This story is a joint project from Magery and AlSmash. We hope you enjoy it.

The wind howls through the cold, stark metal cathedrals, the churches of capitalism, speaking with a voice only one man could ever truly understand. He walks, ignoring the stares, ignoring the way the crowds shift and move around him, circling him like planets orbiting the sun but never coming close enough to even speak with him. He doesn't care – that's what he wants. Solitude. It's all he's ever really had.

The sun is hidden behind dark clouds; a storm is raging above, rain slamming into the concrete like an artillery bombardment. For all its rage, for all its wrath, it has nothing on the eyes of the man below. Looking into them is like looking into the abyss, an abyss that stares back but doesn't bother to claim you because you're too far beneath its notice. Regret, loss, all-encompassing rage, darkness swirling through violet in a way that would be as eerily beautiful as he is, if it wasn't for the fact he'd never let anyone appreciate it. Not anymore.

He keeps moving, walking so softly that if you couldn't see him, you wouldn't know if he was there. It's debatable if he's there anyway; five minutes after meeting him, you get the sense he's not really alive, a ghost in human skin. He stalks through the crowds; the gap between him and them increases, larger and larger until the entire street is abandoned. He likes that. What he's going to do is not for anyone else to see. What he's got to say is not for anyone else to hear.

Finally, he reaches his destination. It's an abandoned building, still bearing the scars of the war fought two decades prior. Nobody's ever moved back in. Nobody's ever even closed the door. He's the only one who'd ever go there, and the whole world knows why. The whole world probably knows why he's going there today, on this, of all days, but he doesn't care. It doesn't matter if they know. It only matters that they don't see. That they don't understand.

He squats down in the centre of the room; the dust has never faded, but the imprints of a chair can be seen. A prison chair, the sort of chair you bind a woman to before you torture her into insanity and then send the pictures to the only man she ever loved. The sort of last-ditch revenge that only comes when you're losing a war you could never win in the first place. He starts to talk; the tone of his voice is indescribable, a mixture of everything they shared, everything they lost, and everything they could have been.

"Hello, Kallen. I think you know why I'm here. Please don't hate me; you should, I know, even more than I already hate myself, but…"

He trails off, but he doesn't cry. Even here, even now, he doesn't cry. He's had twenty-three years to cry. Today, only today, he will not.

"I'm… gods, why am I even trying to say I'm sorry? Sorry doesn't encompass it. Sorry doesn't mean anything. I could tell you I wished it had been me, that I did everything I could, that I hunted each and every one of them down and by the time I finished they were begging me to do to them what they did to you, but it wouldn't matter. You're… I can't even say it. Twenty-three years. And for every hour, every minute, every second, I've wished you were here. Wished you were next to me. I've turned to talk to you, to ask you something, to order you to take out an enemy Knightmare, but you're never there, and I've never stopped hurting."

He reaches into his coat, pulling out two things. A syringe and a pistol. It only has one bullet in it. It only needs one.

"I know, I'm a coward. Always have been. Always will be. That's what's kept me alive. Fear. Fear of death, fear of losing you, fear of forgetting you. Maybe if you'd been a… no. I wouldn't have loved you if you were. You wouldn't have been you if you were."

He puts down the gun and shoves the syringe in his arm with the practiced efficiency not of an addict, but of a man who knows where every vein in the human body touches the surface. A man who knows humanity inside and out. Even as he depresses the plunger, he picks up the pistol again, and his hands do not shake. His expression twists almost into one of happiness, but that doesn't stop him from placing the gun in his mouth even as he speaks his last words.

"Maybe I'll see you again. Maybe I won't. I'd say fate owes me one, that God owes me one, but we both know they don't give a fuck about either of us. Goodbye, Kallen. I love you."

As he pulls the trigger, accelerating a metal slug into his brain and out the back of his head before he finishes the last word, two things happen.

The life fades from his eyes, but the last thing he sees is the ghost who's haunted him for almost a quarter of a century. Beautiful. Ephemeral. And not a day older than when he first met her at the age of seventeen.

And more importantly, perhaps not to him but to the world, his body glows. Not with the golden, radiant light of her smile, or with the blaze of violet that told you he'd laid eyes on her, but with a faded, almost non-existent light, like a tired soul pulling itself out of his body and into the world. It increases in strength until it suddenly expands, burning through every wall of the abandoned torture chamber and creating a spire a thousand kilometres high, lancing through the roof and the fabric of the void, stretching across the darkness between worlds, invisible and yet brighter than a thousand stars until it hits its target.

And at that very moment, across an impossible distance, across worlds and universes and everything else that lay between the two of them, Lelouch vi Britannia awakens in his seventeen-year-old body as C.C.'s hand latches onto his wrist, pulling him into a contract forged between two planes of existence. The only thing that's changed has been which two planes of existence.

It turns out the gods do pay their debts… eventually.

N 35° 41' 38.0796", E 139° 42' 12.876". To everyone else, those would seem to be simple coordinates on the map located in the Shinjuku District of Tokyo. For me, they were the entire world.

They were the coordinates to where I met the man who I fell in love with. The man who I would later betray.

It was a far cry from what I remember of it, when we first met, it was nothing more than a shattered husk of concrete and girders. Buildings falling into disrepair from damage and neglect. Nearly a year after that, I had saved his life in this very spot, where it was merely the foundation for a new building.

Today, it was a high-rise building that housed hundreds of apartments. Progress, right? Thousands of people who did not have a fucking clue that their freedom was because of that man who had given them everything and they now scorn, spit upon, and curse. Today, that man was an epithet, a he-who-shall-not-be-named, a demon to scare little children at night, "you better eat your vegetables or the Demon Emperor will get you". Bastards. Everything you have you should thank HIM for. This peace, this world, it was all because you were incapable of being better than animals who rut in filth.

Zero Requiem. I still couldn't understand it, even today, why was it the only option? Why did he have to do it?

But I digress, it doesn't fucking matter anymore. What matters is what I came here to do. My exorcism. My freedom.

I stop as I sit down now, my phone beginning to vibrate, I cast a look at it only make sure that it was who I thought it was. Indeed, the only person who could have talked me out of it. But it was too late, I was too far gone. My resignation the last bridge to this world, burnt in a sad letter to a girl who viewed me as a big sister.

I know I had promised that I would take care of myself, and everything in this world had been happy, it had been enough. But maybe it wasn't, maybe, I had merely lived with the euphoria of surviving, of seeing that what he had built would withstand the test of our imperfection. That I could move on.

Who the hell was I kidding? The nightmares made sure that I couldn't. Nightmares of blood, of him, the look of betrayal on his face. The eternal sadness as the life drained out of him. They never left me after that first year, some nights I would just remember the nights we had together, just chatting, and then the others all I remember are blood and I'd wake up screaming and crying. Not even my mother understood what was going on, not that I allowed her understand.

School came and went, and I remember Nunnally personally visiting to me to be her Knight of Honor, I had been honored, I had been thrilled. And for a while, the nightmares went away. The girl who could have been my sister was a ward from the evil that crept in my mind. Yet, like everything, it lost strength and they returned.

I tried to fight them, I tried to just bury myself into the little things of life, anything to take the edge off, even dating Gino, loud-mouthed Gino, but that had ended badly after the first night. No, I couldn't betray Lelouch any further.

That was when I found Refrain, sweet Refrain. I can see why Lelouch wanted to turn to it. I could be with him, even though I knew it was all an illusion, all something created by my brain. But sometimes, sometimes you want something to be so real, that you ignore reality itself.

But it wasn't enough. It never was enough. It never could be enough. Not when the Refrain faded away and I was left empty, my soul a tattered shredded thing that had nothing to anchor it down. A festering wound within my heart that no treatment could heal.

My body began failing, little things here or there. Trembles, slowed reflexes, people worried, even the bastards that I swore off. Damn Ougi and his whore, damn them to hell, what made them think they could involve themselves in my life. Not when they were responsible for his death. Not when…

Then I simply couldn't hide it. I think Gino knew, but he tried to cover for me, even Nunnally knew. She always seemed to know. They both saw me wasting away, and yet they didn't know what to do. Maybe I should be grateful for them, maybe I should curse them for their incapability. I don't even know anymore. All I know was that I am empty, and there is nothing, no one, that will be able to fix me.

And now, I come back to the point where it all began, the alpha and the omega of my life. The very beginning and the very end. A place that gave me a life and gave me a future, but also took everything away from me. I should curse him, but I love him. Those eyes, that smile, that arrogance. But I can't.

Because he is my demon.

It really doesn't even matter anymore. What was the point of Zero Requiem if I could not share it with the one I loved? He created a world of peace for all, but emptiness for me. Maybe I'm selfish. Maybe the Refrain has burned me out. Frankly, I no longer care, I have nothing left, Kallen Kozuki, the great Ace of the Black Knights, the betrayer of Zero, was nothing more than a burnt out husk of flesh, a ghost in corporeal form.

I laughed, because that was all I could do, I could only laugh at the sheer frivolity of it all. The one thing Lelouch told me, commanded me to do, because he believed I was strong. Lelouch, the genius that brought Britannia to its knees and trained the world, had once again underestimated the most basic of things, humanity.

I looked down at the instruments before me, it really didn't matter, it never mattered, not since then.

Taking a deep breath, I took the Refrain and injected it in my bloodstream, the familiar friend like fire in my veins as it crept its way to my brain, giving me what I wanted as I could feel my eyes unfocus and glass, my other hand trembled, suddenly heavier as I saw him, my heart racing in my chest.

He looked as beautiful as he always did, ebony hair that shone in the light, violet eyes that danced in amusement and the smile, Oh God, the smile.

He is beckoning me now, and I...

My hand raised up the second implement of my exorcism as I put it under my chin, staring straight at him, never judging me, just like he never did.

And I pulled the trigger and three years to the day at the very place we first met, I finally to rejoin my love.

I never realised how literal my last thoughts would be.

Lelouch awoke, fading from the darkness into what could only be a dream. He was in C's world, the closest he'd ever been to heaven – of course, when you lived in your own personal hell, that was true of anywhere where, for a few brief moments, you could forget reality.

What didn't make sense was C.C.'s presence, or how the screams of the damned were replaced by a singing, a soft, angelic singing, the sort of thing you'd associate with a church if he'd ever let any of those exist any more. Why was he here? What was she doing here? What was happening?

YOU ARE BEING RESURRECTED.

The voice didn't speak aloud. It didn't enter his ears to be comprehended by his mind. It didn't even enter his thoughts with some strange telepathy, skipping over the steps in between speaking and understanding. It simply was, and for the first time in his life, Lelouch knew he stood before someone, something greater than he was.

So he didn't bother to ask why, not now. His questions didn't matter.

THEY DO. YOU WILL UNDERSTAND IN TIME, FOR THAT IS WHAT WE ARE GRANTING YOU. TIME.

"You're… I must be an idiot. I can't even blow my own brains out correctly. Looks like Refrain and head wounds go together… strangely." He spoke with the dry, sad self-deprecation that had been his for two decades. He must be imagining things; gods, fate, they'd never been kind to either half of him.

WHAT YOU THINK WE ARE, WHAT YOU THINK OF US, BOTH ARE IRRELEVANT. WE SIMPLY ARE. AND WE DO NOT FORGET OUR DEBTS.

Lelouch laughed, before turning and pointing to C.C. God answered before he could do more than think the first words of the question.

THE WHEEL WEAVES AS THE WHEEL WILLS. THERE MUST BE A BALANCE. TO RESTORE YOU. THERE MUST BE A SACRIFICE. YOU ARE… FORTUNATE YOUR SOULS ARE CLEAVED TOGETHER, ELSE NEITHER OF YOU WOULD GET YOUR WISH.

"You're… you're not actually talking about C.C. and I, are you?"

NO. YOU WILL UNDERSTAND IN TIME.

"You keep coming back to that concept of time, don't you?"

YES. PREPARE YOURSELF, LELOUCH VI BRITANNIA. TODAY, THE DEMONS RIDE ON THE WINDS OF TIME.

With that, C's world began to fade. The last thing he saw of it was C.C.'s smile, a smile frustratingly familiar. A smile he hadn't seen in twenty-three years, since their mutual banishment from each other's presence because everything hurt too much. She was the woman he'd been almost as close to as Kallen; their only problem was that he hadn't loved her enough to let her in, and she'd loved him enough to let him go.

It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense. He was dead, and she was gone, not like Kallen but close enough it made almost no difference. That was the way her and Kallen had always been, to him. There was almost no difference between them in his eyes. But that almost was that she wasn't Kallen, and that had been enough.

Then Lelouch awoke for a second time.

The world faded in and out, like she was blinking a thousand times a second, a staccato rhythm that didn't make any sense because she should be dead. Slowly, everything stopped flickering, the world resolving itself into an inky blackness, a darkness both profound and strangely transparent. She could see through it, but she couldn't see anything; she knew it existed, but she didn't know what existed in it.

She felt the sensation of vertigo, of dizziness, of the world spinning around her while she stayed in the same spot, of everything changing while only she and what had spoken to her remained constant. The darkness vanished, replaced by a burning, blinding brightness that somehow reminded her of Lelouch, but before it could consume her, everything froze. In the distance, she saw the one person she never, ever wanted to see again.

"Hello, Kallen," the cool monotone greeted her as if they'd only seen one another yesterday.

"I should burn you. Kill you. Destroy everything you ever loved," Kallen growled. She didn't care where she was, or why she was here, or what the witch was doing her. She only cared that she could have stopped him and she didn't.

The woman smiled, almost sadly – it was the closest she'd ever seen her come to expressing emotion.

"I already have," she answered. "So now I'm going to try and fix it."

"What?" Kallen asked, confusion overriding even the deep-seated anger that had haunted her every moment for three years.

"Goodbye, Kallen. I'm sorry," the witch responded, her tone a mixture of regret, resignation and something Kallen couldn't quite identify. She vanished and the searing light resumed its expansion, consuming her in burning fire.

Then Kallen awoke for a second time.

Lelouch blinked, returning to reality. He stood in the exact place he'd began to journey, the one that had culminated in becoming the ninety-ninth Emperor of Britannia; staring down a firing squad with a dead girl who'd soon come back to life… but she wouldn't. Or would she? Parts of him knew this was real, that somehow his soul had been transplanted into his seventeen-year-old body to begin his journey anew, but there was a back corner of his mind that insistently declared this to be nothing more than a hallucination. As the men in front of him raised their guns, hallucination or not, he figured he'd better do something about it. Not because he didn't want to die, he had tried to kill himself after all – he just refused to let anyone else do it. He'd go out on his own terms, just like he did everything else.

He knew he didn't have his Geass, which didn't really make sense, but even if he was in a seventeen-year-old body, he was still himself. Britannian special forces did not scare Lelouch vi Britannia.

"I doubt Clovis would approve of you shooting his favourite brother, Captain," he said, more as a delaying tactic than anything else.

Had any other man said that, he probably would have been gunned down. But Lelouch had spent twenty-three years as Emperor. He knew how to speak as if there was no chance of disobedience, how to stand with the impervious arrogance of royalty, and more importantly, he knew how to stare someone down like Charles had once done to him.

The captain stared at him, standing there like the physical incarnation of the Empire, and finally noticed his aristocratic features and pure violet eyes, eyes that only Britannian royalty possessed. No other Britannian family had eyes anything like the Royal Family's, and if there was even the slightest suspicion that he was one of them, it was a lot more than the man's life was worth to do anything to him. If he was an imposter, he could always be dealt with later by someone higher up in the chain of command, but for now…

"Forgive us, Your Highness. We did not recognize you," he said.

Lelouch smirked. "I very much doubt you would have, considering I've been officially dead for seven years. Now, may I impose upon you for some form of escort? One Knightmare would suffice."

As the conversation had continued, he'd been walking closer and closer to the soldiers, both to cramp their fighting space and seem as confident as he felt. By the time he asked the captain for a Knightmare, he was standing right in front of the man. The soldier paused, looking at him, but now that he could see directly into his eyes, Lelouch was sure he'd obey, at least for now.

His prediction was accurate. The man turned to the soldier next to him, presumably to order him to contact someone, and Lelouch struck. His hand darted out, far slower than he was used to but still fast enough, and snatched the man's service pistol from its holster. Five seconds later, he emptied the clip, and the last man dropped to the floor. His aim was slightly off, as his teenaged self was nothing like the soldier he'd become—he'd have to do something about that soon, if he was truly back in time—but it was good enough, coupled with the advantage of surprise and the cramped confines preventing the enemy from using their assault rifles without killing one another.

He rotated himself slightly, so if somebody burst through a particular wall, they wouldn't be able to see the weapon, before wiping away little blood had spattered on his hands. Now, if I'm truly back in time…

His second prediction was equally accurate. The wall shattered outwards, and there 'stood' Viletta Nu, or more accurately her Knightmare. Lelouch smiled, mouth stretching into a predator's grin. He was going to enjoy this.

"Stand down! Who are you?" her voice asked.

"My name is Alan Spacer, and my father is a Duke. I'd like to request your protection," he answered.

"Prove it," the woman responded.

"I can show you my ID, if that will be enough," Lelouch said.

"Okay, I'm coming out. But if this is a trick, I am authorized to execute you for impersonating nobility in a war-zone."

The hatch of her Sutherland rose up, and he saw her for the first—and last—time in twenty-three years as his hand flashed through the air, drawing a bead on her head and pulling the trigger. One short, sharp bang, and Viletta Nu was no more. Lelouch smiled again with savage majesty. Everything was proceeding according to plan.

"Sorry, Viletta dear. But I didn't even need you for your Knightmare codes. I remember those well enough," he whispered to her lifeless body as he lifted her body out of the pilot's cockpit and dumped it unceremoniously on the ground, remembering almost at the last second to steal her Knightmare key. Ignoring the slight splatter of blood on the seat behind him, he activated the Sutherland and sped off towards his destiny a second time.

Kallen didn't understand what was going on, even as she spun through Shinjuku on autopilot, ducking and dodging and weaving around Britannian Sutherlands like they weren't even there. She could have destroyed them all, even in a Glasgow, but she was too confused. One moment she killed herself, the next she woke up in her seventeen-year-old body, perfectly fit, perfectly trained, no Refrain dependency. In short, she was in the best condition she'd been in for a long time, not to mention the fact she seemed to be back in time. Which meant… which meant she could save Lelouch.

The thought consumed her, beating a relentless tattoo inside her mind like she'd walked into the middle of a percussive orchestra. She tore through the ghettos, following the exact route she'd traced out so long ago. She might be semi-convinced none of this was real, she might be in the middle of shock and borderline obsession and she might be desperate, but she was in no way stupid. If there was the slightest chance that this was real, she couldn't change the timeline until she had the chance to prevent anything seriously bad happening.

As much as she'd like to, it meant she couldn't gun down Ohgi or Tamaki or anyone else. Not yet. Her revenge would come, but not now. Of course, she probably could kill Suzaku. That was the only thing that bastard was good for. A painful, bloody death. She'd burn all their hearts out, one by one, but she'd be damned if she didn't start with his. And she meant that literally.

Suddenly, as she darted around a corner, she remembered exactly where she was. And she remembered exactly what would happen here.

"The west entrance. Use the tracks to move to the west entrance," his voice spoke across the radio, strangely tense, strangely reverent. If she'd been aware of anything else but the fact it was him who has speaking to her, she would have noticed his tone sounded like how she looked in the few, painful seconds between remembering what would happen and hearing his voice for the first time. It echoed through her mind, and suddenly she didn't care if this was a dream or a hallucination or anything else. It was his voice, and that was all that mattered.

She could no more help her reaction than she could stop loving him. She spoke his name, caressed it the way she wanted to caress him, worshipped it the way she wanted him to worship her.

"Lelouch…"

"Kallen?"

She froze.

Author's Note:

This story was inspired from a couple of things. One of them was a plan Magery had to write a time-travel fic that differed from the usual in that two people were sent back – Lelouch and Kallen, directly after the betrayal and the God scene. Kinda a cliché break point, we know, but it worked the best for the rough idea he had. The second inspiration was a what-if – what if we combined Ghosts and Exorcisms?

As you can probably tell, this story will be dark. Four character deaths in the first chapter can do that to a fic. We assure you Viletta's death was necessary. It was practically a mercy when you consider what it would have been in-character for Kallen to have done to her.

One final note: Lelouch's mental age is fourty-one, whereas Kallen's is only twenty-one. We will be exploring that fairly heavily.