First Chapter

Resurrection

Karen stood there, watching as the ceremonies were carried out without hurry. She stood along the rest of the commanding members of the Black Knights. Ohgi and Toudou stood at her side with their heads respectfully bowed. Rakshata had surprised them by appearing glad in her formal black dress and was now standing next to Karen, smoking her slender pipe, but still she was there in a black dress and for someone who had always stayed horizontal in the midst of battle it was a big gesture. Karen couldn't glance in the direction of Nunnally's crying form without feeling a twinge of guilt. Could there have been something she could have done to stop this from ever happening? Her rational side said that anything she could have done wouldn't have changed anything for the better and it would have probably made things even worse, even if Lelouch were to survive because of those actions. She knew that this was an ending that was best for everyone, but still she felt her eyes water when she looked at the white, royal looking casket and the restful face lying there on softest of white silk.

Yes, of course it would be an open casket funeral; the world had to make sure that the emperor of atrocities, Lelouch vi Britannia, was dead. That thought was what caused the tears to flow and her to try and stop herself from sobbing. Couldn't there really have been any other ending to his life than to be the tyrant that no one would grieve as history moved on? Why couldn't anyone but the people closest to him know what kind of person and how courageous he was?

Karen turned her eyes away and fought back the tears to stop herself from breaking down. She didn't want to disgrace herself in his funeral, or in front of all these people. She kept on watching the people around her, searching for faces she knew. Sumeragi Kaguya was right there next to Nunnally, closest to the casket, trying not to break down in sobs like Karen. The fact that she was succeeding even though she was looking at Lelouch impressed Karen and she found a new kind of respect for the girl. Standing next to her was the small empress of the former Chinese federation, Tianzi, trying her best to comfort her first friend, but seemed to be breaking down in tears herself. Xing Ke was standing next to her with an uncomfortable expression on his face, like he was unsure if he should try and comfort the young girl or not. She also heard Tamaki sniffle behind her, he had actually surprised them all by realizing and accepting what Lelouch had planned the first and he had been the one to explain it to her, even though she had known already, but hadn't accepted it yet.

Karen scanned the crowd for a splash of green hair, but she couldn't see C.C. Well, it was understandable if she didn't want to come to an event with the government present, since she had been imprisoned for research before. Maybe she was just somewhere Karen couldn't see her, it was not like she could pick her out from the crowd gathered to rejoice the Emperor of atrocities' passing.

Damn it, she was about to cry again.

Lelouch

Lelouch's consciousness didn't return to him as quickly as it had from the day he became aware of the powers that could want to kill him. He had always been a light sleeper, but after that day he had awoken from the slightest of noise and went back to sleep only when he was sure it was safe. He had been able to sleep during class in Ashford Academy because he knew that no one would be coming after him as Lelouch Lamperouge. First thing he became aware of was the silence, or better yet, the fact that he could not hear, feel or see anything at all. Remembering how he had ended up in this state was

Heart.

hard. He had a vague feeling of his own body, but he couldn't feel if he was lying or sitting on anything. Was he floating in some liquid that numbed his body? That would explain why he couldn't feel the possible mask that was feeding him oxygen. This could also be the effect of a powerful paralyzing poison, but who had administered it? Had someone poisoned him? Only if he could re-

Heart. Lungs.

member, then he could think of ways to get out of this situation. No matter how he looked at it he could do nothing else than wait for the drug to lose effect, or that he was freed from whatever tank he might be floating in. The tank seemed more and more improbable, but if he was treated for serious damage to his body, then he might be floating in a regenerative tank, but the cost for maintaining those were astronomical and they wouldn't be used if the patient wasn't a member of royalty. Did this mean that his cover as Lelouch Lamperouge had been blown? Could brain damage explain for his sense of dislocation from his own body and his memory loss?

Heart, beat. Lungs, breathe.

Suddenly Leouch felt a stabbing pain in his chest and felt like he was suffocating. He inhaled sharply and then continued to breathe rapidly to make the feeling of suffocation go away. The pain in his chest did not subside at all even after he was breathing normally. He tried to move his right hand to grab his chest to see if he was hurt, but he still couldn't feel his body. Was his body paralyzed? Had whatever was making his chest hurt cut his spinal cord? Would he be doomed to live his life inside his own mind, not interacting with the people around him, not even being able to know that they were there?

Damaged. Stop.

Lelouch suddenly realized he had stopped breathing. He didn't feel air filling his lungs, he only felt as his last inhale slowly escaped through his lips and then even that ghost of a sensation disappeared. The pain in his chest had given him a strong sense of déjà vu, but he just couldn't remember completely before the pain disappeared. Had he been shot?

No oxygen. Have to leave, find refuge. Eat, heal.

Lelouch's eyes opened even though he made no attempt to open them and he saw some kind of fabric an inch away from his face. He raised his hand against the fabric and felt that there was something harder behind it, perhaps even steel. He tried reaching above his head but met cushioned wall, he checked if the place he was in was open from the side of his feet. There had to be light coming in here from somewhere if he could see. His foot met only another cushioned wall. He was in a box that barely gave him room to move. Where was the light coming from then?

Lelouch raised his hand above his face again and saw it without any problem. He couldn't make out colors very well, but he could see his hand in a dim light, like there was moonlight in the box he was in. He glanced at the white fabric that surrounded him and he felt stupid enough to smack himself. The white fabric was somehow luminescent of course. Would also explain why he couldn't find a definite light source.

Out.

But that was not important; he had to find a way to get out of this case he had been put into… This case lined with expensive white fabric… The pieces set together in Lelouch's mind and he thought he heard them make a "Clock!" sound, the sound of the lid of a coffin closing, when the realization hit him; he was in a coffin. It would explain the fact that he still didn't feel himself breathing and didn't seem to have a need to do so. It would also explain that feeling he had that he was dislocated from his own body. The question was how could he wake up in his own coffin? C.C was seemingly immortal; did she do something to him, so that he would be as well? Only if he could remember how he ended up here…

Out! Now!

Lelouch felt the sudden urge to get out, out of this suffocating small space that trapped him. He would probably be screwed if he was already buried, but if he wasn't, then he might be able to force the coffin open. That was the problem: Why would he have to force a coffin open if it wasn't buried? Why would there be a lock in his coffin, or why would someone put a rock on the lid. He was doomed to die slowly out of starvation if he was already buried, he just didn't have the power to –

Power.

Lelouch slammed his hands on the cover of the coffin and pushed with all his power. Who cared if there was six feet of dirt on him? He would simply dig –claw- his way out if he had to. He strained his muscles and felt a strange sensation that he was not alone in the coffin, like there was someone else inside, just as trapped as he was and it wanted out with a hysteric enthusiasm. Now that he had noticed it he had to correct himself in his overly analytic mind: He didn't feel like there was someone there with him; He felt like there was something else inside him.

He would have rather not noticed that.

Now that he was aware of whatever was with him, it was also aware of him. Lelouch didn't know if the image was because of the dull white all around him, or his quickly panicking mind, but he suddenly knew that the something that he just noticed was looking at him. He could almost see it slowly turning away from its own fear and confusion and focusing on him. It was watching him with eyes that it did not have, but still watching him intently and unrelentingly.

Out! Out! Out!

Lelouch felt like he had to get out of this coffin, or he would lose his mind. He could become claustrophobic in this situation, sure, but it was the thing inside him that demanded for him to find a way out like a spoiled child yelled for ice cream or for a balloon. No matter how large its and his desire to get out grew, there was no way for him to get out of a coffin that had already buried. He had no way of communicating with the outside world and he couldn't presume that someone would come and dig him up.

OUT!

Lelouch lost all control and feeling of his body and his whole consciousness was darkness where he had no body. This was how it had been when he first came to acknowledge himself. He couldn't call it "waking up" anymore when he knew what had happened. The thing inside him had thrown him away and took control again. Lelouch had never liked to be left in the dark, he had always insisted on knowing and learning things that people around him knew. He had gotten into chess after he'd seen Schneizel playing against the emperor, their father. He had never liked being left in the dark and now it was practically happening; he was practically left in the dark and he started to try and see what that thing was doing by trying to see it again with his mind.

At first he didn't see anything at all and the only thing he was aware of was his growing impatience. He didn't except any supernatural thing to be as easy to use as Geass. But it did seem like him and whatever the thing was that had possessed him were sharing a body, so he should have some kind of link to it. It was his body after all and the thing was the intruder, at least that's what he presumed. As far as he could tell the power called Geass was simply either activating the untapped potential of the human psyche, or implanting power into the unused part of the human brain. C.C had never agreed to tell him in detail and he had not pressured her about it, it was not like he had any use for that information anyways.

Lelouch went over his thoughts when something started bugging him about what he had just remembered. The Geass was tapping into the unused part of the human brain… so could he break through to the surface by using his Geass if the nameless thing was actually possessing his body? Would the power of Geass somehow replace the thing that had possessed him? Well, it was worth a shot…

Lelouch concentrated and tried to remember the feeling of using his Geass. The nudge he felt in his head when the power shot out of him and the taste of ozone he got in his mouth towards the end. Lelouch concentrated on feeling that surge of power and indeed saw something after a while; a blurred image in the very center of his vision. The only thing he could make out was that whatever the image was portraying was moving. If it was a memory he forced out with this concentration or the world outside this darkness that he saw through his Geass. He held on to the feeling of his Geass and the image gradually came to focus.

He saw a bobbling image of a doorway arching high above his head sculpted directly into the rock that surrounded his vision. The doorway grew larger until it was out of frame and he saw what was beyond the doorway after a blinding light momentarily blinded him. He saw a garden bathed in strange silvery light that made the brightest of the flowers planted along a long and wide road that stretched out in front of him straight as a ruler and paved in old, but well kept, pebble stones shine. He image tilted to left and right and Lelouch saw that the roses and other flowers nearest to the doorway were almost blindingly white in the silvery light and that they darkened as the road stretched out, changing color to light blue to light pink and then to a light shade of blue and from there to a deeper color and so on.

He couldn't be sure, but he thought that he felt a foreign sense of awe and joy. The garden was well kept and beautiful, sure, but Lelouch had been a Britannian prince, so it was nothing to be amazed about, so the feeling must be the foreign invader's using his body right now. The feeling was nothing but a shadow of an emotion, like faded memory, but it was definitely there. The image he was watching intently rapidly bobbled towards the flowers to his right: the thing using his body was running to the flowers for some reason. The view was suddenly filled with the flowers and Lelouch felt another surge of ghost-like joy. Was it really sniffing the roses? Why would it do that?

Lelouch watched as the invader using his body smelled every rose in turn and then took one and brought it close to his face and it disappeared somewhere below his sight. The rose came back into view and only half of the pedals were still on it. Was it eating the flowers now? What was this thing, a vegan? This presumption was proved wrong as Lelouch saw that the thing spat out most of the pedals a couple of seconds later. It picked up another rose from the bush and watched it for a long time. Lelouch couldn't know what was going on within this thing's mind, but now he was rather sure that it was not very smart.

He started feeling his body again as the feeling of using his Geass became constant and felt more natural. He wasn't sure how long he could keep it up, but he didn't seem to come any closer to getting his body back under his own control. He just felt as the foreign thing moved his body rather awkwardly. His movements were fidgety and he was many times in the danger of falling down as he stumbled on the pebbles. Lelouch became more and more sure that the foreign feeling of joy belonged to the thing using his body as it ran around and smelled and picked the flowers, still picking up a few and tasting them.

It seemed to realize that flowers were not something to eat and when it noticed that there was the same kind of flower on each side of the road it started walking on one side and simply smelled and picked them occasionally. When it reached the end of the road and the large iron gate and brick wall it picked up a black rose from the flower bed and smelled it as it stared at the gate. It was made out of black iron and the wall next to it seemed to be made out of blocks of white marble. There seemed to be no other way out than to climb it, but there was a subtle humming sound coming off it, so it was probably electrically charged. Lelouch's arm stretched out towards it, but stopped right before touching the steel, seemed like the thing inhabiting his body could sense the danger somehow. Lelouch's world was plunged back into darkness as his eyes closed.

Home?

How was he going to get out of here? He had to go home. He didn't know where this place was and how he got here, but it did look like it was not within a distance he could walk to Ashford Academy. The walls seemed too slippery to climb and he would not be able to climb the gate because it was electrified. Should he wait for someone to walk by and order them to let him out with his Geass? That was a possible outcome and right now he couldn't see another way out. He should circle the wall and see if there were any trees which he could climb and thus jump out.

Though he could only hear the outside world like it was behind some kind of wall he still noticed how the silence of the place he was in changed. From the silence of a garden full of dormant, yet vibrant life, to the silence of a city that is quiet, but not quite asleep. The first wishful thought he had was that he had woken up from a bizarre dream and he would see the ceiling above his bed in Ashford academy. What had happened to him so far were far too unbelievable to be reality. No one could wake up in a coffin… Well, C.C could, but she was a little special. An immortal witch from what she claimed, Lelouch was leaning on believing her claim from what he had seen.

Lelouch's eyes were opened and he saw the dimly lit interior of a very familiar room inside the Ashford academy. He was standing in the room were the student council gathered. He turned his head upwards and saw that the lights were out, but it still seemed like the room was dimly lit for him, could it simply be that the light coming from the windows? Well, his eyes should be used to the dark by now; he had woken up in a coffin after all. Lelouch was almost to the door when he noticed that he could actually control his own body. Maybe he had just been dream-walking and ended up in the club room. Yes, that must be it. He was a little surprised about his amount of motor-control while sleepwalking, but decided to shrug it off. He stepped to the door, opened it and walked towards the exit.

Rivalz

Rivalz had been desperately trying to find his history notebook and after rummaging through his room he had concluded that he must have left it in the student council room. Lelouch's ascension to the throne had really distracted him from his studies, so now he had to get a passing grade from the test tomorrow or he would have to repeat it during summer. Lelouch's death and the funeral that followed after that didn't help either and it had taken him days to gather his wits and study seriously.

Sometimes he thought he was a little too emotional for his own good.

Rivalz rounded the corner and saw a figure wearing white walking along the wall of the school building. He froze completely and could only stare as the figure that had its back turned to him. He felt how blood escaped from his face and could hear his heart beating in his ears. He had forgotten how to breathe and regained this ability only after the figure rounded the corner of the building and disappeared from his sight. His knees nearly gave out under him and he had to lean on the wall next to him not to fall on the ground. It couldn't be, could it? These kinds of things don't happen in real life. Someone must be playing a rather cruel prank on him.

"Le… Lelouch?" He had not seen his face, but he was almost sure it had been Lelouch. But Lelouch was dead and buried, both his death and the funeral had been broadcasted live across the world. He should run after the guy that was playing such a despicable prank and beat some tact into them. If he was sure it was a prank, then why were his knees so weak? He didn't even see his face, so what could it be? And now that he thought about it the pranksters weren't even that smart. "Lelouch" was dressed in the clothes he was buried in, but he saw a spot of blood on his back. Lelouch had been redressed for his funeral and it's commonly known that dead people do not bleed.

"Those bastards… They are so getting expelled for this." Rivalz mumbled and jogged to the corner the prankster had turned on. If the pranksters knew what was good for them, they were long gone by now, but he couldn't leave this be if they thought he would just run after seeing what they wanted him to believe to be a ghost. He turned at the corner and to his surprise saw the figure wearing white still walking further on. Rivalz ran after him without giving it much thought until he was about 10 meters away from the figure. Did the pranksters use make up? The figure's skin was as white as the fabric and the spot of blood looked rather real as it had turned almost black around the edges. His eyes strayed to the figure's hand and what he saw was that it was just as pale as his face and the fingers looked dirty and the fingernails were scraped and bluish. This was just a prankster, right? Someone from the theater club messing around with make up and costumes for fun, right?

Then why was he so hesitant on calling him out and seeing his face? He couldn't seriously think it could be Lelouch? No, things like that only happened in ghost stories and novels. It couldn't be Lelouch, just couldn't. Lelouch had been buried in the imperial mausoleum in the mainland, so this just couldn't be Lelouch. And if it were a ghost or something, wouldn't it have better places to haunt than Ashford academy? Lelouch couldn't have any lingering regrets left here, right? Even though he did spend years living here before ascending to the throne, his home was gone now.

The figure stopped and Rivalz was snapped out of his thoughts. He had actually followed him for minutes deep in thought without realizing. They were now standing on the fenced edge of the great big hole in the earth that FLEIA had left behind. The man wearing white reached out a hand towards the fence and when it slowly clenched on the chain link fence an image of a big albino spider caused him to shiver. This guy deserved a trophy for his acting out the role of a creepy ghoul from beyond the grave, but this had gone too far.

"Hey, what exactly do you think you're doing being out this late at night?" Rivalz asked while trying to get some authority in his voice, but it took all his effort to get the squeak, which was trying to push through into his voice, from hearing. He was more afraid he'll ever admit; the situation was just too surreal. At first there was no reaction from the man standing in front of him and in hindsight Rivalz hoped that there wouldn't have been. He didn't turn around and shout something like "Boo!", he didn't relax and laugh at him for falling for his act. No, he didn't do anything that a midnight prankster would do at the end of a joke. What he did was something much more melodramatic, but nothing could have horrified Rivalz more. He spoke, spoke two short sentences and it horrified him.

"My home… Where is my home, Rivalz?" Lelouch slowly said in a painfully dry and raspy voice. It sounded like there was sand paper grinding his throat and anyone would be coughing constantly with a throat like that. Rivalz took a step back as he felt how a chilling cold hand of fear clamped down on his heart and made it pound even faster. Any way he looked at it now, this was a ghoul in the form of his deceased friend. He didn't know if it had any ill intentions or if it was Lelouch, or even if he was aware of his death, but Rivalz did what humans instinctively do when confronted with something unnatural and impossible to explain; He ran, he turned on his heels and ran as fast as he could.

As he was running with his heart pounding against his chest and his mind clouded by the fear rampaging in him all he could think of was the possibility that Lelouch was running behind him. Reaching those deathly pale hands towards him to grab him to drag him down to the ground and kill him, maybe even eat him alive. Of course the fact that Lelouch had been able to make a perfectly understandable sentence and had shown no signs of aggression occurred to him only after he had ran about 200 meters from him. He spun around and was ready to run if Lelouch was indeed after him. He was almost sure he could outrun Lelouch, but Lelouch was supposed to be dead, so him even being able to walk was miraculous, so he couldn't be sure.

Lelouch was nowhere to be seen. He had ran only about 30 seconds and hadn't reached the closest corner of a building, so he should have seen Lelouch running if he had started running shortly after he did. So, what did this mean?

Rivalz' knees gave out and he fell to the ground. The amount of adrenaline in his system made his limbs shake and his heart to pound against his head. He tried to analytically piece together what had just happened to him and after a minute or so he had three possible options as to what could have happened.

One: This really had been a prank on him and the prankster ran to hide as soon as Rivalz turned his back. That was quite possible and the most normal explanation he could think of, but what possible reason would anyone have to do something like this?

Two: It really had been Lelouch and he had climbed the fence and jumped down to the mound where his home had once been because of some kind of amnesia he had suffered because of his… death. Rivalz thought this to be highly unlikely, since Lelouch's body had not been buried in Japan, but in the imperial tomb in the mainland and for him to have the means to travel back to Area 11 after everyone thinks he's dead was unlikely.

Three: What Rivalz had seen had no physical body and was only the remnant left behind on this earth by Lelouch's many and deep regrets; in other words: A ghost. Lelouch choosing this place to haunt was possible, since he'd lived here for as long as Rivalz had known him. This possibility caused Rivalz to raise his head up to the darkened sky and fight back the tears. He didn't know about Lelouch's final plan, but he had believed in the Lelouch he knew until the end and the thought of Lelouch not being able to find peace even in death brought him to the verge of tears.

Sometimes Rivalz thought he was too emotional for his own good.

Lelouch

Home, your home.

Home… yes, home was not simply a place. Home was where his heart rested and where he returned to. Home was and had always been Nunnally. Home was Nunnally, wherever they had been at any point in time they had called home. So, home was the place where Nunnally was.

Nunnally…

Lelouch felt the chain link fence disappearing from between his fingers as the world went out of focus and he felt like he was walking through a waterfall. He felt the weight of the falling water pressing down on him for the split second it was there. The blurriness in his vision disappeared as he blinked his eyes a couple of times. He had to wonder what just happened, because now he was standing in a room that looked like a royal bedroom. The windows were covered with big and heavy looking curtain that let a slither of light through, just enough for Lelouch to see in the darkness. He also became aware of a steady sound of breathing coming from the colossal bed. Lelouch had lived with Nunnally and taken care of her from the moment he was paralyzed and blinded when their mother was assassinated, so he had become able to tell the nature of her dreams from the way she breathed. And he was definitely able to tell that the one sleeping in that bed was Nunnally, and that she was having a bad dream.

Lelouch hesitated on approaching the bed for a second. The room was too luxurious and befitted for her needs for it to be a temporary solution, so was he really suffering from amnesia and had their royal status been revealed? If that was the case, then how much time was he missing? Lelouch hesitated and swayed on his feet until Nunnally moved in her sleep and called out his name in the saddest voice he had ever heard her mutter. Lelouch stepped to her side and almost by instinct grabbed her hand. Now that he looked at her up close it looked like she had been crying hard before falling asleep. What had happened to upset her this much? More importantly; what happened to him? He had no recollection of how he ended up in that box. What he did remember was all messed up and there was no particular point where it was cut off.

"Nii-san…" Nunnally muttered in her sleep with heartbreak lacing her voice. Lelouch was about to say something to comfort her when his mind caught up with the situation. Nunnally was heartbroken, sleeping in a lavish bedroom fit for royalty, he had woken up in a coffin and somehow managed to travel thousands of miles in an instant on two occasions. All suggested that he had died and was now a ghost, but that just didn't make sense. Whatever the case, it made him start to wonder if he should be here or not. He raised his hand from Nunnally's and stood up slowly. He should find out more about the situation he was in before making contact with Nunnally. Lelouch walked to the door that was to the right of the bed and silently slipped through. Now, how had he been able to get here in the first place? He had to lay low until he knew what was going on.

"Le… Lelouch?" A distorted voice made Lelouch almost jump out of his skin from the surprise. His heart would have been racing like crazy, if it beat at all. The voice he heard was very familiar to him; it was his voice after all. Well, his alter ego actually, but he had come to think of Zero as much of a real him than Lelouch Lamperouge, or Lelouch vi Britannia. He turned to the voice with his eyes widened and saw Zero standing ten feet away from him, seemingly frozen in place from surprise. They stared at each other for a passing moment before Zero was seemingly shaken out of his or her's shock and shot forward. Lelouch was unable to react in any way before the fist of the person wearing Zero's costume connected with his chin. His head didn't become clouded and it didn't hurt as much as it should have judging from the way he was thrown back by the punch. Lelouch only felt the impact of the fist and then a lot of things happened at once.

First Lelouch felt a crushing pressure pressing against his skin, before Zero's follow up jab to his gut made it disappear. The Zero attacking him was clearly an accomplished martial artist, possibly a special ops agent. Lelouch felt his consciousness being yanked back forcefully and then saw his right hand slashing out towards Zero's mask. The hand was not curled into a fist and it would have only served to distract Zero, but he or she still took a sudden step back as the hand was about to make contact. Whoever this was, they were incredibly fast. Lelouch started feeling the immense pressure pressing on his skin again and his view of the world was rapidly blurring, but the last thing he could make out was four horizontal cuts appearing on Zero's mask and causing the vizier, that Lelouch had prepared for him to be able to use his Geass, fall off and reveal a hazelnut brown eye that was lined with a slight red glow.

"Suzaku?" Lelouch either only thought to himself or said out loud. He had no way of knowing with the thing inside him numbing his senses. The world was blurred out and this time it didn't come back into focus immediately, there was a three second period where Lelouch felt how his flesh was torn asunder by what felt like shards of ice jutting into his flesh, over and over again. His overly analytic mind determined it couldn't have been more than three seconds, but it felt like an eternity. After the blurred darkness filled with sharp icy pain dissipated, the world assaulted his senses again. Somehow, the surrounding darkened room was too much for his senses to take and he felt his consciousness escaping him. He was unconscious before he even hit the soft carpet.

Karen

Karen was disturbed out of her dream by something and because of the paranoia that still stayed in her mind even after her part in the war, and any war for that matter, was over she held in her breath and listened closely for the sound of the possible assassin's breathing or footsteps. He stayed perfectly still for a minute and when she didn't hear anything but her step mother pacing back and forth in a neighboring room, she just turned into a more comfortable position and snuggled herself deeper into the warm and fluffy covers of her bed.

"I am so moving out…" She muttered as she bordered on sleep and consciousness, completely unaware of the figure collapsed on the floor only two meters away from her sleeping form.