Title: Left Unsaid

Rating: K/G

Summary: After years of planning, Lelouch should've been basking in the glow of this victory. Instead, here before the empty throne, he wasn't sure what to feel.

(Or an ambiguous canon-divergent AU in which Lelouch returned to Britannia after the Invasion of Japan while plotting to take down the Emperor. And this is a quiet moment after he succeeds.)

Author: Anonymous


The throne sat empty upon the dais.

It should have felt like a grand victory, an ultimate triumph. But after ten years of planning and deceit—ten years of bowing his head in submission, of biding his time until he could finally bare his claws—Lelouch felt tired. And something else he did not dare name.

For almost half his life he dedicated himself to this: vengeance for a wrong committed against a child and his loved ones.

He could remember how he had trembled before the great throne as he was cast aside. And how he trembled again when he returned with webs to weave and lies on his tongue.

Numbly, he wondered what he had been so afraid of. It had been so swift.

For so long that looming shadow dogged his every step, haunting the corners of his sight and mind. And now, the shadow was gone. Lelouch felt almost weightless, almost free. Almost.

It was like he was adrift with no energy to search for an anchor. Should the tides change, he felt he might drown.

"It's okay to mourn him." A voice cut through his quiet rumination.

Lelouch scoffed. "Mourn him? Why should I mourn for that bas—"

"The Emperor was despicable for many things, but it doesn't matter if he was a good or bad man." From the corner of his eye, Lelouch could see his oldest friend step up beside him and nod toward the throne. "It doesn't even matter if he was a good father or not. He was still your father."

Suzaku added quietly, "I wish someone had told me that."

Lelouch's face twisted in disgust at the sentiment and also at the adults who had failed his friend so terribly that Suzaku had been so close to throwing his life away for the wrong people.

Lelouch never knew Genbu Kururugi well, but the man had always seemed distant even around his own son. Suzaku never seemed to have the desire to close that gap. What exactly led to the late Kururugi's demise at the hands of his own blood, Lelouch didn't know—Suzaku never shared any details. But the distance between father and son may have lent a hand. And maybe that's what made the deed all the more painful for Suzaku—what could've been would never come to be.

But this was different. Suzaku's father was nothing like the Emperor at all…Was he?

Lelouch broke the growing silence before it could stifle him. "He was an awful man."

"Definitely." Suzaku nodded.

"He threw us away like we were nothing." Words, usually brimming with anger, now sounded more bereft in Lelouch's ears.

"Yes, he did."

"I hate him."

"I know," Suzaku responded softly.

"…But he said he was proud of me." Lelouch's voice betrayed him as his throat closed up. He took a shaky breath. "I don't know why I felt… so satisfied at hearing that."

In the time leading up to that final moment, the Emperor proclaimed that Lelouch was his greatest asset to retaliate against Schneizel's faction.

The fact the man had… trusted his wayward son enough to reveal his ultimate plans. The man had even praised Lelouch not too long before Lelouch finally revealed his hand—a decade of scheming—as the final pieces clicked into place to bring the man's own machinations all crashing down.

After all the man had done… The Emperor should've foreseen such treachery.

"I hate him. I really hate him," Lelouch repeated, as if saying it out loud again and again would cement it as undeniable.

A small tiny part of Lelouch—the part Lelouch thought had been snuffed out when that naive child had nearly everything taken from him—still wondered. What if things had been different? What if Lelouch had decided to go along with that outrageous plan?

What if his father hadn't banished Lelouch and Nunnally to a foreign land? What if Lelouch could have grown up surrounded by riches and family—fully embracing his role as prince of the Empire without the burning desire to tear it all down? Would he have gotten just as close to the Emperor as he did? Could he have steered the Emperor away from his plot to try and control the collective unconscious of humanity and instead focused on the humans already under his rule? What if they could have truly been a fam—

Lelouch shook his head free of the encroaching thoughts and took a deep steadying breath.

Not yet. Now was not the time to dwell on such thoughts.

"There's a vacant throne that needs to be addressed and useless nobility to cull. The UFN also needs to be calmed before they can take advantage of this." Lelouch waved a hand towards the throne before turning away.

He couldn't afford to think of the whys and what-ifs. Not now. Maybe another time, when he could truly sit down and ponder about all those little moments between father and son, and all the possibilities that came with them.

He needed to think of the present, of what he had now.

"What of Nunnally?" Lelouch threw the question over his shoulder as he walked away.

"She's with Kaguya," Suzaku answered, "Hopefully, nothing's on fire yet."

"No need to worry. The girls are rather resilient."

"It's not them I'm worried about. Who do you think has to put out the fire?"

"Those two know what they're doing." Lelouch sent Suzaku a sharp grin. "Some things need to be burned down for something new to take its place."

With that, the Black Prince swept out of the throne room. Suzaku glanced back at the empty throne before trailing after his friend.