Hey everyone, sorry for the wait, I had been revising this chapter over and over, and I think I got it to how I wanted it. XD Once more I am still looking for a beta who might be interested in this story, I've Pmed a few people but I think maybe they don't check their mail too often, or maybe aren't active anymore. At any rate I hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think! :)
Also I apologize for any typos or break of sentences, I have written most of this story on my phone and transferring it from google docs didn't go as I had planned so I went and fixed what I could find that went a bit wonky. Lol
Chapter 2- Loss
Schneizel walked his study in quick strides. His walk seemed to have a bounce to it, it had made other turn their heads as he passed them, his maids seem to think maybe he had found a lady friend- they wouldn't be completly wrong. He entered his room and went to straight to his desk to brood over the new information that had made his suspicions clear.
His dearest sister was alive.
She was alive and fighting against his father and the Royal family, the thought honestly made him laugh. She fought against the very thing she herself was apart of. Oh the irony! It made his heart swell though, now knowing who Zero was he became proud of how strong she had become. Seeing how resourceful and skillful she become it felt like badge upon his chest, and how he wanted to shine and polish it and show it to the world.
That he had helped her become this way, that he had a hand in molding her into the magnificent woman she was today from the younger years that she spent with him, and when he taught her strategies and the ways of war through chess and games, it made him love her all the more; just knowing his lessons had not gone to waste. She was a born ruler and he wanted to put her there- along side him of course. They could accomplish great things, she and him. They could conquer nations, and create peace in their own name, and the peace he sought for so long, since the day his father told him and his siblings that Lelouch and Nunnally where dead, would finally come to him. Once he had bound her to him.
He needed her.
He had needed her since he had laid eyes upon her weak, infant form. She would cry out of need, reaching out for someone to hold her and care for her, and even then she had the power to command him. Granted now she had hardened, grown, and sought power; she desired authority and control so that she would no longer feel weak and at the mercy of others. But he knew her better than she knew herself, he knew that inside she truly wished to be held and kept away from the pain he knew she was suffering from.
She wanted someone to have power over her; and yet it was the very thing she feared.
He would protect her though- whether she wanted it or not. She was born for him after all, that's what he had told her right before her mother was assassinated. He had planned to court her properly after telling her that father had approved of their union, but then the murder of Lady Marianne had spoiled everything.
Him and his other brothers and sisters weren't given much detail on what had happened to the consort's children, only that one of them had been caught in the line of fire and Marianne tried to protect her, and that shortly after Lelouch addressed their father that she had been sent to Area 11 but was soon then pronounced dead from the cross fire of the rebellion in Japan.
But after the chess match in China, at the announcement of the Empress's marriage to his older brother did he know that she was alive, and he knew that under that dark mask she was as beautiful as the day she was born.
Schneizel breathed in deeply while his eyes closed as if trying to imagine him taking in the scent that would be hers. Of something crisp and maybe fruity; or perhaps a flower base aroma. But even as the imagery of those things came to mind that would resemble his half-sister, they did not quite capture who she was. Instead when he thought of her he thought of waves crashing down and cutting through rock and how she could shake the very foundation of him and make him bend to her will. Yes, that was what she would smell like, the ocean at the edge of a summit.
"I will come for you, my love, and I will give you what you desire and more. You need only to come to me, Lelouch..."
It was then that knock interrupted his thoughts and desires for the next encounter with Zero, and called for them to enter.
"I'm sorry for the intrusion, but your meeting with the council will begin soon, My Prince."
"No worries Kanon, I will be there soon."
Kanon bowed and left to inform his guests, leaving the Prince to his musings once more. The events in China had left the Prince wanting, it had given him endless nights of how he would pleasure his beautiful sister, and how she might pleasure him. And after three nights, it has become too much for him before he sought out release.
He spent his days wondering how she might behave and what her mannerism would be like, and it surprised him that his love for her ran so much deeper than he had expected, and they had only grown since that day; and how he wanted her so badly. After a few more minutes of his delightful thoughts and of how he would present his plans (and himself) to his sister, he got up and tended to his responsibilities. Knowing that soon he would have what he truly wanted, and that was enough to make him love every minute of the dull, tedious conference.
Lelouch was in the school library long after she had told Jeremiah to be there. When she talked to him over the phone he had asked her what had happened, it was clear in her voice that something was terribly wrong but she didn't have the strength to tell him. All she could say was to meet her at the location and promptly hung up.
Her eyes were hollow and her body moved like it was on autopilot, she had walked from the mall where the 'terrorist attack' was and away from all the screams, patrol officers, and medics to the school. She wasn't noticed by any of the officials with everyone pushing and shoving their way out, and she was glad for that. On many occasions she nearly fell and her only coherent thought that made her catch herself was that she would be trampled to death if she didn't. Everything else was a blur. It surprised her when she suddenly noticed a small sign that read 'Library' that she even wondered how she got there. She had no real knowledge who had seen her nor did she care. The only thoughts she had was plotting and of Shirley: her friend.
When the she walked into the room, the lights were out and the only way she was able to see anything was because of the light coming through from the grand windows on the opposite wall. Lelouch walked down three rows of bookshelves and turned right to find a loyal soldier waiting with his phone out looking as though conflicted.
"Princess!" His voice was low to keep any suspicious students that might walk by the room and Lelouch didn't care enough to correct him. Her eyes were unnaturally enlarged and looked as though they saw nothing and unfocused. When he saw the state she was in and the blood on her uniform he knew right then something had gone horribly wrong, and it worried him to see her body move as though it was on strings."What happened, are you alright?!" He placed his hands on her arms only to find that she was trembling.
"She's dead…"
"What?!"
"Rolo killed her… Shirley, my friend, she's dead." Lelouch gripped Jeremiah's coat with her head pressed against his chest, refusing to let him see her tears. After all of the death she had seen, she still did not know how to mourn. She didn't know how to let others see her weakness. She couldn't allow it.
But she couldn't keep it in any longer and she even smiled, she smiled at that worthless insect that called himself her brother. An insane smile split her face from cheek to cheek, although, she thought, she will soon smash him beneath her shoe. She swore it. She'll give him hope, love, a sibling bond, and then rip it from him like a still beating heart and then destroy him. "And he. Will. Pay."
"L-Lelouch…?"
She lifted her head finally and what he saw sent shivers up his spine and made his heart plummet. It was a look of a shell that was filled with nothing but hate and darkness when the last of her tears had shed from her eyes. A perfect combination for destruction and revenge. So this was the depths of his Lady's darkness; the pit that slowly swallowed her up...
It terrified him.
"Lelouch, I…" What would he say? What could he say? He couldn't comfort the woman who had lost so much and knew nothing but of revenge since she was ten. All he could do was make sure she wasn't alone as she walked down the path that was paved in blood.
"Nothing will get in my way, I will crush my father, I will rebuild this world, and I will get my sister back. Rolo has no place here, not in my world." The way she spoke and the way that she clung to her words like they were indisputable truths reminded him so much of himself when he went on the manhunt for her. When he saw her as just a lowly terrorist, a nobody. He knelt down on one knee and took her hands from his coat and into his own just like he did earlier that day. He watched as her shaking eyes watch him and looked from the hands that held hers then slowly into his eye -the only one that was visible; that his smile was small and sad.
"I know." He laced his fingers through her long, dark ribbon like hair.
"I know."
Lelouch placed her mobile in the pocket of her yellow blazer and went out to find Shirley, she had to make sure she was ok during the smoke and gunfire. She raced down the flight of stairs and into an empty room when she saw someone beyond the dust and smoke, light spilled out of a grand window that made it look almost angelic, that was if it wasn't the fact that she felt her heart drop to her stomach. Even though she couldn't see the person's face, the yellow blazer was too much like her own to feel comfortable.
It couldn't be... what would Shirley be doing up here anyways? Lelouch began to pray with every step she could take that she was wrong, that as she got closer and closer to being able to make out certain features... like the long caramel hair, and familiar facial features, the Ashford Academy crest, that she was just mistaken. Lelouch was two feet away and she felt like she couldn't take a single step more.
It was Shirley.
How... how could everything be going so well that it just as quickly slammed her back down, when Jeremiah joined her side and vowed his fealty to her, things had felt that they were finally coming together. And then... and then she forgot that she had more to lose. Did the world exist to only take!? Must she continue to keep losing the things that she fought so hard to protect?
Lelouch walked to her side and collapsed on her knees, she felt sick, she wanted to vomit. Shirley, the one that always was there for her when she needed her and scolded her when she no one would care. Even when her and Rivalz would go gambling when she felt bored and disinterested in daily affairs she would be there to make sure she didn't go too far, that she wasn't in too deep.
But now, now she was gone. Now there would be no voice or conscience to stop her from diving into a sea of blood and war. There would be no-one. All others that would stand up to her now would only die, any others that try stand in her way, she would remove them from the chess board.
"Shirley! Shirley, who did this to you?" She asked, choking on her own words. Hoping she would answer that she still had life in her.
"Lulu...?" Her breath was caught in her throat. She was still alive, she could still save her! "Lulu, I'm glad we can talk one last time." Her words were difficult to say and it was hard for her to keep her eyes open.
"Don't talk, Shirley. I'm going to get the paramedics and we're going to get you to a hospital!" Lelouch said as she took out her mobile and began to dial to number but stopped when Shirley placed her hand over hers.
"Ever since I retained my memories, I've been so scared. A teacher who wasn't a teacher. Friends who don't have memories to share. Everyone was just… lying; it felt as though the whole world was spying on me. That's the the world you've been fighting all by yourself isn't it? All alone…
"So that's why I- that's why I wanted to be the one that would at least be truthful to you. Lulu… I love you. Even knowing that you caught my father in all of this, I still couldn't bring myself to hate you, even though you made me forget everything I still loved you. Even though my memories were tampered with the bond that we shared were that of the closest sisters, and I couldn't forget that." Her voice was fading her eyes began to shut, but spite the pain she was in all Lelouch saw was that she no longer had regrets. Even so, she couldn't accept her death, No- she wouldn't accept it!
"No, Shirley, you can't die!" She yelled, taking her contact out and releasing her Geass on her, ordering to keep her eyes open, ordering to keep on living… like with Suzaku. Only it wasn't enough to keep her from leaving her, it only prolonged the inevitable by mere seconds, "I order you not to die!" Over and over her Geass was released, trying to keep her eyes from closing and no matter how hard both of them fought to keep her in this world, they both knew it would not be enough.
"And so, I pray that I can be reborn again, and each time we will continue to meet and our bond will never fade away. I'll keep-" She never finished as her words grew distant and her touch left Lelouch's hand and fell heavily onto the ground.
"Shirley... Shirley?! Shirley, no!"
It was then that the darkness in her heart grew. It grew to an extent that happiness wasn't obtainable anymore, not even by creating the world that she saw for Nunnally, Because even if the world was perfect; free from prejudice, hate, and inequality, it would never be enough because Shirley wouldn't be in it.
The world would not be enough.
The pain that wretch out of her heart echoed in the big, empty room that resonated with her soul. Both were empty. Forever will it ring in her ears till the day she dies, and the memory of Shirley's face will burn in her eyes whenever she closes them. This day would haunt her for an eternity.
It wasn't until Jeremiah finally coaxed Lelouch into leading him to the underground base with small words and simple questions like, 'can you show me the way to the basement now?' Or 'would you like any help?' 'Here, allow me my Lady.' His words were gentle, as if speaking to a small child and it seemed to relax her physically, like she was slipping into a warm bath even though he led her by the hand like a lost puppy that followed blindly.
He knew she was fragile, and spite his words he knew she wasn't really comprehending any of it.
It wasn't until she was led to a plush chair and heard someone calling her name, did she snap out of her trance and saw Jeremiah looking at her with concern traced in his eye.
"What?"
"I said, where do go from here, Your Highness?" He said again.
"From here...?" She repeated his words, like she was grasping at straws and imitating him. Her mind tried to swim through haze that clouded her thoughts, she was trying to swim to the surface to gasp for air and regain the her sense of reason and return to her confident, calculative self.
If it had been for Rolo, she wouldn't have been in this state in the beginning- wait, Rolo... That's right. There was that burning question she had been wanting to ask. How did Rolo even get his Geass, what has the Order been up to and what lengths have they gone?! And now that she thought about it, how did they create the Geass canceler? It was because of them that Shirley was dead. It was because of Geass that she wasn't still at school having fun with her friends, and it was because Geass that she had brought more pain to her.
Her next goal? Was to eliminate all others with the power of Geass till there was only one. She would be the one to have this power, if it was meant for Kings than she will claim it to be her right as Empress.
"Now? Now I need everything you know about V.V., about the Order, if there are there more like Rolo, and what they did to create your power."
"Yes, My Princess."
And so he told all that there was to tell. Without reservation or regret for betraying his King or the nobleman who experimented on him and tortured him, he told his Lady everything. The only thing he felt was the hope that it would be the very thing she needed for her endeavors.
"I see... and where is this lab exactly?
Thanks for all the follows and adds that I've been seeing! I'm so glad people like the concept of this story! Haha I was a little worried that Jeremiah wasn't as popular as I thought he was (in my mind I think he is lol), but I'm glad people are into this as much as I am. (Or I hope. XD) as always please read&preview, I would love to hear more from you, and to you reader, who wanted some Schneizel time, there you go! I hope you liked it! X3
