The Headquarters of The Order of the Black Knights

Suzaku winced as he pulled the false face off, each piece of adhesive stinging enough to warrant a response, but not a cry of pain from the former Knight of Zero. It was a pity Lelouch had never shown him how to make them; a few had been left over from the Black Knights' original stockpile, but they were now so old that the adhesives had to be reinforced to stop them falling off in public. He would have to ask Lelouch to do so when he next got the chance, he reflected, but there were more important things on his mind.

Shirley was alive; she had been alive the entire time. Lelouch's word had been proven true and he had his friend back. One of his friends back, at least. He had still received no word on Lloyd or Nina, although he had a feeling that Lelouch had some sort of idea what had happened to them: Suzaku had questioned him about them and he had begun to respond but Suzaku was forced to end the call – Cornelia had once again entered his office without warning. He really had to see about getting a lock on that door at some point.

He had been under the impression that Lelouch would meet him at the designated point, so he had been on the lookout for another person using the same type of mask. From what he had heard, Lelouch hadn't been using the masks recently anyway. Maybe he didn't have any? Instead he had been relying on a simple disguise of a baseball cap to cover his face. It was risky, Suzaku had thought, but Lelouch had told him otherwise. "Hide in plain sight," he had said. "The Black Knights and even some of the Britannian military have been trained to recognise these masks; I'd almost certainly be caught if I used one."

That had led him to believe that he could be meeting with a mysterious cloaked man or meeting Lelouch in a deserted café under the control of Geass. He had never expected Shirley to be the one meeting with him. It was great to see her, he wouldn't deny that, but his time was severely limited; aside from receiving a package and letter, there was very little they managed to discuss other than for each to be brought up to speed on some of the other's life. If he was surprised that she was the one to meet with him, then he was even more surprised that she was sitting to the side of a fairly busy café in the middle of Tokyo without the slightest hint of a disguise attempt. He supposed it didn't really matter for her as much as for him or Lelouch; they were extremely high profile people when they were alive, but Shirley was a child – orphaned by the Narita Battle and FLEIJA blast – whose death would have passed unnoticed to all but her friends and police, ending up in an old records box somewhere. Eventually, they said their goodbyes and he returned to the two floors of apartments the Black Knights were currently using as their headquarters.

It was an inconvenience that he was forced to remain with the Black Knights, but it was necessary to keep up appearances. "The Order of the Black Knights has become obsolete," Lelouch had said. It was a calloused statement, but one which had to be said. Suzaku had originally been shocked that Lelouch had suggested they could win without the Black Knights, even going as far as to say that they couldn't win by using them, but Zero Requiem convinced him otherwise. The Black Knights had served their final purpose the moment the Demon Emperor, Lelouch vi Britannia, defeated them in battle.

If Zero deserted the Black Knights, Suzaku knew that he would lose all support from the public. There was no doubting that Zero needed to remain their leader, but there was no use preparing them for any further assaults or missions. He had to maintain a balance between doing nothing and running the Order like he did up until the last battle in which he was captured. The former would ruin the public's image of him and cause the Black Knights themselves to become restless, while the latter would cause casualties, wasted time and unnecessary complications. Lelouch had agreed to take his place at various times to allow Suzaku to continue preparations for Zero Requiem, but for the most part he was on his own. It wasn't long to go until they would be ready, though. Soon, they would be a force to be reckoned with, completely independent of the Order of the Black Knights' banner.

Dropping the mask onto the bench beside the bathroom sink, he soaked a handtowel in warm water and allowed it to gently remove the adhesives from his face. Only a few moments after he replaced his Zero mask and returned to his office, Cornelia strode in without so much as a knock.

"Zero, what's going on?"

Suzaku wasn't taken aback by the intensity of her demand for information. "What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean!" she insisted, glaring at him. "Everything is about money now. Money, money, money. We haven't made any sort of movement for days."

"We have been gathering materials as well," he offered, but she wasn't about to accept that answer.

"It makes no difference. Our numbers are down to the core group and everybody is losing confidence. We've got nothing left, Zero – Nothing! We couldn't beat my brother then and we don't have a hope of beating him now!"

Suzaku said nothing, allowing her to sigh and continue.

"If only I had defeated Lelouch earlier, this might not have happened," she began, her air of confidence fading almost completely. "I could have found a way to become Empress of Britannia and would have had the entire Britannian army at my disposal to fight Schneizel. He's got the whole world in his pocket; he's got thousands of people in a fully equipped army and we have nothing. He's just too good! Even without those advantages, the only one who could possibly fight him on even ground would be…would be…"

"–Lelouch," he finished.

For a moment she seemed as though she was about to descend into tears – something he never expected to see from her – but she stopped. It was as if something had finally clicked in her mind. Suzaku sat perfectly still as she met his gaze and prepared himself to face her revelation, question or whatever else had caused such a turnaround.

"Why did you kill him, then?" she demanded, equal undertones of betrayal and long-buried residual familial feelings for her dead brother in her voice. "If you knew he was the only one who could beat Schneizel, why did you kill him?"

"I did what I thought was best for the world at the time," he explained softly, turning to face a large mirror on the wall behind him. "All of the world's hate was focussed on Lelouch. If he died, that hate would die with him."

Through the mirror he could see that Cornelia had tilted her head down, although not enough to stop him from seeing her unfocussed and slightly glassy eyes. She hadn't made a move to reply, so he continued.

"I had no way to know about Schneizel, either. It should have been impossible for him to escape, but he managed that anyway. Everything points to Nina having rescued him, but she has no definite motive to do that."

"All of the world's hate was focussed on him. If he died, the world's hate would die with him," she repeated softly, looking up at him with a tear running down her cheek for the first time in many years. "He planned it, didn't he? He planned it all. And you helped him…Suzaku."

He had said too much. Cornelia was always smart, but she hadn't managed to see through their charade until now. She and Tōdō seemed to be missing the final piece of the puzzle that would allow them to work it out since the day of the execution, so he had been extremely careful not to give it to them.

He supposed it was too late in Zero Requiem for it to matter, and fortunately Cornelia was the only witness. Even if he wanted to deny it, he couldn't; he had stiffened momentarily at her conclusion and in that moment, he knew she had caught him.

Slowly, he brought his hand to his head and allowed the mask mechanism to detach itself. Before she could get a glimpse of his face he turned around and placed the mask on his desk. His ears picked up a quiet gasp coming from her as her suspicions were confirmed: Kururugi Suzaku, former Knight of Zero and fallen soldier of Britannia, was alive and standing right in front of her.

It was almost as much of a shock to him; aside from Lelouch, Shirley and Jeremiah, nobody had seen his face for over a year. He felt somewhat vulnerable without Zero's mask to protect his identity and shield him for questions he couldn't answer without revealing parts of Zero Requiem, but he pushed that feeling to the back of his mind; he had to act quickly and decisively.

"Cornelia…" He stared her in the eye. "There is a way to defeat Schneizel."

Tokyo Docks

The Hangar

It wasn't really a cell, more of a resting area. Or at least that's how Lelouch tried to justify it in his mind. True, the man would be unable to escape if he woke up, but Lelouch had no plans of allowing that to happen. He might have been keeping the man as a prisoner, but if he hadn't woken up the entire time, he couldn't really call the room his prison cell or even know that it existed, as a matter of fact.

Lelouch wasn't sure why he was trying to justify the use of the room in his head; it was decidedly less cruel than many other things he'd done. He'd ordered people to kill themselves, had people injected with Refrain, gone to war with the world and paraded his former comrades around like prizes when he had defeated them.

Perhaps it was something to do with Shirley, he mused. She hadn't been happy with the man's living conditions and made the cell – no, he couldn't call it that – the room more comfortable for him in case he awoke. He wouldn't awake – that much Lelouch knew – but she was fixated on doing it to satiate her guilty conscience, Lelouch suspected. It hadn't really rubbed off on him a lot, but allowing her permission to fit the room with a proper bed and a heater was a relatively easy way of keeping her morale high.

The bed didn't look out of place in the room, even though it was brand new and fitted with almost perfectly white sheets. It would have been far too difficult and overall detrimental to his goals if he was to go out of his way to locate a dingy, stone cell with bars in the doorway. Instead the room was well lit and its walls were covered in recently applied wallpaper. He supposed his captive didn't deserve harsh treatment, anyway; it was partly Lelouch's fault he was in his current state and entirely Lelouch's fault he was being held captive. He could be useful, too.

Lelouch stretched his hand out and felt the man's pulse. He didn't expect it to be unusual, of course, but checking was a necessity. He had readministered the tranquilizer personally every day, so nothing would have gone wrong without him knowing about it immediately. A drip stood next to the bed, providing the man with enough nutrients and fluids to keep him alive for the time he had been under the effects of the tranquilizers.

Kanon shifted in his unconsciousness, causing Lelouch to raise an eyebrow. He shouldn't have been having any sorts of dreams; the tranquilizers were supposed to send him into a dreamless sleep. It had likely been a long time since he had used Refrain, so he could be suffering from withdrawals in some manner. Even though Lelouch had used the same tranquilizer given to comatose Refrain patients to stave off their unconscious withdrawal symptoms, the other chemicals in the man's body might have negated some of those effects.

Fortunately, they hadn't affected its primary function: to force Kanon into unconsciousness. Carefully, he pulled the drip needle out of the man's arm and let it fall to the floor before slinging an arm around the back of his neck. He was heavy, Lelouch immediately realised after trying to pick him up. Having Suzaku around might have been useful, but he had business that day which couldn't be put off for much longer.

It was a horrible struggle that took far longer than it should have for the athletically-disinclined Lelouch, but eventually he managed to push – almost roll – Kanon off the bed and into a sitting position in a wheelchair he had brought with him. It was a simple solution for transporting an unconscious body without raising suspicion, but one which required patience and liberal use of Geass to gather the wheelchair and an accessible vehicle without stealing either from someone who depended on them.

After arranging Kanon's limbs to avoid having them flailing about outside the wheelchair, he began to steer it out onto the mezzanine. It was an extremely large building, but fortunately there was a ramp which made things much easier to traverse with his unconscious prisoner. He had 'acquired' the building using his Geass, of course, so there was no danger of him being questioned as he made his way down into the hanger and loaded Kanon into a sedan with the back seats stripped out.

Nobody made much of a fuss when he arrived at the hospital either, although he did get a few strange looks from people passing by for wheeling a seemingly unconscious person away from the main hospital doors without a doctor's uniform. In truth, he was merely heading towards the emergency exit: the close proximity made using Geass at a moment's notice much easier than in a large foyer.

Even when he entered, nobody really paid any attention to him. A nurse working at the desk in front of the double-doors snapped her head up to regard him when he entered, but seemed to lose interest when she realised he wasn't part of an ambulance crew bringing a critically injured patient. He was expecting to be told that he was using the wrong entrance, at least, but it seemed she didn't care either way. He supposed that Tokyo Hospital must have been the sort of place who wouldn't so much as speak to you until you flashed your chequebook, although he had never been there in his life as Lelouch Lamperouge, so he didn't know that before entering. The state of the hospital didn't concern him; he required the services of one of its specialists – someone who had once worked on one of his most secretive and ambitious projects

Silently thankful for the cap which was just barely obscuring his face from identification, he made his way towards the elevators and up to the eighth level. A few doctors walked up to him to inquire about why he was pushing a patient around the hospital, but he was using his Geass liberally on anybody who got within a few metres of him to distract their attention; he couldn't wear a false face in the presence of so many medical professionals and couldn't make them forget him completely due to the security cameras, so there was no reason not to utilise the extra precaution Geass gave him to its full extent.

He gave a nurse in the reception area of the eighth floor a different command and was told that there was a room at the end of the hall which had been prepared for use but wouldn't be occupied for days due to a cancellation. It suited his purposes well enough, so he immediately dropped Kanon off and went to search for the specialist.

After checking the hospital directory, he found that the man's office was on the fifth floor; he had really only gone to the eighth because he knew it was entirely filled with private rooms and would be his best chance at finding Kanon one. Fortunately, the office was a private one, so his job could not have been any easier.

He made his way down in the elevator, making sure to keep the brim of his hat low to avoid being identified in the lift, and soon found himself facing a window-less door.

'Dr Alan Hazelby,' Lelouch read from the plaque. 'So that's what you're calling yourself now.'

The man jumped slightly as Lelouch pushed the door open and coughed to get his attention. He spun around immediately and their eyes met.

"Follow me."

Almost invisible red rings encircled the man's eyes as he succumbed to the Geass Lelouch had placed him under so long ago. "Of course."

Lelouch lead the way back up to the eighth floor and found Kanon exactly where he had left him. There was never really much to worry about: the only nurse on the floor was already under his Geass to ignore anything suspicious.

He turned to the doctor and began. "I need you to run a blood test on him. He should be fairly heavily laced with the Refrain tranquilizer and have significant levels of Refrain itself – enough to indicate a lengthy habit. I'm looking for something different, though – something a bit more…nasty."

Hazelby nodded. "Anything else?"

"Get me results as fast as you can without jeopardising the tests. Make sure you tell nobody about what you are doing, or about either me or this patient being here. Lie if you have to," Lelouch began. "I'll need some way to neutralise the tranquilizer and anything harmful you find, as well."

After shuffling around in a storage cupboard for a few minutes, Hazelby emerged with a pair of needles and withdrew a chamber full of blood from Kanon with each. He left the room without a word to begin his analysis.

Lelouch closed the door and locked it; Hazelby could knock when he returned. There was nothing left to do but wait, now; the man he had just spoken to was regarded as one of the best in his field, so he could be assured of results within a few hours. With that thought in mind, he settled down in a chair next to the bed and drifted off to sleep.

The Headquarters of The Order of the Black Knights

"What?"

"I said there's a way to defeat Schneizel."

Her eyes hardened immediately. "Stop screwing with me, Suzaku! There's no hope for us now!"

"Schneizel isn't invincible, Cornelia," he responded with a perfectly straight face. "He can be beaten."

"Your world is a fantasy world," she spat.

He remained unperturbed, the persona he had adapted to as he wore Zero's mask blending with his personality until he could barely differentiate the two from each other. "I am living in this world, just as you are, just as Schneizel is and just as every other man, woman and child alive is. Schneizel can be defeated."

"You said it yourself only a few moments ago! We've got nothing left! Everyone outside the core group has been lost, the Avalon has been destroyed, our facilities have been restricted to these two floors we've managed to hold onto, we're down to twenty knightmare frames and the Guren is all but useless! All we've got left is the money and raw materials you've been making us gather for seemingly no reason, and the public support your little stunt at the execution brought us."

"We don't have a lot, that's true…"

She glared at him.

"…but it's more than enough to win," he finished, ignoring the incredulous expression that spread across her face. "It will be tough, but it can be done."

"You're serious, aren't you?" she asked. "You really believe that."

He nodded. "I do."

"You're out of your mind, Suzaku! You said yourself that the only person who could win was Lelouch!" She was practically shouting now; it was fortunate the room had been soundproofed and the other members were across the road. "Lelouch is dead, Suzaku!"

Instead of responding immediately, he slowly turned back towards the mirror and thought about the best way he could phrase what he needed to say.

"Sometimes things don't turn out exactly as planned…" he began softly. Cornelia's expressions mellowed out somewhat in sympathy, but she allowed him to continue. "Sometimes battles don't go your way. Sometimes people betray you. Sometimes you see a better opening but it doesn't work out…"

"…and sometimes everything goes exactly as planned."

Cornelia's eyes had been gradually softening with each line, but the weight of the last caused them to instantly snap back to perfect alertness. "Exactly as planned? Nothing has ever gone 'exactly as planned' for us in this past year. What are you talking about?"

"Everything."

She remained silent, her eyes widening as she felt the crushing impact of that word.

"The rebellion was planned. Lelouch's death was planned. Schneizel conquering the world was planned." He ground his teeth in frustration. "The fall of The Order of the Black Knights was planned."

"What? Then why have we come this far, if we never had a chance?" Cornelia shouted, slamming her palm down on the desk.

"Because it was the only way to defeat Schneizel! It still is!" he responded with equal forcefulness.

For a moment she seemed as though she was about to say something else, but instead the fire drained from her eyes, leaving a thoroughly defeated-looking woman. "You really planned all of this, then?"

"Not alone."

Her eyebrows creased. "Then who…?"

Even without those advantages, the only one who could possibly fight him on even ground would be…would be…"

"–Lelouch,"

"No…" she stuttered in disbelief, eyes wide as she took a step backwards in shock. "No! It couldn't have been him, could it? All this time…you and Lelouch…"

Suzaku ignored her, instead walking over to his personal safe and inputting the code. From it he withdrew three packages wrapped in brown paper which had been sitting there for days, waiting for the right opportunity to be put to use. He placed one on his desk and stacked the other two in a pile next to the first. Cornelia's gaze was locked onto him as he pulled a piece of paper out of his drawer and wrote down an address.

He placed it on top of the single package and made to speak, but she cut him off. "Why didn't you just kill Schneizel?"

"He would not have been defeated. It isn't that simple."

"I want answers, Suzaku!"

He pointed to the piece of paper. "If you want answers, come to this address at this time in two days. Use the contents of the package under it to conceal your identity completely."

She was instantly suspicious. "I've seen this happen before, Suzaku. If you think you can lure me into a place where I can be easily neutralised, it won't work."

"I don't intend to," he reassured her, before pointing at the two packages stacked in a pile. "These two are for Guilford and Darlton; you are to inform them of the situation and ask that they attend. They will be expected to conceal their identity using the contents of their own packages as well. Tell nobody else."

Some of the doubt drained from her eyes at the assurance Guilford and Darlton's presence would provide: Suzaku hadn't said anything about not being armed. She took a moment to consider.

"…I'll trust you this once, Suzaku. Don't let me down."

With those words, she collected the parcels, turned on her heel and strode out of the room with all the air of a Britannian Princess.

Suzaku released an audible sigh as he sat down and reattached his Zero mask. He had never told anybody about that part of Zero Requiem and he was understandably nervous about revealing his identity after being presumed dead for years. Still, it had to be done. They would need Cornelia on-side if they wanted to win; it was just fortunate she was as level-headed as she was or he could have been in for some serious trouble.

Massaging his temples with his index finger, he picked up the phone and dialled Lelouch's number.

Tokyo Hospital

Lelouch was pulled out of his slumber by the sound of his phone registering an incoming call. The caller ID was simply "Suzaku" so he accepted the call immediately.

"Suzaku."

"Lelouch. I've spoken to Cornelia."

"Cornelia?" he questioned, slightly unfocussed while he still woke up. "What about?"

"Zero Requiem."

If there were two words in his entire vocabulary which could force Lelouch to become instantly alert, those were them. "I see. Was she responsive to the idea?"

"It took some talking, but she'll come."

"Good. What about Darlton and Guilford?"

"I haven't spoken to them yet," Suzaku admitted. "Cornelia took their packages and agreed to fill them in. It makes things easier, at least."

"If Cornelia approaches them, they will accept," Lelouch agreed.

"Yes. What about Tōdō, though? Should I speak to him too? He will be much more difficult than Cornelia to persuade."

"No," Lelouch responded after a moment's contemplation. "I will. Tōdō requires a much firmer approach than Cornelia."

"You never gave me a package for him, anyway. Unless the one Shirley gave me was for him…"

"No. That is a copy of mine and will belong to you only," Lelouch reassured him.

"Ah." Suzaku seemed slightly embarrassed. "I supposed I should have opened it before I asked, then?"

"It is not urgent. You can probably guess what it is."

"I do have some idea."

The doctor chose that time to knock on the door and Lelouch stood up. "The verdict on Kanon has arrived. I have to coordinate materials transfer to The Hanger tonight, so I might be out of contact for some time. Shirley will be available."

He hung up before Suzaku could answer and strode over towards the door. Hazelby bustled in immediately after he unlocked it and shut it behind himself.

"What did you find?"

He nodded. "You were right. There is a significant amount of a specific foreign substance in the patient's bloodstream. It's not something I've ever seen before, but analysis of its key components lead me to believe that it was designed to foster feelings of loyalty, trust and adoration for a specific person. At least, that's what I believe; I was able to isolate a specific strand of DNA which was embedded in the substance."

"Is it possible that it was being used to control his actions or thought processes?" Lelouch asked. So far his original predictions had been correct; Kanon was potentially useful after all. "And give me a sample of that DNA before you leave."

"It's possible, but unlikely. Its purpose seems to be to target and boost these positive latent emotions towards whomever that DNA belongs to. I'm not sure how it was actually incorporated into the substance, though; the creator must have significant resources available to them."

Lelouch creased his eyebrows. Without a verdict that the drug was an explicit mind controlling agent, his job would be slightly harder. Still, the fact that it acutely targeted the mind alone would go a long way to supporting him. He wasn't quite sure why he was even bothering to help the man to begin with, but he figured that Guilford, Darlton and Chiba couldn't do everything alone. On a purely strategic level, it wasn't worth the effort to kill him and dispose of the body, although he knew that was a weak reason: securing Hazelby's assistance was even more problematic. Most likely, it was a product of his own guilt; he had subjected the man to Refrain and then disappeared, regardless of his precautions.

"Wake him up," Lelouch finally ordered.

The doctor was moving straight away, making a beeline for Kanon. Within a few seconds he had picked the immobilised man up – with no assistance from the physically incompetent Lelouch, of course – and placed him on the bed. He was halfway through removing a set of leather straps from a nearby cupboard when Lelouch stopped him.

"What are they for?"

"They're for restraining the patient," Hazelby answered without pausing or turning to look at him. He continued to strap Kanon face-up to the bed as he talked. "As you are aware, there are a number of serious psychoactive substances in his body which I plan on removing. It's difficult to judge what his mental condition will be like when he wakes up, so the straps are necessary to maintain our safety, should he become violent."

Lelouch raised an eyebrow. "You can remove all of them?"

"Only the tranquilizer and the drug I just ran tests on," he admitted. "There is no medical cure for Refrain."

That was what Lelouch was expecting, of course. For a moment he had thought the doctor was claiming that he had managed to obtain the elusive cure and that had scared him. His scientists – ironically, including the unwitting man in front of him – had worked long and hard to manufacture that drug and keep it contained: Kanon was the only victim he knew of. Unless it had been reverse-engineered, only two people in the world had the cure:

Himself and Schneizel.

It was a powerful drug, to be sure, but he couldn't see any reason for Schneizel to have attempted to recreate it. It wasn't something he would ever need to use, with its far more sinister brother strain freely available and his own power-hungry disposition. He knew it was a risk for Schneizel to have the other cure, but it was a necessary one.

He had given him the cure personally, after all.

"Proceed."

Hazelby prepared a needle and had just begun to search for a vein when Lelouch interrupted him. "No, use a peripheral IV."

If the doctor thought the command was strange, he didn't show it, calmly removing the necessary equipment from a nearby cupboard and setting to work as if was what he had originally been planning on doing. Lelouch watched on impassively as the fluids were pumped through the catheter, the first to deal with the unknown drug and the second to negate the tranquilizer.

Hazelby stepped back once they had both been administered. "He should regain consciousness in a few seconds."

"Good. Ensure that all evidence of the work you did on this patient today is destroyed and that you forget any details about either of us. You may leave now."

Lelouch followed the man to the door and locked it after he had left. Walking back towards the bed, he noticed that Kanon was beginning to awaken.

"…Urgh…"

"Did you sleep well?" he asked idly. It didn't really matter what he said; Kanon was coming out of a medically-induced coma which had lasted more than a few days and wouldn't be able to make sense of anything for a few seconds at least. Lelouch didn't know a whole lot about medicine, but he hoped that his almost kind tone would position the man to be more forgiving and accepting when he awoke.

"…Urgh…"

Well he didn't seem to be violent at the moment, so that was a good thing. It was impossible to deal with him in this state, of course, but it boded well for his disposition when he eventually did awaken.

"…Where…"

"Hospital," Lelouch answered without waiting for the rest of the question. It was fairly obvious what it would be, anyway.

"…Execution…Zero…Did he escape…?"

"So you remember that, do you?" he mused. "Zero escaped and you were…liberated."

Kanon was far more alert now. "Liberated?"

"Yes, liberated. Tell me, have you ever felt as though there was some sort of interference in your mind? A kind of…distortion, perhaps?"

Kanon narrowed his eyebrows, but it was too difficult to open his eyes in the bright room and see who he was talking to. "Who are you? How do you know that?"

"I see…" Lelouch muttered, eyes drifting around the room. He slowly walked over and unbuckled the straps holding Kanon to the bed with his right hand, while reaching out with his left to dim the lights via a switch next to the bed. "I have suspected for a while that Schneizel may have been poisoning the minds of some of his subordinates, particularly you. I haven't been able to find any evidence that such a thing was occurring until today, however, when I had some tests run on your blood."

Any objections to his blood being extracted and studied without consent died in his throat at the implications in Lelouch's statement. "I…what…His Highness Schneizel? No, he wouldn't do something like that!"

"I'm afraid it's true," Lelouch sighed, his voice laced with insincere regret and sadness. "It was a drug designed to forcibly suppress your free thought, effectively enslaving you to the first person to ask for your loyalty: Schneizel. You are fortunate that I have taken steps to completely remove its dwindling influence from your system."

The explanation had confused him for a moment, but with his mind working furiously and unhampered by either the effects of Refrain or Schneizel's drug it quickly became glaringly obvious. The haze which had been over his mind constantly for as long as he could remember was gone. A "distortion," the mysterious man he knew to be in front of him had referred to it as, and he had called it exactly the same thing in his own thoughts.

If its influence had been dwindling, then it couldn't have been very long-lasting. He figured he had been unconscious for a day or two at most, so it would have to be administered daily – or nightly, as he suspected to be the case. It was impossible to forget the many nights he had spent shivering on the floor of his bedroom as he injected himself with Refrain; his head was always clearest at night…

"He was drugging me at night, wasn't he?" Kanon questioned sombrely, almost dreading the answer. He was surprising himself with how quickly he was accepting the word of somebody whose identity he didn't know, but the more he thought about it, the more he knew it was true.

"Yes, he was." Lelouch wasn't entirely familiar with his brother's schedule, but it sounded like something he would do; if Kanon was prepared to convince himself that the drugging was happening of a night, then he wasn't about to disagree. Mind games were all too easy for Lelouch and he had already taken the liberty of 'adjusting' the drug's specifics. Nobody would ever find out, either: it was a subtle difference and all evidence of Lelouch's lie had been destroyed.

A perfect deception.

"Who are you?"

"Open your eyes and find out."

Kanon tried and, to his surprise, found he was able to open his eyes slightly without the light stinging him horribly. At some point, the man in front of him had dimmed the light and he hadn't attempted to open them since. His eyes widened in shock as he stared, but his facial expressions quickly morphed into a scowl.

"You! How are you alive? You're supposed to be dead!"

Lelouch seemed unfazed. "Is that how you treat the one who saved you?"

"Saved me?" Kanon repeated incredulously, his tone far stronger than one Lelouch had ever heard him use before. "You think you saved me? You destroyed me! You and your Refrain!"

He spat the last word and Lelouch was forced to impassively wipe his jacket on the side of the bed to clean it. "It was not my fault that you became addicted to Refrain."

"How could it not be your fault? I had no choice! Neither did Diethard."

"That much is true, but the drug I gave you was not Refrain as you know it."

Some of the anger drained from Kanon's face, replaced instead by confusion. "What? What do you mean it wasn't Refrain?"

"When I was Zero, leading The Order of the Black Knights, I had in my service a team of the world's best scientists. It was a black operation; only myself and those on the team were aware of it, and even they had their minds wiped once it had been completed. In its facilities we created Refrain Z – Refrain Zero – and mass-produced it to be distributed to the public."

Kanon didn't even attempt to disguise his disgust, but Lelouch continued before he could respond.

"Refrain Z differs to Refrain in one critical way: it is curable. Hundreds of thousands of Refrain Z doses have been distributed around the world since its creation, selling for comparatively lower prices than Refrain. By my calculations, almost half of all people addicted to the drug are addicted to the Refrain Z strand and can be cured when the time is right."

"Then…then you created it to help people?" Kanon questioned, his voice finally returning to one Lelouch was familiar with him using. Seeing Lelouch nod his response, he continued. "What about me? Diethard?"

"My original intention was to neutralise you with a tranquilizer, but they were destroyed along with my knightmare frame by Gino Weinberg as I breached the Damocles. The only things I was carrying which could force the same effect were two syringes of Refrain Z. I was forced to improvise."

Kanon seemed to accept that explanation, but his eyes hardened slightly. "How can I trust you?"

"I let you live, didn't I?" Lelouch replied, a slight smirk gracing his lips. "If I wanted to kill you, I would have done so. I did kill Diethard, after all."

"You could have cured me, but you didn't."

"Lelouch vi Britannia, the Demon Emperor, taking mercy on his prisoners? Unlikely," he scoffed. "Some time after placing the command on Schneizel to 'serve Zero,' I hid the cure to Refrain Z on his body and ordered him to give it to you when he was released."

Kanon was shocked. "You knew he would escape?"

"Of course I knew he would escape. That entire day was a charade."

"Then why didn't…"

"Why didn't Schneizel give you the cure?" Lelouch repeated, guessing the rest of the question. "Unfortunately, he broke the Geass sooner than I had expected and must not have come into contact with you during the time he was under it. Schneizel had the ability to cure you of your addiction and did not."

Lelouch watched impassively as Kanon's facial expressions shifted between rage, hurt and betrayal, before settling on a combination of all three. Playing on people's emotions came naturally to him and it was time to secure the man's allegiance.

"Schneizel saw you as nothing more than a tool, to be forcibly kept in control until no longer necessary. You almost certainly never knew the real Schneizel El Britannia."

Kanon stared at the wall behind Lelouch, shock and confusion visible on his face for a few moments before his eyes glazed over and he took on a far-away look.

"Thank you, Lelouch. There are no problems left, now that you've come out into the open."

Kanon's eyes widened and his lip began to tremble.

"It doesn't matter. Let's give Lelouch everything, even the country of Britannia. The problem lies beyond that."

"…It all makes sense," Kanon murmured. "When you announced yourself as Emperor, he thanked you for coming out into the open. He allowed you to capture him, he allowed you to order his execution and he planned his recapture of the world well before he was defeated by you, didn't he?"

"That is correct."

Kanon's voice dropped to little more than a whisper, feelings of betrayal blocking his throat. "…He was doing the same thing as you, wasn't he?"

"Not exactly, although the basic premise was the same."

"I see…" Kanon bit his lip. "Perhaps I should thank you."

"Not yet."

Before he could voice his confusion, Lelouch raised a needle he had filled during the early stages of their conversation and inserted the tip into the catheter. The unexpected feeling forced Kanon's question to die out in his throat, almost forgotten as the foreign substance entered his bloodstream.

Lelouch stepped back. "Now you can thank me."

"What was that?"

"The cure to Refrain Z," Lelouch replied. "You won't need to subject yourself to Refrain anymore."

Kanon's face lit up immediately, but the fire in his eyes slowly died out. "I've been taking Refrain for over a year; not all of it would have been Refrain Z."

"That doesn't matter. It is the first dose of Refrain which forces the addiction; the following ones are inconsequential."

"I suppose I can forgive you," Kanon said after a few seconds. "And I suppose I even owe you for showing me Schneizel's true nature."

"You've never seen Schneizel's true nature," Lelouch responded sadly. He walked over to the wheelchair and withdrew a brown paper package from beneath the seat, before placing it on the end of the bed. "He has the power to hide himself from the world with ease, but he can still be defeated. And if he is to be defeated, I will need your assistance. I ask this not as Lelouch vi Britannia, but as Lelouch Lamperouge…"

"…And as Zero."

Kanon looked back and forth between the package and Lelouch, weighing up his choices. It was hard to switch sides so suddenly, especially after fighting for so long as Schneizel's second in command, but he had no other choice. Without the drug affecting his mind, it was all too easy to see what the Second Prince had done to him. He couldn't go back now – not after what he'd found out.

He had to do it. Everything told him to join Lelouch: the anger at Schneizel for drugging him, the betrayal from deceiving him and the hurt from neglecting him. He would have given his life for the man, but he'd trampled on his pride.

The words which had spilt from his mouth on that day were purely his own, something he had not been able to claim for as long as he could remember. He'd found a new leader to follow to the end of the world and back.

"Yes, Your Majesty!"