August 27th, 2018. Ashford Academy, afternoon.

It was everything Lelouch could do to keep his composure, trapped with Suzaku and Nunnally in the hallway en route to the staff office.

He'd seen that smug… even sinister shit-eating grin on his friend's face when Nunnally asked to join them, and had been caught so by surprise that there was no time to come up with an in-character excuse to keep her uninvolved.

So far, at least, the conversation had been light and idle as Nunnally happily caught Suzaku up on her and Lelouch's daily life.

"Sounds like you've got a nice little status quo going on," Suzaku noted with a smile. "Have to admit I envy the peace a bit, even if Milly's too much for me to deal with more than once in a while."

An opening! "If you're that jealous, then you could always resign your military commission. I'm sure your student sponsorship would survive just fine... in the worst case scenario where it didn't, then I'd be more than happy to cover your tuition myself."

A stink-eyed glance over Nunnally's oblivious head conveyed everything Suzaku thought about that idea. "Hard pass, I've got too many responsibilities to just up and quit… not just obligations, but aspirations, even."

Nunnally's motorized chair rolled to a stop, the girl turning toward the soldier's voice with as much awe as she could express without the use of her eyes. "You mean you have a dream, Suzaku? Is there a place for us in it?"

"Sure is, kiddo!"

Reaching out to give her an affectionate pat on the head, Suzaku's face lit up with a soft smile. "I've got it in mind to make the whole world more like it is here at your school – maybe not quiet per se, but friendly and peaceful. A world where assholes on thrones don't send people to kill each other just to sate their own personal greed or vanity."

If Nunnally hadn't been between them, Lelouch would've given his friend a harsh elbow in the side for cursing in front of her… but rather than show offense, she just beamed and hugged him around the waist. "Oh, Suzaku… that sounds amazing…! Can it really be possible?"

"It won't be easy, and it won't be next week… but I'll make it possible one way or another."

And then Suzaku met Lelouch's cautious gaze with one full of wrath. "Right after I make Zero pay."

Lelouch couldn't possibly say much to defend his alter ego – or rather, himself – in front of his sister like this. Especially given that he very much hadn't ever intended for Suzaku to be so grievously injured in the course of his grand debut.

But that didn't mean he was entirely out of options to get his sister backing him up. "I won't defend what Zero did to you," Lelouch began, noting how Suzaku seemed to pause in confusion at hearing him say it. "But the sad reality of being a soldier is that you're the one putting yourself at risk. Zero may be responsible for his actions… but looking at the news coverage, it seems that you stuck your nose in a situation where nobody called for you, and then your own impulsiveness got you hurt. Do you think we weren't worried sick about you during your hospitalization, Suzaku?"

Suzaku visibly had to bite back a snarl at the conversation's turn, while Nunnally stiffened. "I… the last thing I would ever want is for you to get hurt on my behalf, Suzaku. I know you said you had a dream, and it's very beautiful, but… are you really sure there isn't a safer way for you to go after it?"

Suzaku opened his mouth, only to close it again as the next words out of her mouth absolutely gutted him.

"Please at least think about it, Suzaku… I don't think I could bear losing you a second time."

Check, Lelouch thought with an exasperated sigh he kept to himself. "You're more important to us than the world," he agreed. "It doesn't need you like we do."

"...Nunnally," Suzaku began, gently prying her loose from him and kneeling down to place a hand against her cheek. "First, and I'm sorry for how harsh this is going to sound, but I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it because I'm fucked up inside, have been for years, and I don't know how to live with myself without chasing after some grand show of cosmic redemption. Second," he added with a vile glare at Lelouch, "I think it's real ironic for your brother of all people to preach about how soldiers only have themselves to blame for going on the battlefield… Mr. If the king doesn't lead, his men won't follow."

"What do you mean? What does my brother have to do with–"

"Thanks for confirming I was right," Suzaku sighed as he stood back up. "So tell me, Lelouch… you really think your sister doesn't deserve to know about the lives you're destroying in her name?"

Before Lelouch could even say anything, Nunnally – dear, precious Nunnally – tried coming to his defense. "If… if you're talking about my brother's gambling, then I know it's a dangerous habit and I wish he'd stop but–"

Suzaku laughed, before he knelt down and whispered. "I don't think I could care less about that. No, Nunnally… I mean that Lelouch. Is. Zero. I may not have any decisive evidence, but I know it's true all the same.You probably said something about wishing for a kinder, gentler world, didn't you? Well, your beloved big brother took that to heart and decided he'd make it happen – by tearing the world as it currently stands apart and building up a new one from scratch. Although I guess it doesn't hurt the cause that he can get some sweet revenge on your father out of it too… with only a cursory concern for the people who get caught in the crossfire, because the end justifies the means."

The urge to cast a Geass was almost overpowering.

Almost.

"Suzaku," Lelouch insisted, desperate to control what damage he could from this fiasco. "You have every right to be frustrated… furious, even… over what Zero did to you. But it wasn't me."

"Bullshit," came the expected angry hiss in response. "There's only one scenario where you'd let someone else wear that mask, and we both know it isn't your grand public debut. No… no, you're trying to screw with my head – trying to throw me off track and onto some scapegoat, but I'm not falling for it."

Damn it, Suzaku! You're one of only a few people in this world who should know me well enough to tell when I'm actually lying, but you're so paranoid that you can't even acknowledge the truth when I give it to you!

At least it seemed that his chief co-conspirator remained completely outside suspicion… but that wasn't doing him any favors now.

The prince in exile wracked his brain for any kind of comeback move–

"...why? Why are you being this cruel, Suzaku?" Nunnally quietly asked, tears streaming down her face. "Even if you're angry, even if you should be angry, I know there have to be ways to express that aren't so… so evil. Is Lelouch not your friend anymore?"

"Why is it okay for Lelouch to go around doing terrorism while knowing that I can't put any other kind of consequences on him without involving you as collateral damage–"

"It's not okay at all!" she snapped with a glare. "But you should both be old enough to know that two wrongs don't make a right!"

"...you've got beautiful eyes, Nunnally."

It wasn't fair of Suzaku to cut through his well-earned scolding like that; never could be, in a hundred lifetimes.

But as Lelouch met his sister's disbelieving gaze, he couldn't argue the truth of those words.

Nunnally herself was so caught off guard by the remark that she appeared to need several seconds to even process it. "My… eyes? Why would you… what's with that look on your face–"

Lelouch's heart jumped into his throat at Nunnally's question as she cut herself off, both siblings having the same realization at the same time.

Sitting there with her violet eyes wide open, the girl trembling in her wheelchair slowly hugged herself as she really took in the world around her for the first time in more than half her life. "I… I can see again," she sobbed.

She'd barely even opened her mouth before Lelouch was on his knees, wrapping her up in a tight embrace and crying alongside her.

I didn't even realize I could still feel something that wasn't hate or rage this deeply...

But where Lelouch wept in joy for this unexpected miracle, Nunnally's tears were of loss.

She hadn't entirely realized, before, just how big and grand the halls at school were. How tall her brother stood.

How vulnerable and small she was in comparison.

Even if she had always known deep down, the matter was easy to put out of mind when it was always out of sight.

Maybe this could have been bearable, with support from her loved ones, if it ended there.

But it didn't.

For the first time, as though discovering a brand she hadn't realized she'd been marked with, Nunnally remembered.

She remembered the horror-stricken look on her friend Anya's face as she hid in the shadow of the stairwell, that smiling unfamiliar boy, her mother's reassuring lies and so much blood…!

"I know it's a lot, Nunna, but we're here to try and help you through it…"

Nunnally jerked her head up at the sound of Suzaku's voice, finally able to put a face to the voice she'd loved as a dear friend for so long.

The real image in front of her didn't fit with her mental one.

The Suzaku in her mind, as stubborn and even brash as he could be, was always equally kind and caring and honest. A gentle soul without a cruel bone in his body.

But this Suzaku in front of her was all wrong! Nunnally knew the look on his face to be honest, yes – but in that moment she would have preferred a liar, because right there mixed with the expected sympathy and compassion in his eyes was a guilt that told her he knew beforehand that he might hurt her and did it anyway.

Nunnally saw the hand reaching out for her, guided by those eyes confessing their crime. The premeditated theft of her innocence, of her peace…

"Don't touch me!"

...and immediately regretted the first words that left her mouth when she saw how they made Suzaku flinch. "I'm so sorry, Suzaku, I was just–!"

"It's fine," he promised, even though it certainly wasn't. "I get it. After being out of your life for so long, I come back in and the first thing I do is sow chaos in it. I tell you that your brother's a murderer and a terrorist, I vaguely talk about being a cracked mess myself, and overall retraumatize you into getting your vision back from pure shock."

"Suzaku," Lelouch growled, "how much do you know that you're hiding from me…?"

"I didn't really even do it for your sake," Suzaku admitted in defiance of the question, staring at his hand as though it was slick with blood. "I deliberately used you to hurt Lelouch because I needed to lash out and didn't know any other way of hurting him, and that's fucked up."

He laughed, then, as if recalling some kind of inside joke. "In any other situation, this should have been a miracle. A real happy moment. But because I brought it about with ill intentions and through evil methods, it's not. It's irreparably tainted. And now I'm left asking myself if it was even worth it."

"Don't ignore me," Lelouch began, before Nunnally stilled him with a hand on his arm.

"Suzaku. You knew you that what you were going to say and do would hurt me. You were probably even thinking about it before the conversation even started… but you didn't make up your mind about doing it until after my brother set me up to ask you to quit the military," she said with a bitter side glance to the genius in question. "I'm right, aren't I?"

Rather than answer, Suzaku turned to walk away… only for an exasperated Nunnally to let go of her big brother and speed up her wheelchair's motor to roll in front of him. Defiantly putting herself in his path with arms outstretched, Nunnally's mouth set in a thin line. "I don't care how angry or ashamed you are, or about who's right and who's wrong; I won't let two of the people I love most in this world continue behaving like they're enemies. Classes are over and most of the students are doing some kind of club activity, so we're all of us going to stay right here and talk until I'm satisfied that we're all still friends."

"I can't stay too long," Suzaku muttered with a roll of his eyes, looking anywhere but into Nunnally's. "Unlike some people, I've got orders–"

"Then you can stop trying to run away like a coward, and instead work on helping me forgive you like I want to."

The personal attack was enough to make Suzaku meet Nunnally's gaze with a defensive sneer… for all of two seconds, before he shook his head with a rueful grin at Lelouch. "See what you've made me do, Shady? I woke up the world's most adorable little monster over here."

It took Lelouch a moment to remember why the nickname felt familiar, before he remembered it being given to him while Suzaku was on a phone call in front of his superiors. "Ugh… if you must insist on a new nickname," he groaned, "can't it be something better than a pun on my real one?"

"Not if I'm lightening the mood with it, no."

The three stared at each other in silence for a moment, before the absurdity of the turn in conversation caught up and got Nunnally giggling, which in turn led the boys to chuckle along.

Like all good things, however, it was destined to end much too soon. "Fine. You want me to be efficient? Then I'll get straight to the point."

Emphasizing it with a pointer finger jabbed into Lelouch's chest, Suzaku seemed to loom over him despite being around the same height. "I can see possible futures. And I don't like what happens to me or the people I care about in any of the ones where you keep being Zero – and before you get too uppity or defensive about it, that includes both of you."

Seeing versions of the future was such an absurd thing to claim that Nunnally almost asked if Suzaku was joking. But on seeing the seriousness with which he and Lelouch were both treating the matter, she quickly realized there were yet more secrets that had been kept from her – likely with the best of intentions, but which still gave her some difficulty in keeping up due to her lack of context.

"That's funny, I'm pretty sure I suggested at least once that you could tell me what you were seeing and we could use what you know to change the future together. But you refuse to work with me–"

"Because I don't agree with your approach or your methods to resolving our little Britannia problem," Suzaku spat. "Not when you refuse to even try more peaceful options than resorting to terrorism and rebellion."

Lelouch rolled his eyes, beyond annoyed that they were going through the same song and dance yet again. "Let's say I pretend for a moment that your methods would even work at all; it still remains a fact that an internal reform will take too long and extend the misery of everyone suffocating under Britannia's boot."

"You mean the boot I've had Euphemia trying to ease up with, a policy shift which you've been trying your best to sabotage in the name of maintaining support for your rebellion?"

"Anything Britannia gives to its conquered territories is worthless because it can be taken away just as easily. You expect the oppressed peoples of the world to forsake whatever's left of their pride and live on your charity!"

"I don't know about the rest of the worlds' oppressed peoples, but as far as I'm concerned Japan deserves to rot in shame."

"Then what about my pride, damn you?! Demanding I let that man go unpunished for what he did to us!"

"Big brother–!"

Suzaku looked down at Lelouch's hands tightly gripping his school uniform jacket, and coldly stared back at Lelouch until he let go. "I've never said anything about letting your father go unpunished, although frankly now I'm inclined to kill him myself just to deny you the chance at it."

Before Lelouch could properly process how offended that made him, Suzaku cut him off and continued. "But setting that aside, I'm beyond sick of your preaching that oh, we could work together if only you would trust me, Lelouch. Whenever you talk about us working together, what you really mean is me working for you. You haven't ever considered the possibility that you could, oh, I don't know… fake another identity and leverage my connections with Euphemia, or better yet with one of Schneizel's personal think tanks, to infiltrate the military yourself? To have the easiest possible access to Cornelia, to Schneizel, and – with the two of us working together, soon enough the Emperor? No, of course you didn't! Such an elegant, relatively clean and bloodless way of doing things never once so much as entered your head! It's not enough for you that Charles be made to account for his role in your covering up the truth behind your mother's death, you need to personally shove the entire world's collective face in your ego and rage; your precious pride demands nothing less than forcing all humanity to witness you beating your old man at his own game, and I have no intention to be a part of that."

Lelouch stared at Suzaku in stunned silence, with Nunnally's wide eyes looking between the two in concern. Eventually, she settled her attention on Lelouch. "Big brother, please tell me he's wrong about you."

"That's…"

Impossible. Unfathomable. Inconceivable.

The bitter truth.

"...just a hypothetical," Lelouch insisted. "It's easy for you to suggest it in theory, but there's no way a so-called Eleven like you would be given access to the imperial capital for anything short of personally handing me and Nunnally over to our father – which I should hope is a non-starter?"

Suzaku met the prince's expectant eyebrow with one of his own. "It's not in my first half-dozen plans of preference, but I think we've already established a budding tendency on my part to make stupid and impulsive decisions out of spite when you push me too far."

So it was on the table, but apparently something close to a last resort. About as reassuring of a response as Lelouch could have expected, in hindsight. "Well in any case, I can't trust anyone in my family to both not recognize me, and support me if they did – or have you forgotten what I did to Clovis?"

Nunnally hissed at the admission, but Suzaku just rolled his eyes at it. "Not really, and to be blunt I'm pretty sure most of your siblings would side with you over Charles if given the right sales pitch… and oh by the way," Suzaku said with a surprised I-just-remembered tone that was almost embarrassingly fake. "If, when we met up at Tokyo Tower, you'd started on something like my suggestion a minute ago? You could have actually been shipping out to Pendragon with me today since the Knights of the Round think I murdered the Knight of Ten illegally instead of killing him in fair and legitimate combat."

...what.

"What?" How kind of Nunnally to voice her brother's thoughts on his behalf.

"I didn't stutter. In fact, I'm sure I shouldn't have said anything at all. I probably just committed treason for you… but hey," Suzaku said with a derisive laugh, "when we consider every opportunity I've had to report your shared survival to the government and then not done that, my hypothetical rap sheet's probably at least half as long as I am tall."

"Suzaku," Nunnally whispered – only for him to snap in Lelouch's face with a snarl. "And yet you've kept pushing. Always demanding more from me, disrespecting my boundaries, dismissing my beliefs… failing to recognize who I am now in the same breath that you beg me to join you in the name of our childhood friendship."

Pointedly poking Lelouch in the chest, he pressed, "Look me in the eye and tell me how I could possibly put as much faith in you as you're asking for, when I frankly don't trust you within shouting distance of anyone I care about."

Nunnally politely coughed into her fist.

"...that you're not already attached to," Suzaku amended.

Lelouch took a deep breath, struggling to string two thoughts together from how much this conversation had gotten him seething. "...I'm killing him and getting to the bottom of my mother's murder. One way or another. That's not negotiable."

"And you're not taking over the world for any length of time or for any reason," Suzaku replied, equally tense. "Nor are you fucking up the lives of anyone I'm attached to. One way or another, that's not negotiable."

"I never said anything about taking over the world, or targeting anyone specific around you. Who, I might add, I wouldn't be able to identify as needing protection without knowledge of their identities."

"That's the fun part, you stay home with Nunnally until I say it's alright for you to show your face as a Prince again."

"But what if I need a break from my brother?" Nunnally asked. "It's not fair of you to put him under house arrest if you're not going to even properly charge him with a crime."

Suzaku rolled his eyes, knowing that trying to argue the point would just make things stagnate. "Then he can take Shirley on a date now and then; God willing, maybe she can help him calm down a bit."

That brought Lelouch up short. "What does Shirley have to do with anything?"

It broke Lelouch's heart to see Nunnally give him such a look of utter disappointed exasperation. "Big brother, she wants you to make her my big sister someday. I don't think Suzaku's really even around very much, and even he can see it."

Without missing a beat, Nunnally brightly and immediately turned to Suzaku. "But speaking of sisters, I think I remember hearing something about you and Euphemia being together, too. Does that mean you're going to be my big brother too someday? Will we be able to meet her again?!"

Now it was Suzaku's turn to take a step back, caught off guard by the unexpected line of questioning. "Look, things between me and her are a little complicated right now…"

"Suzaku, don't tell me you broke her heart?!"

"What the hell is wrong with you, thinking you can lecture me about attacking people's sentimentality-?!"

"Whoa hey, it's not like that!"

Sweating bullets at the pairs of angry violet eyes on him, Suzaku threw up his hands in surrender. "I like her, and I'm… reasonably sure she likes me… for some reason–"

"For some reason?"

"–but we haven't exactly been able to spend much time together because someone put me in a coma for a week!"

"Suzaku, you can't just keep harping on about that forever–"

"Oh yeah? Well how about I put you to sleep long enough that it becomes a problem, and we'll see how quick you get over it?"

"Boys! That's enough from both of you!"

The prodigal sons of their respective nations immediately went silent like children scolded by their mother, staring at the wheelchair-bound little girl massaging her forehead. "I've barely had my sight back for ten minutes and I'm already sick of watching you two act like this," she groaned.

"He started all of this–"

"Suzaku? I don't care who started it. I intend to finish it," Nunnally snapped, before then turning her glare with a pointer finger on Lelouch. "And don't you even think of looking so smug about it big brother, I'm just as cross with you as I am with him."

Turning her attention back to Suzaku, she asked, "Basically, you think my big brother's amazing enough to take over the whole world, but you think you can save it more safely and without hurting nearly as many people, and you want a fair chance to try your way first without Lelouch making it harder for you. Is that basically it?"

"...yeeeees?"

"If he gives you that chance to save the world your own way, do you promise to help him find out what happened to mother and get even with father?"

Suzaku glanced at Lelouch, evaluating him with a critical eye. "...just like what I said to you earlier hurt you, there are secrets I'm aware of that could seriously hurt Lelouch and make him unstable – which, contrary to whatever opinion you might've come to from my attitude, I do not want. I'm willing to help him – both of you, if you want – eventually reach the truth, but you need to understand that my cooperation on that is contingent on my belief at any given moment that it won't result in getting innocent people hurt or killed."

"Suzaku, are you seriously calling me a time bomb?!"

"You stop and think about the reality of what you went through as a child, and the facts that you've been either dwelling on or suppressing most of the negativity caused by that trauma without any kind of professional psychiatric help… and then tell me honestly that you're not."

Lelouch's mouth set in a thin line, arms crossed. "I don't believe that your path can be taken expediently enough. Internal change takes time, and the longer I have to wait on you the more difficult it's going to be for me to do things my way if you fail – or even worse, you only partially succeed. A rebellion isn't like some video program that can be stopped and started on a whim, it's reliant on built and sustained momentum. I'm sure you'll try and use the comparison against me, but it's closer in nature to a stage play; once begun, it must run through to completion in spite of all obstacles, or it can only fail. Never mind the fact that for all you accuse me of being a control freak, you seem quite desperate to keep my actions even more tightly restricted than I've ever asked of you."

Suzaku rolled his eyes, turning to Nunnally. "Do you see this guy? I ask him what amounts to stop doing crimes – which for most of the rest of the world is just basic decency and common sense – and he calls it unfairly restrictive."

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Nunnally looked from one amped-up young man to the other. "...Suzaku. I really want to believe in you and Euphie, but it's hard to imagine that the two of you can really do everything you're trying to in less time than you seem to think Lelouch could do his way. And even if I don't like my brother being so full of wrath and rage…"

She deflated with a sigh, sinking into her wheelchair as tears welled up in her eyes. "I love him too much to deny him his vengeance, now that I can see how desperately he needs it to move on from the night our mother died. If we still have any place in your heart at all, then can't you at least understand that much?"

Suzaku looked away with teeth and fists clenched, clearly seeing her point but refusing to say it aloud.

"Lelouch," she asked. "We've lived in peace for so long since the Ashfords took us in… can't we have just one more year of that peace? So I can see, with my own eyes, all our friends laughing and smiling our carefree days away before you… before you do what you have to?"

A part of Lelouch wanted desperately to give her what she was wishing for. Felt that just one more year might not be too much to ask of him, if that could be enough for Suzaku to get his idealistic foolishness out of his system.

The bigger part of him knew that it was already too late. That taking a hiatus after Shinjuku could have been one thing… but in the course of organizing his debut as Zero, he'd already made a casting call for his play of rebellion. Made promises that, if taken back or delayed, couldn't credibly be issued again.

The only way he'd get another chance would be if Suzaku or Euphemia's efforts proved to backfire spectacularly.

"I… can try to keep the pot from boiling over too quickly."

Lelouch knew from the look on Suzaku's face that those words were worthless to him, but for Nunnally's sake it was the best he could honestly come up with.

"...well then consider this your first and last warning," Suzaku growled. "If I ever see Zero again before you've graduated high school, I won't be in a position to treat him with the kid gloves I used on his buddies at Shinjuku."

Nunnally sighed, realizing that she probably wouldn't be able to get such stubborn boys to find a better middle ground than this. "Well if you boys must fight, then you both have to promise me that you'll keep it out of Ashford. Not just your soldiers, but whatever… this kind of argument that you two sound like you keep having is? I don't want either of you to try and make me take sides in it again, or the rest of our friends. When you're at school, I want you to just put your politics and the fate of the world aside, and be the friends I know you both want to be deep down. Please, for me."

Still deeply unsatisfied with the situation but recognizing that it likely wasn't going to get any better, Lelouch turned to Suzaku and extended his hand. "As far as your comment about Shirley, I'm not really looking for romance right now."

Suzaku squirmed in frustration, but eventually caved under Nunnally's pleading gaze and shook Lelouch's hand. "The least you can do is tell Shirley that much so she can stop pining over you like a puppy, although I still think you should at least take her on a few dates to see what happens. It might do you some wonders."

Lelouch narrowed his eyes, tightening his grip. "Are you suggesting I should use a girlfriend as a therapist?"

"No," Suzaku replied while tightening his own grip in response, "but I am saying that my experience has taught me that healthy and intimate relationship with a woman who's got most of her psychological shit together, who loves and accepts you, can be healing in its own way."

The brunette had said many things over their prior encounters that made Lelouch indignant… but that remark seemed to imply a special kind of insult. "Even you should realize that you can't make that kind of statement based on a sample size of one… are you saying you're cheating on my sister?!"

"I'm pretty sure it's not cheating because Euphie knows about it and seems friendly with at least one of my other girlfriends, but I did say things were complicated and this is another reason why, as further complicated by things I'm not allowed to talk about here anymore."

"Are you going to keep trying to force responsibility for all your problems on me, Suzaku?!"

"I don't know, are you going to accept responsibility for any of the problems that you cause me or otherwise contribute to, Lelouch?!"

"Suzaku. Lelouch. I will page Miss Sayoko and ask her to fetch me a spray bottle if that's what it takes."

"Just do it Nunna, we are clearly hopeless when left to our own devices."

"Et tu, Suzaku?!"