"I told myself I was saving him, by giving him a new life as Zero. I did want to save him. But deep down, I was angry with him, too, C.C., because I thought—I thought my first friend, the one who taught me what friendship was, had forgotten that lesson, that he only remembered anger and vengeance."
Lelouch closed his eyes, pained.
"I thought the 'punishment' I gave would force him to remember, that I could instill the duty to give to the world what I truly wanted from him, as if being the one to draw out that dedication would be as good as regaining it myself. But I miscalculated. All this time, he did remember. He did. He was reaching for me, and I just couldn't see his hand for all the pain and betrayal between us."
"There's no need to sit around the table moaning about it to me, Lelouch," the witch declared with her usual bluntness, having little patience for his monologues when she'd run out of pizza. "If you want to be friends with him so badly, just reach back."
Lelouch laughed, bitterly. "I can't, C.C. That's the most frustrating thing. Because as soon as I've solved this mystery, I've got to die again, so trying to restore our friendship now would just end up being another twist of the knife, when the inevitable parting comes. In fact, every day that we spend together is going to make things harder. That's why I have to make progress as quickly as possible."
His Chinese contacts had turned up nothing, though, despite the risk he'd taken in reconnecting, however briefly, to a world that needed to believe him dead. His only solace was that at least the destruction of the Geass Order, to all appearances, had been complete. Accordingly, Lelouch had decided to spend the day researching every arms dealer, warlord, and would be dictator who might have profited from increased geopolitical instability. He'd certainly found that there was still malfeasance in the world; however, there was also no evidence of ambitious, well orchestrated international plots.
Frustrated, Lelouch tried thinking over what had happened to him the morning of Zero Requiem one more time. After all, as Suzaku had pointed out at the tomb, it might be that Lelouch had some personal information that could help.
Three hours later, after going over every paper he'd signed, every conversation he'd had, and every minor twist of C.C.'s expression, he decided in complete dejection that his recollections hadn't given him any clues at all.
Maybe I am focusing on the wrong things.
His thoughts went back to sigil's location. Why there?
If I had to receive the Code before the assassination, how did the sigil end up in exactly the place Suzaku stabbed me? Was the sword somehow drawn to the sigil, or—
No, what if the timing were reversed? It would make much more sense if that were the case: I received the sigil in the place I was stabbed.
Unfortunately, that could only have happened if he'd gotten the Code while surrounded by a crowd of thousands, while on live T.V., no less. Lelouch had already thoroughly reviewed the footage several times (on mute during Nunnally's screams), finding nothing of value.
How could a Code be transferred, if the only ones near me were Suzaku and Nunnally?
Granted, they were two of the few people in the world who might have some motivation to make sure that he survived, but they were also incredibly unlikely to have left him helplessly entombed for three weeks. Besides which, neither of them had so much as a Geass, much less a Code.
Could there be any way to receive a Code without the one transferring it being visible? He tried to think of all possible means, but contact was an absolute necessity according to C.C.
What would the minimum contact be?
He remembered that time during the battle of Narita, where C.C. had been able to flood Suzaku with memories, merely by coming into contact with the Knightmare frame he was in.
She touched something he was touching...
Lelouch's eyes widened in realization, mind suddenly spinning down a dozen previously uncharted corridors at once, and he laughed bitterly to himself, disappointed at how easily he'd allowed his efforts to be misdirected. "Of course. How foolish. Just like the rest of the world, I was searching for the supreme orchestrator of evil. But I, more than anyone, should know that it's just a mirage. The Massacre Princess was just a helpless victim herself, and even my own father was simply a petty creature trapped in the mentality of a terrified child, unable to face the future. What if there is no actual Demon Emperor? What if this wasn't a nefarious plot at all?"
He had the insight, much as it galled him that he'd allowed himself to fall into the same snare he'd set for the rest of the world. It was just a matter of narrowing down the variables, now. Lelouch was sure his clothing and his vehicle in the procession had been brand new. He'd made certain of that personally, since he knew there would be so many eyes watching the legend of Zero unfold.
So the only option left, the only foreign object I had contact with...
"Suzaku!" he called, rushing out into the living room.
"Hmm?" his friend responded distractedly, looking up from a half read U.F.N. resolution and blinking a bit at the sudden interruption.
"You confirmed for me that C.C. cut her fingers the morning of Zero Requiem. Is there a chance any of her blood might have gotten on the sword itself?"
"Well, seeing as the sword is exactly what she was cut on, I guess so," Suzaku told him, obviously not understanding the significance.
Lelouch took a moment to process that, to redo his calculations, remembering how she'd tried to get him to ignore the placement of the sigil...
"C.C.!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.
"You so graciously called?" she drawled, when she finally sauntered out to join them.
"Your blood was on the sword that Suzaku used to stab me," Lelouch accused. "That was the contact necessary to transfer the Code. You left me to rot for weeks—"
"I didn't know, then," C.C. cut in, curtailing the full rise of his fury. "At the time I cut my fingers, it never occurred to me that such a small amount could be enough, especially since our physical bodies were so far apart. It wasn't until after we found you and you told me where your sigil was—and then Suzaku mentioned to me that he'd only cleaned the sword once, the night after Zero Requiem—that I realized what might have happened."
"Then why didn't you tell me as soon as you found out?" he demanded, remembering how thoroughly she'd tried to embarrass him, every time he'd started thinking about the placement of the sigil. You were deliberately distracting me.
She smirked. "Your problem is that you lack purpose, Lelouch, so I thought I'd let you amuse yourself for a little while longer, searching for the truth." Her face grew sad, then, and she toyed idly with a strand of her long hair. "It's a shame you had to figure it out and end the game so quickly."
Lelouch stared at her, surprised. I lacked purpose, so you tried to give me a new one. He knew where she'd gotten that idea. The bindings of duty... He snorted self-depreciatingly. "I really am as bad as him sometimes, aren't I?" he asked in sudden wonder, before his former anger returned with his scowl. "And you're just as inveterate a liar as I am, C.C.!"
"Hey, who were you talking about, exactly?" Suzaku cut in. "That part about your being as bad as someone?"
"No one," Lelouch and C.C. answered together, and Suzaku scowled at them both.
"Why is it nobody ever explains anything to me? It's always lies and secrets with you two!"
"That's because you're always twisting yourself up inside, at the slightest provocation. If you would learn not to let your guilt run so rampant, maybe I would explain more," Lelouch retorted.
"Me? My guilt? Maybe there have been times where I wanted to die, but you're the one who meticulously orchestrated your own death!"
"That was because the world needed the Demon Emperor to die!"
"You're saying that you didn't see it as an atonement? Your guilt didn't motivate you at all?"
"I was saving the world, so what should I feel guilty for?!"
Suzaku narrowed his eyes at him, practically snarling through his clenched teeth and tightening fists. "You...! Sometimes, I can't believe your absolute gall! How can you lie that much with a completely straight face?"
"I don't know what you're talk—"
"I know, Lelouch," Suzaku cut in, with such forceful certainty that even the former Emperor was halted. "I know," he continued, his voice quieting, "about Euphy."
"What?" Lelouch asked, feeling something quake inside him.
"C.C. told me."
"What did she tell you," Lelouch demanded, trying to keep his voice strong, even as he felt like he wanted to cower or collapse or die all over again. I knew I was missing something, but it couldn't be... Even C.C. wouldn't dare to interfere in this!
"If you told someone to jump off a cliff as a joke, but your Geass was unintentionally active, you would have no way to take back the command, would you, Lelouch? With Euphy, you never meant to—"
Rather than letting him finish, Lelouch whirled toward the witch responsible, full of fury and pained betrayal, and practically screamed, "How could you! Why would you tell him? Didn't you realize that it would only make it harder—" Lelouch cut himself off abruptly, his eyes widening. "No, of course you realized. That's exactly why you did it, isn't you?" he accused.
When C.C. merely remained silent, Lelouch turned warily back toward Suzaku. "When did she tell you?"
Suzaku licked his lips. "The morning before..." They all knew he didn't have the strength to say: I killed you. "The morning before Zero Requiem," Suzaku finished unsteadily, instead.
When Lelouch turned back to C.C., it was with unholy anger in his eyes, his hands clenching menacingly. "You told him to try to get him to back out!"
"I was just making certain he knew what he was doing," C.C. replied.
"What gives you the right—"
"Enough, Lelouch!" Suzaku interrupted, grabbing his shoulder to turn him back around so they were fully facing each other. "What makes you think I didn't deserve the truth? About Euphy, if nothing else!"
"Suzaku," Lelouch began, and his anger suddenly abandoned him. "What good will it do you to carry even more guilt?"
"So you're claiming it's better, to think that my best friend was a heartless monster? It's better, to think that everything was just an act to you, and my own heart was so blind that I couldn't even tell the difference between real and fake, when it came to the most important friendship of my life?"
Lelouch winced, remembering his own painful recognition of his family's true coldness, following his mother's death. He sometimes still dreamed of putting a bullet through Clovis's head, and how sick he'd felt to realize that the enemy who'd carelessly ordered the slaughter of so many innocents in Shinjuku was the very same charming older brother who'd drawn such beautiful pictures of Nunnally.
"...I know that lie must have hurt you, but should I have just let your guilt sap the life from you instead?"
"If we are alive because we feel, Lelouch," C.C. said, "and we feel because we care about others, then what does it do to a person if he can't tell whether those bonds are real or not?"
"C.C., you can't be comparing my lying about my intentions to your own experiences!" Your Geass affected everyone around you, so that you forgot what a true human interaction was like—though even you had the one who granted you the Geass in the first place.
...That's what you're really saying, isn't it? Because you could trust only her to be unaffected by your Geass, you felt your relationship was the only true one you had. So when it turned out it was all just a lie... Of course, how can you want to continue living, if you feel that even the things that matter most aren't real?
But C.C., what right did you have to intervene with Suzaku? What if he's not strong enough to bear yet another layer of guilt? He would never have known I was lying if you hadn't told him!
"Suzaku, what I did to Euphy would have been the same no matter what reason I gave. At least if I kept quiet, you could hate me thoroughly and not feel conflicted about it."
Suzaku's expression twisted, somewhere between anger and agony. "What gives you the right to decide how I should feel? To fill me up with so much poisonous hatred—the things I did, Lelouch, because of that rage, the sins I committed!" he shouted. "How was that better?! I would rather feel guilty every day for the rest of my life for killing my best friend, than to hate the world because I felt I never truly had a friend in the first place!"
"Suzaku—"
"You had no right to lie to me about this, and you have no right to be angry at her, for only telling me the truth!"
"You accept suffering so easily, as if it is your due, but how can I possibly be satisfied with a world where you're a slave to your own misery?" Lelouch demanded. I don't care if that's a selfish sentiment. If I'm willing to sacrifice my own life, aren't I allowed to choose what the repercussions should be? "Whether you're guilty or hateful, neither is acceptable! So I thought, if you could kill the one you hated, the one you swore to destroy and thereby avenge Euphemia... If you could start out fresh, that loss laid to rest, with a new identity and a new purpose..."
After all I did to you, after I destroyed you so thoroughly...
"After Britannia invaded, you never seemed to be able to take any happiness for yourself, but I thought, if you could pursue a selfless goal, perhaps you would be able to take satisfaction in that. If you had trouble taking pride in yourself anymore, I thought I would make the whole world recognize you as a hero. Maybe, after a few years, you would finally realize that you are one."
It wasn't only Nunnally. I wanted to make this a better world for everyone—you particularly.
"Now you'll just waste your life, feeling miserable for things that weren't your fault in the first place! You will pay and pay an endless debt that isn't yours, when this world was made so that you could be happy in it! How is that better? How can that possibly be better?!" he screamed back.
I need to calm down, to think, recalculate, now that I know...
He wrenched away from Suzaku's temporarily nerveless fingers to give C.C. a poisonous glare. "How dare you betray me like this!" he shouted furiously, before storming off to lock himself in the bathroom, until either his deadly anger calmed or eternity passed—whichever was sooner.