Chapter 33: Memories
Refrain is a highly regulated psychotropic drug known for causing hallucinations. Users will relive old memories with significant emotional significance. It is occasionally used under a doctor's supervision to assist in the recovery of repressed memories. More controversial is the use of alt-Refrains in interrogations as a truth serum or to aid witnesses in recalling significant details.
A single dose can cause significant side effects such as nausea, respiratory depression, hypotension, high fever, seizures, and in rare cases: cardiac arrest or comas. Long term use is linked with cognitive decline, degenerative nerves, Raynaud's syndrome, blindness, and persistent hallucinations.
Refrain is difficult to detect in the blood, especially off-shoot varieties, which increases the mortality rate of complications. It also interferes with numerous medications, either increasing the half-life or preventing them from being absorbed.
—Common Drugs in the Emergency Room
A Bathroom
The wooden board snaps into two perfect halves with a deafening kiai. Suzaku relishes the congratulatory grin on Tohdoh-sensei's face as he stands up, holds the halves out, and bows. Finally, he has perfected the spin kick and broken the board.
Suzaku returns the bow and accepts the pieces, intent on taking them to his room where a small pile of wooden boards rest in his closet. "Thank you very much, Tohdoh-Sensei for all your help. I couldn't have done it without you."
"It was my pleasure, Suzaku-kun," his sensei replies and straightens.
Turning to the dojo door, Suzkau glimpses a flash of fabric from his father's kimono behind Lelouch, watching passively. His father hasn't seen Suzaku's success. Again.
Forcing a smile, he bounds to the edge of the room and a cough from Tohdoh-sensei reminds him to turn around and bow to the dojo. Lelouch giggles behind him.
"Shut up. But did you see? I did it!"
Lelouch raises his eyebrows. "Congratulations. You broke a piece of wood."
"Like you could do any better."
"Of course, I would get an axe. Or you know... get someone to do it for me."
"To master the mind, one must first master the body," Suzaku retorts as a grin threatens to split his face. He knows Lelouch is acting surly to get a rise.
Tohdoh-sensei laughs and walks past him, ruffling his hair. "The saying is mind over body. Speaking of your mind, you haven't been skimping on your training?"
"No." Suzaku shakes his head. "I've been in the dojo every day. I even practiced before breakfast. Please believe me!"
He can't bear the idea that his sensei thinks of him as a slacker. Of not learning the next forms. The advanced wheel kick. And... Tohdoh-sensei promised that Suzaku will get to spar if he impresses him.
"Fitness freak," Lelouch whispers.
Tohdoh-sensei looks down at him sternly. "Suzaku. What did I say about overdoing it? But no. We're going to focus on your studies. Why, you even have a young prince here to practice English with."
No.
Absolutely not.
"Can't I practice more? I think I was slightly off balance," Suzaku pleads.
"Afraid of some books?" Lelouch teases and darts back too slowly to avoid Suzaku's punch to the arm. "Seriously? That hurts!"
"Suzaku. Don't assault royalty." Tohdoh-sensei smirks. "But we can't send a shrimp back to Britannia after we received a prince. Come on, Your Highness, you need to train."
Suzaku laughs at his friend's look of horror and begging eyes. He's safe. The mountain of books will not harm today.
"And you, Suzaku. You'll practice with Her Highness," Tohdoh-sensei says and shatters his dreams.
Absolutely not. He refuses. Nunnally is the most terrifying girl he ever met. And Kaguya is here... meaning that the two are undoubtedly up to mischief at his expense. He looks up at his sensei's stern face and his shoulders drop.
Resigning himself to his fate, Suzaku turns around.
"Suzaku! Don't leave me alone with him, you traitor."
At least Lelouch will suffer as well. Suzaku has never met someone more allergic to exercise.
"I'm a prince. You can't order me. I refuse to submit to this... torture."
Suzaku rolls his eyes. "It's just self-defense."
"And? That's what guards are for," Lelouch counters. "And he'll be hitting me. That's assault."
His instructor never hits harder than he intends to. His punches are more like love taps.
Crossing his arms, Suzaku says, "Stop being such a weakling." And because his sensei needs all the help he can get in getting Lelouch to acknowledge his authority, he adds, "You want to protect Nunnally, don't you?"
Lelouch glares at him, but doesn't object when Tohdoh-sensei throws a gi at him.
How his friend can be so weak while prizing his intelligence, is incomprehensible. A weak body sheltering a strong mind is an oxymoron. They're two sides of the same coin.
He shrugs. Britannians are weird.
A Cell
The window shatters, destroying the spectacular rendition of Elizabeth the Third as she landed on the shores of the Homeland, having escaped Napoleon's forces. The first bullet ricochets off the suit of armor and embeds itself in the Emperor's portrait. Then another bullet, followed by another. The lightbulbs on the chandelier burst and disperse into a fine mist of glass.
Lelouch, following the orders of a mysterious puppeteer, lunges forward to his sister as she looks up from her artwork.
Her beautiful, purple eyes focus on him and he takes a moment to appreciate the rare sight. They are radiant although he mourns the sight of fear. Why does he only remember her eyes filled with fear? They should be happy.
His body, as always, is too slow. He can feel the distance between them stretching. He has to move and save her.
He trips and his palms skid over the glass shards.
Pain.
Nunnally, his sweet and precious sister, is finally beginning to move. Her eyes lock onto him and she stretches out her arm as if to help him.
The cabinet, filled with precious china, wobbles. The teacups teeter to the side and bang against the glass door. The large teapot with gold inlays inches forward and Lelouch watches in horror as the scene begins to replay.
He knows what will happen. He has lived through it.
Yet, here he is, being forced to live through his failure again.
"Move!" he cries, according to the script.
And like before, she does not move.
The teapot in all it's wealthy glory skids through the glass door. The shards sliced into Nunnally's skin and he lunges forward once more, while glass shreds his skin.
It didn't hurt that much the last time.
The last time?
The damn teapot which he doesn't think is possible to despise with such passion, strikes her head. Her eyes roll back. She crumples to the ground.
He grabs her arm, but the cabinet is still wobbling and then falling. His heart pounds and the moment stretches on, amplified by the certainty of what will happen next. Why won't the nightmare stop?
This is the past.
The cabinet lands and he hears three loud distinctive cracks through the shattering of china: one for his arm, two for his sister's legs. At least she is unconscious and doesn't have to feel the hungry fire creeping up from the impact and setting every nerve alight.
Through the daze of pain, he turns to the sound of glass crunching beneath heavy feet. The assassin's body is lean and androgynous: too young to tell their gender.
But their voice has a distinctive feminine tilt as she locks eyes on him from across the room. "Still alive?"
He never remembers the assassin. In every dream and nightmare that follows this fateful day, the assassin is unknown: a nameless horror. But here, in this dream, she has a face. Her eyes are grey blue with a hint of noble features.
His head begins to raise as his younger self notices the threat.
The terror of the moment abates. He has lived through this before. He won't die and that certainty allows him to look past her and notice the slumped guards in the doorway and the trail of blood following the assassin's every step.
Her face contrite, she says, "Really don't like finishing off kids. Don't worry, I'll make it quick."
He wants to believe her. A red haze washes over the room and his younger self whose body is frozen in terror, begins to relax.
Relax.
Why is he relaxing? Why is the world obscured in a shade of red? Why is the assassin walking forward with such certainty that she will not be harmed?
Lelouch... He is not relaxing. He can still feel the thrum of terror in his blood in contrast to his younger self whose pain begins to fade. This is not real... yet it is. He is thirteen, not nine.
The dichotomy of emotions breaks the illusion.
He is in the Count's cell, not in the room where the assassin approaches their prone forms. Through the haze, he can see Art watching him with his lips pressed into a thin line. A drug-induced hallucination.
The Count assumed he would see her. Instead, he sees an old childhood memory which makes no sense.
Relax.
The order rattles his mind, but whatever hallucinogenic the assassin is employing, it matters not within the realm of dreams.
Lelouch's real heart, not his childhood one, is beating rapidly. His younger self reaches out toward the tassels of the sword lying by his side. The fingers brush against the soft strings, but he is too far. He inches forward.
The assassin pauses in her approach. Lelouch forces himself to take a deep measured breath. He is thirteen, not nine and terrified. He has walked through battlefields and protected those he holds dear... but not Edgar. Edgar who died for him.
His younger self is still reaching for the sword and the assassin pulls out her gun. Then, she hoists it again and pulls out a badge. She believes she has all the time in the world... and Lelouch can only wonder if that is true. She has made it this far into the palace and he cannot hear a single gunshot or guard shout.
Everything is silent.
The badge... the badge is familiar. York has a similar one, but a slightly different design.
Why is there an OSI agent attempting to assassinate him?
She pockets the badge again and rolls her eyes. "It's useless to resist, boy. Stronger men have failed to fight off my Geass."
Lelouch clings to the unfamiliar word. This false feeling of calmness that permeates the air is something the assassin claims. Perhaps it is the name of the toxin she developed?
"A terrorist attack," she mutters and walks up to him again and glances back at the door. Finally, he can hear a distant commotion.
She pulls out a syringe and Lelouch stares at it in hatred and confusion. She is supposed to try and kill him. That is what the script says.
Instead, she walks forward and kneels by his side. "I only need one of you... The girl is more malleable."
Nunnally.
Not his sister.
He will not allow his sister to be harmed or taken or used.
His younger self is calm and relaxed as she leans over him and checks his sister pulse. He should be fighting for his sister, but his body rests on the ground like a pliable doll. Lelouch watches in horror as she preps the syringe and even the certainty that his sister is fine cannot ease his frantic heart.
She is fine, right? Or has he imagined her safety, unable to cope with her loss?
No. She is fine.
There are shouts in the hallway and the assassin frowns as she turns around to look at the door.
Finally, his younger self manages to grasp the tassel and pulls the sword closer. Once again, he drives it into her gut like his memory claimed. And the blood is pooling over his hands, dripping down the sword. He keeps pushing.
"How?"
The assassin stumbles back, pulling the sword out of his hands and collapses on the ground. Whatever hallucinogenic she employed, is no longer in effect. Lelouch can smell the copper stench of blood and the acidic stench of the battlefield he has grown accustomed to. Emotions once again align.
Nunnally?
Is she alright?
He has... killed someone?
Bismarck runs into the room, with his gun drawn. His left eye—normally sewn shut and Lelouch thought it was because he lost it in a duel—is wide open and scanning the room. Stepping over the assassin, he leans down and checks Nunnally.
"Hang in there, kid," he whispers to Lelouch, before straightening and shouting, "They're alive."
Lelouch blinks wearily. He cannot keep his eyes open and sleep beckons to him. Nunnally will be fine. Everything will be okay.
Glass crunch and Lelouch squints as his father strides into the room and abruptly stops before the assassin. Why is he here? Why does he even bother?
"Do they need medical aid?"
"Nunnally is unconscious, but breathing normally. Lelouch... he stabbed the assassin," Bismarck says.
He... he didn't kill them? He is sure he did. The assassin was his first kill...
His father's voice rumbles angrily. "Kneel before your Emperor."
Opening his eyes, Lelouch watches as the fallen form gasps and staggers to her knee. "Forgive me, Your Majesty. I was weak. I didn't expect the boy to fight through my Geass. I will submit myself to any punishment necessary."
"V.V.," hisses his father.
"Your Majesty?"
"Why were you ordered to kill them?"
The assassin pauses. "I do not know, Your Majesty. Were my orders incorrect?"
"Yes!" He roars and strikes the assassin. She falls back to the ground, gasping for breath. "Why?"
Whimpering, she says, "I was just following orders. Please, forgive me, Your Majesty! I'm but your humble servant. I don't know why."
Even Lelouch, half asleep, thinks she's pitiful. She's painfully loyal to his father, but then, why?
"Who let you into the palace?"
"How did you disable the alarm?"
She answers dutifully although the pool of blood beneath her grows. His father's face darkens and Lelouch's heart beats faster. His father is somehow the largest threat in the room. Not the assassin with the hallucinogenic. Not Bismarck with a gun and a sword. But his unarmed father.
"Where is V.V.?"
The question stumps her. "I don—I don't know!"
"Execute her," his father orders and crouches.
Lelouch clenches his eyes shut as Bismark walks past with heavy steps. A familiar hiss of metal against a scabbard.
"Please, Your Majesty. I didn't know! Please, mercy! I'll do anything."
A squelch and a thud. The stench of blood is overpowering and Lelouch gags.
"Still awake, Lelouch?" his father asks and Lelouch opens his eyes to stare at the face of his blood spattered father. Bismark stands by his side, wiping the sword drenched in blood. "You shouldn't have heard that."
"Father?" he whispers.
His father smiles. He never smiles. "Let's not give your mother another reason to be angry with me. Come on, Lelouch. Look at me."
Lelouch is too tired to disobey. He looks into his father's eyes.
A bird.
The sweet relief of falling unconsciousness...
A Bathroom
Suzaku sits outside the Tokyo residence under the relentless sun as guards patrol the perimeter. Lelouch and Nunnally are sequestered inside as his father meets with various important government officials, generals, and wealthy families. He hears their muffled laughter from inside and shifts on the stone steps.
It isn't fair. He should be inside doing his duty as the son of the Prime Minister, but instead his father banished him outside. He is a disgrace to the family.
But he didn't even do anything.
Only introduced Lelouch as his friend.
A shadow looms over him and Suzaku looks up, wiping his face along his sleeve. "Tohdoh-sensei?"
He passes him a popsicle and sits down with a grunt. "Thought you might be hot."
"Thank you," Suzaku whispers and the popsicle melts across his tongue. The cool flavor eases the growing headache and the gnawing disappointment. "I don't understand why he's mad."
Tohdoh-sensei leans back. "Your father is stressed. The election isn't looking too good next year and there are whispers that Britannia is planning another military offensive. But he only sent you outside, so why don't we enjoy this wonderful day?"
"Really?"
"Yes, Suzaku-kun. If anyone asks, we were doing important student and teacher training," he says seriously and then cracks a large grin. "Think you can lie?"
Suaku nods and clambers to his feet. He gets an entire day with his sensei although he wouldn't mind spending the time training. But if Tohdoh-sensei thinks his excursion is important, then Suzaku is only too happy to follow.
A loud crash from nearby draws their attention and Tohdoh-sensei's hand drifts to his gun. No one should be able to get past the guards patrolling the premises, but tensions are running high.
"Suzaku, we're here to rescue you," Lelouch declares as he runs up to him and Nunnally follows more sedately. He stops abruptly at the sight of Tohdoh-sensei and stiffens. "My apologies, Tohdoh-sensei."
His sensei sighs and pinches his nose. "I guess you will be joining our field trip?"
Nunnally beams and ten minutes later, they are squished into the backseat of Tohdoh-sensei's car and rolling through the gates with none the wiser. It's exhilarating. Like one of Lelouch's epic plans to escape the monotony of the shrine and stifling guards to work on their secret base. Except this time, there is no need for his cat, Tora, to be released onto the unsuspecting masses.
Cats hate him. But Tora... She's evil. Not even salmon calms her fury.
Of course that means Lelouch and her are best friends. Suzaku once caught her sprawled across his friend's lap as he read a book. And she was purring.
Lelouch whispers, "Sensei could be planning to kill us. There are no guards."
A typical Lelouch question whose mind always seems to wander how other people will kill him. Suzaku shouldn't be surprised, but as always, he is.
Tohdoh-sensei chuckles. "No, Lelouch. I'm not killing my second favorite student."
Warmed, Suzaku leans back in his seat.
"Besides, without you, Suzaku would never bother doing his schoolwork."
"Hey!" Suzaku protests. "Lelouch can't make me do anything!"
His friend snickers, but finally relaxes and Suzaku realises that was his sensei's intention all along. He always seems to know how to best handle Lelouch when he gets into one of those so called moods.
Once, Suzaku dared to ask his sensei why and he only smiled sadly and said that Lelouch needed a friend he could trust. And despite how much time passes and how much Suzaku tries to prove himself worthy, there is a part of Lelouch that doubts him. Suzaku can only work to be the best friend possible.
Tohdoh-sensei parks the car and Suzaku stares out the window, surprised. Joypolis. An amusement park.
The last time Suzaku visited was before his father became the Prime Minister. Three days after the vote by the House of Representatives and the night before the public announcement. His father brought him here with an entourage of plain clothed guards.
He was so excited... but the day turned into a failure with his father reprimanding every childish gesture he made and his mother leaving halfway without a word.
Today, Suzaku decides, will be different.
His sensei opens the door and shoves a pile of sweaters and hats at them. "Put them on. We're going in disguise."
Lelouch, of course, grins like a moron.
The day passes in a blur. Some rides Nunnally can't ride, requiring sight, but Lelouch finally trusts Tohdoh-sensei enough to allow her to part from his side. And Suzaku is given the honorable task of guarding the prince. An honorable job.
Tohdoh-sensei trusts him.
Relishing the thrill of freedom, Suzaku pulls Lelouch to every ride. The Joypolis Explorer. The House of Dead—and learns his friend hates zombies. Spicy Taxi.
After a crushing defeat at Sonic Athletes, Lelouch drags him to the Phoenix Wright Ace attraction. Suzaku will never understand his friend's obsession with the game.
They return to the car filled with sugar and chattering, while Tohdoh-sensei pretends to sulk behind a book. Suzaku knows he's secretly smiling. The corners of his eyes give him away.
Nunally carries with her a sizable loot of stuffed animals and Lelouch finally relaxes, falling asleep on the ride home.
No one noticed their absence, so they park in front of the house unhindered.
"Thank you," Lelouch tells Tohdoh-sensei with a proper Japanese bow.
Suzaku cannot sneak back inside like his friends. His father told him to stay outside and so he will. Even if his heart twinges. Because his father hasn't noticed he left despite the late hour.
A warm, comforting hand settles on his shoulder and he looks up at Tohdoh's proud face. "A game of shogi?"
And because Suzaku loves his sensei, he says, "Yes."
Shogi is still a stupid game.
A Cell
Lelouch stands among piles of the dead with Suzaku and his sister by his side. The stench of death and rot permeates the air. He throws up. There is nothing left in his stomach.
In movies, the dead always close their eyes. Not here.
Here, the dead gaze at him accusingly as he walks past. Asking him what they had done to deserve this. Sometimes he can hear the bodies rustle, pop, and groan.
Dead bodies underneath the unrelenting sun are not quiet.
They know that now after the third time searching for the sound. Desperately, foolishly, hoping that someone is alive.
All dead.
The light pink cherry blossom—they planned to attend Hanami with Suzaku's family—stands out against the realm of the dead filled with burnt corpses, dark flaking red pools of blood, and skin pale as bones. Sometimes he sees an actual bone protrude.
The cherry blossom is pinned to the tattered shirt of a small girl, Nunnally's age.
Unlike the others, there is no blood or charred skin and he morbidly wonders how she died. Internal bleeding? Poisonous gas? Smoke from the fires clogging her lungs?
"Lelouch." Suzaku grasps his shoulder and wrenches him away.
"I have to—"
"—Keep moving," Suzaku says. His eyes are swollen and tear tracks stain his cheeks. "For Nunnally."
For Nunnally he walks through a graveyard that he has no right to enter.
All dead… Just like Edgar.
He sinks in an ocean of blood as he kneels besides Edgar, a comrade, a friend, and a brother. Lelouch needs to save him, but the bony fingers clamp around his wrist.
Why won't he let go?
Lelouch can save him. Has too. He won't let another death lie on his conscience.
But Edgar isn't letting him. Instead he speaks. Painful, laborious words.
Why won't he let go? Frederick is waiting for him and Edgar has so much to live for. So much good he can do because he saves lives. Not like Lelouch.
His eyes sweep over Edgar's frozen chest. No. His jaw hangs limply. No. The skin is pearly white…
Dead.
Make it stop.
A prisoner, a Crow, waits bound before him and York approaches, talking, always talking as if he is everyone's best friend.
Why won't the Crow talk?
Why won't he spare Lelouch the agony of being forced to watch?
To hear the man's scream?
To smell the mix of blood and piss?
No more.
Civilians run through the streets and Lelouch... he gives the order. Innocents will die. His platoon will not be executed. But the decision feels wrong. There are children in the street. And he sees red blood staining the snow.
Please.
Worldbuilding Thoughts
-When Refrain was introduced in the anime, my first thought was that there should be one that does the opposite. Hence, alt-Refrain.
-In the anime, C.C. manages to break Charles's Geass although there are a variety of theories on how that worked. Jeremiah also has a Geass canceller which broke Lelouch's and Charles's Geass on Shirley. Therefore, breaking through a Geass is possible and because Refrain is a "magic drug," I have it able to interfere with Geass… Just unpredictably.
-Joypolis is a real amusement park and so are the rides.
Author's Note
You have no idea how much I wanted to tell everyone what actually happened after I wrote ch. 1. This is also partially why I skimmed over Suzaku and Lelouch's time in Japan so quickly because I knew I was writing a flashback chapter eventually.
Why present tense for a flashback? I chose to write the story in past tense because it gives me the flexibility to have characters running around Geassed without the reader knowing. I did consider writing this in past tense as well, but I think using present tense to signal the truth is a nice little addition. And it prevents people questioning whether the events here actually happened.
Next chapter is nice and long.
See you next week. (Or via discord: discord (period) gg (slash)uSBegVj)
Thank you x1tears1X and Spaded Ace18 on FFN for your help with betaing.