Disclaimer: I own nothing of Code Geass, nor of Guilty Gear, nor to a lesser extent, BlazBlue and Rewrite. I do own this story, and all the inspirations along with it. And of course, the brain where the ideas came from.
Despite claims to the contrary, the Holy Britannian Empire cared much for nature. One rarely saw in the continental Homelands a sprawling, dusty metropolis or soot-filled industrial zones which existed in abundance in the other nations, nor was it permitted for any Britannian mage to dump the wastes of his research just anywhere outside his/her tower or atelier. The punishment for defying over a millenia of tradition was almost zealous termination by their countrymen, whose beliefs of world preservation were deeply ingrained in their minds and hearts.
The "savage wilderness" that had instilled a longing fire in the eyes of EU explorers many centuries ago lay yet untouched in between the cities of the Empire, from coast to coast, between mountains, through its jungles and rainforests and through valleys teeming with vibrant ecosystems. The advent of industry and seithr did little to change Imperial ways, instead it sought and found alternative methods to achieve the Britannian lust for glory and conquest.
A prime, modern-day example were the Knightmare Frames, whose main, irrevocable purpose was the harvesting of seithr from the environment. Though its design was stolen and corrupted by the other powers, their function of removing and converting seithr had been the only thing pursued through the generations of models, leading to massive campaigns of purification across the continents and the suppression of seithr levels in and around the Empire. And yet, weapons were crafted, formed, specialized for each Frame model, so it could hold its second purpose as the blunt edge of the Imperial Baton.
As a matter of course, some areas in the Homeland were unable to be saved, irreversibly scarred during the tumultuous Dark Era including the area around the Justice Fall crater and the Caribbean bulwark islands, which were considered as some of Britannia's only Dead Zones. There existed too, the manufactories close to the Andes Order Headquarters granted to that band of Guardians as a concession to their Founder, belching forth the foul byproducts of processed sakuradite and other components which was more than harmful to any biosphere.
Britannia's devotion to the environment was seen as unhealthy and even bizarre by the other nations, but they paid it no mind as it was part of their pride as a people. To its credit, it was the Empire who held an iron-fisted monopoly over harvested goods and livestock, being the only nation with an abundance of clean land and water.
And besides, no nation thought twice about the enemy's ideologies when they were staring down the barrel of a concussion gun or enduring an endless barrage of mortars whenever the present ruler got it in his or her mind to invade the "Old World" again.
Since the introduction of ars, the rejuvenation of ancient sects devoted to nature worship had commenced, but were swiftly suppressed by Frederick and his descendants, who viewed any kind of worship as anathema to the ideologies of the Empire. This led to tension whenever the subject of using ars to induce harvests or restore depleted forests came up, with the sects claiming this was an ungodly thing and rousing a widespread protest which was inevitably seen by the nobility as yet another game to play. It would have led to another of Britannia's civil unrests, were it not for one wise Empress's installation of a High Druid, a powerful ars user claimed to be the representation of the god or goddess of harvest and fertility.
The High Druid was but a title, held only by those willing to subject their entire lives to a devotion of their powers towards the preservation and enrichment of nature, and to the performance of miracles. Because of the lifestyle that was required, High Druids were picked from a young age whenever they showed the potential, and would spend their entire lives in solitude inside a sacred grove or temple, rarely to see the outside world.
An uproar had been raised when it was an Imperial Princess who next showed the most affinity with nature. When it was determined that she would be the High Druid, the girl's mother and sister came to the Emperor to protest. Not only would young Euphemia be forced to forsake her claim to the Throne, she would also be excluded from her brothers and sisters, and that was not something a few of the siblings could not bear.
Audiences were had, the Consort had appealed to many mage Circles and even the Emperor held counsel with this or that noble house. Eventually, it was discovered that the next possible candidate had less than an eighths of the power which Euphemia had, and the matter was soon closed. The seven-year old Princess was ripped from the arms of her weeping sister and carried off to the Grove, a sealed area just outside Pendragon built as a last concession by the Emperor for his consort before dismissing the matter entirely.
Euphie still remembered those days. She dreamed of those days: the hours of study, of ars casting, sleeping outside underneath canopies of trees, in the cold rain and the sweltering heat, concentrating her little head off for fear of the whip and the hunger. She wasn't treated like royalty at all, despite being a former Princess of Britannia.
They allowed her sister and mother to see her sometimes, through the years, and eventually she grew to treasure these moments as the last bit of happiness left to her. She had then resigned herself to her fate when her mother eventually grew a certain pride for bearing the next High Druid, leaving only her sister to put up the last sliver of righteous protest when she told her thus.
Her older sister cried often, tears streaming through the high cheeks that were like chiseled granite whenever she led the Empire to victory and loss yet now seemed vulnerable and soft when she faced her. She would tell stories of the Court she had left, of younger brothers and sisters being born to this or that, the joys and tears and scandals that surrounded this or that.
Beneath the shade of many moons, an older sister would cry and the younger would console, even if the circumstances would have necessitated the reverse. She would do her part, she'd told her sister many times, smiling and beaming and grinning like the many phases of the moon, to please her mother, Father, the Empire, her sister.
Yes, that was what she had thought.
But when she'd passed her eighth winter, there had come to the Grove two travellers, She forgot their faces now or their minute actions, but the dreams where she relived their meeting were always vivid and never faded, like an ars that refused to sputter out.
When she passed her eighth winter, there ame to the Grove two travellers.
One a boy, and the other a girl.
The boy carried the girl like a princess. Maybe she was.
Their eyes were piercing, but kind. They sought shelter, and she gave it to them.
She couldn't remember if they told her their names.
The boy was a Knight, or so he proclaimed, The girl claimed herself his "dame in blood".
Not knowing the word, she had asked, and was received with joyful, genuine laughter. Not the laughter that rang cold through the darkness when she failed, or the laughter that wanted to break into may pieces like her sister's. Laughter like the bubbling of a creek , the chirping of songbirds.
Play with us, they urged. You shall be brother's first love, and perhaps his last. Maybe you will be his wife. Won't that be a grand thing, brother?
The boy played along, kneeling before her and planting a kiss on her marred, calloused hands, and he marvelled at their whiteness, their fairness and of the way they let the sun's rays play on their surface. She remembered blushing, and then being tugged by the wrist, through the forest, and out of her Grove. The other girl climbed onto the boy's back, clutching his throat from behind as she beheld for the first time in eight winters- the Outside.
I'm not allowed to go beyond here, she said with a faint apology. These are travellers, she reminds herself, and they shall have to take leave of this place, and they will leave me behind, yet again. The very brief moment of happiness would be treasured inside her heart, but that was all she could afford to do, while she remained to dispense her duties.
Nonsense, said the girl. No one is chained beneath the Throne, everyone is free under His rule. Did He not promise so, brother?
Come, dear friend, the boy agrees, Become a traveller with us. You shall be the keeper of chronicles, We have seen palaces of sand, buildings made of silk and tunnels of polished silver and glass. And now we've found a forest, with a treasure buried inside. From now we shall, as three, walk through passages of many colors, the glass house of many scents and the wide, azure sky-
But, I can't go Outside, she demurred again, feeling the sting on her back.
Don't you want to play with us, they ask.
Yes, I do, she replies, and this time it is not her sister who cries, but her.
Then it is settled. Your will is the only thing necessary to overcome whatever holds you back. Your will cannot be taken from you. With our combined wills, nothing can stop us in this adventure! The boy proclaims, the girl cheering and clapping.
But I can't she sobs,
And the boy steps in close to enclose her with his arms. Behind him the girl hugs her too, and she is locked in a two-fold embrace that smells of sweat and flowers and love. Don't cry, they said, crying's for weirdos, said the boy, crying's for when it's sad, said the girl, and it's certainly not sad today, isn't it?
Yes, she nods and they step back to let her follow them. Outside.
There were dangerous times, but the boy and the girl are fearless. They dodge monsters in gleaming armor, who bellowed with loud voices, men and women in robes who were silenced with cascades of ice, beams of light and many erupting vines.
Her sister wonders later, after an "evil witch" finally captures them, how the travellers were able to breach the Grove. She was back Inside, but she is happy, the happiest she has ever felt in eight winters. She wasn't able to answer that question, because after several more sunsets the travellers return, dirt and twigs on their creased brows, vowing vengeance on the evil witch.
And that was the end of a dream.
They visited again and again, sometimes the boy without the girl, sometimes the boy with some of the brothers and sisters she had left, sometimes without a hint of an adventure at all. The travellers would come, and then they would play.
Even good things must end, she knew in her young wisdom, and soon the travellers went for many moons between their visits.
There is a certain specific dream, whose details are vague and indefinite, where the boy visits again, saying how he is going away for a long time. No matter how much she tried to envision the boy's face, it disappears from her like smoke and incense, and she is left to wonder if he and the girl were commoners who had dared to enter the Upper tiers of Pendragon, and who had now been sent away.
Regardless, the dream travellers had planted in her a seed which not a single one of her "servants" could suppress, which made her sister quirk an amused eyebrow and her mother to shriek in barely held horror. Time and again, the High Druid (formally installed during the last spring) would disappear from her Grove undetected, turning up later in many unexpected places.
She has not stopped adventuring.
Euphemia had been contemplating on going on another adventure when her sister visited the Grove unscheduled, hours after she'd seen that unsettling Gear broadcast.
"Clovis has disappeared," said Cornelia, clad in the light battle-armor that she favored. She was herself seated on a high, wooden table weaving a dress of leaf-silk without her arms, and she paused in her work to stare in worry at her sister. "And I believe Zero is to blame. Or at least, our brother Schneizel seems to think so."
"How terrible," she said, remembering Clovis as one of the ones who had visited her together with the boy in her dream. He had a pleasant face, but had been sorely displeased at the lack of flowers in the Grove. "But must you go as well, sister? If it's a Gear who can talk like that, then surely it is very dangerous. Perhaps brother Schneizel or Diomedes, or sister Evangeline would-"
"It's my duty, Euphie, to protect the Empire. To protect you. Zero won't have a rat's chance in hell of reaching you in here, but by the Throne I won't let it have that small sliver." Cornelia's feet brushed over the low-growing grass on the forest floor, reaching out to pat her sister on the head, threading her fingers through the barely combed pink waves which cascaded towards the forest floor, uncut in ten winters. "Rather, I should be telling you not to go anywhere after this. Schneizel says there will be difficult times ahead, and it's high time, and I agree as well, for you to formally start your duties as High Druid. The 'shields o'er the Homeland' are strong, but he expects it not to hold when there is a rarety like Zero afoot. There are even rumors that the Knights of the Round have been recalled to the Homeland."
"I understand, big sister," said Euphemia, and there was a grain of truth in her conviction. Even without the conditioning, the girl had always loved nature, more than any Britannian, and at the very least she had the authority and power as High Druid to safeguard the Life of the Homeland's flora and fauna. "Please be safe. Don't take unnecessary risks."
"Right back at you, dear Euphie, Don't give the Royal Guard another headache this time. The Numbers are still working on the mini-jungle you created in that airstrip." joked her sister, who after kissing Euphie on the forehead, swept up her ornate cape over her shoulders and left the Grove, leaving the High Druid in silence, holding the yet unfinished craft between her fingers.
The outside world never lay in the purview of a High Druid. She was to be the living goddess, unassailable and mysterious, hidden away from all eyes save her faithful servants'.
But she knew half the world was dead, Omniscient she was not, but she was also not blind. There were places were Life would not deign to prosper, where the smallest things died as soon as they were born.
Her servants told her it was impossible to fix: the only unhealable scar in the world. Not while seithr existed. Not while Gears, like that Zero yet lived.
Suddenly she stood, her hair sweeping through stray leaves and fallen twigs as she strode purposely towards a small, bare wooden shack some distance away. Reaching it, she placed the leaf threads on a wooden pedestal which had emerged like a quickly growing plant from the ground at her calling. Euphie put a finger to her mouth and whistled.
A figure approached, snorting and uttering low snarls between breaths. The former princess bent down to pat its back, while whispering something in its ear. Immediately, the thing left on bowled legs to scuttle off into the servants' quarters. Euphemia giggled as she watched it go, giving it a fond, silent farewell in her heart.
At her will a clear, shimmering pool of water rose up in front of her, showing her reflection which peered contemplatively at herself. She laid her dainty hands on the hair which was twice her height, dirtied yet beautiful, and she frowned. Without a second's pause branches from the nearby tree bent down towards her, their leaves growing bigger with sharp-looking edges. The branch bent like rubber, coiling itself around her like she commanded it to.
"Wait for me, sister. I'll show you what I can do. Our poor world..."
)()()()()()()()(
"Cool..." muttered Rivalz, his eyes puckering in admiration as he watched yet another wave of Order Knights fly above on their aerial platforms. In his hands he held a long, tube-like device with a wide, lip-shaped opening that was presently being used to suck in the solid ice that had pooled below him.
He wore thick, winter clothes just like the rest of the Student Council beside him, who were busy attending to another one of Milly's edicts: collecting frozen water for a later project from the frozen remnants of the flood.
Somehow, the Ashford heiress had been able to persuade her grandfather to request this of the Order, who had agreed to partition a particular part of an inundated street which was far enough from ground zero of the disaster. They were partially grateful for the volunteered help, coming soon at the heels of similar offers from other concerned Britannians. Then, Milly had asked Nina to come forward with another of her joint projects with Lelouch that the two had worked on: a machine that converted base water into ice through a seal array crafted by the "Shadowfrost Prince" inside, causing a beam of ice to instantly lower the temperature of the water to freezing point. Earlier that morning, the council had been briefed, informed by a poker-faced Milly that this was the Academy's way of taking part in the cleanup of Zero's attack, which still left parts of the Britannian district crippled.
Now, he and the members were busy collecting ice through a convenient vacuum, towards a purpose that only the President knew.
"Still, I'm glad everyone's alright," said Shirley, who had been the first to breathe a sigh of relief when Lelouch had come back yesterday, though he wasn't present now for the event, claiming he had to attend to his sister. "I was really worried for Kallen and Lelouch because we didn't hear anything from them since the alert came."
Kallen had also returned just that morning, mentioning a different, vague excuse, and the sympathetic Milly forgave her through a promise never to be absent for a full week again while pushing the responsibility of carrying the freezing and collecting machines on her, leader of "Task Group Ki".
"Yeah, I guess," replied Rivalz, within earshot of Milly who was overseeing the operation with a joke hat from the theater club's confiscated material, along with a baton confiscated from the music club. "I too think it's good no one got hurt. But too bad about Suzaku though..."
"Eh? Did something happen to him?" asked Kallen, using a miniature ars to melt a piece of ice which stubbornly refused to let itself be sucked in.
"You didn't hear? Even Milly's grandfather got an earful from the Order when he went up to ask. Apparently," Rivalz leaned in close, his voice sunk to a whisper. "Suzaku's in a spot of trouble with the Britannians, I hear there're even mentions of a case going up against him. Imagine that! A civil case! A student like him, getting himself involved in a complicated affair! It's like one of those shows on the telly where the good guy gets into a sticky situation at the very start. I mean, he is the 'Poster Boy' and all, but-"
"Do you know the reason why he's in trouble, Rivalz?" asked Shirley, who shivered when a gust of wind blew the muffler off her neck. "B-because it would be bad if something b-bad happens to Suzaku right? What would Lulu think?"
"Aye, that's a question I wanted to ask that guy if he was here," said Rivalz, nodding sagely. "But I honestly doubt he knows more than the rumor mill, none of us has received any communication from Suzaku yet. I don't suppose even he could receive info if they're keeping ol' Poster Boy locked up tight."
"Don't talk like that," pleaded Shirley, hovering between distress and worry. "That sounds really awful!"
"Alright~ Break it up," Milly cut in, striding through the wet street and in between the gossipers. "Less talkie, more workie! FYI, we're not here because the Guardians wanted us to play hookie, we're here to take what's ours and clear out by lunchtime! And speaking of lunch- hey is that a shiny?" Milly ducked with the swiftness of an eagle, plucking the shiny from the exposed ground before it could get sucked into the vacuum. She held it up for them to see.
"A key?" said Shirley.
"A key..." Rivalz repeated, rubbing a finger thoughtfully on his chin like an inspector.
"Yes, yes, we all want to state the obvious fact that the President has found a key," said Milly, who turned the moist golden key in her fingers.
"I wonder what it's for," wondered Kallen off-handedly, who was looking non too interested in it at all.
"I don't suppose there's a chance I'll soon be encountering a hidden chest, or a sealed door that no ars can open? Wow, that'd be a nice setup, wouldn't you agree? Nice Smile Smart Detective Milly the Ashford!" exclaimed the President, eyes gleaming.
"Oooo, nice one Prez!" Rivalz agreed, holding his arms up.
Nina Einstein, who had been standing to the side observing them silently, sighed. Her glasses had already relayed everything that the key was composed off: materials, conceptual framework, and all the etceras, and there was nothing to the key. It was just a key. A shiny, golden key.
"...of course, obviously, it's almost never about the key but of what it unlocks..." Rivalz muttered with an air of mystery.
She looked back up, her eyes peering instead at an infinitely more interesting spectacle, the undispelled gigantic seal array that Zero had left, either as a careless evidence of his crime or a deliberate challenge as he'd goaded the world during his broadcast.
What a mysterious creature.
"Nina?" the girl jumped, stammering an apology to Milly, who had poked her in the shoulder. "I was asking if you wanted to join me for dinner later, my treat."
"Eh? Er...I can't go out tonight, Milly, sorry...I still have to finish up mine and Lelouch's project..."
"Ack, that troublesome thing. You're going to have to teach me that new ars of yours as compensation or else," Milly said irately. She turned to Rivalz, "Well, Nina's busy, Shirley's grounded and Kallen's a stiff-"
"I'm not grounded-" "-what did you call me?"
"-so how about you Rivalz? Wanna come?" The boy was always first to jump at any offer the Asford heiress would give. However, the enthusiastic nod which everyone expected did not appear, instead Rivalz scratched the back of his head in embarrasment, uttering his own excuse, "I'm kinda tied up down at the bar tonight, there's a grand gala going around and manager needs all hands..."
"Aaah!" Milly cried, tossing her beret to the floor. "Everything's not working out today! First Lelouch, then Suzaku, and now you guys! What is the world coming to?"
)()()()()()()()(
"Then, find a purpose...No, you swore it, that you would find the 'truth'."
Nunnally, he thought, reading his sister's name off the plaque over the door which lead to her special area in the Institute. He was waved through by the double layer of guards in Knightmares.
No matter what happened, he knew there was one pledge that mattered, memory ars or not, that he would safeguard his sister. There was one purpose he could never, ever forsake, whether as Lelouch Lamperouge, Lelouch vi Britannia – or Zero.
They still wouldn't let her speak to him, an unfortunate side-effect from the test that had been interrupted during the level 7 – his – alert. But at the very least, the siblings were allowed the privilege of seeing each other through a barrier of transparent flexible glass, He peered into the room worriedly as they wheeled his sister in.
Lelouch suppressed a gagging in his throat: when he remembered considering the thought of dispelling of the ars on his sister, with his uncontrollable powers then doing the same to Nunnally as he did to Clovis. Never! A part of him screamed, rejecting both sides of the being that stood thus; human and Gear, the pure construct which lay at the root of his love.
"...Come what may, you may finally lay your illusions to rest..."
What could he do now? He was Zero, he had gone back to zero, existing as nothing, no one. Could the lie be him, perhaps, could it be that there existed no Lelouch Lamperuge, no Lelouch vi Britannia, there only was Zero, a Gear sent to this sacred Preserve to enact a wretched 'purpose', to an unknown end?
No! Because if that were true, if the human him was the lie, then everything around him was a cruel joke, an illusion made by the most capricious and cunning demons. And then that would make Suzaku, Shirley, Nina, Milly, his time at Ashford, Nunnally a complete and utter fabrication...
But no, Nunnally was not a lie. She was here, right in front of him, her smile like a sunbright behind a glass window. He couldn't touch her, but he knew, he knew she existed, and because she existed, he knew they existed, that Nunnally and Lelouch vi Britannia had existed.
And in order to affirm that they did, in order to return Nunnally and himself to their rightful places, then he had to forge ahead, forward on the path he had made for himself. Clovis was a setback, but there would laid odds there was nothing he could learn of his brother, and that there were other sources he might ask, more ways he could investigate.
Apparently having been told that her brother had come, Nunnally's face had brightened, turning her head towards where the glass was and placing her petite hands on its surface. She was near, yet so far.
Lelouch fought to stifle a sob, raising his trembling hand to match hers. She was saying something that he couldn't hear, in a voice he barely remembered now, and his hand clenched over the glass as he leaned heavily on it, as if the very action would bring their palms together.
"Nunnally...I swear to you...that when your eyes finally open to see, the world shall be a more beautiful place to behold, that no monsters nor bad men should roam, that when the truth returns you shall not look upon your brother with fear.
"This is my, no...ZERO'S PURPOSE!"
"Is that so?" the witch muttered as she sat on the low table, tossing her legs in the air. "I would express admiration or relief, but I think I know enough now to just expect yet more of your bipolar state, baby Gear. Later, some revelation will shock you again to your core, and you will sink to deeper, unrescuable depths."
"This is different, C.C. I now acknowledge that it was a mistake to target Clovis. This guy...was really just as simple as he looked."
"He's not dead yet, you know," C.C pointed it out laconically. She raised her head to stare at the artificial starry sky that the Preserve gave its inhabitants. "...Depending on what you consider 'death' as."
Zero spoke no word, looking at the simple, marble casket that he had transmuted for his brother. The Prince lay in fitful repose, having never woken up once under the witch's gaze. Were it not for the steady rhythm of his chest, he looked as pale and peaceful as any embalmed corpse. The stasis ars on him would last until he was taken from the casket, or if seithr miraculously disappeared from the world all at once (which was an absurd possibility).
On that day, Clovis had pressed a purple carnation into his hand. It was the first of the many things he would throw away since then.
The only carnation he was able to find in the greenhouses was white, a pure unsullied color. It did not fit Clovis at all, but this was all he could do. He placed it gently onto his folded hands. Lelouch took one last look at the flamboyant brother he had harmed, and after another respectful pause, shut the casket close. The marble lid thudded with echoing finality.
AN: Some days, like tonight, I remember the day I was diagnosed with dissociative disorder. Upon going outside, I found Vivian and other friends waiting for me under the shade of a tree. The other trees along a line swayed and waved, causing their shadows to dance on the ground. I could smell the scent of the leaves being carried in the wind. I remember feeling and remarking that it was a beautiful scene to experience, friendship among nature. B was there, and now I can't even recall how he wore his face. Maybe he'd smiled.
Thanks for reading!
Merlin Out.