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A fair knowledge of both the involved series is necessary.

Summary:
AU Code Geass x Death Note Crossover. As news of the grisly murder of Duchess Marianne vi Britannia rocks the United Kingdom, the Wammy's House Institute recruits a new operative. In Japan, Yagami Light finds a notebook embossed with a bird-like sigil.

2007 15 October
Winchester, UK

"Two conditions," said the eight-year-old. "Agree to them and I'll take you up on your offer."

"Name them," said Roger.

"In one week, the burnt bodies of Lelouch and Nunnally vi Britannia will be found floating in the Thames by the London Metropolitan Police Service. The proprietors of the Ashford Foundation shall be informed the day after that one Nunnally Lamperouge is to be transferred to their care."

Roger placed the insect display he had been examining back on its shelf.

"You understand that the fabrication of records and evidence is a crime?" asked Roger. "If you so request, we could instead aid the Scotland Yard's investigations into the circumstances of the Duchess Marianne vi Britannia's assassination."

"I reserve that right to myself. Surely it is within the power of your organization to fulfill these two conditions?"

The projector screen at the back of the room lit up. At its center, the letter W appeared in gothic face.

"I acknowledge your conditions," said a digitally modified voice. "You are authorized to carry out the young man's requests, Mister Ruvie."

Roger sighed.

"I'll get to it immediately," he said in a resigned tone.

"Mister Lamperouge," continued the distorted voice. "I am afraid that your self-chosen pseudonym may compromise the security of our organization. I have taken the liberty to assign you a new one. Is this to your agreement?"

"If it's necessary, fine," said the boy.

"From this day on, you shall be known as Zero," said the voice. "I welcome you to the Wammy's House Institute."

0: Change the World
A Code Geass x Death Note Crossover
by Fallacies

Stage 01: The Day that Death was Born

2007 24 October
London, UK

Not for the first time, Jeremiah wondered who exactly the chief coroner was attempting to impress with her low-cut top and exposed midriff. He could appreciate a pretty woman, but barring necrophilia, the morgue was no place for a normal man to be looking for specimens of the fairer sex.

"Did you confirm the identities of the floaters before SO11 relieved you of them?"

"The men on top don't like people poking around in anything reassigned to Section Eleven, Detective Gottwald," said the Indian woman, exhaling a puff of smoke. "And what would that pretty young thing of yours say if she found out that you were having a midnight date with another woman?"

"My relationship with Detective Nu is strictly professional, doctor. Please don't change the subject."

The woman stared at him for a moment before dumping the contents of the pipe into the ashtray beside her seat.

"You're not going to give up, are you?" she asked.

"It's a matter of duty."

"Fine, fine," she said, standing up. "Right this way."

Jeremiah hadn't had a reason to visit the Medical Forensics Office in person for at least a year, but it seemed no less cluttered than he could recall.

"How do you find anything in here?"

"During office hours, Little Miss Mustard-Goes-With-Anything is the one in charge of the finding of things," said the woman, flipping through a stack of files. "And I'm sure you know that the vast majority of my write-ups are submitted directly to the the HOLMES 2."

"Didn't see anything when I looked on the network. That's why I came to you."

"Presumably the Elevens pulled the records when they took the materials off my hands. I recall leaving a hard copy around here somewhere, though."

A few stacks later, the woman handed Jeremiah two manila folders. Sitting down and opening the first, he scanned through pages within.

"No DNA matching?"

"The spooks got here before we could process that. Blokes down in Odontology told me that the mutilation to the jaws were too extensive to get a positive ID on either of them. Despite the burning and the decay, we did manage to place the boy at eight years of age and the girl at roughly four or five."

Jeremiah frowned.

"For the good news," said the coroner, "you might want to flip to the last page."

Jeremiah did so, and then his frown deepened further. He wasn't overly familiar with the medical aspects of C-Link Tagging, but academy had taught him enough of its practical use -- it was a nanoscale RFID tag mandatorily injected into cerebrospinal fluid, made of a substance known as sakuradite. A simple handheld device hovered over the spinal cord could identify the name, bloodtype, and known allergies of all individuals registered with the International Health Database -- citizens of any member state of the WHO. It was a godsend for airport security services everywhere.

"Surprised the nanites weren't destroyed in the fire," said Jeremiah.

"If they weren't so durable, they wouldn't be of any use. We can only be thankful that the killers didn't think to perform a nanite purge. They're the only confirmation we have of the identities of the two children. "

"Can the tags be forged?"

"It would take somebody with a lot of connections to pull it off."

"This isn't good news, you know."

"I know."

Stepping out into the night air, Jeremiah took a deep breath to clear his nostrils of the smell of disinfectant. The harvest moon hung above London like a great big orange.

"I'm sorry, Miss Marianne," he said softly. "I believe I might have found your children."

2007 9 October
Salisbury, UK

"What are the damages wrought by the good doctor?" drawled the man standing at the window.

"The Rosenberg Institute has been liquidated. As of nine forty-three PM yesterday, all past and present members of the primary laboratory staff simultaneously suffered heart-attacks. Five facilities burned to the ground, and all critical files have either been purged or destroyed. There's nothing left that's of any use."

"I'm assuming Aspirus destroyed both of the Notebook prototypes?"

"Seeing as they represent his magnum opus, I doubt that he's emotionally capable. They went missing when he disappeared."

"Can we replicate C-Link nanocommunications without him?"

"Rather unfortunately, no. Aspirus single-handedly pioneered the use of the geomagnetic field as a noiseless broadcast medium. There simply isn't anyone qualified enough to replace him. From scratch, I'm guessing it would take us a decade or two just to build a rudimentary copy of his transmitter."

The man sipped his glass, and then swirled about its contents.

"How are things going with the Directorate, then?"

"Eight senior officers were found shot, and the Records Department has been sabotaged. There were only a few casualties amongst the Irregulars, but that isn't much of a surprise. The security videos we've recovered from the Larkhill complex suggest that Director Shirayuki may have been working in collaboration with your late wife. We believe she had a role in Aspirus' escape."

"Any other accomplices you've identified thus far?"

"None."

The sun slowly descended behind the city skyline in the distance.

"Marianne was too upright. Too competent," said the man, capturing the last of the light in his half-empty wineglass. "I should have seen her moral center for the risk that it posed."

"Too late to cry over spilled blood, Charles. You always were a bad judge of character."

"Do you know where Aspirus is?"

"He passed through customs in Japan with forged paperwork and an edited C-Link ID about twelve hours ago. We're watching the airports, but there's no guarantee that he won't find another means of transportation. Might take a few days to track him down."

"Who's leading the dispatch?"

"Luke Mortimer of Section Eleven. He's not an Irregular, but there wasn't anyone else with the necessary skills that we could spare on such short notice."

"Authorize the use of force if Aspirus refuses to cooperate, brother. We can't afford another setback to the Goetterdaemmerung."

2007 13 October
Tokyo, Japan

Crouched behind a cement slide at the edge of the playground, Bartley Aspirus kept his bandaged hand clamped about the mouth of a small boy. A silenced gunshot put a hole into a plastic bench nearby.

"They say that an apple a day keeps the doctor away," said a voice in the distance. "Seeing as I'm eating an apple right now, it's pretty clear that this bit of folk knowledge holds no truth. You just can't get enough of me, can you, Doctor?"

Bartley looked the boy in the eyes.

"There's a bad man over there with a gun," he whispered in accented Japanese. "I'm going to take my hand off of your mouth. If you make any noise, he'll find us and kill us both. This is not a game. Do you understand?"

Uncharacteristically calm, the boy nodded. Bartley removed his hand. Doing his best to ignore the pain from his injuries, he silently retrieved the Notebook from his bag and opened the cover, booting the device out of passive. The cellphone photograph he had taken of gunman's face twenty minutes ago appeared on the display, overlaid by a three-dimensional polygon outline. In an empty text field labeled "Name," Bartley typed in "Luke Mortimer" and clicked the "Execute" button beneath. A prompt appeared at the center of the screen: "Facial structure extrapolation submitted to database."

A second gunshot broke the see-saw.

"Let me give you a bit of advice before we continue with our little game of hide-and-seek," said Luke. "The truth that the apple tree shared with Newton is absolute, Doctor. Everything falls."

The Notebook couldn't schedule a heart-stopper transmission without the C-Link node address of the intended victim's nanites. It would take perhaps thirty seconds to a minute for the system Bartley had built into the groundwork of the International Health Database to return an address match for Luke Mortimer's name and face -- a time-consuming process that could have been avoided if his short-range address scanner hadn't been damaged. He needed to create a distraction. Closing the device, he handed it to the boy.

"Stay here and keep this safe," he whispered. "Don't say anything."

Scrambling out from behind the slide, Bartley made a break for the jungle gym a few meters away. A bullet clipped his leg before he could get behind the metal panel. With a cry, he stumbled and fell.

"Per my orders from the Home Office, I intended originally to bring you in unharmed," said the gunman with a sneer, throwing aside the eaten core of his apple. "I'm afraid that whatever you've done to my subordinates has rendered that option quite impossible."

Bartley was dragged by the collar into uncomfortably close proximity with the man's pale, misshapen face. Between the bulging eyes, the dark lipstick, and the black leather getup, it was difficult for him imagine that man before him could be an officer of any kind of law enforcement.

"I'll give you an apple if you tell me how took out all of my men," said Luke, putting the end of his pistol's silencer to Bartley's temple.

"An angel of death did it."

"Wrong answer," replied Luke, pulling the trigger.

Standing before the bodies of the two dead men, Yagami Light opened the cover of the laptop. On the screen, a new prompt had appeared.

"Execution complete. Subject Luke Mortimer is now deceased."