"It's only us
It's only now
This simple wish"
-"11:11 PM" by the All American Rejects
The sky is blue today.
Lelouch slips into his imperial garments- white, the color of death in Japan- and absently fingers the pistol on his drawer.
"You don't need that," C.C. murmurs, voice smoky and distant, sheets curled around her as she gazes at him with lidded eyes, keeping herself to the shadows of their curtained room.
"The act must be perfect until the end," he replies with a smile, and tucks the gun into a hidden holster, exactly close enough to reach but not nearly close enough to be of any real use.
"I think I hate you a little for this," the immortal witch says softly, slipping out of the silk sheets, stepping towards him with an expression of longing and annoyance, as though she can't quite decide whether to be angry or saddened. She is C.C., after all.
"That's fine," Lelouch answers, still smiling. "Everybody is supposed to hate me today."
00000
"You're not coming with me," Lelouch asks, though it's more of a quiet state of fact, for he knows the answer long before she stepped foot here.
She does not kiss him, does not hug him, does not cry for him.
Her heart is not breaking.
C.C. is C.C., and she merely offers him a single smile.
"I will pray for you," she says.
Her heart is not breaking.
"I don't think anyone's ever prayed for me," Lelouch chuckles. "And I don't think it'll do much good."
She smirks. "I'm a witch. The gods don't listen to my prayers anyway."
Her heart is not breaking because there's nothing left to break anymore.
They laugh together one last time, the acceptance of the damned.
00000
If he had known who first discovered the truth behind the Zero Re:requiem in that brief, eternal moment when the masked hero appeared on the horizon, Lelouch would have laughed and thought it fitting.
Kallen was always Zero's loyal knight.
And wasn't it she, after all, who told him to lie to them, right until the end? To never cast aside his mask, to wear it until the dream was complete?
Because it was Zero she trusted, Zero she believed in, a man who stood up for justice because it was right, who loved the world and fought for it.
Because Lelouch was mad laughter in darkened rooms, a cancer of lies and deceit, and the one who broke her heart because he was real and Zero was not.
This is a lie.
One last lie.
Kallen wonders why she's screaming for Zero not to kill Lelouch, why she's crying for Lelouch, when this is everything she thought about for the past three months, when this is what she wanted from him.
Wasn't it Zero, the lie, she loved, after all?
00000
Suzaku knows this moment.
He's been here before.
A blade in hand, the warm wetness of someone he loves spilling on his hands (his dirty, sinning hands), the feel of a body slumping against his as a new lie is created by bloodstained hands.
A lie called peace.
Because the truth is ugly, the truth is sin.
The truth is that Lelouch Lamperouge was just a boy who wanted to see his loved ones smile.
The truth is that Kururugi Suzaku is not a hero.
But nobody wants the truth, and so, they will give the people the greatest lie they can, a lie that will save the world because nothing else can.
Gently, almost kindly, Lelouch's hand caresses the side of the mask that Suzaku wears, as if in forgiveness.
But that is a lie too.
This is not atonement.
This is damnation.
Zero twists the sword and pulls it free, and Lelouch Lamperouge and Kururugi Suzaku cease to exist.
So be it.
00000
The sky is blue today.
Lelouch thinks this is a nice place to die.