Trust
folder
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Rating:
Adult +
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Category:
+. to F › Code Geass
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
13
Views:
17,965
Reviews:
41
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Code Geass, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Reunion
Trust
A Code Geass fan fiction story
Written by Archangel
Edited by Comixgal
Chapter 6 – Reunion
{Author’s Note: This week’s chapter takes place during episode 2.02. It is dedicated to Sakura_youkai: “Amen, I say to you: ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened unto thee.” (Mt. 7:7) Enjoy!
The music suggestion this time is “Ocean Ledges” by Tim Janis. It shouldn’t be too hard to find, but feel free to email me for a copy if you wish. It’s a stunningly beautiful piece of music, so I encourage you to look it up even if you don’t care about my suggestions vis-à-vis the chapter. I’ve been keeping with the theme of Classical and semi-Classical music for this story; It seems fitting for Lelouch, the consummate chess-master. ;)
A quick reminder to everyone who enjoys my writing that I’ve started writing and posting original stories in addition to fanfic! If there isn’t a Geass chapter for a given week, that probably means I’ve posted a chapter in one of these other stories instead. To find them, check my writing blog; it’s linked in my AFF.net profile.
Further notes at the end. Enjoy, and please provide feedback! RATE and/or REVIEW, please!}
They’re like cockroaches, Kallen seethed mentally as she stared at the video feeds from all around the building. Step on a dozen and a hundred more take their place. Squash the hundred, and a thousand scuttle out from under the ‘fridge. “Damn it, why can’t these Britannian jerks just go home and leave us all be?” Kallen snarled aloud, punching the nearest metal beam.
“Britannia is addicted to conquest,” a familiar voice came from behind her. “They will never stop until they control everything. They can’t stop. That’s their great strength… and their fatal weakness.” Zero stepped fully into the light.
Kallen’s breath caught in her throat; she hadn’t had a chance to get a good look at him earlier. She remembered the face of her former schoolmate Lelouch Lamperouge, but nobody would mistake Zero for Lelouch right now. His posture, expression, that air of godlike confidence that wrapped around Zero like a cloak—that was the man Kallen had fallen in love with long before learning what his face looked like. Without that bearing, anyone in Zero’s customary costume would have looked like a cheap fake. With that bearing, Zero was unmistakable even in a disheveled school uniform.
“It’s like that old myth about sharks,” Zero continued as he stepped to Kallen’s side and focused on the monitors. “Do you know it?”
“Do you mean the story that sharks have to keep swimming at all times or they’ll die?” Kallen replied after a moment’s hesitation.
Zero nodded without looking up. “Precisely. That analogy is very accurate when it comes to the Holy Britannian Empire.” When he spoke the formal name, the sarcasm fairly dripped from Zero’s tone. Kallen had to smile a little. “If we can truly stop them in their tracks, push them out of Japan, we will have dealt a near-fatal blow. Then all we need to do is give the European Union a little aid and Britannia will falter there as well.” Zero lifted his head and fixed Kallen with his intense gaze. “And then Britannia will collapse under its own corpulent weight.”
“It can’t be as simple as that,” Kallen protested. “Britannia’s not just going to roll over and die.”
Zero nodded once more. “Indeed, there will still be a Britannia. But there will remain no ‘empire’ worthy of the name. The other Areas will follow our example one by one, and as formidable as it is, even Britannia cannot be strong everywhere at once.” Zero smiled; Kallen was reminded of a very hungry wolf. “And they will still have Zero and the Black Knights to contend with. The Britannia that emerges will be a very different place. A better place, I believe.”
Kallen’s mouth felt dry. Zero’s passion and resolve were frightening—but also exciting, Kallen had to admit to herself. In every sense of the word. Her reflection only served to heighten the young pilot’s embarrassment when Zero ran his eyes slowly up and down her body and commented “Looking good, incidentally.”
Blushing fiercely, Kallen crossed her arms over her chest, trying to hide the generous cleavage that her bunny costume went out of its way to display for any interested party. “Pervert!” Kallen snapped, but her heart wasn’t in it. She had dispensed with the ears, tail, and other accoutrements as quickly as possible, but Kallen still felt acutely vulnerable in nothing but her tights, high heels, and strapless leotard. Memories of the casual humiliation and pawing that she had endured over the last month undercover came flooding back.
It must have shown on her face because Zero’s took on an expression of genuine concern. He unbuttoned the jacket of his uniform and gently draped it over Kallen’s shoulders. She instantly slipped her arms through the sleeves and buttoned it up, regaining a bit of her dignity and modesty.
Zero laid a gentle hand on Kallen’s shoulder, his beautiful violet eyes capturing hers. “Did they hurt you?” he asked in a low, angry whisper.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Kallen mumbled, looking down at the floor.
“Oh Kallen…” Zero slipped his arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug. The sudden warmth from her normally ice-cold love shocked Kallen. But only for a moment. Then she was hugging Zero back fiercely, burying her face in his shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” Zero whispered, stroking Kallen’s hair.
Kallen Kozuki wanted to cry. She knew she needed to cry, was desperate for the release after her twenty-seven days and fifteen hours in the ‘stable’ at this horrid place. But the tears would not come. There wasn’t time for the good, long cry that Kallen needed, and some part of her knew it. So she closed her eyes and savored the feel of Zero’s warm body against hers. It felt so wonderful to be touched by a man that she knew… it wasn’t even that she knew he wouldn’t hurt her, Kallen realized. It was that she knew Zero truly respected her. And loved her. “I’m fine, really. It’s just been a very long year,” Kallen whispered. “I’ve missed you so much.” I’m acting like a friggin’ damsel in distress again, part of her mind raged silently, even if he’s not treating me like one.
The silence that followed made both of them realize their situation: trapped in a high-rise with barely a squad to work with, and probably half the Britannian forces in Area 11 surrounding them. Zero and Kallen backed apart a bit, but didn’t want to leave each other’s arms completely just yet. Zero pulled a small tactical radio from his hip pocket and thumbed the transmit switch. “Report.”
“Five minutes, Zero,” the voice on the other end responded crisply. It was amazing how quickly Zero’s return had reinvigorated all the survivors, Kallen mused. With him back, there’s hope for all of us. I just wonder if we can get out of here alive. It only came to this because—because Zero left us at the height of the battle.
“Zero,” Kallen asked quietly but firmly, “why did you leave during the battle for Tokyo? Why did you abandon us? Please, I have to know.”
Kallen braced herself for rage, for a single cryptic statement, or perhaps for no answer whatsoever. She was not expecting the way Zero deflated, suddenly unable to meet her eyes. He was still Zero, but he seemed… ashamed. Well, this is a new one, Kallen thought, running her fingers through Zero’s short, tangled hair. I love his hair, she thought irrelevantly as she waited for a reply. It’s like spun silk.
“I… it was a personal matter,” Zero finally replied. “My sister, Nunnally, she was kidnapped and taken to that island. I had just found out. I hoped that you, Tohdoh, Diethard, and Oghi could handle things in my absence… but I should have known better.”
Kallen nodded, looking up at Zero with no expression on her face. “We’re all very good,” she replied, “but you were needed to inspire the troops, to show us the path to a crushing victory. Without you, we can’t succeed. With you, we can’t fail.”
“I know,” Zero said quietly, “I know. But Nunnally… she’s the reason I began all of this. She’s my reason for living. Well,” he amended with a weak smile, “maybe one of my two reasons now. In any case, I couldn’t take the chance of losing her. I just couldn’t.”
Kallen nodded again, relaxing a bit. It didn’t make her any happier about the way things had fallen out, but having an answer took a large weight off her mind. “I… understand, Zero,” she murmured. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to defeat Kururugi at Kamiya Island. If I had—”
“—Then the battle might still have been lost. We might both have died at the kidnapper’s hands. There’s no way to know,” Zero cut her off gently, regaining his customary poise. “In any case, the blame is entirely mine. What’s done is done, what’s past is past. We need to look ahead to the future, Kallen. The future of Japan… and our future.”
“You really think we have a future? I mean, together?” Kallen asked, barely able to conceal her joy at Zero’s matter-of-fact statement.
“Assuming we both live through all of this,” Zero replied dryly. “Kallen, please don’t relate any of that to *anybody*, even the other Knights. If it gets out, Nunnally will surely be in danger. I can’t let that happen.”
Kallen nodded her understanding.
Zero sighed and pulled away from Kallen with one last kiss to her cheek. “It’s almost time. Better get to the Gurren MkII. Fight well, my knight.”
“Your knight?” Kallen asked in some bemusement.
“It’s customary for each member of the Royal Family to have a personal knight if they so choose,” Zero explained with an extremely sardonic smile. “I *am* a Prince, you know.”
Kallen was still laughing as she settled herself into the cockpit of her knightmare.
{More Author’s Note: This chapter was originally posted as a beta due to communication problems with my editor. It was a bit… darker in that version. I’d like to sincerely thank Farsight for calling me on it. This finalized chapter is better as a result. Let this be a lesson to LEAVE REVIEWS! I really do listen to what you say!
As the story’s gone on, I’ve gotten worse and worse about bending—nay, breaking—Lelouch and Kallen’s characters in the name of entertainment. I’ve continued this tradition here, and I hope you all enjoy the results. I’ve also had to rewrite the show’s canon slightly, again for entertainment value. I’m still trying to conform to the canonical storyline as much as possible.
Okay, to quickly clarify the rewritten events: when Zero took off at the end of R1, Kallen followed him and ended up in knightmare combat with Suzaku on Kamiya Island. She lost, and was forced to eject out to sea, where the Black Knights’ submarine eventually picked her up. Thus, she played no part in the confrontation between Lelouch and Suzaku, and was unable to prevent Zero’s capture and so forth. Kallen still does not know what Geass is or how it works; we’ll get to that in a later chapter, I promise!
For the record, I’m not nearly naïve enough to think that Britannia will crumble so easily, and neither does Zero. But it’s good rhetoric, if that makes sense. If it doesn’t, don’t worry about it too much. It’s not really relevant to the story.
I actually banged out the beta draft of this chapter in less than three hours, at work, feeling sick and achy, strung out on various over-the-counter cold meds. I hope the chapter doesn’t suck as a result. If it does suck, well that’s why. If it doesn’t suck, then go me! You know, sometimes I amaze even myself. ^^
It’ll probably be another broadcasted episode or two of Geass before I find a good spot for another chapter of this story. And since Adult Swim currently seems to be stalling the show… well, all in favor of abducting Mike Lazzo and beating him half-to-death with rubber chickens please raise your hands. (Only joking, but the thought *is* tempting in the abstract.)
Alpha Readers: AnimeFreak859,
See you next chapter! Same Angel time, same Angel channel!}
A Code Geass fan fiction story
Written by Archangel
Edited by Comixgal
Chapter 6 – Reunion
{Author’s Note: This week’s chapter takes place during episode 2.02. It is dedicated to Sakura_youkai: “Amen, I say to you: ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened unto thee.” (Mt. 7:7) Enjoy!
The music suggestion this time is “Ocean Ledges” by Tim Janis. It shouldn’t be too hard to find, but feel free to email me for a copy if you wish. It’s a stunningly beautiful piece of music, so I encourage you to look it up even if you don’t care about my suggestions vis-à-vis the chapter. I’ve been keeping with the theme of Classical and semi-Classical music for this story; It seems fitting for Lelouch, the consummate chess-master. ;)
A quick reminder to everyone who enjoys my writing that I’ve started writing and posting original stories in addition to fanfic! If there isn’t a Geass chapter for a given week, that probably means I’ve posted a chapter in one of these other stories instead. To find them, check my writing blog; it’s linked in my AFF.net profile.
Further notes at the end. Enjoy, and please provide feedback! RATE and/or REVIEW, please!}
They’re like cockroaches, Kallen seethed mentally as she stared at the video feeds from all around the building. Step on a dozen and a hundred more take their place. Squash the hundred, and a thousand scuttle out from under the ‘fridge. “Damn it, why can’t these Britannian jerks just go home and leave us all be?” Kallen snarled aloud, punching the nearest metal beam.
“Britannia is addicted to conquest,” a familiar voice came from behind her. “They will never stop until they control everything. They can’t stop. That’s their great strength… and their fatal weakness.” Zero stepped fully into the light.
Kallen’s breath caught in her throat; she hadn’t had a chance to get a good look at him earlier. She remembered the face of her former schoolmate Lelouch Lamperouge, but nobody would mistake Zero for Lelouch right now. His posture, expression, that air of godlike confidence that wrapped around Zero like a cloak—that was the man Kallen had fallen in love with long before learning what his face looked like. Without that bearing, anyone in Zero’s customary costume would have looked like a cheap fake. With that bearing, Zero was unmistakable even in a disheveled school uniform.
“It’s like that old myth about sharks,” Zero continued as he stepped to Kallen’s side and focused on the monitors. “Do you know it?”
“Do you mean the story that sharks have to keep swimming at all times or they’ll die?” Kallen replied after a moment’s hesitation.
Zero nodded without looking up. “Precisely. That analogy is very accurate when it comes to the Holy Britannian Empire.” When he spoke the formal name, the sarcasm fairly dripped from Zero’s tone. Kallen had to smile a little. “If we can truly stop them in their tracks, push them out of Japan, we will have dealt a near-fatal blow. Then all we need to do is give the European Union a little aid and Britannia will falter there as well.” Zero lifted his head and fixed Kallen with his intense gaze. “And then Britannia will collapse under its own corpulent weight.”
“It can’t be as simple as that,” Kallen protested. “Britannia’s not just going to roll over and die.”
Zero nodded once more. “Indeed, there will still be a Britannia. But there will remain no ‘empire’ worthy of the name. The other Areas will follow our example one by one, and as formidable as it is, even Britannia cannot be strong everywhere at once.” Zero smiled; Kallen was reminded of a very hungry wolf. “And they will still have Zero and the Black Knights to contend with. The Britannia that emerges will be a very different place. A better place, I believe.”
Kallen’s mouth felt dry. Zero’s passion and resolve were frightening—but also exciting, Kallen had to admit to herself. In every sense of the word. Her reflection only served to heighten the young pilot’s embarrassment when Zero ran his eyes slowly up and down her body and commented “Looking good, incidentally.”
Blushing fiercely, Kallen crossed her arms over her chest, trying to hide the generous cleavage that her bunny costume went out of its way to display for any interested party. “Pervert!” Kallen snapped, but her heart wasn’t in it. She had dispensed with the ears, tail, and other accoutrements as quickly as possible, but Kallen still felt acutely vulnerable in nothing but her tights, high heels, and strapless leotard. Memories of the casual humiliation and pawing that she had endured over the last month undercover came flooding back.
It must have shown on her face because Zero’s took on an expression of genuine concern. He unbuttoned the jacket of his uniform and gently draped it over Kallen’s shoulders. She instantly slipped her arms through the sleeves and buttoned it up, regaining a bit of her dignity and modesty.
Zero laid a gentle hand on Kallen’s shoulder, his beautiful violet eyes capturing hers. “Did they hurt you?” he asked in a low, angry whisper.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Kallen mumbled, looking down at the floor.
“Oh Kallen…” Zero slipped his arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug. The sudden warmth from her normally ice-cold love shocked Kallen. But only for a moment. Then she was hugging Zero back fiercely, burying her face in his shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” Zero whispered, stroking Kallen’s hair.
Kallen Kozuki wanted to cry. She knew she needed to cry, was desperate for the release after her twenty-seven days and fifteen hours in the ‘stable’ at this horrid place. But the tears would not come. There wasn’t time for the good, long cry that Kallen needed, and some part of her knew it. So she closed her eyes and savored the feel of Zero’s warm body against hers. It felt so wonderful to be touched by a man that she knew… it wasn’t even that she knew he wouldn’t hurt her, Kallen realized. It was that she knew Zero truly respected her. And loved her. “I’m fine, really. It’s just been a very long year,” Kallen whispered. “I’ve missed you so much.” I’m acting like a friggin’ damsel in distress again, part of her mind raged silently, even if he’s not treating me like one.
The silence that followed made both of them realize their situation: trapped in a high-rise with barely a squad to work with, and probably half the Britannian forces in Area 11 surrounding them. Zero and Kallen backed apart a bit, but didn’t want to leave each other’s arms completely just yet. Zero pulled a small tactical radio from his hip pocket and thumbed the transmit switch. “Report.”
“Five minutes, Zero,” the voice on the other end responded crisply. It was amazing how quickly Zero’s return had reinvigorated all the survivors, Kallen mused. With him back, there’s hope for all of us. I just wonder if we can get out of here alive. It only came to this because—because Zero left us at the height of the battle.
“Zero,” Kallen asked quietly but firmly, “why did you leave during the battle for Tokyo? Why did you abandon us? Please, I have to know.”
Kallen braced herself for rage, for a single cryptic statement, or perhaps for no answer whatsoever. She was not expecting the way Zero deflated, suddenly unable to meet her eyes. He was still Zero, but he seemed… ashamed. Well, this is a new one, Kallen thought, running her fingers through Zero’s short, tangled hair. I love his hair, she thought irrelevantly as she waited for a reply. It’s like spun silk.
“I… it was a personal matter,” Zero finally replied. “My sister, Nunnally, she was kidnapped and taken to that island. I had just found out. I hoped that you, Tohdoh, Diethard, and Oghi could handle things in my absence… but I should have known better.”
Kallen nodded, looking up at Zero with no expression on her face. “We’re all very good,” she replied, “but you were needed to inspire the troops, to show us the path to a crushing victory. Without you, we can’t succeed. With you, we can’t fail.”
“I know,” Zero said quietly, “I know. But Nunnally… she’s the reason I began all of this. She’s my reason for living. Well,” he amended with a weak smile, “maybe one of my two reasons now. In any case, I couldn’t take the chance of losing her. I just couldn’t.”
Kallen nodded again, relaxing a bit. It didn’t make her any happier about the way things had fallen out, but having an answer took a large weight off her mind. “I… understand, Zero,” she murmured. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to defeat Kururugi at Kamiya Island. If I had—”
“—Then the battle might still have been lost. We might both have died at the kidnapper’s hands. There’s no way to know,” Zero cut her off gently, regaining his customary poise. “In any case, the blame is entirely mine. What’s done is done, what’s past is past. We need to look ahead to the future, Kallen. The future of Japan… and our future.”
“You really think we have a future? I mean, together?” Kallen asked, barely able to conceal her joy at Zero’s matter-of-fact statement.
“Assuming we both live through all of this,” Zero replied dryly. “Kallen, please don’t relate any of that to *anybody*, even the other Knights. If it gets out, Nunnally will surely be in danger. I can’t let that happen.”
Kallen nodded her understanding.
Zero sighed and pulled away from Kallen with one last kiss to her cheek. “It’s almost time. Better get to the Gurren MkII. Fight well, my knight.”
“Your knight?” Kallen asked in some bemusement.
“It’s customary for each member of the Royal Family to have a personal knight if they so choose,” Zero explained with an extremely sardonic smile. “I *am* a Prince, you know.”
Kallen was still laughing as she settled herself into the cockpit of her knightmare.
{More Author’s Note: This chapter was originally posted as a beta due to communication problems with my editor. It was a bit… darker in that version. I’d like to sincerely thank Farsight for calling me on it. This finalized chapter is better as a result. Let this be a lesson to LEAVE REVIEWS! I really do listen to what you say!
As the story’s gone on, I’ve gotten worse and worse about bending—nay, breaking—Lelouch and Kallen’s characters in the name of entertainment. I’ve continued this tradition here, and I hope you all enjoy the results. I’ve also had to rewrite the show’s canon slightly, again for entertainment value. I’m still trying to conform to the canonical storyline as much as possible.
Okay, to quickly clarify the rewritten events: when Zero took off at the end of R1, Kallen followed him and ended up in knightmare combat with Suzaku on Kamiya Island. She lost, and was forced to eject out to sea, where the Black Knights’ submarine eventually picked her up. Thus, she played no part in the confrontation between Lelouch and Suzaku, and was unable to prevent Zero’s capture and so forth. Kallen still does not know what Geass is or how it works; we’ll get to that in a later chapter, I promise!
For the record, I’m not nearly naïve enough to think that Britannia will crumble so easily, and neither does Zero. But it’s good rhetoric, if that makes sense. If it doesn’t, don’t worry about it too much. It’s not really relevant to the story.
I actually banged out the beta draft of this chapter in less than three hours, at work, feeling sick and achy, strung out on various over-the-counter cold meds. I hope the chapter doesn’t suck as a result. If it does suck, well that’s why. If it doesn’t suck, then go me! You know, sometimes I amaze even myself. ^^
It’ll probably be another broadcasted episode or two of Geass before I find a good spot for another chapter of this story. And since Adult Swim currently seems to be stalling the show… well, all in favor of abducting Mike Lazzo and beating him half-to-death with rubber chickens please raise your hands. (Only joking, but the thought *is* tempting in the abstract.)
Alpha Readers: AnimeFreak859,
See you next chapter! Same Angel time, same Angel channel!}