Disclaimer: This fic is very, very loosely based on Death Note; however I neither own it nor Code Geass. If I did, I'd be a very rich young woman.

This was written as I sat by the sea in a lovely little beach resort on my Mum's little pink laptop, determinedly avoiding the sun as I recovered from the previous day's sunburns. Seeing as how I can't write the next chapter of The Third Game anyway since I don't have the episodes to reference, I thought I'd at least get this little idea down. It's been rattling in my head since my Finals, along with many others, so don't be surprised if you find more of its kind popping up!

Now then, enough of my rambling. Enjoy!

He woke up to the throbbing of his arm. His first thought was that he'd fallen asleep at his computer again and had been using his arm as a pillow, except his position was all wrong for that. And he wasn't sitting; he was lying down.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, and several of his suspicions were confirmed. One, he was on the ground, and it was cold and hard and dirty. Two, he wasn't at headquarters. Three, he was alone. For the time being, at least. With a groan, he tried to get up, only to find that his hands and feet were bound tightly by coarse rope. He frowned slightly and flexed his fingers, now feeling much more awake. He decided to review his facts.

It began with the Kyoto Group. After a dry spell that lasted months, just as he was on the brink of insanity, the investigation had finally turned up a lead- strangely enough, it had been picked up, not by the best three detectives in the world, but by simple-minded Suzaku Kururugi. To say it stung would be a severe understatement.

The Kyoto Group had been considered the leading pioneers in Knightmare manufacture until Camelot Industries surfaced with their ground-breaking eighth generation technology. When unfortunate accidents began to happen to Camelot's research team, no matter how well-hidden those accidents may have been in a sea of other victims, their eyes turned to Kyoto. Infiltration began with Kallen, in spite of her older brother's objections, due to both her high score in knightmare simulations and (as he later had to explain to Kururugi, who scored just as high as she had) because of her impressive bust size.

He remembered discovering she had an impressive punch as well, as she happened to be within earshot when he said that.

Her infiltration as a test pilot proved highly successful as Kyoto's new chairman, Taizo Kirihara, took an immediate liking to her. Just as planned. They also managed to gain a valuable ally in the form of former Chairwoman Kaguya Sumeragi (who, surprisingly enough, turned out to be an avid fan of L) and it was due to her help that they managed to trap the five remaining leaders of Kyoto.

But in the end, Geass triumphed over all of his intricate plans.

The time after the suspects' apprehension was a complete blank.

Geass. It always comes back to Geass.

With a bit of effort (which, of course, meant he was panting mere moments later) and with the help of the wall that was so conveniently close, he managed to pull himself into an upright position.

Perhaps he should have taken that C.C. woman up on her offer, he thought as he rested his head against the wall. Geass. Would it have changed anything? Would it have released him from his incarceration? Would it have prevented all those deaths? Watari. Tristan… No, no, it was disrespectful to remember them with those names. Reuben. Gino. He never meant for them to get hurt. They weren't supposed to get hurt, damn it!

Such speculations are useless now.

And with that singular thought, he closed his eyes and banished their faces from his mind.

He was not normally one to dwell on the past, simply because the past held nothing for him. Nothing but vague shadows and a nameless girl and a note scribbled in crayon, a child's scrawl. Even in his drugged state, his body sluggish and eyes drooping, he could recall it in vivid detail.

Lulu,

I know your mad at father but please come see us soon! I miss you big brother!

It was written with a red crayon and decorated with red hearts all around. At the end, beside a plethora of 'xoxo's was a single letter: N.

That was all he had. He couldn't even begin to count the times he'd stared at that note, urging it to divulge its secrets, but it never did. All he knew was what he'd gotten by analyzing the words.

It was written by a girl who obviously had a good grasp on the English language, disregarding the common mistake of replacing 'you're' with 'your' which he knew many adults did, let alone children. The use of the word Father instead of the much more familiar Daddy implied that he was a strict man, or that they were estranged. He assumed the former, given the fact she appeared to be pleading her brother to come back.

The most important conclusion he came to was that this note was written with affection and that she'd loved her brother very much, and it filled his chest with inexplicable warmth every time he realized it.

When they found him, he'd been beaten and bloody, and in spite of his unconscious state had been clutching onto the girl's limp body as if for dear life. The blood was not his. The note had been tucked into his pocket with great care.

Three days later, he woke up. She didn't. Nor did she wake up three weeks later, or three years later. Fifteen years later, she remained sleeping peacefully in a state-of-the-art room in the Ashford estate, equipped with everything that would ensure her survival. And he still had no idea who she, or even he, was.

Lulu, presumably, except that wasn't a very good name for a boy. L, then. L was better. L, to go with N.

Or perhaps R for Rei, as in ghost, zero, nothing.

One of the first things he did upon discovering his knack for hacking was to scour the government databases for any clue on himself and the gi- his sister.

Nothing.

There was still nothing to be found when he hired others to search on his behalf. Even having attained the title of greatest detective in the world, L (Rei?) found nothing.

And so he gave the girl a name. He called her Nemo. Nemo, to go with Rei.

What would his Geass have been? It differed from one individual to another and, although C.C. didn't say anything on the matter, L suspected it was a manifestation of a person's deepest desire. Like a wish.

Rolo the orphan wished he could hold onto good moments as long as he could; he halted one's perception of time. Mao wanted companionship; he was a permanent resident in people's minds. And what did Kira want? He still wasn't able to figure out what Kira's Geass was, only that it was voice-activated.

And what of him- what would his wish have been? Would it be the pursuit of justice?

…No.

L held no illusions about himself; he was not very keen on altruism. Everything he did was based on purely selfish desires. When he took on a case, it was not out of the goodness of his heart, but because of the challenge it represented or else a method to vent his frustrations. In spite of what his partners (companions? He couldn't call them friends) would say, L was no hero.

He already knew his deepest desire. But what would Geass have done about that? Would it have unlocked the door to his memories? Three point five feet of steel-reinforced concrete and a seven-digit pass-code that changed every hour- could Geass truly release the secrets within?

(C.C. hadn't been in any databases either. Was she like him, then? Should he call himself L.L.?)

Geass was behind the deaths of countless individuals across the globe, and for what? For one person's selfish wish. No, no matter how tempting, he refused to take that accursed power. He refused to doom others for the sake of a wish. He refused to be like him.

Kira.

He heard something, then, breaking through his sluggish mind. A high-pitched creaking of hinges that desperately needed to be oiled, and a quick clicking of shoes on a concrete ground.

Ah, speak of the devil.

"I see you're awake now," came his voice. Deceptively smooth, falsely concerned. So this was Kira without the modulators. "How are you feeling?"

His tongue felt like lead and his mouth like sandpaper, but fuelled by his ire he managed to reply, "Severely uncomfortable." He paused to clear his throat, despising how scratchy his voice sounded and how weak it would make it seem. "But considering the awkward position you placed me in on this unforgiving cold ground I'd assume that was your intention, in which case your inquiry would be redundant. Thus, I can only conclude that you've come to gloat." L lifted his eyes to the older man's face, glaring from behind a curtain of matted black hair at the self-satisfied smirk that had curled at his lips.

"You talk too much, little brother. But yes, you are correct. As always," he added, practically rubbing salt into the fallen man's wounds. Because if he had always been right, then he would have been able to apprehend this abomination a long time ago. As it was, he had been wrong, horribly wrong, and his mistake cost Gino and Reuben their lives. And it was likely, about a ninety-nine percent chance, that he was about to lose his own as well.

L's glare darkened.

Brother, he said. L doubted the validity of that claim. Where his hair was pitch-black and perfectly straight, the other's hair was a pale blond and had a slight wave. Where his eyes were an odd shade of purple, the other's was a dull, lifeless blue. Where he was tall and slender, the other was even taller and broad-shouldered with a toned physique that L would grudgingly admit he could never possess. In other words, they looked nothing alike.

However, he did have to admit, from what little he'd observed, there was an uncanny similarity in mannerisms between them. Of course, that could simply be chalked up to obsessive stalking and mimicry, but that possibility was discarded based on the fact it required a prolonged period of surveillance, which was virtually impossible. He was L. The world didn't know his face or his name or his whereabouts.

Then again, Kira had known. He'd known his face and his whereabouts and even managed to kidnap him and throw him in this abandoned place- likely a warehouse, he surmised, based on his surroundings.

What really grated on him, however, wasn't his humiliating defeat. It wasn't the death of two of his partners. It wasn't even the justice that would never be granted to his countless victims. More than anything, he hated how he would likely die without ever finding out who he was. And he hated how this Kira seemed to know. And he hated how he couldn't trust what Kira might tell him, should he ask about this past he so obviously knew, because it would probably be a lie.

Lies. He was so, so sick of lies.

"I must admit, I'm very disappointed in you," he drawled, crouching down to L's level. "I expected more of a challenge from the great L. But then, you never could beat me at chess, Lulu."

He reached a white-gloved hand to pat his head when L lashed out suddenly, teeth bared. Kira merely quirked his brow, completely unruffled, and slowly retracted his arm. "Well, that was uncalled for."

"Uncalled for?" the detective snarled. That name. He knew that name. How did he know that name? How dare he know that name?

"Alright, alright, I suppose I did deserve that."

Kira rose up to his full height and L began to struggle against his bonds. The rope chafed his skin, rubbing it raw, and he knew he wouldn't be able to get out of it but he didn't care. He refused to sit down meekly while this bastard gloated over him. The stinging also helped clear his mind, lifting the fog cast by whatever he'd been drugged with.

"Still, such an undignified action. It's unbecoming of you, little brother. Has your time away from the family made you forget your manners?"

"Just who do you think you are?" L asked with a small grunt as he tried, futilely, to free himself. The venom was practically dripping from his words.

"Schneizel el Britannia, of course," he replied, a soft, patronizing smile in place. L frowned deeply, the name resonating in his mind. Schneizel el Britannia, who had been presumed dead for a little over a year. The so-called Prince of an Empire that was nothing more than your average run-of-the-mill crime syndicate. An Empire than no longer existed due to its members having been wiped out not too long ago… By Kira.

It began with Charles. No one was particularly broken up about his untimely demise, not even his plethora of children. Someone had once estimated their numbers in the hundreds, and although L had once believed that to be a gross exaggeration, the murders that followed soon proved that rumour correct.

His more widely known spawn went first: Odysseus the mild-mannered bureaucrat, who had the grand majority of the government in his pocket; Guinevere and Clovis whose sparkling casinos hid a thriving prostitution business; Cornelia, who smuggled weapons and occasionally dabbled in human trafficking and finally Cassius, the drug-lord. The others that followed were entirely obscure, living under various aliases. Only the DNA tests linked them to the infamous crime boss.

Then came the associates. The people living under Britannian protection. The bribed officials. It was only when Kira began hitting politicians and judges that the authorities bothered to start looking for him.

And then, all of a sudden, his pattern changed. He was killing people all over the world, starting with escaped felons and prison inmates and ending with innocent school children.

Only then did the ICPO bring him in. L. To deal with the threat that was Kira. Immediately, he'd surmised that the suspect was likely a Britannian himself, and a high-ranking one at that, but never would he have suspected Schneizel's involvement. Britannia's 'royalty' disappeared often due to in-family disputes, so his assumed death was nothing out of the ordinary. But here he was, standing before him, Schneizel el Britannia, who was Kira.

Schneizel el Britannia, who was also supposedly his brother. Which would mean that he, L, was…

He stopped that train of thought right where it was.

Liar. He's a liar. He could be lying about being Schneizel, he could be lying about being my brother- he could be lying about both.He could be aware of my condition and exploiting it, L reasoned. It's possible he wants me to join him, and what better to use than emotional blackmail?

"What do you want then, Schneizel?" he spat, as if the name left a foul taste in his mouth. "Do you intend to kill me too, to fulfil your twisted sense of justice? Or perhaps you want me to join you, hmn, big brother?"

Schneizel gave a light chuckle and shook his head, before raising a hand to gently brush away a stray lock of platinum blond hair. "Such arrogance. Ah, I love it." His smile turned cold and L felt a shiver run down his spine. "I do plan to kill you, but not out of justice. It was never about justice, really, and I can't fathom how you got that idea."

L couldn't stop his incredulous stare. So all of those murders, criminals and innocents alike, they all died… for no reason? No! No, there must be a reason. There must be a reason, no matter how twisted.

"Why, then? Why did you do all of that? Why did you kill all those people?"

"Well, in the beginning it was Britannians, as well as our dear family's associates from business tycoons to corrupt politicians and crooked police men. Then I realized I was missing someone, someone who wasn't as dead as he'd have liked us to think." This time, when Schneizel reached out a hand L didn't try to bite it. He ended up poking his nose affectionately. "I was very proud of you, Lulu. Very proud. And so, I decided to give you something worthy of your time."

He petted L's cheek with the same unsettling affection. The detective couldn't repress his shudder and closed his eyes, swallowing the lump that had risen in his throat. He couldn't lean away. Pressed against the wall as he was, there was no where to go. "So all of this. It was just… just to draw me out?"

"That's right. I hope you found it as entertaining as I."

"I thought you were disappointed?"

"Oh, I am. But I had a little fun. Shame it has to end." Kira backed away, gazing at him forlornly. "You were always my favourite brother, Lelouch."

Lelouch.

A half-forgotten memory was stirred from somewhere within the recesses of his mind, within the steel-reinforced concrete vault. A girl with cotton-candy hair and the sweetest smile, clad in a pretty little yellow dress. Running. Laughing. It was a nice, sunny day. In a garden. They were in a garden.

"C'mon, Lulu!"

And there was Nemo, in a soft pink sundress, tugging at his sleeves. Her eyes were opened and they were so warm, so kind. Lilac. "Quick, Lelouch. We can't let Euphie win!"

His much-younger version was clearly winded, but nonetheless managed to respond between pants, saying, "I'm tired, Nunally. Can't we just rest a bit?"

Nunally. Nemo, is that your name?

She had the most adorable pout and he knew, without having to see the rest, that he'd likely caved in and continued to run until his legs gave out beneath him and he ended up falling to the ground and rewarded with a face-full of a dirt.

Schneizel's voice broke into his reverie. "I take it you remember now?"

L froze.

I knew it. Liar. LiarliarliarLIAR!

Could it be memory manipulation? Was that it, his Geass?

Very hard to manipulate to homicidal means, however.

A knowing smile drew itself on Schneizel –Kira, he amended- on Kira's lips. "I didn't want you to go out without your memories, Lelouch. Then it would just be pointless."

"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about," L retorted, dead-panned.

The other tutted, his elegant features drawn into disappointment. "I'm hurt. I'm really quite hurt, little brother. Do you think so little of me? Do you think I didn't notice?"

L lifted a slender brow, gazing up at his kidnapper blankly until Kira eventually sighed. He didn't know why, but he was suddenly filled with a sense of foreboding. Kira began to walk around the warehouse languidly.

"Every Sunday morning, we would have breakfast together in Aries. Father was never there, of course, but none of us particularly cared, and your mother was a magnificent hostess."

He was struck with the image of a woman with flowing black hair and twinkling blue eyes. She was laughing freely, reaching down a manicured hand to ruffle a little girl's mousy brown hair.

"Then again, there were few things she couldn't do. Ah, Marianne."

The same woman, this time he saw her on a surveillance tape with a shot-gun in her manicured hands. Her laughter was chilling. Marianne vi Britannia, the Flash, the Butcher of Britannia; she disappeared some fifteen years ago under suspicious circumstances. Then again, that was the fate of all the wives before and after her. It just so happened that she lasted the longest, because she was the deadliest.

"I was quite fortunate in that she wasn't around for me to kill. I suspect, if that were the case, I wouldn't be standing here today," Kira mused, throwing a glance at him over his shoulder. L was careful to keep his face passive, even as the blood in his veins ran cold.

"To say Cornelia worshipped her would be a grave understatement. Fortunately, however, she wasn't nearly as talented. She put up a better fight than sweet little Euphemia, however."

Euphie. The girl with the cotton-candy hair.

"Clovis used to love using her as a model for his paintings, and Euphie was all too happy to oblige. He once dragged you into it as well, Lelouch, and sat you both down in front of the rosebushes. You never could say no to Euphie."

With a start, he realized he'd seen her before, and not in his memories. A crime-scene photo, one in a sea of millions. A young woman now, no longer a girl, mutilated beyond recognition. She'd been found mere feet away from the remains that had been identified as belonging to Cornelia li Britannia. At the time, he'd given her no more than a cursory glance before pushing the picture aside and focusing on what he'd thought were more important details.

His stomach churned.

"Just out of curiosity, Schneizel." He decided to use that name to humour him, not because he believed the bastard. "You seem to have been quite fond of your family. Why did you kill them?"

"Because…" Kira paused, his lips parted, as if he wasn't quite sure himself. And then his face went slack, his eyes half-lidded, as if drugged and in a lifeless voice he replied, "Because all Britannians must die."

All L could think was a puppet that had just been cut off from its strings. He'd seen that look many times in the duration of his case, far too many times, and in the end it all led back to one reason…

His eyes widened impossibly as it dawned on him.

All of a sudden, he began to laugh.

A/N: This was originally intended to be a one-shot, but right now I'm toying with the idea of adding one or two more chapters, just to wrap things up. We'll see, I suppose.