Me: Hello! I'm haaschiibrownii, as you can probably tell. (Y'see, it says it, right there, no, at the top of the page, by the… You know what, never mind.) I'm not going to put in a long and lengthy A/N like I usually do; I'll just get on with the facts.

Suzaku: No, you won't. You're going to make it long just by adding me in here.
Me: Don't be silly. I would never purposely drag out an A/N.

Suzaku: You're doing it.
Me: I mean, who would do that? It's completely pointless.
Suzaku: You're still going.

Me: It's just a total waste of space and time, both yours and your reader's. Seriously, though… *Keeps babbling*

Suzaku: *to audience* Get a load of her…

Disclaimer: I do not own Code Geass, or any concepts or characters associated with it. Sadly.

Note: This is, more or less, a genderswap fic, except the only character genderswapped is Lelouch. Also, please note that Luluko Vi Britannia is not exactly the same as Lelouch is. In my eye, her personality is slightly different.

I never knew that it would have come to this. That the face it would have shown was the one that would lead to my death. It's strange, really. I'm not scared, yet I'm still reluctant. But of course, that is to be expected when one has plotted their own assassination.

Luluko Vi Britannia ran a hand through her jet-black hair, and pulled it into a long ponytail reaching halfway down her back at the nape of her neck. A small smile rested upon her lips, seemingly out of place in the lonely chamber.

I'd like to say that I hold no qualms about this occasion, yet I do. I realize that my sacrifice is not the largest. I am not the one who will have to pay. I will be gone before the outcome of this event is truly revealed, and I may never truly know if my plan progressed the way I intended it to. The ones left behind will be the ones who will have to suffer the consequences of my decision. Her smile turned into a grimace of pain. Should I force this upon them? Kallen, Ohgi, the student council, countless citizens of the empire and world, Nunnally…

And Suzaku.

Suzaku Kururugi, the current knight of Zero. The person she had handpicked to bear the burden of Zero that she once had, fearless and cunning leader of the weak and powerless. Suzaku was the one person that she could love and utterly hate at the same time, the one person she wanted to kiss and kill in one movement, and the only person capable of wrapping her feelings around his little finger like a string of yarn and tossing them into the wind. Still though, he was the only person who really and truly understood her and her intentions.

A twisted feeling began curling in the pit of her stomach as she slipped into her extravagant and bejeweled clothes her personal tailor had prepared for the parade. How could she do this to her best friend? What kind of a person was she? Do I really want to make him kill me? She crossed her chamber to the door on the opposite side of the room.

For a moment, her finger hovered above the doorknob where she knew he was diligently waiting for her. Her hand trembled minutely as she hesitated, uneasy and indecisive. After a moment, she bit her lip and pulled it back. I can't back out now. I have to go through with this.

Luluko turned and stood in front of her full mirror. Her deep amethyst eyes reflected back at her, wise beyond their years and full of depth and information. Still, their beauty was marred by the twin Geass sigils, one residing in each eye. Suddenly, she turned away, not wanting to even look at herself or the symbol of her demonic power.

She sat down on her king size poster bed and rested her hand in her hands. Silent tears dripped softly down her angular face, staining the silk fabric below. Memories began flashing through her mind like a reel of photos, one after another, each one gone in a nanosecond.

Nunnally giggling and running around their living room, Lady Marianne's large and ornate hat resting on her small head, her light pink dress billowing out behind her diminutive figure…

Schneizel, putting my black king in check for the umpteenth time, his lengthy arms crossing across a broad chest in a gloating fashion…

Nunnally, Suzaku, and I, playing cards in our shed, Suzaku losing as always, Nunnally's peals of laughter and eventually mine as well echoing around the small space as Suzaku body deflated and his face became red with embarrassment…

The Ashford Academy Cross-dressing Festival, stuck in a skimpy yet quote unquote "manly" outfit Milly had chosen as I chased the blond across the commons area while the middle and high school boys gaped at me as I flew past them…

Euphemia, blotches of blood marring the beauty of her white dress, resting in Suzaku's strong arms as he stared comtemplatingly at the Gawain, then back to bloodstained Euphie, the pain in my own chest stabbing me yet again as I saw him running off to the Britannians with her…

Luluko's fists clenched as she remembered back to a year, even three months ago, when she knew who Suzaku was and knew of all the ways that he was constantly opposing her, trying to cut her off, attempting in vain to put a halt to the rebellion she had instigated. She recounted that even when he had pointed a gun at her chest, even when he had brought her before the accursed man she was forced to call her father, even when he had very nearly exposed her newly regained memories of the Black Rebellion and her own sister…

The entire time, she had still loved him. And even though she had loved him, he had never loved her.

And now she was going to die.

"Damn!" She stood up and punched one of the posts of her bed. The entire frame shook in spite of her feeble strength. Another fist was thrown, and another after that, all of the pent up anger and angst that she had kept bottled up in her entire life, all of it released with each punch, with each and every motion.

Suddenly, the door opened with a small click, and swung inward a faction. "Luluko?" Suzaku's mussy, brown head popped in through the gap between the door and its frame. His green eyes were full of concern, and as they surveyed the scene in front of him, her breath coming in short pants and one fist pulled back and ready to attack, they grew wider and more inquisitive. Luluko dropped her hand, and collapsed onto her mattress. She rested her head lightly in her hands, two fingers slowly massaging each temple.

She heard soft footsteps on the padded carpet, and melt the mattress sink a little as Suzaku settled down on it. He didn't say anything, but began rubbing the curvature of her back in small circles in a futile effort to melt away her troubles and let her relax.

"I can't," she heard herself breathe, so quietly that she barely picked it up. "I can't do it," she repeated with another shred of volume. "I just can't do this to anyone."

His hand continued massaging down her spine. "You don't have to," he said, a soft tone to his voice that was missing the businesslike edge it usually held. "No matter what you do, I'll still support you."

"You shouldn't say that," she replied, her voice still a whisper. "You're supposed to tell me that I have to. That I have to follow through with my plan."

"I can't tell you that. No one else can make this decision for you. You've got to make it on your own."

She broke away from his touch and forced herself to make eye contact with the emerald orbs that had always managed to entrance her. "Suzaku, can I tell you something?" She inquired, her query tentative and unstable.

He nodded his head in assent, his face a mask of absolute control. "Anything."

"I love you." She smiled as his expression changed to one of shock and surprise. She then took a deep breath and continued. "I've loved you for a long time now, I just never realized it until I thought you had died. I didn't know until I saw you shot, and was running away with C.C. in the very tunnels we're standing above right now.

"It was then that I realized how much you meant to me, and that you were the reason why I had never really taken interest in another man. When I realized you we're alive, and I analyzed the feelings that I was experiencing, I knew that I could deny it any longer. I knew that I loved you."

She turned away awkwardly with a small smile. "I know it's a weird thing to say, but I wanted you to know before I died."

He shook his head, a small and minute movement, and for a moment she was afraid that he was going to walk away from her. "No," he said, his tone much more confident than her own. "It's not weird."

Her eyes flickered upward. "Really?"

"No." He gently caressed her cheek and her violet eyes widened. "Because," he whispered, "I've loved you for a while now too." And with that statement, he pulled her closer towards him, and she didn't resist, couldn't resist, because this was what she had been waiting for for what seemed like a lifetime. He tilted his head, and she angled hers oppositely, both knowing exactly what to do even though it was each respective party's first kiss. Their lips met, Suzaku's soft against her's, moving in synchronization, as if the two were connected by different means than just physical.

Still, as they met, Luluko's mind raced through the natural doubt that would come with such a situation. He couldn't have loved me… at least not for long.. Because he loved Euphie, didn't he? He was her knight, the soldier that she had handpicked from pages and pages of others. But then, puzzle pieces began to click inside her mind, things she hadn't noticed before but were cropping up now.

The way, after I had shot Euphie, how Suzaku's rescue hadn't seemed driven by emotion, but rather by another reason. Because, he was just seemingly going through the motions of a rescue, not breaking any rules along the way.

When he had been Knighted, where on the television what should have been a smile at such an occasion for lovers had seemed to be a miniscule grimace, where only one close to him could have picked it, and what I had thought was just distortion…

Other examples raced through her mind as the cogs clicked into place with a sense of finality. He hadn't truly loved Euphie. She had only loved him.

The realization settled into her mind like a cat curling up for a long rest. She began returning the kiss, this time with a passion and drive that hadn't existed before. They moved together, their connection pure and sweet, just the two of them alone and honest at last.

For what seemed to the pair like a blissful eternity, they remained in sync. When they finally broke apart, each emerged with expressions of awe and wonder.

"Wow," Luluko said, a slight blush creeping up onto her cheeks.

"Wow," Suzaku agreed, his own a light shade of pink.

Luluko stood up from the bed and crossed to the other side of the spacious room. "I don't understand, now especially, how I could ever leave. Half of me knows that I have to follow through with this. The other half wants to pull out another Zero and fix it all up with political tape."

"Well," Suzaku began. "I don't want you to die, much less kill you," said Suzaku, whom Luluko realized had crept up behind her like a silent ninja. "Still, though just like I said before, I'll come through and hold you up the entire way."

"Here you go again," she mumbled. "Leaving me to make all of the hard decisions."

He put his hand on her far shoulder, stretching his lengthy arm from the first shoulder to the other. "It is a hard decision, but you have to make it."

She glanced out of the large window onto the street below. She spotted the transport vehicle that had been carrying the people she had known and commanded parked below. They were behind herded out, dressed in the typical prisoner's garb, their arms held behind their backs in a straightjacket like fashion.

Her keen eyes picked out familiar faces. Two Britannian soldiers, who were making no effort to help him up, had shoved Tamaki onto the ground. Several feet away Li Xinke had escaped from his captor's grasp, and was running at full tilt toward the submissive Tianzi until several soldiers cut him off with semi-automatic weapons.

Kallen twisted and writhed in her captor's arms, still trying to escape at the very last moment. The red haired girl's gaze made it up to Luluko's window as she tried to break free, and stopped struggling to yell and scream at the raven-haired empress. Kallen's respective soldier forced her into submission by way of a knee to her back, pushing the Black Knight's ace to the concrete ground.

All of these people and still more were going to be executed, today, on Luluko's orders. Down on the ground below, she knew all of the faces and the personalities that went with them that she was going to kill if she didn't kill herself. This was the final breaking point.

I can't let this happen.

She turned to Suzaku and took a deep breath. "I have to do this. I can't let all of these people die," she said as she gestured out of the window. "And they will if I don't carry through with my original plan. I'm the one that trapped them there, now I'm entrusting you to start the sequence that will set them free."

Suzaku nodded curtly, and then put a small, honest smile on his face. "It's going to be tough to kill you."

She sighed, and closed her eyes as if she could ever possibly erase the power that had started it all. "I bet it's going to be even tougher to die."

Yes, done! My first attempt at writing any form of romance. I would love critiques and criticism on how I can make it better, because this is a skill that I'm just starting to try and develop. I'd love for you to leave a review.

Oh, and do you think that I should continue this? I'm not sure whether I should leave it as a oneshot, or go on through Luluko's death and into what could become of everything afterwards. If you've got an opinion, please leave it in a review!

Anywhoo, thanks for reading this, and I hope that you enjoyed it!

R&R?