Code Geass: The Realm of God
Chapter 25: A woman made of blood
Writer: Asheron Karuma
Don't own
Yay, another chapter!
I wanted to write more for this chapter but it has gotten very long already, I guess I'll put that in the next chapter then...
There is a slight explanation on something very important, it is only one piece of the puzzle
Thanks for the support and review if you can, like I said before a writer appreciates reviews, it makes them feel like their work is loved and well written and lightens up the spirit, at leased that is what I feel when I read that I have pleased yet another reader
-The fate of destruction is also the joy of rebirth-
I'm getting used to the loneliness, ever since I was born.
But within those arms that opened up before my eyes, my heart spontaneously trembles.
In a dazzling premonition, I feel the future unfolding
Because of love
Strong and gentle
Embracing pieces of feelings that are, for some reason, painful.
Chapter 25A: Giving up
He walked through the hallways to his classroom but stopped at the door, Suzaku frowned as he watches Shirley standing next to Lelouch's table...
Shirley liked Lelouch, he knew that. But that didn't mean that it made his feelings any easier... instead it hurt.
Yet he had always promised himself that he would cheer on from the sidelines, because his love wouldn't become reality... only in his dreams...
"Suzaku... you don't have to be shy!"
Rivalz put a hand on his shoulder and snapped him back to reality as he was being forced to walk into the classroom.
Lelouch and Shirley looked up and waved at him as he passed them...
He wondered what they were talking about as he sits down on his chair...
It isn't any of his business...
In the following months he realised the change in their relationship, the fight between the two student council members and on top of that classmates, Shirley hasn't been to her classes in the last week and he wonders what is wrong between the two...
A feeling of satisfaction sways over him but it doesn't last long, because he doesn't allow himself to be pleased with their breaking relationship...
A part of him says that this is his chance another says that he has to be careful because he doesn't trust the situation...
He decides to pick the second because it is for the best and because for once he started to feel wanted by someone in his life...
Euphemia li Britannia, she liked him...
But he was uncertain if he liked her the same way...
It was his only chance for happiness and because of that he took it...
He had to give up on Lelouch, for he was something he would never be able to catch...
Chapter 25B: Helpless
He slowly stepped out of bed as quiet as he could, Suzaku was still sleeping and he tried to keep it that way...
He looked around and recalled the place he woke up in, it was the same room where he was brought after his short term memory loss...
He tried to think, but found himself un able to do so... it felt strange, he could hear his own voice in his head but something made it difficult to understand it and as he stood in front of the blackened window he raised his hands to hold onto himself...
The hands grip around his arms and he finds out that his upper arms are bandaged...
He frowns as he raises them again and looks at his fingers...
The last thing he could remember...
Blood, so much blood... and a woman made from blood...
He turned around and looked at the room, it was all the same except for a metallic bowl next to his bed, he walks over to it and picks up an empty tube from within, there is still a remain of blue liquid inside and Lelouch frowns as he feels an itch in his neck...
He raises his hand and feels another bandage that surrounds it...
'Weird...'
"You've done another great job... destroying another MVS, armour damage and not even to start about Astraeus!"
"Not my problem..."
Clarice frowned as she continued to write down notes on her notepad, Lloyd gasped and the insensitive reaction and threw his hands in his hair as he gasped...
He squealed and turned around to walk away once again...
Clarice paid no attention to him, because she was busy making records on the Astraeus core...
She looked at the machine standing before her, part of the black shell had been removed, revealing a dark blue mass within it, wires entered through the mass and they were hooked on machines on which her staff kept track and investigated the status change, current status and the chance of another change...
She walked over to the machine and looked into the dark blue mass, it looked like some sort of water, however it wasn't in a liquid form even if you could reach through it...
"Clarice-sama"
She turned around when one of her staff walked up to her
"The pilot, he's awake..."
She nodded and took off towards the medical centre once more...
"How was it?"
Z.Z. pouted her lips and crossed her arms as she looked through the oversized glass that separated the rooms he was standing in with the hangar...
She looked at the Gawain unit and frowned as the repairs began...
"Horrible..."
Xao tabbed his finger on his desk as she turned around to him...
"That bitch kept on getting in my way... I didn't even kill anyone!"
He smiled and laughed slightly as he thought of the now locked up witch...
So it was true, C.C. had left another fulfiller on the world besides Mao and this person was piloting the Astraeus unit...
"Next time I want to go alone!"
"You can't... Gawain is at its best when it's being piloted by two people"
"But!"
"Do you want to die?"
Z.Z. freezes and says
"No... Only if Sheng-sama wants me to..."
"And I don't want you to die"
She looked up at him with a sad smile and ran forward to his chair.
Sitting down on his lab he stared at him and smiled again as she cuddled him
"I won't die... if Sheng-sama wants me to live then I wont die..."
"Good girl..."
He stroked her hair and she nuzzled further into his neck, Xao grinned at the obeying pawn...
"Did you see the pilot? Astraeus's I mean..."
She smiled with an evil expression as she looked over his shoulder
"Uhn, I even went inside his head..."
"Did you give him a good time?"
"I tried, but someone interfered... I don't know who it was but it was strong..."
Someone had indeed interfered, her head still hurt from the reaction it gave her...
She didn't see this person though, but sensed the immense power that radiated from its form...
It wasn't C.C., it couldn't be... this was someone else.
"Someone else... I wonder who..."
"That boy was really fun to play with, he was really scared!"
He was glad that his little girl found it entertaining, Z.Z. was such a strange person that enjoyed nothing more but the suffering of another human being...
Even if Z.Z. was not human she tried to act like one, much like the other contractors...
"Next time you can play with him again, but then don't destroy Gawain..."
"Sorry..."
"It's time for you to go to bed, little girls need enough sleep so they can grow up to be very beautiful"
She frowned, got of his lap and she pecked his cheek before she ran towards the door
"Goodnight Sheng-sama!"
"Goodnight, Z.Z."
The door closed and he was left alone, he tabbed his hand against the wooden table once again as he looked at his laptop as he continued to investigate the data from the battle with Astraeus...
Next time it won't be so lucky...
Lelouch looked in front of him with a dazed look as he sat down on the metallic table once again...
When Clarice had entered the room she had seen how tired Suzaku was and had whispered him to follow her to another room...
This room was not like the normal examination rooms, it reminded him more of a doctor's workplace, it was a little more spacer and it reminded him of the local doctors in the Britannian neighbourhoods...
"Do you feel anything weird?"
"I can't think straight..."
Clarice grabbed a vial and removed the plastic surrounding to reveal a needle underneath,
She turned around and grabbed his arm, Lelouch tensed up and gasped...
"The first... the first that holds the mind... where everything is one yet nothing exists..."
He gasped as Clarice cleaned a spot on his arm and entered the needle to puncture a vein, she pulled back to extract some blood and looked at him as she noticed his strange response...
"Is something wrong?"
"The first that holds... the mind... what is that?"
She looked at him surprised as she extracted the needle from his arm, she pressed a small cloth against the puncture wound and placed the syringe on the metallic table next to her...
"Where did you hear that?"
She frowned as she released his arm, the strange feeling disappeared as well and Lelouch looked at her...
"I heard it... in my head..."
He looked with disbelief and a little bit of fear...
The voice she heard belonged to Clarice, was this her mind, a memory or something else?
"You must be having some after effects..."
She sighed and looked at him with a reassuring look
"Don't worry, when it tried to invade your mind it almost forced you to the first borderline..."
A lie, she knew it but anything to keep the young Prince from knowing the truth...
He wouldn't understand it... let alone accept it...
Astraeus had tried to unite in order to protect its pilot and because of that his R-levels increased as well to a point where he had almost reached the first borderline...
The first borderline to absolute happiness and creation...
"What is the first borderline...?"
"It is your mind, it is the place where your mind is separated from your body... where you can create everything and nothing. My guess is that it still lingers on the edge and that's why other minds can easily slip into your own..."
The words hardly made any sense to him because he couldn't understand their meaning nor think about it...
What he did understand was that Clarice was acting very relaxed about it, it had to be something that was cure able...
"I suggest you don't touch anyone for a while... I'll subscribe you some pills for the next two days, it should be gone in one day but just in case..."
"What happens if I touch them?"
"I don't know... you're the first to have ever been so close to the first border... but less about that, I still have some tests to run..."
She removed the vial from the syringe and placed it into a hand held machine, it started to calculate and a number showed on the screen in a green tint...
"R-levels stabilized to level 21... I'm glad it decreased..."
There was a knock on the door and it slid open, Lelouch looked up when someone stepped inside the room...
It was Suzaku, why did he look so...
He couldn't find the word for it because he couldn't think straight...
He blinked and scanned the youth...
His uniform looked sloppy, as if it was put on in great haste... why was Suzaku here?
Was he worried?
"Would you please wait outside, I'm still busy with my examination"
"Sorry... I was just..."
Lelouch looked at him with a blank expression, Suzaku seemed saddened for some reason...
What for?
They both walked to the door and Clarice locked him outside, she sighed and turned around again to her patient...
"Why is he so saddened?"
She grabbed her chair and rolled it over to him before sitting down in front of the Prince
"He is sad because he was helpless... I don't know really, you'll have to ask him but not now... if you touch him, I don't know what you might see"
He looked at the door again and Clarice tabbed the back of her pen against his forehead, he flinched and rubbed it as he looked at the woman with a confused look...
"Next time, don't forget your examination... I won't be so kindly next time you don't show up..."
She pouted her lips and walked to a small cabin in the back, she came back with another bottle of pills, these were small and round and remained in a red plastic bottle and she gave it to him with a gentle smile
Chapter 25C: A woman made of blood
He stared at the top bunk of their shared room as he gripped the blankets below him...
He refused to sleep in that stupid hospital bed and instead retreated here again.
The blankets below him made him feel warm inside, this warm feeling it felt like Suzaku and it felt like he was on drugs...
He had just taken some of the pills to rest his mind and two sleeping pills, the bottle standing on the metallic closet on the other side of the room, he looked at them and turned back to the ceiling as he took another deep breath, a tingling feeling ran down his spine as he enjoyed this feeling...
He wouldn't mind feeling this for the upcoming day, would Suzaku feel the same if he touched him?
And slightly he longed for more, but his friend hadn't returned yet...
Suzaku was troubled as he walked down the hallway, he felt so helpless and afraid...
Lelouch had almost died, or so he was told...
He had watched as they forced open the cockpit, dragging the Prince out and placing him on a stretcher, Suzaku wouldn't forget that sight... it scared him...
"I won't die, if that is what you mean..."
He had said those words himself, but this time it wasn't only him who nearly died...
Lelouch nearly died...
"If something happens... I'll come..."
He came to his aid when he looked into the face of death and after that
"Don't die, Suzaku!"
He remembered nothing...
The figure called death was gone and he was left alone in confusing, wondering to himself what had happened...
Where had he been through a similar situation?
"Live!"
He remembered now, he had almost sacrificed himself to ensure Zero's destruction...
He remembered the eye behind the opening clip and from there on nothing...
So the command still had effect, how long were they going to last?
It was so unfair to command him something like that, especially when the person he was living for at the moment was able to die just like that, he had almost lost him...
The chaos got to him and he was forced to walk away...
But he was going to be alright...
Lelouch was alright... he was alive...
He found himself standing in front of the door and without realising it he remained there the entire time...
Finally he blinked and looked around him, there was no one there to question his actions and he sighed as he opened the door, the lights were turned on and he stared at his bed...
"Are you sleeping here?"
He asked the half drowsing youth, he turned towards him and smiled in a strange fashion...
Suzaku walked towards him and noticed the two bottles and turned his direction towards them, he picked them up and read the labels...
One were sleeping pills, the other had no label and he opened the bottle to see what the inside looked like...
He turned back to Lelouch with a questioning look
"Clarice gave them to me... she said they would calm my mind..."
He closed the bottle again and placed them both back on the table before unbuttoning his shirt...
"Sorry... right now I can hardly think... she says it will pass..."
He could see that Lelouch was tired and threw his jacket over the chair as he changed into a pair of shorts
"Just sleep... we can talk tomorrow"
"I can't... I want to know..."
Suzaku turns towards the stubborn Prince and bends over to raise to blanket, he would fall asleep eventually due to the sleeping pills, but he hoped that things would be better the next morning...
"I want to know...Suzaku's thoughts... Suzaku's feelings..."
Determined he suddenly rose up and pressed his own lips against Suzaku's and a wave of emotion washed over him and he blinked...
"What is this?"
He said to himself as he found himself back in the hangar, he looked up when hatch in the floor rose up again, Lancelot and Astraeus were being brought back inside...
Was this a memory?
He stepped forward as he noticed people rushing towards the two machines, the hatch of Lancelot's cockpit opened and Suzaku jumped out on the floor before rushing over to Astraeus.
A sting of concern spread through his chest as he walked forward to the desperate youth who tried to use the emergency handles to open the unit and eventually the hatch opened and his eyes widened when he looked over Suzaku's shoulder...
"Is that, me?"
He looked at himself sitting in the pilot seat, his hands wrapped around his upper arms so tightly that it had to hurt...
He looked at his face and was equally shocked when he saw his own expression, gasping for air as if he wasn't allowed to breathe, his eyes widened in utter terror and in his left eye the geass symbol swam in its red like colour...
He rubbed his own eye, because he didn't recall having his powers at such an altitude when he woke up...
Suzaku stepped into the cockpit, a small layer of water had filled the bottom of it and he made his way to the other Lelouch and shook him as he called his name...
He wouldn't respond and Suzaku gasped at the sight of his eyes...
He reaches inside his suit and pulls out a small metallic case, he opens it and pulls out a small vial with a blue like liquid inside...
He saw them before, they were there when he woke up...
What were they?
Suzaku is nervous as he pushes the needled end in Lelouch's neck, the liquid runs inside his veins and a small swelling is formed around the injection place...
Was that how he got the bandage around his neck?
Slowly the other Lelouch's eyes close and his eye turns back to normal, he falls forward and Suzaku catches him and picks him up as he carries him outside...
Lelouch follows them and he can hear Suzaku whisper as he recognises tears in his eyes...
"Don't die... you can't die..."
He repeats this mantra and Lelouch stands still as he sees himself being handed over to the medical crew, Clarice kneels next to him and her eyes widen as she listens to his heart...
"He's not breathing!"
Suzaku remains in equal shock and they stand next to each other as Clarice puts her mouth over his in an attempt to get air inside his lungs...
She does it once, twice, three times and still no effect...
Was he that close to death?
'Don't die! You can't die! Not again!'
The line is being shouted out through his head, Suzaku doesn't say it but stares at the scene in terror... his mind is shouting out and Lelouch sees a quick flash of another scene, the broken pocket watch held in white hands...
It is then that the other Lelouch gasps and water spills out of his mouth...
Were these Suzaku's thoughts?
So chaotic and afraid... he looks as Suzaku falls to his knees and the feeling of another memory runs through his veins, was that why he was afraid?
Did Euphie's death scar him that much?
Where did this begin?
He closes his eyes as the scene turns to black, he tries to think...
"What do you fear most? Is it blood?"
That girl, he did this to her...
The cockpit filled up with blood and he take sin one last breath before it is filled up completely.
He looks towards the glass at the laughing Z.Z. as he tries to get out...
He needs air... he needs to breathe!
Finally he opens his mouth and the last remaining bubbles leave his lungs as he feels himself losing this battle to remain among the living...
'Suzaku...'
He pleads in his mind as a last attempt for help, but it isn't Suzaku who saves him, he feels familiar hands spread out over his cheeks...
Somewhere in the distance Z.Z. screams but he doesn't hear it...
A voice calls out to him...
"It's alright... You just have to wake up... Wake up, wake up and fight the darkness with the sword that was entrusted to you..."
He opens his eyes again and flinches at the figure in front of him, the blood that had filled his cockpit gained a shape, two red hands cupped his cheeks and forced him to look at the faceless figure, he could recognise a mouth, long hair that was pulled back over her back but it was completely made out of blood, like a liquid floating at zero gravity...
The mouth moves as she speaks again...
"Wake up..."
She strokes a finger over his right eye and unwillingly the eye starts to glow up as he feels himself slipping away...
The figure smiles at him before falling down on the ground in another puddle...
It was a strange yet scary feeling... to slowly lose touch with your own body and look at things through eyes that feel like they don't belong to you...
He tries to hold on, to fight it...
He has to stay... he doesn't know where he will go if he slips away, but he has to hold on...
Someone would save him, someone would take him back...
And it is then that everything shuts down and he is confronted by darkness...
He screams...