7

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A King With a Clearer Mind

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The clattering which filled the ruins of Kaminejima as the severed halves of Zero's mask hit the ground matched the collapsing ache in her heart. The man behind the mask was revealed to her, his face lay bare to her gaze, his crimson blood trickling around his nose. Where Suzaku was remorseful and regretful in the face of this revelation, Kallen felt pain and despair. Once, she would not have been surprised to see this face before her. She had suspected the purple-eyed boy as being the voice from Shinjuku, in part due to his own error in commands. But that had been before Zero, before the Black Knights and Narita, before Kururugi Suzaku as her enemy and the bloodstained Princess Euphemia.

After Lelouch's comments about the life of Honouraries during the refrain busting days of the Black Knights, she had dismissed her suspicions entirely.

Kallen had thought she knew Lelouch Lamperouge, but clearly she never had. But then, she had worn a mask around him as well. Perhaps Lamperouge had been as real as Stadtfeld. Their student identities had been nothing more than masks to delude the proper authorities.

"You're… Lelouch is…" Kallen muttered, shaking. Her grasp upon her brother's Type 14 Nambu pistol was shaky, the barrel shifting about the chamber.

"Yes, I am Zero," Lelouch declared, his left eye a mesmerizing red. It seemed to demand obedience, and it took all of her waning strength to not run away or join him before the great stone door. Where her heart wished to be, her mind stopped short. "The one who leads the Black Knights; the one who challenges the Holy Britannian Empire—the man who shall hold the world in the palm of his hand."

"You used us," Kallen accused, frightened by what it meant for Lelouch to be Zero. She felt betrayed by his identity, yet he had offered to show her his face a number of times. Would she feel then as she felt now? Or could it have been different? "The Japanese people…" It had only required a touch of courage to know who he was, yet she never possessed it. Instead she was lashing out, her pain weaponized against an untrusting man she had ended up trusting. "You used me…"

"And as a result, Japan will be free," Lelouch replied. "Though to say I merely used them is so unsentimental. The Japanese people wished for a hero, a savior who would lead them to victory. They, and you Kallen, needed Zero to lead you to victory."

"I should've arrested you when I had the chance!" Suzaku shouted, a second hand coming up to stabilize his own handgun, the standard issue Britannian M6. She had almost forgotten about him in the wake of her shock and betrayal.

Lelouch was perplexed by the threat, but quickly regained himself. "You knew?"

"I didn't want to believe it," admitted Suzaku with bitter regret. "So I convinced myself I was wrong and that someone else was Zero." With a slight growl, he stabilized his pistol and aimed it right at Lelouch's face—at his left eye, or so it appeared to Kallen. "But what you did to Euphy…what you did with your geass, I cannot forgive. You need to pay for your sin, Lelouch.

"After all, we are friends, aren't we?"

Kallen frowned, wondering what Suzaku knew that she didn't. She had to set aside her confusion and pain if she was going to get the full truth from Lelouch. The issue wasn't his lies, but the reason he abandoned the battlefield to come here.

What is geas? What are you talking about, Suzaku? How could he twist her, unless you think he's to blame for the Princess's Massacre? She glanced at Lelouch and his strange, blood red eye. It shimmered in the faint light from above, where they had once descended. It felt like a lifetime since that day, and three since she first met Lelouch in the wake of Shinjuku.

Is that eye what Suzaku speaks of? Is that geas—that strange, intoxicating eye?

"I want to know who told you about geass," Lelouch demanded, unflinching in the face of death. "Were they the one who stole Nunnally? Who laid this trap for me, Suzaku?"

"Your concerns don't matter anymore, Lelouch," Suzaku snarled. "I'll protect Nunnally, even from you! Especially from you!"

Lelouch sneered. "That is not your decision to make, Suzaku. I am Nunnally's brother. It is my duty to keep her safe, especially from someone like you. You failed Euphy. I thought I could trust you with Nunnally's safety, but I was wrong."

His gaze shifted to Kallen, ignoring Suzaku's furious outburst. It was as though the gun pointed at him didn't matter.

"What will you, do Q-1?" She flinched, but he continued speaking. "What will you do, now that you know who I am behind the mask? You promised you would stay by my side, to continue on in our struggle regardless of the blood spilled."

"And what of the blood spilled in Tokyo?" Kallen asked, regaining some of her fire. "What about the Black Knights, who you abandoned in what was to be our hour of victory? Do they matter, or have you tossed them aside?"

Lelouch turned away, jaw set firmly as he spoke, slow and controlled. "If Britannia has Nunnally within their grasp, then they have the very piece necessary to corner me." His admittance, his frustration, over a weakness technically of his creation yet beyond his control resonated. Kallen knew Nunnally, and the Lelouch she had understood was only admirable in how he cared for his sister.

She felt faint, terrified even. What he had said possessed a cruel logic and her feet remained firmly in place. Kallen couldn't help but wonder what parts of the Lelouch she knew and the Zero she followed were real, and what was false. "I regret that it has to happen this way," he continued, "but either the Black Knights will prove their full valor…or we will rebuild. I trust that many will survive this night, even if they end up in Britannian captivity.

"We will rescue our friends and allies, once my sister is safe. Otherwise, I will be a liability, and I cannot allow Britannia to win. Their lives—perhaps yours and mine as well—will be forfeit if they can hold her above me; my personal Damocles. What use is a symbol like Zero if he possesses the weakness of a simple man?"

Kallen gaped, face nearly slack. As furious as she wished to be, despite the betrayal she felt, regardless of the confusion and doubt that had so ever briefly plagued her, it had not been Lelouch Lamperouge who spoke those words. No, the man who spoke then and there was Zero, the revolutionary she swore herself to. There was no doubt, no hesitation in his mind. To him, it was clear what their course towards victory was—ensure the safety of his sister Nunnally, then retrieve the Black Knights, and prepare for whatever Britannia would do in reaction to his provocations.

She did know if she could trust Lelouch, but deep in her heart, she knew Zero was necessary to lead the Japanese towards liberty and independence. He would liberate them, even if he fought the leviathan alone.

Her choice was now laid plain.

"You make me sick," screamed Suzaku, face flushed with rage. She had nearly forgotten about him; such was Lelouch's oratory powers. "You twisted Euphy's mind! You must pay for what you did! Murderer! Scum! Betrayer and liar!"

"Wallow in remorse when you have the time!" Lelouch bellowed, voice echoing in the cave. "Don't act as though you have any morality to stand upon when speaking to me, Suzaku. You stole the will of the Japanese people when you murdered your own father! Is that why you seek death, why you abandoned your people for a Britannia unworthy of your thankless loyalty? The only choice in the wake of that bloodshed was to kill Euphemia. Else she would have been damned to live with the wage of sin that stained her hands. I did what I had to, for the sister who could've defeated me, and my rebellion.

"You, who seek death because of your guilt, either admit to the Japanese people the crime you committed against them, or seek to undo the conclusion of your past actions. If you think you can achieve atonement without admitting to your own faults, then remove yourself from my sight!"

"And mine as well," Kallen shouted, shocked by how swiftly her heart and mind settled upon a shared course. She was a warrior of Japan, and she knew who was necessary for the future she desired. The two boys stared at her, surprised. "I will follow Lelouch—Zero—even if it means I give my own life for his. Japan will be freed because he was willing to stand and fight for us, to lead us!"

"You cannot be serious!" shouted Suzaku, turning on her. Their pistols shifted with the sudden movement, beaded on each other. A simple twitch, and one of them would die. "Lelouch has used you—"

"And we needed him, dammit!" Kallen screamed, tears forming in her eyes. She couldn't deny the truth, regardless of how she might feel about the man behind the mask. Ohgi had told her Zero carried the torch of her brother's dream, that he was the one who would see it fulfilled. She wasn't going to allow it to be snuffed out by the dog of their conquerors. "He offered victory, Suzaku! Lelouch, as Zero, offered victory over Britannia in exchange for loyalty."

Slowly, with calming breaths, she hardened her heart, cutting away that which still felt betrayal and confusion. They weakened her. "Just as you were Euphemia's knight, I am his. I am Kōzuki Kallen, Zero's Elite Guard! If you wish to live, then leave."

Suzaku flinched, nearly firing at her or the ground. His eyes momentarily ringed red, but a voice cut off whatever line of thought that accompanied that bizarre light.

"You would be wise to depart and not look back, Suzaku," Lelouch warned. They both stared at him, pistols fixed on the other. "It is clear I had been mistaken to ever consider you as a candidate for Nunnally's protector. Kallen might call herself my knight, but I know I could trust her to see to my sister's welfare."

She couldn't help the burning red that consumed her cheeks. While her relationship with Lelouch was shaky, her adoration for Zero was concrete and resolute. His trust in her was a boon to her spirits, and certified her commitment to him.

I promised him, Kallen reminded herself. I promised I would remain by his side after Narita. He reminded me of that promise, when I felt lost and afraid, too awash in emotions to think through all which has happened. I cannot leave now, and I especially cannot leave him in the hands of his greatest foe. Lelouch may not say so, but we both know that Suzaku has interfered too many times.

It ends here.

When Suzaku collapsed, when the crack of a bullet thundered and echoed within the cave, Kallen merely blinked. She hadn't pulled her trigger, yet her enemy had fallen. Crimson blood stained his devicer suit, the flag of Japan upon a traitor. She looked over, and there was Lelouch—Zero—holding his own M6, an expression of resolved misery. Tears streaked his cheeks.

It took her a moment to realize that they had once been friends, best friends even, yet he had found the strength to take the life of that friend. She wondered why for a brief moment, then remembered what he had said, that fateful day when the Black Knights first came into the world.

"The only ones who should kill are those who are prepared to be killed!"

"The future is what matters, Suzaku," Lelouch whispered, gazing at the gasping, bleeding body of his once friend. His remorse was clear, yet the edge of determination blunted the pain. "The past has already happened, and for all it can remind us of what drives us forward, being lost it in brings more pain than joy. I can only look to the future, certain it will be better than the present, than the past."

He closed his eyes, and sighed. "Sayonara, otomodachi."