Author Note: I don't know yet whether I ought to class this as Anfangspiel or Mittespiel. And if you don't know what I mean by that, please, PLEASE go read my updated profile. You're going to need to know what the hell I'm on about. I has a system now, I has.

It hadn't been poison gas at all. Not gas, but a girl.

Suzaku reached down to loosen her bonds, his head still reeling. The moisture and chill of the underground tunnel seemed to seep through his uniform, to penetrate his bones, to weigh down upon him like the pressure of some bottomless marine depth. What kind of secret was this? Or had Britannia been mistaken? The girl shifted, and Suzaku worked harder to make her comfortable. A girl… and on her other side, propping her up by her shoulders….

Lelouch vi Britannia.

Suzaku's emotions skipped and tangled. His old friend, here, of all places? Here, mixed with terrorists and in danger of being killed? Suzaku was glad that it hadn't been gas, for now Lelouch knelt opposite him, solid and quiet and there. No illusion, no poison gas reaction had curled around his senses and taken a sinister hold. There was truly no mistaking that voice, that arrogant explosion toward the Britannian Empire. Lelouch was real, and Suzaku remembered him. Seven years had passed.

The chill in his bones receded, as if driven away by the warmth of memory.

Lelouch was frowning down at the captive girl. Suzaku opened his mouth to speak, his heart pounding. "But in the briefing, they said—"

A light flicked on without warning. Suzaku started more violently than he would have liked — choked on his words — and when he turned around, a row of Britannian soldiers fanned out across the tunnel's expanse. Suzaku stood and moved forward to confront the leading officer, who was already hurling accusations.

The officer glared over the scar that disfigured his right eye. "You have no right to question us," he thundered at Suzaku's unspoken inquiry about what was really going on.

Ah, so it was some classified Britannian secret. Suzaku felt the muscles in his body relax. It didn't matter; such a situation was not for someone of his rank to know, and for now there was no more danger. The girl would most likely be freed. Lelouch would be safe….

"But I recognize your valor," the officer was barking. Suzaku regretted not having listened more intently. "I will give you another chance." The man slipped something fatal and metal from its holster, offering it to Suzaku like a deity's sacred trinket. "Private Kururugi… use this to kill the terrorist." The man's eyes were focused somewhere over Suzaku's shoulder.

Suzaku whirled. L-Lelouch?

"No, he's not…" Suzaku protested quickly. He would not allow anyone to accuse the boy with whom he'd just reunited. "He's just a civilian, caught up in all of this."

The Britannian officer roared. "How dare you? This is an order!"

Reluctantly, Suzaku dragged his eyes away from Lelouch. A prickle of sudden discomfort raised the hairs at the back of his neck, but he obediently stood his ground. Lelouch sported a school uniform. Lelouch was a Britannian. They could not possibly confuse him with a terrorist, could not possibly murder an innocent.

"You swore allegiance to Britannia," the officer threatened when Suzaku still did not accept the weapon, and in that moment Suzaku realized that something was horribly, dangerously wrong. He considered panicking for the space of an instant.

Then, he decided to persevere. Suzaku believed in the system; it would be okay, as long as he refused to bend to misconduct.

"That's true," he began curtly, for he had sworn allegiance. Lelouch's flinch of apprehension did not escape his notice. Suzaku ignored the proffered gun and locked eyes with his superior. "But I cannot."

"What?" A warning.

"I will not." Suzaku turned to face Lelouch again, resolution setting him awash with calm. He caught Lelouch's gaze and held it tenderly. "I will not kill a civilian. I will not shoot him." Lelouch — arrogant, fearless, and now surprised, his friend so dear to him….

"Then die." There echoed a click that jolted his survival instinct.

Suzaku's reflexes shot into action, but not quickly enough. The elation, the lazy, languid warmth that had wrapped him the moment he recognized Lelouch… he'd been too slow to act this time.

The last thing Suzaku heard was Lelouch's hoarse, panicked shriek. "SUZAKU!"

— x —

A plane of being without the senses. He could neither touch nor see. He could not hear. Suzaku Kururugi was bound to a state of nothing, and yet, if it were truly nothing, then how did he know to name it?

He could not feel, for there was nothing to provoke response. He did not want, for he was a form without substance, outside the physical and lost to all matter. He was not even sure that his thoughts existed, disembodied as they were, and voiceless, and vague. Memory was a concept with no validation, for what was not could not be remembered, and Suzaku's presence was not. Still, an awareness swarmed him. Suzaku reached for something, reached with whatever spark of him subsisted.

In the darkness, there came a light. It pierced the unknown and a beam of white burst forth to greet him. You're dying, Suzaku.

Words at last. Was this the end as suggested, then — a message from divinity — or was he merely dreaming? And, if so, what deep, consuming dream was this? Suzaku reached again, sought with a flare of energy the physical realm that he knew, the answers he felt must be there. He waded through atoms, danced through particles of light.

Gentle laughter.

Images bubbled up from the glare of white light, and this couldn't be the end, for it was far too exquisite. Lush foliage sprung into being in his realm far from consciousness, filling his vision although he knew his eyes were closed. Shapes taking form, as if created from air — the gentle curve of a wheeled chair, and a boy with violet eyes, smirking farther away, in the distance. His features sharpened into focus, then turned bleary again… fading in and out, eluding recognition and yet seeming to deliver a metaphysical touch of familiarity. Suzaku felt… comforted. This couldn't be death. Sandy blonde locks on the child in the foreground, a smile sweeter than nectar, her eyelids closed. All the light shone green now, soft and blurred through the sieve of leaves, cloaking the familiar-unfamiliar boy in luminescent patchwork.

And then there were three. Suzaku was small again, Suzaku existed in the place that they did. His heart lifted free of its pain. He had not known there was pain until the two figures existed to lift it. No, this couldn't be death. But a dream, yes, a beautiful dream, with something in its majesty that Suzaku felt he should identify… but he was too far lost to recall names or places. Only feeling, only solace. He would seek to cherish the vision when he woke up… if he woke up, if he truly lay alive on another plane.

Alive. The word echoed somewhere distant, threatening to pull Suzaku back from his haven of gentle pastels, from the bliss that came as two children's hands reached for him. Suddenly, firm clarity — satisfaction in identification — and Suzaku knew who they were.

How he had longed for them.

Suzaku's fingers closed around Lelouch's when Lelouch strode forward to take his hand. Nunnally grasped his shirtsleeve. He smiled at them. They smiled back. Live, Kururugi Suzaku. He ruffled Nunnally's hair.

But what, he thought, although in his dream he merely grasped Lelouch's hand tighter, What is the point of going back if it means leaving you behind?

The light changed. Suzaku sank into purple, deep purple; it expanded and encompassed his dream-body until he felt pleasantly smothered in the hue. With the color came vivid memory, clear and engaging as Suzaku slipped back into himself, increment by increment. Closer again to the realm of the tangible. Yes, now he could recall it. Lelouch had been in his present.

Words free-floated through the current of Suzaku's mind on replay. It's me, Suzaku. You joined Britannia? It can't be…. None of them mattered. Lelouch had been there. Suzaku hadn't wanted to hurt him. He's just a civilian…. I cannot, I will not. You swore allegiance! But he hadn't sworn to kill the innocent.

Where was Lelouch now? Alive, he hoped, if there was a God or a Britannia worth believing in. Suzaku ached to know what had become of his friend. But Suzaku… was dying?….

Pain rose up again, twice as corporeal. So he was dying, after all. But what of his beautiful dream?

Sounds. Sounds seeming to come from two places at once — within and without. Nestled inside him, a blanket of a voice murmured in opposition to the din and the shooting pain. It spoke, reassuring and smooth, deep and familiar and telling him to listen, listen, listen to what? Suzaku burned. Don't stop, please don't stop, I want to hear your voice until I have to go. Just a moment longer to me whisper, please don't fade away…. Grating, jarring noises outside his serene purple haze… tugging, tugging at his consciousness, scraping and bleeping and begging, come back, come back Suzaku, try it just once more, don't apply too much pressure there make sure his heart rate is stable doctor please wait please the bleeding…. A tearing, grating shriek that ripped from his lungs, one that Suzaku heard only dimly. The scream — a reaction caused by a sensation he did not feel, because it came from some disconnected place…. That crucial voice lost beneath the roaring.

His dream realm went to war with the world that wanted him back, but this time, nothing about Suzaku's fantasy was winsome. Fire fought with fire, the unconscious slideshow of images becoming harsh to triumph over the harshness on the outside, for perhaps… the only way to conquer suffering is to recognize that there are worse ways to suffer.

Suzaku found his disembodied spirit self in peril. Purple darkened to crimson and the voice he had sought became formidable. A figure moved forward in the gloom, but his face was concealed. Darkness engulfed Suzaku next, heavy like a cape, and he fell, but the fall brought him to safety. It didn't make sense, and could he trust the new presence in his dream or not? Then, a whirlwind of broken scenery. Numbers marching past, speaking their own strange code, some ludicrous binary platoon… zero, eleven, zero, eleven. A kaleidoscope of inanimate objects, wafting toward him through the blackness as if bewitched, the white horse's head most prominent — colorless, flawless marble. Flashes of something wet and glistening-ruby assaulted Suzaku next, sliding slick down his front. Was he dying again? No, the blood was someone else's, that of someone dear to him. Suzaku felt… angry. Kururugi Suzaku! He didn't want to listen any more. No, please, why did this happen? Give back what was taken! But the voice, the voice only continued to tell him to live, and Suzaku's dream was fast dissolving from something substantial and comforting to something nightmarish and thin. The pain pulsated, near unbearable now in both worlds; there was not enough tranquility left to hold it at bay, and Suzaku could not fight it. Another flash to the past, to holding Lelouch's hand, but in quick succession the present interfered, and then the future, where he could not grasp that hand again although he so desperately wanted to reacquaint himself with what had gone….

The figure of himself, crying now in an empty room — empty save a cool metallic hilt in his grip.

Inside Suzaku's world of illusions, the sense of loss flared to its height, total. It invaded, ate away at him, became him. He could not reach the one he wanted to reach, could not understand anything, was not allowed to return to the way things had been. The all-consuming torment that throbbed within this realization frustrated Suzaku, for there seemed to be no purpose for it. Why was he hurting, why couldn't he change it? Suzaku could not decipher a meaning from the images and feelings. But such pain, in this world or in life… he could not bear it.

He heard the distant beep of a monitor and the clatter of medical tools. He would have to go back; they were dragging him back. He would have to bear the agony. And one day, to stop the agony from hindering his proper punishment, Suzaku would simply have to hide it beneath a mask. He'd keep going, because it would not be only his redemption hanging in the balance. Yes, he had no choice but to endure. Suzaku didn't know how he knew it.

Live, Kururugi Suzaku!

A shallow gasp for air. Suzaku breathed, felt the piercing ache of such a labor. His body convulsed, slick with sweat that chilled him. Inside him, he burned like a star, felt the rise of living sensation flowing forth like a gravity-instigated tide.

Suzaku was pulled. He was pulled back. He was pulled forward, by the thought of one man alone.

— x —

Suzaku opened his eyes.

"You were so close to those Pearly Gates, Private Kururugi," announced Lloyd jovially, who until mere moments ago had hovered too close to the semi-conscious, prone patient.

Suzaku Kururugi pushed himself to a sitting position, grimacing at the ache beneath his bandages. He perceived the room as if through mist; it took a moment for his vision to clear. His mind lagged behind his body, functioning at only half-speed. "Where am I?" he asked shakily.

Only part of the explanation made it through his haze. There was Cécile, standing to one side with an item clutched in her hands and a face of pure relief…. Lloyd said something about being in the Shinjuku Ghetto, and Cécile chimed in that they were under the protection of Prince Clovis. But why… why was his heart beating so quickly? Suzaku struggled through the mire of muddled recollections in his brain library. This feeling… and something he needed to remember….

"Suzaku, this thing saved you." Cécile stepped forward and offered him a round, flattish object. Suzaku looked on blankly, reaching for it after a pause. "Is it something precious to you?"

"Yes," Suzaku replied softly, but when he took the object in his hand, he felt that his connection with it was not what he had been seeking.

"I hear the Elevens believe there's a god for every object," Lloyd was exclaiming, as Suzaku gazed down at the numbers on the watch, searching its face for the familiar features he sat failing to grasp. Faces from a dream…. What was so crucial that Suzaku had forgotten? He felt as if he'd been gone from the world a long, long time, and that the truths of the life he'd lived in unconsciousness were hopelessly lost — but better left to the place from whence they had sprung. A fevered, passionate dream had left him in shambles, and yet…. A piece, at least, was still relevant. What detail about the incident that injured him had—

Suzaku twitched to life with a noise of anxiety, cutting Lloyd off mid-ramble. He remembered.

"Is Lelou—"

Cécile started at his fervent interruption, concern slipping into her expression. Lloyd monitored him with discerning scrutiny.

The rest of Suzaku's inquiry died. He faltered, uncertain of himself in all but his duties as an Honorary Britannian. He averted his eyes.

"What's the situation?" he asked quietly.