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"I do not know why snow is white, but I do find such white snow beautiful." - Lelouch
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Narita Mountain. A beautiful scenery in the winter, when the freshly powdered snow decorates the rugged landscape like frosting on a decadent cake.
Yet for Lelouch Lamperouge, there is more to the mountain that meets the eye. It's what lies hidden inside the cake that matters.
"Sakuradite," he murmurs with satisfaction, as his keen gaze runs over the screen with numbers and 3D models of the mountainside topography. One of the most sought-after mineral in the world, Sakuradite, when refined properly, is an excellent superconductor worth triple of its weight. Narita Mountain is known to be a mining and refining town because of the rare, pink-colored mineral. His father, Charles Vi Brittannia, owns many of the factories and businesses here, most of which are supervised by Cornelia.
A slow, calculating grin materializes on the young man's features.
One of the first steps in his plan is to weaken his own father's empire. He needs to expose his sibling's weakness, capitalize on them, and when the stocks are dropping and most of the old board members replaced with his own subordinates, he'll make his first public move.
Until that day comes, he'll need to lie in the shadows. Orchestrate operations in secret and most importantly, do not be discovered.
A flash of green catches his eyes. Lelouch looks up, and sees none other than CC right out the window. He scowls. Slams his laptop shut and makes his way out of the rented log cabin.
"CC, what are you doing here?" Lelouch growls as he stalks his way over to her side. She doesn't turn at his approach, but continues to stare out at the growing flurries of ice and snow.
"I said I would watch over you didn't I? We have a contract."
His eyes narrow and he doesn't bother hiding the exasperation in his voice. "Aren't you overdoing it? I don't need a babysitter. The entire mountain is deserted in preparation for the upcoming snow storm. I have all the equipment set up and ready to go. You're supposed to be miles away, conducting another operation. Really CC, what am I paying you for?"
The girl does not bother answering his question. "I've always wondered. Why are you Lelouch?"
"I have no time to be discussing philosophy with you," he answers curtly.
"Why do you take your mother's maiden name, and shun your fathers? Yet you kept your first name, the one he gave you at birth when I advised to change your name entirely. Its too sentimental, and not practical enough. You're dwelling too much in the past." There is an edge to her voice. He lifts a brow in question. And wonders if she's still talking about him anymore.
Her words are not meant to hurt. So Lelouch doesn't bat an eye as he replies, "CC swings to the other extreme doesn't it? It's two letters. Hardly human."
She turns suddenly. The edge of her eyes tighten with rare emotion, and then as suddenly as it appears, it's gone. He realizes with a start that she looks lost.
But what really amazes him is the amount he cares.
"Lelouch," she says his name carefully, with no bitterness or malice, "Do you know why snow is white?" The corners of her lips lift in a wistful smile. Lelouch finds himself incapable of speaking.
"Snow is white because its forgotten what color it's supposed to be."
He doesn't know what to say. She's talking in riddles and there's an unsettling clenching in his stomach. Before he can answer, the walkie talkie at his hip blares out. He shuts his eyes with annoyance.
He cannot lose focus. Not now. Not ever.
"All units ready and in position. Awaiting further instructions."
The mask is back on. No more emotions. No more philosophical musings.
Back to business.
Lelouch detaches the communicator and presses the speaker button. "Alright. All preparations have been completed. Black Knights, prepare to move out!" He tosses a look over to her. "You're not supposed to be here. Leave."
CC flips her unnatural green hair. She doesn't even spare him a glance as she slides back inside her black BMW. The tires make begrudging tracks in the grey melted snow, and Lelouch returns to his work station inside.
He checks the placed explosives. Looks over his calculations again, and then sits back in his chair.
Sakuradite. A wonderful source of energy when extracted properly. However, in its raw, unrefined form, the pink stone is highly unstable. Any disturbance will cause it to unleash a powerful, destructive explosion.
Just like a bomb.
Lelouch's thumb lightly taps against the remote detonator in his hand. A gleeful grin, the same one a child would have with a new-found toy, paints across his demonic face.
"Goodbye Cornelia," Lelouch murmurs. And he presses the button.
Within seconds, he can feel the vibrations reverberate from his side of the mountain. The Black Knights planted the Radiant Surge devices Rakshata designed for him on the southern side, well away from his cabin. He also has a helicopter-manned by Kallen- circulating the mountain so that he can stream a bird-eye view of the avalanche as it happens.
Lelouch watches with rapt attention as the devastation spreads. It only takes a few carefully placed detonators to set the whole mountain in motion. His indigo eyes track the path of destruction the mass of snow, ice, and mud leaves in its wake. He leans slightly forward, his fingers steepling together. In just mere moments, companies that took years to establish are torn apart. His older sister will be spending the majority of her time here now, handling damage control while he can move onto the next phase of his plan. Cornelia is a cunning and perceptive business woman. He cannot act out with her tight security entrenched around the Britannia family. The success of this operation depends on how much time it can buy him, as there is one less obstacle in his way.
His dark brows draw together. Seems like he's miscalculated the multiplier. The avalanche's reach is more destructive than he has allocated for. It tears through half of the residential area, and reaches as far as the next major interstate highway.
Oh well. Higher collateral damage will make for a more sensational story for the press later.
Lelouch mildly wonders if he should have consulted a physics professor before he detonated Rakshata's bombs. Or perhaps CC would have known-
"Shit."
That witch. She's headed downhill, right into the brunt of the avalanche. He hopes to the heavens that she has the sense to avoid the routes he has outlined in the extensive emails. Then he curses again.
CC never checks her messages. She falls asleep at meetings and is surprisingly hard to get ahold of via any kind of electronic communication. One would think a criminal mastermind would stay more in touch with her allies, but not this woman.
Why, why, why!
His mind chants up a mantra storm as he sprints to his car. Tires squealing, Lelouch barely makes the first turn in the slushy, slippery snow. He flips open his cell, but there is no reception this high up in the mountain side.
"Dammit CC, don't you dare-" Lelouch stops mid-sentence as he rounds another sharp turn, and almost runs right into a wall of snow-covered debris. He slams on the brakes, and catches sight of a familiar vehicle half-buried in the snow.
Lelouch jumps out. "CC!" Panic seizes him as he attempts to climb the wall of ice as he tries to reach the black BMW. He grabs ahold of a protruding tree branch, and his feet finds a foothold in the icy incline. Five arduous minutes later, Lelouch finally pulls himself up to the top, out of breath and slightly sweating. He scrapes the snow off of the rear window with an elbow and peers inside fearfully.
Nobody there.
A breath of relief. CC has an uncanny ability to survive. She must have escaped from the car when she saw the avalanche coming. Lelouch looks around, but the roadside is completely buried in snow, mud, and debris. White continues to fall from the sky, as if he needs a reminder that the predicted snowstorm is on its way.
He tries calling out her name again, but only silence answers him. Lelouch leans over to the other side of the car, where it leans precariously against the railing that lies tangent to the edge. Nothing.
"Where is she?" he mutters to himself. A familiar voice comes on his walkie talkie.
"Zero. What's your status? The storm is on its way. Pickup at the cabin in five minutes."
"Q-3," he tries to keep his voice calm and contained, "Standby. I've run into some... complications."
"What's going on?" her voice rises with apprehension.
"CC. I'm trying to locate her."
"CC's here?! She was supposed to be at Tokyo tower with Diethard-"
"Yes. I know." Lelouch grits his teeth. "But when has she listened to my orders?" He circles the vehicle slowly, looking for footprints or a hint of her trail.
"Look, I'll get in touch with you when I-" The walkie talkie slips out of his hand as he steps on an unsteady patch of black and loses footing. His eyes widen. Curses spill out of his lips as his world suddenly tilts upward, and the grey, snowing skies greet him for a moment before his vision goes dark.
"Zero?! Zero can you hear me?" Kallen's voice repeats with an electronic crackle.
But nobody answers.
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The first sensation he recognizes is cold. It is freezing, the cold so poignant that it seeps into his very bones.
The second is pain.
His left ankle throbs. He surmises it might be broken, or at least, severely sprained. Even in his half-conscious state, he has the sense to not try moving it, lest he makes the injury worse.
Lelouch slowly, cautiously opens his eyes. At first, he couldn't tell the difference. It's completely dark. The air is damp, and if he listens carefully, he can hear the quiet drips of water. He must be in a cave. The dying blood rays of the sun barely reaches him, diluted by feet of snow and ice which cover the entrance.
A sudden rustle of clothing to his left. He doesn't need to see to know who it is. The endless hours in her company -researching, plotting, even bickering- has somehow familiarized him to her presence.
"CC?"
"I found you stuck in a tree and carried you back to the cave before the worst of the snow storm started." Her low, melodious voice echoes through the cavern. Lelouch sighs, and leans back.
"Right. I fell. Trying to find you."
"That," CC hisses at him angrily, "was not necessary. You do not need to put yourself at risk for me. I have survived and lived through worse. Your pride always gets in the way at the most ridiculous moments."
A sharp intake of breath. He looks up at her narrowed, amber gaze, glowing with irritation in the shadows.
"You didn't even have to be here to detonate the bombs. You should have left the entire operation to Ohgi and Kallen," CC bites out ruthlessly.
"If the king does not lead, how can he expect his subordinates to follow?"
"The game is over if the king is captured."
"Perhaps," he admits tiredly. CC wisely decides to not expend any more energy lecturing him, and instead continues in a more subdued voice, "Kallen will come find us when it's all clear. The storm is raging outside, and there is no safe way for her to reach us until the blizzard calms down."
"So we just wait? Here?" Lelouch demands.
"Yes." Her tone is final, brokering no arguments.
Lelouch grudgingly settles against the wall. It is cold. In his haste, he did not remember his jacket and all he has on is an open-collared shirt with a light sweater. His entire body trembles, and he clenches his jaw, refusing to let them chatter in the dark silence.
CC does not say anything. She sits right next to him, takes off her jacket, and flips it around while offering him one sleeve.
"What are you-"
"Stick your right arm through it," she orders tonelessly, as her left arm slips through the left sleeve, "It'll help keep you warm." Without further instructions, CC leans into his body, almost plastering herself against him so that both of them can fit underneath the makeshift blanket.
Lelouch stutters. "Is this a-absolutely necessary?"
"We need to conserve energy and body heat as long as possible. So yes. This is necessary," CC deadpans. And then scoots even closer.
To his horror, his body is slowly responding to her curves pressing against his front. He tries to shift away, but she soon follows, her thick white trenchcoat wrapping them together like a well-tailored strait-jacket. Lelouch inhales her scent unwillingly. It's fresh. Clean. And there's a hint of pepperoni and cheese in her hair.
He swallows the groan making its way up his throat.
No. This is CC. He reminds himself.
A valuable accomplice and paid partner-in-crime. Not even a friend. Not a woman. Well that's not particularly true, but for the sake of his sanity-
"Stop thinking. Go to sleep," she murmurs in the quiet coldness. Lelouch blinks.
How does she always know?
"CC?"
"Hmm?"
"Thank you. For saving me."
She doesn't say anything for the longest time. "We are on the same side, after all."
The ache in his foot prevents him from falling asleep. Lelouch tries to keep still as he savors warmth from her body. He counts to the sound of her even breathing, and tries to clear his head.
He struggles to not worry about the evidence left in the snow. Ohgi and the team was instructed on how to clean up afterwards. Kallen is smart enough to not get caught. On the other side, Diethard should be broadcasting propaganda campaigns to all major news channels.
All there is to do now is... wait. Which he hates. It's a waste of his time. He can be monitoring Schniezel's movements, or tracking Suzaku's hapless merger with Euphemia's real estate properties.
He scoffs. Now that is one business deal that will head straight downhill before the ink dries. Euphy, the gentle soul she is, will not last a second against the Kururugi clan, and he curses his father for letting the merger happen.
CC moves a bit in her sleep. Her side of the jacket is slipping off. Lelouch carefully extracts his left arm, and pulls it back slowly. Not sure if he's losing his mind, but his arm stays wrapped around CC's shoulder, and in turn draws her closer.
For body heat, he reassures himself silently.
Not because she is an attractive girl. Not because she has the brains and the wits to actually hold his attention for more than five minutes.
He wonders just exactly how she sees him. Up until today, he was certain she possessed no emotion. She is doing it all for the money, for the job, and nothing else.
And yet here she is, braving a snowstorm to rescue his clumsy ass from certain death, and going beyond the call of duty with sharing her jacket to keep him comfortable.
Well, as comfortable as he can be given the circumstances.
He feels her shivering, and pulls her tighter. In response, he feels her mouth move against his skin.
She utters one word. It's so quiet in the cave that it sounds like a thunderclap.
He concentrates on its meaning, the alluring sound of two syllables interplaying with each other, instead of the velvet feel of her lips at his throat. Realization suddenly hits him.
It's her real name.
Not for the first time, Lelouch wonders just who exactly is this girl. She appears out of nowhere, almost as if from thin air, and offers him a deal he just could not refuse. Intelligence and wisdom emanate from her mannerisms, but there's also hints of unspoken sorrow in the golden depths of her gaze. There's an air of maturity, one that is way beyond her twenty plus years, instilled in her slender frame, and he finds himself trusting her from the beginning. When he doesn't even know her real name, age, and how she came to be running such a shady organization.
He tests her name out loud. It flows easily from his mouth, and he decides he likes it. CC stiffens. Within seconds she becomes fully awake. Her voice cuts through the frozen air like a sharp blade. "You have a bad habit of eavesdropping."
"What's wrong? I think it's a good name." He says it again, only because he's enjoying her reaction. CC's right hand clenches into a tight fist against his shirt. "It's more human than CC," he softly adds.
It's the wrong thing to say. He immediately realizes his mistake as her muscles bunch and tense up like a rubber band stretched to the point of no return.
"Human?" CC's hisses. Her ferocity makes him wince. "As if I want to be anymore human! Look at the blood on my hand. The people that I have lied to and betrayed. They've all become nameless faces. Even the ones who showed me kindness. There is nothing human about what I do and who I am. CC is what I should be called. You will do well to remember that."
Lelouch is stunned. She has never lost control over her emotions like that. When she was practically lying on top of him before, CC now cannot seem to get far enough away from him. It's only the jacket and his arm that prevents her from moving.
He searches for the right words. The young aristocrat is naturally gifted with charisma and he has no trouble winning crowds over with his inspirational speeches. Yet here, alone in the cave with this slip of a girl, he can't seem to find the right ones.
"I'm only going to say this once," he begins heavily, "But... I always wanted to thank you." When she does not reply, Lelouch takes his chances and continues. "Because of this GEASS, because of your help, I have come this far in achieving my goal. I will change the world, for the better. I will see to my end of the contract and fulfill your desires as well as mine. So please-"
"Are you saying it to comfort me, Lelouch?" CC doesn't sound as happy at all. In fact, she seems even more forlorn. "Do you pity me? Or... is this part of your obsession?"
She doesn't say "lying" but they both know that's exactly what she means.
Lelouch takes a deep breath.
"No. It's a promise. From me to you." True sincerity colors his voice. And never has it been more important for Lelouch to have a person believe his words than this moment.
She shifts away again. Disappointment and hurt all dig daggers into his chest. He finds it hard to breath, and his arm drops back to his side. His eyes close, expecting her next words of rejection.
Instead he feels the brush of something soft against his mouth. A light, silken touch lingers against his lips, and her breath fans across his half-frozen face, warming him.
"Very well. I'll hold you to that promise."
He cannot make out her features. It's too dark for that. But he can feel her acceptance. Her smile even. He would have paid millions just to see exactly what kind of expression she has right now.
There's no more point in denying the attraction. The unbridled panic that seized him when he couldn't find her already proves he no longer sees her as just a paid mercenary. She's become more of a confidante, more of a companion than some of the members of his own family.
Still not quite friends, but as Lelouch pulls her back down for another kiss, he admits this can be the start of something so much better.
He's about to embark on a path filled with blood and violence. In order to create the new world he seeks, the foundation needs to be built on sacrifices and the tears of many. He knows there's a chance he will not be able persevere. He is human. He has moments of weaknesses. His eighteen-year-old shoulder is not nearly wide or broad enough to carry society's burdens.
But at least now he will not be alone.
Notes:
- Oh crap. I fell back into a Code Geass mood after watching 1st eps of the new OVA "Akito the Exiled". Gahhh I can never stop obsessing over CC x Lelouch!
- Expanding on the modern AU from first chapter. This is more of Lelouch's POV from the past (5 years before events of first chapter).
- If the first chap can be summed up as "dark, red, and sensual", then hopefully this chap has the feel of "white, innocence, and soft." Lelouch is just discovering his own feelings, and it's also a bit sad b/c it's going back in time, when readers already know from the prev chap that a lot of things will go wrong in the future.
- Therefore, the chap's title refers to the abduction of Persephone from the myth. Lelouch is dragged into something bigger than he can handle, but he has not taken the first "bite" of the pomegranate yet. I actually need to revise the meaning of pomegranate it's actually Geass and not CC (I would imagine the first bite would be the murder of... kk I need to shut up now. lol)
- There's more potential to add to this AU universe I created. But every time I brainstorm for this story... it hurts my head. lol I'll leave it as incomplete then. And feel free to add it to alerts, even there's no guarantees. Thoughts and comments are all welcome! :D