Your Past, My Future
Chapter Three
a/n I do not own Code Geass, at least no more than I did last chapter.
Lelouch woke up for the first time in a long time—certainly since he found himself in the past—at ease. He hadn't been so much at peace since C.C. restored his memory and he found out that his sister was taken from him.
But now Nunnally was back with him, and, almost as importantly, his Geass was back with him. And as long as he had the Geass, everything else was under his control. Now he could continue with his plans and free Japan, crush Britannia, and kill his worthless father who abandoned him.
He had gotten so close to victory before—so cruelly, painfully close—and this time, he had exactly the advantage to push him over the edge. He knew the future.
And according to that future, the first thing he did after obtaining the Geass was create what would become the Order of the Black Knights.
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Her phone was ringing. "Make it stop," Kallen groaned, burying her head under her pillow. Kallen was not a morning person. She was really, really not a morning person.
Her phone kept of ringing. If she answered it, it would stop ringing, but then she'd have to talk to whoever was calling, and eventually get up and tell her step-mom that someone wanted to speak with her.
It rang again. Kallen growled, picked up the phone and answered it. "This had better be good."
"I'm glad you're still alive, Q-1."
Kallen took in a sharp intake of breath. Only one person had ever called her that. "You!" she said. "You're that voice from yesterday! Who are you? And how do you even know where I live?"
"I make it a habit to know impossible things, Kouzuki," he replied with a—was he laughing at her? "The day after tomorrow, be at the observation deck of Tokyo tower at four o' clock."
"Alright, alright, but who are you? And how'd you make the enemy withdraw?"
Nothing.
"Hello? Are you still there?"
Nothing.
Kallen slammed the phone onto the receiver and swore loudly. She was certain that guy hadn't seen more of her than her knightmare, but somehow he knew where she lived, what her phone number was, and even her real name. And he knew exactly what to do to turn a massacre into a victory the day before.
I make it a habit to know impossible things.
Cocky genius.
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Satisfied with his conversation, Zero left the phone booth and went to school. Originally he had contacted Kallen first because she was closest to him. He hadn't known that she would become his fiercest supporter or that she had the aptitude as a pilot that rivaled that of the Knights of the Rounds. Back then, she had just been a girl he'd seen at school.
With that done, he had a meeting with the student council to take care of.
"Lulu! I can't believe it! You're alive!" Shirley shrieked, as though on the verge of tears.
"I suppose I am," Lelouch admitted. "Is there a reason why I shouldn't be?"
"Well, when you didn't come back to school yesterday, I tried to call you, but I didn't get anything, so I called Rivalz, and he said something about you being held hostage by terrorists."
"What a peculiar thing to say," Lelouch said calmly. "Nothing at all like that happened. To be honest, it seems like some sort of bad joke."
"But Lulu, it didn't sound like a joke when he told me. What really happened to you two?"
"You know, I'll have to tell you some time," he said, noticing Rivalz down the hallway. "But right now, I need to have a word with someone. Hey, Rivalz!"
His friend looked at him expectantly. "Lelouch. Is there something you want to tell me?"
"Yeah. Come with me," he said, leading Rivalz into another room.
"So, what exactly happened yesterday?" Rivalz asked. "You deliberately made me go as close to that truck as possible, and then you jumped inside for no reason at all! I mean, if it's something you don't want me to tell people, okay, but I want to know."
"Alright," he said. "I'll tell you. Yesterday, we were cutting through Shinjuku and, in an attempt to avoid danger, we took a shortcut through the subway system. I fell off your bike and we got separated. Anything else you may have told anyone about what happened yesterday was joke and a bad joke, and you will admit it."
"Yes, your Highness!" Rivalz replied.
Zero deactivated the Geass. "Three words I never thought I'd hear you say to me."
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Kallen wasn't a morning person, but she already knew that. What she didn't know, was that she had no patience whatsoever. The two days before her meeting with whoever it was that supplied that incredible victory in Shinjuku seemed to drag on indefinitely.
And that was only after the first few hours.
After what had happened in the ghetto, Ohgi decided that everyone should lay low for a while for things to blow over, and that meant, for Kallen, going back to school. She suspected that Ohgi's desire for her to go to school had something to do with the fact that he couldn't, but she didn't say anything. Not out loud, at least.
Kallen wasn't the least surprised when at Ashford, everyone was talking about a pro-Britannian, heavily censored version of the Shinjuku incident.
"Yeah, some Elevens tried to blow up some toxic gas bomb, and got blown to bits!" said a classmate with a laptop.
"Hey, go to the part where you can see their bodies!" suggested another as a girl screamed.
This is why I hate Britanians, Kallen thought.
"Kallen?" said a voice behind her. "Is that you?"
It was that Ashford girl, Milly Ashford, president of the student council. "Oh, hello," she said meekly.
"Kallen! I haven't seen you in forever!" Milly spoke as though they were old friends, despite the fact that they had barely ever talked to each other. Well, if it's not false and superficial, it's not be Britannian.
"Oh, yeah," she said weakly, as though she was made of foam. "I've been really sick recently. I really shouldn't have come today, but I was far enough behind as it is."
Milly nodded understandingly. She did a convincingly good job of it too, considering how much she probably cared. "You seem to be sick a lot."
"I know," Kallen replied. "It's really lousy, but I get through it."
"Say, Kallen, you're not part of any school club, are you?"
Kallen blinked in surprise. "Well, no. I can't really do any physical activity, and I'm not here consistently either, so I never found a club that fits."
"Well, that's great," Milly said with a beaming smile. "Because was thinking about it, and I've thought of a club that's perfect for you. How would you like to be a part of the student council?"
She said it like she was offering Kallen the chance of a lifetime. She thought of what she knew about the student council. Preppy gossip-hole—Don't do it, Kallen! "Um, well…"
"There's no need to be shy about it, Kallen. We'd love to have you, and you'll have a great time! So say you will."
"Uh…"
"Perfect! We'll all meet at the council clubhouse tomorrow after school. See you later!"
Milly left Kallen standing alone. What did I just get myself into?
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"Ohgi! Where have you been? I've been trying to call you all day yesterday!"
It was the day after Kallen received the phone call, and hadn't been able to contact the leader of her resistance unit since.
"Sorry, Kallen," he said. "We've all been trying to lay low ever since the Shinjuku incident."
"Yeah, about that. Do you have any idea who that voice was from the other day?"
"No," he said. "But don't worry about it. We can't find him from just his voice, you know."
"No, you're right," she agreed. "But he called me yesterday. He told me to meet with him tomorrow."
A pause. "He did?"
"Yes. It was weird. He knew my home phone number and even my real name. He said he makes it a habit to know impossible things."
"Interesting. Be careful, Kallen. The more I know about this guy, the less I trust him."
"What do you mean?"
"Don't you think it's odd that out of all of us, he contacted you?" Ohgi asked. "We're all hiding in the ghetto, but you're out in the open in the middle of the settlement. If anything happens to you, well, the rest of us probably won't even hear about it until after it's too late."
"That guy did help us in Shinjuku," Kallen noted.
"I know," said Ohgi. "And he knew things than no one besides a Britannian could know, like their battle tactics and experimental technology. And he somehow managed to make Prince Clovis act like a decent human being for once in his life, and he couldn't have done that without some major connections."
"Ohgi," Kallen started.
"Look, Kallen. All I'm saying is that you should be careful when you meet this guy."
"Of course I'll be careful," Kallen replied, slightly offended. "I'll be just as careful as I always am when facing a possible enemy."
"I know," Ohgi said before hanging up. "That's what I'm worried about."
"I resent that," she said aloud, mostly to herself.
"Resent what?" said a voice behind her.
She spun around. Lelouch! "How long have you been standing there?"
"I just got here," he responded. It was true. Zero knew better than to clumsily eavesdrop on someone like Kallen. Most people would consider it discourteous, but Kallen could get paranoid and do unpleasant things with her knife.
Lelouch continued. "I just came by to see if you remembered about your first meeting as part of the student council."
Of course I remember! I'm pretending to be sick, not stupid! "Oh, thank you," she said politely.
"The meeting is about to start," he said. "Do you want me to take you to the club house?"
I can find it on my own. "Thank you," she said again. "I'd like that."
The "club house," as it was called, wasn't a small, secluded structure where a few intimate friends could get together every now and then, but rather a ridiculous mansion made for parties and formal dinners, equipped with its own ballroom, kitchen, and some hundred other rooms that have probably never been needed. In short, it was the sort of ponderous waste of money that only a Britannian could justify—or rather it was the sort of ponderous waste of money that only a Britannian could build without being able to justify.
"Ah, Kallen!" called Milly, pushing a cart full of gourmet food. "There you are!"
Kallen looked at all the plates of food that the other council members were putting on tables. "What is this?"
"Oh, this is our way of welcoming you to the student council," she said cheerfully.
"So, you have a party every time someone new joins?"
"Make the most of it," Lelouch suggested. "This is the last party around here with an actual point to it that you'll see for a long time."
Milly resisted the urge to roll her eyes to that comment before continuing. "I'm Milly, as you already know. I'm the president of the student council, so if you're wondering, then yes, I am the most important person here."
"I'm Rivalz," said another member with enthusiasm. "I'm the treasurer, so if you need anything at all, just ask. Someone else."
"I'm Shirley," said a girl with long, orange hair. "I'm also on the swim team."
"I'm Nina," said the last girl, looking down at her feet.
"It's nice to meet all of you," Kallen said, forcing a smile. It seemed like an appropriate thing to say.
A small girl with a motorized wheelchair rolled into the room carrying a tray of sweets. "Excuse me, Shirley?" she said without opening her eyes. "Could you put these on the table for me?"
"Oh, sure," Shirley replied, helpfully.
The girl sat in a dignified manner, almost regally in her chair, and she still hadn't opened her eyes, but she remained alert, facing the people with whom she was speaking.
"That's Nunnally," Milly supplied, noticing the confused expression on Kallen's face. "She's Lelouch's little sister."
"Oh," Kallen replied.
"I'm only in my second year," Nunnally explained, "so I'm not an actual member of the council."
"Who cares?" asked Rivalz. "You can go to parties and look nice, and that's pretty much all we have to do. And speaking of parties…" He pulled a bottle of champagne out of nowhere. "…why don't we start this one off with a toast?"
"Rivalz!" Shirley scolded. "You can't do that!"
"Why not?"
"First of all, it's illegal. Second of all, if someone finds out we could get expelled. Third of all—Rivalz, are you tuning me out?"
"Is there any reason why I shouldn't?" he asked, trying to pull off the cork.
"Give me that, you scamp!"
"Hey, no way, lady, get off of me! Lelouch, catch!" He tossed the bottle to his friend.
"You know," he said. "The last time I tried something like this, it ended up in a big mess." Right before Shirley reached him, he turned to Kallen. "Think fast!"
Kallen caught the bottle, stunned. Lelouch didn't just throw it to her, he threw it at her, even though she had been pretending to be sick for over a year. He knew I'd catch it! Somehow, he—
The cork finally came off, shooting out a spray of foam. Kallen dropped the bottle and jumped back in shock, and when the bottle shattered on the floor, she jumped back again.
She started to apologize, but the council members just laughed, as though the cost and trouble of the champagne bottle was worth the fun they had breaking it. When things had settled down, they had their party.
"So, Kallen," said Rivalz. "You seem to be sick a lot. You're not contagious or anything, are you?"
"No," she replied. "It's more genetic than anything else."
"Like a family thing?" asked Lelouch.
Kallen thought of her brother. "You could say that."
"Well, if you ever need any medicine, you know who to talk to," said Rivalz, grinning at Lelouch.
Kallen blinked. "I do?"
Lelouch laughed easily. "The best thing about staying home sick have the time is that you can't keep up with all the silly rumors we have here. But for future reference, don't let people see you in the ghetto. They invent the most preposterous reasons for you to be there."
"Well, that's okay, because I never go there," Kallen said. Not as Kallen Stadtfeld, anyway. "What kind of reasons do they come up with?"
"That you've been captured by terrorists," supplied Shirley, punching Rivalz in the shoulder.
"Ow!" he yelled. "Are you going to hit me every time someone brings that up?"
"Yes!" she said, hitting him again.
Rivalz sighed. "Some people just can't take a joke."
"It was a terrible joke!"
"Huh?" asked Kallen.
"Like I said," Lelouch replied. "Silly rumors."
"And you don't mind having people tell lies about you?"
"Why would I?" he asked. "I'd rather them tell lies about me than the truth."
What? There was something strange about this guy, like how they had barely spoken before, but now he was talking to her like they were old friends.
Suddenly Milly hung up her phone and got up.
"What is it?" asked Rivalz.
"My friend called," Milly replied. "She said something was on the news. She said someone just killed Prince Clovis!"
No way! "That's terrible!" Kallen lied.
"I know!" Milly said, turning on the television.
On the news some Britannian official was giving some spiel about how great the late prince was. He carefully left out all the parts about his bloodbaths and corruption. It wasn't until they arrested a suspect that it got interesting.
"…an honorary Britannian citizen," related the news reporter. "Private First Class Suzaku Kururugi, a former Eleven and a Britannian soldier."
Typical, thought Kallen. Britannia didn't want to admit that they couldn't find the killer, so they decided whom they liked least—Japanese, unsurprisingly—and grabbed a scapegoat.
But…connections with Britannia. In the military, this Suzaku guy would have connections with Britannia, and he would know about their technology. That voice from Shinjuku…
Was it you?
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"I didn't do it."
It felt like the hundredth time Suzaku said that, and it wasn't having much more effect on his accusers than the first time.
"Don't lie to me, Eleven," spat his questioner, Jeremiah. "We have the gun that shot the prince. It has your fingerprints on it."
"That's not true! I've never seen that gun before in my life!" Suzaku couldn't exactly be sure of that. All guns looked the same, but it seemed like a good thing to say at the time.
"So now you're calling me a liar," Jeremiah sneered. He punched Suzaku in the face. "You are the son of the last Japanese Prime Minister! You wanted revenge on us for conquering your desolate rock, so you went and shot Prince Clovis, didn't you!"
"I…didn't…do it!" That must have been the one hundred and first time he said that. It didn't help any more than the last hundred times.
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"But, Suzaku," whispered Nunnally that night. "He didn't kill Clovis, did he?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Lelouch said, putting his little sister to bed. "Suzaku would do anything like that. It goes against his honor code. He'd probably say something like 'a victory through dishonest means is meaningless,' or something like that."
"But they arrested him," she cried. "They could execute him!"
Lelouch paused. "He means a lot to you, doesn't he?"
"He's our friend! If something happens to him, I…don't think I could…"
"Would you like to see him again?" Lelouch asked. "Just one more time?"
Suzaku was a traitor and an idealistic fool. The first time around, he had gotten in Zero's way at every possible opportunity, but Nunnally wished him to live.
And Lelouch couldn't bear to see her cry.
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Suzaku was bound, muted, spat upon, cursed, paraded through an angry crowd, and, in all likelihood, would be executed in a few days. But he could take that. As he was carried through the masses, he drank up their hatred into himself like some precious poison. Because he deserved it. Not for the murder of Prince Clovis, but he deserved it. After all the things he'd done in his life, it didn't matter which one he was punished for.
"Everyone!" called out Jeremiah. "Stop!"
Suzaku's platform jerked to a halt, and in the distance he could see a car coming down the road. A very familiar car.
"That's Prince Clovis's car!" someone called out.
"This is an insult to both his majesty the Prince and all those who served him!" roared Jeremiah. "Come out this instant!"
Without warning, the curtain on the top of the carriage burst into flame, revealing a man standing on the top. Suzaku looked at the man's black mask, his flowing black cape, and at the dozen knightmares surrounding him. This guy is insane!
"I am Zero!" the madman proclaimed.
Jeremiah looked down, unimpressed. Four more knightmares fell from the sky, surrounding this Zero and the Prince's car. "Now," said Jeremiah. "Take off your mask, you fool. I wouldn't want my knightmares to obliterate you beyond recognition before we can identify you."
The man moved his hand to his mask, but instead of removing it, removed the back covering of the carriage, revealing the same poison gas capsule that Suzaku had seen before in Shinjuku.
But that capsule wasn't full of poison gas. "That's—AH!" Suzaku's collar jolted to life, stinging him into silence.
Jeremiah leveled a gun at Zero, but hesitated. "What do you want?"
"A trade," Zero replied. "If you give me Suzaku, I'll give you this device."
Jeremiah looked at the helpless crowd, and then at Suzaku. "No. This man has betrayed Britannia and murdered his Highness the Prince. I will not release him."
Zero, despite the knightmares and enemies surrounding him, laughed. "You are indeed a fool, Jeremiah. You sought so much to frame this man for your political ambitions that you have deceived even yourself. Suzaku Kururugi did not kill your precious prince. I did!"
This guy is crazy! Suzaku thought. He interrupted a public ceremony in a stolen, royal vehicle, insulted the most powerful man in sight, and now he confessed to murder!
"The choice is yours, Jeremiah," Zero continued. "Would you sacrifice hundreds of Britannians so you can execute one Eleven? Or will you let an innocent man go free?"
"You lie!" Jeremiah snarled. "I have no reason to believe a man who would steal his majesty's own carriage." He turned to his men. "Open fire!"
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Orange," Zero replied. "If you kill me, that would be a very big mistake. Release him! Release all of us!"
Incredibly, unbelievably, inexplicably, Jeremiah yielded. "Alright," he said. He turned to his men. "Release him, and let them go."
What? The guards removed his bonds and let him walk away. When he reached Zero, he had a multitude of questions to ask him, most of which were on the lines of, "Who are you?" and "How'd you do that?" and "Are you completely insane?" His collar, unfortunately, prevented him from speaking at all.
"We meet again, Suzaku," Zero said mysteriously. "I'd like to talk to you, but now is not the time. Get ready to run." He pushed a button, opening the capsule, flooding the entire street with poisonous gas.
Not poisonous gas! Suzaku realized. Smokescreen!
Suzaku, Zero, and Zero's driver all ran for the edge of the bridge. When one of the knightmares tried to stop them, Jeremiah himself intervened.
"I told you to let them go!" he shouted. "If you interfere, that is a violation of a direct order!"
Somehow, all of them managed to get out alive, and when everything was done, Suzaku still had no idea what had happened. They landed in a net and escaped underground, and afterwards, Zero led Suzaku to a secluded area where they could talk.
"Britannia is not worthy of your talents, Suzaku," Zero said. "You offered them your service and your honor, and they used you to cover up their lies. I seek to change this world, and destroy the injustice that infects this land. I would ask you to join me, but something tells me that you'd decline."
"Tell me," Suzaku said. "Did you kill Prince Clovis?"
"Did you?"
"No."
"And now the Britannians have a more elusive scapegoat to pursue."
"You threatened a crowd of civilians with toxic gas," Suzaku accused.
"It's called bluffing. It seemed more altruistic than a blood bath."
"Is that how you work?" Suzaku asked. "Then you're right. I do not accept your offer. Any world you create with a foundation of lies isn't worth living in."
Zero laughed. "I thought you'd say that."
"Then why did you rescue me?"
"Tell me, Suzaku," Zero said. "What is it that you wish to achieve by aiding Britannia?"
"It's true what you said, Zero. Britannia isn't worthy, but I want to change it, to make it worthy. And I'll do it from the inside, without destroying it, and I'll do it honestly. I want to change the world like you do, but I'll do it my own way."
"And how will you do that if you're dead? You are reckless with your life, but you are a good person, and a man with your ideals has no right to die. Do you think Britannia will listen to the dreams of a dead man? They would not so much as let you polish their boots if they had no need for you. I rescued you to tell you that I will create that need."
"You seek to change Britannia?" Zero continued. "Then I will help you. I will become the most terrible enemy Britannia has ever known, and you will become their greatest hero, and the only one capable of defeating me. If you do, then you will be able to change Britannia and redeem a corrupt empire. If I win, I will destroy Britannia and free this land from its injustice."
"Our methods differ, Suzaku, but our ambitions are the same. If either of us win, the objectives of both are fulfilled. So tell me, do you accept my offer?"
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Lelouch couldn't justify saving Suzaku with the same logic that he used to kill Clovis. If the Emperor was from the future the same way Lelouch was—which was becoming less and less likely considering how Suzaku apparently wasn't and considering the Emperor's not unusual behavior—then he would have known from the first time about important events like the assassination of his son, but probably not the execution of an Eleven. The Emperor was always too busy researching old shrines to worry about anything involving running a country.
And yet, Lelouch went off and saved Suzaku anyway. Why did he prevent his greatest enemy from suffering a certain death? "Because my sister wanted me too," seemed like a lousy excuse, even to him. And yet, this wasn't the Suzaku who tricked him, betrayed him, and hunted him; this Suzaku was, for the time being, innocent.
"If I go through this timeline making the same mistakes I did last time and just whine more than I did originally," he said aloud, "I'm going to kill myself."
Lelouch went home that night and found C.C. waiting for him with his sister, folding origami cranes.
"Onii-sama," Nunnally called. "You're friend came by. She said her name is C.C. I've never met anyone who goes only by initials."
C.C. looked at him with a bored expression on her face. Zero got used to that eventually, but in the beginning, it just irritated him.
"Hello, C.C." he said. "I was wondering when you'd stop by."
"Is C.C. your girlfriend or something?" asked Nunnally.
"We're promised to each other," she supplied bluntly.
"You're getting married?" Nunnally asked. "Don't you think this is a little sudden?"
"Uh, I'm going to need to have a word with her," Lelouch said, dragging C.C. to another room. "And about what she said about us being promised, we're not really getting married. C.C. just has a death wish."
"So tell me, Lelouch," C.C. said afterwards. "Do you like the power I gave you?"
"Yes, actually," Zero replied. "Very much so. I don't know what I'd do without it."
"Are you so used to it already?" C.C. asked. "Odd. You didn't seem like the kind of man so easily satisfied."
"I'm not, but the Geass is essential to my ambition. And while we're asking questions, tell me, does the Sword of Akasha mean anything to you?"
C.C. laid down on his bed and looked at the ceiling. "I don't like swords. You didn't seem surprised to see me. Have we done this before?"
"Yes. Yes we have. You see—"
"Good," she said, pulling the covers over her. "In that case, I don't have to explain myself. Boys sleep—"
"On the floor, I know."
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Lelouch had gotten used to the C.C. from the future. Back then, C.C. had been so helpful and corporative that he had forgotten how she was originally. In the beginning, she was the most annoying person he had ever met. Schneizel was a close second, but C.C. was intolerable. Zero tried to remember when exactly she had changed, but it was too gradual to be sure.
Meanwhile, Suzaku had been freed from charge due to lack of evidence. Why he had been accused in the first place, or what had happened to the gun with his fingerprints on it or to the several eye witnesses who had sworn to have seen him do it, the government had refused to comment on.
Suzaku had suddenly achieved a sort of celebrity status, whose fame was only eclipsed by Zero himself. Looking at his laptop, Lelouch could see reports of a sudden spike in terrorist activity as resistance units were emboldened by how a single, unarmed lunatic stood against a Britannian noble and several knightmares, and got away with it. Britannia, on the other hand, considered his very existence an insult to their pride and empire.
But that was only the beginning. Right now, Lelouch had the Geass, he had the primordial origins of the Order of the Black Knights, he had Zero.
And he had the initiative.
For too many years, Britannia had ruled the world through fear. Now, all Zero would have to do was rise up, perfect the hundred resistance units into a unified force that would the Empire would learn to fear, defeat injustice, purge Britannia from the world, and kill the Emperor himself.
That was it.
Piece of cake.
And if Suzaku decided to get in his way as he did last time, well, Suzaku saved his life in Shinjuku, but that was only worth so much.
"Hey, Lelouch," said Kallen casually, passing by.
"Hey, Kallen," he replied in the same tone.
Kallen continued for a few steps and stopped. "Could I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"I noticed that everyone else here calls them Elevens, but you call them Japanese," she said. "Why is that?"
Lelouch closed his laptop and leaned back in the bench he was sitting on. The truth was that he had lived in Japan before it became Area 11, and he had never accepted Britannia's conquest, Japan's surrender, or the Empire's right to rename the country or its people. But truth, he found, had never served him well.
"There is a Japanese maid in my house," he explained. "Under other circumstance, she could have made a living as a professional assassin. I figure that having her do the dishes for me is pushing my luck enough as it is. And besides, I find that calling them that tends to offend people."
"So, you call them Japanese because you don't want to offend them?"
"No. I call them Japanese because it offends Britannians."
Kallen noticed Lelouchs apparent familiarity with lies, and he seemed to scoff at Britannian ideals, so she had him pinned in her mind as a sympathizer. But right now he seemed to just be naturally antagonistic.
She noticed that Lelouch was staring intently at something behind her. When she started to turn around, he suddenly grabbed her head and turned her face towards him.
"Uh, what are you doing?" she asked uncomfortably.
He kept on staring behind her. "Nothing," he said. "Actually, I was wondering if you could do something for me."
Their noses were inches apart. That was a good deal closer than what she was comfortable with.
"If you're asking me what I think you're asking, the answer's no!"
Lelouch paused, and finally looked her in the eye. "What do you think I'm asking you?"
She hesitated and felt her face getting hot. "Uh, I don't know. What was it that you wanted me to do?"
"You tell me first."
"What? I don't have to tell you anything!" She stomped off without looking at whatever it was Lelouch had been looking at. "And whatever it was you wanted me to do, the answer's still no!"
Zero smiled, pleased with how he handled the situation. The Q-1 he knew would take orders from one man and one man only, and that man was not Lelouch Lamperouge. Now he just had to deal with an immortal witch who didn't seem to understand that she shouldn't be walking around in broad daylight. He took C.C. by the arm and dragged her to a secluded spot on the roof.
"You shouldn't be here," he said coldly. "For someone in hiding, you're awfully careless."
"You worry too much," she replied. "No one's going to notice me in a place like this."
"No?" Lelouch snorted. "We have a contract, C.C., and for that contract, you're going to want to keep me from getting killed. Lelouch won't need your help staying alive, but Zero will. Did you see the girl I was talking to just now? Well, she's part of my group. If she sees you hanging around me, and then sees you at Zero's side, do you think she might notice then? And in a few days, a future Knight of the Rounds is going to enroll here. Do you think that he might notice something?"
C.C. gazed absent mindedly off into the distance. "You seem to know a lot about the future."
"Yes," he replied. "And I know a lot about you. I know what you are, what my part of the contract is, what the Emperor wants with you. I even know your real name."
That, at least, got her attention. "You do?"
"Yes." He said her name.
C.C. shook her head, unimpressed. "That's not at all how you're supposed to say it. You got the syllables right, but you said it like you would say the name of a street."
Zero had a sudden urge to throw her off the roof, but that would attract attention. "You asked me last night if we have done this before, and I told you yes. You were watching when I organized the Order of the Black Knights, and made them into an army superior to that of Britannia. I shook the foundations of the entire world, but then it all fell apart."
"I faced my Father, the Emperor, on the Sword of Akasha on the verge of the completion of the Ragnarok Connection. But then something happened. I suddenly woke up almost two years in the past and a few weeks before I met you. So tell me, C.C., what do you know about time travel?"
"I know," she said, "that you ask too many questions."
"Tell me!" he exploded. "Or else I'll…I'll…" What could he say to get C.C. to cooperate? How could he threaten an immortal witch with no fear of death and whose only concern seemed to be keeping him alive? "I'll stop leaving my credit card at home so you can't order pizza when I'm away."
C.C. stared stonily off into the distance. "You are indeed a cold and ruthless man."
It wasn't until that moment that Lelouch finally understood her, why she was always so ornery when it would be so easy to cooperate. At first he thought that it was just a game to her, but that wasn't it. It was about power.
Centuries ago, when C.C. first gained her Geass, she was unbelievably powerful. She could control the entire world just by smiling at it. But then she lost that power, and when she lost her power, she lost everything. She spent the last several hundred years burnt, beheaded, shot at, and unable to die, because she had no power to prevent that. The little power she did have, her knowledge most of all, she treasured dearly, and was reluctant to part with it.
"C.C., last night, I saw you folding origami cranes with my sister. Did she tell you why she was folding them?"
C.C. didn't answer.
"She heard that if you fold one thousand cranes, you receive one wish. I never noticed this before, but if you look at a paper crane head on, it looks a lot like the tattoo on your forehead. When you gave me the Geass, that was part of what I needed to obtain my wish. And now, as Zero, people trust me and obey me, but not because I trust them. They trust me because I give them hope that their wishes too may be granted."
"It is that same hope that I offer you right now. Follow me, trust me, and one day I will fulfill your wish too. I know what our contract is, I know what you want, and I know how I can do it. When this is over, I will take your curse of immortality from you. But first I need your help. I need to know what you know."
WWW
a/n If you read this on the first day, you'd have noticed a slight mistake I made with the publishing, but I fixed that now. Ha, ha, my bad, and now let us never speak of it again. And thus we have the third chapter. I really hate writing the same thing that happened in the canon, but if I skip too much, it just seems choppy. Grr, this is frustrating. I hope it wasn't too redundant. I really appreciate the reviews everyone is giving me. I really don't understand why my other stories don't get the same treatment, because this story is not, by any means, the best thing I've ever written. The wish idea was had in the canon, but clarify the symbolism a little bit more. By the way, some of you have pointed out some of the mistakes I've made, but none of you have noticed the biggest mistake. In the first chapter, Lelouch saw a news report about poisonous gas, but in the canon, it was only reported as a traffic jam. I'm surprised that none of my heartless, bloodsucking critics noticed that (no offense). Also, some of you may have noticed that Lelouch is a bit softer than he was at the end of the second season. Well, the reason for that the same as why Suzaku became a total jerk after Euphie died. After Lelouch lost his sister, he became darker. After he got her back in the first chapter, the process was reversed.