A/N and Disclaimer:

WARNING: THIS FANFICTION IS RATED M FOR LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE, AND POSSIBLE ADULT THEMES. PLEASE TAKE NOTE.

Welcome one and all to my new Code Geass fanfic, "The Price of Vengeance." I don't do long notes at the beginning of chapters, and the summary has most of what you need to know, so without further ado I invite you to read on!

Disclaimer: I own no part of Code Geass or any of the characters appearing in it.

Geass

Thoughts or occasionally for emphasis

Prologue

Fire. That was the first thing he noticed. The light, the heat, the stench. Clouds of ash blocked the sky, glowing hellishly from the infernos that blazed throughout the city. The sun—or the stars, he wasn't sure what time it was—were completely obscured by the billowing smoke. Where was he? Why was he on his back?

He tried to turn his head, only to be met by a stab of pain in his neck, drawing a scream from his blood-stained lips and a fit of coughing with it. It felt like his bones were grating against each other when he tried again, but he managed to fight back the pain as another wave of agony rolled over him. What... What happened? His skull felt like he'd run head first into a wall. Where was he?

A flickering sign swung from the building opposite him, kanji just barely legible in the dim light. Right. He was in Tokyo. His father had order the invasion of Japan after banishing them. Them.

"Nunnally!" Lelouch tried to shout, but what came out was closer to a loud croak. He cleared his throat, spitting out the foul paste of ash, blood, and saliva that gummed his mouth. "Nunnally!" It took several attempts before he could finally stand, leaning against the pockmarked wall for support. "Nunnally, where are you?!" He thought he made out a faint whimper from the other side of the street, across a crater. Was that it? Had it been an artillery shell or bomb that had knocked him out? Whatever it was, it didn't matter now. Only Nunnally mattered.

He limped through the rubble towards the source of the sound, catching a glimpse of his reflection in one of the few windows that was still intact. A ghostly visage that stared back at him, a face covered in an eerie patina of grey ash . The only patches of color were the dark red trails of blood from his nose and mouth, along with a long diagonal gash just below his left cheekbone, the scab appearing black in the dim light reflecting from the clouds. Another mewl of pain grabbed his attention back to his purpose, and he shook his head to clear his mind. He had to focus.

"Nunnally!" The sound had come from beneath piece of rubble, and he somehow managed to lever it off of the twisted figure beneath it.

"Brother?" Her voice was distorted by pain. His sister's arm looked like it had a second elbow, a hint of discolored white poking through her brown jacket where it bent awkwardly. She…

No. No, he couldn't let it happen. He wouldn't let it happen. "I'm going to get you out OK? Just hold on."

She shook her head weakly, reaching out to grasp his hand. He could barely even feel her grip, it was so weak. "No… Lelouch…" Nunnally moved it down to her stomach, and his breath caught as his fingers felt a solid, metallic rod covered in something sticky and wet.

His eyes dropped unconsciously from her face to her stomach. It hadn't been visible in the dim light at first, but he noticed a dark stain spreading across the lower part of her coat. Closing his hand around the cylinder, he felt the ridges spiraling around it. "No. No!"

"Lelouch…"

This couldn't be happening. Nunnally couldn't die. There was no way that she could die. "I'm going to help you, just hang on." They were only a few minutes from the Ashford's. Maybe there—

He felt her squeeze his hand weakly, and when he looked back at her face piercing blue eyes met his, as sharp as he remembered them despite the immense pain. "Don't, big brother. It won't matter. Just don't… destroy yourself for me. Promise me…" Her labored breath hissed in and out, blood burbling up from her punctured lung with each motion.

He nodded, tears rolling freely down his cheeks. "I'm sorry, Nunnally. I'm sorry." She closed her eyes once more. "Nunnally? Nunnally!"

"Nunnally!" Lelouch woke with a scream, the stench of blood and fire and smoke still lingering in his nostrils. His sheets were tangled around him, soaked in his sweat, and there was a dull throb in his collarbone. The dim, predawn sunlight filtered through the gaps between his curtains, grey-white instead of the fiery glow of the ash clouds in his nightmare. That's all it had been. A dream. Nunnally was still…

Dead. It wasn't a dream. It was a memory. He closed his eyes in pain. It had been almost a month since he'd made that promise to his sister, and he still dreamed of her nightly, every time waking up convinced that she was alive, that it was just a nightmare. The clock claimed it was just past 4:30 AM, the blocky green numbers the only other light in the room.

He'd barely slept at all, but he knew he couldn't go back to bed after that. Sitting up carefully to protect his broken collarbone—it had been fractured in three separate places, according to the Ashford's doctor—Lelouch gingerly made his way to the bathroom. Milly once told him that the jagged scar on his cheek looked dashing in an attempt to cheer him up, and despite his melancholy a faint smile flitted across his face. It was almost five inches long and still an angry pink compared to the rest of his pale countenance. He had to admit that it added a certain… toughness to his appearance. But what had it cost him to get that scar? His sister's life? Bitterness and grief once again threatened to overwhelm him and he ghosted out of the darkened house, slipping on his shoes before walking to the same place he'd spent most of his time since he'd recovered enough to leave his bed.

Lelouch hadn't been there but five minutes before he heard the crunching of light steps on the gravel path behind him. "Why are you up?" He spoke quietly, but in the silence of the early hours of the morning, his words still carried far enough.

The steps didn't stop until they were right behind him. "Because you scream loud enough to wake the dead, Lelouch." He knew it was a joke but that didn't keep him from wincing, and the girl behind him did the same as she realized her error. "Sorry." Milly sat down on the cold, dew-wet bench beside him and draped his jacket over his shoulders. "You forgot this."

It was only once he felt the coat on him that Lelouch realized how cold it actually was. The night chill still hadn't dissipated from the air, and the damp morning mist did no favors either. He pulled it tighter around himself. "Thanks." His friend's kindness was probably the only reason he'd made it this long at all. She stayed with him every moment of the first week he made it to them, trying to cheer him up and keep him from dwelling on what happened. He knew with certainty that without her he would be dead at his own hand. Lelouch leaned on her gently, closing his eyes in exhaustion and pain.

"It was the same dream." It was a statement, not a question, but Lelouch nodded anyway. It might as well have been a routine now. The nightmares would wake him up at some ungodly hour, his cries rousing her as well, and he'd make his way out to his sister's grave. She would spend time with him there, bring him meals, and tell any adults who wanted to bother him to go to hell. Then they slept and the cycle began anew. Milly idly looked around the serene grove they were in. It was on a natural rise on the main estate, which connected to the new property her grandfather purchased for his 'Ashford Academy.' Trees gave privacy to the small central clearing where a single slab of polished, pink-flecked marble now stood. There was no name on it, obviously, but Lelouch himself had chosen the inscription:

In remembrance of a gentle soul, loved by all.

She was too kind for a world so cruel.

October 25, 2002 a.t.b.

March 2, 2010 a.t.b.

Lelouch was the first to break the silence, his breath steaming in the morning chill. "It's my fault she's dead. If I hadn't been so damn stubborn, we would have still been in Pendragon." He toyed with the corner of the coat, mindlessly rolling it between his fingers.

Milly wanted to punch him for his stupidity. Sure he was smart, but that didn't mean that every bad thing that ever happened was his fault; it just meant he could think of more things he could have done to stop it. "Don't start, Lelouch. If you'd stayed, you just would have been easy targets for whoever killed your mom." She gave him a glare, daring him to argue.

He didn't. He couldn't. He was too proud of his rationality to deny the obvious, and a few tears finally leaked out of his eyes. "I know. I know. It's… I just still can't believe she's gone." His face tightened and his fists clenched in grief and rage. It was a minute or two before Lelouch turned to look at Milly, and the raw hatred blazing in his violet eyes almost made her flinch. "I'm going to kill him. I swear, I'm going to tear down everything he has built and watch it burn."

She felt something drop in the pit of her stomach. She'd been afraid of this. "Who?" Even as she asked the question, she knew the answer already. Who was the man who'd taken everything from him? Who'd ordered the invasion that killed his sister?

"I'm going to kill my father. I don't know when." His words were deadly calm now. He knew exactly what he was saying. Lelouch moved to kneel beside the headstone, tracing the words with his fingers. It wouldn't be soon, he knew. He needed external support, and it might even have to be a full blown revolution when he finally made his move. "But I'm going to kill Charles zi Britannia and watch his empire burn."

A/N:

Edited/revised as of 1/26/2017.

There are some other similar fics with a similar premise floating around, but I figured I'd try my hand at this.

Chapters 2 and 3 cover Shinjuku and are a little shorter. At the moment of my writing this, they feel a little unpolished and disjointed, so I will be fleshing them out and revising them to touch up the transitions fairly soon. I'm happier with chapter 4, though knowing me I'll surely come back and revisit that as well.

Milly is going to be a major factor in this story, but she's going to be significantly more serious. Not super serious—she'll still be Milly—but certainly more serious than in the show and most other fics. Because of this, she may end up seeming a bit OOC relative to the show, but I'll try to make it as believable as possible given the initial differences in this story. Fair warning.

I'm unsure about pairings at the moment. I have some ideas floating around, but we'll see where it goes, I guess.

Thank you for reading. As always, reviews, follows, favs, etc. are greatly appreciated.