Chapter 3: The Crimson Shadow's Gambit
Lightning split the sky like a blade through silk, illuminating the ancient Britannian fortress in stark white for a heartbeat before plunging it back into darkness. Rain hammered the stone windows with the fury of a thousand drums, each drop exploding against the glass in crystalline bursts that caught the torchlight within. The thunder that followed shook the very foundations, drowning out the mechanical symphony of Knightmare Frames prowling the perimeter like steel predators in the storm.
Deep within the castle's bowels, two worlds collided in parallel meetings—one painted in diplomatic gold where nobles sipped wine with Princess Cornelia, their laughter echoing through marble halls... the other bleeding crimson in the shadows, where death wore medals and spoke in whispers.
The Red Ribbon Army's war council.
Crimson banners rippled in the stale air, their twisted insignias writhing like living serpents in the flickering torchlight. The obsidian table stretched before them like a black mirror, reflecting the amber flames that danced across burnished steel engravings. Every shadow seemed to breathe. Every silence carried weight.
At the table's head sat a figure who defied nature itself—Commander Red. Five feet of concentrated fury wrapped in pristine military dress, every button polished to mirror brightness, every crease sharp enough to cut. His medals caught the light like captured stars, but it was his eyes that commanded the room—twin furnaces of ambition burning behind wire-rimmed glasses that reflected the dancing flames.
Colonel Silver stood motionless as a marble statue, his uniform unmarked by time or doubt, hands clasped behind his back with mechanical precision. His pale eyes swept the room in calculated arcs, cataloguing every shadow, every potential threat.
General Blue lounged with predatory grace, his golden hair catching firelight like spun silk. Manicured fingers drummed a silent rhythm against his chair's armrest—the only betrayal of the violence coiled beneath his elegant facade.
The massive screen erupted to life with electronic fury.
Dr. Gero's weathered face materialized from the digital ether—a roadmap of obsession carved in flesh, his wild white hair crackling with static electricity from his laboratory's Tesla coils. Behind him, mechanical arms moved like chrome spiders, welding sparks cascading in golden waterfalls.
"Frequency secured," Gero's voice crackled through the speakers, each word edged with the precision of a scalpel. "Android surveillance protocols are active. Anyone foolish enough to intercept this transmission will find themselves... reorganized."
Commander Red's gloved fingers steepled before his face, the leather creaking like old bones. "Begin."
Gero rose from his chair with mechanical fluidity, his lab coat stained with rainbow slicks of motor oil and something that pulsed with its own dark light. "The Android Integration Project progresses. Test subjects—volunteers according to our paperwork, the condemned according to reality—are achieving cellular fusion with cybernetic matrices..."
His pause stretched like a held breath.
"With acceptable casualty rates."
Red's jaw twitched—a hairline crack in his perfect composure. "Define acceptable."
Without ceremony, Gero's skeletal finger jabbed a control. The screen dissolved into grainy surveillance footage that made everyone lean forward involuntarily.
A corridor white as bone. Fluorescent lights hummed their sterile song. A figure in experimental armor moved with liquid grace—part ballet, part murder, all precision. Scientists watched from behind barriers that seemed suddenly inadequate.
Then perfection shattered.
The subject's head snapped sideways with a wet crack that echoed through the speakers. Limbs convulsed in inhuman angles. A scream tore from vocal cords that were no longer entirely organic—part human agony, part mechanical shriek that set teeth on edge.
Chrome fingers clawed at its own skull, ripping away synthetic skin to reveal the horrific marriage beneath—pale human bone fused with gleaming circuitry, both bleeding their separate kinds of life.
Sparks fountained. The scream cut to static. Darkness claimed the feed.
Commander Red's face transformed into a study of controlled volcanic rage, veins mapping lightning patterns across his temples. His knuckles went white against the table's edge.
"Neural cascade failure during final integration," Gero continued with clinical detachment. "The human psyche rejects mechanical enhancement at the moment of complete fusion. We're developing countermeasures."
General Blue examined his reflection in a jeweled ring, voice honey over broken glass. "Why not simply build pure machines? Eliminate the... messy biological components?"
Gero's laugh was sawblades on steel. "Possible, certainly. But artificial intelligence lacks the spark of genuine malice, the creativity of true hatred. Human consciousness provides tactical unpredictability that no algorithm can replicate."
Red's whisper carried the promise of avalanches. "Solutions. Now."
"Memory extraction protocols," Gero replied, adjusting spectacles that reflected the laboratory's hellish glow. "Strip away their humanity layer by layer—childhood, love, hope. Leave only the killer's instinct married to mechanical perfection."
"Proceed." The single word dropped like an executioner's axe.
Red's burning gaze shifted to Silver, who straightened imperceptibly. "South America status."
"Infiltration proceeds on schedule." Silver's report was a masterpiece of military precision. "Local resistance cells have been... persuaded to cooperate. However, Britannian officers continue their displays of superiority. My men grow restless for blood."
A smile played at Red's lips—the kind wolves shared before the hunt. "Next time they forget their place, remind them who pays for their ammunition. We kneel to no crowned fools."
The screen flickered, revealing Dr. Gero's scarred visage once more. "Weapons shipments are en route, including the prototype Knightmare modifications. I insist on personal oversight—that pretentious fool Lloyd will contaminate my work with his mediocre designs."
Red's nod carried grudging respect. "Lloyd serves his purpose. For now."
His finger stabbed the remote. The display exploded into a surveillance photograph that made everyone's breath catch.
Zero—captured mid-flight as he shielded Suzaku from an inferno, his cape spread like raven wings against the flames. The image burned itself into their retinas with prophetic intensity.
"Intelligence on the masked terrorist?" Red's question carved silence from the air.
Silver consulted a data pad, its glow painting his face in electronic blue. "Zero remains a phantom—too clean, too perfect. As for Suzaku Kururugi..." His pause carried weight. "Records sealed beyond normal classification. Someone with imperial authority wants his past erased."
Red's hands clenched into fists that could crush diamonds.
"However," Silver continued, "the boy attends Ashford Academy. Elite. Connected. Vulnerable."
"Opportunities?" Red's single word contained volumes.
"Many. Recognition. Purpose. Perhaps even... belonging."
Dr. Gero's scoff crackled through speakers. "Sentiment is weakness."
The room plunged into cathedral silence. Commander Red stared at Zero's image with the intensity of a man seeing his own destiny unfold. His breathing slowed. His pulse hammered against his collar.
"Commander?" Silver's voice barely disturbed the air.
Red's head turned with mechanical precision toward Gero's flickering image. "The enhancement suit. Status?"
Gero's eyebrows rose like startled birds. "Operational, but Commander—why would you personally—"
Red's smile was winter moonlight on fresh snow. "I'm going to see this academy myself."
ASHFORD ACADEMY
Ashford Academy rose from manicured grounds like a monument to imperial pride—all soaring spires and gleaming marble, its clock tower piercing the sky like a sword thrust toward heaven. Morning mist clung to perfectly sculpted gardens where cherry blossoms fell like pink snow, each petal choreographed by gardeners who understood that beauty was another form of power.
Students moved between buildings in clusters of privilege, their conversations painting the air with the casual arrogance of those born to rule. Uniform blazers bore family crests that had commanded empires, and every face carried the particular confidence of youth combined with unlimited resources.
At the academy's heart, the clock tower stood sentinel over the courtyard where Suzaku Kururugi had become an unwitting center of attention. His awkward charm drew laughter from surrounding classmates like a magnet pulling iron filings—genuine warmth in a place more accustomed to calculated alliances.
He was oblivious to the predator approaching.
The wrought-iron gates parted with mechanical precision as a limousine glided through—black as midnight, rain-slicked chrome reflecting the morning sun in liquid fire. It moved with predatory silence, tires whispering secrets against the pristine stone drive.
Conversations died in waves as students turned to stare.
The rear window descended with hydraulic smoothness, revealing a sliver of darkness within. Through that gap, eyes studied the scene with the intensity of a hawk selecting prey—cataloguing, measuring, deciding.
Suzaku remained focused on his friends, unaware that death had come calling.
The limousine whispered to a stop at the main entrance like a hearse arriving at its final destination.
Colonel Silver emerged from the driver's seat with fluid precision—six feet of military perfection wrapped in a uniform that had never known defeat. His pale eyes swept the gathering students with the clinical detachment of a surgeon selecting organs. One hand rested casually near his sidearm, fingers drumming a silent funeral march against the holster.
"Perimeter assessed," he reported to the darkness behind tinted glass. "Minimal resistance. Standard civilian protocols are sufficient."
The rear door opened with the finality of a coffin lid.
A polished boot touched marble—black leather that reflected the sky like dark water. Students held their breath as Commander Red rose from the vehicle's depths, and despite standing barely five feet in his custom boots, his presence consumed the courtyard like expanding gas filling a vacuum.
His uniform was a masterpiece of intimidation—midnight blue wool crossed with crimson ribbons, medals arranged in perfect mathematical precision, each decoration catching light like trapped lightning. His cap sat at the precise angle dictated by regulation, while wire-rimmed glasses reflected the faces of students too paralyzed to look away.
But it was his aura that truly commanded—an electromagnetic field of barely contained fury at the universe's inadequacies, chief among them his own physical limitations. Power radiated from his compact frame like heat from a forge.
Whispers rippled through the crowd like wind through wheat.
Then—disruption.
One figure stepped forward from the mass of privilege and fear. Arms folded across his chest. Violet eyes are sharp as surgical steel. Unlike the others, Lelouch Lamperouge showed no deference, no fear—only calculating interest.
Their gazes locked across twenty feet of charged air.
Time crystallized into a single moment pregnant with possibility. Two minds—one consumed by rage at physical limitations, the other burning with imperial birthright—measured each other across the chessboard of fate. No words were necessary. Each recognized a player worthy of the great game.
Silver's hand drifted toward his weapon with professional interest. "Shall I remove the impediment, Commander?"
Red's gesture was barely perceptible—a finger raised in negation. "Unnecessary. We have more pressing business."
They advanced through the parted sea of students, Red's boots clicking military cadence against marble while Silver flanked him like a bodyguard escorting royalty. Lelouch's analytical gaze followed their progress until they vanished into the building's depths, leaving him with questions that would reshape his carefully laid plans.
Inside the academy's heart, Principal Morrison waited in the main atrium, sweat beading his forehead despite perfect climate control. His hands trembled as he arranged papers that didn't need arranging, straightened a tie already perfect, and checked his watch for the dozenth time in sixty seconds.
When Commander Red entered his line of sight, Morrison's knees nearly buckled.
The bow he attempted was so deep his glasses slipped, saved only by frantic grabbing. "Your Excellency! The Red Ribbon Army honors our humble institution with your presence!"
Red's advance never slowed, forcing Morrison into an awkward shuffle to match pace. "I require private consultation with student Suzaku Kururugi. Immediately."
Morrison's voice cracked like a teenager's. "Of course, sir! I'll have him brought at once—"
"Principal."
The single word froze Morrison's blood. He turned just as Silver's sidearm cleared its holster with practiced fluidity—chrome and steel catching fluorescent light like captured starfire.
BANG!
The gunshot exploded through the corridor with the force of thunder, raining plaster dust from a perfectly placed crater in the ceiling. Students screamed and scattered like startled birds, some diving behind marble columns, others pressing themselves against walls in terror.
The echo reverberated for endless seconds before dying into cathedral silence.
"Any attempt at surveillance," Silver announced with the calm of a man discussing weather, "will result in immediate and permanent termination."
His weapon vanished into its holster as smoothly as it had appeared.
Red continued walking as if nothing had occurred, his expression unchanged. Morrison followed at a respectful distance, pale as fresh snow and twice as fragile.
Conference room doors swung open like the gates of judgment.
The Red Ribbon Army had entered the Garden of Innocence.
THE INQUISITION
Suzaku's hand trembled against the door handle as if the metal itself burned with accusation. Sweat traced cold rivers down his spine while his heart hammered against his ribs like a caged bird desperate for freedom. Stories about Commander Red weren't whispered—they were carved into the nightmares of soldiers and civilians alike, tales of a man whose physical limitations had birthed an army of mechanical horrors.
The door opened with a whisper that sounded like a death sentence.
Fluorescent lights hummed their sterile song above a room stripped of comfort—concrete walls painted institutional white, no windows to offer escape, no clocks to mark the passage of time. Just two chairs facing each other across a metal table that looked disturbingly like an autopsy slab.
Commander Red sat with perfect posture despite his chair's standard height, which made him appear even smaller yet somehow more dangerous, like concentrated poison in an elegant bottle. Every crease in his uniform could have been measured with precision instruments, every medal positioned according to mathematical perfection. His wire-rimmed glasses reflected the harsh lights, rendering his eyes invisible behind twin mirrors that seemed to see everything.
Colonel Silver stood at parade rest beside the table, a statue carved from military discipline and hidden violence. His pale eyes tracked Suzaku's movements with the clinical interest of a predator cataloguing prey.
"Suzaku Kururugi," Red began, his voice carrying far more authority than physics should have allowed. "Sit."
Suzaku obeyed without conscious thought, his body responding to the command before his mind processed it. The chair's metal was cold through his uniform, another reminder that comfort wasn't welcome here.
Silence stretched between them like a tightening noose. Red's invisible gaze dissected him layer by layer—uniform, posture, breathing, the subtle tremor in his hands that betrayed absolute terror.
"You fascinate me," Red finally spoke, his tone conversational yet somehow more terrifying than any shout. "A living contradiction."
Suzaku's mouth was desert-dry. "Sir?"
Red placed a black folder on the table with the ceremony of a judge delivering a death sentence. It slid across the metal surface with a whisper of paper against steel.
"Genbu Kururugi. Former Prime Minister of Japan. Your father." Each word was placed with surgical precision. "Correct?"
The world tilted sideways. Suzaku nodded, unable to trust his voice.
"Then explain," Red opened the folder like a priest revealing scripture, "why you serve the empire that turned your homeland into ashes."
Photographs spilled across the table—black and white testimonies to horror. Britannian tanks crushing civilian cars beneath their treads. Bodies in rubble, faces turned skyward in final accusations. The Rising Sun flag burned while Britannian banners rose in its place like carrion birds claiming territory.
Suzaku stared at his past spread before him like evidence at a trial. His shame. His choice. His burden.
"I believe..." His voice cracked, forcing him to start again. "I believe Britannia can change. If people like me work from within, show them another way—"
Red's laughter was winter wind through cemetery gates. "Change." He tasted the word like something bitter. "How beautifully naive."
He rose from his chair, and despite their height difference, his presence filled the room like expanding darkness. "But your misguided idealism isn't what interests me. It's your death wish."
The words hit Suzaku like physical blows.
Red began circling the table, each footstep a countdown to execution. "The Lancelot. Experimental Knightmare Frame. Untested ejection systems. Faulty life support. Every qualified pilot refused to touch it until safety protocols were established."
Another step. Another heartbeat.
"But you volunteered immediately. Eager to climb into a mechanical coffin."
Suzaku's hands clenched into fists against his thighs, knuckles white as fresh bone.
"Then came the murder charges. False accusations. A rigged trial ending in execution orders." Red's voice dropped to barely above a whisper, forcing Suzaku to strain to hear his own judgment. "And when that masked savior rescued you from death, any rational person would have vanished into the wind."
The circling stopped. Red stood directly behind him, close enough that Suzaku could feel body heat through the pristine uniform.
"Instead, you returned to serve the same people who tried to murder you."
Suzaku's breathing came in shallow gasps. The room was too small, the air too thin. Memories clawed at his consciousness—the scaffold, the hood, the terrible weight of rope around his neck...
"Every battle, you charge forward like you're racing toward your own grave." Red's voice was silk wrapped around razor wire. "You pilot damaged equipment. Accept impossible missions. Refuse backup and medical attention. You're not a soldier, Suzaku Kururugi."
A hand fell on his shoulder—small, but carrying the weight of absolute authority.
"You're a suicide looking for the perfect opportunity."
Tears threatened but didn't fall. Suzaku bit his tongue until he tasted copper, using pain to maintain control.
"I've studied your father's death extensively," Red continued with clinical detachment. "Official records claim ritual suicide. Honor is preserved through seppuku. But certain details create... inconsistencies."
The hand on his shoulder tightened like a vise.
"A kitchen knife was used first. Then a wakizashi. No kaishakunin present to complete the ceremony properly. Almost as if..." Red leaned down until his breath brushed Suzaku's ear, "Someone improvised the scene after committing murder."
Suzaku's world shattered into fragments. "How could you possibly know—"
"To destroy your enemies, completely, you must understand every aspect of their culture. Their rituals. Their sacred traditions. Their methods of dying with honor." Red straightened, releasing Suzaku's shoulder. "Knowledge is the ultimate weapon."
He moved to face Suzaku directly, glasses reflecting the young man's tear-streaked face.
"Your father didn't kill himself. Someone murdered him to prevent a massacre that would have doomed Japan to nuclear fire."
The silence stretched until Suzaku thought his eardrums might burst.
"Someone who loved his country more than his father."
The accusation hung between them like a blade.
Suzaku's composure finally cracked completely. Tears fell freely now, each drop carrying years of buried guilt. "He was going to... the nuclear weapons... I couldn't let him..." His voice broke into fragments. "I had to stop him."
Red nodded slowly, approval mixing with something that might have been understanding. "You saved millions of lives through patricide. Prevented nuclear holocaust through filial murder. But in saving Japan from annihilation, you delivered it to something arguably worse."
He walked toward the door, each step echoing with finality.
"However, I didn't come here to judge your choices. You'll be working with the Red Ribbon Army now, and I have no use for soldiers seeking death as absolution."
His hand touched the door handle, then paused.
"Repair whatever's broken in your psyche, Suzaku Kururugi. I need weapons, not martyrs."
The door opened, spilling fluorescent light into the corridor beyond.
"We'll speak again soon."
One final pause.
"And regarding your masked savior... I'm curious why Zero chose to preserve your life. Perhaps I'll have the opportunity to thank him personally."
They departed, leaving Suzaku alone with his demons in that cold, sterile room where secrets went to die.
THE OBSERVER
Ashford Academy's courtyard had returned to its usual rhythm—students hurrying between classes, conversations resuming their normal cadence, the administrative staff working frantically to repair ceiling damage and restore order. The limousine waited in shadows like a sleeping predator, chrome and steel barely containing the violence within.
Commander Red emerged into afternoon sunlight, his uniform still pristine despite the psychological warfare he'd just conducted. Colonel Silver flanked him with mechanical precision, pale eyes constantly scanning for threats that might not exist but could never be ignored.
Red's gaze lifted toward the clock tower with the inevitability of destiny seeking its appointed hour.
Lelouch Lamperouge stood silhouetted against the sky, his school uniform transformed into royal robes by afternoon light and personal charisma. In his fingers, he held a chess piece—obsidian king—turning it slowly so it caught the sun like captured darkness.
Their eyes met across the distance, two players acknowledging each other's presence on the board.
"Interesting," Red murmured, his voice carrying approval that few ever heard. "Very interesting indeed."
Silver followed his commander's gaze. "Shall I investigate the student?"
"Unnecessary." Red's smile was winter moonlight on fresh snow. "Some pieces reveal themselves through patience rather than pressure."
The limousine doors closed with hydraulic finality. As the vehicle glided toward the gates, Lelouch placed his king piece on the tower's stone ledge with ceremonial precision.
His violet eyes narrowed with calculating hunger.
"It seems my path to the throne just became significantly more... complex."
Wind caught his dark hair as he turned away, school cape billowing like imperial robes.
"But then again, the greatest victories are won against the strongest opponents."
The chess piece remained on its stone throne, black king surveying a kingdom soon to be consumed by war.
In the distance, thunder rolled across the sky like cannon fire, promising storms yet to come.