Lady Kaguya trembles slightly under the sight of so many guards bearing down on her. She hadn't been in so much danger since Brittania was a major power, and her stoic attitude in the face of danger had become a casualty of the intervening twelve years.
The guard in front of her slaps his hand down on her shoulder. "Nice try." he shoves her back a few feet and pulls the door shut. The bloody key is wrenched from the lock and he holds it up in triumph.
Meanwhile, Suzaku stops having phantom predictions. He successfully dodges the next few attacks without using his Geass, clearing his head a bit. He backflips to his feet and slides behind the enemies who were still facing the wrong way.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Lady Kaguya shoved back into her cell. He smashes two heads into each other and let's the two lifeless bodies fall to the floor as he charges forward heedless of the multitude of outstretched arms. The guard facing Lady Kaguya holds up a bloody key to taunt her. Suzaku crouches and prepares to spring.
o-o-o-o
Kallen manages to get away from her pursuers. Once she decides she is sufficiently hidden, she shakes Nunnally.
"Nunnally, this is no time to sleep!" Her shaking gets more violent. Nunnally groans and lifts her head an inch.
"Anyone get the number of the Knightmare that hit me?"
Kallen smiles wanly. "It was Suzaku. He did some spinning kick thing and hit you halfway across the room."
Nunnally chuckles. "Where is he?"
"Back there, trying to free Lady Kaguya."
Nunnally attempts to sit up, but her head pulses as blood rushes around her skull. "You should probably go help him. I'll be alright until you get back."
Kallen squints her eyes at Nunnally, who had an impossibly innocent expression on her face. "If you go anywhere and get caught, I'm not coming back for you."
"I know." Nunnally smirks, knowing that the exact opposite was true.
Kallen turns on her heel and sprints back the way she had come.
o-o-o-o
The man and the woman reach the mall only a few minutes after this exchange. The man had bought a cloak off of a street vendor and had hidden his face with it. They walk in silence. People glare and look askance at the pair as they stride. They currently are traveling through a posh district, where a plain woman and what looks like a hoodlum are extremely out of place.
A few police officers follow them for a few blocks, but some creative backtracking gets rid of them. At which point they enter the mall.
It's cordoned off by the military, but the duo easily slips through the gap they had used to escape the first time. This time though, they notice a monitor that was still functioning. It was on silent, but clearly plastered on the screen was the tag line "Suzaku = Zero? Emporer Lelouch a fraud?"
The man and woman stare at the words scrolling along, hardly believing what they were seeing.
"We are so screwed."
"Agreed." the man tears his eyes from the screen and heads inside.
o-o-o-o
Lady Kaguya's cell rattles as the man with the keys' face bounces off of it. The keys fly up not the air and land in the hand of Suzaku, who quickly unlocks her cell. He grabs a knife off one of the downed guards and quickly slits the ropes bounding her hands.
"Let's get out of here before the rest of them decide to lock us in here, okay?"
She nods gratefully.
Suzaku hands her the knife. "Use it if you have to, but stay behind me and keep you head down if you can."
"This may not be the time, but how are you not dead?" Lady Kaguya silently berates herself for letting her voice crack.
"It's a long story, one you probably don't want to hear... And now is definitely not the time." his fist collides with a satisfying (or sickening, depending on your disposition) crunch.
"Fair enough, but I do want to know why one of my best friends decided to disappear for twelve years." this time, her voice remains steady.
Another bone gives way before Suzaku's onslaught. "I give you my word."
Suddenly, all that remains between the two and the exit is a single guard. The poor man looks around at his fallen comrades and drops his weapon. "I give up!"
Suzaku moves past the guard without a second thought, Lady Kaguya trailing close behind him.
Kallen runs up and looks around at the carnage, bodies strewn about everywhere and one lone desperate guard checking pulses and smacking people awake.
"Looks like I missed the end of the party."
"Yes. Where is Nunnally?"
"She woke up." Kallen does a half turn and sweeps her arm to point at the hallway she had just come down. "She asked me to leave her there and help you."
"Let's get back to her as fast as we can."
o-o-o-o
The man and woman stumble across a gently snorting Nunnally lying down in a hallway just outside the main hub of the mall. Footsteps approach before they can reach her, and they both duck behind an island in the center filled with palm woman peeks over the top.
"Oh, we're good. Everyone is alright."
"I lost my mask, remember? You need to distract them while I get out."
The woman nods.
The man runs slides away across the floor as the woman jumps over the small planter and startles the three conscious people on the other side.
"Suzaku! Everyone is alright?"
Suzaku regains his composure. "Yes. We need to get out of is mall."
"Actually, that might not help much." the woman's face twists into a grimace. "Suzaku, you've been made. Refusal, their leader, has outed you as Zero."
To her credit, Kallen only almost exploded. Instead, she turns to Suzaku.
"Y-you? All along?"
Suzaku hesitantly nods.
"But... Why? Why did..." she chokes on her words.
Suzaku holds up his hands in a calming gesture. "I'm sorry, but I never told any-"
"Why did you kill Lelouch?" her voice cracks as she screams and she sags to the ground.
"Actually, that's all over the news as well." the woman's face twists even further. "They figured out the Zero Requiem, but not by name."
Suzaku's mouth drops open. "How... How do you know that name?"
The woman attempts to backpedal. "Er, we uncovered it during a raid on-"
"C2?"
The woman involuntarily turns to face Nunnally, who had woken up and was staring at a bit of space above her head.
"I can see your Geass, it's love, right? And you knew about something only my older brother's inner council knew about."
"I-" C2 begins, but she stops once she sees Nunnally's face fill with tears.
"You disappeared. Suzaku "died." Please... Please tell me that Lelouch is still alive."
Nobody dares to even breath as C2 plucks at a corner of her latex mask, which hides her true face. Once all the rubber is gone, Nunnally can see tears plain in her eyes.
"I'm so sorry Nunnally. Emperor Lelouch is dead for good."
The sobs carry in the halls, echoing and amplified by the architecture of the mall. A discerning ear would pick up more than one voice sobbing.
o-o-o-o
The group stealthily moves out of the building in time to see the police storm the mall. They just walk away, heading for the building C2 had been using as a base. She had offered it as a refuge for the time being, until everyone got their head on straight.
In the lead is C2 and Nunnally, followed by Kallen and Suzaku. Lady Kaguya is in the rear, gently massaging her forehead. She had seen the TV screens as they had passed shops and billboards, and had pieced together a lot. It was a heavy weight on her mind.
In front of her Kallen and Suzaku are actively avoiding each others gaze. Kallen is mentally reviewing the past twelve years, looking for signs of Suzaku. She realizes just how well he had managed to fit the role of Lelouch. Despite some of his planning skills being lower, and his piloting skills had gone up a bit, and Zero was more athletic... But not to an unreasonable amount. It could have been a lot of people, since Lelouch had always been on the scrawny and brainy side; it would've been impossible to find a perfect match given Lelouch's tyrant rein and only two months to arrange it. Kallen had also watched the screens, and had placed the plan, the Zero Requiem. Lelouch had wanted to die? He had wanted to make himself as a horrible person, just for peace?
Just for a world where Nunnally would be happy. The thought enters her head like a pile driver. The selfish bastard, she could have been clued in. She could've-
But could she? If she had... She would have switched sides, become loyal to his new regime, and probably died along with him. Lelouch had kept "prisoners" of most of the royal science team, including that stupid bomb maker girl. They had "escaped," and we're also spared. She internally doubted whether or not she would have left.
She turns abruptly to Suzaku. "I-I'm sorry for screaming at you. I think I figured out why he did all that he did, including keeping me out of the loop.
Suzaku nods. "I'm sorry for deceiving you. Until Nunnally told me she knew, I thought I had pulled it off."
"Well, I need to reevaluate a good portion of my life now."
"Yeah. Again, sorry."
Kallen gently punches him in the side. "Don't do it again."
Suzaku is glad to see a slight smile play across her lips.
In front, C2 and Nunnally walk in silence. Nunnally slowly turns to face C2.
"You know, all my research into Geass had led me to believe it had a few limitations. My Geass seems to break some of those limitations."
C2 sighs. "Yes, when we found the leader of the Geass legion he told us how you got your Geass. Apparently, all you need to do is get exposed to the power enough, and make any type of contract with another Geass user. Did you make a deal with one of your captors?"
Nunnally thinks back. "I think I did. It was a spur of the moment thing. It did help us though."
C2 nods.
"But there is something else. I've never read about a Geass that can affect physical objects, just the mind."
C2 smiles back at her. "Oh, that's easy. My... colleague and I did a lot of reasearch. Geass can only affect the mind."
"But-"
"In your case, it alters your own mind, allowing you too see other peoples Geass. Only your mind is affected, so no one else can see... Whatever it is you see above my head. In Suzaku's case, he has a minor telepathy, I think. Maybe something to do with the motor control centers in the brain."
"How about the woman who's powers I stole?"
I think you just altered everybody's perception of you. I'd need to look at a camera feed to confirm it, but I don't think her body or yours actually transformed physically."
"Huh. That makes a lot more sense then what I was thinking up."
"And what was that?"
"er," Nunnally turns red in the face. "I thought maybe Geass had progressed into a further stage of evolution, or something."
C2 smiles kindly. "if that ever happens, we're all screwed."
o-o-o-o
The police prison transport, locked down so as to not let the high risk prisoners escape, pulls off the side of the road five miles outside of the city.
The driver gets out and open the back door, his expression completely blank.
The prisoners, with Geass in their eyes, scanning for witnesses. Seeing none, they move into the forest. One lingers behind though, and his purple eyes glint as he points his fingers at his head like a gun and the guard shoots himself in the face.