Chapter Text
Prologue: The Prince Who Refused to Die
History remembers the victors.
That is why so many believe the Holy Britannian Empire was destined to conquer the world.
They are wrong.
Britannia did not inherit its empire.
It took it.
One nation after another fell beneath the Empire's overwhelming military might. Kingdoms collapsed. Republics surrendered. Democracies vanished beneath the march of Britannian armies and their towering Knightmare Frames.
Every conquest was justified as bringing order.
Every atrocity was buried beneath propaganda.
By the time most of the world realized what was happening, it was already too late.
The Empire ruled nearly a third of humanity.
Only a handful of nations remained independent.
Among them...
Japan.
An island nation rich in a miraculous energy source known as Sakuradite.
To Britannia, it wasn't a country.
It was a prize.
Within Britannia itself, another battle raged.
Not one fought with guns...
But with crowns.
Prince Lelouch vi Britannia, Seventeenth Prince of the Imperial Family, learned from an early age that royalty meant nothing before ambition.
His mother, Marianne vi Britannia, was assassinated under mysterious circumstances.
His younger sister, Nunnally, was left blind and unable to walk.
When Lelouch demanded justice from his father, Emperor Charles zi Britannia, he received only silence.
To the Emperor...
His own children were expendable.
As punishment for his defiance—or perhaps simply because they no longer mattered—Lelouch and Nunnally were sent to Japan as political hostages.
If Japan remained loyal...
They lived.
If Japan rebelled...
Their lives could be discarded.
Lelouch never forgot that lesson.
To Britannia...
People were tools.
Then the invasion came.
The skies burned.
Knightmare Frames marched through cities.
Entire military divisions disappeared within hours.
Japan...
Fell.
In the chaos, explosions consumed the district where Lelouch and Nunnally had been staying.
Witnesses reported seeing the young prince caught in the blast.
Britannia declared him dead.
Official records listed both royal hostages as casualties of the invasion.
The Empire never bothered searching for the bodies.
As far as the Emperor was concerned...
Two forgotten children had finally become irrelevant.
That was Britannia's greatest mistake.
Because Lelouch vi Britannia...
Did not die.
The world believed a prince had perished.
Instead...
A ghost was born.
With the help of loyal allies, Lelouch escaped the battlefield carrying Nunnally in his arms.
He swore that day that she would never again be used as someone's pawn.
But vengeance required more than hatred.
It required preparation.
For years, Lelouch disappeared from history.
By day, he lived as an ordinary student.
By night...
He built a revolution.
He challenged corrupt nobles to chess, humiliating them while winning fortunes they could never publicly admit to losing.
When gambling wasn't enough, their hidden wealth mysteriously vanished from vaults that no thief should have been able to breach.
Money stolen from corruption became schools for the poor.
Hospitals.
Safe houses.
Weapons caches.
Every coin became another brick in the foundation of the future.
Lelouch invested in struggling companies that everyone else ignored.
His uncanny ability to predict markets transformed small investments into enormous fortunes.
Soon, businesses across Area 11 unknowingly answered to a single hidden benefactor.
Factories.
Shipping companies.
Construction firms.
Information brokers.
Banks.
Smuggling networks.
Every piece served a purpose.
None knew the identity of the man pulling the strings.
While Britannia celebrated its victory...
Its greatest enemy was quietly purchasing the world beneath its feet.
He gathered scientists cast aside by the Empire.
Military veterans abandoned after the war.
Hackers.
Doctors.
Engineers.
Former resistance fighters.
Each person shared one thing.
Britannia had taken everything from them.
Lelouch offered them something they had long since lost.
Hope.
He did not promise revenge.
He promised liberation.
7 years passed.
The world remained convinced that Prince Lelouch vi Britannia had died with Japan.
Good.
The dead attracted no attention.
The dead paid no taxes.
The dead could move unseen.
And when the time finally came...
The dead would rise wearing a mask.
Not as a prince.
Not as a tyrant.
But as a knight.
A symbol.
A protector.
A hero the world had never known.
His name...
Would be Zero.
The Paladin.