Title: And in blood
AN: In which C.C. watches memories like a sort of acid trip television drama. Or something. (I just hope it's not awkward to read, but, what the hell. I don't like to write flashbacks since they seem . . . dishonest to me, and C.C.'s link with the Unconsciousness seems to imply this could be perfectly plausible under certain circumstances.) On that note, I work a little with the Code.
NOTE: Anything in italics in the second scene with C.C. is either a conversation or a thought of another character.
*Also: Warning for some disturbing elements. The faint of heart should tread carefully. (Or just not think too hard about it. D: )
Lelouch did not consider himself a sentimental man, but he felt a pang of nostalgia as he wrestled to the peak of a mountain of stairs jutting free from the cliffs. Namely, it was the stitch in his side, but the chirping of cicadas—a shaking, overwhelming hum rushing over his body—and a glaze of fresh rain clinging to the curves of leaves stirred him to a response. The car was abandoned a street away, windows tinted ink black to hide any traces of its owner's identity. He felt a childish anxiety coil around his mind; Lelouch had intended only to investigate a cave showing traces of the Geass cult in its design, but the shrine had taunted him as it loomed against the midday sky.
'Well done, but a replica is just that.' He made an effort to remind himself to go see if that skeleton of a shed was still standing. The place had a history, older than he cared to remember, and Lelouch felt a twitch of curiosity that didn't die in the face of time.
C.C. was a ghost that clung to his shadow, tracing his footsteps as they rang across an empty threshold. Something in him was furious that she had blatantly refused his order—followed regardless of her own safety, and was wearing that controlled, empty smile on her lips. Kaminejima was barren, damn near unpopulated as far as the census was concerned, but this was situated in the prefecture.
"Happy?" It was low as it slipped free from that lying veneer, and he felt something inside him recoil.
"Not necessarily that," he insisted dryly, "Perhaps nostalgic, but there's no place for sentiment in the real world."
The smirk widened and she glided away from him, "So you've jeopardized your success for nothing. You aren't even angry I've come along—how disappointing."
"The area is deserted due to the SAZ and rebellion. There's too much civil unrest to trust tourism," he was stoic as he chased after her, his face blank and unreadable, "I doubt that anyone . . . but, as I can't force you to stay, I see no meaning in pushing you."
"How very nice," there was no secret barb in her words, and she cast a backwards glance over the mountains, "I'm glad to see I'm so welcome."
Abandoning his frustration, Lelouch let his eyes wander to the leaves as they splintered light into weak streams, and the shrine towering below the sun's glow—bright and fiery, with the air haunted by a teasing scent of sandalwood. The cynic buried in him whispered that there was a reason for that, and urged that he forget his melodrama, or emotion, or whatever name he gave it. He swallowed down his logic and breathed in the familiarity of a place he knew so well, yet didn't before easing past a slope that broke into a path hidden by the undergrowth.
It was younger where age once hugged its angles and weighed on its walls, but Lelouch knew that ashes linger for days, long after the foundation has crumbled and there is nothing. The memory of a skeleton of a building colored ink black with veins of fresh brown threading its broken body lived somewhere beneath the surface. Ancient and ignored, but there, as if it were a phantom waiting in the shadows. Feeling heavy with the culmination of seven years of misery, he ached for Nunally's smile and his—perhaps in a few years, when there was nothing but her world, they could come together. If only he could free her of that chair, her blindness, her depression, and their mother's death. Remake all that horrible pain she carried below that pretty grin.
". . . I detested the Kururugis and the Sumeragis originally. They knew the implications of their decision to take us in," there was a hard edge to his voice, "Ha. Were I to be honest, that feeling has never dulled. Continuing the war, my own status as a political hostage, and . . . However, I see nothing in reserving that for a place, of all things. This is where I lived."
"You 'lived,'" she was caustic, "But is that enough."
"I was able to create a home for Nunally and myself here. Before that, I had never been particularly independent, and, despite that it was damn near intolerable," he fell to a weary quiet, "A home was important for Nunally's sake."
"Intolerable?" C.C. was his echo, and he slipped ahead of her.
"I was suffering from severe culture shock. The transition itself was not," he searched for the word lingering on his tongue, "Smooth. They clearly had no long-term interest in me."
"Hm."
"I don't know what I felt at the time. I wondered if my aunts and uncles would protest my father's decision. Which, of course, they failed to do. Ironic, considering they wept so dramatically over my mother's grave," Lelouch was spiteful as their abandonment whispered to the forefront of his mind, "I avoided others, and argued against the Prime Minister's 'decisions' for me. It was a powerless position, but . . . looking back, I preferred it to my own father's care. At least I wasn't under his thumb."
"You truly do hate him," it was spoken to their silence, and Lelouch gave no answer.
"I was glad to be free of him, but . . . In all respects, I had simply moved to a second prison."
"So why did your opinion change."
"I was offered a chance to bargain for Nunally's freedom if I agreed to become a diplomat specializing in Britannian and Japanese relations," the Prime Minister's oaths were asking prices attached to pretty words, that much he remembered, "In short, agreed to remain a political prisoner throughout my life. My own independence wasn't important if I could . . . secure something for her."
"Ha, fine, then don't tell me," lights danced in her soft amber eyes, and Lelouch tore his gaze from her, "I don't care. And his terms?"
"Nunally, of course, the bastard. But his other threat was," he was disgusted that something like hesitation slithered into him, and pieced together his confidence, "To send Suzaku to . . . live with the main family. I couldn't allow that to happen. I was furious that he used his own son as a bargaining chip—his death was no great loss to the world. In many ways, I must have felt there were . . . similarities between the two of them."
"Perhaps."
No longer bound by the chains of false protection, he hated him for that and was without remorse that the man was fated to the end of his two-faced glory, "Ha. It may have even been beneficial. Negligence doesn't have any meaning."
". . . You don't particularly care for fathers, do you," her voice was empty and whimsical, and Lelouch smothered the anger rattling in his skull.
"I think Shirley's was a good man," in a sick way, his body rejected the image of a loving home, "But some simply don't deserve to become parents. My father is one of them."
"Well . . . having a piano doesn't mean you can play it, I imagine . . ."
It was warning, dark and cynical, "If there's anything the world has taught me, it would be that no one will catch me when I'm falling. I despise those that play me into self-satisfying dependence."
"Do others lure you into it," she mused lightly, gliding into the shadows, "Or do you fall free and alone . . ."
'To think that I—' the sound of footfalls crept into his ears, and Lelouch's muscles went tense as wind coiled over the cliff side.
"Reflective?" He was casual, but something in him shuddered, "A strange—"
"What the hell are you doing," it was bitter and furious, left to tear into him, "You, people like you have no right to be here—"
Feeling a twitch of irritation, he sneered a cryptic, "This place belongs to me as much as it does you."
"Turn around," Suzaku growled through gritted teeth. Lelouch's answer was silence while he searched for C.C., choking down a lingering suspicion that she'd known he was here. 'Damn it! Why didn't she tell me?! Does she have some reason for . . .'
"Face me!" It came again, losing its steady control, but he kept dutifully turned away. Provided the Empire kept to its rulebook, he should have been denied the use or privilege to carry his gun. A man recovering from a bullet wound to the leg would need ample preparation during and after his recess to accommodate for muscle loss, and that was ignoring any assumed psychological stress resulting from the SAZ.
"I'm afraid that I don't feel the need," he was flat; even further, Suzaku had yet to report either Kallen or himself to the authorities. There was no point to loyalty unless he retained their mutual ties, and Lelouch understood the importance of open defiance. It was destructive to cause himself needless anxiety as, grudgingly, he was physically sub-par, and he resented fearing Suzaku, of all people.
'He won't kill me for Nunally's sake,' if he wanted to, he could have managed without announcing it. Perhaps he was assessing his options, but capture was impossible without a warrant due to his cultural background. If there was anything Britannia exalted, it was its own superiority, and no self-respecting officer would believe him without factual evidence—calling any man Zero was too weighty a claim for them to ignore formalities unless they intended to stage an execution.
There was a shuffling of cloth and steel, "We'll finish this today, Lelouch."
He did nothing other than snarl a sardonic, "There's so much destruction in the world, and all you can do is complain about me. How self-satisfying." It was vindictive, carving a deep, heavy silence, but Lelouch wasn't particularly interested in niceties. Some part of him was far too bitter these days.
"This has nothing to do with you," he doubted that, and his mind wandered to the possibilities as they clamored underneath his inbred poise of ice and steel. Schneizel was a double-faced carnivore, but he was well aware of the sway of a good poster face and public sympathy. He must have excused his gun usage in response to the death threats, "You—I'll turn you over to the Empire before you cause anymore tragedy!"
"Would shooting an unarmed civilian with no discretion have any real merit. You will lose your position for murdering an innocent Britannian, and it will undo everything you've done thus far—"
"Even," he stumbled over his words, "If that happens, I'll stop you!"
"They will think you've gone insane from grie—"
"I haven't!" He sneered, suddenly vicious and feral, "You know what you did! You know!"
". . ." Lelouch felt a twinge of guilt, and finally resigned to swiveling on his heel.
"Why did—why would you do this?! You never gave an answer!" He offered no pretenses as Suzaku shivered under his gaze. It was what it was, and there could be no changing that.
"To insure Britannia's downfall. There were no alternatives. Or," the insinuations crept below his indifference, "Do you not trust me?"
"You—you had no choice? Why not?!"
He wrestled himself to silence as the reasons bled into one, and said nothing.
It tempted a grimace, and he let his gun hang at arm's length, ". . . You'll betray the world! I will never trust you!"
"—!"
"You'll become a tyrant! I'll stop you before that happens—"
It was ripped from his throat, "Do you think so lowly of me?! I didn't want you nor Nunally or Euphemia to suffer any more than—I had no other option! Things are not so simple, not so black and white!"
'How can you—do you think I felt no shame, nothing?! I would have never brought about her death if I didn't have to! I did what was best!' Lelouch felt—it was a heavy burden, but it had to be done. That was all. What could have changed her death?! Should he have taken her hostage forever!? She would have destroyed the entirety of the country—torn it apart, and he gave the order that led to it! How could he possibly call him a villain, he had never intended for that evil to come to pass!
"You even used Nunally to feed your own ambitions! They may believe you—the Order, Kallen—but I won't! Give me a reason, Lelouch!"
He breathed a desperate, "Listen to me—"
"Then what?!" It was acerbic, and Lelouch fought the urge to choke on his secrets.
". . . it was necessary. Death was the preamble to a greater, prosperous Japan," sick with himself, the truth refused to roll off his tongue, and he wished to god he knew how to be honest. The Geass was dyed crimson with gore, and he didn't want Suzaku, Nunally, or the world to hear him admit to his bloodshed. It clung to him, a disease that left him both honored by the promise of power and horrified with the aftermath of deceit.
"You killed Euphie and then used her death as a pretext to justify your actions!" Suzaku's voice trembled, "What have you ever done that's been true?!"
"Suzaku—" He struggled to keep hold of his dignity, piecing together his indifference.
"Your entire existence is a mistake I should have acknowledged! Admit to your crime and appeal to the Emperor!"
"My father?!" It was a hiss clawing through his throat, "Are you intending to turn me over to damn Britannia?! To that bastard!"
"It's the cor—"
Principles of wrong, of right were mere conveniences and he rumbled a dark, "What about Nunally?! Who will care for her?! You, after leaving me to die?!"
"I," Suzaku stumbled over the words, straining below Lelouch's fiery glare, "don't have any choice. You—with what you've done, I can't accept leaving her there! She can reinstate herself as a member of the royal family—"
"—!!" It was disgusting as it died in the air, and Lelouch swallowed on retorts whispering in his skull. 'What the hell is he thinking?!' He didn't lie because he wanted to—he had to! Blood covered him from head to toe, soaked him until it seeped deep into his bones, and he carried that weight everywhere! He could no longer pretend away his own involvement—he had stole their lives, ripped them from their families and worse. Guilt was disregard, and he had to admit that he killed them because it was a necessary cruelty in a cruel reality! In a land where his father massacred and broke and destroyed the weak, those who were not even players on their chessboards! Who did not ask for death, but were forced to accept it for the sake of Social Darwinist theory and old ideas that needed to die! His father—his father was a man that had reduced a city, its very foundation, to dust. He forced segregation and spat on their sacrifice, their suffering! Why side with the Devil?! Why give a damn! What madman would destroy a city in one swoop! Had he grown to accept Britannia's twisted visions?! 'He's living in chaos! I don't understand what he expects to accomplish—why choose this?!'
There were too many who hid behind and laid silent—he knew, he was one of those sheep who willfully lived in ignorance for the sake of protection from the strong. In a life he had long ago abandoned, he was pitiful and apathetic and everything he despised about humanity. There was no returning anymore, no will in him to wait patiently while armies cleaved through the countryside! With the Geass, he was powerful; he could enact a justice that was so desperately needed, change everything!
Altruism was dead. Humanity was foolish and condemned to short-sighted suspicions, but Lelouch studied all the possible outcomes; his father would barrel through China eventually, when he could create an immortal army. And oh merciful god, he knew—that revolting bastard knew what he would do! Then there would be nothing, just the mass genocide that was the result of his eugenics and a world ruled by him, when he had long ago garnered a right to death.
There was simply no time to hang from the coattails of superiors and let rhetoric buzz through his ears. He forged a mask and hid his emotions for the sake of the rebellion that needed a leader and not a seventeen year old boy who was afraid of failure because it meant the collapse of a people's hope! The SAZ was his catharsis; by staining Euphemia's name with gore, he had to accept Zero's monstrous legacy as his own. There were no false glories, and he could only hope that he could make amends to his dead. Every moment tore at him—would they find Nunally and torture her for information? Would he die tonight when he was still young? Would his father raze the world and laugh as it decayed, mocking it as he'd mocked their Mother?! Lelouch changed, numbed feeling and conscious and all the aspects of humanity that he clung to because it was the only way!
He pretended, lied, and it was an ugly fate—if he wept, then he devalued their belief in him, admitted that he was ashamed of their deaths when he took them without giving their owners a choice. If he was a murderer, then he would stand as a murderer. It was godawful and he was condemned to hell, but he would kill for Nunally's future. Even if he had to hate himself, he would continue to choose that dark, crimson path to rid the world of its violence!
And this, they were fighting because of this. Britannia, a country that took everything from them both, had torn them apart. He had been loyal! Loyal for seven damn years, and now Suzaku dared to throw him away?! How the hell could he be so arrogant! Lelouch fought against Britannia to bring its downfall, struggled to fulfill a promise forged what felt like a lifetime ago, and been weathered by years of hatred and self-disgust. The words were silent in him, but he believed in action—had created Zero, that hideous mask that left him separated from the world. He was raised Britannian, given everything that he asked for, as the ghettos became silent cemeteries that buried their corpses in rubble and bullet shells! Lelouch was not arrogant enough to claim that he was underprivileged, nor that he reflected the victims he so fought for. He remained a dying man gratifying his pity for the beaten—very provisional, he mused dryly, as weakness was a temporary state destined to both sides. The true argument of an arm's dealer!
Zero could not control feeling; he was merely a shell with a grandiose label, waiting for hearts to move, just as chess pieces were the extensions of their masters. He felt repulsive and guilty, and knew himself a child still bound to his father's birthrights in that the weak can never protect themselves. It was a sickness that discredited the honesty of his rebellion, of his very beliefs, and the life he clung to. If they knew what Zero, what he was, they would never love him. When he was a child, he—he thought about things that were alien to children, about sicknesses that should never have crept into his mind.
He saw himself murdering his father in cold blood and enjoying it; the glory in soldiers dying in the name of the innocent; realized how the world was a vile, disgusting place that festered and never changed. He remembered his mother broken on the staircase as her dress was drowned in red, and Nunally shaking and in tears when she gasped in a sterile hospital bed, awake after four days of silence. The dead painting the horizon in macabre as they trailed forward, and the way Suzaku trembled as he realized he had no home, nothing. When he suddenly understood that his happiness was so very short-lived, and that there was no shrine for him to hide in and imagine some beauty in human faith. That friends could die, and the world would forget, continue all its loops around the sun without a second glance. He learned then that the essence of time, space, humanity, was that it was apathetic to the needs of one boy in a thing of millions stretching across the universe.
The world was cruel, and his hate was raw in his chest, a wound that was carved opened and then twisted together with makeshift stitches. Bent and broken at fragile angles, it never closed and rotted to dead cells—pieced the corpse that was Lelouch vi Britannia, and forced him to take the Geass that gave life to Zero. A man's birth marks his beginning, but also his eventual end: death. That was the essence of creation.
Lelouch trusted that he would understand his grudge, and why Britannia had to be murdered and then reborn. It was only he who had ever completely broken him open—only Suzaku who he trusted with Nunally, with his everything, the sister he could never sacrifice! 'How—how can I care for her if you aren't there?! I . . . I was never able to do anything, even then! And now, now you would turn her over to them?!' Yet he was his enemy. The cosmic irony, that Suzaku would ask him to lay down and die while allied with his goddamn father's Knights. He valued him, intended to have him at his right side when he took Britannia because it was where he belonged—together, they could conquer the world.
But Lelouch was alone and Suzaku had sneered that he was worthless, a blunder of God. That he hated him.
"You—!" he growled, fingers tense at his sides; trembling, "Fine then, shoot me! Become a murderer of your own accord—my shadow, Suzaku!"
"Say what you want to satisfy yourself! You deserve to die for what you've done!" There was silence as he lifted the gun, that infernal gun issued from the military, and Lelouch went rigid as the spotter waltzed up his torso in a spin of red. He waited, mouth drawn into a thin line, but no shot screeched through the air.
"Your resolve is weak—you can't kill me, even now," Lelouch was vindicated as Suzaku's arm dropped, teeth gritted and fingers clutching at the gun's steel, "Go back and cry over her grave. The real world is no place for children who refuse to accept reality!"
It came, a blur as it connected, and he stumbled backward before he closed a fist on his uniform, "You have no right to judge anything I do!"
"You're deluded about the nature of the future! One cannot move forward if they cling to fantasies and wallow in their own guilt!"
"What do you know about guilt! You don't take responsibility for anything!"
He spat it like poison threading through his veins, clawing at his wrist, "Yours is not the only way!"
"That doesn't make yours right!"
C.C. glided with the wind at her heels, ripping free from the protection of the underbrush in a streak of pale skin and green tumbling past her shoulders. Lelouch felt his throat hitch, the words lost on him while she shot forward on nimble feet.
"You, from the Special Administration Zone, are you—!" Suzaku choked down the rest, stunned when she barreled into his chest and gripped his wrist. The sheer force sent them both reeling over the edge and down the churned earth as he went stiff, the Geass sigil flaring a brilliant red on her forehead—burned there like a slave branding drawn in carnage red.
Lelouch stumbled in the dirt, nails biting into his palm as he witnessed them disappear in a rumble of sound. Struggling to stand upright, he tore to the side and was furious as his eyes darted from corner to crevice. His heart drummed in his chest, a distant, violent buzz of fear lingering in his skull as he realized that they—they had fallen, and it broke into crags some fifty feet down.
'Damn it! That was reckless, C.C.! He could—regardless, the Geass did not activate . . .' Lelouch drowned out a lingering sense of fear and worked himself to a mockery of composure, 'The SAZ? Where the hell did the two of them meet?!'
- - -
She skirted through an endless labyrinth of halls spreading across a white world, empty and stretching forever. Walls sprung from air and climbed towards the nothing that was its domed ceiling—little more than a film of shadow that slithered above her, writhing and shuddering before falling to standstill. The Complete Consciousness, the mind when left to its own devices was a collage of pictures hung in a showroom of memory.
"You can't blame another for growing in a different social milieu," Lelouch's statement was flat, "It's fine to make mistakes."
"Ha, yeah . . . it's a lot different than anything they taught in the ghettos," he was wearing a nervous smile and she was left to stare, pausing in the midst of her very literal mental exploration, "Um, definitely harder, but I guess . . ."
"I dislike the world of C.," she murmured dryly, "Humans are incapable of keeping their thoughts to themselves, after all."
Lelouch's voice, frustration hidden beneath indifference, was an interruption, "—I was under the impression Britannia did not teach their Numbers."
"Lelouch—"
"It doesn't matter where you come from. I myself have little fondness for the institution, but if it's important, then perhaps . . ." She smirked, reminded of his lies of 'night classes' when, in truth, he had found the courage to abandon his school career. A man aiming to take power by force had no need for a degree, after all, and Lelouch had been exhausted by the constant juggling of exams and terrorism.
"Why don't you try? Things like this should be easy for you—" She observed as he twisted back to the window, Suzaku left to wait in curious silence.
"I'm above their dogma, and it is of no great interest to me." Certainly not. He despised all aspects of his heritage, and he had long ago committed to destroying his father's monarchy.
"Heh. You're still the same as seven years ago."
"Arrogant?" She was amused at his easy-going smile, "That's—"
"No."
". . ." It died instantly, and she thought of the two of them as children, racing down that horrible staircase in a blur of limbs, grins, and complaints. Suzaku had been a 'gift' for Lelouch and Nunally, who were pertinent in Marianne's small world—she had never given him any particular thought outside of a teasing sense of nostalgia.
"You were always the kind of person who warned against believing everything. Passionate about the types of things you liked or didn't like."
"I am not a particularly honest person."
"Huh—"
"Some of those things," an eyebrow arched, she was astonished at the honesty playing beneath his stoic mask, "I've betrayed."
"Like what?"
". . . Heh," Lelouch forced him to stare at the papers and textbook, and she called it confession, "Aren't you supposed to be having trouble. If you're so confident, I could always find a more entertaining pastime—"
"That isn't fair. You brought it up," teasing was of no great interest to her, her mind drifting elsewhere, "What, have you forgotten how to censor everything you say now—"
"At least the things I say are sensible."
"Why does everyone say that . . ."
"It's very endearing to watch you extract your foot from your mouth, Suzaku, however the rest of the world—"
"Hey, don't be like that."
"Heh."
". . . You know," twirling on her heel, it was faint as it coiled into her ears, "I'm really happy you both are okay. After the war, I . . ."
". . . The war is over. This isn't the time or the place. Later, Suzaku, but not here . . ."
Why school was of any great importance was beyond her, and she tapped a delicate, spindle-thin finger to her lips. She never particularly cared much for it herself, even after she had long since attended her fair share of universities—as a girl, they taught her for the sake of learning to read religious scripture, and nothing else. That was the essence of slavery: accept control and no man strikes you with a whip. It would be years before she grasped that knowledge was more than verbatim and that words were ink thrown across the page. "Ah," the pink rippling in her vision was ethereal, belonging to a ghost stolen from another life, "It's that Princess—Euphemia."
"Suzaku," it was gentle, "What do you think of the work I've been doing? Do you think I'm doing well?"
"You've been doing fine, Your Highness."
"You . . . think I am?" The girl was cautious, an unusual change from the breezy smiles she wore and her quick-to-action approach. She wondered offhandedly if they had spoken in Aries Villa, but her memory was a fog she chose not to wander through.
"I don't really know much about, uh, how these things work," that was obvious; she had bore witness to a long line of politicians, and he was ill suited, "But you've contributed to hospitals, as well as started integration throughout the edu—"
"No, you did that. And, even then, it was a small change . . ."
"However, if we work towards that goal, we can probably—"
It seemed to give the girl confidence, "Accomplish much more."
"Yes."
"I'm sorry. Have I made you nervous?"
"No, I have faith in your judgment."
"It isn't . . . just because I'm a princess, correct?" Perhaps. Princesses do have an incredible sway over their Knights, after all.
"I . . ."
"Um, can I ask another question?" She took note of an underlying urgency, "If it's no trouble—"
"No, it's fine. I'll do my best to answer it."
". . .What do you think of me, personally?" Euphemia was doomed to self-doubt, and she wondered idly what answer Lelouch would give if he had known it then.
"Of you? Why?"
"I haven't done anything to help the Japanese, even though I represent this country . . . Does it . . . insult you? I did not ask you if you had any desire to be my Knight . . ."
It was serious, "I wouldn't be insulted by Her Highness's actions."
"You wouldn't?"
"No. You're trying your best, and, and I haven't done . . . I think what you're doing is admirable, Your Highness."
"Is it difficult," Euphemia tore her gaze from him, "To fight against your own people . . ."
Typical of the boy, he forced an uncomfortable, "I believe what I'm doing is correct."
". . . You're very strong."
She passed picture after picture, a hiss of voices slipping free from their secret homes—the boring, abstract construct of the human mind. Ironically, she mused, it was very empty for everyone, but amazingly vast. Footfalls whispering behind her before they died in air, she swept forward and quickened her pace. If he woke, she would lose her tentative grasp over his subconscious, and she was not yet able to establish what his relationship to Geass was. She had ideas, many of them, but time had made her life into an mockery, and she knew of its apathy.
"Shh! Shh!" The sound of a weeping girl, spluttering in Japanese.
"Adults can't expect children to stand on a crowded bus," Lelouch, always willing to fight an injustice and offer his hand to the needy. That part of him was a nuisance, but it tempted a smirk from her as the pilo—Suzaku followed his lead and rose to his feet as the girl collapsed into Lelouch's seat. "What are you—"
"Well, you're right, aren't you?" The mother whimpered her thanks before slipping past the two of them, and she remembered Mao—was heavy with thoughts of when he was a child tugging at her hand, wearing that timid grin. She had never been blessed with the ability to nurture, let alone understood the practice; the Code had robbed her of a woman's womb and thus of parenthood. According to Charles and his mass of pseudo-scientists, her body was continuously trapped in the moments before death: condemned to living for an eternity as a result of constant self-healing. Time would never move for her, and the infant growing in her stomach was considered a foreign agent—systematically aborted, perhaps in a comedic caricature of birth control. It would be repulsive had she not accepted that whatever she had become was beyond humanity's limited grasp—surpassed primitive thought and biological impediments in the name of progress. Of the future.
"Why not, Suzaku?" Euphemia was important, she supposed; Lelouch had mentioned that he thought the boy might love her, but it had been a begrudging assertion, and done in passing. She had never had the chance to ask him herself, given the circumstances of their contract.
"I guess . . . it was never very important to me."
"How intrepid!"
"Princess Euphemia—?"
"Things like that are very, very important! What would you do if the military didn't work out?" Presumably not very much. Wartime was hell to a soldier, and she knew it firsthand—had been one throughout her plethora of lifetimes. On the battlefield, only a fool or a martyr runs to his own death.
"I haven't thought about it . . ."
"You should be more concerned! I am very fond of my tutoring myself! Oh!"
"Ah—yes, your Highness?"
"Would you like to study with me?"
". . . I don't think your tutors would be willing to teach me . . ." She could not swallow her sardonic hum of, "That is an understatement."
"That won't do at all . . . Hmm . . . Yes! I know!"
"Ah—"
"I'll find you a school to go to! I bet there's many things you'd be good at!" Then Euphemia had recommended he enroll at the academy. Despite that she doubted the girl had any honest political influence, it remained a feat to have forced him into a prestigious, all white European setting.
"Your Highness, I can't ask you to do that! And besides, there's no reason for anyone to go out of their way for me . . . I'm only talented at piloting, and even then I'm not—"
"No! I simply must repay your kindness! We're friends now, aren't we?"
"I . . ."
"Yes! We're friends, Suzaku! I've never known anyone outside of the palace before . . . So I'd like us to continue this friendship. It's very different—and . . ."
"Your Highness . . ."
"And we get few opportunities to change our lives. Please, could I order you to reconsider?"
"Haha! And if I didn't listen to her Highness?" It was difficult to imagine him as the bigoted little boy that regularly left his fists to do the talking, and had that silent, teasing bitterness below his grin. In her experience, change was the cruelest irony of the human condition; both an origin and constant, yet, by virtue of existence, also destructive. "Heh," she mused to still air, "He, though, must have hated it—Lelouch never did adapt well, even when he was younger."
"Then you would be a very insubordinate soldier of Britannia, Suzaku! I'm sure she would be very disappointed in you."
"Hah. . . But do you really think I need to?"
"Cornelia has always told m—no, I believe it's necessary to take advantage of the options provided by our Empire. And imagine, if you could go to school with Britannians, then maybe everyone . . ."
She wandered, easing through webs of corridors that winded into the emptiness that was the World of C., and felt a creeping apprehension tickling up her body. Being here was the epitome of power, yet she was stunningly vulnerable; she had no control of her physical body within a secondary plane of existence, and her knowledge of the World outside of C. was restricted to the bare minimum. Silencing the echoes in her skull, she twirled to the right and slipped deeper inwards.
"You can come whenever you like, Suzaku," Nunally, she noted with some interest, and her eyes flitted to the familiar smile.
"But I . . ."
"You will always have a home with us. With Brother and I."
". . . Nunally . . . I left the two of you alone. Are you okay with that? . . ."
". . . That wasn't your fault, Suzaku. We, we're happy, and it's wonderful to have you here. Almost the same . . ."
Nothing in her needed to hear more as she bolted ahead—in reflection, Nunally was perhaps the most tolerable human being she'd met in a decade or so. Such a kind girl, if somewhat unstable. It was unfortunate they were so deeply involved in adult wars, but it had been Marianne's will.
"Had the Prime Minister not abandoned our fucking country, we wouldn't even be under Britannian rule! What kind of bastard doesn't fight, and kills himself instead?! Damned coward!" It was a sneer from a Japanese businessman left to wait for soldiers to round him into an interment camp. Loud, with all the frustration of a patriot that had no country and no power. Suzaku pulled away—was youthful, perhaps eleven or twelve—and hid behind the safety of a crumbling carcass of a building, a watch gripped in his fingers. 'I couldn't stand you! I hated you, you could have stopped it—I'm sorry!' The desperation shocked her before she ricocheted ahead, 'I'm sorry I got mad, I—!'
"Watches do not answer prayers," it was mumbled, a hiss in the silence, "And neither do corpses." Apologies were useless in a world where there was no one to hear, and God was too busy a man to forgive. She swept beyond another and another after it, and the voices, clamoring and swelling before they fled from her, buzzed their dissonant secrets until they were a distant throb in her skull.
"We will make it out of this. All three of us, together. Don't be so quick to throw Nunally or I away." A child, black hair curling at his jawline, sneered between gritted teeth—it was odd to see him young and drenched in blood, and she recalled trailing their footsteps in the midst of pandemonium to ensure Lelouch and Nunally found a name to hide behind.
"That's not what I was trying to—!"
"It doesn't matter if you leave; we're in danger wherever we go. If that's the case, then we carry one another."
"Lelouch . . ." He was exhausted, head buried in his knees,"But don't you get tired of that. . ."
"My mother would tell me this: if you don't have a purpose, a reason for fighting, then remember that you're alive now. What greater purpose is there. I don't need anything else in my life other than reasons to keep moving forward. Even if there is no meaning in life, I," he fell to quiet, and added a cynical, "Well, I need to live. That's all. For Nunally."
"What—what if right now everything's wrong!"
"Then they might never get better," she took in the implications of children murmuring the doubts of an adult, and her face was frigid and emotionless.
". . ."
"However, if . . . things are broken, they can be repaired," that was unexpected, and she fell to a brief halt.
". . . How can you never be scared," it was a low whisper, his fingers rigid as they dug into the fabric of his button-up.
"Suzaku?"
"I'm . . . really, I'm scared. Really scared, okay!"
". . . This is your country," Lelouch dwindled to nothing, and forced a pitiful, "I . . . "
"I lived my life sheltered; I never understood anything! I used to think that Japan was—that it was fine to . . . I don't want so many people to die. . . I'm worried about Kaguya and Tohdoh-san, and we . . . we can't stop this war. All those . . . they cornered them in the shrine and—"
"Don't talk about it!" It stood as the most erratic, desperate thing she had ever heard from him, and she puzzled over an alien guilt—perhaps Marianne was remorseful, but no sound rang inside her, and she dismissed her curiosity.
"—They burned them alive. Why? What the hell did we do to deserve this."
"You didn't do anything! They're disgusting!"
". . . Lelouch. I . . . I don't want to die."
"You won't! Both Nunally and you, Suzaku . . . I'll make sure nothing happens to either of you!"
"You can't do that. You're just lying," the fear was teasing below the surface, and he broke into a sob of, "I—I couldn't protect anyone, I couldn't do anything—"
". . ."
"They didn't even pick up the bodies . . . they, they took whole families and shot them into ditches without caring if they died, if, if infants didn't have mothers or anything to take care . . . They didn't care at all, they . . . I don't want to remember, it makes me wish I had never been born, if this is the kind of world—"
"Don't say that! The war will—it'll end soon, then perhaps. . ."
"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry!"
"What?!"
"All those times I called you a coward, I never even . . . you're really strong, you're amazing," she wondered idly how those feelings transitioned into such an intense hatred. The Geass truly was an astounding, twisted invention; it was ancient, older than the universe itself, and she found herself trapped in thoughts of her own youth—when she first spun through its spiral of neon and electric blue. It was something so terrifying, so beyond a human's comprehension that she could still imagine the chill curling up her spine even long after the Code had stole her emotions.
". . ."
"I didn't know you at all, and you didn't hate me for it . . . even though I was a . . ."
"I was never angry at you for that. It's fine!"
"I just wish it had never happened . . . I just want to go home, to have a home to go to . . . that . . ."
There was no answer, and she breathed a dry, "Such is the fate of childhood. It fades into myth." 'Sins of the fathers,' wars, and men twitching under the summer sun as it glared in its free sky; butchery was a habit humanity could not shake itself of, always creeping in the shadows until the monster was let lose on the world.
"Hey!" Spinning to her left, she eyed that boy with the strange blue hair that Lelouch seemed to have grown fond of—she had never bothered to learn his name, "Whatever if it helps you gamble. Chess is popular with the highbrows these days. Oh yeah, Suzaku, you've got the third answer wrong."
He cast a curious look and fingered through the notes, Lelouch deadpanning an amused, "Do you need help."
"No, but thank you."
"Really. You should play a game with me."
"Ha! But I'm not good at it."
"Everyone loses to Lelouch," Blue Hair was melodramatic, strolling into Ashford's halls with a cheerful cry of, "You're not alone, man!"
". . . Our understanding of chess stems from our understanding of classism," Lelouch was cold as he guided the king to its home and worked to stand the pieces upright with careful hands, "The pawns exist at the mercy of a higher rank, and the Knight, and the Bishop, and so forth. Respectively, they are assigned social priority over some lower, undefined standard. The pieces exemplify a variety of power struggles, but I doubt the nobles understand the analogy. Hail Britannia, eh . . . Suzaku."
". . . What," it was tense and restless, a suffocating quiet stirring to life as he twirled the knight between his fingers.
She had been a witness to that insincere smile, Lelouch's words breezy and nonchalant, "Would you prefer to be white or black?" Wasn't that always the question plaguing the two of them. She moved again, fluid as water, and let the poison that was reality seep into her. This was the result of leaving a charge in her care, and yet here she was—returning years after she had abandoned Lelouch to his own devices. Marianne had trusted Ashford as a backer, but there was a ghost in her that speculated if there was any reason they were chasing him across the country. That was left to wonder if she had contorted her own son into an experiment to test the limitations of the Geass.
"I'm sorry for crying," he was sprawled on the wooden floors of that Kururugi shrine that Lelouch had insisted on visiting.
"No, I'm the one who should apologize," Euphemia's memory seemed to haunt him, "I made you sad, and, and I thought that this could—"
"I'm not mad," he murmured gently, breathing in the new scent of reconstruction, "This is still a really beautiful place . . ."
"I—I'm really foolish," Euphemia's voice cracked, "Foolish and selfish."
"Euphie—"
"All the things I do I seem to make mistakes with, and this," she listened, carefree, and continued her trek into the bowels of the beast, "I wanted to do something that would make you and . . . and everyone happy, and I can't even do that. I didn't realize it was so horrible . . ."
Suzaku struggled to string together the sentence, "I think . . . it's okay to not know everything about another person, and that people make a lot of mistakes. And, well," he was timid as he managed a broken laugh, "I don't think I would have ever come back here if not for you."
"I—"
"I'm happy I did, Euphie," happy to weep over something so trivial—it was such an odd affirmation, "Because I never would have. I wouldn't have got to see the memorial, and I would have just ran away . . ."
"Suzaku—"
"And felt ashamed that I couldn't have done anything, that I was in a war where so many people . . ."
"But it wasn't your fault, I—"
"I think . . . I think I can understand that a little better now. I always thought that . . . but everyone that I've told of my father's death, the war . . . they don't hate me for it. I'm really happy that I got to hear that from other people . . . from you and the student council, and . . . a really, really good friend," Suzaku brushed the hair from her face, and there was a voice in her that spoke of Lelouch, and the accident that was the SAZ, "I was always so afraid of coming back, but look; it's different, and you can still see the mountainside like seven years ago, and it's not . . . I'm just really happy, that's all. Things are a lot better now, and I think that's amazing."
"Even so . . ."
"All your impulsiveness," he was genuinely serene, eyes closed, "lets me experience a lot of things I never would have wanted to do. I, ha, never imagined going to school or being a Knight, or that anyone would ever forgive me for killing him . . . Maybe he can forgive me, too. I hope he can."
"Are you still," her answer was nervous, barely ripped from her throat, "Are you still going to fight as a soldier?"
". . . I . . . need to do some things first."
"You haven't . . ."
". . . No, but I feel a lot happier. If something does happen to me, I'll still be so much happier."
A flash of blond, brilliant at the corner of her vision, and regal purple flowing down a child's body tore her from it. "V.V.. I know you didn't expect me to let this go, fool." He had taken the effort to lure Lelouch to him, and bait her by suppressing the dormant Geass; this was far too elaborate a ruse to be his work alone. "Charles . . . Well, Marianne. Is this the result of a marriage spat . . . Your obligation was ended with your . . ."
She smothered the doubt tugging at her heartstrings, and bit back a sneer. Had they truly—had they truly been able to create it inside their laboratories. If that was the case, their attempts to recapture her would be riddled with urgency; were surely to become a hazard to Lelouch were she not cautious, particularly with his intense hatred for the Empire. She had no patience in her to reestablish a contract, let alone to allow him to die without achieving a complete merging of Consciousness. His Geass remained unstable, confined to only half of its full potential, and transfer was impossible.
"What about you, who always tries to follow the rules," her face twisted into a dark glare, and she let her gaze tear into him, "Rules are transient things; it would be right if you removed him. Zero's taken life, hasn't he. Even now, he's using this city as a battleground . . . Do you want to know why she changed?"
"Wha . . ."
"Geass is a . . . phenomena that allows for its user to override human thought. That was his order."
"That's impossible!" She mused an acerbic 'wouldn't that be nice' as he crossed the length of the floor until he was at the pilot's waist, his eyes burning sharp red. "Marianne, this is a tiresome detour. I am far too old to babysit."
"But how else did you arrive on that island if you had no reason to flee. He's returned to Kaminejima—confirm it, if you don't believe me. Follow him."
"I . . ."
"Why say, 'live on.' An interesting joke he's made your life into," there was something unnervingly casual playing beneath his indifference, "He's condemned you to living, yet would murder what's left of your nation. . . Took all the control from you, and spat on the deaths of the innocent. We've met once before, you and I, yet . . . you couldn't protect her, and she died so violently, the pitiful thing. How sad." And, as reality blurred to sharp angles and became a thing of solid shapes, she needed nothing else.
AN: Don't worry, people, Lelouch will get his own acid spin memory television drama. (And, hopefully it wasn't strange for you guys.) Also, I edited some of chapter five so that Euphemia's grave was unmarked. I felt this was more . . . appropriate, given the situation. And, just to say so: Britannia. It sucks. (Haha, those poor kids are screwed up for life now. D8 As if they weren't bad enough in the show itself. . .) That aside, I'll admit that the Nunally kidnapping thing was always a weird situation to me . . . I mean, if Lelouch had died whining at Suzaku, who would have saved her? It seemed thrown together. At least in mine, Lelouch was about 80% certain he would not actually use the gun for anything. D:
. . . And, yes, I get to finally write some LelouchXC.C. next chapter.