No, it wasn't really that odd. It was mostly understandable. But I find Lelouch's kiss on Suzaku's cheek a little weird since it's hardly a friendly gesture, (especially between two guys), at least in my opinion, and throughout this story until that point I didn't see any romantic feel to Lelouch and Suzaku's relationship, needless to say I saw nothing like that in the canon either. Just an honest opinion.
But anyway! It took me embarrassingly long to figure out the meaning behind the chapters' titles but once I did, I really appreciated the idea. I did the simple math and knew the story would end with the two of them meeting at the age of 18 and I honestly think it was brilliant. And while it's not my favorite story in your collection (Turning Points series is), it's still very good.

You've done an exceptional job on this story, I'm in awe. It's beautiful...just beautiful and tragic.

cool fic

Holy shit that was trippy. I had an code geass AMV playing in the background as i finished reading this and it ended with lelouch's last line being said at the same time as I read the last sentence of this and now I'm crying big fat crocodile tears and this is such an amazing story.

That was so sad.

I loved this story so much!

Well… I'm not going to disagree with you about this being a weird fic. It was. It was VERY weird. And, to be honest, your note at the end of the fic just made it weirder for me - it cropped up new questions, made me more confused, and … if I'm understanding correctly, they'll go through this AGAIN? WTF?

So, yeah - this was probably the fic I was looking forward to reviewing the LEAST. Not because I can't stand it, but because I can't MAKE SENSE of it. At least with other stories of yours that I didn't care for, I was able to follow them just fine. And, to be clear, I didn't straight up dislike this story BECAUSE it was weird: weird is never bad by me. Some of my favorite shows include Code Geass (with giant fighting robots and mystical powers), Revolutionary Girl Utena (where people's souls can be pulled from their bodies and used as swords in duels) Digimon, and Madoka Magica. But, throughout most weird stuff that I enjoy, there's just a drop of normal that keeps a linear plot line going on, so that the weird stuff seems to just orbit around the normal, even if you're neck deep in weird. This, even knowing what was going on having read the story already and knowing the end… I STILL couldn't figure so much of this out.

I guess with this last chapter, Suzaku's question of "What was the point" did strike a wee bit of a chord with me - if only because it seems to ring of the basis for many a spiritual discussion, as though just going through this maze somehow might have had the benefit of redeeming their souls a little, since they won't remember, have learned, or changed anything from it… but, sadly, it was too little, too late, and I kind of leave this story going 'Meh'. I wouldn't be terribly brokenhearted if I could never read it, ever again. One of your favorites, I totally understand - it's well-written and I can see how you probably had fun writing it. But one of your best…? Mmm… there are several fics that I'd say are in a tie for your true Magnum Opus, but this, in my opinion, is not among them.

Oh, Kaguya, don't ever change. And, honestly, the idea of the women who are closest to Lelouch - because, let's face it, even if Suzaku was in love with Euphie, or respected Kallen as a worthy opponent, or any other number of girls he interacted with, he kept secrets from them, kept them at a distance, and never quite saw them as his equal (in the most chivalrous sense, of course) so… yeah, Kaguya was the woman who was really the closest to Suzaku, in terms of understanding him and knowing about him. And hopefully C.C. and Lelouch is obvious.

But… yeah, I'd kinda forgotten how much the relationships with these two spoke about Suzaku and Lelouch's characters, and in surprising ways - C.C. because she was so cold and unfeeling towards Lelouch that he never really knew anything about her… and thus, when she did show genuine affection for him (and vice versa) it was always really heartwarming and just enough to show that neither of them had quite gone over to the irredeemable side of insane and psychotic. And with Suzaku and Kaguya, because they were COUSINS (Yeah, Kaguya, you wouldn'ta been able to keep that engagement anyway, given that there's a LAW about that…) the fact that they WERE so distant and fighting on different sides really colors how deeply different they are. There's actually a tiny part of me, after reading this, that wishes the anime had played up Kaguya and Suzaku's relationship as both cousins and 'technically engaged' just enough for the audience to appreciate how the war had really torn a family apart - so, yeah, I'll give this chapter that credit, it had me wishing for something from the show, in a series that was already choc-full of emotional turmoil and punches to the gut.

Now these… I dunno. I GET them. And the way they're executed makes sense… but it seems strange, in its own way. Why these two tests for these two characters? If anything, I'd think they'd need to be flipped - patience for Lelouch and control for Suzaku. But… meh - getting over how confusing this is. Shirley was obviously well written, Rivalz genuinely surprised me… but it kind of made its own sense. And when it came to Ougi in the end… that was satisfactory, if only because he was sort of… useless… in the show. Really, he was an important character in his own way, but wasn't that skilled or smart or did anything. So, having him just grudgingly admit that he was grateful was… important, in a very small way. It worked PERFECTLY for him.

This time, I felt REALLY sad for Suzaku and Euphie. I've mentioned before that, in spite of my die-hard Lelouch/Suzaku shipping, I was still legitimately heartbroken for their romance when Euphemia died. This chapter brought that out full-center, and the way both of them were written played it very well. Now, about Lelouch and Schneizel (and as a side note, who the hell names their kid 'Schneizel'? Sounds like someone tried to make jagerschnitzel, but screwed up the recipe so badly that it was deemed unfit for even pigs to eat.)… about that, um…

Again, I'm not sure what to think. I mean, Lelouch's ideas about Schneizel are quite clear, and how he feels about him… it's quite good. But Schneizel… Sort of like Xing-Ke and Gino and most of the R2 only cast, Schneizel never quite grabbed me - albeit, because there was so much build-up around his character in the first season that, I think any reveal of his character would have been a let down, but he was just so underwhelming in the show, I could never get invested in his scenes or his character. Now, the whole point of Schneizel being the geassed!Schneizel… well, how Lelouch reacts speaks remarkably of HIS character, but it more or less makes Schneizel more of a non-persona than he already was, by my estimation. So, ultimately, this scene kind of fell flat for me.

Wooster: Why is it, do you think, Jeeves, that the thought of the "little thing" my Aunt Dahlia wants me to do for her fills me with a nameless foreboding?
Jeeves: Experience, sir?

That's all I could think with that last line as Milly sets off to dress Lelouch up. This time, I understood the trials a tad bit better - Suzaku being willing to gracefully admit that he was a little ungracious, and Lelouch intelligently figuring out that the test was pretty much a waste of time and effort (even if I can see how someone might think that it was right about him) It's also got a pretty solid characterization of Milly and Kirihara (though I now am starting to wonder where they fall in age differences? Kirihara still being alive, but perfectly cognizant of Suzaku's actions in the future, and Milly appearing to be Ashford age, instead of grown up and reporting) And they both make perfect sense for these trials (Yeah, Milly was a lot smarter than everyone gave her credit for, wasn't she? And Kirihara, despite being kind of in the same category as Katase and Urabe, was the most gracious of all of the Japanese resistance groups, except for Toudou, because he was badass)

So, Suzaku with Arthur and Lelouch with Kallen… is the theme… unrequited love? Or affection that changed as time went on? Or what? I get the feeling that love is involved, somehow. But that being said, this chapter seemed to make… mild sense. More than the last one, at any rate. I don't understand how the pass/fail system is supposed to work, but I totally understood the logical and emotions of Suzaku and Lelouch as they interacted. And, again, Lelouch's inner monologues about what he'd do in the future when he sees Kallen… it made me kind of sad, because we all know what he DOES end up doing to her… But this was overall short and sweet and perfectly fine the way it is.

What? I mean… wait, what? What just happened?

Suzaku's trial seemed fairly straightforward, but… what was with all the other weird animals? Why did it start with Sumo, then go to him wrestling a gorilla, then a… kangaroo… wait, WHAT? I got the four Gods - the tiger, the turtle, the dragon… where was the phoenix? What was the point? What sense did that make? Just… AUGH! And the same for Lelouch's trial - starts off making… sense ENOUGH, with the riddle and the trick question, but WHY did he go through it? Because Suzaku was ALSO doing one? Or did he fail his last encounter, too? And what was the 'Strategy' he was using? What was the point? How was that even strategy at all? That last question is sort of the deal-breaker for me, because I couldn't even see it as a logical, strategic process, and thus, it felt kind of out of character for Lelouch - even at the moments when he was doing something crazy, I could tell it was a metered strategy, calculated and measured, even if I couldn't figure out what the purpose was until the end. This… I don't know WHAT was going on!

But, to be fair, the two people they meet - Todou and Cornelia, respectively - make perfect sense, both for their trials, and how they interact with them. I will say, I believed THAT much of this chapter. Just… man, f*cking WEIRD!

Again, I feel like there's a REASONING behind the people who our characters meet - the people who most despise them, perhaps? The people whose lives they made the hardest? Or whose goals they destroyed most? And, again, I'm at a loss.

As for their characters… again, pretty much spot on: I can easily see Zero!Zaku… or is he closer to KnightOfZero!Zaku at this point? Because, again, you said they were moving backwards and forwards in age, respectively… facing off with a pre-AreaEleven Charles. And don't think I missed what you did with the ages, there (saying that Lelouch was eleven when the Japanese had just been redubbed… Elevens…) Clever clever.

The thing that weirds me out is Xing-Ke reacting like this towards Lelouch. I totally buy his character not being too happy with the prospect of killing a child… but knowing that doing so would make things better in the future/long run *shudder*. But - and this is totally the fault of the series, not your writing - I never got INTO his character, much like with Gino. I didn't care about his story arc and I thought he was kind of pointless (Actually, this goes for MOST of the new characters introduced in R2 - whoever in the executive offices was meddling with the story needs to be tried for crimes against humanity, I hate them so much) So, seeing him here was sort of 'Meh' as opposed to another character like… I dunno, Ougi or Tamaki who would have had an equally harsh view of Lelouch and probably reacted the same way… but whatever - it is what it is.

I found myself wondering what the theme/pattern of our respective characters seeing the people they did was supposed to be - Suzaku seeing his father, and Lelouch seeing Nunnally, was the theme supposed to be they met the people who were most pivotal/the driving forces behind their actions? Suzaku, because killing his father sparked his guilt and resulted in him being the passive-suicidal mess that we all knew, and Lelouch because he originally started his plan to create a 'kinder, gentler world' for Nunnally? I dunno.

But for how the characters act - I can TOTALLY see a post-Zero Requiem Suzaku might be more stable upon seeing his father, and a pre-Britannian conquering Lelouch would be less emotional on seeing a grown-up Nunnally. Actually, seeing Lelouch and Nunnally interact like this is kind of tragic - especially when we know how the grown-up Lelouch would have probably broken down, sobbing, so happy to see her alive and well and happy (more or less). The way you carry it through in this chapter works quite well.

Okay - I'll be honest, the entire premise of this fic totally goes over my head. I was confused about the plot from minute one. But that's obviously not the point for this fic - the driving force behind THIS story is obviously supposed to be the characters of Lelouch and Suzaku. Furthermore, it's the characters as one was PRIOR to the series, and the other AFTER the series, which gives it a unique flavor compared to other character study-fics you've done in the past.

So… That said, unfortunately, I found the characters a little… not lacking, but not engaging enough, because I was constantly distracted and wondering 'Wait, WTF is going on? HOW does this maze-thing work?' and I just couldn't get away from that. If, maybe in this first chapter, we had C.C. (being C.C.) explain just a LITTLE more about how this was supposed to work to Suzaku (and the audience), then I might have been able to enjoy the characters a little more. But, as it is, I keep reading the entire thing over and over and I'm just so confused by the mechanics that I have trouble honing my focus to the stuff that IS good. I'll try to focus on that stuff in the next few chapters, but I was still constantly puzzled and unable to understand some of the more important stuff, which unfortunately colored my impression of the fic, overall.