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Page 257
Just days before this incident, the students were carefree and playing around at school. Amidst their laughter and joy, some ordinary lives were brought back from the brink of death, or even plunged into eternal damnation.
One side of the report was covered with dense indentations, showing that Zhuque had been so frustrated while interpreting and thinking about the text that he kept tapping the paper with his pen.
So worried that he forgot to turn off the TV when he left—it had been reporting on a new security incident while he was writing an article, and now, instead of Suzaku, the screen showed the face of a weather forecaster.
"Okay, that concludes all the news regarding the typhoon warning. I'm Mireille Ashford, and I hope my first broadcast as a presenter has provided you with effective disaster warning information. Later at 15 PM, we will have a live press conference regarding the important new legislation issued by the Governor's House in District 11. Thank you for watching."
……
I don't know how an emperor should govern a country, nor do I know how much responsibility a Britannian Knight of the Round Table, whose title can only be conferred by the emperor, bears.
But from an instinctive perspective, the Empire has a dozen or twenty large districts, and of the only ten Knights of the Round Table in the entire Empire, three are in District 11. Two of them spend their days playing ghosts in schools, and one always sides with outsiders when it comes to getting things done... Let's leave aside what Emperor Charles is thinking for now and watch TV.
The cameras were packed tightly around the large table covered with a cloth on the altar in front of them.
"Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Governor Nunnally, I hereby announce this new decree." Suzaku stood alone at the table, picking up the paper in his hand. "As you all know, the composition of the population in District 11 is more complex than ever before, and the police and military forces used to maintain order in District 11 are increasingly stretched thin. Furthermore, with the departure of the Black Knights, the proportion of conflicts between civilians is also increasing."
"According to current data, a large number of people 'disguised' as civilians commit crimes in the corners of living areas that the military and police have no time to attend to, using violence and even shooting. Victims often do not receive timely and effective help, including but not limited to the use of force to stop the crime and medical assistance, which ultimately leads to the loss of property and personal injury."
"In order to better curb potential criminals lurking among civilians, the Governor's Office today issued the Civil Armed Joint Defense Act, which applies only to the 11th District. We will try to get closer to and help good-natured civilians, including granting them access to weapons and ammunition."
As soon as Zhuque said this, the sound of camera shutters from the newspapers below the stage immediately changed from the sound of scraping to a torrential downpour.
“From now on, we will periodically open up a limited number of slots. All civilians who pass the character investigation and are deemed excellent will be entitled to be issued ‘coded guns’ with official approval.” As he spoke, Suzaku lifted the tablecloth and picked up a pistol and a shotgun from the table with both hands.
The cameramen zoomed in. They could see that both guns had nameplates with letters and numbers on them—the pistol started with HG, and the shotgun with SG.
Then Zhuque picked up two armbands from the table, each with a number plate, made entirely of rubber. "Every gun issued to the public has a unique number, and each gun is equipped with a unique armband. In addition, the gun owner will be issued a legal gun license, and their relevant identity information will be recorded by the authorities."
"Every gun owner must wear an armband in a designated position on their body when carrying a gun, and must also carry communication equipment that is directly connected to the military and police communication network. If a crime that threatens personal safety is discovered, it must be reported to the nearest military or police unit immediately to ensure the personal safety of civilians in the surrounding area as much as possible."
"Those who fail to comply with the above regulations and use firearms indiscriminately will be deemed to be illegally possessing firearms, and their firearms and firearms possession qualifications will be confiscated. In serious cases, the individual will be permanently deprived of their right to apply for firearms, and this may even include depriving all residents in the area where they reside of their firearms possession qualifications."
"At present, we have only opened up the right to use certain types of firearms, including fully automatic weapons such as submachine guns and assault rifles. We will consider whether to open up the right to use them in the next step depending on the situation."
……
Not long after this news, which received mixed reviews, was released, the Tokyo Concession City Hall was almost drowned in criticism.
On the day the bill took effect, protests and even strikes broke out in almost all of the 11 police stations in the jurisdictions where serious terrorist incidents had occurred before—including Shizuoka City, which hosted the ceremony for the establishment of a special zone in Japan, and Kofu City, where the massacre was perpetrated by Mary Bell.
"This is a trampling of His Majesty the Emperor and the Britannian Empire's dignity in District 11! Suzaku Kururugi is playing a joke on our lives!"
"One! Two! Three! Four! Suzaku is starting a civil war! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! The elevens are born to be hated!"
This is understandable, after all, the police in District 11 know how many unregistered guns are secretly circulating on this island of Honshu.
In contrast, a group of military industry personnel came knocking on Suzaku's office door—they came to discuss with Suzaku and Nunnally how to get the huge stockpile of old-fashioned guns in the Empire, which they didn't know where to use or sell, to Area 11 to "replenish" the new bill.
Whether Suzaku's actions will bring disaster or peace to Area 11, no one can say for sure.
Today, Philip and Ivanov, two young men who were recruited by the US and the Soviet Union respectively, stood on duty at the intersection two streets away from the Tokyo Concession Police Headquarters. Civilians who came for character checks and to collect guns formed long lines in front of the police station, creating two curves several hundred meters long on the sidewalk.
It's easy to tell which side is which—the angry young people from Japan who want to take crooked paths are naturally trying to fool the character investigation, while the German civilians probably got their hands on the guns without much effort.
"They're dividing up the guns, don't you find that strange?" Ivanov, who was from Siberia, looked at Philip, a native-born American, with some curiosity.
“Look at them, all excited about carrying a pistol, acting like they’ve never seen the world before. I have a…” Philip almost blurted out about Clark’s dad, but then choked back and changed his address, “Uh, my dad, back in the day he was running around pubs and casinos with his Chicago violin. If we kids didn’t mix found bullet casings with peanuts to play pranks on others, we wouldn’t dare say we grew up in America.”
"And you, buddy?" Philip asked, beaming, as he lit a cigarette for Ivanov. "Do the Soviets shoot guns all the time in the streets?"
“It’s been like this for the past four years, except in Moscow, ah…” Ivanov exhaled a puff of smoke with mixed feelings, rubbing his hands together, as if his fingertips were touching the pain of when he was 15 years old, hiding with his parents under the Kultury Park metro station, with the winter wind blowing around Red Square like a balloon.
"Believe me, something bad is about to happen right here on the ground." Before he could finish speaking to Philip, they saw billowing white smoke coming from a shopping mall building connected to the elevated light rail in the distance.
……
The two received orders to provide assistance and hitched a ride on a fire truck that was also heading there. When they arrived, they saw several police officers and firefighters' superiors discussing matters with a young man in a long coat.
“Perfect, let’s hand the mission over to those two.” He recognized Suzaku as soon as Suzaku turned his head, handed Philip and Ivanov to a sheriff, and then took out his phone. “Lelouch, answer this call for me…”
"Lelouch?" Philip, who had sharp ears, was about to leave when he heard this resounding name—especially since it came from Suzaku's mouth. Could it be that the Knights of the Round Table of Britannia had connections with the traitors who opposed the empire he served?
"You two, listen up." Turning around, the sheriff was explaining the situation to the two men, "The security personnel at the shopping mall just said that an armed assailant broke in and caused trouble, and even knocked out two police officers."
"What? Is he from Area 11?"
“NO.” The sheriff shook his head. “The assailant has light green hair, wears a white aristocratic uniform, and has a golden wing-shaped mask covering his left eye. I want to specifically instruct you to report and move immediately if you spot him when you are guarding the underground parking garage exit. Do not engage him head-on. The police officers who were attacked by him said that bullets had no effect on him.”
"Blyat, is this even human?" Ivanov was dumbfounded. "How about the sheriff gives us both a rocket launcher? We'll make sure to send him to the recycling center as scrap metal."
At that moment, the sheriff received another message from the other end of the mall.
"Damn it, you messed up even the smallest task Lord Suzaku assigned." The sheriff cursed, tossing the two men with gas masks. "A girl with long orange hair broke through the security line and ran into the mall through Gate A. Get her out of there right now!"
……
Philip and Ivanov split up; the former went to the second floor to look for the stairwell and search for someone, while the latter continued searching on the first floor.
"Stop!" The orange-haired girl didn't seem to be a sprinter; she was blocked by Ivanov just as she was about to go up to the second floor.
"Don't come any closer!" The girl held her handbag with one hand, and with the other, she produced a fire axe from somewhere, pointing it directly at the young bear man and his pistol, which was pointing elsewhere.
"It's dangerous here, Madam... Sister!" Ivanov was so nervous he didn't know how to use English words. "I need to ensure your safety!"
“There are others who need me too! He needs me too!” The girl seemed unable to look at the young man’s masked face, her voice trembling with fear and incoherent ramblings, “Everyone’s wearing masks, it’s all fake…”
“Okay, I’ll do as you say.” Ivanov removed his mask, put his pistol back in his pocket, and slowly walked towards the girl. “So, who are you referring to when you say ‘he needs me too’?”
"I...I can't tell you!" The girl gripped the fire axe with her other hand and slowly backed away in the opposite direction of Ivanov. "He's fighting alone, he...I want to join him...I want to protect him too..."
"No problem, no problem, I support you," Ivanov continued loudly. "Okay, right now, neither of us will move, and I'll protect you like this, okay?"
Just as the girl continued to stare intently at Ivanov, Philip suddenly jumped down from the second-floor railing and tackled her to the ground with a powerful blow to the shoulder.
Without a word, the soldier hoisted her onto his shoulder and ran quickly toward the exit, leaving Ivanov to pick up the fire axe and handbag that the girl had dropped.
Her student ID, with her headshot on it, flew out of the zipper of her handbag—Sharley Finette, Year 3, Group B, Ashford College.
Chapter 358 Unnatural Death (Section 456)
Xia Li sat on the edge of the hospital bed with her arm bandaged, looking at the X-ray film in her mother's hand.
"Dislocated left elbow, fractured right scapula, and fractured left shinbone"—these were the injuries caused when the military police who rescued her from the mall jumped down and pinned her down.
What she didn't know was that if these two people hadn't risked their lives to come, she would have unknowingly killed herself after seeing a little boy, falling into a pool of blood to see her beloved one last time.
At that moment, the nurse outside brought in a young man who was pushing a cart covered with a black cloth. After recognizing Xia Li, he bowed respectfully.
"Please introduce yourself. My name is Kyrgyz Philip, and I come from the Tokyo Concession Armed Security Corps." The young man was a little shy. "During the rescue operation in the mall, my recklessness caused Ms. Shirley to be so seriously injured. I am very, very sorry... so I came here today specifically to make amends to you."
Then Philip took a small box out of the black cloth in the stroller and handed it to the mother and daughter. Inside was all the cash he had saved since he put on his military and police uniform. "This is all I have. I hope you understand."
"Oh, please, please don't do this." Shirley's mother was quite understanding and felt embarrassed to accept everything, so she prepared to give some of it back to Philip.
"Well, how about this, may I invite you and your daughter to see a magic show?" Philip smiled, pulling a brand-new deck of cards from his pocket. "Right here? Could you and your daughter cooperate with me?"
Upon hearing that someone was coming to perform magic tricks, the patient and their family in the next bed, who had been cooped up in the hospital for so long, became excited.
“I just bought this deck from outside, so we'll pass on the billboard and the substitute white card for now.” Philip didn’t even glance at the deck he was holding, and then threw out the two jokers. “Okay, pick one card from the remaining 52 cards, please.”
Xia Li could only move her right hand, so she picked out a Jack of Clubs.
"What a coincidence? It's Lancelotha?" Philip smiled and shrugged, shuffling the Jack of Clubs in the deck as he retreated to the small cart covered with a black cloth.
“We know that there are four suits in playing cards, so since this deck is so messy, we have to shuffle the cards to figure out the suits first.” Everyone watched as Philip looked up and flipped his cards over and over, and before they knew it, he had arranged four neat stacks of cards in a single column on the cart.
"Which set of cards do you think is clubs?" Philip asked. Shirley blurted out the third one, but when she picked it up and looked at it, it was diamonds.
"Oh no, it's ruined!" Amidst the laughter of the crowd, Philip feigned panic, immediately turning the cart 180 degrees on the spot, turning the third pile of cards into the second. "It's okay, it's okay, after all, Shirley, you didn't say which direction to count from, right?"
This time, Philip picked up the new third deck of cards, flipped over the top card, which was the 4 of Clubs. "Please, Shirley's mother, extend your hands; I'm going to deal this whole deck to you."
Philip dealt 12 of the 13 cards in order, leaving one in his hand. When Shirley's mother looked at her hand, she saw that it was all clubs.
Then Philip asked the other spectators to show all three stacks of cards on their carts. Hearts, spades, and diamonds were all neatly arranged in the same stack.
"So, Mrs. Shirley, is any of the plum blossoms in this pile of plum blossoms missing a number?"
Philip then flicked his finger, and the Jack of Clubs flew right up to Shirley, causing the stunned audience in the ward to burst into applause and exclamations.
……
At this moment, Shirley's mother went out to buy something, leaving Shirley alone to continue watching Philip's magic trick.
"How about we play again?" Philip smiled as he watched Shirley choose the King of Diamonds.
"Haha, Julius Caesar!" The soldier showed the cards to everyone while jokingly chatting with Shirley, "If I remember correctly, he's Augustus's father? Hey, like father, like son. Speaking of which, Shirley has a good father too, right?"
Something was off as soon as those words were spoken; Xia Li's previously radiant face immediately fell. "Did I say something wrong...?"
"I want to ask you something..." Shirley's voice was very low, "If the person who killed your father was the one you fell in love with, what would you choose?"
“Me?” Philip frowned and answered without thinking. “I can’t exactly bring my father’s killer to see my mother, can I?”
"So if I give up on the person I love, will I ever meet someone who truly loves me again in the rest of my life...?" Shirley's next rambling actually made Philip even angrier.
“He killed my father, but he didn’t do it on purpose. He was fighting the enemy alone. I wanted to help him, because I didn’t want more fathers to be left helpless and vulnerable like him…”
Suddenly, Philip's eyes widened in anger, and he raised his hand, slapping Shirley hard across the face, leaving everyone present stunned.
"What the hell are you spouting!" he yelled, "You're going up to the person who killed your parents and you're fawning over them like that? Don't you have any conscience as a child?!"
"What happened?!" At that moment, Shirley's mother rushed in upon hearing the noise. Seeing the large red mark on her daughter's face, and then at the furious Philip, she immediately grabbed him by the collar. "How dare you hit my daughter! You scoundrel!"
This immediately spurred Philip's anger to subside. Looking at the indignant Shirley's mother in front of him, and then at Shirley covering her face, on the verge of tears, he subconsciously recalled the words she had spoken when he and Ivanov rescued her.
"I'm so sorry, so sorry." He quickly took a few steps back and bowed. "I didn't mean to... Oh, by the way, Ms. Shirley, if I may ask, are you an adult?"
Seeing that Shirley didn't speak, Philip quickly made up some more words in his mind.
"I don't know what you're hiding from your mother, and I don't understand why that boy fascinates you so much that you care about him so much..."
"But there's something you need to understand: even if a child does something wrong, the parents are responsible for it. And the dangers you might have encountered in the mall... to be honest, you thought about the boy you love, but didn't you think about yourself, or your mother?"
"Your loved ones need your help, but your mother needs you too. I'm so sorry I didn't know your father had passed away... So please don't act impulsively and let your mother lose you after losing her loved one... And in this world, there are more than just these two people who care about you..."
He looked around apologetically, left his magician's deck of cards behind, and left with his cart.
……
Not long after Philip left, Shirley's phone rang; it was Suzaku Kururugi calling.
"How is the recovery going? I've been a bit busy at the city hall lately, so I brought Arthur here from school. Thanks to you for taking care of him at school these past few days."
“Arthur?” Shirley almost forgot the name in a daze—it was a stray cat that Euphemia and Suzaku Kururugi had picked up in the Tokyo Concession, and it had a dark circle around its right eye like a panda.
In the past, Suzaku had his fingers bitten by this cat many times, and Arthur had been involved in many of the misunderstandings between Suzaku and Shirley.
"The hospital doesn't allow pets, so I'll just have to call out to you over the phone." Just as Zhuque's voice faded away from the receiver, the previously friendly purring suddenly turned into a burst of howling.
"Ouch, ouch, ouch!" Hearing the chaotic sounds of Suzaku and Arthur on the phone, and looking at the playing cards Philip left on the bedside table, Lancelot's originally indifferent face, the Jack of Clubs, revealed a slight smile in the sunlight.
……
[022 Warm Reminder: The following text can be enjoyed in conjunction with the song "Lemon" composed and sung by Kenshi Yonezu.]
"What's wrong, buddy? Say something! Didn't we ask you to go find that girl named Shirley and ask her about Lelouch?"
“Excuse me, Mr. Davis, I’d like to be alone for a while.”
After leaving the hospital, Philip wandered aimlessly through the streets for a long time before stopping at a viewing platform. Gazing at the distant amusement park filled with laughter, his usually radiant smile was now marred by worry as he lit a cigarette.
He never expected that his casual remark would touch Xia Li's heart, which had lost its father. He almost lost control for a moment and nearly tripped over the sharp thorn hidden deep in his heart.
It was Christmas Eve in 1927. Four-year-old Philip was playing with his toys alone at home, waiting for his parents to bring home Christmas presents.
The door opened, but only the father returned—he wore a cross necklace as a priest and carried a gift box for Philip.
"Where did Mom go?" The innocent child didn't understand why his father looked so embarrassed.
"Go to sleep now, child. I'll tell you something good tomorrow."
Dad forced a smile and closed the door, leaving behind a blood-stained tissue and another tissue that had been wiping on gift wrapping paper for a long time, buried in the snow outside.
The next day, the New York Daily News carried the following news: A gun robbery and murder occurred at a toy store in Kingston yesterday; one of the three injured civilians, a woman, died despite attempts to save her…
……
"What's wrong, Dad?" Philip felt something was strange when he woke up. His father had changed into his priest's clothes early in the morning and placed them next to the full-length mirror. His mother's flute, which she used to keep in a box, was also gone. When he was little, Philip thought it was a telescope and would pick it up and look out the window every day.
"There's something Dad needs to ask you." The father stroked his head. "Mom told me last night that she's going to another place to earn more money for you to buy toys with her flute, but she doesn't want anyone other than us to know about it. Mom loves you very much, so she just wants this surprise to be just for you in the future, understand?"