This would come as a shock to absolutely everyone around her but Kallen did not give one single solitary shit about the politics of Ashford Academy. Everyone trying to kiss the ass of someone higher up on the social ladder, whether due to beauty, skills or family relations. Okay, not everyone, but it was still far too common for her liking.
It was all about power, about being better than the others and lording it over them. It was an insult to her ancestors that foreigners could act like the lords of the land while her own people were second class citizens at best.
So, no. She didn't really care one whit that some slut was trying to compete with Milly Ashford. Sure, Kallen kind of sort of liked Milly, and she seemed like one of the few decent Britannians she'd met. But Kallen had bigger fish to fry. What with being a freedom fighter - oh, sorry, that should be <i>terrorist</i> if you went by the way the media talked about them. If it meant maintaining her cover then Kallen would cover for Milly but she wasn't exactly planning on busting her butt to do it either.
A camera flash to her left left Kallen blind for a second there. She turned, and found herself looking at some blue haired girl with twintails holding an expensive looking camera, which just spit out a picture. She couldn't quite keep the scowl from forming on her face as she marched forward and grabbed hold of it.
"Delightful, darling!" the girl said, quickly stepping back and snapping another picture. This time she was a little too quick and held it aloft. "Oh, this expression is much more you! Good good, let the hate flow through you!”
No problems there, Kallen spent almost every waking moment at least some degree of pissed off about something. She grabbed the picture and - And actually, she didn't quite recognise herself at first. The way the light hit her, the angle the picture was taken... Kallen didn't know much about photography, but this was truly excellent work.
"No pictures," Kallen sniffed and tore it up without a moment's regret.
“Ah! What a waste, but that also makes you beautiful. Tell me, what would it cost to get you to be my model for an hour?” The twin-tailed girl asked, stars all but shining in her eyes.
"More than you can afford," Kallen said, dusting off her hands and walking away.
"Oh, darling, I think you'll find that I can afford quite a great deal," the now extremely annoying blue haired girl said, getting right in Kallen's way. Just great another rich girl with delusions of grandeur who thought daddy’s wallet could get her anything she wanted. "The costumes I make bring in quite the pretty penny, though none of those pennies are nearly as pretty as you."
Alright, maybe not <i>spoiled</i> exactly, it sounded like she was at least putting in quite a lot of work. Or was exploiting resources from her family to sell those costumes in the first place.
"Whatever you say, please pardon me. I have to be elsewhere."
Kallen stepped away, thinking that would be the end of it...
"Elsewhere?" the girl said. "Like, for example, visiting your dear mother in hospital?"
Kallen's foot landed hard on the floor. If this were one of those old cartoons, she'd have a bright red aura flaring all around her right about now. This bitch had stepped on Kallen's lever without even knowing it. Until recently, she'd looked down on her birth mother. A Japanese woman clinging to her Britannian lover, or so she thought. No. She was a desperate woman grieving over the loss of her son, Kallen's big brother Naoto, and trying to stay as close as she could to Kallen herself. And since Kallen had pushed her away out of her scorn... Well, the guilt was only natural.
As was the anger. How dare she bring that up. Worse still, how dare she make such a blatant play to blackmail her by making use of her heritage like that. A mixed breed in a society like Britannia was often worse discriminated against than those who were pure Numbers.
"Don't look so surprised," the girl said, flicking through her hair. "In spite of Milly's attempt to cover up your heritage, personal records are still available."
"Oh yeah?" Kallen asked, still making her mind up on what to do with this girl. Use her knife? Ditch the body someplace off campus? Maybe lure her somewhere safer to do that than out here, in public.
"Yes, it's quite amazing the things people let slip when you're fitting them for a dress," the girl said. "I must have dirt on half the nobility in Area Eleven by now, your little secret was no trouble at all to dig up."
Just wonderful, the exact person she would normally want as an ally had become a liability. It was almost a shame, but she couldn’t let herself get dragged into whatever illegal and likely horrible thing this little would-be conspirator wanted to get up to. If her <i>other</i> secret came out due to that.. It would get far more problematic. Not to mention she would never accept being turned into someone’s plaything due to them knowing her birth mother’s name. Already she could think up ideas of what the little noble wanted to do. Perhaps get some info on her father’s business? Or she wanted something even worse, like forcing her to poison him? She couldn’t remember if their family was a rival, but there was always something dirty going on in the nobility.
"I didn't catch your name," Kallen said.
"Bella Ravenworth," Bella said, offering her hand as if expecting it to be kissed. She curtseyed and giggled a moment later, then withdrew it. "Now, I was rather hoping you could assist me with a small matter."
"I'm not -"
"I would like to seduce Lelouch Lamperouge."
Oh. Well, that wasn't exactly what she was expecting. Actually, if anything, that made this all that much easier. Something as harmless as that couldn't do anybody any harm, and besides which that guy kind of had a girl like this coming anyway. For whatever reason Lelouch was super popular with the ladies at this school but was extremely unattainable. While she wasn't looking for a relationship, she was currently mostly into guys wearing masks...
"I think we might be able to arrange something," Kallen said. This was too good a chance to get some blackmail material to pass up for so little cost. And as a bonus, she could mix business with pleasure! Seeing Lelouch squirm a little might be pretty fun.
"That's great!" Bella said, linking arms with Kallen, which wasn't exactly the best, but she'd roll with it for now. "I had a few... costumes that I was thinking might allure his interest. You're about my proportions, right? You can help model, give your opinions."
"Sure..." Kallen said, forcing a grin. Then again, maybe this wasn't something she should have agreed to so readily.
<hr>
Some might call Suzaku Kururugi naive. Some might call him foolish. However, if you compared his treatment at the start of his time here at Ashford Academy to how he was treated now, one could only assume good things about the nature of humanity. At first they treated him terribly. They played all kinds of terrible pranks on him. Nobody wanted to talk with him. Nobody gave him the time of day, except to let him know that he didn't belong.
Well, that was no longer true. He was an active and valued member of the student council. Sure, he couldn't focus completely on that due to his military career, but... This was a positive change. More than that, it was a sign. If this school could change, so could society as a whole. Maybe that was naive, but since all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing, it would be better for him to make the attempt than sit back and let things go as they were.
It wasn’t like there was much of an alternative. He was certainly not going to do something silly like start a rebellion and try to take down the leadership of Britannia. That was silly, even if he managed it, as soon as he died they would go right back to what they did before. That kind of thing only got people killed. It wouldn't change anything. It would only rotate out one corrupt leader for another. Someone else paranoid about losing power the same way that he took it, at the end of a blade or a gun. That was why changing the system from within was the better way.
"Um, excuse me? Hello?" a brown haired girl with a ponytail said. She approached him tentatively, peering over her glasses like a mouse looking at a sleeping cat.
“Oh..” He turned, making sure to get a better look at the girl and feeling she looked vaguely familiar.. Wasn’t she a member of that rather odd club? Fantasy Seduction or something like that? “Can I help you with something miss Allendale?”
"Eh?!" Lily gasped. "You... you know my name? I don't think we've talked already..."
Right, right. He had a pretty good idea of what was going on around here. Suzaku chuckled and shook his head. "Well, Milly did warn us that the... Uh, Fantasy Seduction Society might be up to something."
"Club," Lily corrected. "We're the Fantasy Seduction Cl-Club."
Right, right. Just as he thought, this was the girl who had apparently been forced into the club somehow. If what Milly was saying was right, then this girl was probably here on a reconnaissance mission, trying to find a weakness in the student council.
Sending her to him was a tactical error, in that case. Like Lelouch was always saying, he might be naive. That didn't mean Suzaku was stupid. He'd free this girl from that perverted club, make no mistake about it.
As it happened Suzaku looked away right about then, and completely missed the extremely lustful expression that filtered over Lily's mind while his attention was briefly elsewhere. He also completely missed her making squeezing noises while staring at his package.
"So, what are you doing in that club?" Suzaku asked. Lily had gone back to the innocent act in the meantime.
"Literature advisor," Lily answered without missing a beat.
"No, what I mean is... You don't seem the type to be into a club like that," Suzaku said. He didn't want to flat out say that she shouldn't be there, if it turned out that she actually did. He wanted to hear her say it before he stepped in.
"Oh, well..." Lily said. "My mother is friends with the club president's mother. We've always hung out together... But I don't normally get involved in their activities beyond advising them on literature to read. I love books."
The girl did sound honest enough. And he could understand being friends even if you don’t really share many interests. He certainly didn’t get up to the same shenanigans as Milly, nor was he as focused on school as Lelouch seemed to be. But just because he was sympathetic of her situation didn’t mean he would help her in whatever little plan she had been told to pull off.
He was firmly on Milly’s side on that matter. And any place called Fantasy Seduction Club could only be doing things he wouldn’t want to see anyway.
"Listen," Suzaku said. "I know, you were probably sent to spy on me, but you don't have to do that if you don't feel comfortable with it."
"Um... actually... I was wondering if I could ask for your help?" Lily asked. "You see, I have a plan to maybe put an end to this stupid conflict. Milly's a pretty good council president, but she'll be gone next year anyway, so..."
"So you want the club to stop bickering with the council, until you can more or less run unopposed?" Suzaku asked. He mulled it over. "That might work. But! You can't lie to anyone to get your way either. If they find out it will only make things worse for everyone."
"Oh, that's fine by me," Lily said, and for the first time she showed Suzaku a smile. "We shouldn't need to lie to anyone. If- If you would follow my lead?"
Of course, that was fine by Suzaku. At the very least he'd hear her out... Without realising that where the Fantasy Seduction club was concerned, the first step towards conquest was always a tiny sliver of a concession.
- Another member of the Fantasy Seduction Club makes her move.
- Kallen begins her modelling for Bella, little realising the secret to her clothes.
- Suzaku learns more about Lily's plans.
- Milly begins her own attack on the Fantasy Seduction Club.
- The swim team's corruption proceeds apace.
- Something else
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