He couldn't confess to knowing her particularly well, and there was no way she would know who he really was under that mask. But that was putting the cart before the horse he thought to himself almost immediately. It was almost an instinctual reaction – she's dead.
Shirley Fenette was a girl Suzaku met when he was briefly a student of Ashford Academy. The girl her remembered had a sunny disposition, was an athletic star of the swim team, and a favorite plaything of the student council president and granddaughter of the school's founder, Milly Ashford. She was one of the first to welcome him into the school when everyone else was shunning him as Japanese in the ethnically segregated era of Britannia's rule over Japan. She was the one who held a not-so-secret crush on his best friend, Lelouch. She had been one of the closest friends to Nunnally.
And she died.
It had happened in the halls of a mall in the Tokyo Settlement. Lelouch, Suzaku later learned, had learned that it was Rolo, the fake brother Charles zi Britannia stuck next to him as a spy after altering his memories with his Geass. Shirley had once figured out Lelouch was Zero. Lelouch had used his Geass on her to make her forget all about him, a bid not only to protect his secret, but to erase her inner turmoil of both loving him as Lelocuh and hating him as Zero, the man who killed her father. She had once more regained those memories, and Rolo killed her to preserve Lelouch's secret – or so Rolo had said.
It all was called into question now, at least potentially, with this woman who looked so much like Shirley standing before him with a large sword in front of her, a large creature behind her. She was wearing a style of clothing he recognized from his days as a child before Britannia invaded Japan; something entirely unusual for the Shirley he knew to wear. Wealthy, Suzaku only ever recalled seeing her in the school's uniform or stylish western clothes of Britannia, not eastern clothes of old Japan. Was it possible she knew who he really was under the mask, that she was mocking him by wearing that red short kimono beneath that opened, black, Europa-style officer's coat? The sword too was definitely a Japanese style katana, albeit the handle far longer and more ornate than any traditional blade. It was also incredibly long, appearing around two-thirds her height.
"It's been a really long time, hasn't it?" she said, walking closer to Suzaku.
Was she meaning Zero, or Suzaku, he wondered. He had to gather his thoughts and calm down again. The shock was getting to him. He had to return to the basics of reality. Meaning, he had to return to the fact that Shirley Fenette was dead. This person was not her, regardless of the face and voice they had. Even if Shirley had lived, it'd already been five years. There was no way she could look the same as she did then. "I'm afraid you're mistaken," Suzaku answered back.
"Is that your answer as the fake Zero, or as the man playing the fake Zero?" she taunted, suggesting she without a doubt knew his secret.
Defying her, he replied back, "I don't have any idea what you're talking about."
All of a sudden there was an incredible pain in his leg. He looked down in disbelief to see her sword plunged deep into his thigh, slowly being removed. The sudden aggression was only a secondary concern. More shocking was that there was no warning from his curse. Even if he might not have had time to react, for it not to even warn him that he was in danger was not normal.
One of Suzaku's remaining men jumped at Shirley, thinking to disarm and restrain her. He'd liked to have killed her had he had a weapon on him to do so. Instead he was met with the point of her sword, tucked neatly against his Adam's Apple.
"When was the last time you talked with anyone from school? Besides Nunnally of course?" she asked, looking at Suzaku with a smile.
"I think you're…" before he could finish, she pushed the sword forward, the man choking and gasping as his blood filled his mouth and lungs. He desperately grabbed at the sword, slicing up his own hands in an attempt to pull free of the sword despite the strength quickly leaving his body. Suzaku was immediately filled with rage and contempt, who she was or might have been all at once leaving his mind as part of any consideration.
"Hey, do they know it's really you under that mask, Suzaku?" she asked, letting the man slide off her sword and whipping it free of his blood. "Euphie said they wouldn't, but I was really curious if that was true."
"You're mistaken. Suzaku Kururugi died several years ago, sent to hell before his master," Suzaku refuted, as he'd practiced in his head a thousand times since that time.
"Is that supposed to be a joke, Suzaku? Because it's not very funny," she said cheerfully enough, pacing to Suzaku's other side. She raised her sword up and brought it down through the body of another of Suzaku's knights. He could feel their blood spray him.
"Stop it!" he demanded. "Are you just going to kill someone every time you don't get the answer you want?"
"Don't be silly, Suzaku; they're all going to die no matter what. I just wanted to talk to you for a little while. I wasn't expecting to see you here, after all. And it's not like I get the chance to talk to any of our friends from Ashford. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely despise you, but you're the only one here I know and I'm not allowed to kill."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Euphie made it very clear; I can kill as many people here as I want, but I'm not allowed to kill you, Suzaku. I'm sure she's just being selfish and wants you for herself, but I did promise her. She can be a little scary when she gets serious. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that, though. You knew her much better than I could."
"I don't know who you are, but the Shirley I knew didn't joke about death so casually," Suzaku said through pained restraint.
"It is funny. It wasn't until I died that I finally understood why Milly loved having so many parties and festivals and events all the time. She was so much more mature than the rest of us who thought she was just being childish. She realized that we were all living in a nightmarish hell where we could die at any time for any reason. All she was trying to do was make sure that she could give some folks fun and excitement before their miserable lives came to an end. I wasted so much time worrying about whether I should tell Lelouch how I felt, or worrying what other people thought of me. But look how I died – killed in a hallway at a mall just because I happened to know a secret. Look at Euphemia, every good and kind deed in her life wiped away in an instant.
"So what the hell was the point!?" she screamed in a sudden manic outburst. "What the hell was the point of living that stupid goody-goody life!? Why the hell did I bother being nice to a traitor like you, who tried to kill the man I loved!? What did I get out of any of it!? Dead and forgotten… that's all I was!
"Hey, Suzaku. Did Lelouch talk about me often? Probably not, right? Knowing him, he probably didn't talk about anything but Nunna-chan," she asked, her tone flipping like a switch back to the more genial and friendlier one of before.
Suzaku didn't want to hear where this was going. He could tell without her uttering the actual words. If nothing else he didn't want to be forced to condemn her for stating she planned on committing regicide. "So is this part of your plan? Were you hoping to cripple the Order?"
"No, not at all. I was with Euphie, and I was getting a little upset, so she said I could come here and destroy it if I wanted. I didn't know you were here at all," she answered with all the jovial charm she had when she was a high school student.
"Don't get me wrong, Suzaku," she continued. "I hate you. I would love to kill you right now. But, I almost screwed up since that was the one thing Euphie told me not to do. I hate her too, but I can't kill her. And I can't kill you. She's the only one that can kill you. And no one can kill her. So, I'll just finish what I was doing and you can go do whatever it is you were going to do."
"Why do this?" Suzaku urged, knowing she was a moment away from raising that sword against the only remaining member of the Order at this base.
"It's a test."
"A test?"
"I grew up believing in Britannia. Even though it did many awful things, I believed in the Holy Britannia Empire. But my faith was tested. I was taught that if I was a good person, if I did the right thing, then good things would happen to me. Instead, I suffered, and I was killed. People like Emperor Charles said people should hate and steal from each other whenever they wanted. People could discriminate all they wanted. You killed so many people over your own ideals, regardless of what anyone would tell you. You blamed Lulu and turned him over to Emperor Charles, even when you knew what happened to Euphie that day was an accident, ignoring what the emperor was doing. And in the end, it was you who killed Lelouch. Yet you're still here. Alive. Why?
"Why did I hold myself back all that time, if I could just do whatever I wanted and gotten more out of life? If it's the killers, the racists, the elitists, the greedy, and selfish of all stripes, who get to live the longest, enjoy life the most, while the decent and proper are the first to die, why should I hold back my true self anymore?
"So, I'll hate as much as I want, and kill as much as I want. I will test the limits of the new life my goddess has given me, in anticipation of the renewal that's on its way." A dark sneer went from ear to ear as she leaned in and glared at Suzaku. Her olive-green eyes had a mysterious shine to them as they caught the firelight that whipped all around them. Suzaku felt like he was staring at a caged beast, the invisible bars of whatever promise she had been talking about earlier being the only thing keeping her from ripping him to shreds that instant. For the moment, he had to hope those bars held firm, a proposition he wasn't entirely sure would pan out.
"What are you saying?" he ventured to ask.
"Oops, looks like time's almost up. I've gotta go. See you around, Suzaku," she answered, stepping back from Suzaku.
For a moment Suzaku was glad enough she was going. He hadn't gotten any answers at all, but if she was going to leave, that left him with at least his life and that of one of his knights.
That relief was quickly dashed. She looked over her shoulder, dragged the sword around, and plunged it into the chest of the last of Suzaku's men as if preparing a skewer. With the ease of lifting a toothpick, she raised the man up into the air on her sword. His body flinched, small groans emanating from his mouth as he seemed to want to beg for help. The great black beast careened its neck to get its head at an angle below the man. It spit a stream of hot flames, the first live proof Suzaku had seen that this was the cause of the fires that ravaged and engulfed his base. In an instant, every piece of clothing the man wore was turned to ash. His body was charred, left smoldering on the end of that sword like a burned roast fresh from an oven. And then, almost as quickly as the sword had pierced his sternum, the man was gone, snatched off the end of the sword by the beast, flung a short way into the air, and chomped down.
The monster in the form of Shirley Fenette had a happy smile as the monster in the form of a mythical dragon snapped its jaws a couple times in an almost mocking way. Of all the things painful about that moment, the most painful for Suzaku was the look on that Shirley's face. He'd seen that look before. It hadn't stood out at all before that moment. But seeing her smile like that, after having done something so grotesque, he was instantly reminded of an inconsequential moment when they were all together in the student council room and Shirley began playing with the unofficial mascot of the student council, a small cat named Arthur. He couldn't recall what the specifics were, but the conversation at the time had shifted to something or other about Lelouch. That effortlessly, natural, joyful smile that Shirley had at that time back in the student council was indistinguishable from that of the woman who just murdered scores of people.
With a couple light taps to the side of the head, the dragon lowered itself to the ground and allowed her to climb atop. It beat its wings, swooping upwards into the air in a single fluid motion, and soon was climbing higher and higher out of sight.
As the cavalry arrived, they could be forgiven for thinking the gates of hell had opened up and was spilling out into the world. Seeing a lone tall figure walking down the road as fire and heat whipped at their back, the surrounding forest creepingly engulfed in the inferno, you could forgive some for believing the devil himself had risen up to walk the earth.
Geared for a fight, figuratively and literally, two detachments were deployed from the Britannia Imperial Military to respond to the reports of attack on the local base of the Order of the Black Knights. Given the news of an attack and blaze at the imperial castle, there was ample concern about just what enemy had audaciously made such a spectacular opening to what surely was a new war. The person walking down the road now surely must have been a part of the secret army that boldly chose to attack a military base of the most prominent military force in Britannia.
When they got closer and saw it instead to be the leader of the Order, Zero, his helmet and clothes smattered in blood, the complexion of the incident changed. It wasn't just a bold and audacious attack that was being met by a potent response. Something worse had to have been the case for Zero to be simply walking down the road.
In hours, some wee hours of the early morning, the fires would all be put out. The base would be deemed a complete and total loss, every facility blown and burnt out. Every Knightmare Frame the base held was either severely damaged by falling debris, or, as in most cases, highly degraded due to extreme heat. Some reports stated that Knightmares looked as though the most powerful industrial torch sat on limbs and melted its way through them. It was an effective way of disabling Knightmares, there's no doubt, but impractical to consider given the time necessary to do so.
No survivors were found, save the dejected hero of the revolution, Zero. The recovery of the bodies began at first light. It was a gruesome and frustrating process, less so than how undeniably maddening it was. Almost every form of death a body could be found in, they were found in. There were people burnt to unrecognizable crisps. There were some crushed under various forms of debris. There were some stabbed to death, while others were dismembered apparently while running for their lives. There was even a man found boiled to death; later investigation supposed he was in the shower when the attack began, the water superheated and leading to the pipe bursting, dousing him in the boiling water and steam.
There was a temporary field office setup a few miles from the Order's base. They had thought they were responding to a full-on military attack, so rushed together a site from which to respond. It may have seemed like a colossal waste of time and resources now, but given the attack on the castle barely over an hour earlier, they couldn't well take for granted that it wasn't something major.
Even now, there wasn't a lot of clarity on what the threat was or how to respond. Zero might not have held the title of knight, but he was understood to be of rank equal to the former Knights of the Round. In other words, if he said something was classified and he couldn't speak about it, you didn't press too hard on the matter.
In truth, Suzaku just wasn't sure how to speak about it. He'd sound like he was suffering PTSD or psychosis or something if he started talking about being attacked by a dragon controlled by a girl who died almost six years ago. So, for now, he was left to bide his time. Until he could talk to Nunnally directly, privately, he didn't want to say too much to anyone.
With the focus being on search and rescue, and putting out the fire before it ate up the city, he did have a narrow window of time to compose himself and think some. It had been a little after midnight when he was given a cursory exam by the medical staff at the temporary outpost. He got a lecture from the doctor about not being a robot, and not letting public accolades go to his head. HE didn't really understand why he was being lectured at first, only realizing partway through the treatment that he had all but forgotten he'd had a sword plunged through his leg. By whatever luck or design it had missed the bone and any critical muscle damage. But the doctor assured him he would be walking with a limp for a while and could risk permanent damage if he stressed it too much.
Around two hours later, they were told they were redeploying to the Assembly Hall. If it were rush hour during the week, the trip from where they were to the Assembly Hall would have been almost an hour and a half in grueling traffic. It was a third of that in the middle of the night.
He'd received word that Nunnally had been urged to rest once the situation at the castle was under control. She had been busy all day long, and then insisted on taking control of the response when she returned to her home burning. Few if any considered her to be as fragile as she was perceived back when she was fresh to the world as the long-lost princess thought dead for years. Still, she wasn't exactly thought to be a superman either. It did no good for anyone, in this moment of chaotic confusion, for the nation's empress to unnecessarily run the risk of collapsing from exhaustion. Suzaku wasn't sure who convinced her majesty to get a bit of sleep – he himself was intending to reassure her when he was preparing to leave before the attack on his Order – but he had to assume she had made contact with Cornelia. After all, there weren't a lot of people who could tell the empress to go to bed and she actually listen.
It was around five in the morning when Suzaku was walking through the halls of the Assembly building. He'd tried getting a bit of rest, but his restless mind wouldn't allow it. By now too the pain in his leg was bothering him, so he went to the temporary medical area to get some painkillers. It was less reassuring and more distressing to see how virtually empty the place was. He knew it wasn't because some miracle saw few people injured. It was because they weren't finding survivors to be treated here.
He then tried to get info on what was going on, but was only hearing loud frustration by civil and military intelligence officers struggling to make sense of the fact that there was no information to be had. Strictly speaking he could have allayed a few of their frustrations, but not without divulging information he considered best kept secret for now.
He was making sure to stay away from the windows, the swarm of media understandably fierce, and already drumming up a negative narrative over the fact that several hours after the imperial castle was set ablaze there was no info coming about the cause. Lelouch once told him about a guy who would have likely been deliberately spinning things in the light most likely to provoke emotions in the audience… if that guy were alive to still be working in the industry. It did make him wonder how Milly was doing. He could remember watching her live coverage of the scene after Lelouch's death. That brought with it its own sting as well, wondering how she was holding up now knowing that Nunnally had been targeted in such an egregious way.
There wasn't a whole lot to be done to help it, so Suzaku could only walk the Assembly building. Despite the excess and faults, the loss of the nobility in Schneizel's Damocles attack on the capital years ago was not insignificant. These were the people who operated much of Britannia on a daily basis. Though Lelouch had stripped them of their titles, they still had jobs as finance ministers, education ministers, and so on. A nation as big and complex as Britannia, even under an authoritarian monarchy, still has numerous others whose job it is to manage and settle all number of affairs from the trite and mundane, to the grand and crucial. They may have had those working under them, all bureaucracies do, but organizations fall into disarray and chaos over time the longer they go without leadership.
Nobility isn't so easy to replace. In a sense it is. The system of nobility is beautifully simple in that regard; oldest living child, then to siblings if no children, then parents' siblings, etc.
But the Damocles and the FLEIJA it launched complicated things greatly. It wasn't just that department minister who was burned away, but all their siblings, and children, and parents, and nieces and nephews, and aunts and uncles. The line of succession wasn't just cut, it was incinerated, along with most of their deputies, the folks at the ground level, and the facilities they used.
You don't merely start naming people to the ranks of nobility, handing out titles like a business hands out fliers. More so because of the way the line was vaporized, that the chaos of a thoroughly gutted bureaucracy came to be, you needed smart, creative, thoughtful individuals to rebuild. And if you couldn't get these because they were all either dead or ran from you like you had the plague, then you settled for the best you could get, considerations of birthright be damned.
So, after the war, and the fall of the Demon Emperor, this was what remained – a vestige of his democratic feint. The Assembly, a subservient branch of the imperial government, chosen by the people and serving at the pleasure of the empress. At the moment, it was her pleasure to make their office building her home, on account of her own home being charred slag.
The sounds of fanfare outside could only mean that she was arriving home now. It was slightly depressing for Suzaku to think about. Even assuming she slept the whole ride over and had awoken merely moments ago, that still meant barely three or four hours of sleep for her. And considering the secret they were currently sharing, he couldn't help but imagine she had far less ease resting her mind than he had resting his.
If she was arriving now, she was likely not going to wait long to be told what was going on. It'd save them both the stress if he went to her right away, he figured.
As he was coming around a corner, someone ran right into him. A blizzard of papers flew around, a tablet clattering to the floor. If he'd been more focused he wouldn't have bumped someone like that in the first place, but he managed to catch them so that neither had to tumble to the floor.
"Ah, excuse me, I'm so sorry." The woman he bumped into apologized as he cradled her. "I was in a hurry and wasn't paying attention."
"Nina… Einstein." Suzaku said with a soft voice.