A/N: Well, it took me a while to update this one due to life just being kinda crazy for me. Even so, I know you guys are in for a treat with this particular chapter. Many thanks to those who have read and commented on this story so far. I really appreciate it. Also, a special thanks to Tykronos for his suggestion to implement Lelouch's POV for a portion of this work. Thanks for reading everyone! Best wishes and God bless you all!

Disclaimer: Code Geass belongs to its respective owners. This is merely a Fanfiction made for entertainment purposes only.

Warnings: Hahahahahaha! Now why would I warn you about the surprises coming up?

To the Beginning
-3-

I'm not sure if I want to change anything anymore.

These words haunt a young man with raven tresses and violet eyes smoldering with thinly veiled rage.

Changing the world…is an endeavor that will take everything from you. Your heart. Your soul. Your mind.

Resignation. Regret. Emptiness.

For Lelouch Vi Britannia, Suzaku's statements felt like a mirror image of what he had been just a few short weeks ago…before Geass…before he built the persona of Zero.

In the end, all you become is a hollow shell.

He certainly feels hollow at the moment, but that is primarily thanks to a soreness in his limbs and mental fatigue from all the preparations he methodically plotted out just to rescue his ungrateful friend who would rather act as an obedient dog of Britannia than join him in arms against it.

Disappointment is a draining thing, so much so that all Lelouch wants upon wandering back onto Ashford Academy's illustrious campus is to say goodnight to his sister, slip under the sheets of his bed, and sleep.

I think you could do it. You could change the world, Zero. You have conviction.

No. What he has is a thirst for vengeance against the Emperor, not only for failing to prevent his mother's death but for treating Nunnally and himself as if they were nothing more than political pawns to move about the board as he pleased.

"But now…"

Lelouch suppresses the smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.

"It's my game to win."

With his footsteps echoing through the halls of the student council clubhouse, the former prince's posture sags and a low sigh of relief escapes through his lips. The doors to his and Nunnally's portion of the building draw closer with each movement he takes, and the thought of sleep becomes so tantalizing it's a miracle he makes it through the threshold without stumbling.

"I'm back."

"Welcome home, Lelouch."

His movements come to a dead halt.

That is not his sister's voice.

Puzzled beyond all reason, Lelouch meets the gaze of the girl from Shinjuku.

"What the…"

Unable to form a coherent thought for the second time that night, he glances at the standard prison garb she wears then rapidly shifts his attention to her forehead where the bullet meant for him struck her.

There isn't a single scratch on her. Moreover, she's sitting perfectly still while peering at him, her amber eyes shimmering with life.

"So…that tosses out the zombie theory."

"I'm so glad. I was worried." Nunnally chimes in suddenly, momentarily stealing Lelouch's attention away from the green-haired stranger and his own confusion.

"I…uh…"

"I'm assuming you ate out tonight judging by your appearance," the woman cuts in, her smooth voice drawing him right back into her orbit as if he'd never left it.

Her delicate hands draw his eyes to a turquoise paper crane she lowers gently along the surface of the table.

His own hands twitch on reflex.

"Thank goodness! I thought maybe you'd gotten caught up in all the uproar caused by that man Zero." Nunnally's head turns toward his general direction, a movement he barely catches with his focus centered on the mysterious woman sitting in their home like she belonged there.

"I tried calling you, but you didn't answer your cell phone."

Lelouch, noting a faint sadness in the woman's expression, questions the validity of his apprehension. Based on all the paper cranes littering the dining room table, she had kept Nunnally calm while he was out, which was something to be grateful for…

"Oh, I wanted to tell you Miss C.C. has been waiting on you as well."

"C…C…?"

Nunnally giggles, her smile immediate at his obvious surprise. "Your friend goes by such an unusual name. Only her initials."

"Yeah…"

The woman smirks - mischief replacing the sorrow in her amber gaze.

His heart skips.

"Also…I was just wondering…"

Lelouch blinks once and tries his best to focus on his sister rather than the newcomer.

"Yes, Nunnally?"

"Is C.C. your girlfriend?"

The question catches him off guard to the point that it renders him speechless.

Dealing with Suzaku's strange behavior had already been off-putting enough.

"He made a promise about our future together," the woman murmurs, her eyes finding his. "Right?"

"I…"

"Future together?" Nunnally cuts in, her brows furrowing. "Do you mean marriage!?"

"No," Lelouch exclaims quickly, seeing the worry creeping into his sister's expression. "She's…kidding around."

"No I'm not."

Lelouch glares daggers at the woman and her smirk widens into a positively devious grin that's as enticing as it is maddening.

"Is she…teasing me?"

Nunnally releases a sigh, the tension in her shoulders lessening. "Well, you two are certainly doing this faster than most…"

Needing to put an end to the misunderstanding, Lelouch quietly saunters up to the edge of the table, reaches for the tea-cup closest to the woman, lifts it up until its level with his line of vision, then drops it from that height to ensure it shatters on impact all while his sister is still talking.

The instant the thing crashes, Nunnally stops speaking, her expression faltering into a deep frown.

"Oh, C.C., look what you've done. You're soaking wet."

Speaking in a flat monotone, Lelouch isn't sure this performance will convince Nunnally that he isn't seething.

The woman's smile softens for the briefest of moments, confusing him further, which only adds to his mounting irritation.

"Come on," he orders, voice dripping in mock sweetness as he takes hold of her arm. "Let's get you to the bathroom and into a dry change of clothes."

She doesn't resist his grip as he drags her out of the room, and he's silently grateful the woman chose to play along with him rather than fight back, but he can still sense Nunnally's concern from several feet away.

"Don't worry," he calls back to her, forcing his voice into a brighter tone. "She was kidding before, Nunnally. Kidding."

As soon as they're safely tucked away in his room, he releases her from his grasp.

"Who are you?"

The woman laughs. "She said my name. I'm C.C."

Glowering, Lelouch examines the blank expression on her face, searching for any clues that would reveal her true intentions. At the table she'd been an open book, but now…

"That's not what I meant. Why aren't you…"

"Dead?"

Silence overtakes the room as C.C. pivots away, her back to him now.

"Do you like the power I gave you?"

"So it was you…"

"Yes, it was," she interrupts softly. "I presume you're satisfied with it?"

He considers his answer while watching C.C. take a seat on his bed. Before, her posture and overall demeanor screamed "up to no good", but now she looks pensive and…almost fragile.

"You presume correctly," he says eventually, deciding on honesty. "If not for this power it would have been years before I could have put my plans into motion."

Glancing up at him, C.C. offers a tender smile. "I'm…glad it has been useful to you, Lelouch."

Another long stretch of silence passes between them, and in the absence of sound he sees a million wishes crystallizing in her eyes.

The potency of it knocks the air out of his lungs.

"So, you intend to obliterate Britannia, yes?"

Spell broken for now, Lelouch schools his expression into one of neutrality.

"What are you going to do now?" he asks, ignoring her question. "Surely the military is after you."

"Not the whole military," she quips, smirking when she kicks her boots off. "Only a small faction of it. I think I'll be able to make do here."

Lelouch stares at her, flabbergasted beyond all reason as she strips down to her undergarments and proceeds to yank the covers of his bed up to her chin.

"You…expect to stay here!?"

"A gentleman would sleep on the floor."

Even with the blanket covering her mouth, Lelouch knows she's trying to agitate him from the gleam in her eyes.

To add insult to injury, it's working.

"She wants to play games? Fine."

He strolls toward the bed leisurely, ignoring all propriety when he leans over, closing most of the distance between them to hover over the woman's small frame.

It's a strangely intimate moment, him staring into her eyes and her into his.

"It's dangerous to stay together."

There's silence for a beat.

"I know."

Those two words are her signature on an unspoken contract, and while Lelouch starts to throw rebuttals and reasons as to why they would be better off apart, those arguments soon fade from his lips.

"Why does she keep looking at me like that?"

When he finally stops talking, C.C. hesitantly reaches up with her hand to brush his bangs away from his forehead.

Her fingertips tremble against his skin.

"Where are you sleeping?"

She asks the question as if the answer held the meaning to life.

He can't begin to understand what's going on in this woman's mind, nor can he calculate the reason this proximity to her feels so natural.

Perhaps it's an aftereffect of the power she granted him.

"In my bed," he rasps out, exhaustion tugging at his eyelids. "Scoot over."

Nodding once, C.C. gives him the space he requests while he kicks off his shoes and tosses his crimson jacket to the floor.

"I have other questions I want to ask you…"

"Not tonight," she interrupts, turning her back to him once he's settled. "We can talk tomorrow."

With a groan, Lelouch lays his head against his pillow, all too aware of the other body near his…

"And turn off the lights," she orders after a few seconds, exhaling slowly. "You don't expect either of us to rest with them on, do you?"

The exiled prince sighs.

"I will never know peace while she's around. Of that I am certain."

~The Following Day~

Euphemia Li Britannia, Third Princess of the Holy Britannian Empire, is not a complicated person.

This statement does not insinuate a lack of complex emotions or thoughts about herself and the world around her. Rather, it is an expression conveying the core of her beliefs and aspirations. Having seen little of the world and its cruelty at this stage of her life, Euphemia's wishes have always been simple in nature.

In the cut-throat, dog eat dog culture of Britannia, kindness, sincerity, and empathy are weaknesses Euphemia could never hope to overcome. If anything, her birth into the royal family of such an empire was her greatest protection, especially with a warrior like Cornelia for a sister.

However, this advantage was circumvented by her innate impulsivity.

Once the third princess made up her mind to do something, nothing could stop her.

Clovis' death broke her heart. She had no knowledge of his crimes against the innocent residents of Shinjuku, only that someone precious to her was gone.

In quiet fury she accompanied Cornelia to Area 11, watching the news broadcasts of the coverage concerning her brother's murder.

The first time she laid eyes on Suzaku Kururugi was on a broadcast of his arrest. He was an Honorary Britannian, a soldier, and a boy not much older than her.

His expression on the screen that night screamed out at her, begging for salvation amidst a sea of contempt.

Euphemia doesn't understand how she could have been so certain of Suzaku's innocence from one glimpse at him, but she's never been one to question her instincts about people. Zero's appearance and subsequent confession as the true culprit cemented her confidence on the matter within a few days time anyway.

What she hadn't expected was for Suzaku to appear in court after he'd already been rescued. By all accounts, it was a terribly reckless move.

Of course, it's no more reckless than what she's about to do just so she can talk to the man, face to face.

"I'm only a few stories up," she thinks, inhaling deeply as a cool breeze slips through the open window. Far below, she can just barely make out the Honorary Britannian exiting from the building.

It's now or never.

Any other woman would have hesitated…

But not Euphemia.

When she made up her mind to do something, nothing stopped her.

And so, with her heart hammering in her chest, she leaps from the window screaming, "Look out below!"

She notices, as gravity swiftly pulls her down toward the cement, how Suzaku pauses, pivots, and extends his arms without any hesitance or surprise.

It was as if he was expecting her.

But Euphemia doesn't get a chance to ponder this for more than half a second. She suddenly realizes that she's terrified, and that jumping out from a fourth story window might have been a horrible, no good, and stupid idea.

Holding back a scream, the princess closes her eyes as her body collides against his waiting arms. She inhales sharply as those same arms form a protective cage around her frame while he carefully lowers himself to his knees.

"A-are you alright?" he asks, loosening his hold by a fraction.

Euphemia twists her head to peer up at him, barely aware of how his hands tremble against her shoulders.

When their eyes meet, she nearly forgets how to breathe.

"I'm...sorry," she murmurs, startled by the agony hidden in the depths of his emerald stare. "I...wasn't aware that you were down here until I had already leaped."

His expression softens into a solemn grin.

"Don't worry," he replies kindly. "I wasn't expecting a beautiful girl to fall out of the sky and into my arms either."

The tenderness in his gaze makes her heart skip.

"Oh my.."

"Something wrong?"

She has to look away from him for a moment because she's certain her chest is on fire from the sudden intensity of her own emotions.

"I..."

Her words disappear into the wind...

If I told you to kill all the Japanese, it wouldn't matter how you felt about it.

Euphemia practically leaps to her feet, her mind rattling between mania and terror at the inexplicable desire to...

"No... What is... I don't..."

Suzaku's hands press along her shoulders again.

The world refocuses.

Her heart slows down.

"What is it?" he questions, a desperate edge to his voice. "Are you sick?"

"No." She smiles when she sees the worry etched onto his face. "I just...remembered that there are some bad people chasing me. Do you think you could help me?"

Suzaku nods.

"Yes. Of course."

Without thinking she takes his hand in hers.

She doesn't understand what it is she heard and felt just now, nor can she rationalize why the warmth of Suzaku's hand makes her feel grounded and safe.

"I won't let anything happen to you."

His words are spoken lowly, and Eupehmia speculates that she wasn't meant to hear them, so rather than respond, she tightens her grip on his hand.

"Whose voice was that?"

A/N: And that's the end of the third chapter. Some strange developments have come up, haven't they? What exactly is going on here? Well, I suppose you guys will have to wait until next time to find out more. Many thanks again for reading everyone. I will make an attempt to update this story a little faster, but no promises on when the next chapter will be out. Feel free to leave your thoughts in a comment if you wish. Best wishes and God bless you all!