The indistinct nature of the world of dreams. It had only gotten stranger since the last time Lelouch had visited it. Consciously, at least.

Not least for the new figure that absolutely dominated the not-space around he and his Queen. "Y Ddraig Goch, I presume," he spoke to the great red– No, that was a different dragon. The large, crimson beast.

"That's me," the Welsh dragon answered. "Nice to meet you in person as it were. Sorry about the, uhh," Ddraig pantomimed a punch as best he could. "She wants to boost, she boosts. I don't really get much of a say."

"Seriously?!" Kallen yelped.

"It's fine," Lelouch shrugged. "Twice Kallen's strength still isn't a patch on my brother's. Well," he amended, "Suppose that isn't a fair comparison, Queen versus Mutated Rook and all. Besides, I needed it."

"Right..." Ddraig said as he swooped around the two of them. "So... You two seem like you need to have a talk? And as it turns out, what we're here for is pretty far away right now. How convenient! Let's get moving and you two can have it out."

"How does that even work?" Kallen muttered. "We're in a dream, aren't we? Can't we just, you know, lucid dream 'I think I can' our way there or something?"

"You think we're not doing that already?" the dragon asked, having easily heard her both because of being a dragon and also being inside her at all times. "How much dream do you think there is? Because whatever your guess is, the answer is more. Just keep moving. We'll get there when we get there."

"The dragon has a point," Lelouch allowed with a shrug as he followed behind it. "Were I a scientist or a dedicated magician this would probably be fascinating but..."

"You never answered my question."

"Hm?"

Kallen looked at him, like she were trying to piece together so many different images of him. And none of them fit what she had seen. The one memory jabbed deep in her mind like a shard of glass. "Why did you kill yourself?"

"I didn't."

"Lelouch, don't play semantics with me. I watched–" She grimaced, having caught herself doing it this time. "She watched you do it. I'm not dumb enough to pretend you wouldn't have planned that. It was too much of a show to have been anyone else. Zero, the great symbol of the fight against tyranny, slays the tyrant who used to wear the same mask." She shook her head. "Your plans, they were always about telling a story more than securing an objective. So you told your last story. The fall of the despicable Demon Emperor! The symbol of Zero evolving beyond the one who created it to truly stand as the liberator of all!" Her raised voice fell silent. The silence itself a damning indictment of the aftermath of his plan. But it couldn't match her next words. "Do you know how long she cried for?"

"... I wanted her to be able to live her own life. To be happy instead of dying with me."

"Dying with...?" Kallen aborted her question before fully speaking it, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. But she soon understood. As the image of who she was talking about appeared above them and Lelouch stopped moving completely. "You thought I was talking about the other Kallen."

"Lelouch! Why?! I didn't want this! I just wanted us to be together!"

The reborn devil fell backward, staring up at the image above him of his once sister, her eyes once again shut tight as tears streamed from them. "Nunnally!" He shook his head, clutching his skull as if trying to will the image away. "It's not real! It's not!"

So much of Kallen wanted to take pity on him. Both Kozuki and Stadtfeld. But... "Come on," she demanded, pulling him back onto his feet by his armpit. "We're here because you wanted to face this. Don't shy away. This is what you wanted."

"I didn't want that! I never wanted–...! I just–!"

"You what?"

"I wanted a world... I wanted to create a world that didn't have to experience what Nunnally and I went through," he said. "What everyone went through. Wars that raged just so the powerful could feel more powerful. People sacrificed like they were pawns on a chessboard with no regard for their suffering!"

"Cut out the speeches! I've heard enough of them!" Kallen snapped. "You could've done it! I know you could've! She knew you could've!"

"With Schneizel working against me?! Using Nunnally against me?! You're thinking a little too highly of me, don't you think?!"

"Bull shit!" Kallen barked. "You started making yourself a monster way before Schneizel got involved! Why?! Why did you do it?! Why choose the plan that kills you?!"

"Because I deserved it!" he shouted in her face, only to realise what he had admitted a half second too late. "I..." It was too late to stop. "The only ones who should kill are those prepared to be killed. I knew that. I believed that from the very start and I lived by it. If I died achieving what I set out to do, it would be justice for all of the blood I spilled along the way. I made that choice, but... Everyone else suffered for it. I thought I lost Nunnally and... There was nothing left for me. All I could do was create the world she wanted before I joined her. I took the throne, I set myself up as the villain."

"She wasn't dead." It was stating the obvious, but it was also what should have been the turning point in the story.

"... It didn't matter," he continued, defeated. More faces appeared around them. Faces both of them recognised. A cherubic princess. A cheerful schoolgirl. A dark-haired boy with mild similarities to Lelouch. Even a blond foppish prince wearing a rictus of terror. "The plan was in motion. And what she was doing... She was doing the same thing I was. I couldn't let her shoulder that burden. It was mine. After everything I had done, it had to be me. I had to die as the great villain of the piece. The unforgivable. And I deserved to die because I was."

"... You sound like someone else I remember," Kallen accused after a long pause. "I didn't get a lot of memories of him. I wanted to know who you were and that's what the thing showed me. He was there with you the whole time, wasn't he? That bastard with a death wish, and he pushed it onto you."

"He wanted to die," Lelouch laughed. "And I made sure he never could. I wanted to live with Nunnally. And we made sure–"

"That this happened," she finished. Not what he intended, but the truth as she forced him to look up at the sibling he left behind, crying over him. "You made sure you died, and you made sure she'd be left crying over your corpse."

"That wasn't... I didn't want... She shouldn't cry over me."

"God, fuck, I want to punch you again," the redhead growled. "You shouldn't feel guilt over him," she said pointing at the image of Clovis, "But you do. You told yourself to ignore it, all the pain it would cause Nunnally. You told yourself it was just how it had to be, all while that suicide fetishist bastard was egging you on. Telling you what a monster you were for killing people. Am I wrong? Well let me ask you something, Lelouch. Kallen Kozuki killed. She killed a lot. In your name, sure, but she made her own choices. Why did she deserve to live on? Why isn't she guilty for all the bodies she left behind? Soldiers, innocent civilians, all dead by her hand!" Silence was the answer she received. "Well?!"

"Her dying wouldn't have changed anything," he answered, for lack of a better answer. "At least mine would mean a better world would be left behind."

"We've gone from wanting to punch you to wanting to strangle you." Based on the clenching of her fingers, it wasn't hyperbole. "You're going to wish I was really Kallen Kozuki because she would've been too sappy about you to say this. Lelouch Bael, vi Britannia, whatever. You are not dumb enough to really believe that."

"You really think the whole world would end all war just because there was one really horrible leader?" she asked facetiously, condescendingly, like she were speaking to a child. "Because there was a really horrible war that killed a lot of people? That people would get sick of the violence? Maybe you believed it back then when you were bleeding out. But I know you know better now. First world war, twenty million dead for nothing at all. You'd think that'd be the thing, eh? Think we'd have enough of war for a bit. But oh wait, we decided Germany was to blame, fucked them over with treaties until one of history's greatest villains pops up claiming to have the solution to all their problems! And wouldn't you know it, it's genocide and war!"

"Stop."

"No, wait, we're not done! We have a great big war, about three percent of people on the entire planet die for it! The villain is defeated. By suicide! Fancy that! Quite a coincidence! Surely after that, with the villain slain and after a devastating war that killed hundreds of millions of people, humanity would unite and usher in a new era of peace and–!"

"Enough." He turned away, continued walking, unwilling to hear any more. "Enough."

Maybe he didn't know. He wasn't even sure himself anymore. But whether he did or not, it hardly changed anything. Either he truly believed his plan, his sickening parody of martyrdom would make a difference, and was therefore a fool. Or he knew it wouldn't matter in the long run and simply became Suzaku, determined to die for his sins and deluded himself into thinking it would make a difference. Either way... He stared at the image of his sister sobbing uncontrollably until it faded like an absent thought. Either way, he had left her behind for his own sake. Along with those few others who truly cared for him. He couldn't decide which was worse. That they might have seen through his show like Nunnally and Kallen had, or that they would think him a monster until their dying days.

Regrets. A lifetime of them all crammed into two years. And so the Demon Emperor confronted the truth of his existence. Of his past. Who he had been.

A man who thought himself wise, and proved he was the greatest fool of all. The Emperor of Fools.

"Looks like we're here," Ddraig called to the two devils, prompting Lelouch to pay attention to his surroundings again after a long, trudging walk. "So since you seem to know a little more about it, what even is this thing anyway?" The beast peered over the... ledge-like nothing that overlooked the strange planet-like structure. "Weird."

"A little more is the right phrase," Lelouch commented, walking forward to approach the familiar but different representation of C. "It's inverted."

"Huh?"

"When I last saw it," the devil elaborated, "The planet was above, the pillar leading up to it. Now it's the opposite. Or... Maybe we're looking at it from the opposite side?"

"Okay, but what is it?"

"The person who explained it to me didn't have a clear picture either. Gods was one explanation. The collective consciousness of humanity living and dead was another." Her frowned as he looked around. "Having met a god, and as we're standing in what is effectively the realm of the subconscious... I suppose it's more likely to be the latter?"

"The collective...? No," the dragon denied that answer after only a brief moment of thought. "That can't be it. Yeah, this is the realm of dreams and sleep and whatever but that isn't all of thought. There's more to it than that. So this can't be–"

"I didn't say it was the collective consciousness of this world," Lelouch clarified, if cryptically.

"Ngh!" Kallen grunted, grabbing her head. "Nnnn!"

"Kallen, I said you're not to–!" As he turned to look, he saw she hadn't even come close, and behind the pain he could see confusion. "Dragon, can you protect her from it? Or keep her further away?"

"It's Ddraig! And how am I supposed to protect her if I don't even know what I'm protecting her from?!" the dragon demanded as he tried to shield her with his body, for as little good as it was doing.

Then the solution lay at the problem. "You!" he shouted up at the maddening pillar. "Whatever you're doing to Kallen, stop it at once!"

A hundred thousand thousand thousand voices. So many that any human, any devil, any mortal mind had no possible method to process or understand them. All of them coalescing into a droning yet cacophonous hum of incomprehensible noise.

And then... A light. A vivid and bright red light emerged not from the pillar, but from the planet below. A light that surrounded the pillar before coalescing into a shape. A world away, a woman with appearance very similar to the one hiding behind a dragon suddenly fell unconscious.

The shape gained definition, features, colour, form. And a confused but frustrated frown. "Where...?" Kallen Kozuki looked around, her eyes immediately landing on a familiar face she never expected to see again. Except, "Oh, god dammit, I hate this dream. Alright, get your pants off. The least you can do is let me have some fun before I wake up crushed by regret."

Too stunned to even react to the feeling of a shard of glass stabbing into his brain, Lelouch took a step forward. "Kallen?"

"Yeah yeah, 'I missed you, I'm sorry', 'Lelouch, I missed you too', can we skip to the fun part this time? I don't need the–" The hum returned. And while it was still a mess of nonsense to everyone else, this Kallen, or this 'Kallen', seemed to comprehend it. "... Oh." She took a step forward. "Oh."

"... Yeah." Somehow, his penchant for eloquence and speeches completely failed him as he took another step. "I did miss you."

She laughed. "I guess the apology really was just a fantasy. Should've known better." She shook her head, smiling. "Lelouch, I missed you too." Her smile seemed to slip as the others present suddenly got her attention. Or rather, one of them. "Hold on, is that a god damn dragon?"

"Hey!" Ddraig greeted her with a wave of his claws. "I'm Ddraig! Nice to meet my host's alternate self!"

"Your host's whosa what now?" Helpfully, the dragon shifted aside, letting one identical redhead see the other. "Oh. Wow. I guess you really did miss me, Lelouch."

"Okay, that's not–"

"Yeah, he did." Kallen Stadtfeld walked forward, heedless of any attempt to get her to stop. She only did so when she was inches away from her doppelganger, looking her up and down. "Is this where the outfit came from, Lelouch? Really starting to doubt all that crap about wanting me to be me."

"Okay, the outfit was Ana's idea and–"

"What is with that accent? And who the hell is Ana?!"

"Your precious Lelouch says he likes my accent, thank you very much! Better than sounding like some yank tart!"

"What did you just call me?!"

With dawning horror, Lelouch realised he might be about to watch the two different Kallens come to blows. "Ddraig, could you...?" he requested of the dragon with implication alone.

"Yeah, that's probably for the best," the dragon agreed, reaching out and dragging his Kallen back by her collar.

"Oi, you're supposed to be on my side! Claw her face off!"

"Yeah, I'm not gonna do that and you don't really want me to. Calm down."

"Kallen," Lelouch said, trying to move things in a useful direction. "Kozuki," he added when both of them looked at him. "How... Why are you here? Were you the one putting your memories in Kallen's head?"

"Doing what? You stole my memor–!" Kallen Kozuki started to accuse her alternate, only for her to fall silent as the hum of the pillar returned. "Oh. What? Oh. Oh, god dammit."

"Please stop saying that."

"Shut up." She continued to listen to whatever the pillar was doing, or perhaps saying, until it was done. "Okay. Well. I honestly would've preferred if this was just a super maudlin dream about the one that got away by killing himself, but here we are." She hooked a thumb at the pillar. "Apparently I'm here to be a translator because you can't understand that thing when I can. Since you supposedly trust me and that one is here, I was the natural pick."

"I do trust you."

"Funny way of showing it." She looked at her alternate again. "As for her getting my memories... That was this thing getting a bright idea to make things easier for you by giving her my experience."

"And dissociative identity disorder."

Another hum. "Based on doing similar things in the past, that probably wouldn't happen," she continued to translate.

"Right. Like my mother and Anya."

"... They said 'probably'. Also? Really freaking weird to hear a hundred billion voices sound sheepish."

"Right," Lelouch nodded, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. "Alright. If they could refrain from doing me any more 'favours', especially when it comes to rewriting the minds of people I care about, that would be great."

"... People you care about, huh?" Kallen Kozuki asked softly.

"Kallen, you know I–"

"No," she stopped him, swallowing. "No. I know. You made your choice."

There were many things he wished he could say to that, but he knew full well none of them would make this better. "Kallen. I need to know. Why am I here? If this is here," he gestured at the pillar and the planet below, "Then it isn't an accident. When I died, I was brought here for a reason. I need to know what it is. Why is there another you and another C.C here? Why is any of this happening?"

"You wanted to just be done?" she asked. "Leave everyone behind and give up?"

It hurt to admit it, but he couldn't avoid the truth any longer. "... Yes." For all his big talk about creating a new world... He had just given up. All the horror he had left in his wake, it continued to be for nothing. He had been seeing himself become another Charles despite his best efforts. And so when they came up with the plan for Zero Requiem, it was almost a relief. It would have been nothing but a relief were it not for Schneizel and Nunnally's intervention. Whether his death would have made a better world or not, at least he would stop making it worse.

So much for that.

"I see..." The hum began again. "Oh boy, this is gonna take a minute." Several seconds passed. All the while Kallen's eyes grew wider and wider, until her eyebrows were near enough at her hairline. "Am I gonna remember all this?" she asked the pillar. "This is some weapons grade 'things man was not meant to know' crap you're feeding me right now... Yeah, okay."

Lelouch waited as his once right hand woman had a conversation with an eldritch representation of the human psyche. All while a near exact duplicate of her struggled to escape the giant red dragon holding her by the collar like she was a rambunctious cat. Not for the first time, he wished for the simpler times of giant robot fights and chess-based stratagems.

The redhead sighed as the humming stopped, rubbing her forehead. With a wave of her hand, she gestured at the pillar and the planet below. "Code Consciousness." Another wave at the dragon and her doppelganger. "Draconic Deus."

"Well thanks for the compliment," Ddraig said as he puffed up in pride, "But I'm technically a heavenly dragon, not a dragon god."

"No," she tried again to clear the confusion. "Our world and your world. Code Consciousness and Draconic Deus. Don't ask me why they're called that, they just told me that's what it is," the hum started again, "and that wasn't a request to explain it!" The hum silenced. "Somehow, they're twinned. That one," she pointed across at the other Kallen, "Isn't me. But she's a hell of a lot like me. I guess it's the same for the other C.C."

"Broadly, yes," Lelouch confirmed. Complete with duping someone else to do her dirty work and get what she really wanted out of it. "So it's coincidence?" Because if she said yes, he wouldn't believe it for a second. Even if it came out of Kallen's mouth, she wasn't the one saying it.

"No. They nudged things."

"... What exactly does that mean?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," she answered with a shrug. "Happy to tell me where the stupid names come from, refuses to say what exactly they 'nudged'. It's nostalgic. I think they learned a trick or two from you, Lelouch."

"The passive-aggressiveness is new," he noted. "I don't much care for it."

"Got a rose-tinted view of our time together I see."

"Cut her a break!" the dragon cut in. "She thought she was getting kinky dream sex a few minutes ago!" He watched her cheeks flush and laughed. "Ha, you do that too! Neat!"

"Anyway," Kallen Kozuki growled. "As for... Why..." Her frustration seemed to fizzle out as she came to the next part. "You're here because... They want protection."

"... You're joking."

"I wish," she sighed. "For some... Inexplicable reason," she said, glaring at the dragon as large as several buildings, "This world scares the absolute shit out of them. But since they're already here, they need to make sure our world is defended from it. And since you were available, had experience with powers beyond mortal comprehension, were at least intellectually a genius and had a willingness to sacrifice yourself for the world, well..."

"That's far less interesting a reason than I expected." But an understandable one. Simple self-preservation in the face of the unknown. A desire for understanding and control of what they didn't understand. Well. That fit what he would expect from the collective will of humanity. After all, the more humans involved in making decisions, the more simple and conservative those decisions would become. "How did it even get here, then?"

Another humming comment. "There is no force faster, more powerful or more fundamental than thought..." Kallen rolled her eyes. "Says the completely unbiased collective made entirely out of thought."

"Not really an answer."

"You think I'm gonna try to get a better one?"

Lelouch blinked, and when he opened his eyes the left was marked by a crane.

"You have it because we let you have it," Kallen translated the responding hum. "We can take it away just as easily."

"Feel free," he responded bitterly. "It's been a torment more often than a boon anyway." Silence. No response. "No? I expected as much."

"Oi!" the local Kallen called out, still hanging from Ddraig's claw. "I appreciate you're having a dramatic chat about the fabric of reality or some shite, but I'm being real bloody patient over here! Put me down you lumbering gecko!" she tried to yell over her shoulder.

Kallen Kozuki grinned. "You know, think I've changed my mind. I like her."

"She's not replacing you."

"... Yeah she is," she corrected him with melancholic resignation. "She's your Q1, isn't she? Only a badass named Kallen could hope to be the devil's right hand." She winked. "They told me a little more than I let on."

"You knew about not saying that word all along, didn't you?"

"Jesus, you're so paranoid! Always looking for tricks and traps! God!"

The Bael heir cringed from the pain inflicted twice over. "Petty revenge, but I deserve it," Lelouch conceded as Kallen Stadtfeld finally managed to rejoin the conversation.

"So... Sorry," the Welsh redhead managed to say. "About seeing your memories. Now that I'm talking to you for real I can see that was a bit of a shit thing to do, go looking for someone else's secrets."

"It's not your fault," Kallen Kozuki answered with a glare at her former commander. "He'll keep you in the dark a lot and tell you it's for your own good. He's usually wrong, but even when he's right it's better to know in the long run."

"I'll keep it in mind."

"Kallen." It was clear by who he was looking at which one he was speaking to. "I... My plan... Is Nunnally alright? Did it work?"

Kallen Kozuki looked away and that was as damning an answer on its own. "Nunnally is... Fine. I haven't had any personal contact with her. She's still reigning as empress, with 'Zero' at her side." She suffered under his stare, waiting for the answer she wasn't giving him. "Not long after you were deposed, the Britannian homeland suffered a rebellion by those who wanted to restore the aristocracy. Several former Areas declared their independence, some of them taking the fight to the Areas that remained loyal to 'liberate' them. You might have been the 'Demon Emperor', but you were also the emperor of Britannia. The hate didn't die with you. It just moved to the next target."

"... I didn't change anything."

"People are people, Lelouch," she told him, like she were educating him for a lesson he should have learned a long time ago. "Competition is human nature, even when it's stupid and senseless. You didn't put an end to war, but... I'd like to think we're on a better path than the one we were on before you came along. From what I could tell, your sister is responsible for a lot of that."

"Thank you for that. I think... I'm pretty sure somewhere along the way I told Suzaku that dying won't change anything. I must've forgotten that."

"See, that's a good way to think about it. Ask yourself whether Suzaku would think it's a good idea. If the answer is yes, don't do that."

"I'll keep it in mind," he replied with a weak laugh. "I'm glad I got the chance to talk to you again. Even with all," he gestured at the pillar, "this around it."

"Me too. It feels like I can finally–"

"Hey Lelouch, can me and her talk privately for a second?" the Welsh Kallen suddenly interrupted.

"Wha– Seriously?" he asked. "Now?"

"Yeah. Got some questions about how to handle your stupid arse. You don't mind, do you?"

The devil gaped, stared at her, then at the other Kallen. "Fine," he relented, throwing his hands up in the air. "I'll be with the dragon."

"The dragon has a name," Ddraig grumbled.

"The dragon's name is literally 'dragon'. Just 'dragon' in a different language."

"Yeah but it sounds fancier though," the dragon named Dragon observed as he lumbered over, incidentally creating a shield between the two identical women and the man they were discussing. "So. New flame and old flame meeting, huh? That's rough. Always awkward."

"Yeah, no, it's not like that."

"Don't worry! I've been there! Trick is to just roll with the punches. They're both gonna take this chance to dig up all kinds of dirt, probably compare notes for how you are in the bedroom–"

"I've never slept with Kallen. Either of them."

"... Seriously?" The dragon asked. Frowning. Snorting. "Are you an idiot?"

"Apparently!" the devil snapped. "Can we not talk about this? My love life is not up for discussion." Nor was anything, as whatever the dragon might have said in response was interrupted by an odd sound. By the light of the area changing. "The light's gone." The light that appeared right as Kallen was about to appear. Then, "Kallen, if you robbed me of my chance to properly say goodbye–" he threatened as he moved around the dragon's form, only to suddenly stop and stare in confusion.

The light was gone.

Kallen was not.

Either of them.

"Kallen," he spoke slowly, not knowing himself which one he was speaking to. "What did you do?"

The two looked at one another, one of them holding back laughter as they answered in unison. "What we wanted to do."

"But I guess in a way," the one on the left continued, revealing herself to be Kallen Kozuki by her accent, "We did rob you of saying goodbye."

-(-)-

A/N: This chapter seen super early by my generous supporters on THE GREAT FORBIDDEN P! FEAR THE P! LOVE THE P!