Kallen sat within the cockpit, waiting quite eagerly for further instructions. As was the case more often than not, Zero’s plan had come through with seemingly nary a hitch. Though it was difficult to tell given that he rarely ever filled them in on the full scope of his plans. Heh. Such a simple illusion to make him seem infallible and mysterious: If something went wrong, he could still pretend things went as he predicted while flying by the seat of his pants.
If that was the case? He was still pretty damn good at it. Zero, worker of miracles or Zero, master of improvisation? Which was better? Which was the truth? Did it even matter? He would say no. It didn’t matter. What mattered were the end results.
The end result of tonight? They had managed to meet with another mysterious, powerful and fascinating person that hated Britannia. Sakura. It was the strangest thing. Unlike Zero, she wore no mask. Her (rather adorable) facial features were exposed for the world to see, and yet neither Britannia nor the Black Knights could find any trace of her in any database. It was as if she’d grown out of nowhere and come into the city like a cherry blossom on the wind.
A cherry blossom that shrugged off bullets and explosions, could push down buildings with her bare hands and do so while looking like she’d spent the last week at an expensive spa.
It was the funniest thing. When she’d seen Sakura in action on television her attention was drawn towards the discriminate carnage directed towards armed Britannians. Flipping a Sutherland, performing a series of kicks to twenty soldiers in a row without touching the ground. Not so much defying gravity as telling it to piss off. That sort of thing drew attention pretty naturally and screamed to the heavens and beyond, “Sakura is a badass!”
Compare it to seeing her in the flesh. The effect was different. Like looking through a funhouse reflection. She still rained hell all over the Britannian forces. She still seemed untouchable. She was still completely wrecking them. And yet? All Kallen could think about was how completely adorable she was. Cute. A visual aesthetic that compelled feelings of warmth and affection. She seemed as harmless as a puppy, even though she had just at that very moment headbutted a Gloucester into submission.
Which led to now, at a makeshift base where Zero and Sakura could talk a bit more freely. Not one of their real ones. Too risky. Nobody knew anything about Sakura, really, save her incredible destructive power. Leading her to one of their actual bases was about as safe as diving into a pool full of scorpions, but Sakura would cause much more collateral damage in the process. Assuming she lost her shit and wrecked the place. But here? This warehouse was one of many abandoned temp-zones they could retreat to if needed for a situation like this. She could tear it apart without hurting anyone. Except for them. Five Sutherlands, really a show of strength rather than anything else. They couldn’t stop Sakura.
“Don’t worry about her,” Zero had said. “Just ensure we are not interrupted.”
Relying on his personal charisma to talk around a one-girl army? Sakura didn’t stand a chance.
“You know, I wouldn’t have expected such a wrecking machine to have such a tight little butt,” Tamaki said. “I could watch that ass all day.”
“Hey, get off the comms!” Kallen said. Honestly! The little pervs! “This is no time for sightseeing. Get your head out of your crotch and keep it in the game!”
“… Keep my head or my crotch in the game?” Tamaki asked.
“Idiot,” Kallen mumbled. Well, it wasn’t like she was too much better. She should be paying attention to any possible intruders, and yet… The conversation between Zero and Sakura was happening just out of earshot but it still held her complete attention. She couldn’t hear anything they were saying, and since Zero’s face was completely covered and her back was to them it was impossible to read anything but body language.
Let’s see what we had here. Zero making his usual grandiose, sweeping gestures, embracing his usual flair for the dramatic. And Sakura was twirling a stray strand of hair while her other hand rested on her hip.
In other words: Zero was trying to recruit Sakura into the Black Knights. Sakura was trying to recruit Zero into her far-too-tight shorts. Neither was giving an inch.
Sakura stepped forward. No. Stepped was the wrong verb. She seduced her way forward. That was the kind of walk a woman used when she wasn’t remotely afraid of letting anyone know her intentions, when those intentions were “screw this man into unconsciousness.” Every muscular motion was devoted to the singular task of advertising her feminine form and her willingness to show off even more of it.
“Lucky bastard,” Tamaki whistled. “You think we should leave those two alone?”
“No,” Kallen very firmly said. Because as much as Sakura may want Zero, it was quite apparent that he was not really interested in it. His reactions were not fearful, it was more like he was trying to keep this girl’s mind on rather more important matters than her libido. “I think we might need to step in.”
Two things happened at the same time. The first baffled Kallen just enough for her to miss the arc of the second. To begin with, a portion of Zero’s mask slid aside, revealing his left eye. It did rather raise the question of why he would have a mechanism like that to begin with, and what he intended to accomplish here by employing it. No matter. It had quite transparently failed. Sakura had stomped her foot in a rather petulant manner, then leaped off into the sky and completely vanished.
“Dammit!” Tamaki yelled. “What the hell do we do now?!”
“Return to your homes,” Zero commanded. “There is nothing more to be done here tonight. We shall reconvene at the usual place tomorrow evening.”
“What the hell just happened?” Kallen asked. “What do we tell the others?”
“Tell them that Sakura is a rogue element. While she hates Britannia, her goals and ours do not completely coincide. She is neither enemy nor ally. The Black Knights are not to provoke or threaten her, unless she threatens those that cannot defend themselves. However! At this time I have no reason to believe that she will do so.”
In at least that respect, a victory could be gleaned from this event. Sakura was not an enemy, at least for the time being. That was for the best. Kallen would have hated having to try to deal with a threat of that nature. Even Zero might have some trouble with her….
<hr>
Home wasn’t just the place you lived. Home was where you felt comfortable. Home was where you felt like you could safely relax and unwind. Home was where you left the stress of the outside world at the door, ready for you to pick up tomorrow. So it might not be much but hell, this tiny apartment was plenty of home for Shinichiro Tamaki!
“Man, what a shitty day!” Tamaki sighed, pulling open his fridge to get his very last can of booze. Of course it was the last can. Why wouldn’t it be? “Wouldn’ta been so bad if I could’ve at least talked to that Sakura chick for a while. Man, she was hot…”
He closed the fridge door and became quite aware of a human shape standing at the edge of his peripheral vision. Tamaki, hot blooded as ever, leaped around into an exaggerated kung fu pose (the kind you see in movies that has practically no real-world fighting applications), ready to defend himself from the inexplicable intruder - and stared slack jawed at the beautiful, entrancing, walking seige weapon known to the world as “Sakura”.
“Hi there,” Sakura said in fluent Japanese. “You’re cute. Want to have some fun?”
By the time his brain rebooted, she was already pushing him onto his bed with one hand while removing her shirt with the other. Maybe tonight wasn’t gonna be so bad after all? In point of fact, it was gonna be pretty -
<hr>
Awesome. That was the only way to describe it. For some reason, Nina didn’t feel the slightest bit tired today. Her mind felt so much clearer, there was a distinctive spring in her step that she’d never felt before. It was taking quite a lot of concentration just not to skip down the corridor in a completely uncharacteristic (and embarrassing) display of happiness and pep. Yes. Pep. Hook her up to the school grid, she could charge the building for the day. Energy to burn. Energy she’d never had to use before.
“Good morning!” she said to Lelouch, who was slouched over his desk with his fist being used as a resting place for his jaw. “Penny for your thoughts?”
That sigh was the sound of someone with the world resting on their shoulders. How strange. Was Lelouch always so tense? Was he always so lost in thought? Nina had always thought of him as a bit of a lady’s man. A playboy. They didn’t interact much at all outside of student council business. They didn’t have much else in common so far as she knew. What did she know about him, anyway?
“I’m thinking about the same thing many others are at this moment,” Lelouch answered. “Call it unoriginal if you like, but it can’t be helped. Sakura is such an interesting phenomenon, don’t you think?”
“Yes. I suppose that she is,” Nina said. She shuddered for no immediately apparent reason. “What do you think about her?”
It was strangely satisfying seeing someone like Lelouch become surprised by something like a simple question. She could almost see the gears working in his mind about how best to answer the question. In this light she could see it. Intelligence. Not the same sort that people were always praising her over. A different kind of intelligence entirely. Nina was book smart. Lelouch was people smart. No wonder he was the vice president. Why hadn’t she noticed before?
“I think she’s dangerous,” Lelouch said. “A loose cannon. Her abilities are clearly above and beyond any normal human’s limits. I doubt even Suzaku could keep up with her, and he’s a big time fitness freak.”
“Kururugi is…?” Nina blinked. An Eleven fitness freak? An image of him in the gym, no shirt, lifting weights larger than his head, dousing himself in water to cool off… She blushed a little and shook her head clear of those terrible images. He was an Eleven! An Eleven!
“It’s true,” Lelouch said. “We were friends when we were kids, remember? Even back then he had no trouble at all scaling sheer cliffs.”
Did you ever get that feeling? Like the world was falling away. Like your preconceptions were being challenged by things that should have been obvious. But no. Nina wasn’t people smart. She was book smart. She kept her head down. Didn’t look people in the eye if she could help it. Kept her voice out of the conversation until others drew her in. How much was she learning just by initiating conversation? By lifting her head, by looking people in the eye?
“I… I have to go,” she suddenly said, racing out of the room. It felt like her head was about to burst open. Her clothes felt all… wrong. Her body felt so warm, and her breathing was growing more ragged by the minute! What was happening to her?
- Nina figures out what’s going on, and tries to contain Sakura.
- Nina transforms into Sakura right there in school!
- Nina shows someone else the experimental footage. But who?
- Someone else sneaks into Nina’s lab and sees the experimental footage while looking for something else…
- Something else happens.
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