A door is forced open with an ear-splitting bang! Part of the wood bends and splinters, mimicking a dislocated bone. In the dead of night, no creatures move about except for two slim figures, the tall carrying the petite using both arms across a threshold.
Lelouch rushes to the bathroom and lays C.C. on the bathtub, almost breathless. He gasps for more air. The rich metallic stench of his blood and hers invades his nostrils. His grip paints the curved porcelain surface bright red.
Whatʼs left of her white button down shirt, he rips for her. She insists on removing the rest with her shaking fingers. He runs the faucet, and she flinches for a split second, like a cat suddenly distressed by water.
A silent curse. He doesnʼt show her he noticed.
He stands and walks to the shower, freeing himself from the torn black fitted sweater and trousers still clinging to him. The water descends against his skin like heavy glass shards. He welcomes it, if merely to distract himself from the biting sting of the two of them narrowly escaping. He washes his body until he becomes clean. The minutes seem to tick slowly before he completely heals.
Her body fully recovers at the same time.
It is a morbid, inhuman process. She has done it more than a hundred thousand times. Drawing pieces of cells, tissues, organs, and bones from a distant realm, gathering as much as she needed. Carefully reconstructing herself as she was before the beating, the bleeding, the breaking apart, and the burning. The agonizing pain leaving her at last. The ghost of it tucked away as another terrible memory. The sensations are familiar, harmless. She doesn't die.
There is no use in dwelling on injuries. Her amber eyes abandon her torso and legs. She closes the faucet and looks at the man in front of her. He has joined her for over a century now—a path taken of his own volition despite his first and imperfect resurrection being of hers.
"How are you feeling?" C.C. begins coolly, drying long lime tresses of hair.
A sharp, grinding twist turns the shower off.
"Alive," Lelouch replies with a lethal edge to his voice, still facing the wall. He never liked losing. He may have been living with her as a common man, but he maintains the ego of an emperor. An inherited trait.
"Good."
"And you?"
"I am as you are."
A few moments pass, and he doesnʼt hear her press. Doesnʼt hear her tease. Not this time. But he can sense her eyes on his bare back, the feeling of frost creeping from his spine to his ribs unmistakable. He takes his cue.
"We're going to kill him," he declares.
She expected nothing less. She lifts herself and steps out of the bathtub.
"Come here," she orders lightly.
He obeys, pivoting slowly and meeting her steady gaze. Violet eyes drill through her as he walks towards her. She observes their hate, their boundless, scalding spite. She finds herself smiling inwardly. Perhaps it is not all for the mere defeat. The ice in her thaws.
"Are you so tired?"
His features soften. "No."
Her lips crash with his, her fingers combing strands of his raven hair.
He is stunned, but he returns her smoldering fire.
A brutal consummation ensues in the shadows. His free hand captures her throat as he meets her onslaught, while the other pulls her close firmly from behind. When he feels her teeth threatening to bite, he tightens his clutch on both places in response. A warning and an affirmation. Donʼt mistake me for prey, dearest; we will hunt together. Even so, for her, he makes a concession.
He leads them to the bed and spreads himself dutifully on the soft mattress, drawing her in. Upwards, he enters and pounds. He despises, more than anything, how fragile sheʼd felt in his arms. The terror it instilled was pulsating and corrosive, no matter how irrational. And she matches him, too, rocking deep. She asserts her ancient abnormality to him, her cursed strength, secretly even more so to herself. Their rhythm is devoid of finesse, relentless. It stops only when theyʼre certain theyʼve conquered some summit, when theyʼve annihilated... something.
They descend with her head settling on his neck, her traitorous tears spilling down his collarbone. He realizes what happened. In ecstasy, unconsciously, heʼd called out her real name.
The whispered command Lelouch gives isnʼt merciful.
Eyes now flaring carmine, he towers above their aggressor. The aged fool howls helplessly, his screams reverberating through the crooked walls of the secluded, torchlit cavern. In the mountainʼs bowels, there is no solace for him, no control. His hands utterly betray him, mutilating his trunk and lower limbs with his own silver blade. The viscous liquid that drips from every tearing of tender flesh pools around him.
C.C. watches detachedly from behind. The entities residing here are listening, she knows. Theyʼll have him soon. Theyʼre starved. They take everything offered.
After a while, however, she starts to recognize the wound patterns, the exact depth and direction of every slash dealt on that coerced canvas. On a body not her own, the desecration is strangely elegant.
Emperors were excessive, especially in executions.
She strides closer, forward. Her graceful hand glides onto Lelouchʼs back and rests on his shoulder. By instinct, he relaxes under her palm.
"Flatterer," she accuses him, examining the details of the gruesome sight.
"How so?" he answers brazenly, not looking at her either.
"I know what this is."
"I was curious."
"Youʼre demented."
"Iʼm inspired."
"Youʼve seen too much."
"Arenʼt you pleased, witch?"
"I am, you little devil, but Iʼd rather not remember."
"Alright." Lelouch finally faces her and plants a kiss on her forehead, half atoning, half claiming. C.C. shuts her eyes, aware of the intentions of the gesture. Aware of her effect on him, of how much he reminds her of a poisonous lycoris flower that sheʼd tended and let bloom.
The screams eventually fade into whimpers, but the cutting continues. She grows impatient.
In a swift, sudden motion, severing their contact, she shoots the dying vermin on the head. The mangled corpse collapses in the mess of its—their doing. The splash stains husband and wife.
Wordlessly, she collects the stray fragment of the power sheʼd cunningly bestowed upon mortals long ago. Consequently, she muses. Those they knew well are dead, and they have lain solemnly in mourning. The world continues to change. But here is what doesnʼt change: the devil is on the side of the witch, and the witch is on the side of the devil.