The Seventeenth Time's a Charm

Lelouch vi Britannia opened his eyes, took in the surroundings of his old room in the Aries Villa, blinked twice, and said one distinct word.

"Fuck."

He groaned and slid off his bed, absently noting the time to be 6:43 AM. Padding over to his closet, he plucked a random selection of clothing out, scowling when he remembered his mother liked to dress him in frills. He sighed and vowed to get some less frilly clothing some time soon.

After quickly shirking his selections on, he stealthily slid down to the kitchens. He looked over around, and luckily nobody was awake yet. He made himself a turkey sandwich and some chocolate milk – the latter being a secret addiction of his.

'So,' Lelouch thought to himself somewhat irritably, 'this is, what, attempt number seventeen so far, huh. But this is definitely quite the change of scenery…'

There was one thing to make a note of, if one were observing the raven-haired youth. He thought and moved far more gracefully than any ten-year-old would or should, even within his table manners. This, perhaps, was because Lelouch vi Britannia found himself in quite an odd predicament.

He had a tendency to repeat history, quite literally.

When he had first been killed by Suzaku, those many mental years ago, he had died. Immediately afterwards, he found himself back on that fateful day when he had met C.C. received his Geass. Initially, he had thought he was merely reliving his memories as he died, but then Lelouch had been too shocked by the situation and had died again when the head officer shot him after he did nothing. That had resulted in him 're-spawning' and then using his Geass to kill them.

After that second attempt, he had finally reached his dream of uniting the world in peace.

And then he died again after an anti-Britannian cultist shot him during a speech. So he started over again. And again and again.

Despite his many attempts, and no matter what he did, he always ended up back in that low-lit, bloody warehouse about to die with C.C. laying at his feet.

This seventeenth redo was perhaps the most interesting so far because he had appeared at the beginning. But he was tired, at this point.

Seeing everything he had accomplished only to be done away by some mystical process that left only him remembering and everyone else forgetting left him terribly upset. It could be likened to a gamer finally beating a long video game, only for the power to go off and realizing that he didn't save the game. Frustrating, indeed.

Lelouch pondered this conundrum with a bored expression upon his seemingly youthful face.

"This sucks," he summed up aloud eloquently.

He then heard the door creek open behind him.

"M-My Prince!" One of the guards had found him, then. "I-It's terrible! In the main hall! Her Majesty Lady Marianne…!"

The violet-eyed man in a boy's body slid out of his chair and gestured for the guard to lead him, the bored expression never leaving his face.

XXXXX-XXXXX

Cornelia li Britannia could only stare in shock and horror as she viewed the cold corpse of her longtime idol and stepmother, Marianne vi Britannia. Underneath her was the shaking form of Nunally, her younger step-sister. The poor girl was hyperventilating; her eyes were wide open in fear as the six-year old lay in the pool of her mother's blood.

The purple haired twenty year old clenched her fists in a silent rage. "Guards! Examine every inch of the palace! I want the assassin found, and I want him in chains YESTERDAY!" she bellowed angrily.

"Yes, Your Highness!" they shouted and grimly began their search of the grounds.

Cornelia nodded and turned back to the gruesome scene. She pointed at a young blue-haired guard who had straggled behind. "You! What's your name?" she demanded.

The guard gulped and fearfully replied, "J-Jeremiah Gottwald! Your Majesty!"

She eyed him for a full minute, making him squirm in place. She nodded towards the body and her younger sister. "Remove Princess Nunally and have her taken into intensive care."

Jeremiah nodded quickly and set about his grim task.

Before he could continue, another guard came in through the side doors, and stood straight before announcing, "His Royal Highness, Eleventh Prince Lelouch vi Britannia!"

The raven-haired youth entered the hall with an air of detachment.

Cornelia swallowed the bile rising in the back of her throat as she silently nodded to her brother, who nodded in return and strode forward to inspect the body of his mother while Jeremiah saluted them and set about his task gently.

Lelouch, for his part, continued to think, his mind not really on the scene before him. 'This is really starting to get on my nerves…' His eyes narrowed as he glared at the corpse of his mother. 'This woman…she ceased to be my mother the day she and Charles zi Britannia came up with that foolish plan…' He sighed tiredly. 'You know what? Fuck this. It's too early in the morning.'

Unbeknownst to him, Cornelia spotted the glare and hoped against hope that he would be level-headed about the murder. God knew what the boy would do, as he was a prince and he was technically pretty high in the chain of command.

Therefore, she was pretty surprised when all Lelouch did was yawn and head up the stairs.

"Lelouch!" she called, highly confused at his behavior. "Where are you going?"

He turned around slightly, violet eyes boring into her own lavender ones. "I'm going back to bed."

A/N: Procrastinating while writing an English essay at 4AM equals this. *shrugs*