This had been quite a day.
Suzaku let Lelouch pass by him as he watched the white-haired girl's teammates help her up. He caught an all too familiar look of helpless hatred in her eyes as she glared at his old friend.
"She's not going too forget this, you know." He said, looking back at Lelouch, His friend sighed.
"I know." He said.
"Wasn't the whole point of this supposed to be going somewhere where you wouldn't be hounded by enemies every day?" Suzaku asked.
"Yes, it was." Lelouch replied, a note of irritation seeping into his voice. "It looks like I'm doomed to make enemies wherever I go." He chuckled at that, though it lacked any real humor. Suzaku caught up to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
"You've made friends, too. Don't forget that." He said. Lelouch looked back, seemed to consider that for a moment, then smiled.
"So I have. I must thank you again for agreeing to come along with me on this…" Lelouch waved his hand, failing to find accurate words. Suzaku understood—it wasn't exactly a vacation, but it wasn't exactly studying abroad, either. It wasn't even an exile.
"As if Milly would've let me turn you down." Suzaku said, grinning. They both laughed at that.
"Ah.. I wish she could have come, too. She would've loved it here." Lelouch said.
"I don't know—she seems to enjoy being lord and master of the student body a lot more than combat training." Suzaku observed, and Lelouch chuckled again.
"True, true—but that's what I meant. I can't really put my finger on why, but it seems like this might be the kind of school that's filled with drama and secrets around every corner. She'd fit in better than any of us." Lelouch's smile faded. "Speaking of which—how's your partner doing?"
"Kallen? She said she was going back to the room." Suzaku saw Lelouch frown a little at that. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." Lelouch said. People who didn't know him as well might have believed that, but the twitch of his left eyebrow gave him away. Suzaku raised his own, waiting. Lelouch rolled his eyes.
"All right, fine. I'm a bit concerned that we haven't exchanged more than a few sentences in the weeks since we left Mistral. I get the impression she's been avoiding me." Lelouch said, idly scratching his head.
"Huh…" Suzaku said, scratching his head. "I hadn't realized."
"Yeah. I haven't pressed the issue yet, but I'm starting to wonder." Lelouch looked thoughtful. "How long have you known her again, Suzaku?"
Suzaku sighed. "Lelouch, you don't have to worry about Kallen. I think I'd know if my own partner was a spy or an enemy agent."
"That's exactly what someone whose partner was secretly a spy or an enemy agent would say." Lelouch said, staring pointedly at him. Suzaku scowled.
"Even if that were true, I met her on the first day of my first semester, and that's when we became partners—which was a full year before you came by. Unless she came back in time to spy on you, of course." Suzaku said, frowning as if he was deep in concentration. "Oh no… one of your siblings must have invented a time machine and sent an agent back to become my partner for a year so she could follow you to Beacon Academy and report on your academic progress! We must protect you from her prying eyes." Suzaku said. He raised his eyebrows at Lelouch, and it was Lelouch's turn to scowl.
"Look, I was just asking. I didn't even think her being some sort of agent is a likely possibility. If she were a spy, I'd think she'd have tried to get close to me or at least remain as innocuous as possible. If she were some sort of assassin, she had plenty of opportunity in the previous few weeks to make an attempt. I'm just worried that she might be afraid of me for some reason, or have some sort of a crush on me. If that's the case, we're going to end up being the ones generating the drama in this place, and teamwork will be that much harder." Lelouch looked up, and his face schooled itself into a completely neutral expression. "Speaking of drama…" He said, and flicked his eyes forward. Suzaku turned to look, and blanched.
Professor Goodwitch did not look happy. On hearing their footsteps, she wheeled to face them, and while her expression maintained its normal stern mask, her eyes screamed murderous rage.
"Excuse me, students," She began in a rather clipped tone, "have either of you by any chance done something with my riding crop?" Suzaku shook his head, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Lelouch stiffen. Goodwitch rounded on Suzaku's unfortunate friend, a lioness cornering her prey.
"Do you have something to say, Mr. vi Britannia?" She said, terrifyingly calm. He began to shake his head—then, there was a clatter, as the riding crop fell from somewhere above them and landed on the ground between Lelouch and the professor. They all stared at it for a moment. Suzaku quickly knelt down and picked it up, offering it to the professor. She took it out of his hands, shot a glare at the both of them, then whirled around and stalked away. Presumably she'd gone to hunt the culprit upstairs instead.
Once she was gone, Suzaku breathed a sigh of relief, but Lelouch's expression had morphed into one of not insignificant rage.
"Tell me, partner, how exactly does antagonizing the professor against me help either of us?" Lelouch said, staring at nothing. Suddenly, everything clicked for Suzaku.
"It amuses me." C.C. said, and now Suzaku could see her, draped over Lelouch's shoulders, kind of like a really big cat.
"Any chance we could convince you to announce yourself more often?" Suzaku tried, for what must have been the seventieth time. She merely smirked at him, not deigning to answer. It irked him a little, if he was totally honest. He had no idea where Lelouch had picked the girl up or how she'd become his partner; whenever he asked, Lelouch stonewalled him, and Suzaku had accepted that there were some things his friend wanted kept secret. He could certainly appreciate how having the help of someone like C.C. could be useful, especially to someone in Lelouch's situation, but having had to live with her for weeks—and now the foreseeable future—he was glad he was rarely the target of the drawbacks of that particular situation—and oh, were there drawbacks.
After Lelouch had managed to get C.C. off of him, they headed out onto the main avenue. It was a beautiful day outside—the skies were clear, the sun was still fairly high in the sky, and there was a cool breeze blowing down the road. Some of the other students were hanging around after class, talking amongst themselves. To Suzaku's surprise, a couple of them approached the two of them as they walked along.
"Soooo…" One brown haired boy said, looking up and down the street like he was checking to see if he'd been followed. He had, of course—there were several more students nearby, but apparently they didn't really seem to matter. "You're Lelouch, right?" He said, staring at Lelouch—and completely ignoring Suzaku. Rude.
"…yes." Lelouch said, frowning slightly.
"Is it true—are you really a prince?" A deer-antlered faunus girl asked, blushing as if she'd just asked him on a date. Lelouch stared at her, his expression returning to neutral but with growing concern in his eyes.
"Yes. Technically." He said, curtly.
"What d'you mean by 'technically'?" Someone else asked—a blonde-haired boy asked from the other end of the small crowd that was beginning to form. Suzaku and Lelouch had been forced to stop completely by this point. Lelouch was beginning to look concerned and irritated.
"There are subtleties to what the title of 'prince' means in Britannia," Lelouch said, trying to inch his way around the crowd. The crowd was having none of it.
"What kind of subtleties?" Someone else asked. Lelouch raised an eyebrow.
"Do you honestly want me to explain the complexities of Britannian succession to you?" He responded.
"Ye—" They began.
"How'd you get to be so strong?" Someone else asked, and that seemed to be the real question they were looking for, because everyone was suddenly totally silent.
"I… trained. A lot." Lelouch said. The crowd was not satisified.
"What's your semblance?" Someone else asked.
"Do your weapons transform?" Yet another someone else asked.
"Do you have a castle?" Asked still another one.
"Are you in a serious and/or committed relationship?" Asked a boy near the front with shockingly violet hair and entirely too much adoration in his eyes. Lelouch looked like he was beginning to panic, and Suzaku was seriously considering just clearing the crowd with his semblance.
"Yes, he is." C.C. responded from what Suzaku had believed to be an unoccupied space on Lelouch's other side, to his alarm. The crowd gasped.
"H-he… he is in a serious and/or committed relationship?" The violet-haired boy asked, looking heartbroken.
"Indeed. He and I have a special partnership." She said, pressing herself close to Lelouch's side. Suzaku blinked. Surely not…
Then he saw the volcano of irritation that was erupting in Lelouch's eyes. C.C. might have gone too far.
"That's not what this is at all—damn it C.C., Get off of me!" He said, trying to pull himself out of the green-haired girl's grasp, eliciting a gasp of shock from the crowd.
"That's so cruel!"
"How could he treat her like that, in front of everyone?"
"H-he must be one of those evil, tyrannical kind of princes."
"He could lock me up in his dungeon any day…"
That last one came from the violet-haired boy, and some of the crowd paused in their booing of Lelouch to stare at him. "What?" He said, blushing.
Lelouch, meanwhile, was desperately looking around for a way out of the situation, and had still not managed to pry C.C. off. Suzaku decided to lend a hand.
"Attention, everyone—as Lelouch's official representative, I'm afraid he won't be able to answer any more questions until the party in the royal suite. Now, I'm only going to say this once; this is location information for a private audience with his majesty, and since we don't want to invite too many people, those who know where it is are expected to keep it completely secret. Is everyone listening?" They were. "Now, the party's going to be—"
He blanched. "W-wh… what in the world are Ozpin and Port doing over there?" He shouted, pointing. Everyone turned to look. Smiling, he grabbed Lelouch and C.C. by the waist—not hard given how closely they were pressed together—and gathered all of his strength. It was harder with the three of them, but he activated his semblance and pushed off of the ground, launching them into the sky. He gathered the air underneath them, propelled them rapidly through the air towards a nearby tree, and then cushioned the landing in their branches so that barely a leaf rustled. The crowd turned around, realized that their subject had disappeared, then cried out in shock. They stuck together for a moment, searching around for the three of them, but they gave up pretty quickly.
"So that's what it's like to be famous, huh. Thanks, Suzaku. Without your quick thinking," Lelouch glared at C.C., "I don't know what I would have done," he finished, before collapsing back onto a branch in mental exhaustion.
"You can thank Milly for that one. She had me pull the same trick to get her away from a band of overeager suitors, once." Suzaku said, then turned to C.C. "Anything to say for yourself?" Suzaku asked the green-haired girl, who smirked.
"It was fun." She said. She laid back onto her own branch. "I don't suppose you'd understand, Mr. white knight."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Suzaku asked, crossing his arms.
"You're dull. It makes you hard to tease. Not like this tyrannical prince over here." She patted Lelouch's knee. Suzaku wasn't sure whether he felt insulted or lucky. A bit of both, maybe.
"Remind me again why I deign to keep you around, C.C.?" Lelouch growled, still staring up at the canopy.
"Because we're partners, you and I. Because I will never abandon you and I will never leave your side, not unless you truly need me to." She said, with a seriousness that gave Suzaku goosebumps. What in the world… exactly how serious was their relationship, anyway?
"And most importantly, because having me around is the closest you'll ever get to being in the arms of an attractive young woman." C.C. said. Lelouch sat up, something between outrage and embarrassment flitting across his face, and opened his mouth to issue what was almost certainly going to be a stinging rebuke—and then the branch gave way beneath him with a sharp crack and he dropped down out of sight.
Suzaku dropped out of the tree, landing softly next to Lelouch, who was beginning the process of picking himself up. C.C. dropped down beside them as Lelouch brushed off his outfit. Lelouch stopped for a moment, stared at his clothing, and sighed.
"Suzaku, how long do we have before dinner?" He asked. Suzaku reached into his pocket and took out his watch—his father's watch, he remembered with a pang of regret.
"About half an hour." He said after doing a quick calculation.
"Well, apparently I've forgotten to change back into my uniform, and I could probably use a shower after that fight, so I'm going to go back to the locker room. You and C.C. should head to the dorms and rendezvous with Kallen, and then we can all meet up at the mess hall." Lelouch said.
"No." C.C. said, politely.
"No? What do you mean, no?" Lelouch asked.
"No, you're not sending me off with Suzaku. We're partners." C.C. said.
"C.C…" Lelouch said, tone growing a little dangerous, "you are not going to watch me shower."
"What? How could you suggest such a thing?" C.C. said, covering her heart with a hand in what was rather obviously fake shock.
"C.C.—" Lelouch began.
"I'm serious, Lelouch. I'm not letting you out of my sight," She said. She sounded more determined than lecherous this time.
"…well, fine. But if I catch you looking at me once…" Lelouch trailed off ominously, and C.C. rolled her eyes—apparently that was enough for Lelouch, as he then turned to Suzaku.
"I'll see you soon, then—make sure your partner isn't plotting some sort of assassination attempt in our room." Lelouch said, mostly joking. Suzaku chuckled.
"Will do. Have fun, you two." He said, leaving with Lelouch's frustrated sigh behind him.
It didn't take very long to get to the dorm room. He opened the door without thinking, only to realize too late that Kallen might not be fully decent. Thankfully, she was completely clothed as he walked through the door, although her deer-in-the-headlights look suggested he might have interrupted something private. His eyes flickered to the title of the book she was reading. Huh… he'd seen her read books before, but he hadn't realized that Kallen was a 'Ninjas of Love' kind of girl. She rapidly stuffed the book under her pillow, face blushing red, and Suzaku felt his own face heat up more than a little.
"Ah, um, sorry—" He started.
"Nothing!" She said.
"…I didn't mean to—" He tried.
"—Is what I was doing. Nothing." She continued. They both stared at each other for a moment.
"So… dinner's going to be soon." He said.
"Dinner! Great. I'm glad." She said, expression somewhere between a smile and a grimace. The awkward silence returned.
"I'll just… wait outside." Suzaku said, backing slowly out of the doorway before easing the door behind him. He stared at the closed door for a moment, then decided to lean against the opposite wall and wait as he tried to figure out exactly what had just happened. It didn't take him long to decide that it was maybe a good idea to never think about or mention that particular encounter again.
After another minute or so, Kallen came out and looked him straight in the eye.
"So, we're just going to pretend you didn't see anything just then, right?" She said, more of a demand than a question. Suzaku nodded.
"Good. So, what've you been up to?" She asked. Suzaku was eager to embrace a new topic.
"Mostly saving Lelouch from a crowd of adoring fans, if you can believe it." He said. Kallen stared at him.
"What?" She asked. Suzaku chuckled, then filled her in on the events of the afternoon.
"Wow—I can't believe you had to pull one of Milly's tactics, of all things." She said, grinning, but after a moment, her grin faded. "I hope she's doing alright without us."
"Of course she is." Suzaku said, smiling. "Milly's got an entire school to terrorize—us not being around just means some other innocent, unsuspecting students will be getting the Milly treatment."
"I guess I should probably be feeling bad for them instead of Milly." Kallen said, smiling. "I wonder who she's trying to play matchmaker with with us gone?"
"Probably Rivalz and Shirley." Suzaku suggested. Both of them laughed at that idea.
"Hey… so, that girl Lelouch fought today, she's the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, right?" Kallen asked. Suzaku nodded.
"I don't really understand why she has it out for Lelouch, but it seems like a good idea to stay out of her way from now on." He said. Kallen nodded.
"Yeah, sure… it's just, she seems really good. I feel like I would've had a tough time beating her." She paused.
"You really think you could?" Suzaku said, innocently.
"Wha—of course! I could beat her down any day. Some supportive partner you are, " Kallen said, before seeing his smile. "Oh, hah hah, very funny. Look, that's not what I'm talking about." She said.
They both moved aside to let some other students pass, pausing their conversation.
"What I'm getting at," Kallen continued, "is that your royal highness friend wiped the floor with her. How the heck did he even get that strong?" She finished. Suzaku frowned.
"To be honest, I'm not really sure." He said. His partner stared back at him, a bit incredulous.
"Hey, it's the truth. You can always go and ask him yourself." He said. She blanched at that.
"No, that's fine." She said. Suzaku frowned.
"Is there something wrong?" He asked.
"It's fine." She said, crossing her arms. Which was to say, it was not fine.
"If you say so," He said, and paused. "Hey, just so you know, you can talk to me if you need to. I take my role as a supportive partner pretty seriously, after all." He said. That made her smile.
"Yeah… okay. It's not like it's a huge thing or anything. It's just that, I don't know…" she looked up at the ceiling. "I made my decision on this pretty fast, and now I'm on a completely different continent, at a completely new school…" She drifted off for a moment. Suzaku felt his stomach sink.
"Are you… I mean, have you reconsidered? I'm sure we could get you on an airship back if—" Suzaku began, but she glanced back sharply at that.
"No! Thank you, but… I'm fine with the decision I made. It's just taking a little adjusting to." She looked back down at her feet. "Mainly I'm just missing all my friends from back home."
"Oh. Yeah… I understand." Suzaku said, thinking for a moment. "Well, upside to a new school is that you get to make new friends, right?"
"I guess so. I kinda thought of that as more of a 'have to' than a 'get to'." Kallen said.
"Well, we're going to a school full of fighters with crazy weapons and crazier personalities." He smiled. "There're bound to be some fun people to talk to."
"Hi there! Is it all right if we sit here? Thank you so much." An orange-haired girl said with outrageous amounts of cheer, sitting down on the opposite side of the table.
"Ah…" Suzaku said, trying to find a polite way to tell her to leave. Nothing came to mind.
"Hey, that spot's taken." Kallen said. Bluntness was also a strategy, Suzaku supposed.
"Ooh, don't worry, we're just popping in for a quick chat—aren't we, Renny? We've got our own team to get back to in a sec." The girl said to a boy who'd approached slightly more slowly and now sat down into the spot that was nominally C.C.'s. Suzaku tensed up for a moment, but was glad that no green-haired girl appeared. It would've been just like her to have been sitting there the whole time.
"Yep." Renny said.
"Oh." Suzaku glanced over at Kallen, who shrugged.
"So, we were just walkin' around the other day, and we heard something a little funny. We checked around and confirmed it. So, now we're wondering…" the girl's stare hardened, "why someone from Mistral would ever get anywhere near that ship, and also be all pal-sy with a Britannian prince." She finished, heavily emphasizing the 'ince' . It took Suzaku a moment to figure out that they were talking about him.
"I'm not sure I want to give an answer to those questions to people I don't know at all." He said, not sure what else to do. "I'm Suzaku Kururugi. What do you two call yourselves?" The two glanced at each other, and Suzaku began to feel like he'd entered into some kind of negotiation.
"I'm Nora Valkyrie, and this is Lie Ren. We're from team JNPR." Nora said.
"I'm Kallen. Nice to meet you." Kallen said, barely leaking any sarcasm.
"So—spill it, buster." Nora demanded, thumping her fist on the table. It would've been funny if she hadn't looked so serious.
"Well, first of all, it wasn't up to me. Second of all, Lelouch is an old friend. Does that answer your questions?" Suzaku asked.
"No, it does not! It wasn't up to you? An old friend? All you've done is give me more questions!" Nora stood, looming over Suzaku with murder in her eyes. He resisted the urge to shrink back in fear.
"Am I gonna have to break your legs?" She said, quietly… solemnly… as if it was a prayer. Suzaku reached for his sword, realized he didn't have it, began to panic internally and started to scan the table for some sort of utensil to defend himself with.
"Okay, did you just try to threaten my partner right in front of me?" Kallen asked, standing up as well.
"You wanna dance, girly?" Nora the terrifying demonic entity asked, reaching down to—was she going to pick up the whole bench?
"Who you calling girly? I could take you any day." Kallen replied, grabbing a full coffee mug. That didn't exactly fill Suzaku with confidence.
"Ohoho, I am going to make you eat those words—and some teeth." Nora the monster-from-Hell said, smiling.
"Ookay, that's enough of that." Ren said, standing up. "We may have gotten off on the wrong foot here. Sorry about all this."
"Wah—Aw, but Reeeeeen…" Nora said, demeanor changing almost completely.
"C'mon, Nora." Ren said, tugging her along by her jacket sleeve.
"This—this isn't over! I know where you sleep!" Nora shouted, before at last disappearing with he partner into the greater confusion that was the pre-dinner mess hall.
"What was that all about?" Lelouch asked, sitting down in the spot where, for Suzaku, the ghost of Nora still lingered.
"You don't want to know." Suzaku said. After getting a good look at his face, Lelouch seemed to concur with that.
The rest of dinner went pretty smoothly—just food, and talk, and a little more food, and more talk. It wasn't long at all before the four of them headed back to their dorms, finished the next day's homework, took turns taking showers, and went to bed.
Suzaku woke to a breath of cold air. It was still dark, and his vision was blurred with sleep, but there was definitely a pale sort of light. As his vision cleared up, he realized what it was—moonlight, pouring through an open window. Something was locking it, however. A figure…
Adrenaline brought him fully awake in an instant. An assassin?
No… he recognized that silhouette, leaning against the side of the window frame.
"Lelouch…?" He asked. Lelouch turned, glanced at him. There was something alien in his eyes, something that Suzaku had never seen before.
"You should go back to sleep, Suzaku." Lelouch said, turning back to stare at something outside of the window that Suzaku couldn't see. The moon?
"Why are you still awake?" He asked.
"I couldn't sleep. Nightmares." Lelouch replied. Suzaku thought a moment, then frowned.
"Why did you open the window?" Suzaku asked. "What are you…" A chilling sort of fear, colder than the wind coming through the window, crept down Suzaku's back, and he slowly slid out from under the warmth of his bed covers.
"Do you ever wonder about how easy it would be? How quickly it happens?" Lelouch asked, voice sounding distant."It could just take a single instant."
"Lelouch, what are you talking about?" Suzaku asked. Lelouch turned back to him, gaze bizarrely serene.
"Death, I mean. It could be so quick, so simple… all the struggle, all the pain, just gone." Lelouch said, not quite seeing Suzaku. Suzaku began to panic.
"Lelouch, I think you should step back from the ledge now." Suzaku said, trying to keep his voice eve, calm. This couldn't be happening.
"What?" Lelouch asked, before letting out a flat mockery of a chuckle. "Oh, no, I realize what this looks like—I'm not going to kill myself, Suzaku. I can't. Not yet."
"Then…" Suzaku couldn't even begin to imagine what was going on. "Why are you standing in the window?" He finally asked.
"I'm going out. Didn't want to risk being followed." Lelouch said. Suzaku noticed the sword clutched in his friend's right hand.
"Where?" Suzaku asked.
"Does it matter?" Lelouch replied.
"Yeah, it matters to me." Suzaku said. "What if something happened to you?"
Lelouch just shrugged. turning back towards the open window. They were three stories up…
"I can't let you do this." Suzaku said. Lelouch shook his head.
"Go back to sleep, Suzaku. I'll be back." Lelouch said. Before Suzaku could do anything about it, Lelouch hurled himself out of the window.
Suzaku rushed over to the now unblocked frame, only to see his friend land, roll, and sprint off into the darkness. Not knowing what else to do, he shut it tightly, though he didn't twist the lock. Feeling numb, cold, tired and confused, he stumbled past a still-snoring Kallen to his own bed, and lay back down. Before long, he'd fallen back asleep.
Running, flying through the night. Rage had boiled over. It filled every limb, made each muscle burn. It seemed limitless—it had been kept quiet for too long. Need to fight. Need to bleed. Need to kill.
The first two were beowolves, which was right. Prowling among the trees—oh the hatred of them burned brighter than all the rest. They were torn apart, eviscerated, decapitated. An ursa was next, then two more; then, a deathstalker. Then, it was beowolves again. They began to blur together, their dust began to coat the ground underfoot. Where were the rest? There had to be more. There was one—bisected. Keep coming. Keep going. Slice them to bits. Roar in defiance—don't stop. Never stop. Never…
Small, pale hands, reaching out from the black…
Slice. Cut. Stab. Rip. Tear. Destroy. Destroy. Destroy them all.
The Emerald Forest rang with the sounds of battle. A swordsman danced through the dark, weaving a waltz of annihilation for all Grimm who dared to approach, cackling laughter echoing through the woods, face wet with tears.
A green-haired woman followed, keeping a silent watch, unnoticed in the night.