"Are you sure you really want to come, Kallen?" Ougi asked her. "I mean, I'm grateful for the offer, but don't you have school?"
She only felt a small twinge of guilt for playing hooky as she insisted, "This is more important."
"Well, I don't want you to get too far behind in class, but I would be glad to have some support at the meeting, for once. So many people don't take these budgeting sessions seriously, even though, when you think about it, nothing will get done if the U.F.N. runs out of money, right?"
"Yes, of course," she said, because Zero had apparently departed for Britannia soon after leaving the typhoon site, and it so happened that Ougi would also be making the trip in just a couple of hours. If she could only convince him to take her along... "I remember how we used to scrounge around for funds, when we were just a tiny resistance cell."
Naoto, we finally did it. Japan is proud and strong and free once more, and the man most responsible...perhaps I haven't truly lost him, after all.
Ougi got a far off look on his face for a moment. "Yes. Well, if you're interested in coming, Kallen, then I'd be happy to have you along. I'll have another meeting with Schneizel immediately after we land, but if you're okay with amusing yourself for a few hours before the budget reconciliation meeting starts..."
"I'll be fine, Ougi," she told him, already knowing how she'd be spending the time. If Zero won't answer his phone, then I'll just have to go to him.
She did feel a little guilty by the time she stepped out of Ougi's private jet onto Britannian soil, though. She'd been given the red carpet treatment the whole trip, people constantly bowing and speaking to her with the highest respect, just because she happened to be accompanying the Prime Minister.
Ougi is representing all of Japan, and here I am, taking advantage of our past history to use him as a taxi service.
It felt uncomfortably like she was taking advantage of her country itself. Now that she thought of it, she wondered why Ougi had even made time to meet with a nobody like her, when she'd unexpectedly gone to see him earlier. He's the Prime Minister. Her shoes were probably too dirty to even step onto the carpeting of his office. Now that she'd permanently cast off her Stadtfeld name, the limo they'd taken to the airport was likely worth more than anything she'd ever be able to purchase for the rest of her life. Everything on Ougi's private jet had been sparklingly clean and brand new, a proud symbol of a reborn nation, which only made her feel more out of place in her well worn Black Knights uniform. Even Ougi's constant body guards were better dressed than her.
I'm still just the girl from that shoestring resistance cell, but Ougi is the leader of the nation, now.
"I guess I'm really under dressed to be walking around with the Prime Minister, huh?" Kallen asked, nervously adjusting her collar as they walked into the Imperial Palace. Despite being a temporary location while Pendragon was being rebuilt, it still looked imposing, even more so than when she'd come for the peace summit, shortly after Lelouch's death.
But maybe, he didn't really...
Ougi gave her a warm, reassuring look. "I actually only wear such formal clothing because Viletta insists that I have to represent Japan well," he confided. He smiled soothingly. "Don't worry so much about it, Kallen. You look just fine. Besides which, you're every bit as much a war hero as I am, perhaps more. You deserve respect for much more important reasons than clothing."
His kindness actually only made her feel worse for deceiving him, but Viletta had always spoken so forcefully against Lelouch, Kallen didn't think Ougi would be able to see things the way she did any time soon.
"Thanks, Ougi," she told him instead. "I'll see you at the budget meeting, then?"
He nodded. "Wish me luck with Schneizel!"
"Good luck!" She plastered a smile onto her face as she waved goodbye. If it's Schneizel you're negotiating with, you're going to need it.
Kallen had hoped at first that she might be able to get to Zero through Nunnally, but it turned out that the Empress was currently tied up in a disaster response meeting to address the brewing trouble that the drought in the M.E.F. had caused. Zero, surprisingly, hadn't turned out to be with her. He doesn't answer his phone, and he's not even accompanying Nunnally like normal? If they were in the same location, he was almost always at her side.
It dampened her hopes of finding him, even though Kallen had heard from Ougi that Zero had actually cancelled a few public appearances, in favor of taking some time off. Since he's not at any of the Black Knights' bases, that means he must be here, right? Kallen was soon pleasantly surprised to discover that Nunnally had apparently left a standing invitation for her, which got her into practically every room in the palace—except, of course, the one place she wanted to be.
I'm sorry to take advantage of your hospitality like this, Nunnally, but...
"I told you: I'm a very important member of the Black Knights. I need to see Zero about an extremely urgent matter!"
"I'm sorry, Ms. Kouzuki, but we absolutely cannot allow anyone through to Lord Zero's rooms, under any circumstances," the guard answered staunchly, for the third time.
"Fine," Kallen ground out, storming off to look for another way in. Unfortunately, every single entrance to the entire wing was covered—there were even multiple guards posted to second story windows. All the more amazingly, every one of them was heavily armed and looked alert.
This is ridiculous. Why is there so much security? Kallen had of course seen bodyguards posted around VIP quarters before, but for a single residence inside the already well guarded palace, this was unheard of. You'd think they were keeping the entire royal treasury in here, not just one man.
A sudden thought occurred to her.
What if it's not just one man?
That, of course, was the beginning of one of the stupidest plans of her life.
Well, perhaps "plan" was too auspicious a word for exactly what she did. It was more like impulse and adrenalin powered determination to find Lelouch again, if he still existed anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, even the surprise of using a set of tied draperies to swing out of an adjacent wing and in through the second story windows of Zero's didn't gain her much time. She'd barely dashed around the corner before the guards started giving chase.
Kallen was fast enough to outrun that set, but apparently there were another two posted further along down the hallway, and she barely had time to duck down another corridor before they brought their guns up. She sprinted blindly from that point on, not knowing anything about the layout of the wing, except that Zero's room was probably somewhere in the center, away from the windows.
Blood pounding through her ears, she rounded another corridor only to come face to face with a group of four guards. Before they could aim their guns, she kicked one back into another, hit the third in the solar plexus, and swept the feet out from under the last. Then she was running again, feet pounding so hard against the floor that she could feel the transmitted force of each impact rattling through her teeth. There was a set of stairs, and she took it down, as bullets chewed through the doorway above her, raining splinters into her hair.
No, let me just get to him, please...
She pulled down a decorative statue as she ran past, in order to stop the cadre of guards following her from coming at her from behind, only to see more coming from up ahead. No choice, she thought, her knees protesting as she turned without breaking her sprint, in order to run full tilt up the side of the wall, past the fallen statue and the shocked guards that had been behind her. She barely outpaced the hail of trailing gunfire.
Damn it. I can't keep running like this. Where is...
The sudden sight of what looked like a doorbell, installed into the wall in the middle of a windowless corridor, caught her eye.
That must be...
With renewed hope, she pushed her leaden legs a little harder, ignoring the protests of her burning lungs and the guards that were coming directly at her from the direction she was charging. It didn't matter if they got her boxed in now, as long as she could get to that door.
Almost there. Almost...
The door suddenly opened, and Zero stepped out into a corridor thundering with the footsteps of what might have been every member of the entire Britannian security force. "What is going on—"
Zero!
She wanted to call out to him. She would have, if only she had enough breath in her burning lungs to do so. Instead, she satisfied herself with at least closing the distance between them at a dead run.
"She's going to assassinate him! Protect Zero!" one of the guards screamed.
"No, don't—" Zero started saying, but he never got to finish.
They opened fire.
Kallen ducked and rolled, but there were so many guards firing so many guns, all she could really hope for was that they all had really bad aim. Her skin shivered with a sharp, almost painful staccato of electric jolts as her momentum carried her across the carpet, closer to Zero.
"Stop! Stop!" Zero screamed at what must have been the top of his lungs. He was at her side in the next instant, kneeling down over her still tucked form, and she looked up at him through the hands she had braced protectively over her head.
"Play dead," he whispered to her quietly, urgently. Because it was Zero saying that, she obeyed before she even thought to question the command.
"The intruder is dead!" Zero quickly announced, after only the most cursory examination, standing up to command the guards. "Back to your posts, all of you! I'll handle things here."
"But Lord Zero, we should—"
"You should get back to your posts, in case she wasn't alone! Now, move!" he barked.
"Yes, sir!" the guards chorused, the sounds of their footsteps heavy as they tromped away.
"Kallen..." Embarrassingly, he managed to pick her up before she could even think to protest and then proceeded to carry her into what must have been his suite.
As soon as the door locked behind them, Zero set her down to wrench off his mask, and Kallen got her first sight of a supposedly dead man for the day.
She gasped, taking a step back. That traitor... It made her feel filthy that she'd even let him lay a hand on her.
"Lelouch!" Suzaku screamed desperately. "Lelouch, please!"
The sound of a door opening came from further inside the suite, and then a second dead man came into view.
"Suzaku, did you find out what the security emergency w—" He stopped mid-sentence, staring at her in shock, violet eyes almost comically wide.
"The guards thought she was an assassin and opened fire!" Suzaku told him, the distress clear in his voice. "I had to use my Geass on her," he admitted more quietly, but at that moment she couldn't be bothered to get upset if Suzaku had used a Geass to make her play dead or whatever it was he had commanded. All that she really cared about was the fact that Lelouch was standing there in front of her, alive.
"Lelouch!" she said, taking a step toward him and feeling her heart pound even harder, if possible. The muscles of her cheek almost hurt, she was smiling so widely. "Lelouch, you're alive!"
Instead of reflecting her joy, though, Lelouch was staring at her with an expression of intense agony.
"Oh, Kallen, I'm so sorry."
"You should be, for letting me think you betrayed us all—for making me think you were dead!" She wanted to stay angry at him for a while, because it had hurt, but in the next moment she was moving toward him again, just so happy to see him breathing. "But I forgive you, Lelouch. I knew you couldn't really be a bad person. It was your plan all along, wasn't it, to bring the world peace?"
"I wanted you to enjoy that peace yourself, Kallen," he said, and his voice was still so strangely sad. "I wanted you to go back to school, and..."
"I am back in school," she reassured him. Because when we were in exile in the Chinese Federation, you said, after all this was over, you wanted me to come back to Ashford with you.
"But now, because of me, you'll never get to finish," Lelouch said, and for some reason she couldn't understand, he actually seemed to be on the verge of tears.
Why does he think I'll never finish? It's true that I'd rather stay at his side, but if he really wants me to complete high school that much...
"Maybe it's not as bad as it looks," Suzaku said, with an unusual undertone of hopeful desperation in his voice. "Maybe if we get her to the hospital—"
"Suzaku, she has so many bullet holes in her shirt, it's indecent!" Lelouch practically screamed in return, all semblance of patience gone. Kallen was caught off guard by his sudden fury, while Suzaku rapidly began looking very uncomfortable, casting his eyes down and away from both of them. Even more strangely, he seemed to be blushing a bit.
"Um, yes, well, I—I see your point," Suzaku stuttered out. Lelouch's face was also starting to get a bit red.
"What are you—" Kallen looked down, only to find that her shirt and jacket were almost completely shredded, the few remaining scraps of fabric doing very little to conceal anything at all. Did something happen that I don't remember, because of Geass? Another thought occurred to her, and by the time she looked up again, she was furious, too. "You've just been standing there, staring at me this whole time?!" She probably would have commenced with some sort of physical violence at that point, if the deft movements of Lelouch's fingers hadn't distracted her.
As soon as he'd finished unbuttoning his shirt, Lelouch slid it off his shoulders, holding it out to her while looking away. "Here." By that point, it would have been a little hypocritical to stay angry, considering that she was doing a lot of staring herself.
Well, but he chose to take it off in front of me, so...
Lelouch frowned slightly and took a blind half step toward her, in order to hold the shirt out a little more closely. Belatedly, Kallen realized that he was offering it to her to cover up with.
Oh. Of course. Right. I knew that.
She accepted the shirt with a small blush of her own, shrugging off her shredded garments before pulling it closed around herself. The sleeves were too long, and it was a little...tight around the chest. It smelled like him, though, and Kallen had always found Lelouch charming on those rare occasions where he actually acted like a gentleman.
"Thank you," she murmured, blushing a little harder.
Lelouch raised his eyes to look at her very sadly again. "I wish there were more I could do for you, Kallen." He hesitated for a moment, before asking, "You came here because I showed up at the typhoon site, didn't you?"
"So it was you! I knew it!" she exclaimed.
Lelouch, I would recognize you anywhere!
Kallen wasn't sure what response she'd been expecting, but it definitely wasn't for his face to crease up in apparent agony. He turned away from her, bracing his arm against the wall and leaning his head down into it. "Then, this is all my fault. Damn it!" he swore, pounding his fist against the wall for emphasis, the line of his shoulders trembling. "I never should have gone out—"
"It's my fault, Lelouch," Suzaku interrupted. "I promised you that I would be Zero, and if I'd only been fit to do that, you never would have had to go in my place. And if I'd just been a little quicker earlier, going out to check on that reported security emergency myself, I might have been in time to get the guards to stop today..."
Suzaku suddenly reached out to grip Lelouch's shoulder, looking determined. "Listen, Lelouch, I can use my Geass to trade off days, you know? Kallen and Euphy. She'll—well, I know it's not the same, but..."
At that moment, Cornelia came in from the adjoining room. "Kururugi, what is going on? I came back from the bathroom, and Euphy..."
Suzaku winced, and Lelouch shouted, "Don't think it!"
"I..."
"You didn't use your Geass again, did you?" Lelouch asked desperately, before turning towards her. "Kallen..." Shockingly, he started reaching out as if he were going to paw at her chest, and Kallen brought an arm up around herself and took a scandalized step backwards, before he could lay a finger on her.
What is he thinking?! There are people watching!
Besides which, even if she did like him, that didn't mean he could just—just—
Lelouch paused, hands still raised. He blushed, before quickly dropping them. "Ah, Kallen, that's not—I wasn't trying to—I just wanted to see if you're okay. You're not bleeding at all, are you?"
"I'm fine, Lelouch!" she told him. "I don't know why you and Suzaku are acting like I'm dead!"
"Kallen, it's because, in a sense, you are dead," Lelouch told her, and that terrible sadness was back in his eyes.
"That makes no sense at all!"
"I wish it could be just another of his lies, but he's telling the truth this time, Kallen," Suzaku told her, sorrowful and solemn, and Kallen looked toward Cornelia as the lone hope for sanity left in the room.
I don't really know her all that well, and we did majorly get off on the wrong foot because she was Vicereine, but Cornelia is a member of the Black Knights, now. She has always seemed like a no nonsense sort of person, so I'm sure she'll back me up here.
"What do you mean, she's dead?" Cornelia asked suspiciously.
"She came here looking for me," Lelouch said, the pain in his voice intimating that his heart was twisting inside his chest, "but the guards mistook her for an assassin and shot her to death. At least, what should have been death, but Suzaku used his Geass on her. Since his Geass can only have a single target..."
A pained expression passed over Cornelia's face. "I see. So that's why Euphy..."
"I'm sorry," Suzaku told her, and Kallen would really have been starting to wonder who this Euphy person was, if she weren't beginning to have a very cold, dark feeling in her own gut.
The holes in my clothing—Lelouch called those bullet holes.
I don't feel hurt, but what if not all of those bullets actually missed? What if...
She worked very hard to keep breathing evenly.
No, I feel alive, so I can't be...
A woman's voice called from the adjoining room, breaking the tense silence. "Hello? Is anyone there? Can somebody help me?"
"Oh, no, I must have—" Suzaku turned back to look at Kallen, and the woman's voice abruptly cut off. Oddly, Kallen's left knee, which had begun twinging noticeably, probably from that sharp turn during the sprint earlier, suddenly felt fine again.
"Kallen, are you alright? Did you start bleeding anywhere?" Lelouch asked.
"I'm—I feel fine."
"But did you bleed any? Even a drop?"
She looked down at herself, running a hand along her stomach, but no blood showed through Lelouch's white shirt. "No, not that I can see."
"Suzaku, when did you use your Geass? Before, or after they shot?" Lelouch asked, suddenly turning around to crowd Suzaku, his expression extremely intent.
"Before, I think?" he answered nervously.
"Then wish Euphy alive again."
"But Kallen will—"
"There was a condition we never actually tested, remember? Because you wouldn't agree to injure anyone else in order to test your Geass, and stupidly suicidal as you are, you weren't able target yourself. We can test that condition now, though, Suzaku. Wish Euphy alive," Lelouch commanded, and apparently his words still held weight, because Suzaku nodded. A few seconds later, the woman's voice called out again.
"Hello? Can anyone help me? I'm a little lost..."
"Euphy, we're in here," Lelouch called back, and Kallen felt the tension in her belly uncoil. If Lelouch sounds that calm, then everything will be okay.
"Oh! Here's the door," the voice exclaimed and in stepped the Massacre Princess.
Cornelia immediately went over to embrace her, whispering hurriedly into her ear.
"Euphy...Euphy is short for Euphemia!" Kallen exclaimed, finally understanding.
"How do you feel, Kallen?" Lelouch asked yet again, distracting her from the sight of a dead woman happily returning her older sister's embrace. "Any pain? Wounds? Blood? Scars?"
Kallen was getting tired of having to repeat herself. "Lelouch, there's nothing wrong with me." Well, except that twinging in my knee. That wasn't exactly life threatening, though, and she had enough pride not to mention it.
Lelouch and Suzaku shared a glance.
"Test results: wounds inflicted while the Geass is active heal instantly, as if they never actually happened. They do not scar or recur."
Then Lelouch was smiling broadly and laughing, Suzaku joining in and thumping him on the back in what was practically an embrace, as if the two of them had won some sort of incredible victory. Kallen was actually a little annoyed, because why did that traitor Suzaku get the attention, when she'd come all the way here to see Lelouch, and—and then Lelouch turned around and grasped her by the forearms, smiling brilliantly.
"You're going to be okay. You're really going to be okay, Kallen," Lelouch said, joy and sheer relief in his voice.
Wow. I've never seen him smile like that before.
She was so distracted by the fact that he was still shirtless, she almost forgot to smile back.