Author's Notes: Ahahaha. So, yeah, it's short, but I kind of think that Lelouch's dreams shouldn't be confined to any specific lengths. Some chapters may be long, others short, as long as I get across what needs to be gotten across. Anyway, please leave a review on whether you think this was angsty enough. XD Again, the truth is what we make of it. Is it enough to believe something? Or is it knowledge that is the most important?

Requiem

Re;ject

--RE;--

"The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal."

~Mark Twain

--RE;--

Lelouch's dreams often took a detour through the macabre. Even when he tried to envision the future as a beautiful sunlit expanse of happy memories, his own life experiences intruded. Happiness was often overshadowed by a dark cloud or two. It was, after all, so easy for all his carefully laid plans to go so wrong.

If they had ever happened at all, he mused. Still, at this moment, he believed that he had once been the Emperor of the world. What he felt was his past had actually occurred.

It was what he felt as the future that scared him.

It could happen, something whispered, echoing inside his head and around the coffin. It could be real.

The darkness enclosed him without as his imagination caged him from within.

--RE;--

The footsteps echoed, slapping the pavement and rebounding off the brick walls. The man's breath came in gasps, uneven and choked with sobs. He stumbled, clinging to a wall, needing its solid support to continue standing. His blood pounded in his ears and his legs throbbed in time, the muscles finally beginning to tire after the long chase.

It couldn't go on much longer. The end was pursuing him with a single-minded force that would overcome all obstacles.

With the fleeting thought, something deeper than instinct kicked in and he was running again.

He came to himself again in a different ally. He flung himself under an overhang as the helicopter thudded above the wet streets, a single searchlight extending its hunt and throwing strange shadows along the grounds. The sharp squeal of Knightmare wheels echoed down the alley.

His breath came faster. The light passed, scrutinizing rooftops and other dark cross-streets. Some kind of small rodent ran over his foot and he jumped violently, the action making his flight instincts kick in before he had registered what had happened.

It was becoming all too instinctive. He'd been running for so long... if only it would just end....

Another dank slum, filled with the stench of rotting garbage. His senses were his own again, but even the bottom of his feet were sore from the constant pounding on the pavement or strips of hardened gravel. He had never been this tired before. He had never felt this weary. He almost wouldn't mind being capt—he stopped the thought, knowing it would take his consciousness away from himself.

He had to keep running. This curse would only force him into flight or fight, and if there was only one thing worse than the unending escape, it would be to find himself surrounded by the bodies of his pursuers.

He could never stop running.

--RE;--

"Suzaku?" Nunnally's voice was as concerned about his well-being as ever over the phone.

"You shouldn't talk to me anymore," he replied back, his voice harsh. He tried not to let Nunnally hear the emotions he was choking back.

Of course, she did anyway. Being blind for long had given her the advantage in hearing things that weren't said.

"I refuse to abandon you, Suzaku. Not now when you need us the most." Her voice was strong and sure of her righteousness.

"Nunnally—"

"You will do as I ask, Suzaku," said the Empress, but then her voice softened, almost pleading. "Please, tell me where you are. Let me help you... you're... you're all I have left."

He could almost hear the tear sliding down Nunnally's face. There wasn't anything he could do against her argument. Despite the many people who surrounded Nunnally and who she loved and was loved by, there was the only who held the same connection to her beloved brother. Not even Allistair was enough to fill the void Lelouch had left in both of them.

"I'm sorry, Nunnally," he said honestly, his voice cracking as the left of his strength seemed to leave him. "I'm in a warehouse by the water. Pier 55."

"I'm sending Kallen," came Nunnally's relieved reply. "Don't worry, Suzaku, we'll get this all sorted out."

--RE;--

He was being hunted like a wild animal. Is that what the people thought of him? After the years he'd served them, nameless, faceless, was it only now that he'd truly be reduced to nothing but zero?

Would it really be him who tarnished the beloved name? The one who shattered Lelouch's dream for a better world? What was going to happen now? Was Nunnally's prayer enough to stop a world from sliding into chaos? Would she be able to save him? Or would he drag her down into an abyss as deep as that pit of hatred where Lelouch had been buried?

It took him a moment to realize there were tears flowing down his face. He had promised Lelouch he would look after Nunnally.

He hoped Kallen would get there soon. It was unlikely that the warehouse would remain unsearched for long and he couldn't afford to stop moving for too long.

A high fan moved ponderously, cutting and reforming the coming dawn into pieces like a kaleidoscope. He shivered once against the cold air, his body temperature finally recovering from his flight. He felt so tired, now that he wasn't moving. It would be so easy to take a short nap—Kallen knew where he was, and she would wake him up.

But since sleeping could mean death if someone else found him first, his unconscious could not allow it. His eyes would become red-rimmed from something other than sleep and he didn't know where he would find himself.

He sat on a cold box, the warmth of his backside immediately seeping away into the container, leeching away his vitality. He should have just asked Jeremiah to return himself to normal. If it hadn't been for some irrational belief that it was Lelouch's wish for him, he would have. But the dead Emperor's spirit still haunted him, and he had refused to let it fade completely. Perhaps it was a part of his punishment, but then, Lelouch had never spelled it out like he had when telling him to be Zero. It felt more like a parting gift, a symbol of what Lelouch had wanted, something that the dark haired Britannian couldn't have and so entrusted it to his closest friend instead. That gift was something the friend couldn't part from now, simply because it meant too much.

It had come from Lelouch's pure desire for him to live.

A creaking shudder echoed across the warehouse and he threw himself quickly behind the crate. A sliver of light now spread across the concrete floor, etching its way across the ground and reflecting a silhouette in the doorway.

Kallen?

He couldn't get a clear view, but it was definitely a feminine figure and there wasn't anyone else around. She was alone. He breathed a sigh of relief; the torturous game of hide and seek was finally over.

"Kallen," he called, stepping out from behind the crate.

The woman turned, and he realized he'd made a fatal mistake. But for once, his Geass didn't engage. The gun in Villetta's hand was already pointing, already firing, the bullet already lodging between his ribs. Green eyes wide, his body hiccuped and felt too still. The ground was rushing towards him.

It seemed that there was no way to avoid this death. For him to live on meant there had to be a way to escape Death's reaching grasp.

And if there wasn't?

The pavement beneath him felt distant, even though he knew it should be cold. He wasn't wearing the mask, after all. Heaviness engulfed him, made his eyelids close, and he was just... so... tired....

Death felt gentle, a slow sinking into oblivion. His last breath was of relief.

Maybe now... he could...

...Lelouch...

...himself...

...forgive....

The justice Suzaku Kururugi had strived to serve had been erased. All that would be left was his lie, immortalized in history. Zero Requiem and the truth was dead.

--RE;--

The agony Lelouch felt reassured him that he was truly alive. But it did nothing to reassure him of whether Suzaku still lived. Had the world truly rejected Zero completely? The worst was that he could never know. It ate at him, the knowledge that all things ended or died—except Lelouch.

And Suzaku? Even if he wasn't already dead, he would die. And Lelouch would remain alone, shrouded in darkness. Forever. The irony alone should have killed him by now if it had been possible.

"Live on!"

He watched the world with eyes closed.

--RE;--

"What it seems it is, and in such seeming all things are."

~Wallace Stevens

--RE;--

And blarg. I wanted Suzaku's final words to stretch across the screen, but has only left and center alignment. So, if you want, imagine the word "Lelouch" to be left-aligned, "himself" is center-aligned, and "forgive" is right-aligned. *grumblemumble*