A Warlock's Last Hours | CODE GEASS FANFIC |

Hour 24: Part 3

11:11, five minutes until death

Lelouch staggered forward, feeling the cold blade dig further through his flesh, the hand clutching his wound becoming washed red with warm, sticky blood.

He came to a rest on Suzaku's shoulder, hunched forward, placing a bloodied hand on the helmet of Zero, leaving a warm trail of crimson in the wake of his fingers.

Barely, just barely, Lelouch whispered out his final command, the red in his eye flaring and flying, glittering like a ruby with the sun setting slowly.

"Suzaku..." His breath came out slurred, yet soft, like a breeze of spring fluttering through the air, leaving not a shadow in it's wake. "Do you accept this Geass of mine?"

Lelouch shuddered, feeling black begin to slowly creep around the edges of his vision, and his head begin to spin.

His fingers clung tighter to the fabric of Zero's uniform, the blood staining his hands seeping into the silky folds.

Suzaku, unable to speak, his tears blurring his vision, nodded once, bringing a hand up to support his friend, not realizing what he was doing.

Lelouch fell back, his body ever graceful, head swimming with burning pain.

The sword in Suzaku's hand drooped down onto the ground, the once silver blade running with red, dripping fat drops of blood onto the float.

Lelouch staggered forward, feeling his legs collapse under him, and fell, rolling down the front of the float, painting a grisly line of crimson down the incline.

Everything hurt, everything burned. His stomach felt as though it was on fire, and every time he gasped for breath, his lungs didn't quite fill up.

The crowd was now coming back into focus, people's hands covering their mouths, some turned away, others watching with a sick sort of awe.

Lelouch felt someone take his hand, and when he looked up, there was Nunnally, her face panicked, her eyes wide with fear, her voice raw and screaming and pleading with Lelouch to please stay with her.

In that moment, Lelouch mourned everything he'd lost.

He'll never see Nunnally grow up.

The calm, blissful days in the palace seemed so long ago, the colors faded into pale whites.

He'll never be there when she gets married.

He'll never see her children.

Lelouch drew a ragged breath, feeling his chest scream.

Nunnally was crying, fat tears rolling down her face, her purple eyes begging and pleading, wide with despair and sorrow.

How desperately Lelouch wanted to reach up and pat those tears dry, and stroke her face, and tell her it would be okay, that he would live, and be her big brother, her rock, the tether and the carrier of all her woes.

It would be a lie if he did.

So instead Lelouch reached up a shaking hand, and intertwined it with Nunally's, and gave to her a last bit of his world, a last bit of his mind, the deepest, darkest pits and all he held dear.

Those hot summer days in Japan, when all they worried about was their next meal.

Those long, lonesome school days, with Milly and Rivalz and Shirley.

The Geass, flaring in his eye.

Then...

C.C.andKallenandGeassandShirleyandRoloandSuzakuandLancelotandSchneizelandMarianneandCharlesandV.V.and, at the end of all this madness, Lelouch's last tether to humanity, his last hope before succumbing eternally to the hellfire which burned in him:

Nunnally.

Lelouch wanted to shout 'I love you' so bad, and scream it into the skies, and stomp it into the ground, yell it off mountaintops and shriek it from roofs, and hold Nunnally's hands and kiss each of her fingers, and then her cheeks, and wrap his arms around her shaking body and tell her jokes until she laughs through her tears and smile so vibrantly and beautifully and delicately it makes his heart ache, like butterfly wings fluttering in the rain.

He thought of all the tomorrows he will never see, and all the chess game he would never win, the sunsets that'll never arrive, the horseback rides with Suzaku and the lazy Sundays with C.C. that will never happen; his utterance and expression of love to C.C. she will never hear.

Lelouch thought of Shirley, in her last moments, gasping for breath, the wound at her chest bubbling with blood, whispering her last words as her presence faded to nothingness.

Rolo, who gave himself for a brother that was never his. He died so Lelouch could live on, and change the world, and how ironic was it?, that to change the world Lelouch would have to forfeit his life. The life Rolo had saved.

The agonizing pain in Lelouch's stomach was beginning to fade, and the tips of his toes were beginning to feel numb, and the black that had creeped to the edge of his vision clouded further into his sight.

"I...destroy the world...and create it...anew."

It hurt to breathe.

Nunnally was still crying, but her once piercing screams dulled to a faraway thud.

All around him, Lelouch heard as people began to chant something, louder and louder, their voices joined together as one, the intensity of their cries thudding into the ground united, strong as a rock, rushing like waves through the air.

"Zero! Zero! Zero! Zero!"

Suzaku stood on top of the float, looking around, at the ecstatic crowd, full of life, and stupid hope, and his vision blurred to near blindness with tears, fighting with everything he had not to double over as people screamed at his friends creation.

Lelouch's legacy will never be remembered as his.

At the bottom of the float, Lelouch felt a sudden sort of contentment, an easiness which spread throughout him, flooding through his abandoned heart, crawling into his dulling mind.

Once upon a time, a prince longed for tomorrows.

The energetic cheers, too, began to fade, and Nunnally's touch turned cold, and the pain in Lelouch's stomach vanished without a trace.

Then,

once upon a time,

the prince gave up his tomorrows for the world's.

.

.

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