Chapter I: The Serpent's Summons
In the bruised belly of a bleeding sky, a Britannian vessel—small, insignificant, a metal moth against thunderheads—carried its cargo of cowardice. Inside sat Bartley Asprius, sweating, shaking, swimming in his own fear. The nobleman's hands trembled like autumn leaves awaiting their fall, for he journeyed not toward mercy but toward judgment.
The prince awaited him.
Not just any prince—The Prince. The one whose very name nobles whispered only behind locked doors and clasped hands. The prince who had returned from war transformed, transfigured, reborn as something other than human. Prince Bartholomew Britannia, who now answered only to another name, spoke with equal parts reverence and terror:
Zero.
Asprius gulped air like a drowning man. Death danced in his thoughts—death in a thousand forms. Prince Clovis, dead. Shot by that terrorist who also called himself Zero, as if the world could not contain one such phantom without spawning another. The irony was not lost on Asprius; it merely added another layer to his dread.
"Arriving at Area 12 shortly," the pilot's voice crackled through the intercom—cold, clinical, the voice of a man delivering a prisoner to the gallows.
Asprius pressed his face to the window. Below, the Australian desert had died and been resurrected as something new, something hungry. Where once dunes had dozed beneath an indifferent sun, now military installations sprawled like steel spiders, their legs reaching, grasping, testing weapons that screamed and sang songs of annihilation. The desert floor bore scars—black circles burned into the earth, craters that remembered explosions, graves without bodies.
And there, approaching through the heat shimmer and dust devils, rose the operations fortress where he resided. The Prince of Patriots. The Cipher of Ciphers. The man who saw the future and found it wanting.
Zero.
The vessel descended. Touched earth. The doors sighed open like the mouth of a tomb.
Asprius stepped out on legs that barely remembered how to support him. Soldiers snapped to attention—not for him, never for him—but for the protocol, the appearance of order in a place where chaos wore a uniform. Among them stood a figure in black, suit pristine, face forgettable, but upon his chest gleamed the emblem that made men's blood run cold:
The Patriots' insignia. The all-seeing eye within the pyramid, watching, always watching.
"Mr. Asprius," the bodyguard intoned, voice flat as a tombstone. "He expects you. He has been... anticipating... your arrival."
The words hung heavy with unspoken threat. Anticipation could mean curiosity. It could also mean appetite.
They walked.
And walking, Asprius witnessed the kingdom Zero had carved from sand and stone and will. Soldiers drilled with mechanical precision, their movements synchronized, symphonic, a ballet of brutality. Through windows—those terrible windows—Asprius glimpsed laboratories where science courted obscenity, where prisoners convicted of unspeakable crimes became test subjects for weapons that defied description. He saw a man begging, pleading, hands raised in supplication before a weapon that resembled no earthly design, discharged its payload. The prisoner didn't scream. He simply... ceased. Erased. Undone. Returned to constituent atoms.
Asprius tasted bile. Swallowed it. Walked on.
The corridor seemed endless, a throat that swallowed him deeper, deeper, toward the belly of the beast. His footsteps echoed—tap, tap, tap—a countdown, a death march, a heartbeat out of sync with his own hammering pulse.
Then: doors.
Enormous. Ancient oak reinforced with steel, inscribed with symbols Asprius didn't recognize but instinctively feared. They depicted eyes—hundreds of eyes, watching from every angle, seeing everything, knowing everything.
The bodyguard placed his palm against a scanner. The doors recognized his flesh, his blood, his loyalty, and groaned open with the sound of iron grinding against iron, chains dragging across stone, the gates of Hell admitting another damned soul.
Beyond lay the throne room.
Throne room—such an antiquated term for such a modern nightmare. The chamber stretched vast and vertical, the ceiling lost in shadows that seemed to move and breathe. Screens lined the walls, displaying feeds from across the world: riots in South America, assassinations in Europe, revolutions blooming like poisonous flowers in Africa. The world in all its violent glory, all its beautiful chaos, all laid bare before the throne.
And upon that throne sat Zero.
Not the terrorist Zero—the original Zero, the true Zero, the man who had taken that name when the world still made sense, before it had been stolen, corrupted, used by pretenders and revolutionaries who understood nothing of its meaning.
Prince Bartholomew Britannia.
But to call him merely "prince" would be to call the ocean merely "wet." He sat draped in his signature attire: military coat of deepest black, trimmed with gold that caught the light like captured sunlight, epaulettes bearing rank insignia that meant nothing and everything. But it was the mask that arrested attention, that commanded fear, that demanded recognition—a porcelain face, smooth and expressionless, with eye slits that revealed nothing but shadow. A face that was no face. A man who had transcended identity to become an idea.
"Ah, Bartley Asprius."
The voice emerged from behind that mask like smoke, smooth as silk and sharp as shattered glass. Each word carefully chosen, deliberately placed, a verbal chess game in which Asprius was already in checkmate.
"You must be exhausted from your journey. So far you've traveled, so much weight you carry—burdens, Mr. Asprius, burdens both literal and... metaphorical."
He clapped once—sharp, precise, the sound like a gunshot in the cavernous space. A soldier materialized from the shadows, bearing a small chair, placing it before the throne like an offering before an altar.
"Please. Sit. We have much to discuss, you and I. Much to... dissect."
Asprius's legs nearly gave out. He bowed—too deep, too desperate, a drowning man grasping at ceremony—and stumbled forward. "T-thank you, my lord. Your hospitality is... is most..."
"Unexpected?" Zero supplied, rising from his throne with fluid grace, a serpent uncoiling. He began to circle Asprius, footsteps silent despite his boots, a predator assessing prey. "Yes, I imagine you expected less... civility. The rumors, Mr. Asprius—such colorful rumors that follow me like faithful dogs. They say I killed a room full of nobles for the crime of breathing too loudly. They say I executed my own retainers for failing to properly press my uniforms. They say, they say, they say..."
He stopped directly behind Asprius, who could feel the weight of that masked gaze boring into the back of his skull.
"Tell me, Mr. Asprius: do you believe in rumors? Or do you believe in reality?"
Before Asprius could formulate an answer that might save his life, Zero moved again, producing a remote control from within his coat with the flourish of a magician revealing his final trick. He pressed a button. A screen descended from the ceiling—massive, high-definition, impossible to ignore.
The Emperor's face filled the screen, mid-speech, pontificating about loss and duty and the tragedy of Prince Clovis's assassination. The official state funeral. Pomp and circumstance. Crocodile tears from crocodile men.
"Watch with me," Zero commanded, his voice dropping to something intimate, something dangerous. "Let us remember this touching moment together. Such beautiful words, such eloquent sorrow. My father truly missed his calling as a theater actor. The way he pauses... the way his voice breaks just so... Academy Award worthy, wouldn't you say?"
The speech continued. The Emperor spoke of duty, of sacrifice, of the nobility of Prince Clovis's mission to bring order to the chaos of Area 11.
"Notice," Zero hissed, venom seeping into every syllable, "how he fails to mention my brother Lelouch. Oh yes, that brother—abandoned, left to rot in Area 11, fed to the wolves of war while dear father sipped wine in the homeland. But Lelouch doesn't warrant a word, does he? Not even a footnote in the grand tragedy. Because Lelouch, you see, committed the unforgivable sin of being inconvenient."
Zero's hand shot out, impossibly fast, fingers gripping the back of Asprius's chair. The nobleman felt the vibration of barely controlled rage thrumming through the metal frame.
"And Clovis—poor, foolish, arrogant Clovis—he participated in that abandonment. He knew where Lelouch was. He could have helped, could have intervened, could have shown one shred of familial loyalty. But he chose ambition over blood. Choose secrecy over salvation. Choose experiments over ethics."
The last word came out as a snarl. Then, without warning, Zero's boot connected with the chair, sending it—and Asprius—sprawling across the polished floor. Asprius hit hard, tasting blood, seeing stars, staring up at the masked figure that now loomed over him like divine judgment personified.
"That FOOL!" Zero's voice rose to a roar that echoed off the walls, screens flickering in sympathy with his rage. "He sits upon his throne of lies, looking down upon the numbered masses, speaking of inequality he has never experienced, preaching about order he has never maintained! He creates the very chaos he claims to combat! He numbers people—reduces them to digits—and wonders why they rebel! He strips away culture, identity, humanity itself, and acts surprised when warriors rise from the ashes!"
Zero paced now, a caged tiger, power and fury barely contained within that military coat. His voice modulated, rose and fell like a dark sermon, a gospel according to disillusionment.
"Because of his blindness, our enemies multiply. Because of his arrogance, they organize. Because of his stupidity, they have found what they needed most: a symbol. A leader. Someone else who calls himself Zero, though he understands nothing of what that name truly means."
He stopped, mask tilting down to regard Asprius still sprawled on the floor like a sacrifice before an altar.
"Clovis suffered from the same disease. You both did. The disease of assumed superiority. You believed yourselves untouchable, didn't you? You believed in your own legend. Numbers and knightmares, technology and terror—these would be enough, you thought. You never bothered to understand your enemy. Never studied them, never respected them. And now?"
Zero crouched, bringing that expressionless mask level with Asprius's tear-streaked face.
"Now Clovis has a bullet in his brain. Now the Shinjuku Ghetto runs red with Britannian blood. Now a terrorist claims the name I took first, and the world trembles before a pretender."
He rose again, returning to his throne with measured steps, each footfall a drumbeat of inevitability. When he settled into his seat, his posture radiated absolute authority—judge, jury, and executioner combined.
"Now tell me, Bartley Asprius—and choose your words with exquisite care, for your life hangs upon their truth—what was my dear brother Clovis doing in the Shinjuku Ghetto? And know this, know this absolutely: if you lie to me, if you dissemble, if you dare to insult my intelligence with half-truths and omissions, I will kill you. But not quickly. Oh no. I will take your corpse—your rotting, mangled, desecrated corpse—and I will feed it to the dogs piece by piece. And I will watch. And I will remember. And your death will serve as a lesson to every fool who thinks he can deceive the man who sees all, knows all, controls all."
The threat hung in the air like smoke from a discharged weapon.
Asprius could barely speak. Terror had seized his vocal cords, wrapped around his throat like invisible hands, squeezing, squeezing. But silence would be suicide. Silence would be the lie that condemned him.
"Y-yes, my lord! I'll tell you everything! Everything! Prince Clovis... he was... he was conducting experiments! Forbidden experiments! On test subjects—human subjects! There was a woman, a-a special case, and she escaped! He tried to cover it up, tried to make it all go away, claimed it was poison gas, a terrorist attack, anything but the truth!"
"Poison gas."
Zero repeated the words slowly, tasting each syllable like fine wine turned to vinegar. Behind the mask, invisible to Asprius, he smiled—a smile without warmth, without mercy, a smile that promised nothing but ruin.
"Poison gas. Yes. Yes, that does explain quite a lot, doesn't it? The panic. The cover-up. The desperate scramble to contain a situation that had already spiraled beyond control. My brother was always better at creating problems than solving them. A family trait, I'm afraid. The Britannian disease: cause chaos, then act shocked when chaos bites back."
Zero leaned forward, elbows on knees, mask cocked at an inquisitive angle. Behind those eye slits, Asprius imagined eyes burning with terrible intelligence, seeing through flesh and bone to the quivering soul beneath.
"Tell me, Bartley Asprius: do you have proof of these experiments you claim? Or am I expected to take the word of a man currently prostrate on my floor, begging for mercy he doesn't deserve?"
Trembling, Asprius fumbled inside his jacket—careful, so careful not to make any sudden movements that might be misinterpreted—and withdrew a folder. Inside: photographs. Evidence. Damning, undeniable truth.
He held them up like a white flag of surrender.
Zero descended from his throne, snatched the folder with the speed of a striking viper, and began examining the contents. He lifted one photograph close to his mask, tilting it to catch the light. The image showed a woman—young, beautiful in that ethereal way that spoke of something other, something not quite human. Her eyes, even captured in still photography, seemed to glow with an inner light that was neither entirely green nor entirely gold but some uncategorizable shade between.
"Fascinating," Zero murmured, voice devoid of emotion now, clinical, the voice of a scientist discovering a new species. "Absolutely fascinating. The kind of work Clovis could never have conceived on his own. Someone helped him. Someone with vision, with ambition, with the moral flexibility required to treat human beings as laboratory specimens."
He lowered the photograph, turning that inscrutable mask back toward Asprius.
"Where. Is. She. Now?"
Each word fell like an executioner's axe.
"—I don't know, my lord! We lost track of her in the Shinjuku Ghetto during the battle! But given time, given resources, I'm certain we could locate—"
Flash.
Asprius's words died in his throat—literally died, drowning in blood as Zero's blade emerged from its hidden sheath and opened his neck in one fluid motion. The nobleman had time for one final thought, one last desperate prayer that went unheard, before he collapsed. Blood fountained, pooled, spread across the polished floor like spilled wine, like liquid rubies, like the price of failure made manifest.
Zero stood over the corpse, blade still extended, watching dispassionately as life drained away. He tilted his head, considering the spreading crimson lake, seeing patterns in its flow—a Rorschach test written in vital fluids.
"How disappointing," he mused to the unhearing dead. "How utterly, profoundly disappointing. You knew so little. You understood even less. And now? Now you are merely geography—a landmark on my floor, an obstacle to be removed, a cautionary tale for those who might follow in your stumbling footsteps."
He cleaned his blade on Asprius's expensive jacket—waste not, want not—and sheathed it with a satisfying click.
"Guards."
They materialized from alcoves and shadows, disciplined, efficient, untroubled by the corpse that decorated their commander's throne room.
"Dispose of this garbage. Feed it to the hounds if they'll have it. Burn what remains. Scatter the ashes where no one will remember his name."
"Yes, Commander."
They dragged Asprius away, leaving only a blood trail, a crimson road leading to oblivion.
Zero watched them go, then turned his attention back to the photographs still clutched in his hand. He studied each one with the intensity of a man reading scripture, seeking meaning in every shadow, every angle, every captured moment.
"Who are you?" he whispered to the woman in the image. "What are you? And why did my fool brother think you were worth dying for—even if he didn't know death was coming?"
The questions hung unanswered in the empty throne room.
For now.
Later: The Sanctum of Surveillance
The control room hummed with electricity and ambition, banks of computers and monitors creating a technological cathedral where information was god and Zero its high priest. As he entered, his staff rose as one organism, voices unified in devotion:
"HAIL, ZERO!"
The words crashed like thunder, like worship, like the acknowledgment of something more than human, less than divine, but powerful in ways both quantified and ineffable.
Zero acknowledged them with a curt nod—no more, no less than they deserved—and strode toward the central display. The massive screen showed footage from the Battle of Shinjuku: buildings burning, bodies broken, nightmares reduced to twisted metal sculptures. Death. Destruction. Waste.
Such terrible, inexcusable waste.
His voice, when it came, was soft—dangerously soft, the quiet before the storm, the calm that precedes the catastrophe.
"Who will govern Japan now?"
Japan. Not Area 11—never Area 11, that insipid designation, that erasure of identity, that Britannian habit of numbering what they conquered as if culture could be cataloged like inventory in a warehouse. Zero refused to participate in such intellectual vandalism. A nation's name was its soul. To change it was to be murdered by bureaucracy.
One of his officers—a young woman with efficient eyes and a tablet clutched like holy writ—answered immediately.
"Princess Euphemia, Commander. Our intelligence also indicates that her elder sister, Cornelia, will be joining her. They arrive within the fortnight."
Zero went very still.
Those who knew him—truly knew him—recognized this stillness as more frightening than any rage. Stillness meant calculation. Stillness meant plans within plans, wheels turning within wheels, futures being rewritten in the quantum computer of his brilliant, terrible mind.
"Euphemia," he said, tasting the name. "Sweet, naive, idealistic Euphemia. Who still believes people can be governed with kindness? Who still thinks peace is possible through gentleness. Who has learned nothing from history's blood-soaked lessons."
He paused, mask tilting as if listening to voices only he could hear.
"And Cornelia. Ah, Cornelia. My dear, darling, militaristic sister who believes every problem can be solved with sufficient application of force. Who sees the world as a battlefield and every person as either a soldier or a civilian casualty. Who has never met a conflict she didn't think she could win through sheer stubborn brutality."
His hand moved in a gesture that somehow conveyed profound weariness despite its precision.
"Establish communication. I wish to speak with them. Both. Immediately."
His staff worked with the efficiency of a well-oiled machine, fingers dancing across keyboards, satellite links being established, encryption protocols engaged and verified. The Patriots' network spanned the globe—eyes everywhere, ears in every shadow, influence extending like invisible roots beneath the surface of the world.
The screen flickered. Split. Resolved into two windows displaying two very different women.
On the left: Princess Euphemia li Britannia. Pink hair like cherry blossoms, eyes like lavender skies, smile bright as dawn breaking over a battlefield. She looked genuinely happy to see him, face lighting with that unguarded joy that only the truly innocent could maintain in a world so comprehensively stained with sin.
"Brother! Bartholomew! It's so wonderful to finally hear from you! We've all been so worried! How are you? Are you well? Are you eating properly? Are—"
On the right: Princess Cornelia li Britannia. Purple hair like royal bruises, eyes like violet storms, expression carved from granite and disappointment. She regarded Zero with the wariness of a general facing a potential enemy combatant, which—to be fair—was exactly what he was.
"Bartholomew." Just his name. Flat. Assessing. Waiting.
"Spare me," Zero cut through Euphemia's concern like a blade through silk, his voice dropping to absolute zero, "the pathetic performance of familial care. We are not children anymore, playing at being siblings. We are pieces on a board—pawns, rooks, knights, queens—all dancing to strategies we barely understand, serving a king who cares for us only insofar as we remain useful."
Euphemia's smile crumbled like a sandcastle before the tide. The hurt in her eyes was genuine, raw, painful to witness—which was precisely why Zero forced himself to witness it, to inflict it, to remind himself that sentiment was a luxury he could no longer afford.
"I call for business. I call because the game has changed, the board has shifted, and new pieces are in play. I call because Japan—Japan, not your insulting numerical designation—requires proper leadership. And I call because I intend to provide it."
Cornelia's eyes narrowed. "Watch your tone, brother. Regardless of your... unorthodox methods... You remain Britannian. You remain bound by the same imperial protocols as the rest of us. And you will refer to the territory by its proper designation: Area 11."
"Will I?"
Two words. Delivered with such mocking disdain that they might as well have been a slap across Cornelia's face.
"Let me clarify something for you, dear sister, something that apparently escaped your notice during your glorious military campaigns across the conquered territories. I am Britannian by the accident of birth—a condition I bear with approximately the same enthusiasm one might feel about a terminal disease. I remain bound by nothing except my own will, my own vision, my own understanding of how this diseased empire must be transformed if it is to survive what's coming."
His voice rose, each word hammering like artillery fire.
"And I will call it JAPAN because that is its name! Names have power, Cornelia! Names have meaning! To erase them is to commit genocide by paperwork! But of course you don't understand that. None of you do. You're too busy numbering people, categorizing them, reducing entire cultures to digits in your imperial spreadsheets!"
"How DARE you—!" Cornelia began, face flushing with fury.
"I dare because I have earned the right to dare! I have walked through Hell and returned transformed! I have seen what you refuse to see, learned what you refuse to learn, and understood what you refuse to acknowledge! This empire—our empire—is built on sand and lies and the corpses of the numbered dead! And you, dear Cornelia, you are one of its most enthusiastic architects!"
"ENOUGH!"
Euphemia's voice cut through the argument like a bell through battlefield smoke. Both Zero and Cornelia turned their attention to her, surprised by the steel suddenly evident in her normally gentle tone.
"Enough," she repeated, softer now but no less firm. "I will not... I refuse to let this become another shouting match. We are family. We are family, regardless of everything else, regardless of distance and disagreement and... and all the ways we've hurt each other."
Tears glimmered in her eyes—unshed but visible, diamonds of sorrow waiting to fall.
"Bartholomew, I understand your request. I understand you believe yourself better suited to govern than I am. And perhaps... perhaps you're right. But Father gave me this responsibility. He trusts me with it. I cannot simply surrender it because you demand it."
She paused, gathering courage, then continued:
"But I can offer a compromise. Work with me, brother. Work alongside me. Let us govern together—your strength and my compassion, your vision and my hope. Together, we might achieve what neither could alone. Together, we might finally bring genuine peace to Area—to Japan. Please, Bartholomew. Please say yes."
Silence filled the digital space between them.
Zero stood perfectly still, mask revealing nothing, body language offering no clues to his thoughts. Inside that brilliant, byzantine mind, calculations proceeded at quantum speed: scenarios evaluated, possibilities assessed, outcomes predicted and counter-predicted and counter-counter-predicted.
Finally, after a silence that stretched like eternity:
"Very well."
Euphemia's face bloomed with hope, relief, and gratitude.
"But understand this, both of you: if I agree to this arrangement, it will be executed according to my specifications. This will be a Patriots operation from foundation to culmination. My methods. My strategy. My vision. I will coordinate with you, Euphemia, out of respect for the familial bonds you cling to so desperately. But I will not be constrained, will not be limited, will not be controlled."
He leaned forward, mask seeming to fill the entire screen, presence overwhelming despite the distance.
"And if either of you interferes with my operations, if you undermine my authority, if you place sentiment above strategy or politics above pragmatism..."
The pause stretched, pregnant with unspoken horror.
"I will kill you both."
Not a threat. A statement. A simple declaration of future fact, delivered with the same casual certainty one might use to predict sunrise or discuss the weather.
Cornelia's fists clenched, knuckles white, jaw working as she fought to contain her fury. But she said nothing. What could she say? Challenge him? Risk calling a bluff that might not be a bluff at all?
Euphemia looked like her heart had been torn from her chest and displayed before her. The hurt, the betrayal, the agonizing realization that her brother—her beloved older brother—had meant every syllable.
"Bartholomew..." she whispered, voice breaking. "Why... why do you hate us so much?"
Zero stared at her through the screen, through the digital void, across the distance that was so much more than merely geographical.
"Hate?"
He considered the word, turning it over like a jeweler examining a flawed diamond.
"No, Euphemia. I don't hate you. Hate requires passion, and I am long past such inefficient emotions. What I feel is... disappointment. Profound, terminal, existential disappointment. You are all so much less than you could be. Should be. Must be if any of us are to survive what's coming."
He straightened, preparing to terminate the connection.
"But perhaps, working together, we might yet achieve something worthwhile. Perhaps your compassion can temper my pragmatism. Perhaps my vision can give direction to your hope. Perhaps—"
For just a moment, something flickered in his voice. Something almost like pain.
"Perhaps we can build something better than what came before."
Then the mask reasserted itself, the armor snapped back into place, and Zero was once again nothing but cold calculation wrapped in human skin.
"Zero out."
The transmission ended. Severed. Gone.
In her chambers halfway across the world, Princess Euphemia li Britannia stood before a painting she had commissioned years ago, back when the family still gathered, still pretended at unity, still performed the ritual of being siblings rather than competitors in an endless game of imperial succession.
The painting showed them all: Father on his throne, mother by his side (which mother? There were so many, and most were dead now, but in this painting she was still alive, still smiling). And the children—oh, the children. So many children. Princes and princesses, legitimate and illegitimate, acknowledged and hidden, all arranged according to their place in the byzantine hierarchy of Britannian royalty.
And there, slightly apart from the rest, stood a young man with dark hair and darker eyes, wearing the expression of someone present but not participating, observing but not engaging, seeing everything and finding it all sadly wanting.
Prince Bartholomew Britannia.
Before the war. Before the transformation. Before he had died and been reborn as Zero.
Euphemia raised one trembling hand, fingers hovering just above the painted image of her brother's face, not quite touching, afraid that even that small contact might shatter the illusion that he was still there, still reachable, still saveable.
"Why?" she whispered to the painted ghost, tears finally falling, tracking silver paths down her cheeks. "Why do you hate us so much, brother? What did we do? What did I do? When did we lose you? When did you become so... so..."
She couldn't finish. Couldn't find words adequate to describe what her brother had become. Monster was too simple. Villain was too reductive. Lost was too hopeful, implying he could somehow be found.
No. Bartholomew wasn't lost.
He had simply discovered a truth the rest of them refused to see, a path the rest of them refused to walk, a transformation the rest of them refused to undergo.
And it had made him glorious.
And it had made him terrible.
And it had made him alone.
"I'll save you," Euphemia promised the painting, voice fierce despite her tears. "I don't care what you've become, what you think you are, what name you've taken. You're my brother. My family. My blood. And I will find the person you used to be, hidden somewhere beneath that mask, buried somewhere inside that armor, waiting somewhere in that darkness."
The painted figure, of course, did not respond.
But in her heart, in that place where hope persisted despite all evidence to the contrary, Euphemia believed she saw him smile.
Just a little.
Just enough.
To be continued...