap gently on the door in front of him.

"Enter." Comes the half-distracted answer. With permission granted, he pushes through the door. Stepping into the room proper he's assaulted with the smell of fresh paper, coffee, and the common musty scent of water damage most buildings in the ghetto seemed to be afflicted with.

He's at the Rising Sun's main headquarters today. The building is still mostly used to serve the constant trickle of people stopping by for food and basic necessities, but there were a few rooms in the back dedicated to the actual running of the organization. Things like tracking the supplies, cooking the books for the Britannian side of things, and handling the overall logistics necessary for a charity cum terrorist organization were all handled here.

This is why you could almost always find at least one of two people in this building, hard at work filling out forms and keeping things on track. And while a part of him would prefer to be having this meeting with Inoue, Gin knew while not all that serious, this was still a meeting that needed to be done with the big boss.

Though, maybe 'little boss' would be a more appropriate epithet—not that he'd ever utter such a thought aloud.

Hajime Tanya. As she looks up at him, seemingly distracted from the paperwork she'd been diligently working away at, Gin can't help but muse on the tangled ball of threads that is his new boss.

His first impression, one attained through a single contemptuous glance the night he'd stupidly barged into the Rising Sun's community dinner, had been of a skinny half-Brit with more bravado than brains. He'd seen the thin circumference of her arms and legs, the choppy blonde hair of an outsider, and he'd written her off as a threat. Just another fragile obstacle on his way to his goal of indulgent self-satisfaction.

A mistake.

A mistake, standing in front of her again now, he almost can't believe he made. Yes, she was thin, but she was also corded with whip-thin muscle from a life of hard labour in the ghetto. Yes, she was a half-Brit with hair like wheat and eyes like blue gems, but those eyes held so much more. In the short time Gin had known her he'd seen them lit from behind by a blue flame that used the hatred so clearly festering inside her as kindling, but he'd also seen them freeze over into chips of glacial ice devoid of passion. In those moments nothing existed in them but cold, rational logic.

In truth, Tanya frightens Gin. Partly because of the charismatic intensity she carries with her everywhere, but mostly because of what she represents. A generation of children who've known nothing but life under the heel of Britannia.

He shudders at the idea of a whole generation of Tanya's, not that he thinks that's realistic.

Hajime Tanya is one of a kind.

This is why standing in front of her now, looking to make a request of her, Gin feels more intimidated than usual. He'd much prefer to be facing Tamaki—his brand of irreverent machismo is comfortably familiar, but when he'd done so earlier he'd told him this was more Tanya's scene, so here he was.

"Ahh, Gin, Tamaki did mention you might stop by today."

Coughing uncomfortably at the discomforting dichotomy of a child's voice carrying an adult's composure, Gin started into Tanya's expectant gaze and answered. "Yeah, uhh, I ran an idea by Tamaki earlier and he thought it was decent." Shrugging, he continued. "Told me to stop by and see what you think of it."

Admittedly he was borrowing his superior's name a little here, but Gin doubted he'd mind, and from what he'd seen Tamaki and Tanya seemed to get on surprisingly well considering their different personalities.

"Oh?" Sitting up, Tanya properly focused her attention on him. He felt like a particularly juicy mouse before a swaying cobra. "Well let's hear it then."

"Not sure how much you know 'bout me, but I've got a finger on the music scene in the ghetto."

"I'll admit, I wasn't aware there was a music scene in the ghetto."

Gin shrugs again, but there is a noticeable uptick of enthusiasm in his next words. "Music ain't going anywhere." He pauses, reconsidering. "Well, honestly those first couple years after the invasion there wasn't much of it. Too disorganized, and people were too busy survivin' to worry about banging some pots and pans together for entertainment."

Cynical amusement bled into the ancient child's gaze. "But humans adapt, right?"

Gin gives a chagrined nod at the adage. "Ain't that the truth." He runs a hand through his unkempt hair, shifting unconsciously from foot to foot. "It started with the workers. Ya'know, songs to pass the time."

Tanya's eyes glaze over, taking on a faraway cast. "It also helps keep a rhythm."

"Huh?"

"It's hard, aching work sifting through rubble." A muscle in her jaw twitches and those eyes turn glacial. "It didn't take long for people to figure out the work was easier if you set up a chain. One person passes the boulder to the next, and so on down the line. The songs you're talking about did make the day a little less boring, but they also kept the rhythm going, made it so you could turn your brain off and just move without thought."

Gin swallows hard. Suddenly doubly ashamed of himself. He'd been extorting goods from people with nothing while this little slip of a girl had been hauling rocks to survive.

"Yeah, just so." He says, voice rough.

His voice seems to startle her from her reverie, and she looks up, eyes focusing as she drifts back into the present. "Still, you said that was just the beginning?"

Gin nods at her prodding. "Yeah, first time I noticed it was when I saw some old CDs for sale in one of the black markets. Not sure if it'd been happening before that, but once I saw it there, I started seeing it in other places. The workers had their songs, the kids played their games, and I even knew some people making homemade instruments and selling them on the side."

"Interesting." Tanya said the word in a manner that left Gin guessing if it really was interesting, or if he was boring her. "But I assume you're building up to something?"

"Uhh, yeah," he admitted, "I ain't going to pretend to understand everything that's going on here, but Tamaki says you folks—"

"We." Tanya's voice cuts through Gin's words like a sword slashing through the air.

"A-ahh?"

"It's not 'you folks', it's 'we', or 'us'." A thin blonde brow raises in a slow, deliberate arch. "After all, you are part of us now."

"Y-yes, of course!" Gin stammers, correcting himself. "I'm not fully sure what exactly we are doing, but Tamaki tells me part of it is trying to bring people together, ya'know, make Shinjuku more of a community."

Tanya nods slowly. "Yes, if we're going to be fighting Britannia we can't be fighting ourselves; it's a frivolous waste of manpower and resources."

"Right!" Gin says, words picking up speed as he gets closer to his point. "Well I was thinking maybe we could use music to do that. Not in a cheesy we'll all hold hands and get along kinda way, but ya'know, as a way to spread a message and such!"

"Propaganda?" The blonde muses.

Gin winces at the term, something his superior notices. Amused, she reassures him. "It really is a dirty word, isn't it? Still, there's nothing wrong with it in principle; everyone uses and consumes it whether they know it or not, it's more an issue of the connotation being poisoned." Leaning back in her seat, the blonde fixes him with a decidedly interested gaze. "Still, I'm curious how you intend to use music to, as you say, 'spread a message'."

Gin shivers at her tone, but answers anyway. "Didn't have no formal plans or nothing, I was just thinking of starting by getting some people to play at those dinners yo–we hold for the Rising Sun, maybe get some of the artist I know together, share some songs and set up some safe places to play—instruments are a luxury around here."

"And luxuries make others… covetous."

"Ain't that right." Gin agrees gruffly.

"Still, why ask my permission?"

Gin shifts, unsure what the correct answer is. "Umm, figured it's something I should ask." He mumbled before continuing. "'Sides if I want to get people together I'm likely gonna need some free booze and food to bribe them. Seems like something I should ask the boss about before goin' forward, I guess."

Tanya's features seem to freeze for a moment before she barks a somewhat forced laugh. "Ha! Don't let Naoto hear you joke like that; he'll think you're planning a mutiny."

Gin laughed along, but internally he was confused. Did Tanya think people still thought Naoto was in charge? Well, he didn't want to be the one to burst her bubble about their cover being blown.

Calming down, Tanya waved a hand through the air and focused her gaze back onto Gin. "Still, I feel like your stated reasons are not the only reasons you want this."

Gin hesitated, unsurprised at the insight his young leader showed. A battle took place inside him, but it was over shortly. It was a little embarrassing to admit, but he'd been humbled more than a few times in these past few weeks, it made swallowing his pride easier now.

"All I said is true," he begins, "but I'll admit a part of it is simply that I enjoy music. Listening to it and making it. Britannia's taken a lot from me; my family, my peace of mind, my country, my pride." Looking away from the painfully bright eyes of the child behind the desk, Gin continues, his voice thick with emotion. "Maybe it's silly, but I wanna start taking some of what they took from me back, and I figure I can start with music. There was a time I was passionate about it ya'know? A time where I went to bed dreaming 'bout it and I got up in the morning chasin' after it." Something firmed up inside him, an emotion he couldn't name. "I figure if I can help the cause and help myself at the same time… well…" He trails off weakly, suddenly losing steam as the sting of embarrassment creeps back in. "It's selfish, but it's the truth."

Gin might be imagining it, be he figures he sees Tanya's features thaw a little at the admittance. Leaning back in her high-backed chair, she peers up at him, brilliant blue gaze piercing him in a way that feels supernatural.

"People fight for different reasons," she starts, "safety, pride, money, the reasons are endless." She pauses for a lingering moment to let the statement hang. "And that's fine."

The look on Gin's face must reflect his confusion as her lip curls in dry amusement. Taking pity on him, she continues.

"Gin, it's not my place, or any employer's place to dictate your wants or motivations. Indeed, it's a superior's job to identify their workers' wants and find a way to align those desires with the needs of the organization."

Tanya looked at him to see if he was following and Gin nodded, pretending it wasn't extremely weird to see a child, finger laced together on the desk, talking like this about something she really shouldn't know.

Hajime Tanya is truly one of a kind.

"In your case, what you've done is go above and beyond by identifying your wants, and preemptively aligning them with the needs of the organization." Tanya smiled at him, a real smile, eyes melting like mountain snow in spring and features softening from their usual sharp severity. "That's not being selfish, that's being a model employee."

"R-right!" Gin managed to stammer, feeling for the first time that he fully understood the older members of the group's trust and belief in their leader.

The moment didn't last long, Tanya's countenance easing back to it's usual mien, but Gin knew he wouldn't forget the moment.

"Now," she continued, knocking Gin from his daze, "I have work to get back to, but I'll be sure to make Inoue aware of your request, and ensure she has the resources available for when you need them."

Putting his hand over his heart and bowing sincerely, Gin uttered a heartfelt, "thank you."

Without waiting for a response, feeling the rare electric tingle of motivation shooting through him, Gin turned to the door and exited the room.

Striding down the hallway, Gin grins, feeling genuine excitement bubble up inside. The emotion almost alien to him after such a long time absent. Yet, for the first time in a long time, he feels real hope for the future. With a full belly every day, a sturdy roof over his head each night, and leaders he is actually proud to follow, Gin allows himself to dare that he could do better, be better.

Realistically he's still far off from manifesting such a desire, but half a step is more than he'd ever imagined he'd take. For now though, he has to focus, there is a lot of work to do if he plans on making this work.

___________________​

The ending is a bit abrupt, but I figure it's better than letting it drag on too long.

 

[Scopas]

(Originally posted here: https://forums.spacebattles.com/thr...ya-the-evil-x-code-geass.971950/post-79839022. Reposted with DrawnCord's explicit permission.)

Forgive me, it has been some time since I watched Code Geass and I am writing off the cuff. Also channeling anime Tanya vibes.

Omake: Apathy

Several years in the future (After the destruction of Tokyo)
I don't care. Out of all the statements he had expected, out of all the objections he believed the black knights to have with his revelation, this was not one of them. This brazen statement shocked the black knights out of their stupor. With looks of horror shaded with confusion they all turned their eyes to their most enigmatic member, Tanya.

If confronted privately, Schneizel would confess that he knew little of Tanya beyond scraps and pieces. She was a member of the Kouzuki's group of the Japanese resistance, the same cell that Zero would eventually forge into the Black Knights. A ruthless and determined combatant with the terrifying reputation of somehow taking down Knightmare Frames on foot and earning the moniker "Rising Dawn" amongst her allies and the title "The Demon of Tokyo" by her enemies. After hearing those words, Schneizel was beginning to believe that "Demon" might not have been a strong enough word.

It was Ohgi that broke the haze of incredulity first. "Tanya, the eviden-"

"Oh, I believe him Ohgi," Tanya cutting him off. "In fact, several events that I had questions about now suddenly make sense. Several times we were put into impossible situations that had an unnatural habit of working out to our benefit. People that were inconvenient or obstinate typically became amenable or died quickly. Although, I would have just rigged Tatewaki Katase boat to explode rather than geassing him."

Tamaki slammed his hand to the table. "He used us Tanya, enslaved hundreds and killed thousands! How could you possible stick up for him?!"

"So." Tanya said with a look of boredom. Sighing and pinching her brow Tanya replied "Ok, when we all joined the resistance, we all knew that many of us wouldn't come out the other side. I assumed that everyone also understood that we wouldn't be keeping our hands clean. The enslavement of hundreds and the deaths of thousands is a very small price to pay for victory."

Staring at Cornelia, "But let us turn our attention to the most contentious "Euphemia" issue. Now, I agree with Schneizel that it was most likely a geass command that made Euphemia act that way she did. If her ultimate goal truly was the liquidation of the Japanese people, then a big showy public mass execution would be horribly inefficient and counterproductive. Let us not forget the the Britannian administration didn't try to restrain Euphemia or try to salvage the situation, but went with Euphemia lockstep towards slaughter unless Zero somehow geassed thousand of soldiers."

Tanya smirked at her "joke" and continued. "And can we please stop treating the Special Administrative Zone as some sort of tragic dream. Have we forgotten that Britannia invaded our home and stripped us of our dignity in the first place. Now some princess pities us and gives us the bare minimum of decency and suddenly she is a saint. I'm not even legally an adult and I remember a time that we were called Japanese everywhere! It's just the Shinjuku ghetto all over again. If there was such a place called Hell, then Euphemia would still be there for the sin of unforgivable naivety."

Cornelia raged at Tanya. "You Dare!"

"Cornelia," Tanya grieved with mocking pity. "I understand that you want to restore your sister's memory. I genuinely do. But you at least got to see your sister when she died. I couldn't even see the place where my mother was shot!"

"However, as a thought experiment, let us lay at the feet of Zero the deaths of everyone Euphemia and her men killed and the reprisals thereafter. Those deaths don't even come to a fraction of the murders your butcher committed on Tokyo yesterday."

"And this peace treaty is utterly worthless. Betray Zero, our greatest asset, for an Independent "Neutral" Japan. If Charles zi Britannia was right about one thing then this war is what will decide everything and I don't want it to be the side with Fleija warheads. I would gladly trade millions of more lives to burn Britannia to the ground and put every royals' head on a pike!"

And with that the everyone at the meeting was speechless with dread, staring at a monster in the form of a little girl.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 18: A Training Arc (Part 2)


(A big thank you to Siatru, and to Grig9700, Sunny, WrandmWaffles, and Daemon for beta reading this chapter.)


There was, as far as I could see, no way out. I had been caught red-handed and flatfooted, and I had no idea how to explain what Ohgi had just seen. I did not know how long he had stood by the cedars watching as I swooped and spun around the boulder, so focused on running my calculations and, to be honest, so lost in the sensation of nearly flying once more, that I had completely forgotten to pay attention to the outside world. I had grown complacent and had foolishly assumed that a hiding spot only four hundred and fifty meters from The School's entrance would be enough to keep my practice sessions secret.


Of course Ohgi would notice that I had slipped out and disappeared! Of course he would go out in search of me, as he was my self-appointed minder and co-leader of this training group! I must have been stupid to think otherwise, or really, to have not considered the possibility at all. And now I was paying for my idiotic behavior, standing on the stony bank of a frozen river, tongue-tied and shuffling my feet like the guilty child I suddenly felt like I was.


What do I say to him? My mind, usually so quick and agile, had unaccountably fallen into disorder and had screeched to a grinding halt. I couldn't think, couldn't plan. All the ideas and strategies and plans that constantly whirled through my mind had deserted me. I couldn't explain it; I had been in all kinds of situations that had far higher stakes, when my own life and death had been on the line, and I had never frozen up like this – never felt so stunned and panicky. The closest I had come had been when I thought Naoto would reject me, tell me to leave the group... Then, the fear of suddenly being alone again had been overwhelming, but I'd still had ideas of how to convince him to change his mind, to reconsider... Ideas that had ultimately proven unnecessary, but that had nonetheless come to me immediately. And now, I couldn't even figure out whether I should tell the truth or lie, much less come up with anything close to believable.


Should I run? The idea was nonsense, yet strangely appealing. Not having to explain one of the few secrets I still held close, the secret weapon that had seen me through thick and thin, that had kept my limbs moving when those around me collapsed, never to rise again... But then what? And where to? I couldn't do it. Panicked flight without a goal would burn my bridges and likely condemn me to a death by exposure or cold. For some reason, the first of those two probable outcomes felt like the worst of the pair.


I suddenly realized that while I had been working myself up into an uncharacteristically indecisive froth, Ohgi had slowly approached from the tree line, and was now only two arm lengths away. The initial shock still lingered, but an all too familiar concern was evident in the worried furrow of his brow and the set of his mouth. He paused in his approach as we made eye contact, and then slowly bent his knees, lowering himself down until he was nearly at eye level with me. "Tanya... Are you okay?"


Abruptly, I felt ashamed of my thoughts of flight or deception as I remembered a conversation around the battered old table back in Naoto's apartment. Back then, this same man had said, with all detectable sincerity, that I was needed, "not just because of your raw ability, we need you for you." I had believed him then – why was I suddenly so convinced that he would reject me now? I am afraid of being rejected, of being thought crazy? Well... I'm not a coward. Mustering up my courage, I opened my mouth and asked, "Ohgi... Do you believe in magic?"


Ohgi paused for a moment. "Magic...? I... can't say I've ever seriously thought about it, Tanya..." For some reason, he looked even more worried than he had a moment earlier. I could understand why – if one of my coworkers in my first life had suddenly started talking about magic, I would have been worried that they'd snapped too. That said, he'd just seen me hovering over the ground, so the skepticism seemed a bit rich at the moment.


I took a deep breath. "I've always known that there was something... different about myself. Something that made me stand out from the other children at my school, and then the other refugees in the Ghetto." I paused trying to figure out how to explain the next part. "When the Britannians invaded and my mother moved us to Shinjuku... When I had to start working... I was able to draw on that special thing as a source of energy and strength..."


"And that special thing was... magic?" Ohgi frowned slightly at that, before speaking again, this time slowly, haltingly, clearly choosing each word with care. "And... you can use this... magic... to strengthen yourself, and... to fly?"


I nodded, doing my best not to look too relieved. So far, he wasn't running for the hills or calling me crazy – although I suppose the second was harder to do if you'd seen "magic" with your own eyes. "I don't truly know how it works, or what it is, but I don't have a better way to describe it than magic. I can use it to enhance my strength, my endurance, my reflexes, and my mental acuity. I can't use it to fly – though I might be able to someday, but I can use it to redirect what direction I am moving in and how fast I am going. I only recently figured that out, and I was practicing it when you interrupted me."


Ohgi smiled faintly at the mild note of reproach in my voice, before reaching out and tousling my hair. I stood still and endured it in stoic silence, rather than attempt flight or resistance; a small personal token of thankfulness that he had believed me, that he hadn't rejected me... "So, you're a real life magical girl, huh?" His teasing tone belied the concern I still saw on his face, but that concern was steadily blending with awe and... pride, was it? "Do you have a special transformation sequence or anything? A small talking animal mascot, perhaps?"


I endured the affection for as long as I could stand it – roughly ten seconds – before applying my newly refined vector acceleration skills to scoot back a few feet, out of reach of any prospective head pats. I'm not running away from physical affection! I am strategically repositioning for a tactical advantage, dammit! "The only talking animal I see here is you, Ohgi!" I snapped, playing up the mock irritation while internally thankful that he'd managed to dispel the remaining awkwardness with humor. A valuable skill in a leader... I should try to learn it. "Anyway, call it magic or something else if you can't keep a straight face about it. The point is, it gives me some limited tactical advantages."


Ohgi nodded his understanding. "Magic is fine. Sorry, it... just took me by surprise to hear it." He sighed heavily and rubbed at his head, denting his already somewhat flattened pompadour. "I mean, I honestly don't know if I'd have believed it at all, if I hadn't seen you, uhh... practicing, for myself." He closed his eyes for a moment, before opening them with an air of renewed determination. "Alright, so... Magic. What do you need to be effective?"


I blinked, mildly surprised at how fast Ohgi had gone from confusion to acceptance. Ohgi clearly caught the momentary flicker of surprise, and smiled wryly. "You're already plenty special without magic, Tanya. I decided to try and stop being surprised when you pull out some fresh piece of insanity and just go along with it – it's better for my liver that way."


I snorted at that, remembering multiple nights I'd helped tuck a drunken Ohgi, or Naoto, or both, into bed, pulling their boots off and making sure that a glass of water was near at hand for whenever they woke up with a headache. I'd personally never been much of a fan of alcohol, especially not to the point of drunkenness, but I wasn't going to begrudge anybody the minor luxuries it took to get through the Shinjuku day.


"Good, it'd be a shame if your liver failed before you hit thirty five, old man! Don't you know that we don't offer healthcare for life-style issues?" Call me insane, would he? Hah!


Ohgi theatrically clutched his chest for a second, before laughing and letting his hand drop to his side. "Eh, I just hope I live long enough for death by cirrhosis to take me." The smile stilled for a moment, a pensive expression momentarily on his face, before Ohgi shook off the darkness. "Anyway, do you need anything for your magic to work? Any, uhh... mana crystals or anything?"


This time, I laughed. "What, like a video game? Where the hell would I be buying crystals out here?" I had a sudden image of a man who looked a lot like Captain Ugar from the old Logistical Corps, only dressed like a stereotypical wizard, and snorted with amusement. "No, all I need is food. Food, and more muscle."


Ohgi lit up at that. "Ah! So it's somehow tied to your body's reserves? And as your stamina improves, so does your m-magical capacity?"


I nodded and tried to avoid slipping into my instructor's voice. "Yes, exactly! Thanks to you, I've had more time to eat, so I've had more caloric intake, which has helped promote muscle development. In turn, this has increased my magical capacity, allowing me to investigate new applications!" I realized I had failed in my attempt – I was helpless to resist the cadence of the classroom, and only barely managed to force my mouth closed, halting the flow of detail.


Thankfully, Ohgi came to the rescue a moment later, filling the sudden silence as I resisted the impulse to vomit forth more detail about a topic near and dear to my heart after years of secret keeping. "New applications, eh? Well, sounds like it's a great idea to keep you fed! Which, come to think of it, is why I went looking for you anyway. The new arrivals are mostly done setting up, and Nagata was organizing dinner when I left – how about we get out of the cold and get some food before the guys eat it all?"


---------


MARCH 17, 2016 ATB
"THE SCHOOL" TRAINING FACILITY


Today was my birthday, a fact I hadn't bothered to share with anybody. The anniversary of my birth had even less emotional weight in this life than in my previous two, as my mother had been too poor, too distant, and too drunk to ever do much to celebrate it. It hadn't bothered me as a child, and while I now regret not trying harder to get to know the woman who kept me alive for all those years, who had done her best to support my educational aspirations... Not celebrating my birthday didn't bother me much now either. As such, I had expected today to be much like yesterday – busy, but comparatively uneventful.


Somehow, Ohgi had learned it was my birthday, and had conspired with Nagata to smuggle a hot rotisserie chicken and a small can of coffee with filters into our shared room. I had no idea how the two had managed this achievement, but when I returned to the dorm room there they were. The two fools had tried to refuse any of the chicken, but I had insisted; I didn't want them to think I was a food hoarder, after all. In the small but cramped confines of hungry Shinjuku, hoarding food from family and friends was taboo, as it represented a willingness to prioritize oneself over the collective good. After much effort, I managed to foist a breast and a wing off onto each man, saving my favorite parts for myself and carefully "forgetting" to offer either man any of my coffee – some sacrifices were too weighty to bear.


It was the best birthday of my third life to date. I hoped all three of us would live for at least another year, so I could celebrate with Naoto, Kallen, Inoue and Tamaki next time.


---------


APRIL 4, 2016 ATB
"THE SCHOOL" TRAINING FACILITY


The long awaited arrival of spring in Gunma Prefecture coincided almost perfectly with the graduation of the first class of trainees. It was amazing, after so long in urban environments, to see how dramatic the seasonal change was out in the hilly backcountry. All around the school skeletal deciduous trees suddenly erupted in green buds, and the deep snow diminished and retreated to the shadows of the evergreens. The fields turned to mud, the returning birds chirped, and Major Onoda continued to complain about how the recruits were being "coddled".


Thankfully, despite Onoda's grousing, he had managed to impart a number of valuable skills to the trainees over the last three months, offering badly needed insight and first hand experience into the arts of signal intelligence and infiltration. Onoda had also made an arguably even more valuable contribution to their training; He had managed to instill a sense of patience in even the most hot-headed of the recruits, who were now capable of lying prone in a puddle of mud for hours on end without movement or complaint. Combined with the hours each man and woman had spent on the range familiarizing themselves with the captured Britannian assault rifles and pistols as well as the thorough grounding all sixty had received in ambush tactics, the first cohort had emerged from their training as theoretically expert irregular fighters. Coupled with the lessons on how to repair and sabotage machines, how to drive, how to provide life-saving first aid, and on close quarters combat, the cohort would have looked extremely promising on paper, if anything that happened at The School was actually recorded in any form.


Despite the wide-range of skills, Major Onoda continued to insist on a graduation test. Worryingly, he had actually come to our latest meeting with an argument other than tradition.


"When push comes to shove, Miss Hajime, most people simply don't have the will to kill."


After I had demonstrated my proficiency with small arms and close quarters combat to his satisfaction, Major Onoda deigned to speak directly to me, although his tone when we met for our weekly one on one meeting remained insufferable.


"It is unfortunate, but many soldiers simply lack the warrior spirit." The sneer was quite incredible, especially compared to the JLF liaison's typically expressionless mien. "They shoot over the heads of the enemy, they don't close for combat, they offer mercy..."


Onoda shook his head, looking for all the world like a disappointed teacher who had grown used to the stupidity of his students. "These are not true soldiers. They are perhaps capable of support, maybe garrison duty, but are not capable of true soldiering. But..." Unconsciously, he leaned in slightly, and I could see the glint of an enthusiasm and interest that went far beyond the professional in his eyes. "But if you force them to kill, to do up close so they can feel the blood on their hands, their enemy's hot breath on their face, and if you make them do it in front of their buddies, well... Nobody likes to be the screw up in the squad. That's how you make sure your recruits will actually serve the Cause."


I nodded my agreement. Peer pressure was an excellent motivator, for better or worse, and I was certain that Onoda was at least partially correct in his assessment that forcing men to kill made it easier for them to kill again in the future.


That said, the way that Onoda persisted in bringing this topic up over and over again all but proved that this was a personal matter, something that Onoda considered a vitally important part of training. I wonder if the rest of the JLF agrees? "I understand your point, Major Onoda. Unfortunately, the logistical problems with the concept remain unchanged from the last time we discussed this topic." I paused for a moment. "Out of curiosity, Major, does the JLF still maintain this tradition? I haven't heard of many Britannians vanishing without a trace, certainly not in batches."


Onoda winced slightly, and sagged a little. "Unfortunately, General Katase, in his wisdom, has prohibited blooding training after the honored Colonel Tohdoh expressed reservations. Besides," his mouth twisted as if he'd bit into something rotten, his thin mustache twisting with his lips, "the Japanese Liberation Front has not pursued a vigorous recruitment policy over the last several years, which has rendered the matter moot, for now at least." He sighed and shook his head with dismay. "The wisdom of that choice I understand. We already have too many men sitting in bunkers, unwilling to take the fight to the enemy."


I blinked, taking care to conceal any other evidence of my surprise. This was by far the most talkative mood I had ever caught Onoda in, and it was the most he had ever said about the inner politics of the JLF in my hearing. "But you have been active. You said that you had been in Fukushima Prefecture, scouting the new MagLev rail branch – why weren't you sitting in a bunker too?"


Something about that made Onoda perk back up. "It's all thanks to Lieutenant Colonel Kusakabe. Kami willing, he is the future of the Japanese Liberation Front! He is the only divisional commander willing to take an aggressive stance against the foreign invader!" Onoda paused, smiled, and continued on more calmly. "He is also my superior officer. Most of us still willing to take the fight to the Britannians are under his command."


That was a very interesting tidbit. It sounded like General Katase, who I'd learned from previous conversations was the overall commander of the JLF, had opted to cut down on his headaches by lumping all of his problem children together in one unit. Frankly, that only sounded like a good idea to me if his plan was to use said unit as an expendable division, one that would take the most casualties and be given only the most risky assignments. No point in saying as much to Onoda, though...


"That actually brings me to another question, Major, and feel free to not answer it if it breaks operational security," I began, carefully injecting a note of respectful deference, and lowering my head a carefully metered degree for a moment, "but what sort of operations does the JLF conduct to further the goal of liberating Japan? No need for specifics, but can you describe any examples?"


Onoda did not immediately respond, instead studying me silently. His typically expressionless mask had returned, as had the familiar flat eyes that betrayed nothing of the Major's inner thoughts. I kept quiet as the silence dragged uncomfortably onward. Eventually, some inner calculation must have been completed, as Onoda opened his mouth and began to speak. His tone was calm, his voice level, but I could almost feel the man's frustration.


"General Katase has decreed that in order for Japan to one day be liberated, we must preserve and build our strength, and mislead the Britannians into the false impression that we will never act, until the day to spring our accumulated might upon them and drive them from glorious Japan comes at last. As such, most of our official missions are towards that end – accumulating resources and intelligence, cultivating strength, and luring the Britannians into complacency."


Onoda fell silent, licking his lips for a moment, before resuming. "We now have bunkers and storerooms full of enough supplies to last our garrisons for years, more weapons than men to use them, listening posts near every radio tower in Japan and taps on practically every phone line... and yet, we do not attack. We barely even recruit. I worry that the Britannians have not been the only ones to be misled into the belief that the day of liberation will never come."


I nodded gravely. Onoda hadn't really answered my question, but he hadn't needed to – I could draw the obvious lines between the dots myself. The JLF's leadership had lost the will to fight, in Onoda's eyes, and had instead opted to continue kicking the can down the road. The only faction in the JLF that was still active in the world outside their bunkers was apparently Kusakabe's group. I had noticed the emphasis Onoda had put on specifying that he was only speaking about officially sanctioned missions; considering that Kusakabe's division was apparently where the most aggressive and willing to fight were sent, I could only wonder at the scope of his unofficial missions.


"It occurs to me," I began carefully, realizing that I was far out onto thin ice at this point, "that we might be able to help each other." I paused, but Onoda didn't respond in any visible manner so I continued. "I still owe two missions for your organization, to be conducted upon targets that you specify. If, perhaps, one of those missions involved damaging the Britannian communication network by, say, taking over a radio station, perhaps some messaging informing the Japanese public that the JLF is seeking new members and that the day of liberation is near at hand could somehow be broadcast before the station is destroyed?"


Onoda's breath hissed out, but he still looked as expressionless as ever. Then, a somewhat detached, thoughtful look came over him, and he pointedly turned slightly to the side, looking out through the window of the empty classroom. "It would be exceedingly... unfortunate, in General Katase's point of view, if an irregular group unconnected to the Japanese Liberation Front, in their enthusiasm, aired such a message." Onoda nodded at nothing in particular, and turned back to look at me. "There is an FM station in Niigata Prefecture, one I have been to before. I will be speaking about the basics of operating the transmission equipment I observed there in an hour. Please use your discretion about how you choose to share this information. In the meantime, I will be recording a short message for my own amusement. I frequently forget to remove the CD from the machine after I finish recording."


I nodded again, and stood up from the cushion I had been kneeling upon. Onoda couldn't have been clearer if he tried – if this mission was successful, I would have done his faction a favor and partially paid off my debt to the JLF in the process. If I failed, on the other hand, Onoda would claim that it had been a rogue operation. Guess Gekokujō is alive and well in the JLF. What a surprise.


---------


APRIL 7, 2016 ATB
MINAMIUONUMA, NIIGATA
1437


Minamiuonuma had been, before the Conquest, a prosperous medium-sized city of 50,000. Its inhabitants had relied upon the abundant and productive paddy fields that churned out the famous Koshihikari variety of rice for summer season income. In the winter, its deep snows and ski resorts had drawn tourists from all over Japan, and occasionally even from abroad. In essence, Minamiuonuma had been an up and coming provincial burg, a place where little that was newsworthy happened, a safe place for pensioners to settle or for young families to be raised in mixed agrarian-urban bliss.


Now, rolling into Minamiuonuma in the back of an illicitly acquired van, I could only mourn the sheer waste, the mismanagement that every meter of Minamiuonuma bore, the same scars that every village, town, or city I had traveled through so far had borne. Over the last day, my team and I had traveled through Naganohara, Nakanojo, Takayama, Numata, Minakami, and Yuzawa, plus half a dozen nameless villages. From a street-level view, it was impossible to miss the number of shuttered shops, the buildings gutted by fire and left to rot, and of course, the number of walls with lines of clearly visible bullet holes at chest height. It was clear that under the burden of Britannian occupation, rural Japan was dying. The vitality and produce were sucked away by distant landlords and governors, whose will on the ground was enforced both by civilian overseers and managers and by the small Britannian garrisons and Honorary Britannian police forces scattered across the interior.


Nobody was in much of a mood to talk; that was clear enough from the mood in the van. Nagata was stonefaced behind the wheel, dressed in the livery of the same delivery service that we had stolen the van from. The other eight men and two women-two squads of the newly graduated cohort-also sat in a silence heavy with tension. I could imagine what they were thinking about, but only just barely. It had been so long-literally a lifetime ago-since the first time I had gone into battle.


Idly, I wondered if I had actually gotten off lightly, in that regard at least; I had not expected to be fighting for my life when I'd gone up into the Norden sky, and that sudden plunge into battle had been a nearly complete surprise, sprung on me with only a minute's warning. By contrast, these two squads, the best of the first training cohort, had known for three days what was coming. Had it haunted them, the knowledge that their lives might be over in days hanging over every waking hour and dreaming minute? Impossible to know for sure, but I suspected that it had. While every man and women, and child, in Shinjuku had walked side by side with Death for the last half-decade, the terror of one's own mortality had never truly numbed, at least not for me. And I knew that there was at least the possibility of life after death, that there was something in the void, asinine though that something may be.


Well, I'm the leader. It's up to me to get them into the best shape, morale wise, instead of letting them stew in their anxieties! "Let's go over the plan once more," I said, deliberately breaking the silence. Immediately, every head except Nagata's in the van turned towards me. I smiled back at them, taking the time to look from person to person, making eye contact with each of my brand new baby comrades.


"First, I want you all to know that I am proud of you," Start with the praise – it gets the audience receptive. "You all have done a superb job on your training. Now, you will have the opportunity to put your new skills into practice." I reached into the rucksack at my feet, and pulled out a jewel box, containing an unlabeled CD, and held it up for their inspection. "Our job is to get in, get this message from the JLF broadcast, and get out, preferably destroying the CD and the radio station as we do so." I smiled at my captive audience again, drawing their eyes back to me from the CD. "Of course, it is not going to be so simple, nor so easy. I suspect the Britannians might take an unkind view to our choice of alternative programming."


After the pity chuckle died down, I turned my attention to the particulars. "As far as we are aware, there are two groups of opposing forces active in the region: The Minamiuonuma Municipal Police Department, which is primarily staffed with Honorary Britannians with minimal training and armed exclusively with clubs, has between three hundred and three hundred and fifty officers. On the other hand, the goon squad - excuse me, the 'private security force' - hired by the local landlord's Property Management Society consists of between fifty and eighty Britannian veterans equipped with small arms and in possession of two ex-military armored personnel carriers."


This was hardly a surprise, as they'd all heard the plan before, but the numbers were admittedly daunting. I didn't begrudge them the clenched jaws, the darting eyes, the overwhelming nervous tension. "This might sound like a lot, but a ton of garbage is still garbage, which is what they are. A bunch of practically untrained collaborators armed with sticks, whose job up until now has been terrorizing farmers into working, and some mercenaries only interested in their next paycheck are garbage." The beauty of it was that I barely had to spin the facts. The mercenary Britannians might be formidable, but I doubted any of them was eager to die for the local landlord. "They lack unity of command, and they have no idea that we're coming."


I turned to the leader of Squad 1, a fairly tall man in his early thirties named Yoshi, who was unfortunately experiencing early balding. "Squad 1 – what are your tasks?"


Yoshi coughed slightly, uncomfortable with suddenly being put on the spot, before responding. "You will drop us off near the Shiozawa Station, along with our gear. We'll plant the first package by the station, and then head through the underpass to the north and keep going for a mile. The mercenaries and their APCs are headquartered at the old ski resort in the hills there. We are to set the second package on Prefectural Route 124 where it turns. When the first APC comes through, we blow the bomb."


I nodded and gestured for him to continue. Heartened, Yoshi resumed his recitation. "If the APC is stopped, we fire the RPGs at it and the second one. If any men get out, we open fire and fall back across the rice paddies, through the farms. We keep drawin' them after us until you give us the word, then we find a car and get north to the meeting point in Shitoka, behind the recycling plant."


I nodded. "Remember – your job is to be a highly mobile annoyance, not to be heroes. If you can kill their armor, or render them immobile, you will have done an excellent job. If you cannot, though, let me know immediately and fall back." I cast my eyes around the crowded van, "that goes for all of you. I need- Japan needs living soldiers far more than dead heroes. That said..." I closed my eyes for a moment, and continued, "That said, if you think you are going to be taken prisoner, I strongly recommend you make your own way out. I think you've all seen the photos from Christmas, right?"


All nine men and two women, Nagata included, nodded at that. Good, they all know the stakes. Too late to back out now, anyway. Onoda would be furious. I turned to Tsubaki, the leader of Squad 2. She smiled manically as she met my eyes, nervous excitement practically rolling off her as she squirmed in her car seat. Before I could even prompt her, she began reciting Squad 2's planned role, the words pouring out in a vomiting froth.


"After you and Nagata park the van and get out, we're supposed to wait inside until the two of you go into the radio station, and then we're gonna hop outta the van all at once and book it west and south to the city hall and we're going to kill everybody we can in that building – hopefully getting the mayor and chief of police too! But we gotta be fast, because we need to be back at the van five minutes later so we can hop in when you and Nagata head outta the station unless we wanna stay behind when you guys go!" Tsubaki took a deep breath as she reached the end, having recited the entire plan without stopping for breath. I frowned, but nodded. She had recited everything correctly, and in training exercises she'd been calm and collected under pressure. Seems like turning into a chatterbox is how she deals with the pre-mission jitters.


I looked out the window as Nagata took a left, and saw a sign for Prefectural Route 365. So we'll be coming up on Shiozawa Station in a minute. "Excellent work, all of you. Remember to keep in contact, keep your heads on a swivel, and don't let them take you alive. For the Rising Sun!"


"FOR JAPAN!"


---------


APRIL 7, 2016 ATB
MINAMIUONUMA, NIIGATA
1449


Nagata smoothly pulled the van into a street-side parking space ten meters away from the radio station, neatly checking that he was within the painted lines before killing the engine. Adjusting the cap of his delivery man outfit, he clambered out of the driver's side door, an empty cardboard box in his hands. I slipped out after him, Ohgi's old, much abused black hoodie concealing the pistol and the knife that pressed firmly against my belly. I had been pleasantly surprised, earlier this morning, when I found that the hoodie that had once nearly swallowed me up was now only somewhat baggy. Of course, the better fit did have a downside as well. It's good to finally not be a stick anymore, but there's less room to hide weapons now...


As we approached the radio station, Nagata leading and me lurking in his shadow, I reached into my pocket and pressed the 'Transmit' button of the handheld radio I carried three times. I was relatively sure that Squad 1 would be able to receive the transmission at their planned location three and a half kilometers away, but I hadn't been able to test the effects of Minamiuonuma's buildings on the walkie talkies in advance. Too late to worry about that now. I was certain that Squad 2's radios had just clicked the signal, though, so in a few seconds they'd be boiling out of the van.


The station was only a few meters away, and I was happy to see that the staff had apparently chosen to draw the curtains today, presumably in an attempt to keep out the afternoon sun. Happily for us, that meant that, aside through the glass of the front door, no curious passersby would be able to look through the windows and see what was going on inside the station. That removes one source of potential complications; only a few hundred more to go.


Nagata fumbled slightly with his package as he opened the glass door to the station lobby, pretending that it contained something heavy to draw the attention of the woman seated behind the receptionist's desk. She half-stood, clearly trying to decide whether or not to get up and help him with the package, when I slipped out from behind Nagata, gun in hand. Before she had a chance to register what she was seeing, I fired once, twice, thankful that the coilgun pistol produced a tiny report compared to the deafening bellow of chemical propellant ignition.


Nagata threw the box aside and rushed in, drawing the combat knife whose sheathe had been tucked into the back of his belt as he headed left towards one of the two doors flanking the receptionist's desk.


I spun to the right, covering the lobby with the arc of my pistol, looking for any waiting visitors sitting in the collection of ancient folding chairs. Fortunately, there were none, and so I completed my revolution back to the door, which was just closing behind us. As I flicked the lock closed-a small measure, but one hopefully adequate to hold casual guests at bay – I saw Tsubaki emerging from the side door of the delivery van, assault rifle cradled in her arms. She's a bit early – I probably should've waited until we were at the door to twitch the radio. I hoped the remote detonated pipe bomb that ideally Squad 1 had already planted-a twin of the ones I had used in Shinjuku, and likewise sourced from Mister Asahara during the frantic two days of prep-was detonating successfully at just this moment. If not, we'll be drowning in municipal police in minutes.


The plan rested on two pillars: Speedy mobility, and the exploitation of the widely dispersed and poorly organized opposition forces. The police, armed only with batons, could still swarm my better armed insurgents under with their huge numbers, but they were already spread across the municipality in three stations. I hoped the explosion at the train station would draw the bulk of the officers from the southern station, as well as some from the station closer to the center of the city. The attack by Squad 2 on the City Hall was likewise geared to attract the attention of the police away from the radio station, our true target. I doubted that they would be able to react fast enough to get here in sufficient number – the true purpose of the Honorary Britannian municipal police was to terrorize the local farmers into productivity, not to take the lead on fighting hostile forces – but if they did, hopefully they would concentrate on the more numerous and better armed force that would soon be machine gunning the local bureaucrats and anybody unlucky enough to be visiting the permits office this afternoon.


My real concern was the "private security force" assembled by the Property Management Society. If they managed to get those APCs into town to respond to the attack on City Hall or to stop the broadcast of Major Onoda's message, never mind the bulk of their company-level strength, it would make extraction very difficult. Hopefully Squad 1's explosive ambush, complete with the use of another pipe bomb on the road most likely to be used if the mercenaries were dispatched to Minamiuonuma, would prevent their arrival entirely, or at least delay it until it was far too late.


A gurgling scream indicated that the receptionist was apparently still alive. Turning from the door, I began running the calculations for my enhancement suite, making sure to pace my energy expenditure. Easily vaulting over the desk, I landed foot-first on her face. The gurgle deepened as the fragments of her jaw were smashed down into her throat, but a second stomp on her neck soon muted even that sound. One down. Major Onoda's information had indicated a likely staff of four or five Honorary Britannians, overseen by a Britannian manager and accompanied by a Britannian newsreader. Five or six to go.


I burst through the door to the right of the reception area, and found myself in a short hallway. There were two doors that looked like they opened onto restrooms at the far end of the hall to my left, a door marked "Janitorial" to their right, a door marked "Office" next, and finally a thick door with two light panels hanging over it, one of which was glowing a bright red. Presumably, the studio.


Movement twitched in the left corner of my vision and I turned on my heel, bringing my pistol up to track the motion only to force my wrists back down towards the ground. Nagata emerged from the men's room, hands practically dripping with blood. "Guy was at the sink," he grunted, noticing my curious look, "thought I was coming in to use the urinal until I grabbed his hair." He rubbed at a spot on the left side of his abdomen, right below the ribs, and winced at the touch. "Fucker kept ramming his elbow into me the whole damned time. Only stopped when I was nearly to the spine."


I winced sympathetically. I knew from experience that the frenzied last burst of strength could be quite something, and the floating ribs bruised something awful. "Did you check the women's room?"


Nagata nodded. "Nobody was there, all the stalls were open." Well, unless they're in the Janitor's closet...


I turned and pointed my pistol at the door to the office. "Four or five to go. Let's get on with it – we're on the clock."


I walked over to the door and moved to the side, keeping my pistol trained on the door in case someone inside decided to take a leak. Without prompting, Nagata came up, grabbed the handle, and in one fluid motion heaved it wide open and flung himself to the side, keeping one hand on the handle. Glad to see the room-to-room training stuck.


Inside were three men, two obviously Honorary Britannian bent over soundboards and other esoteric equipment, moving dials and sliders. Standing over them was an equally obvious Britannian, nearly bald save for a few strands of brown hair combed over his pate and incredibly fat. He was the first to turn towards the sudden surprise interruption, mustache already bristling and face purpling with indignant rage. I could tell the exact instant that he realized that I wasn't some lost member of the general public as his eyes abruptly widened, locked on the pistol in my hand, a pistol already raised and pointed at his center of mass.


Three shots, and the fat manager was reeling backwards, squealing like a pig, blood pumping from the triangle of holes punctured through his chest. Missed the heart, probably got a lung, might've nicked his vena cava, judging by the lack of arterial spurt. As he stumbled backwards, I followed him deeper into the office.


As I followed the flailing Britannian, I passed the first Honorary Britannian technician, still at his desk. The unfortunate man had looked up from his control board at the shots, which were presumably muffled by the headphones he wore, and screaming had made a desperate attempt to stand and wrench the bulky pair of wired headphones off his ears. Sadly for him, the escape attempt was defeated by his chair, which had snagged on the ratty carpet as he'd tried to push it out and away from the desk. This cruel stroke of misfortune left him trapped for a crucial second under his desk, unable to stand more than halfway up out of his chair and entirely unable to flee.


The knife smashed through the Honorary Britannian's C-3 vertebra and sank deep into his neck, the six-inch blade severing his spinal cord and almost certainly impaling his trachea as it tracked downwards through the dense column of muscle, propelled nearly hilt-deep by my supernaturally enhanced strength. With a heave, I wrenched the instrument back out of his nape as I continued to advance into the office.


Ignoring Fatty the Britannian for a moment, I fired three times at the other Honorary Britannian technician, who had made a nonsensical and panicked attempt to burrow under his desk. He screamed as one of the small caliber bullets sliced across his lower back, but he had chosen his strategy well – the other two bullets impotently thudded into the desk's wall. I fired the last shot of the magazine into the manager where he sat, slumped against the polished pine of the far wall, just in case he was still alive.


I saw through the one way glass of the office that Nagata had managed to find the last of our expected targets in the recording studio. The Britannian news presenter was desperately trying to ward him off, and had apparently met with some brief success, judging by the defensive wounds on her hands. A particularly nasty injury indicated that she had tried to catch the knife at one point, and had only gotten a split finger web halfway to her wrist for her trouble. As I hauled the technician out from under his desk, Nagata grew impatient and simply kicked the table she had sat at onto her, before following her down to the floor and out of my sight.


The technician screamed as I flung him onto his desk, and I winced at the sounds of complicated destruction coming from the technology beneath him. Hopefully that wasn't anything important. "I would like to play a CD over the broadcast," I informed him, knife at his throat, "can you please tell me where I should insert it and how to set it to broadcast?" He only burbled incoherently, eyes wide and pleading, and fixed on my knife. Too scared to talk is useless, besides, he is an Honorary, not a Britannian... Honey's worth a try.


I moved the knife an inch further away from the technician's neck, and tried sweet reason. "What's your name?" He only screamed again, eyes still fixed on the admittedly gory instrument, so I slapped him as lightly as possible, just to get his attention. Thankfully, it worked, and his eyes goggled at me, full of horror. "What's your name, mister?" I asked again, trying to pitch my voice in a lighter tone to hopefully set him as much at ease as was possible under the circumstances.


For a second, I thought the Honorary Britannian wouldn't answer, but then, after swallowing, he managed to force out a mumbled "Ed-Edward... Ma'am."


That wouldn't work - I needed to form common ground with him, which required sincerity. "Not that name!" I paused, surprised by the snap in my voice, and carefully modulated my tone back towards conversational. I heard something thump against the glass behind me, but ignored it. "Not that name - your real name. What's your real name?"


"M-Masanobu... My name's Masanobu..."


I smiled down at him. Finally, progress! "Alright, Masanobu. It's a pleasure to meet you. Now, as I was saying," I holstered the empty gun, keeping the knife hovering an inch away from his neck, and pulled out the jewel case containing Onoda's CD, "I want to broadcast this for all the world to hear. I am fairly certain that I can figure out how to do so without your help, but I am pressed for time. Would you please show me how to play this?"


Masanobu was nodding even before I finished speaking. In a different setting, it might have looked comical. I carefully took a step to the side, giving him room to stand while keeping the knife near enough that he'd remember it. "Excellent. Please, lead the way."


With effort, Masanobu rose on trembling feet, turned towards the workstation the first tech was slumped over, and promptly let out another scream. I suppose between the body of his co-worker, the bloody smear down the other side of the one-way glass, and the sight of Nagata entering the office looking absolutely drenched in blood, it was an alarming sight, but unfortunately I was on the clock and had no time to be gentle.


I rammed a fist straight into the shallow bullet wound that crossed his lower back, marveling at how the bullet had just barely creased the skin over his spinal column as I did so. This guy's got some incredible luck! "You were going to show me how to play the CD over the airwaves, Mister Masanobu." I reminded him as he hunched forwards defensively. Nagata raised an eye at the tech's survival, but shrugged and started pulling off his drenched deliveryman uniform shirt.


Sobbing, the technician walked forward towards the work station, and after I heaved the corpse out of the way pointed out the CD slot where they inserted discs for music, explained how to start playing a disk, and what button I needed to press to transmit the audio out over the station's assigned FM band. I followed his instructions and Nagata pulled on the headphones abandoned by the first technician to check. Fortunately, he gave me a big thumb's up – Major Onoda's message was being broadcast to the world, or at least, to the listening audience of Niigata Prefecture.


"People of Japan," I could hear from the discarded headphones lying on top of the CD player as I drove the knife up through the base of Masanobu's skull, into his brain. A quick death as a thank you. He didn't even live to feel it. "The day of liberation will soon be upon us! We have endured a long and painful six years since the Conquest of our glorious republic, but take heart! The Japan Liberation Front yet stands! We have spent this time building our strength, biding our time! Soon, like a tsunami, we shall wash away the Britannians and all of their evil! Soon, the Land of the Gods shall be pure once more!"


I pulled the first of the two pipe bombs out of the rucksack and wedged it squarely against the CD player as Major Onoda continued to prophesy the coming of a new Japan via the headset. I wanted to make sure that the CD was destroyed and the station rendered at least temporarily unusable when we left, to prevent the authorities from immediately declaring it a hoax or whatnot. "If you will fight," the Major's voice continued as Nagata wedged the second device into a box of what looked like important wires, "join us! Join the JLF! Together we shall be a holy army, a force not seen since the kamikaze! And like the kamikazes that saved Japan from foreign invaders before, we shall save our beloved country once more! A new empire shall rise! Amaterasu's line shall again sit the Chrysanthemum Throne!"


"Time to go." I said to Nagata, and he nodded his assent. I clicked the portable radio's transmission dial once-pause-twice-pause-and then once more. Nagata was already at the door of the blood soaked office, and I followed him out the swinging door and into the little hallway. As we hit the reception area, I could hear the sounds of screams and automatic gunfire through the curtained windows, sounds that were steadily getting nearer. Squad 2's falling back. Suddenly remembering the locked front door, I dipped into my vector acceleration and zoomed right past Nagata before returning to a more natural flat-out sprint to the front door. I click the lock open just as Nagata bulled into the door, flinging it wide open and bouncing it off the rubber-tipped door stopper. I was less than a step behind, thankful that the inch of growth I had achieved since Kallen and I had fled the ruins of a collapsing train station had lengthened my pace slightly.


Nagata jumped into the driver's seat and twisted the key in the ignition as I threw open the side door of the van and tumbled inside. Leaving the door wide open, I frantically pulled out my pistol and fumbled for a fresh mag, slamming the reload home as Nagata pulled out into the street. Ahead, I could see Squad 2 leap-frogging down the street towards us, three members facing the way they came, laying down suppressing fire, two orienting towards us before one of the rear three fell back and the squad cycled. So good to see solid training in action! Skidding into the intersection, Nagata came screeching to a halt, which thankfully provided all the guidance Squad 2 needed. I squirmed my way up to the front passenger seat just in time to avoid a stampede of heavily armed gunmen, panting with exertion as the last man - or woman, actually, seeing how it was Tsubaki - in slammed the side door behind them.


"They're all in!" I yelled at Nagata, "get going already!" This was entirely unnecessary, as Nagata was already accelerating, fishtailing the van around a burning car halfway onto the sidewalk. Putting pedal to the metal, the van shot up Prefectural Route 17 heading north. As we skidded up the block and shot through the traffic light of the next intersection with reckless abandon, I pulled out the two burner phones that had accompanied Mister Asahara's handiwork and dialed the only numbers in the contact list before throwing both out the window of the van. Despite the pounding of the wind through the open window, the explosive whumpf! was unmistakable, especially coupled with the sounds of shattering windows. It seems that the curtains weren't sufficiently thick to be bombproof.


As Nagata turned onto a smaller outlet road and slowed to the speed limit, I let out a small sigh of relief. No sirens were audible, and surprisingly nobody seemed to even be looking askance at a van trundling its way down a feeder road towards Prefectural Route 253. If we can break contact, our side of the mission will have gone perfectly. Hopefully, Squad 1 can say the same.


---------


APRIL 7, 2016 ATB
SHITOKA, NIIGATA
1537


From my seat under the sheltering foliage of a cedar about two thirds up the hill behind the Shitoka recycling center and municipal incinerator, I was suddenly struck by the beauty of the broad Uono River valley spread out before me. A broad expanse of paddies, already green with the juvenile shoots of newly planted rice, broken only by the occasional farm or cluster of small buildings huddled around a crossroads, the simple pastoral scene seemed a world away from the claustrophobic streets of Shinjuku, to say nothing of my memories of mud and blood and thundering artillery. I stretched, my bare arms reaching out towards the rural scenery as my unshod feet pushed against the springy grass underfoot.


Behind me, my sweatshirt was hung out to dry on one of the cedar's branches, dripping with river water after an impromptu wash to try and scrub out the worst of the blood. My shoes likewise sat in a patch of sunlight, now mostly free of the receptionist's remains. It was a bit brisk, sitting out here in only a tank-top and trousers - winter still hadn't fully released its grasp on the mountains, and come night the temperature would drop below freezing once more – but after so long cooped up in the van, not to mention the exertions of the day, the cool air felt luxurious. I could hear splashing coming from the creek running down the hill from some hidden spring as Nagata did his best to salvage his garments and the members of Squad 2 did their best to likewise clean themselves off.


I sighed. Try as I might, it was impossible to shift the fact that, even now, three of my comrades were engaged in a desperate game of cat and mouse in the foothills to the southeast, from my mind for even a moment. No amount of pastoral scenery nor the crisp near-bliss sensitivity that came from surviving yet another conflict situation could distract me from the fact that my job was not done yet, that fighters under my command were still trying to break contact with the enemy.


No amount of cool air and warm grass could distract me from the fact that, for the first time in this life, people I had led into battle were dead. The brief report Yoshi had radioed in twenty minutes earlier had been straight and to the point; Squad 1 had successfully disrupted the attempt by the local Britannian magnate to deploy his mercenary force to the Minamiuonuma city center, but had not been able to successfully break contact with the Britannian opposition and escape via stolen car to the Shitoka meetup point to the north.


Instead, the three surviving members of the team had beaten a fighting retreat across the Kamakurasougo River and into the forested hills beyond, where they had dispersed into the trees. Fortunately, we had planned a secondary rendezvous point for just such an occasion, but it was impossible to tell if they would be able to escape from the Britannians and make their way individually on foot to the meeting point at Suwa Shrine.


Personally, I fully expected to see all three surviving members of Squad 1 at the shrine sooner or later. It might take them the better part of the day to travel the approximately four miles over hilly, forested terrain, especially if the Britannians were still actively trying to pursue them through the undergrowth, but I was confident that Major Onoda's lessons in scouting and stealth would see them safely to the shrine. What no amount of lessons could do was bring back the two comrades I had lost today.


Sumire... Manabu... I hadn't known either before I had hauled them and fifty-eight others out to The School. After months of training and instruction, I still couldn't claim to know either one in a personal capacity, not like how I knew Nagata and Ohgi, but I had made it my business to know a little about everybody in the Kozuki Organization.


Sumire had enjoyed singing, and frequently led her squad in song during runs. She had enjoyed painting and other forms of arts, and had displayed a talent for sketching caricatures on the pages of her notes and assignments, on the rare occasions that I collected written work. I wished I had thought to keep some of her caricatures, instead of burning them with all of the other completed assignments in accordance with the "no records" policy. She left behind a husband and a three year old son. She had been twenty eight.


Manabu had fancied himself an amateur wrestler, and had actually done a decent job backing up his claims of martial arts prowess during hand-to-hand training. Outside of training, he had been a fairly quiet guy, tending more towards being laid back instead of sullen. Apparently, he'd had a boyfriend he'd broken up with just before leaving for The School. He'd been nineteen.


I had never deluded myself into thinking that I was invincible, or that the men and women who followed me into battle were immortal. No plan survives contact with reality, to say nothing of the enemy, and I had been incredibly lucky that none of my comrades had died up until now, in any of my lives. That knowledge, that things always go wrong and that I had lucked out spectacularly already, should have made it easier to accept their deaths, but, somehow, it didn't.


It was a callous thought, but I found myself wishing that the first death under my command had happened back in my past life. I had deliberately kept my distance from the 203rd​, doing my best to drive them away through harsh training to sabotage the rapid reaction force concept I had so foolishly proposed to General Zettour. While I had found myself almost reluctantly bonding with the men over subsequent missions, there had always been a degree of distance between myself and my command, with one notable exception. I had cared for them and been proud of them, but I hadn't truly been one of them, thanks to the expectations and pressures of rank. They had been treasured subordinates and excellent students, but with one exception I don't think I could have called them my friends. That cold shell of formality would have offered at least some small barrier, if I had lost my first subordinate in action during my second life.


In this third life, I had no such barrier. I was one of the members of the Kozuki Organization, an officer perhaps, but an officer in a band held together by the personal charisma of the leader and a shared goal. It was completely different from the institutional bonds of an industrial army, and it was impossible to remain aloof and still be an effective leader of guerrillas. I had eaten the same food from the same common pot, sweated through the same training exercises, slept on a bedroll identical to the ones issued to every trainee at The School... and during down time, when I didn't have to be an instructor, I had spent hours drinking watery tea and chatting with my future comrades, getting to know them and letting them get to know me. They had to trust me to do what was right for them, if I wanted them to obey me in the field, and so I had answered every question they'd asked about my life in Shinjuku to the best of my ability. In the end, between my instruction, my efforts at bonding with them, and my shared participation in training events, I had won that trust and, I liked to think, some measure of respect.


And I had used the shared bond of that trust to bring Sumire, Manabu, and eight other men and women to Niigata Prefecture.


"It's all just such a waste," I murmured aloud to the distant paddies, "such a waste. Each of them had decades of life ahead of them; decades of productivity, of innovation, of growth, followed by a slow decline until retirement." And what had they bought with their sacrifice of all of those years?


From some distant corner of my memories, it was impossible to tell if it came from my faded recollections of my first life or the razor-edged snapshots of my second, a scrap of poetry came unbidden to my mind. "For by my glee might many men have laughed, and of my weeping something had been left, which must die now." The grass whispered back in the susurrating wind as the next line came dribbling out. "I mean the truth untold, the pity of war, the pity war distilled. Now men will go content with what we spoiled. Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled."


Where had that come from? It must have been from some English class long ago and far away. For a moment, I had a memory of a classroom, warm and drowsy, golden motes of dust hanging in a sunbeam. I had memorized that poem to fulfill a requirement, and had read it aloud per my teacher's demand, but I hadn't truly read it back then, not in any way that provoked understanding. Now, lived experience gave me an undesired insight into that poem. I was no pacifist: I was unwilling to step back and simply let the world take from me and mine. I would fight until I had a life where I could be comfortable, both materially and within my own skin. Still, though... what price was too high to pay for that life?


I had been content to conquer Dacia and burn Arrene in my past life, acting in my capacity as a soldier of the Kaiser. Then, the responsibility for losses on either side, for the destruction of homes and businesses and places of worship and art and education, had been diffused among the thousands of people who had made such losses possible, from the politicians and generals at the top to the stubborn partisans who risen up and brought the hammer down on their city. It had been easy to shrug off any feeling of guilt; I may have penned the treatise that provided the justification for the Army's actions, but the General Staff had been the ones ordering its implementation. I was simply a gear in a vast machine, a soldier in an identical if specially tailored uniform, fighting for my salary and a cushy post in the rear.


But now, in this third life, there was no rear echelon. Just being Japanese was enough to justify summary execution, and attempting to live a peaceful life was simply conceding to a slow death by starvation. The only path to a safe life I had seen required the installation of a new, more sympathetic government, one where my blood and name wouldn't automatically bar me from advancement. To that end, I had shed blood and made deals to build an army, whose strength I would use to justify my post-victory appointment to high office. While I truly wanted a better life for all of my people, for everybody in Shinjuku and Saitama and the other urban ghettos, for all the farmers trapped in de facto serfdom, for all the woman and girls and boys taken and broken for the corrupt pleasures of evil men... I had joined this war to save my own skin. To look out for number one, to make sure I had all the chocolate and coffee I wanted and the safety to enjoy it in peace...


It would be hard to keep that entirely understandable selfish desire in mind, though, when I visited Sumire's family. I had a duty to discharge, and that was part of it. Part of the deal of leadership, of trust exchanged and loyalty freely given. I would tell her son that his mother had died for a free Japan, and I would try not to choke on my lie. I would do my best to make sure that he was taken care of, at the very least, that he and his father and all other survivors of the Kozuki Organization were taken care of as best as the Rising Sun's assets would allow.


It still wouldn't be a fair trade for a mother, for a wife. For up to six decades of mornings, noons, and nights. I don't even know if Manabu had a family... I hope Inoue has his next of kin on file.


I sighed, and got to my feet. I could, would, mourn the dead later; I had to focus on saving the living now. One day, if I can... I will come back here, back to Niigata... Sumire, Manabu... I'll build a cairn somewhere for you. I hope you will appreciate it, if Being X was unkind enough to deny you oblivion for some reason.


Deliberately, I turned my back on the view of the Uono River valley, and pulled my still soaked sweatshirt and shoes back on. "Mount up!" I called to my comrades, drawing their attention to me. "Everybody better be in that van in three minutes or less, or I'm eating all the dinner rations myself!"


---------


APRIL 8, 2016 ATB
SARU, NIIGATA
0603


Suwa Shrine stood a world apart from the cities and towns of occupied Area 11, out on a meandering, crumbling road barely wide enough for a single vehicle. Although the cities that filled the valleys to the east and west of the mountain range had been carved up into the private fiefdoms of whichever Britannian lords Clovis had favored, this neglected shrine's grounds felt like a tiny fragment of old Japan.


While the outside world had clearly forgotten Suwa Shrine – the fact that it still stood, when the majority of shrines and temples had been burnt as "heathen nonsense" during the first years of Britannian administration, attested to that – the locals equally clearly had not.


The Komainu stone guard dogs were free of moss and twigs, and the inset brass plaques on their plinths were recently polished. A few wooden ema prayers clacked against each other and the tree from which they hung in the desultory breeze. The Torii gate's saffron paint was weathered and chipped, and on the windward side much of the timber was visible, but someone had taken the time to apply sealant to cracks in the wood. Most telling was that part of the Honden's wood shingle roof had looked suspiciously new and shiny before the sun had set beyond the mountains, indicating someone had patched the sanctuary up after a damaging storm.


It was heartening to see that some fragments of my people were making an active attempt to preserve this fragment of the culture we had once had. Even back in my first life, before I had the displeasure of meeting Being X, I had never been anything close to devout. I visited a local shrine at most twice a year, on New Year's and for the Spring Festival. My third life had been, if possible, even more estranged from the spiritual side of my native culture than my first; Being X's existence had increased the probability that something that could be called spiritual existed, and yet simultaneously demystified any such other world. After all, if spirits could be as petty and useless as Being X, why bother praying for good fortune at New Years?


It had surprised me, how badly it had hurt to stand before the smoldering remains of Naruko Tenjin Shrine the day after the Britannians had finally gotten around to setting it ablaze, almost three years ago now. The old priest had somehow been tied to one of the rebel groups of the time, the Britannians had claimed, and in order to "prevent the inspiration of future malcontents" the shrine had been burnt. I hadn't been at the street battle where the old man had died, but I doubted an eighty year old would have been involved in urban combat. In all likelihood, he had simply been caught in the crossfire. Either way, I had walked past the still smoking ashes of Naruko Tenjin on my way back from a job site the next day, and it had been disturbing in the extreme. Something about the shattered guard dogs, the broken remnants of the platform, the charred Torii... It had been monstrously wrong. That moment had made some unidentifiable part of myself ache deep inside.


Now, three years later, I shivered in a cramped delivery van tucked away behind another shrine, huddled up against Nagata and Tsubaki under a shared blanket. Spring might have officially come, but in the mountains of Niigata nights were still cold. Fortunately, we would not be here forever – Yoshi and his two squad mates had gotten back into radio contact two hours ago, when the handful of Britannian pursuers and their reluctant Honorary Britannian helpers had retreated back to the city with sundown. After checking in and reassuring us that they had successfully broken contact, all three had indicated that they were heading to the shrine with all haste. That sounds perfect if you want to break your leg, running through the woods in the middle of the night! I had instructed them to take their time, to remember their training, and to take breaks as necessary.


It had been an uncomfortable and sleepless night all around, despite everybody's best efforts. Every time someone needed to get out to take a leak, or to take their turn guarding, the rattling sliding door and the blast of cold night air had woken up anybody who had miraculously fallen asleep. The shared body heat could only do so much to heat up the van to begin with, and even my twelve-year old joints were stiff and sore as the first light of dawn broke over the mountains. At least I was out of the wind, unlike Squad 1.


Squad 1 had spoiled any sleep that hadn't already been ruined by physical discomfort. Try as I might, I couldn't stop my thoughts from endlessly circling back to the losses of the day before, and the three men who were still out of my sight, potentially in danger. I had, of course, known that I couldn't do anything for them at this point, that I should be trying to rest as much as possible, just in case the Britannians somehow managed to find us way out in the mountains, but I had simply been unable to relax. As long as my comrades were out in the cold night somewhere, some illogical part of my mind had refused to come off of duty. And so I had stared up at the roof of the van, trying my best to remain as still and as quiet as possible – after all, my own inability to rest was no excuse to deprive my comrades of their dearly earned sleep.


As the sun rose, my resolve to spend a second more in the van finally broke. I wriggled out from between my comrades, doing my best to move as gently and quietly as possible, and clambered up over the driver's seat and out the hopefully quieter driver's side door. My shoes, still somewhat damp from yesterday's wash, were immediately soaked once more by the dew pooling off the long grass. Quietly cursing as the accumulated moisture invaded my socks, I waved a polite good morning to the guard currently on duty. He bobbed his head back, his jaw working as he tried, and subsequently failed, to contain a yawn. I wished I could reassure him that there was coffee brewing, but I couldn't – breakfast would be ration bars choked down by, admittedly, fresh spring water, collected the day before at a mountainside seep.


I stepped away from the van and slowly walked my way around to the front of the shrine's grounds. The low stone stairs up to the Torii gate were also wet with early morning dew dripping from the surrounding weeds, but I managed to navigate my way up to the gate without issue. Unfortunately, the shrine's grounds were still empty of any of my wandering comrades. For some reason, the shrine felt tranquil under the dawn, not deserted, not abandoned. I found myself walking down the flagstones of the Sando, the pathway between the gate and the sanctuary hall. It was a short walk to the Honden, and seemingly before I knew it I was in front of the old cedar structure. Out of long forgotten habit, I looked around for a temizuya to wash my hands and face at, but none were present at this backwoods shrine. I turned again, facing forward, and took a pace to the left, so I would not be standing in the taboo spot directly in front of the Kami's entrance.


I licked my lips, dry tongue leaving only a trace of moisture behind, and felt like a fool as I bowed deeply, from the waist, and then again. I wondered why I was doing any of this as I clapped twice, but found myself... not praying, as praying was at best useless, but fervently hoping at the tiny sanctuary hall before me that my name was Hajime Tanya, and that I would be most thankful if my comrades arrived safe and sound, soon and without harm. Almost as soon as this hope crystallized in my mind, a treacherous train of thought butted in with the wish that the souls of Sumire and Manabu would find rest.


I shook my head and straightened back up, forcing my eyes open. When had I closed them? I was just fooling around here, when I should be starting to get breakfast organized. I almost turned away from the shrine, but a deep-seated impulse nailed me to the ground until, with an irritated sigh, I excused myself from the shrine with another deep bow.


Irritated with myself for my foolishness and exhausted from my sleepless night, I staggered back down the Sando to the Torii. Before I could set so much as a foot over the threshold separating the "sacred world" from the rest of mundanity, I froze. At the foot of the stone steps, streaked with mud, soaked with dew, stood Yoshi, unmistakable even with his bald head streaked with mud and sporting a long abrasion. Flanking him on either side were the two other surviving members of Squad 1, alive and unharmed.


Feeling like I was in a dream, I staggered down the stone steps. It felt like I'd had some kind of break with reality as I stared at the three apparitions standing before me. Did I fall asleep at the shrine...? Am I hallucinating...? To my sleep deprived and anxiety ridden mind, there seemed to be only one way to find out.


Moments later, I found myself with my arms wrapped around Yoshi's all too tangible belly, hugging him close. He was alive! They were alive! They were safe and alive! He staggered back a bit, swaying with fatigue and no doubt with surprise, and I suddenly realized what I had done. Dammit, Tanya! First you send two of them to their deaths, and then you can't even be a professional? Face burning with shame, I quickly let go of Yoshi and retreated three rapid steps back up the stairs, until I was roughly at a height where I could look the newly arrived trio in the eyes. Just seeing them here, after a night of worrying and internal recriminations... I couldn't help myself from smiling with relief.


I might have lost a full fifth of my command – a horrible loss, by any measure – but the remainder were safe and unharmed. I would do better, I would find out what had gone wrong and learn from my mistake, but here and now...


"Welcome back, Squad 1," I greeted them, and saluted, "You did all that I asked for and more."


Yoshi still looked poleaxed, and I found myself hoping that he hadn't been concussed by whatever had given him that scrape on his forehead, but one of his comrades, a young man with a mohawk and a red headband, raised his rifle over his head and let out a hoarse cheer. The second man had a grin spreading across his face that abruptly made him look a decade younger, the tension almost visibly flowing out of him.


"I'll want a report," I began to say, and the mood abruptly dipped until I hurried to say "later. In the meantime, there's ration bars for breakfast and all the spring water you can drink. Don't worry – we'll have a proper celebration once we get back to The School."


The triumphant warriors let out another weary cheer and staggered off in the direction of the parked van, Yoshi following the two younger men in an apparent daze. For my part, I turned and looked back through the Torii, back towards the Honden... It might have been foolish to think along those lines, since I had known that Squad 1 was due back at any moment, but... Gratitude is never foolish. I bowed towards the Honden in sincere thankfulness for the safe delivery of my comrades, in gratitude that none of them had gotten lost or injured during their long night-time trek. Thank you... Thank you... Japan will live again... I swear it.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 19: A Training Arc (Part 3)


(A big thank you to Siatru, and to Sunny, and to the two (or three) Anons from the Guerrilla Discord for beta reading this chapter.)


APRIL 9, 2016 ATB
"THE SCHOOL" TRAINING FACILITY
0928


The Kanayamazawa River, swollen with snowmelt, lapped at the base of my training boulder, beneath my dangling feet. Spring had well and truly come to Gunma Prefecture, and even the "Japanese Alps" of inland Honshu couldn't resist the growing warmth forever.


Ohgi stood next to the boulder, trying without success to skip stones across the fast moving stream. Even if the water's surface had been as still and flat as a mediation pond, I doubted he would have been particularly successful, considering the lack of any real finesse on display. I considered correcting his throwing motion, perhaps trying to demonstrate the correct way to flick the wrist and send a river-smoothed stone across the water, but decided against it. The quiet of the moment, broken only by the burbling of the shallow river over its rocky bed, was too precious to be squandered on a pointless lesson.


Besides, Ohgi looked like he was enjoying tossing stones into the river. Who was I to disturb his fun? It's not like we were on the clock, at least not for another few hours.


My team had finally returned to The School late yesterday afternoon, after taking a long and circuitous route out of Niigata Prefecture. By the time we had finally returned to our secret outpost in the backwoods of Nakanojo, the Sun had already set behind the mountains and the shadows had lengthened under the cedars.


Despite our late arrival, Ohgi, master of fostering intra-organizational cooperation, had a congratulatory feast waiting. He'd dipped into organizational funds to provide an extra nice meal, with pork cutlets and fresh rice instead of the usual boiled cabbage and porridge. He'd even gone far enough to buy a dozen bottles of cheap but potent liquor, presumably distilled in some backwoods shack by a furtive local.


Frankly, I had just been relieved that the party Ohgi had set up would delay any serious conversation until the next day. Seizing the opportunity with both hands, I had proclaimed that the next day's morning training would be canceled, and all of the recruits of both classes could do as they wished with their free time, to general acclaim.


As expected, come the morning, most of the recruits, and Nagata, were still in their barracks, nursing ferocious hangovers.


Notable in his absence was Major Onoda. Almost as soon as I had returned, he had vanished, delaying his departure only long enough to get a quick report on the operation. I could only assume that he had returned to the nearest JLF installation to convey the news of our successful mission to the mysterious leader of his faction, Lieutenant Colonel Kusakabe. I wished Onoda all the best at milking the opportunity for every bit of glory that he could manage; the better he was rewarded, the more generous he would hopefully be when the next round of negotiations began.


It was Ohgi who brought the mid-morning peace to an end. He had woken up around the same time that I had, and had followed me to my private practice spot. I'd made it clear that I'd not been in much of a mood to talk, and he'd obligingly remained silent for the last twenty minutes.


Throwing the last of his collected semi-smooth stones into the river with a desultory plop, Ohgi brushed his hands off against his jeans and turned towards me. I kept my gaze fixed on the water splashing against a small cluster of rocks in the middle of the stream, and wondered how long it would take for one of the cluster to be pulled away from the rest and pulled under.


"I wanted to congratulate you personally, Tanya," Ohgi began, his tone calm and seemingly earnest, "I've spoken with both Yoshi and Tsubaki, and they were both very impressed with your overall leadership."


I could hear the unspoken "but..." just as clearly as I could hear the raven croaking in the trees somewhere across the river. I knew that Ohgi was too soft a touch, and for that matter too Japanese, to bring up my failings directly without dancing around them enough to soften the blow. Instead of letting him proceed, I decided to adopt a technique I hoped he would respect as a teacher.


"I learned two things from the mission, Ohgi," I began, turning away from the river and its endless war on the resisting stones and towards my comrade. "The first is that allowing the enemy any chance to fight back is foolish; the second is that we need better equipment to be effective."


Ohgi raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure you already knew that first lesson, Tanya – you didn't exactly give the Kokuryu-kai much of a warning." He smiled faintly at that, and I smiled back. The station, for all it had been a small slice of an all too familiar hell, had been brilliantly executed, and I felt justly proud of it. I should feel proud – I didn't lose anybody on that mission.


The smile went away.


"You're right," I sighed, trying to figure out how to pin down what I was trying to say, "but it seems like I required a refresher."


Ohgi didn't respond, but the polite silence somehow pried the words out of me. "I rushed this mission, Ohgi. While the basic objective was successfully completed, if I had taken an extra day or two to plan and improve on the groundwork, I could have greatly improved the mission's outcome."


I took a deep, cleansing breath, and let the emotion flow out with the exhale before continuing, sinking into the cadence familiar from so many post-mission debriefings before.


"Squad 2, after deploying from the van, rapidly advanced through downtown Minamiuonuma to the City Hall. Once there, they proceeded to their primary target, the Mayor's Office, only to find him absent. While they were able to liquidate his deputy and his secretary, missing the mayor was an unfortunate failure. They proceeded to the secondary target of the Municipal Archives, destroyed all the computers they could find and piled up and burnt all blueprints and records they could in the three minute window available. Then, they exited Town Hall and encountered between twenty and thirty Honorary Britannian police dispatched from the Minamiuonuma central police station. While Squad 2 was easily able to suppress the police with small arms fire, they were bogged down and were compelled to retreat back to the van for extraction."


"It sounds like they were very successful," Ohgi replied mildly, holding up a hand and ticking points off on his extended fingers, "They occupied the available police in the city center, keeping them away from the radio station, which was the primary goal. They managed to disrupt the municipal government, which was a secondary goal at best. They managed to retreat in good order without so much as a bruise."


"True," I acknowledged, "but it could have gone better, as could Squad 1's side of the operation."


I closed my eyes for a moment and took another deep breath. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, hold, exhale.


"Squad 1 successfully detonated the bombs at Shiozawa Station and at the ambush site on Prefectural Route 124. Unfortunately, the pipe bomb was insufficient to destroy the first APC, although it was able to sufficiently damage the wheels that the vehicle was immobilized, blocking the second APC as well. Similarly, the RPGs Squad 1 had on hand proved insufficient to penetrate the vehicles' armor, and the mercenaries were able to exit the vehicles, which they took cover behind. While Squad 1 was able to complete their objective by preventing the deployment of the mercenary unit to the city center, they were unable to smoothly withdraw, due to a flanking pincer attack by the mercenaries who took advantage of nearby farm buildings for cover, rapidly forcing Squad 1 back. During this time Squad 1 took forty percent casualties and were forced to retreat to the woods on foot, where they took evasive action."


I was proud that my voice had remained cool and collected all the way through, barring a slight hitch at the word "casualties". Ohgi had maintained eye contact as I had completed my summation, nodding at each point. I did my best to ignore the pained look at the closing sentence; Ohgi had probably done a better job getting to know Sumire and Manabu – he was always talking with the recruits, always taking the time to chat whenever he wasn't conducting a lesson.


"So," I continued, keeping my War College demeanor as I approached the next section of the debriefing process, "in regards to lessons learned, we can observe two main points: First, better preparations would likely have improved mission outcomes; Second, better equipment is necessary for future engagements with Britannian armored troops."


Ohgi frowned slightly, but nodded. "Both of those are valid lessons to take from this mission, Tanya. But, aren't you forgetting the old adage that 'perfect is the enemy of good enough'? You managed to complete your mission successfully – isn't that good enough?"


"No!" With a burst of motion, the ravens across the river startled into flight, irate caws resounding as they took wing. I could feel the heat spreading across my cheeks, but pushed on, forcing myself to continue at a more reasonable volume. "No, Ohgi, it wasn't good enough. This was only barely a success – a C-grade at best! - and only a single step on a long, long road! I lost twenty percent of my fighting strength against a pack of washouts with surplus gear – if that had been a real Royal Britannian Army formation, Squad 1 would all be dead! All of them, not just the two that I did lose because I didn't plan well enough!"


I realized I was shouting again. The fact that Ohgi just took it without even looking angry just made it worse. Damn you, puberty, for making me sound like a stupid, unprofessional child!


With a last shudder of anger at myself, at my inability to be good enough I finally managed to get my treacherous mouth back under control, and after a moment of struggle managed to regain a semblance of calm. "That said, the focus on mobility is clearly a winning strategy. Hit and run attacks are likely to be the meat of our operations going forwards. Still, there is plenty of room for improvement; better intelligence would act as a force multiplier, as would sabotage. If I could have disabled the APCs before the mercenaries even attempted to deploy, or found some way to render the mercenaries unable or unwilling to fight, that would have achieved the objective at a far lower price."


Oghi nodded at that. "You have a point there, Tanya; if possible, we should look into ways of sabotaging the enemy before they can even fight."


"We also need to improve our kit for when the time comes to fight." As much as I loved the idea of preventing the enemy from deploying at all, I knew it to be a hopeless fantasy at best, a potentially dangerous distraction at worst.


"In the future, it's almost guaranteed that we will have to handle Britannia's Knightmares – and our current gear couldn't even deal with retired APCs. We need dedicated anti-armor and anti-vehicle weapons if we want any chance of victory against Britannia in the long term."


Ohgi winced at that, and nodded with fervent enthusiasm. "Yoshi said something similar when I spoke with him last night." He noticed my questioning expression, and hastily explained, "He wasn't pleased with how ineffective the RPGs were. He'd hoped they'd be enough to take out at least one of the vehicles, but..." Ohgi shrugged helplessly, and I nodded my understanding.


I bet Yoshi was a hell of a lot more than "wasn't pleased" at the time...


"And..." Ohgi looked away for a moment, took a deep breath, and re-established eye contact, "And... How are you feeling, Tanya? Really, how are you feeling? I told you I spoke with Yoshi and Tsubaki last night, and they were very impressed with your leadership, but Yoshi said that he'd been very surprised at how... enthusiastically... you greeted him at the shrine, and Tsubaki told me how quiet you were all the way back from Minamiuonuma..."


Ohgi took another deep breath, and slowly reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. "And... this is the first time you've lost someone under your command, right, Tanya? How are you feeling?"


I bit down on my tongue, fighting back the immediate impulse to take the easy way out by claiming "I'm fine." Even if it was true, instantly replying to such a loaded question would have clearly shown a lack of consideration, which would indicate either that I was being deliberately rude, or that I was unwilling to think about the question, and thus was not, in fact, fine. Instead, I took a moment to think, and to try to get my thoughts in order. Ohgi quietly waited, seemingly as patient as the river flowing past us.


"I am... upset," I haltingly began, trying to disentangle the knot of painful emotions with the cool scalpel of logical analysis, "Because I lost two trained fighters immediately after they had completed their training. This loss represents a waste of the time, energy, and expense involved in training them, an investment with very little return..."


I swallowed hard, pushing down the lump in my throat. While the loss of two good students and promising comrades was a regrettable waste of resources, the thought lacked any emotional resonance. But... What can I say? I'm sorry that Sumire will never know her son? I wish Manabu had made up with his partner before he left? This is war. People die. If I can't handle it...


I didn't think Ohgi would reject me, or try to force me out or anything. That was absurd. But I could see him trying, with the best of intentions, to move me over more towards the Benevolent Association side of the organization, away from combat operations. While I would typically be overjoyed with an easy assignment to the rear like that, and much as I would like to never fight again, to never risk my life... It was too early for any such reassignment. I knew where I could best help the Kozuki Organization, and at the moment it was as a strategic planner and tactical asset.


But from what I knew of Ohgi and his relentless pursuit of what he felt was right... I doubted that he would see things the same way, especially if he felt like I couldn't handle the pressure.


"I wish that it hadn't turned out this way," I continued. That much is true, at least. "I know and understand that loss is part of combat leadership, but I feel like the objective Sumire and Manabu died to accomplish was not worth the cost we paid."


Looking back on it, just disabling the APCs would have been more than enough to hinder the deployment of the Britannian goon squad – I should have told Squad 1 to fall back at that point, instead of trading fire to keep the mercenaries pinned. "I feel like I could have done a better job planning out the operation and found a way to achieve the same goals without the loss. I am angry at myself for this failure." Again, entirely true, and that should be enough probable cause to get Ohgi to drop it.


"In regards to my unprofessional conduct yesterday morning," I moved on, taking the bull by the horns and confronting my failings when it came to Yoshi's dawn arrival. I figured this might actually be a point that Ohgi, as the nearest thing the Kozuki Organization had to an HR manager, was concerned about, and so I did my best to express contrition. "I regret intruding on Yoshi's personal space; there was no excuse for it, and I will apologize to him when next I see him."


Ohgi had unaccountably begun to frown as I apologized. Wincing internally, I tried to explain the circumstances without sounding like I was trying to excuse my bad behavior. "I was feeling very worn out and tired, due to the stress of the operation the day before and the sleepless night. I had woken up worried about the three members of Squad 1. When I saw that they had arrived safely and intact, I forgot my manners. It will not happen again. The stress and worry was also why I declined to interact with anybody on the way back – I was concerned that my anxiety would lead me to further incivility."


Ohgi sighed and looked away, rubbing at his forehead with the base of his palm. "Well, Tanya... I'm sure everything you've said was completely true..." With a groan, he turned back to me with a complicated expression that I only saw for a moment, before it melted away as he made eye contact once again. I couldn't mistake that sympathetic look for anything else. "I'm happy to see that you're dealing with the loss so well. I'm proud of you."


What? Why?! I squandered two lives on a proxy mission given by a bastard so untrustworthy that he's actively conspiring against his boss's boss! Why would you be proud of me? I fucked up!


Somehow, Ohgi seemed to have noticed my disbelief. "I'm very proud of you, Tanya," he repeated firmly, "you did an excellent job, and I know that Sumire and Manabu would agree. They trusted you, Tanya, just like Nagata does and the rest of your friends do. I don't think they would say you squandered them – they knew the risks when they signed up, just like all the rest of us."


I tried to take consolation from that, but I couldn't. Who can speak for the dead? The living have a vested interest in putting words in their mouths. I'll never know if Sumire or Manabu would have agreed to die in rice paddies on the fringe of an unimportant city, and neither does Ohgi.


"For what it's worth," Ohgi continued, a light smile breaking the tension of the moment slightly, "I don't think Yoshi's at all bothered about your surprise hug. Personally, I think he was just shocked, and maybe a touch embarrassed – you don't need to apologize to him about it."


I forced an answering smile, to let Oghi I'd gotten the message. I didn't know why Ohgi thought the breach of protocol wasn't worth worrying about, considering how touch sensitive Japanese culture was, but if the officer in charge of intra-organizational matters said I didn't need to feel guilty about the matter, I would take his word for it. One less thing to worry about, I suppose.


Ohgi apparently decided to end on a high note with that piece of good news, insignificant though it was. He turned and started picking his way over the shingles of the beach towards the treeline and the path back to The School.


I watched him go for a moment, just to make sure that he wouldn't trip over any of the stones, before turning back out to the river. I still had another two hours of free time before I had to attend a meeting with the eighteen trainee squad leaders to work out the next week's chore assignments, and I saw no need to return to The School so much as a minute early.


Behind me, the sounds of rocks crunching underfoot stopped far too early for Ohgi to have made more than a few meters away. "...Tanya?" I half-turned, just far enough to see Ohgi out of my peripheral vision. "I'm very proud of you, but I know you'll do better next time around. Nobody's perfect, and we're all constantly learning and improving. I have complete confidence that you'll improve too."


I turned to face Ohgi entirely, and hopped down off the boulder. Half a year ago, I'd have thought that was a veiled threat... I would have heard an unstated "or else" at the end of that last sentence... In retrospect, I really was being very unfair to Ohgi. I found that I didn't need to force a smile as I picked my way over the river-smoothed stones to my friend. I can't say I approve of his blithe certainty, but... I'll do my best to prove his foolish optimism correct.


"Thank you for your confidence, Oghi," I clapped him on the shoulder as I walked past, somewhat surprised to realize that it wasn't as much of a reach as it had once been, "let's go check in on our trainees and see if anybody's brave enough to 'volunteer' for an optional fun run to get the blood flowing!"


---------


APRIL 16, 2016 ATB
"THE SCHOOL" TRAINING FACILITY


Almost a week after his sudden departure, Major Onoda reappeared with equal abruptness. He swaggered out of the woods just before lunchtime, his uniform neatly pressed and his puttees spotless. I could only assume that whatever hidden entrance to the JLF's subterranean tunnel network he had emerged from was remarkably close to school grounds, for him to have escaped the omnipresent springtime mud.


Onoda's attitude of smug self-satisfaction remained entirely intact when I joined him in the former principal's office for our scheduled meeting. I very swiftly learned the reason for Onoda's barely contained joy; almost before the door had closed behind me, the JLF officer's typical formality cracked.


"Ah, Miss Hajime, such a pleasure to see you again," Before I could respond to Onoda's surprisingly pleasant greeting, he had already moved on; clearly, etiquette was not high on his list of concerns for the evening. "I'm sure you'll be happy to hear that the first wave of recruits from Niigata and Toyama Prefectures have already found their way to the Front. Lieutenant Colonel Kusakabe swore in the largest single batch of recruits we've had in four years last night."


I tilted my head respectfully as I lowered myself down onto the waiting pillow. "That must be a very nice feather in his cap; please pass my congratulations on to the Colonel." Judging by how Onoda had phrased the news, it sounded like Kusakabe had managed to induct the lion's share of the first wave directly into his faction. General Katase must be really losing his grip if Kusakabe's getting this bold.


"He will be pleased to hear it, I am sure." Onoda smirked for a moment, before thankfully answering a question I had been somewhat afraid to ask. "In light of the recent swelling in our ranks, General Katase has opted to extend official recognition to your operation in Niigata. Lieutenant Colonel Kusakabe has, of course, been awarded a formal commendation for the operation and subsequent recruitment boost."


I smiled politely as I winced internally at Katase's unforced blunder. True, the leader of the JLF had been put on the horns of a thorny dilemma – either punish the officer whose boldness had led to the influx of fresh blood, or reward that officer for his rank insubordination – but my sympathy was limited; Katase had given Kusakabe far too much freedom and hadn't bothered to keep an eye on his clearly ambitious subordinate. And now he's been forced to publicly applaud Kusakabe's actions just to try and save face, all but guaranteeing Kusakabe's going to do the same thing again. It's the Kwantung Army all over again. For my sake, I could only hope my alliance of convenience with the JLF had run its course before they decided to invade China in the name of a defensible frontier.


"Truly, you outdid yourself, Miss Hajime," Onoda continued, mustache wriggling across his unusually expressive face, emotionless facade abandoned in light of this moment of triumph I had handed to his faction. "I will admit, I had my doubts if you and your militia would be able to successfully complete your mission, but you exceeded my wildest hopes."


A vicious smile crossed the Major's face as he leaned in over the low table between us. "Niigata Prefecture is spiraling out of Britannian control, thanks to your handling of affairs in Minamiuonuma City! The farmers and townsfolk of the prefecture have realized how weak the local minions of Prince Clovis truly are, and have begun to take matters into their own hands – every night for the past week, at least one house belonging to the family of an Honorary Britannian policeman has gone up in flames, sometimes with the family still inside! Lone collaborators are disappearing and being found dangling from trees or crammed into trash cans! Finally..." Onoda leaned back on his haunches, a smile that edged on the precipice of glee on his face, "Finally, the true sons of Japan are rising up against the running dog scum of Britannia!"


"I assume that the reprisals have begun?" I was more or less certain I already knew the answer, but I was curious what Onoda's opinion was about the likely hundreds of "true sons of Japan" that were paying for these impromptu attacks. "I find it hard to believe that the Britannian Army garrison in Niigata City has just been sitting back and watching as the trees sprout fruit overnight."


Onoda laughed at that. "Oh yes, they certainly have tried to smash the defiance back out of Niigata's people in the usual way. The crematories have been kept tragically busy, and at least one village has been entirely emptied." He leaned back in towards me with an almost conspiratorial air. "But the locals have gotten better and better at escaping into the woods when a Britannian column approaches. Many of the younger local men have even ended up finding their way to JLF outposts, ready and willing to join up to avenge these fresh Britannian atrocities! And the hangings continue! The Britannians are flailing about, but they lose more lackeys every day, and the number of recruits who remember Japan and sign up with us just keeps growing!"


It was difficult to keep the polite smile on my face as I nodded appreciatively along with Onoda's words. It was a dirty truth of guerrilla war that one of the greatest beneficiaries of atrocities committed by occupying powers were the local insurgents; the hatred generated by poorly disciplined soldiers or short-sighted officers lashing out was the fuel that the engines of rebellion thirstily drank. I was a beneficiary of this same truth, as most of my recruits had signed up in the aftermath of the Christmas Incident. That said...


I'd never been gleeful about it. I'd never laughed about it. I lived it, Major Onoda. I could have been one of the hundred civilians put up against a wall to pay the debt for a single Britannian's blood. But you've spent the years since the Conquest in a bunker, safe from that fate... Haven't you, Major?


"My congratulations to Lieutenant Colonel Kusakabe, Major Onoda," I choked out with difficulty, "I imagine this sort of popular resistance does a great deal to strengthen his position when it comes to arguing in favor of a more aggressive policy."


Onoda beamed, utterly failing to conceal his naked delight at the horrors Kusakabe would undoubtedly try to unleash from his new position of strength. "Indeed! General Katase soon will be compelled to admit that the Day of Liberation is nearly at hand! Even 'Tohdoh of Miracles' cannot dispute that the momentum is starting to turn in our favor at long last!"


"My group and I would love to assist Lieutenant Colonel Kusakabe with bringing the Day of Liberation upon us all the sooner," I replied, taking the opportunity to pivot away from gloating about past success into laying the groundwork for future operations, "but the most recent mission, successful though it was, revealed a significant flaw in the current doctrine and equipment of my organization."


Onoda raised an eyebrow, joy receding slightly now that matters of business were at hand. "Oh? It seems to my superiors and I that your little band did a more than adequate job with your current equipment. What's this flaw you claim to have uncovered?"


"We lack specially equipped anti-armor units, Major," I replied, smoothly ignoring the implied insult in his response. Amazing how short-lived gratitude can be – from "outdoing ourselves" to "more than adequate" in minutes! "While we were able to complete the JLF's objective with the Niigata Mission, the anti-personnel and light anti-vehicle munitions we used were only marginally effective against outdated armored vehicles. As the Britannian Army heavily fields Knightmare Frames, as well as other armored units, an effective anti-armor weapon will be necessary to deal damage to regular Britannian units."


Onoda hummed his agreement, before tapping on the table. "That is a good point, Miss Hajime, and your organization's primary value to the JLF is as a deniable unit for use against the Britannians. Training and equipping your organization to the point where you're actually dangerous to the foreign invaders would be useful towards that end."


I nodded my careful agreement. Onoda was, unfortunately, accurate – the Kozuki Organization was best used as an enabler of his faction's ongoing campaign of gekokujo, which also implied that we were both deniable and disposable. Since we both already agreed on that point, that statement of fact clearly wasn't the other shoe dropping. Wait for it...


"On the other hand," Onoda continued, "you still owe me another mission for the past three month's worth of logistical support. If you want access to the JLF's stockpile of anti-armor weaponry, not to mention ongoing logistical support for your fresh cohort of recruits..." There it is.


"Of course, Major Onoda," I had been waiting and preparing for this resumption of negotiations for months, and it was almost a relief that it had finally come. While the JLF still held most of the cards for this round, I wasn't coming to the table quite as empty handed as I had the first time around.


During the first round of negotiations, I had been representing an organization that was coming to the JLF as a new hire – one that had a recommendation from a senior partner, but a new hire nonetheless. I had little to offer at that point, and Major Onoda had been blatant in his disrespect and distaste for my organization in general and myself in particular. Now, I was representing an established contractor of sorts, one that had proven it could complete complex and high stress projects and could use resources efficiently. Besides that, I was a known quantity to the Major; he still might not particularly like me, but at least he wasn't dismissing me out of hand on the basis of my hair color and gender.


"During the time that you have spent assisting with the instruction of my recruits, you have consistently expressed your interest in blooding the trainees as part of their instruction," Indeed, it had been the one point that Onoda Hiroo had brought up over and over again, insisting that the lack of killing only produced half-baked soldiers. If nothing else, that sort of singular focus indicated a potential lever.


"I am still dubious about the efficacy of blooding tomorrow's soldiers by killing bound civilian targets, as stabbing bound men and women has little in common with defeating armed opponents, but I agree that some seasoning would improve the training program."


"As such, in exchange for ongoing logistical support for The School, as liaison for the JLF, you would have the right to give each graduating cohort of trainees a mission with objectives set as you see fit, contingent on approval from myself or another officer." Much as I hated to admit it, for all of his faults Onoda was a highly capable soldier, an expert scout, a skilled intelligence operator, and a surprisingly effective trainer. Giving him what he wanted would probably end up as a net benefit for both my organization and the JLF. I just hate giving him the win... But such is the negotiation process.


Besides... there was no way I would give him carte blanche to send my comrades into danger, at least not without sign-off from Naoto, Ohgi, or myself. I had not spent months of my time training up a new cohort of soldiers just to watch them be squandered in the name of appeasing Onoda's blood lust.


Onoda sucked noncommittally through his teeth, but I could tell by the glint in his eye that he was interested. And now that I've given him what he wanted, let's see if he'll meet me halfway...


"And I suppose if I am blooding your trainees by sending them after objectives important to the JLF, it would be in our benefit to train and equip them with anti-armor weapons," Onoda mused aloud, nodding his head. "Yes, I suppose I could sell that point to my superiors... You do understand that this doesn't get you out of your obligation to personally complete a second mission, yes?"


I tilted my head at an appropriately deferential angle, and carefully made sure no hint of the internal sense of triumph touched my face. "Of course, Major. And I am ready to deploy on that mission at your convenience."


"Excellent," the smirk had returned to Onoda's face, "I happen to have a job at hand that I think would be perfect for you, and would give your recruits a chance to familiarize themselves with those anti-armor weapons you seem so taken by."


It was fortunate that my head was still tilted forward, since I don't think I could have concealed the spasm of anger that flashed across my face. Dammit! I knew that was way too easy! The bastard walked me into this! He'd been planning on giving me anti-tank weapons the whole time! Yet another reminder that it was a mistake to think of Onoda as a mere bloodthirsty monster – he unquestionably was a murderous piece of work, but he was also lethally intelligent. I had no idea he was playing me! He must be incredible at poker!


"I'm glad to hear that," I replied, hastily reassembling my polite smile and looking up to reestablish eye contact. "What's the objective this time?"


Onoda's smirk once again faded in favor of a more serious expression. He's a professional, even if he is a petty bastard. "The JLF has intercepted intelligence that, in response to the ongoing violence in Niigata, the Prefect of Nagano plans on establishing a number of bases along entry points into Nagano from Niigata to prevent any spillover into his territory. Apparently he's concerned about bands of rebels and bandits hanging his policemen and interfering with planting season."


I nodded. That seemed like a sensible enough approach – improving fortifications at choke points along the border and supplementing patrols of the interior would make it more difficult to operate openly. Whichever lord had been appointed as the Prefect of Nagano was clearly either competent or willing to listen to competent advisors.


"One of the smaller new garrisons will be located in the village of Sakae," Onoda continued, "at the border of Nagano and Niigata Prefectures. It also happens to sit on the main train line through the Hida Mountains, as well as on the intersection of Route 117 and Prefectural Routes 238 and 507. It's got a population of around two thousand Japanese, so the Prefect is sending a company of Knightmares – five squads of four – and a battalion of infantry, plus attached support units."


"It sounds like the Prefect chose his new base's location quite well," I replied. From what I dimly remembered of Nagano's geography, Sakae was in the extreme northeast of the prefecture, but based on Onoda's description it was a natural choke point. The valley it sat in was the only efficient way through the so-called "Japanese Alps", and the intersection of multiple prefectural routes would give the garrison the ability to lock down most traffic in the area with ease.


Onoda nodded. "He did indeed. That said, the base isn't fully established yet – the infantry have already set up in the location, but the Knightmare company hasn't been dispatched yet. We have received word that the first squad of that company will be escorting two trucks full of maintenance tools and spare parts for Knightmare Frames from Nagano City to Sakae in two days. Stealing those supplies would be of great value to the JLF, and would give us time to move units through the choke point from Niigata and Gunma into Nagano, before the Knightmares arrive and complicate the situation."


I nodded vaguely, turning the situation over in my mind. This was definitely a priority mission, since removing a dug-in military installation in a mountain valley without aerial support would be tricky at best, and almost impossible if a company of highly agile Knightmares were on scene to support the infantry units.


That said... I hadn't seen a Knightmare in person since the second year after the Conquest, when the Britannians had finished crushing the last resurgence of organized resistance in Shinjuku. They were figures that stalked my memories of the Conquest and the brutal times that had followed after, though, and I remembered endless stories of how effortlessly Britannian Knightmares had destroyed the Japanese Army. I wasn't eager to tangle with the mechanical monsters of Britannia myself.


But if not now, when? It's got to come sometime... And I can't exactly turn this mission down without burning my value in Onoda's eyes...


"Do you need the Knightmares or the trucks, or only the cargo?" I asked, trying to focus on the concrete details of the task at hand. "And do you know the intended route and timetable?"


As it turned out, Onoda's source had given him all the information I would need. A few minutes later, we agreed to meet again tomorrow afternoon after the last training session of the day so I could present my intended strategy. For better or worse, I was committed to my first mission with Knightmares attached to the opposition.


---------


APRIL 18, 2016 ATB
SAKAE, NAGANO
0527


Corporal Martin Lancaster, of the 4th​ Support Regiment, was not having a good day. As he stepped down from the cab of the truck, he was filled with the horrible certainty that it was about to get significantly worse.


Lancaster had found out late the night before that he had drawn the miserable duty of accompanying a delivery of spare parts out into the mountainous hinterlands, courtesy of the chief of the Knightmare Maintenance section. When Lancaster had asked why the Logistics boys had needed his company for a routine delivery, he'd been informed that the Powers That Be had decided that the Sakae outpost would have a Knightmare repair bay attached, and that part of the standard paperwork for such a facility was the sign-off of a rated technician.


Since Martin had been out on leave yesterday when that decision had been handed down from on high, he hadn't been in the room at the time, and some bastard had volunteered him for the duty. A duty, he'd been irritated to learn, scheduled to begin at four the next morning when the delivery convoy was scheduled to leave Nagano Barracks with an escort of Knightmares.


Needless to say, come the next morning, Corporal Lancaster hadn't been looking or feeling his best when he had reported in to the lieutenant commanding the escorting Knightmare squad. Despite the purpose of the convoy being an almost purely logistical matter, Lieutenant McPherson had wound up in command of the operation by dint of claiming that, as the trucks were transporting spare parts and maintenance tools for Knightmare Frames, the convoy should be under the authority of the local expert on Knightmares.


Personally, Martin suspected that the officer, as both a noble and a Knightmare pilot and so doubly arrogant, would rather lick his Frame clean than take orders from a common-born Logistics Corps oik. Neither of the truck drivers had felt the need to argue with the man, and so the little convoy had set out on the hour and a half drive to Sakae Village.


The drive had been quiet, and the roads nearly empty so early in the morning. Martin had been halfway to napping in the passenger seat of the lead truck when the radio had suddenly crackled to life only ten minutes out from their destination.


"Lance Lead to all units! Halt immediately! Suspected explosive device identified. Over"


Martin's drowsiness had vanished as the icy claws of shock sank into his shoulders and back. He'd fumbled for the radio, checking the channel and flipping the switch to transmit as the driver immediately began to slow to a halt. "C-copy that, Lance Lead," he had stuttered into the microphone, "Location of the device? Over."


"Look on the right side of the road by the tunnel and it should be obvious. Over." Internally cursing the noble prick, Martin did as he was bid, and had immediately understood the lieutenant's concern. A hundred yards ahead of the leading pair of Knightmares, a tunnel gaped, the darkness of the interior barely dented by the dim line of light fixtures, half of which were burnt out and in need of repair. Just barely outside the tunnel's entrance, an oil drum lay on its side, blue paint chipped away to reveal rusting sides. A few pieces of garbage were scattered around the drum, and maybe the wire protruding from one side of it was just another piece of such garbage.


Or perhaps not.


Martin had licked his suddenly dry lips. 'It's probably just garbage,' he had reminded himself, 'nothing to worry about.' But if it wasn't... He'd shaken his head, trying to force the thought from his mind. There were other ways to get to Sakae – less efficient, admittedly, but still there. That said, showing up late because of some roadside garbage wouldn't look good either...


As if to respond to his thought, the radio had crackled back to life, and said exactly what Martin had been afraid it would. "Lance Lead to Truck 1. Send the passenger out on foot to visually inspect the drum. Go see if that wire connects to anything. Over."


The driver had glanced sidelong over at Martin, who suddenly felt completely unable to move. The logistics man reached over, flicked the transmit switch, and replied. "Roger that, Lance Lead, he's on his way." Flicking the switch off, the driver had shrugged apologetically at Martin. "Guess you drew the short straw, eh? C'mon, get out before that prick starts pissin' over us all."


And now, Martin found himself slowly walking up the road, doing his best to conceal the nerve-wracking tension. The escorting Knightmares, and the asshole lieutenant commanding them, were already yards behind him. Ahead, the dark mouth of the tunnel loomed, the drum protruding like a broken tooth.


'Why the hell is the tunnel so dark?' Martin wondered, deliberately not thinking about how many pounds of high explosive and nails could conceivably be crammed into an oil drum. 'This is a priority road – DPW should've changed out those bulbs months ago!'


In all likelihood, if funds had ever been allocated for maintenance of the Route 117 Tunnel, Martin was all but certain they'd been immediately embezzled – the Directorate of Public Works was infamously corrupt. Which explained why the only infrastructure projects making any progress in the Area were the ones the Governor had taken a personal interest in, like the MagLev extensions. And, of course, the roads and rails feeding the Sakuradite mining complexes.


Suddenly, Martin found himself only ten feet or so from the drum. He looked back over his shoulder, and could almost feel the lieutenant glaring at him through the Sutherland's Factsphere, demanding him to "hurry up and get on with it!" Swallowing, he turned back to the drum, horribly aware that his body armor was only rated for small caliber rounds and shrapnel, not explosive devices meant to take out vehicles.


'Why the hell am I having to do this?' Martin raged as he tried to muster up the will to take another step forward, and then another. 'There's gotta be some Elevens around here – farmers, or loggers, or whatever! Why the hell didn't the lieutenant just give us the permission to grab one of them to play human minesweeper, huh? I'm a goddamned certified Knightmare tech – a rated maintenance professional! This kinda shit is Number work!"


The drum was at Martin's feet, and his heart was in his mouth. Praying to a God who suddenly felt all too close, Martin slowly, carefully, knelt down before the drum, and leaned to the side. The damp air wafting out of the tunnel felt clammy and cold, even colder than the mountain air, and Martin shivered uncontrollably as cold wet fingers ran across the nape of his exposed neck. He couldn't see anything in the dark interior of the barrel, just that wire, snaking away...


Martin suddenly remembered the small flashlight built into the side of his visor, and felt like an idiot. Flicking it on, Corporal Lancaster abruptly felt all the tension and dread flow out of him. The drum was full of smashed up concrete and bent rebar – clearly the results of some sort of demolition. With an experimental jerk, the wire came loose in his hands, revealing itself to just be a simple piece of overlooked scrap protruding from the garbage.


Flicking the light off, Martin got back to his knees, dusting his gloved hands off before activating the radio built into his helmet. "Corporal Lancaster to Lance Lead, the barrel's full of busted concrete. Someone's demolishing something, and a barrel probably fell off the truck they were using to haul away the debris, over."


A moment later, the lieutenant responded. "Lance Lead here. If that's the case, quit standing around like a fool and get back in the truck. This nonsense has put us behind schedule – and I hate being late. Over."


Martin acknowledged the junior officer and major pain in the ass's order and began walking back to the truck. Now that the stress of potential death via explosion had receded, it was quite a nice morning for a walk – the air was pleasantly crisp, the sound of the wind in the cedars a pleasant accompaniment to the early morning birdsong, and the perfume of the spring flowers hung heavily. 'Maybe today will be a good day after all.'


---------


APRIL 18, 2016 ATB
SAKAE, NAGANO
0530


Senior Lieutenant Kenneth McPherson drummed his fingers impatiently as that oaf Lancaster slowly made his way back to the truck, before taking his sweet time to climb back into the cab. Almost as soon as the door closed behind the insolent pissant, Kenneth's index finger was jabbing at the 'transmit' button on his Knightmare's instrument panel. "Lance Lead to Convoy – advance in formation, over."


Beneath him, the Yggdrasil Drive whirred to life, and Kenneth could practically see the Core Luminous spinning with increasing speed in his mind's eye as his majestic Sutherland cruised into the tunnel. From the corner of his eye, Kenneth noticed the engravings of flowers, mountains, and the old crest of Nagano Prefecture, and grimaced with disgust. 'An old Eleven tunnel, built before the Conquest... It's amazing the damned thing is still passable."


The mere thought of the original builders of the tunnel made Kenneth wince. Numbers were always inferior, but Numbers who came from Areas 2 through 9 were at times almost good enough to pass as Britannians. Yes, they were generally lazier, and generally lacked the keen martial value of true Britannians from Area 1, the Homeland, but they weren't necessarily a bad sort. After in some cases centuries under the Britannian yoke, virtually every trace of their original backwards cultures had been corrected away, and the true Imperial Anglican faith had spread to even the most isolated valleys and islands.


Numbers from Areas 10 through 15, on the other hand, were a different story. Taken together, the inhabitants of the Southeast Asian and the Pacific territories west of Area 7 were stupid, ungrateful, and intemperate brutes who couldn't figure out how to handle even the most simple tasks. The notable exception to this rule were, of course, the Elevens.


Kenneth's jaw clenched with barely controlled anger. He wouldn't even have to be out here wasting his time shepherding these damned trucks if it weren't for the Elevens forgetting their place! Ever since that pack of bandits and rebels up north in Niigata had gotten lucky, defiance had leapt from one Eleven to the next.


The Elevens had always been cut from a different cloth than the rest of the Numbers, that much was clear. It was equally clear to Kenneth McPherson that this was not a good thing. The Elevens, once the residents and citizens of a developed country, were cunning and sly where the Tens, the Twelves, and the Thirteens were stupid, but they devoted every iota of that malicious intelligence towards creative malingering, sabotage, and outright defiance. Too cowardly to stand up and fight, the Elevens preferred to conduct hit and run attacks whenever they emerged from their bunkers, as they had almost two weeks previous in Niigata.


McPherson hated Elevens. To his own discomfort, he found himself increasingly disliking the Viceroy Governor, Prince Clovis la Britannia, for his softhearted and gentle approach to the damnable natives.


'If only a real governor could somehow be appointed, this whole mess would be ship-shape in no time,' McPherson fantasized as he and his wingman exited the tunnel at the head of the convoy, 'Someone like Princess Cornelia or Princess Marrybell, or Princess Carine... If not a royal, perhaps Lord Stadtfeld or Lord Farshaw... Hell, even that maniac Sir Bradley would be able to put these upstart Numbers back in their place in days! Unlike Prince Clovis...'


Kenneth sighed. It had been such a disappointment, for himself and for his family, when he had been assigned to Area 11. Not only was the Area a colonial backwater far from the glamorous and glorious battles waged against the European degenerates in Africa and the Atlantic, the province was also nearly impoverished, making profitable opportunities few and far between. The only export worth anything was the Sakuradite, and that whole industry was locked far too tight for a small noble family like the McPhersons to get involved with. And on top of all of that...


Kenneth was a Knightmare devicer, a latter day knight atop a charger, the king of the modern battlefield! He'd ranked in the top thirtieth percentile back at the Academy and had placed twenty-third out of the hundred hopefuls during Knightmare training! He knew he wasn't Knight of the Rounds material, but he was still a highly trained pilot! A killing machine piloting another killing machine!


Instead of having the opportunity to prove that the training hadn't been wasted, not to mention any opportunity to prove that he would have earned his lieutenancy even if his father hadn't purchased his commission, Kenneth had been sent to Area 11. Far from any honorable combat where he could earn a true knighthood and perhaps even a fief to call his own, and in sleepy Nagano City, far from even the trivial rush of combat against Eleven rebels.


Kenneth was momentarily startled out of his increasingly dark ruminations as his Knightmare jolted over a slight bump. He blinked, momentarily surprised to find himself rolling onto a bridge. 'Weren't' we just in a tunnel?' Turning his Factsphere back over his shoulder, he saw the tunnel disappear behind the hill the provincial highway curved around. Fortunately, he also saw both trucks and the tailing pair of Knightmares bringing up the rear.


With a rueful sigh, Lieutenant McPherson turned back around, chastising himself for losing track of time and place. He'd been more or less steering his Frame by instinct, while his mind had wandered down the endless list of grudges and misfortunes he'd been forced to endure. 'Not that it really matters,' Kenneth chuckled to himself as he looked down to check the digital map. Seven minutes to go. 'There's no Eleven rebels out here. They're all up in Niigata... Pity that.'


'And... Honestly, having a chance to actually kill a few Number scum would have made this entire pain in the ass trip worth it.'


Kenneth had known that someone had to escort the trucks, considering the valuable cargo they carried, and had earned himself a few brownie points with the Captain by volunteering for the job, but it was a painfully dull task. He might have been in command of the convoy, as was right and natural, but it wasn't like he could do anything fun with his newly gained and temporary command. 'If only some idiots tried to rush my squad with swords... Ah, that would liven the day up, for a few minutes at least..."


The Sutherland jolted again as the landspinners crossed the bump at the end of the bridge, and Kenneth thought unkind thoughts about the DPW. Some corruption was, sadly, a fact of life – after all, the gears always needed a bit of oil to turn, but... 'Between the lights back in the tunnel and the surfacing on this bridge, this is completely unacceptable!' Sure the highway was rural, but with the construction of the new forward base at Sakae actual Britannians would have to use this road, not just Honorary Britannians and Numbers!


As Senior Lieutenant Kenneth McPherson made a mental note to submit a formal complaint with his superior about the shoddy road maintenance provided by the DPW, he vaguely noticed a heat source appear in the extreme peripheral vision of his Factsphere's monitor. Before he could turn his Knightmare's head towards the unexplained heat signature, Lieutenant McPherson suddenly found his wish for Eleven rebels granted as a series of explosions resounded from somewhere behind him. An instant later, two anti-armor shoulder-launched missiles slammed into the sides of his pilot pod, smashing the thin armor and killing him instantly.


---------


APRIL 18, 2016 ATB
SAKAE, NAGANO
0536


Youji shivered where he lay on his belly in the dew-soaked grass, as he had for the last half hour. Unlike the tremors of the last thirty minutes, his shivering had nothing to do with the wet cold soaking through his thin jacket from the sopping wet blanket draped over his shoulders and head. Now, Youji shivered with excitement as the pair of Knightmares leading the Britannian convoy rolled past the end of the bridge two hundred meters east of his position.


After six years, the first installment on Youji's long deferred vengeance was about to be paid.


A part of Youji, the part that burned with six years of grief and pain, desperately wanted to throw off the shroud dripping with river water, to rise to his feet and to open fire on the Britannians immediately. That part of him, which seemed to be down somewhere in his chest, next to the internal pocket sheltering the faded picture of his fiancee, folded and stained and kept safe from the water in plastic wrap, radiated throbbing heat throughout his core.


That part of Youji, wounded these six years, had impulsively lashed out again and again since he had lost her, seeking to hurt the uncaring world as he had been hurt. It was an old and familiar instinct, leaning in to unreasoning anger as an escape from the crushing grief that brought him to his knees whenever he let himself think, let himself remember.


That part of Youji snarled and raved, but was now held back by what he pictured as a steel collar and chain leash. He had forged that collar and that chain, blow by blow and link by link, over the last three and a half months of training. The trio of instructors, which had grown by one a week into the program, had helped him along the way, but ultimately it was his will that now contained his temper.


His four month journey to this prefectural roadside had started not in Shinjuku, and not at the side of his long-dead fiancee, but rather in the smoldering Honorary Britannian neighborhoods of the Tokyo Settlement.


Youji had been having a "good day" of sorts when the call had gone out for able-bodied men eager for work; thanks to the Rising Sun Association, he had a mostly full belly, and he had felt emotionally stable. At the very least, the black grief and the red anger weren't drowning out the world around him. So, Youji had trudged into the Settlement with thousands of other Elevens, signed up with a work crew, and had been trucked over to the work site.


It had been like taking a trip to the past, to the horrible days immediately following the Conquest. The architecture of the burnt out buildings was different, but the shattered windows and gutted rooms were all too familiar. Gulping back emotion and memory, Youji had joined the rest of his crew in hauling rubble to the waiting dump truck.


She had only been dead for a day, and it was December, so putrification hadn't had time to set in. Even if she had begun to rot, Youji probably wouldn't have smelled her, considering the reek of burnt plastic and linoleum that filled the remains of the charred apartment building. 'Bet it was the smoke that got her,' Youji had thought, as he'd helped two of his new co-workers lift a chunk of fallen roofing material off the table the woman had crawled under. Her clothes had been scorched in places, but judging by her cyanotic face it hadn't been the heat that had killed her.


The dead woman, whose body had been unceremoniously flung into the truck with the other burnable garbage, lingered with Youji as he continued to work, and followed him back to Shinjuku. Honorary Britannian collaborator or not, the way she had tried to curl up under the table...


An inquiry or two at the Rising Sun meeting hall had taken him to a back room, where Youji had been politely grilled by two women as to his motivations, history, and goals. The older woman he had seen a few times at the meeting hall, but as far as he had known, she was just another volunteer helping the Association distribute food to the starving people of Shinjuku. Hajime Tanya, on the other hand... He'd heard the rumors, of course, but it had been hard to believe that the scrawny hafu asking about his work experience had really taken three adults down in a minute using only her bare hands.


Four months later, those rumors no longer seemed the slightest bit absurd.


And now, Youji waited patiently for the signal from that same hafu, albeit a bit less scrawny, a bit more muscular, and slightly taller, to arm the weapon laying next to him in the grass. The shoulder-fired missile launcher had only been issued to him that morning, and he had only had a chance to practice with similar launchers for a few hours before leaving on the mission, but Youji wasn't concerned. The launcher had been designed to be easy to use, and the target would only be twenty to thirty meters away. 'And close is going to be more than good enough...'


A second later, the handheld radio clipped to his belt clicked twice as the second truck left the bridge. Moving carefully, Youji twisted the base of the stout weapon, causing the inner tube to telescope out and lock in place. Rolling onto his side, he picked up the launcher and tucked it over his right shoulder before flopping back onto his belly, taking care to shelter the trigger button on top of the assembly. 'Any second now...'


The flanking pair of Knightmares rolled off the bridge meters behind the second truck. Youji focused on taking deep breaths, trying to calm himself. 'Any second now... Any second...' The leading pair of Knightmares were almost directly in front of him, the top of the pilot pod a meter or so below the edge of the hill cut he lay on top of. Youji gulped, trying to force the wad of thick mucus and saliva down his suddenly constricted throat as the unit insignia painted in gold on the front of the closest Knightmare glistened in the light of a rogue sunbeam. 'It's gotta be soon... Soon... Soon...'


Suddenly, the lead truck seemed to jolt once, and then twice, and began to wildly fishtail across the road as the driver lost control of the truck. Youji couldn't see it in the early morning light, but he was certain the truck had just rolled across the improvised spike strip he'd helped make, nails strung together with chicken-wire and painted grey. 'Which means...' The radio clipped to his belt let out a trio of blasts of static as the little hafu hit the transmit button once, twice, and thrice from wherever she was hiding.


'Finally!'


The overlapping explosions of four missile launches slammed into Youji's ears as the blanket cascaded down his back. He smoothly rose to one knee, blanket pooling over his trailing leg as he brought the rocket launcher down to bear on the Knightmare below and in front of him. To his left and right, the other four members of his squad likewise knelt, though only the two comrades to his left had their fingers on the trigger buttons; across the road, five other figures likewise pointed their launchers down into the roadbed below. From the corner of his eye, Youji could see one of the trailing Knightmares slam into the hillside, but ignored it – he had a job to do.


Smoothly, squeezing not jerking, Youji depressed the button on his launcher, supporting the tube as it bucked his hand. The backblast, joined by his two squadmates, was enough to shred the overgrown bushes behind him, but Youji's eyes were glued to the Knightmare immediately in front of him. The unguided missile had slammed into the broad side of the pilot pod, almost perpendicularly to the ground. Judging by the absolute devastation, at least one of the rockets fired by his comrades on the other ridge had gone a bit high and slammed into the other side of the same Knightmare's pilot pod – it looked like some pair of giant hands had clapped the frame, caving in both sides of the lightly armored compartment and obliterating whatever and whoever had been inside.


The stricken Knightmare's wingmate had also been hit, but only by one missile and only glancingly, if Youji was any judge. The back of the pilot pod looked like it had been smashed by some fiery mallet, and bulged inwards.


The second Knightmare outlived the first by only a few seconds. The operation's leader had planned for a target surviving the initial barrage, and an instant later, the four insurgents who had held fire during the first salvo pushed their own launcher's buttons. The second Knightmare ruptured; a fireball forcing itself from somewhere deep inside the monstrous device's guts as the Yggdrasil Drive destabilized.


The second truck, blocked from reversing by the burning ruins of the flanking Knightmares, tried to run. The driver slammed to the left, trying to get around the immobilized bulk of the first truck, and had nearly made it around his unlucky companion when a small form half-ran, half slid down the opposing slope.


The tiny figure, blonde ponytail streaming like a banner behind her, raised the pistol clenched in her right and fired two shots through the driver's side window without stopping or slowing, before jumping on the running board. A moment later, the truck came to a complete stop, and first the driver, then the passenger climbed down out of the truck, hands in the air, and knelt on the road before the feet of Hajime Tanya.


At the sight, Youji finally let his discipline slip. Throwing his spent launcher to the ground, he raised both hands to the sky, and howled at the day's victory. "Japan! Japan! Long live Japan! Death to all invaders! Death!" He could barely hear himself over the ringing in his ears, but he was certain his comrades were baying alongside him as the Knightmares, the symbols of Britannian domination over the might of Japan, burnt in the scorched roadbed below them.


---------


APRIL 18, 2016 ATB
SAKAE, NAGANO
0540


Rena sighed with exasperation as her squadmates hooted like a troop of macaques over their victory. She was tempted to chide them for the unprofessional display, for celebrating before the mission was well and truly completed, but... She couldn't deny the joy that had surged through her as the last Knightmare standing had been pummeled into the roadside loam.


Besides, the broad toothy grin Rena could feel spreading across her face would probably undermine any rebuke she tried to make.


'And there's nothing worse than being a hypocrite,' Rena thought with amusement as she picked up her discarded blanket and started hauling it and the spent launcher towards the lumber yard where the Furude brothers, the designated drivers, had parked the vans. 'Except maybe being a Britannian.'


Rena met the Furudes in the parking lot as they filed out of the lumber yard's office building, along with the four employees of the yard's early shift they'd been keeping an eye on. Per orders from on high, the temporarily detained employees had been kept under supervision in the break room and given breakfast, but hadn't been permitted to leave the Furudes' watchful gaze.


"Hey, Rena, what's the news?" Yuu, the elder of the Furude brothers, greeted her from the end of the little procession, releasing the handguard of his rifle as he waved. "We heard the signal over the radio – did it work?"


"You know it, Yuu!" It was hard to retain even the slightest bit of professionalism as Rena dumped her armload of blanket and spent launcher into the van's trunk, turning with a grin towards her not at all handsome and cool comrade. "They rolled right into it, and then BOOM!"


Rena couldn't help but make the explosion noise herself, just to really underline how amazing it had been to watch the two rear Knightmares explode as the four comrades laying in the drainage ditches along the bridge had stood up and fired their missiles straight into the back of the pilot pods. "As soon as the truck hit that spike strip, they were dead meat!"


Yuu laughed appreciatively, and Rena couldn't help but notice how fetchingly the white headband with the red rising sun ringed in yellow contrasted with his shoulder-length black hair. 'Plus...' She thought, noticing how his chest moved as he laughed, 'the training's been real good to him...'


"You know," Rena said, walking back towards the road, and just happened to take a route that went directly past Yuu and his charges, "I managed to hit one of the Brit bastards myself – it was a beautiful shot, Yuu, right in the side of the pod! Wish you'd been there to see it..." Suddenly, he was only an arm's length away, and somehow he looked really good holding that rifle...


The radios on Yuu's and Rena's belt suddenly crackled to life, making Rena jump with surprise. Flustered, she quickly looked away from Yuu as she fumbled for her radio. To her growing consternation, she realized that Yuu's little brother, Taka, and all four of the Japanese workers the brothers had been supervising were all staring at her and Yuu with open amusement.


"Yellow to Watcher 1, what's your status, and the status of the workers, over?" Rena stopped trying to grab her radio and instead took the opportunity to resume her... not her retreat, her return to the roadside. 'You've got a job to do! It's very important!' She reminded herself, doing her best to ignore how hot her ears felt as she heard the unmistakable sound of badly suppressed laughter behind her.


"Watcher 1 to Yellow," Rena heard Yuu begin to report as she turned the corner of the road and started picking her way down the road, stepping over and around scraps of the leading Knightmares. "Everything is good here. Watcher 2 is getting his van fired up, and our guests have behaved themselves. Over."


"Yellow to Watcher 1, thank your guests for cooperating and let them go. Warn them of probable retaliation, and ask them to spread word to their neighbors, then get ready to go. Over." Rena heard the tail end of the last transmission in stereo as she walked past 'Yellow', the tiny blonde's voice overlapping with the crackling output from the radio. Keeping her distance to prevent feedback, Rena circled around Commander Tanya and the line of men lying prone with their hands bound on the side of the road and clambered into the intact truck's cab through the passenger door.


The military truck was somewhat different from the old panel truck that Instructor Nagata had taught Rena how to drive as part of the classes, and she spent some time getting familiar with the layout of the dashboard. As she moved the seat forward and down, and adjusted the mirrors, a line of her comrades formed, hauling everything man-portable out of the immobilized truck and into any available space in the bed of her truck. The truck was still running, so she fortunately didn't have to worry about getting the engine warmed up.


Up ahead and a few hundred meters down the road, Rena could see one of the vans driven by the Furude brothers pulling up to the small construction hut located near the junction, and the trio of comrades hastily hauling the machine-gun, the tripod, and the ammunition boxes out from inside the hut. In the event that one of the trucks had made it past the spike strip and the other impediments, the machine-gun nest had been a backup, ready to rake the driver's compartment and engine block with hundreds of rounds per minute. Rena felt sorry for them. 'The poor guys didn't even get to fire off a shot – we were just too good.'


Finally, as the bucket line of comrades hauling cargo broke up and after Tanya dealt with the Britannian prisoners, Rena's radio crackled back to life. "Yellow to Red 2, head south from Hirataki. We'll be using drop point D-3. Confirm, over."


Rena unclipped the handheld radio from her belt and pulled the folded map out from her shirt, unfolding it on the passenger seat as she used her other hand to transmit. "Red 2 to Yellow, confirmed point D-3. Over."


"Yellow to Red 2. Good. Get going – Scope is already on his motorbike heading east on 408. He'll meet you when you cross the Chikuma, and the rest of us will be following right behind you, over." Rena nodded for a second, before remembering that she had been talking to Tanya over the radio and stopped. 'No time like the present, I guess,' She thought, and put the truck into first gear. The heavily loaded vehicle shuddered into motion, and Rena carefully maneuvered her way through the debris of the ambush, cursing the somewhat sticky clutch as she finagled around the sprawled leg of the lead Knightmare.


'Can't wait for this mission to be over...' Rena thought, yawning as the sleepiness from so much early morning activity hit her as the adrenaline of action faded away. 'Wonder if we'll get a fun after-party too, like after the last mission? We better. And we didn't even lose anybody this time, so the mood should be way better too!'


Buoyed by the thought, Rena hummed cheerfully as she turned right and headed south across the next bridge over the Chikuma River. True to Tanya's word, Scope – the lookout who had kept an eye from the bushes on the tunnel and had reported on the convoy's progress to Tanya – was waiting for her at the intersection with Prefectural Route 408, straddling his motorcycle. He waved to her, and she waved back through the shattered driver's side window, before he kicked his bike's motor back to life and swung out onto the road behind her.


Rena continued along her way, taking care to drive carefully on the winding mountain roads as she did so. 'It'd be really embarrassing if I crashed the truck on the way to the drop-off point,' She reasoned, as she kept a steady pace of 50 kilometers an hour as two white vans fell into the procession behind her and Scope. 'Besides,' a treacherous and highly unprofessional voice laughed in her mind, 'it'll be impossible to get Yuu's attention if you seize mission failure from the jaws of success!' Clenching her teeth, Rena focused on the road and tried her best to forget that Yuu was likely staring at the back of her truck from behind his own wheel.


Fortunately for Rena, the drop-off went perfectly. Tanya must have radioed ahead, because almost as soon as she had pulled off the highway onto the small Forest Service road, two men stepped out of the trees. Leaving the truck running, Rena hopped out and waved at one of the men, who, she noticed, was wearing a uniform very much like Major Onoda's, only less worn-looking and minus the mud stains. 'Delivery courtesy of the Rising Sun,' she chirped as she bowed slightly to the men, before making her way back towards Yuu's van, a spring in her step. 'Mission accomplished! We're definitely gonna have a a party after this!'


---------


APRIL 18, 2016 ATB
EAST OF MT TORIKABUTO, SAKAE, NAGANO
0703


I stretched back as best as I could in the van's passenger seat, trying to ignore the irritating sensation of damp cloth sticking and pulling on my skin. Major Onoda, who claimed to be somewhat familiar with the sensory equipment of Knightmare Frames, had suggested the wet blankets as a way to conceal the presence of my ambush party from the thermal vision of the Factspheres.


Onoda's suggestion had worked like a charm; dripping with river water from a quick immersion in the Chikuma, the squad of Sutherlands hadn't noticed anything until it was far too late. Likewise, Ohgi's thoughts that, in order for the ejector mechanisms to work, the armoring on the pilot pods had to be light was proven entirely correct.


My trainees had performed well in the aftermath of the ambush as well. The extraction process had been orderly and quick, and the handover of the Britannian truck crammed full of spare parts for Sutherlands and a variety of tools presumably related to Knightmare maintenance had gone off without a hitch.


mce-anchor Despite this generally positive performance on the part of my newly graduated trainees, there was still room for improvement. I would let the trainees enjoy their party, enjoy their victory, but… Squads 2 and 3 would be paying dearly for their impromptu victory celebration tomorrow. I didn't know if pushups would fully drive my displeasure at their lack of discipline in an active combat situation, but it would at least improve their upper arm and core strength.


I'd been concerned that the JLF receivers would ask after the other truck, but neither of them had asked any questions over radio or in person. Of course, that didn't mean that Front members higher up on the food chain wouldn't chastise me for the truck's loss at some later point. It was entirely possible that the JLF soldiers had left the pleasure of haranguing me over the unsatisfactory quality of work to Onoda, or perhaps even to the fabled upstart himself, Lieutenant Colonel Kusakabe.


Truck or not, I was having a hard time seeing the mission as anything but a complete success. We had acquired key intelligence about the capabilities of the Sutherland's Factsphere, as well as the strength of the side and back faces of the pilot pod. The tactics that Ohgi and I had devised, with Onoda's input, had proven workable as well, if only with the advantages of surprise and deliberately chosen ground.


Not to mention that all twenty of the insurgents I had brought with me on this mission were returning alive and unharmed.


"Scope" the motorcycle-riding scout ranged ahead of our little procession heading north on Area Route 405, back up into Niigata. We were not, I had to remind myself, fully out of danger yet – it was still possible for us to be detected by Britannian helicopters patrolling for rebel activity, or for us to encounter a surprise checkpoint blocking the road. We're not safe until we're back home.


Back home...


It was a nebulous concept, 'Home'. I had lived at The School for just slightly longer than I had lived in Ohgi and Naoto's apartment. Almost six months, put together. Admittedly, either location felt more like 'home' than the one room in an apartment my mother had sublet, where we had lived together for years. Home...


The sun flickered in and out between the overgrown cedars, extended boughs casting wide shadows in the morning light of a bright spring day. It would be, it seemed, a cloudless day, even up here in the mountains. I could only imagine how hot and steamy it would be getting at The School; in this one area, Shinjuku probably had the rustic environs of rural Gunma beat – the breezes coming off Tokyo Bay helped break up the worst of the spring and summer heat, although they did nothing for the humidity.


I closed my eyes and leaned back in the passenger seat, tuning out the boisterous chatter from the trainees. They were chatting about the party they eagerly anticipated to celebrate their first mission, and their first victory. I smirked, enjoying the privacy of the front seat; I was certain that they would not be disappointed by the moonshine that Ohgi had stocked up on, nor by the two pigs that he, Nagata, and a squad had "liberated" from a Britannian farm in Nakanojo.


It had been almost four months since I had left Shinjuku. Four months of hard work training the recruits, organizing supplies for all present, hammering out agreements and concessions with Onoda... The adrenaline rush of combat had almost been a vacation from the daily humdrum work, much as I hated to admit it even in the confines of my own head.


Not much of a vacation for Sumire or Manabu...


The School was reaching a point where the trainees no longer required my hands-on presence, in my estimation. The training cadre was doing an admirable job straightening out the second cohort, and the plan had always been to hand over control of the school's program to the cadre after the completion of the first cohort's training. The fly in the ointment, as was often the case, was Major Onoda.


As a result of my agreement with the Major for his ongoing support, at least one ranking member of the Kozuki Organization needed to remain on-site, lest some "urgent mission" crop up. I was sure that Major Onoda would be properly apologetic for acting without authorization after the fact, but considering his superior's habitual disobedience towards his superiors, I wasn't inclined to trust the man or, for that matter, any member of the Kusakabe faction.


It was truly an unfortunate state of affairs. Onoda's knowledge of the capabilities of Glasgow series Factsphere sensors had been just as crucial to the success of our nearly completed mission as the shoulder-mounted anti-armor weapons he'd funneled to the Kozuki Organization. If I could just rely on the JLF to not stab me in the back, they would be a near perfect partner. Such a pity about their apparent gekokujo addiction.


At the same time, I couldn't stay tied down to The School indefinitely. The School was important, but so was Shinjuku, and I had always planned for my time away from the slum to be limited in scope. I trusted Naoto, Inoue, and Kallen, of course, but I had left Naoto and Inoue in something of a holding pattern. As for Kallen, I could only hope that she wasn't drowning under the combined weight of three distinct roles. I didn't have anyone else who could take her place in the aristocratic circles open to her by her blood and her name, nor her place as an up and coming journalist.


Beyond that, Shinjuku was in the Tokyo Settlement, in the very belly of the Britannian beast. As the summer heat truly set in, I could only imagine how the constant simmering tensions in the Settlement would boil over. I doubted anybody had forgotten the Christmas Incident, especially if the Prince had doubled down on supporting the Purists, as he had in the aftermath of the Shinjuku Subway Incident.


I opened my eyes again, and smiled at the beautiful spring day under the still-rising Sun. I would find someone to delegate keeping watch over The School to, someone who could check Onoda while still leading the mandatory missions. The Tokyo Settlement practically seethed with opportunities in my mind's eye. I had the makings of a small but well-trained and well-supplied army, and I had the makings of a plan to finally burn out the parasites who had burrowed deep into my people's guts.


It's time to go home to Shinjuku.

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 20: A Shinjuku Reunion (Pt 1)


(A big thank you to Siatru, and to Sunny, WrandmWaffles, Thearpox, and 1iop from the Discord for their editing and suggestions.)


APRIL 18, 2016 ATB
SHICHIKASHUKU, MIYAGI
1232


Lieutenant Colonel Kusakabe Josui, of the Japanese Liberation Front, sat comfortably in seiza, his knees protected from the traditional tatami of his formal office by an overstuffed pillow. Externally, he was stoic, properly joyless in accordance with the regulations inherited from the late and lamented Republican Japanese Army. Internally, a fierce tide of rising elation threatened to drown his firm demeanor in wild joy.


The only thing truly holding Josui back from such a celebration was the messenger, who droned on monotonously as he read his report aloud. Despite the fact that the report could have simply been printed off and delivered to Josui, or even emailed to him, the JLF just like the RJA ran on tradition, and thus the mandatory report reading.


It was a relic of times when a commander might not have been able to read, a relic of a time before standardized education and the radio. Thanks to that honorable tradition dating back who knew how many years, all reports sent to a staff officer were to be read aloud by the messenger to prevent any inadvertent public shaming. Like much of the JLF, it was practically useless in the face of modernity.


But today, nothing – not his dark thoughts, not even the yammering of the messenger – could dent Josui's enthusiasm. Not in the face of the report's astonishing contents.


Somehow, Onoda had managed to make good on his promise, and had proven once and for all that his previous successes weren't flukes. Not only had he managed to turn the pathetic group of Shinjuku rats that the Six Houses had dumped on them into a useful and expendable unit, Onoda had managed to deploy said rats effectively on the field of battle. In the process, the wily Major had significantly raised the profile of Kusakabe's 3rd​ Division within the JLF, to say nothing of the other benefits his shoestring operation had yielded.


For the meager price of some crates of cabbage and a few cheap anti-armor missiles, Onoda had purchased several hundred fresh recruits and an embarrassment of riches in the form of spare Knightmare parts, Energy Fillers, and specialized tools.


'Not a bad return on investment,' Josui chuckled to himself, as the sergeant continued with his reading. "-hundred and ten replacement seal kits for Slash Harken systems, five hundred meters of replacement Slash Harken cable, fifty replacement Slash Harken heads, two crates of bearings for the Slash Harken retraction motors, a box of heat shrink tubing for insulation repair..."


"Enough!" Despite his good mood, Josui's patience abruptly snapped. He had never been the most patient of men, and little wore through his meager supplies of tolerance quite like pointless formality or babbling subordinates. "I'll read the rest on my own. Get to the radio room and relay the report to Narita HQ over the general band, and attach a message with my compliments for Colonel Tohdoh's Chief of Staff. Make sure the phrase 'generous gift to the Knightmare Corps' appears in the message. Go!"


The sergeant promptly saluted, but Josui had already forgotten the man as he eagerly flipped through his copy of the report. The first section had been transmitted from the outpost in eastern Nagano where Onoda's pet militia had dropped off their hijacked truck, and was mostly concerned with detailing the cargo's contents. The second, more interesting section, had come from Onoda.


"Four Knightmares and no casualties, eh?" Josui mumbled aloud. It was, in a word, unbelievable, but Josui had known Onoda Hiroo for six years, and had never known him to inflate his own successes. Or at least, not to do it so blatantly.


So the report was probably accurate, which meant that Major Onoda had once again handed Josui and the rest of his faction more ammunition for the upcoming General Staff summer strategy meeting. 'And just in time too – that headache's only two weeks away now.'


General Katase would be there, the doddering old fool, as would Colonel Tohdoh, head of the Knightmare Corps and Katase's heir apparent. The rest of the divisional commanders would also attend, along with their seconds, and at least one emissary from the Six Houses to make sure that Kyoto's views were represented. And of course, Kusakabe Josui would be in attendance as well, and unlike everybody else, except for the man from Kyoto, he had something substantive to bring to the table.


There was, unfortunately, no way that Josui could justify holding onto the Knightmare spare parts. Much as he would have liked to break Tohdoh's monopoly over the JLF's scant Knightmare forces, that wasn't going to happen, thanks to Tohdoh's family history and his own personal reputation.


Tohdoh Kyoshiro had deep family connections to the military, going back through the Republican Japanese Army days through the Imperial Japanese Army, all the way back to the time of the Bafuku. Tohdoh's father had served with distinction during the First Pacific War and the younger Tohdoh had been the personal armsmaster to the Kururugi clan, including the Prime Minister and his family. More to the point, Tohdoh had the much touted "Miracle of Itsukushima", and the conventional wisdom was that the only man to beat Knightmares with conventional forces was the best leader the JLF Knightmare Corps could hope for.


Josui personally had his doubts on the matter. Despite – or perhaps because of – his impressive personal fighting skills, Tohdoh was a living fossil. The man represented a deep well of Japanese military tradition, and lived like the samurai of old. Unfortunately, that made him incredibly hidebound, wedded to old thoughts and traditional concepts of honor.


Honor, of course, had its place. That place was in a freed and refounded Republic of Japan. After the Day of Liberation had come and gone.


Josui was encumbered by no such outmoded concepts, and had thus realized that they represented a critical vulnerability in the other man. Not only did the idea of "honorable combat" sound like a joke when the Home Islands were under the degrading occupation of a foreign empire, the need to be seen as honorable was easily exploited.


Josui had, in fact, just exploited that sense of honor in the message he'd ordered attached to the report forwarded to the Narita Headquarters of the JLF. By making the Knightmare parts and tools into a freely given gift to Tohdoh's command before General Katase could make his views known, Josui had just put Tohdoh into his personal debt under the old honor codes, while simultaneously undercutting Katase's authority, the authority to which Tohdoh was heir.


Alone in his office, Josui permitted himself a grin of satisfaction. With this second victory under his faction's belt in less than a month, Katase would be all but forced to commend him in front of the entire General Staff. If he didn't, considering the lack of any other combat operations conducted recently, Katase would be all but admitting that he hadn't authorized the operations, which would undermine his authority even further. The one lever Katase could have used to cut Josui back down to size – redistributing his spoils – Josui had pulled himself before Katase had even known it existed, disarming and redirecting the threat before it could be made.


'I'm almost looking forward to that damned meeting, just to see the old windbag's face...'


Josui's satisfaction was all too short-lived. Thinking about the leverage that he held over Katase's head had inexorably brought his thoughts back around to the other headache, and the source of most of his ever-increasing gastric distress.


While his power was now secure from threats from above or from his peers, Josui was acutely aware that a growing menace was developing below him, in the ranks of his own faction. Gekokujo was a sword that could cut both ways, and no superior was truly safe from a sufficiently motivated subordinate clever enough to find a way to dress up their insubordination as a rightful defense of 'true authority'.


And unfortunately, the man who had done more than anybody else to advance Josui's own campaign of rightful insubordination was the one best placed to plunge a knife into Josui's back if he so wished. Major Onoda Hiroo.


'Onoda...' Just thinking about the man made Josui grimace with discomfort. More than Tohdoh, more than Katase, Josui blamed Onoda for the slow growth of his ulcers.


A graduate of the Nakano School of Military Intelligence, Onoda Hiroo had served in the Special Operations Group before the Conquest. Unlike most of the Republican Japanese Army, then-Lieutenant Onoda had seen combat before the Conquest, as a military attache at the Japanese Embassy in Hanoi. Taken together with his post-Conquest service as an infiltrator and scout, not to mention sometimes assassin, Major Onoda was an invaluable subordinate, despite his thoroughly common family background.


That plebeian origin, so different from Josui's own as a member of a minor noble clan, coupled with his apparently sincere loyalty, had made Onoda one of the most valuable officers in Josui's faction. It had been easy to mitigate the potential threat represented by Onoda to Josui's power base by assigning him to all the long-term, solitary missions Josui could find. Not only had this played to Onoda's skill set, it had kept him far away from headquarters, far away from any junior officers he could suborn with a carefully placed promise or threat.


But now, that plan seemed to have slightly backfired. Onoda had parlayed his intended assignment into exile into operational independence, and in the process had created a power base entirely independent of the JLF. While Josui doubted that he had to worry about the direct threat of an assassination courtesy of Onoda's pack of strays, a potential homecoming could prove equally disastrous. If Onoda could ride the success of his victories in the field into a return to headquarters, he might bring some or all of his private army back with him.


'But... he hasn't done anything yet...' Josui heaved himself to his feet and made his way out of his official office. 'But that doesn't mean anything. The man's sharp as a knife, and famous for his patience. He's smart enough to play the long game.'


While it was Josui's officially listed post as the Commander of the 3rd​ Division, the traditional room he had just left was more or less useless for anything but impressing underlings conveying messages. His actual office, sporting a thoroughly modern computer a mere eight years old and complete with a connection to the internet the Technical Service had assured him was secure, was where the actual work got done.


Unfortunately, sitting in his swiveling office chair behind said computer and staring at the Japanese flag hung behind the guest's chair did nothing to resolve Josui's dilemma.


Onoda was, above all else, loyal to the cause of liberation from the shame of foreign occupation. His dedication to that task was beyond reproach, and his record of successful missions spoke to his ability to leverage that zeal to produce concrete results. He had no obvious vices: He drank only in moderation and never blabbered his secrets when in his cups; he had no interest in men, not that such interest was quite as useful of a secret as it once was; likewise, while he was interested in women, his interest wasn't enough to overcome his rationality.


Indeed, Onoda's only true passion seemed to be for the Cause, and for shedding blood for the Cause.


Josui chuckled uneasily to himself, the collar of his uniform jacket wet with sweat, clammy in the room's stifling heat. 'How is it possible that an almost perfect subordinate is a bigger pain in my ass than the rest, huh?'


This was far from Josui's first time warding off threats from below. As the 3rd​ Division was General Katase's preferred assignment for any overly aggressive or ambitious soldiers or officers, Josui felt confident that he had likely warded off more coup attempts than any other staff officer in the JLF. More often than not though, he had been able to pick the would-be usurpers off before their plans got off the ground – suicidal missions for the incompetent, trumped up courts martial over various alleged crimes or dishonorable actions for the competent followed by unceremonious executions or disappearances.


By virtue of his incredible competence and sterling reputation, Major Onoda Hiroo had effectively knocked both of Josui's best swords from his hand, and by building his own power base Onoda had dodged Josui's attempt to drive him into irrelevance and exile.


Simply killing Onoda was far too risky. A bullet behind the ear would certainly solve this particular problem, but... If someone learned about it and handed the information that he had executed a successful and productive subordinate without cause to Katase or Tohdoh, the balance of power in the JLF would swing definitively against Josui.


It was unfortunate, but just like Tohdoh and the Knightmare supplies, Josui couldn't see any way around it; the fact of the matter was, he would have to wait until ironclad evidence of Onoda's schemes was found or manufactured.


'Well... if I can't punish him...' Josui thought, scowling as he logged onto his computer and dutifully followed the written instructions to fire up the secure network connection provided by the bespectacled private from the Technical Service, entering the username and password the technician had helpfully added to the end of the instructions when prompted. 'I suppose I'll have to reward the bastard... Dammit... I can't promote him and money's tight enough as is... A formal notice of recognition, perhaps...?'


Kusakabe Josui shook his head irritably. 'No, that's the last damn thing that man needs. More recognition among the rest of the Division and they'll start wondering why he's not in charge.'


An idea struck Josui, and, smiling, he began to draft an email to his chief of staff. 'Onoda likes being independent, does he? Fine by me! He'll get an extension of duty, then! Let him keep fucking about with Shinjuku rats and rural bumpkins – I'll even increase his discretionary budget! And while he's busy screwing around in the backwoods of Gunma, I'll find everyone in the Division with a positive word to say about the man and beat it out of them!'


Josui allowed himself a second satisfied grin as his fingers danced enthusiastically across the worn keyboard, content that his position was once again secure from enemies above and below. With the ammunition Onoda had provided, Josui would be able to take the fight to Katase and Tohdoh once more, until he finally had the power to force the JLF awake from its torpor.


'Onoda might even appreciate what I'm doing,' Josui thought with amusement, 'after all, I too am fighting for the Cause! Every day Old Man Katase is in command, the Day of Liberation is one day further away, and Tohdoh's almost as bad. If Japan is ever to be free again, we must have better leadership!'


Finally, content with the enthusiastic commendation that he had written to congratulate Major Onoda on his recent success and the attendant order to continue his mission until further notice, Josui hammered the Send button, committing the email to the surprisingly labyrinthine bureaucracy that had somehow survived the conversion of the RJA into the JLF. 'Damned cockroaches survived the Conquest, and they'll probably survive until the Day of Liberation itself... Not much longer after that, if I have my way...'


And on that topic, Josui turned to the battered and heavily annotated political and topographic map of Japan that hung on his office wall, just by the door and above the wastepaper basket.


The General Staff summer strategy meeting was of course supposedly concerned with lofty affairs of high strategy and the formulation of the next cunning stratagem to unleash against the hated foreigners, and it wouldn't do to show up without some form of proposal in hand. Although the proposed plans were ultimately more set dressing than substance, openly acknowledging the farce would fatally undermine his hard-fought position. And now that the matter of internal politics had momentarily been dealt with, it was high time for the Commander of the 3rd​ to figure out what his contribution to the sham meeting would be.


Unlike the last few dozen such meetings, though, Josui felt like this time he might actually have a chance to force the issue. 'If I can call in that favor with Tohdoh... Or even suggest that he take the field personally, the "Miracle Worker of Itsukushima"... Hmm...'



---------



APRIL 21, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1550


Six years ago, when my mother and I had been forced behind the freshly built walls encircling the Shinjuku Ghetto, I had dreamed of the day I would leave the massive prison our conquerors had built for us. Through the years of struggle, hunger, and sickness, I had dreamed of my past life, of soaring high above any wall built by human hands. I had dreamed of freedom, freedom from hunger, freedom from fear, freedom from the hollow-eyed gaze of men and women infected with the hopeless miasma of Shinjuku.


Now, I was entering Shinjuku once again. As it had six years before, my randoseru hung low on my back, crammed to capacity with clothes and other supplies. As before, I lowered my head as I passed through the checkpoint into Shinjuku, my distinctively bright hair hidden under a rag. And as before, the scent of Shinjuku – a stew of clogged gutters, rotting garbage, feces, and too many people living in too small of a space, all simmering in the heat of the afternoon sun – rose up to greet me.


The pistol butt pushing into my gut was, of course, a significant departure from that long ago August day. Likewise, while my mother no longer trudged before me, bent under her own load of meager possessions and grief, Ohgi now walked beside me, standing as tall as a Japanese man could in this land of Elevens. Most importantly, I was not entering Shinjuku as a refugee. The times had changed, after six long years.


While I still dreamed of freedom, I no longer dreamed of escape.


Besides Ohgi and myself, Nagata and twenty-eight of the freshly trained insurgent fighters returned to Shinjuku the same way we had left it – in ones and twos, for the most part, merging with the crowds of returning day laborers and Honorary Britannians coming to the Ghetto to indulge their vices. Tsubaki and the rest of Squad 2 were taking a slight detour on the way into Shinjuku, rendezvousing with one of Inoue's Rising Sun trucks to load the weapons and equipment we had brought from The School.


Despite the familiar stench, Shinjuku hadn't remained unchanged in my absence. The cheeks of passersby seemed a touch less hollow, and their hair and skin somewhat more lustrous. People's eyes seemed brighter and more alert than I remembered, and most of the crowd walked purposefully and quickly, instead of the trudging "Shinjuku Shuffle". Fresh asphalt glistened under the sun from freshly filled-in potholes, tar still soft and sticky, and fresh whitewash unblemished by gang tags shone on tenement walls.


And, while the cheap brothels and bars that clustered in the streets near the checkpoints were busy as always, even in the mid-afternoon, I noticed a lack of any obvious gangsters swaggering about the place. Even the pimps and the callers hustling for customers seemed more well behaved than I remembered from my mother's time.


Beside me, Ohgi let out an impressed grunt, and I nodded in agreement as we walked. This slice of Shinjuku, just under a kilometer from Naoto and Ohgi's shared apartment and a kilometer and a half from the Rising Sun's meeting house, while neither thriving nor prospering, looked significantly better off than it had mere months ago.


As we turned off the road leading to the checkpoint and left the view of any curious Britannian soldier, Ohgi turned to me and broke the silence, speaking with a slight smile. "Naoto and Inoue have been busy, I see!"


I hummed in agreement, somewhat distracted by my attempt to fish the handheld radio out of my randoseru. "They've made a good start, no doubt about that." Finally, I felt the hard plastic shell of the radio and pulled it from its nest of clothes. "And if we can keep up the momentum, perhaps the Haulers will only have half their usual workload come December."


Ohgi frowned at the reference to the often gang-affiliated body disposal contractors, but nodded in agreement. I felt a bit bad at dumping proverbial cold water on his good mood, but it was important to keep the stakes in mind when evaluating progress.


Shinjuku had taken a step in the correct direction, but that single step didn't make up for the long flight of stairs it had been shoved down. In all likelihood, the same old trucks would cruise the streets of the ghetto with their grisly cargo as winter increased the caloric requirements for survival and weakened already damaged immune systems. The weak and frail, the very young and the very old, the unfortunate and the foolish, would all die.


In a way, it was almost a fulfillment of the Britannian ideal. The strong would live and the unworthy would shiver their last hours away. Like all things Britannian, that 'ideal' was hypocritical in application and fundamentally corrupt. Fortunately, I now had the basic tools to carry out some artificial selection of my own.


I might not be able to prevent the usual winter death toll, but this year I'll damned well make sure the gangs don't profit from it.


"Backpack to Boxcar. Report, over." I resumed walking as I released the 'transmit' button. Ohgi fell into step beside me, taking care to shorten his usual stride so he wouldn't leave me behind. A few seconds later, the radio crackled to life. "Boxcar to Backpack. We're through the gate. The pass and the envelope full of cash worked. ETA five to eight minutes, over."


Far more interference than out in the boonies, but still understandable. Good, I was worried about that.


"Backpack to Boxcar. Keep up the good work. Remember to check the receiver, over." A moment later, a thought crossed my mind, and I turned and looked up at Ohgi. "Inoue probably has the evening meal well underway by now, right?"


"Hmm... Unless things have changed..." Ohgi mulled the question over for a second before shrugging, "probably so. Besides, I'm sure she'd be able to find something for Tsubaki and whoever's driving the truck, even if dinner's not quite ready yet."


Deliberately ignoring both the knowing smile on the man's face and the irritation heating my neck – when did he get so smug about predicting my motives? - I thumbed the channel back on. "Backpack to Boxcar. Take your time and get a meal while you're there." A momentary pause, and I continued. "And remember your table manners – you're still on the clock. Backpack out."


I crammed the radio back into the randoseru and strode forward, continuing the familiar trip to the apartment. Irritatingly, Ohgi easily kept up with me. Damn him and his long legs! Somehow, he picked up on that thought and laughed – laughed! - at me. When I tried to pick up speed - I was, after all, eager to see Naoto again and to report in after months away – the bastard laughed even harder!


I almost turned on my heel to lay into Ohgi, to wipe that laughing smile away by threatening him with remedial courses back at The School, but then I remembered that he would be heading back soon enough regardless of my threat. Someone with rank needed to keep an eye on Onoda, after all, and Ohgi was already familiar with the man and with The School.


I guess I'll let him laugh a bit longer before I shut him up...



---------



I had told Naoto to expect us at 1600, and I felt very gratified as I knocked on the door to his apartment at 1600 on the dot. Sometimes, it's the small pleasures that make the day worthwhile.


Almost immediately, the door swung open, revealing a barely recognizable, albeit beaming, Naoto. Despite his smile, his bloodshot eyes were momentarily wary, his free hand held behind his back, clearly gripping some kind of weapon. A second later, the wariness had vanished and Ohgi was being pulled into the apartment, and into Naoto's embrace.


"Ohgi, man, great to see you!" Naoto laughed with undisguised glee, slapping his second on the back enthusiastically. "You're looking tanned as hell – guess that mountain air did you good, huh?"


Ohgi was more restrained in joy to be back in his shared apartment, but eagerly returned Naoto's embrace, minus the back-slapping. "Guess it did – I could have done with a bit less snow, though."


I took the opportunity to follow the other two officers into the apartment, closing the door behind me as Naoto exclaimed "Oh yeah, I bet it gets real deep up in the mountains!" as he released Ohgi and turned to me. "And Tanya... Woah, when did you get so tall? I was about to make a joke about you getting buried in the snow, but I guess that's not an issue now!"


"I wouldn't go that far," I demurred, idly chatting as I looked around the studio apartment instead of focusing on Naoto. Idly, I noticed the pistol he'd been holding while answering the door wasn't the Britannian standard issue sidearm. Wonder where he got such a large caliber coilgun? And with a silencer, no less! "I only gained a few centimeters, and Ohgi was kind enough to act as my snowplow until the spring melt had begun." Remembering my manners, I held out my hand. "It's good to see you again, sir."


Naoto brushed my proffered hand aside and hugged me too. A moment later, I remembered to return the hug. It was difficult; While I had never been particularly physically expressive, this time I was more worried about somehow breaking Naoto if I touched him. He already looked so... fragile.


When I had left Shinjuku behind, Naoto had looked like a somewhat overworked and overstressed office worker in his mid to late twenties, ignoring his unprofessionally long red hair, of course. Despite the dark shadows under his eyes, he'd still been very energetic, throwing himself into whatever task was at hand with all his might and enthusiasm.


Naoto had aged a decade in the four months since I'd last seen him. His smile still had a shadow of the boyish energy I remembered from our first meeting, but his wide and glassy eyes, ringed with dark circles, goggled out from his sallow face. Deep lines of stress and fatigue were carved into his forehead, and his face was overrun with bristling stubble.


Not to mention the stink.


Over the last few months, I had forgotten how hard it was to stay clean in the ghetto. With only cold water available from the taps, and all soap either homemade or purchased at a premium from smugglers importing Britannian goods into Shinjuku, for years cleanliness had been out of the question for me. That had only turned around once I had met Ohgi and Naoto, and once the Rising Sun had made it far easier to import necessities through the Britannian checkpoints.


But Naoto had slipped, and slipped hard, on matters of hygiene. When I had met him, I had been somewhat astonished at how clean he had been, compared to the men I had labored beside on the work crews. Now, his shoulder-length red hair was matted and greasy, his fingers were yellow with cigarette residue and grime, and his breath reeked with halitosis.


"I think," Naoto said, leaning back from the embrace and smiling down at me, "that you can call me by name now. In fact, I insist – don't call me 'sir', Tanya." He smirked, and ruffled my hair. "After all, I've been following your plan while you've been away – maybe I should start calling you ma'am, eh?"


I scowled up at Naoto, but I didn't have the heart to chide him for teasing me. Humor is, after all, a perfectly valid coping mechanism, and he'd clearly had a hard time lately. And if he wants things to be a bit more familiar when we're in private, I suppose that's fine too. "No need for that, Naoto. I'm just following your orders."


I paused for a moment, trying to remember how Naoto had put it when he'd redefined my duties months ago, before parroting his own words back. "Think about the big picture stuff and the logistics, and work out with Nagata so you get some muscle?" I arched an eyebrow as I lifted my arm up for inspection, pushing the t-shirt up out of the way and flexing my bicep. "I believe I've made a good start on both of those tasks, yes?"


Naoto laughed at that, and jokingly squeezed my arm. "Looks like the country life was good for you – both of you!" He turned back to Ohgi, who had dropped his backpack off on his bed before rejoining us by the table. "You're looking pretty good too, Ohgi! The training must've really been intense, huh? Is Tanya really that much of a taskmaster?"


"Oh, you have no idea." Ohgi circled the table and clapped his hands on my shoulders, before dropping down heavily onto one of the mismatched chairs, which creaked under his weight. "This one was only half the problem – I'm going to have to go back to The School the day after tomorrow to keep an eye on the other half."


"Wait, The School? You're calling the training facility... The School?" As we'd been talking, the flat look in Naoto's eyes had diminished as he grew more involved and interested in the conversation. Despite this, he still seemed to somehow be looking through Ohgi and I, instead of looking at us. But as Ohgi nodded in confirmation, the flat look disappeared entirely for the first time since he'd opened the apartment door.


In its place, a look of flabbergasted wonder, mingled with amusement, spread across Naoto's face. He was still filthy, obviously stressed out, and deep into sleep debt, but in that moment, he no longer looked prematurely aged. "You can't call it The School!" Naoto collapsed into another chair, and theatrically rubbed at his brow. "Which one of you geniuses came up with that? Do you want the trainees to come up with their own name for the place? Was it Ohgi? I bet it was Ohgi."


I bristled slightly as Naoto sighed dramatically. Admittedly, I hadn't been able to come up with a clever name for the training facility, and it was true that I'd just started referring to the place as "The School" for lack of anything better, but marketing was not part of my core skill set, dammit! "There's something to be said for elegance in simplicity," I replied, perhaps a touch frostily, as I joined the other two at the table, "and I couldn't care less what the trainees call the place, as long as they learn enough to be worth my time."


Naoto nodded agreeably. "Yeah, wouldn't want to haul 'em all the way out to the boonies only for them to screw up and catch a bullet their first day out." Ohgi winced, and reached across the table and patted one of my suddenly clenched fists. I closed my eyes, tuning out Naoto's mortified expression as I took a deep breath, held it, and released it. I need to remember to visit Sumire's family to convey the news.


When I opened my eyes again, Naoto was staring off into the space beyond my shoulder, all trace of his earlier amusement gone. A moment later, he blinked and refocused on me. "I'm sorry, Tanya," His voice was gruff, and sounded somewhat choked, "That was a stupid thing to say. It's... It's been a while since I could talk to anyone without being on my game."


Naoto sighed, leaned forward, and cradled his forehead in his hands. "I've been so busy and so stressed... I can't even sleep a full night anymore..." He sat back up, rubbing at his head. "But that's no excuse to be a jackass. I'm sorry. I've... I've lost a few too. Mostly militia, but... One of Chihiro's girls bought it a month back. It was damned bad luck too – we bandaged the cut, but it got infected, and..." He shrugged helplessly, "She's still kinda broken up about it – Chihiro, I mean. She took it kinda... badly."


I nodded, trying to indicate that I accepted his apology. I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that piece of news – on one hand, it was, of course, unfortunate to lose comrades, but on the other, it didn't feel quite as raw personal as my own losses felt. I suppose I only knew Chihiro's team for a month, and then I left for the camp... That's probably it. Distance and time make separation easier.


I would need to pay Chihiro a visit, sooner rather than later. I hadn't really gotten to know either Chihiro or Souichiro outside of a professional capacity, and I suspect that might have had an adverse impact on our relationships. While Chihiro had been at best cool towards me, perhaps now that we had a shared misfortune to bond over, I could mend some bridges? Plus, it'd also be a good idea to see if everyone else who stayed behind in Shinjuku looks as exhausted as Naoto. If they are, that's an issue, and if they aren't... that's also an issue.


"That's... truly unfortunate, Naoto," I began, trying to express my sincere feelings of regret over the loss of a comrade without sounding like I was faking a personal grief that I wasn't sure I truly felt. She was his comrade and subordinate too – if you can't truly feel sad about her death, try to feel sad for him and for his loss. "Speaking from experience, I can say that it's hard to have people die under your command."


It all sounded wooden and pro forma, even in my own ears. I began to feel that irritating heat of embarrassment and shame crawling up the back of my neck. How the hell did Ohgi make talking about this look so easy? And how did he sound so honest? It was just another reminder, as if I needed one, of the importance of finding people who could support me and cover my weaknesses. In that case, best to delegate the task of sympathy to someone competent.


"I'm sure Ohgi can and will put this better, but I'm sorry for your loss. I will visit Chihiro later and console her as well." I forced my mouth closed, as the words began to tumble out, somehow emotional and stilted at the same time. The itchy heat crawled further up my spine, but I refused to submit to it, and plowed my way back to more familiar ground. Back to business.


"Now, before that, how about you give me a rundown of the last few months, here in Shinjuku? What's happened since Ohgi and I left?"



---------



Kozuki Naoto smiled at the true leader of the Rising Sun Benevolent Association, and tried not to show how exhausted he truly felt behind his politician's mask.


The not-as-tiny blonde really had grown significantly over her absence from Shinjuku – both physically and emotionally. Limbs that could once only be called scrawny were now toned, already sun-gold hair had been bleached by the sun to a near white towards the tips, and Tanya gave the overall impression of constrained energy, only barely holding herself in place. The chronic fatigue from the first months she had slept in a nest of blankets on the floor of his apartment was, as far as Naoto could tell, completely gone.


More importantly, Tanya clearly had opened up to Ohgi, at the very least. Naoto's own skills of personal observation, initially cultivated by his father and developed by his time caring for his sister and mother, had been strengthened over the intervening months by his dealings with the Public Safety Committees; now, the girl's previously enigmatic body language spoke volumes. She was looser and less controlled in her gestures, yet also increasingly confident in expressing emotion both physically and aloud.


And yet, at the core, Tanya was the same. The dark bags beneath her eyes were gone, but the fierce intelligence shining in those startlingly blue eyes was just as piercing as it had been when she'd made her recruitment pitch so long ago. She was seasoned by experience, and judging by how she'd accepted Ohgi touching her hand, she no longer flinched away from human contact; she had clearly gone from strength to strength.


'I wish I could say the same thing about myself,' Naoto thought, doing his best to package away the grief and lingering horror over Makoto's agonizing death, 'but even Ohgi looked shocked when he saw me. Guess it's even worse than that time we went on a five-day bender.'


"At first, it was business as usual." Naoto kept his focus on Tanya as he began, but angled his head so he could face Ohgi, including him in the conversation as well. "I focused on keeping up the pressure on the gangs with Tamaki and Chihiro's crews. We spent a fair amount of time conducting reconnaissance to sniff out their hideouts and stash houses and hauling a few choice gang members into basements for friendly chats. Souichiro was instrumental when it came to interrogations – he still remembers plenty from when he was a policeman, so that's not too much of a surprise, I guess. Thanks to the intel we had gathered, we were able to keep up the pressure and hit various gang facilities, including armories and supply dumps."


It was, Naoto thought, amazing how such a brief summary could reduce weeks of effort into a list of seemingly trivial affairs. Hours spent carefully shadowing gang members through the crowded streets of Shinjuku, long nights of staking out targeted apartments and safehouses, and moments of intense violence as he and his comrades burst into said safehouses in the early morning and hauled their targets away to basements and subway tunnels across Shinjuku, all reduced to a handful of sentences.


"We managed to spread out pretty far, and ended up claiming a lot of territory around the Rising Sun's meeting house. Turns out, establishing firm control over the area solved a few of Inoue's headaches – since the gangs weren't around anymore, and since we had control over all the territory between the meeting house and the Mejiro Avenue Checkpoint by mid-February, we were able to import a ton of food into Shinjuku, as well as make significant progress on fixing up some of the infrastructure. Clearing drains, fixing roads, that kinda stuff."


It had been amazing, watching Shinjuku come back to life as the food and construction supplies had poured in. For the first time since Naoto had left his family to come live with Ohgi in Shinjuku, the seemingly inexorable decay had been reversed. Potholes had been filled in and shattered asphalt had been melted down and rolled back into freshly repaved roads. Rebuilding the drains had been a momentous task, and Naoto wasn't fully confident in their amateurish work, but hopefully the pipes and streets full of standing water wouldn't make a reappearance come the monsoon season.


Money had been difficult, of course – the money gained from the raid on the subway station was long gone, and without reselling drugs seized in subsequent raids within the ghetto, the cash taken in those same raids could only go so far. Expanding the Rising Sun's operations was an expensive undertaking, and the costs had quickly mounted up. From the bribes paid to the checkpoint guards, to the cost of construction materials, food shipments, work permits, tools, and the rental fees for the trucks, the costs were never ending. To say nothing of the costs of Mister Asahara's specialist devices - even with his "discount for virtuous works and repeat customers," his work demanded a premium.


But in the end, they had managed to make ends meet, somehow. Kallen had managed to net some donations from the more paternalistic invaders in the Tokyo Settlement by publishing several articles that spoke eloquently about the plight of the Honorary Britannians and how much the Rising Sun had done to alleviate their suffering, while dancing around the reasons why the Honorary Britannians were in such dire straits in the first place.


Then, with the seed money provided by those donations, Inoue had come up with a scheme to buy work passes into the Settlement, where Elevens could find day labor or other low paying work. She distributed the passes to Shinjuku denizens who didn't have the means to pay the necessary "processing fees", on the understanding that a significant portion of their wages would be handed over to the Rising Sun Benevolent Association in the name of purchasing more such passes. Between the paternal Britannian donations, the trickle of money seized from gangsters, and the income from their workforce, Rising Sun had just barely kept their heads above water.


"So, yeah, things were going very smoothly for the first three weeks or so. We didn't tag all the places we hit, so some of the gangs thought they were under attack from the others. Honestly, I think lots of them were just surprised to be attacked at all! Guess they got arrogant, or maybe they actually believed that the Purists attacked Shinjuku-gyoemmae, who knows? Anyway, it took them a while to get a clue and stop messing around."


Naoto felt his smiling mask slip slightly as he remembered the end of the good times. Over the course of a week in mid-February, things had spiraled from bad to worse.


"They started getting smarter – posting more guards, setting up actual checkpoints near their bases, their officers starting to enforce some kind of discipline – and the really smart ones started buying better weapons. Most of the low-ranking guys had been using knives and blunt weapons and only the higher ups had pistols, but now lots of the lower ranking gangsters were carrying guns and the elites – the ones who like to dress up as Britannians - started getting military gear."


"It was pretty jarring to suddenly have something like parity, you know? No clue who was flooding the market with Britannian Army weapons that must've fallen off a truck somewhere, but suddenly every gang officer had an SMG to call their own. Thank the gods they never bothered to learn how to aim, much less actually maintain their new toys! Anyway, we were still able to pick off strays, but taking the war to the gangs got far too risky by the first week of March or so."


Naoto, Inoue, and Souichiro had spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out where the gangs were getting their new equipment without success. It was possible that the gangs were buying their weapons from corrupt Britannians with access to military supplies in the Settlement, but that didn't answer the question of how the guns were being trafficked into Shinjuku. A possibility was that the larger and more powerful gangs, the ones who directly catered to the Britannians, had decided for some reason to flood Shinjuku with military grade weaponry, perhaps at the behest of the Britannians or some third party. That didn't make sense though, since the big gangs didn't profit from it in any way that Naoto could discern.


For his part, Naoto suspected that the street gangs that he had fought over the last three months were probably getting their weapons from the same source that the now-defunct Kokuryu-kai had gotten the Knightmare Tanya had blown up in Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station months ago from. He had no hard evidence, but that Knightmare had been remarkably out of place in that weapons market back then, almost as out of place as the sudden flood of military grade weapons was now.


"The real problem was the numbers. Chihiro's group, Tamaki's group, Souichiro, and me – that's ten – weren't really able to both attack the newly equipped gangsters and protect the Rising Sun at the same time. So, we switched to the defensive. Mister Asahara knew a guy who knew a guy, and we bought some scoped rifles from him."


"Is there any chance," Tanya abruptly interrupted, leaning forward slightly with an air that reminded Naoto of a falcon zeroing in on a suddenly exposed target, "that the gangs were perhaps buying their weapons from Mister Asahara's acquaintance as well?"


Naoto blinked, feeling momentarily befuddled as he ran the idea through his mind. To his sudden and growing irritation, he realized that he had never considered the possibility, and that he really should have. 'Guess I still have a lot to learn,' he thought, 'thank the gods Tanya's on my side.' Aloud, he admitted: "It's a possibility, but not one I'd considered."


Ohgi nodded. "It's definitely worth a follow-up, at the very least. Arms dealers aren't known for their scruples, after all."


Naoto nodded, and then continued his report. "Chihiro and her team set up some apartments overlooking the major streets in and around Rising Sun territory as sniper's nests and started picking off anybody wearing gang scarfs that they could see. While they weeded out the brave and the foolish, Tamaki's crew and I took shifts watching over the construction crews and the meeting house in case any got through."


Split up into pairs, with the pacifist Kasumi acting as a spotter for Chihiro, Chihiro's team had shifted from sniper's nest to sniper's nest several times each day, with at least one pair active at all times. The gunfire from the rooftops had proven amazingly effective at disrupting the various gangs' amateurish incursion attempts – the scarf-clad thugs had no idea what to do in the face of the high-powered rifles. The heavy bullet effortlessly pierced the crude homemade body armor the gangs tried to put together, and the abundant practice on live targets meant Chihiro's girls were remarkably accurate with their weapons. A single paired team could effectively lock down entire roads, shredding attempted invasions with ease.


As always, the only problem had been that Chihiro and her girls could only cover a small slice of the urban jungle at any given time.


"Still, we were getting pressed pretty hard. Lots of our workers had gotten beaten up, and some were severely injured. We were pushing ourselves harder and harder to be everywhere, but all that did was tire everybody out even faster. It was only a matter of time until we were forced back. Thankfully, I remembered how you'd reached out to the locals and their committees. I told them that we were having trouble keeping the gangsters out and the food coming in, and that they needed to help us out if they wanted to keep eating. Problem was, they weren't organized – every block and street and tenement doing its own thing, you know? So, that was the first step, getting them all on the same page."


'And boy, was that a gigantic first step,' Naoto wryly reflected. It was astonishing how people, even with so little to lose and everything to gain, could have so many grudges. And those grudges were incredibly petty in scope! This block asserted that that block had been dumping their waste onto this block's street, so that they'd have to pay the hauler crews to deal with it! That tenement committee asserted that the tenement next door was using too much water, reducing the already low water pressure in the barely functional plumbing system and depriving the upper floors of their tenement of water all together!


Trying to get everyone to cooperate had been an endless headache, but thankfully Naoto had leverage over virtually everybody in the Rising Sun's zone. After all, nobody wanted to go back to eating watery soup once a day.


"Fortunately, they all needed the supplies we were bringing in, plus we'd built up some good credit by dealing with the gangsters for the last few months. So, they all agreed that the Rising Sun should be in charge, but dealing with their grievances with each other took some work. After I helped arbitrate a few of their disputes, we got representatives from the ten or so biggest groups in the Rising Sun territory to agree to work together, and to join a Central Committee that I'd be chairing."


Truth be told, Naoto had desperately tried to find someone – anyone – who could handle the Committee nonsense in his place. Unfortunately, the only other viable leader would be Inoue, who had flatly refused. "You're the charismatic one," She said when he had asked her directly, "not to mention the noble's son, and the one who they've all been talking to. You handle the politics, and I'll make sure you've got all the carrots you need to get them to cooperate." And so, Naoto had found himself once again thrust into a leadership role he felt unqualified for – but this time, he felt like he'd actually managed to do a good job.


"I told the Committee that we were having trouble, and needed help. We could give them weapons, but we needed bodies to use them. Some of the recruits who'd signed up after Christmas stepped up, which was a good start, but the leaders didn't want to just hand over their people to us. We managed to work out a compromise, where I'd consult the Committee before making any big moves, but I'd be allowed to manage their day to day as I saw fit."


It had been a difficult task to get the Committee to concede even that much. While few of the local leaders considered the Rising Sun Association a threat to their personal authority, thanks to Tanya's early policy of treating said leaders as stakeholders and partners instead of potential rivals, none were eager to concede even a fragment of their personal power bases. Naoto had been forced to lean on his role as the conduit of food, ammunition, and weapons into the territory to assert his ultimate authority over the newly formed "Sun Guards" militia.


"So, we got a militia set up. I armed them with gear we'd liberated from gang armories the month before and put them in charge of patrolling and guarding the territory. Their job was to hold things together until I could send Tamaki or Chihiro as reinforcements to deal with any troublemakers."


It had been far from an ideal solution – for one, the Sun Guards stuck out in the open as highly visible targets ran the risk of being overrun before reinforcements could arrive. Fortunately, most of the gangsters who swaggered into Rising Sun territory were there to try and gain respect from their crew and loot, not to die for a few meters of pavement. Once the nearby Sun Guards units started rallying to the pinned unit, or once Chihiro's snipers or Tamaki's now veteran streetfighters appeared, most gangs broke and ran rather than stay and fight.


Of course, that was only if the rank-and-file gangsters weren't accompanied by any of the competent gang officers. The presence of leaders or veteran fighters willing and able to hold their own increased the danger presented by the gang incursions significantly. Unsupervised, the rank-and-file members were content to fire a few potshots and hang back, but under the eyes of their bosses, they were far more willing to close with the enemy, more afraid of their leaders than they were of Naoto and his comrades.


"The gangs didn't like this very much, and made several attempts to take back control over their lost territory. They tried to mimic our hit and run attacks, but that mostly amounted to them just charging in and breaking everything they could, or ambushing an isolated militia patrol. They tried a few big attacks – once, a few local gangs rallied and showed up with a few hundred men. That was a bit of a dangerous moment."


"The fools didn't realize we'd known they were coming. Wouldn't you know it, hungry gangsters can be bribed with food too!" Naoto mimed an expression of theatrical shock; Tanya's cool gaze and lone arched eyebrow said that she wasn't impressed with his attempt to inject a moment of humor, but Naoto was rewarded by a slight upward twitch of her lips. He smirked for a moment, before exhaling, the humor slipping away as he returned to his report.


"That's not really a surprise - not like gangs are very good at building loyalty, or information security. Since we knew when they were coming and where they'd show up, we had time to buy some of Mister Asahara's best and set up a nice little ambush." Tanya's lips twitched upwards again, and Naoto saw a quick flash of teeth before she seemed to remember that she was 'on duty' and suppressed her visible amusement. 'She always loves her little ambushes,' Naoto thought fondly. Those early memories of Tanya, fresh from her truck hijacking and dripping with gore, were old enough to almost be nostalgic.


It had been, in Naoto's opinion, a plan worthy of Tanya - simple in execution, yet highly effective. A handful of nailbombs concealed by random garbage strewn around the planned line of advance and activated via tripwire had scythed at knee height through the approaching mob of gangsters. Immediately, the smart ones and those lucky enough to avoid debilitating injury turned and fled, abandoning their injured and crippled comrades to the Rising Sun's tender mercies.


Naoto had seen little reason to offer any of the gangsters any hint of mercy, and instead stood back and let the militia have their fun; the gangsters had chosen their side - they could reap the whirlwind. Years of fear of the swaggering bullies had boiled forth in an orgy of freely expressed rage, and justice had been meted out with bricks, bats, and knives. The mess had been awful, as had the noise, but Naoto hadn't been able to find it in himself to care.


Plus, he'd had no shortage of volunteers eager to clean up the mess in the aftermath. In the end, the inhabitants of the Rising Sun's slice of Shinjuku hadn't even needed to deal with the sanitation hazard of thirty-odd corpses smeared across the pavement, much less a return to gang subjugation.


"Eventually, we managed to kill enough of the bastards to get them to back off, once and for all. They've still been poking around the edges, hassling construction crews and trying to hijack trucks bringing supplies in, but we've been able to handle that. Turns out, having the dismembered bodies of your thugs dropped off in your territory sends a message. After things cooled down, I managed to get most of the militia guys back to working on fixing up the territory, since we didn't need as many guards."


One of those attempted hijackings had actually been how poor Makoto had ended up with a knife in her bicep. A gangster had jumped up on the running board of the truck she had been driving as she slowed around a corner and put the knife to her throat through the open window. She'd managed to shove his arm back and away, ultimately pushing him off the running board, but in the process had taken a nasty gash across the bicep. Despite attempts at disinfecting the wound with moonshine it had turned septic, and a week later Makoto had died as the fever ravaged her body.


It had been a painful and ultimately avoidable death, but Naoto was quietly thankful that Makoto had been the only one of "his people" who had died during the three months of near constant violence. Several of the Sun Guard militia had died, and he felt badly about them and had taken the time to visit widows and families, but they weren't "his" people the way Chihiro and Tamaki's teams were. Chihiro had been utterly inconsolable, and Naoto had ended up giving her a week off to spend with her sister. He still needed to find someone else, preferably female, to slot into the vacancy in her squad.


"Eventually, we managed to get enough hands available and enough resources built up that we could start some of those other projects you'd floated a while back, Tanya. Trying to improve the ghetto's resource base, and maybe get a little self-sufficiency, in case the Brits decide to squeeze us again. Plus, it gave everybody more work to do instead of just standing around or working on the drains, which is always a good thing."


Tamaki, surprisingly, had been the one to point out what a bad idea it was to leave armed and angry young people, mostly men, without anything to do. "I know I'd probably do something stupid," he'd admitted to Naoto after one of their team meetings in the old basement headquarters, "but if you keep 'em busy, they'll be too tired to do much damage." Thankfully, improving Shinjuku was a functionally endless task, and Naoto wasn't running out of projects in need of strong hands.


"Anyway, we started building planters for rooftop vegetable gardens, rain funnels into cisterns, and stuff like that. One of the militia guys actually had a good idea about how to purify water on the cheap using the sun's heat and a glass pane, in case the water mains get damaged or the Britannians decide to turn the water off. Getting the window glass for it into the ghetto and up to the roofs intact was difficult, but we managed. Of course, we had to build the distillers to a somewhat smaller scale than we wanted, since typhoon season's going to be starting in a few weeks and we'd need to haul them inside when the winds turn."


"We even managed to give Souichiro's poultry coops idea a stab! The test coop is actually up on the roof of this building, in a shack we rigged up. The first batch of chicks is still growing, so we haven't had any eggs yet, much less meat, but Souichiro's pretty happy about it so far."


Naoto subsided back into his chair, and took a sip from the glass of water Ohgi had slid across the table to him as he'd talked. He'd been speaking for the last ten minutes, and he felt like he could easily speak for hours more, if Tanya really wanted a blow by blow, or wanted the details of how he, Chihiro, and Souichiro had really acquired that intelligence from abducted gangsters.


It had been a turbulent few months, and Naoto couldn't say that he was proud of everything he had been party to, everything that he had ordered, over that time. On the other hand, despite Tanya's absence, things hadn't fallen apart – he had held the line, and indeed moved it forward, advancing the Rising Sun's control over Shinjuku while improving the quality of life for those under his control. While Tanya, inexplicable genius that she was, could probably have accomplished just as much as he had, Naoto doubted she could have done much more. Feeling somewhat lighter, now that he'd had a chance to express the events of the last three months to someone who understood the pressure of leadership, he gestured at Tanya, encouraging her to speak.


"So, it's been a pretty busy three months. How about you?"



---------



"A busy three months," he says? Honestly, Naoto was badly underselling himself and his achievements by concluding his report on such a blasé note. When I had left Shinjuku in January, I had expected them to hold the line, and to continue the Rising Sun's humanitarian efforts. I had expected the sudden loss of trained personnel and stockpiled resources and, if I was being honest, my direct oversight, to have arrested the growth of the Kozuki Organization's control over Shinjuku. How could I have been so arrogant? In believing that only I could make a difference, I had fallen for my own hype. A handful of minor successes, and I'm already turning into a megalomaniac! Unacceptable!


Contrary to my expectations, Naoto and Inoue had taken my half-baked plan for potential future improvements to Shinjuku and run with it, in the process achieving an almost unimaginable degree of success. Wait, maybe he wasn't teasing me by saying he was following my plan? But...


True, I had sketched out the 'plan', which was a generous term for the collection of speculations and dreams that it truly was, shortly after Naoto had given me permission to start the Rising Sun Benevolent Association. I had expanded on it after Ohgi had told me about the Six Houses of Kyoto, while trying to assemble a pitch for these potential investors, only to more or less drop the project as the man from Kyoto dashed my hopes of significant support. But I couldn't really call it my plan, especially not after Naoto had put so much hard work into expanding and realizing it.


It was humbling. In three months, I had built two platoons of effective and highly mobile fighters, training and equipping them for the long fight to come, and had led them to a pair of minor victories. In that same time, Naoto had significantly improved the infrastructure of our zone of control, enforced that zone of control against all comers despite being greatly outnumbered, constructed a far larger army than I had, and had formed a government in embryo.


I found myself looking at my profoundly tired leader with fresh eyes. Is this how the 203rd​ had looked at me? When I had first met him, I had seen a charismatic warlord on the rise, a young man determined to set fire to the world that had left him a disinherited bastard in his own land. Later, I had seen him as a well-intentioned if somewhat naive and decidedly inexperienced leader – a green officer who, while promising, needed to be carefully instructed and handled. Now, though, after I had taken a step back, after I had ceased to hover over his shoulder...


Familiarity may not always breed contempt, but it does make it easy to take people for granted, and in hindsight, I had taken Naoto and his dependency on my tactical acumen for granted. I had never stopped recognizing his institutional authority over me, and I had never doubted that his charisma gave him a great deal of sway over the members of the Kozuki Organization, but somewhere along the way I had stopped looking to him for orders. I had simply concocted plans, and expected him to follow them.


I had initially followed Kozuki Naoto out of fear, and out of a need for support. Once the fear had lapsed, I had followed him because he had the respect of those around him, and because he had respected me. But now, I felt like I could follow him out of legitimate respect. I would, of course, still create plans, determine objectives, set goals – that was what he had appointed me to do, after all – but I would be sure to get his input when I did so. When I had left Shinjuku, he had risen to the occasion, and truly proved himself worthy of my loyalty.


"Naoto," I began, trying to figure out how to put that sentiment into words without admitting my earlier potentially disloyal thoughts. The man himself paused mid-sip, and put his glass of water back on the table, focusing his attention back on me. His blue eyes had seemingly darkened with fatigue, and it seemed like he was staring straight through me, glaring at a point just behind my head. "You have made a commendable effort. Ohgi and I were both deeply impressed by the cleanliness and order we saw on our way here."


"The place hasn't looked this good in the last six years!" Ohgi interjected, backing me up. I nodded in acknowledgment to him, before turning back to Naoto.


"I still need to catch up on the details," Three months worth of broad strokes crammed into a ten minute summary was a good starting point, but I would need more information before I could begin planning prospective next moves. "And it sounds like I will need to visit Inoue as soon as possible, so she can get me up to speed with the Rising Sun's current operations," I saw Ohgi open his mouth, and I hurried to pre-empt him, "After I've visited Chihiro and offered my condolences, of course." Ohgi closed his mouth, but he was still frowning at me. There's just no pleasing some people.


"Hey, don't leave yet!" Naoto made a staying gesture, hand trembling slightly as he beckoned me to stay seated. "I still want to hear what you've been up to over the last few months. Plus," his thin lips twitched into a slight smirk, "someone's coming to see you. I told her you'd be arriving back in Shinjuku today, and she's very eager to see you again."


I blinked, momentarily confused by Naoto's ambiguous phrasing, before abruptly realizing who he hadn't mentioned yet. "Ah yes, how rude of me. How is the family, Naoto? I hope your mother and sister are well?" And on that topic... Have you heard from your father lately, Naoto? What's he planning, across the Pacific in the Homeland?


Naoto chuckled. "Last I heard, Mom's doing fine. I haven't gone to see her in months, to be honest – I've been busy, and the last thing I need is a scolding to take care of myself." He looked like he was about to say something else, looked at me, and visibly reconsidered. A second later he shook his head, and smiled. "I'll let Kallen speak for herself – she should be here in an hour or so." He leaned back slightly in his chair, and folded his hands behind his head, pulling his jacket up and revealing the empty shoulder holster concealed below. "Just long enough for you to tell me about your spring vacation to Gunma!"


I nodded, acknowledging the implicit order. "Well then..." I closed my eyes, and took a minute to quickly get my thoughts in order. A moment later, I was ready.


"While still a work in progress, I am generally satisfied with the quality of the initial test cohort of trainees." They were no 203rd​, but I had neither asked nor expected them to be. For a group of new recruits, many of them suffering from chronic malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies, the double-sized first cohort had done an admirable job in their training. "I have brought twenty-eight of the first cohort back to Shinjuku with me, leaving the other platoon in place to act as training cadre, as well as to deal with the logistics of keeping The School functional."


"The School curriculum, at present, provides general military training, supplemented with specific scouting and ambush training," I continued, moving on to discussing what the returning recruits could be expected to know and what tasks they could be expected to perform. "They are physically fit, capable of both distance marches at speed and sprinting while carrying up to thirty-five kilograms. They are all able to drive manual transmission vehicles, and can conduct basic vehicular maintenance, as well as sabotage. They are all confident marksmen, and are qualified with standard-issue Britannian sidearms and assault rifles, as well as shoulder-fired missile launchers. They are all trained in the correct and safe usage of radios and other communications devices, and have also been trained to install basic wiretaps and other surveillance and signal interception devices. All have been given a thorough education in basic strategy, ambush tactics, basic logistics, and the political and ideological basis of both the Britannian occupation and our own continued struggle."


I paused, realizing that I had dropped into a monotone as I listed point after point from the basic training package. This is a summary report, fool! Stop reciting the syllabus! "Of course, that's a good start, but I hope to expand The School towards more specialized programs over time, including a greater focus on human intelligence operations, demolitions and explosive device assembly, and, provided we can find training pods, Knightmare piloting and maintenance."


Naoto nodded in approval. "Having skilled bomb makers in our organization would make us less dependent on Mister Asahara, which seems like a really good idea if he really is somehow involved in arming our enemies here in Shinjuku."


I hummed my agreement. It hadn't escaped me that Mister Asahara was remarkably connected; when we had first sought out the Six Houses, he had put us into contact with Kyoto – and now, he had put Naoto in contact with whatever arms dealer had sold him those sniper rifles and ammunition. Not to mention how unconcerned he was when I threatened to shoot off his other leg back when we first met. The elderly engineer was an unknown, and I was increasingly certain that the less we depended on him, the better. Just like Onoda...


"Which," I said aloud, "in a roundabout way brings me to the reason Ohgi needs to return to The School as quickly as possible. You recall that the JLF was providing a liaison officer?" Naoto nodded slowly, with an air of slight confusion. "I suspect that he will attempt to suborn our trainees, left unattended."


"Wait, what?" The slight confusion had progressed into angry bewilderment. "He's trying to steal our recruits or take over your training school?"


"I... Well, I don't have any hard evidence that he's planning anything of the sort," I admitted, "but considering the man's personality, I'd almost be more surprised if he isn't trying something along those lines. He, Major Onoda Hiroo, is an intelligent man and a skilled soldier; he's also assisting his superior's bid to seize control over the JLF and has been remarkably open about his thoughts about my leadership, and for similar reasons may be suspect of yours as well."


"Tanya's very much underselling how unpleasant this guy is," Ohgi interrupted, leaning into the conversation with a frown. "When we arrived in Nakanojo for our first meeting with Onoda, he actually refused to speak to Tanya, much less acknowledge her leadership. He would only respond to what she said if I repeated it, and then he'd only speak to me, even though we were all in the same room!"


As Ohgi spoke, gradually accelerating into an angry rant, he began drumming his fingers on the table's scarred surface, giving some outlet to his seething energy. Naoto seemed equally annoyed - although likely for more personal reasons, considering the mixed heritage we shared and the reactions some Japanese as well as most Britannians had to it.


"He has, in that respect, gotten better," I put in, "although I frankly think that his early unwillingness to acknowledge me is the least of my concerns about him." Naoto turned to me, eyes full of clear disbelief, and I nodded in confirmation. "I am more worried about his reckless disregard for the lives of civilians – both Japanese and Honorary Britannian – and his eagerness to deliberately provoke tit for tat violence as a tool of boosting recruitment. He and his superior are also currently involved in an attempt to undermine the current leaders of the JLF, presumably to seize power for themselves."


Naoto's eyes continued to widen as I went into greater detail, describing my conversations with Major Onoda, including the points when he had practically outlined his faction's ongoing Gekokujō campaign. By the time I finished describing Onoda's unconcealed joy at the round-the-clock activity of Niigata Prefecture's crematories, which considering that Britannians tended to be buried instead of burnt spoke volumes, Naoto's expression had gone hard and flat.


"So, he's an asshole and clearly doesn't care about civilian casualties," Naoto summed up after I finished speaking. "Why are we working with this man?"


"Well, besides the fact that Kyoto House probably pushed the JLF to assign him to our facility deliberately," I began, "he's a very skilled soldier, scout, and infiltrator, and has done a satisfactory job conveying those skills to our trainees. More to the point, the faction that he represents is the only part of the JLF that is actively interested in taking the fight to the Britannians, instead of remaining in their bunkers. They're also the only faction in the JLF currently willing to arm and supply us."


I went over the first and second deals I had negotiated with Onoda, taking care to emphasize how much of a poisoned chalice the Six Houses had served us by pointedly not extending logistical support and by probably making sure Onoda – a known racist and bigot – was assigned to liase with a detachment headed by a female hafu. "...So, it was a case of making the best of a bad situation," I summed up, trying not to second-guess my decision making process in the face of Naoto's obvious disgruntlement. "Short of pulling back to Shinjuku and abandoning both the training camp idea and our credit with the Six Houses, I didn't see any other viable option."


Naoto grunted an acknowledgement, before shaking his head, and smiling reassuringly at me. "I'm not questioning your decisions, Tanya. It sounds like you did a good job in a bad situation." He started to frown again. "I'm just questioning whether or not seeking help from the Six Houses was a good idea in retrospect." He leaned back in his chair, and massaged his forehead. "I guess it doesn't matter, the deal's already been made. Did you say something about missions?"


Recognizing my cue, I briefly ran through the missions in Niigata and Nagano Prefectures, going over the objectives of each mission, the plans, the executions, and the outcomes. Ohgi jumped in periodically to add details that I had missed or neglected to include, but he was generally content to let me explain as the officer in the field what had happened on each mission. Naoto generally nodded along to each beat of my report, reserving his questions until I had finished running through each mission.


The only time Naoto reacted differently was when I mentioned Squad 1's losses during the Niigata mission. I had mentioned that detail only because it was an important "lessons learned" point for the mission, and had thus only discussed that small tragedy in a professional manner. Despite my attempt to stay impersonal, my treacherous voice had warbled annoyingly, and I'd had to clear my throat. I saw Naoto and Ohgi exchange a look, but I didn't know what it implied, nor did they explain. At the very least, Naoto did me the courtesy of not bringing up the minor but embarrassing burr in my presentation when he started to ask his questions.


Unsurprisingly, Naoto was far more interested in the ambush of the Knightmare convoy in Nagano than the radio station raid in Niigata. While he was attentive and interested in the details of the first mission I had conducted on Onoda's behalf, he was very clearly focused on the anti-Knightmare measures I'd used in the second mission. I couldn't blame him – not only was it a confrontation with a unit from the occupation army itself, if and when the Viceregal Governor ever attacked Shinjuku, his vanguard would likely be composed mostly of Knightmares. Knowing that they can be beaten by a non-peer force is a weapon in and of itself, I think.


Eventually, Naoto's seemingly inexhaustible supply of questions finally tapered off, to my faint relief. It was gratifying to have an interested and engaged boss, not to mention one who clearly had trust in my decision-making process. Despite Naoto's past displays of trust in my judgement, I still occasionally found myself wondering when he would interrupt and chide me for overstepping my authority. That moment never came - Naoto only asked for further details or clarifications about our operations over the last three months. After dealing with Onoda's frequent slips back into semi-open contempt of my heritage or gender, simply relaxing around my fellow leaders was a surprisingly relaxing experience.


"Well, it sounds like you guys have been pretty busy yourselves," Naoto commented, leaning back onto his chair's hind legs as I answered the last of his questions. "While I can't say I'm happy that we're more or less locked into dealing with this... Major Onoda," Naoto's mouth twisted, as if he'd bit into something rancid, "it seems like the deal's already paying off. So, we might as well make the most of it."


I nodded. "My thoughts exactly." I hadn't really expected Naoto to disagree with my decisions, but I was also happy that he seemed to understand why I had made those decisions and agreed with my reasoning. The similarities between my independent negotiations with Onoda's faction of the JLF and Kusakabe's efforts to undermine General Katase through unsanctioned missions were not lost on me. Unlike Onoda and Kusakabe, I had no interest in undermining or overthrowing my leader. He knows that, doesn't he? Of course he does...


I frowned, slightly uncomfortable with that line of thought, and wished that I had a cup of coffee at hand. It had been a long meeting, full of substantial dialogue and the exchange of important information, but no meeting really felt quite right without coffee. Besides, I've had to ration myself for months now! It's not fair! With a sigh, I pulled my mind back on track and I turned to Ohgi. "I think we've covered all the important developments, yes?" I was fairly certain everything worthy of discussion had already been handled, but I might have forgotten something.


"Well... No." No? I quickly racked my brain, going over the turning points and major decisions of the recent months, but I couldn't think of anything I'd missed. And why is he looking at me so expectantly? "Tanya, isn't there something you're forgetting about? Something important?" Ohgi was neither glowering nor glaring at me, but there was something in the single raised eyebrow and the kindly, yet firm, set of his face that told me that, whether or not I felt this mystery topic was important, he surely did. What am I forgetting? What important thing does Naoto not know about that is important...? ...Oh.


I had never really decided to share knowledge of my magic with anybody else, including Ohgi. That choice had been made for me, when Ohgi had followed me to that cobble-strewn riverbank and seen something inexplicable. At that point, the decision had been taken from my hands; lying to Ohgi almost certainly would have backfired, and simply refusing to answer hadn't really been a viable option. Necessity had forced my hand, and for the first time since I had begun my third life, I had told somebody about one of my two most closely kept secrets.


Unsurprisingly, I found myself resenting Ohgi for forcing the issue here and now. Magic was my one inheritance from my second life, not to mention the secret to my survival in this wretched third life in Area 11. I had only lived this long because the people around me saw only a malnourished and weak girl, one incapable of defending herself or surviving on her own; this perception had allowed me to get the drop on the unwary, most notably when I had taken advantage of my malnourished frame to fold myself up behind a truck chair, only to use my magically enhanced strength to stab two gang members to death.


On the other hand, I understood where Ohgi was coming from – my magic was a factor that our leader needed to know about, so he could best quantify my abilities and assign me a workload commensurate with those abilities. And, going beyond the sort of cold logic that came so easily to me... I trusted Naoto, and he trusted me. He and Ohgi had taken me in when they had very little, and I had nothing to contribute at all. He had seen my worth, and had promoted me in his organization, giving me both the authority and freedom to choose my own tasks and assignments. He had trusted me to keep Kallen safe during the subway raid, and had trusted me to handle negotiations with the Six Houses. He had trusted me. And, something that always left me feeling vaguely surprised when I consciously considered it, I trusted him as well, him and Ohgi and the other four core members of the cell.


I had trusted Naoto this far; I would trust him again.


That's all well and good, but how do I introduce magic to him without sounding crazy?


The same way I introduced it to Ohgi – a demonstration, clearly. This time, an intentional demonstration.


"Naoto..." I turned back towards the Kozuki Organization's leader, which meant so much more now than it had a mere six months ago. His chair's front legs thudded into the worn linoleum as he shifted forward, exhaustion once again pushed back behind a businesslike mask of an expression, eyes following me attentively as I returned to the table.


"There is something else I need to discuss with you, something that I've been keeping to myself for quite some time." I tried not to wince at my own awkwardness, and forced myself to continue speaking, fighting down my rising anxiety as I stretched out my arms, palms up over the table. "I honestly should have probably disclosed this information earlier, but I found the idea... uncomfortable."


Ohgi smiled encouragingly at me, but Naoto just looked quizzically at me. He looked like he was about to say something, but looked over at Ohgi and clearly reconsidered, gesturing for me to continue.


Over the last two and a half months, since Ohgi had discovered me in the middle of practice, I had continued to experiment with the formulas from my past life. The original spells I learned in the Empire have been optimized for use with computation orbs, complicated carefully engineered bundles of smaller subsidiary spells. I had to work hard to tease out their individual components, such as the strength enhancement or the acceleration formula.


Those small formulas had been low hanging fruit, as both were integral to the flight spell package, the bread and butter working of every aerial mage in Imperial service. Without the strength enhancement, a human flying at hundreds of kilometers an hour would be shredded; without enhanced reflexes, navigating around barriers was nigh impossible at high speeds. I had been intimately familiar with both in my previous life, and simplifying them down to an orbless level had been comparatively simple.


But the flight package hadn't been the only spell I had memorized. As an aerial mage and a training officer, I had committed as many spells as I could manage to memory. Among others, I had memorized the round enchantment formula, the passive shell and active barrier formulas, the guidance formula that also served as a primitive means of radio wave interference, and of course the ever-handy Mage Blade formula.


One of my least used spells had been the Napalm-Type Formula, an explosion spell that was frankly inferior to the far more versatile artillery enchantment formula. However, inefficiencies aside, the napalm spell didn't require any container for the power, like the artillery enchantment did, and included a component to generate the pilot flame from pure magical energy. After much time and effort, I had managed to isolate the ignition component and found a way to cast it without the aid of a computational gem.


Frankly, it was an unimpressive spell, more of a party trick than a tactical enhancement. It was an energy intensive working, and actually projecting the flame or spreading it required an even larger investment of mental effort and energy. A lighter did everything my spell could at a far lower cost.


But I could make a tongue of flame dance on the palm of my hand on command, and even a party trick could be useful in a demonstrative capacity.


Yellow and orange tongues of flame sprang into being in each of my hands, stretched halfway across the table towards Naoto. While only ten centimeters or so high, the flames were already greedily devouring my energy reserves. So inefficient! For a moment, I found myself feeling nostalgic for the Empire and its computational gems. I almost miss Schugel. Almost.


The flames reflected in Naoto's goggling eyes, wide with a blend of what looked like shock, delight, and an unsettling degree of awe. His mouth hung slack, and his frown had disappeared, expression wide open and completely unguarded.


It seemed like the demonstration had its intended effect. Mysterious flames are probably equally dramatic as a magically controlled fall; I'll have to remember that, for the unlikely event of any future demonstrations. Satisfied, I snuffed out the fire dancing on my left hand first, and then raised my right hand, palm aflame, to eye-height before slowly reducing the flow of energy down to nothing, the flame dwindling as the supply tapered off. Let nobody say I lack presentation skills - and every good presentation needs a touch of the theatrical to hook the audience's emotions.


I met Naoto's eyes across the table. "You can call it magic – it's as good of a descriptor as anything, and the term that I use." Almost before I finished the sentence, I knew more of an explanation would be necessary. Naoto was far from a fool, and I had no doubt that he'd believe his own eyes – but Naoto was also a tired man, one who had spent the last several months looking for any edge he could use against our enemies. He's a politician too now! He has constituents! I need to make sure he knows what I can do, and more importantly what I can't do, before he starts getting ideas!


"I've had this power all my life, as far as I can tell," I maintained eye contact as I spoke, half-expecting an angry outburst or a disbelieving laugh at any moment. The latter because my previously malnourished state made little sense for someone with such a power, the former because I had withheld knowledge about said power for the last year.


"I was able to muster extra energy, back when I was working to feed myself, energy that let me work the same hours and carry the same loads as some adults. Energy, strength, enhanced balance... but it wasn't a significant boost. I'm sure my old supervisors simply chalked it up to willpower, or perhaps desperation." Perhaps they simply didn't notice, or didn't care at all. Caring takes effort and energy, after all, and both of those were in short supply after the Conquest. "Either way, before I met you and Ohgi, my 'magic' was decidedly limited, hardly enough to keep me functional, and alive."


To my mild surprise, it was far easier to discuss my magic here than it had been back on that riverbank in Gunma. Perhaps it was the comfort of familiar surroundings, perhaps it was Naoto's famous charisma. More likely, it was the benefit of explaining things a second time – it was easier to sort the background out into a rational and ordered flow, instead of a half-panicked tumult. The fact that Ohgi didn't call me a witch also helped. Now that I think about it, he took it remarkably in stride.


"After I joined the Kozuki Organization, and more importantly after I started eating significantly more food with higher caloric yields, the energy reserves that I draw from for my 'magic' expanded, increasing both the strength and variety of effects I could manifest. Admittedly, just correlation, but that trend continued and expanded after Ohgi mandated specific shared meal times and increased portion sizes." That should explain why I didn't strike the various gangsters dead back in the day.


And now to explain why I'm not using my abilities to push the Britannians into the sea single-handedly. "Even now, it's still not particularly impressive. Those flames, for example, took a significant portion of my available energy." I shrugged, trying to defuse any disappointment via a commiserating 'What can you do about it?' expression. "It's frankly most useful the way I have been using it, as a way of boosting my own capabilities. It's got a few other minor tactical applications. Unfortunately, it's too weak to really make a difference in the greater scheme of things."


I jumped in my seat, startled despite myself at the loud impact. Naoto was standing, leaning forward across the table on the hand that he'd just slapped down onto the surface.


"Are you even listening to yourself!?" I leaned back, away from my suddenly crazed leader. A medley of expressions whirled across Naoto's face, too fast to pin down – anger, shock, hope, amusement, and just a hint of disappointment. Then, he blinked, seemed to notice my reaction, and coughed slightly with embarrassment at his outburst.


"Tanya," Naoto began, twisting away to scoop up his fallen chair, righting it, and sitting back down before leaning back across the table. He leaned forward, lowering his head so he was directly at my eye height, and took one of my hands in his. "Tanya, you are an incredibly intelligent, and incredibly capable person. I respect your accomplishments; your plans and ideas have done so much to help so many already, and I'm sure you're only getting started. But, here? About this? You're wrong."


It was my turn to blink with surprise and confusion, and I'm sure I would have leaned back in my seat if Naoto hadn't already captured my hand. The sudden whirlwind of compliments was flattering, but... What does he mean, I'm wrong? Without a focus, my magic is incredibly weak! I can't melt a Knightmare with a handful of fire! Even if I had a computational orb, a single aerial mage against the Britannian Army is suicide!


Before I could express my rebuttal, Naoto started talking. "Weak or not, Tanya, you can do magic. Magic! Nobody else can – nobody I've ever heard of, at least! It's a sign that you are important!" He laughed, "Not that we didn't already know that, of course!"


A moment later, Naoto sobered up and continued, his tired eyes lit from within with a fervor I already disliked. "It's like the old stories: An evil army of demons comes to a peaceful land, and conquers the people. The people cry out for a hero, and from their midst, an orphan emerges... and her bravery is recognized by Kami, who gives gifts marking that girl as a hero." He smiled, a wry twist to his lips. "I did say that you'd done Amaterasu's work when you smote the thugs in the station with fire and steel, didn't I? This looks like proof that I was more right than I ever could've suspected."


I have no idea what my face looked like, as I gaped at Naoto, but I could only assume horrorstricken would have been an apt description. His reaction was one I hadn't even imagined, yet was somehow far worse than any I could have expected. I should have seen this coming! All the signs were there! He references the Gods far more often than is healthy!


Whatever my reaction had been, it clearly hadn't been what Naoto expected either. His eyebrows rose in surprise, and he quickly started speaking again, this time taking a different tact. "Look, whether or not the Kami have blessed you isn't important – but the idea that you could have been is! I'm not trying to be cynical here; way back when we were first recruiting, you said that it's important to give people some reason to hope that tomorrow will be a better day, and that giving people something to fight for would make them more willing to fight over the long haul, right? We've already started that by giving them food and stuff, but they need a symbol, something to really rally behind!"


I clenched my teeth and endured the sting of having my own words thrown back in my face. Dealing with fanatics was annoying even at the best of times; even when I could safely ignore the ranting, simply encountering people who had chosen to forsake rationality for overwhelming dedication to their pet obsession reduced the quality of my day. Unfortunately, I couldn't ignore this situation in the hopes that cooler heads would prevail; Naoto was the leader of my organization, and now the political head of Shinjuku – there were no cooler heads who could force the genie back into the bottle. I can't believe I almost missed Shugel, even for a moment.


"Once the word starts getting out, the people of Shinjuku and the Japanese outside the Ghetto will rally to us!" Naoto continued his pitch, trying to convince me of the wisdom of his wild idea. "We have lots of recruits already, but they're all from Shinjuku too – if we can spread the word outside the walls, who knows what kind of opportunities we'll get? We might be able to finally get clear of the Six Houses, get clear of that treacherous piece of shit at The School! If the people truly believe that the gods are with us, they'll flock to our banner! We'll push Britannia back into the Pacific – hell, we'll push them all the way back to Area 7!"


"Naoto… Are you sure about that?" Naoto and I both jumped slightly in our seats with astonishment, and turned in unison towards Ohgi. I had been so overwhelmed by Naoto's lunatic reaction to my magic that I'd completely forgotten about the other man in the room, and judging by Naoto's reaction, he'd forgotten we weren't alone as well. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Britannia smashed like any man, but…" Ohgi smiled apologetically, and gestured at our surroundings, "but our people don't have that kind of power. Not right now. I've been out in the countryside, Naoto, outside of Shinjuku and Tokyo – things aren't that much better out there. In some ways, they're actually worse."


Thank you, Ohgi! Thank you! The man had injected a moment of logic into the stream of zealotry, and had bought me an opening. I pushed my advantage with every iota of ruthless efficiency I could summon. "Ohgi is correct, Naoto. The spirit of our people may be strong, but it is also bloody, starving, and sweating under heavy burdens. A general uprising might lead to some temporary victories against the Britannians, but make no mistake – they would indeed be temporary."


Naoto turned back towards me but I pushed on, refusing to brook any interruption. This idea had to be ended here and now, for my sake and for the sake of everything that we were fighting for. I can't live a comfortable future if the Britannian Empire decides that Elevens will have no future! "Currently, Japan is under occupation by the garrison under the command of the Viceregal Governor, Prince Clovis. This is not an active theater; the Britannians do not particularly care about Area 11," Both men winced at my use of the colonial label, as I'd intended. "They do not care, and so only inferior forces are assigned here, for the most part. Second rate garrison troops and embarrassments only, no elite units or Knights of the Rounds."


I paused to let that implicit dismissal sink in, before continuing. "However, the Britannians very much do care about the Sakuradite mines. The moment we threaten those, all bets are off." I saw the disbelief rising in Naoto's eyes, and quickly answered the implicit question before he could ask it himself. "I am not saying we should give up the fight, and I'm not saying we should resign ourselves to Britannian domination. I am saying that it would be a betrayal of our people and of Japan to strike before we have a chance of not only liberating Japan, but guaranteeing a future for our people that lasts longer than a year." And a year's remarkably generous; even if we did win control over the Home Islands, I'm sure the counter assault would land in weeks.


I could still see the passionate flames burning Naoto's eyes, but they had been somewhat dampened. Good – keep pressing! I took a breath, and exhaled the panicked anger that Naoto's rant had lit in my belly; getting angry at Naoto would only make him angry in return. I liked and respected Naoto, this temporary bout of insanity aside, and I wanted him to respect me as well; more to the point, I had to continue to work with him in the future. I couldn't simply browbeat him into submission, I had to convince him that I truly was correct by appealing to his sensibilities. And if there's one thing that's truly fundamental to Kozuki Naoto's sensibilities, it's his role as the big brother looking out for his little sister. At every turn, Naoto had been motivated by his relationship to Kallen – and so, at least for a minute, I had to become the little sister.


"Naoto, I want a good and happy life for our people," I began, speaking in softer tones, and squeezing down lightly on the hand holding mine. "I want a world where the next generation of children doesn't have to live like I did, and doesn't have to see the things I did. I want a Japan that is free, where I don't have to fight, and where I can do something productive instead." I let a degree of firmness re-enter my tone. "But I've seen this path before, and I've heard the cries – 'one glorious push, and we'll force them out! The gods favor us!' That's what the resistance groups always said, and it always ended the same way – a wall and a hundred dead Japanese for every dead Britannian. If the gods truly favored us, we would already be free."


I squeezed down again on Naoto's hand, still lightly but again with a hint of firmness, and this time he let me go. The flames had dwindled down to scattered sparks. "Besides, what happens if the word gets out, and the Britannians hear about it somehow before we're ready? Do you think that we're ready to hold Shinjuku against all comers? And, if the Britannians hear about my magic… What do you think they'd do to me, Naoto? The Britannians have always loved to talk about strong bloodlines – what do you think the nobles, to say nothing of the Imperial Family, would do for a magical bloodline?"


It was a dirty trick, but I didn't regret using it. I knew I had won, even before Naoto reluctantly nodded. "You've got a point Tanya," he sighed, before ruefully laughing and resting his forward on his hands. "Guess I really got ahead of myself there. I just… I thought your magic would be a shortcut, and we could just use it to skip to the end of this…" He sighed again, and halfway through it turned into a yawn. Over his head, Ohgi and I exchanged a look and nod of acknowledgement. He really did look exhausted; get sleep deprived enough, and you might as well be drunk.


"I don't think there are any shortcuts here, Naoto," Ohgi said, patting his friend and roommate's shoulder. "Just a long hard slog, but…" The former teacher looked back over at me, and then patted Naoto's shoulder again. "I think we're up to the task, no matter how long that slog is. We've got each other, we've got our other comrades, and we've got the organization we've begun to build." I wasn't quite as sanguine about our prospects as Ohgi seemed to be, but I nodded along anyway. No point in undermining a perfectly good pep talk, after all. Naoto collected himself a bit and sat back up in his chair, shooting Ohgi a worn smile as his chair squeaked against the linoleum.


"Although, since we're on the topic," Ohgi began, turning towards me with a curious expression, "I've been wondering about your magic for quite a while now, Tanya. Do you think you're the only one who has it? And, do you think you can teach it to others?" Naoto perked up at that, and likewise turned towards me, eyes alight with the same eager curiosity that had shown in Ohgi's.


I grimaced, but promptly replied. "I have no idea if I'm the only one who has magic; I have no idea how I would detect it in other people, or if that's even possible. As for teaching…" I paused for a moment, before shaking my head and continuing. "I think I could probably explain how I use my magic, but I don't know how I could teach someone to get magic."


It was disappointing to admit, and I could tell by my friends' matching crestfallen expressions that they had hoped for a different answer. Unfortunately, that was the answer I had for them; at the very least, I had the cold comfort of knowing that everything I had said was the truth, without even the slightest bit of prevarication. I didn't know if I was the only one in this world who had magic – even in the world of my second life, mages in general had been uncommon and A or B class mages had been rare. I didn't know how to detect other mages without the use of specialized equipment that I had never studied and couldn't come even close to replicating. And as for teaching, I could explain my spell formulae, but I couldn't give magic to someone who lacked it.


Before Naoto and Ohgi could spend too much time mulling over my answer, my radio crackled to life, breaking the contemplative silence. "Trainspotter to Backpack, come in. Over."


I looked to Naoto before I responded, both for courtesy's sake, and to show my continued respect for his leadership after resisting his ideas regarding my magic. As soon as he nodded, the handheld radio was at my mouth. "Backpack to Trainspotter, I hear you. Sitrep? Over." 'Trainspotter' was one of the two fighters I'd assigned to guard the apartment building once they successfully infiltrated Shinjuku. Unless something had gone wrong, he should be five stories below me at this very instant.


"Trainspotter to Backpack, someone's here to see you. I think she's the one you designated as 'Cherry'? Should I send her up? Over."


Naoto, who was clearly listening in to my radio conversation, raised an eyebrow, silently asking who "Cherry" was. "Kallen's arrived, it seems," I answered his silent question by passing on the report, as if he hadn't been sitting only a few feet away. For some reason, his inquisitive eyebrow remained high on his brow, and I felt compelled to explain the code name I'd selected for his sister. "She's got red hair, cherries are red. It seemed like a fitting code name. That's all."


"Oh yeah, no argument here!" Naoto replied, his inquisitive expression punctured as his mouth stretch wide with another barely suppressed yawn. "It's just an… interesting choice for Kallen. She's a bit too spicey to be a cherry, and far too spikey to be a blossom."


"I thought it was a fitting name…" I muttered, ignoring a knowing look from Ohgi and also the flushed heat spreading across my cheeks as I pressed the transmission button back down. "Backpack to Trainspotter. Send her on up, and keep me posted if anyone else drops by. Backpack out."

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 21: A Shinjuku Reunion (Pt 2)


(A major thank you to Siatru, Thearpox, Sunny, Gremlin Jack, Grig9700, and WrandomWaffles. All contributed to editing or beta reading this chapter at various points, and it has profited massively by their example. I am truly sorry for the long delay in getting this out to you, the audience. I hope I won't keep you waiting this long with the next chapter.)


APRIL 21, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1733


"…Think she's the one you designated as 'Cherry'? Should I send her up? Over." The handheld radio chirped in the insurgent's hand as he released the transmit button. The ensuing static buzz was just another small source of irritation for Kallen Stadtfeld in a day already brimming with petty annoyances. The way that 'Trainspotter' was smirking at her was another. Kallen could freely admit that he was a handsome man, and the sleeveless t-shirt he wore did an excellent job showcasing his powerful biceps, tanned almost to a nut brown from hours under the sun – if it were any other day, she might have enjoyed the mancandy.


But today, his smirking interest was just another annoyance, especially because Kallen apparently now needed his permission to go up the stairs to her brother's apartment. Ever since she'd gotten the text from Naoto letting her know that Tanya was back in town, seeing the younger girl again for the first time in months had been all Kallen could think about. She'd suffered through the bi-weekly meeting of the editorial staff of the Ashford Academy Gazette, doing her best to stay engaged with her fellow club members despite her eagerness to leave. As soon as the clock ticked over to half-past four, she'd made a beeline to the MagLev station… Only to learn that the usual route to Shinjuku was undergoing scheduled maintenance.


A circuitous train ride and an "entry fee" later, Kallen entered the Shinjuku Ghetto for the first time in months. She honestly hadn't expected much of a change from her last visit to the last enclave of the Japanese in the Tokyo metropolitan area, apart from the seasonal – sewage cooking and fermenting in gurgling almost-clogged drains, instead of freezing in the gutters.


Naoto, never the most communicative, had become downright taciturn over the last few months. Her brother had all but ordered her not to come to the Ghetto, though the texts expressing that order had couched that command in encouragement to focus on her studies and her budding career as a string reporter instead.


While Kallen had resented the command to stay in the Britannian Concession, she'd initially gone along with it. Naoto was, after all, her superior in the organization, as well as her big brother. Besides, she'd had plenty of work to do, even if it was very unsatisfying compared to the adrenaline rush of combat. Tanya and Naoto had both pointed out to Kallen that nobody else could do what she could; at first, Kallen had been happy for the reassurance - now, she only wished that she was a bit more replaceable.


When the texts from Naoto had slowly tapered down from once a week to once every few weeks, Kallen had begun to grow worried. To make matters worse, her mother was also getting increasingly worried for, and angry at, Naoto. His complete lack of communication was driving her up the wall, and so she had taken to asking Kallen about her brother whenever the two had a moment alone. It took much of Kallen's limited supply of patience not to vent her irritation on her mother - their rebuilt relationship was still new and somewhat fragile, and Kallen privately feared backsliding into the Britannian Tanya had called her out as.


Despite her resolve to be a better daughter, Kallen knew that her patience was far from endless. Before her willingness to wait snapped completely, she had approached the only person in the Britannian Concession that she knew Naoto couldn't avoid. Inoue, who was still running the Rising Sun communal dinners every Friday night at the refugee camp set up for the Honorary Britannians in Toshima.


Inoue had been surprised to see her, but Kallen had come prepared with a good reason to drop by - nobody else was reporting on the miniature refugee crisis happening right in the middle of the Tokyo Settlement, so Kallen was stepping in to fill the niche. Inoue, of course, hadn't been fooled by the earnest explanation, and had promised to smack Naoto when she got back to Shinjuku for her. Kallen was delighted by the promise, but not as much as she was at the news that her brother was alive, working hard, and making great progress with the tasks left in his care by Tanya.


Kallen hadn't pressed for further details. Even that short conversation in potentially hostile territory had been a risk, and Kallen knew that if Tanya had been there she would have chided her over the breach of information security.


So it had come as a great surprise when Kallen had entered Shinjuku and found the stench of sewage almost completely absent. While that was perhaps the most welcome change, it was less impressive than the amount of obviously fresh construction. Everywhere she looked, once cracked tenement walls sported fresh cement patches, and roads glistened under fresh layers of asphalt.


More importantly, the people of Shinjuku were just as changed as the district itself. Young people moved with straight backs and squared shoulders, even as they struggled with heavy loads. Exposed concrete and years of graffiti were being painted over by several teams of paint-can wielding elders and children. A young man missing one leg below the knee sat on the stoop of a building, mending a pile of torn clothes with a darting needle and thread, but his eyes were lively and bright as he worked, chatting with one of the elderly people spreading whitewash on a wall.


Compared to the slouching, aimless crowds Kallen had pushed her way through during her previous trips to visit Naoto, these people all moved with energy and purpose. Everybody seemed busy with something, but nobody had the keen edge of desperation or fear that had once seemed omnipresent in Shinjuku.


More surprising than the change in attitude was how armed Shinjuku had become. Despite the Britannian prohibition on the Japanese ownership of weapons, blades and cudgels were plentiful in the streets of Shinjuku. Everywhere Kallen looked she saw small groups of men and women, all wearing identical red headbands and sporting knives, batons, and at least two pistols per group.


Kallen would have thought the clusters of armed people simply another gang, except that she had seen those same headbands worn by some of the volunteers that accompanied Inoue to the communal dinners. On second glance, the pedestrians thronging the street didn't treat the headband-clad people with the wariness and fear typical to interactions with gangsters. They were treated with respect, yes, but it was the kind of respect that Kallen recognized from her relationships with most of her comrades in the Organization, a mutual respect built on shared goals, experiences, and bonds.


A mutual respect, indeed a camaraderie, that Kallen certainly wasn't feeling at the moment. Instead, she could almost feel the pressure of the gazes and sideways looks. Nobody troubled her, nobody even approached her, but the way the eyes of every headband-wearing tough followed her as she made her way down the once-familiar streets was grating. Not that it's a huge surprise, since I'm probably the only natural redhead in Shinjuku apart from Naoto.


It was annoying, seeing how much of a stranger she had become amongst "her" people. Kallen had spent months on the other side of the wall, living the life of the Britannian that she knew she wasn't. While she had been gone, the world inside the ringing walls of the Ghetto had moved on, and now she was left gawking like a tourist.


Much as she wanted to put all the blame for her newest degree of separation from the rest of the Japanese on Naoto, Kallen was guiltily certain that she could have pressed for updates harder if she had really cared. On the other hand, she shouldn't have had to tell Naoto to keep her in the loop in the first place; absent Tanya's presence, it was clear to Kallen that Naoto had fallen back on old habits. The moment he'd had the chance, her big brother had wrapped her up in cotton and put her away in Ashford, safe and sound, while he had apparently built an army, conquered at least part of Shinjuku, and started rebuilding the place. He'd grown canny: instead of directly denying her the chance to help, he had kept her focused on the tasks Tanya had left behind before haring off into the wilds of central Honshu.


Now, after delays caused by pointless meetings, overdue railway maintenance, and her own distracted fascination at Shinjuku's metamorphosis, Kallen was being kept from welcoming her best friend back home and from giving her beloved big brother a piece of her mind by this idiot with a radio! Even worse, she was a full hour late to her reunion with a person who adored organization and loved timeliness! 'That's not fair,' she thought to herself, fuming as the bastard's knowing smirk widened, 'he is just doing what Tanya told him to do – the radio and all these code names have her fingerprints all over it…'


"So, you're the Commander's cherry-girl, huh?" Kallen's eyes narrowed into slits as she glared at the fool in front of her. Irritatingly, the anger just seemed to confirm something for the ape, and his smile broadened. The temptation to punch him in the throat was nearly overwhelming, but Kallen kept her anger tightly leashed, as Tanya had taught her to do. They're on my side, after all, or at least Tanya's, Kallen reminded herself, keeping her hands open and relaxed at her sides, So let's keep it friendly...


Letting her face slide into the contours of her typical school mask, Kallen injected just a hint of Milly's infuriating smirk into her smile and channeled her step-mother's haughty arrogance as she angled her head just enough to look down on the taller man. "What? Are you jealous? Don't worry, I'm sure a gorilla like you will find a girlfriend eventually!"


The man grinned back with irritating ease. "Thanks Cherry, I appreciate the support. Sorry to get your hopes up, but I like 'em a bit older – come back in a few years and if Kaho hasn't kicked me to the curb yet, I'll give you a date or two."


The draconic anger that laired deep in her bones stirred slightly, but Kallen was mostly just amused. Now that the initial exchange was past, she recognized this as a dynamic she'd had in the past with Tamaki – playful taunting and teasing, without any real emotional stakes. "Well, if she doesn't kick you to the curb, I'd be happy to give it a try! You guys just got back from the training camp with 'Commander Backpack', right?"


'Trainspotter' narrowed his eyes slightly at her. Next to him, his silent partner's hand drifted towards the butt of his holstered pistol. "What if we were, huh? Who's asking?"


"Cherry!" Kallen replied with a grin that she didn't even have to force. Her previously overwhelming annoyance had surprisingly melted away – shooting the shit for a second with people whom she was confident were on her side had let her forget for a precious moment about how pissed she was at Naoto. It had been way too long since she could just relax and talk to someone without carefully watching her words. "You know, the person you were obviously told to look out for?" Kallen scoffed, before adopting a theatrically pompous tone "Don't you know who I am? I am the foremost student of the Tiny Terror of Shinjuku herself! The one you call… Backpack!"


The two men chuckled and relaxed, the brewing tension dissipating. Trainspotter's face returned to its easy grin and his partner's hand continued to drift right past the pistol and settled on his hip, where he made a show of scratching himself. "No shit, really?" Trainspotter laughed, "So you know what she's about, yeah? Hope you enjoyed the months off – she's probably gonna put you in a refresher course or some bullshit!"


Before Kallen could respond, Trainspotter's radio crackled back to life. "Backpack to Trainspotter. Send her on up, and keep me posted if anyone else drops by. Backpack out."


Trainspotter nodded towards the door to the stairwell. "You know the way up, right?" Kallen nodded back, and he grinned in reply. "Head right on up."


"Thanks," Kallen replied, heading up the stairs, "Once I finish up here, we should have a spar – I'd love to see how badly Tanya's standards have been slipping, without me and Big Bro keeping her on the straight and narrow."


The stairwell door swung shut on the jeering reply from Trainspotter and the laughter from his partner. As she made her way up the flight of stairs, Kallen let the smile subside, schooling her face back into a more businesslike expression.


Away from the impromptu distraction provided by the two guards, Kallen's anxiety began to make itself known again. Instead of worrying about Naoto's well-being, Kallen found herself focusing on how she'd describe the events of the last few months to Tanya. It felt like she had plenty to report, but little of real significance. She could only hope that her best friend and mentor wouldn't be too disappointed in her; Tanya was always very hard working, and pushed everybody around her to be equally diligent. Compared to what Tanya had likely accomplished in a season away, Kallen found it hard to be confident in her own meager achievements.


As Kallen approached the apartment door, she took a deep breath and tried to let the worry flow out from her. Whether or not Tanya would be disappointed in her, whether or not Tanya would be happy to see her again… It was too late to change anything. Before her resolution could desert her, Kallen reached out and knocked on the splintered surface of the door.


A moment later, a deadbolt slid home and the apartment door swung open.


"Hey there, Kallen! Good to see you again!" Her brother's best and oldest friend stood framed in the door, smiling at her from beneath his familiar pompadour. While Ohgi's smile and hair were just the way Kallen remembered, he now sported the same farmer's tan as Trainspotter did three floors below. Although his nose is still peeling… That's gotta itch…


"Ohgi!" Kallen hastily bobbed a perfunctory bow in greeting before stepping close and pulling the former teacher in for a hug, which he returned with a fond smile. "It's so good to see you again!" She squeezed him one more time, to which Ohgi reacted with a theatrical groan before she released him and stepped back. "How was your trip? Did you get back okay? Did you have any problems?"


"Hey, hey, slow down, slow down!" Ohgi held up his hands defensively, warding off the storm of questions, "Everything went fine – but what are you still doing out in the hallway? Come on in, Kallen." He stepped back into the room and to the side, and Kallen slipped in after him, closing the door as she passed… And froze in place as she took in the sight of the other two occupants.


Ohgi had changed over the last few months – beyond the tanned skin, Kallen had felt firm muscles under his unseasonal jacket, presumably hard won over the course of endless days of training that she was desperately curious to hear more about. However, In comparison to both her brother and her best friend, Ohgi had remained all but untouched by the passage of time.


Tanya was on her feet, facing Kallen, and for some reason slightly red-faced. Kallen could only hope that she hadn't been arguing with Naoto, who was still seated at the table.


The other girl looked just as eye-catching as always, although Kallen found herself somewhat of two minds about her own newly acquired tan. The longer hair was fetching, but more importantly the lean muscles clearly visible along Tanya's bare arms were a sign of significant improvement in Tanya's constitution as well as her strength. If her body was getting enough nutrients to grow at least three inches taller while having enough surplus to build muscle, it seemed like her days as a half-starved sack of bones were well and truly behind her. In Kallen's opinion, that development couldn't possibly have come soon enough.


Naoto, by contrast, looked awful. In three months he had aged a decade, and looked like a man on the brink of bidding his thirties a reluctant farewell. His face was crusted in stubble, his shoulders slumped with exhaustion, and his hair, as red as hers, hung lank and greasy halfway to his shoulders. Most worryingly of all to Kallen, his eyes seemed to look through her for a moment, before suddenly snapping back into the present and onto her face. He hastily forced a smile onto his face and she followed suit, cursing herself internally as she did so.


Dammit! Dammit, dammit, dammit! I knew he was overworking himself, and who knows what else! He always does that, and then he forgets to look out for himself! I should've come down here months ago! Fuck, I should've brought Mom down here months ago to slap some sense back into him! Ugh, I'm such a horrible sister…


Ruthlessly forcing down the wave of anger at her stupid wannabe martyr of a big brother and her own spinelessness, Kallen stepped forward into the studio's small living area and scooped her friend up into a warm hug, skipping the customary bow and apparently taking Tanya by surprise, judging by the minute squeak. A moment later, a pair of slim arms snaked around Kallen's back as Tanya returned the hug.


"Happy birthday, Kallen." Tanya muttered. "I am sorry to report that I didn't think to get a gift for the occasion."


Smiling at the blonde's overly formal tone, Kallen responded in kind, affecting a nasal Pendragon-style noble accent not unlike her step-mother's. "And a happy birthday to you, Commander Tanya. You're twelve now, correct?" She chuckled, and squeezed another small squeak out of the other girl before releasing her and stepping back a pace. "Congratulations on another year. I've got a sack of ground beans straight from Area 6 back at the Manor with your name on it!"


Tanya's crystal blue eyes opened comically wide, and Kallen had to resist the urge to laugh at her enthusiasm. The poor girl's probably been coffee-less for months! "Th-thank you for your gift, Kallen. You did an excellent job picking it out." Tanya's brow abruptly furrowed as she scowled ferociously up at Kallen, but her eyes still glittered with pleasure and amusement. "Don't think you can bribe your way out of your report, though!" Same old Tanya - always trying to be professional! It kinda makes her look a bit silly sometimes… Silly and… kinda cute…


"Wouldn't dream of it!" Kallen replied, giving into her darkest impulses in front of such an adorable menace and tousling Tanya's sunny head. Tanya's scowl deepened, but she made no attempt to evade Kallen's hand, stoically enduring the headpats even as her blush darkened and deepened. Seeing her clear embarrassment, Kallen abruptly felt ashamed of herself and jerked her hand away from Tanya's surprisingly soft hair. What the hell, Kallen? You don't like it when Milly touches you, so why would Tanya like you touching her?


Aware of the sudden shameful heat spreading across her own cheeks, Kallen desperately tried to find a way to exit the suddenly awkward situation. A second later, her gaze landed on her brother, and she abruptly remembered that she was supposed to be angry at him. Oh, remembered that, did you? An inner voice jeered as Kallen's blood started to heat back up. You've been stewing on it for months, and it went right out the window! And isn't anger so much easier to deal with! You know how to be angry – after all, you've been angry for years… Since Daddy abandoned you and then came back years later like it was all okay!


"I'll start my report as soon as I've given my brother the friendly greeting he's definitely earned!" Kallen snarled, forcing that hateful nagging voice that sounded amazingly like her step mother back down. Ignoring Tanya's sudden look of confusion, Kallen stalked past the girl and over to the table, dropping down into the empty seat across from Naoto.


"Hey there, Sis," Naoto smiled as he greeted her. He sounded a bit raspy, but his voice was still strong. Surprisingly, something about it reminded Kallen of their father. And just like Dad, he's trying to push me away and leave me alone. Dammit, Naoto!


Kallen took a breath, but found the calming technique didn't reduce her anger in the slightest. It did, however, chill the molten rage she felt at Naoto running off to endanger his life yet again while insisting she remain safe and secure in the Manor that certainly wasn't home to the Stadtfeld family, to say nothing of the Kozukis.


"I bet you didn't think about Mom at all when you decided to work yourself to death, did you?" Kallen began, ignoring his greeting. "I'm sure there were always very important things to do instead of sleeping, and surely taking the time to shower and eat would have led to the final victory of Britannia."


Taking another breath, Kallen continued her tirade, venting three months of worried anger and loneliness. "You promised me, Naoto! You promised me you'd treat me like an adult and stop trying to leave me safe at home! You promised me I'd be a part of this! And then you just dropped off the map for almost three months! Inoue only ever gave me the big picture, but even then I still knew you were risking your life and overworking yourself, just like always!"


Abruptly as always, Kallen's anger burnt itself out, leaving her with the ashes of numbing grief and a sense of emotional exhaustion. I can't stay angry at him… He's worked himself to the bone for months for Japan, and for me and Mom, but…


"Why didn't you ask me for help?" Kallen asked, voice low and uncomfortably husky, "Why don't you ever ask me for help? What the hell is the point of winning our freedom if you're not there to enjoy it with me, Big Bro? I know I had my own work, but… I could've helped out, somehow. And Mom's worried sick, Naoto. First you didn't call when the Christmas thing went down, and then you didn't call her for the next four months… You haven't visited her since October, Naoto…"


After a moment, Naoto slowly reached out across the table and took one of Kallen's hands between his own. Kallen was tempted to jerk her hand away from her brother, to reject his touch, but the angry impulse faded away almost immediately. His hands were surprisingly cool against her own, considering how warm the apartment still was in the heat of the late afternoon.


"I'm…" Naoto swallowed slightly before continuing, his speech slow and slurred slightly with fatigue. "I'm sorry, Kallen. I'm sorry that I didn't keep you informed, and I'm sorry that I've been so crap at reaching out to communicate. And… I'm sorry that I've been leaving you and Mom alone for so long. I'll have to reach out to her, see what I can do…"


Almost convulsively, Naoto closed his eyes and swallowed hard, throat visibly working as he sought to master himself. Kallen felt an urge to comfort him, but held fast in her resistance. She was, she reminded herself, still angry with him. It was hard to remember that anger when she felt his hands squeeze hers for a moment before relaxing. Did… Did his hands always shake like that?


Just as the younger Kozuki was starting to get a bit worried about what was going on in her idiot brother's head, his eyes flickered open. The tiredness was still there, but below it was a familiar firmness, the same that she remembered from childhood arguments when she'd tried to follow her brother out into the streets at night. Her heart sank slightly; she had never managed to convince Naoto to let her follow him into danger back then either.


"But I am not sorry about leaving you out of my work in Shinjuku, Kallen. I should have kept talking to you - you're right, I screwed up. But you and I both had jobs to do, and both of them were important. The money your articles brought in was crucial." Naoto's voice was unyielding and unhurried as he presented his case. It was, Kallen realized, like hearing her father speak when he had made up his mind about something - a statement almost more of inevitabilities than possibilities.


Implacable tone or not, Kallen wasn't intimidated by Naoto's attempt to crib notes from their father's speech patterns and tried to interrupt, but Naoto rolled right over her attempt to voice an objection as he continued to speak. "You wanted to be treated like an adult, right? Well, this is what it looks like, Kallen! You don't like your job? Tough. There's nobody else who has the right background or connections, so you don't have much of a choice. I can find plenty of people who are just as good or better than you at fighting – I can't find anyone else who can listen to bratty nobles gossiping without suspicion, or who can put sympathetic stories out into the Britannian media environment!"


"Well, what about finding someone to take care of you, Naoto?!" Kallen shot back, yanking her hand free of her brother's grasp as she angrily came to her feet, hands planted on the table and leaning over her still seated brother. "Did you think about that, huh? Look at you, you're a fucking mess! Everybody I saw coming into Shinjuku looked like they'd gained weight since I was last here, but you look like you've lost ten kilos, and you didn't have much to lose to begin with!"


Any concerns Kallen might have had about making a scene in front of Tanya and Ohgi had been shattered by Naoto's seeming inability to understand just how fucking concerning it was to watch your beloved older brother work himself to death. "You fucking idiot, Big Bro! Don't you see you're risking your life here? How the fuck are you gonna help Japan if you're too weak to lift a gun!? What the fuck do you think I'd do if you died, you… You stupid idiot!"


"Anything for the Cause. Anything for a free Japan. Isn't that right, Kallen?" Naoto smiled wryly up at Kallen as he threw Tanya's words, the phrases that had served as her mantra through the endless annoyances of Ashford Academy, back in her face. "Every hour our people are enslaved is one hour too many – a few sleepless nights isn't so heavy a price to pay."


It was, in Kallen's opinion, a low blow to invoke the logic Tanya had used to convince her to stay in Ashford in their current fight. I just want you to take care of yourself and let me help you, you fool! Can't you see that? Before she could say, or more accurately scream, her thoughts right back into Naoto's face, both Kozuki siblings were distracted by the flat crack of an open hand slapping down on the table between them.


As one, both Kozukis turned and looked at the very unimpressed blonde standing next to them. "Now that I have your attention," Tanya began, looking from Naoto to Kallen and back, "please wrap up this touching family reunion and get to your report, Kallen."


Internally cursing her fair skin once again as she felt the radiant heat of embarrassment spread across her cheeks and neck, Kallen coughed and straightened up, looking away from both Tanya and Naoto. "Fine, I think I've made my point." She hesitated for a moment, but turned back to Naoto and muttered "It's good to see you again, Big Bro… Looks like you've accomplished a ton. Good work."


Naoto smiled at her, leaning back in his chair and slouching into a more relaxed position as the tension eased. "Thank you, Kallen. I know you've been really busy too, so how about you tell Tanya all about the progress you've made?"


Accepting the implicit peace offering, Kallen lowered herself back into her seat as Tanya joined them at the table. She had to focus. Now that all the pleasantries, including a chat with Big Bro, were done with - Kallen closed her eyes - I have a job to do.


Letting herself sink fully into her insurrectionist persona for the first time in months, she mentally peeled away all other aspects of her character; sister, daughter, diligent student and junior reporter. Trying to return to the purity of purpose she'd felt standing in that gruesome subway station, to the moment when Tanya had demanded the deaths of everybody who still drew breath. I am a professional, doing whatever I must for The Cause. Japan will live again.


The Revolutionary opened her eyes, and nodded towards her commander. "Over the last three months, I have made significant inroads into the student social scene of Ashford Academy, in large part due to association with the Ashford Gazette. I have further deepened my connection with Rivalz Cardemonde and worked to bring him deeper into the Rising Sun's fold. Unexpectedly, improving my relationship with him has also boosted my social status at the Academy."


Tanya's eyes sharpened with interest, and she unconsciously leaned slightly in towards Kallen. "I was under the impression that Mister Cardemonde was the ne'er-do-well son of minor nobility. But if associating with him is improving your public profile, there must be more to him than meets the eye."


"Just so," Kallen nodded, "in fact, it turns out that Cardemonde isn't even his real name; apparently, his parents despise each other, and he sided with his mother and took her maiden name. Despite this lack of family unity, he somehow got onto the Student Council as the secretary."


Kallen suddenly hesitated, realizing that Tanya probably didn't understand why that was important or surprising. She didn't even get to the sixth grade before the Conquest, so there's no way she'd know what an ordinary student council does, much less understand Ashford's true center of power! Though why does this logic sound so hollow here? Anyway…


"So," Kallen began, speaking slowly as she tried to explain why a group of students had so much power without sounding silly, "in most schools, the Student Council isn't very important. They mostly handle extracurricular matters, school events, and maybe some light administrative work. At Ashford Academy, Milly Ashford is the Council President, and since she's the Principal's granddaughter, she can more or less do as she pleases. Which means that the Council can open or shut clubs, dole out discretionary budgets, proclaim new events on a whim… Even disrupt classes if she pleases."


Kallen paused for a moment, then decided to hammer the point home. "Sitting on the Council is a big deal, which makes Rivalz being involved a surprise."


Honestly, that doesn't even begin to cover it. If push comes to shove, they've got more authority than the teachers themselves. The Principal indulges Milly way too much…


"So," Tanya began, frowning in concentration, "this Student Council has real power, despite being populated by students, and somehow a social nonentity like Mister Cardemonde ended up on the board. And because of his prestigious position, as well as his access to the budgets, you are benefitting from being publicly associated with him?"


"Partially," Kallen nodded, "He also has a generally friendly personality, and seems to know everybody to one degree or another. So everybody knows and generally likes him in return. Unfortunately, my association with him hasn't been a complete plus…" Kallen paused for a fortifying breath, and continued. "So, it somehow got out that I was with him when he got hurt. Worse, he must have told someone all about our trip on Christmas, because everybody knows that I was the one responsible for him being in the Honorary Britannian district on Boxing Day in the first place."


"…Judging by your lack of urgency, I assume that your cover is still intact despite this?" Tanya inquired, raising a dispassionate eyebrow. Despite her cool tone, Kallen could detect a faint note of concern. Whew! She's not angry!


"Yes. No need to worry about that." Kallen confidently replied, "No, the real problem with that information getting out was Milly, just like it always is with anything that happens in that damned Academy. It turns out that 'Miss President' didn't like having one of her private toys damaged." Kallen hesitated, torn between her dislike of the Ashford heiress and her duty to report what she had seen to her leader as accurately as possible. After a moment, her duty won out, and the student insurgent reluctantly admitted the truth. "Actually, that's… Not quite right. As much as I don't want to give her any credit, I think my original opinion of Milly might have been… wrong. Partially."


"She is definitely a spoiled brat who has no idea how good she has it. She's way too handsy, and she loves manipulating people – so she's definitely a Britannian noble – but…" Kallen sighed, irritated with herself as well as the absent noble. Dammit! I hate being wrong! "But she really does seem to care about the students at her family's school. At least," she hedged, "when she's not the one messing with them."


Shortly after the New Year, Kallen had dropped by the Student Council's clubhouse to drop off some forms regarding the school paper's budget. Almost the instant she had entered the Council's meeting room, Kallen had come face to face with Milly Ashford. The blonde's typical leering smile was nowhere to be seen, and before she knew what was happening, Kallen found herself maneuvered into a side room for a "quick chat" over tea.


The ensuing interrogation had been surprisingly competent and thorough. For the first time, Milly hadn't made a single joke or a pass at Kallen, and had kept her wandering hands by her sides. While the lack of casual sexual harassment had been a welcome surprise, Kallen found that she almost preferred it to the icy formality. I never realized that being called "Lady Stadtfeld" could feel less comfortable than "Hot Stuff". Ugh…


After serving tea without so much as bothering to ask how Kallen took it - "Two sugars, isn't it? No need to bother, I already know" - Milly had, in the politest terms possible and with the cold confidence of a queen on her throne, demanded an explanation.


"Did you have any idea what you were doing, Lady Stadtfeld?" Despite the blonde's perfect genteel poise - little finger primly extruded as she sipped from her cup, Kallen was somehow intimidated. "I suspect not - after all, what finely bred lady would knowingly hare off to a violence-racked common neighborhood with only a fellow student for company?"


The cup had clicked against the bone-white china saucer, and Kallen fought the anger that instinctually rose to counter her worry. 'Either you are not a true noble daughter of Britannia,' the insinuation hung in the air like the Sword of Damocles, 'or you acted in a singularly foolish manner. Which was it, Lady Stadtfeld?'


Kallen had answered truthfully and told Milly that she had known that some Honorary Britannians had been attacked, and that she had seen the smoke rising, but she hadn't known how intense the violence had been. She had been equally truthful in stating that she certainly hadn't intended to expose Rivalz to anything like the aftermath of a murder, leaving out the detail that the exposure had been a net positive for her and an unexpected bonus to bringing Rivalz along with her.


"So you truly were a fool." The rebuke had cut surprisingly deep. For a moment, it wasn't Milly chiding Kallen for her choices, but the faceless lady-in-waiting who had tutored her in noble etiquette and conduct on the orders of her father.


Thankfully, Milly had decided to believe her protestations that she hadn't expected anything along the lines of a public lynching. Instead, the student president had settled for explaining how unhappy she was with the risk to members of her student body, and with how concerned she was about Rivalz, who apparently was having trouble sleeping now. Kallen had made the appropriate noises of concern and sympathy, trying her best to indicate her submission and contrition until the Ashford heiress's harangue finally wound down.


Just as the tea had grown cold and Kallen had been certain that the conversation was over, Milly had managed to well and truly undermine Kallen's understanding of her character. While the head of the student council was just as cold and formal as she had been throughout their little tete-a-tete, she had rather directly asked Kallen if she was okay in the aftermath of her experience, and if she needed any legal or medical help.


"Fool or not, you're a student of Ashford as well, Lady Stadtfeld," Milly pointed out, "and as the elected head of the student body as well as the granddaughter of the Director, it is my job to make sure that you are happy, healthy, and ready to learn." Milly had reclined back into her chair, hands tented below her chin. "If you need help with anything, even the consequences of your own poorly thought out actions, I'm here for you. Besides…" A hint of Milly's usual smirk touched her face for an instant, "some mistakes can be pretty fun, just as long as you don't get caught."


Initially, Kallen thought that this was another veiled threat, one too subtle for her to pick up, but Milly's concern had bled out around the icy noble mask. Plus, the fact that she just slipped up and made yet another sex joke makes it unlikely that she's actually some sort of social chessmaster. Kallen could only conclude that she was, in fact, sincere, and that somewhere along the way she had misunderstood Milly Ashford. She was still a pain in the ass, overly talkative and likely a pervert, but she wasn't the cold-hearted manipulator Kallen had thought she was.


They had returned to the meeting room in silence. Kallen had quickly handed over the documents that had brought her to the clubhouse in the first place to Shirley Fenette, the Council's treasurer, before all but fleeing from the seat of Milly's power as quickly as she could without abandoning the pretense of ladylike behavior.


"…So, I managed to dodge any official punishment," Kallen summed up, "although Milly's been a bit distant since then. She was actually cold enough to me in public on a few occasions to get some idiots gossiping about what had happened between us, but after Rivalz started improving, she just got distant." Kallen shrugged, still not entirely sure how she felt about the development. On one hand, it meant Milly had stopped trying to grope her whenever they met; on the other, it was almost certain that Milly wouldn't be passing any information along, much less taking her into her confidences and giving her access to the Academy's files.


Pity, that. And just when Milly finally showed a trace of not being a complete bitch too.


"Fortunately, seeing something real for the first time in his life wasn't enough to scare Rivalz off. He approached me right before the first weekend in February and asked if the people from the neighborhood we'd visited still needed help, and if he could do anything."


Rivalz hadn't been subtle in his approach either. Just as Kallen had been making her way out of the Science Wing at the start of the lunch period, he had stepped out of the crowd of milling students and asked her whether or not the place they'd been at still looked like charred garbage.


The very public question had left Kallen momentarily shaken and unsure how to answer; and just like always, the younger Stadtfeld had immediately responded to uncertainty with anger. "He was really lucky we were in public, or I might've knifed him," she admitted, shaking her head ruefully. "I thought he was mocking me, or trying to make me look like a sympathizer in front of everybody. I mean, who asks something like that in front of an entire crowd of gossipy students, right?"


Kallen had thankfully managed to master her anger before she'd lashed out. She'd automatically uttered some vague platitude to publicly answer Rivalz's question, hopefully heading off any curiosity from the onlookers, before making a bid for privacy by asking if he wouldn't mind joining her for lunch. The susurration of not-so-quiet whispers from the ring of students very deliberately not looking their way at the invitation had nearly been enough to set her off again, but fortunately Rivalz's jerky nod of acceptance drew her attention back to the main priority, and to her mission.


The lunch conversation had been a tense situation for all involved. Rivalz had been twitchy and uncharacteristically irritable, and while Kallen was no longer as on-edge as she had been early on in her career as a spy, the fear of discovery remained a constant companion. Neither ate well, picking at their respective meals as Kallen tried to fill Rivalz in with as many details as she could without sounding suspiciously well-informed. To her pleased surprise, not only did Rivalz no longer look haunted by his month-old trauma, he seemed determined to truly join the organization he nominally headed in helping out the poor and destitute of Tokyo.


"I told him a bit about the Rising Sun," Kallen recounted, "but since he was the first Britannian noble to actually take an interest, I also told him a bit about how the rot went way beyond just the public beatings and the mob violence." The noble half-Britannian shrugged, somewhat bashful under Tanya's approving look, "It wasn't a hard sell – everybody knows how corrupt some of the nobles are, since they don't bother hiding it."


"Anyway," Kallen continued briskly, "while he definitely agreed that noble corruption was a problem, he didn't get how it related to what we'd seen. I explained that one of the Rising Sun's problems was getting enough money to pay the bribes we needed to get food and supplies to the Honorary Britannians. He understood that easily enough - handouts are universal, after all - but it took some effort to explain how the petty street level stuff isn't the real issue. I mean, I hadn't really expected him to know that only Britannians could file permits for public assembly and food distribution with the Tokyo Settlement Administration, like what I did while setting the Rising Sun up, but it was difficult to explain to him why this was a problem."


It had been a long conversation, one that extended beyond the lunch period and into a meeting in a café after school. Rivalz's unflagging interest had been flattering, in an odd way. The usual goofy behavior slipped out now and again, but for the most part he had remained laser focused on Kallen's descriptions of how the Area's system was set up to hamstring any effort to improve the lives of any but the powerful.


Teaching a Britannian noble to critically examine the society he had been raised in had been a novel experience for the half-Japanese girl as well. To her gratified surprise, while Rivalz occasionally displayed the casual racism inherent to Britannian culture, he didn't seem to mean any of it particularly personally. Each time he had said something about "the Elevens", Kallen had pointed out that the Honorary Britannians were of the same stock as the Numbers, but by Rivalz own admission were hard workers and worthy citizens of Britannia. Thankfully, Rivalz hadn't pushed back on these assertions, and had seemed preoccupied and thoughtful by the time Kallen had bid him goodbye.


"It was strange," Kallen admitted, "meeting a Britannian who really seemed to want to help out. I don't know if he really got everything – I caught him staring at my chest a few times, and sometimes I think he was just nodding along, but he really seemed to want to help out."


Naoto looked vaguely murderous, bloodshot eyes narrowing with irritation. "Did he do anything but look? Boy or not, noble or not, if he does, you tell me about it and…"


"And what, deny the Rising Sun the benefits of having another Britannian agent – this one full-blooded – with money and access?" Her professional persona slipped away for a moment as Kallen turned to her brother, unimpressed with his interruption. "Even if he had, you were too busy not answering my texts to do anything! Besides, Mom told me all about what you and Ohgi got up to in high school, so you've got no right to give me or Rivalz any crap!"


Making a vague warding gesture, Naoto leaned back in his chair, away from Kallen. "Alright, alright, geez. You know how to handle yourself, I got it. Just… Let me know if you need help or anything, okay?"


With a huff, Kallen turned back to Tanya and smiled apologetically. "Anyway, I figured that having someone else on board who could help me purchase supplies would be a good thing – besides, the fact that Rivalz already has a driver's license meant that he could rent trucks too, further increasing his value."


"Not to mention his value as a high value courier," Tanya mused, "between that motorcycle of his and his noble status, he would be highly mobile and likely above suspicion. Certainly not likely to be targeted for random harassment or searches, at least."


"That's a good idea," Kallen nodded, pleased that Tanya at least was focusing on important matters, "But my greatest concern was frightening him off by dumping too much responsibility on him at once, so I started slow. I told him about the communal dinner coming up the next Friday and invited him to attend. I told him he could just help serve and maybe talk to the people who came, listen to what they had to say."


That first meeting had set the hook. Rivalz had been somewhat stiff and standoffish at the beginning of the dinner, an attitude somewhat reflected back by the Honorary Britannians who were understandably wary of any strange Britannian appearing amongst them.


Fortunately, as he'd grown more comfortable with dishing out the chicken and vegetable soup, Rivalz had unbent, and by the end of the evening was eagerly helping out with the cleanup and chatting amiably with a number of Honorary Britannians. He'd even gone as far as helping out a small boy with his Britannian homework, correcting grammatical mistakes and complimenting the kid on his handwriting.


"After the third meeting, I approached him for a potential interview for the Ashford Gazette," Despite her certainty that it had been a good idea, Kallen found herself feeling slightly apprehensive; it had been a risky decision for a number of reasons, and it could still blow up in their faces even now, months in the past. "Considering his noble heritage, friendly personality, and social connections, I figured that Rivalz would be a good tool for recruiting other potentially sympathetic Britannians. Besides, I hoped that having a relatively clean-cut young Britannian noble speaking on the record about the Rising Sun would help bring in donations."


Realizing she'd begun to nervously accelerate, Kallen took a breath and forced herself to slow down. So far, Tanya hadn't shown any reaction to her decision, neither positive or negative. The almost feline inscrutability was getting under Kallen's skin, but she saw no other option but to plow on with her explanation. "He agreed to the interview, and I wrote a nice puff piece around a few quotes. I made sure to emphasize his noble heritage and paternalistic motivations. I couched it all on the idea that since Honorary Britannians are legally Britannian citizens, improving their lives will accelerate their integration into the Area's culture and economy."


Across the table, Tanya was still sphinx-like in her lack of expression. Kallen gulped slightly, and made her final push. "And… I took a picture of him patting one of the Honorary Britannian kids on the head while I had the boy hold up his Britannian workbook up to the camera, complete with the mother thanking Rivalz from the other side of the frame. Trying to emphasize the idea of the 'Noble Civilizing Britannian Gentleman', y'know… Surrounded by the people he's teaching to be good Britannians…"


To Kallen's great relief, Tanya finally nodded. Just once, but enough to lift a weight from Kallen's shoulders. Yes! She's on-board! Kallen hadn't been afraid of Tanya's wrath; the idea that her friend would actually get angry at her over a reasonable decision she'd made was laughable. The prospect of her best friend and mentor's disappointment had been, on the other hand, a real source of worry for Kallen since the day of the interview.


Before Kallen could fully release the anxiety that had haunted her for the past two months, Tanya spoke up. "You do realize," the leader of the Kozuki Organization pointed out conversationally, "that publicizing Mr. Cardemonde's connection to the Rising Sun Benevolent Association, a charity group catering to Japanese and Honorary Britannians, has likely demolished any future the boy might have had in any position of power, and may also have brought him to the attention of state security organizations?"


"Yes, I do," Kallen replied firmly. And I've been planning for that question for weeks now! "I also understand the danger that publicly connecting Rivalz to the Rising Sun poses to both the Rising Sun, and to me personally. But I thought the risk was worth it, in part because of some factors that I don't think you've considered, Tanya."


"Well, you are the Britannian specialist here," the other girl mused, "so you're probably correct about that. What factors am I missing, Kallen?"


"First, you don't fully understand Britannia." Kallen hoped that statement hadn't been too confrontational; it hadn't sounded quite that aggressive when she'd recited it in her head. Too late now. "I'm not trying to be insulting," she hedged, trying to walk back the extra assertiveness a bit, "but your Britannian parent wasn't around when you were little and your only real exposure to Britannian culture before we met was through the School for Elevens. So… You've really only seen Britannian culture from the outside and through propaganda."


Tanya stilled for a moment, before nodding. "I learned many things from the School for Elevens, but few of them have proven to be true." She smiled slightly, and almost looked… nostalgic? "I think it was the only time I've ever been happy to be a blonde."


Was… was that a joke? On the rare occasions Tanya wandered away down tangents, it was difficult to tell how seriously she meant anything that she said. While Kallen could usually pick up on the other half-Britannian's frequently dry humor, the sometimes-whimsical tone of her recollections made it tricky to tell the difference between sincerity and a subtle joke. Still beats the times she just stares off into space though.


"Anyway," Kallen bulled on through the awkward pause, determined to continue her explanation, "Britannian culture is nowhere near as monolithic and united as the government makes it out to be, and I'm not even just talking about class stuff either. The Empire covers something like a third of the world, and Pendragon can't have eyes everywhere. There's lots of regional differences across the Areas, some dating all the way back to before they were Areas. Especially in the other new Areas, like Area Ten."


"And that's not even factoring in all the noble politics," Naoto butted in, "The way Father talks about it, there's lots of competition in the nobility, some of it tied to stuff like backing different noble or imperial heirs, some of it tied to more philosophical divides. Lots of the families that talk about the "civilizing power of Empire" are just using ideology as a way of joining a court clique - gotta talk the talk in public to really prove your membership. They're doing it for the same cynical reasons they do everything else - access to power, signaling loyalty, all that bullshit."


"But," Naoto leaned forward, resting his arms against the table, "while every noble's a bullshit artist, not all of them are purely liars. At least, not all the time. There are lots of nobles who truly believe in the 'Britannian Burden' to civilize the world, both here in Japan and back in the Homeland, for one reason or another. Most nobles are cynical about that idea, but plenty are sincere enough to pony up cash to support charitable efforts."


"Plenty are sincere, but that doesn't mean that they don't have some sort of angle," Kallen muttered, snorting contemptuously. "It's the old carrot and stick thing, and the Purists have the stick all staked out. Plus, since the Purists are all about keeping Honorary Britannians out of the military, all of the other factions at court have a reason to keep up the Honorary program."


"So that's where your donations came from?" Tanya nodded, apparently answering her own question. "That's very interesting indeed… Playing different noble factions off one another and using philanthropy as an instrument of political power…" Tanya's voice tapered off, and for a moment she looked right through Kallen, before blinking and coming back. "Please continue, Kallen."


Emboldened, Kallen did just that. "Second, I think that making Rivalz's involvement public on our terms was beneficial for multiple reasons. If someone found the documents I'd filed with the Administration and started wondering why Rivalz wasn't bragging about sponsoring a charity for the social cachet, that could have been a problem. Also, if people thought he was trying to keep it quiet, they might have started wondering if it would be good blackmail material, which might have led to more people asking questions."


"Best way to deal with a trap is springing it on your own terms," Oghi opined, nodding approvingly at Kallen, "now people will just think he's just a young idiot trying to impress a girl through volunteer work, especially if he keeps being seen in public with our very own 'Lady Stadtfeld'."


"Exactly! Also, having a Britannian face for the Rising Sun will likely lower suspicion about it in general. If everybody's thinking of it as a noble's ego project, they won't notice that the rest of the organization's members are Japanese – Numbers, not even Honoraries!" Kallen beamed at Ohgi, happy enough that he'd seen where she was going to ignore his use of her official title. "Rivalz is also just a goofy enough guy that I think anybody looking into him will think that he's a fool – the fact that he actually is a fool will definitely help sell that impression. And then, they'll dismiss him and the Rising Sun as anything important."


Naoto laughed at the last point. "Harsh, little sister! There's no need to burn our illustrious chairman like that!"


Ignoring her brother, Kallen laid out the final, more personal reason she thought the danger was minimal. "Third… I don't think that anyone's going to investigate me on just suspicion alone. My – our – family," she gestured at Naoto, "are a bit more important than Rivalz's family. Dad's got lots of… friends, both here and back in the Homeland. Nobody's going to mess with me unless they've got something more solid than student journalism. Not on my own account, at least. Dad might have some enemies… I dunno…"


Kallen shivered under Tanya's suddenly cold stare, and practically wilted with relief when that alien glare moved on to her brother, before freezing back up as it swung around to her. "You know," Tanya mused contemplatively, "there are plenty of questions which I'd like to have answers for in regards to your father, but it occurred to me that powerful men rarely enjoy having their secrets spread without their permission."


Tanya's eyes, blue as the Pacific and equally cold, moved back to Kallen's brother. "I have held myself back, partially out of that concern, but also out of the trust I have in both of you. That said, this latest move goes beyond passive intelligence gathering in the Britannian sphere; it touches on politics. Naoto, I trust you and your sister, but I cannot operate blindly here. Is there anything that I should know, or need to know, about your father?"


Naoto shot a quick look at Kallen, though Kallen didn't know what for, before turning back to Tanya and shrugging. "He's ex-military, and apparently had a pretty good record before he retired. He hasn't told me much about his career, and I didn't ask before he left us the first time, or when he came back to bring Kallen into the fold. I know we've got some uncles and aunts back in the Homeland that I've never met. I just know that they were the ones who pressured him to marry the bitch, even though he's the head of House Stadtfeld." He shrugged again. "Apart from that… I dunno, he's pretty busy back in the Homeland. Lots of irons in the fire. Who knows what he's up to?"


Something seemed to click behind Tanya's eyes. The glacial chill disappeared, replaced by a calculating stare that vanished almost instantly, masked by her typical expression of interested neutrality. "I see… Very wise." What the hell did she just get from that? Kallen could only wonder what connection Tanya had come to from Naoto's comments. Hopefully she'll share whatever she just learned with me.


"Kallen, you were right." Kallen blinked at the blunt admission, and scrambled for an instant to figure out what Tanya was conceding. "You had good reason to involve Mr. Cardemonde in publicizing our group, and doing so forwarded our aims. I'll admit, you had a better grasp of the situation and its risks than I did. Please," she gestured, "continue your report."


Kallen took a moment, trying to remember where she'd been in her report before the tangent. Something about the interview… "Ah, that's right. So, there was a dangerous moment at the fourth meeting Rivalz showed up to. I thought he was busy helping out with the dishes, so I'd gone to check in with Inoue about how things were going in Shinjuku, because someone" Kallen glared at her brother for a moment, "wasn't telling me anything. Unfortunately, Rivalz finished cleaning up faster than I had expected, and he walked right in on our conversation. Our Japanese conversation."


It had been a heart stopping moment for Kallen, and probably also for Inoue. They had gone a block down from the park where the weekly communal meal was served and around a corner to talk, but some helpful fool had pointed Rivalz their way when he'd asked where Kallen had gone. It had been yet another of the many times Rivalz had unknowingly avoided death at Kallen's hand – when Rivalz had popped his head around the corner and asked what they were talking about, Kallen had frozen, trapped between the need to murder the interloping invader before he could blow her cover and the knowledge of the bloody revenge the murder of a friendly young noble would inspire.


Caught between two deeply unpalatable choices, Kallen had unintentionally given Rivalz the time he needed to unknowingly salvage the whole affair. Instead of accusing Kallen of rebel sympathies and vowing to go straight to Prince Clovis, Rivalz had immediately and enthusiastically expressed his interest and admiration of Kallen's linguistic abilities. As he'd gushed on and pestered Kallen for Japanese vocabulary, Inoue had faded into the background and slipped away back to Shinjuku with the rest of the Rising Sun volunteers.


"Looking back on it, I suspect showing interest in Japanese was part of his rebellion against his parents," Kallen hypothesized, "since he also said something about how they didn't think that a 'young Britannian gentleman' needed to learn any 'Number mumbo-jumbo.'" It wasn't an uncommon point of view, and in all honesty, it wasn't entirely wrong – the number of Japanese speakers back in the Homeland was probably very small. "At the time, though, I thought it was some kind of trick, especially when he said 'You must really love the Numbers, since you took the time to learn their lingo.'"


"It does have the hallmarks of an implicit threat," Tanya agreed, "the accusation of sympathy for the conquered implies divided loyalties or perhaps weakness. Especially if his parents taught him that learning the language of the conquered is unbecoming of the nobility."


"That's what I thought!" Kallen exclaimed, nodding in emphatic agreement. "I mean, he only told me about the language thing later, but yeah, that's why I thought it was a threat! But funnily enough, his resentment for his parents is how I got out of that whole mess - I told him I'd be in big trouble if my mother learned that I knew Japanese and was using it out in public." Kallen grinned, still pleased with her cleverness. "He was falling over himself to assure me that my secret was safe, and then started talking about his own relationship to his mother and all that. Ten minutes later, I think he'd forgotten about Japanese entirely! He hasn't mentioned it since then, and I haven't heard him say anything about it to anybody else."


"More importantly-" Blinking, Kallen twisted in her chair, looking away from Tanya and towards the other side of the table. For a moment, she'd forgotten that Naoto was still in the room, which was really a testament to how enthusiastic she had been about reporting her movements to Tanya. Now, her brother had straightened up from his exhausted slump and was bolt upright. And oh shit, he looks really pissed. "Why is this the first time I'm hearing about any of this? One of your fellow students and our pet dupe knows that you speak Japanese? And nobody thought this was worth reporting to me before Tanya came back?"


"That seems like a conversation you need to have with Inoue, and perhaps with your other lieutenants." Tanya was calmer, but she didn't look happy either. "Our organization is built on cooperation, mutual trust, and discipline. If Inoue is acting insubordinate and keeping information from you, find out why and act accordingly."


"If you don't mind my opinion," Ohgi jumped into the conversation, "and since Inoue isn't here to defend herself, I think she might have had a reason for not passing the information on to you. I'm not trying to disrespect you, Naoto, but you, uh… You look rough. You even admitted to Kallen that you haven't been sleeping very much. So, you were underslept, you had a ton of work already to handle, and what, Inoue tells you that someone might know something about your sister?" Ohgi shook his head, and patted his friend on the shoulder. "C'mon man, we both know you probably would have throttled the boy yourself, and then where would that leave us?"


Naoto sighed, and slumped back into his chair, rubbing his face. "You've got a point. Ugh… Fine, I'll be polite when I talk to Inoue. She probably had her reasons."


"Either way, we can discuss this further at a later date." Concluding the digression, Tanya turned back to Kallen. "Please, continue your report."


"Well…" Kallen hesitated, taking a moment to remember where she'd been before resuming. "Oh, right! The meeting. So…"


Inoue had, via Kallen, set up a more formal meeting with the figurehead leader of the Benevolent Association to, as Inoue had put it: "Now that he is involved, I'd best get a measure of the boy for myself." Since Inoue could only understand Britannian if it was spoken slowly and simply and Rivalz of course couldn't speak any Japanese, Kallen ended up as a third at the small meeting, acting as an interpreter.


The meeting had started off rather uncomfortably, Kallen explained to Tanya, partially due to the usual awkwardness of first introductions, partially because Inoue had spent years in a ghetto due to the Britannian Conquest and had lost friends, family, and all legal rights in the process. While Inoue was not as vocal in her enmity as Chihiro, Kallen would never mistake Inoue's calm for resignation. Fortunately, Rivalz had managed to find common ground by praising the Rising Sun's operations and asking for more details, effectively breaking the ice to the relief of everybody involved.


After the rocky start, Inoue and Rivalz had gotten along surprisingly well. Inoue was very interested in Rivalz's motorcycle, his pride and joy, and had asked after its maintenance routine through Kallen. Rivalz, for his part, had plenty of questions about the Rising Sun Association, which Inoue had answered via half-truths and stories riddled with careful omissions.


By the end of the meeting, Inoue had felt comfortable enough to ask Rivalz to bring friends with him next time he came to help with the Rising Sun.


"And at the next Friday night dinner, Rivalz brought a friend with him in the sidecar of his motorcycle," Kallen continued, "a friend who is also a member of the Student Council, so another valuable contact. But, well… he's…" Kallen floundered, trying to find the words to express just how creepy she found Lelouch Lamperouge.


"He's an oddball, that one." Even as she said it, Kallen winced. Oddball? Oddball?! That was the best you could come up with? Dammit, Kallen! "Very smart, but he just doesn't act right, you know? Like he's just going through the motions. All the girls at Ashford are head over heels for him, always talking about him, and I just don't get it. He always looks like he's… like he's acting, or something. At least to me."


It was humiliating for Kallen to admit that Lelouch made her skin crawl. Judging by how skinny the boy's wrists were, Kallen had no doubt that she could break him over her knee like a green stick, splintering and all. He hadn't shown any overt hostility to her at school or at the handful of Rising Sun meetings he had attended. He had in fact been scrupulously polite whenever they met, if distant and a bit formal. But still, something about him just made a voice in the back of her head scream "Predator!" whenever they met.


"Think carefully, Kallen," urged Tanya, leaning over the table like a stooping hawk. "When did you first feel uncomfortable around him? Was it tied to any inciting event? Is there any indication that he's gathering intelligence for a third party?"


"No, dammit, nothing like that. That would be easy to explain!" Kallen all but growled with exasperation, before taking a breath in a bid to calm herself back down. "It's… It's probably nothing, but something about him just gets under my skin."


"You should trust your instincts," Ohgi noted, chiming back into the conversation from where he was leaning against the wall. "Usually, there's a reason for why we feel the way we do, even if we can't quite consciously pin it down. If someone feels dangerous, probably best to treat them like they are until proven otherwise."


"Ohgi's right about following your gut," Naoto agreed, "can't tell you how many times acting instinctively has saved my ass. You think that the Britannian hanging around Rivalz is a potential threat? You treat him like a threat until he proves otherwise."


"I'll… keep that in mind." Kallen sighed, irritated at her own paranoid jumpiness as much as she was relieved that her concerns were being taken seriously. "And I'll keep an eye on the guy. It's probably just me, but if he does show any signs of being some kind of spy…"


"...For his sake and our own, let's hope that he isn't." Tanya leaned back in her chair, her frown shifting into an irritated grimace. "He's enrolled at a school for nobles, so he's presumably from a family with the means to pay Ashford tuition and the pull to get their son into the best school in the Area. So, it seems unlikely that he'd be a spy or a police informant, at least in any sort of official capacity. If he was, I doubt his handlers would risk his noble neck by sending him out all alone. That said, a young and ambitious noble might have his own reasons for gathering sensitive information, agent of the state or not. Keep me informed, and like Ohgi said, trust your instincts." Kallen nodded her agreement and Tanya waved at her to continue.


"That covers the basic details of my last few months at Ashford," Kallen concluded. "Thanks to Rivalz, I've made a few more connections, I've continued to solidify my reputation with the student paper, and Milly's backed off a bit. Which brings me to my work out of school with the local papers."


"So," Kallen began, "I had some success doing freelance work, submitting articles to several papers and magazines across the Area. Mostly, I was just writing down and compiling society gossip I picked up at Ashford, but I also sold some articles about local news from the Tokyo Settlement. And those local news articles actually got me a bit of a break in… late January, I think.


"The editor of a local paper offered me an ongoing contract for an article a week on local news, with the option to publish more if they liked anything I sent in." Kallen grimaced, the small victory somewhat bitter in her mouth. "I want to say that he really liked my work, but I think this was Diethard Reid's influence more than anything else."


"The reporter? Well, at least he pays his debts," Tanya muttered after Kallen nodded in confirmation. "It's still an achievement, quid pro quo or not. Congratulations on establishing a steady relationship with a publication, Kallen."


"It's not that impressive," Kallen demurred, flushing slightly at the praise, "It's just a piecework deal, honestly. But I did manage to get a few articles that touched on more serious topics published in February, mostly about the new zoning allowing for industrial construction in some of the former Honorary Britannian neighborhoods and the ongoing wage problem. I threw in some hand wringing about the sudden rash of Leveler graffiti all over the Tokyo Settlement too, just to mix things up a bit so I didn't look too anti-Administration."


Tanya raised an eyebrow. "Leveler?"


"A banned Britannian political movement," Naoto explained. "They've been outlawed for centuries, and probably don't exist anymore, but the nobility still hate and fear them. Not a huge surprise, since their whole platform is the redistribution of wealth and the abolition of social rank."


"Basically that," Kallen confirmed. "Probably just some idiots with a can of paint or two." She carefully didn't remark on the way Tanya's face seemed to twist inwards on itself for a moment before the typical expressionless mask slammed back into place. What was that all about?


"Probably," Tanya agreed, although her calm tone sounded oddly forced in Kallen's ears. "But idiots or not, it's interesting that the nobles would still be afraid of a long-dead band of political dissidents. That might indicate there's still something worth being concerned about, or it might mean that the fear of these 'Levelers' is serving some secondary purpose."


"Either way," Kallen continued with a noncommittal shrug, "the editor liked my articles enough to take a chance, so he published a three-part series I'd written about the after effects of the Christmas Incident. It helped that I didn't mention the Incident directly, since the viceregal decree banning public mention of it is still in effect. I didn't get credited for any of the three, but that might have been a blessing in disguise."


"I certainly think so," Tanya replied snappishly. "That seems a bit overt, Kallen. What did your articles say?"


"Nothing to do with us!" Kallen hastily reassured her leader, "but all the knock-on stuff, the waves that are hitting the Britannian bastards themselves."


Seeing that Tanya wasn't reassured, Kallen took a breath and tried to summarize her mini-series. "The first article was on the impact that so many small businesses going out of business all at once had on municipal taxes and property values.


"The second article was on the sudden unemployment of all the people who used to work at those businesses and the way they're not contributing to the local economy any more since they don't have any money. Also, how they're now competing for jobs that are available, driving wages down.


"The third article was on the public health impacts of all the derelict buildings. Only thirty percent had been rebuilt by late March, and all of the damaged buildings that haven't been demolished yet, are too dangerous to enter. Not to mention that some of them are full of rats and cockroaches, both of which are breeding like crazy. And, while I wasn't able to find any data about an uptick in hospital admissions, all that damaged plumbing has gotta be draining somewhere or it's just like how it was in Shinjuku, and there'll be a bunch of fetid pools as soon as the monsoon comes back."


By the time she was nearly breathless and thankfully done speaking, her audience of three looked gratifyingly impressed. "That sounds like it took a bunch of work to write, Kallen!" Ohgi praised, "Where did you get all of your information from?"


"Yes, I'm curious about how you sourced the data too," Tanya cut in. "Also, what was the readership's reaction to your series? It sounds significantly different from the typical contents of a local newspaper, especially in an Area governed by a dandy who can't stand criticism."


"Long story short, I had some help," Kallen admitted. "One of the girls from the student paper apparently helps her father with his business taxes, and knew where I should look for current tax assessment data, which led me to the plot purchase information. The unemployment figures are publicly available, if probably somewhat inaccurate. The actual analysis, though? Well, I met this girl named Nina who is apparently some kind of super genius when it comes to mathematics. I asked her for help, and she just took my data and came back a day later with everything done and neatly typed up."


The contrast between the very organized and detailed report and Nina's trembling hands as she held it up like an offering to Kallen had been very amusing. It had taken serious self-control on Kallen's part not to laugh at the shy girl when she'd handed over the thick folder holding her findings. Nina hadn't even made eye contact during the exchange - every time she had tried, she just flushed and looked away, glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose. "She was very helpful, and did it all for free. I even asked if she wanted a favor or something after she came back, but…" Kallen shrugged, baffled. "She just squeaked and ran away when I offered. No clue what her deal is."


"Unfortunately," Kallen continued, ignoring the juvenile chuckling coming from Naoto and Ohgi, "while the initial publication was approved, whatever part of the Administration manages the Area's media later changed its mind. That day's edition got retracted from the official archives and the paper was issued an official warning. We either got lucky or someone bribed one of the officials, so that's all that happened and I'm still welcome to submit articles to the paper. Just on different topics, since the editor made it clear that I'm on thin ice."


"Later retractions or not, it's interesting that the local media were willing to take the chance of official censure at all," Tanya mused, gazing off into the middle distance and rubbing her chin as she thought aloud. "From what I've seen of most Britannian media, they seem very solicitous for official approval. On the other hand, considering Mister Reid's eagerness to purchase your interview and photographs, there's clearly a demand for less sanitized content…"


Tanya's eyes snapped back to Kallen. "Regardless, congratulations. It sounds like you wrote a very substantive series, and I am impressed that it saw the light of day for even a brief moment. I would love to read your articles myself when I get the opportunity."


Before Kallen could stop blushing and stutter out her thanks, the tidal wave of praise rolled on. "Overall, it sounds like you have been very hard at work, Kallen. You have continued to perform exceedingly well as our eyes and ears in the Britannian world, both as a student and as a journalist. That you've managed to find the time to continue making purchases for Rising Sun, to say nothing of actually helping out at the communal dinners outside of Shinjuku, is truly impressive." Tanya paused, and to Kallen's delight, smiled with pride at her! "Well done, Kallen. Very well done."


"I-i… It's…" Kallen swallowed, eyes glued on Tanya's as she tried to suppress her fervent desire to leap from her chair and dance around in celebration at the praise. Professional! You are a professional! If you don't act professional, Tanya won't approve! "It was nothing. I am proud to have contributed to the Organization, and to the Cause."


A snort of laughter broke her concentration, and Kallen blushed anew as she realized that she had momentarily forgotten the two men in the room, both of whom were doing a poor job hiding laughter in sudden coughing fits.


"Well, you will have plenty of opportunities to contribute even more to the Cause in the near future," Tanya replied, pausing to shoot a disdainful look at Ohgi and Naoto, sobering the pair back up. "We all will."


"Why do you say that, Tanya?" Naoto asked, exhausted jocularity receding as his eyes suddenly came alert again. "Is something about to happen?"


"I believe so," Tanya replied, before grimacing again, "but I don't know anything for certain. It's just a feeling that things are likely to get worse in Area 11 before they get better. Especially if the unemployment situation is as bad as Kallen is making it sound – lots of idle men standing around, full to the brim with ethnic tensions? That's a recipe for civil unrest if I've ever heard one. Couple that with our friends in the JLF stirring the pot out in Niigata and Toyama?"


Kallen joined Naoto and Ohgi in nodding along as Tanya continued to pontificate. "If Clovis doesn't make a big move soon, he'll start to look ineffectual and powerless. He'll look weak, and no Britannian or politician can stand to look weak. If he doesn't look like he's able to hold the Area together, the Viceroy will have to start worrying about palace coups, or potentially being replaced by a sibling from the Homeland. After all, nothing can be allowed to endanger the flow of Sakuradite. Which means that Clovis has to make a move, and soon."


Tanya's words hung heavily in the silence of the studio apartment. Kallen swallowed hard, trying not to let the sudden anxiety spiking in her gut slip into her voice. "Sounds like we'll have a busy summer ahead of us, huh?"


Tanya smirked at that. "Oh yes, very busy indeed. Luckily for you, Kallen, I've already got plans for you. Tell me, does Ashford have a summer break? If so, when does it start?"


"Uhh…" Said Kallen eloquently, trying to remember the school calendar. "I think the end of May? Maybe the first week of June? And then it goes through the end of August."


"Good!" Tanya replied with a degree of enthusiasm Kallen found disquieting. "I would have hated for you to miss any school! Education is very important, which is why I will be sending you to The School."


Before Kallen could fully absorb that surprise, Tanya continued. "I would have liked to send you as part of one of the training cohorts, but you have amassed enough unique skills in the human intelligence field that I can't afford to give you the luxury of a standard training pace. You have three months of summer, and I want you to spend at least two of them teaching our comrades everything you can about the art of collecting gossip, sorting out useful intelligence, social interrogation, and other topics. Even information about Britannian fashion or noble culture could be useful, and should be added to the institutional knowledge of the Organization."


"But Tanya," Ohgi interrupted, "training at The School is supposed to last for three months, right? Kallen's not going to be able to get up to scratch in only a month, and you know Onoda's going to jump all over her and me if it looks like I'm showing a half-Britannian, and worse a half-Brit girl, any favoritism!"


"Lucky for her, she'll have an instructor ready to give her personal attention for the next month before she has to leave," Tanya reposited, smirking at Ohgi from her chair before turning back to Kallen. "I know that, despite your skills as an intelligence gatherer and now as a journalist, you feel you are a warrior at heart, Kallen. Well, far be it from me to push you down a career track you don't want to follow."


Tanya looked over at Naoto, before turning back to Kallen and continuing. "You have proven yourself to me in the past – I remember your sterling performance in Shinjuku-gyoemmae. That said, standards have evolved, and if you want to fight, you require further training. I know it's a significant ask, but-"


"I'm in." Kallen interrupted Tanya mid-sentence for the first time since they had sat on a dusty Shinjuku curb. Fuck no, you're not talking yourself or me out of the fight! "I'm part of this, and…" Kallen chuckled. "Well, I saw the two gorillas you've got downstairs guarding this place, and I bet I could take either of them! No way your fancy School is that tough – I remember our training, and I've had tougher P.E. coaches!"


The goading worked. Tanya's eyes narrowed, even as Oghi began to laugh and Naoto snorted something that sounded suspiciously like "Cherry! Hah!"


"Well then," Tanya began, voice silky with menace, "let me tell you a bit more about The School, and what we'll have to do to get you ready to graduate with flying colors in a month so you'll be ready to start your teaching career…"


---------


An hour later, Kallen waved goodbye to the gorillas on guard as she made her way through the lobby of the apartment building. One of the pair, the one known to her as Trainspotter, had started to grin and wave back before freezing in place as Tanya trotted down the stairs behind her.


It was almost irritating, the way Trainspotter's attention immediately shifted to the other girl, but Kallen was more interested in how different both men's bearings became the moment their commander walked into sight. Before Tanya had taken two steps into the lobby, both men had assumed some sort of military pose, heels together and rifles held across their chests. No hint of the casual sass Trainspotter had sent Kallen's way earlier was present; both men's faces were stern and expressionless, their eyes glued to Tanya as she veered away from Kallen and towards the pair's position against a wall still pockmarked with vandalized postal boxes.


More than the tans, the muscles, and the guns, the discipline on display was proof of everything Tanya had told Kallen about The School over the last hour. Kallen hadn't doubted anything her friend had told her, but when she had said that she was "building an army in embryo," Kallen had put the emphasis on "building". Judging by these two goons, I probably should've focused on the "army" part! She truly is making soldiers! Not that Kallen personally knew much of anything related to the army, but those stiff postures and attentive gazes looked plenty militaristic to her.


After a few exchanges of muttered dialogue Kallen couldn't quite hear, both men nodded and in unison lifted the first two fingertips of their right hands to the outside of their eyebrows, holding the strange gesture until Tanya returned it a moment later. The exchange must have been some form of salute, Kallen realized - another example of the military culture Tanya had worked to instill into her trainees. The same example she'll be instilling into me, in a month's time… Well, it can't be any worse than learning noble etiquette after Father came back.


Turning on her heel, Tanya left the pair and returned to Kallen, the military stiffness bleeding away slightly but not leaving entirely. Kallen wondered if that stiffness, that slightly mechanical edge to her motions, had been a product of The School as well, or if it had always been there and Kallen was only noticing it after the months of separation.


"What did you say to them?" Kallen asked as Tanya approached, curious what orders her friend the pint-sized general had issued.


"I told them that their replacements would be coming in half an hour," Tanya replied, "and that as soon as Yoshi and his partner showed up, they could head over to the Meeting House for a hot meal and a cot. Tsubaki reported in earlier and said she'd gotten temporary accommodations set up for the night."


Kallen nodded. "Makes sense, I guess." She turned and started walking towards the lobby entrance as she continued talking. "I don't know if Big Bro's got any other buildings that big available, but you might want to ask. Just to keep your guys out of the way of the food handouts and all."


"Ohgi should already be discussing that with Naoto," Tanya replied, easily catching up to Kallen and falling into step with her. "After all, it would be best if our exact numbers were kept under wraps for now."


As they exited the apartment building and made their way down the street, continuing to chat about less "work related" topics, Kallen noticed Tanya starting to redden under her new tan. Which in and of itself was a bit strange, since it wasn't really that hot now that afternoon had practically given way to evening. Perhaps she's just used to cool mountain air and all that? But… I thought Gunma was pretty hot in the summer too?


Kallen suddenly realized that if Tanya had intended to head towards the Association's Meeting House to rendezvous with the rest of her unit, she had missed her turn. The road they had turned onto at the last intersection terminated at the nearest gate into Shinjuku, the one Kallen most often used when visiting the ghetto. She has been gone for three months – she might have forgotten. I'd better remind her. "Weren't you going to meet up with Inoue to get some dinner? You probably should've taken the last left to get there."


There was no mistaking the way Tanya's earlier pinkness darkened to a ruddy flush. "I thought I'd accompany you to the checkpoint, just to be safe." Impressively, Tanya managed to deliver the line without a hint of whatever emotion she was clearly suppressing entering her voice.


Smiling, Kallen decided to let Tanya off the hook and accepted the younger girl's excuse. "Well, thanks. I'm pretty sure I'd be okay, and it looks like Naoto's got this area of Shinjuku on lockdown, but… Well, you can never be too safe out here. Never know what could happen when you're alone." The last sentence had been a bit too sincere, and touched a bit too closely on an afternoon Kallen would rather forget, so she forced a laugh to lighten the mood back up as she cast around for an alternative topic. "Oh, that reminds me! Have you seen the new Rising Sun symbol?"


"A new symbol?" Tanya enthusiastically leapt on the new topic, to Kallen's relief. "Did they move away from the 'light' kanji? I thought it was perfectly serviceable."


"Well… No," Kallen admitted. "But Inoue tells me that Aina got all pissed that people weren't drawing it right, so she started making stencils and handing them out to people to mark territory. Then, someone expanded on it, and now… Umm… Ah! There's one!" Kallen pointed at a nearby wall. "Two concentric circles and the light in the center!"


"It's certainly eye-catching…" Tanya mused, walking over and peering at the red and yellow sigil with a critical eye. "The concentric circles are a nice touch. They draw the viewer's gaze into the character."


Kallen shrugged. "If you say so. I was never much for art anyway, but yeah, that's probably the point." A few seconds later, Tanya seemed to lose interest in the symbol and rejoined Kallen as she continued on her way. "My step-mother was always very annoyed that I couldn't do anything ladylike, embroidery and the like…"


For some reason Kallen couldn't fathom, a look of pure sympathy shot across Tanya's face. Almost more startlingly, the usually subdued Tanya made no attempt to disguise her emotions, and instead further broke character by reaching out and patting Kallen on the arm.


Kallen nearly tripped over her own feet in surprise. Holy shit! I… I don't think I've ever seen Tanya initiate physical contact before! Someone's always gotta reach out to her, and she usually pretends to hate it! Kallen replayed the last few sentences in her mind, trying to figure out what her friend had so obviously resonated with. "I, uhh… Guess you're not very artistic either, eh?"


Tanya hummed noncommittally. "I wouldn't know – I haven't attempted anything I'd call 'art' in years. But… but, I have experience with people trying to force me into roles that didn't fit me." A slight, nostalgic, smile worked its way across Tanya's face. "Would you believe it, it wasn't too different from your own experience, in a peculiar way."


The reference, if that's what the cryptic comment had been, was lost on Kallen. Based on Tanya's own words and the information Ohgi and Naoto had shared with her, Tanya's mother had been a low-ranking prostitute catering to Britannian soldiers and sailors as well as Japanese laborers, before she'd been beaten to death. Tanya's education hadn't extended past elementary school, barring the month she'd spent enrolled in the Shinjuku School for Elevens. Try as she might, Kallen couldn't figure out when some fool would have attempted to force etiquette lessons onto Hajime Tanya.


I'm thinking too narrowly. "Forced into a role I didn't fit" doesn't just mean nobility. Maybe she means the School for Elevens? Or maybe… Kallen forced the disgusting thought from her mind with a shudder. No, Ohgi said she obviously mourned her mother. That's impossible. It's gotta be the half-assed indoctrination. "Guess we really don't play by the rules, do we, Tanya?" Kallen half-joked, giving Tanya an out from the potentially fraught conversation requests for further details might provoke.


The smile slipped away from Tanya's face, and a pensive frown took its place. For a long moment, the blonde didn't answer, only trudging along in silence. Kallen walked on by her side, hoping she hadn't said something wrong, though she couldn't see how her statement would offend her friend. We're both part of an insurgency – Tanya's the leader, for God's sake! We're well beyond playing by the rules!


"I suppose not…" Tanya's tone of voice sounded more like she was admitting to some deep transgression than agreeing with a simple statement of fact. It was clear to Kallen that they'd somehow moved away from the banal conversation she'd thought they were having. "It's strange, Kallen… I value order, I value rules, and I value organization, but…"


And suddenly, Tanya was facing Kallen, looking straight into her eyes. The nearly empty street, its small shops all closed for the day, vanished into irrelevance compared to the blonde's sudden fervor. "But this order," The word was spat out as if it were rotten, "isn't rule-abiding! If there is a social contract, it's that the strong devour the weak and are applauded for doing so! The law is simply the gilding on the blunt instrument of military power used to force submission! This… This is a perversion of order! It's order without rules, order as a tool for exploitation, all for the benefit of those at the top of the heap!"


Then, mercurial as she sometimes was during intense moments, Tanya's fiery passion suddenly banked. Even as it cooled, the intense heat seemed to somehow solidify in the spring air. Somehow, Kallen was sure that her fellow hafu, her best friend and the secret master of the Rising Sun, had reaffirmed her commitment to the Cause all over again. An impression that was strengthened by the muttered coda to the rant, spoken just loud enough for Kallen to hear, less than half a meter away. "It's wrong, Kallen. The inefficiency, the corruption, the sheer waste… It's wrong. It's all wrong."


Spellbound by that arresting gaze, full of passion and girded in a certainty of conviction, Kallen unconsciously slipped into reporter mode. "And what would you do to fix all this, Tanya? What's your first step?"


"Look around you!" Tanya gestured at the placid apartment buildings around them, all adorned with signs advertising the unofficial businesses operating on the ground floors. "We've already taken our first steps here in Shinjuku! Order where the stakeholders have direct access to the leadership and input on the decisions that affect us all! Tangible benefits for everybody who cooperates towards our goals! A place where the hungry can trade a day's labor for a full belly. Where orphans won't have to break their backs for starvation rations, sacrificing their futures a day at a time for an eternal present!" Tanya bared her teeth in a grin lacking in amusement. "Not a bad start, eh? But just a start."


Before Kallen could ask her next question, the crackle of a radio transmission burst from Tanya's backpack, surprising both Kallen and Tanya, judging by the latter's comedically wide eyes. In a motion lacking the blonde's usual finesse, Tanya swung the old backpack around and hastily riffled through the contents before retrieving a handheld radio that matched the one Kallen had seen in Trainspotter's hands earlier that afternoon.


"Backpack here. Say again. Over." The radio chirped as Tanya released the 'transmit' button, the sound oddly cheerful against the backdrop of the lengthening evening shadows. Despite her curiosity, Kallen kept quiet – Tanya probably had no idea what her people wanted either, and distracting her wouldn't make the reply come any sooner.


Fortunately, neither rebel had to wait long for a reply. "Boar to Backpack. There's a man heading straight towards you and Cherry. Mallet and I have eyes on him, but haven't approached him yet. Do you know about him? Over."


A pistol appeared in Tanya's free hand halfway through the transmission, and the knife sprang out from Kallen's compact only a second later. "Backpack to Boar, that's not one of ours. Switch to general chat. Do you copy?" As Tanya spoke, she gestured towards an alley, and with a nod Kallen darted inside and quickly checked for lurkers even as the crackling continued behind her.


Finding the alley empty except for the acrid tang of urine, Kallen waved to Tanya, who walked backwards into the alley and twisted a dial on her handset before continuing to speak. "Backpack to Ferret. Boar found a potential hostile inbound on Cherry and I. Have Boar and Mallet check to make sure he doesn't have any backup. If he does, get a count. Pass word to Trainspotter and Boxcar. Have them and their squads hustle over. If he's alone, have Boar and Mallet bag him and bring him to me. Do you copy?"


---------


Most of the lazy fools who called themselves journalists ambled through life, hoping to trip over a story worthy of publication. Diethard Reid scorned such journalists as the bottomfeeders they were. A truly great reporter, like a certain humble producer for Hi-TV, went out into the world to find the story, following leads wherever they may go, no matter the danger to life or limb.


The story was the only thing that really mattered, at least in the long view. Long after everybody had forgotten the bard's name, the song he had sung would live on.


To be the one to tell such a tale, one that will live forever, especially from first person experience… anything is worth that. Anything.


Years of stifling mediocrity had almost crushed that dream. Endless weeks and days producing tired old features with slight variations, all with the same characters and in the service of the same banal message, had almost stripped Diethard of his hopes for transitory immortality. His existence was comfortable – in Area 11, a Britannian pound went pretty far, and he had no shortage of money – but overwhelmingly and depressingly bland. An endless expanse of gray days, without a single story truly worthy of his talents as a storyteller and as a producer, had stretched out before him.


And then, Christmas had come, both for Diethard and for the Tokyo Settlement. Overnight, tensions that had been bubbling for years had mixed with alcohol and exploded into an orgy of violence. The night of arson and murder reignited a spark of interest in his empty existence. As fires raged out of control and iron rods and leather boots descended on pleading faces and pulped ribs, Diethard had scrambled for a camera crew and a van.


To his disgust, by the time he'd finally gotten the lazy bastards roused and the van on the road, all the major roads had been blocked off by soldiers. Worse yet, the Viceroy's office had been unexpectedly on top of events, banning all coverage of the events of the previous night except when permitted by viceregal decree. It had almost been enough to quash that small spark entirely.


But then by some stroke of fortune, just as he was contemplating throwing in the towel entirely, "Kallen Cardemonde" had walked right up to him in the parking lot of Nunnally Memorial and brazenly thrown tinder onto that guttering flame.


Truthfully, Diethard hadn't expected much when he began looking in on the young Lady Stadtfeld. His curiosity had been piqued by the student reporter who had seemingly effortlessly stolen an interview out from under the noses of a hospital full of soldiers, particularly since she had tried - badly - to hide her name. That said, he expected to find little of note -- just a student rebelling against her parents, a so-called "tea-house revolutionary".


In a strange way, his initial expectations had been right on the money. The girl was indeed rebelling against her father and his new wife, but that was ancillary to the real meat of the story.


Lady Kallen Stadtfeld, as the heiress of House Stadtfeld and all of its titles, properties, and holdings, was one of the most eligible bachelorettes in the Area. Despite this lofty status, little was known about the girl. She hadn't been seen at any prominent social events, and as far as Diethard could tell, had no suitors. Considering the presumed wealth of a family like the Stadtfelds, that was strange to say the least.


And so, Diethard had dug deeper into the mystery of Kallen Stadtfeld, and soon found the missing pieces of the puzzle. Kallen Stadtfeld might be the Stadtfeld heiress now, recognized by her father, but that hadn't always been the case. Bastardry wasn't unheard of, especially not when the father in question was getting on in years like the current Lord Stadtfeld, but miscegenating with a Number was another thing entirely. Admittedly, many noblemen -- and even some noble ladies – had illegitimate offspring with Numbers, but recognizing a half-Number as a legitimate heir was… intriguing.


Almost as intriguing as the other missing piece.


Nathaniel Stadtfeld, also known as Kozuki Naoto, had been born on the wrong side of the sheets, just like his sister. Unlike his sister, the man was obviously of mixed heritage, judging by the mugshot Diethard had found. The sealed police record - somehow misfiled as a juvenile file despite Kozuki's age, no doubt thanks to his sire's money - had been interesting reading. The assault charges, a few with a deadly weapon and two elevated to Grievous Bodily Harm, had been the highlights. It was obvious to Diethard why Nathaniel hadn't been legitimized, passed over in favor of his sister.


A sordid tale, but nothing spectacular; he'd seen similar stories time and again, and while it would no doubt be prime content for gossip-mongering rags, Diethard wasn't interested in such petty publications. At least, not while I'm off the clock. The interesting part was that the younger sister, chosen over her elder brother and elevated into pure Britannian respectability, was obviously obsessed with her secret Number heritage.


It was unthinkable, and thus absolutely titillating. Diethard absolutely had to know more, had to know everything. Every hard-won newsroom instinct was screaming at him to continue his private investigation, and so he did. Her articles, even published without a credit and with his behind the scenes assistance, had so much written between the lines that the actual content was almost obscured. Her slip-up at that peculiar charity's meeting, caught on the microphone of a hidden camera - one of many scattered about the city by the more clandestine yet still incompetent parts of the viceregal administration - had been telling. Which brought him to the charity itself…


The Rising Sun Benevolent Association had mysteriously appeared several months earlier, seemingly springing up from nowhere with plentiful funding and noble backing with the mission to "provide opportunities to the people of Area 11." It hadn't escaped Diethard's notice that the sponsoring noble was a Mister Rivalz Cardemonde, nor had it been difficult to identify the young lady who had submitted the forms with the young Cardemonde's signature affixed at the Division of Public Records and Licenses.


It was clear to Diethard that the Rising Sun was Kallen's tool. What she intended to do with said tool, though, was a bit of a puzzle. Attempting to uplift Elevens wasn't going to improve her situation, and might actually reduce her standing in noble society, potentially weakening House Stadtfeld. But, if the Association wasn't a charity, what were the industrious Elevens up to? The sheer number of Rising Sun trucks passing in and out of the Shinjuku Ghetto made Diethard think of smuggling, but he couldn't find any connections to any exterior networks, making it unlikely that the Rising Sun was trafficking drugs or weapons.


Understanding had come, as it so often did to the most skilled journalist in Area 11, like a bolt from the blue. Kallen Stadtfeld's actions made no sense when considered from the point of view of a Britannian lady trying to improve her position. On the other hand, those actions made plenty of sense when Kallen Stadtfeld was ignored in favor of "Kozuki Kallen". Clearly, Lord Statdfeld had underestimated the love a little sister could have for her big brother, a love so intense - and possibly perverse, depending on how Diethard chose to spin the story - that she chose to form a criminal organization with the sole intent of installing her brother in the position of power he had been denied by their father.


Diethard could see it all so clearly, but he knew that "reporter's intuition" wouldn't be quite enough to bring the majority of the audience along with him to the seemingly obvious conclusion. He needed something to seal the deal, some piece of evidence so flagrant that nobody could doubt his undeniable narrative. He had waited patiently for his moment. He knew it would come - it would have been unfair for the world to have given him all but the last piece of the story, after all - and it eventually had when Kallen Stadtfeld had suddenly run off into Shinjuku Ghetto herself.


As soon as Diethard could, he left work and made his way to the checkpoint outside of Shinjuku Ghetto. He strode through the gates alone, a small portable video camera and a microphone tucked away in his jacket, along with his personal portable drive, the one containing all of the unredacted copies of his articles as well as his private projects. Everything in life was, after all, up for sale, provided you had the right coin to pay the asking price - and while Diethard lacked weapons or cash, any rebel worthy of the name would understand the value of information.


Even if the rebel in question was an overly emotional schoolgirl.


Immediately after passing through the checkpoint, three roads branched out before Diethard - one heading left, another right, and the other straight into the heart of the ghetto. Without missing a beat, Diethard marched straight down the central boulevard, if such a term could be applied to any Shinjuku thoroughfare, humming a jaunty tune as he went. The throng of Elevens parted before him with barely a murmur; despite the crowd, Diethard walked in a tiny bubble of isolation. Even though he knew it was only the beaten Numbers' fear of their Britannian masters, Diethard found the experience pleasant. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be a royal?


Discarding the distracting thought, Diethard noticed a figure detach itself from one of the knots of young toughs loitering on a nearby corner before pelting off down the same way he was going. Notably, the headbands that the lean band of teens wore bore a striking resemblance to the symbol painted on the signs announcing the Rising Sun charity dinners in the Honorary Britannian refugee centers. Diethard smiled - he had barely taken a dozen steps into the Ghetto, and another lead had all but fallen into his hands. No doubt that fool's off to tell his boss all about me. I'll have to thank him for providing directions straight to the Kozukis.


Unhurriedly strolling after the runner, Diethard took the time to look around as he gave his prospective subject time to prepare for their upcoming appointment. This was far from the first time that Diethard had sought out dangerous and desperate people for interviews, and he'd learned that springing a surprise interview wasn't always the best idea.


While surprised subjects sometimes blurted out answers with less consideration than they'd typically have, it was far more likely that they would simply ignore any questions in favor of fleeing or fighting. Giving the subject enough warning to compose themselves but not enough to escape him entirely was the better tactic, in Diethard's experience.


As a result, he was entirely unsurprised when two burly Elevens stepped out of a side street and into the middle of the road a block ahead. Clearly, neither had any intention of giving way to his advance like the rest of the crowd; indeed, the pair were approaching him at a brisk pace.


Fortunately, being the best newsman in Area 11, Diethard had prepared for just such an eventuality. "Wah-tah-shee ooh ah-nah-tah noh wah-kah-ee rye-dah nee tsu-rhe-teh-it-tee koo-dah-sai" It had taken some work with an Eleven-to-Britannian dictionary a decade old, but hopefully he'd just told the welcoming party to take him to their young mistress. It was difficult, using a language he was manifestly unfamiliar with, but he hoped he'd managed to convey the proper mixture of stern demand and dutiful respect.


The thin man whose large nose bore the signs of multiple past breaks blinked and turned towards his companion, but the more portly of the two just continued forwards. Broken Nose shrugged, pulled a handset off his belt and muttered something before following his partner. That damned dictionary was worthless!


By this point in his career, Diethard was unfortunately quite familiar with how this particular interaction would play out. He didn't mind the handful of bruises and cuts he'd likely be sporting soon – suffering was the fuel for grand art, after all — but his suit was another matter entirely. The two-piece was cashmere, the cravat was silk, and his dress shirt was 160 thread count cotton. Sadly, the two Eleven thugs looked entirely ignorant of the finer things in life, especially haute couture. Judging by their grimey and worn rags and tags, the pair would likely rip the jacket off his back to get better access to his ribs.


Caught between a Scylla and a Charybdis, Diethard could only see one path forwards towards his goal.


By the time the two goons had closed the distance, his jacket and cravat were draped across his arm and the first two buttons of his dress shirt were undone. The jacket hung heavily, the camera and microphone still tucked away in the inner pockets; Diethard hadn't thought he could smuggle them past the guards, and any attempt to do so would be harshly punished. His personal drive, on the other hand, was squirreled away in the pocket of his trousers. Hopefully handing over the recording equipment will convince Fatso and Broken Nose that I'm playing along.


As Broken Nose, the slightly quicker of the two goons, reached for his arm, Diethard casually handed over his jacket. The man's hand instinctually closed on the bundle of fabric and his eyes widened slightly, presumably at the slight though unexpected weight. Diethard nodded affably at the man, as if he'd simply handed over his coat to a butler at some noble mansion, before spreading his arms wide with his palms open. If they see I'm not resisting, hopefully the beating will be over sooner.


To Diethard's surprise, the beating never came. The two Numbers were just as unwashed as he'd first thought, but they clearly were professionals of some stripe or another. Amusingly enough for Diethard, this latest detainment by 'savage' Elevens was actually one of the more civilized arrests he had endured, as well as one of the more professional. True, they were halfway carrying him down the street, but neither had administered a pre-emptive love-tap to the kidneys, like most of the bullyboys the various nobles kept on retainer. And that's not even getting into the thugs that bastard Kenway sent after I started asking about his wife's mistress!


A minute later, Diethard found himself kneeling on asphalt beside a remarkably clean gutter, staring up into the barrel of a gun. Although the trip downward had been surprisingly gentle – neither of the two men had "helped" him fall face-first into the pavement, after all – Diethard still winced at the thought of the tar and street grit marring his expensive suit trousers. These pants are ruined for sure… The things I do for an interview!


Anybody else, Diethard was sure, would be concerned about the gun a foot from his nose, but Diethard was more interested in the child wielding that gun. Not as much as he was about the delicate cashmere fibers of his suit pants, but it wasn't every day that he was menaced by a girl who couldn't even truly be called a teenager. Bet she'll be a real beauty once she grows up, assuming she doesn't scowl like that all the time.


Besides his confidence in his own destiny, Diethard had no difficulty keeping his cool for another reason, threatening little poppet or not. He had graduated from the Imperial University of Colchester, and knew every journalistic trick backwards and forwards. He'd used those skills to extract stories from the shifty, the recalcitrant, and the willfully-obstructive numerous times before; this would hardly be his first hostile interview. Journalism was no trade for the easily riled, and Diethard had long since mastered the art of dramatic nonchalance. Admittedly, this was the first time he had ever interviewed a subject at gunpoint, but that was easy to dismiss. While he had no doubt that the tween menacing his perfect face would pull the trigger if he so much as twitched, it didn't really matter.


He would get Kallen Stadtfeld's story and tell it one day. He couldn't die until he'd told that grand tale. It simply wasn't an option.


Though the longer Diethard looked into the young blonde's eyes, the more difficult it was to remain confident in his control of the situation. Even though he knew in his bones that it wasn't his time to die, not when he had yet to see his name added to the pantheon of great storytellers, those cold eyes promised nothing but a short trip to the grave.


Diethard had been the indifferent recipient of many hostile looks, and plenty of people had tried to intimidate him for one reason or another. Irate nobles had glared with imperious disdain down their noses at his questioning, armored in privilege. Angry producers had fumed across boardrooms and offices, spewing forth threats to have him fired in their frustration. Any number of thugs and criminals had tried to scare him with mean looks, enough that Diethard had grown bored. But now, I feel sweat rolling down my back… What the hell is up with this kid?


That was actually a good question. With some effort, Diethard forced himself to break eye contact with the pint-sized menace in front of him, and took a look at his would-be executioner. No hint of baby fat or roundness was present in her face, which seemed built out of sharp edges with only a handful of curves to soften the angles. Great cheekbones, though. She might've had potential as a model. The battered old child's backpack dangling off one of her shoulders underlined her youth, as did the messy flyaway hair. Still, she looks like she knows what she's doing with that gun…


Drawing on every day of his near decade of Fourth Estate experience, Diethard summoned up his second-best "Producer's Smile" and attempted to break the ice. "I was right, wasn't I? There's definitely a story here."


To Diethard's irritation, the young pistolero ignored him entirely, and instead turned her head slightly back and said something in Japanese. A moment later, a lighter voice replied in the same language, and Kallen Stadtfeld, heiress to the House of Stadtfeld, the Barony of New Leicester and much more excitingly, the founder of the Rising Sun Association, stepped out into the day's waning light.


Gun at his head or not, about to conduct undoubtedly the most crucial interview of his life, Diethard still couldn't help himself from needling his subject. "Doing some investigative reporting live from Shinjuku, Kallen Cardemonde? Or, should I say, Lady Kallen Stadtfeld? Oh, but you're playing the role of an Eleven freedom fighter, so it must be Kozuki Kallen at the moment, yes?"


To her credit, the redhead tried to conceal her shock, but Diethard was an old hand when it came to picking up tells. Her eyes had flared open with surprise for just over a second, and her stoic mask cracked for about the same length of time, but that momentary lapse spoke delicious volumes. Disappointingly, the errant noble reacted just as Diethard had expected she would when he finally showed his cards; anger flashed across her face, and the knife that Diethard hadn't even noticed in her hand was almost instantly an inch in front of his left eye.


"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you right now." The anger was still there, a powerful undercurrent in her voice, but her tone was calm and collected. So she can still control her anger, just like in December, eh? Good to see I haven't wasted my time.


"Besides the fact that you don't know how I found out about your alternate persona? You're surprisingly easy to track down, Lady Stadtfeld," Diethard replied airily. "You should probably work on that. After all, I doubt the DSS would be as interested as I am in seeing your story arc through to the end. Luckily for you, I have the skills to help you reach that happy conclusion and am willing to help."


"Thank you for your kind offer, Mister Reid." The undercurrent throbbed, but the calm exterior shell was still holding, if barely. "Glad to see you're still just as willing as always to help a young reporter out. You held up your end of our deal the last time, which was a huge surprise, but I don't think I want anything else to do with you. But, since you helped me out before, I'll make it quick. And probably painless. Probably."


As the young Stadtfeld continued to speak, the angry pulse faded before disappearing entirely, leaving only calm certainty behind. That worried Diethard a great deal – in his experience, if someone needed to talk themselves up to an angry froth, it was equally easy to talk them back down to a more reasonable frame of mind. Kallen's dispassion, on the other hand, had an immovable quality.


A large drop of sweat rolled down his spine, all the way from his shoulders to his waist. From less than an inch away, that knife looked quite sturdy and extremely sharp. Considering the slim but visible muscles on Kozuki Kallen's arm, Diethard had no doubt that the instrument would easily smash through his sphenoid and into his brain. This wasn't how it was supposed to go!


Before his lunatic main character could give him an amateur lobotomy, that steely eyed angel of a blonde interrupted. "Kallen, hold."


Diethard resisted the urge to blink in surprise at the accented Britannian; he'd probably have a nasty cut on his eyelid if he did. Can't jolly well be TV ready with half an eyelid… Not unless I grew out my bangs, perhaps… Oh, she's still talking. "Diethard Reid," his enigmatic savior was saying, "of Hi-TV, if I remember correctly. What are you doing in Shinjuku Ghetto? Why are you following us? And how did you know about my associate's names?"


Her accent's strange… Now that his life wasn't immediately in danger, Diethard took a second, longer look at the nameless blonde. On second look, the girl looked older than the twelve Diethard had initially pegged her as. Although he doubted she'd lived much longer than a decade, the hand not busy shoving a pistol in his face was thick with callouses, the fingernails gray with ingrained dirt, and her arms… Geez, I don't remember being that muscular as a kid.


From his knee-bound position, it was clear that her hair was blonde to the roots, and her eyes were wide, expressive, and only slightly almond in shape. Definitely not Japanese, despite her fluency, but that accent's not Britannian… Is Stadtfeld consorting with foreigners too? "Ah, a European? Or, a European-Eleven halfbreed? Either way, you're pretty far from home, aren't you? You seem to know me, but I don't believe we've met." With a slight flourish, Diethard donned his "charming but non-seductive" smile, a classic when impressing children and married women alike.


"I'm aware." The tone was just as stern and unimpressed as before. Knowing a losing proposition when he saw one, Diethard let the smile slip from his face in favor of a more businesslike mask. "I was enjoying a pleasant walk with my companion, and I have a busy itinerary this evening. Do not keep me waiting any longer."


All business, eh? Well, I can play that role too. "Well, I'm glad someone's actually asking the important questions. I was intrigued by the young miss's ability to get such an emotional and explosive interview on the events of the Christmas Riots from a protected source, as well as by her canny decision to secretly record the interview, making it difficult to dismiss as false. After she took my offer and started doing stringer work, writing on subjects uncomfortable for the Area's Administration no less, I decided to find out who she really was in my free time, as a personal project."


Diethard spoke quickly, doing his best to be as detailed as possible, conscious that he remained very literally under the gun. Despite, or perhaps because of the added pressure, he felt remarkably alive, and allowed himself a proud smile as he described his efforts. Even though it had been a simple investigation by his standards, he had apparently beaten Clovis's security services to the punch while working in his spare time. "It wasn't hard – there aren't that many schools in Area 11, and enrollment records are easily accessed for a small expense. Only two schools had a Cardemonde on the rolls, and neither had a Kallen Cardemonde. However, one of those schools did have a Kallen enrolled."


"So then what," Kallen interrupted, clearly offended. "did you just sit in a van outside Ashford all day, waiting to see if I'd show up?" Thankfully, she'd moved the knife away from his eye while Diethard had been speaking with the possible European, so he could allow himself a single smug chuckle.


"Absolutely not, Lady Stadtfeld! That's what the interns are for!" Diethard laughed, keeping an eye on the volatile noble as he continued. "No, I just accessed a little backdoor in the Tokyo Settlement's surveillance systems I happen to know about. Clovis really should vet his staff far more carefully." Diethard shrugged, an artfully careless gesture carefully refined to be both classy and aggravating. "I only had to watch an hour of sped-up recordings to find you, Lady Stadtfeld. Your hair makes you incredibly distinctive." Diethard felt his lips curving up into a smirk, but couldn't stop the impulse. It just felt so good to really show off without having to hold back in the slightest. "You might want to work on that as well."


"Save the commentary for later and answer my questions." The blonde gestured with the pistol, as if to remind Diethard that he was still a finger's pull away from death. Diethard nodded, duly chastised. Tell the story first, interpret it later. I'm doing educational programming right now.


"I kept an eye on her activities after that. On the surface, nothing looked too interesting – silly schoolgirl politics and charity work. The articles she was writing were much more though; subtly keeping the Imitation Britannians in the news, bringing up the meat and potato issues, including the lack of literal meat and potatoes…"


Slowly moving only his head, Diethard turned slightly away from the still-nameless girl and smiled up at Kallen, deliberately injecting just a hint of paternal pride into the expression. "And yes, I did read your series on the economic impacts of that little bit of unpleasantness – lots of 'just asking the questions' and dropping uncomfortable facts into the eyes of the readers, all without mentioning Clovis or the Incident by name. Very well done!"


"Thanks," the ungrateful brat replied with every drop of youthful sarcasm she could muster. "Your approval means the world to me. Are you going to get to the point any time soon?"


"You should be taking notes on this, Kallen." Diethard replied, unperturbed by the teenaged petulance. It was, after all, a welcome change from the deadly cool killer who had almost carved out his eye. "Give your audience a hook, give them a nice dramatic background, make them hungry for the big reveal and keep them dancing on the line until it's time to reel them in." He smirked again. I really need to work on improving control over my expressions. I've gotten complacent. "Don't worry, you're still a student, so some impatience is understandable."


A muscle twitched on Kallen's forehead, but to Diethard's fascination she just took a deep breath, held it for a second, and released it. "He's playing for time now, I think," she said to her friend, the cool certainty bleeding back into her voice as she spoke. "Let me just kill him now, and we can put the leftovers in the alley."


"Not yet," came the reply in accented Britannian. Central European, maybe? The accent's definitely not Mediterranean or French… "Mister Reid, you have one minute."


"Fine." Diethard very carefully didn't pout, though he dearly wanted to. Here he was trying to tell a story, and his audience kept rushing the narrative. "I've got enough evidence to say that Kallen Stadtfeld is definitely an Eleven sympathizer, but that's not very interesting. There's lots of dumb bleeding-heart noble kids around, but they mostly grow out of it. Do a little graffiti, one or two fundraisers, and then they move on. You, though, Kallen… I knew you were different."


Kallen was his main character, and also, Diethard felt, the audience he needed to win over here and now to see tomorrow. Taking a chance, Diethard focused solely on the noble teenager, ignoring the younger girl with the gun just as thoroughly as he was ignoring the two thugs behind him. "The fact that we're here in the Eleven Ghetto – "


"Japanese." The tone brooked no defiance. Diethard choked down his irritation at being interrupted and continued.


"-Japanese Ghetto and not the Concession proves just how different you are. What other noble Numbers-fan would come to the Ghetto? None of them. Admittedly, a few of them are probably on good terms with their bastard siblings too, but… Even still, I knew you were different. I knew you were special. And…" Diethard shrugged, trying to act nonchalant despite the dangerous level of sincerity in his words, "I was bored. I mean, I still needed evidence that you were truly up to something beyond the normal bullshit, but to be brutally honest, Kallen, I'm bored. I'm tired of producing endless propaganda puff pieces, tired of telling the same old stories of progress and profit, tired of the whole sham."


Diethard suddenly realized that he had lost control over his mouth. This must be inspiration! I've finally got a true story to tell, and this is the first crux! "I became a reporter to find stories, drag them out into the light, and tell them! That's my raison d'être, my entire purpose! I want to see history play out before my very eyes, and be the one to tell the world what happened! And you – you are making history! You have all the makings of a great character! A heiress with a secret heritage, torn between two peoples and siding with the weaker against the greater in a noble fight? All to restore the birthright of your beloved sibling? That's the kind of story that will capture hearts! Mothers will one day tell it to their children! Your name will be a byword for loyalty, and you'll be immortal in the pages of history!"


Panting, Diethard came to a shuddering halt. Kallen was looking down on him with an expression halfway between confusion and disbelief, while the blonde – "Twenty seconds left, Mister Reid" – was somehow looming over him despite being only slightly taller standing up than he was kneeling. At least she's smiling… She looks amused. Is that a good sign? It must be!


"I want to tell a grand story. Your story." Diethard realized that he was looking at the blonde, and shook himself. Not your main character, Reid, nor your audience! Turning back to Kallen, Diethard continued with his pitch. "If I wanted to hurt you, I would have already handed over my data to DSS. I didn't, nor did I tell anybody where I was going tonight. Someone will probably find my van parked outside the Ghetto sooner or later, but that's it."


Hopefully that reassures her that I'm not trying to extort her. And now, to buy my way in… "And I brought a gift – I've got a portable drive in my pocket filled with the unredacted, uncensored versions of every article I've written and story I've produced. It's also got all of the gossip I have on the local notables… Including Prince Clovis. Plus, all the information I've gathered on you, your organization, and your brother. Just…" Diethard hated the weak, wheedling note that had entered his voice, but this was it, the doorway into his lifelong dream, or at least a situation where that dream might come to pass. "Just, please… Let me be there. Let me see what happens. Put me to work! Use me! Just let me be the one to tell the story when everything's said and done!"


Suddenly, Diethard sagged, spent after his revelatory climax. After a moment, he looked up, hoping to gauge his audience's response; to his mild dismay, it was a decidedly mixed bag. Kallen looked slightly stunned, blinking as she tried to make sense with his passion. I can't blame her – most teenagers can't fathom acting with the eyes of history upon them! Less gratifyingly, the European girl was… frowning down at him with disdain?


"So that's it." Diethard's doubts evaporated like snow under the summer sun. Can't win them all, Reid. "A loudmouth so desperate for recognition and immortality that he seeks it out vicariously, and a fool willing to throw aside a respectable and well-compensated position on a whim after following a girl around for months without speaking to her once. It's always difficult to trust traitors, even if they do have a good reason for their betrayal – false once will be false again, after all – and you lack even a fig leaf of justification. I have no doubt you'd betray anybody to further your ambition."


It was a struggle, but Diethard kept a smile on his face as the still-unnamed blonde harangued him, waiting for a moment to get a word in edgewise. It turned out that he didn't need to. "That said, someone with access to the higher strata of Britannian society and to the resources an established member of a major TV station has at their fingertips would be a useful tool indeed…"


"Wait, Tanya, no way!" Suddenly, Diethard was struggling not to laugh as the half-breed noble blurted out her almost certainly European friend's name. So much for that air of professionalism. "You're really thinking of letting him live? You said it yourself, there's no way we can trust him!"


"On the contrary, I think we can trust him to act according to his nature. As I said, he'd betray anybody if it served his ambition. So long as his goals are at least parallel to ours, he's only a potential liability." The blonde – Tanya – riposted, before unbelievably holstering her gun! Diethard felt his pulse race at the prospect that he might escape this situation alive. I knew it! I knew it couldn't end here! "Everything's up for sale, Kallen. Not just with money – that's the most common currency, not the only one – but with all kinds of things. Friendship, a favor, a cause… Or the fulfillment of a personal ambition or a dream. Everybody has a price – you just need to figure out what currency must be tendered, and if you can afford to pay."


The cold, cold eyes were upon him once more, and Diethard felt like a mouse caught in the gaze of a cobra. Did… Did I fall for a decoy protagonist? "Mister Reid, I think that you and I can help each other out. I think you know what coin I expect from you, and I know exactly what you're looking for from me. What say we enter into a mutually beneficial contract, like civilized people do?" Suddenly, the gun was back in her hand. "If you'd prefer not to engage in trade and barter, well, there's always room in the alley."


Diethard only caught the wicked smile that briefly flashed across the girl's face because he was staring straight at her. It was gone in a second, like a bolt from the blue. "Call this an offer you can't refuse."

 

[Scopas]

Chapter 22


(I've been sitting on this damned thing for too long, and it's not improving with age. I'm not entirely sure it works, but... So it goes. A huge thank you to Siatru, WrandmWaffles, Thearpox, Sunny, Gremlin Jack, and MetalDragon for their help and feedback, as well as the others from the AYGGW Discord.)


APRIL 30, 2016 ATB
FORWARD OPERATING BASE EDMUND, ASAHI, TOYAMA PREFECTURE


When Corporal Kururugi Suzaku, along with the rest of his freshly replenished battalion, had been deployed to Toyama Prefecture three weeks earlier, the food had been a pleasant surprise. The typical pots of gray, unidentifiable meat swimming in watery broth had not accompanied the 3rd Regiment, and the boxes of dehydrated "crap rations" typically issued to formations in the field had been left behind in their home barracks in the Tokyo Settlement.


Instead, the newly minted corporal and the rest of his unit had eaten extravagantly (at least by Area 11 standards) since they had taken up their posts on the prefectural border with Niigata. Back before the Conquest, Toyama had been famous for its seafood, thanks to the seemingly endless bounty of Toyama Bay.


Indeed, in a past life, a young Suzaku had dined upon fresh yellowtail that arrived at the Kururugi Shrine on ice, straight from Toyama. Toyama Black Ramen, with its fatty pork and its deliciously salty broth, had been a special treat reserved for meals after kendo tournaments.


Now, he sat with the rest of his fire team in a dilapidated sports center that had been re-designated as 'Forward Operating Base Edmund', eating pickled squid straight out of brining jars and grilling trout with the rest of the company over a number of charcoal grills that the Prefect's liaison team had so helpfully provided.


Despite the surprisingly good food, morale was low among the men of His Imperial Majesty's 32nd Honorary Britannian Legion.


The lack of lunchtime conversation could be chalked up to the age-old military custom of eating while food is available – there was, after all, no guarantee that the food would still be there when your conversation finished. Corporal Kururugi was certain that many of the men squatting around the grills scattered about the old basketball court had nothing but the food in front of them on their minds, especially since they would be boarding the buses back to Tokyo after lunch. Nobody was stupid enough to think that quality seafood would still be freely available once they were back in the Settlement.


He was just as certain that the men who sat staring blankly into their soup bowls instead of eating were lost in their fresh new memories of Toyama. They had the mien of haunted men – Corporal Kururugi recognized those hollow eyes from the mirror. He was certain that they were full of the fervent hope that their new ghosts wouldn't follow them back to the Settlement. He'd long since ceased to hope that his own personal ghost would be so accommodating…


Corporal Kururugi realized his thoughts were drifting, and forced himself away from thoughts of the past with a wrench. He'd lately been having trouble staying focused on the present himself. Something about being out in Toyama, where the influence of Britannia was lighter and which still bore such a resemblance to the Ja- the Area 11 that Kururugi remembered from his youth, made it difficult to keep his focus where it belonged: on the future.


Many things would change once they returned to the Settlement, seafood being the least of them. Unless the climate in Tokyo had changed, the men would be confined to base once again upon arrival. Instead of the Prefect's generous approach towards outfitting soldiers with all the bits and bobs they needed, the men would have to get used to paying through the nose for their own kit once more.


More importantly, Corporal Kururugi very much doubted that the three battalions of Honorary Britannian soldiers would be permitted to keep the pistols they had been issued after arriving in Toyama City.


While it was typically the policy of Prince Clovis's Administration to not permit its Honorary Britannian units access to lethal weapons, the situation in neighboring Niigata Prefecture had all but forced the Britannians to properly equip its slave soldiers. Besides the pistols, Corporal Kururugi's battalion had been issued new boots, fresh uniforms, and bulletproof vests during their time in the Prefecture, amazingly without any "handling fees" charged to the soldiers.


'Hopefully the Britannians will at least let us keep the first two items,' Corporal Kururugi thought, 'don't think they'd want uniforms that "stink like Elevens" back, not to mention the boots.'


The Toyama deployment had been as grueling as it was brief.


Officially, the 3rd Regiment and its sister regiments of the 1st Brigade had been dispatched to the area where Toyama, Niigata, and Nagano Prefectures met as part of a larger "stabilization" effort, aimed at combating the banditry of stubborn Eleven rebels and ungrateful peasants. Unofficially, the Prefect of Toyama had allegedly begged the Area Administration for any available units that could be sent to his dominion, desperate to keep the burgeoning peasant rebellion from expanding south out of Niigata, towards his own fiefdom. The Prefect had even gone as far as promising to supply any deployed units from his own discretionary budget. The Administration, always eager to free up funding for whichever grand developments the Viceregal-Governor dreamed up, had jumped at the opportunity.


Which was how elements of the 32nd Honorary Britannian Legion, Corporal Kururugi included, had found themselves practically drowning in fresh seafood while occupying the northern region of Toyama Prefecture, practically within sight of the Niigata border.


Why the people of Niigata had risen with such incandescent fury was beyond Corporal Kururugi. Lots of rumors had swirled around the battalion, of course, but the scuttlebutt had yet to reach any consensus. The two top contenders had been that a particularly hated Britannian landlord had stolen an Eleven bride away from the altar to enjoy the honeymoon himself, or that one of the more professional rebel units had managed to briefly take over a radio station and had broadcast a call to arms before blowing up both the radio station and themselves.


Of the two, Corporal Kururugi was putting his money on the latter option. While the former was a better story, such events simply happened too often in Area 11 to cause this level of violence. Ultimately, it didn't matter which story was true, if either of them were. All over Niigata, Honorary Britannian policemen and officials had been murdered. Some, the lucky ones, were publicly lynched from trees and lampposts. The others burnt to death along with their families; all the while fruitlessly beating down on their doors and windows that had been nailed shut and barricaded from the outside.


At least, those had been among the many claims regarding ongoing events in Niigata made by the Britannian lieutenant who had briefed Corporal Kururugi's company, bristling with anger over the insult offered by the "impertinent Elevens!" If even a tenth of the officer's claims had been true, Corporal Kururugi could easily imagine the fury of the Britannian punitive reprisals in Niigata itself. After all, Kururugi felt just the same when he let himself contemplate the bitter irony that both his former countrymen and his adopted fellow citizens had no problem stringing men like himself up from lampposts and trees.


While at least some of Niigata's inhabitants had chosen to stand and fight a doomed defense of their homes, plenty more had fled the violence, running in any direction they could as long as it was away from the bloodshed. This initial rush of refugees had panicked the Prefect of Toyama – the refugees were stripping fields and depots bare of any supplies they could and were inhibiting the productivity of the Eleven serfs slaving away in the northern part of the prefecture.


Worse, the refugees were bringing word of the conflict to those local serfs, potentially inspiring yet more rebellious behavior. Worse still, the Prefect had apparently reasoned, it was all but certain that insurgents were hidden in the hopeless crowd, guaranteeing the spread of the uprising outside of Niigata's boundaries – after all, an ambush had been attempted on a Britannian convoy in Nagano, and even though it had been crushed, it was a potential sign of things to come.


Ultimately, that chain of events had led to the "stabilization mission" and the 1st Brigade's deployment. Order was to be maintained at any cost. And that order had been maintained by setting up armed checkpoints on every major road, installing strong fortifications along the prefecture's border, and of particular relevance to Corporal Kururugi, the sweeping missions.


Each day, Corporal Kururugi's platoon had been given the name of a village and a copy of the official census for that village. Individuals who had been marked out for whatever reason as subjects of special concern had been highlighted in red, while the names of all men of fighting age – twelve to sixty – and women between the ages of fourteen and thirty had been underlined in green. Papers in hand, the platoon would rendezvous with a squad of Britannian military police from the Toyama garrison and make their way to the targeted village, two or three empty trucks tagging along behind their convoy of four truckloads of soldiers and two police cars.


The trucks never returned empty, though. Corporal Kururugi had made a name for himself over the last four months since Christmas as a diligent soldier, always willing to go the extra mile for his Britannian commanders. He had done everything in his power to ensure that the targets his squad had been tasked with finding had ended up in those trucks, pushing the four men of the fire team under his command to scour the village for suspicious characters, even if they weren't marked in red on their list.


Suzaku hated it all, and hated himself for his complicity. It was all in service of what he had taken to thinking of as the "Plan," but that was cold comfort when Corporal Kururugi had to beat a mother half to death with a baton to stop her from interfering as his fire team loaded her thirteen year old son onto the waiting truck. The fact that Suzaku knew that he would almost certainly have to do far worse to guarantee the Plan's success only twisted the knife further.


After the scales had fallen from his eyes as he stared up at the charred thing that had once been a comrade, Suzaku had thought long and hard about his next moves. It was obvious in retrospect that the image he had been sold when enlisting of the Empire and his place within it as an Honorary Britannian was a lie. Less obvious was how he could turn that lie into some form of truth. It was easy to say that a new leader had to be appointed to reform the system, but how could that lofty goal be accomplished?


The first steps were small and incremental.


Carefully, quietly, Suzaku had taken the emotional temperature of his battalion, trying to figure out how his fellow Honorary Britannians were taking the events of what had already been dubbed the Christmas Incident. To his shock, Suzaku found that while most of the men were angry, few felt betrayed. This led to an uncomfortable moment of self-realization; Suzaku had believed in the Britannians and their marketing, and had assumed that all of his fellow soldiers felt likewise. In this belief, Suzaku had been wrong.


Unfortunately, this skepticism of Britannian claims had actually insulated the other soldiers against the horrors of Christmas – they had all seemingly expected little better from Britannians, and were merely angry and sad to be proven correct. Few shared the white-hot rage pulsing through him, and the ones who felt the same as he did had no idea how to conceal their anger. While Suzaku's childhood friend might have appreciated these angry men as pawns, Suzaku didn't have the luxury to think in anything but the long-term, and association with obvious malcontents would do him far more harm than good in the long run, and so Private Kururugi had carefully eschewed their company.


His conservatism quickly paid off; within the first two weeks of January, all of the men who had expressed verbal dissatisfaction or anger with Britannia after the Christmas Incident had vanished, and fresh Honorary recruits had been assigned to their squads. It sent a clear message to Suzaku that his current position was far too exposed to even consider networking yet. After all, if anybody remembered his frenzied anger from that fateful day and decided it hadn't been a moment of passion, he might be brought to the attention of the military police, dooming the Plan before it got off the ground.


So in the service of that Plan, Suzaku carefully tucked his anger away and stored it in a private corner of his heart, and had immersed himself ever more deeply in the identity of Private Kururugi.


The first step had been proving Private Kururugi the most diligent soldier in the battalion, a willing servant of Britannia and the ideal Honorary Britannian. He worked long hours without complaint, and spent his off hours washing floors, scrubbing toilets, and polishing his boots to a mirror's sheen.


It had taken time, but he had gradually struck up a rapport with his platoon's Britannian lieutenant, Chester Rockwell, the same lieutenant who had blanched at the screams of a man being slowly burnt alive. From careful observation, Suzaku knew that Lieutenant Rockwell still felt guilty about the Incident and, though he tried to hide it, resented the battalion's commanding officer Major Humphrey for his order to remain in the outpost's walls.


Private Kururugi had taken his time to cozy up to the young junior officer, carefully soothing his guilt and assuring him that the men under his command didn't resent Rockwell in the slightest. Rockwell had been eager to hear what Private Kururugi had to say, no matter how little resemblance it bore to any kind of truth; just as Suzaku had expected, the lieutenant had greatly appreciated being handed a reason to no longer feel guilty.


Lieutenant Rockwell had rapidly paid off that quiet favor. As new recruits filtered in to fill the holes left by the men who had departed at Christmas and those who had departed in the ensuing weeks, Kururugi was promoted to Corporal. Officially, he had been recommended for the promotion due to his hard work, but Suzaku could read between the lines of the official notice – he was, after all, a politician's son.


As a corporal, Kururugi had command over one of the two fire teams that made up his squad, and four privates reported directly to him. Suzaku was heavily tempted to start suborning the four men of his detail to his way of thinking, but restrained himself just like always. Instead, he drilled his men relentlessly, not only participating in the mandatory platoon and squad training sessions but more or less forcing his men to join him for supplemental training on their off hours. They resented him for it, but after he beat the only one stupid enough to openly defy him into the ground, they did as they were ordered.


By the start of February, the daily regimen of training and voluntary extra chores had become rote and the complaints had ceased. Every waking moment not spent training or working, Suzaku had drilled his small command on the rules and regulations stipulated by His Imperial Majesty's Military Code, doing his best to hammer a deep respect for the legal underpinnings of the system into his underlings' heads. This schedule had continued day in and day out for just over two months, when the news from Niigata trickled down the grapevine.


The Britannian battalion that shared the outpost with Corporal Kururugi's formation left first, dispatched on April 8th​ to Tokamachi in Niigata Prefecture. This development had been met with mild interest by the Honorary Britannians of the 3rd​ Regiment, but little had changed other than the increased availability of hot water in the showers. Two days later, the battalion had been woken up early and hurried onto buses bound for northern Toyama Prefecture.


All Suzaku's sleep-befuddled brain could manage at the time was despair. Undoubtedly, this deployment meant that the Britannian troops had been unable to contain the uprising, and that the anarchy and bloodshed were spreading far and wide. He had silently railed against the impatience of his people; if they rose up now, didn't they realize that they would all be wiped out piecemeal, and that the Britannians would simply be even more on guard in Area 11?


Any realistic change in the system required careful planning and coordination, not wild anger! Even if the people did rise up as one and force the Britannians out, did they truly think that the Chinese would let them enjoy their freedom? He had despaired of his people – how many would die in these pointless revolts was beyond him, but even one would have been too many.


Now, weeks later, Corporal Kururugi did his best to harden his heart as he nibbled on a pickled squid. There was no point in despairing over choices come and gone, he told himself. All would ultimately be justified. Indeed, all that he had seen and done in Toyama had already been partially justified. While his continued diligence and zeal in the field had undoubtedly improved his reputation with the Britannian officers commanding the unit, Corporal Kururugi's first field deployment had taught him a very important lesson: The Britannians were deeply afraid of the Elevens, both Number and Honorary Britannian.


For a long time, Suzaku had privately suspected that the Britannian hatred and contempt for Elevens was rooted equally in belief in Britannian superiority and in the fear of the oppressed common in all conquerors. The swaggering Britannian chauvinism was easy enough to see, but the fear was just as visible if you knew where to look.


Why would the Britannians raise and train Honorary Britannian units from former Elevens, but refuse to arm them? Why would the Prefect of Toyama panic and offer the balance of his treasury to ward off underfed and unarmed refugees? Why would a crowd of civilians led by Britannian soldiers and officers murder their nominal comrades?


They're afraid of us.


It was the only reasonable conclusion. It was also a bitterly ironic one, considering the dull placidity of Suzaku's fellow soldiers in the wake of the Christmas Incident.


Britannian fear had brought Corporal Kururugi's unit to Toyama. In an attempt to soothe that fear, truckload after truckload of luckless civilians had been taken from their villages for the flimsiest of reasons and sent to the filtration and concentration camps. Corporal Kururugi could understand the evil logic behind the plan - by concentrating all of the potential recruits in camps out of reach of the insurrectionists and by filtering out the individuals most likely to cause trouble, the Prefect had constructed a human firebreak that would keep the insurrection out of his territory. It was sickening, but the idea made a sort of short-term sense.


Privately, Suzaku wondered just how far into the future the Prefect of Toyama was thinking. He had crushed the immediate threat by incarcerating who knew just how many of his own people, but Suzaku doubted that the human firebreak was anything but a stopgap measure. What was the Prefect going to do? Keep all of his farmers and workers locked up? Impossible, his fields would go fallow. And what about the thousands of "troublemakers"?


Suzaku was profoundly thankful that he hadn't been personally involved in the "filtration process", but he knew men who had taken part, and their second-hand descriptions secretly sickened him. Someone would find those unfortunates sooner or later, all packed in layers in trenches a hundred meters long. What would happen once word of those long scars in the earth leaked out?


More Britannian fear. That was all Corporal Kururugi was certain of. More Britannian fear, which would prompt more Britannian crackdowns, which would continue the cycle. And the more scared the Britannians got, and the more desperate they became for reassurance and for answers…


Corporal Kururugi smiled and got to his feet as he pushed Suzaku back into the box deep inside his mind, his fireteam hastily cramming their last bites into their mouths before rising up around him. In twenty minutes, his platoon would be on a bus heading back to the Tokyo Settlement. There would be opportunities galore in the sweltering capital of the Area, especially since the fighting in Niigata showed no signs of slowing. The Britannian soldiers deployed to the troubled province would be far away from the Britannian Concession, which meant there would be plenty of assignments available for a diligent soldier with a plan.


It would all be justified. Victory would wash away all stains and justify all means, and Area 11 would be a prosperous and happy land. Kururugi Suzaku had a plan, and by pushing men, women, and children up onto those trucks with the full knowledge of where they were going, he had purchased an opportunity. Sooner or later, the trenches would be found, and the Elevens would lash out like clockwork.


The Britannians, guiltily aware that their chickens were coming home to roost, would once again be frightened and search for someone to help them. And when they looked for someone to clean up their mess… Someone who could get the job done while remaining nonthreatening to the powers that be, docile, obedient, and trustworthy, a model Honorary Britannian. And once they let him through the doors of power… once they depended on him keeping things clean…


Then and only then will it be time to make my move. Lashing out with rage is pointless; only action based in cool logic will produce a truly ordered society.


Lots of people would die before Suzaku got his chance. He owed it to all whose bones would form his road to the top, Britannian and Eleven, to not let it go to waste.


It will be worth it in the end. Suzaku thought to himself, resolve settling in his gut like a lead weight. It has to be.


---------


APRIL 19, 2016 ATB
ASHFORD ACADEMY, BRITANNIAN CONCESSION, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
1603


"-lia li Britannia has announced the capture of Damascus. After a bri-"


The television winked off at the click of a remote, the talking head in front of a backdrop of Cornelia astride her Glouchester disappearing into the void. Silence returned to the lavishly appointed conference room, any whisper that slipped under the thick wooden doors softened into nothing against the deep plush of the antique carpet under the table.


The room's lone occupant turned from the television with a sigh to face the neat stack of papers piled up in front of him. The densely packed language described committee minutes and budget proposals, scholarship applications, and admissions interviews, all carefully read, notarized, and signed without a single pen stroke out of place. All told a representation of three hours of work, all of it nominally voluntary. A small sacrifice in the name of a larger game.


It would have gone faster with a bit of help, but… Eh, Probably for the best, he mused. If Milly was here, she absolutely would have gotten distracted by hour two and started getting 'creative' with the paperwork again.


Lelouch Lamperouge, Vice President of the Ashford Student Council, sighed good naturedly, sliding the fruit of his labors into his briefcase and coming to his feet. He did not check whether his smile was sufficiently casual, cool, and disarming in the dim reflection in the darkened television screen; Lelouch Lamperouge was always cool, but endearingly casual with his friends, and had no reason to carefully manage his air of effortless ease.


Indeed, at this point "Lelouch Lamperouge" was a comfortable role, one that he had worn so long that he no longer had to think about maintaining the facade. Only a handful of people across the planet had ever known him by a different name, and most of those had probably forgotten him entirely as anything but an obscure footnote.


And even fewer people remember my sister… Which might be to her benefit, even if it is still galling.


Besides, even if the role had been new or unfitting, Lelouch had worn masks of one sort or another for most of his young life. Haughty masks of imperious pride at social functions, armor against fawning courtiers. Stoic masks of resolve, when his mother had died and That Man had spurned him. Smiling masks, when he had lied to Nunnally, telling her that they were living in a mansion surrounded by fields of flowers. Always and everywhere, endless masks, for his own safety and for the safety of those he loved.


Of course, masks could only provide so much protection. His mother had never felt the need to wear a mask, but he doubted that any mask could have saved her from the assassin's bullet. Perhaps if she had been a bit better at dissembling, less skilled on the battlefield but better at the games of courtly intrigue, she would not have died. It was impossible to tell, but her son had learned a lesson that day, and another the day after.


Disaster struck when you least expected it, and showing your true reaction in the face of calamity only compounded the damage.


I am no Marianne the Flash, no ace amongst aces… What was I thinking? If I'd just kept myself under control… I would still have been within striking distance of That Man…


Eyes shut, Lelouch forced the thought of what could have been away. It was far too late for second-guessing now, and in all probability, nothing would have come of them even if he still was within reach of That Man. After a moment to re-establish his soft smile, the Vice President opened the stained oak door and set forth to find the President, ready to be temporarily free of Milly Ashford's ebullient enthusiasm for at least a few days.


Milly Ashford was lounging out in the Academy's garden when he found her, draped artfully across a stone bench. The position, while admittedly intriguing, could in no way be comfortable, but he didn't think it was meant to be. While he hid behind a facade of smiling indifference, Milly relied on her beauty and sensuality to escape from the burdens of her own life.


The Queen of Ashford played games using the Academy as her board – a small slice of the world where she was in complete control, where she could pretend to be the mistress of her destiny. Lelouch did not begrudge her for her games; while it was irritating to be a pawn on another's chess board, she was usually gentle with her toys. Besides, he owed the ever-smiling blonde a great deal.


After all, unlike the rest of the student body – a certain middle schooler excepted – Milly knew Lelouch Lamperouge by another name. A name that, to the rest of the world, was six years dead and buried. Considering how living in Britannian society under a fresh identity would have been all but impossible without her family's support, putting up with a few idiotic school events and some extra paperwork were the very least he could do.


And a new name and a roof over our head isn't even a tenth of what I owe the Ashfords for. He hadn't eaten in two days and he felt so weak, but Nunnally was depending on him, and… If it hadn't been for the Ashfords, hadn't been for Sayoko…


Lelouch stopped, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. That was years ago, he reminded himself. You're safe now. Nunnally's safe now. They found you in time. Everything is okay.


Eager to escape the memories, Lelouch turned his thoughts back to his hostess of the last four years. Even beyond the debt he owed her, he had found in Milly something of a kindred spirit. After all, I doubt anybody in Area 11 wears as many masks as Milly Ashford. Apart from myself, of course.


Of all of those many masks, the one that Milly was undoubtedly most fond of was the Flirt. Her current performance, while likely not targeted towards him, was an example of the rarely subtle power wielded by the Queen of Ashford. Despite knowing the Ashford heiress's tendency to wield her sexual appeal as a bludgeon, Lelouch couldn't help but notice the way she angled her leg to "accidentally" reveal just two fingers' width of creamy thigh.


Puberty was kind to her, Lelouch thought, seized with a sudden burst of sympathy for his friend and sometimes chauffeur, Rivalz Cardemonde. The poor boy had been obviously besotted with "Madam President" for over two and a half years now, and still hadn't mustered up the courage to confess. Probably for the best; she's only putting on her show because she doesn't want to be tied down to anybody yet.


A light laugh told him that he had been caught staring, but he did not flinch. Lelouch's Lamperouge facade did not care what other people thought, letting all opinions roll off a gloss of utter self-confidence. Sometimes, it wasn't even a facade. With a total lack of shame that didn't have to be manufactured, he raised his eyes and met Milly's dancing blue eyes with a polite smile.


"Careful there, Lulu!" She teased, rising to her feet in an almost leonine manner, a predatory cat prowling towards enthralled prey, "Shirley's looking for you again, and she's pretty mad." Milly leaned in, and the man could smell her floral shampoo. "Someone might have told her that you've been gambling again~ Wonder who that could be…?"


That matter was unimportant, as was the gambling, and indeed as was the need to evade Shirley. Lamperouge knew that Milly loved her little games, but was completely certain that she would protect the secrets of his that truly mattered. After all, harboring a fugitive of the Crown, officially designated as such or not, was an act of treason, and thus punishable by wheeling.


And if there's one thing that characterizes Milly Ashford, apart from shameless flirting, it's loyalty to her family. She'd never listen to a word her useless parents say if it wasn't for that loyalty.


"Well, that's annoying," Lelouch smiled, pulling the sheaf of carefully taped paperwork from his briefcase, "especially since I just completed the safety forms for the Equestrian Club's upcoming polo meet. I was planning on going for a nice stroll in the Concession now that my work is all finished, but if I have to find Shirley and soothe her concerns, I might not have time to properly submit it before I leave. After all, Madam President, I'd hate to stay indoors on a day like today."


Milly narrowed her eyes dramatically, the smile morphing into an equally theatrical pout. "You drive a hard bargain, Lulu! But… if you want me to go play with a pretty redhead to distract her as you sneak out the gate…?"


The pout was already wearing thin as the habitual smile shone through like the sun behind a cloud, and Milly abandoned the mask of disappointment in favor of a broad grin and a lecherous giggle. "I'm game! After all, that kind of work pays for itself, especially since you already checked over the snack bar's expenditure report!"


"Right here." With a smile, Lelouch pulled a slim folder from his briefcase and handed both it and the forms over with a smirking flourish. "Now, I think that it's about time for my walk, Madam President. If you'll excuse me, I really must go."


"A walk? Really, Lulu?" Milly sighed theatrically as she briefly thumbed through the folder, before sliding the nonsense into her backpack. "Honestly, that's pathetic, it's like you didn't even try to come up with a cover story."


Looking up at the slightly taller Lelouch with a mocking expression of feigned curiosity, Milly let a finger lightly brush her lips, feigning an innocently questioning air that was only somewhat undermined by the mocking twinkle in her eyes. "Is it poker again? If so, you better win something for me! I'll accept various forms of tribute, including candids and candy!"


Completely aware that anything he told the inveterate gossip queen would inevitably make its way back to the perpetually blushing Shirley and his far too canny sister, Lelouch said nothing but waved a lazy goodbye as he made his way out of the garden. Manipulating Milly was refreshingly easy and straightforward; she knew what he was about, but so long as she was adequately paid in her chosen currencies, she was happy to be used.


Besides, I'm probably just as happy to be used by her; if she wants to run interference with Shirley in exchange for a little paperwork, I'll oblige her.


Half a block away from the Academy, he slowly relaxed his hold on the school persona of Lelouch Lamperouge. He allowed himself to stoop forwards slightly, shoulders rolled forwards into an almost defensive hunch as he carefully shortened his stride. Nothing like the cold haughtiness that was his sword and constant companion at Ashford. A small disguise, but as clothes made the man, affectations made the personality.


I hope Shirley is enjoying the 'distraction' Milly had in mind, he thought to himself as he made his way to the nearby MagLev station. Even if she isn't, well… I'm sure Milly's having her fun at least, and Shirley's a good sport about that kind of thing.


To her immense credit, Shirley Fenette was tolerant of a great deal of discomfort and setbacks. She was dedicated in all she did, unfortunately including her single-minded pursuit of him. Shirley was the captain of the swim team as well as the secretary of the Student Council, both of which were time-consuming positions, but she managed to balance both with a fulfilling social life and an impressive academic career. As the Vice President, Lelouch was privy to her grades and knew for a fact that she had not earned a grade under a ninety-five since the fourth grade.


Unfortunately, that dedication to her pursuits was paired with a painfully naive personality and a complete inability to take a hint. Lelouch had been dodging the girl and her ridiculously obvious crush for well over a year now, and she had yet to get the message. If it wasn't so clear that she really cared about him and didn't just want the social cachet of "catching him", Lelouch would have driven her off months ago.


As it was, well…


Lelouch continued to muse over the enthusiastic, if sometimes annoying, swimmer as he swiped his card over the automated turnstile, but soon grew bored. Ultimately, while she was pleasant company, she wasn't exactly useful. He doubted her naivety would pair well with the revelation that he was a fugitive from the state. But at the very least, to her credit, she isn't a bully. She's very kind to Nunnally…


Thinking about the swimmer led Lelouch into considering the other members of his tiny ring of friends. Rivalz Cardemonde was a cheerful soul, always helpful when asked. Lelouch, who had never been particularly mechanically minded, was always vaguely impressed by the level of care the other boy showed when he maintained and serviced his motorcycle.


Lelouch also found it admirable how little Rivalz's family drama had dented his chipper personality. His parents' messy divorce was rarely brought up, but Rivalz's desire to rebel against his parents wasn't lost on Lelouch. His obsessive chase after Milly was, Lelouch knew, part of that. He'd only mentioned it once, but Lelouch was under the impression that an arranged marriage was awaiting the Cardemonde heir back on the Gold Coast.


But until he goes back home, I've got a talented driver who works for free, Lelouch thought with a smile as he boarded the train. Well, not quite for free, but a small cut of my winnings and sympathy when Milly swats him down again, in exchange for an on-call chauffeur? Done and done.


For all of their ups and downs, Lelouch would have liked to consider Rivalz and Shirley to be his friends.


But how can I call them my friends when they have no idea who I truly am? I have been lying to them since the day we met, which are shaky grounds indeed for sincere connections.


No matter what, until they learned who he truly was, until they learned who he and his sister had been and what they had survived, there would always be a wall between him and them. Milly, on the other hand, at the very least knew that he had once been a prince. True, she didn't understand what that truly meant – nobody raised outside the snakepit called the Imperial Court truly did – but she had a glimmer of understanding that the other two lacked.


Besides, there was an element of cynical maturity to Milly that Shirley and Rivalz lacked. Below the smirking, teasing, and at times infuriating veneer of confidence, Milly knew that she was an object with value and utility, the key word being object. Her family had been stripped of its noble status when the enemies of Marianne the Flash had descended like vultures upon her vulnerable allies, but a path back to that status for the House of Ashford led through her bedroom, a fact of which Milly was well aware.


Of course, there was another path back to the nobility for the Ashfords, besides an advantageous match for Milly…


Ruben Ashford had taken Lelouch and Nunnally in after the Conquest in the name of the loyalty the Ashfords still bore for Marianne vi Britannia; unspoken was the understanding that favors must one day be repaid. His mother had, after all, been a commoner raised to the nobility as the concubine, then wife, then empress. It was obvious to Lelouch that Ruben hoped that, when he came into power, old friends would be remembered, and all that had once been the Ashfords' and more would be restored.


And if that's all that he wants, it would still be an excellent exchange. My life and Nunnally's, plus years of support and protection, in exchange for some piddling titles and a tract of land? An absolute steal. Of course, that begs the question of what Ruben might do if I don't try for the throne… Aristocrats, fallen or not, never forget to collect on a debt….


Rocking with the motion of the MagLev, Lelouch gazed idly off through the window, still lost in his thoughts. While he had friends and compatriots, a grand total of three of them, they were only marginally useful for his long-term goal of revenge and he was deep in the hole to the Ashfords. Unfortunately, apart from the comparatively plump balance accumulated through his illicit gambling and Sayoko, whose wages he had only just started paying himself over the last year, those three friends represented the entirety of his power base.


It was a dismal arrangement, to say the least.


Ashford was only ever a starting point and a place to rest. It's past time I start finding useful people outside its walls.


Among the many shortages in Area 11 engineered by the current governor, useful idiots were in bountiful supply. Before Christmas, tensions had been rising as fools in power pillaged the compliant idiots below them, while rebellious blockheads raised pygmy rebellions. After Christmas, the whole province practically throbbed with inflamed passions. Idiocy dripped from the mouths of nobles – "nobody wants to do an honest day's work!", stupidity foamed from the working class – "the Honorary Britannians are taking our jobs!", and milquetoast indecision burbled from the middle class – "Somebody really must take the nobles in hand!"


And that was before considering the running sore that was the official state church, who leached from parishioners in exchange for increasingly derivative sermons. While the Britannic Church had always been a cheerleader for the Imperial Court, any pretensions to the contrary had disappeared in Area 11, where the bishop had made himself a symbol by gorging to the point of resembling a bipedal swine draped in yards of cloth-of-gold.


To a man with an ounce of sense and almost half a million pounds spread across a number of accounts in different names, the possibilities in Clovis la Britannia's Area 11 were boundless. Just looking out the window proved as much. The walled Shinjuku Ghetto was visible in the distance, but surrounding those walls were endless blocks of urban sprawl, underdeveloped and aging. A few minutes later, the devastated area south of the revitalized glitzy heart of the Ginza District swam into view, a monument to Britannia's uneven development and the lack of attention invested in Area 11.


And that's not even getting into the districts where the truly unwanted of the Empire live, under the elevated Concession itself.


No trains ran anywhere near the perpetually dark arcologies that clustered fungus-like under the broad shining pavilions of the Britannian Concession. Harkening back to New Bristol, built at the mouth of the Mississippi River back in Area 2, the Concession had been built on massive stilts to gaze imperiously down at the Tokyo Settlement radiating out around it in the still-rotting corpse of the murdered megacity of the same name.


Whole districts of which, prime urban real estate all, had been left to rot as the Viceregal Governor fooled around with his ClovisLand amusement park and other vanity projects! Though they were too small to see at the moment from the elevated MagLev track, all of those streets were full of Britannians and Numbers just looking for someone, anyone, to give them a reason to hope for a better tomorrow.


I really should send Clovis a thank you card for preparing such fertile grounds. Wouldn't he be surprised? Lelouch almost laughed at the absurd thought. Nobody ever thanks poor stupid Clovis for his idiotic gifts, but this time I might actually have sincere cause to appreciate him. Not that he'll ever know, of course. Not until it's too late.


Alan Spicer dismounted from the MagLev at the Ginza station. Ducking into a restroom, Spicer quickly changed out of the Ashford Academy uniform and into nondescript business casual. Spicer decided that he was a low-level functionary for the Administration as he carefully sorted out his tie in the restroom mirror, loosening it once it was tied and undoing the top button of his cheap white button-up.


After all, I'm off the clock now, aren't I?


A few blocks south from the MagLev station, closer to the urban abscess around the Tokyo Tower and away from the bustling streets of the most fashionable shopping district in the Area, Alan Spicer found an unsuspecting target: A lower-middle and upper-working class neighborhood, local mom'n'pops nestled amongst chain convenience stores at street level and apartments on the floors above. The perfect place to take the pulse of the people.


Despite a half hour remaining in the typical work day, the sidewalks were densely populated. Knots of men sat on benches and the curbs outside of convenience stores, smoking cigarettes and passing brown paper bags from hand to hand. A few of the stores were dark, and two had boarded-up windows. This, Alan could tell, was a neighborhood fallen on hard times, a neighborhood where wages weren't keeping up with inflation and jobs were scarce.


Alan found a small deli, purchased a sandwich with a handful of coins and bills the proprietor instantly snatched off the counter, and had an early dinner at the establishment's grimy counter.


As he munched on his ham on rye, Alan carefully listened to the grumbling old man at the counter and the other elderly men slouched over a cribbage board behind him. He listened to the chatter of the other diners coming in and to the anxious titters of the housewives coming by for a quart of potato salad. Around his seat in the deli, life in the little slice of Britannia abroad continued on apace.


"The papers said last month a new infrastructure package was allotted, but that damned culvert's still leaking," one of the cribbage players groused as he moved a peg forwards, "and the supervisor's office still hasn't fixed the pothole over on 10th!"


"It's that damned train," his partner grunted, "ever since His Highness fell in love with it, that's where all the money goes. After all, who needs roads when we call all ride the fucking train, yeah?"


"Sorry Missus Fisk," the proprietor was saying, "but I gotta make a profit somehow. You know a pound just doesn't buy what it used to."


"But this is the second time in a month!" The client, presumably Missus Fisk, ground out, before sighing. "I'm sorry George, I know we all gotta make a living somehow but…"


"But a pound just doesn't buy what it used to." George finished, nodding sympathetically, "Tell me about it. The transportation costs alone are really killing me – pity the Prince can't divert some of the Sakuradite here, instead of shipping it all back to the Homeland. Seems like a bit of a waste…"


"It wouldn't be so bad if some people weren't benefitting from it." This time, the bitterness in Missus Fisk's tone was undisguised. "My Lloyd's been working the same job for four years now, and hasn't had a raise in three! He's a good worker, but that bastard Soresi froze all raises, and now nobody's hiring!"


"Times are tough for everybody," George said with a weary sigh, an apprehensive note entering his voice as he peered around the deli's eating area, "but… I mean… we just gotta keep on going. Prince Clovis… he knows what he's doing, right? He'll help us out; things just have to get a bit more stable and all first."


"From your mouth to God's ear, George," Missus Fisk sighed. "From your mouth to God's ear. I mean…" her eyes darted around the tiny eatery, "I'm not one to gossip, but those temporary taxes… This is the third year they've been renewed. That… That can't be what His Highness meant to do, right? It just can't…"


"It ain't right," George muttered from behind his counter, his rough grumble somehow sliding under the ambient noises of the business and into Lelouch's ears. "It ain't right that they squeeze us so. What do the nobs think we are, Numbers?"


Alan Spicer kept his head down as the conversation tapered off. By the time he had finished his sandwich, Missus Fisk had long since left with her purchases, as had a handful of other customers with similar complaints. After leaving the deli, Spicer wandered through a pharmacy, a convenience store, and a cheap chain coffee shop. The story was seemingly the same everywhere, with only minor variations on a consistent theme.


Nobody was happy, it seemed, and nobody was prospering. Most people thought that something should be done and indeed, would be done, if only Prince Clovis knew how bad things really were. The consensus was that blame should be placed on the corrupt nobles and crooked advisors taking advantage of Prince Clovis's good nature to put unreasonable demands on his people.


Everything Alan heard only confirmed his impressions of the Area's mismanagement and decline; the commoners were unhappy, and authority had proven unresponsive at best. Corruption was the order of the day, and nobody had the political will or desire necessary to change that.


In the end, it all seemed to boil down to money, as Alan supposed it always did. The wages weren't going up, yet prices skyrocketed. Taxes were paid, yet potholes remained. Policemen and government functionaries on the take had grown greedy, and the "administrative fees" that were once a part of doing business had grown unmanageable. The clerics of the Britannic Church grew ever more insistent in their demands for voluntary charity in the name of nebulous "good works" that never manifested.


To hear the common Britannian inhabitant of Area 11 tell it, the entire weight of the Empire had fallen on their shoulders and they were groaning under the load. A pound bought less each month, and somehow the Area Exchequer found a new "special tax" to impose on an equally monthly basis.


And none of them are willing to blame Clovis for it. Alan shook his head, wishing that came as more of a surprise. It's all That Man's fault. After the Emblem of Blood, people just wanted stability, and that was something he could provide. Stability, and a renewed pride in Britannia on the heels of fresh conquest. The commoners don't want to return to the chaos, and so they won't question That Man's issue, even when he's the clear root of all their ills.


For all that the common Britannian citizens refused to put the blame for their increasingly awful lives at the feet of the man responsible, those unheard and unaddressed complaints were still entirely valid. Alan knew exactly the kind of desperation that could take root as people watched their loved ones suffer, better than most Britannians, in his opinion. At a certain point, the unthinkable became necessary, and once that threshold was crossed…


Alan shook off the cobwebs of memory and continued to slouch around the neighborhood, listening as the hungry and the ignored proposed their favored scapegoats.


"Obviously, the nobles are behind it all," a grizzled man sitting outside a shuttered bookstore claimed – "they're getting fatter every fuckin' day!"


"It's the damned Honoraries!" An off-duty soldier growled, spitting her chew into the dry soil of an empty planter. "Give 'em an inch, and they think they're real Britannians! It makes me sick, sharin' a barracks with 'em. They're fuckin' animals, filthy too."


Nobles or Honoraries or even the browbeaten Elevens, almost everybody that Alan eavesdropped on in the neighborhood had at least one grievance in common – broken promises. When the Empire had needed settlers to populate its newly won Area in the wake of the Conquest, families of good Britannian stock had been recruited from Pendragon, New Bristol, Charleston, and half a dozen other metropolises with extravagant promises.


To Alan, it sounded as if the recruiters had promised that every family that moved to the newly christened Area 11 would become de facto barons, ruling over a subservient Eleven population.


And yet, six years on, the pick of those servile Elevens had become their legal equals and now competed for the same low-skill jobs that many of the commoner Britannians had been imported to work. The remainder of the Elevens had not been parceled out as chattel to the average Britannian - the majority now worked as serfs on noble estates in the country, or "gotta sit around" in ghettos where state funds, "our taxes!" had to be expended to "keep 'em in their place."


The anger on this street was powerful, but not directed. Or rather, it's directed at too many targets; these everyday tradesmen and workers would happily attack anybody they were directed at, if they thought it would improve their situation. The nobles, the Elevens, the Honoraries… Perhaps the Administration, even… Anybody except That Man the one who duped them into coming to Area 11 to begin with…


The first step would have to be focusing that anger on the desired target. That much was obvious. The "how" of the matter was the trickier question by far.


As Alan continued to wander around the neighborhood, three broad approaches coalesced in his mind. The most obvious course of action is to give a speech, lending the people a voice to channel their anger in a proper direction. I'm sure the Theater Club could render me unrecognizable, but if any of them see a recording of the speech… Alternatively, instead of bothering with a disguise, I could find a local collaborator willing to act as a mouthpiece. Finally, I could use other media in place of public speaking, further reducing my exposure.


All three options had their upsides. To the man behind Alan Spicer, the first approach held the most personal appeal. Holding a crowd spellbound, hanging on his every word… The concept spoke to him.


I suppose it's in my blood, he thought with a snort, in a manner of speaking.


Yet, that most appealing option was also the most risky of the three by far. At best, success meant kicking off a local riot, while failure to engage the public or to escape in the aftermath might lead to imprisonment.


And once I'm behind bars as a political provocateur, there's very little Reuban could do for me. I doubt my cover would hold for long. As it is, the risk is far too high for any potential gains.


Finding a useful idiot to serve as a cipher was the next best option. It had the same advantages as a personal speech – an immediate emotional connection with the crowd, mass appeal, and no logistical requirements except a soapbox – with the additional advantage that the audience would probably accept the message more easily if it came from a familiar face. Plus, an additional degree of separation from the effects of the speech, good or ill, could only benefit "Alan Spicer."


Unfortunately, finding someone both charismatic enough to give a good speech and sufficiently foolhardy to mouth off about the authorities would take time, especially if the recruit had to come from the local population to be truly effective. Identifying and recruiting such an individual would take time and effort, and would in all likelihood require "Alan's" presence in the target area for a substantial amount of time, which would make it hard to preserve an identity that was currently as shallow as the clothes he wore.


Besides, recruiting a local mouthpiece still represented a potential threat to his cover identity as "Lelouch Lamperouge". Someone who fit his target profile might be intelligent enough to wonder about his mysterious new friend, and might try to follow him back to Ashford. On the other side of the problem, if anybody noticed how often he came to a random working neighborhood, and especially if anybody who knew him as Lelouch saw him dressed up as Alan, he ran the very real risk of arrest long before he had any chance to strike a blow against Britannia.


Ultimately, public speeches by their very nature drew attention to the speaker, and the best shield the man had at his disposal was anonymity. While Lelouch was all but certain that his fight against That Man would one day strip his identity of "Lamperouge" away, just as it had his first identity, the longer he could hold onto his current name the better. If attention-grabbing speeches were off the table, he would have to use less obvious means.


During his tenure as the Student Council Vice President, he had spent quite a few long hours in the Ashford Academy print shop. Mostly, those hours had been spent in preparing materials for some silly event or another; with Milly Ashford at the Council's helm, there was never any shortage of spontaneous events that just had to be advertised with custom signs, banners, and posters.


As a result, he had a solid working familiarity with the poster production process and the necessary credentials to access the room and use the machines while the Academy slept. While Lelouch would never call himself an artist, he also had some familiarity with image editing software; it shouldn't be too difficult to draft a poster or two that would inflame the common rabble against their ineffectual and foolish masters.


The initial brushfires might be slow and small, but through propaganda I shall ignite all of Britannia!


The only potential rough spot would be distribution. He would have to transport the posters from the Academy to the neighborhood and paste them to every available surface all by himself; recruiting help would be too risky.


Which means I'll have to put up something like two hundred posters all by myself… Alan groaned aloud as he started to make his way back to the MagLev station. The prospect of so much manual labor was daunting, but he didn't see any other viable alternative. I wish there was someone I could trust to help me with this… Well, there's Nunnally, but she's out for obvious reasons, and Milly… I don't know if she'd approve…


I wonder if Suzaku's… No, he told himself with a firm shake, don't even think about it. Best not to ask. Even if he isn't…


With a mental shove, Lelouch pushed thoughts of old friends and the identity of Alan Spicer away as he boarded his train. He'd have a few sleepless nights in his future, but very soon he'd be taking his first step towards revenge against That Man and all he held dear.


Three days later, the man who was sometimes Alan Spicer slouched in a chair outside a small coffee shop, tiredly blowing on his steaming cup, eager for the caffeine. It had been a long night, and he had a council meeting in two hours, all but guaranteeing a long day ahead.


But the sleepless night had been far from a waste. The entire street practically drowned in a sea of purples, oranges, and blacks, posters firmly attached to practically every vertical space available at street height. Doors, windows, walls and utility poles, all sported the luridly colored posters he had run off in the Ashford Academy print shop the last evening, severely denting the supply of colored ink.


In truth, it had been Lelouch's second nocturnal trip to the print shop. After Alan had returned from his fact-finding trip, Lelouch had thrown together a poster design and run off two hundred copies. He had intended to go out and post them all the following night, but Shirley had successfully monopolized his evening, delaying his schedule.


This had proven to be something of a blessing, because the next day's issue of the Oriental Messenger, the biggest paper in Area 11, had broken the story of the new "Clovisland North" under construction in the Sendai Settlement.


Between the fawning lines proclaiming anticipation for the new rides and praising the Viceregal-Governor for his desire to provide all children with a place to play, Lelouch had spotted a few tantalizing details. For one, the project had apparently been "made possible with the help of a special voluntary tithe collected by the Diocese of Area 11." Generally, such voluntary tithes were collected on behalf of the starving on the grounds that the Britannic Church had some vague requirement to keep all Britannians capable of aiding the Emperor in his holy work.


Another easily overlooked fact contained in the puff piece was that much of the remainder of the money for the amusement park's development had been appropriated from the Area's development fund. That particular fund underwrote contracts for public improvements and the maintenance of civic infrastructure, including roads.


Taken together, those two juicy tidbits had been too good to pass up, leading to a new hastily thrown together poster design and a second trip to the print shop.


In the end, he had managed to accomplish his task in a single sleepless night.


Dressed in workman's overalls swiped from a public laundry, Alan Spicer had wheeled a dolly laden with cans of paint-on adhesive, brushes, and the multiple boxes full of posters down the street from Ashford Academy to the MagLev station, and from there onto the otherwise empty train that ran through the night. Soon enough, he had pushed his cart through the streets of the small neighborhood that was his target, quietly sleeping on a Thursday night in preparation of the workday soon to come.


By five the next morning, when the first early risers had staggered from their apartment blocks, they had been greeted by a sea of brightly colored posters. Now dressed in his office drone costume with entirely authentic bags hanging under his eyes, Lelouch had buried the cart and overalls in a dumpster and slouched into the queue of a local coffee shop. A pot of cheap "drain cleaner" in hand, he'd found a seat in the outdoor area, eager to see the reaction to his first foray into mass media.


And now, I can enjoy the fruits of my labor… The man calling himself Alan smiled as he took a sip of his cheap coffee, wincing at the burnt flavor of improperly roasted beans. I wonder how they'll all react to the knowledge that all the money set aside for fixing their roads and plumbing has gone to building another toy for my idiot brother? And that his elephantine bishop has guaranteed that there will be no special handouts come May Day?


Across the street from the cafe, a small knot of passersby had begun to congregate around a shuttered bookshop. Alan smiled to himself as the sounds of muttering drifted through the early morning air, taking another sip to hide his anticipation. The broad, empty windows had given him plenty of real estate for his posters, and even across the street he could clearly read the bold print of the posters.


"CLOVIS THE CLOWN LAUGHS AS HE ROBS YOU!"


The font of the first line, splashed across the top of the poster, could have come straight from any number of familiar circus announcements. The bottom line, stamped across the poster's foot, was in an uncompromising stencil.


"IT'S PAST TIME FOR THE CIRCUS TO GO."


Between the two lines of text, a clown with Clovis's unmistakeable pretty face reclined in a throne of stacked pound notes, his motley the purple, blue and red of the Imperial Arms. The bells of his coxcomb cap had been replaced with the large silver coins of the archaic pounds sterling; more of those same bullion coins rolled from his jacket's folds and pockets.


Of course, despite the horde he sat atop and the coins pouring out of his pockets, the Viceregal-Clown, as his large nametag helpfully identified him, held out a begging hand to the viewer, demanding ever more with an imperious smirk.


The clown was not alone. Behind his throne, a large table stretched; on the right side, the table creaked under the weight of abundant food, most of which was rapidly disappearing into the maw of a remarkably porcine man with a bishop's miter, while to the left a hungry looking man in workman's overalls glared impotently at his empty plate.


Quite a masterpiece, if I do say so myself! Alan congratulated himself. Especially considering how high of an opinion Clovis has of himself. Why, if he saw one of those posters for himself, he might collapse from apoplexy and vastly improve the Area's government! Although, considering his awful taste in clothes, he might actually find it flattering…


The internal congratulations felt a bit hollow as the intended audience failed to react as expected. There were one or two laughs, but most of the group just shook their collective heads and walked away. Nobody seemed energized, nobody seemed engaged, and the only ones who seemed at all interested were the remaining cluster outside the bookstore, who seemed to be muttering angrily about something.


Alan strained to hear what they were saying. This could be it! Perhaps they realize the point! Maybe they're reading the finer print connecting the new amusement park to the funds set aside for infrastructure! Maybe…


"–You think we should wait for the cops to show up, or should we start tearing 'em down already?" Wait, what?!


"There's plenty of the bastard things everywhere. The coppers'll have plenty to choose from. Let's just start getting rid of 'em. The sooner they're gone, the better. No need to bring any more heat down on our heads then the bastard who put these up already bought us."


The last speaker immediately put word to deed, hooking his fingers around a loose edge of the nearest poster and ripping it down, only the top right quarter remaining in place as the rest tore cleanly away. You idiots! No! You're wrong! That's not what you're supposed to be doing! Don't you realize that they're taking advantage of you? Why? Why won't you see?


To the man who was both Lelouch and Alan Spicer, it was all but impossible to hold his peace as the local philistines set to work destroying his hard work. Soon, the air was full of the sounds of tearing paper and jeering laughter, and the gutters were full of shredded and defaced posters. A teen in school uniform soon set to work gathering up the decimated posters and cramming the detritus in a garbage sack. To the man's growing horror and anger, the group's self-appointed task started taking on a bit of a holiday air, as two young men raced to tear down the most posters, to the laughter of bystanders.


I don't understand it! Why the hell aren't they angry with Clovis? Don't they understand how he's just using them for money?! Don't they care? The man raged impotently in the prison of his mind, helpless to do anything but sip from his bitter cup. Idiots! They're all idiots! I'm surrounded by fools!


"Pardon me, young man," Alan jolted back into the present as an old man tapped on his shoulder before gesturing at the other chair at the outdoor table, "but is that seat taken?"


Alan just shook his head, not willing to trust himself to speak at the moment. I can't believe it… Hours of work, all for nothing and vanishing in minutes… Well, at least I didn't opt for the speech… What a disaster.


As he stewed, the pensioner hobbled around the table before gingerly lowering himself down onto the iron seat of the chair with a sigh of relief. "Aaah, that's good… Take my advice, sonny, don't live long enough to get old… You won't be missing a damned thing." Despite having never met any of his grandparents, the old fogey seemed almost stereotypically grandfatherly to Alan, complete with the desperate need to inflict conversation on the youth.


"Thanks for the advice, sir." Alan's tongue felt leden in his mouth, but it didn't seem like the old geezer would be content with silence. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind."


"You do that, you do that…" The man took a long sip from his own steaming cup, seemingly heedless of the heat. "Ahh, that hits the spot. Say what you will about the Elevens, but they grow some damned fine tea."


"Do they?" Alan replied automatically, still trying to figure out where he'd gone wrong. "I'm more of a coffee man myself."


"Well, hopefully you live long enough to reconsider. Tea takes more time to get right, but it's a more civilized beverage…" The old man took another long sip. "Yer not from around here, are you sonny?"


"No sir." Abruptly, Alan realized what he'd just admitted in his distraction. "I mean, I only moved to this district fairly recently. Still trying to get used to the place, that's all."


"Oh?" The man took another sip, before setting his cup down on the table and closing his eyes. Alan turned back to his own cup, hoping that he'd recovered quickly enough to evade any suspicion. Another sip and I'll claim I need to go to work and leave. No need to look even more suspicious by leaving my coffee behind after flubbing a question.


Suddenly, the retiree's eyes popped open as he leaned in closer to Alan, gnarled fingers tight around the head of his cane. "You won't get any takers for your rabble rousing here, sonny," the man's harsh voice rasped out, quiet enough that only he and Alan could hear but lacking any hint of the earlier softness. "I suggest yeh haul yer mangy carcass out of this neighborhood toot sweet. The cops have been called, and if yer' still here in five minutes I wouldn't be surprised if you end up with a few broken bones resisting arrest."


Suddenly, the grandfatherly mien returned to the pensioner as he took another long sip from his cup, draining the last of the tea. I see that I'm not the only one wearing a mask here. Alan scowled, slamming back the rest of his coffee before getting to his feet. The old bastard was staring straight at him, a smile equal parts benevolent and mocking below eyes cool and unsympathetic.


Dammit! It's hard to tell if this old fool was telling the truth about the police, but if he was…


With a curse, the man who wouldn't be Alan Spicer as soon as he got out of sight from too-observant elder and the rest of the ungrateful cretins on the street jumped down from his table and shouldered his way through the rapidly swelling morning crowd, briskly walking away from what was an undeniable failure. Thankfully, nobody followed him, at least not that he could tell.


As soon as he turned a corner, he broke into a run, pelting down the road away from potential pursuit, and jinking onto a side road as his limited stamina wore out. Almost immediately, he ducked into an alley and let himself collapse against the cool brick of the wall, completely winded.


Dammit… I really need to put more hours in on the treadmill… Shirley must never know…


The man breathed in, and breathed out as he hastily pulled away the cheap clothes he'd worn under the coveralls the night before. The brimmed cap he'd worn to cover his hair went first, before he pulled the cheap white button-up off, revealing a novelty print shirt, freshly purchased a day earlier from a souvenir shop in Clovisland itself. As the man wadded up the dress shirt, and threw it after the hat into the dumpster, he took another deep breath.


Lelouch slowly exhaled, letting the air flow out of him. The urge to lash out was almost irresistible, but Britannia's rejected son mastered himself. As cathartic as a temper tantrum would be, he needed to keep moving; if the old man had told the truth and the police really had been summoned, Lelouch couldn't afford to stick around.


I can't take care of Nunnally if I'm being held for inciting a riot, after all.


Nunnally… Shit, she's going to be so pissed…


Shaking his head angrily, the exiled prince left the alley, straightening his shirt and tightening his belt as he walked briskly away from the evidence he had left in the dumpster. He'd made a mistake somewhere… But, all of that could wait. He had to get back to the gated sanctuary of the Ashford grounds. Once he was safely ensconced in the Club House apartment, he could flagellate himself in private.


It was easy to blend into the thickening crowd near the MagLev station, with nobody paying attention to a surly teenager trudging through the gates and out onto the platform. Families enjoying weekend sojourns, couples out for day trips in the Settlement, and Honorary Britannians hawking snacks swirled around him as he slouched down onto an available bench. Dotted throughout the crowd, Eleven janitors pushed brooms, polished railings, and generally did their best to keep their heads down and avoid notice.


Probably a wise move on their part.


Within minutes, a train glided out of the station, a near silent symbol of the prosperous tomorrow promised by the continued development of the Area. The state of the art carriages were sparsely populated; the route away from the trendy downtown districts was unpopular at this time of day, and Lelouch had little difficulty finding a seat away from the irritating, ungrateful, masses. Finally, all but alone, he let himself start to think about the morning's events, and where he had gone wrong.


In his short life, Lelouch had only gotten drunk a handful of times, usually at the instigation of Milly Ashford. He liked being in control, both of himself and of those around him, and alcohol made it all but impossible to remain in command of his faculties. Besides, with the thin physique he'd inherited from his mother, the hangovers were simply too miserable to justify whatever joys could be offered by the preceding bacchanalia.


Now, aboard one of the most prominent symbols of his half-brother by blood only's reign, Lelouch felt like he was finally sobering up after a prolonged bender.


Who needs alcohol to get drunk when royal arrogance is available, after all? It was a bitter thought, especially after all he'd gone through since he'd left the Imperial Court. What the hell was I thinking…? I wasn't, clearly, dammit. Forget Nunnally, if Sayoko finds out, I'm dead.


His original plan had unquestionably been arrogant. A few hours' worth of eavesdropping had given him just enough of an understanding of the common crowd's problems to get their attention, but he hadn't understood how… complacent they were.


That complacency was itself something of a mystery. Based on the anger he'd overheard, Lelouch had thought the whole neighborhood was teetering on the edge of a riot before he'd even arrived, which was why he'd tried to give a speech to catalyze existing anger. It could be that the denizens of that particular neighborhood were simply comfortable enough to fear losing what they had more than they resented the loss of what could have been. Perhaps he had been overly cynical, and the people truly did believe it when they expressed their faith in Clovis's leadership, lackluster governance and rampant embezzlement be damned.


Or maybe they're scared? Lelouch clenched his eyes and cast his mind back to a blessedly short time when he hadn't known where he'd find his next meal, or more importantly, Nunnally's. Scared of tomorrow, scared that it would somehow be worse than today, scared of putting a foot wrong and losing everything… And always scared that someone was watching, waiting to pounce. I wonder if they were laughing at the posters, or laughing out of the fear that someone watching would think they agreed with what the posters said?


Either way, it was obvious to the disinherited vi Britannia that he had, simply put, jumped the gun. A handful of posters wouldn't stir housewives and skilled workers to public expressions of discontent, much less rioting and rebellion. The poster design had been lacking too, laughable instead of inspiring or terrifying.


Worst of all, by just showing up the same morning potential inflammatory posters appeared everywhere, Lelouch had looked incredibly suspicious. In academic terms, he had tried to show up for a test without having so much as opened a textbook in preparation.


No wonder all but a handful ignored the posters. No wonder the few that didn't just laughed. And no wonder that old bastard noticed me. I couldn't have been more obvious if I'd tried. Presumably the only reason he didn't hand me directly over to the police is because he thought I was so obvious that I was an agent provocateur sent by the government to test the neighborhood's loyalty.


With a derisive snort, Lelouch rose to his feet as the MagLev coasted into his station. It was amusing, in a sort of backhanded fashion; after all, Lelouch doubted that any organization led by Clovis la Britannia was competent enough to arrange an actual agent provocateur, at least not intentionally. The Christmas Incident had, in his opinion, undoubtedly been deliberately provoked, probably by the Purists themselves.


Well, look at the bright side – my idiocy might have reduced the locals' opinion of the Area's spooks and their competency today. What a wonderful achievement. Absolutely worth missing a night of sleep.


A pair of students waved to Lelouch from the platform as he exited the train, and he effortlessly slid back into character as Lelouch Lamperouge. A slight wave, a smirking smile, and a vague greeting were adequate to bring the two freshmen to the point of swooning, and the man who played the role of the Student Council Vice President slipped away and out onto the streets of the upmarket neighborhood surrounding the Academy.


Thankfully, Ashford's campus nearly emptied on the weekends, and the man was untroubled by the handful of students who lived in the on-campus dormitories as he crossed the verdant grounds to the Student Council Clubhouse. The day was fresh and bright, at odds with his mood, and he felt relief as the door to the Clubhouse foyer clicked shut behind him, leaving him alone in the cheerful and tastefully-appointed room. Above his head was the apartment he shared with his beloved little sister and Sayoko, but the man opted not to immediately activate the key-card protected elevator and return home.


Nunnally… His precious little sister, his only full-blooded sibling in a sea of half-brothers and half-sisters, was likely sitting at the dining room table in her wheelchair at this time of day, perhaps already finished with her usual light lunch. She would be smiling, the adorable quirk of her lips drawing attention away from her perpetually closed eyes. Nunnally…


Seven years ago, his old life as Lelouch vi Britannia had come to a shattering end over the course of a night and a day.


His mother, Marianne vi Britannia, had breathed her last in a pool of her own blood before Lelouch's horrified eyes. Her last act had been one of heroism, as could only be expected of "Marianne the Flash." She had shielded her younger child with her own body, even as the still-unknown assassins had riddled her with bullets. Said assassins had fled into the night, entirely unhindered by the mysteriously missing guard detail.


Their mother's sacrifice had saved Nunnally's life, though not her mobility – a stray bullet had sheared across the small of her back, devastating the last three vertebrae of her lumbar spine and condemning her to the life of a paraplegic. Overwhelmed by the horror and trauma, Nunnally's eyes – the same imperial purple as his own – had closed forever, blind despite remaining fully functional. She had survived, but her life would never be her own, especially not in Britannia.


The very next day, a young Prince Lelouch had sought out an audience with his father, and at the age of nine had demanded justice before the assembled court in the Imperial Palace at Pendragon for his murdered mother and crippled sister. He had demanded an investigation into his mother's death, demanded that his father care. And when That Man, never his father, hadn't, Lelouch had said the unthinkable, and declared the man who had ended the Emblem of Blood unworthy of his throne.


With the benefit of hindsight, Lelouch could see that he had been premature in doing so. Just like he had this very morning, Lelouch had jumped the gun. Within that very day, he and Nunnally had been on a plane bound for Japan, officially going overseas to the semi-hostile nation to "study abroad", a polite fiction to maintain the dignity of the Imperial Family. They had been exiles in truth, as well as de facto hostages; a prince and a princess were valuable pawns, even if the one was disinherited and the other crippled.


It had been in Japan that the true nightmare had begun.


And now, seven years later, I'm making the same mistakes again. Lelouch lowered himself to a thickly cushioned bench and let his head tilt back and thump against the wall. I acted without thinking when I demanded that last audience back then, and Nunnally and I both paid for that mistake. And now…


Everything that he had done since coming to Japan had been for Nunnally. That Man had been an ocean away, far out of reach, and vengeance had lost its urgency as the situation in Japan deteriorated. Britannia had come and reduced Japan to Area 11 in a month of horror that touched every life on the archipelago.


They should have died then, would have died to the righteously vengeful Japanese if Suzaku hadn't given them warning and helped them get away. For days, Lelouch had walked through the broken land with Nunnally on his back, inventing fabulous details and describing dream palaces in a bid to distract his beautiful little sister from the heaps of corpses surrounding them, already putrefying in the hot sun of late summer.


In some ways, Lelouch felt like he had never left that death field. Sometimes, on nights when he couldn't sleep, he still felt Nunally's horribly slight weight upon his back and the stink filling his nose and mouth.


He and Suzaku had given her everything they could find that was edible and most of the water, but she'd already been so light when they had left Kururugi Shrine together… He cringed when he remembered how his first thought had been relief that he wouldn't have to ask for Suzaku's help carrying her. It had been a child's thought, ignorant of the implications. Two days later, he had sent Suzaku away, back to his father.


Lelouch hadn't wanted to drag his first friend with him into the grave, not after his people, his empire had taken so much from the other boy.


It had been a noble impulse, but it had left him with nobody to help him care for Nunnally. She couldn't care for herself, not without her legs or eyes, and he'd been forced to search the bodies and homes of the dead for her meals, rarely finding enough to feed himself as well. Eventually, he had been forced to leave her behind as he scavenged, pickings growing slimmer as other survivors scrounged through the ruins.


Every time he had left, Lelouch had been scared, so scared, that she wouldn't be there when he came back. That angry Japanese survivors or cruel Britannian soldiers would have found her and kidnapped her or killed her. The only thing he had dreaded more was coming back and finding her frail body still where he had left her, but her beautiful heart forever stilled as her strained constitution had failed her.


He had been so, so scared…


It's okay, he told himself as his chest grew tight. It's okay. She's okay. You're okay. Sayoko helped us. We're all okay. She's still alive…


Lelouch had grown accustomed to that weight upon his back, the burden and blessing that was living his life for his sister. He had grown comfortable bearing that responsibility. Indeed, he had grown too comfortable.


Familiarity breeds contempt; when did you start holding Nunnally in contempt? They were his thoughts, but he could almost hear That Man's voice. Gallingly, he couldn't refute the words immediately.


After all, why else would he have gone off on some harebrained plan to inspire popular resistance? Why else would he have grown hungry once more for revenge against That Man, other than he had decided on some level that he was tired of caring for Nunnally? If he had been arrested, who would have held Nunnally's hand as she fell asleep this evening? How long would it have taken for the goons of the Directorate of Imperial Security to find this apartment and tear his sister from the small measure of comfort she had found?


But I can't hide behind Milly's skirts forever. Staying hidden at the Academy was never supposed to be a long-term plan. How long until That Man finds her here? I have to do something! But what can I do without endangering her…?


Lelouch's brooding was suddenly interrupted by the buzzing of his cell phone. Desperate for a distraction from his circling thoughts, and guiltily eager to find a reason to avoid the apartment for just a bit longer, he immediately opened the device to check for his message.


Eh… Rivalz? What the hell does he want?


[Heya Buddy!] The message began, [hope your weekend's going great and all. Did you get that assignment for World History done yet? Oh, and are you doing anything next Friday?]


Lelouch gritted his teeth in irritation with his friend, occasional confidante, and sometimes chauffeur. Mask on, Lelouch. Just think of it as a reason to not think about fucking up and almost endangering Nunnally again… Ugh.


[I've had better weekends, honestly. And yes, I finished the Cromwell paper on Tuesday. And yes, you can copy it.] Just before he sent the hasty text back in reply, curiosity compelled Lelouch to add another line. [What's happening on Friday?]


A moment later, his phone buzzed again. [Thanks buddy, knew I could count on ya! Remember that group I've been volunteering with? Well, the lady running it said I should bring a friend next time! She's a hottie too, so it's not a big deal for you, right? Oh, and guess what – you know Kallen, right? The Stadtfeld girl from 3rd Period? She's helping out there too! Just in case you needed another reason to go besides hanging out with your best buddy! LOL]


"Kallen… Stadtfeld…" The dots finally connected for Lelouch.


Wait, wasn't that who Rivalz said had taken him to the city back in December? The girl from the Newspaper Club?! The one who tried to sneak into my apartment?! A chill shot down the once-prince's spine. Involvement in either instance might have been pure happenstance, but taken together? First, she tried snooping around my home, and now she's trying to suborn an associate of mine… Is that her game? 'How long until the IDSS's goons come?' What if they were here all along?


[You drive a hard bargain, Rivalz.] The phone was in his hand almost before he knew it. [Sure, I'd love to come and meet this cutie charity worker. And Stadtfeld will be there too? Score. I'll clear my plans for Friday night.]


If she really is up to something, I need to know. There's too many factors at Ashford, so I need to see her when she's alone… Besides, there's no way anybody my brother employs would be happy to serve soup to homeless Honoraries. If she's actually happy doing it, then I might just be paranoid…Lelouch allowed himself a snort of bitter amusement. Either way, I won't let my inattention bring danger to Nunnally. I've been complacent, but not anymore. If this Stadtfeld girl is an agent of my brother's, I need to know.


Springing to his feet full of renewed purpose, Lelouch pounded his passcode into the panel guarding the stairway up to the second level before taking the stairs two at a time, suddenly eager to see his darling sister once again. He had screwed up today, but he'd learnt his lesson. He'd destroy anybody who threatened his sister, but he would take his time in doing so to guarantee that she wasn't endangered by his actions.


Building a new world where Nunnally could live safely would take time and effort. Rome hadn't been built in a day, and Britannia wouldn't be destroyed in a weekend. Lelouch still thought that his original plan to turn Britannian society against itself was a good one, but he couldn't do it as a single isolated man; doing so would all but guarantee Nunnally's arrest. He would need catspaws and ciphers, disposable minions and useful idiots.


He needed an identity with greater depth than a fake mustache and a shirt from a secondhand store.


Next time, he'd do a better job preparing for his task. His sister would be safe. His sister would always be safe. And the only way his sister could ever be truly safe would be if That Man, their father, was six feet below the earth, along with every single person who would dare raise a finger to her. As Sayoko greeted him with a bow and a murmur of "Welcome home, Master Lelouch," the once and former prince smiled with relief. The plan would work. It had to work. The whole world could burn, but it would be worth it.


It has to be.



---------


APRIL 20, 2016 ATB
VICEROY'S PALACE OF AREA 11, BRITANNIAN CONCESSION, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
2217


The conference room stank. After the meeting of the Viceregal Council and all of the various invited movers and shakers had stretched into the third hour, the cigars had come out, partially explaining the stench. Barely masked by the stench of tobacco, a rich bouquet of anger, panic, and desperation permeated the atmosphere. It was entirely at odds with the overstuffed chairs, mahogany table, and the rococo gilding that crept like fungus over every exposed surface.


Despite the generous size of the room, it felt strangely claustrophobic to the Agent, even from his position by the broad windows, far from the scrum around the hulking conference table. Every department of the Area Administration had sent at least one representative, many of whom had arrived with a horde of flunkies.


Not to be outdone, all military units over regimental size had sent an officer or two as well. The units affiliated with the Purist faction, despite being few in number, had sent enough nobly-born representatives to match the rest of the military contingent man for man. Every major industrial or commercial concern in the Area had someone to speak for them as well.


And that was before the Viceregal Governor's retinue was added to the fray. Aristocrats and artists, bodyguards and courtesans, all had tried to talk their way into the conference room claiming to be key decision makers. Fortunately, most of the parasites had been contained to the hallway outside the conference room itself, but more than enough had insinuated themselves into the council room to confuse the situation still further.


Taken together, the Agent was confident that nothing of consequence would be decided tonight, at least not in regards to the stated topic of discussion for the meeting. While it was plausible that some undertakings benefitted from committee leadership, the man in the unassuming gray suit doubted that counter-guerrilla operations were amongst that very select set. He was fairly convinced that winkling partisans out of the countryside required a measure of consistency in approach as well as clear and informed leadership.


Unfortunately, somebody on the Governor's staff had seen fit to convince the Prince that all hands were required for such a worrying issue, hence the summons to anybody "of the right sort" who felt they had a stake in the matter.


And of course, everybody's scared of guerrillas so everybody came. What a shocking development.


Next to the Agent, one of his comrades from the Directorate shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, probably working the kinks out of some cramping muscle. He could sympathize; they had been standing in their little corner of the conference room for almost five hours now, waiting for their nominal leader to call them forth to present what information and analysis their office had scraped together over the last few days. Making matters worse, Margrave Jeremiah Gottwald and a colonel that the Agent didn't immediately recognize were locked in a shouting match just a few yards away.


"-And I'm telling you that just hitting them harder isn't working!" The nameless colonel snarled, his nose almost touching the Margrave's, "the ones actually responsible for the attacks are long gone by the time our boys show up, and as soon as we leave they come back and keep killing police officers and mining roads! We can kill all the Elevens in the area and they don't give a shit!"


"That's simply a result of your 'boys' utter incompetency," the Margrave sneered down at the slightly shorter man, "If they moved at a pace worth of their oaths of service to His Majesty, perhaps they might arrive soon enough to actually do some damage. Besides, sooner or later the rebels will run out of peasants to hide and feed them, and it's not like there's any shortage of the ungrateful little pissants to replace them." A single elegant eyebrow quirked upwards. "What, are you squeamish about killing a few handfuls of peasants? I took you for a fool, Colonel Beasly, not a rebel sympathizer."


Beasly blanched momentarily, before his face reddened to an alarmingly beefy hue. "How dare you question my loyalty, Gottwald?! If we weren't both on duty, I'd demand a duel this very instant! As it is, I don't give a good goddamn about a bunch of Numbers squatting in rice paddies, but I was ordered to leave enough alive to sow the fields and bring in the harvest! Depopulating the countrysides of three provinces in response to a few thousand rebels would be an absurd waste of resources! Not to mention that the rebels would still be out there, setting fires and blowing up roads!"


"Yes, yes, things will get worse before they get better." Gottwald snorted, waving his hand contemptuously. "A missed harvest is a paltry price to crush a rebellion before it spirals completely out of hand. As long as any Number so much as thinks about raising a hand to his betters, I say Proclamation Nine should be upped to a thousand per head." The margrave smirked slightly. "Perhaps that might get a lesson through their thick skulls."


"And what happens when we run out of peasants, Gottwald?" Beasly ground out, civility barely present as his face darkened still further to puce. "Are you going to set your Purists to work harvesting the rice and rebuilding the Area's economy? Don't make me laugh, your men are barely even soldiers, much less competent workers. If we kill every Eleven in sight, then how exactly do you expect anything to get done? The entire damned place will grind to a halt!"


"I think that Lord Jeremiah might have a point." The Agent resisted the urge to groan as His Highness Clovis la Britannia, 3rd Prince of the Holy Britannian Empire and Viceregal-Governor of Area 11, meandered over from his place by the conference table to join the "conversation" between Colonel Beasly and Margrave Jeremiah, a small army of followers trailing after him. This damned meeting's getting longer by the minute, I can feel it.


He exchanged small commiserating glances with his fellow spooks. The meeting hadn't been a complete waste of time – the loose-lipped potentates had let slip a vast array of gossip as well as plenty of scraps of useful information. As soon as he returned to his office, he'd transcribe all of the mental notes, before finally indulging in a shot or three of the cheap whiskey he'd hidden in a desk drawer.


But until then… Focus on His Royal Pain in the Arse.


"After all," the Prince was saying, "any good gardener knows that weeds must be pulled promptly, lest they overrun the garden. If our good Elevens hear about how much difficulty a handful of farmers with pre-Conquest military surplus are causing us, who knows what might happen in the cities and settlements? Best the thistle were plucked before it spread throughout the rosebed."


So nothing we haven't been doing for the past six years. Excellent.


At a gesture from the Prince, a secretary scuttled over to the conversation with an obsequious "Yes, Your Highness?" "Memo," Clovis snapped, nodding to the Margrave, "let it be known that until the end of the current emergency, and though it pains my merciful heart, the penalties demanded by Proclamation Nine shall be increased tenfold. Make sure that's on the front page of the Oriental tomorrow."


As the clerk scuttled out of the conference room, the Viceroy made his way back towards the conference table, thankfully followed by the two officers, who had resumed glowering at one another as soon as the Prince had turned his back.


There's some real animosity there, far beyond the professional… Something to keep in mind for the future…


Near the head of the mahogany table, the rotund Deputy Minister of Justice was finally moving on from the inevitable brownnosing to something worthwhile. "...investigations revealed that Lord Grizzwald and Lord Kelso had each attempted to bribe members of the judiciary, Lord Kelso on no fewer than four individual occasions! Curiously enough, all in regards to matters related to real property with disputed ownership!"


Ah yes, trying to forcibly purchase the parcels owned by Honorary Britannians via the courts.


"Naturally," the Deputy Minister swelled up indignantly, "all of our honorable judges turned down such crass offers!"


The Agent resisted the temptation to snort in derision. "However, as members of the public happened to overhear these exchanges on at least three occasions and reported them via official channels, we are of course beholden to bring these attempted purveyors of corruption to Your Highness's attention!"


Someone overheard and complained, and now the Deputy Minister is trying to head off an external investigation at the pass. Since all of our judges are corrupt, he must be worried about something else… Very interesting.


"Indeed," the Deputy Minister blathered on, "in light of current mutterings about matters of official corruption, I would like to open formal and public proceedings against both men. I understand that this is a course rarely taken, especially against gentry of such fine breeding, but a display of Your Highness's evenhandedness despite social status could endear you to the common rabble."


One or both of the lords in question must have something on the Deputy himself, and now the worm's seeing a chance to get out from under their thumb. That's definitely worth opening an investigation of our own. The Agent appended that tidbit to his file of mental notes for the night, and imagined himself underlining it for good measure. If we can figure out what hook they've got him wriggling on, we can use it for ourselves.


"Hmm…" While the Agent had focused on the Deputy Minister, the Prince had found a chair to artfully drape himself across. "On one hand, it is a sad necessity for any gardener to distinguish plants that shall flower into beautiful blossoms from drab duds, but…"


A look of acute discomfort flashed across the Prince's face, there for an instant then gone without a trace, leaving the usual easy smile behind. "I am not entirely sure that targeting these two fine gentlemen is in the best interest of the Area. After all, what if they appeal to their family back in Pendragon? Who knows what turbulence they may bring to our beautiful Area 11?"


Coward. The Agent frowned minutely, before smoothing his expression back into calm neutrality. The nobles will never be called to account – not while the Prince is terrified of their families back in the Homeland. Royal or not, crossing the old houses is a risk, especially when the royal in question is as weak as Clovis is. On the other hand… If the Third Prince wasn't a known craven, I doubt the Emperor and the Chancellor would have put him in charge of Area 11, with all of its Sakuradite reserves. They needed a man of sufficient rank who would be too frightened of the Homeland to make a play… and they found Clovis.


"Your Highness, I implore you to reconsider!" The Deputy Minister had begun to visibly perspire despite the air conditioned coolness of the room, but to his credit his voice was still steady. "In light of the… ahem… Current situation, it is of vital importance that the people know of your evenhandedness and your devotion to just and good governance! If the citizens of your fair Area see you dealing with those who attempt to undercut the execution of justice, they will certainly have confidence in your ability to deal with the rebels!"


Despite himself, the Agent was impressed. Bold of the Deputy to push back against the Governor like that! And he actually managed a coherent argument too, well targeted Clovis's vanity. But… He subtly peered at the blonde prince from the corner of his eye, noting the vaguely anxious expression barely hidden by that rose the royal was incessantly sniffing, but I don't think it was quite enough.


Apparently, the Deputy Minister of Justice agreed with the Agent's impression. "Your Highness, the rebels present a potential threat to the Sakuradite extraction operations so integral to both Area 11 and our Holy Empire! Undermining the justice system puts the central pillars of our society at risk, ultimately endangering the Fuji mines!"


The Deputy Minister paused, took in Clovis's clearly unimpressed expression, and went for broke. "Ultimately, Your Highness, you are the prince here, set here by Your Majesty the Emperor to not only reign but rule! Your mercy has already been sorely abused by these dishonorable Numbers! Why must you, our beloved Viceregal-Governor, also endure the abuse and shame of being robbed by these thieves? No matter how blue their blood is, your blood is that of Britannia!"


For the first time in hours, silence – blessed silence – filled the conference room for a few seconds, before a wave of sussurating whispers emerged from the packed ranks of courtiers, bureaucrats, and officers.


Calling out Lords Grizzwold and Kelso as thieves stealing from the Prince himself? He's either definitively won, or his career and probably life are over. The Agent felt the corners of his mouth twitch up ever so slightly. Thieves calling out thieves… What a day.


Steadily, the Prince drew himself upright in his chair before rising to his feet, rose elegantly held between two white-gloved fingers and pointing out across the table towards the huddled knot of clerks and secretaries recording the minutes. "We've heard quite enough! Secretary, by the will of the Third Prince of Britannia, Clovis la Britannia, issue orders for the arrest of Lords Grizzwold and Kelso!"


Just as the secretary had finished scribbling out a note and was handing it to a waiting messenger, the Prince coughed and spoke up, relaxing from his dramatic position to a more natural posture. "Also, send word to my speechwriter. I – We need to get something ready to announce their arrest. Tell him to work the line 'exorcize the foul canker of untrustworthy servants' in there somewhere."


When the Governor was born a prince, the stage missed a great talent.


With obvious relief, the Deputy Minister returned to his chair, slumping down and wiping his brow even as his own clique of hangers-on clustered around him. To the Agent's great relief, the Minister for Internal Affairs was the first to stand and make his way to the place by the head of the table, immediately to the Prince's right. After a few moments of pleasantries, the Minister jerked his head towards the small knot of intelligence men.


Finally, I can give my report!


"Your Highness," The Agent bowed low, calibrating the exact angle of his groveling just as carefully as he calculated the bland tone of his voice. Too dull and he'll go to sleep, too emotional and I'll sound like a thespian.


"I regret to inform you that we have detected rumors regarding far more serious topics than a handful of corrupt nobles circulating through the population."


The Agent carefully rose, and moved to stand directly to the left and a half-pace behind his boss, a carefully choreographed play they'd worked out in advance to underline the importance of his words. After all, that's the best place to stand when knifing a man.


"I am afraid to report that the so-called 'Christmas Incident' remains quite divisive in common society, across all economic classes and throughout the rank-and-file of most units in the Area. While most of your adoring subjects fully support the obvious truth that the Incident was caused by Honorary Britannians murdering Britannian soldiers, and the bulk of the damage was the natural result of drunken and out of control soldiers taking their revenge, a significant portion of the population questions or outright denies that version of events. The picture of the soldier from the 32nd Honorary Legion in particular is stirring up discontent."


Halfway down the table, Margrave Jeremiah let out an audible snort. "And? The commoners are always muttering about something. If it wasn't a few dead Elevens, it would be something else. Besides," the Margrave shrugged dramatically, lip curled up in a sneer, "why does it matter if a few Honorary soldiers died anyway? They shouldn't have been wearing those uniforms to begin with. Their blood could have only helped wash out the stains of dishonor they left on those poor garments!"


A mix of sycophantic laughter and a worrying amount of muttered agreement rumbled through the conference room. The Agent was unmoved. Oh, don't worry, Jeremiah. We all know who Kewell answers to, and I've got four witness statements confirming that Kewell gave the marching orders on Christmas Eve. And I only had to fabricate one of them. Your day will come.


"I would like to remind the Margrave Jeremiah that my job is simply to report the facts as they have been collected by the local office, and to pass them on to His Highness without commentary. Unless…" The Agent turned fully to face the head of the Purist Faction in Area 11, "Do you have doubts about the abilities of the Imperial Directorate of State Security, Lord Jeremiah?"


The teal-headed soldier growled out something that the Agent couldn't catch across the length of the table, but waved his hand in a gesture that could just barely be interpreted as conciliatory. The Agent nodded, before turning back to the Prince. Who didn't make a move during that whole interruption. Who Jeremiah didn't even look at during his interruption. Does the Prince know how weak that makes him look? Would he do anything if he did?


"Beyond mere rumor, the economic disruption caused by the events of last December is now being exacerbated by the current troubles in Niigata and Nagano Prefectures. The damage to both the road network and the rail system by insurgent bombings, as well as the destruction of harvesting machinery, storehouses, and sake distilleries, have collectively slowed the economic growth of the Area." The Agent continued dutifully. "This has impacted many citizens' livelihoods in a negative manner. Together with the ongoing unemployment issues, many Settlements are starting to develop a large population of semi-permanently unemployed young people, who are rapidly becoming disaffected."


"Bah!" The Prince finally reacted, throwing himself back down into his chair and taking a prolonged sniff of the rose's petals. "We already have plans for handling that little issue. We have been advised that Britannian unemployment is caused in large part by the employment of Honorary Britannians. So, we are considering banning all Britannian owned businesses in the Area from employing any Honorary Britannians. That handles the unemployment problem!"


The Agent carefully kept his mask neutral as the Governor smiled, obviously pleased with cutting his very own Gordian Knot. "And to handle the economic discomfort issue, well… My people must know of how I, Clovis la Britannia, love them! My love shall be expressed to every household through a one-time gift of five hundred pounds!"


The rose swished through the air, and the secretary it alighted upon nodded, hastily scribbling on her pad of stationary.


"Hmm…" The Prince was still talking, the rose losing a petal as it twirled between his fingers like a baton. "Money is all well and good, but the people will need time to spend it to truly appreciate my love… A new public holiday will serve them well!"


Again, the increasingly bedraggled rose pinned a clerk to the spot. "Let it be known that May 4th shall henceforth be celebrated in Area 11 as 'vi Britannia Day', in honor of my dear lost siblings." Clovis threw a hand to his brow and mimed an expression of grief, "Oh, how I miss them so! Now we shall all have a day preserved in their sweet memory!"


From his peripheral vision, the Agent noticed how Margrave Gottwald jerked at the mention of the deceased royals. Oh yes, I know about that too, Jeremiah. I'm sure that your fellow Purists know you were a former Imperial Guard, but do they know that you failed to protect the Emperor's favorite wife? I doubt it.


"Brilliant, Your Highness, simply brilliant!" That insightful analysis had come, regrettably, from the Minister for Economic Development. Also known as the 'Fattest Man in Tokyo', Bishop Lazaro Pulst was also the head cleric of the Britannic Church in Area 11 and the Viceregal-Governor's spiritual advisor. And possibly the single greatest beneficiary of the Prince's administration. "Your mercy and charity are truly awe inspiring, my Prince! I am sure that the people will be moved by your grief for your innocent younger brother, taken so cruelly from this world at a tender age!"


The Agent, for his part, was considerably less sanguine.


The whole point of the Honorary Britannian program is to integrate the choice portion of the Number population, economically and culturally! If you take away their jobs and mandate that nobody hire them, that will send a clear message and destroy whatever progress was made in the last six years that the Purists haven't already demolished! The agent fumed internally, even while he maintained his neutral expression. Plus, do you think all of those businesses will like having to pay the legal minimum wage? And just dumping money isn't going to solve the problems presented by the bombed out roads and the torched fields!


Before he could resume his report, Margrave Jeremiah felt it necessary to express his support for Clovis's plan as well. "Good choice, Your Highness! Those jumped up Elevens were taking money out of honest Britannians' hands! I bet they were giving their paychecks right over to their brothers up in the mountains too, so cutting that money off means less bullets and bombs for the damned holdouts!"


Of course, the Purists want the Honorary program cut off entirely, not only in the army. This must be Christmas for Jeremiah. The Agent grimaced internally at his choice of holidays. No, not enough flaming corpses for Christmas.


Thankfully, the Minister for Internal Affairs cut in. "If I may, Your Highness, I believe that my man was not yet finished with his report."


The Governor waved indulgently and the Agent bowed again. "Thank you, Your Highness. Now…"


"It has come to the attention of the IDSS that the divide between the members of the Army affiliated with the Purist Faction and those unaffiliated has deepened precipitously over the last several months. We are concerned that this divide has crossed the threshold from a friendly rivalry into true animosity, and may degrade operational efficiency if left unaddressed. We are also concerned that a divide in our ranks might weaken the coherency of our garrison forces in Area 11, weakening us in the face of potential hostile action from the Chinese Federation."


"The rest of the Army should be apologizing to us!" Lord Kewell Soresi, eldest son of a long and distinguished line, apparently couldn't hold his anger in check any longer. Pathetic. Even Jeremiah's got better self-control than this clown. "Some damned thug of a marine murdered a Purist with a whiskey bottle and Numbers serving in other units knifed three more in the streets! They owe us a damned apology! Perhaps after we get one we'll let them off the hook!"


Almost before Kewell stopped speaking, virtually every non-Purist officer in the room stepped forward to angrily rebut the young noble's outburst, leaping to the defense of the service. Interestingly, the Agent noted that General Bartley Aspirus, the commander of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Division of the Special Weapons Corps and a known personal friend of the Third Prince, held his tongue. Almost alone in the sea of uniforms pressing forwards to the table, the General hung back in his corner, accompanied only by two lab-coated men.


If every other officer here feels the need to express their loyalty to the Army, why doesn't Aspirus feel likewise? Perhaps… he doesn't feel the same loyalty as his fellow staff officers?


After ten minutes of squabbling, the Viceregal-Governor finally put an end to it. "Friends, please, calm down! Fear not, we take no offense at Lord Kewell's outburst – he is young, and full of eagerness to serve, and he after all comes from one of the finest families in Britannia." The collected soldiers slunk back to their chairs with a variety of glowering expressions, leaving the scion of the Soresi family practically beaming with smugness.


To his credit, Jeremiah looked almost as irate as the rest of the soldiers. Ah yes, Gottwald actually served in the regiments before he was elevated to the Imperial Guard. Most of the Purists move straight into glorified parade units once they graduate from their cadet programs.


"And I am sure that we don't need to worry about the Chinese, of all people!" The prince indulged in a long, deep sniff at the rose, before idly tossing it over his shoulder. "After all, we're Britannians, by God! The Chinese are too incompetent to attack across water, the Europeans are too far away, and the Elevens are weak and stupid! Besides," for a brief moment, an element of firmness touched Clovis's admittedly handsome features, "we are all Britannians, and we expect all to pull together in the end, friendly rivals or not. All Hail Britannia!"


Every courtier and staffer shot to their feet with a deep-throated bellow of "ALL HAIL BRITANNIA!"


As the echoes died out, the Agent took the opportunity to finish his report. "And to conclude, Your Highness, there is one last point that has troubled the IDSS. Namely, numerous fringe religious and political movements have begun to make themselves known across the Area. We have found traces of subversive groups in commoner residential projects, numerous barracks, and even in a few neighborhoods housing the petty nobility."


The Prince leaned back in his chair, propping his head on his hand. "Oh? How awful." The words were flat and the Agent, feet away from Clovis, could see that his eyes were dull.


He's gotten bored of this meeting. Wonderful. Well, I'm duty-bound to deliver this report, not to make sure that the Governor cares about it.


"There seem to be a variety of groups operating in Area 11, Your Highness. Pamphlets from the 'True Anglican Church' have been found in the vestries and lobbies of several military chapels. A large number of charitable groups have been established in recent months with names like the 'Friends of the Elevens Society' and the 'Honor Society of Honorary Britannians'. There's even been a handful of lunatics arrested while publicly spouting off about the 'Prince Lelouch Truther' conspiracy theory, mostly because they were calling out for the 'True Prince' to come and overthrow your benevolent reign."


Another storm of whispers filled the conference room as Clovis suddenly jerked in his chair, eyes wide awake and flaring. Similarly, Jeremiah let out what sounded like a grunt of pain, hastily concealed behind a cough. The Agent smiled internally. Ah, he's awake now. Now, was it just the mention of your deceased brother's name that startled you, Your Highness? Or was it the prospect that your brother might not be quite as dead as previously assumed? Hmm…


"Your Highness," the Agent finally concluded, speaking over the rising tide of side conversations and halfway muted exclamations, "Your Lordships, gentlemen, the IDSS does not believe this sudden swelling of social and political organization is as spontaneous as it might seem. While it is possible that one or more operatives of the Wings of Talleyrand may be active in the Tokyo Settlement, we believe it is far more likely that we are seeing the early stages of Leveller activity."


And with that, chaos well and truly filled the conference room. The Minister for Internal Affairs turned and gestured, giving the Agent and his compatriots permission to leave. With a bow towards the Prince, who was already far too distracted in a hushed conversation with General Aspirus of all people to notice, the Agent slowly walked out of the conference room, doing his best to not look too delighted to leave.


The heavy oaken doors thudded close behind the trio, instantly muffling the uproar inside the jammed room. The Agent nodded, and his two juniors set off down the left hall, which would eventually lead to a side door and the freedom of the end of shift. The Agent took the right hall, but took his time descending into the sub-basement that appeared on no publicly available map of the seat of the Area Administration.


The tiny IDSS enclave, and particularly the area set aside for the Counter-Intelligence Unit, was his home away from home, but the Agent was uncharacteristically unenthusiastic to return. He already found himself missing the smoke-filled confines of the garish room behind him. Unpleasant or not, he would have very much appreciated the opportunity to hear the responses of the great and the good to the tail end of his report.


After all, as a high-ranking Leveller himself, who had spent years working his way up the ranks of the IDSS, he understood exactly how valuable having a man on the inside of a conversation full of loose lipped fools could be.

 

[Scopas]

(Thank you to MetalDragon, Sunny, Aminta Defender, Afforess, MitchH, WrandmWaffles, and Siatru for beta reading, editing, suggestions, and their encouragement, as well as the lovely members of my Discord. I appreciate it.)


Chapter 23


APRIL 21, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
2004


"Regrettably, Naoto won't be joining us for this meeting." Ohgi folded his hands on the table before him and blandly smiled at Diethard as he spoke in Japanese. "That man needs his sleep more than he needs yet another meeting."


"True enough." I nodded from the end of the small table, equidistant between Ohgi and the reporter, replying in the same language. "I didn't think that Kallen strictly needed to be in attendance for this meeting either, so I sent her back home. No need to take unnecessary risks with her other identity, after all." I turned to Diethard. "Anyway, despite the lack of Kozukis in attendance, consider this your introduction to the Kozuki Organization."


"Charmed, I'm sure," Diethard replied, smiling sardonically at Ohgi, who for his part, just gazed back with a bland passivity I distinctly remembered from endless meetings back in my first life.


"Ohgi, meet Mister Diethard Reid," I began the introductions, "a journalist and producer with Hi-TV. Mister Reid, meet Kaname Ohgi. Together with Naoto and I, Ohgi is in charge of the Kozuki Organization as well as the Rising Sun Benevolent Association."


"Oh?" Diethard blinked languidly, before visibly giving Ohgi a once-over, eyes tracing over my fellow officer's admittedly greasy pompador, long sideburns, and battered jacket, and deliberately turning away from the only pure Japanese leader in the Organization to look at me. "Are you sure I can't meet with Nathan? Usually, stories with a more… charismatic cast sell better."


I noticed the slight stiffness in Ohgi's shoulders, and internally commended him for refusing to rise to Diethard's obvious bait. No need to give the Brit any reason to fall back on the "savage Eleven" stereotype, after all.


Still, Diethard is my problem, so it's my responsibility to see that he stays in line.


"Mister Reid," I opened conversationally, "if you attempt any social engineering to adversely affect the Organization, its leaders, or its members – especially in such an overt manner – I will take it as a betrayal of the spirit of our agreement."


I let the comment hang in the air for a moment and stared at the infuriating man, trying to convey exactly how unimpressed I was with his antics before giving up and opting to convey my feelings as unambiguously as possible. "Just so there aren't any misunderstandings here, Diethard, let me be blunt." I spoke in slow, carefully enunciated tones while I maintained direct eye contact with the madman. "You will treat Ohgi with the same level of respect as you do me or Naoto. This is Shinjuku, and the heart of the Rising Sun. You are here at my discretion. Do not abuse it."


I paused and gave the words a moment to sink in. "Do I make myself clear?"


The man's infuriating smirk dimmed, and the deranged newsman gave me a nod that was almost respectful. "Crystal."


The itching in my fists died down, but I could still see the spark of madness twinkling in his eyes.


It truly is Schugel all over again, I grumbled to myself, I'll have to make sure he's kept on a tight leash. An insane genius like that is as useful as they are dangerous.


"So, Mister Kaname," Reid continued, turning back to Ohgi, "what is your role in this Organization of yours?"


"I am… I handle… internal management…" Ohgi replied, speaking slowly as he groped for the words.


While my fellow officer had familiarity with Britannian, dating back to his childhood friendship with Naoto, he wasn't exactly comfortable with the language. Worse still, he once confided to me that stressful situations made it harder for him to articulate his thoughts in the Emperor's tongue. I had wanted to help him refresh his familiarity, since knowledge of the enemy's language is frequently useful, but there was just never enough time when we were both free.


"If you have… problem or argument, or if you want to join… I handle that. I also help with training program."


"Fascinating." Diethard's dry reply, again skirting the very edges of rudeness, was blatantly insincere. "Well, as Miss Tanya already mentioned, I am a journalist and a producer, which means that I specialize in finding engaging stories, and presenting them to the general public." He paused, and smirked. "Let me know if I'm going too fast for you."


I suppressed a sigh. I really am going to need to figure out how to deal with this Brit shit stirrer.


"I understand," Ohgi replied, stoically ignoring the bait. "Keep going."


"Well, to put it simply, I can really help your organization out in two ways." Presumably finished with petty one-up-manship for the moment, Diethard finally got to the point of the meeting. "First, narrative management and dissemination. I can help shape your organization's story, and I can make sure that it gets into the public consciousness. Second, I am a fantastic investigative reporter; between my own skills and my multitude of contacts, I can provide all kinds of useful intelligence to your organization. I already gave Tanya a free sample!"


"A free sample?" I broke in sharply. "Mister Reid, you assured me that everything you possessed was on that drive. Do we need to go back to the alley to help shake loose whatever you were hoarding?"


I have not lied to you, not once," Diethard replied calmly. "After all, it is very important to establish trust between a subject and an interviewer. That drive contains the sum of my investigative work to date, but if there's one thing I have learned in my trade, it's that there is always another secret. I am sure there's plenty more dirt for me to dig up."


"Alright." Oddly enough, I did believe him. In a strange way, Diethard wasn't unlike Schugel – the lunatic scientist and engineer who had haunted the final years of my past life. Just like Schugel, Diethard was a fanatic, and like Schugel, a slave to his obsession. In large part, that was why I'd assured Kallen that I understood Diethard – I had dealt with his ilk before. "Propaganda and intelligence; both quite handy for an organization like ours."


"That they are." Diethard practically oozed smug satisfaction. "Honestly, you're quite lucky I decided to follow Lady Stadtfeld to you. The rest of the Fourth Estate here in Area Eleven, sorry, Japan, have no idea how to spin a story. They're all so used to appealing to an audience of one that they've forgotten how to appeal to anybody else."


"Fourth Estate?" Ohgi asked, turning to me for clarification. "What's that?"


"The press, the media, journalists. All of that," I explained in Japanese. "Anybody who isn't directly employed by the government and makes a career out of peddling information to the public."


"Ah, I see. Thank you." Ohgi turned back to Diethard. "Question: if news are all talking to Prince Clovis, what good is 'narrative management'. And, what about censors?"


I sat back, curious to see how Diethard would respond to those points.


"I didn't mean that all of the news stations and papers are solely addressing Clovis," Diethard said with a smile that was only slightly patronizing. "They make sure that he hears what he wants to hear and say what he wants them to say. The thing is, a good producer knows that any story can be told a multitude of different ways. If we're discreet and clever, the censors will wave any story we tell through with only minimal pro forma changes."


"You're quite sure of yourself, Mister Reid." I studied the newsman, attempting to determine how much of his confidence was warranted and how much was bluster. "Please give me an example of a story that you think could be aired that would advance the goals of our organization."


"The goals of the organization?" Diethard lifted an immaculately shaped eyebrow. "You haven't actually explained what your long-term goals are to me. Considering the soup campaign and the hearts and minds campaign you're running, I assume that this is more than a paltry gang, but beyond that I'm in the dark."


I paused, rewinding our negotiations in the alley, the brief conversation we had on the way to the apartment building and the course of the meeting thus far. Damn, he's right; I completely forgot to explain what the point of all this is. I rubbed my nose, suddenly aware of how long today had been and how tired I was. In my defense, it wasn't like his recruitment followed the standard pattern.


"My apologies, Mister Reid." Realizing that I was still holding the bridge of my nose, I folded my hands in front of me, aiming for a slightly more professional look. "That particular oversight was an error on my part. You have joined a group dedicated to the liberation of Japan from the Holy Britannian Empire, and the re-establishment of the Republic of Japan as a free and sovereign entity."


To my surprise, Diethard threw back his head, laughing, and finished with a round of enthusiastic claps. I blinked and looked at Ohgi, who shrugged at me, equally confused. "Excellent, excellent!" Diethard all but crowed, eyes wide and shining. "I knew you'd have a story worth telling! Lady Statdfeld was merely an appetizer, a starter! This is the story! My story!"


"You're free to tell it once we succeed," I replied sharply, trying to throw some figurative cold water on the excited reporter. "In the meantime, you still haven't answered my question."


"Yes, yes," Diethard waved off my concern, "don't worry, I know exactly where to start. Think about it – who has Clovis been cozying up to for the last six months or so?"


"The Purists?" Ohgi ventured, before turning and speaking to me in Japanese. "That's what they're called, right? 'The Purist Faction?' They're the same ones who took the credit for the Station and who you targeted for Kyoto?"


"Yes," I replied in Britannian for the benefit of both parties. "Viceroy Clovis has been providing political support and clearly preferential treatment to the Purist Faction. This has given the Purists license to aggressively pursue their own policies, such as the fratricidal attacks on Honorary Britannian units last winter."


"Exactly! That must have been an excellent Christmas present for you – your enemy fighting their native allies in the streets of the Area capital itself!" Diethard's smile ripened with manic enthusiasm and unhinged glee. "And since the Prince can't admit that he screwed up by backing the Purists, he made their narrative his own, doubling down on his error again!"


"It was an… unexpected outcome," I carefully replied. "One that exposed a surprisingly sharp division in the enemy's ranks."


"And there you have it!" Diethard smacked the table, emphasizing his point. "That's the story you tell! Clovis is chained to the Purists, who are dedicated to forcing all Honorary Britannians out of the military. If you want to run stories against the Britannian military, smear the Honorary Britannian units. The censors will hear 'Honorary Britannian' and wave you through and suddenly you have anti-military content on every news channel in Area 11!"


"Every channel?" I mulled the idea over. "Ah, because once one channel runs a story and gets a positive reception, the others will follow suit." Diethard nodded as I followed his idea to its conclusion. "And once every channel's running it, well, then it must be true in the minds of the consumers, yes?"


"See, you're getting it!" Diethard reached into his pocket, causing Ohgi to tense, but only pulled out a small notebook. After a moment of fumbling, he started jotting down notes as he continued to speak. "Once you've got that sort of consensus on your side, you can run almost anything, as long as you localize it to the specific issue. Rampant inflation? Well, it could be the Prince's new vanity project, or it could be the Honorary Britannians. Nobody's going to check."


"That's just basic scapegoating, though. Hardly anything revolutionary." Even as I pointed out the lack of sophistication, I realized what a foolish objection it was. Propaganda didn't need to be revolutionary, it just needed to work. "Besides, we have other priorities at present besides the Honorary Britannians." I paused, and then threw Diethard a bone. "Thank you for the example, though. That did indeed answer my question."


I turned over the example in my mind as I quickly caught Ohgi back up with the conversation. He'd started to look slightly lost as Diethard's speech had enthusiastically accelerated. I was still leery about openly targeting the Honorary Britannian population. Not only were the collaborators the only ones who had been educated over the last half decade, they were also a natural way to get saboteurs, or at least assets, into the Britannian war machine. Besides, targeting the Honorary Britannians would put the Kozuki Organization at odds with the Six Houses in their role as the 'Numbers Advisory Committee', the foremost Honorary Britannian authority in Area 11.


"I think that we will start with a more local concern," I decided, turning back to Diethard after a quick consultation with Ohgi in Japanese. "It's long past time for the Rising Sun Association, and through it the Kozuki Organization, to assert control over all of Shinjuku. The surviving gangs represent an unnecessary complication in our plans and are a drain on our resources and attention. Their continued operation also flies in the face of the mission of the Benevolent Association."


"Gangs?" Diethard looked slightly put out. "You're just focusing on… gangs? That's… rather pedestrian. Quite boring, in fact."


"Strong empires require steady foundations," I retorted, "and clearing the board here in Shinjuku will enhance our organizational footing. Besides, I think you might find this assignment interesting. After all, aren't you eager to shake up the comfortable, stagnant lives of the nobility?"


"Oh?" The fanatical glimmer returned to Diethard's eyes. "Guilty as charged, but I don't see how Eleven street gangs have much to do with the nobility. Where are you going with this?"


"I'm putting your investigative and production skills to the test with a tight deadline," I smiled humorlessly at the newsman, "think of this as a crunch session. In two days, I want to turn on HI-TV and see a report about how select members of the local aristocracy have been undermining Clovis's reign and concealing taxable income from his Administration via an alliance with local street gangs."


Diethard worried at his lip for a moment, then shook his head. "I can't fabricate something that big and expect it to run. It might get past the censors, if it even got that far. Tangling with nobles means Legal would get involved, which means Corporate would need to see my evidence and sign off before I could get my script anywhere near a teleprompter."


"Oh, no need to worry about fabricating anything." I replied dismissively, "What's that Britannian phrase again? 'The best lies have a grain of truth in them'? Well-" I smiled at the newsman, letting just a hint of teeth show under my lip, "in a few days, I will be providing you with all the evidence you could ever want when I handle them personally."


My smile dimmed and I gave him a pointed look. "However, if I simply cut down the weeds without pulling the root, they'll just come back. Which is where you'll come in."


"...Well, you're definitely not boring," Diethard conceded, although his tepid praise was undermined by the renewed gleam in his eyes. "Still, I'm not sure you're going to find a smoking gun sitting in some gang squat. I mean, I'm not doubting that some nobles are using local criminal groups as foot soldiers, but why would they write anything down?"


"Someone's got to take inventory," I pointed out, "and someone's got to be handling the money. More to the point, I'm not trying to take the noble backers to court; that's not the point of this operation. The point is that you make a big public stink about it, phrasing their alleged activities as an insult to the Viceregal-Governor's royal dignity. Clovis either publicly says that it isn't, making him look weak and foolish, or he acts. If he acts, he'll be isolating a slice of his backers, introducing further divisions into the Settlement."


I tried to ignore the expression of awe on Diethard's face; it was honestly disturbing, the way he was looking at me. He really is like another Schugel… And just like Schugel, he is utterly infatuated with his pet obsession. This is not a rational actor.


"Anyway," I continued briskly, "it's about time for you to return to the Settlement. Ohgi will escort you to one of the brothels near the checkpoints, where you can blend in with the crowd and exit the Ghetto. Please give him an email or a phone number where we can reach you; I assume you've handled confidential sources before, so use the same procedures. We'll be in touch to schedule a pick-up for any materials we capture in the raids."


"Y-yes! Absolutely" Diethard finally found his tongue, and all but bounced to his feet. "Yes, it is time to go! Two days? Two days?! I've got so much to do!" He turned to Ohgi, who was slowly standing from his chair. "Come on, hurry up! I don't have a minute to lose!"


I exchanged nods with Ohgi. "Hurry on back," I commanded him, switching back to our language, "and make sure you keep your radio on. Boar and Mallet should still be downstairs – I'll tell them to keep a discreet eye on you two." I chanced a quick look at Diethard, impatiently hovering near the door to the apartment we'd used as an improvised conference room. "Don't trust him."


"No need to tell me twice," Ohgi grumbled, ruffling my hair before he stumped his way across the room and out the door, closely followed by Diethard, who thankfully left without any pretense of a friendly goodbye.


Finally alone, I leaned back in my chair and yawned, closing my eyes for a quick moment. I'd have to get back up soon, since I planned on spending the night in my usual place in the apartment I shared with the other two leaders of the Kozuki Organization, but I let myself rest for a moment. It had been a long, long day, full of seemingly endless meetings. And tomorrow morning, I'll need to wake up early to see Ohgi off.


It would be strange, being away from the man after months at The School. It was good to be back, something I would never have thought about Shinjuku before enduring Major Onoda's company for an entire season. Hopefully Ohgi can keep our other ally of convenience in check. It was almost enough to make me miss the clean divisions of my previous life. At least then everybody on our side had worn the same uniform.

---------

APRIL 22, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
0550


The next day began early, as Naoto and I woke early to see Ohgi off as he began his journey back to Gunma. We ended up accompanying him halfway across Shinjuku before finally saying goodbye; any further and our presence might have drawn attention to the lone man slipping out of Shinjuku and disappearing into the dawn.


Then came a shared breakfast with Naoto, which started quite pleasantly but became quite fraught when I briefed him about Diethard. As I had anticipated, Naoto was very upset to hear that anybody had been stalking his beloved little sister for months, and decidedly disturbed that the newsman had managed to dig up so much information about her. Fortunately, he mastered his anger quickly enough and gave his retroactive blessing to my actions, agreeing that Diethard was a valuable enough tool to justify recruitment. Explaining why I was so certain that Diethard wouldn't betray us had taken some effort, but in the end Naoto accepted my logic.


"I still think you're playing with fire," the leader of the Kozuki Organization cautioned me, munching on a rice cake. "The man's clearly fucked in the head. Who's to say that he won't find some new 'next big story' to distract him, eh? And don't give me that mutually assured destruction crap," he waggled a finger at me from across the table for emphasis, "the man was willing to walk straight into Shinjuku in a cashmere suit. He has no self-preservation instinct."


"I don't deny that in the slightest, Naoto," I sighed, taking a sip of my orange juice. Bless his heart, Naoto had remembered – or perhaps been reminded by Ohgi – how much I had enjoyed the oranges. Fresh oranges were hard to come by, but my other roommate had stocked up on concentrate to make into juice. "I'm not trusting his self-preservation to keep him inline; he signed up with us, after all. I just think that he's a deeply obsessive man who cares for nothing but his so-called great work."


"I know, I know…" Naoto grumbled slightly, taking another bite of rice cake. "I'm not doubting you, nor your instincts. Kami knows, you've been right so far."


"It's perfectly understandable to dislike the man," I replied reasonably. "Speaking frankly, I dislike the man as well. I was… less than pleased to learn that he had been prying into Kallen's affairs, and I would have shot him in the alleyway for that offense alone if I hadn't thought that he was more useful still breathing. Plus, I didn't want to have to haul the body all the way back out of the Ghetto to obfuscate the circumstances of his passing."


Naoto laughed, and the mood finally lightened as the last vestiges of his sulk dissipated. "Yeah, for sure! How were you planning on pulling that off, Tanya? Were you gonna… magic… him through the checkpoint?" I could tell that the last question was only half-joking at most. I couldn't blame him for his curiosity.


"Nothing so fanciful," I demurred, waving my hand as if to dissipate the idea into the ether, "and nothing particularly complex either. There's no shortage of gang-infested subway tunnels around here, and at this time of year, there's got to be at least a few that aren't flooded. I'd just find my way through and leave the body somewhere on the other side of the wall.

"Which," I put down my cup, "actually brings me to my next point. I think it's time to finish cleaning house, Naoto. You'd know best, as the man on the ground for the last few months, but in my opinion, we aren't going to get a better opportunity any time soon. Not until the next cohort graduates from The School, at least."


"Oh?" The redhead leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest.


It was amazing how much better he looked after a single good night of sleep, plus the two full meals Ohgi and I had supervised. While the dark shadows were still under his eyes, some of the exhaustion lines had faded, and some of the color had returned to his waxy skin. Before putting him to bed the previous night, Ohgi had forced his best friend into the icy shower, dealing with the worst of the stench as well as the rough stubble, now cleanly shaved away. Instead of "dead on his feet", Naoto just looked worn to the bone.


"Yes," I replied firmly, "I'm firmly convinced that now is the best time to strike at the surviving gangs. If we wait too long, information about the newly trained fighters will leak out, reducing their effectiveness."


I paused, realizing that I'd slipped up already. Hadn't I just reminded myself of how skilled Naoto was as a leader the night before? I had been so impressed by his achievements in Shinjuku that I'd recommitted myself to following his guidance while implementing my plans. All of that had gone by the wayside as I'd recruited Reid at my own initiative, without consulting the leader, the one who had guided Shinjuku's rebuilding project over the last three months.


I just got back and I'm already overstepping my authority! I got so used to a near independent command that I forgot my place in the chain of command entirely! Naoto's generally relaxed, but if he thinks I'm trying to usurp his hard-won authority? I needed to make things right, before Naoto could build up a head of steam and become truly upset. A show of renewed submission would do the trick.


"Naoto, I apologize." I stood up from my chair and bowed, lowering my head and humbling myself before my leader. "You're the one who's been fighting the gangs for the last several months, and you're the one who organized the local citizen militia. What are your plans? Please, let me help you refine and implement them!"


Naoto laughed. "Oh yes, my great and mighty plans! I've got 'em, masterpieces all of them!" He paused for a moment, looking at me expectantly. I kept my head lowered as my mind raced, trying to figure out what response he was looking for.


"…Oh, come on Tanya!" Naoto rolled his eyes, the amusement in his voice mingling with exasperation. "Lift your head and sit back down. My plan at the moment is to listen carefully to what you have to say. You say it's time to go after the gangs? I agree."


"Oh." With careful grace, I returned to my seat, folded my hands in my lap, and looked back up at my leader, my face carefully blank. Thankfully, Naoto was merciful, and he gave me a moment to repair my dignity before continuing.


"I think we should probably grab Inoue first, though. I've… uh… been pretty occupied, and I don't have a great grasp on how our supplies are looking at the moment… And…" Naoto had the grace to look away. "I owe her an apology, I think…"


"For almost working yourself to death?" I asked, a hint of frost touching my voice, "Yes, Naoto, you should apologize to Inoue for that. And you should also apologize to her for offloading talking to Kallen onto her shoulders. Kallen's your sister, Naoto. Trying to cut her out of your life is bad enough, especially because you know that doing that just makes her more determined to be involved."


"Yeah, yeah… Haa…" Naoto sighed, but with a fond smile. "Man, Inoue's really been doing a ton of good. I couldn't have done any of it without her, you know. She's the one who kept everybody fed, who found all the building supplies we needed, who got the work passes to get people into the Settlement… It's pretty incredible, Tanya…"


Huh? I blinked, and frowned at Naoto. It sounds like… But, I was so sure that he and Ohgi… I shook my head firmly. It doesn't matter. There is no reason to dig through a coworker's personal life, even less to intrude on a friend's.


"She is definitely a fine quartermaster," I replied, "and not a bad analyst either. In fact, she was the one who explained how the gangs in Shinjuku worked to me."


"Well," Naoto checked his watch and got to his feet. "No time like the present. She's probably already up at the Meeting Hall. Breakfast is supposed to start in half an hour, so…"


"Great, we can take the opportunity to feed you again." I followed Naoto out the door and down the stairs, continuing to expound on how work was no excuse to miss meals, absentmindedly gesturing to Tsubaki and Kino as we passed through the lobby. The squad leader and her subordinate peeled themselves off the wall and fell into step behind us as we made the short walk to the Rising Sun's Meeting Hall.


As expected, the Meeting Hall was already jammed full when we arrived. Less than an hour after dawn, and a queue already stretched out the door, full of surprisingly talkative people, all chatting with their neighbors or family members as they waited for their morning porridge. Inside, the central room was full of collapsible tables groaning under the weight of bowls, cups and elbows. People ate hurriedly, and as soon as a seat opened up the next person in the queue was waved in and a bowl of breakfast thrust into their hands. It took me a moment to find Inoue in the swirl of bodies, before I eventually noticed her leaning against the wall by her office door, at the rear of the building.


Almost at the same moment, Inoue noticed our arrival. "Tanya! You're back!" The logistical officer of the Kozuki Organization and the manager for the Benevolent Association's day to day operations bustled through the hall, clearing a path by force of personality alone. "It's been way too long! You were supposed to come by last night for dinner! Did you forget how to get to the Hall or something?"


As she fussed at me, Inoue wrapped her arms around my shoulders, pulling me close for a speedy, if warm, hug. After a second's delay, I returned the embrace before hastily letting go of her again. I had never particularly enjoyed shows of public affection, but… Well, I wasn't in the military, and it was very important to maintain personal bonds within our organization, and equally important to show solidarity in the face of the general public.


Besides… Being hugged isn't that much of an imposition…


"Look at you, girl!" Inoue gushed, enthusiastically ruffling my hair and easily evading my halfhearted attempts to swat her hand away. To my embarrassment, I saw some of the people in the line smiling and chuckling at Inoue's enthusiasm. "You're not a stick anymore, are you? You're finally putting on some muscle, huh? And you must've gained, what… Five centimeters? Six?"


"It's… Good to see you too, Inoue," I replied, somewhat lamely. "Naoto gave me the highlights, but it sounds like you have both been very busy. Ohgi and I were both astonished at how much Shinjuku has changed since we left. It's truly impressive."


"We've been keeping busy," Inoue smirked, before turning to Naoto. Sobering up, she gave him a long, thorough look. He smiled awkwardly back, and displayed his strategic acumen by holding his tongue and waiting for Inoue to have the first word. "Naoto. I see that Ohgi convinced you to actually sleep for a change."


"He also forced me to take a shower and clip my nails," Naoto rubbed his head, clearly anxious under Inoue's glare. "It kind of felt like I was twelve again." With a nervous chuckle, Naoto forced himself to straighten up and meet Inoue's eyes. "Look, I'm… I'm sorry, Inoue. I know I've been blowing you off lately…"


"Let's go to my office for this," Inoue cut in, seemingly remembering where we all were. "No need to make this a public ordeal, after all."


Moments later, all three of us were in Inoue's office, seated around a table hastily cleared of its stacks of folders. Somewhere along the way, Naoto and I had acquired bowls of porridge. I took an experimental bite – bland, but less than I'd expected.


Inoue noticed my inquisitive look. "Curious about my secret recipe? It's nothing too much; whatever cereal is cheapest, usually brown rice or millet, with onions and cheap meat finely chopped and stirred in to boil with the grain. Each bowl costs less than thirty pence to make, since we buy all the ingredients in bulk!"


"I really wish that you'd been in charge of the common pot back when I was on the labor gangs," I replied honestly. "If we'd had this instead of the watery stuff we got…" It was hard to put the depth of the emotion into words. So many people had wasted away, spending calories that their bodies couldn't spare, just in the hope of warding off starvation for another day. "Things might have been different."


"True enough," Inoue agreed easily. "But, that's our job now, right? To do the best we can to bring in a new day."


I nodded, and shut up to enjoy my porridge. Naoto, finally given the opportunity to speak, immediately took the plunge back into his interrupted apology.


"I'm sorry for blowing you off, and I'm sorry that I ended up pushing family stuff onto you," he began, "I didn't mean to, but I should have expected Kallen to be persistent. And… I'm sorry that I was acting like such a prick and not eating or sleeping. I was supposed to be a leader, and I offloaded a ton of responsibility onto you."


"Naoto…" Inoue sighed, "I'm not angry with you. I'm not even disappointed with you. I know that you throw yourself into whatever you do. You did that back in college, and you're still doing it now. I just wish that you'd… Ugh!" She untied the bandana from around her head, letting her shoulder-length dark blue hair pour down her shoulders. "I just wish that you wouldn't get so damned obsessed, dammit! And yes, stop ignoring Kallen. I'm tired of running messages between the two of you. That's not my job!"


"You're right, you're right," Naoto replied, doing his best to look as contrite as possible. "I should have handled that better. And… Look, I know that you didn't tell me about how Kallen and that Brit kid were talking. I'm sorry that I made myself unapproachable on the matter. That was stupid of me." He sighed heavily. "I know I get defensive about Kallen, and I know that it's stupid, but… Overreacting in the past to the point where you didn't tell me something that I really should have known was really stupid on my part."


"I was in the wrong too on that," Inoue admitted, resting her head on her hand. "I knew that I should have looped you in, but honestly, it looked like Kallen had it handled. I knew you were, uh… not at your best, and I figured that there was no point ruining a good thing, but… I didn't really have the authority to make that call. It could have been important."


"Well, tell me next time, alright?" Naoto smiled at Inoue, the awkwardness gone and something like his familiar boyish charm came back again. "I promise I'm not gonna bite your head off or throttle the kid!"


"I'll hold you to that," Inoue winked across the table, smirking at our fellow leader. "But y'know, some biting and choking could be okay, depending on how you play your cards, Kozuki."


I choked on my porridge.


"Gah!" Naoto jumped in his seat as I coughed up boiled grain, his face suddenly catching fire as he remembered that I was still here. . "You… uh… okay there, Tanya?"


My only response was a hacking cough. What do you think, moron?!


"Ah! L-Let me get you some water, Tanya!" Inoue panicked, face blushing just as brightly as Naoto's, presumably since she realized she'd been flirting in front of a twelve year old. "The, uh, porridge can definitely be kinda sticky going down. You should take smaller bites!"


Smaller bites?! I shrieked internally. You… You damned pent up idiots! I was just trying to enjoy my meal when you suddenly just… Just… Gaah!


I held in a ragged cough just long enough to shoot the two horny morons a smoldering glare that let them know exactly how amused I was about my brush with death via porridge. "


"Ah-ha… right… It's, uhh… good to be cautious." Naoto, at the very least, looked appropriately apologetic.


Inoue, the infernal minx, now had a damned smile on her face despite her blush. "You still want that water, Tanya?"


"I'll be fine," I rasped as I massaged my sore throat, doing my best to be professional if no one else wanted to be an adult in the room. "Moving on?"


Naoto still looked embarrassed as he nodded, looking away slightly. Inoue, on the other hand, had no shame. "So, how was your trip to the mountains, Tanya?" She smiled brightly, utterly unrepentant. "Did you make any new friends?"


"It was quite educational," I replied coolly, not rising to the bait. "And indeed, I think I have an idea in mind to demonstrate just how much I and the other returnees picked up over the spring. But, I will need your input, as well as Naoto's, to make it work."

---------

Almost three hours later, I said my goodbyes to Naoto in front of the Meeting Hall. Regrettably, we each had full schedules for the day, and I likely wouldn't get the chance to see him again until evening. It was all important work though, and the core of leadership is obligation. While Naoto went off to his scheduled weekly meeting with the assembly of local notables, I veered east. Off to meet two of my own obligations, one long overdue.


I found Tanaka Chihiro high above the streets of Shinjuku, holed up with her three surviving snipers as well as a company's worth of other armed women in a crumbling hotel off Naka Street. Coincidentally, the hotel she'd chosen to make her personal stronghold was located only two blocks away from the collapsed office building sealing the tomb once known as Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station.


Fortunately for me, the Shinjuku Ghetto community grapevine was just as strong and well-connected as I'd remembered; news of my appearance at the Meeting Hall had already spread to the handful of guards outside the former hotel's entrance. While they were only crudely armed with home-made spears and knives, all four of the visible guards looked very competent with their cruelly edged weapons, and it had been a relief when they just smiled at me and waved me inside.


Chihiro was less delighted to see me.


"So, you're back, huh?" The hotel room, peeling walls spattered with mildew, stank of unwashed bodies and the cheap but strong hooch commonly brewed in Shinjuku. "Took you long enough. We've been busy as hell here while you were fucking around in Gunma!"


I stopped a foot into the room. Chihiro was sprawled over the moldering queen-sized bed, drunk at nine in the morning though thankfully still dressed. Her face, pitted with a multitude of tiny burn scars, was even more blotchy than I remembered, and her typically short cropped hair had been shaved away entirely.


And not by a skilled barber either, judging by that cut over her ear.


"Good morning, Miss Tanaka," I replied, stepping over a discarded pair of pants and discreetly running my eyes over the room. Thankfully, the scoped rifle Naoto had once given her – a gift courtesy of some gang's armory – leaned in the corner by the door, far away from its intoxicated owner. "It's been quite some time. How is your sister doing?"


"Chika?" Chihiro's face twisted for a moment, before settling back into her disdainful sneer. "You've probably seen her more recently than I have. She spends all her time out at the Meeting Hall now, helping Kasumi and Inoue, which is… Fine."


"Would you rather she be here with you?" I asked, not trying to needle the mercurial woman but genuinely curious. I'd never really understood Chihiro; she was fanatical in her antipathy towards all things Britannian, she always leapt at the chance to inflict violence, and she had a strange love-hate relationship with men in general. On the other hand, before I'd left for three and a half months, she'd also been very close to her younger sister, her sole surviving family member.


"Obviously!" Chihiro swung her legs off the bed and rose until she was seated upright. "But she refuses to pick up a weapon, not even a knife! I tried so hard to get her to join me, since… You know, we've got an extra rifle and all. And the little idiot refused!"


"I see." I didn't, but Chihiro's family life was her own problem. As long as Chika wanted to help, I was confident Inoue would appreciate the extra hands. Still, it was time to get to the reason I'd climbed five sets of stairs to visit this squalid room. "I'm sorry to hear about Makoto. It's very hard, losing someone under your command. How are your other subordinates taking it?"


"How do you think?" Chihiro snorted incredulously. "Having a ball of a time with it, obviously. Fuck's sake, I thought you were supposed to be smart!"


And that's about enough of that. I had come to visit Chihiro in good faith, and all I had gotten in exchange was unwarranted abuse. The temptation to slap the smirk off of Chihiro's face was almost overwhelming.


I'm better than that. Besides, it's not my job to keep discipline in the ranks.


"Thank you very kindly for your hospitality, Miss Tanaka," my voice was flat, measured, and cold. "I will give your regards to your sister. Hopefully she will be happy to hear that you're still alive. I will also pass on your regards to Naoto and Tamaki for their consideration of disciplinary action."


I turned on my heel and stalked out of the room. "We have an operation planned for tomorrow," I called back over my shoulder as I left, "and if you show up drunk, I will feed you your own rifle."


While I left the crumbling hotel in something of a huff, I still took the time to stop and speak with the guards on duty, complimenting them on their diligence, promising them better gear and action more exciting than standing sentry soon, and generally getting to know the members of the small militia that had congregated around Chihiro and her squad.


Every woman had her own story of her own path to the Rising Sun. Some had stories very similar to my own – long hours spent in backbreaking labor, with the prospect of a better life a lure leading to nothing but another day with a hungry belly. Others, the former sex workers jumping at the chance to get some power back after years of helplessness, had stories that reminded me of someone else entirely. Plenty had signed up after the Christmas Incident, and some had been rescued from gang strongholds while I was away in Gunma.


All told, a hundred and thirty two stories, of which I only had the chance to hear a three to four sentence highlight before bowing and moving on. All hundred and thirty two were united under the banner of the Rising Sun, and were united in their unwillingness to ever consider relinquishing their weapons. A particularly angry girl, offended by my question, pointed out that she could be put up against a wall and shot any day, so there was no reason not to fight; she was very surprised when I clapped her on the shoulder and told her I'd used that same line myself, when I'd joined.


I spent two hours glad handing and talking to the militia women, as well as Misato, one of Chihiro's snipers. While I was their leader by dint of institution, I wasn't a leader they knew personally, or really had any reason to trust. For the most part, that would be fine, so long as the leader they were personally loyal to trusted me. With Chihiro's personal dislike for me just as intransigent as always, I needed to give these militia members a distinct reason to trust in me personally.


After I passed on my condolences about Makoto to Misato and asked her to convey my sympathies to Aina and Inori, I finally left the ruin on Naka Street. I had another home visit to make, another obligation to discharge.


The tiny room was just like any of the others in the tenement, clean and orderly. The people who lived here cared about their home, and wanted it to look nice. It showed an investment and an interest in the future. All together, it was a lovely contrast to Chihiro's wretched hotel room, but kneeling on a cushion in Sumire's apartment made me long for my reluctant comrade's abrasive company.


Instead, Sumire's husband knelt on his own pillow, across a low table from me. His remaining arm cradled his son, almost four and looking at me with big, curious eyes, in his lap. I couldn't say that I saw any of Sumire in her son. Babies and children had always looked more or less the same to me, across all of my lives, and I'd generally done my best to avoid them when possible.


No escape was possible from this child.


"So… That's it, then." The words fell from Mister Tokihaku's lips like paper, slowly wafting down to the ground and landing too softly to hear. Scarcely a whisper. "That's it, then… S-Sumire's gone…"


"I doubt it will help, but she died a hero," I replied absently, my eyes caught on the boy's. "She and another comrade covered their squad's retreat. Everybody else made it out alive, thanks to their sacrifice."


"I see." Silence filled the room as Mister Tokihaku contemplated my reply. I waited patiently for his response; while I had many other things to do today, this was important. "Was… Was it worth it, then? Whatever it was you people did… Was it worth my wife's life? My son's mother's life?"


The man just wants reassurance, something to cling to. Sometimes, an easy answer is better, even if its veracity might be debatable. I should give him what he seeks.


"…I can't answer that question, not in a way that will satisfy you," I replied instead of the vague platitude I'd lined up in advance for just such a question. "She was not my wife, not my mother… I can't tell you that the loss you and your son will bear will ever be worth it, no matter what we accomplished."


Dammit! I was just supposed to soothe him, not give an honest answer! I'd be a terrible politician.


"If you want the cold comfort of a more objective answer?" I continued, deciding that the only way out of the hole I'd dug myself into was to dig deeper, "then speaking as her commander, it was worth it. The operation was a success, and losses, while painful, were less than they could have been. Many Britannians died as a result of the operation, and Britannian interests in the operation area might very well be permanently impacted."


I paused. "Does that help?"


"No…" Mister Tokihaku replied, "No, it really doesn't… I'm… I'm happy that she was able to help others, but if you'll pardon me for saying it, Miss Hajime… I wish the rest of her squad, the ones who ran, had been the ones to die instead."


"You have the right to feel that way." His statement had been full of painful, quiet anger, held as tightly to him as his son; Far be it from me to deprive a freshly minted widower of the right to grieve. "I don't doubt that I would feel exactly the same, were I in your position."


My news delivered, I rose from the floor, came to attention, and bowed to the still kneeling Mister Tokihaku. "You and your son have the right to food, medical care, and financial and material assistance from the Kozuki Organization, and from the Rising Sun Benevolent Association. If you need anything, from repairs for your apartment to a babysitter to oranges, come to the Meeting Hall. Do not hold back; we owe your family a debt of gratitude."


The child gurgled, and the father bowed his head. I left the tiny, clean apartment, closing the door behind me. A good leader tends to their followers, and ensures that they are valued and cared for. Loyalty offered must be repaid, otherwise no one will ever be loyal to you.


I fervently wished that I'd never have to make another such house call, but I knew that I wouldn't be so lucky. I knew that fulfilling my goals would demand a high price. I also knew that I would use every scrap of my knowledge and ability to drive that price down as far as I could, to make my number of house calls as low as possible.


Loyalty and obligation. Duty and leadership. For the first time in weeks, I thought of my mother. Duty is a chain, and obligation is a burden. But in the end… It was a chain that you picked up willingly, didn't you, Mother? You had every reason and opportunity to throw me away, but you didn't. Was it worth it, in the end, for you?


Was I worth it?

---------

APRIL 23, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
0103


The sounds of drunken laughter and throbbing bass spilled out from the building below me as a knot of intoxicated partygoers staggered out the front door. The noise blended with the cacophony of similar sounds escaping from the lesser brothels and clubs surrounding the former Shinjuku Bunka Theater. As always on the weekends, the outlets retailing hospitality only blocks away from the Kawadacho Checkpoint were doing a brisk business.


My business with the brothel under my feet had begun much earlier in the night. Three hours earlier, I had mustered two of the five man squads I had brought back with me from The School; we had spent the intervening time slowly creeping into position, painstakingly picking our way through the many alleys and side streets of the Ghetto. While I typically preferred blending in with the crowd to skulking in shadows, my unit was packing entirely too much military hardware to resemble a gang of laborers coming home after a long shift.


Thankfully, the only tricky part had come when we'd arrived at the old theater building itself. Earlier reconnaissance by a pair of Naoto's Sun Guard militia had determined that two guards were posted on the roof. While the sentries were seemingly tasked with keeping watch over the street outside the gang's headquarters and thus more focused on looking out than guarding the roof itself, both had rifles and at least one had a radio. If they had noticed our ascent, it could have led to all kinds of complications.


So we climbed the brick exterior very, very slowly. The mortar was badly decayed after six years without maintenance, presenting abundant finger and toe-holds. By the time I had quietly pulled myself over the lip of the rear wall, at the head of the advancing unit, my shoulders and arms burnt despite my enhancements.


I'll have to thank Onoda, assuming he hasn't attempted to appropriate The School for the JLF, I mused, ducking behind the wall sheltering the entrance to the internal stairwell as the rest of my unit clambered over the top. If it wasn't for all of those exercises, I don't know if I could have made that climb.


Soon enough, all the members of A and B squads were hunkered down behind the stairwell's wall, which meant that it was time to wait. My unit was not the only group of Kozuki Organization members and auxiliaries out and about tonight, and in order for the plan to work, we all had to synchronize our efforts.


And on that note…


I slid my hand down to my pocket and pulled out the burner phone I'd picked up from Mister Asahara yesterday afternoon, along with a number of other useful tools. I sent a text to the one number saved in the contacts, before flipping the phone closed and returning it to my pocket. I wasn't expecting a response; if things were going according to plan, the next time the phone vibrated, it would be time for action.


After a short eternity of twelve minutes, I felt a buzz against my pocket. As I reached down again, I could almost feel the tension as ten sets of eyes tracked the motion. I quickly flipped the phone open, and grinned at the message. Inoue had been confused when I'd suggested "Tora, Tora, Tora" as our go-sign, but she'd indulged me.


Flipping the phone closed, I peered around the wall; the two sentries were leaning against the lip of the building, looking out onto the street below, and appeared to be smoking. I returned the phone to my pocket, and drew the knife hanging off my belt before gesturing to Tsubaki, although for tonight, she was B-1. I held up my empty right hand, and gestured at her, and she nodded – message received, just as we'd trained.


Carefully, I padded out from around the rooftop access, moving smoothly and deliberately. I wasn't too worried about the sounds of my boots on the gravel, considering the sheer volume of noise from down below, but I didn't want to make any sudden motion that might catch in one of the target's peripheral vision.


I angled towards the guard on the left, the further of the pair, as B-1 broke off towards his partner. We got closer and closer, the two men still utterly unaware of our presence. Both had propped their rifles next to them, and neither seemed to have any other weapon. My target had a walkie-talkie clipped to a belt loop; I would have to move fast. They were talking, but I couldn't hear about what. It didn't matter.


From the corner of my eye, I saw B-1 slowly raise her empty right hand as she approached her target, just the same as I had done. Then, I was focused only on the man in front of me, the way his stink – cigarettes, sweat, and body odor – filled my nose, and how he still hadn't noticed me and then-


Just as Onoda had instructed, I thrust my right hand forward, past the side of his neck, and grabbed his chin. I poured energy into my strength enhancement as I rose up, lunging forwards on my tiptoes, mashing his jaw shut and forcing his head up and back in a single smooth motion.


The knife in my left hand flashed forwards, the scarce illumination of the scattered and weak lights of this corner of Shinjuku glittering off the polished steel, before I rammed the blade into the side of my target's neck, slamming it in as hard as I possibly could, forcing the wedge through the muscle and into the vital bundle of tubes within. I heard a gurgling scream, but I didn't know whether it came from my target, or from B-1's. Gritting my teeth, I twisted down hard on my knife, forcing the wound wide open, and jerked the blade forwards. It tore free from his neck just above the shoulder, leaving an ugly gash of a wound behind.


My target was still thrashing limply, so I kept my right hand in place, holding his mouth shut and pulling him back over me. I took a half step back, dragging him with me to make sure he didn't topple forwards off the roof. Dropping my knife to the gravel surface below, I grabbed the radio off his belt, and with a bit of groping managed to clip it to the back of my own belt.


I'm probably getting blood all over this shirt. I couldn't help but laugh internally at the petulant thought. It was an utterly trivial concern, but the thrifty survival habits of earlier years were hard to shake. Speaking of survival...


The hand over his mouth felt no breath, and he'd stopped thrashing.. Below the heel of my right hand, I felt no pulse in his surviving carotid artery. Satisfied that the man was quite dead, I lowered the corpse to the ground and looked up to check on B-1's progress, and saw that she was rising back to her feet, just as blood soaked as I probably was.


Objective complete.


I gestured, and the remaining nine members of my team hustled over to join us. "Squad B," my voice was raspy and harsh after hours of minimal conversation, not to mention the hard climb, "you're up top. Squad A, you're with me on the cross and on point. Let's go."


Waiting just long enough to see ten acknowledging nods, I turned and opened the door to the internal stairwell. The knob turned easily; between the incompetent guards and the absence of any lock, the Eleven Lords, the gang based out of the old theater, clearly hadn't placed much of a premium on security, relying on intimidation in place of preparation. A good sign.


The stairwell was dark, without any functional light sources illuminating the narrow path through the accumulated detritus and trash. This wasn't part of the brothel headquarters where guests were allowed, and I doubted the gang's officers came here either. Fortunately, that meant we'd have the element of surprise for a bit longer.


I reached over my shoulder, and grabbed the barrel of my newly issued rifle, ducking under the strap as I unlimbered my weapon. It was a bit large for my frame, but I knew from experience at The School that I could easily compensate for that with my strength enhancement. I was fortunate that the coilguns of this world had such minimal recoil, compared to the chemical propellant weapons of my previous world, otherwise I would have been stuck bringing a pistol to this mission.


The knapsack that had hung just below the coilgun rattled as I hoisted my weapon, heavy with as much extra ammunition as I could carry, as well as the cylindrical devices I'd picked up from Mister Asahara last evening. Just like the rest of my soldiers, I had packed simply but not lightly for this mission; rifle, five thirty round magazines, three of the freshly acquired devices, and my phone. It would in all likelihood be more than enough.


Then, with a quick breath in and out, I gingerly took the first step down into the dark of the stairwell. The darkness was difficult, but not impossible to navigate, and thankfully, we were only going down a single floor's worth. Every jostle and every scuff rang like a heavy bell as my ten comrades followed me, but I knew that I could only hear those sounds because I was focused on them. We were professional, and our enemies were foolish and unaware.


After the five men of A Squad navigated the last few steps, I carefully cracked the door to the theater's interior open. This was the point where the mission started to get somewhat risky; we didn't have any contacts inside the Eleven Lords, so we didn't know what the interior of the theater looked exactly like now, other than the basic knowledge of where the main stage was.


Fortunately, as the door slowly opened, there wasn't that much to see. The mezzanine lobby had been divided up into some improvised rooms, with a hallway of sorts connecting the doorway I hid behind to the two sets of central stairs leading down to the main lobby. I could see a pair of men in ill-fitting suits standing by the nearest entrance to the amphitheater balcony, but apart from the two bored looking men, the only other presence stood just inside the closest "room".


A lone man, a Refrain addict judging by his wild and feverish declarations as well as the trackmarks on his arms, was shouting at a pair of tired looking women in soiled lingerie, while an older man in very ragged clothes tiredly pulled the sheets off a queen-sized bed. I waited, listening to the addict ramble for a moment, before leaning back inside the stairwell.


"Three present," I muttered to A Squad, as well as B Squad behind them. "One's tripping. Low priority. The two by the entrance are sober. Plan Three."


Not needing to wait for a reply, I stepped aside from the door, and let A-2 and A-3, both significantly bulkier than me, pass before slipping out myself, A-1 by my side and A-4 and A-5 behind me. The important thing here was to minimize noise for as long as possible: judging by the sounds, the lobby down below and the theater inside were packed full of people, and the longer they remained ignorant of our presence, the better.


A-2 and A-3 were picture-perfect in their takedowns of the two suited guards, the pair a credit to Major Onoda's expert tutelage. Before either of the targets realized it, my comrades were on top of them. The guard furthest away got out a quickly muffled squawk of surprise, but that was all.


Meanwhile, as the rest of A Squad and I jogged towards the nearest central set of stairs leading to the house lobby, I could hear the very brief sounds of struggle as two of B Squad sent the Refrainer to sleep. Thankfully, the apparent slaves didn't make a peep that I could hear.


I slowed down and crept up to the very top of the stairs, and looked down the other half of the mezzanine. The upper level only had a matching set of bored guards idly chatting by the other entrance – they'd be my first target. Then, I looked down into the lobby.


The Eleven Lords had climbed to the top of the Shinjuku flesh trade on the dual strengths of their connections and their skill at marketing their flagship establishment to the seedy yet upmarket crowd of decadent Britannians looking for something special. Their slick presentation and the wide range of debaucheries for sale got the crowds in through the door, and their alliance with the Crowned Heads, the gang with the largest laboratories in Shinjuku, meant that party favors were always available.


And so, it truly wasn't a surprise that the lobby was jam packed with a crowd that was almost half Britannian, clustered around a variety of what I could only call "side shows", for all that the term made light of what those shows consisted of. Gang members in tacky gilded jackets, dripping with frogging, hobnobbed and chatted with the crowd, presumably offering all kinds of wares, ranging from drugs to tickets for the main "floor show" inside the theater to a more private and specialized show.


I looked back, and saw that B Squad were clustered around the door to the Mezzanine. I didn't see any sign of the three slaves we'd passed, although if they had any sense they were hiding up on the roof, or at least in the stairwell. I caught B-1's eye, and lifted two fingers to my brow. She nodded, returned the salute, and slammed the door to the balcony open and disappeared inside, followed by the rest of her squad.


"Ready grenades," I hissed the command as I focused on pushing mana into my basic enhancement suite. Reality drew into sharp focus: the reactive enhancement overclocked my mind's processors, making the world seem to move slower as my perception sharpened, while my muscles itched with their sudden potential, waiting to unleash a wave of violence. "I'll suppress, all five of you throw as soon as we hear B go-"


Before I could get the word out, someone yelled from inside the balcony, followed immediately by three cracks as someone fired a burst from their coilgun. Dammit, Tsubaki must have run into resistance! Our cover's blown!


"Now! Now, now, now!"


Before the first of the devices cleared the stair railing, I was on my feet, the butt of my rifled firmly pressed into my shoulder, and the pair of suits in the iron sights. I caressed the trigger, softly squeezing it, and the fiberglass butt jerked back into my shoulder as three five millimeter bullets hyper accelerated down the magnetic rail in a fraction of a second. I didn't linger on my first target, immediately tracking the barrel onto the second target even as I squeezed down again.


As soon as I saw the suit jerk, I let go of my rifle, letting it swing from its strap as I spun on my heel. I dropped back down onto my knees below the stone railing of the old stairs and jammed my hands over my ears just in time. From below, the noises of consternation and growing confusion from the party guests and gangsters aware enough to notice the gunfire above their heads suddenly vanished, overwhelmed by a wall of pure sound.


Before the screeching tinny echo died away, I was back in my feet and my rifle was back in my hands. The rest of my squad weren't far behind me – by the time I'd lined up my sights on a gangster whose jacket bulged with a poorly hidden handgun, A-4 was already firing on another target.


The lobby erupted into pandemonium, as the deafened and blind crowd realized that it was under attack. Britannian and Japanese, client and criminal, slaver and enslaved, all exploded into a mad scramble for cover and safety. I fired a burst into the back of a man scrambling for the door, and the woman next to him screamed as his blood splashed across her face. As one, the crowd turned and rushed for the presumed safety of the theater itself, trampling the slow, the bound, and the unfortunate, spurred on by our unmerciful fire as we continued to rake the back of the crowd.


The theater proved no refuge. I saw a brief flash of white light from the double door, wide open and choked with bodies, and I heard the same roar as B Squad threw their first round of Asahara's stolen flashbangs down from the balcony, closely followed by their own hail of gunfire.


When I was a young man, literal lifetimes ago, I had once witnessed an exhibition of classic fishing techniques. One of those techniques suddenly came to mind, as I swapped my rifle's magazine and fired again into the panicking crowd, a technique where the school of fish was guided into increasingly smaller nets, until they were so tightly packed together that none could move. Then, the fishermen would lift the entire school out of the water, onto the boat, and beat all of the fish to death with oars.


In essence, my two squads were using that same technique. When the crowd fled from the punished hail of gunfire in the theater, they ran straight into A Squad's line of sight. When they were herded back into the theater, Squad B fired down at them from the balcony. And when they tried to huddle under the balcony and against the wall, where we couldn't get them?


"Next round, go!" Each soldier had left the Meeting Hall with three flashbangs, and there was really no need to be stingy. The eye-searing light lashed out again, the deafening sound drove the bloodied mass back out into the open, and the soldiers who had ducked behind the railing and covered their ears stung them once again with a fresh hail of gunfire.


Of course, the fact that we weren't trying to kill all of the "fish" trapped in our nets made things a bit more tricky. While I had no interest in taking any of the gangsters or their clients alive, I wanted as little innocent blood on my hands as possible. I'd ordered my men to shoot with care, reminding them that the enslaved Japanese weren't willingly servicing the twisted desires of Britannian and Eleven tyrants. Still, in the tangled throng of desperately rushing forms, only so much discretion was possible.


The crowd had begun to thin out by the time my squad was forced to reload, and the surviving targets grew increasingly canny in their attempts to escape their fate. I saw some try to hide among the bodies, only to cringe at the sudden detonation of a nearby flashbang, or to recoil when some other desperate figure tripped over them. A Britannian tried to hide behind a collared woman, and I winced as both were cut down.


Then, I saw a few of the luckier gangsters scramble through a door I was reasonably confident led to what had once been the theater's backstage offices. Those would have to be a priority; if the Eleven Lords had likewise been using those rooms, I couldn't let the escapees destroy or conceal any of the paperwork I was hoping to recover.


"A-4!" I elbowed the man next to me, and waited until he lowered his rifle and turned to me. "Go tell B-1 that A-1 and I are going into the office. Keep up the pressure, but let her know that she has command of the rest of A Squad too. She can start clean-up when she's ready."


"Yes ma'am!" A-4 slung his rifle over his shoulder and hastily trotted away as I turned and tapped on A-1's shoulder. "We need to get into the office," I shouted over the cacophony of -2, -3, and -5's rifles. "I saw a few of the rats scramble inside."


"Understood!" The squad leader stepped back from the line, and started yelling at the remaining three riflemen. "Listen up, you bastards! Backpack and I are heading into the office. We'll be able to handle ourselves, so there's no need for you to shoot the place up while we're inside. I'll be very, very angry if any of you shoot me, got it?"


A collection of "Aye's" later, A-1 and I descended down the stairs into the lobby. A knot of bodies covered the last few steps; it looked like at least some of the Eleven Lords had realized where we were shooting from after the first flashbang, and instead of panicking and running like the rest of the crowd had tried to climb the stairs and dislodge us. Unfortunately for them, one of my soldiers had dealt with their attempt, and I hadn't even noticed in the confusion and noise.


The lobby was an absolute slaughterhouse, the floor choked with the dead and the dying. Broken fingers scratched at my trousers as bloodied faces turned upwards, begging for help, for relief, for an end to the hammering from above. The carpeting was soaked with blood, and squelched unpleasantly as I picked my way carefully across the killing ground, rifle in my hands. Most of the blood and filth, fortunately, came from the heaped-up corpses of Britannians and their lackeys, but a few innocent eyes met mine, accusation in their cold glances.


I continued to approach the office, finger on my trigger, ready to put down any gangsters who might rise up from hiding places amongst the fallen. A-1 followed two paces behind me and one to my right, carefully checking for any stray gangsters hiding up against the wall of the staircase A Squad had turned into a shooting platform.


The deafening, rupturing crack of a flashbang echoed out from the theater, and few survivors broke and ran, sprinting from the shadows of the theater hall itself with wild-eyed desperation. They barely made it two meters into the open before the bullets slashed down from above. I watched as a girl only a few years older than me, a collar chafing her neck, pitched forward and slammed face first into the floor, a quarter of her head missing. There was no time to reflect on the terror I'd briefly glimpsed in the slave's eyes before she'd been cut down with dispassionate, if erroneous, efficiency.


Someone, presumably one of the lucky few who had scrambled to temporary safety within, had locked the door to the office. Perhaps they had been trying to keep me out, perhaps they simply wanted to keep the rest of the crowd out. Either way, while the lock was still shiny and fresh, the door itself was not. Old, weathered, and presumably poorly maintained, simultaneous kicks from A-1 and I easily tore it off its hinges, the lock's bolt tearing free of the frame as the door gave way.


As soon as the door thudded into the office, I hurled myself down in a forward roll, my rifle cradled against my chest as I followed my shoulder to the floor. I came up in a half kneel, finger on the trigger and rising up on my left foot as I quickly scanned the office. Behind me, A-1 dove through the door and skidded on his kneepads to the dubious safety of a battered filing cabinet.


Thanks to our dynamic entry, the welcoming salute from the rats hiding behind the overturned desk near the back of the room went high, the wild spray of bullets pulverizing the drywall and sending a storm of snowy flakes down onto our heads.


How kind of them to broadcast their positions.


I didn't bother trying for anything fancy; this wasn't a shooting gallery, and I wasn't here to show off. I simply returned fire, straight through the impromptu, yet insufficient, desktop sanctuary. The hyper accelerated rounds easily tore through the particle board and, judging by the screams and the lack of returning fire, through the men and women who had been sheltering behind the desk. In the interest of thoroughness, I held the trigger down and emptied my magazine into the desk, in case anybody had considered playing possum.


"Reloading," I grunted, slotting a new magazine into the receiver behind the trigger guard. I kept my eyes moving, scanning every corner and niche of what had been a surprisingly neat office, looking for any other stragglers. "Do you see anybody?"


"No," A-1 replied, "I think you might have got them all…" He swallowed heavily, and I could see his Adam's apple bob under the scarf wound around his face. "Good shooting?"


"Good," I replied briskly, "then you can keep watch on the door." A-1 kept a dutiful eye for any further hostiles, as the sounds of Tsubaki, B-1's, assault continued outside the office. As the sounds of the clean-up operation continued, I quickly searched the office.


Most would be surprised to learn how much paperwork a gang like the Eleven Kings had, but I had counted on it. Just like any other profit-making organization, a gang had to account for income streams, expenditures, and outlays. They had to track inventory and payroll, and compile reports for backers and higher-ups. Fortunately, it seemed like the gang's leadership had opted to do most of their business on paper, and I quickly found two ledgers, one of which looked like a "black book", a list of frequent customers often kept by brothels.


The Eleven Kings seemed to have shunned computers, perhaps reasoning that electronic records were a security risk. The entire office only contained a single laptop, a shiny aluminum-jacketed device that had unfortunately caught at least two bullets in the fracas. My eyes narrowed as I noticed that a cable was still attached to one of the computer's ports. It looked like it was supposed to connect to a device, but I couldn't see anything that looked like a digital storage unit anywhere near the workstation…


I spared a look down at the tangle of bodies slowly filling the office with the scent of mixed blood and shit as their bowels relaxed in death. One of them had dressed nicely, in a somber suit instead of the usual gangster tat. In fact, the suit looked far too subdued to be party wear, which made it unlikely that he was a guest either.


Perhaps he was one some sort of retainer for one of the customers? Or perhaps he's the accountant?


I heaved the body up from the pile, pouring more energy into my strength enhancement as I lifted it up onto the broken remnants of the perforated desk. He'd been a well-fed man in life, at least by Shinjuku standards, and I grunted with relief when I dropped his bulk down onto the surface. I quickly ran my hands over his pockets, and just as I'd hoped, found a matte-black cube in his jacket, featureless except for a port that matched the free end of the cable.


The cube and the cable joined the two ledgers in my knapsack, followed by the possible accountant's wallet. While the high denomination pound notes inside would be useful, I was more interested in his ID and cards; if he'd been managing the drive, he might have put a password on it. Having his basic information on hand could be very handy, in that situation.


After a moment's thought, I shoved the remnants of the laptop into the bag too. Perhaps the drive can be recovered?


I continued to scour the office, stuffing receipts, correspondence, and anything else that looked vaguely important into my bag, cramming the nylon sack full. While extinguishing a faction competing for control over Shinjuku was the primary justification for this raid, seizing the gang's records had been the true objective of the night's work. With Diethard's much vaunted production skills and plentiful connections, those records would be a hammerblow to either noble credibility or Clovis's reputation. A net win for the Japanese, no matter which party ended up burnt.


"Backpack?" I heard B-1's voice from the door, "Are you about done there? The rest of the building's been emptied."


"I think I've found everything worthwhile," I replied, slinging my pack onto my back and picking my rifle back up from where I'd leaned it against the desk. "Report. Any casualties or problems?"


"No ma'am! A totally clean sweep!" I followed A-1 out of the office, and joined B-1 and her combined squads in the lobby. The men were scattered around the room, and despite the presumed eradication of the opposition, I was proud to see that their guards were still up and their eyes still scanning for threats. A knot of women and girls huddled in the middle of the lobby, most of them in varying states of undress. "I don't think we had any runners either! I had A-4 and -5 stick around by the front door, just in case, and all of the side doors were chained up from the inside!"


"A very unsafe practice, but probably put in place to keep any of their victims from escaping," I mused, casting my eyes over the lobby and noticing how many of the sprawling bodies had collars around their necks, despite my earlier instructions. My stomach twisted uneasily; I'd known that it was all but inevitable that some of the slaves would get caught but… There's so many. "It's… It's ironic."


"Because it meant that the bastards had nowhere to run once we showed up?" B-1 fell into step behind me as I walked towards the theater itself. "I guess that is irony, isn't it?"


"It is," I acknowledged, "and yes, that was one of the reasons I find the situation ironic. One of two. By the way, can't you find them some blankets or something?" I gestured back towards the lobby where the newly freed women huddled. One of the men, who'd clearly been eavesdropping, startled and saluted, before heading up the stairs purposefully.


The theater was as tasteless as I'd anticipated, complete with an array of garish lights and a spotlight still moving on an automated track, playing over the three poles on the stage, as well as the front rows of the house. The middle area had been set up more like a dining area, with plenty of small tables and comfortable chairs, and the rear had been divided into a number of shadowy booths and semi-enclosed rooms. The décor, lurid at the best of times, had been turned nightmarish with the application of the gore of at least a hundred bodies.


"Oh?" B-1 primly stepped over a badly trampled arm, the bone protruding from the skin and the flesh black and pulpy, stamped into formlessness by hundreds of frantic feet. "What's the other reason?"


"Well, we ensured that a fair number of their victims will never escape their captivity, unless you count death," My tone was cool and detached; the sick heat in my gut was anything but. "I know that civilian casualties are sadly inevitable, especially when in situations as chaotic as that mob, but… It truly is a pity that we couldn't aim solely for the pimps and the clients."


"Not to sound callous…" Tsubaki's voice was tentative, trailing off into an implicit question, and I waved for her to continue. "Not to sound callous, but what else were you expecting with that plan, Ma'am? I'm not questioning it or anything – it worked great! – but I am kinda surprised that you're… upset about it."


"It was my plan," I acknowledged, "and we completed the objectives we set out to meet with it. Hopefully, our comrades are having similar levels of success. And yes, I knew that it was highly-likely that innocents would get caught in the crossfire. I had hoped to be proven wrong, and… I'd hoped it would only be one or two. Optimistic, I know, but..."


"…That's just what happens, Tanya." Tsubaki was blunt, but not cruel. Her warm hand on my shoulder was comforting. "I mean, I'm not telling you to not hope for the best, but..."


"But always plan for the worst, I know." I closed my eyes, and breathed in, then out. "I expect I'll countenance far worse before we're done, Tsubaki. I hate to acknowledge it, but… We are at war, and cannot afford the luxury of squeamishness. Civilians die in times of war just as much as soldiers, if not far more."


My words rang hollow, for all that I spoke with complete sincerity. I wondered who I was trying to convince. Any one of them could have been Mother. They could have been me, if things had gone differently.


I wondered if I could have planned the mission differently. Perhaps we could have struck when the girls, the slaves, had been off the floor. Maybe if we'd attacked before they opened for the night or after closing. But if we had, we would have missed the chance to catch the esteemed clientele. Just killing the pimps without touching the clients would have all but guaranteed the rise of a replacement organization elsewhere. To truly achieve a lasting effect, innocents had to be present, serving as bait in the center of our trap.


Did leaders of the rebel groups of my youth express similar sentiments? Every Britannian they had killed had brought death to a hundred Japanese, and I had witnessed several of the mass executions personally. How many Japanese had I condemned to death for tonight's work? I'd estimated half the crowd was Britannian, so… a hundred? A hundred and fifty? Multiplied a hundredfold…


Of course, that presupposes that the Britannians realize that the gunmen were Japanese.


The flashbangs I had purchased from Mister Asahara were, like all of the weapons sold by the Six Houses, Britannian Army issue, as were the rifles and ammunition used in the night's raid. When considered along with the opinions of Japanese intelligence and organizational ability held by the general Britannian population, it was entirely possible that the blame would be assigned to some other Britannian faction who had come to massacre some subhuman competition. The clients may have been people, but the gang were just Elevens, after all.


Of course, it's entirely possible that the Britannians will still just default to flailing around wildly and killing every Japanese person they can find, but frankly, that's a risk no matter what we do. We could all just sit on our hands, and they'd still kill us on a lark. I smiled bitterly to myself at the thought. It was still shocking at times just how badly managed the occupation of Japan truly was, and how the policies were so short-sighted that they'd driven a law-abiding person such as myself into armed rebellion.


"We're done here." I shoved my private introspection on what could have been away, down into the dark. Navel gazing was never productive, and I was still on the clock. "B-1, get the rest of the squad together. Force open one of the side doors – we'll exit out that way. Once we're out, your squad is tasked with getting the rescued prisoners to Chihiro. If she's drunk or pissy, take them to Inoue instead."


"Yes ma'am!" The warm hand left my shoulder, and B-1 trotted back to the lobby, already shouting for the men to form up. I took a moment to commit the theater to memory, and turned to follow her.


I walked out of the charnel pit with my shoulders back and my head up. I regretted the deaths of those slaves who had been unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire, the people who I had wanted to help and protect, but I couldn't slow down and let myself think too much about it. I was at war, and I would prosecute it to the greatest of my ability. When the cost of defeat was the death or slavery of my entire people, any means was justifiable, so long as it represented a net benefit. That was key: their deaths had to be justifiable. I had no desire for wanton death among my people, but I could not afford to be squeamish, especially since my enemy had no such qualms.


Any means, even if it meant the death of daughters, sisters, fathers and sons. Or mothers. I didn't want to make any further house calls to the widows and orphans of my comrades, but in the end, it would be worth it.


There will be plenty of time for regret and self-castigation later. I will make sure that the loss of civilian life isn't forgotten, when this is all said and done, but I will do what I must until then.


All for the cause of a reborn Japan.


Nothing less was worthy of the millions of losses I could lay at Britannia's door. There would be no rapprochement; there could be no cohabitation on these islands. Victory or death.


---------

APRIL 23, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
0700


The Meeting Hall was packed with citizens of Shinjuku, crammed to the point that everybody was standing shoulder to shoulder and cheek to jowl. Unlike the typical breakfast rush, the crowd was almost completely silent and the atmosphere was tense with anxiety.


Standing on a chair in front of Inoue's office, the side of the room furthest from the street entrance, I could feel the weight of eager eyes in their hundreds pressing down. It was a familiar weight, entirely unintimidating, even if the nervous energy in my audience was almost palpable. Naoto stood on my left and Yoshi, one of the two squad leaders from the mission to Niigata Prefecture, stood on my right. Even with my prop, I was only barely taller than the two men, but every eye was fixed on me.


I had tried to get Naoto to take point, to be the one to make the announcement. He was, after all, the Kozuki for which the Kozuki Organization was named, as well as the one that had led this community for the last several months. He had demurred, insisting that the announcement would be much more meaningful if it came from me.


"You're the prodigal daughter, come back at last," Naoto had pointed out, "and also the one who first forged the Rising Sun Association. Believe it or not, Tanya, you're the one they're going to listen to most closely. Me? I'm the day-to-day guy. You, on the other hand, are a symbol."


I wasn't sure if I bought that excuse or not, but I'd acquiesced. Naoto was my leader, and to be frank, he still looked quite disheveled. Perhaps that had been one of the reasons he'd been so strenuous in his argument that I handle the public speaking?


"Brothers and sisters, my fellow citizens of Shinjuku, I wish you a very hearty good morning!" My voice carried easily over the room, and the dull mutters ceased almost immediately. "Of course, I'd greet any one of you with a hearty morning greeting any day we met, but today is a very good morning indeed!"


I paused and the crowd stirred, a low buzzing as people wondered aloud to neighbors about what I meant. I let the buzz continue for a few seconds, the anticipation building, before I resumed.


"Brothers and sisters, you know me, and I know you! I know how hard we've worked just to survive, how every bowl of soup and every grain of rice is dear, purchased with hours of straining labor in all weather and seasons! I've worked for my food too, always hungry and never satisfied! Nobody will ever say that living in Shinjuku is easy – there are no cushy lives to be found here!"


The appeal to shared misery and familiar working-class bonds worked. The voice of the crowd murmured of agreement as frowns settled into familiar creases, everybody remembering long shifts of thankless work in the steaming heat of summer or the biting cold of winter.


"Yes, life in Shinjuku is hard," I continued, picking up steam, "but there's no shortage of parasites determined to make it a hell of a lot harder than it has to be! You know them too – the bastard landlords charging an arm and a leg for a piece of floor, the foreign thieves whose gentry collect from those bastard landlords and whose commoners content themselves with grabbing anything of ours that they want, and most of all, the petty tyrants who have risen amongst us! The gangs!"


A rumble of anger echoed forth from deep in the crowd, and frowns of frustration sharpened into angry glowers. The buzzing intensified and heated as a thousand abuses and tiny miseries came to the minds of all present.


"No more!" I cried out, lifting a clenched fist above my head, thrusting it upwards in the universal sign of struggle. "No more thieving, no more raping, no more slave-taking or kidnapping! No more extortion, no more murdering, and no more holding all of our arms back and distracting us from our real enemy! A new sun has risen over Shinjuku, brothers and sisters!"


A sea of fists rose up in solidarity with mine, and the crowd bayed for blood with one voice. Beside me Naoto and Yoshi raised their fists too, knifelike smiles below their hard eyes.


"Last night, we killed every last member of the Eleven Lords, the Crowned Heads, and the King's Men!" The crowd almost exploded with howls of celebration, and I had to enhance my voice just a bit so I could shout over them. "Last night, they went the way of the Kokuryu-kai and every other gang in Shinjuku! They will never steal from us again, never take without giving back! Most of all, they will no longer act as middlemen, catering to the sick pleasures of our esteemed lords and masters!"


"Rejoice, brothers and sisters!" I cried out, pouring even more power into my voice. "Rejoice, and make ready! The Sun is Rising, and we all must rise to the occasion! Look to your block leaders and to the council of notables for daily assignments, for there is still much to do in Shinjuku, but keep your ears open – the call could come at any time! Train well and eat hearty! Work as hard as you can and become strong! The sun will rise on the rest of our native land once more, and we must be ready for that day!"


I paused, teetering on the edge for a moment, then grinned. "Long live Japan! Long live the Japanese people! May they rule for ten thousand years! Banzai!"


The crowd replied as one, as a people given fresh hope, as a man dying of thirst drinking deep from a crack in a stone leaking cold, pure water. "BANZAI! BANZAI! Long live Japan! Long live Japan! LONG LIVE JAPAN!"