Prologue
It had been months since Lelouch vi Britannia and his sister Nunnally were torn from their royal life—discarded like pieces in a diplomatic game and shipped off to Japan as political hostages. But theirs wasn't the only fate rewritten in fire.
During the chaos of the terrorist strike on the imperial estate, another child had been caught in the crossfire.
Gunfire tore through the marble halls. A stray bullet struck a chandelier. The explosion that followed sent flames racing through the corridor—and in its path, a blond-haired boy, fourteen years old, was consumed.
He awoke days later in a hospital bed, wrapped in sterile white bandages. His lungs, seared by the blaze, could no longer breathe unaided. A mask covered his face, hissing with every breath like a machine tethering him to life.
His siblings visited, some with guilt in their eyes, others with the coldness of formality. They spoke softly. Too softly. As if their pity could smooth over ash and ruin. His mother wasn't among them—she never would be again.
And beneath the silence and the gauze, something in him began to smolder.
Not grief. Not despair. Purpose.
Weeks passed. He learned to walk again, each step slow but measured. Though the bandages remained, so did his will. He wasn't healing—he was evolving.
One morning, he left the opulent recovery suite and made his way to the bathroom. He paused by the window, catching his reflection—bandaged, silent, alien.
His golden hair, once proud and pristine, now peeked through soot-stained wrappings like the remnants of a fallen prince.
His hands clenched.
The anger rose—not like wildfire, but like a rising tide. Cold. Relentless.
He blamed them all. His father. His siblings. The empire itself. Their indifference. Their lies. Their games.
He drove his fist into the glass.
It shattered with a sound like falling stars.
He turned and walked away without a word, the sharp wind from the broken window brushing against his bandaged skin.
Back in his room, a book sat beside his bed—left there by a nurse, perhaps, or a doctor trying to offer comfort through distraction. He flipped it open absently… and stopped.
There, across the pages, were images from Earth's recent war history. Insurgencies. Uprisings. One in particular drew his eye.
A crimson emblem. A rising force forged from disillusionment and fury. Neo Zeon.
He read of its leader—a masked man who had once walked among nobility, who cast aside his title and name, who carried the weight of the past like a sword aimed at the heart of a corrupt world.
The boy studied every line, every symbol. It didn't matter that Neo Zeon had failed. What mattered was what it represented.
Conviction. Vision. Revolution.
He closed the book, fingers still resting on the red insignia.
And beneath the mask, a ghost of a smile touched his lips.
The empire had made a mistake.
It hadn't destroyed him.
It had created something far more dangerous.