"The Inhibitor is almost complete. Would have been done far sooner if you'd let it be implanted in his head…"

…

"I'm not letting you disfigure my son for what is at best a temporary solution."

…

"Oho~? So you do care about him?"

…

"Of course I am, he's my son. Why are you surprised by this?"

…

"Heh. Oh, no reason."

…

Chapter 22: Wish of A Thousand Cranes

He'd thought that, after his cold dismissal of her, Kaiya would leave him alone—especially since she had no reason to hunt for him at Maiami Second Middle School, since she didn't even go to it. Well, apparently she did have a valid reason to find him after school—she used to hang out with her friends from You Show Duel School, but she was a current member of Leo Duel School, had been for about seven months now.

Just my luck, he groaned inwardly, as the girl attempted to get him to talk to her while they walked to LDS. Sometimes it was easy to ignore her, because she only asked random, innocent questions or she rambled on and on about her own life. Other times, she asked questions that she didn't think were bad, but hurt for him to hear.

"What's your family like?"

Well, let's see. My dad dropped off the face of the Earth when I was only three, and I found out it's because he went to a different dimension and turned it into his own army for an interdimensional war. My brother—my older brother—has been in a coma for over two months because we lost to one of our father's soldiers. My mother won't tell me what's wrong with Reiji that keeps him in a coma. She hasn't even let me see him yet. Oh, and my little brother, who was adopted while I was missing, is nothing more than the shell of a human being, yet he's allowed to see Reiji.

(And that's not even getting into Lelouch's family…)

"What happened to your eye?"

As if he didn't have enough reminders of his powerlessness.

"Hey, how come you're always wearing that red scarf? It's not even cold out…"

Because it's the symbol of the Resistance… and, and because it reminds me of my brother…

But the one that made him finally stop and pay attention to her was when she stopped him by grabbing his arm, staring at him with her sad green eyes. "Lulu, you can't shut everyone out forever," she said. "That's no way to live."

His heart froze at that, his throat feeling like it was crushed. "Wh-What did you call me?" he choked out. He wished he was more composed, that just made everything worse.

"I—huh?" Her face scrunched up, and she let go of his arm to scratch her chin. "I called you, Lulu, that's… that's your nickname." That made her rub her forehead like she was trying to dispel a headache. "Wait… Reizo… Lulu… but that's…"

She, she remembers… not much of anything, but she remembers…!

He ran away after that, and Kaiya was too lost in thought to chase after him.

For the next few days, Kaiya did not meet up with him between school and LDS, and Reizo found the silence… completely unsettling. He'd thought that her incessant talking and her just being there was too much for him to handle, yet now her absence found him constantly looking over his shoulder to see if she was there, and the sinking feeling in his gut to grow worse every time he found that she wasn't there.

After a fourth day in a row of not seeing her, Reizo decided that was enough. It was ridiculous, but he needed her… at least during the walk between schools.

The student registry of Leo Duel School was public, of course, but what specific course each student was taking remained private. Reizo wasn't sure which course Kaiya was in, and it could take days for him to go around to each to look for her. Because of that, just this once, he was glad that he was an Akaba. He could access student records through his mother.

So, after dinner that day, he decided to pay a visit to his mother in the office that should be Reiji's. She acknowledged him by saying his name, but did not look up from her paperwork.

He was used to this by now, though. Ever since he got out of the hospital, his mother barely paid attention to him. Still, that didn't stop the slightest of pangs from running through his chest. "Mother, I have a question for you," he said.

Without looking up from per papers, she said, "Make it quick, Reizo. I have a conference call in just a few minutes."

"It's about a student that goes here, Hiroe Kaiya. I would like to know what course she's in."

At the mention of Kaiya, Himika's pen stopped moving—for a split second—and the slightest of frowns appeared on her face. "Hiroe Kaiya, you said? What business do you have with her?"

Reizo didn't miss the defensive tone in his mother's voice. What did she have against Kaiya? "I have something important to discuss with her, so I'm trying to find where she is. That's all."

Himika narrowed her eyes, and finally looked up at her son. "…Synchro," she said slowly. "That girl is a member of the Synchro Course."

That took him by surprise. "Synchro? But, she—she uses 'Ghostricks'. There aren't any Synchro Monsters for her to use with that Deck… shouldn't she be in the Xyz Course?"

A quiet alarm started beeping on the desk, leaving Reizo's question unanswered as his mother had to start that conference call.

Synchro…

As soon as classes let out the next day, Reizo hightailed it over to the floor used for the Synchro Course. He made it in time for the majority of the students to still be on the floor, either waiting for the elevator or making their way to the stairs if they didn't want to wait. Craning his neck, he tried looking around for someone with orange hair, but he couldn't see anyone. Mostly brown, black, a few purple or blue, and one blonde, but no orange.

She probably already left…

But, no, he couldn't give up yet. He reached out and stopped one of the kids that was walking by, some boy with wild brown hair and a sword of all things strapped to his back—is he allowed to do that?—and said, "Hey, do you know a girl named Hiroe Kaiya?"

"Kaiya?" the boy repeated, then jabbed a finger towards one of the classrooms. "Last I saw, she was talking to Professor Hayashi."

"Thank you, so much," Reizo said, quickly bowing slightly before he darted into the classroom the boy had pointed out. The teacher must have already stepped out, but Kaiya was there, fixing her bag over her shoulder. He stopped at the door and gripped the doorframe tightly. Kaiya was wearing an outfit that looked almost exactly like the one Shirley had been wearing when she died.

He must have made some sort of sound, because Kaiya looked up at him, startled. "O-Oh! Lu—I mean—Reizo!" she exclaimed, flinching when she started to call him "Lulu". "What… What a surprise. Did you need Professor Hayashi? He stepped out to go to the bathroom just a minute ago…"

Reizo shook his head. "No, I need you, Kaiya. We really need to talk about what happened last week. Let me start by apologizing for my actions, I should not have run away from you. I just…" He trailed off, not sure of what to say. He'd spent all his time just trying to find her. "Does… Does the name 'Lelouch' sound familiar to you at all?"

From her sharp intake of breath, he knew the answer was yes.

"What about 'Shirley'?"

She dropped her bag and covered her mouth, her olive eyes wide in shock. "Why… how do you…?"

"Those were our names, in a past life," Reizo replied. When she looked just about ready to argue over the idea of that, he added, "I know. It sounds like crazy talk, but I've… I've seen the truth, and I probably remember more than you do…" He scratched his chin, trying to come up with something else. "Have you ever had dreams, maybe when you were younger, about a completely different world? A different life? And it felt so real that, you could mistake it for this one?"

"I… yeah," she admitted while she picked her bag back up. "When I was little—"

"Ah, am I interrupting something?" a voice said from behind Reizo. It belonged to Professor Hayashi, a middle-aged man with brown hair and green eyes, having returned from his restroom break. He also narrowed his eyes at Reizo. "Akaba Reizo…? Did your mother need me for something?"

"Oh! No, not at all, Professor!" Kaiya immediately said, waving her hands like it was no big deal. "We were actually just about to leave."

The violet-eyed boy nodded in agreement with Kaiya; they did need more privacy than this for the sort of conversation they were about to have. Then, to answer the professor's question… "No sir, as you can see, I came here to talk to Kaiya. My apologies for the confusion."

Professor Hayashi shook his head. "No, it's my bad for jumping to conclusions. Both of you have a good day, alright?"

With that, the two teens left the classroom, Reizo directing Kaiya to the elevator. After a scan of his hand, a different floor option appeared, much to Kaiya's shock, and the elevator took them to the upper floors of LDS Tower—the place Reizo called his home. Kaiya lingered in the elevator after it opened, staring around the penthouse area. "Are… are you sure I'm allowed up here?"

"You're my guest, of course you are," he replied, waving her inside. "Besides… even if you weren't, my mother isn't going to be home for another few hours at least. That's more than enough time for us to talk."

"…If you say so," Kaiya said, hesitantly following him inside.

Kaiya wasn't sure how to feel as Reizo led her through a hallway dotted with guest rooms, into an extremely well-furnished living room. One wall was entirely a window, the late afternoon sun showcasing the view of almost all of Maiami City. One of the walls adjacent to it was filled with bookshelves and trophy cases—Kaiya wished she had even just a tenth of the number of trophies she saw over there. On the opposite wall was a massive flat-screen TV, in front of it situated a coffee table and several dark-colored couches that wrapped around the center of the room. Coming from a family that barely had any money outside of making ends meet, it was more than impressive.

Reizo narrowed his eyes at the television, which was playing some cartoon Kaiya didn't recognize, and then looked over at the center couch. Kaiya hadn't even realized there was a little boy there, clutching an old stuffed teddy bear to his chest while he watched that cartoon.

She didn't miss Reizo's expression sour upon seeing the boy.

"Reira," Reizo said in a forced polite tone.

The boy didn't even look up. He tightened his grip on the teddy bear and slipped off of the couch, walking off without so much as a word. Kaiya watched him go, mouth almost stuck wide open at the exchange. "Reizo, who was that?"

"Reira," he replied, turning off the television. "My little brother."

"Oh." Kaiya paused for a moment; there was a name on the tip of her tongue. "Like—like Rolo?" she added.

There was a long pause while Reizo made a strange look, before he decided to say, "…Yes, exactly like him." Reizo sat down, then gestured to the couch for her to join him. "That's not what we came here to talk about. We came here to talk about what you remember from the other world."

Kaiya hesitated—she really wanted to know why Reizo treated his little brother like that—but, Reizo was right, they weren't here to talk about his family life. She took a place on the other end of the couch, and leaned back, dragging up memories of old dreams she hadn't thought about in years. "Well… when I was little, I was very sick. I would sleep all the time, and I'd dream I was in high school with, well… with Lulu, and a bunch of others… but I got better a bit after my sixth birthday, and the dreams stopped…"

"Is that all you remember?"

She thought about it, and felt the tips of her ears heat up—she did remember something in particular, she remembered kissing Lulu in the rain, although the memory felt like a sad one. "Y-Yeah, that's all I remember."

"I see…"

Then came another pause; the orange-haired girl fiddled with her thumbs, unsure of what to say. The whole idea that she used to live in a different world and that was why she had those dreams was, well, it was almost too crazy to be true. It was like, if she suddenly got amnesia, and was told who she was supposed to be, but she just couldn't remember no matter how hard she tried. Shirley Fenette. That's who she was in the past, if she believed this. And… well, since Reizo believed it, there had to be some truth to this whole thing.

Reizo cleared his throat to break the awkward silence. "I'm not going to force you to believe what I've told you, Kaiya. You're your own person and have every right to make that decision for yourself. So, enough of that for now. Would you like to talk about anything else? Anything at all?"

The sudden change of topic caught her off-guard. "Oh! Uh… n-no, not that I can—well, actually…" How should I say this that doesn't sound rude? "…You said Reira's your brother, right? Then why did you treat him like that?"

"Because… because he was adopted while I was missing," Reizo explained, slowly.

"Ahh, sorry, I didn't know," she hastily said, remembering the stories plastered all over the news about how Reizo had gone missing almost two years ago. His miraculous rescue a few months ago had also been extensively covered—although, from what she could remember, his older brother had been involved in it and severely injured. The whole thing was clearly a touchy subject for Reizo. "M-Maybe we should talk about something else?"

That just resulted in another silence, this time broken by Reizo sighing. "I don't think we're going to find much else to talk about right now. Perhaps another time, when the mood isn't so heavy?"

Kaiya looked shocked at that statement—she thought he was only interested in her because of what he said happened in that, other world. But, from that… "You, you want to be friends with me?" she asked, hesitantly. "I-I mean—I don't mind at all—"

The boy chuckled at her antics, the hint of a blush on his cheeks. "Yes, that's exactly what I'd like. It's… been too long since I've had someone to talk to."

"Then of course I'll be your friend!" she replied with enthusiasm. "No one should have to be lonely, so—so… uh…" Kaiya clapped her hands together. "I know! You should come with me to visit my friends over at You Show! You definitely won't be lonely with them around!"

"That sounds… wonderful," Reizo agreed, nodding. Then his expression soured. "However, I have homework to do, lots of it in fact. I'll have to visit some other time. Will tomorrow work?"

"It's perfect!"

They parted ways a few minutes later, after Reizo sent her on her way. Kaiya looked back at LDS Tower with an unreadable expression on her face, deep in thought. Reizo… he really is a nice boy, like I thought. He's just reserved, after what happened to him and his brother. I hope…

…I hope his brother gets better soon.

Then he'll smile more. Right?

A knock on his door dragged Reizo's attention from his history homework. He set his pencil down and walked over to the door, finding his mother standing behind it. The look on her face was… surprisingly, happy? He frowned at the sight. "What is it, Mother?"

"Reiji-san has finally woken up."

A/N: …Okay look, I'm really sorry this chapter took forever to write, I just got very side-tracked by "It's Up to You" and another ARC-V work I intend to start very soon. Not to mention school, work, and other extracurricular activities absorbing my time and kinda giving me writer's block. And I know the ending seems rushed, but that's exactly how I intended it to go back when I first started brainstorming for this chapter (which was, in fact, when I was working on chapter 20 of this story, so it was a while ago).

Switching to Kaiya's point-of-view was definitely not intended in my original brainstorming, but I decided that in such an important scene, you guys needed to see how she was reacting to stuff, not Reizo (since he's already come to terms with the idea of the other world). I hope you all understand.

Thank you very much for reading this! Please leave a review!

(I don't own Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion or Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V.)

Reizo and Reiji are finally reunited for the first time in several months. What does Reiji have to say, and where are they to go from here?

Next time: Awakening