13 「Graham」
Nina, Milly and Shirley sat awkwardly at one side of the ovular round table in the student council chamber. Meanwhile Lelouch, Suzaku and Kallen sat at another. The division was a work of art. Everyone there now knew that Graham was a member of the Black Knights, but after his debut, it completely vanished.
Records of him in the school, they were gone. Records of his family, his name, any and everything. It was as if he didn't exist. As if he had never existed in any digitized or automated system related to Britannia.
He became as spook, a ghost. Where had he gone? None of them knew, at least not now anyways. Not even Lelouch who was able to show how upset he was because Graham was known as a friend. He just couldn't show why he was upset.
It was all a disguise.
Kallen on the other hand had known where he was up until this morning. When she had woken up, he was standing over her bed with white paint littering over his face and spotted all over his clothes.
Apparently he had entered her mother's room through the window, repainted it, and took something that looked like a box. She hadn't questioned it, but he had shown her the contents. Refrain, a drug which had been on the market for a long time now since Japan had been conquered by Britannia.
A drug which was used to see past memories and to get high off of it. It was a hallucinogen which was used through direct injection. It was something that many Japanese were addicted to after the amount of suffering they had been going through.
He brought the mother and daughter closer together that morning. He erased the harassments on the walls. The prejudice of the other maids was rewritten and her step-mother was supposedly killed in a car accident shortly after leaving their estate.
Just like that, Kallen went to say something only to be cut off by Shirley.
"How could he do this to us!?" The ginger's fists came down on the table, clenched heavily, to the point that her nails were digging into her palms. She wasn't angry because of what he had become, but the fact that he had appeared to have turned his back on them.
In the minds of the student council, they had learned that he was a terrorist. Not only was he a terrorist, but he willfully saved them from another terrorist group, slaughtered the JLF soldiers without remorse or hesitation.
Nina had thought he was pretty cool, just like how the Princess had stood up to save her, he had come in like a Knight in shining armor. He came in with a blade, he entered a tower and saved the damsels in distress.
He even gave away his identity intentionally. There was no way he was able to get all of this cleaning up done without having some preparations. Lelouch however, knew that he needed no preparations to delete himself from every electronic system or technological system out there.
His geass wasn't limited to people. It wasn't limited to range either, he just needed to know the existence of his target. That was the scary part, should he ever be turned against the Black Knights.
Kallen had the same idea, since it was Graham himself who told her what he could do.
The two of them had every right to be scared of that scenario, the scenario in the back of their minds. Should he have mastered the Geass, Lelouch could theorize that not only would he be able to control thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people, but legions of unmanned warmachines.
"I already knew who he was," Suzaku stated as he leaned back in the chair, hands clasped over his knee as he brought it over his left. "He was the one in armor, standing beside Zero, when I was... Broken out of Britannian custody."
"He wasn't hiding it very well," Lelouch said as he glanced over towards Suzaku who raised a brow slightly.
Suzaku had met him far before he had met the two childhood friends he grew up with. Which meant that he knew him best, or at least that is what one would think.
"He always spoke about the Japan's Warring States Period. About how Oda Nobunaga united Japan under the Tokugawa Shogunate, a shogunate which lasted until the Meiji Restoration in the 1860's." Lelouch stated as he spoke about the mons which were on his armor. There were various pieces which came to Lelouch's attention, when he had analyzed the choice of attire Graham chose.
"How long do you think he had been planning this?" Suzaku narrowed his eyes on the man sitting beside him. "How long had he been working against Britannia?"
Enter Nunnally, "The entire time." She was being wheeled by her own two hands. Sayako was not present, nor were any of her middle school companions. She sat there, with her eyes open, looking at Suzaku.
Suzaku was surprised not only by her sudden entrance, but the fact that her eyes were open. "How...?"
"Graham treated her," Lelouch looked at his childhood friend, who turned his attention back to Lelouch.
"Treated... She was blind. What is he some sort of neuroscientist? Eye doctor? How did he treat her?" The two of them shrugged in unison, lying to his face. They weren't going to tell him about Geass just yet. Though they could only assume that Suzaku would catch on quickly, considering Lelouch had used his Geass to talk to Suzaku once before, during the Hotel Incident.
Suzaku's intuition made his chest feel heavy as he could see that they weren't going to divulge the information to him. Not only that, but they knew more about all of this. He felt it.
Lelouch had a grudge against the Britannian Empire. He always said he would obliterate it. The likeness of him being Zero was high. Nunnally however always seemed to be the more loving and forgiving type.
However he could see that she had changed since her eyes were healed. Something, she knew something more. That's when he noticed her struggling to speak, what did she want to say?
"Nunnally?" Lelouch and Suzaku, everyone, leaned in her direction.
"Last Night.... He came in through my balcony window." Lelouch and Suzaku almost stood up hearing Nunnally say this, their faces twisting about at the thoughts going through their heads, but sat back down as she began to speak again. "He said that Charles zi Britannia, the Emperor, is going to burn the world with an ancient weapon called the Ragnarok Connection. Then rebuild it in his image."
The moment she had said Ragnarok Connection, Lelouch's jaw came so close to unhinging and shattering against the table's wooden surface. When he had gotten his Geass, he was given a vision, abide, a small one about the Prophecy of the Ragnarok being spoken of by his father.
He didn't know what it meant, not until now.
Suzaku who had pledged to change the nation from the inside, just sat there and stared. He knew the country was rotten. He knew that it was violent and prejudice. He knew that no one was equal, that policies were written particularly to support certain groups of people.
How was he going to change a nation, to save the world, if the leader of the said nation was looking to destroy everything and build it back up from the ashes?
He was fighting for a country, in which had invaded his own. A country he killed his father for in order for his home to be kept in tact. The guilt in his eyes were clear and he just leaned back in his seat pale as a ghost.
Lelouch had put his hand in his face and was using the table for support.
Thud, Nina had fallen from her chair, out cold from the sudden news sprouted from Nunnally's mouth.
"No one outside this room can know," Lelouch stated as he looked over at Milly, Shirley and Suzaku. "If anyone finds out. If rumors begin to spread, we aren't the only ones who will have a high fatality rate."
"But if he's not here, then where is he? If he knows all this, why isn't he here?" Suzaku kicked the table as he stood up and shoved his chair aside with his hip as he walked over to a wall and placed both hands on it. He stared at the lower section of the wall, his chest was pounding.
Nunnally's head slowly lowered, "Because he said he wants to be the Emperor of the Neo-Japanese Empire. For the sake of the people, to be needed and wanted." In her lap were multiple envelopes which had a flag with thirteen stripes and fifty stars. To most this flag meant nothing, but those who had studies history, saw it to be reminiscent towards the original Thirteen Colonies from the North America Continent and the various districts of the Britannian Homeland.
It was a gesture to what the Holy Britannian Empire could have become.
"He's already needed and wanted," Milly slammed both her hands down on the table surface as she stood up in an outburst. Her eyes then locked on Lelouch, she knew who he was. She knew how he felt about Britannia.
