This light novel opens before the anime's story begins, tracing how Lelouch first became friends with Suzaku Kururugi after he and his sister Nunnally were sent to Japan as political hostages, in the last days before Britannia's invasion turned the country into Area 11. From there it follows Lelouch into the present, where a mysterious woman named C.C. grants him Geass, a power that forces total obedience, which he uses under the alias Zero to tear down the Holy Britannian Empire that ruined his family.